Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
Speaker 1: by Incognate. You know, one of the things we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about on this podcast is trust, who deserves
Speaker 1: it and who doesn't. And lately I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: how much of our personal information is just floating around online.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about phone numbers, home addresses, emails, even information
Speaker 1: about your family, all sitting on websites you've probably never
Speaker 1: heard of. In the scary part, that information can be
Speaker 1: used by scammers and identity thieves to piece together enough
Speaker 1: details to impersonate you, target you, or worse. That's where
Speaker 1: incognate comes in. Incognate works behind the scenes to track
Speaker 1: down and remove your personal data from hundreds of websites,
Speaker 1: things like online directories, people search sites, and even commercial
Speaker 1: databases that collect and sell your data without your consent.
Speaker 1: The process is automated, and because data can pop back
Speaker 1: up again, incognit keeps monitoring and removing it for you.
Speaker 1: And one feature I really like is custom removals. If
Speaker 1: you find something about yourself online that you want eliminated,
Speaker 1: it's a listing, an old record, or something you just
Speaker 1: don't want publicly available, you can send incognit the link
Speaker 1: and a dedicated privacy expert handles the removal for you.
Speaker 1: It's a great way to reduce your digital footprint and
Speaker 1: protect yourself from scams and identity theft. Right now, you
Speaker 1: can get sixty percent off an annual incognyplan. Just go
Speaker 1: to incognit dot com slash Chuck podcast and use the
Speaker 1: code Chuck podcast. Use the code you get a discal again,
Speaker 1: that's in cogni dot com slash chucktodcast and use the
Speaker 1: code Chuck podcast to get sixty percent off and start
Speaker 1: taking control of your personal data today. Trust me, I'm
Speaker 1: constantly working on this for years myself, and here's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for you to take matters into your own hands
Speaker 1: as well. Hello thereon, Welcome to the Thursday edition of
Speaker 1: the Chuck Podcast. I have today's going to be a
Speaker 1: bit more domestic, a bit moreocused on that obviously. Look
Speaker 1: that the most important story impacting American politics is and
Speaker 1: will continue to be the Iran War until it is
Speaker 1: not right because of the impact it has on our economy,
Speaker 1: the sort of symbolic impact it has on the economy
Speaker 1: with gas prices, things like that, but the actual war itself,
Speaker 1: the conduct of this war will we end up escalating
Speaker 1: all these questions securing the straight of horn moves. It
Speaker 1: is going to continue to be essentially and I think
Speaker 1: if you're like I said, it's similar I said yesterday.
Speaker 1: If you're a Republican running on the ballot in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, you just wish this war would end in
Speaker 1: some form or another, that you could turn the page
Speaker 1: on this. But it isn't going to happen very quickly,
Speaker 1: very easily. This is going to continue to be I
Speaker 1: think the biggest story that will impact the larger sort
Speaker 1: of perception of the direction of the country, and it
Speaker 1: will certainly impact what is campaigned on. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, whether the war was happening or not,
Speaker 1: the issue of the economy and democracy issues would be
Speaker 1: in some ways front and center. And my sub stack
Speaker 1: theme this week is about how the only primary and
Speaker 1: I think there's some important political follout from that that
Speaker 1: I'll share with you in a few minutes. A huge
Speaker 1: win for Juliana Stratton number one, but number two, and
Speaker 1: maybe in the near term the bigger winner might be JB. Pritzker,
Speaker 1: the governor of Illinois. I think those of us I'm
Speaker 1: somebody who's you know, I wasn't sure. I didn't have
Speaker 1: him in my top tier of twenty twenty eight ers.
Speaker 1: Let's just say, you know, I'm paying a lot more
Speaker 1: respect than to him now, and I see him as
Speaker 1: I think, you know, you're the governor you're able to
Speaker 1: take on You're a billionaire governor, and you're able to
Speaker 1: take on these huge super packs from the crypto industry
Speaker 1: and from the tech and AI industries, and you're able
Speaker 1: to win. Although in this case, I think it was
Speaker 1: really more of the crypto folks that he was taking
Speaker 1: on more than anybody else. It says something, and I
Speaker 1: certainly have and I want to get to that in
Speaker 1: a minute. But I want to tackle this issue of
Speaker 1: money in politics because it's all kind of tied in
Speaker 1: together a little bit. And let's just say, for years
Speaker 1: I didn't spend a lot of time on the issue
Speaker 1: of campaign finance and money and politics, not because I
Speaker 1: didn't think it was a problem. I just never really
Speaker 1: believed it would ever really become a big issue in
Speaker 1: American politics. Even as you hear, as I'll hear plenty
Speaker 1: of sort of you know, non professional in this space.
Speaker 1: I E. Voters, I E. Those that pay attention going,
Speaker 1: we've got to do something about money in politics, because
Speaker 1: I was a skeptic when that there was any reform
Speaker 1: that was even possible, that there was no curbing of money,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't because I thought the system was healthy,
Speaker 1: quite the opposite. I just assumed the problem was unbeatable.
Speaker 1: It was too adaptive, it was too clever, if you will,
Speaker 1: And I had this working assumption. I used to do
Speaker 1: this all the time. I'd quote Jeff Goldbloom's character in
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park when the old man reassures the scientists that
Speaker 1: he brings to show off his dinosaurs. Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: they're not going to pro create. I've been able to
Speaker 1: manipulate their DNA so that they can't pro create. And
Speaker 1: Goldblum's characters, you know, he's the guy who I guess
Speaker 1: promotes chaos theory and mathematics, and he basically says life
Speaker 1: finds a way and he turns out to be right. Well,
Speaker 1: I've always felt that way about money in politics, right,
Speaker 1: Money always finds a way. You try public financing, it
Speaker 1: gets outgrown, you try to cap contribution. Well, then you
Speaker 1: get bundling, which sort of a work around every reform
Speaker 1: in in my adult lifetime, in franctly, my entire lifetime
Speaker 1: has been has been turned against itself. Right, you ban
Speaker 1: soft money from the major parties, then that money moves
Speaker 1: outside the parties and you say, have less of an
Speaker 1: opportunity to keep control of your of your party. Mcain
Speaker 1: fine Gold was supposed to clean things up, and instead
Speaker 1: it helped create the modern superPAC system that is absolutely
Speaker 1: destructive to the political campaign system as we know it.
Speaker 1: Every single reform I've seen tried created a workaround that
Speaker 1: became made the problem worse. So you get to the
Speaker 1: point you're like, well, just go find your you know.
Speaker 1: And you saw there was no neither party would ever
Speaker 1: have a permanent advantage on money, you know, because that's
Speaker 1: the way markets work, right, When one one side's up,
Speaker 1: the other side finds it finds disgruntled rich people to
Speaker 1: help them, right, And and so there was an uneasy
Speaker 1: balance that you would see in this, and so you thought, well,
Speaker 1: at least it's fair, it's ugly, it's gross, but at
Speaker 1: least it's balanced between the two parties over time. So
Speaker 1: it was going to be messy, it was going to
Speaker 1: be imperfect, but ultimately it was probably unfixable, especially once
Speaker 1: the courts decided that money was speech, so then you
Speaker 1: had to have a constitutional moment, and what the hell
Speaker 1: would that constitutional moment look like? But I do think
Speaker 1: we missed something along the way, because when we pushed
Speaker 1: big donors out of the parties, this was a I
Speaker 1: think this, you know, I have you know, McCain fine gold.
Speaker 1: And there were plenty of detractors of McCain fine gold
Speaker 1: because they just simply wanted more big money in politics.
