Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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Speaker 3 (00:15):
Coverage that is possible.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
If you like what we're all about, it just means
the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
let's get to the show.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
So, there are some very interesting things happening over on
Liberal TikTok that we wanted to update you guys on.
First of all, I'm not really on TikTok, so I
was not aware of any.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Of these phenomena.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
But apparently they are a bunch of astrologers on TikTok
who are very popular, who are very confidently predicting that
Kamala Harris, because of where her sign was in alignment
with whatever who was going to win the presidential election.
And they're having to grapple with that, and people who
believe them are also having to grapple with that. And
apparently a number of these TikTok astrologers are asserting that
(00:57):
actually they were right and the election is not really,
it cannot possibly really be over because it's simply unimaginable
that they read the stars incorrectly.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I'm sad about the election too. What I'm especially said
about is the fact that I can no longer trust
a single TikTok astrologer on this app.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
So thanks.
Speaker 6 (01:19):
I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but
something feels off about this election. How did we raise
over a billion dollars in just four months packed rallies
and they won by a landslide in just a matter
of hours. Also, why is he not on Twitter boasting
and bragging about himself When she had her concession speech,
(01:45):
it felt like we weren't done yet. We still have
some fight, but we're going to fight silently her walk off,
I know that walk off.
Speaker 7 (01:54):
Hm. The fact that almost every which every astrologer, very medium,
every I kick on this app is sort of coming
together right now because of this presidential election is incredibcause
by now we all know that almost everyone who's intuitively
connected in any way woke up between two and four
am morning after the election, and y'all knew something was up.
(02:16):
But at the same time, we all felt a sort
of peace and calmness within.
Speaker 8 (02:21):
Here's the thing, the astrology grillies have not let us
down all year. So while y'all accept these results, while
y'all accept what's on this screen right here, I will
not be counting my chickens before they hatch.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
So that's happening.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I didn't realize, you know, I feel like had more
connectivity to this, like astrology trend on technic.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
No, it's more aware of it.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I mean, I'm a was aware that it was happening.
That doesn't mean I was like watching it. Yeah, there's
a lot of libs. Stop the steal that is currently happening.
Astrology is a big part of it. Another part of
it is this clip that's going viral from Joe Rogan.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Oh well, no before we get to that, because the
Joe Rogan ties into the next clip. But we have
another This is the big libstock, the Steel conspiracy, which
is this one woman who said she works in tech
and her dad called her and she lays out in
a nine minute video that went super viral why she
(03:22):
believes that Elon used starlink to change the results in
key states.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Now I'm gonna be honest with you. I listened to this.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Video and I really did not understand the argument he
was making at all. But let's take a listen to
a little bit of that nine minute video so you
can get a sense of it.
Speaker 9 (03:41):
With that being said, he sent me a video letting
me know that California and other swing states were able
to use starlink in order to tell you up and
to count ballot boats or on voting ballots in their state. Okay,
those systems were connected to the internet. Those machines have
(04:06):
absolutely no problem tallying up votes like they have done
since the beginning of time.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
There's a lot more there that she goes into that
you guys can listen to and assess for yourself. But
part of what this ties into is this Joe Rogan clip.
That's right, because if your theory is Elon was actually
using starlink to control the election results, then you hear
this Joe Rogan clip and it really makes sense to you.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Take a listen.
Speaker 10 (04:32):
It was interesting because at the beginning of the night,
no one knew what was going to happen. So you're
watching the first results roll in and there's like this
weird thing. And then Trump gets way ahead, but you're like,
you don't want to like get too hopeful, Like how
far ahead?
Speaker 5 (04:45):
I head by one hundred points?
Speaker 10 (04:46):
It seems like a lot.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Yeah, and you're like, what is it? And some channels
are like and then every channel is kind of different.
Speaker 10 (04:52):
Yeah, they had different numbers. I was getting a different
number off Apple News Update than I was getting off
of CNN. And then I was texting people like Tulci
and jd Vance, I was getting a different Apparently Elon
created an app and he knew who won four hours
before the results. So as the results were coming in
(05:14):
before four hours before they called it, Dana White told
me Elon was like, I'm leaving it's ova.
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Donald won.
Speaker 11 (05:20):
He just fucking He just fucking somehow or another. I
don't know what he's getting where he's pulling his data from.
But he had like the most accurate data in terms
of the rural states. Hadn't put the results in yet,
but yet Trump was ahead in these states. Combos never
gonna win those states. So tabulated that and put it
(05:43):
all together.
Speaker 10 (05:44):
I don't know how he did it, but Dana to
I don't even I don't even talk to Elon about this.
I don't know like the data translation, but Dana said
he had an app and he was like showing them.
He's like it's OVA.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
He's like it left.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Dude, just left it. John Jones won.
