Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump’s Corruption Is A Threat To The Republic + What's Really Driving the American Political Crisis & Polarization?

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Full Episode - Trump’s Corruption Is A Threat To The Republic + What's Really Driving the American Political Crisis & Polarization? · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: absolutely embrace, so use that code. Hello there, Happy Wednesday,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the day after our primary episode of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast. I always used to say back in
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: my meat Press daily days and daily rundown days and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: all of those daily show days I did, if it's Tuesday,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: somebody's voting somewhere, and if it's Wednesday, we've got results somewhere. Well,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: this was a fairly big Wednesday. We had one of
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: our bigger primary knights of the cycle, a couple of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: swing states we're voting in primaries, Georgia and Pennsylvania. He
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: also had Kentucky, Alabama, and Oregon on the map. Look,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt what the what the lead story is
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the lead story, is Donald Trump's grip or remodeling or
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  Speaker 1: remaking of the Republican Party continues to succeed. Donald Trump
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: endorsed candidates are in Republican primaries are still winners. Hard stop.
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  Speaker 1: Whether it was the big one that he spent a
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: lot of money in time on Thomas Massey and ed Glryn.
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  Speaker 1: He got rid of Massy. Massey now joins a bunch
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: of Indiana state senators who decided not to remap. He joins,
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  Speaker 1: he may be joining John Cornyn, He joins Bill Cassidy,
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  Speaker 1: and a fairly long list of primaries. Now the question
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  Speaker 1: is my friend Crystal is in our livestream said last night,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: what's good for Donald Trump may not be good for
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  Speaker 1: the Republican Party. And while Kentucky four doesn't really matter
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  Speaker 1: to the November numbers, this is a very Republican seat.
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  Speaker 1: Whether Massey had run or Gaul Ryan had won, a
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  Speaker 1: Republican was going to hold that seat. It was not
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  Speaker 1: going to be shifting. That is not the case of
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's decision to get involved in the Texas Senate race.
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  Speaker 1: It's fascinating to watch what Trump decided to do in
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  Speaker 1: the Texas Center race and when push comes to shove,
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump usually rejects what is in the best interests
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  Speaker 1: of the party if the choice is someone and he's
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  Speaker 1: not enthusiastic about, versus someone who's professed love for him
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  Speaker 1: or who has supported some of his crazier positions, like
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  Speaker 1: the idea that somehow the twenty twenty election was stolen
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  Speaker 1: from him. And of course Ken Paxton was the attorney
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: general that helped file the first suits and create a
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  Speaker 1: legitimacy behind the bogus claims John Cornyn, as Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: himself reminded in his truth social post, took a long
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  Speaker 1: time before he decided to endorse Trump in a general
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. But the problem Donald Trump just
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  Speaker 1: introduced to Republicans in the Senate in particular is Texas
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  Speaker 1: is not a cheap state. Ken Paxton is to say
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  Speaker 1: he's polarizing as a bit of an understatement. He truly
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  Speaker 1: has embraced trump Ism in its personal capacity. He has
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  Speaker 1: used his office for self enrichment. He has used his
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  Speaker 1: office to pay off of an affair. He has had
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  Speaker 1: very high profile, questionable intermingling of personal and professional. He is,
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  Speaker 1: to put it mildly, a as tough of a Republican
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  Speaker 1: to get elected statewide as you possibly could nominate in
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  Speaker 1: the state of Texas. Now does not mean if he
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  Speaker 1: gets out of that runoff that he's still not the
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  Speaker 1: slight favorite in the Senate race. But the problem is,
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  Speaker 1: as we've been watching in this runoff, is that John Cornyn,
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  Speaker 1: he has been just out working and outspending and out
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  Speaker 1: fundraising Ken Paxton up and down. Now it may not
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  Speaker 1: be enough, right. Trump's endorsement matters a lot in a
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  Speaker 1: Republican primary. Trump's endorsement matters a lot in a Republican runoff.
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  Speaker 1: And we know it is your more devoted Republicans that
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  Speaker 1: show up in a runoff. Therefore, you'd rather be Paxton
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  Speaker 1: at this point than Cornyn. Cornyn's Cornyn supporters are suburban
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  Speaker 1: independence who lean Republican, who may not all be participating
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  Speaker 1: in this runoff. Now we'll see it is if you've
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  Speaker 1: not voted in the Democratic primary, you can participate in
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  Speaker 1: this runoff. But this was a pretty tough punch to
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  Speaker 1: the gut for corn in the last week of the race,
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  Speaker 1: because it looked like he had a little bit of momentum.
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  Speaker 1: He is hung in there. This race is not Paxton
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  Speaker 1: has had a tough time pulling away, and let's not
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  Speaker 1: forget John Cornan actually outpolled Paxton technically in the first
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  Speaker 1: round during that early March primary. But Donald Trump wants
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  Speaker 1: to remake the party in Donald Trump's image, and in
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  Speaker 1: this case, this becomes a very expensive decision by Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump for the rest of the Republican Party. The Senate
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  Speaker 1: Leadership Fund, which is the big super pack for Senate Republicans,
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  Speaker 1: is going to have to just spend a boatload of money.
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  Speaker 1: So what does that mean wherever they If they have
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  Speaker 1: to spend more money than they plan to in Texas,
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  Speaker 1: it means they're not gonna be able to spend money
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  Speaker 1: in other places. So a few things and a few
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  Speaker 1: questions I'm going to have in this is where won't
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  Speaker 1: they spend money? Is this bad news for Michael Wattley
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  Speaker 1: In North Carolina? Roy Cooper's got a durable lead and
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  Speaker 1: gobs of money. It looks like a race that was
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  Speaker 1: going to be tough to win anyway. If you have
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  Speaker 1: if you only have a certain amount of money to spend,
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  Speaker 1: and your choices are to support Michael Watley or to
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  Speaker 1: support Ken Paxton, Well, if you just look at the
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  Speaker 1: numbers of Texas versus North Carolina. If you're a Republican,
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  Speaker 1: no matter how much you think Ken Paxton doesn't belong,
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  Speaker 1: maybe belongs behind bars, let alone in the US Senate,
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  Speaker 1: certainly shouldn't be holding elective office. But if your whole
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  Speaker 1: goal is just numbers and you're looking for who's got
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  Speaker 1: a better chance to be a Republican Senator, it's Ken
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  Speaker 1: Paxton and so but again, how about you know, you've
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  Speaker 1: got a new Hampshire Center race that is a you know,
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  Speaker 1: sort of in the second tier of targets for Senate Republicans.
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  Speaker 1: The Boston media market makes it actually a very expensive
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  Speaker 1: state to target. Does that end up being because we
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  Speaker 1: know the small states the party's going to stick right,
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  Speaker 1: they can't afford. They're not going to let a Iowa
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  Speaker 1: slip on them. They're not going to pull money away
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  Speaker 1: from Alaska. They're not going to pull money away from Michigan,
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  Speaker 1: which looks like a pretty viable It's whoever ends up
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  Speaker 1: in the Democratic the nominee from that primary. It's going
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  Speaker 1: to be a divided Democratic Party and they're pretty unified there,
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  Speaker 1: so they're not going to pull money from there. It
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  Speaker 1: is I think North Carolina, New Hampshire. It's Johnson and
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  Speaker 1: Michael Watley that have to be really upset with Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump's decision to knife John Cornyn here. And speaking of
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, so he is he is a couple of
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  Speaker 1: he is an endorsed candidate. And Georgia Governor Burt Jones,
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  Speaker 1: he is not endorsed. In the Georgia Senate race. We're
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  Speaker 1: gonna have and you know, let's see, you know, we're
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  Speaker 1: still waiting for the final numbers there, but it looks
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  Speaker 1: like Dooley's going to be the the runoff opponent there
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  Speaker 1: from Mike Collins, the congressman. Look, anybody that Brian Kemp
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  Speaker 1: is pushing Donald Trump's going to be against, Well, Brian
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  Speaker 1: Kemp spend a bunch of money to help out Dooley?
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  Speaker 1: Is he his his presence in the last minute of
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  Speaker 1: the you know, in the last two weeks on the
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  Speaker 1: trail on behalf of Dooley has been quite helpful, uh
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  Speaker 1: to him? Is Donald Trump going to spend money and
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  Speaker 1: help and on Collins? Now, let's go to the governor's
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  Speaker 1: runoff there, which is Burt Jones, somebody that Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: is support from the very beginning because Burt Jones is
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: somebody that has supported Donald Trump in his belief that
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  Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election was overturned, was somehow was somehow stolen. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Rick Jackson is a newbie candidate. He's a big wealthy candidate.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump will let a billionaire flip flop. He loves billionaires.
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  Speaker 1: He loves rich people if they end up writing him checks.
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  Speaker 1: Rick Jackson has bragged about writing a million dollar check
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  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump as he jumped into this Republican primary.
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  Speaker 1: The Burt Jones people have pointed out that he also
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  Speaker 1: wrote checks to Stacy Abrams. Now, Jackson has a pretty
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  Speaker 1: good ad basically saying, just like Donald Trump, I've given
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  Speaker 1: money to a whole bunch of people. So that's a
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  Speaker 1: race that I'm very curious. Does Donald Trump pull the
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  Speaker 1: old coo endorse I like them both because Rick Jackson
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  Speaker 1: has written him a big fat check, or does he
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  Speaker 1: put his money where his mouth is like he did
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  Speaker 1: with Paxton and actually endure stick by Jones? Right? Remember,
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump only wants people to be loyal to him.
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  Speaker 1: He does not always extend that loyalty the other way.
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  Speaker 1: And so you know, if you're thinking, well, Burt Jones
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  Speaker 1: should have nothing to worry about. Burt Jones should have
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  Speaker 1: something to worry about. And let's be honest, Democrats had
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  Speaker 1: a pretty good night in Georgia. It was a They
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  Speaker 1: had a slightly higher turnout than the Republicans. And I
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  Speaker 1: would argue that the Republican races had more activity and
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  Speaker 1: it certainly more money was being spent in Republican primaries
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  Speaker 1: than Democratic primaries, and yet the Democrats outpull them. That's
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a pretty good indicator when you've got us. When you
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: see when there's enough competition on both sides of the
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  Speaker 1: aisle in a swing state and you see one party
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  Speaker 1: outpulling the other. It's been and the trend if you
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: go back, that trend is pretty foreshadowing. You know, we
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  Speaker 1: saw this again, remember during the twenty twenty five election night.
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  Speaker 1: We had Georgia Democrats overperforming in that. So there's no
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  Speaker 1: doubt Democrats are fired up. The other thing we've seen
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: is a lot of evidence that African American turnout is
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  Speaker 1: starting to get higher in this post Voting Rights Act
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  Speaker 1: decision in the redistrict, in the aggressive redistricting and urgent
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: redistricting that's taking place in the Southern States. I have
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: been very curious if it was going to be the
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: unintended consequence of this was going to strengthen African American
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Democratic statewide candidates in the South. Well, Keisha Lance Bottoms,
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  Speaker 1: you know we're going in. We thought it was fifty
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to fifty chances she'd end up in a runoff. She
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: avoided a runoff. We've saw a fascinating divide inside that
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: those Supreme Court races. The African American candidate did a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: lot better in votes than the white challenger to one
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of the other Supreme Court justice seats there. So in
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and on Saturday night we saw an uptick. We saw
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Democratic turnout for non competitive races. Overall, that state wide
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: turnout was a lot more competitive republic There were more
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats total vote, but it was not this
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: massive gap that I think some of us expected. And
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  Speaker 1: there was almost no money spent on the Democratic side
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of the island some of these races. So it's possible
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: we're starting to see this evidence. I still think it's
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: early to be certain this is coming, but I certainly
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: it's a trend to follow, and I think keep track
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: of any primaries, particularly in the South, between and Democratic
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: primaries between African American candidates and white candidates. How much
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: is this going to be a bigger factor now in
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: this post Voting Rights Act era that we're in. You know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: we'll see I'm convinced we're going to see a surgeon turnout.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Is it enough to flip some states? Is it enough
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: to flip a race? Could it make Alabama governor more
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: competitive than we expect? Maybe? You know, that's probably that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that's one of my longer shots that I'm I think
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: could I think could get more competitive than than the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: most handy kappers think. And for a variety of reasons.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I think Tupperville's a week a week. You know, it's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: not the strongest candidate Republicans could have found there. They'd
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: found a stronger candidate, I wouldn't be paying as much
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: attention to Alabama governor. So but the big obviously development
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of the night is that once again we see Trump's
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: endorsement matters with with the results that we saw and
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the fact that it's going to be run offs that
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: will include some Trump endorsed candidates versus non Trump endorse candidates.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: How active does he get, how aggressive does he get?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: And are we going to start to see a pattern.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Jessica Taylor, who was on our live stream from the
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Cook Report, noted that it does seem as if you know,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of this cycle, Donald Trump was making
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: peace at the establishment wing of the Republican Party. He
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: endorsed Mike Rogers and Michigan, who's no maga guy. He
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: endorsed Johnsonunu in New Hampshire, who's no maga guy. So
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: there was some thought that maybe he was going to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: do what was best for the party, even if it
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: wasn't the best for Donald Trump. As his numbers have
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: gotten lower, as he is getting sort of more and
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: more unpopular, he seems to, you know, is it possible?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And this may explain the Paxton endorsement that kind of
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: caught Senate Republicans off guard. I think at this point
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: they were just hoping for just no endorsement. At this point,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: don't do anything. He did this. He did it with
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a week in advance, which gives Paxton time to call
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: himself the Trump endorsed candidate, to put up an ad
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: on the air, etc. Etc. Is this sort of like,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: you know, his way of soothing himself, that he's going
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to retreat to his most loyalist part of his base
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: going to support those who've been with them through thick
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and thin. He's essentially going to get his blanky, right,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: He's going to get his blanky and hold it tight,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: you know, and support in those guys. So it is
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: something that I'm going to be curious to watch. These
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Georgia runoffs are essentially less technically less than a month
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: from today, they're going to be in June sixteenth, or
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: they're pretty quick turnarounds. But it's one of those where
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it's going to test does Trump put his money where
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: his mouth is, Because for Burt Jones and that gubernatorial race,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: it's going to take more than just him appearing in ads.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: He's going to have to spend some money if he
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: wants if how much does that endorsement mean to him?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Because I'll tell you this, this is another one. If
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Rick Jackson's a Republican nominee for governor, I'm a lot
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: less bullish on Democrats being able to win that governor
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: seat than if Burt Jones wins. Right, you nominate somebody
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: who's an election denier. We've seen this election denier nominees
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: do in swing states do not do well. We saw
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it in Arizona in twenty twenty two. We saw with
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania twenty twenty two. These election deniers
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: in swing states turn off swing voters, and Burt Jones
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: is an election denier and that's why, you know. So
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: that's something else I'm going to be watching for in
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: those Georgia runoffs. Do Democrats play in the runoff and
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: try to help Burt Jones the real Trump candidate? Right,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: It's a risky thing to do, but you know, there's
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: no rules these days in politics, and in some ways
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: it might be risky or not doing that, trying to
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: wait for somebody else to try to help out the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: campaign that you would like to see do better if
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in the Keisha Lands Bottoms situation and if
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: you're the DGA. So I'm going to be curious. We're
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: going to find out a lot about the DGA. We're
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: going to find out a lot about whether Donald Trump
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: wants to part with his own money in MAGA. Does
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the victory in Kentucky embolden him to do that and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: to start spending more money in Republican primaries, or when
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: does he decide to pivot and start thinking about general elections,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: because right now he is not making decisions that are
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: in the best interests of the Republican Party keeping power
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. He is simply making what makes
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: him feel better about Republicans that he wants in the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: party and those Republicans that he wants out of the party.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Outside of that, I'm trying to think of anything else here. So,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you know, like like I said, I think these Georgia runoffs,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: we're going to learn a lot about just how intense
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the support or lack of support is in the Trump arena.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: What do the Democrats do on that Pennsylvania House primaries,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: no real shocks, although the fact that the squad didn't
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: get the member that they thought they were going to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: get in Pennsylvania, that race is still you know, is
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a small is a small surprise there, but beyond that,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: not a ton that you can pull out of Pennsylvania.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: That's fairly telling. But of course, even though Pennsylvania is
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: an important swing state, there's not really a lot of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: competition in Pennsylvania this cycle. Right there's no Senate race
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: this cycle, and it doesn't look like the governor's race
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: is going to be competitive. So what does matter in
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania A couple of house races that of course will
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: be following into November. And I'll tell you this, whatever
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: happens Oregon governor is going to be competitive. But of
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: course those of you that listen to the Check podcast
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: have known that I've told you that Oregon governor is
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: one of those. You know, if this had been a
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Republican leaning year nationally, i'd probably have the Tina Cotech
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the incoming governor, maybe first or second on incumbents most
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: likely to lose, you know, I probably now put her
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: ahead of the Arizona governor Katie Hobbs. I think she's
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: going to benefit from an election denier becoming the nominee. Again,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: she's going to get Andy Biggs. If she ends up
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: against Dave Schweikert, which you're gonna I'm going to tell
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: you more about that race during my top five lists
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: later in the program, she would have a real fight
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: in her hands. But that's I think. When you're looking
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: at what happened last night in Oregon, do keep in
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: mind Tina Kotek might be the most vulnerable incumbent governor
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: who's a nominee the most vulnerable incumbent governor in the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: country though, is actually Dan McKee of Rhode Island, who's
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: unlikely to actually get out of the Democratic primary win.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: The Rhode Island race is done. So big election night,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: big victories for Donald Trump, but a lot of good
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: news for Democrats in Georgia that is certainly not worth
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: dismissing there. So, all in all, a good night for
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, maybe not a good night for the Republican Party.
