'If You Can Keep It': The Democrats After The Shutdown

0:07You're listening to the 1A Podcast. I'm Jen White. And I'm Todd Zwilling. Events of the last two weeks are highlighting fractures within both the Republican and Democratic parties. The fight over releasing the Epstein files has shaken the GOP, causing some of President Trump's staunchest allies, like Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, to call him out. And recent incidents of anti-Semitism within the MAGA movement have prompted infighting about how and whether to root it out. But today we focus on Democrats. The longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended last week after 43 days, and it ended with eight senators breaking with the Democratic caucus to pass a spending bill without securing the health insurance provisions they had demanded.

0:47Now, a lot of Democrats across the country, from Washington strategists to local activists, called that move a surrender. They say the defectors gave up a winning hand right when the public opinion was on their side. And the loudest criticism came from younger Democrats who called for new party leadership. The question is, what is the future of Democratic leadership? Who is going to be effective? And most Democrats around the country just don't think that person is Chuck Schumer. A leader is reflected as a reflection of the party. And Senate Democrats have selected their leadership to represent them.

1:25And so the question needs to be bigger than just one person. It is time for new leadership. The other generations, X, millennials, Z, it's time for us to step up. The stage is waiting for us to lead not just the party, but the nation right now. Today on If You Can Keep It, our weekly series on the state of our democracy, we look at the fractures the shutdown exposed inside the Democratic Party and how a new generation of lawmakers thinks the party should fight and govern in the days and years ahead. We get right into that and more after this short break. Stay with us.

2:05Let's start the conversation with our first guest. Joining us here in studio is Gabe Fleischer. He's a Gen Z journalist and author of the Wake Up to Politics newsletter. Gabe, it's great to see you. Good to see you. We got this question from Jay who says, one thing I don't understand is why these Democrats caved. They aren't up for re-election, so you would think they wouldn't have anything to lose. They didn't win anything since nobody expects Republicans to fulfill their promises. So why did they even do it? So, Gabe, as we said, this deal brokered by eight Democratic senators ended the shutdown.

2:35It prompted an immediate backlash within the party. Have you come away with an understanding of why? I mean, I think the why can be very informed by history. If you look back at past shutdown battles, I've been doing a lot of research throughout this shutdown or when it was going on on kind of previous battles. And the reality is that almost every shutdown in modern American history has ended this exact same way. Parties have put on a big fight trying to get kind of big, ambitious concessions from the other party. And then as time goes on, they realize a shutdown just isn't the leverage that they think it is.

3:06And they end up folding for, you know, these really minor concessions, you know, really tiny changes to Obamacare in 2018, the promise of a vote on immigration in 2018, no wall funding for Trump in 2019. And now you have the promise of a vote on Obamacare subsidies now. So I think this is very consistent with kind of the history of how shutdowns have gone. I think a lot of minority parties in Congress tend to think that they offer them a lot of leverage. But in reality, you know, the executive branch holds a lot of cards during the shutdown. They get to decide really what stays, you know, essential, what stays open and what doesn't.

3:35And at the end of the day, this has really been how almost every one of these fights has ended. And just a really quick correction. We said eight Democratic senators. It was actually seven. Angus King is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. How would you characterize the criticisms we've been hearing since that decision? I mean, I think it's what we heard before. I think there's a lot of Democrats who the entire Trump administration have been very frustrated by what they see as President Trump's, again, what they characterize as abuses of power, illegal, unconstitutional moves, obviously very aggressive uses of executive power, and what they have seen as kind of very weak and kind of impotent Democratic responses to that.

4:10I think there's been a lot of frustration on a number of these fights that, you know, Democrats haven't really stood in the way of the president. And you're seeing, you know, we saw that in March when Chuck Schumer, you know, at that point did vote to keep the government open to avoid a shutdown. And which I think is why a lot of people think this time he actually voted to have a shutdown because he couldn't afford that same kind of frustration for the Democratic base. Again, I think you could argue that's somewhat of a misunderstanding. You know, I think, you know, minority parties in Congress, once again, just do not have that much leverage over what the president can do.

