Chuck Todd uses the fallout from the Texas runoff to identify a much bigger pattern emerging across the Sun Belt — and argues we may be watching a generational realignment of American politics in real time. For decades, Southern states moved steadily from blue to red, with the Sun Belt providing the demographic engine of every Republican majority and Democrats traditionally finding their path to power through the upper Midwest. But Trump's GOP has now moved so far right that it's quietly opening the door for Democrats across the South — the blue shift we've seen in Georgia over the past decade is starting to happen in Texas, and the Trump brand has badly complicated things for the centrist voters who used to keep these states reliably Republican. Chuck argues that successful Southern Republican governors of the past spent enormous energy doing coalition management — keeping their activist wing at bay while delivering for swing voters — but Republicans misread their recent electoral dominance and started catering exclusively to their base instead.The data is clear: election deniers consistently lose in Georgia, and when every single issue becomes a loyalty test, you bleed exactly the kind of voters you need to actually win.
But Chuck’s larger argument is that Democrats are blowing the opportunity. He argues the Democratic path back to power is genuinely simple — economic inequality and the concentration of corporate power are causing virtually all of America's ills, and there's a coherent coalition waiting to be built around those issues — but progressives behave like they've already won the intellectual argument and refuse to do the actual work of persuasion. There's no "pure" way to win, Chuck says: winning coalitions are inherently messy, both party bases want movement politics, but the actual electorate consistently rewards coalition politics. Americans increasingly dislike both parties for very different reasons — moderate voters think Democrats are weak and Republicans are too extreme — and what they're actually hungry for is a coalition that is stable and visibly capable of governing.
Finally, he answers listeners' questions in the "Ask Chuck" segment.
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Timeline:
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)
00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction
0:15 Fallout from Texas runoff - We’re seeing a pattern in the Sun Belt
1:00 For decades, southern states have been transitioning from blue to red
2:00 Sun belt states have powered the Republican majority
3:15 Democrats path to power used to be the midwest, now is moving south
4:00 Republicans move to the right has created Dem opportunities in Sun Belt
5:30 The shift to blue we’ve seen in Georgia is starting to happen in Texas
6:30 The Trump brand has complicated things for centrist voters in the south
7:15 Will Ken Paxton be the Mark Robinson of Texas?
8:15 Southern governors were able to keep their activist wing at bay
9:45 GOP leaders in the south had to perform coalition management
11:00 Republicans misunderstood election dominance, then catered to base
12:00 Florida GOP has purged most of its institutional wing
13:15 Loudest activists have set the tone for the Republican party
14:00 Arizona GOP went way too far to the right, less competitive now
16:00 Election deniers have consistently lost in Georgia
17:00 When every issue becomes a loyalty test, you bleed voters
18:15 Texas election will test if the Texas GOP went too far right
20:15 Dems path to power is simple, but have to be willing to take it
22:00 Economic inequality & concentration of power are causing all of our ills
22:30 Progressives behave like they’ve won the intellectual argument
23:15 It’s hard to convince most dedicated supporters what the winning path is
24:15 Republicans are losing due to Trump’s purging of the party
26:30 There’s no “pure” way to win, winning coalitions are messy
27:45 Both bases want movement politics, electorate rewards coalition politics
29:15 Americans increasingly dislike both parties for different reasons
31:15 Base Democrats are taking the wrong lessons from Trump
32:00 Moderate voters think Dems are weak, and GOP is too extreme
33:15 Voters want a coalition that’s stable and
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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so use that code. Hello, Aaron, Welcome to the Thursday
Long Weekend edition of the Chuck Podcast. But I'm gonna
begin with a little bit more fallout from the from Texas.
But I want to look at it from a wider
(01:52):
perspective here, and the wider perspective is to fit what's
happening in Texas into the Texas Republican Party. It's actually
part of a pattern that we've seen in the Sun Belt, right.
And I look at my formative years learning American politics,
digesting American politics, and now consuming American politics and now
(02:17):
trying to explain it and explain where we've been and
where we're going, and the Sun Belt for a majority
of my adulthood, and really most of my lifetime has
been in a transition from Team Blue to Team Red.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Right, you know, the.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Southern states in the early seventies when I was born
were all Democratic, but there was always a conservative through
line in there. You know, there was sort of populist
on economic issues, but culturally a bit more conservative and
certainly a bit more hawkish on military issues. So you
(02:59):
know it, if you think about today's Republicans as descendants
of yesterday's conservative Democrats, that's the through line you would
take there. And so for the lion's share of the seventies, eighties, nineties,
(03:19):
even and really sort of peaking, I think I think
we're going to say peaking somewhere around twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Twenty twelve.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
The Sun Belt states have powered this Republican majority. The
Republican majority in the House went through the Sun Belt
whenever they had the majority. The first time they got
it ninety four, it went through the South. But each case, right,
and it's been fairly reflective in its leadership. Right, You've
(03:50):
had Southern Speakers of the House, New Gingrich, Mike Johnson,
You've had plenty of sort of Southern Leaders of the House,
tom Delay Dick Army. It has gone through the South,
through the Sunbelt over the last ten years, as the
Midwest has sort of continues to although we're starting to
(04:14):
see population gains for the first time back in Midwestern cities,
we've been sort of there's been this sort of consistent
come down, right, and this sort of gradual shift of
the population from the north.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
To the south.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And you know, from much of the twentieth century and
the first arguably the first say sixteen years of the
twenty first century, the path to political power has gone
through the Midwest, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio right gone
that Essentially they've been the majority makers, majority makers in
(04:47):
the Senate, majority makers, and that is now shifted. And
now what we've seen, particularly since twenty sixteen, is that
the path back, particularly for Democrats, has not been to
you know, has been to hold their own in the Midwest.
But when they have gotten majorities, it's because they have
overperformed in the Sunbelt. We've seen it now Georgia and
(05:10):
Arizona and i have been the big two sort of
shifts where they went from red leaning to now very
I think deep purple and structurally at the moment feel
as if you'd rather be Team Blue than Team Red.
And I'm going to discuss that in a minute. Right
the states to me are would are more comfortably in
(05:31):
the center right camp. But because the Republican Party in
both of the states have shifted so far to the right,
or the perception of them is so far to the right,
and they've purged certain people, it is created some opportunities.
And it's in this sort of rubric that I want
(05:52):
to talk about sort of the challenge that both parties
have at the moment. And ultimately, you know, signpost here
that you know, the future of American politics is going
to be decided in the Sunbelt. And what do I
define as a sunbelt. Nevada's in you know, to me,
(06:14):
Las Vegas qualified, so Nevada, Nevada's in the Sunbelt. It's Nevada,
It's Arizona, It's New Mexico is a part of this.
This is a state that is uh sneakily, sneakily more
competitive if when you when you sort of look under
the hood a little bit, potentially Texas, certainly, Georgia, North Carolina,
(06:38):
and then you have sort of these states that that
you know, in the Midwest, it was your Indian and
your South Dakota's. In the South, it's your Mississippi's in
your South Carolina's.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
There.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There's something happening there. The question is whether it is
going to get turned into.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Something so.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
But it but it's it's kind of how I want
to tackle today's conversation. So we're going to the and
I think what we're watching here is a shift. And
what we're seen in Texas with the Republican Party in
Texas is something that we've already seen take place in Florida,
take place in Arizona, because you know where these states
(07:22):
collectively reside. You know, would they prefer center right versus
center left? If given the choice, would they prefer right?
I think it's fair to say Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina,
in Arizona, I think instinctively see them would probably plot
themselves somewhere just to the right of the center lane
in one form or another. Some of it would be
(07:44):
for cultural reasons, but almost all of it would be
for economic reasons. Right, you know, economic growth development in
general has been a net positive for these states. So ultimately,
for the large sort of chunk of voters that live
between the thirty five yards lines in our on our
political spectrum layered onto a football field. I think that's
(08:07):
where they would put themselves. But the Trump brand has
complicated things, right, The Trump brand doesn't work in Georgia.
The Trump brand doesn't work in Arizona. We've seen that
that's put both parties over their skis, and in both states,
whenever a Trump branded Republican has ended up a nominee,
it's been a problem. We saw this in North Carolina,
(08:29):
Mark Robinson, right, it's been a problem. So the question
is did we just see this happen in Texas? Is
Ken Paxton the Mark Robinson moments? Here is Ken Paxton,
the Kerry Lake moments. Right, is Ken Paxton, the herschel
Walker moment. This this feeling that you're like, you know,
(08:50):
this is this is going too far? And the other
question is do Democrats recognize that this moment is here
and do they know how to adjust? But I do
think that this is what is right now. The biggest
thing that is changing sort of the political landscape in
the South is what's happening inside the Republican coalition. And
(09:13):
I think you have to understand what it used to be.
Because what's happening in state after state in the Sunbelt
is this The parts of the Republican Party that knew
how to manage what were broad coalitions when they first
grabbed power in the Sunbelt in the seventies and eighties
are slowly being purged, marginalized, and overwhelmed by activist politics.
(09:33):
Right success has made the Republican Party look inward and
go further to the base. Now, the irony is many
of the Republican governors and strategists who were actually the
most successful politically in these states usually understood that governing restraint.
(09:53):
They understood restraint. And I say this specific word here
because it didn't mean they weren't conservative. It didn't mean
and they weren't disruptors. But they knew that there was
a hey, no, no, no, no, that's going to go
too far and that's going to blow up the coalition.
And for the most part, these governors were able to
keep their activists at bay who came after them. It
(10:14):
wasn't through moderation, it was simply through restraint. Brian Kemp
has understood this, right, He's sort of he's a conservative.
No one's mistaken him for a rhino, but he sort
of looks at it and says, I may believe this,
but not a majority.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Of my states. I'm not going to go that far.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Greg Abbott has been interesting to watch because he's not
a trumpy, but he doesn't want Trumpers to know that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
He's not a trumper.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And he's managed this and I'd say the first couple
of terms he's managed it better. In this coalition has
been more of a Rick Perry, George W. Bush or
a coalition conservative manager. He's been pushed lately right, He's
been pushed into more confrontational politics, and he's now been
part of his own purging of the party and his
own primary. And the question is is he going over
(11:00):
his skis? And we're going to find out in November
there and then I would argue in Florida first term,
DeSantis understood that he had to manage the coalition more
like jee Bush rather than doing what he has kind
of let the legislature a little bit take over, and
then the instincts of the rest of the party has
shoved things to the right, more so in second term
(11:21):
DeSantis than in first term. And again, but these governors
that sort of got restraint. It wasn't that they were moderate.
These are very conservative people. Their political skill was understanding
the coalition maintenance, right, because fast growing Sunbelt states are
not ideologically uniform places. They're very complicated, they're messy, they're massive,
(11:44):
suburbanizing plate entities. They're economically diverse, and they're culturally transitional, right,
because you do have people with different cultural mores that
sort of all gravitate towards these warm climates. You've got
evangelical conservatives, business republicans, retirees, military families, libertarians, working class
(12:07):
of Hispanics, suburban professionals, exurban populists. It's a it is,
you know, there's other than sort of keep government in
my you know, out of my life a little bit
and keep my taxes low. There's not a ton of
other consistency. That's a coalition, it's not a movement. And
(12:27):
for about fifteen years, right, I'd argue, from say nineteen
ninety four to about twenty ten, okay, Republicans were extremely
good at holding this coalition together. But what happens is
when dominant parties over time continue to win, they start
confusing their dominance, particularly their primary dominance, with general election
(12:51):
durability and so and the two things are not the
same thing. So I think what we're watching now, particularly
in the Texas Republican Party, something we saw in the
Arizona Republican Party, and it's still happening today. It's coalition
intoxic intoxication, right where the activists are sort of drunk
on the power. The base begins to believe, we don't
need those other voters anymore, why do we need? You know,
(13:13):
they sort of forget what it took to get fifty
percent plus one to actually get power in the first place.
And the minute the base of a party thinks it
doesn't need these majority making voters, the ones that are
more parts of a coalition than they are believers in
your movement, that's when parties start drifting and you start
(13:34):
to see it state by state. Right, Florida is a
good example. At the moment, the Florida Republican Party is
basically purged most of its remaining mainstream institutional wing right.
We saw a big purging of it in twenty eighteen,
right when Ron de Santis came out of nowhere just
using Trump and essentially retired the Bush wing of the party.
Adam Putnam being that right. So the Bush wing of
(13:55):
the party died in Texas this past Tuesday. The bushwing
of the Florida Republican Party died in twenty eighteen with
Brond De Santis' dual victory, beating Putnam in the primary
and carrying that over and winning there. Now, politically, Florida
obviously still leans Republican, but the party has become so
(14:18):
dominant internally that it's lost some of the ballast that
kept it I think, strategically disciplined, right, Jeb Bush was
a conservative, but he under but you know, living frankly,
living his early adult years in Miami, he understood, hey,
this is a diverse state and you can't push things
too far, and that ballast is missing right now. And
(14:44):
so when there's no internal opposition in a party, the
loudest activists end up getting to set the emotional tone
of the party. In Florida, I think is not as
far to the right as the Florida Republican Party is behaving.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Right now.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
We're going to find out whether that matters yet November,
but it changes decision making. I think, like I said,
Arizona's where we saw this happen first.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Arizona.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It's always been the case, right, John McCain's politics were
probably the north star generally of where where Arizona is
frankly still is. I think Mark Kelly is essentially a
McCain Democrat, right, Mark Kelly was a former Republican, but
the Arizona Republican Party, you know, and this was it
was sort of the first big sun belt state that
(15:32):
it went you know, it made very goldwater blush. It
went so far to the right at one point, and
they're still in this middle of the civil War. We're
sitting in the governor's race. Andy Biggs and David Schwikert.
