This is a lightly edited transcript of the August 17 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.
Perry Bacon: Good morning. This is Perry Bacon from Right Now on The New Republic. We have a great guest. It’s Deva Woodly. She’s a professor of politics at Brown University. She’s a fellow at the Kettering Foundation. And she’s the author of books on social movements and on Black Lives Matter. So Deva, welcome. Thanks for joining me.
Deva Woodly: Thank you. Wonderful to be here.
Bacon: So I want to ask you about the discourse of the last 10 days, which I think started off with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being on an interview on one of the Sunday shows and talking about what she phrased Woke 1.0. Let me read what she says. I want you to react to it. Because we’re a week out from it, but I still think her actual quote was important to read in the context of what it was.
So there was some video played. They have autoplay these days. All right, so anyway, she was asked about Francesca Hong, who was running for governor of Wisconsin, as we know. “I have a local city councilman, has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy.’ And I think what’s important is, we have to assess what a candidate is saying now. During this time, during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window. We were shut down. There were some of the highest unemployment rates we’ve ever seen, because of those shutdowns. The doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every kind of policy that was going to get us to a better place. The discussions that we had at that time were quite fruitful. And then we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than when we talked about crime and talked about bringing crime down, right? We all share the goal of having crime as low as possible. I think that during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time was not rhetoric we would use today, and I’m grateful these candidates have the opportunity to present who they are to the electorate and who they’re campaigning for in this moment.”
So the totality of that is, there’s a Woke 1.0 thing—she’s quoting someone else saying it’s crazy, she’s referring to that quote—and then she’s saying lockdown introduced some kind of language we don’t use today. So the totality of that, what did you make of what is said there?
Woodly: OK, so there’s a world in which we can take AOC’s comments in, I think, the spirit that she meant them. But of course, that’s not appropriate for national television, right? In a hostile political environment, there’s a way in which sometimes people say things like crazy, right? That was crazy. It’s not necessarily an insult. It means that it was something unexpected, and that it was an experience.
I think that’s what she meant, but since she said it in a national forum that is hostile to what has been dubbed woke—which again is also a terminology that I think is misplaced and should not, honestly, be used to describe a period of multiple social movements that happened back to back for reasons of persistent inequality across several different sectors, a reasonable and rational response to that inequality which was not able to be addressed through institutional pathways. That’s why you have social movements.
Social movements are a normal democratic institutional check. They’ve existed as long as there have been democratic governments, and they’re not crazy. They’re a rational response to being unable to get redress through official channels.
In addition, the movements that I assume they’re referring to as Woke 1, right—the Black Lives Matter movement and Me Too, chief among them, but also probably Marjory Stoneman Douglas kids talking about gun control. All of these movements were, at the time, popular movements, and indeed the Black Lives Matter movement is the most popular movement that has existed in American history. So the idea of diminishing its impact as Woke 1 and calling it crazy is a misremembering of history, and also the significance of that movement.
It’s also, additionally, I think, politically quite silly for someone who is on the left and claims to be trying to make significant changes, because it also paints a politics where people are making, as she said, fruitful interventions to push the perspective of what is possible and necessary for a thriving society. It makes it so that any big swing in that direction could be termed crazy, which is antithetical to the kind of politics that I think that she’d like to advance.
Bacon: You led with the, let’s be charitable and let’s say crazy was just a word meaning a lot happened. And OK, so the charitable explanation is, like, she was saying that a lot happened in that moment that was unusual in that moment. That’s what she was—and then her comment that some of the things were fruitful is saying, she can’t quite say defund the police moved us toward—she doesn’t want to say defund the police moved us in the right direction. That’s the coded way to say that, right?
Woodly: Yeah. And I think, look, I think that generally speaking AOC is more short-sighted than this in her communications. So I was actually surprised to see this slip. And I interpret it in the more charitable way, because I feel like sometimes she talks casually—which is part of her appeal—and uses kind of colloquialisms to express herself. And in this context, it just does not advance the goals of people who are interested in making significant changes from the status quo. And I assume she’s in that camp.
Bacon: Let me—I’m going to lead with some more uncharitable explanations and see what you think about them. The first might be the phrase Woke 1.0 itself, or the phrase woke, and then 1.0. Woke, I often read from people on the right and the center left who want to make fun of Black Lives Matter went too far, DEI went too far—they are hostile to a lot of the things that happened during that period. Woke 1.0 is a phrase I’ve even seen from sort of people who are socialist and leftist, and what they would say is that there’s too much focus on, quote unquote, identity politics, not enough focus on class politics.
