Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and even Steve Bannon has denounced Trump
Speaker 1: for meeting with Kanye and white nationalist Nick Fuentez. We're
Speaker 1: back after the holiday with a super interesting show. Ross
Speaker 1: Morales roquetto, co founder of Rum for Something, tells us
Speaker 1: about how the down vallet midterm races shook out and
Speaker 1: the interesting things he saw in local offices. Then we'll
Speaker 1: talk to you Dr Mark G. Lousteau, an expert on
Speaker 1: Eastern European religion and politics, and what we can learn
Speaker 1: from Hungary's authoritarianism. But first we have legendary democratic strategist
Speaker 1: James Carville. Welcome back to Fast Politics, James Carvill, Well,
Speaker 1: good to be here, Happy Thanksgiving. The news of the
Speaker 1: weekend was the Trump Kanye Nick Fuentez dinner where Trump
Speaker 1: didn't know him. You know, he accidentally had dinner with
Speaker 1: a white supremacist and a man who has been on
Speaker 1: anti Semitic terror for the last two weeks. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Why is anyone surprised? I'm been honest, you know, well,
Speaker 1: this is terrible, But what is totally consistent with who
Speaker 1: he is. Come on, he's still the presumptive nominee for
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. Yeah, but I just think he's going
Speaker 1: to be indicted, and I don't think it's going to
Speaker 1: be very long for now, and I think the place
Speaker 1: against him is so stunningly compelling. I don't I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I guess they could delay it, but demorrow
Speaker 1: Lago thing is just a straight line. The documents case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he took something that didn't belong to him. Pople asked
Speaker 1: Whitely to return it. He didn't return it. Then he
Speaker 1: got a request that that if you returned everything, he
Speaker 1: said yes, he didn't, then a subpoena. They still didn't
Speaker 1: return it. I mean, I don't I have no idea
Speaker 1: of what defense is available to him. I mean, anytime
Speaker 1: you a lawyer a criminal case, the first thing he
Speaker 1: or she thinks of is what defensives do I have?
Speaker 1: I don't see where what defenses he is at all here?
Speaker 1: But you have to get a better lawyer in me. Well,
Speaker 1: Trumble was famous for not beaying people. Has paid this lawyer. Um.
Speaker 1: He has put down an enormous three million dollar retainer
Speaker 1: for for one of his lawyers, so he does clearly
Speaker 1: know he's in trouble. I mean, theoretically you can run
Speaker 1: for offers having been indicted. It's just a yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you can run for offers from you can run for
Speaker 1: president from being in jail. It's just to heavier left
Speaker 1: right and evidence they have but that we don't even
Speaker 1: know about. Staggering in front and counter may very well
Speaker 1: bede him, but I don't know how Mr Smith. Let's
Speaker 1: let's just pass from him. I don't think he can
Speaker 1: but brush. I mean, if he's haven't done it with
Speaker 1: Nick Flinty's, I guess who cares if he gets indicted?
Speaker 1: If you stial with him after all that, I feel
Speaker 1: like the fundamental issue is it's a math problem. Right
Speaker 1: if you look at across the board, his numbers are
Speaker 1: starting to weaken a little bit with Republicans, but if
Speaker 1: you if you think about it, they're the way that
Speaker 1: they choose delegates, buying Ladge is more winner take all
Speaker 1: and Democrats are more proportional representation. Now, I don't understand
Speaker 1: the party rules to degree, but I think it is
Speaker 1: a general rule that is a fact. And so if
Speaker 1: you have four people running and it's winner take all,
Speaker 1: and you win forty to thirty eight to you know,
Speaker 1: was at seventy eight to eleven to eleven. You get
Speaker 1: all every delegate, right, So it their rules, they stay
Speaker 1: the same kind of favor a person would have, would
Speaker 1: have really deep level of support. He doesn't need half
Speaker 1: right now. The way the Democrats do it, of course,
Speaker 1: we've got every kind of rule with kicks in and
Speaker 1: everything else is eleven eleven that generally roughly runs how
Speaker 1: many delegates you get right, No, and it's much and
Speaker 1: it's a sort of slower process too. Yes. And I
Speaker 1: mean also there's going to be movement in the in
Speaker 1: the Democratic primaries to write that they're going to change
Speaker 1: up the states and how it all works right or
Speaker 1: now after the Iowa caucus debacle. Yeah, that I think
Speaker 1: they're not going to try to do something. But New
Speaker 1: Hampshire I think is going to stay. Just that's like
Speaker 1: like the super Bowl for you, but they're not gonna change. Well,
Speaker 1: everybody wants it, right, Who done the VATA ships? Good?
Speaker 1: Good for tourism South Carolina. Do you think Jim Clepen's
Speaker 1: gonna let him change South Carolina? Jamie Harrison, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. That's not gonna work. So let's let me
Speaker 1: ask you about this. We're in a very very interesting
Speaker 1: time in democratic leadership. We have Nancy Pelosi is going
Speaker 1: to stay in Congress, but she's going to retire. She
Speaker 1: seems to have a secession plan worked out. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you think and do you I mean you
Speaker 1: sort of know much more of the machinations than most
Speaker 1: of us. Well, I get that Nancy Pelosi doesn't have
Speaker 1: a plan is absurd. Of course she has a plan.
Speaker 1: You know exactly what she's doing. And I think it
Speaker 1: was a good sign. And I think that hockey, you know,
Speaker 1: can do a really good job. I think all you're
Speaker 1: stepping down. I mean, they gotta get some younger people,
Speaker 1: and in some leadership positions here you feel like there's
Speaker 1: I mean, who were you excited about with the sort
Speaker 1: of younger people in Congress. But a lot of them
Speaker 1: that you know that that you just don't hear from them.
