This is Democracy – Episode 180: Biden’s First Year

This is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy.

Today, we’re going to discuss, uh, a one-year retrospective on, uh, Joe Biden’s presidency. Uh, one of the things that defines a democracy and defines American democracy in particular is the rotation in office and the coming of elections frequently. We are coming up on a midterm set of elections in 2022.

And in some ways, these elections, uh, will be a referendum on the job. It has been doing, uh, one of the other defining features of our democracy is the challenge and difficulty surrounding being president. Um, and we will talk about that as well. So we will talk about Joe Biden and how the presidency itself has changed to better understand how our democracy.

Is evolving today before us, we’re joined by a good friend, a well-known commentator and political expert documentary maker, uh, who I think can give us a historical perspective on this, that few can, uh, this is Paul Stekler. Paul. Welcome. Uh, Paul has many of, you know, uh, is a professor here at the university of Texas at Austin.

He holds the Wofford Denius chair. Uh, he’s a nationally recognized documentary filmmaker, someone who brings together film and political analysis, which is so much fun. You don’t need novels when you can cover a political candidates. Am I correct about that, Paul? I like the way that. Uh, I would have as many documentaries there, there are too many to list, uh, and you could spend all your time watching them, which would be a good thing to do.

Let me just name a couple of my favorites. Uh, George Wallace, setting the woods on fire, the best documentary on George Wallace, who is deeply relevant for understanding much of our politics today, last man, standing politics, Texas style. The title tells you all. You need to know. And really an extraordinary four-part series vote for me, politics in America about grassroots electoral politics.

Uh, Paul was also, uh, one of the filmmakers for two of the segments of the famous eyes on the prize, uh, history of the civil rights movement, uh, and he’s won all kinds of awards. Again, too many to list. I’ll just say to George Foster Peabody awards, three Alfred. A DuPont, Columbia, journalism awards, three Emmy awards, special prize at the Sundance film festival, uh, everything it’s all there and it’s all about politics.

And so, uh, Paul will be able to help us understand why we view Biden the way we do and what we can learn from that. Before we turn to Paul’s, uh, discussion with us, of course we have Zachary’s scene setting poem. What’s the title of your poem today?

The meaning in our Malaise.

Wow. A little alliteration in reference to a Carter’s malaise.

I take it, huh? Yes. We spent four years in morning, not so quiet. The raging and striving the vigil, the riot. Now that we have come back, not to a sense of decency, but to the sensibility that there is decency to be found. Now that we have come back to our school house in our tree lined street to the realization that there is something to be realized, we have all been introduced to the meaning of music.

We spent two years in morning, two years for the dying, the dead, the yet to die, and yet to be killed. We spent those years in our own minds, tinkering and praying. Now that we have come back, not to a true normalcy, but to the intuition that we might get to see it. Now that we have come back to our schoolhouse and our tree lined streets, our grapevine, our fig tree, the image of the birds sitting on the branch, looking at me.

We have all been introduced to the meaning of malaise. I might have known when I heard your voice through the radio. And perhaps I thought I could hear America singing that really, it was just you trying your best, like all the rest. We lived four years this morning on the radio, you spoke and told us that there would be answers by the next.

Perhaps now that we have come back, not from all the battlefields, but from the ones we still managed to remember, perhaps now that we have come back to our own faces, cold and damp in the midnight sweat dreaming of inconsequence. Maybe now we will together grasp the meaning in our world. It’s a very moving poem.

Zacky it’s also a bit of a dark poem, isn’t it? Yes. Uh, it sort of, I think speaks to the frustration of this moment after so much political chaos. When finally it seems like we’ve reached something that can be considered more meaningful and progress. And then that progress comes very slowly. And it’s about trying to come to terms with that frustration after that sort of zero.

Right, right. I think that’s a great place to start. Paul. So many of us, I think you and I included, uh, were excited a year ago. Uh, thought there was great potential. I hope we still believe that, but w w why has it been so hard this year? Why has there been this, this sense of malaise I think is Zachary. It calls it well, I’m not sure about the use of the word is because that makes us think of the Carter years.

