Today, Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson sat down with bestselling author David Sirota — a former speechwriter for Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), founder of Lever News and host of the Master Plan podcast — for an in-depth conversation about the ongoing battle for the soul of the Democratic Party between the populist left and the corporate-funded establishment. They also discussed season two of Sirota’s podcast, which covers the unchecked power of the American presidency. Gibson and Sirota discussed various topics, including:
Whether corporate Democrats are trying to derail Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign to argue leftists can’t win swing states
What the Democratic establishment’s coordinated attack against Twitch streamer Hasan Piker actually reveals
What Hakeem Jeffries’ secret meeting with Jared Kushner could signify about his priorities as speaker should Democrats retake the House
Why the Republican Party has embraced “revolution” while Democratic leaders remain committed to the status quo
The rise of insurgent candidates like Zohran Mamdani and the competing 2028 primary visions of “restoration” and “transformation”
How conservatives’ “unitary executive theory” has created an imperial presidency
Whether a future Democratic president should wield the powers of the presidency for good as Donald Trump has for himself
If the U.S. is capable of reining in extreme wealth through a billionaires’ tax and/or a philosophy of limitarianism
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Could Abdul El-Sayed Break the Democratic Establishment?
Gibson and Sirota began by discussing Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s U.S. Senate campaign in Michigan, where the progressive challenger defeated establishment favorite Haley Stevens despite being outspent by tens of millions of dollars. Gibson asked whether El-Sayed winning in a swing state like Michigan could “open the floodgates” to more leftist candidates challenging establishment Democrats across the country.
Sirota agreed with that premise, saying the Democratic Party’s donor class views an El-Sayed victory as uniquely dangerous.
“I think if you’re a corporate Democrat, the idea of many many Abdul El-Sayeds across the country in swing districts and swing states is terrifying to you,” Sirota said.
“[Corporate donors are] willing to potentially have the Democratic Party lose the general election … if that faction perceives that to be the cost of that faction retaining its power inside of the institution,” he added.
Are Corporate Democrats Using Hasan Piker to Attack Abdul El-Sayed by Proxy?
Gibson then pivoted to the Democratic establishment’s intense pressure campaign against leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, in which party leaders are forcing candidates to condemn the immensely popular leftist figure over past statements he made that he has since apologized for. He then asked Sirota whether it’s accurate to suggest that the Hasan Piker campaign is actually a proxy attack on Abdul El-Sayed, since Democrats can’t directly attack their own nominee in a must-win Senate race.
Sirota agreed with that assessment, calling it a “kitchen-sink strategy” meant to throw everything possible at the party’s populist wing. He then suggested that the real threat Hasan Piker poses isn’t ideological, but rather that he’s unwilling to be a complicit mouthpiece for the party.
“[Piker] has built a truly independent media channel that doesn’t play by the rules and doesn’t answer to either party’s political apparatus,” Sirota said.
Gibson then pointed out that Democratic strategists repeatedly called for a “Joe Rogan of the left” to emerge in the aftermath of the 2024 election. And he noted the irony in that, like Rogan, Piker is someone using new media to engage with an audience of millions of voters in the millennial and Gen Z demographics.
“Say what you will about Joe Rogan, he’s not reading the Republican Party’s talking points,” Sirota said, arguing that any real leftist version of Joe Rogan has to be completely independent of partisan influence or control. He then drew on his decades of work in Democratic politics, emphasizing that the party’s establishment values “loyalty and control” over everything else.
Should Democrats Be Worried About Hakeem Jeffries’ Meeting with Jared Kushner?
Gibson then asked Sirota about House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-N.Y.) recent meeting with Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and whether that means Jeffries would be willing to cut deals with members of the president’s inner circle if Democrats retake the House of Representatives and make Jeffries the next speaker.
