Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready.
Speaker 2: Or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here
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Speaker 4: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 2: So one of the responses from liberals post Trump reelection
Speaker 2: that has been kind of interesting is some number of
Speaker 2: them have been leaving Twitter and fleeing to blue Sky,
Speaker 2: the Twitter alternative.
Speaker 1: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: In terms of the numbers, blue Sky apparently as of
Speaker 2: several days ago had added a million new members as
Speaker 2: users flee X after the US election. Now they are
Speaker 2: up to fifteen million, So adding a million more is
Speaker 2: significant given the comparatively small scale of blue Sky at
Speaker 2: this point, And in this article they point out this
Speaker 2: isn't the first serve that blue Sky has seen based
Speaker 2: on like various indicators. So after rebranding to X, apparently
Speaker 2: there was a big shift to blue Sky, and then
Speaker 2: they also picked up three million new users after X
Speaker 2: was suspended in Brazil back in September, and then a
Speaker 2: further this one was interesting to me, one point two
Speaker 2: million in the two days after X announced that they
Speaker 2: would allow users to view posts from people who had
Speaker 2: blocked them. So those were some of the big triggers.
Speaker 2: I checked on the app store yesterday and blue Sky
Speaker 2: is still the number one like downloaded app right now.
Speaker 2: So there is something very real here. But it's also
Speaker 2: worth keeping in perspective, like fifteen million users does not
Speaker 2: even come close to comparing to Twitter, let alone Facebook
Speaker 2: or TikTok or any of the other large social media giants.
Speaker 2: I do think it's kind of an important indicator of
Speaker 2: how liberals are processing and dealing with the fact that,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of these social media brands previously
Speaker 2: coded as more liberal, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, certainly
Speaker 2: Twitter under Jack Dorsey, there was a sense that, you know,
Speaker 2: it was more on the democratic side, and now that
Speaker 2: has totally reversed, not just on Twitter with Elon Musk's ownership,
Speaker 2: which there was a research showing that he did in
Speaker 2: fact use the algorithm to juice Republican or pro Trump accounts,
Speaker 2: and obviously including his own account, but also kind of
Speaker 2: across the board with a bunch of these social media apps.
Speaker 2: So liberals are taking a page on what conservatives were
Speaker 2: doing previously with parlor and Gab and truth Social and whatever,
Speaker 2: and saying, hey, we need our own space now to
Speaker 2: post Trump election.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's I think, you know, the only reason
Speaker 3: with the major reason we're doing the story. Not only
Speaker 3: is it interesting, but it's part of the liberal response,
Speaker 3: which is to shut off MSNBC and to kind of retreat.
Speaker 3: And I think it was a big mistake that a
Speaker 3: lot of Trump people made, and right wingers made in
Speaker 3: the Twitter era twenty eighteen and honestly made people way
Speaker 3: crazier right the truth Social, Parlor, Gab and all of
Speaker 3: these other people's We talk a lot about echo chamber.
Speaker 3: It's easy enough on a large enough platform we gay
Speaker 3: yourself in an echo chamber. But I think it's a
Speaker 3: mistake because psychologically, what they're trying to do is to
Speaker 3: recreate their own like world. And I think I sympathize
Speaker 3: with that on a certain level, but I also don't
Speaker 3: think it can promote like, quote unquote understanding, because if
Speaker 3: you're the type of person who have watched MSNBC or
Speaker 3: be on bluing on Twitter or whatever, Like the truth
Speaker 3: is like you don't understand the world. And this isn't
Speaker 3: even in a denigrating way. In twenty sixteen, when Donald
Speaker 3: Trump won the presidency, I'm telling you, I was shocked,
Speaker 3: shocked to my core. It is the reason why I
Speaker 3: really am today. I sat down and I just said,
Speaker 3: all these people I read are wrong. Was it everything
Speaker 3: I've consumed polling, you know, ideology, how the world works,
Speaker 3: what Americans thing.
Speaker 4: Like, Oh is it bullshit?
Speaker 3: It's totally wrong, and I have to completely reevaluate all
Speaker 3: of my new inputs. So twenty twenty I wasn't shocked
Speaker 3: by what happened. Twenties twenty four, I wasn't shocked by
Speaker 3: what happen. I can be a little bit surprised, but
Speaker 3: like to we have literally never consumed enough information that
Speaker 3: you're not truly surprised by an outcome. That was the
Speaker 3: biggest change I made from twenty sixteen onwards. I encourage
Speaker 3: people to respond to elections that shock you in a
Speaker 3: similar way and be like, Okay, let's seek some stuff out,
Speaker 3: because clearly I don't know what the.
Speaker 4: Hell is happening here.
Speaker 3: I don't know this blue Sky thing is going to
Speaker 3: help that is a way. And I don't think it
Speaker 3: helped Republicans either. I mean, they overcame to stop to
Speaker 3: steal insanity of twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: They got lucky frankly that people just like have moved.
Speaker 3: On from it, but they paid a real price for
Speaker 3: it in twenty twenty two as well. And I will
Speaker 3: not yet say that the fight is over. Like post Trump,
Speaker 3: what does it look like to have Trump endorsed style
Speaker 3: candidates Without Donald Trump on the ballot? He overperformed every
Speaker 3: Republican in the country except for Larry Hogan. So are
Speaker 3: the incentives that you know, it's like Obama, are the
Speaker 3: incentives that worked for him? Are they the same for
Speaker 3: whoever comes next?
Speaker 4: I'm not so sure. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the retreat of conservatives to their own social
Speaker 2: media platforms, I don't think that that helped.
Speaker 1: Like gab parlors with social whatever didn't help them. It
Speaker 1: didn't really work.
Speaker 2: I mean, none of those platforms really gained massive influence
Speaker 2: in terms of the culture. I think buying Twitter definitely,
Speaker 2: that did help them exactly. And I don't think that
Speaker 2: so you know, these social media networks in some ways,
Speaker 2: they're sort of like natural monopolies, you would call them,
Speaker 2: because the whole value of the network is its size,
Speaker 2: you know, the value is the number of connections that
Speaker 2: are there, the number of news outlets that are there.
Speaker 2: I mean, for us in terms of the job that
Speaker 2: we do, like Blue Sky would not be that valuable
Speaker 2: because I just can't do the news gathering on there
Speaker 2: that I can do on Twitter, even under Elon's ownership.
Speaker 2: And so that's why these spinoffs have never really worked.
Speaker 2: And even Threads, which was the Facebook attempt to kind
Speaker 2: of like recreate a Twitter like thing, first of all,
Speaker 2: they completely suppressed They don't really want political content there,
Speaker 2: so they suppressed political content, so it's not a real alternative.
Speaker 2: But also it just doesn't have the juice that Twitter
Speaker 2: does in terms of the culture. So I don't think
Speaker 2: liberals are wrong to look at what happened and say,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Twitter ended up being very important in
Speaker 2: this election, and we're in this sort of post truth
Speaker 2: environment and it is no longer the case that what
Speaker 2: happens online is not real life. Actually, what happens online
Speaker 2: kind of is real life, and that's the era that
Speaker 2: we live in, there needs to be some sort of
Speaker 2: response to it. But I am skeptical that you know,
Speaker 2: we're treating into this more sort of niche ideological space
Speaker 2: is really going to be the answer.
Speaker 1: What is the answer?
Speaker 2: I don't really know, because Elan on Twitter now like
Speaker 2: that Genie is out of the bottle, that Pandora box
Speaker 2: has been open.
Speaker 1: There's no going back from that.
Speaker 2: And I think the other social media outlets like a
Speaker 2: Facebook is an important way. I mean, Facebook used to
Speaker 2: be more you know, feel like it had at least
Speaker 2: somewhat of a democratic inclination, although right wing content has
Speaker 2: always done extraordinarily well on Facebook. But Zuckerberg himself obviously
Speaker 2: used to be more liberal, more pro Democrat. He's one
Speaker 2: of the people who, before Trump was elected, was making
Speaker 2: phone calls and trying to make nice and really trying
Speaker 2: to overcome this sense from conservatives that he and other
Speaker 2: tech oligarchs were you know, in the bag for Democrats.
