1
00:00:00,680 --> 00:00:04,200
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

3
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:12,560
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have

4
00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:16,000
Speaker 1: lined up to kiss Trump's spring. We have such a

5
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,800
Speaker 1: great show for you today, Slates Dalia Lithwick.

6
00:00:19,720 --> 00:00:22,880
Speaker 2: Stops by to try to comfort us.

7
00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:27,680
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Media Matter CEO Angelou Kirasone about

8
00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:32,960
Speaker 1: how MAGA outorganized Democrats and how Democrats can counter it.

9
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:36,200
Speaker 3: But first the news, Molly, how you doing here?

10
00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:40,480
Speaker 1: I am just going to keep going. You know, we're

11
00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:44,520
Speaker 1: coming off an election that a lot of people, including myself,

12
00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:48,440
Speaker 1: not happy with the result. I want to say this

13
00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:53,320
Speaker 1: because I feel like one of my best qualities is

14
00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:57,840
Speaker 1: that I am able to admit when I am wrong.

15
00:00:57,880 --> 00:00:59,680
Speaker 1: And I was really wrong about this election.

16
00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:01,240
Speaker 2: You know, I was wrong.

17
00:01:01,560 --> 00:01:06,200
Speaker 1: I thought for sure Donald Trump would not win. I

18
00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:09,279
Speaker 1: thought there would be a mandate. I thought that Harris

19
00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:11,959
Speaker 1: would win. I did not see any of this coming.

20
00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:18,360
Speaker 1: And I'm really sorry to our listeners who I where.

21
00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:21,160
Speaker 1: I told them that I knew when I didn't know,

22
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 1: and I really do promise to try to stay out

23
00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:27,920
Speaker 1: of the prediction market from now on. Because the reality

24
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:29,440
Speaker 1: is I'm not good at it. But there are a

25
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,480
Speaker 1: few bright spots. We're going to talk about them, and

26
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:33,880
Speaker 1: then we're going to talk about the news, and then

27
00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:36,200
Speaker 1: we're going to keep going and going and going, and

28
00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:39,440
Speaker 1: do the podcast and bring you guys the news and

29
00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,280
Speaker 1: not do false equivalencies and just do what you guys

30
00:01:43,360 --> 00:01:47,840
Speaker 1: need so we don't have to listen to fucking.

31
00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:50,320
Speaker 2: Mag of people tell us that everything is fine.

32
00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:55,440
Speaker 3: Somali Kamala just did her concession speech. What'd you see here?

33
00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:59,320
Speaker 1: Harris did give a speech. She said something which made

34
00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:00,920
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I agree, but I think is

35
00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:04,040
Speaker 1: actually quite smart. I do not concede the fight that

36
00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:09,800
Speaker 1: fueled this campaign. That's really true and right and correct.

37
00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:13,400
Speaker 1: We all have to just keep going and that's where

38
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:18,400
Speaker 1: we are. Let's talk about the House of Representatives that

39
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:22,880
Speaker 1: Democrats would like to flip, and that is still possible.

40
00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:24,000
Speaker 3: What are you seeing here?

41
00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:27,040
Speaker 1: Democrats still have a chance to take control of the House.

42
00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:30,480
Speaker 1: The California races are going to take a while account.

43
00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:33,639
Speaker 1: One hundred and ninety five races have been called for Republicans,

44
00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:36,440
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy four for Democrats, but a lot

45
00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:42,160
Speaker 1: of those remaining seats are in California, easy victories that

46
00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:45,040
Speaker 1: the majority party needs. They need at least two hundred

47
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:48,440
Speaker 1: and eighteen seats. It is not impossible that they will

48
00:02:48,480 --> 00:02:52,400
Speaker 1: get there. We have to see, but it's certainly not impossible.

49
00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:56,160
Speaker 1: Speaking of things that make us really upset, I.

50
00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:58,320
Speaker 3: Think this is the worst one for me, which is

51
00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:01,760
Speaker 3: what happened in the vote in Dearborn, Michigan, which is

52
00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:04,359
Speaker 3: the largest Muslim community in Michigan.

53
00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:07,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this has been something that we had talked

54
00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:13,119
Speaker 1: about a lot that seemed like a real possibility, really grim.

55
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:16,799
Speaker 1: We thought this might happen. And look, people were mad

56
00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:20,079
Speaker 1: about Gaza and that is something that a lot of

57
00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:23,960
Speaker 1: us understand. So in Dearborn, where fifty five percent of

58
00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 1: the residents are of Middle Eastern descent, Trump won with

59
00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:31,680
Speaker 1: forty two point forty eight percent of the vote over

60
00:03:31,919 --> 00:03:36,200
Speaker 1: Vice President Harris, who received thirty six point twenty six

61
00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:40,640
Speaker 1: percent of the vote. Jill Stein also got eighteen percent

62
00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:44,680
Speaker 1: of the vote. Dearborn went for Trump. They felt that

63
00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:49,160
Speaker 1: Trump would be better on Gaza. I think that's pretty insane.

64
00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:53,760
Speaker 1: But obviously they didn't and we'll see what happens.

65
00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:56,440
Speaker 3: Well. I think is really sad here too, is so

66
00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:59,960
Speaker 3: few people came out to vote. It's staggering to look

67
00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 3: the around one hundred thousand people who live there and

68
00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:05,360
Speaker 3: then just how few decided to cast a vote in

69
00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:07,960
Speaker 3: the selection they did stay home. And this is they

70
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:11,080
Speaker 3: have been traditionally a place where Dems really run up

71
00:04:11,120 --> 00:04:13,440
Speaker 3: the numbers in Michigan to win. And it's that.

72
00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:18,080
Speaker 1: One bright spot in what otherwise is just a grim

73
00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:22,720
Speaker 1: post mortem is North Carolina. In the state of North Carolina,

74
00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:26,680
Speaker 1: Democrats have appeared to have broken the GOP supermajority in

75
00:04:26,720 --> 00:04:30,719
Speaker 1: the state. They flipped a key seat an our east

76
00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:35,560
Speaker 1: of Raleigh. Why it's important is because in January, Republicans

77
00:04:35,600 --> 00:04:38,520
Speaker 1: won't have a supermajority and they will not be able

78
00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:45,840
Speaker 1: to override the governor as they had. Remember in previously

79
00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:48,200
Speaker 1: when it was now it's going to be this guy

80
00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:49,640
Speaker 1: called Josh Steine.

81
00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:51,640
Speaker 2: It used to be Roy Cooper.

82
00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:54,240
Speaker 1: With Cooper they were able to really just sort of

83
00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:59,000
Speaker 1: override things he wanted to do. Now joshtein the North

84
00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,760
Speaker 1: Carolina governor, will have more power. I want to like,

85
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:03,760
Speaker 1: get on my soapbox here for a minute and just

86
00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:09,600
Speaker 1: point out these races, these down ballot races, these little judgeships,

87
00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:13,640
Speaker 1: these kind of things. They may seem like not so big,

88
00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:15,320
Speaker 1: but they're really big.

89
00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:16,680
Speaker 2: They're really important.

