In this episode of The Rebuild, Matt Yglesias joins Gary Winslett and Tahra Hoops for a wide-ranging conversation on the future of abundance politics, the tensions between environmentalism and economic populism, and what a pragmatic Democratic agenda should look like post-2024. They explore how Democrats can better connect with working-class voters, the underrated value of the social safety net, and the challenge of breaking through in today’s fragmented attention economy. From big-ass truck abundance to Medicaid cuts and policy doomerism, it’s a lively and deeply insightful discussion about rebuilding a broad, pro-growth Democratic coalition.
Full Transcript
Gary Winslett: Hi Matt. Good to talk to you.
Thank you for being with us on The Rebuild.
Matt Ygelsias: Oh yeah. Good to be here.
Gary Winslett: Yeah. Well, we'll jump right in. So the last time you and I spoke in person, was at the Abundance Conference last fall. I. And about 20 minutes after we talked, you got protested by a bunch of these environmental crazies while you were talking at lunch.
And I've thought back about that a little bit because in some ways it was like a precursor to some of the abundance fights we got in the spring where here you are, like to the left of the median voter talking to a room that's probably 75% Democrats and you're getting protested from the left.
And I just wonder, and, this kinda repeated itself with Derek and Ezra in abundance in the spring, and I just wonder what you make of that dynamic.
Matt Ygelsias: I thought it was interesting on a couple of levels. one is, they were protesting me because I had written an article that was saying that Kamala Harris's position against a nationwide fracking ban was correct.
So it wasn't like that hot of a take. Kamala Harris was vice president of the United States. She was running for president at the time. But what I was doing, unlike I think a lot of left of center pundits, was defending the position, right? And not just defending it as a concession to political reality in Pennsylvania, but trying to educate people and like why I thought that was the right stance to take.
also what immediately preceded it was me, talking to Derek Thompson about his, at the time, not yet out. Abundance book and I was offering the view that I thought there was gonna need to be probably more contentiousness to win the kind of arguments that he was involved with. And I think that event that, the protesting and then some of the reaction to the book when it came out. The book, I mean if you read the text right, is not explicitly critical of any environmental groups, is not explicitly critical of any labor unions. But, I think to the credit of the group's leading the backlash, like they're not stupid.
They can read between the lines. They understand that the abundance agenda is at odds with some of their positions and some of their behavior, and they're not actually tricked by just being nice about it, like they fight. And I think, it's a real argument, right? It's not just the kind of thing where you put it out there and you're like, ah, like Democrats should be for growth.
And business and opportunity as well as a safety net, whatever. People aren't just oh, that's amazing, let's go do it. It's this is a, there's a real argument to be had, and I at least think it's worth, like, engaging directly in that.
Gary Winslett: Yeah, no, I would agree. And, the big California fight yesterday around housing is just an example of that–you've got environmental and labor organizations who, in a perfect world, I'd prefer not to fight with, but if they're gonna be fighting new housing and making it easier to build housing near transit, then that's a fight you have to have.
Matt Ygelsias: and, and the context there is that California is now like years into the housing reform process. A lot of bills have passed. But what has tended to happen is that to get zoning reforms done, they've been Strict labor requirements attached to them. And it's turned out that like very few projects actually pencil out under those terms. And so there's been an effort made to scale it back, actually, not scale it back to zero, right? But they convinced that the YIMBYs convinced the carpenters union to say, if we, lower the standard a little bit, like there will be more actual projects and so that's gonna be better for our members.
The rest of the building trades do not agree with that. Sort of analysis, they would rather have a larger slice of a smaller pie. And yeah, I mean you're seeing, it's like there's no, there's gonna be no way around this other than direct confrontation and persuading elected officials and voters in California.
voters who I think want to be pro. Labor and who I think, in a, on its face, right? Like why would the building trades oppose more construction? And like I do actually understand why they've gotten to that position. But it's weird to construct the sort of. Pro-labor position as being, we're gonna have very few construction jobs, and then the ones that we do have, we'll have this kind of super premium wage.
Rather than saying construction jobs are pretty well paying, for blue collar work, there's not just like everybody has the skills. They pay good wages if we allow for more construction. That's, good for housing supply. It's good for economic growth, but it's, good for workers.
