A few days after the midterms, a post from Dave Karpf on Substack caught our eye. In it, he takes up the question of how the Republican and Democratic parties should move forward after the election. This conversation covers party networks, Karpf's lessons from environmental organizing, and how to craft political messages in a changing social media environment.
Karpf is an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University. His work focuses on strategic communication practices of political associations in America, with a particular interest in Internet-related strategies. You might remember him as the professor who called Bret Stephens a "Bretbug" on Twitter a few years ago.
Episode Transcript
Michael Berkman
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy on the campus of Penn State University, I'm Michael Berkman.
Chris Beem
And I'm Chris Beem
Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle and welcome to democracy Works. This week, we are talking with Dave Karpf, who is associate professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, and also the author of a Substack called The Future, Now and Then. And Dave's Substack was what caught my eye for this episode, he's written a little bit about where the parties go post midterms. And as we look out to the 2024 election cycle, he also writes a lot about social media, no shortage of things to talk about there, either. But you know, this is really, in some ways, a continuation of the post midterms conversation that we've been having on the show, and I think we'll continue to have in our season ender next week. But you know, Michael, I think that there are some important things that political science can tell us about how we think about predicting the midterms versus what actually happens. And, you know, what that means is we all continue to process where things are with our democracy at the end of this year.
Michael Berkman
So I think there was a sense from a political science research in any case, that this was not going to be a good midterm for Democrats, because midterm, the first midterm election for a presidential for a president's party are usually not very good. Joe Biden's approval ratings were not very high, and the economy was not doing particularly well. I think what we got, however, is sort of two elections. In some states. I'm thinking of Florida, Vicki of New York, I'm thinking of some others, where abortion and democracy were not clearly on the ballot, that we did see somewhat of a traditional Republican primary, where Republican candidates did quite well, picking up a lot of House seats, and winning some major party elections as well. In other states, where abortion and democracy were clearly on the ballot, where people can really feel that those things were threatened by the election of say, a Mastriano, or a Carrie Lake in Arizona, that I think that Democratic turnout was higher youth turnout was higher, and Democrats did quite well.
Chris Beem
My concern was for democracy in because there were so many election deniers on the ballot, right? I mean, not just, you know, people who were suspicious, but who had actually called the, you know, the 2020 election of fraud and said that Trump, you know, does, you know, really, rightfully one, and I actually pitched an op ed on that. And then lo and behold, it really didn't happen. And I had to revise that op ed, three or four times, because the, the the results just kind of, were not that bad. It's not to say that no election deniers were elected. That's not actually what many were. Yeah, and but there were there were a lot of election deniers who did not win. And even and what's more, those people who lost except for the glaring exception of Carrie Lake, they all concede it right.
Michael Berkman
Yeah, I'm a little less optimistic about the results in that vein, but I think I want to think about it in a couple of other ways. As well, I mean, to be an election denier, what exactly does that tell us about somebody? To me, it suggests a strain of authoritarianism, that should really concern us because of the willingness to delegitimize a core tenet of democracy. And so if what we're really concerned about is, in general, the rise of authoritarianism within the Republican Party, then I think the fact that over that 60% of election deniers actually won and are now filtered throughout government should, should be concerning to us.
Chris Beem
I also think that, you know, this raises a point that, that Dave brings, which I think is worth talking about, as well. And that's the idea that it's, you know, there's this old saw that the only way Trumpism was going to die was if there were three elections that he lost. Two, three, whatever, last big. And what Dave says is that it's about losing relative to expectations. So yeah, I mean, I think that's what Dave is arguing. His point is, is one that I had not really heard of before, but I think it's interesting, Michael, what do you think of that, do you you know, this idea that it's about performance versus expectations versus some kind of, you know, it has to be some kind of blowout in order to be effective.