4:38If you have underneath 50 percent of the vote in Congress, you can't win any votes. You can't set the floor schedule. The exception, of course, being with obscure tools like a discharge petition, which we'll see this week. But that's very rare. And so there's just not an abundance of ways for Democratic leaders to fight back. But still, there are a lot of Democrats that have been very frustrated by what they see as lost fight after lost fight. You can't extract big concessions in a shutdown traditionally. That's right. On the other hand, the counterargument here was shutdown fights are political fights.

5:06They are messaging fights. The leverage is in public opinion. And I think some of the people we're going to hear from today and other younger progressives and progressives in general were upset because their party was winning unexpectedly, unexpectedly winning and winning big. I mean, Trump was underwater two to one with independents over this shutdown. And there were also these significant victories on Election Day. Absolutely. And in New Jersey, Virginia, California, and these victories indicated to many Democratic lawmakers that the shutdown was a winning issue. Yeah, no question. So they had the proof at the ballot box.

5:39If public opinion weren't on their side, you would expect to have gotten routed, you know, in Virginia, New Jersey, and the other places Jen mentioned. And that didn't happen. So it's not so much the policy concessions that people were upset about. It was more sort of the political victory that was happening. I think that's absolutely true. And count me as among the people who are surprised by the fact that the shutdown did not go, you know, was going politically a lot better for the Democrats than I I think a lot of people thought going in. I think from the perspective of those, as you said, seven Democrats and one independent who coxed us with the Democrats, I think the thinking was that they had extracted those political wins.

6:14Donald Trump's approval rating is, depending on the average you look at, three, five, six points lower than it was at the beginning of the shutdown. They obviously had those victories in what are, to be fair, fairly Democratic-leaning areas. But clearly, the shutdown hurt Trump more than it hurt Democrats in a state like Virginia, which has a lot of federal workers. So they extracted those victories. And I think from the perspective of those Democratic senators, how long were they going to keep this going? Were they going to keep threatening food stamp benefits for people who – There's a huge downside to shutdowns.

6:42They do cause pain, and the White House was intentionally causing pain throughout the economy, and they didn't like that. And obviously as we got closer to Thanksgiving, there was air travel going to be snarled. So I think the kind of calculus among a lot of those Democratic senators – and I think it is true that there are more Democratic senators who wanted this shutdown to be over than just the eight who voted against it. And obviously, you know, the listener brought up the fact that, you know, why did these senators cave when they are the ones not up for reelection? Although, in fact, I think the real risk to this shutdown vote was actually from a primary electorate, not from the general electorate.

7:12So it's actually not surprising, perhaps, that the people who are not going to be up for reelection for a long time are the ones that actually voted to end the shutdown. But I do think there was a broad consensus within the Democratic caucus, even among people who didn't vote to end the shutdown, that that pain had been distracted. There wasn't that much more to be gained by snarlering Thanksgiving traffic, by continuing to hurt, you know, food state benefits, a program that Democrats are much more, you know, in favor of than Republicans to begin with. And that, you know, they had made their argument and it was time to move on.

7:37Let's bring another voice into the conversation. Shoykat Chakrabarty is a candidate for California's 11th congressional district. He's former chief of staff to Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Shoykat, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me on. So you're running for the seat now held by Nancy Pelosi, and you announced your candidacy before she made the decision to retire from Congress. Why? Well, you know, I do think it's a moment for sort of a new generation of leadership in the Democratic Party. And I've got a lot of respect for former Speaker Pelosi. I think she has a lot of skills.

8:11She's been a groundbreaking speaker in the past. But I think where we're at in the Democratic Party now is sort of looking forward, what are the ideas that are going to define the Democratic Party? What's the new vision for the party? And how are we actually going to have a generation of leaders that use all the tools possible to step up and stand up to the Trump administration that we're seeing right now? And, you know, I think that has to come, the new ideas have to come from a new generation of leaders. And also when you look at the Democratic Party today, if you look at the polling, the party's in the tubes.

