Dark Days in Washington, with A.B. Stoddard

The Vital Center

A. B. Stoddard is one of the country's sharpest and best informed political commentators. A former congressional reporter and producer of ABC World News Tonight, as well as a current columnist for RealClearPolitics, she has seen politics from the inside and up close since the 1990s. And when she warns that both parties, and the country, are in a dark place as the 2022 and 2024 elections approach, we should listen. In this interview, A. B. Stoddard talks about her experiences as a woman in the male-dominated news business, her view of how Congress has slid into dysfunction in recent decades, and her assessment of how Donald Trump was able to take over the Republican Party and jettison its loyalty to Ronald Reagan and his once-revered brand of conservatism. She analyzes the Democrats' stumbles in their attempts to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework and the Build Back Better Plan, the tensions between the party's moderate and progressive factions, and the breakdown of the Democratic establishment's control over the legislative process. She also speculates about why the Democratic leadership has failed to grapple with the growing threat of election-nullification efforts by state Republican legislatures and the growing potential for political violence in upcoming elections. Photo by Chris Grafton on Unsplash