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Sarah Longwell’s argument is that candidates can make a stronger case against Trumpism by listening closely to voters’ everyday concerns, explaining the consequences of Trump’s actions, and pairing that criticism with a specific alternative. She made the case in a WBUR On Point interview about her book, How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time.
What Longwell says candidates should do
Longwell, founder and publisher of The Bulwark and host of The Focus Group podcast, argues that campaigners should hear voters in their own words instead of assuming that a political label explains what they think. People can hold views that seem inconsistent when reduced to a poll category, she says, yet make sense when candidates listen to the reasoning behind them.
She describes the concerns she hears as concrete and personal: grocery costs, jobs, raises, safety, and the effects of policy on people’s lives. “People care about their own material wellbeing and they care about their own safety,” Longwell said in the interview. This is her summary of what she hears, not a quantified finding about every voter.
Why criticism alone may not persuade
Longwell recommends a two-part message: explain what Trump is doing and why a candidate believes it harms people, then make a clear case for what that candidate would do instead. In her view, opposition to Trump on its own does not give voters a compelling alternative.
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That means making the proposed response specific enough for voters to understand how it addresses their concerns. It also means communicating priorities plainly and with empathy, rather than sounding as if the candidate is reciting a campaign formula.
How she reads frustration among some Trump voters
Longwell interprets some former Trump voters’ frustration as connected to promises they believe have not been kept, including promises about prices, foreign wars, and immigration. She says economic dissatisfaction and anger about war can weaken support, but her examples do not amount to a wholesale rejection of MAGA.
These observations come from conversations in Longwell’s focus groups. WBUR’s transcript does not describe participant recruitment, sample sizes, question wording, or a representative survey design. The interview therefore conveys Longwell’s reading of those discussions; it does not establish how common these views are among Trump voters or the electorate as a whole.
What the interview can—and cannot—show
The episode is an account of Longwell’s approach and political argument, not a measured comparison of campaign strategies or evidence that a particular message will win an election. The transcript does not provide an independently substantiated statistic or study showing that her recommended approach changes voter behavior. Readers should treat the voter examples as illustrations, not population-level estimates.
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For readers interested in her method and argument in more depth, the book discussed in the interview is Sarah Longwell’s How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A useful way to assess the strategy
Longwell’s proposal can be considered through three practical questions. These are evaluation criteria, not a tested scoring system:
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- Does the message begin with concerns voters have actually expressed?
- After criticizing an opponent, does it offer a concrete alternative?
- Does it make the candidate’s priorities clear in direct, empathetic language?
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