It's, you need more plumbers, you need more electricians, et cetera.
Gary Winslett: You've drawn this line between what you call real populism and what you describe as like a degrowth environmentalism, hiding behind a lot of progressive rhetoric.
Where do you see this creeping up most today? And what would it look like for Democrats to really embrace a kind of... Unapologetically pro- growth environmental agenda.
Matt Ygelsias: It's interesting 'cause I, think you see it in the negative space, right? So when Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor in New York City, like the nature of New York City is there's no fossil fuel industry there... there's no natural resource extractive industries there. And so you get this kind of... Left populism that, I, have various disagreements with, but it doesn't ask these kind of questions, right? Because it's just not relevant to the New York City business model. You transport that, right?
And you say what does a populist agenda mean for Michigan? Are we really gonna ban electric cars and tell people that's economic populism in states where they're building the SUVs and the trucks? Are you gonna go to Texas and Colorado and New Mexico and Pennsylvania, where they have oil and gas industry?
Are you gonna go, I'm in Maine right now. The Biden administration had this knockdown drag out fight. With, lobstermen in Maine.
Gary Winslett: Fishermen. Yeah.
Matt Ygelsias: About some regulation related to whales, and Jared Golden, who's like a blue dog Democrat, represents Northern Maine... the Trumpier part, he was dead set against this.
But his colleague in, southern Maine, the Democratic governor the senator, both, both Susan Collins and Angus King, they were all against this, like every elected official in Maine was like, no, like we need to prioritize the economy of Maine over this whale preservation. And the Biden administration, was they eventually lost in Congress on this.
But they were like really, fighting for it. And we used to know that. the seventies and eighties it was... conventional wisdom that there was just a profound tension between environmental protection and certain kinds of labor populist issues. Which doesn't mean environmental protection is like never the right choice to make, right?
if we're gonna preserve two jobs, but poison millions of children like we should probably not do that. but it's a very real tension that exists and you just say, we're gonna, we're gonna slap a kind of populist rhetoric and be like, we're just like, I'm mad at, executives, at like big lobstering, but eh, like the guys on the boats and their families and the guys who sell the diesel to the, they all know, right? there's an economy here and people like want their jobs.
Gary Winslett: Yeah. No, I totally agree. This is one of the reasons why I've been a big fan of restoring the Bureau of Mines. So we can, like mine rare earth elements here.
Like those are good jobs in rural areas and do you want them coming from China? Do you want 'em coming from the Congo or do you want to like actually mine them here? That seems to me like another avenue of like resource extraction that makes a lot of sense.
Matt Ygelsias: Yeah, exactly. And this is a big, I think tension as the democratic parties become very urban.
We of course depend on natural resource extraction in urban areas, but we are very abstracted from it. And, it's something I've learned a lot from my, my father-in-law manages a ranch in Texas. He's a long time Republican, hates Donald Trump, is increasingly becoming a Democrat. But the pain points for him are around, natural resource economics.
Really, to him raising cattle and the water on those lands, but also people he knows who are in the oil and gas industry. And, just the fact that this is important to the economy. And I, think like left-wing people get it when it's closer to them, And so again, like Mamdani wound up having like strikingly libertarian opinions about halal cart operations.
Because I love to say it and like I think that's because it's like when it's people who you know... Right? Like in your community you understand that like regulatory burdens like can be quite bad. And when you're like, okay, I've never met somebody who's involved in timber... then you just like, oh, like I'm for the environment and like I am also for the environment.
And I think, halal cart should have food safety rules and, all of these things, but there's a real trade-offs. and you have to take them seriously. And especially if you want to prosper in rural areas, you have to take the, the real economic concerns that people have seriously and not just like slap rural broadband on top of what's otherwise a degrowth agenda.
Tahra Hoops: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I'm all for taking down halal inflation. That was one of my favorite taglines for this entire campaign.
Matt Ygelsias: Yeah, it was great.
Tahra Hoops: Okay, so this is the last abundancy question we'll try and give you, but I really liked what you said recently about Senator Gallego, about big ass truck abundance versus high speed rail abundance.
