Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. Ever since the twenty sixteen elections, I've
Speaker 1: been kind of obsessed with the following thought. We tend
Speaker 1: to think that Donald Trump got elected because his base
Speaker 1: of in our imagination, angry middle class or lower middle class,
Speaker 1: dispossessed white voters turned out in big numbers for him.
Speaker 1: But that's only part of the story, because it's also
Speaker 1: true that if you look at people who voted for
Speaker 1: Barack Obama but stayed home instead of showing up to
Speaker 1: vote for Hillary Clinton, fifty one percent of those voters
Speaker 1: were people of color. That's a significant number, and it
Speaker 1: means that we could also frame things a little differently.
Speaker 1: Instead of blaming the Trump voters for getting Trump elected,
Speaker 1: we could simply say, why didn't Hillary Clinton manage to
Speaker 1: appeal to voters of color in the same way that
Speaker 1: Barack Obama did. Now that's a hypothesis and an obsession,
Speaker 1: it's not a full blown theory, and I'm incredibly grateful
Speaker 1: that we have today to discuss this topic with US
Speaker 1: doctor Andre Perry. Andrea is the David M. Rubinstein Fellow
Speaker 1: at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the famous Brookings Institution
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. He works on race, structural inequality, education,
Speaker 1: economic inclusion, and recently wrote a fantastic and significant article
Speaker 1: called Black Women Are Looking forward to the twenty twenty elections. Andrea,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. One of the really profound points I think
Speaker 1: that you make in your research paper about black women
Speaker 1: is that it's not just that black women vote for
Speaker 1: black women or for other black candidates. It's that there's
Speaker 1: an overlap in policy interests between black women running for office,
Speaker 1: some black voters, as well as lots of other progressive
Speaker 1: voters representing different racial backgrounds, different economic backgrounds. I think
Speaker 1: that's a hugely important point that we tend to forget.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you in light of that point,
Speaker 1: was there a lack of policy for Hillary Clinton? Did
Speaker 1: she not have policies that were sufficiently progressive to match
Speaker 1: African American voters or was it really about personalities which
Speaker 1: was doing the heavy lifting? Or is it both? Somehow
Speaker 1: it's both. Certainly when you look at the candidates who
Speaker 1: are getting elected there and you hear this phrase all
Speaker 1: the time. They're unapologetically black, they will put forth items
Speaker 1: that really fill out a black agenda for community improvement.
Speaker 1: So if you're not explicitly talking about improving or reducing
Speaker 1: the wage gap between black women and white men, or
Speaker 1: black women and and white women, then you're really not
Speaker 1: speaking to the issues. So the court there is racial inequality,
Speaker 1: as you argue in your interpees. Yet racial and equality
Speaker 1: is probably the number one and number two things. And
Speaker 1: there are also issues that white Democrats simply do not raise.
Speaker 1: And so the issue of voting rights are is something
Speaker 1: that black elected officials bring up, but white Democrats or
Speaker 1: Republicans just it doesn't rank is one of the issues
Speaker 1: that they're going to campaign on. And so if you're not,
Speaker 1: why don't Democrats wake up, smell the coffee and realize
Speaker 1: that voting rights is a pretty excellent crucial issue for them,
Speaker 1: especially if they need the votes of black people. Well,
Speaker 1: the privilege of not really understanding that people are actively
Speaker 1: taking your vote away, I mean, I hear all the time, Well,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with getting IDs or having people having
Speaker 1: people bring their IDs to the polls. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with that. That's that's an easy fix and and to
Speaker 1: a certain degree, black folk always catch up to the
Speaker 1: next new rule, but it but to ignore the active
Speaker 1: pursuit to suppress black vote is a privilege that black
Speaker 1: folks just we don't have. And over time, white politicians,
Speaker 1: regardless of party, just ignore that issue. So those are
Speaker 1: the policy issues, and we can talk more about why
Speaker 1: it is that, even if it's purely on the basis
Speaker 1: of self interest, white politicians don't get beyond the fact
Speaker 1: that they don't instinctively think about these things and raise
Speaker 1: them anyway. But that's the policy side. What about the
Speaker 1: politics side? What about the personalities? Do you Is it
Speaker 1: your view that it would have made a difference had
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton had a person of color on the ticket
Speaker 1: with her. Oh yeah, And I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of memes um enduring the election
Speaker 1: cycle that she would sort of masquerade as being black
Speaker 1: here and there, and it was there was just a
Speaker 1: lack of authenticity of connecting the black voters. And that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean the choosing Tim Caine for instances, you know, um,
Speaker 1: someone who can speak Spanish, um, and you know, the
Speaker 1: in the black and brown communities, we were saying, well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you just pick someone of Latin descent and
Speaker 1: sal ultimate white guy at diversification, I can speak another language, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So using race as a prop is something that she
Speaker 1: was charged doing, um throughout her career and resided absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, at some point, you don't do what's politically expedient.
