Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news. I'm Noah Feldman. Ever since the twenty sixteen elections, I've been kind of obsessed with the following thought. We tend to think that Donald Trump got elected because his base of in our imagination, angry middle class or lower middle class, dispossessed white voters turned out in big numbers for him. But that's only part of the story, because it's also true that if you look at people who voted for Barack Obama but stayed home instead of showing up to vote for Hillary Clinton, fifty one percent of those voters were people of color. That's a significant number, and it means that we could also frame things a little differently. Instead of blaming the Trump voters for getting Trump elected, we could simply say, why didn't Hillary Clinton manage to appeal to voters of color in the same way that Barack Obama did. Now that's a hypothesis and an obsession, it's not a full blown theory, and I'm incredibly grateful that we have today to discuss this topic with US doctor Andre Perry. Andrea is the David M. Rubinstein Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the famous Brookings Institution in Washington, d C. He works on race, structural inequality, education, economic inclusion, and recently wrote a fantastic and significant article called Black Women Are Looking forward to the twenty twenty elections. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me. One of the really profound points I think that you make in your research paper about black women is that it's not just that black women vote for black women or for other black candidates. It's that there's an overlap in policy interests between black women running for office, some black voters, as well as lots of other progressive voters representing different racial backgrounds, different economic backgrounds. I think that's a hugely important point that we tend to forget. So I want to ask you in light of that point, was there a lack of policy for Hillary Clinton? Did she not have policies that were sufficiently progressive to match African American voters or was it really about personalities which was doing the heavy lifting? Or is it both? Somehow it's both. Certainly when you look at the candidates who are getting elected there and you hear this phrase all the time. They're unapologetically black, they will put forth items that really fill out a black agenda for community improvement. So if you're not explicitly talking about improving or reducing the wage gap between black women and white men, or black women and and white women, then you're really not speaking to the issues. So the court there is racial inequality, as you argue in your interpees. Yet racial and equality is probably the number one and number two things. And there are also issues that white Democrats simply do not raise. And so the issue of voting rights are is something that black elected officials bring up, but white Democrats or Republicans just it doesn't rank is one of the issues that they're going to campaign on. And so if you're not, why don't Democrats wake up, smell the coffee and realize that voting rights is a pretty excellent crucial issue for them, especially if they need the votes of black people. Well, the privilege of not really understanding that people are actively taking your vote away, I mean, I hear all the time, Well, there's nothing wrong with getting IDs or having people having people bring their IDs to the polls. There's nothing wrong with that. That's that's an easy fix and and to a certain degree, black folk always catch up to the next new rule, but it but to ignore the active pursuit to suppress black vote is a privilege that black folks just we don't have. And over time, white politicians, regardless of party, just ignore that issue. So those are the policy issues, and we can talk more about why it is that, even if it's purely on the basis of self interest, white politicians don't get beyond the fact that they don't instinctively think about these things and raise them anyway. But that's the policy side. What about the politics side? What about the personalities? Do you Is it your view that it would have made a difference had Hillary Clinton had a person of color on the ticket with her. Oh yeah, And I don't know if you remember, there were a bunch of memes um enduring the election cycle that she would sort of masquerade as being black here and there, and it was there was just a lack of authenticity of connecting the black voters. And that's true. I mean the choosing Tim Caine for instances, you know, um, someone who can speak Spanish, um, and you know, the in the black and brown communities, we were saying, well, why didn't you just pick someone of Latin descent and sal ultimate white guy at diversification, I can speak another language, absolutely, So using race as a prop is something that she was charged doing, um throughout her career and resided absolutely. I mean, at some point, you don't do what's politically expedient. You got to show what you're about. And um, and I you know, and I also believe that the Clinton's in general. Remember Bill Clinton was seen described as the first black president at some point, but he and he clearly wasn't, not in terms of his policies, not in terms of just his being um. But they they managed to use symbols to show their they're allegis to black But that's just not enough. It's interesting when you think back to it's a long time ago. No, but when people actually said that, what do you think they actually meant? I mean, it was that he showed affection for a black community and um, it wasn't it that he'd also overcome adversity in his own upbringing. Yeah, that that he was he was a poor folk. He actually had strong ties to to black communities growing up. Um. But that's just not enough. There's not enough political policy meet there. Um what he remember, more people, um went to prison under his watch, More Black people went to prison under his watch. A little fair about that, though. I mean, so, I'm impressed by James Foreman Junior's recent prize winning book where he says, I'm going to oversimplified here, but that a significant part of African American leadership at the national level actually supported some of the crime reform stuff that Bill Clinton signed that led to many many young African American men being incarcerated. You know, black folk are we've internalized this narrative that we are broken. I often say, there's nothing wrong with black people that ending racism can't solve. That we are We're constantly blaming ourselves for the problem. In terms of voting, we say, well, we don't vote, even though our voting record has been at all time high than in at least in the last eight to ten years. Um. But we also internalize this notion that if we can only do better amongst ourselves, then um, we we will get our just desserts. And UM, we don't necessarily deserve these policies until we get our house in order. And that's just not And that's no different than when I hear politicians telling kids to pull their pants up and and as if that's going to get them into to Harvard. You know that the bill cosby rhetoric that absolutely so. Um. Yes, there are lots of black folk who supported the crime bill and a lot of other policies that Democrats um endorse essentially to buy favor with white um sort of right leaning Republicans. But at the end of the day, we compromise our policy principles in the process and just that's just not a way to go. Andrew, you mentioned impediments to voting, and you know, as we work our way to talking about twenty twenty, I think this is a hugely significant issue and I want to get your thoughts about it. One statistic that strikes me as very important is that if you control for socioeconomic status, primarily poverty, African Americans actually vote at a slightly higher rate than their white counterparts. That said, like other poor people, African Americans who are poorer don't have fantastic turnout records. What do you see as the primary impediments. I mean, you've mentioned voter id laws, but those are relatively new innovation. What do you see as the genuine impediments to getting out the vote. Wow. One, the criminal justice system has really suppressed blackmail votes. And when you look at states, the gender differences in actual numbers in the actual different districts is enormous. So you can have in terms of actually lgible voters differences of eleven twelve UM in some cases fifteen percent UM. Birmingham, for instance, there's a close to eleven point difference between eligible black male and black female. So and and that's large fell in disenfranchisement or people still presently in cars rader both that both, but it's even more than it just creates a layer of suppression um that you know, voter id laws and um um, changing the days of or um or having early voting or not having earling voting. Those things matter. But there are some substantive issues around criminal justice, around racial violence and policing. Remember, there are there's still intimidation tactics that occur all throughout the country. There were attempts to suppress the youth vote UM this past election cycle, and so folks are intimidate and there's some parallels there with our brown counterparts, so our Latin X Latino population. The talk about immigration overall will have a suppression effect on voters. There's a reason why many of our brown counterparts are not voting. It's not because they don't want to, or