November 18, 2024 • 21 mins
This week hosts Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye, and Andrew Gillum discuss where Democrats and the Harris/Walz campaign went wrong and how Trump won this election.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home, y'all. This is
our mini pod. We tricked, y'all, We still here. I
I wanted to touch base with y'all because we did
a whole show where we ended up in a rumble
(00:27):
around the Oval office and whose I asked, should have
a chair in there. But what we didn't talk about
is what happened in the elections. Well, but I think
that our perspectives matter here. A lot of the folks
that have something to say don't necessarily have the inroads
with the people we know within these campaigns. And I
think the other thing that has been talked about in
(00:50):
passing but not as much as the fact that it
wasn't just a Harris for President campaign loss. The Senate
is gone and so is the House, and so I
want to talk about what we all think happened. I'm
sure that this is another one of those conversations where
reasonable minds can disagree, and so I want to hear
(01:10):
what you think. Andrew. You are our resident candidate, democratic
strategist that has run a campaign and knows what it's
like to get close. I think you probably only know
what it's like to get close. You only have won,
and you've only gotten close. You've never had a blowout
like this. So what do you think went wrong? Or
what do you know went wrong?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Angela? I can tell you one thing that I believe
went right, and that is Kamala Harris, with one hundred
days to transition from VP candidate to presidential candidate, which
is I can't even imagine the change that would have
had to happen, ran through the goddamn tape. I think
(01:52):
she was everywhere, talked to everybody. Are their tactical pieces
that needed to change? Are there? You know, things that
can always be done on the edges and the scene
in scenes of a campaign. Absolutely, But when you think greater,
bigger picture, Kamala Harris did what she could do as
(02:18):
a candidate. She could not, however, answer for endemic problems
and within the Democratic Party structure and quite frankly, the
diminished democratic turnout that we experienced in this election. Let
nobody forget that we had a voter drop off from
(02:39):
twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, and the seven states
that were battleground states where Kamala competed on the air,
was very present, tried to make her case. She lost
to Donald Trump by basically three points on average between
those those states or less that she did not compete,
(03:01):
meaning they were not they were not battleground states. She
lost by six points or greater. What's the point there?
And places where she where people got to hear her,
where people got to hear her defense and what she
stood for. She closed the gap between Donald Trump and
(03:22):
Republicans by three points of industrialized nations where and I
know people were like, well, we don't live in industrialized
that we live in the United States. Will listen to
this just globally. Globally, the incumbent parties, be they conservative
or liberal, and democracies all across the globe up until
(03:43):
getting to ours, the incumbent party and leadership were walloped
across the board. The United States, of all of those
developed nations who had democratic elections, had this small list
the the smallest defeat of any of the other countries.
I think that's important to understand. Because Kamala closed a
(04:08):
very significant gap, it should have been worse. And the
reason it should have been worse is I got to
retort back to James Carville, it's the economy stupid. And
I know we've been talking a bit about whether or
not there is some a duplicity, and people believe it
in that message. But when you can take black men's
support to low twenty percent and Latino men's support to
(04:31):
fifty percent plus a twenty five point shift in a cycle,
we can't just trump it up to what is a
significant issue here, which is that of race and gender,
including amongst these two groups that I just mentioned as
being real impediments to Kamala's ability to scale that additional hurdle.
(04:54):
I would say, while we did not win in a
number of plays, this is where we wanted to win.
At the top of the ticket. The most Democrats really
did mitigate a number of losses. Hakeem Jeffries will have experienced.
What potential gain of one or two seats, a loss
of one or two seats. The fact that they were
able to help steady when people held us accountable for
(05:17):
not being able to afford their groceries. That is, that
is not a mandate for the president or the Congress
to treat the opposing party and their beliefs and their
supporters any kind of way. I know everybody thinks you're
saying that went wrong. What I'm saying is is that
there was a lot that went right that we are
not accounting for, and the way this election in total
(05:38):
played out.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
The other I want to know what those things are.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Well, the things that went right to make that happen.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Are you saying that the loss wasn't that bad? So
that's when right? No?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
No, no, no, yes, in part because it was supposed to
be much greater. I know we all had optimism that
it was the devil versus the angels sitting on the shoulder.