Speaker 1: But there were other detractors of McCain fine gold who
Speaker 1: worried it would weaken them two political parties. And I
Speaker 1: think those folks have proven to be right. And let
Speaker 1: me explain, we didn't just move money when we got
Speaker 1: rid of money big money checks being written to political
Speaker 1: parties directly, he actually removed one of the only guard
Speaker 1: rails in vetting candidates that we had. When you take
Speaker 1: the parties out of the candidate vetting business, and you
Speaker 1: do this when you no longer allow them to have
Speaker 1: the financial resources to help candidates win, then you had
Speaker 1: real consequences to what kinds of candidates would suddenly pop
Speaker 1: up for all of their flaws, And there were plenty
Speaker 1: with the party organizations. They did serve a kind as
Speaker 1: kind of a filter. Wasn't a perfect filter and wasn't
Speaker 1: always a fair filter, but they would ask basic questions
Speaker 1: like is this person stable? Do they have good judgment?
Speaker 1: Can they handle power? Can they handle stress? Sometimes just
Speaker 1: the basic vetting process and an HR department would have
Speaker 1: And because that's where you had to get your resources
Speaker 1: and your money, you as the candidate sort of where
Speaker 1: you kind of you had to apply to the parties,
Speaker 1: if you will, unofficially, and the parties had a stake
Speaker 1: in the long term health of the coalition and they
Speaker 1: couldn't just get behind somebody that could win now if
Speaker 1: they thought that person's reputation could end up harming the
Speaker 1: overall reputation of the party itself. But now well, that
Speaker 1: function has been entirely outsourced, and it's been outsourced to
Speaker 1: donor networks, to ideological entrepreneurs, to outside groups, and those
Speaker 1: actors aren't asking the same questions that leaders of the
Speaker 1: two actual political parties used to ask of their candidates.
Speaker 1: They don't ask is this person fit? They're asking can
Speaker 1: this person win? And will this person be useful, useful
Speaker 1: to fund, useful to protect useful to stop something. They
Speaker 1: have their own incentive. They're looking for somebody that aligns
Speaker 1: with them on a specific issue, specific topic of issue focus. Right,
Speaker 1: So that then Trump's character it, Trump's ethics, Trump's morals,
Speaker 1: and Trump branding. Right. It's a completely different screening mechanism
Speaker 1: and it produces a completely different kind of politics. Then
Speaker 1: you lay around Citizens United, and now the system isn't
Speaker 1: just adaptive, it's protected. Political spending becomes speech, and suddenly
Speaker 1: meaningful restrictions are almost impossible without a constitutional fight. So
Speaker 1: for a long time I thought this is it, this
Speaker 1: is the system, until recently that is because something has changed.
Speaker 1: Are there's always a tipping point, right, there's always, you know,
Speaker 1: everything in moderation, But eventually you're not moderating your habits.
Speaker 1: You've tipped. So let me give you a moment where
Speaker 1: I clicked for me. And I keep coming back to
Speaker 1: this and I bring it up in a lot of
Speaker 1: my appearances now and I'm going to continue to do so.
Speaker 1: When Chuck Schumer reportedly told fellow Democratic senators to ease
Speaker 1: up on their opposition to the crypto industry, not because
Speaker 1: they changed their minds and they saw that crypto was
Speaker 1: going to be this incredible. Maybe this would be a
Speaker 1: helpful tool in the financial sector. But because of the
Speaker 1: political firepower of a singular super called fair shake, these
Speaker 1: were huge players in Illinois, and by the way, they
Speaker 1: get their ass kecked in Illinois, they did not have
Speaker 1: a good night. For what it's worth, But think about that,
Speaker 1: elected officials being told to soften their positions on a
Speaker 1: specific issue because an industry simply has too much money
Speaker 1: to challenge them. That's not influence, that's not persuasion, that's coersion.
Speaker 1: It's policy extortion. And once you see that clearly, then
Speaker 1: all the stuff starts to look differently because what we're
Speaker 1: dealing with now is not just a lot of money
Speaker 1: in politics. It is something bigger. It's the shift from
Speaker 1: candidate centered politics to donor centered politics. And this is
Speaker 1: what was so crystal clear about all of the Illinois
Speaker 1: primaries that happened earlier this week. And it wasn't just
Speaker 1: in the Senate race. It was also in these house
Speaker 1: races where every single candidate came with a descriptor that
Speaker 1: said the fairshake back candidate, the AI back candidate, the
Speaker 1: A packed back candidate, this back candidate. Right, it was
Speaker 1: never just about the candidate, even in Juliana Stratton's case,
Speaker 1: who didn't have one big industry behind her, she had
Speaker 1: a big billionaire governor behind her. She was Governor Pritzker's candidate, right,
Speaker 1: But it was not about the candidates. It was about
Speaker 1: their supporters, about the donors. So now there was a
Speaker 1: specific reason why Illinois became kind of ground zero for
Speaker 1: this moment. Right. It's a very blue state, and they
Speaker 1: had a bunch of elderly members of Congress who finally
Speaker 1: decided to retire, the big one being Dick Durbin. Right,
Speaker 1: you got elected in ninety six. You know, by the way,
Speaker 1: for what it's worth, I think if you were elected
Speaker 1: to office in the twentieth century, you probably shouldn't be
Speaker 1: seeking reelection in twenty six. And if you do, don't
Speaker 1: be surprised if you get primaried and you have a problem.
Speaker 1: But I digress. So Dick Durbin retires, there's an open seat,
Speaker 1: deep blue state, which means the primary becomes the election
Speaker 1: and it's not just an election for six years. Dick
Speaker 1: Derbin got elected in ninety six and was there for
Speaker 1: thirty years, worked his way up in the leadership number
Speaker 1: two in leadership. So this is a very I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what you're investing in. You're not just investing in
Speaker 1: one six year term. You're potentially investing in one of
Speaker 1: the next leaders of the United States Senate over a generation.
Speaker 1: So if you're you've got interest before Congress, this is
Speaker 1: a valuable asset to acquire, i e. Having a senator
Speaker 1: that may feel beholden to your industry. So if you're
Speaker 1: that interest group and you think you can influence this primary,
Speaker 1: you may be buying influence for a generation. So what
Speaker 1: did voters get? Though? They didn't get a traditional campaign,
Speaker 1: They didn't get a real debate between the candidates. You know,
Speaker 1: in fact, if you didn't have one of these things yet,
Speaker 1: it was really hard for the candidates. I never felt
Speaker 1: like I got to know the candidates. I only knew
Speaker 1: them through their donors and through who their supporters were.
Speaker 1: And it turned into a proxy war. Right. You had
Speaker 1: crypto money, AI money, a pack link money, billionaire money,
Speaker 1: governor money front group, shell acts, you name it. By
Speaker 1: the end of it, voters knew what these interests wanted, perhaps,
Speaker 1: but that they really know what kind of candidate they
Speaker 1: were getting. Now, I think in Stratton. She found a
Speaker 1: way to break through, interestingly enough, because she went viral
Speaker 1: with an ad that didn't air on mainstream television because
Speaker 1: you'd had to bleep it out too much. But it
Speaker 1: was the F Trump at and if you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to go see it. During our livestream,
Speaker 1: we aired a vision of it, but it's just a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of voters saying F Trump, and then Stratton says,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it, but it was her way of
Speaker 1: basically virtue signaling, Hey, she's going to be a fighter.
Speaker 1: She wants to punch the bully in the nose. And
Speaker 1: I think it mattered. It also mattered that the governor,
Speaker 1: I think is popular with rank and filed Democrats because
Speaker 1: he's been fighting Trump and he's been you know what,
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has gotten a lot more credit for arguably
Speaker 1: Pritzker's been doing before. Newsom thought it was a cool
Speaker 1: way to do. But we still had something odd take
Speaker 1: place this week in Illinois in that voters again I think,
Speaker 1: ended up having to to select candidates based on what
Speaker 1: third party groups create. The character of third party groups
Speaker 1: were created by them, So they were watching messages written
Speaker 1: by people who may never actually have been on the
Speaker 1: ballot and will never be on the ballot. And here's
Speaker 1: the part that should bother everyone. These outside groups, they
Speaker 1: often don't even campaign on the issue they actually care about.