You contrast into two strains of the agenda. One focusing on delivering elite preferred goods, such as the high speed rail, and another focus on normal material like owning a big ass truck. So how do Democrats go from shifting and preaching almost as a technocratic elite efficiency project to selling it as what could be a populist promise for working class swing voters?
Is that possible? Should abundance just be separated as something that you govern as? Or should people really start to look at it as a political agenda?
Matt Ygelsias: I think there's sort of two things going on, right? It, and people who are interested in reform of the Democratic party which I think is your project.
Here is a project that's very important to me. There's two strands of that, right? And like one is. How do we improve the governance outcomes in the places where Democrats are winning? The places where people on the basis of cultural and moral values affiliate more with the Democratic Party.
It's easy to win elections in Maryland, in Oregon, in Washington, in California and New York, but Are we doing a good job? Are these places growing? As quickly as they can be. Are we executing on the projects that are nearest and dearest to progressive's hearts And that's high speed rail abundance, right?
It's if you're gonna build a bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, like you should have a train at the end of that process rather than a big embarrassment,
Tahra Hoops: I agree...
Matt Ygelsias: but then the other question is like, how do you gain power, nationally, in a Senate landscape where... or an electoral college landscape where the decisive states are in the Midwest, they're in the Sunbelt, et cetera.
And I think it's just important to acknowledge that while it, would probably. Democrats would look better if the California high-speed rail project had gone better. But you're not gonna build I think like high-speed rail in Arizona where Senator Gallego goes. Like, where would it go?
it's it's a big empty state and definitely not in, Wisconsin and other things like that. And you need to be connected not only to What kind of like grinds my gears about progressive governance in Washington DC but actually think about what people are like.
Senator Gallego had this line. He said, he said, every Latino man I know wants a big ass truck. And so I tell them like, I'm gonna get you outta your mom's basement. I'm gonna get it so you can get your own house. I'm gonna get you that big truck. And, that's an economic agenda, but it's also a, it's a values agenda, right?
It's about saying that people who didn't dream of moving to the big city, when they grow up like that, that we can follow their dreams too. So I grew up in Greenwich Village, so I'm like a... native, like I had no phi. and my dad's a novelist my mom worked in magazines... She was a painter. So I have no idea what real America is like.
but I think a lot. But I think a lot about my wife who does know and she grew up in rural Texas, but what she wanted all of her life was to like, go to a good college, get a good job, In the big city and be an urban sophisticate and that's great. I love my wife, I love the city, et cetera.
But I think sometimes the Democratic party is, it's just, it's too dominated by that vibe. You know, by like the girl who wanted to get away, which like is great and like I support and I validate that, but there are just tons and tons of people who grow up in middle America. And like living in middle America and want the best version of a middle America lifestyle for themselves and we have to speak to that.
Gary Winslett: Do you listen to much country music, Matt?
Matt Ygelsias: Absolutely not. I, again, I, don't wanna pretend like I'm trying to do like objective analysis.
Gary Winslett: No, But I was gonna ask if you've heard the Chris Jansen song, buy Me a Boat.
Matt Ygelsias: yeah.
Gary Winslett: It's great. Like that kind of vibe is what I get from like big ass truck abundance.
It's–I want the money to…Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy me a boat. And it's just got a very like winsome fun vibe to it.
Matt Ygelsias: Yeah. exactly.
I... There's a big aesthetic divide in America about like motorized boats versus like kayaks, right? It's it's just like more liberal to not have, like as much power, in, in your things.
When you're thinking about policy, right? for all the reasons that like, we think, it's like. People should have different lifestyles. Like we celebrate our gay and lesbian friends and colleagues, and it's yeah, also if what you want in life is a motorboat or a jet ski like that's good too.
Like we're here to help people live their best lives, not to tell them what's appropriate or to just say that what's in our cultural niche is the only thing, that's valued. And so just to remind people of what growth is for what, the social safety net is for, right?
These are two sides of trying to help people achieve material prosperity and sort of freedom. positive freedom to, to do things and to do what they want, want. but to, you know, remember that what people want is not necessarily gonna be what I want.
