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“Republicans not quite in array.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has had a busy summer loosening gun
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: restrictions in states, overturning Roe v. Wade, and severely threatening
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: our Miranda rights. I'm Leah Lippman, and each week on
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny, I'm joined by my co-hosts and fellow law professors,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw, to break down the latest
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: headlines and the biggest legal questions facing our country. It's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: more important than ever to understand the repercussions of these
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court decisions and what we can do to fight
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: back in the upcoming midterm elections. Listen to new episodes
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of Strict Scrutiny every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: On today's pod, the Republican Party is still more Marjorie
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Taylor Greene than Glenn Youngkin. Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: joins us to talk Democratic midterm strategy in the wake
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: of last week's elections. And later, Dan and I will
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: answer a few of your questions. But first, check out
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: my new weekly interview series, Offline with Jon Favreau. This week,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I talked to Snapchat's Peter Hamby about how Twitter ruined
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: political journalism and what a healthy, sustainable model of journalism
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: might look like. There's hope, Dan. There really is.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: That was your takeaway from that conversation?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: On Sunday. I'm just, you know, I'm trying. On Sunday,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: tune in. I talked to soccer star Megan Rapinoe about
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: how social media affects athletes' mental health and whether she
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: should run for office. Check out that one right here
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: on your PSA feed. Also check out this week's Pod
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Save the World where Ben calls in from the climate
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: summit in Glasgow where he's traveling with President Obama. He
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: also speaks to climate activists Hannah Martin and Louisa Neubauer
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: as well as former Secretary of State John Kerry about
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the intense climate negotiations he's involved in at the summit.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Excellent episode. Ben, we got a live correspondent from Glasgow.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Check it out. It's great. And finally, Love It or
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Leave It is coming to the New York Comedy Festival
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: at the Beacon Theater in New York City this Friday,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: November 12th. You can still snag the last few tickets
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: at cricket.com slash events. Go say hi to Love It.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: It'll be a fantastic show. All right, let's get to
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the news. Before we continue our conversation about Democratic strategy
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: in the wake of last week's off-year elections, We thought
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: we'd talk about some of the headlines the Republican Party
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: has been making lately. So not only did House GOP
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: leadership order its members to vote against a bipartisan infrastructure
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: bill that will deliver jobs, roads, and clean water to
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: millions of their own constituents. Now they're looking to punish
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the 13 Republicans who voted for the bill by kicking
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: them off their committees. Marjorie Taylor Greene is tweeting out
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: their phone numbers. Fred Upton, a moderate from Michigan who
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: supported the bill, has been getting death threats. Meanwhile, Republican
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: leaders haven't said a word about Congressman Paul Gosar tweeting
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: an image of someone killing AOC. And a bunch of
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Republican members of Congress are now selling and wearing Let's
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Go Brandon merch, a phrase that for a very stupid
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: reason means fuck Joe Biden. Dan, how are we losing
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: to these people? That's the famous– I'm paraphrasing Harry Reid there.
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  Speaker 2: Remember when Harry Reid was running against Sharon Engel way,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: way back? And he was like– at one point he
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: just said, how am I losing to this person? Because
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: she was so crazy.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe like Harry Reid, we're not losing to them.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: There you go. That's the upside. That's the silver lining.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean.
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  Speaker 3: We do have the House, the Senate, the White House.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: We have won the popular vote in all but one
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  Speaker 3: election since 1988. So we're not really losing to them
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: all the time. But– We did just lose to them
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: in Virginia, a state where we can blame no one
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: but ourselves for that loss.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: How is it good politics to punish 13 House Republicans
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  Speaker 2: for supporting a bill that Mitch McConnell and 18 other
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Senate Republicans voted for? We're talking a lot about how
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: all these like House Republicans voted for it. I'm not
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: seeing a lot of commentary about the fact that like
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: this is a fucking Mitch McConnell backed bill. Like, first
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: of all, you don't strip away committee assignments from people
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: who vote for a bill that you don't agree with.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: That just like doesn't happen. And usually now we're doing
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: it on a bill that was supported by like over
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: like almost half the Republican caucus in the Senate.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this is a really tough question because as
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: a general rule in politics and life, doing the opposite
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: of Mitch McConnell is smart. Like, don't be Mitch McConnell.
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  Speaker 3: It's like a really good thing. But in this case,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: I don't really know how to think about it. I mean,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: I guess one way to think about it, as I'm
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: trying to figure this out live here on air, is
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: that everything is good politics for Republicans until Democrats make
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: it bad politics for them. You understand from their point
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: of view that– The Republican base, which is, to be
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: clear these days, to the right of Donald Trump, right?
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  Speaker 3: As we saw from when they booed him for suggesting
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: that people maybe get a vaccine in Alabama a few
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: months ago. They feel that the Republicans are more likely
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: to punish them at the polls. The Republican base is
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: more likely to punish them at the polls than Democrats.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: And they are correct in the sense that because of
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: gerrymandering and just geographic polarization– Most of these people's biggest
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: fear is a primary, not a general election. But it's
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: also a very well-worn sense that Democrats will be unable
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: to muster enough sort of messaging firepower and narrative cohesion
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: to make them pay for this over the long term.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Well, that brings up my next question, which is how
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: should Democrats talk to voters about what Republicans did here?
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are sort of two– parts of this.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: The first part is like the short-term, how do you
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: deal with this very specific thing? And then there's this
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: much longer-term question, which we're going to talk about maybe
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: a little bit later in this pod and in the
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: many months to come of like, what is the right
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: contrast message for Republicans? And how much of that is
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: part of our message, right? Versus what we've done or
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: what we want to do and all of that. And
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: there's a lot to learn from the voters that are
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: going to be there in 2022 and the people who
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: just voted last week to know what that is. But
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I think the way to think about this in the
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: short term is we know from the polling that 7
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: in 10 Americans think the economy is going in the
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: wrong direction. Majorities of them are concerned about the economy,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: inflation in particular. And you have the Republicans who not
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: only voted against a bill to create jobs and help
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  Speaker 3: Americans deal with high costs– but are punishing those people
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  Speaker 3: who do, who did support them, right? And I think
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: that we have to put what happened in the context
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  Speaker 3: of where the voters are and how they feel about
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: the economy. And this is both how we frame what
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Biden and the Democrats are doing and what the Republicans
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: are stopping us from doing, is that these are measures
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  Speaker 3: that are going to address the thing that voters are
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: most concerned about and Republicans are standing by. They're an
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: obstacle to progress on the stuff you're worried about.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think you have to figure out motivation, right?
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  Speaker 2: Why are Republicans, this is part of any sort of
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: message about the opposition, why are Republicans doing what they're doing?
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  Speaker 2: What are they motivated by? And what is believable to
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: people about the Republican Party, which even though they won
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: in Virginia and came close to New Jersey and won
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: in a bunch of other places on Tuesdays, is still
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: a very unpopular party, right? Like the Republican Party hasn't
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: suddenly become very popular in the polls just because Joe
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Biden and the Democrats have become more unpopular. They're an
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: unpopular party. So why are they an unpopular party? I
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: think One of the reasons they're in a popular party
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: is because people think that Republican politicians are in it
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  Speaker 2: for themselves, that their only motivation is to beat Democrats.
