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Smerconish

The Division Within The Democratic Party; Trump Says He "Left Instructions" To Strike Iran If Assassinated. The Age Of Reading Is Over. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired July 11, 2026 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Gallery is open from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays and by reservation during the week. Visit mitochondriagallery.com for more.

And thank you for joining me today. Smerconish is up next.

[09:00:27]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: But can they win? I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs asking the question that's dividing the Democratic Party because right now that party's having a domestic squabble. And the argument is getting louder. Just look at the primaries. Democratic socialists keep winning.

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, last month, three congressional candidates that he backed won their primaries, two of them Democratic socialists. And then a 29-year-old Democratic socialist knocked off a longtime incumbent in Colorado. And now the fight has moved to the two Senate races that Democrats need to take control of that chamber.

In Maine, one of the party's best pickup opportunities, the insurgent backed nominee Graham Platner stepping aside. And the progressive and establishment wings already knife fighting over who replaces him. In Michigan, the seat Democrats cannot afford to lose, it's down to a one-on-one. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed Sanders, AOC backed running on Medicare for all, among other things, against Congresswoman Haley Stevens, a four-term moderate backed by Chuck Schumer and millions in super PAC money.

They're already calling El-Sayed the Mamdani of Michigan and he's been leading in the polls. That's the party's civil war in miniature playing itself out with the United States Senate on the line. And there's a pattern here. On one side, a rising movement, young insurgent, unapologetically progressive. On the other, the traditional establishment Democrats, the Schumer wing, if you will, the workhorse wing, the ones who write the checks and win the swing districts.

And here's the thing that you can't miss. The enthusiasm is on the side of the insurgents. They've got the energy, the volunteers, the youth, the small dollar donors, the crowds, that's where the passion lives. But and it's a big but, their victories have been in select places, deep blue districts, closed primaries, friendly turf. Brooklyn, a Colorado seat, it's one thing to win a primary in a place where a Democrat cannot lose a general election.

It's another thing entirely to hold Michigan or to flip Maine in November in a general election in a state Donald Trump carried. And that's the whole story that the centrists keep pointing to. If you nominate El-Sayed, they say, and Republican Mike Rogers runs that defund tape on a loop, he'll do it from now until Election Day. They say, the centrist, these candidates can't win where it counts, and they'll cost us the Congress. The progressives say your caution is exactly why nobody's excited.

And that's the divide. Enthusiasm one side, electability on the other. And the party's going to have to come to terms with this, not just for the midterms, but before 2028, because you can't govern on energy alone, and you can't win being overly cautious.

Meanwhile, President Trump, salivating, thinks he's found his midterm message. And it's not the price of eggs or gas or housing, it's communism. At Mount Rushmore, on the eve of the nation's 250th birthday, he warned of a resurgence of the communist menace. He called Democrats hardcore godless communists and said, quote, "You can be a communist or you can be a patriot, but you can't be both."

He's not naming names, but he doesn't have to. He wants the whole lot of them tied to that one word. Now, is Democratic socialism the same of communism? Of course not. But that's the fight that Trump want, and Democrats are handing him the ammunition.

So where does the party go from here? I can think of no better person to ask than my next guest, because he's worked on every presidential campaign since 1980. 1980. For most of that career, he was the ultimate insider, a senior advisor to Al Gore in 2000, to John Kerry in 2004, establishment candidates, the traditional wing of the party. But then in 2016, he did something different.

He became the chief strategist for Bernie Sanders, the insurgent, the outsider, the man who raised $230 million from 8 million different donors and scared the daylights out of the Democratic establishment in the process. So my guest has stood on both sides of this divide. He's built the machine and he's run against the machine. And now he's written a book about what he saw from the inside. The title tells you where he landed, "How the Democrats Screwed Bernie."

This is Tad Devine.

Tad, your book is about the 2016 cycle, and yet it couldn't be more timely for today. Is it fair to say that your thesis is that Democrats need to stop impeding the will of their own voters?

