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Interview Only w/ Ben Wikler - The Structural Reforms Democrats Can't Keep Ignoring · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about medicare is
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  Speaker 1: somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere, and you're skeptical
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  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, pointed out your own
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  Speaker 1: plan for twenty minutes. It's free, there's no pressure, and
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  Speaker 1: then call Chapter today at nine eight zero seven three
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  Speaker 1: four three nine eight five. Well, joining me now is
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  Speaker 1: somebody who's been on here before. And I'll be honest,
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  Speaker 1: I thought if he was going to the next time
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  Speaker 1: I had him on, i'd be introducing him as the
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  Speaker 1: chair of the Democratic National Committee. But the committee chose
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  Speaker 1: to go another way, and instead Ben Wickler is out
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  Speaker 1: here with his own diagnosis of what the party could
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  Speaker 1: be doing better, how he rebuilt the Wisconsin Democratic Party,
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  Speaker 1: which is no easy task, which we will get into here.
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  Speaker 1: As many of you know, I like to talk about
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  Speaker 1: how Wisconsin's one of the more unique swing states and
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  Speaker 1: that there is no swing geographic areas it is. It
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  Speaker 1: is in some ways balanced by extremes being a little
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  Speaker 1: stereotypical there. But I will get into that. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure there are many people at the DNC right now
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  Speaker 1: who wish that mister Weckler were there, but I won't
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  Speaker 1: make him respond to that. Ben Weckler joins me now.
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  Speaker 1: He's got a new book, The Plan, right is that
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  Speaker 1: what it's called? What's the plan there? It is? This
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  Speaker 1: is the plan? Yes, yes, And when you say the
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  Speaker 1: plan is that a this a tactical plan to how
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  Speaker 1: to make the Democratic Party main mainstream to a majority
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  Speaker 1: of Americans again, is that the idea? What is your plan?
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  Speaker 1: Is it? That is it? You know, if you could
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  Speaker 1: elevator pitch the plan to me?
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  Speaker 2: Sure so full title is this is the plan how
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  Speaker 2: to end America's meltdown and save democracy. And you'll notice
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  Speaker 2: that there's a fire extinguisher on the cover. That is
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: because I think I'm not alone and feeling this very
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  Speaker 2: widespread sense that the country's on fire right now, that
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  Speaker 2: things are just not working for regular folks, that we
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  Speaker 2: need political change to be able to accomplish that. And
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  Speaker 2: as I kind of lay out in the book, to
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  Speaker 2: get the political change we need, we have to actually
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  Speaker 2: change the political system, which is a shorthand is saving democracy,
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  Speaker 2: but broadly is how we change our system so that
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  Speaker 2: it's responsive to what people actually want, which right now
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  Speaker 2: the government is not. It is very effectively serving a
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  Speaker 2: very small group of people who might be members of
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  Speaker 2: the Mar A Lago Club but are not representative of
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  Speaker 2: a general public that is freaking out about everything from
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  Speaker 2: the economy to ice agents shooting people in the streets.
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  Speaker 2: So the shorthand of the plan is step one. There's
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  Speaker 2: a very real question about the future of free and
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  Speaker 2: fair elections in this country. Trumpe is kind of slamming
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  Speaker 2: a battering ram against the gates. The most powerful way
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  Speaker 2: to ensure we have a real election in twenty twenty
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  Speaker 2: eight is for people who believe in democracy to win
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  Speaker 2: at the state level in twenty twenty six. Step two
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  Speaker 2: is over two cycles to win a democratic federal trifecta,
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  Speaker 2: which will also include independence.
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  Speaker 1: This is not a.
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  Speaker 2: Two party doopoly advocating book, but we have to have
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  Speaker 2: people who think the government should work for the public
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  Speaker 2: and not just for a handful of billionaires win in
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  Speaker 2: twenty eight. And then step three, and this is in
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  Speaker 2: some ways the most controversial thing. I argue that the
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  Speaker 2: immediate first thing that has to happen is an end
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  Speaker 2: to the filibuster. And then you need to do US
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  Speaker 2: Supreme Court reform, because this era, i argue, did not
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: begin with Trump descending the Golden Escalator. It began with
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  Speaker 2: Citizens United. It began with a string of US Supreme
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  Speaker 2: Court decisions that have transformed the American political system without
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  Speaker 2: actually changing any laws. Then you do national jerrymandering ban,
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  Speaker 2: you do a set of different things that can actually
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  Speaker 2: ensure that everyone has a voice and a vote in
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  Speaker 2: this country and then you can get real policies through
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  Speaker 2: that will make life affordable and make the American dream
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  Speaker 2: accessible to people. But it's a multi step, years long
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  Speaker 2: process that mirrors what we went through in Wisconsin to
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  Speaker 2: escape from a kind of trap in democracy here. I
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  Speaker 2: think it's the only realistic thing is to realize there's
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  Speaker 2: no one office or one candidate that gets us out.
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  Speaker 1: Of this mess. Look, I think the tension in your
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  Speaker 1: plan for me is systemic reform versus tactical reform. Right,
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party has a set of challenges in order
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  Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party succeed hartstop. There is systemic reform
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  Speaker 1: that I think has a broader potential group of people
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  Speaker 1: who would be in favor of. But the challenge is
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  Speaker 1: the party that wins immediately doesn't want to give up
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  Speaker 1: powers that got it there in the first place. Right,
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  Speaker 1: the reforms we need, like, I mean, let's do the
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  Speaker 1: most simplistic, which is weakening the executive branch. Right, There's
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  Speaker 1: no doubt Congress does not understand. Sometimes I joke, I
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  Speaker 1: don't think any member of Congress is read Article one
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  Speaker 1: of the Constitution. I don't think they fully appreciate eight
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  Speaker 1: what powers they actually have and you need to sort
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  Speaker 1: of strengthen Congress here regardless of party. But if the Democrats,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, the problem has been is for forty years.
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  Speaker 1: It's the moments of the trifectus which you just called,
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  Speaker 1: which is success for the Democratic Party or success for
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  Speaker 1: the Republican Party, but it does not address the systemic breakdowns,
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  Speaker 1: and that, to me is the trap we're in. It's
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  Speaker 1: almost like the Chinese finger trap. You know, you're articulating
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  Speaker 1: the cur I think, what a combination of the correct answer.
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  Speaker 1: But the minute your party gets power, I promise you
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  Speaker 1: they're not going to be reformers. I know that's always
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  Speaker 1: about but you just it just never happens that way.
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  Speaker 1: Why do you think this can be different? Well, you're
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  Speaker 1: exactly right.
