Régunberg
We’re excited to welcome Matt and my old friend Morris Katz to the Fighting Fascism podcast. How are you, Morris?
Katz
Great to be here, guys. I missed you.
Regunberg
Yeah, we missed you too! So, what’s it like to go from a regular guy to a certified Big Deal magazine profile guy?
Katz
I think for better or worse – and I think maybe you can relate to this Aaron – I feel like I was born with a certain level of what others might perceive as obnoxious arrogance. So I’ve always behaved like someone who thinks they’re right. And now I’m saying the same things that I said before, in the same way, but now other people are saying, “Wow, that’s really profound,” and I’m like, that’s just how I’ve always been.
There is also an element of feeling a bit fraudulent. People ask, “How did you create Zohran Mamdani?” And Zohran Mamdani is Zohran Mamdani. At my best, I’m like, yeah, you should put this really good idea of yours into practice.
So I feel lucky and fortunate, and I hope I can somehow capitalize on some influence or whatever, to move things in the right direction.
Regunberg
I was sleeping at your house on October 24.
Katz
You, of little faith.
Régunberg
Yeah. And I was like, “Hey, so what’s going on with the mayoral race?” And you were like, “There’s this guy Zohran. » I was like, does that sound crazy? And you literally laid it out there: We’re going to wipe out all these South Asians, and there are all these people that no one pays attention to. And then it fucking happened!
Smucker
Walter Benjamin has this famous quote: “Behind every fascism there is a failed revolution. » Which I will interpret to mean that fascism arises as a result of the left’s inability to take advantage of a moment of crisis. Our hypothesis is that genuine economic populism combined with competent and savvy policy execution is the anecdote of authoritarianism, that it deflates authoritarian appeals, that it takes the wind out of Trump’s sails. Do you agree with this hypothesis, and what does it say about this idea?
Katz
Yeah, I mean, I totally disagree. [Laughs] No, I completely agree.
And I think the main thing, when you look at the Trump stuff, that some bad-faith neoliberals intentionally forget about is the idea of small government and the kind of posture that Democrats take about the size of government. We’ve had decades of Democrats apologizing for government. It’s like we can never seem like we’re active or trying to expand government. And then you look at what Trump does. This is obviously a form of authoritarianism, of fascism. But he is a man who is not afraid of big government and whose supporters are not turned off by big government.
What people are really asking for, given the current realities of income inequality and other social trends, people are in desperate need of intervention in their lives to make things better. They just want to see an aggressive act for improvement. And the Democrats are running away from that. This created a void for Trump. And I think what you see in the mayor is someone who is deeply committed to not just delivering an agenda, but telling the story of how government can improve people’s lives. This is both an expansion of the social safety net, but also a requirement for excellence in the services provided by the government. And whether it’s a small act like clearing the way over the Williamsburg Bridge, or a profound act like taking a step toward universal child care. To me, it’s the same thing: you’re telling a story that the government is there for you, the government is in your life, to make things better.
Smucker
In fact, I had exchanges with socialist colleagues after the election, where people said it was a socialist policy, this shows that socialist policy is popular. And I was like, yeah, but…
DaSilva
He has many gifts.
Smucker
Socialists who read what you write need not be persuaded that socialism wins. What they need is to learn how to embrace style, charisma, common sense, campaigning, and relating to a mass multiracial working class base. So I’m just curious what you think about some of those non-verbal, non-quantifiable, “this guy’s in my corner, he cares about people like me” vibes.
Katz
First of all, I will say that everyone takes what they want from Zohran’s victory, right? You have centrists who think social media is important and good web content is important and we should say the word affordability. And others say it has nothing to do with Zohran, it’s just the right time for someone with the right ideology. And I think we needed both things to be true. If Zohran was not a socialist, he would not have won. And if he hadn’t been Zohran, I don’t think he would have won. These elements combined to make the campaign a success.
Where language and narrative and tactics come into play is that we spend a lot of time on the left in general talking explicitly about things through the expansion of social services. There isn’t much out there about the efficiency and effectiveness of government. And I think if we want people to believe in greater government, we need them to believe in great government. And it’s mostly boring stuff. I think what the mayor is really good at is finding ways to communicate about government on a daily basis, ways to make government better, ways to make people experience government in their lives in a revolutionary way. It’s like in the campaign, his Halalflation video.