8:42You know, we do need to remake the party as to be clear who we stand for and what we stand for. We got this message from Claire who says, I'm 76 years old. I felt for some time that the Democratic Party needs to cede leadership to the younger generations. I'm so tired of seeing these old, mostly men, clinging to power. I won't donate to the party until Schumer in the Senate steps aside. And Shoykot, what are your thoughts? I mean, you've worked within the House, obviously. You've seen how political and legislative fights work. What are your thoughts on the fractures within the party that were exposed by the shutdown and how it ended?

9:21Look, I agree that Schumer needs to step down. You know, I think there was a guest earlier talking about how the executive has a lot of power in these shutdown fights. But in 2019, there was a shutdown fight that Trump lost. You know, Trump ended up getting no border funding, and there was a shutdown over the border funding bill at that time. and Democrats actually held the line. And that was actually under Speaker Pelosi. And I give her a lot of credit for that. In this fight, I think it was so disappointing because as you all pointed out, the public sentiment was going our way. Trump was even on TV after the elections last Tuesday saying he thought that part of the reason the Republicans lost so big was because they were losing the messaging on the government shutdown.

10:00And we gotta remember, it's not just a political fight. This was Democrats actually trying to make the case for fighting for American people to keep health insurance premiums low. So it was a chance for us to actually show as a party that we can fight and we can win. And I think that is what people are looking for. That's what Americans are looking for in their political leaders is who's actually going to fight to make my life livable. And this was a chance to show that, and we completely failed on it. Coming up, we hear from more of you on the Democratic Party. Here's a voicemail we received.

10:28I'm an old fart. I'm 70 years old. And I think it's time to get rid of all of the old farts in the Senate and the Congress. because we need new thoughts, new thinking, and we need fresh energy. Back with more in a moment.

10:48Let's get back into the conversation with this message we got from one of you. Ron in Dallas says, I'm beyond incensed at the Democrats. The shutdown happened because Republicans held a gun to Democrats' head, claiming it would be Democrats' fault if the government shut down. The Democrats courageously refused to comply, so the Republicans, not the Democrats, shut the government down. We could have had our country back. Now we never will. Sure, that's one perspective, but as we heard from Gabe earlier, there was also concern about the pain caused by keeping the government closed. What's your case for why that pain was worth Democrats staying in this fight?

11:24Well, we have to realize there's pain being caused by the government reopening with no subsidies for ACA as well, right? I think what I would have liked to have seen, because even during the government shutdown, it is ultimately a messaging battle. I didn't see the government shutdown being front page news every single day like it normally is. I would have liked to see Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries go out and make the case very vociferously. I mean, I remember when we went to war in Iraq and I saw Dick Cheney and George Bush going on TV every single night making the case, persuading the American people to go to war.

11:57Why weren't we making that kind of case on the government shutdown? because I believe that if Trump started to see his numbers tank, you know, completely tank, he would have caved. That's what he did with Kilmar Abreu-Garcia. If you remember, when Kilmar Abreu-Garcia was deported to Seacott, Chris Van Hollen went and stuck with it. He made it a case. Trump's number on immigration started going down, and Trump caved. So that's the way you have to approach the shutdown. I think we could have stopped the shutdown way earlier had we made that sort of case. Well, we got this question from Merrill who says, I've been a Democrat for my entire voting life of 50 years.

12:28My question to the individuals calling for a change of leadership is who's willing to step up, who's willing to put in the work to get elected? And we got this from Chris. This is interesting. I'm leaving the Democratic Party once again caved. The party doesn't know how to fight. They even fight amongst themselves. When push comes to shove, they fall every time. Well, Gabe Fleischer, in September, Pew Research did a poll. 67 % of Democrats, 67 % of Democrats say their own party makes them feel frustrated. Meanwhile, 40 % of Republicans say they're frustrated with the GOP. Significant difference there.

