Would Bernie Have Won?
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What is the core debate about Bernie Sanders’ relevance to the Democratic Party’s future?
From New York Times opinion. This is the Ezra Klein Show.
As the Democratic Party debates where to go after its twenty twenty four drubbing, we're gonna spend the next two episodes of the show featuring two very different perspectives on the way forward. After Trump won the election, Bernie Sanders released a blistering statement saying that quote It should come as no great surprise that the Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people, would find that the working class has abandoned them. And Bernie's advisors and allies have been making their own versions of this argument, and jockeying for the positions that would help them rebuild the Democratic Party around this vision. Some have floated Bernie's twenty twenty campaign manager, Faz Shakir, to be the next chair of the Democratic National Committee.
And Faz sent me an email after the episode with Patrick Raffini, the Republican pollster who's been tracking the movement of working class voters to the GOP, saying there was a friendly debate he wanted to have here, that Bernie, or at least Bernie ism, is the obvious answer, and Democrats simply refuse to see it. And the fact that they refuse to see it says something very telling about the party. At the same time, I've heard from a lot of Democrats who are annoyed, to say the least, about this attack from Sandersworld. Democrats abandoned the working class. Biden has been the most economically populous president of the modern era. He has been the most pro-labor president of the modern era. And what did it get him or Harris?
And if Democratic socialism, if Bernieism, is the answer to winning back these voters, why don't you see Democratic Socialists winning in red districts? So this is a rich conversation, and it's a very real debate among Democrats right now. And Faz, who I've known for years, is a great person to have on to talk about it. He has seen the Democratic Party from every vantage point. Dinch has worked for Sanders, he's worked in senior positions for Nancy Pelosi, for Harry Reid, for the ACLU. He co-founded Think Progress, and he's currently the executive director of the pro worker nonprofit media organization More Perfect Union. As always, my email Ezra Kleinshow at nytimes dot com.
Kaz Shakir, welcome to the show. Thank you, Ezra. Good to hear from you. So you emailed me after the Patrick Ruffini episode saying that we should have a friendly debate about why Bernie Sanders isn't mentioned more in these conversations and The discomfort you feel that people, maybe me, maybe the Democratic Party as you understand it, have with him and his politics. So let's start there. What's the shape of that debate?
Do you agree with that, first of all? I think we should probably start with it. In my view, there are people who in the Democratic ranks as a constituency, I find and feel as someone who's, as you know, worked for him for a long period of time, kind of a discomfort, a spin, a shun. You know, uh here's Bernie talking again about the Democratic parties banning the working class, that kind of attitude that I roll and move on. And I'm saying don't I roll. Let's talk about it. And that's what I wanted to engage, but you tell me that I'm off base on that.
Well, I've multiple thoughts on it. One is that if you ask me Who has been the most prominent Member of Congress being heard in the media. Giving their postmortem on twenty twenty four. It is Bernie Sanders, right? He's one of the most prominent members of the Democratic Senate caucus. He's very close to the Biden administration. He was very woven into the Biden administration. Many of his people were an Elizabeth Borin's people from a similar wing of the party were in the Biden administration. So sometimes it feels to me like the Bernie wing of the party still has this feeling of exclusion that when I look around. I mean, I think most members of Congress would be pretty excited to have the level of influence over Democrats that that Bernie Sanders has.
Did you hear or see Kamala Hara stand with Bernie Sanders during the course of her campaign?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the core debate about Bernie Sanders’ relevance to the Democratic Party’s future?
0:05–10:02
2
How does Faiz Shakir define “Bernie‑ism” and why does he think it’s being rejected?
10:02–18:45
3
What arguments are made about class‑based populism versus the current Democratic brand?
18:45–28:15
4
Why did Sherrod Brown and Dan Osborne outperform expectations in red states?
28:15–37:25
5
How does the discussion compare left‑populism to right‑populism and Trump’s appeal to working‑class voters?
37:25–46:46
6
What role do new media platforms (podcasts, Substack, TikTok) play in shaping Democratic messaging?
46:46–56:42
7
How can the Democratic Party rebuild its coalition to reconnect with working‑class communities?
56:42–1:05:52
8
Which books does the guest recommend for understanding class, populism, and political strategy?
1:05:52–1:16:03