Latest / Politix / Woke Two: Cancellation Boogaloo?!

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Woke Two: Cancellation Boogaloo?! · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_01: On the jobs,
0:01
SPEAKER_01: Guy Berger from Guild,
0:05
SPEAKER_01: he showed that the decline in people who have a job is completely accounted for
0:12
SPEAKER_01: by people who say they don't want a job.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: So it's possible that the economy is being sabotaged by a plague of trad wives or something.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, you're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: This week,
0:31
SPEAKER_00: the leaders of the new progressive movement kept arm's length from
0:34
SPEAKER_00: the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary,
0:36
SPEAKER_00: but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to reset things and calm them down a bit
0:41
SPEAKER_00: by offering a concession.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Woke One was crazy,
0:45
SPEAKER_00: she said,
0:47
SPEAKER_00: and we should take progressive candidates at their word about
0:49
SPEAKER_00: the positions they hold today.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: So we'll talk about the political correctness surge of the last decade,
0:56
SPEAKER_00: the ongoing backlash, and what woke two might look like.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Then,
1:02
SPEAKER_00: does any of it really matter for this election so long as Donald Trump is still
1:06
SPEAKER_00: in power fucking everything up?
1:08
SPEAKER_00: The economy lost jobs in July and has lost jobs multiple months this year.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Inflation is still a problem,
1:14
SPEAKER_00: and Congress may actually be poised to give Trump more authority
1:19
SPEAKER_00: To levy unilateral tariffs.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: So are we finally back to the politics of it's the economy, stupid?
1:27
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1:47
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Boyler.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I need to congratulate you, man.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: You won the woke wars.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: It's over.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: You fought long and hard, relentlessly for years and years and years.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: And now we know that woke one was crazy.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: You're richer than ever.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: The people you left behind are still poor.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: And your greatest tormentors now concede that they may have gotten over their skis a bit.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the, in the heyday of woke.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, how are you feeling about it?
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I feel okay.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I, I mean, listen, there are people out there who carry a
2:34
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about, so what's his name?
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Chi Osei?
2:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to say his name right.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: But progressive city councilman in New York had this tweet who,
2:43
SPEAKER_01: you know, he was like going to challenge Hakeem Jeffries from the left.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: And then he stood down is what seems like a deal Mamdani struck.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: But like he had this tweet a while ago where he was like, woke one was crazy, man.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: And This seems to have kind of taken off on the left as a concept as,
3:04
SPEAKER_01: you know, Mamdani and others have backed away, especially from anti-police issues.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: And as that movement has gained clout,
3:16
SPEAKER_01: like in blue cities,
3:18
SPEAKER_01: in blue districts,
3:19
SPEAKER_01: I think a compromise that has worked for both politicians and voters
3:25
SPEAKER_01: in these primaries is for left-wing people to kind of like acknowledge that,
3:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:32
SPEAKER_01: I guess like they got caught up in a fad at the time and that like,
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Whatever, they're left wing, but like they want to do a good job of governing.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: And Democratic Party primary voters,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: who I think themselves mostly also got caught up in this fad,
3:49
SPEAKER_01: are very accepting of that as an answer.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
3:54
SPEAKER_01: That like I in 2026, not me,
3:56
SPEAKER_01: but you know,
3:57
SPEAKER_01: hypothetically,
3:58
SPEAKER_01: New York City voter,
3:59
SPEAKER_01: Wisconsin voter,
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Michigan voter, I in 2026 would not want my elected officials to defund the police.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
4:08
SPEAKER_01: I don't mind that in 2020,
4:11
SPEAKER_01: they were saying they wanted to defund the police because I myself,
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Democratic Party primary voter,
4:17
SPEAKER_01: was like part of that whole wave of, you know, Black Lives Matter posting.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: And so on and so forth.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: So like we, quote unquote, can all agree that like things got a little out of hand.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can look at stuff too that has no policy content, but it's just like cringe, right?
4:33
SPEAKER_01: There's that like famous photo of Nancy Pelosi and her Kente cloth, right?
4:38
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, the NFL painted like end racism in all the end zones, right?
4:44
SPEAKER_01: And so we can be like, ah, you know, like it was woke, it went too far.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
4:50
SPEAKER_01: I am glad that politicians are not now saying things about crime and policing
4:55
SPEAKER_01: that aren't true.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: I think it's important to take yes for an answer when people change their minds
5:01
SPEAKER_01: about this kind of thing.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: But I do also think that that particular phraseology around like woke one,
5:08
SPEAKER_01: like it raises the question of what the person saying it is actually saying.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's a couple of things.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: It's that.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: It's also...
5:21
SPEAKER_00: It's decidedly not woke was crazy.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: It's woke one was crazy, which implies more to come, right?
5:27
SPEAKER_00: That woke two is coming, yes.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: And so it leaves ambiguous.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: And of course,
5:31
SPEAKER_01: like the way politics works is that people leave some things behind
5:37
SPEAKER_01: and they carry other things forward.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: So on a totally abstract level,
5:42
SPEAKER_01: like I don't object to that formulation, but like, what does it mean?
5:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that like,
5:47
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:48
SPEAKER_00: somebody who writes for the free press was- Was responding to right-wingers
5:55
SPEAKER_00: who refused to take yes for an answer, right?
