America At 250 with Joseph Ellis & Rep. Josh Turek

**Al Hunt** (0:10)
Hello and welcome to Politics War Room with James Carville and I'm Al Hunt. This week, our guests are historian and the greatest expert on the founding fathers, Joseph Ellis and the Iowa Democratic Senate candidate, Josh Turek. Remember, we love taking your questions, so write to politicswarroom.gmail.com for next week's show. We'll get to as many as we can, but don't forget to tell us where you're from. You can also get text updates about what's next for Politicon and Politics War Room by signing up at politicon.com. Tell your friends about us, remind them to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Then please check out the link to our sponsor, Hers WL and our episode, Show Notes. We thank you for supporting our sponsors. It really helps make this podcast happen.
James, I still think the Democrats are going to score impressive gains in November, but the results in Colorado this week were not very encouraging. A Democratic Socialist, I think I'm pronouncing your name right, Miltkeiros, a 29-year-old passionately anti-Israeli Democratic Socialist knocked off a 15-term incumbent. It's not just deep urban blue areas where the Democratic Socialists are scoring some gains, and they are very left-wing. As an aside, I also was sad that Michael Bennett, one of the most thoughtful people in American politics, lost his race for governor to a very aggressive anti-Trump Attorney General.
That guy is not a Socialist. And I'm happy that Colorado's other senator, John Hickenlooper, who defeated a left-winger, will be back. But you know, this is an issue that the mainstream of the party is going to have to address. Some of it is ideological. Some of it is simply age. And what progressive Democrats, not Socialists, have to more aggressively make their case. Emphatically, what they're not for, they're not for defunding ICE or not for emptying prisons. But what they are for, reforming ICE, restoring the drastic Trump Medicaid cuts, increasing the minimum wage, making the wealthy pay more taxes.
Those are winning issues, and they shouldn't get caught up in a long discussion about whether they agree with the Socialists on various things. There's also the troubling issue of anti-Semitism, which one question will afflict some of these Democratic Socialists. Even some question, is he was right to exist? Look, I think the vast majority of Democrats, James, and you have a better feel for this than I do, I think the vast majority support an Israel that has been a great ally. They see Netanyahu as a disaster and look forward to his fall and defeat sometime in October and a much better prime minister. They're open to investigating war crimes in Gaza and they want a Palestinian state. But it's also imperative to call out anti-Semitism, where it's blatant, which by the way is more prevalent in the Republican ranks than it is the Democratic ranks.

**James Carville** (3:24)
Well, I guess I have multiple thoughts. It took me a little bit longer than today to synthesize them. First of all, I think the age thing has played a big deal, and there's just young people who think that our generation, a generation even after us, has just failed them. What's particularly distressing, I guess, I don't know, distressing, factual, is this is happening in sub-five percent unemployment. I mean, the economy costs are terrible, we got all kinds of issues within it, but this is nothing like what a real economic downturn looks like, and you're having this reaction.
I think the very idea of everything that we thought, that pluralism being a core of philosophy, the idea that a regulated economy with a strong safety net and strong social insurance was a way for the United States to go and for a long time that proved to be correct. I think it's still correct, but there aren't many faith in it. It's a very, very, very taxing time. I mean, the only thing on the horizon coming up would be the nomination of a Democratic candidate for President in 2028 I think that should be it, but I just think the party may have to splinter. I'll go back to the same thing.
I'm old, so who cares? But there are people younger than me that agree with pluralism and agree with this stuff.
It may be that people always talk about the end of the two-party system. We might see in pretty close to the end of it. There's certainly no place for anything you would think of as traditional John McCain, Mitt Romney Republic. They got nowhere to go. I don't know where the answer is going, but it's hard for me to see that the two parties are going to dominate American politics in the future as they have in the past.