they're too lazy, or they're disinterested. But suppression is real, and intimidation tactics are some of the primary impediments for folks getting out to vote. So one thing that I hear an older generation of white liberals saying a lot around the suppression question is there's no question that there's suppression. But look how brutal the suppression was under the era of segregation, and yet civil rights marchers bravely marched and fought and in some cases even died for the right to vote. And then that older generation of liberals who lived through that, especially white liberals who live through there, but sometimes African American liberals as well, say, well, that was suppression, and their proper response to suppression is activism rather than allowing oneself to be intimidated. You know, I often find myself in these intergenerational conversations, and I may imagine, maybe you do too. What do you say when the older generation makes that argument, I think that they're not really not. They don't have a pulse of the energy that youth vote, particularly younger people are bringing to elections. After Parkland, for instance, the youth spoke not only with their votes, but they hit the streets marching and many of them are were too young to vote. But youth are always latching onto movements and trying to teach the rest of us where to go. The Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, really spoke to what youth want. UM are elected officials to address. But the problem is, and this goes back to our earlier conversation, is that many elected officials simply don't put up policy proposals that match the energy of young people now. UM. Back in the day, there was much more alignment between the civil rights leaders of that time and their deployment of youth to address these issues, and by and large, young and older voters UM definitely aligned on what they wanted in terms of an agenda for for Black America. There's misalignment today. UM. The middle class, the sort of the bougie class, bougie Black folk have very different needs than low income Black Americans. There's a lot of divergence in terms of interest and so until what's an example, just to conquertise. Oh, I mean criminal justice reform. I mean you still hear older Americans blame black youth for crime industry. I mean, how often after a police killing of a young man you will hear older or older or elders say, well, what did that boy do to get shot? I mean there's still this um, this disbelief that black boys are that we have to be perfect in order to get justice. And but for a whole slew of younger voters, they they want quality policing, no questions asked, and until our politicians recognize that. And that's why I think this new wave of elected officials, what they bring, they're actually um listening to low income voters and responding um and and they're getting a response. And that's in terms of votes. So let's talk about that, that new way that you wrote about. So interestingly, so four more African American women represented in Congress than before the twenty eighteen elections, that's a very marked and measurable improvement. The candidates who ran for office successfully who were, as you put it, unapologetically black, did they do what you your playbook says. Did they emphasize the racial inequality in the wage gap and voting rights. Is that were those the issues that they made front and center in their races. Oh? Absolutely, I mean everyone from Lauren Underwood to going into some of the city races of the path like London Breed. And then you have you know, johnnah Hayes and Georgia dealing with criminal jos they you know, and these are women that in many cases are not in majority black districts. Typically the blueprint to get elected is to run in a majority black place and you had numbers on your side. You mobilize the churches, you mobilize your social organizations, you get elected. Now what you're seeing in a lot of cases are women able to use their social networks that I mean their sorority affiliations, their their church membership and run on actual issues healthcare, education, um criminal justice, and young people in particular respond more to issues rather than race. And so if you can strike a chord on an issue, you can actually get a great cross section of the population. And that's what's happening across the country. That's why, um the you see the most diverse Congress in our history, because they're actually speaking to issues and authentically addressing the needs of people of color. That's tremendously optimistic. Fact, it's one of the more optimistic things I've heard on the topic. They're always downsides in life. So without you know, without being a bummer, what are the downsides? What are the risks that an African American candidate runs when she really needs the median white voter and she's leading with issues like racial inequality and voting rates, which, as you point out, aren't very salient for most whites. Well, but this is where I get frustrated when you hear the rhetoric of the Democrats are not ready for these big ideas. But in fact, when you're talking about healthcare, when you're talking about a crime bill that was just passed, and recently people have now an appetite for free college and universal early child childhood education. Big ideas are mattering now. And this goes across party and Alabama. Alabama has won of the most robust preschool programs in the country. UM. And so these issues, these big ideas, UM people are are hearing them. And and it's okay to put forth issues around race and justice because if one if you don't, you're going to negate um black people from your base and if you're a Democrat, there's no way you can really win without um, black folk coming out, not just in terms of numbers just and then just in terms of mobilizing people in various states. UM. But if you're smart, um, you can show that you can have a big idea that that shows that we're all in this together. For instance, the voting right stuff is it's this key to a to a democracy. If you do not have a right to vote, UM, then you're really not a person in a democratic society you don't have UM, you're not a member if you don't have a vote. So that's something that I think Democrats should embase. But you rarely hear things like universal voting. So look at looking forward to twenty twenty. I mean, somebody is listening. Because if you look at HR one, the you know, the bill that the first bill adopted by introduced and then will eventually be adopted by the Democratic House of Representatives. Not that that's going to get signed by Donald Trump or necessarily passed the Senate, but nevertheless an important symbolic document. It actually does make voting rights pretty significant. It even goes so far as to recommend that voting voting day be made of federal holiday so that you can show up and vote. So that does reflect somebody in the Democratic Party is hearing your message and that and that would not have come up if black women would not have brought it up. And chiefly Stacy Abrams of Georgia, who did not win the governorship there Um, she has taken that on um, that's her mantle and Democrats need to get on board and not just to use her as a prop, because this is the danger that Andrew Gillum and Stacy Abrams that they're near, they're near close wins will turn into sort of a prop for the party that they are talented as maybe a vice presidential candidate, or they're they're shuffled around the country to say, look who we have on our side. No, you need to develop a platform. They need to be a part of your platform. Moving into twenty twenty, what do you think about this phenomenon of people who narrowly miss and then become heroes of the party. I mean, Stacy Abrams is one example, but Better A. Rourke is another. You know he also his biggest accomplishment thus far is losing by not that much to Ted Cruz, but he did lose. Do you have an instinct about what that means for the Democratic Party? And I'm a little bit skeptical because I was fearful that a loss would um translate to a lack of investment in the next Stacey Abrams or in Stacey Abrams in the future. But UM, you know I shouldn't be that cynical. UM. But UM, history has shown me if if you don't win in your black people tend to forget you very quick. But that doesn't seem to be happening. At least that's that creates the counter risk that she'll be used as a kind of token or a tool. I see. I look at it a little bit different than the Doug Jones race in Alabama for the special election for the Senate was really telling. There wasn't an investment from the DNC until late in the game into the grass roots networks that primarily UM were in the majority black cities of Birmingham, Montgomery, Immobile and UM. It wasn't until they really poured money in those places did you see, UM the kind of UM voting turn out that that was needed. But in retrospect, that could have been a black woman running for Senate And will they take the risk in these places like Louisiana, like Georgia, like Alabama, where there's a significant percentage of black voters, one who can cross over And that's what Stacey Abrams has showed. You can cross over and in a conservative place. Andrew Gillam, I mean, Florida is a conservative places. It's a mixed bag, it's very diverse, but you can run unapologetically black. And actually when so the challenge for the DNC is will they support a Gillam? Will they support a Stacey Abrams a second go round? Because I do think