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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

US Political Woes Not Limited to Trump, Commentator Says

US+Political+Woes+Not+Limited+to+Trump%2C+Commentator+Says

Voters and activists dissatisfied with President Donald Trump’s administration must consider long-term fixes to the structural issues that enabled his rise, former presidential adviser Dan Pfeiffer (COL ’98) said during an event Thursday. 

Since Trump assumed office in 2017, the president has been met with criticism. The U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump in December on counts of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Nearly 40% of Democratic voters say defeating Trump in the 2020 presidential election should be the most important issue for the Democratic nominee, according to recent polls by FiveThirtyEight. 

Before serving as former President Barack Obama’s senior adviser from 2013 to 2015, Pfeiffer advised numerous Democratic candidates on the state and federal level over the span of two decades. Having exited the political arena, Pfeiffer currently co-hosts the popular political podcast “Pod Save America.”

Should the Democratic presidential nominee defeat Trump in the 2020 election, policymakers must reform broken aspects of the American political system, according to Pfeiffer. 

“Even if we are to beat Trump in 2020, which is something I think personally is very important and we’ll work very hard to do, even if we do that, we are not going to solve the problems that gave us Trump,” Pfeiffer said. “The politics is currently rigged against the views of the majority of Americans.”

Republicans were able to secure a majority of seats in the Senate in 2018 because of the structure of the U.S. electoral system, even though Democrats won 12 million more votes nationwide, according to The New York Times. Many experts are also concerned that partisan gerrymandering — redrawing political districts to secure an electoral advantage — and voter suppression are unfairly disadvantaging progressive voters and candidates, according to The Guardian.

SHEEL PATEL FOR THE HOYA | Prior to co-hosting popular political podcast “Pod Save America”, Dan Pfeiffer (COL ’98) worked in the Obama administration as Senior Advisor to The President.

Pfeiffer proposed three strategies to mend the issues he sees in the U.S. political system: challenge Republican political strategies, beat Trump in the 2020 election and introduce sweeping electoral changes. 

Republican lawmakers’ and political actors’ behavior during the Trump era represents a continuation of long-running Republican positions that preceded Trump’s rise, according to Pfeiffer.

“There is a strain of belief that is very prominent in this town and among a lot of elected Democrats that Trump has taken the Republican party hostage, and he is the one making them act the way they’re acting,” Pfeiffer said. “And I fundamentally believe that is not true and that Donald Trump is not an aberration. He’s the logical extension of where the Republican party has been going for a long time.”

Issues of political reform and Democratic electability have been the focus of his latest book, “Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again.” The talk, hosted by the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service, was the second stop on Pfeiffer’s national book tour. The book was published Tuesday and follows Pfeiffer’s acclaimed 2018 release, “Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump.” Pfeiffer spoke with Mo Elleithee, the executive director of GU Politics.

To win in 2020, Democrats must focus on concrete policy proposals and issues of fairness, Pfeiffer said. 

“The question the Democratic nominee has to make is: it’s not is the economy working, it’s who is the economy working for,” Pfeiffer said. “And if you want someone who’s going to make the economy work for you, vote for a Democrat. If you want someone who wants to make sure that you pay more for your Amazon Prime subscription than Amazon pays for federal taxes, you should vote for Trump. Like, if we make it a discussion about fairness, we have a chance to win it.” 

If a Democrat wins the presidency, the new administration must reform electoral law, restructure the Supreme Court and restore valuable democratic norms, Pfeiffer added. First among these reforms is reversing Republican voter suppression policies and engaging eligible voters who have been disengaged from the political process. 

“The very first thing — the most important thing — Democrats need to do is we need to not just undue Republican voter suppression. We have to have an aggressive agenda of voter expansion,” Pfeiffer said. “We need to make it as easy as possible for every eligible person to vote in this country.” 

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