Speaker 1: I mean just Spanberger, Uh, Colin Albert, my friend from Dallas,
Speaker 1: very excited about him, our mutual friend Ruben Gego I
Speaker 1: got online as Lindsey Ukase. I mean, there's a ton
Speaker 1: of them, and a lot of them I don't ever
Speaker 1: know because they hadn't surfaced, but Mark Kelly turning into
Speaker 1: be the real talent here corrected. Yeah, when Reuben Diego
Speaker 1: primary is Kirsten Cinema, that is going to be the
Speaker 1: absolute most amazing primary challenge ever. I don't think she'll
Speaker 1: you don't you think she won't run again. You'll destroy it.
Speaker 1: It's true. Independent. I don't know. You came on this
Speaker 1: podcast last time before the mid terms. I was desponded
Speaker 1: and convinced that there was going to be a red
Speaker 1: wave that was going to install all of these um
Speaker 1: election deniers and swing states. None of that happened, did you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like you were a little more
Speaker 1: optimistic than I was. Well, it was kind of based
Speaker 1: on two things. And I don't want to deem myself,
Speaker 1: as I was kind of pleasantly surprised when I wasn't shot.
Speaker 1: I would see three Senate polls every day and I
Speaker 1: just didn't see any change. And then when you would
Speaker 1: look at the public polls what they called a congressional generic,
Speaker 1: it was pretty steady. Well, you know, I've been through
Speaker 1: these bad cycles and good cycles, and generally towards the end,
Speaker 1: things sort of start breaking, and I didn't see much
Speaker 1: evidence it was breaking. I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a great place. We lost a popular vote. I think
Speaker 1: like it was good. And we want a lot of big,
Speaker 1: big centate races and governors races. But if you you know,
Speaker 1: if you you just sort of look at your instruments,
Speaker 1: you said, well, I'm looking at center pos in Nevada,
Speaker 1: pos Colorado, could said, post Charge of Books said pos
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire. And I don't see
Speaker 1: the requisite deterioration that you would have seen in a
Speaker 1: really big year. I didn't see a right that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And I mean I was sort of surprised at how
Speaker 1: much even Democrats held in the House. I was a
Speaker 1: little bit, though I don't think I was. I would
Speaker 1: have I wasn't in I'm not a predictor. You know,
Speaker 1: Peter Hart tell there a long time ago. You know,
Speaker 1: I said, you look at you know he needs to win.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, I don't. If you go to
Speaker 1: the doctor, the doctor examined you and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: nine months and three days you're gonna drop debt? Well,
Speaker 1: is that a good doctor a bad doctor? You're dead?
Speaker 1: Nine months and three. Probably you want someone as well,
Speaker 1: is what you can do to extend this thing out
Speaker 1: a little bit. And so you know, I don't have
Speaker 1: a great instinct to predict the election right out of money.
Speaker 1: I'm too bigy trying to win it right. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about the lame duck. Now Democrats have
Speaker 1: until January. I mean, there's certainly seems to be really
Speaker 1: important that Democrats raised the debt ceiling so that Jim
Speaker 1: Jordan's does not control the dead ceiling or whatever kind
Speaker 1: of weirdness. The GOP Freedom Caucus MAGA Caucus becomes what
Speaker 1: else do you think? Uh, you know, before payment and
Speaker 1: sells on a zoom call with a lot of number
Speaker 1: called knowledgeable people, and they're skeptical and that they can
Speaker 1: get it done. From a political standpoint, I dare them
Speaker 1: to do it. Make my day. And they would have
Speaker 1: only got like a four seat majority. They got like
Speaker 1: sixteen of them I think got elected in districts at
Speaker 1: Biden one. I mean, you know, you think these people
Speaker 1: in suburban New Jersey and you know the Hudson Valley
Speaker 1: are going to risk of not raising the death ceiling
Speaker 1: and defaulting under death and wrecking the economy. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, but I don't like chicken with him. And
Speaker 1: they've wanted a lot of districts that were Biden districts. Right.
Speaker 1: Remember when Rick Scott's plan was to sunset surch coach
Speaker 1: in medicare force cuts to it, and uh, you know
Speaker 1: Ted budd and saying position, you know Ron Johnson and
Speaker 1: the Washington Post fact checker said, yeah, that's not really
Speaker 1: a Republican position. Democrats are democratic when they say that. Well,
Speaker 1: after that happens, Kevin McCarthy said we're gonna shut the
Speaker 1: up and down to force Cutson medic and so security
Speaker 1: made the Washington Post like a fool because that's all
Speaker 1: that their whole raised on debtress to cut these runaway.
Speaker 1: He got damn runaway and tied with James. We got
Speaker 1: to curb him and do something, and we got to
Speaker 1: raise the gas tax while we had a great idea
Speaker 1: of good chief, I'm right on it. They need right down.
Speaker 1: Ron Johnson is. I'm telling you he's like one of
Speaker 1: my favorite Republican politicians because he is really he is
Speaker 1: neither charismatic, nor particularly talented, nor intelligent that we found
Speaker 1: the one person in Wisconsin that he could beat. But
Speaker 1: that was another one of those races where the polls.
Speaker 1: If if people had seen how tight that race actually was,
Speaker 1: he would have been able to raise more money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was one. I mean, I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 1: if you saw it like that Lauren Boeberd race, like
Speaker 1: she won by seven hundred and sixties seven votes. I
Speaker 1: had that guy Adam Frosh on the podcast. People are like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's crazy, he'll never win. I mean he was pulling,
Speaker 1: you know, four or five points behind, but honestly he
Speaker 1: could have won. Yeah, four or five points behind income
Speaker 1: but that's you know, that's pretty good. And he had
Speaker 1: some help because then, you know, they kept putting out
Speaker 1: that you know, Michael Bennett could lose, Michael Man could lose,
Speaker 1: or a good friend of him for his campaign, and
Speaker 1: it went out of ten twelve points. And then in
Speaker 1: the margin that Barnes got out of Dane County, which
Speaker 1: is Wisconsin, was I didn't even met with munch pt
Speaker 1: Brievers and he said, staggering, I don't know how how
Speaker 1: we won, and we didn't do that well in Milwaukee.
