Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - Democrats Wasted Political Capital In Virginia…For Nothing + Why SCOTUS Is Forced To Do The Job Of Congress

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Chuck’s Commentary - Democrats Wasted Political Capital In Virginia…For Nothing + Why SCOTUS Is Forced To Do The Job Of Congress · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: so use that code. Hello, They're happy Monday, and welcome
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to another episode of the check podcast. So I let's
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  Speaker 1: just say a lot happened over the last seventy two hours,
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  Speaker 1: both personally in my little world, which I shared with
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  Speaker 1: you a little bit of that, but in as far
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  Speaker 1: as campaign twenty twenty six, in some ways we got
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: another re It's a it's as if the deck was reshuffled.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to quite say the entire chess board
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  Speaker 1: was just overturned, but it's pretty close to that, as
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  Speaker 1: if what we thought the pieces were going to look
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  Speaker 1: like going into campaign twenty twenty six. Here we are
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  Speaker 1: on May eleventh, and we're still not sure exactly which
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  Speaker 1: lines are where? I mean imagine being somebody running in
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  Speaker 1: the new and the supposed new lines in Virginia who
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: had raised a bunch of money. Are you going to
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  Speaker 1: give that money back? Are you going to stay running?
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  Speaker 1: Are you going to run in a different district. There's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of cleanup that has to be done. So
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  Speaker 1: a large share of my focus on this episode is
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  Speaker 1: going to be the fallout from that, both that the
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  Speaker 1: sort of the just the election fallout. What does this
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  Speaker 1: mean to the math of twenty twenty six? Democrats are
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  Speaker 1: still favored, but how you know to play it in
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  Speaker 1: point spread terms? Is it just a sort of a
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  Speaker 1: three to five point favorite or down from what was
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: getting close to a double digit favorite? Right, So we're
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  Speaker 1: going to get into that, and yeah, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: do a little I told you so in Virginia. For
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  Speaker 1: those of you that followed me very closely during that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I had very strong feelings about it that
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  Speaker 1: I thought whatever was left of the Democratic Party's credibility
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  Speaker 1: and the reform movement they peed away. And now they
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  Speaker 1: peed it all away for nothing, literally nothing. They have
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: hollowed themselves out. You know, doesn't mean they're not going
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: to win control of the House and maybe even the Senate.
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  Speaker 2: In twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 1: But what got them to the place that they thought
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  Speaker 1: this was a good idea in Virginia is still should
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: be quite troubling to those that are wanting to see
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  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party widen its aperture versus those that would
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  Speaker 1: like it to double down.
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  Speaker 2: On fighting fire with fire.
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  Speaker 1: And as you see there there's a there's a real
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  Speaker 1: divide on the left in how to respond to Trump
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and it continues, it continues. Do I think flummex the
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: party to be honest, and it's put them in a
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: pretty rough spot. And I think that what we're watching
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: overseas in the UK with the Labor Party, which is
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: essentially the sister party of the Democratic Party in the UK,
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  Speaker 1: it has power and yet it has no influence, it
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  Speaker 1: has no trust at the electorate, and they cannot survive
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  Speaker 1: their next election. That is not where the Democrats are
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  Speaker 1: at the moment. But the thing that they ought to
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  Speaker 1: be concerned about is how quickly they could look like
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: what Labor looks like in the UK. But let me
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  Speaker 1: give you a quick rundown of what we got today.
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  Speaker 1: It's the Monday episode, which means we go to the
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  Speaker 1: time machine, and let's just say, Supreme Court rulings are
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: something that I've been hesitant to mark as time machine anniversaries,
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  Speaker 1: but this one's a big one, an anniversary of a
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling that, in many ways we are still
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: litigating today. That's my hint for you on which one
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be I'm going to use as the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: time machine segment. We've got plenty of questions, including lots
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: of handwringing about the current state of campaign twenty twenty six.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I'll do a little bit of my hot takes on
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a few hot topic sports issues as well, of course.
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  Speaker 1: So there's your rundown. So let's begin with the massive
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  Speaker 1: news late last week that is still reverberating that I
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  Speaker 1: think Democrats are still shaken from in that ruling from Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: And what's been interesting is the reaction on the left
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  Speaker 1: of the Virginia ruling has been fascinating. Honestly, many on
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  Speaker 1: the left are treating this almost like they've an election
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  Speaker 1: loss in and of itself, right, that the battle against
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  Speaker 1: trump Ism is lost. It's not being viewed just as
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  Speaker 1: a simple court ruling or a legal setback, but an
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  Speaker 1: election loss. So it's I think people are taking it
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  Speaker 1: with the stomach punch because so many Democrats were counting
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  Speaker 1: on this strategically, sort of in the tactical sense of
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  Speaker 1: the word, to balance out what's happening with the fallout
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  Speaker 1: from the Voting Rights Act, the remaps in Florida and
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  Speaker 1: in Alabama, and in Mississippi and in Tennessee. Obviously, if
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  Speaker 1: California counteracted Texas, Virginia essentially was there to counteract the
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  Speaker 1: rest of the South, and now that is gone. But
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  Speaker 1: I do think the reaction that we've gotten from the
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  Speaker 1: left here tells us something much bigger than the ruling itself.
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  Speaker 1: Because I want to say something up front, I've been skeptical.
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  Speaker 1: You guys know this of this Virginia strategy from the
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  Speaker 1: very beginning, not because I didn't understand the impulse. I
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  Speaker 1: understood the political motivations behind it. Look, Republicans have been
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  Speaker 1: aggressive with maps for years, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, you
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  Speaker 1: can go down the list. They continue to sort of
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  Speaker 1: thumb their nose at the rule of law, thumb their
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  Speaker 1: nose at these things. So I understand why Democrats wanted
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  Speaker 1: to why some didn't want to stand on ceremony anymore.
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  Speaker 1: While why some wanted to punt their principles and simply
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  Speaker 1: wanted to CounterPunch the old fight fire with fire, do
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  Speaker 1: unto others as you're being done unto sort of perversion
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  Speaker 1: of the Golden rule a little bit more as a
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  Speaker 1: reactionary way of subscribing to the Golden Rule. But from
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  Speaker 1: the beginning it was always a part of this going
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  Speaker 1: but this isn't right. You're advocating for something you fought
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  Speaker 1: against for over a decade and it's the most horribly
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  Speaker 1: jerry mandered map that you could have come with anywhere.
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  Speaker 1: And then they went to battle in the campaign before
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  Speaker 1: knowing for sure whether the courts were even going to
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  Speaker 1: prove their gambit right. They were trying to follow the
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  Speaker 1: letter of the law in these constitutional amendments in Virginia,
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  Speaker 1: you know, saying that they were going to vote on
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  Speaker 1: the amendment in the Assembly, have an election, than vote
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  Speaker 1: on the amendment again, and they sort of just jammed
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  Speaker 1: it through. They didn't wait to see if they were
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  Speaker 1: going to get the Supreme Court, who said that they
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  Speaker 1: needed more time to deal with this. They held the
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  Speaker 1: election anyway. You know, if the Assembly really actually cared
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  Speaker 1: about court review on this, they might have planned their
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  Speaker 1: primaries for August instead of instead of even June had
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: pushed them off even further to give themselves a lot
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  Speaker 1: more time on this and to give the judiciary a
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  Speaker 1: lot more time to review. So and now I don't
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  Speaker 1: think they fully And if you're a boy, if you're
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  Speaker 1: Barack Obama or Abagail Spamberger, you've got to be just
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  Speaker 1: furious at Louise Lucas and Don Scott. These were the
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  Speaker 1: two big drivers of this idea inside the Virginia Assembly.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously the House majority pack and Speaker in you know,
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  Speaker 1: speaker in waiting, Akim Jeffries was very aggressive about this,
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  Speaker 1: and he was pushing on this hard. It was look
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  Speaker 1: tactically right if you just viewed this as a war. Tactically,
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  Speaker 1: I understood the maneuver and you understood the aggressiveness. And
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  Speaker 1: it was if the map stuck, it was probably a
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  Speaker 1: guarantee that Democrats were going to pick up the House.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: It was sort of in the same way that Ron
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  Speaker 1: DeSantis is sort of Jerry rigged map down in Florida
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. People forget this one. Had he
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  Speaker 1: not done it, I don't know if Republicans win the
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  Speaker 1: House in twenty twenty two. Literally, when you look at
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  Speaker 1: their majority that they got after the twenty two it
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  Speaker 1: is due to the Florida remap. And that's kind of
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  Speaker 1: what I think tactically, so many House Democrats we're.
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  Speaker 2: Counting on here.
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  Speaker 1: But what happens to the credibility of this party, right
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  Speaker 1: that has spent the last eight years arguing that democracy
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  Speaker 1: was on the line, and that norms matter, institutions matter,
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  Speaker 1: process matters, right, And so what happens when a court
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  Speaker 1: says you didn't follow the process. Well, now we know,
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  Speaker 1: And let me just you know, here's the thing that
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  Speaker 1: Democrats need to be careful about. This was not some
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  Speaker 1: clean maga court versus democracy story. The Virginia Supreme Court
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  Speaker 1: is not elected through partisan statewide judicial races, which of
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  Speaker 1: course is just you know, antithetical to what the founders wanted.
