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(upbeat music) (bell rings) - Hello and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here, also a proud member.

Today is April 2nd.

You're with another virtual City Club forum, we continue to be live from the studios of our public media partner 90.3 WCPN Ideas Stream, deeply grateful for their partnership over this last year, it has been a year.

Back in February of this year during president Trump's second impeachment trial, we talked with two political strategists on the right about the deep divisions within the Republican Party and what they might mean for the GOP's future.

Today, we turn our attention to the Democrats.

The party seems more unified than in years past, Democrats came together after the primary to deny president Trump a second term, they even gained the slimmest of majorities in the Senate, in the process they did lose some seats in the House, but despite ballot box success, divisions remain between the parties' moderates and progressives, and these divisions are playing out as the country grapples with the pandemic, with climate change, with systemic racism to name just a few of the grand challenges we face as a nation and in our communities.

Today we'll talk with two political strategists working on the left about the issues facing the party, including changing demographics and voting trends and how they're planning for the future.

Let me introduce our Friday forum speakers here at the City Club.

Quentin James is the founder and president of the Collective Pack, which is working on equity issues and democracy by addressing the under-representation of of African Americans in public office.

Before founding the organization in 2016, Quentin James was the black Americans director for the Ready for Hillary PAC and the national director for the Sierra Club Student Coalition the nation's largest youth environmental organization.

Katie Paris is also with us, she's the founder of Red, Wine and Blue, a grassroots organization which generated national attention last year as she and her colleagues work to rally suburban women to vote.

Prior to its founding in 2018, Ms. Paris worked in national politics in Washington, DC.

If you have questions about the future of the Democratic Party, you wanna join our conversation, text your questions to 330-541-5794, that's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet your question @theCityClub and we will work your questions in.

Quentin James and Katie Paris, welcome to the City Club of Cleveland.

- [Quentin] Thanks for having us Dan.

- It is great to have you.

Quentin, I wanna start with you.

Last year, if you cast your mind back over the last year and to about a year ago, in the midst of the primary, the Democratic Party primary in the presidential race, the party was pretty divided.

You still had a viable Bernie Sanders campaign, Joe Biden was far from certain becoming the party's nominee.

And anybody looking at the whole cast of candidates would have said, "That's pretty divided party.

There's a lot of different ideas."

How have things changed over the last year?

- [Quentin] Yeah, this past presidential primary cycle, we saw a lot of amazing candidates who had a lot of great ideas, but the idea vary from how to deal with issues around immigration, to defunding the police as a, you know, kind of political ideology that arose.

But I think what we saw from our previous president, President Trump, over kind of last and final six months of his presidency, kind of solidified, I think a lot of the frustrations that not only the Americans but the world was really feeling.

And so may those progressive ideas or even some of the more moderate ideas, right?

I think people put those things aside to say, let's elect a president who is not gonna lock kids in cages, who is gonna defend democracy, and who is gonna have a shot to kind of bring Americans together.

And I think that's what we saw.

And unfortunately, kind of fast forwarding into right before president Biden was inaugurated, right?

The interaction, either the very steeple of our democracy was attacked, and was supported by Former President Trump.

And so I think for all that was said about the division, we kind of face the existential threat in Donald Trump's reelection, and that made people, I think, kind of coalesce around Biden.

And then the other reality too, just to be quick is, the election was decided by around 40,000 votes, right, in Georgia and Arizona and Nevada.

And so when we think about the kind of closeness of this race, a lot of primary voters also wanted to elect somebody who had thought America would choose.

And so kind of going back in time, you know, hindsight's 2020, they were right in choosing, you know, Joe Biden to be the nominee.

- Quentin James is a co-founder and president of the Collective PAC.

Katie Paris of Red Wine and Blue, founder of Red Wine and Blue is with us as well.

Katie is that the case, the sort of enemy of my enemy is my friend was enough to kind of, to bring all the extreme wings of the Democratic Party or the center and the moderate wing of the Democratic Party together with the far left wing?

- [Katie] Absolutely, I mean, Quentin said it very well.

This was an existential threat, the prospect of a second term of the Donald Trump presidency.

There was no question that Democrats were gonna set differences aside.

You saw Bernie Sanders showing that leadership.

I mean, Kamala Harris, how strong she came in as the VP.

And I think that we saw a unified ticket.

I think that what's interesting though, is that even when you're not facing the existential threat of a Donald Trump's second term, these presidential races campaigns tend to bring people together.

This is the big show, it only happens every four years, everything is on the line or at least it feels that way, and it was really true this time.

And then what can happen though, after you get through the campaign and even in a case like this where we win, you might think, "Oh, okay, well we're all gonna be unified now because we rallied together and we're going to agree on everything."

And oftentimes that's not the case actually at all, people say, "Okay, we had that common enemy, but now the disagreements are gonna come out, the sharp elbows are gonna come, out and we're all gonna fight hard for our values."

We're seeing that in terms of tensions within the party.

However, the thing that is totally different, and I think represents this being more than anything.