Speaker 1: One of the more distressing things is the Black Volk
Speaker 1: was not great. It wasn't so it wasn't really great
Speaker 1: in Georgia, and it wasn't great in Milwaukee, and we
Speaker 1: gotta figure way to connect better here, you know. Not
Speaker 1: not the young people did do They held out and
Speaker 1: pretty good. That was surprising. It's sort of the best
Speaker 1: thing ever because young people are ultimately but I feel
Speaker 1: like we are usually disappointed by them, but not this year.
Speaker 1: Well it's been three years in a row. There's three
Speaker 1: cycles in a row. All right. How many stories have
Speaker 1: you read about the two America's rural America, urban America,
Speaker 1: white American, white America. But there really two Americas that
Speaker 1: are emerging that you're more significant anything is young and
Speaker 1: o America, right. I mean, it's really two different universes
Speaker 1: they live in. And you know that that that's one
Speaker 1: of the the good things. So Democrats going forward, the
Speaker 1: young people come up that you know as well. You know,
Speaker 1: when young, if you're young and you're liberally, you have
Speaker 1: no heart. If you're bold and be able here all
Speaker 1: the time, the political sciences. Once you vote twice pretty
Speaker 1: much that's way you can vote the rest of your life, right,
Speaker 1: James Carvell, thank you so much for joining us super
Speaker 1: interesting and really great and I appreciate you joining us
Speaker 1: on a Sunday. Alright, all right, thank you. Ross Morales
Speaker 1: Roquetto is co founder of Run for Something. Welcome Too
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. Ross, thanks for having me. Well, it's very
Speaker 1: exciting you are the co founder of Run for Something.
Speaker 1: Run for Something is one of this podcast favorite organizations.
Speaker 1: Why don't you just tell us a little bit for
Speaker 1: the few people on here who don't know what Run
Speaker 1: for Something does. What Run for Something does? I would
Speaker 1: love to so for those who don't know. Run for
Speaker 1: Something recruits and supports young, diverse, progressive folks who are
Speaker 1: run in for state and local office, usually for the first,
Speaker 1: second or third times. We got our start in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of the sixteen election. My co founder and I, Amanda.
Speaker 1: We're both you know, thinking about right after the election
Speaker 1: how they're just like, wasn't really anything for young people
Speaker 1: who like really wanted to like get involved in their
Speaker 1: communities and run for office. And so we started this
Speaker 1: thing as a side hustle and thought that maybe if
Speaker 1: we were lucky, a hundred people would tell us they
Speaker 1: were interested in running for office. After the first few months,
Speaker 1: we had over five thousand people tell us they were
Speaker 1: interested in running for office, and then as of today,
Speaker 1: we have over a hudd thousand people across the country
Speaker 1: who told us that they want to run for office.
Speaker 1: Amanda and I sort of looked at each other and said,
Speaker 1: we need to do right by these people. So we
Speaker 1: started building an organization. So let's talk about that organization
Speaker 1: and a little bit about some of the candidates you're
Speaker 1: working with. It has just been a big midterm election,
Speaker 1: but that does not mean elections are over. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of special elections and state elections and small elections.
Speaker 1: You want to first take a victory lap about your
Speaker 1: your candidates in the mid terms, Yeah, I would love too.
Speaker 1: So we had four hundred ninety candidates who had elections
Speaker 1: on in November. Of those folks, two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: for sure have won their elections, and we have another
Speaker 1: ninety people who are waiting to call their races. You know,
Speaker 1: that's like mostly West coast California, Oregon, Washington State, those
Speaker 1: places where some of the votes get talied a little
Speaker 1: bit slower. So we're really really excited. Over fifty of
Speaker 1: those candidates are women. I think actually about sixty percent
Speaker 1: of them or women over people of color over l
Speaker 1: G B, t q I A plus, and so we're
Speaker 1: just honestly, really really excited. This was easily our best
Speaker 1: year that we've ever had in terms of win rate,
Speaker 1: and we're really really excited to see all the new
Speaker 1: incredible people who just literally got elected. So just tell
Speaker 1: us about one of them, Like, give us, give us
Speaker 1: a scene of one of the candidates who came to
Speaker 1: you and what they've achieved. There was a woman named
Speaker 1: Amanda Gonzalez who was running for Jefferson County Clerk out
Speaker 1: in Colorado. So that's like the suburbs of Denver. It's
Speaker 1: like a swing county has sort of like trended a
Speaker 1: little bit bluer over the years, but was traditionally a
Speaker 1: red county over the last sort of twenty or thirty.
Speaker 1: She's incredible. She has been involved in sort of like
Speaker 1: state policymaking, either as a lawyer or on the advocacy
Speaker 1: side for years. She is one of the people who
Speaker 1: actually helped write a lot of like the campaign ethics
Speaker 1: rules in the state of Colorado. She helped sort of
Speaker 1: like reform the voting system there when they moved over
Speaker 1: to having like a more vote by male dominated system.
Speaker 1: She was trying to recruit someone to run for this
Speaker 1: office because there was an election denier like running on
Speaker 1: the Republican side. She wasn't having very much luck finding anyone.
Speaker 1: And then somewhere along the way she was she realized
Speaker 1: that like no one else did it, it needed to
Speaker 1: be her. So she stepped up and did it. She
Speaker 1: just won her race, and you know, she's going to
Speaker 1: be running the elections for and a really critical part
Speaker 1: of the state of Colorado. You know, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: I used to go to events that the Arena Summit had.
