DEBATE: Is The Democratic Party Too Far Left? [S4 Ep.12]

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On March 21, I participated in an intelligence squared debate against Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza and Congressman Jamal Bowman. The motion of the debate was, has the Democratic Party gone too far left? So the political scientist Rui Tashira and I argued in the affirmative and Alicia and Jamal argued the negative. This debate was frustrating for me at times and I think you'll hear exactly when those times are, but overall I'm really glad that I did it and I hope you enjoy it. So without further ado, my intelligence squared debate has the Democratic Party gone too far left. Hi everybody. Welcome to another debate from Intelligence Squared. I'm John Donvan and I will be moderating as usual as this time we take on one of those topics we like to visit from time to time where we look at the ideas that underpin America's political parties. Last time around we asked, has the GOP lost its way? It was a good debate and I recommend it. This time the Democrats are up again and here's the question we are posing this time. Is the Democratic Party too far left? So let's see what we get for answers. We have a four person debate, two against two and let's welcome them. For the team arguing yes in answer to the question is the Democratic Party too far left? Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor at City Journal, post of the YouTube and podcast series conversations with Coleman, Coleman Hughes. Welcome Coleman. Thanks so much for joining us at Intelligence Squared. Thank you for having me. And your partner is political scientist and commentator, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-founder and politics editor of the sub stack newsletter, the liberal patriot, Rui Tashara. Welcome Rui. Thanks so much for joining us. Glad to be here. Now we have two opponents to this point of view. The team arguing no that the Democratic Party is not too far left. First civil rights activist, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, principal of the Black Futures Lab, host of the podcast, Lady Don't Take No, Alicia Garza. Welcome Alicia. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. And finally, a member of the US House of Representatives from New York's 16th District, Jamal Bowman. Welcome Congressman. Thanks so much for joining us and making the time as well. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. So I want to get to it. I just want to say that we've already agreed that we're all going to go on first name basis for the duration of this conversation. I just want to ask permission from all of you to interrupt when I feel as moderator, it's appropriate for me to do that in order to move things longer to clarify. Is that okay with everybody? Like as they say on the airplane, a verbal yes from everybody. Yes. Okay, thank you. So we want to give each of you a couple of minutes to explain why you are yes or why you are no. We want to start with the yes side. Coleman, you are up first to answer yes to the question the Democratic Party is too far left. Please tell us why. So first I just want to thank Intelligence Squared for offering me this opportunity. I'm very excited to speak with you all. I'm here arguing that the Democratic Party has gone too far left. What do I mean by that? I mean that in many cases, Democrats have adopted hyper left wing policies that are popular among elite, highly educated influencers, journalists and activists that are disproportionately on social media, but not popular and not particularly helpful among the broader constituency, much less the American population as a whole. What kinds of policies am I talking about? I'm talking about during COVID handing out emergency aid to restaurants based on skin color rather than based on the need of an individual restaurant. I'm talking about handing out medicine based on skin color, COVID antivirals in New York as as Kathy Hochl prescribed. I'm talking about defunding and dismantling police forces of populations that were experiencing almost unprecedented levels of violent crime and sometimes asking for more police, not less and who pushed for this, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. I'm talking about opposing charter schools. In New York City, we have at various times over 50,000 kids on the waiting list for these schools trying to get in so that they can have an option so they can have school choice which rich kids already have and who opposes the expansion of charter schools, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The question is why? Why does the party that feels itself and in some cases is the party of that that sticks up for the disadvantaged and the working class? Why is it that the progressive wing supports policies which don't help the working class and opposes certain policies which would? My argument is that the Democratic Party in some ways has grown more to care about the opinions of highly educated, highly online elites more than the needs and opinions of the broader constituency. This is why Biden and Elizabeth Warren and various other Democrats will use a word like Latinx even though 80% of Hispanics have never heard that word. They and through no fault of their own, we're all in a bubble in life, right? But they're operating in a bubble where the far left ideas about race and gender and so forth are quite popular but that is a tiny bubble, not representative of the broader public. And as public servants, it's