Lex Fridman: prediction

Transcript context

…That is the most important question, regarding to my mind, American politics. One of the successes that we’ve had, and I’m proud to have played a role in this, is that if you go to the House of Representatives right now, you’ll see almost a hundred members of the Progressive Caucus led very well by a woman from Washington, Pramila Jayapal. Does a great job. That’s people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and many others. Many of them are young, often women, people of color. And many of them come from working-class backgrounds. So, what we have been able to do in recent years, elect a number of strong progressives who represent working families very, very effectively. The struggle in the Democratic Party is between the corporate wing and the progressive wing. And the corporate wing takes a whole lot of money, sees its salvation in getting a whole lot of money from wealthy individuals and large corporations. And is not very vigorous in my view, in representing the needs of working-class people. If they were, we would have healthcare for all, we would have a minimum wage that was a living wage, we would not have a housing crisis. We would not have a tax system in which billionaires pay an effective tax rate that is lower than a truck driver or a nurse. So, I think one of the reasons that Trump has had political success is, it’s not so much his ideas. Most working class people don’t think we should give tax breaks to billionaires or worry about the size of Arnold Palmer’s genitalia. But they are angry, people are angry. And the Democrats have not responded effectively to that anger. So, the struggle that we are waging right now is the future of the Democratic Party. Will it be a party of the working class and represent working class issues, whether you black or white or Latino or Asian or whatever you may be? Or will it be a corporately dominated party? That’s the struggle we’re in right now. Did you consider running in 2024? From my perspective, I would’ve loved it if you ran. I think you would’ve had a great chance of winning. Not just the primary, but the presidency. I gave about five minutes thought to it. And the reason was we have a slogan of the progressive movement, it’s not about me, it’s about us. And to have taken on Biden, who in my view on domestic issues, has been quite strong, would’ve really split the Democratic Party and laid the groundwork for an easy Trump victory. And that I did not want to see. So sometimes in life, and I know that a lot of younger people don’t agree with me, but you got to make choices which are painful. So I strongly supported Biden, because I liked his domestic record. He’s done some good things against a lot of opposition. And I’m supporting Kamala right now. But I’m doing my best to see that a dangerous guy like Donald Trump does not become president.…

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