you don't want to waste the infrastructure that they've built over time and not provide that kind of investment again. But as you know, I mean, when you have somebody like Joe Biden, it's almost I mean in a way, you're going backwards to the safe bet and I don't want Well, it's not clear that it's so safe. I mean, I think that's exactly what we're trying about. Is it safe? You know? And that arry Hillary Clinton was safe and she was, you know, running against a candidate who had higher negatives than any candidate in anybody's memory. And it wasn't safe. That's exactly right. But it's in our political dna that somehow a white man is going to galvanize black voters won and the rest of us because there's this inherent leadership in white men. But I mean, that's that's the sort of naive charisma theory. But there's also the kind of the cynical political science theory, which is that to win the presidency you need swing voters. That means you need people who are acceptable on both sides of the aisle, and maybe that people imagine that's a white man, and then you know, at the margins, right, maybe the vice presidential candidate. Then you can think about adding some component of diversity. I mean, I think that's the old that really is the old way of thinking. Yeah, and I and I this thing that's going to be more difficult um moving forward as demographic shifts were becoming a much more diverse country, and again you have people of color who can win in places where they are they are truly the minority. You don't need to be a member of the majority class to win anymore. So, and so that people now see more options and so but if you don't present more options. You're you're just throttling the enthusiasm for change that sparked a Barack Obama, that sparked a Stacey Abram. People want something new, Andrew, I'm gonna put it to you bluntly. Can a Democrat regain the White House in twenty twenty without a person of color on the tip? No? I don't think so. I think we've seen over the at least with the Hillary example, that fail miserably that at some point you need to honor the people of your party. And the Democrats are the diverse party, and so if if they really want to honor the folks voting for them, they must have a person of color. And I'm going to go out there on a limus and to say you better have a black woman just because the grassroots organizing in cities, particularly in the South, the Midwest, the East Coast black women that that's the infrastructure. I mean, we can talk a little bit more about unions and other things that make up that infrastructure, but black women get out black votes and white voters. And so if you do not, and this day and age, when when black women are rising in every category education, um, income, um, professionalism, all these different things. They're they're they're they're showing progress out um and beyond their black male peers and and even to their white male and white female peers to to a great degree that that you got to honor them at some point. And and I and I see um that in policy that you know, yes, black women still earn less than than than everyone else all the other categories. And um, so there their black women are powerful, they just lack protection in terms of policy. And at some point, you the way you get protection is to put people in office. And now they're at the highest office. Now that you're out there on the now that you're out there on the limb saying there has to be an African American women on the ticket, let me try and push you a little further out there. Right now, the most significant African American woman in the race is Kamala Harris. Does she have to be the nominee for the Democrats to retake the presidency? I mean that would be the strongest possible formulation. Cuts Kamala or bust. Yeah, I see, I'm I'm I'm for a woman becoming the nominee, a black woman becoming a nominations running right now absolutely, you are saying Kamala bust. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I will get it out there and say, Kamala for the good of the country that we need a woman, We really need a black woman who can galvanize, um, multiple groups. Um, she has the credentials, but more importantly, she represents what we want to see in the future. We want to see someone who can truly represent America in a much different way. I mean, of the history of the presidents, I mean, only one has not been a white male, only one. I mean that extraordinary, extraordinary. So we need this as a country. We need to see some one that represents a group that has been striving over time. And remember and remember she's Howard graduate. Um, she's a member of sorority. She she is tied. Intimately, you cannot say she's not black. I mean she's a mixheritant. So now that you brush that up, But now I'm gonna ask you. Now, I'm going to ask you about it. I mean, so I've heard this occasionally from younger, more left people who say, look, you know Barack Obama was one thing. You know, his father was Kenyan. He wasn't an African American in the ordinary sense of the term. He wasn't, as they put it, a descendant of slaves. And I've heard some people say young black people saying, look, we need to define an African American to mean a descendant of slaves. And that may not be true of Kamalaharas, although there may be some maybe that she's descentive slaves from Jamaica, but not slaves in the United States. Yeah, and I just don't believe you don't buy when I don't buy. You know, these arguments of can you are you black enough to represent? They they really don't go anywhere, because at the end of the day, if you have brown skin, you experience a lot of the same things, regardless if you are an involuntary immigrant or if you're a voluntary immigrant that you're economic socio economically, you can look similar, not maybe exactly the same, but you definitely share experiences with someone who of a descendant of the enslave. So social identification with African Americans, which she's been doing as far as we can tell her whole life, should be more than enough then, And your view is that the African American community across the board will say that's more than black enough for us. Absolutely. My my only fear of Kamala is that it is the same that um that black black community um indicted Hillary with and um Kamala with a prosecutor, a very tough prosecutor, a very tough prose. Lots of people absolutely, So I think that's the greatest fear. But I also think that white more conservative folks will like that about Kamala, that she can be quote unquote tough on crime, because that still resonates with a lot of white folks that this idea that you can punish black people really um um. White people love that quality, that's the ability to punish black people. So oh yeah, but you know, you see these prosecutors um who in terms of if you're black and you're prosecutor, it's a trade off that I think many black folks can deal with because and this goes back to what we said earlier, I still think that there's a lot of black people who've internalized that we are at fault for violence in communities, for poverty, and so it's not We're not this monolithic group that says she might get some African American votes precisely on those same grounds. You're saying that is exactly. Let's talk about then her road, and here I want to ask about the primary system and whether it's whether it's fundamentally broken. I mean, here, you you're making a very strong argument that we need an African American woman at the top of the ticket. And she's got to go through New Hampshire and Iowa before any place else, not places with any substantial African American population. Neither is a place even with a very substantial urban population of any kind, black or white. So what's up with that? Yeah, it's going to be tough in the primary. She can make it to the general um she I think she's going to be fine, But being a prosecutor, I think it's actually going to hurt her in the primary. I face the primary tend to lean left, that exactly, And I actually think that she's part of an establishment. Although she's not been around at least she hasn't been in the public eye an incredibly long period of time when compared to a mayor Pete for instance, He's going to come off as novel. And you know, between Obama and Trump, there's some what of a trend of finding something's finding a celebrity type. I knew something new. You're talking about Pete Pete Buddha Jedge, the mayor of South Bend, openly gay speak, seven languages, family from Malta of all places, unusual person. Yeah, you don't. You don't find folks from Malta running for president every day, and and so, I you know, I think that's she's going to be up against that. But at the end of the day, I think she is going to resonate with a lot of folks because of many of the hearings where she stood out and defending women's rights or another issue. She's incredibly intense in the hearing room that there's no question about it. And if she's if she cleverly uses clips from that, maybe she can draw attention to it. But I wonder if I can just push you a little bit. I mean, in a world where the Democratic Party needs people of color on the ticket, is there something implicitly or explicitly racist about Iowa New Hampshire being the early tests? Oh? Absolutely, I mean, you know, I you know, we've always had to sort of perform for white people in those places, and they're going to have to perform. I mean, I I think that I mean, maybe maybe the party needs