TAD DEVINE, AUTHOR "HOW THE DEMOCRATS SCREWED BERNIE": That's absolutely my thesis. I think that's the big lesson that we need to learn from 2016. I didn't want the book to be a look back, a history. I wanted it to be relevant to what's happening today. And 2016 is a great example of how the party got in the way of the voters.

[09:05:04]

The Democratic National Committee in 2016 was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton campaign. We knew that, and we found out about it, in fact, when all the WikiLeaks e-mails were released later in the summer. So we need to change the way business is done in the Democratic Party. We cannot substitute the so called wisdom of the insiders for the wisdom of the voters. We need to let the voters make the choice of who they want in that cycle.

SMERCONISH: OK. So are today's fears in some parts of your party fears of Democratic socialists unwarranted?

DEVINE: I think they're totally unwarranted. I mean, listen, I understand the labels and I see what the president is doing with communism, and I understand how people fear that and think it's -- it reminds me of the "Monty Python" movie, the Knights of Ni. They say ni and everybody shudders and runs away.

And listen, I -- if we go out and we talk to people about the core economic issues that are affecting them in their life right now, their wages, whether or not they can have health care that is affordable, whether or not we'll take on the urgent problems of our day, like climate change, and do it not just as an environmental issue, but as an economic issue as well, instead of shutting down wind farms offshore and starting up coal powered fire plants, which is what the president's plan is. We need to have a plan that makes sense in our times and for our future, for our children and grandchildren. So that's what the Democratic Party needs to do. Speak powerfully to these issues and forget all the nonsense that Trump and everyone else is raising.

SMERCONISH: Here's what you say took place in 2016. From your book, "The DNC effectively gave Clinton an additional lead on top of her other advantages preemptive superdelegate declarations of allegiance, a massive fundraising ecosystem, the systemic support of the Democratic Party, a nominating process designed to exclude independents in most places, and a supportive phalanx of editors and reporters in the press. The DNC so eager to stop Bernie that they took a supposedly neutral party mechanism and weaponized it against one Democratic candidate to benefit another and it wasn't the first time. To which I say, what did the party owe Bernie? Because Bernie was an Independent until he ran for president.

DEVINE: They owed him nothing. But I'll tell you who they owed a lot to. The voters. The voters who participated in Democratic primaries and caucuses. The people -- and I think they should especially be concerned about the people who do not hold themselves out as Democrats, they're Independents, but they're allowed in many states to participate in Democratic or Republican primaries in places like Wisconsin, in Michigan, New Hampshire, places that are critical to winning a general election. Those Independents decided to come to the Democratic primary, vote for Bernie Sanders.

And they would have done it in November, too, I believe. They didn't as it turned out. They had no choice for a change candidate, so they voted for Donald Trump.

SMERCONISH: What is the lesson in Tad Devine's book, not for the midterms, but for 2028?

DEVINE: Well, the lesson is that we should design a nominating process that welcomes people into it. We should take away advantage from insiders. They've done it a little bit now because Bernie fought to get rid of the superdelegates having a vote on the first ballot. But what about if there's a second ballot? OK?

And what about the use of Super PACs and dark money in the process? We need to make sure that we have a fair and even process that led voters beginning at the early stage to come in and to pick the nominee of the party, not the insiders.

SMERCONISH: Tad --

DEVINE: If you do that, much better chance of winning.

SMERCONISH: -- you are responsible for an iconic campaign commercial, America, Paul Simon inspired. You did it for Bernie. So you're the guy I want to ask this question. Can you sell the word socialism? Is America ready for anything that has socialism in the title?

You argue in the book that Bernie's version is just old school FDR, New Deal stuff. Republicans think they've got a winning hand every time you mention it.

DEVINE: Well, we'll see about that. You know, again, they want to throw words around and we want to talk about issues, core issues that affect people's lives. I think if we have that debate, we're going to win it. And I'm not afraid of it.

