Socialism, Capitalism, and the Middle

Where the DSA has something to offer, where it falls short, and what voters actually want

I keep thinking about our discussion of the Pew Research political types and your reactions to that rubric. In this community of high-information voters, we struggle to articulate where we fall on the ideological spectrum and what priorities draw us to one candidate versus another. I think that’s really healthy. It’s also what makes political predictions so challenging.

With this week’s primary elections, we have renewed conversation about democratic socialism. Is it now, eight years after AOC primaried Joe Crowley, a super-charged movement that will make a real stand in Congress? Does it have answers to complaints “most Americans” share? Today, we’re talking about the politics and the policies, which we think are pretty separate, and we follow-up on that Pew Research conversation by talking more about capitalism. -Beth

P.S. Don’t miss our America250 celebrations next week, with Good Morning from 1776, Founding Father karaoke, and two very special guests on the show.

Topics Discussed

• The Mamdani effect and the June primary results across four states

• Why Mamdani spent political capital endorsing three House races

• The generational shift on Israel and the "Ossoff off-ramp"

• How the DSA and the IMF each define their economic vision

• Where markets fail (caregiving, healthcare) and where capitalism still works

• "State-guided capitalism" and what Trump is actually building

• Billionaires as a manifestation of the system, not the cause

• Outside Politics: Confessions of a know-it-all and getting "fired" by your doctor

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Episode Resources

• Democratic socialists surge in mayoral races as anti-Trump fervor rises (AP)

• The primary results summary we opened with (Washington Post)

• What is Democratic Socialism? (Democratic Socialists of America)

• Back to Basics: What Is Capitalism? (IMF)

• Our “Reagan ruined everything” episode (Pantsuit Politics)

• The essay that sparked our know-it-all conversation (Axios)

• June 23 primary results tracker (AP)

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Sarah: This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

[00:00:04] Beth: This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. We had more primary elections this week, which has left pundits asking whether Democratic socialism is on the rise. So today we’re going to talk about the Mamdani effect and what we think will persuade and put off voters headed into the midterms. Outside of Politics, we’re inspired by an essay called Confessions of a know-it-all. Can’t wait to talk about that. And before we dive into all of that, next week is the big week that we’ve been leading up to all year, our big America 250 celebration. We’re excited to pull all the pieces together. Sarah, please tell the people what you have planned for Good Morning next week.

[00:00:47] Sarah: I will be reporting the news on my little Good Morning, from 1776. I got period-appropriate costuming. I changed my background. I come in by candlelight. And I report the revolutionary happenings in the week leading up to July 4th. And I got them all five days of the week, baby. Monday through Friday next week. So get excited. Felix makes some guest appearances. It was exceptionally fun to do. I can’t wait for everybody to see it.

[00:01:26] Beth: I’m excited. And on my little Substack show, More to Say, I’m going to be doing Founding Father Karaoke. Plus, we have two really special episodes planned for the show next week. On Tuesday, we’re going to reflect on our past. On Friday, we’re going to talk about our future. You will not want to miss it and our very special guest. So if you want all of this and to be able to talk about it with the best people you can imagine on the internet, head over to pantsuitpolitikshow.com and subscribe today. Sarah, I found this sentence from The Washington Post that I thought summarized everything I’ve read this week. “Results of primaries across four states Tuesday cemented the growing influence of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s brand of progressive populism while demonstrating its potential limits outside of large East Coast cities.”

[00:02:19] Sarah: Yeah. I think we need to divide this conversation up in two parts if we’re going to talk about Mamdani and the DSA. I think we need to talk about electorally, and then we need to talk about policy. So beginning with the electoral politics, I was persuaded by Matt Yglesias’s take that I’m not really sure if the best use of energy inside the Democratic Party is making sure that representatives who are already probably too far to the left of the majority of Americans are even further to the left of the average Americans. There’s just been a lot of energy around primarying safe Democratic seats. And then, on one hand, I’m like, sure bring in fresh blood, turn over to a new generation, a new way of doing politics. If they don’t feel like this really reflects where these particular neighborhoods in New York City are at, then who am I to argue with the voters? And I do think that Mamdani illustrates a type of positive electoral strategy that could be used around the country. And at the same time, like I said, is this is what the Democratic Party needs? No, we need to be focusing on flipping seats, not primaries

[00:03:39] Beth: Wanted to know what you thought about Mamdani’s decision to endorse in three races. He has so much political capital right now, and he’s earned it. He ran such a positive campaign. He seems to be governing with that same community-oriented, positive spirit, let’s have a good time, aided significantly by the Knicks. What a gift to him that he gets to ride that high too. He hasn’t been in office long enough to make people super mad, so he’s in a really good position. I was surprised that he chose to spend some of that capital this way because especially with one of the candidates that he endorsed for the House, there’s just a lot of baggage, and I would not be advising him to walk around accumulating other people’s baggage at this point in his career.