You know, and the situation under Jimmy Carter’s presidency was very different than, than what we face now. I mean, under Carter, you know, with, I guess with stagflation and the economy, not doing very well and hell crisis and the humiliation of, um, in the eyes of Mary Americans with the uranium hostage situation.

Um, you know, things just didn’t feel very good period. Um, and, uh, you know, it was sort of symbolized at the very end with the, um, the botched, a rescue, the hostages, you know, uh, and then that year as well. And so that the Carter administration was, seemed to be incompetent. Um, you know, in much of the desire for Reagan.

No, it came for looking for, uh, a more powerful looking competent, happy warrior, uh, kind of presidency, um, with Biden. Uh, we don’t have that kind of breakdown. Uh, we have a different situation and it’s sort of the, the ebbs and flows of this never-ending pandemic. Uh, the economy is nowhere near as big, as bad off as it was back then.

Inflation is bad. You know, though most economists would, would tell you that a lot of this. And if you take a look at the inflation level of most of the other of the Western world, no, it’s pretty much the same. It’s, you know, a problem of demand and the lack of supply, which theoretically will write itself.

Now we’ll look right itself in time for the mid-year elections. And you know, who knows, you know, I think the, the thing that both those epics have in common. Is that there was a similar desire, uh, that fueled Carter’s election and fueled by this election, uh, you know, with, with Carter’s election, it was a rejection of the mixing years.

Uh, you know, and so Carter, um, you know, sold himself as somebody who would, uh, would not tell a lie who would, uh, bring on a different kind of morality in Washington, DC. And sort of in a similar way, Joe Biden was elected to not be Donald Trump. Right. Which is very different than getting elected and thinking he’s going to be after your email or even Lyndon Johnson to the great society.

And I think, you know, um, you know, we can get into this later on, but you know, part of the fantasy problems of the democratic party is that, you know, people kind of forgot that. Yeah, he got elected by. Uh, whatever it was 8 million votes, but the Democrats took a shellacking on local actions in the house of representatives, and they were lucky to very lucky to capture the Senate, uh, because Donald Trump, God bless him, decided to get involved in the Georgia election and in kneecap, the two Republican candidates by.

Telling people that the election was a fraud. And so they were able to score two, uh, two hard-fought and very close, upset victories. But this didn’t set us up for a population that was desiring a gigantic change in Washington DC. And if they were looking for somebody who wasn’t Donald Trump and the restore, some sort of politics of normalcy, You know, plus the promise, however, uh, um, hard to, hard to achieve, you know, something that bipartisanship, bipartisanship, and a different tone of Washington.

There’s a lot of blame to go around with that. W why has it been hard for Biden is president to control the public discussion? Is it just because. There’s too many media outlets is that that’s the explanation. Most people give Paul as an expert on communications. What has he been able to do to shape the conversation and how has he failed?

What could he have done to better control the conversation? Well, you know, it’s, um, you know, again, it’s, it’s realistic expectations in the beginning, you set expectations at a certain level, um, and it’s always better to show, to set lower expectations than higher expectations. Um, and, um, you know, I think he was faced with a situation where, you know, and it’s it’s, I don’t want to totally blame the democratic party, but, uh, you know, something, why don’t I, I mean, there are large elements of the democratic party that have done a really fabulous job of making them look really weak.

I mean, I’ve got no idea what the progressive wing of the party thought they were going to be able to accomplish. You know, you have to pass things in the United States. You know, and, um, Joe mansion was pretty clear about how he stood on matters, you know, as well as Kristen cinema to a certain more chaotic way of looking at things.

And, you know, when you start coming up with $6 trillion plans and $3 trillion plans, especially plans, and nobody knows what you’re actually selling, you know, that don’t have any possibility of passing and you just make the president look really weak. I mean, if you go back in time, I’m not holding a bill.

