FiveThirtyEight Politics XX
[0] Is the noise coming from you, Lenny?
[1] Oh, yes.
[2] That might be the radiator.
[3] I'm sorry.
[4] Lenny's radiator.
[5] What do you have to say about German politics?
[6] Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast.
[7] I'm Galen Druk.
[8] We're now a little over a month into President Trump's second term and...
[9] Despite a far heavier hand than marked the beginning of Trump's first term, the so -called Democratic resistance is hardly making waves.
[10] At this point eight years ago, members of the resistance had held a massive women's march in Washington, D .C. and protested a ban on entries from predominantly Muslim countries at airports across the country.
[11] They also poured millions into Democratic Party funds and liberal nonprofit groups and had begun to put into motion the political pressure that would lead to investigations into Russian election interference.
[12] This time around, Trump has issued executive actions, including numerous that may well be unconstitutional, at a record pace.
[13] He's axed thousands of federal workers and replaced high -ranking officials with loyalists across the government.
[14] He's levied new tariffs, threatened sweeping tariffs on allies, even suggested the hostile takeover of allies, and issued ever more off -the -rails late -night statements.
[15] Democrats are certainly pulling their hair out, but so far that seems to be the extent of it.
[16] And meanwhile, the Democratic Party has reached at least a 15 -year low in the public's view.
[17] According to a Quinnipiac poll, 57 % of registered voters have an unfavorable view of the party, while that's just 45 % for the Republican Party.
[18] More Democrats than not have an unfavorable opinion of their own members of Congress, while nearly 80 % of Republicans have a favorable view of theirs.
[19] According to a CNN poll, 58 % of Democrats say the party needs major changes or to be completely reformed.
[20] That's a lot of numbers, but suffice it to say, the data -based picture looks bleak.
[21] So today, we're going to break down why this is the case, what usually happens to a party that finds itself in the political wilderness, and what might happen next.
[22] Later on in the show, we're also going to take a look at Sunday's election in Germany that saw the center -right win the most seats and the far -right win the second -most seats.
[23] Joining us to discuss is Ruth Igelnik, polling editor at The New York Times.
[24] Welcome back to the podcast, Ruth.
[25] Thanks for having me. And also joining us is Lenny Bronner, senior data scientist at The Washington Post.
[26] Welcome to the podcast, Lenny.
[27] Thanks for having me. It's great to have both of you.
[28] So I want to begin by calibrating our Dems in Disarray -O -Meter.
[29] We have trademarked that here at 538.
[30] But in other words, I want to ask how much trouble Democrats really are in.
[31] And I want to start with the data, of course.
[32] So looking at things we can quantify, what do you think are the most telling data points about the state of the Democratic Party today, Ruth?
[33] It's a good question, because on the one hand, the Democrats are sort of objectively in disarray, as you said.
[34] And I think a really good data point to focus on there is the Quinnipiac poll, right, that showed they're at a 15 -year low in terms of favorability.
[35] But how bad are things?
[36] Again, we can look at the Quinnipiac poll and show that even though their favorability rating is at a historic low, it's still higher than the historic lows that the Republican Party has reached in that same Quinnipiac poll.
[37] So things aren't great in the Democratic world.
[38] If I was a Democrat, I wouldn't be happy right now with how things are going.
[39] But compared with the lows that the Republicans have reached, particularly after they lost in 2008 and 2012, this doesn't compare.
[40] This isn't as low as the depths that they reached during that time.
[41] Yeah, I mean, we have a few other polls, too.
[42] We have these polls from CNN and for Data for Progress.
[43] And I agree with Ruth that I think they indicate that things are not quite as terrible for Democrats as a lot of people say, particularly because they really show that Democrats and Democratic leaners are particularly unhappy with the fact that Democrats are just not doing enough.
[44] in their opinion, to stop Donald Trump.
[45] And so as this progresses and as Democrats might increase the amount that they are doing to stop Donald Trump, we might see this reverse.
[46] And so Democrats may become more popular again, or I would expect Democrats to become more popular again with their base.
[47] Actually, I wanted to ask about exactly that because I think the vibe amongst the Democratic chattering classes and maybe even to some extent the rank and file voters seems to be that the party and leaders in Congress are not doing enough.
[48] Is that over -reading the social media platforms, or is there something deeper going on here?
[49] You know, I mean, part of it is certainly over -reading the social media platforms.
[50] I think the loudest voices on Twitter don't always represent the party.
[51] We've done research that shows that.
[52] Everyone's done research that shows that the loudest voices in either party, on Twitter in particular and social media in general, don't really represent the party.