Sweikert is more of a essentially a Republican that was
more familiar, more out of the mold of John McCain
or John Kyle versus Andy Biggs, who's more of the
(15:55):
Trump wing of the party or in Arizona speak.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Look, now, maybe not as boisterous and loud and as
conspiracy minded as Kerry Lake, but close certainly you know,
doesn't want to offend her supporters. And Democrats have benefited
from this big league, as certain politicians might say, you know,
Arizona's got the you know, got a Democratic governor and
(16:21):
two Democratic senators. Is the state suddenly liberal or is
this the case of In each case, the Republican Party
essentially went its primary voters went too far to the
right right, and you see this backlash question. Now we
can say, do Democrats understand that? That's why they've got
the clean state wide sweep and the near sweep of
all statewide offices. I think they only lost treasure in
(16:44):
twenty twenty two. And that's the point. Arizona became competitive
because Republicans began testing how far ideological purification could go
in a state that was filled with a ton of
suburban independence and transplanted voters from the Midwest right. And
now we're seeing Georgia is in the middle of this.
(17:08):
Brian Kemp's political instincts are actually very different from a
lot of the activist energy that dominates parts of the
state party. And we're going to see it Mike Collins
versus Rick Jackson. You're going to see it with Derek Duhl.
Excuse me, Mike Collins versus Derek Dooley. You're seeing it
with Burt Jones versus Rick Jackson. Right, the pre Trump Party,
Derek Dooley and Rick Jackson will be the two nominees,
(17:28):
and they probably both be slight favorites to win state wide.
In Trump's purification of politics, neither one of them is
going to get out of their runoff, and you're going
to have an election denier in Burt Jones. And I
would remind you every election denier lost as a major
nominee in Georgia in twenty two, and the election deniers
lost in Arizona.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
In twenty twenty two, it is.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It is, you know, the election denier lost in North
Carolina for governor. The question is do election deniers get punished?
Where to find out? In Texas Florida. And we're gonna,
you know, we are, Like I said, I think we
already know what happens in Georgia. It's gonna be an
interesting test. You a former Atlanta mayor, and just in general,
(18:11):
Atlanta mayor's are going to be polarizing to the rest
of the state that isn't Atlanta versus potentially a Trump
endorsed election denier. But Kemp, you know, didn't govern this
way and didn't do his politics this way. He understood
how to survive in suburban Atlanta while still keeping the
Republican based together coalition maintenance that takes discipline, because once
(18:32):
a party becomes entirely performative, once every issue becomes a
loyalty test, that's when you start bleeding exactly the voters
you need in growing metro areas, which is the sun
belt at the moment, right again, from coast to coast,
from North Carolina to Arizona. This episode of the check
(18:55):
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I'm not going to be heavy on the spurs to cover,
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(20:05):
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Speaker 2 (20:15):
Enjoy the game.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
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all the terms at FanDuel dot com. Slash, predicts, slash bonus,
hyphen offer hyphen terms. In North Carolina, Republicans already found
the line where voters said too much. Mark Robinson was
that line, and now the state is still competitive, it's
still polarized, it's still structurally difficult for Democrats, but the
(20:58):
Trump wing doesn't go as well there, and the Democrats
found somebody who also understands sort of left wing coalition
maintenance and understands that there is not a majority for
progressive politics in North Carolina. That at best, you can
create a coalition that leans left. But what you see
(21:21):
overall is an electorate pushing back against ideological overreach. And
we know every state will do this. This happens in
blue states when they go to start. I think this
is what California is looking for a way to push
back on the leftward lurch. They're not ready to go
pull Republican, but they're looking for something. It's pretty clear,
and we'll see if the next governor understands this and
(21:44):
knows how to find a heat vowve on that. Now,
Texas is the giant, unresolved question hanging over all of this,
and that's where Paxton comes in. Up until John Cornyn's loss.
You could argue that Texas Republicans have had enough institutionalists,
enough coalition managers like Greg Abbott to prevent a full
(22:06):
activist takeover. And yet then you get a guy like
Bo French, who's you know, within the Railroad Commission race,
who's unabashed in his in his more ideological purification, and
wants to get rid of a Republican who he you know,
who he says is too cozy with the energy industry,
(22:27):
and you start to wonder if are they going are
they going to make the same mistakes that Georgia Republicans
made in Arizona Republicans made, And is Greg Abbott going
to be able to still manage this coalition as well
as he has he? You know, like I said, first
two terms, Abbot was really good at this. He is
you know, he's always looking over his right shoulder more
(22:49):
than he's looking over his left shoulder. And the question
is is he look over his right shoulder too much?
We're going to find out in November. But you can
see the pressure building underneath him. And you know, he
did his own version of purging of the party with
his voucher primary campaigns. But it doesn't matter. The activist
wing always wants more right. Both parties find this. They
(23:12):
always want more, They want more purity, they want more confrontation,
they want more ideological virtue segment and eventually every dominant
coalition faces the same question, can it still govern broadly
once the activists become convinced compromise itself.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Is a weakness.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Now here's where Democrats enter this story, because the irony
is I don't think it's that difficult the Democratic parties,
the electoral math problem is easy to solve. What they
have is a psychological problem because the path itself is
not complicated. If you're willing to accept what the path is,
the opening is sitting right in front of them. Regain
(23:53):
enough suburban moderates, hold enough working class minority voters, avoid
culturally alienating swing vote, and presents stability against ideological overreach.
It's not complicated math. And you know what this what
this This is the same exact ingredients that Bob Martinez
(24:14):
used to become the first Republican governor in a generation
of Florida. It's what George W. Bush used to become
the first republic a sort of the first two term
Republican governor in Texas. Uh. I think ever, when he
when he won re election, Uh, it is what Sonny
Purdue did when he defeated Roy Barnes in Georgia. They
(24:38):
understood it wasn't a movement, it was a coalition with
that was powered by a growing movement inside their party.
And I think that's going to be the challenge for Democrats.
The hard part they're going to have is convincing parts
of the Democratic base to emotionally accept what the coalition
(24:59):
requires in order to win. That's the tension. And I've
been thinking about this reading some of the debates on
the left at the moment. Especially there's this new piece
in The Atlantic by Jonathan Chade about the neo Brandician movements,
named after a supposed quote that BRANDI said about monopolies.
I say supposed because mister Chate couldn't find the origin
(25:20):
of it. But the argument that concentrated corporate power and
economic inequality basically is what has caused all of our ills,
our social lills, our cultural ills, and our economic ills,
and that dealing with it requires a far more aggressive
progressive response. Now Intellectually, a lot of the critiques are persuasive.
(25:43):
There's clearly monopoly power in tech that we have to
be wary of. But electorally, the question has been a
lot different because parts of the progressive movement increasingly behave
as though they've already won this broader cultural argument. And
if you think you've already won the argument intellectually, compromise
to build a bigger coalition starts feeling unnecessary, even immoral.
(26:09):
But the country still behaving are the country still behaves
like a coalition country. We are not a movement country,
and that's the disconnect. We might become one if you
spend decades persuading, but we're not that. Historically, this is
where parties often struggle the most. The hardest part in
politics usually isn't finding the path to victory. Path to victory,
(26:31):
I can find it in almost any state. The path
is often very obvious. The hardest part is convincing your
own party's most committed supporters to accept what the path
actually requires, because every activist movement eventually reaches a point
where it says, we don't need those voters anymore. The
corporatist Democrats, how often have you been hearing that lately?
(26:53):
In some of these debates on the left. Okay, you
don't want them in your party. You don't have to
have them in your party. If you don't want power,
do you want power?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Is the focus winning? And that's usually the moment when
you start to just when you start to put a
a security gate in front of your party where you
decide where somebody has to have a secret code in
order to get in to be a member, rather than
you just opening the doors and being a party that
(27:24):
just believes. In addition, that's the moment parties begin losing elections.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They should have won.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Not to be clear, Republicans are creating this opening all
by themselves. They are losing republic races that they should
have won thanks to Donald Trump's purging right, And the
victories in Arizona and Georgia are not because Democrats suddenly
became brilliant strategists. It's because there was an obvious path
to take that the Republicans allowed an opening, and you
(27:55):
had smart candidates who pivoted.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Whether you're rough.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Field Warnock, John assaf Mark, Kelly, Reuben Diego, or you
just didn't do you did no harm, like Katie Hopps,
the governor of Arizona, now, Republicans of many of these
(28:20):
Sun Belt states are drifting into these ideological purification politics.
The question is whether Democrats are capable of accepting the
kind of broad, sometimes uncomfortable coalition politics required to capitalize
on the opportunity that is staring them straight in the
face Florida, Texas, Georgia. I'd throw Alabama and even Mississippi
(28:46):
in there. It's staring them in the face. But the
base of the party has to accept that it is
not a majority, even inside its own coalition, and that
is not what the activist base thinks. Just like and
what happens when an activist base thinks that all victories
are their victories. Get Ken Paxton as your Republican nominee
(29:11):
for Senate, You get Bert Jones as you're likely Republican nominee,
an election denier for governors. So this is the this
is the warning and opportunity that the Democratic Party has.
But right now, in some ways it's got the same
issues that the Sun Belt Republicans have, where it's loud,
(29:33):
activist base is in charge, and it's chipping away at
the very coalition that gave the Republicans power the first
time they got it. In the Sun Belt in the
seventies and eighties and nineties. The opportunity for Democrats is
to follow the same path. No, it is not ideologically pure.
(29:55):
Neither are the Sun Belt states. They're all messy coalition,
there is no and in fact, you know they're there.
And this is I think it's hardest to see in Texas,
but none of these Most of these states have fewer
and fewer natives in it. It's just, you know, it's
(30:17):
just like you know, if if the country is a
nation of immigrants, these states are a country of domestic immigrants.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
They you go through a college football weekend in central
Florida or the suburbs of Houston or the suburbs of Dallas,
You'll see a lot of big ten flags. You'll see
Ohio State and Michigan. These are all people that used
to live in the swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
(30:48):
and Iowa. Uh. And so I think that this is
I think this is what's happening on the right, and
we're seeing they're all over their skis and and I
think we all kind of see where this is headed.
Unless the Democratic Party gets in its own way, which
(31:10):
we know is always quite possible. Ultimately, this is the
irony of a modern American politics. Both parties increasingly want
movement politics, but the American electorate and increasingly these sunbell
electorates reward coalition politics. They're not ideologues, but the two
(31:32):
parties are trying to let the ideologues call the shots.
Whichever party remembers that first that the ideologues are wrong
about this will end up with the advantage going into
twenty twenty eight. I want to showcase one other thing.
There's another piece of data out there that actually reinforces
(31:54):
this entire conversation about coalition politics, activist pressure, and why
both parties are struggling to understand the electorate they're trying
to win back. The Washington Post did I love open
ended questions and polls. So instead of asking the question
of do you approve of Democrats? Do you approve of Republicans?
They ask voters an open ended question. Now, I will
(32:15):
tell you at the end, there's more questions that I'd
like than to ask open ended. But open ended means
they let the voters say in their own words why
they disapprove. Right, So, what do you actually dislike about
each party? The answers are incredibly revealing because they expose
something we've been talking about a long time on this podcast.
(32:37):
The crisis isn't in American politics isn't just ideological polarization.
It's also coalition exhaustion. Americans increasingly dislike both parties for
completely different reasons, but the common thread is that voters
think neither party fully understands normal life in America, that
they're sort of just out of the mainstream that we live,
(33:00):
not the mainstream that the media says its mainstream, just
our main our lives, our normal, everyday lives. So the responses,
the Democratic responses were fascinating because they split almost perfectly
into two competing critiques. One group thinks Democrats are too
culturally left, too too focused on Nietzsche issues. Two disconnected
(33:22):
from everyday concerns like cost, jobs, immigration, and basic social stability. Now,
guess what most of those critics were not members did
not call themselves Democrats. They either call themselves independence or Republicans.