And I understood in 2016 that the rep -- if Bernie had been successful, the Republicans were going to take that tack in that election. That's why if you look at the America ad, it's 60 seconds long. You'll see 16 scenes in 60 seconds with American flag symbols in it. OK? I knew it was coming.

That's why in Bernie's bio ad, the first image that we see is an image of the Statue of Liberty. We were never going to give up the symbols of this country. He had as much right to him as anybody else. And, you know, if they want to throw that stuff at people and we talk about real issues that affect their lives, I'm telling you, we will win that debate.

SMERCONISH: OK. You had your own debates. I mean, I've spoken of your establishment background and your epiphany moment, my favorite line in the book, I'm sick and tired of being a fucking backbencher. Only then does Tad Devine say, you know, I can sell this. I think he can win.

DEVINE: Well, I think, you know, that was an important conversation that I had with Bernie at his home. He and Jane and I spent the weekend together, and I made a case for him not to run. OK. I explained what it was like to have 800 superdelegates when that represented 40 percent of what you needed for a nomination. I explained about proportional representation.

[09:10:09]

I had been the one to negotiate on behalf of Michael Dukakis for the party to adopt proportional representation as his exclusive system of delegate allocation. I understood the process for having worked on it for the decade of the '80s and beyond. And I made that case to him. And he finally told me why he was running. And I'm happy that we had that conversation because I understood what he wanted to do.

He wanted to take that message he had been delivered in Vermont for 40 years and share it with America. And now we've seen how America has reacted to that message. They want the kind of change that he described in that campaign and that others are describing in this campaign.

SMERCONISH: OK. So you've written a book arguing that Bernie, you had a front row seat, got screwed, your word in 2016 by the Democrats. 2020, everybody remembers what happened. That whole field collapsed within 72 hours of Super Tuesday. You didn't write about that, but did it happen again to Bernie?

DEVINE: Well, yes, and I was not in a front seat then. By then, I had left. And, you know, I didn't work on the 2020 campaign. I actually made ads for Andrew Yang in 2020, OK, who I thought had a very important voice about issues like artificial intelligence and the impact it would have on our economy. But, you know, yes, I think the Democratic establishment basically said, we can't let Bernie be the nominee.

We've got to -- and by the way, in 2015, when I was with Bernie and Jane, I told them both, I said, listen, you've got to understand, for you to win, you have to beat her in Iowa, beat her in New Hampshire, beat her in Nevada. We've got to figure out how to win a very tough primary in South Carolina, not just because of the African-American vote, which I think is the way most people see it. The fact is that in 2016, South Carolina had a Republican primary three weeks before the Democratic primary. And a lot of those Independents went to the Republican primary. And that was a big hurdle for us.

And I said, if we -- if you beat her in all those things, we will face a second front from the entire establishment. OK. I believed that then, and I believe that's what happened to him in 2020.

SMERCONISH: Final question. On my Sirius XM radio program this week, Mark Halperin argued that if Bernie were to run, no matter how old he would be in 2028, he didn't exactly say he'd be the nominee, but he came pretty damn close. Your reaction?

DEVINE: My reaction is that's not a good idea. OK?

SMERCONISH: OK. But, but if he did it --

DEVINE: Because of his age. Yes. Listen, if he did it, I think his message will be as strong or stronger today than it was in 2016. But I think age is a real issue. Listen, they tried to make it an issue in 2016. So -- and after Biden, I just don't see it happening.

SMERCONISH: OK.

DEVINE: And not just Biden, after Biden and Trump. We're seeing it right now with Trump.

SMERCONISH: Tad Devine argues in the book that Trump would have lost to Bernie had Bernie been the nominee. Give me 10 seconds on that before you leave me.

DEVINE: Well, listen, don't take my word for it. Trump's own pollster at the Harvard Post Election Review was asked what would have happened if it was Bernie. He said Trump -- he said Bernie would have won. OK. So, you know, that's Tony Fabrizio, not me talking.

That's what he said publicly, and I believe him.

SMERCONISH: Tad Devine, thank you. I appreciated the book.