Speaker 11 (06:00):
That.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
He just fucking left.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Uh so there you go, just calling me. Here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Four hours before so the AP called it at I
want to say, what three four am?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Something like that?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Okay, well I was by midnight. If you're watching Breaking
Points where we tell you Trump won.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
The elections, yeah, we were.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
We're going ahead, It's gonna win.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
And we'll come back tomorrow and tell you, like the only.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Question was whether he would, like by what margin he
would win the popular vote.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That was literally the only question at midnight.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
And which and there were certain like sentence seats and stuff.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, that was all.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But obviously that took a while to call. But you know,
by what what time would you say? I was like,
Trump's gonna win ten o'clock. Honestly, that's conservative. I would
take that.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I mean, we really tried to to even as it
became pretty clear the direction that we really tried to be.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Like, okay, but you know, maybe you have to do that.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, you have to be like, yeah, you never know,
you know, it would be something crazy could have in
in Pennsylvania. But probably by by ten o'clock for sure, I.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Was like, I have and don Trump pretty much over.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
It's game over, yeah, especially because by that time Pa
had come in so hard for Trump. And I was like,
and Georgia too, remember, because everyone was like, oh, well
Georgia or still waiting on. But these initial numbers look
really good. So Georgia was the first indication. Then North
Carolina was number two. Because North Carolina, it was like, okay,
well the case for the Kamala landslide was Georgia, North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
None of those panning out. Yeah, And then by ten
o'clock you're like PA's coming in art and that's it.
It's game time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Once once it was like, okay, Georgia, North Carolina are
like this probably is going to Trump, but you know,
maybe there's something different going on in the industrial Midwest.
Then once you see Pennsylvania coming in, it's like, all right,
this is not happening exact, you know. On the other hand,
can I blame these TikTok girlies?
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Not really?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I mean, listen, what did they watch they've watched. Still,
the Republican base still and Donald Trump thinks that he
won the last election and offered evidence equivalent to like
my astrologer said, so, and here's a clip of Joe
Rogan saying something that.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
I find to be nefarious.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
So you know whatever, Libs have their conspiracies too, and
so at some point you know there will be because
I think if you did have some Democratic politician who
is actually willing to indulge this stuff, I think they'd
be hugely popular. I think there's a wide open lane.
(08:16):
I'm not encouraging this. I'm just saying that it's inevitable
that someone is going to take up that market opportunity,
not maybe this time cycle, because they're still very invested
in the like we're the ones that take election results
seriously whatever. But Trump opened Pandora box, Pandora's box to
basically every election, whichever side loses, people are going to
come up with because in every election there's always weird irregularities,
(08:38):
things you can point to and say, well, this doesn't
seem quite right, and what about these vote totals and
that doesn't make sense with last time's election. That's the
other big conspiracy is like that Kamala got some number
fewer votes than Joe Biden, but even that turned out
to not really be because a lot of it was
just California hadn't counted their ballots yet.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Yeah, it was a big part of that is anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So there's a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
This is my point, my only point. I think this
is the new world that we live in. And while
it mostly is on the Republican side at this point,
like it's more prominent and as a percentage of the base,
I think that we're going to see an expansion and
flourishing of the liberal conspiracy as well, especially as liberals
now are also becoming disenchanted. This is a good segway
(09:17):
to our next segment, disenchanted with mainstream media establishment, you know,
institutions as well. You're much more likely to have a
flourishing and embrace of these types of conspiracy on the
liberal side too.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, No, definitely, And I mean, look, it's also been
there for a while. There was Russia Gate, that was
the elite one. That's what they did last time. There
was also in four there was a huge like libs
steel well objection. I'm not saying there was nothing to it,
but I'm just saying R Junior about that.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, you can ask me.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
On Ohio and the voting machines and the Chinese. There's
a whole two thousand and four HBO documentary about it
if you're interested in going to watch. So anyway, it's
been there, it will continue to be there. And yeah,
I'm sure that some politician will take it up, and
they will be I.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Think the difference is it's like really gone mainstream. Oh yeah,
and on the right it's fully made. Obviously Trump still
hasn't concated the last election. On the Democratic side, I
think it also will be beautiful and more mainstream.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I mean, look, it's like Keith Olberman, you need to
release Valve and it will happen. The only question is
when and which character will emerge in this. So, like
you said, we've got media conversation, let's get to that.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So we got a few interesting media shakeout post election
updates for you. Let's put this up on the screen.
So apparently MSNBC, which should very well on election night,
and the clips CNN for the first time ever, now
they have lost half of their viewers compared to this
time last year, she had fifty four percent other viewers.
I believe CNN also completely plummeted after election day. And
(10:57):
you know it's not just this, So you know, part
this is just like liberal depression post Trump.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Getting reelected, Kamal losing.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
This is very normal after election cycles where you know,
the chosen candidate loses, or Fox last time, after twenty
twenty oh, there was a stop. I was going to say,
they suffed significant blow, not only because Trump lost, but
then they didn't really think he lost. And then these
other outlets One American Network and these other places were
willing to fully indulge the conspiracies in a way that Fox.
(11:24):
I mean, they only dabbled in indulging the conspiracies, so
they took a big hit as well. So in certain
ways this is typical, but in other ways I think
it is, it is significant, and it is different in
this sense I referenced in the last block, there's been
a liberal disillusionment with the mainstream press starting. Some of
(11:44):
this is I mean, it's justified, some of their specific
reasoning is not particularly justified. So the original angst and
agitation was around the reporting, the accurate reporting on Joe
Biden's decline. There were a lot of liberals who were
very mad about that. And then there's a whole cottage
industry of liberals who are very upset many times justifiably
(12:05):
so about New York Times headlines and in their worldview,
they feel that these outlets have not been harsh enough
on Donald Trump. Then the Washington Post bezos deciding not
to make an endorsement in this election was really how
many subsidy they lost, like thousand, It was like a
quarter of a million at least that was at that point.
