The State Of The Race: Jared Yates Sexton, Pt. 1

Sea Change Radio

So far this election season has been pretty dramatic, with candidate switch-ups, surges in fundraising and volunteerism, and a growing list of criminal charges laid against one of the candidates for president. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to political analyst Jared Yates Sexton about the state of the hotly contested race for the White House. We get his takeaways from the recent Democratic National Convention, look at the turnout disparity between older adults and youth voters, and discuss how to get all voters in this country more engaged in down-ballot races.

Narrator| 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.

Jared Yates Sexton (JYS) | 00:18 – The good news is that small d Democratic power, the actual struggle and organizing for this thing, it can change the world. You can have a better life. Your kids can have a better life. Your neighbors can have better lives. It can be so much better, and we can fight for it. And matter of fact, when we fight for it, we win. The bad news is this, we do have to get involved.

Narrator | 00:40 – So far this election season has been pretty dramatic, with candidate switch-ups, surges in fundraising and volunteerism, and a growing list of criminal charges laid against one of the candidates for president. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to political analyst Jared Yates Sexton about the state of the hotly contested race for the White House. We get his takeaways from the recent Democratic National Convention, look at the turnout disparity between older adults and youth voters, and discuss how to get all voters in this country more engaged in down-ballot races.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:30 – I’m joined now on Sea Change Radio by Jared Yates Sexton. Jared is a political analyst and he is the host of the Muckrake podcast. His online writings can be read at dispatches from a collapsing state. Jared, welcome back to Sea Change Radio.

Jared Yates Sexton (JYS) | 01:46 – Hey, Alex, it’s great to see you.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:48 – So you just got back from covering the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, and I wanted to get your take on this, and I’ve, I’ve been eager to discuss politics with you for the year. This so much has gone on since we last spoke, but what stood out to you from going to Chicago recently?

Jared Yates Sexton (JYS) | 02:09 – Well, so it was sort of a, a tale of two experiences. Alex, I, I’ve been observing politics, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been working in it now for the past eight years, but I’ve been observing it my entire life. It’s really weird to see the Democratic party nailing their messaging. Like it’s a really shocking thing because this is a party that shoots itself in the foot and then decides to go ahead and shoot the other foot. You know, you, you can set your watch by it. But this was a, a really well done spectacle. And, you know, some people get uncomfortable when I call it propaganda, but that’s what conventions are. It’s a matter of getting people excited and getting them rallied to go into the main, uh, election season, you know, running up to the actual election day. The Democrats have managed, I, I think both by strategic decisions, but also by pure happenstance and by sort of harnessing what’s going on in, in our political climate and discourse. They have managed to gain enthusiasm and direction and momentum. But I also spent my time among the protests outside of the Democratic National Convention. I spent a lot of time with the, uh, the Gaza protesters, and I happened to see a lot of brutality and oppression that was, uh, wielded out by the Chicago pd. And one of the things that really struck me about kind of straddling those two worlds and watching at night at this very, very slick political presentation, there were problems, but we don’t have to get into all of those and get into the particulars, but watching a slick presentation that basically is riding on the momentum of enthusiasm and joy and optimism. And then on the other hand, seeing the, the, the worsening state of things, how power is expressing itself and multiplying as the years go by. I left Chicago very troubled. It is a weird place to be in, to watch everything that is taking place, this growing authoritarian crisis, while also sort of watching how the Democratic Party is using this enthusiasm and optimism and the two of it coming together. It creates a pretty discordant picture, I think, for anybody who’s actually looking at what’s going on.

AW | 04:15 – I hadn’t heard about the police brutality issues that you witnessed. Maybe you can kind of give us some details.

JYS | 04:22 – Even though the protests were smaller than what was expected to walk down city streets and see the large multiplier of police presence. And Alex, I don’t use this word lightly – an “army” of law enforcement officers, you know, in order to live, uh, particularly in a country where so many people are going, uh, without and are struggling, and to live in a city where the disparity is so on display and see this sea of people and equipment and power, it reminds you that while we talk about Democrats and Republicans, red versus blue elections, all of that, that there is a gathering strength in the status quo. And we saw it, of course, with the, the response that took place with the college protest over the summer. One of the things that we’re starting to notice, I think if, if we want to see it, is that there is a, a, an entrenched power in this country that is growing more and more powerful with every single day. And it will protect itself regardless of who is in office, regardless of who is in charge. And that is, I think, one of the most pressing issues is that the authoritarianism that people have now gone ahead and identified solely with Donald Trump, it has its roots in something much, much larger and older and more significant than Donald Trump. And unless we start dealing with that, and unless we start dealing with the conditions that have led to this, it is going to get worse regardless of who wins an election. And so Donald Trump, of course, would accelerate it, but we need somebody in office and somebody with power who will start to say, Hey, something has gone very, very wrong here, and we need to start addressing it.