Voiceover
New York is suffering from a crisis called Halalflation. If I were mayor, I would work with the city council from day one to make eight dollars Halal again. It tastes like 10 dollars, but it should be eight.
Katz
This is a video about licensing reform. And instead, it’s like a fun viral video that feels New York, that’s authentic, that blows up. The paving of the Williamsburg Bridge hump is another good example: now there are all these people posting on social media that they are going over the Zoh ramp. It is in a way an act of rebellion against the currents of authoritarianism and fascism. But we need to understand that people in positions of power have the ability to decide what stories we tell.
If you compare the way the mayor approaches a lot of these things to Biden’s tenure, where they accomplished great things. And yet, I don’t know if I could actually tell you a real, tangible thing right now. The only thing I remember seeing Biden was driving through Michigan at one point and seeing a road being built. The sign says this is paid for and funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill. This is so stupid! Almost no Republicans voted for it, it’s bullshit, and it doesn’t sound like a government success story in these cases. What is it like? WHO? Nobody cares.
DaSilva
I was going to ask you about your other favorite ads from this campaign. Because I know the name change is now Morris Katz, Strategist. But he’s an advertiser.
Katz
Let you undo the work of my rebranding.
So the mayor was going out after Trump won and talking to Trump voters.
Voiceover
Did you have the opportunity to vote?
Yes.
And who did you vote for?
The million dollar question? Asset.
Asset.
Donald Trump.
Well, actually, I voted early. I voted for Trump.
Katz
Many politicians exist only to respond to dialogue, instead of doing something to help shape the dialogue. And I think in many ways a lesson from the campaign is that you won’t win if you’re constantly just responding to the narrative, instead of shaping it. This video began to change the dynamics of this race toward the affordability agenda in a way that broadened people’s minds about what was possible and began to highlight the different coalitions that could be formed.
Then on the paid media side, there was an ad that we ran during the primary, which was our most-aired lead ad and was filmed at one of our rallies. And it begins with: “There is a myth about this city.”
Voiceover
There is a myth about this city. It’s a lie that life must be hard in New York. I believe we can guarantee cheaper groceries, raise the minimum wage, freeze rent for more than two million renters, and build hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units.
Katz
“It’s the job of city government to make this happen. We’re done settling for less.” And I think the reason I like this one is that it rejects the narrative in which we’re losing. It’s easy for people to say, “Oh, yeah, shit, things are too expensive,” but it’s not the government’s job to change that. We need to do more work as a party and as a wing of the party, reframing the debate in a way that allows us to win our arguments.
Régunberg
That was the most amazing thing to me about the campaign: creating the arena you wanted to play in, that you knew you could win in, at a price you could afford. We’ve seen national Democrats notice this and start saying the word affordability a lot. For example, voters care about affordability, so I’m going to talk about affordability like it’s a Chat GPT response. So, what do you think are the essential elements in creating this story? Are there any real takeaways for other Democratic candidates who are serious about learning from this success, beyond just using the word?
Katz
I think you can run a hopeful, forward-looking campaign, like the mayor did, and also be clear about the bad guys. For me, it’s incredibly difficult to talk about an affordability crisis without being able to talk about the people responsible for this crisis. It’s literally like telling someone: you’re so fucked up right now. But I’m not going to tell you who’s doing this fucking. It’s like, well, why? It’s weird. All this shit is not French. Private buyouts, price increases, and general resentment against corporations and the billionaire class – all of this can be heard at the doorsteps, all of this is felt by people. And I think if you don’t say that clearly, you reduce your ability to say anything else about affordability.
Smucker
And that makes people not trust you! Because they know someone is to blame. And it shows that you’re not willing to stand up to powerful people if you’re not willing to name culprits.
Regunberg
The most revealing moment for me in this cycle was the introductory video of Graham Platner, and this sentence where he says: “I’m not afraid to name an enemy”.
Voiceover
I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps, in the Army. I’m not afraid to name an enemy. And the enemy is the oligarchy. It is the billionaires who pay the price, the politicians who betray us. And yes, that means politicians like Susan Collins.
