Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. When Alyssa Slotkin narrowly won her Senate seat in Michigan last fall, she was one of four Democratic senators to claim victory in states that also voted for President Trump, and it made Other Democrats sit up and take some notice.

Since then the party has turned to her as someone who can bridge the red blue divide. She delivered the Democratic Party's response to Trump's speech before Congress back in March, and so the party is putting Slotkin front and center. But she's also giving the Democrats a dose of tough love. She thinks that they need to start projecting what she calls alpha energy. She said identity politics needs to go the way of the dodo.

And that Democrats should drop the word oligarchy from their playbook. Senator Slotkin prides herself on bipartisanship, and she believes that finding a path forward for the Democrats absolutely demands old school collaboration in Congress. For me, as someone who's new to this body 30 days in this body, I will always seek to work where I can with my colleagues, but not at the expense of the fundamental freedoms and our democracy. That may not be politically palatable back home, but I don't care.

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