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Do you really think the right is better at diagnosing the spiritual crisis? I think they spend a lot more time thinking about it than we do. I think I think the left has become pretty technocratic and convinced that our job is to just move the needle on indicators, unemployment, test scores, GDP, numbers of factories opening or closing. I'm not in a lot of rooms where people on my side of the aisle or my side of the political spectrum are talking about the ways that people feel and I do, I mean having spent time you know listening to some of these guys and how they write and what they think. Yeah, I guess I do think that they for the over last 10 years have been better than the left.
Senator Chris Murphy, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Happy to have you. Okay, so let's um let's get right into the book, right? I mean this is um it's not really a policy book, though there is some policy in there. Um this is much more of an attempt to describe a deeper malaise or spiritual sickness, whatever you want to call it in the country. Um how would you describe that? Let's just start there. Yeah, I think this country is less happy than it has been in a long time. I think it's more lonely than it has been in a long time and I think fewer people wake up every morning knowing what their meaning, their purpose, their identity is.
Um and I think there's all sorts of signs of that, growing rates of political instability, growing rates of self-harm, more kids showing up in our emergency rooms than ever before and just lower rates of self-reported happiness on surveys. You could say that's not something that government should concern itself with, but in fact, we're celebrating 250 years of the Declaration of Independence and in that document it actually says that government is supposed to guarantee people the right to pursue happiness. Maybe we're not supposed to provide you with the last mile on that road, but we're probably supposed to provide you with access to the things that you need to be happy. And as I study, you know,
why people seem to be less happy, more lonely, more exhausted, it seemed to me that there was a lot of government responsibility. We've set up a system of rules and norms in this country that make it a lot harder for folks to be happy. And so, as a, you know, as a politician who spends all his time thinking and working to oppose Donald Trump, I wrote the book because I just I think it'd be a mistake to just think our problems are electorally. There is a deeper spiritual rot in this country. We'll talk about the material conditions that gave rise to this, but I mean ultimately is all of that to say that really and we can reach all the words we want to try to capture the problem, cultural, spiritual, whatever. But is all of that to say that this is
really a problem that goes beyond mere politics? Of course. You know, this is, you know, probably more a cultural problem than a political problem. But you know, I do think that the rules and norms that have caused people to feel empty often have caused people to retreat from communion, right? Where we're spending half as much time today, you know, in person connection with friends and family as we did a generation ago. I think a lot of that is due to the rules that are set by governments. So, um I don't know that I'd say that it's beyond the scope of policy. Actually, I think that policy has a lot to do with it, but I think you first just have to
understand how people are feeling, why they're feeling those ways, and once you do that, then I think you can match policies to meet um those maladies. My argument here is that Congress politicians writ large just don't spend a lot of time doing a spiritual metaphysical diagnosis of the country, and I just don't think we're doing our work if we aren't first asking, like, what do people need to feel more fulfilled and happy in their lives? And it turns out that the answer is probably not a higher GDP or higher test scores for their kids. It's interesting. I've I've lived all over the country, including DC, but I'm from the deep south, the Gulf Coast. That's where I live now. Um and my politics are kind of weird in lots of
ways, but I'm I'm more on the left than a lot of people around me. But when I engage with Trump voters, and there's a lot around me, um what I find deep down, if you can kind of get past the um Fox News culture war and really drill down, what you find is they won't They may not use this kind of language, but you find that people don't feel like they have a sense of agency anymore. Um now, I would say they're they may be confused in many cases about the causes of that disillusionment, but that is the general feeling. Um do you think that is something that goes across all the partisan and ideological lines that typically, you know, map us up?
