For over a decade, David Pakman has been one of the most recognisable figures in progressive politics. Today, his channel has nearly 3.7 million subscribers. His latest book - Pay Attention: How the Algorithms and Media Wars Are Suppressing Truth and Rewiring Your Brain - was released in September of this year.
Why did we invite him?
In early 2022, we had David on our show for what we called “A Good Faith Debate with a Progressive.” As one of the leading voices of his movement, we couldn’t have picked a more appropriate person for it, and David could not have conducted himself better.
At least, that’s how it started.
Days after its premiere, David reacted to our interview on his own show, making some comments that we interpreted as, well, snipey. We responded, there was a brief and back forth, and, ultimately, sleeping does were allowed to lie.
Years later, we’re back. Much has changed since our last conversation, and we wanted to see if we could explore it together, as well as remedy the ugliness of last time. Did we manage to?
What did we talk about?
This is our last interview before the US midterms, and it’s impossible to ignore the elephant in the room. David has been one of Trump’s most vocal and merciless critics for some time, but he sees the president’s failure as even more profound than one might expect. Trump, even by his own metrics, has fumbled the ball. It all comes back to a remarkably simple, fundamental mistake.
”When politicians promise something real specific, like that gas is gonna be cheaper, and that the price of groceries is going to come down, people remember that promise being broken every single time they fill up their car or buy food. It’s really hard to talk your way out of that.”
The situation has become so dire that his party have been left with nothing to campaign on the back off. There are so few victories that the Republicans can look to and promise more of, and they know it; look at the campaign speeches they’re doing, and the pitch seems to be little more than “Give us another chance.”
”There’s almost nothing Republicans can run on. Trump can claim all sorts of things, but even his fans don’t believe it. He’s had success in immigration, at least according to his own metrics, but that doesn’t matter much when you can’t afford food.”
If the polls are anything to go by, a “Blue Tsunami” is on the horizon and fast approaching. With Trump’s disastrous war in Iran and devastated economy, there is fertile ground for left-wing economics to mount a comeback. And it looks like that’s precisely what’s happening.
For years, the Democrats seemed to forget about economics entirely. Minor tax adjustments here and there took a backseat to an agenda of social progressivism. It alienated a great number of lefties - us included. With the Democratic Socialists Of America (DSA) in their ascendancy and neoliberalism losing steam, it looks like they might be forgoing the ‘wokeness’ of yesteryear in favour of a hard-nosed left-wing economic agenda. Is that what David sees? If so, will it win anyone back?
”I really try to answer these questions in the context of what I believe and what I support. We’d really have to talk to the DSA people to see what they support. Are they talking less about trans issues? If they are, is it because they want to win or because they no longer think it’s important? I think my movement made a mistake by being too reactive on those issues. I’m in the centre-left, and I think it was wrong to let those conversations dominate the discourse.”
If the Democrats are indeed going to take the House and Senate, it’s natural to now ask: who are they?