Speaker 1: You got to show what you're about. And um, and
Speaker 1: I you know, and I also believe that the Clinton's
Speaker 1: in general. Remember Bill Clinton was seen described as the
Speaker 1: first black president at some point, but he and he
Speaker 1: clearly wasn't, not in terms of his policies, not in
Speaker 1: terms of just his being um. But they they managed
Speaker 1: to use symbols to show their they're allegis to black
Speaker 1: But that's just not enough. It's interesting when you think
Speaker 1: back to it's a long time ago. No, but when
Speaker 1: people actually said that, what do you think they actually meant?
Speaker 1: I mean, it was that he showed affection for a
Speaker 1: black community and um, it wasn't it that he'd also
Speaker 1: overcome adversity in his own upbringing. Yeah, that that he
Speaker 1: was he was a poor folk. He actually had strong
Speaker 1: ties to to black communities growing up. Um. But that's
Speaker 1: just not enough. There's not enough political policy meet there.
Speaker 1: Um what he remember, more people, um went to prison
Speaker 1: under his watch, More Black people went to prison under
Speaker 1: his watch. A little fair about that, though. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: I'm impressed by James Foreman Junior's recent prize winning book
Speaker 1: where he says, I'm going to oversimplified here, but that
Speaker 1: a significant part of African American leadership at the national
Speaker 1: level actually supported some of the crime reform stuff that
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton signed that led to many many young African
Speaker 1: American men being incarcerated. You know, black folk are we've
Speaker 1: internalized this narrative that we are broken. I often say,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with black people that ending racism can't solve.
Speaker 1: That we are We're constantly blaming ourselves for the problem.
Speaker 1: In terms of voting, we say, well, we don't vote,
Speaker 1: even though our voting record has been at all time
Speaker 1: high than in at least in the last eight to
Speaker 1: ten years. Um. But we also internalize this notion that
Speaker 1: if we can only do better amongst ourselves, then um,
Speaker 1: we we will get our just desserts. And UM, we
Speaker 1: don't necessarily deserve these policies until we get our house
Speaker 1: in order. And that's just not And that's no different
Speaker 1: than when I hear politicians telling kids to pull their
Speaker 1: pants up and and as if that's going to get
Speaker 1: them into to Harvard. You know that the bill cosby
Speaker 1: rhetoric that absolutely so. Um. Yes, there are lots of
Speaker 1: black folk who supported the crime bill and a lot
Speaker 1: of other policies that Democrats um endorse essentially to buy
Speaker 1: favor with white um sort of right leaning Republicans. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we compromise our policy
Speaker 1: principles in the process and just that's just not a
Speaker 1: way to go. Andrew, you mentioned impediments to voting, and
Speaker 1: you know, as we work our way to talking about
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, I think this is a hugely significant issue
Speaker 1: and I want to get your thoughts about it. One
Speaker 1: statistic that strikes me as very important is that if
Speaker 1: you control for socioeconomic status, primarily poverty, African Americans actually
Speaker 1: vote at a slightly higher rate than their white counterparts.
Speaker 1: That said, like other poor people, African Americans who are
Speaker 1: poorer don't have fantastic turnout records. What do you see
Speaker 1: as the primary impediments. I mean, you've mentioned voter id laws,
Speaker 1: but those are relatively new innovation. What do you see
Speaker 1: as the genuine impediments to getting out the vote. Wow. One,
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system has really suppressed blackmail votes. And
Speaker 1: when you look at states, the gender differences in actual
Speaker 1: numbers in the actual different districts is enormous. So you
Speaker 1: can have in terms of actually lgible voters differences of
Speaker 1: eleven twelve UM in some cases fifteen percent UM. Birmingham,
Speaker 1: for instance, there's a close to eleven point difference between
Speaker 1: eligible black male and black female. So and and that's
Speaker 1: large fell in disenfranchisement or people still presently in cars
Speaker 1: rader both that both, but it's even more than it
Speaker 1: just creates a layer of suppression um that you know,
Speaker 1: voter id laws and um um, changing the days of
Speaker 1: or um or having early voting or not having earling voting.
Speaker 1: Those things matter. But there are some substantive issues around
Speaker 1: criminal justice, around racial violence and policing. Remember, there are
Speaker 1: there's still intimidation tactics that occur all throughout the country.
Speaker 1: There were attempts to suppress the youth vote UM this
Speaker 1: past election cycle, and so folks are intimidate and there's
Speaker 1: some parallels there with our brown counterparts, so our Latin
Speaker 1: X Latino population. The talk about immigration overall will have
Speaker 1: a suppression effect on voters. There's a reason why many
Speaker 1: of our brown counterparts are not voting. It's not because
Speaker 1: they don't want to, or they're too lazy, or they're disinterested.