Michael Berkman
No, I think that the parties are so calcified. And so at parity right now that it's going to take really a split in the Republican Party that essentially decimates it, before we really see, you know, really can speak optimistically about the end of this authoritarian strain within the party, or I guess what we're calling Trumpism. I mean, Trump may lose, but Trumpism is running very strong. And that's part of my point about the number of election deniers out one. And I mean, we could be excited about Carrie lake, but Carrie Lake lost by a hair. And I mean, only Mastriano got blown out, the rest of them actually did quite well. There are plenty, plenty of voters out there that are willing and eager to vote for people that deny basic tenets of democracy. And so I think it's more likely that what happens within the Republican Party at some point, you know, unless unless they're just able to keep the system at parity, the way it is right now, is that a major split occurs within that party, where Trump I don't know, goes off by himself where Trump decides he's going to bring down the Republican Party, something along those lines, but I think just beating Trump a few times, the strains of Trumpism are deeply entwined within that party right now.
Chris Beem
The only point where I feel like I'm more optimistic than than you are, is that, you know, I see, you know, there, there are signs of people taking baby steps away from Trump, Republicans taking baby steps away,
Michael Berkman
Not away from Trumpism.
Jenna Spinelle
Well, and the other these are things that Dave is certainly thinking about, and that we talked about in the interview, as you guys alluded to, he has his own thoughts about a both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and how they could or should move forward. So it'd be we'll pick up on some more of that after the interview. But for now, let's go to the conversation with Dave Karpf.
Jenna Spinelle
Dave Karpf, welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us.
Dave Karpf
Thanks for having me.
Jenna Spinelle
Excited to talk with you about some of your recent writing on Substack, about the midterms and where we go from here. And by the time this episode comes out, we will be up just about a month out from election day. And, you know, I think there was this sense of urgency going into the midterms about some of the very real consequences that could happen if election deniers one and those sorts of things. And, and the has somewhat eased up now, I suppose democracy lives to fight another day. But I know is that something that you've kind of been thinking through, like how we grapple with that sense of urgency, as we look ahead to the 2024, election and beyond? So how are you thinking about that energy, that urgency that we had going into the midterms? And how much of that should be sustained as we move forward?
Dave Karpf
Sure. And yeah, this is December, we're about to be into December, we have this brief respite before we start being in the 2024 election cycle, right? Like, it'll probably be the 2024 election cycle starting in January 2023. We've got this little moment here where we can worry about things like the debt ceiling and stuff like that. I think it was right for us to be deeply worried that the 2022 election could spell the end of American democracy in a real way, there were election deniers on the ballot. And if we take them both seriously, and literally what they were saying was, if elected, I will make sure that elections don't matter in the future. All of them lost. And that is worth celebrating. The other thing that was really at stake, I think, in that election, was it was the first election after roe had been struck down. And that was a, I would say a really pretty radical act from the Supreme Court majority. And I think part of why they had for decades wanted to strike down roe but not done it yet, was out of a sense that if they were just radically rewriting things as they go to fit their policy preferences, that there would be some sort of a blowback, there'll be some sort of cost. And one worry that I had coming into it was if the 2022 election ended up going the way elections normally go, where the the party out of power gains a bunch of seats, particularly if the if presidential approval is low, and the economy's not great, that if it was just a normal election, then the lesson they would draw from that is they can really legislate from the bench with impunity, and no one would care. So I think it matters a lot that the 2022 election Well looks like the pelicans picked up the Republicans did pick up the house, what was expected to be a red wave turned out to be a red trickle. And I think that within the Republican Party network is going to signal that there was some cost to their actions. And that's important because we need to have two parties that are committed to electoral democracy that are committed to our norms and our institutions right now we don't have them. I said on substack a few times that the only way to fix the Republicans, the only people who can fix the Republican Party, or the Republican Party, Democrats can't do it. And that only works out that only happens that that intra party struggle, that don't let that only changes when the side that is currently losing and saying there's a cost to our extremism, when they're proven right. So I think the outcome of 2022 is going to lead the the non Trumpist wing of the Republican Party to have a little more force and a little more energy and support behind their arguments that we should be in favor of all the policies have been in favor of. But maybe we turn to maybe we turn down the white nationalism, the election denying the outright authoritarianism, because that that is leading us to not win as many seats and even if they like extremism, they also like winning. So all in the party is not going to change until they, as a party network, come to believe that what they're doing is leading them to lose.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and for listeners who might not be familiar with that term party network, can you just say more about what that is and where, where it comes from?