90
00:05:16,839 --> 00:05:20,280
Speaker 1: Things like this can mean the difference between people having

91
00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:24,040
Speaker 1: ten polling places in one polling place. It will mean

92
00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:28,039
Speaker 1: the difference between you know, school you know, more money

93
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:31,000
Speaker 1: to public schools and more money to libraries. And it

94
00:05:31,160 --> 00:05:35,320
Speaker 1: just is extremely good when when Democrats win on those

95
00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:38,360
Speaker 1: down ballot races. So as much as there's a lot

96
00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:43,159
Speaker 1: of stuff to be really fucking depressed about, the black Nazi,

97
00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:47,560
Speaker 1: the self proclaimed black Nazi in North Carolina did lose,

98
00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:52,479
Speaker 1: and North Carolina will continue to have a democratic governor,

99
00:05:52,920 --> 00:06:01,320
Speaker 1: and now it no longer has a state supermajority. Dahlia

100
00:06:01,400 --> 00:06:06,039
Speaker 1: Leswick is a senior editor at Slate and the author

101
00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:09,839
Speaker 1: of Lady Justice, Women, The Law, and the Battle to

102
00:06:09,920 --> 00:06:16,400
Speaker 1: Save America. Welcome back to Fast Politics, My buddy.

103
00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:19,000
Speaker 4: Dahlia him Molly oh boy.

104
00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:24,240
Speaker 1: So Vice President Harris has conceded has a conception speech coming.

105
00:06:24,600 --> 00:06:26,880
Speaker 1: You know, while we're taping this. This will drop on

106
00:06:26,920 --> 00:06:30,200
Speaker 1: Thursday morning. I got five hours of sleep last night.

107
00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:36,240
Speaker 1: We are sort of here together because I know how

108
00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:40,960
Speaker 1: bad I feel, and I have a sense on how

109
00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,919
Speaker 1: bad Jesse feels and there are not that many people

110
00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:49,640
Speaker 1: where they are really fucking smart and really know what's

111
00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:52,000
Speaker 1: going on, but also make me feel better.

112
00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:52,800
Speaker 2: And that's you.

113
00:06:53,480 --> 00:07:00,200
Speaker 4: Oh man, that is a big, big siss even whip to.

114
00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 2: Let me say this, Molly. I feel like every time I've.

115
00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:09,880
Speaker 4: Come on your show, I have like taken us down

116
00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:17,120
Speaker 4: the deranged wormhole of like structural democracy, minority rule. Right,

117
00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:20,640
Speaker 4: I'm always like prectoral college this, and filibuster that and

118
00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:24,840
Speaker 4: malaportion Senate and if we just had, you know, democracy,

119
00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:28,640
Speaker 4: So this is like the first time I'm going to

120
00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:30,720
Speaker 4: come on and be like, you know, I think democracy

121
00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:36,200
Speaker 4: kind of did it flying. Like we can say that

122
00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:41,920
Speaker 4: people like massive votes don't like the bomb threats in Georgia, Like,

123
00:07:42,560 --> 00:07:45,600
Speaker 4: but this was not a failure of democracy. This was

124
00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:51,040
Speaker 4: a failure of us. And that's like really really for

125
00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:53,880
Speaker 4: those of us who've like had like sort of structural

126
00:07:55,080 --> 00:07:58,800
Speaker 4: architectural reform on the brain for a long time, Like

127
00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:00,920
Speaker 4: that's like to punch in the neck.

128
00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:03,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it isn't. It isn't.

129
00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:08,760
Speaker 1: Right, Like the good news is that voters were able

130
00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:14,720
Speaker 1: to vote, elections happened, you know, like it's not the

131
00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:19,040
Speaker 1: outcome that we wanted, but it is, you know, there

132
00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:22,280
Speaker 1: is something to be said that you know, it's this

133
00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:25,280
Speaker 1: opportunity to I mean I was thinking about it, and

134
00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:29,560
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, protect norms, right, Protect norms has

135
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:32,200
Speaker 1: to be number one, right, protect the tenants, protect the

136
00:08:32,280 --> 00:08:36,560
Speaker 1: norms of democracy, and then you know, because that has

137
00:08:36,640 --> 00:08:38,000
Speaker 1: to be number one.

138
00:08:38,960 --> 00:08:40,400
Speaker 2: Now, that's right, and I.

139
00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:43,840
Speaker 4: And I really really do want to say rarely do

140
00:08:43,920 --> 00:08:46,200
Speaker 4: I start crying two minutes into a conversation with you,

141
00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:49,840
Speaker 4: but like I really want to say, like poll workers,

142
00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:53,720
Speaker 4: election workers, like people who stood in line, like all

143
00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:57,440
Speaker 4: the shit that you and I have been afraid of, right,

144
00:08:57,720 --> 00:09:01,560
Speaker 4: violence at the polls, and people like roughing up you know,

145
00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:07,080
Speaker 4: voters and you know, challengers and people with guns on

146
00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:09,880
Speaker 4: the back of their trucks in Arizona, Like none of

147
00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:12,760
Speaker 4: that happened. We're not going to have a bushfee Gore election.

148
00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:18,240
Speaker 4: We're not going to have an election in which the

149
00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:23,480
Speaker 4: systems didn't hold. And you're exactly right, like we should

150
00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:30,520
Speaker 4: be so grateful that this like rickety crazy decentralized you know,

151
00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:34,520
Speaker 4: archaic system held and yet any.

152
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:38,560
Speaker 1: Yah, and yeah, but it is it's this Joe Biden ism. Right,

153
00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:42,320
Speaker 1: you can't only love democracy when you win, right. But

154
00:09:43,080 --> 00:09:48,199
Speaker 1: that said, I do think like the structural problems of

155
00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:53,200
Speaker 1: not being able to break through two voters, the lack

156
00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:58,200
Speaker 1: of local news, the news deserts, the disinformation and misinformation,

157
00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:03,240
Speaker 1: the fact that our like one of our largest news

158
00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:07,240
Speaker 1: delivery systems is owned by the Chinese government. These things

159
00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:09,400
Speaker 1: are all bad.

160
00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:11,240
Speaker 4: Right, And you know it's funny because I feel like

161
00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:15,400
Speaker 4: I've had, like I've been writing a series of like

162
00:10:15,640 --> 00:10:19,240
Speaker 4: facts matter, and like the press is broken. Like everything

163
00:10:19,280 --> 00:10:24,440
Speaker 4: I've written for the last month has been about you know,

164
00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:31,160
Speaker 4: Trump essentially creating a permission structure to choose your own

165
00:10:31,280 --> 00:10:36,960
Speaker 4: ending right and and to just create the reality you want.

166
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:41,360
Speaker 4: And You're exactly right, Like if if in a sane world,

167
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:44,960
Speaker 4: like would Elon Musk be able to pour you know,

168
00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:50,320
Speaker 4: personal millions into the Trump campaign while running X while

169
00:10:50,400 --> 00:10:53,880
Speaker 4: creating a quote unquote lottery for you know voter his

170
00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:59,040
Speaker 4: wing states while having conversations with Putin, Like, maybe the

171
00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:01,160
Speaker 4: way to tie together what you're saying and what I'm

172
00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:04,960
Speaker 4: saying is like all of the systems held and there

173
00:11:05,120 --> 00:11:11,840
Speaker 4: is a like oligarch industrial complex, tech bro other system

174
00:11:12,520 --> 00:11:16,679
Speaker 4: that is largely invisible, I think to us, and that

175
00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:17,319
Speaker 4: he'll do.

176
00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:20,000
Speaker 2: That, He'll do Yeah.

177
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:22,320
Speaker 1: And the thing is, like, there are a lot of

178
00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:25,120
Speaker 1: people who are listening to this podcast, Like I was

179
00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:29,120
Speaker 1: listening to podcasts in twenty sixteen, going what the hell

180
00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:31,360
Speaker 1: am I going to do now? And let me tell

181
00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:34,560
Speaker 1: you what I did in twenty sixteen. I changed my

182
00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:38,440
Speaker 1: career and started doing what I do now. So, like,

183
00:11:38,559 --> 00:11:42,680
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this, there is an opportunity here. Right,

184
00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:48,000
Speaker 1: American democracy is teetering on the brink, but you know,

185
00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:51,160
Speaker 1: we have been the you know, if you look back

186
00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:54,199
Speaker 1: in history, we have been here before.