crucial that we get out of the bubble and that we serve the needs of the broader constituencies. So that's what I mean when I say the Democratic Party has gone to left and I hope listeners will find something to agree with in my point of view. Thank you, Coleman Hughes. Now we swing over to the no side. Alicia, you are taking the position that the Democratic Party is not too far left. Please explain why. Okay. So first of all, thank you to Intelligence Square for having us and for having this conversation. Let's just start with the premise of the question. To infer that the Democratic Party is too far left is also to assume in some ways that it may be out of touch with the majority of the country. It in fact is saying by assumption that its policy positions and its vision for the country is not in step with the majority of voters or the majority of people in America who need politics to actually work for them. It is also to infer that the Democratic Party can't win elections, right? Because it is losing voters due to its policy positions. I argue that both statements are actually patently false because they're grounded in assumptions that claim to speak for a majority, but in fact don't. There are reasons that the voters that voters are leaving the Democratic Party just like there's reasons that voters are leaving the Republican Party. But despite polls that claim otherwise, it's not because the positions of the party are too far left. Take it from me. However, reasons that the Democratic Party may or may not reflect the views of the majority of the country. But I would argue that this is also not because their positions on policy are too far left. A white majority in the economic, a white majority that is an economic, political and social decline is actually the reason that voters are leaving the Democratic Party. And despite the fact that the policy positions of the Democratic Party would in fact and do largely benefit the declining white majority. An inability to win victories for current and potential voters that improve their standard of living and their quality of life is another reason that votes for the Democratic Party may be in jeopardy. But overall studies show and polls show that this debate in and of itself, the question of whether or not the Democratic Party is moving too far left is actually driven by the attitudes primarily of older white men. A declining demographic overall who fear and denounce the demographic change that threatens their power and influence overall. And while there may be, and I think there are good reasons, to examine the policy priorities of both parties alongside the policy desires of the majority of the country, many of whom, for talking about the majority, don't vote or don't vote consistently, then to continue to capitulate to the wanton longings of a declining demographic politically, socially and numerically, will always be a losing proposition for anybody who's interested in winning elections. Thank you, Alicia. Now we swing back again to the yes side and really to Shara, it is your turn to tell us why you are arguing yes the Democratic Party is too far left. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'd start out by pointing out, I think a lot of the things that Coleman mentioned in terms of things that in fact are not a majority position for not really responded to by our distinguished opponent who instead basically made a lot of claims about how the Democrats in fact are winning elections and that at the extent they are not winning elections and are losing voters strictly because of this so-called the fighting white demographic. Well, I would like to raise a few questions about that based on the actually existing data. If you look at the data, for example, if you compare 2012 to 2020, those two presidential elections, Democrats gained 16 margin points among white college educated voters. They lost 19 points among non-white working class voters. So I put to you the proposition that if we're looking at where Democrats are losing votes, in fact, it is frequently the case. They're losing votes among non-white voters, particularly working class voters, which is not comport well with the case that Alicia was making. And further data along those lines, you can actually look at non-white working class voters from 2012 all the way up to 2022, which is our latest data. And my estimations indicate Democrats have lost 33 margin points, 33, off of their support among non-white working class voters. Again, this is not comport with the idea that this is strictly a matter of the declining white demographic as opposed to other more serious problems. In fact, I think what Coleman is basically saying, and it's very important to stress this, Democrats are not only moving too far to the left in alienating, say, white working class voters, they're alienating considerable parts of their base. How else do we explain that the Democrats lost 16 points of their support among Hispanic voters in 2020? How do we explain that the Democrats lost 14 points off of black voters between 2020 and 2022? I mean, I could just go on. You can look at the data from New York. Look at this massive swing toward the Republican in Asian and Hispanic areas in the hopeful election. I mean, you look at what happened. How did Eric Adams become mayor of New York? He became mayor of New York because he was running against the Democrats being too far left on crime and public safety. And that's why he became mayor of New York, not because he was running on a super progressive