Latest / Politics Between Us / Beyond the Blue Wave — Part 2

Transcript

Beyond the Blue Wave — Part 2 · Politics Between Us

0:01
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to feel like political conversations have completely broken down.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Everything feels urgent and binary and loud, but I don't think it has to be that way.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Politics gets a lot more interesting and a lot less toxic when we actually listen
0:13
SPEAKER_00: to each other, try to hold space for different points of view,
0:16
SPEAKER_00: and stay in relationship with the hard stuff.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm Alison Bea, and for the last 25 years, I've worked in law and politics in Maine.
0:23
SPEAKER_02: And I'm Luca DeAngelis.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm in my 20s, and I live in New York City, but I grew up in Maine.
0:30
SPEAKER_02: To be honest, a lot of the time I'm pretty disillusioned with politics,
0:33
SPEAKER_02: but Alison is the person I keep talking to anyways.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: We have been having these messy,
0:37
SPEAKER_02: honest conversations since I interned for her at the ACLU of Maine
0:41
SPEAKER_02: when I was just 18.
0:42
SPEAKER_02: So this is Politics Between Us,
0:44
SPEAKER_02: where we see what happens when we approach politics with curiosity instead
0:48
SPEAKER_02: of certainty.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, everyone.
0:51
SPEAKER_02: We are bringing you our second midterm election debrief today.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: Now, Alison, we are going to bring in Lucas Sinclair,
0:59
SPEAKER_02: who's another one of our favorite Politics Between Us guests.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Lucas is a public lands advocate and a former Maine congressional candidate.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: And he is just someone who has been around Maine politics a lot.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: One of our favorite people to think about rural voting.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Environmental issues and kind of just organizing what comes next for the Democratic Party.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: So I think he'll have some incredible insights about what happened last night.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I know. I can't wait to get his takes on this stuff. So, yeah, let's bring him in.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's see. Let's see what he's got to say.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Lucas St. Clair.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming to talk to us today, the day after the election.
1:41
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
1:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm really excited to speak with you both.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, when Luke and I were thinking about who we wanted to talk to after,
1:49
SPEAKER_00: sort of yesterday, we were thinking, oh, we got to see what Lucas' take on this is.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to start with, like, not surprisingly, I want to know, tell me,
1:58
SPEAKER_00: what emotion best describes how you're feeling today?
2:03
SPEAKER_03: I feel elated.
2:05
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I really do just feel like this huge weight lifted off of me.
2:10
SPEAKER_03: And...
2:13
SPEAKER_03: And just really proud in a strange sense.
2:17
SPEAKER_03: I feel like when elections go the way that I hope they go, I always have a sense of patriotism.
2:24
SPEAKER_03: We're like, oh, yeah, Americans showed up.
2:26
SPEAKER_03: They saw a problem.
2:28
SPEAKER_03: They recognized the problem. They're solving the problem.
2:30
SPEAKER_03: And I just feel really proud of that action.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's funny.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: I was definitely seeing more patriotism
2:40
SPEAKER_02: in my social media feed than I usually see
2:44
SPEAKER_02: from my peers.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: Lucas, what was your hottest take from last night that you've developed so far?
2:57
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I hate to do this to all the incredible Democrats that ran races around
3:03
SPEAKER_03: the country, but I feel like this is so much a referendum on Donald Trump
3:07
SPEAKER_03: that he's just so extraordinarily unpopular.
3:13
SPEAKER_03: The fact that Iowa had the wins that they did, three congressional seats flipped.
3:19
SPEAKER_03: This is a place that voted for Trump three separate times.
3:25
SPEAKER_03: They're conservative farmers and they finally are like, okay,
3:29
SPEAKER_03: these policies are very much working against our best interests.
3:33
SPEAKER_03: They finally have come home to roost.
3:36
SPEAKER_03: And they're responding in a real way.
3:39
SPEAKER_03: And so I think there were some great candidates
3:42
SPEAKER_03: that were running really disciplined races that were charismatic.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: And it was, you know, some moderates won, some progressives won,
3:53
SPEAKER_03: but it really felt like this is a referendum on Donald Trump's last two years
3:58
SPEAKER_03: and the way the MAGA movement is just becoming disbanded.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to try to get you to concede that the system works, Luca,
4:07
SPEAKER_00: but is it pride in the system that the democracy, that people engage, that they,
4:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about people gave so much time to go out and knock on doors
4:14
SPEAKER_00: to get involved with Canada. So it's this sense of, Wow,
4:18
SPEAKER_00: our effort matters, which I think has been lost for a long time.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And that does feel connected to the American experiment and the American democracy.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: I would say, you know, maybe a small sense of that, Alison.