[53] But I do want to pick on that data for progress poll for just a minute, because I think...
[54] On the one hand, it does show that within the Democratic Party, there's a little bit of push and pull between whether they want the party to be more moderate or more progressive.
[55] But I really struggled with the question wording on that question.
[56] They pitted these two choices against each other.
[57] One is a party that champions bold progressive populist policies.
[58] to address major challenges, and the other is a party that focuses on pragmatic solutions to appeal to a broader electorate.
[59] And the front part of each of those I have no problem with, it's the back half, to address major challenges versus to appeal to a broader electorate.
[60] And to my mind, that's a false choice, right?
[61] If you are champion bold progressive policies, that's not the only way to address major challenges.
[62] And they pit that against pragmatic, which then sort of says that you can't address major challenges if you are pragmatic.
[63] So I think this is, listen, it's from Data for...
[64] progress.
[65] They have a progressive bent to their strategy.
[66] And so they have a little bit of progressive bent to their polling.
[67] But I really saw that as sort of a false choice in identifying sort of the soul of the parties.
[68] So I struggled with what that question really showed us because I don't think it really presented the choices the Democratic Party has.
[69] And just to be clear here, it was 47 percent versus 47 percent.
[70] It was going to totally split down the middle in terms of how Democrats wanted the party to move forward.
[71] And I should say, yes, it.
[72] creates this false choice of you can only solve big problems with bold progressive change, but it also perhaps created a false choice that you can only appear to a broader electorate with quote -unquote pragmatic policies.
[73] So you really are taking two separate variables and forcing them to be considered at the same time.
[74] Right.
[75] It's what we call a double -barreled question.
[76] We're asking people to...
[77] consider two things and pushing those together and making that be the only available choice.
[78] And so I think if they could separate those out and really understand what's underlying, I think that would give Democrats a better picture of what their base wants.
[79] Gallup had a cleaner version of that where they just asked people from both parties if they wanted the party to be more moderate, more liberal or more of the same or more conservative for Republicans.
[80] The challenge, of course, there is that's left up to the.
[81] the person responding.
[82] We don't know what it means to be more liberal, more moderate, more of the same.
[83] It's kind of up to the people responding, which can be kind of confusing to interpret, but it's a cleaner version of the question.
[84] And with that question, we saw that more Democrats and Democratic -leaning independents wanted the party to be more moderate.
[85] In fact, that was a pretty clear proposition.
[86] It was 54 % of Democrats said...
[87] more moderate, whereas only 29 percent said more liberal.
[88] And that compares with just four years ago when 34 percent said they wanted it to be more moderate and 34 percent said they wanted it to be more liberal.
[89] So it seems like there's some suggestion that Democrats.
[90] want the party to become more moderate.
[91] But you could look at that and say, well, that seems in contrast with this zeitgeist of Democrats aren't doing enough, you know, like they're basically laying down on the floor of Congress.
[92] I'm curious, Lenny, if you read this as social media chatter or you think Democrats truly believe the party isn't doing enough.
[93] Well, I think Democrats have like sort of a. more fundamental problem right now of like self -conception, which is like in their own self -conception, they were the majority party.
[94] And obviously Donald Trump's win in November wasn't a huge win in the popular vote, but I do think it really hurt the Democrats' sort of self -conception in terms of what they think they are and who they think they stand for.
[95] And so in some ways, I think the struggle that we're seeing happening right now is sort of a byproduct of that.
[96] a sort of deeper struggle of the Democrats trying to figure out who exactly they are, who exactly they represent.
[97] And, you know, that sort of comes out as looking like they're trying to figure out in what direction they want to go moving forward, more liberal or more conservative or more moderate.
[98] But I do think sort of under the hood, there's actually a different conversation going on.
[99] I'm struck by how different this moment is from 2017, and that probably explains part of it, which is that Democrats still felt that they were the majority party in 2017.
[100] But we have lots of examples where parties find themselves in the wilderness after losing an election, where they also lose the popular vote.
[101] Is this moment for Democrats where there's this sense that the party isn't doing enough, a sense that the party isn't identifying itself correctly, isn't appealing to voters the right way?
[102] Is that just a tale as old as time or is this different?
[103] It feels like a tale as old as time to me. We watch the Republicans go through this as well and sort of emerge a different Republican Party.
[104] And I think Lenny's right.
[105] There's sort of a different question at hand.
[106] And part of it relates to, you know, we talk about.
