September 24, 2024 • 45 mins
The Focus Group’s Sarah Longwell details what she’s seeing in focus groups. MSNBC’s Paola Ramos examines her new book Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and the Republican Governors Association has withdrawn
support from Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. We have such a
great show for you today, the focus Groups. Sarah Longwell
joins us to talk about focus groups. Then we'll talk
(00:23):
to MSNBC's Paula Ramos about her new book, Defectors, the
Rise of the Latino far Right and what it means
for America.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
But first the news.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Jesse Cannon, I'm going to tell you Republicans desperately need
to keep these House seats in Long Island and New
York State Hudson Valley area, and all they want is
to get these Long Island congressmen re elected.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And guess what.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Just broke these days?
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Hearing about a Republican congressman having an affair seems to
just mean that we've reached another week in our politics
since I can think of last week with Mark Green,
but this one was even on the payroll of the congressman.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You know it's a Republican because they've got their mistress
on the payroll. John Edwards would like a word, right,
that's a good point. Is a nonpartisan activity. Anthony d
Esposito and New York two Democrats have been salivating over
the seat. It's a seat that Biden, It's in a
district that Biden won in twenty twenty. So in April,
(01:30):
mister d Esposito added someone to his payroll, a woman
with whom he was having an affair. Okay, they have
four sources here. This is from the New York Times.
The woman she collected two thousand dollars a month for
a part time job in the same district office. So
that's pretty bad.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Yeah, I should say, since I'm familiar with congressional staffers
salaries being married to one of them, this is very
entry level salary, like right above in Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
What I think is one of the amazing parts of
the story is that Manu Raju, who covers Congress for CNN,
went and asked Speaker Johnson if he had spoken Speaker
of the House Mike Johnson, very very very religious man
if he had spoken to Dsposito about employing his mistress
(02:21):
in his district office.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
And he said he had not, that he's.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Been very busy, as one is when you're the Speaker
of the House, though this might be important. Then GOP
whip MANU asked the GOP whip tom Emers. You'll remember
Tom Emers had some problems because Trump had counted him out.
He had wanted to be the Speaker of the House.
Tom Emmer said, we got to get through the week.
We got a CR that's up tomorrow, and I think
(02:47):
we're going to have a good vote. So you'll remember
that Republicans keep being unable to pass a continuing resolution
because Trump wants to shut down the government. The time
is now really tight in order to get the CR
pass so that the government doesn't shut down right before
an election, because Speaker Johnson has sort of told Trump
that he can't do that, but they are now sort
(03:10):
of barreling towards it, and so they have a very
short period of time in order to pass a continuing resolution.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So a lot of fuckery there.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Mister Brett Farv, a person you and I know a
lot about because you and I are the most knowledgeable
people on sports in the world. He had a little
hearing today and there's a lot of fuckery.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, So Brett Favre is famous for playing a lot
of sport, whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Football, Yes, I know that much.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
He's also famous for his involvement in the largest corruption
case in Mississippi state history. You know, Mississippi is a
state with a lot of poverty, a lot of bad
outcomes when it comes to feedle, maternal life, when it
comes to education. It's just a state that really has
had a tough time. So Brett Farv is a cute
(04:00):
used of misusing Mississippi state welfare funds, and he used
it to build a stadium, and he used it to
build a volleyball center. And there are texts by the
way of him talking to other people. So Brett Favre,
(04:20):
will the media find out that we're using welfare to
funds intended for it to help the poorest residents of
America's poor state build a volleyball center. And the woman
wrote back, Now the governor is fully on board. Five
years later, anyway, so Brett Farv was testifying from the
(04:40):
House today and he talked about how basically none of
this was his fault, and how he had been tricked
and how unfair it was. And then he added that
he had lost a lot of money on other investments,
including and Jesse's going to play this now, but basically
that he had lost money on investments in a pharmaceutical
(05:01):
company that was supposed to help people with concussions, and
then he worked in that he had been diagnosed with
parkinson three years ago. Again, I still think that stealing
that money was wrong, despite the fact that he has Parkinson's.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
That's just me. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
I've never seen an exemption in a law book that
says that once you have Parkinson's, you're not liable for
your crimes anymore. Sobali, the Vice President, has talked about
throwing away the filibuster to codify abortion rights in America.
And I'm going to shock you here. Joe Manchin and
a bunch of idiots are really mad about this.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, I mean again. She appeared on Wisconsin today. You'll
remember that Republicans are saying she's not doing enough interviews,
but here she is actually doing a local news interview,
and she's saying not that she will eliminate the philibuster
for everything, just that she will eliminate the philibuster for row.
There's a lot of people who think that philibuster should
(06:01):
be eliminated for Roe, and you'll remember Roe was the
law of the land for almost fifty years. And Trump
did install a very conservative Supreme Court. He put three
chumpy justices on the Supreme Court with the purpose of
overturning Row. This is a real special situation where I
think getting rid of the philibuster does not necessarily mean
(06:22):
getting rid of the philibuster for good.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
The justices that were installed here one might remember at
Mereric carl And these were basically ill gotten gains injustices right.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Well they did they stall the Gore Sitch Seed and
then Justice keg Stand and then Justice bear it. Her
hearing started while people were already voting.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
know the Lincoln projects, Rick Wills that have past politics?
Bole jug Faster heading out on tour to bring you
a night of last for our dark political landscape. Join
us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest
and we'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the
(07:10):
twenty first of September, and on the twenty second, we'll
be in Chicago at Citywinery. Then we're going to hit
the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be in Boston
at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
we'll be Infilliate City Winery, and then DC on the
second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just announced
that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of
October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as
(07:30):
we get through this election and hopefully never hear from
a guy who lives in a golf club again, we
got you covered. Join us in our surprise guests to
help you laugh instead of cry your way through this
election season and give you the inside analysis of what's
really going on right now. Buy your tickets now by
heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as
Unusual dot bio.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Sarah Longwhile is the publisher of The Bulwark and the
host of the focus group podcast Welcome Back two Fast Politics.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
Aw Hey, thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I'm so excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It's so funny because it's like this election cycle, I
feel like it's been like a century.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Yeah, well almost a decade.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I mean, it's true.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
You know, there's a lot of people I've met for
the first time kind of in the twenties seventeen, and
you know, we all had like really little kids or
like I just had my first kid. Now everybody's got
like grown kids, and it's all been in the span
of time when Trump happens.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
It's really true.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's actually like my kids are like late teens or
early twenties.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Now it's like, what can we talk about this?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Like yesterday there was this sort of they tracked Trump's rallies,
and now he's gone from like doing five this is
actually a front.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
We're gonna talk about.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
A Frank Luntz tweet, I'm sorry to tell you, yea
everyone's favorite.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I mean that ironically, he had.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
A tweet about like agreeing that Trump really isn't doing
very many rallies to what he was doing in twenty sixteen,
where he was doing as many as three or four
a day.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
He does feel like the man is like low energy.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Yeah, I mean, like on the point of you know,
time flies when you're trying to ward off an autocracy
like Donald Trump is an old man, like he is
seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I'm seventy eight now, oldest person ever to run for president, oldest.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Person ever to run for president. So like he's lost
a step, and you know, he has been able to,
I think thrive in comparison to Joe Biden because he
does still have like big lunatic energy when he is
talking right, and he's charismatic. Yeah, I mean just to
people who find his particular way of being charismatic. I
find him repellent whenever he opens his mouth. But you know,
(09:45):
different strokes for different folks, but he just it is
so clear when you listen to him where you go back.
I end up. It's a hazard of my profession that
I often go back and we'll watch sort of old
debate footage. And I was doing it at the time,
you know, looking at Joe Biden's performance going back some years,
but even looking at Trump, he looks really different. He
looked terrible at the debate. And I wouldn't normally say
(10:06):
that as a judgment other than look, they set up
the prism of age and mental acuity, Like that's the
frame they wanted with Joe Biden, and now he's got
to live in that frame, and he's too old to
be doing this.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I think that's really important.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, I mean they were basically running on Biden's age
until the moment Biden dropped out.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
He's still trying to run on Biden's age. Trump is
very old, and I think he's very sad that he's
no longer running against Joe Biden.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yes, well, and he does sometimes he slips into as
I run against Joe Biden.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Yeah, he clearly wishes as we all look back, because
it's been such an insane campaign for one that was
set up to be so boring in terms of just
like a rematch to a two guys we knew very well.
It's been an absolute wild ride. I cannot believe how
unprepared his campaign was for the possibility that maybe Joe
Biden was going to drop out, and they've never found
(10:58):
their footing since.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, exactly exactly. I mean that is really what's so
interesting is that they did. They kept saying, you know,
Biden has to drop out, Biden has to drop out,
Biden has to drop out, and then they were like, wait, what.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Yeah, that's right. They did not think Democrats had it
in them. Yeah, but it really is Republicans now who
no matter how big bad things get, they won't drop
out them. And you look at this Mark Robinson guy,
like Donald Trump has taught all of these guys you
just power through. And that's why that's why I think
they didn't think Joe Biden would do it because Donald
Trump would never do it. He would never give up power,
he would never step aside. And he's taught all of
(11:34):
these other Republicans, like, is the scandal of epic proportions
so much so that it seems like you'll never get
out from under it? Is there so much evidence well
did not It's like the shaggy rule of politics. Just
like say it wasn't you and pretend like it didn't happen.
Just barrel through.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, but let's talk about Mark Robinson in North Carolina
for a minute, because what is so interesting about him
is almost everyone in his campaign has it. It's him
and whoever is left in there who's given up on
trying to have a career.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I mean, what's the play there?