4:34
SPEAKER_02: I feel like we need like four more elections proving to me that the system works
4:39
SPEAKER_02: for me to get there.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, it's helpful to have.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, Mamdani's election last year in New York and kind
4:47
SPEAKER_02: of the organizational effort that went behind that stacked on top of this year.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, you kind of have to rebuild the trust over time with people.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: So.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: But Lucas, speaking of Maine, we want to talk a little bit about Susan Collins because.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: Finally lost it, man.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: What do you think it is that changed this time?
5:16
SPEAKER_02: Why do you think Troy won?
5:20
SPEAKER_03: I think that Susan Collins could not escape sort
5:26
SPEAKER_03: of the legacy of the Supreme Court,
5:29
SPEAKER_03: the Dobbs decision, tariffs.
5:33
SPEAKER_03: The price of diesel.
5:35
SPEAKER_03: It felt like so many things compounded in this moment
5:42
SPEAKER_03: that she really couldn't shake it.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: We tried.
5:48
SPEAKER_03: We tried to give her an opening, right?
5:50
SPEAKER_03: Like Graham Plattner imploded and we had to do this whole thing and get a new candidate.
5:56
SPEAKER_03: And the candidate that won to serve in the general,
6:01
SPEAKER_03: I think some people were skeptical about his ability to really articulate
6:05
SPEAKER_03: a clear message.
6:07
SPEAKER_03: And despite all of that, he prevailed.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: And so it really felt like It was
6:19
SPEAKER_03: Susan Collins just not able
6:24
SPEAKER_03: to get out of the way
6:26
SPEAKER_03: of the history that had been trailing her around for a while,
6:29
SPEAKER_03: but it just really compounded in this moment.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: I was super interested how the ad that Bill Green,
6:37
SPEAKER_00: so Bill Green ran the famous ad when Sarah Gideon was running against Susan Collins
6:42
SPEAKER_00: that many people think really pushed Collins to a profound, like a deep victory.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: But this time it didn't seem to go as well.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And there seemed to be a different energy behind the Collins race that was sort
6:54
SPEAKER_00: of had an angrier edge.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering if you think that that had anything to do with it or it was just,
7:01
SPEAKER_00: you know, the whole, was it the whole package?
7:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think when it's harder to run on your
7:10
SPEAKER_03: Merits and what you've done when you're nervous, when you're feeling like you could lose.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: And I think that Susan Collins was running that way a lot of the time.
7:19
SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, it's like even her lawn signs, you know, thank Susan Collins, right?
7:24
SPEAKER_03: She's like, don't forget about all the good things I've done.
7:27
SPEAKER_03: It was just constantly like, I'm really great. I'm really great.
7:31
SPEAKER_03: And I think that It was really interesting to think about that Bill Green,
7:38
SPEAKER_03: the juxtaposition between 2022 and 2026,
7:44
SPEAKER_03: or 2020 and 2026,
7:48
SPEAKER_03: where he was just like kind of that, aw shucks, we know Susan Collins, she's,
7:52
SPEAKER_03: you know, she's a good person.
7:54
SPEAKER_03: Let's not lose track of just the fact that she's a good, hardworking person.
7:59
SPEAKER_03: And this time it was him attacking A logger, you know, saying he doesn't have the experience.
8:06
SPEAKER_03: If you wanted to buy a cord of wood, maybe that's the guy you turn to,
8:09
SPEAKER_03: but not to represent you in the Senate.
8:11
SPEAKER_03: And it was a completely different attack as opposed
8:15
SPEAKER_03: to being able to lift up Senator Collins.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: And so when I saw that ad, I felt like, A, I was surprised.
8:25
SPEAKER_03: I know Bill Green pretty well, and I feel like he's a pretty nice guy.
8:28
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, oh, I'm surprised that he was convinced to say those things.
