He’s gonna win reëlection pretty handily, it seems like.
Probably, yeah. But also, if you had a progressive governor who was doing the job, I suspect they would also be popular. You know, there is a progressive mayor of New York City who is doing a fine job. If you do the job, once you get into office, it’s critical that now you are there to show competence and professionalism.
I want to go back to 2024. There was a Democratic President helping fund the war in Gaza, and there was real anger about the role that the Biden Administration was playing in perpetuating massive war crimes and other horrible, horrible things in the conflict. And there was real anger at the establishment for it. Now, in 2026, there is still anger at the establishment over Gaza, but it seems like there is rage at the Democratic establishment across the board, on every issue. How did that happen?
I think that Gaza and the Middle East policy always represented something much larger than the humanitarian catastrophe that we all witnessed there. One of those things was a sense from so many Democrats that we were all seeing this injustice, and we knew it was an injustice, and Democratic politicians were unwilling to show accountability over it. And, therefore, they were deemed to be weak, and soft, and not strong leaders. So the qualities associated with Democrats to this day, right, if we were to think about the adjectives being used by your average Democratic activist, they’ll say the Democratic Party is weak.
In terms of the question of whether this Gaza policy was indicative of other things in the Democratic establishment, though, you had Bernie Sanders, who was a critic of the Gaza policies of the Biden Administration, still say that Joe Biden was the most effective President in the modern history of America.
But, wait, look at what Bernie said about Biden on the Gaza issue specifically. It wasn’t like he was giving him a pass and saying—
No, but he still said that he was the most successful President in the modern history of our country, which suggests that, for him, the connection between Gaza and other things that you are making was not clear. And so the last time the Democratic establishment was in power, many people on the left, including Bernie Sanders, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, thought it was doing a pretty good job. They supported Biden even after his calamitous debate. This is why I am trying to understand the rage at the establishment from progressive candidates today.
There is a conflation of two different things, though. I think you’re saying the words “Democratic establishment” and “Biden.” Those are different things.
He was the President.
O.K., but let’s ask: Why did people like Senator Sanders and A.O.C. feel good about some of the working-class issues that Joe Biden was operating on? Look at his Administration’s work with the American Rescue Plan and later the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I do think he was one of the most pro-labor Presidents we’ve had in a long, long period of time. Those were things that working-class-oriented Democrats could see and observe and understand that this was a break from the Democratic establishment. And, in fact, you saw that break. Senator Sanders was worried about it, and I think it bore out to be true. Kamala Harris was not comfortable defending Lina Khan. Then, during Kamala’s campaign, there was talk of the capital-gains tax being changed to reflect the interests of wealthier people. Crypto. Labor. Maybe we don’t need to talk so aggressively about organized unions and labor. Senator Sanders felt and saw that Biden was separate from many of the Democratic-establishment voices, and that there would potentially be a slide back and you would lose working-class people if you replaced him on the ticket.
But you know who had already lost working-class people to a greater degree than Kamala? Joe Biden.
Those were issues to do with mental acuity, and very little about the policy debate.
You aren’t saying you think Biden should have stayed in the race, right?
At that point, Senator Sanders was saying, If we change horses, the agenda may not be as strong for working-class people, and we may lose to Donald Trump.
I don’t assume you want to say that Biden should have stayed in the race, though, right?
I don’t want to speak for Senator Sanders, right? So I want his—you know, it’s a tough place for me to be in, because I, you know, I—on the one hand, I am, you know, I am a supporter of Bernie Sanders. I work for him, and I respect and appreciate the views that he holds, and I honor them, and I, you know—
All I meant was: Is there any tension between this idea that a couple of years ago many people on the left, including Sanders and A.O.C., were saying that the last Democratic Administration had been enormously successful, and now the progressive wing of the Party seems to be channelling the utter rage that people feel with every aspect of establishment Democratic politics?
In my mind, there’s a high level of consistency in Senator Sanders advocating, as the Senate Budget Committee chairman, for the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan, talking it up at every turn, and saying this was very meaningful to working-class people. He was being honest and clear with people that he was pushing the President of the United States to do these things, and he was prepared to tell people that these are positive developments for working-class people. He kept his word on that.
