Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and we have another Republican congress person
Speaker 1: who's lied about being Jewish. We have a fun but
Speaker 1: important show today, Democracy Dockets. Mark Elias talks to us
Speaker 1: about what we can do to protect our democracy. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to Wisconsin Democrats Chair Ben Wickler, who will
Speaker 1: explain why this upcoming state Supreme Court race is one
Speaker 1: of the most important races in the country. But first
Speaker 1: we have the host of the Enemy's List, the one,
Speaker 1: the only the Lincoln Projects, Rick Wilson. Welcome back, too,
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Rick Wilson, are you this morning? We're all
Speaker 1: a little bleary eyed though I've been up for five hours,
Speaker 1: so I want to talk to you about the alien
Speaker 1: invasion and the spy balloons. They're gonna be mad if
Speaker 1: they're aliens, and we've been shooting him down right, you know.
Speaker 1: As as as Stuart Stevens, who was a man of
Speaker 1: great wisdom, tweeted the other day he said, you know
Speaker 1: what this probably is is some billionaire from another galaxy
Speaker 1: who bought an expensive faceship to feel important. Now he's
Speaker 1: going to be off. I'm not such an aviation nerd
Speaker 1: that I had the live stream of the Salt Lake
Speaker 1: City Northern Sector fifteen and Montana tuned in last night. Well,
Speaker 1: that wasn't me. I wasn't listening to the fighter planes
Speaker 1: chase whatever the funk they were chasing in Alaska. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: the funny part of it is I came into my
Speaker 1: professional career before politics as like the last generation of
Speaker 1: young Cold Warriors, right, and no one wanted to admit it,
Speaker 1: I think for the last three or four years. But
Speaker 1: the Cold War is really really back. I mean it's yeah,
Speaker 1: but during the Cold War we didn't have two different enemies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did until the reproachment between the US and China
Speaker 1: during Nick's and we faced both the Red Chinese as
Speaker 1: they said, and the Soviets. Actually we've got more than
Speaker 1: two enemies now, We've got a whole passle of them.
Speaker 1: But the Oukams Razor answer to this is these are
Speaker 1: some kind of intelligence platform, likely as the first what
Speaker 1: was from the Chinese. I think we will have a
Speaker 1: lot of confusion as to what they are and what
Speaker 1: they look like until we start, you know, getting Hiras
Speaker 1: photographs and whacking a few more home out of the sky.
Speaker 1: This is a cold war moment where it's better that
Speaker 1: we relieve the tensions between our nations in low intensity
Speaker 1: things like this, then in high intensity things like in
Speaker 1: China's case, you know, a direct shooting war over Taiwan.
Speaker 1: I'm no military expert, but that seems bad. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: would be extremely sporty and not great. It would not
Speaker 1: go well for anybody. It's one of those things where, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Chinese might win, they might take Taiwan, but several
Speaker 1: million people have probably dying in the process. Not a
Speaker 1: fun outcome. But you know, look, my my, that's the
Speaker 1: Okams razor explanation. The other explanation is, you know they're
Speaker 1: here and they're piste off. Wait that's aliens or the
Speaker 1: Chinese the aliens. I mean, that's the other explanation. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping they're here. They're piste off. They're all gonna
Speaker 1: look like Donald Trump, and they're gonna come from a
Speaker 1: planet with nothing but lowering casinos and golf courses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited. Why did you treat that ambassador with such
Speaker 1: school I'm excited because this has gotten even stupider. I
Speaker 1: am your huckleberry for getting stupids right, for getting stupider.
Speaker 1: So we have three balloons, all three shot down to
Speaker 1: shutdown very quickly, one shutdown after a couple of days.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about the Republican response
Speaker 1: to the balloon shooting down. Summarize it for you. Yes,
Speaker 1: oh my god, why isn't Joe Biden shooting down in
Speaker 1: the balloon? Shot down the balloon? How explaatory and dangerous? Right?
Speaker 1: That's it. Basically, I was talking to a Democratic official
Speaker 1: the other day. They were a little you know, it's
Speaker 1: like we did the right thing, and this was the
Speaker 1: right thing, and defend Democratic defense official, we did the
Speaker 1: right thing, this was done by the book the D
Speaker 1: O D head point. And we can't make these happy.
Speaker 1: Why which of them can I go talk to still
Speaker 1: to make sense with them? I said, look, behind closed doors,
Speaker 1: there are probably a half a dozen of them in
Speaker 1: the Senate that get it and are reasonable people and
Speaker 1: and aren't just gonna be assholes for the purpose of
Speaker 1: being assholes. The rest of them are locked in this
Speaker 1: performative horseship kabuki cycle where absolutely everything is the worst,
Speaker 1: the end, the doom, the apocalypse, and it's all Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's fault. And when then Joe Biden does the thing
Speaker 1: that either a they said they wanted be they claimed
Speaker 1: Trump would have done, or see that generically speaking, any
Speaker 1: responsible president would do. And when it turns out he's
Speaker 1: had these longer considered strategic discussions on how to handle
Speaker 1: these problems because he's not stupid. He doesn't deal with
Speaker 1: everything from a place of emotion. They get incredibly upset
Speaker 1: because the cognitive dissonance there were required to maintain in
Speaker 1: their lives at all times requires them to treat you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden as the as was said the other day,
Speaker 1: he's either a senile daughtering old man or he's an
Speaker 1: international criminal, communist mastermind, right, all right, And there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of room in between the two. I want
Speaker 1: to quote Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio. This is today
Speaker 1: to Jake Tapper, the Biden administration does seem somewhat trigger happy,
Speaker 1: although this is certainly preferable to the permissive environment that
Speaker 1: they showed when the Chinese by balloon was coming over
Speaker 1: some of our most sensitive sites. So you damned if
Speaker 1: you do, damned if you don't. Of course you are
Speaker 1: that's the game they play. Remember, it's important for people
Speaker 1: to realize the game we're actually in is not the
Speaker 1: old normative politics of the past. The game we're actually
Speaker 1: in is how can every single day be filled up
Speaker 1: with a message cycle on the Republican machine from Fox
Speaker 1: all the way down to the bottom feeder weirdo crazies
Speaker 1: on Twitter and social media? How can it all be
Speaker 1: filled up every day with a message of crisis, panic, chaos, danger, division.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is leaving us open to the dangers of
Speaker 1: trans tiva sharia law. That's TM bitches. I invented trans tiva.
Speaker 1: And this leads me to my next question for you,
Speaker 1: which is this poll that Abby Phillips put up this morning.
Speaker 1: It's a Washington Post pole. This is the Weaponization Committee,
Speaker 1: which was Tucker Carlson's idea, a new church committee where
Speaker 1: Republicans could strike back against uh, you know, and really
Speaker 1: Benghazi Biden. And here is the poll, okay, from the
Speaker 1: first week of or actually before it even started. What
Speaker 1: do Americans think about the House Committee on Weaponization of Government,
Speaker 1: which is about Trump space. I think it's a legitimate investigation.
Speaker 1: Fifty six percent attempt to score political points the MAGA base,
Speaker 1: which is the driver of everything inside the Republican Party. Okay,
Speaker 1: there are no moderates who are going to stand up
Speaker 1: and p bold. There are no more list Cheneys or
Speaker 1: Adam Kinzinger's. They're gone. They're all dead. Politically speaking, they're over.
