The Red Wave That Wasn't

The crew talks with electoral analyst Jack Rasul about the recent midterm elections.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Everything's dead. Wait no, sorry, um, it's it could happen
here a podcast about stuff falling apart and today about
the fact that things fell less apart than people were
worried they were going to fall apart, and in some
ways got might get better. So that's kind of that's
kind of nice. Sure. Yeah, on the whole, we're talking

(00:30):
about the mid terms today and on the whole okay,
I feel okay. Descripture. Yeah, it's the mid terms equivalent
of getting like an ounce of of of like mid
grade weed for like fifty bucks. But you find out

(00:50):
later that like kind of in the middle of it
was like half of a paper towel roll that they
stuck in there to push up the weight. But it's like, well,
least I got weed. All right, I've introduced the podcast
Who Do We? Who do we have here? Today? You
got me? I'm James Still, that's rightly? Yeah, yeah, I'm Garrison.

(01:15):
I didn't vote. Look at you wow. Way to be
a way to be an anarchist Garrison or a Canadian
same deff democracy? Yeah yeah, I like committing voter fraud
for the Democratic Party. Yeah yeah. I also decided to

(01:35):
not vote for the people who are doing like the
war on drugs in California right now, Garrison, you you
continued your your years long tradition of submitting a crewed
drawing of the Premier of Canada. Um to to a
ballot box. Shut, let's Trudeau coming out of a cave.

(01:57):
Who else do we have on with us right now?
I'm here, Christopher Wong, and I absolutely despise elections, so
I brought my friend who actually does like elections. That's
excellent token election in Jodan pretty much. Yes, Hi, I
am Jack. I am Christopher's token friend, as mentioned um

(02:22):
and I'm here partly because of nepotism for knowing Christopher
and partly because, as you reminded me, before we got started,
I had a ninety three percent accurate prediction rating for
all of the elections that I was paying attention to
this year, so I know some things. Congratulations. I only
made one prediction before this election, which was, well, it

(02:44):
doesn't feel like Dr Roz is gonna win, which which
means you did better than a lot of the people
who are paid to do this. Like, Okay, that man,
that man said the word crew detay in an election
in Pennsylvania, Like there was he was never good. The

(03:06):
moment that d came out, he was going to lose.
I see, that's much more nuanced than my my political analysis,
which was the fact that the other guy was much
taller than him and also way hot, Like if they
just sounded it with a fist fight, fat could have
taken it. Yep, which that seems good. H It was fun.

(03:27):
It was a fun election. We all had a good time.
I enjoy that. Fucking Marjorie Taylor Green and j d
Vance are going to be in Congress together. That's going
to be fun for everybody. We're all gonna have a
good time. But I suspect there's probably some stuff we
haven't like. As you may have noticed listeners, we didn't
do much in the way of pre mid term content

(03:48):
because we all hate it. But but now now we're
talking about it. So what what what? What should we
know about these mid terms? What? What? What kind of
occurred to you as somebody who's like actually has spent
a lot more time delving into the nitty gritty and
thinking about what was likely to happen. Um. So I

(04:08):
told Christopher I would say this, and in arness, I
do genuinely believe it I think the story of these
mid terms when historians look back at it, will be
that the Dabbs Supreme Court decision had the same electoral
impact in the United States as nine eleven did. I
think that is going to be like how this plays
out over time, um, because when you look at how

(04:32):
things were going before Dabbs and then how things were
going after Dabbs. Obviously things got a lot worse on
the policy front because abortion became illegal in a lot
of states. Um. But the election essentially flipped overnight from
what was going to be a Republican wave to the
even split that we got. And that makes this one

(04:54):
of three post World War two midterms where the incumbent
party did well, and so this is definitely going to
be him in term that gets lectured about in policy
one on one courses for the next hundred years. Also,
one of those, one of those other three, was the
nine was to push that left. It was yeah, actually,
I really because obviously I was aware, just because there

(05:16):
was so much cover in saying like this is the
best performance from an incumbent party in a mid term
since two thousand two. So it was aware of that fact.
But for some reason I hadn't put it together in
my head that way that like, yeah, the this means that,
like the Supreme Court's decision on Roe v. Wade had
kind of a comparable electoral impact to flying two planes

(05:38):
into a pair of skyscrapers and the Pentagon three plates.
I mean, to be fair whatever, to be fair, the
Supreme Court have killed like in terms of the immediate impact,
the Screme Court will have killed more people than that
by like thurs Day or something. So yeah, the other
one was was fdos fest made tim right? Uh No,

(05:59):
the other ones that so I said post World War Two.
The other the other one was when the American electorate
apparently got so mad at Republicans and pe team Bill
Clinton that they decided to vote for Democrats in a
good term. Again, well that's yeah, that's the other thing
Biden can do if it, if it goes south. It's
good to know their options. Yeah, but um, I think

(06:20):
non zero chance that'll happen anyway. I mean, I guess
we're still waiting. Who knows. Yeah, Doc Brandon, I enjoyed,
from from an entertainment perspective, the like three months of
lucidity that we got out of Joe Biden this year,
We'll see how many more he has in him. Yeah,
who knows? So yeah, like it. So you're you're suggesting