Speaker 1: But suppression is real, and intimidation tactics are some of
Speaker 1: the primary impediments for folks getting out to vote. So
Speaker 1: one thing that I hear an older generation of white
Speaker 1: liberals saying a lot around the suppression question is there's
Speaker 1: no question that there's suppression. But look how brutal the
Speaker 1: suppression was under the era of segregation, and yet civil
Speaker 1: rights marchers bravely marched and fought and in some cases
Speaker 1: even died for the right to vote. And then that
Speaker 1: older generation of liberals who lived through that, especially white
Speaker 1: liberals who live through there, but sometimes African American liberals
Speaker 1: as well, say, well, that was suppression, and their proper
Speaker 1: response to suppression is activism rather than allowing oneself to
Speaker 1: be intimidated. You know, I often find myself in these
Speaker 1: intergenerational conversations, and I may imagine, maybe you do too.
Speaker 1: What do you say when the older generation makes that argument,
Speaker 1: I think that they're not really not. They don't have
Speaker 1: a pulse of the energy that youth vote, particularly younger
Speaker 1: people are bringing to elections. After Parkland, for instance, the
Speaker 1: youth spoke not only with their votes, but they hit
Speaker 1: the streets marching and many of them are were too
Speaker 1: young to vote. But youth are always latching onto movements
Speaker 1: and trying to teach the rest of us where to go.
Speaker 1: The Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, really spoke to
Speaker 1: what youth want. UM are elected officials to address. But
Speaker 1: the problem is, and this goes back to our earlier conversation,
Speaker 1: is that many elected officials simply don't put up policy
Speaker 1: proposals that match the energy of young people now. UM.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, there was much more alignment between
Speaker 1: the civil rights leaders of that time and their deployment
Speaker 1: of youth to address these issues, and by and large,
Speaker 1: young and older voters UM definitely aligned on what they
Speaker 1: wanted in terms of an agenda for for Black America.
Speaker 1: There's misalignment today. UM. The middle class, the sort of
Speaker 1: the bougie class, bougie Black folk have very different needs
Speaker 1: than low income Black Americans. There's a lot of divergence
Speaker 1: in terms of interest and so until what's an example,
Speaker 1: just to conquertise. Oh, I mean criminal justice reform. I
Speaker 1: mean you still hear older Americans blame black youth for
Speaker 1: crime industry. I mean, how often after a police killing
Speaker 1: of a young man you will hear older or older
Speaker 1: or elders say, well, what did that boy do to
Speaker 1: get shot? I mean there's still this um, this disbelief
Speaker 1: that black boys are that we have to be perfect
Speaker 1: in order to get justice. And but for a whole
Speaker 1: slew of younger voters, they they want quality policing, no
Speaker 1: questions asked, and until our politicians recognize that. And that's
Speaker 1: why I think this new wave of elected officials, what
Speaker 1: they bring, they're actually um listening to low income voters
Speaker 1: and responding um and and they're getting a response. And
Speaker 1: that's in terms of votes. So let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: that new way that you wrote about. So interestingly, so
Speaker 1: four more African American women represented in Congress than before
Speaker 1: the twenty eighteen elections, that's a very marked and measurable improvement.
Speaker 1: The candidates who ran for office successfully who were, as
Speaker 1: you put it, unapologetically black, did they do what you
Speaker 1: your playbook says. Did they emphasize the racial inequality in
Speaker 1: the wage gap and voting rights. Is that were those
Speaker 1: the issues that they made front and center in their races. Oh? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone from Lauren Underwood to going into some
Speaker 1: of the city races of the path like London Breed.
Speaker 1: And then you have you know, johnnah Hayes and Georgia
Speaker 1: dealing with criminal jos they you know, and these are
Speaker 1: women that in many cases are not in majority black districts.
Speaker 1: Typically the blueprint to get elected is to run in
Speaker 1: a majority black place and you had numbers on your side.
Speaker 1: You mobilize the churches, you mobilize your social organizations, you
Speaker 1: get elected. Now what you're seeing in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases are women able to use their social networks that
Speaker 1: I mean their sorority affiliations, their their church membership and
Speaker 1: run on actual issues healthcare, education, um criminal justice, and
Speaker 1: young people in particular respond more to issues rather than race.
Speaker 1: And so if you can strike a chord on an issue,
Speaker 1: you can actually get a great cross section of the population.
Speaker 1: And that's what's happening across the country. That's why, um
Speaker 1: the you see the most diverse Congress in our history,
Speaker 1: because they're actually speaking to issues and authentically addressing the
Speaker 1: needs of people of color. That's tremendously optimistic. Fact, it's
Speaker 1: one of the more optimistic things I've heard on the topic.
