The Democrats Are Screwed, Too || Sept 9, 2026
We discussed the problems with the Republicans; now let's move on to the Democrats. They've got a different set of problems, but make no mistake, they are just as screwed. The Democrats have opted for a "big tent" coalition, meaning they try to appeal to as many voters as possible. The problem is, you cast such a wide net, and you're bound to end up with conflicting interests.
The candidates can't develop a clear policy platform, they have no charisma, and the strongest slogan they can come up with is "we hate Trump". Oh, and the Democrats are losing more and more of their core base, including younger voters, Hispanics, and organized labor.
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Comments (47)
A lot of Karens here...
My impression of the MAGA crowd is that they come across as spoiled, upper middle class adolescent boys.
dems should split
Yup, I was a Reagan Republican, and I voted for a Harris and will vote for another Democrat again, unless Nikki gets the nomination.
When the Democrats have a leader like Chuck Schumer, who even needs to have an opposition?
There was a time when I thought Kanye West was the worst idea. I miss those times. 🥴
This is what happens when your "party" is based on "winning" and not on principles. A plague on both your houses. Maybe we'll get some changes. A "primary" should just be to winnow candidates down to two with the "general" just to pick the "winner". One can't ban political parties, but they should be like any other nonprofit organization.
There cannot be a plague on both houses - because one of them will win the election. Probably Trump/MAGA. So they're not going to have any "plague"
I'm not sure the remaining Republicans can honestly stay faithful to Cheeto. Even recently, he made 911 about himself, saying he was under the rubble of the fallen building, then bragging that his building was the tallest in Manhattan. The world is tired of lies, and so too will this equate in Congress (hopefully).
Democrats only have themselves to blame for two terms of Trump. Clinton was an unlikeable candidate and Harris was a weak one. I'm hoping they can find someone decent to run in two years.
As a moderate republican I’d take a corporate moderate dem like manchin or rahm any day over maga
Is there a future for Inpendents?
So Republicans can do big tent, but Democrats can't? I get you were "giving it" to both sides, but your comments are dangerous for the continuation of our democracy. You treat what has become of the GOP as an unraveling of a coalition due to Trump. The act of comparison is a disservice to America and only serves to normalize the dismantling of our democracy. If you look at any polling you can see that the demographics this election are nothing like last. The youth and Hispanics will not break for Republicans. I get it you have Republican't subscribers. If they still identify as Republicans then they are not only bad Americans, but are also part of a personality cult. None of what the GOP is doing is okay. The Republicans in Congress have turned their backs on the country and chosen party first. They are disgusting and atonement is required.
As a moderate Democrat in CA, I increasingly feel the party has moved too far left for me. Other than voting against Trump, I vote for the person I believe will do the best job, regardless of party. The Democrats’ problem is not simply the lack of a national leader or coherent message. The party has allowed its left wing—along with unelected appointees, regulators, and advocacy groups—to define too much of its agenda. Protecting the environment does not mean every new regulation is justified, regardless of its cost or effectiveness. In CA, the consequences can be seen in the Bay-Delta Plan’s effects on water users and agriculture, policies contributing to refinery closures, and proposed restrictions on replacement tires. All real “today’s issues”. Democrats need to acknowledge the legitimate tradeoffs between environmental protection and economic consequences, focus on competent government, and address the concerns of ordinary people. Until then, they will struggle to build a broad national coalition. Whenever I receive a text, email, or flyer from a Democratic candidate today, I simply delete it. That is how disconnected I have become from my own party.