And so even that phrasing alone makes me think she’s not reading a lot of people like Deva Woodly, and she’s reading a lot of people on Twitter, white left. My first reaction was, is she not—if you’re invoking Woke 1.0 a lot, you’re not reading a diverse enough group of people. I know she quoted a Black city councilman, but in general, that phraseology is coming from a sector of people who are generally skeptical of what happened in 2020. Do you agree with that?
Woodly: Yes, I do think that’s true, but I also think that it is one of the coups of right-wing discourse to have made that phrasing something that is popularized. So now, even though it derives from a criticism from the right, it has been taken up by other people, who—some are criticizing it from the left, some are not criticizing it at all, but think of it as a descriptor. It’s very much like Democrat for the Democratic Party—people who use that in print as though it’s not incorrect, right? That’s because it’s been a successful discursive coup by the right wing.
So yes, I think that someone who is aware of the power of language and words, and is interested in shifting the Overton window, would be careful about using a phrase like Woke 1, which in the first instance is an appropriation of the term woke, which is actually a serious term that comes from African American vernacular English and means to be aware of systemic oppression, which is important given the times. But then, additionally, styling it as Woke 1 mashes together a lot of phenomena and makes them seem trivial, when they are significant political movements that are ongoing, and the reasons for them continue and continue to intensify.
Bacon: If she had said the Black Lives Matter movement was crazy, people would’ve been like, “What?” If she had said the protests against George Floyd were crazy, people—because the phrase ended up meaning—the most frustrating about it was, like, in theory, her job is to communicate clearly, but in reality, I’ve read 10 days of think pieces about Woke 1.0, because no one can agree about what that means, meaning it wasn’t a clear phrase, right?
Woodly: Yes. It’s a catch-all phrase, but it’s also a catch-all phrase that is meant to diminish. And so I think that anyone who not only respects the movements but respects the causes that deserve ongoing redress would not use that phrasing, should not use that phrasing.
So it’s my hope that not only she but also any other office holders or decision-makers on the left or the center left would not use that phrasing, because it’s a ceding to the right wing that social and political change that is significant can only be crazy, right? That, to me—that logic itself is a logic that I think should be avoided by people who want to push toward a more democratic and egalitarian society.
Bacon: Let me be uncharitable again and say—you said a couple times, people like AOC who we assume want to push. Did AOC used to be one of those people, and is AOC now a person concerned about winning the median voter in Wisconsin in 2028, and therefore—if Pete Buttigieg said Woke 1 was crazy, I might have been like, “Oh, Pete said something he didn’t mean to say,” but he said it inartfully, because I might assume his views about Woke 1.0 are somewhat close to that.
I did not think of someone like AOC, or like Bernie Sanders, or like Zohran, or someone who I think of as being with the movement. I don’t think they would describe the movement as crazy. But is AOC someone who was formerly with the movement, and is now more Hakeem Jeffries than the movement?
Woodly: Look, AOC and the whole sort of ilk of progressive politicians, they have a different job than organizers and activists. I think that right now she’s playing around with who she needs to present herself as, in order to be a national candidate. I don’t think that her fundamental commitments are changed. We don’t have evidence of that yet. But I do think that it’s worth watching. I also do think that it’s worth pointing out that, generally speaking, it is bad politics to betray your base.
Bacon: That’s, yeah.
Woodly: It’s just, like, bad politics to betray your base, and—
Bacon: Well, that’s interesting you said that, because Hakeem Jeffries was on TV yesterday attacking the DSA. So you and I might think attacking the base—or attacking, I guess DSA is not his base, but you and I might think attacking—
Woodly: I was going to say—
Bacon: I would argue that attacking people who are likely to vote for you is not smart.
Woodly: Agreed.
Bacon: The Democratic Party establishment’s view is, attacking the left to win centrist votes is the way to do it. Bill Clinton—like that. In other words, you might think that, but is it, if you’re becoming a more mainstream Democrat, is it part of your job to attack people who vote for you?
Woodly: I hope not, because then they’ll lose. I mean that very seriously and sincerely. The Democrats won in 2020 because of movement. The Democrats won in 2022 because of people organizing for them, because of small donors giving money to them. Now they’re in a situation where they’re using fundraising tactics that have turned off their small donors, and they don’t have large donors to replace them with, and they’ve really made upset a constituency that is most likely to vote for them.