But the other huge group, it featured Democrats themselves who
think the party is too weak, to passive, to cautious,
to unwilling to fight Trump aggressively enough right and we know, right,
(33:44):
this is the essential tension inside the party because those
two critiques. It all depends which critique are you hearing
Louder right, It's very important to find out where the
critiques are coming from. And that's what makes this this
research that the Post is doing very valuable and I'd
(34:05):
like to see more of it. I'd also like to
know what do you like about the Democratic Party? What
do you like about the Republican Party? But that my
friend Scott Clement, who I think oversaw this project over
there at the Post. Hopefully he's a listener and hopefully
he'll add this to it. But essentially you see it, right,
Independents are looking they'd like to vote for an alternative
(34:26):
to Trump, but they want a more moderate Democratic Party
to vote for the other. Of course, the base of
the Democratic Party sees trump perceived success, although I would
argue he's unpopular. I don't know why you think what
he's done is successful, but I think the base Democrats
say I want that, and he's strong and wrong, let's
(34:47):
do it. It got him power. And of course that's
exactly the psychological coalition problem I was just talking about
in the Sunbelt, right, the path is obvious. The math
is easy. The hard part is convincing the most activist
members of the Democratic Party to follow the math equation. Emotionally,
(35:08):
the party is split between voters who want the escalation
and voters who want confrontation. Frankly, that's the country itself, right,
and it's not easy to balance because Republicans have their
own version of this contradiction. The biggest complaint about Republicans
in this poll was Trump or the party's loyalty to Trump.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
In fact, the Republican criticisms are just as fragmented. The
voters think Republican parties are too extreme, too conspiratorial, to performative,
too angry, and to authoritarian. That's what many independents and
Democrats thought of Republicans. But then what did Republicans think
of Republicans. Well, that slice of Republican voters think the
party isn't loyal enough to Trump, which gets back to
(35:48):
this idea of coalition purification. Because once a party becomes
centered around loyalty tests, every disagreement starts looking like betrayal.
Compromise looks like you're throwing in the towel, and that
creates instability inside the coalition.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Itself.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
One of the things I found most interesting about what
the post piece surfaced is how many criticisms of both
parties weren't ideological at all. Both parties had people who
used words like corrupt, wishy, washy, week, out of touch,
and self interested. That was used in both sides. So
the frustration isn't just about policy, It's about trust, competence, authenticity, strength.
(36:30):
They're upset about the entire political system. And I think
that this is why the next successful sixty percent leader
of this country, and what I mean by sixty percent
not somebody who's going to win sixty percent, somebody's going
to have the approval of sixty percent of their governing ability.
The next sixty percent president is going to be somebody
(36:52):
who understands that we are entering an era where voters
care less about ideological purity and more about whether this
coalition feels emotionally stable, capable of governing, and responsive to
what we believe is the actual mainstream in America. And
right now, neither party fully predicts that the party that
wins on a given election cycle wins because they're able
(37:14):
to show that the other party is even more out
of touch than there and that's right now the definition
of winning. So because Democrats are still struggling with the
perception that they are culture out of sync with parts
of the country. Republicans still struggle with the perception that
they are governed by grievance, performance politics, and loyalty enforcement.
(37:36):
And what makes this environment so politically volatile is that
there's a huge number of Americans who just feel politically homeless,
which I'm assuming is a large chunk of this audience.
It's not means doesn't mean you're centrist. It just means
you want a little bit. It's incrementalism, it's restraint, it's directional,
(37:57):
it's not dogmatic. And that's the exhausted majority, exhausted by
permanent escalation, exhausted by performative outrage, exhausted by parties that
increasingly speak to their activists because frankly, they feel so weak.
The activists make them feel strong, but that's all they do,
(38:21):
and they don't seem to understand how people live everyday life.
And that's the biggest opportunity. It's sitting there for somebody
to grab. There's this vast unrepresented majority in America that
neither that. The only time either party cares about them.
Is when the Republicans are running in a very blue
state like right now Steve Hilton is trying to speak
(38:42):
to those voters, or Democrats running in a very red state,
you know, like to Dan Osborne, trying to talk to
those voters. That's what I think voters are looking for.
It's what I to this day believe they thought they
were getting in Joe Biden. They wanted to move towards competence, stability,
and coalition maintenance. That's what they thought Biden was going
(39:04):
to get him. And Biden's sudden governing to the left
rather than to the deal he cut with voters is
why he.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Became so unpopular so fast.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Right, how you campaign, if it's different than how you govern,
you will get punished faster.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And that's what happened to him.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
One thing this Washington Post project showed voters are not
asking for ideological perfection. They're looking for competence and stability.
And look, they may incrementally think the left has more
ideas worth experimenting, or the right has more ideas, but
even when they make the choice, they don't want a
huge leap. They want a baby step. Those that understand
(39:52):
and keep power. Those that don't either never get it
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A customer, ask Chuck. All right, we're going to go
a little lengthy here on questions I get a little
extra time form today. We're start with John and he writes, Hey,
I'm a regular listener and really value the podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I also appreciate your concern about Democrats sinking to Republican tactics,
but history suggests taking the high road hasn't always worked.
I saw this firsthand as a congressional staffer during the
Kingrich era and in two thousand. How how do you
think about that trade off? Well, I mean, you know,
there's there's always a trade off to a to acquire power.
(42:11):
And the question is what are you willing to compromise right?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
When?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
What what morals or ethics are you willing to compromise?
And which ones aren't you? And you know there's a
I remember Carvel and Madeline when they came out with
their first book. It was called All's Fair and Love
in Politics and Right. The implication is that there's nothing
that's unfair, which means anything goes right, and that love
(42:39):
and politics are two things that where anything goes and
outcome is rewarded more than process. And there's always a
line to this. You know, the question is is so
(43:00):
let's let's the the The issue that I have expressed
the most concerned with is jerrymandering. And the reason I
have such a problem with it is because it was
the Democrats that wanted to be the party of fairness
and giving up. You know, if it's still the right
thing to do, why would you give up fighting for?
(43:23):
And that's you know to me, that's you know, look,
every there has to be a test everywhere. Take crypto right.
Chuck Schumer presented Senate Democrats with a with a basically
a coercive challenge earlier this year when he said, you know,
(43:45):
it's going to have to get on board crypto. They're
too financially powerful and our path the majority is blocked by.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
The crypto money.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
And if you and so you have to decide how
important is that issue to you?
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
So, the problem with answering your question is that you
know something that I'm very mindful of what I'm I
might think something is a principled stand that you will
that is unrecoverable if you compromise on it. And you
may say it's subjective. You know what, you know, once
(44:23):
you get power, you can do good. And the thing
is we both could be right, and you just you know.
I think that's the tough decision in politics is knowing
what stance do you believe and take is compromisable in
which aren't and ultimately right, That's it's up to every politician.
(44:46):
What's a line you won't cross? As voters, I care
about that, I want to know you know what line
won't you cross? And you know Donald Trump has tested
his party in ways that their party never thought they'd
be tested on, asking them which lines won't you cross?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (45:06):
And you don't know? Sometimes you don't know what line
you won't cross until it's presented to you. And so
so I understand, you know, there's trade offs. I think
ultimately you have to decide, you know, I try to
put myself and you putt put this in the other shoes.
(45:26):
You know, do you ultimately want to be this party?
What is your north star? And if it violates your
north star, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
If you think it is.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
A forgivable sin, then do it, right, I mean, it
is successful. You know, politics is not a pure process, right.
Politics is something we invented in order to settle disputes
without violence. So the whole concept of politics is a
(46:00):
compromise of something. So I don't want to be so
dogmatic as to suggest you don't ever borrow a tactic
in order to win power. But I would just say
careful borrowing a tactic that becomes that undermines a core
quality or descriptor of what your movement was about. And
(46:24):
on gerrymandering, you know, I think I think that is
that if it really is the source of a huge
part of our ills, and I think we all believe this,
then making it worse in order to hope. I mean, look, yes,
(46:45):
there are studies that say, you know, sometimes people need
to see the extreme version of something to finally understand
why they don't want it. Now, maybe you can make
that argument to me that the you know, mutual assured
destruction on redistricting will eventually make everybody want to go
to fair districts. Boy, that feels like worse hopium than
(47:09):
the hopeium I'm smoking. That says, wherever you can, you
fight for fair districts, because that's the right thing to do.
Dean from Long Island from l I and yep, Long Island.
He says, Hey, if Democrats take the House and the
push Fury district, he may ease, but if Republicans hold control,
(47:29):
it could intensify. Actually, I think it's going to intensify
in either direction because the margin is I think only
I think no matter what, the margin is either going
to be too thin for too close for comfort for
Democrats or they're going to succeed and overperform and then
they're going to under protect those new people. But anyway,
beyond that, let me finish your question. Beyond that, the
(47:51):
bigger issue is the twenty thirty census and the shifting
population trends. How do you see election results shaping gerrymandering
and what comes next. Thanks, Look, the big shift has
to Actually this is a well timed question, because what
the twenty thirty census is going to cement is the
shift of political power from the north to the south,
the expansion of political power frankly, from the east to
(48:15):
the south and west to an extent, it's really sort
of the inner West, right, California's kind of is going
to lose lose some congressional seats, but you're going to
see Utah, I think, in Colorado, Montana sort of the
inner West. I guess, if you will, the part of
the West that doesn't touch saltwater doing better, and certainly
(48:36):
you're going to see that expansion in the south. To me,
it should put a priority on where there's more money
spent on state legislative races in these population growth states,
more money spent on those governors races, more attempts to
do fair redistricting where it exists. Right, you have that
(48:57):
in Arizona, you have a form of it attempted in Colorado.
We'll see what happens in Utah. They have different court cases.
And then of course there's Texas and Florida and I
think it is. It is that just the if both
parties aren't worried about organizing every county, let alone every
(49:23):
state in the Sunbelt, they're going to be behind in
the fight for power because national political power is going
to go through the Sunbelt and the twenty thirty census,
it's you know, forget the big Blue wall in the Midwest.
It is going to be North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and
probably you know, and then every once in a while
(49:43):
Florida and Texas may sneak into there, and every once
in a while New Mexico and say Mississippi could sneak
in there. But I think that's coming. But bottom line,
I think that's what you know, there's that more political
organizing focus and investment, whether you're on the left or
(50:06):
the right, is it's going to be demanded to be
there in the South because the South and the Sun
Belt in particular is going to be the path to power.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
All right.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Next question comes from Grand Fa, Minnesotan by way of
Iowa go Hawks. Well right on. That means he might
be of one of those a lot of Vikings fans
in Iowa, particularly in the Mason City area. He goes
long time listener love the podcast. Do you think presidential
approval ratings are overused or too limited, especially in such
a polarized environment where they rarely move outside of narrow range.
(50:40):
Why isn't political media developed more advanced metrics to better
capture performance or public sentiment? Actually, it's sitting there. You're
highlighting a void that frankly, I should be filling and
more should be filling. We've all figured out there's a
four part test on job approval. You should ask, we
(51:00):
should not be asking approved, disapprove. It's strongly somewhat on
each side. Do you strongly approve, do you strongly disapprove?
Do you somewhat approve? Do you somewhat disapprove? It is
a different type of voter in each of those four categories.
Those move a little bit more. Right, The overall with
the shifts between strong and somewhat in either side of
(51:23):
the equation are what is the movement? Right, It's the
movement underneath the movement. The point is is that the
NBC News polls shifted to that or quite a while ago.
But in the Trump air in particular, and even a
bit in the Obama era, we learned this that having
the four part job approval question allows.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
You to do would give you the quote.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Unquote advanced metrics mindset right, and we should it is
more the trend line of strong disapprove and strong approve
tells you a lot more than the combined numbers do.
The combined numbers when you combine to someone in the
strong just sort of dilutes it all because a lot
of times the somewhat approve is you know, when somebody
(52:11):
is growing unpopular, they're somewhat approved is bigger than they're strong,
and they're strong disapprove is bigger than they's somewhat. When
they become more popular, literally, those things start to reverse.
So that's when you're asking for quote unquote advanced metrics.
There's still job approval is still the best opening question
to do, but if you're not doing a four part ask,
(52:36):
then you're not doing it correctly and you won't find
what you're looking for, which is some of that movement.
So I think what you're asking for is better reporting
of job ratings.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
And guess what I confess.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
I think we need to lean in more on reporting
the four categories rather than reporting the combined two. So
I would say this look. As many of you know,
I'm not a huge fan of aggregating polling across methodologies.
I'm not a huge fan of it. I know, real
clear politics at five point thirty eight. I think that
they they both know that the somewhats and the strongs
(53:12):
give you better internal analysis to focus on. But they
do all their charts with the basic approved disapprove. You
probably ought to take a look at both the economists
you gov poll they split it up and they take
a look at the intensity better, and so does Hugh
(53:34):
and both of their sites I think do a better
job of focusing on essentially the four the four categories,
and you see the movement within the four categories more
and look strong strong disapprove has been growing, and that
that's more of a sign than just seeing the incremental
increase in either side. And there's always the overall approval
(53:59):
number doesn't change much, but the makeup between strong and
somewhat is a little more volatile, and I think it
tells you more.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
And so that.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
If my friends at the aggregation world are listening, I
think enough pollsters are. I've figured out the job approval.
You're doing a disservice if you're not asking the four
part the four part question. If you're only doing the
two part question, aggregate the four parts. If you're going
(54:29):
to aggregate guys, I think you'd benefit from it. I
know not everybody's aggregating that.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
Do those that do? Guess what we should push everybody.
It's a waste of time to just ask it as a.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Two part question. All right. Next question comes from true
Bill and he ends it with go lions.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
All right, He goes, thank you for your thoughtful analysis.
Always appreciate your respective. As an eighty one year old
Vietnam Vet who grew up believing deeply in this country
and its ideals, I've been wondering where those true believers
are today, especially after a recent interview with aj Purshuddy.