Regunberg
To me, this just seems like the epitome of what was wrong with Democrats and what we need to fix. I would be curious to know the history of where this phrase comes from. Was it a Graham original, was it your idea, how did it come about?
Katz
Graham focuses solely and relentlessly on the enemy component. I think he’s convinced that none of this happens by accident. And I think a lot of that is interestingly explained by the process that he went through going to war and spending all this time in this horrible conflict and feeling like it was the result of a corrupt political system. And it totally sensitized him to an ability to say: here’s the thing that’s happening, here’s the person doing the fucking.
People don’t accept the idea that Donald Trump is the end all be all, and they’re not wrong. This brings us to the quote you opened with. It’s objectively true that Democrats have held the White House for 12 out of 16 years, held majorities in both chambers multiple times, and haven’t really done much to fundamentally transform people’s lives. And so if we just pretend that Donald Trump came out of nowhere and is not a symptom of a broader failure that both parties are responsible for, there is no credibility there. This is the result of a Democratic Party that was unwilling to go after the bad guys.
Regunberg
One thing I heard was that yes, the message, the candidate, the strategy was great, but the lesson here is really structural. There was public financing of the elections. There was this DSA organization that had been built over many years. I’m sure the real answer, as usual, is that all of this is essential, but just from a diagnostic standpoint, where should we prioritize our time and energy?
Katz
I think in many ways Zohran would not exist without the New York DSA. From his political education to winning his Assembly seat to launching and running the campaign. And I think if every left-wing group and chapter across the country functioned the same way as New York’s DSA, we would have a lot more power in a lot more places.
I also think, again, that Zohran is a uniquely, uniquely talented person. But much of this only works because of his policies. For example, if he had a crappy policy, it wouldn’t break through in the same way. It’s as if their charisma opens the door, and then it’s the policies that keep them there. It’s even like Trump. He comes across as a bit chaotic and he acts chaotic. But he was elected avatar of an agent of chaos, and he keeps his promises. It’s the vibe, and it’s consistent. And I think, Graham, here’s a similar example of a particularly gifted communicator, but also his policies. For example, he talks about bad guys a lot more than the mayor. This is a more central part of Graham’s message, and it’s also totally related to how people interpret it.
DaSilva
He looks like he could be in an action movie.
Katz
I always say I only work for coastal candidates who I think could be in an action movie, and that’s why I did Graham and Aaron.
Smucker
There’s still proof of concept that economic populists have to win in some of these districts that aren’t safe blue, that are statewide purple or skinny red races. I mean, I was hoping that after 2016 there would be establishment Democrats who would see the writing on the wall of the failures of the Democratic Party’s neoliberal turn, and say to themselves: These aren’t just leftists, this is actually how we win. Having more political operatives who are not aligned with us, who are like, oh shit, if I want to win, I actually have to fight with corporate power.
Katz
So I think that a lot of the criticism made at this stage is clearly bad faith. How many case studies do you need? Look at Dan Osborne’s campaign in Nebraska last cycle with a 14-point overperformance, the largest overperformance of any federal election in the country against Kamala Harris. If you look at the campaign and what he ran on, it’s a populist vision. This is incredibly different from Zohran’s populist vision, but it is still a populist vision. And then there’s Chris Deluzio, who we’ve been told for a long time that Connor Lamb is a star because he’s the only Democrat who could possibly win this seat, and it’s impossible to win this seat if you don’t accept corporate PAC money, and if you’re not some kind of lame shit from DC or something. And then Chris Deluzio comes in and it’s not even a swing anymore. Or like Pat Ryan, exactly the same thing. Sherrod Brown and John Tester were two of the other massive outperformers last cycle. I think Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown are two of the four or five best senators in the entire United States Senate. We don’t need to close our eyes and imagine what a big tent party looks like, because we have it here.
And so it drives me crazy when people claim that the branding problem comes from the left. I’m like, no, we have a great tent brand that really gets it. It’s a tent big enough for John Tester and Summer Lee. This is an enduring and coherent vision, anchored by clear villains and clear prose. But instead we just have all this corporate bullshit in the middle looking to misinterpret things. So I don’t think there are a number of case studies that could prove that thesis, because they don’t want the case to be proven, because they’re part of the same corporate establishment.
