Sidney Blumenthal, journalist and political operative
I've learned a lot by associating with certain people who were among the greatest politicians of my time.
Hello and welcome to What’s Left? where each week, I interview someone interesting on the left side of the political spectrum.
Today’s interview is with Sidney Blumenthal. Paid subscribers can watch/listen to the full version of our conversation here!
Sidney Blumenthal is a journalist, political operative and scholar who was formerly a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. He is currently a Guardian US columnist and has been published extensively elsewhere, including in The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Sidney has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth.
Welcome Sidney. So the first question I always ask everyone is this: if there was a version of the political spectrum where zero is the centre, -100 means you're a fascist, and +100 means you’re as far left as you can get, where would you put yourself?
I consider myself a strong liberal Democrat in American terms. I'm not a Bernie person. And obviously, I've worked with the Clintons.
I always find when I take those tests that place you on the political spectrum, I come out looking, in American terms, more liberal than one might imagine. I couldn't tell you a number though.
When did you first realise that you were left-wing?
I didn't think of myself as left-wing when I was growing up, it never occurred to me. I grew up on the north side of Chicago in a middle-class family and everybody around me was a Democrat. They were all New Deal Democrats, FDR Democrats.
I became interested in politics for the first time when I was about 11 years old during the 1960 campaign for president. John F. Kennedy was running and Chicago had a very strong patronage-based political machine. My initiation into politics was that after school, I would get $5 to go to my neighbours in the precinct who hadn't voted yet, and give them a palm card which was the slate of candidates on the Democratic side.
And my big reward was that the precinct captain took me to the rally for candidate John F. Kennedy.
That’s wild. The 1960 election!
In 1960, it was a different world. There was a torchlight parade and I was quite close and I could see Kennedy. He was quite a glamorous figure who made a strong impression on me. And that was the beginning of my interest in politics.
My family were racial liberals, even though Chicago was a very segregated city. I saw Martin Luther King twice, late in his career. I saw him speak in person, close up.
That's incredible.
And then the Vietnam War hit and the anti-war movement started and I became very active on my campus. That's when I became aware of what was called “left-wing”, but only in a very American sense. It wasn't like coming up in a socialist party in Europe or anything like that.
I was at the Democratic Convention in 1968. That's the one where the police were beating everyone. I was running around in the streets. I was faster than a friend of mine who got beaten up.
You just left him?
Well, we were both running.
Survival of the fittest, I get it.
We were kids. That was a madhouse. The Police went wild and I saw it firsthand. You know, you’re hearing an old guy reminisce now…
It’s so great.
Then I went to the SDS convention in 1969. And it was one of the most insane events I'd ever been to.
Why?
It was in the old Chicago Stadium where, less than a decade before as a boy, I had seen JFK. And it was filled with the Weathermen, which had become a kind of crazy terrorist faction, and various Marxist-Leninist sects, Maoists and Black Panthers who were, contrary to the romance, out of their minds.
Why were the Black Panthers out of their minds?
They talked about the proper position of women in the movement being ‘prone’, things like that.
Oh dear, okay.
Just completely out of control, performative, empty militancy. I went home and the whole thing had disintegrated and Nixon was president and… you know, there’s a lot of Trump that can trace its roots to all that.
To Nixon?
Nixon and the reaction to that whole atmosphere, with everything falling apart and the discrediting of liberalism. The discussion today about Trump is too time-limited and circumscribed and not historically aware. I'm aware of it partly because I experienced it.
Trump seems to me someone who isn't historically aware at all. Are you saying that those counter-cultural events did impact him, even if he hasn’t consciously learned from them?
Trump is a completely unique figure. I think his licentiousness and behaviour have nothing to do with the counterculture of the 60s at all. I think he was totally untouched by it. He lived a very strangely insular life.
My perception—and it's just one—is that Trump’s followers have no idea who he is. They're culturally, socially and epistemologically incapable of understanding his background and what produced him, which is a certain subculture of New York in a particular time that's gone, like the mists of time.
I don't think any of his followers can get close to understanding what that mafia-driven sort of low-life, club life, crime-ridden, racially overshadowed atmosphere from which Trump emerged in New York was like then. And Trump himself does nothing but reiterate versions of this. It's where his populism comes from, his so-called “right-wing populism” comes from that crucible.
Why do you say “so-called”?
Well, call it what you want.
Do you not agree that it's populism?
He's become a fascist.
And at what point would you say that Trump became a fascist?
I think he always had that inclination; he was always interested in it. That part of his personality comes from his family and dealing with his father. He was deeply humiliated and now wishes to humiliate others. Trump has a very fragile personality and has to project strength constantly, or else he can't sustain his brittle inner sense of self.
I think that the sequence of events of his last term congealed his fascism.
What was your take on the recent election?
My view of the 2024 election was that there were a series of factors that led to the very narrow Democratic defeat. Harris lost by 1.5% nationally.
Under other circumstances, she might have won. However, the circumstances were larger than those involving the campaign. And as far as I am concerned, the circumstances were: first and foremost, inflation. If you look around the world globally, regardless of the ideology of an incumbent government, they all suffered as a result of global inflation.
The second factor, which nobody in the United States right now talks about, which I attribute to short-term political amnesia, was that Trump was allowed to escape responsibility for his criminal actions and from his prosecutions. Had that gone forward, Trump would never have been allowed to run for office and would have been eliminated.
The third factor was the collapse of Biden as a candidate. But that, to me, is definitely a third factor, not a first factor.
What do you think about the low voter turnout? Do you think that could also be explained by inflation and the failure of the justice system?