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  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: me give you a rundown of the rest of this episode.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna uh. My guest today is from the Polarization Lab,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: which is a consortium of universities that have done this.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: It's Sean Westwood, is my guess. And the polarization lab
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: is fascinating. You should take a look at it. Our
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: conversation is just sort of like, you know, what works
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to depolarize, and that's really you know, you know that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: as you know, that's where I'm coming from here, right,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sort of you know, I always said politics, you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: we civilization created politics so that we could settle disputes
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: without violence. Politics isn't about getting everything you want. Politics
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: is about essentially negotiating your way to get to try
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to get as much as you want, right, And the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: more polarized you are, the more it is hard to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: actually practice politics. Right. If everything is a zero sum game, well,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I can't help you because that will hurt my side.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: You're not going to get anything done. And certainly the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: large majority of the country, the sixty percent that agrees
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: on ninety percent of things, essentially doesn't get represented, and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: instead it is the wings that sort of dominate the leadership,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: which of course dominates things. So I think the polarization conversation,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy this because they're trying to they're
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: analyzing this through data, not through vibes, if you will,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's why the conversation. But before
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I get to my conversation on polarization, I want to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: zoom out for a minute, both from the Tuesday results
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and from polarization, talk about something that I think is
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: a bit bigger that's hanging over all of our politics
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: right now. And honestly, it's something I've been worried about,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and it's something I've been thinking a lot about as
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I've watched this second Trump term unfold. You know, one
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: observation I've made over the years when it comes to
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the issue of corruption and ethics is this, corruption issues
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: only really become voting issues when voters feel their own
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: lives are failing as well, and when they think government
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: officials in the government is letting them down. That's when
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: corruption breaks through. That's when and it stops being Washington
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: noise and starts becoming personal. Watergate mattered politically, not simply
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: because of the break in or the cover up. The
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: country already felt exhausted, inflation was high, trust in government
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: was collapsing. The Vietnam War had shattered confidence and institutions.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Americans already believed something was wrong with the system itself.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: And again, did I tell you the economy sucked. By contrast,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton survived his scandal with Monica Lewinsky not because
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: people overlook the scandal, but it's because most Americans felt
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: their own lives were okay. They thought, well, he's doing
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: a good job. The economy was booming, and so people
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: were able to compartmentalize the scandal. They basically said, yeah,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: this is ugly, but my life's okay. And that distinction
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: matters right now because I think we are entering a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: very dangerous phase in American politics at the moment. It's
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: not simply because of Donald Trump, but of what Trump
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: is normalizing, and more importantly, what happens if voters decide
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: this level of behavior is politically survival. So what am
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I talking about here? It's this sort of selling of
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the presidency and the grift from the government, right with
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the latest being this ridiculous Iris settlement that basically just
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: steals one point eight billion dollars of taxpayer money so
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump can have a slush fund to give
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it out to loyalists. That's all it is. And in fact,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: it is this sort of you know, he worked He
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: basically came up with this agreement with his personal attorney,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: who technically has the title of Acting Attorney General right now,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and he's avoiding judicial review because they struck the settlement
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: before a judge could say this lawsuit has this is
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: this case, they would have probably ruled that you couldn't
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: be a party to both sides of a lawsuit, so
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't have allowed it to go through. But if
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: you quickly settle before they have a chance to decide
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: whether even the lawsuit has standing, well here we go.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: And not only that, apparently the Justice Department has agreed
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: to never investigate Trump or his family on tax on
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: tax issues ever. Again, I guess on anything that is
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: any tax issue that has already taken place, perhaps going forward.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think the Justice Department gave him a get
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: out of jail free card when it comes to future
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: tax evasion. But the Justice Department has given the Trump
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: say get out the jail free card for whatever tax
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: evasion may have occurred up until this point. Think about that.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying there's been any tax evasion, but apparently
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the government's not allowed to look into it. Now. Trump's
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: real defense to how he practices. This transactional politics has
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: never been innocence. It's been normalization. Everybody's corrupt. I'm just
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: your corrupt guy. I've given money to all these people.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I know how this system works. You remember that version
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: of him. And honestly, that's the most dangerous political argument
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: in modern American history, because enough Americans already have believe it.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: And that's been the key to Trump's survival. I'm not
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: going to call it success. If surviving is success, then
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: sure he's been successful. Politically, this has not been you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: it's funny. It's like Donald Trump has endured, but he's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: never been a popular president. And he's enormously unpopular now.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, he got millions killed in
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: his first term with COVID and his mismanagement of that,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and he's now totally unraveling parts of the American economy
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: just because he believes tariffs are good for the American economy.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: They're not. He started a war of choice without going
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: without any sort of strategy to minimize the economic damage
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: or to minimize how long the Iranians could keep us
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: in a stalemate. So this has not been a successful
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: two terms for the president. He's just simply politically survived,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and that's the key. Trump doesn't defend himself the way
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Nixon even defended himself. Nixon understood the corruption that was
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: taking place with something shameful, and that it had to
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: be hidden. He hid it. Trump understands corruption as something
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: that can be absorbed into the culture. Nixon's corruption was
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: about concealment. Trump's corruption is about saturation. If you flood
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the zone, overwhelm people, overwhelm the system, create so many
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: supposed scandals that nobody can metabolize them all at the
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: same time, make the outrageous feel routine. One scandal, then another,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: then another, and eventually people just emotionally tap out. Yeah,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: he's corrupt. What else is new? Now it's broken through
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: that he's corrupt. A majority of people don't believe he's
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: honest and trustworthy. We've seen that in polls. But I
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: don't think that numbness is a side effect of the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: strategy anymore. I think numbness is the strategy because once
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: voters stopped being shit corruption, like I have fear that
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: there's not enough shock about this IRS bullshit slush fund.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Once they start saying, well, everybody does it they're all
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: kind of corrupt. Once they stop expecting ethical boundaries altogether,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that's when the system itself begins adapting around corruption. And
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: this is the part I think we are all underestimating.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: This isn't just about Trump making money off the presidency,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: though that seems to be a motivation for him. This
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: is about whether the American political system starts absorbing the
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: lesson that visible corruption carries no meaningful political penalty anymore,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: because once something becomes politically survivable, it becomes politically reproducible.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: That is the danger. We've already seen the Democrats fold
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: on a principle when it came to redistricting, up doing it,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So now we're going to do it. Don't think we
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: won't see the same thing with pay to play. The
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: danger is what comes after Trump if this works, if
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: there is no price to pay for this brazen corruption. Now. Look,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: one reason I think this second term feels qualitatively different
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: from the first is almost all the internal guardrails are gone. Right.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: You had people that worried about bad ethical looks right
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: in the first administration. There actually were still people around
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Trump who worried about appearances, lawyers whoccasionally said no Republicans
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: who still feared institutional damage or public backlash more than
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Trump's wrath. Well, most of those people are gone. Trump's
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: trying to purge them literally out of the party primary
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: by primary. If he can't, and that's not accidental, he
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: is systematically purged from the Republican Party anyone who treats
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: institutional norms, constitutional guardrails, or ethical limits as more important
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: than personal loyally to him. Look carefully at who gets
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: targeted and why they're targeted. Bill Cassidy, it's due to impeachment.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence because he didn't he didn't follow his orders
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: on January six, election officials who have refused to manipulate
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: certification after twenty twenty, Thomas Massey after demanding transparency around Epstein.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: He gets targeted. The Republicans of Indiana who resisted aggressive
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: mid decade redistricting. Do you see the pattern? The defining
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: sin in modern trump Ism often is not ideological disagreement.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: FDR targeted fellow Democrats, but it was over his freaking agenda.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump does it because he doesn't like it that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: people have ethics or morals. The refusal to subordinate institutional
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: norms to personal loyalty. That's what makes this so different
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and dangerous. That's much closer to the logic of a
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: patronage system than a traditional political movement. And another name
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: for it is a kleptocracy. Donald Trump is already turning
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party into kleptocracy. We here have to fight
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: to make sure the entire country doesn't become a kleptocracy.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: And I think that's why this moment feels more dangerous
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: than a normal American corruption scandal, because it's not merely
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: corruption at the top. It's the gradual erosion of the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: idea that ethical restraint even matters. Now, let's talk about
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: the actual conduct for a minute, because honestly, at this point,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the evidence itself is overwhelming and paradoxically, I think that's
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: part of why it struggles to fully penetrate politically. There
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: are too many scandals to metabolize. The Mean coin operation
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: alone would have been an earth shattering scandal in another era.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Think about what's actually happening here. The sitting president of
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the United States essentially creates a financial ecosystem where proximity
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to him becomes monetized. Top holders of said coin get
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: access opportunities private dinners, influenced signaling, apped inside speculative crypto trading,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: tied directly to the political identity of the president himself,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't even hide it. It's all public. That's
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the part that matters here. This is an old school
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: corruption where somebody sneaks envelopes of cash into a parking garage.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: This is open air pay to play. And then you
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: layer on the overlap between Trump connected business ventures, foreign
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: linked investment structures, sensitive public policy decisions. At some point,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the distinction between public office and private enrichment just completely
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: collapses in the public mind. And honestly, I think the
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: pardon issue may ultimately become the most politically potent part
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of all of this, because ordinary voters instinctively understand that
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a pardon is something you buy. These pardons don't merely
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: free people from jail. In most of these cases, there's
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: been more than just time out of prison. They erase
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: massive financial penalties owed to either victims, shareholders, or taxpayers.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: There's a guy named Trevor Milton. His case really crystallizes
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: for me. He's a guy convicted of massive fraud case
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: he owed enormous restitution and then he gets his pardon
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and the restitution voided after making a three million dollar
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: donation to Donald Trump. Now, legally, defenders will say these
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: are separate events, but politically, emotionally, people understand exactly what
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: this looks like, rich people buying their way out of consequences,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the Epstein class, and that lands especially hard when ordinary
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Americans already feeled squeezed by the system. Remember the same government,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: right these ads right themselves. Donald trump Is policies have
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: raised the cost of your grocery bill. And guess how
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: much he's raised his net worth while being in president.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: While he's raised your prices, he's helped create a a tax.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Put it this way, the US Postal Service had to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: raise prices temporarily on all packages that are above envelopes,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: gay ground advantage, priority mail, things like that. That is
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a tax on small businesses. It's a transportation pack that
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: took away. It's all about the Iran war, and that
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: lands especially hard. And that's when you can connect the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: corruption to their everyday lives. Watch out and now comes
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: this newest IRS lawsuit settlement structure, which effectively creates a
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: taxpayer funded mechanism tied to Trump's personal grievances and legal battles.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: We can debate the legal mechanics, but politically, the message
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: matters more than the details. The perception is that political
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: power itself is increasingly being used for personal protection, personal reward,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: and personal score settling. Again, Trump's defense is not really
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: denial anymore. It's normalization. Everybody does it. The system is
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: corrupt against me, so I'm going to change. I'm going
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to use the system against my opponents. And then he'll
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: just say I'm just better at the game. And what
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: makes the argument dangerous is that many Americans already half
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: believe his premise. A lot of people already think the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: system is right, a lot of people already think both
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: parties are corrupt. Trump's innovation is not trying to refute
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: that cynicism. It's weaponizing it. That's what's new. And I
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: think it's important to understand where systems like this eventually
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: go if they're left unchecked, Because when you look around
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: the world at democracies that we can crumble or drift
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: toward authoritarianism, kleptocracy is almost always part of the story,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: not always at the beginning, but eventually. In Hungary, Victor
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Robond fused party power, oligarch wealth, media influence, and state
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: resources into one giant patronage ecosystem built around loyalty. It
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: worked until it finally didn't when an opponent was able
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: to connect the corrupt to their lives. In Turkey, air
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: to one steadily weakened institutional checks, while political loyalty increasingly
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: became intertwined with economic opportunity and state power. In Venezuela,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the democratic collapse didn't happen overnight. It happened gradually through
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: institutional erosion, patriotage networks, politicized justice, corruption, attacks on independent institutions,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and the normalization of transactional government. That's how democratic small
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: D democratic decay usually works now, not through one dramatic coup,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: through simple derosion and corrosion. Slowly, the lines between public
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: office and private gain blur. Institutions don't disappear, but they weaken.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Accountability isn't gone, but it fades. Political loyalty becomes more
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: valuable than competence, ethics, or morals. The ruling movement increasingly
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: treats the state as something to extract from rather than
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: steward four, and eventually the public either revolts against the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: corruption or simply becomes accustomed to it. And I think
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: that is the real danger here, not merely Trump himself,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: but the adaptation to trump Ism, the normalization of it,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: the absorption of it into the political bloodstream, Because what
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Trump has built is more than a corrupt administration. He
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: is building a kleptocracy. Now, for the moment, it's still
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: largely contained within his political movement and the party structure
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: he currently controls. But we all know this. Political systems learn,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and once something becomes politically survivable, it becomes politically reproducible.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Future governors will absorb the lesson. Future mayors will absorb
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the lesson. Future presidents will absorb the lesson. Members of
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Congress will absorb the lesson. Why wouldn't future politicians monetize
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: access of voters tolerated? Why wouldn't they blur public office
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: with private enrichment if voters tolerated Why wouldn't they use
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: pardons transactionally if voters tolerated it. Why wouldn't they treat
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: political power itself as a business opportunity? Again, if voters
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: tolerated it. So this is where I actually think polarization
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: becomes so dangerous to democratic small d accountability because once
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: ethics becomes entirely tribal, once voters stop evaluating conduct and
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: only evaluate whether their side is winning. Once corruption becomes
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: tolerable as long as your faction benefits own the Libs baby,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: then the political system starts adapting around the corruption itself.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: That's the slippery slope. That's why the bigger danger is
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: not Trump himself. It's what comes after Trump. If this works,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Because if voters ultimately decide this level of visible self
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: enrichment carries no political penalty, the transactional grift stops being
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: an aberration, it becomes the governing culture. And once that
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: apps in, corruption no longer belongs to one movement, it
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: becomes embedded in the republic itself. We're already corrupting our
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: political are the fights over gerrymandering and the political lines?