Speaker 1: I mean, Zuckerberg came under a lot of it was
Speaker 1: part of.
Speaker 2: The whole you know theory, the sort of like high
Speaker 2: minded stop this deal theory. And so I think by
Speaker 2: working the rafts, Republicans really were successful and getting the
Speaker 2: type of content moderation that favored their content that they
Speaker 2: were looking for. And under a Trump administration, like Zuckerberg's
Speaker 2: going to want to stay in good with you know,
Speaker 2: the guy, the big guy who's in charge, who's capable
Speaker 2: of using the federal government, weaponizing it against him and
Speaker 2: his interest, et cetera, and once again being like facing
Speaker 2: the ire of an agitated conservative base. So you know, I,
Speaker 2: like I said, I'm sympathetic to why people are moving
Speaker 2: to Blue Sky. I understand it, but I don't really
Speaker 2: think it's a response to the social media landscape being
Speaker 2: kind of overwhelmingly right wing at this point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they just don't get it.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, I mean it's it's complicated because
Speaker 3: when people are like, oh, right wing content's popular on Facebook,
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, but that's because it's independent and user
Speaker 3: generated and the mainstream media is already liberal. So like
Speaker 3: when the vast majority of the culture is liberal, then
Speaker 3: used and institutional stuff is quote unquote liberal, then yeah,
Speaker 3: user generated content is going to be predominantly right wing.
Speaker 3: That's another reason why YouTube and others, because it's literally
Speaker 3: a dissonance space. It's one that doesn't exist for institutional
Speaker 3: like elite capture. If you want that, it already exists.
Speaker 3: There's an entire machine for it. So I wouldn't say
Speaker 3: that they worked the refs or whatever. I mean, there
Speaker 3: was an overwhelming yeah, but there's an overwhelming amount of
Speaker 3: right wing censorship that also happened under Facebook Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 4: The Hunter Biden laptop is.
Speaker 3: The most famous example, but there was a lot of
Speaker 3: you know, algorithmic preference and stuff that they put their
Speaker 3: own thumb on the scales. Twitter obviously, you know, probably
Speaker 3: the most in stories platform prior to Elon Musk, And
Speaker 3: I think what happened ultimately is that you know, when
Speaker 3: you say online is right wing, I think that's because
Speaker 3: America is a lot more right wing than people want
Speaker 3: to believe. I think that America, especially with the Trump
Speaker 3: victory and the popular vote and the massive shift for
Speaker 3: a lot of these places, it's not the platform's fault.
Speaker 3: I think people themselves were responding to social, political, and
Speaker 3: economic incentives and have fundamentally changed. They're not right wing
Speaker 3: in the way that most people think like. They're not
Speaker 3: right in the way that you may think of the
Speaker 3: nineteen nineties about gay marriage or abortion, even but you know,
Speaker 3: are they right wing on the trans question?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: On immigration? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Are they right wing in a sense that they hate
Speaker 3: institutions absolutely? In terms of backlash against me too, That's
Speaker 3: something we talked a little bit about yesterday, Like that
Speaker 3: is a sense in which being online is right wing.
Speaker 3: But there's also a tremendous amount of quote unquote left
Speaker 3: wing content and a lot of left wing social movements
Speaker 3: which then in of themselves have their roots in online.
Speaker 3: So all online has done is it's niched, you know,
Speaker 3: most of American society. That's how really what I would
Speaker 3: say that overall net effect of it is. And I
Speaker 3: think that's actually bad because outside of the whole echo
Speaker 3: chamber thing, again, exposure to different stuff that you must
Speaker 3: do actually in an algorithmic world, I find it you
Speaker 3: must do it more so and more intentionally than ever before.
Speaker 3: You must intentionally seek out things that you'd not only
Speaker 3: disagree with, things that will rock your worldview so that
Speaker 3: you're never surprised by anything. And I have to read
Speaker 3: so much and talk to you and do a lot
Speaker 3: of other stuff just to be able to like still
Speaker 3: check my biases.
Speaker 4: And I don't think most people do that. Intentionally at all.
Speaker 3: That's the real danger. That's why you shouldn't do this
Speaker 3: blue sky retreat. That's what the mistake is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, I guess from the liberal perspective,
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, but Republicans like tout them solve into
Speaker 2: a bubble and it worked out okay for them.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's a sense.
Speaker 4: You win sometimes and you also lose.
Speaker 2: Like the other thing I would say is in some senses, yes,
Speaker 2: like I think the country uncertain. It's just certainly an
Speaker 2: immigration has moved right. But Trump still didn't even win
Speaker 2: fifty percent of the vote. Okay, so you don't also
Speaker 2: don't want to like, oh, the country like seventy five
Speaker 2: percent they didn't vote, you know, seventy five percent didn't
Speaker 2: vote for Trump. It was forty nine points eight or
Speaker 2: whatever it's going to end up being. So it's still
Speaker 2: is very much a fifty to fifty kind of a country.
Speaker 2: And when you look at a bunch of the more
Speaker 2: liberal ballot initiatives across the country, certainly the country's not
Speaker 2: right wing on abortion rights, countries not right wing on
Speaker 2: you know, minimum wage, not right wing on not having
Speaker 2: paid sick leave, or things like that of that nature.
Speaker 2: So it's you know, to me, it's not as clear cut.
Speaker 2: I think more to the point saga that you made,
Speaker 2: the piece that resonated more with me was that liberals
Speaker 2: have always felt like they had their own spaces already,
Speaker 2: like they felt comfortable, comfy with the New York Times
Speaker 2: and the Washington Post and they do CNN and whatever.
Speaker 2: I do think some of that has shifted, Like it's
Speaker 2: not as much antipathy towards those organizations as Republicans have, certainly,
Speaker 2: but there is a real shift among the liberal base
Speaker 2: that started even you know, before Joe Biden got out
Speaker 2: of the race. And again some of their critiques I
Speaker 2: agree with, some of them I don't agree with. But
Speaker 2: there has been a real breaking of the faith with
Speaker 2: liberal and the institutions where they have always felt like
Speaker 2: they totally comfortable and like they were you know, their
Speaker 2: perspective was being held up and you know, they could
Speaker 2: see themselves in the coverage there. And so it does
Speaker 2: create an interesting moment for you know, different social media
Speaker 2: experience experiments, for different you know, podcasts and media, et
Speaker 2: cetera that didn't exist before. So in any case, I
Speaker 2: kind of view this in the light of that new
Speaker 2: liberal experimentation and that new liberal break with some of
Speaker 2: the institutions that they previously felt so confident and comfortable
Speaker 2: in during the last iteration. The one one last piece
Speaker 2: that we can show you here just to see this
Speaker 2: graphically of what it has looked like. We can put
Speaker 2: this D two up on the screen so you can
Speaker 2: see a Surgeon Blue Sky daily visits right after the election,
Speaker 2: and then you can also see a huge search in
Speaker 2: X account D activations. So there has just definitely been
Speaker 2: you know, for people who are not like necessarily as
Speaker 2: into politics as we are, where they're just kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, this space is just not really where I
Speaker 2: want to be anymore. I think some of it is
Speaker 2: that too, where it's just like, you know, I'm just
Speaker 2: kind of done here in the elon Twitter Musk Twitter
Speaker 2: and Twitter Musk elon Twitter era, I'm just.
Speaker 1: Kind of done with this.
Speaker 2: And so there is there is definitely something happening here,
Speaker 2: and like I said to me, it's just emblematic of
Speaker 2: this new landscape of like, okay, well, the things we
Speaker 2: did to respond to Trump last time didn't work. The
Speaker 2: institutions we relied on to help guide us through this
Speaker 2: time utterly failed us. So let's try some other things
Speaker 2: to see what's going well.
Speaker 4: That actually can be very healthy.
Speaker 3: So I remember I would meet like predominantly old ladies
Speaker 3: who really hated Trump, and they were like, I fought
Speaker 3: him on social media, and like they believed that they
Speaker 3: believed they were engaged in a war by retweeting Muller
Speaker 3: she wrote, and Seth Abramson and all these other you know,
Speaker 3: Eric Garland and all these social media stars from last
Speaker 3: time around. And I think it made me healthy this
Speaker 3: time that they're like, wait, no, that doesn't work. You know,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of people who live entire lives
Speaker 3: via proxy, and that's the one thing I would beg
Speaker 3: you don't do that.
