WASHINGTON – This Saturday on the New York Times’s podcast The Interview, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) outlined how Democrats need to speak more directly about the economy and achieving the American Dream. He also discussed how he’s advocating for a more ‘sane position’ on border security and immigration reform.
Below are some key points:
On the need for Democrats to take risks: “We can’t be afraid of failing”
“The risk is always there. We can’t be afraid of failing. I think that’s the biggest mistake I’ve seen Democrats make. We’re always afraid of failing, so we don’t take risks. It’s OK for us to recognize that that is a potential fallback. But we could also be working to mitigate it.”
“Prices are still high. The cost of eggs is still high. People can’t buy homes. We need to figure out how to pivot back, because that’s where the Republicans are the weakest. They own this economy now, and they’re not doing … stuff for everyday Americans.”
On speaking to the working-class: “Let’s help you get a job so you can become rich”
“The problem is we have to separate what we’re hearing from the D.C. crowd from what we’re hearing in the streets. I go back to Arizona — they’re actually not talking about USAID. And they’re not talking about the courts. They’re still talking about egg prices. They’re still talking about the cost of everything.”
“I remember during my campaign, some of my advisers said, “You can’t talk about Harvard.” I’m like, ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, you want working-class people to like you. If you tell them you went to Harvard, you’re going to remind them that you’re not part of that.’ I’m like: ‘No, you’re not getting it. Working-class people appreciate kids going to college, especially kids that came from poverty going to college, because that’s part of the American dream. You need that kind of hope to hang on to, to get through those hard days, knowing that things will get better.’”
On speaking to Latinos: “I’m going to make sure you get out of your mom’s house, get your troquita”
“During my campaign, I noticed when I was talking to men, especially Latino men, about the feeling of pride, bringing money home, being able to support your family, the feeling of bringing security — they wanted to hear that someone understood that need.”
“It was a joke, but I said a lot when I was talking to Latino men: ‘I’m going to make sure you get out of your mom’s house, get your troquita.’ For English speakers, that means your truck. Every Latino man wants a big-ass truck, which, nothing wrong with that. ‘And you’re gonna go start your own job, and you’re gonna become rich, right?’ These are the conversations that we should be having. We’re afraid of saying, like, ‘Hey, let’s help you get a job so you can become rich.’ We use terms like ‘bring more economic stability.’ These guys don’t want that. They don’t want ‘economic stability.’ They want to really live the American dream.”
On border security and immigration reform: “We could have had a very sane position on this”
“These immigration groups have some very valid points in some areas. But where they’re moving is not necessarily in line with where the majority of voters or even the immigrant community are.”
“I want to see undocumented families come out of the shadows; I want Dreamers to become citizens — we’ve been set back for years because we hesitated on asylum seekers when we knew in our guts that what was happening there was an abuse of the system, was unpopular with Democrats, but somehow we decided that we were going to essentially just give the issue to the Republicans. We could have had a very sane position on this.”