WTH Is the Path Out of the Wilderness for the Democratic Party? Jay Cost Explains.
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2025
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The intersectional coalition the Democrats put together in 2024, comprised of the 1%, coastal, corporate, elites and the 20% on 80/20 issues, is failing to register new voters or execute at the polls. While they abandon their historic constituencies and adopt more radical left wing cultural ambitions, it’s not clear how the Democratic Party will rebuild. Between inflation and immigration, the Party has antagonized enough voters that they now face a monster structural problem for elections to come. We ask Jay to contextualize the history, how they got here, and how this roadmap will affect the gerrymandering debate, policy, and who we’ll see on the ballot in 2028.
Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on political theory, Congress, and elections. He is also a visiting scholar at Grove City College and a contributing editor at the Washington Examiner. He writes and speaks frequently on American elections, with a special attention on placing contemporary trends in historical context.
Read the transcript here.
Subscribe to our Substack here.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:03.1 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. |
| 0:07.1 | Thanks for listening. Here's our show. |
| 0:08.7 | What the hell is going on? |
| 0:10.5 | What's really going on? |
| 0:12.0 | We said, what the hell happened? |
| 0:13.5 | You don't have to know what the hell is on it. |
| 0:15.6 | They see what's going on. |
| 0:16.7 | I don't know what's going on. |
| 0:18.0 | What is going on? |
| 0:20.0 | We must find out what's going on. What is going on? We must find out what is going on. |
| 0:30.4 | Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. |
| 0:32.2 | And I'm Mark Tiesin. |
| 0:33.5 | Welcome to our podcast. |
| 0:35.1 | What the hell is going on? |
| 0:37.3 | It's Labor Day. The new season has begun. Mark, what the hell is going on? What the hell is going on is it's Labor Day and the Democratic Party has lost labor. And a lot more. And a lot more. So the Democrat, we're talking about the state of the Democratic Party, |
| 0:54.8 | and the Democrats are in a world of hurt right now, Danny. So the Wall Street Journal poll, |
| 1:00.1 | most recent Wall Street Journal poll, 63% of voters have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party. |
| 1:05.8 | That is their worst showing since 1990. Only 33% hold a favorable view, so they are underwater by 30 points. |
| 1:15.6 | They have not had an above 50% approval since the 1990s under Bill Clinton. It's been a steady |
| 1:22.9 | decline, but now they have really hit the lowest level they have in a while. There's a really fascinating New York Times story, which you've pulled some of the stats from, |
| 1:31.4 | but they've lost 2.1 million voters over the last four years, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from AEI Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of AEI Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.