Yeah, when it comes down to it, I you know, I'm making the case in this book that there are two things of many, but two primary things that people need to feel purposeful and to feel happy and fulfilled. Um the first is connection. Um You need to feel like you have people in your life that care about you. You need to feel connected to a community. You have to have a sense of belonging to something. Um secondly, you need to feel powerful. people when they wake up in the morning want to believe that the inputs um will match the outputs and that they don't feel powerful today. I think that's particularly acute amongst men who are
going through this broader crisis of masculinity in the face of the rightful rise of feminism, but it hits them even harder when they at the same time have both lost their natural position of primacy um in the modern world and they also um can't work hard and get ahead. They feel really powerless. And yes, this is an economy that is intentionally designed to not give people a sense of agency and power. Um that's, you know, a big part of the book. In a liberal pluralistic society like ours where we do not agree about what's fair, uh what's just, or what's even worth valuing or wanting, um or we don't agree about what it means to pursue happiness, where do you think the common good, that's your phrase, common good,
where do you think that comes from? What is the basis of that? Yeah, I mean, I obviously de Tocqueville was all over this book and he worries deeply about that question, right? This is a country filled with strivers, right? People from different backgrounds speaking different languages. What on earth is going to hold them together? Um he has two answers. He his first answer is democracy, right? Everybody is going to feel like they um have a role to play in the setting of rules and norms and so they're going to set aside their differences and work together in that common project of democracy which felt so new and wild at the time. Second, he says church, right? You know, which maybe is a
code for institutions, right? There are going to be places where you can find meaning and identity um that um allow you easy access to connection, communion, um and meaning each day. Um, our democracy is withered, it's hurt, it's badly damaged, and people do not feel like they have a role to play in our democracy because billionaires and millionaires have such control. And church specifically as an institution has become a less healthy place. Just not as many people are showing up, but other institutions aren't available either. And so I think I sort of, you know, look at de Tocqueville and say, um, okay. Uh, what can we do to make
democracy healthier so that people feel like that is a common project that they can engage in? And what about institutions? What about the things we can do to make people find a sense of belonging in an institution or other places where people might find easy identity? Yeah, you know, that's de Tocqueville is such an interesting character. Um, you know, and there's a critique of liberalism that I think a lot of people on the left avoid because people we don't like often make it. But it's not obviously wrong. And it's that, um, you know, liberalism gives people freedom, but it does not tell us what the freedom is for. And if nothing else fills that space, those de Tocqueville intermediary institutions, religion,
community, family, civic life, all of that, then markets and algorithms and demagogues and I guess now AI will do it for us. I mean, do you agree that vacuum, for lack of a better word, is, um, a real vulnerability of liberalism? Maybe even a fatal Yeah, I do. You know, I saw about four or five years ago that the new right, you know, that J.D. Vance was a big part of, was doing a much more interesting critique of the spiritual state of the country than the left was. And they seemed to be crafting policies that answered the way that people were feeling empty, feeling that liberalism had pitted them against each other. And so yes, uh, book, you know, clearly comes from, you know, my own recognition that liberalism more broadly
was failing Americans. And you know, I think that's um, inevitable in some ways because we are solidaristic creatures. We are a solidaristic species. We survived thousands of years because we found a way to group together. We have selflessness in our biology and I give sort of, you know, a bunch of anecdotes and evidence in the book about, you know, why we know we actually, um, want to be selfless, that we want to exist in groups, we don't want to be viewed simply as individuals. And I don't think that, you know, classical is liberalism has, you know, ever been able to understand that spiritual health comes, you know, not by freedom. Um, spiritual health comes, um, through communion and a sense of belonging to
something bigger than ourselves. Well, the liberal counter is always to say, well, liberalism isn't supposed to, um, provide meaning in that way. It is supposed to protect the spaces where, you know, unions and communities and all those institutions can fill that gap and provide the meaning. But, uh, and you know this, um, we have kind of destroyed those institutions. We have surrendered every aspect of life to market logic. Uh, and so we don't really make citizens anymore. Yeah, and, you know, we are whether we're in an oligarchy or close to an oligarchy. Um, you know, when you structure an economy in which, um, the people who are powerful, profit by the disintegration
of the broader populace, uh, it becomes hard for liberalism to work because, you know, for instance, the people that are running our big technology companies, which, you know, I think it's hard to over-hype how much, um, of this story of spiritual rot is connected to the rise of social media and AI, and television, and the internet more generally. The people who control those technologies, you know, write the rules. And those technologies, unregulated or unprotected, make it really hard for free individuals to find companion. But despite all those flaws, I mean you're still a proud small L liberal, yeah? Yeah, no, I think the project can still work. I think that you just need to come up with a different set of rules that guards against the influences
that push people into lives of isolation. All right, let's deal with Trump. Because I think we both see him as a symptom, or as a symptom. Yep. And there's a lot going on with Trumpism, race, and history, and cultural identity. These are all big pieces, but um on some level, this is a guy who gave millions of people a story. Mhm. And it worked. It got him elected, twice. How do you, a sitting Democratic Senator, make sense of that story? How does it fit into the story you're telling in this book?