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  Speaker 2: They'd rather beat Democrats than give their own voters jobs
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  Speaker 2: and clean water and new roads and new bridges. They
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: care way more about their jobs than your job. is
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  Speaker 2: one potential message. Denying Joe Biden a win is so
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: important to them that they'd rather deny you all the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: benefits of this infrastructure bill, jobs, roads, clean water. That's
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  Speaker 2: how much they care about winning. That's how much they
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  Speaker 2: care about power. And I do think that's a believable
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  Speaker 2: message about the Republican Party because that's how they've acted
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  Speaker 2: for the last decade.
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  Speaker 3: This will be fun. We can have a little disagreement here.
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  Speaker 3: I have some skepticism about that as the motivation. This
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  Speaker 3: is actually why this is hard on the bipartisan infrastructure framework,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: which is supported by corporations and easier on the jobs
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: and climate plan or the jobs and family plan or
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: the social spending plan, as the New York Times would
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  Speaker 3: call it. is what is, I think, an easier, more
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: believable message. I think voters, and we've seen this even
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: in some stuff that we tested in 2011, 2012, when
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: we were trying to reframe our economic message heading into
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the reelect, is do they only care about stopping Obama
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: or do they want to help special interests? And there
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  Speaker 3: is some sense, I think, if people are even more
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: cynical now than they were then, that you give politicians
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: a discount for cynicism. Of course, that's what everyone wants
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: to do. Democrats did the same thing to Trump. Is
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: there something more nefarious that gets at– maybe not more nefarious,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: but something that's more believable that makes them like them less?
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: I think– and obviously, we're just two people shooting the
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: shit here and not holding reams of polling data in
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: focus groups that we hope to have one day– but
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: that the special interest message is going to be more
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: effective than the partisanship message.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think it's not as believable as you
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: pointed out on this.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It's just not. The problem with the special interest message, which, again,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: pulls through the roof, all the time. We've seen all
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: the polls, Republicans help. The other thing people believe about
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: the Republicans is absolutely true, is that they help the
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: rich and the Democrats do not. And so I think
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: as we're talking about sort of the broader message, Republicans
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: helping themselves and their rich friends is probably the full
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: message there. And we can point to their opposition to
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: the So the tax provisions in Build Back Better is
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: example of that fucking salt notwithstanding, which is one of
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: the reasons that drives me nuts. But I think, you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Republicans have basically said, right, like, what is true about
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: why they oppose this bipartisan infrastructure bill? What do we
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: know that's true? Let's start there. We know that they
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: oppose it because they didn't want Joe Biden and the
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Democrats to have a win. And they told us that.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: So like you always start with a message about the
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: opposition that's believable, that's true, that people know. And like
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: they're all on record in a bunch of different places saying,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: why are we giving Joe Biden a win now? Donald
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Trump said that. That was Donald Trump's statement about the
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: bill is why are you giving Joe Biden a win
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: when he's and his poll numbers are so bad right now?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: You should vote against it. Oh, you should vote against
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: the bill that's going to deliver goods to Republican voters
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: all across the country because you don't want Joe Biden
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to have a win. Like, it just seems like it's
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: a more believable message to me on this issue. Speaking
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: of Trump. He released a statement. His full statement on
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: this said, why is it that old crow Mitch McConnell
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: voted for a terrible Democrat socialist infrastructure plan and induced
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: others in his party to do likewise when he was
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: incapable of getting a great infrastructure plan wanting to be
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: put forward by me and the Republican Party? It's got
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: a real Sarah Palin vibe to that statement.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's real elliptical rhetoric. And I'm not even sure
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: what is going on there because that doesn't even sound...
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: like Trump.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: It does, right.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: It sounds like Sarah Palin. Maybe that's what, like, I've
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: been wondering what she's been up to. Maybe what she
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: writes his tweets now or his posts on, what's the
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: name of his social media platform?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I don't remember. Clearly not good branding.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: I forgot. What do you think about Old Crow?
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, points for creativity. Like, our side has just
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: been doing the damn turtle thing for the last like
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: 12 years. So, you know, I mean, does he look
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: more like it's.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Better than Moscow? It's better than Moscow.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Honestly, your favorite dumbest, dumbest thing we've done in a
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: long time. Um, I mean, obviously it's not why he
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: was reelected in Kentucky, but I, I find it like
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: nails on a chalkboard. And every time I bring that up, people,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: and I'm sure they're going to do it after this,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: yell at me about it. Um, but you know, it's like,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: does he look more like a turtle than a crow?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Probably, uh, Look, these are the important things that we
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: debate on this program. This is going to be critical
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: to the future of the Democratic Party.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, you know what?
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Twitter poll.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Isn't that what the social team wants? They want us
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: to come up with things so we can Twitter poll?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Amelia is so happy right now. This is going to
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: be our Twitter poll about Mitch McConnell. So anyway, so
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Trump puts out that statement. He's fucking wading into this,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of course. A few things going on with him, the
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: 2024 GOP frontrunner for president this week. A federal judge
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: has rejected Trump's attempt to hide White House documents from
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: the select committee investigating the January 6th insurrection, saying, quote,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Presidents are not kings and the plaintiff is not president.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: The Independent Office of Special Counsel has determined that 13
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: senior Trump administration officials violated federal law by campaigning for
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the former president's reelection in 2020. And the New York
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Times reported that that the district attorney in Atlanta is
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: preparing to impanel a grand jury in her criminal investigation
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: of election interference by Donald Trump and his goons, based
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: in part on the former president's call to Georgia's secretary
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: of state, where he famously asked him to, quote, find 11,780
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: votes to overturn the election. Now, if I were to
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: read those sentences about any other frontrunner for president, Republican
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: or Democrat, that person probably wouldn't be frontrunner for long.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: But here we are a week out from an election
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: where one of the takes was don't talk so much
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: about Trump. What do you think? What do we do here?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: What do we do with all this? Is any of
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: this something? Is it nothing?
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: What do we do?
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: That is a thing now, right? Is this something?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Is this something? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, there's a
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: potential criminal investigation of the GOP frontrunner in 2024. Is
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: that something? Or are we just going to just sit
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: around and let that happen? Because we don't want to
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: talk too much about Trump.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: I think, I mean, it's worth noting that Trump did
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: win despite multiple looming criminal investigations and almost one reelection
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: despite even more criminal investigations. So they're not perhaps the
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: political anvils they once used to be. Um, but I
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: think this does, I'll try to take this to a
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: constructive place. Just, I don't know, for fun, which is the,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: you know, this, this does get your enthusiasm for constructiveness
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: at this place. They've in the pot. It's great.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: Sure. Why not?
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Um, is the minus will give the people what they're paying.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: The, um, The question of should we talk about Trump
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: or not talk about Trump is really a dumb one, right?
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Of course we have to talk about Trump. He's the
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: former president. If the election were held tomorrow, he's probably
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: the favorite to be president again. I hate to say that.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: And he's the frontrunner to run for president in 2024.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: He represents a political movement in this country as an
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: existential threat to democracy. We have to talk about him.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: The question is how? And I don't know the right
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: answer to that question, but I do know the wrong answer.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: And the wrong answer is the way Terry McAuliffe did it, right?