Speaker 1: It's done. The American people get to see Jim Jordan
Speaker 1: in his weird, sweaty no jacket mentally deficient. I mean,
Speaker 1: the guy looks like somebody who was raised on mold,
Speaker 1: lead paint and plastic bottle of vodka, you know, from
Speaker 1: the womb. He's stupid. They see him being stupid. They
Speaker 1: see Comber I mean and by the way, just as
Speaker 1: quick aside, Okay, was there some fucking meeting inside the
Speaker 1: caucus were like, you know, we need somebody who's dumber
Speaker 1: than Jim Jordan's but also really lacks any kind of charisma, humor,
Speaker 1: warmth or engagement. But but he has to be really stupid,
Speaker 1: he has to be a stupid person. So who did
Speaker 1: they pick? Comber? Yeah? Comber is doing the media rounds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he makes Jim Jordan's look like he's a Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: winner and string he's so terrible on television here's the
Speaker 1: reality of all of it. We live in our bubble
Speaker 1: of Washington, New York media, the politics bubble tallahassee. Yeah
Speaker 1: and then yeah, we'll believe me. Every fucking report in
Speaker 1: America is about to start getting an apartment here. Every
Speaker 1: political consultant on the Republican side from Washington. You cannot
Speaker 1: now go out to a restaurant in this town without
Speaker 1: seeing some Republican from Washington who I've known for twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty years, and they act really uncomfortable because you
Speaker 1: know what I do every time I go up like
Speaker 1: a Labrador retriever, like, hey man, it's so good to
Speaker 1: see you up because there this town is full of
Speaker 1: like snitches. Now right to the same people are like
Speaker 1: I had one guy literally literally like I go up
Speaker 1: to this table at this restaurant in the night, I'm like, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: how are you because I know there's in the santis
Speaker 1: people in the same restaurant. It's like, she looks like
Speaker 1: I've killed this fucking dog. So well, it's good you're
Speaker 1: having a good time. But put more about the apocalypse.
Speaker 1: What is nice to know that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: Florida funckery, But I want to ask you, what we're
Speaker 1: seeing now is a Republican Party that's extremely mad and
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell. We're seeing a lot of like Rick Scott v.
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell. And even in my mind, I think Rick
Speaker 1: Scott gets crushed by Mitch McConnell. I don't think you
Speaker 1: come from Mitch McConnell unless you're sure you have a
Speaker 1: kill shot. Excuse my obviously metaphorical metaphor. There is a
Speaker 1: thing about politicians from Florida. And Rick Scott and Rhonda
Speaker 1: Santis were both inheritors of this mighty political machine. Okay,
Speaker 1: and Rick Scott had all of his own money, But
Speaker 1: this mighty political machine that elects these guys over and
Speaker 1: over again, it makes it. All of this old money
Speaker 1: that he got from me from stealing for medicare is
Speaker 1: which he now wants to sunset, which which is like
Speaker 1: a prank movie starring Voldemort as a heist. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what going to do. Are going to see all
Speaker 1: the old people's money, eat marcute food, Grandma. But that
Speaker 1: system that elected both of these guys made their lives
Speaker 1: feel and Marco also, they made their lives feel easy.
Speaker 1: It made their political lives feel easy, and they conflate
Speaker 1: easy electoral wins with being good at internal politics. Rick
Speaker 1: Scott as the personality of a komodo dragon. Vaguely interesting
Speaker 1: to watch on a nature documentary, But you don't want
Speaker 1: to be near that bacteria infected giant killing machine. He's
Speaker 1: not a great guy to be around. He's not a
Speaker 1: warm or engaging person. He doesn't fit in with the club.
Speaker 1: He's not one of the guys. Now he says, that's okay.
Speaker 1: He likes that. He's sort of about it. I'm an outsider. No,
Speaker 1: he would desperately like to go to the prom. He
Speaker 1: would desperately like to be one of the cool kids.
Speaker 1: He would desperately like to sit at the right lunch table.
Speaker 1: Right Meanwhile, the cool kids here are Mitch McConnell. So
Speaker 1: this is not But yes, I know it's it's it's
Speaker 1: the club you don't want to be in, right, right, right,
Speaker 1: But Mitch McConnell. And I wrote this in my second book.
Speaker 1: Washington is littered with the bodies of people in the
Speaker 1: Republican Party who thought they were gonna fuck Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 1: And you don't have to like him, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to to think he's a good person, to recognize
Speaker 1: he has game, to recognize that as a Senate Minority leader,
Speaker 1: he arguably has more power than Chuck Schumer. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to completely go along with that, but yes,
Speaker 1: the difference will someday break the spell of inertia with
Speaker 1: that guy. We're going to agree to disagree here, but
Speaker 1: I do think that we are seeing Republicans. I mean,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell got Donald Trump three Supreme Court seats, two
Speaker 1: of which he didn't have any claim to correct. I listen, listen,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell is extraordinarily good at politics. Okay, absolutely extraordinarily
Speaker 1: good at it. Again, you don't have to like you.
Speaker 1: And this is this is like the curse of being
Speaker 1: an ex Republican. If I praise the game the guy plays,
Speaker 1: I will get emails people. Now he's good at what
Speaker 1: he does. Miss McConnell is a dark force in our
Speaker 1: politics at this point because he let Donald Trump off
Speaker 1: the hook over and over again, and for the one
Speaker 1: fucking time he could have used the superpowers for good,
Speaker 1: not for evil, he chose not to. Oh, no question.
Speaker 1: And I also think ultimately he thought Donald Trump that
Speaker 1: the leopard wouldn't eat his face, and the leopard is
Speaker 1: in fact coming for his face. Oh listen, the leopard
Speaker 1: now has eight or nine seats, okay, and those eight
Speaker 1: or nine seats in which he now has complete control
Speaker 1: that the maga's now have complete control over. It's a
Speaker 1: growing number, not a shrinking number. Listen. After when the
Speaker 1: monster of the Tea Party, which I was a part
Speaker 1: of building, sorry, got loose and put up people like
Speaker 1: Richard Murdoch, a lot of adults in the room that
Speaker 1: included guys like me in the consulting world, and guys
Speaker 1: like the Coke team, and a whole bunch of other people,
Speaker 1: and most importantly Mitch McConnell, there was a vowel we
Speaker 1: are never having these goddamn crazies to over the party again.
Speaker 1: We are never letting them put their fucking crazy candidates
Speaker 1: on the ballot again, because we could have won a
Speaker 1: sweeping majority in but the crazies were in charge. So
Speaker 1: if you were, if you were the then equivalent of
Speaker 1: a maga, if you were a Tea Party lunatic, somebody
Speaker 1: was going to come to your house and hold a
Speaker 1: pillow over your face politically speaking, until you stopped twitching.
Speaker 1: It happened, a lot happened all over the country. That
Speaker 1: was a McConnell operation. There was a desire to get
Speaker 1: rid of the factory. Well this year McConnell did not
Speaker 1: get his choices for you, and so the the the
Speaker 1: NRSC and the combined campaigns spent half a billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Now part of that was Rick Scott fucked it up
Speaker 1: and spent a hundred seventy five of the building out
Speaker 1: his own political lists and operations on their budget. Scott,
Speaker 1: who could have seen it coming over institution, used it
Speaker 1: for his own benefit, corrupted it and spent all the money.
Speaker 1: Who could have seen it? I just don't it's so unprecedented.
Speaker 1: How did this happen? Yeah, unbelievable. But Scott and McConnell
Speaker 1: are now in open warfare. And when Mitch mcculloughy that,
Speaker 1: I said, well, I've fund it. Hard to believe he
Speaker 1: could even be reelected in his own state. It was
Speaker 1: a large snow vault paper in the country. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was Mitch McConnell equiped what I'm saying. I will give
Speaker 1: you two options. There's a luger on the table, there's
Speaker 1: one bullet in it. You make the right you make
Speaker 1: the right choice for your family. You know, that's Mitch McConnell. Like,
Speaker 1: that is a clear signal that Scott now, Rick Scott
Speaker 1: has half a billion dollars of his own money, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you want to talk about like
Speaker 1: where the fun did income in and quality happened in
Speaker 1: this country, the guy has not had any kind of
Speaker 1: business at all since he was thrown out of h
Speaker 1: c A in the early two thousand. Okay, when he
Speaker 1: ran for governor of Florida, he was worth about a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five million dollars and Conservatives is now
Speaker 1: and he's very clever about how they put it in
Speaker 1: trust for his kids and his wife all the ship.
