Latest / Politix / F*ck Gerry

Transcript

F*ck Gerry · Politix

0:00
Hey everyone,
0:00
you're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Late last week,
0:30
the six Republican Supreme Court justices gutted all that was
0:33
left of the Voting
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Rights Act,
0:35
SPEAKER_00: which for all practical purposes is now a dead letter.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: The congressional map is thus changing pretty fast,
0:43
and Democrats must now prepare to extend their tit-for-tat
0:46
gerrymandering strategy
0:48
SPEAKER_00: for another two years.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Plus,
0:50
their ability to fix all this years down the line may turn on
0:54
how well they do this
0:55
SPEAKER_00: cycle in Senate elections,
0:57
SPEAKER_00: where the outlook is hazy and the news is mixed.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: So we'll put the pieces of this puzzle together for you in this episode.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: If you want to listen to the whole thing,
1:05
SPEAKER_00: you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Boitler.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: So as of last week's episode,
1:21
Democrats were seemingly winning the gerrymandering arms race
1:25
that Donald Trump
1:26
SPEAKER_00: kicked off last year in Texas.
1:29
their referendum to redraw the congressional map in Virginia
1:32
had succeeded and
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Republicans didn't have a ton of terrain left to redraw at least with not
1:39
accidentally creating gerrymanders that might backfire in a
1:43
wave election but since
1:46
then the Virginia map is currently stuck in the Republican
1:50
leaning state Supreme
1:51
Court there and meanwhile Sam Alito and the five other
1:55
Republican justices
1:57
SPEAKER_00: dealt what's essentially a death blow to the Voting Rights Act.
2:01
And Republicans in Florida and elsewhere in the South snapped
2:04
into action to redraw
2:06
SPEAKER_00: their maps,
2:06
SPEAKER_00: including in Louisiana,
2:08
SPEAKER_00: where primary elections had already begun,
2:11
SPEAKER_00: where votes had already been cast.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: So it's a big mess.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think the good,
2:16
SPEAKER_00: I want to test you out on this,
2:17
SPEAKER_00: but like,
2:17
I think the good news is that the situation in 2026 for the
2:21
House is basically
2:23
SPEAKER_00: cooked,
2:24
SPEAKER_00: knock on wood.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Like we aren't talking about swings
2:27
SPEAKER_00: that are large enough to overcome a big wave.
2:31
And Donald Trump seems like he's doing everything in his power
2:34
to make sure the
2:35
SPEAKER_00: wave gets bigger and bigger every week.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: But I do have my eye on the Virginia situation.
2:40
And I do think this raises some questions about various aspects
2:44
of how Democrats
2:45
SPEAKER_00: have responded to the Republican escalatory cycle of doing mid-decade
2:52
SPEAKER_00: gerrymandering.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: So that's where I am on that.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Well,
2:55
SPEAKER_00: so first,
2:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
2:56
SPEAKER_01: I think we should be precise about,
2:57
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:58
SPEAKER_01: the implications of this Voting Rights Act thing,
3:00
SPEAKER_01: because I've seen some takes on this on Blue Sky that,
3:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:08
SPEAKER_01: verge on the hysterical.
3:11
And,
3:11
you know,
3:12
the basic issue here is that the Voting Rights Act sort of
3:16
mandate to create...
3:20
SPEAKER_01: We sort of conventionally call them majority-minority districts,
3:22
SPEAKER_01: but that's not the technical legal status.
3:26
But the Voting Rights Act had required the protection of
3:32
minority voting interests in map draw.
3:36
And so this was obviously not the situation when the Voting
3:41
Rights Act originally
3:42
SPEAKER_01: passed,
3:43
SPEAKER_01: but in the modern day South,
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Particularly the Deep South.
3:48
It's like Democrats get almost 100% of the Black vote and
3:52
almost 0% of the White vote.
3:55
So there's no real distinction between just drawing out
3:59
Democrats and drawing out
4:00
SPEAKER_01: African American voters.
4:02
So the VRA had put a floor on how much gerrymandering Southern
4:08
Republicans could do.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: So you wind up with...
4:13
SPEAKER_01: two Black districts in Louisiana,
4:16
SPEAKER_01: I think one in Alabama,
4:17
SPEAKER_01: several in Georgia,
4:19
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
4:19
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
4:21
So the Voting Rights Act going away lets them gerrymander much
4:24
more aggressively.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Now,
4:27
SPEAKER_01: in the North,
4:28
SPEAKER_01: though,
4:28
SPEAKER_01: you have a equal but opposite kind of issue,
4:32
SPEAKER_01: which is that the way to maximally gerrymander blue states,
4:37
SPEAKER_01: particularly the states of Illinois and New York,
4:40
SPEAKER_01: is to somewhat dilute
4:42
SPEAKER_01: like distinctively African-American voting power, right?
4:47
And just sort of like use black neighborhoods as generic,
4:52
you know,
4:52
like D vote six,
4:53
right?
4:54
And create districts that are majority democratic,
4:57
but also majority white.
5:00
Can I break in with a way that I think that like in like more
5:05
common parlance
5:06
people can understand this is that in the South the absence of
5:10
Voting Rights Act
5:11
SPEAKER_00: protections for African Americans means that
5:15
The African American candidates who win primary elections in
5:19
the Democratic Party
5:20
SPEAKER_00: have basically no chance to win the seat in Congress.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: And so you can wipe out black representation of the South that way.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: In the North,
5:28
the situation is the elimination of Voting Rights Act
5:31
protections creates the
5:33
possibility of primary elections within the Democratic Party
5:37
where a black or a
5:38
SPEAKER_00: white or a different race candidate could win.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: And so it reduces the odds that the eventual winner of that seat
5:45
SPEAKER_00: will be a black Democrat as opposed to a white Democrat.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: And in particular,
5:49
it reduces the odds that the eventual winner of that seat will
5:52
be the specific
5:54
SPEAKER_01: black Democrat that currently holds it,
5:56
SPEAKER_01: right?
