On a long drive the day after Trump’s victory, after absolutely no sleep, deeply hungover, I turned to liberal radio as a much-needed painkiller. First I tried NPR, but even their coping and seething was too appalling to bear. So I sought out another source: Pod Save America, the famous podcast hosted by three famous former Obama staffers known for being Very Good Boys.

What struck me is how closely the hosts—Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer, and Tommy Vietor—conform to a single archetype: that of the effeminate, white, male valedictorian-cum-Brooklyn striver under whose boot we’ve all been stuck for two decades. They are each one a variation on this platonic form, their speech patterns recognizable by the vocal fry that communicates, “I’m safe” while a certain scruffy growl from time to time adds, “but I’m still a guy.”

Members of this class are defined by a very specific perspective. I’ve noticed it ever since first encountering the species in New York in 2007. This perspective accounts for the major difference between what middle-class people teach their kids and what elites teach their kids—what state schools teach their students versus what the Ivys do. You can hear it vividly throughout the episode:

Normal people teach their kids how to express themselves to get what they want. Elites teach their kids how to express what others want to hear, so that they can rule over them.

In other words, elites learn to manipulate. In this episode, every proposed question is answered by some survey or factoid indicating what “normal people” want to hear. The proposed solution is always how to tweak the messaging—not, you see, the host’s own actual beliefs or policies, but the messaging—in order to rule without catching too much flak from those they rule over. 

Never once do they allow each other to entertain the question whether or not Trump actually isn’t evil, or whether Progressivism actually doesn’t work. “I will not for one second believe that Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk put together, like, a real plan [for a ground game]” is an actual quote from the episode. The entire discussion is about strategizing ways to tell other people what they want to hear so they can appear innocent and holy, and thus stay in power. This is not leadership: it’s control.

I remember once asking a Harvard friend to look over my resume. He went to great lengths to explain the importance not of my job history, but of the personal interests section: you must have one sport, one intellectual pursuit, one cute reference…this is how Ivy Leaguers think. They’re trained in the art of making other people feel warm and fuzzy about them. And, for a very long time, this is why they always won.

But even in this episode, the hosts admit that era is over. “We can’t just create messaging points based on surveys of various target groups, then bundle those solutions together [thereby dividing and conquering the population] and hope to win,” they say. They are admitting that this was their magic formula up until now. But Trump blew it up.

Yet the solution they come up with is that they need more of a “narrative approach” to “storyelling,” so they can…continue to manipulate people into voting for them. At no point do they address what they actually believe. At no point do they consider that perhaps their beliefs are simply wrong, or perhaps insane, or perhaps completely radical. At no point do they wonder whether the problem might be, not that Democrats aren’t perceived as the party of working people anymore, but that they actually aren’t. 

And so it is that these very good boys miss the overwhelmingly obvious truth: authenticity works for Trump because Trump is actually interested in America. He wants to lead it, not control it. He’s not trying to manipulate us into thinking he cares so he can rule. He’s simply stating his actual real beliefs, and trying to convince us of them.

If Democrats want to compete in today’s authenticity-centric media environment, they will have to do likewise. We need to hear why we should have open borders, why we should have single payer healthcare, why we should trans kids. Instead of spending all their hours on strategy, operatives like the Pod Boys will need to spend all their hours honing their principles. 

But something tells me they’re not able to do that. Because what are their principles, besides “we should be in charge”? Do even they know? Could it be that the things they actually care about really are insane, utterly disconnected from the interests of those they seek to rule?? They make vague pronouncements about freedom (except for their enemies) and equality (except for their enemies) but these cloak their genuine belief that they, because they are very special snowflakes, simply deserve to rule.

One sport, one intellectual pursuit, one cute reference. But what are the elites actually interested in? What they’re interested in is getting the job. Beyond that? They haven’t thought much about it.

Image: Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.