Do you see a path forward for people who still
hold on to that belief and for some sense of
healing in or politics? You know? I go back to
something that is really sort of gnawed at me, and
(55:21):
it is this idea and God, I think it was
the conversation I had with Lamar Alexander about no Child
Left Behind and what the unintended consequence of focusing on
testing and how it essentially right everything is an incentive structure, right,
and sometimes you have an unintended consequence.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
And so when you when.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
You changed funding bonuses to reflect improvements on reading and
math test scores, then you had the best teachers being
pulled from other subjects focused there the testing was about that,
and then you end up de emphasising over time subjects
that are not impacted, where your funding's not impacted by
(56:06):
whether your students score well or not. And I think,
and I'm probably truell, I'm probably pulling exactly at the
heartstrings that you want me to pull out here, but
I think there's something to it, which is, if we
choose to teach civics and say that you need a
good civics education before we deem you a high school
(56:29):
graduate or a college or somebody who's acceptable for college admission,
I think that we'd have a better prepared citizenry for
our politics. Not saying it would automatically depolarize us, but
early awareness of that our system and that this country
(56:50):
is pretty diverse and pretty politically complicated, and understanding how
the system works and why it was designed to actually
be this filled with all these contradictory checks and balances.
Because we didn't really have one ethnicity, We didn't have
one ideology that was that we decided to cement. You know,
(57:10):
we really did want to want to want to not
let let one ideology become the dominant, uh guide here.
And so I have I am stuck on this idea
that we by choosing to emphasize what we chose to
(57:30):
emphasize when it came to deciding what completes and education
in the public school system.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
It didn't include civics or social studies.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
And I'm glad that I grew up in a house
that just you know, thought that was as important as
English and math, also thought extracurricular activities, both sports and
music in this case, and more musical talent than artistic talent.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
We're also part right.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
Of a whole, you know, that the you know, the
whole wholeness type of thing. So I'm I'm lucky that
I grew up. You know, we didn't have we didn't
have a lot, but I certainly had a I certainly
my parents were rich in promoting that even if we
didn't have material goods. And it is shocking to me
(58:25):
how little civics gets taught in all sorts of whether
it's private school, public school. I've I've had my kids
experienced both, and it's been quite disappointing. And I realized
how much I didn't get in school either. I got
almost all of it at home, more of it at
home than I got at school. When it came to civics,
and it came to politics, and it came to to
(58:46):
American history. And if you're wondering, where are the true
believers we deemphasized, I wonder. You know, love of country
is loving all of its contradictions, complications, And you know,
I look at our complications. That's what makes me a
(59:08):
true believer. I think our systems amazing. I think we
put together something. We gave ourselves a toolbox to allow
a whole bunch of people who shouldn't agree with each
other and anything to find some path. We have a
process to find some path to majoritarian rule, not always
feeling as majoritarian sometimes. And I think when that gets
out of whack, that's when you need to realign as
(59:29):
statives and make sure that majoritarianism is still is still
the backbone of what we're doing. But we have a
pretty good tool toolbox. But I worry that we've spent
fewer and fewer generations teaching. You know, It's like, imagine,
(59:52):
imagine not teaching. I'm going to say, I'm gonna going
to be very sort of I'm gonna sound old school traditionalists, Matt.
Imagine not teaching your kids the difference between a flathead
and a Philip screwdriver. And I say this because you
know what, it's one of those things that over time
you're glad you know the difference when you grow up
and you're on your own and all this stuff right,
and some things that you just get taught that you
(01:00:16):
don't realize you're getting taught till you need it. Well,
we've stopped even explaining the tools in the American democracy
to our kids. We've stopped teaching it. I've been pitching
a potential opening class for USC that was asked to
design it, to submit a potential introductory course for a
(01:00:36):
Washington program for incoming freshmen, and I said, how about
just simply the Constitution? Because the thing that I have
noticed is how much that the how much the students
don't know as much about the Constitution when they come
into college. Now, those that want to learn love it
and really dive into it. And get to know it.
(01:00:57):
But what if that were a mandatory course for incoming
freshmen at a university, particularly in a Washington program. Right now,
it's set aside for those that already have an interest
in politics, But shouldn't everybody learn this anyway? I have
a feeling i'm preaching to your to an amen choir
(01:01:20):
to you, true Bill, But I assume being a Lions
fan means you always have some optimism somewhere, So God
bless you, and I'm all for the lines doing well
except when they're playing my packers, all right. Next question
comes from Daniel T. Anderson, South Carolina. He goes, with
all the controversy about around redistricting, would it makes sense
to use a more scientific, data driven method to remove
(01:01:41):
the human element altogether, like drawing districts based on population
using geographic coordinates. Could something like that realistically work?
Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
You know, it's funny, Daniel.
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
I thought that the twenty twenty and I wonder if
COVID sort of screwed this up. But I really thought
the twenty twenty one reapportionment was going to be the
most egalitarian one that we had, because I thought, you know,
you and I can make maps now right, we don't
need you know, sophisticated technology. You know, all of the
data is available to any of us can make maps.
(01:02:11):
And I thought we would start to see competing maps.
And I thought we would start And there's a part
of me that wants to see more maps. Show me
a map that would be the most republican map, Show
me the most democratic maps, show me the most compact maps.
Show me, you know, I want to see the options,
all the options, you know, rather than the option that
(01:02:35):
only fits.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
My politics, right.
Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
And I think it's all there, And I you know,
I was I was hopeful that maybe if and look,
my my my friends and partners at DDHQ are building
a terrific hub for political intelligence. And I think that
by twenty twenty thirty, I have a feeling we're going
(01:03:02):
to my friends over there are going to build something
that's going to allow just for this, because I think
people need to understand. The more the public understands, how
this changes representation, how this changes political power, just based
on who draws the maps. And then maybe you just
you know, and maybe what we're voting on. I'm with you.
(01:03:23):
Let's take you know, let's take the human element out
of it completely. But and say, you know, here, show
me a map this way, show me map this way,
show me map this way. Now you go to the
voters and say, would you prefer a map that leaned right?
Would you prefer a map that leaned left? Would you
prefer a map that was super fair? Like you almost
(01:03:45):
ask for the outcome that you want if you actually
can see all the choices. Anyway, I'm being a little
a little provocative here purposely because you know, why can't
we use a data driven model?
Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Please?
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
There's so many things we need a data that would
be better if we just well let the data speak
for itself. I do think over time data will win
the argument. But it's a subjective persuasion there, you know.
But I do think people need to understand how you
can take the same map and create four or five
six different type of outcomes for political power based on
(01:04:27):
you know, what you think the electorate wants. And sometimes
I wonder should be you know, what do the voters
want in a given state? Do they want hard partisanship
or do they want you know, I grew up with
a father who lean right, who thought I want to
(01:04:50):
have I want to make sure there is somebody that
cares about South Florida in both parties, so that whoever's
got power has some say about how that power is
enacted for our community. Right, And I think, you know,
there's still voters who believe that, right. And I think
what's happened is the parties have been hijacked by activists
(01:05:12):
who don't believe the other parties should have a say.
Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
That. You know.
Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
It's that politics should be completely zero sum and if
you lose, you get no say versus you know, And
that's what I think the American public sees sees politics
in proportional terms. Yet our system, you know, doesn't really
reward proportionality. You know, would we be better off with
(01:05:38):
proportionality politics so that you know, if if a state
was twenty five percent you know, conservative and twenty five
percent liberal, then their representatives would be far left and
far right half of them, and then the other half
would be somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
I mean, I'm just saying that the irony is that
we're a country that he sent you actually accepts the
outcome to look proportionality, even though maybe we go in
there with a zero sum attitude. But I'm not sure
about that, And you know, I don't know whether I'm
a mainstream voter, and that I kind of think that
(01:06:18):
I want to have a foot and all in both
camps because at the end of the day, I don't
know who's going to have power, and I want to
make sure my community is well represented. I'm still more
of that kind of old school sort of American voter,
and that felt, you know, but I don't know whether
that was the norm or whether I was.
Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Raised in a household that was unique, right.
Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
And I think what we all, what we all don't
want to admit, is we think we're we're the mainstream
until we meet others and we wonder, wait, are they
mainstream or are I mainstream?
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
But you know, you're asking for data driven results. It
seems simple we have. It's never been easier to make
a map. And I think at a minimum, if we
started making more maps so people could see this is
a map that would be driven by maximizing Republicans, maximizing democrats,
maximizing geography, compactness, maximize you know, you go through the
(01:07:16):
various and you know which one is in the best
interest of this state. Just another another potential way to
handle this because again, banning gerrymandering is naive because one
person's gerrymander is another person's competitive district, and if you
want competition, you may have to jerrymander. So it's all
(01:07:39):
about what what is your priority? I personally would I
want I want the market to speak, so I would
prioritize competitiveness. But you know, take a take a place
like Wisconsin. Wisconsin from a statewide level is very evenly divided.
The problem is most of most of the Democratic voters
(01:08:01):
are in one concentrated part of the state, in the
southeast part of the state. So if you just ad
geographic it would sort of give an outsized advantage to
the Republicans. Right, So like, what is the right way
to balance it?
Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
And it all depends on your own motivation, right, If
you're a partisan, you're trying to put it in a
way that maximizes your political leverage. At the end of
the day, if you just care about what's in the
best interest in Wisconsin, you might say, well, maybe we
want competitiveness, maybe we want this, you know, So that's
why ultimately I prioritize competitiveness. But if you did that
in Wisconsin, you'd have to Gerrymander, You'd have to have
(01:08:40):
districts that were kind of weird in order to make
sure you had a balance. And so I think that's
the I think that's the trade off. So if you
want true blue, you know Milwaukee wants to feel represented, fine,
but the more representative feels it may be speaking for
(01:09:00):
less of the state. So just an example, all right,
Last question mark from Ann Arbor rights, Hey, I'm curious
about a few things you've discussed recently and expanding the House.
Do you think it's realistically achievable given political incentives and
public perception. What are your thoughts on proportional voting as
a potential solution to Jerrymander?
Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Yeah? I just answered that first part.
Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
And on a lighter note, how does your current workload
compare to your time at meet the presip the good work.
Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Mark from Ann Arbor.
Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Well, I just talked a little bit about proportionality, right,
I think it goes back to what what do a
majority of your voters want?
Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Do they want one party to have a political advantage
or do they want the market to decide this?
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
The free market of ideas, the free market of the democracy.
And you know, like I said, I would prioritize competitiveness
because I want you know, I want everybody's I want
every I want more voters with skin in the game.
I don't want fewer voters with skin in a small
our game.
Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I e.
Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Primaries, right, I want more voters involved in the general election,
whatever that takes. And frankly, and that's why I'm for
all party primaries.
Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
I think we got to get rid of.
Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
You know, I'm fine if you want to join a
political party, but that shouldn't and you should tell us
what your political party is. That's fine too. If you
want to sell us, you know, that's fine. But you know,
if voters decide they want a competition between two independents,
two Democrats, two Republicans, whatever it is, that let's let
(01:10:33):
the voters decide to the final two.
Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Final two ought to be.
Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
So on on expanding the House, I think this is
going to get a little bit of legs because of
what happened with the Voting Rights Act. I've had a
you know, look, I think this is an important answer.
It's an Act of Congress.
Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
It isn't.
Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
This isn't a heavy lift. You don't need a constitutional amendment.
This is just an act of Congress if you're not
going to move to proportional representation. Right, if you moved
to proportional representation, you probably could keep it locked at
four thirty five and you'd have a different way that
you would make up the states and make up the
delegations if you want. You know, now, the reason I'm
(01:11:15):
for expansion of the House is a I think it's
a lot easier to get folks to rally around something
that the founders intended, and the founders intended for the
House to expand with the population of the country, and
we stop we have stopped doing that for literally ninety
seven years. That was ninety seven years ago that we
(01:11:36):
capped the House. It's been one hundred and six. You know,
it's been over one hundred years since we last expanded
the House, and we expanded every single decade before nineteen twenty.
You know, you would see that various identity groups would
(01:11:59):
have more representation in the House of Representatives, the People's
House if we expanded the House. And I think when
more groups realize this, you're going to see more calls
for this, because I mean, I think it's the relief
it's the best relief valve to these gerrymander wars where
(01:12:21):
if we're going to turn state legislative races and the
governor's races into zero sum games, which is, if you
win fifty one percent of the vote, you're going to
get one hundred percent, you're going to get one hundred
percent of the rewards on remapping the state. And you know,
up states turning left. So we're going to make all
the districts left and we're going to you know all
(01:12:43):
of that. You know, first of all it majority parties
will keep chasing voters, and then you chase voters that
won't be there the next election. Right, Texas Republics are
going to find that out the hard way with Latinos
in the South. You know, they went chasing them thinking
it was going to help them with their remap and
it may end up blowing up into a dummy mander.