platformer. That's what people were looking for rather with people really wrong. Is they want public safety? They want equal opportunity? And they want upward mobility? And do they extend the Democrats depart from that formula? And as Coleman is rightly pointing out, sort of put forward and identify themselves with a point of view and a sort of world outlook that is really peculiar to the college educated liberal slice of the American electorate, that's not the way forward for the Democrats. It does move them to part of the left. It does move them too far for the median voter and not just the median white voter, the median non-white voter. So I put it to you that in fact our distinguished opponents are just not getting it right here on the basic data, on the basic sort of contours of the American electorate and what people want and what they do not want. Thank you, Roy Tashara. And finally in this round, our last opening statement comes from Congressman Jamal Bowman. Jamal Bowman tells why you argue that the Democratic Party is not too far left. So once again, thank you so much for having me and thank you so much for having this debate. So no, the Democratic Party has not moved too far to the left. As a matter of fact, I would argue that the Democratic Party has not moved left enough. Let me initially respond to what was just mentioned by one of my opponents. The reason why Eric Adams won his mayoral races because there were four other candidates in that race that split the vote. If it was a one-on-one race between him and let's say Maya Wily, the results may have been very much different. Secondly, Republicans to their credit have done a better job at fear mongering and messaging and running better campaigns, particularly here in New York State, which is why we saw many of those Democratic Slits flip Republican. Third, the majority of black and Latino still vote Democrat. So it's important to say that outright. The reason why I say we haven't moved left enough is because the majority of the American people want us to end child poverty. Yet we did not pass bill back better because of Democrats in the Senate that stopped us from continuing the child tax credit. Secondly, the majority of the American people support affordable housing. But unfortunately, Democrats haven't been able to provide that in Congress and in states they continue to acquiesce towards developers and large corporations as opposed to providing affordable housing. We still have an education formula that funds schools based on local property taxes, which allow wealthy schools to receive more money than poor schools. We have to address that issue very directly. We need to move further to the left because even though we are living in a climate catastrophe, we still continue to drill for oil and gas. We still incarcerate more people than any developed nation in the world. We still have a police force that murders within impunity. There are so many issues that Democrats continue to not leave on because we continue to acquiesce towards corporate interests and the wealthy elite trying to out-republic in the Republican. We haven't moved too far to the left. We have moved closer to the American people. The reason why someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can beat a long term serving Democrat like Joseph Crowley is because the people demanded something different. The reason why Jamal Bowman can beat a long term serving Democrat like Elliot Engel is because the people demanded different. We are responding and must continue to respond to the American people on the ground. And now, and with this, they're supposed to be a so-called red wave in 2022. That red wave did not happen because Democrats organized across the country to ensure if the Republicans did take the house that they would only take it by a slim margin. And thankfully, we were able to grow our numbers in the Senate. So as long as we continue to acquiesce to corporate interests and the wealthy elite and not go big in terms of getting big money out of politics, we're not moving left enough. Thank you, Jamal Bowman. Now we move on to after that round of opening statements to a portion of the program, which is comprised of free willing conversation among the four of us. But I'd like to kick it off with a question to you, Coleman. We heard Alicia make the case that in her view, the party is chasing a part of the populace that is in decline, just demographically, aging white voters, which raises the question to me of what is in your view, and I want to bring the same question to Alicia. What is the natural constituency for the Democratic Party in your view? I don't think that there is any natural constituency. I think it changes over time based on the policies that the Democratic Party adopts and the needs and problems that you speak to. Okay, so I don't subscribe to the theory that because people are one color or the other, they're a permanent constituency of any party. That's a, I mean, look, in the 1920s, black people used to vote Republican because they used to be the party of civil rights, and then they switched, right? So people switch over long periods of time, and that's happening bit by bit every year. And you look at the data that Roy cited on that point, and the Democratic Party is increasingly becoming the party of college educated, and the Republican Party is taking some of those non-college educated votes, including white people and people of color, black people, Hispanic people. So while saying there's no natural constituency, you're saying there's