Yeah, I mean I certainly give him credit in this book for better understanding where people are emotionally in this country than the left. And I, you know, put I give a bunch of examples where, you know, things that he has said sound ridiculous, sound nativist and racist, and many of them are, but they are speaking to Americans in a spiritual way. I also think we should give him credit for creating a sense of belonging. So, he gives them a narrative to understand why they are powerless, and a route to power. It is wrong, it is racist, it is xenophobic, but it's a narrative. But he also gives people a sense of belonging.
I mean, that's what MAGA is. It's a It's a community for many people. It's a source of identity. Um but what is he doing in, you know, his talk about putting up a wall with Mexico or these giant superficially unpopular tariffs um with other countries? He's He's saying, "Listen, we're not powerless, right? The government has seemed to have been powerless in the face of mass migration, in the face of jobs being outsourced. I'm going to tell you it's not powerless. It We collectively can do things to control who comes into this country. We can, together, collectively do things to stop the outsourcing of jobs."
Um and that narrative of power, in this case government having actual agency over forces that felt uncontrollable, um that speaks to people who had kind of given up on government being able to be powerful. And if government couldn't be powerful, then maybe it's justified that I'm powerless. I think you have to sort of understand um his power narrative. And then last, I you know, he is telling a story of who's screwing you. You know, you are powerless because of immigrants, of Muslims, of drag shows, of gay children. Um and that's that's obviously a false narrative, but people want to know why. People want to know why I have been left to feel this exhausted and this alone. And he's telling you why. Um Democrats,
the left broadly, has been, you know, with the exception of the Sanders movement, has been, you know, unwilling or uninterested in a competing narrative. And he just tells a very simple story. Something happened to you. Something was taken from you. This is who did it, and I'll make them pay for it. I mean, that's that's not a lot of spiritual wisdom in that, right? It's just here's your enemy, and I'll make them pay. Yeah, you but it does speak to, you know, something that's deeply biological. I mean, we as it kind of go back to this narrative of why we're still on this earth. We're on this earth because we're solidaristic, because we join
together with others, but because we fear people different from us. I mean, so when somebody says, "Your problems are because of folks with a different skin color than you." That speaks to something that's you know, that's that's biological. But, I think that you know, there's um there's a silver lining here in our failures as a broad sort of left movement to compete with this storyline. It's that there's a true story of who is causing you to become so uh adrift and why you have this sense of powerlessness. And it's concentrated economic power. It is the corporate class and the billionaires who have developed a set of technologies that has broadly harmed us culturally and who have constructed an economy
which um has a very low floor, a very low safety net that has compromised economic mobility. Do you really think the right is better at diagnosing the spiritual crisis? Yeah, I mean, I think they spend a lot more time thinking about it than we do. I think the left has become pretty technocratic. And convinced that our job is to just move the needle on indicators. Um unemployment test scores, GDP, numbers of factories opening or closing. I'm not in a lot of rooms where people on my side of the aisle or my side of the political spectrum are talking about the ways that people feel. And I do, I mean, having spent time you know, listening to some of these guys and
and how they write and what they think, yeah, I guess I do think that they for the over last 10 years have been better than the left. Yeah, I mean I guess some of this hinges on what we mean by the right. Yeah. I think the problem for me um and the frustrating thing for me is and you can you know I'd be curious what you think about this. I think the left is better at [snorts] diagnosing the material roots of the crisis. I think the right is better at obscuring those roots and offering fake solutions to non-problems. It was the right who told working class people the problem wasn't corporate greed, right?
It was the welfare queens and their Cadillacs. It was the right who said it's not deregulation and corruption and the destruction of unions. It's the It's the illegals taking your jobs, right? It's the same playbook over and over again. I don't know if they're really diagnosing a spiritual crisis there, right? They're just stoking resentment. Well, but I mean they understand better than the left that humans need a narrative, right? Humans want to hear the why, right? They don't want to just hear the what, they want to hear the why. And it just makes you feel better to
know why this is happening to me, that it wasn't my fault, right? That it was someone else's fault. And again, with the exception of Bernie and AOC, there's not a lot of why There hasn't been a lot of why. We have viewed the people who do the why as fringe political threats to the left, not as mainstream messengers. The over-reliance on technocratic mush or however you want to put it, where does that come from? Why is that a democratic thing? Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know why that the what the origin of that is. Um and this is getting a little bit too into political weeds, but I do think as a party we became uh you know, a little bit too reliant on Obamaism.
