Speaker 1: Hello there. I hope you are enjoying your Memorial Day weekend,
Speaker 1: and we are uploading right now on actual on the
Speaker 1: actual Memorial Day, or the day that we are honoring
Speaker 1: those we've lost in service to this country. On Memorial Day.
Speaker 1: There's always this debate. You don't celebrate Memorial Day, you
Speaker 1: honor Memorial Day. I'm not going to get into the
Speaker 1: nuances of language here. I think sometimes social media gets
Speaker 1: up in arms over that. I have a fascinating guest today,
Speaker 1: Roy to Shia. He is one half of the authorship
Speaker 1: of a book that, had you read it before November
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, you would have known in advance exactly
Speaker 1: how Kamala Harris was going to lose his presidential race.
Speaker 1: Roy To Shara is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute,
Speaker 1: and along with John Judas, he wrote a book that
Speaker 1: came out I Believe the Fall of twenty three Spring
Speaker 1: of twenty four, with the title where have all the
Speaker 1: Democrats Gone? And essentially every trend line that came to
Speaker 1: fruition in November of twenty twenty four, he had already
Speaker 1: identified in this book. And as I said, and many
Speaker 1: of you know this, I've used this book, among three
Speaker 1: or four others, as a teaching text for a class
Speaker 1: that I teach on behalf of USC called How Washington Works.
Speaker 1: And as one of my students wrote, boy, I wish
Speaker 1: I had read this book before the election, and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been so surprised by the result. The point is,
Speaker 1: it's an excellent book, definitely worth your time if you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what's going on inside the two parties,
Speaker 1: And frankly, is the two party system going to be
Speaker 1: able to hold up? And if we're stuck here with
Speaker 1: the two party system, what are the Democrats going to
Speaker 1: do to respond to what we've seen on the right.
Speaker 1: And I do think when you listen to the conversation
Speaker 1: that Roy tischera does provide a path for Democrats to
Speaker 1: become a majority party again and a majority governing party again.
Speaker 1: But they've got a lot of work to do. And
Speaker 1: I think you will hear in the tone of the
Speaker 1: conversation that we have we're both a little bit skeptical
Speaker 1: that the Democrats have lost enough. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the real question. Have they lost enough to make the
Speaker 1: changes necessary to become a majority party again? Right in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. Democrats lost the presidential race, with George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush getting over four hundred electoral votes. It was a
Speaker 1: race that they were supposed to win. It really suddenly
Speaker 1: made the party rethink things. When you lose by essentially
Speaker 1: a percentage point a couple hundred thousand total total votes
Speaker 1: and a handful of states could have flip the outcome,
Speaker 1: do you think you have to make major changes or
Speaker 1: minor changes? You know, I remember a conversation and I've
Speaker 1: for those of you have been longtime listeners of me,
Speaker 1: know this anecdote. Well, but when I did a when
Speaker 1: I did a deep dive into what happened? Why is
Speaker 1: Wisconsin the most polarized state in the country? Like why
Speaker 1: did Wisconsin become more polarized than anything else? And essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, our thesis was a Wisconsin is ground zero,
Speaker 1: patient zero for polarization, which really began at the start
Speaker 1: of the twenty first century and really foreshadowed everything we've
Speaker 1: seen nationally. And Tommy Thompson, the longtime Republican governor during
Speaker 1: the last part of the twentieth century there in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: I had him and Jim Doyle, the last two term
Speaker 1: Democratic governor before Tony Evers got in there and both
Speaker 1: of them remarked, But it was Tommy Thompson who said,
Speaker 1: you know, until one of the two parties loses by
Speaker 1: more than a point in any given election, are you
Speaker 1: going to have either party do any soul searching? Right
Speaker 1: when you have a path to fifty percent plus one
Speaker 1: to win, you don't think about you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: have some long term issues here, long term issues there,
Speaker 1: but if you still think of a path to victory,
Speaker 1: you don't work about it. It's like a Frankly. It's
Speaker 1: like if you know Frankly to pick on Wisconsin, it's
Speaker 1: like the Milwaukee Bucks with Yannis. Right, if you think
Speaker 1: having Yannis plus you know, a semi healthy Dame Lillard
Speaker 1: can at least get you to be competitive and maybe
Speaker 1: you have a chance to make the Eastern Conference finals.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't do the teardown. Right, But if you
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're the if you're if
Speaker 1: you're the Charlotte Hornets or you're the Miami Heat, you
Speaker 1: think we're not even getting to the Eastern Conference Finals,
Speaker 1: We're going to do a whole teardown. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the conversation Democrats are still in They're not in
Speaker 1: a teardown mindset yet, right, They're still in this in
Speaker 1: this place where I think you still have a good
Speaker 1: chunk of the party that things just tinkering is going
Speaker 1: to do it. Oh, if they just come up with
Speaker 1: a better message with Latino voters, they will be able
Speaker 1: to fix their problems in the Southwest. Or if they
Speaker 1: just come up with a better message for working class
Speaker 1: voters and Michigan, then maybe they improve things in an
Speaker 1: Ohio or in Iowa versus what happened after eighty eight
Speaker 1: when it was a slaughter And you realize, as I
Speaker 1: pointed out before that the combination of McGovern Carter, Mondale
Speaker 1: and Ducaccus and a message of massive weakness inside the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party that they may have had good ideas, but
Speaker 1: they had weak leadership. And Bill Clinton came along and
Speaker 1: just came up with a new theory of the case,
Speaker 1: but was a bit more but led essentially with a
Speaker 1: bit more strength in how to do it. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's the question. I have our Democrats in
Speaker 1: that mode or is there such a desperation to win
Speaker 1: they'll take any answer. Well, this we're going to find
Speaker 1: out in a couple of years. But before we get
Speaker 1: to the conversation with Gorod to share, I do you
Speaker 1: want to back up a little thing on the weekend's events,
Speaker 1: because there was some Look, let's talk about what it is,
Speaker 1: which is, if the roles were reversed. What would the
Speaker 1: level of conversation and criticism be if Joe Biden and
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden were trying to make money off of the presidency.
Speaker 1: Oh did they do that? What was the level of conversation?
Speaker 1: And I'm struck by something the Speaker of the House,
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson said to my friend Jake Tapper on CNN
Speaker 1: over the weekend. Jake Tapper was asking him about the
Speaker 1: mean coin, the infamous meme coin dinner where basically, if
Speaker 1: you bought this phony meme coin basically the baseball cards
Speaker 1: of crypto, right, it's not worth a thing, these Trump
Speaker 1: meme coins. It's like it's like selling something from the
Speaker 1: Franklin Mint, if you will. But if you bought enough
Speaker 1: of them, you got to have dinner with him. Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson actually said, well, the Bidens were doing it, we're
Speaker 1: doing it undercover. Donald Trump does it out in the
Speaker 1: open for everybody to see, and therefore it's Okay, so
Speaker 1: just stop and think about that rationale. The Speaker of
Speaker 1: the House said, the reason he's not alarmed by Donald
Speaker 1: Trump profiting off the presidency versus the amount of effort
Speaker 1: he did to investigate whether Hunter Biden was essentially profiting
Speaker 1: off the Biden presidency. The big distinction for him is
Speaker 1: Biden tried to hide it. Trump doesn't hide it. So
Speaker 1: didn't ask yourself, where are we headed as a society?
Speaker 1: Where are we headed in our politics? If basically one
Speaker 1: political party is completely okay with this corruptible practice, and
Speaker 1: I say it's corruptible. I don't want to assume corruption
Speaker 1: has happened yet, but it is easy to corrupt. It
Speaker 1: is obvious. It is, you know, sort of peeing on
Speaker 1: your leg and telling you it's reigning. Kind of obvious
Speaker 1: at this point. And yet that's the rationale, that's the defense.
Speaker 1: And you want to talk about why I keep quoting
Speaker 1: Bob Dole from nineteen ninety six all the time, which
Speaker 1: was where's the outrage? And I think on this one,
Speaker 1: where's the outrage? And there is none? And there's and
Speaker 1: now the Republican Party is putting itself in a position
Speaker 1: where they're just going to be laughed anytime, laughed out
Speaker 1: of the room, anytime they attempt to criticize anybody else
Speaker 1: on corruption issues. The silence, the ignoring of what Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is doing with this presidency is something else. Now,
Speaker 1: let's take his commencement address at West Point, his decision
Speaker 1: to politicize the address, his decision to wear a maga hat.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take you back into the into the
Speaker 1: way back machine to go back. It's Barack Obama who
Speaker 1: was president. And let me just remind you of certain
Speaker 1: controversies that took place when Barack Obama did things with
Speaker 1: the military, some commencement addresses, you know, saluting the military.
Speaker 1: There was a huge outrage over what Sarah Palin deemed
Speaker 1: the latte salute, that how did Barack Obama hold a
Speaker 1: latte while he saluted the Marines as he was i
Speaker 1: think going on to Marine one. And it became this
Speaker 1: sort of obsession with sort of whatever you want, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call you know, not journalists, not conservative journalists,
Speaker 1: but just sort of conservative influencer, wanta bees, pundits, whatever
Speaker 1: Fox News calls itself these days, because it's not a
Speaker 1: journalistic enterprise, but it's just sort of a vehicle for
Speaker 1: grievance and outrage. And this was a huge part of
Speaker 1: their outrage was did Barack Obama do enough of a salute?
Speaker 1: And I remember another time was a salute wasn't stiff enough.
Speaker 1: But I can't imagine the level of outrage. Had Barack
Speaker 1: Obama come up with an ofa hat and did an
Speaker 1: Obama for America and and took a speech and used
Speaker 1: his commencement speech to just trash his predecessor or predecessors
Speaker 1: right the most sacred of things. And it's really sort
Speaker 1: of an irrational you know, he he doesn't acknowledge the
Speaker 1: fact that these kids, these kids went to West Point
Speaker 1: the majority of the time, their commander in chief was
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. It didn't seem to rot the place so
Speaker 1: much that West Point still exists, that West Point was
Speaker 1: still teaching and graduating high performing cadets. So it is
Speaker 1: it was just, you know, I know, we're no longer astonished.
Speaker 1: And I know what about ism is a disease that
Speaker 1: that is all over the place, particularly on the right,
Speaker 1: but it's it's there on the left.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'll give you another example. There's a there's a huge
Speaker 1: if you if you follow social media. Over the weekend,
Speaker 1: there's this, you know, a lot of folks on the
Speaker 1: right trying to say, well, left wing ideology creates more
Speaker 1: violent actors then right wing ideology. And this one is
Speaker 1: in direct reference to the terrace that gunned down the
Speaker 1: Israeli diplomats last week in Washington, DC. And I see
Speaker 1: this on the left as well. Sometimes when there's a
Speaker 1: violent incident and it's a right winger that does it,
Speaker 1: whether it was the shooting in Kenosha or the shooting
Speaker 1: the Tree of Life synagogue. So if we want to
Speaker 1: make it directly sort of anti semiticaid on the right,
Speaker 1: anti semiticiated on the left. Last time I checked is
Speaker 1: you have violent crazy people that exist on the left,
Speaker 1: and you have violent crazy people that exist on the right.