(06:44):
that Dobbs has been like the really pivotal thing here
in swinging a lot of these close races, right, absolutely, Um,
and Dobbs definitely being the number one factor. Um. Tragically,
because it's very cringe and I wish this hadn't happened.
The January six investigation does actually seem to have also
swung several important races. That's I mean, I'm interested in

(07:09):
your thoughts on this, but I actually I'm I'm glad
that it mattered that they tried to do a coup,
and like I'm glad that people cared about that. I'm
glad it mattered. I just I just think it sucks
that because the way they went about the investigation was
so incredibly terrible. Yeah. Um, like Marrick Garland is going

(07:30):
to go down as like one of the most cowardly
attorney generals in American history. But um, yeah, It's it's
pretty clear that in a lot of races like the
the investigation made a difference. I think this is really clear.
If we're getting into like very kind of under the hood. Um,
Democrats ran the table in competitive state level secretary of

(07:50):
State races, and these are the officials that run elections. UM.
And not only did Democrats run the table, pretty much
every single one of those candidates out pre formed the
top of the ticket. So they outperformed governor and Senate candidates. UM.
So there are a lot of people. This is another
big story the midterms is that swing voter. Your swing
voting is back, not swing voting, I'm sorry, split ticket

(08:12):
voting is back. Um. There were quite a few, there
were quite a few millions of voters this year who
voted for Republican in the Senate or a Republican for
governor and then a Democrat to run their states actual elections.
That's kind of good. It's so that's also like speaks
promisingly of people's engagement with the political system and education

(08:34):
about it and the awareness of what these different things do. Yes, um,
but other like like that, other than that, but just overall,
high level dobbs was the big one. Um. There is
a person whose name I'm going to unfortunately mispronounce, and
that I should have looked up beforehand. So all right,

(08:55):
this is a safe place for that, Thank you. But
there's a person there's a guy down in Louisiana named
John uh cool Van I think is my best guests,
and he is one of the people who makes money
off of like looking at elections UM, and his big
thing is that you can predict the outcome of elections
just by looking at the nationwide composition of the primary electorate.

(09:19):
So like, if Republicans turn out more voters in their
primaries and Democrats to Republicans are going to win the
election and vice versa. This has been true in pretty
much every single election for the last thirty years or
so UM, and he unfortunately got led astray UM this
year because nationwide at the end of the primary season,

(09:41):
Republicans were up by about like five points, and so
he was insisting the whole rest of the campaign that
Republicans are going to win. That's obviously not really what happened.
But if you look at pre DBS versus post OBS,
the primary elector at post OBS was Democrats plus like

(10:01):
up by one point. That is the electorate that we
got in the mid terms. So Dobbs set the tone
of like what the mid terms were going to be UM,
because we are not going to be legalizing abortion nationwide
in the next two years because we are going to
have a Republican House almost certainly, Dobbs is almost definitely
going to be a huge factor in twenty four as well.

(10:26):
I mean, and I guess that, like because the question
I had, and I think a lot of people had
running into this, especially people who are not election lovers,
is like, do things matter? Right? Like? It was Dobbs
going to matter? And was the were the constant sort
of Republican assaults on on the ability of people to vote?

(10:47):
Was the fucking attacks on children's hospitals and on trans
case and stuff like? Was all of that going to work? Like?
Do do things matter? Still? And? Uh, you know, we
have to renswer that question. But it does kind of
seem like that's the positive take out from this is
not like, you know, it's it's probably probably too early

(11:10):
to say are we seeing some sort of grand progressive
swing or are people coming around on Biden or whatever
things politicos want to take. But it does kind of
seem that, like, on a on a very like ground
floor level, Uh, it mattered that the Republicans were doing
awful things, Yes, mattered. Um, I think Christopher and I

(11:32):
have talked about how, in his words, Leah Thomas cost
the Michigan Republican Party of the election. Um, let's talk.
Let's talk about that, because I think a lot of
people I mean, yeah, let's yeah, let's talk about Okay,
I'll give them I'll give the meme version of it first.
The meme version of it basically is that there was Okay,
so there there there was a report released by the

(11:55):
Republican Party in Michigan after the election when they sort
of got hammered. Part of what they're talking about was like, okay,
so inflation is like seven point seven percent right now, right,
this is the freest election anyone has ever been handed,
like in human history, Like a child could have won
this election. And the Republicans vanaged to blow it. And

(12:17):
one of these they talk about this, they spent they
spent like twenty five million dollars, like specifically on ads
about trans like trans kids in sports and everybody mission.
It was just like what the yes, real care not
just not just blew it, but blew it in a
way that they haven't blown it in forty years. Because

(12:40):
for the first time in forty years, Democrats will have
complete control of the Michigan state government. Yeah. Yeah, And
it's like it's like the other things. It wasn't just
in Michigan where this happened, right like like quite possibly,
Like one of the ways they're going to lose the
Senate is because like the Republicans like entire sort of
apparatus and Nevada was against the Equal Rights Amendments, which

(13:02):
and specifically they were running against the equal nevented passing
diversity of the Equal Rights Amendment, like specifically on the
grounds of transphobia, and the e ARRA passed by seventeen points. Uh,
and replicants are about to lose that Senate. See, and
it's just like my mein version of this is that
the Republican Party ran a platform that is like the