(12:26):
That was like a day or two in of their
paid subscribers. So there has been a real blow to
liberal trust of establishment media organizations. And there have been
some outlets who have been picking up support in the
wake of this loss, for like the more liberal you
(12:47):
know institutions that have been the mainstays. Our friends over
at lever News, they apparently are doing really well.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
We can put this up on the screen d two.
So I talked to David Sirota yesterday.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
And he told me I could share with you that
not only has master Planned their podcast, which you guys
really should listen to, not only has that jumped up
the podcast charts, but they have seen an eleven percent
overall increase in their paid subs in just the past
couple of months, so a huge, huge jump in terms
of their paid subscribers. I talked to Ryan at drop
(13:24):
Site also, he said that they have seen specifically on
the free sub front, they've seen a massive, like multi
thousand person surge in terms of drop site News subscribers.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
And then Nathan J.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Robinson, who is a lefty runs Current Affairs magazine, put
this up on the screen.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
He says they've seen.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
A nine hundred percent increase in the rate of new
Current Affairs subscribers over the last few days. He says,
people know independent left media tells them the truth. Other
outlets delude them and more vital than ever in combating
right wing propaganda. So there's some you know, some interesting
energy that is out there kind of on the left
looking for independent outlets that people feel more effectively report
(14:05):
the news and you know, share their worldview and also
are like with lever News, I mean, these guys are
doing actual journalism. Ryan obviously and Jeremy doing really important
actual journalism over at job site, and it's stuff that
the mainstream press has largely completely ignored, like accountability journalism
and with Ryan and Jerry particular, Big four, big focus
(14:26):
on foreign affairs. So kind of an interesting shift that's
happening there over on the on that side.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I can only hope and look, Rassia Gate saved their
ass last time, because this happened last time around too.
But this time, I don't know, you can tell me psychologically,
it just feels very different.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Oh, last time it was a shock. Trump was a shock.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
If you're too young, I'm not imagine you remember. I
will never forget. So I was up till like three
or four in the morning. Election night, We're working at
the Daily Caller office, went home, grabbed a couple hours
of sleep, got on the metro.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
The next morning, came to work. It was the death.
It was like nine to eleven.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Like that's I wasn't I was too young to remember
what it was like to be an adult, but that's
what I could imagine it was like to have been
around the day.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Afternoon.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, when I was walking through the airport, I had
the same vibe like people were.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
I was like this, yeah, this is insane. This time
it was just like, you know, it's normal. Also, there's
no cope. This time he won the popular vote. He
won all the swing states. It wasn't narrow. It was
a blowout, like they left it all out on the
field and they got their asses kicked.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And there's so if anything, there's like a reckoning. I'm like,
all right, well, you know, we lost to him twice
in eight years.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
It was not a one on. It was not a fluke.
It's not a we're going to get him next time. No,
in the end, like he got away with all the
stuff and.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
He won and he won.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, no, not just one like he won the popular vote,
like that's a mandate, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
I mean, I remember, you know, everyone was like, how
can this possibly be?
Speaker 4 (15:48):
It?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Look at the RNC, you know, we were talking earlier
about immigration.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
They held up signs that said mass deportation at the RNC.
Don't be surprised when mass deportation happened. He stood up
in front of the sign the day before election. There
are only two things ins said behind him, n migrant
crime and mass deportation.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
America knew what it was voting for one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So it's one of those where to them, that's unimaginable
to the liberal mind. But now they have to grapple
with that and It's one of those where they're like,
what do we do? And the truth is MSNBC has
no coherence to explain that strategy that's correct, and it's
because and look, you can give a left you know analogy. Wait,
I have plenty of disagreements. We'll continue to talk over
the next four years. But there's a coherence to what
(16:31):
you're offering to what Kyle is offering to I mean
to uh, even the podsafe guys to what they're offering.
But there is no coherence to MSNBC Morning Joe liberalism
that offered a path and got blown out by the
American electorate.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
That is such a key point because the Kamala Harris campaign,
like they ran the Morning Joe campaign, it was run
exactly like Joe Scarborough would.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Want to run.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yes, right, the embrace of freaking Liz Cheney, the obsess
with never Trump Republicans, the constant like shunning of the
base and anything that they would want, the you know,
constant like shilling for Israel and really you know, basically
smearing your own base as a bunch of anti Semits
for wanting a ceasefire and wanting peace. They ran that
(17:17):
campaign and Joe Biden ran that campaign, and Hillary Clinton
ran that campaign, and Joe Biden eeks down a win,
barely barely, at a time when Trump's approval ratings were
in the toilet. People were getting killed during COVID like
it was a mess, and you barely eke down a victory.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Now it's like, wow, this.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Whole universe, the especially the MSNBC CNN universe in particular,
but also the Washington Post New York Times universe.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Your view of the world was wrong. Like it was wrong.
