Sarah Longwell on What Democrats Should Borrow From Trump

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Hello, welcome to The Odd Years. I'm Amy Walter. There are a lot of different ways to introduce my guest this week. She's a former Republican operative who has decades of experience in political messaging and communications. She is an entrepreneur and media pioneer who has, in just a few short years, built an influential media company called The Bulwark. Last year, The Bulwark, with its anti-MAGA never Trump messaging, brought in more than $20 million.

She's a dedicated student of politics who conducts thousands of focus groups of voters from around the country to get outside the bubble of DC groupthink and understand what's really motivating voters. She isn't just interested in playing the game or winning the game. She wants to redefine the game. Now, she's clearly working against the current president and the Republican Party. She's also not afraid to criticize and, in many cases, upset Democrats with some of her advice. I've also been a frequent guest on her podcast. The Focus Group rare the two of us listen to voters and analyze what their opinions may or may not mean for individual candidates or their campaigns. So it was a real treat for me to turn the tables and get to interview Sarah on her new book, How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time. In it, Sarah traces her political journey from young GOP operative to prominent never-Trump-er and lays out a roadmap for what she thinks needs to fully defeat the MAGA movement. All right, here's our conversation.

Sarah Longwell, hello. Great to see you.

Sarah Longwell (2:56)

Oh, it's great to see you, my friend.

Amy Walter (2:58)

I like that the tables have turned here. You are usually the one asking the questions. You're listening to the voters.

Now I get to ask you the questions. I've been very much looking forward to this. And yes, I have read the book. It is right in front of me. It's the advanced copy, which there are still a couple TKs in there, I noted, but that makes it special. I have like a really unique look at how a book looks before it gets in the hands of regular readers. All right, Sarah, I'm going to just back up and start maybe from a 30,000 foot and then we'll go deeper. But the one point, I think this is in the introduction, you say your goal ultimately is to burn MAGA to the ground, salt the earth so that it's another century before someone tries to overthrow liberal democracy.

Sarah Longwell (3:53)

Subtle.

Amy Walter (3:54)

Very subtle, as you are, as you are. And yet the title of the book, right? How to Eat an Elephant, and again, for those watching, look at the picture. It is an elephant in pieces, which I just noticed are actually states. Took me a little while to figure that out, but I did.

But you also make it pretty clear that whatever coalition comes together to do this burning down and salting of the earth will not include the Republican Party. So can you talk through that, especially as somebody who grew up in that Republican Party?

Sarah Longwell (4:32)

Yeah. I mean, there's a whole bunch in here. One is, and I make it clear in the book, there's a whole chapter on the Republican Party is not coming back. The Republican Party that I feel like I knew, even though I think I've reevaluated some of what I thought I knew about it. But the party that would elect Mitt Romney or George W. Bush is gone and we should not.

I think there's a lot of people, especially in our world actually, who think, well, once Trump is gone, we're going to get this party that is still committed to American leadership in the world or free markets. And just, no, you're not. It is fundamentally changed. And I think a lot about then, well, what is if, I believe that Donald Trump has turned the Republican Party into something that is dangerous, that is corrupt, that basically is just the pulsating id of Donald Trump. And so I'm like, okay, well, how do you beat it?