The Path Forward for Republicans After Democratic Election Victories

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, with us today is Jesse Arm, and he’s the Vice President of External Affairs for the Manhattan Institute. And a lot of, well, Jesse Arm, a lot of things happened this week in the last five days. And how is it going to affect New York? How is it going to affect the country? Can you give us the

0:20 pulse of how you see things?

0:23 Speaker 2 Absolutely, John. It’s good to be with you. Well, Few anticipated the level of blue tsunami that we experienced on Tuesday. Democrats won just about everywhere. I think the big takeaways are that. look, the ideological content of the non-democratic coalition is genuinely up for grabs in a way that it probably hasn’t been in a decade. We don’t know what

0:52 the future of the Republican Party is going to look like here in New York or just about anywhere else. And maybe somewhat counterintuitively, I think that one of the lessons from Tuesday when we see Democrats winning in Mississippi and Kansas and South Carolina and even Texas is is also that we did see a Republican win in Vermont,

1:12 the governorship there. We saw a Republican win in New Hampshire. So I think, yeah, the whole country went pretty blue on Tuesday. But I think the broader lesson is that the whole damn country is purple when you really get down to it. Anyone can win anywhere. And sometimes you’ve just got to embrace a little bit of heterodoxy, a

1:30 little bit of a spirit of thinking about things differently in order to get it done. But It’s totally possible, so it’s not a good time to take that black pill and totally panic. It’s a good time to plan for the future and think about how you’re going to craft a message that sounds different than what folks have

1:46 been hearing for the last couple of years.

1:51 Speaker 1 Uh, 48 hours or a little bit, uh, by Thursday night, uh, WABC was reporting. And then the next day, uh, Fox news, uh, was reporting that the big swing was there was a 30, approximately a 30% swing in Hispanics votes. And that’s what affected, uh, uh, I guess the Southeast, uh, Southwest and, uh, Texas and in Arizona. And then, uh, Also was said, I mean,

2:20 the GOP won Florida by the skin of their teeth. And the reason was that Cuba voted for the GOP versus the Mexicans and the other Hispanics did not in Texas and in Arizona. How do you see that pulse of the situation?

2:38 Speaker 2 Well, the truth is, John, there was a big shift from 2024 amidst just about every demographic. And I think one thing we’ve been seeing a lot of lately play out, especially on the American right, especially among the kind of hyper online pundit class is. A lot of people pointing out that, oh, look, we lost with our preferred demographic.

3:00 Like a lot of people on the American right who said, look at these all these young white guys who we lost, who we had just two years ago, who were no longer with us. But I’m glad you pointed to the Hispanic number. Heck, you know, there’s a lot of people who aren’t talking about this, but Even the numbers with

3:14 suburban women have gotten even worse in the last couple of years. College-educated suburban women, you know, soccer moms, these used to be people who voted pretty reliably for the GOP up until the Trump era, until, you know, 10 years ago when we got on to this whole episode.

3:29 So I think, look, here’s the reality is when you’ve got a big blue tsunami and you’re losing across every demographic, the lesson for Republicans is, you can improve your, you stand to improve your numbers just about everywhere. And I don’t think we should, you know, panic and lapse into this demographics or destiny talk that you heard a lot

3:49 of in 2008 or rather 2012 when Obama won reelection, that the country was simply, you know, comprised of too many minorities and therefore Republicans could never win again. You’re seeing shades of that reappear in the last 48 hours or so, or a little bit longer since election day.

4:07 But it’s wrong. It’s the wrong sentiment. You can win with anyone. This country looks different now than it did in the 1980s or the 1990s. And it’s simply the case that you have to have a message that is optimistic in spirit, that centers this idea of the American dream, that confirms that it is achievable, that talks about how

4:26 we’re going to build homes, we’re going to do things to cut down on red tape, we’re going to make life better. more affordable for people um and sometimes we’ve got to do that by setting aside uh the inflationary populist policies that voters sometimes tell them tell us they do support because we’ve got to get to the outcomes

4:45 that voters tell us they want they don’t want to focus endlessly on the nitty-gritty they want to hear from politics they want to worry think worry and think about politicians a little bit less and they want their lives to just get i.

4:56 Speaker 1 Was also told i was also told that there’s a There was mandatory roundups of minimums by certain districts of migrants, even though the original policy was let’s get rid of the major criminals and leave the busboys and waiters alone.

5:22 Speaker 2 Yeah, that’s definitely a part of this, right? The immigration crackdowns. I mean, I think to some extent, it’s less about the deportations and more about the professionalism with which some of this effort was conducted. There was obviously moments throughout this administration’s tenure in which it felt like We were being kind of mean about it all. You know, the

5:44 the memes coming from government agency accounts on social media, sometimes, you know, tongue in cheek videos cut together, pushed out in which people’s lives were being torn apart and destroyed, sometimes rightfully so, because they had broken the law. But there was this spirit of. That it was, you know, we were we were reveling in it or something rather

6:05 than treating it responsibly. And I think one lesson for voters might be on the right, at least to really send the message that with Republicans, you get the adults.

6:14 Speaker 1 In the room. And the other situation I’ve heard about is that there’s a good possibility that the Chuck Schumers of the world and the speaker, the future speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, may, instead of worrying about the socialists that want them out, maybe make a deal with the Republicans and they can have a joint effort.

6:42 Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, President Trump has shown frequently that he’s always willing to negotiate. He even extended an open arm to the Iranian terror regime, of all people, after spending weeks and weeks of bombing them. So he’s always going to be inclined toward making a deal. I mean, if there’s one aspect of MAGA that is clearly distillable about

7:01 what this whole policy program is about. It’s about trust in Donald Trump’s instincts as a leader and his willingness to always negotiate and always find a deal. So I expect this president, even as he sort of doubles down and appoints, as we’ve just heard about recently, that Stephen Miller is going to be the new chief of staff.

7:19 That’s You know, that’s a tough guy. That’s a wartime consigliere. I think Donald Trump’s default instinct is always going to be to work with opponents no matter how hostile they seem. That’s been his posture here with the socialist mayor in New York City, Zoran Mamdani. So I have no doubt that Donald Trump will extend an outstretched arm to some

7:37 of these new Democrats in Congress who are coming from very red states.

7:42 Speaker 1 Jesse Arms, let’s pray for our country. Let’s pray for our city and our state. And we’ll catch up again real soon.

7:48 Speaker 2 Great to be with you. Thanks, John.