5:56
SPEAKER_01: So,
5:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:57
like I've toyed around with drawing like a 25-2 map of New York
6:02
State or whatever
6:03
SPEAKER_01: it is.
6:05
I feel confident that like several African-Americans would win
6:10
House primaries and win that.
6:12
SPEAKER_01: I cannot guarantee you that like Hakeem Jeffries
6:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, under those particular circumstances, right?
6:20
SPEAKER_01: Because it's just, it's a different map, right?
6:22
SPEAKER_01: And so that has traditionally been a concern.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, and even in California, it wasn't like per se a racial issue.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: You get sort of similar sensitivities around this.
6:31
So,
6:32
you know,
6:32
Democrats can retaliate to Southern gerrymanders by more
6:38
aggressively remapping.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: You can get one seat out of Maryland.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: You
6:43
SPEAKER_01: could get several seats out of New York and Illinois, maybe Michigan.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: There's other possibilities on the map,
6:51
but it would be disruptive to the internal racial and ethnic
6:55
politics of the
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Democratic Party.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: In Maryland,
6:59
SPEAKER_01: for example,
7:01
SPEAKER_01: the state Senate was reluctant to redraw their map,
7:05
SPEAKER_01: ostensibly on good government grounds,
7:07
SPEAKER_01: but I don't actually think that that's the
7:11
SPEAKER_01: It's not even that the incumbents didn't want it.
7:14
It's like some of the people in the state legislature looking
7:17
to move up really
7:19
SPEAKER_01: wanted there to be a Baltimore seat.
7:23
Which if you think about Baltimore,
7:26
you're wasting votes to create a Baltimore seat.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: The way they are going to
7:33
SPEAKER_01: You know,
7:33
SPEAKER_01: gerrymandered Louisiana is to just,
7:35
SPEAKER_01: like,
7:36
SPEAKER_01: pack,
7:37
SPEAKER_01: like,
7:37
central New Orleans gets one Democratic seat and the whole of
7:40
the state is
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Republicans.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: No, they're taking it away.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, right.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: They're getting rid of the New Orleans seat.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: New Orleans is going to be represented by Republicans.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: Sure, yes, that is correct.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Right, yes.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: They're going to crack New Orleans.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Anyways, you know, this will be a...
7:58
I would say Democrats are fortunate to have as their leader and
8:03
probably the first
8:05
African American House Speaker who will have a stronger hand in
8:10
making the case to
8:11
some of his colleagues in Illinois and New York that Democrats
8:14
need to take the
8:15
SPEAKER_01: retaliatory steps here that are necessary to sort of maintain parity.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: So I am a little, like, less worried about this as a partisan play.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: It will not save the House for Republicans in 2026.
8:32
Democrats will not be able to respond in kind by 2026 for
8:37
various scheduling
8:38
SPEAKER_01: reasons,
8:38
SPEAKER_01: but do have ample opportunity to do so by 28.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: It's, like, quite bad for the country, though.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to be earnest for a moment.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Like, there are a lot of Democrats...
8:50
SPEAKER_01: who live in the Deep South.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of Republicans who live in California.
8:55
And like those people should have representation in Congress
8:58
because this tit for
8:59
tat gerrymandering does encourage the kind of like Trumpian
9:04
politics of I only
9:06
SPEAKER_01: deliver disaster relief to states that voted for me.
9:09
A check on that impulse is supposed to be that there are
9:14
California Republicans in
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Congress who are like,
9:16
SPEAKER_01: hey man,
9:17
SPEAKER_01: don't let my house burn down.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: And similarly, Democrats, you always get into something of like,
9:24
Why do we have all these welfare programs funneling money to
9:27
these southern states
9:28
SPEAKER_01: that don't vote for us?
9:29
And the reason is that there's a huge low-income
9:32
African-American population in the
9:34
SPEAKER_01: South,
9:34
SPEAKER_01: and guys like Jim Clyburn and other representatives from those places are
9:40
SPEAKER_01: spokespeople for those people.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: And so just like
9:43
re-gerrymandering everything in the end is better than
9:48
unilateral disarmament,
9:50
but is like much worse than the prior status quo and even more
9:55
worse than like a
9:56
SPEAKER_01: proper national solution.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
9:59
SPEAKER_00: well,
9:59
SPEAKER_00: and I mean,
9:59
there's going to be maybe one or two black representatives from
10:05
the South when this
10:06
SPEAKER_00: is all over,
10:07
SPEAKER_00: maybe none,
10:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
10:08
SPEAKER_00: it's like very dire.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: And so just on a raw, like, where are we?
10:14
SPEAKER_00: in race politics in America in 2026.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Like this is a step way, way, way back.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Like many things about the culture have changed.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Society is more integrated.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: The culture is much more influenced.
10:25
The broad culture is much more African American influenced than
10:28
it was where like,
10:30
SPEAKER_00: you know,
10:30
SPEAKER_00: 50 or 60 years ago,
10:31
SPEAKER_00: I feel like cultural spaces were more balkanized,
10:35
SPEAKER_00: right?
10:36
And a lot of that would be much harder for Republicans or white
10:39
supremacists or
10:39
SPEAKER_00: whatever to unwind than political maps.