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  Speaker 1: I will say this and say it loud and proud.
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  Speaker 1: Any state that elects or state Supreme Court justices does
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  Speaker 1: not give a shit about the rule of law. I
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  Speaker 1: find this to be the worst thing you could possibly
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  Speaker 1: do in a democracy is have your judiciary elected by
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  Speaker 1: the people, because you no longer will see. If a
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: judiciary has to worry about voters and worry about donors,
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  Speaker 1: they're not going to be honest brokers. So it's a
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  Speaker 1: terrible precedent. Now, Virginia thankfully doesn't elect its judges. Far
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: too many states do and it is just I mean,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: look at what's happened in Wisconsin. It's ridiculous. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. But
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  Speaker 1: these judges in Virginia chosen by the legislature, and they're chosen,
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  Speaker 1: and they were chosen during different political eras of this legislature.
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  Speaker 2: And guess what.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Virginia has been a you know, a purple state that
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  Speaker 1: leans blue in presidential elections, right, but it really has
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: been an evening divided state in the legislature in particular,
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  Speaker 1: and it's created very technocratic judicial appointments. These are not
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: hard left or hard right people that make it through
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  Speaker 1: this legislature. The majority essentially included justices elevated during different
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: moments of legislative control. And so I would just be careful.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I've seen some sloppy op ed writing that you know,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: from the left that just assumes a partisan that it's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: four to three, so it must have been a partisan ruling.
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  Speaker 1: And I've seen I think i've seen AOC just sort
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: of you know, there's a knee jerk talking point that many,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: many on the left use on the on the on
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  Speaker 1: the National Supreme Court, so they're just trying to apply
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  Speaker 1: it to the Virginia Supreme Court, and it is just
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  Speaker 1: not applicable. And if you're honest about it, the best
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: way to describe the state Supreme Court in Virginia said,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: it's a very technical court. They do care more about
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: process than they do philosophical arguments. This really is a
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: court of that are closer to being umpires that maybe
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: certainly have a right lean or a left lean, but
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  Speaker 1: they're umpires more than they are ideologues. So process is
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: usually going to trump ideological arguments almost across the board.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And you can see they've made process arguments that have
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: helped environmentalists in the state, making people think the court
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: leans left. There have been process arguments that have helped
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Republicans in the state right, but they very much When
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: you really examine the Virginia Supreme Court, it's a very
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: it's a very technocratic it's filled more and that's by
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: nature because they were. You know, this is to me,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: what is the ideal, which is you kind of don't
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: want partisan leans, you kind of want umpires. Go read
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Federalist seventy eight. I know you've heard me talk about
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: that one a lot. That's the one Hamilton wrote about
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the judiciary and what's the right way to select judges
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and that the ultimate goal was to get the least
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: partisan judge you could possibly get. And I could argue
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: that Virginia does it slightly better than most, and it's
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: because the legislature has been so competitive. So the point is,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: it's just there's a lot of sloppy left wing commentary,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: particularly from the resistors and the resistance left. You know
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that just essentially that almost in some ways behaves similarly
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to how the Trump right works when something doesn't go
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: their way, they just automatically assume partisan corruption or actual corruption.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: And it's a it's dangerous that that disease has moved
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: from the Trump.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Right to the resistance left.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: But the court said the legislature violated the state constitution
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and how it put the amendment before voters, So again
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a political argument. They didn't talk about the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: maps themselves. They talked about the process. But then there's
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: another uncomfortable part of this that nobody really wants to
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: say out loud. The Democratic leadership in Virginia misled their
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: own party here. They moved ahead with this referendum without
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: actually knowing what the process, whether the process would survive
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: state constitutional scrutiny. That's just a failure of leadership. I mean,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: if you're Barack Obama, who you know. Eric Holder really
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: convinced and others convinced that hey, he's the only one
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: with credibility in the Democratic Party with particularly with Northern
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Virginia sort of independents who have become Democrats. They're Democrats
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: because they're just anti Trump. They're not left wing Democrats,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: which has always been the misconception about Northern Virginia by many.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: But they're pretty anti Trump, there's no doubt about it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: But they had to engage the one Democrat that has
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: some credibility left in the party nationally, and that's Barack Obama. Boy,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I wonder how he feels after seeing all this, you know,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I wonder how honest everybody was about that the state
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court could still overturn this. And we know, right
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Abigail Spamberger Hopefully now she'll grow a spine and realized
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: why she was elected. She wasn't elected to be a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: partisan warrior. She was elected to zag while everybody else
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: was sagging. But I digress. So because it's one thing
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to take a legal risk, it's another to take a
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: legal risk and then act shock when courts interpret the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: constitution politically. This hit the Democrats so hard because Virginia
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't just a state fight, right, it was part of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: this national strategy. Democrats thought Virginia was going to help
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: them offset those Republican gains. I was telling you about
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the South and now it's gone, which brings us to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the larger map war now underway around the country. And
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I do want to go through that for a few minutes,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: because this is part people need to understand. We still
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: don't fully know what the House map, particularly in the South,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: what the House map in twenty twenty six is going
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to look like. It's getting extraordinarily close to the actual
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: midterm election, and we still don't know the lines. Normally,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: by now we would be talking only about Canada's money
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: pulling mood, and we're still doing all that. The layered
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: on top of this, now is something even more fundamental,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: which voters are in, which districts, which maps survive, which
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: lawsuits move fast, which courts intervene. Republicans right now clearly
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: have more immediate upside from the current legal environment. Texas,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: that's obviously one big example. Republicans there see had a
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: more favorable court environment.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: A wee.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Can Voting Rights Act framework only legalize it anymore, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: so they maximize their seats, and they're doing it in Florida.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And now here's something that I think is a possibility.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: It's very possible other state supreme courts will slap down
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: their legislature's attempts to do this as fast as being
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: done right. Whether it's in Alabama, where there has been
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: some question whether it did seem like as if the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: courts said, don't touch this until twenty thirty. I'm not
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: convinced that whatever map Alabama comes with their state Supreme
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Court is automatically let it slide. There's a presumption of
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: partisanship in the Florida State Supreme Court that I would
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: just Hey, you never know until you see you see
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the ruling and you see the litigation. But the fact
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of the matter is what Florida did is clearly a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: violation of the constitutional amendment that was added in their
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: unfair districts. It's just up to whether how much, how
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: technically that Supreme Court is going to follow the letter
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  Speaker 1: The most annoying part is the shipping and if stuff's convoluted,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you can't get it done. And that's the beauty of
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: shipstation is it essentially streamlines that shipping process. So try
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: shipstation free for sixty days with full access to every
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: feature I just talked about. No credit card is needed.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: You go to shipstation dot com and you use the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: code toodcast to get those sixty days for free. Sixty
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: much time and money you're going to be saving on
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: every shipment. So that's shipstation dot com toodcast. Ship station
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: dot com use the code toodcast. It's possible that the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Virginia Supreme Court acting independently and not feeling as if
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: they had partisan pressure. We'll make other state supreme courts
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: in the South actually follow their state constitution and not
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: allow fear of the MAGA rite influence their interpretation of
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: their state rule of law. So you know, you know,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: this is one of those things that you know, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: where there's so much, so many sort of what ifs here, Right,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: if the Virginia thing hadn't passed, Florida wouldn't have even tried.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just all the what ifs are across
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the board. And that's why, obviously, I think when you
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: violate your own principles, which is what the Democratic Party
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: did and making the case for this absurdity in Virginia
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: as they say, you know, it's like when you watch
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: an NBA game and you see somebody get fouled that
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: you didn't think was a foul and then they missed
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the initial free throw. You're like, oh, Paul, don't lie.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: That's kind of how this ruling feels to me. You know,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: maybe the Democrats will sober up and realize, oh, maybe
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: we should have stuck to our principles and fought and
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: kept the high ground and fought them on the high
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: ground and made a high ground argument rather than trying
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to bring trying to play the hole, let's bring a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: gun to a gunfight type of mindset. Just remember, Democrats
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: will never win a race to the bottom with Donald
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Trump's Republican Party. And if this Virginia isn't a proof
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of that, I don't know what is so Republicans.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So when you start to go through.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: The states, look first of all, in Virginia. As I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: made it clear before, Democrats are likely to flip at
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: least two seats. I don't know if they can get
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: a third and the second. Both of the two seats
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: that they're going to target are not going to be easy.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think there are more seats in
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the South for them to target if they if they're
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: if the left wing of their party could get out
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of their way and they could get and they could
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: find moderate candidates who who do exist but who can't
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: get out of primaries because of how much the left
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: wing litmus tests of have have sort of scared away
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: some moderate candidates. But when you look at what they're
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: going to do, if they you know, they try to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: get rid of Jim cliverern in South Carolina, they're likely
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: to create two possible possible districts that Democrats could target.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: If they can find the right recruits, may take them
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: a cycle. You know, this is one of those cases
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: where it's like what happened to when Republicans initially gained
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: all this power in the South. They didn't do it
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: in the first cycle. They got a few seats with
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: their packing of minority Democratic voters into majority minority districts,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: but by the second election cycle the patterns were clear.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And that's what I think here. I think the irony
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: here is as while this is while the short term
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: has become more difficult for Democrats to win in twenty six,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: in theory, there should be more swing districts or less
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: heard dark red districts in the South that with the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: right candidates, they could possibly at least be competitive. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that's if the party wants to actually listen to voters.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Now I'm going to get into that in a minute.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And I also think that the backlash if Democrats figure
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: how to channel the rage and the anger in the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: African American community about the essential elimination of political representation
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: in the South, it should help statewide Democrats in these
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Southern races that are barely competitive, especially the African American
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: nominees or potential nominees, whether it's Mississippi Senate, whether it's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Georgia governor, Alabama governor, or even Doug Jones, who's not
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: African American, but who can't win without a massive African
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: American turnout in Alabama in there as well, So you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: know it is there's always opportunity if you if you
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: decide to search for that opportunity, but you have to
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: actually seek it out if you want to do it.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: So the reason I think why though Virginia has been
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: feeling like such a gun punch to Democrats is because
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: it seemed to be the tactical way out. Many Democrats thought, fine,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Republicans want to play hardball, so can we right?