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I mean the play is to lose I think. I
mean I'm watching him. He's got this like OJ defense
going on where he's like, we're gonna find the real
person who did it. We will dedicate every last minute
we have figuring out which AI did went back in
time and subscribed me to all the like spad I
(12:28):
was a black Nazi and indorsed slavery, that the transgender
porn was my jam while I'm you know, demonizing transgender kids.
The funny thing about the Mark Robinson stuff is all
the new stuff is like it's bad, but is it
worse than the stuff? We already knew him being a
holocaust and I are him saying that, you know, him
acting like he's a big pro life guy when he
paid for an abortion, you know ford his wife had
(12:50):
so like, this guy's been a bad guy from the jump.
And you know, the voters in North Carolina, the Republican
primary voters, they had a choice between like Joe Normy
candidate and Mark Robinson. And in the primary they picked
Mark Robinson by a landslide. And this is what Republican
primary voters want. I guess they're going to get it
good and hard.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I mean, Sarah, I would say, also he is You'll
remember he's also the lieutenant governor. Now he's already has
an elected office there.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Yeah, and this was one of the reasons that they
didn't want Rory Cooper was getting when he was considered
right for vice president. He couldn't step aside because nobody
wanted to give this guy a bigger platform. Yes, and
he should resign again, because we've lived a lifetime in
just less than a decade. But in the before times,
in the beforetimes, something like this would be ruinous for
(13:46):
any candidate, but especially a character counts, morality based GOP candidate.
But today it's just you know, it's Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Right, exactly, It's Tuesday if you're listening to this podcast,
And I'm sure euro listeners have the same real anxiet
about this fucking election.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So I was actually with someone earlier who is from
Biden world, and they were talking about their path and
how they thought they would win. But they felt that
it was a much narrower path than what she has
and that she has actually opened up the map in
certain ways.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Where do you see this election happening?
Speaker 5 (14:17):
So one of the things about North Carolina, North Carolina
wasn't even on my list of states to play in.
She put it in contention in a meaningful way that said,
I still like I don't sit around being like, oh
my god, what if she doesn't win North Carolina. I
never thought Democrats were going to win North Carolina, and
so I've been like, it is Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska too,
that's your path. Part of it is like she's over
(14:39):
performing with white voters, like she's doing well with white voters.
I think there was maybe some concern. I know I
had some concern demographically with Biden dropping out, like Biden
was doing very well with older white people that was
who he was working for, and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Man, because he's an older white person.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yes he is. But she continues to do well with
those voters. And I think that she's been sort of
putting the coalition back together in terms of Hispanics and
in terms of black voters that had been kind of
sliding away from Joe Biden. And she's still under where
Biden was in terms of what he finally hit in
twenty twenty, and so she's got more work to do.
But I do think that that those industrial kind of
(15:18):
Midwest states are still the path.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Talk to me about what you're seeing in focus groups.
One of the things that I talked to Tim Miller
about and I assume Tim Miller and you are seeing
the same focus group stuff.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
Tim is seeing my focus groups. Yes, that's what it means.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, I assume Tim is seeing your focus groups.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
What he said to me before she jumped out was
that she had more of an upside than he did.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yes, Well, so you're saying that Tim was surprised by that,
or that's something he said before.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, that he said, well, you know, she has more
of an upside, she has more of a path that
she can win these people that he couldn't.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Maybe nod, yes, So that is a one hundred percent
sure in the focus groups. And this is when we
were in that weird interregnum.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, the three weeks from how.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
Yeah, and I was a you know, I was allowed
Joe Biden's got to drop out, and primarily because of
what I was seeing in the focus groups, Like, yeah,
they were just a center left voters, like soft Biden voters,
young people, they were just he's too old. They felt
like it was irresponsible to vote for him. He was
never going to finish out his term. They weren't going
to vote for Trump, but they were. I'm so mad
about Biden. I love my Midwestern governors my Josh Shapiro's
(16:29):
and Gretchen Whitmer's, and I was concerned. I'd spent years
listening to people talk about their negative impressions of Harris. However,
when I started to look harder at it, when it
got you know, starting to get down to like this
might really happen, it did start to become pretty clear
that it needed to be Kamala Harris from a logistical standpoint,
and I was just like, you know what, she's got upside.
She's got upside because when you listen to the voters
(16:51):
who were saying they have a negative impression of her,
the impression was so loose and it was so rooted
in I don't see her, I don't know or I
don't know what she's doing. And so that was the upside.
I was like, Okay, well let's see her, let's meet her,
let's know what she's doing, and like if they like her,
then good. And this is where what she has done
has when people look back, I mean, her favorables are
through the room. Like she's made like a twenty point gain.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
In favorability she's w after nine to eleven. Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
She's completely reversed the enthusiasm advantage that Republicans had. I mean,
people like get a. I think the polling is one thing,
but like, look at all the other indices, Look at
the small dollar donors, look at how many people are new,
look at registrations, look at volunteering, like the people who
are coming out, and like if you talk to anybody
who's running a precinct or is in a state, like
they can't handle the volume of volunteers. Now, those things
(17:42):
aren't votes, but I do think that they speak to
something bigger than just vibes and what I see from
swing voters. So she had I think we could see
that she had upside back then. I don't think any
of us anticipated she'd had the kind of upside that
she's had. And that is to give her just an
enormous amount of credit. So that is based on her performance,
you know, I think that all of us got a
(18:03):
little bit. We just seen one too many supercuts of
her kind of word salading, and we thought, like, oh man,
she doesn't have it. But like whatever she was doing
right as vice president, where she was getting her reps in,
like she came out the other side good better, like
a better politician, you know, and I wish there's a
couple of things. Obviously, I wish we were seeing from her.
I wish she was just more forthright about the fact that,
(18:25):
you know, three and a half years as vice president
allowed her to understand more about how she had to
leave California politics behind and focus on how you govern
for the entire country. And that's why she's moved to
the center on certain things like just give people like
and people understand, Okay, you changed your mind, you got
more information as opposed to just changing positions. I also
think the thing that I see in focus groups that's
(18:46):
so interesting is I've known for a long time that
the more people see of Donald Trump, the less they
like him. When like Donald Trump is high salience, when
he is in people's faces, you see his numbers go
down in terms of favorability because people don't like him
when they see him. She and Tim, the more people
see them, the more they like them. Kamala, if you're listening,
get him out there, Get him out there, I mean
(19:07):
as much of a breakneck pace as their significantly younger
statuses can handle, Like Tim Walls, get put him everywhere. Yeah,
So that would be my only kind of complaint is
that I sometimes think this team has a little like
Biden PTSD or like you couldn't put this guy anywhere,
and like these people need to be everywhere.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, they are like out there a lot though. I mean,
but I agree.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And Tim Walls, I think is really a good surrogaate,
Like he really has that Midwestern thing.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Yeah, I mean when he talks about gutters and gutter maintenance. Yes,
I just feel like, you know, when he's feeding a
baby cow with a model and he's talking to it, Like,
put that guy everywhere in central Pennsylvania, in the big
vast ocean where I grew up, between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Just send him in, send him to the arm show.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah. I think that's a really good point. That's why
I was saying that I thought he was a smart pick.
It's so interesting to me because I had interviewed her
a couple times, Harris, and I had thought, you know,
she's really good and everybody hates her and I can't
figure out why this is, Like in twenty twenty two,
and I was like, I've interviewed a lot of politicians
(20:21):
and a lot of them are like some.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Of them are just so careful, like Corey Booker. Corey
Booker is.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So careful, like you could like him or not like him,
but he's so careful it's almost impossible to interview him. Yeah,
I understand, But like with her, she is not even
that careful.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
She's just really good.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And I was like, she's really good, and I kept saying,
you know, she's really good, and finally got to a
place where I was like, I guess that America is
just so racist and sexist that they can't see that
she's actually really good. And so when she got up
there and she was really good, I was like, oh
my god, I was actually right. I always sort of
believed in my heart that she was really good, and
I've been really grad to see that. But I also
(21:01):
I thought Wallas was the pick. But again, if they
lose Pennsylvania, I will not have thought Wallas was the pick.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
I was realizing.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
I was like, if they lose Pennsylvania, then Josh Shapiro
would have been a better back.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
That's right, we're not going to know. We're not gonna
be able to run the counterfactual on that unless I
think we can all ye assume if she loses Pennsylvania
by ten thousand votes. We will have wished she picked Joshpia,
But obviously I'm a Pennsylvania person. I'm a Shapiro person.
But I like Tim Walls a ton. I want more
Tim Walls so that he can do the thing that
I think he was supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I think that's smart.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
One of the things that's really interesting that we're seeing
out of Donald Trump is Donald Trump clearly is seeing
that women don't like him.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
I do think he's catching on to that, yes, which
is why he wos them in all caps.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So I laugh to keep from crying.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But women will be safer, they'll no longer think about abortion.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Who is giving him this advice?
Speaker 5 (21:58):
If I had to lame money, I'd say it's Kelly
and Conway. Oh really, yeah, because I think she's probably
the only Polster that he has who like tells him
to try with women. I think the rest of his team,
like clearly the JD Vance pick and everything else, up
until this point, has been trying to run up numbers
with men. And my guess is because she is not
(22:21):
Kelly and Conway is not stupid. She is a smart person,
and she understands these numbers, and I think she went
in there and was like, yes, you are leading by
this much with men, but you are cratering with women,
and like you have got to do something to lose
less badly here. And that was his response. That's how
he interpreted that, probably perfectly, saying advice.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
The all caps and this sort of menacing way he's
mentioning it seemed to have really threaded the needle.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
I don't know how you would do this, but there
is part of me that wants to go interview women
who've like survived abusive relationships and ask how similar this
kind of gaslighting is, because this like the way that
Trump because he's a predator himself right when he actually
he's the protector. Like you can feel the predator all
(23:10):
over it. I just have to imagine people who sort
of deal with men who are predators like this, like
would recognize the behavior pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
It feels like very menacing, yeah, you know, and like
a little bit of a thread.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
And low key menace has always been part of the
Trump experience that I do think we under talk about.