(01:13:05):
So I think the the shift, you know, the lack
of representation of African Americans in the South, if these
gerrymanders go through these sort of Republican leaning gerrymanders, I
think it brings a whole new group of activists in
the uncapped the House world and again I think you
(01:13:27):
can find common cause between African American democrats in the
South conservatives in the north East, places like Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Those are states with thirty five to forty percent of
voters that lean right, that have no Republican representation at
all in Congress. But if you expanded the House and
those states too right, they would there would be more
(01:13:48):
opportunities and more likelihoods that you would have more of
your political diversity represented in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
And that that was the intent.
Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
And I think the closer we moved the democracy to
the people, the better off we are. And the democracy
is further away than it's been. And every every ten
years that we choose not to expand the House, this
democracy becomes more perverted and less majoritarian.
Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
And that that's why this is.
Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
This is the first among perhaps many fixes, but this
one has to go through first before you can decide
what others that need that are necessary. As for workload,
I have more control over my week and month, but
I'm probably as busy, if not busier, because I don't
(01:14:41):
know how to say no. I went from sort of
six jobs that I you know, I had sort of
three or four different jobs. Within a job at NBC,
I probably have six or seven different projects, some of
which intertwined.
Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
And some don't.
Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
And so I will tell you this, in the last
three months, I have felt like I'm always a little
bit behind, which is what I would describe ten my
nearly ten years and meet the press, which I was
always you know, Luckily, you know, I'd catch up every
week because she still had to put on a show.
And whatever I felt behind, my had to turn the
(01:15:21):
page and keep moving. And I've gotten to that point
in the last three months, which frankly probably makes me happy.
I'm better off being a little bit too busy than
if I have a little much, a little too much
free time. Speaking of free time, though, it's time to
go take some for myself and go work on some
of those other projects. So with that, I'll see in
(01:15:42):
seventy two hours. Appreciate the listen, and if you like
what you hear, i'd love a five star review and
a little like and subscribe. Thanks very much, and we'll
see you next time.
This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you
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code podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace,
so use that code. Hello, Aaron, Welcome to the Thursday
Long Weekend edition of the Chuck Podcast. But I'm gonna
begin with a little bit more fallout from the from Texas.
But I want to look at it from a wider
(01:52):
perspective here, and the wider perspective is to fit what's
happening in Texas into the Texas Republican Party. It's actually
part of a pattern that we've seen in the Sun Belt, right.
And I look at my formative years learning American politics,
digesting American politics, and now consuming American politics and now
(02:17):
trying to explain it and explain where we've been and
where we're going, and the Sun Belt for a majority
of my adulthood, and really most of my lifetime has
been in a transition from Team Blue to Team Red.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Right, you know, the.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Southern states in the early seventies when I was born
were all Democratic, but there was always a conservative through
line in there. You know, there was sort of populist
on economic issues, but culturally a bit more conservative and
certainly a bit more hawkish on military issues. So you
(02:59):
know it, if you think about today's Republicans as descendants
of yesterday's conservative Democrats, that's the through line you would
take there. And so for the lion's share of the seventies, eighties, nineties,
(03:19):
even and really sort of peaking, I think I think
we're going to say peaking somewhere around twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Twenty twelve.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
The Sun Belt states have powered this Republican majority. The
Republican majority in the House went through the Sun Belt
whenever they had the majority. The first time they got
it ninety four, it went through the South. But each case, right,
and it's been fairly reflective in its leadership. Right, You've
(03:50):
had Southern Speakers of the House, New Gingrich, Mike Johnson,
You've had plenty of sort of Southern Leaders of the House,
tom Delay Dick Army. It has gone through the South,
through the Sunbelt over the last ten years, as the
Midwest has sort of continues to although we're starting to
(04:14):
see population gains for the first time back in Midwestern cities,
we've been sort of there's been this sort of consistent
come down, right, and this sort of gradual shift of
the population from the north.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
To the south.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
And you know, from much of the twentieth century and
the first arguably the first say sixteen years of the
twenty first century, the path to political power has gone
through the Midwest, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio right gone
that Essentially they've been the majority makers, majority makers in
(04:47):
the Senate, majority makers, and that is now shifted. And
now what we've seen, particularly since twenty sixteen, is that
the path back, particularly for Democrats, has not been to
you know, has been to hold their own in the Midwest.
But when they have gotten majorities, it's because they have
overperformed in the Sunbelt. We've seen it now Georgia and
(05:10):
Arizona and i have been the big two sort of
shifts where they went from red leaning to now very
I think deep purple and structurally at the moment feel
as if you'd rather be Team Blue than Team Red.
And I'm going to discuss that in a minute. Right
the states to me are would are more comfortably in
(05:31):
the center right camp. But because the Republican Party in
both of the states have shifted so far to the right,
or the perception of them is so far to the right,
and they've purged certain people, it is created some opportunities.
And it's in this sort of rubric that I want
(05:52):
to talk about sort of the challenge that both parties
have at the moment. And ultimately, you know, signpost here
that you know, the future of American politics is going
to be decided in the Sunbelt. And what do I
define as a sunbelt. Nevada's in you know, to me,
(06:14):
Las Vegas qualified, so Nevada, Nevada's in the Sunbelt. It's Nevada,
It's Arizona, It's New Mexico is a part of this.
This is a state that is uh sneakily, sneakily more
competitive if when you when you sort of look under
the hood a little bit, potentially Texas, certainly, Georgia, North Carolina,
(06:38):
and then you have sort of these states that that
you know, in the Midwest, it was your Indian and
your South Dakota's. In the South, it's your Mississippi's in
your South Carolina's.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
There.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
There's something happening there. The question is whether it is
going to get turned into.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Something so.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
But it but it's it's kind of how I want
to tackle today's conversation. So we're going to the and
I think what we're watching here is a shift. And
what we're seen in Texas with the Republican Party in
Texas is something that we've already seen take place in Florida,
take place in Arizona, because you know where these states
(07:22):
collectively reside. You know, would they prefer center right versus
center left? If given the choice, would they prefer right?
I think it's fair to say Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina,
in Arizona, I think instinctively see them would probably plot
themselves somewhere just to the right of the center lane
in one form or another. Some of it would be
(07:44):
for cultural reasons, but almost all of it would be
for economic reasons. Right, you know, economic growth development in
general has been a net positive for these states. So ultimately,
for the large sort of chunk of voters that live
between the thirty five yards lines in our on our
political spectrum layered onto a football field. I think that's
(08:07):
where they would put themselves. But the Trump brand has
complicated things, right, The Trump brand doesn't work in Georgia.
The Trump brand doesn't work in Arizona. We've seen that
that's put both parties over their skis, and in both states,
whenever a Trump branded Republican has ended up a nominee,
it's been a problem. We saw this in North Carolina,
(08:29):
Mark Robinson, right, it's been a problem. So the question
is did we just see this happen in Texas? Is
Ken Paxton the Mark Robinson moments? Here is Ken Paxton,
the Kerry Lake moments. Right, is Ken Paxton, the herschel
Walker moment. This this feeling that you're like, you know,
(08:50):
this is this is going too far? And the other
question is do Democrats recognize that this moment is here
and do they know how to adjust? But I do
think that this is what is right now. The biggest
thing that is changing sort of the political landscape in
the South is what's happening inside the Republican coalition. And
(09:13):
I think you have to understand what it used to be.
Because what's happening in state after state in the Sunbelt
is this The parts of the Republican Party that knew
how to manage what were broad coalitions when they first
grabbed power in the Sunbelt in the seventies and eighties
are slowly being purged, marginalized, and overwhelmed by activist politics.
(09:33):
Right success has made the Republican Party look inward and
go further to the base. Now, the irony is many
of the Republican governors and strategists who were actually the
most successful politically in these states usually understood that governing restraint.
(09:53):
They understood restraint. And I say this specific word here
because it didn't mean they weren't conservative. It didn't mean
and they weren't disruptors. But they knew that there was
a hey, no, no, no, no, that's going to go
too far and that's going to blow up the coalition.
And for the most part, these governors were able to
keep their activists at bay who came after them. It
(10:14):
wasn't through moderation, it was simply through restraint. Brian Kemp
has understood this, right, He's sort of he's a conservative.
No one's mistaken him for a rhino, but he sort
of looks at it and says, I may believe this,
but not a majority.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Of my states. I'm not going to go that far.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Greg Abbott has been interesting to watch because he's not
a trumpy, but he doesn't want Trumpers to know that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
He's not a trumper.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And he's managed this and I'd say the first couple
of terms he's managed it better. In this coalition has
been more of a Rick Perry, George W. Bush or
a coalition conservative manager. He's been pushed lately right, He's
been pushed into more confrontational politics, and he's now been
part of his own purging of the party and his
own primary. And the question is is he going over
(11:00):
his skis? And we're going to find out in November
there and then I would argue in Florida first term,
DeSantis understood that he had to manage the coalition more
like jee Bush rather than doing what he has kind
of let the legislature a little bit take over, and
then the instincts of the rest of the party has
shoved things to the right, more so in second term
(11:21):
DeSantis than in first term. And again, but these governors
that sort of got restraint. It wasn't that they were moderate.
These are very conservative people. Their political skill was understanding
the coalition maintenance, right, because fast growing Sunbelt states are
not ideologically uniform places. They're very complicated, they're messy, they're massive,
(11:44):
suburbanizing plate entities. They're economically diverse, and they're culturally transitional, right,
because you do have people with different cultural mores that
sort of all gravitate towards these warm climates. You've got
evangelical conservatives, business republicans, retirees, military families, libertarians, working class
(12:07):
of Hispanics, suburban professionals, exurban populists. It's a it is,
you know, there's other than sort of keep government in
my you know, out of my life a little bit
and keep my taxes low. There's not a ton of
other consistency. That's a coalition, it's not a movement. And
(12:27):
for about fifteen years, right, I'd argue, from say nineteen
ninety four to about twenty ten, okay, Republicans were extremely
good at holding this coalition together. But what happens is
when dominant parties over time continue to win, they start
confusing their dominance, particularly their primary dominance, with general election
(12:51):
durability and so and the two things are not the
same thing. So I think what we're watching now, particularly
in the Texas Republican Party, something we saw in the
Arizona Republican Party, and it's still happening today. It's coalition
intoxic intoxication, right where the activists are sort of drunk
on the power. The base begins to believe, we don't
need those other voters anymore, why do we need? You know,
(13:13):
they sort of forget what it took to get fifty
percent plus one to actually get power in the first place.
And the minute the base of a party thinks it
doesn't need these majority making voters, the ones that are
more parts of a coalition than they are believers in
your movement, that's when parties start drifting and you start
(13:34):
to see it state by state. Right, Florida is a
good example. At the moment, the Florida Republican Party is
basically purged most of its remaining mainstream institutional wing right.
We saw a big purging of it in twenty eighteen,
right when Ron de Santis came out of nowhere just
using Trump and essentially retired the Bush wing of the party.
Adam Putnam being that right. So the Bush wing of
(13:55):
the party died in Texas this past Tuesday. The bushwing
of the Florida Republican Party died in twenty eighteen with
Brond De Santis' dual victory, beating Putnam in the primary
and carrying that over and winning there. Now, politically, Florida
obviously still leans Republican, but the party has become so
(14:18):
dominant internally that it's lost some of the ballast that
kept it I think, strategically disciplined, right, Jeb Bush was
a conservative, but he under but you know, living frankly,
living his early adult years in Miami, he understood, hey,
this is a diverse state and you can't push things
too far, and that ballast is missing right now. And
(14:44):
so when there's no internal opposition in a party, the
loudest activists end up getting to set the emotional tone
of the party. In Florida, I think is not as
far to the right as the Florida Republican Party is behaving.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Right now.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
We're going to find out whether that matters yet November,
but it changes decision making. I think, like I said,
Arizona's where we saw this happen first.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Arizona.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
It's always been the case, right, John McCain's politics were
probably the north star generally of where where Arizona is
frankly still is. I think Mark Kelly is essentially a
McCain Democrat, right, Mark Kelly was a former Republican, but
the Arizona Republican Party, you know, and this was it
was sort of the first big sun belt state that
(15:32):
it went you know, it made very goldwater blush. It
went so far to the right at one point, and
they're still in this middle of the civil War. We're
sitting in the governor's race. Andy Biggs and David Schwikert.
Sweikert is more of a essentially a Republican that was
more familiar, more out of the mold of John McCain
or John Kyle versus Andy Biggs, who's more of the
(15:55):
Trump wing of the party or in Arizona speak.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Look, now, maybe not as boisterous and loud and as
conspiracy minded as Kerry Lake, but close certainly you know,
doesn't want to offend her supporters. And Democrats have benefited
from this big league, as certain politicians might say, you know,
Arizona's got the you know, got a Democratic governor and
(16:21):
two Democratic senators. Is the state suddenly liberal or is
this the case of In each case, the Republican Party
essentially went its primary voters went too far to the
right right, and you see this backlash question. Now we
can say, do Democrats understand that? That's why they've got
the clean state wide sweep and the near sweep of
all statewide offices. I think they only lost treasure in
(16:44):
twenty twenty two. And that's the point. Arizona became competitive
because Republicans began testing how far ideological purification could go
in a state that was filled with a ton of
suburban independence and transplanted voters from the Midwest right. And
now we're seeing Georgia is in the middle of this.