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Maximum warfare?
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Right is what Kim Jeffries said the day after this vote.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: And this is where I think.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: The party is making a profound mistake. I hear this
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: argument constantly now from parts of the of the of
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the left. Fight harder, break more rules, stop caring about norms,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: fight fire with fire, Go find your own Trump somebody
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that will break rules but to the benefit of the left,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: rather than break rules to the benefit of the right.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And this is where in a democracy that's not going
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: to lead to small d democratic outcomes. That's just going
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: to lead to authoritarianism, a left wing version or a
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: right wing version of it. But we are no longer,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: we're sort of cutting out the whole purpose of a democracy,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: which is that there's enough voices in the room that
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: we directionally represent a majority of the country rather than
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the concerns of the loudest minorities, either on the left
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of the right. But this is a case where I
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: don't think you should have fought fire with fire. You
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: run the other way when they zig uzac. Because if
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: both parties become pure procedural warfare machines all about just
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: drawing lines and tactical If both parties basically decide democracy
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is just about maximizing structural leverage however you can whenever
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: you can do it, then eventually the democracy itself becomes transactional.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: And that's you know, I would argue we're already in
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: more of a kleptocracy than a democracy at the moment. Right,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the voters still have a say, there's still a way
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to persuade government, but it is for sale, and it's
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: certainly for sale. And Donald Trump's America. The question is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: whether this is now a virus that has spread to
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the left, because and if that's where we're heading once
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: voters conclude that, and that's why I think you've seen
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: whether the Democratic brand hasn't improved this year, even as
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Democratic performance has. I think they just see it's like, well,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: this is a bad transaction. Let me try the other
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: guys again. But I think long term this has been
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: real damaging for the Democrats because then politics becomes who
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: can gain turnout better, who can manipulates better, who can
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: lawyer up better, who can exploit procedure better. That's not
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: coalition politics anymore. That's system's warfare. And honestly, I think
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: too much of the Democratic Party right now is behaving
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: like a party searching for structural optimization instead of coalition
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: rebuilding to win an actual, durable majority of voters on
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: their side. They think better maps, better lawsuits, better turn
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: out models, better procedural leverage. Look at matters. It always
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: matters in the margins. But none of it is a
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: substitute for persuading voters or listening to voter concerns. And
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: this is the part that Democrats really, I think don't
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: want to hear at the moment. Too many people inside
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the party now only talk to themselves. They don't talk
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to swing voters, They don't talk to the culturally moderate
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: voters who can continue to leave the party when given
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a chance. They don't talk to working class voters who
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: drifted away. They just chalk it up to racism. They
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: don't talk to people uncomfortable with where parts of the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: party have gone culturally. Again, they just chalk it up
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: as some sort of phobia. Insert your version of phobia there.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: They talk to each other and they spin each other up,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and honestly, it's like they don't even want to know
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the answer anymore. Why did working class voters leave? Why
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: did Latino men shift? Why did young men shift? Why
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: are they still shifting? Why are some immigrant communities becoming
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: more Republican? Once you learn the answer to those questions,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: shift the party rather than hoping you can just find
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: more voters that agree with you and pack them into
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: districts that will get you a power by a handful
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: of votes. I think if they actually knew the answer
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to what why all these folks were leaving the party,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: they might have to change. And I actually think parts
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party would rather lose elections right now
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: than rethink some of their cultural assumptions that now dominate
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: activist politics. That's the dangerous part here, because once a
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: political party starts deciding the voters are the problem. Then
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the party stops persuading. That's what happened on the right.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: That's what happened with how the Republican Party got hijacked
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: by Donald Trump. They got frustrated, so they just started
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: optimizing around voters instead. Now Republicans don't pretend they're doing
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: it otherwise, they somehow come up they are. They're not
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: for majoritarian democracy in the way, at least Donald Trump's
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: version of the Republican Party is. I'm not saying all
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Republicans think this, but the Donald Trump wing does not.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: They just want power by any means necessary, whatever it takes.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: You can do it legally, great, do it illegally, it
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter and justifies the means. Democrats were the ones
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that had a little bit of higher ground on here,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and I think some of them still claim the moral
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: high ground of democratic legitimacy. And that's why the hypocrisy here,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I think matters more politically. You know, I get attacked
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: a lot that I hold Democrats to a higher standard
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: than I do Republicans, And I said, that's right. Democrats
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: want to be held to a higher standard. They they've
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: asked for it, and then they don't like it when
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: when some of us in the journalism wing of political
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: discourse actually do that. And this is the part that
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: bothers me the most about the Virginia failure. Here, Democrats
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: literally use Barack Obama, the single most credible spokesperson they've
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: had in the modern era, right on democracy, legitimacy, participation, fairness,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to bless this ridiculous strategy. Think about that for a minute.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Obama's whole political identity was built around the idea that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: process actually mattered, that you play by the rules, that
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: democracy matter, that persuasion mattered, you show up everywhere, that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: legitimacy mattered. That was the appeal, not just liberalism or progressivism, legitimacy.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And now suddenly Democrats are effectively arguing, well, yes, maybe
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the process was flawed, but Republicans are worse, so we
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: should still.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Get the maps.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Nope, that's not Obama politics, or that's not what he practiced.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: That's survival politics. That's doing Trumpism with better vocabulary. So
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I think Democrats did real damage to their credibility here.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: The Republican Party has been hollowed out ideologically, and it
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: was overtaken. That's why it was so easily overtaken by
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: trump Ism? Right, it was a dead carcass on the
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: side of the road, and he animated in his vision. Well,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party is increasingly looking hollowed out themselves philosophically.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Do you know what they stand for anymore? Held together
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: mostly by just anti Trumpism, institutional resistance and procedural politics,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: and the voters them feel the emptiness, or else the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party ratings would be higher. Remember, Donald Trump did
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: not hijack a healthy Republican party. He entered up party
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: where millions of voters had already concluded the leadership stood
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: for nothing except donor maintenance, tax cuts, and simply protecting itself.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: That vacuum created room for trump Ism. Democrats should be
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: asking themselves whether they're creating their own version of that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: vacuum right now. Because a voters start concluding the Democratic
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Party no longer stands for anything beyond stopping Trump and
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: winning procedural fights, that's not a messaging problem, that's an
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: existential problem.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: The hell do they stand for?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: And maybe Democrats hear all of this and decide fine,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: fight harder, map harder, sue harder, proceduralize everything even more
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: maybe that works for a cycle of two, they could get.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: The House back.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Still, they're more likely to get the House back right,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Instead of fifteen to twenty five seats, it's probably somewhere
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: between ten and twenty. I mean, you know, Donald, you
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: know what, what didn't happened last week? Donald Trump didn't
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: end the war with Iran. The energy situation is only
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: getting worse. He is getting humiliated by the Iranians here.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So he's done nothing to improve the Republican Party image,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: or his image or this economy right he is, So
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: you know there, it is not hard to win a
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: These guys don't get it. You need to check on
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: trump argument that ain't the situation now. Is it two
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five House seats that they can get
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: or is it probably two hundred and twenty eight House seats?