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Do we want to keep this up? This is how
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: republics decay, not because voters consciously choose corruption. They don't
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: want it, they will always tell you that, but because
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: they slowly become accustomed to it, and once the public
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: begins treating the infection as normal tissue, democracies rarely recover quickly.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they don't recover at all this corruption. If voters
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: don't punish anybody who embraces this corruption, who looks the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: other way, you're risking long term decay of our republic itself.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: With that pretty upbeat. Huh, let's sneak in a break
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and we're going to bring in Sean Westwood and we're
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: going to talk about polarization. How can we through data
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: analyze it and perhaps start to depolarize well. This episode
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• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Joining me now is Sean Westwood. He is one of
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the founders of the Polarization Research Lab basically a joint
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: project of Sean Westwood at Dartmouth. He's also a fellow
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: at the Hoover Institute. Penn and Stanford are also a
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: part of this. I'm sure he will tell me more
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: that are a part of this research lab. And the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: lab's mission is simple, simply what it says, right, It
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: is to try to diagnose the roots of polarization in America,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: all this animosity that we have and trying to see
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: if we can measure this, see if there is a
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: data driven way to answer this question rather than a
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: vibes way of answering this question. And I was intrigued
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: when I about Bridge Grades, a new project of a
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: gentleman on substock. I put this on ECONOMN a couple
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: of week grind and he's trying to find the most
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: essentially the members of Congress who try to work across
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: partisan ways and those that don't. And he uses the
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: polarization lab as one of his one of his metrics.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to get to know more about the
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Polarization Lab. Sean Western joins me. Now, Sean, it's nice
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: to meet you.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pleasure to have this chance to talk
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: with you today, SHAWNA.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: So look, give me the origin story of the Polarization
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Research Lab. What was the is this a tell me
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: when the brainstorm became a reality.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: So this week goes back to about twenty ten in
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: California and I was noticing friends avoiding contact with people
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: who disagreed on political issues, and I really wondered, is
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: that something that's more of a global phenomena in the
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: US or is that just a peculiarity. PhD students at
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: stan heard and it really started my engagement in this
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: literature that built over time to twenty twenty, when we
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: saw the attack on the capital and a lot of
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: narrative around that attack that I didn't think was grounded
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: in data. From there, we decided, well, you know what,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: if we think that there are measurement problems, maybe we
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: should enter the arena. Maybe we should do the measurement.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: So we started collecting weekly survey data of American in
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: the United States to try and understand the extent to
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: which they hate the other side, to which they support
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: democratic norm violations, and the extent to which they're willing
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: to endorse or support political violence. That then elevated a
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: key question in our mind, which is why do Americans
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: hate each other so much? Why are they willing to
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: support democratic norm violations, Why are they willing to say
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: that they support political violence? And I think the key
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: explanation for us was political leaves. Artisanship is one of
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: the few spaces in American culture there's actually an incentive
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: to be negative. We have cultural norms that saggios that
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: if you're racist, you should suppress those racist thoughts, if
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: you're sexist, you should suppress those sexist thoughts. But in
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: partisanship it's the exact op say, you should be as
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: negative as you possibly can. To be a good Democrat
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: or to be a good Republican, you have to denigrate
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: as much as you can.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: You have to.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Signal that you're a good member of the n group.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: We really wanted to understand how that pressure, how that rhetoric,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: how that infitrail from elites is driving American artisan disdain.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: So are we sure this is a new phenomenon.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think it is a real phenomena. I think
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: that is the biggest mistake that folks in this space makes.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: So we have survey data going back to the nineteen sixties,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: but the reality is that the most toxic parts of
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: American history are much older than that. Right, If we
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: look at threats to democratic norms, we just have to
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: look to the Alien and Sedition X. Right, we want
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: to look at political violence, we have the entirety of
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: the post reconstruction era. So we certainly do have a
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: lot of purchase on the extent to which there's anger
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: at the moment. But it does really wrong to suggest
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: that we're more polarized or more willing to tolerate democratic
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: backslending we've ever been before.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: So I have a theory, and theories are just that, right,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: You have a thesis and you test the premise. But
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: the farther away we get from the Cold War, the
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: more I'm starting to believe the Cold War was an
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: outlier period in American history. And if you look at
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the makeup of American politics in the twenty first century,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: if you look at the competitiveness between the two parties
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: in the twenty first century, looks an awful lot like
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Whether you want to go from eighteen
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: sixty six through the turn of the century, or whether
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: you want to look between Jackson and Lincoln in the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: twenty and the seven presidents that we had in twenty
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: four years. Is it possible? This is our natural state? Think.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: One of the things that goes really underappreciated is the
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: fact that democracy is inherently competitive. It's inherently conflictual. For
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: one side to win, the other side must lose. You're
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: exactly right in noting that the Cold War gave us
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: a common enemy that we unite against, and that may
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: have given a false sense of stasis or all sense
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: of calm. The reality is that most democratic nations are
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: intensely inflectual, are intensely polarized. The fact that we or
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: many Americans saw a period of calm may just have
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: miscalibrated expectations from what is really the baseline level of
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: conflict and animosity that finds a democratic system.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's funny. It's like I like
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: to remind people, within three years of the Berlin while
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: following the Republican Party of pre World War two showed
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: back up in the form of Pat Buchanan. Right, So
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: it was it was, you know, we It's almost as
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: if everybody you grow, oh, the pause is over. Let's
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: go back to a more partisan times, a more uh,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and so knowing that is there is there is there
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: a good answer to polarization. Is there a point where
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you just accept that this is and you have to
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: operate in a system that, hey, we're always going to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: be a little bit polarized.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's a mistake to think that there is
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: a singular fix. Then there's been a lot of research
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: attempting to a band aid on a bullet lunk, so
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: to create public service announcements where elected officials talk about
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: how they respect individuals of the other party, or to
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: share messages on how we have a common national identity,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: and those are affected for the moment. They will shift
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: attitudes by a few percentage points for a few weeks,
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: but those aren't long term remedies. The reality is that
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: we have to deal with the world that is polarized.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: But we should question the extent to ech steff a
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: threat and that's something that my work is focused on
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: in the last decade or so. So it is the
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: case that we're more polarized than most of our peer democracies,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: but it is not the case actually that actually leads
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: to negative effects. So polarization does not cause us to
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: abandon bipartisanship. Polarization does not cause us to support democratic
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: norm violations. It does not cause us to support violence,
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: It does not cause us to question democratic institutions. These
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: are co occurring events. So it is a mistake to
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: say that polarization in and of itself is a threat.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: What is a threat or the structural changes that have
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: led to polarization or the behavioral changes that have led
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: to polarization, because those things are also causing support for
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: democratic backsliding. It's not that just a c intermediary stack
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: where elites behave badly that leads the polarization. That polarization
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: leads to us push back against democratic ones. It's elite's
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: behaving badly causing polarization and simultaneously pushing Americans to question democracy.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Do we have Look, I will contend that we have
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: some structural things that we've led atrophy that have contributed
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: to the to the to what feels like we have
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: no choice but to be polarized? And what do I
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: mean by this? So I'm obsessed about expanding the House.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I think that it's a a relief valve, not the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: relief valve, a relief valve in that I think that
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: we've the congressional districts are too big, it's too easy
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: for one faction to essentially hijack the district, control the district.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: You know, the bigger these districts are, the easier it
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: is to gerrymander, you know. The smaller in population, the
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: harder it would be to do it, and it would
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: be less necessary. Is do you view so that that
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: you know there's that there's open primaries, getting rid of
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: partisan primaries. That's another potential relief foul that that that
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: folks advocate in all of this. So is it is
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: just having new pipes for this energy to flow through?
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: It is? Are these durable things worth pursuing?
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm actually writing a book now on electoral reforms,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: and the core argument is that when you implement a
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: reform like writing choice voting or proportional representation, or you
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: create open primaries, on some measures, you'll see improvement. On
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: other measures, you'll see negative effects, You'll see negative externalities.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: And give me an example on some of this where
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: where something that we thought was going to be a
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: positive turned into a negative.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: So I think that the most pressing threat that I've
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: found is election denihilism. So with ranked choice voting. It's
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: very possible that you could go to bed the night
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: of election seeing that your candidate has secured the most votes.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: A few days or a few weeks later, now maybe
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: the candidate who had the fewest votes on Tuesday night
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: has won the election. That could be very destabilizing in
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: a country where a large gyps of Americans are already
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: unlikely to trust outcomes.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a I have the I like the premise
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: of ranked choice voting. I think the practice is very
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: hard to convince the public that it's on the.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Up and up, and I think that's exactly right. So
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: if you even look at the expenditures in twenty twenty four,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I think Oregon is a good example of this, where
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: the individual supporting ranked choice voting outspent the opponent six
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: one hundred and forty six to one and still lost
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: by double digits. Right, the American public hasn't bought into
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of these reforms. That isn't to say that
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: they're not valuable. That isn't to say that they couldn't
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: function as a pressure release valve. But I think we
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: already have mechanisms in place that we're abandoning. So for
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: a long time, the parties were much more powerful in
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: the House. Party leadership was much more powerful in the House.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: They could utilize individuals who are stoking conflict, who are
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: abandoning their responsibilities for their constituents, which some from powerful
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: committees discipline them from within the chamber. That kind of
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: behavior is kind of why So I certainly think that
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: there are long term plays like open primaries or proportional representation,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: or expanding the size of the House that could be effective.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: But ironically, I think stronger party control within our existing
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: House and Senate is probably the easiest, most realistic clicks.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: I actually just had that. I mean, look, McCain fine
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Gold was the massive unintended consequence of McCain find goals
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: that took financial power away from the major parties?
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, absolutely, And now how the control of the
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: House is so tenuous that leaders are in a position
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: where they can't hold back, they can't amalize lest they
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: totally lose control.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Of the chamber. Are we trying to fit a country
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: of three hundred and fifty million people into two parties
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: that don't want to be in two parties?
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: I think that's probably right. The trick is that moving
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: from two parties to a multi party system is a
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: very very hard thing to do.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Really, the only exam especially because of our structure. I mean,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: it's especially because of our structure, exactly that ballot and
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I always say, you know, the only reason
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: the two parties are surviving is ballot access.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: That's exactly great. I mean, probably the best askwards deplating
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: the control the two parties had would be proportional representation,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: but that would require an Act of Congress, So it
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: would require the individuals would be disadvantaged as a result
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: of the reform to acquiesced to the reform. And I
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: don't think that we're going to have a South Africa
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: like moment here in our country. I think so that
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: it's also just historically unlikely to move from a two
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: party system to a multi party system with a singular reform.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: We are.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: The only country we have where that's happened is New Zealand.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: And even then New Zealand did have minor parties, it
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: just weren't very powerful or very influential.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Before I always have any answer to this. You know,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: how many teams play in the NBA finals. I honestly
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: have no idea the point being there's only two teams.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: How many teams playing the Super Bowl? There's only two teams,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Like I do think that even when you look at
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: multi party systems, there's usually two right, there's usually a
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: leading left and a leading right. So I think there's
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: always going to be this gravitational poll two to two. Sure,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: the question is what do you so? For instance, the
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: fastest growing party in America is no Party Right, particularly
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: among voters under the age thirty five. For me, that
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: looks like a total protest against the two party system.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: But I don't know whether it's a protest against the
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: two party system or a protest against these two parties.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: And I guess that's what would your lab say, How
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: would you research this?
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: I think it would be a bit of both. So
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: one of the more interesting things that we've observed in
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: the period after twenty sixteen is that not only have
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: we seen anger towards the other party growing, but we've
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: seen individuals become less positive towards their party. So it's
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: not just that you.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Have they're negative, they're negative, un right, I mean I
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: always Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer have the same problem.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Their own party is unfavorable on them, and the other
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: party doesn't like them, which is why, like Schumer joined
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: McConnell in that Why is McConnell so unpopular because his
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: own party doesn't like them and the Democrats don't like them. Well,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: that's now Chuck Schumer exactly.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: So are there's a subset of America. There are some
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: set of Americans who just don't see anything good, not
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: over the two parties. And then there's a subset of
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: the American electorate that remembers the Democratic Party as it
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: was ten years ago, or remember it's the Republican Party
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: as it was under the control O break and are
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: just trying to see a way back to I guess
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: those more Healcyan days, right, But it's not clear how
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: that happens. It's not clear in a system with ard
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: primaries where you allow a third party to become competitive
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: and the prior attempts that we've seen, cults of personality,
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: the ross brow cross rows in the world just haven't
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: been able to leverage the American public in the way
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: that Nagel Karaj has, or that.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: I would argue Pero did until he flaked out, right,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: he became he kind of got flaked, but he he
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: had done it, he was about to, and then he
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: went through his You know, I would argue his own
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: ego got in the way, right, Yeah, paranoid about you know, it.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: Didn't become a cult of personality.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: But he had captured something. And you know, his candidacy
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: did force both parties to look inward in different ways.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: And even though he lost, he succeeded and he moved
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the Democrats to become more focused on the debt, and
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: certainly Clinton arguably focused more on deficit issues. You could,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: you could say because of the pro candidacy, and I
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: think over time he got the Republicans to to sort
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: of take a take another look at their free trade practices.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: It is he was a relief valve a little bit.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: No is is that is? Is it that we could
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: use a temporary relief? Yeah?
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's the cable. He was a relief but
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: so brief that I don't know if most Americans would
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: even remember who he was or what he did or
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: what he advocated for. So in the modern era, I
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: guess I would support any relief right. I would support
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: anyone who can lower the temperature, who can move the
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: two parties closer to I guess a point of moderation.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not so delusional as to say that we need.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: A perfect fix.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, I am hard pressed to
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: imagine someone who have that rolite role today. If you
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: look at the polling, it's not really clear that we
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: have someone with that kind of financial resources who is
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: appealing to a segment of both the Democrats and the Republicans.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: The rich guy is going to have a hard time
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: getting getting a getting appeal right now. Right the dream
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: businessman mindset like that ain't cutting it with I think
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: today's independent owner.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: I think the only person who's even remotely close with
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: Mark Cuban, but it's not clear that he has interest.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I oh, I think he has the interest.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: He doesn't want to. I think he thinks it's going
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: to be very hard on that front. Let's go back
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: to open primaries a minute, because in some ways you
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: do have the state laboratories to measure things. Let's and
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: actually this isn't a state that has opened prime well,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: I guess it kind of does because there's no party registration.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Let's take Texas. Texas had a state house that had
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: cross partisan control it's something that actually many people in
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how often I have to remind people in Washington. Literally,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: it hasn't been that long ago. It was just a
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: cycle ago that that you had a group of Texas
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Republicans who sort of had split split off from Abbot
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and a group of Democrats, and they were controlling the House. Well,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: you could argue they were depolarizing. So why did that
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: work at a place like Texas?