10:42
But eliminating Black Southern political representation in
10:46
Congress is a big,
10:47
big,
10:47
big deal.
10:48
And I do want to talk in a minute about how the collective
10:55
liberal left should
10:57
SPEAKER_00: respond to this as a matter of race politics,
11:00
SPEAKER_00: where I think,
11:01
SPEAKER_00: especially in recent years,
11:03
SPEAKER_00: in the post-Jewish Floyd years,
11:05
People have grown a bit squeamish about engaging frontally on
11:08
race politics.
11:09
But I want to say about the Democrats in Maryland or Illinois
11:14
who were reluctant to
11:16
redraw their maps in this gerrymandering fight because of these
11:19
VRA-like districts,
11:22
I hope and expect that watching a couple dozen of their
11:28
colleagues get bum-rushed
11:30
SPEAKER_00: out of Congress will make them realize that they need to
11:34
SPEAKER_00: They need to let go a little bit.
11:36
And I think having Hakeem Jeffries and also Barack Obama and
11:39
Eric Holder making the
11:40
SPEAKER_00: case to them in this context will maybe shake things loose a little.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: In their minds,
11:50
I think the ordinal preference would be there's VRA districts
11:56
in every part of the
11:58
SPEAKER_00: country,
11:58
SPEAKER_00: including here in the North and also in the South,
12:00
SPEAKER_00: and we don't want to give up ours as long as they exist.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: in the South.
12:05
The worst case scenario is the one you pointed to where Black
12:09
Democrats get wiped
12:10
SPEAKER_00: out in the South and there's no retaliation in the North.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: And so I'd like to think that they will see it the same way.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: But my point about all of this is that they,
12:21
SPEAKER_00: and even Gavin Newsom,
12:22
who gets a lot of deserved credit for how he went about
12:28
redrawing the maps in
12:29
SPEAKER_00: California,
12:31
SPEAKER_00: I feel like should have been able to see this coming.
12:32
Like it wasn't perfectly anticipable,
12:36
but it was quite anticipatable,
12:38
right?
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And there's like a family resemblance between these two responses to what
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Republicans have been doing.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: And it's to basically not maximize like immediate advantages,
12:56
SPEAKER_00: to hold to some kind of alternative principle,
12:59
SPEAKER_00: right?
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And so like
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Newsom was like,
13:04
I'm only going to gerrymander in exact proportion to what they
13:07
do in Texas to just
13:08
SPEAKER_00: cancel out what's happening in Texas,
13:10
and I'm going to make it temporary to reaffirm the Democratic
13:13
Party's commitment to
13:14
SPEAKER_00: true democracy,
13:16
SPEAKER_00: and we're going to try to get us back to evenly drawn maps,
13:20
SPEAKER_00: some kind of fair gerrymandering process,
13:22
SPEAKER_00: whatever you want to call it.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: And...
13:27
What he should have done is what we also think the black
13:29
Democrats in Chicago and
13:31
SPEAKER_00: in Maryland and elsewhere should have been willing to do,
13:34
SPEAKER_00: which is to just say,
13:35
SPEAKER_00: oh,
13:35
SPEAKER_00: like this is a provocation.
13:37
We are going to overwhelm you with our response as like an
13:41
understanding that
13:41
that's the only way we're ever going to get you guys in the
13:44
Republican Party to
13:45
have like an actual good faith debate over what the future of
13:50
district drawing in
13:51
SPEAKER_00: the United States should be.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: And so like kind of once again,
13:57
We're at the tail end of one of these procedural fights and
14:02
Republicans have shown
14:03
SPEAKER_00: that they will push farther than Democrats.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Democrats have come a long way,
14:08
but I do think in hindsight we see that they kind of played
14:15
themselves again.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: In ways where we were kind of okay with it at the outset,
14:20
SPEAKER_00: it's like at least they're retaliating.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: But I think that they got the game theory a little shy of the mark.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't think you're,
14:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
14:29
I don't think that you're giving due deference to the objective
14:36
problem here,
14:37
SPEAKER_01: which was that Gavin Newsom had to win a ballot initiative.
14:42
You know,
14:43
and when it was being first rolled out,
14:45
the polling on it was really weak.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: And then they ended up running
14:51
You know,
14:51
a strong campaign behind it and the national political climate
14:54
got more favorable.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: And so it came through quite cleanly.
14:58
And then you might think,
14:59
well,
15:00
knowing what we know now,
15:01
I wish it had been more aggressive.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand- That's mostly what I'm saying.
15:05
Right,
15:05
but on the other hand- I think what we know now was fairly easy
15:08
to anticipate as well.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
15:09
But like,
15:09
I don't think that like the evolution of like the national
15:14
political climate was that.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: And just for example, in Virginia, right?
15:20
which is not as blue a state as California where they also had
15:23
to do a referendum
15:25
the governor of Virginia and her allies in the state
15:28
legislature mishandled a like
15:31
totally unrelated topic and her numbers you know started going
15:38
down over the course
15:40
of this referendum campaign and it wound up only barely passing
15:45
and you know like
15:47
SPEAKER_01: It's good that it passed.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Getting it over the top was really, really important.
15:52
I think you can always come back for other bites at the apple
15:55
on these kind of things.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: I think the key point is that New York and Illinois are more...
16:02
SPEAKER_01: Constrained by their own sort of internal political functions,
16:07
SPEAKER_01: but do not have these ballot initiative constraints on themselves.