Speaker 1: I talked to someone recently said they believe Rick Scott
Speaker 1: is worth five hundred and seventy five million dollars. So
Speaker 1: he can die. He can dump another hundred mill into
Speaker 1: his campaign and not break a sweat. Yeah, or someone
Speaker 1: else's which is probably more his choice. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I think is a really important data point
Speaker 1: which I haven't seen so much reporting on, is that
Speaker 1: while Kevin McCarthy elevated the people who did not make him.
Speaker 1: Speaker Mitch McConnell actually punished the people who came at him.
Speaker 1: And Josh Holly has been downgraded and kicked off a committee,
Speaker 1: while Matt Gates has been elevated, And I want you
Speaker 1: to talk about that for a minute. Look, Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: has made a deal. And the deal is with the
Speaker 1: proverbial devil. What is the fundamental of all Mustapha lan deals.
Speaker 1: The devil always fucks you in the end. That's the
Speaker 1: typical arch type of the whole low key trickster devil character.
Speaker 1: They always break their word, they always break the deal.
Speaker 1: Kevin every day is like, Nope, that leopard is not
Speaker 1: going to eat my face as you as your analogy
Speaker 1: just wasn a minute ago. They are so excited to
Speaker 1: eat his face. They're gonna eat his face over the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling, the funny party season. He's wedged. He's got
Speaker 1: these these handful of moderates that we're pressuring at Lincoln
Speaker 1: to like say that you won't crash the economy, and
Speaker 1: they're like hammona halmona hammana. But the Gates people, part
Speaker 1: of the deal behind closed doors was we will never
Speaker 1: vote for a debt ceiling increase without massive Social Security
Speaker 1: and benefits cuts. So McCarthy he really wants to be
Speaker 1: speaker for longer than the next fourteen months. He really does,
Speaker 1: but it's very difficult to see how he gets there
Speaker 1: because he has made a deal with the crazies. It
Speaker 1: also says something about the House caucus that for the
Speaker 1: most part the whole show, Remember he was Donald Trump's candidate,
Speaker 1: and everybody that was in his caucus for Donald Trump's people,
Speaker 1: and all those two hundred plus people that were with
Speaker 1: him from the beginning were always Donald Trump's people because
Speaker 1: they wanted Donald Trump to be happy. Because Donald Trump
Speaker 1: runs the republic Party base to this minute, to this
Speaker 1: very second. And man, I have some new polling on
Speaker 1: that scar which it would scare the ship out of
Speaker 1: Republicans if they read it. Yeah, tell us about the
Speaker 1: new polling. One more thing, McConnell understands how to punish
Speaker 1: and reward. Okay, his problem is McConnell is not good
Speaker 1: at the outside game of social media politics and of
Speaker 1: the entertainment industrial complex of the Republican Party. That's a
Speaker 1: continuing story. Both of them made those choices based on
Speaker 1: bad predicates. I saw some polling on Friday briefing. I
Speaker 1: wasn't on Friday, and Donald Trump has the suicide vest
Speaker 1: On and he's sitting in a car loaded with explosives
Speaker 1: and it's parked in the middle of a minefield. And
Speaker 1: if he decides that he's piste off and says I've
Speaker 1: been treated very badly, do not vote, we run to
Speaker 1: sanctimonious and he loses, he wouldn't even have to run
Speaker 1: as an independent. He wouldn't even have to put John Jr.
Speaker 1: On the ballot, which, by the way, is how they'll
Speaker 1: get out of the sore loser laws in most states. Wait,
Speaker 1: what if Trump loses in the primary. A lot of
Speaker 1: states don't let you run in a primary and then
Speaker 1: file it as an independent. Twenty two of them don't
Speaker 1: let you do that. The trick they're gonna do is
Speaker 1: they'll just put Don Jr. On the ballot in those
Speaker 1: states to draw off just enough Republican votes to kill it,
Speaker 1: to kill the party. He will not allow Rhonda Santis
Speaker 1: or any other Republican to become president of the United States.
Speaker 1: And he has then from the numbers I've just seen it.
Speaker 1: We'll be talking more about these soon. He has and
Speaker 1: even if it's even if I'm off by a factor
Speaker 1: of five, the number of Republicans who will either stay home,
Speaker 1: leave the party right Trump in vote for another third
Speaker 1: party candidate if Trump doesn't have the nomination, it's astounding.
Speaker 1: And this was a an enormous national survey, enormous, deep,
Speaker 1: academically rigorous. It's not some you know, fly by night
Speaker 1: brand new polling firm. It really illustrated to me why
Speaker 1: everybody who's like, what are you still talking about Trump?
Speaker 1: It's the Santisis party. No, no, no, bless your hearts,
Speaker 1: it is not. It is Donald Trump's party, and it
Speaker 1: is still Donald From's party at a level that people
Speaker 1: haven't even contemplated. The Santas is very fat and happy
Speaker 1: right now. Metaphorically speaking, he's never happy, but with this
Speaker 1: belief that that the billionaire class and that the elite
Speaker 1: conservative media National Review, well and also Fox News and
Speaker 1: Rupert Rupert's got a hard on for him right now
Speaker 1: will stick with him, and they will, and that they
Speaker 1: have enough influence now inside the base to make it
Speaker 1: impossible for Trump to win. It's exactly inverted. The MAGA
Speaker 1: base now is losing faith in Fox News because now
Speaker 1: they don't really care. They're like, I'm on Twitter, I'm
Speaker 1: on oh a n I'm on Telegram. That base is moving,
Speaker 1: That media bubble is falling into a different iteration than
Speaker 1: it wasn't sixteen. And as much as National Review wants
Speaker 1: to be the tiger beat of of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: and treat Rhonda Santa's like he's Shaun Cassidy in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, and they squee about on him and every article,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, the bull leadership of FRONTA Santa
Speaker 1: squis shown today because he got up and took a
Speaker 1: crap this morning. I mean, they can't stop. Those people
Speaker 1: are so distant from the base. Now the base is becoming.
Speaker 1: I knew in sixteen during a lot of focus grouping
Speaker 1: that it was more alien than the than the establishment understood.
Speaker 1: I knew by twenty and we could all see it
Speaker 1: by twenty that it was this new conspiracy world and
Speaker 1: this alternate facts universe that was created over time by Trump.
Speaker 1: But now it I mean, speaking of alien invasions. They
Speaker 1: have language. There's been linguistic drift inside who the Republicans are.
Speaker 1: They speak a different vernacular than the rest of the country.
Speaker 1: In the world does now they believe things that are
Speaker 1: not true because they're not prompted by the things that
Speaker 1: used to drive American politics. Rick Wilson, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us. As always, I'm a ray of fucking sunshine,
Speaker 1: I know, but here we are. Mark Elias is the
Speaker 1: founder of Democracy Docket. Welcome too fast politics. Mark, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. We're very excited to have you.
Speaker 1: And I tried to have anyone who has like a
Speaker 1: legion of far right haters. Then you got the right guy,
Speaker 1: like the demonization and how much they hate you, And
Speaker 1: I have that too. I mean I don't have it
Speaker 1: on the same scale, unfortunately for me, but you know,
Speaker 1: I have people at come over to me at Seapack
Speaker 1: and yell at me for some real or imagined slight
Speaker 1: And so I feel your pain explained to me. How
Speaker 1: you got a little bit about how you got to
Speaker 1: be the great demon to the right. It's a question
Speaker 1: I asked myself all the time, because there's really nothing
Speaker 1: about my background or early legal career that would have
Speaker 1: predicted it. I was, you know, I grew up in
Speaker 1: a Jewish household in New York, went to college and
Speaker 1: Upstate New York, went to do law school, came to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Was at a big law firm. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was representing Democrats and voting rights and and all of that,
Speaker 1: But there was a sense in DC for most of
Speaker 1: my career that the fights between the parties would be
Speaker 1: on policies, but fundamentally both parties were committed to democracy.