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: So I think that Texas was an outlire. So if
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: we look at a lot of the places that have
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: implemented alternative voting rules, open primaries, ranked choice voting, they
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: are places that are overwhelmingly controlled by a single party.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: So in Berkeley, for example, with ranked choice voting, you're
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: still going to have a liberal Democrat win that election.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: It's just now a question of which of the liberal
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: room crats is going to win that election. I think
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: Texas's special because Texas does have very blue urban centers
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: and very red rural communities where there is a need
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: to actually compromise with one another in a way that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: doesn't manifest in the Utah legislature or in the California legislature.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: The California legislature is so overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats that
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: Republicans are more or less window deheration. That's not the
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: case in Texas, or wasn't the case in Texas.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Right, But I could argue if you told me that
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: the I mean, there is a divide inside the Democratic
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: majority that at some point you could see sort of
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: that trust, that sort of where there's a in the
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: same way with what happened, like Texas, Democrats had very
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: little power until there was an you know, until there
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: was this splinter group. Right, Sure, sure, I.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: Mean, it's certainly the case that what works in California
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: with Republicans and what works in Texas with Democrats is
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: that you're not running the prototypical Republican of the prototypical Democrat.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: You're running a California Republican or a Texas Democrat. So
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: a Republican who perhaps is willing to discuss abortion or
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: a Democrat who's willing to discuss gone on our ship
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: and done rights. Again, it's the case that we're not
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: seeing a lot of these alternative forms manifesting in places
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: that are truly competed, in places where they might be
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: not to all control from one party to the other.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: It's not as we're looking at truly moderate states. We're
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: looking at the states that had very special, very odd dynamics.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Well, one could argue, though, that we've got a pretty
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: clean test of how states with all party primaries that
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: had Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: You know they you too. You know, you could survive
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: in Washington State, and you could survive in California. Valadeo
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: and new House survive. And we'll see if Valadeo survives
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: this cycle. He's got a tougher, much tougher district, but
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: that only is because there wasn't partisan primary, So that
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I guess, I guess My question to you is that
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: proof that all party primaries are a a not the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: cure for polarization, but an antidote.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's proven that they can break the two
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: party chokeold. I think that they can in certain districts
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: with certain candidates, deliver outcomes that would otherwise be impossible.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: But it's not clear if they would generate competition across
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: the board in all districts and all states. So maybe
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: that's too low give a goal. Maybe it's too delusional
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: to say that there's a single reform that we can
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: implement that will make all house racism more competitive or
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: more fare. Maybe it's enough to say that we're allowing
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: candidates to survive in a few districts. I think at
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: this point in our political landscape, that might be the
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: best that we can.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Oukcour that's a so. I mean you're sort of you're
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: have you come to that conclusion? Or is what more
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: would you like to test to see before you came
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: to that conclusion.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: So the pot the problem with all studies of elections
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: is that we have a very small d and we're
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: looking at the presidency. For example, in the modern era,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: we have maybe ten residential elections with house races because
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: we redistrict every ten years. It's also hard to generalize.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: So there's a certain there's a certain need to try
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: and read across districts or to inject your own qualitative
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: assessment just simply because the data aren't deep enough, the
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: data aren't robust enough. I think in this instance, I'm
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: guilty of injecting my own personal assessment on the data.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: Guilty is charge, right?
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: No, I mean I think we all want it's hard
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: to not apply your own belief system here, right, Like
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: I ultimately believe we should be trying to get the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: democracy closer to the people, so that you know, for
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: me is uncapping the House, that for me is getting
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: rid of partisan primaries. I think taxpayer funded primaries are unconstitutional.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: I think the idea that I have to join a
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: private club in order to participate in a taxpayer fun
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: on the election seems like a violation of equal protection.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: So you can I think, I think there's some case,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: potentially some law, But that's a theory, right, and it's
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: my own bias on that that believes that, But it's
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: it does feel like we have to change the incentive
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: structure that that we're our natural I guess I go
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: back to this. I think our natural state is polarization,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: and if we don't want it, we actually have to
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: legislate it out. You have to, we have to. We
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: are not. This is not going to norm its way out.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: So I think it's important to draw a distinction between
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: ALTI polarization and on healthy polarization. Right, So it's important
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: for us to have divergent views. In many instances, compromises
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: can be destructive. They've led to some very dark moments
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: in our history. It's important to not achieve or not
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: to seek out compromise as the only goal. It's important
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: to disagree on policy. It's important to very strongly disagree
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: on policy. What's not helpful, though, is when that disagreement
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: becomes just at all consuming need to denigrate the opposition,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: where if I disagree with you on policy, I must
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: also view you as less intelligent, as less sophisticated, as
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: less moral, as less ethical. Having strong policy disagreement it's
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: absolutely normatively required democracy. It's the inherent structor of democracy.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: I think repolarization has become destructive. It's when it's entered
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: into our social decision making, when it's entered into our
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: personal lives, and it's when politicians have decided that they're
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: going to turn disagreement on an issue into a source
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: of mockery, into a source of denigration, and into a
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: source of caricature. So you can certainly have principled policy
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: disagreement without that more answerus source of into personal conflict.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: It's just in the modern era we haven't been able
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: to separate the two.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Now it gets it to you know, it's really interesting
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: with negative polarization and how that is such a that
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: can be a motivator or a driver. There was a
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: couple of poll findings about two weeks ago that sort
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: of convinced me that there's a greater number of Trump
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: voters who are not big fans of Trump, but they
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: really hate the lips and what Trump is is a
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: vehicle to tell the left wing elites to f off
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: right like that's and because and what what led me
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: to sort of like it was there was something like
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: only ten percent of Republicans thought it was a good
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: idea for Trump to name stuff after himself, And it's like, yeah,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: these folks aren't in love with Trump. What they love
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: is how he owns the left and that feels like
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: and I think it's what drives some of you know,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: the popular already of say, you know, Stephen Colbert or
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: the popular right that they just love to embarrass the right.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: And I guess how do we weed that out of
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: our politics?
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: I think we're already accidentally reading that out of our politics.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Local newspapers are dying, Stable news is becoming irrelevant. I
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: think we're in a very short order going to exist
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: in a world where if you are not opting into politics,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: you're probably not going to be exposed to it. If
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: you're not actively seeking out political information on X or
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: Blue Sky, or actively seeking out the CNN stream or
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: the Hawk's news stream, you're not going to be part
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: of the discussion. The inadvertent audience has driven political coverage
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: in this country since the nineteenth fiftiece is going to vanish,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: but the nightly news is going to become on our own.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: What's the consequence of that?
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that the the middle
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: problem is that that's going to be destructive and helpful.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: It's going to be destructive in that it's going to
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: make it so that those individuals who exist on political
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: conflict less relevant. It's going to make it so that
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: the Tucker Carlson's or the Hassan Pikers of the world
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: are going to maintain their own audience, but it's going
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: to be containerized, and it's going to be something that
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: individual talk into. But it also means that Americans are
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: not going to have the information necessary in order to
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: hold elect officials accountable. So on the one end, it
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: might make altics less relevant, but on the other that
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: lack of awareness might make it easier for individuals who
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: are bent on destroying basic democratic institutions able to do
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: so without the pesky journalists pointing out what they're doing
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: to the world.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: You know, you point out something. So my obsession with
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: reanimating local news and starting frankly with sports and youth
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: sports is sort of the foundational coverage to my thesis
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: on this is, you know, it can be that, it
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: can be what, you know, what classified revenue, classified ad
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: revenue was, But the point is trying to restore accidental information, right,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: which is what the local newspaper did. There's this great
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: study and I think it's about fifteen or sixteen years
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: old now, where there was a correlation and now it's
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: a useless correlation, but there was a correlation between getting
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: the newspaper delivered to your house and voting, and a
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: couple of academics, in order to prove to see if
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: this was just sort of correlation or causation, did an
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: experiment where they found people who did not subscribe to
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: the newspaper, force delivery for it, and did increase vot
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: or turnout, and it just turned out it was just
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: simply awareness, right. That part of it was if you
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: didn't get a you didn't know when the election was,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: but if you got it delivered to your house, you
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: were more likely to accidentally remember find out when election
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: day was and it and just that little thing. Now
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: we're not restoring the newspaper deliveries and all of that.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: That ship has sailed. So do you think you think
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: it's a worthwhile effort to continue to try to develop
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: news organizations that that maybe their main driver? And like
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: in local news, to me, it's about, you know, how
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: are you helping people live their lives? So you're helping
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: them find cheaper chicken, or you helping them tell you
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: where they're where, what what the school events are this week,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: and what time the games are and all those things
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: that in that form of what I call service journalism. Right,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: you're just sitting there here helping the community. You're not there,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: you're not you're not necessarily doing accountability journalism. But you
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: might have a piece about the city council men who's
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: ripping off taxpayers. But nobody paid attention to that piece,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: but maybe they stumbled across it because they were checking
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: something else out. I mean, if we don't have news
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: organizations that are doing that, are doing both of those
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: things which is what the previous sort of iteration of
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: media did. It does seem like we will just make
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: this worse.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty cymicle. So there have been efforts to reconstruct
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: local news ATCH, which was a pretty major initiative maybe
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: about fifteen years ago, from what was AOL all the time.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: As I I still see net positives out of the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: patch idea, I think there's some true.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Night Foundation has invested really quite heavily in
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: trying to reconstitute local news. And the funny little problem
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: that they face, as I understand it, is that after
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: the initial seed money disappears, they don't have the eyes
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: and revenues to keep going. Now that isn't to say, though,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: that there is no real alternative. It is certainly the
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: case that most government action is live stream on YouTube.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: You can see school board meetings, you can see town
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: hall meetings. AI makes it very easy to search that
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: to find information that might have otherwise been buried in
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: a newspaper article, and to amplify it on TikTok or
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: reels or other social media platforms. But that's not substitute
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: for journalism. That's the kind of thing where someone says
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: something that's sowed out loudish or so illegal or so immoral,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: it becomes viral. That's not going to help anyone understand
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: local school board policy or state budget issues. It's just
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: not possible. So I guess I don't think that there
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: is empirical evidence to suggest that there is a way
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: to reconstruct local news without a strong public option, and
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: there's just no culture event. In the US and in
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: European countries, public news is a main source of news,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: and it's led over the years to much higher levels
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: of political knowledge and much higher levels of political sophistication
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: and engagement. But in the US, public media is seen
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: as a mouthpiece of left that's not seen as universal news,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: that's not seen as unbiased news. So if it's not
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: going to be rebirth of local news at the market level,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be public news. I really don't
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: know what it will be. It's very depressing.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: It is. I mean, you know, look, I when you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: know the fact that the the Democrats are basically pledging
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: to fight fire with fire and Jerrymanry, it feels like
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: whatever little progress we were making on the idea of
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: fair districts, which I'd argue before twenty twenty, we were
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: making some progress, right, Sure, states were passing it. Florida
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: was I think the most recent. You had one in Michigan,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: you had one in Ohio. I mean there was some
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: where you could there was. It's it polls really well, right,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: this is one of those Yeah, that should be done fairly,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: we should get the policy, you know. So the concept
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: polls really well. But now it's just a straight up
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: fight for power, and you're watching partisans. I'm seeing it
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: like both parties are divided on this question. Right.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: You really have sort of half that just want to say, Nope,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: this is a this is existential, and the other half going,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: this is uncomfortable. But it feels like we took a
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: big step back. It's hard to understate just how in
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: democratic backslaving is. So just this is going to sound
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: like an insane comparison, but there's a direct connection between
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: Barbara Boxer denying the presidency of George W. Bush and
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump deny the election in twenty twenty. And I
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: don't mean to say that they're equivocal, they're not. But
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: if you're a Republican and you've seen a prominent Democrat
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: deny an election, before that is an excuse to perhaps
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: understand why a prominent Republican might be doing that.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: Now it comes. Is it a full on permission slip? Yeah?
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: I think it is a full on permission slip right,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Like they've already done this, we have to respond, and
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: and that's exactly what we're seeing on gerrymandarate. That's what
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: we're seeing on competing court I guess, competing lawsuits on
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: what should or should not be allowed in terms of
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: early balloting or mail in voting. It is the case
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: that everything has kind of degenerated to related something bad.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: We have to respond with that same bad thing, but
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: marginally worse. And that's how you end up in a
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: world where, after a few rounds of iteration, democracy is
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: really under threat. And there's empirical scholarship to suggest that
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: this is exactly what happens in voters' minds. They see
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: democratic pull back from one party and use that as
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: a justification for their own party responding.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: Find give me a couple of countries where you would
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: say we're we look, we might be emulating this more
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: than we realize.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: I think that there are countries that we're emulating, but
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: those countries might also give us a hop. So Poland
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: to Hungary, for example, they were both dealing with very autocratic,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: orderline fascist governments. Both were voted out of office right
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: with piss and Hungary and Orbond. And I'm sorry piss
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: in Poland and Orbond and Hungary. I don't know if
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: there's a if there's a country that we can point
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: to and say we are headed this way with no
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: chance of recovery. I don't think I would be comfortable
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: in saying that, But I would certainly say that we're
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: a lot more like Germany and off Day than I
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: would like to admit. We're a lot more like the
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: United Kingdom and Reform than we would like to admit.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: So I have another theories of too strong of a word.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: But you know, before two thousand and four, we had
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: an in correct presumption about American politics, and the incorrect
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: assumption was forty five forty five and then the ten
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: in the middle right. And then of course what happened
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: with micro targeting and big data as it got introduced
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: into the political system. Oh, we found out that the undecided,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: they're not a bunch of just squishy, middle, middle of
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: the road people. They've just got certain issues that animate them.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: And if you animate a specific issue, you can push
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: it right, or if you animate another issue, you can
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: push um left. And so you know, it's one of
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: those things. Ignorance was bliss and when we had you know,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: where politicians thought in October, they had a sound bipartisan
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: in order to win an election in November, and then
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: micro targeting comes along, big data comes along, and we go, oh,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: these undecided voters are not moderates. They have all sorts
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: of other reasons why they're undecided. Let's go message them directly.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: The fact that we don't have collective messaging right, the
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: fact that we have siloed so many ways that you know,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: it's like, all right, we're going to get our gun voters,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: our abortion voters are and I can say this on
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: either side whether you know guns an abortion, depending on
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: your point of view, but we're going to We're going
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: to animate all of these sort of subgroups and then
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: collectively it should give us fifty percent plus one. That's right.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: I think is most hari kiing here is just how
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: crude that micro targeting was. So we were micro targeting
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: individuals based on their age, their level of education, their ethnicity,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: incredibly crude but effective metrics today, though with AI, you
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: can learn everything about a person right. You can copy
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: their exact voice, you can use phrases that they might
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: use in a social media you can figure out exactly
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: what products they are talking about, exactly what issues matter
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: to them, and make it so that it's not just
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: the message that you're delivering to young white nailes, it's
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: message that you're delivering to the young white male named Jack.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: So I think that we're only going to see us
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: become more and more disruptive. But you're exactly right. We
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: went from parties that had really inflexible positions to parties
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: that are really strange agglomerations of issues that just shouldn't
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: fit together. We have populism on both the left and
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: the right, joined with economic libertarianism on the right, and
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: with I think what you would consider to be traditional
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: democratic strong government on the left. They shouldn't make sense,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: but they do.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: They resonate. Well, you know the other thing that folks
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: will lament and they'll say, and I think this was
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: relatively true in the seventies and eighties, and then this
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: stopped being true again. I think the Cold War was
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: was sort of the pivot point. You had ideological diversity
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: in both parties, And that's not to say there isn't
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: ideological diversity. It still kind of exists in both parties,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: but less so the self sorting. Okay, I did not,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of us when I was growing
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: up in Miami, I don't. I didn't know what my
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: neighbor's politics were, and I happened that Miami was kind
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: of a swingish area at that time. Still is sort
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: of Miami dide county. But now right, there's democratic neighborhoods,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: there's Republican neighborhoods. And while they existed before, it was
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: less so in the suburbs, right, It was less so
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: in the in the sort of the larger sort of
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: single family home neighborhoods. But self sorting seems to have been.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: Is that an unintended consequence of polarization? Like and what's
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: the chicken and egg on that one?
