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Money in Politics: Can We Fix a System Built for the Wealthy? · the ACT OUT podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Actel Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Adam Tomlin.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Today's candidate is former candidate for the United States Senate for the state of Massachusetts, Alex Raclean.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, how are you doing, buddy?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing good.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Glad, glad to be here.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Look, excited to talk.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as you uh message me, uh, so uh Alex and I are actually in a uh kind of a a big group chat with uh with a lot of different progressive candidates and uh and and content creators.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so Alex, whenever you message me, you're like, hey, I'd like to talk about these things.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, uh heck yeah, I want to talk to him.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that mess, I think that I'm just want to make sure that that uh that chat is on silent right now because I I have it on loud when I'm at home and uh they they they get talkative during the day.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, no, it was not on silent.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is like my first uh like first time being in a signal chat.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I and I had my uh you know, my notifications on loud, quickly turn those things off, man.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It blows up, doesn't it?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, and most of the time it's like fun, but also it's like three conversations simultaneously.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It did get heated a couple nights ago, but most of the time, most of the time it's like fun banter back and forth.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um can you believe this is happening?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Can you believe this separate totally unrelated thing is happening?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: No man, I I think it's great though.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I felt very like siloed.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I live in Norfolk, Virginia, and so there's not a whole lot of like progressive uh content creators and progressive candidates.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I got like involved in the signal chat, it felt like uh, oh man, I I found home.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and it's similar as a candidate, you know.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: One of the first things that we realized when I started this adventure is in many ways this experience can be kind of isolated.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's there's just not a lot like it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you it's it's all-encompassing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: It takes over your entire life, it takes over your family's life, and there's so much of it that's public.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much of it where you're interacting with other people, and you want to share the wins and you want to have a place to vent the losses.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you it it feels it's a lot to put on your spouse or your significant other.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a lot to put on your fantasy football friends, it's a lot to put on like these cohorts who want to be there for you and who want to support you, but don't have any backing in these areas.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and it can be a lot.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so finding these communities and for a lot of us candidates, we have at this point finally developed a couple of them, it's really a a huge load.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and in many ways, it I've I've heard the literal the term lifesaver for a lot of these candidates because just emotional health, uh mental health is is is tough when you're putting yourself out there so much.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um having those outlets is is is important.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, it's it's you know, my wife has been uh was absolutely incredible throughout this entire process, but but it's a lot to put it all in her, and having someone else who I can go talk to about stuff with was really helpful for me, helpful for her, helpful for everybody.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and those people wanted to engage back, these candidates in California, in New Jersey, and wherever, they also wanted to talk about the Iowa and Alaska Senate races, and they also wanted to get into this nitty-gritty.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's been it's been really great.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, have you always uh been interested in politics or is this something that kind of like slowly uh happened over time?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always been interested in politics, I've always been engaged, but the idea of me running for office is something that is less surprising the earlier you knew me.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you knew me in middle and high school and you found and hadn't heard from me in 15 years, and then you found out I was running for Senate, you're like, Yeah, of course.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're someone who like actually spent the last 15 years with me, this felt more like a leap.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I was the kid in high school who during current events or during civics, the teacher just handed it over to me and was like, Alice, what's the latest on the presidential race?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's the latest on this?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I was in my moment, I loved that.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but I as much as I always followed it, I had really um tried to invest my energies differently and and more locally, you know, um involved in the PTO at my kids' school, uh raised seeing I seeing eye dogs for service organizations, but I had directed my in my engagement away from the political sphere um for the last decade, much whereas whereas it had been in the focus before that, I had deliberately chosen to direct it away um until Trump won re-election and until I saw the democratic reaction to that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and to me, that was a sort of a like a reassessing point um of like maybe I need to sort of go really full more in the other direction.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Matt, that is so like as you were saying that, I was like, oh my god, like I saw so much of myself in that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: If uh I'm trying to think, it was the 1994 gubernatorial election in Georgia.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that was my very first experience with uh with politics.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh I I was one candidate and my best friend was the other candidate.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And our class had like a mock election, and there was something about that man where I just like the the bug got me.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I've just been I was so interested in politics uh growing up, so much so, that I remember giving a uh like a like a speech to the class, and it was talking about what I wanted to uh do whenever I grew up or whatever.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh at one, I ended it with saying, uh, I'm not really for sure what's in store for me, but I do concur wholeheartedly with John F.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Kennedy when he said, I think hell to the chief has a nice ring to it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I mean, I wrote an op-ed in high school.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was, I think I was a sophomore in high school, and I got published in the second biggest paper in the state um about the inadequacies of the chair of the Democratic National Committee.