Speaker 1: So I think I became demonized because after sixteen it
Speaker 1: became clear that the bipartisan consensus that I thought existed
Speaker 1: around you know, basic principles like we don't ban books,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't we don't elect authoritarian crazy people,
Speaker 1: and we believe in democracy. I thought that was bipartisan,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I realized that the people
Speaker 1: on the other side didn't. And now that led them
Speaker 1: to focus a lot of their energy against me. And
Speaker 1: there's people like you because we're just continuing to say
Speaker 1: the same things we've always said, and they have become
Speaker 1: part of a cult like organization. Yeah. No, I mean
Speaker 1: it is completely interesting. But you had been fighting for
Speaker 1: voting rights and then you sort of kicked it up
Speaker 1: a notch a couple of years ago and went on
Speaker 1: your own and started really being focused on these statewide
Speaker 1: cases and so I want to get into that because
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I think you've been so demonized
Speaker 1: is you are very effective. Yeah. So we started my
Speaker 1: team and I started focusing on the mechanics of voting
Speaker 1: and litigating a lot of lawsuits. You know, people right
Speaker 1: now I think that we're in the slow period of
Speaker 1: the election cycle, and I remind them we're litigating forty
Speaker 1: voting cases in seventeen states. We have two cases that
Speaker 1: were waiting on the U Supreme courture rule on and
Speaker 1: all of that is the product of trumps um. You know.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump decided that he was going to attack voting,
Speaker 1: an attack voting rights, and attack access to the ballot,
Speaker 1: and I felt like it was important that I do
Speaker 1: everything I could to prevent that. Yeah. A noble and
Speaker 1: also very important job. Yeah. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: household that was immigrant and pro democratic, and there was
Speaker 1: a sense that we owed to this country to protect
Speaker 1: voting rights, minority rights, the rights of freedom and democracy.
Speaker 1: And so it never occurred to me to do anything
Speaker 1: other than that. And as the country took a very
Speaker 1: dangerous term a turn rather under Donald Trump, I became
Speaker 1: more and more committed to those fights because someone has
Speaker 1: to take those fights on. Yeah, So I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, and I think I relate to this a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean in my own obviously I'm not nearly as
Speaker 1: effective as you are, but I relate to this feeling
Speaker 1: that if I don't do this, no one else well right,
Speaker 1: which is something that we have really seen a lot
Speaker 1: of people have that kind of feeling after Trump is um.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you what states are things
Speaker 1: going great in? That's the first question. So I wrote
Speaker 1: a piece recently for Democracy Docket about the five things
Speaker 1: that every Democratic controlled trifecta state. There seventeen states that
Speaker 1: Democrats control everything the five laws they need to pass.
Speaker 1: So there are certainly states that are doing better. You know,
Speaker 1: California has comparatively better voting laws. There are states that
Speaker 1: have made dramatic improvements in their voting laws. You know,
Speaker 1: Michigan made dramatic improvements in its voting laws. But I
Speaker 1: am quick to point out that there is more that
Speaker 1: every state can do, and every state ought to be
Speaker 1: looking for ways to improve access to voting in their
Speaker 1: states and to strengthen our democracy so that the next
Speaker 1: time we have an authority hurry and candidate on the right,
Speaker 1: which unfortunately is likely not more than a couple of
Speaker 1: years away, or less than a couple is likely less
Speaker 1: than a couple of years away. They are hardened against it.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to be a Debbie downer and
Speaker 1: just say they are all bad, but they all can
Speaker 1: stand to be improved. And Democrats right now have a
Speaker 1: historic opportunity to do that, and they need to take it,
Speaker 1: and they need to go big, and they need to
Speaker 1: make those changes where they can, and then we need
Speaker 1: to fight as hard as we can in every other
Speaker 1: state to ensure that voting rights and democracy or protective.
Speaker 1: So what states are you really worried about? So I
Speaker 1: continue to be very worried about Georgia, even though you know,
Speaker 1: we've had a couple of good elections like Goes in Georgia,
Speaker 1: because Georgia has really instituted not just a legal system
Speaker 1: of challenging voter eligibility, but a culture now of it.
Speaker 1: And thousand Georgians were challenged, which is really an extraordinary number.
Speaker 1: It's larger than any mass challenge since the Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 1: And in we saw a hundred thousand Georgians challenge Republicans
Speaker 1: and their allies are mounting these mass challenges to prevent
Speaker 1: tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Georgians from
Speaker 1: being able to vote. So Georgia is high on my list.
Speaker 1: I continue to be very worried about Texas, which has
Speaker 1: some of the worst voting rules in the in the country,
Speaker 1: and Florida, which has had pretty good voting rules, but
Speaker 1: which right now has an authoritarian leader who has undermined
Speaker 1: voting in the passage of already one anti voting bill,
Speaker 1: undermined the redistricting process and contravention of the state constitution,
Speaker 1: and is now in the book banning phase of authoritarian
Speaker 1: I would say those are the states I'm principally focused on,
Speaker 1: But I'm also worried about Ohio. Ohio just passed a
Speaker 1: series of restricted voting laws that you know, made the
Speaker 1: I D laws tighter, made drop boxes harder to to
Speaker 1: be used, shortened periods of time for people to request
Speaker 1: and return mail in ballot. So I wish I could
Speaker 1: say it's just a handful of states, but pretty much
Speaker 1: any place Republicans control the legislative incumbernatorial process we are
Speaker 1: worried about and focused on. Yeah, that seems like a
Speaker 1: really important data point I'd love to focus on. Like
Speaker 1: Wisconsin is a great example because they have this Supreme
Speaker 1: Court election in April. Tony I versus a Democrat is
Speaker 1: in his second term, but he has been unable to
Speaker 1: change the voting rights there because of the state legislature.
Speaker 1: I was shocked here that it's one of the hardest.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, number forty seven or forty eight
Speaker 1: artist states to vote in Wisconsin has an upcoming state
Speaker 1: Supreme Court election. Wisconsin. The state Supreme Court there is
Speaker 1: an interesting court in that you have three very progressive justices,
Speaker 1: you have four very servative justices. There is one of
Speaker 1: those conservative justice whose seat is up for election now,
Speaker 1: and if that were to flip to a progressive justice,
Speaker 1: you would see I suspect I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: would suspect you would see a much much more favorable
Speaker 1: landscape for voting because a lot of the problems in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin have come at the hands of the Wisconsin legislature,
Speaker 1: but also the state Supreme Court there that takes an
Speaker 1: anti voting cast to many of its decisions. In this arena.
Speaker 1: We just saw in North Carolina how much this can matter.
Speaker 1: You went from a four three Democratic court to now
Speaker 1: a five to Republican court, and already those five justices
Speaker 1: have granted rehearing in two voting in democracy cases that
Speaker 1: were decided just last year. So you know, I hope
Speaker 1: everyone in Wisconsin participates in that election. Yeah. The thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you where I'm going with this
Speaker 1: is there are a number of red states that have
Speaker 1: blue governors, and I'm thinking of Kentucky. Well, Michigan is
Speaker 1: now purple, but there are a bunch of these Louisiana,
Speaker 1: a bunch of these states where democratic governors have come
Speaker 1: in but they haven't been able to fix the voting situation.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about that? Is that because of these
Speaker 1: state legislatures. So I think it's been hard for Democrats
Speaker 1: to fix the voting situations unless they control all three
Speaker 1: pieces of the process. And that's really unfortunate. And you
Speaker 1: can see that with Governor Eavers in Wisconsin, probably more
Speaker 1: most dramatically. But one of the phenomena of the current
Speaker 1: era we're in is that there are no pro voting Republicans.
Speaker 1: So if Republicans control a legislative body by just one vote,
Speaker 1: all the efforts to improve voting will fail. All of them.
Speaker 1: And so look at Pennsylvania now, where you now have
Speaker 1: a democratic govern er and a Democratic state House. I
Speaker 1: still think it's going to be impossible to get for
Speaker 1: Governor Shapiro to fix the problems in Pennsylvania because as
Speaker 1: long as they control one chamber, they're going to block it.