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: So the really interesting thing with geographic sorting is how
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: discordant preferences are from behavior. So if you ask voters
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: if they would prefer to live in a place that
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: is aligned with them ideologically, people will overwhelmingly say yes.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: But if you give them any kind of trade off,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: if you tell them that in order to live, if
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: you're a Democrat, in order to live in soldly democratic district,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: you would have to accept marginally or quality schools, or
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: you would have to accept an overall government that is
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: perhaps less sufficacious, or if you accept a longer commute.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: Most people aren't willing to make that tray off. So
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: it appears is that the clustering is largely incidental. Right, So,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: people in particular neighborhoods are united by socioeconomic situation, perhaps
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: by ethnic considerations, but it is not the case that
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: most people are moving to a particular place because of ideology.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: It just happens to be the case. People in regions
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: are becoming more consistently democrat and more consistently republican. But
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: that's not exactly a positive result, because it suggests that
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: artisanship is the lack of a better term, a bit contagious.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the concerns I've had is that if
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: you compare when we've seen other countries backslide on democracy,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: they've had some really harsh urban rural divides right then
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: as well. In Turkey are the best examples the quickest
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: examples I can come up with. It feels as if
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: when rural America went from sixty five to thirty five
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: Republican to ninety ten, this got a whole lot worse.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: I think that's right.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: So I think in individual neighborhoods, Americans are unlikely to
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: decide they're going to pick this block versus that block
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: because of the person shit. But what you do have
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: is liberal Americans who grew up in Nebraska deciding, you know,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: they want to live in New York, they want to
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: live in California, or conservatives in California deciding that they've
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: had to not with homelessness problem and relocating to Texas
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: or Tennessee or the heart So that's certainly Manesking. In
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: terms of the complete segregation of the country by geographic region,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: I think that should really give us clause. It's what's
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: happening in Germany right now with Fday.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: They're all the East, right, They're just dominating the politics
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: of the East.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's exactly because of it's happening in the United States.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: The East is poor, it's less developed, there are fewer jobs,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: there are fewer opportunities. What you would use to describe
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: the rust Belt, you could easily use to describe eastern Germany.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: We're moving in parallel together. The amazing thing about Trump
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: is that I don't think that he's a strategic genius.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think that he, in a running pro election
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, thought I'm going to try and speak
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: to or under employed foaks in the Midwest. You just
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: happened to do it, and it happened to be very successful.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: It could have potentially been a Democrat who did the
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: same thing.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: Bernie might have. Bernie has nominee might have been that
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: very same Democrat that had done Bernie.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: Very well, might have been that same Democrat. But it's
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: unclear now how the current Democratic Party can compete with
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: Trump on issues that matter to those votors in rural
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: Indiana who are underemployed.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I kind of look at I mean, I just
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: feel like, if I were to pick one prescription, it
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: would be Democrats have to go get more competitive in
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: rural America in order to help America depolarize. Now, I
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: don't know what that means. Is I mean culturally sort
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: of rounding the edges of their more liberal cultural tendencies.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: Is that you know, I don't you know, we can
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: There's all sorts of ways that, in theory, the party
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: could could change itself. But would that be like, let's
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: do some prescriptions here as we try to land this plane.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: Would that be an effective prescription?
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: I think so so. I think that one of them
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: will come with the Democratic Party. Is that instituted a
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: series of litmus tests that only work in California or
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: New York or other solidly blue states. An a out
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: of U up the guess. The tests that we apply
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: to candidates on trends issues work well in Massachusetts, They're
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: not going to work for primary candidate in Utah. There's
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: just no way.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: I love this question. I'd love for you to address
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: this question actually, which is how should Democrats talk about
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: trans issues in order to not make it a liability
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: for the party and not throw trans people under the bus.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: Is there a message that would work? Yeah?
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: I think the best possible strategy would be what Republicans
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: are doing on an abortion now, which is to say
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: it's a local issue, it's a state issue, it should
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: be resolved by local communities based on the standards of
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: norms that they have come to define for themselves. Now
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: it is the case that we should do everything we
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: can protect transit, of course, but you can't govern if
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: you're not in power and adopting some of these more
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: fundamental culture wars issues as immovable or monolithic. He's made
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: it so we've traded. The Democrats have traded off our
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: for moral clarity, and I certainly understand that it really
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: helps a lot of Democrats go to bed at night.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: But that's not how you regain control of the country.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: It's how you lower the temperature by functioning as a
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: real source of electoral competition into stricts where you know
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: otherwise no Democrat would have chance of winning.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: What other prescriptions.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: Jerrymandering there. As you said before, there's widespread agreement that
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: it is unfair. Americans don't like it. Politicians are enacting
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: it against our will. We need to respond. We need
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: to push back against individuals who are trying to game
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: the political system for victory and not for a punction democracy.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: If we're to truly think big, I think the malapportionment
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: of the US Senate is one of the most destructive
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: courses in American politics. The fact that we have the
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: single worst. Uh, upper chamber of any functioning democracy should
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: not be a signal of pride. I think that's.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: Explain that explain what you mean by single worst.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: So we are that the Senate, the US Senate is
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: the most malaportioned legislative body on earth, which is to
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: say that the fact that we don't have one person,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: one vote in the upper chamber, it is really an outlier.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: And it's worse than the House of Lords.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: Well, it is worse than the House of Lords for
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: a variety of reasons. The House of Lords is largely symbolic.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: The House of Lords is on a path now where
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: every lord will be appointed and where peerage will more
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: or less be irrelevant, so you're going to have life
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: peers and not hereditary peers. But even then, it's the
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: case that the the House of Lords, as I guess,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: more symbolic meaning to the bricks than the Senate. Senate
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: is a real source of out It's a real source
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: of policy implementation in a way.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know how, you know. I don't think it's
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: changeable in the constitution.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: We would have to get a conspecial moment. That's why
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: I say, you know, if you're going to go big
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: go for changing the structure.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: My friend Lindsay Schervinsky at the George Washington Library has
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: a Her plan would be to create tiers of states.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: So maybe the big four states would have five US senators,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: the next ten might have four and three. You know
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: that you would have this sort of tiered based on
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: population the number of senators different states get as a
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: way to try to at least somewhat equalize the Senate.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. I mean, the bigger problem is
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: that no matter what we do, they're going to be
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: negative science facts. If we, for example, if we expand
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: the size of the House, if we introduce multiple parties
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: in the House, that's new guarantee that we're going to
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: have a series of centrist parties come together. It's equally
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: plausible that you could have the populist parties on the
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: left and the populist parties on the right come together
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: in former government, or that you could end up like Israel,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: where you have very small parties on the total extreme
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: of the ideological spectrum apting as kiding makers. So certainly
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that we could do
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: that would be helpful to our country. I guess the
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: key is to not over sell what they might do.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: So is would ending germ Mandarin fix all our own
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: Would it make that country better? So would fixing the
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: malaportionment and the set fix all of our problems?
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: No?
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: Would it make the set it more responsive to the
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: will of the public. Max, It's hard to find out
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: magical ficks. I don't think if there is that singular fix.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: I don't think there is that silver pullet. But what
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: we can do with citizens is largely focus on things
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: where we have real agency, where we have a real power.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: So that means that if you don't like what a
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: member of Congress is, don't is doing, don't just tweet
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: about it, right, that's going to do nothing. That may
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: certainly signal to your peers that's your good and loyal
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: Democrat or good and loyal Republican. But you truly object
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: to what that representative is doing. Give money to the opposition,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: consider running for Congress. Go door or door knock for
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: the candidate that you think might do a better job.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: Drive people to the polls on the day of the election.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: Don't treat politics as if it were a spectator sport.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: Don't treat altics as if you're trying to cheer on
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: your team in the World Series, do the hard.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: Work, you know you're getting it. Something I've been asked
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: to come up with a potential class for incoming freshmen,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: you know, for a university, and one of the ideas
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: I had was, how about an introduction to the Constitution,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: because I get the sense and more of like a
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: citizen's guide how a citizen should use the Constitution, because
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: I do fear that we have the tools in the toolbox.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: It's just so atrophied that I don't know if we
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: know how to use them. Like take uncapping the house.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: It got capped in nineteen twenty nine. There's nobody alive today.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: My grandmother's ninety nine. She was born in twenty seven,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: so she was technically alive when we didn't have a
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: cap on the house. But there's no institutional memory of when.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the House of Representatives always expanded with the
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: population of the country, which it did for one hundred
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: and fifty years until it didn't, you know, constitutional amendments.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: I would argue that outside of lowering the voting age
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: to eighteen, we really haven't had a consequential amendment as
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: far as the democracy is concerned, since before FDR, because
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: even all the FDR related amendments were really about him, right,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: the twenty second Amendment and stuff like that. So it's
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: been arguably one hundred years since we've had meaningful, small
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: d democratic reform via the Constitution, the income tax, direct
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: election of senators, and women suffered.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: So one of the more ironic things about our current
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: local climate is just how much agreement there is on
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: the need to revitalize civics education. Yeah, you'll find groups
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: on the left and the right who are dismayed by
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: the fact that it's been pushed out of high schools
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: because it's not part of standardized testing. You'll see individuals
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: arguing in the civic centers that have been created in
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: Ohio or Florida of the need to teach the Constitution
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: as part of the college curriculum. But it's not a
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: national movement yet. It could be. I wish, I wish
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: that it would be. I wish that every American add
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: to add some baseline understanding of how our government functions.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: All right, let's land this plane. What can people? What
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: do you what would what would be the best way
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: for any of my listeners to use the polarization lab,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: to use the tools that you've built at the polaries.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: So all of our data, all of our data are open.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: You can go and see where Americans are at any
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: given moment on democratic norms, bass lighting parties, and hatreds
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: political line.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: Do you ask that question, would you let your daughter
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: or son marry somebody of the opposite political party? That
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: I know that pulqut.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we don't ask that question.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: But do you know the.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: Story of that question, how that emerged?
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: No? I do not.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: So this was about miscegenation. The idea was, let's try
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: to measure how much Americans object to someone marrying or
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: that someone's child marrying across the racial line. Let's include
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: partisanship is something that shouldn't matter at all. Right, So
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: we went from a world where interracial marriage was a
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: cultural wedge, partisanship was included as a control, to today
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: where racial marriage is not even an issue for most Americans.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: That partisanship has become its replacement. So you can certainly
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: look at general measures of where American attitudes are. But
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: I think the more useful thing that we ingest everything
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: that members of Congress say. So their floor speeches, their
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: X accounts, their newsletters, their press releases, and we categorize
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: that we use AI can determine when they're talking about policy,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: what policies they're talking about, when they're making personal attacks.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: So you can go and you can see, you know,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: how is my congress person performing, how is my senator performing.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: We've extended now to state level races, so you can
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: see what your state cider is doing, what your state
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: house member is doing. And in twenty twenty six, you
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: can actually see what every candidate or federal office is
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: staying as part of their campaign, so you can see
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: which candidates are building a platform of hostility and the conflict,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: and which candidates are building a platform based on policy.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it's the same thing that our Bridge friend
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: friends found it that I sort of wrote about, which
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: was simply and I'm just looking at one of your dashboards.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: Now you know the top five on each side of
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: the aisle that do policy discussion without attacking their opponents,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: and they are the ones that aren't looking for clicks. Right,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: it's Maria Cantwell, it's Randy Feinstra who replaced Steve King
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: in the House. Randy Fistra running for governor. It's Patty Murray,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: It's Verne Buchanan, a retiring Republican member of Congress. It's
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon. It's Bill Haggerty and Tennessee and others.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: You know, So it's interesting, it doesn't. What I find
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: interesting about your work is that, you know, there's going
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: to be a perception that, oh, if you're in a
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: swing district, you're not polarizing. If you're in a deep
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: blue or deep red, you are. But that's not been
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: the case. Right Fiinstra's in the most Republican district in Iowa.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: He is not, but he's less polarizing in his rhetoric
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: than the three Republicans in the swing districts. So it
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: really does come down to Canada quality, doesn't it.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: It really it comes out of to you things. It
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: comes down to candadate quality and ability. So every member
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: of Congress wants some attention. They want something that they
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: can use to get their name out there. For some
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: people that means introducing logis. For some people that means
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: constituent service. But there are other legislators who just don't
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: have the skill set to create legislation that don't have
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: the staff or skill set do constituent service. So what
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: do they default to. They default to what will get
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: them attention on X, what will get them attention on
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: box news or CNN. And that's saying incredibly insulting things
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: about the other side. So what's happened is we have
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: this small group of legislators really only about thirty five,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: who are giving this false perceptions to the American public
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: that Congress is not a civil place, it is destructive
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: and full of bullies. Truth of the matter is, most
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: members of Congress go to DC, do their job, live home,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: meet with her constituents, and are just boring human beings.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: But you know, hearing that close Kent Perez represented the
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: constituents fairly. You know it's not going to leads DNN,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: that's not going to lead box News. We're in a
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: world where bad behavior gets attention and gets disproportion of
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: attention to good behavior.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, there are some things you can't control,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: which is algorithms on social media, right, and that's that's
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: not a small part of this, is it?
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: Not?
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: No?
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think that we've created a world where if
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: you are activated by negativity, you will see behind but negativity.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: What you want to see is compromise. You're under minority,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: but you're only going to see compromise. And because as humans,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: we are predisposed to focus on fret to our group,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: to focus on conflush, that's what most of us get
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: on our social media feeds. I think that Spencer Cox
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: in talking about America, the state of America after the
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: first assassination attempt, Donald Trump, was quite right. We need
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: to go outside and touch grass. We need to spend
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: less time focused on the manicure make that exists on
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: social media.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just true. I just take anti semitism.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: I'm always surprised I have. I think I get I
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: see it a little bit better in stereo. I'd like
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: to think I see this stuff in stereo more so
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: than most reporters. I'm always stunned at the amount of
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: my friends on the left who are shocked there's anti
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: semitism on the left, and the amount of my friends
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: on the right who are shocked that there's antisemits they're
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: just discovering. I have some friends in the right, my
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: my camp, well, I've just noticed this anti semitism, like
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I've seen it for a while there, and
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: then I've heard a similar thing on the left, like, actually,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: if you're paying attention, I've seen it for a while there,
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Like it is easy not to see what a lot
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: of us do see.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: Yep, it's it requires work. You spend time every day
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: sneaking out information that disagrees with your prior. You're looking
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: to see the complete picture. That's a lot of work.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: And if you're you're a single mom who's not got
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: the time to do it, why would you engage in
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: that behavior. We're asking a lot of our citizens, and
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: we've created just a technological infrastructure that is meant to
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: inflame and not attenuate. And that's a perfect storm.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you pessimistic or optimistic.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: I'm the most stimistic person you would ever meet. If
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: I won the lottery, I would complain about the taxes.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: But having said that, I'm really optimistic about America sweep
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: to because I think we've survived far worth. It really
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: is the case that democracy is. It's kind of sid
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: of soil. Right we have strong peaks and then we
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: have very low valleys. I think we're headed towards a
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: low point right now. But our institutions are remarkably strong.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: Just striking them, of course, But he's still largely responding
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: to court cases. Not always, but he still is responding
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: to court cases. Congress is still passing laws. There's still
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: probably going to be a peaceful transition of power. I
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: believe that we'll be able to weather the storm well.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: And I also look that the public is reacting to
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: the current situation rationally. Like you know the pole, you know,
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: you look at it, You're like, yeah, this should be unpopular.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: Oh it is unpopular, okay, right, Like we don't live.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: There's always been this fear that we're developing a fantasy
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: world where people won't see the bad news. That's not true.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: People's lived experiences are being expressed, and you see that,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: which that has been one way I've tried to have
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: optimism too. It's like, no, people are acting rationally.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, the single best ad against Donald Trump is
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: the trip that you make to the grocery store each week.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: We're filling up your car at the gas station. The
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: American public is partisan, but they're not stupid, and they
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: know when dinner table issues are not going well. They
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: know when the president is not doing what he promised
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: and they react accordingly. That's what will happen. I think
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: in the midterms we'll see a resounding rejection of this president.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: If we were in a truly dysfunctional government, if we
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: were in a truly failed state, that wouldn't happen. The
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: single worst thing we can do as academics or as
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: political elites is to tell the public that we are
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: in a fascist state or that we're in a totalentarian state.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: That makes.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: Backsliding nerd waitnessing a data complete right. If you're a
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: voter and your elites are saying you're no longer in
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: a democracy, would you do the effort to learn about candidates?
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: Why would you go to the polling place? So we
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: have to be measured with our rhetoric. We can certainly
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: be very pessimistic about what's happening, but that doesn't mean
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: we give up. That doesn't mean we don't keep fighting.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: Look, I'm one of those who believes that politics so
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: abhors a vacuum that I can make any state of
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: swing state. It just takes a while to find the
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: folk frum voter. Yeah, but in theory, there's always there's
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: always a folk rum in any state. You just got
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: to choose as a political party, whether you're comfortable going there, Charlotte,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: So you end up with the Republican governor of Massachusetts
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: or the Democratic governor of Texas.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 2: Right, it has to be personal politics. It has to
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: be manicured to that particular state. But it's not impossible.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: Now you watch, I'm watching Rob saying and Iowa do America.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: The beautiful lyrics at the start of his rallies, and
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: because he's trying to make the emphasis, hey, we're we
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: have more in common than we don't, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: You know, it's a little sticky, sure, but guess what
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: everybody sings. Yeah, it's bubbing the flag, it's hugging the flag. Sean,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: this was terrific, And like I highly encourage people America's
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: political Pulse, the polarization research lab Right, America's political Pulse
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: dot com, I have it right, yep. Uh, it's just
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: terrific stuff. And you know, if you're a member of Congress,
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: is part of the problem. Punish them be a citizen anyway, Sean, thanks.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: For your time, Thanks for having me on the podcast.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: Well. Once again, I uh Sean, of course, was from
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: the Polarization Lab, and I got to know again, I
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: got to know the Polarization Lab. And why I wanted
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: to dig in and interview Sean and sort of understand
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: exactly how they do it is that the Polarization Labs
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: data is what is used with for that great new
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: metric website to sort of figure out who in Congress
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: is trying to get stuff done and who in Congress
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: is just there to attack the other side bridge grades,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: like who are trying to build bridges to get things done?