DEVINE: Great to be with you, Michael.

SMERCONISH: OK. I want to know what you think. Now we have perfectly framed today's poll question. Go to smerconish.com and tell me, is being a Democratic socialist an asset or liability to winning the Democratic nomination in 2028? Notice I didn't say to winning the election, I said to winning the Democratic nomination.

Hit me with some of your thoughts and I'll read some during the course of the program. You can find me on all the usual places, you can find me on YouTube, you can find me on Facebook and I'll read them when we get to them later in the program.

Up ahead, Graham Platner exits the race, but not gracefully. We'll talk about how he should have handled it. And President Trump says the missiles are locked and loaded, ready to strike Iran should Tehran try to kill him. We'll discuss the ongoing conflict when we return with former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO Admiral James Stavridis is here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:15]

SMERCONISH: In his first message since the funeral of his father and predecessor, Iran's supreme leader vowed revenge in a written statement attributed to him on state media. And meanwhile, President Trump posted late Friday evening that missiles are locked and loaded, ready to strike Iran should Tehran try to kill him. Trump said Iran has wanted him dead for years, adding that if anything were to happen to him, the United States should literally bomb them at levels they've never seen before.

Joining me now is senior military analyst for CNN and former supreme allied commander of NATO Admiral James Stavridis. Admiral, great to see you as always. Would Iran really risk the fury that would follow if they attempted to assassinate President Trump?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS, CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: The question is, who is Iran? I think we are in a modality at the moment, at least, where there are clearly two or three different claques at the top of that government. That's why we get frequently very mixed messages and we get a lot of very harsh rhetoric alongside kinetic action striking ships in the Gulf. On the other hand, the foreign minister shows up for talks. So which Iran is the question?

I'd also point out, you know, the old saw is all politics are local. You know what, politics are personal also. And so the current supreme leader, we just need to bear in mind at the start of this conflict, we killed his mother, his father, his wife. I think one of his children was that sad, tiny little coffin at the ceremonies burial. So I think he quite understandably has taken that very, very personally.

[09:20:03]

So I think there's going to continue to be a lot of defiance. Final thought to everything I just said, I hope not. I hope the Iranians will come to the table. You and I have talked before about the greatest book of leadership ever written, which of course is "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo. And in it, at one point the Don says, don't make the mistake of hating your enemies.

It clouds your judgment. Unfortunately, in segments of the top of the Iranian pyramid today, there's a lot of hate for the United States.

SMERCONISH: I think he said it to Sonny Santino, but I might be mistaken. Admiral Stavridis, maybe you anticipated my next question, which is why has Iran not yet folded?

STAVRIDIS: It goes right at what we talked about a moment ago. And if you want one more layer on these different claques, I think they're kind of divided into a hard line Revolutionary Guard who really, truly, deeply, madly just want to keep fighting. I think there secondly is a division about how important is the nuclear stockpile and a third division about how hard should we push for control of the Strait of Hormuz. You add to that the overarching personal politics we talked about a moment ago, and I just don't feel there's a lot of quit in Iran, at least at the moment.

SMERCONISH: What might make them yield? If you were advising President Trump, what would you be telling him?

STAVRIDIS: You had a great poll question a couple of days ago where you said what will cause the Iranians to blink or words to that effect and was a nice little bit of alliteration. It was bombs, blockade and boots. And I think it's not boots in the sense that I think we're very unlikely to do that. So you're kind of back to more bombs, maybe focus them strategically on the economy of Iran and I think put the blockade back in place, which goes after the economics of the situation.

Admiral Brad Cooper is doing a superb job, principally at the moment going after the Iranian ability to close the strait, going after their small craft, their drones, their cruise missiles. I understand that impulse. But I think overarching at this point, you're going to have to go after the Iranians economically. That could include a blockade, not a seizure, but a blockade of Kharg Island.