Speaker 4: You know, I noticed this with Ukraine.
Speaker 3: People literally believe that they're fighting on the front you know,
Speaker 3: on the democracy front line or whatever by tweeting against
Speaker 3: people who disagree with their position on Ukraine, or by
Speaker 3: like retweeting and reposting Ukrainian propaganda, Like is that beneficial
Speaker 3: to their cause? Like maybe, you know, are you the
Speaker 3: same as a frontline soldier? No, absolutely not. There's a
Speaker 3: big thing like that in political you know, in political
Speaker 3: commentary and even just political stats and all that. I
Speaker 3: notice on Twitter, like there's an entire army of people
Speaker 3: who are on Twitter who like believe that they're really
Speaker 3: impacting things for Donald Trump and his victory. Maybe zero
Speaker 3: point zero five percent of them are the rest it's like,
Speaker 3: you're just chaff right, You're just like retweeting and doing
Speaker 3: nothing mostly with your life. So I think that is
Speaker 3: also perhaps a healthy response because I noticed a lot
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: You know, I've actually kind of shifted my view on
Speaker 2: that because I think that the posting was really important
Speaker 2: for Trump's victor.
Speaker 4: But that's a selection bias or this. It's the people
Speaker 4: who are good at it, that work the fast that
Speaker 4: you need.
Speaker 2: But you need the reply guys, you need the retweeters.
Speaker 2: Like that's part of what makes the ecosystem work. And
Speaker 2: so when you think of the story of this election,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the big divides that came out
Speaker 2: is that people who were hyper engaged in political news,
Speaker 2: who were reading the New York Times or even engaged
Speaker 2: in you know, MSBC or whatever Fox News hyper engaged
Speaker 2: political news media consumers, they voted for Kamala, and people
Speaker 2: who were not hyper engaged, who were consuming this selection
Speaker 2: more through like just like memes.
Speaker 1: And culture and vibes. They voted for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: So I don't think I can say at this point
Speaker 2: that the posting doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: I think the posting was important.
Speaker 2: I think that the you know, the memes that came
Speaker 2: out of Trump at McDonald's and the image that came
Speaker 2: out after the assassination attempt with his fists in the
Speaker 2: air and the garbage truck, like all this stuff, which
Speaker 2: was just about all line fodder and meme content. I
Speaker 2: don't know, I think posting actually ended up being important.
Speaker 2: I do think online is kind of the real world now,
Speaker 2: and you know, liberals do have to to gropple with that,
Speaker 2: and people on the left have to grapple with that
Speaker 2: as well. So I don't think it used to be though.
Speaker 2: I think this is like kind of a new era
Speaker 2: we've entered into, with the whole podcast election, in the
Speaker 2: downfall of media ecosystems, in the purchase of Twitter by
Speaker 2: Elon Musk. But yeah, I actually think they're right that
Speaker 2: they are engaged in a real social movement that had
Speaker 2: real world impacts because so much of our life does
Speaker 2: exist online now and there isn't that separation there.
Speaker 5: Used to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that's a good counter. I hadn't thought
Speaker 3: about it. I guess I think it's more existed and
Speaker 3: worked on the right because people are already not on
Speaker 3: mainstream media. And this comes to our MSNBC question, will
Speaker 3: they stay on mainstream media or not that I really
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 4: I think they'll go back. I think they will.
Speaker 1: Online is the culture now, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: And so you know, culture obviously feeds politics. So if
Speaker 2: you aren't compete in the online culture, like you're gonna
Speaker 2: get DRASKI.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, uh, maybe we'll see.
Speaker 3: At the same time, there's some very troubling news out
Speaker 3: of Ukraine. Let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 3: the screen. The Biden administration, with less than two months
Speaker 3: left in office, has dramatically changed US policy in Ukraine,
Speaker 3: allowing Ukraine to use long range US missiles to strike
Speaker 3: inside of Russia. The president for the first time authorized
Speaker 3: the Ukrainian military to use the atacms the at cams
Speaker 3: to help defend its forces in the Kerse region. Now,
Speaker 3: this is particularly insane for a number of reasons. One
Speaker 3: is that this was considered a red line for Russian
Speaker 3: Vladimir Putin, which he has said repeatedly and said, if
Speaker 3: you do so, then NATO will be considered an active
Speaker 3: military target and participant in this war. Second is, if
Speaker 3: you actually look crystal at the military operation where this
Speaker 3: is happening, this is to support a Ukrainian invasion of Russia.
Speaker 3: So this is Ukraine's invasion of Kursk, where they crossed
Speaker 3: an internationally recognized border with a military operation and are
Speaker 3: now facing a Russian offensive of Russian troops and some
Speaker 3: fifty thousand North Korean elite special forces. We are using
Speaker 3: out these long range missiles for Ukraine to strike inside
Speaker 3: of internationally recognized sovereign Russian territory. Now, two wrongs don't
Speaker 3: make a right, correct. You know, if your entire case
Speaker 3: is they legally invaded us, they took our territory in
Speaker 3: all this, and you're like, oh, well, we're gonna invade
Speaker 3: you to show you whose boss, It's like, okay, philosophically,
Speaker 3: you know, I can understand that. But if your entire
Speaker 3: case is around having the entire world support your democratization
Speaker 3: project and all that.
Speaker 4: It's like, well then it gets a little bit complicated.
Speaker 3: And so already we can confirm as of this morning
Speaker 3: that the first long range missile was used inside of Russia.
Speaker 3: But second, if you read inside of it, they say
Speaker 3: they do not expect this to change the course of
Speaker 3: the war. They do not expect this to change the
Speaker 3: course of this defensive. At best, you know, you can
Speaker 3: kill a few more North Koreans or Russia, so it's
Speaker 3: not even strategically going to really change the outcome. And
Speaker 3: then finally, I think this is a really disgusting move
Speaker 3: because what I think is happening is that they are
Speaker 3: trying Number one, Anthony Blincoln said they're going to push
Speaker 3: every dollar out to Ukraine that they possibly illegally can
Speaker 3: while they're in office. And two, I think that they're
Speaker 3: trying to set the standard for Donald Trump and his
Speaker 3: administration in office so that they are then forced to
Speaker 3: try and get headlines in the media being like Donald
Speaker 3: Trump reverses the policy of missiles, you know, long range
Speaker 3: missiles that are being used inside of Russia and allowed
Speaker 3: for the Ukrainian forces.
Speaker 4: It's a deep state, tried and true thing.
Speaker 3: They did it to Obama as well whenever he was
Speaker 3: coming into office, and so there the entire policy is nuts.
Speaker 4: The entire policy is crazy.
Speaker 2: I think the idea is that Ukraine feels like if
Speaker 2: Trump is coming into office, there is a decent chance
Speaker 2: we don't know for sure if it's going to happen
Speaker 2: or not, but there's a decent chance that he's going
Speaker 2: to force some kind of a peace settlement. Yes, and
Speaker 2: they want to be able to have something they can
Speaker 2: trade for their own territory in that settlement. And so
Speaker 2: the idea is if they can be successful in this,
Speaker 2: I'm not valid a, I'm just explaining the logic. If
Speaker 2: they can be successful in this, you know, Russian attack
Speaker 2: and invasion, and have some territory in Russia that they hold,
Speaker 2: that they can use that as a bargaining chip to
Speaker 2: come out in a better position after these negotiations. So
Speaker 2: I think that's ultimately what it's you know, what's going
Speaker 2: on here, And that doesn't undercut what you said Zagera
Speaker 2: of the level of danger of allowing this sunfold. I
Speaker 2: do think it's unlikely that putin because he also is
Speaker 2: seeing the same landscape of like, let's wait and see
Speaker 2: what Trump does when he comes in. I think it's
Speaker 2: unlikely that he reacts in the most aggressive and hostile
Speaker 2: way of like actively attacked a NATO country or you know,
Speaker 2: using nukes or something like that. But you know you're
Speaker 2: running a risk and that's kind of a wild thing
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 4: Look at already what they're doing.
