Middle East Shakeup; Ukraine’s Air War; Behind the Ceuta Migrant Rush

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**Fareed Zakaria** (1:31)
This is GPS, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria, coming to you from New York. Today on the program, there's lots of talk about the US and Iran.
But often forgotten in the conversation are the Gulf nations that have been taking incoming fire on and off for more than five months. Where does this war leave them?
I'll talk to two experts.
Next, the war between Russia and Ukraine has seemingly entered a new era again.
The name of the new game is Massive Air Attacks.
Who has the upper hand? I'll ask retired General Ben Hodges.
Then, the pictures from Ceuta have been stunning.
More than 70,000 migrants rushing the border in this small Spanish enclave in North Africa.
Many right-wing commentators have described this as an invasion and a vision of the future. The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum joins me to offer her thoughts.
But first, here's my take. Democrats are facing a dilemma, and Michigan's primary perfectly illustrated it. Abdul Al Sayed, the charismatic progressive, defeated representative Haley Stevens, the establishment-backed moderate. The energy was unquestionably with Al Sayed. But a Washington Post analysis finds his support was concentrated in the state's most educated counties and college towns. Stevens, the moderate, did better in many rural and lower-income areas. So you see, the left has the passion, but the middle still has the votes the Democrats need to win in general elections. The progressive answer is that Democrats can solve this by becoming more economically populist, attacking billionaires, expanding benefits, and thus appealing to the working class. But these ideas don't appeal to the actual working class. Among Democrats, a Pew survey shows 41% of college graduates say they like politicians who call themselves Democratic Socialists, compared with only 26% of those without degrees. Upper income Democrats are also much more favorable toward Democratic Socialists than lower income Democrats, 40% to 24%.
Democrats have spent years dreaming of a working class restoration. Joe Biden mounted the largest effort to court them with economics in decades. His administration poured hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure, factories, clean energy and semiconductors, much of it flowing to Republican counties. Yet in the next election, 2024, Donald Trump won voters without college degrees and those earning less than $50,000, while making gains among working class Hispanic and Black voters. You see, over the last 30 years, the Democrats have moved left on economics consistently. Obama was to the left of Clinton and Biden was to the left of Obama. And in that same period, the working class has steadily abandoned the party. The lesson is not that economics don't matter, but the Democratic Party's problem is not that it is seen as too centrist on economics. Democrats routinely lead Republicans on issues like health care and even now the cost of living. Their liabilities are cultural and social issues, crime, immigration, the border and the so-called woke agenda. One example, according to Pew, 43% of voters agree with Republicans on crime policy, while only 29% agree with Democrats. When Democrats come under pressure, they find it much easier to move left on economics than toward the center on culture. If they could speak plainly and say that the border must be controlled, repeat offenders punished, standards of merit defended, or that biological sex matters, they risk revolts from activists, advocacy groups, and highly educated staffers. So instead, Democrats offer a larger subsidy, a new benefit or a fiercer attack on billionaires, while leaving untouched the cultural attitudes that are actually alienating many voters. The evidence suggests that this strategy is backwards. One study tested democratic shifts across 29 policy issues and found that the largest electoral gains tended to come from moving toward the middle on social and cultural questions. Another report found that working class voters placed far more emphasis than liberal college graduates on securing the border, reducing crime, and adding police. Liberal college graduates placed far more emphasis on resisting authoritarianism, protecting trans rights, climate change and abortion. The divide widened not because working class voters simply lurched to the right, but rather that college-educated democrats moved left further and faster. In 2000, according to an analysis by American politics scholar Nicholas Jacobs, only about 8% of both democrats and working class voters favored increasing immigration. By 2020, 48% of democrats did compared with 24% of working class voters. A three-point gap over abortion in 1980 became a 30-point gap by 2024 Large gaps also opened up over religion, family and trust in government not to waste taxpayer dollars. Trump understands the political force of this estrangement. Listen to what he rails against in his campaign rallies. Transgender athletes, DEI bureaucracies, elite universities, crimes and an out of control border. There's never been a border in the world like this. He knows that these issues hit voters in their gut. The answer is not for democrats to imitate Trump, abandon minorities or become reactionary. It is to stop imagining that Medicare for all and wealth taxes will restore the New Deal coalition. That world and that coalition are gone. The good news is that the party already has a formidable modern coalition. College educated voters, women, minorities, younger Americans and many working and middle class voters in metropolitan America. These voters want not a socialist revolution but effective liberal government that delivers affordable housing, good schools, accessible healthcare, safe streets, a controlled border, legal immigration and economic growth. And perhaps this will help Democrats to make inroads with the rest of the working class again too.