SMERCONISH: Admiral, relative to the strait, which you've sailed dozens of times, I'll simplify. But the Iranians are saying use our tollbooth to the north. The U.S. Navy seems to be encouraging maritime traffic to tether closer to the coast of Oman. Is that a permanent solution?

STAVRIDIS: It could be, and I may surprise you with that thought. But if you stop and think about the strait, it's required to have the ability for mariners of all nations to sail through it because it enjoys what's called transit passage under the international law of the Sea Treaty. It doesn't specifically say, hey, there can't be competing routes in there. So I could see, and it would be a very difficult negotiation, but one thing to hold in mind would be if the Iranians continue to insist on a northern toll booth route, I've called it the Aya Toll Booth, that's something we would object to. But if we opened on the south with the Omanis a free, open, clear route that could be used to execute transit passage, then nations would have a choice.

Do you want to sail north with the Iranians, pay a couple of million dollars for every load of oil, or do you want to come down to aisle two and pass completely toll free, administered and protected by the U.S. Navy, hopefully some European allies, and done by the nation of Oman on the southern side. I think that's not a terrible ending and worth at least considering.

SMERCONISH: The easy pass solution to a very complex problem. By the way, over Admiral Stavridis' shoulder, his right shoulder, his great summer beach read. It's called "2084." It's futuristic. It's the third of a trilogy.

He co-authored it. I can tell you because I've read all three of them. You don't need to read the first two, although you should, but it's a great way to spend your time.

Thank you, Admiral. We always appreciate your contribution.

Let's see what everybody is saying at home via social media. You can follow me on X, you can find me on YouTube, yada, yada, yada.

My marine son says only boots will sway them.

[09:25:02]

Well, I fear that you're correct. And the options that I offered, the Admiral's right, I said, is it going to be bargaining? Is it going to be talks? Is it going to be bombing? Is it going to be boots on the ground?

What will finally bring them to their knees? And Admiral Stavridis' opinion then when we discussed it on radio as it was today, is probably some combination thereof and hopefully it doesn't get to boots.

I want to remind you, go to my website at smerconish.com and answer today's poll question. Is being a Democratic socialist an asset or liability to winning the Democratic nomination? Stressing that word in 2028. On a different day, I'll ask you whether that can win a general. Today, I'm saying is that a candidate who wins the next Democratic nomination?

Still to come, your social media reaction and it turns out reading an actual book is a lost art. How this could have dire consequences including political consequences. Plus, Graham Plattner ends his run for the U.S. Senate, but not before blaming everybody except himself. I'll explain.

Sign up for my newsletter at smerconish.com when you're voting on the poll question, you'll get the work of illustrators like Eric Allie.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:44]

SMERCONISH: Have you seen Graham Platner's withdrawal video, his withdrawal video from the Senate race in Maine? Remarkable less for what it says than for what it refuses to say. Facing a "Politico" report where a former girlfriend alleged that he raped her in 2021, Platner never engages in the substance of the accusation.

He opens by declaring that the claims are all false, that they did not happen, not real. But he's not 15 seconds into an almost 11 minute video when he pivots away, emphasizing that the weight of these charges are placing on him. In other words, there's no ownership. There's no reckoning, no reflection, no attempt to reconstruct events or explain them. Instead, just a blanket denial, followed by a lengthy indictment of everybody except himself.

For a candidate who built his brand on being a regular person, authentically speaking to voters, I thought the absence was striking. Instead, Platner constructs a narrative in which he and his partner, Amy, are ordinary people who are being victimized by larger forces working against them.

The villains are the corporate media system and a political establishment, his words. He casts them as judge, jury, and executioner. And then fixates on the timing, asking why is this surfacing now? Then he answers himself, the July 13th ballot withdrawal deadline. And his telling the accusation is not a matter to be addressed on its merits, but a weapon deployed on a political calendar.

His framing conveniently relocates the story's center of gravity from the allegation itself to a conspiracy of powerful actors, allowing him to skip the one conversation that I think the moment demands.

