WEBVTT - How The Hell Did Trump Win? Mia & Amelia Debrief 0:00:22.170 --> 0:00:26.450 It is okay to feel sad and disappoint it. Well, 0:00:26.490 --> 0:00:30.010 please know what's going to be okay. On the campaign, 0:00:30.210 --> 0:00:34.370 I would often say, when we fight, we win. But 0:00:34.490 --> 0:00:35.210 here's the thing. 0:00:35.370 --> 0:00:36.090 Here's the thing. 0:00:36.770 --> 0:00:38.650 Sometimes the fight takes a while. 0:00:39.890 --> 0:00:41.490 That doesn't mean we won't win. 0:00:41.810 --> 0:00:46.410 And don't you ever listen when anyone tells you something 0:00:46.530 --> 0:00:50.050 is impossible because it has never been done before. 0:00:51.130 --> 0:00:54.810 Hello, out Louders, it's mea Friedman here dropping into your 0:00:54.890 --> 0:00:58.330 feed for a special bonus episode of Mumma mea out 0:00:58.370 --> 0:01:01.730 Loud and thanks to all the out louders who've checked 0:01:01.730 --> 0:01:05.850 on me in the group in my DMS. What a 0:01:05.850 --> 0:01:09.370 week it's been, of course, with the US presidential election. 0:01:09.890 --> 0:01:12.450 This is a special extra episode, so if you're not 0:01:12.570 --> 0:01:15.530 into US politics, don't panic. We will still be coming 0:01:15.530 --> 0:01:19.530 into your ears with a regular news free episode on Friday. 0:01:19.690 --> 0:01:22.050 But we know that so many of you have been 0:01:22.050 --> 0:01:26.850 writing a rollercoaster of emotions, wondering how we landed on 0:01:27.010 --> 0:01:30.210 the news that broke yesterday that Donald Trump has been 0:01:30.250 --> 0:01:33.690 re elected. We've heard you, and that is why today 0:01:34.050 --> 0:01:37.490 Amelia Lester, deputy editor of Foreign Policy Magazine and mum 0:01:37.610 --> 0:01:41.530 Me as US correspondent, has jumped on a call with me. 0:01:42.130 --> 0:01:45.450 I'm in the podcast studio, she's at home, and we 0:01:45.490 --> 0:01:49.450 wanted to help you understand the facts of how we 0:01:49.490 --> 0:01:54.050 got here. First of all, welcome Amelia hashtag Are you okay? 0:01:54.650 --> 0:01:58.770 Hello? I didn't think we'd be talking this soon after 0:01:58.850 --> 0:02:01.930 what happened yesterday, but I'm finding that it's helping to 0:02:02.370 --> 0:02:04.170 sift through the facts a little bit. 0:02:04.370 --> 0:02:06.650 Good because I still haven't looked at a news site 0:02:07.130 --> 0:02:12.170 or a news screen, no news coverage, and I'm getting 0:02:12.210 --> 0:02:16.010 my information exclusively through my group chats, you and my 0:02:16.090 --> 0:02:18.570 other media friends who are feeding me the need to 0:02:18.610 --> 0:02:21.850 know information. Now, as I said on yesterday's episode, we 0:02:21.930 --> 0:02:24.490 unpack the emotions today, we're talking about the facts. Let's 0:02:24.530 --> 0:02:27.050 start with the final vote count. How did it land? 0:02:27.570 --> 0:02:31.170 Well, the votes are still being countered, but it's safe 0:02:31.170 --> 0:02:35.250 to say that this is a resounding victory for Donald Trump. 0:02:35.450 --> 0:02:40.010 He didn't just squeak by. Already, we've discovered that he 0:02:40.050 --> 0:02:43.210 got fewer votes than Joe Biden got in twenty twenty. 0:02:43.290 --> 0:02:47.010 Joe Biden still has the most votes of any presidential 0:02:47.170 --> 0:02:51.530 candidate in history. Turnout is looking lower than twenty twenty two, 0:02:51.650 --> 0:02:55.610 significantly lower. That's not in itself surprising, and twenty twenty 0:02:55.650 --> 0:02:59.210 everyone was at home in their track suit pants. But 0:02:59.330 --> 0:03:03.010 it is interesting, given that the Democrats really hinged this 0:03:03.170 --> 0:03:05.770 election on the idea that it might be the last, 0:03:05.930 --> 0:03:09.050 it's the most important election in US history, it doesn't 0:03:09.050 --> 0:03:13.170 seem like the American people agreed with that definition. 