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And saying like,
5:58
SPEAKER_00: why should we give power back to these people if they,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: they're admitting they were crazy,
6:01
SPEAKER_00: but they're not giving us anything more than that.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And he was pointing out like,
6:05
SPEAKER_00: you all have to pretend that the 2020 election was stolen in order to be welcome
6:10
SPEAKER_00: in your own political movement.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: You can't become a judge today,
6:13
SPEAKER_00: a federal judge, unless you pretend to believe the election was stolen.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Like the epistemics on the right are worse, at least-
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Democrats,
6:22
SPEAKER_00: progressive Democrats are in the market for an off ramp,
6:27
SPEAKER_00: for some kind of face saving concession,
6:30
SPEAKER_00: a way to kind of move past it without like engaging in a new struggle session
6:36
SPEAKER_00: to atone for all their sins, blah, blah, blah.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And we'd be better off if basically more political actors were like that than like Republicans.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like, you know,
6:52
SPEAKER_00: The sense I get from reading the reactions to AOC is that a lot of people want
6:57
SPEAKER_00: to know where to go to get their apologies, right?
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Like they were right.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: AOC is saying she was wrong.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's just inviting yet more bickering.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Like the point is she's saying,
7:09
SPEAKER_00: we think you had some good points about where we were six, seven, eight years ago.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: But I think that your point about like,
7:17
SPEAKER_00: what about the unanswered questions is wise because-
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Because Republicans will ask them, like, okay,
7:24
SPEAKER_00: what specifically do you think you got over your skis on,
7:28
SPEAKER_00: and why do you think that happened?
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And so AOC took on the second question.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: She explained to Jonathan Karl in the same interview that she thought that really
7:38
SPEAKER_00: the culprit here was COVID,
7:41
SPEAKER_00: that people were locked down,
7:42
SPEAKER_00: people were unemployed,
7:45
SPEAKER_00: the system was not working for them,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: and so they were basically test running any kind of idea
7:49
SPEAKER_00: that might improve things rapidly.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And then Bernie Sanders in a totally separate interview specifically tried to sever
7:59
SPEAKER_00: the progressive movement from like the marquee policies of the woke era.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: So he said, I don't know any serious candidates who think we need to defund the police.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't know any serious candidates who think we need to abolish prisons or open
8:11
SPEAKER_00: the borders or any of those things.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Which together gets us closer to where I think people who want more than a shake of
8:21
SPEAKER_00: an etch-a-sketch Woke predated COVID.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: So it's not like a really tidy explanation.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: And Bernie's like,
8:35
SPEAKER_00: we are not going to,
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Continue to embrace those policies line doesn't explain why they were appealing in
8:40
SPEAKER_00: the first place.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think we should have this conversation because if there's going to be
8:46
SPEAKER_00: a woke two, you need some reason to believe it won't just be a retread.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: It will be informed by why
8:57
SPEAKER_00: the defining features of woke one were both bad ideas
9:01
SPEAKER_00: and politically toxic.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And it will be something that The broad left can embrace.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And I just don't think we have...
9:09
SPEAKER_01: I also think,
9:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:11
SPEAKER_01: I think Bernie Sanders has never articulated clearly something
9:18
SPEAKER_01: that I think is visible to anybody who watches politics, right?
9:23
SPEAKER_01: But it is that, like, he and AOC have a bit of a disagreement about this stuff.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
9:32
SPEAKER_01: Like, He ran his first mayoral campaign with the endorsement of
9:37
SPEAKER_01: the Burlington Police Union on a platform of giving the Burlington police officers
9:43
SPEAKER_01: a more generous contract.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: And he and his 2016 campaign flirted with actual anti-woke positionings against Hillary Clinton.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: And he lost in 2016.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: And then seems to have spent the next few years,
10:04
SPEAKER_01: I think like his interpretation of his defeat in the 2016 primary was
10:09
SPEAKER_01: that like Hillary successfully outwoked him.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: And he spent the next several years like getting woker, right?
10:16
SPEAKER_01: And like assembling this like Justice Democrats squad of like young female,
10:23
SPEAKER_01: like women of color candidates who we were supporting.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: And they,
10:27
SPEAKER_01: but not him,
10:28
SPEAKER_01: would say things like birthing people You know,
10:31
SPEAKER_01: and stuff like that in congressional testimony and really, like,
10:34
SPEAKER_01: spoke the language of the,
10:37
SPEAKER_01: you know, millennial and post-millennial, like, college-educated left-wing people.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Then when Defund the Police broke out as a slogan,
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Bernie was one of the first people to be like, we shouldn't say that.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: But, like, Bernie faction people really did push it quite hard.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: And, like...
10:59
SPEAKER_01: Now, like,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: Bernie's line on it is like,
11:01
SPEAKER_01: well, I don't know anyone who's talking about defunding the police.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: And, like,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: it's true that Mamdani and AOC and Abdul El-Sayed are not currently talking about
11:12
SPEAKER_01: that,
11:12
SPEAKER_01: but they were talking about it a few years ago at a time when he was not talking
11:18
SPEAKER_01: about it, right?