Speaker 1: They're always downsides in life. So without you know, without
Speaker 1: being a bummer, what are the downsides? What are the
Speaker 1: risks that an African American candidate runs when she really
Speaker 1: needs the median white voter and she's leading with issues
Speaker 1: like racial inequality and voting rates, which, as you point out,
Speaker 1: aren't very salient for most whites. Well, but this is
Speaker 1: where I get frustrated when you hear the rhetoric of
Speaker 1: the Democrats are not ready for these big ideas. But
Speaker 1: in fact, when you're talking about healthcare, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about a crime bill that was just passed, and recently
Speaker 1: people have now an appetite for free college and universal
Speaker 1: early child childhood education. Big ideas are mattering now. And
Speaker 1: this goes across party and Alabama. Alabama has won of
Speaker 1: the most robust preschool programs in the country. UM. And
Speaker 1: so these issues, these big ideas, UM people are are
Speaker 1: hearing them. And and it's okay to put forth issues
Speaker 1: around race and justice because if one if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're going to negate um black people from your base
Speaker 1: and if you're a Democrat, there's no way you can
Speaker 1: really win without um, black folk coming out, not just
Speaker 1: in terms of numbers just and then just in terms
Speaker 1: of mobilizing people in various states. UM. But if you're smart, um,
Speaker 1: you can show that you can have a big idea
Speaker 1: that that shows that we're all in this together. For instance,
Speaker 1: the voting right stuff is it's this key to a
Speaker 1: to a democracy. If you do not have a right
Speaker 1: to vote, UM, then you're really not a person in
Speaker 1: a democratic society you don't have UM, you're not a
Speaker 1: member if you don't have a vote. So that's something
Speaker 1: that I think Democrats should embase. But you rarely hear
Speaker 1: things like universal voting. So look at looking forward to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. I mean, somebody is listening. Because if you
Speaker 1: look at HR one, the you know, the bill that
Speaker 1: the first bill adopted by introduced and then will eventually
Speaker 1: be adopted by the Democratic House of Representatives. Not that
Speaker 1: that's going to get signed by Donald Trump or necessarily
Speaker 1: passed the Senate, but nevertheless an important symbolic document. It
Speaker 1: actually does make voting rights pretty significant. It even goes
Speaker 1: so far as to recommend that voting voting day be
Speaker 1: made of federal holiday so that you can show up
Speaker 1: and vote. So that does reflect somebody in the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party is hearing your message and that and that would
Speaker 1: not have come up if black women would not have
Speaker 1: brought it up. And chiefly Stacy Abrams of Georgia, who
Speaker 1: did not win the governorship there Um, she has taken
Speaker 1: that on um, that's her mantle and Democrats need to
Speaker 1: get on board and not just to use her as
Speaker 1: a prop, because this is the danger that Andrew Gillum
Speaker 1: and Stacy Abrams that they're near, they're near close wins
Speaker 1: will turn into sort of a prop for the party
Speaker 1: that they are talented as maybe a vice presidential candidate,
Speaker 1: or they're they're shuffled around the country to say, look
Speaker 1: who we have on our side. No, you need to
Speaker 1: develop a platform. They need to be a part of
Speaker 1: your platform. Moving into twenty twenty, what do you think
Speaker 1: about this phenomenon of people who narrowly miss and then
Speaker 1: become heroes of the party. I mean, Stacy Abrams is
Speaker 1: one example, but Better A. Rourke is another. You know
Speaker 1: he also his biggest accomplishment thus far is losing by
Speaker 1: not that much to Ted Cruz, but he did lose.
Speaker 1: Do you have an instinct about what that means for
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party? And I'm a little bit skeptical because
Speaker 1: I was fearful that a loss would um translate to
Speaker 1: a lack of investment in the next Stacey Abrams or
Speaker 1: in Stacey Abrams in the future. But UM, you know
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be that cynical. UM. But UM, history has
Speaker 1: shown me if if you don't win in your black
Speaker 1: people tend to forget you very quick. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be happening. At least that's that creates the
Speaker 1: counter risk that she'll be used as a kind of
Speaker 1: token or a tool. I see. I look at it
Speaker 1: a little bit different than the Doug Jones race in
Speaker 1: Alabama for the special election for the Senate was really telling.
Speaker 1: There wasn't an investment from the DNC until late in
Speaker 1: the game into the grass roots networks that primarily UM
Speaker 1: were in the majority black cities of Birmingham, Montgomery, Immobile
Speaker 1: and UM. It wasn't until they really poured money in
Speaker 1: those places did you see, UM the kind of UM
Speaker 1: voting turn out that that was needed. But in retrospect,
Speaker 1: that could have been a black woman running for Senate
Speaker 1: And will they take the risk in these places like Louisiana,
Speaker 1: like Georgia, like Alabama, where there's a significant percentage of
Speaker 1: black voters, one who can cross over And that's what
Speaker 1: Stacey Abrams has showed. You can cross over and in
Speaker 1: a conservative place. Andrew Gillam, I mean, Florida is a
Speaker 1: conservative places. It's a mixed bag, it's very diverse, but
Speaker 1: you can run unapologetically black. And actually when so the
Speaker 1: challenge for the DNC is will they support a Gillam?