0:03:13.610 --> 0:03:16.210 First of all, none of the polls predicted this. It 0:03:16.290 --> 0:03:19.170 was always meant to be close. Every single poll said 0:03:19.170 --> 0:03:21.050 it was going to be really, really close. So it's 0:03:21.050 --> 0:03:23.570 almost like we were geared up for a result that 0:03:23.650 --> 0:03:26.530 never came, which was either a marginal Trump victory or 0:03:26.570 --> 0:03:31.530 a marginal Kamala Harris victory. A landslide wasn't on many 0:03:31.570 --> 0:03:36.330 people's bingo card, except maybe Donald Trump himself. Would you 0:03:36.330 --> 0:03:38.490 call it a landslide? Is that what happened? And how 0:03:38.530 --> 0:03:39.210 did it happen? 0:03:39.610 --> 0:03:42.810 Yes, it's a landslide. Not only did Trump win the 0:03:42.810 --> 0:03:47.010 White House, Republicans took the Senate from Democrats, and although 0:03:47.050 --> 0:03:50.010 the House is still up for grabs, it looks like 0:03:50.130 --> 0:03:53.570 that they're going to win that too. That's significant because 0:03:53.610 --> 0:03:56.770 if they control all three arms of government, there are 0:03:56.810 --> 0:04:01.210 no checks on Donald Trump in the executive branch. As 0:04:01.250 --> 0:04:05.330 to how it happened. Very simply. Harris didn't win over 0:04:05.530 --> 0:04:08.250 any new groups of voters. This is what I can't 0:04:08.290 --> 0:04:12.010 get over. Not only did she not win over any 0:04:12.010 --> 0:04:15.650 new groups of voters, Trump won new blocks of voters, 0:04:15.970 --> 0:04:19.650 So he won working class Latinos, he won working class 0:04:19.690 --> 0:04:24.210 Black voters. Harris won women by plus three points on Biden. 0:04:24.330 --> 0:04:26.930 That's not very many points, given that we were being 0:04:26.970 --> 0:04:29.770 told that reproductive rights and freedom were on the ballot. 0:04:29.810 --> 0:04:33.930 Here men switched over to Trump in bigger numbers than 0:04:33.970 --> 0:04:37.610 we've ever seen men vote for Republicans before. Young people 0:04:37.770 --> 0:04:42.490 did not show up. Old people did not support Harris 0:04:42.490 --> 0:04:45.770 in the same numbers that they supported Biden in twenty twenty. 0:04:45.890 --> 0:04:48.330 Very simply, if you don't win over any new groups 0:04:48.330 --> 0:04:49.690 of voters, you can't win the election. 0:04:50.290 --> 0:04:52.930 So do you think that it's true that it became 0:04:53.250 --> 0:04:57.010 an election about gender? Did it very much split along 0:04:57.650 --> 0:04:58.930 male female lines? 0:04:59.450 --> 0:04:59.650 No? 0:04:59.850 --> 0:05:03.650 Because if you only see plus three on women voting 0:05:03.850 --> 0:05:07.610 for Harris compared within twenty twenty, that's not an overwhelming 0:05:07.850 --> 0:05:11.010 shift for women. Now, women already vote Democratic much more 0:05:11.010 --> 0:05:13.770 than men do. But I would have expected to see 0:05:13.770 --> 0:05:17.690 a double digit increase, just like the double double digit 0:05:17.770 --> 0:05:21.730 increase in Black men voting for Trump. To see only 0:05:21.810 --> 0:05:25.730 plus three for women just indicates that women didn't care 0:05:25.810 --> 0:05:29.090 as much as we thought that they did. So as 0:05:29.130 --> 0:05:31.290 for whether it's an election on gender, I think I'd 0:05:31.290 --> 0:05:33.730 have to say no. I'd have to say that that 0:05:33.890 --> 0:05:37.450 very diverse coalition that Trump assembled seems to me that 0:05:37.570 --> 0:05:41.250 people were really laser focused on the economy and on 0:05:41.290 --> 0:05:44.090 a sense that they kn't afford their groceries and that 0:05:44.210 --> 0:05:47.450 Joe Biden and everyone around Joe Biden has to go. 0:05:47.810 --> 0:05:50.850 So I want to ask about his misogyny and his 0:05:51.290 --> 0:05:55.970 convictions for sexual assault and his other crimes that are 0:05:56.330 --> 0:05:58.930 in court steal and that he's also been found guilty of. 0:05:59.530 --> 0:06:03.450 Did everybody just ignore that, because it seems like they did. 0:06:03.930 --> 0:06:08.170 Yes. And I had a really crystallizing