Speaker 1: And yet politically there is always a group of folks
Speaker 1: who are trying to make the case that no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no, it's not our side that produces violence,
Speaker 1: it's their side that produces violence. And there's this wilful
Speaker 1: ignorance or excuse making when it doesn't quite fit a
Speaker 1: narrative that someone hopes exists. And the fact is neither
Speaker 1: party and no ideology has a monopoly on crazy, and
Speaker 1: neither party nor ideology has a monopoly on violence. Sadly,
Speaker 1: I wish I wish it were true. Then we could
Speaker 1: easily get rid of it. Right if we knew it
Speaker 1: was only the part of one party, it would be gone.
Speaker 1: But that does not exist. But this level of what
Speaker 1: about ism because over time it eats away at it
Speaker 1: just eats away at our credibility. It erodes trust more
Speaker 1: and more because certainly, you know, we never go back.
Speaker 1: So take behavior with the military, Donald Trump's decision to
Speaker 1: politicize it without any essentially without any sort of criticism.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody serious is criticizing him on the right,
Speaker 1: military leaders aren't. Everybody is just staling science. There's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a silence of fear that's out there.
Speaker 1: I run into it plain. I'll have people whisper to me,
Speaker 1: I really don't like what he's doing with Harvard, or
Speaker 1: I really don't like what he's doing with the military.
Speaker 1: I really don't like what he's doing with the government.
Speaker 1: But I can't say anything or I'll lose my job.
Speaker 1: Or I can't say anything or I'll lose this client.
Speaker 1: I can't say anything because I don't want funding to
Speaker 1: be cut off from my institution. So this culture of
Speaker 1: fear that's out there is very real, and you know,
Speaker 1: this is where where trust in political leadership continues to erode.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't have much trust in either side
Speaker 1: of the aisle, and it's because both sides of the
Speaker 1: aisle are earning that distrust every day with their behavior,
Speaker 1: with this idea that we've got to make sure we
Speaker 1: look good by tearing down the other side, rather than
Speaker 1: simply why don't you govern well and let people decide
Speaker 1: that you're doing a good job. Donald Trump has trouble
Speaker 1: handling that because right now things aren't going well for
Speaker 1: him right on merits, but he needs to feel like
Speaker 1: they're going well. So it becomes this attempt to tear
Speaker 1: down the left and tear down the other side. And
Speaker 1: certainly Joe Biden's legacy is in tatters because of what
Speaker 1: Joe Biden did, and Donald Trump is certainly reveling in
Speaker 1: it and using it as a way to essentially protect
Speaker 1: himself politically at this point. But it just struck me
Speaker 1: that all of these things, the corruption and plain sight,
Speaker 1: which the Speaker of the House says, oh, but it's
Speaker 1: in plain sight, so it's okay. Okay, just imagine, So basically,
Speaker 1: if I shop lift and wave to the camera, it's okay.
Speaker 1: But if I shop lift and quietly put it in
Speaker 1: a knapsack and so the camera doesn't see it, then
Speaker 1: I've committed a crime. That's exactly what the Speaker of
Speaker 1: the House is claiming with this meme coin nonsense. So
Speaker 1: it's just this, Look what about is them is a
Speaker 1: disease that strikes a lot of people in this information ecosystem,
Speaker 1: but it is a really deadly virus these days on
Speaker 1: the right. Donald trump behavior with the mean coins, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's behavior at West Point again, just you know, we've
Speaker 1: seen the outrage that took place on the right when
Speaker 1: a Democrat behaved ten percent similarly as the way Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is has behaved over the weekend in various ways.
Speaker 1: And again, I know we're numb, right, there's a numbness
Speaker 1: to it on one hand. Right, I've got some friends
Speaker 1: in Europe who have said to me, how come you
Speaker 1: guys aren't in the streets, And I'm like, well, that
Speaker 1: was the first Trump term. There's a little less energy
Speaker 1: for that this time. So there's a little bit of that,
Speaker 1: but I also think it goes back to the fear
Speaker 1: issue that I was telling you about, where there is
Speaker 1: plenty of people who are very uncomfortable with the President's behavior,
Speaker 1: particularly how he's self enriching. I mean this, I do
Speaker 1: think what is going and what tears down every political movement,
Speaker 1: every political movement comes to an end because of corruption.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you the behavior of the Trump
Speaker 1: organization with crypto, and I've said it before, is going
Speaker 1: to be what eats and destroys this mag of movement eventually.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not this year, maybe it's not next year,
Speaker 1: but it is. This is going to eat away. This
Speaker 1: is a cancer inside this movement, Crypto and the Trump
Speaker 1: family's addiction to self enrichment using crypto here, I'm telling
Speaker 1: you it is going to be what brings them down.
Speaker 1: And I am surprised at how many people continue to
Speaker 1: want to go along for that ride. All right, let
Speaker 1: me do a little update on a little campaign. Twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six is a fun poll making the rounds in
Speaker 1: New York City, and that's the key here. It's a
Speaker 1: It's a poll of New York City Democrats with an
Speaker 1: oversampling of Jewish voters. When I say oversampling, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they add it. It just has a larger sample of
Speaker 1: Jewish voters to get a better sense of how Jewish
Speaker 1: Democrats would vote. And there was two statewide matchups that
Speaker 1: were put together, Kathy Holkle the incoming governor, Richie Torres,
Speaker 1: the congressman on a gubernatorial prime memory and then Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer and Alexandria Casio Cortez AOC in a hypothetical Democratic
Speaker 1: primary for Senate. Now that race wouldn't be till twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight, and as many of you have heard me
Speaker 1: say before, I'll be shocked of schumer siks reelection. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's running, but to get a sense of
Speaker 1: what Democrats think of Chuck Schumer these days, or at
Speaker 1: least New York City Democrats, it's useful to know he's
Speaker 1: getting clobbered in a hypothetical matchup with AOC again New
Speaker 1: York City Democrats in this poll fifty four to thirty three.
Speaker 1: The poll was sponsored by the Jewish Voters Action Network,
Speaker 1: conducted by be It, taxed by Honen Strategy Group. It's
Speaker 1: not my favorite methodology. I'm not going to lie to you.
Speaker 1: These days, but I'm also actually, I'm never going to
Speaker 1: lie to you, not just these days. I always hate
Speaker 1: that expression because it implies, you know, well, let me
Speaker 1: you know, honestly, let me tell you no what I
Speaker 1: merely mean. You're like you're not being honest before. But anyway,
Speaker 1: but I digress. But a double digit lead twenty one
Speaker 1: point lead among New York City Democrats for AOC over Schumer.
Speaker 1: Among Jewish voters, Schumerling led four three. It was thirty
Speaker 1: eight thirty seven. And a hypothetical Democratic primary among New
Speaker 1: York City Democratic voters between Kathy hokl the incombent governor,
Speaker 1: Richie Torres, the congressman who we just interviewed last week
Speaker 1: and who told us that he was very focused on
Speaker 1: running for governor. And again, this is a subsample of
Speaker 1: a subsample. Right, it's New York City Democratic voters obviously
Speaker 1: the largest chunk of voters in a Democratic primary. But
Speaker 1: you know, I would argue Kathy Holckle's strength is never
Speaker 1: going to be New York City. If she's even in
Speaker 1: New York City, she will win a primary if she's
Speaker 1: able to do. You know, she is from Western New York,
Speaker 1: so she should have a better base there, and a
Speaker 1: New York City Democrat usually struggles the further up the
Speaker 1: state you go. But what does this tell you? And
Speaker 1: I go back to something that I truly believe. I
Speaker 1: think being an incumbent is going to be the worst
Speaker 1: thing on the ballot in twenty twenty six. If you're
Speaker 1: incumbent Republican or an incumbent Democrat. That basically incumbent bad
Speaker 1: all right. Then the next question is which party's brand
Speaker 1: is going to be seen as the more negative brand?
Speaker 1: I think in a midterm is probably depending on where
Speaker 1: we are right It's going to depend on whether you're
Speaker 1: talking a gubernatorial race where maybe one party's held the
Speaker 1: office for quite some time. That means the other party
Speaker 1: might be fired up. But overall, nationally, it's probably going
Speaker 1: to be slightly easier to be a Democrat than Republican
Speaker 1: because these Republican policies are not very popular right now.
Speaker 1: And this one big beautiful bill, I don't see anything
Speaker 1: in there that's going to help Republicans short term politically.
Speaker 1: Right If the bill works, it might help them long term,
Speaker 1: but short term I don't see where they get help
Speaker 1: out of this. So to me, this poll indicates incumbents
Speaker 1: are unpopular, Hopell not doing well, Chuck Schumer not doing well,
Speaker 1: So there is going to be this pining for change.
Speaker 1: And I think the question is how big, how many
Speaker 1: of these democratic primaries? How messy are these going to be?
Speaker 1: And what kind of fights are they going to be?
Speaker 1: Are they going to be out of logical? Are they
Speaker 1: going to be generational? Because those aren't the same thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and there are some progressives who want to
Speaker 1: hide the progressive part behind generational change, right and I
Speaker 1: think that that's you know, it's probably smart politics because
Speaker 1: many progressive policies are not popular right now with swing voters.
Speaker 2: But I.
Speaker 1: Get sort of, hey, use generational change and recruit more
Speaker 1: progressive voters. Could I buy the argument more that you
Speaker 1: need a younger generation who knows how to communicate with
Speaker 1: today's swing voters versus because I think today's swing voters
Speaker 1: need a different type of communicating too than the swing
Speaker 1: voters of just ten years ago or fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: So I do think that Pole tells us a little
Speaker 1: bit a little bit about that. Again, it should stir
Speaker 1: the pots of more and I'm sure it is only
Speaker 1: going to encourage, not discourage Richie Torres to keep going
Speaker 1: on that one other thing worth noting big New York
Speaker 1: Times story of the weekend that indicates Democrats are still
Speaker 1: in the wilderness, and noting everything that I've been telling
Speaker 1: you about. Well, look, I do think if you read
Speaker 1: that New York Times piece, this conversation with Roychisha, I
Speaker 1: think is going to be more enlightening than what you
Speaker 1: got in the Times, and more explanatory and give you
Speaker 1: a better idea of where the future of the party lies.