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  Speaker 2: I am arguing that instead of just struggling over the
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  Speaker 2: Ring of power and lord of the rings, that you know,
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  Speaker 2: my readers should get involved in an epic quest to
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  Speaker 2: get the ring of power and then cast it into
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  Speaker 2: Mount Doom. That you have to change the way power
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  Speaker 2: works in this country to be able to get out
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  Speaker 2: of this mess. And that's why throughout the book I
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  Speaker 2: advocate one elects people who share those values, and then
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  Speaker 2: two advocate and push for them to actually act on
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  Speaker 2: them when they have power. And this is you know,
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  Speaker 2: something on the right that we've seen over and over
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  Speaker 2: that when the right wins at the state level, at
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  Speaker 2: the federal level, there's an immediate focus on changing systems
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  Speaker 2: and you know, appointing Supreme Court justices, changing the way
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  Speaker 2: you know, federal employees are scheduled, changing the systems itself
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  Speaker 2: to lock in power and control. On the democratic side,
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  Speaker 2: there's an admirable focus on getting the country out of
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  Speaker 2: whatever crisis or mess it has fallen into under Republican leadership,
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  Speaker 2: which was you know, most recently the COVID pandemic and
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  Speaker 2: then the Great Financial Crisis before that, But that hasn't
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  Speaker 2: been married to systemic changes. Yeah, I think in part
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  Speaker 2: for the exact reason that you're saying that people you know,
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  Speaker 2: get their certain road and they're like, what do you
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  Speaker 2: want us to blow up that road? That, like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: that's how we got here. I think that has to
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  Speaker 2: change now. And what I argue in the book is
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  Speaker 2: that if it doesn't change, then we will predictably be
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  Speaker 2: in an even worse situation than we are now starting
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  Speaker 2: in twenty thirty that you know, there's a pendulum swing,
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  Speaker 2: but when one side grabs the pendulum and you know,
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  Speaker 2: renches the system so that democracy falls apart whenever it
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  Speaker 2: swings in that direction, if you just like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: keep writing the pendulum, then you wind up in disastrous trouble.
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  Speaker 2: And that's part of the reason we have change election
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  Speaker 2: after change election after change election without change on so
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  Speaker 2: many the things people are mad about. So this is
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  Speaker 2: this is you know, I'm addressing this book to as
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  Speaker 2: many people as possible if we're involved as volunteers, as dotors,
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  Speaker 2: as activists, as people who might run for office, because
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  Speaker 2: there needs to be a shift away from just thinking
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  Speaker 2: it's about winning the next election and a recognition that
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  Speaker 2: this has to involve changing the system itself.
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  Speaker 1: You know, bet I get my hope in history, right
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  Speaker 1: I ground I look at the first twenty years of
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  Speaker 1: the twentieth century and think, you know, there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of similarities. Industrial Age was coming about powerful robber barons,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: you know, so called the so called robber barons, and
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  Speaker 1: ironically it took a third party, or it took essentially
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  Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt breaking off a piece of the party sort
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  Speaker 1: of forcing that that sort of forced some change. We
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  Speaker 1: had some you know, we got the most difficult thing
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  Speaker 1: there is to do in our system, which is add
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  Speaker 1: constitutional amendments, and we added some big ones in that period.
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  Speaker 1: The power to tax, I think is one we never
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  Speaker 1: talk enough about, especially at a point where you now
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  Speaker 1: have a movement to get rid of property taxes among
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  Speaker 1: some on the right, which I don't think is going
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  Speaker 1: to succeed. I mean even at Florida, a state that
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: prides itself on wanting to be a place you go
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to hide your money, right, there's not people get it.
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  Speaker 1: Oh you mean, so we're not going to have firefighters,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: We're not going to pay for these things. So I
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: don't think there's there. But we couldn't even do those things. Wait,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we added the text. We gave women the right to
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: vote direct election to senators. These were monumental changes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: none of which were led by a political party though, but.
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  Speaker 2: The movement that's how they happened. And guess what that
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  Speaker 2: movement started in my state in Wisconsin. This is you know,
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  Speaker 2: the first successful progressive taxation was in Wisconsin. First date
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  Speaker 2: to ratify the ninety Ath amendments. So when we could
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  Speaker 2: vote in Wisconsin, open primaries started in Wisconsin. I have
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  Speaker 2: a footnote that feel forgive me for reading a footnote
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  Speaker 2: from my book that.
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  Speaker 1: Showed you we're really geeking out when it's gotten a footnotes.
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  Speaker 2: All right, So, so part of I document how we're
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: in a period of greater instability than any other period
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  Speaker 2: in American history in terms of which party controls the House,
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  Speaker 2: the send at the White House.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's really only been a that since
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  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century before we had this kind of tumult.
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  Speaker 2: That's right now. Yeah, the footnote says, the only other
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  Speaker 2: time in the history of the Republic that Congress was
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: this unstable, flipping four times and twenty five years was
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: in the period of hyper industrialization after the Civil War,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: from reconstruction into the Gilded Age, a time of advancing
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: racial justice and bitter backlash, rapid economy, transforming technological change,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: enormous overweening oligarchic fortunes in the hands of titans who
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: bought and sold politicians to advance their wealth and power,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: And a media landscape reshaped by new technologies in which
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: partisan venom reigned in place of fairness and objectivity, thanks
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: in part to leaders from Wisconsin, as chronicled in this book.
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  Speaker 2: That period gave way to the progressive era, trust busting,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: union protections, government and the public interest and reforms that
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  Speaker 2: spread prosperity more widely. Unfortunately, it was such a different
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  Speaker 2: time that there's nothing we can learn today from that period.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly, nothing to learn at all. No, I'm
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: obsessed with it. I mean I find it like we are.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: You know, the old joke history history. You know, it
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: may never be in itself, but it certainly rhymes yes,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: and it is it is. I mean, the last time
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  Speaker 1: we've had three straight one term presidents was the nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: century in that period. It's like the last time for
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: all of these things is in that period. So that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: is what gives me hope. I'm just not as my jokes,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I'm short term pessimistic, long term optimistic. I know, as
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Winston Churchill, I repeat this all the time. He says,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you can always count on the Americans to be there
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: after they've exhausted every other path in some form of it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And there's some truthiness to that, right, Like that is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: sort of right. We finally got into World War One,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: we finally got into war. We're reluctant warriors, But when
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: when we're in. You're glad we're there, but it does
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: take forever for us to become an ally I do
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I just you know what you and I are both describing,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: though we're outside forces, not inside forces. But let's talk
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: about inside the Democratic Party right now. Matthew Iglesias wrote
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a terrific piece a couple of weeks ago, quoting this
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: one of the Star Wars series and Or. There's this
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: quote in and Or which is as good of a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: political comparison to where we are today right They It was,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: it's a really smart series, and the simple question was
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: do you want to fight or do you want to win?
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: And I sit here, Ben, there's no doubt in my
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: mind your goal is to win. But you and I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: both know that the constituency rising inside your party right now,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I think is more animated by the fight and seeing
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: this as they're not interested in the larger fight until
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: they win this fight. How do you stop that?
