Sen. Murphy: I’m Preparing for Dystopia
In an interview with The Bulwark, the Connecticut Democrat outlines how bad it could get and what his party must now do.
As Democrats grapple with the threat Donald Trump’s presidency poses and how best to combat it, one of the party’s leading figures isn’t mincing words.
“I’m getting prepared for the worst,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview with The Bulwark. “Which is, you know, arrest warrants for members of Congress, shutdowns of not-for-profit organizations that are trying to cross Donald Trump. I’m legitimately worried about that. . . . I’m crossing my fingers that we will be in some normal world in which I can find some narrow areas of agreement with Trump. But I’m spending most of my time thinking and preparing for dystopia.”
Preparing for dystopia is not the traditional work requirement of a senator. But unique times call for unique measures. And Murphy, as much as anyone else in his party, has been using the post-election period to sound the alarm: both about the state of the country (“I think this is a bit of a hair-on-fire moment,” he explained) and the difficult path back to power for his fellow Democrats.
In recent days, he has laid out the case that Democrats failed because neoliberalism as a political ideology failed. Voters no longer believe that markets and institutions ultimately work for the benefit of the common good. While Democrats were championing traditional institutions, Trump channeled voter’s anger at and mistrust of them.
“We spend probably . . . 80 percent of our time explaining the solution, telling people that you should feel good about the reforms we passed,” said Murphy. “Trump spends all his time complaining; and as you mentioned, almost no time solving the problem. But Democrats have to learn from that. You actually have to bring a narrative. You have to kick the ass of the elite and then solve the problem.”
Murphy argued that Democrats, himself included, made a tactical error in closing the election with a defense of democracy rather than a sharp focus on economic populism and “the destruction of corporate power.” He attributed that, in part, to the traps that Trump sets: The threats to democracy, to governing institutions, and to science itself are all real, but defending them forces Democrats to be the party of the status quo. Instead, Murphy argued the party needed to return to its “central message” of campaigning on ethics reform and rooting out corruption. And it needed to make economic populism its “tentpole.”
“This is not about small fixes,” he said.
Watch the full interview below for more from Sen. Murphy, including on what President Biden did right, what he did wrong, and how Democrats should build a new media infrastructure.