Speaker 3: You know, again, Ukraine is losing They have been losing
Speaker 3: territory consistently for months. We've been focused on the election,
Speaker 3: so we haven't been able to cover it. But put
Speaker 3: this up there on the screen. I mean, the largest
Speaker 3: missile attack on Ukrainian infrastructure literally just happened a couple
Speaker 3: of days ago. It's a disaster over there for them,
Speaker 3: I mean their population. Already, the latest poll that has
Speaker 3: come out shows that fifty two percent of Ukrainians want
Speaker 3: to pursue a negotiated settlement. That's up almost thirty percent
Speaker 3: over the last couple of years.
Speaker 4: Also, let's put this on the screen.
Speaker 3: From the Wall Street Journal Trump's pushed for the Ukraine
Speaker 3: piece finds quote growing acceptance in Europe.
Speaker 4: Germany arguably the.
Speaker 3: Country with the most to lose, and you know, the
Speaker 3: balance of power and all that their chancellor has said,
Speaker 3: no way, we're not sending more long range missiles or
Speaker 3: escalating the war in Ukraine. Will provide them with basic
Speaker 3: military assistance. But they're red lines they're sticking to because
Speaker 3: they have real stakes. They also know they don't have
Speaker 3: the money to continue this war without the colossal amount
Speaker 3: of funds the United States has been pushing into this conflict.
Speaker 3: So all the signs point to what is obviously best
Speaker 3: for everybody, Ukraine, Russia, and for the entire world.
Speaker 4: Let's end the war.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: Nobody is going to win, the Russians or the Ukrainians,
Speaker 3: although and I will at least give the countercase. John
Speaker 3: Meersheimer doesn't believe the negotiated settlement will happen because he goes, look,
Speaker 3: Russia's already winning the war, why would they do it?
Speaker 3: Russia and the Putin regime, specifically the Putin regime has
Speaker 3: very little respect for human life. They don't care, right
Speaker 3: a couple hundred thousand people are dead whatever. For some reason,
Speaker 3: in Russia they seem to be okay with that, especially
Speaker 3: the government. Well, now you've got these elite, you know,
Speaker 3: North Korean.
Speaker 4: Forces who are with you.
Speaker 3: You've got North Korea giving you ammunition, You've got Iran
Speaker 3: producing these suicide drones. You're actually rolling back the territory.
Speaker 3: You've got the sunk cost fallacy of a couple hundred
Speaker 3: thousand people maybe we don't nobody knows the number, but
Speaker 3: have died on the front line. The Ukrainians are failing.
Speaker 3: Why would I negotiate now? Like in a certain sense,
Speaker 3: you know, they have the least amount of incentive right
Speaker 3: now to negotiate. So I'm hoping that Donald Trump can
Speaker 3: actually change that and bring this to some sort of
Speaker 3: bigger settlement and convince Putin that it's not in his
Speaker 3: best interest. But all the deck is arrayed against them,
Speaker 3: it has been for years. Nobody wants to listen. Today
Speaker 3: is the one thousandth day apparently of the Ukraine War,
Speaker 3: which is crazy. And if you consider, like all of
Speaker 3: the macro strategic and economic picture points in one direction,
Speaker 3: more Ukrainian territory lost. The more that they push this,
Speaker 3: the longer that it prolongeds, you will see the age
Speaker 3: will continue to tick up with the Ukrainian military, the
Speaker 3: population will continue to suffer, you know, food, energy costs,
Speaker 3: all of this already, I mean a huge percent of
Speaker 3: the country is left.
Speaker 4: You know, they're best in the brightest of left long ago.
Speaker 3: So they have massive problems and worse, you know, really
Speaker 3: is the escalation trying to tie the Trump administration's hands,
Speaker 3: and like you said, you know, pray and hope that
Speaker 3: this doesn't backfire.
Speaker 4: Do I think Putin is going to attack us over it?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: But you know, do I think that it still crossed
Speaker 3: as certain red lines and gives a lot of incentives
Speaker 3: inside of the Russian military for how they should think
Speaker 3: very differently about approaching the West and even any hope
Speaker 3: of a rap prochmodel with them that lasts longer than
Speaker 3: Donald Trump, which is what I think everybody should like
Speaker 3: to see.
Speaker 4: So I don't know, you know, in the North Korea thing,
Speaker 4: just final point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've talked about, you know, the fact that some
Speaker 3: thousands of troops that are in Russia is a failure
Speaker 3: of Biden foreign policy. Donald Trump had a policy of
Speaker 3: engagement with North Korea that was great because we actually
Speaker 3: had good relations, there were no missiles flying around. Whatever
Speaker 3: Biden came in, we immediately reverted to maximum pressure and sanctions.
Speaker 3: And what do they do. Of course they go to
Speaker 3: China and Russia right back to where they were and
Speaker 3: now there's troops on the Ukraine front line. This could
Speaker 3: easily have been prevented if we have diplomatic relations. Then
Speaker 3: we're fine. You know, they're a nuclear program. By the way,
Speaker 3: nothing has happened to it plot twist over the last
Speaker 3: four years of maximum pressure on their thing. It's the
Speaker 3: same story with you Ron the Venezuela. After you reach
Speaker 3: a certain critical mass, it's not sanctions on all this,
Speaker 3: it will do nothing.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Too, how many years have we had sanctions on Cuba?
Speaker 4: What is that sixty actually made more?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just insane.
Speaker 2: One last point on the European leaders and the call
Speaker 2: with the last Schultz and all of that, because I
Speaker 2: think that's very significant is not only do they see
Speaker 2: the writing on the wall in terms of this war
Speaker 2: which has gone on for far too long, where you know,
Speaker 2: the US and the UK banded together to block any
Speaker 2: sort of potential piece deal at the beginning. I mean
Speaker 2: that really was the failure, because that was the time
Speaker 2: when Russia was in the most precarious position where it
Speaker 2: was unclear how people would respond politically, or it was
Speaker 2: unclear how much the sanctions would bite, or it's unclear
Speaker 2: how much the loss of life would create instability. You
Speaker 2: know within the country itself. They've weathered all those storms,
Speaker 2: so that continues to have been the real failing in
Speaker 2: this opportunity, in this war. But I think also a
Speaker 2: lot of these leaders are looking at the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, I did a monologue yesterday about how Democrats
Speaker 2: commitment to genocide and Gaza, and also a number of
Speaker 2: voters mentioned the war in Ukraine was part of what
Speaker 2: turned them off from voting for Democrats again, because you know,
Speaker 2: even as you see, you still see pretty decent levels
Speaker 2: of support for Ukraine, Like Americans are sympathetic.
Speaker 1: To the cause.
Speaker 2: But they also got the accurate sense from Joe Biden
Speaker 2: in particular, but by extension Kamala Harris, that this is
Speaker 2: what he actually cared about. He didn't really care that
Speaker 2: much that you couldn't afford groceries, that you couldn't that
Speaker 2: your budget was stretched tight, that you couldn't imagine ever
Speaker 2: even being able to become a homeowner. Like the only
Speaker 2: thing he could really talk about was NATO and Aucus
Speaker 2: and like this, you know, visions of grandeur with regard
Speaker 2: to this imagined fight between democracy and autocracy, where were
Speaker 2: the good guys when manifestly, with regard to our actions
Speaker 2: in Gaza, we are not the good guys. So I
Speaker 2: think they also are reading the political t leaves, not
Speaker 2: just here of how this had an impact on the
Speaker 2: election and helped to bring Trump back to the White House,
Speaker 2: but you see parties throughout Europe that are both on
Speaker 2: the right and on the left who are critics of
Speaker 2: the European and the American policy visa the Ukraine who
Speaker 2: are on the rise. And you know, there's a number
Speaker 2: of factors that go into that, but Ukraine is certainly
Speaker 2: one of them. And so I think that's the other piece,
Speaker 2: is not only reading the tea leaves and the writing
Speaker 2: on the wall with regard to the status of the
Speaker 2: war and how things are likely to go in the future,
Speaker 2: but also looking out for their own political survival and
Speaker 2: realizing that there is you know, there's a real political
Speaker 2: backlash to this endless support for Ukraine and what is
Speaker 2: at this point a helpless cost.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point, and you know, ultimately this
Speaker 3: just feeds more into the Biden failure. His legacy was
Speaker 3: NATO and now a guy is getting elected explicitly at
Speaker 3: least with a pledge.