(13:23):
political equivalent of like a street preacher, right, like that
that is the constituency for this. It is like they
unbelievably hate trans people. They like an unbelievably hard line
anti abortion position, which again like nobody actually likes. And
you know, it turns out like if if if your
constituency is street preachers, like the thing an average person

(13:43):
does when they run into a street preacher is walked
past them, and it turns out that's what happened to
hear like this and they got, oh, that's that's that's
the mean version of it. Absolutely, I mean that's not
just the mean version of it. Is essentially what happened,
UM in Michigan and Pennsylvania, in all of these states
where hardline Christian nationalists won Republican primaries, like they went

(14:05):
down hard um and so as Robert said, yeah, things
actually mattered this election, and that's a good thing. UM.
And I think I know for me, as like, I
went into election night very nervous about my own predictions
because when I put together my um Google spreadsheet that

(14:26):
will never be shown to any of you because of
how insane it is. UM. And I was picking, you know,
I got more races wrong, by the way, by picking
Republicans to win that Democrats actually won, then the other
way around, because I kept second guessing myself. It's like
no, no no, no, I'm not I'm being too kind to
Democrats and then I went too far. But when I

(14:49):
was making those predictions, honestly, I just kept thinking about, like,
so I'm adopted, my parents are both white, and my
mom is this like white woman from appalation, Ohio. And
she is is UM in her upper sixties, so she
grew up in a world before Roe v. Wade UM.
And I had never seen my mom so angry about

(15:14):
anything in politics, and like she was very very angry
when Trump won. UM. She has been very angry. She's
been very angry about like January six. She's been angry
about a lot of stuff the last several years, as
is my dad UM, because they're both very normally Democrats.
But my mom has never been angrier as far as

(15:36):
I've seen her than she was angrier about Dobbs. And
it wasn't just like my mom. I was hearing from
friends of mine from across the Midwest who also have
like normy white suburban parents, and that was kind of
the same thing that I was hearing from them too,
is like, my mom is so upset about this, My
grandmother is so upset about this. These women who remembered

(15:57):
what it was like to grow up in a world
where abortion it was not something that that they had
access to if they needed it. UM, And that honestly,
you know, it's it's obviously completely anecdotal. It's not databased
or data driven in any way. But that was just
what I kept thinking about as I was making predictions
about how the midterm was gonna go. Was you know,

(16:17):
I think that these people are angry enough that they
are not going to care about inflation. They're not going
to care about the fact that our economy is very
clearly headed for recession, um, because this is going to
matter more to them, um, And it did. I kind't

(16:43):
want to move on to talking about what what we
think this sets us up for because I think the
clearest and we talked about this a little earlier, but
sort of the clearest thing that's positive about this is
that we have of fewer state secretaries of state and
state legislatures in the hands of the Republican Party, which

(17:06):
means more of a chance that like what people actually
vote for is going no matter. Um. Now, we're still
dealing with the judiciary that is as fucked as it
was prior to the mid terms and probably won't be
less fucked in a way that is notable, um and aggregate, Yeah,

(17:27):
we can. We can always hope and pray. Yeah. Then
there could be a couple of very specific car accidents. Yeah, yeah,
yeah on that point. Actually, so there, I know, I
bang on about about like how the United States deals
with its indigenous people a lot, but like that they
slated and we'll do an episode on it, but we're

(17:49):
trying to do it properly. Like slated for this Supreme
Court session is to look at AQUA, right, the Indian
Child Welfare Act, and like the challenge to it, challenges
on out of the basis of other tribal law and
in places like Arizona, right, Like, indigenous people are a
large like often like they're supposed to be like the

(18:11):
swing electorate and for like blue Arizona, so they could
have positive outcomes for for Democrats, it could they could.
I don't know how they could go out their way
to this in French trans indigenous people, but they find
you and exciting ways to do it all the fucking time.
So like that will be interesting. And one thing I
wanted to raise is like, so I live in California,

(18:33):
which I think is seen as like the left coast
and stuff, but we have an alarming amount of really
chuggly people going to the house from California, and yeah,
it's becoming increasingly a bit like where like some of
you live in Oregon, where like you have a very
The far right in California is larger than the population
of like many United US states. Yeah, yes, and they're

(18:58):
increasingly big mad about like it's small things, m but yeah,
Like I'm just looking at the districts around the one
I'm in, and a number of them have sent like
anti reproductive rights house representatives back to the House. California
is a state where, um, the Democratic Party likes to

(19:18):
flop its way to victory. It's one of it's one
of the most incompetent state Democratic parties in the country,
which is really saying something because they're competing. They're competing
with they're competing with Florida. Like, I mean, hey, Oregons
not didn't do great either, Like the state Democratic Party
in Oregon had the most narrow governor's race in a

(19:40):
long time, and also the Dems lost their their supermajority
in the state Congress. They did lose their supermajority, but
Democrats in Oregon do now have the ability to redistrict again,
so they can take back that seat that Republicans picked
up because there were is a constitutional amendment that got

(20:01):
passed by the voters of Oregon that says that if
Republicans do what they have done in the last few
years in Oregon, which is walk out of the state
House any time that a lot of my past they
get banned for running for re election. But also, like
without the supermajority, I don't know that there's as much
of any I mean, we'll see what happens. Um, but yeah,

(20:23):
it's there. As a general rule, it seems like when
you've got there's no meaningful competition for what party is
going to be in control of the state. It becomes
a haven for like the political equivalent of grifters to
suck in huge salaries and do very little um and yeah,

(20:43):
yeah math, or to just do like star mayor look
at that may also yeah, and she's up for re
election in a few months, and we can only hope
that she that she loses. I can't imagine her winning.
I mean, it could happen, It could happen, It could happen.