I think this year is particularly good to be able to beat these candidates, even with the entire Democratic establishment against us. You watch Graham Platner, you watch what happens to Haley Stevens [failing] In Michigan, you look at some of these exciting primaries across the country, and I think there’s such an appetite for us to be able to change who has power enough, even in Washington, that it kind of forces the removal of people who are getting in the way.
Smucker
Yes, I mean, the Democratic Party makes a lot more sense today if you realize that there are a lot of politicians and operatives who would rather keep their jobs and status in a losing party than lose their jobs and status in a winning party.
Regunberg
Morris, you now exist both as a thought leader in the populous left-wing political world, but also as someone who, I assume, frequently interacts with the establishment consultants who got us into this mess. How does this world react to you? To get us back on track, can this class of consultants be turned back to the dark side, or should they simply be eliminated altogether?
Katz
Well, if I’m a thought leader, we’re so screwed.
Sometimes I’m surprised in a good way. Then there are other cases where I think there is such ingrained brain rot. You’re just in the bubble in which this fight between moderates and the left is taking place, which is so far from any voter. I think that’s the main thing that either needs to be lifted or replaced by people who are clinging to it, in the same way that people are turning to the liberal left or, you know, the too crazy left.
I was talking to someone who might actually run for office. I won’t say where. He’s a steelworker. And he says: Yes, I am moderate. And I was with part of my team. We’re doing a bio call, and I muted the sound for a second. I told my team, I’m going to ask them who their favorite politician is. And I guarantee you, he will say Bernie Sanders. So I say, who is your favorite politician? He looks like Bernie Sanders. What is the issue that matters most to you? Medicare for All and stopping billionaires from buying our elections.
The fact is that he identified himself as a moderate. And that’s like the average voter. The biggest problem, I think, is that the consultant class is talking about moderate and imagining someone who says what I really want to see is a public health option and universal background checks.
Regunberg
Yes, a moderate who says we don’t want to suppress AI innovation with too much regulation.
The question is do we have a tent pole for our majority tent that is based on us versus them, shouldn’t it be five scary pedophiles who own all the wealth in this country, common sense that everyone agrees on, or should the tent pole be, like, AI and cryptography are awesome and saving us? It’s just crazy, the bankruptcy of the one who still runs things.
Smucker
There is a very important insight in what you just said, Morris. It’s really important for us to distinguish between moderate and a position that is intuitively popular with low-information voters – like moderate, yes, I’m my own man, I’m between those two extremes, I think for me, which is actually a thing that we meet at the door all the time. Against moderate as this cudgel used by political agents and elites to mask an unpopular status quo with this false optic of popularity.
Regunberg
Morris, as someone who thinks a lot about images and storytelling and narrative, this has always been an important part of fascism and successful fascist takeovers. Think of Goebbels and The Triumph of the Will: the Nazis understood that this required a whole apparatus. What are you currently seeing from Trump and MAGA on this front? They have had powerful storytelling in the past. I feel like they’re falling apart in that regard, which is obviously a big opportunity. But what do you think of our opposition at the moment?
Katz
I think they definitely lose the plot a bit. I’m not a conspiracy believer, but I wonder to what extent Epstein’s affairs played a role in triggering a series of distractions.
But I think in general the biggest thing we’ve given up is the element of nostalgia. Their visual aesthetic and language is incredibly nostalgic and sentimental. It sounds like Americana, and we just ceded that to them.
The Harris campaign is the best example of this. You’re trying to win the Rust Belt. So in 2022, for Fetterman, the campaign slogan was “No one is left behind.” Because many Pennsylvania towns feel like their best days were a generation or more ago. So Harris, you’re running a Rust Belt campaign and your slogan is Onward. It’s a sad place, who wants to return there.
I hadn’t even thought about it at the time, but the final metaphor of who wow at this great concert they did towards the end. It was like a Lady Gaga concert at the Carrie Furnace, which is this old abandoned steel mill, for an abortion rights rally. It’s an incredibly emblematic moment of why we’re losing: You’re standing in a steel mill that employed tens of thousands of people, that was destroyed by trade deals ushered in by Democrats, and they’re talking about going further with Lady Gaga and abortion rights. It’s inconsistent.