Dave Karpf
Sure. So this comes from a political scientist named vo key from top 5060 years ago, that parties in the United States are three different things. There's party in electorate, which is pi, there's party organization, Po, and there's party and government pig, Pope Hi, pig. So parties as networks is an understanding that, particularly at the party, organizational level, parties, makeup are made up of a bunch of different interests, even interest groups that represent different ideas, different policy priorities. And they all come together and mesh into one party network. That happens different in different democracies. Because we have other democracies that have you know, like 810 functional parties. So there are some democratic systems where the Republican Party would actually be three different parties, and the Democratic Party would be at least two parties. And Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has mentioned this offhand a few years ago, I'd like she and Chuck Schumer in a different country wouldn't be in the same party, they'd be in the same party, like their parties might govern together, but they have different ideologies. And the United States because we're a two party system, you get these parties as networks as coalition's of a bunch of different organizations and priorities. And they kind of fight it out for dominance. So part of what's happened since 2015 2016, is the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party, which kind of emerged out of I would say that the Tea Party when that sees party that sees power, and the party leadership came to believe that Trumpism was the way to win elections, certainly the way to win primaries and the way to win the general, that then affects the way they behave, the way they talk, who they promote, what policies they pursue. If they start losing, particularly if they lose multiple elections in a row, then most likely, what happens is other elements of the Republican Party network, say, Hey, we've got to fire these consultants kick out these leaders and do different things. Because we keep nominating people in the primaries who lose in the general, and we would like to win, please, that takes multiple election cycles. And it's hard to sort of guide that through. But them doing worse than expected in 2022, matters a lot for the broader project of salvaging American democracy by returning to a place where both parties at their core are committed to basic institutional rules and behavior.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, and on that point about kind of toning things down or reforming the messaging. I know you are a scholar of political communication. And there was a piece I believe was in The New York Times not long after the election about, you know, what do you know, election denial is not a great get out the vote strategy, right. So it might have worked, worked against Republicans, and in some ways, but on things like that, or even on some of the other issues, you mentioned, where the party positions have become so extreme, I mean, what does it look like to tone that down, walk it back, whatever you want to say? And are there other examples that come to your mind of a parties that have done that previously, and done it successfully?
Dave Karpf
Well, so in terms of party network change, I to two changes in the Democratic Party network come to mind. And so we have the rise and fall of the Democratic Leadership Council, and they rise in the late 1980s, particularly after Walter Mondale loses because at that point, you know, they've gotten trounced in 1980 with Carter left he lost a close one but it feels like a tribal thing. And they lose they they get really crushed in 1984. Mondale only wins his home state of Minnesota and I think DC and at that point within the Democratic Party coalition within the network, the argument comes up that the New Deal coalition, the you know, the the wisdom of FDR through LBJ simply isn't working anymore because the message from Reagan of you know, big government is the problem. These are tax and spend liberals, like the belief amongst Democrats is, yeah, that's really harming us, if we keep being that party coalition will never win. And so you have the the rise of the DLC, which includes Joe Lieberman, but also includes Bill Clinton. So Bill Clinton is a DLC Democrat. And throughout the 1990s, that DLC perspective, which I come out of the more progressive wing of the party. So I was I was a high school student in those years. And, you know, people that I ran with, like the crowd I ran with, were looking at them saying that Democrats being Republicans light like there was a Christmas
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, sure. Crime, Bill, welfare reform, all those kinds of things.