Speaker 1: I actually think that's when I first learned about run
Speaker 1: for something. And one of the things they would say
Speaker 1: was that women need to be told to run for
Speaker 1: office many more times than men. Yeah, that's unfortunately true.
Speaker 1: It's especially true for women. It's especially true for women
Speaker 1: of color. It's generally also true for people of color.
Speaker 1: I talked to so many people who tell me that
Speaker 1: they've thought about running for office at some point, but
Speaker 1: you know, then they thought about sort of like who
Speaker 1: are the people in elected office, and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not me, Like I'm just like that I can't run.
Speaker 1: And the truth is that anyone can run, and anyone
Speaker 1: really should be able to run, and so part of
Speaker 1: you know, like what the mission of the organization does
Speaker 1: and what we're really trying hard to do is make
Speaker 1: sure people can see themselves and their elected officials. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things I was thinking about this weekend
Speaker 1: was Nancy Pelosi. And I think about this because I
Speaker 1: am a mother of many children. I had a sort
Speaker 1: of stint staying at home with them. And Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: ran for Congress for the first time. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: she came from very political families, so she had an advantage,
Speaker 1: But I say, this is someone who came from a
Speaker 1: family where I had an advantage, but she was forty seven.
Speaker 1: I think, like, you know, we're we're trying to be
Speaker 1: right now. And I think that is also just like
Speaker 1: especially true of like our system generally is like I think,
Speaker 1: young people, so that includes millennials and gen z you know,
Speaker 1: represent like fewer than of the state legislative like offices
Speaker 1: and seats across the country. That representation goes down even
Speaker 1: further when you start to really look at the state
Speaker 1: and local level numbers. I mean, I just mean, like
Speaker 1: they're are women who have spent all this time raising
Speaker 1: kids who could conceivably run for you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like where they could go back and start another career,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what I mean, Judges, nurses, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think of Lauren Underwood, who was a nurse, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, where they can go on to
Speaker 1: do other stuff later in life too, and they absolutely should.
Speaker 1: I think, like the only real prerequisites that we have,
Speaker 1: especially for a lot of these like local offices, is
Speaker 1: that one you care a lot about your community, and
Speaker 1: two you have a problem that you really want to solve.
Speaker 1: And honestly, that's what kept me going during the Trump
Speaker 1: years was getting to see on a regular basis these
Speaker 1: hundreds of people who identified a problem in their community,
Speaker 1: who care a lot and decided to step up in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases because they didn't feel like anyone
Speaker 1: else would. And so, yeah, Lauren Underwood's incredible. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't do congressional races, but we talked to her
Speaker 1: really early on and her when she started running her
Speaker 1: first campaign, and there's just like so many other people
Speaker 1: like her out there who like are just getting started
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about. So
Speaker 1: tell me about some of this sort of off the
Speaker 1: radar races that are coming up soon and if you
Speaker 1: have any candidates there. We decided to focus really explicitly
Speaker 1: on even more local races about a year ago when
Speaker 1: we were sort of going through our planning process to
Speaker 1: like offices that we really targeted were school boards and
Speaker 1: there's about ten thousand school board elections next yearly and
Speaker 1: then also election election administrators. So these are the people
Speaker 1: like county clerks like Amanda Gonzalz who was talking about,
Speaker 1: who are responsible for things like making sure there's enough
Speaker 1: polling locations, setting the hours of polling locations, deciding where
Speaker 1: drop boxes get placed, making sure that elections are run
Speaker 1: in a fair way, making sure there's accessibility options for
Speaker 1: folks going to the polls. You know, these are really
Speaker 1: really critical elections that in there that are coming up
Speaker 1: both in and and you know, we really need good
Speaker 1: people to be running for these especially because we have
Speaker 1: and we've seen, you know, on the far right, conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorists deciding to step up and run people who believe
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump won the election, then that the election
Speaker 1: was stolen. We've had a lot of those folks running
Speaker 1: for these offices. We started to see that in two
Speaker 1: and so it's even more critical to make sure that
Speaker 1: we're getting folks recruited to run for these offices as
Speaker 1: well as we go into well. And I also think
Speaker 1: that you're seeing a lot of people like lips of
Speaker 1: TikTok right who are targeting these school boards in the
Speaker 1: hopes of removing you know, the kind of people like
Speaker 1: lives of TikTok people who are trying to you know,
Speaker 1: sort of build off of Ron de santisis don't say
Speaker 1: gay law right, who are trying to keep children from
Speaker 1: being able to you know, read books about same sex parents.
Speaker 1: And they're on this sort of book banning not teaching
Speaker 1: SIXI bandwagon and so that is pretty scary. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's really terrifying. And you know, here's the good news,
Speaker 1: Like we had candidates running against conspiracy theorists at the
Speaker 1: school board, a level election, administrator, city council, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: a trend that we did see is that, you know,
Speaker 1: in a lot of these places we were able to
Speaker 1: beat them. Um. I think the round Rock school Board
Speaker 1: is a really good example. So round Rock is a
Speaker 1: suburb just outside of Austin, Texas that has traditionally been
Speaker 1: read and has like trended a little bit more purple
Speaker 1: over the years. You know, like the Moms for Liberty
Speaker 1: folks like really invested there. I think they lost all,
Speaker 1: if not all, of those races. Can you explain what
Speaker 1: Moms for Liberty is for those for the few of
Speaker 1: us who have lives and to dwell where we dwell.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, the Moms for Liberty folks are part
Speaker 1: of a broader movement of like anti critical race theory folks,
Speaker 1: while it started as anti critical race theory folks who
Speaker 1: are basically recruiting candidates to run at the school board level,
Speaker 1: and they're specifically recruiting them to run at the school
Speaker 1: board level around a lot of the cultural issues you've
Speaker 1: seem like mass policies, critical race theory, some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that you talked about a little bit in your question.