(21:06):
Here here's here's an ad break. Yeah what a professional. Ah,
we're back. And you know what, talking about the mid
term elections makes me feel like doing smoking a cigarette.
Buy cigarettes, kids, they're is good for you. As democracy.

(21:27):
All right, we're back in some other interesting news. This
is also the this this Pessiman terms had more lgbt
Q candidates win office than ever before in a midterm election.
There was a few notable winds uh, specifically with trans
people in the Midwest actually, which has been probably a

(21:52):
decent side. It's it's a good sign, you know, heroes
are doing good. Yeah, there's been a multiple multiple trans
people and trans uh particularly quite a few trans women
elected to state legislatives across across the Midwest, like in
Montana and inside uh Midwestern I'm calling that out. Yeah,

(22:27):
well Mountain West. See. Well, the thing is I grew
I grew up in Saskatchewan, which is like above Montana,
and whenever you would drive down, we would always stay
in the more Midwest east sections and everyone talks it
felt very Midwest to me because of where I lived
in Saskatchewan. So apology apologies to people who are Montana Mountainers,

(22:50):
I guess apologies, No, no, we don't need to be
upon So Zoe Zephyr, who testified against anti trans legislation
previously is now able to vote against it um in Minnesota.
I talk about that, like very briefly, which is that like, Okay,

(23:11):
there are a lot of queer communities in places that
people just fucking ignore. Absolutely, it's just can you cannot
discount these places? Yeah, it's like Missoula specifically has has
a like like pretty substantive queer community. They do good ship,
they're out there like they're like there's there's this sort
of tendency I think to like like look at like

(23:34):
a state and go like, oh, it's a red state,
like there's whatever. They're just fleeing, and it's like it's
not true, Like there there are a lot of people
who are like have for many years been building a
community there and hanging aucenaciously and building it. And also
in Missoula, people take notice. Also in Missoula, the first
non binary candidate was elected in UH s J. Howell,

(23:55):
So tou to trans people. It's elected there in in
uh in Missoula. But the way did did did Missoula,
Missoula do this? Portland? Probably Portland's like city councils like
four people. Yeah that's true, yeah, entirely. Yeah, and it

(24:16):
swung and it's pretty conservative that this past election. Actually, um,
but we also had in Minnesota, uh lay a think
because the first transperson in state lets legislator and in
New Hampshire, Uh, they elected the first transman to a
US state House. So yeah, and and the other other

(24:37):
good thing is um Arizona got a Democratic governor, which
means a whole bunch of potential legislation will probably not
get signed on because Arizona did have some pretty pretty
pretty bad anti trans station to come up in the
past few years. I also want to talk about So
the Arizona election was critical, not just because it's amazing

(24:58):
that fucking carry La is not going to be governor
because she is an election denying google Um, but the
nicest thing Blake Masters might be the scariest person who
was running for a life. He is. He is the
scariest serial killer. Yeah, yeah, yeah he was. He was

(25:20):
scary until he was funny, is the thing, because like I,
you know, when they failed, they're always funny. Yeah. But
Christopher and I were talking about this before the podcast,
and like during the during the final debate between Blake
Masters and Mark Kelly, like and I just swear on
this podcast, like we're allowed to say whatever the hell

(25:42):
we want perfect Um debate. In their final debate between
Mark Kelly and Blake Masters, Mark Kelly's like final statement,
his conclusion argument was essentially pointing at Blake Masters and going,
look at this fucking freak. Yeah, yeah, it was great
it which is the which is one of the most

(26:02):
powerful things he could do in politics because he was
just like, like the specific thing he did, because his
language was was I think a lot more nuanced than that,
because what he was saying is Blake Masters. For those
of you who don't don't know, like one of the
most like famous moments of this campaign is he he
put out a campaign ad that was just him parking

(26:23):
in the desert with a silenced handgun, mentioning which is
a child's gun, first off, but anyway, mentioning twice that
the gun was German and like German, rested and then
firing it blindly at nothing. And then the ad he

(26:44):
fired it across the lake. Don't see him shoot at something,
We don't see him hit a target. He is his
stances dogs anyway, But it's just him taking a silence
pistol out repeatedly mentioning that the gun is German, firing it,
and the ad ends that's the whole a seconds of

(27:05):
him just fondling and badly shooting it. It's worth giving
the context that the person he's running against is someone
whose wife was shot in the head. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
because so that's but it's also just like, look, guns
are a big part of American life. A lot of

(27:25):
politicians have, including Democrats, have ads that involved guns, and
usually it's like here is me hunting, you know, or
even like here is me the range with friends, engaging
in a thing that many Americans do. Masters was just
blindly shooting a twenty two caliber handgun after immediately mentioning
that it's German. It was like someone showed an alien,

