NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Democratic political advisor, Faiz Shakir, about the party's political platform after the wins of this week's primaries. Let's talk more about the state of the Democratic Party with Faiz Shakir. He's the executive director of the nonprofit news outlet More Perfect Union and chief political adviser to independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Good morning, and welcome back to the program. FAIZ SHAKIR: Thank you, Leila. FADEL: So when you look at this week's results out of Michigan, out of Wisconsin, as - where - we heard they were kind of evenly split when people were picking between progressives and establishment candidates.
What are your takeaways about what voters want from this party? SHAKIR: Well, in addition to electability, which there's always a lot of discussion about in the Democratic Party, there's also a desire in this moment to say, from voters, that our democracy is not for sale - that we need people and candidates willing to stand for an agenda, if they're going to win, that transforms our government and does things boldly that we haven't done before. Obviously, taxation of the rich, particularly at a time when the oligarchy is ruling AI in aggressive ways, has been a major issue.
The influence of AIPAC and its inordinate influence in the Iran war and the bad decisions to spend money to Israel when we have much-needed problems here at home has also been an issue. And I would say there's also the issue around progressive agendas of saying, at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we need public services to function excellently. SHAKIR: We need good public education and all kinds of other major public health insurance, like Medicare, in this country.
FADEL: Let me ask you about that. Those were messages that we heard from candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, like Hong in Wisconsin. Abdul El-Sayed only won by a percentage point.
So now that he's going to be running in a swing state, will his messaging appeal to the wider state - centrists, Democrats that didn't necessarily like what he was selling... FADEL: ...Republicans who are willing to give maybe a Democrat a chance? SHAKIR: In my view, there are so many Republicans upset about corruption in our government right now, and they are looking for alternatives.
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