Dave Karpf
Yean, that set of policies comes out of the DLC when the DLC when his dominant, the way it comes to dominate is because the previously dominant wing kept on losing elections. And so the argument of we've got to do different things both say different things, but also prioritize different things takes hold. And then you see in 2000, you know, George W. Bush, while he doesn't actually when he becomes president 2002, he picks up a bunch of seats, because we're after 911, he still has that sort of Halo, but then 2004, with carry losing, at that point, with the rising political Netroots. So this is like the daily Coast crowd and move on downward groups that I wrote about for my first book actually move on. But that that wing starts fighting an intra party battle, with the DLC, essentially arguing, you keep on making these Republican light messages, you keep on just trying to appeal to a centrist electorate that doesn't exist anymore, while Karl Rove is out there, appealing to his base, turning them out and winning elections. If we keep doing the same things we're gonna keep on losing, we got to do different stuff. And I would say, well, the Netroots don't go on to control the entire Democratic Party, it's very clear that 2006 and 2008, the DLC wing of the Democratic party loses power, it loses centrality. So that's, I mean, this is like a rough calculus. I haven't done like a thorough peer reviewed study here. But I, it seems to me that the formula is, if you lose three elections in a row, relative to expectations, that then creates the conditions where within a party network, the side that has been losing the arguments, has the opportunity to start really winning.
Jenna Spinelle
Would you count 2022, as the third election then in for for Republicans, if the 2018, midterms, 2020? General now 22? midterms?
Dave Karpf
So maybe, and this is what makes it really complicated, right? Because they lost badly in the house in 2018. Like they lost terribly, but they kept they did better than expected on the Senate. And they kind of stood behind that narrative. And then in 2020, at first, they were kind of insisting, well, we're not losing because of Trumpism, we're losing because of COVID. And then they kind of committed to actually no, we won and the election was stolen. And that's kind of where they've been. So I'm not sure whether 2022 really counts, my guess is that they need to lose again in 2024. Because right now, within the party network, it's like they weren't behaving in 2022, as though, you know, we just got crushed twice in a row. But we're gonna try it one more time there. We're behaving as though like Trumpism works. We know it works. And we're going to, you know, where you just got to keep on doing it all work. We're now seeing that start to fracture, right. So we're now seeing a bunch of senior people within the party network, criticize Trump and say it's time to move on. We'll see whether or not that last time they have said that before. So I don't know if that will last. But I think you've probably got to get through 2024 with them losing versus expectations. And if that happens, then I think there's a real opportunity for the Liz Cheney wing, which is not like that Liz Cheney is not a moderate, that she's an institutionalist. But I think that wing which is currently getting crushed, starts to win the internal battles, if 2024 becomes really bad for them.
Jenna Spinelle
Let's talk for a few minutes about the Democratic Party network. I mean, obviously, is as we said before, you know, Democrats one on the backs of democracy issues in and abortion. And so, if you're, you know, for people in the Democratic Party network, how should they be thinking about both this kind of respite period, as you said, we're in now and also moving forward once we get into 2023? About how to both I guess keep their own momentum going but also as you said, you know, not lose sight of the what will still be likely a threat in some form from the election denial wing of the Republican Party.
Dave Karpf
So I think it's important both to, like, take a moment and savor a victory where many of us, myself included, weren't expecting a victory, but then also recognize and prepare ourselves for the reality that 2023 is going to be tougher and worse than 2022 and 2021. Like Republicans are gonna control the House. And that means that Jim Jordan is going to run a bunch of hearings, trying to impeach Joe Biden for whatever son did, or Sam bank and fried or I don't know, something like my my guess is, and this may not happen since they have such a narrow majority. But my hunch is, they're going to try to impeach him in the house three times, just so that will be one more time than Donald Trump would was impeached. That's the type of shallow performing behavior that I've come to expect from people like Jim Jordan. And that just in general means that we're gonna have a government that, like, if the promise from Joe Biden is government can work again, let's return to normal, we're heading to a two year period leading up to the 2024 election, where government is mostly not going to be allowed to work. Because the majority party in the House won't let it work. That's going to make it harder to just have the government like if if the party for Democrats is show that government can work that's been made harder. So I mentioned in one of the Substack pieces, but I come out of the environmental movement, and I had a formative moment back in my student environmental days. Where it it hit me that as environmentalists, when we when we when his time, I worked on a campaign when I was in high school to stop a mega highway project from getting built in the suburbs. And we successfully killed this mega highway. And I was so proud of myself when I went off to college. And then I moved back to the area after college and they were building the highway, because we won but then all we want is time and few years later, the developers came back and tried again, you know, with a wilderness area sacrifice that is that's gone forever, species extinction don't come back. And so I had that realization. And what it's set in for me was, it's fine. If all you win, you win, or you win his time, so long as you use that time to build movement capacity and build organization. And that's true for the environmental movement, because we're protecting fragile things. And I think the lesson of the past few years, that we've all taken away is that democracy also is fragile. So I think the message that Democrats need to take take to heart is they've bought themselves a respite. And what they need to do with that respite is build organization build capacity. states, like Wisconsin, in Georgia have been doing a really impressive job of building up their local party infrastructure, so that they can compete and win in races that otherwise they wouldn't be able to compete and win. And Democrats need to be doing that everywhere. And they need to make those long term investments that they can build the capacity to actually change the politics of this country and win places where they would otherwise lose.
