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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. This weekend's New York Times Magazine already available online has an article bluntly titled The Democratic Party in New York is a Disaster. The subhead and just as blunt language says, "the party is experiencing a civil war after losing crucial congressional seats in the midterm elections last November." Now, this is not just about George Santos getting away with running as a fictional character, and progressives say, it's not just about crime.

The writer is journalist Ross Barkan, who writes in various places about New York and national politics. He also wrote the book that he's been on the show for, called The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York. Yesterday, Ross hit the rail daily double of having new articles in New York Magazine and the New York Times Magazine at the same time. His article in New York is called How Did Donald Trump beat Pete Buttigieg to East Palestine? Maybe he'll touch on that too, but mostly we'll talk about the Civil War as he calls it within the New York state Democratic Party. Ross, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Ross Barkan: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: You're writing about divisions within the party, obviously, and what you call the peculiar void of the state's Democratic organization itself. Let's talk about the divisions first, you write that after the election, more than 1000 Democrats signed a letter calling for the ouster of the Democratic Party chair, a guy not much known to the general public named Jay Jacobs. The letter was signed, you say, mostly by people in the party's progressive wing. Why don't other progressives out for the head of the state Democratic Party's head?

Ross Barkan: In the most basic terms, and we can go further into the weeds on this Jay Jacobs is a critic of progressives in the Democratic Party. He has argued very forcefully that overly liberal or progressive messaging has cost Democrats in the suburbs and swing districts. In turn, the progressive wing of the party, which is quite strong in New York has taken issue with his rhetoric but also taking issue with his day-to-day leadership.

The state Democratic Party, compared to party organizations and other states like Michigan or New Hampshire or Nevada, or Wisconsin is quite more urban and almost non-existence in a way. There's been a wide range of criticism of Jacobs but also have the party in general, and this dates back years, because it doesn't really do all that much electoral work, and no one really cared until last year when New York quite convincingly cost Democrats their House majority, the loss of those four seats, in particular in the suburbs.

Brian Lehrer: Just a little more on Jacobs' side of the argument, you quote him describing his message to party progressives as, "Slow down, you're going too fast. What you're doing is going to lose us votes in the suburbs and rural areas." Is that overwhelmingly about crime and criminal justice?

Ross Barkan: It's a lot of it, yes. I don't think the messaging on supporting tenants, for example, which is a very big part of the progressive and socialist platform more combating climate change, these aren't things that could turn off a suburban voter, but there has been a long-running argument over how to talk about criminal justice reform, how to talk about police reform, some in the progressive movement on the socialist wing especially do support defunding the police. That message is not popular in the suburbs. You have this ongoing debate over bail reform and the partial end of cash bail, and whether it led to the crime spike that happened in New York City, beginning in 2020, when the pandemic struck.

Brian Lehrer: Ross, hold on for a minute, because also with us for a few minutes on the phone is a player in this battle within the New York state Democratic Party. It's Erica Vladimer, State Committee Member for the 76th Assembly District on the Upper East Side, and a founder of the Sexual Harassment Working Group. We're told she also drafted the statement signed by more than 1000 Democrats that we refer to just now calling for Jay Jacobs' ouster, and the building of a party that has leaders who are progressive, fair, and dedicated to the document. Member Vladimer, welcome back to WNYC. Do I have it right that you wrote that statement?

Erica Vladimer: Yes, that's right. Thank you so much for having me, Brian. I had drafted that statement alongside a few other state committee members who are incredibly frustrated with the way that our state party has been operating. Unfortunately, the way the state party operates is dictated from the top, even though folks like myself went out there, ran a full campaign. We had to fundraise. We had to combat people like Jay Jacobs, who funded my opponent, and we still have no say in how the party operates. That's a big reason why we are calling for new leadership.

Brian Lehrer: Why focus on Jay Jacobs rather than the content of the policies that the losing candidates ran on?

