After the great rebuke of 2024, many Democrats seem to think their party needs to become more moderate. But there’s another theory potent on the American left that believes Donald Trump’s election shows not just that American democracy is in danger, but that it doesn’t really work at all. What the country needs isn’t just a new policy agenda; it might need the kind of constitutional revolution — from adding new states, to packing the Supreme Court — that some Democrats already flirted with under Joe Biden.
That’s the kind of argument that my guest today makes in his new book, “The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.”
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Ross Douthat: Osita Nwanevu, welcome to “Interesting Times.”
Osita Nwanevu: Thanks for having me.
Douthat: We’re going to talk about how radical ideas and radical critiques from the left might end up being very influential in Democratic Party politics going forward. But before we get there, I want to go back to the last election, which the Democrats had basically presented themselves as defenders of our democracy against the threat of authoritarianism, fascism, or at the very least, a dangerous kind of populism.
And what you saw in 2024 was the failure of that argument, because in the end, Donald Trump didn’t just win the Electoral college, he won the popular vote. Our democracy as it exists today voted for him. So to start, could you talk a little bit about that Democratic message and why, from your perspective, it failed?
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