11:19
SPEAKER_01: And, like,
11:20
SPEAKER_01: he doesn't quite want to acknowledge that,
11:23
SPEAKER_01: like, In his case, he's not like a woke one was crazy guy.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: Like he didn't say that stuff, but his movement did.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: And he like, whatever.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: What you're describing sounds to me like an organic feeling.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Like everyone who wants political power and enters campaigns has
11:47
SPEAKER_00: to assess what they believe and then how to win a primary on the basis of that.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: And then how to win a general election on the basis of that.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think Bernie,
11:56
SPEAKER_00: because he had a longer career,
11:57
SPEAKER_00: because he was older,
11:58
SPEAKER_00: because he's a white man,
11:59
SPEAKER_00: for a bunch of reasons,
12:01
SPEAKER_00: had sounder instincts at the outset about all three questions.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: But then events interceded,
12:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:08
SPEAKER_00: his defeat to Hillary Clinton in the primary,
12:10
SPEAKER_00: but also the,
12:12
SPEAKER_00: you know, like the precipitating instance, the accelerance of woke, right?
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Harvey Weinstein in Me Too, and then George Floyd in Black Lives Matter and things like that.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Where it suddenly became like arguable,
12:27
SPEAKER_00: if not maybe like likely,
12:30
SPEAKER_00: that if you want to win a Democratic primary,
12:34
SPEAKER_00: you have to make social justice very central to your campaign.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And that means you can't be outflanked by somebody who's even more social justicy than you.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: But then that creates the next question is that like,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: can we do this,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: nominate candidates in that kind of milieu who are then competitive nationally?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: And I think that like we've come full circle back to back to where the left is like,
12:57
SPEAKER_00: no, Bernie was right all along.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Probably he just lost to Hillary Clinton because she was extremely well known
13:02
SPEAKER_00: and had a lot of elite endorsers and a lot of money.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, but I mean, again, this is where I find just like the vagueness a little bit more.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Unsatisfying.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: as you said,
13:18
SPEAKER_01: a big part of the pushback to AOC is going to be from people who want her
13:22
SPEAKER_01: to apologize.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: And
13:28
SPEAKER_01: I feel that way too, but I am not going to make that my position about this.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say on the podcast that I, as an individual human being, am annoyed.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: That there are people who six years ago were like hounding people like me,
13:47
SPEAKER_01: like out of polite society,
13:49
SPEAKER_01: because we wouldn't embrace these strange ideas about policing,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: who now want to be like, what's the big deal?
13:56
SPEAKER_01: Because they're the ones who made it such a big deal.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: And I am annoyed.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: That being said,
14:02
SPEAKER_01: the way politics works is that nobody ever like gets the apologies
14:05
SPEAKER_01: that they feel like they deserve.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: And like, we do need to move on and agree to agree.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: If we agree to agree.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: So the question is like, what is it actually that we agree on?
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, defund the police is a slogan, right?
14:25
SPEAKER_01: There's like a question of,
14:28
SPEAKER_01: you know, there are many, many, many policy questions related to crime and policing.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: They were like, one could ask the question, right?
14:35
SPEAKER_01: So like, there is an ongoing question.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Controversy raging in various different cities about Flock,
14:42
SPEAKER_01: this company Flock,
14:44
SPEAKER_01: that has surveillance cameras that they sell to police departments.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: And so one viewpoint is we should install these cameras.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: It's a way to increase the productivity of police departments.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: It's a way to deter crime.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: It's a way to ultimately have fewer people in prison,
14:58
SPEAKER_01: frankly, because it's an effective deterrent.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: And then you have people on the other side saying,
15:04
SPEAKER_01: also accurately,
15:06
SPEAKER_01: There are a non-zero number of abuses of these flat cameras that happen.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: Police officers are,
15:14
SPEAKER_01: I think,
15:14
SPEAKER_01: not like a force of white supremacy,
15:16
SPEAKER_01: but they are human beings and there are hundreds of thousands of them.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, the 2% who most misbehave, like, can use these tools in abusive ways.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: This is a real thing.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: And so like,
15:29
SPEAKER_01: we're having this argument, like,
15:31
SPEAKER_01: should we be-
15:32
SPEAKER_00: This is a really old argument about the balance
15:35
SPEAKER_00: between civil liberties and-
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, are we going to deploy technology so
15:54
SPEAKER_01: that I don't have Amazon packages stolen off my porch?
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Or are we going to say that that's part of a comprehensive surveillance state?
16:02
SPEAKER_01: And like,
16:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't think like,
16:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
16:06
SPEAKER_01: these are differences that like,
16:09
SPEAKER_01: People can happily coexist while disagreeing about this kind of thing.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: But like, I just still would like to know.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: I would,
16:16
SPEAKER_01: because,
16:16
SPEAKER_01: because I've heard some people saying,
16:19
SPEAKER_01: like at the peak of the Michigan primary, right?
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Ryan Grimm was saying that like, woke isn't about like policy at all.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: It's about like cringy virtue signaling.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: And like, he mentioned this like Pelosi, Kenteclaw thing.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: And like,
16:36
SPEAKER_01: I both agree with him that like that was cringe and sort of dumb
16:39
SPEAKER_01: and Democrats should try to act like normal, chill people.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: But like, I don't think that that's the crux of this kind of issue.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: And like, I don't think that Francesca Hong has in fact left aside like Woke politics.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: She's an elected official in Madison,
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Wisconsin,
16:58
SPEAKER_01: and I think has views that are typical of left-wing people living
17:03
SPEAKER_01: in left-wing college towns.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: And it's fine.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's allowed to have those opinions, but I don't agree with her.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to bracket the question of police as a force for white supremacy,
17:13
SPEAKER_00: because I still carry Rage Against the Machine.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Some of those who work forces are the
17:20
SPEAKER_01: same who that burn crosses.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Not all.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: It's a very subtle distinction.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: So
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I think that the way to synthesize all that is that for the most part,
17:34
SPEAKER_00: national politicians were rightly wary of the whole catechism
17:41
SPEAKER_00: that activists were demanding.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: And so they tried to Draw on their energy by doing things like
17:45
SPEAKER_00: the dumb Kente cloth thing that Ryan Grimm views as like,
17:49
SPEAKER_00: this is what woke ultimately.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Like Muriel Bowser painted Black Lives Matter on 16th Street instead of cutting the MPDC budget.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: But your point is taken is that the people doing making
18:03
SPEAKER_00: the demands were demanding policy, right?