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Here's the weird thing about this moment that is also
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: true within the Republican base, in the in the general public,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: there's this sense of like, does anybody notice how hard
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: this is, how screwed up everything is. There's a hunger
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: for that, and you can see at you know, in Iowa,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: in Alaska, in Wisconsin, in Texas, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: everywhere in the country, including in places that have these
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: heavily contested primaries, but also places that don't. Nobody running
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: on the status quo right now is winning. There's a
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: sense of like there has to be change, and to me,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the entergy the kind of fighty energy that can be
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: channeled into the energy to win and then create change
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: from winning. That's in a sense my argument in the
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: book that's also been my work for years in Wisconsin.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I also quote and Or in the book, which is
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the idea of one way out, which is a pivotal
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: speech in a pivotal scene. In some ways, there's one
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: way out of the mess that we're in right now.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: As a country. We could be polarized, not just polarized,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: but so jerrymandered that basically no one gets a vote
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: for the House, the same way almost no one gets
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: a vote for the presidency, and the Senate can block
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: every major reform from going through if one party decides
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: to veto.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: It, and then you're just stuck with.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: The laws that we've got on the books, and then
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: a totally unchecked executive that operates like a king and
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: gets rubber stamped only when it's a Republican by this
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: US Supreme Court. That's the status quo at the moment,
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  Speaker 2: and unraveling that, you know, requires having a stright effector
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: that's committed to change that then acts on that commitment.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's just part of politics in a time
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: of unrest, that there are enormous divisions within primaries. And
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: the central question, which is really a question about will,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: is whether after primaries everyone unites, as Michigan just did
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: and as Wisconsin is going to do this coming Wednesday
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: after the governor's race. The question of whether everyone gets
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: together and then focuses on goal one, which is actually
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: winning the general election. That's up to millions of people
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: who wake up sometimes feeling you know, agony that their
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: favorite primary candidate didn't win. Sometimes they're feeling joy. The
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: question of whether they can then hold hands rather than
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: saying you know, I told you so, or dragging each
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: other through the mud, that's the question everyone has to
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: answer for them. And my argument is my experiences that
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: right now there is a sense of the stakes if
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: we if people who believe in democracy don't get together
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  Speaker 2: and win, they can channel into the fight. Now, all
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: of that said, and that was a lot that I
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: just said. Yeah, I also argue in the book the
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: thing that I found over and over when I'm knocking
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: on doors, and you can see in every poll and
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: focus group, which is the people who might swing either
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: way or might not vote, they generally think both parties
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: are totally corrupting out of it. They've given up on
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: the system itself. So, you know, the differences between you know,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: different kinds of Democrats or Democrats and Republicans all seem
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: very distant and seem like partisan noise to folks who
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: don't put politics at the center of their lives, and
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: you know, feel like they're ready to see the whole
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: thing go up in flames. So the question of how
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: to reach them, that's the central thing that I kind
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: of try to guide readers towards. It's it's less about
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the internesian battles that seem very obscure to folks.
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  Speaker 1: This episode of The Check Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: zero seven eight six seven if you're in Louisiana. Well,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I don't believe. Let's take Michigan. I
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: don't believe that the people that chose a Democratic ballot
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: in Grand Rapids wants socialism, all right, I don't buy that.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: What I buy is that a whole bunch of people
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: in Kent County we're so disgusted over the last fifteen
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: years about what happened to the Republican Party, and then
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: they've never been big fans of the Democratic Party, certainly
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: not the establishment version of it. And then they're like, well,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the only Democrats that are saying what I think of
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the party happen to be these progressives, right, And you know,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I compared it in my previous episode. In a previous
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: episode too. If you've got a couple of different doctors
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: you've gone to and one confirms how you're feeling and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the other one says you're not feeling what you think
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you're feeling, You're going to then listen to the doctor
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: that confirms what you're feeling. Yes, Now, they may be
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the herbal crazy person. You know, they acknowledge, and it
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: may turn out that their prescription is not a good idea,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: but maybe they help you find the person with a
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: better prescription for your problem. But you at least are
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: comfortable talking with them about your current problem because they
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: they agree with the diagnosis where we all disagree. I mean, now,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: this is to me, it's like the Democrats have such
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: a math challenge, and it isn't you know, it isn't
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: as simple as addition and subtraction. Right, There is a
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: majority in this country that don't want anything to do
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: with Trump or trump Ism. It is crystal clear. The
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: problem is it's the only thing about a fifty five
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: percent majority agrees on right, Like, you know, is that true?
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I think fifty people want, you know, a higher minimum.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I think that that's the thing where I correct. Can
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you have a top line agreement on some things, maybe
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: have some disagreements on how you get there, you know,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: take you know, this week's the anniversary of Social Security.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, written by Aston Tonight.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Incidentally, Yes had FDR and introduced what social security looks
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: like today in nineteen thirty five. There's no chance it passes.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: What kind of large program are you talking about? Right?
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: It would cover just da da da. And it was
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: wait for it, incrementalism that created perhaps the single most
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: important social contract government has with the public. And it
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: is something that took night. We just made the most
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: recent adjustment to what get to who gets benefits last
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: year ninety years. We continue to build upon this thing.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I do think that there's a huge disconnect at times
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: between those that want it all in the moment and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: those that understand that politics is an aircraft carrier, especially
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to govern three hundred and fifty million people.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: And I think that's another challenge, is that I think,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you know, take your rama manuals of the world. Do.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, he wants
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to be a reformer, I really do. I don't think
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: this is a guy that wants to see the status quo.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: But he's he's not for throwing everything out, and automatically
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: there will be people that say, well, you don't want
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to throw out the whole system, So I'm not listening
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to you. When that's what I say that fifty five
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: percent agrees on, right, the disagreements become, you know, do
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you burn it down and rebuild or do you do
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you sort of keep us structure up and renovate. And
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I think the question is is it rebuilders or is
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: it renovators. Both are going to be for change and
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: they have more in common than you think, but right
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: now it doesn't look that way.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I was. I agree that it looks like a bigger
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: golf than it is. And I think part of the
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: issue is if you look back at FDR, you know,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: fighting for the New Deal, giving the four Freedom speech,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: he was not saying we should reduce elder poverty by
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: ten percent and then maybe ninety years from now we
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: can reduce it by ninety percent. That was not the pitch.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: That was like a fundamental principle that we should have
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: freedom for want in this country, we should have freedom
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: from fear. Those were big inspiring ideas laid out as
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: values with a kind of big swing about changing the
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: nature of what it meant to be an American in
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the economy to make it work for everybody. And then
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: the thing that got through Congress involved an enormous amount
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: of compromise, and there were some compromises upfront, some compromises
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: along the way. Part of that is just how the
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: legislative process works, and I think people can have different
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: in some ways. You don't all have to agree on
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: the destination to be able to get there. But I
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: do think that laying out a vision that's inspiring for
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: where you're trying to go and then finding the path
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: there is a core quality of leadership. If you look
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: at the discussion about the Affordable Care Act versus Medicare
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: for All in general, almost everybody agrees that we should
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: get to a point where nobody doesn't have health insurance or.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: People to get coverage. I think everything where everybody's there,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: everybody wants to get care. You're right, everybody wants more coverage.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: You know, it just depends on how.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Much of costs you have to figure out how do
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: you pay for it? You know, how do you balance
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: giving everyone as many choices as possible versus you know,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: containing the cost structure, all that stuff, But the core
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: principle that's animating all of it is this fundamental idea
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: that no one should go broke because they're sick, and
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: no one should die because they can't get the healthcare
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: that they need. Like those are those are things that
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: the vast majority of everybody agrees with. Medicare for All advocates,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: you know, like I said, is arguing that it's going