She's not an angel. But I'm just making the comparison,
which means he was canceled, could not be considered well.
For a lot of voters. They didn't experience him so
(06:11):
badly the first time. They ignored a lot of his nonsense,
which was consequential for a lot of communities, but they
ignored it, and what they recall was that their groceries
were accessible and affordable. You had people across the board
saying that they felt like they financially did better even
though the US survived. The US survived the inflation better
(06:35):
than any other industrialized country, we came out of it better.
We came out of COVID better. But people don't live
in other countries. They live in this one, and so
if their experience is bad, it's going to be reflected, y'all.
I think there were a lot of contributing factors to
the loss that Democrats experienced. But I always felt like
this race was out of going to be like this
(06:57):
neck and neck, or that it was actually going to
be a demonstrable win. I was hoping that demonstrable win
was going to be in favor of Kamala Harris. But
if you look across these battleground states, the blue wall collapsed,
not terribly significantly, but enough for us not to win
those electoral votes. And we got to get inside what
(07:17):
the hell working people in this country? I think? And
when I include working people, I'm not talking about white
world folks. That is not a syndonym for working people.
Working people are black, brown, everything in between. Who felt
like this party was not doing their bidding even though
we're the only ones doing their bidding. The talking points
(07:40):
on the other side and the messaging from the other
side made them look like they were the Union Party
and not us. And we got to figure that shit out.
And the last point I'll make is when we were
in Atlanta, and I will never forget that young man
who stood up and talked about the hundreds of black
men that he encounters every single week in Atlanta through
the nature of his work, and the fact that they
(08:01):
were saying that straight black men don't have a home
in the Democratic Party. And you then consider the significant
loss of black men, younger, Black Latino men younger, and
white men younger who philosophically are not identifying ex conservative,
They're just looking for a home.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Well, they didn't Dane Brown with black men, Andrew, and
I want to be cautious about putting out doubttle.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Listen, I'm not saying that black men are responsible for
Kamala losing white women, without a doubt, they're white and
white men, or without a doubt, the reason that she
did not win it was their collapse. But what I'm
not going to do is ignore that in some of
these battle round states, Donald Trump got ten points more
than he did in the last election with black men
(08:51):
and doubled twenty points with Latinos. And so what I'm
saying is is we can't try to explain an academician.
Through academic exercise, our way out of the fact that
we have an emerging problem amongst certain constituencies that the
young men who do not feel like they are seen heard,
(09:12):
played with, dealt with within the Democratic Party, and that
will be a significant problem, especially when you consider what
the future demographic, voting demographic.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, I just want to happen. Because we're ten minutes
in that piece. I think we have to consider that
the voter turnout itself was smaller and that's why some
of those gains looked like they were larger. I'll be
quick what I think went right. I think that Vice
President Harris ran an amazing campaign that was pulled together
(09:45):
and executed in one hundred and seven days. This idea
that she didn't talk about the economy is bullshit. She
absolutely did. You know, she put together an incredible campaign
in one hundred and seven days, and I don't think
the idea that she didn't talk about the economy is
complete and utter bullshit. And it drives me crazy that
people say that constantly across the cable news spectrum, and
(10:07):
hosts who are supposed to be journalists don't correct it.