18:06
SPEAKER_00: And now they're not because Francesca Hong, who,
18:09
SPEAKER_00: by the way,
18:10
SPEAKER_00: People are going to listen to or watch this on Wednesday after
18:13
SPEAKER_00: the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary is over.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: She's likely to win that primary, but we don't know.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: She's way ahead in the polls.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: But yes,
18:21
SPEAKER_01: maybe there's been a shocking upset,
18:22
SPEAKER_01: in which
18:23
SPEAKER_00: case- I mean,
18:24
SPEAKER_00: there's been a lot of second guessing, I'd say, the last week or so.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: So we'll see.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: But she has talked about what she tweeted about policing six years ago
18:36
SPEAKER_00: and what she- Believes now in at least one interview that I can think of.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's like she's not being quite as specific as maybe you want about
18:47
SPEAKER_00: where she falls on the civil liberties versus like order spectrum.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: But she's saying like we need to give police more resources
18:57
SPEAKER_00: to like she'd probably call it public safety to make to make our communities safer.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And we also should.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Not have police doing social work, basically.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: And like,
19:10
SPEAKER_00: that was essentially what Sanders was saying about policing and the carceral state
19:18
SPEAKER_00: as well.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but- Was like,
19:20
SPEAKER_00: was like,
19:20
SPEAKER_00: was like- Can we take some responsibilities that now go to police that can escalate
19:26
SPEAKER_00: into violence out of their hands and blah, blah?
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure, but nobody wants to defund the police.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Should we have a society where we don't have two million people in prison?
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it speaks poorly of our society that that's the case,
19:37
SPEAKER_00: but we need to keep dangerous people off the streets, right?
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Like he, I think, conceded quite a lot in your direction, right?
19:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, but it's like, here, just on Han in particular, right?
19:50
SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
19:52
SPEAKER_01: there's a progressive movement that has called itself
19:56
SPEAKER_01: the criminal justice reform movement, right?
19:58
SPEAKER_01: And this is like,
20:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:00
SPEAKER_01: people who want to move away from traditional tough on crime policies in favor
20:05
SPEAKER_01: of less policing, less incarceration, less surveillance, et cetera, et cetera.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: There is a splinter faction within the criminal justice reform movement
20:14
SPEAKER_01: which says you shouldn't refer to the existence of a criminal justice system because
20:20
SPEAKER_01: that implies that the system that exists is just.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: And then we should instead call it the criminal legal system.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at like Hong's campaign website today,
20:33
SPEAKER_01: On its policy section,
20:35
SPEAKER_01: and you're trying to say, like, what does she have to say about crime?
20:38
SPEAKER_01: What does she have to say about public safety?
20:40
SPEAKER_01: The relevant section on her policy website is criminal legal reform.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, again,
20:46
SPEAKER_01: that's a very superficial marker,
20:48
SPEAKER_01: but just, like,
20:49
SPEAKER_01: within the realm of, like, the most superficial read of, like, Woke One was crazy.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: She, like, kind of seems like she's still Woke One.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think your criminology is actually probably right.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: But it is criminology, and it, like,
21:06
SPEAKER_00: I think raises the question of how much you actually care what's
21:10
SPEAKER_00: in somebody's heart versus what they're willing to say and do in pursuit of power,
21:16
SPEAKER_00: and with power, if they win.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that, you know, like, what is Mom Donnie saying and doing about policing now?
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Where does he fall on that spectrum between Protecting people's civil liberties
21:30
SPEAKER_00: and ensuring the streets are safe.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: I feel like people have been basically happy with where he's landed,
21:37
SPEAKER_00: but it's somewhere,
21:38
SPEAKER_00: and it's not-
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I mean, I think- Here, a couple different things on this.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: One, I don't live in Wisconsin, so I,
21:46
SPEAKER_01: in fact, can't afford to not really care what- Hong says or does about any of this.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: You know,
21:51
SPEAKER_01: Mamdani,
21:52
SPEAKER_01: I think,
21:53
SPEAKER_01: has conveyed to people successfully that he has like a really,
21:57
SPEAKER_01: really strong ideological anchor around Israel that he is incredibly uncompromising
22:02
SPEAKER_01: on and that is like really upsetting some people.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: But that if you are not upset by that,
22:11
SPEAKER_01: that like he is going to try to do a good job as mayor, right?
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Like in Whatever like your conventional understanding of like what a mayor does, right?
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Like low crime, the garbage gets picked up, you know, whatever.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: I just don't know with Hong.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: Like she's like an odd figure who has not been the subject of that much attention
22:35
SPEAKER_01: until really, really, really recently.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: I think though that like people who want to
22:44
SPEAKER_01: run the Democratic Party Which,
22:47
SPEAKER_01: like, increasingly this is going to be who does run the Democratic Party.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Just, like, need to debate a little bit amongst themselves.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Like, what it is they're trying to say about this.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Because they keep doing this presentation where, like, they're all aligned.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: And, like, they're all team players.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: But, like, Bernie didn't endorse Hong, which, like, was interesting.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: And then didn't get, like, a ton of follow-up.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, does he think people should,
23:19
SPEAKER_01: like, are the moderates just right about the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary?