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to take step by step that he's going to vote
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: for and support things that are short of Medicare for
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: All if they help expand the circle who has coverage.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: And he has a destination. Other people think that that
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: policy arrangement to reach that destination isn't the right one
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: to get there.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Well, you've heard it. Look at the Obama eight years
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and tell me how progressives in Madison talk about the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Obama eight years today compared to even what they to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: how they talked about in five years ago. Right, there's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: is there's a weird like, well, boy, he didn't use
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: his majorities, he didn't do this. And I want to say,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you folks do not understand the politics of health care,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and you have no idea the leap he was able
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: to make in the politics of healthcare. It was a
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: huge Like I always compare it to same sex marriage
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: and civil unions. In hindsight, civil unions looks ridiculous, but
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: if you never had civil unions, you wouldn't have gotten
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the same sex marriage. It took the absurdity of civil
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: unions going oh, what are we doing here? That's ridiculous,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But we didn't know that that's where the country would
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: be at the moment, and you had to sort of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: bring people along. Now people say you think, oh, oh
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Obamacare was my god, you know.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It was, you know, I mean I are talking to
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: the book you had volt in the house, the nuns
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: on the bus, like this incredible Titanic battle in which
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: the you.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Know, the anyt today progressive state that oh Obama gave
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: up too easily.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I you know, At the same time, the most hardcore
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: single pair advocates were like, you know, fighting and fighting,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: fighting for a public option, but then also at the
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: end of the day, fighting to get the damn bill through.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Like if it hadn't gone through, there's no way any
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: government since then would have had the votes to be able.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: To do that.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: That was the whole art of politics is like you
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: have your your values, and your vision in mind about
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: where you're trying to go, what you're trying to achieve.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: You have to lay those out in a way that
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: people can rally and fight for it. And then you
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: figure out every possible thing. You know, how much can
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: you squeeze through the eye of a needle to get
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: to the kingdom of policy heavens, so to speak, And
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: it's it is, it's a you know, it's a gigantic
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: titanic fight. Also, we stopped Repeal by one vote, and
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: that was also a gigantic fight. The part of what
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: I'm doing in the book is trying to map out, like,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: how do you get to the point where it's not
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: this hard to be able to make policy changes because
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: from most of American history, most policies were not subject
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: to a filibuster. You wind up having more two thirds,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: you know, the Senate voting for something because everyone realized
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: it was going to pass, and then plays a role
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: in trying to shape the outcome of the legislation. It's
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: not because you put a super majority upfront that allows
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: everything to buy, default die. And that's right. Now, that's
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the way a political system works. It shouldn't be this hard.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: You should have a system where people can pass laws
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: and then the party can be judged on the results
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: of them. But right now, this is this is the
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: system that we've got that.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Well, there's a part of it that thinks it should
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: be that when you're governing for three hundred and fifty
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: million people, it shouldn't be easy to change laws. That
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: actually should be difficult, right, it should be you should
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: get consensus. Oh and that's a fair point. But it
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: should be a system that is at least predictable in
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: its difficulty. I think what you've did, what we have
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: is an unpredictability in the difficulty due to all sorts
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: of I mean, the biggest thing is money. I mean,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: trust me. I've got recovering Republican governors John Kasik and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Pat McCrory who are becoming huge campaign finance reform advocates,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: who both of them admitted ten years ago they never
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: would have been right, but they finally were on the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: receiving end of it, and they understood, oh my god,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: where did this? Where where do these people come from?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Nobody knows who they are? So you do, I think,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: you know, there's so many challenges here. Money in politics
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: is only just one of them, but there is a
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: In some ways, the the ham handedness of the Trump
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: era might actually create the conditions for a for a
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: campaign finance or for but a way that might never
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: have been there without it. I know that seems odd
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: in some ways, you know, you're I think that's somebody
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: we've got too drunk on transactionalism in this town, you know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I think that's right.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: And at the same time, I at this point, I
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: think you need to perform the US Supreme Court to
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: be able to have a shot, to have real.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Campaign I have of two minds in this. I think
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you go constitutional Amendment. I it takes forty years to change.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: When you look at the just the way it is, right,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Supreme courts are lagging indicators. Right, This Supreme Court is
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: essentially the ideology of the first decade of the century. Right,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: we sort of you know, it is weird, but yeah,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that's probably right.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, are your for term limits in the in
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the book, which is a way of speeding up the
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: process of the lagging indicator and creating the expectation among
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court justice is that the majority will evolve over
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: time and they need to not just ask you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: whether they're uh, you know, four closest ideological bosom buddies
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: are able to sign on, but actually ask, you know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: will this ruling survive, you know, a couple of presidential terms.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: There are different ways to approach it, but what we
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: can't have is as a system where every attempt to
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: raid and money in politics gets slapped down and every
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: attempt to expand it, you know, gets lifted up. There's
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: going to be a greater concentration of wealth and power
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: in fewer hens in the next few years, even than
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: the Gilded Age than at any point in American history.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: And we're already seeing floods of money. You know, we
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: had a mini version of this with the on Musk
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: coming in with fifty six million dollars in the state
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court race, which is more than not only more
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: than anyone's ever spent in the state to preme court race,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: it's more than the total spending in any judicial election
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: in American history other than the previous one in Wisconsin.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And that's that's child's play compared to what's succumb Unless
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: we unless we change the system to say that that
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: that can't be the rule.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I will say this. You know, you know I never
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: underestimate the voters. I'm heartened that there are three races
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. One was the Senate race on the Democratic side,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: one was the Republican race on the with the Governor's
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: race on the Republican side, and one was the Member
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of Congress who lost. But the biggest spender lost in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: all three of those races. Right like there is now
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: part of that is fractured attention and the way you
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: know things work these days, but you know voters are
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: paying paying some attention. Let me dig into Wisconsin here
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a minute, let's do it. Francesca Hong to me, feels
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: like a classic Madison candidate. Am I being too stereotypical
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: there so obviously represents an assembly district in Madisine. She
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: liked to remind people of of Dane County, as I
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: always note in Dane County, you want to understand how
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: liberal Dane County is. Ralph Nader carried precincts in two thousand.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: There were actual precincts in Dane County. I think in
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: the city of specifically in her recincts that Nader carried,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and I probably know the no the precinct I'm talking
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: about I will.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Actually I have an even stronger version of that, which
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: is that in I believe in her district on the
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Isthmus in Madison, in ninety six, Natter beat Dole was
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: the number two candidate beat the Republican candidate. At the
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: same time, she's been actually traveling around the state and
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: talking to people for several years. And her campaign, which
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: is all about like childcare and all about in the centers,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: it's responsive to stuff that people are bringing up to
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: her as she tries ravels the state. There are no
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: data centers being built in downtown Madison, but there's a
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: level of rage and some of the reddest parts of
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the state about this, you know, sense that this is
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: being imposed from the outside and you know, attempts to
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: bypass the democratic system. This is a campaign that has
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: energy all over the state because there's a real sense
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: of fury about the way the system isn't working for
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: people and the you know, the uh, yeah, we don't
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: know how the primary is going to go. Could be her,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: could be David Crowley, who knows there's there's four candidates
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: in the race, but in any direction, hard to see.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Her losing this at this point we're taping. Look, I'll
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: be honest, people are going to hear this after that primary,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: So okay, I don't want to, you know, but you know,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: so we're taping literally twenty four hours before the voting.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: It feels like it's about everything happened about a week
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: too late, if you want to, if for the for
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the forces that we're trying to stop her.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: This has been one of the most topsy turvy twist