AW | 06:02 – We’ve had Alec Karakatsanis on Sea Change Radio talking about, and he’s written extensively about what he calls copaganda. I think this is what you’re talking about, this arming to the teeth of what should be local police dealing with community issues are now like military forces on the ground, an occupying force turning guns against its own citizenry. It’s a very stark reality that I think got lost in the defund the police movement because the messaging went askew. And it’s a tricky balance beam to walk on that defund the police, because politically it can be the third rail for people.

JYS | 06:44 – Yeah. And what you just said, nailed it because I do think, and, and by the way, this is one of the reasons I appreciate and I think why people are starting to listen to more podcasts than they do legacy media and corporate media. Mm-Hmm. is because, if I go on CNN tonight, like I normally would, or MSNBC, I would have a 32nd moment to sort of have a quip, you know, like a little prepared thing. And instead, now we can talk about something which is much more important, which is deep politics, what’s actually happening in this country, ha and, and around the world for that matter, which is the fact that we are not just dealing with an election, we’re dealing with a trend and a trajectory that has been in place, not just for the last 40 years, which is this new incarnation, but going back to even the beginnings of law enforcement and what are we actually talking about here? We’re talking about the fact that we have an entrenched power and capitalist wealth class that is going to protect itself by any means. And what has it done, particularly in the last 40 years with neoliberalism, trickle down economics, whatever you want to call it, which has become the consensus in this country. They have gained historic wealth and power, and inevitably they corrupt politics. Inevitably, that’s what always happens in these cycles. So now we have a question, and you, and to go back to the beginning of what you said, which is correct, we don’t know yet what a Harris Waltz administration would look like, right? This is a very quickly put together thing. You know, we we’re starting to hear some policy stuff. A lot of the rhetoric now is definitely moving towards what we would call the center, talking about a strong army, a strong law enforcement talking about, you know, uh, what matters, what doesn’t matter. While I’m working on organizing, and while I’m working with people who are actually sort of struggling for policy change, we’ve been told there’s a new democratic party. That’s what the DNC was all about. It was about here’s the older generation of Democrats. Here’s the newer generation. The question we don’t know yet is what this new Democratic party will bring. And there are certainly millions of Americans that are hoping that something will change, but we can’t just think if we put somebody in office that they’re going to take care of it. That’s what’s got us here, right, is that we have seen a small d democratic energy that has dwindled. We’ve been told basically throughout the last 40 years, Hey, you don’t need to do anything. Politics will take care of it. Your leaders will take care of it for you. You need to focus on your money, your career, and going forward. And what has happened is that we have had this problem of entrenched wealth and power that has only gotten worse day by day by day. And so now, with this enthusiasm and the hope that has come along around the Harris campaign, there are reasons for people to hope that something would be different. But we don’t know yet. We’re in a very weird moment. You know, like, it, it, it, there can be excitement, there can, there can be enthusiasm, there can be hope. But the problem with all of this is we cannot afford to rest on our laurels and let this project continue on and become more and more dangerous, which is what it’s been doing now for decades.

(Music Break) | 09:55

AW | 10:53 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to political analyst, Jared Yates Sexton. So Jared, we’re talking about the promise of a Harris-Walz administration. I’ve seen an electoral map. It said, if young voters voted at the same rate as 65 and over, and it was like 389 electoral votes for the blue team, and that generation’s inability to match the seniors in terms of their turnout seems to be the real problem. If we get to it, whether or not we quibble over issue A, B, or C, get to the voting booth either way. And make your voice heard is the most important thing, I think.