Jenna Spinelle
That reminded me of something you wrote about Democrats in particular, falling victim to like always chasing the new shiny object, or, you know, this kind of thing are, are is what you were describing with social media, examples of that, or is that phenomenon of chasing the new shiny thing, something different that the Democrats are also vulnerable to?
Dave Karpf
So a thing that I've definitely seen in the Democratic Party network, thinking, like thinking back 20 years now, and this goes back, certainly to the democracy alliance in the late 2004 2005 era, is there has been a tendency to ask the question, like what is new, what is the innovative thing that we can fund? And that funding lasts so long as that so long as it's innovative, and then the donors move on to the next thing. So I think examples of this I'm the example I talked about, on the pieces, the new Organizing Institute, which arises out of 2004, and becomes a really important piece of infrastructure for teaching Democratic campaign operatives and progressive political operatives, how to use the internet effectively as professionals. They ran a annual convening called Roots camp, that was the place where people would argue about things like, Hey, how are we using our email for fundraising and is effective, and like it was sort of the clearing house, they also ran really good trainings. And they existed up until 2013 2014. Ish. And then essentially, what happens is the big institutional donors once noi stopped looking innovative and started looking like expensive trainings, they cut their funding. And then No, I had an internal organizational crisis, because the new CEO or the new executive director didn't do a great job of sort of managing that decline in funds and figuring out you know, who's getting which staff are staying, which ones are getting laid off, say they had an internal crisis, they melted down. I think it's pretty safe to say that the Democratic Party network, and the party organization would be stronger Today if they still had an ally, imperfect as it was, but instead, they kind of assumed like, Yeah, we're gonna go and fund the next things, things will be able to do it. And they just kind of keep throwing money at sort of the new, bright, shiny object. I think this is particularly true for Silicon Valley based progressive funders. Like there's a set of them who are very well meaning and every two to four years, decide they are going to reinvent the wheel, and like create the voter file, or like fit, you know, like, figure out how to do optimization tests on emails, never even reading like the Wired magazine article from or like Atlantic article from two or four years forehand, covering the same set of people doing basically the same set of things. What that ends up meaning is that they're never laying down sort of the institutional roots, to build up institutions that people can rely on and can build power over time. So I like I think that's a mistake. And kind of like what I what I would really like to see is funders, finding things that seem valuable and making 1015 year commitments to them, just that we know that infrastructure is there, and you can build around it. I also learned a lot about like the 50 state strategy under Howard Dean. Like I think that was basically good, I'm sure it was, like, I'm sure had a bunch of imperfections. But the idea of building party organization at the state and local level, is a good idea that we have every cycle and we often try it, and then it gets underfunded, because that's just something that requires constant resources. I think you need to commit to it and make it a long term commitment.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, you know, what you were describing there about the funders reminds me of something that I see a lot in the kind of democracy reform world like a funder will throw a bunch of money at something to solve political polarization or figure out how to have better dialogues online or you know, all these these kinds of things. But there's that there's not that underlying work of like, what does it actually mean to articulate a positive, forward looking vision of informed democracy? Which gets to my last question, and tying it back to the midterms of, you know, Democrats one and 22 and, you know, people who value democracy sort of stepped forward and said, Okay, this was, you know, something, something that we want to keep around, right. So now becomes what do we do with that? So putting your, your messaging hat back on it, what, how? How should we we meaning, you know, listeners of the show people who are concerned about and value democracy, think about articulating that vision, and what should the next year look like?
