Bret Stephens: Hi, Frank. I hope you had a great summer. I know President Trump is going to be a frequent topic of discussion, dismay and disgust in this and many future conversations between us. But can I begin by broaching a subject that’s just as depressing? The Democratic Party, I mean ….

Frank Bruni: It’s terrific to be here with you, Bret, but I take bitter exception to the insinuation that Democrats are as depressing as Trump. That’s like saying a piranha is scarier than a great white (a metaphor I offer in recognition of Trump’s obsession with sharks).

Bret: You’re right: Democrats aren’t piranhas. Right now they’re more like the blobfish.

Frank: Whatever their marine counterpart is, it does seem that our entire democracy may be riding on whether Democrats can find the right leader before November 2026, the right message and the right succinct set of policy priorities, not to mention the right blue states to gerrymander. A modest to-do list! On which of those tasks do you see them making the most — or any — progress?

Bret: The philosophical question Democrats need to answer for themselves is whether they should move toward the center or lurch further left. Trump and his party would obviously much rather run against the “Zohran Mamdani Democrats” than he would against, say, the “Andy Beshear Democrats” or the “Josh Shapiro Democrats.” Which, to me, sort of answers the question of where Democrats ought to go.

Frank: Well, they’re not going to move toward the center in New York City; that ship has sailed, and the city is the city. There probably are moderate Democrats who could beat Mamdani, but not when there are two of them dividing the center-left vote and the two in question are as repellent as Andrew Cuomo and as corrupt as Eric Adams — who may exit the picture if Trump succeeds in an apparent effort to lure him to Washington to clear the field for Cuomo. That said, there’s going to be a lot of time between the city mayoral election and the midterms, and I do see evidence of many, many Democratic leaders trying to pull the party toward the center.

Bret: Really, who?

Frank: Pete Buttigieg, who has been doing interviews in unlikely places and saying, for example, that Democrats need to take many Americans’ apprehension about trans women in women’s sports seriously. Elissa Slotkin, who, from her (terrific) response to Trump’s address to Congress early this year until the present, has been talking economics, security — not culture-war issues. The list is long — Ruben Gallego, Mikie Sherrill, Gina Raimondo — but what’s happening with Democrats and with discussion about Democrats is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, a snowball effect. Every day they wear the scarlet L for “loser,” it gets bigger, redder, so it’s not just affixed to them — it’s the whole damned outfit.