conversation today with 0:06:08.290 --> 0:06:11.370 a friend who did not vote for Donald Trump, but 0:06:11.530 --> 0:06:16.210 who pointed out to me that Americans have never cared 0:06:16.250 --> 0:06:19.570 about this idea of character in the oval office. That's 0:06:19.690 --> 0:06:22.690 just never been important. And she pointed to Bill Clinton 0:06:22.810 --> 0:06:25.810 as an example. Now, Bill Clinton, I'm not making a 0:06:25.850 --> 0:06:28.570 false equivalence between Bill Clinton and a man who's been 0:06:28.610 --> 0:06:31.930 found liable for sexual assault, which Bill Clinton certainly has not. 0:06:32.490 --> 0:06:35.210 But Bill Clinton has a checkered history with women, I 0:06:35.250 --> 0:06:39.050 think it's safe to say, and he won two terms 0:06:39.090 --> 0:06:42.650 in office. And the reason is because the Democrats kept saying, 0:06:42.850 --> 0:06:46.250 of Trump, look at his rallies. Remember that Harris kept saying, 0:06:46.410 --> 0:06:49.050 look at his rallies, what his rallies. Tim Waltz would 0:06:49.050 --> 0:06:51.850 also this is fine, He's going to do more for us. 0:06:51.890 --> 0:06:55.730 He's going to fix the economy for us. And they 0:06:55.730 --> 0:06:59.130 had this fundamental belief that once Americans find out how 0:06:59.170 --> 0:07:01.810 bad this man is, they won't vote for him. But 0:07:01.890 --> 0:07:03.450 that was misguided. 0:07:03.850 --> 0:07:10.010 So did they actually buy his bullshit about being a 0:07:10.010 --> 0:07:13.410 great businessman despite the fact that he's been declared bankrupt 0:07:13.930 --> 0:07:15.490 many times his businesses have. 0:07:16.290 --> 0:07:20.970 He's essentially a fraud. But did Americans believe that he 0:07:21.290 --> 0:07:25.010 was the master on the Apprentice and that he was 0:07:25.130 --> 0:07:30.010 going to restore America to financial greatness again and put 0:07:30.010 --> 0:07:31.250 more money in their wallets. 0:07:31.770 --> 0:07:36.490 I think that voting is an emotional act, and I'm 0:07:36.570 --> 0:07:38.930 feeling that a lot more in the wake of the 0:07:39.010 --> 0:07:42.930 selection result. I think as journalists we want to search 0:07:43.050 --> 0:07:46.570 for reasons and we want to get inside voters' heads. 0:07:47.330 --> 0:07:49.810 But it turns out that in the privacy of the 0:07:49.890 --> 0:07:53.970 ballot box. People must make decisions based on emotion, because 0:07:54.010 --> 0:07:56.370 you're right that the facts don't point to him being 0:07:56.370 --> 0:07:58.650 a brilliant custodian of the economy. I mean, the stock 0:07:58.730 --> 0:08:00.610 market rode high for the first few years he was 0:08:00.650 --> 0:08:04.210 in office, and then it crashed when COVID came along, 0:08:04.770 --> 0:08:07.290 and then Joe Biden had to spend his four years 0:08:07.290 --> 0:08:10.330 in office getting it back on track. People were angry 0:08:10.330 --> 0:08:14.490 at Joe Biden, they were angry at the post COVID 0:08:14.850 --> 0:08:19.250 economic landscape, and they lashed out. That to me feels right. 0:08:19.330 --> 0:08:22.250 Don't you think It feels like people lashed out rather 0:08:22.290 --> 0:08:26.450 than sat down and read all the New York Times investigations. 0:08:26.890 --> 0:08:30.010 I've been trying to understand whether people voted for something 0:08:30.250 --> 0:08:36.330 or against something else, whether something about Carmela and the 0:08:36.410 --> 0:08:41.570 Democrats and what they were offering people just went absolutely 0:08:41.690 --> 0:08:45.570 not And if so, what was that or was it 0:08:45.730 --> 0:08:49.210 just that Donald Trump was more appealing? And why do 0:08:49.250 --> 0:08:51.050 you think it was a vote against or a vote for. 0:08:51.690 --> 0:08:53.570 I think it was a bit of both. And I 0:08:53.610 --> 0:08:57.970 think remember when Harris took the nomination, I can't really 0:08:58.010 --> 0:09:01.650 say won the nomination, but when Harris was declared the 0:09:01.690 --> 0:09:05.970 presumpt of Democratic nominee, and we talked at them about 0:09:05.970 --> 0:09:09.730 the fact that as a woman, as a woman of color, 0:09:09.770 --> 0:09:12.930 a woman of color from San Francisco, which is the 0:09:12.970 --> 0:09:17.570 most derided city in America in terms of this idea 0:09:17.650 --> 0:09:20.290 that it's a liberal bubble and that it's out of touch. 