a de facto constituency, which you are saying is becoming increasingly limited to college educated elite people. Do I understand it, to Alicia? Well, let's talk about the conversation about the constituency of the Democratic Party, who is the natural base, and I would agree with my opponent that perhaps there is no natural base. There is, however, a consistent base. When I think about who is the base of the Democratic Party, I'm not doing that just to wax poetically. I'm doing it to understand what it takes to win elections. My understanding of what it takes to win elections is that you have to do two things. The first thing you have to be able to do is activate your most loyal and consistent voters. I think we can agree that the most loyal and consistent voters for the Democratic Party are in fact voters of color, particularly black voters and Latino voters. But then you also have to get people who don't vote or inconsistently vote to not only turn out and vote, but you have to get them to do that consistently. That is really where the crux of the problem is here. I think it's important for us to understand that when we're looking at who are the constituencies that are up for grabs, it's not black voters. Black voters are not in droves or even in any significant percentage points being driven to the Republican Party despite some weak efforts to get there. Latino voters, it is a little bit more of a toss up, but there's actually more of an investment from the Republican Party to invest in Latino voters and Latino voter outreach in particular among evangelical Latinos. But then there's a whole wide swath of people for whom neither party speaks to the things that they care about. It is both inaccurate and unfair to characterize that as a move too far left to the Democratic Party, for example, in my organization where we've pulled over 60,000 black people who vote in this country. But in our data indicates that black voters are actually largely to the left of the Democratic Party and its policy positions. When you look at women in this country, both white women and women of color, what we find is that the issue priorities aren't always matching these constituencies that are up for grabs. That's really what is at the crux of the issue here is which party is appealing to these constituencies based on the things that they care about. But to say that the Democratic Party is moving too far left and that is why they are losing voters, I am arguing, is a misnomer and is not actually backed by data. You cannot say that because there was a drop in percentage points of voters of color, for example, who voted for Democrats that it was a result of their policies, you can, however, argue that these voters are saying that neither party actually represents their interests. I'm Richard Serret, join me on Strange Planet for in-depth conversations with the world's top paranormal investigators, alien abductees, Bigfoot trackers, monster hunters, time travelers, and more. 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Well, but why is it that as a Democratic Party has moved to left, and I think it has in many ways, and Coleman has outlined them, why is it that the Democrats are hemorrhaging working class and non-white votes and gaining white college educated and liberal votes? I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that their persona, their brand, the way they're coming across to the great sort of massive people in the country is too far to the left as far as a lot of those voters are concerned. I think our distinguished opponent should be agreeing with Coleman and I about the problem this poses when they go to part of the left on things like race and crime and a variety of other social issues, because it gets in the way of building a coalition that can actually deliver the material. Let me jump in to ask you to clarify. I want to go to Alicia's point that there are lots of other reasons for people to be disaffected with the Democratic Party, and that a leftist agenda is not part of it. What is your case for? You said it's not a coincidence, but it is a concurrence. Why do you make the case that those two things are causal? Well, for example, let's take the issue of crime, okay? Very important issue, and we're significant in 2020 and 2022. The Republicans are preferred over the Democrats by 20 points or so on the issue of crime. A Biden averages minus 21 on his net approval on crime, more disapproval than approval. The Democrats became identified with an agenda that had to do with less policing, not more policing as a result of the political activity around the Black Lives Matter movement and Democratic politicians. Position themselves. That has been widely, widely repudiated by voters. For example, there was a poll in Detroit, heavily Black, heavily Democratic Detroit that showed that Black voters by 9 to 1 wanted more police, not less police in their communities. This was during the whole kerfuffle about general debate about Black Lives Matter. Data has shown over and over and over again what people want is more and better police. They don't want less policing. They're very, very concerned about public safety and they want the Democrats or whatever party is in control of the providing. That's an example of being too far to the left and driving away voters who could in fact be for you. There's other examples. I appreciate you giving us a concrete example because I think it would be useful to talk about an example where whether a policy is number one represents a leftist policy. Number