Clinton is the greatest president of American American history, but part of his success in terms of public persona was his ability to triangulate. So you could play the Republicans and elements of the democratic party against each other. So he could come off in the middle, you know, there’s um, I think there’s an article in Politico today talking about the extinction of moderates in the house of representatives.

And this is not a good thing. It’s just not a good thing. I mean, you know, you know, unless you’re a democratic progressive and thinks that the, uh, the strategy of the German communist party in the 1930s was a good idea where you get rid of the social Democrats with the idea that you’re left with the communists and the Nazis and one side’s got a win.

And once I did one, just it wasn’t, uh, it wasn’t the local. Um, you know, you, you, you have a problem, Jeremy, in terms of just what the American public wants, you know, and did they want, you know, a game-changer president, um, you know, did they really want what’s the woke ring of the democratic party seems to be comfortable with in terms of defunding employees.

You know, or soft on crime, you know, I mean, most Americans actually want people to commit crimes to go to jail. This is even after George Floyd, and this is particularly important in minority districts where the crime level was really high. You know, there’s an interesting piece today. Um, in the times about, um, one of the authors of a Seminole book in the early two thousands of the emerging democratic majority.

Uh, John Judas, and this is his co-writer and I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to pronounce his name. Right. Maybe you can Roy texts, texts, I think that’s right. Yeah, I think so. You know, they’re saying what happened, you know, um, um, you know, the, the, the book was all about how demographics demographics were destiny.

Then America was a much more diverse, which is true. Yeah, it’s partially why Obama got elected in 2008 with the, uh, no, the American national electorate is much more black and brown and then it wasn’t, let’s say 1976 when Carter was elected, but the party itself has become increasingly dominated by. Sort of a social, social left bubble of, you know, quite frankly, white elites, you know, in a lot of the stuff that they’re selling is, you know, alienating.

And this, this goes beyond the, just the basic alienation of working class voters. You know what, uh, uh, what the author of the emerging democratic majority says was the idea was that Democrats would do well by taking advantage of this demographic change. But the idea was he didn’t want to like lose every working class voter.

And if you look at what’s going on in Texas today with the increasing support, at least during the last election of black and brown voters for Donald Trump, at least men working class men, this is a very disconcerting trend, you know, so that, you know, Joe Biden finds himself in the middle of this, and I’m not quite sure that he had a plan.

Um, You know, it was, you know, it was great that they were able to pass the, um, the initial, um, almost $2 trillion plan to deal with the pandemic and all of a sudden, good times rain and people thought that, you know, we were in the clear and then all of a sudden. And you get the Delta variant and on top of that, the Omicron variant, and this is really demoralizing.

Um, you know, even for those of us that are happy about the, um, the vaccines and quite frankly, I’m very happy because, you know, I’ve gotten all three shots and I got COVID and, um, I’m glad that I did not feel as bad as I might’ve, but it was not a cure all. And, uh, you know, of ever of anything, you know, it’s kinda like.

Finally facing a situation where, you know, we may end up having to get shots for COVID and the flu forever, you know, every year. Um, and I don’t know that Americans were, you know, ready to have to go back inside or have to re mask, you know? And so the, by the administration follow science, but they’re kind of stuck in terms of, okay, well, what do you do America wants to open up?

Do. Um, you know, against safety, but at the same time, you know, what’s the policy that’s going to work at the same time. If you’re spending a lot of time with Democrats fighting Democrats in Washington and not dealing with issues that people actually are paying attention to, this is going to make the president seem very weak.

And, you know, I watched his press conference last week. Jeremy and you know, he’s not terrible. Okay. But he’s not charismatic and he’s not fast on his feet. You know, we, I think we talked about this in preparation for the show, you know, where you got these, you know, essential idiots from Newsmax that are asking him these horrible questions about, you know, a dog, you know what they say?

They don’t want to be. Uh, not very negative to the president, but why to, so many people think you’re mentally incompetent or the guy that said, ah, is your China and policy being dictated by hunter Biden’s, uh, business, uh, and dealings. Now, you know, the proper response internally is this say, go screw yourself.