Sirota said the Kushner meeting should be viewed in the context of his recent comments on Meet the Press in which he opposed Medicare for All. When factoring in both Jeffries’ refusal to accommodate the Democratic base’s widespread calls for Medicare for All along with his decision to meet behind closed doors with Jared Kushner, Sirota warned this sends the message that “Even if you vote for us, there won’t be real change.”
“I don’t think that’s good for the Democratic Party,” Sirota said. “I don't think it's good for democracy, and I think that’s what Jeffries has done.”
The 2028 Primary Battle: ‘Restoration’ Versus ‘Transformation’
Gibson observed that despite the Republican Party’s open embrace of “corruption, authoritarianism and war” during Trump’s second term, it has been more willing than Democrats to empower its young leaders while Democrats like Nancy Pelosi refuse to cede power despite giving the illusion of stepping back to allow the next generation to lead.
Sirota then argued that Republicans have actually been the party of “revolution” more than Democrats, pointing out that it was less than two decades between Barry Goldwater’s 1964 loss and Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980. He then pointed out that the GOP has consistently been letting its base drive its vision through moments like the Tea Party of the 2010s and the MAGA era of the 2020s, while Democrats have been viewed as the party of the status qup.
The Lever News founder cautioned that the GOP’s revolutionary arc is reaching its denouement, similar to how the French Revolution ended in the cult of personality centered around Napoleon Bonaparte. However, he said it would be “healthy” for the Democratic Party to embrace revolution of its own.
“I think for the for the people who are currently in power in the Democratic Party — who have spent 30 years becoming rich, famous, and powerful — clinging on to that internal party power even as the party has lost elections and lost policy battles, I think that's terrifying to them,” Sirota said. “They've had a good run for themselves for the last 30 or 40 years, even if it's been a terrible run for the country, so they're going to fight as hard as they can to stop that kind of uprising in the party from moving forward.”
Gibson pointed out that the progressive wing of ther Democratic Party has seen several major victories, pointing to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory over the Cuomo dynasty, and several leftist candidates unseating establishment incumbents in various deep-blue House districts. He then posited that the 2028 primary could be seen as a battle between candidates like Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and California Gavin Newsom who would call for unifying and moving forward rather than accountability, and justice-focused candidates running on making sure that the Trump administration’s repeated violations of the Constitution and federal law are prosecuted.
Sirota said the two competing visions could also be defined as “restoration” and “transformation.” He noted that some candidates will likely run on returning society to a “pre-Trump normal,” while ignoring the conditions that made it possible for Donald Trump to be elected to office in the first place. And he cautioned that a torrent of corporate money will go toward tilting the scales in favor of “restoration” candidates.
“Big corporations, oligarchs, billionaires-they were doing great before Trump,” he said. “They're doing they're doing even better now, but they're fine with going back to to the working class getting destroyed, hope and change becoming more of the same.”
How Trump Is Taking Advantage of an ‘Imperial Presidency’ and Whether Democrats Will Do the Same
The conversation then turned to Sirota’s Master Plan podcast, which is in its second season and focusing on the immense powers of the U.S. presidency. Gibson asked Sirota to expand on the season’s premise that the conservative legal theory of a “unitary executive” — in which the president assumes full control of the entire federal government — has now been fully realized.
Sirota argued the idea of an “imperial presidency” traces back to Watergate, in which Congress sought to constrain the presidency after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. He then explained how the subsequent years led to the conservative movement regrouping to elect Ronald Reagan, with the far-right Heritage Foundation guiding his policies through its Mandate for Leadership playbook (which was also the predecessor to Project 2025).
The expansion of executive powers then continued through 9/11 after then-Vice President Dick Cheney took advantage of a national emergency to ram through sweeping authoritarian surveillance powers. He then noted that former President Barack Obama continued the expansion of presidential powers by “assert[ing] the right for a president to have a kill list” to conduct assassinations of U.S. citizens around the world.
“How much power do we want one person to have? Because this was not the way the country was founded,” Sirota said.