(27:47):
like a regular campaign ad someone shooting a gun, and
then yes, I mean it's funny that that's the term
that you use, because that was a term that was
flying around like Arizona social media the entire campaign. It
was like Blake Bastard's looks like an alien and you
get pumped with Peter Tiel money for so so he
has this and he has a couple of others like

(28:09):
he is, he is on he's a number one. He
worked with Peter Teele for years. Um, he's doing all
sorts of fucking gohoule ship on Twitter, like really mask off, fascist, unhinged, shit.
And Mark Kelly in the debate, isn't just like, look
at this freak. He's like, hey, we all know guys
like this talk about how dangerous and how scary they are,

(28:32):
but they they've never done anything. They're just like weirdos
trying to scare you so that you'll think that they're
they're powerful, and like, don't don't fall forward it And
it was perfect and the good news is that Arizona
voters did not fall for it because you know, not
only did Blake Masters lose by the best performing Republicans

(28:54):
in Arizona where their House candidates, like the statewide house
pular vote for the for U. S Congress, not the
statehouse was I think Republicans want it, are going to
win it by like five. So Cary Lake already drastically
underperformed that by six because she's gonna lose. And then
to Blake Masters underperformed his House candidates by like ten

(29:18):
or eleven. Unbelievable. It's it's I mean it. It really
goes to show that whatever most Americans want, they don't
want a fucking weirdo fascist freak threatening. Uh there an
astronaut's wife with a gun. Yeah, really briefly, like also

(29:40):
like on this note, of all of the queer and
trans candidates who won, um, I will point out this
follows the pattern that has taken shape in the last decade,
which is that these supposedly well not supposedly they are,
but like these red and purple states in the South
and the Midwest are sending queer and trans people into
the hall of power a lot faster than deep blue

(30:03):
states on the West coast and in the Northeast. The
first non unfortunately forget their name, but the first non
binary state legislator in the country was elected in Oklahoma.
And they're not only non binary, they are black and
Muslim non binary. UM. So it's like, you know, these um,

(30:25):
these communities as Christophers, like a, these communities do matter,
and we can't forget about them, we can't abandon them.
But also like not just they matter, but like, as
I will happily argue, with any political operative from either coast,
we are much more likely to see some kind of
progressive resurgeons resurgeons in this country led by candidates out

(30:46):
of the South or Midwest than either yeah, yeah, well
and like like look at like this is one of
the everythings that that you know, So I have a
lot of friends in the like Michigan teachers Union, right,
and you know, like right right now, what is happening
in the Michigan Like in Michigan is that the teachers
Union is literally sending lists of laws like to to
the governor that are like you need to get rid

(31:08):
of this. And you know, if you like if even
if you look at like like almost every other Democratic
Party like in the country is just constantly at word
their teachers unions, and you know, and then you look
at like you look at what's happening in Wisconsin, and
it's like, like, what's happening in Michigan. Wells also Wisconsin too,
with like they have a much more labor friendly like

(31:29):
the Democratic Party even like fucking San Francisco or like
the ghouls in like like honestly the ghouls in the
Chicago machine, right Eric Adams office. Yeah, right, Like there's
there's there's I don't know, they're like everybody doors the
Midwest and we're here, damn it, and we do good things.

(31:50):
Well it's a little bit like I mean, it's a
little bit of what we were saying earlier that like
when you've got these states where because of the population layout,
the Democratic Party doesn't have to struggle to actually win
for the most part, you're a hell of a lot.
Number one, the party becomes effectively a cartel, so they're

(32:12):
very good at stopping any like upstart, young progressive, non binary,
queer trans people from like getting a hold on in
local politics. You know, we we just had the most
progressive member of the Portland City Council ousted by corporate
business interests UM and you know it, which is very
different from the trend that you're seeing in places like Montana,

(32:32):
places like Oklahoma with a lot of these very progressive,
you know, young candidates. And it's because um number one,
maybe the state parties are a little more willing to
throw a hail Mary. But also, just like those individual people,
the people running in the folks doing their campaign have
had to be a lot harder and a lot smarter
to survive surrounded by people who hate them. And I

(32:53):
think also like there's one of the ways that I
was pretty sure that this wasn't going to be a
read tsunami was so I have some friends, I have
friends who go to Wheaton College, and for people who
don't know who what Wheaton College is. It is like
we're sorry that we're about to inform you. Yeah. So
Wheaton College is one of like I don't know, maybe

(33:16):
the second behind like Graham Young like most right, we
can evangelical college in the US, like they they famous.
It's it's not as bad as the Liberty Yeah, yeah,
it's like number three, right, but like so it's it's
it's this is this is like the the intellectual center
of um like of sort of evangelical politics, like make

(33:37):
sure I have this right, yeah, Like Billy Graham's family
has funneled money into wheat In College for decades. In
two days now and okay, so like Wheaton is a
like broadly beking like a fucking ferociously hostile place to
be anything other than a like assist head white person. Right,
it is like unbelievably homophobic. It is really anti semitic.

