Dan Pfeiffer Explains How Democrats Can Win in November

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Our next guest says the very idea of American democracy is under threat. Dan Pfeiffer was senior adviser to President Obama and now co-host of the political podcast “Pod Save America.” He discusses his new book, “Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again,” with our Michel Martin.

MICHEL MARTIN: Anybody who knows your work knows that you have a great sense of humor, if people share your sense of humor…

DAN PFEIFFER, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: That’s right.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: … and that you love to laugh, but, actually, what you’re saying in this book is no joking matter.

PFEIFFER: Right.

MARTIN: I mean, it’s actually a very dire message. You’re saying that democracy is actually at stake. Why do you say that?

PFEIFFER: Well, I take it from my experiences, not just since the 2016 election, but in the decade I worked for President Obama. And when you step back and look at what is going on, it seems very clear that we have these two discordant trends in American politics. One is, nationally, we have a growing, diverse, younger, progressive majority in this country, the people who gave Hillary Clinton three million more votes than Donald Trump. But, at the same time, all of our governing structures, the Senate, the Supreme Court, state legislatures, who can vote and what how they can vote, is — are rules set up and governed by a shrinking, aging, almost entirely white minority. And if — if we do not win this election in 2020, but also, once we win it, take on that fact, we’re going to be playing on this conservative playing field for decades to come. And I think that we’re sometimes overly sanguine about the health of our democracy: It’s always been fine, so it will always be fine. But I think it’s an unsustainable situation, if you have millions of more people picking one path for the country, and a small minority deciding what the policies are in this country. And, on huge issues like health care, and, most importantly, climate change, that — you — that is where the fabric of the country can be torn apart.

MARTIN: And you say in the book that you were actually — you were radicalized by the 2016 election.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: I mean, you’re really clear about that. But what you say is that a lot of people think that the Trump election is the result of some kind of weird constellation of fluky events…

PFEIFFER: Right.

MARTIN: … James Comey, the former FBI director, deciding to reopen an investigation that had been closed, like the Russian meddling…

PFEIFFER: Right.

MARTIN: … the Obama administration not doing enough about that meddling…

PFEIFFER: Right.

MARTIN: … Trump being a reality star. So a lot of people think that this is kind of a fluke. And what you’re saying is, actually, it isn’t.

PFEIFFER: There is — I think there is this view, as you point out, among a lot of people in politics, and even in the country, I think, because you — you want to aspire to the more hopeful thing, and it’s easier to think, this is an accident, and, because it’s an accident or aberration, we will return to normal. But if you look at the history of the Republican Party, right, racial grievance politics, what is at the core of the Trump message, the core of what I call Trumpism, has been there for a very long time. And it was accelerated with the election of our first African-American president. And then that racial grievance was weaponized. And so I think Trump is definitely the most absurd, ridiculous version of what was going to happen, but the Republican Party has been on an inexorable path towards a authoritarian, white nationalist leader. Like, that is where we have been. And I think — sometimes, I think we should almost be grateful that the one we ended up with is one who is easily distracted, is not interested in details, is incapable of pulling the levers of power as strategically as he otherwise might, because the one that really scares me, if we don’t take some of the steps I talk about in this book, is the Republican who comes next, who probably is not going to spend his entire morning in a Twitter fight with Debra Messing, right? He will actually be doing things that would lock in Republican power, even more so, for decades to come.

MARTIN: I want to go back to sort of the question of how the country got to the point that it is.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: I mean, in part, is this not a failure of the Democrats? I mean, the fact is, you identify the fact that Republicans have made it a 30-year project to dominate state legislatures…

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: … to dominate — which — which who are in charge of redistricting, to — it’s like a — it’s like a 30-year-long view of midterm elections. They have voters who are more reliable in midterm elections, who vote consistently no matter what. And what are midterms about? They’re about judges and taxes, right?

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: So, isn’t this in part a failure of the Democrats?

PFEIFFER: Oh, absolutely.

MARTIN: So…

PFEIFFER: We can talk long-term failures and specific failures, right? And I think the long-term challenge is — part of it is bad luck, too, right? It was very unfortunate that the 2010 election fell at a time of 10 percent unemployment, right after a — there was a bipartisan effort to bail out the banks, right? That was — like, that was — that — when we look back to how we got Trump, everything that has happened in the — in this tumultuous decade, you can go back to that moment. And then what happened is, they burned the bridge behind them, because they — the new governors of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, all — Florida — all cut early voting, put in voter I.D., did all these things to lock in their power. And that was very problematic. I think Democrats, we have not spent enough time — and I think this is fair to say of the people in the Obama administration, myself included — focused on the actual blocking and tackling work of politics, of building sustainable political power from the ground up.

