The Democrats Could Still Screw This Up
3/12/20261 hr 7 min
Can the Democrats finally seize on President Trump’s increasing unpopularity and end their slump? It seems to me as though 2026 is providing them ample opportunity. But I wanted to know what they actually stand for. Have they learned anything about immigration? Are they ready for the new politics of artificial intelligence? To find out, I asked someone I consider a true man of the left, Chris Hayes, the host of “All In With Chris Hayes” on MS NOW.
- 00:00 Intro
- 02:09 - Democrats: The state of play in 2026
- 06:46 - How Israel fractures the Democrats
- 09:19 - Immigration reform beyond the “old consensus”
- 19:46 - Models for Democratic leadership: Mark Kelly, Ruben Gallego, Rafael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff
- 27:22 - 2028: Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and “the Hillary Clinton problem”
- 30:41 - The politics of attention
- 36:19 - The challenges of achieving a Leftist society
- 45:37 - A Leftist case against A.I.
- 1:04:23 - Will A.I. define the 2028 election?
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRoss Douthat· Host0:00
[pensive music] From New York Times Opinion, I'm Ross Douthat, and this is Interesting Times. The 2024 election didn't just return Donald Trump to the White House. It also left the Democrats confronting a potentially era-defining defeat. But here we are in 2026, President Trump is deeply unpopular, and Democrats are leading in the midterm polls. Still, I wanna know, what are they actually for? Have they learned anything from their 2024 defeat, on immigration especially? Do they have leaders who are capable of speaking to swing voters while also wooing a party base that's girded for an existential battle? And are they ready for the dawning age and the new politics of artificial intelligence? And who better to answer all of these questions than my guest this week, Chris Hayes, who spends every weeknight talking to some of the most liberal viewers in America as the host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. And I just wanna note, Chris and I recorded this conversation just before