It was repudiated. What you told us was going to work.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
When you promised that these were the people who were
electorally viable and this was the path and these were
the you know issues, and this is how they should
talk about It's like they did all of that and
they lost.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
They got blown out.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And not only that, but you told us that Donald
Trump was an existential threat and you did not act
like it. You did not act like it. I mean,
especially like Joe scart Butt. These people were running cover
for Joe Biden and still trying to keep him in
the race after that debate.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
They wanted a four.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Hundred electoral college vote blowout. So I think there's just
a very justified loss of confidence, not only in those institutions,
but in that worldview entirely. So, I mean it creates
an opening, you know, clearly, like places like lever News,
drop site and others are you know, are there to fill.
And this whole conversation about like oh the democratsy their
(18:40):
own ecosystem or whatever.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
It's like, Listen, it may not.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Be as big as the right or as well funded
as the right, but it's not like there is no
one in the left of center podcase podcast space. It's
just that you've spent most of your time like ignoring, shunning, smearing,
minimizing that world. And I think you know that probably
is somewhat going to change. The last thing just doesn't mention,
(19:03):
which is kind of funny. Chris Wallace is apparently leaving
CNN and you put this up on the screen.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Wasn't there a lot? What was he there? Four years?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Three years?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
About three so he came for CNN plus.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Yes, oh I remember, I remember.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Apparently, though it's kind of misleading when they say he
quits CNN. What happened is is that they offered him
a pay cut and they were like, you can stay,
but you're gonna have to take a massive.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Pay cut and video could not, and he was like,
oh I can't handle them. He was getting paid like
seven million.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Well this was an actually very smart way for him
to frame this, to be honest with you, because he
was like, you know what, this cable news thing that's tired,
like streaming is where it's at. I'm going to go
out and do like the podcast thing.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Which good luck, it's good luck. First all, his show
is awful on CNN. It was very low rating.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Anyone watches almost any of these people is just because
it's like it's on in the background and that's it.
There's no like I'm tuning in for Chris Wallace that's
not really.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Had a very low rated show.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
He tried to do all these we interviews with pop
culture Fish. Yeah, he completely lost his lane. Never should
a last Fox News Sunday. So yeah, I mean, look,
he's like a seventy something year old man, like he'll
be fire, yeah, exact right, retire multi millionaire. Your father
was famous. I'm sure it hurts not to be as
good as your dad. It's okay, you know, you're an
old man. You've had enough time to reconcile it at
(20:20):
this point, just right off from the sunset. All right,
leave it to us. We'll continue to fight here.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I like I like imagining him like over on Twitch
trying to compete with like Hassan.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Or something exact incredible, right, I like that. I want him.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I would like him to.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Try that out as lemon.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Right, all right, let's go ahead and get to Jim
Zobie to talk about his analysis of what went wrong,
what is going on at the DNC, the spending, the
blaming of voters, the AOC Trump voter, got a lot
of things we want to get to with him.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
So let's go ahead and do that.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Let's get to it.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
We are really fortunate this morning to be joined by
James Zobie, who, of course the president of Air American
Institute and also a thirty two year member of the DNC.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
AM.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I right about those numbers, long suffering thirty two year
member of the DNZ.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Another, you're the suffering ones.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I think we're all suffering right now. To be honest
with you, Agam, at least you and I are at
this table. I had a number of things I wanted
to chat with you about, but I first did want
to talk to you about the DNC in particular, since
you have such deep knowledge of how that organization works
and where some of the problems are. Let's put this
first element up on the screen. Jamie Harrison has gotten
(21:33):
into a bit of a back and forth with Bernie Sanders. Bernie,
of course, came out with a quite scathing indictment of
the Democratic Party after Kamala Harris's loss, saying that they
abandoned working class people. Jamie Harrison, chair of the DNC,
described this as straight up BS, I'd love for you
to discuss, you know, both your thoughts on this particular battle,
(21:54):
but also more broadly, what's some of the issues that
you see are at the DNC and what you think
would be important in terms of reform.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
Well, look, let's I'm going to leave some of the
political issues aside and just talk about the DNC. First.
I grew up. My mom was a precinct captain and
I used to go door to door with her and
go to ward meetings, and on election day we'd get
poll cards and we'd go to the polls and pass
them out. You belonged to something and you felt like
(22:26):
this was part of who you were. That's no longer
the case. The being a member of the Democratic Party
means nothing more than I'm on an email list, I'm
on a text message list, I'm on a hard mail list,
I'm on a phone list, and I get asked for money.
(22:46):
Nobody asked my opinion. There is no way to record
your feeling about an issue DNC, even DNC members. First
time we had an actual in all the years I've
been on the DNC, first time we had an actual
election was when Keith Ellison and Tom Perez faced off
(23:07):
after the Bernie Hillary race. First time we had a
floor vote and a debate on an issue was at
that same meeting when we debated whether we should accept
money from packs that emanated from businesses that violated the
DNC positions on oil fracking. Whatever. The fact is that
(23:34):
DNZ members even were like props who go to meetings
and fill chairs. And I can say it because I'm
a Catholic. You know, we know when to stand up,
when to sit down, when to clap, when to leave,
and you know votes are a done deal. The staff
decide what we vote on. When I was chair of
the Resolutions Committee for ten years, people even Barbara Lee,
(23:57):
would write a resolution and submit it and the staff
say we're not going to accept that, and I'd say, well,
then are you to not accept it? And the Unity
Reform Commission, I was able to get both sides, the
Hillary and Bernie side, to agree on a resolution to
honor our by laws and fulfill our by law requirement
to annually review the budget and evaluate the effectiveness of
(24:22):
expenditures and staff by creating an elected finance oversight committee.
