Jeremy Zogby: [00:00:00] Democrats who used to be the party of the people became the think tank crats
wanna live in a country where our two party system competitive. We as Americans would benefit.
John Zogby: The old timers have to step down,
is the Democratic party dead?
Jeremy Zogby: What do they need to do get their mojo back?
John Zogby: Welcome to another edition of our podcast. Real polling in real time with Zogby. I'm one. Zogby. I'm John. Hey, j.
Jeremy Zogby: Hey, dad, how you doing? I'm, I'm the other one, Jeremy.
John Zogby: Yep. And so we're gonna talk, we're gonna talk in a positive direction. is the Democratic party dead? That's what, folks are talking about. Maybe, a little bit too much. we're gonna jump right into, a strategy session, [00:01:00] and try to discuss what the Democrats, need to do to dig themselves out of the hole that they're in.
hint. They can, I believe.
Jeremy Zogby: Wonderful. Yeah. So why don't we begin like this, because there's a lot of data out there to back up what you said. Maybe not so much about it being the party being dead, but that they've lost their way and no surprise. We know that. And we have some data that will get to, at the end. But I wanted to do an exercise and I wanted to imagine you and I are invited to the DNC in a, closed door meeting, we're gonna present to them what they need to do to get it back together. And so you're up first, you've got the floor and you've got the ears of the, highest levels of the Democratic party. What do they need to do get their mojo back? [00:02:00] I.
John Zogby: They need to recall that historically political parties have been declared dead before and have risen from the ashes, and in fact have risen from the ashes short term. Not having to wait for a decade or decades. I'm reminded, this is recent for me anyway, after Watergate, there couldn't possibly have been, a political party on a national level, more dead than the Republican party.
they were reeling, they were losing elections at every level, and the RNC had the. Good fortune, and brains to elect. Senator Bill Brock from Tennessee, just a wonderful man and smart, to be their chairman. And Bill Brock declared everything upside down. He said, we're not gonna build this from the top down.
We're gonna rebuild it from the bottom up. Every election is gonna be [00:03:00] contested. We're not gonna give any district. In Congress or the legislature, or mayor or sheriff, over to the Democrats, we're gonna find good candidates and build an infrastructure of the political party from the bottom up. long story short, that was, in 19 75, 76, by 1980, the Republicans had won.
The presidency and a landslide. They won, both houses of Congress for the first time in almost forever, and, and had elected a significant number of legislatures. What they had was an infrastructure that allowed them to be in power for a ge pretty much a generation. So with that said, what I would say to the Democrats, follow that lead, follow that strategy.
Instead of building this party from the top down [00:04:00] from Washington out, you gotta, you have to go to the local communities and you have to find out the health. in local communities, counties, cities, all over the country of the local democratic party, find good people. To serve on committees, find good people to run for office, make sure that as many elections are contested as possible.
Because if they're contested, then those votes for mayor or town council or whatever are votes that Democrats are collecting where they may have just allowed, the Republicans to just fly, on their own. Contest every election. Find good candidates. Let your best people speak, and your best people are mayors, men and women all over this country who have to balance a budget and then [00:05:00] perform services.
I. And then, rebuild, do economic development, and they have to do it under the gun. They have to do it on daily level. They need money, and that comes from the federal government, but they're the ones that determine what is actually working and to shelve that which is not working. They are much more nimble.
Let the mayors out, let them speak. Build a regional networks of these local officials, so they're creating a network to support and push a party from the bottom up that infrastructure. That they build next year and the year after. That could be the infrastructure of folks that run for Congress, US Senate, and the presidency in subsequent years in the process, by focusing on, I.
What works on a local, [00:06:00] regional, and state level, you're creating a body of ideas for the national party that's fresh, that's people oriented, and that came from the bottom of the political structure from the local voters. next, and I'm almost done. The old timers have to step down, and I'm speaking as a burgeoning old timer here.
look, I passed the torch, right? It's time to pass the torch and get out of the way. Democrats should just not be in this era of tremendous change, and now tumbled should not be relying on people who were governing in the sixties, seventies and eighties. The last thing I would do is gonna sound weird, but get woke off the agenda.