Erica Vladimer: Because this is actually bigger than electoral politics. This is about the fact that the state party has failed to get involved, and partner with publicly and party elected officials to make sure that Democrats across the state are engaged not just during electoral campaigns, but on issue campaigns, educating each other in the public about things like bail reform and why it was so important to make sure our messaging is key.

The reason why the state party has not been as involved is because Jay Jacobs and other leadership had not made the effort to do so. If we want to reform the way the state party operates, we're going to need leadership that is willing, ready, and able to actually reform the way the party works, and Jay has made very clear publicly that he wants no part of that.

Brian Lehrer: Do last November's election results, though, show that Jacobs is right, to some degree about progressives going too fast as he put it in suburban and rural New York, especially on crime and criminal justice, with the result being the loss of those crucial congressional seats? Oops, did we lose Erica Vladimer? Wait a minute. Sorry, we lost your line for a second there. We have you back up if you want to start that answer again.

Erica Vladimer: Okay. Yes, sorry about that. I would say absolutely not. What we saw in November comes from years of disengagement of our state party, with real New Yorkers, with Democratic voters. Had we had leadership that worked with our elected officials who work really hard to keep our community safe, while also protecting folks, especially Black and brown New Yorkers from being thrown into jails, and having their lives at risk.

We might not have seen what we saw in November if we had a state party leadership that was willing to work with elected officials, with grassroots organizers who understood why these policies were so important, and we're able to discuss what it meant to be able to message that effectively, as opposed to saying and parroting a lot of the GOP talking points, I think November might have looked a little different.

Brian Lehrer: Is there language then that you think could have avoided some of these losses in the suburbs, especially on Long Island where Democrats held two of the four congressional seats, and now hold none? A critic might say, "Well, you represent the Upper East Side, Manhattan is more or less immune from this or has been so far, what's the language that you could have offered to people running on Long Island or in the Hudson Valley that would have avoided those losses on that issue?

Erica Vladimer: Look, I am not going to pretend to be an expert here on messaging around criminal legal reform when there have been folks on the ground doing this for decades. What I think you're talking to Brian, is the fact that we don't have state party leadership who reached out across the district to say how can we help you message this effectively, and put together a strong communications plan. Instead, what we saw was one person, the head of the state party, Jay Jacobs, go out there and parrot GOP talking points, without ever talking to folks like myself, a state party member who was duly elected to help build that comm strategy that could have worked for everybody across the state.

He took it upon himself, he silos the power and the action. Us state committee members, a lot of us, there were over 300 publicly elected and party elected officials who signed that first statement that we put out, are ready for change, where we have a state party that is really engaged on these issues so that we are not scrambling during elections.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, you want to take a minute and tell people what a state committee does, your position with the party, a state committee member, most listeners may not even know what that is or what the state committee does do, can you give everybody a little bit of background on that?

Erica Vladimer: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that space, Brian, because I think that's exactly right. So many people don't understand how important our state party is and can be. As a state committee member, I am one of two folks who represent my Assembly District. We run for public office in the same way that our state senators and assembly members do. What I get to do is represent what my constituents are looking for to the state party. It's like the Democratic National Campaign but on the state level.

We are, in theory, supposed to be working together to build a broad vision for New York State Democratic Party, putting together a policy platform, a set of values that we want our publicly elected officials to stand behind and fight for. As a state committee member, one of my responsibilities is to help educate my constituents about these. Unfortunately, the way things are operating right now don't allow us to do that. A lot of it means we have to get permission from one person, the chair, to be able to effectively execute these things and put together a unified front of a strong state Democratic Party that will make sure we hold on to Democratic seats in Congress, all the way down to local town council, city council, county legislators as well.

That is something that a lot of us are working on, something that I am working on as a state committee member. I encourage folks to go to newyorkdems.org and take a look to see who their state committee member is, so this way they can get in touch with them and have them be their voice in the state party.

Brian Lehrer: Before I go back to Ross, is his term in his New York Times article of a civil war within the New York State Democratic Party too strong in your opinion or accurate?