Speaker 1: Because the future does not lie in Washington. The future
Speaker 1: of the party is likely lies in one of two
Speaker 1: categories of folks, either a current governor or somebody that's
Speaker 1: about to win a governor's race. Maybe it's in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, like Cheryl Abigail Spamberger. Maybe it's in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, and maybe it's somebody we haven't mentioned yet
Speaker 1: who comes out of nowhere to meet the moment. But
Speaker 1: I do think that you're more likely to see, if
Speaker 1: change is successful for the Democrats, that change will come
Speaker 1: from the states outside of Washington. All Right, with that,
Speaker 1: let's sneak in a break and when we come back
Speaker 1: to Shera on the blueprint for how Democrats get their
Speaker 1: mojo back, and joining me now is the co author
Speaker 1: of one of the most prescient books that you could
Speaker 1: have read to understand the twenty four election had you
Speaker 1: read it before the twenty twenty four election. The book
Speaker 1: is called Where Have All the Democrats Gone? Written by
Speaker 1: John Judas and Roy to Shera and Roy to Shia
Speaker 1: is joining me now. This is not the first time
Speaker 1: I've interviewed him on this topic, but we are in
Speaker 1: the middle of, I think the reckoning that Roy you
Speaker 1: were trying to warn Democrats that was coming, and now
Speaker 1: there are elected Democrats realizing, hey, maybe that guy was right.
Speaker 1: Maybe we've got a realignment going on, and maybe we
Speaker 1: need to figure out who the heck the Democratic coalition
Speaker 1: is these days? Are you ready to say I told.
Speaker 2: You sold just so.
Speaker 1: Unlessen you know I've said this and I've shared this
Speaker 1: with you earlier, and I've actually shared your book with
Speaker 1: others when I tell people the curriculum for a class
Speaker 1: I teach called how Washington Works, and your book is
Speaker 1: one that I believe should be mandatory reading these days
Speaker 1: on trying to understand we're in the middle of a
Speaker 1: political realignment and we have elections every two years that
Speaker 1: make us think and we think that somehow there's finality
Speaker 1: when the alignment could write I always love this the realignment.
Speaker 1: It's not as if realignment has stopped. It's just we've
Speaker 1: held an election. So where are we, in your mind,
Speaker 1: in the middle of this realignment. I would argue it's
Speaker 1: been I would argue this realignment started in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: following you know, and you started to see it began
Speaker 1: with Buchanan's primary challenge to Bush, and we started to
Speaker 1: see these things over time. But that would imply that
Speaker 1: we've been in a twenty five year of political realignment.
Speaker 1: Is that Is that a fair way to look at
Speaker 1: this or not?
Speaker 2: I think that's fair. I mean, obviously it's not a
Speaker 2: continuous process. There's Pigson Valley, spikes, changes, not a straight
Speaker 2: line even going upward right. It's not a smooth process.
Speaker 2: But by and large, the last thirty years has seen well,
Speaker 2: you could even take it back farther potentially the realignment
Speaker 2: of the working class away from the Democratic Party and
Speaker 2: toward the Republicans, and then a realignment of the college
Speaker 2: educated and especially the educated affluent away from the Republicans
Speaker 2: toward the Democrats, so they really kind of shifted bases
Speaker 2: in an odd sort of way. There's a famous chart
Speaker 2: from the twenty twenty four election. I forget the guy
Speaker 2: who did it, but basically he looked at education and
Speaker 2: income differentiation polarization between the parties and the coalition the
Speaker 2: Democrats had in twenty twenty four bears the most relationship
Speaker 2: to the dull coalition of nineteen ninety six in terms.
Speaker 1: Of Wow, that's a great that's a fascinating.
Speaker 2: Pretty wild huh that is?
Speaker 1: Is it just when you look at I mean, I
Speaker 1: could I always joke I live in Arlington County, and
Speaker 1: I say I live in the last Romney precinct, is
Speaker 1: what I call it. Meaning there was a time where
Speaker 1: there were Republican precincts, and in Arlington more than just
Speaker 1: three or four, there were probably you know, twenty five
Speaker 1: or thirty in the nineties, and then you'd start to
Speaker 1: see it chip away. And I always say it was
Speaker 1: literally Ken Kuchinelli was probably the Republican that finally chased
Speaker 1: away the remaining Republicans. What is the precinct vote now, boy,
Speaker 1: I need to look at it the most recent, but
Speaker 1: it's in the.
Speaker 2: Sixties yeah, I would got like two to one Democrat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's two to one. It's not quite a it's
Speaker 1: not like the rest. It's still more Republican than the
Speaker 1: county itself relatively, but yes it is. I will tell
Speaker 1: you this. I remember it was a Ralph Northam electorate,
Speaker 1: not a Tom Perriello electorate, if you remember the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary for governor in the first from term. And so
Speaker 1: it is certainly that type of and I think it
Speaker 1: gets to the heart actually of what the Democrats. You know,
Speaker 1: in some ways they don't know. They they don't know
Speaker 1: where to atack right. If you look at this in
Speaker 1: sailing terms, do they need to shift their win towards
Speaker 1: that center right, centerst coalition, that is, educated coalition that
Speaker 1: is coming to them. Do they need to tack back
Speaker 1: to working class? Obviously you go with where the most
Speaker 1: votes are to be gained.
Speaker 2: So what say you, Well, I think it's pretty clear
Speaker 2: that in raw political arithmetic terms, they need to tack
Speaker 2: back toward the working class because it's not really a
Speaker 2: viable strategy over the medium into long term to keep
Speaker 2: losing working class voters and try to replace them with
Speaker 2: college educated voters, particularly when you're starting to lose. You know,
Speaker 2: this has really been the case in the least colorless cycles.
Speaker 2: You're starting to lose non white working class voters, especially
Speaker 2: Hispanic working class voters, but also including black working class voters.
Speaker 2: So the working class as a whole is just becoming
Speaker 2: increasingly Republican. And since the working class out numbers the
Speaker 2: college educated something like depends on if you look at
Speaker 2: eligible voters or actual voters, probably about two to one
Speaker 2: and eligible maybe sixty forty in terms of people who
Speaker 2: show up. And we know because of this strange evolution
Speaker 2: of the two parties that the higher turnout election you have,
Speaker 2: the worse it is for the Democrats because that's when
Speaker 2: the peripheral voters, who tend to be low information, working class,
Speaker 2: you know, more inclined, could blow it up than to
Speaker 2: go with the institutions. These are all people through the
Speaker 2: Republicans are more attractive. So there's another famous chart from
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four election is done by Blue Rose
Speaker 2: Research that shows that if everybody had shown up, Trump
Speaker 2: would have won by five points overall, said one and
Speaker 2: a half points. But if only the people have voted
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two had showed up, Harris would have
Speaker 2: seletly worn. So this is like the world we live
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 1: Well, this explains Omaha mayor. This explains absolutely right what
Speaker 1: we're seeing right now where Democrats appear to be overperforming
Speaker 1: in every special election so far in twenty twenty or.
Speaker 2: Like school boards, dog catcher, you name it, right, lower
Speaker 2: the turnament, the better it is for the d's because
Speaker 2: those activist educated voters who are there and every place
Speaker 2: in the country really, but particularly in a you know,
Speaker 2: like Omaha's a great example and almost not that liberal,
Speaker 2: but you know who shows up for mayor's elections exactly
Speaker 2: the kind of people who are going to vote straight Democratics.
Speaker 2: So that and they don't know what to do about that, right,
Speaker 2: because it's obviously kind of like a problem. You know, Hey,
Speaker 2: where the party of the working class historically, and we're
Speaker 2: sort of for the little guy, and you know, we
Speaker 2: don't think of ourselves as representing the college educated and affluent,
Speaker 2: but it kind of seems like those are the people
Speaker 2: are most enthusiastic. But if we actually try to rectify
Speaker 2: that pattern, what do we do? We'd have to like
Speaker 2: basically depart from the preferences of the most activated members
Speaker 2: of our new coalition who will absolutely you know, just
Speaker 2: to take an Exampleaul of, please say, well, you know,
Speaker 2: now that we've thought about it, we really don't think
Speaker 2: biological boys belong in girls' sports, full stop, right to
Speaker 2: the intense blowback. We've already seen some of that. Right.
Speaker 2: So you can go down a list of things that
Speaker 2: are making the Democrats less attracted to working class voters
Speaker 2: in a sociocultural sense, and on every one of them.
Speaker 2: It's going to be hard for Democrats to really, I mean,
Speaker 2: Matty Iglazias had a nice sort of praise for this
Speaker 2: the other day. Dog moderation, right, they realized, hey, we
Speaker 2: need more working class voters. We should probably be a
Speaker 2: little bit more moderate. So hey, I'm moderate, I'm for
Speaker 2: the working class, you know, I'm we don't want to
Speaker 2: be weak and woke and alyssa Slutkin's terminology, right, But
Speaker 2: they don't change their positions. It's still exactly the same positions.
Speaker 2: So really they're just trying to you know, people who
Speaker 2: are like hip that are following things understand. Oh, I
Speaker 2: guess that's what they mean when they say, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm moderate, but the ordinary voter doesn't know that. All
Speaker 2: they know is Democrats still send for X, Y and Z.
Speaker 1: So that it's interesting, right the way I was just
Speaker 1: listening to you say that, and I'm thinking of and
Speaker 1: now I understand it only makes it clear why House
Speaker 1: Republicans are having such a hard time writing legislation, because
Speaker 1: you've got elected Republicans who, in their minds were elected
Speaker 1: by one type of voter. But you have this sort
Speaker 1: of this sort of you know, Josh Holly Go realizing
Speaker 1: he knows who his voters are, now going, hey, I
Speaker 1: can't we can't get rid of this government benefit. This
Speaker 1: is our constituents, this is this is who makes up
Speaker 1: my coalitions. Hands off, mad a kay baby, right, So
Speaker 1: it is it is And yet you know, so it's
Speaker 1: funny to me both parties have this fragility to them
Speaker 1: because they're both dealing with new right. Democrats are struggling
Speaker 1: with trying they don't know how to how to talk
Speaker 1: to working class, even though that was sort of the
Speaker 1: roots of the party. Meanwhile, the Republicans don't know how
Speaker 1: to govern for them. Yet.
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right, and I think that's one
Speaker 2: reason why that's, in a very abbreviated way, the thesis
Speaker 2: of report I did with you A. Leavin my colleague
Speaker 2: at AI we called politics for that learners, which is
Speaker 2: basically how neither party wants to maybe isn't even capable
Speaker 2: of forming a dominant majority coalition because they're so caught,
Speaker 2: you know, betwixt in between in terms of new and
Speaker 2: old parts of their coalition, and they don't really have
Speaker 2: a strategy on how to change them, how to actually
Speaker 2: grow their coalition ones they're actually in office. And what
Speaker 2: Trump's doing is a perfect example of this. I mean,
Speaker 2: he came into office with writing, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of popular sentiment that was in favor of some of
Speaker 2: the things he said he stood for in terms of immigration,
Speaker 2: or terms of the economy, in terms of the eye whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean, in every single place, he's just gone a
Speaker 2: lot farther than I mean, people believe the government bureaucrats,
Speaker 2: a lot of them are you know, just throw him
Speaker 2: over the side. But the way he did it was
Speaker 2: like so scary to people that he probably on net
Speaker 2: lost more people than he gained. And the whole tariffs
Speaker 2: thing is like bizarre. People aren't opposed to the idea
Speaker 2: we should have like tariffs on China, or we need
Speaker 2: to reset the American global trading relationships. But the way
Speaker 2: it's been proceeded is so arbitrary and so hard to
Speaker 2: sort of sauce out what's really going on and figure
Speaker 2: out what the effects are going to be on me,
Speaker 2: the working class voter. That again, I think he's scaring
Speaker 2: more people than he's he's waiting over. That's why add
Speaker 2: one thing, Chuck, and that's why the one thing that
Speaker 2: actually we shouldn't be surprised as approved ratings have gone down,
Speaker 2: we should be surprised it's still forty six percent, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, despite all this Michig gos, you know, Trump
Speaker 2: still is, you know, remarkably like it bet I happened.