Speaker 1: Will they support a Stacey Abrams a second go round?
Speaker 1: Because I do think you don't want to waste the
Speaker 1: infrastructure that they've built over time and not provide that
Speaker 1: kind of investment again. But as you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you have somebody like Joe Biden, it's almost I
Speaker 1: mean in a way, you're going backwards to the safe
Speaker 1: bet and I don't want Well, it's not clear that
Speaker 1: it's so safe. I mean, I think that's exactly what
Speaker 1: we're trying about. Is it safe? You know? And that
Speaker 1: arry Hillary Clinton was safe and she was, you know,
Speaker 1: running against a candidate who had higher negatives than any
Speaker 1: candidate in anybody's memory. And it wasn't safe. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: But it's in our political dna that somehow a white
Speaker 1: man is going to galvanize black voters won and the
Speaker 1: rest of us because there's this inherent leadership in white men.
Speaker 1: But I mean, that's that's the sort of naive charisma theory.
Speaker 1: But there's also the kind of the cynical political science theory,
Speaker 1: which is that to win the presidency you need swing voters.
Speaker 1: That means you need people who are acceptable on both
Speaker 1: sides of the aisle, and maybe that people imagine that's
Speaker 1: a white man, and then you know, at the margins, right,
Speaker 1: maybe the vice presidential candidate. Then you can think about
Speaker 1: adding some component of diversity. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: the old that really is the old way of thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I and I this thing that's going to be
Speaker 1: more difficult um moving forward as demographic shifts were becoming
Speaker 1: a much more diverse country, and again you have people
Speaker 1: of color who can win in places where they are
Speaker 1: they are truly the minority. You don't need to be
Speaker 1: a member of the majority class to win anymore. So,
Speaker 1: and so that people now see more options and so
Speaker 1: but if you don't present more options. You're you're just
Speaker 1: throttling the enthusiasm for change that sparked a Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: that sparked a Stacey Abram. People want something new, Andrew,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put it to you bluntly. Can a Democrat
Speaker 1: regain the White House in twenty twenty without a person
Speaker 1: of color on the tip? No? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think we've seen over the at least with the
Speaker 1: Hillary example, that fail miserably that at some point you
Speaker 1: need to honor the people of your party. And the
Speaker 1: Democrats are the diverse party, and so if if they
Speaker 1: really want to honor the folks voting for them, they
Speaker 1: must have a person of color. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: go out there on a limus and to say you
Speaker 1: better have a black woman just because the grassroots organizing
Speaker 1: in cities, particularly in the South, the Midwest, the East
Speaker 1: Coast black women that that's the infrastructure. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can talk a little bit more about unions and other
Speaker 1: things that make up that infrastructure, but black women get
Speaker 1: out black votes and white voters. And so if you
Speaker 1: do not, and this day and age, when when black
Speaker 1: women are rising in every category education, um, income, um, professionalism,
Speaker 1: all these different things. They're they're they're they're showing progress
Speaker 1: out um and beyond their black male peers and and
Speaker 1: even to their white male and white female peers to
Speaker 1: to a great degree that that you got to honor
Speaker 1: them at some point. And and I and I see
Speaker 1: um that in policy that you know, yes, black women
Speaker 1: still earn less than than than everyone else all the
Speaker 1: other categories. And um, so there their black women are powerful,
Speaker 1: they just lack protection in terms of policy. And at
Speaker 1: some point, you the way you get protection is to
Speaker 1: put people in office. And now they're at the highest office.
Speaker 1: Now that you're out there on the now that you're
Speaker 1: out there on the limb saying there has to be
Speaker 1: an African American women on the ticket, let me try
Speaker 1: and push you a little further out there. Right now,
Speaker 1: the most significant African American woman in the race is
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. Does she have to be the nominee for
Speaker 1: the Democrats to retake the presidency? I mean that would
Speaker 1: be the strongest possible formulation. Cuts Kamala or bust. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I see, I'm I'm I'm for a woman becoming the nominee,
Speaker 1: a black woman becoming a nominations running right now absolutely,
Speaker 1: you are saying Kamala bust. Yeah, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: I will get it out there and say, Kamala for
Speaker 1: the good of the country that we need a woman,
Speaker 1: We really need a black woman who can galvanize, um,
Speaker 1: multiple groups. Um, she has the credentials, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: she represents what we want to see in the future.
Speaker 1: We want to see someone who can truly represent America
Speaker 1: in a much different way. I mean, of the history
Speaker 1: of the presidents, I mean, only one has not been
Speaker 1: a white male, only one. I mean that extraordinary, extraordinary.
Speaker 1: So we need this as a country. We need to
Speaker 1: see some one that represents a group that has been
Speaker 1: striving over time. And remember and remember she's Howard graduate. Um,
Speaker 1: she's a member of sorority. She she is tied. Intimately,
Speaker 1: you cannot say she's not black. I mean she's a mixheritant.