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: That extra six or seven matters if they want to
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: try to have a governing majority in the House. But
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I keep coming back to this feeling that parts of
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party are trying to find ways to avoid
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: confronting why voters drifted away in the first place. Right,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: they want they buried their autopsy. They're afraid of, you know,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: whatever hurt people's hurt feelings, and this is not a
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: way to rebuild a political party. They have not accepted
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the premise that they blew this and that's the problem. Eventually,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: voters can tell when a party is talking at them
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: instead of listening to them. And once that happens, history
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: can move a lot faster than professionals think. And I
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: know some of you may think, oh, the r two
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: party system, it's very durable. These vehicles are impossible. Yeah,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: they're impossible to get rid of until one loses so
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: much legitimacy that people are desperate for some sort of alternative.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: And right now the Democrats are just they're lost, and
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: they they know what they're against, they don't know what
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: they're for, and they don't know how to create a
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: message that somehow allows those that aren't as progressive but
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: certainly consider themselves on the left side of the spectrum
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable defend this Democratic Party. And those do those
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: candidates even feel welcome by this Democratic party, whose leadership
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: has been is much more liberal than where the median
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Democratic voter is in a primary, let alone the median
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: voter in a general election. And so you know, they
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: spent the last six months trying to tactically tear down
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: a floodwall so that they could win the House as
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: easily as possible. What this party has not done is
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: try to figure out why did they lose the trust
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: of the average swing voter in twenty twenty four, and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: why did they lose the trust of the average swing
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: voter in twenty twenty two, which they did. You know,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two was not a success. They lost the House,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: and they somehow behave as if they somehow succeeded right.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: It was one of the biggest, biggest misreads. And I
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: think this is another mystery by the party. And imagine
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: being Governor Abigail Stamburger. You know, her instinct was right,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I hope. I'm curious the lession she takes away from this.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Her instinct was that this was a bad idea. I
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: think voters. I think the reason she won by the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: landslide that she won by is I really think there
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: was a lot of center left and center right voters.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: She thought, Okay, she gets it, she understands, and then
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: of course she got jammed by the Democratic leadership in
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the legislature and she got put in a couple of
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: impossible situations. She decided not to stand up to the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: left wing of her party. She probably regrets that now.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: And I will say this. You know, the the Luise
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Lucas and company we're feeling were they thought they were.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: They thought they they had taken over the Virginia Democratic Party,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and tactically they did. But boy did they do some damage.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: All right, Barack Obama took ahead. It's recoverable. Abigail Spamberger
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: took ahead again, depending on how she responds, it's recoverable.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: She's got plenty of time. But what I would say
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to the governors, you were the one in a swing district.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: You were the one who actually talked to swing voters.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: You knew better than the partisans in leadership. Because that's
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the other issue here. The partisan leadership of the Democratic
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Party never talks to swing voters because they're in safe seats.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: They're in safe places. They just viewed swing voters as
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: a necessary evil they have to cater to rather than
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: adjust to. Gil Spamberger was in a swing seat. She
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: understood the way swing voters thought. She understood they didn't.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Like this chaos. She understood it. She got it.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: At least her campaign understood it her first three months
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: as governor. She did not behave as if as the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: person that campaign. I know she's livid at being sort
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: of jammed with this, but this was a moment that
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: you know, and look, she chose not to publicly push
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: back because it maybe she would have gotten turned into Fetterman.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, look what the left is doing with Fetterman.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: If there's not room in the Democratic Party for John Fetterman,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: you may not like if and what what it was
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: really uncomfortable with the sort of the Fetterman scapegoating and
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: anger is that there's really there's a bunch of people
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: just upset with him over one issue, and that's is rue.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: If he broke with him on something else, would they
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: be as upset. I'm going to let that question linger
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit. But here's the big picture. The Democratic
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Party under Barack Obama was about who could they add?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: It was addition.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: They practiced the politics of addition. How do they appeal
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: to a larger and larger piece of the electorate. He
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: explains why he won more greater share of the electorate
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: than any presidential candidate in the twenty first century. Since
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: he left, Democrats have been practicing the politics of survival.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: It's been reactionary and it's just been what can they
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: do to just try to get some power back, rather
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: then do they need to adjust? And it goes back
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to something that Tommy Thompson said to me, former Republican governor,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: had him and Jim Doyle in a joint interview about
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: because I was getting that polarization. Wisconsin seemed to be
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: polarized for any other swings day, and I said, why
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: why you know, why are we, you know now in
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: our essentially twenty six straight eyear of polarization. I think
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I did this in twenty twenty two, so or a
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: twentieth straight year of polarization in Wisconsin, he said, because
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: neither party loses by enough to actually do introspection. Right
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: when you only lose by a point or two, you
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: think one more call, one more fundraise. So these elections
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: have been quite close, but they're close because a majority
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: of the country doesn't like what Trump's offering, but the
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Democrats haven't presented a viable alternative. Now, the limited success
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: that Democrats have had in the Trump era, I believe
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: it's because voters have viewed them as the adult party
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: that the principal party, or at least a party that
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: has more principles than Donald Trump's party. But after Virginia
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: got asked, what does this party stand for other than
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: resisting Trump? What have they done to adjust the perception
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: of the party with the voters that they've lost. Nobody knows,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: because if they did an autopsy. Here's what I've learned,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: by the way, about that autopsy is that apparently when
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you were questioned, it was now, we're not you know,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: you know, we're not going to be blaming Joe Biden
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: or Kamala Harris here individually. So you were told before
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: you were interviewed that you know, certain things were off
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the table. This is not a party looking for answers,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: which means this is a party that does not have
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the right leadership at the moment. This episode of the
• 40:36
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  Speaker 1: am a customer. All right, it is time machine. Let's
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: see how many of you had an idea of which
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling I was going to be riffing off
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of today with our history lesson going back into the
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: time machine. We're going back to May seventeenth, nineteen fifty four.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: So there are moments in American history when the political
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: system decides something is simply too difficult to solve in
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the political system itself. Maybe it's too explosive, maybe it's
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: too entrenched, maybe too politically dangerous, and so the issue
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: just sits there, unresolved, until another institution has to step in.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: And that's what happened on May seventeenth, nineteen fifty four.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Because Brown versus Board of Education wasn't just a school
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: desegregation case. It was the moment the Supreme Court concluded
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that the country's legal fiction could no longer survive contact
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: with reality. So what's the fiction? To understand Brown? You
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: have to go backwards first, back to eighteen ninety six
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: plus e the Ferguson. Hopefully remember many of you remember
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: that in your high school history classes. The Supreme Court
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: ruled that ruling that legalized segregation under the doctrine of
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: separate but equal, and for nearly sixty years, that phrase
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: became the legal foundation for segregation all across the South.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Separate schools, separate transportation, separate public life. The problem, of course,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: was that separate was almost never equal. Everyone knew it,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: including many of the institutions that were defending, and eventually
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: those contradictions became personal and to pick at Kansas, a
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: young black schoolgirl named Linda Brown had to travel farther
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: in order to attend a segregated school, despite the fact
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: that there was a whites only school much closer to
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: her home. Her father decides to join this lawsuit challenging
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: that very system, and eventually it's the case that reaches
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. And this raises the obvious question, if
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: segregation was so fundamentally unjust, why was it it ended
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: through an Act of Congress could have easily been right.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Why did it have to go to the courts. You know,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I've made this argument before that sometimes the courts, most
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: of our most controversial court decisions are because Congress didn't
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: have the guts to act, and I think this is
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: one of them. But you also had you know, we
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: had a broken Our Congress was already broken by the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties because the same political system that created segregation
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: still controlled Congress, especially the Senate. And of course, you know,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: not to get my old hobby horse here, but we
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: were now thirty years removed and having put a hard
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: cap on the expansion of the House of Representatives. And
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: you now probably know why that cap was put on
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: there the fear that there was always a fear if
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: you kept allowing the House to grow that yeah, there'd
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: be fewer and fewer whites with political power. That it
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: would political power would become more diversified. But we've not
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: done that. And even in the nineteen fifties you saw
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: how that was harming us. But Southern Democrats held enormous
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: power through the seniority system in Congress. They chaired the
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: key committees that might have been able to get legislation through,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: They controlled the legislative calendar, and this blocked all sorts
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: of what would have been easy votes had they just
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: made it to the floor of Congress anti lynching bills,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: voting rights legislation, and it was blocked for decades. So
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the same system being challenged by Brown still had too
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: much power inside of Congress to dismantle it itself. So
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: that's why organizations felt like the NAACP felt like they
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: were stuck pursuing another route.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: The Constitution.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: By the way, it's what the public is doing right
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: now with social media. Congress is too bought off to
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: act and do the right thing. So now you have
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to do civil litigation. You got to use the courts
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: to make the case that they made a defective product.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: So the courts become sort of a last resort. So
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: this is where figures like Thurgode Marshall became central. The
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: strategy was not sudden. It was actually a methodical strategy
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: that built up to nineteen fifty four. It was careful,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: it was incremental. The NAACAP was chipping away at segregation
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: case by case. They started with graduate schools and professional
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: schools were proving inequality was a lot easier. They understood
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: that that Congress as it was made up at the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: time wouldn't move, so they had to try to make
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the Constitution essentially move itself, and eventually that contradiction became
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: too large to sustain. The Constitution promised equal protection, hard
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: stop the country operated separate systems by race. That wasn't
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: equal protection. At some point those two realities were going
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: to collide, and they finally did in nineteen fifty four.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Now here's the part, though, that people often forget. The
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court itself was quite nervous about dealing with this question,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: not about the morality of segregation, but about the legitimacy
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: of their own ruling. The Chief Justice at the time,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Earl Warren, pushed aggressively for a unanimous ruling. He knew
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: that five to four or even seven to two, if
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: it wasn't unanimous, was just going to sit there. This one, especially,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: this one, needed to be unanimous, And boy did he