Speaker 1: A crypto group may never mention Crypto, an AI group
Speaker 1: may never mention AI entirely. An Israel focused group may
Speaker 1: decide that's too politically complicated to lead with. So what
Speaker 1: do they do. They find another issue, immigration, crime, corruption, ideology,
Speaker 1: and they use that as the delivery system. So voters
Speaker 1: think they're watching one debate when they're actually being moved
Speaker 1: onto another. And that's not persuasion. That becomes misdirection, right,
Speaker 1: And the candidates don't really feel accountable to it because
Speaker 1: in some ways they can't control these outside groups, and
Speaker 1: the outside groups have no accountability because none of us
Speaker 1: know who their donors are in time to cover it
Speaker 1: before the election. Having good life insurance is incredibly important.
Speaker 1: I know from personal experience. I was sixteen when my
Speaker 1: father passed away. We didn't have any money. He didn't
Speaker 1: leave us in the best shape. My mother, single mother,
Speaker 1: now widow, myself sixteen trying to figure out how am
Speaker 1: I going to pay for college? And lo and behold.
Speaker 1: My dad had one life insurance policy that we found
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot, but it was important at the time,
Speaker 1: and it's why I was able to go to college.
Speaker 1: Little did he know how important that would be in
Speaker 1: that moment. Well guess what. That's why I am here
Speaker 1: to tell you about Etho's life. They can provide you
Speaker 1: with peace of mind knowing your family is protected even
Speaker 1: if the worst comes to pass. Ethos is an online
Speaker 1: platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy, all
Speaker 1: designed to protect your family's future in minutes, not months.
Speaker 1: There's no complicated process, and it's one hundred percent online.
Speaker 1: There's no medical exam require you just answer a few
Speaker 1: health questions online. You can get a quote in as
Speaker 1: little as ten minutes, and you can get same day
Speaker 1: coverage without ever leaving your home. You can get up
Speaker 1: to three million dollars in coverage, and some policies start
Speaker 1: as low as two dollars a day that would be
Speaker 1: billed monthly. As of March twenty twenty five, Business Insider
Speaker 1: named Ethos the number one no medical exam instant life
Speaker 1: insurance provider. So protect your family with life insurance from Ethos.
Speaker 1: Get your free quotedt Ethos dot com slash chuck. So
Speaker 1: again that's Ethos dot com slash chuck. Application times may
Speaker 1: vary and the rates themselves may vary as well, but
Speaker 1: trust me, life insurance is something you should really think
Speaker 1: about it, especially if you've got a growing family. So
Speaker 1: as a candidate, you weirdly kind of stuck because you
Speaker 1: can't coordinate with the groups, and so they get pulled
Speaker 1: into campaigns they didn't design. They just sort of participate
Speaker 1: into a campaign that was created by an outside group
Speaker 1: on terrain. They didn't choose answering for messages. They didn't right,
Speaker 1: So the whole idea of independent spending becomes part of
Speaker 1: the problem. And this is where the loss of party
Speaker 1: control I think matters a lot, because parties used to
Speaker 1: have to think about the entire electorate, the whole coalition,
Speaker 1: long term consequences. Now we didn't just decentralize money, we
Speaker 1: decentralized responsibility, and we hollowed out the institutions that had
Speaker 1: to care about more than one donor's obsession, which brings
Speaker 1: us to the core problem inanimity. If you want to
Speaker 1: vote in secret, you should. The secret ballot is sacred.
Speaker 1: That's a fundamental right. But if you want to spend
Speaker 1: millions influencing everyone else's vote, sorry, you don't deserve secrecy.
Speaker 1: You need to put your name on it immediately, not
Speaker 1: on some tax reform through a LLC six months later,
Speaker 1: in real time, in plain English. No shell companies, no
Speaker 1: front groups, no hiding three layers deep, stand by your money.
Speaker 1: In fact, let me make it simple, take a page
Speaker 1: from NASCAR. If you want to spend big money in politics,
Speaker 1: but the donor on the hood every ad, every mail,
Speaker 1: or every digital buy, because that's the tradeoff. Influence comes
Speaker 1: with visibility. You want to have influence, everybody needs to
Speaker 1: know it with her democracy. It's on the ballot and
Speaker 1: it needs to be put on the ballot now. Even
Speaker 1: if that doesn't solve the whole problem, because the deeper
Speaker 1: issue is what this system does to candidates. It doesn't
Speaker 1: just reward certain positions, it punishes others. So candidates learn,
Speaker 1: They learn what fights are too expensive, like crypto apparently,
Speaker 1: so they soften, they go quiet, they delay, or they
Speaker 1: stand down entirely not because they've been persuaded, but because
Speaker 1: they understand the cost that comes with dissent, which in
Speaker 1: some ways is what they crypto. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: what they've done. They've amassed such a financial juggernaut and
Speaker 1: fair shape that they just want to intimidate politicians into
Speaker 1: legalizing what is a questionable what many people find questionable
Speaker 1: in its usefulness. But once that happens, the problem isn't
Speaker 1: just money in politics. It's that money is defining the
Speaker 1: boundaries of politics. What can be said, what can't be said,
Speaker 1: what gets debated, what gets avoided. And here's the thing,
Speaker 1: this is no longer just a left wing complaint. I'm
Speaker 1: now hearing it from Republicans, free market conservatives, people with
Speaker 1: their own scars from dark money, starting to say this
Speaker 1: out loud. And that's new. And this is why I
Speaker 1: think why we might have hit a tipping point where
Speaker 1: maybe the public is ready to do something about it,
Speaker 1: and maybe the politicians are going to grow a spine
Speaker 1: and do something about it, because the scale here is undeniable.
Speaker 1: Not that long ago, billionaire money was a rounding error.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. I mean you've seen it. It was barely
Speaker 1: one percent of campaign money came from billionaires pre Citizens United.
Speaker 1: Now it's approaching one out of every five dollars spent
Speaker 1: on federal campaigns comes from a billionaire. We are moving
Speaker 1: towards something new, but it looks like institutionalized billionaire politics, right,
Speaker 1: a political gilded age. Now, to be clear, this doesn't
Speaker 1: mean every candidate backed by wealthy interest is corrupt. American
Speaker 1: politics has always had patrons, but the structure of it matters, right,
Speaker 1: And the structure we have now encourages voters to believe
Speaker 1: candidates are simply stand ins for their donors, and that
Speaker 1: perception alone is what is so corrosive, and it creates
Speaker 1: a barrier to entry that should worry all of us.
Speaker 1: We got rid of poll taxes for a reason. You
Speaker 1: can't charge people for access to a constitutional right. But
Speaker 1: we've built something similar on the candidate side. A system
Speaker 1: we're running for office seriously requires access to wealth, patrons
Speaker 1: or donor networks. That's a shadow tax on a candidacy. Now,
Speaker 1: candidates will tell you fairly that they didn't write these rules,
Speaker 1: and they're right, they didn't. Can be rational for the
Speaker 1: participants and still be unacceptable for the public, and this
Speaker 1: is where we're at. The reforms aren't mysterious, real time disclosure,
Speaker 1: no anonymous money, clear donor identification. Maybe some structural fixes
Speaker 1: like runoffs or ranked choice voting won't fix everything, but
Speaker 1: it will store one basic idea that voters should know
Speaker 1: who is trying to persuade them and why, because in
Speaker 1: many cases it's not the candidates that are trying to
Speaker 1: persuade voters anymore. It's some anonymous donor who's funding that candidate.
Speaker 1: So the danger now isn't that money influences outcomes. It's
Speaker 1: that it defines the menu of choices itself, like you
Speaker 1: don't even know there's an alternative because it doesn't have
Speaker 1: the funding to present itself on your menu of options before.
Speaker 1: It's like what happens in Iran? Right? You know, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a democracy, but the regime decides who gets to
Speaker 1: be on the ballot. So is it really a choice
Speaker 1: in anybody that is, you know, any presential candidate that's
Speaker 1: calling for actual, small de democratic reform, they somehow don't
Speaker 1: make the ballot. That's essentially what we're seeing here, donors
Speaker 1: deciding who's viable, who's not, what's debated, and what gets dropped.