He's sort of using it here broadly, just like aimed
like idiotically at women, but like This is how he
gets Republicans to be in line right as by you know,
sort of turning. But he like tries to be like
(23:44):
he'll turn on the charm, turn on the be like
sort of obsequious and stuck up to people, kind of
the way he talks about.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Putin now his favorite.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
And then on the other side he'll kind of do
a yeah, my followers. You know, can't control those guys.
He knows if I send a tweet, break run. And
you know when Lindsey Graham turned on him after the insurrection,
he got right back on board after a bunch of
Trump's followers came and screamed at him at an airport.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Oh God, I remember that.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
This is how it works. This is how they keep
these guys on side.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Just explain to our listeners why people like Dick Cheney
aren't important endorsement.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
Are or are not? Are are a couple reasons number
one Right now, we're in a space of persuasion around
low information voters. And it's the kind of like super
weird news item that makes a low information voter be like,
wait a minute, that Dick Cheney is endorsing Kamala Harris.
It is the kind of thing that breaks through. And
(24:40):
so I would say that's number one because I think
for a lot of other people, like Jeff Duncan, who's
a wonderful person and a wonderful Republican, is not a
household name, and so him endorsing is different than like
Dick Cheney, who people have a very fixed understanding of
and no one thinks is like a rhino, right, And
so I think as part of it, I also think
(25:01):
that for a certain Washington set that we still need
to come speak out. There is a weird permission structure
being built by other folks that says, oh, we can
just keep our hands clean, we can just step back
and do nothing. I can say, oh, I'm not going
to vote for Trump. This is kind of the Mike
Pence way. I'm not going to vote for Trump. You know.
Brett Stevens is on HBO, is on Bill Maher being like,
(25:23):
but how could I vote for Harris? Like, you know? So,
And I think that there's something in Dick Cheney being like,
don't be idiots, just vote for this normal person over
this psychopath is like helpful with that set.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, so interesting, so smart, so important. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Sarah longle Hey thanks for having me always fun.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right
now we have us release the final episode of this
five episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly
(26:06):
Jong Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if
you are more of a podcast person and not say
a YouTuber, you can hit play and put your phone
in the lock screen and it will play back just
like a podcast. All five episodes are online now. We
need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would
(26:26):
or could do to this country, so please watch it
and spread the word. Paula Ramos is an MSNBC contributor
and the author of Defectors, The Rise of the Latino
Far Right and What it Means for America.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So first, let's start by talking about this book, because
I feel like it's very much what we're all kind
of thinking about in this election. Is this sort of
interesting moment in the culture and also in this Latino
voting base, explain to us where we are, what it
looks like.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
And again, Latino voters are not a monolith.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
There's a lot of different subgroups in there, so kind
of talk to.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
Us about that definitely, so defector. So the idea kind
of like sub cautiously started in twenty sixteen. So in
twenty sixteen, I'm like working in the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Back then I had the stancy title of like deputy
director of Hispanic Press and so like so much of
the theory of challenge in that moment with that, like
(27:30):
in the face of someone like Donald Trump, right, like
the skuy I was insulting immigrants, Mexicans, like in the
face of someone like him. The theory in the formula
was that Latinos would sort of rise in these unprecedented numbers,
right and I mean literally like until the very last
day of that campaign, Like that's what people were holding
onto I'll never forget, like the morning of the election,
and then fast forward to that ninth in twenty sixteen.
(27:52):
It's not just a Donald Trump points, it's that less
than fifty percent of Latinos actually show up to the polls.
And then sort of fast forward to where we were
than in November twenty twenty, and you see that Donald Trump, right, like,
after four years of this administration, after four years of
family like separation, zero tolerance policy, all the insults, you
suddenly see that here goes Trump and he does between
(28:13):
eight to ten points better with Latino voters. So we're
talking about like thirty percent of forty percent of the
of the Latino vote, Like pure research had him a
forty percent. So that what that you just said, Molly, Like,
that's what sort of is at the heart of what
drove me to write this book, Like, how do you explain?
And I always want to correct my Like it is
we're talking about like a small but a growing number
(28:33):
of latinos as finds something appealing in trump Ism, right,
and it the far right, and that slippery slope towards
extremism is so much kind of easier and seamless than
what we thought our entire lives.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
There are Latino voters who are absolutely not moving in
that direction. So explain to sort of the subgroup that
because like Cuban voters have been conservative forever, right, So
explain does who it is who's.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Who's moving in that direction?
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Right, So for sure, and I think that's that's really important. Rightly.
I think come this November, you will not hear the
story that Donald Trump wins the Latino vote. And I think,
I think that's that's not the story. The story is
why is he making such inbros?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Right?
Speaker 6 (29:13):
Like why is this voting block that is so like
it's the antithesis of Trump? Isn't like what are they seeing?
So I think that movement is happening who exactly? So
it's adding in many different directions. You have one block,
which is the way that this like anti immigrant sentiment
is really getting into people's psyche's right. So now you
see that the that the number of Latinos that are
warming up to mass deportations and warming up to the wall,
(29:36):
like that's increasing.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Right, But those are not Mexican Latinos.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
Really In the book, like I spend so much time
with like with Mexican Americans. I mean I just gone
back from Arizona and I was talking to Mexican Americans
that in conversation you sort of start to to hear,
know these the verious subtle references to like those immigrants
and those criminals. And I think part of what I'm
(30:01):
trying to do in the book is so people understand
that like to be Latino doesn't make you immune to
the anti imbgrant sentiment. In fact, that it actually makes
a lot of sense, right because we're talking about a
Latino liketriy that is so different from what it was
thirty years ago. Like right now, it is third generation
Latinos that are the fastest great segment within their voting
black And so we're talking about a segment of people
(30:22):
that right now are born in the United States, are
super young, and prefer to speak English and Spanish. And
so when you taught to them, perhaps the country sees
them as immigrants or as Latinos, they see themselves as
fully American, and sort of the key in the heart
of what makes it such a complicated conversation is that
there is this sort of amongst them, no, but there's
(30:43):
this sort of subtle like fear, this unconscious fear that America,
particularly white America, will always look at them as these
like perpetual foreigners. Right because that anti immigrant sentiment is
so strong, Like study after study after study showed you
that like I just phrase like as Mexican emigrant increases
in some counties, white people's attitudes towards their black neighbors
(31:05):
become more positive, but their attitudes towards their Latino neighbors
become more negative. I mean, you've talked about this so
many times, like the anti immigrant sentiment that cenophobia can
at times subdue like anti blackness. But so here you
have like a growing group of Latinos that that wants
to feel like they belong, and not only that, they
(31:26):
have to prove that they belong even though they're folio Americans.
So you know, so it's it's that's the hard part
to understand, like where it all comes from. And so yeah,
you have like Mexican Americans and other Latinos across the
board that are buying into the anti Morgant sentiment as
well as some Latinos that are buying into the like
anti blackness. There's a reason why Donald Trump went to
(31:47):
the Bronx, right, we were all laughing, but their racial
grievance totally.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And he had huge numbers in the Bronx.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
The thing that I always think about Trump is that
one of the things Trump does very smart like is
that he offers people who are being offered nothing something exactly.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
That's exactly right. It's so smart. Like one of the
things that he did in this campaign is in twenty
sixteen or in twenty twenty, the label was Latinos for Trump, right,
and then in twenty twenty four he's changed it to
Latino Americans for Trump, the emphasis on Americans.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
And I think that's like he is.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
So convinced that at this point there's a segment of
Latinos that have become so assimilated or or that want
to assimilate so much that they too will buy into
the nativism and the anti emergan sentiments and the anti
blackness and the sort of you know, trans cultural words,
and like that's it. Now, make those people believe that
they to are American, even though fundamentally Trump is completely
(32:45):
like you know, neglects them and fundamentally disavows them. But
make them believe that they're American, and it works.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I think that's right, And I think that that is
a good point. He can't quite square the circle though
in this election.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You think or now, no.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Like I think, like we said, like, we will not
hear a story where Donald Trump wins the election with
Latinos part of the reason why. And I just I
just got back from Arizona and one of the things
that I was doing in Arizona was talking to mixed
status families. And so we're talking about, you know, moms
that are dreamers that have been here for over twenty
years that now have US citizen children.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And FYI, almost all families are mixed status families one
hundred percent.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
And I think that's that's such an important point to
put out there because when we're talking about like the
Latina voting blockber immigration, like now we can say that
like everyone's impacted, right, Like there's over ten million US
citizens that live within and among mix status families, right,
and so there's millions and millions of Americans that like,
you know, this is what they have to to face.
And so my point is, as we speak and as
(33:52):
we approach the election, there are thousands of mixed status families,
particularly in a battle bread state like Arizona, that are
literally thinking about what self deportation plans will look like
if Donald Trump wins the election. And like I was
having conversations with them, we're literally a mom had to
figure out who would have custody of her US children
(34:13):
if Trump wins, right, because they're thinking back to just
a couple of years, back to the years of Sheriff
jor Pyo, where racial profiling happened, where people were knocking
on their doors. And so it's real. And I think
precisely because of what we learned from Arizona, which is
that as our Pio heard of his rise, so too
were the number of Latino voters and that created a backlash.
