 Aloha everyone. I'm very pleased today to host the show Community Matters on Think Tech Hawaii. We're very fortunate to have Steve Phillips with us here today. Steve is a national political leader, civil rights lawyer, author, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and founder and editor in chief of democracy and color which is a multimedia platform on race and politics. He is the author of one of my favorite books, Brown is the New White, How a Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority. He's a frequent contributor to the nation and the New York Times opinion page. He has also been a New York Times bestseller and a Washington Post bestseller with this wonderful book that he wrote. So Steve, maybe you could just give us a brief summary of the thesis of your book and then I'm going to ask you some very specific questions about what's been happening that shouldn't be happening. A lot is definitely happening. Yeah, no I wrote the book because I began to get alarmed during the really the second term of Obama's administration that people had not properly interpreted and understood why he won. And so if my analysis and understanding was actually a fairly logical extension, the civil rights movement, the country's changing demographic composition, the people of color used to be 12% of the population, now they're 38% of the population, and that that's what enabled us to elect and reelect a black man as president. But a lot of people in politics were saying well that was a one-off and Obama was this unique figure and so we really can't count on that type of a candidate to hear a coalition name again. And so I was trying to prove and analyze and make the case that we have a new progressive electoral majority in the country, which is consists of the overwhelming majority of people of color, 80% is what Obama got, and then I call a meaningful minority of whites, progressive whites, around 37, 39%. And that that's the winning coalition as opposed to having to try to win over and change the minds of you know allegedly swing voters who have been you know voting conservative and Republican. So that's the essential thesis. We have the we have a new American majority it elected and reelected Obama and actually gave them a we'll get this I'm sure the majority of votes to Clinton actually in 2016. And so that's we're trying to keep people focused on what wins and what is the actual winning coalition in combination in the country. Well of course actually the coalition did prevail in 2016 in the sense that the general vote was for Hillary Clinton. It's just the way that the electoral college is set up that allowed Trump to win but of course that's what we have to work with. So maybe you can... On that point actually quickly is that I think that's a really important point to people. There's a sense that particularly since Trump is being you know is so destructive and horrible that he has like majority support and he's never had majority support and he did not have majority support Clinton beat him by three million votes within the country and he did not even have majority support in the states that gave him the electoral college. He got under 50 percent of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida progressive votes splintered among third and fourth party candidates. And so it's important for people to know that we are in fact the majority. We actually have on our democracy and color team has on our website a report called return of the majority because we want people to carry themselves with the confidence and the conviction that we are the majority still even though he managed to slip into the White House that doesn't mean he represents the majority of what he's actually trying to do. So tell us then what went wrong in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin in the last election. So it was truly a perfect storm of all these different things and election that so that there was this close 78,000 total votes out of 130 million votes cast are what made the difference between who was the president and who was not the president. And so all of these different factors came together. Most salient to me are two dominant realities. One is that the African-American vote dropped dramatically and that it had been going up from 2000, 2004, 2012 and then fell off the cliff in 2016, which is something a lot of us were trying to raise the alarm about in 2016. There was a taking the black vote for granted. There was not an effort to invest in the African-American community. I wrote a piece in the nation in June 2016 says our African-American voters invisible to the Democratic Party. So on the super PAC side of the first $200 million people announced that they're spending to try to help Clinton. There was $0 for black voter mobilization. And so mainly television ads targeting white swing voters, some to Latino radio or digital, but nothing to get black voters to the polls. And so that was reflective. And then we went from electing and reelecting an African-American president to returning to an all white presidential ticket, which was not given or not even a requirement. So there was a lack of investment and then you had voter suppression on top of that in a very different state. So the black vote fell dramatically. Had the black vote stated 2012 levels, Clinton would be president. So that was one major factor. And the other is the splitting and the splintering of the progressive vote is that there was a big increase of votes for third and fourth parties for Johnson and for Stein. Stein's increase in Michigan and Wisconsin from what she got 2012 to what she got 2016, that increase was bigger than the margin of difference in those states. So you had this combination of people thinking it was in the bag or not feeling, you know, enthusiastic about Clinton, feeling like they would