The punching-left sort of truism in the Democratic Party comes from the 1990s. It is now 2026. We are in an entirely different political environment. And in any kind of democracy that is functioning, you have the people who are possibly voting for you, the people who you might win, and the people who you need, who will work for your campaign.
It is those workers—the people who would get out there, the people who would man the phone lines, the people who are going door to door. Those are the people who are alienated by this kind of talk. And those are the people that are really necessary for winning and keeping office, and for giving them the power that they will need to actually make the changes that will make a midterm win significant.
Because guess what—because of the institutional trouble that we are in right now, just winning the offices is not significant, will not save democracy. They need to be able to wield power. And in order to wield power, they have to have support. Alienating that support right now is very silly. And it doesn’t matter what DC consultants from the 1990s say about it.
The truth is, we are in a very different political environment, and the Democratic leadership has been really slow to adapt to it. But we see that the people who are winning all over the country are people who have adapted to the new conditions. It is very unfortunate that the leadership in Washington has been slow. And it’s not only unfortunate for their party, it’s unfortunate for the country. And I certainly do hope they catch up.
Bacon: I’m going to read a second quote from another progressive. This is a different kind of progressive, in a certain way. But let me see if I can find it here. So Zohran Mamdani, asked about this discussion—he was asked about Woke 1.0 sometimes, and the controversy—said, “Sometimes what you can believe in can change. I know there are, for some, for whom they still have a belief in that. I’ve made very clear that I do not believe in defunding the police, and that to me, delivering critical public safety also looks like working with police departments, along with many other partners.”
So I think his comment—and he goes on in that—is more specific. It’s not about this, was more about, defunding the police is something I do not agree with, police are a core part of public safety. What do you think about that comment?
Woodly: I think that the way he said it is something that makes sense for a politician in his position. He’s working in a situation where the police department in New York City is very large, very well-funded, and has proven itself hostile to mayors and mayor agendas before. It makes sense to me that he says, “I’m not for defunding the police. They are one of the core public safety institutions that need to be utilized.” To me, I think that’s descriptive. And also, it’s important that he puts them in the context of not the only, not the most critical, but one of the tools that a mayor, or we, should use for public safety.
I also think that is something that is evidence-based. We see in communities like Baltimore that police are one—not the most important and not to be overfunded—one of the pieces of creating a more safe community environment. I have to say that also, in terms of policy, defund means that you make police proportional to their actual role in creating public safety. They are not the most significant factor in creating public safety.
There are other factors that are equally important, like creating green space, social services, expanding healthcare, that are evidence-based ways that we know actually create safer communities, and those are often underfunded while police are overfunded. So defunding police departments that have large budgets that increase every year, in order to—that is, taking some of that funding in order to fund other programs that are underfunded and actually contribute to safety—is rational. Now, the phrase defund has become unpopular, but that actual set of policies is very popular. People understand that you need to fund other things besides police in order to create a safe community.
Bacon: So you’re saying a politician who says, I do not support defund the police, but then does all the policies around making public safety broader than just police, is doing something pretty smart. You’re saying Zohran is not necessarily constricting the movement. He’s doing good politics, basically.
Woodly: He’s doing his job as a politician. And movement has to do their job as movement, right? And I think that the movement—
Bacon: Should movement be criticizing what he said, or say we are for—what should their role be? To say, we are still for defund? Or?
Woodly: Yes. I think movements should say, defund the police is a rational position, and this is what it means. It means that we don’t raise the budget every year. It means that we invest in non-police response. It means that we create more green spaces. It means they roll out the policy positions. And then a politician like Zohran can say, I’m not for defunding the police, and yet be holding the police budget constant, not raising—
Bacon: And putting more officers—constant, I think he did.
Woodly: And at the same time, investing in green space, investing in increased access to healthcare, right? That is actually the policy agenda that creates safety. It’s evidence-based, right? Whatever you call it. But the truth is, the slogan, the demand, defund is what has created interest in these non-police responses that actually work.
Bacon: So Senator Sanders said something on TV. He said something to the effect of, “No serious politician believes in defunding the police.” So talk about that statement, because I think that one was troubling to me, but I’d be curious what you think about it.
Woodly: Again, right? So for me, I think that that notion of serious is to try to, again, make defund seem crazy, when defund is rational, right?
Bacon: But he may be accurately describing the reality, right? There may be very few politicians who you—
Woodly: So it’s a double meaning, right? On the one hand, what he may be saying, or what he may mean, is that if you are a politician who wishes to get elected and not get pilloried on this issue, you don’t say defund the police. That’s reasonable, right? On the other hand, his meaning could be, and could be taken to be, that, quote, Woke 1 is crazy, right?