Speaker 1: I wonder if because of our polarization, just there's low
Speaker 1: you know, high floors and low ceilings right for these
Speaker 1: days that.
Speaker 2: They are and I think the floors are getting higher
Speaker 2: in the ceilings to getting lower. I think that's part
Speaker 2: of what it's about.
Speaker 1: Right, So there definitely is. But you know, it's funny
Speaker 1: about Trump two when you look at the polling, it
Speaker 1: is what you're describing as I say, they're not upset
Speaker 1: about the goals, are upset about the execution. Right. This
Speaker 1: is a competency problem that he has not necessarily an
Speaker 1: issue problem, because how do you know it, The Democratic
Speaker 1: numbers haven't improved. If anything, they've gotten worse right the brand.
Speaker 1: As far as what the country thinks of the Democrats,
Speaker 1: it's not a seesaw. Right, we didn't. We're not seeing
Speaker 1: a recovery the way you did in Trump One point
Speaker 1: out right, Democratic numbers actually invest right.
Speaker 2: By this time and the Trump's first term, he was
Speaker 2: Democrats were in significantly difforshaking. But I think they were
Speaker 2: leading on seven eight points on the junior or congressional
Speaker 2: and now it's about two points. So obviously things are
Speaker 2: moving in their direction. But it's not this kind of
Speaker 2: rubber band snapping back.
Speaker 1: It's not a seesaw. So you know, I wrote a
Speaker 1: piece last week about I'm obsessed with what's happened with
Speaker 1: the Tories in the UK. I mean, I know, I
Speaker 1: know that we it. Look, I do believe if either
Speaker 1: of the Dems or the Republicans, if we had, if
Speaker 1: we had, if they didn't have the duopoly on ballot access,
Speaker 1: I think one or both of these parties would have
Speaker 1: collapsed a while ago and be replaced by something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if structurally because of the dominance of ballot access. Right.
Speaker 1: For instance, I interviewed Rob sand who's running for governor
Speaker 1: of Iowa, and I asked, why are you running as
Speaker 1: a Democrat, And he says, because there's no viable option
Speaker 1: if you're not going to run as a Republican. He said,
Speaker 1: you can't. It's harder to get on the ballot as
Speaker 1: an independent. It's you can't vote in primaries that way.
Speaker 1: You know. He didn't sit here and say because I'm
Speaker 1: a Democrat, Okay, he was the Democratic right, No, he
Speaker 1: didn't do that. He was basically saying, yeah, I have
Speaker 1: no other choice. I wish there were another choice. How
Speaker 1: fragile do you think these parties are? And I mean
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm looking at you know, I sit here.
Speaker 1: I want the Israel's Labor Party is never recovered. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the Tories are going to recover here.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just you know, it's it's just astonishing
Speaker 1: what happened there. But this is this does happen in
Speaker 1: Western democracies where a major party loses multiple elections in
Speaker 1: a row, or even if they don't lose multiple in
Speaker 1: a row, they disappoint like I mean, creating a socialist
Speaker 1: part right total and I guess which to me, both
Speaker 1: parties are more vulnerable to this if there was a
Speaker 1: viable alternative. I always said we're never going to have
Speaker 1: a third a successful long term third party, But I
Speaker 1: buy the idea that we could have a third party
Speaker 1: that replaced one of the two major parties, just like
Speaker 1: we did with the Republicans in the Wigs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't rule it out. I mean, obviously in
Speaker 2: what you're alluding to in terms of the fundamental structural
Speaker 2: problem of standing up and keeping a third party around
Speaker 2: for the length of time, it's pretty hard. So ideally, yes,
Speaker 2: you do want to essentially start big and then basically
Speaker 2: push one of the major parties out the door. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's still a duopoly, just we have some different parties.
Speaker 1: I mean that Farage is doing that right now with
Speaker 1: the Tories. Essentially we're pushing them out the door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's a little too
Speaker 2: early to say that it's a done deal, but it
Speaker 2: is remarkable how things have progressed, and it actually shows
Speaker 2: I think you know what's going on with center lab
Speaker 2: parties too, because it's really bizarre what's happened to the
Speaker 2: Labor Party. That's a good example of get into office
Speaker 2: because people hate the other parties and you you know,
Speaker 2: you think you have a mandate, but really, you know,
Speaker 2: basically people don't even like the Labor Party, right. They
Speaker 2: have a bunch of positions and doing a bunch of
Speaker 2: things people like, they no clue what to do with
Speaker 2: the economy. They have this whole crazy ad Milivan renew
Speaker 2: deal type stuff. Their social positions are still considerably till
Speaker 2: the lap of the media and British voter and people
Speaker 2: don't like them, you know. So they're already like plunging
Speaker 2: in the polls, and you know, the Tories are sort
Speaker 2: of falling up parties you pointed out, and so reform
Speaker 2: is just rocketing upward. You look at a lot of
Speaker 2: these constituencies where they had the local elections just recently
Speaker 2: and according to estimates we are done based on that,
Speaker 2: if they held an election for MP's today at Milivan,
Speaker 2: lose a seat, right, I mean, crazy stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So something's really going on there, and I think what
Speaker 2: it shows is that across the Western world people think
Speaker 2: the major traditional parties are broken. The system's broken. The
Speaker 2: economic outputs are broken, the social contract is broken, the
Speaker 2: culture's broken, and they're looking for something that would make
Speaker 2: them feel at least a little bit of different, a
Speaker 2: little bit of hope, and they're not seeing it. And
Speaker 2: this is part of the Democrats problem at this point. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Trump's disappointing a lot of people, obviously seems a little crazy,
Speaker 2: and people certainly wonder what's going to happen with the economy.
Speaker 2: But then they look at the Democrats and say, what
Speaker 2: are you kidding me? Why should I vote with these guys?
Speaker 2: They're no different than they were, you know during the
Speaker 2: Biden administration. I mean, I wrote a piece the other day, Chuck,
Speaker 2: I know if you saw it called Democrats fork in
Speaker 2: the Road, party of restoration or Party of Change, and
Speaker 2: I think they're basically, as far as voters are concerned now,
Speaker 2: they look like the Party of Restoration. They're basically not
Speaker 2: offering anything different than what they did before. They're not
Speaker 2: changing their positions. They don't look like any better bet
Speaker 2: than they did previously. Whereas voters are thirsty for change,
Speaker 2: they may not know exactly what that change should be.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of like like our I'll know what
Speaker 2: when I see it, and you know, Bencrust don't even
Speaker 2: seem to be speaking to that. They're just like Trump
Speaker 2: is you know, the fascist, you know, hound in the
Speaker 2: White House, and is is satanic Party are about to
Speaker 2: destroy the world and the United States and everything else,
Speaker 2: and so you should vote for us because we're like,
Speaker 2: you know, we're different. I don't be that's enough anymore.
Speaker 1: Take me back to nineteen eighty nine, because to me,
Speaker 1: the closest parallel for the Democratic Party to right now
Speaker 1: is nineteen eighty nine. Get clobberd in a presidential that
Speaker 1: they three straight to win resident right, and it was
Speaker 1: three straight, just like you know, and you know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: The three nominees before Bill Clinton were Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale,
Speaker 1: and Michael Ducacas. And I think about the last three
Speaker 1: Democratic nominees, right, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and
Speaker 1: they and they to me, they look a little bit
Speaker 1: like those other three, right where you're just like they're
Speaker 1: they're they're they're at the it was end stage of
Speaker 1: that era of that party. And now we know that
Speaker 1: was end stage at the time.
Speaker 2: The Democrats got at the end of the beginning or
Speaker 2: the beginning of the end.
Speaker 1: Well, that's my question. What Look, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: book that I usually I love to rail on that
Speaker 1: was written back then because as a college student I
Speaker 1: was I was just as curious about what's going on
Speaker 1: with the Democrats. And I remember a book written by
Speaker 1: a guy named Peter Brown that said, where the Demo
Speaker 1: the Democrats arena become the permanent minority party.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know that guy.
Speaker 1: I remember Peter And and of course that guy was
Speaker 1: so precient that by nineteen ninety two, oops, right, it
Speaker 1: was wrong. But you know, so in his defense, you know,
Speaker 1: you know it. You know, the Democratic presidentiucated it didn't
Speaker 1: win fifty percent until two thousand and eight, right, Like,
Speaker 1: So it's not as if he wasn't wrong that, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is a shrinking coalition. It just turned out the
Speaker 1: Republicans were shrinking faster, right, and that there was that
Speaker 1: it was sort of happening on both sides. What should
Speaker 1: be some lessons that Democrats ought to take from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine and nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety one, because
Speaker 1: it seems to me they're you know, if I if
Speaker 1: I were them, i'd be looking at that period, going
Speaker 1: what what What helped the party get out of that
Speaker 1: funk during that period?
Speaker 2: Well, I think we should never underestimate the good offices
Speaker 2: of the Democratic Leadership Council and the people associated with it.
Speaker 2: I mean, they really did form a group that spearheaded,
Speaker 2: you know, the concept Democrats' brand was fundamentally flawng Of course,
Speaker 2: there was a great golfston in Kmart piece of politics
Speaker 2: Inervation in nineteen eighty nine which basically said Democrats are
Speaker 2: kidding themselves. You know, they're not going to be saved
Speaker 2: by you know, economics, by the congressional bastion, by whatever.
Speaker 2: You really voters don't trust you in a B and C,
Speaker 2: and you really must change. You have to be a
Speaker 2: different kind of Democrat, and you have to signal that
Speaker 2: very clearly, right, And I think that is to some
Speaker 2: extent the difference between then and now. Well there're two differences.
Speaker 2: So get to the second one and in a second.
Speaker 2: But the first one is, I don't think the appetite,
Speaker 2: there's no there's no group out there, there's no it's
Speaker 2: not really that, there's not really a momentum behind the idea.
Speaker 2: We have to be different Democrats haven't lost. Democrat could
Speaker 2: be right, I mean, all I just.
Speaker 1: Got killed and four hundred electoral votes right, and that
Speaker 1: was much closer right. And I can tell you I've
Speaker 1: heard from plenty of Democrats to say, you know, butt
Speaker 1: for but four, but four right.