register a protest vote or something like that, which then dropped the Democratic vote below the Republican vote. Trump got the exact, Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin than Romney did four years earlier. But what happens, the Democratic vote fell below that. And that's how he was able to slide in. So really in the 2016 election votes for the third party candidates were in effect votes for Trump, even though people were probably voting for the third party candidate is that protest against the Democrats, but not really intending to vote for Trump. So yes, very much so. And there was in fact Trump surge of previously inactive conservative white voters. And so you had a large number of people who felt like, oh, now we have a champion for our views that are hostile to people of color and women. Let's get behind this person. So there was a surge of those people actually coming out to the polls. So but yes, the third and fourth party piece that definitely splintered the coalition that elected Obama. And that's part of the challenge now is not there's too much emphasis around trying to win over Trump voters and not to reassemble the coalition that did not vote for Trump. And that's the path to victory. So then what went right in Alabama and Virginia in the more recent elections and how does that fit in with your theory of getting out the minority vote? So the analysis on the premise is that there we have the majority. And so that if everybody in the country who was eligible to vote voted and voted in the percentages that they their preferences, the way they did in for Obama, or even actually even for Clinton, we would win almost all these races. We would win most of these races. Large turnout, overwhelming majority of the voters of color voting for the Democrat and then getting a mean that meaningful minority of the progressive whites who almost always vote Democratic. And so that's what happened in Virginia and New Jersey and in Alabama is that you had very large turnout, particularly for an off your non presidential election. And that's really that the formula was actually fairly simple in Virginia is that it was Clinton won Virginia that it's clearly a state which has trended Democratic now because of its composition. And so it's competitive when Democrats don't come back out to vote. But he was very motivated and there's a lot of work and organizing going on the ground. There's a lot of great leaders who have been doing voter, voter organization work. New Virginia majorities, women tram win. It was really a genius political strategist there. They've been tilling the soil. They maintain the relationships were able to get a big turnout. And they had an African American on the ticket. Lieutenant Governor of Virginia is Justin Fairfax. And so that helped with the black turnout. And then in Alabama, similarly, very large black turnout and monolithically supporting the Democrat. So like 96%, 98% of black women. And so you have that and that they were able to get enough of the white vote in terms of, I guess, you know, pedophilia is where some people draw the line. So they were able to get about 30% of the white vote. And that was enough to win, which is more than they actually usually get in Alabama, which, you know, it's not any accident. Alabama is great at Confederacy. So Rosa Parks, you know, made her stand. There's a long history there of resistance to racial demographic change in this country. So I read an interesting piece that you wrote very recently about South Carolina. When you were saying, you know, why is everybody spending so much time looking at Montana and Georgia? Really, people should be looking at South Carolina. So can you explain what you meant in the case of South Carolina? It had to do with this issue around voter turnout. And so what people don't understand, and even this come back in 2018, the people use this phrase, there are wave election coming, and there's a premise, the metaphor is kind of wrong, and the premise is incorrect. And that people feel like all the voters are kind of up for grabs, and that they swing back and forth, and that there could be a, you know, if they swing in your direction, there'll be a big wave. That's actually not the way midterm elections play themselves out. It really has to do, the peak of elections is presidential year, that's when most people vote. So that the midterm elections, how many people came up for presidential are going to come back out again in the midterm? And that's the real issues. Can you get your supporters back out? So what happened in the special elections this year, this was a great example between Georgia and Georgia six, the Asafra, the Asafra race, they spent $40 million on that congressional race, the most expensive congressional race in the history of this country. And lost. And all the 20 of all the country was going into large TV ads, etc. in Georgia. On the same day, in South Carolina, they had a special election there. The Democrat there lost by 2000 votes. There were 90,000 eligible black voters who didn't vote. So just some of that money that had gone into Georgia had actually been allocated over to the South Carolina race, we could have won that race, and by increasing the turnout. So that's I think was the lesson from that. And then the encouraging part is that less I think has not been applied in Virginia, and then in Alabama. And that's the challenge 2018 is that we can get big turnout of people who voted in 2018. We should can take back to Congress in 2018. Well, when you say that that lesson has been now applied in the more recent elections, are you referring to the Democratic National Committee? As have they learned their lesson? Or is it the lesson that the people who are willing to get out there and walk door to door and knock on doors and actually make sure that people come and vote? It's who