8:32
SPEAKER_03: And also, I felt like, oh, Colin's team must have their back up against the wall
8:37
SPEAKER_03: if that's what they're putting out there as their closing argument.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, one thing that Allison and I were talking about this morning is kind of how
8:47
SPEAKER_02: a lot of the Democratic candidates seem to focus on economic policies.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: Issues first, prioritize those issues ahead of everything else.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: And it kind of made us think about this conversation we had on Politics Between Us
9:00
SPEAKER_02: in season one with Fat Shakira, and we wanted to just play you a little clip.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to pull that up now.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: To the extent that the American public is desiring and wanting them from us,
9:12
SPEAKER_01: this is people lead us to believe in part because we don't tend
9:16
SPEAKER_01: to have economic Justice conversations to the extent
9:20
SPEAKER_01: that the American public is desiring and wanting them from us.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: And if we do start with that, if we spend a fair amount of time discussing it,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: then I tend to think that you can talk about a lot of immigration, racial justice,
9:33
SPEAKER_01: social Justice issues where people, as you well know,
9:36
SPEAKER_01: have ideologies and views all over the map on these kinds of things.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: They will appreciate and trust that you have your own views
9:44
SPEAKER_01: and that they might listen to you and you might be able to persuade them as long
9:47
SPEAKER_01: as you started with the thing that they probably agree with you on.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: And too often, I think some people are starting from the places
9:53
SPEAKER_01: where we might disagree with them on.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: We almost started the town hall.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: It's like, let me polarize this place.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump is a really anti-democratic actor. He's a fascist.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: He's an authoritarian. Well, okay.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: What do you think is going to happen here?
10:04
SPEAKER_01: You're just talking to the people who now only believe.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: Lucas, what do you think about that clip in thinking about this election?
10:13
SPEAKER_02: Is that what Democrats went out there and did?
10:15
SPEAKER_02: Did they kind of just go out there and try to find the common ground with people?
10:21
SPEAKER_02: First in all of these red states?
10:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think in a lot of ways they did.
10:27
SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about gas prices.
10:29
SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about tariffs.
10:30
SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about the cost of daily life.
10:34
SPEAKER_03: And those economic arguments really resonated
10:39
SPEAKER_03: because they felt so exacerbated in this moment.
10:43
SPEAKER_03: It's super expensive.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: Things are much more expensive.
10:46
SPEAKER_03: And it was pretty easy to draw these lines to say, Yeah,
10:51
SPEAKER_03: this war in Iran is causing the diesel prices to be higher and therefore the cost
10:56
SPEAKER_03: of everything else is higher.
11:00
SPEAKER_03: It was pretty easy to make those connections.
11:05
SPEAKER_03: And I think it was, we're in a polarizing moment.
11:09
SPEAKER_03: So people were talking about Donald Trump and just saying like, this is,
11:12
SPEAKER_03: he made these decisions and then this happened and now your life is more expensive.
11:20
SPEAKER_03: But I agree with the sentiment about pulling together town halls and focusing
11:26
SPEAKER_03: on what we agree on to start with.
11:30
SPEAKER_03: I think that's a very smart thing to do.
11:35
SPEAKER_03: Now, the real challenge is governing.
11:39
SPEAKER_03: Democrats have to govern.
11:41
SPEAKER_03: Democrats have to come up with a plan to make people's lives more affordable,
11:47
SPEAKER_03: to figure out those social justice, environmental justice, economic justice,
11:54
SPEAKER_03: racial justice issues.
11:56
SPEAKER_03: How are we going to talk about immigration?
12:00
SPEAKER_03: In order to govern well, we have to take that same strategy.
12:03
SPEAKER_03: We have to go into these conversations saying, okay, what do we all agree on?
12:08
SPEAKER_03: And then what are the solutions that we have to put together in order to make
12:13
SPEAKER_03: the changes that we also agree on?
12:16
SPEAKER_03: Because there's clearly a lot of things.
12:18
SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that really stood out to me was how people were
12:23
SPEAKER_03: in the Biden Trump election and then the Harris Trump election,
12:29
SPEAKER_03: Immigration was one of the top things on everyone's mind.
12:33
SPEAKER_03: But it was like, people are flooding into our country, the gates are open,
12:37
SPEAKER_03: and they're freaked out from that standpoint.
12:39
SPEAKER_03: This election, in the midterms, immigration is also a top issue,
12:46
SPEAKER_03: but it had swung to being like, what we're doing is cruel.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: And this is really, it's scary what's happening.
12:55
SPEAKER_03: And so just in two short years,
13:00
SPEAKER_03: Immigration has remained an issue,
13:04
SPEAKER_03: but the way we're thinking about it generally has changed.
13:09
SPEAKER_03: And so I think now it's the time to govern.