0:09:20.890 --> 0:09:26.850 She's this liberal San Francisco black woman who has a 0:09:26.930 --> 0:09:31.690 history of locking up black men. That's the way that 0:09:31.730 --> 0:09:34.450 the track record was presented. You have to wonder how 0:09:34.530 --> 0:09:37.130 anyone thought that was ever going to work. In retrospect, 0:09:37.130 --> 0:09:39.650 I look back on it, and I think there was 0:09:39.730 --> 0:09:42.890 a liberal bubble that developed that the party after it 0:09:42.890 --> 0:09:45.050 took them so long to get rid of Joe Biden. 0:09:45.130 --> 0:09:48.970 They were so exhausted they just said Kamala Harris has 0:09:49.010 --> 0:09:51.690 to be the nominee. But they must have been deluded 0:09:51.730 --> 0:09:53.890 to think this would ever work. Do I sound tired 0:09:53.970 --> 0:09:55.090 and cynical? 0:09:55.770 --> 0:09:58.770 Why would any woman vote for Donald Trump? Because many, many, 0:09:58.810 --> 0:09:59.690 many of them did. 0:09:59.930 --> 0:10:02.130 Do you remember that photo that I sent you a 0:10:02.170 --> 0:10:04.770 couple of days ago. It was at one of the 0:10:04.810 --> 0:10:09.810 final Trump rallies, and it was two women, probably forties 0:10:09.850 --> 0:10:12.810 fifties in the front row at the Trump rally. They 0:10:12.810 --> 0:10:15.330 looked like they were at a Taylor's Swift concert, the 0:10:15.490 --> 0:10:19.570 joy and the excitement in their faces and their hands 0:10:19.610 --> 0:10:22.650 outstretched to him. One of them wearing a T shirt 0:10:22.690 --> 0:10:25.810 that says make America Great Again, the other one wearing 0:10:25.850 --> 0:10:28.210 a T shirt that says in the make America Great 0:10:28.210 --> 0:10:34.130 Again font mean tweets. Now, what's that about? Why does 0:10:34.170 --> 0:10:37.970 a woman love the fact that Donald Trump sends mean tweets? 0:10:38.090 --> 0:10:40.210 I don't know what the answer is. What do you 0:10:40.250 --> 0:10:41.330 think the answer is. 0:10:41.770 --> 0:10:45.290 What's always worried me and disturbed me is that what 0:10:45.370 --> 0:10:48.250 we thought was a flaw and that people were just 0:10:48.290 --> 0:10:50.850 holding their nose and going, oh, he's cruel and he's 0:10:51.810 --> 0:10:55.130 you know, unkind and horrible to people, particularly women, and 0:10:55.250 --> 0:10:58.610 is so disparaging. But people are holding their nose and 0:10:58.730 --> 0:11:02.530 just voting for other reasons. I've now come to understand 0:11:02.650 --> 0:11:05.130 since yesterday that it's not a flaw, it's a feature. 0:11:05.770 --> 0:11:09.570 People are really attracted to that, And I wonder if 0:11:09.610 --> 0:11:14.250 he's just the mouthpiece for people's anger with the world, 0:11:15.170 --> 0:11:18.810 with the economy, with the state of their lives, with 0:11:18.930 --> 0:11:24.050 feeling powerless, and he embodies that anger. 0:11:24.410 --> 0:11:26.410 It's this idea of wanting to blow it all up, 0:11:27.450 --> 0:11:31.050 and feeling a strength and a security with aligning yourself 0:11:31.050 --> 0:11:31.690 of the bully. 0:11:31.810 --> 0:11:34.130 We'll protect you, we'll protect women. 