187
00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:55,280
Speaker 5: Right.

188
00:11:55,559 --> 00:11:59,440
Speaker 4: You know what I did this morning, Molly, when I

189
00:11:59,480 --> 00:12:04,760
Speaker 4: like couldn't move, was like reread that Langston Hughes poem

190
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:08,320
Speaker 4: about you know, all the ways in which America was

191
00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:12,040
Speaker 4: never America to me and to think about, and folks

192
00:12:12,080 --> 00:12:14,720
Speaker 4: should just read it because I think, like we're trapped

193
00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:19,120
Speaker 4: between like a fever dream of you know, this is

194
00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:23,680
Speaker 4: the perfect best you know, constitutional democracy ever in history,

195
00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:27,040
Speaker 4: and it gets better every minute. And the fact that

196
00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:31,199
Speaker 4: it never really was given a chance to soar right

197
00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:34,520
Speaker 4: like that it was yeah, Jim crow Baby right for

198
00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:39,040
Speaker 4: like reconstruction and and you know, the Civil War and

199
00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:44,400
Speaker 4: on and on and the like very bones of a

200
00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:49,920
Speaker 4: constitutional system that didn't prize equality and democracy the way

201
00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:51,920
Speaker 4: you and I think about it. And I guess I

202
00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:55,040
Speaker 4: would just say this, like it would be really nice

203
00:12:55,400 --> 00:13:00,559
Speaker 4: if that Langston Hughes democracy had a chance, right, if

204
00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:06,280
Speaker 4: America could be America. And I think in a weird way,

205
00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:09,560
Speaker 4: the way I'm trying to mollify myself right now is

206
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,320
Speaker 4: to say that there is an electorate that is split

207
00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:18,720
Speaker 4: between fully understanding that that promise was never realized and

208
00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:22,520
Speaker 4: an electorate that like somehow convinced itself that like I

209
00:13:22,600 --> 00:13:24,600
Speaker 4: saw it one time on leave it to Beaver, so

210
00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:27,400
Speaker 4: it must be those were the good old days. And

211
00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:32,600
Speaker 4: I think what's really painful, and like I want to

212
00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:36,160
Speaker 4: center this is that you know, Donald Trump didn't hide

213
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:38,960
Speaker 4: who he was, Like he had a like full on,

214
00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:45,640
Speaker 4: like weird creepy Ersatz nineteen thirty nine Madison Square, a

215
00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:49,640
Speaker 4: Gordon Nazi rally, and I know you saw what I saw,

216
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:53,400
Speaker 4: like this was not the twenty sixteen, like here is

217
00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:57,360
Speaker 4: my lovely family and they're all like in vasilene and beautiful,

218
00:13:57,480 --> 00:14:00,920
Speaker 4: like it was just full on like engines his mind

219
00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:05,559
Speaker 4: dictator for a day, putting people in camps, deporting everyone, right, like,

220
00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:09,360
Speaker 4: he put it all out there, and the idea that

221
00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:16,480
Speaker 4: that unfiltered thing is what people voted for and that

222
00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:20,480
Speaker 4: they think that that will bring them to I don't

223
00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:25,320
Speaker 4: know that perfected democracy or just straight up strong man

224
00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:28,640
Speaker 4: illiberal hutocracy.

225
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:29,400
Speaker 2: I don't know.

226
00:14:29,640 --> 00:14:33,560
Speaker 4: But I think what's hard right now is not just that,

227
00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:38,280
Speaker 4: like the system didn't fail us, it's that we saw

228
00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:41,000
Speaker 4: exactly what he was and we chose it.

229
00:14:41,840 --> 00:14:42,040
Speaker 2: Yeah.

230
00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:47,040
Speaker 1: I mean, now, I would say it was pretty small numbers, right,

231
00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,040
Speaker 1: It wasn't a huge I mean, it was not a mandate.

232
00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,800
Speaker 1: I mean they'll say it was a mandate, but it

233
00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:55,240
Speaker 1: was not a mandate. The numbers, the voting numbers were

234
00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:58,400
Speaker 1: I have to look now, but they were pretty small.

235
00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:02,360
Speaker 2: I mean, it was not high turnout election. And also,

236
00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:05,320
Speaker 2: you want to hear my worst.

237
00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:10,600
Speaker 4: Yes, whatever it is, I want to hear your anything.

238
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:12,000
Speaker 2: The worst everything.

239
00:15:12,680 --> 00:15:16,080
Speaker 1: So my I was talking to a Democratic congressman who's

240
00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:18,040
Speaker 1: no longer an office, and he was saying, you know,

241
00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:22,000
Speaker 1: one of the things that Democrats do that's really bad

242
00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:25,320
Speaker 1: is Democrats say this is what is good for you

243
00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:29,880
Speaker 1: to voters, even if voters don't necessarily want it, even

244
00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:33,200
Speaker 1: if it's good policy, even if it's good politics, even

245
00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:35,720
Speaker 1: if it's something that seems like it should be popular.

246
00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:38,760
Speaker 1: And if you think about that in that way, that

247
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:40,920
Speaker 1: actually makes a lot of sense, right, Like, think about

248
00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:43,800
Speaker 1: all the things that Democrats have been like we're giving you.

249
00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:47,720
Speaker 1: I mean, even a good example is like chips, chips,

250
00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:51,160
Speaker 1: is this thing that is so good for the economy, right,

251
00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:57,560
Speaker 1: building factories in America, employing people, economies booming. Voters didn't

252
00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:02,720
Speaker 1: really get it right, And like there is a certain

253
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:06,480
Speaker 1: kind of there was a lot of like why can't

254
00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:10,440
Speaker 1: democrats message on chips and science? Why can't they explain

255
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:13,840
Speaker 1: why building factories in the heartland is good?

256
00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:18,920
Speaker 2: But in the end, like it just didn't connect with voters.

257
00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:22,480
Speaker 1: And again, you know, that's just an example of a

258
00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:26,320
Speaker 1: way in which there was so much money spent and

259
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:29,480
Speaker 1: it was not sort of aligned with what voters want. Now.

260
00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:31,600
Speaker 1: Is it better for the environment, yes, is it better

261
00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:35,360
Speaker 1: for manufacturing, yes, But like you only get so many

262
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:36,680
Speaker 1: of those when you're governing.

263
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:38,960
Speaker 2: I mean, that's very depressing.

264
00:16:40,040 --> 00:16:40,080
Speaker 1: It.

265
00:16:40,280 --> 00:16:42,280
Speaker 4: Listen, you and I I think both talk to Tim

266
00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:45,560
Speaker 4: Snyder on the same day last week right, did.

267
00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:48,920
Speaker 2: We wow both podcasts with him and very possible.

268
00:16:49,040 --> 00:16:49,240
Speaker 5: Yeah.

269
00:16:49,480 --> 00:16:53,240
Speaker 4: I think like one of the things he did was

270
00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:55,760
Speaker 4: helped me think in terms of like sort of negative

271
00:16:55,800 --> 00:17:01,320
Speaker 4: liberty and positive liberty, right, and like how like constrained

272
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:05,480
Speaker 4: our vision of freedom is because we only ever think

273
00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:08,360
Speaker 4: in terms of freedom from right. That's what makes us free.