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, he's saying like, well,
23:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not,
23:26
SPEAKER_01: AOC said she's not focused on local races,
23:28
SPEAKER_01: but like,
23:29
SPEAKER_01: obviously there's been a ton of like out of state cross endorsement
23:32
SPEAKER_01: about all these different things.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I asked about this and I was told,
23:36
SPEAKER_00: you know, Bernie hasn't really been weighing in on governor's races.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, he weighed in on a mayor's race in New York.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's like factually accurate that he hasn't been weighing in on governor's races.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: He's weighed in on house primaries and a mayor's race, but like somehow not a guy.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: So like, that's a dodge, right?
23:53
SPEAKER_01: Like clearly the issue is like Bernie has some concerns about Hong,
23:59
SPEAKER_01: but also Bernie doesn't want to like go to war.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Which, like, I get that.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: But, you know,
24:05
SPEAKER_01: this is, like,
24:09
SPEAKER_01: this is the burden of leadership,
24:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:11
SPEAKER_01: for better or worse,
24:12
SPEAKER_01: is that the more influence you get,
24:14
SPEAKER_01: the more you need to decide what you actually think.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: And, like,
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Mamdani,
24:18
SPEAKER_01: who now has been in office for a while,
24:20
SPEAKER_01: has clearly decided that, like,
24:22
SPEAKER_01: making big changes to the operation of the NYPD is, like, not what he's going to do.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
24:29
SPEAKER_01: if everybody would, like,
24:33
SPEAKER_01: People could say,
24:34
SPEAKER_01: like, Zorhan has shown us the way, but they haven't clearly said that.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: And he also hasn't really clearly said that.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I get it.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: It's like underdogs are going to underdog.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: And, like, it's sort of fine on that level.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: But, like, they are winning a lot of these primaries.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: They are gaining clout.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: And on all kinds of things, both, like, what was woke one?
24:57
SPEAKER_01: What will woke two be?
25:01
SPEAKER_01: When they say they want Medicare for all...
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Does that mean healthcare will be prioritized in the legislative agenda ahead of other items?
25:10
SPEAKER_01: It's just like,
25:11
SPEAKER_01: this is like stuff,
25:13
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
25:14
SPEAKER_01: like they need to work out amongst themselves a little bit more clearly,
25:17
SPEAKER_01: including like, who are they running for president in 2028?
25:21
SPEAKER_00: If anyone, right?
25:22
SPEAKER_00: So I- I mean,
25:24
SPEAKER_00: I say this as somebody who did not get nearly as worked up about Woke One as you or
25:31
SPEAKER_00: as many of my peers because it was like,
25:35
SPEAKER_00: I think for the most part,
25:37
SPEAKER_00: this diffused but very viral internet-driven thing that most Democrats,
25:43
SPEAKER_00: I feel like,
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Did not really succumb to in the way that they are portrayed as having succumbed
25:48
SPEAKER_00: to it.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't ignore it because it was kind of everywhere.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: And it was,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: like you take a position at odds with what's most viral on the internet and you get
26:00
SPEAKER_00: a big earful about it.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: But they didn't embrace really any of the marquee policy positions of
26:09
SPEAKER_00: the actual activists who would lead, you know, uh,
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Do cancellations or pressure corporations to do this
26:17
SPEAKER_00: or whatever other woke tactic was happening at the time.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: But I get why people think that that was not good for progressive political fortunes.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: It was not a good milieu for liberalism.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't actually think that the political damage to Democrats is all that easy to tease out.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: But it's certainly not the ground where they're the most confident, right?
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Like when these issues become salient in elections,
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Democrats don't sound super confident
26:50
SPEAKER_00: because I think they're either saying something they know is ridiculous
26:54
SPEAKER_00: or they're being really defensive or whatever else.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: And so I get why it's important that if there's going to be a woke two, it's different.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And my concern,
27:05
SPEAKER_00: because I have a theory of why woke one was the way it was,
27:09
SPEAKER_00: is that basically everything is the same.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And even if things go very well for Democrats in the next one and a half to three
27:16
SPEAKER_00: and a half years,
27:17
SPEAKER_00: and they come to power in 2029,
27:20
SPEAKER_00: that if something doesn't change,
27:24
SPEAKER_00: whoever will be president,
27:25
SPEAKER_00: John Ossoff will be president,
27:26
SPEAKER_00: or Ro Khanna will be president, or AOC will be president.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: And there will be an incident like the George Floyd incident or something else.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Or there'll be a mass shooting at a high school where 30 kids die, the worst in history.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: And there will be a demand for action,
27:43
SPEAKER_00: like criminal justice reform, assault weapons ban, whatever.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: And we will find that these positions that,
27:49
SPEAKER_00: especially in these moments,
27:50
SPEAKER_00: have very, very, very high approval rating cannot advance.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: And then what are you left with?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: You just won the election.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: You rightly understand your coalition to be the majority coalition.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: The coalition seems united behind the idea that something needs to change,
28:07
SPEAKER_00: and yet change is impossible.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: You go around trying to basically browbeat what you want into existence.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's, I think, basically a natural response to institutional sclerosis.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: And if nothing about that changes...