(17:08):
Brian Kemp's political instincts are actually very different from a
lot of the activist energy that dominates parts of the
state party. And we're going to see it Mike Collins
versus Rick Jackson. You're going to see it with Derek Duhl.
Excuse me, Mike Collins versus Derek Dooley. You're seeing it
with Burt Jones versus Rick Jackson. Right, the pre Trump Party,
Derek Dooley and Rick Jackson will be the two nominees,
(17:28):
and they probably both be slight favorites to win state wide.
In Trump's purification of politics, neither one of them is
going to get out of their runoff, and you're going
to have an election denier in Burt Jones. And I
would remind you every election denier lost as a major
nominee in Georgia in twenty two, and the election deniers
lost in Arizona.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
In twenty twenty two, it is.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It is, you know, the election denier lost in North
Carolina for governor. The question is do election deniers get punished?
Where to find out? In Texas Florida. And we're gonna,
you know, we are, Like I said, I think we
already know what happens in Georgia. It's gonna be an
interesting test. You a former Atlanta mayor, and just in general,
(18:11):
Atlanta mayor's are going to be polarizing to the rest
of the state that isn't Atlanta versus potentially a Trump
endorsed election denier. But Kemp, you know, didn't govern this
way and didn't do his politics this way. He understood
how to survive in suburban Atlanta while still keeping the
Republican based together coalition maintenance that takes discipline, because once
(18:32):
a party becomes entirely performative, once every issue becomes a
loyalty test, that's when you start bleeding exactly the voters
you need in growing metro areas, which is the sun
belt at the moment, right again, from coast to coast,
from North Carolina to Arizona. This episode of the check
(18:55):
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(20:05):
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Speaker 2 (20:15):
Enjoy the game.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
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all the terms at FanDuel dot com. Slash, predicts, slash bonus,
hyphen offer hyphen terms. In North Carolina, Republicans already found
the line where voters said too much. Mark Robinson was
that line, and now the state is still competitive, it's
still polarized, it's still structurally difficult for Democrats, but the
(20:58):
Trump wing doesn't go as well there, and the Democrats
found somebody who also understands sort of left wing coalition
maintenance and understands that there is not a majority for
progressive politics in North Carolina. That at best, you can
create a coalition that leans left. But what you see
(21:21):
overall is an electorate pushing back against ideological overreach. And
we know every state will do this. This happens in
blue states when they go to start. I think this
is what California is looking for a way to push
back on the leftward lurch. They're not ready to go
pull Republican, but they're looking for something. It's pretty clear,
and we'll see if the next governor understands this and
(21:44):
knows how to find a heat vowve on that. Now,
Texas is the giant, unresolved question hanging over all of this,
and that's where Paxton comes in. Up until John Cornyn's loss.
You could argue that Texas Republicans have had enough institutionalists,
enough coalition managers like Greg Abbott to prevent a full
(22:06):
activist takeover. And yet then you get a guy like
Bo French, who's you know, within the Railroad Commission race,
who's unabashed in his in his more ideological purification, and
wants to get rid of a Republican who he you know,
who he says is too cozy with the energy industry,
(22:27):
and you start to wonder if are they going are
they going to make the same mistakes that Georgia Republicans
made in Arizona Republicans made, And is Greg Abbott going
to be able to still manage this coalition as well
as he has he? You know, like I said, first
two terms, Abbot was really good at this. He is
you know, he's always looking over his right shoulder more
(22:49):
than he's looking over his left shoulder. And the question
is is he look over his right shoulder too much?
We're going to find out in November. But you can
see the pressure building underneath him. And you know, he
did his own version of purging of the party with
his voucher primary campaigns. But it doesn't matter. The activist
wing always wants more right. Both parties find this. They
(23:12):
always want more, They want more purity, they want more confrontation,
they want more ideological virtue segment and eventually every dominant
coalition faces the same question, can it still govern broadly
once the activists become convinced compromise itself.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Is a weakness.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Now here's where Democrats enter this story, because the irony
is I don't think it's that difficult the Democratic parties,
the electoral math problem is easy to solve. What they
have is a psychological problem because the path itself is
not complicated. If you're willing to accept what the path is,
the opening is sitting right in front of them. Regain
(23:53):
enough suburban moderates, hold enough working class minority voters, avoid
culturally alienating swing vote, and presents stability against ideological overreach.
It's not complicated math. And you know what this what
this This is the same exact ingredients that Bob Martinez
(24:14):
used to become the first Republican governor in a generation
of Florida. It's what George W. Bush used to become
the first republic a sort of the first two term
Republican governor in Texas. Uh. I think ever, when he
when he won re election, Uh, it is what Sonny
Purdue did when he defeated Roy Barnes in Georgia. They
(24:38):
understood it wasn't a movement, it was a coalition with
that was powered by a growing movement inside their party.
And I think that's going to be the challenge for Democrats.
The hard part they're going to have is convincing parts
of the Democratic base to emotionally accept what the coalition
(24:59):
requires in order to win. That's the tension. And I've
been thinking about this reading some of the debates on
the left at the moment. Especially there's this new piece
in The Atlantic by Jonathan Chade about the neo Brandician movements,
named after a supposed quote that BRANDI said about monopolies.
I say supposed because mister Chate couldn't find the origin
(25:20):
of it. But the argument that concentrated corporate power and
economic inequality basically is what has caused all of our ills,
our social lills, our cultural ills, and our economic ills,
and that dealing with it requires a far more aggressive
progressive response. Now Intellectually, a lot of the critiques are persuasive.
(25:43):
There's clearly monopoly power in tech that we have to
be wary of. But electorally, the question has been a
lot different because parts of the progressive movement increasingly behave
as though they've already won this broader cultural argument. And
if you think you've already won the argument intellectually, compromise
to build a bigger coalition starts feeling unnecessary, even immoral.
(26:09):
But the country still behaving are the country still behaves
like a coalition country. We are not a movement country,
and that's the disconnect. We might become one if you
spend decades persuading, but we're not that. Historically, this is
where parties often struggle the most. The hardest part in
politics usually isn't finding the path to victory. Path to victory,
(26:31):
I can find it in almost any state. The path
is often very obvious. The hardest part is convincing your
own party's most committed supporters to accept what the path
actually requires, because every activist movement eventually reaches a point
where it says, we don't need those voters anymore. The
corporatist Democrats, how often have you been hearing that lately?
(26:53):
In some of these debates on the left. Okay, you
don't want them in your party. You don't have to
have them in your party. If you don't want power,
do you want power?
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Is the focus winning? And that's usually the moment when
you start to just when you start to put a
a security gate in front of your party where you
decide where somebody has to have a secret code in
order to get in to be a member, rather than
you just opening the doors and being a party that
(27:24):
just believes. In addition, that's the moment parties begin losing elections.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They should have won.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Not to be clear, Republicans are creating this opening all
by themselves. They are losing republic races that they should
have won thanks to Donald Trump's purging right, And the
victories in Arizona and Georgia are not because Democrats suddenly
became brilliant strategists. It's because there was an obvious path
to take that the Republicans allowed an opening, and you
(27:55):
had smart candidates who pivoted.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Whether you're rough.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Field Warnock, John assaf Mark, Kelly, Reuben Diego, or you
just didn't do you did no harm, like Katie Hopps,
the governor of Arizona, now, Republicans of many of these
(28:20):
Sun Belt states are drifting into these ideological purification politics.
The question is whether Democrats are capable of accepting the
kind of broad, sometimes uncomfortable coalition politics required to capitalize
on the opportunity that is staring them straight in the
face Florida, Texas, Georgia. I'd throw Alabama and even Mississippi
(28:46):
in there. It's staring them in the face. But the
base of the party has to accept that it is
not a majority, even inside its own coalition, and that
is not what the activist base thinks. Just like and
what happens when an activist base thinks that all victories
are their victories. Get Ken Paxton as your Republican nominee
(29:11):
for Senate, You get Bert Jones as you're likely Republican nominee,
an election denier for governors. So this is the this
is the warning and opportunity that the Democratic Party has.
But right now, in some ways it's got the same
issues that the Sun Belt Republicans have, where it's loud,
(29:33):
activist base is in charge, and it's chipping away at
the very coalition that gave the Republicans power the first
time they got it. In the Sun Belt in the
seventies and eighties and nineties. The opportunity for Democrats is
to follow the same path. No, it is not ideologically pure.
(29:55):
Neither are the Sun Belt states. They're all messy coalition,
there is no and in fact, you know they're there.
And this is I think it's hardest to see in Texas,
but none of these Most of these states have fewer
and fewer natives in it. It's just, you know, it's
(30:17):
just like you know, if if the country is a
nation of immigrants, these states are a country of domestic immigrants.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
They you go through a college football weekend in central
Florida or the suburbs of Houston or the suburbs of Dallas,
You'll see a lot of big ten flags. You'll see
Ohio State and Michigan. These are all people that used
to live in the swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
(30:48):
and Iowa. Uh. And so I think that this is
I think this is what's happening on the right, and
we're seeing they're all over their skis and and I
think we all kind of see where this is headed.
Unless the Democratic Party gets in its own way, which
(31:10):
we know is always quite possible. Ultimately, this is the
irony of a modern American politics. Both parties increasingly want
movement politics, but the American electorate and increasingly these sunbell
electorates reward coalition politics. They're not ideologues, but the two
(31:32):
parties are trying to let the ideologues call the shots.
Whichever party remembers that first that the ideologues are wrong
about this will end up with the advantage going into
twenty twenty eight. I want to showcase one other thing.
There's another piece of data out there that actually reinforces
(31:54):
this entire conversation about coalition politics, activist pressure, and why
both parties are struggling to understand the electorate they're trying
to win back. The Washington Post did I love open
ended questions and polls. So instead of asking the question
of do you approve of Democrats? Do you approve of Republicans?
They ask voters an open ended question. Now, I will
(32:15):
tell you at the end, there's more questions that I'd
like than to ask open ended. But open ended means
they let the voters say in their own words why
they disapprove. Right, So, what do you actually dislike about
each party? The answers are incredibly revealing because they expose
something we've been talking about a long time on this podcast.
(32:37):
The crisis isn't in American politics isn't just ideological polarization.
It's also coalition exhaustion. Americans increasingly dislike both parties for
completely different reasons, but the common thread is that voters
think neither party fully understands normal life in America, that
they're sort of just out of the mainstream that we live,
(33:00):
not the mainstream that the media says its mainstream, just
our main our lives, our normal, everyday lives. So the responses,
the Democratic responses were fascinating because they split almost perfectly
into two competing critiques. One group thinks Democrats are too
culturally left, too too focused on Nietzsche issues. Two disconnected
(33:22):
from everyday concerns like cost, jobs, immigration, and basic social stability. Now,
guess what most of those critics were not members did
not call themselves Democrats. They either call themselves independence or Republicans.
But the other huge group, it featured Democrats themselves who
think the party is too weak, to passive, to cautious,
to unwilling to fight Trump aggressively enough right and we know, right,
(33:44):
this is the essential tension inside the party because those
two critiques. It all depends which critique are you hearing
Louder right, It's very important to find out where the
critiques are coming from. And that's what makes this this
research that the Post is doing very valuable and I'd
(34:05):
like to see more of it. I'd also like to
know what do you like about the Democratic Party? What
do you like about the Republican Party? But that my
friend Scott Clement, who I think oversaw this project over
there at the Post. Hopefully he's a listener and hopefully
he'll add this to it. But essentially you see it, right,
Independents are looking they'd like to vote for an alternative
(34:26):
to Trump, but they want a more moderate Democratic Party
to vote for the other. Of course, the base of
the Democratic Party sees trump perceived success, although I would
argue he's unpopular. I don't know why you think what
he's done is successful, but I think the base Democrats
say I want that, and he's strong and wrong, let's
(34:47):
do it. It got him power. And of course that's
exactly the psychological coalition problem I was just talking about
in the Sunbelt, right, the path is obvious. The math
is easy. The hard part is convincing the most activist
members of the Democratic Party to follow the math equation. Emotionally,
(35:08):
the party is split between voters who want the escalation
and voters who want confrontation. Frankly, that's the country itself, right,
and it's not easy to balance because Republicans have their
own version of this contradiction. The biggest complaint about Republicans
in this poll was Trump or the party's loyalty to Trump.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Right.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
In fact, the Republican criticisms are just as fragmented. The
voters think Republican parties are too extreme, too conspiratorial, to performative,
too angry, and to authoritarian. That's what many independents and
Democrats thought of Republicans. But then what did Republicans think
of Republicans. Well, that slice of Republican voters think the
party isn't loyal enough to Trump, which gets back to
(35:48):
this idea of coalition purification. Because once a party becomes
centered around loyalty tests, every disagreement starts looking like betrayal.
Compromise looks like you're throwing in the towel, and that
creates instability inside the coalition.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Itself.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
One of the things I found most interesting about what
the post piece surfaced is how many criticisms of both
parties weren't ideological at all. Both parties had people who
used words like corrupt, wishy, washy, week, out of touch,
and self interested. That was used in both sides. So
the frustration isn't just about policy, It's about trust, competence, authenticity, strength.