What you describe, regulation for regulation's sake and an obsession with process over results, is in large part why my country (Canada) has had an anemic economy for the last 10 years. I see similar politics in a subset of the Democratic Party, much like the subset of Canada's Liberal Party that our former Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau) largely represented. I cannot say strongly enough that I think Justin Trudeau was the worst thing to ever happen to Canada. Our current PM is trying to fix the mess made over the past decade by the idiot we stupidly elected in three elections. I would think Americans and Californians would want to avoid the same fate. As strong as the Democrats look right now because of Trump and his idiocy, Canada's current economic problems should serve as a warning about what happens when childish, naive progressive politics of the Greta Thunberg variety overtake rational, results-based regulation. You end up with a regulatory regime that sounds nice to idealistic children but accomplishes nothing real, while making it very difficult to build and expand industry. In Canada's case it got so bad that the country became uninvestable under the Trudeau government. We have other structural problems that have contributed to this that I won't drone on about, but the over regulation peice is a huge part of the problem for us. Americans in the last national election voted for a complete orc over the other candidate because of the orcs perceived ability to Shepard the economy. Of course this was horribly misguided as Trump is a complete economic illiterate and the success of the US economy under Trump 1 was a miracle largely enabled by people that kept him on the rails. The fact that Trump was re-elected, mostly because of inflation and affordability concerns, should give us an idea of what would happen to the Dems if they resided over multiple election cycles of almost non-existent growth for similar reasons to Canada. It would eventually lead to a Republican blowout no matter how God awful and reptilian the future Republican nominee is.
I remember a guy who looked & sounded exactly like Peter. He said Trump didn't stand a chance of getting elected. Anybody else remember him? He was so sure...
Hey I remember that guy!
Peter, you miss the mark: PEOPLE vote - not demographic categories, but actual HUMAN BEINGS. And what's changing is the SALIENCE of the issues that drive their interests, which are in flux.
Quaere: What will corporations do to scare worker bees about losing their jobs or a pay raise under Democrats? How many people are beholden to a job that exists because of a government contract/funding somewhere?
Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. The number of people voting republican doesn't normally change that much (except when Trump is running, go figure). The number of people voting democrat varies widely. This is why republicans focus on attacks. They can't get more people to vote republican, but they can get fewer people to vote democrat. Repeating "Hillary's emails" over and over until everybody is sick of it will do it. Normally the dems need a candidate that voters fall in love with. But this is not normal. Biden was elected through hatred of Trump and I expect the same this time round.
I’d like to see a clear, logical statement of what problems we’re trying to solve. Is it wealth distribution? Is it politician transparency? Is it tribes vs immigration? Is it magical thinking? Do we face the end of easy fuel density gains, and the industrial revolution was a bubble? Have the plebs cracked the zoning-and-schools lockout? Or what? I feel like we know the problems and we face the difficulty of "taking." ...Again. We took north America from the English and French, (and Spanish). If there's nobody really helpless, then we guillotine the rentiers? Why is it so hard to do better? Jobs and Musk were/are pretty hard to persuade of anything. (Of course, I change my tune when accosted by the panhandlers at the gas station!) 🤦♂️ (I couldn't see this as clearly when I was 30-40. That's prolly something too.)
Musk's American Party idea is a mere vapor now, wait until it isn't. Census demographics polled folks as to what they consider their "ethnicity". To your point, however historically obscure ("we took the land from Britain!") consider that in many US counties, mainly in and around Appalachia, the largest number in those counties considered "American" their ethnicity (as opposed to German, Filipino, Irish, etc). For me, this is lynchpin for a future political economy: an electorate of self-identified, so-called "ethnic" "Americans", hence the "American Party", and an avenue for the emergence and dominance of a 3rd party, throughout the 2030s, where a voter base is absconded from the duopoly by granting identitarian legitimacy to what is now a commonplace self-concept that is sort of submerged in obsolete polticial categories (dem and rep, lib, moderate, conservative). In any case I could see them taking over all the polticial talking points and forcing status quo strategy on policy to be forced toward whatever Am. Party platorm happens to be, probably techno-heavy, quasi-spiritual, super-optimistic, with lots of something for everybody.
We either need a new centrist party stacked with competent members worthy of being voted for... or an influx of young fresh faces into the existing parties. Either way, the extreme policies both parties seem to push do not appear to be serving the American people very well.
MAGA has successfully painted centrist positions as extreme.
Interesting how it took Peter twice as long to document the troubles of the GOP
Even *if* all the former mainstream R's voted for the Dems this cycle, there's no mathematical way that they'd get to 67 Senators, as only 1/3rd of the chamber is up for a vote. And in '29 someone else other than Trump will be President (or domocracy is done and the make-up of the Senate is meaningless.)
We need to set up for a 2/3rds scenario in 2029 in order to pass the Constitutional amendments needed to address all the Trump abuses. This year is the setup for that.