Bacon: No serious person would be for defund the police is a diminishing message, right? In other words—yeah.
Woodly: Exactly. So I think that politicians who are aligned with movements—and really just politicians who are interested in justice, right, and politicians who are interested in actually reducing violence and creating economic opportunity and creating conditions for egalitarian democracy—should avoid diminishing left movements. I will note that right-wing politicians never diminish their right flanks.
Even when they move in different ways, even when they choose different words, the worst they do is pretend they don’t know about them, right? And that is strategic. It’s because they know that their movements are doing important work for the causes that they believe in, and also that they want to have the freedom to move around in terms of what policies they want to put forward, what things they take up from their right flanks, and what things that they don’t. And it shocks me that politicians on the left have not learned this quite obvious lesson.
Bacon: So the subtext of what I’m getting at, and I’ll just drive to it now, is my sense is that the sort of left progressive part of the Democratic Party—and I’ve quoted AOC, Zohran, and Bernie Sanders, who are leaders of that—has decided that to win primaries and to gain power, post-2024, if they talk about economics and, quote-unquote, affordability, and they shuck off all the controversial stuff—all the policing, the racism, talking about white supremacy, all the woke stuff—if they shuck off that part, that’s the part that the establishment has tagged them with. So we can win primaries, we can get power. Third Way will be nice to us as long as we throw the abolish and defund people under the bus. And that’s what I think is happening, and that’s very direct.
But I think AOC, Zohran, Bernie Sanders, the people around them, the sort of Jacobins, the sort of socialist wing of the left, Democratic Party, decided, if we throw the sort of policing and anti-racism—I would argue the Black left, in a certain sense—if we throw those people under the bus, ignore them, and just talk about populism and economics, then we will win primaries, the Democratic center will like us more, and we will inherit the earth. That’s what I think is going on. How do you do that analysis?
Woodly: I do think that’s what they think.
Bacon: Yes. OK.
Woodly: But all of American history is against that interpretation, unfortunately for them, and for me.
Bacon: Will they inherit the earth, or even the Democratic Party? Will they gain power within the Democratic Party? I think that might be more true.
Woodly: They will gain power in the Democratic Party temporarily, while the Democratic Party is able to have power.
Look, here’s the point, right? These issues of inequality, including affordability, are all intersectional issues, right? Meaning that people’s race and gender are relevant to their place in the economy. You cannot address differences, systematic differences in economic outcomes, without an analysis of race and gender. And if you’re not explicit about that in the way that you argue politically, then what happens is that counterarguments and stereotypes that are common, that circulate in the discourse and also in the background doxa of American politics, will be mobilized to fracture the coalition that you’re trying to bring together.
And in terms of economic democracy, socialism, left economic policies, this is always what happens in the American case. Historically, the reason that a more democratic socialist environment did not develop in the middle 20th century was because it fractured along racial lines, right? That is why the American polity had a uniquely neoliberal economy, compared to the developed economies in Europe and elsewhere in the world—it’s because it’s on this question of race that economic populism fractures. That’s the pattern in this country.
And these folks can try again to de-racialize economic policies, but they will fail again. Because the truth is that white supremacy has to be taken on straight on. It has to be taken on straight on, especially in these times when you have the frank avowal of these opinions all over American discourse, and promoted by the richest person in the world on the app that he owns. And the whole cadre of AI billionaires, right, who are interested in these white supremacist, eugenicist, feudalist, and fascist ways of being in the world. Not addressing those things explicitly allows them to circulate unchallenged as ideas in our discourse.
There’s no way to avoid actually confronting those things. And so my advice to Democratic politicians from the center to the left would be to develop a way to actually confront the ideas that are most detrimental to the American Republic. I understand that they may be afraid that that will be more difficult than the tried and true ‘90s playbook, but it also might be more successful.
Bacon: One thing I want to add is, I don’t think this progressive cohort that says affordability actually believes what they’re saying. With Zohran Mamdani, one of the first things he did was, like, he went to a protest when the ICE director was there, and went viral for that. He talked about the Israel-Gaza issue constantly. So did Abdul El-Sayed, talked about abolishing ICE regularly.
I’m not sure Abdul or Zohran win their primaries without, A, ICE being crazy, and B, the Gaza issue, which they both talked about extensively and which their base cared about a lot. So the idea they only talked about affordability, as their consultants claimed afterward, is not even true, as far as I can tell.