Um Obama succeeded despite a lack of narrative because he was just a generationally uniquely talented political figure. And so he was a technocrat. He was not willing to pit one group against each other. He wasn't going to blame the billionaires and the corporations. Um but he was successful because of his just unique once-in-a-generation personal magnetism. And I think we thought broadly that well, that was going to be our future that we had this new coalition that was going to be constantly resistant to the demagoguery on the right. And somebody else like Obama would come along. I think we just missed the fact that um without Obama, we actually do need a narrative and we never developed a persuasive one.
I know there are people who will hear the premise of the book and say, "Well, hold on, Senator. Wait a second. Democrats aren't failing because they refuse to offer people meaning. And it's not that Republicans are better at giving people the things they need to live a more meaningful life. That's for damn sure. They're just lying to people, right? They're just giving them scapegoats." Um so how do you answer that? Yeah, they're telling a story. So what is the answer? Just tell a better story? Well, but if the better story is true, um then shouldn't we have confidence in that it makes it easier to unmask their false story?
I mean, I guess that's just the basic premise. And I might be wrong, right? It might be that their narrative um is always going to be more pungent than ours, but we're we're not even trying to tell an alternative narrative. And I think our narrative is strong, that concentrated corporate power is doing this to you, um that the normalization of corruption in our government is an extension of the corruption of our economy. Um if we did that narrative well, I think it would win. Um we're not By the way, we're not that far away from winning, right? I mean, the Trump and his movement don't win these elections by enormous margins. So if we just, you know, did a 10% better job at selling a narrative to people about why they feel powerless,
I we'd be in a lot better shape. I mean, I take your question in good faith and I don't have a good answer, right? Like does it matter if the story is true? Yeah, I don't know, but you have to have a you have to have a story and as I talk about at the end of the 2024 election, you know, Harris I'm not somebody that Monday morning quarterbacks her race. She was in such a tough spot, but she kind of has a choice to make at the end, you know, whether she ends the race with, you know, union leaders by her side with Bernie Sanders or whether she ends the campaign with Mark Cuban.
Um and she ends the campaign with Mark Cuban. She basically says, "No, I'm I'm I'm not going to tell you a story of how concentrated corporate power is making you feel alone and powerless. I'm not going to take on the tech companies on my in my closing argument." Um and I think that was a mistake and I think it's a mistake that we are uh you know, potentially um destined to repeat. Support for the show comes from Bombas. The springtime thaw is finally here. Flowers are blooming, the days are longer, and I'm going to assume you're doing more things outside, as you should. It's the perfect time to upgrade your everyday go-to clothes and
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code gray area at checkout. People act like Democrats don't they're not out there using moral language you know, but that's just not true. I mean there's several examples just in the Senate alone. But Dems do seem to have a harder time turning those moral claims or that moral outrage into a compelling story for reasons that probably go beyond the stuff we were just talking about and there's like a lot of rhetoric from your side about justice, democracy, rights, fairness, dignity. Um community, meaning. I mean the ingredients are there on paper. Why do you think it's not quite landing with the people you needed to land with?
Well, I think because and listen, I'm not sure of this. Um uh but my sense is that most of our values rhetoric is around those first words. Um fairness and justice. Yeah. Um and I do not think in my experience that is the first sort of moral on-ramp for people into our politics. Um I think they are thinking mostly about power and agency because that is literally what they don't have when they wake up in the morning. Um and they are and you know, we know that community and belonging is so important to people. We've never really talked about that as much. Um but I think if our values conversation was more rooted
in power, agency, community, and belonging, um we would be much more connected to where people are emotionally. I think people care about fairness and justice. Um but I don't think that's the primary place that they go. The elephant in room here is the perception, right, of the Dems as a party that has become too culturally progressive for much of the country. And some of the woke stuff is overplayed, but it's not all made up. I mean, do you see this as a real problem for the political project you lay out in the book on getting over this so that people hear what you're saying? Yeah, I certainly make the argument in the book and I've made it to my party with limited success over the last couple years, um, that we do need to
become a bigger tent party. I don't think the party needs to moderate itself on social and cultural issues. I think the worst thing you can do as a politician is to say you believe something that you don't believe, right? I mean, we as Democrats broadly believe in, you know, equal rights for everybody, no matter what your sexual orientation or gender identity is. Um, we believe in a woman's right to choose. Like, we shouldn't say that we don't believe in those things just to win votes. That'll actually cost us. Um, what we should do is be less judgmental about people who don't believe those things and ask them to be part of our
party. Nominate them for office. Um, so long as they agree that concentrated power is the biggest problem, and there are lots of people on the right who believe that. And so long as they believe our democracy needs to be unrigged, and there are lots of people on the right who believe that. So, my argument is that we shouldn't moderate our views because that would be inauthentic. We should just, um, choose to believe that, um, everybody who is not yet where we are on trans gender rights is a racist or is a bigot. The second thing to say is that the broader critique when you sort of do, uh, qualitative analysis of what people think about Democrats is that they just think we're weak. And part of what they like about Trump is that he's strong. They perceive him
to be strong. M- My 17-year-old, who's pretty plugged into politics and is, you know, not a fan of Donald Trump, that's like the only thing he knows about Trump. He's like, "Well, Trump does stuff, right? He does stuff." And I think that maybe more than the nuances of how we approach the social and cultural issues is really important. We've got to show that we're willing to act, that we're willing to act in big ways, that we won't let the bureaucracy stand in our way. If it gets in our way, um that was a lot of Trump's attraction. And again, this is back to this question of people feeling powerless, people feeling like they have no agency, people feeling like their government is powerless to help them. And so, you're
going to only win if you are speaking a language of power, at least that if you get power, you will use it in government. That speaks to the way that people are feeling like nobody is able to move the levers that impact the quality of their life. But even that perception speaks to like the disconnect between perception and reality. So, Trump is strong. Everybody says that. He certainly performs strongness, right? Right. Uh the way a you know, a WWE wrestler does, but he's not a actually strong. I mean, he's actually spectacularly weak in many ways. Um he's actually embarrassed himself on the public stage in lots of ways. And there are lots of things about him that are
not strong. Um but that's not the story. That's not the perception. Um and there are plenty of Democrats who have been actually strong in a way that he isn't, but they're not perceived the same way. I don't know what that is. Well, but I mean, that's like humanity, right? Like, I mean, from the beginning of time, impressions matter. Um you know, that first impression you have of a person, um even if it is not matched by reality over the course of the first year of your life, is powerful. Like, that's how our brain works is through impression and performance. And you know, we could sit
around and like you know, worry that's a um imperfection of the human species, or we could do a better job of performance as Democrats. Again, not in service of false narratives, in service of true narratives, and not be shameful that part of politics and part of life is appearance and performance. Do you think you can really expand the tent without moderating? I mean, I feel like the implication is always that those two things have to go hand in hand. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we were once a big tent party with the majority of our members feeling passionately about protecting the environment or stricter gun laws, but people who were pro-oil and gas and people who didn't believe in
universal background checks felt comfortable inside the party, right? Like John Dingell was a long-time Democratic member from Michigan who was an A-rated NRA member. He never questioned whether or not he was a Democrat. And ultimately, he wasn't able to stop the improvement of gun laws in 1993 and 1994. So, yeah, I think history tells us that you can actually be a party that holds strong views on social issues, but create a home for people who disagree with you. And then what do you work together on? You work together on that agenda of improving the democracy and improving the economy. There was no separation between Representative John Dingell and the rest of the Democratic Party on a higher minimum wage or on campaign finance reform.
They just agreed to be okay with disagreements on other issues. Well, there's another problem here, and you're pretty honest about it in the book. And it is that the Democratic coalition includes a lot of the winners in the society we're criticizing. You know, you know, Wall Street, professional class, cultural institutions, big donors. You know this, it's in the book. Um the Dems are not have not been fully committed to breaking corporate power. Means that have to change. Yeah, I certainly think that if you adopt my recommendations, which is to you know, have a narrative that talks about power.