28:23
SPEAKER_00: Then woke two will just be woke one with new people in charge.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: I guess the way I would phrase this is I would feel a lot more comfortable
28:31
SPEAKER_01: if all these people who are like left-wing economic populists or say they are,
28:36
SPEAKER_01: would admit to themselves, we actually aren't left-wing economic populists at all.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: We are like highly emotional,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: deeply secular,
28:45
SPEAKER_01: deeply cosmopolitan people
28:47
SPEAKER_01: who like fundamentally prioritize these questions around race,
28:52
SPEAKER_01: immigration, Climate, guns, et cetera, over the ideology that we say we believe in.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Or they could do the opposite and say,
29:02
SPEAKER_01: we are trying to build a populist coalition against billionaires to fight
29:05
SPEAKER_01: the oligarchy.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: And that means we need to learn
29:08
SPEAKER_01: to exercise emotional self-control around these issues related to guns,
29:13
SPEAKER_01: immigration, et cetera, et cetera.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: But all that's been happening in the Democratic Party
29:18
SPEAKER_01: since really Sandy Hook is this Flipping around so that whenever things are calm,
29:29
SPEAKER_01: right,
29:30
SPEAKER_01: whenever like the waters are chill,
29:33
SPEAKER_01: what you hear from progressives is like,
29:36
SPEAKER_01: we need this like big economic campaign against inequality.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: And like the exact slogans around Medicare for All,
29:44
SPEAKER_01: 99%, Piketty, oligarchy, you know, shift around a little bit.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: But like people keep saying the same thing.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: And it was just somebody,
29:51
SPEAKER_01: I think, um,
29:53
SPEAKER_01: You know,
29:54
SPEAKER_01: the real divide in American politics today isn't left versus right,
29:58
SPEAKER_01: it's top versus bottom.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: That's become like a line that I see a lot of people use, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: But then whenever anything happens to like disturb the calm waters
30:08
SPEAKER_01: of economic populism, everyone like rushes in exactly as you're describing.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: And like it doesn't work.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work because our system doesn't – like when there's a mass shooting
30:25
SPEAKER_00: in Australia,
30:25
SPEAKER_00: what happens is like a week later, their legislature says no more assault weapons.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, but I mean to be clear,
30:33
SPEAKER_01: what happened in Australia is that there was a mass shooting with
30:36
SPEAKER_01: the right-wing political party in office.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: And the right-wing political party decided that they wanted to ban assault weapons.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
30:44
SPEAKER_01: if tomorrow Donald Trump is like,
30:46
SPEAKER_01: I want to ban assault weapons, assault weapons would get banned.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but a similar thing happened in New Zealand, right?
30:54
SPEAKER_00: When societies with responsive governments have national traumas,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: they don't say, get out of your feelings, public.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: We don't actually need to do anything about this.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: That's step one.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: One on this would be for Democrats to admit that they themselves do not care
31:12
SPEAKER_01: that much about this economic populism, right?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't see what economic populism has to do with it.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: It's just like- It's just, it's priority setting, right?
31:20
SPEAKER_01: Like Jacinda Ardern,
31:22
SPEAKER_01: when she was Prime Minister of New Zealand from the Labour Party,
31:25
SPEAKER_01: was like not purporting that she was going to be creating sweeping transformation of
31:30
SPEAKER_01: the New Zealand economic system.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: And like, she went big into gun control.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: But like- You have to set priorities.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: And Democrats over the past 15 years,
31:41
SPEAKER_01: beyond faction, have just completely refused to decide what they think is important.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, but this is like a restating of my point,
31:52
SPEAKER_00: because the way our system works is- Yes, that is how the system works.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, but it doesn't have to work this way.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be the case that most of the time when you win elections,
32:02
SPEAKER_00: you can't do anything.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: But then once every 25 years,
32:05
SPEAKER_00: you win an election big enough that you have concurrent majorities.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: And then you can do a little bit of stuff.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: You can pass a few bills.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: And so then there's this crash into the, people are just like, No, let's do this.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And so you get these omnibus bills that are meant to do basically all the pent up shit at once.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's like the source of all of the discontent.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And that if you could make it so that every majority can govern in
32:37
SPEAKER_00: a basically reasoned way,
32:41
SPEAKER_00: then you take a lot of pressure off of the Off of the forces pushing people
32:46
SPEAKER_00: towards like woke, hey, the government isn't going to do this for us.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to get Disney and Coca-Cola and Bud Light to do it for- I mean,
32:55
SPEAKER_01: I think that's like a coherent viewpoint.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: And it's why last week I was saying like progressives
33:01
SPEAKER_01: who say they prioritize institutional reform should seize the opportunity around
33:07
SPEAKER_01: the SAVE Act.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: But like, as we both agreed, like nobody really wanted to do that.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, there's no-
33:16
SPEAKER_01: There's no escaping prioritization.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: Like we are having these like ferocious factional battles and the content of
33:23
SPEAKER_01: the factional battles is the idea that,
33:29
SPEAKER_01: you know, like mainstream Democrats are bad on Israel.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: And won't like chant the Medicare for All slogan aggressively enough.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: And that that's because they are corrupt.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: And then the mainstream Democrats are punching back and saying,
33:44
SPEAKER_01: you guys have all these insane tweets from five to six years ago.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: And then they're coming back and they're saying, woke one, lol.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, which is what we were talking about.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And like, there just isn't a conversation occurring that is about-
33:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, I take your point.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: I also feel like-
34:04
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of a question of how you look at it because between what Bernie said
34:08
SPEAKER_00: and what AOC said and what Abdul El-Sayed said about Medicare for All recently,
34:13
SPEAKER_00: he was like,
34:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to keep pushing until we get to Medicare for All,
34:17
SPEAKER_00: but I accept that it is a journey and it's not going to be Bernie's bill.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was good.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Right?