(34:35):
And so there is this mobilizing force in places like
Arizona that are being energized when they hear this antimager
rhetoric and they're going to go vote right, Like these
kids that saw their parents being deported and detained and
racial and profiled. They did it one time in Arizona
in twenty twenty. That's one of the reasons why Joe
Biden won, but by almost less than one percent, but
he won, and they're going to do it again. And
(34:55):
I still think that will carry more weight than than
the sort of of like write worship that is also happening.
You know, think true stories can be real out once,
you know.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I agree, and I think that's probably right. The polls
have been really tight from Arizona. But they've been really
tight at the top of the ticket, and they show Rubin,
you know, just absolutely crushing carry like at the bottom
of the ticket. I think she will yeah, yeah, So
make it make sense. Are the Ruben Trump voters? I
mean that seems insane to me. But Rubin is Latino too.
Speaker 6 (35:27):
He is Latino. He has something that's so interesting. Like
I was having a conversation with the sheriff in Penell County.
He's a Trump supporter, and he, you know, even though
he's conservative, he's a Trump supporter. She's pro you know,
mass reportations. But in Rubin, he sort of sees his
military and background, you know, and she sees his toughness,
and she sees the Democrat that we have to recognize
(35:49):
it is no longer going to the left when it
comes to e regration. But just like you know, the
Vice president, they're going center right, and so that is
making a huge difference. No, now we're suddenly these demo
at in a place I maybe four years ago you
heard of Joe Biden promised comprehensive immigration reform and a
more humane asylum system and you know, humanity at the border.
(36:10):
Those sigging points are gone. It's that's really helping a
Ruben Diego. And I think it'll it'll come down to
that formula that I think the Democrats are are sort
of leaning into, no, leaning to the center right on immigration,
try and remember and try and get people to understand
how cruel these like dehumanizing language is. But I think
that center right approach is what everyone's counting on. And
(36:33):
activists aren't happy about that. I'll tell you that, No, I'm.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Not even that happy about it.
Speaker 6 (36:38):
But it's the way to win, that's right exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
So you do think that there are Diego Trump voters.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
I'm trying to think of those people and know that
that would do something like that, that those like a
Latino voter that would go for a Ruben Diego and
not for a you know, Diego Harris ticket. Yeah, And
I think they would come down to like the miss
and disinformation around now, if you're sort of a Ladina,
you know, support that's curious around Trump, and what really
(37:06):
resonates with you is the missing disinformation about her being
a communist now, about her being like the borders zar.
What really really resonates with you is sort of depicting
her as someone that is really aligned with like the
LGBTQ queer like trans community. There's certain talking points that
I think, you know, the right is trying really really
(37:28):
hard to associate with her that I think a guy
will to sort of distance himself from that now because
he's local, he knows the border, he's a military guy,
he's a tough guy. But I think that's where like
a lot of the miss and disinformation like works. Now
there's a distance with her, in a sort of discomfort
with her, again among a small group, but it does work. No,
(37:50):
I mean I think about the fact all the time,
Like in twenty twenty more Latinas believe that Democrats were
headed towards communism, then they believed that Republicans were headed
towards fascism. No, and that's where you see it. Yeah,
it's crazy, but that's where they're so good at. No,
it's the narrative that like the mas and the disinformation,
(38:11):
it's on the radio, it's on What's Up, it's on Facebook,
Like that's where they do really well.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Let's talk about the radio stuff, because that's pretty interesting.
Talk to me about what that looks like. Because there
are these Spanish language radio stations they're a big deal.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
What does that landscape look like?
Speaker 6 (38:31):
It's so different, you know, the same way that we
say that Latinos are a monolith, like the Spanish language
media ecosystem is changing so much, and it looks so
different from state of stateium. You go to a place
like South Florida and Miami, obviously Miami Daye County, the
heart know of a state like Florida, more often than not,
you will hear conservative radio hosts spreading the big lie
(38:54):
and still doubling down on the communist talking point, like
that is still happening right now. And if you go
to like Arizona that has a larger population of like
immigrant families and mixed status families, you there see some
small radio stations that are like long like historically associated
for instance, with the like Ceasar of Tatler's movement, that
are trying so hard day and day out so sort
(39:15):
of put the politics aside and keep the immigrant community informed.
Knowing that's and and if you tune in, it's like
most most of these like small Latino led organizations that
are like trying really hard to like cut through that noise.
But I think what I will say is that in
since twenty twenty until now, there has been a concerted
effort by some Republicans to change the direction of Spanish
(39:36):
language media for it to be more conservative. When we're
talking about television, I've talked to so many different business folks,
like Republican Latino business folks that tell me one thing,
and that is, I don't want to create the Spanish
language fosslings. And they're trying, you know, and they're and
they're doing it at small scale like you see in
like in Texas, like there's there's people that are already
(39:56):
trying to do that, like partnering with like Christian Television
that work to make sure that like Christian City has
Spanish language content. And so I think that, you know,
there's the shift is happening everywhere now what used to
be Spanish language CV and radio like twenty thirty years ago,
like back in the day where like people would like
listen to my dad, tune into a newscast and just
(40:18):
believe the host.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
Like that's gone.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
That's it.
Speaker 6 (40:21):
It's so different right now.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, wow, so interesting. What groups are Republicans really unable
to get?
Speaker 6 (40:28):
I mean, I think what's interesting now is that there's
sort of like the two forces and not on the left.
You have this sort of Republican right word shift happening
not just about produce your Republican folks, but about many
Latinos that are now more assimilated americanizing that are curious.
But then, and this is where I think it's more interesting,
then you have the youth vote. Now, then you have
(40:51):
the third generation Latinos that if you start to doom in,
you know, you understand that like among all the millennial generation,
it is Latinos that are more likely to identify themselves
as queer. No, you have a generation that doesn't speak
in Spanish or in English, but in Spanish, you have
a generation that's not scared to lean into being like
after Latino and indigenous and queer. And so what happens
(41:13):
with that block is not only do they feel more
freedom to be themselves, which is like such a beautiful
thing and distinguishes themselves from the older generations of Latinos
that sort of had to like fit into stereotypes, but
they feel more empowered to challenge the Democratic Party, to
hold the Democratic more accountable, to ask for champaigns to
be there not just a month before, but a year, two,
(41:35):
three before, and it's happening like the way that the
Vice President and Joe Biden's team was campaigning and trying
to get the Latino vote this year, it happened way
before any other years now. So I think that's the difference.
So there's this progressive rising young Latina vote. They're leanings
being Democrats, but they're independent in the sense that they
know that people now have to fight for their vote
(41:57):
in a way that perhaps they didn't have to do
it for their grand turns or their pain.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
It's also part of it, though, is that they're not religious,
like Latinos are becoming less religious.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Sure, and that's again it's like everything's always I always
go back to like two things are always happening at
the same time. It's like the rate of Latinos that
are athlic is like plummeting, but there's always a butt.
But the amount of Latinas that are converting to evangelicalism
is writing in this moment, Latinos are the fastest spring
group of the American evangelicals, right, They're outpacing white evangelicals
(42:31):
in their ray. So part of that why so part
of that is because and you're right, like as we
are becoming less religious, there's this sort of new phenomenon happening,
and part of that is linked to Latin America. So
many of the asylum seekers, in the migrants that have
come to this country in the last ten years, I've
been carrying these evangelical beliefs. Think of a country like Guatemala,
(42:51):
and Guatemala right now is forty percent evangelical.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
I saw the door.
Speaker 6 (42:55):
Brazil thirty percent evangelical. And so there's this evangelical boom
that's happening in Latin America. A lot of people are
cheering that with them, with them here for years, they've
been stepping into these evangelical churches that were not political.
Now that we're sort of this like sense of refuge
in the safe place and a sort of sanctuary place
for many people, while in the last five years they're
(43:17):
becoming more politicized. I mean Donald Trump started his Evangelicals
for Trump, his national Evangelicals for Trump campaign in twenty twenty.
Not in Ohio, not in Wisconsin, out in Pennsylvania. He
started it in Miami Dade County, targetting Latinos because they
understand and that's kind of what's happening. You know, Republicans
have understood the same way that the Christian wright has
(43:38):
understood the same way that like evangelicals have understood. Trump
isam has understood that they cannot survive without some portion
of the Latino bol right, and that's what they're going into.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
That's interesting. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you.
Speaker 6 (43:52):
Thank you so much for letting me talk about this.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Nose canon Molly junk Fast. So Job mcintee, who you
may remember from Project twenty twenty five, being Trump's deputy president.
I'm going to shock you here. Guy from the Trump administration.
Not a good guy.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
So he's one of the architects of Project twenty twenty five.
He is also, I might add, a person who works
at the Peter Tiel back to dating app the right stuff.
So today Wire Magazine reported that he was talking on
that he was texting with two different eighteen year old
(44:32):
college freshmen and they both said that they felt that
he was inappropriate with them in online conversations.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Often this is not a one off.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
But we'll see, right, we'll see if this is just
how he behaved with two people in complete isolation and
never again.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
But that my friend, the guy who worked on Project
twenty twenty five. He's also the guy who did the
video where he said that Harris was lying when she
talked about a woman bleeding out in a parking lot.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Remember that TikTok video?
