Last week, David Axelrod, political consultant, former senior strategist to President Obama, and host of “The Axe Files” podcast, spoke with Professor Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School’s John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.
Their conversation, “The State of American Politics: Midterms, Media, and the Path Forward for the Democratic Party” ranged widely, touching on the 2028 presidential election, the promise of young people, and Axelrod’s advice for Democratic candidates. The recording can be accessed on YouTube. You can read excerpts, lightly edited for clarity, from Axelrod below.
On “Orbánism” and “zombie democracy”
I said throughout the 2024 campaign: we’re focused on Project 2025, but what we really should focus on is the other game plan, which was Viktor Orbán and what he’s done in Hungary to erode a functioning democracy and turn it into a zombie democracy.
Now, we’ll find out in April. [Orbán] has an election, and we’ll see if there's enough of a democracy left that he can be defeated. There’s some signs that he might, but I want to make that point because we have to be alert to that. He co-opted the universities. He co-opted judges and the rule of law. He had his oligarchs buy up most of the media properties and hand them to a foundation that was run by Orbán's people, so that 80% of the media is state media in Hungary. So, you can see why I worry about Orbánism here, especially when the president cites him as one of the world’s great leaders.
On how the Democratic Party approaches working class voters
The Democratic Party has to confront that, while it still considers itself the party of working people, and I think very sincerely feels that way, it does approach them a bit like anthropologists and missionaries.
The message is “we’re here to help you become more like us. We’re going to send you to college, and you’re going to become more enlightened, and you’re going to make more money,” and whether it's meant to be disdainful or not, it’s read that way.
There are a lot of people, non-college voters, in this country, particularly in small towns and rural areas, who feel like they are looked down on. This is an issue that Democrats have to confront—and it’ll be interesting to see who the candidate might be in 2028, but they’re going to do better if they have a candidate who doesn’t approach them like anthropologists and missionaries but approaches them like neighbors.
“If they were essential workers then, they’re essential workers now”
[During the pandemic,] most of us who could sit in front of a computer to make a living did better than people who couldn’t. We would come out on the balcony every once in a while, bang our pots in tribute to the essential workers who protected us, cared for us, made things, shipped things. And then as the crisis abated, as the pandemic faded, these people became invisible again. Well, if they were essential workers then, they’re essential workers now. We ought to treat them with the respect that essential workers deserve. The Democratic party leads needs a little bit more of that awareness.
On emerging polls for the 2028 presidential race
Host Nancy Gibbs referenced a poll from the University of New Hampshire that found Pete Buttigieg as the most popular candidate for president in 2028 among Democratic presidential primary voters, followed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, and Mark Kelly.
Pete Buttigieg did well in New Hampshire in 2020. He’s the kind of candidate who has generally done well in New Hampshire, and I think he has residual strength there.
I think AOC is not to be underestimated as a politician and as a political figure. And if she runs, and I don’t know that she will run, she’s going to get votes.
But it’s way too early. Right now the polls show Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris as the leaders because I guess everybody wants a president from California.
“I’ll tell you what I think people are going to demand. They’re going to demand a system that is genuinely responsive to the concerns of working people.”
But I don't think that that's necessarily going to be the way, and I've said this—Governor Newsom deserves credit. He stood up when Trump decided to go the redistricting route to change the nature of the election. Newsom responded. He took a bit of a political risk to do it. He’s also sort of assigned himself the task of becoming the biggest, baddest anti-Trump troll out there, and that is cathartic for a lot of people because there was this feeling for the longest time that Trump was just running over Democrats.
And so I think Gavin Newsom was the Democratic primary winner of 2025. His problem is that the primary is in 2028. I’m not sure that what people are going to be looking for in 2028 is what they were looking for in 2025. I think what people are going to be looking for in 2028 is not a candidate who can stand up to Trump, but a candidate who can lead after Trump is gone and rebuild.
“What are we going to build?”
There are two ways to approach the post-Trump era if you’re a Democrat. One is to say, “We’re going to restore everything he destroyed.” And the other is to say, “He’s done a tear-down. What are we going to build? And are we going to just restore or are we going to renew?”
I’ll tell you what I think people are going to demand. They’re going to demand a system that is genuinely responsive to the concerns of working people. Not incremental answers, but fundamental answers...dealing with the fundamental challenges that people face. They’re going to want someone who will fundamentally attack what is, in my view, a very corrupt system—campaign finance.
On what gives him hope
[The Harvard IOP] was the inspiration for starting the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. The interaction with young people here and there and everywhere I go gives me hope. Because these folks, they’re skeptical—as they should be—but they’re not cynical. And they’ve got the energy to bring about the change that we need.
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Photographs by Martha Stewart