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: work the court hard. He worked the court personally to
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: get there. He spent months lobbying reluctant justices one on one.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: His biggest get was Justice Stanley of Kentucky, who was
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the last major holdout. But Warren understood something profound. This
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: decision would only matter if the country believed the Court
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: had the authority to make it. In nine nothing would
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: give them real authority. The Court wasn't just deciding a case.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: It was trying to preserve its authority while overturning decades
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: of its own precedent. Right, if you're going to overturn precedent,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: do it big, not narrowly. And there was another pressure
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: point too, that I've talked about quite a bit, the
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Cold War itself. The United States was traveling the world
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: talking about democracy, freedom and equality while legally defending segregation
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: at home, and the Soviet Union noticed constantly Soviet propaganda
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: hammered the United States over segregation. Look, I am convinced
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to this day, without the Cold War and without the
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: need to prove that we would live by the by
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the rhetoric that we were throwing out there against the
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Soviets that finally got us to pass the Civil Rights
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Act in nineteen sixty four and the Voting Rights Act
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five. I think, without the Cold War,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: never happens something to stew upon. So the Cold War
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: very helpful. So on May seventeen, nineteen fifty four, the
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Court rules unanimously separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Period,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: And in that moment, something fundamental changes, not because segregation
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: immediately disappears. It does not, but because the highest legal
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: authority in the country can no longer defend it. Brown
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: didn't end segregation, It just simply delegitimized it. Still took
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: political leaders to end it, still took Congress to eventually
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: end it. But we got a complication at first. A
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: year later, in what becomes known as Brown two, the
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Court orders desegregation to pursu indeed quote with all deliberate speed,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: and that phrase becomes one of the most consequential, if
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: not criticized, phrases in Supreme Court history, because it actually
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: gives resistance room to maneuver deliberate speed, kind of an
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: oxymoron that right. Delay becomes a strategy, defiance becomes procedural
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: because Brown happens in nineteen fifty four, But all these
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: standoffs at these universities happened after nineteen fifty four, where
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: the government has to enforce a Supreme Court ruling, So
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Southern politicians organized massive resistance. School districts stalled, governors resisted,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: some schools shut down entirely rather than having to integrate,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and even the president at the time, Dwight Eisenhower, privately
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: was uneasy about the Brown ruling, and he only offered
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: lukewarm public support at first, and that mattered because Supreme
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Court rulings don't enforce themselves. Eventually, though, the contradiction reaches
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Little Rock, Arkansas federal troops escorting black students into Central
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: High School. The executive branch finally was not lukewarm. They
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: they were forced to enforce what the judiciary had already declared.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: The court could announce the constitutional principle making the country
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: live by it was something else entirely, and that's why
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: it was important for that executive action to take place.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: But here's the backlash that nobody fully saw coming. And
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: this is where the story becomes even larger. Because Brown
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: didn't just reshape civil rights law, it reshaped how Americans
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: thought about the Supreme Court itself. The backlash wasn't only
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: about schools or race, It was about power. Brown didn't
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: just trigger resistance to desegregation. It triggered resistance to the
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: idea that courts could reorder society. And in many ways
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: this helps launch the modern conservative legal movement, but also
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the modern liberal legal movement, where the courts became replaced
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Congress as a place to debate didn't happen overnight. The
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: seeds were planted with Brown in nineteen fifty four. Because
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: after Brown, the Court's increasingly become viewed not simply as
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: legal institutions doing technical debates about what's constitutional and what isn't,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: but they become full political actors. And that argument expands
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: through the Warren Court School, prayer rulings, reapportionment, criminal procedure,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: miranda rights, eventually Roe v.
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: Way.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: It leads to an entire different, more realistic Supreme Court,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: frankly more responsive to the public as it is. And
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: here's the irony. Many conservatives who spent decades criticizing that
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: judicial activism would later become some of the strongest defenders
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: of what is turned into aggressive right wing legislative judicial activism.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: So once the judiciary itself became more aligned with their
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: constitutional philosophy, of course did they become advocates of judicial activism.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: And that reveals something a bit deeper about American politics.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: People rarely object to judicial power in the abstract. What
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: they object to are the outcomes. Brown solved one constitutional contradiction,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: but it also helped create another. How much power should
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: courts have when the political branches refused to act, so
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Brown versus Board of Education didn't solve America's racial divide.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: The ruling was definitive, the acceptance of it was not.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: The Court could strike down segregation and law, but it
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: still required presidents to enforce it, Congress to eventually pass
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: some laws to protect minority rights, more federal enforcement, and
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: eventually public opinion.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: And that's what finally made the ruling work.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: But Brown still was a massive turning point because it
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: was the moment the country's highest legal authority could no
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: longer pretend segregation was compatible with our own constitution. And
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: in trying to resolve one constitutional crisis, the Supreme Court
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: may have helped create another over the role of the
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Court itself, which, guess what we still have not yet resolved.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: There's your history of lessons with.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Ask Chuck. First question comes from Bob ask Providence, Rhode Island.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Love the podcast a welcome voice of reason. Right now,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: you've mentioned that certain Republican strategies could drive higher turnout
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: among Democrats and independence. About how much do you worry
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: that the voter suppression efforts could blunt the impact, and
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: with concerns about legal challenges or attempts to overturn results.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Is it reasonable to question whether electoral outcomes will reflect
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: that turnout or should we still confidence in the system overall? Bob,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: I understand the concern. And you know, this is where
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: I fear that so many people are being constantly fed
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: fears right, fears of what could happen versus what's.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Likely to happen.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: And I know there's a lot of you know, places
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: out there that are that just try to grow their
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: traffic and influence by preying on fears like this. Right,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: it used to be a hallmark of the right, and
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: there's some i'll just call it resistance porn of a
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: few well, you know the podcast I'm referring to. Whether
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: they attempt to save America or they think that they're
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: going to be the bulwark against authoritarianism. I think there
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: their goals are noble. I think their tactics and the
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: way they spin people up, you know, it's it's it's
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: a form of of sort of of fear, organizing via fear,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: and it can be effective, but you better be honest
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: about it because if you sort of oversell it it,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: actually you lose more influence over time. Our system is
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: still really really convoluted. And that's the safety and security
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: of this That's one I am. You know, there is
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: certainly plenty of efforts to try to make early voting harder,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: to try to make identifying if you're a voter harder.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: There's certainly hurdles that are being talked about, but many
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: of them have not been erected.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: They've been threatened.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: To be erected, but they haven't been erected, number one,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: And I do think those things drive turnout in a
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: reverse way. So look, I'm not I will say this.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: I do think that we do constantly underestimate the ability
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: of some on the right to try to try stuff
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: that are undemocratic. There are certainly some things that we've
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: seen that you're like, Okay, you know, I understand why.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: You know January sixth alone, you know, And it's funny
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: about January six I think it's radicalized a lot of
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: people left and right. You know, Before January six I
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: think Democrats did believe that they had to figure out
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: how to how to talk to the middle better, how
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: to you know, that there was this sort of there
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: was a sixty percent majority to build here, how do
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: they do it? After January six, it became, well, he
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: has to be stopped, and he's going to If he's
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: going to stop at nothing too great to get power,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: then then the resistance is to stop at nothing to
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: resist him. And again, if you believe our system is
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: so weak that Trump can do this, then I'm then
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I I could I could be, I could understand, I
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: could rationalize the behavior of the left, but I believe
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: our system is still stronger than you think it is.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: And you know, twenty twenty proved it. Twenty twenty two
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: proved it to me, and in some ways even twenty
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: twenty four because twenty twenty four the voters behaved, it
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: behaved rather normally. I know there are people who were
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: just couldn't believe that it's possible that there were voters
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: out there who voted for Biden who thought, boy, that
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: didn't go well, I'm going to try that, I'm going
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: to go back to Trump. But when you looked at
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: people's lived experiences, it made perfect sense. For those that
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: have been who sort of view their vote a bit
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: more transactionally, they're not viewing this through an ideological lens,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: you know, And that's that's always been an issue with
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: I think both parties struggle to realize it. These these
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: swing voters. They care about a couple of specific issues,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: but they're very mainstream issues. You know, which which party
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: is going to worry about the average mainstream person versus
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: which party is more worried about protecting some minority faction.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: Of their own party.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: And I do certainly think January sixth radicalized everybody under Again, Understandably,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and say it was
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: not without it, it wasn't warranted, but I think it
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: has made folks assume the worst is more possible than
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I think it actually is. So I'm pretty confident in this.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: I really am. There isn't it. You know, look, they
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: can draw different maps. Now the question is does the
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: does the Democrats respond with a with a with sort
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: of a reality based campaign. Like again, if I were
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, I'd be going hard in the Southern States.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't retreat. I'd be going hard to go win
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: some state wide elections because they're more winnable than you think.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: But you got to do some investment in that. But
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: in some ways the party has been so invested in
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: just building up its own ideological floodwall that it hasn't
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: thought about, how it expands itself, how does it become
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: a party of addition? Again, So I'm I am now
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: everything that you're concerned about. If if everything is within
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: if the results are super close, right and you know
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: you're talking Democrats by a couple of seats, then yeah,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: there are is a lot of chicanery that can happen
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: if the result is super close. The result isn't that close.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: This chickenery is just not It isn't going to go anywhere.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm probably eighty five percent trying to tell you
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: you have nothing to worry about, but you shouldn't ignore
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: that fifteen percent in my own voice that is saying
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: your concerns aren't I don't think. I don't think you're
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: off your rocker with your concerns. I don't think it's
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: as acute in the moment as it's been presented by
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: some Next question comes from hillmar Mahelde. I hope I
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: have that grit. He's a professor of political science, Western
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Norway University of Applied Sciences. All right, so here's the question.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: What if Trump never becomes a traditional lame duc I
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: tend to view his influence through Max Weber's idea of
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: charismatic authority, suggesting he could maintain a stronghold over the
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: GOP and its voters regardless of election outcomes or political setbacks.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: Do you see his.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Influence enduring in that way even beyond his time in office?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: Best wishes?