Speaker 3 (45:03):
I sure do.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
I also remember the one where he talks about giving
fake money the homeless.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah, that guy. Shockingly, that guy is not a good guy.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Never would have guessed it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and the Republican Governors Association has withdrawn
support from Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. We have such a
great show for you today, the focus Groups. Sarah Longwell
joins us to talk about focus groups. Then we'll talk
(00:23):
to MSNBC's Paula Ramos about her new book, Defectors, the
Rise of the Latino far Right and what it means
for America.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
But first the news.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Jesse Cannon, I'm going to tell you Republicans desperately need
to keep these House seats in Long Island and New
York State Hudson Valley area, and all they want is
to get these Long Island congressmen re elected.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And guess what.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Just broke these days?
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Hearing about a Republican congressman having an affair seems to
just mean that we've reached another week in our politics
since I can think of last week with Mark Green,
but this one was even on the payroll of the congressman.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
You know it's a Republican because they've got their mistress
on the payroll. John Edwards would like a word, right,
that's a good point. Is a nonpartisan activity. Anthony d
Esposito and New York two Democrats have been salivating over
the seat. It's a seat that Biden, It's in a
district that Biden won in twenty twenty. So in April,
(01:30):
mister d Esposito added someone to his payroll, a woman
with whom he was having an affair. Okay, they have
four sources here. This is from the New York Times.
The woman she collected two thousand dollars a month for
a part time job in the same district office. So
that's pretty bad.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Yeah, I should say, since I'm familiar with congressional staffers
salaries being married to one of them, this is very
entry level salary, like right above in Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
What I think is one of the amazing parts of
the story is that Manu Raju, who covers Congress for CNN,
went and asked Speaker Johnson if he had spoken Speaker
of the House Mike Johnson, very very very religious man
if he had spoken to Dsposito about employing his mistress
(02:21):
in his district office.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
And he said he had not, that he's.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Been very busy, as one is when you're the Speaker
of the House, though this might be important. Then GOP
whip MANU asked the GOP whip tom Emers. You'll remember
Tom Emers had some problems because Trump had counted him out.
He had wanted to be the Speaker of the House.
Tom Emmer said, we got to get through the week.
We got a CR that's up tomorrow, and I think
(02:47):
we're going to have a good vote. So you'll remember
that Republicans keep being unable to pass a continuing resolution
because Trump wants to shut down the government. The time
is now really tight in order to get the CR
pass so that the government doesn't shut down right before
an election, because Speaker Johnson has sort of told Trump
that he can't do that, but they are now sort
(03:10):
of barreling towards it, and so they have a very
short period of time in order to pass a continuing resolution.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So a lot of fuckery there.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Mister Brett Farv, a person you and I know a
lot about because you and I are the most knowledgeable
people on sports in the world. He had a little
hearing today and there's a lot of fuckery.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, So Brett Favre is famous for playing a lot
of sport, whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I think it's.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Football, Yes, I know that much.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
He's also famous for his involvement in the largest corruption
case in Mississippi state history. You know, Mississippi is a
state with a lot of poverty, a lot of bad
outcomes when it comes to feedle, maternal life, when it
comes to education. It's just a state that really has
had a tough time. So Brett Farv is a cute
(04:00):
used of misusing Mississippi state welfare funds, and he used
it to build a stadium, and he used it to
build a volleyball center. And there are texts by the
way of him talking to other people. So Brett Favre,
(04:20):
will the media find out that we're using welfare to
funds intended for it to help the poorest residents of
America's poor state build a volleyball center. And the woman
wrote back, Now the governor is fully on board. Five
years later, anyway, so Brett Farv was testifying from the
(04:40):
House today and he talked about how basically none of
this was his fault, and how he had been tricked
and how unfair it was. And then he added that
he had lost a lot of money on other investments,
including and Jesse's going to play this now, but basically
that he had lost money on investments in a pharmaceutical
(05:01):
company that was supposed to help people with concussions, and
then he worked in that he had been diagnosed with
parkinson three years ago. Again, I still think that stealing
that money was wrong, despite the fact that he has Parkinson's.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
That's just me. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
I've never seen an exemption in a law book that
says that once you have Parkinson's, you're not liable for
your crimes anymore. Sobali, the Vice President, has talked about
throwing away the filibuster to codify abortion rights in America.
And I'm going to shock you here. Joe Manchin and
a bunch of idiots are really mad about this.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, I mean again. She appeared on Wisconsin today. You'll
remember that Republicans are saying she's not doing enough interviews,
but here she is actually doing a local news interview,
and she's saying not that she will eliminate the philibuster
for everything, just that she will eliminate the philibuster for row.
There's a lot of people who think that philibuster should
(06:01):
be eliminated for Roe, and you'll remember Roe was the
law of the land for almost fifty years. And Trump
did install a very conservative Supreme Court. He put three
chumpy justices on the Supreme Court with the purpose of
overturning Row. This is a real special situation where I
think getting rid of the philibuster does not necessarily mean
(06:22):
getting rid of the philibuster for good.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
The justices that were installed here one might remember at
Mereric carl And these were basically ill gotten gains injustices right.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Well they did they stall the Gore Sitch Seed and
then Justice keg Stand and then Justice bear it. Her
hearing started while people were already voting.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
know the Lincoln projects, Rick Wills that have past politics?
Bole jug Faster heading out on tour to bring you
a night of last for our dark political landscape. Join
us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
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at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest
and we'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the
(07:10):
twenty first of September, and on the twenty second, we'll
be in Chicago at Citywinery. Then we're going to hit
the East coast. On September thirtieth, we'll be in Boston
at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
we'll be Infilliate City Winery, and then DC on the
second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just announced
that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of
October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as
(07:30):
we get through this election and hopefully never hear from
a guy who lives in a golf club again, we
got you covered. Join us in our surprise guests to
help you laugh instead of cry your way through this
election season and give you the inside analysis of what's
really going on right now. Buy your tickets now by
heading to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as
Unusual dot bio.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Sarah Longwhile is the publisher of The Bulwark and the
host of the focus group podcast Welcome Back two Fast Politics.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
Aw Hey, thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I'm so excited to have you.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
It's so funny because it's like this election cycle, I
feel like it's been like a century.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Yeah, well almost a decade.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I mean, it's true.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
You know, there's a lot of people I've met for
the first time kind of in the twenties seventeen, and
you know, we all had like really little kids or
like I just had my first kid. Now everybody's got
like grown kids, and it's all been in the span
of time when Trump happens.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
It's really true.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's actually like my kids are like late teens or
early twenties.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Now it's like, what can we talk about this?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Like yesterday there was this sort of they tracked Trump's rallies,
and now he's gone from like doing five this is
actually a front.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
We're gonna talk about.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
A Frank Luntz tweet, I'm sorry to tell you, yea
everyone's favorite.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I mean that ironically, he had.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
A tweet about like agreeing that Trump really isn't doing
very many rallies to what he was doing in twenty sixteen,
where he was doing as many as three or four
a day.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
He does feel like the man is like low energy.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Yeah, I mean, like on the point of you know,
time flies when you're trying to ward off an autocracy
like Donald Trump is an old man, like he is
seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I'm seventy eight now, oldest person ever to run for president, oldest.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Person ever to run for president. So like he's lost
a step, and you know, he has been able to,
I think thrive in comparison to Joe Biden because he
does still have like big lunatic energy when he is
talking right, and he's charismatic. Yeah, I mean just to
people who find his particular way of being charismatic. I
find him repellent whenever he opens his mouth. But you know,
(09:45):
different strokes for different folks, but he just it is
so clear when you listen to him where you go back.
I end up. It's a hazard of my profession that
I often go back and we'll watch sort of old
debate footage. And I was doing it at the time,
you know, looking at Joe Biden's performance going back some years,
but even looking at Trump, he looks really different. He
looked terrible at the debate. And I wouldn't normally say
(10:06):
that as a judgment other than look, they set up
the prism of age and mental acuity, Like that's the
frame they wanted with Joe Biden, and now he's got
to live in that frame, and he's too old to
be doing this.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I think that's really important.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, I mean they were basically running on Biden's age
until the moment Biden dropped out.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
He's still trying to run on Biden's age. Trump is
very old, and I think he's very sad that he's
no longer running against Joe Biden.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yes, well, and he does sometimes he slips into as
I run against Joe Biden.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Yeah, he clearly wishes as we all look back, because
it's been such an insane campaign for one that was
set up to be so boring in terms of just
like a rematch to a two guys we knew very well.
It's been an absolute wild ride. I cannot believe how
unprepared his campaign was for the possibility that maybe Joe
Biden was going to drop out, and they've never found
(10:58):
their footing since.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, exactly exactly. I mean that is really what's so
interesting is that they did. They kept saying, you know,
Biden has to drop out, Biden has to drop out,
Biden has to drop out, and then they were like, wait, what.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Yeah, that's right. They did not think Democrats had it
in them. Yeah, but it really is Republicans now who
no matter how big bad things get, they won't drop
out them. And you look at this Mark Robinson guy,
like Donald Trump has taught all of these guys you
just power through. And that's why that's why I think
they didn't think Joe Biden would do it because Donald
Trump would never do it. He would never give up power,
he would never step aside. And he's taught all of
(11:34):
these other Republicans, like, is the scandal of epic proportions
so much so that it seems like you'll never get
out from under it? Is there so much evidence well
did not It's like the shaggy rule of politics. Just
like say it wasn't you and pretend like it didn't happen.
Just barrel through.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, but let's talk about Mark Robinson in North Carolina
for a minute, because what is so interesting about him
is almost everyone in his campaign has it. It's him
and whoever is left in there who's given up on
trying to have a career.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I mean, what's the play there?