Do Democrats Have the Stomach to Use Expanded Presidential Power to Its Fullest Potential?
Gibson reminded viewers of the scene in the film The Dark Knight (2008) in which Christian Bale’s Batman instructed Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox to use an “unethical” and “dangerous” surveillance tool for the sole purpose of locating Heath Ledger’s Joker, with the promise to shut it all down once the Joker was apprehended. He then asked Sirota if he thought Democrats were capable of using the massively expanded powers of the presidency that conservatives ushered in to do all the things the base calls for, with the goal of dismantling it all before the next Republican can use those powers to reverse progress.
Sirota pointed out that as part of the final episode of this season of Master Plan, he interviewed numerous prospective 2028 Democratic presidential candidates and asked them this specific question. He said most of them believed that the next Democratic president should use all available executive powers to achieve their goals. He added that it “makes a whole lot of sense” for the next president to impose strict new limits on the ability of presidents to participate in self-enrichment and corruption. But he was also skeptical that Democratic candidates would be willing to upset the donor class too much once they were back in power.
“Are Democrats really willing to use the power that’s available to the president to do the things that they’re promising, even the things that will make their donors... upset?” Sirota asked, reminding viewers that the private equity tax loophole Democrats had promised to end is still open.
How Democrats Can Ready Themselves for Retaliation from Wall Street
Gibson asked whether a Democratic president who aggressively used executive power to rein in Wall Street and big corporations — for example, a hypothetical President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — could trigger a “capital strike,” with corporations and financial institutions withholding jobs and investment to exact revenge.
“I do think that capital will side with authoritarianism against democracy if democracy is perceived to be a threat to capital,” Sirota said, saying there have been multiple examples of this throughout history. He noted that FDR provided the blueprint for how to weather that backlash by “never allow[ing] himself to be cast as part of the problem” and successfully ran for reelection during the height of the Great Depression openly embracing the hatred of Wall Street and corporate executives.
Gibson pointed out that progressives called on former President Joe Biden to use expansive presidential powers to forgive all federal student debt. Activists with Strike Debt/The Debt Collective referenced language in the Higher Education Act of 1965 making it clear that the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education had sole control over all federally issued student debt and could simply cancel it if a president ordered it done. But when Biden — who represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate, which is known as the main hub of student debt servicing companies — was asked directly whether he would enact such a policy, he flat-out refused.
Sirota argued this type of refusal to use power to do good is what creates the conditions that allow authoritarian leaders like Trump to take power.
“I genuinely think that liberals are afraid of the use of power,” Sirota said, lamenting that many liberals seem to view the concept of power itself as a bad thing. He was emphatic that change won’t come without conflict.
“Power will have to be taken through democratic means, and the oligarchs will be mad about it, and it will be a loud, messy confrontation, and that’s okay,” he said.
Is ‘Limitarianism’ a Viable Path Forward?
To closing the conversation, Gibson asked Sirota about limitarianism — laid out in Dutch political scientist Ingrid Robeyns’ 2024 book “The Case Against Extreme Wealth” — in which there would be a limit imposed on how much wealth a single individual could accumulate. Gibson argued that democracies may be in an “arms race” against centibillionaires like Elon Musk to rein in their ability to use their wealth to drastically reshape governments in their favor before it’s too late.
Sirota framed the debate as the latest iteration of the ongoing battle between capitalism and democracy, warning that concentrated capital may now be able to exceed democracy’s attempts to “guardrail” it. However, he said a wealth tax shouldn’t be the end goal but rather a corrective measure toward a fairer tax system that adequately taxes the wealthiest at a rate that would render them unable to become more powerful than democratic institutions. The Lever News founder mentioned a RAND Corporation estimate that workers would have earned roughly $70 trillion more over the last 50 years had wage growth actually kept pace with productivity.
“We’re talking about real confiscation,” Sirota said. “Like, an economy built on confiscation.”
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