0:11:35.010 --> 0:11:38.210 Is that it? That's what Megan Kelly said. That's what 0:11:38.250 --> 0:11:40.730 she said to him at their final rally together. She 0:11:40.810 --> 0:11:42.930 took his hands and she had tears in her eyes, 0:11:42.970 --> 0:11:45.610 and she said, thank you for protecting us. 0:11:46.130 --> 0:11:49.650 Yeah, the whole tradwife movement, that is this appeal of 0:11:50.490 --> 0:11:55.130 it's hard having choices, it's hard earning money and having 0:11:55.250 --> 0:11:59.450 jobs and having equality. Life was easier when we just 0:11:59.490 --> 0:12:02.370 had big, strong men to protect us. Is that what 0:12:02.450 --> 0:12:02.810 it is? 0:12:03.210 --> 0:12:06.170 I'm actually so glad that you raised that. A friend 0:12:06.210 --> 0:12:08.410 of mine, who was an editor at The New York Times, 0:12:08.450 --> 0:12:12.850 leaving work yesterday after this marathon over day, said to 0:12:12.890 --> 0:12:15.890 me the exact same thing. She said, This is why 0:12:16.090 --> 0:12:21.010 we're seeing this fascination with tradwives, because we've decided, we 0:12:21.290 --> 0:12:25.090 collectively women had decided it's all too much, it's too hard. 0:12:25.690 --> 0:12:29.770 And that's why we're fascinated with the childwives, because they 0:12:29.770 --> 0:12:33.810 seem to live an easier life than us. And that's 0:12:33.810 --> 0:12:36.850 why we're okay with jd Vance talking about the childless 0:12:36.850 --> 0:12:37.490 cat ladies. 0:12:38.050 --> 0:12:40.930 I wanted to ask you about young people because they 0:12:40.930 --> 0:12:45.290 were galvanized by Obama as a change candidate. I don't 0:12:45.290 --> 0:12:47.890 know if they were galvanized by Joe Biden, but they 0:12:47.890 --> 0:12:52.250 clearly weren't galvanized by Kamala Harris. Greta Tunberg, the young 0:12:52.250 --> 0:12:55.810 climate activist who lives in Sweden, posted to Instagram the 0:12:55.890 --> 0:13:00.810 day before the election sort of a manifesto about how 0:13:01.130 --> 0:13:04.330 if you don't like either of the candidates because they're 0:13:04.370 --> 0:13:07.250 not perfect, you don't have to vote at all. You 0:13:07.290 --> 0:13:10.050 can actually just boycott the election. I know that a 0:13:10.090 --> 0:13:14.130 lot of young people are disillusioned and upset about the 0:13:14.530 --> 0:13:17.730 war in the Middle East and don't like that the 0:13:17.810 --> 0:13:22.490 Biden administration has been a supporter of Israel, and there've 0:13:22.530 --> 0:13:26.730 been a lot of student protests about Kamala Harris being 0:13:27.130 --> 0:13:31.050 another symptom of that and another perpetrator of that support. 0:13:31.810 --> 0:13:33.330 Do you think that had an impact? 0:13:33.650 --> 0:13:36.290 So I have another anecdote. I'm sorry to keep bringing 0:13:36.330 --> 0:13:39.250 the anecdotes, but you can imagine that my American text 0:13:39.250 --> 0:13:41.410 message chains have blown up in the last twenty four 0:13:41.410 --> 0:13:45.010 hours and I'm hearing a lot of interesting perspectives from them. 0:13:45.050 --> 0:13:47.330 This is from a friend of mine, who is a 0:13:47.370 --> 0:13:50.730 professor at an Ivy League university, so one of the 0:13:50.770 --> 0:13:54.570 top universities in the US, and she teaches first year students, 0:13:55.050 --> 0:13:58.410 and she wrote to me and said, my students are 0:13:58.450 --> 0:14:02.330 completely unfazed. Many of them didn't vote. This is just 0:14:02.370 --> 0:14:05.410 what they think politics is. And when politics is gross 0:14:05.530 --> 0:14:08.130 and both sides are equally bad to them, they just 0:14:08.210 --> 0:14:10.490 tune out. They couldn't wait for it to be over 0:14:10.610 --> 0:14:13.570 so they wouldn't have to hear about it anymore. Oh wow, 0:14:13.810 --> 0:14:14.570 I was shocked. 0:14:14.650 --> 0:14:18.850 I'm shocked too, because it's not like Trump's position. You know, 0:14:18.930 --> 0:14:21.610 he's a far more fervent supporter of your Israel than 0:14:21.650 --> 0:14:27.090 the Democrats, and so they decided it sounds to just go, well, 0:14:27.130 --> 0:14:29.250 I don't like anybody, so I'm not going to vote 0:14:29.250 --> 0:14:34.490 at all. What struck me about Greta Tunberg's message was 0:14:35.010 --> 0:14:38.130 this idea of moral purity and that being a symptom 0:14:38.130 --> 0:14:41.450 of the left, and that if there's no perfect candidate, 0:14:41.970 --> 0:14:44.370 we don't want to play, we will boycott, we will 0:14:44.370 --> 0:14:48.290 sit this one out. Because now that Donald Trump's president, 0:14:48.810 --> 0:14:50.850 what do you think he's going to do to the environment. 