Speaker 4: We'll see what he does.
Speaker 3: And the war that he said was so vital and
Speaker 3: critical to US policy and security. I will say I
Speaker 3: am an August fan too, so love August here. That's
Speaker 3: outside an August voter.
Speaker 4: I'm not an Aucust voter.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the Anglo sphere, and I think that is
Speaker 3: how we should have relations, rather than some bullshit treaty
Speaker 3: from eighty years ago about why I'm supposed to go
Speaker 3: and die for North Montenegro or.
Speaker 1: Whatever I think we should have.
Speaker 2: Just as a final closest, I think we should and
Speaker 2: I think we both do have some skepticism of what
Speaker 2: Trump will actually do here because he has said a
Speaker 2: bunch of different things. Obviously you've got Mark or Rubio
Speaker 2: and a bunch of neocons that he's put into key positions.
Speaker 2: There is you know, there's a reason why even though
Speaker 2: he made overtures to withdraw from Afghanistan, why he didn't
Speaker 2: do it because look at the political cost that Joe
Speaker 2: Biden paid for actually doing what voters have claimed they
Speaker 2: wanted and withdrawing from Afghanistan. Because guess what, anytime you
Speaker 2: try to disentangle yourself from one of these conflicts, it
Speaker 2: can be really ugly and the press almost uniformly turns
Speaker 2: against you, and the leaks from the generals about you know,
Speaker 2: like it could genuinely be damaging to his presidency. And
Speaker 2: he's no fool, so you know, ultimately he doesn't care
Speaker 2: outside of his own like self preservation. So if he
Speaker 2: looks at the landscape and is like, this isn't good
Speaker 2: for me politically, I don't think you know, it's not
Speaker 2: crazy to imagine that he takes a very different approach
Speaker 2: than what he at times signaled on the campaign trail,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't even consistent in what he signaled on
Speaker 2: the campaign trail.
Speaker 4: That's right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 2: Well, the war is on in the Democratic Party to
Speaker 2: assign blame for Kamwa Harris's loss and to help set
Speaker 2: the narrative for what will come next. To boil it down,
Speaker 2: you basically got a maintain the status quo faction going
Speaker 2: up against a burn it all down faction on one side.
Speaker 2: You've effectively got all the people who were most directly
Speaker 2: implicated in this loss. You get the donors, consultants, operatives,
Speaker 2: and establishment Democrats who by and large authored this campaign,
Speaker 2: and the media figures who helped to construct and enforce
Speaker 2: this iteration of the Democratic Party. They're complicit in destroying
Speaker 2: Bertie's movement, elevating Biden, blocking a twenty twenty four primary,
Speaker 2: and setting the messaging direction of the dem Party in
Speaker 2: general and the Kamala Harris campaign specifically. They believed that
Speaker 2: an anti Trump coalition heavily reliant on suburban Liz Cheney
Speaker 2: voters could be assembled and activated and win. Harris campaign
Speaker 2: strategy was buy and larnch design to appeal to this
Speaker 2: imagined affluent coalition. This group is interested in any and
Speaker 2: all arguments that can effectively maintain the current Democratic Party
Speaker 2: status quo. That includes punching left, which again is no
Speaker 2: different from the longtime Democratic Party status quo, and denying
Speaker 2: that there's really any problem whatsoever. At war with this
Speaker 2: camp are those who believe that the Democratic Party lost
Speaker 2: the working class and with it, the election because they
Speaker 2: failed that working class AOC Bernie Rocanna. Those are some
Speaker 2: of the proponents, but there have been a few surprising
Speaker 2: mainstream allies in the fight, people like Senator Chris Murphy
Speaker 2: and even to my absolute shock.
Speaker 1: David Brooks.
Speaker 2: These folks have correctly suggested that Democrats take a lesson
Speaker 2: from Bernie Sanders, embrace real economic populism, piss off their
Speaker 2: high income base, and donor class and lean into the
Speaker 2: politics of class war. This camp, in which I am included,
Speaker 2: is the most correct, but also has the biggest obstacles
Speaker 2: in front of it, since big Bunny interest are not
Speaker 2: likely to just abandon their interest in the Democratic Party. Well, folks,
Speaker 2: we got a new salvo in this war between the
Speaker 2: status quo and burnt down factions in the form of
Speaker 2: The New York Times op ed by John Fetterman's former
Speaker 2: chief of staff. In an obed titled when will Democrats
Speaker 2: Learn to Say No? Adam Gentilsen argues that Democrats are
Speaker 2: losing because they cater too much to the world of
Speaker 2: left interest groups. In making the argument, he named checks ACLU,
Speaker 2: Sunrise Justice, Democrats, and Working Families Party for pushing Kamala
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty, to support the current law and
Speaker 2: surgeries for transgender prisoners, to decriminalize border crossings, and for
Speaker 2: generally attempting to push Democrats left on criminal justice reform.
Speaker 2: This op postures as an argument for Democratic Party reform,
Speaker 2: but in actuality it already reflects the twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: reality of the Democratic Party. This analysis might have held
Speaker 2: more weight back in twenty twenty when those groups helped
Speaker 2: to shape the debate that happen inside of that Democratic
Speaker 2: Party primary, not in twenty twenty four, when they hold
Speaker 2: basically no sway, Kama abandoned all of the positions mentioned
Speaker 2: in their piece to the extent she ever really supported
Speaker 2: them at all. She ran on being a cop, adopted
Speaker 2: Republican immigration positions, embracelets Cheney, and literally never talked about
Speaker 2: trans issues at all. In other words, not only does
Speaker 2: this argument fail to threaten the status quo, it just
Speaker 2: reinforces it. The argument also may have had made more
Speaker 2: sense if, rather than including a bunch of basically powerless
Speaker 2: groups that, contrary to the title, Democrats have no trouble
Speaker 2: constantly saying no to the OpEd, looked at groups like
Speaker 2: APAK and the Democratic Majority for Israel who have actually
Speaker 2: been insanely influential in the twenty twenty four world of politics.
Speaker 2: AOC made this point on Twitter and is now predictably
Speaker 2: being smeared as an anti semi She wrote quote, if
Speaker 2: people were to talk about members of Congress being overly
Speaker 2: influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular
Speaker 2: agenda that pushes voters away from Democrats, then they should
Speaker 2: be discussing Apak, she is obviously correct. Their money has
Speaker 2: shaped everything from the crackdown on campus protest to the
Speaker 2: defeat of even mild critics of Israel to the Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris's own refusal to break from Biden on one of
Speaker 2: his worst issues. And it wasn't just these lefty groups
Speaker 2: that came in for scrutiny, though in the pages of
Speaker 2: The New York Times, Gentlesen also takes a shot at
Speaker 2: the anti trust movement.
Speaker 1: Here's the quote.
Speaker 2: By wishing away these complexities, a coalition first mindset produces
Speaker 2: many candidates who are the inverse of what voters want,
Speaker 2: people with the cultural sensibilities of Yale Law school graduates
Speaker 2: who cause play as populous by over relying on niche
Speaker 2: issues like Federal Trade Commission antitrust actions.
Speaker 1: To start with, the structure of corporate power is far
Speaker 1: from a niche issue.