And I'm honestly surprised to the degree this is true, we have the potential for this to be a moment of transformation, not just for Democrats, but for our country, for the role of government.

And I think that has everything to do with COVID.

We have been through this global pandemic together now and it's changed how we connect with each other, how we communicate it is changed, it has revealed to us things that have always been there in our country.

And some of us, especially white people were less aware of like racial disparities and the disproportionate impacts, economically that COVID has had disproportionately on women, women of color in particular.

And then add to that, in the midst of everything too, the second pandemic of systemic racism, and George Floyd's murder had a huge impact on this country and on Democrats.

And we saw a multiracial, much more unified group of people come together during this campaign, and I think that everything was intensified in the context of COVID because we are all seeking connection between one another, we're more on our phones or more on our devices, we're taking in more information to witness, and now of course there's a trial going on to witness his murder the way we did in such an intimate way I think has had a huge impact fast forward to winning the election, and now we're at this moment of, well, what are our values really?

And what we're seeing as an outgrowth of that as far as government goes is a potentially transformative moment, and I think we saw that with the recent passage of the American rescue plan and the COVID Relief Bill that is cutting child poverty in half, giving massive relief to black farmers, it is showing that we've been in this narrative for a long time of apologizing for government, government is the problem, ad instead, we're finally talking about government delivering for people, and I'm excited about this moment of transformation, it's gonna be a Rocky road.

These things are never straightforward, these paths are never straight forward, but the potential is there and we're seeing it in outcomes already.

- Katie Paris is the founder of Red Wine and Blue, which worked since 2018 to get out the vote among suburban women.

Quentin James is with us as well from the Collective PAC.

Whenever I say the Collective PAC, I feel like I'm saying the Ohio State University.

(Dan laughing) I wanna ask you both about this issue that Katie raised about the size of the aspirations of the Democratic Party right now, this is very different from the Obama era Democratic Party in which a bipartisan solutions were sought, in which compromise was really a primary value.

Joe Biden seems to have be leading the party in a way that suggests that there's, that the bipartisan support among voters is much more important than bipartisan support among lawmakers.

And Quentin James, I wonder if you could just talk about the difference of that and why that's important to what Democrats are trying to achieve today?

- [Quentin] Yeah, I mean, I think kind of following up on what Katie was mentioning, you know, if there was a political ideology that said, we want small government or we want big government.

I think what we saw over the past four years under Donald Trump is that, you know, sometimes no matter the size of government, the government is absent from our lives when we face something like a global pandemic, people actually want to see a competent government lead our our country, our nation.

And so I think what we're seeing from Joe Biden is just that, it is him saying, "We are going to make government work for everyone."

We, in my opinion, lost months and months of our economy, of our kids being in school because of the horrible response from the Republican Party and Donald Trump as our president.

And so now, because they have kind of lost validity, you know, when you support an insurrection, right, to overthrow the government and overthrow the election, you kind of lose any kind of standing as a legitimate political party.

And so now Joe Biden has the wind at his back to say, yes, we're gonna move forward with the massive stimulus.

And guess what, we're gonna move on with a massive Infrastructure Bill as well, to fix our roads and bridges, to improve our infrastructure, our schools, our water systems around the country, I mean, everything that we have been kind of talking about for a generation as Americans, right?

Not just Democrats, those things are now possible because of the disastrous leadership that we saw from, again, the Republican Party and Donald Trump.

- I wanna ask both about the kind of parts of the coalition about the Democratic Coalition, parts of the Democratic Coalition that each of you work with which is not the entire Democratic Coalition, but I would also ask you to kind of speak to that as well.

Katie Paris, the suburban soccer mom, I don't like that phrase, but I know it's a phrase that you sort of have to embrace in some respects, but the female suburban vote was an area where you kind of planted a flag over the last three years.

Talk about the importance of that demographic to the Democratic Party coalition right now.

- [Katie] Yeah, I've heard we're Zoom moms, wine moms, soccer moms, there's all kinds of names for it, but they were talking about women who live in the suburbs, it's an increasingly diverse population.

Sometimes suburban women is used as a euphemism for white women, but the suburbs are not all white, they're increasingly diverse.

And that's part of what is the reason why they are changing.

But it was very clear to me going into the 2020 election, I knew that for us to have a chance of defeating this existential threat in Donald Trump, that it was going to take a multiracial coalition among Democrats to do it, that it was really going to take all of us.

And we had seen in 2018 suburban women really step up and reject Trump in many places in a big way.

43 House flipped House seats flipped to the Democrats, 38 of those were in suburban districts.

And I thought, wow, we need that energy, we need that potential coming into 2020, these women, we need to continue to step up.

And I saw the potential for that because so many women in the suburbs had never really been involved politically before the 2016 election, but Trump getting elected woke them up and it's changed their lives in really huge way.

They have found friendships and come together in suburban communities, and they have said, now that Trump is gone, and I see this every day in my work that they're not going anywhere.