[107] appealing to the base i think there's a question as to what is the democratic base right now is the democratic base the more liberal progressive wing of the party is the democratic base the sort of moderate center of the party i think that's really a question of the soul of the democratic party right now that they need to figure out which is the base and that was that really mirrors the conversation that was happening in 2008 2009 2010 in the republican party when the tea party emerged you know For a while, there was this thought that the base of the party was the sort of more moderate center of Republicans, the sort of Washington elite of the Republican Party.
[108] But those years were when the right wing of the party, the Tea Party, really rose up and they sort of captured the soul of the Republican Party and remade the Republican Party into a different version of the party that it is today, Trump's party.
[109] So they were in disarray, but they came out of it sort of a different version of the party.
[110] And I think.
[111] Democrats are also at that crossroads trying to figure out which direction they want to take the party.
[112] And I think, you know, every party goes through this, particularly when they're the out party and particularly when they've lost all chambers of power.
[113] And I think this is, you know, a common moment of introspection.
[114] I do think there's one sort of small differences.
[115] I do think this idea that the Democrats were the majority was just like so core to who they thought they were.
[116] Not to like hark on that again, but like, I do think that's just like what they believe they were.
[117] And so like, in some ways, they're sort of facing a reality that, you know, parties win or lose.
[118] And to some degrees, parties like need to adapt, but that's just part of the cycle.
[119] But I think sort of being faced with the reality that who you thought you were is not actually who you are makes this a little bit more difficult than I think sort of for Republicans in 2010.
[120] So it's a full blown existential crisis.
[121] Well, and I think I mean, you're exactly I think you're right, Lenny.
[122] And I think the country is different than their version of it is.
[123] Right.
[124] When we look back at polling on Trump's policies after he took power in 2017, a lot of these policies were not especially popular.
[125] You know, he was kind of coming in and pushing things that it didn't feel like the public agreed with.
[126] And that's where we got this robust resistance.
[127] Well, now.
[128] A lot of the policies, at least when Trump started before he started implementing the policies, the policies were broadly pretty popular, right?
[129] His mass deportation, very popular.
[130] The wall has completely shifted from an unpopular policy to a popular policy.
[131] So the Democrats' conception of the country is also really different, right?
[132] They believe it's this country that's very aligned with their values and they're sort of starting to see, you know, maybe that's not the case.
[133] Now, as Trump implements his policies and as your poll has shown, Lenny and others are starting to show.
[134] There are cracks in that, and the public, who broadly supports some of these policies, is starting to be less supportive of them.
[135] But in general, the concept that Trump is pushing now, the public is generally in favor of.
[136] It's a serial killer case.
[137] He's the dumber you've never heard of.
[138] I definitely felt the presence of evil.
[139] But did he act alone?
[140] Now, finally.
[141] Not many people live to tell about their involvement with the serial killer.
[142] The one man who helped break the case.
[143] Never before a face -to -face interview with the camera.
[144] Why now?
[145] Let me ask you.
[146] What do you think?
[147] Am I the evil culprit?
[148] The accomplice?
[149] I'd like to know how the audience views me. The Fox Hollow Murders.
[150] Playground of a serial killer.
[151] Now streaming on Hulu.
[152] Whether it is objectively unique or not, it seems as though Democrats and Democratic lawmakers...
[153] have got the sense that they're not doing enough.
[154] So Democratic lawmakers have reported that they are getting all kinds of calls from supporters saying, you know, you aren't taking a strong enough stand against Trump.
[155] I mean, there is also some data to accompany this here, which is that donations to left wing groups have plummeted.
[156] These organizations are laying off staff members.
[157] You know, I just have a couple data points here to mention in the week after Trump's 2016.
[158] victory, Planned Parenthood reported receiving donations from nearly 200 ,000 people, 40 times more than they do in a typical week.
[159] For example, the morning after Trump's victory, the ACLU reported that its donation page had crashed, owing to a 7 ,000 % increase in visits to the page.
[160] As a point of comparison here, places like the Center for American Progress, Run for Something, the Human Rights Campaign, have all laid off staff in recent weeks.
[161] and ratings at MSNBC have dropped off a cliff.
[162] So it seems like there is less interest in liberal media, in liberal organizations, and amongst the Democrats who are active, they feel like the party's not doing enough.
[163] So if the Democratic Party wanted to respond to all of this...
[164] What could it do based on any of the data we have available today or historical examples from how parties reacted to being in the wilderness before?
[165] I kind of want to flip that question, though, for a second, because I think.
[166] it speaks to a different point, which is that in 2016 and 2017, Democrats were riding a wave of public opinion here.
[167] There was civil society that was organizing beyond Democrats and Democrats could like latch onto that.
[168] And that's just not happening now.
