How The Democrats Lost Labor And Found Capital, with David Sirota

51 snips

Jun 26, 2025

David Sirota, founder of The Lever and former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders, dives deep into the Democratic Party's current challenges. He argues that the party has strayed from its working-class roots in favor of wealthy donors, leaving its economic populist messaging muddled. Sirota tackles the influence of money in politics, critiques Obama’s ties to Wall Street, and explores the complexities of tariffs and trade. He also discusses why reconnecting with disillusioned voters is crucial for the party's future.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Conflict Between Donors and Voters

Democratic messaging is incoherent because it tries to please both wealthy donors and working-class voters.
Donors accept social issues but resist economic policies threatening their interests, causing this incoherence.

ANECDOTE

Money Threats Block Economic Bills

A senator explained how special interests jingle their pockets to block bills on economic inequality.
This tactic discourages other senators from supporting such legislation due to financial threats.

ADVICE

Fix Campaign Finance System

Implement robust disclosure so the public knows who spends political money.
Enact public financing of elections to reduce candidates' dependence on large donations.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

The Democratic Party has become too focused on appeasing its billionaire donors and has failed to communicate its commitment to the working class, argues long-time political journalist David Sirota. The question moving forward, he says, is if the party can ever refocus its brand orthodoxy from prioritizing social and cultural issues to economic populism.

Sirota joins Bethany and Luigi to dissect the outsized role of money in American politics and how it has rendered Democratic messaging incoherent by prioritizing wealthy donors over the public. He describes the current moment of populist rage against the Democratic leadership, as evidenced by polls, as a “long overdue” opportunity and offers an explanation for how economic populism became pivotal to winning elections – thus shedding light on how to reclaim the platform moving forward. He describes how former President Barack Obama's "selling out" to Wall Street and big banks became a “generational tragedy,” why Trump’s tariffs are more of a power grab than legitimate economic policy to revive manufacturing, and responds to Luigi’s hypothesis that populist rhetoric and policy are much easier from the right than from the left.

Sirota is the founder and editor of the investigative news outlet The Lever, served as a speechwriter for Bernie Sanders, earned an Academy Award nomination for screenwriting the 2020 Netflix climate apocalypse drama Don’t Look Up, and has written three books, including one on how corporate interests have shaped American economic policy.

Over the last four years, Capitalisn’t has interviewed conservative thinkers like Oren Cass, Patrick Deneen, and Sohrab Ahmari to understand how the political right developed a new platform after President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. With this episode, we continue the same project with the left, by asking: What could be the economic basis for a new progressive platform?

Also check out: How Democrats Forgot to Be Normal, with Joan Williams
How Big Money Changed the Democratic Game, with Daniel Ziblatt
What Happened to the American Dream? With David Leonhardt