Speaker unverified: belief

Transcript context

…Is there a degree to which the left uniquely attacks its own more intensely than maybe other parts of the political spectrum? It’s possible. You go back to the model that I gave you of 2015 where there used to be these four large parties, MAGA, center right, center left, and left. Right now, the Republican Party is all MAGA, so there is no coalitional fight to be had. It’s all Donald Trump. And if Donald Trump wants to name a former left-wing environmentalist to be the HHS secretary, everyone says, “Okay, that sounds like a fantastic idea. That’s exactly who we were going to nominate too. Thank you, Donald. That’s wonderful. It’s at the tip of my tongue.” On the Democratic side, there is a fight and it’s happening right now and our book is trying to win a certain intra-left coalitional fight about defining the future of liberalism in the Democratic Party. So, I’m not of the left. I’m certainly not of the far left. I have center left politics and maybe even a center left personality style if we can even call it that, but I do not begrudge the left for fighting because there’s a fight to be had. In many ways, I think sometimes they see, I’m not endorsing this, I’m describing it. I think they see their near-term opposition as not always the Republican Party, but as the forces, the Democratic Party that are in the way for them controlling one of the two major parties in this country. And so, they do have an oppositional style and maybe that’s personality based. They are fighting the center left. They are criticizing the center left consistently, but I want to be good faith about this even though I don’t share their politics and say that they’re doing it because they’re trying to win power on the left of center, and so that’s why they’re criticizing the way they are. Now, our book and much of my writing is an attempt to do a little bit of a very specific dance as we touched on this I think really beautifully. We’re in an era right now of anti-institution politics, anti-establishment politics, and Democrats are at risk right now as being seen as the party that always defends institutions, the party that always defends the establishment status quo, and that is an absolute death knell, I think for this century’s angry anti-establishment politics. So, what we’re trying to do is essentially say, here’s a way to channel the anger that people have at the establishment, but toward our own ends, right? We believe that we have answers on housing and energy and high-quality governance and science and technology, really good answers that are fiercely critical of the status quo in Democrat-led cities and Democrat-led states. We’re trying to be oppositional in a way that’s constructive rather than just destructive. Just to put a nice pretty bow tie in the whole thing, let me ask for advice. What do I need to do for AOC to do a three-hour interview with me? Ezra, from your throne of wisdom.…

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