[00:04:27] Sarah: But when else do you spend political capital? You spend it when you’re at the top. You send when your bank account has lots of money in it. You don’t wait until your people are pissed or you have your own controversies. You take the momentum when it’s yours, and you use it to create some coalitions and some allies. He burned some people, I think, who were allies to him in the mayoral race. That is a political choice. But I get it. I think when you’re building your own structure, especially in a place like New York City, there is no way to not piss people off. You know what I mean? There’s no way that he’s going to stay the guy who wants something new and also never piss off people who have built power inside a safe blue zone like New York City. And my experience in blue cities and Democratic politics is like shaking up is probably on the agenda. Like I’m sure that there were people who were probably good legislators, not bad people maybe, but it’s just hard. It’s really hard because I think primarying incumbents, it is a way to seize the moment and to signal things are different. And I think his election and everything we know about this political moment, things are different. It’s a different scene. You need different skills. You need different approaches. You need to talk about different things. And so there’s a part of me that’s like very sympathetic to saying “Okay that means you too, friend.” That means Democrats. Of course, it’s going to mean Democrats in a place like New York City. Like what was he going to do, just go after Republicans? There are no Republicans to go after. So if he was ever going to flex this muscle, he was going to have to flex it over other Democrats.

[00:06:19] Beth: Personally would have counseled him to flex that muscle over Democrats in the state house where it relates more to the current job. This to me announces that he intends to be a movement leader. He intends to be a national figure real early in his career.

[00:06:33] Sarah: He just already is. And I think here’s the thing, though. Is that 40-year-olds talking? You know what I mean? This is a dude who understands how fast things move. It’s why he was so good at the media and why he’s so good at connecting and using the algorithm and using the new approach. There is a part of me that’s “Maybe I don’t understand this for a reason.” Maybe what he’s doing is because he understands that things move quickly, and you have to seize on the moment when you have it both in the media and in politics.

[00:07:05] Beth: So that moment was not universal in New York. So the three people he endorsed got across the finish line. Grace Meng beat Chuck Park, who’s someone that I had talked to on our Substack, also a very progressive candidate running to the left of the incumbent. She beat him pretty comfortably. Jerry Nadler’s pick to succeed him won that race with the support of Mike Bloomberg and Governor Hochul. That’s about as establishment as you can get, right? But we saw momentum for Democratic socialists elsewhere. Janice Lewis George won the Democratic primary for mayor in D.C. She won promising a lot: subsidized or free childcare, increased down payment assistance for homebuyers, community resources to reduce crime, and to fight Donald Trump very aggressively in D.C. Elsewhere, two Democrats in Maryland won with the backing of the cryptocurrency industry, which is something that I’m really curious to keep an eye on. When cryptocurrency industry insiders are, like, saying to newspapers, “These are going to be the most pro-crypto people we’ve had in Congress,” it gets my attention. And then we had a lot of AI spending in a race in Utah where a Democrat beat a more liberal challenger, a more establishment Democrat with the backing of those groups.

[00:08:23] Sarah: I found the Jerry Nadler race in particular pretty interesting. That was the Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy heir. Bless his heart. He didn’t do very well. But I thought Alex Boris was going to do good. He was the one that was going to regulate AI. He was on the Ezra Klein show. He got a ton of earned media. I thought he was going to win it. But Micah Lasher, the sort of establishment pick, was the one who won the seat. So I thought that was pretty interesting. Look, any primary like this, any place-- we say New York City, there is not just one New York City. And so there’s always going to be a mixed bag as far as conclusions that don’t fit neatly in the narrative everybody wants to perpetuate. And I do think it is undeniable that there is an anti-establishment piece of all this growing in strength from the Democratic Party and on the progressive left. For sure. I think a big piece of that is, anti-tech fervor. I think a big piece of that is affordability, and I think a huge piece of that is particular to New York City, is the dramatic shift in opinion towards Israel. You have somebody like Brad Lander, who ran against Mamdani for mayor but is Jewish, but is very critical of Israel winning. And I think you’re going to see more candidates, particularly, this is the Jon Ossoff effect, right? A Jewish candidate who is harshly critical of Israel. I think we’re going to see more of those. Because I think one piece of this new reality that Mamdani in particular is unafraid to acknowledge, however you feel about it, is that, look, Israel has lost an enormous amount of support on both sides of the aisle, both the left and the right. And candidates who acknowledge that, I think you see some of that in the Michigan Senate primary who are willing to say that openly and acknowledge that the ground beneath us has shifted will do better electorally. I think that is a new reality along with a new approach to media and the anti-establishment trend that smart, electorally motivated people are going to take advantage of.