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's the level of like of like dork that I was in.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was like, I need to bet my frustrations about the Democratic National Committee chair.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um best friends.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so that's who I was sophomore of high school.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, I I was very much very I was very involved.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I had a uh uh I have a mug.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: We still have it, of course, um, for for Wesley Clark, um who I don't know, what did he come in ninth in the 2004 presidential race?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like here I'm still I'm by the when we bought that mug, I was probably a junior in high school.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And here I am trying to convince my parents to buy uh to support the no one else knew who he was at that point.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I barely knew who he was at that point, but but uh but I you know I had my theories of of politics and theories of power and theories of how geography were and biography were gonna shape that, and I thought that he was uh gonna be a good candidate for that moment.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, this is kind of uh up in your neck of the woods.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I had a uh Dukakis Benson mug that I used for so long.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was like my prize possession.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I I uh I I was involved, I worked on exclusively losing campaigns for a long time.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we joked that the first time I was on a winning campaign was when I was only only volunteered for you know like two long weekends when I was already in my mid-20s.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was that was the first time that I was a part of a campaign that actually won.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was uh Catherine Clark.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um the current um when her when she was first elected to Congress uh when she was running for an open seat.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've never lived in a such a deep blue area where essentially the the primary is the general election.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like whoever comes out of that primary is going to become the next either senator or representative of Massachusetts.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So can you kind of give the viewers like a little bit of how the statewide politics kind of plays out?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is it establishment versus kind of the progressive?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is that generally how it is?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it just kind of like depends?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, in some ways every race is different, but there are definitely a lot of races where um that happens.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, that was very the overarching dynamic is that most seats go unchallenged.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are actually a lot of challenges happening right now in the state, which I'm glad to see.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but by a lot, I still mean half of the incumbent, half of the incumbent members of Congress are being challenged.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And of those half, you know, just looking at the actions of I I I please do not take what I'm about to say as um thinking that this is acceptable behavior on the part of the incumbents, but the incumbents are not treating the challengers as though they are uh, you know, real threats to their position in many of those challenges.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think that that is inappropriate.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think every incumbent should treat a challenger with respect.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and every incumbent should respond, like have debates when there is a challenger.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that that's how democracy functions.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's not happening.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh I I think that in the state senate, where we have 35, 36 seats, I've I know the number are, but I forgot it, you know, we're in the middle of a conversation, so of course I forgot it.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it's 35.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's 35.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are two open seats, so there are 33 um incumbents running.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And of those 33, maybe four or five are facing challenges.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So very rarely is there anything other than the occasional open seat that gets contested.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think that is?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that I think that that's not just a Massachusetts problem.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that happens in a lot of places.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and as you've seen from the chat, uh, it's actually much worse in some places like Connecticut than it is here in Massachusetts.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in in places like Connecticut, they're being even more explicit about the ways in which they put the thumb on the scale.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you're talking about the democratic establishment putting it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the democratic establishment is is is being um pretty overt there.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think in Massachusetts, what it what we're seeing is more soft pressure.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you you s you see a lot of people who say, look, if I challenge this incumbent, even if I think they're vulnerable, it is really a huge risk to my career that I don't have to take.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I, you know, I'll make more friends with honey than vinegar or whatever that phrase is.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think I just butchered it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, but at the same time, you make even more with shit.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and no, but but you're I mean, you're onto something.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: The the Massachusetts state legislature as a whole is really unpopular.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so these elected officials, they remain locally popular.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: They have their support base, they have job security because they're so popular locally, but they are a part of an institution that is very unpopular, and by ref the ways in which they are part of this soft power dynamic of never really pressuring, never really challenging incumbents, that they are part of the sort of stagnation of the body.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they are part of this body that overall it's it's all these small decisions along the deck of the way that add up to something where uh you know a shorter career in a more popular institution, and you might be celebrated longer.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Ask them, but um it's I I think that there's a lot of sort of soft power, soft influence that goes on in open seats.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: There is some there is some of what you talked about initially.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: There is some of sort of establishment kind of picks a candidate.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that doesn't happen every time.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: In in the 2020, well, I guess it wasn't an open seat, but in the 2020 Senate race with Markey when he was challenged by um Joe Kennedy, the you didn't quite have the same like establishment firmly behind Marquee dynamic.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: But in the gubernatorial race in 2022, that was an open seat.