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: And the Polarization Lab has similar things. They're tracking everything
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: every member of Congress and every elected politician says, even
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: whether it's on social media, whether it's on the floor
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: of Congress, committee hearing, et cetera. Things like that. As
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: again to describe it, and you look at their website.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: I really highly the Polarization Lab. Go take a look,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: because ultimately it's in your hands, right You're the voters
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: vote for polarizers. And the thing is, and what you
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: really learn here is like, you know, there's this assumption
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: that swing districts don't produce polarizing people and somehow non
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: competitive district that's not the case. In some cases, some
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: of the most effective and frankly normal and behaving politicians
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: come from more partisan districts, come from more one party districts.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: Perhaps they feel politically safer to do that, however you
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: want to look at it. But the point is is
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: that it isn't You can't just assume the competitiveness of
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: an election is going to produce somebody who's polarizing or
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: not polarizing. Ultimately, it's on you, the voter. If you
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: don't want, you know, you want a fighter to gum
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: up the works, pick your candidate to gum up the works.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you that that isn't you know,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: that isn't a choice. There are plenty of people people
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: I know who absolutely believe gum or mint is too
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: big and they'd rather it be slowed down, gummed up,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: et cetera. But if you're frustrated with the style of
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: politics that we have, be careful with the politicians you choose.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: Be careful of who you elect. Just because you agree
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: with somebody ninety five percent of the time, if they're
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: an asshole, they're not going to get anything done. And
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: I know that we're in this moment where Oh but
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: look at the bully, Donald Trump. What is he really
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: getting done? Is he making anything better long term or
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: is it really just short term games that benefit him.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: The point is, this is why I wanted to feature
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: the polarization lab. I hope I want people to use
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: it as a tool. You know, once again, citizenship. You know,
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: it isn't passive, and it's one thing to complain about things,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: and it's another it's another thing to actually act. And
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: then the good news is there's more and more tools
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: to help you make better decisions about the people we elect.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: All Right, it is time for the Toddcast Top five
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: for this week, which is brought to you by fan
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: Duel Top five, Top to Test.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: Top.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: And my top five this week, since we just got
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: through a huge primary night on Tuesday, I thought I
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: would tackle the five primaries left. The top five primaries
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: that will have dramatic impacts on the competitiveness of the
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: general election itself. Right, depending on what happens in the
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: primary or runoff hint hint of which primaries are making
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: my top five list will change the dynamics of the
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: general election and will either help or hurt the incumbent
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: party depending on what happens in these primaries and in
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: one case, in a runoff. So number five on my
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: list is a primary, and I guesst eleventh. It's a
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor. Tony Evers is choosing not
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: to seek a third term. What's ironic here is this
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: is a gigantic field. There is there's not really a
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: front runner. The front runner as of March and a
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: poll of primary voters was undecided. Sixty five percent of
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary voters were undecided in a March survey. It's
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: a huge field. Probably the person with the highest name
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: recognition is former Tony Evers's lieutenant governor in his first term,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: Mendela Barnes, who was the Democratic nominee for US Senate
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: against Ron Johnson and lost a close race to Ron
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: Johnson in twenty twenty two. But it was it was
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: an under Many Democrats believe Barnes underperformed, that he was
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: too progressive, that his that he was easily transformed into
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: a candidate that couldn't that wasn't going to be tough
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: on crime and in public safety. And so there's some
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: nervousness among some Democrats who just simply want to hold
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: the Governor's mansion about whether it is Barnes electable enough?
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the question, right, You may not
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: get the perfect candidate here, is he electable enough in
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: this environment? The Republicans have essentially settled on a candidate.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: It's Tom Tiffany's a member of Congress. Donald Trump's already
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: endorsed him. So he's sitting there waiting his the nominee.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: And the question is who's going to be the strongest
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: to take him on? And that's the debate inside the
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin Democratic Party, which is all about Mandela Barnes. Barnes
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: has probably got the best organization, He's probably the favorite
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: of progressives here, but there is some nervousness and some
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: questions about whether if he couldn't beat Ron Johnson, who's
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: a pretty polarizing figure himself in an election year that
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: was where the Democrats won the Governor's Mansion. Tony Evers
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: wins reelection in twenty two, but so does Johnson. Right,
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: Mandela Barnes essentially underperforms Evers. So the question is if
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: you underperform by two or three points the generic Democratic vote,
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: is that going to cost you a Wisconsin governor's race. Well,
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: history says yes it will because Wisconsin elections seem to trade.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: The trading range seems to be somewhere between forty eight
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: and fifty two for both parties on a given election.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: So that's what makes it. Right now, it's a seven
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: candidate Democratic scrum. Like I said, You've got a former
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: lieutenant governor of Tony Evers, Bendela Barnes. You got a
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: current lieutenant governor in Sarah Rodriguez. You have the Milwaukee
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: County execu David Crawley. You got a state Representative Francesco Hang.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: You had another state senator, Kel del Roy's and another.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: You have a businesswoman, Missy Hughes. So it is a
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: huge field. Barnes has the highest name id Rodriguez is next.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: Now Evers so far, is staying out of this. So
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: it really will be I think this primary really will
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: be a live stress test of the post twenty twenty
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: four or Democratic debate. Do you nominate the candidate the
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: base is most excited about, or the one that polls
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: the best in a state that Democrats can't afford to lose.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: And we know these are one two three point races,
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: So that's you know how basically it's the Mendela Barnes primary, right,
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: what happens there? Number four? My list? Number four, My
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: list is the Michigan Senate Democratic primary. Obviously, we're starting
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: to see more and more polling that shows Abdul say
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: Ed does poll weaker now against the likely, the likely
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee, Mike Rodgers. You've got Hailey Stevens. You've got
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: more of the establishment wing of the Democratic Party rallying
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: around Hailey Stevens. She's a member of Congress, sort of
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: the in the mold of Alyssa Slotkin. She has the
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: endorsement of Schumer. She now just recently got the endorsement
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: of Chris Kuons. Chris Kuons in many ways emblematic of
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: sort of the next generation of quote unquote the Democratic establishment.
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: And then you have Mallory McMorrow, who's been trying to
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: straddle the fence. So but it really is about abdu
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: al Sayed or not abdu Al Sayed. And if you see,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: I think there are a growing number of Democrats and
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: a growing number of Republicans in Michigan who believe if
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: he is the nominee, then you're really he is going
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: to underperform the overall Democratic vote. The question is, you know,
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: how how strong is the wind at the back of Democrats? Right, Look,
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: weak general election candidates can still win in wave years,
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: if you know, if the wave is big enough, and
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: Michigan is certainly a state that is going to move
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: in the direction of the company. But Mike Rogers second
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: time running, Yes, he has Trump's endorsement, but he has
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: just enough in his background to sort of be seen
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: as a slightly less trumpy than your average Trump endorsed candidate. Right,
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: He's no Ken Paxton on that front, And so that's
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: why you have you're starting to hear I have started
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: to hear a lot of more nervousness about Abdulsa yet
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: that he's just going to be a harder candidate to
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: get across the aibed across the finish line, that it's
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: going to be all sorts of hand ringing there, that
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: McMorrow and Stevens, if they're the general election nominee, that
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: it's just a lot easier for them to run as
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: generic Democrat. Right, generic Democrat is going to win the
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: Michigan Senate race in this political environment. The question is
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: do they nominate a candidate that runs essentially as well
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: as a generic Democrat would run, or do they run
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: somebody who might be slightly more polarizing than generic Democrat.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: And that seems to be the biggest concern. But we'll see.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: Abdu al Sayet is running a very effective campaign and
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: he is in some ways. Whatever controversies have hit him,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: they've only seem to have made him stronger in some
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: parts of the party, not weaker, very not quite the same,
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: not quite the same trajectory as Graham Platner in Maine.
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: But it's it's related, and so we'll see. But I
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: will tell you this, the perception on money, I'll say this,
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: the idea Democrats are not going to pull away if
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: all do all Sciat's nominee. It's Michigan, for gosh shakes.
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: So they're gonna throw a ton of money at it.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: I think the question is they have to throw a
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: lot more money at it? Is it going to be
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: a lot tougher of a campaign against Rogers In a
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: situation like that, we know this, Rogers is gonna be
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: running an extraordinarily negative campaign against abdu al Sayed, right,
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: he was gonna want to make this about him right,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: And it's going to become essentially two battles of a referendum.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: Is it a referendumount of abdu Al Saied or is
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: it a referendum on Trump? Right? And that's what the
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: financial battle plan would be if this is now, if
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: it's Haley Stevens or Mallory McMorrow, I think think Roger's
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: going to have a harder time making a referendum on
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: the Democrats, and the Democrats are still probably going to
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: be able to make it a referendum on Trump in
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: the state and especially on affordability. Number three on the
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: list is California. That's coming up on June second. By
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: the way, the Michigan primary August fourth, first Tuesday in
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: August on that one, So mark those calendars there. Okay.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: Number three on my list the California gov primary that's
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: coming up on June second. Pretty simple test, right, which
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: does you know do is there two Republicans in the
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: top two and the Democrats get locked out? What happens then?
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: Is there a writing campaign? That would be My guess
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: is that Democrats would try to create a writing campaign
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: in it, you know, I think that they would probably
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: have to recruit somebody like Kamala Harris if they were
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: actually going to pull off a writing campaign. So but
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: at this point, now that you see you've seen there's
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: a super pack in California that's starting to do some
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: attack ads on Steve Hilton, one of the Republican candidates.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: And what are the attack ads? That he's too conservative?
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: The point is they're trying to do what Adam Shift
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: did with Steve Garvey in his Senate race, right in
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: order to avoid a top two finish with Katie Porter
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: at the time, he's trying to increase conservative voter awareness
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: of Steve Hilton so that Chad Bianco, the other Republican
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: in the race, the riverside sheriff, starts to fade a
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: bit in the pull so they can avoid the top two. Obviously,
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats believe if it's a one on one, if you've
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: got an R next to your name, you're just not
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: winning statewide in California. That's the assumption. I think in
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: this political environment it's a pretty fair bet. So we're
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: seeing that. So that's why this matters so much. Look,
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: do I think ave A Bressera is a strong potential
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: Democratic candidate here? I do not. That doesn't mean, he
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: isn't going to win an election against Steve Hilton, But
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: this thing is going to be about Passara. He is
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: going to have a hard time I think making this
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: about Hilton. I'm going to stand by a sort of
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: snarky prediction I made two or three months ago that
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: I'm starting at, like, I'm not sure whoever gets elected
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: governor is going is I will whoever gets elected governor
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: is probably going to face a recall. The question is
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: is it successful? But this field is that week that
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: almost no matter who it produces as governor, you're gonna
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: see that. But obviously is there a Democrat in the
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: top two or not? And that changes a lot of
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: things here, So obviously it's a huge thing. I think
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: right now the trajectory is I think you're most likely
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: to see Steve Hilton and a d you know, likely
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: Besarah at this point. But let's see how he holds
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: up over the next couple of weeks. As Stire just
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: drops just gazillions on his head and you know there,
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: let's just say, there's plenty of material to raise questions
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: about Bassara. Number two on the list for me is
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: a primary that's coming up in July. Twenty first, it's
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: the Arizona Republican goominatorial prime, and this is one of those.
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: It's very similar to what's going to be number one
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: on my list. You basically have a trumpet person and
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: a non trumpet person, and if the Republicans somehow nominate
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: the non trumpet person, I think they can win this
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: governor's race. Katie Hobbs is not the most charismatic governor.
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: She barely beat Carrie Lake, and she certainly was handed
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: a gift on that front and was able to pull
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: off that election. So now it is there's two candidates
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: in this race, and the trumpy candidate is Congressman Andy Biggs,
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: and the non trumpet candidate is Congressman David Sweikert, and
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: he is David Sweikert has represented the very swingy first
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: District for most of his time there. Look, most of
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: the polling has shown Biggs clobbering Schweikert in the primary.
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: And look, you know what's interesting is the most electable
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: Republicans are center right Republicans in Arizona, but they have
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: a hard time in primaries. Arizona's Republican primary electorate is
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: super conservative. It is always been right McCain had an
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: easier time sometimes in general elections, then you know, he
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes feared the primary more. We've seen that in particularly
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: the state legislature, where you've seen some very electable Republicans
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: lose and primaries and and sort of create a mess there.
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: So it's always a you know, it's a weird it's
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: a weird electorate, and it can be in right now,
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: Andy Biggs is the Trump guy. Swikert is considered the
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: you know, the mainstream establishment Republican. Again, if he's the nominee,
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: it's a nightmare for the incumbent governor, Katie Hoppes. And
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: right now though he's been behind double digits and he's
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: having a hard time catching up, and I you know,
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: it's hard to match in this in the way the
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: Republican Party works right now, when you don't have Trump's endorsement,
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a hard time making up ground. The
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: amount of ground that Swicker has to make up that
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: set the difference. If Andy Biggs is Republican nominee, Arizona
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: governor is never going to get beyond lean Democratic best.
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: Dave Swikert's Republican nominee, this becomes a toss up race
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: in a hurry and probably costs the Democratic Party a
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: lot more money in this political environment, it's Arizona swing state.
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I think Schwecker's got a great chance
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: if he's the nominee. I question whether he can get there.
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: But I know if you're in Team Hobbs and you
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: want her to win reelection, you want to face Andy Bicks. Now.
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: Number one on the list, of course, is what was
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: the big breaking news on Tuesday, just before the fascinating
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: statement that Donald Trump decided to send by announcing his
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: endorsement of Ken Paxton on Massy Primary day right where
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: he is his you know, the latest test in the
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: in how loyal are voters to Donald Trump over elected
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: Republicans that they've known a lot longer. And it's a
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: body blow to Cornyn. The only good news for John
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: Cornyn is that if he does win this runoff next Tuesday,
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: and it is next Tuesday day after Memorial Day. If
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: he does win this runoff, I think the fact that
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: Trump went out of his way not to endorse him
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: and endorsed his opponent actually makes him a stronger general
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: election candidate and probably takes Texas off the board for
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: tall Rico and for the Democrats. I still think it'll
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: be a competitive race. I think Texas is light red
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: these days, it is not dark red. You see these
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: trend lines, You'll see it in the governor's race. This
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: is a state that is getting more competitive all the time.
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: And at some point Democrats are going to break through.
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: They still need some help on what kind of Republicans
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: they face here. Right If Ken Paxson's nominee, this becomes
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: a tier one center race. Paxton has proven to be
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: a terrible fundraiser Number one. If Paxson's nominee and Donald
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: Trump's endorsement may secure that, it's going to cost the
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: Republican Party a shitload of more money, much more money
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: than they ever planned on spending. It is astonishing to
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: me how much Cornan has outspent Paxton, how little Paxton
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: has spent, how little he's raised money. Tallarico is also
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: going to be able to outspend Paxston. So this is
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: going to cost Trump and his mega super packs a
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: lot of money to rescue Paxton. But this is the
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: choice they've made. So this is why it's number one. Literally,
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: if it goes in one direction, this is a real race.
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: If it goes in another direction, it's probably not a race.
