What the Democrats Can Learn from MAGA
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
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Summary
The New Yorker writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Charles Duhigg joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss why Republicans have been more successful than Democrats at building durable political coalitions. They talk about the difference between short-term mobilization and long-term organizing, why large-scale protests often fail to translate into lasting power, and how conservative groups have quietly built local infrastructure that may sustain the MAGA movement beyond Donald Trump’s Presidency. They also examine how the left’s efforts are impeded by debates over ideological purity, and whether a renewed focus on community-based organizing and pragmatic coalition-building could reshape progressive politics in the coming years.
This week’s reading:
- “What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizing—and Infighting,” by Charles Duhigg
- “Witnessing Another Public Killing in Minneapolis,” by Vinson Cunningham
- “Do Federal Officials Really Have ‘Absolute Immunity’?,” by Isaac Chotiner
- “The Battle for Minneapolis,” by Emily Witt
- “The Cruel Conditions of ICE’s Mojave Desert Detention Center,” by Oren Peleg
The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week.
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Charles. |
| 0:07.4 | Hey, Tyler. How are you? |
| 0:09.2 | I'm good. Thank you so much for being here. |
| 0:11.1 | Thank you for having me. This is such a treat. |
| 0:13.8 | I'm really excited to talk about your latest piece. I mentioned this to you before we started talking, but I think it's rare to read a piece that is both critical of the state of the Democratic Party right now, while also kind of offering some suggestions as to how the party can do better in terms of organizing and creating an effective coalition. So I think this is, I'm feeling a bit more optimistic after reading your story. |
| 0:38.7 | Oh, that's great to hear. And what's interesting is that when I reached out to academics |
| 0:42.7 | who study social movements, they were all in complete agreement as to what the Republicans |
| 0:47.8 | and MAGA are doing really well and the Democrats are doing wrong. And so I think it's one of |
| 0:52.1 | those situations where if we go back to the science, |
| 0:54.2 | we go back to the expertise, we can actually turn this around. We can figure out what needs to |
| 1:00.2 | happen for this nation to come back together. |
| 1:07.2 | That's Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author. |
| 1:16.0 | His latest piece for The New Yorker explores how Republicans and the broader conservative movement have managed to build and sustain a wide-ranging coalition |
| 1:19.6 | and turn it into a series of electoral and political victories over the past few decades. |
| 1:25.2 | Democrats, Charles argues, have often struggled to do the same, frequently |
| 1:29.2 | getting sidelined by litmus tests and internal divisions. I wanted to talk with Charles about |
| 1:34.7 | the lessons that Republicans have learned around short-term mobilizing versus long-term organizing, |
| 1:39.2 | why Democrats haven't been able to build or wield comparable power, and how those dynamics |
| 1:43.8 | are playing out in today's left wing and progressive social movements. |
| 1:47.7 | This is the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggett, a senior editor at The New Yorker. |
| 1:56.5 | So before we talk more about what the Democrats have been doing poorly and what the Republicans |
| 2:01.9 | have been doing well, I mean, let's just start by talking about the beginning of your piece, |
... |
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