[169] Like all the data points you raise suggest that's not happening.
[170] And so to some degree, like maybe we're putting too much onus on like what the Democrats did in 2016, 2017.
[171] They were sort of just like happy passengers to what was happening around them.
[172] And this time around, nothing is happening around them.
[173] And so I think that sort of puts them in a, harder position.
[174] Right.
[175] Like somebody else organized the women's march and then the politicians just showed up and gave speeches there.
[176] And I mean, when you put it like that, that's what happened with the Tea Party, too.
[177] Right.
[178] John Boehner was trying to make compromises with Barack Obama while the Tea Partiers were like, absolutely not.
[179] You and Eric Cantor can get the hell out of here.
[180] Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
[181] What happened in 2016 was unexpected.
[182] And that's when those civil society groups really rose up.
[183] The public is.
[184] expecting exactly what's happening right now.
[185] We have polling questions from CBSUGov and Pew showing that 70 % of the public says that Trump is doing exactly what he promised or exactly what they expected him to do.
[186] So there's not this kind of idea of surprise and shock that really helped people rise up.
[187] And then the Democratic Party, really, they just kind of followed that public opinion and that public opinion just isn't there.
[188] Okay, so we've set up a situation where there's some kind of Democratic activist class or base that wants more of a response to Trump.
[189] But broadly, civil society is not putting on the show that it put on in 2017.
[190] And there's this feeling that Democratic lawmakers themselves aren't doing enough.
[191] This leaves the party potentially in a similar situation to where the Republican Party was in the early...
[192] 20 teens when, as you all mentioned, the Tea Party rose up in response.
[193] And again, that was a civil society response.
[194] And there was something of a hostile takeover of the party.
[195] Is the Democratic Party in a position today where it is ripe for a hostile takeover?
[196] I'm not saying from the left, right, or center, but is it weak in the sense that the Republican Party was weak back then?
[197] I think the short answer is possibly yes.
[198] Right.
[199] Like they don't have a lot of public support at the moment, both within their party and outside of their party, which is not that different.
[200] I think the question is less of how weak the Democratic Party is and more about how strong the not opposition, but more extreme wings of the party are.
[201] Right.
[202] In the Republican example, you look at the Tea Party and the Tea Party was this really.
[203] grassroots movement that bubbled up, and it was just stronger than the poor Republican Party at the time.
[204] What I'm interested to see is not how strong the Democratic Party is, but whether the sort of grassroots movement from within the party is strong enough to define or redefine the party.
[205] You also, to that point, have two grassroots, in a sense.
[206] You have a whole ecosystem of media and donors now who are never Trump hashtag resistance, who are all about fighting back against Trump and his anti -democratic tendencies, but may not necessarily want single payer health care or whatever other priorities the left may have.
[207] And on the other hand, you do still have.
[208] the left that seemed ascendant in 2017.
[209] The AOCs of the world, the Bernie Sanderses of the world, who, by the way, you know, is going out to Omaha and Iowa and the likes.
[210] We won't get to 2028 primary draft in this episode.
[211] But you potentially have competing forces within the Democratic Party, not just like the outsiders versus the inside, but there are two ecosystems that could try to vie for power within the Democratic Party.
[212] Yeah, I think that's right.
[213] And that's where I think our poll provides some insight.
[214] We asked this question in our poll that was right before inauguration in early January about what.
[215] people Americans felt were the issues that they cared about most and then their perceptions of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and what they thought the Republican Party and the Democratic Party cared about most.
[216] And so for people's own perceptions, not shockingly, you end up with things like the economy, health care, immigration, taxes, what we saw basically the entire campaign as the most important issues to people.
[217] But that really differed from what they saw as the most important issues were to the Democrats.
[218] Democratic Party.
[219] So for example, while only 4 % of people said that LGBT issues were the most important issues to them personally, 30 % of people thought that it was the most important issue to the Democratic Party.
[220] So how Americans perceive the Democratic Party is caring most about abortion, LGBT issues, and climate change.
[221] And then the state of democracy kind of rounded that out.
[222] So that's really different than what people saw as their own most important issues.
[223] I think that beyond the two wings that you sort of outlined, I think it would maybe behoove the Democrats to try and sort of identify other different approaches they might go.
[224] I think Democrats sort of maybe have the tendency a little bit to sort of be a little sort of conservative when it tries to come up with new political strategies.
[225] It feels right now that they're all waiting for like the political solution that will help them through the wilderness.
[226] But instead, maybe they should be trying out different approaches.
[227] Bernie Sanders doing his thing, Chris Murphy doing his thing.