[00:10:38] Beth: I think that’s right. I worry about the fissure around Israel and the dimensions that can take on. I was trying to think about how I feel when I hear Europeans interviewed about their feelings about America, and those feelings are tied directly to President Trump. Because I don’t want to be represented by President Trump, but I also recognize that what America is actually doing in the world would make me consider America not an ally anymore if I lived elsewhere. If I think through threatening Greenland, the behavior towards Russia, the situation in Gaza. Remember when he came out and said “We’re just going to own it. We’re going to turn it into a resort, and everybody can leave and then maybe come back when we’ve made it nice again.” The way that America is behaving in the world under our commander-in-chief, if I were a citizen of another country, I think I would saddle America, the entire populace, with those actions because that’s just the breaks. That’s the effect the president has. And so I hate that we get into this dangerous range of what is antisemitic and not when talking about Israel because I do think right now where most people are in the United States is supportive of the Israeli nation and people, but against the way the president is leading that country and the effects that has on the rest of the world

[00:12:08] Sarah: I don’t think the majority of Americans have that nuanced of an opinion about Israel. I’m just going to be really honest. I wish that to be true, but I don’t think that they break it down by Netanyahu. I think particularly in the dramatic turn against Israel with people on the right and people on the left-

[00:12:23] Beth:  I think young people are a different category. Yes.

[00:12:26] Sarah: Is a generational sense that Israel is the bad guy. And I think that ship has sailed to a certain extent, and I think that’s why it feels different, particularly when it’s a Jewish population because then they can speak to the younger generation who are done. They are done. They don’t care. They don’t think it’s just Netanyahu. They are n-not in any way, shape, or form persuaded by accusations of antisemitism. So it sweeps them up, but everybody older who is concerned about antisemitism, who does maybe see it more as an issue with Netanyahu feel safer because of the identity of the politician being Jewish, saying “Yeah, I want to go in this direction too, and you give me a safe path to do that.” I truly believe that’s why Jon Ossoff is doing so well in part, is because he gives people that off-ramp, and the ability to say, “Yeah, my feelings have changed too, but I just have decades more of the older reality about our alliance with Israel to combat.” But you’re under 25? They don’t have any of that. They don’t have any of that.

[00:13:30] Beth: I think that’s true. I think young people are a category difference for sure. I also think that Jon Ossoff might be a beneficiary of the clipping economy that we talked about a couple of episodes ago. I think people are doing some really savvy social media work for him as well. So I think you’re right that there are a lot of anti-sentiments fueling the rise of Democratic socialism. What I think Mamdani has done really smartly is make all that feel like it’s pro something else, pro community, pro neighbor, pro getting municipal things done that are obviously good for everybody. And that’s, I think, a good transition to that separation that you made at the beginning. There is an electoral side of this where I think you go with Mamdani right now because you trust him. It feels good. He says, “These are my choices.” Okay. That’s a better message than everyone sucks. He’s got that lightness. And then there is the ideology and how far that can go in the United States as it exists today Sarah, I thought instead of winging a definition of Democratic socialism, I would go straight to the DSA website. They introduce themselves pretty much by saying, “We’re not capitalism.” They say, “Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with Democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society.” And then they say, “We’re not doing like the authoritarian version of socialism that perhaps you’ve seen before. Instead, we plan to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation.” They want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear. I think that’s tough as a policy objective, but there you go. They want to win, quote, “Radical reforms like single-payer Medicare for all, defunding the police, refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life. And finally, we want a democracy powered by everyday people. The capitalist class tells us that we are powerless, but together we can take back control.” I’m interested in how that framing strikes you.

[00:15:53] Sarah:  Despite the fact that I said maybe it’s not the best use of our time and energy making, bluer areas of the country even bluer, I actually do think this ideology has a helpful contribution to make when we start really talking about policy. Now, it only has a helpful contribution to make if the lawmakers who represent the DSA-- and I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an excellent example-- are pragmatic deal makers. If they come in as ideologues and say, “We replace everything or nothing,” that’s not helpful. I don’t think that’s the AOC model. I don’t see that right now as the Mamdani model. I’m just saying let’s just keep that in mind. Because I do think that there are pieces here that the majority of Americans could be persuaded by. I think people generally don’t like socialism, but we do have some socialism in the United States. For example, I agree that there are key pieces of our economy that should be treated collectively like a utility. I agree with that. I think that the utilities we have are a good model, and we should expand that in the twenty-first century, and we haven’t, and we should. Like the internet, I’m persuaded by artificial intelligence as a utility that should be owned collectively and treated as such. I am supportive of a single-payer healthcare system. I think we have reached the end of the road when it comes to health insurance for the majority of Americans, even since the ACA. To me the change, like the vibe shift from people being like, “Okay, enough.” I think when you get to a point where we have gotten with many things on this podcast where we say “ The market doesn’t work. There is no market. Daycare is a place. The market doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. There is no real economic capitalist model for this particular service or good,” then yeah, I think the Democratic socialists have something to add and something to contribute, to say “Okay we have another idea.” And I think, overall, it is persuasive to say to people, our current economic model is not democratic. What we have experienced over the last 10 to 20 years is more and more people getting richer and locking everybody else out. You don’t need to be a policy expert. You don’t need to be a political rat. That is a persuasive argument because it’s true. Because it’s true. Now, then when do you get to this sort of idea that we’re going to end capitalism, and we’re going to replace it with something where everything is owned collectively, I don’t know, man. There are goods and services I engage in that I don’t want to be owned collectively. And I think that’s where most Americans are like, “Okay, not everything, just some things.” But I think they have a seat at the table, and I think they have something to contribute.