274
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,600
Speaker 4: And it's not chips, right, And it's not healthcare, and

275
00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:18,120
Speaker 4: it's not you know, infrastructure. It's just I am free

276
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:24,359
Speaker 4: because they can't take my guns and you know, they

277
00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:27,920
Speaker 4: can't tell me where to go in my car. Like,

278
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:33,000
Speaker 4: I think there is a deep, deep thinking that we

279
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:37,760
Speaker 4: have to do and messaging about helping people understand that

280
00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:42,200
Speaker 4: like women dying in hospitals because of miscarriages, you know,

281
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:46,840
Speaker 4: sepsis preventable for decades, Like that doesn't make you free.

282
00:17:47,680 --> 00:17:51,800
Speaker 4: And you know, sending your kids to school to get

283
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:55,320
Speaker 4: shot because like we want people to have guns, like

284
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:57,720
Speaker 4: doesn't make you free. And I think, like in a

285
00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:00,240
Speaker 4: lot a lot of ways, what you're describing is a

286
00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:04,359
Speaker 4: sort of a like a really capacious notion of like

287
00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:09,800
Speaker 4: well being and liberty too, and freedom too, that is

288
00:18:10,200 --> 00:18:13,720
Speaker 4: so not kind of the construct of how we think

289
00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:17,520
Speaker 4: about freedom. We just think about it both in terms

290
00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:20,600
Speaker 4: of you know, to again use Tim Snyder, like freedom

291
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:25,720
Speaker 4: from but also anything that anybody else gets makes me

292
00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:29,480
Speaker 4: less free, right, And that's why like nonsitizen voting is

293
00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:32,040
Speaker 4: an issue, and that's why immigrants taking your jobs is

294
00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,480
Speaker 4: an issue. And so I think like we're a little

295
00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:38,439
Speaker 4: bit in this moment that we're in where those are

296
00:18:38,520 --> 00:18:41,920
Speaker 4: the constructs that we're given and it's really hard to

297
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:42,480
Speaker 4: think about.

298
00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:42,800
Speaker 1: You know.

299
00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:45,320
Speaker 4: I love the thing that he says, like, you know,

300
00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:48,960
Speaker 4: what's not going to be like freedom from like climate change.

301
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:51,440
Speaker 4: We're gonna have to think right about that through this

302
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:54,800
Speaker 4: lens of freedom too. And so I think in a

303
00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:59,920
Speaker 4: weird way, all of these policy conversations fizzle because they're

304
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,680
Speaker 4: part of a framing that is freedom too. That is

305
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:07,280
Speaker 4: just like kind of anathema to how we think about liberty.

306
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:08,240
Speaker 4: Does that make any sense?

307
00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:12,639
Speaker 2: Yes? And also I mean we just have to keep.

308
00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:17,800
Speaker 4: Going right, yeah, And I'm just reading Cherylyn Eiffel just

309
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:21,359
Speaker 4: sent round a note about you know, she's like my

310
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:25,399
Speaker 4: spirit guide about how we're going to get through the

311
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:28,600
Speaker 4: next couple of months, and she says, like, you know,

312
00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:31,040
Speaker 4: our spirits are going to be assaulted we're going to

313
00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:33,800
Speaker 4: have to see this person with the course language and

314
00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:36,480
Speaker 4: the displays of violence and the privilege and the power,

315
00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:39,840
Speaker 4: and we just have to, you know, make sure to

316
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:45,159
Speaker 4: spend time on those things that refresh our spirits. And

317
00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:48,480
Speaker 4: then we just need to realize that there are just

318
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:54,359
Speaker 4: enormous vulnerable communities that are going to feel a world

319
00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:58,960
Speaker 4: of pain. And you know, it's not it's just not

320
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:03,280
Speaker 4: an option to say that that's not the work. And

321
00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:06,600
Speaker 4: it sucks because I think we're so sad and broken

322
00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:09,840
Speaker 4: and I think you and I both feel like I've

323
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,359
Speaker 4: been doing this work for eight years, like I would

324
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:16,520
Speaker 4: like to stop. I guess I just think I've been

325
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:19,560
Speaker 4: sitting in this a lot, like the people who are

326
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:22,320
Speaker 4: going to be hurt, and we haven't even had the

327
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:24,680
Speaker 4: conversation about what the Supreme Court is going to do

328
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:26,920
Speaker 4: with that. You know, you know, Alita is going to

329
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:29,000
Speaker 4: retire and Thomas is going to retire, and we're going

330
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:31,080
Speaker 4: to have a six to three supermajority for like the

331
00:20:31,160 --> 00:20:33,440
Speaker 4: rest of our lifetimes, and they're going to do com

332
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:35,320
Speaker 4: stuck and they're going to get rid of them of

333
00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:38,000
Speaker 4: a prystal, like this is just going to be hell.

334
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:41,439
Speaker 4: You know, and our trans kids are going to suffer

335
00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:43,680
Speaker 4: and our migrants, like this is going to be hell

336
00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:48,600
Speaker 4: on earth, and like lifting up that is like even

337
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:52,159
Speaker 4: if we can't fix it, I think buffering it is

338
00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:54,280
Speaker 4: like that's the mission.

339
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 1: Right Yeah, and also know and also letting people know

340
00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:01,320
Speaker 1: that they're going to be okay, right like that we're

341
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:05,560
Speaker 1: going to push back. We're going to do what we

342
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:08,560
Speaker 1: can do to make sure everybody is okay. We're going

343
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 1: to take care of each other, and we're going to

344
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 1: keep going. You know, I do think there are a

345
00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:14,920
Speaker 1: lot of people who need to know they're going to

346
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:19,280
Speaker 1: be okay today, you know, I mean people with trans kids,

347
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,160
Speaker 1: or people who are trans, or people who are gay,

348
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:26,440
Speaker 1: or people who are here in this country and worried

349
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:29,560
Speaker 1: about being deported. Like we just have to be for

350
00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:33,560
Speaker 1: them strong, you know, because of the privilege that we have.

351
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:36,119
Speaker 1: I mean I think of that so much. We have

352
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 1: this opportunity to be able to be there for them

353
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,600
Speaker 1: and to you know, speak for them and to and

354
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 1: to tell them that we will continue to work for them.

355
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,880
Speaker 4: And maybe just to add this, you know, the how

356
00:21:50,960 --> 00:21:57,720
Speaker 4: democracy die. Guys like they keep saying that the you know,

357
00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 4: the academy, like the corporate world, like the entities. I

358
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 4: think of them as the soft furnishings of democracy, like

359
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:10,320
Speaker 4: once the institution fail, right, like then you need the

360
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 4: throw pillows of democracy, which it's like big business, and

361
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:17,920
Speaker 4: like they need to step up and you know, to

362
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:21,919
Speaker 4: quote Snyder again like in on tyranny, like if they

363
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:26,200
Speaker 4: comply in advance, if they buckle in advance, like, we

364
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:28,919
Speaker 4: don't have another bulwark. And so I think in addition

365
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 4: to reassuring people they will be okay, like now is

366
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 4: a really really good time for American medical associations and

367
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:41,800
Speaker 4: for colleges like the entities that just kind of muddled

368
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:45,440
Speaker 4: through in twenty sixteen and hope that somebody else would

369
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 4: like put skin in the game, Like I think they

370
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:48,760
Speaker 4: need to show up now.

371
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 2: Yeah.