Speaker 1: And that is a problem you know from state to state.
Speaker 1: In North Carolina, Roy Cooper very good Democratic governor on voting,
Speaker 1: but the state legislature there just is so hostile to
Speaker 1: it that there's not a lot that can be accomplished. Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: How worried are you about this sort of higher up
Speaker 1: situation like the Supreme Court is very trumpy? I mean,
Speaker 1: how worried are you about the other courts and things
Speaker 1: getting kicked up there? Yeah, so, look, we have the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court we have. I'm not going to try to
Speaker 1: sugarcoat that, but I always point out to folks that
Speaker 1: very few cases go to the U. S. Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: You know, the Supreme Court here is between seventy and
Speaker 1: ninety cases a year. There are hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: cases decided every year. There are are more than ten
Speaker 1: thousand that are where Supreme Court reviews sought and they
Speaker 1: don't hear a lot of these cases. And everyone always
Speaker 1: says to me, but aren't the aren't the federal courts
Speaker 1: really bad? And I keep saying, well, there are a
Speaker 1: heck of a lot better now than they work two
Speaker 1: years ago. Right, President Biden is appointing really good judges. Now,
Speaker 1: are the courts still more conservative than I wish they were?
Speaker 1: On voting rights? Yes, but let me give you one
Speaker 1: ray of sort of potential hope. So we my law
Speaker 1: firm alias law Groups, sued Alabama for violating the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act and there were districting and the three judge
Speaker 1: panel agreed that Alabama had broken the Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 1: Two of those judges have been appointed by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: One had been appointed initially by Ronald Reagan. Now that
Speaker 1: case is now before the Supreme Court, which kind of
Speaker 1: goes to your macro point. But we we have to
Speaker 1: keep fighting. We can't just let the other side wants
Speaker 1: us to look and say all is lost, and we
Speaker 1: have to just keep fighting and picking our battles. And
Speaker 1: if you look at the with lost record, we've actually
Speaker 1: done pretty well in court in the last few years. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it goes to this idea that Democrats tend
Speaker 1: for such a long time, Democrats didn't do these small
Speaker 1: important fights, you know, at the state legislature, and they
Speaker 1: were so focused on the big picture that Republicans picked
Speaker 1: up things that you know, I mean, it's like this
Speaker 1: idea that there are you know that Democrats had uncontested
Speaker 1: elections in certain places. So I do think when Democrats fight,
Speaker 1: especially when they're fighting for things like the right to vote, ultimately,
Speaker 1: I mean, the country was founded on this sort of Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons you asked me early on why
Speaker 1: Republicans have demonized me. One of the reasons why they've
Speaker 1: demonized me is I am a Democrat, and I fight hard.
Speaker 1: I fight hard, and I don't stop fighting. I will
Speaker 1: fight for democracy, and I will fight for the right
Speaker 1: to vote. Even when the odds are long, We'll keep fighting.
Speaker 1: And I think that we as Democrats need to realize
Speaker 1: that the first order of the agenda for every Republican
Speaker 1: governor and every Republican legislature is to curtail democracy. It's
Speaker 1: too banned books, it's it's restrict voting rights. It's to
Speaker 1: do things to undermine our democratic government. And I wish
Speaker 1: frankly Molly that when Democrats had power, their first order
Speaker 1: on their agenda was to expand democracy, was to strengthen
Speaker 1: institutions of our voting system. But you know, there are
Speaker 1: so many things competing for the priorities of those governors
Speaker 1: and legislatures that I think, you know, I always say
Speaker 1: Republicans have one thing they want to get done, and
Speaker 1: Democrats have fifty things they want to get done. I
Speaker 1: want to ask you about one of the suggestions in
Speaker 1: your pieces to limit the number of partisan pol watchers.
Speaker 1: Can you just go in for a minute on that
Speaker 1: and explain to us. Sure. So, there are a number
Speaker 1: of aspects of the American voting system which are sort
Speaker 1: of relics of a different era, and one of them
Speaker 1: was the idea that, you know, you would have representatives
Speaker 1: of the parties at the polls who would watch the
Speaker 1: voting process. And there were a lot of reasons why
Speaker 1: historically that may have been appropriate or not appropriate. But
Speaker 1: what we've seen is the Republicans weaponize every aspect of
Speaker 1: the voting an election process to try to undermine it.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways they do that is by
Speaker 1: using the ability to put people in the polls to
Speaker 1: harass voters and harass election officials. And so you know,
Speaker 1: we need to make sure first and foremost that people
Speaker 1: who show up to vote are not being intimidated, they're
Speaker 1: not being harassed, they're not being photographed. There are not
Speaker 1: people in body armor outside the drop boxes with guns
Speaker 1: asking them questions, right, and so you know, I I
Speaker 1: what I say is that we need to be clear
Speaker 1: that someone who is watching the polls is only allowed
Speaker 1: to watch. They're not allowed to talk, they're not allowed
Speaker 1: to comment, they're not allowed to threaten, and that they
Speaker 1: can have to do it from a safe distance so
Speaker 1: that people and election officials don't feel threatened by their presence.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the five things that I think
Speaker 1: every democratic controlled state could enact today. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you could see why Republicans are not going to be
Speaker 1: into that. Yeah, but again, you know, let's start with
Speaker 1: the seventeen states where Democrats control the process right exactly.
Speaker 1: This is so interesting. I just want to ask you
Speaker 1: one quick question is what are you watching right now?
Speaker 1: What's like on the horizon, So on the voting horizon specifically,
Speaker 1: you know, state legislatures and meet people don't realize oftentimes
Speaker 1: that you know, Congress meets every year, in theory every
Speaker 1: month of every year. State legislatures oftentimes meet only part year,
Speaker 1: and they almost always meet this time of year. So
Speaker 1: we're watching a number of states potentially restrict voting. You know,
Speaker 1: Idaho is likely going to enact a law that removes
Speaker 1: state issued college ideas from the acceptable form of iding.
Speaker 1: We already saw Ohio pass a omnibus voter suppression law
Speaker 1: that we're already suing. We see bad voting bills moving
Speaker 1: their way through states like Florida, states like Georgia, states
Speaker 1: in the Deep South. So we're watching all of those
Speaker 1: to see which of those become law. And as I
Speaker 1: always say, if a state is going to pass a
Speaker 1: restriction on voting that violates constitution or law, they're going
Speaker 1: to get suit. And that's my continued message to them today.
Speaker 1: That's a good message. Thank you so much. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back anytime. I'd love to. I know you,
Speaker 1: our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have
Speaker 1: time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry
Speaker 1: each week. This is why every week I put together
Speaker 1: a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy the podcast. You will love having this in
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Speaker 1: pod dot com and click the tab to join our
Speaker 1: mailing list. That's fast politics pod dot com. Ben Wickler
Speaker 1: is the state chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Ben, So great to be back with you.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on because a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago we had Al Franken on, and Al Franken
Speaker 1: was saying that there's a really big, big election coming
Speaker 1: up right now that and it's sort of counterintuitive because
Speaker 1: you think, like, oh, the big election is the run
Speaker 1: up to twenty four, but no, you in the great
Speaker 1: state of Wisconsin have a big election coming up. Can
Speaker 1: you explain to us what's going on. Wisconsin is a
Speaker 1: bluish right purple state. I say bluish because Democrats have
Speaker 1: won fourteen in the last seventeen statewide elections here. But
Speaker 1: we have the policies of a bright red state in
Speaker 1: the Deep South, because we have an incredibly right wing
Speaker 1: state legislature that is elected based on the most gerrymandered
Speaker 1: maps in the country. And all of that is happening
Speaker 1: because we have a state Supreme Court that is dominated
Speaker 1: by a four three conservative majority, and those things in
Speaker 1: combination mean that Wisconsin is one of the hardest states
Speaker 1: to cast a ballot, were rated forty seven fifty and
Speaker 1: ease of voting were the second hardest state to register
Speaker 1: to vote in the country. We're right to work state.