So I see it as a total moral obligation on my part as a mom who lives in the suburbs to be a part of the coalition that reflects my values.

I mean, people of color, black women in particular have been the backbone core leadership of this party for a long time, but we ask too much, the burden is placed in ways that are too great actually on people of color in the Democratic Party.

And it's time that suburban women, white women in particular in the suburbs step up, and we have seen those shifts.

There were massive shifts in the suburbs in 2020, and we are going to have to continue to step up and continue to have genuine communication with women in communities to ensure that we are a permanent part of this coalition going forward.

- Quentin James, the African-American vote hasn't had as much of a focus in the national media attention as it received during the sort of analysis of the 2020 election, Congressman Jim Cliburn, Late Congressman John Lewis, both credited, the Lewis' legacy is credited with the Biden victory.

However, young black males did not come out in support of Joe Biden in the ways that you might have predicted, or that strategists might have expected, what's going on there?

- [Quentin] Listen, I think this is gonna be the kind of ground zero in my opinion, for the future of the Democratic Party, at least in the terms of the next cycle or two, right?

So the midterms in 2022, and obviously the re-election or election of another Democratic president in 2024, you know, from polling, from focus groups, I think what we have seen over the past few years as it relates to black men being aggressively, and I think publicly murdered, harassed, arrested from law enforcement for similarly low level reasons, right?

I mean, George Floyd, right?

Those eight to nine minutes of a knee on his neck for a potential counterfeit $20 bill.

I mean, that has done something to the culture, I think of young black people and especially young black men, as you mentioned.

So, whereas I don't know if a policy proposal from a Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be kind of solving salvation of getting those individuals kind of voting in an increased level or an increased block to support either party.

I think what we're seeing is, yes, Donald Trump and Republicans were able to, you know, peel off some votes of black people in general, but definitely younger black people and younger black men.

But I also think we're seeing a lack of engagement, a lack of voting in general from that demographic because I think part of what we're seeing is, people are rejecting politics, they're rejecting government as a means to improve their lives.

You know, that doesn't matter, I don't do that, that doesn't have an impact on me.

The only time I have an impact on government is, you know, evictions, right, or court costs, right, or there's always negative connotations.

I think, as Katie mentioned, the opportunity that Democrats have right now is to move some transformational policy through to really impact people's lives.

The reason that we're seeing such high approval marks from president Biden right now is because things like putting checks in people's pockets matters, things like putting, shots and people's arms to get them back to work, get them back to life, those things matter.

And so as much as we wanna talk about free college or wanna talk about Green New Deals, we need to talk about how to get money into people's pockets and to improve their lives and the conditions, that have the police stop harassing these communities.

When we see that, I think we'll be able to kind of change the numbers of what we're seeing right now.

But if we don't do that, I fear for the Democratic Party's ability to win in 2022 and in 2024.

- Quentin James is president of the Collective PAC.

We're talking about the future of the Democratic Party.

This is a kind of analog conversation to one we held in February about the future of the GOP.

Quentin James, I wanna ask you more about what happened to the Obama Rainbow Coalition?

Is that still the coalition of many different demographic groups?

Is that still at the heart of the Democratic Party?

- [Quentin] You know, I think it's there, right, that has potential to be there.

We saw the results in November and also in Georgia and then the runoff election in January.

The potential is there, but I think we need to see more diverse candidates, more candidates from diverse communities stepping up to run for office.

And I think those kinds of things help inspire that demographic to kind of show up to the polls, both in general elections, but also in midterms.

But I do think kind of going back to Katie's point earlier as well is, there are some real disagreement, right, within the Democratic Party.

And I think about someone like the Joe Manchin for instance, and how much power he is kind of holding in the Senate right now.

And I think the test for Joe Biden, a test for a kind of moderate, and I wanna say white Democrats as well is, which side of history are you gonna be on, right?

Are you going to kind of hold on to this idea that we can bring along a party that literally tried to kill their colleagues, right?

They were promoting people coming into the halls of Congress with weapons, like with string and like they were not there to have a peaceful protest.

Are we gonna kind of bring them along with us or are we gonna listen to what we've been seeing in the street, people calling for justice, calling for kind of progressive policies, right?

And it's a tough balance, it's a very fine balance, because on one hand you need to win a Wisconsin, all right, and West Virginia, right?

You know, those progressive policies may not be as popular there, so you need a Joe Manchin, right, to kind of win some of those red states, but at the same, you got to produce, right?

You got to produce some real impact to keep the coalition as a part of it.

And so we're gonna see, I think over the next few weeks and months how Joe Biden grapples with that.

I'm hopeful myself, but it's a real tug and pool to hold that coalition together.

Because if we don't hold it together in 2022, the House may be gone, the Senate may be gone, and so there's not any chance for policy to get through from a Democratic standpoint.

- Katie Paris, the Democratic Party is the party of Jeff Bezos, the the founder of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post, it's also the party of the people who are hoping to organize a labor union in Amazon facilities, it is a big, big tent.

