Since 2016, the Democratic Party has moved steadily to the left. Even tried and true moderates like Joe Biden have adapted to this new reality with greater government intervention in the economy than was contemplated in the eras of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.

But centrist Democrats still sometimes revert to their bad old habits. We saw two signs of this recently, with New York Governor Kathy Hochul nominating a conservative judge despite the opposition of a wide swath of her own party and Joe Biden tapping Jeffrey Zients, a notorious corporate predator, to be the White House chief of staff.

Alexander Sammon wrote about Hochul’s blunder at Slate. He joins The Time of Monsters to discuss both of these inexplicable cases.

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