Dave Karpf
So, I'm going to offer a bigger picture answer and then try to drill down into a specific I've thought, at least since the dawn of Trumpism. A thing that stuck out for me is that I I think the dominant conflict of our era is not between left and right. But between a view that says that government and governance is fundamentally simple, versus a view that government and governance is fundamentally complicated. And that that perspective on complication, is basically an argument for liberal technocracy. Right, it's an end like you can trace that back to sort of the at least the high minded ideals of the original Progressive Era, which fled, rather than government being run just by as just as handouts to whichever party won power. Like we should have a civil service that learns how to govern effectively and administer effectively and didn't do it. America as a as a country that has a large administrative state and tries to use that state to make life better for its people. That's probably less than a century of our history, because the 1800s students Gronk wrote a great, great book on this. The 18 hundred's is a state of courts and parties with very little administrative state. But I think what we've been seeing sort of from a communication perspective, the it's simple argument aligns really well with this rise of authoritarian populism, right, like Trump's message is, is sort of classic layer of your life isn't the way you want to be. Because government is full of crooks and idiots. elect me, I'll get rid of the crooks and idiots and then everything will be fine. Right? Like that is the authoritarian message to a tee. And I can tell you from a strategic communication perspective, that is a very clear, crisp message with an identifiable hero, villain victim and Plot Resolution, right like that. Like that's an easy message, which happens to be a goddamn lie. Government and governance is in fact complicated. So the challenge for the Democratic Party like the real problem here is that they are the only party that is now standing behind the actually true story, that government and government governance is complicated. Well, meaning people trying really hard, can make things better, but it's gonna be difficult. There will be mistakes. Next, and then we need to amend and try again when those mistakes happen. That is a terrible message. That's a terrible narrative. And also, it's true. So like that, like, I wanted to start with that, because I think it's easy to fall into the pattern of saying, Republicans are so good at messaging, Democrats are so bad, they just need to find people who are good at messaging, and I'll do it, like, no one of those messages is just easier than the other. It's a lie. But as an easier story, you know, the degree of difficulty is just lower on that. So the Democratic Party has the higher degree of difficulty message that happens to be true. The way to work for that is, you build party organization and allegiance, that robustly and enthusiastically embraces that government is complicated, these things will be hard, but Well, meaning people trying their best can make life better. And then you also need a government that actually, to the degree that it can actually does. So, again, that's gonna be hard, because we want it the house. So it's not going to come through legislature, we have a radical set of courts that are going to try to overturn and throw a monkey wrench into every administrative action. So it's going to be a mess. They're going to they're going strategically to make it a mess. But I think every single like every single state government that just want to trifecta for the Democrats, like they need to figure out what is the legislation that we can propose that will make life demonstrably better for our citizens. And then we need to go work through the hard stuff of making it happen. And at the national level, everything that the Biden administration can do to demonstrate that, yes, this stuff is complicated, but when we try our best, life gets at least a little better for our people, you need to do all of that. So I think focusing on that, and drawing a contrast between that and the the obvious downside of the authoritarian populist story, which is they, in fact, are a bunch of crooks and idiots. And that becomes apparent like, Marjorie Taylor Greene says a bunch of dumb things. You know, they like Donald Trump invites insular white nationalists to come hang out with him. Drawing that that distinction between the party that accepts that government is complicated, but tries to make life better for its citizens, and the party that is telling you what you would like to hear, but also my god, take a look at them. That's, I think, the best that we can do. But we should also go into it knowing this is a tilted playing field, which means once again, it's gonna be harder than it ought to be.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah. So is there room for Republicans to come in on on any of this kind of government is hard? I, you know, realizing that there may not be very many who want to or have the incentive to but, you know, I think one of the kind of long standing debates among Democrats is, how bipartisan should we be? And as you said, you know, there's this other dynamic of only one party really functionally supporting democracy. So how do you how do you walk that line between, you know, knowing that democracy requires support from people of both parties, but also not falling into the trap of being too bipartisan or risking losing the base or, you know, whatever that line of thinking is, because you're trying to, you know, dance with the enemy or something like that.