Speaker 5 (12:08):
I mean the play is to lose I think. I
mean I'm watching him. He's got this like OJ defense
going on where he's like, we're gonna find the real
person who did it. We will dedicate every last minute
we have figuring out which AI did went back in
time and subscribed me to all the like spad I
(12:28):
was a black Nazi and indorsed slavery, that the transgender
porn was my jam while I'm you know, demonizing transgender kids.
The funny thing about the Mark Robinson stuff is all
the new stuff is like it's bad, but is it
worse than the stuff? We already knew him being a
holocaust and I are him saying that, you know, him
acting like he's a big pro life guy when he
paid for an abortion, you know ford his wife had
(12:50):
so like, this guy's been a bad guy from the jump.
And you know, the voters in North Carolina, the Republican
primary voters, they had a choice between like Joe Normy
candidate and Mark Robinson. And in the primary they picked
Mark Robinson by a landslide. And this is what Republican
primary voters want. I guess they're going to get it
good and hard.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I mean, Sarah, I would say, also he is You'll
remember he's also the lieutenant governor. Now he's already has
an elected office there.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Yeah, and this was one of the reasons that they
didn't want Rory Cooper was getting when he was considered
right for vice president. He couldn't step aside because nobody
wanted to give this guy a bigger platform. Yes, and
he should resign again, because we've lived a lifetime in
just less than a decade. But in the before times,
in the beforetimes, something like this would be ruinous for
(13:46):
any candidate, but especially a character counts, morality based GOP candidate.
But today it's just you know, it's Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Right, exactly, It's Tuesday if you're listening to this podcast,
And I'm sure euro listeners have the same real anxiet
about this fucking election.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So I was actually with someone earlier who is from
Biden world, and they were talking about their path and
how they thought they would win. But they felt that
it was a much narrower path than what she has
and that she has actually opened up the map in
certain ways.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Where do you see this election happening?
Speaker 5 (14:17):
So one of the things about North Carolina, North Carolina
wasn't even on my list of states to play in.
She put it in contention in a meaningful way that said,
I still like I don't sit around being like, oh
my god, what if she doesn't win North Carolina. I
never thought Democrats were going to win North Carolina, and
so I've been like, it is Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska too,
that's your path. Part of it is like she's over
(14:39):
performing with white voters, like she's doing well with white voters.
I think there was maybe some concern. I know I
had some concern demographically with Biden dropping out, like Biden
was doing very well with older white people that was
who he was working for, and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Man, because he's an older white person.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Yes he is. But she continues to do well with
those voters. And I think that she's been sort of
putting the coalition back together in terms of Hispanics and
in terms of black voters that had been kind of
sliding away from Joe Biden. And she's still under where
Biden was in terms of what he finally hit in
twenty twenty, and so she's got more work to do.
But I do think that that those industrial kind of
(15:18):
Midwest states are still the path.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Talk to me about what you're seeing in focus groups.
One of the things that I talked to Tim Miller
about and I assume Tim Miller and you are seeing
the same focus group stuff.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
Tim is seeing my focus groups. Yes, that's what it means.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, I assume Tim is seeing your focus groups.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Ye.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
What he said to me before she jumped out was
that she had more of an upside than he did.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yes, Well, so you're saying that Tim was surprised by that,
or that's something he said before.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, that he said, well, you know, she has more
of an upside, she has more of a path that
she can win these people that he couldn't.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
Maybe nod, yes, So that is a one hundred percent
sure in the focus groups. And this is when we
were in that weird interregnum.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, the three weeks from how.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
Yeah, and I was a you know, I was allowed
Joe Biden's got to drop out, and primarily because of
what I was seeing in the focus groups, Like, yeah,
they were just a center left voters, like soft Biden voters,
young people, they were just he's too old. They felt
like it was irresponsible to vote for him. He was
never going to finish out his term. They weren't going
to vote for Trump, but they were. I'm so mad
about Biden. I love my Midwestern governors my Josh Shapiro's
(16:29):
and Gretchen Whitmer's, and I was concerned. I'd spent years
listening to people talk about their negative impressions of Harris. However,
when I started to look harder at it, when it
got you know, starting to get down to like this
might really happen, it did start to become pretty clear
that it needed to be Kamala Harris from a logistical standpoint,
and I was just like, you know what, she's got upside.
She's got upside because when you listen to the voters
(16:51):
who were saying they have a negative impression of her,
the impression was so loose and it was so rooted
in I don't see her, I don't know or I
don't know what she's doing. And so that was the upside.
I was like, Okay, well let's see her, let's meet her,
let's know what she's doing, and like if they like her,
then good. And this is where what she has done
has when people look back, I mean, her favorables are
through the room. Like she's made like a twenty point gain.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
In favorability she's w after nine to eleven. Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
She's completely reversed the enthusiasm advantage that Republicans had. I mean,
people like get a. I think the polling is one thing,
but like, look at all the other indices, Look at
the small dollar donors, look at how many people are new,
look at registrations, look at volunteering, like the people who
are coming out, and like if you talk to anybody
who's running a precinct or is in a state, like
they can't handle the volume of volunteers. Now, those things
(17:42):
aren't votes, but I do think that they speak to
something bigger than just vibes and what I see from
swing voters. So she had I think we could see
that she had upside back then. I don't think any
of us anticipated she'd had the kind of upside that
she's had. And that is to give her just an
enormous amount of credit. So that is based on her performance,
you know, I think that all of us got a
(18:03):
little bit. We just seen one too many supercuts of
her kind of word salading, and we thought, like, oh man,
she doesn't have it. But like whatever she was doing
right as vice president, where she was getting her reps in,
like she came out the other side good better, like
a better politician, you know, and I wish there's a
couple of things. Obviously, I wish we were seeing from her.
I wish she was just more forthright about the fact that,
(18:25):
you know, three and a half years as vice president
allowed her to understand more about how she had to
leave California politics behind and focus on how you govern
for the entire country. And that's why she's moved to
the center on certain things like just give people like
and people understand, Okay, you changed your mind, you got
more information as opposed to just changing positions. I also
think the thing that I see in focus groups that's
(18:46):
so interesting is I've known for a long time that
the more people see of Donald Trump, the less they
like him. When like Donald Trump is high salience, when
he is in people's faces, you see his numbers go
down in terms of favorability because people don't like him
when they see him. She and Tim, the more people
see them, the more they like them. Kamala, if you're listening,
get him out there, Get him out there, I mean
(19:07):
as much of a breakneck pace as their significantly younger
statuses can handle, Like Tim Walls, get put him everywhere. Yeah,
So that would be my only kind of complaint is
that I sometimes think this team has a little like
Biden PTSD or like you couldn't put this guy anywhere,
and like these people need to be everywhere.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Yeah, they are like out there a lot though. I mean,
but I agree.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
And Tim Walls, I think is really a good surrogaate,
Like he really has that Midwestern thing.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Yeah, I mean when he talks about gutters and gutter maintenance. Yes,
I just feel like, you know, when he's feeding a
baby cow with a model and he's talking to it, Like,
put that guy everywhere in central Pennsylvania, in the big
vast ocean where I grew up, between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Just send him in, send him to the arm show.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah. I think that's a really good point. That's why
I was saying that I thought he was a smart pick.
It's so interesting to me because I had interviewed her
a couple times, Harris, and I had thought, you know,
she's really good and everybody hates her and I can't
figure out why this is, Like in twenty twenty two,
and I was like, I've interviewed a lot of politicians
(20:21):
and a lot of them are like some.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Of them are just so careful, like Corey Booker. Corey
Booker is.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So careful, like you could like him or not like him,
but he's so careful it's almost impossible to interview him. Yeah,
I understand, But like with her, she is not even
that careful.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
She's just really good.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And I was like, she's really good, and I kept saying,
you know, she's really good, and finally got to a
place where I was like, I guess that America is
just so racist and sexist that they can't see that
she's actually really good. And so when she got up
there and she was really good, I was like, oh
my god, I was actually right. I always sort of
believed in my heart that she was really good, and
I've been really grad to see that. But I also
(21:01):
I thought Wallas was the pick. But again, if they
lose Pennsylvania, I will not have thought Wallas was the pick.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
I was realizing.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
I was like, if they lose Pennsylvania, then Josh Shapiro
would have been a better back.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
That's right, we're not going to know. We're not gonna
be able to run the counterfactual on that unless I
think we can all ye assume if she loses Pennsylvania
by ten thousand votes. We will have wished she picked Joshpia,
But obviously I'm a Pennsylvania person. I'm a Shapiro person.
But I like Tim Walls a ton. I want more
Tim Walls so that he can do the thing that
I think he was supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I think that's smart.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
One of the things that's really interesting that we're seeing
out of Donald Trump is Donald Trump clearly is seeing
that women don't like him.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
I do think he's catching on to that, yes, which
is why he wos them in all caps.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So I laugh to keep from crying.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
But women will be safer, they'll no longer think about abortion.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Who is giving him this advice?
Speaker 5 (21:58):
If I had to lame money, I'd say it's Kelly
and Conway. Oh really, yeah, because I think she's probably
the only Polster that he has who like tells him
to try with women. I think the rest of his team,
like clearly the JD Vance pick and everything else, up
until this point, has been trying to run up numbers
with men. And my guess is because she is not
(22:21):
Kelly and Conway is not stupid. She is a smart person,
and she understands these numbers, and I think she went
in there and was like, yes, you are leading by
this much with men, but you are cratering with women,
and like you have got to do something to lose
less badly here. And that was his response. That's how
he interpreted that, probably perfectly, saying advice.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
The all caps and this sort of menacing way he's
mentioning it seemed to have really threaded the needle.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
I don't know how you would do this, but there
is part of me that wants to go interview women
who've like survived abusive relationships and ask how similar this
kind of gaslighting is, because this like the way that
Trump because he's a predator himself right when he actually
he's the protector. Like you can feel the predator all
(23:10):
over it. I just have to imagine people who sort
of deal with men who are predators like this, like
would recognize the behavior pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
It feels like very menacing, yeah, you know, and like
a little bit of a thread.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
And low key menace has always been part of the
Trump experience that I do think we under talk about.