(34:02):
And like a few months ago, I was walking like
through Wheaton downtown to visit a front and in the
middle of fucking Wheaton Downtown, they're they're they're like there
there there was someone who on in there in there
like fucking lawn had had like had a giant Pride

(34:23):
flag and like it wasn't like it was like it
was like the it was the like the Brown Pride
flag too, right, Like that was like even like five
years ago, that would have been unimaginable, Like you would
have been like you would have been fucking chased out
of town by a bob. Like and it's it's just
there now, and I don't know, like they haven't been

(34:44):
run out. It's still there. No, it's literally yes everything
that Christopher just said. And you know, these are people
that Christopher, Christopher and I grew up with, like we
literally I was there was a granddaughter of Billy Graham
in my high school class. Um. And I think, you know,
as much as you know, these people are not going

(35:05):
to be socialists or progressive as anytime soon. They are
very much like normy moderate Democrats now. But there were
a lot of suburban white people who got very turned
off by Trump for the Republican Party. And I think
this mid term is the confirmation that, barring you know,
some kind of economic catastrophe that always always throws elections

(35:27):
to the out of power party, Uh, these Norman white
suburban nights are not going back. Uh. And we you know,
when you look at trends across the country. Um you
know JB. Printker one do Page County, which is the
county that Wheaton is in, which is like you know
this is this yeah, like this used to be within

(35:50):
Christopher and I his lifetimes. This used to be a
county that Republicans banked on getting three hundred thousand votes
out of on a statewide margin level. Um and now
it's being one up and down by Democrats. Like Democrats
flipped the county executive office in du Page County this year.
Um So, like Chicago suburbs are trending are continuing to

(36:10):
trend left, Atlanta suburbs are continuing to trend left. Uh
the like Raleigh Durham area in North Carolina is trending left.
The Texas urban areas are trending left. And this isn't
just like in comparison to twenty six. This is in
comparison to two years ago, which was a democratic environment.
Um So, the fact that these counties are swinging left

(36:31):
in a year where the country, even though the overall
results were fined, the country definitely swung right, like these
people are not going back. And not just that these
people are not going back, but the ones who are
staying Republicans A. They're moving, they're leaving the suburbs and
they're establishing their little new white flight outposts in other places. Um.

(36:52):
And the people who are replacing them are largely people
of color. Like the suburbs today in America are sixty
percent white as compared to in the year two thousand
when they were something like percent white. UM. So this
is I think this year was the confirmation we needed
that this is a permanent trend that the suburbs from
now on are either going to be a wash or

(37:13):
even frankly just democratic places where Democrats will net votes.
And this is all. There still is a lot of fear,
and there's still is reason to be very concerned about
the ability of the GOP's power to push things in
a revancheus direction, in an anti democratic election, to remove
the ability of people because that that is you know,
we're seeing them talk right now. We're seeing guys like

(37:34):
Matt Walsh, Christopher Rufo talk right now about the need
to like stop young people from voting, to crack down
on mail voting. Like this is not not to say
like all right, it's all done, um, but this is
like I guess the thing that's that's optimistic about this
overall is that it is um it's evidence that the

(37:59):
the there there was this kind of open question after
Trump won in UM and if one thing you could
look at, you could look at, you could look at
two and go like, well, clearly the trend since then
has been for the GOP to lose big in most
of these elections. But that was also anything but clear,

(38:21):
kind of as a result of the way COVID fuck
things up. And this this does seem to like submit
that that like, yeah, it may it may have in
the long run proved to be a major, major tactical
failure to to have gone for this guy the way
that they did. Oh yeah, I mean, and we can
only hope. I mean, I personally, from an entertainment factor,

(38:46):
cannot wait for the the Santa's versus Trump primary. Um,
I will be I will be rooting for Trump because
he is funnier online. Um. And also I don't think
it would make a substance of difference, uh in whether
or not like who would be the nominee, because the
Santis is just Trump without the charisma. Um. But I think, yeah, hopefully,

(39:10):
like we saw the Republican party pay a price this
year for arguably the first time in a long time
for their insanity. Um and it's good to see that
that happened. Hopefully it will happen again. And I will
also note for anyone listening, who does you know, you
care about elections, you want to get involved somewhere. The

(39:32):
next somewhere for you to get involved in is the
state of Wisconsin, where the there is a state Supreme
Court seat up for election in April. If Democrats win
that seat, they will flip the Supreme Court in Wisconsin,
and that means that the absolutely insane Republican jerry managers

(39:53):
in that state, which pretty much render the state of
Wisconsin a non democracy, will likely get over charged if
Democrats are able to flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which
would mean a lot of good things could happen for
a lot of people who live in that state. Okay,

(40:19):
there is one other thing that is like basically umbul
agist I don't want to touch on before we blows up,
which is that the extent to which the Republicans have
sort of entered chaos mode now a with with Trump
just sort of like going off on the Santis and
like the Remolican civil war happening. And then secondly, because

(40:40):
they seem it looks like they've gotten the chaos mode
configuration of their House majority. Yes, Um, any anyone who
pays attention to Congress, I would encourage you to get very,
very familiar with the term discharged petition, which is a
mechanism by which if you have a majority of the

(41:02):
House is willing to sign a piece of paper that
says we should put this bill on the floor no
matter what. It goes to the floor, no matter what. Um.
And I think you're probably going to see Democrats successfully
put a lot of bills on the House floor in
the next two years because they're gonna get They're going
to pick off the Republican moderates in the northeast to

(41:22):
sign these these pieces of paper. We should I think
we should explain what exactly Republican position looks like because
it's oh sure, so, UM, it's so. I I should
caveat this with the statement that there is still like
I would say, a five percent chance that Democrats managed
to scrap, like scrape their way to a one seat majority. Um,

(41:47):
it's not likely by any means, but like it is
still theoretically on the table, mostly because Lauren Bobert managed
to put herself into position where she might actually lose.
UM and but default modal outcome I would say is
Republicans end up with a three or four House seat majority.

