Dear listeners,
We’re back with episode three of Central Air, and this week, we’re talking about Deciding to Win, a new manifesto about how to improve and moderate the Democratic Party’s image. One of the report’s authors, Liam Kerr, joins us to talk about the report’s recommendations and its roots in a prior effort to reorient the Democratic Party: the Democratic Leadership Council, which began to push Democrats back to the center in 1985 after Walter Mondale’s landslide loss and succeeded seven years later in elevating Bill Clinton to the party nomination and the presidency.
Democrats have changed to win before, but only after they got their asses absolutely handed to them in three successive presidential elections. So, how can we recreate that sense of urgency today in a party that only lost by a little bit? (One answer that we don’t get into in the show is to focus on the Senate — Democrats need to moderate a lot more to be competitive there in the long run than to eke out a presidential win from time to time.) And even if candidates decide they want to moderate the party’s image, we talk about the difficulty of doing that in practice.
Also this week, we talk about the demolition of the East Wing of the White House, and why my YIMBY tendencies make it nearly impossible for me to feel negatively when I see construction work. We have a little bit of a laugh about Jonathan Last’s demand that Democratic presidential candidates vow to raze the ballroom on Day One. We examine Karine Jean-Pierre’s very weird interview with The New Yorker, we draw some lessons from an election in Argentina, and we look at signs that the president’s trade war is starting to do significant economic damage in at least some parts of the country.
We hope you enjoy the episode. If you have feedback, we’d love to hear it — post in the comments below or email us at centralair@substack.com.
Best,
Josh
