Michael Rappaport

A few thoughts from the conversations I’ve been having and hearing over the last week: The hard question isn’t the 2 points that would’ve decided the election. It’s how to build a Democratic Party that isn’t always 2 points away from losing to Donald Trump — or worse. The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the working class. If it isn’t doing that, it is failing. That’s true even even if it can still win elections. Democrats don’t need to build a new informational ecosystem. Dems need to show up in the informational ecosystems that already exist. They need to be natural and enthusiastic participants in these cultures. Harris should’ve gone on Rogan, but the damage here was done over years and wouldn’t have been reversed in one October appearance. Building a media ecosystem isn’t something you do through nonprofit grants or rich donors (remember Air America?). Joe Rogan and Theo Von aren’t a Koch-funded psy-op. What makes these spaces matter is that they aren’t built on politics. (Democrats already win voters who pay close attention to politics.) That there’s more affinity between Democrats and the Cheneys than Democrats and the Rogans and Theo Vons of the world says a lot. Economic populism is not just about making your economic policy more and more redistributive. People care about fairness. They admire success. People have economic identities in addition to material needs. Trump — and in a different way, Musk — understand the identity side of this. What they share isn’t that they are rich and successful, it’s that they made themselves into the public’s idea of what it means to be rich and successful. Policy matters, but it has to be real to the candidate. Policy is a way candidates tell voters who they are. But people can tell what politicians really care about and what they’re mouthing because it polls well. Governing matters. If housing is more affordable, and homelessness far less of a crisis, in Texas and Florida than California and New York, that’s a *huge* problem. If people are leaving California and New York for Texas and Florida, that’s a *huge* problem. Democrats need to take seriously how much scarcity harms them. Housing scarcity became a core Trump-Vance argument against immigrants. Too little clean energy becomes the argument for rapidly building out more fossil fuels. A successful liberalism needs to believe in *and deliver* abundance of the things people need most. That Democrats aren’t trusted on the cost of living harmed them much more than any ad. If Dems want to “Sister Soulja” some part of their coalition, start with the parts that have made it so much more expensive to build and live where Democrats govern. More than a “Sister Soulja” moment, Democrats need to rebuild a culture of saying no inside their own coalition. Democrats don’t just have to move right or left. They need to better reflect the texture of worlds they’ve lost touch with and those worlds are complex and contradictory. The most important question in politics isn’t whether a politician is well liked. It’s whether voters think a politician — or a political coalition — likes them.