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Unknown A
Welcome, everybody. You know, lately I have been getting a ton of emails and messages from viewers saying, you know, David, we, we know intellectually that Republicans are not going to stay on top forever. But when you look at the Democratic Party and how it seems impotent and failing, I find myself asking, will Democrats ever win again? In other words, the fact that no party wins forever is true, but also, is this a Democratic Party that can defeat anybody? And it's a fair question. And I think couching it like that, the way many of you are doing makes sense. Historically, we know that there is a cyclical aspect to political power, even though at the 30,000 foot level, things may be moving one way or the other, and I believe in general they are moving towards the left rather than the right with regard to beliefs about most issues.
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Unknown A
We still have to understand the cyclicality of individual election cycles. And remember when the Republican Party believed after Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide, we've locked it up. It's going to be decades. And then, of course, in 1992, just eight years later, Bill Clinton became president and then easily won reelection in 1996. And what were supposed to be eight years of Republican rule ended up being Bill Clinton's Democratic administration. Democrats also assumed that Barack Obama's 2008 blowout would be the mark of a new progressive era. Two years later, they got clobbered in the midterms. Yes, Barack Obama won in 2012, but then in came Donald Trump, who now will hold the White House for eight of 12 years by the time his second term is all said and done. So the point here is we understand cyclicality, but when you look at the parties right now, there are people saying Democrats just need to wait out Republicans.
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Unknown A
That's all that needs to happen. And sooner or later, the party in power is going to face a backlash, especially when they overreach and Republicans are overreaching. That's the optimistic view. Democrats don't really have to do anything particularly special. But then there's another side to it. And here's the thing. Simply waiting two or four years might not be enough if Democrats keep making the same blunders that they have become known for. When you look at gerrymandering and voting restrictions, this isn't 2008 anymore. And the playing field has been tilted by years of redistricting and new barriers to voting. And Democrats waiting for political winds to shift and isn't going to change for political wins to shift won't fix that problem. At a structural level, the messaging failures Democrats can't just say the other side is bad, vote for us. It might motivate the base, but it doesn't really do much for swing voters who want a clear and consistent vision.
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Unknown A
When you look at intraparty chaos, progressives versus centrists, to put it extremely simply, even though I understand it's more complex and nuanced than that, that is a rift that often explodes into the public, and it certainly did not help in the 2024 election. Is that something that's going to be dealt with? And unless Democrats figure out how to unify or at least collaborate across factions, support is going to keep hemorrhaging. Now we talk about how the winners always think they'll never lose again. Right now, that's Republicans. They are riding high, and to a degree, they believe they will never lose again. They say, no, no, no, this was different. Even though Trump, you know, remember, most voters voted for someone other than Trump. Trump got under 50% of the vote. Someone other than Trump was more than 50% of the vote. Sometimes on the other side of winners thinking they will never lose is that losers think they will never win again.
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Unknown A
And that's also a mistake, because Republicans are not invincible. They have their own internal battles. Historically, they overreach and then it bites back at the ruling party. Whether it's privacy overreaches, whether it's foreign policy and extensions of the military, and of course, the economy. If the economy dips, voters tend to blame whoever is in charge. And I know that we all understand that Republicans are much better at blaming Democrats for things Democrats have nothing to do with than Democrats are at blaming Republicans. I get that. But at the same time, you can only do that so much, and to a certain degree. And when you look at egg prices, when you look at the tariff program, when you look at everything that's going on right now, and it points, at least theoretically, if it continues to a problematic economy for the average American, that's going to be a problem.
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Unknown A
And if the economy is not clearly good and Republicans keep pushing too hard on social issues, on things like, do we want to gut Social Security? Do we want to impose extreme abortion bans? They risk driving moderates away. And if the party fractures between the MAGA loyalists and the establishment conservatives in a way that actually affects their ability to coherently explain why anyone should vote for them, it will crack the foundation of their power. But then we get back to Democrats. Democrats can't rely on those scenarios playing out. Democrats need an offensive strategy, not a defensive one. And the down ballot, focus, reclaiming, state legislatures and governorships in off year elections. It's all critical. And I don't really see Democrats doing anything right now other than waiting for a big national wave in their favor. And it misses that. Real power starts locally in many cases.
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Unknown A
So if I were advising Democrats, and I'm not, and I'm terrible at this stuff, and I also don't care about the Democratic Party beyond, is it the best option in this election cycle? I'm not a Democrat. I've never been a Democrat, as all of you know. I just vote for whatever the best option is. And I see political parties mostly as corporations that exist to justify their own existence. Democrats do need policies that resonate across the spectrum. And so yes, health care affordability is part of it, sustainable jobs is part of it. Protecting fundamental human rights is part of it. But as we saw in 2024, appearing to take more seriously issues of crime and immigration when it was what many Americans wanted. And you can say, David, they only Americans only believed crime and immigration were important because Republicans trick them into believing that.
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Unknown A
Fine, I wouldn't even argue against that. But if Americans have come to believe that it's important, then you can't be seen as not caring about those issues, which is not what I'm saying was the case, but it's certainly the way that it appeared. And the internal food fight is going to have to stop. I get that there are disagreements over policy. They are inevitable. But it can't be seen as the airing of dirty laundry because it gives opponents ammunition, it confuses voters and it leads to lower engagement. And that's the kind of last aspect of this. Engage every single election, midterms, off year elections, local races. Skipping them only entrenches the GOP power. And so Democrats do have to fight everywhere, every time. So if we zoom out, will Democrats ever win again? Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't seem as though the duopoly is going to be replaced soon enough for Republicans to lose without Democrats winning.
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Unknown A
When Republicans lose, at least in the next few cycles, it will lead to or it will mean that Republicans have won. But Democrats do need to get serious about structural issues and strategy. They can't just wait for the pendulum to swing back. And people keep telling me, you know, Republicans are going to implode, Trump's going to implode, it's all going to implode. Sure, that that almost certainly will happen, but Democrats need to understand and seize on the real opportunity to shape the direction that that goes, rather than just waiting around. So let me know what you think? Do you see the path forward? Do you feel that there is a lost cause here? We will certainly continue to talk about it. Well, I wrote a book.
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Unknown B
After a long journey and a ton of work, I am really thrilled with how it turned out and I hope you'll read it. The book is called the Ech Machine and in a nutshell, it looks at how American politics got so broken, who has already figured out solutions, and how we can try to fix it and stop the terror of Trump for the next four years. With Trump winning this election, the Echo machine couldn't be more relevant. Not only a warning about how we got here, but also about what might be coming and how to prevent the worst outcomes. We've got to stay engaged. We need a plan, and that's what the book is about. There is a belief out there that unless you have corporate media behind you, you can't have a successful political book launch, that it's not possible. I think we can prove that wrong.
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Unknown B
Order the Echo Machine today at David pakman.com/echo on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible, Kindle, anywhere that books, e books and audio books are sold. You can also call any local bookstore and say, please order me the Echo Machine by David Pakman.
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Unknown A
Wherever you get the book, you'll get.
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Unknown B
The free preorder perks, including the signed book plate. Head to David pakman.com/free book stuff after ordering.