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Hmm, I guess if anybody could, it's him. He does
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: seem to have a charismatic I love this phrase you
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: have here, charismatic authority that you're borrowing. There's something to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: that that's different, And there's certainly like certain presidents have
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: more sway post office than I mean, Barack Obama still
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: has a lot of sway, not a little. The Bushes
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: have less so sway.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: Right, not a little.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan had a certain amount of sway. Still, Bill
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Clinton had a certain amount of sway until Barack Obama
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: came along, and even then he still had some sway
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: with some voters all the way through twenty twelve. So
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: I still think that Donald Trump needs his handpicked successor
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: to win for him to have this sort of charismatic
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: authority you're talking about and avoiding lame duck status. And
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: I think it matters even more if it's somebody that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: shares his last name. So that's the scenario that I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: think is like, what's the scenario where he still has
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: that kind of influence. I think if it's somebody with
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: his last name, it's elected. But I'm pretty skeptical that
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: that's going to happen. I mean, it's I mean, how
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: much worse do his poll numbers.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Have to get?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: You know, we look, there's no doubt tactically Democrats had
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: a bad week last week. But as far as the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: big picture, I mean Donald Trump with the ridiculous ballroom
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: thing and all of this stuff, I mean, he is
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: literally making it harder and harder. I mean Republicans they
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: couldn't draw enough safe maps to protect them from losing
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: the House. So you know it is Trump is making
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: their life that miserable. And I guess I would the
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: reason I don't think this is going to be the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: case that he sort of avoids being a lame duck.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I go back to a poll number I highlighted a
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: couple episodes ago where I was telling you how only
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: ten percent of the public liked the idea of him
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: naming stuff after himself. I think if he had this
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: charismatic authority that you're talking about. There are more people
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: inside the Republican Party would be excited about naming more
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: stuff after him, but nobody wants to do this. They
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: sort of do it if they have to, but they're
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: not thrilled with it, and it it still tells me
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: that a bigger chunk of Trump's supporters don't necessarily like
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Trump the individual. What they like is that Trump annoys
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the left, and when he's annoying the left, they like
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: him more than when he's doing the reflected glory business.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: And that, you know.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: And what gave me that line, what makes me believe
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: that was how little support there was for him name
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: and stuff after himself. So I don't think they love Trump.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: I think they love that Trump annoys the left and
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: that that's the bigger animating force. So that would be
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: my So for a small chunk, he will definitely be
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: somebody that they follow through and through, But I don't
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: know if it allows them to hold it longer.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: Do you know what? I'm always I'm here in some ways.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: I love the idea.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: I always thought there's no political scientists that explained to America
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: better than somebody who was not an American and it
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: was to Toko. So I take what you're observing very
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: very seriously, and I hope to hear from you some more,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: and I'd love to hear more of your thoughts and
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: observations here in the mailbag. Next question comes from Mark
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: M in Silver Spring, Maryland. An. He writes, hey, devoted listener,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: first time questioner. With increasing redistricting and more one party
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: dominant states, is there any viability to candidate's effectively running
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: in the dominant parties primary even if their views aligned
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: more with the opposition, since that's often the only competitive race.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: That strategy produced more moderate candidates and heavily gerrymandered states,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: or does it run into practical and political limits? Thanks,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting question. I would counter that what you
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: want to have as you find you go back to
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: finding candidates that fit the state. You know, politics of
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: horors of vacuum. It's a phrase that I believe you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: does say a lot. It's not just a cliche or
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: a mantra. It does say a lot. Take the state
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: of Texas. It became a one party state and yet
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: one party couldn't hold and it sort of was divided
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: amongst itself, and it's provided the openings for either moderates
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: to win primaries at times moderate leadership in the state
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: house because enough moderates one generals. We've seen it in
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Kansas right where he is essentially was you know the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: first you know, the first one basically former Republicans becoming Democrats.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: So I do believe that.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's always a every state as
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: a full crown, okay, that would divide the state into
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: a fifty to fifty place.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: Now you could look at it.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Idaho isn't going to be fifty to fifty based on
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: this definition of the Democratic Party versus this definition of
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party. But if you eliminated parties, I could
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: find you the fifty percent line, right, and it probably
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: is those that are that are it's you know, those
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: that sort of are pro government and those that are
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: anti government. That's probably more of a dividing line there
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: in a place like Idaho that's definitely got a group
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: of base voters who are sort of libertarian conservatives in
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: that sense. So, you know, this is why being a
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: you know, when the party got nationalized, both parties got
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: so nationalized, and our politics got nationalized it really prevented
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to be sort of a Southern Democrat, a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: New England Republican, a Western conservative, a mid Western populist.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: That is what the politics I grew up with in
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties and even a little bit into
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: the nineties, where there were still these different flavors within
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: the parties, and the party celebrated it because it kind
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: of knew there were regional differences, right, there's regional differences
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: and what food we like. You know, you have people
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: in the North who think it's good to put sugar
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: on grits. God bless you, right, But you guys are insane,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: all right, and that's a crazy thing to do, right.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: You know, if you don't see that grits are more
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: savory treat than a sweet treat, that's your business. But
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: the point is we do have differences among ourselves, even
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: among the grit eating world.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: Right, So it's a.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: I look at this, and there's always an opportunity if
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: you're if as a party or there's an independent alternative, right,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: And I think this is where if I were the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Forward Party, for instance, who's trying to get traction as
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: sort of an alternative major party here, I'd start going
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: to these one party states and finding candidates who are
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: not burdened by the national brand of the other of
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: the minority party in that stay right, whether you're you know,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: the Republican brand is just totally you know, toxic in
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: the Massachusetts and the Democratic brand is totally toxic in
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: South Dakota.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: You know. So it is.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: You know, you could be an alternative of the party
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: in power and not have to identify yourself with the
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: other national party.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: So, I think that's there's there's opportunity there, There's always
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: you know, this is what frustrates me about politics the
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: way it's practiced today. It's assuming that voters can't be
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: persuaded that there isn't an argument to be made that
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: can get you fifty percent plus one. There's always an
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: argument to be made. Now, the question is does it
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: fit principally within you know, the a political party you
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: may choose to join. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe that's why
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: you have to run as an independent, you know, or
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: look alternatively. You may see just that. And in fact,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: in tech to go back to my Texas story here,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Mark in the early odds, as it was clear the
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party, and I think it's in a slightly better
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: place today, believe it or not in Texas than it
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: was fifteen years ago. But if you remember two thousand
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: and six governor's race is one of my favorite governor's
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: races to focus on because the trial lawyers, who were
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: a Democratic donor group for decades and still are in
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: many many places, decided that hey, they still wanted influence
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: in the Texas government. So they found they helped fund
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: moderate Republicans. So I do think that that's what you
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: know again, politics of whors a vacuum, there will always
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: be somebody filling the gaps.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: The one party rule in California has sort of divided
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party right between sort of the progressives and
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: the sort of pro business wing of the party. They're
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: culturally united, but they but they have different views of
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: how of how to of how to manage the economy
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: and how big the social safety that should be. I
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: don't think the Republican Party is mature enough or diverse
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: enough to exploit that, but an independent could exploit it, right,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: But I think it explains why there's been such a
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: why it feels like something's missing. I'm I do think
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: somebody made a mistake not trying to run as an independent.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: And in fact, I remember having a conversation with Steve
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Hilton two years ago and I said, why are you
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: run as a Republican? Said, you're just always good. You're
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: going to run up against it. I said, you'll only
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: have some credibility if you run as an independent. And
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: I think ultimately he's going to find that out the
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: hard way, but we'll see. And I think maybe Matt Mayon,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: if he was there, you weren't that the move was
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: to run as an I, not as a D and
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: I think that that was the mistake, and that could
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: be sort of how this works going forward. You know,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: I don't care where you live. Voters are always want
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: a choice. It's up to you to get to present one.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: It's up to the up the candidates, up the parties.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: Jeff b Right, Hey, regular listener here. I really value
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: your perspective and the thoughtfulness you bring to the show.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: Your recent comment about baby boomers caught my attention, and
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: as a boomer, while I understand the broader point, maybe
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: reflecting my own experience working hard, contributing social security and
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: planning for retirement, Given the challenges facing programs like social