Speaker 2: She'd been able to enter the race earlier. They've been
Speaker 2: an open price. I'm mary if there's been better messaging
Speaker 2: at the end of the campaign.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, goes and if right, you know, we
Speaker 1: could we could play that game until until we're blue
Speaker 1: in the face. But you know, it's funny. I remember
Speaker 1: doing a story about polarization in Wisconsin and Tommy Thompson
Speaker 1: saying to me, well, the problem is neither party loses
Speaker 1: by enough to change, meaning like when you only lose
Speaker 1: by a point or two, all you think about is, oh, geez,
Speaker 1: if I had raised this much more money, ran one
Speaker 1: more ad, got in one week earlier. Whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you don't believe, you believe your product's good enough. All
Speaker 1: you got to do is change.
Speaker 2: Both parties believe they're I mean, and whatever the the
Speaker 2: out party, they believe they're inches away when becoming the
Speaker 2: in party again, and maybe in a big way. So
Speaker 2: the incentives to change aren't high. So I think that's
Speaker 2: why sort of the revealed preference of Democrats at this
Speaker 2: point is to be the party of restoration rather than
Speaker 2: the party of change, because that's the easy way. You
Speaker 2: don't have the signal to It.
Speaker 1: Worked the first time, right up one point zero, I
Speaker 1: think in there mind at work.
Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, but this time there may not be
Speaker 2: a COVID pandemic and all this kind of stuff. Plus,
Speaker 2: you know, we've had the trumpeon change in politics for
Speaker 2: a while now, and it doesn't look like you know
Speaker 2: that lands the boy. It looks like the populist appetite
Speaker 2: for change, particularly annoyment working class is stronger, if anything,
Speaker 2: than it was before. So yeah, I think they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're obvious. They are trying to rerun the same playbook,
Speaker 2: and I think it's less significantly less likely to work.
Speaker 2: But the second thing I was going to mention Schuck,
Speaker 2: besides the fact they don't see the momentum there or
Speaker 2: you know, we have to establish we're a different kind
Speaker 2: of democrat, new democrat, whatever the phrase you want to
Speaker 2: we have to be really different. So the appetite isn't
Speaker 2: there for that yet. For a lot of the reasons
Speaker 2: we've been going over. The second thing, though, is if
Speaker 2: you look at the DLC and its origins and how
Speaker 2: it developed as much influence as it did, it had
Speaker 2: a lot to do with the structure of the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party at the time and what the Congressional caucus was like.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of moderates in the Midwest and
Speaker 2: the South whore like shaping at the bid to do
Speaker 2: something like this, right because you know, they knew that
Speaker 2: things were not going well in their areas and they
Speaker 2: just right, yah, yeah, yeah, you had you had a
Speaker 2: different kind of party where that kind of moderation and
Speaker 2: that kind of tendedness to to the working class voter
Speaker 2: or the median voter was was just much higher and
Speaker 2: there wasn't. But I think throughout the Democratic Party now, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it's much more uniform, much more homogeneous in
Speaker 2: terms of ideology, and much more hostile to the idea
Speaker 2: that Democrats really need to change any of what they
Speaker 2: stand for to make progress, right. I think that's a
Speaker 2: much easier sell. And there was a political base within
Speaker 2: the party back in the eighty quarter eighty eight period
Speaker 2: that just I don't think there's an analog to today.
Speaker 1: You know, I think about what's happening. You got one
Speaker 1: of the leading members of the Democratic Party, were the
Speaker 1: mayor of Detroit, deciding he's going to run for governors
Speaker 1: independent because he takes he's cut he can. He may
Speaker 1: be making primary calculating, there's a lot of calculations he
Speaker 1: may be making, But to me, it says something that
Speaker 1: he feels as if he can govern better, if he
Speaker 1: can govern as an independent. The leader of Democrats in
Speaker 1: the state Senate in Florida decides to leave the party
Speaker 1: again to run for government. And again, I you know, there's.
Speaker 3: Always there's always a there's always some story behind the
Speaker 3: scenes that's usually personal and all that stuff in these moves,
Speaker 3: and yet the big picture, they both make sense to me.
Speaker 1: Right, the Democratic brand is broken in Florida. It's not
Speaker 1: as if people love the Republicans. It's this literally there
Speaker 1: is the Democratic alternative is just unacceptable. So if you're
Speaker 1: going to create an alternative, you're going to have to
Speaker 1: start something new.
Speaker 2: So if that's the joint something right, If that's.
Speaker 1: The way you Florida Democrats feel, what do you do
Speaker 1: if you're at the DNC right now, how do you
Speaker 1: sort of of you know, or do you think the
Speaker 1: problem is the leadership doesn't see the problem.
Speaker 2: I don't think they see the problem. I think it's
Speaker 2: pretty obvious from the way Ken Martin ran for chair
Speaker 2: and all the Michigs around that that series of election.
Speaker 2: Of course they just threw out David Hawk. I mean,
Speaker 2: the DNC does not have feel doesn't have an understanding,
Speaker 2: nor they wish to try to, and they have limited
Speaker 2: power to push the Democrats in a direction that would
Speaker 2: be ostentatiously moderate different kind of democrat. As Ken Lartin
Speaker 2: famously put it, there's nothing wrong with in our message
Speaker 2: or whatever, we just didn't deliver it well. I mean,
Speaker 2: you believe.
Speaker 1: That always funny. I rarely meet a politician who doesn't
Speaker 1: believe they have a communications problem, right, so you never
Speaker 1: actually think they have an issue.
Speaker 2: It's all comms problems. And until and unless democratic entities
Speaker 2: like that start realizing it's not just a mat it's
Speaker 2: not just a comms problem. Pople don't like us. They
Speaker 2: don't like what we stand for, they don't like a
Speaker 2: lot of our positions they associate with us. They don't
Speaker 2: believe we're going to bring change. So we have to
Speaker 2: really change that. We can't just stick with our message
Speaker 2: and the way we are and maybe go on more
Speaker 2: Fox News more often, you know, or talk to Joe Rogan.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is like classic calm strategy. Oh the
Speaker 2: problem is we just didn't You didn't go out broadly
Speaker 2: enough to talk to the masses of honest workers and
Speaker 2: peasants about our great ideas. What if they don't think
Speaker 2: your ideas are so great?
Speaker 1: That isn't there a lesson to be learned? Isn't there
Speaker 1: a lesson to be learned here from Trump? In this way,
Speaker 1: Trump realized that the Republican Party was unpopular, and he
Speaker 1: looked at two of the issues that made the Republican
Speaker 1: Party untrustworthy and unpopular over the last twenty years, Iraq
Speaker 1: war and trying to try and do trim entitlements and
Speaker 1: what did he say, that's stupid idea.
Speaker 2: I don't don't forget trade.
Speaker 1: And on trade, the sort of three issues where he
Speaker 1: went against his own run against the Republican Party, and
Speaker 1: he did it in a primary sort of did it
Speaker 1: in bullying ways. He trashed Bush and I remember when
Speaker 1: he first did it, you thought, should you do that
Speaker 1: in a Republican primary, Right, it seemed really risky. In hindsight,
Speaker 1: it seems genius right now, Right, it would be like
Speaker 1: a Democrat running in a Democratic primary just trashing you know,
Speaker 1: Biden and Clinton and it it might work. But I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a Democrat out there that's willing
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: It yet, right, I think I think that's that's the problem.
Speaker 2: It does seem like an obvious opening for some political entrepreneur,
Speaker 2: But does anyone have the guts to do it? I mean,
Speaker 2: we have the acknowledge I think at this point, Chuck,
Speaker 2: that Trump is like the towering political figure of the
Speaker 2: twenty first century in America. I mean he is, you know,
Speaker 2: if not a genius, there's something about him that's just
Speaker 2: quite remarkable. I mean, he really has trends. He's resilient
Speaker 2: Erican political landscape, and he's transformed the Republican Party. He's
Speaker 2: transformed an entire political party. And as you will say,
Speaker 2: he leveraged that by taking by becoming a different kind
Speaker 2: of Republican. And who are the Democrats change their brand?
Speaker 2: He changed their completely changed their brand. Right, who's the
Speaker 2: who's the brand changer out there among potential.
Speaker 1: That's my question to you.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't see anybody. I mean, you can
Speaker 2: look at people who are somewhat sensible at times, like
Speaker 2: Josh Shapira or whatever, and you realize her being extremely
Speaker 2: cautious about what they say and how they say it,
Speaker 2: and are just uncleared. Look at a list of slutkin right.
Speaker 2: I mean, she said, we don't want to be weak
Speaker 2: and woke. But okay, okay, what is your brand? Then?
Speaker 2: What do you you stand for? Nobody wants to go there,
Speaker 2: and maybe somebody will, but it's not It doesn't fill
Speaker 2: me with optimism that nobody so far is really saying
Speaker 2: anything that looks very much like that. And you could
Speaker 2: actually add to that, let's let's factor in the probability
Speaker 2: that the Democrats retake the House in twenty six.
Speaker 1: Oh, they'll learn the wrong lessons from that, right.
Speaker 2: And maybe they pick up a you know, maybe they
Speaker 2: won't take the Senate, but they do better than expected.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, fine, everything's great, you know, on to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight. So I think that's going to be
Speaker 2: a problem.
Speaker 1: You could picture what do you make of what Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsom's trying to do?
Speaker 2: Well? Gavin, he gives opportunism a bad name. Well, I'll say,
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of admire that.
Speaker 1: He's at least reacting to the data he's seeing. That's
Speaker 1: the way I look at it. Not skeptical, but he's like, well.
Speaker 2: He's very smart. He's very smart, and I think he's
Speaker 2: doing exactly the right thing to kind of try to
Speaker 2: resuscitate his chances as a national politician. Personally, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's going to work. There's too much backstory there.
Speaker 2: California is too much of a frigging mess. They're going
Speaker 2: to hit eight dollars.
Speaker 1: The former mayor of San Francisco is never going to
Speaker 1: be elected president in that state.
Speaker 2: By breath on that one. But I think it's it's
Speaker 2: interesting what he's what he's doing. Maybe he'll be content
Speaker 2: to just be, you know, a sort of a gadfly
Speaker 2: in the Democratic Party and we don't forget about trying
Speaker 2: to be president. Maybe he's sincerely convinced they're going down
Speaker 2: the wrong path and he's going to the Democrats.
Speaker 1: He looks a little that's the Jerry Brown. The irony
Speaker 1: is that that's the Jerry Brown path right right, And
Speaker 1: maybe that is Kevin is slowly finding himself walking in
Speaker 1: those shoes.
Speaker 2: Serve the people, save the planet, and explore the universe.
Speaker 2: Let's just yeah, you know, let's do it again.