You know, or as he said to the, the Fox guy, you’re a, you’re a dumb sob, but quite frankly, you know, bill, bill Clinton would have laughed it off and they fund. Right. You know, because there’s a certain charisma in partially presidents, you know, in politicians, uh, live off of the ability to be able to be charismatic, to be glib.

Um, this is not Joe Biden’s steel. He wasn’t elected because of that. You know, he doesn’t, he doesn’t have that, you know, in his arsenal of, of, in his repertoire. So what does he find himself with? You know, it’s. Yeah, let me let you finish with this one. You know, I just took a look at the pew poll that says the 20% of Americans believe that button’s going to be a successful president.

You know, and I don’t know if this is, you know, sort of the decline that started with the, uh, the mess in Afghanistan. If this turns out to be his Katrina moment, you know, and with Katrina, the George W. Bush never recovered. No then Joe, Biden’s got troubles for the second term. Now, obviously things can change and we can talk about that.

Um, you know, but right now this is a, it’s not a good moment for him, right. So how has the Biden administration and Joe Biden in particular dealt with the Republican obstructionism in Congress and in, in the media. And, and do you feel like that obstructionism, that, that adversarial relationship between the two parties has gotten worse over the past?

I don’t know if it’s gotten worse, you know, and again, I think his problems are, again, mostly Democrat versus Democrat. Then you have the Republican stance is, is, is not a real big surprise. You know, this is what you expect. Um, you know, if he was more popular, um, he would be able to. To work deals like the infrastructure deal, which benefited a lot of the Republican states.

And you mentioned McConnell love the infrastructure deal because it’s, uh, you know, there’s lots of road building in, uh, in, you know, in similar kinds of projects in Kentucky, you know, so you can, and again, this is not, you know, give me a pass to the Republican party. You know, it’s a screwy party, you know, it’d be really weird to see Kevin McCarthy, you know, true nothing, man is speaker of the house.

Um, but I think his problems again are internal. You know, the Republicans have been able to move in lock step and you know, when you, um, when you have a substantial amount of the party, which is unrealistic, it’s hard to move in lock step. So I think his bigger problems last year has hasn’t been Republican obstructionist.

It’s the inability to be able to deal in some sort of strength of stance against that obstructionism with a United party, with realistic goals, if that makes any sense. Right? Well, and this comes back to an important point that we’ve discussed repeatedly on the podcast, which is that our system is not set up for a president or anyone else to be able to unilaterally change policies.

It really does require. Um, working with Congress and it really does require a certain skillset skillset that a Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson had and a skillset that’s different from other skillsets that remember they also had gigantic. Majority is in Cox. Right. Which extensively makes it easier because then you’re not dependent on one or two particular votes.

So, so you’ve laid out a pretty bleak picture for Joe Biden. But, but as we’ve talked about before on the podcast, and as you and I have talked about Paul many presidents play face. A picture after their first or second years, it’s, it’s a difficult job. It takes a long time to adjust. And as soon as you get elected, it’s quite common for those in your party to make all kinds of demands because they feel they’ve got new elected and you owe them.

So this is not that unique and Biden’s low approval rating is not that much lower. It’s pretty comparable to other presidents before him at this time. So if you were in the job, uh, as you have been in the past of helping a politician to turn things around. How would you advise Biden to turn things around?

Well, I think he’s in worse shape than that. Jeremy it’s. Um, yeah, his, his numbers are in the toilet compared to some other presidents who were in the toilet and they got killed in their, in their, um, mid-year elections. They were able to make comebacks and there ran for president. Again, I’m not so confident that Joe Biden’s going to be running for election in 2020.

Um, you know, he’s not, he’s not that young. Uh, what would I advise? I mean, you know, first I would, you know, go to mass with him and I would pray for a lower inflation rate, which I think will come at some point falling murder rates, uh, you know, return to some sort of normalcy, post Alma Cron. Um, you know, that would, that would be great.