JYS | 11:36 – Yeah, there is a really underused and under analyzed part of all of this. And, and just to go ahead and give it in brief, I think people know this, but like, let’s, let’s put it in start black and white. The baby boom generation was the historically largest generation, right? Not only did it dominate politics throughout the course of, I guess what you would call relevance and sort of, you know, sort of the, the main living years, they’ve lived longer, they’ve also accumulated a lot of wealth. So what have we seen? Right? And one of the reasons why this election now feels so different is you do have 59-year-old Kamala Harris, right? And, and, and you’ve moved on from having two 80-plus year-old candidates who are from that generation. And so there’s an excitement there that hasn’t been able to be articulated. And the issue here, to go back to what you were saying is we have a generation that is literally tired of both parties. They, they see the Republicans as completely unacceptable fascistic, you know, entities, which for the record, they are, they see the Democrats as being a largely corporate cozy, professional managerial class, which largely they are. And that is an accurate understanding of what these parties have become, particularly since the 1980s when we had one of the most momentous political shifts in which the Democratic party moved away from their traditional base and moved to accept neoliberalism. They basically saw Reagan’s reelection in ‘84 and said, we will never beat this guy. We have to put a, a happier face on this thing. Well, we now have a generational struggle, and it involves everything from climate change to wealth distribution to what people want and what they don’t want. There is an issue here. So last night we’re, we’re recording this. I don’t know when it’s going to air, but we’re recording this on Friday, August 30th, last night, Thursday night, CNN aired the first official interview with Harris-Walz. And what did they talk about? They talked about the fact that she now is in favor of fracking, right? She said, yes, I support fracking.

AW | 13:38 – Yeah, they went after the flip -lop angle. It’s like, “oh, you’ve changed your mind from 2018. Why?”

JYS | 13:45 – Which by the way, that interview with Dana Bash on CNN, it needs to be put in a time capsule, Alex, like, it needs to be studied and looked at, because this is what our media does. It moderates, right? They’ll talk to, and, and by the way, like Kamala Harris is, and, and Tim Waltz are in no way, shape or form raging communist leftist, right? They’re, they’re just not. But to go ahead and have a media, and this is what the corporate media does, they’re going to talk to Democrats. They’re going to get them to move toward the center and moderate talk about things like fracking on top of that, like asking them, are you going to put a Republican in your administration? Right? Which goes ahead and forwards this narrative that the Republican Party is a normal political party. It is not. And this idea that Donald Trump is some sort of aberration, which he is not, he’s a symptom of a larger disease. So we are now in the precipice of something really wild that we can exactly know what’s going to happen, which is will the Democratic party meet the younger generation where they are, or will the younger generation stop voting or move towards a third party or some sort of entity that will begin to represent what it is that they feel is important. We don’t know yet, and we have historical precedence that tells us how the, how this stuff works. But we also have a lot of material conditions that sort of push against it. These two parties have more control over the power and wealth of the political system and its functioning than any before them. So we don’t like, like basically what we have, I, have you ever seen those videos where they’ll put like a bowling ball on a pedestal and they’ll have a hydraulic press that pushes against it? And you know how, like you’re watching it and you’re feeling the tension, you’re like, when’s that bowling ball going to give? Or is the press going to break? We don’t know at this point which one’s going to give first. And so as we’re watching her candidacy start to take off, we are, we are left with that tension. We don’t know what direction this is going to go in, but that pressure between the two objects is somehow or another going to sort itself out. And basically our future and the next few decades of politics, I think are going to depend on which one of those objects gives up first.

AW | 15:53 – Well, I hope it’s not the young generation in such disarray that they are looking towards third parties, because that’s just not how our system is designed. They can’t win. Like, yes, they can have an important voice, but their voice is usually the role of a spoiler a la Ralph Nader or Jill Stein. We don’t have a parliamentary system. It’s not Israel where like if you get 20% of the vote, you’re going to have some seats at the table. No, it’s like if you get 49% of the vote, you’re out of power. You know? That’s it. It’s an all or nothing system. So I see a lot of 19, 20 year-olds talking about, can’t we have something better? It’s like, well, I think we have to make that something better within those two parties.

JYS | 16:38 – Well, and so real fast, just a couple of notes: First of all, I think it’s important to remember that the Federalist, the original founders never wanted a party to begin with because they wanted a ruling party of wealthy aristocratic white men. And they basically believed that they would sort out their differences. And that fell apart in 1800 in the third election, or I guess it would be fourth election. And basically like it turned into like a QAnon nonsense nightmare.

AW | 17:07 – This was like Madison’s election?