Guess what staff wrote it out of the final They
deleted it from the final report and would not have
a vote on it, and then sent me to the
Rules and Bylaws Committee that after I fought and said
(24:43):
I want to vote on this, they said, yeah, will
you go to Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is peopled
by some of the very people, the consultants that I
was busy railing about in that proposal. Because every year,
every cycle, the DNC spends hundreds of millions of dollars.
This year well over a billion, and guess what, I
(25:05):
have no idea where it's going to go. The Harris
campaign went raised a billion dollars, is in the red.
We will never know where that money got spent. We
will never evaluate was it effective or not people give
three dollars donations monthly because they think we have no
idea where that money goes. And as opposed to being
(25:27):
a governing body, like I said, we're props at meetings.
And so what has to happen in the future is
that the DNC has to be the governing body of
the party and we have to build a party as
an organization that people belong to. There has to be
financial accountability and transparency. There has to be democratic decision
making so we know where this stuff is. I mean,
(25:49):
who decided that I'll get to the issues. I'm on
a terror when I get into this.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
This is go off, go off.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
Who decided that Liz Cheney was the ideal person to
campaign with. Who decided that we would give up on
the working class and go to suburban moderate Republican women.
I mean, how do those decisions get made? Who thinks
that stuff up? Who decides that, yeah, in Pennsylvania we
ought to be pro fracking. Who decided that we should
(26:20):
give up a universal healthcare? Who decided that we should
target our vote getting to constituencies that we could not
reach and not focus on people that we could reach.
Because I see what Jamie is saying that, yeah, Joe
Biden had a pro labor agenda. That's not the campaign
(26:40):
we ran in twenty four. I dare say, if you
ask union people how pro union were we, they wouldn't
have said so on something particular to me, who decided
that no Palestinian speaker at a convention because it would
be what to controversy when actually that's where the base
(27:02):
of the party is.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, well that's something we wanted to ask you about, sir.
We have some interesting There was AOC actually asked some
of her constituents, many of whom did vote for her
and for Donald Trump, and she was like, why, let's
put this up there on the screen. There's a variety
of interesting answers, and you can see there's there's quite
a few, but some are actually quite simple. There go
(27:25):
it's simple Trump and you care for the working class.
I wanted change, so I went with Trump. Blew for
the rest of the ballot to put on some brakes.
They say a few others and you know, are pointing
out very different stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
About war, but a lot of it was about war,
foreign policy, Gaza.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
There were several of those, and so I'm curious for
your reaction considering that Trump did obviously run up the table,
you know, in the Bronx, but AOC actually was able
to hang on to some of that, and she says there,
I'd like to talk about the Gaza pieces as well,
and we'll make some stories about it later.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
She outperformed Kamala Harris in the district by twenty two
points twenty.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
A lot of Democrats performed Kamala Harris in their districts.
And where's the accountability for that? And I don't believe
it's Kamala Harris as much as it's the political consultants
who run make the decisions for the party. It's the
big donors who contribute to the party and the consultants
who get the money and make the decisions about what
(28:22):
we do and what we say and what's possible. And
they do the same with the candidates. I mean, what
we need is control over that process so that these consultants,
who incidentally never lose an election, they never lose an
election because they make their money, live with the consequences,
but they make their money and they come back again
two years from now, four years from now and do
(28:44):
the same stuff. Yeah, Frankly, that's got a change and
on Gaza, I understand completely. Look, I've been pulling on
this issue for a while what we call our coalition
these days, young people, Black Latino Asian voters. They are
(29:05):
decidedly against this war and against continuing to fund human
rights violations as we do. And we didn't pay attention
to them at all.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
Actually, it's been so easy to speak to them, we didn't.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Let's put E three up on the screen, guys, because
this has some of the relevant data. This is about
Muslim voters. Muslim Americans back in twenty twenty ninety three
percent for Joe Biden, seven percent for Trump. This time
around fifty three percent for Jill Stein, twenty one percent
for Trump, and twenty percent for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
Well you I'm going to I'm going to differ with
you on.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
That, Okay, go ad.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Why I want to ask you is because you've done
so much research and pulling yourself. How what did you
see and how significant do you think this ended up
being to Kamala Harris's loss?
Speaker 5 (29:58):
And Number one, that was a bogu. That's not a
poll at all. The demographics of it don't match. Look
from the group that did it fifty three percent for
Jill Stein. If there are two point five million registered
Muslim voters, which is what that group says there are,
and sixty percent of them turned out, which is one
point five million, fifty three percent of them is one
(30:18):
hundred thousand votes more than Jill Stein actually got in
the hard count. So that's a bogus thing. What we
found in our polling was among Arab Americans, we don't
pull Muslims overall because it's a very diverse community and
the largest group, portion of which are African American who
I believe, did vote for Jill for I'm sorry for Harris.