Woodly: No, it’s not true. And it’s also not true in the way, at least, that Mamdani has conducted his campaign. He’s been very careful to talk to many different constituencies, where he always brings up, obviously, affordability, because it is important generally, but also addresses it in a way that is specific to the group, right? So he talks about the racial wealth gap, and he talks about what faces small vendors who are often immigrants, right, or second generation immigrants in the city, right? And he has been very careful to talk to trans constituencies, and very careful to talk, right?
The way that they’re actually doing politics—at least Mamdani, and I hope that El-Sayed does this as well, because it is the way to do it, right—is not actually to deracialize politics. It’s to interracialize politics, right? However, the way that they talk about it in the popular press differs from the actual techniques that they are using, right? And so the way they talk about it in the popular press is, All we do is talk about affordability. That’s all we do. That’s all we do.
But that’s not actually how they’re conducting their politics. What they’re actually doing is making sure that they are touching and talking to every constituency, and in Mamdani’s case, in their language, right, as much as possible. Right, let me cut another ad in a different language to address specific concerns about how people are situated socially, economically, ethnically, and racially, and how that impacts their structural position, right? The way he’s actually doing politics is quite sensitive to the ways that race, gender, ethnicity, you know, sexuality all intersect with the ability to live a good life.
Bacon: This is a good way to put this, isn’t it? It’s a complicated thing. It’s, like, on some level, to be a Democratic candidate these days, you have to campaign to actual voters who care about their identities in the full scope. You also have to campaign through this media full of, like, white centrists who are very triggered by any discussion of race and trying to ban Ibram Kendi from living and so on. And so, like, what is—so there’s a dichotomy here where you are advantaged to say, I don’t do identity politics, while doing it, right? If you’re politically on the left, right?
Woodly: Absolutely, because there’s no way to win. There’s no way to win, but guess what? All politics, including class politics, are identity politics.
Partisanship is identity politics. It’s not actually based on policy it’s based on tribalism. So there is no politics that’s not identity politics. So in order to create a constituency, you have to be sensitive to people’s identities, and you have to interweave the concerns they have because of their lived experience into the campaign that you run, and into the policies that you adopt and implement. That’s a fact. So we’re in this sort of, like, kabuki theater where people pretend that there’s some way to have politics that’s stripped of identity, right, instead of addressing head-on the most vexing challenges that we have as a democratic republic.
Bacon: All right. So let’s come back to AOC now. You’re AOC, and you have to do these two things. The two things you have to do is, one, starting next February, you have to go to South Carolina and presumably win over a lot of Black people. But two, you also probably have to win over Ezra Klein, or get him, and that cohort, not to hate you—and that cohort is very focused on identity politics is dead and it divides, blah, blah, blah.
So how do you square—if you go to South Carolina and talk about the racial wealth gap, and it’s on video, it might help; or talk about some affordability issue, or some police killings, whatever issue you want to talk about that Black people might care about in South Carolina—if you do that, you’re going to hear from the cohort of columnists that you are ruining the chances of winning in Wisconsin, and average Black men don’t care about this racial issue that they were nodding their heads on while you were in the room. So what do you do then?
Woodly: I think that you have to just make the—
Bacon: That pundit class does matter.
Woodly: I’m sorry?
Bacon: That pundit class can make it hard for you to raise money, and hard for you to—
Woodly: No. The pundit class absolutely does matter, but I think that you have to go into those environments and make the argument that, again, all politics is identity politics, right? Because what you’re trying to do—
Bacon: Which environment, the on-the-ground or the pundit space?
Woodly: In the pundit space, right?
Bacon: Yes.
Woodly: Yeah. Because what’s happening is that these candidates are letting themselves be ruled by that space, right? And the fact is that they have to be willing to go into those spaces and engage on the actual fundamental idea, on the underlying premise. Because right now, they don’t engage on the underlying premise. They take the premise, right?
Perry Bacon: That whole 1.0 is a thing that exists because they have accepted that premise—
Deva Woodly: Yes, exactly. Instead of pushing back on it. And that is really what’s necessary, because it’s actually not that hard to push back on. We have a lot of empirical evidence that the movements of the 21st century have been really not only significant in their own right, but very important for Democratic wins. And so, none of these politicians point that out, right? Imagine a discursive environment where people like Bernie Sanders and AOC and El-Sayed and Mamdani and other progressive politicians said, “I’m here because I want to serve all the people. I want to make sure that we have a politics that is democratic and egalitarian.” And that’s what these movements were working for too, have been working for. And frankly, it’s not crazy to push for equality, right? That’s a fundamental American value. And it’s not crazy to be concerned about the ways that your life chances are advantaged or diminished because of the body you happen to be born into. It is a part of democratic politics, it is a part of believing in equality, to take that seriously in our politics, and that’s what I do.