16:11
So if the elite political actors in those states decide they
16:16
want to do redrawing,
16:18
SPEAKER_01: like nothing is stopping them from doing it like the Beutler way.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Because what's holding them back is their own intra-elite politicking,
16:27
SPEAKER_01: not public opinion and things like that.
16:29
So they should just try to resolve it in the correct way and
16:32
sort of go forward.
16:34
I think the bigger pill here,
16:37
though,
16:37
is that if Democrats want to win this fight—
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Democrats,
16:44
SPEAKER_01: a strong talking point that I have delivered on the internet,
16:48
SPEAKER_01: on X,
16:50
SPEAKER_01: formerly known as Twitter,
16:51
SPEAKER_01: and various other forums,
16:53
SPEAKER_01: is that Democrats did propose national anti-gerrymandering legislation.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: They brought it forward in the legal case,
17:01
but they had national anti-gerrymandering provisions in 2021
17:06
that Republicans could
17:07
have signed on to or tried to modify in some specific way if
17:11
they had specific
17:11
SPEAKER_01: concerns.
17:13
What is true though is that Democrats never advanced that as a
17:17
standalone measure.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: It was lumped into a really big legislative package that included,
17:24
SPEAKER_01: I would say,
17:26
provisions of mixed merits on the substance and very mixed
17:30
merits in terms of the
17:31
SPEAKER_01: public opinion on them.
17:33
And I strongly feel that like Democrats should be prepared in
17:37
20,
17:37
what year is this now?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: 2026.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: In 2027 and 2028,
17:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:43
to advance like messaging bills just on gerrymandering and to
17:49
then like if they win
17:50
power to like move forward with standalone anti-gerrymandering
17:55
legislation that is
17:56
SPEAKER_01: divorced from
17:58
both their set of voter ID concerns and also from their set of
18:02
campaign finance concerns.
18:04
Because we see when it's raised concretely that gerrymandering
18:10
is very potent.
18:11
It makes a big difference to house outcomes and is really worth
18:15
addressing on its own merits.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, thinking way ahead to like 2029, obviously I think in 2027,
18:24
SPEAKER_00: with a whip hand that said,
18:26
SPEAKER_00: look,
18:26
SPEAKER_00: we could probably do this in Wisconsin if the election goes well.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: The upper Midwest, there's seats there, there's seats in New York.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: We could probably beat you at this.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: But in maybe a modal scenario,
18:40
SPEAKER_00: we're going to come out in a wash,
18:42
SPEAKER_00: but you're going to be a Southern party with very white representation.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: You're going to undo whatever
18:51
SPEAKER_00: like inroads you made with minorities under Trump.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: We're going to lock you out in the North.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And so it's sort of like a map level kind of civil war,
19:04
SPEAKER_00: like a civil cold war or something like that.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's bad.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And the people who lose their seats don't like it.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And the people who get to keep their seats,
19:12
but suddenly they have much different districts and they're not
19:16
really set up to
19:17
SPEAKER_00: represent this new constituency.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: They don't want it.
19:20
And so yes,
19:23
on the off chance that Republicans decide in 2027,
19:27
we can reach a detente here.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wins and nobody loses.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: We just agree to do this more fairly.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: I agree they should do it.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: I think a more likely scenario is that that'll never happen under Trump.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: He's lost the Iran war.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: He can't admit it.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: He can't even deal with a...
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Like a fake thing where they pretend that the war was a tie.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And so we're just going to like,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: we're going to limp along with an energy crisis because of his ego.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think gerrymandering is going to be like roughly analogous to that.
20:00
It's like he's not going to be willing to give up the fight
20:03
until like he's out of office.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: So that brings us to 2029.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And like my view on it then is that if Democrats do have a trifecta
20:14
They should really try to fix as much as they can as quickly as
20:18
they can and that
20:19
will mean another like bundled up democracy reform bill and
20:23
like they should make a
20:25
good democracy reform bill and they should expect zero
20:28
Republicans to vote but if
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Republicans come to them then and say okay okay okay okay let's
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Let's just do the gerrymandering piece of this and we'll join you.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: But we don't want you to add DC and Puerto Rico estates.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: We don't want you to do this.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: We don't want you to do that.
20:42
So,
20:43
and I think if Democrats take them up on that offer,
20:45
then they're suckers,
20:46
right?
20:46
SPEAKER_00: And they should just,
20:49
SPEAKER_00: it will depend on what the politics of the moment are,
20:51
SPEAKER_00: but they should just say,
20:52
SPEAKER_00: sorry,
20:52
SPEAKER_00: you had your chance,
20:53
SPEAKER_00: right?
20:54
And,
20:54
like,
20:55
in a way,
20:56
I feel like that is the attitude that was not quite there with
20:59
Newsom.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm glad he did what he did.
21:01
And I'm kind of even glad that he helped the party preserve its
21:06
credibility around
21:07
SPEAKER_00: the question of what the principle is here,
21:09
SPEAKER_00: which is,
21:10
SPEAKER_00: like,
21:11
SPEAKER_00: we should all be playing by the same set of rules.
21:13
And if you're going to break them,
21:14
we're only going to break them as much as you did.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: Our interest is not in continuing to do this.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: If you weren't doing it, we wouldn't be doing it.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's a nice...
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think Newsom, instead of thinking that way,
21:50
did the reasoning about what's the most high-minded way to
21:54
respond to this that is
21:55
SPEAKER_00: still strong.
21:56
And so he came up with this complicated thing,
21:58
which is only as many seats as they do in Texas.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And also it'll be temporary.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And then he made that the referendum.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And like, I don't know why he couldn't have been just vaguer about it.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Like they did a thing in Texas.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: We are going to redraw our maps.