(36:30):
They're upset about the entire political system. And I think
that this is why the next successful sixty percent leader
of this country, and what I mean by sixty percent
not somebody who's going to win sixty percent, somebody's going
to have the approval of sixty percent of their governing ability.
The next sixty percent president is going to be somebody
(36:52):
who understands that we are entering an era where voters
care less about ideological purity and more about whether this
coalition feels emotionally stable, capable of governing, and responsive to
what we believe is the actual mainstream in America. And
right now, neither party fully predicts that the party that
wins on a given election cycle wins because they're able
(37:14):
to show that the other party is even more out
of touch than there and that's right now the definition
of winning. So because Democrats are still struggling with the
perception that they are culture out of sync with parts
of the country. Republicans still struggle with the perception that
they are governed by grievance, performance politics, and loyalty enforcement.
(37:36):
And what makes this environment so politically volatile is that
there's a huge number of Americans who just feel politically homeless,
which I'm assuming is a large chunk of this audience.
It's not means doesn't mean you're centrist. It just means
you want a little bit. It's incrementalism, it's restraint, it's directional,
(37:57):
it's not dogmatic. And that's the exhausted majority, exhausted by
permanent escalation, exhausted by performative outrage, exhausted by parties that
increasingly speak to their activists because frankly, they feel so weak.
The activists make them feel strong, but that's all they do,
(38:21):
and they don't seem to understand how people live everyday life.
And that's the biggest opportunity. It's sitting there for somebody
to grab. There's this vast unrepresented majority in America that
neither that. The only time either party cares about them.
Is when the Republicans are running in a very blue
state like right now Steve Hilton is trying to speak
(38:42):
to those voters, or Democrats running in a very red state,
you know, like to Dan Osborne, trying to talk to
those voters. That's what I think voters are looking for.
It's what I to this day believe they thought they
were getting in Joe Biden. They wanted to move towards competence, stability,
and coalition maintenance. That's what they thought Biden was going
(39:04):
to get him. And Biden's sudden governing to the left
rather than to the deal he cut with voters is
why he.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Became so unpopular so fast.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Right, how you campaign, if it's different than how you govern,
you will get punished faster.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And that's what happened to him.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
One thing this Washington Post project showed voters are not
asking for ideological perfection. They're looking for competence and stability.
And look, they may incrementally think the left has more
ideas worth experimenting, or the right has more ideas, but
even when they make the choice, they don't want a
huge leap. They want a baby step. Those that understand
(39:52):
and keep power. Those that don't either never get it
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A customer, ask Chuck. All right, we're going to go
a little lengthy here on questions I get a little
extra time form today. We're start with John and he writes, Hey,
I'm a regular listener and really value the podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I also appreciate your concern about Democrats sinking to Republican tactics,
but history suggests taking the high road hasn't always worked.
I saw this firsthand as a congressional staffer during the
Kingrich era and in two thousand. How how do you
think about that trade off? Well, I mean, you know,
there's there's always a trade off to a to acquire power.
(42:11):
And the question is what are you willing to compromise right?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
When?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
What what morals or ethics are you willing to compromise?
And which ones aren't you? And you know there's a
I remember Carvel and Madeline when they came out with
their first book. It was called All's Fair and Love
in Politics and Right. The implication is that there's nothing
that's unfair, which means anything goes right, and that love
(42:39):
and politics are two things that where anything goes and
outcome is rewarded more than process. And there's always a
line to this. You know, the question is is so
(43:00):
let's let's the the The issue that I have expressed
the most concerned with is jerrymandering. And the reason I
have such a problem with it is because it was
the Democrats that wanted to be the party of fairness
and giving up. You know, if it's still the right
thing to do, why would you give up fighting for?
(43:23):
And that's you know to me, that's you know, look,
every there has to be a test everywhere. Take crypto right.
Chuck Schumer presented Senate Democrats with a with a basically
a coercive challenge earlier this year when he said, you know,
(43:45):
it's going to have to get on board crypto. They're
too financially powerful and our path the majority is blocked by.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
The crypto money.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
And if you and so you have to decide how
important is that issue to you?
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
So, the problem with answering your question is that you
know something that I'm very mindful of what I'm I
might think something is a principled stand that you will
that is unrecoverable if you compromise on it. And you
may say it's subjective. You know what, you know, once
(44:23):
you get power, you can do good. And the thing
is we both could be right, and you just you know.
I think that's the tough decision in politics is knowing
what stance do you believe and take is compromisable in
which aren't and ultimately right, That's it's up to every politician.
(44:46):
What's a line you won't cross? As voters, I care
about that, I want to know you know what line
won't you cross? And you know Donald Trump has tested
his party in ways that their party never thought they'd
be tested on, asking them which lines won't you cross?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Right?
Speaker 1 (45:06):
And you don't know? Sometimes you don't know what line
you won't cross until it's presented to you. And so
so I understand, you know, there's trade offs. I think
ultimately you have to decide, you know, I try to
put myself and you putt put this in the other shoes.
(45:26):
You know, do you ultimately want to be this party?
What is your north star? And if it violates your
north star, don't do it.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
If you think it is.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
A forgivable sin, then do it, right, I mean, it
is successful. You know, politics is not a pure process, right.
Politics is something we invented in order to settle disputes
without violence. So the whole concept of politics is a
(46:00):
compromise of something. So I don't want to be so
dogmatic as to suggest you don't ever borrow a tactic
in order to win power. But I would just say
careful borrowing a tactic that becomes that undermines a core
quality or descriptor of what your movement was about. And
(46:24):
on gerrymandering, you know, I think I think that is
that if it really is the source of a huge
part of our ills, and I think we all believe this,
then making it worse in order to hope. I mean, look, yes,
(46:45):
there are studies that say, you know, sometimes people need
to see the extreme version of something to finally understand
why they don't want it. Now, maybe you can make
that argument to me that the you know, mutual assured
destruction on redistricting will eventually make everybody want to go
to fair districts. Boy, that feels like worse hopium than
(47:09):
the hopeium I'm smoking. That says, wherever you can, you
fight for fair districts, because that's the right thing to do.
Dean from Long Island from l I and yep, Long Island.
He says, Hey, if Democrats take the House and the
push Fury district, he may ease, but if Republicans hold control,
(47:29):
it could intensify. Actually, I think it's going to intensify
in either direction because the margin is I think only
I think no matter what, the margin is either going
to be too thin for too close for comfort for
Democrats or they're going to succeed and overperform and then
they're going to under protect those new people. But anyway,
beyond that, let me finish your question. Beyond that, the
(47:51):
bigger issue is the twenty thirty census and the shifting
population trends. How do you see election results shaping gerrymandering
and what comes next. Thanks, Look, the big shift has
to Actually this is a well timed question, because what
the twenty thirty census is going to cement is the
shift of political power from the north to the south,
the expansion of political power frankly, from the east to
(48:15):
the south and west to an extent, it's really sort
of the inner West, right, California's kind of is going
to lose lose some congressional seats, but you're going to
see Utah, I think, in Colorado, Montana sort of the
inner West. I guess, if you will, the part of
the West that doesn't touch saltwater doing better, and certainly
(48:36):
you're going to see that expansion in the south. To me,
it should put a priority on where there's more money
spent on state legislative races in these population growth states,
more money spent on those governors races, more attempts to
do fair redistricting where it exists. Right, you have that
(48:57):
in Arizona, you have a form of it attempted in Colorado.
We'll see what happens in Utah. They have different court cases.
And then of course there's Texas and Florida and I
think it is. It is that just the if both
parties aren't worried about organizing every county, let alone every
(49:23):
state in the Sunbelt, they're going to be behind in
the fight for power because national political power is going
to go through the Sunbelt and the twenty thirty census,
it's you know, forget the big Blue wall in the Midwest.
It is going to be North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and
probably you know, and then every once in a while
(49:43):
Florida and Texas may sneak into there, and every once
in a while New Mexico and say Mississippi could sneak
in there. But I think that's coming. But bottom line,
I think that's what you know, there's that more political
organizing focus and investment, whether you're on the left or
(50:06):
the right, is it's going to be demanded to be
there in the South because the South and the Sun
Belt in particular is going to be the path to power.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
All right.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Next question comes from Grand Fa, Minnesotan by way of
Iowa go Hawks. Well right on. That means he might
be of one of those a lot of Vikings fans
in Iowa, particularly in the Mason City area. He goes
long time listener love the podcast. Do you think presidential
approval ratings are overused or too limited, especially in such
a polarized environment where they rarely move outside of narrow range.
(50:40):
Why isn't political media developed more advanced metrics to better
capture performance or public sentiment? Actually, it's sitting there. You're
highlighting a void that frankly, I should be filling and
more should be filling. We've all figured out there's a
four part test on job approval. You should ask, we
(51:00):
should not be asking approved, disapprove. It's strongly somewhat on
each side. Do you strongly approve, do you strongly disapprove?
Do you somewhat approve? Do you somewhat disapprove? It is
a different type of voter in each of those four categories.
Those move a little bit more. Right, The overall with
the shifts between strong and somewhat in either side of
(51:23):
the equation are what is the movement? Right, It's the
movement underneath the movement. The point is is that the
NBC News polls shifted to that or quite a while ago.
But in the Trump air in particular, and even a
bit in the Obama era, we learned this that having
the four part job approval question allows.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
You to do would give you the quote.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Unquote advanced metrics mindset right, and we should it is
more the trend line of strong disapprove and strong approve
tells you a lot more than the combined numbers do.
The combined numbers when you combine to someone in the
strong just sort of dilutes it all because a lot
of times the somewhat approve is you know, when somebody
(52:11):
is growing unpopular, they're somewhat approved is bigger than they're strong,
and they're strong disapprove is bigger than they's somewhat. When
they become more popular, literally, those things start to reverse.
So that's when you're asking for quote unquote advanced metrics.
There's still job approval is still the best opening question
to do, but if you're not doing a four part ask,
(52:36):
then you're not doing it correctly and you won't find
what you're looking for, which is some of that movement.
So I think what you're asking for is better reporting
of job ratings.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
And guess what I confess.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
I think we need to lean in more on reporting
the four categories rather than reporting the combined two. So
I would say this look. As many of you know,
I'm not a huge fan of aggregating polling across methodologies.
I'm not a huge fan of it. I know, real
clear politics at five point thirty eight. I think that
they they both know that the somewhats and the strongs
(53:12):
give you better internal analysis to focus on. But they
do all their charts with the basic approved disapprove. You
probably ought to take a look at both the economists
you gov poll they split it up and they take
a look at the intensity better, and so does Hugh
(53:34):
and both of their sites I think do a better
job of focusing on essentially the four the four categories,
and you see the movement within the four categories more
and look strong strong disapprove has been growing, and that
that's more of a sign than just seeing the incremental
increase in either side. And there's always the overall approval
(53:59):
number doesn't change much, but the makeup between strong and
somewhat is a little more volatile, and I think it
tells you more.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
And so that.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
If my friends at the aggregation world are listening, I
think enough pollsters are. I've figured out the job approval.
You're doing a disservice if you're not asking the four
part the four part question. If you're only doing the
two part question, aggregate the four parts. If you're going
(54:29):
to aggregate guys, I think you'd benefit from it. I
know not everybody's aggregating that.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Well.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
Do those that do? Guess what we should push everybody.
It's a waste of time to just ask it as a.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
Two part question. All right. Next question comes from true
Bill and he ends it with go lions.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
All right, He goes, thank you for your thoughtful analysis.
Always appreciate your respective. As an eighty one year old
Vietnam Vet who grew up believing deeply in this country
and its ideals, I've been wondering where those true believers
are today, especially after a recent interview with aj Purshuddy.
Do you see a path forward for people who still
hold on to that belief and for some sense of
healing in or politics? You know? I go back to
something that is really sort of gnawed at me, and
(55:21):
it is this idea and God, I think it was
the conversation I had with Lamar Alexander about no Child
Left Behind and what the unintended consequence of focusing on
testing and how it essentially right everything is an incentive structure, right,
and sometimes you have an unintended consequence.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
And so when you when.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
You changed funding bonuses to reflect improvements on reading and
math test scores, then you had the best teachers being
pulled from other subjects focused there the testing was about that,
and then you end up de emphasising over time subjects
that are not impacted, where your funding's not impacted by
(56:06):
whether your students score well or not. And I think,
and I'm probably truell, I'm probably pulling exactly at the
heartstrings that you want me to pull out here, but
I think there's something to it, which is, if we
choose to teach civics and say that you need a
good civics education before we deem you a high school
(56:29):
graduate or a college or somebody who's acceptable for college admission,
I think that we'd have a better prepared citizenry for
our politics. Not saying it would automatically depolarize us, but
early awareness of that our system and that this country
(56:50):
is pretty diverse and pretty politically complicated, and understanding how
the system works and why it was designed to actually
be this filled with all these contradictory checks and balances.
Because we didn't really have one ethnicity, We didn't have
one ideology that was that we decided to cement. You know,
(57:10):
we really did want to want to want to not
let let one ideology become the dominant, uh guide here.