She did talk about the economy. I don't think there
is anything that she could have done differently that would
have changed the outcome of this election. What I think
went wrong, hence right for the Trump campaign, is that
a majority of people in this country were either in
support of or okay with, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic viewpoints of
(10:34):
this president. Even if the president was saying, I will
do this thing for you, I will pretend to put
put this policy for which he didn't put any policy
up front, but he was saying under me, you'll walk
down streets paved with gold and have you know, refrigerators
and milk and honey every day, And in the next
(10:54):
breath he was calling Nancy Pelosi a bitch, or he
was dancing incoherently across stage for forty five minutes, or
insulting Michelle Obama, insulting Vice President Harris. They were okay
with all those things. So that is what we have
to confront in this country, quite frankly, the fact that
(11:16):
a majority of people were either in support of or
indifferent to his hatefulness and his hateful rhetoric.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I a few things. One, I want to commend Kamala
Harris for a historic run and a very brave run.
I don't know anybody that could have pulled off what
she did in one hundred and seven days. So I
echo that Tiff. I also want to commend her on
molly wopping and mopping the floor with Donald Trump in
that debate. I also want to commend them on plugging
(11:56):
in influencers the best way they knew how in the camp.
I would argue that the influencers and the surrogates who
participated on the campaign trail were probably one of the
more organizing, organized pieces of the campaign. However, that's not sufficient,
and I think andrew to the argument that we had
with Tiff before on if the role of celebrities is
(12:21):
outsized with what actually matters when people go into the
voting booth is something that really should be questioned at
this point. A lot of money was spent on getting
those folks out to the trail, getting them on the stage,
ensuring their involvement, and I don't know that she saw
a real ROI there, and that's something that has to
(12:41):
be discussed. I have a tremendous bone to pick with
white men and with white women. These are the same
folks I talked about needing to be held accountable for
whatever they decide to do on election day, and I'm
not veering from that. I have a tremendous issue there
shout out to y'all because you showed up. The sad
part for y'all that showed up is you showed up
(13:03):
and voted against your interests. People have argued that you
did vote your interest What I'm saying to you is,
and I'm not trying to call you ignorant, but I
believe that you voted in the long run, against your
interests and you don't even know it. You thought your
interests were mass deportation. You thought your interests were getting
rid of DEI. You thought your interests were ensuring that
(13:23):
affirmative action no longer existed in institutions of higher learning
for your children. What you don't realize is the ways
in which these things are going to backfire and hit
you even even more. I gotta say that I think
the biggest winner in this campaign is once again, the
white consulting class. Regardless of what parties sit in, that
(13:48):
one has to be disrupted, it has to be destroyed.
We're talking about contracts in the hundreds of millions of
dollars I'm sure folks will say, well, you're not looking
at this right because this was a media buy and
so most of this went to TV. Well, what ROI
do we have to say that it was worth the
campaign spending over two hundred million dollars with one vendor
(14:12):
for TV adviys. The ROI is not there. This has
to be disrupted and the bottom line is there was
a whole other contract for digital adviys. What ROI do
we have that says this was a good use of resources.
Here's my point. There is nothing that y'all can do
to out smart good old fashioned canvassing, mail, door knocking,
(14:37):
text messages. You're not going to be able to goo
target enough in a digital space, to target enough on
a TV space to make up for the lack of
not being involved in knocking on doors. That was an
issue before Kamala Harris became the top of the ticket
(14:58):
and the nominee for this parties or this party's nominee
in this election. That was an issue that preceded Joe
Biden being at the top of the ticket. This is
an age old battle that has to be fought and
has to be challenged. There are black staff who are
part of the organizing community, part of canvassing challenge, paid
(15:19):
canvassers challenge whether or not this was the right tactic.