13:12
SPEAKER_03: It's the time to think about really big, bold ideas.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: I was listening this morning at Marketplace on NPR,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: and they were saying the markets are happy
13:20
SPEAKER_00: because they now think there'll be more gridlock, right?
13:23
SPEAKER_00: That the business actually doesn't want us to get anything done.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And so...
13:27
SPEAKER_00: That is a really concerning issue.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm curious, I mean, here in Maine, there is a huge Democratic sweep, right?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: We have, on the federal level, we have at least the Senate seat and one congressional seat.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And we have the governorship by a wide margin.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And then we have the House, the State House and the Senate.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: So all of these issues are going to be there.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: What advice would you give to the Democrats in Maine about how
13:51
SPEAKER_00: to actually get something done Without alienating the people who sort of may be open
13:57
SPEAKER_00: to giving them a chance.
14:01
SPEAKER_03: I think taking one thing at a time.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: And I know that may sound a little Pollyannish,
14:09
SPEAKER_03: but I think focus on an issue that they think they can win
14:14
SPEAKER_03: and will help develop
14:17
SPEAKER_03: the muscle for...
14:22
SPEAKER_03: Working together. It takes practice.
14:24
SPEAKER_03: I know one issue here
14:28
SPEAKER_03: in Maine that's been a real focal point for a number
14:32
SPEAKER_03: of years is tribal sovereignty.
14:35
SPEAKER_03: I think that Governor-elect Pingree has said
14:40
SPEAKER_03: that that is a really important issue for her.
14:43
SPEAKER_03: I know there's a lot of energy from The tribes, obviously,
14:50
SPEAKER_03: and elected leaders around the state to get that done.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: It'll be complicated.
14:55
SPEAKER_03: It's a piece of federal legislation that can be changed on the state level.
15:00
SPEAKER_03: But there's going to be some pretty challenging thinking that'll have to go into it.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: But it seems as if that is something that we're going to focus on. So start there.
15:09
SPEAKER_03: See what we can do.
15:12
SPEAKER_03: And in the process, build that muscle of working through complicated things
15:16
SPEAKER_03: and then focus on the next thing.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting because I oftentimes I think
15:20
SPEAKER_02: that the conventional wisdom is you get you have all this political capital
15:26
SPEAKER_02: and you come in and you get to do like one big thing and then you see what happens
15:30
SPEAKER_02: from there.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: But I am interested in this idea that you kind of have to build up your wins
15:35
SPEAKER_02: and you start actually smaller and kind of build those muscles to work together
15:41
SPEAKER_02: as a coalition and stuff.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: And so you don't continue to spend down your political capital throughout your term.
15:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I feel like it's like,
15:52
SPEAKER_03: I think that's because I'm just more focused on a relational standpoint,
15:55
SPEAKER_03: like develop the relationships with everybody in the statehouse,
15:58
SPEAKER_03: develop the relationships with everyone in the Congress.
16:01
SPEAKER_03: So then you can do the hard things when you get to them.
16:04
SPEAKER_03: But without building the relationship part,
16:08
SPEAKER_03: I think you run the risk of having it fall apart when things get hard.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. One thing that I want to share with the two of you before we close out is
16:17
SPEAKER_02: the New York Times is reporting early demographic breakdowns.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: And they're saying that men 18 to 29 swung
16:28
SPEAKER_02: towards Democrats by 38 points compared to 2024.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: A pretty dramatic shift there.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if either of you have any thoughts about that.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: You're the boy, Lucas. You take it first.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm so happy about that statistic.
16:50
SPEAKER_03: I really don't know why other
16:55
SPEAKER_03: than I think it's the right thing to do.
16:58
SPEAKER_03: But I mean, there was a similar statistic in Texas,
17:01
SPEAKER_03: like all the border districts in Texas that all went for Trump
17:07
SPEAKER_03: that were completely gerrymandered.
17:10
SPEAKER_03: Swung and it was Latino men
17:14
SPEAKER_03: that just massive swing to Democrats.