Speaker 1: So let's get down to more brass tacks, meaning the
Speaker 1: party needs to find a Bill Clinton or Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: needs to a Bill Clinton needs to show up and
Speaker 1: be willing to do this. I looked at the governors
Speaker 1: and while the first governor that people want to throw
Speaker 1: at me is usually Andy Basheer, and I'm like, I've
Speaker 1: on paper, it makes sense to me. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: he's a political athlete. We'll but but I'm somewhat skeptical there.
Speaker 1: But ideologically he may he may feel like the right answer.
Speaker 1: But I'm with these other governors, and the only one
Speaker 1: that seems to be comfortable challenging the status quo in
Speaker 1: the party besides Gavin for his own is Jared Poulis.
Speaker 2: Yeah bring yeah, and and but how Nancy willing to
Speaker 2: challenge the status go It's also Jazzi libertarian kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: He's more of an ununitarian right.
Speaker 2: But in terms of the other issues that have been
Speaker 2: demo the Democrats, he is, Yeah, he doesn't want to
Speaker 2: go here's the party line guy. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know either, but he seems to be one
Speaker 1: at least that isn't cookie cutter. Right. You look at
Speaker 1: all these other Democratic governors and they all feel like
Speaker 1: they're operating between lines here where Bill Glinton was picking
Speaker 1: fights with Jesse Jackson. Yeah, yeah, that's what he was doing,
Speaker 1: and Ron Brown and Jesse Jackson, he was picking those
Speaker 1: fights in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: I'd apply that template to like Josh Shapiro, I stick.
Speaker 2: I think is interesting. He's clearly working within those lines.
Speaker 2: You know, he's kind of gone right up to the edge,
Speaker 2: but not go over. He's not going to pick fights.
Speaker 2: He's just not And maybe it's just per personality.
Speaker 1: Then I don't know, right, Well, uh, it's interesting. Barack
Speaker 1: Obama was very cautious but knew at least when to
Speaker 1: pick a fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, he was another political athlete that Democrats don't
Speaker 2: seem to have much of these days. Right. And also
Speaker 2: he was.
Speaker 1: Let let me comp to something. If you were to
Speaker 1: let's we're we're sitting here searching for people. But if
Speaker 1: you can't serve for people, you try to change the process.
Speaker 1: How what's what states should the party be working hardest?
Speaker 1: In to try to you know, there's the mindset of
Speaker 1: just figure out how to deal with the seven states
Speaker 1: that decide this election, or start thinking about where's the
Speaker 1: demographic headed in in the decade of the twenty thirties
Speaker 1: and start worrying about that. What would you be advising
Speaker 1: Democratic Party operatives to be focusing their efforts when it
Speaker 1: comes to which states to be targeting, which constituency groups,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 2: Barbick Texas is kind of an interesting example because that
Speaker 2: was always a great blue whale for the Democrats. It's
Speaker 2: clearly slipping out of reach. And why is it slipping
Speaker 2: out of reach? Because they're basically losing altitude among the
Speaker 2: group that they thought would you know, in the end
Speaker 2: turn Texas towards the Democrats, which is the Hispanic vote, right,
Speaker 2: So you need to figure out why is there, you know,
Speaker 2: and what can we do about it? And if you
Speaker 2: can't start appealing to these Hispanic working class voters in
Speaker 2: a place like Texas, your whole political, long term political
Speaker 2: strategy starts to fall apart. So, I mean, that's not
Speaker 2: the only state you want to work in, but it
Speaker 2: would be an interesting example of a state where you
Speaker 2: should really take seriously that you know, you should be
Speaker 2: more companited there. And there's a variety of other states
Speaker 2: where I mean, you could argue that pick a red
Speaker 2: state at random, where the you know, purple purple, and then
Speaker 2: red state where Democrats don't have a prayer of electing
Speaker 2: a senator, right, you know, pick out one or two
Speaker 2: of those and figure out, well, how can we crack
Speaker 2: this case, because if we can't crack that case, we're
Speaker 2: never taken back to the Senate. It's not it to me.
Speaker 1: Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, those were you know, shooting Nebraska and
Speaker 1: Iowa provided two or three Democratic senators my whole life
Speaker 1: up until the last uh right enders.
Speaker 2: Working in those states. Basically you're talking about finding you
Speaker 2: much better among the white working class because that's the
Speaker 2: only way you're probably going to be able to elect
Speaker 2: senators there. But in Texas it would be more like
Speaker 2: the Hispanic work. So you put those two together, and
Speaker 2: I think those are that's a basket of targets you
Speaker 2: could start working harder on. But if yeah, if you
Speaker 2: just stick to the big seven so called I think
Speaker 2: that's you're just working at the margins. I don't think
Speaker 2: it really focuses your attention on the things, the big
Speaker 2: things that need to be sold. You're just looking, oh,
Speaker 2: we just we just make a marginal improvement here or there,
Speaker 2: and you know, we're back in the game.
Speaker 1: I've contended that one of the bigger mistakes Democrats are
Speaker 1: making is walking away from Iowa as a presidential selection state,
Speaker 1: because I think Iowa at a minimum forced party operatives
Speaker 1: to at least learn how to talk to working class
Speaker 1: white people.
Speaker 2: I agree, agree, yeah, I mean, I mean, people forget
Speaker 2: it wasn't that long ago when Democratic presidential candidates used
Speaker 2: to carry the wide working class. I mean, wasn't that well,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean the big spike was in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: but they were losing it even before then. But it
Speaker 2: was just there was all these like what we now
Speaker 2: think of is pretty red Midwestern states where Democrats regularly
Speaker 2: with carry the white working class at league just by
Speaker 2: a little bit. And because they're getting hammered so badly
Speaker 2: among that demographic from those states where the ruins so large,
Speaker 2: they don't have a lot of chance, and of course,
Speaker 2: you know, you try to make that up and into
Speaker 2: some extent they have a white college educated voters. I
Speaker 2: mean that's I mean, why are the Democrats even competitive
Speaker 2: and wisconsints because of white college impicated voters. That's really
Speaker 2: that's really it.
Speaker 1: What why do you think the Wisconsin has stayed more
Speaker 1: competitive than Iowa or the Dakota's.
Speaker 2: Well a, there's more white college educated voters, but I
Speaker 2: mean it's just a mix of that thing, right, They're
Speaker 2: just more of them, and they moved pretty sharply in
Speaker 2: the Democrats direction. The second thing is that there's more
Speaker 2: than some of these other states, only more than Iowa.
Speaker 2: I think there's kind of a residual populous working class.
Speaker 2: You know, I remember the Democrats, they weren't so bad,
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of populist economic edge, which I
Speaker 2: think still helps them. But I think logically that edge
Speaker 2: is going to decline election over election because some of
Speaker 2: its generational, and it's probably going to get win. Its
Speaker 2: recently going to go away. So you know, they need
Speaker 2: a different formula to reach the newer working class voters.
Speaker 2: And obviously it's fool's gold to rely on how well
Speaker 2: they're doing them quite college voters, because it's just not enough.
Speaker 2: We're always going to be in a nice edge, and
Speaker 2: if you want to actually have a solid not just
Speaker 2: sort of for it for a US, not just like
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty chance. If you want, like to regularly
Speaker 2: win Wisconsin, then I think you have to take seriously,
Speaker 2: I do you do much better among white working class voters.
Speaker 2: Forget about the white college voters. I got to vote
Speaker 2: for you in I think, and you've got to get
Speaker 2: out the black I mean, look a look at what's
Speaker 2: happening with the non white working class vote, and a
Speaker 2: lot of states like Wisconsin just to show up. It's
Speaker 2: just not showing up. They don't like the Democrats, they
Speaker 2: don't care about them. You know, there's increasing Hispanic presence
Speaker 2: in some of these states too, But it is remarkable
Speaker 2: how unenthusiastic black working classes.
Speaker 1: What did you make of the fact, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the other weird ways that Democratic strategists are trying
Speaker 1: to take they look at the twenty twenty four result
Speaker 1: and think, well, it's where we campaigned we did well,
Speaker 1: and where we didn't we didn't. Meaning what do you
Speaker 1: think of the fact that Illinois and New Jersey right
Speaker 1: were four and five point presidential states? But which if
Speaker 1: I had told you that in isolation, then that would
Speaker 1: have probably made you think, oh, well, then Trump must
Speaker 1: have won Michigan by ten but he didn't run, right,
Speaker 1: So what do you make of the fact that wherever
Speaker 1: Democrats didn't campaign, they did worse and at least did
Speaker 1: their seven states they held there they basically were that
Speaker 1: What does that tell you?
Speaker 2: I think the top of mind reaction to the parties
Speaker 2: at this point is not good for the Democrats. And yeah,
Speaker 2: campaigning matters. You pour enough money into a given state,
Speaker 2: you probably moved a needle somewhat. But it just shows
Speaker 2: that the baseline party preference in a lot of these
Speaker 2: states is turning against you. Right, you don't campaign in Illinois. Uh,
Speaker 2: and that's what winds up happening. I mean that should
Speaker 2: tell you something, Right, there's a lot of voters out
Speaker 2: there who will show up in a presidential year without
Speaker 2: too much feeding them over the head, and they don't
Speaker 2: like you very much. So because you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: the issue really, I suppose how do you interpret this
Speaker 2: matter of persuasion or mobilization. We spend more money, we
Speaker 2: mobilize more of our people. We spend more money, we
Speaker 2: actually like move some of the people who otherwise saying
Speaker 2: why not give Trump a chance? We actually managed to
Speaker 2: persuade some of those people not to vote to vote
Speaker 2: for Harris. It's not a solvable problem. I mean, we
Speaker 2: I think the data suggests that, you know, the specifisticated
Speaker 2: analyses overall, at least the tribute three quarters of the
Speaker 2: change to persuasion and one quarter to mobilization in this election.
Speaker 2: But it would depend obviously on the state. But I
Speaker 2: would not say it it's a I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: you could infer from that, well, if we campaign hard
Speaker 2: enough everywhere, you know, and we if we did so
Speaker 2: much better and swing state X as we can't paint
Speaker 2: hard and spend a lot of money as opposed to
Speaker 2: an Illinois California, and that just means we spent even
Speaker 2: more money, and those swing states will do you even better.
Speaker 2: And you know, we don't even need to worry about
Speaker 2: the fact that we're losing ground and urban areas in
Speaker 2: New Jersey and Illinois and so on among nonway working
Speaker 2: class voters. But I think I think that's a temptation
Speaker 2: among some strategists, but I think it would be would
Speaker 2: be wrong. I think they should see it instead as
Speaker 2: part of a general pattern of this realignment we've been
Speaker 2: talking about, which is problematic for the Democrats.
Speaker 1: By the way, in your walk of your in your
Speaker 1: professional circles, have you found the following to be true?
Speaker 1: Because I have, which is, Democratic strategists are to the
Speaker 1: left of their of the mean voter of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: and Republican strategists are to the left of the mean
Speaker 1: voter of the Republican.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, no question about it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a huge problem for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Well document Republican strategists than are swing voters themselves, right,
Speaker 1: so it makes it easier for them to understand what
Speaker 1: would it take for me to find this power?