Speaker 2: In addition, it's truly funny that this line, including the
Speaker 2: Yale part, could just as easily describe the now victorious
Speaker 2: Jadie Vance as anyone inside of the Democratic coalition, something
Speaker 2: that our friend and anti trust advocate in Matt Stoller
Speaker 2: pointed out. But most importantly, this line is actually the
Speaker 2: key to unlocking and understanding of what is really going
Speaker 2: on inside of this article, the Biden anti trust agenda
Speaker 2: was hated by the Democratic donor class who went to
Speaker 2: war with Lena Khan in every way they knew. How so,
Speaker 2: it is quite convenient that in this piece, attempting to
Speaker 2: blame the left for an election manifestly lost by the Centrists,
Speaker 2: Gentlessen also seeks to throw overboard the parts of the
Speaker 2: Biden agenda which actually did threaten the class interests of
Speaker 2: those in the status quo camp. In fact, as Jet
Speaker 2: here points out, a much larger problem for Kamala was
Speaker 2: the fact that she let donors talk her out of
Speaker 2: highlighting the most potent parts of her economic platform, including
Speaker 2: backing away from the Biden administration's terrific trustbusting record. Jet
Speaker 2: highlights this New York Times reporting that Kamala's corporate allies
Speaker 2: and donors hated the price gouging ban and pressured her
Speaker 2: to limit its reach. The Times reports quote the price
Speaker 2: gouging touched on a broader anxiety among Miss Harris's corporate allies,
Speaker 2: who were worried that her economic policies might cater to
Speaker 2: the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The article also
Speaker 2: notes the Kamma backed off a hike in the capital
Speaker 2: gains tax to appease these donors and remained studiously ambiguous
Speaker 2: their words on a tax for the ultra rich. Now
Speaker 2: these are the freakin people the Democrats actually need to
Speaker 2: learn how to say no to. Another New York Times
Speaker 2: report includes details about how Kamala's superPAC found that an
Speaker 2: ad on price gouging tested through the roof in terms
Speaker 2: of effectiveness, yet it barely saw the light of day.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: Another memo issue days later, pointed out very high performing
Speaker 2: ads that have yet to get a big spent. One
Speaker 2: ad Future Forward said had ranked in the one hundredth percentile,
Speaker 2: meaning it was the most effective, yet it had virtually
Speaker 2: never been aired. So here, everybody, is the ad that
Speaker 2: Kamala's donors did not want you to see.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 8: The cost of rent, groceries and utilities is too high.
Speaker 5: So here's what we're going to do about it.
Speaker 4: We will lower.
Speaker 8: Housing costs by building more homes and crack down on
Speaker 8: landlords we're charging too much. We will lower your food
Speaker 8: and grocery bills by going after price gougers or keeping
Speaker 8: the cost of everyday goods too high. I'm Kamala Harris
Speaker 8: and I approve this message. Because you work hard for
Speaker 8: your paycheck, you should get to keep more of it.
Speaker 8: As president, I'll make that my top priority.
Speaker 2: The donors, the billionaires, the consultants, the corrupt establishment itself,
Speaker 2: those are the interests that need to be told no,
Speaker 2: that need to be purged wholesale. Any analysis that fails
Speaker 2: to make this case is nothing more than a defense
Speaker 2: of the Democratic Party status quo and Sager one of
Speaker 2: the things that got a lot of note in.
Speaker 3: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 3: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: So as we have of course been discussing, there is
Speaker 2: a big battle on for the future of the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party and also to understand how they just such as shillacking.
Speaker 2: And we're lucky to be joined this morning by Maurice Mitchell,
Speaker 2: who is the national director for the Working Families Party,
Speaker 2: who has many thoughts on all of these topics.
Speaker 1: Great to see you, Maurice, it's good to be here.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, of course, So.
Speaker 2: Just your top line thoughts, what happened and what should
Speaker 2: happen now.
Speaker 7: Well, I want to caution everybody there's literally votes still
Speaker 7: being counted in certain places not to sort of just
Speaker 7: jump into the hot takes. What we're doing is we're
Speaker 7: attempting to be reflective and humble. But what we know
Speaker 7: is that incumbent parties all across the world right, a
Speaker 7: lot of them lost, including the Democratic Party. And to us,
Speaker 7: what that means is that working people in this country
Speaker 7: and elsewhere are not happy with the political establishment and
Speaker 7: the economic establishment, and we need to listen to what
Speaker 7: people are saying. So I knocked on hundreds of doors
Speaker 7: in North Philly, Atlanta, and what I heard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what did you hear at those doors?
Speaker 7: I heard a lot of things, but I heard deep
Speaker 7: skep deicism about whether or not politics actually mattered in
Speaker 7: people's lives, and certainly whether or not the two parties,
Speaker 7: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party would do anything
Speaker 7: to make a dent on the crisis of affordability that
Speaker 7: people are experiencing, the crisis of gun violence that a
Speaker 7: lot of people are experiencing, and what I believe folks
Speaker 7: need to do. And you know, I'm building the Working
Speaker 7: Families Party, But if I was to give free advice
Speaker 7: to anybody or the Democratic Party, it would be not
Speaker 7: necessarily to try to find easy solutions. I don't think
Speaker 7: the solution is in a one or two page memo
Speaker 7: that's been written over the past weeks or days. The
Speaker 7: solutions are in the people listening, right. So I think
Speaker 7: we need to put our hot take sort of impulses
Speaker 7: on the backseat and make sure that our listening game
Speaker 7: is really strong.
Speaker 5: So that's my advice, you know.
Speaker 7: And then there's a lot of talk that I think
Speaker 7: is obsessed with this left right binary that I think
Speaker 7: kind of obscures what I'm hearing. Right, there is a
Speaker 7: top down feeling that permeates throughout politics or political identity,
Speaker 7: and a lot of people don't have a political identity,
Speaker 7: but they feel like somebody somewhere is taking from them,
Speaker 7: that somewhere, somehow the system is rigged against them. A
Speaker 7: lot of people that feel that way and they're looking
Speaker 7: for solutions. I think that there are some people that
Speaker 7: voted for Donald Trump for all the horrible reasons that
Speaker 7: people might think they would vote for Donald Trump, and
Speaker 7: there's some people that just wanted change, and he was
Speaker 7: able to articulate that he might be a anti institutional figure.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of those folks.
Speaker 7: Even now as they see some of his picks, are
Speaker 7: realizing that may or may not be true. I think
Speaker 7: certainly when he governs, people will see that again. For
Speaker 7: the Working Families Party, the thing that we're going to
Speaker 7: do is we're going to to obsess And this is
Speaker 7: something that we said, not just like after the loss,
Speaker 7: we said this in the months before the loss, in
Speaker 7: years before the loss. Obsess with the concerns of everyday
Speaker 7: working people and tell a story that is both true
Speaker 7: in our work and also rhetorically true about who the
Speaker 7: villains are.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 7: So, when people are experiencing this crisis of affordability that
Speaker 7: is real in people's lives right, especially around housing, right,
Speaker 7: we name names and say who the villains are. And
Speaker 7: as political parties and organizations and politicians, it's your job
Speaker 7: to say who the heroes are the working people, and
Speaker 7: who you're willing to fight for and willing to fight against.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting, as I understand, Working Families parties especially
Speaker 3: big in New York. New York is also the single
Speaker 3: largest state that swung to Donald Trump in this election.
Speaker 3: I think some eleven percent swing from twenty twenty towards
Speaker 3: the Republican So if you're thinking about what that looks like,
Speaker 3: what does a response to the shifts in Long Island
Speaker 3: and all across New York including actually even in Manhattan
Speaker 3: and the Bronx everywhere, urban, rural, etc. There was a
Speaker 3: major increase for Donald Trump. How can you win those
Speaker 3: people back? I mean, eleven percent in a single four
Speaker 3: year period in a blue state is shocking. It's absolutely shocking.
Speaker 3: And New Jersey was number two, which is even crazier.
Speaker 7: So I think in our analysis what's required is a
Speaker 7: lot of nuance, and it also requires us to actually
Speaker 7: look at each state.
Speaker 5: So I'm from New York.
Speaker 7: I actually grew up in one of the working class
Speaker 7: suburbs that you're referring to that swung last election, swung
Speaker 7: from red to blue, and in this election actually swung
Speaker 7: back right.
Speaker 5: So you talk about New York.
Speaker 7: But like when we kind of look at the data,
Speaker 7: the Working Families Party worked with folks in labor unions
Speaker 7: and folks in different organizations over the past two years
Speaker 7: in New York, specifically on a project called Battleground New
Speaker 7: York that was successful despite those swings. Success in a
Speaker 7: number of rational districts to swing from red to blue.
Speaker 7: So the thing that I'm curious about in New York,
Speaker 7: where that's the top line story in the nation, where
Speaker 7: we unfortunately became together but didn't get the outcome.
Speaker 5: That we wanted.