372
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point. And I also think

373
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:58,360
Speaker 1: that we need our institutions and also our governors, right

374
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 1: Like I'm in a blue state and I have a

375
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:08,359
Speaker 1: democratic governor, Kathy Hokel, And this is her opportunity to

376
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 1: remind residents that there is federalism, right like Republican We

377
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 1: saw in Texas that Republicans were very happy to enact

378
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:22,880
Speaker 1: federalism and I hope that we'll see Democrats do that too,

379
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: in ways that protect you know, they are also a bullwark, right, yeah, no,

380
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:29,200
Speaker 1: that's right.

381
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 4: And I think we're going to see like state supreme courts, right,

382
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,879
Speaker 4: We've seen it for years now, you know, state supreme

383
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 4: courts that find in their state constitutions all sorts of protections. Like,

384
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 4: I think we're going to have to see, you know,

385
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 4: states stepping up. And at the same time, I think

386
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 4: we really you know, and I'm so glad we're not

387
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 4: doing it now. Like I think there's a lot of

388
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:53,119
Speaker 4: people who are going to say, like, oh, if only

389
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 4: you know Josh Shapiro and if only you know Broker Convention,

390
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,040
Speaker 4: like all of the circular firing squad, and I I

391
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 4: guess there's some utility, But I think like the better

392
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 4: thing again to do the Lynston Hughes palm is to

393
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 4: just say, like, democracy could be really amazing. Let's like

394
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 4: take it out for a spin for the first time.

395
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: Bin well, And I think I also think that we

396
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: can look back on the opportunities that were missed without

397
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: being craven to each other. Right, there is no reason

398
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: to not have a clear eyed view of what happened

399
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,479
Speaker 1: so that we can all learn from it without saying

400
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: that Vice President.

401
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 2: Harris ran a nearly flawless campaign.

402
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: I think it's it's okay just to sort of look

403
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: back on why she didn't win, but also to appreciate

404
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 1: she she absolutely she went, you know, she went to

405
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,920
Speaker 1: Wisconsin and Michigan and all the places that you're supposed

406
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 1: to go many many times, you.

407
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 4: Know, Yeah, and to really think about you know, race

408
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 4: and gender and all of the stuff that we don't

409
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 4: necessarily you know, feel comfortable talking about in it or

410
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 4: look at.

411
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:12,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is absolutely true.

412
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 1: And that and the sort of unsparing look at ourselves

413
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: as voters and our candidates and what the country looks

414
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: like is absolutely true. But I do think, you know,

415
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 1: for all those people who are despairing, this is what

416
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 1: it is. This is democracy and action. And tomorrow we

417
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 1: will wake up and we will keep going.

418
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 4: Yep. My eldest son always reminds me of that like

419
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 4: beautiful line from like Jewish texts that says, it is

420
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 4: not incumbent on you to finish the work, but you

421
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,920
Speaker 4: can't desist from it either, right, Like we're going to

422
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 4: find that scene between feeling all of us feel right now,

423
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 4: everybody feels like I didn't do enough. If I had

424
00:25:56,200 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 4: just like done, four more laters were written, two more

425
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 4: pieces like no and at the same time, like we

426
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 4: don't get to just fling our hands up and say

427
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 4: we're done. And you find that scene and I think

428
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 4: everybody needs to like drink a bunch of water and

429
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 4: be in their little communities and were fuzzy sucks on

430
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 4: their head for a couple of days and then like keep.

431
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 2: Going and keep going, keep going. And the one bright spot.

432
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 1: If you're listeners podcast, you are probably the group that did,

433
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: in fact vote for Harris because.

434
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 2: White college educated women, nobody else but you guys understood

435
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 2: the assignment. Yep, thank you.

436
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 4: Oh lots of love, Molly, thank you.

437
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: Angelo Carrasone is the CEO of Media Matters. Welcome back

438
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, Angela.

439
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 2: I this will drop on Thursday, two.

440
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 1: Days after yet another election that did not necessarily go

441
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: the way that many of us hoped.

442
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 2: I want you to talk to us about MAGA.

443
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:12,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you said this in your writing

444
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,639
Speaker 1: that MAGA may actually be not a transient thing but

445
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: a real Can you talk about that?

446
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 5: Yeah? I think that there's sort of two things happening,

447
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 5: and we can get into the why. But one of

448
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 5: the things that people sometimes, especially because so much of

449
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 5: our coverage after elections is driven by just like our

450
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 5: coverage leading up to elections is driven by polls, the

451
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 5: coverage after elections is sort of driven by a lot

452
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 5: of sort of an amalgamation of micro trends, right, and

453
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 5: tactical discussions, And what it doesn't do oftentimes is take

454
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 5: a step back and look at the big trend line.

455
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 5: And the effect of that, to your question, is that

456
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 5: after twenty sixteen, any a little bit after twenty twenty,

457
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 5: people sort of treated MAGA as something that was, as

458
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 5: you noted, potentially transient, that it was this sort of

459
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 5: weird flash point. I was so deeply connected to Trump.

460
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 5: And the result of that is that it will sort

461
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 5: of go away on its own. But in reality, and

462
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 5: that's the thing that I know here, no matter there's

463
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 5: obviously a lot of tactical things about the campaign, but

464
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 5: there's a bigger macro trend that we have to sort

465
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 5: of grapple with, which is that MAGA is growing. And

466
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 5: that is independent of how and who and what the

467
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,120
Speaker 5: parts of it are. That is like and a fact

468
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 5: that we have to internalize because I do think that

469
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 5: so much of the discussion over the past few years

470
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 5: and electropolitans has been about, well, everybody, we all agree

471
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 5: on these things, right, and so once everybody sees or

472
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 5: becomes aware of certain things, we're in alignment. And that's

473
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 5: actually the wrong assumption. We're not in alignment. The notion

474
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 5: that MAGA is growing reinforces that, and there's a lot

475
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 5: more to unpack around it. But I do think that

476
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 5: that is something we really do need to internalize very

477
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 5: fast because it will affect how we respond and act

478
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:00,480
Speaker 5: when it comes to dealing with and and you know,

479
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 5: addressing administration actions, and that's something that we just need

480
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 5: to internalize now immediately.

481
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So what does MAGA look like.

482
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 5: It's to something extent the discussion of like the manosphere

483
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 5: is important, the acknowledgment of that. But one of the

484
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 5: things that MAGA looks like, to sort of describe it

485
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 5: is you have to go back to its roots. And

486
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 5: one of the things, because it's it's all sort of

487
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 5: an outgrowth of that. One of the things that Trump

488
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 5: did when he started to run for office all the

489
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 5: way back in twenty fifteen. Is he took portions of

490
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 5: the large right wing constituency and he started to sort

491
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 5: of knit them together. And part of it was that

492
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 5: at the time, it wasn't the manosphere. Was the men's

493
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 5: rights advocates and the prouds Boys were a part of it,

494
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 5: but they really call themselves men's rights advocates. And there

495
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 5: was a whole sort of universe around around that. There

496
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 5: was the sort of the more conspiracy parts of sort

497
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 5: of these, you know, there was sort of right wing.

498
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 5: It was the traditional issue groups, which is anti choice

499
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 5: and sort of and those those are pretty much the

500
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 5: core components of it, and obviously the Christians. And one

501
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 5: of the things that he did is sort of passed

502
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 5: them together. And that's always a red flag, is that

503
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 5: when you start to have cross pollination of communities, that's

504
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 5: when you get something that is greater than the sum

505
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 5: of its parts, because they all start to grow and

506
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 5: the idea is cross pollinated. And that ever since then

507
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 5: what got folded into that original coalition because he's sort

508
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 5: of it's sort of like a poison pill, right, He

509
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 5: injected that into the Republican Party and that sort of

510
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 5: took over the Republican Party, you know, within a relatively

511
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 5: short period of time. So MAGA really is not just

512
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 5: all the components of the Republican Party. And we do

513
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 5: need to stop pretending that there are I don't want

514
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 5: to seem clib like sort of good Republicans. Of course

515
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 5: they are good Republicans. But like, there was this notion

516
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 5: in this cycle that a very large number of Republicans

517
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 5: were going to defect because they believed in something greater

518
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 5: than their party, and that just that turned out not

519
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 5: to be true. Republicans are MAGA.