Speaker 1: But also like you know, we've seen folks go so far,
Speaker 1: as you know, like to try to get suicide prevention
Speaker 1: counselors outside of or out of schools because under sort
Speaker 1: of the idea that a suicide prevention counselor being in
Speaker 1: the school encourages kids to commit suicide, which is just
Speaker 1: so they're pretty stupid that is the craziest thing I've
Speaker 1: ever heard. Yeah, like all sorts of anti science and
Speaker 1: they sort of do it under this sort under the
Speaker 1: mantra of parental choice, and you know, like that's the
Speaker 1: message that they try to use. And you know, this cycle,
Speaker 1: you know, we saw we saw those folks get really
Speaker 1: organized in Virginia and the Virginia governor is race back
Speaker 1: and use like these cultural issues around school as a
Speaker 1: wedge to turn out, like to get higher turnout for
Speaker 1: far right candidates. This election cycle, it didn't work as
Speaker 1: well for them. So like in places like Round Rock,
Speaker 1: most if not all, of those anti cr Team Moms
Speaker 1: or liberty candidates ended up losing. We saw that sort
Speaker 1: of replicated in other races around the country, even in
Speaker 1: you know, for the election administration roles that we worked in.
Speaker 1: You know, we had thirteen specific places where that we're
Speaker 1: highly targeted, We're spending a lot of time and resources
Speaker 1: where we had a candidate that was recruited and they
Speaker 1: were running against somebody who was an election denier. Of
Speaker 1: those thirteen races, ten of our folks one. It's still
Speaker 1: scary that three of them, you know that there are
Speaker 1: three of them that lost but you know, I think
Speaker 1: the thing that keeps me up at night around all
Speaker 1: of this stuff isn't about whether, you know, we have
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists on the ballot. It's whether those people are
Speaker 1: going uncontested. And I feel, you know, as an organization
Speaker 1: and just like as a person who's done this work
Speaker 1: for a long time, like I feel confident that we
Speaker 1: can beat most of the people who are running. The
Speaker 1: problem is there are thousands of these races all over
Speaker 1: the country. Um, where we've got these folks who are
Speaker 1: stepping up to run, and if we don't challenge them,
Speaker 1: then they're gonna then they're definitely going to get on
Speaker 1: the ballot and get elected. And the right is much
Speaker 1: further along in terms of building out state and local
Speaker 1: political power than we are on the left. I would say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the way that we've described in the past
Speaker 1: is they're on your forty of a forty year plan.
Speaker 1: On the left, we're on year six of a forty
Speaker 1: year plan. So we're doing the work, but it's hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's like the Supreme Court, right exactly. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what we've seen with the Supreme Court. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about sort of what people are listening
Speaker 1: to this how they could support this sort of work
Speaker 1: you're doing. I love this question. The first thing is
Speaker 1: you can think about running for office. If you go
Speaker 1: to run for what dot net, you can look up,
Speaker 1: you can fill out the form and you can look
Speaker 1: up what offices are available to run for in your
Speaker 1: local community. You can also go to run for something's
Speaker 1: website and volunteer. One of the really fun things that
Speaker 1: we do that a lot of people really enjoy is
Speaker 1: we train volunteers to actually do one on ones with
Speaker 1: people who tell us that they're interested in running for office.
Speaker 1: So anyone who tells us they're interested in running for
Speaker 1: office will get a one on one with a train volunteers.
Speaker 1: So we train volunteers to do that, and it's like
Speaker 1: a really inspiring way to get involved. We also have
Speaker 1: opportunities to get involved directly with our candidates. The last
Speaker 1: thing I'd say is you can also, you know, make
Speaker 1: a contribution, makeer occurring contribution. The work is expensive and difficult,
Speaker 1: and you know you can go to run for something
Speaker 1: dot net slash build for that. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: so interesting and also so important. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. I love all your work. You're doing that,
Speaker 1: You're you're really doing the Lord's work, and I really
Speaker 1: really appreciate you having Dr Mark Roscoe Loustau is an
Speaker 1: expert on Eastern European religion in politics and author of
Speaker 1: Hungarian Catholic Intellectuals and Contemporary Romania. Welcome to Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: Mark Lusto. It's good to be here. So we are
Speaker 1: very excited to have you here. You are an academic,
Speaker 1: but we occasionally we do have academics, not all that often,
Speaker 1: but sometimes, but you know that we do. Jesse, don't wait,
Speaker 1: we sure do, We sure do. Okay, good. What you're
Speaker 1: going to talk to us a little bit about is
Speaker 1: this sort of rise in authoritarianism and where this comes
Speaker 1: from in Hungary and in Romania and and sort of
Speaker 1: in that area. So talk to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about how you got involved in this. First. I first
Speaker 1: visited Hungary in two thousand five, and then I moved
Speaker 1: there in two thousand nine, and that was all before
Speaker 1: the rise of autocracy, before Victor Ordubon, Hungary's current right
Speaker 1: wing prime minister, was elected. He was elected in his
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten and so I kind of have
Speaker 1: seen Hungary before and after and I lived there for
Speaker 1: three and a half years from two thousand nine until
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, and then I've been back a bunch
Speaker 1: of times since then and then have written articles and
Speaker 1: books about the situation there, and you know, it's become
Speaker 1: something of a fascination for me, as much as fascism
Speaker 1: can be a fascination. It is. So I want you
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about because Victor Orban is
Speaker 1: not just your fascination, he's also Tucker Carlson's fascination. So
Speaker 1: explained to us a little bit about what it was
Speaker 1: like living in Hungary before Orban. In Budapest, which is Hungary's,
Speaker 1: you know, main capital city, it was a diverse place
Speaker 1: with lots of exciting culture going on, really kind of
Speaker 1: cutting edge, are yes, exactly exactly, and you know, under
Speaker 1: under order Bon life has changed a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was in a queer club in Budapest when I
Speaker 1: got raided by the police during this was in the
Speaker 1: early days of Ordubon's regime, and you know that was
Speaker 1: really just the harbinger of real kind of concerted, government funded,
Speaker 1: government enforced effort to kill diverse culture in that country
Speaker 1: before this election, Like what were this sort of I mean,
Speaker 1: the kind of mechanics of life in Hungary. There's always
Speaker 1: a lot of talk about like this sort of how
Speaker 1: Germany elected Hitler? Right, was there inflation? What was this
Speaker 1: sort of economic landscape? I mean, why why would a
Speaker 1: country that's sort of a normal European country elect someone
Speaker 1: like this or did they not know what they were electing?