Now the Democrats want to take us back. And people tell me: I want to go back. We need to be on the side of nostalgia, we need to scare people about the future that fascism presents and somehow reverse that dynamic.
Regunberg
You think about the best commercial of 2016 and it was Bernie’s America, right? It was exactly that feeling.
Smucker
And Trump’s final ad did the same thing.
Regunberg
Yeah, it was a Bernie commercial with 15 seconds of racism. It was the entire Trump campaign in 2016: Bernie with 15 seconds of racism.
Smucker
What’s really striking about Zohran’s campaign is that even though he broke a record on affordability, he didn’t just avoid other issues. He didn’t do what many unstrategic Democrats try to do, which is throw vulnerable people under the bus and throw coalition partners within the Democratic Party under the bus.
We wrote in a policy brief about this: that Zohran represented the difference between voting for the greater good and voting for the lesser evil. That when people vote for the lesser evil, there won’t be much enthusiasm, and the shitty things they don’t agree with might demotivate them to participate or even less volunteer. But when people vote for the common good, low-information voters, even if they have prejudices, they say, “Yeah, but this guy is fighting for me. He’s on my side and then they almost respect them because they take risks on other issues that they might disagree with. I’m curious what your thoughts are on how to handle this, because we know that Republicans are going to attack all of our candidates on culture war issues, no matter what we do, say or don’t say.
Katz
It’s a Platner line, but a policy that betrays everyone is a policy that will ultimately betray everyone. And I think if you can centralize things around that, you give yourself a lot of room. I also think people are very misinterpreting what worked when Trump shifted the debate to social issues. The reason the debate was able to shift to social issues is that we did not have an economic agenda, not because Americans cared more about social issues than the economy. Everyone talks about “She’s for them”. Nobody talks about “He’s for you.” And that’s the most important part. If people knew who Kamala was talking to, she wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to this attack.
And that doesn’t mean all Democrats need to talk about these things. act in the same way. I’m not naive to think that New York City should be the same as an Oklahoma Senate race or anything like that. It should be possible to use different language, different words, different policies. But that’s different from, say, Colin Allred, who cut to a commercial showing him sitting in his living room, looking pretty decent, saying, “We’ve got to stop these girls from infiltrating our boys’ sports. I’m a football player. I know that.” And the problem was, he looked really weak. People don’t respond to Trump on this because of his policies. They react because he looks strong.
My other biggest pet peeve is when Democrats call Trump a bully. I’m like, people want a fucking bully. You want a bully to fight for you. When you call him a bully, you sound like the one who’s locked in a locker, and who’s going to believe that this person is going to fight for them? And so it’s so misinterpreted, where, I think Fetterman in 2022 actually did a good job of that, which is, what kind of fucking man is Dr. Oz to go after fucking children? And Dr. Oz shut up, because this is a winning debate for us.
I’m gently introducing a new metaphor that I’ve never used before. We’ll see how it goes.
DaSilva
Let’s go!
Katz
It’s like you’re in a relationship going through a rough patch and you’re fighting over the stupidest thing, but you spend 45 minutes fighting over the stupidest thing because the relationship isn’t working. It’s like, yeah, we’re fighting about the three transgender athletes in Maine because we’re in a fucked up economy. And unless you talk about it, you’re going to fight about these other stupid things. And we’re imposing that on ourselves by putting a restriction on ourselves that we’re not going to go there, and we’re going to stay in the kind of unhappy, anxious relationship with the voters, unless we’re going to talk about the real issue at hand.
DaSilva
I didn’t know if you were going to land the plane there, but I have a feeling you landed it. I like it. I think it’s a good metaphor.
Katz
A Fight Fascism exclusive.
Regunberg
David Sirota had a formula for this a while back. He had a three-part equation.
If Democrats define themselves primarily by crappy identity politics, then they’ll have a hard time winning in conservative and swing areas, because no one likes that, even if they’re pretty good at economics.
If they try to define themselves as Republicans, they’ll have a hard time winning in those areas, too, because voters will choose the real ones.
But if they define themselves as the party of economic populism – and if they are fully committed to fighting the oligarchy, to standing up for ordinary people – then they can win in these swing districts and in these redder states without abandoning these social issues.