0:14:51.210 --> 0:14:53.690 Not on his list of things he gives a shit 0:14:53.690 --> 0:14:55.690 about because he can't make money out of it. What 0:14:55.770 --> 0:14:59.290 he can make money out of is doing terrible things 0:14:59.490 --> 0:15:02.450 to the environment and allowing other people to do terrible 0:15:02.450 --> 0:15:04.730 things to the environment. You know, I've been reading some 0:15:04.810 --> 0:15:08.890 commentary that says this idea of moral purity on the 0:15:08.970 --> 0:15:14.570 left with canceling people for using the wrong pronouns or 0:15:15.010 --> 0:15:20.010 emphasizing things around identity politics, and how these more niche 0:15:20.010 --> 0:15:23.930 issues for them, these specific minority groups are the most 0:15:23.930 --> 0:15:27.490 important thing, and that's driven people to the right. Do 0:15:27.490 --> 0:15:29.570 you think there's truth in that or are we all 0:15:29.610 --> 0:15:32.250 just like casting around for explanations. 0:15:32.650 --> 0:15:35.250 Yeah. I have two components from my answer to this, 0:15:35.330 --> 0:15:37.330 and I want to remember to hit them both. The 0:15:37.410 --> 0:15:40.050 first thing I'd say is, that's so fascinating the idea 0:15:40.090 --> 0:15:43.290 of the left being caught up in these relatively niche 0:15:43.330 --> 0:15:47.290 issues and us in the mainstream not recognizing that, because 0:15:47.650 --> 0:15:50.850 there's an argument equally that on the right. Why a 0:15:50.850 --> 0:15:54.010 lot of people were drawn to Trump were for cultural 0:15:54.130 --> 0:15:57.810 reasons that the Democrats weren't even really talking about. For instance, 0:15:57.970 --> 0:16:01.050 he ran an ad in Swing States Trump did which 0:16:01.210 --> 0:16:05.810 was about trans athletes in schools. Now, this is not 0:16:06.010 --> 0:16:08.850 an issue that really the Biden administration took a particularly 0:16:08.890 --> 0:16:10.010 strong stance. 0:16:09.690 --> 0:16:12.330 On trans athletes in schools. 0:16:12.170 --> 0:16:18.690 Whether or not trans girls can play on girls' sports teams, 0:16:19.090 --> 0:16:21.930 and he was saying that the Biden administration was going 0:16:21.970 --> 0:16:24.450 to make it an uneven playing field because they were 0:16:24.450 --> 0:16:32.450 going to let trans girl athletes compete alongside biological girls. Now, 0:16:32.490 --> 0:16:35.610 this is not something I ever heard Kamila Harris even 0:16:35.770 --> 0:16:39.130 talk about on the campaign trail. But I think that 0:16:39.210 --> 0:16:41.610 you're onto something with this idea that on both the 0:16:41.690 --> 0:16:44.810 left and the right, and we're talking here about the 0:16:44.850 --> 0:16:49.730 more extreme factions of both sides, they're talking about issues 0:16:49.770 --> 0:16:52.970 that we're not even awarer really on the mainstream radar, 0:16:53.490 --> 0:16:56.370 and that those issues are serving to radicalize them. Now, 0:16:56.410 --> 0:17:01.450 on the right, they're radicalizing them into magaworld. On the left, 0:17:01.530 --> 0:17:04.450 they're radicalizing them into not voting. And by the way, 0:17:04.930 --> 0:17:07.970 related to this is a really interesting idea that I 0:17:08.010 --> 0:17:12.290 heard advanced overnight, which is that if Trump was running 0:17:12.330 --> 0:17:15.050 for president in any other country in the world, we 0:17:15.130 --> 0:17:19.330 would call him far right and fascistic routinely. If he 0:17:19.370 --> 0:17:21.490 was running for president in Hungary, we would call him that. 0:17:21.890 --> 0:17:24.170 But because he's running for president in the US, we 0:17:24.290 --> 0:17:27.970 all can't quite believe that's what he is, so I 0:17:28.130 --> 0:17:30.250 never hear the terms of our right applied to him. 0:17:30.290 --> 0:17:33.610 But it's absolutely accurate anyway. That's just an aside on language. 