Um, you know, I think that, um, the. The rubrics for a better economy. Are there, you know, I think the supply train chain will get better. You know, I don’t think that we’re in the kind of inflationary period, you know, that we were under Carter, you know, so I think things will get better, you know, how does he make them get better quicker?

You know, maybe, um, you know, maybe he, um, well, first things first it’d be better if he looked stronger as a presence. No, I don’t want to, um, to be simplistic where, you know, he goes out of his way to insult the progressive wing of the democratic party. Uh, but it’d be really nice to assert himself. Um, you know, it’d probably be better to be able to figure out what can actually pass.

And is build back better plan, uh, and pass it. Um, you know, cause I think there are, you know, somewhat popular, uh, you know, things that are in there and maybe it’s, you know, maybe it’s half of what, uh, what just failed, but passing something, um, you know, with some sort of, at least to United democratic front, um, You know, and just, you know, trying to avoid gaps and trying to seem, seem stronger, you know?

And I don’t know you got what you got with Joe Biden. He was an older guy, you know, he’s not particularly glib and. I wish I was more positive about this and it’s kind of like, you know, I think the only thing in his favor is the Republican party, you know, is actually viewed more negatively if that’s possible in the democratic party.

Um, but somebody has got to win in a one-on-one race and, you know, for better, for worse. No, it’s hard to make a midterm election about anything besides the presidents, right? You can’t, you can’t, you can’t keep bringing up the specter of this, uh, the evil Donald Trump, you know, even no matter, even if he’s, you know, out there, you know, in an orange cloud over a lot of this stuff, you know, he’s not there as he was in 2000, you know, we’re, especially in 2008, So that’s, you know, can Joe Biden become more vigorous?

Can he get out there? Like he says, he’s going in Kenny, you know, um, be more visible and then he’s given very few press conferences. He’s, you know, he’s not really out there with the press as much as other has predecessors have been. And can you figure out how to be able to manufacture success? You know, even if they’re smaller successes, right.

Right. One thing Biden said in his recent press conference, uh, which went on for quite a while was actually, if it was the longest press conference in history, believe it or not. Um, he said I watched much of it and it was, I think it’s still.

So, um, one of the things he said, Paul, was that he was going to get out of the white house more than he was going to go out into the public. It’s a sort of Reagan strategy, right? Go over the heads of Congress. Is that a viable strategy? Well, every president does, does that, you know, when you’re in trouble in DC, you know, every single president is not just, uh, Ronald Reagan gets out.

It gets out to the public. Uh, so I think it’s great. Um, you know, if he had a more functional vice president would be helpful because she’s, she’s, she’s not helping, um, kind, I’m trying, I’m trying to be more, more positive. Um, it can’t hurt. It can’t hurt. You know, and if this is going to be a referendum on Joe Biden, you gotta make, you gotta be able to sell what you got.

You gotta be able to sell, you know, all those infrastructure projects, which fingers crossed are actually going to start sometime soon. You know, there are also problems with finding workers to be able to build those roads right now. I mean, there were there been a couple of articles in the last couple of days about.

But you gotta be able to make the case for what you done, you know, and why it’s important for you to, to, you know, to get support, you know, and nobody else is going to do that. So what would I advise better immediate people, better selling plan. You know, Ron claim being in a more effective chief of staff, you know, you tell me, um, so, so you do advocate, uh, the president getting out more and explaining to the public what he’s done, because I mean, it is just a fact he’s passed the largest infrastructure bill that we’ve seen.

Uh, at least since the 1960s, and he’s done more to lift children out of poverty than any president has since at least the 1960s as well. But, but most people don’t know those two things. You think those should be talked about more? I think a lot of this stuff again is a style over substance. Yeah. This stuff is great, you know, and, um, a lot, there’ve been a lot of losing candidates in the past that go, go down and talking about, you know, you haven’t noticed.