520
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: Now say that again, because I haven't heard anyone say that,

521
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: and I think that's exactly right this idea.

522
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 2: Say it one more time and just go a little

523
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 2: more with that.

524
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not saying it to be mean. It's just

525
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 5: we have to be realistic. Yeah, it's like, you know,

526
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 5: there's this notion that Republicans and MAGA are distinct, and

527
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 5: there's maybe some overlap and some loose you know, there's

528
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 5: an uncomfortable affiliation, but actually Republicans are MAGA, and you

529
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 5: only need to look at what happened this cycle. There's

530
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 5: this notion that Republicans were going to defect from the

531
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 5: party and vote for Harris, and at a greater number

532
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 5: than they have historically. And that's not true. They did

533
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 5: not switch. They voted for Trump, they voted for MAGA.

534
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 5: And so MAGA is really all the traditional Republican ideas

535
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 5: mixed in with this, this grander notion that those court

536
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 5: constituencies that I talked about before and then updated for

537
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 5: you know, the current version of it is sort of

538
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 5: weaved in additional new layers. And this is the thing

539
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 5: about MAGA that I really want people to take away.

540
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 5: It's not oriented around a set of policy descriptions, but

541
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 5: rather a set of approaches. One of the approaches is

542
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 5: might mix, right. The other approach is that you organize

543
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 5: and build power on what used to be considered the fringes.

544
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 5: And so, just like in twenty.

545
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: Fifteen, you organize again, this is all stuff I was

546
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: not hearing. You organize and build power on things that

547
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: used to be considered the fringes.

548
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 2: Can you say more?

549
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 5: That's right, and that's why MAGA is growing. So when

550
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 5: I talked about MAGA one point zero, right, you know,

551
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 5: the sort of the men's rights advocates and those groups,

552
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 5: the conspiracy theorists that didn't just end there in twenty twenty,

553
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 5: MAGA incorporated QAnon, and it incorporated the anti vaxx movements

554
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 5: and sort of the larger wellness communities.

555
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 4: Right.

556
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 5: One of the things that it did this time is

557
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 5: it brought in some even scarier things. When Trump launched

558
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 5: his campaign, he launched it in Waco, and that was

559
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 5: a broadside against government that is reflected not only in

560
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 5: the policy of Schedule F and the plans to sort

561
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 5: of terminate tens of thousands of federal workers, but it's

562
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 5: also in this sort of idea that Elon Musk is

563
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 5: going to come in and cut the federal government by

564
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 5: you know, a third. It is very specifically an anti

565
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 5: government idea, So that's one part of it. Obviously, the

566
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 5: RFK stuff is just an intensification of it and then

567
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 5: more extremists, and that is a part of MAGA, is

568
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 5: you build an organized power on the fringes or what

569
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 5: used to be considered the fringes, and that they're front

570
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 5: and center, or what we're seeing with these tradwives or

571
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 5: these sort of cultural crossovers that are pretty far out there.

572
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 5: There's the whole thing about childless cat ladies. You know,

573
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 5: you can really start to unpack it, and you'll see

574
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 5: that these are fringe ideas. I mean, Tucker Conson is

575
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 5: out there talking about demons. We are very likely to

576
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 5: have a US government demon cask force.

577
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 2: Right, that is a fringe idea.

578
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 5: So that's what MAGA is.

579
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:44,959
Speaker 2: It builds out from the fringes.

580
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 5: That's right. It builds an organized power on the fringes.

581
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 5: And one of the things I used to talk about

582
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 5: when Trump was first running for office is that, you know,

583
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 5: when Obama was first elected, one of the things in

584
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 5: right wing radio that the ideas, you know, they they

585
00:33:57,080 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 5: were going through a trauma, you know, themselves back then

586
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 5: when President Obama first came into office, and if you

587
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 5: were a writ wing radio listener, one of the things

588
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 5: that you heard over and over again was this idea

589
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 5: of the ten percent theory, and it was this was

590
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 5: sort of a romantic notion that all you need is

591
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 5: ten percent of the population, and with ten percent of

592
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 5: the population, as long as they're fervent and passionate and intense,

593
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 5: you can do anything. And they used to tell all

594
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 5: of this revision is history. All the great wars, the

595
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,240
Speaker 5: American Revolution, all the great moments in history, they always

596
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 5: attributed back to this idea that it was just ten

597
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 5: percent of the population at first. And one of the

598
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 5: things that Trump's people really started to convince themselves of

599
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 5: is that, yeah, it doesn't matter if for small we're intense.

600
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 5: That idea has sort of translated into the current approach.

601
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 5: That's where this idea about building power on the fringes

602
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 5: comes from. Is that you bring in these really intense,

603
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:49,319
Speaker 5: scary people. And because there's so intense and scary, people

604
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 5: are faced with the question. And for the most people,

605
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 5: when it comes to confronting burgeoning authoritarianism or extremism, they

606
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 5: break to the right. Most people duck and cover when

607
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,240
Speaker 5: they're confronted with scary stuff. That's why heroes are heroes,

608
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 5: because that's not the norm, right, you know, And that's

609
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:06,840
Speaker 5: what happened with the Republican Party is that, you know,

610
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 5: originally they sort of lost themselves because they were so

611
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 5: hopped up on the means to an end that was

612
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 5: getting rid of abortion and you know, and squlturing reproductive

613
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 5: health that they you know, sort of started they took

614
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:20,120
Speaker 5: the poison pill somewhat knowingly in hopes that well, we'll

615
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 5: just get through this and then you know, whatever, we'll

616
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 5: consume them right, and that's it, and so this is it,

617
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 5: this is they consume them, like you said, and this

618
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 5: is what we have to deal with going forward. And

619
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 5: it ties into so much and that's why I said,

620
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 5: like we can get into the tactical stuff. But the

621
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 5: truth is what my big takeaway from the last few

622
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 5: weeks and obviously the results, is that there are some

623
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 5: macro things here that we need to account for and

624
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 5: understand and internalize fast, not only because that will help

625
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 5: us develop strategies for responding, but we need to internalize

626
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 5: it fast so that we are not disoriented. People are

627
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 5: not disoriented. They're going to be disoriented unless they internalize

628
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 5: that they need a decoder for what's about to happen.

629
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 5: That is the first step to resilience, and everyone's going

630
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 5: to need a heck of a lot of it, and

631
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 5: not just our society but all the people that make

632
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 5: up with it, because every day that people are disoriented

633
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 5: and don't buttress themselves and sort of nurture that resilience,

634
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 5: more and more people break toward the right. They duck

635
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:21,720
Speaker 5: and cover, because that is what happens when you infect

636
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 5: now our government with what used to be people on

637
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 5: the fringe.

638
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a hard question.

639
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: You've already said more smart stuff than has occurred to me,

640
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: Like I've been writing stuff down, which I never do

641
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,720
Speaker 1: because what you've said is so smart and so correct.

642
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 2: But let's talk about growing power from the fringes. So

643
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 2: does that look like McCarthyism.