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: You can't treat voters like they're stupid, right? Glenn Youngkin
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: was not Donald Trump. Did he share some of the
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: dangerous beliefs of Donald Trump? Was he overly solicitous of
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump and his supporters? Absolutely. But you can't just
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: yell Glenn Trumpkin and think that is a narrative that
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: voters are going to buy. We have to find a
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: way to talk about Trump and the threat that his
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: political movement, which is the Republican Party of the state, represents.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Without trying to make every candidate who is doing– who's
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: trying very hard to separate themselves from Trump, like we
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: can't just– there are going to be candidates who seem
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: a lot like Trump and there are going to be
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: some who seem less like Trump. We're going to have
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: to have some nuance in the message, right? Does that
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: make sense?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: No, I think that totally makes sense. Like it sounds
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: like a simple– common sense thing to not treat voters
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: like they're stupid. But we are Democratic strategists and Republicans, too. Republicans, too,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: are often not very good at it. You know, like,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, same thing. I think you could have
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: made an argument about Glenn Youngkin that it's like, look,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Glenn Youngkin, you know, doesn't have Trump campaigning for him
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. Glenn Youngkin could have said, I
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: don't want Trump's endorsement. He could have said, no, thank you.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I'm different than Donald Trump. I want the Republican Party
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: to go in a new direction. And so I'm resisting
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: that endorsement. He chose not to do that.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Like that's a real argument about Glenn Youngkin just saying,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: you know, if we elect Glenn Youngkin, Donald Trump's going
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: to announce for president the next day. So don't don't
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: vote for Glenn Youngkin, which is what how Terry McAuliffe
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: closed his last speech. Like that's not really that believable,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: you know. So I totally agree with that point. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I do think we can get wrapped around the axle
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: of sort of this is like more of a spectator
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: sport watching these investigations into Donald Trump. I think we
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: all learned this with the Mueller investigation. We learned this
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: through two impeachments like this stuff's going to happen. Right.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: The Georgia investigation is going to happen. One, the one
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: six committee stuff's going to happen. There's little influence that
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: we can all have over the outcome of those investigations.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: They will either happen or they won't happen. I mean,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I do think there's, you know, prodding the Democrats on
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the committee to make the best case against Trump possible
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: in the one system. I think that's important. But like
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the Georgia investigation, whatever's going on there, like just keep
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: up with the news. Check it out. There's really nothing
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: else we can do about that than just watch it unfold.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: And so it's not something that we should spend a
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: ton of our time talking about and thinking about until
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: we find out what happens. Like maybe there's something there.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's something not there. It's in the hands of
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: the Georgia D.A., a grand jury. And a courtroom, right? Like,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: we can't do anything about that. One thing we can
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: do something about is Trump is busy endorsing Republican candidates
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: who are just a little more extreme than Glenn Youngkin.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That's what he's been doing lately. Like Pennsylvania Senate candidate
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Sean Parnell, whose ex-wife just accused him in court of
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: strangling her and beating their child. Or Georgia Senate candidate
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Herschel Walker, who's written about playing Russian roulette with a
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: gun to his head and fantasizing about murdering someone who
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: didn't deliver his car on time. Or Idaho gubernatorial candidate
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Janice McGeechan, who's close to a right-wing militia leader who
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: pled guilty to aiming a weapon at federal officers during
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: the 2014 standoff at Ammon Bundy's Nevada ranch. That person
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: endorsed her. She spoke at a rally for his militia
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: group organized by the militia group. This is fucking nuts.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: These are obviously not candidates in the mold of Glenn
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Young and Dan. Many Republican strategists aren't happy about them.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: How much does that matter?
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: It could matter a lot. I mean, if you think
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: back to 2010, when Democrats lost 63 House seats, we
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: held on to the Senate. Now, we lost a bunch
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: of Senate seats, but we held on the Senate in
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: large part because the Tea Party Republicans nominated a bunch
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: of people who could not win in battleground states. There
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: is Sharon Engel, who ran against Harry Reid, who you mentioned.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: There is Christine O'Donnell, who won the primary against Mike Castle,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: who was a very popular former governor and congressman in
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: the state of Delaware and would have walked into the Senate.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Christine O'Donnell was a Tea Party candidate who was, I
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: think it's fair to say, witchcraft adjacent. And she lost
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: to Chris Coons, giving us the Chris Coons. A man
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: who ran primarily just simply as a political sacrifice to
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Mike Castle and has now been in the Senate for
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: a decade because of it. And so who they nominate matters.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Same thing in 2012.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: We won.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Democrats held on to Senate seats in Missouri and Indiana,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: despite Obama losing pretty badly in those states because Republicans
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: nominated terrible candidates. So it can make a huge difference.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: And there's a reason Republicans are not named Trump or
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: sort of freaking out about some of these candidates because
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: they could cost them a great shot at Senate control.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Beyond these individual races, do you think that it's worth
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: trying to make these candidates the face of the Republican Party?
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's hard, right? Can you make the Senate
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Republican nominee in Pennsylvania, the face of the Republican Party,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: or even Herschel Walker, a very famous NFL player who's
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: running for Senate in Georgia, the face of it? Probably not.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: Can you have a narrative about Republicans being extreme and
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: out of touch and out of the mainstream? Absolutely. And
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: this is, when you get to the larger Republican branding questions,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: this is one path that a lot of people advocate,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: which is the way to sort of leverage To keep
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: people in our coalition and turn people out of presidential
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: level is to talk, and this is not fear-mongering any
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: way it should perform, about just how dangerous this Republican
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Party is. And these candidates are proof points in that,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: as is Donald Trump. And so that could be– like
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: it's not that they are the face or we're going
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: to make Marjorie Taylor Greene the face or anything like that.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: It is– I think they are proof points in a
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: larger narrative about a party that is in the thralls
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: of an extreme minority that's out of touch with American
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: values and American mainstream thought, etc.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: And one data point on why this might be effective
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: is Republican strategists are afraid of it, right? Like they
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: are working, those Republican strategists are working behind the scenes
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: to make sure that these kinds of candidates are not nominated.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Like one of the reasons that Glenn Youngkin came out
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: of that primary is that it wasn't really a primary,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: it was a convention. And Republican organizers and strategists worked
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: really hard at that convention in Virginia to make sure
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: that the Trumpier candidates didn't end up on the ballot
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: facing Terry McAuliffe, that they could get the least Trumpy
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: candidate possible on the ballot. And that's who they got.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: There were some real wackos in that primary in Virginia.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: And Virginia has run some, the Virginia Republicans have run
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: some real wackos in the past statewide. And they've suffered
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: because of it. And they got smart this year and
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: didn't have to have Glenn Youngkin face a primary electorate
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: in Virginia that was probably very, very far to the right,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: but to come out of a convention. And they're not
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: going to have that luxury in a lot of these
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: other states. All right. When we come back, we will
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: talk midterm strategy with The Washington Post's Perry Bacon. All right.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Since we last spoke about the big off-year elections in
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Virginia and New Jersey, there have been a few thousand
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: more takes floating around the Internet. But we now also
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: have some good data and analysis about Democratic voters from
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Civis Analytics, Pew, Data for Progress, even Jacobin, that all
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: points to how challenging it will be to grow or
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: even maintain democracy. the broad, diverse coalition that elected Joe
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Biden in 2020. Here to help us sort through the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: wreckage and talk about what's next, Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon. Perry,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, guys. Good to see you.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: So you succinctly articulated in the Post what I've been
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: trying to say about last week's elections, which is that
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the results, quote, were fairly normal. And that's the scary thing.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Can you elaborate on that and give us sort of
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: your overall take on what happened last Tuesday?