- [Katie] It's a big tent party, and I just love this notion of you putting forward this radical idea of Joe Biden and other politicians like actually following the people rather than politicians in Congress.

It is true, you know, again, you look at this COVID Relief Bill, the 1.9 trillion that really is delivering for people, 75% of Americans support that, 0% of Republicans in Congress voted for it.

Like something's out of whack there, and I think that there it is a smart decision both from a policy perspective as well as a political perspective to support things that deliver for people that solve problems, shots in arms, that's real, paycheck in pockets, that is real.

And that is what we need right now, not just to make people feel good, to get the economy going again.

And I think what's important too about these policies is that ultimately, Quentin spoke to the fact that some of these young black men who are not voting need to be convinced there's something that government can do for them.

And I think that's a mistake often that Democrats make too, that we think about, okay, we mobilize certain voters and then we persuade other voters to be with us.

We need to throw that out, we should be treating every single voter as a target for persuasion, we need to be earning votes and passing policies that convince voters that there is something in this for them.

- But let me talk about specifically, and I'd like to hear you both on the specifics of the kind of economic divide within the Democratic Party.

The the Wall Street elites and the labor movement such as it is, which is a really like changing labor movement right now too, I mean, it's very fluid, it is not a manufacturing focus labor movement, it's increasingly a about service industries.

And there's the Bernie wing, the Bernie Sanders wing, the Democratic Socialists of America, that is often disparages the Venezuela wing of the of the Democratic Party.

And then there are the Robert Rubin's, the former treasury secretary is pending op-eds in the Washington Post saying like a strong democracy is good for strong markets.

So where does, Quentin James, where does the Democratic Party sit with this?

Or where does it, how does it lead when it's being pulled in those two different directions?

- [Quentin] Yeah, I know there are a lot of labels slang around about whether you're a progressive or a moderate or a establishment versus a revolutionary.

I used to call myself a realist, right?

Listen, I'm from South Carolina originally, and I think, if we go back to 2016 and 2020, what we saw from black voters, I think can be instructive to Democrats, while we have aspirational goals, right, we have aspirational ideas of what our politics can be, we also can't forget about the 70 odd million Americans who supported Donald Trump, right?

And like in that kind of ideology of keep things the way they are, right?

In my opinion, white supremacy, like those things can't distract us.

So yes, we need to fight for $15 minimum wage, we need to fight for workers and be a party that supports workers.

But at the same time, we can't be anticapitalists, we can't be antibillionaires, right?

Because unfortunately that doesn't win you elections.

The only way to do any of this stuff, right, to get anything done in our conduct right, in the federal level is to hold seats, it is to have power.

And listen, I support black candidates who are members of the squad.

We support black progressive candidates all over the country, but those candidates run in urban cities, they run in blue states, they're not flipping seats in Georgia, they're not putting seats in Wisconsin or even in West Virginia or the Montanas, that is where Democrats have to hold power as well.

And so to be a big tent party, you have to be a little bit of a pragmatist, right?

You have to shoot for the stars, but also be willing to get things done.

And so I think that is the tugging pool that we have right now within the Democratic Party.

And where we go, I think we have to take Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' as kind of the leaders of our party in doing so.

We can push the Biden to, again, fight for progressive policies, but Joe may have some things to say about that, right, we can't do it without him unfortunately, or Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona.

And so our hands are a little bit tied there, and there's not a clear answer in my opinion.

But yeah we would love to hear what Katie thinks as well.

- Katie Paris, you and I both live in the 11th district of Ohio, the 11th congressional district where there's a special election, that's sort of the campaigns are underway.

And multiple candidates are saying, basically, we have to support the president and the vice president.

We have to support Joe Biden's agenda.

There is not a lot of talk about, not as much talk about the more hard left progressive points of view.

- [Katie] All of these tensions within the party are really important for positive progress within the party.

I mean, imagine if you just had everybody saying, okay, this is the one thing, and we should do it.

I mean, I actually think that these tensions, look at the squad as Quentin mentioned, or lifted up as sort of the most progressive left wing in the party.

They have done a lot of really positive things in terms of creating space in the debate for so-called moderates to do really progressive things.

I mean, who would have thought that Joe Biden, who was seen as this sort of quintessential moderate would be passing this monumental transformative progressive legislation.

Well, you know who deserves a lot of credit for that?

The left wing in the Democratic Party, for moving that over to new window, I love the political philosophy of this, but basically moving that window of like, what is gonna be considered reasonable policy, and moving it in the direction that, yes, when you look at the ideological spectrum is gonna be seen as towards the left, but it's delivering for people, it's delivering things that people need.

I always say that politicians actually don't lead, they follow, and that is why it's so important for an engaged citizenry.

You know, we have to say, hey, go this way, lead this way.

And we have seen a lot of progress, I mean, I know my whole career working in politics, I have wanted there to be a greater focus on child poverty, on the care economy, Childcare, and these things are actually getting done right now.

And I don't think a few years ago people would say, "Oh, wow, all we have to do is elect Joe Biden president, and that we'll that's how we'll get radical transformation."