Bacon: Let me ask one final question. This makes me have concern. If they were really honest, what really AOC and Zohran could say is, I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair on this program without those movements. Because I think that’s the reality. Are they unaware of that, which is worrisome, because it’s just, they have a bad political analysis? Or are they not humble enough to admit that, which is a different problem?
Because I’m not sure. Both are bad. Do you think they’re unaware of the political environment that created them, or do you think they are aware of it but think that they—I think about the Ella Baker quote, the movement make Martin—or, none of these were Martin Luther King’s, let’s not say that. But the movement making, versus them making a movement. It feels like these people at times act like they are an entity. Like, AOC will occasionally say, Justice Democrats, meh, I got here on my own. It’s like, eh, I don’t think you became famous just on your own. And so I’m just wondering if these people appreciate that there’s a movement that they’re—yeah, that’s kind of why it bothered me, is, Woke 1.0 kind of just helped you get where you are. Maybe you should not call it crap, and just admit it.
Woodly: Without MeToo, you wouldn’t be sitting in that chair.
Bacon: Yeah. And so do they get that, or are you—
Woodly: So yes, that’s true. I think that it is—I don’t know, like a lack of awareness or a lack of humility. I think that it might be a little bit of a combination. Sometimes we know things that are not present to the front of our minds, so I think that’s one thing. The other thing is, though, that of course, during the course of their sitting in those offices, there have been ups and downs with movement, right?
Maintaining those positions is not something that movement has helped them necessarily do, even though getting access to those positions is absolutely the reason. Like, the reason is because of movement. So it’s a complicated proposition, but you’re right. If they were really honest, they would say—they could use that also as a launch. Without these movements, I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair. However, sitting in this decision-making position has made me have more nuanced views. That could be the line. That should be the line.
Bacon: Zohran certainly should say that the mayor of New York is certainly more informed than random DSA members, obviously, right?
Woodly: Yes, exactly. That’s totally fine to say. Look, organized people with these concerns are the reason that I have had access here. They’re a part of the constituency that I serve. But sitting in this decision-making position has made my view more nuanced, and I realize, in order to get things done, that I have to engage with many different parties, right? I still have my values, and I’m still working for the same thing. But when you’re sitting in the decision-making position, you realize you have to work with a lot of different kinds of people.
To me, that seems like a super reasonable position for, and a true, accurate thing for a politician to say. There’s no reason to denigrate the movements that give you access to the opportunity to hold those positions of decision-making and service.
And also, I don’t know why they have this idea that it is effective. It’s literally like the Democratic Party is still sitting in the, quote, Sister Souljah moment of 1995 or whatever, of the sort of press. That’s why they keep asking James Carville questions. It’s bizarre to me that the Democratic leadership and consultancy has not moved on from that moment, even despite their many victories since that time, and how those victories have hinged on the organization of their left flank. I don’t understand. It’s really reality-resistant to me.
Bacon: Striking you said that, because I went back and read a piece about—we’re having this question about whether progressives can win swing states. But in the time in which they ran, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin, and Barack Obama were all quite progressive. But Barack Obama himself now is pretty skeptical of progressives. And so I think everybody who wins an election in the Democratic Party seems to then get Carville brain afterward, and I’m not really sure why that happens.
Woodly: I think it’s because their left constituency still demands things from them.
Bacon: And they find that annoying?
Woodly: Yes.
Bacon: OK.
Woodly: I think that’s what it is. I think that the culture of the party is not to actually try to deliver for their left flank, which is really asymmetrical to the culture of the Republican Party, which is to try to deliver for their right flank.
Bacon: I see. Deva, thank you for joining me. Tell people what you’re working on, and where they might find more of your brilliant thoughts.
Woodly: Right now I’m working on a project called The Politics of Futurity, and it’s all about how we break out of our notions about what is probable, and instead reach for evidence-based policy, institutions, and ways of arranging society that make new things possible, right? And you can read more about what I do in the blogs that I do for the Kettering Foundation, so look me up there.
Bacon: All right. Good to see you. Thanks for joining me. Bye-bye.
Woodly: Thank you.