it's early primaries to be someplace that looks more like the demographics that the party is looking for. I mean, do you do you see that as something that's changeable over time? You know, I haven't thought much about it, but I do I have thought about you know why Iowa I always I mean, it really cuts down the number of folks who consider running. If you have to go through these very white states early on, a lot of people just will not get in the race, really because the resources that if they get a slow start, they just don't because of their race, don't have the resources and backing of other resource candidates, and so it's a barrier, no question about it. So let's talk about my friend Corey Booker because he's the other prominent African American in the race right now. He's also been in the public eye for longer even than Kamala Harris Senator RUS because he started getting national publicity when he started running to be mayor of Newark, New Jersey, long before he won. The first time he ran and lost, there was a documentary film made about his defeat. So he you know, Corey was born to be famous, and he's been famous pretty much his entire adult life. What's your sense of why it has to be Kamala Harris has to be a woman. Why couldn't Corey similarly motivate an African American base, including African American women, towards whom he's respectful and friendly and you know, otherwise positive. Corey the viable candidate I think he is. I think he certainly will be in the top tier of folks who make it the the NOD. I do think he made a critical mistake long and in the long run, I think his siding with the kind of a reforms that have been have proven to be a liability educational reforms. Yeah, education reform, and he went all in. He strongly supported school choice. That's right, and there's a lot of private money to invest in the city schools. That's exactly right. And so UM in this environment, if you are a proponent that of anything that looks similar to what Betsy Divas is a proponent of, UM, there your your competitors are going to hold that against you. And and trust me when I say the teacher unions are going to are gonna nail them with that. UM. The black communities in which UM AT reform hit hard and where black teachers lost their jobs. You know, I was in New Orleans UM during Hurricane Katrina, and the seventy five hundred um UM teacher or employee school employees lost their job. Now, it's not um. It hasn't been proven that that was persful in any way or planned in a way to open up the doors for a reform to come in. However, when AT reform really solidified itself, the percentage of black women teachers went significantly down. And that happened in Newark, and that happened in DC. And so if you have that that mark against you, it is going to be hard to overcome in an environment where teachers are striking in multiple states. So I think the viable candidate, but I also think that AT Reform is a liability for him that's going to be hard to overcome. You don't think he could use that sort of the way you suggested that Kamala Harris could use your prosecutorial background as something to appeal to media and white voters. Now it's it's it's just going to be hard because I also think that Republicans have not been all that keen on choice. Yeah, it seems like it's a policy whose moment was very strongly present in the late nineties and early two thous and is to some degree faded from being a central popular position, with the exception as you mentioned of Betsy Devas. That's right, that's exactly right. Um, fascinating. So, and I should add I think you your background is precisely in educational studies, is it not. I mean that was what your first first training and specialization was in, so you know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, So you know, in education, I learned a bunch of things about the politics of it. I've I learned that, particularly in the early two thousands, Democrats and Republicans were willing to work together around education reforms. So I saw interest convergence first hand. The problem is that Republicans were gained most from that alliance. That the governors that got elected m were the off of school choice and education reform were primarily Republicans. You haven't seen Democrats rise up um um by or sort of through this interest convergence. And that's where I think Democrats really need to hold true too. They can hold true to their principles. It's okay to say you're for a government protecting the rights of people. It's okay to say that we're for a local school board, it's okay to say that we're going to support teachers, unions and labor in general. That if you abandon those issues, that it's going to be very tough for you. Um in twenty twenty, that the differentiator is going to is going to go back to are you truly a progressive Democrat? And those who can really show those bona fides early, they're going to really have a shot. That's why, you know, a person we haven't mentioned will I think we'll always have a shot, and that's Elizabeth Warren to a certain extent, Bernie Well. I mean, they're going to be able to raise money, They're going to be in the conversation because they're they're showing their progressive bona fides. I just think that that those two folks again, their time may have passed. And I mean, and you know, not just in terms of election, but just in terms of a white person running. You know. Sure, So let me let me end then our last question with it with a curveball. So you've made I think an extremely compelling argument that if the Democrats want to win, they need a person of color to be the candidate. In twenty twenty, what if, through some combination of the primary process and politics and money in the party, that doesn't happen, and the Democrats managed to run a ticket with two white people on it the same way they did last time, and they lose. Is there a moment for African Americans to say, look, the party has taken us for granted for too long. We need some alternative. We need to no longer be treated by the party as people who will inevitably support Democrats because the alternative is is Donald Trump. Is it possible, in other words, that African Americans could essentially become captive to the overlap in their interests with progressive politics. Oh? Absolutely, And I would not be surprised if that actually played itself out. That at some point blacks have to be respected by gaining the nomination and support of white Americans. I mean, we're so used to. But what's the alternative? Oh? I mean, I do think that it may not look like a third party, but it will show up. It's sort of like a like a tea party movement or some type of inside the Democratic Party, a fractured group of legislators who are just uncompromising in their approach to deliver certain goods because you know, without the Black Caucus, you don't get at much of the legislation. So we we can force the hand of people. And so I do believe that at some point you have to put that out there that we will no longer vote monolithically for Democrats. UM. And we're because we are used to. It is sad to say we're so used to seeing two white, two white people on a ticket and and feeling like, oh, we're gonna this is the lesser of the two evils. We have to vote for them. No, you don't, No, you don't. There's there are other party candidates who are in the running. Um, there are third party candidates. Um, you do not have to. And if we do not get a black person, and if we don't, if we don't get a black woman on that ticket, you know, I you know, I would almost encourage folks to um find an alternative. Wow. So thank you Andre for a ray of optimism, a word of stern warning. I'm very grateful to you for joining us here on deep background. Thanks for being here. You're welcome in my conversation with Andre, I wanted to know something about twenty sixteen and something about twenty twenty. What I wanted to know about twenty sixteen was did Hillary Clinton lose the election in the end because of her failure to put a person of color anywhere on the ticket and her failure to energize African American female voters. After speaking to Andrea, I think we're closer to being able to say that the answer to that is yes. And Andrea also thinks, as clearly as it's possible to think anything, that the Democrats can't afford to make that mistake again. If he's right, then twenty twenty is a year where the Democrats will have to put a person of color on the ticket. And if Andrea has his way at the top of the ticket, and if he's really pacific, he thinks we need Kamala Harris. We need an African American woman who's capable of motivating African American women to turn out in numbers, turn the election and defeat Donald Trump. We'll talk a lot about the election in the coming months. We'll talk about it, so we're blue in the face. But this conversation with Andrea makes me think maybe most of that talk isn't that useful. Maybe in the end, what we need to know is who's on the ticket, and if it's an African American woman, the Democrats will have a good chance of winning. Deep Background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Ganecott, with engineering by Jason Gambrell and Jason Rostkowski. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music is composed by Luis Gara. Special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg, and Mia Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow me on Twitter at Noah R Feldman. This is Deep Background.

Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news. I'm Noah Feldman. Ever since the twenty sixteen elections, I've been kind of obsessed with the following thought. We tend to think that Donald Trump got elected because his base of in our imagination, angry middle class or lower middle class, dispossessed white voters turned out in big numbers for him. But that's only part of the story, because it's also true that if you look at people who voted for Barack Obama but stayed home instead of showing up to vote for Hillary Clinton, fifty one percent of those voters were people of color. That's a significant number, and it means that we could also frame things a little differently. Instead of blaming the Trump voters for getting Trump elected, we could simply say, why didn't Hillary Clinton manage to appeal to voters of color in the same way that Barack Obama did. Now that's a hypothesis and an obsession, it's not a full blown theory, and I'm incredibly grateful that we have today to discuss this topic with US doctor Andre Perry. Andrea is the David M. Rubinstein Fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the famous Brookings Institution in Washington, d C. He works on race, structural inequality, education, economic inclusion, and recently wrote a fantastic and significant article called Black Women Are Looking forward to the twenty twenty elections. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me. One of the really profound points I think that you make in your research paper about black women is that it's not just that black women vote for black women or for other black candidates. It's that there's an overlap in policy interests between black women running for office, some black voters, as well as lots of other progressive voters representing different racial backgrounds, different economic backgrounds. I think that's a hugely important point that we tend to forget. So I want to ask you in light of that point, was there a lack of policy for Hillary Clinton? Did she not have policies that were sufficiently progressive to match African American voters or was it really about personalities which was doing the heavy lifting? Or is it both? Somehow it's both. Certainly when you look at the candidates who are getting elected there and you hear this phrase all the time. They're unapologetically black, they will put forth items that really fill out a black agenda for community improvement. So if you're not explicitly talking about improving or reducing the wage gap between black women and white men, or black women and and white women, then you're really not speaking to the issues. So the court there is racial inequality, as you argue in your interpees. Yet racial and equality is probably the number one and number two things. And there are also issues that white Democrats simply do not raise. And so the issue of voting rights are is something that black elected officials bring up, but white Democrats or Republicans just it doesn't rank is one of the issues that they're going to campaign on. And so if you're not, why don't Democrats wake up, smell the coffee and realize that voting rights is a pretty excellent crucial issue for them, especially if they need the votes of black people. Well, the privilege of not really understanding that people are actively taking your vote away, I mean, I hear all the time, Well, there's nothing wrong with getting IDs or having people having people bring their IDs to the polls. There's nothing wrong with that. That's that's an easy fix and and to a certain degree, black folk always catch up to the next new rule, but it but to ignore the active pursuit to suppress black vote is a privilege that black folks just we don't have. And over time, white politicians, regardless of party, just ignore that issue. So those are the policy issues, and we can talk more about why it is that, even if it's purely on the basis of self interest, white politicians don't get beyond the fact that they don't instinctively think about these things and raise them anyway. But that's the policy side. What about the politics side? What about the personalities? Do you Is it your view that it would have made a difference had Hillary Clinton had a person of color on the ticket with her. Oh yeah, And I don't know if you remember, there were a bunch of memes um enduring the election cycle that she would sort of masquerade as being black here and there, and it was there was just a lack of authenticity of connecting the black voters. And that's true. I mean the choosing Tim Caine for instances, you know, um, someone who can speak Spanish, um, and you know, the in the black and brown communities, we were saying, well, why didn't you just pick someone of Latin descent and sal ultimate white guy at diversification, I can speak another language, absolutely, So using race as a prop is something that she was charged doing, um throughout her career and resided absolutely. I mean, at some point, you don't do what's politically expedient. You got to show what you're about. And um, and I you know, and I also believe that the Clinton's in general. Remember Bill Clinton was seen described as the first black president at some point, but he and he clearly wasn't, not in terms of his policies, not in terms of just his being um. But they they managed to use symbols to show their they're allegis to black But that's just not enough. It's interesting when you think back to it's a long time ago. No, but when people actually said that, what do you think they actually meant? I mean, it was that he showed affection for a black community and um, it wasn't it that he'd also overcome adversity in his own upbringing. Yeah, that that he was he was a poor folk. He actually had strong ties to to black communities growing up. Um. But that's just not enough. There's not enough political policy meet there. Um what he remember, more people, um went to prison under his watch, More Black people went to prison under his watch. A little fair about that, though. I mean, so, I'm impressed by James Foreman Junior's recent prize winning book where he says, I'm going to oversimplified here, but that a significant part of African American leadership at the national level actually supported some of the crime reform stuff that Bill Clinton signed that led to many many young African American men being incarcerated. You know, black folk are we've internalized this narrative that we are broken. I often say, there's nothing wrong with black people that ending racism can't solve. That we are We're constantly blaming ourselves for the problem. In terms of voting, we say, well, we don't vote, even though our voting record has been at all time high than in at least in the last eight to ten years. Um. But we also internalize this notion that if we can only do better amongst ourselves, then um, we we will get our just desserts. And UM, we don't necessarily deserve these policies until we get our house in order. And that's just not And that's no different than when I hear politicians telling kids to pull their pants up and and as if that's going to get them into to Harvard. You know that the bill cosby rhetoric that absolutely so. Um. Yes, there are lots of black folk who supported the crime bill and a lot of other policies that Democrats um endorse essentially to buy favor with white um sort of right leaning Republicans. But at the end of the day, we compromise our policy principles in the process and just that's just not a way to go. Andrew, you mentioned impediments to voting, and you know, as we work our way to talking about twenty twenty, I think this is a hugely significant issue and I want to get your thoughts about it. One statistic that strikes me as very important is that if you control for socioeconomic status, primarily poverty, African Americans actually vote at a slightly higher rate than their white counterparts. That said, like other poor people, African Americans who are poorer don't have fantastic turnout records. What do you see as the primary impediments. I mean, you've mentioned voter id laws, but those are relatively new innovation. What do you see as the genuine impediments to getting out the vote. Wow. One, the criminal justice system has really suppressed blackmail votes. And when you look at states, the gender differences in actual numbers in the actual different districts is enormous. So you can have in terms of actually lgible voters differences of eleven twelve UM in some cases fifteen percent UM. Birmingham, for instance, there's a close to eleven point difference between eligible black male and black female. So and and that's large fell in disenfranchisement or people still presently in cars rader both that both, but it's even more than it just creates a layer of suppression um that you know, voter id laws and um um, changing the days of or um or having early voting or not having earling voting. Those things matter. But there are some substantive issues around criminal justice, around racial violence and policing. Remember, there are there's still intimidation tactics that occur all throughout the country. There were attempts to suppress the youth vote UM this past election cycle, and so folks are intimidate and there's some parallels there with our brown counterparts, so our Latin X Latino population. The talk about immigration overall will have a suppression effect on voters. There's a reason why many of our brown counterparts are not voting. It's not because they don't want to, or