[00:18:54] Beth: Definitely there’s something to contribute. Certainly, this represents a lot of people in sentiment especially. I think there’s a sentiment here. Yes, do I want the multiracial working class united in solidarity instead of divided by fear? In a vacuum, sure. I have no idea how that translates to legislation or to something that an executive branch agency can promote. I am not persuaded by collective ownership of AI. I am not persuaded by, at a national level, collective ownership of a lot of things, especially given the presidency that we are enduring right now. I think that you’re right that our current economic system has become undemocratic. I think it’s fixable. I don’t think that capitalism at its core is the problem. There are a lot of branches of capitalism, and maybe this is a good time to level set with our definition on that side. So I went to the Democratic Socialists of America for their definition of what they’re about. I went to the International Monetary Fund for the definition of capitalism to work with. And it talks about how this is a system where private actors own and control property, and everyone’s interest is in making a profit for themselves, and that when we have that competition of self-interest, we get to social welfare. We get to good for everyone when everyone is in friction, in tension, competing with each other for those self-interest. And I think you’re right, and we’ve talked many times about how there are sectors of society where the market does not work. I think caregiving is the major sector of society that is a market failure. It doesn’t scale. There is not a sustainable profit model that is also in the interest of all of the stakeholders. All of the stakeholders do not have equal power or agency. And so there are places where I think there’s a real conversation to have about where can state sponsorship of programs, public-private partnerships, or even state programs themselves fill in that gap that the market leaves, and that’s what the United States has been doing, like most countries in the world now. We are a mixed economy where liberal market economics dominate, but there are sectors of real government intervention. And I think where we’ve gone astray is some of that government intervention has not kept pace with changing times, changing technologies, changing demographics, and there are places where our government itself, the structure that is supposed to regulate, has just been captured by not even the profit motive as much as the power motive, the collaboration with private actors the donor system. So I think capitalism on its own is not the evil that it is often portrayed as. It’s the way that we are on this trajectory of oligarchic capitalism that’s failing us.

[00:21:56] Sarah: Yeah, over the course of my life, I think what we’ve seen, especially post-Reagan, we’ll put a link in our show notes to the-- one of my favorite episodes of Pantsuit Politics ever where we just talked about how Reagan ruined everything. I think it really holds up. It’s evergreen. What we’ve seen is places where socialism was working. I’m persuaded when they say the public education system is socialism. We don’t privatize it. The government runs it. And I think when I look back over the course of my life where private capital could get its greasy little paws on the public education system, shit went sideways. Looking at you, edtech. And I don’t think our regulation has kept pace. I think that the problem and power of capitalism is, yes, that the desire for more that fuels it can lead to incredible innovation, and it can also lead to this inescapable desire to become a monopoly, to shut out the market. That’s the ultimate motivation, right? What you want is you want to grow, and you want to invent Amazon, and then you want to be Amazon, and you want to dominate everything. If you’re doing capitalism you eliminate capitalism, right? You eliminate the market. You become the market. And I think that is where you have to have an actor as big, particularly as the federal government, to come in and go, “No, you cannot do that. Enough.” And we have just stopped doing that. We let anybody and everybody merge vertically, horizontally. We don’t care. Occupy the whole field. We’re just going to look the other way and let you roll in and dominate, and that’s why Democratic socialists of America and Mamdani, and that’s why you got more and more Democrats saying “I don’t want capitalism. I want to do socialism,” because capitalism is the snake that eats its own tail, right? If you are following the path, eventually what you want to do is basically eliminate the market. I think in particular with healthcare it’s just broken. What are we doing? It’s broken. Nobody can afford it. It’s a disaster. We have tried a million ways to Sunday to try to make it better for the patient. Come on, man. I’m done. I’m ready to just do single-payer and move on.

[00:24:07] Beth: I’m not ready to do single-payer and move on, and that’s probably a different show. But healthcare is an interesting example because there’s that caregiving aspect where I think there are market failures, where there’s unequal power, where the sort of negotiation and friction and self-interest doesn’t work the way that classic liberal capitalism does We’ve also not fully gone in with government regulation, right? So it’s like healthcare is a mix of being dominated by profit motives, but with all these regulations and with these limits because the government pays for a huge percentage of it, we don’t have a pure working market either. We’ve got like something in between that is broken, and I think everybody agrees that it’s broken. I think what is not being named right now that would be useful electorally, that doesn’t take you down the socialism, is that the president is taking us to a new form of capitalism for the United States, which is state-guided capitalism. Where you have private companies, but you have the government deciding what sectors will grow and what sectors will shrink, which businesses will prosper and which will be declared openly enemies of the United States around certain product releases and business lines. And I think that most people do not want that, and that is a uniting cause instead of one that is as divisive and that has all the historical baggage that socialism as a term brings to the table.