The most telling passage is his explanation for why he's quitting. He insists the suspension is not an admission of guilt and, crucially, not due to the allegations, but rather due to structures being taken away from us by people in positions of power. He warns that they will make it impossible to fundraise, that the national party organizations have abandoned him, and now they're going to not let us have it. He even says that the powers would rather have Republican Susan Collins win than have him be senator.

In other words, he is being forced out not because a woman accused him of rape and his own allies believed her enough to rescind endorsements. But because a rigged system not built for normal people is crushing a movement that he says is fighting for health care and end to genocide and real democracy.

The collapse of his support becomes evidence of persecution rather than a consequence of the accusation or his behavior. And what emerges is a statement that inverts responsibility at every turn. The published record is straightforward. After the rape allegation, nearly every Democratic ally withdrew support. The Maine Democratic Party urged him to quit, and Senate Democrats campaign arm vowed not to spend a dollar while he remained on the ballot.

His response to that collapse is not to answer the charge in a substantive way, but to wrap himself in the language of grassroots democracy. The ballot line belongs to the people of Maine, he says, while assigning blame to nefarious, largely unnamed forces. It's an exit built entirely on grievance, and one that asks his supporters to see a man accused of sexual assault as the true victim of this entire story.

Here's some of your social media commentary to today's program so far. You can follow me on X. You can also find me on YouTube.

As a lawyer Michael Smerconish, innocent until proven guilty in court.

Jason, I thought that he was guilty and proven so with the Nazi tattoo. I mean, I thought it should have been over with the tattoo when the "KFILE" came forward, CNN's "KFILE," and said, guess what? For, you know, many of the 18 years he has known exactly what it was. And there was a lot of evidence to that fact. A lot of comments that were made by people in his orbit.

So, you know, maybe he got it when he was hammered one night in Split, Croatia. But the idea that he didn't cover it until right before he became a Senate candidate, that should have been a deal breaker. But as I've said here, often, you know, Democrats wanted someone that they could conceive of kneeing Trump in the groin if given the opportunity.

[09:35:07]

And that gravelly voice and the war background, I give him credit for serving his country, believe me, but he fit that bill. I could see him, honest to God, I could see him in Hollywood as an action hero. "Tropic Thunder," you remember? He'd have been perfect in that.

More social media reaction. What else do we have from those who are viewing?

Republicans, it's about time. Democrats, oh yes, but what about Trump? You can't always be a what about Trumper while saying nothing about his journey.

I totally agree with that. I mean, you know, none of what just went on with Platner excuses any of that which has been revealed about Trump. But Trump's not in the news today. Platner is. Trump had his reckoning, right? And it's an ongoing process.

But today the issue is this guy just got out. And I just think that there are a lot of Democrats who have some explaining to do, and we're just willing to look the other way on so many instances when it was so obvious that the guy just had too much baggage.

Maine's a big enough state. They got a lot of quality people in Maine. I'm sure they'll be able to fill the candidate who might not be as inspiring, but when you inspire for the wrong reasons, it's a losing formula.

More social media reaction. What else? I've got time for one more, I think.

It's an un-American. It's an un-American. Socialism has no place in America. It's an -- OK, I'm just reading it literally. But the lunatic left will vote for anything.

Look, it's a semantic problem that I think the Democrats are facing with Democratic socialism. In Tad Devine's book, which is a great book, he talks about what he perceives to be -- I mean, Devine is not a guy with Democratic socialist roots, right? What he says is that Democratic socialism, as envisioned by Bernie, is no different than FDR in the new deal. That's not the way that it's perceived in some quarters. And Democrats have got to deal with that before they can sell the S word in America, even if it has Democratic in front of them, which is why I love today's poll question.

Please go to Smerconish.com. Here it is. Go to Smerconish.com and vote on this. Is being a Democratic socialist an asset or liability?

Here's who I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of Ro Khanna. I'm thinking of AOC. I'm thinking of Bernie. Is it an asset or a liability when they try and win the nomination in 2028?