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: attorney primaries and the history of certainly Wisconsin politics.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Who's on the ballot? Yeah, I was just going to
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: say that sins ninety two and Russ Feineld, could I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: think of a multi candidate primary that totally threw so
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: many people for a loop? And that one, in hindsight,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: turned out to be the classic you know, rich Guya
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: attacks Rich Guy B. People don't like either rich guy
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and they support candidate C. That is not the dynamics
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: of this one, right, It's not. No.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: This has its own particular set of of you know,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: plot twists and god dropping changes. But whatever happens in
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: the primary, I know that the day after everyone's going
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: to wake up and notice who the Republican candidate is
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: in this race. Tom Tiffany is a the kind of
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: candidate that if you were running for Senate, Democratic superbacs
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: tend to have been propping up across the country. He
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: was actively involved in the twenty twenty plot to overturn
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: the election. He's continued his string of election denialists. This
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: is who you would have wanted Tammy Baldwin to face.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: It's just been up this cycle. This is the the
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: beatable candidate who can't has a record that is so
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: stark it just lashes him to Donald Trump. Now in
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, less of a liability, Donald Trump won
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: the state. In twenty twenty six. Trump is less popular
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: than he's ever been. So the guy who you know
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: didn't vote to curb the Trump's warpowers with a ran
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and played a role there before and helping shoot up
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: the cost of groceries and gas.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: The guy who supported the.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Tariffs, the guy who first voted you know, on Trump's
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: side to hide the Epstein files. The guy who just
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: over and over has supported the most extreme Trumpy House
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Freedom Caucasy position and Trump endorsed and said He's been
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: with me every step of the way. That guy is
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: going to put Donald Trump on the ballot in November.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: And this is a year when Donald Trump could not
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: win the state of Wisconsin. I think voters have a
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: very clear choice about whether they want someone who would
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: be in Trump's plot, whatever the next plot is, to
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: overturn American elections, or do they want someone who thinks
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: voters should decide who's in charge. Most critically, this is
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: a choice between someone who's helped Trump jack up prices
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: even after getting elected on the basis of saying he'd
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: bring down prices, or someone who is, you know, manifestly
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: on the side of working people when it comes to affordability,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: and that it's pretty clear that affordability in this election
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: cycle is the central voting issue for people that are
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: on the fence about whether to vote or who to
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: vote for. And it is just very, very hard for
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: a guy who has this giant voting record in favor
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: of higher cost of everything, you know, including healthcare, that
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: tons of wisconsinents are not losing. Tom Tiffany, mister jack
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: the prices up is going to have a hard time
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: in the flow.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, a guy like me's got to say.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: So what you're describing is you're going to have two
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: nominees who normally the middle would probably not support. But
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: if you've got two extremes, you've got to pick one.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: You know, Wisconsin is the land of Joe McCarthy and
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: fighting Bob La Follett.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: No, I know that was that all the time. You know,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: if you never find in Wisconsin that middle of the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: road person, it's always somewhere on some progressive laughter or
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: nationalist's right.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Russ Fengeld was the only US editor to vote against
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: the Patriot Act, and he was the you know, the
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: epos on both parties. Ian McCain put through the bipartisan
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: campaign Fenish reformat. This is is a state where, you know,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: people have strong feelings that don't necessarily align with a
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: single left right spectrum.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: And so I think the question of who captured.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: The energy in a year where people are really mad
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: about the way things are going is a I'd rather
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: be on the Democratic side.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I was. I would regularly. I saw Evers
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: in eighteen as sort of the preview of Biden. Right.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It was this foreshadow, can we just get a normy right?
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: There was this exhaustion with Scott Walker, right, it was
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: just sort of just the partisan wars. People were exhausted.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Can we have somebody who's not been engaged in him? Right?
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And like Evers came in as it's sort of like, ah, right,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: he's not going to be uh, he's not looking for
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: headlines every hour, he's not constantly looking to run for president.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: And that worked. Yeah, yeah, I remember.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: He started laughing.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Why do you now the the the upside is is
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: you're able to sort of get that second term. Nothing
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: is easy in Wisconsin, but it certainly was easy in
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: comparison what we've seen in previous in previous years, Biden
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be that same, that same idea. He
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: was coming here to calm the water. We're all tired
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: of Like you know, I'm seasick. I just want the
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: boat to stop rocking, right, And that didn't work on
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: a national level. That did work in Wisconsin. What's your
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: why why do you think that it is? Well, there
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: were a bunch of major factory in the presidential race,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I'll say in Wisconsin. You know, Governor Evers was the
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: only Democrat to get re elected during a Republican presidency
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: in sixty years. The last one was.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Democrat won the governor's race during jfkse presidency right after
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: the Cuban missile crisis, and so how how do you
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: pull that off? A big part of that was that
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: he was, you know, somebody that Republicans didn't loathe, and
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: he was also someone who was totally clear in his
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: response to Dobbs and the overturning of ROVERSUS weight. He
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: came out immediately after it said he'd grant clemency to
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: anyone prosecuted under Wisconsin's abortion ban, and the Republican he
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: was up again supported you know, an abortion ban with
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: no exceptions for rape and incests that had passed in
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin before the Civil War.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I write about this in the book.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Simultaneously, Evers was literally out filling potholes, as you know
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: before mom Don he was doing it. He had Governor
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Evers on pothole patrol, and we had scott holes in Wisconsin,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: which is the term for you know, the defunding of
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: all public services under the GOP led to just giant
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: pits in the middle of the road that made everybody's
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: tire bills go up every year. So this is like
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: delivering literally concrete stuff that can that matters in everyone's
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: lives and being really clear and the biggest issue that
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: suddenly was imposed on people. I argue in the book,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: if you want to save democracy, talk about roads and
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: this is you know, it's from.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: That to city coademy. So what you're saying is, if
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: you want to save democracy, you've got to make people
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: think government works. Yeah, you have to. I mean, that's
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: as simple as that. I mean this to me is
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: the real challenge to the socialist and a socialist adjacent crowd,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: which is you're trying to convince the majority of the
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: public who already thinks government has broken, that if you
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: give government more to do, they can get it done, right.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I think that's the central challenge of the What I
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: would tell my progressive friends is that I get you
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: can make the case what's working now is not working.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: That's the easy part. We agree on the diagnosis. But
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: you're making people no, no, no, no, trust me. Government
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: hasn't been able to fill the potholes. But now we
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: can run a grocery store, you know what I mean.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, And when you actually do it, you can actually
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: win trust. People could really tell that it was different
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: when they drove, especially in rural areas you drive to
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: you know, the health clinic might be two hours away.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: And you really notice if every time you go over
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: a bump, right, you know, the all the different parts
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: of your body hurt. And the governor had credibility on
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: this elemental thing. Through COVID. He channeled COVID relief money
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: to keeping businesses open on main streets across the state,
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: so all over the state they are actually thriving main
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: streets right now. He also helped you move money back
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: into schools. There's still a lot of work to do,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: but the school quality is shot up in national rankings.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: These are things that are just the everyday stuff that
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: everyone wants to work and not have to think about.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: And you're if you're able to do that. And then
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: in his campaign he ran ads for every county about
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: what he'd done in that county. It's, you know, it's excellence.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: It's that's something you know deep in the Wisconsin tradition too.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: But you can see, I'm Donny's working to do the
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: same thing in New York. Seeing an effect that is
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: it might feel incremental and small, but if it's the
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: pothole is in front of your house, it really doesn't
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: matter to you. That allows that gives you the grace
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: and the trust to be able to shoot for bigger stuff.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: And I think that then, you know, so much is
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: about ideology, and I get people have big disagreements about issues,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: but at bottom, trust is earned by saying what you're
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: going to do, doing it, and showing what you've just done.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: It is about being able to actually keep your promise
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: and make a difference that is tangible to people, not theoretical,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: not far away.