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Correct. So usually what happens after a party wins the
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: presidency is that they struggle in the off-year election. So
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: 2017 and then 2018, or in this case, 2021, maybe 2022.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: And that happens for two reasons. One is often the
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: party that won the presidency, their base is motivated, but
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: not as motivated. So their voters sometimes stay home versus
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: the other party's voters are usually extra mad. How dare
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: the president of the other party do stuff? So they
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: turn out in very high numbers. And then usually you
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: have some amount of people who swing from the president's party,
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: small number, but swing of the president's party to the
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: other one. And so in some ways, this is kind
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: of what normally happens is like the Virginia election usually
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: goes to the party not in control of the presidency.
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: The midterms usually go to the party, not in control
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: of the presidency. I was hoping that that dynamic would
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: not happen, that the Republicans had gone so crazy that
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: people would think differently about that. And the result where
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: you guys live in California was Gavin Newsom won by
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: about the same amount in killing the recall that he
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: won in 2018 when Trump was president. That was a
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: data point for me to think, oh, maybe things have changed.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: Maybe these sort of normal Me too.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Me too.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: And so I was so I was hopeful. And I
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: thought maybe Terry sort of pulls this out. And but
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: the results, you know, from last week look like what
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: we usually see in a midterm, which is lower turnout.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: You know, you know, to be clear, turnout is lower
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: in both parties. Turnout is always lower in off years
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: because we're at a presidential. What you saw in New
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Jersey and Virginia, though, was turnout was more depressed among
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: Democrats than Republicans. And that differential turnout is important. And also,
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: you saw some evidence of vote switching. And I think
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: that's important as well, where it looks like some small number,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: but a number that matters of people, it appears, voted
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: for Biden, but also voted for Youngkin. So those things,
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: and that goes to, it goes to a couple things,
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: I think. First of all, despite the Democratic message, Youngkin
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: is not Donald Trump. Youngkin is not a threat to democracy.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: It is not surprising some people do not think Youngkin
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: is as bad as Trump. That's true. The other thing
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: being is we're thinking that in a place like Virginia particularly,
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: there are some people who likely are, I'll call them Romney, Clinton,
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: Biden voters. People who were probably consider themselves conservative and
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: maybe Republican even, but don't think, but thought Trump was
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: way over the line. but will probably be more likely
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: to vote for sort of a normal Republican. So I
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: think some of the swing away from Biden and the
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: Democrats was kind of natural once a person less crazy
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: than Trump, which would cover most Republicans candidly, was not
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: on the ballot anymore.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Dan, one thing that Perry just touched on, and we
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: talked about last week, which is that, you know, Youngkin's
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: win was due to a combination of winning support from
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: some Biden voters and turning out more Republicans. But The
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Civis Analytics analysis and some others are starting to show
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: just how much turnout mattered. Like they said that McAuliffe
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: turned out 13% more voters than Ralph Northam did, but
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Youngkin won because he turned out 34% more voters than
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Ed Gillespie. So do you think we need a greater
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: focus on why so many of those Biden voters didn't
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: show up? I feel like a lot of the commentary
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: has been focused on the vote switching, which definitely happened
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: and certainly matters in a very close election. But if
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: the bulk of the difference was turnout, what would it
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: look like to focus on that?
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I've been thinking about this because the focus on
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: the Yunkin Biden voters is very similar to the focus
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: on the Obama Trump voters after 2016, where you spent
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: 99% of our time talking about this small group of voters,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: consequential but small, that switch back and forth. and not
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: enough on the 4 million Barack Obama 2012 voters who
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: did not vote in 2016. And so we always focus
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: on the people who vote more than people who don't vote,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: which is one of the great flaws in all political analysis.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: And so I've been thinking about what we did in
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: the Obama campaign after 2010. And we did a huge
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: study of Obama drop-off voters, people who voted for Obama
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: in 2008 who did not vote in the midterm elections
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: where we got shellacked, to use Obama's words, and lost
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: 63 seats to figure out what kept them from getting involved.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: And I'm positive this is happening probably in many places
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: when the Democratic Party is a really thorough– qualitative focus group,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: quantitative polling analysis of who those voters are. But I
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: think there's even one more piece of this, which is
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: we need to stop treating these voters as two separate
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: groups necessarily and recognize that in almost every single state
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: that's going to determine control of the Senate next year,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: all we have to do is turn out people who
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: voted for Joe Biden last year and we win. And
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: so it is about persuading Biden voters, persuading them to
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: stay with Democrats or persuading them to turn out for Democrats.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: as opposed to going to find people who were wearing
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: red hats six months ago to get them to support Democrats.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: And so it's sort of like breaking down the walls
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: between persuasion and GOTV and thinking about persuading Biden voters
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: to stay involved in a post-Trump era.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And again, and I think that you just made the point,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: it's much easier than what we were talking about after 2016,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: which is like, how do we win the Trump voters back?
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: The question now is just how do we win Biden
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: voters back, right? How do you either get them to
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: show up because they didn't or to vote for Democrats
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: again when they voted for Republicans? So in some ways,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: it should be an easier lift, though we haven't quite
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: figured it out just yet. Perry, instead of getting into
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: another debate about how much critical race theory mattered in Virginia,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: feels like there's plenty of those out there. I wanted
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: to ask you about the excellent piece you wrote today
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: in the Washington Post where you argue that the flip
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: side of Republicans practicing white grievance politics is Democrats practicing
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: white appeasement politics. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: The idea is essentially that We're in a country where
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: I think the electorate's about 70% white, non-Hispanic white. It's
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: a white majority country, obviously. And so often what Democratic
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: candidates do is two things. What I called white appeasement,
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: I try to use a negative term intentionally here, is
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: two things. One is they move to the right on
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: racial issues or distance themselves from people of color. I
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: think the best example we referred in the story is
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: about Sister Soulja and Jesse Jackson and how Bill Clinton
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: distance himself from those two people in 1992, kind of
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: symbolically trying to say, I am not sort of trapped
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: by the black civil rights class and I can distance
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: myself from them. So that's one thing, Democrats' distance. The
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: second thing they do is just don't go as far
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: as maybe they could and might be morally right on
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: like civil rights issues. You could talk about maybe police
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: reform in this era, affirmative action in other eras, where
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: Democrats probably hold one position, but they don't necessarily express
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: that in the most forthright way as a way to
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: avoid maybe a backlash among kind of white voters who are,
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: I'm not talking about sort of like Trumpish voters or
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: the deplorables that have you, I'm talking about more persuadable
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: white voters who, and maybe it's probably some Latinos at
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: this point as well, who can vote for a Democrat,
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: but maybe are not going to vote for a Democrat
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: who leans really far on racial issues.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: How do you think that's playing out in today's context? Obviously,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: in the piece, you talk about all these historical examples,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: which obviously hold up. But how do you think that's
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: happening today? Do you think it's primarily centered around both
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: the critical race theory debate and the defund the police debate?