And it's not just because of him, it's all of these dynamics that you can describe in one way and go, "Oh, that's tougher, how are you gonna navigate it?"

I actually think it's essential for progress.

- Katie Paris is founder of Red Wine and Blue, Quentin James is with us as well, he's co-founder and president of the Collective PAC.

You're with the City Club Friday forum, if you have a question about the future of the Democratic Party, you can text it to 330-541-5794, number again is 330-541-5794 to text your question.

If you're on Twitter, twit @theCityClub and we will work it into the program.

I'm Dan Moulthrop by the way, and again, this is a sort of analogous conversation to one we had back in February about the future of the GOP.

If you miss that, I encourage you to check it out.

Question for you from our listeners, what is the Democratic parties plan to counter Republican state legislatures reforms of voting procedures?

These reforms seem to be a concerted effort to sway election in favor of the Republican Party.

Quentin James.

- [Quentin] Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing around the country right now is a classic move out of the, you know, Jim Crow South and the Jim Crow playbook which is let's change the rules if the elections don't go in our favor.

We see this time and time again over the history of kind of the fight for civil rights, the fight for equality in our country.

It's, I think, our playbook is very much in motion, right?

You know, H.R.

1 and H.R.

maybe 4 out of the House, kind of reform measures to make sure that we can protect our democracy, protect voting rights.

And right now the president and the Senate are trying to debate around how they move those policies forward spite of the filibuster.

And so that filibuster, the forum or elimination conversation is happening now, and I think we're gonna see some resolution to that, and we'll see these bills passed about the House and the Senate and President Biden will sign them.

I also think it's a really kind of sad state in American politics though, when people are still believing the big lie that, I believe there were two cases of voter fraud nationally this last election cycle.

And we've seen hundreds of bills introduced all across the country to address issues of voting, not to promote voting, not to increase the number of folks who were engaging in the process, but to try and limit and to safeguard the system that is already safe and is already guarded.

And so, again, that delegitimizes my opinion in the Republican Party.

And I don't think we should have any type of negotiation with him about this issue.

We need to move forward with our agenda because the American people support it.

We're now seeing the corporate community support this, the CEO of a Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines and many others, have come out to say we don't support the bills that limit voting.

And so again, what a sad state of affairs where we are.

People came out in record numbers to support Joe Biden, and the response to that again is to try and limit the participation of folks in the process.

- Katie Paris, Quentin James points out that this is happening in state legislatures across the country.

- [Katie] 43 states in fact, yep.

- Not including Ohio, however.

But the Democratic Party has really over the last few decades focused more on federal politics, on nationwide politics and not as much on state politics, state level politics, which has created a dynamic in which Republicans control the majority of state Houses and governors offices, and so forth, as you well know, how much of a problem is that for the Democratic Party generally and policies?

- [Katie] It's a huge problem, and it's got to change.

I think that we are waking up this, there has been more of a focus on state legislatures in the last couple of cycles, but these are the entities that are making decisions that really impact our day-to-day lives.

And as we were just talking about in terms of voter suppression, these voting rights restrictions which that should not be a partisan issue this is about making sure that everyone can participate in our democracy, really, that's it.

And so we have in 43 states across the country, Republicans pushing voter suppression legislation, I think there's something like 275 bills that they're looking at trying to get through.

And because Democrats had been asleep at the switch, in terms of in 2010 redistricting efforts that ended up being, we ended up with partisan gerrymandering, which is basically, whichever politicians are in charge of drawing the lines for the districts, they draw them the way it's gonna favor them.

And because Republicans had the power when it came time to make those decisions, they used it to serve their partisan ends, and so we ended up with these state legislatures where there are very few competitive districts.

Republicans can win even super majorities in them and forced through legislation that then just reinforces their power, to maintain their power, and in every step of the way making our democracy less Democratic, because every step of the way voters have less of a voice.

So we have got to focus on these state legislatures.

Redistricting is happening this year in states across the country, and it is the one thing that I think we all is our civic duty to tune into.

And there's no question that the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that's happening at the federal level are make or break moments in time to address that's gonna be the backstop if tons of the state legislation is passed and signed.

Like it was in Georgia, we're really gonna need that federal remedy, but not for a moment.

We cannot do what has, it hasn't always been this way, with Republicans having so much control of the state legislative level, we've got to really have our eye on with all this time.

- I received an email prior to the forum today from a long time City Club member who was upset that we hadn't included somebody representing the progressive wing of the party and accused me of booking, and accused the City Club of sort of booking just a centrist panel, and I wonder if that's a fair critique of both of you.

Do you see yourselves as centrists as moderates or do you see yourselves as progressives?

Katie Paris.

- [Katie] I see myself as a progressive, but I also, I mean, I don't think that's like the thing, this is something they talk about in the news a lot, you know, like, are they on the left?

Are they on the center left?

Are they a centrist or moderate?

All of these terms, I don't think real for like most people that sitting around their kitchen table at night, thinking about what matters to them.