• 42:36
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• 44:53
  Speaker 1: narrowing your ambition a little bit? And I say it
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: this way because if you say it that way, you
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: know that drives I'm not. It's making promises you can
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: achieve rather than you know, did sort of Biden's eyes
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: get bigger than his stomach like I you know, and
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: I've talked with Biden people about this. Where had they
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: had a Republican Senate, they had an entirely different legislative agenda,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: and they decided to go for broke with a progressive
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: agenda that they didn't run on nor win on. And
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes you know, ultimately this and this is
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: the lesson of Scott Walker. If you start doing stuff
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: you didn't run on, people really get pissed off in
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: a weird way. If you're doing controversial stuff but you
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: promised it, well, there's weirdly more patience that voters will
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: have with it.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: I think it is good to run on something and
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: then do the thing, and then show that you did
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: the thing, and like, you know, there's actually, to a
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: surprising degree, like the officials often keep a list of
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: the things they ran on and do try to do them.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: I also think there's a very specific, giant problem with
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: the policy unfolded in the Biden administration, which is that
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: in the COVID pandemic, there were these huge relief bills.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: There was unemployment insurance, there was you know, they expanded
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: benefits for people. There was the childcare tax Credit, and
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: it produced a huge lift in people's disposable income in
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: the bottom third. For you know, working folks, especially folks
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: in lower wage jobs. It had a huge effect on
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: their lives. I was doing a press conference through the
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party of Wisconsin every month with families that got
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: the childcare tax credit, where they talked about what it
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: was like to be able to say yes to their
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: kids joining a sports team where they couldn't afford the
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: uniform before and then it all stopped. And so for yeah,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: the people who were most affected by economic policies and
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: maybe had the least time to you know, keep.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Track of who voted for what, voted for what, and
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: who promised that their income fell and I know, you
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: get it, you know, sometimes make your north star your
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: north star. Yeah, I do, not, for the life of
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: me understand why that the childcare tax credit didn't become
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the be all and all the Democratic Party and of
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: the Biden era, and that that would have been a
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: hill worth dying on, because ultimately you're dying on a
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: hill to help people with their kids, which is always
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: a better place to be than being in the right
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: place or wrong place of AI companies right like or
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: the crypto crowd. I mean, I'll be honest, I thought
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the Democrats gave up that fight way too easily.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: I I mean, you know, I wasn't in the room
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: when the well, you know, the deals were hashed out,
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: But to me, it was the most greatest source of
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: pride in the Democratic Party that they cut child poverty
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: in half in this country for that one year and
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: then then it went away, and there's you know, should
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: they have had a smaller credit that was permanent instead
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: of baking in the sunset. Could there's something some deal
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: that could have been made to allow it to continue
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: at the cost.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, you had met Romney and Jadie vanced
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: rhetorically with you on this. Yes, you know, you know,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: say if they said, therefore it great, let's go, let's
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: write a bill, let's find something they do though, Yeah, we.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Should be able to greeze a society, no kids hungry
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: like that is should be very basic.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And there was one hundred percent of constituency on the right,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Josh Howley bands there, you know exactly the senators I'm
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: talking about, and there was this sense of, well, if
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: you don't do it the way we want it, we
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: don't want it right.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: And it's also with this incentive to make sure the
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: other side doesn't get to do things. And that's I
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: think a poisonous effect of the filibuster is that it
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: makes it very easy to say, oh, look, if I
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: deprive the other side of this achievement, then I can
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: get a political benefit from it. And I think that's
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I think that's bad for the country. And bad for
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: the public, and it makes politicians behave you know, in
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: ways that are just not good. So I want to
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: take that thing away structurally. But to your point, like
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: I you know, I think that if people had experienced
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: a permanent change, that if if every parent who's struggling
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: to figure out whether they can send their kids to
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Stummer camp Orf their kid's going to send the whole
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: summer on YouTube, has the child textpread of coming in,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: I do think that would have made a long term difference.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: So obviously big other things got in the way in
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: twenty four but I think that, like we shouldn't overread
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: the sense that you know, Biden did too much as
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: the as the central problem.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Well, it was not too much. It's sort of it
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't focused. It was all over the place. It was
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: like he was trying, I mean, there's a part of
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: me it was sort of like he was trying to
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: fulfill every promise that Obama couldn't fulfill, right, and do
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: it in like a two year period, and it's like
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: slow down, cowboy, right, like you know, you know, do
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: one thing and trust me, your name will be on
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: it for a long time. Ask Obama Obamacare, right, like
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: you know it is, and I think these Trump accounts
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: are going to have legs and Democrats are going to
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: have to figure out a way to live with it
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: and maybe even not just live with it, turn it
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: into something that that that that might be tangible. Let
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: me get another aspect on evs. What was similar to
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Evers that Biden had was the not so clean hand
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: off to an air apparent. And you know, it's frankly
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: been I'm sure it's been awkward for the multiple lieutenant
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: governors that he had, and maybe that his initial instinct was,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be involved with these fights. Now
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: he's jumped in here. I know it's awkward to just
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: address Evers. Address succession for term limited governors and presidents.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: If you don't have an heir parent, that really can
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: screw up the party, can it not.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Well, he was not term momented in Wisconsin, that's right,
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: It's right.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: In Wisconsin, Tommy trust Tommy Thompson wanted to go seven
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: terms if he could.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Have yes, until he you know, sublimated up to the
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: federal government.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: So yeah, if he doesn't take that job, he might
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: still be governor. Now I'm not I'm not saying you know,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: there's a chase.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Tommy Howbson threatens to run for governor every time there's
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: a governor's race.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: God bless him, you know. And if you didn't have
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Tommy Thompson, you wish you would have. It's a character.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: We need characters like that anyway go ahead.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: The thing is that as much as you know, anyone
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: who's in an elected position can try to you know,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: smooth the way for someone that they want to support
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: or can endorse and campaign for them, voters ultimately decide
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: these things, and voters change their minds over time and
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: circumstances change, and like, you know, I think that there's
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: a like at the federal level, lots of presidents have
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: been previously vice presidents. That's absolutely true. But it's also
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: true that lots of vice presidents haven't gone the distance,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: and things have gone sideways. And you know, sometimes you
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: get Nixon who was a vice president and and then
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: lost and then came back on his own terms and
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: won in a very different way. I think in general,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: the level of control that anyone in public life has
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: is much less than it looks from the outside or
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: that it feels from the inside. That in fact, the
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: world is so contingent. What everyone can try to do is,
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: you know, make the biggest difference they can during the
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: time that's allotted to them. But big, you know, events transpire,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: things outside their control happen. The oil prices shoot up.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Most of the time, you're not directly the author of it,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: the way the Trump is, but like big things wind
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: up upsetting everyone's apple cards. And so I do think,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: you know, for any kind of leadership role, you want
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: to think about succession and how to set the next
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: person up to be able to win and do the
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: best job they can.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: But the extent to which your vision, you know, is
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: how it plays out.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: It's very, very limited, and that's just part of the
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: political reality, especially in a democracy, and it's probably different
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: for the Chinese Communist Party, but here it is up
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: to the people, and that's this amazing, miraculous gift that
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: we have if we can keep it. I think that
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: the sometimes it can look if you're not immersed in politics,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: as though there's some secret committee that's pulling the strings
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: and calling the shots. And there are lots of people
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: who are trying to call the shots all the time,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: but the number of shots that they call that turned
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: out exactly the way they call them. It's very very small.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: People have more power. General public has more power in
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: these things than most people can possibly realize.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough went on a rant earlier this week about
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: he thinks the Democratic Party essentially he didn't say it
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: this way, but I'll shorthand it, which is that they're
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: so enamored with the energy that the socialists or socialist
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: adjacent crowd is bringing that there's a hesitance to speak
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: out against some things that maybe long term aren't good
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: for the Democratic brand. So let me just put it
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: this way. When is the tent When you're a big
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: tent guy, and in Wisconsin to succeed, you have to
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: be because of the what we just described. The people
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: showing up to every meeting are going to be Madison people,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: so you've got to have a good relationship with them.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: And the people that elect Tony Evers governor are not
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: the people that show up to every meeting and are
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: not the people that live in Dayton County. So you've
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: got to be this bigger tent. At what point do
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: you think the tent rips is there too far? Where
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: what's the line on the left and frankly, what's your
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: line on the right.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I think often the tent winds up being bigger
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: than people realize that it can be, So I think
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: we should start there. The second thing is, you know,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: when someone in the tent is like, you know, screaming
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: at all the other people in the tent, then the
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: other people are going to leave the tent. And so
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: in some ways, the way that you draw the circle,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: it's about getting a bunch of people who can actually
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: stand being in the room together. And sometimes that's less
