ALERT: Ben Rhodes, former advisor to Barack Obama: “The United States of 2028 will be even more extreme and more polarized” | International
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Being a great political candidate requires knowing how to tell a good story. You have to fascinate the public with a vision of the future, but also with a personal story: explain what reasons move you to make that vision a reality and make only him or her the right person to achieve it. That is why the Democrats failed in the 2024 elections in the United States: without their own narrative, “they allowed Donald Trump to turn them into the party of the system,” analyzes Ben Rhodes (New York, 48 years old), former director of strategic communications for Barack Obama. Meanwhile, the behavior of the Republican, without barriers in his mandate, but with an effective message, has created a panorama in which the situation in the next presidential elections, in 2028, “will be even more extreme and more polarized,” warns the now successful podcaster and author. Rhodes shares with his former boss, the first black president of the United States, an interest in words and the message, analysis and political strategy. He wrote his foreign policy speeches before becoming his deputy national security adviser and his spokesman for international affairs. Now, along with other communicators from the Obama era, he is in charge of the political analysis podcast Pod Save America, collaborates in various media as a commentator and writes. He has just published All We Say, a compilation of 15 speeches that have marked the political history of his country and through which he explores American identity. He speaks with EL PAÍS and a group of European media in a restaurant in Washington during a stop on his book tour. Question. Political speeches as a reflection of a country are a very American phenomenon, they do not occur in other countries. Why do you think this is so? Answer. Unlike European countries, Americans do not share an ethnic or geographic origin. We do not have a defined identity. That’s why we have often turned to political speeches and political storytelling to debate, argue, and try to answer the question of what it means to be an American. Throughout our history, it is speeches that have answered that question. The Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream; our history is unimaginable without them. There’s also something unique about the way they’re pronounced, that idea of a lone voice standing before a crowd. And I think we have a tradition of political movements precisely because of this uncertain nature of what America is. There is a fairly reactionary history of America, right? The one that says that this is a white, Christian nation that has inherited Western supremacy, and that other people can be here, but they have to subordinate themselves to the established identity; That idea reaches Donald Trump and his vice president, JD Vance. But others have created movements to try to change that identity and make America live up to what it promised in the Declaration of Independence: that all men are created equal. So you have an abolitionist movement, a women’s suffrage movement, a populist movement, a labor movement… and their ability to mobilize people and make them believe that things can change has often depended on words. We cannot imagine the civil rights movement without the speeches of Martin Luther King. Not even Barack Obama would have become president without his people. Q. But do they have a place in the future, when nowadays attention can no longer tolerate long tirades? A. It’s very good to make a video for social networks, or give a headline so that it goes viral, but before all that you have to know what story to tell. And a speech is where that story is laid out. Although not everyone hears it. When he was a candidate, Obama had a typical speech that he repeated at his rallies, and that is where he polished his message. That’s where their entire communication strategy came from. So I think, rather than copying Trump, one way to counter him is to go back to the speeches and explain your vision. The world faces enormous problems: we are at war, there is inequality, the economy does not seem very promising for young people, artificial intelligence is coming to eliminate jobs. When people are so confused about the state of America and the world, they don’t need clichés or political proposals: they need a story to believe in. Trump has it. I don’t believe it, but it has it; It’s mainly about him. The Democrats, on the other hand, do not have a history, they do not have a story. Q. Why don’t you have a story? A. When Trump came, because he was so unusual and so extreme, we were wrong. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, his Democratic rival, believed—and so did I—that it was impossible for him to win. That’s why she didn’t develop a story, beyond “this guy is crazy, and I’m a competent person.” Then Biden came along and more or less repeated that narrative: “I’m here to restore normality.” A lifelong politician doing lifelong things. I think Biden made a big mistake by overstating his victory in 2020. That election was not a gamble on him and his message; It was a rejection of how Trump managed the covid pandemic. Then, in 2024, we saw more or less an updated version of the Clinton campaign: “Trump is a threat to democracy, we are normal people, you should like our proposals.” But I would not have been able to say what vision of the future Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate who replaced Biden in those elections, proposed. Another big part of the problem was that the older generation of