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the establishment kind of picked up picked a candidate, even when it winnowed down to a very popular state senator and an attorney general, two members of two elected officials with bases and and good messages and good careers, um, even at that point, you really had a lot of power and into like it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: And and trying to pressure towards that candidate.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um as part of my prep for for my campaign, I was on especially as you got later in the campaign.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: You put the email in the the mind choice that's commentary, is is really you hear it in in her tone, in not just her commentary, and in the way people are reacting to it.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: If it was there was pressure from powers that be, and I don't know.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't in those rooms, and I'm not gonna be invited to them anytime soon having challenge.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna this time around.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: But so I don't know how much of it is explicit phone calls versus meetings are happening that you're not invited to, but the message gets sent that this is the candidate that we want to win.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I and I think that that does happen in a lot of places.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever you say kind of like the uh the establishment kind of puts its thumb on the skills, so what they do is they help out with fundraising.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh money opens up to the uh you know to who their favored candidate.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's also a little bit of coordination where you kind of get like voter roll or you know, like hey, like voter things and stuff, and helping without helping out with polls, it becomes a very, very big advantage, right?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: In Massachusetts, the party is good about at least facially remaining neutral.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they don't explicitly do any of the fundraising or anything that is explicitly um, you know, putting their explicitly advantaging one candidate over the other.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have a feeling that if I looked at the floor plan for those conventions and where they put the booth for their preferred candidate versus where they put the booth for their disfavored candidate, you know, one would be near the entrance and one would be in the corner.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen the floor plan.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I guess one of those, one of those conventions was entirely remote, so they're off the hook for that one.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, there may be some subtle things that they're doing, but in terms of at least explicit things, um in Massachusetts at least, they are good about remaining uh neutral.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: But when the message gets delivered, right, that this is the candidate to support, that means more fundraisers happen for that candidate.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that candidate still gets access to more funding.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not direct.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: That is different.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: That is it is you may say it's shady, and you may have another fair point there, but that is different.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's happening in in in a lot of states.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: That is different than what's happening in some of the states where it's more explicit and shadier.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's happening in Connecticut is explicit rules violations.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, what I haven't heard about this.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's happening, what happened in Connecticut is there is a procedure to get on the ballot where they hold a convention and you need 15% of votes to get on the ballot.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And there is a procedure for how that convention is supposed to be run.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that procedure was not followed.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Full stop.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: What happened?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: As explicit it can be what happened in Connecticut was the intention did not follow the rules it was supposed to do.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And what is that?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: So in in at least one case, District Three, Andrew Rice was six votes short of getting on the ballot.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: We have two people on the record saying that if the rules had been followed, they would have switched to him.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: So now he's four votes.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows how many other we don't know if any of the other 200 or so people would have switched, but what incentive is there for them to come out now after a decision has been made and say, Yeah, I would have switched also, especially while the state party just today, or yesterday, I guess the story about it came out today.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Rewarded the person who ran that convention who didn't follow those rules with leadership of this new prestigious committee.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: That is an explicit establishment putting their thumb on the scale in an objective way.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's happening in some states.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: That is different than what's happening in a lot of that more often you're getting the soft power, soft influence.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it's I mean, it feels yucky because it's so much of it.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: But also, it is very possible that just like in 2022, a lot of state senators, even though they worked with one, liked the attorney general better and they wanted to help it.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: That it may have been that there were calls going on behind the scenes where other influential people in the in the party were saying, we want you to do this, we want you to get behind this, and and here's why we think this will help you.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: But they may have just liked her better.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: They may have had a grudge against the state senator because she didn't hold the door for him in the bathroom.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I well, the state senator who lost, she was incredibly kind to me when I was an intern.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I bet she held the door for him.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: But what we don't even know.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's one of those things where it feels yucky, and part of the reason it feels yucky is because it doesn't just happen in one race, it happens in multiple races over time.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: But but everything that happened there is above board.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: What happened in Connecticut is not.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you do have instances of that.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, much more of the states are like what's happening in Massachusetts, where it's above board, but it's people exerting influence on behalf of the establishment.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're exerting influence to try to preserve power, they're exerting influence to preserve status quo, usually.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're exerting influence to preserve moderation, usually.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that brings up a really good point.