Speaker 1: There are a lot of causes and effects, right, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to like single out one thing like inflation
Speaker 1: or you know, economic downturns. And certainly he was elected
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the two thousand eight financial crisis,
Speaker 1: and that was certainly, you know, a major impact. And
Speaker 1: there's also of like political and economic factors that you
Speaker 1: can trace that led to Ordubon coming into power and
Speaker 1: and when he did, you know, he came into power
Speaker 1: in like a landslide election, you know, the the left
Speaker 1: wing lost, and they lost big time. In two thousand ten,
Speaker 1: he won a supermajority in parliament, more than two thirds,
Speaker 1: and that allowed his party to pass whatever legislation it
Speaker 1: wanted to and really just as importantly, to change the
Speaker 1: country's constitution. And they've done that a multiple times since then.
Speaker 1: He's been in power, and he holds a lock grip
Speaker 1: on his right wing party. The party is called FEEDES
Speaker 1: that stands for Young Democrats, But I think the Democrats
Speaker 1: really should be in quotation marks. They all vote exactly
Speaker 1: how Victor Ordubon tells them to um and slowly and systematically.
Speaker 1: Since two thousand and ten, he's taken over all the
Speaker 1: institutions of the country. He's installed loyal party hacks in
Speaker 1: every position of power that you can imagine. It's it's basically,
Speaker 1: you know, the death of democracy by a thousand little takeovers,
Speaker 1: a little bit like what Trump had hoped to do
Speaker 1: with the loyal US and even in the two elections
Speaker 1: where he tried to install these secretaries of state who
Speaker 1: were his people, his hacks. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean
Speaker 1: Victor Ordubon is basically Donald Trump. If Donald Trump had
Speaker 1: an attention span longer than my chihuahua. You know, he's disciplined,
Speaker 1: he rarely makes mistakes, and Ordubon he learns from them,
Speaker 1: which is really you know, the mistakes that he has made, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, he tried to pass a law that would
Speaker 1: make it illegal to open your grocery store on Sundays
Speaker 1: to try to kind of enforce a Sunday Sabbath and
Speaker 1: nobody liked that, and so he gave in on that,
Speaker 1: and he learned from his mistakes and he gave in.
Speaker 1: And that's that's what makes what about truly truly terrifying,
Speaker 1: is that he's able to change tactics to stay in
Speaker 1: power and does not look like he's going to leave
Speaker 1: power anytime. It's so interesting because I've read reporting about
Speaker 1: this that he does do things that are besides being
Speaker 1: an autocrat, he also does things that are populous, right,
Speaker 1: can you talk about that? Yeah, I mean he he
Speaker 1: definitely represents himself as a man of the people. But
Speaker 1: doesn't he pay people to have children and stuff like that? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: paying people to have children is something that a lot
Speaker 1: of European countries do. There's a general, you know sense
Speaker 1: in European countries. You know, they're word about the population decline,
Speaker 1: which is happening all across Europe. It's definitely a policy
Speaker 1: that that's in in France and in Germany and elsewhere
Speaker 1: to uh encourage people to have kids by offering them incentives.
Speaker 1: Were such suckers in America, and I mean, like we
Speaker 1: could all be living in Europe being paid to have
Speaker 1: children and instead but anyway, yes, continue going, yes, sorry, yes, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's true. He's just kind of bumped that up and
Speaker 1: made it kind of a hallmark of his regime that
Speaker 1: Hungary is going to reverse, you know, the European trend
Speaker 1: and be an outlier in Europe by having a growing population.
Speaker 1: The data on that is highly mixed, if not totally
Speaker 1: pointing in the opposite direction about the effectiveness of his policies.