22:12
And so there's going to like- I mean,
22:14
listen,
22:15
I cannot know for sure,
22:17
but like-
22:17
My understanding of this is that there were some various
22:21
internal sensitivities
22:23
among the California Democratic incumbents and that one of the
22:27
constraints here was
22:28
that they needed a new map that all of the incumbents would say
22:31
was good because it
22:33
SPEAKER_01: would make it harder to win the referendum.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: This is the problem, right?
22:37
SPEAKER_00: This is the asymmetry.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Sure, but I'm just trying to suggest that sometimes in life,
22:46
It's great to have a master theory of the universe in which
22:51
every problem just
22:52
SPEAKER_01: reduces to Democrats not being hardcore enough.
22:55
But I'm just trying to say that sometimes there are other
22:59
things that are in play.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm aware.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: But look,
23:03
I think that what Jeff Landry is doing in Louisiana and what
23:06
Ron DeSantis did in
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Florida,
23:08
SPEAKER_00: they're doing those things because it's almost unstrategic of them.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: They want Donald Trump to like them,
23:17
SPEAKER_00: and so they're doing the thing that he wants,
23:18
SPEAKER_00: even though in Florida especially it might backfire.
23:22
But that means that he didn't go quiz Florida Republicans for
23:28
what will make you
23:29
SPEAKER_00: all say that this is good.
23:30
Republicans have stronger,
23:32
more centralized leadership under Donald Trump.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: And this has pros and cons.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: It has ups and downs.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: One thing that I want every single person...
23:43
SPEAKER_01: who is progressive to understand about this though, right?
23:48
SPEAKER_01: Is that like the strong centralized leadership is a two-way street.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: You know,
23:53
like all these times when you kind of feel like maybe Schumer
23:57
and Jeffries want to
23:58
SPEAKER_01: take a dive on something,
24:00
but then like they know the caucus won't stand for it because
24:03
the grassroots,
24:03
SPEAKER_01: right?
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Like in like a Trumpy party, right?
24:06
SPEAKER_01: The way that goes, Trump is like, we're not banning abortion.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: And it's done.
24:13
Not only do they not ban abortion,
24:14
but everyone has to shut the fuck up about it.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Or you're dead in Republican politics.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: Is that actually the kind of political party that progressives want?
24:24
Because they will selectively want to have a kind of political
24:28
party like that.
24:29
But then they want to also whine constantly about the
24:32
substantive and tactical
24:33
SPEAKER_01: decision-making of the leaders themselves and
24:37
SPEAKER_01: I sure like net net would rather have a party in which
24:42
The Lake and Riley Act passes with Democratic votes and then
24:47
all the Lake and Riley
24:48
backing House over performers are applauded and celebrated and
24:52
they win all their
24:52
SPEAKER_01: primaries and so on and so forth.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: But you don't want that.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: It is what it is.
24:59
Democrats are a political party of whiners and squeaky wheels
25:05
and that has some
25:07
SPEAKER_01: upsides for progressive public policy in various ways.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: We have
25:11
SPEAKER_01: these constant rebellions and anti-establishment insurgencies.
25:16
But it also means that if Zoe Lofgren wants her district to be
25:20
a certain way,
25:21
that it doesn't blow up her political career to take that kind
25:26
of position.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Look,
25:27
I am happy to shift the locus of responsibility here down from
25:33
Newsom to Zoe
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Lofgren and other California Democrats.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Totally fine by me.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: What I want is for them in these partisan fights to have the same kind of
25:41
SPEAKER_00: mindset that the Republicans bring to it, right?
25:44
But with the high-minded goal of winning back power in 2029 and
25:51
structurally fixing
25:52
SPEAKER_00: some of these problems,
25:53
not the Republican goal of just winning power for all time and
25:56
then there's no more
25:57
SPEAKER_00: democracy anymore.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: What Zoe Lofgren did,
26:01
what the Democrats in Maryland and Illinois and maybe New York
26:05
are thinking about
26:06
SPEAKER_00: doing is maladapted to the moment.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: It's weird to
26:12
SPEAKER_00: In this moment for individual house members to be that,
26:17
SPEAKER_00: like to guard their pristine lines so jealously,
26:22
SPEAKER_00: like there's a bigger problem that we're all collectively dealing with.
26:26
And that tells me that there's like a miscalculation or a
26:30
values error happening in
26:33
SPEAKER_00: their brains about this specific thing.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: And like, I am happy that they've come as far as they have because
26:41
like they if you had asked me in February of 2025 hey there's
26:47
gonna be a big
26:48
SPEAKER_00: mid-decade redistricting fight next year do you think Democrats are gonna
26:52
gerrymander as aggressively as Republicans I would have said no
26:55
like I don't think
26:56
that and then they they they went tit for tat but what I what I
27:00
actually think the
27:01
situation calls for in just like a how do you actually defeat
27:05
Republicans is you
27:06
SPEAKER_00: have to make them regret the initial affront right like
27:12
you did what Trump demanded of you in Texas and now you regret
27:15
it and now you might
27:16
actually come to us to seek some sort of grand settlement and
27:20
like you know I don't
27:24
know how this kind of asymmetry nets out in other contexts
27:30
every single time but I
27:31
SPEAKER_00: do know that there's going to be midterm elections right and Trump
27:36
very openly is experimenting with a bunch of different ways of
27:42
rigging or tilting
27:43
SPEAKER_00: the playing field of or just outright cheating in those elections.
27:47
And Democrats,
27:48
to their credit,
27:49
are not treating this as like,
27:51
well,
27:52
let's see what he does.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: They are actually wargaming out how to respond to various provocations,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: various attempts,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: whatever.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's better than the alternative of doing
28:04
SPEAKER_00: of just hoping for the best, right?