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you see the poll, or not even just polls, like if you really like look on the ground um and see the excitement of the voters and what the voters are asking for, they are wanting bold, progressive policies.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty much a rejection of the status quo.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So why are why is the establishment rewarding this status quo?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like it would be kind of political suicide, is it not?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: Asking you the hard ones.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's because I I think they don't they just don't agree that that's what's happening.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're wrong, and you think they're wrong.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is really hard to get someone to change their mind.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, uh one of the themes of our conversation today is apparently me butchering uh colloquialisms.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's me doing it.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I take a note.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: I apparently needed to have coffee before this conversation.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so what's the phrase of it's really it's really hard to um get someone to believe something when their salary depends on them believing the opposite.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um the if your job depends on moderation and you've built your name recognition on moderation and you've built your career on, you know, I think we need to appeal to the center.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: If everything you've said and done and taught and advocated for for years is based on that, and you've had all these conversations, and you know, we think this is obvious, but to them it it's it's not just that we're looking and saying, hey, this isn't working.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you're not achieving what you say you want to achieve, and you're losing elections.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you keep trying this?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: They they do have rationality to it.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they have their talking points that they say to themselves when they're at their denim parties.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yes, every turnout vote is an extra vote for us, but every uh swing voter is two votes because it's one negative for them and one plus for us.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like they have their talking points that they are like, ah, yes, good point.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's not just it's not just that they have an idea that they're sticking to, they have arguments as well behind it.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's gonna be really hard to get that cohort of people to to back off.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know, these are so so so yeah.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I uh look, I I think that I think that a lot of this has been clear even before you look at some of these primary wins.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of this was clear even before you look at Mam Dani not winning, not only winning in the primary, but then also in the general, and when you look at just this the swath of overperformance in special election after special election.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: To me, all of this was clear when you look at the deeper analysis going back to 2024.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: When you looked at the numbers out of 2024 that showed that Donald Trump won swing voters, Biden to Harris, or sorry, Biden to Trump versus Trump to Harris, from you know, when you look at the 2020 to 2024.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Trump won swing voters by a margin of a couple hundred thousand.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Trump won new turnout voters, people who didn't vote in 2020 versus people who did in 2024, by about a million.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Those are margins, but those don't swing a national election on the scale of what we just saw.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: What won, what swung the election in 2024 was the fact that in 2020 from 2020 to 2024, Democrats lost 19 million voters.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: 19 million voters stayed home.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: That is a much bigger margin than these swing voters and the and the new turnout voters who didn't vote before.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: We are losing our own support, and the lack of reflection on that point is to me what we should have been just laser focused on if we're on job.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: But instead, there was a lot of focus on those first two numbers and the fact that Democrats did lose the swing voters, and we did lose the new voters.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: But the margins are just so different.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And to give the apples to or to keep it apples to apples, Trump, you know, because the whole turnout was down in 2024.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Trump went, Trump lost about, I think it was eight to ten million.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so a couple hundred thousand a million versus uh uh nine-ish million dollar million in terms of voters lost from 2020 to 24.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: We that's the margin.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's where we lost.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so it's so fascinating that you and I are having this discussion now and we're both on the same side because if we were talking about this maybe five years ago, I would have been on the establishment side.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was very much I in my mind, I was like, electability is the most important thing, and we we've got to win elections.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: In order to win elections, you need to uh like appeal to the middle.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was sort of how I how I saw things.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: I got a Wesley Muffet Clark mod from from 20 years ago.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was there too.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: I uh we all go through it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm but you know, I I to me I I keep thinking about how turnout isn't fixed.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: We we always we spend so much time thinking about elections in the hundred percent in the 100% mode, looking at it as you know 51, 49, 50, 52, 48, etc.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we spend so little time thinking about the fact that that's not all of the voters.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Trump has won 33.1, 33.2, and 33.4% of the vote in his three elections.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Trump's support is flat amongst eligible voters in all three of his elections.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: What has changed is democratic engagement and democratic enthusiasm.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, why why was Joe Biden the guy that we got really bumped about?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, we can have that conversation another time.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot to unpack there.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think uh there are some vision, visible, obvious answers.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: There are some other answers that relate to the fact that Trump was an incumbent and we were sick about, but but um it I think that's I think you know we we cannot overlook turnout, especially in a country where turnout's low.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that if there are people who want to see that's appealing to them, reaching out to them, that cares about them, that's engaging with them, and they don't feel like we've been in it.