17:21
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, it's a great question.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: I look forward to learning more about why that happened.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, I guess I, you know, having, being neither young nor a man,
17:35
SPEAKER_00: I really can't speak, but has that ever stopped me from having an opinion? No.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: So let me go, let me go forth and do an opinion.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have two, you know, two sons, two young sons,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: and I do think that the last 10 years has been a complicated time for young men
17:52
SPEAKER_00: in terms of feeling a sense of belonging.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, you look at men sort of like just in High school graduation rates,
18:00
SPEAKER_00: college graduation rates, economic outcomes,
18:04
SPEAKER_00: even the focus on other identities
18:06
SPEAKER_00: that have experienced enormous power imbalances,
18:13
SPEAKER_00: young men have not been doing well and they feel out of the system.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And it sort of speaks to what you're talking about, Lucas, around relationship.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: I think we all have a fundamental need to Feel part of our community.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: I think that these young folks are showing that they're going to gravitate
18:33
SPEAKER_00: to the person who is making them feel seen.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: I was listening to a speaker from Harvard Kennedy School talking
18:42
SPEAKER_00: about the youth vote, John Delavolpe,
18:44
SPEAKER_00: and he was talking about how this generation is much less tied to a political party
18:48
SPEAKER_00: than any generation before, that they will vote around the issues that matter
18:51
SPEAKER_00: to them. I actually think that might be a good thing for American democracy.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a way in which we lump people up.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: The women will vote this way.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: African-American votes will this way.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: There's an idea the parties sort of don't get into relationship and get curious
19:07
SPEAKER_00: and maybe open themselves up to a little bit more gray.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And so if this generation is more open or less interested in the labels
19:14
SPEAKER_00: and more interested in who sees me, I think that bodes well for American democracy.
19:19
SPEAKER_03: Nicely said. Yeah, I think that's a great take.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: I do feel like I, I was. Sorry.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: I think it'd be great if elected leaders also had to be responsive
19:33
SPEAKER_02: to what younger people cared about.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: That will shape candidates on both Republican and Democratic candidates
19:46
SPEAKER_02: if the young people have increasing political power.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, they've certainly shown in this election that they have political power.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, you know, I think there's a lot of concern
19:57
SPEAKER_00: that the parties have not taken them seriously.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And certainly if you look at the historically when young people vote, it makes a big difference.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: So Luca. Luca.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: I know you vote every time, but tell your people.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: I also think that...
20:13
SPEAKER_03: also think that's also one of the big losers
20:17
SPEAKER_03: of the day is Elon Musk and the ilk
20:21
SPEAKER_03: of these billionaires.
20:23
SPEAKER_03: That guy went out and spent $500 million in this election
20:28
SPEAKER_03: and it was Young white men
20:32
SPEAKER_03: and Latino men in Texas that showed up to the polls and beat back that flood
20:39
SPEAKER_03: of hundreds of millions of dollars from one billionaire.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: It's just like, that feels pretty empowering.
20:45
SPEAKER_03: And I hope people have
20:50
SPEAKER_03: that sense coming out of the election night and that despite
20:54
SPEAKER_03: the fact that they are using their fortunes in these really corrupt ways,
21:00
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't always work.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: Lucas, I completely agree.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: If there's one thing that young people don't like, it's money in politics, billionaires.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: And also, I think, stop building data centers.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: No one's liking that.
21:13
SPEAKER_02: That's the other thing.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: Listen to the young people.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: I think they're going to guide you to electoral victory in 2028.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice prediction. All right, here we go.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great place to end,
21:27
SPEAKER_00: end with Luca's prediction that it's going to be the young folks that decide 28.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: So everybody, you know, take heed.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, Lucas, thanks so much for jumping on right after the election.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: It was great to chat with you, and I'm sure there'll be much more to come.
21:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there aren't two people I'd rather speak to on a day like today.
21:44
SPEAKER_03: So thanks for having me.
21:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks so much.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, that didn't disappoint.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: That was super fun, Luca, to talk to him.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Just always love hearing his take, especially on where Maine is and where it's headed.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, with both Betsy and Lucas, I kind of want to just keep talking with them.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: But everyone's busy the day after the midterm.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, I just want to acknowledge, Luca, we started out doing this about a year ago,
22:12
SPEAKER_00: thinking about this election, and now it's happened.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And oh my gosh, we've got to figure out what we're going to do next now.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: You and I, what we're talking about so
22:21
SPEAKER_02: that was kind of a theme of these conversations is what comes next.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: What comes next? All right. So you and I will see. It's been a blast.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: It's always a blast to talk to you.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: I love being in space with you.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. It was super fun.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, we'll see.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: We'll see what comes next.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes. Well, and with that, everyone, thanks for joining us.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And a reminder that although I work at Colby College and Luca does as well,
22:48
SPEAKER_00: The views on this podcast are purely our own and personal and not attributed
22:52
SPEAKER_00: to the college. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you whenever we do next.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Have a good day, everyone.