0:17:33.610 --> 0:17:36.210 But I think it's a really interesting point to make 0:17:36.250 --> 0:17:38.730 that there's these kind of niche issues on both sides. 0:17:39.090 --> 0:17:42.210 The second point that I wanted to make about young 0:17:42.290 --> 0:17:46.690 people and the purity politics is the most convincing rebuttal 0:17:47.250 --> 0:17:51.330 I her to that came from Alexander Orcasio Cortez, who, 0:17:51.570 --> 0:17:53.890 as you know, I think is the most gifted communicator 0:17:53.930 --> 0:17:57.370 in American politics, and she said in an Instagram live, 0:17:58.210 --> 0:18:01.690 you never get anywhere by seeding your power. 0:18:01.850 --> 0:18:02.610 What does that mean? 0:18:02.930 --> 0:18:05.370 Meaning if you see the right to vote, you were 0:18:05.410 --> 0:18:09.450 giving up power in the name of advancing your own aims. 0:18:09.530 --> 0:18:11.650 You're not going to get anywhere if you give up power, 0:18:11.850 --> 0:18:14.730 and that pragmatism seemed to be wholly missing. 0:18:14.970 --> 0:18:17.570 You can't advance your own aims by not being on 0:18:17.610 --> 0:18:20.890 the field, you know, by saying I'm actually sitting this 0:18:20.930 --> 0:18:24.530 one out because neither of the teams are perfect enough. 0:18:25.010 --> 0:18:27.730 It makes no sense. The other factor I want to 0:18:27.730 --> 0:18:30.810 bring up with young people, which my friend's text message 0:18:30.850 --> 0:18:33.650 to me made me think about is COVID and the 0:18:33.690 --> 0:18:37.130 effects of COVID on this particular group of young people, 0:18:37.210 --> 0:18:39.650 because think about it, these students that my friend is 0:18:39.690 --> 0:18:44.330 talking about started high school at the beginning of the 0:18:44.330 --> 0:18:47.610 pandemic or near to it, and I can't imagine how 0:18:47.650 --> 0:18:49.810 that shaped how they think about other people in the 0:18:49.850 --> 0:18:52.610 world to have gone through. Remember, the COVID experience in 0:18:52.650 --> 0:18:54.690 the US was its own particular thing. It was hard 0:18:54.730 --> 0:18:58.450 on everyone everywhere, but in the US it really radicalized 0:18:58.490 --> 0:19:00.570 people and it dur have people mad a lot of 0:19:00.570 --> 0:19:04.930 the time. So I'm wondering whether the pandemic's long shadow 0:19:05.210 --> 0:19:07.890 has shaped their worldview in a way that we can't 0:19:07.890 --> 0:19:09.650 even fully assess. What do you think of that? 0:19:09.930 --> 0:19:13.250 Yeah, I think that the days of multiple terms for 0:19:13.290 --> 0:19:17.250 any government are probably gone. Also, just because a four 0:19:17.330 --> 0:19:20.050 year term or even a three year term feels like 0:19:20.090 --> 0:19:22.970 a really long time when we're living our lives in 0:19:22.970 --> 0:19:27.130 increments of text messages and you know, flicking through reels 0:19:27.130 --> 0:19:30.570 and tiktoks. So I think that this idea of we're 0:19:30.570 --> 0:19:32.690 going to be in it for the long haul just 0:19:32.730 --> 0:19:36.850 doesn't apply in politics. And I think this idea of change, change, change, 0:19:37.650 --> 0:19:40.370 the idea that a changing It's going to be different, 0:19:40.410 --> 0:19:42.050 It's going to be different, It's going to be different. 0:19:42.490 --> 0:19:45.290 What's interesting about this is that it was so upside 0:19:45.290 --> 0:19:49.130 down because in some ways the change is going backwards 0:19:49.130 --> 0:19:53.170 because it's going back to Trump, and Carmela was an 0:19:53.250 --> 0:19:56.930 incumbent but was also a change because it was moving 0:19:56.970 --> 0:20:01.370 away from Joe Biden. So it was a very confusing feeling. 0:20:01.370 --> 0:20:03.850 And I think whoever was going to come across as 0:20:03.850 --> 0:20:07.250 the biggest change candidate was probably going to win. And 0:20:07.290 --> 0:20:09.290 I think that's true in any election, which is why 0:20:09.290 --> 0:20:12.650 I think an incumbent can't campaign as a change candidate. 