Sargent: And by the way, a lot of people might object to what we’re saying here by pointing out that, Well, don’t Democrats have to focus on what’s popular? What about moderate Democrats in difficult areas? I’m sensitive to all that. I think an approach like this can coexist with your typical swing district Democrat maybe wanting to do things a little differently. There just has to be some sense among all the institutional players in the party that they need to make more noise of the type that we’re talking about. And if moderates want to go in certain directions in their states or districts, I think that’s OK. Do you think that’s a hard balance to strike, Will?
Stancil: I don’t think it’s particularly difficult to strike. Most Democrats are not in swing districts. Most Democrats are not representing battleground districts. If you are a Democrat and you’re just in an ordinary Democratic district, if you’re winning by reasonable margins most of the time, there is no reason in the world that you should be weakening the brand of the Democratic Party by being weak on Trump. There’s no reason you should be avoiding Trump. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be talking about the most urgent issues in the country, the authoritarianism and Trump’s unfitness, all the time. If there’s someone in a district that is plus two points Republican and they have to really identify themselves as separate from the party and show their independence, fine, let them. I don’t care at all. That’s great. If they can win that election and they stay Democrat, that’s wonderful. But we don’t help them by being them. We help them by being us and letting them have the independence to do what they need.
Sargent: I agree 100 percent with that. And by the way, there’s one other objection we should probably deal with. This is something I think I’ve seen you tackle before, but there’s a sense out there that if a number of Democrats in safe areas do stuff like this, it taints the overall party in some sense and paints the party as a larger entity as not being in touch with what real people think about and feel on a daily basis. I feel like that’s a problematic way of thinking about politics. I just don’t really buy that there’s this real calculation on the part of voters, where they see that type of conduct from Democrats in non–swing districts and say, Well, the whole party isn’t interest in my pocketbook or my wallet. What do you think, Will? What do you think the answer to that is?