[00:25:37] Sarah: Feel all the baggage around socialism. I don’t know why everybody gets their hair on fire. There’s socialism all over the world. Now, I do think with progressives a lot, you’ll hear sort of Europe held up as this gleaming example on a hill, and it’s a mess. And so I’m kind of tired of that. Now, I think there are examples of socialism in Europe, particularly around healthcare, that are hard not to be jealous of, but I don’t think it’s this like magic solution. But I don’t want to hear capitalism painted as the villain. I don’t want socialism painted as the villain either. I don’t think either of those approaches are productive or honest or realistic. We have lots of socialism in the United States, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. There’s lots of it. It’s right there in the damn name, and everybody loves it: Social Security.

[00:26:25] Beth: But we are geographically oriented in a hemisphere where that language does carry a lot of baggage. A lot of people live here because they lived under socialist regimes in South America, in Central America, that they expressly fled to the United States to be away from. And so appropriate or not, helpful or not, constructive or not, that is a political piece worth considering and that we see has measurable impact in groups of voters.

[00:26:55] Sarah: Yeah, we won’t even talk about the fact that one of Mamdani pick took out the head of the Hispanic caucus. Yeah, I think that is worth grappling with. And I think Progressives, members of the DSA, when they wax poetic about Denmark or whatever, they don’t really grapple honestly with the pull of the American dream, which is fueled by a capitalist system. I think they think people are further along with them than they actually are, at least the majority of Americans. Because the majority of Americans are still-- yes, we are all loving Mamdani’s talk about our neighbors and our communities, and I do think for the most part, people are hungry for that. Obviously, we speak to it quite a bit. And also, we are still some individualistic-- I wonder if Mamdani read Democracy in America recently. We are still individualistic. We still want to be in control. We want to make our own way. We want to make our own money. We want to make our own fortune, and we want to be our own bosses. And capitalism can do a lot to fuel small businesses and new industries, and I don’t want to lose that either, and I don’t think most of Americans do. I think there’s a reason people freaking love Shark Tank and watch it over and over and over and over again, right? And I don’t think they really own that or are honest about that. Just because people are pissed about the cost of health insurance and feel like they can’t find an affordable house doesn’t mean that they also don’t want to own their own business one day, and they don’t want government licensing fees and a million different taxes. Go talk to blue states like California that’s losing so much of this industry because they feel hamstrung by government regulation, and it makes starting your own business or building your own American dream that much harder. I don’t think they grapple with that either. The government got New York and California into the mess of affordability that they’re currently in. So I think without criticism, presenting the government as the definite solution is a little bit reductive.

[00:29:08] Beth: State monopoly is still a monopoly with all of the problems that come with a monopoly and with the potential for enormous corruption. If we had more of the Democratic Socialist of America vision happening in Washington, DC right now I think everybody would be a lot less happy. To me the reality that isn’t grappled with is that sometimes people you disagree with will be in charge.

[00:29:32] Sarah: They don’t have to grapple with that. They live in damn New York City.

[00:29:37] Beth: This is the thing, though. If you want this vision to scale, then you’re going to have to roll with the fact that New York City has unusual resources and opportunities. Some of this is just geographic, right? When you talk about the Denmark vision, I’m like, “Cool. How’s that work in Texas and Alaska and Maryland?” Geographic reality matters. The network of hospitals available in certain places matters to your healthcare vision. There’s a lot of pie in the sky thinking here that I don’t know how it actually maps across the states. I also don’t know how to have everyone in these United States of all ideologies take a breath and realize your side will win and then it will lose because those of us who have an ideology are a tiny percentage of the population. I think the appeal of Mamdani is way less about Democratic socialism and way more about charisma and media savvy and speaking to some values that we want to have on a voluntary basis. We want to be better neighbors because we’re choosing that and we want other people to choose it, too. I think all the time that a few good billionaires could change a lot of this vibe. We just happen to have a cartoonish group of oligarchs right now who make the sentiment that there should be no billionaires much easier to wrap your arms around. But I do think a lot of people still want to be very rich in this country and aspire to it and do not want to demonize all wealth.

[00:31:14] Sarah: Hold on. A couple things One, it works fine in Alaska. Remember, they own the oil and they get a big old check. So we do know how socialism maps across Alaska to a certain extent. That’s a good thing.

[00:31:27] Beth: You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Medicare for all, like systems that are going to be the same for everybody in extremely disparate parts of the country.