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: So I don't think it does. So I'll be honest.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: So in some ways, in writing a piece like this,
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: I was working the piece before Virginia, but when I
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: hear people make comments like Democrats are overcome by wokeness,
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: it's like, I don't know that Terry McAuliffe, Joe Biden
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: and Phil Murphy, the major figures in last week's results
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: are woke in any sort of definition of that term.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, they're older white men, first of all, they're
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: not running around saying they're for reparations. I don't think
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: that they talk about critical race theory very often. So
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: when I hear that kind of thing, it sounds to
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: me like there's a criticism of other people in the party.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: And so my concern in writing a piece is there,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: I sense a desire for Joe Biden or some other
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: prominent Democrat to find people who support critical race theory.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: So academics who are Black, the squad, BLM, and to
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: sort of criticize them to show, look, we're not that
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: left the way those crazies are. And I think those
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: kinds of things I'm a little worried about. And when
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: I hear some of Abigail Spamburger's comments, both after last
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: year's elections, remember last year, she said, defund the police,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: killed all the swing. You know, no candidate was for that.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: This year, she said, Biden's trying to be too much
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: like FDR. I thought the whole point of democratic presidents
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: was to be like FDR. That comment was insane. Like,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: you know, so I just think that where this sort
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: of wokeness is a muck can lead to Like, should
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: the Democrats shrink the infrastructure bill or shrink one of
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: the big bills? I don't know. But I think wokeness
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: is going too crazy, can lead toward sort of bad tactics,
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: sister soldier-like things of, you know, let's attack the squad,
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: let's break from police reform. That's my concern. That's kind
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: of what I wanted to write, to sort of encourage
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: real thinking about what actually helps you win versus what
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: seems like might help you win, but is mean to
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: people and actually might not help you win anyway.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: One thing you I think you tweeted this the other
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: day that has stuck with me is that there's been
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: so much commentary about Eric Adams winning the primary to
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: be mayor of New York City. When, you know, arguably
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the most impressive win from a black candidate over the
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: last several years has been Raphael Warnock in Georgia. One
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: in a red state did even better than John Ossoff
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: in the same election. One thing about Warnock that's interesting
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: is I feel like he ran an unapologetically progressive campaign,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: progressive on economic issues, progressive on issues of racial justice
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: as well. Though I also remember Warnock standing up at
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: one of those debates talking about his opposition to defunding
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: the police, making it very explicit and accusing Kelly Loeffler
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: of defunding the police with some of her votes in Congress. Like,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: how do you think about that?
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: I think it might be worth defining our terms more.
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: Like in some ways it's like, what does woke mean?
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: If woke means defund the police, I agree. No Democrat
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: in a swing state should say that. If woke means
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: I care about racial equality, I care about voting rights.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: Raphael Warnock is certainly woke. And I think that's why
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: I don't love that term because it often sort of
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: obscures what we're really talking about. And so I think,
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: but I think one thing, In the past, Democrats have
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: often interpreted, when I say white appeasement, means we have
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: to have a white candidate run in any area where
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: the race is going to be hard. I think Barack
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Obama showed that too, but that was like one example.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: Maybe you could imagine, you could say Barack Obama was
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: this extremely talented politician. That is true. Maybe Raphael Warnock
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: is too, but I do think seeing the results in
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: Georgia and how Warnock won should at least give people
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: some pause. Like Georgia had this long record and most
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: of the South had any Democrats in South had any
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: big race where Democrats really want to win. Let's find
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: a white guy. And in this case, it was not,
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: let's find a white guy. Let's, let's embrace this candidate
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: who in Warnock and Stacey Abrams and Ossoff and, and,
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: and the whole party really tried to build a strategy
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: around let's, let's turn out the base. Let's turn out
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: black people. Let's turn out minorities. Let's turn out the
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Atlanta area. Also, try to win some swing voters. So
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: don't say defund, but Warnock was very strongly for voting
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: rights and things like that. So that's kind of what
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: I mean. It's like woke isn't telling me much. Like,
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: what are we what should candidates not say and what
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: should they say? And that's kind of the discussion. The
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: more detailed discussion is the better. I think we are
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: better off. We are.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think defining these terms is so important. You know,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: woke falls victim to this, which is why I don't
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: love using that word. I even think around critical race
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: theory too. Like there's a difference between a curriculum that
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: teach our kids about slavery and about the dark parts
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: of American history and racism and systemic racism. And, you know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: some of these DEI trainings that happen with teachers where
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: they're teaching, you know, Robin D'Angelo's book that could be
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: a little out there, right? Like there's a difference between things,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: but we sort of conflate them all when we have
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: this debate and it probably isn't that helpful. Dan, you know, Obviously,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Democrats don't need a coalition that includes a bunch of
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: two-time Trump voters, as we said. But we do need
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: a coalition that includes older black women who always vote,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: young Latino men that don't always vote, white Biden-Yunkin voters,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of different demographic combinations. Have you been thinking
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: about what kind of messages appeal to all of those
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: voters so that we're not sacrificing any of those groups
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: since we can't?
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're exactly right. That is the math, right?
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: We have to do– and both. We have to have
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: great turnout. We have to hold on to voters who
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: have moved in our direction in recent years. And so
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: two things about this. The first is I think the
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Warnock example that you and Perry discussed is very important,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: is you cannot separate message from messenger. And Warnock was
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: a great messenger. Obama was a great messenger. Stacey Abrams,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: although she lost, was a great messenger. And it's always
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: hard to be like, this is what the message should
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: be and what you should go adopt it, whether you're
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: Raphael Warnock or Abigail Spanberger or whoever, the Democrat running
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: against Young Kim in California. It's going to depend on
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: who you are. But more specifically is, in general, you
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: want to focus your campaign on issues that unite your
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: base and divide theirs. And the issue that does that
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: or the issue area that does it is economics, right?
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Republicans already use the term that we talked about a
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: few weeks ago that Haney Lopez uses, which is conflicted voters, right?
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: People who are culturally conservative and may be conservative in
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: ways that we find very odious on racial issues, right?
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: Or reacting to some generic malicious definition of the term woke.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: but are populist and economic issues. So you want to
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: move the campaign in that economic issue framework because that
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: does divide Republicans. You see that in all the polling
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: of the Biden agenda is that there is a group
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: of voters who voted for Trump that is disproportionately working
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: class that support the things that Joe Biden is trying
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: to do in Congress. And so focusing the conversation on
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: those populist economic issues is one way in which we
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: can begin the process of keeping that coalition together.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about that because, you know, the
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Jacobin YouGov study, I found interesting because it focused on
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: 2000 working class voters of all races, which I think
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: is important because, you know, even though we talk a
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: lot about working class whites moving away from the Democratic Party,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: working class black and Latino voters, especially Latino voters, have
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: started to move away from the party in recent elections
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: as well. Not as much as working class whites, but
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: some we've started to notice. And what they found is
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: that Potentially Democratic working class voters did not shy away
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: from candidates based on their race, gender, progressive ideology, or
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: strong opposition to racism. But, quote, candidates who framed that
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: opposition in identity-focused language fared significantly worse than candidates who
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: embraced either populist or mainstream language. Perry, what did you
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: think about those conclusions?