JYS | 17:09 – This is Adams and Jefferson. Oh, okay. Which by the way, if anybody wants to understand American politics, this idea that Donald Trump is an aberration, go back to the election of 1800 where the entire election was John Adams trying to jail every enemy he had while claiming that Thomas Jefferson was an agent of the Illuminati. Like, that’s how quickly that thing fell apart. But on the note that you’re bringing up, and this is the wild thing, because when you’re actually working with analysis and you’re sort of, and, and you know, I, I have to do all these like futurist things, what you sort of work with are the things you know, and the things that you don’t know. And quite frankly, the way the system is talking again about that hydraulic press are material conditions, this inequality, the corruption, the feeling that, uh, democracy isn’t working and needs, uh, some sort of reformation. These things are only going to get worse. And we have burgeoning labor movements, right? We have, we have a lot of, of anger back and forth. The question now is, will this, will the pressure start to give? And, and by the way, that’s not to say that Harris wouldn’t do that. We don’t know yet. And one of my jobs is working with people who want to work with Harris or Pressure Harris into some of those solutions. But if things don’t get better, like all kinds of things happen, black swan events is what you might call them, right? Like there, there were moments in political history where it seemed like two parties had a complete deadlock over power. The next thing you know, you have labor unions who are getting in literal warfare situations in the streets with federal troops and you know, corporate, uh, bodyguards or whatever you want to call them rats. Basically, these things start to change. And on top of that, just to go ahead and put it in a larger perspective, we are also like on the precipice of another World war. Like we have an international authoritarian movement that is like building up like a power block against the United States. We don’t know what direction those things are going to work in. And quite frankly, it is in the Democrat’s best interest to go ahead and build that larger coalition. But you have an entire class of strategists and consultants who are always trying to moderate towards the middle. And so again, the pressure that we’re talking about is building and building and building. And you know, when you’re, uh, again, I love this metaphor, like when you think the bowling ball’s going to give, and like, you don’t know which direction the bowling ball’s going to give in. You know what I mean? Which way the pressure’s going to, to let go. So we are, everybody always used the words unprecedented. There are historical precedents that help explain what’s going on and maybe what will happen. But man, this thing is so fluid. It is such a wild moment. And this election I think is a perfect microcosm of exactly how weird and wooly and how these things are absolutely moving. But right now, and I think it’s important, after talking about this for so long, I do believe Donald Trump is an existential threat. I think another Trump term, particularly on behalf of the billionaire class, that that basically runs his entire operation, tells him what they want him to do, I think is’ an existential threat. But I don’t think electing Harris and simply sitting back and being like, whew, that’s over. I don’t think that that is what’s going to solve the problem.

(Music Break) | 20:42

AW | 21:04 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to political analyst, Jared Yates Sexton. So Jared, you’re talking about the candidacy of Donald Trump being an existential threat to this country and to global peace. And when we’re trying to improve upon the Democratic party, which is a noble and important part of the process, I can’t help but think of this analogy that my wife has given before, which is on the menu, there’s a big pile of poop, and then there’s a hamburger. And are you going to quibble over whether or not the hamburger is cooked medium rare or rare, or are you going to even consider this pile of poop, uh, on the right side of the menus? And, and that’s what I would say to some of these younger voters who are disillusioned with the democratic parties. Like, do you agree that at least one party is sane and one is completely, if we could start there, then we can stop with the hair splitting about important issues. But when we have one actor that’s sane and one that’s a bad actor, you really have to focus on improving the good actor and, and, and just eliminate that bad actor from your train of thought, because they are an existential threat. I believe that.