Said they didn't have the resources. Jasmine, who was the
state director in Florida andrew I said you are a
tweet her Twitter threat earlier. She goes in about how
much they had to rely on outside resources because they
couldn't get any resources from the campaign because the campaign
had pretty much given up on Florida. The sad part is, y'all,
(15:41):
that is not a Florida unique story. It is the
story of every battle ground state director and that has
to be discussed. They spent so much time and effort
in ensuring that these large, rich white consultants would keep
their share, could even potentially get bonuses off of a law,
but wouldn't get these folks the dollars they needed to
(16:03):
get signs on the ground, to get folks on the
ground knocking on doors. You guys, we went and knocked
on doors. We can figure out how to use the
MGB van at right. We could not say if somebody
wasn't home or not. We know that firsthand. But there
are folks who did this every single day that can
talk about what went wrong here, y'all. Like I said
(16:24):
on the main episode, I was convinced this election had
to have been stolen in some really remarkable, challenging way
on data. It's not we ignored the people at the bottom,
if you were ever, of course, But as usual, what
we've learned as well is that nothing from the top
(16:45):
ever trickles down. There's not a trickle down economy, there's
not a trickle down campaign. You cannot expect that people
will be touched just because folks are getting paid at
the top. So there's a lot more to be said there,
but that's what I got to see. Say, the biggest
loser here is the DNC, because I think that thing's
(17:06):
gonna have to be disrupted and destroyed to really get
back to the heart of what it was supposed to
be for the beginning.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
What the biggest loser is the American people. And I
just want to echo your point, Angela. We know people,
we know personally, people who were given crumbs out of
this huge pot of money. They were given crumbs, and
these are people who have been doing organizing work and
gotv work for decades. People are so willing people poured
(17:31):
money into I don't know about this cycle because I
don't know the numbers, But previous cycles, people poured money
into never trumpers, they poured money into the Lincoln projects.
But you have people like you didn't dance with the
ones who brung you, and I honestly just think we're
looking at a space. It wasn't just that Vice President
Harris lost. It was the way we were treated all
(17:53):
the way down, Like you talked about Angela as staff
or as people outside the campaign who were trying to
help this campaign. And I want to be really clear,
none of us are putting this at the feet of
Vice president here. Nope, we're putting it at the feet
of people who are in charge, who are constantly discrediting
the people who's very fucking backs this democracy depends on.
(18:14):
And when I wept for days after the election, that
is what I left about.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, And that's the thing, like at some point that
those who get rewarded for losing elections cycle after cycle,
and they get named campaign managers or named campaign chairs,
that has to be we have to that is the
first place where accountability must be had. And so I
wanted to have this conversation. I know that it's emotionally charged.
(18:40):
I know this is challenging, it's hard. We've been screaming
this from the beginning of the podcast. Andrew's giving y'all
his own story. I know that he'll continue to do that.
I hope that he'll participate in this autopsy as well,
because it's not just an autopsy of this cycle. It's
an autopsy of what's been wrong with the party for
years and it's time for it to change.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, and black women, you do not want it to
be Black women versus the party. Black women are We
are the backbone. So see how you do without your base.
See how that goes.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Since we weren't now in black men because they black
men too.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
But I'm just saying black women, in terms of organizing,
we do outnumber black men. I love black I never
believed that Trump bs. I know brothers are right there
with us. I don't even believe that Trump gained ground
with black men. But the I would say one distinction
is when black women organize, Black women organize a community
(19:37):
of people that includes black men and black women. Black
women are constantly on the front lines as poll workers organizers.