two, whether it's causing harm to the Democratic interests or not. I want to go to Jamal Bowman on the question of policing where Rui is making the case that some Democrats, part of the problem with all of this is that Democrats are not a monolith, but some Democrats are arguing for defunding the police or at least using the rhetoric. He's making the case that this is a turn off to a large number of voters of all groups. So can you take that on please? Yeah. So before we go to the policing issue, I want to go specifically to voters and what demographic of voters are disenchanted with the Democratic Party. There are tens of millions of people disenchanted with the entire political system because the political system is not responsive to their needs overall and the political system and the people within that system do not engage them in an emotional, personal way that pulls them in to be a part of our democracy. So there are tens of millions of people who consistently do not vote in primaries in local elections because of this disenchantment. It's not just a party thing, it's the entire system and representatives of that system. To the point of policing, so first of all, I need you to reference this data and reference these polls that you both continue to cite because 20 points for police, I have not seen polling like this. The polling I have seen is more balanced or I've seen people prefer the Democratic approach to public safety, which is not just about defund. It's about reallocating resources towards the core issues that create crime in the first place. Do not talk to me about more police and you're not talking to me about poverty. Why do people commit crime in the first place? Who are incarcerated in our jails and prisons? People who come from poverty, who struggle with housing, who struggle with substance abuse and mental health disorder. We have to deal with those core issues to make us generally more safe. And so that's what I hear from constituents on the ground. That's what I have seen in polling. Again, Republicans have been better at messaging, at fear mongering, at weaponizing certain issues. That's what they do best. What we need to do better, and I agree with my opponents on this, is to engage everyday people, particularly those who are disengaged to pull them into the political process so that they know this is your country, this is your democracy, we need your voice. And that's why my initial premise, we haven't moved left enough. That's even a thing, because it's not, it's about people. Like, we have to serve the people, we have to move towards the people. And that's what people like myself, Ayanna Presley, Ilhan Omar Rashid, Tili, many in a progressive caucus are others. That's what we are trying to do. We are trying to govern with the people as Democrats and the people are responding positively to that. Can I respond to that? Please comment. I was going to go to you next. Please do. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you asked for a poll. I'll give you, I'll give you the link to. It's a Gallup, did a poll at the height of 2020 during the racial reckoning and they asked just black Americans, do you want more police in your neighborhood? Less police are the same. 60% of black Americans said the same, 20% said more and 20% said less. It's that 20% that said less, that's one in five black Americans had the view of BLM and roughly defund. That's a minority. But you would never have gotten that impression from the way it was in the media and when it was put to a vote in the referendum in Minneapolis, dismantling the police lost by 18,000 votes. So this was a, there was a huge, huge disconnect between what just black people wanted. Like forget, forget white Americans for a moment. Huge disconnect from what black people wanted on the issue of law and order and crime. And look, people don't have the time to wait for poverty to be solved if they're dealing with crime in their communities. You may have a 20 year plan to get rid of crime by curing poverty, but people have been saying, why do we need this 20 year plan to cure poverty? Because no one's ever done it in 100 years and people don't have time to do it. Because no one is trying to do it. They are investing in areas that do not cure poverty. Now based on the poll you just shared, 80% of the people polled do not want more police. I didn't say that. I gave you the, I gave you the breakdown. 60% were the same, 20% were more. That means 80% of the African Americans polled do not want more. So what are we doing as Democrats? Because we want to show we love the police. We're putting more money towards police. I don't want to bring, I want to bring, I want to bring, listen, I'm out of everybody. Best mass student. I wasn't the best mass student, but I could add, man. I want to bring a least. Does defund Jamal? Does defund sound like I want the same? Man, nobody can see it. I'm not allowed to even want to even reduce it. Democratic platform. Hold on. I want to bring Alicia into this conversation. Well, let me finish my point first before I said I'm going to have the right to interrupt because I want to bring Alicia into the, but I wasn't finished by point and they just jumped into my point like Roy jumped in on my, I'll give you your, I will give you your chance and play on this. All right. Thanks Alicia. All right. Thank you. This is, this is a typical talking point using black voters in public safety as a way to talk about how the Democratic party is moving too far left. And I want to be very clear. I'm still