Speaker 7: What can we learn from the swings that happened in
Speaker 7: the neighborhood that I grew up in that I returned
Speaker 7: to during COVID that the block that I live on, right,
Speaker 7: so there's data points. Or in Connecticut where the Working
Speaker 7: Families Party had a great election day, right, interesting.
Speaker 5: Right, where many of.
Speaker 7: Our working class candidates in purple districts in this election
Speaker 7: flip those districts from red to blue.
Speaker 4: What can we learn about our describe what kind of races?
Speaker 7: So yeah, I mean these are races where our candidates are,
Speaker 7: our teachers are, our labor unions are regular working people.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 7: We believe that there's a formula. It's not like it's
Speaker 7: not one plus one equals three. But people who are
Speaker 7: from the district who are are people that you could
Speaker 7: identify as folks in your community, People like Kendrick Brooks,
Speaker 7: who is a by the way, in Philadelphia, is a
Speaker 7: WFP only city council person who lives in nice Town,
Speaker 7: North Philly, who governs the entire city of Philadelphia, or
Speaker 7: Nicholas or Rourke, who have long stories of being advocates
Speaker 7: and connected to their communities, could swing people in their
Speaker 7: communities on the ground based on their story, based on
Speaker 7: their relationships, and based on issues that actually matter in
Speaker 7: their lives, not abstractions or you know, at a certain
Speaker 7: level on the air. With with presidential candidates and presidential politics,
Speaker 7: a lot that could get lost, which is why our
Speaker 7: bread and butter is the local local politics. Like we
Speaker 7: we endure in this cycle in this election, seven hundred
Speaker 7: and fifty candidates, so I know a lot of politics
Speaker 7: is especially in a presidential year as the top of
Speaker 7: the ticket. In California, we have one hundred WFP aligned
Speaker 7: candidate dates I think close to seventy of them won
Speaker 7: this cycle. On the municipal level, the thing that that
Speaker 7: connects all these candidates are the fact that they're like
Speaker 7: regular people.
Speaker 5: They're not talking like DC wonks.
Speaker 7: They're in the lives of their communities, and on that level,
Speaker 7: on the city council level, on the county level, you're
Speaker 7: able to like swing people based on the issues that
Speaker 7: matter to them, Like, I'll just give an example housing,
Speaker 7: which is something I'd come back to over and over again.
Speaker 7: So in Philadelphia, for example, we were able to the
Speaker 7: Working Families Party, through Kendra Brooks pass eviction diversion, permanent
Speaker 7: eviction diversion piece of legislation.
Speaker 5: That started in COVID.
Speaker 7: We made it permanent and in Philadelphia there's a forty
Speaker 7: decrease in evictions, right, that's keeping real families in their homes. Recently,
Speaker 7: we also pass through the Working Families Party, a bill
Speaker 7: that prevents realtors from using AI and algorithms in order
Speaker 7: to artificially increase people's rentals. This is groundbreaking legislation, and
Speaker 7: you know, the lobbies are very upset. But because these
Speaker 7: are folks that we recruited and are not part of
Speaker 7: the political establishment, they're willing to take the fight to
Speaker 7: the lobbyist.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 7: So if I were to give the Democratic Party any notes,
Speaker 7: it's like politics are about fights. Who's the Democratic Party
Speaker 7: willing to take the fight to? And so I could
Speaker 7: tell you who the Working Families Party is willing to
Speaker 7: take the fight to. And we have results even in
Speaker 7: this election where we came together and we joined the
Speaker 7: United Front and we lost at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 7: We have a lot of notes about how we might
Speaker 7: be able to rebuild on the grassroots level.
Speaker 1: So you all are taking stories.
Speaker 2: In the pages of the New York Times, Adam John Wilson,
Speaker 2: who was a chief of staff to John Feder I
Speaker 2: think previously worked for Harry Reid, is blaming interist groups
Speaker 2: such as the Working Families Party for pushing Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: too far left.
Speaker 1: They write in that article.
Speaker 2: The same year, coalition of groups including the Sunrise Movement
Speaker 2: and the Working Families Party demanded all Democrats are running
Speaker 2: for president embraced decriminalizing border crossings.
Speaker 1: This is with regard to back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: You know, what's your response to that, The idea that
Speaker 2: Working Families Party and other sort of left aligned groups
Speaker 2: have polled candidates like Kamala Harris too far left and
Speaker 2: put them out of step with the working class.
Speaker 7: Well, this was a presidential election where VP Harris's campaign
Speaker 7: raised and spent one point five billion dollars. The super
Speaker 7: packs associated with her raised and spent much more than
Speaker 7: that billions of dollars. Democratic Party operatives, very senior Democratic
Speaker 7: Party operatives, led these vehicles and now some of them,
Speaker 7: not all of them. Some of them are using to
Speaker 7: in the hours and days and weeks after this electoral
Speaker 7: loss that they participated in, because we were all part
Speaker 7: of it, they're choosing to attack relatively small interest groups.
Speaker 7: I think that this might be an opportunity for reflection.
Speaker 7: I know that that's what we're doing at the Working
Speaker 7: Families Party. We're asking questions, We're curious, We're doing a
Speaker 7: lot of listening, especially to working people.
Speaker 5: We're in the field right now.
Speaker 7: We're having both big calls, like we had over one
Speaker 7: hundred thousand person mass call that we did fourty eight
Speaker 7: hours after the election. We're also doing deep briefs in
Speaker 7: community and we're getting a lot of people coming in
Speaker 7: person in those depbriefs. Look, when I was at the
Speaker 7: doors and like I got the shoe lever to prove
Speaker 7: it right, I not.
Speaker 5: Once I heard a lot of things.
Speaker 7: Not once did I hear at anybody suggests that what
Speaker 7: they were concerned with were some of these some of
Speaker 7: the issues in the breathless sort of think pieces. And
Speaker 7: it's kind of ironic we're talking about working people, but
Speaker 7: the way that some folks are trying to pure trying
Speaker 7: to prosecute that argument is in opas in the New
Speaker 7: York Times, Right.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but we do kind of have a point, right,
Speaker 3: I mean at the end of the day, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure what the specifics are, but if that's
Speaker 3: a position, then you're pushing That was a huge reason
Speaker 3: why she lost. I mean, I was in Pennsylvania. I
Speaker 3: saw that they and then add play all day long.
Speaker 3: I saw immigration play all day long. Maybe in North
Speaker 3: Philly it's not the same. Although there were a lot
Speaker 3: of what urban communities in Philadelphia, as I understand it,
Speaker 3: that moved to the right Puerto Ricans, namely the most
Speaker 3: than immigration probably has something to do with that. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think Adam is one hundred percent wrong.
Speaker 3: So I think your point is correct. These super packs
Speaker 3: and all these people are full of playing. But I
Speaker 3: know if you're pushing candidates to embrace these positions, that's
Speaker 3: a problem.
Speaker 5: I would never say.
Speaker 7: I would never say anybody that is attempting to fixure
Speaker 7: out the wreckage of this election is one hundred percent
Speaker 7: wrong and that there aren't many factors that might lead
Speaker 7: to it. And I would never argue that a particular
Speaker 7: ad or a particular ad wouldn't be effective or not.
Speaker 7: But I think in some ways that the level of
Speaker 7: analysis is too low. Right Again, like I mentioned at
Speaker 7: the top of this conversation, this is a moment where
Speaker 7: incumbent parties around the world are being rejected by.
Speaker 4: Yeah, immigration is a big part of that story too,
Speaker 4: lot of.
Speaker 5: A lot of factors are a big party. You mentioned
Speaker 5: New York.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think you can't talk about New York without
Speaker 7: talking about the fact that Eric Adams basically ran and
Speaker 7: governed every single day based on the premise that New
Speaker 7: York was a hell hole and that immigrants were somehow
Speaker 7: in a very binary way, taking dollar for dollar from
Speaker 7: everyday people in New York.
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of state re at that point.
Speaker 2: To that point, Kama Harris and the Democratic Party, they
Speaker 2: basically adopted the Republican frame on immigration. She ran How
Speaker 2: many times did she talk about prosecuting transnational gangs blah
Speaker 2: blah blah.
Speaker 1: Now you could say, oh, there was an.