I think that's why we've got to get out of this political framing of everything and have it be more about delivering for people.

But I don't care, you can call me liberal, you can call me progressive, you can call me whatever you want.

What's important to me is that I am standing up for my values and other people with whom I share them.

And sometimes that means that you're gonna take some arrows.

You know, I mean, last week I don't think I was seen as much of a centrist when I was being attacked by white supremacy pro-Trump Twitter with thousands and thousands and thousands of attacks and comments.

Of course it was somewhat empowering, when that's happening, you must be on the right path.

And the women in our community definitely rallied, but to me it's all a badge of honor and the labels matter a whole lot less than delivering for people.

- Quentin James, you spoke to this a little bit earlier as you sort of described yourself as a pragmatist, a sort of progressive pragmatist, but do you wanna elaborate?

- [Quentin] Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, I'm antiracist, and so I'm not quite sure where on the political spectrum, you know, running an organization dedicated to supporting black people in politics land.

But listen, I have supported, endorsed our organization has Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar, but we've also supported Randall Woodfin for mayor in Birmingham where people are now calling, you know, a more moderate black elected officials.

I think that the biggest thing is I can count, right?

And I know that in order to elect black people or to elect Democrats in the South, for instance, you got to bring people to be on your side.

And sometimes that might mean compromising, right?

I'm never gonna start in the middle, I'm gonna start with, yeah, I want reparations.

Yeah, I want Green New Deal.

Yeah, I want free college, right, yeah, I want all these things, but also gotta be able to count.

And if I don't have the power to accomplish those things, then there's no way I can win.

And so part of this conversation is, do you want to be right?

Do you want to kind of have the correct understanding of how we solve issues or do you wanna win?

Those two things don't always align.

So my job is to try as much as we can to build power, right?

Organizing money, organizing people to make sure those things do align.

But I can tell you as a black man in America, like black people are more pragmatist, this in general, you know we have to watch our back, right, no matter what situation we're in.

And so listen, I am a part of the Democratic Party as long as the Democratic Party is my issues and my people.

If that ever changes, peace, right I'm out.

And we've seen that in history, right.

And so, yeah, I don't subscribe to these labels in my opinion, unfortunately I think a lot of the kind of progressive values have kind of been hijacked by many well-meaning white people in this country.

They kind of brought along black issues of black people, but let's be very honest here, right?

That Rainbow Coalition of progressive values was Jesse Jackson, right, that was Shirley Chisholm.

So I don't wanna give up progressivism to people who, in my opinion, don't understand how to win and don't understand how to be revolutionary in terms of helping people's lives, spouting off a bunch of policy things that will never happen, that's not progressivism in my opinion, is not a way to bring along people who are not voting.

and I go with my community.

Like we look in Cuyahoga County, like in Cleveland, we saw a decrease in turnout this past November, right?

Like, I don't care how liberal you are, We got to solve that problem.

And so, yeah, come and talk to me about solutions to pragmatism and how to get things done, whether that's $15 minimum wage and a free college and Green New Deal or not, we got to change the way that we're doing things, that's how I would kind of compromise with the progressive and moderate wing of the party.

- If you have solutions you wanna talk to Quentin about, you can find them on Twitter at @QJames.

Let me, this is an interesting segue to this next question.

After the 2016 election Democrats and Republicans around the nation made it a priority to disenfranchise Green Party voters, they have largely succeeded, most states, including Ohio have stripped Greens of party status.

I'm just reading a question here, by the way, I'm not fact checking the question, given that so many Democrat issues from $15 minimum wage to student loan forgiveness to the Green New Deal were lifted from Green Party platform planks, where will Dems turn now for inspiration?

Quentin.

- [Quentin] Yeah, listen, again I think we need to be students of history, right?

And so I go back to the first ever black political convention in Gary, Indiana.

And there was a policy platform, I actually have it here in my bookcase, right, that talked about environmental racism which is what we're calling the Green New Deal, right, and addressing those issues, talking about free healthcare.

- When was that convention?

- About free college.

That was in 1969, right?

I mean, like we're 50 years out from that stuff.

And so I don't think Democrats are stealing from a quote unquote, the Green Party.

I think, listen, the best idea should rise to the top.

If the Republican Party tomorrow wants to talk about $15 minimum wage and a Green New Deal, I think they're gonna bring energy and bring people to them.

And so I don't think any party has a hold on the best ideas, whether they're Green or Democrats.

I think we need to see ideas from the people, to solve their issues, and whatever party chooses to do that in my opinion, will be the party that will see success in the future.

- Katie Paris, I'd like to start the start with you on this next question, if you're familiar with the former 2020 presidential candidate and now New York city mayoral candidate, Andrew Yang, how do you feel about his policy of Universal Basic Income, and how do you feel that has influenced the Democratic Party in the form of Democratic politicians calling for recurring stimulus checks among many other avenues?

- [Katie] I think he did move the conversation.

I mean, he made a huge splash with, and that's why primaries are a good things by the way.