Speaker 1: So now that you brush that up, But now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you. Now, I'm going to ask you about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, so I've heard this occasionally from younger, more
Speaker 1: left people who say, look, you know Barack Obama was
Speaker 1: one thing. You know, his father was Kenyan. He wasn't
Speaker 1: an African American in the ordinary sense of the term.
Speaker 1: He wasn't, as they put it, a descendant of slaves.
Speaker 1: And I've heard some people say young black people saying, look,
Speaker 1: we need to define an African American to mean a
Speaker 1: descendant of slaves. And that may not be true of Kamalaharas,
Speaker 1: although there may be some maybe that she's descentive slaves
Speaker 1: from Jamaica, but not slaves in the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I just don't believe you don't buy when I
Speaker 1: don't buy. You know, these arguments of can you are
Speaker 1: you black enough to represent? They they really don't go anywhere,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, if you have
Speaker 1: brown skin, you experience a lot of the same things,
Speaker 1: regardless if you are an involuntary immigrant or if you're
Speaker 1: a voluntary immigrant that you're economic socio economically, you can
Speaker 1: look similar, not maybe exactly the same, but you definitely
Speaker 1: share experiences with someone who of a descendant of the enslave.
Speaker 1: So social identification with African Americans, which she's been doing
Speaker 1: as far as we can tell her whole life, should
Speaker 1: be more than enough then, And your view is that
Speaker 1: the African American community across the board will say that's
Speaker 1: more than black enough for us. Absolutely. My my only
Speaker 1: fear of Kamala is that it is the same that
Speaker 1: um that black black community um indicted Hillary with and
Speaker 1: um Kamala with a prosecutor, a very tough prosecutor, a
Speaker 1: very tough prose. Lots of people absolutely, So I think
Speaker 1: that's the greatest fear. But I also think that white
Speaker 1: more conservative folks will like that about Kamala, that she
Speaker 1: can be quote unquote tough on crime, because that still
Speaker 1: resonates with a lot of white folks that this idea
Speaker 1: that you can punish black people really um um. White
Speaker 1: people love that quality, that's the ability to punish black people.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, but you know, you see these prosecutors
Speaker 1: um who in terms of if you're black and you're prosecutor,
Speaker 1: it's a trade off that I think many black folks
Speaker 1: can deal with because and this goes back to what
Speaker 1: we said earlier, I still think that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of black people who've internalized that we are at fault
Speaker 1: for violence in communities, for poverty, and so it's not
Speaker 1: We're not this monolithic group that says she might get
Speaker 1: some African American votes precisely on those same grounds. You're
Speaker 1: saying that is exactly. Let's talk about then her road,
Speaker 1: and here I want to ask about the primary system
Speaker 1: and whether it's whether it's fundamentally broken. I mean, here,
Speaker 1: you you're making a very strong argument that we need
Speaker 1: an African American woman at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 1: And she's got to go through New Hampshire and Iowa
Speaker 1: before any place else, not places with any substantial African
Speaker 1: American population. Neither is a place even with a very
Speaker 1: substantial urban population of any kind, black or white. So
Speaker 1: what's up with that? Yeah, it's going to be tough
Speaker 1: in the primary. She can make it to the general
Speaker 1: um she I think she's going to be fine, But
Speaker 1: being a prosecutor, I think it's actually going to hurt
Speaker 1: her in the primary. I face the primary tend to
Speaker 1: lean left, that exactly, And I actually think that she's
Speaker 1: part of an establishment. Although she's not been around at
Speaker 1: least she hasn't been in the public eye an incredibly
Speaker 1: long period of time when compared to a mayor Pete
Speaker 1: for instance, He's going to come off as novel. And
Speaker 1: you know, between Obama and Trump, there's some what of
Speaker 1: a trend of finding something's finding a celebrity type. I
Speaker 1: knew something new. You're talking about Pete Pete Buddha Jedge,
Speaker 1: the mayor of South Bend, openly gay speak, seven languages,
Speaker 1: family from Malta of all places, unusual person. Yeah, you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't find folks from Malta running for president every day,
Speaker 1: and and so, I you know, I think that's she's
Speaker 1: going to be up against that. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I think she is going to resonate
Speaker 1: with a lot of folks because of many of the
Speaker 1: hearings where she stood out and defending women's rights or
Speaker 1: another issue. She's incredibly intense in the hearing room that
Speaker 1: there's no question about it. And if she's if she
Speaker 1: cleverly uses clips from that, maybe she can draw attention
Speaker 1: to it. But I wonder if I can just push
Speaker 1: you a little bit. I mean, in a world where
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party needs people of color on the ticket,
Speaker 1: is there something implicitly or explicitly racist about Iowa New
Speaker 1: Hampshire being the early tests? Oh? Absolutely, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I you know, we've always had to sort of perform
Speaker 1: for white people in those places, and they're going to
Speaker 1: have to perform. I mean, I I think that I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the party needs it's early primaries to be
Speaker 1: someplace that looks more like the demographics that the party
Speaker 1: is looking for. I mean, do you do you see
Speaker 1: that as something that's changeable over time? You know, I
Speaker 1: haven't thought much about it, but I do I have
Speaker 1: thought about you know why Iowa I always I mean,
Speaker 1: it really cuts down the number of folks who consider running.