Speaker 1: That's how democracy gets reshaped into a kleptocracy quietly before
Speaker 1: a single vote has even cast. And that's why this
Speaker 1: has finally potentially become a voting issue, not because reform
Speaker 1: is easy, but because voters are starting to see the
Speaker 1: system for what it is. In Illinois. It's not the exception.
Speaker 1: It's just a warning. And it's interesting because Illinois features
Speaker 1: a billionaire governor, a billionaire governor who's tried to fight
Speaker 1: the some of these other billionaires. And you know, this
Speaker 1: feeds into a notion. And this is why I think
Speaker 1: that you know, hey, look we're going to look on
Speaker 1: one primary does not make a presidential candidate, but it
Speaker 1: is a data point that matters. And you know, the
Speaker 1: f Trump at it's possible that you have a group
Speaker 1: of Democrats who say, well, this system is so rigged
Speaker 1: that maybe they've got to find their billionaire to fight
Speaker 1: the other billionaires. And I'm not just making this up.
Speaker 1: One of you was my substact reader, made a comment
Speaker 1: on my substack column that was on the that was
Speaker 1: similarly themed here, and I just want to read you
Speaker 1: to hand in hand here because I think it. I
Speaker 1: think it's a it's illustrative of where I think there
Speaker 1: is a faction of the Democratic Party. And I've, like
Speaker 1: I said, I've heard other at a progressive consultant tell
Speaker 1: me I'm looking for my own Trump right anyway, let
Speaker 1: me read you to what one of my commenters too
Speaker 1: on substack said, this is the most terrifying thing I've
Speaker 1: read in a while, and I read a lot of
Speaker 1: AI doomsday articles. What do we do about it? Writing
Speaker 1: or calling your congress person feels inadequate. I've known campaign
Speaker 1: find answer was a problem for a long time, but
Speaker 1: it feels like the only way to change it is
Speaker 1: to become a billionaire, win elections and then fight the
Speaker 1: other billionaires. What do normal citizens do short of pulling
Speaker 1: out the guillotines? This was just a simple question to him,
Speaker 1: And what I want to say to Ryan asked who
Speaker 1: wrote this in is you may need to You may
Speaker 1: need to show your guillotine. I'm not saying you use
Speaker 1: the guillotine, but you almost need to, Like it's like
Speaker 1: you walk t you walk quietly and carry a big
Speaker 1: stick like you're guillotine. You're your stick. Or maybe you
Speaker 1: hire a billionaire to do this right, And that's I
Speaker 1: think the JB. Pritzker pitch. Hey, I'm a billionaire. I
Speaker 1: know how these guys work, and in some ways it's
Speaker 1: the mirror image of how Trump convinced a frustrated Republican
Speaker 1: base that was tired of losing, tired of compromising, tired
Speaker 1: of the mccains and the Romneys of the world, and
Speaker 1: they wanted somebody who made them feel better and expressed
Speaker 1: what they thought they couldn't say anymore, right, and that
Speaker 1: was Donald Trump. Well that's what the Juliana Stratton f
Speaker 1: Trump ad. I think there's a there's it's somewhat analogous, right,
Speaker 1: there's a group of Democrats who are tired of the shit, right,
Speaker 1: and they're like, screw it, give me my own billionaire
Speaker 1: and let me punch this bully in the house. And
Speaker 1: Pritzker has been playing this role for quite some time.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've been skeptical that the answer to
Speaker 1: the Trump eras for Democrats to go find their own billionaire. Right.
Speaker 1: This is why I've been a little skeptical of the
Speaker 1: Mark Cuban idea, a little skeptical of the Pritzker idea.
Speaker 1: But watching it in action and you seeing how much
Speaker 1: money and how big these entities are. You know, it
Speaker 1: took a rich guy named Teddy Roosevelt to take on
Speaker 1: the big rich guys, right, it took a rich guy
Speaker 1: in FDR to build the social safety net for the
Speaker 1: working class. It was a rich guy that working class
Speaker 1: America the last ten years has turned to or want
Speaker 1: to be rich guy, depending on your point of view
Speaker 1: of when Trump actually acquired actual wealth. But it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Perceive Perception is reality in this case. And so I
Speaker 1: know this, like you know, I always remind people I
Speaker 1: cover politics as as it is, not as I wish
Speaker 1: it were. I'm not sure this is a good long
Speaker 1: term solution for where we're headed as a country. But
Speaker 1: I also it's possible. This is a this is something,
Speaker 1: this is something that has to be tried first before
Speaker 1: the next thing gets tried, right, And if you you know,
Speaker 1: I always like to put my shove in the shoes
Speaker 1: of somebody fifty years from now looking back on this
Speaker 1: era we're living through, and how will they see it,
Speaker 1: what will it look like? And you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a theory that we're we're going to We're
Speaker 1: probably going to have two or three more one term
Speaker 1: presidents before we have a president that's able to sort
Speaker 1: of solidify the country enough to earn a second term.
Speaker 1: And that's when you know, we'll have turned the page
Speaker 1: on this era until we get there. So we've had
Speaker 1: three in a row. You know, we didn't. We went
Speaker 1: through the entire twentieth century without three one term presidents
Speaker 1: in a row. So I kind of think we're you
Speaker 1: got to go through these stages, right, and so you know,
Speaker 1: you could see this right if if down the road
Speaker 1: we get you know, the next Eisenhower becomes president, say
Speaker 1: in twenty thirty six, but we have a one term
Speaker 1: president in twenty eight, a one term president in thirty two,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Like okay, what you know, what what will
Speaker 1: the explanation be? And it will be something like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the frustrated Americans they kept they kept voting,
Speaker 1: you know, they kept looking for something different and they
Speaker 1: didn't like it, and they voted out. You know, the Democrats,
Speaker 1: they tried the conciliator candidate in Biden and that didn't work.
Speaker 1: Then they tried you know, if they go with the
Speaker 1: A Pritzker, let's say, then it was oh, they tried
Speaker 1: the fighter, the billionaire fighter to fight back and that
Speaker 1: didn't work in the Culture War, and then you know
Speaker 1: who knows, So you know it is it's possible. We're
Speaker 1: just in a this is the next step, you know,
Speaker 1: before you get to whatever the whatever the solution is,
Speaker 1: or maybe this turns out to be the solution, or
Speaker 1: maybe a leader sort of morphs into something bigger and
Speaker 1: is able to rise above in a moment. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's what we do. We find out sometimes after
Speaker 1: we elect these presidents whether they're actually up to the job.
Speaker 1: We never, let's be honest, we're never quite sure these
Speaker 1: folks are up to the job until after they take office.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of skepticism about Bill Clinton, and then
Speaker 1: after a while you understood why he was there. Uh
Speaker 1: did it with w did it with Obama? You know,
Speaker 1: there's always a moment where these people fill the suit, right,
Speaker 1: and you just sort of see it, you know. I
Speaker 1: think Biden always struggled to fill the suit. I think Trump,
Speaker 1: you know, is always acting. He's always playing a role,
Speaker 1: so he struggles to fill the suit because it's never
Speaker 1: a full it's never quite quite what he is. It's
Speaker 1: always a performance of some sort. You just have to
Speaker 1: figure out what that performance is at any given time.