[228] Maybe sort of they will stumble upon.
[229] the way out of here rather than just sort of waiting and hoping that, you know, the solution falls from the skies.
[230] Yeah, I mean, in some ways you're speaking to a point that I wanted to get at, which is the poll that we mentioned earlier about should the Democratic Party become more moderate or more liberal?
[231] It can be an amorphous dichotomy because those words mean different things to different people, but it can also...
[232] pigeonhole you into believing that you must uniformly become more moderate or you must uniformly become more liberal.
[233] Let me take Donald Trump as an example.
[234] He became significantly more moderate on fiscal issues and doubled down on immigration and became quite extremist on things like democratic norms.
[235] and the like.
[236] So it is not the party needs to move necessarily in order to gain support uniformly to the right or to the left.
[237] You can pick your issues.
[238] And I have said this a million times on this podcast, but the most effective politicians, what they do is they frustrate partisan perceptions.
[239] They steal their opponents.
[240] most popular issues and double down on their own most popular issues.
[241] I think there's an article out in the New York Times today or recently about the center -left party in Denmark and how they have both doubled down on the social welfare state while also becoming hawkish on immigration, for example.
[242] So an option, you know, not to refer too much to the New York Times, Ruth, but there was an article that y 'all did.
[243] I think it was four or five years ago where you talked to voters who did not have top to bottom liberal or conservative views on the issues.
[244] You talked to a voter who I think lived in upstate New York or something like that, who wanted single payer health care and also wanted a hard border with Mexico.
[245] Right.
[246] These are two pretty popular things ish.
[247] I mean, single payer gets complicated.
[248] It depends on whether you want to abolish private insurance in the process or if you want to make it a public option, et cetera, et cetera.
[249] But I think the growing sense is that left wing parties just doubling down on left wing policies, hoping that there will be a negative reaction to the rising right probably isn't working.
[250] I do think that also begs the question a little bit in terms of like, what is a right wing and left wing policy?
[251] That's exactly what I was going to say.
[252] You know, Bernie Sanders used to be sort of more hawkish on immigration from a left wing perspective.
[253] So I don't think it's entirely clear that being sort of four open borders, obviously that is a strain of like left wing thought that has existed.
[254] You know, internationalism is something that is part of like the left for, you know, hundreds of years, but it's not necessarily entirely out of that sort of tradition.
[255] And there are.
[256] you know, left -wing politicians, left -wing parties that do have more hawkish views on immigration, Bernie Sanders used to.
[257] You mentioned the Social Democrats in Denmark.
[258] I wouldn't be surprised, we'll get to this later, but if sort of more left -wing parties across Europe adopt these policies moving forward.
[259] And so you're absolutely right, you know, like parties can have these cross -cutting views on different issues, but also I think we shouldn't get too used to like our current views of what is left -wing and what is right -wing because those things also change over time.
[260] Yeah, and it's in particular with Trump.
[261] Like, I watched you, Galen, in struggling to describe Trump's movement, not use the word conservative.
[262] And we really struggle with this in polling because it's not that his policies aren't necessarily more conservative.
[263] They're more extreme, but they're not more conservative in the traditional sense that we think of as conservatism.
[264] And so it's really scrambled that whole concept.
[265] And I think that's, you know, happening across the spectrum.
[266] Right.
[267] Is telling Zelensky...
[268] to sort of help himself out in the image of Reagan republicanism?
[269] Obviously not.
[270] Not a little bit.
[271] Okay, now that we are heading in this direction, I want to move on to the German election.
[272] But before we go, any closing thoughts on the democratic wilderness and what comes next?
[273] I think it would probably be fine for Democrats to just wait a little bit.
[274] Public opinion will change.
[275] Things are not, you know, baked into stone.
[276] different solutions for their current problems will probably open up over time.
[277] Yeah.
[278] I will just say, and I'm a broken record on this, I've come on this show a million times and said this, and I write it all the time in my stories.
[279] The economy is by far the single most important issue to voters.
[280] And I think to the extent that the Democrats can really...
[281] to empathize and focus on that.
[282] I mean, I know there are plenty within the Democratic Party who might be saying, we are, we are, we are.
[283] But I think voters don't feel that.
[284] We see that in our poll, that voters don't feel that the Democratic Party is focused on the economy.
[285] And so I think if the Democratic Party wants to become a bigger tent, invite more people in, focusing on the economy is the way to do that, focusing on how people feel and the prices.
[286] The Republican Party has done a pretty good job of that.
[287] to date.
[288] And that's why they've invited more people into their tent.
[289] And I think that's how Democrats could move the needle.