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: We're talking about that much come October, in election night
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: in November, but this has become suddenly a much more
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: consequential runoff. And you know, it's interesting when Trump does
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: these last minute things like this is a real this
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: is a real shot in the arm to Paxton, because
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: I felt like Cornyn was starting. I don't want to
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: say he got momentum, but Cornyn has proven to hold
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: up a lot better than a lot of us expected.
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: He's massively outspent Paxston. But I will say this, if
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: Paxson's nominee, the corruption argument that Tallarico can make that
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: links Paxton and Trump right, Trump's already building this kleptocracy.
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: As I talked about earlier in this episode. It's a
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: very powerful possibility. And I'll tell you this, if I
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: were Greg Abbott, I'd be scared Jesus. Now, if Paxton
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: is the nominee, it's going to attract more money into
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: the state, it's going to put more resources on the
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: ground for Democrats. It's going to make that governor's race
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: even closer. I've already I've been on the record here
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: that I think this is one of the more overlooked
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: statewide races in the country. I think this is destined
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: to be low single digits, not high single digits, which
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: in itself would be a big deal. I've told you
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: about the school voucher issues, very divisive. This is this
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: is one of those you know, education is one of
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: those issues where you know, governor's race, you can peel
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: off voters from the other side. You know, I'm a
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: little skeptical that Gina, you know, so being from Austin
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: is going to be portrayed as just too liberal to
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: be governor of the state. But boy, would this change
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: the dynamics of everything up and down the ballot. And
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: it might, you know, if this is let me put
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: it this way, the Trump endorsement of Paxton is proof
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump does not care about the Republican Party. If
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: he cared about the Republican Party and keeping the Republican
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: Party strong, regardless of these whether these Republicans were good
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: Trump Republicans, he'd be with Cornyan. Cornan guarantees probably two
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: more House seats for down the ballot. You flipped this
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: the other way, it actually puts more Republican House seats
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: in play, puts the governor seat in play and could
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: trans This could be one of those where Paxton opens
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: the door for real democratic investment in Texas that turns
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: Texas from a light red state to a swing state.
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: You know, I told I gave you that history of
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: Texas a few episodes back. You know the importance of
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: the John Tower victory, the first time Republicans broke through.
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: John Tower wins a special Senate election, and what does
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: it do. It suddenly opens the spicott of money for
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: investment into the state. And then within the next you know,
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: basically within ten years, Texas becomes a swing state and
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: within twenty years it becomes a strong Republican State's that
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: to me is how big this Paxton Cornyn runoff has
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: now become. So there you go number one on this
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: week's Top five, the Texas Senate Republican runoff. The Toddcast
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: Top five list is brought to you by Fan Duel.
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  Speaker 1: offer terms. Ask Chuck, all right, let's do a little
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: ass Chuck all right. First question comes from Ron and
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: he writes, Hey, on the Virginia re districting issue, do
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: you think the state Supreme Court couldn't have acted before
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: the election? I understand the reasoning, but the explanation for
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: not intervening earlier didn't feel entirely convincing to me. Is
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: there a scenario where courts should step in sooner in
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: cases like this, even if it's unusual procedurally anyway, Hey,
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: I love the toodcast Ron. Well, Ron, there's two things here.
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: You're asking the question through the prism of the court.
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: But the legislature was trying to jam the court. Right,
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: This is sort of there's two sides to this coin. Right,
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: the legislature could have delayed things a bit and waited
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: for the ruling. Right, there was still a little more
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: time to move the primary even further back, move filing deadlines.
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: But they were balancing something, right. They knew they had
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: some momentum. They knew they had some political momentum. There
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: had already been the other redistricting referendum in November twenty
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: twenty five. They had sort of this. They were trying
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: to just keep it going and keep it moving. So, yes,
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: you could, look, the court could have intervened, but they
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: were trying to do one comprehen of ruling. You could
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 1: they could have, you know, they were certainly reluctant to
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 1: sort of step in in the middle of an election
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: that the legislature already said would happen. I think the
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: legislature thought they could jam the court by basically daring
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: them to overturn an election, even though they knew going
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: in there was still some questions about the constitutionality of this.
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: So I think this was a bit of a high
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: stakes game of chicken here between the legislature and the
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: judiciary branch is probably one way to look at it.
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: The cleanest thing would have been the legislature waiting for
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: a clean ruling, but they chose not to do that,
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: and so look nobody that none of this was. I
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: think no matter what, there was going to be a feeling,
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: no matter where you are in this issue, that you
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: felt like the system was being gained against you, right,
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: no matter which side of this that you feel. I
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 1: think at this point those on the who wanted to
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 1: see this remap go through feel like the court somehow
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: gamed it against it. I think had it not gone through,
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: there have been other you know, so this is I
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: think you're letting the legislature a bit off the hook here, right.
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 1: They decided to jam the court and you know, and
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: and put they decided to put the court in the
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: situation of all right, go ahead, we'll hold our election,
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: then you can do your ruling, hoping that they could
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: influence the ruling too. So again, I think this is
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: I think the legislature rushed things a little bit and
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: they should have had a better They should have had a
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: better answer to this, all right. Brad in Waxhaw, North
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: Carolina rights Hey, long time listener, first time emailer, loved
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: your recent comments about road trips. My family was been
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: doing the same and it's hit thirty states so far
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 1: with our kids. I'm curious, are there any road trips
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: that really stood out to you or places you recommend exploring?
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: Always looking for new ideas. Thanks again. Yes. So, when
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: I lived for a brief period of time in Boulder, Colorado,
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 1: back in the right after college, and a friend of
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: mine from college got into this terrible car accident, and
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 1: my girlfriend at the time and I decided to we
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't afford to fly. He got in the cars and
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: he was in LA. He was in the hospital, and
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: we decided to drive to La to go be with him,
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: be with his family, And so we drove from Boulder
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: to LA and I had never done that trip. It
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: is I think the most scenic drive I've ever taken.
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: Utah might be the most beautiful state I've ever driven in.
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: It's just you know, the red rocks, all that stuff.
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: Just it's stunning. It really is. By the way, you
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: get to drive through the rockies, right, you're going to
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: the other side, to the to the western slope. You
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: drive through Utah, Northern Arizona. You know, I'd only been
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: to Phoenix and Tucson. Northern Arizona is like an entirely
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: different you know, you're like, why does anybody live in Phoenix?
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: When you drive through northern Arizona. Just again, incredibly, the
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: only ugly part of the drive was eastern California. Right,
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: you could sort of see that the almost like this
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 1: dust bowl this you know, it's sort of you hit
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: riverside and suddenly, you know, everything gets I didn't realize
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: how deserty eastern California felt like. It felt like, I like,
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: are we in Nevada. It's like, no, it's eastern h
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: It's eastern California. But the just the Utah and Northern
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: Arizona portions of that trip, and again it was just
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: something I never would have ended up on that road
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: trip unless you do this specific trying to go Denver
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: to l A and and that's the road I took.
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: That was that's one I loved. I'll tell you a
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: trip I want to do that my dad's sister, my
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: aunt did. She lives in Alaska now. She drove to
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: move to Alaska. Her son lives in Alaska from essentially
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: just outside of Detroit, Michigan, all the way to Anchorage.
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: And she has told me it's just such a beautiful
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: drive to drive in that northern part of the country,
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: drive through Canada. So I'll admit that's one now takes
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: a long time, right, that's a that's a big, big
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: road trip. But it's a little bit better to do
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: in the summer than if you're going to do it
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: in the winter. But that's a that's one that's on
• 2:14:33
  Speaker 1: my bucket list of drives still left to do. But
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: the but one I've done that i'd recommend is a
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: Denver ally just for the opportunity to be in Utah,
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: northern Arizona. All Right. Chris from Moresville, North Carolina here,
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: and he writes a long time listener second time riding in.
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate your recent reflections on this year's graduates
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: and the resilience of this gen Z cohort coming out
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: of COVID made me wonder about your skup around third parties.
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: Given the growing distrusted institutions among younger voters, are we
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: closer than ever to real shift away from the two
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: party system or do the structural barriers still make that
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: unlikely in the near term? Things right, you do keep
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: preaching expand the House, Chris Well, thanks for that. Yes
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: onn cap the House, uncap the House. Look, I think
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: if any generation is going to blow up the two
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: party system, it's clearly this gen Z generation. Right, They're
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: they're pretty they have come in. Institutions have failed them, right,
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: The educational institutions have failed them, governmental institution, you know,
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: they I look at my son's skepticism about government in general,
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: and it's his own personal experiences going through COVID with
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: the school system and whatnot. So it is if there's
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: ever you know, and I do think you know, I
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: brought up earlier in this episode the kleptocracy issue with Trump.
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: I think what he's doing for the Republican Party is
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: certainly making it easier for essentially ethical conservatives to bolts
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: and to try to start something new. If indeed Trump
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: is going to essentially make turn the Republican Party into
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 1: a full on kleptocracy party, there's going to be people
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: who don't want to be a part of that, who
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: still believe in you know, limited government and free markets
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: things like that. So and you know, if somehow the
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: institution of the Democratic Party can't beat this corruption, then yeah,
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: I think they're they're both fairly vulnerable. Look, the issue
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: you have is the structural barriers, right the duopoly. If
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't for ballid access, if it wasn't for
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: the fact that states have essentially allowed these two parties
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: to embed themselves in the system, I think they both
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: you know, we we'd see here what already happened in
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: the UK, where the top two parties are no longer
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: the Tories and Labor at this point, if the if
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: the if, if you know, for the at least, if
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: you believe all the polling for the for the next
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: time there's an election. So so I certainly think this
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: generation is the most likely to drive it if it happens.
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: What I do believe is this generation is going to
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: be decisive in either making sure one party overthrows the
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: other one completely, or that there is a new party
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 1: of some form or a new movement. But this is,
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: you know, this is a generation that will I think
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: that can quickly help enhance a following fast. Right. This
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: isn't this isn't a slow build anymore. This is something
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: that could happen at this you know, happen much quicker
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: than I think folks realize. You know it is you know,
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 1: I've always I've thought about this all the time. If
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: Ross Perot had today's technology in nineteen ninety two, I
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: don't know if he would have I don't think he
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: would have lost, and I think he would have been
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: I think he would have rattled both parties to the
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: point that he might have seen a change of nominees
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: in both parties because he would have he would have
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 1: it would have been a rocket ship with the way
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: stuff goes viral and all of that. So I am
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: not going to underestimate the speed of this media environment
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: being an accelerant to something that totally disrupts the two
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: party system. You know, this is where it's like, I
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: look at the facts of how everything is embedded and
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: how hard it is to sort of break, you know,
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: literally get on the ballot if you're an independent, depending
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: on the state and things like that. Right, So, sometimes
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: I get blinded by the structural barriers. But if you
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: actually think about how easily we've seen institutions disrupted, you know,
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: there are times that I wonder why aren't like, you know, hey,
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: stop stop looking granularly right, lift back up, and from
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: sixty thousand feet this looks like a no brainer that
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: the two parties that it's just a matter of time
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: before at least one of them totally shatters. Next question
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: comes from Chris D. Frederick Turp Vivignia, and he writes, Hey,
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate you in your point of view on
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: the various topics that you discussed in your podcast and substack.
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: My question for you is what do you think President
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: Trump will be like once he leaves office. I realize
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: he is always going to be looking to stay in
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: the news cycle, but do you think that he really
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: that he will garner the attention he wants from the
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: various news and media outlets. Do you believe that those
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: organizations will continue to cover him in what he does
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: and says on a daily basis, or do you think
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: that they will move on from him once he leaves office?
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: Things again, So I'm going to be very careful here.
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: I know. I think last week I told you I
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: was traveling quite a bit and I was sort of
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: hobnobbing with a lot of people in the know. And
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: that's going to just be very general about it, because
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: these were all off the record or Chathamhouse rule settings.
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 1: But this discussion of what's Trump like after the presidency,
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: so there's somebody who's pretty pretty well informed about sort
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 1: of various business deals he's involved with or could be
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: involved with. And I don't know if you've paid attention
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: to this idea that Amazon has floated about bringing back
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: The Apprentice. So The Apprentice is actually owned and controlled
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: by MGM. Amazon bought MGM, so there's some talk about
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: relaunching The Apprentice on Prime and it was like it
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: would be a Donald Trump junior vehicle and all this stuff.
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: And it's like, let's just say, this person who knows
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: a little thing or two about this situation said, this
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: is Donald Trump's post presidency plan. And this person said,
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know it, but this is what it screams
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: to me. And I sat back and absorbed that a minute,
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: and I said, oh, my God, of course it is.
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: And here's a few things you need to understand about
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. He's a man of habit and he wants
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: creature comforts. So, for instance, during The Apprentice, NBC built
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: a set in Trump Tower, Right. He didn't even have
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: to go to the New York studios of New York,
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: either in Rockefeller Center or in Brooklyn where they had
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: some other studios. He just had to, you know, put
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: on his slippers and go down this and go down
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: the elevator. I think it was the fifth floor. Not
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent sure, but I think it was the
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: fifth floor. Well do you think Jeff Bezos and Amazon
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: would build a studio mar A Lago? Yeah? And can
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: you imagine him putting together some form of this because
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 1: he just wants to hold court. Yeah. Is he a
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: man who likes to do things the way he's always
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: done things?
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: Has he turned the White House into mar Lago? Yes?
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 1: Has he turned the Oval Office into the Trump Organization? Yes?
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: So betting on him returning to something he's done before
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: is the bet I would make coming back to relaunch
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: and host a new form of The Apprentice. I know
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: that would sound ridiculous five years ago. Please, I'm not
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: saying I'm predicting it, but that's one of those I'm
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: not even going to be shocked or surprised. You know.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: We'd sometimes play with that cliche, are you surprised but
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: not shocked? Are you shocked but not surprised? In some ways,
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: if he's healthy enough, it's his way of just inserting
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: himself into the zeitgeist. I don't imagine him being a
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: talk show host. That's not what he's done. He didn't
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: care what other people have to say. If he gets
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: to just go return to who you know, he gets
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 1: to be this sort of manufactured persona that he had
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: created and that he has created, right, I do only
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: think he is. He's so far away from being like
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: a normal right. He is sort of this manufactured persona
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: that now is what he You know, it's some I
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: think it used to be an act, but it's been
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: an act for so long. I don't know if he
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: knows how to not do it anyway, I am bet
• 2:23:40
  Speaker 1: on him coming back to the Apprentice. I don't think
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: we'll have Gary Busey back, but maybe he'll bring back
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: Thomas Massey, Bill Cassidy right, and he'll say who wants
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: my loyalty back? Jade Vance joked that he wants to
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: turn it into The Apprentice, right, the battle between him
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: and Reveal. There's probably a thirty percent chance Donald Trump
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: moderates the first debate between Rubio and Advance, and he
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: might do it on what will eventually become the Apprentice set.
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: Here's what I'd say. I know that all sounds ridiculous,
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: but what's the one lesson of the Trump era failure
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: of imagination? All Right? Rob from San Francisco writes, Hey,
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: your recent comments and Rob's saying leading crowds in America
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: the beautiful resonated with me, proof that voters are hungry
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: for something different. It got me thinking, what if a
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight candidate's been every Saturday in twenty twenty
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: seven on a listening tour at the geographic center of
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: each state. Most of the centers are in small towns
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: and farming counties that never see a presidential candidate. Would
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: that kind of symbolism to reach forgotten communities matter or
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: would the press lose interest by week three and it
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: be seen as a gimmick. Would love your take. Look,
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: things are gimmicks if you only do them a couple
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: of times. Things resonate if you do it consistently and
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: don't stop. Right, My podcast a couple of times a
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: year is a gimmick. My podcast three times a week
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: on a set schedule, right is over time you embed
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 1: it and I say this, I'm not trying to, you know,
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: do what most people do with things and politics, make
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: it about themselves. But the point is is that I've
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 1: really believed that in anything I've ever done, in any
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: which is you know, consistency is how you build an audience,
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: build a movement. Anybody can have a viral moment, but
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: if you're if you stick to this and you're consistent
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: about it, I think that's a fascinating idea. I could
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: picture a guy like rama Manuel taking tak taking you
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: up on this idea, you know, and if I were,
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: you know, he's the type of candidate who's you know,
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: coming in with what I say is resume baggage, Right
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: he is. He is going to have to He's going
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: to have to work harder to make the case he
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: can be a change candidate, given that his resume screams establishment.