[00:31:34] Sarah: But that is the benefit of the United States. We actually can see how. We have little social experiments, and not every state is the same, but that’s how we got ACAs, because sweet old Mitt Romney tried it in Massachusetts. So there are, like, yes, it’s hard to map it across the United States, but it can also work in the other direction. We can say, “Look, this state did it. Let’s try it nationally.” Won’t work out perfectly because we’re not all the same, but we do have these little ex- democracy experiments happening that I don’t think we take seriously enough, and I think some states could really be proving grounds for this. And I don’t think Mamdani is just about social media savvy. I think some of what he’s doing is trying to test case some of this and say, “See, look, I pick up people. I pick up electorates. I pick up more conservative parts of New York City and more conservative parts of these neighborhoods when I speak to this,” because that’s what Trump did too. Trump also spoke about anti-establishment; you’re getting screwed, the system isn’t working for you. And what the progressives I don’t think grapple with enough either is that it came from a millionaire’s, then billionaire’s mouth. It’s not that people hate all millionaires and billionaires, and I think it’s not that we stumbled into this, just happened to stump into this villainy sample size, okay? Because ten years ago, Mark Zuckerberg was building a public school or a private school proving ground. And ten years ago, Bill and Melinda Gates were encouraging everybody to give their money away. I think that as what is always true is that the billionaires that we’re all mouthing out, and now one trillionaire in particular, it’s not that they’re individually terrible people. They are manifestations of the system we all help create. And part of the last ten years, but again, some of the DSA I don’t think grapples with, is this permission structure. Some of it fueled by Donald Trump, some of it fueled by social media that rewards this sort of flashy influencer lifestyle. Some of it is a culture that has detached from a broader conversation about values that has decided like we’re nones, we don’t have religion, we don’t have values, everybody’s on their own, everybody gets to decide for themselves. And the only value is greed.

It’s like the ‘80s all over again. So they’re just manifestations. Like they’re not actually Lex Luthor. They do not have any some sort of like powerful weapon. They are a manifestation of all of us, and we would probably be in the same space if we had that level of wealth, too. Everybody thinks they’d be different. Everybody thinks they’d be better. Everybody thinks they’d be nicer. You wouldn’t. It would work on you in the same way it works on them. And so to me it’s like hating the billionaires and deciding it’s like that they’re the reason. No, they’re just a manifestation, and if we want to get at that, then it’s hate the game, not the player. This is a game and they’ve won and we’re all pissed about it. But I think there are proposals from the Democratic socialists that get at some of this. I do think rich people should pay more in freaking taxes. I do not think you should be able to protect all your wealth in these bullshit stock option ways that they do, and they just borrow against their stock and hide all their wealth and pass it on to their kids. I think all of that is jacked up, and some of the proposals coming from the very progressive left, I’m in favor of. I think there’s a part of it they’re just willing to go big, and I do think people want some big solutions. At least want to hear people talking about big solutions.

[00:35:06] Beth: I think some people want that, for sure, and I think other people are completely alienated by the sense that we hate the billionaires and we hate wealth because they know that threshold will continue to change. It’s been millionaires and billionaires, right? Now we’re billionaires and trillionaires. I think most people really don’t want the pendulum to swing all the way back and forth. They want some kind of place in the middle that accommodates lots of different interests. I think that don’t hate the player hate the game is always true, and the thing that is true with it is that the players do change our perception of what the game is, and the players are how the game itself changes. And that’s why a couple of good billionaires could really change the vibes right now because there have been times when the wealthy class engages in meaningful philanthropy, taking risks that governments can’t afford to take. States do experiments, but I look at somebody like Mark Cuban who’s out there experimenting, losing money, trying to figure out how to do prescription drugs in an affordable way and get that to a place where it actually makes sense, and constantly engaging politicians, saying, “Here’s what I’m trying. You want to come see? You want to learn about it? Here’s an idea for you. Why don’t you try this?” So I think there are places where that Private person who is told through capitalism to act in their self-interests also chooses to act in the community interest. That’s what small businesses do all the time. That’s why they’re beloved. People love small businesses because they serve pizza and make money, and then also are on the back of the Little League team’s T-shirts, right? They’re pouring back in there is a mutually beneficial relationship. The United States has achieved unprecedented levels of wealth as a mix of big firm capitalism where we have airlines, and entrepreneurial capitalism where mom and pop hang a sign and sell their stuff for as long as they want to. That’s the magic formula that works and has gotten broken. And so what ingredients help us out of that? I think it is probably more meaningful representation in Congress of people who want to see more government intervention Mixed with a huge variety of other views because that’s where we are in the United States, and something that comes out that is a pragmatic compromise of those things. You said earlier these people have to be pragmatic, as AOC has been, and that really dovetailed with a quote that I found from a Democratic member from Tennessee who said, “If these people come and are serious legislators, then they’re going to have to compromise on some of these views and work with other people. Otherwise, they’re just going to be the Freedom Caucus of the left.” And I think that’s exactly right, and there’s a lot of potential for that outcome. But if they do bring to the table these ideas in a really constructive way, maybe we get somewhere.