644
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you know what's so different about it, And

645
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 5: that's one of the reasons why you mentioned McCarthyism as

646
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 5: opposed to say, the John Birch society, right, because McCarthy

647
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 5: actually was able to get some power, right, and whereas

648
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 5: the John Birch society. Hey, yeah, they were influential, but

649
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:00,800
Speaker 5: they didn't. Here's the difference, and it gets it and

650
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 5: there's a modern analog to it. The difference is that

651
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 5: America has always had fringes, just like any society. We've

652
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 5: had a little bit more fringes, and part that's what

653
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 5: makes us a little spicy. Our fringes are kind of

654
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 5: a feature in a way. But what we haven't had

655
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 5: is the fringes being connected, right, and so you can't

656
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 5: build power unless you connect otherwise disconnected audiences. That's where

657
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 5: McCarthyism come in. Obviously, McCarthy was a demagogue, so the

658
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 5: tool was demagoguery, but what it did was it connected

659
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 5: otherwise disconnected audiences, and he used a platform that he

660
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 5: had to do that. And what we have now the

661
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 5: modern analog and like to your point about McCarthy as

662
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 5: in a way, it's maccarthyism on steroids, because McCarthy still

663
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 5: needed to rely on traditional means. And one of the

664
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 5: things that we have now is that you have extremely

665
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 5: powerful algorithms that connect otherwise disconnected audiences. If you like

666
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 5: one piece of q and on content, or two pieces

667
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 5: q and on content, even if you don't intentionally know

668
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,479
Speaker 5: it's q and on or not, the algorithms will feed

669
00:37:57,560 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 5: you more and more and more of that and move

670
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 5: you down a rabbit hole and move you and intensify

671
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,399
Speaker 5: or capture you. They will convert you, and they will

672
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 5: connect you to new people. And so that is partly

673
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 5: what we're dealing with now, is that we are dealing

674
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 5: with a McCarthyism that does not need to dilute itself

675
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 5: to speak to mass audiences. And believe the McCarthy thing,

676
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 5: strangely enough, was diluted. It needed to be deluded in

677
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 5: order to reach broader and broader audiences. What happens when

678
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:26,839
Speaker 5: you don't need to dilute to have the same reach

679
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 5: and saturation because the tools that we're using, the tech

680
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 5: platforms are automatically distributing that content to those individuals. And

681
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 5: I just want to make one point on that because

682
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 5: I think it helps tie into the outcomes here. The

683
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 5: major platforms had put in place many safeguards since the

684
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 5: last election about what was recommended, about who they were

685
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 5: recommending content too, about not accelerating extremism, and in the

686
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 5: last year most of those safeguards have all been systematically

687
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:59,400
Speaker 5: eliminated or reduced as a result of pressure from right

688
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 5: wing influence. They work the refs at these platforms, so

689
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 5: they knew what they were doing because they knew that

690
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,440
Speaker 5: in order to scale and execute organizing power on the fringes,

691
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 5: you needed the runway and the tools that these tech

692
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 5: platforms provided. So I would say it looks like Maccarthyism,

693
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,240
Speaker 5: but strangely enough, a more raw and non deluded version

694
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,839
Speaker 5: of Macarthyism. And I don't think we should joke about

695
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,319
Speaker 5: the demon thing I before. When I but I said

696
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 5: that before, it's a joke. But think about it. There's

697
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,839
Speaker 5: the increase of Christian nationalists, the rise of this evangelical

698
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 5: stral of, this intention religious strain, this idea that there

699
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 5: are demons among us doing bad things, that is going

700
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,879
Speaker 5: to be something that they start to name, they're going

701
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 5: to start identify. I'm not even joking when I when

702
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 5: I talk about q Andon and like you know, back

703
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 5: in twenty eighteen, people don't reporters. They really thought I

704
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 5: was losing my mind. And I talk about demons now,

705
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 5: not because it's a focused point of mind, but I

706
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 5: look where they get their information, and it's like they're

707
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 5: going to start screaming that person is a demon, that

708
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 5: person's being motivated by demons. And that is a tactic

709
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 5: of the same thing that MacArthur it is. They will

710
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 5: have they will they will build up new boogeym in

711
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 5: new labels that they can then apply to individuals in

712
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 5: order to harass them, persecute them, and all of that

713
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 5: is designed to sort of make examples out of people fast,

714
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 5: so that more and more people duck and cover.

715
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just keep going with this for a minute.

716
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: What do we think that we do next. I was

717
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: on a show this morning. It was on the Late

718
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: Night MSNBC, and we're talking about like what went wrong

719
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: which is what we're going to be talking about for

720
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: the next five hundred until the midterms. And one of

721
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: the things that you know, there was a lot of

722
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: like this and that, and this went wrong, this went wrong.

723
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: But like one of the things that I think is

724
00:40:56,680 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 1: that it seems to me like there is is a

725
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 1: real information problem right like we there are parts of

726
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: this country that don't have news.

727
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 2: The news they're getting is read sludge.

728
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: Remember how you know the thing that Elon shared and

729
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:18,240
Speaker 1: after Paul Pelosi has been you know, amien.

730
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:20,919
Speaker 2: So what's the solve there?

731
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 5: I would say there are three sort of immediate things,

732
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 5: and part of it's, you know, a lot of this

733
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:29,320
Speaker 5: all starts too with the recognition early on that it

734
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,320
Speaker 5: was describing about how they're organizing and building power, and

735
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 5: because that then sort of then you're working towards countering that.

736
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:38,760
Speaker 5: I think there's sort of three things that are important

737
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 5: in terms of the next step here. One is everyone.

738
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people talk about messaging and say, oh,

739
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 5: we need better messaging. I look at it in a

740
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 5: slightly different way. You know, there's three ways that you

741
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 5: can talk to somebody. You can talk to their head,

742
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,839
Speaker 5: their heart, or their gut. That's it. It doesn't matter

743
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 5: what the message is, it's either to their head the

744
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 5: heart of their gut. And if you look at the

745
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 5: bulk of Republican and conservative and right wing message messaging

746
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 5: with what they're saying, it's almost all to people's gut.

747
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 5: Sometimes it'll be to their to their heart, never to

748
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,760
Speaker 5: their head. If you look at democratic messaging, it's almost

749
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 5: always to people's heads, sometimes their heart, never to their gut.

750
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 5: And why that matters is that we live in a

751
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 5: as you notated, we live in that we have this

752
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 5: information asymmetry. But obviously people say, well, not that many

753
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 5: people watch the news or read papers, sure, but they

754
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 5: still live in an information world because you get it

755
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 5: through word of mouth. You get an you don't get

756
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 5: the individual facts with the threads, but you get the narrative.

757
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 5: We all live in a narrative or narratives. And when

758
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 5: that narrative, when the right wing has narrative dominance, and

759
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 5: as you noted, that narrative dominance is really just a

760
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 5: reflection of right wing sludge. You're just pickled in misinformation

761
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 5: and right wing rage all the time, even if you

762
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 5: don't consume a drop of it. They're still pickled in

763
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 5: it because your friends are because indirectly you're getting it.

764
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 5: It's on the television, you see the chiron, when you're

765
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 5: picking up your bagel in the morning. You you form

766
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 5: a narrative. That's what happens. And so I think we

767
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 5: need to one think about how it is that we

768
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 5: communicate and communicators need to write eyes that we need

769
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 5: to rethink about that. The second there were two more

770
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 5: structural pieces. One is that there's no shortage of creators

771
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 5: on our side. But the one thing that the right

772
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 5: wing does, and they've done this for decades and they

773
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 5: do it better, is they invest in people. There's no

774
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,320
Speaker 5: reason why our content creators should not be getting what

775
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 5: you know, have to have other jobs. You know, some

776
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 5: of our best people are you know, it's not their

777
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 5: primary position. They're not full time, you know, you know,

778
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 5: video creators or podcasters. It's something they do on the side, incidentally,

779
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 5: and we've never really made robust investments in them, whereas.