Tahra Hoops: Yeah. No, I think that's a very good distinction that you're making and I think a lot of times the discourse muddles the two where they do believe people who are sadly discussing coastal elites, like me and you, want everyone in America to follow like this technocratic, like high elite class.
And it's just not the case. Like upward economic mobility looks different for different people because of their backgrounds.
Matt Ygelsias: Yep. Yeah. and just desires, it's okay. We're, a diverse country in. Across multiple different dimensions of diversity.
Gary Winslett: For sure. I wanted to ask you about attention, because this seems to be one of the real problems the Democrats have right now.
Yeah. How to do better in this attentional environment against Trump because he has this ability to dominate attention, but both because he's the President and just... his outlandishness. what it means is that a lot of times there's just and I know you've heard from on this, but there's not as much focus on republicans worst policies.
The Medicaid cuts are gonna be disastrous for rural hospitals. And I just think a lot of, like almost nobody on the street, and I live in rural America, I talk to people, almost nobody knows this, that this is gonna be really, bad for rural hospitals. And so just like, how do you think.
That Democrats can perform better in this sort of attentional environment?
Yeah. it's tough. I think it's always a little bit lame to just be like, you need people with charisma and people to, try to focus on, making better videos and stuff like that.
But it is true that you need that. And you need to turn the attention to the right things. I think that the, I, think that. Progressives defunded their health advocacy infrastructure, relative to where it was 10 years ago in favor of focusing on some other kinds of things.
And I think that there's a sense that like your incentive as a kind of safe seat member of Congress is to like, make news on immigration rather than make news on healthcare. But I, think the unfortunate dynamic that we're in. Because of the way Democrats lost in 2024. Most people, on the left and in the center of the party are disgruntled with the national leadership and think that change is in the works and we are fighting a lot with each other to define what that change is going to be.
And there's a lot of interest in that, right? Like on both sides. Different factions of the Democratic party agree on the Medicaid issue, right? Like you could find everybody, Jared Golden, Richie Torres, Ilhan Omar, like there's no disagreement about this. And so as a result, it's like I... plays is a little bit boring.
Right? That it's like that everybody's on the same page, but there should be some strength in that. I would love to see some of the more high profile Democrats who are identified with like different sides of these factional controversies. Do a sh... Splashy show of unity around some of these points.
Because, this really is the thing that sort of brings brings all different kinds of Democrats together, is a view that like the people who get sick should get medical care. like even if they're poor, it's a moral value that I think a large majority of the public agrees with.
There's a lot of technical ins and outs to healthcare, but if you like zoom out on a level of moral values, like people think that you should get treatments for your health needs, and that is true even if like you don't have a lot of money in the bank. and Medicaid is a good program that does that.
It provides care quite cost-effectively. it has grown, it has, shown some real staying power even in, red states and, things like that. And, but, I, as well as everybody else have my share of the responsibility. Like I, I have tried to write about the one big beautiful bill act, and its impact on healthcare.
The pieces that I've done on it have not performed as well as pieces on some other things, so I... to an extent. It's my incentive is to talk about other stuff to another extent. It's my job is to make this interesting. You know, I I I've been recording podcasts about it, like I'm doing my best.
I, the, rural hospital impact is really important. Also, just the direct, human impact on millions of people who are gonna lose their insurance. And you know what? To remind people, I think some of the... Slightly weird left economic mania that has had swept portions of the party comes from underwriting, just like the significance of a basic social safety net that like you you shouldn't just dismiss that and say that like true economic justice right? Is about like, how angry can you get at somebody who's rich. It's actually I, think true economic justice is about how much can you do for people who are poor. this was a great achievement of the Obama administration.
The Biden administration did not move the ball forward as much on that as I would like, but they did... They did some and they held the line. And, Trump is gonna try to roll it back and that's really bad. that's what got me interested in politics in the first place.
Tahra Hoops: Yeah. I, completely agree with you there that it, you have to drive something.
That's interesting when you're trying to compete in the attention economy. I've noticed that with my tweets as well where I am posting about these Medicaid cuts daily and they do not perform nearly as well as something that might discuss like NIMBYs or like someone on the left or something that's also happening in the news.