Or, you know, are voters are going to say, that's a bridge too far? Give us Rahm. Give us Josh. Give us one of those who is not as far left. We're going to find out.

Still to come, as Americans spend less time reading books and more time consuming short form digital content, a growing body of evidence suggests the shift is reshaping how we think, how we learn, how we engage with the world. And also, there are political ramifications of this. The author of the just published "Atlantic" piece, it's the cover story in August, "The End of Reading Is Here." Rose Horowitch joins me after the break. You've got to hear what she has written.

And be sure to sign up for my newsletter at Smerconish.com for which Steve Breen drew this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [09:42:24]

SMERCONISH: The Library of Alexandria was one of the greatest collections of human knowledge ever assembled. It was built in the early third century B.C. based on the belief that a library would safeguard the total sum of humanity's knowledge. Its destruction is remembered as one of history's great losses.

But today, some scholars warn the next threat to knowledge literacy may not be a fire or a war, but losing the habit of reading itself. Fewer than half of American adults reported reading a book of any kind in 2022.

A separate study found the percentage of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day fell from 28 percent in 2004 to just 16 percent in 2023. Professors at elite universities have reported that students struggle to get through a single novel, or they use ChatGPT to translate books written in old English. At the very same time that researchers warn about declining reading habits, books are having a moment of sorts online.

BookTok has turned novels into viral sensations. Book clubs seem to be booming. Readers are finding communities on social media built around sharing stories. So are we really losing our connection to books, or are we changing the ways we consume them?

Joining me now to get a read on this is staff writer at 'The Atlantic" Rose Horowitch, who wrote the viral op-ed "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books" and now has published what is "The Atlantic" cover story for August, "The End of Reading Is Here."

Rose, tell me if we're reading less, then why am I seeing new Barnes and Nobles? Why do book clubs seem to be having a moment? Why is Substack thriving?

ROSE HOROWITCH, ASSISTANT EDITOR AT THE ATLANTIC: So you're right that there are all of these positive signs for reading. You know, in the past year, book sales were higher than they were a decade ago. But I think what that overlooks is that reading is thriving among a dwindling portion of the population.

So, 20 percent of Americans read 80 percent of all the books that were read last year. And so what we're seeing is that the people who still identify as readers are almost more dedicated to text. They spend more time reading than they used to, but they're just becoming a smaller and smaller minority in society.

SMERCONISH: There was so much data in your well-written piece, but one of the things that stands out to me is that "New York Times" best sellers often are books that feature shorter sentences.

HOROWITCH: Yes. So we know that "New York Times" bestsellers have sentences that are about one-third shorter than they were a century ago. And so I think what we're seeing, you know, beyond even the statistics that you were citing earlier about people reading less, that when people do read what they're reading is shorter and simpler than it used to be.

[09:45:09]

You know, I spoke with the head of the New York Public Library who was saying that the most popular books are young adult fiction, even among not young adults. So, we are seeing just a change in how much people read and also what they read.

SMERCONISH: Why should we care? If we are reading less, what does it matter?

HOROWITCH: Yes. So in the piece, you know, I argue that reading is more than one mode of communication among many. It's more than a skill. That reading has structured the way that we think. It structured our politics and our culture for a millennia now.

And so, you know, what we're losing now and what's changing is really a wholesale change in our minds. It's a change in our politics and culture. It's even how -- a change in how we tell the story of our civilization. So, I argue that this is a real shift that is going to be felt in so many different areas of American life.

SMERCONISH: And one of those areas, and particularly of interest for this program, the political ramification. If we're reading less, who benefits on the political stage?

HOROWITCH: So speaking with media theorists and looking at studies of how social media algorithms affect politics, you know, what we see is that people who benefit in a post-literate age are people who make all policy issues very simple, who appear kind of as entertaining showmen, who act as authentic kind of the people politicians. And so, you know, it really leads to, you know, more kind of populist politics. And people who, you know, can just make politics entertaining. Those are the people who really succeed in this moment.