Democrats in general, not just Biden, did not want to let go of their power and take over.Q. But almost two years have passed since those elections. And now? A. I see another political generation emerging, people like Senator John Ossoff in Georgia, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Texas Senator hopeful James Talarico. Or New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. They give speeches, they tell stories, they have a vision of not only what they do, but why. They can relate abstract themes of democracy and corruption to concrete situations. They tell a story that unites those themes: how the corruption of Trump and his circle is not only behind democratic deterioration, but also explains why you can’t afford health care or why gas prices are high. It seems to me that this is how it should be done.P. It seems that there is an anti-establishment desire among the Democratic bases, which comes from even before Trump.R. That is. Trump painted the Democrats as the party of the establishment and the Democrats agreed to put themselves in that position. In foreign policy we position ourselves as defenders of the ruling party, of institutions that people do not like, of positions that voters detest. It’s not that we had to go as far as Trump, but we didn’t even propose an alternative. Obama won at the time because he presented himself as an insurgent, a candidate against the system. Clinton, Biden and Harris embraced the pro-establishment identity. Q. Do you think that a disruptive model will work throughout the country? What works in New York with Mamdani does not necessarily work in Texas, for example.R. Mamdani’s socialism will not work everywhere. But presenting yourself as something new, with different ideas, not under the fist of the party bosses, is something else. In Texas, senatorial candidate James Talarico, a seminarian, has a quite different message than Mamdani, but he makes it clear that he is an outsider, not part of the system. He always says it, that he is running as a candidate to fight against a corrupt system. Trump and Obama did the same thing. But Talarico also explains why he wants to fight against that system: he talks about his faith as motivation. And that is the difference between an effective speech and a mediocre one: someone not only saying what they do, but why. What are your experiences or personal background that explain why you are standing for election? Q. Will that be the trend in the Democratic primaries in 2028? Will an anti-system arrive to turn the party upside down and conquer it? A. Don’t know. The panorama of possible candidates is very broad and very diverse. But I think it would be very effective if there was that feeling that someone has arrived who is going to turn the game around and remake it. You don’t have to be a reality show star or a billionaire. A politician can do it too. Q. A politician like who? A. I don’t have a favorite candidate. I’m interested in different types of people, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Andy Beshear (Democratic governor of Kentucky, a state that voted for Trump). Ideologically different people, but they are all new, young faces, with potential and a different message. And others will come out. If by 2028 people feel that the Democratic Party is different, with different people and a different message, they will be in a good position to win. Yes, a professional politician can achieve it. It’s a little more difficult, but it can be done.Q. What recommendation would you have for them? A. I think that sometimes Democrats focus so much on governing—which is a good thing—that they get into very convoluted debates about political details and end up going off the rails when it comes to explaining themselves. I think the trick is to do it the other way around. First, be clear about your story, your story, your vision. And policies will be decided based on that history: what we are trying to do, where we are going. If you convey who you are and what your vision is well, the policies will flow.Q. After Trump won, there was this real desire to get back to normal. The people were exhausted; I couldn’t take it anymore after those polarized elections. But those of 2028 appear even more tense. Where will we be then? A. I think we will be in a much more extreme situation in 2028. And more polarized. In Trump’s first term there were people on his team and in Congress who held him back. This time there are absolutely no restrictions. Everyone is loyal to him, he doesn’t ask permission for anything, corruption is endemic. His family makes billions before our eyes. He has launched multiple wars without congressional approval. I don’t like to make predictions, but I think we are heading towards a great calamity, an economic crisis, something that did not happen in his first term. By 2028, especially with this war in Iran, the economy could be a total disaster. The country will be bankrupt. We could be at war in Greenland. I feel like it’s going to be a much more extreme situation than in 2024. And I think by 2028 people will be pretty tired of Trump. He will still have his followers, but in the polls he is already lower than ever, and that makes the task easier for a Democratic candidate. For that candidate, the lesson of the Biden years is fundamental: people will not settle for status quo politics. You don’t have to say that you are going to destroy everything, but you do have to say that in no case are we going to go back.
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Source: This article was originally published by Internacional en EL PAÍS and adapted for our international English-speaking audience.
Read the original article here.