Dave Karpf
So it's, first of all, it's complicated. For that, I think there is absolutely room for Republicans who are willing to commit to the work of complicated governance. There's room to work with them. But it's very important, both for Democrats and Republicans to be realistic about their size. I think part of what's animated that debate is, we have a set of modern Republican like, I think most of the never Trumper wing of the Republican Party also happened to have op ed columns at major papers. And so we've had this phenomenon where it's like, a couple dozen people insisting that they need like their policy priorities need to take center center stage, and the response is kind of like that. There's 20 of you, like, call us when they're 200,000. So, this relates back to like the scholarship on this stuff, sibilant and Levitsky argue very clearly that if you look across nationally, the way you stave off authoritarianism is by developing these cross party coalition's and that meant over the past few years, they've been saying, hey, you need to find ways to do that. And the answer is, yeah, you do. But also there needs to be enough people on that site like they need to have enough people that it's worth making any trade offs with them. They currently don't have them. So I think as they work through the intra party work of winning their party back again and only Republican Party conflicts Republican Party as they do that, and as they get bigger, there will be opportunities for genuine, genuine partnering. And yet, when they have a lot to bring to the table, then that's going to require some real negotiating. But when it's a couple of dozen op ed columnist, I think they need to be aware that they lost their party they aren't currently planning on going over to the other party. And it's the kind of beggars not choosers.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, that's that's interesting point. I I hadn't thought about that. We may be the subject of a future Substack post, if you haven't, if you haven't explored that already. Yeah. Well, Dave, this is this has been a fascinating conversation, I hope listeners will check out your sub stack to learn more, I'll link to the post that we've been talking about in the show notes. And hopefully, folks will go on Subscribe. So thank you very much for joining us today.
Dave Karpf
Great, thanks a lot.
Chris Beem
So lots to chew on there. And the idea that, you know, what drives media coverage and money in politics isn't necessarily the best, best strategy, best impetus for the party itself? Right, that that what is often most important, is the least glamorous, it's this ignored work at at the local level, and it's not sexy. It's not even particularly, you know, interesting, but it's what has to be done. And Democrats are not very good at this. And, you know, in some cases, they are he mentioned Georgia, and Wisconsin, and I was in Wisconsin in what was it 2000, after the Republicans, you know, basically took over the state legislature by focusing on those elections, because they were really good at this infrastructure stuff and understood how important it was. But in general, Democrats are really bad about that. And, and, Mike, I wonder if you, you know, if you agree with that, if you have any thoughts about it?
Michael Berkman
I agree and disagree. You know, so 2010 was a monumental disaster for the Democrats at the state legislative level, they lost over 600 seats. And then the next election, they lost another 300 or 400. So they lost over 1000 seats in two elections, they lost multiple chambers.
Chris Beem
That's right. I said, 2000. It was 2010. That's right. 2010.
Michael Berkman
And, you know, a lot of blame, I think appropriately put on Brock Obama for not doing the work to build the party organization and making things more about himself. And, you know, maybe we've had Jake grunt back on who's talked about the consequences of what happened in 2010, for Democrats in election rules and union labor laws and all kinds of things. So I mean, we're gonna have to go into that. But this election was actually quite different. And I think it's missed a bit how much Democrats have returned their focus to more local and state elections. In this election, Republicans were expecting to win hundreds of state legislative seats. They won 22. Those 22 seats were mostly in states where they do nothing for them. They were in states like West Virginia, where they already had a big majority in in states that were closer, Democrats did quite well, they flipped several chambers. Nobody flipped. Democrats never flipped the chamber in a midterm election. But this time they did they flipped several chambers. Democrats also have done much better in rural areas. So there is something to the idea that Republicans are much more focused and strategic about these local places. But I think Democrats ought to get some credit for at least in many places, having improved their lot quite a bit from what's happened to them in the past, and certainly at the state legislative level. So you know, I know like he's hard on John, on Dean's 50 state strategy, like what happened there. But I thought actually quite a bit of that was picked up by Eric Holder, and his organization and these most recent elections, and it was a bit under the radar. Haven't heard much about it. But I remember there was a quite a bit about it when he first organized it. I don't know, I think that's a story that's yet to be fully, fully told.