looking for the Democrats that are pushing and winning legislation around defund. In fact, our own president, President Joe Biden, who I believe you cannot say is the captain of Wokeville, started off 2022 saying that he wanted to refund the police. Joe Biden is a top Democrat in this country. I also want to say we can throw polls around until the cows come home. My organization recently did a poll of black voters, 1400 in three states in this country, asking about public safety, asking about their positions on Joe Biden's policies. And in fact, what is true about black voters is that yes, we do not want services defunded in our communities and put black people think policing is a service. However, black voters also do not face. They do not face the same favor. And you can find this on our website, blacktothefuture.org. Black voters do not favor more funding for policing. They favor more funding to prevent the root causes of crime. There are many polls that say the same thing. I think it's important that we really dive in here to making sure that we're not picking up fear-mongering rhetoric that can be thrown around by all parties. In fact, I do agree that not only is the Democratic Party a large coalition, it needs to continue to be, but I think you would also agree that it is very important to make sure that you are speaking too accurately, speaking to issues, right, that the majority of people agree on. And what is real is that this narrative that the Democratic Party is moving too far left is actually not fully agreed on by the majority of Democratic voters, in particular, the most active base of Democratic voters. And when we talk about black voters, I do want to just underline and underscore again. When you are talking to black voters and polling black voters about their positions on policy, they are to the left of the Democratic Party. And so it is not that voters are leaving the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party is too far left on their issues. It's that there is a perception that government as a whole is not working for the average person. And so if you address that, then you can address some of these discrepancies. But to say that there is a huge majority of left Democratic politicians who are driving the policy priorities of the Democratic Party is just false. And I would like to see examples, right, besides the squad, right? I would like to see examples of who are these far left Democrats pushing the party so far left in fact that it is disconnected from the rest of the country. I want to take your point to really because, and two points, Jamal Bowman, Congressman pointed out that there was no red wave as much as it was predicted in the 2022 elections with the case being made that the Democratic Party was getting out of touch and yet there was no red wave. Secondly, Alicia is making the point that in practice and at the federal level, the party has not been doing crazy radical stuff. In fact, ambitions of the progressive wing of the party for things like a Green New Deal, greater social safety net, all of which Joe Biden initially came into office trying to push quickly kind of collapsed. And that's because of opposition from within the Democratic Party that it wasn't so far left in practice. You had Joe Manchin, you had others who were not going to go along. So I'd like you to take on that perception that Alicia is putting out there that in fact in practice, the party has not been so far left. Well, I mean, where to start with that? Well, first of all, in the red wave, the reason why the Democrats did as well as they did, relatively speaking in 2022 was not because they were really progressive or people loved it. It was because the Republicans nominated a bunch of really bad extreme candidates who were basically defeated by much more moderate candidates. If you look at the House representatives that held the line in this particular election, it was invariably moderate Democrats were able to do it. Progressive Democrats to the extent that they were at influence were actually an albatross around the Democrats net. Why did they lose four seats in New York? Why did they lose three seats in Florida? All of these seats were basically implicated and had something to do with the kind of stance Democrats were associated with on issues like policing and crime and so on. So I don't think it's adequate to say because Biden, for example, might say, let's not defund the police, let's fund them that therefore the Democratic Party gets out of jail free on all these contentious social issues. I think that's incorrect. And otherwise, how could we explain why Biden has now gone to the extent of actually signing a bill passed by Republicans and Democrats in Congress overriding the D.C. crime bill, which will reduce penalties for crimes like carjacking. It's because he feels and understands and is correctly believes that Democrats have gone too far to the left. I would argue that my opponent's, my distinguished opponent's position is in fact in opposition to the head of their very own party, the Democratic Party who clearly thinks the Democrats have gone too far to the left in some ways and needs to walk it back. And I would also add this in terms of something that Congresswoman said earlier about people like himself and AOC and so on speaking to the people. No, no, no, they do not speak to the people in a broad sense. They are representatives from plus 20 and plus 28 respectively, Democratic partisan districts, where basically anyone who gets the nomination on the