Speaker 2: Democratic strategists move the Democrats away from the center, Republican
Speaker 2: strategists moving toward the center. I think that's a significant factor.
Speaker 2: I mean, we know it's not just a strategist, it's
Speaker 2: a whole infrastructure of the Democratic Party and of his
Speaker 2: institutions that are associated with the Democratic Party. They're all
Speaker 2: really pretty far to that. As a median voter, particularly
Speaker 2: on top puton issues. So this is uh. And again
Speaker 2: I think there's not an honest attempt to grapple with
Speaker 2: that and make the appropriate corrections.
Speaker 4: Right, No, because you'll look at somebody, you'll look afraid
Speaker 4: of absolutely will. And so I say, I think I
Speaker 4: wrote a piece one saying, you know, Democrats need to
Speaker 4: piss more people off and until they do it.
Speaker 2: Well, that is the elect to learn.
Speaker 1: From Trump, right, that could be one lesson to learn,
Speaker 1: Like you know, and you know, I think about Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton and I go back and forth, and it's like, look,
Speaker 1: he had a lot of flaws and certain things, but
Speaker 1: he knew how to He also knew which fights de
Speaker 1: picked and which fights.
Speaker 2: Not to pick. Yeah, well, back to six Sisters sold John.
Speaker 2: I mean, people strenuously resist the idea of Democrats need
Speaker 2: to do anything like that in the in the next
Speaker 2: period of time. And mind you, they not only need
Speaker 2: to do it, they probably need to have a whole
Speaker 2: series of mini sisters. So quite a few a bunch
Speaker 2: of musicians.
Speaker 1: Let me get you out of here on this topic,
Speaker 1: which is which gets sort of I love the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty foot the two twenty twenty five state wide elections
Speaker 1: this year because in many ways they will show the
Speaker 1: sort of the Democratic parties both new strength, which is
Speaker 1: the educated elites that all live in Virginia. That's probably
Speaker 1: going to make Abigail Spenberger win by a fairly comfortable
Speaker 1: margin's pissed off also probably help her and all of that. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, where they're going to be replaced, and oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, they have there's an incumbent Republican governor
Speaker 1: New Jersey or supposedly reliable blue state. I have a
Speaker 1: few we're going to see a pretty competitive gubernatorial election
Speaker 1: because of what we were just talking about here, which
Speaker 1: is so I guess what would you be looking for
Speaker 1: for the Democrats to tell you in New Jersey, to
Speaker 1: tell you maybe it's not as bad as it looked
Speaker 1: in twenty.
Speaker 2: Four or or you know, in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: In New Jersey, because I feel like New Jersey's I
Speaker 1: think there's going to be more to learn from New
Speaker 1: Jersey about the future of that than there is in Virginia.
Speaker 2: I would look at some of those towns where it'll
Speaker 2: be hard to tell how much of that has turned
Speaker 2: out and how much of it is persuasion. You know,
Speaker 2: you had all these Hispanic heavy towns where there were
Speaker 2: these massive slims or Trump I mean twenty thirty points,
Speaker 2: so you know, look at that and see, I think
Speaker 2: it'll be less, you know, relative to you know, previous patterns.
Speaker 2: But I think that, in other words, I'll probably do
Speaker 2: better in these towns. But how much and what is
Speaker 2: that attributable? Are we really reaching these voters. We're just
Speaker 2: different voters showing up, you know. And I think the
Speaker 2: closer it is, I think the more you'll you'll find
Speaker 2: an influence of the vote in those in those towns, right,
Speaker 2: not in the affluent, college educated suburbs, but more of
Speaker 2: the working class. And I'm frequently a Spanic heavy towns.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm got that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's going to be. It's there's only
Speaker 1: been one poll that showed that one where supposedly Trump
Speaker 1: has a higher approval rating than Governor Murphy, which some
Speaker 1: people might be surprised at. But he is at the
Speaker 1: end of a second term. People wear out, you know,
Speaker 1: and we've seen that there is some shift going on
Speaker 1: in New Jersey that New Jersey seems to be moving
Speaker 1: opposite of the where the rest of their blue state
Speaker 1: colleagues have been going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can look. I'm old enough, Chuck to remember
Speaker 2: when New Jersey was thought of as a swimstay.
Speaker 1: So, you know, Illinois, California, New Jersey, we're all in
Speaker 1: the battleground map in ninety two. All right, and Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton put them all away pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bill, we need you back, Baby, we need you back.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you say that. The Clinton brand it,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny how it goes back and forth.
Speaker 1: Ten years ago. I always thought Hillary Clinton history will
Speaker 1: treat Hillary Clinton kinder than Bill Clinton. But well, if
Speaker 1: I changed my mind on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say, yep, yep, yep Hillary.
Speaker 1: Is Joe Biden going to go down the Carter road
Speaker 1: for the Democrats? Is he going to be the name
Speaker 1: that that does not be spoken at Democratic conventions for
Speaker 1: about a decade.
Speaker 2: I would say, they'll try not to talk about him.
Speaker 2: But the problem is that it's going to be this
Speaker 2: sort of live political issue because people are going to
Speaker 2: keep getting asked about Well, didn't you realize, you know,
Speaker 2: you could barely walk and talk at the same time.
Speaker 2: Weren't you aware of this? If so, why didn't you
Speaker 2: say something? I think that will put pressure on maybe
Speaker 2: someone you you talked about this earlier, to break out
Speaker 2: of the pack and start criticizing.
Speaker 1: There's a developing attempt to do that, right Rocanna Others,
Speaker 1: Yeah I was wrong or clearly we should have done something,
Speaker 1: something should have been said sooner. Whatever it is, you
Speaker 1: think that's going to be enough, or you think you
Speaker 1: have to be even even more.
Speaker 2: I'd say I'd put it in the even more category.
Speaker 1: So that though.
Speaker 2: Well, not only you do know bull throatedly say I
Speaker 2: mean I know, if you're willing to say I knew
Speaker 2: and I just didn't say, I mean, that's that's a
Speaker 2: hard thing to I mean, I lie. So people want
Speaker 2: to avoid saying that, but we can't.
Speaker 1: We say, look, I thought Trump was crazy. I'd rather
Speaker 1: take you know, a guy that might be in a
Speaker 1: wheelchair over Trump.
Speaker 2: Well, that can't say that. But is that how convincing
Speaker 2: is that? If I'm like an ordinary voter, It's like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, you wanted to see now a guy
Speaker 2: in a wheelchair, and you were you were like putting
Speaker 2: your thumb on the scales for that. I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So I don't think that's so convincing. I think you
Speaker 2: might want to twin that. Whatever distance he put on
Speaker 2: the cognitive decline issue with basically being very you know, aggressive,
Speaker 2: if not brutal about some of the mistakes of the
Speaker 2: Vibe administration. It's interesting immigration and some other.
Speaker 1: I think this almost makes Pete Buddha Juju's campaign almost
Speaker 1: impossible to succeed. I think being a Biden cabinet member
Speaker 1: is going to agree, I agree overcome.
Speaker 2: I said that in something I wrote the other day.
Speaker 2: I think Buddha Jad's very smart guy, you know, certainly
Speaker 2: good talker. But yeah, I just think it's like an
Speaker 2: albatross around is not. I don't think people are going
Speaker 2: to i.
Speaker 1: Mean talk about irony for the party. He may be
Speaker 1: their best pure spokesperson.
Speaker 2: Yeah this is, and yet he's got.
Speaker 1: This tarnish to him. And I do think that, I mean,
Speaker 1: you were there, you know, there's no you can't just
Speaker 1: say well, they wouldn't let me see him, which by
Speaker 1: the way, was probably true, right, but that isn't going
Speaker 1: to be an acceptable answer to the point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I toy with the idea, Chuck, that
Speaker 2: we're still not really pricing it how bad this is
Speaker 2: for Democrats, that whole skinned of not being covering up
Speaker 2: basically that this guy was practically not there for the
Speaker 2: chunking this present. That's a big deal. You know, people
Speaker 2: may hate Trump, but you know, people think he's he's
Speaker 2: up to the he's up to the job, whatever job
Speaker 2: he's doing, right, They don't think like, what were you
Speaker 2: guys thinking, you know, for two or three years. I mean,
Speaker 2: I just think it's it's all these books that are
Speaker 2: coming out are just more and more documenting it, and
Speaker 2: it keeps on being a point of discussion and dissection,
Speaker 2: and more will come out about how much people covered up.
Speaker 1: I think though, that what it really does and why
Speaker 1: I think it's more damaging than the party realizes, is
Speaker 1: that it puts an exclamation point on the aging leadership issue.
Speaker 1: That is all. I mean, Nancy Pelosi is still there,
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer is near ab still still taking, still doing
Speaker 1: this stuff, and so so I mean, logically, who does
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer think he is to tell Joe Biden he's
Speaker 1: not he should pass the baton, if he won't pass
Speaker 1: the baton, if Naty Celosi won't walk away. You know,
Speaker 1: this was an entire party that seemed to be more
Speaker 1: concerned about who's in charge rather than whether he.
Speaker 2: Should and it just undercuts any attempt to be the
Speaker 2: party of change.
Speaker 1: And really the thing, well, some Democrats look at you
Speaker 1: and say you're always doom and gloom. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that's not doom and gloom about the party that you
Speaker 1: would highlight.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think that there are some people
Speaker 2: toying with the idea of breaking from the pack, and
Speaker 2: I think there's certainly more of a realization in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of the election that there are fundamental problems with
Speaker 2: the Democrats and their brand that we should try to
Speaker 2: do something about. I don't think there quite know what
Speaker 2: to do, and I don't think they have the guts
Speaker 2: right now to maybe do it, but at least there's
Speaker 2: that realization. The second thing, of course, is Trump. You know, right,
Speaker 2: this is this administration that doesn't know what it's doing.
Speaker 2: They may, in fact, really crash the economy. Voters may
Speaker 2: in fact, you know, be responding to that as late
Speaker 2: as the twenty twenty eight cycles.
Speaker 1: Except that's exactly what UK voters did it Literally, the
Speaker 1: Conservatives had to crash the economy for labor.
Speaker 2: To win, right right, Yeah, So I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: know if they're not happy with labor now for our country,
Speaker 2: but raw political terms for the Democrats, the worse the
Speaker 2: Trump administration is, particularly in economic terms, the better it's
Speaker 2: going to be for them. So that would be hopeful
Speaker 2: for them getting back into power. But I think again,
Speaker 2: from the standpoint of the country and the kind of
Speaker 2: governance we need, I don't think that's what Streame does.
Speaker 1: So I you know, this is why I continue to
Speaker 1: be I continue to assume we're going to have a
Speaker 1: viable independent or third party challenge in twenty eight because
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 2: There's just that there's Okay, let me ask you a question,
Speaker 2: who do you think it would be?