Speaker 1: So it's uh, I'm always careful. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be definitive here. Right. We had one primary where the
Speaker 1: candidate who was preaching love instead of a fighter one
Speaker 1: in Texas. Now this one we got the fighter, the
Speaker 1: F Trump candidate. Right. By the way, every time I
Speaker 1: say F Trump, I'm channeling my old Chris Matthews. He'll
Speaker 1: be saying, are you saying F troop? You know some
Speaker 1: old TV show back in the sixties. So for some
Speaker 1: of my older viewers and listeners, that was a shout
Speaker 1: out for F troop. Now I'm not saying F troop
Speaker 1: when I say the F Trump had. So you know,
Speaker 1: two data points does not make a trend, but it's
Speaker 1: an intriguing data point. It's something I'm not going to
Speaker 1: dismiss about Pritzker. And I think that Pritzker's proven to
Speaker 1: be politically savving his own state, so we should be
Speaker 1: taking him seriously as a presidential candidate. I wouldn't put
Speaker 1: him at the bottom of the top tier anymore. I'd
Speaker 1: be putting him smack dab in the in the contender
Speaker 1: section of this. As we go forward, all right, Like
Speaker 1: I said, coming up my conversation with somebody who leads
Speaker 1: one of these super packs that I'm talking about, and
Speaker 1: we get into whether this is a healthy system and
Speaker 1: what should be and Rad Carson, longtime Oklahoma Democrat, also
Speaker 1: gives his prescription of how Democrats could to could improve
Speaker 1: their brand in red states like Oklahoma and elsewhere. So
Speaker 1: I think you'll find the conversation interesting, provocative and enlightening.
Speaker 1: And with that, let's sneak in a break and when
Speaker 1: we come back, my conversation with about AI influencer politics
Speaker 1: and the Democratic Party with Brad Carson. This episode of
Speaker 1: the Chuck Todcast is brought to you by Quints. A
Speaker 1: thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well
Speaker 1: and last. That's where Quince shines. Premium fabrics, considered design,
Speaker 1: and every day essentials that feel effortless, toware and dependable
Speaker 1: even as the seasons change. Quince has the everyday essentials
Speaker 1: I love with quality that lasts, lightweight Kashmir sweaters not
Speaker 1: too expensive either by the way, short sleeve Mongolian capolos,
Speaker 1: linen bottoms and shorts. Quitch works directly with top factories
Speaker 1: and cuts out the middlemen. That's why it's more affordable.
Speaker 1: You're not paying for the brand markup or any fancy
Speaker 1: retail stores, but you're still getting quality. Everything is built
Speaker 1: to hold up to regular wear and still look good.
Speaker 1: Quite often I'm wearing something that I've gotten from Quints.
Speaker 1: It is incredibly comfortable. I've become a middle aged man
Speaker 1: who loves his quarter zips. They have plenty of those.
Speaker 1: I have been very pleased, and it's just you know,
Speaker 1: when I like a piece of clothing, I probably wear
Speaker 1: it too much, and usually you can tell after about
Speaker 1: two or three months. That's not the case. So far
Speaker 1: with Quints that's been impressive. So right now go to
Speaker 1: quins dot com slash chuck for free shipping and three
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five day returns. It's a full year
Speaker 1: to build your wardrobe and you'll love it. Now available
Speaker 1: in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last.
Speaker 1: Go to qu I n ce dot com slash chuck
Speaker 1: for free shipping, three hundred and sixty five day returns
Speaker 1: Quins slash Chuck, Ask Chuck. First question comes from Bill
Speaker 1: in Boston and he writes, Hey, Chuck, I started listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast after hearing you on Jim and Marjorie
Speaker 1: Show and have not missed an episode since. Oh I'm
Speaker 1: glad to hear that Jim and Marjorie are fantastic. They
Speaker 1: have a terrific daily program on BPR. Up there, Boston
Speaker 1: Public Radio, and they're two of my favorite people. I
Speaker 1: just adore them and it is probably my favorite guest
Speaker 1: appearance I make on anything I do. It's just a
Speaker 1: total joy with them, So thank you for giving them
Speaker 1: a shout out. You continue. I devour the commentaries as
Speaker 1: soon as they drop and then save the interviews for
Speaker 1: the weekend. So excellent. My niece has just graduated from
Speaker 1: journalism school and is moving to DC to start her
Speaker 1: career in the world of political journalism. I was thinking
Speaker 1: of getting our membership at the National Press Club as
Speaker 1: a graduation. Get is that still where the center of
Speaker 1: gravity is for the DC press these days? Thanks Bill,
Speaker 1: and Boston actually isn't a National Press Club? Is really
Speaker 1: it's really a PR mechanism. Now more public relations firms
Speaker 1: are members of the Press Club than actual journalists associations.
Speaker 1: It's still an if you're an international journalist, the Press
Speaker 1: Club is a helpful tool, but it does not play
Speaker 1: the role it once did, and it's interesting I might suggest,
Speaker 1: I know this sounds I might suggest just getting her
Speaker 1: a subscription to like punch Bowl, right, and some one
Speaker 1: of these insider newsletters that you really need to know,
Speaker 1: you know, that can really help drive you know, on
Speaker 1: Congress that's punch Bowl, and that's not a cheap publication,
Speaker 1: but you know, the DC publication world right, whether it's
Speaker 1: your subscription, and it really is punchable for Congress. You know,
Speaker 1: this is what gets really expensive in the world of journalism,
Speaker 1: is being able to keep track of everybody else's work,
Speaker 1: whether it's the Punch Bowl, Wall Street Journal, Politico, Axios.
Speaker 1: None of this stuff is free, and in many cases
Speaker 1: it's exuberant, it's uber expensive. But I think back on
Speaker 1: what I needed as subscription to my old stomping grounds,
Speaker 1: the Hotline. You know, if you did punch Bowl, Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, Politico in the Hotline, that's probably what a
Speaker 1: membership to the National Press Club would cost. And I
Speaker 1: would dare say those publications if your niece doesn't end
Speaker 1: up working at one of them, and she may end up,
Speaker 1: and yes, over time, if one of the not every
Speaker 1: news organization, we'll spring for some of these subscriptions. So
Speaker 1: anyway that I'm just thinking out loud, but that's probably
Speaker 1: you know, where I would begin to sort of engrace,
Speaker 1: you know, to have help somebody sort of get used
Speaker 1: to the rhythms of this town, you know, from an
Speaker 1: internal cultural sense, and that's where punch Bowl and Politico
Speaker 1: Playbook in particular come come in. And then with this
Speaker 1: particular White House axios in the Wall Street Journal, I
Speaker 1: think I have the best access to the to the
Speaker 1: west wing and have the probably the more consistent scoopages.
Speaker 1: You know, this is no disrespect to the times in
Speaker 1: the Post, but in this case, the times in the
Speaker 1: Post are a bit cheaper, and one could argue she could,
Speaker 1: she could, she could pay for those. Those other ones
Speaker 1: are a little price here, So just a thought anyway.
Speaker 1: I hope that helps, Bill, and congratulations and you know
Speaker 1: I at some point we're going to be hiring interns
Speaker 1: here at the Check Podcast, but we haven't fully fully
Speaker 1: expanded there for now. Next up is Howard W. From
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Any rates, when the Declaration of Independence was signed,
Speaker 1: were we a country or thirteen colonies? Didn't we actually
Speaker 1: become a country when the articles of confederation right fight
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty one. That is a fair point, right,
Speaker 1: We we declared our independence and then we didn't really
Speaker 1: and we sort of formed an army, and you know,
Speaker 1: there was a coalition and it was I guess you
Speaker 1: could call it a a you know, a coalition of
Speaker 1: the willing, but it's a it's man, why do you
Speaker 1: want to mess up a good myth? Right? Are you
Speaker 1: telling us we have to put off the two hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth birthday for at least another six years? But
Speaker 1: it's a and we certainly have only been a constitutional republic,
Speaker 1: I guess is probably since since seventeen eighty one, so
Speaker 1: the first time we attempted a constitution. But hey, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a that's a that's a fair it's a
Speaker 1: fair argument. So I had a little fun. You'll appreciate this.
Speaker 1: So I decided to tap. I typed your question into
Speaker 1: chat gpt to see what our AI would say, When
Speaker 1: did America become an actual country? So here's the response
Speaker 1: that chat ChiPT gave and he goes, well, that depends
Speaker 1: on what you mean by become a country, because the
Speaker 1: United States didn't flip a switch over nine. It emerged
Speaker 1: in stages and each one answers your question a little differently.