0:20:12.690 --> 0:20:16.250 She tried, and she felt like, one, do you think 0:20:16.330 --> 0:20:19.130 that it would have been different if Biden had stayed. 0:20:19.130 --> 0:20:21.010 Yes, because then I think it would have been two 0:20:21.090 --> 0:20:23.970 old white men competing, So you would have taken the 0:20:24.010 --> 0:20:29.730 whole racism, sexism, misogyny dynamic out of the race. Which 0:20:29.770 --> 0:20:31.170 is not to say that by one of one, but 0:20:31.210 --> 0:20:33.970 that's where my head's out on that question. The change 0:20:33.970 --> 0:20:38.010 candidate thing. One decision the campaign made is haunting me, 0:20:38.530 --> 0:20:41.250 and that was the decision to bring in the Cheneese, 0:20:41.330 --> 0:20:43.730 to bring in Lynn Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney, 0:20:44.170 --> 0:20:47.850 who was very prominent in the George W. Bush years. 0:20:47.970 --> 0:20:50.090 He worked for George W. Bush and was sort of 0:20:50.090 --> 0:20:53.170 the architect of the Iraq War. You're just making me 0:20:53.290 --> 0:20:58.010 realize now that bringing up on stage people who remind 0:20:58.050 --> 0:21:02.050 Americans of this real low point, like an objectively low 0:21:02.130 --> 0:21:04.890 point for the country, which was when it was mired 0:21:05.010 --> 0:21:06.890 in war in Iraq and it was post nine to 0:21:06.890 --> 0:21:11.530 eleven and the economy was stumbling. That just seems in 0:21:11.610 --> 0:21:13.850 retrospect like a really crazy idea. 0:21:14.490 --> 0:21:17.530 Well, they half understood because they Hillary was nowhere to 0:21:17.530 --> 0:21:17.930 be seen. 0:21:18.210 --> 0:21:19.090 That's true. 0:21:19.130 --> 0:21:22.650 She was, you know, ive act and kept way out 0:21:22.730 --> 0:21:25.850 of sight. The celebrities weren't. I know a lot of 0:21:25.890 --> 0:21:29.290 people who were really fearful every time Kamala got a 0:21:29.330 --> 0:21:32.770 new celebrity endorsement or wheeled out Oprah or you know, 0:21:33.090 --> 0:21:36.290 had Beyonce at a rally, or I think even Katy 0:21:36.370 --> 0:21:38.770 Perry at the end, because that didn't work for Hillary. 0:21:38.970 --> 0:21:43.130 That sense of the elites celebrities, it just doesn't work 0:21:43.170 --> 0:21:46.050 when you've got Donald Trump driving a garbage truck and 0:21:46.890 --> 0:21:52.810 pretending to work in McDonald's and cosplaying being working class again, 0:21:52.850 --> 0:21:55.730 it just felt like upside down world. Where he's got 0:21:55.730 --> 0:21:58.330 a gold toilet and his actual friends are billionaires who 0:21:58.410 --> 0:21:59.570 he does favors for. 0:21:59.890 --> 0:22:03.970 Katy Perry really gave me twenty sixteen. He Begb's when 0:22:04.010 --> 0:22:08.010 she appeared on stage that last night in Philadelphia, the 0:22:08.050 --> 0:22:10.810 same place where Hillary had her rally the last night 0:22:10.850 --> 0:22:14.010 before the election. With Katy Perry, it's like Katy Perry 0:22:14.010 --> 0:22:17.330 herself feels like a portal to twenty thirteen. 0:22:17.930 --> 0:22:20.410 Yeah, I was listening the other day that Katy Perry 0:22:20.490 --> 0:22:23.530 is like. It was her fortieth birthday a couple of 0:22:23.530 --> 0:22:26.930 weeks ago when the Washington Post declared that it wouldn't 0:22:26.970 --> 0:22:30.090 be endorsing a candidate, and everybody came for Jeff Bezos, 0:22:30.130 --> 0:22:32.850 and she was with Jeff Bezos at her fortieth birthday 0:22:33.570 --> 0:22:36.410 on a train on the Rony Express with a whole 0:22:36.410 --> 0:22:40.050 lot of celebrities. So yeah, I know that she offered 0:22:40.130 --> 0:22:43.850 early in the campaign her song, her terrible song, Woman's World, 0:22:44.090 --> 0:22:49.650 which felt so retrograde like fight Song back in twenty sixteen, 0:22:50.410 --> 0:22:53.650 and the Harris campaign said no and instead went with 0:22:54.050 --> 0:22:57.810 Freedom by Beyonce. But at the end of the day, 0:22:58.010 --> 0:23:01.890