they're too lazy, or they're disinterested. But suppression is real, and intimidation tactics are some of the primary impediments for folks getting out to vote. So one thing that I hear an older generation of white liberals saying a lot around the suppression question is there's no question that there's suppression. But look how brutal the suppression was under the era of segregation, and yet civil rights marchers bravely marched and fought and in some cases even died for the right to vote. And then that older generation of liberals who lived through that, especially white liberals who live through there, but sometimes African American liberals as well, say, well, that was suppression, and their proper response to suppression is activism rather than allowing oneself to be intimidated. You know, I often find myself in these intergenerational conversations, and I may imagine, maybe you do too. What do you say when the older generation makes that argument, I think that they're not really not. They don't have a pulse of the energy that youth vote, particularly younger people are bringing to elections. After Parkland, for instance, the youth spoke not only with their votes, but they hit the streets marching and many of them are were too young to vote. But youth are always latching onto movements and trying to teach the rest of us where to go. The Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, really spoke to what youth want. UM are elected officials to address. But the problem is, and this goes back to our earlier conversation, is that many elected officials simply don't put up policy proposals that match the energy of young people now. UM. Back in the day, there was much more alignment between the civil rights leaders of that time and their deployment of youth to address these issues, and by and large, young and older voters UM definitely aligned on what they wanted in terms of an agenda for for Black America. There's misalignment today. UM. The middle class, the sort of the bougie class, bougie Black folk have very different needs than low income Black Americans. There's a lot of divergence in terms of interest and so until what's an example, just to conquertise. Oh, I mean criminal justice reform. I mean you still hear older Americans blame black youth for crime industry. I mean, how often after a police killing of a young man you will hear older or older or elders say, well, what did that boy do to get shot? I mean there's still this um, this disbelief that black boys are that we have to be perfect in order to get justice. And but for a whole slew of younger voters, they they want quality policing, no questions asked, and until our politicians recognize that. And that's why I think this new wave of elected officials, what they bring, they're actually um listening to low income voters and responding um and and they're getting a response. And that's in terms of votes. So let's talk about that, that new way that you wrote about. So interestingly, so four more African American women represented in Congress than before the twenty eighteen elections, that's a very marked and measurable improvement. The candidates who ran for office successfully who were, as you put it, unapologetically black, did they do what you your playbook says. Did they emphasize the racial inequality in the wage gap and voting rights. Is that were those the issues that they made front and center in their races. Oh? Absolutely, I mean everyone from Lauren Underwood to going into some of the city races of the path like London Breed. And then you have you know, johnnah Hayes and Georgia dealing with criminal jos they you know, and these are women that in many cases are not in majority black districts. Typically the blueprint to get elected is to run in a majority black place and you had numbers on your side. You mobilize the churches, you mobilize your social organizations, you get elected. Now what you're seeing in a lot of cases are women able to use their social networks that I mean their sorority affiliations, their their church membership and run on actual issues healthcare, education, um criminal justice, and young people in particular respond more to issues rather than race. And so if you can strike a chord on an issue, you can actually get a great cross section of the population. And that's what's happening across the country. That's why, um the you see the most diverse Congress in our history, because they're actually speaking to issues and authentically addressing the needs of people of color. That's tremendously optimistic. Fact, it's one of the more optimistic things I've heard on the topic. They're always downsides in life. So without you know, without being a bummer, what are the downsides? What are the risks that an African American candidate runs when she really needs the median white voter and she's leading with issues like racial inequality and voting rates, which, as you point out, aren't very salient for most whites. Well, but this is where I get frustrated when you hear the rhetoric of the Democrats are not ready for these big ideas. But in fact, when you're talking about healthcare, when you're talking about a crime bill that was just passed, and recently people have now an appetite for free college and universal early child childhood education. Big ideas are mattering now. And this goes across party and Alabama. Alabama has won of the most robust preschool programs in the country. UM. And so these issues, these big ideas, UM people are are hearing them. And and it's okay to put forth issues around race and justice because if one if you don't, you're going to negate um black people from your base and if you're a Democrat, there's no way you can really win without um, black folk coming out, not just in terms of numbers just and then just in terms of mobilizing people in various states. UM. But if you're smart, um, you can show that you can have a big idea that that shows that we're all in this together. For instance, the voting right stuff is it's this key to a to a democracy. If you do not have a right to vote, UM, then you're really not a person in a democratic society you don't have UM, you're not a member if you don't have a vote. So that's something that I think Democrats should embase. But you rarely hear things like universal voting. So look at looking forward to twenty twenty. I mean, somebody is listening. Because if you look at HR one, the you know, the bill that the first bill adopted by introduced and then will eventually be adopted by the Democratic House of Representatives. Not that that's going to get signed by Donald Trump or necessarily passed the Senate, but nevertheless an important symbolic document. It actually does make voting rights pretty significant. It even goes so far as to recommend that voting voting day be made of federal holiday so that you can show up and vote. So that does reflect somebody in the Democratic Party is hearing your message and that and that would not have come up if black women would not have brought it up. And chiefly Stacy Abrams of Georgia, who did not win the governorship there Um, she has taken that on um, that's her mantle and Democrats need to get on board and not just to use her as a prop, because this is the danger that Andrew Gillum and Stacy Abrams that they're near, they're near close wins will turn into sort of a prop for the party that they are talented as maybe a vice presidential candidate, or they're they're shuffled around the country to say, look who we have on our side. No, you need to develop a platform. They need to be a part of your platform. Moving into twenty twenty, what do you think about this phenomenon of people who narrowly miss and then become heroes of the party. I mean, Stacy Abrams is one example, but Better A. Rourke is another. You know he also his biggest accomplishment thus far is losing by not that much to Ted Cruz, but he did lose. Do you have an instinct about what that means for the Democratic Party? And I'm a little bit skeptical because I was fearful that a loss would um translate to a lack of investment in the next Stacey Abrams or in Stacey Abrams in the future. But UM, you know I shouldn't be that cynical. UM. But UM, history has shown me if if you don't win in your black people tend to forget you very quick. But that doesn't seem to be happening. At least that's that creates the counter risk that she'll be used as a kind of token or a tool. I see. I look at it a little bit different than the Doug Jones race in Alabama for the special election for the Senate was really telling. There wasn't an investment from the DNC until late in the game into the grass roots networks that primarily UM were in the majority black cities of Birmingham, Montgomery, Immobile and UM. It wasn't until they really poured money in those places did you see, UM the kind of UM voting turn out that that was needed. But in retrospect, that could have been a black woman running for Senate And will they take the risk in these places like Louisiana, like Georgia, like Alabama, where there's a significant percentage of black voters, one who can cross over And that's what Stacey Abrams has showed. You can cross over and in a conservative place. Andrew Gillam, I mean, Florida is a conservative places. It's a mixed bag, it's very diverse, but you can run unapologetically black. And actually when so the challenge for the DNC is will they support a Gillam? Will they support a Stacey Abrams a second go round? Because I do think