You know, I think sometimes in party politics, people go, "No, we got to clear the field.

We just let's have our chosen one and move on forward."

It was good for the party to have a candidate like Andrew Yang injecting his enthusiasm and a different perspective and a new idea into the party.

Is that the best way to achieve the outcomes he sought?

I don't know, but I think there is no question he has had an influence over of the debate in a really good way.

And direct payments to families right now is exactly what's needed, and government is silvering in that way.

- It's, I mean, it is remarkable that really when you add up the stimulus payments over the last year and maybe you add in the unemployment compensation boost that many received, you're looking at actually some form of UBI, Quentin James.

- [Quentin] Listen, I'm all about UBI.

You know, I think the evidence of his success is due to the leadership of a friend and a former black mayor, Michael Tubbs in Stockton, California who piloted the UBI study in a city.

And what they saw was the results that we expected giving people money to help improve their lives, right.

They were able to hire Childcare to go and work a second job or be able to go to school, right?

It allowed people, you know, again, the resources and flexibility to go back to that American Dream, And that's what this is really all about.

And so again, kudos to Former Mayor Michael Tubbs out of Stockton foractually running a scientific study of this and proving that it can be successful.

And now it's all about getting it to scale, I know he started a new kind of mayors for a universal basic income where it's being piloted across the country.

We should pilot it here in Cleveland, here in Ohio, I think that would be a great idea, but yes we have seen evidence that this works.

And so, you know, Andrew Yang definitely took it to the next level with the promotion of it.

But yeah, it works, and we should kind of explore how to take it to scale.

- Quentin James is the president of the the Collective PAC.

Katie Paris of Red Wine and Blue is with us as well.

I'm Dan Moulthrop with the City Club Friday forum.

If you have a question for them about the future of the Democratic Party, please text it to 330-541-5794.

That number again is 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet it @theCityClub, we'll work it right in.

A question that relates, Quentin James, to your recent April Fool's experiment.

Where does the Democratic Party stand on reparations?

Evanston, Illinois became the first city in the United States to enact reparations to qualifying black residents and descendants of those residents.

Quentin James, first you should probably explain what the April Fool's prank was that I alluded to and which I succumbed to.

- [Quentin] Yes, so yesterday I kind of play that April Fool's joke and my followers on Twitter and announced that I was joining the White House to lead the development and rollout of a reparations program.

I mean, folks thought it was serious, it was not, it was April Fool's joke.

But it was a little bit of irony, right?

Like why can't that be our reality?

I firmly believe that in this decade we will see more progress made operations.

I think addressing our original sin as a nation is critical to addressing many of our social ills, but also it's gonna stimulate our economy and take America into the 21st century as a leader.

And so, yes, kudos to Evanston Illinois for what they're doing, but I think we're gonna be seeing more public private partnerships to deal with the impacts of slavery.

I mean, we saw this from, I believe Georgetown University a few years back where they are allowing descendants of slaves who Georgetown University sold to attend that university, I believe, for tuition free.

And so those types of initiatives, I think, we're gonna continue to see because we can't make progress on immigration, on any of the other, again, major social ills, like $15 minimum wage or whatever it might be until we address the elephant in the room, which if you turn on CNN right now you're watching the trial of Derek Chauvin, or you're watching America Still, right?

Like wait with bated breath, Are we going to see justice play out or not, right?

Even though we have all the evidence in the world to know that a crime was committed, but that's where we are.

We're still not able to have a exhale moment to say, you know, America really has moved past that issue.

And so until we address that issue around reparations it is gonna continue to kind of show up in different ways in our society.

And so, yes, I do believe Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be pushed to make progress on it federally.

But I think the majority of the work will happen within local cities, local states, foundations have a part to play as well.

Because again, every institution in this country has benefited from the institution of slavery.

And until we address its impacts, again, we're gonna be stuck in this place.

- Katie Paris inside the Democratic Party conversations about how would you characterize conversations about reparations?

Is it a sort of a great idea but not yet sort of conversation or?

- [Katie] The conversation has changed dramatically in a very short period of time.

And I think, again, this has to do with a greater awareness among, black people have known about the need for reparations for a good long time.

But white people, especially since George Floyd's murder, COVID, again, revealing more of the racial disparities that are so true in our country, is broadening that awareness throughout the Democratic Party, throughout, among all Americans.

And I think we are seeing the conversation on this move very, very quickly.

I think that there is, because because as we confront these hard truths, there's a lot to face.

I was born in the south, just like Quentin, but you'd go back in my family multiple generations, you go back in his family, multiple generations, things look really different.

My family is from Georgia, many generations ago my family owned slaves, that is me generation after generation after generation, benefiting off of their advantages and most extreme form of putting other people down.

I mean, this is just a basic issue of fairness, and until we are willing to break ourselves open and confront those truths, we can't have an honest conversation about what a possible policy solution could be to confront these, because they're that big, they're that hard.

And I think we're finally in a place where we're having these conversations and and facing those hard truths that certainly are embedded in my own family history.