Changes have [00:07:00] taken place in attitudes and practices on race. And on gender and and on social issues like that. I think, the way we move forward is organically and not competitively, and not zero sum. My gain is at the expense of your loss. I would recommend that the party show the series by Ken Burns on country music.
Country music is a melange so hard to track of jazz and blues and hillbilly and pop and rock and roll and whatever. And does anybody sit down and listen to a song and say, oh, he borrowed from here and he stole from there. And if he hadn't been listening to me, maybe a few people do, but the reality is it creates a beautiful music.
Party has to [00:08:00] become, more organically inclined on issues of race and gender as opposed to competitively inclined. And there is my seven minutes to the party.
Jeremy Zogby: I have to say that we are very much, in line I'll start like this in this moment. the democratic strategy. Appears that banking on, no doubt about it. A Democratic legend, Bernie Sanders, and his, progeny, if you will, a OC, but I think that's a dead end. I listened to, a powerful speech that Bernie gave a, as he and ac a OC embark. this national tour [00:09:00] to try to drum up support among the Democrats and rev them get them ready for 2026. And I have to say on its face, it was a brilliant, speech, was just a speech. leading with the oligarchy. And look, all of that is true. Bernie is talking about the billionaire class. And the government being of for by the billionaire class. And that's true. And Bernie is talking about the tyranny at hand and freedom of speech being quashed squashed and people, not being able to express themselves on very important issues. And all of that is true, but the problem is, Mr.
Sanders, it's not believable coming from you. Because when your guy was in office, White House were working in tandem with social media companies [00:10:00] quash anything that was rebelling against the administration. One of the top things was the fact that most Americans knew that there was something wrong with Joe Biden. lot of them knew during the 2020 campaign, more new after the first year, and even more new by 2022. But if you dare spoke out about it, was a conspiracy theory and journalists were basically intimidated to go along. Don't talk about that. And Bernie was one of those people who didn't talk about that. And the fact that, the, party buy an oven for the billionaire class. come on. it's not the Democratic party. Is the, is, the party of, of people with hole in their po holes in their pockets. I'm talking about the leadership. We're talking about Uber wealth. Okay? And so it's just not [00:11:00] believable. It's great talking points, but, and the thing with a OC, and as you brilliantly laid out dad, that they really have to get rid of, woke him. The problem with a OC is that she's buying of and for, she's a product. Of what I, when I say she's a product of Wokes, I mean she was learning that in college and she was driving that messaging in her activism and she was running on that as she got to Congress. And so it's a dead end. And so the Democrats who used to be the party of the people became not, the party of democracy, but the party of think tank ocracy. I. We could think of them as the think tank crats and that a lot of these ideas that they, bullheaded pushed forward and paid the price for.
was a good short term strategy to rile and rev people up, but it, in the long term, it didn't work [00:12:00] clearly, and it's not going to. And so when you talk about, and, that by the way, highlights the phenomenon of top down. and thinking and strategy. And you brilliantly talk about bottom up. The Democrats have just lost their way. I'm not saying this to be mean. Here's the fact. wanna live in a country where our two party system competitive. We as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans and Independents, but we as Americans would benefit. there's greater competition, and I would love nothing more than to see the Democrats resurrect their image and their substance as the party of the people, but they are not, so much in line with what you're saying. need to explore the [00:13:00] powerful archetype of the underdog. There's nothing more powerful. I. it comes to stories and movies, then the notion of the underdog, most people, if they cannot relate to it, it's what they wanna be near. It's what they want to be next to. it's motivating and it's empowering. And I'm not go into a long thing here, but what I'm building on is the notion that the Democrats used to be lean and mean in a fighting machine. And they have lost the eye of the tiger, and you should know what that references, terms of film. I think much in line with what you're saying, that they need to return to the issues of what an underdog would hold close to their heart and they need to go on a national search into listening into finding out [00:14:00] and really knowing and learning. What those issues are because we know from conversations and we know from reality that the issues that the Democrats took on came very much from the think tank class. Were not message tested were not organic. These things were basically outgrowths of laboratories in the beltway and that's why they failed. And so something like a national strategy involving a public listening tour to draw attention. But a private listening tour get back in touch and get lean and mean and back in touch with the common folks and people, and to know what drives them and what keeps them up at night, and to go further to search.