Like we just had the recent mayor race that was taking over the news cycle and to me just so frustrating that Democrats are not coalescing around this more because it is just so easy. Like you had Joni Ernst saying, people are going to die anyways. You have Mitch McConnell telling people to get over it. It's just this is good content right here.
Get out there. Go get your zoomer intern or social media team. Start making some videos and just talk about this constantly. Especially they're trying to push this by July 4th. That's a very short deadline, so...
Matt Ygelsias: They're racing. Yeah. and also, these, gaffs, right? we're all gonna die anyway, which is true, by the way.
But it reflects the fact, I think Democrats a lot of times in the past five years have been on the wrong side of sort of basic values questions. And you see when that happens you struggle to even defend your position in public and that's what's happening. When Tony Ernst is like, death is inevitable.
Or I, leave it up to Jesus, right? I is that, there's a lot you can say about the details of Medicaid financing or this, that, and the other thing, but there's just like a question of is it a sort of collective responsibility to take care of the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the disabled?
Or is it not? Are we in this Nietzschean universe where the strong will fly to Mars and, the weak will perish. And they can't really defend their view on that. So when you can... When you can press them, it ends up generating these kind of potentially viral moments because just straightforward description of a pure market take on like what it should mean if you have severe health needs and you also don't have money, is like quite bad. And I say that as somebody who thinks that there's like a fair amount of like pro market, friendly interventions we could do in the healthcare system that would improve things, but that would be making the supply, like increasing the supply of healthcare services.
Is a great compliment to meeting the financial needs, of people who are in need. Saying that we're just going to, deprive people of care. And then say it's fine for me 'cause I've lost Substack subscriptions. that's terrible.
Tahra Hoops: Yeah, no, I, completely agree. I just, I wish they had the same energy.
I, someone needs to do a fighting the oligarchy tour, but do it for Medicaid. Yeah, like saving it, show up to Republicans like pound, like halls, go everywhere and just never shut up about it and be annoying to the point where it just never leaves people minds. I don't think we'll do that and that's fine.
But, on the topic of Doomerism, I wanted to ask you about just like young progressives and doom in general. I remember I think one of your biggest pieces are like, why young liberals are so depressed, which I find hilarious. and I think we can agree that you've pushed for politics that's focusing less on vibes, more on outcomes.
But why do you think this negativity persists among young liberals? And how should Democrats counteract it with something more motivating than democracy's on the ballot?
Matt Ygelsias: You're the young person, you probably know.
Tahra Hoops: I know.
Matt Ygelsias: No, like philosophically, right? Something that progressives tend to emphasize, which I think is true, is that a lot of what happens in life is due to luck and things that are outta our control.
That, one reason that I've been successful in my career is that I have a skill of writing really fast. And I know because my mother worked in magazine journalism when I was a little kid. That skill was just not that valuable in the eighties and nineties because it was a limited amount of column inches that were available.
And what like really did it as a journalist is if I put more time in this piece, could I make it dramatically better? The internet opens it up and it's like there's no limit on how many pieces you can publish. And suddenly being a guy who's really fast is super valuable. And I came along early enough that not a lot of people realized how the internet was changing things, right?
So I got like a first mover advantage where like I was a, like a well-known blogger, quote unquote, when I was 23, and have just coasted. So like that's a good luck in life. Yeah, at the same time. And so that's like a classic progressive point. It's like why we believe in fairness, et cetera, et cetera.
But when you get so much into pushing people on, like how structural everything is, right? You're, you're sort like telling people, it's like it's bad politics to like ever give anyone constructive life advice, unlike... how you could make your life better to ever take responsibility, for your own.
Stuff. And I think it's weird I did that becomes like misaligned with basic American values, but we also know it's like it's bad for people's mental health. Like you are supposed to. If you wanna be happy in life, you need to try to cultivate like an internal locus of control and think about what are the things that are under your control?
Like what can you do about them? and we see that in, it's everything from 12 step recovery programs to like, any kind of like good, mental health treatment, right? It's about like how can I think about what I can do and what I can take responsibility for? And so when you build like a whole political culture.