34:23
SPEAKER_00: So you have all kinds of concessions coming from the left.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And then separately,
34:27
SPEAKER_00: visibly,
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Not just because Jonathan Chait wrote it in The Atlantic,
34:31
SPEAKER_00: but because Democrats in office are scurrying toward the left.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: They're like, hey,
34:36
SPEAKER_00: the position on Israel we held from forever ago to October 2023 is bad for
34:43
SPEAKER_00: the moment.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: The right view is well to our left, and so we're moving to our left.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: The grounds here to meet in the middle are just materializing underneath us.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: And what's missing,
34:54
SPEAKER_00: I guess,
34:55
SPEAKER_00: is like AOC is talking to Jonathan Karl instead of to Hakeem Jeffries or whoever
35:00
SPEAKER_00: about where the party should land.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: And Hakeem Jeffries is not seeking out AOC or anyone else to be like, hey,
35:10
SPEAKER_00: if that's what you think,
35:11
SPEAKER_00: let's put together a list of 10 things that My frontline members
35:16
SPEAKER_00: and you can all agree are the agenda for 2026, for 2027 to run on in 2026.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: But like it's there,
35:23
SPEAKER_00: it's there for the plucking at this moment if they could just get into a room.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe, I'm, you know, I thought that what Sayed said about healthcare was very helpful.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: And that would be good.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: But, you know,
35:47
SPEAKER_01: then like later that same day,
35:49
SPEAKER_01: Bernie Sanders,
35:50
SPEAKER_01: or the same week,
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Bernie Sanders like put out this statement that was like,
35:56
SPEAKER_01: the Democratic Party has the power to ban super PACs from intervening in primaries.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: And they must act right away to end this corrupt system.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: And like, they just don't.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's not true.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: And this is something that Bernie does all the time,
36:14
SPEAKER_01: which is say something false and inflammatory that has the implication that
36:21
SPEAKER_01: the leadership of the Democratic Party somehow, A,
36:24
SPEAKER_01: does not include him,
36:26
SPEAKER_01: even though he's like,
36:28
SPEAKER_01: Probably the single most influential person in the Democratic Party.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: And also that all disagreements with him are motivated by corruption.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: And that is the thing.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: If I was Hakeem Jeffries,
36:42
SPEAKER_01: I would not sit in a room with Bernie Sanders until he stopped with that shit.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: And if I were Bernie Sanders,
36:48
SPEAKER_01: I would say, don't sit in a room with Hakeem Jeffries because you're winning.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: And keep lying about him because you're-
36:56
SPEAKER_00: winning this battle.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: I assume,
36:58
SPEAKER_00: I have not seen the Sanders quote,
37:00
SPEAKER_00: I assume he's not referring to Jeffries,
37:02
SPEAKER_00: he's referring to Schumer about the Haley Stevens campaign.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Which was run in concert with Super PACs, very openly.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: When I wrote on the internet,
37:14
SPEAKER_01: this thing that Bernie Sanders said is not true,
37:17
SPEAKER_01: I received so many people explaining, well,
37:21
SPEAKER_01: there's some different thing that Bernie could have said that would have been true.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing that.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing that.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing that.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: I will just stipulate to your point that where El Sayed is being constructive
37:35
SPEAKER_00: and AOC is being constructive, maybe Bernie himself is not.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who wanted to have that conversation could say, yes,
37:48
SPEAKER_00: we can't ban super PACs from playing in our primaries,
37:51
SPEAKER_00: but we can say these groups running ads on behalf of our candidate are not welcome
37:57
SPEAKER_00: and we don't And like not posts on the internet, hey,
38:01
SPEAKER_00: if there are any super PACs listening,
38:03
SPEAKER_00: we really hope you run ads that say this,
38:04
SPEAKER_00: which is essentially what the Stevens campaign was doing.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: And that like,
38:11
SPEAKER_00: I know you can't abstract Bernie Sanders out of the progressive insurgency
38:15
SPEAKER_00: because he's
38:17
SPEAKER_01: essentially the leader of it.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: It's the leading figure.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: But like, it's hard to square your...
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Complaints about him with the fact that the people rising underneath him really seem
38:29
SPEAKER_00: to be more interested in...
38:33
SPEAKER_00: If not factional peace in getting closer to a consensus with
38:39
SPEAKER_00: the existing leadership,
38:39
SPEAKER_00: probably because they know they're young and they're going to be in this game for
38:42
SPEAKER_00: a long time.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: And Bernie's aging out very quickly.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: That's not how I see it.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just think like Sayed,
38:49
SPEAKER_01: the moment he won the primary or,
38:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:51
SPEAKER_01: as he started wrapping up, like he started getting more reasonable, which is fine.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: Like that's smart of him.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: He's a good politician.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: I just like, I don't think like, I think all of my points are correct.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: And that ultimately,
39:06
SPEAKER_01: once the leftists take over,
39:08
SPEAKER_01: they will either acknowledge all my correct points or they will lose.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm fine with that.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: But it's like until they take over, they're just going to keep lying.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: And it's not possible actually to like reach meaningful detente around this stuff
39:29
SPEAKER_01: because there's like more primaries that they want to win.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: And like, we just like going to have to fast forward to 2028.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: And it would be helpful if they like,
39:39
SPEAKER_01: had a candidate in 2028,
39:42
SPEAKER_01: instead of like,
39:43
SPEAKER_01: AOC is like doing Hamlet up there, while Ro Khanna is like sweaty to run.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: But it seems like his own people don't like him that much.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's like,
39:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, then we can see, right?