[00:38:15] Sarah: I do think that what they name that I feel, and what you just said, is I don’t know if the sort of benevolent billionaire has ever really been true. And I wonder if they look around at like the Sackler family, who gave a lot of money to charity, to museums, and all kinds of things. And I wonder if the billionaire class... this seems to be the vibe, right? They’re just like, “It’s never good enough. Some people are going to hate us no matter how much money we give away, and whatever causes we support, they won’t be good enough. Forget it. We’ll just pursue what we want to pursue and stop trying to become benevolent billionaires because y’all are never going to buy it.” And I’m not really sure I do buy it. I think that it’s always problematic, and I think the idea that because you built something big makes you smart about everything is really messed up. And I think the enshittification of the big firms like airlines, for example, is why people are less and less persuaded by capitalism and why it’s become such fertile ground for the Democratic socialists is because they look around, they’re like, “They offer me what?” Although, I say that in the same breath, the argument had a great thing about like we all bitch about Jeff Bezos, but Amazon is pretty popular. People like it. People use it. And so it’s hard to see outside of your own life and demographic attitudes around this to say like where are like let’s say independent voters, where that sort of middle, where are people on Amazon? Where are people on Jeff Bezos? Do people actually hate Elon Musk as much as we think they do? I don’t know about that part, but I do think that most people feel like the system is not working for them, and that’s why Donald Trump was successful. That’s why Mamdani is successful, and that should tell you like that part of the message is pretty universally appealing. It might come dressed up in different packages, might be a Democratic socialist, it might be a real estate tycoon, but people feel locked out of the American dream. And that is real, and that’s not going anywhere, and that’s going to continue to change our politics on both sides of the aisle

[00:40:46] Beth: I think you’re seeing among people who were part of the MAGA coalition initially finding that message to ring hollow once they’ve elected all their people and gotten all the power and seen it continue along that same trajectory, even supercharged. And so, to me, the call to action for the midterm elections is to find something positive to orient around, not just do the anti-establishment thing, and to get more specific about what we’re trying to do and how it will help you. And I think that’s where affordability is a dangerous one because talking generally about affordability is a lot of promises that you can’t necessarily keep. And especially as social media becomes just this barrage of meaninglessness, it is going to take like talented actors like Mamdani to get anyone’s trust for any period of time around these messages.

[00:41:46] Sarah: Yeah, that’s what I wish they’d do. I guess if I was advising him and all these new representatives-- they’re not officially elected yet, but you win the Democratic primary in New York City, you pretty much win the whole thing-- is don’t start with trying to subsidize things. Get at what’s been eating away at these markets and systems for decades. I’m more in the Lena Kahn school. Go after the bigness. Start there. Instead of trying to convince the majority of Americans that they want subsidized daycare or even trying to convince the majority of Americans we want single-payer system, go after the pharmacy benefit managers. Break some of these things apart. To me, regulating the bigness of the economy and chipping away at that in some real and substantial ways, not to mention trying to get in front of the bigness of the artificial intelligence industry, would get you further faster than like free grocery stores. They didn’t ask me, but that would be what I’d be working on if I was a member of the DSA heading to Congress.

[00:42:52] Beth: Also encourage people to continue the positive servant leadership type message because even though that kind of leadership isn’t policy, we have seen the effect of leadership that is about one person and one person alone. And so many people’s views of politics are set in their workplaces. How does my boss treat me? Am I respected here or not? If you are really respected in your workplace, you’re more likely to see respect in systems. And if you are really beaten down in your workplace, you are more likely to see systems as inherently corrupt and bad and out to screw you. And so I think just turning a page on the selfish, crude, I’m the only person who matters tone in our politics could have a lot of ripple effects that makes people more willing to sit down and say, “Okay, what might we change next and how could that work?” We always end our episodes with something Outside of Politics, and Sarah, I wanted to talk to you about this essay that appeared in Axios from one of their writers who has gotten fired by a lot of doctors. And she writes really openly about how she thinks of herself as a know-it-all. She advocates for her health issues. She has an extensive medical history. And the context of the piece is that she goes in to look one of these concierge practices to decide if she wants to spend the money on the practice, and she leaves when the doctor says “I don’t think you’d be a good patient for me.”

[00:44:38] Sarah: First of all, concierge medical practices, put that in my bucket of why I’m ready for single-payer healthcare systems because they’re so obnoxious. So I’ve never been fired, and I’m a pretty strong advocate. I had two home births, for heaven’s sakes. So that’s wild to me. I think you can advocate, but it feels like their sort of threshold for crazy behavior is pretty high. So I don’t know where she lives or what kind of doctor she’s around. But I’m a know-it-all. I show up kind of knowing what I want, feeling with very strong opinions about the medical profession, but I’m not rude. I feel like know-it-all has to crest into rude for you to be fired that many times by doctors.