That's around like just telling people about, like the oligarchy and systemic racism and all these other things. It becomes a recipe for a lot of sort of. Ineffectual anxiety, plague depressed people and like, that's not good. and like I don't wanna be heard as saying that.
It's luck plays no role in life. Or there are no systemic biases that people face. 'cause there, there clearly are at the same time, like within the hand that we are dealt. we all have the opportunity to play the hand better or to play it worse. I think most people, are in fact in the market for like good.
Information and advice about what they can do to take better control over their lives. And, we need to just build a culture of that, right? Including a culture of like in politics, what actions can I take that will be constructive in achieving goals that I care about, rather than just like, how do I signal, right?
Like affiliation with good values.
Tahra Hoops: No, I think that's a good way to place it. And I agree that what drives a lot of democratic politics is just just overwhelming, like fog of malaise. And I, wrote about this like a couple weeks ago after going to welcome Fast. Ooh. And I saw Derek Thompson discuss abundance and he mentioned how the vibe of the book came out as positive to a lot of people where they almost felt like a, a sigh of like relief after reading this.
And he thought it was funny because you read the book and it's just like diagnosing everything that's wrong in America and you just like by text, quite a negative book. So it's so funny that people felt almost like a little joyful that's. Exactly how I came across it as well. I felt really happy.
And then I realized it's because when you are just going through, whether you work in government, whether you are just a young person who is trying to catch up in life and you feel like all of the structures, all the institutions that are set up there to help you succeed in life are constantly failing you.
It becomes way too large to diagnose and then abundance comes around and you have a book that is diagnosing. Specifically what is wrong in governance? And it gives you a to-do list. And I related it to depression itself. And I like that you mentioned like 12 step programs. because before, like our parents generation, parents before that, if you were depressed, they just said, you, are weak.
There's something wrong with it, you're fine. But now if you bring that up, it's okay, this is probably neurochemical imbalance. There are some drugs you can take, like these are resources that you have. It doesn't fix the core problem immediately, but it gives you a start and a path that lets you see like it's not just all doom and gloom. There is something wrong here. And like now that I have visibility, it's easier for me to tackle it.
Gary Winslett: The only thing I would add to that is that particularly during the Great Recession, it became seen as deeply. Out of touch to say anything positive, particularly about the economy. If you said something positive, you were treated as like running interference for the status quo. And that got baked in so much that you almost had this like spiral effect where people peacock about how much they cared by saying how bad things were and so then the next person next to them would like one up them about how bad things were.
And so you got this real spiral that, that happened for a while. I'm naturally an optimist, so one of my optimistic. Takes is that we're starting to see a little bit of that unwind. you know, I, I may have some ideas, disagreements with Momani, but one of the things I liked about his campaign was it's, he's a nice person.
It came across as like not angry all the time, which was nice. So I'm hoping maybe we're starting to see the green shoots of not having doomy politics.
Matt Ygelsias: Yeah, I, definitely think that there's something to that. and also, how do I wanna put it, the idea that problems are chunkable, right? That like you can drill down and come up with specific, often not that enormous policy changes that will make specific things a little bit better and just plug away, like my Substack is called "Slow Boring", not because it's boring. no. So it's, a line from Max Weber and he says that politics... it's a slow boring of hard boards, right? Like you're just like, you're just drilling away. And I think it's fine if people find that a little bit tedious and like just don't wanna be super political, but I do want people who do want to be political to see it that way. You know that it's just.
Work. it's not like we are going to, bring utopia on the planet or that we need to tell everyone about how terrible everything is, but we can try to look around us in specific ways to see specific way things that could be made better and we can try to see is there a. Tractable political path toward change here.
If there isn't, like you could just move on to something else because there's actually, you know, if you see the world's problems as being many, right? There's like dozens and dozens of things that could be improved, rather than one, Cosmic evil that has to be slain.
Then, if you not making headway on something or you can't see a way to make headway there's no bipartisan route. It's not like a great electoral issue. It's like just pick something else to work on. You know what I mean? Instead of
Tahra Hoops: people should quit more.
Matt Ygelsias: Yeah. I think about something like gun control, where I, I agree analytically that if the United States of America had like a radically different approach to firearms policy that would save a lot of lives. I think that's true. If anybody asks my opinion, that is my opinion. I think there's good evidence for it.
