Longtime Democratic strategist
wants to make one thing very clear about his party: “I reject the notion that we are in structural decline.”Simon is the author of the hugely popular
. He is an optimist amid a sea of party pessimists. He insists that while “we got beat” in the 2024 election, all is far from lost.His evidence? Democratic candidates won Senate races in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan even as Donald Trump was carrying each of those states at that presidential level. And some of the gains Trump made — among young men and Hispanic voters in particular — have faded rapidly, according to recent polls.
That said, Simon is under no illusion that his party is in a good place these days. He laments the way Joe Biden and his team handled the age/competence/withdrawal issue; “our party looked weak by not being able to manage the Biden thing.” He admits that Democrats “got on the wrong side of opportunity” in the last election and “paid a price for looking feckless and weak.” And he acknowledges that, at the moment, Democrats “don’t really know what to do.”
My conversation with Simon was the 2nd episode of my new Substack Live show called “Out of the Wilderness” where I talk to smart and thoughtful Democratic elected officials and strategists about what went wrong in 2024 and where the party needs to go now.
You can watch the first episode with
here:Why Democrats need their own Donald Trump (or Bill Clinton)
To kick off my new show — “Out of the Wilderness” — I talked to longtime Democratic strategist and thinker Ruy Teixeira of the The Liberal Patriot on Tuesday about what went wrong for Democrats in 2024 and where the party needs to go to begin to reclaim power in the country.
I will be doing a weekly episode of “Out of the Wilderness” for the foreseeable future so if you have someone you’d like me to talk to, throw their name in the comments section!
Thank you
, , , , , and many others for tuning in to episode 2 of “Out of the Wilderness”! Join me for my next live video by downloading the Substack app here:
These “Out of the Wilderness” conversations are FREE (for now). But, in order to keep doing this sort of independent journalism — calling balls and strikes no matter what uniform the batter at the plate is wearing — I need your financial support. You can read more about paid (and founding) subscriptions here. Questions on the membership tiers? Shoot me an email at cillizzac@gmail.com!
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