I think it’s true. And the problem is the entire Democratic Party apparatus: the donors, the think tanks. everything, for many, many years, has been built to push people towards one or two and not towards three. That’s why it’s exciting to see your work trying to push people toward three, or help people into three.
Katz
It’s just that if we applied purity tests to corporate money, half the party would disappear. This is one of the most popular things and a good policy, but it’s too far for us.
Sometimes we’re in a race and someone in a primary says, you can’t vote for Medicare for All, because you know how they’ll use that against you in general. And I’m waiting to see the general election ad attack someone about Medicare for All. I just never saw it. It’s crazy that we bought into this myth that literally never existed.
I went back the other day and was looking at the Obama 2012 ads, and it’s one of the most populist presidential campaigns possible. It’s literally “Mitt Romney is a fucking Wall Street crook, and we’ve punched people like Mitt Romney.” It was indeed the countryside.
Regunberg
That’s what’s really crazy is they were like, “Oh, we’re the powers that be, the economy isn’t great, we’re kind of in trouble, we need to do what’s going to help us win. Let’s do economic populism.” People seem to understand that this is how you win.
DaSilva
Alright, I feel like we should wrap this up. But before we finish, we want to hear your predictions for 2028.
Katz
I think there are a handful of people doing interesting things right now. Clearly, AOC is a particularly compelling figure for a lot of people and has her finger on the pulse of the very politics we’re talking about in a particularly strong way.
Regunberg
I love AOC. I feel like there are people who see her as too coded in the social-liberal camp, and maybe that’s just because she’s a Latina. I would be so excited about his candidacy. But I feel like there is this speech. What do you think?
Katz
Look, any concerns about any of these 2028 people are completely valid and fair. This is why we have primaries. And everyone should get 200 punches in the face. And let’s see who’s left standing.
That being said, I don’t hear these same people sharing their concerns about more corporate candidates who have the same vulnerabilities. I haven’t heard a really good theory about Pete Buttigieg’s arguments yet.
Everyone will have different questions. What I will say about AOC is that a coalition that you increasingly see as a deeply powerful electoral coalition is made up of young people, Latino voters, and larger numbers of white working-class voters. It’s the Mamdani coalition, it was the Talarico coalition – and it seems uniquely equipped to win.
And his numbers. I think there’s a little polling derangement syndrome going on around Bernie and AOC, where it’s like, poll after poll, the most popular politicians in America, and then everyone says they’re just not electable. So I think you don’t know it until you know it, but I’m skeptical of some of these criticisms.
And then there is Ro Khanna. It’s obviously a very steep climb, but it does everything right. He bet on some things. He bet on the Epstein class stuff. He is aggressively supporting this project across the country. He has an interesting and unique path when it comes to AI.
And then I think there are other interesting people like John Ossoff, Gallego, there are other people who are a little less left, but who check some of these boxes that we’re talking about.
I’ll tell you, I think it definitely shouldn’t be Gavin Newsom or Josh Shapiro. People treat Josh Shapiro like he’s an electoral heavyweight because he beats someone who dresses like a Nazi all the time.
DaSilva
Wasn’t he Italian? Yeah, he beat up stupid Italian Nazis. Like, I could do that. It’s ridiculous.
Regunberg
Matt, we can’t, can’t bring Rhode Island’s white Portuguese-Italian ethnic conflict into this podcast. We simply can’t.
Smucker
Any last words of advice for us, Morris?
Katz
There are a lot of these races across the country that don’t necessarily get the same level of attention, but are just as important. There are only so many Zohran Mamdanis and Graham Platners. And not only are there so many of them, but there is an element of luck in all of this. There’s an element of luck in the algorithm that allows you to go viral and all that. And we must do our collective work, that of amplifying, of donating, of investing, of spreading the gospel of the largest populist group.
Smucker
Thank you Morris and thank you for your work.
Katz
THANKS. Great to be here. I’ll talk to you guys soon.
[Break]
DaSilv has
So you’re saying I can’t say the Italian Nazis can’t win? I will die on this hill.
Regunberg
Maybe you should say you’re Italian?
DaSilva
Yeah, sure, sure. Hi, my name is Matt DaSilva. Partly Italian.