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of uh brings me to the uh question I probably should have asked you about 33 minutes ago.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: Why did you feel into the synthesis?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's fine.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna find uh damn of this budding friendship, man.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: We made this professional.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um I got in because I felt that it democrats in Washington.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh holding up there.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like the organizing we needed was happening.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: The people with large audiences were calling on Democrats to do more, but Democrats in Washington had more available to them that they could that they were choosing not to do.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: They were making the deliberate choice to hold back, leave some tools available because they would rather things get worse and use that as campaign fodder against Trump and Republicans down the line, than do everything they can to mitigate harm now.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that that was immoral, and I also thought that that was bad strategically.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that when you show backbone, when you do everything you can to fight back, you are showing everybody that you can be trusted to fight back, and that there is nothing more motivating than that.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I got into the Senate race because I thought what we needed was to add a new front to these challenges.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: We needed to add primary challenges, and the most important primaries to add were Senate primary challenges, specifically in blue states.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what was your logic there?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I I see it, but I want to make sure.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, like uh what why is it important for blue states to have primary challengers?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're the ones where it the pri the primary is the election, uh as we talked about earlier.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, never take the general for granted.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I was on, I worked one of the losing campaigns I was on was the Martha Copley Scott Brown race.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I will never forget what it feels like to be on a campaign that didn't take the Republican Challenger seriously enough.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I will never do that.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: But also we can we can take the Republican Challenger seriously and also acknowledge the reality of as long as you do that in a state like Massachusetts, you are likely to win.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um as long as you take the Republican challenger seriously, the primary is like and and don't, you know, pull off the gas, you are likely to win the win the nomination if you win, or yeah, win the nomination if you become the Democratic selection.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so the bluer states is where it is most important that we be sending, that we be paying the least attention to this mythical electability, which is not something I really want to be talking about or thinking about anywhere, but I care about it the least in a place like Mass in this cycle, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Delaware.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um in Delaware, we didn't end up with a challenge.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: In Rhode Island, we have a challenger right now.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Connor Burbridge.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he is definitely a long shot, but that primary isn't until mid-September.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: So go look him up.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh he's going against a moderate who votes for a shockingly high number of Trump appointees.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: How?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe he doesn't get the news at his house.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um John Fetterman.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um Fetterman is one of the only Democrats who votes for more Republicans than Jack Reed does.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Jack Reed is not a good senator.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: So check out Connor Brickbridge.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um but back on topic.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I really wanted to, I thought we needed primary challenges, especially in these bluer states.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought the Senate was most important because the Senate is where you have the most tools to be fighting back.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: There are things that you should be doing in the House that we aren't seeing.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the House is not innocent in all this, which is part of why I was not swayed by the entrant of a congressman into my race.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: That didn't change anything.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're also currently in Washington, have been there for the last 12 years.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: But um, the Senate does have more that they can and should be doing.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that is why those races are the ones that I thought were most relevant to this message of there is more we can be doing and we should be doing it right now.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Primaries do two things.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Primaries pressure the people who could change tomorrow.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I want to support Abdul el-Saed in Michigan.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's an open seat.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: He, whether he wins or Haley Stevens wins, neither of them are going to impact anything until January of next year.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's six months away.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um Senator Markey can, and and I think in a couple of ways, a couple of times, in small ways, I had hoped for more, but hey, in a couple of ways, I think he did change some things because of my campaign.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um what'd he do?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that my campaign had an influence on when he called to abolish Ice.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, oh, okay.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so he he is called to abolish?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Good job.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um Yeah, I think there's a direct connection there.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um Representative Moulton as well.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there is a direct connection between my campaign and when the two of them did that.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um have to put truce get get them both under truth serum to find out if how true that is, but uh, I think the timing works.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think that primary challengers impact the people who can change tomorrow and who can change the levers of power tomorrow.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't, you get to replace them.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think the primary can be the primary challenges are really, really important and are something that we should be actively encouraging.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even if you plan to then support some the incumbent, the idea of a primary challenge is one that I think we should be more open and receptive to.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think they make candidates elected officials better.