Ezra Klein

It doesn't always have to be Republican and Democrat.

It can be billionaires versus the rest of us.

It can be many kinds of cutting a line.

But I think usually there is a dimension of somebody versus something.

Some forms of truth work better than others is maybe what I'm saying.

Tell me the difference there on the Democratic side.

I think that people would sort of expect what you'd say about the Republican side.

What does the Democratic politics that moves people, in your view, unproductively towards anger look like?

What has that been when you say it's existed?

And what is the version that moves people towards hope?

What is that distinction you're drawing?

One division, it sounds to me like you're tracking in the Democratic conversation right now, is how much is Democratic politics about Donald Trump, about the opposition to Donald Trump and to his administration?

There's a lot of, I think much of it merited among Democrats, anger, fear.

I'm not going to go so far as to say hate, but I've certainly heard some hate in my conversations with people.

But also anger.

The Trump administration is in power, and they are doing things, as we've discussed already, that are cruel or outrageous or corrupt.

And something that I hear Democrats debating a lot among themselves is how much should democratic politics be about Donald Trump and the opposition to him, or how much it should be about an alternative vision.

both because, you know, there can be a tension between allowing Donald Trump to set the terms of everything and describing something different, and because some of the voters Democrats need to win, certainly if you're a Senate candidate in Texas, are voters who do not hate Donald Trump, are voters who voted for Donald Trump, voted for Greg Abbott, you know, and his busing of migrants all across the country.

How do you think about that question?

So let me try to pick at what I think is the weak spot of this.