learned that lesson? Well, not insignificantly, a big chunk of the media has learned the less media does shape the narrative and the conventional wisdom and applies to pressure around what is a strategy and how the money going to be spent. So you had articles in the New York Times and the Atlantic just a couple days ago, talking about focusing on lifting up the mainly black women organizers within Alabama, who were doing the voter mobilization work, mini gritty, getting people to the polls, etc. And so the one at Thompson, LaTosha Brown, Adrian Sharpshire, the organization BlackPak, they did a lot of work, and they're getting some attention now. And so that's not inconsequential. And then the party, I feel that the Democratic Party is inching in the right direction. And so or it should be sprinting, but it's at least inching. And so Democratic National Committee did do some work around trying to more get out the vote, working with the groups on the ground. The Senate Democrats tried. They did some and they move some money in the right directions. They also did a lot of the traditional TV ads and the digital and that kind of fancy trend to influence the swing voters piece, which is still out of balance. But the balance was a little bit better. And so we have to keep pushing on that front, and then educating the larger progressive and donor community around how to do the work in 2018. Okay, well, taking a look at 2018, what do you think the strategy should be for Arizona? For instance, you know, this is going to be a Senate seat up and you know, Arizona is one of those states where it would seem there might be a good chance for a coalition to come together and elected a progressive. Right. So I think it's, you know, for Arizona and then kind of across the board for everybody, really, it has to do with inspiring and galvanizing and mobilizing progressive and democratic voters. And so there's still too much of a conventional wisdom around, you don't have to be moderate and don't alienate people, etc. But that's actually just bad math is that there are more people voted for Clinton in Arizona that had voted for the Republican Senate candidate in the last midterm election. So there's a lot. There's a there are enough Democrats there if we inspire and mobilize them by taking strong stands on issues by being forceful against the tax that are coming down. And at the same time, there are large numbers of eligible, unregistered or non voting Latinos, particularly in Arizona. There's like half a million eligible Latinos who didn't vote in 2016 and we lost by 90,000 votes. So that needs to be a major strategic focus, putting lots of money into this organization called One Arizona, the coalition of 13 different community based organizations, helping them to hire staff to train volunteers to do the voter contact voter mobilization work. So that's the formula. And if we apply that formula, we can win both the Senate race, we can win the governor's office, David Garcia is running for governor in Arizona. And then that puts in place building blocks to win that state in 2020. And so that's how these things fit together. Okay, we're going to take a short break now. We've been talking to Steve Phillips, who wrote this wonderful book Brown is the New White. And we'll see you back in a few minutes. Hi guys, it's RV Kelly. I'm your host of out of the comfort zone where I find cool people with cool solutions to problems that all of us face. Now the thing is, we're really cool. And I only invite really cool people. But the thing is, I think you're kind of cool too. So I think you should come and watch that Thursdays at 11 am here on OC 16 television with think tech Hawaii. I'm RV Kelly, host of out of the comfort zone. And I will see you next Thursday. For every game day, a sign had designated driver. Hi, this is sherry broder. I'm the host today on community matters. And I'm very honored to have Steve Phillips here as the guest. And he's talking about the theories that he developed in his book, Brown is the New White. So Steve, we were just talking about Arizona and how the demographics there suggests that perhaps for the Senate seat, maybe even for governor, there's a lot of opportunities for the progressive. You know, what about Texas? I mean, what's going on with Texas? Isn't Texas just like Hawaii a minority majority state? In other words, the white people are not the majority in the state of Texas anymore? Yes, Texas actually has the biggest progressive upside of any state within the country that's seen as credibly conservative. And Republicans think hold all the statewide offices, I believe, and continue to regularly win these different statewide offices. But in terms of total population, it is majority people of color. In terms of the voting eligible population, it's 47% people of color. But there's very low turnout and there's very low turnout of voters of color in particular, and Latinos most particularly. So that's the fairly clear strategy and path to victory there is that if you can up and the Latinos consistently vote majority democratic, you know, 60 to 70%. So if you can dramatically increase the turnout, so in Clinton lost Texas by 800,000 votes, there are 4 million eligible non voting people of color in Texas, 3 million Latinos alone. So the numbers are there to actually flip that state's politics, but it requires a large investment time energy priority in really trying to change the culture and the voting patterns that you have much higher voter participation and much voter a higher voter turnout. But if that is done, that Democrats actually could control all of the Texas government as well as ousting Ted Cruz and taking that seat. I think they wouldn't back the Senate. It's not going to be a two vote margin because of the we won the Alabama. So Arizona, Nevada and Texas, I feel are the three most prime