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think my concern with, you know, this,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: and I I don't disagree with Dan, but I guess
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: the question I might have is like, it's not, yes,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: Democrats should run on whatever they're going to run on
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: and what he said makes sense. But Fox News, Facebook,
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: so on, they're going to define Democrats by race identity
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: in the most divisive ways possible. And so I think
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: that's got to be like, OK, well, you know, even
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: Warnock faced this where Warnock did not run on his
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: sermons or Warnock had said some more racially controversial things
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: in his sermons. you know, Fox News, Kelly Lefner, they
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: ran on those. So I think to some extent, it
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: is definitely correct that the persuadable voters are not looking
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: to hear the most racially aggressive critical race theory message.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: I think the question might be more precisely, I think
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: in my view is at least is when the Democratic
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: candidate is like, has those things pushed on him, what
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: does he or she need to say? I don't know
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: that the best response to one candidate says critical race
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: theory is terrible. The other candidate says, nobody I know
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: is learning about critical race theory. I think you might
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: want to have, I just don't know how much does,
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: I agree Terry should not run, McAuliffe should not run
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: a campaign on critical race theory. Once the media is
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: covering that issue, to me, one of the problems, one
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: of the, I think the fallacies of this economic argument
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: is not that it's not right. It's that the media
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: covers the campaign. The media finds minimum wage increases kind
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: of boring and discussions about race kind of interesting. Unfortunately,
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: I'm in the media. So I would say if I
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: was McAuliffe, I think, yes, focus on economic issues too.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: But I think that what I always thought, and maybe
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: you guys are the campaign actors and I'm not, but
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: Teach about America's racial history honestly seems to me to
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: be a message that probably polls well and means you
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: can be in the discussion without trying to obscure the discussion.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree that you're on stage in a debate.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Someone attacks you on critical race theory. You can't go
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: back and be like, well, I'm for jobs. Like ignore
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: what he just said, because I'm for jobs.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: But I do think I mean, look, I think one
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: way to do it is they start attacking you on
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: critical race theory and say, look, this is this is
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: an attack designed to divide us against each other. And
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: really what we all want are schools where no matter
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: what you look like, where you come from, who you are,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: what zip code do you come from? Every single child
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: has a world class education, black, white, Latino, Asian, anyone.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Like that's what we're trying to do. They're trying to
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: divide us so that they can score points and win.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: We're trying to build a system where everyone succeeds from
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: all races. And that way you're getting to an economic issue,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: but you're not ignoring race altogether, which seems like, as
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: you said, very hard to do when obviously Republicans are
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: going to inject that into every single campaign. Dan, what
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: do you think?
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I 100% agree with that. That's actually my concern
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: or slight objection to the Jacobin study. is politics doesn't
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: happen in a vacuum. And all American politics is at
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: its core about race. It's about who has power, what
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: happens to that power. Every Republican economic argument is about
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: scarcity and whether too much of what you have is
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: going to black and brown people. That's what Welfare Queens
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: was about. That's what Newt Gingrich calling Barack Obama the
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: food stamp president was about. basically all of Trumpism was
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: about that. And so you can't ignore that, right? And
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: that's this idea that if we're just going to, we're
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: going to talk about populist economics and ignore race, that,
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: that is an, even if the media environment was happening
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: on the level, which it is not, that, that would
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: not work, did not work in 2008, will not, will
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: never work. The question is, is how do you navigate that?
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Like there is a roadmap to this. We've talked about
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: a thousand times this podcast. It's the race class narrative, right?
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: It is acknowledging that why people are trying to divide
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: you on racial lines, um, is that's the pivot point, right?
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: Who benefits from that racial division, right? It's not just racism.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: That is a big part of it, but it's also
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: who wins, special interest corporations, et cetera, who hold the
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: power in this country. And the other element of it
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: is we have this world where there's like policy politics
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: and identity politics. And policy politics is somehow pure and noble.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: And if we just did it, we would all come together,
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Trump voters, Bernie Sanders voters, suburbanite resistance wine moms. We'd
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: all come together and we would reflect the inherent goodness
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: of American politics. And that's just not the way it works, right?
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: We said this before, all politics, identity politics. And so
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: if you're going to make an economic argument, it has
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: to be one based on identity, on who you are
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: fighting for. That was what Obama did. That's why he succeeded.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: That is really what Bernie Sanders did in a lot
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: of ways. And you know, could have worked for him
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: is what Trump is doing in the most malicious, odious
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: version of that. And so this, like, if we just
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: go out and say, these are our policies, we'll give
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: you $ 15 minimum wage Republicans. Well, that's not going to
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: work because that's, that's not how people think about politics.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: There was this focus group that was done, the results
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: of which were live tweeted out, which these were Biden,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Youngkin voters. And they asked them who they agreed with
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: on policy. And it was like overwhelming. These voters agree
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: with Democrats on policy and overwhelming. They agreed with Republicans
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: on cultural and values issues. And we have to find
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: a way to merge those two if we're going to have,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: because we have to have a moral power to our
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: economic policy arguments, or we will lose again, because we've
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: been winning the policy war in terms of public opinion
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: for a very long time. We're just not getting the
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: commensurate political gains to come with that victory.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Let me ask, I mean, you guys are the, let
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: me ask a question that's really here. I mean, I
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: don't remember in 08 in 2012 that every time a
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: racial issue came up, Obama was like, they're trying to
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: distract it. I felt like during the primary, I know
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: that's the Democratic only vote, but during the primary, Barack
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: Obama is this crazy pastor who says crazy things. The
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: response was not, let's talk about economics. The response was,
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: let's give a speech that discusses race openly, but in
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: a way that puts it in our favor. I know
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: in 2012, there was a lot of focus on Romney
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: being a plutocrat, but there was some racial incidents during
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: the 2012 general election too. And Obama, I thought, was
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: great at speaking to those moments in a way that
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: was unifying. He didn't always sort of, I know that
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: pivoting away and not focusing on race is smart, but
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know that's always possible. And I guess, you know,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: as a Black person, I was proud of some of
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: those moments where he sort of leaned into the issue
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: and sort of spoke in a way that sort of,
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: didn't duck it and tried to say, I think there's
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: a majority of Americans that agree with the, let's call
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: it the Black position. I don't mind the race class narrative.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: I worry that that sort of gets away from addressing
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: the fundamental issues, because I think the majority of Americans
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: might agree with some of the things I think about
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: racial issues.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't think you should pivot away. Maybe the
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: use of pivot is the wrong verb there.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: Maybe you didn't say that.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: I almost certainly did, so I will address it, which
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: is I think what was always core in Obama's argument,
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: and he was navigating an incredibly challenging political environment. And
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: given his political success, it's hard to put ourselves back
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: in the 2007, 2008 mentality of how the hell is
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: this country going to elect a black man named Barack
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: Hussein Obama president, right? The fact that he won by
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: so much now makes so much sense. But in the moment,
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: all the polls had to be wrong because of the
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: Bradley effect. And there's a whole different political context there.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: that in how his candidacy was viewed in the moment
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: that it is in hindsight. But I think the way
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Obama viewed it, and he obviously, as you wrote in
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: your piece, had to be very careful about this. And
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: you talk in your piece about the part where he says,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I'm not the president of black America, which is also
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: a– it's one of those things that seems very notable.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: It's also– 100% true as if every previous president said,
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not the president of male America, right? Or Christian
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: America or whatever that is. And, but it's not like,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I do think we have the tendency to be like,
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: there's a whole bunch of race in politics, right? There's
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: a whole bunch of racial issues that are over here.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: And then there's a whole bunch of other issues over
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: here when all the issues have a racial component and
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: you have to think about them and talk about them.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: In that way.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: If you try to ignore the obvious, particularly when the
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: other side is being even more blatant about their racial
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: grievance appeals now than they are then, then you have
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: to take it on. There is no other way. Pivot
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: was probably the wrong word. You have to take it
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: on and put it in the larger context of American
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: politics and why people are trying to do it. Go
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: to the motivations of the people making it, I think.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know if, John, you have other things to
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: say about that.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I will just say from like, working with him
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: on the Jeremiah Wright speech in 2008, seven, I can't remember.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: It was 2008.