I also just, I don't see it happening, like I don't, I, I don't know what, we're gonna do about that. On the other hand, it seems like we could probably, have save a lot of lives through reduced, traffic deaths in the near future with self-driving car technology, which has its own policy dilemmas, but they don't seem like un unfixable ones, And so it's like you can engage if what you're concerned about, it's, instead of saying I'm concerned about gun deaths, you'd be like, I'm concerned about people dying. In preventable ways, often being cut down in the prime of their lives. It's like, how is the US an outlier from other countries?
We are an outlier in terms of gun deaths. We're also an outlier in terms of car accident deaths and like you can try to solve the more solvable problem and actually save people's lives rather than just making yourself. Crazy about the fact that there's yeah. A profound cultural division in the country around firearms ownership.
Tahra Hoops: Yeah, I, think that's a helpful advice to give someone in being a bit more realistic in managing your expectations, which is just very difficult because the art of politics and policy, the people who are very interested in this. Or their heart is in it, like the feelings intertwine and it becomes very difficult to separate the two, especially when you lean into advocacy.
So I can understand the argument on both sides of this, but I do agree a more realistic approach would be like, if it's not feasibly out there, how can I actually change the world in a way that it is an achievable, resulted outcome?
One of the last questions that we have for you is, back in November, after the horrific loss that we suffered, you came out very quickly with the common sense democratic platform.
It's like the manifesto that you had, what it looked like. But if you had to write, like right now after we've seen like the first like six months of what the Trump administration is and how Democrats have been responding to it, what would be like a three point platform that would help Democrats win Senate seats in Ohio, Florida, Texas, any other?
State similar without alienating maybe core voters or maybe if we should be alienating them, what would you call, what would you add?
Matt Ygelsias: I think it's really about broadening the tent, right? In this case, right? Rather than even defining a specific policy agenda. But when you broaden the tent, you have to ask yourself like, what is the central pole?
Of the big tent. And I think defending and incrementally expanding the basic social safety net is that tent pole issue, right? We were talking about Medicaid, snap, maybe selling on child tax credit, tax enforcement, progressive taxation, that, that whole suite of issues, right? that is the tent goal.
And then you gotta say on the rest, it's like we. You're not gonna get progressive minded people to stop having the opinions that they have about gun control. But like, acknowledge that this is just like probably not happening, And so if you're not gonna be able to win in rural America by highlighting that, it's like you gotta just let it go.
People don't need to change their mind, but it's gotta go off the agenda, right? And then on energy, which I think is really central and critical to all of this stuff, I, think Democrats need to return to a much more, all of the above type approach and to a focus on. What are pro-growth climate solutions?
Because the basic issue that you have is that like climate change is real. it is an actual problem. the people who say that it isn't are, lying to you, but the level of short-term personal cost that Americans are willing to bear to address what's really a long-term global problem is quite low, right?
So there's sort of two ways you can tackle that. One which Democrats have been trying is what if we hide the cost, right? So like instead of having a carbon tax, instead of having cap and trade, we're gonna do everything through like backdoor regulations. And we keep seeing that doesn't really work.
Because you're hiding the cost, you're not making it go away. On the other hand, there are things you can do that have zero or negative economic cost, right? So like reforming the transmission system is pro-growth. Reforming the way the NRC handles advanced nuclear is pro-growth. Reforming, increasing the possibilities for geothermal exploration is pro-growth.
Making sure that even the basic renewable siting is something that you can do, right? Is a pro-growth measure and really just. Focusing in on that, right? That if you want to care about climate change, you have to be focused on this, like expanding the renewable energy, re expanding the zero carbon pie rather than on trying to strangle the fossil fuel industry. I, emphasize that, not because it's the only issue that matters, but because I think it's like the. The stickiest one... the, the environmental movement in the United States like really doesn't agree with that. although they don't like to say publicly that they're like hostile to large swaths of zero carbon energy production, but like they really are.
And Democrats need to move off of that, I think, to show that they can square progressive values with, people's material needs where we started here, right? Like... so, so I think that's the core. Then, on just like basic social order. I think people know at this point that you can't defund the police.