You just disproportionate to any other group, including our brothers
are black men. But this is not meant to put
black men down or disparage black men. We need y'all,
We love y'all. Y'all are right there with us in
this fight. But I am just so frustrated and her
(20:00):
We're broken, heartbroken by the way we're treated. It is
so exhausting. It's so exhausting, and I don't know how
you hold on the hope. But I'll tell you, guys,
I don't have an ounce of fucking energy to do
anything for this party, this country. All I want to
do is make sure my people are okay. I don't
I'm running out of the fight, to be honest. If
(20:20):
this is what y'all want to have at it, let
it burn. I want to make sure that my people
are okay. That's just where I am. Truly.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I hate this. I know that this probably means that
we'll have to do a part two on this as
we continue to figure out what happened in this election,
as we continue to wrestle with our own feelings and
the facts, and we'll always do that right here on
Native Lampid. So thank you all so much.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Nobody's wrong for how they feel. That's for damn sure.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Thank you all so much for tuning in. Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
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Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
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Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home, y'all. This is
our mini pod. We tricked, y'all, We still here. I
I wanted to touch base with y'all because we did
a whole show where we ended up in a rumble
(00:27):
around the Oval office and whose I asked, should have
a chair in there. But what we didn't talk about
is what happened in the elections. Well, but I think
that our perspectives matter here. A lot of the folks
that have something to say don't necessarily have the inroads
with the people we know within these campaigns. And I
think the other thing that has been talked about in
(00:50):
passing but not as much as the fact that it
wasn't just a Harris for President campaign loss. The Senate
is gone and so is the House, and so I
want to talk about what we all think happened. I'm
sure that this is another one of those conversations where
reasonable minds can disagree, and so I want to hear
(01:10):
what you think. Andrew. You are our resident candidate, democratic
strategist that has run a campaign and knows what it's
like to get close. I think you probably only know
what it's like to get close. You only have won,
and you've only gotten close. You've never had a blowout
like this. So what do you think went wrong? Or
what do you know went wrong?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Angela? I can tell you one thing that I believe
went right, and that is Kamala Harris, with one hundred
days to transition from VP candidate to presidential candidate, which
is I can't even imagine the change that would have
had to happen, ran through the goddamn tape. I think
(01:52):
she was everywhere, talked to everybody. Are their tactical pieces
that needed to change? Are there? You know, things that
can always be done on the edges and the scene
in scenes of a campaign. Absolutely, But when you think greater,
bigger picture, Kamala Harris did what she could do as
(02:18):
a candidate. She could not, however, answer for endemic problems
and within the Democratic Party structure and quite frankly, the
diminished democratic turnout that we experienced in this election. Let
nobody forget that we had a voter drop off from
(02:39):
twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, and the seven states
that were battleground states where Kamala competed on the air,
was very present, tried to make her case. She lost
to Donald Trump by basically three points on average between
those those states or less that she did not compete,
(03:01):
meaning they were not they were not battleground states. She
lost by six points or greater. What's the point there?
And places where she where people got to hear her,
where people got to hear her defense and what she
stood for. She closed the gap between Donald Trump and
(03:22):
Republicans by three points of industrialized nations where and I
know people were like, well, we don't live in industrialized
that we live in the United States. Will listen to
this just globally. Globally, the incumbent parties, be they conservative
or liberal, and democracies all across the globe up until
(03:43):
getting to ours, the incumbent party and leadership were walloped
across the board. The United States, of all of those
developed nations who had democratic elections, had this small list
the the smallest defeat of any of the other countries.
I think that's important to understand. Because Kamala closed a
(04:08):
very significant gap, it should have been worse. And the
reason it should have been worse is I got to
retort back to James Carville, it's the economy stupid. And
I know we've been talking a bit about whether or
not there is some a duplicity, and people believe it
in that message. But when you can take black men's
support to low twenty percent and Latino men's support to
(04:31):
fifty percent plus a twenty five point shift in a cycle,
we can't just trump it up to what is a
significant issue here, which is that of race and gender,
including amongst these two groups that I just mentioned as
being real impediments to Kamala's ability to scale that additional hurdle.
(04:54):
I would say, while we did not win in a
number of plays, this is where we wanted to win.
At the top of the ticket. The most Democrats really
did mitigate a number of losses. Hakeem Jeffries will have experienced.
What potential gain of one or two seats, a loss
of one or two seats. The fact that they were
able to help steady when people held us accountable for
(05:17):
not being able to afford their groceries. That is, that
is not a mandate for the president or the Congress
to treat the opposing party and their beliefs and their
supporters any kind of way. I know everybody thinks you're
saying that went wrong. What I'm saying is is that
there was a lot that went right that we are
not accounting for, and the way this election in total
(05:38):
played out.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
The other I want to know what those things are.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Well, the things that went right to make that happen.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Are you saying that the loss wasn't that bad? So
that's when right? No?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
No, no, no, yes, in part because it was supposed to
be much greater. I know we all had optimism that
it was the devil versus the angels sitting on the shoulder.