opportunities to actually be able to flip those seats, which would then flip control of the Senate. Well, how did the demographics look in Nevada? Nevada is very similar as well. It's a large numbers of Latinos, a significant population there. And it has Clinton won the state, Obama had won the state twice and so there's a lot of progressive infrastructure there as well. And so again, it's a turnout issue. If you turn out the voters within Nevada will win. And so that's why that's a significant pick up opportunity on the on the Senate side. Well, we are now less than two weeks away from 2018. And before we know it, it will be November. So are you seeing the Democratic Party, the National Party, moving forward to really seize upon these opportunities that we see out there? And, you know, is there I guess, you know, from here in Hawaii, it seems like we're involved in a fight for the soul of America right now. And things are happening so fast. And, you know, I'm not sure if I can wait till November 2018 for something to change. So is there a sense of urgency and an understanding of priorities, particularly, I mean, the thing that the National Party is good at is raising money. So are they going to put their money where they need to? Or are they going to continue to dither away at advertising on television? Well, old habits die hard. So there is that challenge. But what's happening I think within the country now is that the people are ahead of the party. And so it's not just a question of is the party going to be the entity that's going to lead. And so this is really what you saw throughout all these different elections in 2017, even in Georgia, six special election, I mean, $40 million, that came from all over the country, it wasn't raised by the party. People saw an opportunity, they were excited about that. And Virginia turnout was so high. And in Alabama turnout was high, because people see the stakes are what is going on in this country, they experienced the attacks that are coming from this administration. And they are very motivated and mobilized to fight back and to respond. So the efforts of the activists, the organizers, the resistance, in many ways is outstripping or outpacing the party itself. And that's a very encouraging sign. There was the first quarter, the third quarter financial filings for the candidates for Congress is that like close to 100 Democratic candidates outraised the Republican incumbents. And so there's large numbers of people running, those people are raising money, there's lots of people doing it, organizing and activism in their local neighborhoods. So there's people are highly energized. And that is going to be the energy base, I think that drives us to victory. And hopefully we'll pull along the party as it starts increasingly see that this is the way to win. Well, do you think the Republican Party is going to be able to make a lot of enthusiasm for its position, particularly with regard to tax reform and the efforts that they're going to put into it through the Koch brothers expenditures of, you know, $20, $25 million, which has already been committed. Right. So this is going to be the challenge. And again, it's turnout, which side can get its party, which it's people out to vote. Historically, the in power party has a drop off and turnout. And it's logical because a lot of people feel like, well, we have our person in the White House, they're taking care of things, the things that motivated us to come out to, you know, send a message or to fight back or to you know, stick it to the communities of color. They've got the president now. And so they don't have the same motivation that's driving them. And you saw some anecdotal evidence of that in Virginia. They ask people who are anti immigrant, anti immigration, weren't you going to come vote? And they're like, well, Trump's president now, and he's taking care of that, which he is taking care of that. So there they have a heavy lift in terms of getting their supporters out. I don't think tax reform is going to do that. Tax reform bill is not about improving the lives of their base. It's about rewarding their donors and rewarding the wealthiest people in the country. So that's just that's not going to be felt and experienced in a way we're going to come out and vote for the Republicans because of that tax reform bill. So they have a big challenge ahead of them. Well, I mean, I think that there'll be an opportunity for them to sell the tax bill without people actually realizing what's happening by the time of the November 2018 election, I think it'd be, you know, I think the full impact of all of that won't really be seen yet because I think one of the major problems with tax bill is that there's no way to pay for it. So right. And it's not good. Yeah. So I don't think the full impact will negatively impact the voters, the voter population, which I think is why I think it's a mistake for the Democrats to count on that being the case of what it is plenty of days already done that we should be running on. But I don't think that that any benefits from it are going to motivate the conservatives and Republicans to come out in a big enough way to help them. Well, I might give them some extra cash to spend on the election or take vacations and whatnot. Yeah. Okay. Well, I want to thank you very much, Steve, for coming today. There's so much to talk about. We didn't even get to Florida, which was on my list to ask you about. So just answer yes or no. Can we win Florida in 2018? Yes. And Andrew Gillum can be the next governor of Florida. Okay, very good. So we'll end on that optimistic note. Thank you very much, Steve, for sharing your valuable time with us. And I urge everybody to take a look at Brown as the new white and follow Steve in the New York Times and the nation and his very interesting and astute editorials. Aloha.