SMERCONISH: OK. And then finally toss in a little artificial intelligence and it's kind of a witch's brew. Explain.

HOROWITCH: Yes. So with artificial intelligence, I argue that that is the first technology to really affect writing. And, you know, artificial intelligence can produce a better essay than most people can. But the challenge is that if you have A.I. write the essay for you, you haven't actually done the thinking. You haven't actually formed your own opinions.

And so, you know, speaking with, you know, experts in this area, they were sharing that they fear that we're going to sort of lose the ability to form our own opinions, to figure out what we think, you know, our abilities of kind of discernment. And those are going to be even more important in an A.I. age because A.I. is producing so much kind of polished text that also may be incorrect. We need our powers of discernment and comprehension much more. And those are exactly what A.I. threatens to erode.

SMERCONISH: We may be actually reading more words, but what we're reading are sentence fragments. We're reading texts. We're reading emails. We're not reading the sort of things that require serious thought, deliberation, and give us critical thinking skills. I think that's the argument. Take my final 30 seconds and sum it all up.

HOROWITCH: Yes. So, exactly. People often refer to this as a literacy crisis. But as you say, we're reading more words than ever. We're reading emails and texts all the time.

And so what's actually happening is that were post-literate. We don't devote the time and we're losing the ability to kind of comprehend and do the complex synthesis of real rich texts. And, you know, as I argue, I think that that will fundamentally change the world that we live in.

SMERCONISH: Rose, nicely done. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it.

When Rose was a radio guest of mine earlier this week, the phone lines melted down with people who said, hey, I'm an avid reader and here's what it means for my life. It was really inspiring.

You still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. Go there now. Cast a ballot. Is being a Democratic socialist an asset or a liability to winning the Democratic nomination in 2028?

While you're there, sign up for my newsletter. It's free. It's worthy. You get to see the editorial cartoonists like Rob Rogers. And this from Jack Ohman.

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[09:53:45]

SMERCONISH: Every day there's a poll question at Smerconish.com. This is the Saturday poll question. Thirty thousand plus have voted already. Is being a Democratic socialist an asset or liability to winning the nomination, not the general? Sixty-two percent see it as a liability.

Had a great conversation in the opening portion of this program with Tad Devine, who's a seasoned Democratic operative who ran Bernie's campaign in 2016. And he's had a change of heart over the span of his career, believing now that the establishment can't thwart the will of the people in the Democratic primaries. Here's more social media reaction to today's program so far.

The label socialist may not be disqualifying in a general election. But backers of defunding the police, closing the prisons, nationalizing the corporations --

Bob, I totally agree with you. There's -- you know, there's a semantic issue. The Democrats need Frank Luntz. OK. Frank Luntz, the Republican wordsmith, needs to give Democrats, if he'd be willing to do it, a different way to describe what they're talking about, because those aspects that you've identified are a stone cold loser, in my opinion. But if you said to people, hey, we need to be more FDR-ish. We need to re-envision the new deal.

[09:55:00]

We need Medicare for all. And here's why. Yes, I think you could sell it but I don't think you can sell it with the S word attached to it.

More social media reaction. Here's some. What do we have? Follow me on X, follow me on YouTube.

Books and newspapers were once a great equalizer, giving ordinary people access to ideas and knowledge regardless of status. Today, digital devices have become great controllers that brainwash us with what we are supposed to think.

Janette, I agree with you. And one of the things that Rose points out in that fabulous piece in "The Atlantic," she quotes Dr. Jean Twenge, who wrote "iGen" among other books, has been a frequent guest of mine on this program. Dr. Twenge saying that by eighth grade, I'm looking at notes, the average kid spends four and a half hours per day on social media.

So -- and it's not just the kids, right? Where is the time that used to be spent reading now allocated? It's to video. It's to video. And when you throw in video, now you've got to talk about the algorithms.

Hey, read a book this summer. Read Admiral Stavridis' "2084." You'll love it. If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen anywhere you get your podcasts.

Thank you for watching. We'll see you next week.

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