Millions and millions of people are gonna make asylum claims. You need to manage these systems responsibly. I think immigration's very complex on the merits. but Democrats are getting there on that. but it's tent pole welfare, state expansion, big tent on social and cultural issues, and an approach to energy policy that takes the economics of it seriously, rather than siloing it as like a niche environmental concern.
Gary Winslett: No, I think that's, I think that's great. We'll have you for a few more minutes. As our listeners are, no doubt aware, The Rebuild is a Substack that we're writing that's focusing on how, Democrats can do these kinds of cost of living concerns and pro-growth policies. and so to wrap up, we'd like to ask, four kind of quick fire questions.
First one is, what is something that you think is too expensive?
Matt Ygelsias: Housing is a, boring one.
Tahra Hoops: That's a
Gary Winslett: boring one.
Matt Ygelsias: Known for that, but but, okay. Okay. To be a little more interesting. Like routine dental care is too expensive.
Gary Winslett: Okay.
Tahra Hoops: I agree.
Gary Winslett: Yeah. It is. Yes. Okay, cool. What is an innovation that you think is overrated?
Matt Ygelsias: Just like the internet. I make my life on it, but it's been a very mixed bag.
Tahra Hoops: There's some dark quarters of this place. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What do you say? Sorry, go ahead.
Gary Winslett: I, what I was just gonna say, it's funny. in January I teach a course and it's the only course my students teach and one of the small assignments is they have to give me their phone and computer for a day
And go on a digital detox for a day and get pushback. And all of my students love it. thrilled to get away from their tech for a day and be forced to do that. But I,
Tahra Hoops: they give it up like willingly?
Gary Winslett: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. You would think I would get so would've done pushback. And I get none. I get like thrilled reactions.
Matt Ygelsias: To it because I think as long as you can say you're like doing it for a reason, right? Yeah. Because it's really hard to just unilaterally opt out. But if it's oh, for this class, like we all have to do it, it's like an interesting, kind of experiment.
Gary Winslett: Yeah.
So what, next one is what is a policy or innovation that you believe is underrated?
Matt Ygelsias: Okay, so, 10 years ago, like charter schools were very hot. And people have like completely moved off them both like republicans to this like unregulated unaccountable choice dynamic and Democrats to a very kind of status quo view on education.
But I think during the time, like the actual evidence behind charter schools has just gotten better and stronger and it's clearer that providing choice. But requiring the providers to meet a real standard of delivering value, is like very positive for education. And we're experiencing a lot of disruptions, obviously because of ai, other things happening, which I think means we clearly need more flexibility, in the world.
But also again, that like we need a real standard. we learned during COVID that just being like, wow, we have computers. So do people need to go to school like they do? They do need to go to school. so I, think it's become badly underrated.
Gary Winslett: Okay, cool. All right, last one. So I have this absurd policy idea that I think Patriots Day, which is the third Monday in Massachusetts third Monday in April in Massachusetts, they, it's a state holiday.
Everybody—
Matt Ygelsias: I'm familiar
Gary Winslett: –have that. Yeah. So I have this idea that we should make Patriots Day a national holiday.
Matt Ygelsias: Okay.
Gary Winslett: 'Cause it would be a national holiday between, in that like long span between President's Day and Memorial Day. And so I'm just curious if you have a off the wall absurd idea like that, that you think would be really good.
Yeah. so I think, during the, this is not a good, moderate take, but, during the French Revolution, the Jacobins tried to do calendar reform, where, every month was gonna have exactly 30. Days in it. and each week was gonna be 10 days long and then there would just be like five bonus days at the end of the year for holiday.
And I really feel like that made a lot more sense as a parent, like trying to explain to my 10-year-old, like why it is different. Months have different numbers of days. and he's he's making good points. Like what is the deal with this? this guy, like what if different hours in the day had different numbers of minutes in them?
Like you'd be losing your shit constantly. so that's what I want. I want calendar reform.
Alright, cool. This has been great Matt. Thank you so much for joining us. we really want to thank you for coming on.
Matt Ygelsias: Thank you.
Transcript has been edited lightly for clarity.
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