Peter; I admire how you close out your videos; epic outros! 😁 Can’t wait for your book; you’re an incredible author and I’ve listened to your previous work well over 5 times. Have an amazing and safe trip; take a ton of photos!
Like some other commenters below, Ii think you left out the fact that many centrist voters including RINOs and non-socialist Democrats will still vote Democratic to try to assure that Trump does not get another, nor MAGA get another, term of its reckless madness. People may vote against Trump even if not for Democrats. We need another party, call it the Constitutional party, to work and govern within Constitutional law.
There is a group called the Constitution Party. https://constitutionparty.com I don't know much about it, and I'm not advocating it. My vote for a third party that takes the Constitution seriously (more so than the Dems & Reps) is the Libertarian Party. https://lp.org I was happy to vote for the Johnson/Weld LP ticket in 2016. I held my nose and voted for Jo Jorgensen, the 2020 LP candidate. But I didn't vote for any presidential candidate in 2024.
We will never vote our way out of the duopoly
There is a weird option here. Because the House has been so close to being hung, a small coalition of centrists *could*, if they were willing to buck their parties, elect a centrist speaker. Generally, though, you're right. The duopoly means that the fringe selects the candidates in both parties, and the plurality of Americans is stuck voting against the worst candidate, rather than for anybody.
Again PZ's intense hatred for T overshadows his podcasts. He ignores the many changes and policies T brought in. Just look at one: Closed the wide open border. Biden should have been removed and charged for allowing the millions of unvetted into our country. He removed 8 thousand military personnel for not taking the shot while allowing milions in without assessing for any disease.
Anyone with a brain, access to diverse news sources, respect for the Constitution and rule of law hates Trump. The military has always mandated vaccines - because it protects the whole. 8,000 unvaccinated could infect the whole army (yes, the vaccinated ones would get it, but were far less likely to DIE from it).
The deciding factor will be the number of voters who have buyer's remorse and either cross sides or stay home. Any way you stack it, it looks bad for both parties; but it looks far worse for Republicans. That leaves the door open for an upset from a faction within the Democratic party. And it might not be the one that usually runs things that comes out on top.
and that, in turn, is part of the problem
Very interesting description of the two strategies. Always puzzled me a bit (as a non American) why more Democrats can so often lose to fewer Republicans. Once again I'll put in a word for good old Australian compulsory preferential voting with elections held on Saturdays. Fire at will...
Democrats are wishy-washy, that's why. Self paralyzing.
Presently, NOT a time to invest heavily into the democrats. Not until they figure-out what they are today ... and tomorrow. What are they, where are they go🪽? They themselves don't know. It is going to be a while. Maybe 28 solidifies them. My bet is the party will splinter like never 🐝4. The democrats are un-investible until 2030. By then, they ought to🐝 able to build an identity ... hopefully.
I'm with you. Unfortunately right now they are the only choice in the face of MAGA madness. We desperately need a centrist, practical party not caught up in culture wars or impractical wealth redistribution to represent the plurality of Americans centered in the suburbs who have been voting against the worst candidate rather than for anybody the past 2 decades.
I also disagree. I am a life long Republican from MAGA Texas and I am voting straight Democratic until MAGA is gone. One because I am against the blatant corruption of MAGA elected officials and two because of the disrespect for our Constitution and traditions. People like James Talarico and Jon Ossoff are people I can vote for. They stand for dignity, integrity, and respect. And they are running on accountability. That's the message that resonates with me and like minded people.
Not trying to start anything, but when you did vote GOP and you felt good about it, who was it for?
All I know is I will never vote for Republican ever. I read the racist letters Dr James Dobson Founder of Focus on the Family would send my mother.
Then Amerika ist screwed too
Corporate moderate dems are crashing and it's not likely that mamdani and his dsa group are going to be all that competitive in the swing states
unfortunately I have to disagree. The Ds have embraced anbunch of crazy socialist DSA types and this is not a communist or socialist country. We are not France which means this election will not go well for them.
I wouldn't call them socialists; their policies are crazy enough to deserve their own specific name. If George Orwell were alive, he would write something interesting about it, like Animal Farm or 1984.