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I live in Norfolk, Virginia, and right next uh door to us, our that congressional district is uh congressional district two.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was speaking with a couple of the candidates, and they were saying that, you know, it's uh district two is currently held by a Republican, but it is a vulnerable seat.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of flips back and forth between Democrats and Republicans.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they were uh the candidate was talking about probably needing around, I think it was like$50 million for the for the campaign uh or just for the general election um to to raise.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that is just one sliver of Virginia.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not even statewide.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: So A, did you have any idea how much money it was going to cost you in order to have a um a primary?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: And B, can we please get money out of politics?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what number did they say?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: You said 50?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it was 50.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of numbers get thrown around, and the number the the real number changes um race to race, cycle to cycle, market to market.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the amount that it would cost to run a primary in Albany versus the amount that it would cost to run a primary in Springfield, Massachusetts, should be the same because those are really overlapping media markets.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, most of the radio markets treat it the same, a lot of the TV markets treat it the same.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but Springfield, Massachusetts is covered by Richie Neal, who is um the leading Democrat on ways and means.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: He had he came into this cycle with three or four million dollars in the bank, and he brings in a lot each quarter on top of that.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he's one of the leading uh recipients of corporate money in all of Congress.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: So even though it's basically the same media market, basically the same everything, um running in Springfield is going to be way more expensive than running in Albany, even though they should be identical.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's not every race is going to be different based on who's in it, how much money, etc.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I didn't know what to do coming in just because I'm the kind of person who does that kind of research before.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it is real bad.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um it is really touching that to stay with that free old example.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: You cannot drive through that.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you go to an event, you will see his booth.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: He I I his uh team, it's incredible.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: I had some computer.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Computer coders build a really good system at helping me find advances.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't need to get rid of it.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he's got people at every event you can imagine.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: He has just this incredible, incredible to field team.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremy and his team are everywhere.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there is such enthusiasm and energy around that campaign.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: But Richie Neal has 20 times more money than him.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't it enough?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea that this race might be decided by the I don't even know if they have printed Richie Dealer sounds too.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: I know when to ask being for him.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um this race might be decided by that massive influx of corporate money.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of one of the most impressive grassroots campaigns this cycle that absolutely deserves to be getting national attention, and it is a shame that it isn't.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is the most interesting.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I I'm sorry, I haven't finished this thought yet.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: I swear.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: I spent a year traveling this entire state.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: I did 235 in-person events.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: The most interesting story in Massachusetts politics right now is not our Senate race.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: It is the first congressional district race for Congress, where you have the classic establishment big money figure versus the classic grassroots-powered and local energy.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: All of the indivisibles and local groups are endorsing him.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: And will it be enough?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Can the little guy defeat the big money?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is by far the most interesting thing happening in Massachusetts politics right now.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it absolutely deserves to be getting more attention than it is.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: So to get back to your question, yes, we have to get money out of politics.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: We have to get money out of politics.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is perverting so many of our policies.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is perverting so much of our governing structure.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: It is perverting so many of these problems that we don't even think of as campaign finance problems are campaign finance problems.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of the classic examples that I like to give on the campaign trail is we don't usually think of housing as a campaign finance problem.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the few problems we actually typically think of as like really probably distinct.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: But no, even that is a campaign finance problem.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Several years ago, you had a bipartisan uh bill that was working its way through Congress to regulate short-term rental rentals, Airbnb, VRBO, etc.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Had Republican and Democratic co-sponsors.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it died in committee the same year that Airbnb increased its political giving tenfold.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: That just doesn't seem like a coincidence to me.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it seemed like a coincidence to Airbnb.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: These companies are buying influence.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Another great example is is gun policy.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: Look, it's not just the left that wants universal background checks.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just the left that wants to close the gun show loophole.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Look, there are other gun policy regulations that are more controversial.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: But some of the top levels in the thing some of the top-level gun rights bills are broadly popular, you know, between 70 higher person across the country.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, depending on the bill you're looking at and depending on when you're asking, but that's so why are Republicans ignoring more than half their base?
