“One believes in democracy and the rule of law, and right now, the other doesn’t.” — Adam Jentleson
Yesterday, William Hitchcock explained FDR’s ability to build and maintain supermajorities. Today, Adam Jentleson — Harry Reid’s former deputy chief of staff and chief of staff to John Fetterman — talks about how the Democrats can build lasting power in the 21st century. The strategy is laid out in Supermajority, Jentleson’s follow-up to the acclaimed Kill Switch.
Is the Democratic Party too woke? “We are still too rigid” is Jentleson’s euphemistic take on the dramatic class flip in American politics. JFK won two-thirds of working-class voters in 1960, Jentleson reminds us, while Kamala Harris lost two-thirds in 2024. His prescription is FDR-style heterodoxy. Dems need to hold to their core commitments (healthcare, the safety net, progressive taxation, civil rights) while broadening their base in red states. His examples of tent wideners include a Kansan megachurch pastor, a pro-drilling Alaskan candidate, and an Iowan hopeful whose flat “no” on trans sports silenced a right-wing radio host. The model for winning back the working class, Jentleson argues, is Bernie Sanders circa 2016, an economic populist, but to Hillary Clinton’s right on immigration and guns.
The much maligned John Fetterman, Jentleson’s old boss, is the cautionary tale. It’s what happens, Jentleson warns, when the fighting “becomes the entire point” and a politician comes unmoored from principle. Jon Ossoff, Jentleson suggests, seems the anti-Fetterman in writing his own speeches and appearing authentic rather than opportunistic. Ossoff certainly isn’t FDR, but he might be the best chance the Dems have of defeating an increasingly authoritarian Republican party in 2028.
Five Takeaways
• The FDR Lessons Nobody Tells. The New Deal was sold in conservative wrappers by a heterodox coalition — and today’s trade-offs “pale in comparison” to the ones that built twentieth-century Democratic dominance.
• Too Rigid, Not Too Woke. JFK won two-thirds of the working class; Harris lost two-thirds. Education breeds ideological rigidity — and the echo chamber of funders replaced the union hall.
• It’s Working Right Now. Peltola in Alaska, Talarico in Texas, Rob Sand’s dead-air “no” in Iowa — and the forgotten heterodox exemplar: Bernie Sanders, 2016 vintage.
• The Fetterman Cautionary Tale. From his own former chief of staff: when the fighting “becomes the entire point,” heterodoxy comes unmoored from principle — and Pennsylvania is “basically down a senator.”
• The Vision Thing. The first party aligned with authoritarianism — yet soul-of-the-nation talk doesn’t win. Finish FDR’s cradle-to-grave insurance instead. And the 2028 tell: Jon Ossoff.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Buy Supermajority: wwnorton.com
Chapters:
00:00:31 Introduction: from Hitchcock’s thirties to today’s supermajorities
00:02:03 The FDR lessons nobody tells: heterodoxy and the hard sell
00:04:00 Race and the scale of trade-offs, then and now
00:06:36 The centrist-apologist charge — answered
00:09:48 The class flip: from JFK’s two-thirds to Harris’s loss
00:14:37 “Too woke?” No — too rigid
00:15:09 Proof it works: Peltola, Talarico, and Rob Sand’s dead air
00:17:14 The echo chamber: from the union hall to the funders
00:21:15 Modeling good-faith disagreement — a Neiman preview
00:22:49 The two-state-solution objection: is this fantasy?
00:25:39 Is this era actually unusual?
00:29:25 The first authoritarian-aligned party — and the convention pledge
00:31:37 Fetterman: the cautionary tale
00:34:56 The Jacobin question: can the left win the supermajority?
00:36:09 Bernie 2016, the heterodox exemplar
00:38:46 The vision thing: wrappers from the New Deal to now
00:40:58 Meat and potatoes — and cradle-to-grave insurance versus AI
00:44:06 2028: the case for Jon Ossoff
00:45:39 A Jewish president?
00:46:40 The S-word