13:07How deep is the crisis within the Democratic Party right now? The Democrats are in the tank, and it seems like the people who hate the most are other Democrats. I mean, I will say I think there's certainly an identity crisis within the Democratic Party. I do think what you just said does suggest perhaps the crisis isn't as deep as like a headline like that would suggest because if you're going to be unpopular among voters, you'd probably rather – the voters you'd like to be unpopular among most are probably your own voters. And obviously you mentioned the caller who just mentioned they're leaving the Democratic Party.

13:35The follow-up question would be, and he's leaving the Democratic Party because he doesn't like Donald Trump so much, does that mean he's going to vote for a Republican in the 2026 midterms? Or maybe he'll stay home or maybe he'll vote for a Democrat in the 2026 midterms. And it's true that Democrats are the least popular they've been in their entire party in the history of modern polling for their party. But that's mainly driven by Democrats. We've seen Republicans. This happened with Republicans very recently. We saw Republicans in the 2010s. Repeatedly, the Washington leaders were branded as not fighting hard enough, not fighting strong enough.

14:05And what it did take, obviously, was a new charismatic leader at the national level for the party, not necessarily even for the congressional leaders, who are really even still kind of representations of the old Rubkin party, but a new kind of presidential candidate who breathed new life into the party, and most of those frustrations kind of melted away. Well, we also heard from Mero who questioned who's willing to step up and take on this leadership role. And Sharkat, you've thrown your hat into the ring. What led you to the decision to run for office? Well, you know, I actually ran this group back in 2018 that was recruiting people to run for office all around the country.

14:43And one of the people we recruited was AOC, but I talked to hundreds of people around the country who were incredible leaders. And it was this moment of hope for me because these are the kind of leaders that I believe if they did step up and they started running for office, we could turn the whole thing around. Now, back in 2018, it was really difficult for me to convince those people to run for office. But right now, with the appetite for change that I see within the party, a lot of incredible leaders are stepping up all across the country to run, challenging sitting Democrats running in open seats.

15:12And I think there's a chance for sort of the C wave in 2026 and 2028, where we have dozens, if not hundreds, of new Democrats running, completely remaking the party and turning into a party that we can actually be proud of. But what are the barriers to getting people to a place where they're willing to run? We know running any elections at this point in time, it's incredibly expensive. If there are just millions and millions of dollars pouring into races, you wouldn't even expect to be big races. But we know money is a barrier. But what else are you running into? You know, I'd say the biggest barrier to convince anyone to run is individually.

15:50If you're someone who's doing good work in your community right now, why would you go to Congress and bang your head against the wall and get nothing done for 20 or 30 or 40 years, right? So the way I managed to convince or we managed to convince folks to run back then was to pitch people on this idea of a team, right? a group of us goes in and actually gets something done. And that's what I'm trying to do right now with my campaign. Honestly, the reason I'm running is because I am seeing this opportunity to have a group of leaders, you know, a large group of leaders go in who are focused on actual solutions for how we get out of this mess, not just focused on their political careers and how to get to the next rung of your political ladder.

16:25Now, Shurikot, what about you, though? I mean, we've been talking about voters' frustrations with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader. They were mad at him in March when he signed up on a spending deal. They're mad at him now because it appears that he tacitly fostered this capitulation. There's also Hakeem Jeffries, who might be the next speaker. If you're elected to Congress, you support Hakeem Jeffries for speaker? No, I've said I wouldn't support Hakeem Jeffries for speaker. Look, I think he's done a better job than Schumer, but I do think that in the moment that we're in right now, I believe we're in the middle of an authoritarian coup with Trump.

16:58And I think it's going to take a lot more than just a leader in the House who, in my opinion, has not been able to message where we're going, what our actual strategy is, that is in this moment right now. But also beyond that, I think we need leaders right now who are doing things like organizing civil society to create a real bulwark against this authoritarianism that we're seeing creep up. I think we need leaders right now who are going to be going out and actually being present when ICE is coming around and their unmarked vehicles kidnapping our neighbors off the streets. It's a whole different kind of leadership that I think we need.