28:06
SPEAKER_00: But what I think is that if Trump is saying,
28:11
SPEAKER_00: hey,
28:11
we might send ice to polling places and we might do this and we
28:14
might do that,
28:15
SPEAKER_00: is don't just war game what you'll do if those things happen,
28:18
SPEAKER_00: but try to come up with things that you can say and do now
28:22
That will deter him or make him realize that he's about to make
28:26
a big mistake.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: The answer,
28:27
SPEAKER_00: I think,
28:28
to the threat of ICE being at polling places isn't very fast
28:33
lawsuits on election
28:34
SPEAKER_00: day.
28:36
We are deploying state police to protect our state's voters
28:40
from the federal
28:40
government because we are not going to tolerate being
28:45
intimidated out of voting.
28:47
and like that is the proper posture like that that is the
28:50
posture I want the people
28:52
in the party whether it's at the very top like Jeffries and
28:55
Newsom or somewhere
28:57
closer to the middle like Zoloft and like that's like where I
29:01
think they should be
29:02
and they're moving in that direction but they're not there yet
29:05
and that's why I
29:06
feel like even though it's not the biggest deal in the world
29:08
for 2026 because like
29:11
SPEAKER_00: there aren't that many places left to gerrymander this cycle um
29:17
SPEAKER_00: like you can kind of see that they underplayed a very good hand.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: All right.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: You're talking about Georgia.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, Georgia's on my mind.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's I think it's I think like the relevant bridge here.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: Which is that Georgia's governor is a quite conservative Republican,
29:41
SPEAKER_01: but he is not a Trump toady.
29:44
And he has said that he will not be attempting to redraw the
29:48
Georgia House maps in
29:49
SPEAKER_01: advance of the midterms here.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: However, he will not be the governor anymore next year.
29:56
The governor will either be a different Republican who is
29:59
extremely likely to be a
30:00
SPEAKER_01: Trump toady because that's,
30:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:05
99% of Republicans these days and there's no particular reason
30:08
that you need to be
30:09
SPEAKER_01: like a super moderate Republican to win Georgia.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: Alternatively,
30:13
SPEAKER_01: the governor might be a Democrat because Georgia is a red state,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: but it is close enough,
30:21
SPEAKER_01: pink enough,
30:22
SPEAKER_01: that in this current national political climate,
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Democrats have very good baseline odds of winning.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
30:31
a Democratic governor of Georgia is not going to redraw the
30:34
maps to gerrymander out
30:36
SPEAKER_01: all the House Democrats.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: A Democratic governor of Georgia might even be able to
30:42
SPEAKER_01: after the 2030 census,
30:45
get the state legislative maps drawn in a more fair way and
30:49
build meaningful
30:50
SPEAKER_01: political power for Democrats in the state of Georgia.
30:55
We've mentioned several times that Democrats kind of had a
30:59
Peter Magyar-like option
31:01
SPEAKER_01: on the table here in Jeff Duncan,
31:04
SPEAKER_01: who currently seems to be
31:06
SPEAKER_01: mired in fourth place in a primary election.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: Keisha Lance Bottoms,
31:12
SPEAKER_01: the former mayor of Atlanta,
31:13
SPEAKER_01: recently received the Joe Biden endorsement,
31:16
SPEAKER_01: is at the top of the polls.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: And,
31:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:19
SPEAKER_01: like as far as I can tell,
31:22
like everybody who has thought about this for 10 minutes just
31:27
thinks a kind of like
31:29
Mid former mayor of Atlanta is who was a member of the Biden
31:34
administration is like
31:36
not that well situated to pick up the votes of suburban swing
31:39
voters all of the
31:42
other candidates in the race like one of them is like an older
31:44
black moderate from
31:47
the suburbs one of them is like a younger black moderate from
31:50
the suburbs and one
31:51
of them is like a white ex-Republican like that all just seems
31:56
like better options
31:57
SPEAKER_01: and yet
31:59
SPEAKER_01: To the extent that there's...
32:01
SPEAKER_01: It's like nobody's doing anything, right?
32:05
SPEAKER_01: In terms of what we were talking about before,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: is there strong leadership in the Democratic Party on any level?
32:13
SPEAKER_01: Nobody is...
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Herding cats,
32:15
SPEAKER_01: articulating to the voters that they should make a strategic choice here,
32:19
that they should do something other than defer to Lance
32:22
Bottoms' name recognition
32:24
SPEAKER_01: or Joe Biden's loyalty to people who served in his administration.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And it seems,
32:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:30
SPEAKER_01: like kind of bleak,
32:31
SPEAKER_01: not that it's inconceivable that Bottoms could win the race,
32:34
SPEAKER_01: just that it seems like she would be an underdog and other people,
32:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:39
SPEAKER_01: would be stronger.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: And that like the stakes are like,
32:42
SPEAKER_01: Quite high in this stuff.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Like it's a, it's a really, it's a big population state.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Like there's a lot of house seats.
32:49
I mean,
32:49
I mean,
32:50
for all my,
32:50
like,
32:50
I want the leadership to fight harder thing.
32:52
Like I,
32:52
I,
32:53
if I were a voter in Georgia,
32:55
I would probably vote for Duncan.
32:58
Probably if not Duncan,
32:59
one of the other two for this,
33:01
for all the reasons you articulated.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: And for the same reason,
33:04
SPEAKER_00: if I was a voter in Michigan,
33:05
SPEAKER_00: I would probably vote for Mallory McMorrow.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about the Senate in a. Yeah, we're going to.