Um and you're much more forthright that you're going to take it from people who have lots of it and give it to people who have very little of it. Yeah, you might lose some votes amongst the wealthy and powerful, but you will more than make up for it by picking up, you know, members of Trump's coalition, probably those who are, you know, lower income voters. Um So, I think that's a trade we should be willing to make. I think it's a little hard to like get up every day as a party and say to your friends, "Hey, we're the party of poor people." And then poor people keep on voting
against you over and over again. Like, you maybe you're not the party of poor people. Maybe you should, you know, change the way that you talk. Um the things that you accentuate if you're um if you're actually not getting the votes of poor people. I think the second thing we have to do, and maybe it will chase off from some higher income voters, is really prioritize fixing the democracy. Like, people know that the rigging of the economy is downstream of the rigging of our democracy. And our party just kind of stops talking about fixing our democracy, which makes it a lot easier for the right to just make the claim that democracy can't fix any problem. So, you know, for me, like getting big money and corporate money
out of politics has to become a priority issue again. And yes, that might scare off some of the folks who make the big donations, but I do think it would pick up a sizable group of people in Trump's camp who thought that in electing him, he was going to fix the democracy. He was going to drain the swamp. And they now have at least some evidence that he did not that. I feel like the Dems talked a whole lot about fixing democracy in the last presidential election. And maybe it was more talking about Trump as a threat to democracy, which perhaps is not exactly the same thing as talking about fixing
democracy. But whatever it was, it did not seem to cut through. People did not seem to be overly interested or buying it. Yeah, no, but I think you hit it on the head. We did not talk about fixing democracy. I don't actually think we ever talked about fixing the democracy. We just talked about protecting the democracy, protecting it from Trump. And people were like, why? Why should I want to protect this version of democracy? I have no role in this democracy. Um you know, in my neighborhood in the South End of Hartford, I live in one of the poor neighborhoods, I think one of the poorest neighborhoods in the
state. Um people are I mean people are like, voting? Why would I vote? What difference would that make? Um and I like I you know, I make the argument, but I hear where they're coming from. So, yeah, when Democrats went out in 2024 and said, vote to protect this democracy, people were like, no thanks. This democracy is not serving me. Maybe I'm willing to take a chance on putting one person in charge. So, yeah, I just don't think we've ever made the argument of fix it. Well, I get that a lot down here, too. They all Yeah, what it's Coke or Pepsi, what difference does it make, right? And so the Republican party, they just seem culturally more uh friendly to me, so I'll vote for them. But ultimately, it doesn't really matter,
which is not actually true in any way, really. But that is the perception, and I don't know what to do about that. Um Yeah, but I don't think people believe that it can be fixed. Well, that's part of it, yeah. Yeah, but you won't know that until you actually put some oomph behind an argument to fix it, and we haven't done that. Well, what's what's preventing the party from having done this already? Well, I think we have our own billionaires. Um and so we have become not as addicted to the big money as Republicans, but we are partially addicted to that money.
I think some of it is because, and again this is again in the political weeds, our democracy reform message over the last 10 years migrated from get big money out of politics to voting rights. So, we sort of checked the box on improving democracy by making the our primary uh projects in the democracy reform bucket uh protecting people's right to vote, which is a super important project, especially when we're Republicans are trying to tear down the Voting Rights Act, but that's not really a broadcast message. Not everybody cares about the right to vote because most people don't feel like their right is being infringed upon. That doesn't mean you don't still work on that because we need to protect, you know, the right for black people, poor people to vote, but
it the broadcast message is get big money out of politics, and I think for whatever reason we only thought we could do one of the thing in the democracy bi- bucket, and it came voting rights. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Whenever you're taking on something new, it's easy to focus on what could go wrong. That's especially true when you're starting a business, where so much feels uncertain. But, there's another possibility worth considering. What if it works? What if your idea really connects with people and grows into something real? Shopify can help you take that chance.