(30:42):
I think in the Arab community what you got was
a more even split between Trump and Harris. That's not
enough because Joe Biden got sixty percent of that vote
and Donald Trump got a little over thirty percent. He
beat her. He beat Trump two to one. If Harris
had beaten Trump two to one, she might have won
(31:03):
Michigan with air of American votes. As it was, she
lost sixty seventy thousand Air of American voters statewide, coupled
with students and others who stayed home or also voted
for other candidates and you got the loss. But again,
that kind of autopsy is not going to be done.
(31:26):
And that's when I saw reports that there ought to
be an autopsy, and then I saw the people they
were mentioning for the autopsy. It's like giving the murderer
the right to dissect the body and figure out what
you know. You don't have the consultants who brought us
the mess do the autopsy on how the consultants brought
us the mess, because that's where it came from. Don't
(31:46):
blame the voters. I have an interview in Rolling Stone
right now.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Actually can put that up on the screen.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
Guys on the sport, don't blame the people you let down.
I mean, so, how do you get to a point
where the Republican Party what's his name, Lindsey Graham can
say we're the party of the working class and Democrats
have become the party of the elites?
Speaker 3 (32:10):
How did that?
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Even? How did we get to that point? Aren't we
ashamed of ourselves that we let down the working class
to that extent that they don't see us as their champions,
that they see this bigoted, xenophobic, narcissistic, misogynist criminal as
their champion because he talks to them, and Joe Biden
(32:33):
did talk to them. He did. I don't believe the
Harris campaign did. I think she could have, but the
consultants had a different message for her. It was going
to be joy. But there weren't people in the country
feeling joy. There were people feeling hurt. And why did
the consultants not understand that hurt? Why didn't they understand
(32:53):
that people felt socially, economically, politically dislocated and unsure of
their future. Why did we not understand that and craft
a campaign? Why because the consultants are out of touch. Yeah,
here's what I say. You know, Ben Rhodes calls the
foreign policy blob people who've been cycled for decades and
(33:13):
don't get the world and how it's changed. We have
the political consultancy blob. It's the same people who populate
all these campaigns, who make all the decisions, and they're
completely out of touch with where the electorate is. And
yet they keep coming back campaign after campaign. We see
the same faces running things.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Jim, last question for you, do you have a favorite
for next Dan c chair?
Speaker 4 (33:35):
I do? Who do you like?
Speaker 5 (33:37):
He hasn't announced yet, he will writing and so. But
it is a state chair. Yeah, it's a state chair.
And I believe that we need somebody who has the
commitment to building the organization as an organization, you know,
and I and I believe that.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
You know.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
The other thing is there ought to be an end
to the dominant of the political consultants over a decision making.
Electing a new chair is one thing, but we've got
to have a DNC that is empowered to be the
governing body. And I will tell you I'm thinking of
running for one of the vice.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Chair slots because that's fantastic.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
Thirty two years and I am up to here with
the the you know, the banging my head against the
wall for change, I decided, I guess I'm just going
to have to try to raise those issues. I don't
know if I'll win, but at least I'll have a
chance to raise the issues, and I want to do it.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
That is some some rare good news for me, at
least to hear post elections. So I'm always great to
talk to you, and I hope you know once you
officially jump in, and your ideal candidate also officially jumps in,
that you'll come back and explain to us why you
think that this is the right course.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Good to see you say, take care, bye you too.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
In the wake of Kamala's stunning defeat, have.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Been studiously passing around various charts and data points to
try to make sense of it all. Here's a regression
analysis of voter preferences in seven key states. Here's a
graph mapping ideological leanings versus district over performance compared to
Gamala and Biden. Here's a heat map of the precincts
where Trump accumulated the largest eight year improvement correlated with
income deciyle, listen, I get it, and I'm the same.
(35:21):
I'm a little a student teacher's pet type, and I
too would like to plot, chart, and data analyze my
way to the one correct answer for how Democrats should look, walk, talk,
and act. But to be honest with you, that shit
needs to stop because it utterly misses how politics actually works.
In fact, this type of focus group, poll driven laundry
list approach to politics is exactly what Democrats already do,
(35:45):
and you can see precisely how that's worked out. In fact,
Kamala ran the platonic ideal of this approach, which has
been dubbed popularism. Now the guy who popularized popularism David Shore.
He actually ran a seven hundred million dollars super pack
for the kmmon campaign. The basic idea is you pull
a bunch of policies, you pick what's most popular, and
(36:07):
you run on it. Like a good little centrist. Kama
Is shoed all divisive talk of racer genders. She spent
the entire campaign run around with Republican insitcumvince everyone she
didn't actually really stand for anything. She embraced the GOP
position on the border. She talked endlessly about how she
prosecuted transnational gangs and argued the problem with Trump's border
policy was that he didn't construct enough of his vaunted
border wall seriously. As John Stewart argued, though far from
(36:30):
running a woke campaign, Kammalin, Democrats obsessively tried to pander
to the polls and adopted Republican framing.
Speaker 12 (36:36):
I only have one problem with the woke theory. I
just didn't recall seeing any Democrats running on woke shit.