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So all of.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: The themes that we've been talking about are in that speech. And,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: you know, he wanted to address race specifically, we should
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: say for some time, his advisors did not want him
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: to give a big speech on race in the middle
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: of the Iowa caucuses, he had wanted to give that speech. Finally,
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: when the Reverend Wright incident happened, he said, well, we're
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: giving that speech. It's not an option anymore. I want
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: to do this. And I mean, one of the things
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: when you wrote in your piece, sort of he separated
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: himself from from Wright a little bit. That wasn't just
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: a political choice. What genuinely offended him or what he
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: disagreed with fundamentally about Reverend Wright's sermons is that it
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: basically– Reverend Wright spoke like racial progress wasn't possible or
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: didn't happen in this country over years. And what Obama
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: wanted to say is he understood Reverend Wright– how upset
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Reverend Wright was that there hasn't been enough racial progress
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: and that there's been far too much racial subjugation over
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: the course of the America– a couple of centuries in
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: America– But progress actually is possible. And when we deny
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: that and we deny our own agency to make that progress,
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: we do a disservice to ourselves. And so he wanted
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: to make that point. But then at the end of
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: that speech, at the back end of that speech, he
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: does start talking about how these divisions have been used
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: to also sort of deny opportunity, not just to black Americans,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: but to black Americans, white Americans, Latino Americans, all Americans
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: who could come together in a coalition, a more working
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: class coalition to to sort of make everyone's lives better.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: And so he starts talking about the things that bother
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: white working class people and black working class people. But
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: you're right. He didn't just say like all these, all
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: these attacks about Reverend Wright are just a distraction from
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: me trying to pass healthcare and create jobs. Like that
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: was not going to be enough for a speech. Like
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: the only way around this issue was through it, which
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: he understood, especially if he was, I mean, I remember
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: he called me after that speech and he said, I
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: don't know if I can get elected president saying the
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: things I said today about race, but I also know
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: that I don't deserve to be president if I was
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: too afraid to say those things. So if it works,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: it works, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: And he goes, and that's the price that I'm gonna
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: pay for trying to be the first black president of
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: the United States. So last question, Perry. I think the
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Biden people, as they're looking ahead to 22, they think
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: that the larger mood music in the country, economic inflation,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: the pandemic still going like this is these are sort
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: of the big obstacles to winning. And they have these
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: historic trends that they're trying to fight against. Like, do
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: you think their view, which is we pass the infrastructure bill,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: we pass the economic plan to voters feel tangible effects
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: in their lives, and that maybe we can buck these
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: trends when everything gets better? How do you feel about that?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: You think that's possible? Or do you think that's They
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: need sort of another argument there.
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: You know, I've been thinking about this a little bit.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: I mean, the short answer is it's not likely to
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: work because of just the nature of midterms and the
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: other side often has more enthusiasm. But if you look
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: at some of these polls, it's not just that Biden's
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: approval rating is lower because of because the opposition, it
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: looks like he's down among people who voted for him.
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: Like if you think about where we are now, A
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: few months ago, he's at 54, 43. Now he's at
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: about 43, 52. So basically 10% of people have went
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: from liking him or proving to disapproving. So in other words,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: 90% of us are all where we were. So that 10%,
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: I'm guessing is not people who candidly read the Washington
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: Post political columns or listen to our podcast. I think
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: that's probably a more disengaged group who's going to generally
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: get the sense, uh, Biden was less crazy than Trump
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: and I liked him and the vaccines were working. And now, yeah,
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: the news says he's kind of blah and I don't
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: know what's going on. So in some ways, I think,
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: and I was skeptical about this earlier, but because I
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: know Ron Klain is very much on the, we should
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: be competent and that's how we get things done. And look,
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: I think that can leave aside some, like they should
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: work on this voting rights stuff and they should work
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: on this gerrymandering stuff. And I think this is, and
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna always say, this year they sort of underdid
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: that stuff and it may be hard to win the
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: midterms if the lines are drawn a certain way, even
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: if you did everything right. But just looking at how
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: his polling decline has went, I don't know that every
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: voter who doesn't like him is like an inflation expert.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: I sort of think that if things get going again,
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: if Spamburger And Jayapal are not in the news every
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: day saying how much nothing is getting done. If they
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: just get some momentum, if they have two or three
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: bills passed, do some executive orders. Like those first few months,
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: it seemed like every day Biden was doing stuff. And
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: I think that, and actually now I'm thinking about this,
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: I meant to write about this a few years ago,
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: but I thought that period in 2015 and 2016, Obama's
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: poll ratings went up a lot in 2015. And that
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: was in part because the campaign is happening and therefore,
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: people are checked out. But in part because he sort
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: of went from, I'm trying to work on the Hill
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: and I'm trying to like, I'm doing stuff, you know,
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: I'm going to, you know, go and try to get
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: the mayors to do something. I'm going to talk about
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: gay marriage decisions. I'm going to just, I think that
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: the more it looks like Biden is winning and I,
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: and you can define that in however you want it to,
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: but the looks, the more it looks like he's active
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: and he's making things better and he's not sort of
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: a prisoner to events, but shaping events, the better off
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: he is. And so I think that's entirely, I think
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: to get back to 48, I think is possible. And I,
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: but I think that involves him sort of being, I mean,
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: you can, I'll be curious what Dan thinks. You guys
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: are the experts, but I sort of feel like he's
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: the feeling that he's sort of watching as opposed to
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: presidenting is useful. And I think if he gets to presidenting,
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: that'll help.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Dan.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: Well, I think I agree. Like, yes, that is all true.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: I think 85% of his problem right now are conditions
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: on the ground. It is inflation. It's pandemic weariness. It's
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: high gas prices, probably more than anything else. You can
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: basically plot rises in gas prices and drops in presidential
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: approval next to each other over the last 30 years
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: of politics. And if those things don't get better, it
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter anything else. We're going to be really up
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: shit's creek heading into the midterms. Yes, I think that
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: there is– he's in this really tough position. It's the
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: same one Obama was in at exactly this point in
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: his presidency, which He got elected president to get things done.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: But to get things done, you have to be prime
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: minister for a while. Americans elect presidents, they punish prime ministers.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: And so he has to get this bill done. He
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: has to get to the other side of the bill.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: And he will have a chance to improve his standing
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: by seeming more in charge. The voters do not like Congress.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: The more time you spend with Congress, the less popular
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: you become. There's a whole bunch of atmospheric things you
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: need to fix. This is not to say they've done
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: everything perfectly message-wise. or he could not see more active.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: Of course he can. But the big problems are sort
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: of out of his control right now, or they're either
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: completely out of his control, or they're mostly in Joe
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: Manchin's control. And if those can get better in the
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: short term and the calendar turns over next year, he
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: has a chance to reset the narrative. Things get better
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: on the ground. More and more kids get vaccinated, and
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: you get sort of a virtuous news cycle. So people
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: who are just opening up Facebook or whatever else don't
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: just see story after story after story about Joe Biden
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: not doing right, or failing or disappointing these people or
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: divided Democrats, he starts to see other stuff and that
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: will help him.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's exactly right. And I definitely agree
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: with Perry that it is about controlling events and not
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: being controlled by events. I think that's the salient point
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: for what a president needs to do, or at least
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: appear to be doing in order to win over voters' confidence.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Perry Bacon, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: All right, let's get to the mailbag. We have just
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: a few quick questions before we go. The first one
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: comes from Max. Dan, we always talk about the biggest
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: divide in politics being between people who do follow politics
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: closely and those who don't. Democratic campaigns, progressives seem focused
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: on the small group that follows it closely. But how
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: can we start to cater campaigns to the majority who
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: don't pay close attention?