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: But he's been trying to do some different things, like
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: he's doing this bike tour across New Hampshire, which I
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: think is fascinating where and you know, he wants to
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: also show off that he's fit and young. Right, it's
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: you know, can you imagine Donald Trump on a bicycle? Frankly,
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of hard to see. I could see.
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: So I like, I mean, I think your idea is
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: a good one. In there are various ways an effort.
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: I think if you want to make an effort like
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: that stick, though, you have to do it every week, right,
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: you cannot take a week off, you know, you have
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: to be there all the time, you know. But yes,
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: that is how you build him. I mean, in a
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: couple of days, we're going to have an interview with
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: Lamar Alexander. I've already done the interview, but it's going
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: to air on my next episode of the podcast. And
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: he won his first race for governor. It was his
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: second race. He lost the first time. The second time
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: he runs, he decides to walk across the state and
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: stays in all these houses. It was a it was
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: a gimmick It was a gimmick that was first popularized
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: by a Florida Democrat, nam Laton Chiles. Walk in Lawton
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 1: was his name, and he walked the state, you know,
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: from Pensacola down to Miami. And what Lamar did was
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: walk across Tennessee and the famous plaid shirt of Lamar's
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: if those of you know your political history and know
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: the plaid shirt, and yes it's a gimmick, but he didn't.
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: You know, he did it over a long period of time.
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter essentially did that all around Iowa and his
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 1: first caucuses, and it's what it So. This stuff works,
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: but you got to stick with it, and you've got
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: to do it even on days that there's only one
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 1: media outlet showing up, because this is not about getting
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: national attention. This is about resonating locally. Next question comes
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: from Jennifer w and Arvada, Colorado, one of the great
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: suburban towns of Denver and Jennifer Wright, Hey, I really
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: enjoy the podcast. In your analysis, in your list of
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: top potential Democratic candidates, you mentioned Pete Bootage and Bernie Sanders,
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 1: but neither has historically shown strong support with black voters.
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: You are correct, particularly in the South, given how critical
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: that constituency is in Democratic primaries, could either realistically win
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: without significantly improving in that area. And have you seen
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: meaningful efforts from either to build those relationships. It's an
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: excellent point, and I'm going to be honest, I think
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: both Sanders and Buddhajidge would say that they have made
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: some efforts, but I've not seen them come to fruition yet.
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: I certainly think that. Look, I think Boota Jig has
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: a better shot than Bernie does. I think Bernie's problem
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 1: is his ideology. Black voters, particularly in the South, are
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: are more culturally conservative than progressive voters. They're very loyal Democrats,
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: i'd say, main more mainstream liberal voters, and so I
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: think that that, you know, one of the biggest mistakes
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: people make with Black voters in the Democratic Party if
• 2:29:29
  Speaker 1: they don't know the Democratic Party right, is assuming that
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: a loyal constituency to the Democratic Party automatically means they
• 2:29:36
  Speaker 1: must be the ideologically, you know, closest to the base,
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: and that is not the case with African American voters.
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 1: They're very loyal to the Democratic Party, but not necessarily
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: to the progressive base, and Actually, we've seen this quite
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: some time, and there's plenty of primaries we've seen in
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: African American communities where the more mainstream liberal defeats the
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: more prog us of candidates. So I think that's Bernie's problem.
• 2:30:03
  Speaker 1: Pete's problem, I think stemmed from early on, and I
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: think this is I think Petez is more fixable. He
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 1: just needs to spend more time in African American churches
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 1: in the South, and the fact that I have not
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: seen a lot of evidence that he's done that. Maybe
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: he has, but look, I you know, and some of
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: this stuff can sometimes be done and people not notice it.
• 2:30:25
  Speaker 1: You know. Barack Obama did not have a lot of
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: strong relationships with some key black church leaders in the
• 2:30:31
  Speaker 1: South when he first got to the Senate in two
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 1: thousand and four because he was just busy being an
• 2:30:35
  Speaker 1: Illinois politician, but very quietly in two thousand and five
• 2:30:38
  Speaker 1: and two thousand and six, and I remember learning this
• 2:30:39
  Speaker 1: later and it certainly came he would pretty much once
• 2:30:45
  Speaker 1: or twice a month make a trip to a key
• 2:30:48
  Speaker 1: ame church in the South, you know, whether it was
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 1: in Birmingham, Jackson, Mississippi, Atlanta, Columbia, Charleston, you know, all
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 1: over the South, getting to know a lot of these
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: black church leaders in the South who are just crucial
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: in some ways to democratic organizing among black voters in
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: the South. If early twenty twenty seven, I see Pete
• 2:31:23
  Speaker 1: Boodagigs or Bernie Sanders doing this every weekend in the
• 2:31:26
  Speaker 1: first six months, that will tell me something. But it's
• 2:31:29
  Speaker 1: certainly what I'd be doing if I were them. But
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: it's an excellent observation. You're not wrong that that's the
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: you know, if they don't solve that problem, they're not
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: going to be able to break through. Next question comes
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: from Doug and South of the Coding. He writes, greetings, really
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: appreciate the work of doing. We need it. I've been
• 2:31:44
  Speaker 1: trying to connect a few dots around Trump's comments on Gaza,
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner's role in the Middle East discussions, and recent
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 1: tensions involving Iran. Is there any credible basis to concerns
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: about personal or political interest shaping form policy decisions in
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: that region? Or is that reading too much in two
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: separate events? Doug know, I mean, I'm laughing here because
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: I just spent the last couple of days sort of
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: doing a deep dive into all of the financial entanglements
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: that Trump has allowed to happen with his family in
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: the Middle East, and it is, there's no doubt. And
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 1: by the way, there's a lot of in some of
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: the there's a lot of good reporting in Israel about
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: some of this. These same forces that have created this
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: transactional you know, with that Jerry Kushner's in business with
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: at the golf states that bb net now who and
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: his allies and associates have also financially benefited from the
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 1: Golf state crowd as well, and that that it does
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: feel as if that it is overlapping with foreign policy
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: goals in addition to financial goals, and so I think
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: it's impossible to disaggregate it. And I think this is
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: what makes Kushner and Whitcough not just flawed negotiators, but
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: frankly unqualified. They're unqualified on their knowledge. So but set
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: that aside, they're unqualified because they're I think that they're
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: compromised financially right, They're essentially negotiating with entities that will
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: be deciding how valuable some of their investments or assets
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: are in the region. So I don't think you're reading
• 2:33:20
  Speaker 1: too much in it on that front. I mean, you know,
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: the question is you know how you know how direct
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: is is this about, you know, Jared Kushner trying to
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: essentially profit off of redeveloping the Gaza strip, right, And
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: I think we're probably a little further away on having
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: connecting all those dots, But I think the decision to
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: do this around war, I think when you look at
• 2:33:47
  Speaker 1: sort of the personal financial relationships between the uae UH, Saudi's,
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: the Trump family, Trump family friends, then there's Cutter. Cutter's
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: sort of Cutter throws money around to try to make
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: friends with everybody, including folks in Israel. So it's the
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 1: the difficult thing about this story is that it it's
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: sort of almost like, uh, if you're a fan of
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: it's always Sonny when when Charlie does his imitation of
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: a beautiful mind and he's doing bird Law and he's
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: got all of his crazy stuff, right, and have you've
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: seen that meme? I will confess to being a big
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 1: fan of Sonny what I call what I refer to
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: Sonny as sort of Seinfeld for the re for for
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: everybody else, Right, you know, it's sort of more crude,
• 2:34:44
  Speaker 1: a more crass version of of Seinfeld, but just as
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: funny and sometimes even funnier. But the reality is all
• 2:34:54
  Speaker 1: of the connections and the dots that you could put
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: together of Middle East financial compromised issues, overlaid on foreign policy,
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: overlaid on all of this, It's almost so complicated it's
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: hard to create the clear narrative to simplify it. But yes,
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: it is to me, it's impossible to disaggregate all this
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: all right, last question comes from Greg who calls himself
• 2:35:30
  Speaker 1: a former debuker and current Central Illinois resident. Let's hear
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: it for Tubuque, Iowa. My late grandmother is buried in Picaigo.
• 2:35:41
  Speaker 1: That was her hometown. Hey, miss shadd I'm curious with
• 2:35:44
  Speaker 1: the power of Trump and the GOP because it still
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: looks like you can win primaries with him. That is
• 2:35:48
  Speaker 1: something he has that has been going on for years.
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: Will the other fact be true or more telling that
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: you can't win a general election with him? As an
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: exiled Iowan. I thank you for all the mentions of Iowa.
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: I too. Hope one day they will start doing the
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: right thing again, Greg, former debuker. Look, that's what these
• 2:36:04
  Speaker 1: general elections are going to tell us, right This is
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: why Paxton Cornyn I think is now that much more consequential.
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: And we are starting to see Donald Trump do what
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: he did to his party in twenty twenty two, which
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: is saddle Republicans with weak nominees who are vulnerable to
• 2:36:20
  Speaker 1: losing general elections because of all the flaws that they have,
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: but Trump supports them because you know, they sucked up
• 2:36:26
  Speaker 1: to him, they're loyal to him, or you know they
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: they were willing to promote lies that he wanted promote.
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 2: It.
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: That's going to be the we're going to find out,
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: right and I think, you know, a Paxton victory really
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: deals a blow to whether this stuff matters or not,
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: right right, if he wins the whole Senate race. So
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: I look, I think Ramaswami's biggest problem in a general
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: election in Ohio is going to be his connections to Trump.
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: I think Paxton is going to have his own issues.
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: But you throw on Trump, well, you know that's a
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: double edged sword because in some of these places, the
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: Trump endorsement fires up the base and they certainly are
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to get Trump voters to
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: show up for midterms. So that implies why there's still
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: some hesitance of decoupling from Trump, even in even when
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: you're in general elections. But I think that's an important
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: I think this is an important thing to follow in
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. Will Trump's endorsement be cost elections in
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six? Trump's endorsements of the wrong candidates cost
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: Republicans in twenty twenty two, But I would argue Trump
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: himself didn't cost them those races, right, And I think
• 2:37:50
  Speaker 1: that's the question about twenty twenty six. Does Trump does
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: just simply making something a referendum on Trump, become enough
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: to disqualify general election candidate That happening is a big deal, right.
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: What Trump has done so far is he's he is.
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: He seems to find the flawed candidates, and he gets
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: behind the less electable candidates and they prove to be
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: what less electable? What I think is not clear yet
• 2:38:16
  Speaker 1: is whether his endorsement all on its own creates the
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: conditions that the person's less electable, and that is something
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: we haven't quite yet experienced. Well, there you go. That's
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: questions for this episode. Hey, I'm gonna you know, pat
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 1: myself on the back and my my first you know,
• 2:38:38
  Speaker 1: sports where the sponsorships that I had to pick something.
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: I told you to ride the Spurs early, but fade
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: them late. I turned out to be wrong on the
• 2:38:47
  Speaker 1: on the late fade right about the early aspect of this.
• 2:38:51
  Speaker 1: Let's be honest, if you watched any part of that
• 2:38:54
  Speaker 1: Spurs Thunder game, particularly if you watch the last quarter.
• 2:38:59
  Speaker 1: Here's let me fast. I watched the last quarter in
• 2:39:02
  Speaker 1: the two overtimes. I was watching an extra inning Gnats
• 2:39:05
  Speaker 1: game that somehow got so out of hand in the
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: twelfth inning the Nats had to bring in a position
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: player to finish the job. And that became this long
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: debate about whether this was violating the rule because it's
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: supposed to be an eight run rule before you can
• 2:39:21
  Speaker 1: bring in a position player. But basically, the Nats were
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: out of arms in their bullpen and they realized that
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: the game was probably out of reach. So I will
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: admit I was mesmerized that. But then you flip over
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: and it's amazing that game one literally lived up to
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: all the expectations. I think a lot of us hope
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 1: for like, this is our NBA Finals, right, the bronze
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: medal game. The bronze medal series is Nicks versus Calves
• 2:39:49
  Speaker 1: could be fun. There might be some great moments in
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden, but it's for third place. Let's not pretend,
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, technically one of them going to make
• 2:40:00
  Speaker 1: the NBA Finals, so they can lose in either five
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 1: or six to the Thunder or the Spurs. But oh
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 1: my goodness, let's just maybe the Thunder wins four games
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: to one and and the Wembe Game one is an aberration.
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: And I don't think that's what we watched Monday night.
• 2:40:21
  Speaker 1: I think we saw something that has just changed. Like
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 1: it's like Magic Johnson playing center in the first in
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 1: that in the in his rookie year, where you're like, oh,
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: this is this is something different. It's like when Steph
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: Curry transformed the league with the power of the three pointer,
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: and you really and and he took over. When he
• 2:40:49
  Speaker 1: finally took over a series and they got to that
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: and they won that first championship, it was like, oh,
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 1: this is something's changed. That's what it felt like. Everything
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: people imagined Wemby could do or be was on Monday night.
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: A forty twenty game. Think about it, a forty twenty game.
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: That's Wilt, that's Russell I forget Will that's Russell. Wow.
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure Kareem had a forty twenty. He probably
• 2:41:19
  Speaker 1: had a forty. I'm sure he's had at least one
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: forty twenty somewhere in there, at least in a regular season.
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: But we saw something last night on Monday Night that
• 2:41:28
  Speaker 1: was that was just I think now it's like, he's
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: a big guy. He's a tall guy. He looks fragile
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: sometimes when he falls, it looks like a baby giraffe,
• 2:41:40
  Speaker 1: like like falling and you're like, oh my god, I
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: hope they can get up. But barring him, you know,
• 2:41:46
  Speaker 1: is you know who can stop Wemby. It was at
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 1: one point when cheed Holmgren, who who you know? It's funny.
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: Wemby looks smooth Homegren, who's basically almost as tall, right,
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: just as lanky. There's a little bit of I don't
• 2:42:05
  Speaker 1: want clunkiness is too strong of a word, because he's
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: a he's a great athlete. I don't want to come
• 2:42:09
  Speaker 1: back boy. Compared to Wemby, it right, it looks a
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: little clunky, but what he boy, when he blocked that
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: shot of Wenby's that sort of forced the next overtime.
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: You were just like, man, who if from the who
• 2:42:20
  Speaker 1: is gonna? These are the only two teams that are
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: going to be able to touch each other for a while. Now,
• 2:42:26
  Speaker 1: this is two years, this is three years. All of
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: it depends on whether Wenby becomes fragile or not. But man,
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 1: that was just a pleasure to watch. You know, I
• 2:42:39
  Speaker 1: have no rooting interest in this. I love watching I mean,
• 2:42:42
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm interested in Wemby, and I don't always love
• 2:42:45
  Speaker 1: watching the thunder. But wow, I think that was a
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: moment and and we know when the moment hit it's
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: the twenty eight foot three pointer that the seven that
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: the eight foot guyd did. I think every person I
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: follow on X reacted to that shot. It was just
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: when it was just like and that was it was,
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: you know, as a reminder that there is still some
• 2:43:09
  Speaker 1: good social media. Right, this was like we're all, you know,
• 2:43:12
  Speaker 1: games late at night, we're in overtime. You know, people
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 1: are probably watching in bed, and yet we all wanted
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: to collectively react with each other. Right that was sort
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: of a reminder of when social media isn't that positive.
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 1: We all wanted to sort of share this experience for
• 2:43:29
  Speaker 1: a brief moment together, and you know, for for one
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: second there. Elon Musk couldn't destroy that part of X
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: just yet, so I have to say that I enjoyed
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 1: that brief period of X reminding us when Twitter was fun.
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: All Right with that, I'm gonna put a pin in that.
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you watching our live stream on Tuesday. Appreciate your
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: watching everything we do here. Don't forget to like and subscribe.
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not see into my flowers.