[290] Yeah, I think those are both really important points, which is, one, in some ways, you have to wait and see how your opposition fails.
[291] At this point in 2021, Republicans didn't know that inflation was going to be their ticket to ride.
[292] Like the first big scandal of the Biden presidency was the withdrawal from Afghanistan, something that nobody cared about by the time they went to the polls in November of 2024.
[293] It was inflation all the way.
[294] And then, of course, those spiking encounters at the southern border.
[295] So, right.
[296] In some ways, you have to wait and see how your opposition is going to fail.
[297] The second point is that I hear what you're saying, Ruth, about the economy, but I think there's also a tendency to be like, oh, voters care about the economy, so we're just going to talk about the economy in the ways that we've always talked about it, but just talk more about it.
[298] And in order to get attention in the political media economy, in some ways, you have to make a show.
[299] You have to find a way to get people to pay attention to you.
[300] And it might not always be a totally accurate picture.
[301] Think about Ross Perot in 1992 and how he got people obsessed with the debt and deficit, right?
[302] Because he made people believe that the reason they were worse off economically was because of the debt and deficit.
[303] And in many ways, because of him, we had a surplus by the late 90s because of that entire message that what is wrong with the American economy is that in deficit.
[304] What was really happening was we were in a recession that was...
[305] part of the conventional boom and bust cycle of business and the stock market.
[306] But by talking about something new in ways that people haven't heard about it before, people start paying attention to you and they believe that you have identified the problem and therefore have solutions.
[307] I know this is not traditionally a left -wing argument, but...
[308] A ticket to ride for Democrats could be talking about the debt and deficit because we see historically high levels of Americans saying they're concerned about the debt and deficit, even Democrats.
[309] Right.
[310] And the truth is, I mean, what Lenny has said this whole time, the Democrats need to see themselves as outsiders instead of the party in power as a scrappy insurgency that's fighting to get attention and fighting.
[311] for the hearts and minds of peoples.
[312] And whether it's the DEN deficit, which would be a truly interesting political development to see that be the Democratic focus.
[313] I don't know if it would work.
[314] It would be kind of a strange development.
[315] I think it would really have to come from a different wing of the party because I don't think people would take it seriously with the kind of mainstream voice boxes of the Democratic Party now.
[316] It would have to come from kind of AOC, Bernie Sanders wing of the party as more of an insurgency and trying to be responsible.
[317] Yeah, in many ways, like it couldn't be from somebody that people are used to hearing from who has a well -developed track record.
[318] It could be an insurgent politician.
[319] themselves, but maybe just using different arguments.
[320] I mean, the way that politicians talk about this in Europe, and Lenny, correct me if I'm wrong here as the European in residence on this podcast, but in Germany, they talk about it as generational equality.
[321] By spending all of the money now, you're ensuring that younger generations are going to be poorer.
[322] Who is a natural sort of voter base for the Democratic Party?
[323] Young people.
[324] So if you convince young people, and I'm not just talking about 18 -year -olds, I'm also talking about 45 -year -olds, that Donald Trump is spending away your opportunity to retire at 70, let alone 65, then you can start getting people motivated.
[325] I think people are a little bit bored by politics today.
[326] Donald Trump has been the story.
[327] in American politics for a decade.
[328] And as I just read, people are not watching MSNBC.
[329] I'm sure there's lots of other things that they're not watching or listening to as well.
[330] So you have to make people excited by presenting them with new ideas.
[331] It would amuse me if the democratic version of the sort of Tea Party takeover that you asked about earlier would just be the Tea Party.
[332] Okay, now we've come full circle.
[333] You know, only time will tell.
[334] That's why we will continue recording this podcast.
[335] But let's move on and talk about the German election.
[336] But first, a break.
[337] On Sunday, Germany held a snap election to decide the composition of its new federal government following the collapse of center -left Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition late last year.
[338] The center -right Christian Democratic Union, along with its partner, the Christian Social Union, won 29 % of the vote, and their leader, Friedrich Merz, is likely to become chancellor.
[339] The far -right alternative for Deutschland came in second with 21 % of the vote, doubling its vote share from four years prior.
[340] The party of current chancellor Olaf Scholz, the left -leaning Social Democrats, came in third with 16 % of the vote.
[341] Yesterday's vote saw a record -breaking turnout of 84 % of the population, the highest since German unification in 1990.
[342] The outcome was largely in line with pre -election polling and came at a pivotal time for Germany.
[343] The country, which is the European Union's largest economy, has seen two consecutive years of economic contraction.
[344] At the same time, the war in Ukraine has heightened military pressures, while relations with the U .S. under President Donald Trump have grown increasingly tense.