you don't want to waste the infrastructure that they've built over time and not provide that kind of investment again. But as you know, I mean, when you have somebody like Joe Biden, it's almost I mean in a way, you're going backwards to the safe bet and I don't want Well, it's not clear that it's so safe. I mean, I think that's exactly what we're trying about. Is it safe? You know? And that arry Hillary Clinton was safe and she was, you know, running against a candidate who had higher negatives than any candidate in anybody's memory. And it wasn't safe. That's exactly right. But it's in our political dna that somehow a white man is going to galvanize black voters won and the rest of us because there's this inherent leadership in white men. But I mean, that's that's the sort of naive charisma theory. But there's also the kind of the cynical political science theory, which is that to win the presidency you need swing voters. That means you need people who are acceptable on both sides of the aisle, and maybe that people imagine that's a white man, and then you know, at the margins, right, maybe the vice presidential candidate. Then you can think about adding some component of diversity. I mean, I think that's the old that really is the old way of thinking. Yeah, and I and I this thing that's going to be more difficult um moving forward as demographic shifts were becoming a much more diverse country, and again you have people of color who can win in places where they are they are truly the minority. You don't need to be a member of the majority class to win anymore. So, and so that people now see more options and so but if you don't present more options. You're you're just throttling the enthusiasm for change that sparked a Barack Obama, that sparked a Stacey Abram. People want something new, Andrew, I'm gonna put it to you bluntly. Can a Democrat regain the White House in twenty twenty without a person of color on the tip? No? I don't think so. I think we've seen over the at least with the Hillary example, that fail miserably that at some point you need to honor the people of your party. And the Democrats are the diverse party, and so if if they really want to honor the folks voting for them, they must have a person of color. And I'm going to go out there on a limus and to say you better have a black woman just because the grassroots organizing in cities, particularly in the South, the Midwest, the East Coast black women that that's the infrastructure. I mean, we can talk a little bit more about unions and other things that make up that infrastructure, but black women get out black votes and white voters. And so if you do not, and this day and age, when when black women are rising in every category education, um, income, um, professionalism, all these different things. They're they're they're they're showing progress out um and beyond their black male peers and and even to their white male and white female peers to to a great degree that that you got to honor them at some point. And and I and I see um that in policy that you know, yes, black women still earn less than than than everyone else all the other categories. And um, so there their black women are powerful, they just lack protection in terms of policy. And at some point, you the way you get protection is to put people in office. And now they're at the highest office. Now that you're out there on the now that you're out there on the limb saying there has to be an African American women on the ticket, let me try and push you a little further out there. Right now, the most significant African American woman in the race is Kamala Harris. Does she have to be the nominee for the Democrats to retake the presidency? I mean that would be the strongest possible formulation. Cuts Kamala or bust. Yeah, I see, I'm I'm I'm for a woman becoming the nominee, a black woman becoming a nominations running right now absolutely, you are saying Kamala bust. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I will get it out there and say, Kamala for the good of the country that we need a woman, We really need a black woman who can galvanize, um, multiple groups. Um, she has the credentials, but more importantly, she represents what we want to see in the future. We want to see someone who can truly represent America in a much different way. I mean, of the history of the presidents, I mean, only one has not been a white male, only one. I mean that extraordinary, extraordinary. So we need this as a country. We need to see some one that represents a group that has been striving over time. And remember and remember she's Howard graduate. Um, she's a member of sorority. She she is tied. Intimately, you cannot say she's not black. I mean she's a mixheritant. So now that you brush that up, But now I'm gonna ask you. Now, I'm going to ask you about it. I mean, so I've heard this occasionally from younger, more left people who say, look, you know Barack Obama was one thing. You know, his father was Kenyan. He wasn't an African American in the ordinary sense of the term. He wasn't, as they put it, a descendant of slaves. And I've heard some people say young black people saying, look, we need to define an African American to mean a descendant of slaves. And that may not be true of Kamalaharas, although there may be some maybe that she's descentive slaves from Jamaica, but not slaves in the United States. Yeah, and I just don't believe you don't buy when I don't buy. You know, these arguments of can you are you black enough to represent? They they really don't go anywhere, because at the end of the day, if you have brown skin, you experience a lot of the same things, regardless if you are an involuntary immigrant or if you're a voluntary immigrant that you're economic socio economically, you can look similar, not maybe exactly the same, but you definitely share experiences with someone who of a descendant of the enslave. So social identification with African Americans, which she's been doing as far as we can tell her whole life, should be more than enough then, And your view is that the African American community across the board will say that's more than black enough for us. Absolutely. My my only fear of Kamala is that it is the same that um that black black community um indicted Hillary with and um Kamala with a prosecutor, a very tough prosecutor, a very tough prose. Lots of people absolutely, So I think that's the greatest fear. But I also think that white more conservative folks will like that about Kamala, that she can be quote unquote tough on crime, because that still resonates with a lot of white folks that this idea that you can punish black people really um um. White people love that quality, that's the ability to punish black people. So oh yeah, but you know, you see these prosecutors um who in terms of if you're black and you're prosecutor, it's a trade off that I think many black folks can deal with because and this goes back to what we said earlier, I still think that there's a lot of black people who've internalized that we are at fault for violence in communities, for poverty, and so it's not We're not this monolithic group that says she might get some African American votes precisely on those same grounds. You're saying that is exactly. Let's talk about then her road, and here I want to ask about the primary system and whether it's whether it's fundamentally broken. I mean, here, you you're making a very strong argument that we need an African American woman at the top of the ticket. And she's got to go through New Hampshire and Iowa before any place else, not places with any substantial African American population. Neither is a place even with a very substantial urban population of any kind, black or white. So what's up with that? Yeah, it's going to be tough in the primary. She can make it to the general um she I think she's going to be fine, But being a prosecutor, I think it's actually going to hurt her in the primary. I face the primary tend to lean left, that exactly, And I actually think that she's part of an establishment. Although she's not been around at least she hasn't been in the public eye an incredibly long period of time when compared to a mayor Pete for instance, He's going to come off as novel. And you know, between Obama and Trump, there's some what of a trend of finding something's finding a celebrity type. I knew something new. You're talking about Pete Pete Buddha Jedge, the mayor of South Bend, openly gay speak, seven languages, family from Malta of all places, unusual person. Yeah, you don't. You don't find folks from Malta running for president every day, and and so, I you know, I think that's she's going to be up against that. But at the end of the day, I think she is going to resonate with a lot of folks because of many of the hearings where she stood out and defending women's rights or another issue. She's incredibly intense in the hearing room that there's no question about it. And if she's if she cleverly uses clips from that, maybe she can draw attention to it. But I wonder if I can just push you a little bit. I mean, in a world where the Democratic Party needs people of color on the ticket, is there something implicitly or explicitly racist about Iowa New Hampshire being the early tests? Oh? Absolutely, I mean, you know, I you know, we've always had to sort of perform for white people in those places, and they're going to have to perform. I mean, I I think that I mean, maybe maybe the party needs