Speaker 1: It's hard to organize a union. All these different laws
Speaker 1: are tilted against Democrats. And that has been the state
Speaker 1: of affairs for about twelve years since since the Scott
Speaker 1: Walker in the right wing swept into power. But on
Speaker 1: April four everything could change because in our four three
Speaker 1: conservative majority Supreme Court, the right wing chief Justice is
Speaker 1: retiring and so there's an open seat for a ten
Speaker 1: year term that will determine the balance of power on
Speaker 1: our state Supreme Court. And if a progressive candidate wins
Speaker 1: that race, we could have a state Supreme Court that
Speaker 1: rules are gerrymandered maps unconstitutional, and demands new maps that
Speaker 1: are actually fair. It could strike down we have one
Speaker 1: of the most extreme abortion bands in American history, was
Speaker 1: passed in thee There's no exception for rape or incest
Speaker 1: with the life of the health of the mother. If
Speaker 1: two doctors agree that the mother's life is imperiled, then
Speaker 1: you could get a legal abortion, but it is so bad,
Speaker 1: like you can't finish getting trained as an O, B
Speaker 1: G y N in Wisconsin because it's not clear if
Speaker 1: this law from before the invention of modern medicine applies
Speaker 1: to abortions as standard care for miscarriages or a topic
Speaker 1: pregnancies people are people are getting having the bleeding for days. Well,
Speaker 1: the hospitals try to figure out whether they're going to
Speaker 1: be have doctors sent to jail if they provide basic
Speaker 1: routine care for people. And this law is going to
Speaker 1: come before the state Supreme Court and determine that. This
Speaker 1: is our Kansas subortion referendum. Essentially, we don't have a
Speaker 1: value addition of mechanism, so abortion voting rights, like our
Speaker 1: state Supring Court over and over has figured out how
Speaker 1: to roll back voting freedoms. That could change if we
Speaker 1: win a majority, and the maps and all of that
Speaker 1: could take effect before. So this is the election in
Speaker 1: the state that's been the tipping point state in both
Speaker 1: of the last two presidential races, the only state where
Speaker 1: four the last six presidential races has come down to
Speaker 1: less than one percentage point. This race will determine the
Speaker 1: playing field whether it's slanted to the right or fair.
Speaker 1: And even before the next presidential race, and Wisconsin most
Speaker 1: likely tipping points state in the electoral College, we have
Speaker 1: Tammy Baldwin up for re election in the Senate, which
Speaker 1: could determine the Senate majority. And in a state again,
Speaker 1: Republicans have six of our eight congressional seats, so if
Speaker 1: we get fair maps, we could win two House seats,
Speaker 1: which would take a big chunk out of Kevin McCarthy's
Speaker 1: micro House majority. It's all all happening here and it
Speaker 1: all comes up this April four. That is completely crazy.
Speaker 1: How do you run an election a Supreme Court election?
Speaker 1: Because that is sort of counter intuitive for it it
Speaker 1: is I mean, frankly, the right has figured out a
Speaker 1: long time ago that these are really really important races.
Speaker 1: But exactly as you say, I think, you know, we
Speaker 1: have this idea of a judiciary that's not just going
Speaker 1: to be carrying water for the Republican Party. But the
Speaker 1: Republican Party is totally intertwined with the Federalist society, with
Speaker 1: these right wing lawyer networks, so they've been pouring money
Speaker 1: into these races, and on our side sometimes we do
Speaker 1: this time has to be all hands on deck, all
Speaker 1: the way through the state party in Wisconsin, or it's
Speaker 1: in our constitution to be neutral when there's two progressives running.
Speaker 1: There's two progressives in the primary, which is February twenty one,
Speaker 1: but the second that's over, we'll have one progressive candidate
Speaker 1: and one conservative candidate. It's officially a nonpartisan race. So
Speaker 1: on the ballot it doesn't say d are next to
Speaker 1: the candidate's names. What that means is that the campaign
Speaker 1: and the party and grassroots groups have to educate people
Speaker 1: about which candidate has which values so that when they
Speaker 1: walk in, when they see the names of the candidates,
Speaker 1: they know that Dan Kelly and Jennifer Doro, the true
Speaker 1: right wing candidates, would probably uphold the nine abortion man
Speaker 1: and stomp on their voting rights and everything else, and
Speaker 1: to not vote for them, but for one of whichever
Speaker 1: the progressive candidate is either either Janet pro to say
Speaker 1: it's or Everett Mitchell. What that means is that we're
Speaker 1: going from kind of zero to sixty on name recognition.
Speaker 1: We have to educate voters that there is an election.
Speaker 1: These are the stakes, these are the candidates, these are
Speaker 1: the issues. But it also means like normally, these races
Speaker 1: are way lower turnout, like half or even a third
Speaker 1: of the turnout of the November election with partisan candidates.
Speaker 1: It means that in this kind of environment, every time
Speaker 1: you are a volunteering make a phone call or talk
Speaker 1: to a member of your family or a friend, or
Speaker 1: donate a few bucks to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: which would always encourage UM, those donations go much further
Speaker 1: because you're essentially taking people who are died in the
Speaker 1: Democrats and just making sure that they know that this
Speaker 1: election counts as much as their elections did last fall,
Speaker 1: or as they will in You don't have to convince
Speaker 1: someone to share your values. These people share your values.
Speaker 1: They just don't know this election is happening. And that
Speaker 1: means that the impact of actually doing campaign work in
Speaker 1: this kind of environment is vastly higher. Yeah. No, I
Speaker 1: mean it sounds like it isn't it sort of cheaper too,
Speaker 1: because this is so off season. If that makes no sense,
Speaker 1: It's exactly right. These elections, I mean, this will probably
Speaker 1: be the most expensive judicial race in in U. S history,
Speaker 1: which sounds impressive until you find out that the last
Speaker 1: most inpressive judicial race was fifteen million dollars, and like
Speaker 1: the November elections last year, where billions of dollars, like
Speaker 1: individual states would have several hundred millions of dollars poured
Speaker 1: into races like our Senate race or the governors race
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. This is a this is bargain basement politics
Speaker 1: with you know, super deluxe, five star political impact. I
Speaker 1: want to just talk to you a minute about some
Speaker 1: of the lessons from Wisconsin. Like a lot of pundon said,
Speaker 1: and you never said this, and you know you are
Speaker 1: on the ground in Wisconsin, which I find very helpful.
Speaker 1: A lot of pundon said that Mandela Barnes was too
Speaker 1: lefty and that he wasn't gonna win because he was
Speaker 1: too lefty. I don't know where that came from, but
Speaker 1: I heard a lot of pundon saying that he barely
Speaker 1: lost and if polls had been more accurate, he would
Speaker 1: have been able. I mean, Ron Johnson really could have
Speaker 1: been defeated had there been more accurate polling towards money.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that's true? Am I crazy?
Speaker 1: I think you're right. And this is part of what's
Speaker 1: so frustrating is that it's exactly the punditry that you're
Speaker 1: describing that led to the loss. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is people came out of the gate and
Speaker 1: we're like, uh, like, you know, the prioritize Wisconsin. And
Speaker 1: so in the in the part of the campaign right
Speaker 1: after the primary, when Mandela became the nominee, Republican superbacks
Speaker 1: came in that the you line, the biggest Republican donors
Speaker 1: in the country. They poured millions in the Diane Hendrix.
Speaker 1: Between those two right wing billionaires, they put in twenty
Speaker 1: nine million dollars in independent expenditures, and the funding gap
Speaker 1: between the two sides was twenty six million dollars favoring Republicans.