17:33And I don't think either Leader Jeffries or Leader Schumer are stepping up to a moment. I want to read a couple of comments we've gotten. This one from Nicole, who says, I really wish Democrats would embrace being the party of labor and focus on affordable housing, a living wage, and general economic security through quality, health care, and quality education. It's sad when I see a very liberal state like California totally unable to solve affordable housing. It makes you wonder if the Democratic Party has simply become Republican light. And we got this from Peggy in Atlanta, who says the way forward for Democrats is a moderate approach, leaving far left cultural ideas behind.

18:09In order to regain power, Democrats need moderate Republican and independent voters to support them. Shrekat, you're running in California. What's your response, especially to what Nicole said? Yeah, I mean, I actually don't think those two things are at odds with each other. I do believe if we have a laser focus on fixing the economy, on making it so that people can actually afford to live in this country, that will also be the way we attract moderate and conservative voters. Because in my opinion, the reason we have Donald Trump in the White House today is the same reason we got Barack Obama in the White House in 2008, which is that for decades now, for most people, life has been getting harder and harder.

18:45People are working longer hours to afford less. The cost of essentials has skyrocketed while wages have been stagnant. The American dream is shattered. Kids today are not going to do as well as their parents. They, in fact, expect to do way worse. And so people are voting for anybody who's pitching some sort of sweeping economic change to the system. And that's what Barack Obama was pitching. That's what Donald Trump was pitching. And I believe that after four years of Trump, people's lives are not going to get any better. So the real opportunity in front of Democrats is what's the vision and the plan to fix the deep economic issues in our economy?

19:19And furthermore, I believe that is ultimately how you prove democracy works, how you get rid of this strain of authoritarianism in the long run. That's what FDR did. A lot of people don't remember this, but back in the 1930s, we actually had a very powerful far-right movement in this country. It was filling Madison Square Garden with these huge Nazi rallies with swastikas and stormtroopers. And the way we defeated that movement was FDR came in with the New Deal Coalition and then through the New Deal and the World War II mobilization, he built up the social safe net. He built our modern-day industrial base.

19:48He created the middle class. He improved people's lives through democracy so dramatically. That just killed this idea that you need an authoritarian strongman to deliver material change for people. So absolutely, I agree that we need to be laser-focused on making life affordable. And I'd add on to that, we also need to be laser-focused on rooting out corruption in our political system. That's something that is cross-partisan, 90 % support for things like banning congressional stock trading, banning the revolving door between Congress and the lobbying industry, getting rid of big money in politics.

20:18Republicans, independents, Democrats, they all agree on that. But where do you fall on this assertion that Democrats need to lean away from cultural issues? Because even in the best economic times here in the U.S., racism did not disappear. Sexism did not disappear. The isms didn't disappear. So how do you think Democrats should balance that economic message with some of the core fractures that exist in this country and have existed since its inception? So I think that the way we make the case on things like anti-racism, on things like including more and more people into society, and I really see it as like expanding freedom, is we do have to pitch this vision of a growing economic pie.

20:59You know, when I look at the 60s and the 70s, when we did have all these amazing movements that started expanding rights to women, expanding civil rights, expanding gay rights, it was also in the middle of an economic boom. And so that created a sense of optimism in the country where people were willing to open their minds to including more and more people in our society. So I don't think we need to abandon cultural issues, but I think the two are intimately tied. I think it's very difficult for us to make the case on expanding freedom to more people when people see the country as a shrinking pie.

21:27So we got to do both. But I do believe we need to lead with a vision for how we make this a country that can support that. And we absolutely can. We absolutely can. So, Sherkot, you're running in a deep blue district in a pretty blue state, Nancy Pelosi's district. They're not electing any Republicans. Your message is not necessarily the one that will have worked for Abigail Spanberger in Virginia statewide, and I think maybe they're different. The vision that you're articulating right here, a mixture of affordability, economics for everybody, but also sort of expanding the Democratic tent. How do you make it apply in the middle of San Francisco but also in central Virginia?