Speaker 1: And that's the issue is that there's no obvious person.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was a Bill mcgraven guy the last cycle.
Speaker 1: I do think a military veteran is the way to go.
Speaker 1: So the and the messaging can't be I'm for something.
Speaker 1: It's these guys are broken. The two parties need to
Speaker 1: time out. Let's let's you know, I'm here to like
Speaker 1: get to solve problems again, right yeah, yeah, sort of.
Speaker 1: You know. I think it's the but the and that
Speaker 1: that's why it feels like a military guy has to
Speaker 1: be that kind of messenger. But there's no obvious person, right,
Speaker 1: there is, you know, And I think the only thing
Speaker 1: I I hold out hope for is that in this
Speaker 1: current way that the media works, you can go from
Speaker 1: nobody to somebody very quickly.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's so that there are there is an opportunity for
Speaker 1: people that we've never talked about right now throughout this nobody.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the next
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee perhaps or the next major player in presidential
Speaker 1: politics and somebody you and I haven't mentioned yet, because
Speaker 1: I think new is going to be one of the
Speaker 1: most important things for any candidate to have come twenty.
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with that. It's it's it's used to
Speaker 2: say a known unknown and we'll see, right.
Speaker 1: Look, I used Pete Buotages as an example, who in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen thought the mayor of South Bend was going
Speaker 1: to be a major player in the Democrat.
Speaker 2: I confess I did not know that, right.
Speaker 1: So, but then again I don't know. Is it the
Speaker 1: mayor of Ralla, Missouri? Right? Is it the mayor of Orum, Utah?
Speaker 1: We'll see.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, let's keep our eyes open.
Speaker 1: Hey, Roy, what are you working on next? You got
Speaker 1: to book a new book in the works.
Speaker 2: I do not have a new block. One thing I'm
Speaker 2: you know people might find interesting is I'm just about
Speaker 2: to put out a report with my friend Bick Kallenberg
Speaker 2: on the legacy of Bobby Kennedy. It's called Bobby Kennedy
Speaker 2: Liberal Patriot. Now what political leader has been learned from
Speaker 2: Bobby Kennedy today? And it's an examination of his career
Speaker 2: and his particular interesting sort of synthesis of liberal and
Speaker 2: conservative politics that appealed to both black and white working
Speaker 2: class voters and is willing you know, so what he
Speaker 2: thought being a Democrat was all about back in the day.
Speaker 2: And I think it's you know, there's a lot there
Speaker 2: for people to think about. He's a potential model for
Speaker 2: a different kind of politics if someone wanted to pursue it.
Speaker 2: So it's a pretty substantial report and that should be
Speaker 2: coming out soon, both covering his career and the relevance
Speaker 2: were to them.
Speaker 1: You know, It's funny that that sixty eight campaign that
Speaker 1: a lot of Democrats almost still see today is that
Speaker 1: he straddled He straddled the model, right. He was straddling
Speaker 1: all the different constituencies, a growing African American constituency, the
Speaker 1: working class that was skeptical of Democrats doing like he
Speaker 1: had straddled this fence. I don't you know, I I
Speaker 1: hear this all the time. Is there something to learn.
Speaker 1: But I you know, I wonder if it just was
Speaker 1: the moment and that moment is gone.
Speaker 2: Well, could be, brother, could be anyway, check out the report.
Speaker 2: See what you think.
Speaker 1: I will gobble it up like everything you write. Okay,
Speaker 1: So there you go, Roy, great to talk with you.
Speaker 2: It's good fun.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. And to pick
Speaker 1: up on this sort of ideological shift that I definitely
Speaker 1: think to share a is advocating. It's worth noting that
Speaker 1: last week this is another trend we saw when you
Speaker 1: have progressive versus I guess call it mainstream pragmatic. However,
Speaker 1: you want to decide on how you want to call
Speaker 1: the non progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Another win
Speaker 1: in a mayor's race, and oh, by the way, it
Speaker 1: also feeds into the progressive incumbent mayor of Pittsburgh loss
Speaker 1: to a more mainstream Democratic candidate, again more pragmatic. I
Speaker 1: know that sounds like I'm endorsing the guy by calling
Speaker 1: you know, if you call somebody pragmatic, that's a net positive.
Speaker 1: But again, the non progressive wing of the party, if
Speaker 1: you will a win there, right, it matches what we
Speaker 1: saw in San Francisco, and we're sort of seeing and
Speaker 1: I think you're going to see this move in the cities.
Speaker 1: Andrew Cuomo is winning not because of his lack of
Speaker 1: who he is, but because he's not a progressive, right
Speaker 1: it's who he isn't And so you're starting to see
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party sort of flex its muscles against progressives
Speaker 1: in the cities. Right city governance, progressive governance definitely is
Speaker 1: become unpopular in major cities, and Democrats are sort of
Speaker 1: self policing here in these primaries. And what we saw
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh, I think is another example of this. One
Speaker 1: other twenty twenty six note that I wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure to flag was I've been spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time telling you about what's going on in that Texas
Speaker 1: Senate race, because that could be the lynchpin of whether
Speaker 1: the Senate map becomes competitive between the two parties. Right,
Speaker 1: if John Cornyn's not the Republican nominee, that changes a
Speaker 1: lot of the calculus about the Republican's ability to hold
Speaker 1: the Senate. Well, I have, for I have sort of
Speaker 1: wondered whether Cornyn would either run as an independent sort
Speaker 1: of do a Lisa Murkowski promised to cauc us with
Speaker 1: the Republicans, but not run in a Republican primary. Well,
Speaker 1: right now, that is not the path he's taking. He
Speaker 1: has hired Chris Losovita. And if you know who Chris
Speaker 1: Losovita is then I don't, then you know this is
Speaker 1: a pretty big deal. Chris Losovita was one of the
Speaker 1: two architects of Trump's successful twenty twenty four campaign. He
Speaker 1: really is a Virginia based operative. He's had a lot
Speaker 1: of success in Virginia. He's lost his share of racist too,
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. He's considered basically a fix it
Speaker 1: campaign guy. You bring in las Avita to fix a campaign,
Speaker 1: to retool a campaign. He's been brought into rescue campaigns
Speaker 1: that were losing. Pat Roberts comes to mind in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: He comes in and within a month was able to
Speaker 1: get the campaign back together. And he's been brought in
Speaker 1: before on reclamation projects and they haven't worked. But lot,
Speaker 1: if I will say this, Ken Paxton has not faced
Speaker 1: the wrath of a really tough political campaign. I promise
Speaker 1: you now, if he can survive a Chris Losovita led
Speaker 1: John Cornyn campaign against Ken Paxton, who's shall we say
Speaker 1: ethically challenged there as the attorney general of the state
Speaker 1: of Texas. If Paxton survives that, then he's likely to
Speaker 1: survive and end up a US senator. But I will
Speaker 1: say this, we are about to see a next level
Speaker 1: of negativity in a Republican primary, the likes of which
Speaker 1: only in Texas would you see something like this, where
Speaker 1: the belief is it's a one party state and therefore
Speaker 1: the primary is everything. I'm not so convinced to that,
Speaker 1: And in fact, one other wildcard in all this could
Speaker 1: be if a third candidate jumps in and we get
Speaker 1: basically two rounds of Paxton v. Cornet, because neither candidate
Speaker 1: can get to fifty percent, and that is another possibility,
Speaker 1: draining the eventual winner of of massive amounts of cash,
Speaker 1: potentially leading if it's a Colin al Read sitting out
Speaker 1: there Democratic nomine running a second time, potentially sitting out
Speaker 1: there as a viable candidate. But the hiring of las
Speaker 1: Aveda by Cornyn. I'm not saying Los A Veta would
Speaker 1: do this, if Trump's wouldn't do this, if Trump said
Speaker 1: don't do it. So my guess is I'm not going
Speaker 1: to sit here. I think knowing Chris the way I
Speaker 1: know him, he might be more inclined to do something
Speaker 1: if Trump told him not to do it, because he's
Speaker 1: kind of that, he is that streak in him. But
Speaker 1: I really don't think if Lasavina knew that Trump was
Speaker 1: against Cornn, I don't know if he does this. And
Speaker 1: I do think Trump's kind of neutral in this race.
Speaker 1: Even though MAGA in Texas may be inclined to be
Speaker 1: more pro paxtant, I don't think Trump himself is as
Speaker 1: pro paxton as perhaps Maga might be. So just something
Speaker 1: to watch for them, all right. I just want to
Speaker 1: have I'm going to do something that my friend Tony
Speaker 1: krn high Or does sometimes, and I want to adopt
Speaker 1: it here. If you're a traffic expert and you live
Speaker 1: in and around Washington, DC, I would love for you
Speaker 1: to write into me and explain to me the decision
Speaker 1: by the district and the Nationals to create new traffic
Speaker 1: patterns to exit Nationals Park. I'm not one hundred percent
Speaker 1: against what they've tried to do. For those of you
Speaker 1: that care, they end up blocking off you can't you
Speaker 1: can't get on three ninety five, just shooting up South
Speaker 1: Capitol Street. If you're on one side of the stadium,
Speaker 1: they sort of force you to go over the Anacostia,
Speaker 1: go around and get on six ninety five to go
Speaker 1: back to three ninety five that way, or you could
Speaker 1: go over the Wilson Bridge. And I know I'm doing
Speaker 1: really hyper local, but that's why I did it. Here
Speaker 1: at the end of the podcast, I know my true
Speaker 1: blue DC folks are listening again in theory, I kind
Speaker 1: of get what you're trying to do with the traffic pattern,
Speaker 1: but there are some fixes that could be done, and
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do it, there's so light cycles when
Speaker 1: you're trying to get on to six ninety five that
Speaker 1: could be improved. I'd love for you to do that,
Speaker 1: but please explain it to me that this is that
Speaker 1: that there is what instigated this decision to try to
Speaker 1: create a brand new traffic pattern in exiting the stadium
Speaker 1: where you cannot use South Capitol Street going towards the city,
Speaker 1: that you can only use South Capital exiting the city
Speaker 1: during NATS games? Are you doing this during DC Defenders games?
Speaker 1: You're going to do this during DC United games?
Speaker 2: Too?
Speaker 1: Again, I got I know, I've got the type of
Speaker 1: listeners that are probably some of you may work in
Speaker 1: the departments that help make these decisions, so explain it
Speaker 1: to me. I'm not I'm not trying to be mister
Speaker 1: outrage guy about this yet. I'm mister annoyed guy about it,
Speaker 1: and i'd love to have. Like I said, I think
Speaker 1: I get what you're trying to do, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to use the power of this podcast listening audience to
Speaker 1: explain it to me, and I will share. I will
Speaker 1: share the answer with those of you that are listening.
Speaker 1: So with that, I hope you enjoy the rest of
Speaker 1: your Memorial Day weekend and I'll see you when I
Speaker 1: upload again in forty eight hours.