39:57
SPEAKER_01: Because clearly,
39:59
SPEAKER_01: Jeffries and Schumer do not have the ability to,
40:03
SPEAKER_01: like, get all the stakeholders together and work something out.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, they should.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: We've done episodes about how they should.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: People are talking about how they should.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know,
40:13
SPEAKER_01: the way we could put Woke One behind us on crime would be for AOC to sit down
40:19
SPEAKER_01: with Tom Suozzi and, like, write a crime bill that they both agree on.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: Because, like,
40:26
SPEAKER_01: Clearly,
40:27
SPEAKER_01: they disagree about some aspects of criminal justice,
40:29
SPEAKER_01: but I'm sure they could find something that they agree on and do it together
40:34
SPEAKER_01: if they wanted to.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: But they don't want to.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: So what are you going to do?
40:39
SPEAKER_00: I think we agreed in this segment about 92.4% of all things.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Because the idea that there's a lot of common ground underneath the people in
40:49
SPEAKER_00: the party who seem to hate each other the most seems very evident to me today,
40:53
SPEAKER_00: much more so than it did even two or three months ago.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: And,
40:58
SPEAKER_00: like,
41:01
SPEAKER_00: the, this is like lame, but like, taking two to tango, right?
41:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand why you don't think Jeffreys
41:11
SPEAKER_00: and Schumer should be basically expected to drive that kind of discourse.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, It's not going to be the unity task forces that Sanders and Biden did
41:24
SPEAKER_00: because it's not a presidential year,
41:26
SPEAKER_00: but it could be like, hey,
41:28
SPEAKER_00: we're going to do a contract with America and we're going to hash it out in
41:32
SPEAKER_00: the caucus meeting with a progressive faction.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: That's totally doable.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, time is short at this point, but not that short.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it really ought to be up to them.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: I have some theories about this that are actually...
41:49
SPEAKER_00: That I think maybe are a better fit for the conversation about how Trump is ruining
41:54
SPEAKER_00: the economy.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe Democrats just feel like they don't need to do anything constructive
41:59
SPEAKER_00: at all to win the election.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I would say, well, let's take a break and talk about that.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, look,
42:04
SPEAKER_01: the other possibility is that Angie Craig versus Peggy Flanagan will be
42:11
SPEAKER_01: the last major primary battle.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: And once that is done, People will be more open to holding meetings.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: I think dropping that here, these are the candidates for Senate in Minnesota.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: That primary is also happening tonight as we record this.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: So by the time you hear this, we'll know whether Peggy Flanagan or Angie Craig won.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: That primary seems much less bitter and antagonistic than all
42:43
SPEAKER_00: the other progressive versus left ones because- Peggy Flanagan is not some left-wing
42:48
SPEAKER_00: insurgent.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: She's literally the lieutenant governor of the state.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: And Angie Craig is like a pretty well-liked, moderate-ish house member.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: And their endorsers are all kind of friends with each other.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: And everyone's kind of like, it'll be fine.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Whoever wins is my read on how it's going.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: And like getting unity in Minnesota is not going to be the big challenge.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: It might be in Michigan.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: No, but like, I mean, it was not hard.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: For Stevens and Syed to sort of do kumbaya.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: They did it.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they pulled it off.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: Once it was over.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: What I think is like actually harder, it's just, Stevens lost the election, right?
43:29
SPEAKER_01: And she could have had just like bitter feelings about that, but she didn't.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: She wants to win.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: Who knows what she wants to do next?
43:37
SPEAKER_01: She wanted to like come together, do unity.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: The issue that's harder, right, is like, Can you get some people who didn't lose, right?
43:49
SPEAKER_01: Because like,
43:51
SPEAKER_01: if Sayed is running in Michigan,
43:53
SPEAKER_01: but Sherrod Brown is running in Ohio,
43:57
SPEAKER_01: and Josh Turek is running in Iowa, it's like, Can the three of them reach consensus?
44:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't have like clearly like this guy won and this guy lost,
44:08
SPEAKER_01: but it's two people who both feel like they won,
44:11
SPEAKER_01: that they have their own agendas and their own careers, right?
44:14
SPEAKER_01: Like it's in their collective interest as like key race Democrats to come up
44:20
SPEAKER_01: with something that like they can say that will,
44:22
SPEAKER_01: because,
44:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:24
SPEAKER_01: The generic ballot polling continues to be like in Democrats' favor,
44:28
SPEAKER_01: but like is laughable compared to the Trump disapproval number because like
44:33
SPEAKER_01: the D brand is still terrible.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: And it's like they should try to do something.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: We'll see next week because I think it may be just that like this has to wait until
44:48
SPEAKER_01: the primaries are wrapped.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's – We confuse this with the conversation about the horrible Trump economy.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear about how he fucked everything up and how it's only going
45:00
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