Speaker 1: But you know, that was definitely one of his big
Speaker 1: things coming into power. He not only represents himself was
Speaker 1: like a man of the people, but you know he
Speaker 1: um he has like this this persona, this very almost
Speaker 1: you know, a pugilistic persona. He actually calls himself a
Speaker 1: street fighter sometimes. He's a huge fan of Chuck Norris,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, of all the heroes to have
Speaker 1: from Hollywood, I would have never picked Chuck Norris, but
Speaker 1: he you know, so he really kind of compares himself
Speaker 1: to Chuck Norris and thinks of himself as somebody who's
Speaker 1: kind of fighting the good fight against well, especially against
Speaker 1: liberals and progressives. Jesus. I mean, what were the big
Speaker 1: changes you saw after orban took over. When I was
Speaker 1: in Hungary, I was studying at Central European University, which
Speaker 1: is it was a major, major research institution, one of
Speaker 1: you know, the jewels of the Crown, of of the Hungary,
Speaker 1: of Hungarian intellectual culture. And you know, one of the
Speaker 1: major things that Audubon did is that he passed laws
Speaker 1: that made it impossible for Central European University to stay
Speaker 1: in Hungary. He revoked their accreditation and he forced them
Speaker 1: to leave the country and now it's it's based in Vienna,
Speaker 1: in Austria. He's done that to a number of different
Speaker 1: and geos, a lot of human rights and geos. He's
Speaker 1: forced them to leave the country by passing laws that
Speaker 1: made it impossible for them to do their work. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of the kind of civil society framework
Speaker 1: and institutional networks in Hungary and the educational institutions that
Speaker 1: really kind of work that made Hungry and intellectual leader
Speaker 1: in Europe as a whole. He's done a lot to
Speaker 1: take them over, to dismantle them if you can't take
Speaker 1: them over, and to remake them in its own you know,
Speaker 1: white Christian nationalistic image. Do you see in the day
Speaker 1: to day life and Hungary any of that, Like, for example,
Speaker 1: you could live in Miami and you are being governed
Speaker 1: by Ron de Santis, but life is still pretty much
Speaker 1: the way it is in New York. Did you see
Speaker 1: anything like the raids on gay clubs? I mean, what
Speaker 1: did you see where you were like, wow, we really
Speaker 1: have a different president here. Now, the economics of living
Speaker 1: in Hungary did not change dramatically on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis, right that the stores, the names of the
Speaker 1: stores didn't change, They didn't go anywhere, And that was
Speaker 1: really enabled the way that Ordubon has really engineered this
Speaker 1: as you know, a slow death by a thousand little
Speaker 1: cuts in a thousand little takeovers. So there was nothing
Speaker 1: ever truly dramatic. I guess that's how democracy dies, right,
Speaker 1: is that it dies little by little. The way he
Speaker 1: was able to, you know, engineer this small, long term,
Speaker 1: little by little death of democracy was really because, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the economics of the of the state didn't change,
Speaker 1: because the EU was sending tons of money there and
Speaker 1: has sent tons of money there throughout his entire regime,
Speaker 1: right exactly, So what do you think there's sort of
Speaker 1: lessons of orbon are as people like Tucker Carlson are
Speaker 1: taking lessons from him on how to be more of
Speaker 1: a successful autocrat. What are the lessons that liberals or
Speaker 1: just people who are pro democracy should take from or
Speaker 1: bon Well, Yes, certainly Hungary is like America's test kitchen
Speaker 1: for far right xenophobia and racism and what have you
Speaker 1: The lessons to learn are you know, to to make
Speaker 1: certain to organize, you know, always at the grassroots level, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to start with making certain that
Speaker 1: people understand on an interpersonal, day to day basis what's
Speaker 1: at stake in having a democracy, especially at the NGO level.
Speaker 1: Explain the NGO what that what that means, because I'm
Speaker 1: aware of angers, but I'm not aware of how meaningful
Speaker 1: the larger migration of them is. So if you could
Speaker 1: explain that the nonprofits in Hungary were you know, primarily
Speaker 1: focused on protecting human rights in the country and making
Speaker 1: certain that the media sector stayed diverse, you know, and
Speaker 1: that that there was an independent media sector not completely
Speaker 1: controlled by the government. Their migration out of the country
Speaker 1: and basically him kicking them out really allowed him to
Speaker 1: take over the entire cultural landscape and make it in
Speaker 1: his own image. So for me, that the research that
Speaker 1: that I've been primarily focused on in my academic work
Speaker 1: is on churches in Hungary. And he's certainly done everything
Speaker 1: he can to make certain that the churches offer no
Speaker 1: opposition to him, right, I mean, ideally churches should be
Speaker 1: a prophetic voice in society. And certainly there have been,
Speaker 1: you know, profits in the past. We've spoken out against
Speaker 1: the communist regime and Hungary profits you know, based in
Speaker 1: Christian values in Christian churches or Dubon has done everything
Speaker 1: he can to buy all the churches and their church leadership.
Speaker 1: He sends them tons of money, both for social service
Speaker 1: work that they do and then also for education. The
Speaker 1: government gives tons of money to churches to run schools.
Speaker 1: Of a friend to journalist Alex Fuludi, he was a
Speaker 1: Hungarian journalist, and his take on this is that it's
Speaker 1: it's definitely political opportunism, and you know his his good
Speaker 1: line about this is is that it's hard to talk
Speaker 1: back when your mouth is full of coins. Right, And
Speaker 1: so you know, the churches are well and fully bought,
Speaker 1: with a few exceptions. What Americans can do is to
Speaker 1: kind of learn about the few churches in Hungary that
Speaker 1: have state independent and that are critical of Ordubon's regime
Speaker 1: and they have suffered a great deal for it, and
Speaker 1: to highlight their work to resist fascism in Hungary. So interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Does he allow other religions or is
Speaker 1: he sort of narrowing it down to a sort of
Speaker 1: more Christian kind of religion. Hungary, unlike a lot of
Speaker 1: other European countries, came out of World War Two with
Speaker 1: at least a remnant of a Jewish community. There are
Speaker 1: active synagogues attended by Hungarians in Budapest and and other
Speaker 1: kind of regional cities around Hungary, and they have a
Speaker 1: strong and very prominent kind of organizational leadership that plays
Speaker 1: roles in Hungarian public life and in Hungarian politics. So,
Speaker 1: you know, just recently, this was over the summer, Bordubon
Speaker 1: gave a speech in which he very intentionally and very
Speaker 1: explicitly evoked Nazi language around race and species. He basically
Speaker 1: said that Hungarians don't want to be a mixed species.