Well, you know, the only people that are going to make that case or that. Right. So of course I do. It’s kind of like, you know, what the bill back better plan, you know, and again, I don’t think, again, this is going to the negative, how many human beings actually know what was in that, or is in that bill, right?

You couldn’t have done a lousy job of selling it all. They know as well as 6 trillion, then it was 3 trillion. It was 1.5 trillion. Then it was 1 trillion, 1 trillion. Right, right. I agree. I agree. I think that the, the debate became a debate about how much money to spend, not what to spend the money on. Sure.

I think that’s, that’s, that’s part of the problem. I think democracy works best. And I think this has been one of our themes when one can explain clearly, sometimes very simply to the public, what it is you’re doing. And I think this is part of your point, right? That Biden is not a good explainer in the way that bill Clinton was, for example, right.

And now that I’m thinking about it, and again, this is going to be, you know, against the conventional wisdom. Like I said, I don’t think you’d go after the progressive wing of the party. I mean, they’re on their own wall, all land, you know, I read, uh, what’s his name? Uh, Congressman, is it Bowman or the guy that knocked out Elliot angles over in the south Bronx, talking with confidence about how they’re going to take out moderate Democrats all over the United States.

Um, yeah, good luck to them. I don’t think he take them on, you know, but what you might do is, I mean, for instance, this issue of crime and the democratic party stands to it is really important right now. You know, if you get out of Austin, you know, in this next election, you’re going to see a lot of commercials, just like there were in 2020 about how Democrats are socialists, who wanted to fund the police and let all the criminals out.

Okay. And you got to have a counter that. Okay. And one way you can counter on that is you can have the president, you know, on his national tour is when he’s not only doing infrastructure, but he actually goes to an American city, which is experiencing crime. Let’s say New York city with a new mayor, like Eric Adams, you know, who has a very non woke way of looking at this.

And you’re there supporting the police. You know, one of the weirder things. And I think it’s hard for a lot of the liberal bubble and Austin to understand this is what a lot of the communities that actually want more police are actually poor communities of color, you know? Cause that’s where the crime is.

And. You know, if the president actually got out there and did something like that, then he could do his own sort of triangle, you know, tribalization deal, you know, where he comes off strong and an issue with that criticizing the left, you know, but he, you know, he, he begins to talk about the bread and butter or day to day issues that, you know, non-liberal lead people, you know, actually might respond to because if you want him, you know, not if you want to stop the bleeding.

For the democratic party, you know, that’s one of the ways to do it. I can figure it out, you know, a number of different angles on, on different issues over there. And partially it’s, you know, go to those places and talk about the jobs you’re going to create or not that you’re going to create. You are creating through these programs and let people know about this.

Publicizes as much as you can. The challenge is can Joe Biden do this effectively? Right. And I guess we’ll find out. So my, my final question, and this is I think that the broader, uh, question that comes up time, and again, in our discussions of democracy, you seem to imply Paul or more than imply that it’s necessary for change for progressive change to veer toward that.

That you have to do what bill Clinton did. So while you have to triangulate, you have to find ways to, um, appeal to people, uh, who are not on board with progressive ideas. And that means of course, um, curtailing the extent of reform that you’re pursuing. You think that’s necessary and built into the system.

You don’t see an alternative to that. I don’t think that advocating stuff that most people don’t want is ever going to win an election. You know what I mean? You know, Greg Cozaar may think it’s a really good idea that a fund the police, I keep thinking this is a Republican talking point that got sold to a lot of people.

You know, it’s kind of like who came up with this? I mean, do you want to lose elections? You know, is this a progressive reform? You know, I think a progressive reform is getting people to work. You know, I think a progressive reform is making the school system work. You know, those are, those are much more.

You know, important issues on a day-to-day level of people as opposed to identity politics. Okay. And maybe I’m wrong about this. Maybe the America of the future is going to find a majority for this sort of, you know, sort of issues, stances. I just don’t think it’s there. Do I think the progressive should stop advocating what they want?