33:12
I think it makes sense for Democrats to do win maximizing
33:18
decision making in these
33:19
primaries and that means honestly in the Senate context I think
33:25
whether one of the
33:28
two Michigan Senators is like a progressive or like a mainline
33:33
Democrat is going to
33:34
SPEAKER_00: make very little difference in the long run of things but but like
33:39
It would be nice to see like a little bit more of a like sort
33:49
of Biden 2020 like
33:50
situation where when it was clear it was going to be like
33:56
Bernie Sanders was
33:57
walking away with it and the establishment was super concerned
34:00
about that.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And so they,
34:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:02
SPEAKER_00: people dropped out,
34:03
SPEAKER_00: people rallied around Biden,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: they turned it around,
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Biden won the nomination.
34:07
Some kind of effort like that to steer voters towards a
34:13
consensus candidate who
34:15
people believe is the most electable would be a really great
34:18
thing in Georgia now.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Because it would suck.
34:24
You can see from the results in Hungary that sometimes an
34:30
entrenched,
34:31
corrupt party...
34:33
does become so entrenched and so corrupt that they lose the
34:36
support of the people
34:38
SPEAKER_00: who put them in power and the other coalition just kind of finally wins.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: But that took 16 years and it's like,
34:48
SPEAKER_00: here you might have a chance to short circuit that in Georgia,
34:51
SPEAKER_00: but it would take some real effort,
34:55
some people being willing to like grin and bear it or grimace
34:58
and vote for
35:00
in a primary for somebody who might not be their favorite
35:03
politician ideologically.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's just not happening.
35:05
It's like Warnock is not involved in this race and Ossoff is
35:10
not involved in this race.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: And so it's just probably going to come down to name ID.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand,
35:16
SPEAKER_00: as you say,
35:17
SPEAKER_00: like Lance Bottoms is like Georgia is not like the Deep South States.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Lance Bottoms is like a
35:29
what would be like a black candidate running in the aftermath
35:32
of this VRA decision
35:34
and it's unclear to me what the like how that shakes up but
35:40
like part of me thinks
35:41
that like for all the hesitation people in the Democratic Party
35:49
have shown in the
35:50
SPEAKER_00: last few years about making race politics highly salient the the
35:57
Elimination of the Voting Rights Act and the wiping out of
36:00
Black congressional
36:01
representation in the South seems like the kind of thing that
36:04
might turn that
36:07
SPEAKER_00: around,
36:08
SPEAKER_00: where it's such a big affront,
36:11
SPEAKER_00: and it's so clearly race-motivated,
36:13
SPEAKER_00: even though it's nominally not,
36:15
SPEAKER_00: that you could get extraordinary Black turnout.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: You could get people in...
36:23
the Atlanta suburbs very upset about what Republicans on the
36:27
Supreme Court and in
36:28
Georgia have done and intend to do that even like an underdog
36:33
candidate like Lance
36:34
SPEAKER_00: Bottoms might be surprised.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: I think we should take a break and then turn to the Senate primaries.
36:42
But I just want to say that what you're seeing in Georgia,
36:47
though,
36:48
is that the
36:50
SPEAKER_01: The absence of strong,
36:52
SPEAKER_01: centralized,
36:53
tactically oriented partisan leadership is generating the
36:59
outcome that progressives
37:01
SPEAKER_01: prefer,
37:03
which is to reject the ex-Republican and embrace the mainline
37:10
liberal Democrats.
37:14
I only know what the ranking of these candidates is,
37:16
but I don't know who Jeff Duncan's base is.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, it's like nobody.
37:24
But I mean,
37:26
I think when we go to the Senate,
37:27
we will see this in multiple other races.
37:30
Well,
37:31
before we take a break,
37:33
I just want to take your temperature on that.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Because this question about what the...
37:41
like what an optimal response to the VRA is in like in
37:45
rhetorical terms in talking
37:47
about what the Republican Party is up to what the Supreme Court
37:51
on their behalf has
37:52
done why it is like clearly aimed right at black Americans
37:59
black politicians black
38:01
constituents because like my I think that there's a pervasive
38:05
strategic sense that
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Democrats in general should like
38:09
reduce the salience of race in their political appeals and that
38:13
like there are
38:14
people who might think it's good to activate the black voting
38:17
base with overtly
38:19
racial appeals but if you get white people thinking defensively
38:23
in a very race
38:24
conscious manner there's just a lot of white people and so it
38:27
backfires and so it's
38:28
a bad idea in general and then I think there's also maybe like
38:32
a less widespread
38:33
SPEAKER_00: sense that the more like the modern objectives of
38:37
of civil rights activists are like bad and wrongheaded and
38:41
impracticable on top of
38:43
SPEAKER_00: being strategically ill-advised.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: And so that's been like,
38:47
SPEAKER_00: I think,
38:48
where Democrats writ large have been about race politics for
38:52
the last few years,
38:53
SPEAKER_00: at least,
38:53
SPEAKER_00: right?
38:55
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't agree with you at all.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: I wish that were true.
38:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's true at all.