MARTIN: Which is weird, since President Obama was a community organizer. So, you would think, if there was anybody who was well-positioned to understand the importance of organizing, the importance of bottom-up, not top-down…

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: … it would have been him. So what happened?

PFEIFFER: I think, to his credit, he built up a massive, unprecedented volunteer network. And he kept organizations going to keep them active and around. What I think — where we ran into problems, obviously…

MARTIN: He didn’t turn them into Democrats, though, right?

PFEIFFER: Yes, that is a — that is — that — that…

MARTIN: And so why is that? Because he was too cool? I mean, why? I mean, why?

PFEIFFER: No. I mean, we — like, no one campaigned harder for Hillary Clinton in 2016. No one was willing to go anywhere — was more willing to go anywhere for anyone in 2010 and 2014 than Obama. He fell on the wrong end of a massive shift in American politics, I think somewhat catalyzed by his election, right? Like, you think about the seats he was — if we take the 2014 election, right, we’re defending seats in Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas. We were holding those seats in borrowed time, right? And I think — and I write — and I have a chapter in the book about things the Democratic Party can do to change our structure in, like, how we think — how we fund things, how we think about things, in order to make it more — to give us a better chance to turn the — quote, unquote — “Obama coalition” into a Democratic coalition.

MARTIN: I understand that. So we’re going to talk about your solutions in a minute.

PFEIFFER: Yes. Yes. Yes.

MARTIN: But I still want to get to the roots of how this happened.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: And one of the grievances that down-ballot politicians had about him, including even members of Congress had about President Obama, is that he just wasn’t interested in that level of politics. And is that fair or unfair?

PFEIFFER: I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think that’s fair.

MARTIN: You think that’s fair.

PFEIFFER: I think we, like…

MARTIN: But you do admit that the DNC was very focused, the Democratic National Committee, was just very focused on presidential years?

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: And that’s not where the action is.

PFEIFFER: And that has — that has been true for 30 years.

MARTIN: So, whose fault is that?

PFEIFFER: That is a — it is a structural problem in the DNC, which is, the DNC chair is elected on the presidential cycle. And, therefore, the president — they — they’re on a four-year term, when you have someone in the White House. Their — their main job is to either win the White House if there’s a Republican the White House, or defend the White House if there’s a Democrat in the White House.

MARTIN: OK, but don’t the Republicans have the same problem? But, somehow, they still have all these statehouses, right?

(CROSSTALK)

PFEIFFER: Well, they — yes, that is the — they do have — they have a similar problem.

MARTIN: So?

PFEIFFER: But they don’t lack in resources, right? One of the things that really exacerbated the problems in the Obama administration was, the Citizens United ruling happens in early 2010, right before that election. And we were operating, not only on parity with Republicans in terms of funding. Obama had developed this grassroots network that far outstripped anything the Republicans had. And so, as soon as 2010 comes in, now we have no ability to catch up, because you now have the Chamber of Commerce being able to spend unlimited amounts of money, the Koch brothers be able to not just build infrastructure, which they were doing, and we also have lacked for a long time, but to do actual electioneering, where you were trying to elect candidates.

MARTIN: So, back in the day, you’re saying that Democrats had the advantage of people, and Republicans had the advantage of capital. And now what you’re saying is, what, that Republicans…

PFEIFFER: No.

MARTIN: It’s like capital on steroids, is that what you’re saying? It’s money on steroids. Right.

PFEIFFER: Right. What I’m saying that we — is that Republicans always had more money — had more money than Democrats, but not that much more money. And we were able to — and Obama was the first Democrat to actually make it up by being able to raise money, $5, $10, from people time and again throughout an election cycle. That — we had that for one election, 2008. A year — a year after Obama takes office, we — the campaign finance laws are fundamentally changed in the most devastating way possible. And Republican — and now you can buy an election. And Democrats, frankly, do not have enough people who are, A, willing and, B, able to invest at the level the Republicans can.

MARTIN: And catch up. So, again, you paint a very dire picture in this — in this book, if you’re a Democrat, or if you are a person who generally is interested in what sort of Democrats care about and progressive sort of issues.