These were the commercials I saw for the Democrats. Shared
Brown is working to fix our border crisis and Monday
Jones is working to secure our border.
Speaker 6 (36:53):
Pat Ryan is restoring order at our southern border.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
I'm Laura Gillon, and I'm here at the border of
Nasa County with two thousand miles from Mexico.
Speaker 5 (37:02):
But we're stealing the migrant crisis almost every day.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
We can't let China steal Wisconsin's.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Jobs, benefits for legal immigrants, no way blocking support for
white farmers.
Speaker 9 (37:13):
I mean, look at.
Speaker 12 (37:14):
Me standing with law enforcement against defunding the police.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
I've owned a done my whole life.
Speaker 12 (37:19):
Let me be clear.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
I don't want boys playing girls sports. You all know me.
Speaker 12 (37:23):
I've never pushed for sex changes. Well that's just a
weird one at the end of don't forget about Tomala Harris.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
It's not like she was exactly.
Speaker 12 (37:40):
Waving around her NPR tote bag.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
I have a clock.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
They didn't do the.
Speaker 12 (37:53):
Woke thing they tried. They have to like Republicans for
the last four months, they wore tamo hats and went
to Cheney family reunion. Check out how dangers it is
to wear a hunting hat around Shaney.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Collin's campaign could have been designed by a centrist AI
fed reams of focused group data, poll tested messaging world's
most lethal military opportunity economy coalition of Liz Cheney, Taylor Swift,
and Bernie Sanders. As Edin Germentum points out over on Twitter,
quote the wave al are talking. You would never have
known the central pillar of the Democratic campaign strategy was
bringing up the border bill that Trump shot down. This
(38:30):
was very much the first post wokeness Democratic campaign was
run by a party whose top people road Mataglesias and
gave seven hundred million dollars to a pack heavily influenced
by David Shore. For this wing to act like Cassandra's
is beyond absurd. And I would add that she and
Biden routinely took every opportunity to castigate lefty college kids
for their campus activism, smearing the prototypical pink haired college
(38:53):
kids who happened to be opposing a genocide as raging
anti semits. What's more, during the campaign, the popularist, some centrists,
they all thought this campaign was going great.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
They loved the.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Liz Cheney strategy. Here is Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine.
He says the race is close because Harris is running
a brilliant campaign. Stop complaining the centrism is working. But
of course even when Democrats run exactly as Chait, Aglesias
and co.
Speaker 7 (39:21):
Won.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
There's always some person out there existing in the world
and being woke that they can blame for elite democratic
failures and working class abandonment. Now, I don't think it's
fair to lay all the blame for Kamma's loss at
her feet, but certainly she gets some of the blame,
and so too do those who advocate for this bloodless,
paint by number style of politics. It has failed routinely
(39:43):
and now completely, and their capitulation in Republican framing is
already a moral and political catastrophe. The core of Kmma's
approach and that of biden bulk of establishment politics, is
to avoid controversy and avoid division. If an issue polls
under sixty percent, avoid it if a previous position drops
in support or abandon it. Studiously avoids saying anything that
might God forbid create a backlash.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
This approach is wrong. It's brain dead.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It's idiotic, as is the saying that politics is about
addition wrong. Winning politics that can also deliver anything worthwhile
is divisive. The only thing that really matters is getting
that division correct. Think about Trump, For God's sakes, he
is the single most divisive politician of modern era. Without
a doubt, he is also the most successful. He deeply
(40:30):
understands his divisive politics, and everything he says and does
effectively drives towards the division that serves his political interests
and message. On one side of the migrants, democrats, and
cultural elites who, in his narrative, want to destroy your town,
steal your job, and indoctrinate your kids. On the other
side is anyone who supports Trump against these forces. And
Trump alone is of course the politician who can fix
(40:51):
the problem. Another divisive politician, Bernie Now. He stylistically, of course,
quite different from Trump, but make no mistake, his fundamentally
is a divisive politics and the language of occupy. It's
the ninety nine percent versus the one percent. It's the
millionaires and billionaires versus everyone else, throwing the corporate media
the corrupt establishment, and you've got all you need for
(41:11):
a winning, fruitful, divisive politics.
Speaker 4 (41:15):
Think about it. If you did your little checklist.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Politics telling how popular Kamala's policies are versus Trump's policies,
Kamala would win every time. Democrats would sweep forty states,
as evidenced by the fact that paid sickly of abortion
rights and high minimum wages were passed in deep red
states like Missouri, but that is not remotely how politics
actually works. Democratic posters Lilinda Lake made this point when
(41:38):
she explained the difference in how voters saw Trump and
Kamalist economic policies. Quote, everybody knows what Trump economics is,
China tariffs, tax cuts. Then you go to them and
ask what are Democratic economics and someone will make a
joke about welfare, and half the people can't name anything.
It is nothing like the Republican brand. Now this isn't
because Democrats had a failed ad strategy. There's some evidence
(41:59):
there ad and grond game. Actually we're kind of effective.