[00:45:24] Beth: I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything about this writer that isn’t fair because I don’t know her. I have not had the experience of being fired by a doctor before. I have gotten the strong vibe in a variety of settings that my thoughts are not welcome. I witnessed a lot of this as a professional services provider, people interacting with their lawyers, and there’s a range of tolerance from lawyers in terms of how much you think you know and what you are advocating for here, and I’m the expert. I think that dynamic is really interesting. Like watching these situations unfold where one person does have more knowledge about the system, and then one person is like living the problems and how we negotiate that.

[00:46:12] Sarah: Yeah, when I was in the emergency room in Mexico on my babymoon with Griffin, my discharge paper said muy delicado because I think everything that came in, I was like, “What’s that? Find someone who can tell me what that is in English.” I was super protective. But I think so much of mine I really wouldn’t call it know-it-all. I am persuadable. It takes a lot. I like information. That’s my number one strength finder is information. And so often I assume other people are the same, they’re interested in as much information as I can bring, and what my experience in so many professional settings is that is not true. Other people do not welcome additional information like in the way that I do. They don’t want to debate it out or discuss it, and that’s why I was so happy with the midwifery model of care when I was pregnant is because my midwife would sit and talk to me for thirty minutes about my diet, she’d be like, “Nope, that’s not going to work,” and she’d tell me straight up. My midwife is not a shrinking violet. She will tell you straight up “No, that’s silly.” But she also would welcome a lot of it. Like she wanted the information from me. That’s what’s frustrating, is when I feel like don’t you need more information from me to really assess this situation? But the attitude of “No, I’m going to slot you into this box. You can’t tell me anything that will change my mind about that,” that really runs all over me. That’s the part I don’t like.

[00:47:32] Beth: I think you hit the key ingredient for a lot of these situations by talking about thirty minutes on the diet. I think it’s time. I think a lot of where you get sideways in settings like this, and this is true like in public schools too, right? You want to talk to a teacher; you want to have a discussion about what’s going on. It’s just time. To have two people with different levels of authority and information about a situation exchange that information productively and come to a mutually acceptable conclusion is a slow process. And I wondered as I was reading this Axios piece, what kinds of environments is this happening in? And is it just a matter of the doctor doesn’t want to spend the time with her listening to her thoughts or her experiences?

[00:48:14] Sarah: A concierge physician should.

[00:48:17] Beth: Yeah. I think the interesting piece about the concierge physician was just like a prospective employer. I see too many things on this resume. It makes me think you’re going to be unhappy no matter what. You’re the problem.

[00:48:28] Sarah: Yeah. But there’s also isn’t there just always going to be a subset of the population that’s unhappy no matter what? They still deserve services.

[00:48:36] Beth: Yes. And it’s hard.

[00:48:37] Sarah: They still got to have a doctor. They still got to have healthcare.

[00:48:40] Beth: It’s hard. They still have to have a lot of things. They still have to have kids in schools. And I think we have a meaningful percentage of people who are unhappy no matter what the situation is, and like the happiness comes from being unhappy at some point. That’s the persona.

[00:48:54] Sarah: Yeah. And I think you just got to remember that’s not on you. Can’t control other people. And you live in a world with other people, a percentage of which are going to always be unhappy or always going to want to have some drama in their life. And so to me it’s just more information. So I’m like, “Oh look, that person wants to create hassle everywhere they go. Ain’t that fun?” But to me it’s just like a fun show I’m watching. There’s just not much I can do about it until their monkeys join my circus, and then maybe yeah we probably have a problem.

[00:49:22] Beth: I try really hard to see almost everything as neutral. This is just how this person is, and that’s not better or worse than something else. Just this is neutral. And so I hope that if I’m encountered as a know-it-all in a doctor’s office or elsewhere, that can be seen as neutral instead of as a critique of the person in front of me. But man, we’re so attuned to each other that it’s hard for things to not feel like a critique.

[00:49:50] Sarah: Everybody’s a know-it-all about something. That’s just the long and short of it. Literally everyone. I don’t know what your thing is, but you’re a know-it-all about something. It can be a sign of passion. It can be a sign of personality. It can just be a sign that you’re human.

[00:50:04] Beth: Or that you do know a lot. Because that is also true. I’m really interested in spaces where you have felt like a know-it-all or where you have encountered know-it-alls, and if you have cracked the code on how to advocate without coming across as a know-it-all. I think all of that would be really valuable information. Let us know in the comments or in email, hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com. We read every single message.

[00:50:29] Sarah: I would like to remind everybody, because we haven’t done this in a long time, if you email us, we read everything, but if you do not need a response, just put in the subject line, “No response needed.” It really helps us.

[00:50:38] Beth: Make sure you join us on Substack, pantsuitpoliticsshow.com, so you don’t miss out on any of the America 250 festivities next week. We will see you back here then. Have the best weekend available to you.

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