JYS | 22:20 – Yeah. I do too. And I think one of the main problems that we have, and this goes back to, you know, sort of the through threat of what we’ve been talking about, I think we do such a bad job in this country of educating people on politics and power. Like we, we focus so much more on personalities and also events and spectacles. So for instance, just to give people an inside idea of how I look at this, I am going to vote for Kamala Harris in November. That is not in question. There is no doubt about it whatsoever. I don’t even have a moment’s hesitation for doing it, but I’m doing it not because that I think that that vote is suddenly going to make everything better. I’m doing it because I want to live in a country where the person that I organize against is a person who isn’t an absolute out of control, malignant narcissist, who doesn’t care about governing, who by the way, sold off his VP slot to a bunch of billionaire tech fascists who have basically gotten in his head. I mean, Elon Musk has basically maneuvered himself into becoming like a de facto czar in charge of the government. On top of that, the police state that we were just talking about, it’s already, like, it already has the full armory of tech fascism waiting to go. We don’t want to live in that environment. While some people think, well, Alex, we should just burn it down. You know, it’s better if we get this thing over, over with and then rebuild after. That’s wild to think about because there are people who are going to suffer, you know, and you don’t know that you’re going to be able to burn it down. You might actually make it stronger. Gay people, trans people, people of color, women, people who live in red states, poor people, you are going to hurt so many people because your idea of politics is grounded in the idea that that’s the way that you win power. No, you struggle against power. And with power it gives, and it takes, you wouldn’t have had the Civil Rights Act if the civil rights movement didn’t struggle against JFK and then Lyndon Johnson, that, that, that wouldn’t have happened with Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon would not have dealt with those people. He wouldn’t have eventually pushed for those things or the great society. Those things were earned by small d democratic grassroots, populist movements. And you have to get in there and fight. And that’s, that’s unfortunately something that gets lost in our understanding of politics. We think about it like an NFL season. You have game, you know, you have week one and then you have the Super Bowl. That’s not how politics work. That’s what our perception of it tells us.

AW | 24:56 – Yes. I was going to ask you this, and this is a good time to kind of dive into this. How do we get people to engage more in down ballot and local elections? Because it seems like everything has just turned to 11 when it comes to the presidential election, but there’s a lot more to democracy than this one race every four years.

JYS | 25:15 – Yeah. And in that way, Newt Gingrich is one of the most consequential and dangerous people and destructive people that we have had in modern American history, if not American history in the 1990s. He nationalized every election. And by the way, Bill Clinton and the Democrats went right along with it. They’re like, yeah, we’re going to do that. And what emerged by the way, was this red, blue electoral college idea, which is there are some states you’re going to win, don’t worry about the other states. It turns into basically, um, you know, it’s like trench warfare from World War I and what happens, you end up with a bunch of states where people are losing their rights and being absolutely oppressed, and, and that shouldn’t be right, the way that this works.

AW | 25:52 – Yeah, there’s 43 states in this upcoming election that are pretty much not going to be on people’s radar. It’s coming down to seven states.

JYS | 25:59 – Yeah. And I want to point something out. Look what happened after Roe v. Wade went down. I always thought if Roe got overturned, that this country would be just, you know, a, a light with protest and there were a protest. But what happens is you start having enclaves, you start having people in blue states who are like, well, if you don’t like it in a red state, you should leave. And it’s like, oh my God. This is how authoritarian power actually takes over and starts to like bleed into the system. The point of it is this, and it’s, it’s good news and it’s bad news. The good news is that small deed, democratic power, the actual struggle and organizing for this thing, it can change the world. You can have a better life. Your kids can have a better life. Your neighbors can have better lives. It can be so much better, and we can fight for it. It, and matter of fact, when we fight for it, we win. The bad news is this, we do have to get involved. It can’t just be a pastime. It can’t be just something we watch on MSNBC or CNN or retweet and like things on Twitter or X or the everything app or whatever we’re calling it now. Like, it actually does have to be something that we’re engaged in and we fight for, and we take risks. And, and instead of savior worship, messiah worship, hero worship, which is what our politics have become, you have to actually get in the arena. And you, you, not only do you have to care about your representative, not only do you have to care about your senator, you have to care about your council, people. You have to care who’s on your school board. And what we’ve seen over the last few years with this Republican overreach, which by the way was powered by an entire class of billionaire donors who, who direct this and design it, all of it, these think tanks. And thank God, by the way, Alex, that people finally learned about Project 2025 and all of the people behind all of this stuff, the Republicans don’t write this stuff. They don’t strategize it, those people do. And when you start to realize, “Oh my God, my school board election is wildly important.” You start realizing that politics is not just a pastime. It’s not just a spectator sport. It’s something that we have to engage in and fight with.

Narrator | 27:59 – Tune into next week’s show to hear the second part of my discussion with Jared Yates Sexton. You’ve been listening to See Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis. And our outro music is by Alex Wise. Additional music by Santana, Dr. John and the Sweet Inspirations. To read a transcript of this show, go to SeaChangeRadio.com stream, or download the show, or subscribe to our podcast on our site, or visit our archives to hear from Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gavin Newsom, Stewart Brand, and many others. And tune into Sea Change Radio. Next week as we continue making connections for sustainability. For Sea Change Radio, I’m Alex Wise.