Speaker 2: Overhang from twenty twenty blah blah blah, but that overhang
Speaker 2: must have been much more present in twenty twenty when
Speaker 2: Joe Biden was able to win. So while I think
Speaker 2: that there you know, I've been a critic of like
Speaker 2: wokeness in the Democratic Party and like the word policing
Speaker 2: and the academic language and whatever, and I think that's fine.
Speaker 1: But it's very convenient for.
Speaker 2: The people who ran the multi billion dollar super packs
Speaker 2: to be like, it wasn't our fault, it was their fault.
Speaker 1: We had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: When she ran the platonic ideal of the centrist Liz Cheney,
Speaker 2: like anti immigrants campaign that they would want her to run,
Speaker 2: it's just very convenient to then be like, no, because
Speaker 2: of something she said on a questionnaire back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: That's the reason that lost that.
Speaker 5: That's my point for better or work.
Speaker 7: She ran the campaign that she wanted to run as
Speaker 7: a as a consensus based sort of big tent Democrat
Speaker 7: that campaigned with Liz Cheney. But I also want to
Speaker 7: I want to also be clear the class de alignment
Speaker 7: that's been taking place, like working people leaving the Democratic Party,
Speaker 7: not all of them one from round going to Donald Trump,
Speaker 7: many of them dropping out. That's many of the people
Speaker 7: that I talk to every day just dropping out of politics. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that's been taking place for a long time. Kamala Harris
Speaker 7: didn't create that phenomenon. Her campaign certainly didn't solve it.
Speaker 7: I don't think anyone campaign could solve it. But here
Speaker 7: we are, and we need to be we need to
Speaker 7: be reflective. But I think a lot of these backwards
Speaker 7: looking takes will have people fight the last battle instead
Speaker 7: of the future battle.
Speaker 2: Maurice, let me let me ask you specifically about one
Speaker 2: of the big battles that is going on right now
Speaker 2: for the direction the Democratic Party takes is about who
Speaker 2: was going to bed and see chair sort of this
Speaker 2: you know, important proxy fight over whether there's going to
Speaker 2: be you know, hey, maybe we need to deliver for
Speaker 2: working families in the way that a Bertie Sanders imagine,
Speaker 2: or whether there's going to be more capitulation to the
Speaker 2: right and more you know, shifts to the right going forward.
Speaker 2: One of the candidates who has been floated is rama Manuel,
Speaker 2: who was originally Clinton aide, obviously present you know, leading
Speaker 2: up to him during the Obama administration, actually pushed Obama
Speaker 2: not to do healthcare because he thought it would be
Speaker 2: you know, to upsetting to the powers that be. David
Speaker 2: Axelrod was promoting him as potential d NC chair.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 6: Here's what I would do if I were if they said, well,
Speaker 6: what should we do? Who should lead the party? I
Speaker 6: would take Ambassador Rama Manuel and I would bring him
Speaker 6: back from Japan and I would appoint him chairman of
Speaker 6: the Democrat National Committee. Because he is the most skillful,
Speaker 6: uh political kind of infighter in the Democratic Party. He's
Speaker 6: been you know, he's been a member of Congress, he's
Speaker 6: been White House Chief of Staff, he's been the mayor
Speaker 6: of Chicago. Now he's been ambassador of Japan, and he
Speaker 6: ran in two thousand and five and six the campaign
Speaker 6: to take back the House when Democrats were trying to
Speaker 6: take back the House of Representatives. He knows how to
Speaker 6: do this, and he would be a presence in you know,
Speaker 6: in the media and so on, fearless about taking on Trump.
Speaker 6: I think that would be a really smart little How
Speaker 6: many people in.
Speaker 2: This room know whore I'm Manual is so in many
Speaker 2: ways the party still is ram Emmanual's party in terms
Speaker 2: of the type of candidates, the type of messaging that
Speaker 2: they promote. What do you make of this push to
Speaker 2: put ram In as DNC chair.
Speaker 7: I mean that is so again, I'm building the Working
Speaker 7: Families Party. If I was to give the Democratic Party
Speaker 7: any advice, I mean, what do I hear there? I
Speaker 7: hear a bunch of elites talking about the concerns of
Speaker 7: their party instead of the concerns of everyday people.
Speaker 5: If you want to come.
Speaker 7: Out of the wreckage of this election, then every single
Speaker 7: thing your party does should reflect an obsession with being
Speaker 7: deeply in the lives of people who are experiencing the
Speaker 7: affordability crisis or experiencing just generally this crisis of legitimacy
Speaker 7: that all the institutions are experiencing, and all the conversations
Speaker 7: you have will reflect that. The choices of the head
Speaker 7: of your party will reflect that we need organizers, We
Speaker 7: need people who are listening to lead us through what
Speaker 7: will be a very challenging four years. I know that's
Speaker 7: how we're thinking about it. And again, I just think
Speaker 7: that these really these elite conversations about.
Speaker 5: What you're going to do for your.
Speaker 7: Institution almost is like you're having the wrong conversation and
Speaker 7: we're on the verge of in this country experiencing something that. Look,
Speaker 7: I don't want to engage in hyperbole. It's hard to
Speaker 7: when you look at when you look at Donald Trump's
Speaker 7: cabinet picks, we could imagine what this is going to
Speaker 7: look like. We need fighting organizations that are willing to
Speaker 7: take the fight aggressively to Donald Trump and MAGA and
Speaker 7: be in the lives of everyday working people. And so
Speaker 7: if the conversation isn't about that, if it's about some
Speaker 7: you know, you know political insider who you know? I mean,
Speaker 7: you know, I talk to people in Chicago who look
Speaker 7: at the results of what happened in Chicago and how
Speaker 7: he left that position. Be curious about what his role
Speaker 7: was in all those positions that were named, and also
Speaker 7: be more curious about what folks are like. I live
Speaker 7: on a block, right, like just a little bio, right.
Speaker 7: I'm not a pundit, right. I grew up as a
Speaker 7: working class person. The reason why I'm here is because
Speaker 7: both of my parents got opportunities in unions. My dad
Speaker 7: was in sanitation at a school district. Eventually he was
Speaker 7: an electrician and got a union job. My mom was
Speaker 7: a union nurse. And I lived on a block that
Speaker 7: was multiracial, a lot of ethnic white folks and immigrants
Speaker 7: and black folks in the suburbs of New York that
Speaker 7: went blue and has slowly become contested politically. There is
Speaker 7: a huge Trump flag on that block now on the corner,
Speaker 7: something I couldn't have imagined only a few years ago.
Speaker 7: I returned back to that community during COVID. If you're
Speaker 7: not obsessed with what will make my parents, who are
Speaker 7: retired folks who put their lives on the line to
Speaker 7: make sure that the trains ran on time and that
Speaker 7: people got the care that they needed needed, If you
Speaker 7: don't put your focus on them, and you put your
Speaker 7: focus on who the chair of the Democratic Party would
Speaker 7: be or what this relatively privileged Democratic Party operative says
Speaker 7: in the New York Times, you've lost the plot and
Speaker 7: we need fighting, a fighting movement that will be obsessed
Speaker 7: with putting at the center people like my family and
Speaker 7: people like my neighbors.
Speaker 1: Maurice, thank you so much for coming in this morning.
Speaker 1: It's good to see you.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Maurice, appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Just programming. Note, I'm gonna be in Japan. I'm really
Speaker 3: excited for it. Until for a while. Emily will be
Speaker 3: in for me. Delayed honeymoon. Okay, don't get mad at me.
Speaker 3: I actually put it off, which his wife was not
Speaker 3: very happy about, but certain certain sacrifices had to be
Speaker 3: made for the Breaking Points audience until after the election.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to go, but I am going to miss
Speaker 3: you guys all day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna miss out on you here. I'm sure
Speaker 2: when you get back there'll be all sorts.
Speaker 3: Of I'm sure I'm gonna miss the biggest possible news event.
Speaker 4: That's just my lock.
Speaker 2: Emily, have you filling in of course for Asagrn. She
Speaker 2: always says, a great job to you, So enjoy your trip.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and for all of you guys. I will
Speaker 2: see you back your Thursday. Emily and Ryan will be
Speaker 2: here tomorrow, so see you again soon.