She's not an angel. But I'm just making the comparison,
which means he was canceled, could not be considered well.
For a lot of voters. They didn't experience him so
(06:11):
badly the first time. They ignored a lot of his nonsense,
which was consequential for a lot of communities, but they
ignored it, and what they recall was that their groceries
were accessible and affordable. You had people across the board
saying that they felt like they financially did better even
though the US survived. The US survived the inflation better
(06:35):
than any other industrialized country, we came out of it better.
We came out of COVID better. But people don't live
in other countries. They live in this one, and so
if their experience is bad, it's going to be reflected, y'all.
I think there were a lot of contributing factors to
the loss that Democrats experienced. But I always felt like
this race was out of going to be like this
(06:57):
neck and neck, or that it was actually going to
be a demonstrable win. I was hoping that demonstrable win
was going to be in favor of Kamala Harris. But
if you look across these battleground states, the blue wall collapsed,
not terribly significantly, but enough for us not to win
those electoral votes. And we got to get inside what
(07:17):
the hell working people in this country? I think? And
when I include working people, I'm not talking about white
world folks. That is not a syndonym for working people.
Working people are black, brown, everything in between. Who felt
like this party was not doing their bidding even though
we're the only ones doing their bidding. The talking points
(07:40):
on the other side and the messaging from the other
side made them look like they were the Union Party
and not us. And we got to figure that shit out.
And the last point I'll make is when we were
in Atlanta, and I will never forget that young man
who stood up and talked about the hundreds of black
men that he encounters every single week in Atlanta through
the nature of his work, and the fact that they
(08:01):
were saying that straight black men don't have a home
in the Democratic Party. And you then consider the significant
loss of black men, younger, Black Latino men younger, and
white men younger who philosophically are not identifying ex conservative,
They're just looking for a home.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Well, they didn't Dane Brown with black men, Andrew, and
I want to be cautious about putting out doubttle.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Listen, I'm not saying that black men are responsible for
Kamala losing white women, without a doubt, they're white and
white men, or without a doubt, the reason that she
did not win it was their collapse. But what I'm
not going to do is ignore that in some of
these battle round states, Donald Trump got ten points more
than he did in the last election with black men
(08:51):
and doubled twenty points with Latinos. And so what I'm
saying is is we can't try to explain an academician.
Through academic exercise, our way out of the fact that
we have an emerging problem amongst certain constituencies that the
young men who do not feel like they are seen heard,
(09:12):
played with, dealt with within the Democratic Party, and that
will be a significant problem, especially when you consider what
the future demographic, voting demographic.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, I just want to happen. Because we're ten minutes
in that piece. I think we have to consider that
the voter turnout itself was smaller and that's why some
of those gains looked like they were larger. I'll be
quick what I think went right. I think that Vice
President Harris ran an amazing campaign that was pulled together
(09:45):
and executed in one hundred and seven days. This idea
that she didn't talk about the economy is bullshit. She
absolutely did. You know, she put together an incredible campaign
in one hundred and seven days, and I don't think
the idea that she didn't talk about the economy is
complete and utter bullshit. And it drives me crazy that
people say that constantly across the cable news spectrum, and
(10:07):
hosts who are supposed to be journalists don't correct it.
She did talk about the economy. I don't think there
is anything that she could have done differently that would
have changed the outcome of this election. What I think
went wrong, hence right for the Trump campaign, is that
a majority of people in this country were either in
support of or okay with, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic viewpoints of
(10:34):
this president. Even if the president was saying, I will
do this thing for you, I will pretend to put
put this policy for which he didn't put any policy
up front, but he was saying under me, you'll walk
down streets paved with gold and have you know, refrigerators
and milk and honey every day, And in the next
(10:54):
breath he was calling Nancy Pelosi a bitch, or he
was dancing incoherently across stage for forty five minutes, or
insulting Michelle Obama, insulting Vice President Harris. They were okay
with all those things. So that is what we have
to confront in this country, quite frankly, the fact that
(11:16):
a majority of people were either in support of or
indifferent to his hatefulness and his hateful rhetoric.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
I a few things. One, I want to commend Kamala
Harris for a historic run and a very brave run.
