Matt’s away this week. Or since he’s in London, maybe we should say he’s “on holiday” with a funny accent. In any case, Brian’s piloting solo this week, and since he’s always going on about “fighting,” we wanted to give the concept clearer shape.

In this conversation, Brian and the veteran political scholar Norm Ornstein discuss:

* When did needed political reform in America stop pertaining to modernization and become a more existential campaign to fascism-proof democracy?

* How have Democrats done so far, given that they’re the minority party in both the House and Senate?

* What could change between now and the midterms to better discharge their obligations?

Then, a look ahead. First: If Democrats win the midterms, what would resistance worthy of the Hungarian opposition look like in practice? What under-utilized tools should Democrats exploit? Where does impeachment fit in all this? Then: If Democrats have a chance to rebuild in 2029, what would it take to convince ourselves and the world that we’re really not going back this time? And—perhaps most important of all—is there any indication that the party, as currently staffed and led, has gamed this all out and begun preparing to act?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian on what Democrats should—and shouldn’t—learn from Hungary.

* Brian on Trump’s plan to conceal, destroy, or sell the evidence of his corruption, perhaps before the midterms.

* Norm and Madeleine Dean on reining in the pardon power.

As we were all waiting on tenterhooks after Donald Trump threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization, Matt and Brian took a step back to examine why Democratic opposition to the Iran war hasn’t pierced public consciousness.

* Is Democratic infighting over the status of Hasan Piker a proxy for internal divisions over the war and the U.S. relationship with Israel?

* Is Matt right that Dems have opposed the war as aggressively as they oppose (e.g.) cuts to health care? Or is Brian right that they haven’t received much credit for their war opposition, because they aren’t really acting like you’d expect an opposition party to act in the midst of an existential crisis?

* Would a more procedurally aggressive form of opposition—impeachment resolutions, calls for an arms embargo—allow Democrats to appeal to marginal voters without necessarily “legitimizing” specific influencers, who tend to have bad ideas about all kinds of issues?

Then, are Dems stuck in an issue trap, or are they mainly uncertain of themselves because they’re leaderless? Do they need to make demonstrable moves to the right on issues like immigration, or do they need to echo charismatic figures like James Talarico and John Ossoff who have staked out mainline views on immigration and Israel with an unusually deft touch? Do they need a hard reset, the way Republicans did after George W. Bush’s presidency ended in failure, or is the Biden legacy mostly tarnished by his age, his allegiance to Benjamin Netanyahu, and the fact that he failed to vanquish fascism?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Matt has progressive views about some things.

* Brian thinks Hakeem Jeffries should use his power to force impeachment votes to stage a referendum on the Iran war.

* On the attempted cancelation of Hasan Piker.

Donald Trump hasn’t been this unpopular since he incited an insurrection. But he’s still at least a bit more popular than an entity called The Democratic Party.

In this episode Matt and Brian discuss:

* Do Democrats deserve any credit for Donald Trump’s political woes?

* How should we square Democrats’ impressive performance in special and off-year elections with their underwhelming performance in the generic ballot?

* If Democrats change nothing between now and November, would they win big by default, or disappoint, leaving everyone wishing they’d undertaken a more serious rebranding?

Then, since nobody disagrees that Democrats have become toxically unpopular, we get at why? To what extent is it contemporaneous frustration with the weakness of the Democratic opposition, and to what extent is a longer-run disaffection with a party that’s moved left over the past couple decades. Have Democrats really changed stripes? Or are they right where they “should” be, given long-run liberal commitments to a robust welfare state and civil equality?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian argues Dems don’t necessarily need to sweat their generic ballot woes, but can only fix them by picking more fights with Donald Trump.

* Matt thinks Democrats’ uniform moves to the left since 2008-2012 are the culprit.

* Ta-Nehisi Coates on the counterproductive aspects of intersectional political rhetoric: “If you can extend the the temporality out just a little bit of the struggle I think it makes the mistakes not better, but understandable. It’s very, very hard to get any movement of humans to always act right, speak right, talk right. I really, really wish people read more about the civil rights movement deeply because they were fucking up all the time.”