Erica Vladimer: I think it's a little too strong. There are more of us in the state party than not who, I believe, feel that it's time for change. The state party is not running and operating effectively, and a lot of us are really looking to make that change. We might disagree on how we go about changing that, but I think we can all agree on that what we have now is just not working.

Brian Lehrer: Erica Vladimir, State Democratic Party Committee Member for the 76th Assembly District on the Upper East Side, thanks for a few minutes this morning. We appreciate it.

Erica Vladimer: Thank you. Hi, Ross.

Ross Barkan: Hi, that's great. Thank you for coming.

Brian Lehrer: Still with us, it's Ross Barkan, author of the article in the New York Times Magazine this weekend called The Democratic Party in New York Is a Disaster, and framing it as a civil war inside the party. Ross, how representative is the conversation we just had of what's going on?

Ross Barkan: It's definitely representative. I thought Erica put it very well. I would just add that the word "civil war," obviously, is a strong one. I was referring to not just the conflicts among state committee members but really the broad party itself, the umbrella in New York which encompasses several different factions which have competed against each other and continue to compete against each other for power. It's not a violent clash or anything like that, but it's there.

New York's a fascinating State. It's obviously a very big state. It is still a democratic-dominated state. I'd say because this is the first time in a very long time. This era where Republicans, though they won in the house, they don't have power in the state legislature and they don't have power of the governor's mansion. The factionalism, I believe, is more prevalent now in the 2020s and late 2010s than it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, something like that, in terms of ideology, in particular, that's what I'm referring to.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to tell everybody that this is one of those segments where I didn't even give out the phone number yet, and all our lines are full. Sometimes before I give out the phone number, a few people call up because they know the number and they're interested in the topic. This is one of those rare examples where I didn't even give out the phone number yet, and all 10 lines are full. Listeners, New York Democrats obviously have very strong feelings about some aspects of this, and there are some interesting-looking takes. Callers, we'll get to you in a minute.

I want to put one more piece of this on the table with Ross Barkan for everybody, and that is that you report on not just the ideological divisions, but on the Democratic party organization being hollowed out. You report this stat, "The tiny population state of New Hampshire," the whole state," only has half as many people as Queens. New Hampshire's Democratic party organization has 16 full-time staffers, New York State's has four." Why does that matter? What do these staffers who are not elected officials-- Well, they are elected as committee members but they're not in office like in the legislature. Why does it matter?

Ross Barkan: Staff matters, especially when they're employed year-round because they can work on the messaging of the party, they can work on coordinating among congressional candidates, state legislative candidates. They can do the crucial organizing or recruit the people to do the crucial organizing that does help on the margins at the minimum in these very tough races. Staff isn't everything, it's not the lone denominator, but I use that as an example just to say New Hampshire, for example, has a very active Democratic party. They have a very clearly identifiable party headquarters.

Most people don't know where the New York State Democratic Party headquarters are, and that includes state committee members. Having people who are employed to work year-round on the future of the party is something that is not actually beneficial for the party. In New York, I think it's important to state this bluntly. The Democratic party organization through the state committee barely exists. Four staffers, one of whom some thought was retired. As far as I can tell, only one staffer who's doing any kind of day-to-day work on the party.

It's not everything and you can't use headcount to be the determining factor, but it does show that there really isn't much there. Historically, the Democratic Party in New York, the state party, has always been independent of the governor. It's important just to clarify. When Andrew Cuomo was governor for over a decade, he had no interest in building up the party. He wanted it to be a campaign committee for his re-election bid. Certainly, New York Democrats are struggling with that Legacy. I do think Hochul, in the long term, probably wants to build the party, but so far it's still very much that hollowed-out appendage that it's always been.

Brian Lehrer: Just to correct myself on one thing that I said in the question that you just answered, I think I conflated the staffers and the elected committee member like Erica Vladimir who was on a few minutes ago. Of course, State committee members that's a designated number of elected positions that continues. The four full-time staffers, only four for the New York State Democratic Party, that's just staff members who they hire compared to 16 in New Hampshire, which has a tiny population.