(CROSSTALK)

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: So — so, let’s talk about that. Like, what’s the answer here? I mean, you make some provocative suggestions in the book.

PFEIFFER: Yes. Yes.

MARTIN: I mean, one of the things you talk about is, you say that the consultants have too much power in the party.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: I’m sure that’s not going to make some of your friends happy.

PFEIFFER: No, I know.

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: But there it is.

(CROSSTALK)

PFEIFFER: The book has only been out for a day, and I have heard from some of them.

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: OK. You say, boycott FOX. That’s interesting. How come?

PFEIFFER: Yes. Well, I think we — there has been this debate in the Democratic Party about, do we — how do we reach FOX viewers, right, and — which is really a proxy for a conversation about, how do we reach some number of Republican voters or — who may be open to being persuaded to come to our side? And I feel like the debate around how to reach — quote, unquote — “FOX viewers” is wrapped around the axle of this idea about whether we should go on FOX. And we just — I think we just have to understand — and this is from the experience of someone who was at the brunt force end of the FOX situation for six years in the White House — is, FOX is an organ of the Republican Party. That was definitely true when Obama was president. It’s even more true now that many of their hosts are actual policy advisers to the president, and now picking the people who get pardons. So, I think Democrats should not be supporting FOX. And when we go on FOX, and we — or Democrats to a town hall on FOX, like a lot of our presidential candidates did this time, we are buying into the false premise that FOX is journalism during the day and opinion at night. And if you — if you read any of the books about Roger Ailes, about what’s going on at FOX, it is very clear that the — quote, unquote — “journalism” is a way to feed the propaganda in. The first people who brought to the national forefront the false conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was educated in a madrassa was “FOX & Friends,” which is their morning show, which airs at the same time as “The Today Show,” “GMA,” CBS. And that is not Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck. That is what people turn on and they expect news. And it is pumping that stuff in. And so we should…

MARTIN: So, candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, say…

PFEIFFER: I think that was a mistake.

MARTIN: Look, just stop it?

(CROSSTALK)

PFEIFFER: I think — I understand, from their own individual campaign perspectives, why they did it, because they’re not really communicating with FOX viewers in the Democratic primary. What they’re doing is, they’re showing Democratic voters that they can go on FOX and do a good job and that — all of those candidates did. Bernie Sanders, who sort of led this trend, he crushed his FOX performance. He got the — the audience cheering for Medicare for all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: Now, of those, how many are willing to transition to what the senator says, a government-run system?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PFEIFFER: It caused, I think, Bret Baier was the host’s head to almost explode sitting there. As a Democrat, I enjoyed watching that. But, ultimately, FOX was then able to go to advertisers and say, see, we’re not white supremacist opinion shows. Bernie Sanders comes on. I think we’re helping create funding streams for what I think is a pretty dangerous set of propaganda coming from that network.

MARTIN: You say, reform the courts, which, of course, critics call packing the court.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: Why?

PFEIFFER: Because I — like, I think there are two elements of this. First, I think that, if Democrats have power in the Senate and in the White House and the House, we should add two Supreme Court justices, because, right now, Mitch McConnell has already packed the courts. The voters gave that Supreme Court appointment to Barack Obama. He held it. And it didn’t matter that it was the year of the election. If it had been two years before the election, he would have done the same thing. If a Democrat is elected in 2020, and a Supreme Court justice decides to retire on the way home from the inauguration, and Republicans control the Senate, Mitch McConnell will hold that seat for four years. And we treat it as if it’s this revolutionary thing. You’re going to change the number of Supreme Court justices. It has happened six or so times in American history. We did it once several times in like a 20-year period. We even once changed the number of Supreme Court justices because Andrew Johnson, who was president, had been impeached, and they — and the Congress did not think that this impeached president, who should have been removed, but wasn’t, should be able to add justices before he leaves. And so we have done it response to a political crisis, which is exactly what we’re living in right now. And if we do everything else in my book, we change the voting laws, we fix the DNC, we fix the Democratic Party, we’re winning elections, we get rid of the filibuster, we have power in the Senate, we do all of those things, but we don’t address the court, there is going to be this conservative veto on progressive policies that lives decades past Donald Trump. That’s — the statistic that keeps me up at night is that Brett Kavanaugh, put on the court by Donald Trump last year, who is the one who really tipped the balance in the strongest way, particularly on issues of reproductive rights, Brett Kavanaugh, when he is the same age that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is today, my daughter will be 32. She turns 2 in May. So, just think about that. We have this president who got three million fewer votes, was impeached, tried to interfere in the ’20 election, and he is going to have this stamp on our policy that will last three decades after he is gone.