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: security and the national debt, what do you think of
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: the most realistic fair solutions moving forward for both current
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: retirees and future generations. Sincerely, Jeff B.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: So.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I know I give boomers a hard time because it
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: does feel like that Boomers have sort of they have
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: been catered to, right The politics of the social safety
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: net expansion in many ways has been about sort of
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: catering to this huge generation, etc. And then of course
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: the leadership never went away. The leadership hung on forever.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: There's all that aspect of things. So, yes, you know,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: we're all and a sort of you know, one of
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: the I think one of the one of the more
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: intriguing aspects of about our politics is something that I
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: brought up in the time machine today, Brown versus board.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a you.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Know, we are still a country where there are people
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: alive who live during segregation. And I am very curious
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: if our politics change, what are how our politics will
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: change when when there is no more living memories of segregation.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: Just something that I've thought about. I'm not wishing for
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: the end of voting, and I don't want that to
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: come across as some sort of death to boomers or
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: anything like that. In fact, I do think boomers are
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: going to be the one that lead the way to
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: death with dignity for what it's worth on that. On
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: that front, but you know, on the social security thing,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: there's sort of too easy solutions. And this is what's frustrating, right,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: it's it's and it's easy solutions on medicare, right, you
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: let people buy in early to medicare. First of all,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: the influx of of younger people will help make the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: system a little bit cheaper. Uh. Influx of that cash
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: will help the system as well. So I think you
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: do that. The second thing is some means testing combined
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: with getting rid of the social Security tax donut hole,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: where you know that you know it, whether you're you
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: know that your contributions to social Security should grow with
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: your income and there shouldn't shouldn't be capped, and it's
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: obvious you get rid of the donut hole. Uh, and
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: you and you do it, and you can maybe change
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: the rate of taxation on that if if you want
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: to sort of make it more gradual over time. But
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: we have the tools to do it. It's the fairest solution, right,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: which is wherever everybody is paying their fair share. Everybody
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: contributes to Social Security with the same percentage of their income,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: regardless of how much or little they make, and then
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: you qualify for a certain amount of payout depending you know,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: you've got your max, you've got your metal. You know
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: it is I don't think that this is very hard.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: You just have to agree to it. And yeah, there'll
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: be some means testing and so does that mean you
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: would get nothing, No, it doesn't mean you would get nothing.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: But maybe you know, if you if you have a
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: certain amount of money, then you know you you you
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: you get more of the of the minimum or something
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: like that. But there are ways to do this. I've
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: you know, for what it's worth. I expect my generation
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: gen X to be the first one to see benefits
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: cut where we're only getting two thirds of benefits because
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: the fear of tax, of raising taxes, and that's yes,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: the tax you know, you'd be richer. People would have
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: to contribute more to Social Security instead of sort of
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: you know, if you make a certain amount of money,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: some people only contribute to social Security with you know,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: the first essentially their first month of earnings for the
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: calendar year and then they are done making their contributions
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: to social security. So again it you know, which is
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: why I would be which is but it's also the
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: same reason why I don't think you should do these
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: targeted wealth taxes and things like this, because if you
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: just got rid of these protective loopholes, you'd have the
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: tax structure, the progressive tax structure. And progressive here is
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: not an ideological term. It's sort of the idea that
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: that sort of you know, you keep the percentages flat,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, you make the you sort of
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: raise you know, the less you make, the less the
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: less your tax rate is. The more you make, slightly
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: higher your tax rate is. But it's how we've it's
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: about the fairest system of taxation as we could come
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: up with, and then we've made the system more unfair
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: because we've created these different loopholes and carve outs, and
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: you know, people somehow wealth growth isn't salary, so then
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: they hide the taxes and things like this. You know,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: there's a way to simplify our progressive tax code, not
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: a flat tax. I think that that also, you know,
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: harms the poor and benefits the wealthiest taxpayers. But you know,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: to me, the answers are there, They're pretty simple. You
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: just need the political will to do it. Number five,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: fifth question today Jeremy in Japan, And this is his
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: second question that he's gotten into the podcast. So three more, Jeremy,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: what do you see as the political future for Nicki
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: Haley and run Desanta's after their twenty twenty four runs.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: Does time improve their standing for twenty twenty eight or
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: was too much damage done? And if Desantras doesn't run again,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: what path do you think his career? Also at this point,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: who would you consider a true dark horse candidate in
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: each party for twenty twenty eight Jeremy in Japan.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: Well, look, I don't think I think I think Nicki
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: Haley could. If there's a full.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: Fledged rejection of Trump and trump Ism, there might be
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: room for Nicki Haley.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: But I.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: It may be that she's not the vehicle, but that
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: her wing of the party can become ascendant again right
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: less individually her. But if you told me in a
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: decade she was the vice president for a successful non
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: Trump Republican that wouldn't surprise me either, right, that she is,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of assumed some sort of senior status
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and that she ages well, she ages better as the
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Assuming the Republican Party goes through this sort of I
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: think many I don't want to speak for others. I
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: believe that there is going to be a Trump reckoning
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: in the Republican Party, and that the reckoning will eventually
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: benefit the Nikki Halees and the Mike Pences in some form.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: But it may benefit their wing of the party more
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: than them individually. But I'm a believer that a Trump
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: reckoning is going to come. I don't know if it
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: comes in two years, four years, or eight years, but I.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: Think it's coming.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: DeSantis says, I don't think any future in this version
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: He's younger, he's a little bit younger than I am.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: He's still I think. I don't think he's turned fifty yet.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: So you know, I think the most likely thing DeSantis
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: does is run for statewide office in Florida again in
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: the next four to eight years. And you know, I
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: don't think I'd be shocked if Trump gives him a job.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: There are people in Trump's orbit who pledged that they
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: will they will do whatever it takes to prevent rond
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: DeSantis from ever getting back into Trump's good graces. It's
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: very personal.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: Remember there was a big Florida divide and essentially the
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: people that got Ron De Santis elected resuscitated Donald Trump.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: And I think there's if as long as there they've
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: got Donald Trump's here. Ron de Santis is going nowhere
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: in this party for now, but his ambition isn't over.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. I mean, look, if Casey
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: DeSantis could could compete successfully, she'd already be running for governor.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: But they see the riding on the wall and they
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: realize that Donald Trump will you know that the people
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: that work for Trump, that used to work for him,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: will go to the end. We'll spare no expense to
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: make sure that Desantas has failed here, which is why
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: I think he's been smartly kind of staying out its
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: sort of letting it go. He lost control of the
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: Florida Republican Party. It is not his, but he is.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: He is not old, and so he could easily I
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: could easily see him. You know, let's say Democrats pull
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: an upset in a Senate seat in the next cycle
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: or two, that he would be a Republican that would
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: choose to run to try to knock off that Democratic incumbent,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: or if there's an open seat, he might jump in.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: But I think that's his most realistic future. I mean,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: let's be honest, he's just not charismatic enough to become president,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: right he It's just that's what's missing, right, And if
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: he had it, he would have been good enough to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: stop Trump.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: But he didn't have it.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think he almost didn't win the
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: governorship because he didn't have it back in twenty eighteen, right,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: he almost lost to the mayor of Tallerhaffen because of
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: this sort of charismatic awkwardness that he has. He just
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: does and I just that, you know, I just sort
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: of see now. It doesn't mean he accepts the premise
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: that he doesn't have the personality to winning enough, or
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: a charismatic enough personality to win, you know, to win
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: the presidency or something like that. But you know, I
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: always knew his own campaign knew he didn't have the
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: charisma because most of his reelection ads in twenty two
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: had somebody else voicing them over. It was never him. Right,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: He is personally not as well liked, even if his
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: some of the decisions he made voters approved of. So
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm a little bit more skeptical on him.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: But like I go back, he's young, and maybe Casey
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: Desanti's runs first state wide office, maybe it's a Senate seat.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe she runs for a congressional seat in a couple
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: of years, starts working her way up that way as well.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: I think that's quite possible. But boy, as long as
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: the people that are around Trump have a say in
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party, there's a bunch of people who have
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: got such grudges against DeSantis that they will do whatever
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: it takes. And if you don't believe me, just look
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: at the State of Florida's lineup this cycle, right, DeSantis
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: wanted to have a lot more sway on it, and
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: essentially he's he is. He's a bit of a guy,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: no a governor in name only when it comes to influence.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: Over his own party.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: All right, last question, This one comes from Ray d