Speaker 1: So these two families alone, who by the way, had
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks that from
Speaker 1: Ron Johnson. So they putting all this money. But if
Speaker 1: there had been like a few million dollars and ads
Speaker 1: in September from more than we had from from progressive
Speaker 1: groups like we wouldn't have Mandela wouldn't have fallen behind
Speaker 1: in that period when people were overwhelmingly seeing attack ads
Speaker 1: and not seeing a defense and CounterPunch, and when so
Speaker 1: Mandela during that time was doing this very intensive fundraising
Speaker 1: and by kind of early mid October had the funds
Speaker 1: to go back on offense, and like independent groups came
Speaker 1: in as well, and that got us to about even
Speaker 1: in terms of Republican versus Democratic ads. And he would
Speaker 1: people saw his message and the GOP's message. He gained
Speaker 1: a point a week and ended one point down. If
Speaker 1: that man had come in two weeks earlier, he would
Speaker 1: have won by two points and saw it and had
Speaker 1: ed Or if he had more money as Democrats did
Speaker 1: who won across the country, if there had been a
Speaker 1: flood of money at the end the way that you
Speaker 1: know there was for like Sarah Gideon and right Sarah Gideon,
Speaker 1: and that's just exactly right, that could have taken a
Speaker 1: resulted in a victory too. In a funny way, Mandela
Speaker 1: kind of proves the case that he could have won.
Speaker 1: Like he came closer than any other Democrat did in
Speaker 1: the country to flipping an incumbent Republican seat. He did
Speaker 1: better than rust Sfengel did in twenty sixteen or twenty
Speaker 1: Like he had a powerhouse campaign. It just didn't have
Speaker 1: enough money, and it didn't have enough money because Pundon said,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a chance, And I mean that was
Speaker 1: a message I kept hearing, he's too lefty, he's black.
Speaker 1: I don't know again that that Wisconsin isn't going to
Speaker 1: elect someone who's black, even though he had one. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's really racist, honestly, and I always I
Speaker 1: think he won a very type primary, like the man
Speaker 1: had proven that he could win, and then somehow the
Speaker 1: pundent class decided that he couldn't. There was there was
Speaker 1: this kind of you know, spug national fad of being like,
Speaker 1: oh the polls. At first, the polls were saying Democrats
Speaker 1: were going to do great, and then it became, oh,
Speaker 1: the polls must be overstating the case for Democrats. And
Speaker 1: then these right wing garbage polls came flooding in saying
Speaker 1: Democrats we're gonna lose in a red wave landslide. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people started freaking out about states where
Speaker 1: Democrats won by a bunch of points, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, yeah, like Washington State is a really
Speaker 1: good example. Yeah, like keep your eye on the ball
Speaker 1: man in Wisconsin. When you have a fully funded campaign
Speaker 1: on both sides, both sides started and then it's like,
Speaker 1: are you going to actually do everything? You need to
Speaker 1: do to push it over the finish line. The we
Speaker 1: are internal polls on election day it said we were like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna lose by one point and we did. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that period where people were saying, oh, I know you're
Speaker 1: theocratic state chair. You have to say mandeloquo wins like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: like we really good winness race. Right. I want to
Speaker 1: ask you one other really annoying thing. But you are
Speaker 1: a state chair who's really good at your job. That
Speaker 1: happens for sure, but usually in the media we tend
Speaker 1: to focus more on the state chairs that are not
Speaker 1: so good at their jobs. I mean, I live in
Speaker 1: New York, so our state chair is terrible and needs
Speaker 1: to resign tomorrow. So I want to ask you, what
Speaker 1: do you think the sort of secret to being a
Speaker 1: good state chair is? And I should say there are
Speaker 1: some dynamite state chairs. Lura Barnes in Michigan, who I
Speaker 1: learned from all the time Michigan is incredible, yes, and
Speaker 1: heard of the secret, Like you look at the fact
Speaker 1: they have a traffic to now that came about because
Speaker 1: Lavora was doing this work to win Supreme Court races
Speaker 1: years ago. And like you know, supporting these statewide ballot initiatives.
Speaker 1: We don't have about initiative process and Wisconsinent in Michigan
Speaker 1: they do. They used it to the hilt. These downbout
Speaker 1: like election judges, all this stuff that created the recipe
Speaker 1: where you get to blow out success two in one way,
Speaker 1: that's the key first DAI party chairs is like you
Speaker 1: have to figure out all the dominoes that have to
Speaker 1: fall to get to the point where you have the
Speaker 1: wins that you need and then not skip those local
Speaker 1: elections that wind up having huge downstream consequences. That's one piece,
Speaker 1: and other pieces having the elected officials, either you're in
Speaker 1: a state where there or not state wide Democrats, so
Speaker 1: the party can actually kind of do this without meeting
Speaker 1: their support or have alignment from the Democrats. Elect the
Speaker 1: Democrats in your state that you're actually gonna build a
Speaker 1: power base at the state party that can do work
Speaker 1: independent of the let's say governor's campaign or Senate campaigns.
Speaker 1: And we're Lavoora and I are both lucky to have
Speaker 1: that with our elect the Democrats in our states. They
Speaker 1: want a strong party, but in some places the state
Speaker 1: party chair is kind of chosen by the governor and
Speaker 1: their job is to, you know, not make the governor
Speaker 1: look bad as opposed to figure out how to win
Speaker 1: every possible election you mean, like in a state that
Speaker 1: I might live in. But yeah, so that is a
Speaker 1: good point though, that you focus on winning every single election.
Speaker 1: I was at this thing last night and I actually
Speaker 1: got to meet Maxwell Frost, who is a friend of
Speaker 1: this podcast and also a twenty five year old congressman
Speaker 1: from Florida, and we were talking about that there's going
Speaker 1: to be a state chair election in Florida and that
Speaker 1: Democratic Party has had a very tough time, So I
Speaker 1: just was curious sort of about the kind of you know,
Speaker 1: the macin nations there and how it works. So every
Speaker 1: state has different procedures for choosing their chair. I had
Speaker 1: to run a campaign with I had a campaign manager. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that, Elliott. It was like a big whole thing.
Speaker 1: Other places it's like the state Central Committee, which is
Speaker 1: big or small depending on the state makes the choice.
Speaker 1: But if there is a Democratic powerhouse politician in the state,
Speaker 1: usually people who are on those committees don't want to
Speaker 1: be on the wrong side of that person. It's not
Speaker 1: always true, but like you kind of have to line
Speaker 1: up the big stakeholders, and then in some ways, like
Speaker 1: you know, if you're not facing a wall of opposition
Speaker 1: like that, you want to I think the second big
Speaker 1: thing is state chairs should be organizers at heart, and
Speaker 1: I tend to think it's good for like the dificial
Speaker 1: also to be organized as at heart. But you want
Speaker 1: to be thinking not just about like how you look
Speaker 1: in the media or what your position on something is
Speaker 1: going to be. You want to think how do I
Speaker 1: motivate and mobilize and organize other people to all come
Speaker 1: around this common goal to do this thing that has
Speaker 1: to happen, because that's fundamentally the work of the party
Speaker 1: is building alignment across this big, messy democratic coalition. It's
Speaker 1: not just like for the party to issue a statement
Speaker 1: when something happens in the news, and so much work
Speaker 1: goes in on the back end to like ensuring that
Speaker 1: there are candidates running for X, Y and Z offices
Speaker 1: and making sure that like there's a strategy for what
Speaker 1: the grassroots group should do versus what the party can
Speaker 1: uniquely do. Well, all of that work has to proceed
Speaker 1: the moment when people actually go to the polls. Sort
Speaker 1: of the Biden plan, which I actually think is quite
Speaker 1: smart now, is that he's going around after this State
Speaker 1: of the Union address and sort of bragging about the
Speaker 1: infrastructure and the Inflation Reduction Act and bringing these blue
Speaker 1: collar I mean, I think the phrase blue collars is
Speaker 1: not the right phrase and nor should we use it.