MARTIN: One of your other provocative proposals, which has actually gotten a lot more attention during this campaign, is abolish the Electoral College.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: I don’t think we need to sort of get into the weeds of that. But you can already see that ads are already being run about this on the other side.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: So, the question really comes is, you have laid down a long list of ways in which you say that these are structural advantages designed — that have been enhanced in recent years…

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: … in order to advantage one political party over the other, and it also has the additional factor of advantaging, frankly, white people over people of color, who are kind of growing as a — in number here.

PFEIFFER: Absolutely.

MARTIN: How do you make these arguments without kind of a, I don’t know, what’s the right word, of like pressing on the sore that has already stimulated a lot of this feeling to begin with, I mean, this sense of racial grievance, as you put it, the sense of white people are being disappeared? I mean, it seems that, in most of these proposals that you make, those are exactly the kinds of things that stimulate that kind of, like, oh, we’re being…

PFEIFFER: I think we’re…

MARTIN: … voted off the island, you know?

PFEIFFER: I think Democrats are often too reticent generally about things that could be perceived by anyone as increasing our political power, right? We all agree D.C. should be a state. That is the most — it is the moral thing to do. It makes zero sense that it is not a state. Yet we — we have not tried to do it. And that’s because we — we’re afraid we’re going to get criticized for it. I think the reason I lay these things out, I want Democrats to adopt them. And part of it is, we should not reverse-engineer our positions from what we think could offend a hypothetical white Trump voter in Wisconsin. Like, that — when we do that, we are playing not to lose. We have to go out and make the full-throated argument to every voter, and, no, actually not — that’s the — I said it the wrong way. Not every voter, every American, because you could change the politics of all these issues if you got the 40 percent of Americans who don’t vote to vote. And so — and the way in which we do that is by raising the stakes and trying to invite them into our political process, and be the ones who are advocating changing our political process to bring them into it. And we — and you have to explain why — why Republicans don’t want them to vote. What — like, what policies do they want to keep in place, what power do they want to hold onto themselves, and what changes you would make if you had that power. And so I think we have to make a full-throated argument. Some of these — some of the ideas in here can be done in two seconds in the United States — if we have power, if we just have 50 votes in the Senate and the White House. Some of them are going to take a long time. But the reason I want people to make the arguments for them now is, we want to — I really think Democrats need to be the democracy party. We need to be the ones who are fighting for the majority of Americans against this minority that is funded by billionaires and Wall Street, who are holding political power for themselves. And we have to take that on aggressively. And, if we do that, I think that is both the right thing to do and a winning political argument.

MARTIN: So, let’s talk about 2020.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: Because, as I said, on the one hand, this book has a very dire message. I mean, you say that, really, democratic norms, in your view, are at stake here yet.

PFEIFFER: Yes.

MARTIN: On the other hand, recent successes, from a Democratic perspective, in 2018. How do you see 2020?

PFEIFFER: I think we should go into it fully aware that Trump has a lot of advantages he did not have in 2016.

MARTIN: Incumbency.

PFEIFFER: Incumbency. Incumbents usually win. He — he won without the backing of the Republican money machine last time. He’s going to have every dollar he needs and more.

MARTIN: He still does. He has already, right?

PFEIFFER: Yes. Right. And it’s not just him. The Koch brothers and all these other groups are going to spend money to protect the Republican agenda. And he has a structural Electoral College advantage. Having said all of those things, this is an incredibly winnable election. It is going to come down to a couple hundred thousand votes in three or four states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, maybe Arizona. And Democrats have to win three of those four. And, if they do, they win. So it is there for the taking. We have to unite as a party. Our candidate — our nominee has to run a very smart campaign that communicates a strong message. And we have to work our tails off. We do those things, we can win this race. And I am worried that — it’s been a rough couple weeks for Democrats. Our primary feels messy. We couldn’t count votes in Iowa. Trump gets acquitted. And it just feels dark. And you can actually see in the polls where fewer and fewer Democrats think we’re going to win. And we should know it’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be close, but we have to know that we absolutely can win. And if people don’t think that we can win, they may not do the work now to ensure we can.

MARTIN: Dan Pfeiffer, thanks so much for talking with us.

PFEIFFER: This was — this was such an interesting conversation.

MARTIN: Thank you.