LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: There's a fight for the future of the Democratic Party. A 26-year-old political strategist named Morris Katz is the tip of the spear. He's been backing candidates like 34-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who won the mayor's race in New York City last week. I asked him recently about what happened in New York and the way the Democrats have reacted.
MORRIS KATZ: You know, Andrew Cuomo, with his super PAC, was running attack ads with the word jahada (ph) stamped on Zohran's forehead. There are people who want to still live in this kind of pre-2008 world, and that's not where we are anymore. What people are frustrated with is a politics of politeness in the face of deep division, in the face of deep income inequality.
FADEL: You also saw Democrats - people like Pete Buttigieg - not congratulating Mamdani, which was arguably the most-watched race in the country, even though it's typically a Democrat who wins that seat.
KATZ: I think - one thing that - is I think that anyone who's scared to congratulate Zohran publicly or privately is very unlikely to be the nominee for president in 2028. I don't know how you look at someone who turned out young voters at a unprecedented level, who won back immigrant communities that helped deliver Donald Trump his victory, and say that there's nothing worth celebrating there.
FADEL: You've said in the past this race was about defeating more than Andrew Cuomo, but the politics of Andrew Cuomo. You call it the pettiness and desperation for power that's willing to style anyone out. It's a rot that's at the core of everything that's wrong with our politics and the party. Tell me more about what you meant here.
KATZ: When you look at our party, when you look at the results of the past election, the reality is we had the White House for 12 out of 16 years. During that time, we had control of both chambers multiple times, have governor mansions under our jurisdiction, and things have gotten worse.
Income inequality has gone up. Quality of life has gone down. Mental illness is on the rise. Depression is on the rise. We would be doing a deep disservice to our party and to the country if we were not looking in the mirror. We've become incredibly complacent with a status quo that's literally killing people, that's literally allowing people to be pushed out of their homes. Kids can't afford college. And so I think we don't need to be this party. We don't need to be scared of our own shadow. We don't have to be scared of billionaires and lobbyists and corporations. And I think we started that work in New York and hopefully can continue it.
FADEL: You've worked with other candidates and are working with other Democratic candidates, and candidates, a lot of the times, the establishment of the party don't like, don't back, don't support. How do you see your role? Are you trying to remake this party?
KATZ: I think I want to see a party that reflects what this country looks like, and I think right now we have a party that reflects what a lot of different C-suites and Ivy League reunions look like. You know, like, Congress should be a place where we have farmers and where we have mechanics as well as having lawyers, as well as having business owners. And, you know, it's - only 2% of Congress right now is from the working class. For so many in power right now, it's been decades since they were actually working a nine-to-five or since they knew what it means to struggle to make that mortgage payment or put your kid through pre-K.
And so when I talk to candidates, I look for an authenticity, a clear vision of what's wrong and what needs to be better. Are you willing to listen to constituents, or are you more connected and beholden to lobbyists and donors and a status quo? And I think so many of those in power right now spend far more time talking to donors than they do to their districts.
FADEL: Katz sees that in Graham Platner, a military veteran, an oyster farmer in Maine trying to unseat five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins. But he's been mired in controversy in recent weeks. Old online posts surfaced showing Platner playing down sexual assault in the military, saying things like Black people don't tip and rural Americans are racist and stupid. Soon after that, a tattoo on his chest widely recognized as a Nazi symbol also came to light. Platner disavowed the comments, saying they were from a dark time in his life. He's covered up the tattoo, apologized for it and says he didn't know what it meant when he got it. Katz is still working with Platner, going into this primary as a political strategist.
KATZ: If we want to move past a time in which the only people who are able to run for office are people who, since they were children, had been planning a run for office or who have closely choreographed every move to position them for a run for statewide office or for a run for president, that's going to require running real people. And real people who haven't thought they were going to run for office have lived imperfect lives.
You know, like, we're dealing with a mass kind of loss of young men in the Democratic Party - angry young men who are lost to, you know, the internet, to different podcasts or to different, you know, Reddit threads. And then we have someone in Graham who was a person who was struggling, who, after four tours in the Middle East, came back and has talked about openly his PTSD, his depression, and who then came out the other side. And to me, that's the perfect messenger to win back those young men.
FADEL: But you don't feel like this is disqualifying.
KATZ: If voters feel like it's disqualifying, it's up to them. That's why we have primaries, and that's why we have elections. But I think an era in which, like, Washington D.C. gets to decide that that's a liability or that that's disqualifying is out of touch with the real craving for real human beings who are relatable and authentic, flaws and all.
FADEL: These details all emerged after Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer recruited Maine Governor Janet Mills to join the Democratic primary field.
KATZ: I think you have a culture in the Democratic Party establishment of being so protective of a status quo that there's even a desire to kind of eat your own.
FADEL: Interesting.
KATZ: And, you know, like, they have someone like Graham Platner, who went - like, might not even have been 20 yet when he served his first tour in a war that many of these senators voted to send him to, who is the exact kind of Democrat, the exact kind of person that we have been talking about since 2016. How do we win back? And then we have him and the response is to attack him, to take things out of context, to throw everything you've got at him, despite the excitement he's bringing, despite what he's bringing to this party. Feels frustrating. You know, and that's not moving us any closer to getting a Senate majority back.
FADEL: That's political strategist and ad-maker Morris Katz talking about the future of the Democratic Party.
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