This is WNYC FM HD and AM NewYork, WNJT FM, 88.1 Trenton, WNJP, 88.5 Sussex, WNJY, 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey public radio and live streaming at wnyc.org with Ross Barkan, author of the article in The New York Times Magazine this weekend called The Democratic Party in New York is a disaster and calling it a civil war inside the party. Stu in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi Stu, thanks for calling in.

Stu: Hi, I wanted to know where Hakeem Jeffries stands in this. He could be a majority leader now, and we wouldn't have to be listening to Kevin McCarthy and the Looney Tunes caucus if New York had done what it was obviously poised to do if it wasn't for Jay Jacobs, so why doesn't Jeffers get involved in the reforming the party?

Brian Lehrer: Interesting, Stu, thank you very much. I don't think Jeffries comes up in your article. Yes, he could be Speaker of the House if things had gone just a little bit differently in a few suburban New York districts. Even Jeffries is somebody who the progressive wing has sometimes talked about primarying, so what is Hakeem Jeffrey's place in this?

Ross Barkan: It's going to be a very interesting one. He obviously just ascended to the role of house minority leader. He is a politician who in Brooklyn has clashed with the progressive wing, has been very outspoken about the DSA politicians, in particular, the socialist politician who either have threatened to run against him or run candidates against his candidates, so it's important to include that as context.

Now going forward, Hakeem Jeffries, in order to become House Speaker one day, is going to have to win the votes of the most far-left members of the House caucus, the so-called Squad. That number is now as high as 10 or 11, it may grow even more after 2024. He's someone who actually may have to migrate to the left in order to ascend to the speakership, assuming the Democrats can get the majority back soon. That all being said, he is an ally of Kathy Hochul. He's certainly very institutionally aligned. He has not been that outspoken yet about the particulars of party building. One issue with New York in general and I mentioned this in the piece when I make the comparison to Harry Reid in Nevada, there's really never been a prominent Democrat in New York, who's been very invested long-term in party building.

Chuck Schumer, someone who goes all across the state who local elected officials like a lot. He has really played no role in building up a party organization. Andrew Cuomo, as I said before like to sabotage Democrats and wanted to bolster his own image and didn't want to do it. Maybe Hakeem can change that trajectory but as of now, there's not really that one Democrat who's stepping up and saying, "Okay, this is what the party organizations look like, here's the money we're going to raise. Here's who's going to be the leader." Maybe that will happen, but it hasn't happened yet.

Brian Lehrer: We have a few callers who want to make a point about organizing during the fall elections last year, and I'm going to let Fred in Merrick on the island do that because that obviously is very relevant to his town. Fred, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in. Fred in Merrick are you there? Fred once, Fred twice. Well, let's try Lauren in Manhattan, who I think is going to make a similar argument. Laura, are you there?

Laura: Yes, I'm here. Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hi, there. You're on the air.

Laura: Thank you. I understand these discussions about internal party divisions or whatever and the crime thing, but I really don't think that's why we lost in the Hudson Valley, in New York '17 and '19 in comparing it with New York '18. In comparing it to 2018, I'm a grassroots organizer. I have been since Obama I was a former volunteer state lead for OSA, and I have to say that in 2018, Jeff Berman was running the state party. He was an Obama guy. L of the independent grassroots groups were under a same mission to get out the vote.

We were directed on which districts to focus on by the state party. They hired field organizers, we had amazing volunteer turnout, and we got out to vote and we flipped. What was it like? Four districts that year. You got to look at the votes. Pat Ryan beat Tom Schmidt by 2100 votes and Maloney lost by only 3200. Riley, an unknown lost by about 6000. I think [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Because not everybody knows all those names. You're saying the Democratic Congressional candidates in the Hudson Valley generally did pretty well and those who lost, lost by only a little.

Laura: Yes, and I think the difference is that we did not have [unintelligible 00:23:23] organized from the top down from-- And Jay Jacobs needs to be removed because you can look at Jeff Berman's record as the party lead for 2017 '18 and he made the difference. We all work together as grassroots volunteers to get out to vote for Democrat.

