Ezra Klein: I think in a place like Nebraska, you should try to run some pro-life Democrats. I wish people, instead of saying that an expressive or strategic question in politics was betraying or abandoning the people we wish to protect, I wish what we said was: We lost power in a way that allowed Donald Trump to drive the Supreme Court to a 6-3 Republican majority, and that majority overturned Roe v. Wade and actually abandoned all these people, actually [expletive] them over.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Right.
When I say the work of politics has become diminished, part of how that happened is that talking about this creates this counterargument: Well, even to discuss it is to abandon.
In 2008, as you and I both know, Barack Obama ran as a public opponent of gay marriage.
Right.
He ran opposed to it. At a time when not only — I won’t speak for you — was I not opposed to it, but most of us did not think he was opposed to it. Like, at his heart, we did not think he was opposed to it.
But he was playing politics. That playing of politics allowed him to name Supreme Court justices, and that led to the decision that created a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
And I am saying that kind of playing politics is needed.
I can give you an example from the other side, by the way.
Yes, go for it.
[Laughs.] Brother, you know what my position was during the election about Palestine, about Gaza.
Kamala Harris was running to be the first Black woman to be president of the United States. You cannot imagine how animated Black folks were about that. And some would argue the base of the Democratic Party, Black women, were going to see that she was not taking a position that I thought was particularly moral.
I had to talk in front of Black audiences about that, and I had to go before Arab American and Palestinian American audiences here, and say: Look, I’m with you. You can be mad at me. You probably will be mad at me. I get it. But for me, politics is the lesser of two evils. We have been fighting this battle for a long time. We have never had the luxury of electing people who represented the best of us. This is why I’m voting for her. This is a really, really serious thing.
And when you hear these Palestinian Americans and when you hear these Muslim Americans and when you hear these Arab Americans upset about this, you can’t just yell at them. You have to take them seriously.
These were hard, very difficult conversations. When I made those conversations, I had to be buttoned-up about it. I just think you take very seriously the need to convince people outside of the tent right now. We have to convince them to come in.
I guess what I want from you is I want you to take as seriously people who are in the tent and who are vulnerable and afraid. And if you have to convince them of something that’s extremely, extremely uncomfortable, or tell them that you’re taking a position that is extremely uncomfortable, I just think you owe them a little more.
That’s all I’m saying, man.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Right.
When I say the work of politics has become diminished, part of how that happened is that talking about this creates this counterargument: Well, even to discuss it is to abandon.
In 2008, as you and I both know, Barack Obama ran as a public opponent of gay marriage.
Right.
He ran opposed to it. At a time when not only — I won’t speak for you — was I not opposed to it, but most of us did not think he was opposed to it. Like, at his heart, we did not think he was opposed to it.
But he was playing politics. That playing of politics allowed him to name Supreme Court justices, and that led to the decision that created a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
And I am saying that kind of playing politics is needed.
I can give you an example from the other side, by the way.
Yes, go for it.
[Laughs.] Brother, you know what my position was during the election about Palestine, about Gaza.
Kamala Harris was running to be the first Black woman to be president of the United States. You cannot imagine how animated Black folks were about that. And some would argue the base of the Democratic Party, Black women, were going to see that she was not taking a position that I thought was particularly moral.
I had to talk in front of Black audiences about that, and I had to go before Arab American and Palestinian American audiences here, and say: Look, I’m with you. You can be mad at me. You probably will be mad at me. I get it. But for me, politics is the lesser of two evils. We have been fighting this battle for a long time. We have never had the luxury of electing people who represented the best of us. This is why I’m voting for her. This is a really, really serious thing.
And when you hear these Palestinian Americans and when you hear these Muslim Americans and when you hear these Arab Americans upset about this, you can’t just yell at them. You have to take them seriously.
These were hard, very difficult conversations. When I made those conversations, I had to be buttoned-up about it. I just think you take very seriously the need to convince people outside of the tent right now. We have to convince them to come in.
I guess what I want from you is I want you to take as seriously people who are in the tent and who are vulnerable and afraid. And if you have to convince them of something that’s extremely, extremely uncomfortable, or tell them that you’re taking a position that is extremely uncomfortable, I just think you owe them a little more.
That’s all I’m saying, man.
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