Democratic Party line will win that election. Elections are all about building large coalitions, reaching swing voters and persuadable voters all over the country, winning in competitive districts, winning in competitive states. Look, you want to complain about Joe Manchin. The problem the Democrats have is not Joe Manchin. The Republicans have, they don't have enough Joe Manchin because they don't have senators. They can't win in a lot of these more rural conservative states where they used to win before the Democratic Party had in fact not as far to the left as it has. Jamal, jump in. Jamal, jump in. I can jump right in. So I don't know if you saw the results of the primary election in 2020 when there was a Democrat primary in AOC and the results of that election. So it's not just about any Democrat. It's about the right Democrat, a progressive Democrat. I had two opponents in my primary in 2022 and I was able to guard numbers of 56% of vote while underperforming in two parts of my district. Third, the Progressive Caucus in Congress is the largest caucus in Congress by far. And it was the Progressive Caucus that helped to usher in historic investments in dealing with the issue of climate change as part of the inflation reduction act at 370 billion. We now will have the opportunity to negotiate drug prices under Medicare because of the fight from Bernie Sanders and other members of the Progressive Caucus. And insulin is capped right now at $35 per month because of the Progressive Caucus and the entire party. Let me also say this, the president and the majority of our caucus and American people, we support more progressive taxes on the wealthy. We support higher taxes on corporations. We support universal childcare. We support finally joining other developed nations at providing paid leave. We support the labor movement. As a matter of fact, not only did we get seven days paid leave to be a part of the recent rail workers contract in the House, unfortunately it failed in the Senate. But that is our work. We are a big tent, very diverse, doing everything we can to meet the needs of all people. We support preserving Social Security and Medicare. This is what the party is all about and has been all about. And so when I see the president, which was a mistake by the way, for Congress to step into the DC crime bill in my opinion, that was a mistake. It's a mistake to go for it with the Willow project. It's a mistake to continue to pander and acquiesce to a so-called moderate independent center. But that's what the Democratic Party has always done, which is why historically marginalized community don't get involved in our politics. We need to be who we should be and who the people are demanding us to be. And that is more progressive on all of the issues I mentioned. Coleman, does the Democratic Party stand too far to the left on issues of immigration? Oh, and an issue of immigration. I mean, that's a tough one. I think certainly they're far to the left of what they were in, say, the mid-aughts. I think fundamentally, most countries in the world, most people want a border. And then once you have that, you are able to decide how many people and who led in. And we don't really have a border on the southern end. I'm personally someone that would favor high levels of legal immigration, but I know many people disagree with that. And I think the rhetoric on immigration, coming from someone like Kamala Harris, who had the unfortunate gaff about, have I been to the border? Well, I haven't been to Europe either, signaling that for people who do live on the border, who are impacted by low-scale immigration, by the way, many black Americans are in terms of wages being depressed by competition from labor. Many of those people actually stand to lose on net when lots of low-skilled labor comes over. This is, again, this is not an issue that college-educated elites care about because the Democrats naturally. Yeah, but my question to you though, is that do you put their position on immigration on that list that you spoke about at the beginning, like defunding the police opposing charter schools? I mean, I think I mean, I listed the ones that I thought were the most poignant to me. So opposition to charter schools, defunding the police, et cetera. These are ones that are just clearly not in the interests of the working class, and yet are the position of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But immigration could be listed on that list. Roy, as well. You said you would. Yeah, look, we know from the data that people think the Democrats are doing a god-awful job at the border, including among Hispanic voters. You can see- What data? What data? What poll- I mean, I can send you- The Democrats are doing a great job at the border, including among Hispanic voters. 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If you love laughing and learning, check out Who Smarted, wherever you get podcasts or at WhoSmarted.com. I'm Kevin Miller, former pro-athlete, author, father of nine and self-help guide. I broadcast the self-helpful podcast from high up in the Colorado Rockies. I'm a fan and critic of self-help, and I invite today's most important influencers to grapple with their own wisdom and an authentic conversation about self-help and what drives them. With each guest, I conduct a four-part series and these candid explorations have been downloaded over 60 million times. I invite you to join me in the self-helpful podcast as we elevate our personal experience of life and the way we show up for others. .