(42:07):
Uh in. But what that means is that UHL, we
get Calvin Ball for the next two years, essentially because
Kevin McCarthy as a person, UM is well a he's
like very unintelligent in general. And this is like a
very common sentiment that you will run into uh in
people who pay attention to Congress. He is not personally

(42:30):
capable of managing a House majority of four. This is
so widely accepted that Nancy Pelosi was willing to go
on the record in an interview the other day saying
that UM and so who knows Kevin McCarthy made not
even end up being the speaker. We may not have
a speaker until March because no one would get two

(42:51):
and eighteen votes. Um. But whoever has that job, whatever
Republican has that job, it is going to be the
most thankless job of their life that they will suffer
through for the next two years. Because you know, the
the pundit class and political operatives love to talk about
how ideologically diverse the Democratic Party is in the House,
and it's true because like on the left wing end

(43:13):
of the of the caucus you have people like Rashida
Slab and Ellen Omar, and the right wing end you
have people like Henry quay Are, who tragically survived his
primary this year. UM. But I think it has gone
under the radar that Republicans in the House are arguably
more ideologically diverse than Democrats are because the moderates, the

(43:36):
moderate Republicans in the House are like your very standard
like socially liberal, fiscally conservative types that were very popular
and like two thousand ten, UM, Like you have like
some of these Northeastern Republicans who are were more than
happy to vote for same sex marriage, though they would
probably vote for uh like to quodeafy Row, they would

(43:59):
probably vote to codify birth control legal like reality. And
on the other end you have Marjorie Taylor Green and
like if MT yeah, if if there is a person
on this earth who is capable of managing that caucus, UM,
I don't know who they are. I don't think anyone
knows who they are. UM. And I think that the

(44:22):
smartest thing that that person could do is, um not
take the job and let someone else take the fall
for what is going to be two years of chaos
that will most likely hurt the Republican brand a lot
in the next two years. Yeah. That that's like one
of the things that actually makes me like slightly optimistic
is that like the Republican Party like is it is

(44:47):
it like a first coalition and it had been being
held together sort of like by Trump and now Trump's
not on Twitter anymore and Twitter may not exist by
like the time need be speaker. Well, it's also I
think I might add Chris, it's not just by Trump.

(45:07):
And a part of why Trump was able to get
the position did is it's it's a mix of Trump
and owning the Libs, right, Like that's that's a huge
part of why the most visible members of this caucus
are where they are. Like, there's no there's no Marjorie
Taylor Green right without the way that particular social reinforcement
pattern works. And um yeah, I think that like that's

(45:32):
not like number one. If Twitter goes away, which could
have happened by the time you listen to this episode,
that really gets gets in the way of their ability
to own the Libs. But also if they're just getting
their asses kicked up and down the country, they're they're
no longer owning the Libs. The Libs have not been owned, No,
they have not. And I think the other, you know,

(45:53):
the other consideration here is that, um, we like to
talk a lot in this country because it's true about
neither party ever puts forth a substance of policy agenda. Um.
And there are a lot of Republican political operatives who
are running around right now complaining and saying that Republicans
lost because they failed to offer a viable alternative. Except
that's not true. Republicans did offer a policy agenda in

(46:16):
this mid term and that policy agenda was Christian nationalism,
and American voters took one look at that and said,
are you fucking for real? Yeah, like that that's the
that's the thing that like everyone like like people like
all the fucking New York Times calumn this, like people
don't understand that. Like there's maybe thirty percent of the
population who actually likes that ship, and everyone else in

(46:40):
the country is like, what the fuck? And you know,
and but but you know, like the like the the
the actual sort of median person in the US is
so much less like that than the median person that
every pundit imagines that like the version of reality that
exist since sort of like the minds of the media class,

(47:02):
like it's not yeah, they've they've, they've they've created incredible
sand castles in their mind. Now the tides like washing
them away. I don't know if the tides washing them away.
I think we we can. We can only hope that
The New York Times gets washed out to see But
I think you know, I sorry, go for it, no, no, no, please.