[345] Domestically, immigration remains a flashpoint with deepening political divides over asylum policies and border controls.
[346] This is part of why we wanted Lenny to join us for today's podcast.
[347] In addition to being a brilliant data journalist, Lenny is also an Austrian native with an informed perspective on the politics of the region.
[348] So, Lenny, without further ado, what did you make of the results that we saw yesterday?
[349] I know from a polling perspective, it wasn't surprising, but now we can start to form a real narrative, not just a speculative one.
[350] Yeah, so I think, I mean, you're absolutely right.
[351] The polls were pretty spot on.
[352] So in terms of the actual results, I suppose nothing is really sort of surprising, except that it is kind of jarring to see, you know, the Social Democrats, for example, one of the parties that really sort of dominated post -war German politics to be sitting at, you know, 16 % or whatever they ended up getting.
[353] It's also sort of interesting to see the far right AFD, which sort of historically has done particularly well in Eastern Germany.
[354] And now starting to do better in Western Germany also.
[355] Obviously, Eastern Germany is still where they are really doing their best.
[356] There's some parts of the country there where they receive more than 40 % of the vote.
[357] But they're starting to get up to 20 % of the vote in parts of Western Germany also.
[358] So that is sort of interesting.
[359] And I guess it shouldn't be surprising if I had thought deeper about what the polls would mean.
[360] But I guess actually seeing that in terms of the final outcome is kind of jarring.
[361] And help us understand this for a second.
[362] We're going to be selfish here in American political terms.
[363] What might this new governing coalition look like?
[364] What is their political leaning?
[365] Like, how would you compare this to maybe our most recent American election?
[366] Yeah, so the most likely coalition outcome that is going to sort of take over now is going to be what used to be called a grand coalition.
[367] So the coalition between the, you know, conservative CDU, CSU and the social democratic SPD.
[368] It's not really a grand coalition anymore because those are no longer the two largest parties.
[369] They are now the first and third largest party, I guess.
[370] But that is the most likely outcome.
[371] And that's a sort of centrist coalition.
[372] It is also the coalition that Friedrich Merz, who was expected to win the election, he is the head of the Conservative Party, wanted.
[373] The other possibility that people were discussing prior to the election was a coalition between the conservatives and the Green Party.
[374] That's no longer possible electorally because they don't have the votes.
[375] And so it sort of has become very clear or very likely that we're going to get the centrist coalition.
[376] Friedrich Merz wants to do this relatively quickly.
[377] He said he would like a new coalition done in the next eight weeks.
[378] So I expect sort of pretty quick negotiations over the next couple of weeks to get that to happen.
[379] How that compares to what happened in the United States, some parts are comparable and similar, other parts are not.
[380] Obviously, immigration and the economy being the two main issues of the political discourse are similar.
[381] There was also a move to the right, and it also wasn't as large a move to the right electorally as sort of one could have expected given those two topics, sort of a minor sort of move to the right.
[382] But the fact that the sort of far -right party is sort of not part of the...
[383] potential negotiations versus, you know, in the United States, there's one right of center party and they now run all branches of government obviously makes the final outcome here quite different.
[384] Ruth, I know that you are not our resident European expert, but you have been looking at the polls and had some interesting takeaways about the results versus our expectations.
[385] Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I look at this in terms of the quality of the polls.
[386] Lenny's breaking down the results beautifully.
[387] But when I look at the quality of the polls, they were pretty spot on.
[388] And part of that has to do with in Germany, and we're all very envious of this.
[389] They have very high turnout elections and really high response rates to their polls, meaning a lot of people vote and a lot of people respond to polls when they're taken.
[390] It's a very civically engaged society.
[391] And as a result, the polls tend to be fairly accurate to the final result.
[392] So it was really nice to be able to watch the polls over the course of this kind of short snap election and see that they were going to an ultimate.
[393] did mirror closely to the result, both in terms of the outcome of the political result and the issues that people cared about that motivated and drove them to the polls.
[394] I do want to talk a little bit more specifically about the alternative for Deutschland before we go.
[395] Obviously, like I mentioned, this is a larger share of the vote than the party has ever received before.
[396] Germany has had one of the most effective strategies for marginalizing the far right in the post -war era.
[397] The mainstream parties refused to form a coalition with the far right.
[398] They refused to rely on their support to pass any legislation.
[399] And in some ways, this has sort of kept them outside of government, but it has also meant that other parties end up forming strange...
[400] bedfellows in coalitions that probably you would never see in a place like the United States because all versions of the right and left fall into two parties here.