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: about the positions that people have, but more about how
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: they comport themselves. To build a coalition, you have to
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: everyone has to be willing to be in it with
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: each other. And you know, anyone who's playing a party
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: or you know, a wedding recognizes there's some people you
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: don't want to sit at the same table, and there's
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: some people that you have to keep on the list
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: that there's some you know, like, it's a complicated, messy thing.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Even more so in a country of three hundred and
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: forty million people, I think that the coalition looks different
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: in different states. We're in a moment when the regional differences,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: local differences are flattened out by the nationalization of media,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: the fact that everyone listens to the same podcast. No
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: one subscribed to their local newspaper anymore. But successful politics
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: often looks like building something from the ground up. Where
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: you are and what's happening in Iowa right now, you
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: know it doesn't fit any of the national storylines about
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: what's happening nationally. There's this incredibly integrated campaign from the
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: state legislature, through the attorney general's House races, the governor
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: and Senate campaigns.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: It's amazing what losing four election cycles in a row
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: can do to a party.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: We can focus the mind. We experienced that in Wisconsin.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: You know, Wisconsin losing suddenly everybody said, yeah, Tony Evers,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: let's be honest here, Tony Evers doesn't win that nomination
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: had there been three straight Democratic governors, that's I mean,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: he was the only here.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: I guess Douglas fall At the Secretary State were the
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: only statewide elect the Democrats at that moment. He was
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: elected in twenty seventeen in a Lanta.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Do you understand the point I'm making. I'm not trying to,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: which just sort of rob sand becomes more appealing to
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: everybody in the tent because maybe there's a bunch of
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: people just.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Tired to lose him simultaneously, Yes, to your point, but
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: also Rob sand was the only Democratic stayed by elected official,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: like after you know, all these other people had.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Lost, and it must be doing that. He must be
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: doing something right as we figured.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Out how to win, and that he figured out how
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: to draw together a big coalition in a very hard place,
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: and people respond to things that work. This is I
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: think part of the reason why the whole Republican Party
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: seems to have gone off the deep end at this
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: moment is that very clearly the most successful Republican politician
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: of our era is Donald Trump. So people are like,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: what does success looks like? It's it's to you know,
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: not just to be in Trump's good race.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Is he successful though? I mean he's really you know,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: it's funny. He's done a lot of there's plenty of
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: things we can point to. They say, he's done a
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: lot of damage. And culturally he's been a huge influence.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, he's at his actual impact on the
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: sort of on governing and you know, it's sort of
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: like he might inspire similar similar attempts, but structurally, he
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: hasn't been able to make many changes.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Well this I'm talking purely from the perspective of a young,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: ambitious Republican wants to win power.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, they're going to look at Trump's model. They're
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: going to look at Trump percent.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: And Ron Johnson I couldn't stop talking about how Trump
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: had gotten more votes than anyone else in the history
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: of the state. And so he wanted to know, do
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: you like he did? He looked at the twenty twenty
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Trump number. He got so many votes, and Ron Johnson
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: one of those same votes in twenty twenty two, and
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: you know, ran a campaign to try to reach those people.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: He Trump has created this army of mini means because
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: he's the guy who's you know, beaten expectations overcome over
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: time after time.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: So I think that's bad.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: And I think one way that we can get a
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Republican party that is not constantly trying to set fire
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: to you know, basic rights and freedoms for Americans is
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: to have some other model that Republicans conclude is better
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: for them. And the only way for that to happen
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: is if people running in Trump's image lose and lose
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: and lose and lose until Republicans conclude that that's not
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: the way to win. And that's you know, a job
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: that I take very seriously. I think that on the
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Democratic side right now, there's a lot of people who
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: looked at Joe Biden and thought he didn't win against Trump,
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: and so they want to run in very different ways.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: And there's lots of ways to be, you know, different
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: from from the last thing. And you can see one
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: way in Iowa, and you can see, you know, a
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: different way and uh, you know, and take your pick
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: in Michigan right now, Like there's a bunch of different
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: ways to run as a different candidate. But there's there's
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: this old saw in politics that each president's the opposite
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: of the previous one. The question is what are you
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: the opposite of Trump? In what way are you the
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: opposite of Trump? Is it that, you know, his reckless attitude,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: you're more careful? Is it that his uh, you know,
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: being so far to the right, you're going to be
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: so far out of the life left. Is it that
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: he is has this abhorrence for the Constitution and any
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: norms of power, and you're going to be someone who's like,
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: let's actually, you know, reform government, genter systems in order.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: There's lots of different ways to be the opposite. And
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: part of a midterm process is to try out, you know, which,
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: what is it? What kind of change are people hungry for?
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: That's a that's a fair point. Let me get you
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: out of here. In a couple of things. One is
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: what's Ken Martin doing right? Everybody wants to talk about
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: what he's doing wrong?
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: What's he doing right? In your opinion? So I happen to.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Believe, and I argue in my book that having strong
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: state parties that have year round staff, that are on
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: the ground and become part of the life of their
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: communities is really important for building power in winning elections.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: And so this as much as Ken Merton gets flack
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: for making this commitment to support, you know, all the
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: state parties around the country, there's something with some.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Election cycle calendar, right which has been yep, yep. So
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I you know, I'm atat.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: In the book, I have a chapter called It's My
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Party and all cry if I want to about the
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party. But I tell this to the Democratic Party
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: of Wisconsin, and how are the model that precedes me
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: that I ran for chair? Because I fell in love
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: with it and work to expand. It's continuing right now
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: under chair Devin Rimiker is to build a permanent campaign
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: through this day party that works on every race and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: so give volunteers something to do on a year round basis,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: keep building in community after community.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Have people showing up at the local. I always joke
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: if it's Tuesday, somebody's voting somewhere. Times that's true all
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: the time. Yes, yep. And that's to me what the
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: party should be should be doing.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: The party should be the place that everyone who wants
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: to be part of this fight can find something to
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: do and mind up meeting people and making friends and
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: getting involved. And then candidates come along and they connect
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: with this bigger infrastructure. Figuring out how to fund all
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: that is and also all the other things you need,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: big challenge. But I do think that that's essential work,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: and I think our parties impoverished when both when neither
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: party gives people a way to plug in where they
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: can actually see that their work makes a difference.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you're essentially advocating because I believe this is
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: for is that it sounds like you wish the Democratic
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: brand were almost more decentralized, that there was such thing
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: as a Kansas Democrat, which maybe you know, you know,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: could have a different perspective on the gun issue, for instance,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: or maybe there is an Idaho Democrat, or maybe there
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: is a because I'm a believer that every state has
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: a fulcrum for fifty percent. You just have to find
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the fulk crum. Okay, it's not always where maybe the
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: National Democratic Party's fulkrum is. You know, that isn't how
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: an Idaho works. In an Idaho, you're going to need
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: half of Trump voters in your coalition, which is always
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: gettable if you choose to find it. Right, it's one
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: of those you have to go find that fulkrum. I
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: think where there's tension is that I don't know if
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: the National Democratic leaders want folkrums all the time. They
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: only want it when it helps them get a majority.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: But you know, my big beef is a swing voters
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: matter more in a campaign than they do in governing,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: and I think we're getting it backwards.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah, I mean first, yeah, we need not
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: a fifty state strategy. We need fifty date strategies that
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: are about how how you win the state in that state.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: It can because look at what we just talked about.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you wish there was a Kent County in
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin on the other side of the hand, right on
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: the other side of the mit. You know, you wish
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: there was some Macomb and Oakland. There just are no
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: swing It's a different way. I mean, you know, there
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: was a time Brown County with swing and maybe it'll
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: become a swing county against county. It's so it is
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: a different way to win in Wisconsin than it is
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. And then it is in Minnesota. Literally three
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: states that are contiguous. You know, we can argue about
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the lakes, but still fairly you know, essentially we would
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: culturally say, yeah, they all love hockey and they all
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: love you know, there's so much they have in common.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Yet you cannot win the same way in.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: All three states million percent. And it is the way
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: that you build a local brand. The way you build
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: any kind of brand is through your actions over time,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: through what people actually experience in their lives, how it
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: actually touches you. It is not what you put on
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: a bumper sticker. It is not some coordinated ad campaign.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: It is something that compounds over years and to me
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: in if you're in a state where you want to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: say to people, hey, Democrats are your neighbor, it's me
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: who's talking to you right now. It's not something that
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: you know, you're you're seeing, you know on Tucker Carlson's
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: X Show. The only way to do that is to
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: have a real, sustained presence that shows up in places
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: outside of just political meetings and electoral campaigns. And that
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: is that is the work, that is the part of
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: this is the plan's plan that everybody can make themselves
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: part of that can have a huge long term impact
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: on reshaping American democracy.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: What's the first time you ever thought about running for office?
