Liberal political commentator, journalist and author Ezra Klein spoke at the Arlington Theatre on Nov. 4 to a crowd of over 2,000 UC Santa Barbara students and community members. Klein spoke about his thoughts on how the Democratic Party should oppose the Trump administration.
Klein partly attributed the current state of the Democratic Party to digital politics for failing to teach how to engage in disagreement. Wynne Bendell / Daily Nexus
The night began with Klein walking on stage and saying, “Happy election night, y’all.”
Throughout the night, Klein expressed many criticisms of the current Democratic Party, particularly their loss of power in rural America as, according to him, the “Democratic map [has] shrunk.” He highlighted that since 2000, two Democratic presidential candidates have lost because of the electoral college and not the popular vote.
“Liberalism’s problem right now is that it does not compete in enough places. And I use places very specifically in American politics. Power is a function of place. Power is apportioned by geography,” Klein said.
Klein then spoke to California’s Proposition 50, which will redistrict California’s congressional map to increase Democratic strongholds in response to Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas. As Prop 50 passed that night, Klein acknowledged the need for the proposition to fight the Trump administration, but he ultimately condemned the undemocratic nature of gerrymandering legislation.
“Here in California, there’s a ballot initiative to sort of counter gerrymandering to Texas, and the fact that this has to be done at all is an embarrassment to our nation,” Klein said. “But that’ll probably pass. And hopefully we will sort of see a back and forth that eventually makes this country want to write, create its districts in a fair way all across the land, not just occasionally.”
Klein stressed that the “nationalization of media” has completely changed the way people interact with and form their political beliefs. He said that Americans no longer look to their local media outlets for political opinions, highlighting the New York Times being the biggest newspaper by subscriptions in California.
Additionally, Klein expressed his concern over the consolidation of political discourse on social media platforms owned and controlled by “oligarchs.”
“Our political cultures are shaped by algorithms created by soulless corporations and oligarchs who are either trying to pad their bottom line or push their political agendas. And so they’ve created structures which love conflict, love controversy, love intention,” Klein said. “They’ve created structures based on zero civic values, just whatever will keep you scrolling. And unfortunately, they’ve addicted not just the planet, but political elites.”
Klein said that President Donald Trump and other conservatives have captured the attention of Americans to the point where most people don’t know the names of some of the most powerful people in the country. Klein then asked the audience if anyone knew the name of the chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, to which no one responded.
“Almost 2,000 political junkies in this room and no one can tell me the name of the [chairman of the] most powerful committee in the house,” Klein said. “But everyone knows who Marjorie Taylor Greene is. Because attention matters.”
Klein elaborated on his point by using Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, two online far-right conservative political commentators, as examples. He explained that, despite being unaffiliated with the Republican Party, Carlson and Fuentes’ influence has pushed the party further to the right.
“[Republicans] are also defined by an algorithm that’s kept pushing them and pushing them and pushing them into a more and more outrageous and dangerous place,” Klein said. “That opens opportunity, but it only opens opportunity if you are able to take it.”
Klein further criticized liberals and the Democratic Party for losing “decisively” in 2024, attributing it to a failure to build a broad coalition that includes rural and working-class voters.
“When I talk to people, you really end up getting this answer again and again and again, which is that ‘I just came to feel that [liberals] didn’t like me,’” Klein said. “So the real challenge for liberalism in this era is to rebuild a big tent in politics.”
Klein partly attributed the current state of the Democratic Party to digital politics for failing to teach how to engage in disagreement. He then explained how he believes Democrats can overcome this challenge by broadening what the party stands for and opening up to internal debate.
“There’s been this big debate in the Democratic Party about does it need to moderate or does it need to become more economically populist or be more abundance-oriented,” Klein said. “But I think that’s actually the first thing it needs to do. It needs to be all of those things and more. And that requires actually finding energy again in the habits of being a citizen again.”
Continuing his argument, Klein explained that by adhering to the principle of liberality, or an “ethic of generosity towards your fellow citizens,” liberals could bridge the gap with rural voters they had lost. He added that rural voters also may have left the Democratic Party because the party failed to protect their economic interests.
“In the places liberals govern, life became unaffordable for the people we say we are governing on behalf of,” Klein said. “You cannot say you are the party of the working class if you neither win the working class in elections, nor are able to keep them in the states where you govern them.”
Klein said Democrats’ failures to keep life affordable for rural voters stemmed from bureaucratic gridlock. He highlighted that many projects funded by bills passed under the Biden administration have fallen behind schedule, leaving rural voters without the infrastructure Democrats promised them.
“If you are [of] the philosophy that says ‘government can help you, it can make your life better,’ and then you can’t seem to deliver for people, they will lose faith in you,” Klein said. “If you cannot deliver at the speed the public can feel what you have done for them, then people will not know who to thank.”
Klein continued, saying that Democrats need to see the speed at which they can implement the legislation they pass as a “progressive value.” He criticized the party for “defending institutions” rather than “making them work.”
“When you become the party that defends the institutions, you begin to lose the loyalty, you begin to lose the trust of people for whom the institutions are not working for them,” Klein said. “It is dangerous in a populous age to be the party of the institutions.”
Klein then summarized what he had discussed, stating that he thought that efficiency and productivity was all “common sense” and that liberals should do what they say they will.
“[The Democratic Party] should be the party that it says it is, which is the party that believes that government can work because it is the party that makes government work,” Klein said.
Klein concluded his talk by criticizing the Trump administration and again outlining the way forward for liberals.
“Right now the Trump administration is just bluntly fucking up left and right,” Klein said. “But all of that is political opportunity and its opportunity for a party, for a movement, for a philosophy that is able to represent many kinds of people.”
A version of this article appeared on p. 6 of the Nov. 6 print edition of the Daily Nexus.