- [Quentin] And then just to jump right back in for one quick second, I also wanna make sure people understand, America has dealt with reparations previously, this isn't a new concept America has long ago, right, committed reparations to black people in the forms of, quote unquote, 40 acres and a mule, right, that never became anything, but lay around after World War II, like we paid reparations to Japanese Americans, like America knows how to deal with these issues, right?

I mean, people go to court to sue for damage every single day, and so America knows, it's really a question around, will America have the willpower to apologize and to try and make right, again, it's the original sin, that's really what this is about.

I mean, until Americans can like actually like say that and recognize that, black people like myself we're gonna fight to make this country better.

But in the back of our heads, we know that America is not ready to really welcome and and to accept all of us who may be of darker complexion, who may come from a different land and speak a different tongue, I mean that's really the question here.

Can America be America for everybody?

- Last October, we devoted over an hour's worth of programming through our Democracy Unchained project to the case for reparations, so you can find out more about that at democracyunchained.io, it was episode four of that series.

Now the question for both of you, starting with you, Katie Paris, is it possible that the premise that Democrats are divided is just false?

Is it possible that we're just seeing the party have normal healthy, internal discussions, family squabbles?

- [Katie] I think family squabbles are essential.

And I don't think that this is a time of extreme division within the party.

Coming off of any presidential race is hard, those differences are absolutely revealed.

But the fact that the margins are so close in both, I mean, they became closer in the House, it's the slimmest of margins that Democrats have control in the Senate.

And traditionally a sitting president does lose seats in a midterm election, now a lot of us are gonna be working really hard to make sure that that doesn't happen out here.

But overall, I think this goes back to what you said to introduce this whole thing, Dan.

You call on this floor of Democrats divided, but I think it was you yourself who said, aren't we in a pretty unifying moment?

And I think that as a country we've been through a lot, and thankfully the politicians are doing a pretty good job right now of following the people and unifying around some values and solutions that have a lot of support.

- Quentin James, what do you think will be the most important factor in the coming midterms for success for the Democratic Party?

- [Quentin] Yeah, and kind of bringing up the other question around progressive and moderate, like I think the opportunity for Democrats is actually leaning on progressivism as a moment, because we're awhile, right, for four years, we've been anti that anti-Trump, anti-Republican Party, you know, anti-democracy, right?

Now is the question, what are we gonna be for?

You know, what is our agenda gonna be?

And I think we can lean on progressive's to, again, be very clear about what they want within the party.

And so I think that's the great opportunity to see transformational change, right?

What we're seeing with the Stimulus Bill, what we're seeing with the possible infrastructure package, right?

It is like, what are we gonna be for?

And if we can define that, I think we'll have some success.

- But the advocates of that transformational change are sometimes branded as socialists in swing districts, the same swing districts that you would want to target for victory, how do you handle that?

- [Quentin] Well, that's why, again, it's a message war, right?

We have to be very clear on what we want and what we don't think is possible.

And that's where the pragmatism comes in.

You can fit some pretty progressive policies into pragmatic packages, is what I would call them, right, Americans are very supportive of the stimulus package.

I think Americans of both parties will be very supportive of fixing our roads and bridges and have such a package, right?

We have to kind of label this progressive change in a way that's digestible for, you know, red America, for West Virginia, for Montana, for Alabama.

If we can do that I think we will be successful.

But the other reality is they're gonna spend a bunch of money kind of quoting AOC in these swinging districts, right, and quoting Ilhan Omar, right, as a Islamic terrorist.

Like that's gonna happen, that's like this, white supremacy is gonna be white supremacy.

We can't change that, but if we can be clear about what these things mean, and how they impact people's lives, it won't really matter.

- Katie Paris, final thought.

- [Katie] We've got to rethink how we do these message wars, not waiting until six to eight weeks before an election and spending 10s of millions if not, I think, $5 billion were spent on ads in the 2020 election by Democrats.

Waiting that long to have these conversations with voters, we need to treat every voter as though they need to be convinced to be with us.

And we need to be in that conversation year round, trusting people in local communities, they are the best messengers, other people that they know in their communities, and so we need to trust voters, convince voters and deliver for them.

- Katie Paris of Red Wine and Blue, Quentin James of the Collective PAC, thank you both so much for being with us today.

- Thanks Dan.

- Thank you Dan.

- I we wanna thank you as well for joining us for this conversation.

If you want to check out the GOP version of this conversation, check out our archives at cityclub.org.

Thanks to all of you who support our mission to create conversations of consequences that help democracy thrive.

Two such conversations coming up next week, one with national experts on what the so-called Rust Belt in the US, and why it isn't unique at all.

And in fact, Rust Belt around the world have quite a lot in common.

And also next Friday, we'll speak with two former Cleveland Browns players about their work to advance racial equity.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, if you're celebrating holidays right now we hope they are wonderful, stay close in your hearts my friend, it will not be long before we're close in-person.

Our forum is adjourned.

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