(47:24):
I was just gonna say, like, you know, obviously, the
next two years are going to be the next two years,
um and no one can predict the future. Anyone who
anyone who tells you and literally the next eighteen months
that they know how the two elections are going to
go is lying to you, and you should block them
and perhaps to report them to like whatever like non

(47:46):
retributed forms of authority exists in your local area. But
um my, you know, based on how this went, if
the same trends play out for the next two years,
which would be suburb continue swinging left Democrats continue to
rack up problems with minority voters, but like not to
the extent that we're gonna lose urban seats anytime soon. Um,

(48:11):
and Republicans continue racking up margins in the states and
like the seats that they're already winning by eighty points,
which helps them on a statewide level but does not
help them in the U. S. House. My I would say, like,
assuming the current trends continue the trends we've had since sixteen, UM,
that would mean Democrats flip back the House in two
thousand twenty four. Uh. It would also mean that we

(48:33):
are once again in like the fight of our lives
for the Senate, as we likely will be for every
single cycle for the next ten years. So you know,
just kind of get used to that, um while you
can when you have the breather. UM. But yeah, like,
we had an okay mid term that was literally a
year ago looking like it was going to be possibly

(48:54):
the worst midterm wipe out, possibly the end of the
Republics literally literally yea literally, UM, so it might be good.
I think the responsible thing to do now is to
close out by each giving one of our unhinged predictions
for what we're gonna see in and I'm going to start.

(49:17):
I think we're gonna see Musk and McConaughey via for
the governor of Texas once Greg Abbott is forced out
god from a sex scandal. Um, that's my that's my call,
proved to me. Show show when when when it happens? Everybody?
Everybody alowe me? Yeah, some some French fries. Oh god,

(49:40):
it's gonna happen. Calling it now tom Brady, I reckon,
Tom Brady is gonna tom Brady's gonna take a swing
at it at Texas. No one of those states up
in where it's called marine at the time. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I assume he's from, broadly speaking, it Ay to Wisconsin.

(50:02):
He is, he would be running in New England. Please
do not pin that on us. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, bro,
but no that kind of cold, like yeah, just just gray,
not like like miserable cold like you will have the Yeah,
tom Brady running in a place where you can't grow
tomatoes is yeah, it's my prediction. That feels good. After
his massive success selling the hit crypto platform f t X.

(50:27):
What what can't Tom Brady do? Who knows? Don't don't
ask that wuldn't put that out there win games for
the bucketeers. Yeah, yeah in Germany. Yeah, survive eating what
any normal human being would eat on a given day. Garrison.
I don't know. I don't. I don't care about this

(50:49):
type of thing very much. The perfect reason to make
prediction unhinged prediction. I don't know. I think one of
the funniest things is that earlier this year there's this
big bit quin account who said that if things continue,
bit coin is going to be a major factor in
the mid terms, which is so not wrong. So I'm

(51:15):
saying that, what's the what's what's an even dember cryptocurrency? Um?
I was thinking of? I was thinking of, does coin
is gonna be a significant factor in election? Yeah? Uh?
Mine is that? Mine is that? Okay, Pritzker is going

(51:38):
to bring back like the old school democratic machine, and
by bye bye is gonna fall out a window like
Kamala Harris. He's going to sort of like turn up
like they're going to drain a damn in thirty years
and find her body and it's going to run again. Yeah,
he won't because he will have fallen out of a building.
Then near the end of the about Christmas, that's your

(52:05):
prediction that Joe Biden will fall out of a window
the fourth Comtration of Prague. Like we we we all
think that like the sort of like threat, like the
threat to bourgeois democracy comes come comes from the Republicans.
It's not. It's Pritzker. Pritsker is gonna cu the fucking
country and probably sixty percent of the population is going

(52:26):
to be completely on board because he's going to be
less insane than like everyone that's been like in charge
of this country for the last fifty years. And you
know who's gonna save democracy? Then okay, m yeah, Okay.
That leaves me what is my unhinted prediction. I don't
think I'm gonna top christophers prediction about JP prints ker Um.

(52:50):
You know. I think my unhinted prediction will be that
Taylor Swift runs for Senate in Tennessee. Oh god, oh
she could do it. Yeah, yeah, don't don't look. It's
if she brings on, if she brings on the head
of her fan club who went to jail in Israel
for refusing to serve the idea, I think they actually
might get some progressive Yeah, that may have been untrue. Sadly,

(53:13):
the swifty refuge. But maybe, really, really, why why did
you even introducing that? Why? Why would you? Why would
you say that to me? Yeah, because not all these
beautiful things we believe it could be true, but Taylor
Swift running for Tennessee, she would almost certainly be better
than whoever is a Tennessee senator now right, Yeah, it's

(53:34):
now Colonel Sanders or someone basically the same as Colonel Sanders.
I imagine that's Kentucky. Yeah, come on, come on, British
is Kentucky. It's called Kentucky fried Chicken. James, that was
that was basically a slur. I there is a type

(53:56):
of guy epitomized by Colonel Sanders, who also pies all
the Senate seat south to the Mason Dixon line. That's
not true. That's that's my that's my stunt, and I'm
sticking to it. I am pushing back on this. Well,
I'm gonna watch a fog horn leghorn video because that's
that's who I'm thinking of now, James, all right, everybody

(54:19):
that's been the episode, m hm, go vote Swift, Yeah,
vote another couple of times. Just make sure, yeah, this
looks the old Chicago model. Vote early vote often pay
for pay for a few meals. Everyone go to Colorado
and vote against lor Yes, literally seven of you or
whatever constwing this. Let move to Colorado. We can't deal

(54:42):
with her ship anymore. Fund raise in order to purchase
a huge number of drones and drop ballots over wherever
it is in Colorado. They count votes. I assume Denver, Yeah,
Blanke at Denver in your ballots, and stop listening to
pe podcasts. It could Happen here as a production of

(55:06):
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
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Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.