He's sort of using it here broadly, just like aimed
like idiotically at women, but like This is how he
gets Republicans to be in line right as by you know,
sort of turning. But he like tries to be like
(23:44):
he'll turn on the charm, turn on the be like
sort of obsequious and stuck up to people, kind of
the way he talks about.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Putin now his favorite.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
And then on the other side he'll kind of do
a yeah, my followers. You know, can't control those guys.
He knows if I send a tweet, break run. And
you know when Lindsey Graham turned on him after the insurrection,
he got right back on board after a bunch of
Trump's followers came and screamed at him at an airport.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Oh God, I remember that.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
This is how it works. This is how they keep
these guys on side.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Just explain to our listeners why people like Dick Cheney
aren't important endorsement.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
Are or are not? Are are a couple reasons number
one Right now, we're in a space of persuasion around
low information voters. And it's the kind of like super
weird news item that makes a low information voter be like,
wait a minute, that Dick Cheney is endorsing Kamala Harris.
It is the kind of thing that breaks through. And
(24:40):
so I would say that's number one because I think
for a lot of other people, like Jeff Duncan, who's
a wonderful person and a wonderful Republican, is not a
household name, and so him endorsing is different than like
Dick Cheney, who people have a very fixed understanding of
and no one thinks is like a rhino, right, And
so I think as part of it, I also think
(25:01):
that for a certain Washington set that we still need
to come speak out. There is a weird permission structure
being built by other folks that says, oh, we can
just keep our hands clean, we can just step back
and do nothing. I can say, oh, I'm not going
to vote for Trump. This is kind of the Mike
Pence way. I'm not going to vote for Trump. You know.
Brett Stevens is on HBO, is on Bill Maher being like,
(25:23):
but how could I vote for Harris? Like, you know? So,
And I think that there's something in Dick Cheney being like,
don't be idiots, just vote for this normal person over
this psychopath is like helpful with that set.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, so interesting, so smart, so important. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Sarah longle Hey thanks for having me always fun.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right
now we have us release the final episode of this
five episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly
(26:06):
Jong Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if
you are more of a podcast person and not say
a YouTuber, you can hit play and put your phone
in the lock screen and it will play back just
like a podcast. All five episodes are online now. We
need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would
(26:26):
or could do to this country, so please watch it
and spread the word. Paula Ramos is an MSNBC contributor
and the author of Defectors, The Rise of the Latino
Far Right and What it Means for America.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So first, let's start by talking about this book, because
I feel like it's very much what we're all kind
of thinking about in this election. Is this sort of
interesting moment in the culture and also in this Latino
voting base, explain to us where we are, what it
looks like.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
And again, Latino voters are not a monolith.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
There's a lot of different subgroups in there, so kind
of talk to.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
Us about that definitely, so defector. So the idea kind
of like sub cautiously started in twenty sixteen. So in
twenty sixteen, I'm like working in the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Back then I had the stancy title of like deputy
director of Hispanic Press and so like so much of
the theory of challenge in that moment with that, like
(27:30):
in the face of someone like Donald Trump, right, like
the skuy I was insulting immigrants, Mexicans, like in the
face of someone like him. The theory in the formula
was that Latinos would sort of rise in these unprecedented numbers,
right and I mean literally like until the very last
day of that campaign, Like that's what people were holding
onto I'll never forget, like the morning of the election,
and then fast forward to that ninth in twenty sixteen.
(27:52):
It's not just a Donald Trump points, it's that less
than fifty percent of Latinos actually show up to the polls.
And then sort of fast forward to where we were
than in November twenty twenty, and you see that Donald Trump, right, like,
after four years of this administration, after four years of
family like separation, zero tolerance policy, all the insults, you
suddenly see that here goes Trump and he does between
(28:13):
eight to ten points better with Latino voters. So we're
talking about like thirty percent of forty percent of the
of the Latino vote, Like pure research had him a
forty percent. So that what that you just said, Molly, Like,
that's what sort of is at the heart of what
drove me to write this book, Like, how do you explain?
And I always want to correct my Like it is
we're talking about like a small but a growing number
(28:33):
of latinos as finds something appealing in trump Ism, right,
and it the far right, and that slippery slope towards
extremism is so much kind of easier and seamless than
what we thought our entire lives.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
There are Latino voters who are absolutely not moving in
that direction. So explain to sort of the subgroup that
because like Cuban voters have been conservative forever, right, So
explain does who it is who's.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Who's moving in that direction?
Speaker 6 (29:00):
Right, So for sure, and I think that's that's really important. Rightly.
I think come this November, you will not hear the
story that Donald Trump wins the Latino vote. And I think,
I think that's that's not the story. The story is
why is he making such inbros?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Right?
Speaker 6 (29:13):
Like why is this voting block that is so like
it's the antithesis of Trump? Isn't like what are they seeing?
So I think that movement is happening who exactly? So
it's adding in many different directions. You have one block,
which is the way that this like anti immigrant sentiment
is really getting into people's psyche's right. So now you
see that the that the number of Latinos that are
warming up to mass deportations and warming up to the wall,
(29:36):
like that's increasing.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Right, But those are not Mexican Latinos.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
Really In the book, like I spend so much time
with like with Mexican Americans. I mean I just gone
back from Arizona and I was talking to Mexican Americans
that in conversation you sort of start to to hear,
know these the verious subtle references to like those immigrants
and those criminals. And I think part of what I'm
(30:01):
trying to do in the book is so people understand
that like to be Latino doesn't make you immune to
the anti imbgrant sentiment. In fact, that it actually makes
a lot of sense, right because we're talking about a
Latino liketriy that is so different from what it was
thirty years ago. Like right now, it is third generation
Latinos that are the fastest great segment within their voting
black And so we're talking about a segment of people
(30:22):
that right now are born in the United States, are
super young, and prefer to speak English and Spanish. And
so when you taught to them, perhaps the country sees
them as immigrants or as Latinos, they see themselves as
fully American, and sort of the key in the heart
of what makes it such a complicated conversation is that
there is this sort of amongst them, no, but there's
(30:43):
this sort of subtle like fear, this unconscious fear that America,
particularly white America, will always look at them as these
like perpetual foreigners. Right because that anti immigrant sentiment is
so strong, Like study after study after study showed you
that like I just phrase like as Mexican emigrant increases
in some counties, white people's attitudes towards their black neighbors
(31:05):
become more positive, but their attitudes towards their Latino neighbors
become more negative. I mean, you've talked about this so
many times, like the anti immigrant sentiment that cenophobia can
at times subdue like anti blackness. But so here you
have like a growing group of Latinos that that wants
to feel like they belong, and not only that, they
(31:26):
have to prove that they belong even though they're folio Americans.
So you know, so it's it's that's the hard part
to understand, like where it all comes from. And so yeah,
you have like Mexican Americans and other Latinos across the
board that are buying into the anti Morgant sentiment as
well as some Latinos that are buying into the like
anti blackness. There's a reason why Donald Trump went to
(31:47):
the Bronx, right, we were all laughing, but their racial
grievance totally.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
And he had huge numbers in the Bronx.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
The thing that I always think about Trump is that
one of the things Trump does very smart like is
that he offers people who are being offered nothing something exactly.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
That's exactly right. It's so smart. Like one of the
things that he did in this campaign is in twenty
sixteen or in twenty twenty, the label was Latinos for Trump, right,
and then in twenty twenty four he's changed it to
Latino Americans for Trump, the emphasis on Americans.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
And I think that's like he is.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
So convinced that at this point there's a segment of
Latinos that have become so assimilated or or that want
to assimilate so much that they too will buy into
the nativism and the anti emergan sentiments and the anti
blackness and the sort of you know, trans cultural words,
and like that's it. Now, make those people believe that
they to are American, even though fundamentally Trump is completely
(32:45):
like you know, neglects them and fundamentally disavows them. But
make them believe that they're American, and it works.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I think that's right, And I think that that is
a good point. He can't quite square the circle though
in this election.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You think or now, no.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Like I think, like we said, like, we will not
hear a story where Donald Trump wins the election with
Latinos part of the reason why. And I just I
just got back from Arizona and one of the things
that I was doing in Arizona was talking to mixed
status families. And so we're talking about, you know, moms
that are dreamers that have been here for over twenty
years that now have US citizen children.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And FYI, almost all families are mixed status families one
hundred percent.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
And I think that's that's such an important point to
put out there because when we're talking about like the
Latina voting blockber immigration, like now we can say that
like everyone's impacted, right, Like there's over ten million US
citizens that live within and among mix status families, right,
and so there's millions and millions of Americans that like,
you know, this is what they have to to face.
And so my point is, as we speak and as
(33:52):
we approach the election, there are thousands of mixed status families,
particularly in a battle bread state like Arizona, that are
literally thinking about what self deportation plans will look like
if Donald Trump wins the election. And like I was
having conversations with them, we're literally a mom had to
figure out who would have custody of her US children
(34:13):
if Trump wins, right, because they're thinking back to just
a couple of years, back to the years of Sheriff
jor Pyo, where racial profiling happened, where people were knocking
on their doors. And so it's real. And I think
precisely because of what we learned from Arizona, which is
that as our Pio heard of his rise, so too
were the number of Latino voters and that created a backlash.