Sure. Okay. But if you want to realistically win something. You’ve gotta be able to figure out how you build working coalitions that can get a majority of votes in elections and in Congress or legislatures, you know, start running some people in the states, you know, do what the Republicans did, you know, back in 2010, you know, and start winning some of those states, state legislative elections, because otherwise you’re going to find yourself in a situation like Democrats are in Texas.

Where, you know, the legislature passed a lot of stuff that I do not believe is very popular, you know, but, um, you know, are they paying a price for this? You know, it’s, it’s kind of like, you gotta be able to, this all goes back to, you know, selling something that’s buyable. Okay. And if you try to sell something, which most people don’t want, you’re not going to win elections very well said.

Very well said, Zachary. Uh, so what’s your reaction to this? Because you tend to, to, to be someone who gets frustrated with, uh, the middling positions and the triangulation and the effort to have half a level, rather than a full. Set of reforms. How do you respond to, how do you think other young people who might be more progressively inclined would respond to this?

I’m more and more convinced that Paul is right. I think that there’s a, there’s a. Skill, uh, that, so, so many of our politicians today, lack in being able to triangulate to, to make compromises in a way that actually gets things accomplished instead of just talking about them at the same time. I do think there’s a way, in some ways, maybe to do both to appeal to the younger, more reformist voters will have the same time.

Uh, making compromises and I think it would take, it would ha it would have to be a very skilled politician to, to, to reconcile both of those things. I also think that, that, that, I think as Paul said earlier, that we really, after the 2020 election underestimated the extent to which many people voted for Biden, just because he was not Trump.

And I think that sort of meant that we had artificially high expectations for how the politics of the past year, what would panic. Right. Paul final question, if Zachary is right, which I’m sure he is as often as, especially when he agrees with me. He’s right. Uh, if he’s right, that, uh, there’s a S a certain political skill set, um, that comes from.

Pursuing, let’s say a progressive vision, but doing it in very pragmatic ways involving compromise and, and bringing people in who are not as bought into that vision and who supports you need, uh, how on earth would we teach those skills? How on earth can we cultivate them? If we don’t have them in the leadership of our parties right now?

You know, I think we, uh, we live in a very candidate centric political system, and, um, sometimes the worst of times produced. No, those candidates that we haven’t seen before. So I’m not sure that we produce them. I don’t know that we teach them, you know, a situation sometimes opens up itself to people you haven’t been looking for in the pay in the past different kinds of candidates.

You know, I think that, you know, Barack Obama, you know, had, you know, had a very mixed record as a president. I’m not quite sure that, uh, once he became president, he wanted to be a legislative precedent. Okay, but who would have guessed that he would have been elected when he was, you know, and quite frankly, you could say the same sort of thing in terms of like, who ever thought that Donald Trump would ever get elected.

And so that maybe in dysfunctional times, you know, somebody appears that you weren’t expecting, um, You know, or, you know, you can look at Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Did anybody think he was going to be, uh, uh, uh, trans transformation president beforehand? You know, they thought of him as somebody who was a very pleasant guy.

You know, who, uh, you know, was, uh, was more electable than Al Smith in New York. So, right. I think you, look, you look and hope for, uh, those candidates. That’s I think that’s the best we can do well, and I think that’s, that’s the, the genius and also the horror of the American system, because it is such an open system in that way.

Unlike a parliamentary system, you don’t have to work your way through, up through the party. Right. And so we can get people who are terribly unqualified, but we can also get people who bring in enormous. To the office, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and you know, in terms of, you know, our system versus a parliamentary system, I guess I would say Joe Biden, never Boris Johnson.

I think that’s a perfect note to close on. As always, Paul, you have shared with us your wisdom, your experience, your humor, your irony, dripping with irony today. It’s always a fun to have you on Paul. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for inviting me. And Zachary, thank you for your moving poem as always.

Thank you. Most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week of this is democracy. This podcast is produced by the liberal arts its development. And the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini stay tuned for a new episode every week.

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