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: There is no easy answer to this question. It is
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: a huge challenge. And so I don't want to try
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: to I want to, I don't, I would like, I
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: don't want to do it injustice by sort of making
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: some stuff up. Cause I would just say one specific
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: problem we have that we could begin to address, which
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: is right now we have a campaign fundraising model that
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: is based on virality, right? It's like, what can we do?
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: That's going to get as much attention as possible from
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: the most activist of Democrats and separate sort of separating
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: that out where we have a fundraising model that is
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: still grassroots, still online. but sort of tries to build
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: out a culture of sustainable giving where people are giving
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: $ 10 a month instead of $ 100 because they're really angry
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: about something or they find something very viral or emotionally
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: evocative and sort of decoupling that. This was one of
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: the biggest problems that a lot of primary campaigns had
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: was that they were reverse engineering their messaging from what
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: would raise money, which keeps the lights on. And so
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: trying to find a way to decouple that I think
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: would help us be able to have a more broad-based
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: appealing message.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Very good answer. Eric on Instagram asks, on a scale
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: from Parks and Rec to Handmaid's Tale, how fucked are we?
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: And Yvette on Instagram asked a similar question. I'm burnt
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: out from 20 and feel disappointed in Congress. How do
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: we find motivation for 22? Dan, I know you were
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out a television show that was somewhere
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: on the scale from Parks and Rec to Handmaid's. Did
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: you find that at all? Are you still thinking about that?
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, is it.
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: I've never seen Invasion. I see the preview for it
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: every time I turn on Apple TV, but it seems
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: like it's just this side. It's like what happens right
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: before Handmaid's Tale.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: I kind of feel like.
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: Succession?
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: I guess it's Succession. I was going to say Veep again, too.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: Veep ends like politics usually ends, which is just everybody
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: fucking up and now we're moving on. All right. On
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: the burnout question, because I've been hearing this a lot
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: from people, I think that authoritarians, authoritarianism wins by... dividing
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: their enemies and wearing people down. So if you get
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: people fighting who should be allies, if you make people
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: feel like the system is so rigged that there's nothing
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: you can do to change it, then people will eventually
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: give up and that you win. Democracy is different than that.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: Democracy is not secured with each election. It's secured over
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: a lifetime. I There is no president and no Congress
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: that will allow us to just sit back and say,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: we're done. We can go back to our lives. That's just,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: that's not what democracy is about. That's never what democracy
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: is about. And I think that if we, if we
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: always believe that we are one election away from salvation,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: we will always be disappointed because like every single election
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: requires us to be engaged all the time throughout our life.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: That's what democracy is. That's how it's always been. And, Like, look,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: we are the bosses of the people that we send
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: to Washington. But being the boss of the people that
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: we send to Washington means that we have to manage
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: them constantly. And, like, that means pushing them. That means
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: firing them if necessary. That means replacing them if necessary. And...
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: part of being in a democracy is if we want
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: to fire them and hire new ones, like we also
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: have to persuade the majority of the other 300 million
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: plus people in this country to do the same thing.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: And that's hard. And like, yes, the system is stacked
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: against us because of institutional racism and sexism and Facebook
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: and Fox and gerrymandering and the Senate and all this
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: kind of shit. It's all unfair, but that's the system
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: that we're living in. And the options are to give
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: up or to keep fighting. And I always think that
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: there's just, there's too many people out there whose lives
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: literally depend on it for us to give up. So
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: that's why we keep fighting. And there's a lot of
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: disappointment in those fights and there's a lot of setbacks,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: but you just got to keep doing it because that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: is the price of living in a democracy.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: That's a great answer.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: That's all I got.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: Give away with words.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: That's all I got. Amanda wants to know, what are
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: you reading?
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: I just finished last night, Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: one of my favorite authors.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: And it's just because I always like to pair one
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: thing I'm reading and one thing I'm reading over and
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: over and over again to the kids is Kyla's favorite thing,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: favorite set of books is The Princess in Black, which
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: is about a princess who is also a superhero who
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: protects her land from well-meaning but misguided monsters. And they're great,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: great kids' books, and we have read all of them,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: and we are anxiously awaiting the newest one to come out.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: She doesn't really understand that you can't get new books–
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: New books don't come out until February. This book doesn't
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: come out until February, so we have to wait. And
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: that is a long wait for a three-year-old.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to get to the point where I
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: can read like real children's books to Charlie since he's
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: only 15 months old and everything is just like, here's Elmo.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: Here's the big blue truck. Here's another version of the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: big blue truck. Here's a third version of the big
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: blue truck. Little Blue Truck. I think it's Little Blue Truck.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: How should I say that every fucking night? How did
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: I forget the name of it? Little Blue Truck's Halloween.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: Little Blue Truck goes to the city. Little Blue Truck
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Valentine's Day is a real winner. Yes. Little Blue Truck
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: goes to the city is a classic. That is a classic.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Yes. So basically, I'm just reading about the Little Blue Truck.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: I also started Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Rooney just to in my constant effort to try to
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: read real books, which I always come up short on.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Julie wants to know if there's any podcasts outside Crooked
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: that you listen to. Obviously, the answer is no, but
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: let's just entertain Julie's notion. Oh, and she also says,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: she goes, not you, Tommy Vitor, laughing emoji. Because we
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: know that Tommy's favorite podcast.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you mean Tommy who... We also know that. We
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: also know that no one consumes more media than Tommy.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: It's so impressive. Did you guys hear the daily? I'm like,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: it's 545. How have you listened to Mike Barbaro at 545?
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: Tommy listens to more podcasts than literally anyone I know.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: Does he just walk around? I got to ask Hannah
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: if he just walks around the house with AirPods and
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: just listening to pods all day because he consumes a lot. Anyway,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: what are you listening to?
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: The only non crooked podcast that I would allow myself
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: to listen to because I would never be disloyal to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: the media empire. But it's basketball season. There is no
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: better basketball podcast, specifically for a Sixers fan, but no
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: better basketball podcast, period, than the rights to Ricky Sanchez,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: which is a– I mention this, I think, every basketball
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: season we have this conversation, but it is absolute must
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: listen to my favorite podcast.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Cool. Uh, I'm listening to smart list. I love smart
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: list with Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. Um,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: hot take. We had Amy Westervelt on. It's a climate pod. Uh,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Amy is one of the hosts and Mary, uh, and
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: Ace Hagler is, is her cohost. They talk about climate politics. It's,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: it's like a PSA for climate politics. Um, and of course,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: strict scrutiny with our friend, Melissa Murray, who's been on
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: the pod a lot, Kate Shaw and, uh, Leah Littman, uh,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: excellent podcast about, uh, the Supreme Court and all things legal.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: So there's been some podcasts that I've been listening to.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks again to Perry Bacon for joining us today. Everyone
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: have a fantastic weekend and we'll talk to you next week.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: Bye everyone.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: Our producer is Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: slash crookedmedia.