FROM THE OUTSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE, leading the Democratic National Committee might seem like a plum gig. The paycheck is good, as far as public service gigs go. You get to travel the country, rubbing elbows with top party figures, even celebs like Barack Obama. And you’re at the tip of the spear in pushing back against Trump.
But as former DNC chair Jaime Harrison said this past week, the job “is all-consuming,” the “wins are often invisible,” and “the blame is very public.” At least, that was Harrison’s experience when Democrats controlled the White House and Congress. “It’s even harder when you inherit the position after a presidential loss—when the party is searching for identity, accountability, and direction all at once,” he wrote.
That’s the position that Ken Martin now finds himself in.
On Saturday, Martin—who was elected the new DNC chair in February—was in my home city of Nashville for the Tennessee Democratic Party’s annual fundraising dinner. I caught up with him before the event to talk about his tenure as DNC chair and his vision for how the party pulls itself together. He made news, calling out his own party for throwing soft punches, laying out what happened between him and David Hogg, and outlining what he described as a “micro, nano-influencer organizing” effort to win back power (apparently, there are online knitting clubs???). And he was unapologetic about his desire to turn the Jeffrey Epstein saga into a political anchor around Donald Trump’s neck.
But Martin also conceded that the job has taken a toll. The “political equivalent of being a fire hydrant,” he said of the gig. “You get pissed on by everyone.” Holed up in a heavily air-conditioned conference room in downtown Nashville’s Music City Center, across the street from the Broadway honky-tonks and throngs of bachelorette parties, he seemed well aware that he wasn’t making many friends. “I did not take this job for any joy, to be honest with you,” Martin said.
The transcript of our conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.
LAUREN EGAN: We’re in Tennessee, where just twenty years ago Democrats were winning the state. But that version of the party seems really far away now. How do you expand the party’s tent?
KEN MARTIN: We win through addition, not through subtraction. That sometimes means we have dissent and debate and differences of opinion. But at the end of the day, that’s okay within a party like ours. We are a coalition party. That means that we have to have conversations with people who might not agree with us on every single issue, but are there with us on the majority of issues.
We need to force ourselves out of our comfort zone in terms of where we organize and then how we organize. We cannot just show up three months before an election and have the first conversation with voters in any part of the country. We actually have to build trust again with voters. That’s the biggest thing that we have right now as a party, is a trust deficit.
EGAN: Is there space for someone in the party like Zohran Mamdani? Former Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips said this week that there was not.
Great Job Lauren Egan & the Team @ The Bulwark Source link for sharing this story.
