“Joe Biden should have stepped away from that race,” he said. “We should have had an open contest.”
Murphy says his new book, “Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America,” he discusses “how tribal our politics have become, how Republicans are willing to excuse Donald Trump’s corruption, because their entire identity structure is built around their party.”
“And I think that happens on the Democratic side as well, where we are willing to look the other way too often at mistakes that our own party leaders are making,” he added. “This book says that that’s not just up to politics to fix that.”
“We actually have to create more healthy identity structures for people outside of politics, so they see their purpose through their work or through their connection to a local community. And that makes our politics less tribal and maybe allows us on both sides to stand up to our party when we think they’ve gone wrong.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have written this book that we mentioned, and I know that you said about it in a recent interview that 2028 Democratic contenders are texting you, talking to you about some of the ideas in it. Some of our recent CBS polling found that 62% of registered voters view the Democratic party in a negative light, so how do you take these ideas, and what’s the main one Democrats need to hammer home to redirect the party?
SEN. MURPHY: Yeah, this book is really about the spiritual crisis in the country that led to Donald Trump. This is a country that is feeling more lonely, more adrift, more exhausted by an economy that abuses workers, a culture in which we tell people that they can make themselves happy by just buying things instead of being active citizens, and so it’s a book about the underlying work that we have to do to unrig the economy, so that people feel purpose and value, and unrig our democracy, so that people feel power. And that’s what the book really is about, the emotional state of the country. Here’s what I think Democrats need to do: they need to understand that the people are furious at the fact that our politics have become captured, and people are feeling out of control of their lives because they think we’re all corrupt. They don’t think–Donald Trump is just corrupt; they think everybody in politics is corrupt. So, Democrats need to be much louder about the ways that we’re going to get billionaire and corporate money out of our politics, because people don’t believe us when we say we’re going to fix the economy if we don’t also tell them how we’re going to fix our democracy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, well, to that point about spirit and character, the campaign for Graham Platner confirmed to CBS on Saturday that the Maine Senate candidate had sent sexually explicit texts to women other than his wife. This is in addition to other past controversies. Does he pass the character test?
SEN. MURPHY: Yeah, I mean, I have not followed this story as closely as others have, but Graham Platner is somebody that served our country, he served his community, he’s also made mistakes.
And he has admitted that. Character also involves standing up to people who are bankrupting and corrupting this country, and this race is going to be a contrast between somebody that has put his life on the line for this country against somebody that is literally empowering the moral hollowing out of our nation from the White House. So he certainly admitted that he has made mistakes, but I think this is going to be a pretty clear contrast in Maine between somebody who has spent his life protecting us, versus somebody who seems to be protecting Donald Trump’s corruption.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, you know, I want to ask you as well about an interview that aired right before this program with my colleague Rita Braver on CBS Sunday Morning. She interviewed the former First Lady Jill Biden about the new book she wrote, in which she talks about the infamous 2024 debate, where the then-president really couldn’t answer questions. She says a lot of things, including that she thought her husband was having a stroke because she- he was incomprehensible. She admits that she said to him afterwards that he really screwed up, but that’s what she’s revealing now. Democrats, stridently, including on this program, said time and again that his cognitive abilities were fine. How do you convince the public that Democrats are telling the truth now?
SEN. MURPHY: Yeah, listen, I think Democrats do have to be honest about the mistakes that we made in 2024 Obviously, in retrospect, Joe Biden should have stepped away from that race. We should have had an open contest. And in this book, I frankly talk about how tribal our politics have become, how Republicans are willing to excuse Donald Trump’s corruption, because their entire identity structure is built around their party. And I think that happens on the Democratic side as well, where we are willing to look the other way too often at mistakes that our own party leaders are making, and this book says that that’s not just up to politics to fix that. We actually have to create more healthy identity structures for people outside of politics, so they see their purpose through their work or through their connection to a local community. And that makes our politics less tribal and maybe allows us on both sides to stand up to our party when we think they’ve gone wrong.