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because their campaigns need gun money to continue, it depends on it.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: The Republican Party needs gun lobby money to function, and they need gun lobby energy as you know, grassroots level volunteers, etc.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that is more than actually appealing to the interests of the majority often.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or if not the majority, then a sizable chunk of their voters.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um money in politics is at the root of so many of the problems that we know how to solve, but aren't making progress on it.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: So part of the challenge with that is that uh the Supreme Court in 2008 came out with Citizens United and it equated money with speech.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: And right now I think that we are seeing uh the the extreme end, and I mean very quickly, unfortunately, of what happens there.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you were saying that Republicans need the uh, you know, gun lobby, uh, the gun lobby's like money and uh energy and stuff.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: The Democratic establishment needs corporate money to fight the Republicans because of how much corporate because of how much corporate money that they get.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it kind of comes into this like just arms race, but a money race where the the only people that are losing are you and me and uh you know and and everyone in the middle, while the people with the most money get the most power and the most say.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, asterisk, you know there it is really hard to win a primary when your opponent has more money than you.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um the data is bad.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 90% win rate for the candidate with more money, something like that.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um but a lot of the a lot of that data is races where it's candidates with you know two million versus candidates with 10,000.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: There isn't as good data on candidates, or or at least I haven't had access and time to play with it on races closer.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: But we have seen people like James Tal Rico raise millions and millions of dollars without corporate pack money.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, not everyone's gonna be able to do that.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we have seen people achieve fundraising success without corporate pack money.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I don't know that we have to accept the we need corporate pack money to to to fight back.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um but if anyone wants to make that argument, I if anyone wants to make the we need corporate argument money to fight back argument, show me that it's good faith.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm waiting for someone to say we need corporate pack money to fight back, and so I am accepting corporate pack money, but here's all of the times I voted against these corporations who donated to my campaign.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: But they just could maybe convince me to to to overlook it for a candidate, but I haven't seen it yet.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um we haven't we haven't seen any of the need conduction tackles on it.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing, man.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: Corporations uh they they tend to like look at uh not just like giving away money out of the kindness of their hearts, they're thinking about it as an investment.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so if they put money in and then that uh that candidate actually votes against something that's in their interest, they're probably not gonna be giving that candidate any more money afterwards.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's why it seems to seem to me we've identified a problem.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um seems to me we've identified a problem.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: I you know it's I I think that we have seen that there is an appetite for candidates with ballot use, candidates with who will say, I am going to pull this line, and I am going to not accept corporate money, and I'm going to, you know, work to try and change these systems.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there is an appetite for that.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: And not all of those candidates are breaking through.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Not not certainly not as many as I would hope, but some of them are.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um is good and it is working.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and look, there are some sitting elected officials, again, not many, but there are some who took corporate mac money earlier in the curve their career and don't anymore.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think the more we keep pushing on that, the more we'll get people moving in that direction.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'll accept that.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like we need allies.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: We we we're we're we're fighting to win.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're not fighting to win a purity tax, we're fighting to make change.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: If if you've been in Congress and you're willing to make some changes and start voting better and start acting better, great.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I don't I don't think the reality is I don't think that this is an area where compromise is gonna work.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but I mean you also you hit on a core thing, you hit on the Supreme Court.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: All of this comes back to the Supreme Court.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: And as much as I just, you know, advocated for a little bit of leniency with with what how we look at people and and are willing to try to accept new allies, there is no room for Democrats who don't understand the crisis of the court right now.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_03: We have to be that straightforward about it.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you cannot get behind expanding the court, you are not worthy of my time, my money, I vote.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: I will vote for you over a Republican if that is my choice.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: I am not spending any time or energy donating to you or supporting you.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing is achievable without the court right now.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: Our situation with campaign finance is as bad as it is because of Citizens United.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Our voting rights system is as bad as it is because of the Calais ruling and the and the rulings before that, that they did gutting voting rights.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: Women's health is getting worse and worse because of Dobbs and the rulings before that.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: They have said that they are that there are members of the court who have openly said that they are open to reconsidering interracial marriage, that they are open to reconsidering uh gay marriage.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like these are extremists who are making decisions not based on law, not based on precedent, not based on history, but based on their own ideological means.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they will not bat an eye at overturning every single democratic policy initiative that we pass.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we cannot commit to expanding the court, then every policy goal that we pass is not worth the paper we wrote it on.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is expand the court or nothing.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's that's it.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: I 1000% agree.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I will uh yes and you and go one step further with a lot of the uh a lot of the gun issues right now is going back to 2008, DC v uh v Heller, which is the first time that the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment gave an individual the right to bear arms.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, court precedent was very freaking clear.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because that for a well-regulated militia part, it routinely upheld uh gun control laws.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not until Johnny Reb and the funky bunch came in and was like, hey, let's uh just reinterpret everything here.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean what's the again, because I can't think of anything during this conversation.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: Real shit.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the the ruling that now we have need to have some weird historical precedent.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: If we're gonna regulate, if we're gonna regulate uh an assault weapon, we need to find some contingency from 1720 that they were regulating assault weapons in in villages, and it this it's absolute nonsense.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they make it up as they go.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is they're they're just if a candidate can't see that, they how they're telling you that they're not reading the room, they're telling you that they don't understand the terrain that of legislation.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: They're telling you that they don't understand what's needed to pass legislation that will survive.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: How can you write legislation that will be effective if you don't understand that the court is likely to invalidate it?