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: Las Vegas, Nevada, a long time listener, first time question,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: and he hopes to be working towards that five timer status.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, towards the end of a term, could there
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: ever be a scenario where Democrats and some Republicans align
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: on impeachment to limit potential use of pardons and if
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: someone like Vance were in the picture politically, but that
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: changed the calculus at all from a sad New York
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: Jets fan. So there's some precedent to this. It was
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: a and I'm going to have Lamar Ala Xander for
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: his memoir on before he got sworn into the governorship
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: early in Tennessee because literally the outgoing governor was selling
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: pardons and everybody knew it, and so a democratic legislature
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: worked essentially with Republicans to hurry up and impeach and
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: get rid of the governor essentially to stop the sale
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: of pardons. So's there's precedent sort of historically you go to,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: like I said, Tennessee, I think it was in seventy
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: after the seventy four midterms or after the seventy eight midterms.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: I think it was after the seventy eight mid terms.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: So that would be one precedent i'd point to in
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: the scenario. Literally you point to there. You know, I
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: don't want to rule it out. You know, if Donald
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: Trump's approval rating is in the twenties towards the end
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: of twenty eight and people thought we're selling pardons, and
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: his brand had become so toxic that Republicans wanted to
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: distance themselves anyway. I mean, look, I do think the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: constitutional amendment that's circulating in Congress right now that has
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: at least one Republican co sponsor in Don Bacon, which
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: would give a nullification process to Congress on presidential pardons,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: is sort of a way to test to find out
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: which Republicans are willing to go on the record against Trump.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: But I think it's a safe way to do it.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: And if I were a Republican looking to tiptoe away
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: from Trump co sponsoring that pardon amendment, that constitutional amendment
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: to limit for a potential nullification of presidential pardons would
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: be some might support. So if it's incredibly egregious, I
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: wouldn't rule anything out, and frankly it might. You know,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: there's you know, it's funny the scenario lay out. It's
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: almost like, man, I hope he tries to to to
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: do some just terrible pardons that just make people so
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: sick that you do get this bipartisan opposition, right. I mean,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: in some ways you have to see somebody attempt some
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: of the worst things blatantly you know, literally robbing you
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: in plain sight, that that maybe it can shake shake
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: some good Republicans out of their out of their zombie
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: state of Trump, of of of Trumps sycopancy, because we
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: got to reform that part in power. It's pretty clear,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: and it so in someone. There's a there's a dark
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: part of me that says, boy, you know, well Trump,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: how brazen will he get? And could it actually get
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: so brazen that it would? I think right now, pardoning
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: Glayne Maxwell might inspire some Republicans to join Democrats on
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: this idea, But right now it's about the only only
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: pardon I could think of that he may give that
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: could spark that kind of of outrage. All right, that
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: does it for questions for this episode, nothing too much
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: on the sports world. I will let me give you
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit of color from my daughter's graduation. Greg Olsen,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: a former University of Miami tight end first round draft
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: pick and currently a Fox Sports broadcaster, was her commencement speaker.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: And look, I didn't know what to expect.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: I knew a little bit about his story and the
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: struggles that he had with maybe he just huge medical
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: issues with his with a with a young child. When
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: they were born, all these heart surgeries and his brother
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: passed away from brain cancer, and so he really did
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: I think he did a good job. He did a
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: good job sort of showcasing the importance of life, no matter,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: no matter, you know, as you're pursuing your goals, but
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: the importance of little things in your life, whether it's
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: your family, you know, whether it's siblings, your children.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: He did a good job. So it was.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: It was I didn't know. I didn't have a bar
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: for him. I didn't have expectations good or bad and anyway,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: but it's a reminder. I'm giving a commencement next week
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: at John Carroll University and outside of Cleveland, and I've
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: done a couple of them, and I always you know,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: this is the this is the first time one of
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: my kids was graduating, right, and a commencement for college, right,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: So you you you do realize the parents listen to everything.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the students do, but the commend
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: you know, it is a reminder. I always say the
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: commencements are probably probably more for the parents and the students,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: but you hope the students here one or two things.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm just through the moon and as many
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: of you, if you follow me on social you'll know
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: that I shared a few I shared a few proud
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: father things. And you know, what I appreciate is that
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't get the I did proud father stuff and
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't get stupid blowback from people's from you know
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: people you know, well, you're, you're this, you're that, you
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: know all this stuff. You know people actually just you know,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: if they didn't have anything nice to say, they didn't
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: say it, which is which is a way to live
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: that I wish more people on social media live that way.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: You don't have to comment on everything, even if you
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: don't like what you're reading. You know, not every fire
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: needs more kindle, because it not every fire needs to
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: keep burning.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: The NBA.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Poor Lakers and the poor Sixers, right, these are two
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: teams that if they were healthy, they could be really interesting.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: They could be you know, a couple of old guys
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: seeing if they can you know, get one more time
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: Joel embiid lebron right. And it's just a bummer that
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: they're not healthy. And you see that, you know, these
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: are why we're probably looking at those you know, why
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: those series are probably over. Either will be by the
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: time you hear this, I'm recording before for one of those,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: for one of those games tonight, so it could be
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: over already for one of them, but it's a it's
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: a uh, it's I will say this, thank goodness for
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: the Spurs Timberwolve series. That has been some incredible basketball.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards Victor Wormbanyama. I mean that has been amazing.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: That has been a fantastic series so far, and it's
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: been a game I've I've wanted to watch every quarter,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: like you don't want to miss a minute of it,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: and that's not been the case with the other series.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: Sort of like your glance at it, eh, right, you're
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: sort of off and on on it. But it's really
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: intriguing there, and it is. I'm still enjoyed watching these nets.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: They're fantastic.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: By the way.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: One thing, one little rant I went on in a
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: few weeks ago, having to do with the expansion of
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: the NCAA tournament, I will say this, I think the
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: media coverage of the expansion has been really atrocious and
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: really shitty, and I'm sorry everybody is just writing that
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: this is some sort of disaster. Well, you know what,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: screw you all. Right, if you went to a mid
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: major school, if you care about the mid majors, if
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: you care about seeing you know, yes, I do think
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: the criticism of expanding to seventy six, if it only
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: gives five hundred teams or people below five hundred and
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: powerful conferences more opportunity to make it, that isn't what
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: it should be for all right, And I think I
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: would love to see some sort of rule. And I
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: go back to this. I think the seventy six expansion
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: or any of the expand I think it should expand
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: it to ninety six. But the expansion, if it includes
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: more twenty plus win teams from smaller conferences, will be
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: much more embraced than if it includes seventeen and sixteen teams.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: And ultimately, I think there's this fear that it's all
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: going to go to this one aspect of things where
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: everything's going to be done by a computer rather than well,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: how many games did you win versus how many games
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: did you lose? And good losses are going to matter
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: more than bad wins, which is a total perversion of competition.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: So ultimately, I hope the committee does this and realizes, hey,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: these extra slots are not for teams like Auburn who
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: couldn't beat good teams just because they played them closely.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: Their numbers are good, but they couldn't win those games.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: They don't belong in the tournament, and I hope they
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: wouldn't get in under this circumstances. But these twenty five
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: win twenty four to twenty five win teams from smaller
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: conferences who didn't, that's who we want to see in here,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: and that's the whole purpose of this expansion. And if
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: this is not how the expansion is used, then that's
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: a failure of the committee, and it's a failure of
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: how the NCAA runs this. It is not about a
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: failure to give more opportunity and to open up the doors.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: And again, we've expanded the number of Division One schools,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: so of course you should expand the size of the postseason.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: So I don't like a lot of the coverage has
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: been with people that are more consumed about are we
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: going to get the right final four teams than about
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: whether we have one of the great because again, if
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: you wanted to make sure you always had the right
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: final four teams, then you wouldn't have one and done anyway, Okay,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: the entire format of the tournament is not designed to
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: get you the best team. If you really care about
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: the best team, then you would do what the NBA
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: does is bore us to death for two and a
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: half months with best four of sevens constantly so that
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: there is no chance for an upset team to ever
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: make it through. And ultimately, what do we enjoy most
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: about sports? What you expect or the unexpected? And more
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: people watch sports for the unexpected than the expected. And
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: I wish more people who ran sports, whether you run
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: a league or you're in charge of college sports, would
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: understand that. Ultimately, that's why people follow sports.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: All Right, ran over, I'll see in forty eight hours.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and don't forget I can subscribe.