Speaker 1: It was awful and horrendous, and he received a huge
Speaker 1: amount of criticism and denunciation all throughout the world, and
Speaker 1: the Hungarian Jewish community leadership requested a meeting with him
Speaker 1: to try to, you know, figure out what the hell
Speaker 1: he was trying to say in that speech. And so
Speaker 1: he plays to the awareness that a lot of international
Speaker 1: organizations have about Hungary's religious diversity and about the fate
Speaker 1: of the Jewish community and Hungary. He has a very
Speaker 1: strong relationship with Benjamin Nitsan, Yahoo used one of the
Speaker 1: first people to congratulate Natanyahuan on his election. So he's
Speaker 1: aware of the diversity of Hungary's religious landscape, even as
Speaker 1: he also, you know, tries to promote the notion that
Speaker 1: Hungary and Hungarian culture has from the get go been
Speaker 1: you know, truly Christian and non waveringly Christian. Basically he
Speaker 1: uses conservative Jews to launder his figo trade. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: so different from Donald Trump in that way. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's again, this is a playbook, and I
Speaker 1: think Dubon was generating this playbook that Donald Trump probably
Speaker 1: observed and borrowed. There's certainly you know, a certain you
Speaker 1: know Israel washing, right, I think that's the right word,
Speaker 1: is washing. The political opportunism of Ordu Bon's you know,
Speaker 1: turn to Faith, which was really kind of dated to
Speaker 1: two thousand tent He was not a big a tender
Speaker 1: of church if at all he had a secular marriage
Speaker 1: under communism, courthouse marriage, and uh, he didn't really discover
Speaker 1: religion until after his election in two thousand ten. Definitely,
Speaker 1: there's a good argument to make that it is just
Speaker 1: sheer political opportunism and he's trying to eliminate potential opposition
Speaker 1: to his regime. And yet at the same time, I
Speaker 1: think there's also a there's a very smart strategy and
Speaker 1: what he's trying to do to kind of promote what
Speaker 1: he calls Christian values. He's trying to create a culture
Speaker 1: in a whole world that people can live in from
Speaker 1: like cradle to grave, and they can live in institutions
Speaker 1: that all basically say the same thing and all parrot
Speaker 1: his line. And so the sense of of a of
Speaker 1: a totally encompassing society and culture defined by Christian values
Speaker 1: is absolutely at the heart of his program and his goal.
Speaker 1: But he also wants people to think that there's like
Speaker 1: a deep depth and a mystery to Hungarian culture and
Speaker 1: Hungarian Christianity. He wants people to be kind of fascinated
Speaker 1: by the history of Christian deities. Um he really promotes,
Speaker 1: for instance, the Virgin Mary. He sponsors art shows and
Speaker 1: art exhibitions about the art of the Virgin Mary. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not many people know about her. Yeah, yeah, she didn't.
Speaker 1: She needs to pep. Hungary is really really really really
Speaker 1: really small, right, yes, in the larger and it has
Speaker 1: a very tiny economy. So when Tuckle Carlson gets very
Speaker 1: excited about it, can you just put it in context
Speaker 1: for us? Yeah, I mean he gets excited about it
Speaker 1: because American conservatives think of it as like, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said before, the test kitchen for you know,
Speaker 1: policies that they can implement on a bigger scale. In
Speaker 1: the US. Conservatives like Tucker Carlson also like Rod Dreyer.
Speaker 1: Isn't Rod drey Or have some kind of relations like
Speaker 1: monetary relationship with the government there? Yeah, yeah, so I
Speaker 1: mean all the American conservatives who go there. He's being paid, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's He's like a fellow at the Danube Institute, which
Speaker 1: is a government funded research center. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: if you're being paid by the government and then you
Speaker 1: say nice things about said government, that should be disclosed. Yes,
Speaker 1: that should be disclosed. The other thing that makes Dreyer,
Speaker 1: you know, so fascinating is that he's clearly attracted to
Speaker 1: by a certain kind of masculinity and manliness. We cannot
Speaker 1: speculate about a person who's not that famous as love life,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I agree that, Like you know, the conservative
Speaker 1: obsession with this just explained, the economy is quite small,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. It's well, it's a ten million people
Speaker 1: in Hungary proper, probably nine million in change now since
Speaker 1: the last senses, you know, and the EU when it
Speaker 1: said the only reason really why the Hungarian economy is
Speaker 1: functioning right now is because the EU subsidizes it gigantically,
Speaker 1: you know, to the tune of billions and billions and
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. And that's been going on for you know,
Speaker 1: twenty some odd years now, ever since it joined the
Speaker 1: EU in two thousand and four. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the American conservative obsession with Hungary is is
Speaker 1: that they really see it as this you know, miniaturized
Speaker 1: almost like a you know, a football field where they
Speaker 1: can kind of game out, you have a practice session
Speaker 1: for what their policies are going to be going forward.
Speaker 1: And so they before Donald Trump was ever inspiring people
Speaker 1: taunting people into chanting build the wall, Victor Ordubon was
Speaker 1: actually building a real razor wire fence at the border
Speaker 1: with Serbia, right and and you know the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we should be really closely paying
Speaker 1: attention to what's going on right now in Hungary with
Speaker 1: Victor Ordubon entering into his third term in office, because
Speaker 1: his kind of goal for the third term in office
Speaker 1: is to remilitarize Hungarian society. He wants to found ten
Speaker 1: new military academies in the country. He wants he's created
Speaker 1: a new civilian border guard unit that he calls the
Speaker 1: Border Hunters. You know, their specific goal is to catch
Speaker 1: refugees trying to cross the border. That is their one
Speaker 1: and only purpose. We should be really really scared that
Speaker 1: Republicans are going to start trying to remilitarize American society.
Speaker 1: Republicans are always hitting liberals about being weak on the military,
Speaker 1: and so I you know, I would not be surprised
Speaker 1: if if in the run up to the presidential election
Speaker 1: we heard candidates talk about needing to expand military schools,
Speaker 1: needing to expand military education even further into high schools,
Speaker 1: in public high schools. So I think this very well
Speaker 1: could be the next step in the Republican playbook. If
Speaker 1: they do follow Victor word Bond's lead in this fascinating
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Marc lu Stowe. I hope you'll
Speaker 1: come back. Thank you so much, Molly. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday
Speaker 1: and Friday to your the best minds in politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening. H