Speaker 1: So the declaration of independence, chat chipet caused a symbolic
Speaker 1: birth the thirteen Colony simply declared themselves independent from Great Britain.
Speaker 1: So there's that. Seventeen eighty three the Treaty of Paris,
Speaker 1: So this is when the international world recognized America as
Speaker 1: a country. The Treaty of Paris officially ended the war.
Speaker 1: Britain had to formally recognize the United States as a
Speaker 1: sovereign nation, and then other countries would acknowledge the existence
Speaker 1: of the United States. So they argue that the legal
Speaker 1: recognition recognized moment then would be seventeen eighty three, seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, our Constitution takes effect, so you know, and
Speaker 1: you can then make your argument about the articles iteration
Speaker 1: and that that being so, there you go, And arguably
Speaker 1: we still have to wait until we may have to.
Speaker 1: The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Constitutional Republic
Speaker 1: would be the next decade, and so our two hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth celebration for the Constitution I assume we'll all
Speaker 1: be centered around Philadelphia in twenty thirty nine. So make
Speaker 1: your reservations now. All right, that was a fun little exercise,
Speaker 1: and I love the provocative question. See, how are these
Speaker 1: are my listeners? This is what I expect I expect
Speaker 1: this kind of this kind of nuance in details, So
Speaker 1: thank you. Next question comes from Brad Chuck. Greetings from
Speaker 1: Grand Rapids in Michigan's third District, and thanks for the
Speaker 1: great podcast. You often say citizens should reach out to
Speaker 1: their representatives, But what if you're a member of Congress
Speaker 1: like my representative Hillary Schulton and Michigan senators already share
Speaker 1: your concerns. Is it still worthwhile to contact them just
Speaker 1: to reinforce support, encourage them to push even harder in Washington?
Speaker 1: How much influence do constituents really have when they're asking
Speaker 1: leaders who already agree with them to do more. I
Speaker 1: think it's more of the tactical. You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I am one of the fun pleasures I have in teaching.
Speaker 1: As many of you know, I teach a class called
Speaker 1: how Washington Works for USC and it's their DC program
Speaker 1: USC University of Southern California, and I to be confused
Speaker 1: with my friends in Columbia, South Carolina who believe the
Speaker 1: University of South Carolina is the original USC as I
Speaker 1: like to say to them, have a more successful program
Speaker 1: and you can reclaim USC is yours. Sorry couldn't help myself,
Speaker 1: but about half the class is interning on the hill.
Speaker 1: And when you intern on the hill, what does that mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: answer the phones. But answering the phones in a congressional
Speaker 1: office is fascinating, especially when you're a young intern, because
Speaker 1: usually it's calls from constituents, not always, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: they're planned campaign sometimes they're genuine locals. But here's what
Speaker 1: I can tell you I've learned from these conversations I've
Speaker 1: had with these with with people that answer phones over
Speaker 1: the years. It's all offices want to keep track. They
Speaker 1: want to know what issues are coming up, what's being
Speaker 1: called in it because a lot of times it is
Speaker 1: an early warning system. All of a sudden, you get
Speaker 1: some there might be some local thing that's happening that
Speaker 1: the congressional office is getting a lot of calls on.
Speaker 1: It actually is something that a local mayor ought to
Speaker 1: deal with. Maybe it's something the mayor of Grand Rapids
Speaker 1: has to deal with, and they're able to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're getting calls about this, are you aware of this? Right?
Speaker 1: So it can be just sort of an early warning system, right,
Speaker 1: But they but the members care and it's it's I
Speaker 1: think there's more power in numbers, right, But you don't
Speaker 1: want to look like you're manufacturing and you're reading from
Speaker 1: a script. So the point is is that sometimes it's
Speaker 1: not You may your representatives may support you generally, but
Speaker 1: are they doing something specifically? You know, you might you
Speaker 1: might want to say, how come you're not doing this?
Speaker 1: You know, I know you share the same concerns I
Speaker 1: do about X. So explain to me why you're not
Speaker 1: doing why. You know. Maybe let's say you're you're skeptical
Speaker 1: of this around war, Well, maybe you might want to
Speaker 1: encourage them. Look, don't just vote symbolically, know against funding
Speaker 1: this war. What are you going to do to actually
Speaker 1: try to bring this to an end? You know, maybe
Speaker 1: force an answer out of them, force a response out
Speaker 1: of them. But I you know, or you can call
Speaker 1: other you know, these these these members of Congress. You
Speaker 1: won't for some of them, you won't be is impactful,
Speaker 1: but they do log complaints that come in from constituents
Speaker 1: that don't live in their district or state and just say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm and you should be honest about it, and I'm
Speaker 1: calling you. You know, my senator's already believe in this,
Speaker 1: but I'm concerned, you know, and maybe find a way
Speaker 1: to connect with that senator. I you know, I thought
Speaker 1: Senator X really was worried about why so why aren't
Speaker 1: they also standing up on this issue? But there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of ways to I think, influence a senator that
Speaker 1: you think already shares some of your values. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: more in what are they doing about it? How are
Speaker 1: they expressing themselves? You know, it's one thing to share
Speaker 1: your concerns. It's another things to do some action. So
Speaker 1: that'd be another way to look at it. Next question
Speaker 1: comes from David and he writes, Chuck, I'm a twenty
Speaker 1: nine year old living in California now, but previously a
Speaker 1: federal worker in DC before being cut during last year's
Speaker 1: doze terminations. You've often mentioned Mississippi as a state to watch,
Speaker 1: even though most analysts don't see it as viable for Democrats.
Speaker 1: What can we learn from the Sippy primaries past Tuesday
Speaker 1: in terms of turnout, in enthusiasm, and do you see
Speaker 1: the same potential for competitiveness there that we've seen in
Speaker 1: southern races like Alabama in twenty seventeen, in Georgia in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Well, look, I've had this Mississippi conversation with
Speaker 1: quite a few people, and I'm trying to remember recently.
Speaker 1: I feel like I can't remember if I did it
Speaker 1: in this podcast or it was a Newsfair episode, but
Speaker 1: when we talk about different states, or it may have been.
Speaker 1: It may have been a conversation I had with when
Speaker 1: I was moderating a panel up at Harvard in Jamie Harrison,
Speaker 1: who was the former DNC chair and candidate for office
Speaker 1: in South Carolina, and it was in this you know,
Speaker 1: the whole point of pointing out of Mississippi, for one thing,
Speaker 1: is is looking at what the electoral map could look
Speaker 1: like in twenty thirty two. When we have reapportionment in
Speaker 1: the electoral college, numbers shift again and the power continues
Speaker 1: to grow in the sun Beat and in the South.
Speaker 1: So Democrats have to make inroads in the sun Belt, right,
Speaker 1: You've got to make inroads where the people live. Texas
Speaker 1: and Florida are two obvious targets. They're big, they're huge,
Speaker 1: and they're very difficult. Georgia is a success story. It's
Speaker 1: an organizational success story. And the point is when you
Speaker 1: look at the population in Mississippi and you look at
Speaker 1: look at go look at those general election results, they're
Speaker 1: always you know, Sydney Hyde Smith versus Mike Esipe in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen fifty four to forty six race, that's not
Speaker 1: a blowout. That does not mean Mississippi is not competitive.
Speaker 1: Tate Reeves and the Presley cousin was also somebody that
Speaker 1: was also one of the closest governor's races in thirty
Speaker 1: years or in the last twenty years. Excuse me, but
Speaker 1: what you have is an under investment in the state
Speaker 1: part and there's a there's an under voter, there's an
Speaker 1: under there's basically a lot of unregistered African American voters
Speaker 1: in Mississippi who've kind of given up on the system.