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: We just had four members of the court look at the 14th Amendment and say, nah.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean they're like original or like textless or whatever.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I it makes no sense.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so you know, please I I I make one ask to everyone listening this do not vote for anyone who will not expand the court.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do not donate to anyone who will not expand the court.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, don't do it.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I 100% concur with that.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is a uh that that is an act out suggestion there.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh do not support any candidate that will not increase the number of justices on the court.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's uh it's a constitutional crisis that we're at right now, and the only way to set it all, or you know, to set it, make it right, is by expanding the court.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not it's just it's the only way, you know.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I to to to refute some of the arguments that sometimes people make.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes people say, like, well, where you know, what if they retaliate?
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, I don't know what's gonna happen in 2033 or in 2037.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know what's happening right now.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: And right now, we have six extremists who have shown us with their actions that they will rule against their own decisions from three years ago because of the presidency change.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: The situation we are in right now needs to be addressed.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: And fear that something might change a little bit down the line five, seven years from now is not a good reason to hamstring ourselves today when we know we are in a crisis right now.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing is we can reform the court in a all-expansive way that tries to minimize the likelihood that retaliate uh that tries to minimize the likelihood of retaliation.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just planning on expanding the court, we're also planning on incorporating term limits.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're also planning on incorporating a fixed appointment schedule, and when we're also planning on incorporating an enforceable code of ethics.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when you tie all of these court reforms together, you make it much harder to say this is a politically motivated response.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: You make it much clearer that this is a reaction to a lawless out-of-control court that is going on vacations with billionaires.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: You it the the it's much easier to say that this is a reaction to an out-of-control body.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: And also you make it politically harder for retaliation in the future.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the last point is by going to 13 judges specifically, you also make it harder to go to expand in the future because there is historical precedent for tying the number of judges to the number of districts.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we go to 13 and tie the judges back to the districts, then again, we've added another obstacle to future expansion because we haven't just pulled the number out of the hat.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have said, here's a number, here's why there's a number, here's how we've done it.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we can do this in a way where yes, we are also achieving political aims, but we are protecting and legitimate legitimizing the body of the court in the process.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I do agree with you.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: Clarence Thomas is the best justice money can buy.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: Expensive though, actually.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I feel like uh Leto seems to be much cheaper.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: Alex man, I have had so much fun this conversation.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: I could talk to you for hours, dude.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's been great talking to you.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of jealous of your background.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is did you paint that or is that a like cheap?
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, uh our our former neighbor, uh, we used to live in an apartment uh across the hall.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh our neighbor was a uh like a just graduated from uh ODU, old Dominion, and she is a nuclear engineer and a really badass artist, too.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like like I don't know the the way that her brains work is just crazy to me, but like she uh she painted this for us like um it's probably 11 by seven feet, something like that.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cool, and uh painted all all of it for us like in a uh in a weekend, man.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was so cool.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's nice.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um so where can folks find if they want to find out more about Alex?
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, blue ski blue sky, I I was called blue ski in my head.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh blue sky at Ricklean, whatever, um and Instagram at Ricklean Alex.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I since my campaign has ended, I have a regular newsletter now uh writing about the court, writing about Massachusetts politics, writing about sort of whatever suits my fancy.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the part that matters, I link to it often.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um subscribe, uh, you know, become a paid subscriber to support the work if you can.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: But either way, just subscribe to get those in your inbox roughly once or twice a week.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Alex, you can find those on my socials on my website anyway.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if you don't mind, send me a link.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what we can do is put the link in the uh show notes and that way uh people can just like look uh just kind of look down and uh and click on it, but make it as easy as possible for them.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, easy.
• 1:07:00
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Alex, man, I appreciate it, but thanks for acting out with me.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.