Democrats lost because 5 million people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 did not show up at the polls in 2024. Those are what are called low-propensity voters. They don't pay much attention to what we spend a lot of time doing, which is reading and observing the news. Those who didn't turn up were largely motivated by inflation, a sense of despair, and a lack of curiosity about what was going on. So that's what skewed the results.
Do you think that there are any lessons there for the Democrats? It’s already time to start thinking about the next election.
The next election will not be fought on the same grounds as the election of 2024. All those who are attempting to create an election strategy based on the last presidential election are, for the most part, political consultants lacking any historical perspective.
The next election is going to be based on what's going on right now. And it's going to be a referendum on this second Trump term. On his breaking of fundamental campaign promises, particularly lowering inflation.
Do you think that there'll be a natural successor to Trump? Or that his power and movement will die with him?
There's no figure like Trump because there's no business like show business. JD Vance is bad show business.
He's not exactly a natural.
He's an unpopular figure: a very bad politician with zero charisma. According to the great German sociologist, Max Weber —
I don't know him, sorry.
He's the person who established the theory of charisma in politics. Your father and grandfather would have been conversant with him.
Ah, ok. [I feel bad now.]
Max Weber developed the theory of charisma in leadership. And his idea was that a charismatic leader could not be succeeded by another charismatic leader. In order to sustain what the charismatic figure has done, what's required next is a competent manager of the charismatic leader’s accomplishments. A less charismatic figure who can be a manager.
Interesting.
Often the manager doesn't work out in the long run because he lacks charisma, but they can consolidate the regime. This is Weber's theory.
So, J.D. Let's look at it: J.D. Vance is not a manager and he's not charismatic. So there's a big problem here with the succession to Trump.
So MAGA be looking for an uncharismatic managerial figure within their movement to carry it on?
Yes, and there is no person right now. The other problem is that Trump allows no one to succeed him because he is a malignant narcissist who creates no room for anybody. He does not want a successor.
Trump talks about a third term, but one of the political problems for Republicans is that in January 2027, campaigns for president begin on both sides. People have to organise campaigns publicly. They have to raise money and candidates have to declare themselves. Trump will go wild because his vanity cannot sustain the idea.
He won’t like others getting attention.
And it's more existential than simply political. Trump, in my view, cannot accept his mortality.
Funny, because a lot of us really can accept the prospect of his mortality.
Well, I won't say more about that.
Very reasonable. Thinking about this theory of charisma, do we need a charismatic future leader of the Democrats?
If I had to define the characteristics of a candidate, I would say that the public is going to look for a response to Trump. They're going to look for stability, an ability to manage the economy in a reasonable way, and for somebody who they feel they can trust.
What do you think about Bernie's claims after the election, that the Democratic Party have failed the working class and needs to skew further left?
He always says that.
Ha ok. And what do you think of him always saying that?
He's Jeremy Corbyn, he always says it. Bernie's like a wind-up doll. That’s one of the things he always says if you pull the cord. He's not a Democrat.
Well, that's true.
I don't know why anybody who is not a member of the party is allowed to run in a party primary for president.
But do you think there's space for the far-left or further-left within the Democratic Party?
In the Democratic Party, of course. But they’re not going to be elected leader; they're not viable in a presidential election. That’s a way to throw away 2028, which should be a Democratic election.
Are you saying the next election should automatically go to the Democrats, so they shouldn't ruin their shot?
I didn't say automatically, but on the basis of the response to Trump's damages…. We’ll see how this goes. By this Fall, we're going to know a lot.
You've worked in politics for a long time, first as a journalist and then within government. Do you feel like your politics has changed since you were younger? Or remained pretty consistent?
It's changed. I’ve learned a lot and had an enormous number of experiences that I didn't have when I was a mere child.
You can't help but learn. How to run a government and change policy is not simply paint by numbers. It is as it has always been—since the time of the Florentine Machiavelli and the Romans and back even farther—an art. And I learned a lot by associating with certain people who were among the greatest politicians of my time.
Like who?
Like Bill Clinton. And I was also a friend of Tony Blair's.
I've heard of him, yes.
I learned a lot by being in close proximity, by observing them, listening to them and watching their careers. On the other hand, I've met all sorts of people over the years. The great, the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly.
For even more election chat, don’t miss the video of our conversation!
Would you describe yourself as optimistic about the future?
I’d like to be.
Ha ha. Ok, but you’re not?
I don’t know. Things can go bad...
Cheeky question now: have you ever dated or been romantically linked to a conservative?
Next year, I will celebrate my 50th anniversary with my wife, Jackie, who shares my politics. So I've not been on the dating circuit.
You’ve not been on the apps...
When I was young, in my 20s, I never dated anybody who was not generally within my political orbit.
I'm trying to get the left to laugh at itself more. Can you make up a marginalised community that you belong to?
I'm Jewish.
That is a genuinely marginalised community!
So I don't have to make up anything.
Okay, what's some action that you could recommend for people on the left?
Pay attention, read, don't despair. Understand that you can have an effect and play the long game.
That's your political experience coming through there. Thank you so much, Sidney.
It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Enjoyed this conversation? Check out the full version here! Don’t forget to read Sidney’s regular Guardian column, find his series on Lincoln wherever you get your books and check out his podcast here.
On the pod this week!
And did you know I have a podcast with comedian Samantha Martin? In FeMANism, we play two terrible cis men mansplaining gender inequality. In our most recent episode, Short King Jamie and his longer counterpart, Sam, discuss the potential harm of introducing a height filter on popular dating app, Tinder.