Speaker 1: But you know, these jobs that you can work without
Speaker 1: a college degree. Do you think that will speak to
Speaker 1: wisconsinan's or do you think they don't. It's just like
Speaker 1: some of these people just are never gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: go along with Biden and just too mad Wisconsin as
Speaker 1: an electorate that's overwhelmingly folks without a college education and
Speaker 1: lovingly white folks without a college education, although you know,
Speaker 1: the working classes multiracial here and everywhere else. President Biden's
Speaker 1: message it comes from his gut, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's not just like a focus group pulled us a thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's something that is quart of who he is
Speaker 1: and it is perfect for the state. He came to Madison, first, Madison, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: or outside of Madison, DeForest, a laborers training facility. I
Speaker 1: was there yesterday and he spoke. I was. I was
Speaker 1: in a folding chair right next to a kind of
Speaker 1: concrete hole in the or that is used in training
Speaker 1: to teach people how to replace sewer lines toward the
Speaker 1: facility before, like, this is where the actual work gets
Speaker 1: done there. You know, there were earth movie equipment and
Speaker 1: and you know all the stuff that people actually use
Speaker 1: in the shot for the TV cameras. And there were
Speaker 1: workers who were very packed the place, people in hard
Speaker 1: hats and reflective vests, and the work that they do
Speaker 1: is going to be empowered and supported. The person introduced
Speaker 1: him explain how her life had been transformed by the
Speaker 1: Laborers Union because she was able to figure out how
Speaker 1: to have a family supporting job without having a college degree.
Speaker 1: That is, it's both great policy and it's great politics.
Speaker 1: And the best message always not only demonstrates what your
Speaker 1: values are and makes a contrast with the other side,
Speaker 1: it also speaks to the personal story of the person
Speaker 1: delivering the message. And this same does for like who
Speaker 1: Biden is and what he's fought for his whole life
Speaker 1: his I've never seen him give a speech where he
Speaker 1: doesn't talk about how a job is more than just
Speaker 1: a paycheck. It's about dignity, pride, and so forth. And
Speaker 1: that resonated so much in that room yesterday. In Madison
Speaker 1: into Forest. I hope that he criss crosses the country
Speaker 1: with that message because it it connects like directly to
Speaker 1: people's hearts and the kinds of conversations they have when
Speaker 1: they're not talking about politics, and that that's the test
Speaker 1: you I was on to meet. Yeah, such a good point,
Speaker 1: you know. After that State of the Union address, my
Speaker 1: feeling is I think he's better at this than he
Speaker 1: was twenty years ago. It's interesting, like there's a reason
Speaker 1: why he's why he's President of the United States, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's a reason why Brack Obama picked him
Speaker 1: as vice president. Why you got elected over and over
Speaker 1: and over and over. Starting very young, and I do
Speaker 1: feel like he's grown. I've found it really impressive. And
Speaker 1: part of what's interesting to me is if you look at,
Speaker 1: you know, these polls that like have dooming gloom, they
Speaker 1: often reflect a caricature of President Biden that has been
Speaker 1: intentionally crafted by right wing media, and when people see
Speaker 1: him give a speech, it just rips those caricatures to shreds.
Speaker 1: He's not the person that you see on Fox News,
Speaker 1: like they're selectively editing the worst moments for somebody who
Speaker 1: grew up working to overcome a stutter. This is like
Speaker 1: he can give a speech, he can connect to a
Speaker 1: human level with the people, one after another. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was on his feet for hours when he was
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin yesterday. Sometimes, you know, I feel like Republicans
Speaker 1: have created these low expectations for him to soar over
Speaker 1: I like, I'm feeling it's true, Ben, this was so great.
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back because Wisconsin is where
Speaker 1: it's all happening. Thank you. I'm sorry to tell you.
Speaker 1: We wake up every day and living it. If anyone
Speaker 1: who's listening right now wants to be involved, go to
Speaker 1: with stems dot org slash donate or with stems dot
Speaker 1: org slash volunteer. Honestly, like, spend a few hours calling
Speaker 1: Democrats in Wisconsin about this election and you will get
Speaker 1: so fired up because people do care so much, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people lack the most basic knowledge about this.
Speaker 1: We will train volunteers. You don't have to have any
Speaker 1: prior experience. You don't need to know anything about this race.
Speaker 1: If you've listened this far on the podcast, you're now
Speaker 1: an expert and you can make a giant, giant difference
Speaker 1: with with dollars and with time. Thank you, Ben Mirick Wilson. Yes,
Speaker 1: we brought the band back together for the moment of gray.
Speaker 1: What is your moment of My moment of this week
Speaker 1: is Elon Musk turning off vital parts of Starlink, the
Speaker 1: satellite system for Ukraine. Oh Jesus. They are desperately trying
Speaker 1: to fend off a gigantic Russian human wave attack that's
Speaker 1: coming in the coming days and weeks. And this week
Speaker 1: Starlink unilaterally decided a program by that's being paid for
Speaker 1: by the U. S Department of Defense, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: They decided to shut it off and not allow the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians to use it for drones gathering intelligence. This is
Speaker 1: going to give the Russians a massive advantage on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: This is going to give the Russians a massive advantage
Speaker 1: in combat operations. And once again, this is a company
Speaker 1: that is that is wholly controlled by one guy who
Speaker 1: is now listening not to his advisors, his attorneys, his
Speaker 1: even the shareholders at Tesla. He's listening to Pizza Jack
Speaker 1: and Mike Sernovich and all the rest of this mouth
Speaker 1: breathing weirdo nat pop goon group. And he controls a
Speaker 1: piece of technology that has been able to save the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian people from a genocidal Vladimir Putin, and now he's
Speaker 1: switching off key elements of it. That, to me is
Speaker 1: my moment of fuckory. I wish I had a more
Speaker 1: lighthearted moment of for you. And I know I get
Speaker 1: a lot of people like, how dare you assign the
Speaker 1: government would interfere with a private company. Our tax dollars
Speaker 1: are paying for this. I'm a big old free market
Speaker 1: guy and everything, but SpaceX does a lot of business
Speaker 1: with the government, and you know what, I'm an I'm
Speaker 1: an old hand at this. I've been around defense contractors
Speaker 1: my whole professional career, working in the defense parman and
Speaker 1: then for some defense contractors. There's a lot of give
Speaker 1: and taken in the real world. You know, folks didn't
Speaker 1: mind when Donald Trump wanted to tell companies how to
Speaker 1: run things. I think that somebody I would get on
Speaker 1: the phone with Glynn shot while at SpaceX, the CEO SpaceX,
Speaker 1: and of startling you know what, you know, we might
Speaker 1: have to review some of these things because I'm really
Speaker 1: concerned that our corporate cultures aren't matching up right now,
Speaker 1: So don't worry about your launch. We will, We'll get
Speaker 1: your permit eventually. I mean, we've got to look at
Speaker 1: other competitors in the market. It's a crowded field. And again,
Speaker 1: as a free market guy, I hate that kind of ship.
Speaker 1: But as someone who's watching a guy who is very
Speaker 1: obviously under the influence of this very dangerous clack of
Speaker 1: all right, neo Nazi, ideological crazy people. This is their dream.
Speaker 1: Their dream was never Donald Trump. Their dream was an
Speaker 1: actual person with billions of dollars, and they've got it.
Speaker 1: If I've been having a fun moment of the R
Speaker 1: I p James O'Keeffe, but you know, yeah you and
Speaker 1: I'll take that from my moment of great James O'Keeffe.
Speaker 1: She's being benched by Project Veritas, the organization he started
Speaker 1: for not completely clear, right, I mean, some level of
Speaker 1: staff abuse, but probably there's more than that. He'll be
Speaker 1: shocked to other staff abuse on the right and a
Speaker 1: lot of these organizations, Molly including but in in O'Keefe's case,
Speaker 1: it's particularly delicious because of course he's a dick to
Speaker 1: his staff. He may have some other things that haven't
Speaker 1: come out yet, but they're publicly facing complaint was that
Speaker 1: O'Keefe is spending their money doing musical theater. Yes, amazing,
Speaker 1: James O'Keefe rolls across the plane. Thank you. Rick Wilson,
Speaker 1: you're very welcome. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the
Speaker 1: best minds and politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.