Because in this nation of 320 million people and a vast array of small cities, there is somebody out there on the cusp right now who could be launched onto the [00:15:00] spotlight and could shock the world. am absolutely certain of it, but they need to create a culture which that can happen. And I would say that's basically, I would strongly suggest if and only if the Democrats want to become serious challengers and want to win big again. I mentioned that we have some data and that we have, A different angle. And again, a lot of people know that the public thinks that the Democrats have more or less lost their way. But I think we have a pretty unique angle here in the question that we asked, because look. As is the strategy session. have talked about what the DNC and what the party needs to do, but we have the data to back it up and I think at a very special angle. And so on our recent national survey, [00:16:00] asked voters this question regarding the understanding of the needs of the American people. you say that the Democratic party stances are very in touch? Somewhat in touch, somewhat out of touch, out of touch. And so the first staggering data point is that 57% of the public overall say out of touch. And the lion's share of that comes from a third of the public, 34% who say very out of touch. And I don't really so much care about the Democratic Party and the Republican party and how that breaks out because this is a. Partisan hyper-partisan, situation that we're in, I zero in instantly on the independent vote, of which 55% of independents say out of touch of that [00:17:00] say vary out of touch. And so I've got key groups here, like union voters, that was once a bedrock, maybe still arguably a bedrock group. For the Democratic party, and almost half of union voters say their stances are out of touch. When we look at, parents with, young children an incredibly important, or, section of the electorate, 53% who say they're out of touch and it's across the board. Whether it's low income voters, middle earning income voters, or even a hundred thousand dollars. Annual income plus all majority say the Democrats are out of touch.
The same with the age groups and particularly the under 30 vote, of which 48%, basically half of them say they're out of touch, I think we've made our case [00:18:00] is undeniable. The question is how do they move forward? And I think what we've laid out. And, very compelling. I turn it back to you, dad.
John Zogby: I do too, and clearly party has to do something, because, the first a hundred days is coming to an end. I can see where. Democrats would be inclined to just lay down and let, the president hang himself. But the fact of the matter is there has to be an alternative. And right now the Democrats, don't have, an inter, an alternative, not anything or anyone with the.
National credibility. So meanwhile, while they'll continue to speak up or start to speak up more against Trump, fact of the matter is they've gotta go [00:19:00] right back to much as I hate the term, the grassroots and build a party up right from the, bottom up. And that's really all I have to say about it.
And I think the data you shared is, is pretty compelling. So I'm gonna sign off.
Jeremy Zogby: I'm just gonna remind folks, first of all, what do you think? What stuck out in what we said? What did we miss To us? And, tell us what, from your vantage point, what's a sure winner that can make the Democrats. a contender, a lean and mean fighting machine of a contending party. And of course, you can write to us, you could engage us on, x at Zogby Strategies. You can write to my father john@johnzogbystrategies.com. Myself, jeremy@johnstrategies.com. please share this [00:20:00] podcast. Get the, word out, the message out. I think we all wanna live. In a nation where there are parties where basically on voting day we can say to ourselves, ideally they're both pretty good choices, but I'm gonna go with this one.
that would be the ideal situation. and the last thing I'll say is if you like what you heard and you wanna know more, and you wanna consider our services, because we have a lot to offer. check out our website. Please, reach out john zogby strategies.com.