What happens when a political party loses the trust of the people it says it represents?
And perhaps even more importantly: how does it earn that trust back?
My guest today has some unusually direct answers.
Joe Cunningham made political history in 2018 when he became the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win South Carolina's 1st Congressional District. He went on to serve in Congress, where he developed a reputation for bipartisan work, before later running for governor of South Carolina.
Now Cunningham has written Life of the Party: How Democrats Lost America's Trust—and How They Can Win It Back, a candid examination of what he believes went wrong with his party.
He argues that Democrats have become disconnected from ordinary voters, that affordability and economic security have been overshadowed by culture-war battles, and that the party has too often substituted messaging for listening.
And Cunningham isn't approaching this as a Washington pundit looking in from the outside.
He won where Democrats weren't supposed to win.