Chris Beem
You know, I really, I really hesitate to say this, but obviously 2024 is going to be, you know, a pivotal moment in American democracy. I hesitate to say it just because every time right I have students that just say again, you know, you said that in 2016 and 2018 and two 2020 and 2022. Again, you know, they've never known a time when it wasn't on the ballot. And I take that point. But, you know, to your, you know, your your ideas about the, you know, the Republican Party, you know, I could see them absolutely blowing up in in two ways. One, Trump doesn't get the nomination and still runs. Right. And, and or Trump does get the nomination. And Liz Cheney runs as an independent, or larry hogan runs as an independent. And you know, who knows what's going to happen, but you can see that you can already see the possibilities of exactly the kind of blow up that that you were talking about.
Michael Berkman
And keep in mind, Donald Trump is not motivated here by the usual motivations of a candidate entering into into an election. I mean, I watched his announcement speech and thought that I've never seen a candidate more bored with the idea of running for president than he seemed to be when he gave that address. But I don't think he's running to be president. I think he's running because he sees this as a way of dealing with his multiple legal issues. Yeah, man. So given that, I don't think any of the usual calculations make any sense. I really believe that he thinks that so long as he's a candidate for president, that he's got certain advantages in these many legal battles, some of which are clearly, you know, coming to a head. So I just don't know, you know, I think it's very hard for us to conjecture about how he responds to anything.
Chris Beem
I mean, it's clear that there's a strong element in the party, you know, you see it in McConnell all the time. He is pushing as far as he feels like he can that Donald Trump should not be the leader of the Republican Party.
Michael Berkman
I don't get that Chris. Mitch McConnell had it in his hands, the capacity to stop Donald Trump from ever running again. Right? Vote, because Hackie had been impeached. He couldn't have run again. Yet, he chose not to do it. Right. And so a lot of what he's doing, I do think that probably in his soul, you know, he can't stand. It wants to be gone. And all of that, but I don't take him all that seriously. About, you know, how much he really wants to stop Trump, because when he couldn't, he didn't, I don't think McConnell's you know, chief concerns are whose depressive attacks really, or any of that. McConnell, I think has two concerns, tax cuts and judges. And if he can achieve that, by you know, kind of wavering on Donald Trump, then then he's gonna do that.
Chris Beem
I think? I think that's right. But I think he believes that the the sine qua non, none for all of that is the well being and sustainability of the Republican Party. And if that means he needs to acquiesce to this Trumpian wave, then he will, but he would rather do it without it. And the question is whether I mean, it seems to me like sooner or later, there just has to be a common offense.
Michael Berkman
And I think it also means that it's going to take an overwhelming defeat, or division within the party. Before it's really in any way defeated. I think it's deeply within that party. And some of the scenarios you laid out, I think are correct, I have a feeling if Trump is the nominee, which I kind of find unlikely, but if he is the nominee, I think you're probably right, that somebody will run against him. And if he's not the nominee, you know, my suspicion is he's going to tear that party down. Because he has no loyalty to the Republican Party. They're just a vehicle,
Chris Beem
No loyalty to any
Michael Berkman
Anything anybody got himself.
Chris Beem
Well, you know, so we were talking before about how, in a lot of TV series now, the penultimate, you know, Episode kind of sets the table for the last one. And, you know, there's a lot of little cliffhangers and I feel like that's what we've done, but you know, all right, listeners, tune in next week, and we'll talk about all this with Candis and, and, you know, try to try to make more sense of it. But for now, I think this is great. And Dave did a really good job of laying the table here for us or setting the table here. So for Democracy Works. I'm Chris Beem.
Michael Berkman
I'm Michael Berkman.
Chris Beem
Thanks for listening.