Speaker 1: If you have to go through these very white states
Speaker 1: early on, a lot of people just will not get
Speaker 1: in the race, really because the resources that if they
Speaker 1: get a slow start, they just don't because of their race,
Speaker 1: don't have the resources and backing of other resource candidates,
Speaker 1: and so it's a barrier, no question about it. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about my friend Corey Booker because he's the
Speaker 1: other prominent African American in the race right now. He's
Speaker 1: also been in the public eye for longer even than
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris Senator RUS because he started getting national publicity
Speaker 1: when he started running to be mayor of Newark, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: long before he won. The first time he ran and lost,
Speaker 1: there was a documentary film made about his defeat. So
Speaker 1: he you know, Corey was born to be famous, and
Speaker 1: he's been famous pretty much his entire adult life. What's
Speaker 1: your sense of why it has to be Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: has to be a woman. Why couldn't Corey similarly motivate
Speaker 1: an African American base, including African American women, towards whom
Speaker 1: he's respectful and friendly and you know, otherwise positive. Corey
Speaker 1: the viable candidate I think he is. I think he
Speaker 1: certainly will be in the top tier of folks who
Speaker 1: make it the the NOD. I do think he made
Speaker 1: a critical mistake long and in the long run, I
Speaker 1: think his siding with the kind of a reforms that
Speaker 1: have been have proven to be a liability educational reforms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: education reform, and he went all in. He strongly supported
Speaker 1: school choice. That's right, and there's a lot of private
Speaker 1: money to invest in the city schools. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And so UM in this environment, if you are a
Speaker 1: proponent that of anything that looks similar to what Betsy
Speaker 1: Divas is a proponent of, UM, there your your competitors
Speaker 1: are going to hold that against you. And and trust
Speaker 1: me when I say the teacher unions are going to
Speaker 1: are gonna nail them with that. UM. The black communities
Speaker 1: in which UM AT reform hit hard and where black
Speaker 1: teachers lost their jobs. You know, I was in New
Speaker 1: Orleans UM during Hurricane Katrina, and the seventy five hundred
Speaker 1: um UM teacher or employee school employees lost their job. Now,
Speaker 1: it's not um. It hasn't been proven that that was
Speaker 1: persful in any way or planned in a way to
Speaker 1: open up the doors for a reform to come in. However,
Speaker 1: when AT reform really solidified itself, the percentage of black
Speaker 1: women teachers went significantly down. And that happened in Newark,
Speaker 1: and that happened in DC. And so if you have
Speaker 1: that that mark against you, it is going to be
Speaker 1: hard to overcome in an environment where teachers are striking
Speaker 1: in multiple states. So I think the viable candidate, but
Speaker 1: I also think that AT Reform is a liability for
Speaker 1: him that's going to be hard to overcome. You don't
Speaker 1: think he could use that sort of the way you
Speaker 1: suggested that Kamala Harris could use your prosecutorial background as
Speaker 1: something to appeal to media and white voters. Now it's
Speaker 1: it's it's just going to be hard because I also
Speaker 1: think that Republicans have not been all that keen on choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's a policy whose moment was very
Speaker 1: strongly present in the late nineties and early two thous
Speaker 1: and is to some degree faded from being a central
Speaker 1: popular position, with the exception as you mentioned of Betsy Devas.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's exactly right. Um, fascinating. So, and I
Speaker 1: should add I think you your background is precisely in
Speaker 1: educational studies, is it not. I mean that was what
Speaker 1: your first first training and specialization was in, so you
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, So you know,
Speaker 1: in education, I learned a bunch of things about the
Speaker 1: politics of it. I've I learned that, particularly in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands, Democrats and Republicans were willing to work
Speaker 1: together around education reforms. So I saw interest convergence first hand.
Speaker 1: The problem is that Republicans were gained most from that alliance.
Speaker 1: That the governors that got elected m were the off
Speaker 1: of school choice and education reform were primarily Republicans. You
Speaker 1: haven't seen Democrats rise up um um by or sort
Speaker 1: of through this interest convergence. And that's where I think
Speaker 1: Democrats really need to hold true too. They can hold
Speaker 1: true to their principles. It's okay to say you're for
Speaker 1: a government protecting the rights of people. It's okay to
Speaker 1: say that we're for a local school board, it's okay
Speaker 1: to say that we're going to support teachers, unions and
Speaker 1: labor in general. That if you abandon those issues, that
Speaker 1: it's going to be very tough for you. Um in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, that the differentiator is going to is going
Speaker 1: to go back to are you truly a progressive Democrat?