Brian Lehrer: Let me throw one thought at you from Ross's article. He notes that Lee Zeldin, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, of course, made notable inroads with working-class Asian-Americans, potentially heralding a realignment for the city's fastest-growing demographic, he wrote. Would that be countered by better organizing, in your opinion or is there something more deeply issue-oriented there?

Laura: I think it's all about organizing voter turnout-- I've done research, voter turnout surged in areas that has all been did well. Kathy Hochul, she lost by the most that any governor has since [unintelligible 00:24:31] so what I saw was that in New York City in the boroughs and that's all of the boroughs 33% of registered voters cast ballots compared to 41% in 2018. That's a huge drop-off. That's because they didn't think it mattered.

[crosstalk]

We're not showing up, Democrats aren't showing up. All right thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Great points. Thank you. Thank you very much. There's a grassroots organizers perspective on the failure simply to organize Ross. Maybe that goes back to the point of how few staffers there are in the Democratic party organization in the state. You want to comment on Laura and also on the questions that I asked her from your article about the working-class Asian-American potentially heralding a realignment toward the Republicans?

Ross Barkan: The turnout issue is very real. In particular, there was an enormous Republican turnout. I think Lee Zeldin got the most votes for a Republican candidate for governor since Nelson Rockefeller. Democratic turnout wasn't low, Republican turnout was just very high. It was actually a surprisingly high turnout midterm election, particularly when you compare it to Cuomo's first two elections in 2010 and 2014. I do think, yes, if you had better Democratic turnout, particularly in the suburbs in the Santos district, you could have won.

On the organizing point and the Asian-American vote, I do agree that Democrats have been increasingly absent in a lot of these communities. There are well-meaning elected officials, but there aren't really local political organizations or so-called machines that are trying to organize Chinese voters in Bensonhurst or Chinese and Korean voters in Flushing. There's also a messaging issue and this is something Democrats on the progressive end do have to be very honest with themselves about, working class, Asian-American voters are very concerned about public safety.

They do think that bail reform is not the best thing. They do dislike defunding the police, they do want to fund the police. Of course, there are Asian-American activists who are progressive, I'm really talking about the working class, first-generation voter, even second-generation voter. You see it in the voting trends, you see it in Curtis Sliwa. The Republican candidate for mayor did very well in these communities and Zeldin did just as well, if not better. I think there is a messaging issue and Democrats have to figure that out. There is also an organizing issue Lee Zeldin showed up in Bensonhurst. He showed up in Flushing, he came to all of these different neighborhoods Kathy Hochul did not.

Brian Lehrer: You want to give us one line before you go like 30 seconds on your other new article, the one in New York Magazine called How to Donald Trump beat Pete Buda judge to East Palestine. That, of course, refers to the toxic airborne event train derailment, and he's Palestinian Ohio. Why did you frame it that way?

Ross Barkan: I framed it that way because Donald Trump was very bad in terms of rail safety and federal regulations. It's important to underscore that Trump had no interest in either, environmental regulations, rail regulations, anything like that. At the same time the response from DOD and Buttigieg was slow. It took a long time for him to comment publicly on the disaster. He could have visited sooner and it's very bad optically for Democrats that Trump is going down into a working-class community that is impacted by environmental catastrophe.

While yes, he's an opportunist, yes, he is a liar. Yes, he's not invested in rail safety or the environment in any way, he still got there first. It's important for Democrats, particularly if they want to win in 2024, win rural Senate seats, do all these things that they're not seen as out of touch with these kinds of communities. Right now they are that's just the reality of it so they have work to do.

Brian Lehrer: That is a white working-class community from what I've seen.

Ross Barkan: Yes, voted overwhelmingly for Trump.

Brian Lehrer: Ross Barkan has that article out and the one in the New York Times Magazine this weekend, already available online, called The Democratic Party in New York is a disaster. Ross, we always appreciate when you come on. Thanks a lot.

Ross Barkan: Thank you for having me.

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