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You mentioned Bernie Sanders. What happened to him and the party or between him and the party in 2016? How big a mistake was that? Because a lot of what you're saying, I mean, he Bernie was making this kind of argument and making it well, and I actually think it was cutting through. For whatever reason, um and then he just kind of got pushed aside and, you know, back to the status quo ante, and here we are. Yeah. I think it was a mistake. Um Now, I didn't endorse Bernie in, you know, either of his campaigns. I'm closer to him now than ever before because I think, you know, the last three or four years, I've come to believe that it was a bigger mistake to
set him aside. But, you know, he is a Democratic Socialist, and there is a question as to whether this country um thinks the solution to what ails our economy right now in the way that it has made them feel lonely and powerless is socialism. Here's my My worry is that the impression is there's only two choices. Um a profit-obsessed market fundamentalism on one side and socialism on the other side. Just like people think when it comes to our democracy, there's only two choices, a super broken corporate-captured democracy or Yeah. Donald Trump in charge, totalitarianism. Th- Those are not the two options. And so, you know, I certainly get eyebrows raised by my Democratic Socialist friends um or allies when I use the term
common good capitalism. But, I do believe that there is a way for capitalism to work um if you create a higher floor, a higher minimum wage, if you aggressively break up concentrated power so that, you know, your local downtowns are healthy places that you can feel like you have a sense of identity and belonging in, that you don't let technologies isolate us into um lives in which we don't communicate with others. There's a version of common good capitalism that we could run on. Um and I think that's, you know, the same thing for democracy. It's like if we can run on vast improvements to our democracy, vast improvements to our k- form of capitalism so that people don't give up on either.
I do, before we leave, want to ask you what you think is the most um important political fight Democrats need to pick up moving forward and just own it. Is tax is it AI? Is it campaign finance? Is it corruption? Wall Street? Fixing democracy, all the above. What How would you rank order those fights? Well, I think the most important political fight is the fight to un-rig our democracy. I think it's there for the taking. I think if we made getting billionaire and corporate money out of politics and we're sincere about it and lead every conversation with it, we would broaden our coalition pretty quickly.
I think the most important policy fight is over the future of AI. As I argue in this book, I really am somebody who believes that unregulated AI will be a civilization destroyer. And I primarily think that because once it robs us of our basic human functionality, friendship, and creativity, composition, problem-solving, I just don't know what's left for us, you know, to be. Not to do, but to be. And that will lead to cultural and societal disintegration. Now, I also think there's a real political opportunity there because as you can see by people's reactions to data centers and how young people think about AI today, like everybody's ready for a party to be the party that is
going to take on AI and they don't see either party as willing to do that right now. So, I would say And of course the two are connected because, you know, you've seen how much money the AI companies are spending on in these they're planning to spend in these next races. They now realize that they might be able to spend enough money in the next few campaigns to elect enough Republicans to be able to never ever be regulated. And so, I think if you're running on a platform of controlling AI, making sure that you don't we don't lose humanity, we don't lose too many jobs too quickly from AI, and controlling the power of the AI industry by limiting the impact of money and politics, that's a I think
that's a broadly winning message. So, they're they're somewhat separate, but definitely connected. Well, this does not read like a campaign book, and I mean that as a high compliment. But, is it a campaign book? Are you running in 2020? another interviewer said I'm sorry, I had to do it, Senator. No, no, no, but another interviewer said to me, uh, "You know, I know you're not running for president because you wrote this book." Because it This book does not I mean, I'm in it a couple times, but, uh, you know, this book is not about me. Now, this book is a note to, you know, to my party and to the country, and, you know, I don't know if I'm going to run. I genuinely don't. But, I have gotten, you know, multiple
texts from friends of mine who I know are running for president, um, who say, "Oh, boy, I think you've sort of captured a language, a way of thinking." Because I think everybody in this country knows that we are just less healthy spiritually, and they know that's the main problem, and that they're frustrated that the way our political conversation works is such that 95% of the conversation is about this one guy, Donald Trump, and the and the campaign that will be run against him. So, in writing this book, I'm trying to get a language for people out there to understand the deeper problem, and if it ends up and if I don't run for president, and it ends up influencing the language that some of my
friends use in their campaigns, that would be I'd be all right with me. Well, I don't know what to do about it, but I do agree with you 100% that the problem is that deep. And, you know, I Senator, I appreciate you doing this. I appreciate that you were trying to think about the big picture in a serious way. Most politicians are not doing that. That alone makes you a friend of the show. So, thank you, and thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Thanks for watching. Each week we'll be in your audio and video feeds with great interviews and a philosophy-minded look at tech, culture, politics, and much more. Episodes of The Gray Area drop on Mondays and Fridays on YouTube, Apple
Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. As always, we want to know what you thought of the episode. So, drop us a line at the gre***@***.com. And if you enjoy our reporting and want to hear more from Vox journalist, then consider becoming a member of the Vox community on Patreon at patreon.com/vox.