780
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 2: They have, and they have a pipe which they have

781
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 2: to have.

782
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 5: You know, there are people on Instagram that got grants

783
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 5: from Charlie Kirk years ago that will make their way

784
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 5: to or have already made their way to daily wire

785
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 5: podcasts after a few years, right, And that's how it works.

786
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 5: And so you get the benefits immediately of you balance

787
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:51,839
Speaker 5: out the scales because you have your own people out

788
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 5: there pushing information and it's authentic, you're not trying to

789
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 5: command and control it. But then you're also building revolving

790
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 5: capital and businesses that are designed to build and shape narratives.

791
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 5: So unless that challenge is confronted, you know, and liberals

792
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 5: are so burned by what by air Americas like, well,

793
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 5: we tried to combat right wing radio in the ninety

794
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 5: you know, in the late ninety other two thousands, and

795
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 5: so let's give up forever, you know, And that's a mistake.

796
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 5: And then the last thing I'll say is, so one

797
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 5: is we need to grapple with that, and that's not

798
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 5: We'll spend one point five billion dollars on ads that

799
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:27,760
Speaker 5: we know don't work, but we won't spend one hundred

800
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 5: million dollars to incubate and seed a new generation of

801
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 5: creators and talkers and storytellers. That's ridiculous, that's stupid, and

802
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 5: that's a mistake. And then the third thing I'd say

803
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:40,759
Speaker 5: is that the tech platforms are going to kill us.

804
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 5: They are and we need to deal with that. And

805
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 5: the Democrats Republicans work the refs in newsrooms, and then

806
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 5: they took the same strategy. Yes, and it worked, and

807
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 5: they did it again here. You know, every time Democratic

808
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 5: YouTube or another major platform rolled back another election policy

809
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 5: and the result of right wing pressure, there was no

810
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,720
Speaker 5: Democratic counter response. There was no talk of them cheating

811
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 5: or yelling and screaming. I wasn't surprised by what happened

812
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 5: with Jeff Bezos or what we saw in Silicon Valley

813
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 5: as the spring rolled by, because those seeds were so

814
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 5: months ago. They were scared from Republican pressure that they

815
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 5: were getting. And that needs to be something that Democrats

816
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 5: really grapple with. And it's not only because that will

817
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 5: help again balance out the scales, but it's also that

818
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:30,240
Speaker 5: they'll maybe get some insights into that the political landscape

819
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 5: is realigning. They need to be more responsive to what

820
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 5: is happening, and that political landscape is actually a reflection

821
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 5: of what the larger information landscape is.

822
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: You know, I a.

823
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 5: Mediumized whenever I talked about the media, people say, well,

824
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 5: not that many people watch CNN or read the New

825
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:49,400
Speaker 5: York Times. Sure, but they get a podcast. Secondarily, they

826
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 5: sit online, they get push alerts on their phones. All

827
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 5: these things add up.

828
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 2: Right, it's downstream, yes, and that's it.

829
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 5: And Republicans understand, and Trump in particular, you know, I

830
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 5: think we need to internalize the lesson. He's a media

831
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 5: creature and he was able to do a lot because

832
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 5: he is a media creature. And part of what allowed

833
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 5: people to say, oh, he doesn't really mean it is

834
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 5: a thing called k fabe, which exists in WWE. It's

835
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 5: a wrestling things. It's a character, and people sort of

836
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 5: all the stuff that people that really has turned him

837
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 5: off to people they say, oh, but it's just a character. No,

838
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 5: No one thinks the Undertaker really murders their villain and

839
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 5: the you know, their opponent in the ring and brings

840
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 5: them underground. It's a joke. And I think a lot

841
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 5: of times what Trump was able to do was not

842
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 5: only manipulate the media to have narrative dominance and to coordinate,

843
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 5: you know, take advantage of this massive right wing megaphone

844
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 5: that they've had, but also rely on the benefit of

845
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 5: the doubt and the sort of the way that consumers

846
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 5: engage with those characters, and in particular him and we

847
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 5: need to recognize that that that is a thing that

848
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 5: we're going to have to grapple with as well, because

849
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 5: he won't be the last. That's the scary thing. Tucker

850
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 5: will be a rising political force and we need to

851
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 5: accept that as as a thing that it's true. We

852
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 5: will have to accept that. Look out the trail and

853
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:06,919
Speaker 5: look who performed in terms of engagement. Very few people

854
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 5: cut across the right wing landscape in the way that

855
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 5: Trump does, and Tucker is one of those few figures.

856
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:15,760
Speaker 5: Obviously Musk as well. That's it. That's the next step

857
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 5: and doesn't solve everything. But I don't think circular firing

858
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 5: squad or trying to figure out some of the micro

859
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 5: things that would have been different are going to be

860
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 5: helpful because what took place here is macro and we

861
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 5: need to think about it at a bigger level. Yeah.

862
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 2: No, I agree, I agree, I agree, Thank you, thank you,

863
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 2: thank you. No, no moment perfectly, Jesse Cannon, my Jung Fast.

864
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,760
Speaker 3: This will be a not bittersweet, but bitter moment of fuckery.

865
00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 3: What are you seeing here?

866
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:49,800
Speaker 1: We didn't even need to say it. Our moment of

867
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: fuckery is is fucking election. It's twenty twenty four. It's

868
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: eight years later, and we have learned nothing. Another low

869
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: turnout election. Some states did better than others, but ultimately

870
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 1: it wasn't like Donald Trump grew MAGA.

871
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 2: It was that Democrats did not show up.

872
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to spend the next two years

873
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 1: blaming people, but I am going to spend the next

874
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: two minutes complaining about the result of this election. You

875
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 1: can't give people something they don't want. But it hurts

876
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: to think that Republicans waived signs that said mass deportation. Now,

877
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: mass deportation was not a vibe, it's a plan, And

878
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: I just want to say that I hope that all

879
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: of us, as citizens of this great country, will in

880
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: fact try as hard as we can to protect the

881
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: vulnerable and to keep our democracy safe. This is going

882
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: to be a slog and we're going to have to

883
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: stay and fight and defend democracy. And look, I think

884
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 1: there are a lot of factors here that happen that

885
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 1: are just important to think about and muse about. But

886
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 1: what's most important is that we're here and we're going

887
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,919
Speaker 1: to keep going, and that's it. So I really want

888
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: to thank all our listeners. We need you more than

889
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: ever and I feel connected to you guys, and I'm

890
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 1: just grateful that you listen to us, and you know,

891
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:22,720
Speaker 1: and we're going to get through this, just like anything

892
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 1: else we're going to you know. I want to say

893
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 1: one last thing. I wrote this book that's coming out

894
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: in June about the year I had when my husband

895
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:30,600
Speaker 1: got cancer.

896
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 2: I didn't talk about it.

897
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 1: Here, and my mother got dementia, my stepfather died, and

898
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:38,359
Speaker 1: my father in law died, and a bunch of other

899
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 1: stuff happened, to believe it or not, and it was

900
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: really fucking hard, and I had a really tough time.

901
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 2: But you know what I did.

902
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 1: I just did the next thing and I got through it.

903
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: And I know that we can get through this and

904
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: the next thing and the thing after that, and we

905
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 1: will together. And I'm grateful for all of you. So

906
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: thanks awesome. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

907
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear

908
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:14,720
Speaker 1: the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos.

909
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a

910
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.