Pod Save Us: Jon Lovett on the Left’s Identity Crisis

The Pod Save America host on liberalism, Zionism, Democratic Socialism, and his own ambition

Allow us, ladies and gentlemen, a brief political interregnum at The Moynihan Report. The midterms are soon upon us. The president is historically unpopular. And the opposition party is in the throes of an identity crisis. So perhaps all this is worth discussing with someone who is a Democrat, understands Democrats, and is influential amongst Democrats.

Jon Lovett is a very bright, open-minded sort, someone with whom I often disagree but regard as an honest broker, even when he’s catastrophically wrong about an issue. If you’re unfamiliar, Lovett was a speechwriter for President Barack Obama and is one of the founders and hosts of the progressive powerhouse podcast “Pod Save America.” As one journalist recently noted, if you want to seize the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, it would be unwise to skip a “Pod Save America” appearance.

We mixed it up a bit, but I have little desire to debate individual issues on this show—I have another show for that, which is more indulgent of my ideological narcissism. I wanted to get a better sense of how Democrats are handling this moment and internalizing the lessons of the previous one, if they are at all. We discuss the disappearing centrists; the war over “Zionism” (and whether he identifies as a Zionist); unlikable candidates; the brutality of getting cut from his Little League baseball team; “Woke 1.0”; litmus tests and red lines; and why, during the cultural meltdowns of recent years, Jon was “a little bit afraid to just say plainly what I thought.”

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