It's because they have zero narrative. They have failed to
create the right divisive politics. And if you don't relentlessly
explain your story of the world, your goals, principles, heroes
and villains, your opponents, they will happily fill in the blanks. Ergo,
she's for they them, he's for you. So what would
a better strategy look like? Well, it looks like Bernie's
(42:20):
twenty sixteen class verse populism, but on steroids. Democrats need
to abandon a bland and offensive unity between the Chinese
and AOC, and embrace the division that aggressively excises everyone
who puts the billionaire's interests over the working class. There
should be purity tests on everything that is core to
that war against the plutocrats, and a large public purge
(42:41):
of those who are on the wrong side of that divide.
If you don't agree the billionaire and should be abolished,
then get the fuck out. If you don't want to
tax the rich, get the fuck out. If you don't
want to radically increase union power, get the fuck out.
If you don't want to implement a universal jobs guarantee,
get out. If you don't want universal health care, get out.
If you do support these things but you also have
more moderate position of abortion, guns, trans athletes, okay, there
(43:04):
can be a space for you here. But these cultural
issues can never be central. They are distractions because to
claim them as central is to void the correct divisive
frame and undercut the narrative. The war is not between
immigrants and Americans. The war is between the plutocrats and
the people. Immigrant and trans Panics. Those are ploys to
(43:24):
keep regular people divided against each other instead of against
the corrupt political media and economic elite who have rigged
the system and hogged all the spoils. Elon Musk is
out there running around crying about trans people and migrants
existing because he wants another giant taxpayer subsidy and an
even bigger tax cut. He does not have your best
interest or those of the country for that matter in mind.
(43:45):
Vernie explained the all perfectly in a classic clip, of course,
which is recently resurfaced.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
Take a listen.
Speaker 13 (43:51):
Now, if you had an agenda like that and you
went before the American people, tax breaks for the rich,
destruction of medicad, destruction of socialist security as we know it,
lowering the minimum wage or abolishing it, how many votes
do you think you'd get?
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Not a whole lot.
Speaker 13 (44:07):
Maybe the riches one percent we vote for you. That's
not a lot of votes. So what do I do?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Got a problem?
Speaker 13 (44:13):
You package it? How do you package it? And here
I want you to pay attention to me. This this
is bad stuff. We divide people up by racist affirmative
action becomes one issue, all them black people getting the
jobs that we white people used to have, split people
working class white against black instead of working together to
create decent jobs for all those uppity women now they
(44:35):
want the right to choose. Will split people on the
abortion issue. We'll split people up on the gun issue.
We'll split people up on religious issues. You follow what
I'm saying, So you split people up, and then they
end up if you're a middle class person voting against
your own interests, and the rich go laughing all the
way to the bank. And they succeed with the help
(44:55):
of the media because the media will not talk about
how in a sense that problems that Americans face on
how we bring people together. And that's what I believe.
I believe that on issues, like everybody in this room thinks,
I think that instead of giving tax breaks to the rich,
we should increase federal aid to education. Anyone disagree with that,
But you know what, most Americans agree with that. All
(45:17):
of you think that every American should be entitled to healthcare.
I suspect most of you think we should not have
a trade policy which allows corporations to throw American workers
out on the street and run to China. Most Americans
agree with that. And our job is to bring people
together on common interest and some of these extreme right
wing people you watch the issues that they talk about
(45:39):
affirmative action. They use to divide the issue of abortion,
they use to divide the issue of guns. They use
to divide. And our job is to say, let's focus
on basic economic issues. How do we expand the middle class.
This is a great country. Why is it the average
American is working longer hours for low wages than thirty
years ago.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Let's talk about that, amen, Bernie.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
And of course there is another figure in American history
we can look to who understood this politics of division
and reaped massive electoral rewards which allowed him to deliver
an American social democratic program. Talking of course about FDR,
who famously welcomed the hatred of those economic royalists wo
would seek to block his agenda. In front of the
show I our miosa Frimpong points out plan is actually
(46:21):
not that complicated and FDR's economic bill of rights will
more than suffice.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
It reads, every.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
American has the right to number one a job. Number two,
an adequate wage and decent living number three, a decent
home number four, medical care number five, economic protection during sickness, accident,
old age, or unemployment. Number six, a good education. That's it.
That's the program. Simple to understand impossible to actually achieve
(46:48):
with the current donor beholden leadership of the Democratic Party.
Probably the only hope is someone to come in like
a bullet and china shop from the outside, like what
Donald Trump did. Even Bernie was ultimately way too nice
to these people. And since the program is actively hostile
to capital, the capital class will wage a far more
aggressive fight than they really mustered against Trump. Is more
(47:10):
likely the Democrats take the advice of those who are
rushiing to throw trans people, immigrants, whoever, under the bus
and simply capitulate to Trump's narrative many already have. In fact,
this path may even be electorally viable in the same
way that Democrats became viable after Bill Clinton adopted Reagannite
neoliberal framing. But I don't care about Democrats winning ultimately,
I hear about delivering meaningful improvements for working class people,
(47:32):
avoiding wars, and keeping our democracy. Donor friendly capitulation is
a plan to avoid even joining the fight, Sager.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
The John suro Clip enjoyed that.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
become a Premium subscriber today. At breakingpoints dot com. Thank
you guys so much for watching. We appreciate you thinking
me a great counterpoints show for everybody tomorrow and we'll
see you all on Thursday.