it's early primaries to be someplace that looks more like the demographics that the party is looking for. I mean, do you do you see that as something that's changeable over time? You know, I haven't thought much about it, but I do I have thought about you know why Iowa I always I mean, it really cuts down the number of folks who consider running. If you have to go through these very white states early on, a lot of people just will not get in the race, really because the resources that if they get a slow start, they just don't because of their race, don't have the resources and backing of other resource candidates, and so it's a barrier, no question about it. So let's talk about my friend Corey Booker because he's the other prominent African American in the race right now. He's also been in the public eye for longer even than Kamala Harris Senator RUS because he started getting national publicity when he started running to be mayor of Newark, New Jersey, long before he won. The first time he ran and lost, there was a documentary film made about his defeat. So he you know, Corey was born to be famous, and he's been famous pretty much his entire adult life. What's your sense of why it has to be Kamala Harris has to be a woman. Why couldn't Corey similarly motivate an African American base, including African American women, towards whom he's respectful and friendly and you know, otherwise positive. Corey the viable candidate I think he is. I think he certainly will be in the top tier of folks who make it the the NOD. I do think he made a critical mistake long and in the long run, I think his siding with the kind of a reforms that have been have proven to be a liability educational reforms. Yeah, education reform, and he went all in. He strongly supported school choice. That's right, and there's a lot of private money to invest in the city schools. That's exactly right. And so UM in this environment, if you are a proponent that of anything that looks similar to what Betsy Divas is a proponent of, UM, there your your competitors are going to hold that against you. And and trust me when I say the teacher unions are going to are gonna nail them with that. UM. The black communities in which UM AT reform hit hard and where black teachers lost their jobs. You know, I was in New Orleans UM during Hurricane Katrina, and the seventy five hundred um UM teacher or employee school employees lost their job. Now, it's not um. It hasn't been proven that that was persful in any way or planned in a way to open up the doors for a reform to come in. However, when AT reform really solidified itself, the percentage of black women teachers went significantly down. And that happened in Newark, and that happened in DC. And so if you have that that mark against you, it is going to be hard to overcome in an environment where teachers are striking in multiple states. So I think the viable candidate, but I also think that AT Reform is a liability for him that's going to be hard to overcome. You don't think he could use that sort of the way you suggested that Kamala Harris could use your prosecutorial background as something to appeal to media and white voters. Now it's it's it's just going to be hard because I also think that Republicans have not been all that keen on choice. Yeah, it seems like it's a policy whose moment was very strongly present in the late nineties and early two thous and is to some degree faded from being a central popular position, with the exception as you mentioned of Betsy Devas. That's right, that's exactly right. Um, fascinating. So, and I should add I think you your background is precisely in educational studies, is it not. I mean that was what your first first training and specialization was in, so you know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, So you know, in education, I learned a bunch of things about the politics of it. I've I learned that, particularly in the early two thousands, Democrats and Republicans were willing to work together around education reforms. So I saw interest convergence first hand. The problem is that Republicans were gained most from that alliance. That the governors that got elected m were the off of school choice and education reform were primarily Republicans. You haven't seen Democrats rise up um um by or sort of through this interest convergence. And that's where I think Democrats really need to hold true too. They can hold true to their principles. It's okay to say you're for a government protecting the rights of people. It's okay to say that we're for a local school board, it's okay to say that we're going to support teachers, unions and labor in general. That if you abandon those issues, that it's going to be very tough for you. Um in twenty twenty, that the differentiator is going to is going to go back to are you truly a progressive Democrat? And those who can really show those bona fides early, they're going to really have a shot. That's why, you know, a person we haven't mentioned will I think we'll always have a shot, and that's Elizabeth Warren to a certain extent, Bernie Well. I mean, they're going to be able to raise money, They're going to be in the conversation because they're they're showing their progressive bona fides. I just think that that those two folks again, their time may have passed. And I mean, and you know, not just in terms of election, but just in terms of a white person running. You know. Sure, So let me let me end then our last question with it with a curveball. So you've made I think an extremely compelling argument that if the Democrats want to win, they need a person of color to be the candidate. In twenty twenty, what if, through some combination of the primary process and politics and money in the party, that doesn't happen, and the Democrats managed to run a ticket with two white people on it the same way they did last time, and they lose. Is there a moment for African Americans to say, look, the party has taken us for granted for too long. We need some alternative. We need to no longer be treated by the party as people who will inevitably support Democrats because the alternative is is Donald Trump. Is it possible, in other words, that African Americans could essentially become captive to the overlap in their interests with progressive politics. Oh? Absolutely, And I would not be surprised if that actually played itself out. That at some point blacks have to be respected by gaining the nomination and support of white Americans. I mean, we're so used to. But what's the alternative? Oh? I mean, I do think that it may not look like a third party, but it will show up. It's sort of like a like a tea party movement or some type of inside the Democratic Party, a fractured group of legislators who are just uncompromising in their approach to deliver certain goods because you know, without the Black Caucus, you don't get at much of the legislation. So we we can force the hand of people. And so I do believe that at some point you have to put that out there that we will no longer vote monolithically for Democrats. UM. And we're because we are used to. It is sad to say we're so used to seeing two white, two white people on a ticket and and feeling like, oh, we're gonna this is the lesser of the two evils. We have to vote for them. No, you don't, No, you don't. There's there are other party candidates who are in the running. Um, there are third party candidates. Um, you do not have to. And if we do not get a black person, and if we don't, if we don't get a black woman on that ticket, you know, I you know, I would almost encourage folks to um find an alternative. Wow. So thank you Andre for a ray of optimism, a word of stern warning. I'm very grateful to you for joining us here on deep background. Thanks for being here. You're welcome in my conversation with Andre, I wanted to know something about twenty sixteen and something about twenty twenty. What I wanted to know about twenty sixteen was did Hillary Clinton lose the election in the end because of her failure to put a person of color anywhere on the ticket and her failure to energize African American female voters. After speaking to Andrea, I think we're closer to being able to say that the answer to that is yes. And Andrea also thinks, as clearly as it's possible to think anything, that the Democrats can't afford to make that mistake again. If he's right, then twenty twenty is a year where the Democrats will have to put a person of color on the ticket. And if Andrea has his way at the top of the ticket, and if he's really pacific, he thinks we need Kamala Harris. We need an African American woman who's capable of motivating African American women to turn out in numbers, turn the election and defeat Donald Trump. We'll talk a lot about the election in the coming months. We'll talk about it, so we're blue in the face. But this conversation with Andrea makes me think maybe most of that talk isn't that useful. Maybe in the end, what we need to know is who's on the ticket, and if it's an African American woman, the Democrats will have a good chance of winning. Deep Background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Ganecott, with engineering by Jason Gambrell and Jason Rostkowski. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music is composed by Luis Gara. Special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg, and Mia Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow me on Twitter at Noah R Feldman. This is Deep Background.