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: I have no idea. I think you know, I ran
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: for it has had always been out there in your head,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: like I'd like to do this myself someday, because I've
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: seen the news about you open to running for the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: US Senate if there's an open slot and something to
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: do and or challenging Johnson. I mean, you know, not
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: every state party chair wants to be a candidate themselves.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: What would be the allure for you?
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I am drawn like a moth to a flame in
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: the fights where I think I can have a big
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: impact and so, you know, I read in the book
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: when I was eleven, my godmother ran for Congress and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: I volunteered for her campaign and it was like, it's
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: an amazing experience. She was became the first American Indian
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: woman to win a congressional primary, so that that was great.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: In high school, I was like protesting our state legislature
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: for cutting school funding, and you know, had the experience of.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: You've been in the middle. You've been in it.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I I love it, Like I like
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: being in a big fight for you. And I think
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: the way to the way to have a big the
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: biggest impact that you can is different at different times.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: It's different for different people. But that's that's the that's
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: kind of my north stars to you know, like try
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: to be a good dad and husband and try to
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: make the biggest change I can.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: So, how do you consume Packers games? And how do
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: you consume Packer news? Are you obsessive? I'm obsessive. I've
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: brainwatched my son. He's you know, he's it's the only
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: sports team that I brainwashed him on was the Packers.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: And even if you weren't a real Packers fan, you'd
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: have to lie to me and say you were right.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: It's in the But I so how do you consume it?
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: I only ask that because everybody's down on the Packers
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: this year. They are.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: They're also down in Democrats this year, you know, But
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's gonna be a good year for Democrats.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: I have a mix of of like podcasts of watching
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: live shows.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: I also get a little like briefing that I set
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: up that gets sent to me every day by nice
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: You got your little Packer briefing, My.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Little pack Up briefing.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: But I strongly support Tammy Baldwin's legislation, the Go pack Act,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: that makes sure that every broadcaster has to carry live
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Packers games, or that every media market has to have
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: someone carrying why Packers.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Free place and over the air place.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is a team owned by the community, including me.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: I'm a Packers shareholder, and maybe if you live in
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: a media market that's technically part of Minnesota or Michigan,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: you should be able to watch Packers games.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: On live Brooks. You know why they have an anti
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: By the way, the story of how the NFL got
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: its anti trust exemption is one of my favorite stories
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: because that there was a member of Congress who was
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: a key vote and do you know what city they
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: represented in Congress? Tell us, sorry, New Orleans, and the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: Saints got a franchise basically in exchange for this is
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: Kokie Roberts' dad fogs, not Tommy Tommy's the son ailbox.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: But I didn't. I had heard that story. It was
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: a story that was told to me by the nflp
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: a head. But it was sort of like, but the
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: point is, the whole point of that exemption was to
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: create this over the air. And you know, then there's
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: that ridiculous the blackout rule, which people in Wisconsin don't
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: know what that is because Packers sell out all their games.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: But for the markets that have teams that don't always
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: sell out, you actually don't get to watch your team
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: on local TV if they don't if they don't sell
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: the game out during the specific period of time, you know,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: quote unquote gets blacked out. Again. To explain how that
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: works to Packers fans is like, what are you talking about? Yeah,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: because there's empts in the football very so what player
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: are you most excited about? Besides Jordan Love?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say Jordan Love because I feel like
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: we're on this this hero's journey, this is I just
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: watched The Odyssey, you know, and sometimes you have to
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: go far away, but you wind up coming back and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: be able to change everything. That got my love Jersey
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: and I, uh, yeah, things are gonna happen. We're gonna
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: see it.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I sort of like the fact that all
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: the experts are down on them. Yeah, because we'd actually
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: been the cool team over the last few years. That
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: didn't work out so well. So all right, go go ahead.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Everybody picked the Bears.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Set expectations here. Everybody picked the Bears and then leaving Chicago.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Which is uh.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: I have a project called this is Wisconsin where I
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: go around the state and make videos about what we
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: love about our state.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I just did Ham and Bears.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Are you going to call Ham in Indiana? Which is
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: that is hamm in a real place. It's not clear
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: to me. I didn't know about it until the Bears
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: threatened to move there, So you know, this is all
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: I get.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Indiana has a championship team now, and so maybe the
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: Bears were just desperate for reflected glory from the University
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: of from IU football, but who knows. You never Ben,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: good luck with the book. What would convince you not
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: to run for the Senate? Why wouldn't you do it?
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: I will. I'm going to figure out everything about the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: future after this, I remember, right. Overwhelming pocus right now
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: is to figure out how we win governorship, re elect
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: attorney general, call when an Assembly majority, win a state
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: Senate majority, flip as many House seats as we can.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: This is, you know, the kind of this is the
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: super for Wisconsin politics.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Then hang can be that north star for the party.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: I think whoever the nominee is has an opportunity in
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: a year where people are furious at the people in charge,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: to make sure that we reject Tom Tiffany, who's been
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: exactly part of the whole problem that everyone's so mad about,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: and elect democratic governor and legislators and you know, in
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: every corner of the state. I really think if you
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: ask people if they want change her more of the same,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: nobody wants more of the same. And Tom Tiffany is
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: the guy who brought you this. That is a that's
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: a that's a losing formula.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: Ben wicklear, Uh, if you check out the book, it's
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: not along or you're not asking people to read Warm Peace,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: it is Uh. It's a clear read. Uh, it's a
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: good read. Uh. And it's a and there it is,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and he's well branded. So there it is. That is
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: the plan, so says ben Wickler. Did you see a
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: ben Go package.