[401] I'm curious what is being made of the effectiveness of Germany's cordon sanitaire, as they call it, you know, the marginalization of the far right now that they have picked up so much support and are the second largest party in terms of support.
[402] Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how successful their ostracization of the far right has actually been.
[403] In some sense, Germany was sort of the outlier country that they didn't have a strong far right in Europe for historical reasons.
[404] So they didn't really have to ostracize the far right party.
[405] But now within two or three elections, this discussion is becoming like a real issue in Germany.
[406] It, like you said, becomes increasingly difficult to form coalitions around the far right.
[407] There were issues in sort of the German state a few years ago where a politician from the liberal FDP took over state leadership with the votes of the AFD, even though he sort of promised there was no negotiation.
[408] At the time, he was sort of forced to step down as a result because of the public outcry.
[409] So in that sense, you could like say this was a, you know, working cordon sanitaire or a working ostracization of the far right.
[410] This has obviously become weaker.
[411] You know, the CDU recently tried to pass sort of non -binding anti -immigration laws with the votes of the AFD.
[412] Again, they sort of said that they were not negotiating with the AfD.
[413] They were simply putting a law up to vote and sort of didn't really care whether the AfD were voting for it or not.
[414] But obviously, the passing of this law was predicated on the AfD voting for it.
[415] So in some sense, this was some form of negotiation with the AfD.
[416] Germany will probably go down the same path as a lot of other European countries did over the last, you know, 20 or 30 years, where at first...
[417] The centrist parties, left -wing parties, try very hard to ostracize the far right.
[418] But over time, those mechanisms become a lot weaker because the party becomes stronger.
[419] But also, it just becomes harder to sort of make the claim that you sort of can't work with a party that represents between 20 % and 30 % of the voting public.
[420] And is it some way the cordon sanitaire that we've also seen in France and...
[421] other European countries in response to the far right.
[422] It also means that the coalition that they form in opposition to the far right basically has only one thing uniting them, which is that they're not the far right.
[423] And so it can be difficult for them to actually pass any new laws and in some ways increasing frustration with the political status quo and possibly increasing support for the far right.
[424] I mean, has this strategy been self -defeating in a way or is it?
[425] sort of, is that too simple of a conclusion?
[426] I mean, the countries that sort of come to mind immediately, it's not worked super well.
[427] I mean, Austria, the country that I'm from, is sort of a great example right now.
[428] We had elections recently, the far right ended up being the strongest party.
[429] And now there's a centrist coalition in the works to try and avoid.
[430] you know, getting them into government.
[431] This is now a three -party coalition that has become necessary, no longer just a two -party centrist coalition.
[432] These coalitions are going to become increasingly more complicated.
[433] It'll become, like you said, the only thing uniting them is stopping the far right.
[434] That'll make people frustrated.
[435] They have the feeling that nothing is moving forwards.
[436] They have the feeling that no matter who they vote for, the outcome is going to be the same.
[437] And that will, you know, help the far right moving forwards.
[438] In Austria, the far right is now polling even ahead of what the results they got in the election in September.
[439] And we've seen similar things happen.
[440] To your point on France, I mean, I think France is another great example where we have watched the ostracization of the far right sort of slowly disintegrate over time.
[441] You know, back in the 90s, when Jean -Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen's father, who was sort of the presidential candidate for the far right at the time, made it into a presidential runoff, there was a big outcry and a lot of, you know, left -wing parties.
[442] And left -wing organizations endorse the conservative candidate for president who won a sort of massive majority.
[443] And now, you know, 30 years later, the liberal parties are winning a lot less of the vote.
[444] They're not even coming in first a lot of the times in the French election.
[445] And also, you know, the liberal, Macron's liberal party didn't endorse the far, like the left -wing parties in the 2022 parliamentary runoff against the far -right party, which is again a sign of this sort of crumbling ostracization.
[446] All right.
[447] Well, we are going to leave it there for today.
[448] In some ways, we've had two very different conversations about how one party in the United States is trying to deal with the right and how other parties in Europe are trying to deal with the right.
[449] I learned a lot.
[450] I hope you guys learned something or at least had fun.
[451] Lenny, Ruth, thank you so much for joining me today.
[452] Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. My name is Galen Druk.
[453] Our producers are Shane McKeon and Cameron Chartavian.
[454] You can get in touch by emailing us at galen .druk at 538 .com.
[455] You can also, of course, tweet at us with any questions or comments.
[456] If you're a fan of the show, leave us a rating or review in the Apple Podcast Store or tell someone about us.
[457] Thanks for listening, and we will see you soon.