Speaker 1: And those who can really show those bona fides early,
Speaker 1: they're going to really have a shot. That's why, you know,
Speaker 1: a person we haven't mentioned will I think we'll always
Speaker 1: have a shot, and that's Elizabeth Warren to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: Bernie Well. I mean, they're going to be able to
Speaker 1: raise money, They're going to be in the conversation because
Speaker 1: they're they're showing their progressive bona fides. I just think
Speaker 1: that that those two folks again, their time may have passed.
Speaker 1: And I mean, and you know, not just in terms
Speaker 1: of election, but just in terms of a white person running.
Speaker 1: You know. Sure, So let me let me end then
Speaker 1: our last question with it with a curveball. So you've
Speaker 1: made I think an extremely compelling argument that if the
Speaker 1: Democrats want to win, they need a person of color
Speaker 1: to be the candidate. In twenty twenty, what if, through
Speaker 1: some combination of the primary process and politics and money
Speaker 1: in the party, that doesn't happen, and the Democrats managed
Speaker 1: to run a ticket with two white people on it
Speaker 1: the same way they did last time, and they lose.
Speaker 1: Is there a moment for African Americans to say, look,
Speaker 1: the party has taken us for granted for too long.
Speaker 1: We need some alternative. We need to no longer be
Speaker 1: treated by the party as people who will inevitably support
Speaker 1: Democrats because the alternative is is Donald Trump. Is it possible,
Speaker 1: in other words, that African Americans could essentially become captive
Speaker 1: to the overlap in their interests with progressive politics. Oh? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I would not be surprised if that actually played
Speaker 1: itself out. That at some point blacks have to be
Speaker 1: respected by gaining the nomination and support of white Americans.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're so used to. But what's the alternative? Oh?
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think that it may not look
Speaker 1: like a third party, but it will show up. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like a like a tea party movement or
Speaker 1: some type of inside the Democratic Party, a fractured group
Speaker 1: of legislators who are just uncompromising in their approach to
Speaker 1: deliver certain goods because you know, without the Black Caucus,
Speaker 1: you don't get at much of the legislation. So we
Speaker 1: we can force the hand of people. And so I
Speaker 1: do believe that at some point you have to put
Speaker 1: that out there that we will no longer vote monolithically
Speaker 1: for Democrats. UM. And we're because we are used to.
Speaker 1: It is sad to say we're so used to seeing
Speaker 1: two white, two white people on a ticket and and
Speaker 1: feeling like, oh, we're gonna this is the lesser of
Speaker 1: the two evils. We have to vote for them. No,
Speaker 1: you don't, No, you don't. There's there are other party
Speaker 1: candidates who are in the running. Um, there are third
Speaker 1: party candidates. Um, you do not have to. And if
Speaker 1: we do not get a black person, and if we don't,
Speaker 1: if we don't get a black woman on that ticket,
Speaker 1: you know, I you know, I would almost encourage folks
Speaker 1: to um find an alternative. Wow. So thank you Andre
Speaker 1: for a ray of optimism, a word of stern warning.
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful to you for joining us here on
Speaker 1: deep background. Thanks for being here. You're welcome in my
Speaker 1: conversation with Andre, I wanted to know something about twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen and something about twenty twenty. What I wanted to
Speaker 1: know about twenty sixteen was did Hillary Clinton lose the
Speaker 1: election in the end because of her failure to put
Speaker 1: a person of color anywhere on the ticket and her
Speaker 1: failure to energize African American female voters. After speaking to Andrea,
Speaker 1: I think we're closer to being able to say that
Speaker 1: the answer to that is yes. And Andrea also thinks,
Speaker 1: as clearly as it's possible to think anything, that the
Speaker 1: Democrats can't afford to make that mistake again. If he's right,
Speaker 1: then twenty twenty is a year where the Democrats will
Speaker 1: have to put a person of color on the ticket.
Speaker 1: And if Andrea has his way at the top of
Speaker 1: the ticket, and if he's really pacific, he thinks we
Speaker 1: need Kamala Harris. We need an African American woman who's
Speaker 1: capable of motivating African American women to turn out in numbers,
Speaker 1: turn the election and defeat Donald Trump. We'll talk a
Speaker 1: lot about the election in the coming months. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about it, so we're blue in the face. But this
Speaker 1: conversation with Andrea makes me think maybe most of that
Speaker 1: talk isn't that useful. Maybe in the end, what we
Speaker 1: need to know is who's on the ticket, and if
Speaker 1: it's an African American woman, the Democrats will have a
Speaker 1: good chance of winning. Deep Background is brought to you
Speaker 1: by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Ganecott, with engineering
Speaker 1: by Jason Gambrell and Jason Rostkowski. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is composed by Luis Gara. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg, and Mia Lobel.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Noah R Feldman. This is Deep Background.