Speaker 1: It was a similar phenomenon in Alabama, and you had
Speaker 1: Doug Jones will tell you it was black women in
Speaker 1: particular that you know, helped organize for his campaign and
Speaker 1: that upset over Roy Moore. Now, there's nothing like having
Speaker 1: an opponent who's an accused pedophile in order to assist
Speaker 1: you in a in a very deeply religious state like Alabama.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we should we should overlook that
Speaker 1: factoid on that one success in Alabama. But Mississippi there's
Speaker 1: more consistent. You see it, right, there's a lower ceiling
Speaker 1: for Republicans than there is in an Alabama or but
Speaker 1: it's it's not a one cycle investment, right, And I
Speaker 1: think the problem, the difference between the Democrats and the
Speaker 1: Republicans in my adult lifetime is that Republicans have always
Speaker 1: taken a longer view in trying to flip a state
Speaker 1: and Democrats are always looking for a shortcut, and they've
Speaker 1: not take that longer. One of the few exceptions to
Speaker 1: the longer views has been Arizona in Georgia, and now
Speaker 1: that is paid necessary dividends, right, it's kept them in
Speaker 1: the game. Without Georgie and Arizona, the downfall of the
Speaker 1: Midwestern swing states and of Florida and Ohio in particular
Speaker 1: would be catastrophic for the party. But it's not because
Speaker 1: of a concerted twenty year effort to essentially get competitive
Speaker 1: in Georgia and Arizona. And you had look the losing
Speaker 1: Stacey Abrams campaigns did a lot, made a lot of
Speaker 1: progress for george Democrats, and that's what you need. You
Speaker 1: need somebody that sort of you know, makes progress in
Speaker 1: losing and sticks to it. And in Mississippi you've had
Speaker 1: too many examples of well funded singular campaign that have
Speaker 1: never sort of stayed engaged after they've lost, and until
Speaker 1: you do, that's that's the moment. But it's if you
Speaker 1: look at the population numbers and you look at the
Speaker 1: voter registration numbers, that's why you see. If you ever
Speaker 1: could maximize African American voter registration in Mississippi, you suddenly
Speaker 1: are in a different place competitively in that day. Next
Speaker 1: question comes from JR. JR. Rights. Hey, second time asker,
Speaker 1: Thanks again for taking questions. Virginia's led Governor Spamberger signature
Speaker 1: bringing the electoral vote count for it's triggering up to
Speaker 1: two twenty two, still a ways off from the required
Speaker 1: two to seventy. But what do you think the odds
Speaker 1: are that the MPV will gain momentum and get the
Speaker 1: requisite numbers to go into effect. Do you think Trump's
Speaker 1: popular vote win in twenty twenty four may jostle free
Speaker 1: some reticent red states to join. Thanks interesting in your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the MPV compact as a whole as well. Well. Look,
Speaker 1: I've i dug into the compact quite a bit about
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty years ago when it first started up.
Speaker 1: The guy who founded the university of Phoenix was sort
Speaker 1: of the initial brainchild of this, by the way, for
Speaker 1: what it's worth, and this goes back to two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, two thousand and four, two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: memory serves, I have this vision. I remember packing my
Speaker 1: office at the Hotline to move to NBC, and I
Speaker 1: remember this guy's the voter Compact pamphlet wasn't a pamphlet.
Speaker 1: It was this massive if you remember the remember the
Speaker 1: old chain Kinkos, It was like a Kinko's put together
Speaker 1: book if you will, and I you know, just to
Speaker 1: if people are going to wonder how this works. So
Speaker 1: the idea is that states, would you know, which is
Speaker 1: do the thanks to the commerce clause reveralily where states
Speaker 1: will agree that if if there are that the minute
Speaker 1: there's enough states that add up to two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy electoral votes, then the states agree that their lectoral
Speaker 1: votes will go to the winner of the popular vote.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't trigger until there are enough states that
Speaker 1: add up to two hundred and seventy electoral votes. And
Speaker 1: so it is, as you noted, we're up to two
Speaker 1: twenty two, so there's still there's still forty eight electoral
Speaker 1: votes away. I haven't seen the latest list of states,
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of the big states haven't
Speaker 1: done it yet, if I'm not mistaken, So I'm a
Speaker 1: skeptic that it will be accepted by the public. I
Speaker 1: think you would have. I mean, look at all of
Speaker 1: the rage you see among Nebraska Republicans Loan the loan
Speaker 1: electoral vote that continues to nag at Republicans right with
Speaker 1: oma sort of almost no consistently voting voting against the
Speaker 1: state's interest, and the calls and demands for change, And
Speaker 1: the minute this compact has agreed to, the second estate
Speaker 1: feels as if their votes cost their guy an election,
Speaker 1: then there's going to be right. So I'm skeptical that
Speaker 1: this will ever even when it hits the requisite number,
Speaker 1: that it will ever be implemented. That essentially, this is
Speaker 1: an easy thing to say you're willing to do before
Speaker 1: you get to the number itself. Now on once you
Speaker 1: catch the once you're the dog that catches the proverbial car,
Speaker 1: what actually happens here? What do you plan to do
Speaker 1: with this? You know? I I'm I think we need
Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment to change this if you want to
Speaker 1: change it. My work around these days is doubling the
Speaker 1: size of the house. If you did that, then you
Speaker 1: would write and the electoral college would follow the popular
Speaker 1: vote in ninety eight percent of the circumstances, rather than
Speaker 1: in the situation we're in now, which is only about
Speaker 1: something like eighty five to ninety percent of the time,
Speaker 1: will the popular vote in the in the electoral vote
Speaker 1: be the same winner, and that that GAP's a big deal.
Speaker 1: That's a big you know, as I like to say,
Speaker 1: you know, would you get on a plane that had
Speaker 1: a ninety percent chance of landing safely? Would you get
Speaker 1: on a plane that had a ninety nine percent chance
Speaker 1: of landing safely? Right? You do that all the time.
Speaker 1: Nothing's one hundred percent, But once you hear that it's
Speaker 1: ninety how about eighty five? Right? Right? Then it's suddenly
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I know, plenty of one in fifteen
Speaker 1: you know, I'm fifteen percent chance things happen. There's a
Speaker 1: ten percent chance of something happened. And wait a minute,
Speaker 1: that's that that could actually happen. So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm so, I'm I'm skeptical that this would ever successfully
Speaker 1: be implemented because I think there's states that have agreed
Speaker 1: to do it. You'll see, especially since we've become so
Speaker 1: one party. I mean, look at a state like Virginia
Speaker 1: suddenly as a one party controlled state. It's still kind
Speaker 1: of a I would argue, it's a fifty five to
Speaker 1: forty five dem lean overall, right, but it behaves like
Speaker 1: it's an eighty twenty state these days with its legislature
Speaker 1: and its democratic governance. Right, It's just like Mississippi's really
Speaker 1: like a fifty five to forty five state, but it
Speaker 1: behaves in governance if it's an eighty twenty Republican state.
Speaker 1: And so that's where I you know, So I'm I needed,
Speaker 1: like I said, I needed a better analysis of how
Speaker 1: many which states in there. But I just have a
Speaker 1: feeling a bunch of them will chicken out when this starts,
Speaker 1: and just when it looks like they're getting to somebody,
Speaker 1: somebody will, you know, it'll be it'll be like Lucy
Speaker 1: in the football. You know, she'll pull it away. Some
Speaker 1: state will withdraw from the compact, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they're short again. So you know that it's my guess,
Speaker 1: And again I go back to the the easiest way
Speaker 1: to fix this is just expanding the House, then you
Speaker 1: don't even need a constitutional amendment after that a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 1: But I do think you're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to get the constitutional amendment until you convince both parties
Speaker 1: that this will be helpful to that. And I think
Speaker 1: repealing the electoral college won't get you there, but expanding
Speaker 1: the House in theory benefits. You can make a case
Speaker 1: that it can strengthen both parties depending on how you
Speaker 1: look at it. You know, shouldn't you have more voting
Speaker 1: power in Congress than Wyoming has? Right? Shouldn't you have
Speaker 1: more voting power in Congress than Delaware has? Right? You
Speaker 1: can make that case to a Republican state or a
Speaker 1: democratic state. So that's why I sort of lean more
Speaker 1: in that territory. But thanks for asking about that. The
Speaker 1: MPV is always I got into it until I didn't.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Kenny from Massapequa. Thank you for
Speaker 1: letting me say massive pequod approve that I can say it. Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I share your dad's love of coin collecting, and while
Speaker 1: the bi centennial coins may not be worth much more
Speaker 1: than face value, sometimes the memories attached to them are priceless.