And so I have I am stuck on this idea
that we by choosing to emphasize what we chose to
(57:30):
emphasize when it came to deciding what completes and education
in the public school system.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
It didn't include civics or social studies.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
And I'm glad that I grew up in a house
that just you know, thought that was as important as
English and math, also thought extracurricular activities, both sports and
music in this case, and more musical talent than artistic talent.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
We're also part right.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
Of a whole, you know, that the you know, the
whole wholeness type of thing. So I'm I'm lucky that
I grew up. You know, we didn't have we didn't
have a lot, but I certainly had a I certainly
my parents were rich in promoting that even if we
didn't have material goods. And it is shocking to me
(58:25):
how little civics gets taught in all sorts of whether
it's private school, public school. I've I've had my kids
experienced both, and it's been quite disappointing. And I realized
how much I didn't get in school either. I got
almost all of it at home, more of it at
home than I got at school. When it came to civics,
and it came to politics, and it came to to
(58:46):
American history. And if you're wondering, where are the true
believers we deemphasized, I wonder. You know, love of country
is loving all of its contradictions, complications, And you know,
I look at our complications. That's what makes me a
(59:08):
true believer. I think our systems amazing. I think we
put together something. We gave ourselves a toolbox to allow
a whole bunch of people who shouldn't agree with each
other and anything to find some path. We have a
process to find some path to majoritarian rule, not always
feeling as majoritarian sometimes. And I think when that gets
out of whack, that's when you need to realign as
(59:29):
statives and make sure that majoritarianism is still is still
the backbone of what we're doing. But we have a
pretty good tool toolbox. But I worry that we've spent
fewer and fewer generations teaching. You know, It's like, imagine,
(59:52):
imagine not teaching. I'm going to say, I'm gonna going
to be very sort of I'm gonna sound old school traditionalists, Matt.
Imagine not teaching your kids the difference between a flathead
and a Philip screwdriver. And I say this because you
know what, it's one of those things that over time
you're glad you know the difference when you grow up
and you're on your own and all this stuff right,
and some things that you just get taught that you
(01:00:16):
don't realize you're getting taught till you need it. Well,
we've stopped even explaining the tools in the American democracy
to our kids. We've stopped teaching it. I've been pitching
a potential opening class for USC that was asked to
design it, to submit a potential introductory course for a
(01:00:36):
Washington program for incoming freshmen, and I said, how about
just simply the Constitution? Because the thing that I have
noticed is how much that the how much the students
don't know as much about the Constitution when they come
into college. Now, those that want to learn love it
and really dive into it. And get to know it.
(01:00:57):
But what if that were a mandatory course for incoming
freshmen at a university, particularly in a Washington program. Right now,
it's set aside for those that already have an interest
in politics, But shouldn't everybody learn this anyway? I have
a feeling i'm preaching to your to an amen choir
(01:01:20):
to you, true Bill, But I assume being a Lions
fan means you always have some optimism somewhere, So God
bless you, and I'm all for the lines doing well
except when they're playing my packers, all right. Next question
comes from Daniel T. Anderson, South Carolina. He goes, with
all the controversy about around redistricting, would it makes sense
to use a more scientific, data driven method to remove
(01:01:41):
the human element altogether, like drawing districts based on population
using geographic coordinates. Could something like that realistically work?
Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
You know, it's funny, Daniel.
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
I thought that the twenty twenty and I wonder if
COVID sort of screwed this up. But I really thought
the twenty twenty one reapportionment was going to be the
most egalitarian one that we had, because I thought, you know,
you and I can make maps now right, we don't
need you know, sophisticated technology. You know, all of the
data is available to any of us can make maps.
(01:02:11):
And I thought we would start to see competing maps.
And I thought we would start And there's a part
of me that wants to see more maps. Show me
a map that would be the most republican map, Show
me the most democratic maps, show me the most compact maps.
Show me, you know, I want to see the options,
all the options, you know, rather than the option that
(01:02:35):
only fits.
Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
My politics, right.
Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
And I think it's all there, And I you know,
I was I was hopeful that maybe if and look,
my my my friends and partners at DDHQ are building
a terrific hub for political intelligence. And I think that
by twenty twenty thirty, I have a feeling we're going
(01:03:02):
to my friends over there are going to build something
that's going to allow just for this, because I think
people need to understand. The more the public understands, how
this changes representation, how this changes political power, just based
on who draws the maps. And then maybe you just
you know, and maybe what we're voting on. I'm with you.
(01:03:23):
Let's take you know, let's take the human element out
of it completely. But and say, you know, here, show
me a map this way, show me map this way,
show me map this way. Now you go to the
voters and say, would you prefer a map that leaned right?
Would you prefer a map that leaned left? Would you
prefer a map that was super fair? Like you almost
(01:03:45):
ask for the outcome that you want if you actually
can see all the choices. Anyway, I'm being a little
a little provocative here purposely because you know, why can't
we use a data driven model?
Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Please?
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
There's so many things we need a data that would
be better if we just well let the data speak
for itself. I do think over time data will win
the argument. But it's a subjective persuasion there, you know.
But I do think people need to understand how you
can take the same map and create four or five
six different type of outcomes for political power based on
(01:04:27):
you know, what you think the electorate wants. And sometimes
I wonder should be you know, what do the voters
want in a given state? Do they want hard partisanship
or do they want you know, I grew up with
a father who lean right, who thought I want to
(01:04:50):
have I want to make sure there is somebody that
cares about South Florida in both parties, so that whoever's
got power has some say about how that power is
enacted for our community. Right, And I think, you know,
there's still voters who believe that, right. And I think
what's happened is the parties have been hijacked by activists
(01:05:12):
who don't believe the other parties should have a say.
Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
That. You know.
Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
It's that politics should be completely zero sum and if
you lose, you get no say versus you know, And
that's what I think the American public sees sees politics
in proportional terms. Yet our system, you know, doesn't really
reward proportionality. You know, would we be better off with
(01:05:38):
proportionality politics so that you know, if if a state
was twenty five percent you know, conservative and twenty five
percent liberal, then their representatives would be far left and
far right half of them, and then the other half
would be somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
I mean, I'm just saying that the irony is that
we're a country that he sent you actually accepts the
outcome to look proportionality, even though maybe we go in
there with a zero sum attitude. But I'm not sure
about that, And you know, I don't know whether I'm
a mainstream voter, and that I kind of think that
(01:06:18):
I want to have a foot and all in both
camps because at the end of the day, I don't
know who's going to have power, and I want to
make sure my community is well represented. I'm still more
of that kind of old school sort of American voter,
and that felt, you know, but I don't know whether
that was the norm or whether I was.
Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Raised in a household that was unique, right.
Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
And I think what we all, what we all don't
want to admit, is we think we're we're the mainstream
until we meet others and we wonder, wait, are they
mainstream or are I mainstream?
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
But you know, you're asking for data driven results. It
seems simple we have. It's never been easier to make
a map. And I think at a minimum, if we
started making more maps so people could see this is
a map that would be driven by maximizing Republicans, maximizing democrats,
maximizing geography, compactness, maximize you know, you go through the
(01:07:16):
various and you know which one is in the best
interest of this state. Just another another potential way to
handle this because again, banning gerrymandering is naive because one
person's gerrymander is another person's competitive district, and if you
want competition, you may have to jerrymander. So it's all
(01:07:39):
about what what is your priority? I personally would I
want I want the market to speak, so I would
prioritize competitiveness. But you know, take a take a place
like Wisconsin. Wisconsin from a statewide level is very evenly divided.
The problem is most of most of the Democratic voters
(01:08:01):
are in one concentrated part of the state, in the
southeast part of the state. So if you just ad
geographic it would sort of give an outsized advantage to
the Republicans. Right, So like, what is the right way
to balance it?
Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
And it all depends on your own motivation, right, If
you're a partisan, you're trying to put it in a
way that maximizes your political leverage. At the end of
the day, if you just care about what's in the
best interest in Wisconsin, you might say, well, maybe we
want competitiveness, maybe we want this, you know, So that's
why ultimately I prioritize competitiveness. But if you did that
in Wisconsin, you'd have to Gerrymander, You'd have to have
(01:08:40):
districts that were kind of weird in order to make
sure you had a balance. And so I think that's
the I think that's the trade off. So if you
want true blue, you know Milwaukee wants to feel represented, fine,
but the more representative feels it may be speaking for
(01:09:00):
less of the state. So just an example, all right,
Last question mark from Ann Arbor rights, Hey, I'm curious
about a few things you've discussed recently and expanding the House.
Do you think it's realistically achievable given political incentives and
public perception. What are your thoughts on proportional voting as
a potential solution to Jerrymander?
Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Yeah? I just answered that first part.
Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
And on a lighter note, how does your current workload
compare to your time at meet the presip the good work.
Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Mark from Ann Arbor.
Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Well, I just talked a little bit about proportionality, right,
I think it goes back to what what do a
majority of your voters want?
Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Do they want one party to have a political advantage
or do they want the market to decide this?
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Right?
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
The free market of ideas, the free market of the democracy.
And you know, like I said, I would prioritize competitiveness
because I want you know, I want everybody's I want
every I want more voters with skin in the game.
I don't want fewer voters with skin in a small
our game.
Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I e.
Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Primaries, right, I want more voters involved in the general election,
whatever that takes. And frankly, and that's why I'm for
all party primaries.
Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
I think we got to get rid of.
Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
You know, I'm fine if you want to join a
political party, but that shouldn't and you should tell us
what your political party is. That's fine too. If you
want to sell us, you know, that's fine. But you know,
if voters decide they want a competition between two independents,
two Democrats, two Republicans, whatever it is, that let's let
(01:10:33):
the voters decide to the final two.
Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Final two ought to be.
Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
So on on expanding the House, I think this is
going to get a little bit of legs because of
what happened with the Voting Rights Act. I've had a
you know, look, I think this is an important answer.
It's an Act of Congress.
Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
It isn't.
Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
This isn't a heavy lift. You don't need a constitutional amendment.
This is just an act of Congress if you're not
going to move to proportional representation. Right, if you moved
to proportional representation, you probably could keep it locked at
four thirty five and you'd have a different way that
you would make up the states and make up the
delegations if you want. You know, now, the reason I'm
(01:11:15):
for expansion of the House is a I think it's
a lot easier to get folks to rally around something
that the founders intended, and the founders intended for the
House to expand with the population of the country, and
we stop we have stopped doing that for literally ninety
seven years. That was ninety seven years ago that we
(01:11:36):
capped the House. It's been one hundred and six. You know,
it's been over one hundred years since we last expanded
the House, and we expanded every single decade before nineteen twenty.
You know, you would see that various identity groups would
(01:11:59):
have more representation in the House of Representatives, the People's
House if we expanded the House. And I think when
more groups realize this, you're going to see more calls
for this, because I mean, I think it's the relief
it's the best relief valve to these gerrymander wars where
(01:12:21):
if we're going to turn state legislative races and the
governor's races into zero sum games, which is, if you
win fifty one percent of the vote, you're going to
get one hundred percent, you're going to get one hundred
percent of the rewards on remapping the state. And you know,
up states turning left. So we're going to make all
the districts left and we're going to you know all
(01:12:43):
of that. You know, first of all it majority parties
will keep chasing voters, and then you chase voters that
won't be there the next election. Right, Texas Republics are
going to find that out the hard way with Latinos
in the South. You know, they went chasing them thinking
it was going to help them with their remap and
it may end up blowing up into a dummy mander.
(01:13:05):
So I think the the shift, you know, the lack
of representation of African Americans in the South, if these
gerrymanders go through these sort of Republican leaning gerrymanders, I
think it brings a whole new group of activists in
the uncapped the House world and again I think you
(01:13:27):
can find common cause between African American democrats in the
South conservatives in the north East, places like Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Those are states with thirty five to forty percent of
voters that lean right, that have no Republican representation at
all in Congress. But if you expanded the House and
those states too right, they would there would be more
(01:13:48):
opportunities and more likelihoods that you would have more of
your political diversity represented in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
And that that was the intent.
Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
And I think the closer we moved the democracy to
the people, the better off we are. And the democracy
is further away than it's been. And every every ten
years that we choose not to expand the House, this
democracy becomes more perverted and less majoritarian.
Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
And that that's why this is.
Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
This is the first among perhaps many fixes, but this
one has to go through first before you can decide
what others that need that are necessary. As for workload,
I have more control over my week and month, but
I'm probably as busy, if not busier, because I don't
(01:14:41):
know how to say no. I went from sort of
six jobs that I you know, I had sort of
three or four different jobs. Within a job at NBC,
I probably have six or seven different projects, some of
which intertwined.
Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
And some don't.
Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
And so I will tell you this, in the last
three months, I have felt like I'm always a little
bit behind, which is what I would describe ten my
nearly ten years and meet the press, which I was
always you know, Luckily, you know, I'd catch up every
week because she still had to put on a show.
And whatever I felt behind, my had to turn the
(01:15:21):
page and keep moving. And I've gotten to that point
in the last three months, which frankly probably makes me happy.
I'm better off being a little bit too busy than
if I have a little much, a little too much
free time. Speaking of free time, though, it's time to
go take some for myself and go work on some
of those other projects. So with that, I'll see in
(01:15:42):
seventy two hours. Appreciate the listen, and if you like
what you hear, i'd love a five star review and
a little like and subscribe. Thanks very much, and we'll
see you next time.
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