(34:35):
And so there is this mobilizing force in places like
Arizona that are being energized when they hear this antimager
rhetoric and they're going to go vote right, Like these
kids that saw their parents being deported and detained and
racial and profiled. They did it one time in Arizona
in twenty twenty. That's one of the reasons why Joe
Biden won, but by almost less than one percent, but
he won, and they're going to do it again. And
(34:55):
I still think that will carry more weight than than
the sort of of like write worship that is also happening.
You know, think true stories can be real out once,
you know.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I agree, and I think that's probably right. The polls
have been really tight from Arizona. But they've been really
tight at the top of the ticket, and they show Rubin,
you know, just absolutely crushing carry like at the bottom
of the ticket. I think she will yeah, yeah, So
make it make sense. Are the Ruben Trump voters? I
mean that seems insane to me. But Rubin is Latino too.
Speaker 6 (35:27):
He is Latino. He has something that's so interesting. Like
I was having a conversation with the sheriff in Penell County.
He's a Trump supporter, and he, you know, even though
he's conservative, he's a Trump supporter. She's pro you know,
mass reportations. But in Rubin, he sort of sees his
military and background, you know, and she sees his toughness,
and she sees the Democrat that we have to recognize
(35:49):
it is no longer going to the left when it
comes to e regration. But just like you know, the
Vice president, they're going center right, and so that is
making a huge difference. No, now we're suddenly these demo
at in a place I maybe four years ago you
heard of Joe Biden promised comprehensive immigration reform and a
more humane asylum system and you know, humanity at the border.
(36:10):
Those sigging points are gone. It's that's really helping a
Ruben Diego. And I think it'll it'll come down to
that formula that I think the Democrats are are sort
of leaning into, no, leaning to the center right on immigration,
try and remember and try and get people to understand
how cruel these like dehumanizing language is. But I think
that center right approach is what everyone's counting on. And
(36:33):
activists aren't happy about that. I'll tell you that, No, I'm.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Not even that happy about it.
Speaker 6 (36:38):
But it's the way to win, that's right exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
So you do think that there are Diego Trump voters.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
I'm trying to think of those people and know that
that would do something like that, that those like a
Latino voter that would go for a Ruben Diego and
not for a you know, Diego Harris ticket. Yeah, And
I think they would come down to like the miss
and disinformation around now, if you're sort of a Ladina,
you know, support that's curious around Trump, and what really
(37:06):
resonates with you is the missing disinformation about her being
a communist now, about her being like the borders zar.
What really really resonates with you is sort of depicting
her as someone that is really aligned with like the
LGBTQ queer like trans community. There's certain talking points that
I think, you know, the right is trying really really
(37:28):
hard to associate with her that I think a guy
will to sort of distance himself from that now because
he's local, he knows the border, he's a military guy,
he's a tough guy. But I think that's where like
a lot of the miss and disinformation like works. Now
there's a distance with her, in a sort of discomfort
with her, again among a small group, but it does work. No,
(37:50):
I mean I think about the fact all the time,
Like in twenty twenty more Latinas believe that Democrats were
headed towards communism, then they believed that Republicans were headed
towards fascism. No, and that's where you see it. Yeah,
it's crazy, but that's where they're so good at. No,
it's the narrative that like the mas and the disinformation,
(38:11):
it's on the radio, it's on What's Up, it's on Facebook,
Like that's where they do really well.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Let's talk about the radio stuff, because that's pretty interesting.
Talk to me about what that looks like. Because there
are these Spanish language radio stations they're a big deal.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
What does that landscape look like?
Speaker 6 (38:31):
It's so different, you know, the same way that we
say that Latinos are a monolith, like the Spanish language
media ecosystem is changing so much, and it looks so
different from state of stateium. You go to a place
like South Florida and Miami, obviously Miami Daye County, the
heart know of a state like Florida, more often than not,
you will hear conservative radio hosts spreading the big lie
(38:54):
and still doubling down on the communist talking point, like
that is still happening right now. And if you go
to like Arizona that has a larger population of like
immigrant families and mixed status families, you there see some
small radio stations that are like long like historically associated
for instance, with the like Ceasar of Tatler's movement, that
are trying so hard day and day out so sort
(39:15):
of put the politics aside and keep the immigrant community informed.
Knowing that's and and if you tune in, it's like
most most of these like small Latino led organizations that
are like trying really hard to like cut through that noise.
But I think what I will say is that in
since twenty twenty until now, there has been a concerted
effort by some Republicans to change the direction of Spanish
(39:36):
language media for it to be more conservative. When we're
talking about television, I've talked to so many different business folks,
like Republican Latino business folks that tell me one thing,
and that is, I don't want to create the Spanish
language fosslings. And they're trying, you know, and they're and
they're doing it at small scale like you see in
like in Texas, like there's there's people that are already
(39:56):
trying to do that, like partnering with like Christian Television
that work to make sure that like Christian City has
Spanish language content. And so I think that, you know,
there's the shift is happening everywhere now what used to
be Spanish language CV and radio like twenty thirty years ago,
like back in the day where like people would like
listen to my dad, tune into a newscast and just
(40:18):
believe the host.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
Like that's gone.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
That's it.
Speaker 6 (40:21):
It's so different right now.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, wow, so interesting. What groups are Republicans really unable
to get?
Speaker 6 (40:28):
I mean, I think what's interesting now is that there's
sort of like the two forces and not on the left.
You have this sort of Republican right word shift happening
not just about produce your Republican folks, but about many
Latinos that are now more assimilated americanizing that are curious.
But then, and this is where I think it's more interesting,
then you have the youth vote. Now, then you have
(40:51):
the third generation Latinos that if you start to doom in,
you know, you understand that like among all the millennial generation,
it is Latinos that are more likely to identify themselves
as queer. No, you have a generation that doesn't speak
in Spanish or in English, but in Spanish, you have
a generation that's not scared to lean into being like
after Latino and indigenous and queer. And so what happens
(41:13):
with that block is not only do they feel more
freedom to be themselves, which is like such a beautiful
thing and distinguishes themselves from the older generations of Latinos
that sort of had to like fit into stereotypes, but
they feel more empowered to challenge the Democratic Party, to
hold the Democratic more accountable, to ask for champaigns to
be there not just a month before, but a year, two,
(41:35):
three before, and it's happening like the way that the
Vice President and Joe Biden's team was campaigning and trying
to get the Latino vote this year, it happened way
before any other years now. So I think that's the difference.
So there's this progressive rising young Latina vote. They're leanings
being Democrats, but they're independent in the sense that they
know that people now have to fight for their vote
(41:57):
in a way that perhaps they didn't have to do
it for their grand turns or their pain.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
It's also part of it, though, is that they're not religious,
like Latinos are becoming less religious.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Sure, and that's again it's like everything's always I always
go back to like two things are always happening at
the same time. It's like the rate of Latinos that
are athlic is like plummeting, but there's always a butt.
But the amount of Latinas that are converting to evangelicalism
is writing in this moment, Latinos are the fastest spring
group of the American evangelicals, right, They're outpacing white evangelicals
(42:31):
in their ray. So part of that why so part
of that is because and you're right, like as we
are becoming less religious, there's this sort of new phenomenon happening,
and part of that is linked to Latin America. So
many of the asylum seekers, in the migrants that have
come to this country in the last ten years, I've
been carrying these evangelical beliefs. Think of a country like Guatemala,
(42:51):
and Guatemala right now is forty percent evangelical.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
I saw the door.
Speaker 6 (42:55):
Brazil thirty percent evangelical. And so there's this evangelical boom
that's happening in Latin America. A lot of people are
cheering that with them, with them here for years, they've
been stepping into these evangelical churches that were not political.
Now that we're sort of this like sense of refuge
in the safe place and a sort of sanctuary place
for many people, while in the last five years they're
(43:17):
becoming more politicized. I mean Donald Trump started his Evangelicals
for Trump, his national Evangelicals for Trump campaign in twenty twenty.
Not in Ohio, not in Wisconsin, out in Pennsylvania. He
started it in Miami Dade County, targetting Latinos because they
understand and that's kind of what's happening. You know, Republicans
have understood the same way that the Christian wright has
(43:38):
understood the same way that like evangelicals have understood. Trump
isam has understood that they cannot survive without some portion
of the Latino bol right, and that's what they're going into.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
That's interesting. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you.
Speaker 6 (43:52):
Thank you so much for letting me talk about this.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Nose canon Molly junk Fast. So Job mcintee, who you
may remember from Project twenty twenty five, being Trump's deputy president.
I'm going to shock you here. Guy from the Trump administration.
Not a good guy.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
So he's one of the architects of Project twenty twenty five.
He is also, I might add, a person who works
at the Peter Tiel back to dating app the right stuff.
So today Wire Magazine reported that he was talking on
that he was texting with two different eighteen year old
(44:32):
college freshmen and they both said that they felt that
he was inappropriate with them in online conversations.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Often this is not a one off.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
But we'll see, right, we'll see if this is just
how he behaved with two people in complete isolation and
never again.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
But that my friend, the guy who worked on Project
twenty twenty five. He's also the guy who did the
video where he said that Harris was lying when she
talked about a woman bleeding out in a parking lot.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Remember that TikTok video?
Speaker 3 (45:03):
I sure do.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
I also remember the one where he talks about giving
fake money the homeless.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah, that guy. Shockingly, that guy is not a good guy.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Never would have guessed it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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