Speaker 1: My wife and I also have a question, what's the
Speaker 1: deal with daylight saving time? With Senator Rubio no longer
Speaker 1: championing the issue in the Senate, is there anyone likely
Speaker 1: to take up the push to either keep it permanent
Speaker 1: or in the clock changes together twice a year of
Speaker 1: the timeship disrupts sleep, commuting, and families. So is there
Speaker 1: any real chance Congress funally fixes it? Kenny from Massapequa Kenny,
Speaker 1: I hope you heard my time Machine segment earlier this
Speaker 1: week on this very issue, the initial creation of time zones,
Speaker 1: daylight saving and how often we've the problem is there
Speaker 1: is no solution because the solution for you becomes a
Speaker 1: problem for somebody else. And I went through three different
Speaker 1: periods of time where we had sort of permanent versions
Speaker 1: of you know, temporary permanent versions of our time and
Speaker 1: the big the most recent attempt that we did this
Speaker 1: in seventy four to conserve energy during the energy crisis,
Speaker 1: where a year long daylight saving time is you basically
Speaker 1: had a hope. You know, there's a bunch of we
Speaker 1: had actual accidents, Kids were killed at bus stops because
Speaker 1: of traffic accidents before the sun came up, So you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is one of those cases where. And
Speaker 1: this is why I enjoyed that time machine. You know,
Speaker 1: before the Railroad's you know, every town noon was slightly
Speaker 1: different and everybody used the sun to decide while it's
Speaker 1: noon in Massapequa, which means it's eleven fifty nine some
Speaker 1: in the next town over, and it's eleven fifty eight
Speaker 1: two towns from there. Right. So anyway, I encourage you
Speaker 1: go check my last time Machine episode from the Monday episode.
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that after you listen to that,
Speaker 1: you'll be like, oh, this is why it'll never change,
Speaker 1: because it's too complicated. There's no good answer because every
Speaker 1: every you know, now, when we were in a grarian economy,
Speaker 1: we just adjust it, you know. When living in this
Speaker 1: fixed time zone, this is going to be this is
Speaker 1: going to be the challenge here. And I think everybody
Speaker 1: has different interests, right if you're you know, I remember
Speaker 1: as a little kid, I couldn't wait for daylight saving time,
Speaker 1: and the older I've gotten, I resent daylight saving time, right,
Speaker 1: So I think that's another issue here, is that there's
Speaker 1: just not a there's no clean there's no clean answer,
Speaker 1: and in some ways, going through the motions of trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how we took control of time as
Speaker 1: it is as a country and as a government. I
Speaker 1: now feel I feel satisfied with my unsat with this unsatisfactory,
Speaker 1: uncomfortable way that we've done this. Now, I do wish
Speaker 1: we would at least, you know, we keep we keep
Speaker 1: moving when we do daylight saving time more than the
Speaker 1: rest of the world does. I wish we would synchronize
Speaker 1: a little bit better with other countries so that it went,
Speaker 1: all right, we're all going to move our we're all
Speaker 1: going to move up an hour early here, but we
Speaker 1: keep doing the mission creep and I think it also
Speaker 1: kind of messes things up there. All right, take one
Speaker 1: more question. No, Actually, I got to end it there.
Speaker 1: I'm going to wrap things up here. Though. It is
Speaker 1: the best weekend of one of the best sports weekends
Speaker 1: of the year. It's the first and second round of
Speaker 1: the NCAA Tournament. I will tell you I'm such an
Speaker 1: addict about the NCAA Tournament that I instituted no hotline
Speaker 1: Fridays for in celebration of the NCAA Tournament. We would
Speaker 1: literally put everybody we stop. We made Friday a holiday.
Speaker 1: We published right before noon the twelve fifteen tip off
Speaker 1: on Thursday and everybody scattered. It was one of my
Speaker 1: prouder managerial decisions that I made. And that's how much
Speaker 1: I love the NCAA tournament. I have a couple of
Speaker 1: fun pools that I do want my favorite, and I've
Speaker 1: been doing it with a group of friends probably almost
Speaker 1: thirty years now, where there's eight of us and we
Speaker 1: do a draft. You know, we all throw two hundred
Speaker 1: bucks in and we do a draft, and we'd do
Speaker 1: eight teams and randomized pick. So then you go through
Speaker 1: and you know you you basically have. So I thought
Speaker 1: i'd have some fun and share with you quickly what
Speaker 1: those what those picks are. It is so I and
Speaker 1: the draft, I had the fourth pick, so I got Florida.
Speaker 1: They were the remaining number one seed, and I came
Speaker 1: really close to drafting Houston, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: leave a one seed on board, said Florida. And then
Speaker 1: when it came back to me in the Snake draft,
Speaker 1: I got Arkansas. Then I have Wisconsin, Miami, Saint Louis,
Speaker 1: South Florida, Wright State, and Howard you get for every
Speaker 1: win your team gets, you you get and everybody throws
Speaker 1: a pile of money into the pool. So you know,
Speaker 1: there have been years where people have gotten two Final
Speaker 1: four teams with their team, and there are years they
Speaker 1: are limited after the first weekend. Sometimes it's a bit random,
Speaker 1: but it's one of my favorite pools that I do.
Speaker 1: But like, you end up with teams you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: want to root for, Like I'm like, really Florida, but
Speaker 1: and I wasn't gonna leave them on the board. I
Speaker 1: don't enjoy rooting for them, but at least now if
Speaker 1: they win, I might win something. But I do. I
Speaker 1: am happy, Like I went out of my way to
Speaker 1: draft Miami, and I went out of my way to
Speaker 1: draft Saint Louis An A ten team for Chocolate up
Speaker 1: GW SO. But my in case you're wondering the final
Speaker 1: four that I read to Tony Kornheiser, my participation in
Speaker 1: their bracket challenge Arizona Duke Houston, and I have Houston
Speaker 1: beating Florida there in Arizona, I have Houston winning the
Speaker 1: whole thing over I think I've Houston beating Michigan in
Speaker 1: the final game. I believe that's what I ended up doing.
Speaker 1: So and if you're wondering what my first early round
Speaker 1: upsets are. I will say the only twelve seeds that
Speaker 1: intrigued me Akron Akron is one that I put in
Speaker 1: my pool to go a couple of rounds. I want
Speaker 1: to believe that one of the eleven seeds will do
Speaker 1: a little something for me. That's South Florida. I have
Speaker 1: them going around or too on that front. But mostly
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be chalky, chalky, chalky chalky,
Speaker 1: lots of ones and twos in the Elite eight, with
Speaker 1: maybe only Saint John's blowing up that party and being
Speaker 1: the highest seed remaining in come the Elite eight. I
Speaker 1: guess is the johnnies at five. If anybody over a
Speaker 1: five seed gets to the Elite eight, my guess is
Speaker 1: that it would be boy I struggle. You know two
Speaker 1: A month ago, I might have said Saint Louis, I
Speaker 1: don't buy it now. And a month ago I might
Speaker 1: have said Miami, but I don't think we're deep enough
Speaker 1: to make that type of run. But I like Miami's path.
Speaker 1: I don't hate Miami's path. I think they can knock
Speaker 1: Purdue off in the second round, and obviously they pull
Speaker 1: that off, then hey, then anything is possible. So there
Speaker 1: you go. Enjoy the weekend, enjoy college basketball. It's a
Speaker 1: good way to distract yourself from the craziness that is
Speaker 1: the world and this country in politics. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and I'll see them on that