Thoughts from a Normie

Sargent: And I think Democrats play another role here as well. They have to go to every single microphone and forum they can find to just drum up noise. Make noise, create the impression, which is correct, that something is deeply amiss, that things are really going off the rails, that terrible things are happening. That draws more media interest, that creates a snowball effect in the information space. New revelations pop out, which has been a really big thing happening fairly regularly. And then that forces Republicans to do more publicly around this.

Greenberg: A hundred percent. And I think one of the tensions that we’ve experienced between Democrats and a lot of their traditional supporters right now is that there’s been a lurking strategy amongst a bunch of folks in Washington of, Let’s stand back and let this become unpopular, as opposed to, Let’s actively throw in to make it unpopular. That’s based on a real misread of how 2024 went. That’s based on a misread of how you get attention and how you get your message through in an algorithmic era. I think that people have to join the fight. They have to make their case if they want to be heard.

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Sargent: It was a shame that it didn’t really come through in 2024 the way we’d hoped. But you’re optimistic that there’s really the prospect for something sustained now.

Greenberg: Well, here’s what I would say on that. I think there’s a little bit of: Who is responsible for what in the Democratic Party as it goes to 2024? Because the experience that we had as people who organized the grassroots was we worked real hard to get to 2020 and to get Donald Trump out of office. And we were told politely but firmly by a bunch of people in the establishment at that point, Thank you very much. The adults are back in charge. We’ll take it from here.

And folks continue to organize, but there are limits to what you can do as the grassroots when the decisions are being made by people who are not really interested in a ton of feedback on that front. So when I hear people say, Oh, the resistance didn’t keep Donald Trump out of office in 2024, I’m like, Who do you think was running the campaigns? Who do you think was making the core decisions in 2024? Because we will do what we can. We work with regular people who respond to the political currents that are set by some of the decisions that are being made. And our folks worked incredibly hard, but there are limits to what you can do when the entire population is very, very deeply frustrated with an incumbent who’s got a historically low approval rating.