I don't know anybody that could have pulled off what
she did in one hundred and seven days. So I
echo that Tiff. I also want to commend her on
molly wopping and mopping the floor with Donald Trump in
that debate. I also want to commend them on plugging
(11:56):
in influencers the best way they knew how in the camp.
I would argue that the influencers and the surrogates who
participated on the campaign trail were probably one of the
more organizing, organized pieces of the campaign. However, that's not sufficient,
and I think andrew to the argument that we had
with Tiff before on if the role of celebrities is
(12:21):
outsized with what actually matters when people go into the
voting booth is something that really should be questioned at
this point. A lot of money was spent on getting
those folks out to the trail, getting them on the stage,
ensuring their involvement, and I don't know that she saw
a real ROI there, and that's something that has to
(12:41):
be discussed. I have a tremendous bone to pick with
white men and with white women. These are the same
folks I talked about needing to be held accountable for
whatever they decide to do on election day, and I'm
not veering from that. I have a tremendous issue there
shout out to y'all because you showed up. The sad
part for y'all that showed up is you showed up
(13:03):
and voted against your interests. People have argued that you
did vote your interest What I'm saying to you is,
and I'm not trying to call you ignorant, but I
believe that you voted in the long run, against your
interests and you don't even know it. You thought your
interests were mass deportation. You thought your interests were getting
rid of DEI. You thought your interests were ensuring that
(13:23):
affirmative action no longer existed in institutions of higher learning
for your children. What you don't realize is the ways
in which these things are going to backfire and hit
you even even more. I gotta say that I think
the biggest winner in this campaign is once again, the
white consulting class. Regardless of what parties sit in, that
(13:48):
one has to be disrupted, it has to be destroyed.
We're talking about contracts in the hundreds of millions of
dollars I'm sure folks will say, well, you're not looking
at this right because this was a media buy and
so most of this went to TV. Well, what ROI
do we have to say that it was worth the
campaign spending over two hundred million dollars with one vendor
(14:12):
for TV adviys. The ROI is not there. This has
to be disrupted and the bottom line is there was
a whole other contract for digital adviys. What ROI do
we have that says this was a good use of resources.
Here's my point. There is nothing that y'all can do
to out smart good old fashioned canvassing, mail, door knocking,
(14:37):
text messages. You're not going to be able to goo
target enough in a digital space, to target enough on
a TV space to make up for the lack of
not being involved in knocking on doors. That was an
issue before Kamala Harris became the top of the ticket
(14:58):
and the nominee for this parties or this party's nominee
in this election. That was an issue that preceded Joe
Biden being at the top of the ticket. This is
an age old battle that has to be fought and
has to be challenged. There are black staff who are
part of the organizing community, part of canvassing challenge, paid
(15:19):
canvassers challenge whether or not this was the right tactic.
