Marc Elias: Brian Tyler Cohen, welcome back to Defending Democracy.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Great to be here.

Marc Elias: What people don't realize is that you and I are actually really good friends and we talk a lot off air as well as on your amazing channel where we do a regular democracy series. And one of the things when you and I talk about what's going on that sort of always comes up is how the prevailing division within the Democratic Party is not really one about left versus right.

You know, we keep referring to people as like moderates, as if it's kind of like an epithet, or progressives, as if it symbolizes something else. I'm curious, what is your taxonomy right now for the Democratic Party? Where do candidates fit in? Like Gavin Newsom, who just a few months ago was interviewing Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon and now is viewed as a wild-eyed progressive. I just think these are proxies for something else.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be a question of whether you are more moderate or more progressive or whatever label you wanna use. I think this upcoming election is gonna be a referendum on who's willing to fight versus who's capable of folding. We saw that really play itself out in this shutdown fight.

The reality is that you need people who are gonna match the political lean or political ideology of their districts. And that's okay. Like part of being in a big tent party is that you accept people in Jared Golden's district, and you accept people in AOC's district, and the people who run for office have to be reflections of the people that they serve.

But I think that the issue that's at play right now is that there are plenty of Democrats who are not actually willing to meet the Republicans on the playing field that they're on right now. There are plenty of Democrats who are not actually willing to meet the Republicans on the playing field that they're on right now. And that's an issue.

As we look toward this next crop of Democratic candidates, we've already seen...

• Why Democrats need a Tea Party on the left
  
  
• How redistricting exposes who will fight
  
  
• What we need to build a progressive media ecosystem

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