“In doing politics reporting on The Run-Up, we did it in real time because it mattered in real time. I wasn’t just asking questions because I wanted another story. I knew that this moment was going to shape the options that people had before they tuned in. And I just feel the Democrats robbed Americans of a real choice, and they woke up to that so extraordinarily late that to now call this a Trump win is not entirely true. It is foremost, in my opinion, a Democratic loss. And the impact of that, in the Democrats’ own words, is the type of fundamental reshaping of the country that we will live with forever.”
-Astead Herndon, episode 393 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
It’s been a week. To help us through it, we’ve enlisted The New York Times political reporter Astead Herndon.
We start with election night 2024 versus election night 2016 (6:35), what Astead discovered about the electorate reporting across the U.S. on his podcast The Run-Up (9:25), and how insider Democrats arrived at a second Biden run in 2023 (13:30). Then, we discuss politicians’ “lowercase racist” assumptions about Black and Latino voters (16:02), Herndon’s telling one on one interview with Vice President Harris (22:52), and the pervasive, nationwide sentiments that led to Donald Trump’s re-election (32:24).
On the back-half: where the Harris campaign fell short in its messaging to voters (38:48), the rise of the “podcast election” (44:48), a revealing window into the Biden administration (47:35), how quickly “good intentions” can turn power corrupted (53:01), and why the Democratic party must remake itself (1:00:55) as we begin to move forward from this election (1:06:00).
Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at sf@talkeasypod.com.
Show-notes:
- Listen to Astead’s podcast The Run-Up.
- Find more of his reporting in The New York Times.
- Hear our conversations with Astead in 2022 and 2023.
- Follow him on Instagram and Twitter.
- For more talks, hear our conversations with Ta-Nehisi Coates, Evan Osnos, and David Remnick.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Illustrations by Krishna Shenoi.
Subscribe, rate, and review: Apple Podcasts and Spotify.