Said they didn't have the resources. Jasmine, who was the
state director in Florida andrew I said you are a
tweet her Twitter threat earlier. She goes in about how
much they had to rely on outside resources because they
couldn't get any resources from the campaign because the campaign
had pretty much given up on Florida. The sad part is, y'all,
(15:41):
that is not a Florida unique story. It is the
story of every battle ground state director and that has
to be discussed. They spent so much time and effort
in ensuring that these large, rich white consultants would keep
their share, could even potentially get bonuses off of a law,
but wouldn't get these folks the dollars they needed to
(16:03):
get signs on the ground, to get folks on the
ground knocking on doors. You guys, we went and knocked
on doors. We can figure out how to use the
MGB van at right. We could not say if somebody
wasn't home or not. We know that firsthand. But there
are folks who did this every single day that can
talk about what went wrong here, y'all. Like I said
(16:24):
on the main episode, I was convinced this election had
to have been stolen in some really remarkable, challenging way
on data. It's not we ignored the people at the bottom,
if you were ever, of course, But as usual, what
we've learned as well is that nothing from the top
(16:45):
ever trickles down. There's not a trickle down economy, there's
not a trickle down campaign. You cannot expect that people
will be touched just because folks are getting paid at
the top. So there's a lot more to be said there,
but that's what I got to see. Say, the biggest
loser here is the DNC, because I think that thing's
(17:06):
gonna have to be disrupted and destroyed to really get
back to the heart of what it was supposed to
be for the beginning.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
What the biggest loser is the American people. And I
just want to echo your point, Angela. We know people,
we know personally, people who were given crumbs out of
this huge pot of money. They were given crumbs, and
these are people who have been doing organizing work and
gotv work for decades. People are so willing people poured
(17:31):
money into I don't know about this cycle because I
don't know the numbers, But previous cycles, people poured money
into never trumpers, they poured money into the Lincoln projects.
But you have people like you didn't dance with the
ones who brung you, and I honestly just think we're
looking at a space. It wasn't just that Vice President
Harris lost. It was the way we were treated all
(17:53):
the way down, Like you talked about Angela as staff
or as people outside the campaign who were trying to
help this campaign. And I want to be really clear,
none of us are putting this at the feet of
Vice president here. Nope, we're putting it at the feet
of people who are in charge, who are constantly discrediting
the people who's very fucking backs this democracy depends on.
(18:14):
And when I wept for days after the election, that
is what I left about.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, And that's the thing, like at some point that
those who get rewarded for losing elections cycle after cycle,
and they get named campaign managers or named campaign chairs,
that has to be we have to that is the
first place where accountability must be had. And so I
wanted to have this conversation. I know that it's emotionally charged.
(18:40):
I know this is challenging, it's hard. We've been screaming
this from the beginning of the podcast. Andrew's giving y'all
his own story. I know that he'll continue to do that.
I hope that he'll participate in this autopsy as well,
because it's not just an autopsy of this cycle. It's
an autopsy of what's been wrong with the party for
years and it's time for it to change.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, and black women, you do not want it to
be Black women versus the party. Black women are We
are the backbone. So see how you do without your base.
See how that goes.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Since we weren't now in black men because they black
men too.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
But I'm just saying black women, in terms of organizing,
we do outnumber black men. I love black I never
believed that Trump bs. I know brothers are right there
with us. I don't even believe that Trump gained ground
with black men. But the I would say one distinction
is when black women organize, Black women organize a community
(19:37):
of people that includes black men and black women. Black
women are constantly on the front lines as poll workers organizers.
You just disproportionate to any other group, including our brothers
are black men. But this is not meant to put
black men down or disparage black men. We need y'all,
We love y'all. Y'all are right there with us in
this fight. But I am just so frustrated and her
(20:00):
We're broken, heartbroken by the way we're treated. It is
so exhausting. It's so exhausting, and I don't know how
you hold on the hope. But I'll tell you, guys,
I don't have an ounce of fucking energy to do
anything for this party, this country. All I want to
do is make sure my people are okay. I don't
I'm running out of the fight, to be honest. If
(20:20):
this is what y'all want to have at it, let
it burn. I want to make sure that my people
are okay. That's just where I am. Truly.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I hate this. I know that this probably means that
we'll have to do a part two on this as
we continue to figure out what happened in this election,
as we continue to wrestle with our own feelings and
the facts, and we'll always do that right here on
Native Lampid. So thank you all so much.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Nobody's wrong for how they feel. That's for damn sure.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Thank you all so much for tuning in. Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Resent Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
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Hosts And Creators
Tiffany Cross
Andrew Gillum
Angela Rye
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