38:59
I think that that view has zero purchase in the Democratic
39:02
Party and that they
39:03
SPEAKER_01: respond to things like this with
39:06
SPEAKER_00: Well,
39:06
SPEAKER_00: this is,
39:07
SPEAKER_00: but I'm saying that this is a,
39:09
SPEAKER_00: this is a,
39:10
SPEAKER_00: this is a,
39:11
SPEAKER_00: this is a,
39:12
SPEAKER_00: I think that this is like a categorically different situation.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: Like the,
39:17
and I'm wondering if your intuition tells you that they should
39:23
not respond to the
39:25
death of the Voting Rights Act and what will probably be the
39:28
eradication of Black
39:30
SPEAKER_00: Southern representation by trying to,
39:33
Recast it as a civil rights sort of almost like
39:36
anti-segregation politics where
39:38
SPEAKER_00: race is right on the surface of it.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: And we're- I think that Democrats default to that,
39:43
SPEAKER_01: do that all the time,
39:45
SPEAKER_01: constantly do that,
39:46
SPEAKER_01: are doing it already.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: And I would never,
39:48
SPEAKER_01: ever,
39:48
SPEAKER_01: ever,
39:48
SPEAKER_01: ever,
39:49
ever in a million years lend my voice to suggesting that
39:53
Democrats should increase
39:55
SPEAKER_01: the salience of racial conflict.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: Not even because I always think it's strategically wrong.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: I just-
40:01
I don't think it is conceivable that any Democrat anywhere
40:04
would ever under-index
40:06
SPEAKER_01: on hyping up racial conflict.
40:08
I think the whole party is insane on this topic,
40:11
and it's just to the moon.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: It's an out-of-control intellectual infrastructure.
40:21
The thing that is stopping Democrats from responding adequately
40:25
and kind is this
40:28
SPEAKER_01: insistence on northern majority-minority distancing practices.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: Like, we could just let that go, you know?
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Well,
40:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
40:37
SPEAKER_00: I think,
40:38
SPEAKER_00: yes,
40:38
SPEAKER_00: and that can be done just like people just agree to do it and it's done.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: Well,
40:44
SPEAKER_01: no,
40:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
40:44
SPEAKER_01: to an extent,
40:45
SPEAKER_01: you have to,
40:45
SPEAKER_01: like,
40:46
SPEAKER_01: consider how to talk people through their feelings about all of this.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we are in a world...
40:55
Districting provisions of the Voting Rights Act were written at
40:59
a very different
41:00
SPEAKER_01: time when the political parties were much less ideologically polarized,
41:04
when there were tons and tons and tons of conservative white
41:07
Southern Democrats,
41:09
and where there was a really real difference between the state
41:13
of Georgia drawing a
41:14
map that would zero out Black voting power and the Georgia
41:19
state legislature
41:20
SPEAKER_01: drawing a map that would zero out Democratic Party voting power.
41:24
Right and so like it's written and specified in like a very
41:27
particular way that was
41:29
responsive to the specific circumstances that existed in
41:32
American society at that
41:34
time and then I just like don't think you know apply today like
41:39
Tim Scott holds
41:41
SPEAKER_01: office in the south um
41:45
I wouldn't vote for him he's very conservative and I don't
41:49
agree with his political
41:50
opinions but like I think that that's the issue so you know I
41:54
don't know I mean you
41:56
know you want to rally the base in Georgia like sure you know
42:00
but I don't know I'm
42:02
just I'm out on this like as the Civil Rights Act was on the
42:08
verge of succeeding in
42:10
SPEAKER_00: the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act right like the the
42:15
SPEAKER_00: Race consciousness of the country moved with them, right?
42:17
SPEAKER_00: And Republicans were not anymore...
42:21
SPEAKER_00: They were already pretending, oh, this isn't about race.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: This isn't about race, right?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: This is about, you know, you can't jelly beans or whatever.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: And, like, it's a very similar situation.
42:35
Look,
42:35
if I'm trying to say to the median voter of Georgia who is a
42:39
white person,
42:40
right...
42:41
SPEAKER_01: You do not want to say to that guy,
42:43
SPEAKER_01: what Republicans are doing here is trying to help you,
42:46
SPEAKER_01: a white person,
42:47
SPEAKER_01: by advantaging white people like you.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: You want to say to them,
42:51
this is a naked power grab by these corrupt Republican leaders
42:56
who only care about
42:57
SPEAKER_01: themselves.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: They don't care about you.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: They don't care about your problems.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: They just want to line their pockets.
43:04
They want to do whatever is the Georgia equivalent of the
43:06
billion-dollar Trump ballroom.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
43:12
I think that these are like two great tastes that taste great
43:14
together because I
43:15
think that there are a lot of white voters in Georgia who are
43:19
not self-interested
43:21
SPEAKER_00: bigots who are just gonna be like,
43:22
SPEAKER_00: well,
43:23
SPEAKER_00: if they say they're for me and because I'm white and my
43:26
SPEAKER_00: that I'm going to change my voting.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
43:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what the hell do I know about Georgia?
43:32
SPEAKER_00: I've been to Georgia once.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: I went to Savannah for two and a half days.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: It was nice.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: Never been to Atlanta.
43:39
There are a lot of Southerners who wish the changes in the
43:42
1960s never happened.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: And then there are a lot that are pretty embarrassed about that.
43:46
And they will,
43:47
I think,
43:49
see the rapid retreat back in that direction as a very un...
43:54
SPEAKER_00: Like it makes them feel bad about themselves, their people, their state.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's a very powerful thing.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
44:01
I think it can be harnessed in a much more explicit way than I
44:08
think applies to
44:10
most of these questions when like party strategists are trying
44:14
to keep people from
44:18
SPEAKER_00: leaning too far in,
44:19
SPEAKER_00: if that makes sense.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's fair.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, can we break?
44:23
SPEAKER_01: Can we talk about the Senate?
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes,
44:24
SPEAKER_00: let's do it If you want to hear that part of the conversation,
44:27
SPEAKER_00: go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription