Full Episode - Why The Sun Belt Could Realign American Politics + Imagining the Worst to Prevent It From Happening

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. 

Then, novelist Elliot Ackerman and retired Admiral James Stavridis — the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander — join the Chuck Toddcast to discuss their new novel 2084 and to deliver some deeply uncomfortable warnings about where war, technology, and great-power competition are actually headed. The duo, whose previous collaboration 2034 imagined a U.S.-China war, are quick to clarify that their work isn't predictive fiction — it's cautionary fiction, written from the conviction that major disasters almost always stem from a failure of imagination, and that the only way to prevent the worst-case scenarios is to seriously imagine them first. Ackerman and Stavridis argue that war has fundamentally changed, that superpowers are now uniquely vulnerable to asymmetric warfare, and that victors are made or unmade by their willingness to adapt to new technologies — pointing to the Ukraine war as a real-time revolution in drone combat and AI-driven battlefield decision-making. They raise the hardest moral question facing modern militaries: do you always need a human in the loop of the kill chain, and if not, who is morally responsible when something goes wrong? Different countries are answering that question in different ways, with profoundly different ethical and strategic consequences.

The conversation broadens into the deeper structural concerns animating 2084. Ackerman and Stavridis warn that one of the gravest threats to the international order is the rise of corporations whose power is beginning to rival that of nation-states — and they argue the defining feature of a nation-state has always been its monopoly on violence, meaning governments will eventually be forced to ensure corporations can't apply violence at scale (a fight that has already begun in subtle ways). They flag Trump's recent summit with Xi Jinping as a massive win for China, with Xi clearly presenting himself as the senior partner while Trump walked away with very little — and the meeting was particularly catastrophic for Taiwan, whose strategic standing has now been visibly weakened. The authors discuss whether democracy will remain the defining feature of America going forward, whether the country can overcome its current internal divisions, and how human patterns of warfare repeat themselves across centuries even as the technology evolves. They make the case that the 1983 film War Games was prescient and overdue for a reboot, that military action against Cuba would be nothing like Venezuela — politically much tougher given the engaged Cuban-American community in Florida, and economically far more expensive on the reconstruction side — and that Venezuela itself has the natural reso

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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first box and free croissants for life when you visit
wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo
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. I got a

(01:46):
fun show today, a little We're gonna we're gonna take
a we use my time machine to go back in
time to do history history lessons on the Monday Podcast. Today,
we're gonna go into the future a little bit, I guess.
Sir James Stavridi's former NATO Supreme Allied Commander at one

(02:06):
point for the United States, and Elliot Ackerman. They're the
co authors of a fictional series of sort of a
you might call it a bit dystopian of what America
could look like. They've written the third of a three
book trilogy twenty thirty four was the first book, twenty
fifty four is book two, and this most recent one

(02:29):
that they're out with is twenty eighty four. It is
the politics of today find its way into influencing what
this future world looks like. In fact, he'll tell you
in twenty eighty four Florida is its own republic, for instance,
just to give you a little taste of where their

(02:49):
head where their heads are at there. But I've known
Elliotta Ackerman a little bit. His late father was one
of the pioneers and big funders of a group that
of today has its remnants of it is in the
Forward Party, in these movements to try to sort of

(03:12):
break up the duopoly of the two major parties. And
so I've not known Elliott in his in his authorship
life a little bit, but I knew him a little
bit back then. Obviously, I worked with the Admiral Stavrit's
back in the NBC days. He's now I think a
contributor over at CNN, and and you know, he's got

(03:34):
an interesting perspective about what's going on in the moment.
We've got Cuba. He used to be the Southern Command
he one time before he was Supreme ally commander, he
was head of Southern Command, so he knows that stuff
quite well, knows the capabilities there. So it's yes, we
talk about their future, the future a little bit, but
it is infused with what's happening today. And I know,

(03:54):
you know, I think Jim Stavrites just gives it to you.
You know, he's got his own opinions about where things should,
how should be done, but he's very good at doing
the uh, this is what it is, and then being
able to explain this is what it should be, you know,
sort of the goal of I always try to have
on this show, which is, hey, look we cover we
cover the issues as they are, and we're going to

(04:17):
offer you an opportunity to talk about what they could be,
what they should be, maybe what you think they should be.
We also got going to take a bunch of little
extra questions. Today, being the being Thursday, I want to
spend a little more time talking to you. But I'm
going to begin with a little bit more fallout from
the from Texas, but I want to look at it

(04:41):
from a wider perspective here, and the wider perspective is
two to fit what's happening in Texas inside 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 my formative years learning American politics, digesting American politics,

(05:03):
and now consuming American politics, and now 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 right. Right. You know,

(05:26):
the 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 know,

(05:49):
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,
even and really sort of peaking, I think I think

(06:13):
we're going to say peaking somewhere around twenty ten, twenty twelve,
the Sun Belt states have powered this Republican majority, right.
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

(06:34):
each case, right, and it's been fairly reflective in its leadership. Right,
You've 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 sun Belt over the last ten years, as

(06:58):
the Midwest has so of continues to although we're starting
to see population games 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 to the South.
And you know, from much of the twentieth century and
the first arguably the first say sixteen years of the

(07:24):
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
the Senate, majority makers, and that is now shifted. And
now what we've seen, particularly since twenty sixteen, is that

(07:46):
the path back particularly for Democrats, has not been to
you know, it 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 Arizona and I have been the big two
sort of shifts where they went from red leaning to

(08:06):
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 the center right camp. But because the Republican Party
in both of the states have shifted so far to

(08:27):
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 to talk about sort of the challenge
that both parties have at the moment, and ultimately, you know,

(08:52):
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, 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,

(09:16):
sneakily more competitive if when you when you sort of
look under the hood a little bit, potentially Texas, certainly, Georgia,
North Carolina, and then you have sort of these states
that that you know in the Midwest, it was your
India and your South Dakota's in the South, it's your
Mississippi's in your South Carolina's there. There's something happening there.

(09:40):
The question is whether, uh, it is going to get
turned into something so 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 se in Texas with

(10:01):
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 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

(10:26):
them would probably plot themselves somewhere just to the right
of the center lane in one form or another. Some
of it would be 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

(10:46):
chunk of voters that live between the thirty five yard
lines on our political spectrum layered onto a football field,
I think that's 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.

(11:07):
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, 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 moment? Here

(11:30):
is Ken Paxton, the Kerry Lake moments? Right, is Ken Paxton,
the herschel Walker moment. This feeling that you're like, you know,
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

(11:51):
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 Republican coalition. And 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

(12:11):
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. 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

(12:34):
politically in these states usually understood that governing restraint. They
understood restraint. And I say this specific word here because
it didn't mean they weren't conservative, it didn't mean they
weren't disruptors, but they knew that there was a hey, no, no, no, no, No,
that's going to go too far and that's going to

(12:55):
blow up the coalition. And for the most part, these
governors were able to keep their activists at bay who
came after them. It 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

(13:16):
may believe this, but not a majority of my states.
I'm not going to go that far. Greg Abbott has
been interesting to watch because he's not a trumpye, but
he doesn't want Trumpers to know that he's not a Trumper.
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

(13:41):
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
his skis? And we're going to find out in November
there and then I would argue in Florida. First term,
Dissantus understood that he had to manage the coalition more
like jee Bush rather than doing what he has kind

(14:02):
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
to Santis 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

(14:24):
states are not ideologically uniform places. They're very complicated, they're messy,
they're massive, suburban 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

(14:47):
warm climates. You've got evangelical conservatives, business republicans, retirees, military families, libertarians,
working class Hispanics, suburban professionals, exurban populists. 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

(15:08):
taxes low. There's not a ton of other consistency. That's
a coalition, it's not a movement. And 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,

(15:33):
they start confusing their dominance, particularly their primary dominance, with
general election 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

(15:56):
drunk on the power, the base begins to believe, we
don't need those other voters anymore, why do we need?
You know, 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

(16:17):
are believers in your movement, that's when parties start drifting
and you start to see it state by state right.
Florida is a good example. At the moment, the Florida
Republican Party is basically purge most of its remaining mainstream
institutional wing right. We saw a big purging of it
in twenty eighteen, right when Ron DeSantis came out of
nowhere just using Trump and essentially retired the Bush wing

(16:40):
of the party, Adam Putnam being that right. So the
Bush wing of the party died in Texas this past Tuesday.
The bushwing of the Florida Republican Party died in twenty
eighteen with Ron DeSantis's dual victory, beating Putnam in the
primary and carrying that over and winning there. Now, politically,

(17:03):
Florida obviously still leans Republican, but the party has become
so 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,

(17:23):
this is a diverse state, and there's you can't push
things too far, and that ballast is missing right now.
And 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

(17:44):
as far to the right as the Florida Republican Party
is behaving right now. 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. Arizona.
It's always been the case, right, John McCain's politics were
probably the north star generally of where where Arizona is

(18:09):
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
it went, you know, it made very goldwater blush. It
went so far to the right at one point. And

(18:29):
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
Trump wing of the party or in Arizona speak, you know,
look not maybe not as boisterous and loud and as

(18:51):
conspiracy minded as Carrie Lake, but close certainly you know,
doesn't want to offend her supporters and have benefited from
this big league as certain politicians might say, you know,
Arizona's got the you know, got a Democratic governor and
two Democratic senators. Is the state suddenly liberal or is

(19:14):
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 state wide offices. I think they only lost treasurer
in twenty twenty two. And that's the point. Arizona became

(19:38):
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.
Brian Kemp's political instincts are actually very differ front from

(20:00):
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 Duh 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 and they probably both be slight favorites
to win state wide. In Trump's purification of politics, neither

(20:22):
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 twenty two, and
the election deniers lost in Arizona in twenty twenty two,
it is it is, you know, the election denier lost

(20:43):
in North Carolina for governor. The question is do election
deniers get punished. We're going to find out in Texas Florida,
and we're going to 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, Atlanta mayors are going to be
polarizing to the rest of the state that isn't Atlanta

(21:05):
versus potentially a Trump endorsmed 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 a party becomes entirely performative, once every issue

(21:25):
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
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Hyphen offer hyphen terms. In North Carolina, Republicans already found

(23:39):
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
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

(23:59):
progressive politics in North Carolina. That at best you can
create a coalition that leans left. But what you see
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

(24:21):
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
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,

(24:47):
you could argue that Texas Republicans have had enough institutionalists,
enough coalition managers like Greg Abbott to prevent a full
activist takeover. And yet then you get a guy like
Bo French, who's you know, within the Railroad Commission race,
who's unabash it in his in his more ideological purification,
and wants to get rid of a Republican who he

(25:08):
you know, who he says is too cozy with the
energy industry. 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

(25:29):
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 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

(25:49):
know he he did his own version of purging of
the party with his with his voucher primary campaigns. But
it doesn't matter. The activist wing always once more right.
Both parties find this. They always want more. They want
more purity, they want more confrontation, they want more ideological virtue. Signally,
and eventually, every dominant coalition faces the same question, can

(26:11):
it still govern broadly once the activists become convinced compromise
itself is a weakness. 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

(26:33):
itself is not complicated. If you're willing to accept what
the path is. The opening is sitting right in front
of them. Regain enough suburban moderates, hold enough working class
minority voters, avoid culturally alienating swing voters, and present stability
against ideological overreach. It's not complicated math. And you know this. This,

(26:59):
this is the same exact ingredients that Bob Martinez 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. I think ever, when he won reelection, it

(27:21):
is what Sonny Purdue did when he defeated Roy Barnes
in Georgia. They understood it wasn't a movement, it was
a coalition 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

(27:42):
is convincing parts of the Democratic base to emotionally accept
what the coalition 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

(28:04):
said about monopolies. I say supposed because mister Chate couldn't
find the origin of it. But the argument that concentrated
corporate power and economic inequality basically is what has caused
all of our ills, our social ills, our cultural lills,
and our economic ills, and that dealing with it requires

(28:25):
a far more aggressive progressive response. Now, intellectually, a lot
of the critiques are persuasive. 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

(28:48):
won the argument intellectually, compromise to build a bigger coalition
starts feeling unnecessary, even immoral. But the country still 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,

(29:13):
this is where parties often struggle the most. The hardest
part in politics usually isn't finding the path to victory.
Path to victory 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

(29:35):
a point where it says, we don't need those voters anymore.
The corporatist Democrats. How often have you been hearing that
lately 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 (29:52):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:52):
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

(30:13):
just believes. In addition, that's the moment parties begin losing
elections they should have won. Not to be clear, Republicans
are creating this opening all by themselves. They are losing
races that they should have won thanks to Donald Trump's
purging right, and the victories in Arizona and Georgia are

(30:35):
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 had smart candidates who pivoted. Whether
you're Raphael Warnock, John assaf Mark Kelly Ruben Diego, or

(30:56):
you just didn't do you did no harm, like Katie Hopps,
the governor of Arizona. Now Republicans are many of these
Sunbelt states are drifting into these ideological purification politics. The
question is whether Democrats are capable of accepting the kind

(31:17):
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 in there. It's staring
them in the face. But the base of the party

(31:40):
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. You'd
get Ken Paxton as your Republican nominee for Senate. You

(32:01):
get Bert Jones as You're likely Republican nominee an election
denier for governors. So this is 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,

(32:22):
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.

(32:44):
Neither are the Sun Belt states. They're all messy coalitions.
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

(33:06):
just like, you know, if the country is a nation
of immigrants, these states are a country of domestic immigrants.
You know, 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.

(33:29):
You'll see Ohio State and Michigan These are all people
that used to live in the swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and Iowa. 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 yes, I think

(33:51):
we all kind of see where this is headed unless
the Democratic Party gets in its own way, which 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

(34:15):
coalition politics. They're not ideologues, but the two 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.

(34:37):
I want to showcase one other thing. There's another piece
of data out there that actually reinforces 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

(34:59):
of Democrats approve of Republicans? They ask voters an open
ended question. Now, I will 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

(35:20):
revealing because they expose something we've been talking about a
long time on this podcast. 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

(35:43):
normal life in America, that they're sort of just out
of the main the mainstream that we live, not the
mainstream that the media says its mainstream, just our main
our lives, our normal, everyday lives. So the response is
the Democratic response is fascinating because they split almost perfectly
into two competing critiques. One group thinks Democrats are too

(36:06):
culturally left, too focused on nietzschech issues. Two disconnected 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 called themselves Independence or Republicans.
But the other huge group, it featured democrats themselves who

(36:27):
think the party is too weak, too passive, to cautious,
to unwilling to fight Trump aggressively enough. Right, and we know, right,
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

(36:51):
research that the Post is doing very valuable and I'd
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's that
my friend Scott Clement, who 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

(37:12):
see it, right, Independence are looking they'd like to vote
for an alternative 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

(37:35):
and wrong, let's do it. It got himpower. And of
course that's exactly the psychological coalition problem I was just
talking about in the Sunbelt.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
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, the party is
split between voters who want the escalation andoters 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.

(38:08):
The biggest complaint about Republicans in this poll was Trump
or the party's loyalty to Trump.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Right.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
In fact, the Republican criticisms were 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

(38:37):
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 town, and that
creates instability inside the coalition itself. One of the things
I found most interesting about what the post piece surfaced

(39:01):
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. They're upset about the entire

(39:21):
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 is going to have the approval
of sixty percent of their governing ability. The next sixty
percent president is going to be somebody who understands that

(39:42):
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 prejects that party that wins on a given election

(40:02):
cycle wins because they're able 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. And what makes this environment

(40:27):
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, it
doesn't mean you're centrist. It just means you want a
little bit. It's incrementalism, it's restraint, it's directional, it's not dogmatic.

(40:50):
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, and
they don't seem to understand how people live everyday life.

(41:15):
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 to
those voters, or Democrats running in a very red state,

(41:35):
you know, like an 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 a movement towards competence, stability,
and coalition maintenance. That's what they thought Biden was going
to get him. And Biden's sudden governing to the left

(41:57):
rather than to the deal he but with voters is
why he became so unpopular so fast. Right, how you campaign,
if it's different than how you govern, you will get
punished faster. And that's what happened to him. One thing

(42:18):
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

(42:38):
want a baby step. Those that understand and keep power.
Those that don't either never get it or lose it.
All right, with that, let's bring on my friends who
are writing about a dystopian future for the world, Jim
Stavridi's and Elliott At. This episode of The Chuck Podcast

(43:01):
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you know, after work, that's what this is. So no
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(44:32):
am a customer. Sometimes when you're trying to figure out
the best way to talk about political reform. Writing fiction
can be the way to get people to sort of
broaden how they think and realize that actually, this interesting

(44:53):
fictional piece of work is actually trying when it comes
to do it using fiction to teach. My friend Jim
mister Rits, retired Admiral former NATO Supreme Ally Commander, has
been at the forefront of this and with his writing
partner in this one, Elliott Ackerman, they have a sequel now.

(45:14):
They wrote sort of a futuristic, realistic, futuristic, semi dystopian
view of where the world could be in twenty thirty four.
This is their sequel, twenty eighty four. Almost Viti's good
to see you, sir.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
Good to see you, sir. And I think, as you
said in the run up there, this is not predictive fiction.

Speaker 4 (45:39):
Let's hope not. This is cautionary fiction.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
The idea is to engage the reader to understand how
difficult the future could be while we still have time
to reverse engineer it and avoid it.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Ellie, your motivation for getting involved with this and tell
me how you got in with the admiral.

Speaker 5 (46:03):
Well, I think you know, Jim, touchdown, I think you know,
we believe that if you look at the great challenges
facing humanity in the twenty first century, which this series
of books addresses, whether it's you know, twenty thirty four,
which is pure level war. You know, twenty fifty four
was about artificial intelligence and domestic politics in the United States,
and that twenty eighty four deals with a climate crisis

(46:23):
and really the future of war. It's this idea that
if we can imagine these worst case outcomes, that's actually
the first step in avoiding them. And if you look
at the great national security failures that our country has
faced over the last I don't know, you know, fifty
to one hundred years, you know, so everything from Pearl
Harbor to nine to eleven to the pandemic, they've all
been failures of imagination. So if you want to prevent those,

(46:47):
you know, start imagining those outcomes so that you can
avoid them. And the second part of your question, the
way we hooked up is long story short. We're both
graduates of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where
the Admiral was the dean. He and I knew each
other as alumni and and just sort of by way
of coincidence. We had a shared book editor at Penguin

(47:07):
Press who played who played matchmaker between the two of us.
So and I would say also our writing duo is
really in some ways of writing trio because we've had
the same editor for all of these books, Scott Moyers,
who's been a great steward of this series.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
That I think is the hardest part and co authoring
I've done it is agreeing on a style. Nobody writes
the same, you can certainly you know. And how difficult
was that at first? Or was it pretty easy the
whole time?

Speaker 4 (47:38):
Or is that the work of the editor we divided
and conquered, if you will.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
I kind of developed this strategic remit this idea putting
these three novels together.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
And then is was this one?

Speaker 1 (47:52):
By the way? Let me pot? Was this like? Were
you like George Lucas here you outlined the entire arc. Yes,
and you just knew, okay, we're going to do this
one is book one, this one is book two, and
this is the three Okay?

Speaker 4 (48:04):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (48:05):
And so fortunately my editor said, eh, Stevrid is here
a great guy.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
You've never written a novel. Why do you think you
know how to write? Fiction.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
And oh, by the way, I had this brilliant young novelist,
Elliott Ackerman. He had no idea I knew Elliott, and
I said, oh, Elliott ackerban Man, I'd love to learn
how to write fiction from him. So that's kind of
how it got going to answer the question style wise,
if I'm the strategic creator of the art and detailed outline,

(48:38):
guy Elliott is the one who has his fingers on
the keyboard kind of writing that beautiful prose.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
But then it's very shared.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
Then it just goes back and forth and back and
forth until we're both happy with the final product.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
So I followed quite a few what I would call
economic optimists who call themselves futurists, and one of their
big complaints about fiction and about writing about the future
and these sort of is that we all are more
dystopian than what the reality is. Do you accept that premise?

Speaker 5 (49:14):
I do.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
And if you think of Malthusian predictions about the population
is going to hit a point where the planet can't
support it, none of that is coming true. It's kind
of the opposite. Actually, assume nations are going to be
competing for immigrants, I think, and at the end of
the day. Yeah, you can't be too dystopian, nor should

(49:38):
you be so pollyannish. And so the idea is to
frame these challenges in a way that strikes a reader,
is realistic and sort of puts pressure on solving the
problem why you can still do it.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
So I want to talk about future of war because
I feel like wars, the war has changed and we
haven't realized it yet. When I say we, I am
talking about the United States, I think we know it.
I think are certainly folks that the Pentagon are aware
of it. But I think it's dramatic. I mean, we're
already seeing it. I mean, what great power is it

(50:20):
vulnerable to asymmetric warfare at the moment?

Speaker 5 (50:24):
Well, I think if you look at that, I mean
the history of war, right is a history of you know,
technology is changing, one side having the upper hand, you know,
whether that's you all the way back to you know,
Alexander the Great and the Sarissa, which is basically just
a very long spear that he used to conquer all
of the known world to you know, the United States
and naval warfare, and the fact that we were the
first to sort of understand the primacy of the aircraft carrier.

(50:47):
So there's constantly these you know, cycles of technology and
war changing, and the victor is really who can adapt
the most quickly. And I think what we're doing in
these books is we're trying to pose those questions, you know,
how is war changing? You know, how can you be
like Gretzki and you're not going to.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Where the puck is or go to where the puck
is going.

Speaker 5 (51:07):
And that's one of the inspirations behind this series of
books is to try to get people to imagine what
the future is going.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
Well, let me add one thought to that, Chuck. Your point,
we're watching war change in front of us, and we're having.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
All these particularly Russian I think it really we're going
to look back at.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Ukraine is very pivotal in the art that Elliott just described.
But I want to make a point using that war
in Ukraine. Sure, it's drones, it's artificial intelligence, it's high
tech materials, it's all that very advanced starship troopers kind
of thing. The war in Ukraine is also World War One.

(51:47):
It's all quiet on the Western Front. It's blood, guts, trenches,
artillery tanks. Yeah, it's changing, but there's a certain terrible
brutality to war that I don't think is changing. We
need to be careful, we don't kind of gameplay our
world that thinking these are all videos. Somehow war is

(52:10):
still terrible and that's what we try to imagine in
these books.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Well, I appreciate that you're doing that, and I guess
and Elliott address you go ahead and addressed this question.
I mean, because in some ways the books are dealing
with this is what happens when it feels as if
you don't have to sacrifice a human being to conduct
a war.

Speaker 5 (52:32):
Yeah, you know, I think like fundamentally war is a
human activity, right, because it is you know, it is
a It is a political act, right, I mean Klauswitz said, right,
politics wars politics by other means.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
So well, war, I heard somebody say something the other
day that, I, you know, war means you're terrible at diplomacy.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
That's another way to put it. And I would regmb
that too.

Speaker 5 (52:55):
So you know, you get you a nation gets to
the point where it is trying to inflicted its will
on another nation. So it is always ultimately human beings
trying to inflict their will upon one another. Now there's
you know, layers of technology, you know, so we go
back to the days of Alexander that was literally at
the point of one human being, you know, doing it
with a spear face to face. I mean, now we

(53:16):
obviously have over the horizon weapons but do this, but
it's always the human influence in that chain, no matter
how exquisite or remote the technologies get. But we're also
you know, there's very interesting world questions going on right
now and some of these new defense technologies, I mean,
questions about where human should exist in the kill chain.
You know, should we have autonomous weapons that don't require

(53:40):
being human beings to give the final authority to you know,
to take life.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
And these are all really live questions right now.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
What do you presume in your arc, Jim, I want
to jump on that kill chain question.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
Yeah, that's what I'm curious about. This is this, to
me is something I fear. This should be like the
Geneva Conventions. We should all agree on this around the globe,
and yet I don't think we will.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
I don't think we will.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
But I'm going to give you a counterintuitive, more controversial
view here. But I'll pose it to you in a
very personal way. Suppose your interac and you go to
collect water for your family because the pump pump isn't working.
So you get five or six huge containers, You go

(54:31):
to a pump, you fill it up with water.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
Now you come back to your house.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
A predator is overhead, and a human in the kill
chain makes a decision that you're a terrorist based on
a variety of intel tips they've gotten. That human is tired,
that human is young and inexperienced twenty three year old
Air Force drone pilot, and that huge human in the

(55:00):
kill chain says he's a terrorist. I'm going to kill him,
And everything I just described you actually happened.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
This has happened. I was just going to say, you're
describing something that I've read about.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Recently, you have in Afghanistan.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
And so at the end of the day, if that
predator is up there with the missile trying to decide
if Jim Stavritez is a terrorist or a good human being,
I'm not sure I want an exhausted twenty three year
old making that call. I might want that AI, and

(55:33):
I think that's coming sooner than you might imagine. So,
as Elliott says, at this point, these really are interesting questions,
and I'm quite skeptical of people say, oh.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
I always want that human in the loop. I'm not
so sure.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Interesting, Kelly, you agree with that, I know you have any.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Of these systems, I think absolutely.

Speaker 5 (55:54):
I mean, I think a lot of these systems are
going to wind up evolving into sort of dual use systems,
so they will enhance human judgment. I mean, one of
the one of the truisms that I'm jumping talk about,
I can talk about it my own military experience is
the experience of being in combat is being completely overwhelmed
by information and decisions and you're exhausted and everything coming
at you. So any tools you can provide a decision

(56:16):
maker on the battlefield to be able to make clearer,
safer decisions those you know, those tools are not positive.
But the implementation of these tools, you know, pose definitely certain,
you know, moral moral questions, and different societies will come

(56:36):
to different answers as to how they want to employ
these tools in the future. But I definitely think these
technologies can also be a great force of good.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Yeah, this is something we explore in twenty eighty four,
not only at the tactical level, Chuck, but this also
has to occur at this strategic level. When you're making
that decision about whether to go to war or not,
AI can look at every conflict it's ever unfolded in
the history of mankind in a nano second and make

(57:05):
a probably better informed decision than Donald Trump is making
right now about going to war an Iran.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Who should Here's so, I'm going to confess to a
dystopian show that I found myself more consumed with than
I ever imagined I would be. And it was called Fallout.
And I have no idea whether either one of you
have seen it. Elliott, you might be familiar with it, yeah, yeah,
And the premise of Fallout is in some ways basically

(57:36):
the corporations are more powerful than the nation states, right,
and the people behind And so you sit there and
you're like, well, that's not like, you know, it's science fiction,
but it's not totally crazy, right. We already now have
companies that are more valuable than Bigger in some ways
GDP wise, than many a country. You know, how could

(58:00):
should we be and how do you deal with this
in your dystopian future of corporate You know, the because
this technology is not being developed by the government, it's
being developed by the private sector, who's in charge of it,
who owns it? And therefore, you know, do you have
nation states that are essentially have to bow at the

(58:20):
altar of a corporation?

Speaker 3 (58:22):
In twenty eighty four in the book, we kind of
explore that with a very large international finance firm that
has a great deal of influence and power. And I
think that's quite realistic, and that real static power is
dialing somewhat away from nation states and somewhat toward private

(58:44):
entities call them corporations, call them finance firms, call them
big conglomerates. But I think nations are going to continue
to hold firmly to two things, one of which is
the ability to apply extreme violence at large scale. And

(59:05):
I think nation states are going to ensure that these
corporations don't get that level of power. And that's a
longer conversation how that could occur. But then secondly, I
think nation states are going to maintain control of currencies
of actual dollars and y one in every Euro's Nation

(59:28):
states are not going to surrender those and that's why
cryptocurrency I think has a kind of a shelf life
that's going to diminish. I think nation states are going
to remain prevalent in those two areas.

Speaker 5 (59:43):
I think just to Gem's point, I mean, sometimes we
lose sight of that. It's sort of because it's the
water that we swim in, but that you know, one
of the defining qualities of a nation state is that
it holds a monopoly on violence.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Okay, until it doesn't right well that I mean.

Speaker 5 (59:57):
That you as as a nation state, that's what de
fines you. You know, if I go out and you know,
kill another citizen, I get in a lot of trouble
for it. If we as DESI we're going to war
and we're going to kill, we are allowed to do that.
We have a monopoly on violence. That's sort of one
of the when the nation, when the modern nation state
was created, one of the powers that was given to
it was this monopoly on violence. That we're allowed to

(01:00:17):
use violence as a nation state, and that's seen as legitimate.
And so I think just this that's the Gem's point.
You know, do will you see the influences we've seen
of corporations over nations, Yes, absolutely, And as technology becomes
more powerful, you know, the technology that is private will
have so over a nation state. But the nation state
remains the entity that holds a monopoly on violence.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Let me cross those two streams, which is say, as
an example in history, British East India Company, Dutch East
India Company, these were mercantile entities that did raise in
effect private military forces both at sea and ashore. All Ultimately,
in both cases the nation state suppressed that and found

(01:01:05):
can't be two purveyors of violence in this same ecosystem.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
I think that's going to hold true for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Let's talk about you know, when you first came out
with twenty thirty four, it felt far away. We are
now eight years away. In theory, the next president will
be president when your fictional twenty thirty four becomes not fictional.
Now that we're closer, what do you think you're getting right?
And you what are you like thinks that the outcome

(01:01:37):
is still to be determined?

Speaker 5 (01:01:39):
I think, you know, I think for you know, each
of the books is obviously a little bit different. And
again there works a speculations. So I don't think ours
no no has ever been to you know, necessarily call
it right. But to say, listen, if you know, let's
not get these things. Let's not get these questions wrong
because we don't want the futures that we predict in
particularly in twenty three thirty four and in the other books.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
But I think one of the things that's been a
lot of fun in writing these.

Speaker 5 (01:02:04):
Books is, you know, seeing the ideas that we're tinkering
with and experiment and experimenting when it start to sort
of manifest themselves. So I think in twenty eighty four,
I'll say, you know, we've been working on this one
for a while, so I like to say to Jim,
you know, we were talking about Greenland before it was cool.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
So it's sort of you know, fun as we were.

Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
In the later stages of this book and to see
you know, Greenland and the future of sort of these
these northern provinces, you know, is very much up for grabs.
And in twenty eighty four, I mean, I don't think
this is a real spoiler, but you know, we talk
about the lush, verdant wine land that exists up in
Greenland and that they're making some of the best chardonnays
around in twenty eighty four because of climate change.

Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
Yeah, let me let me pick up on twenty thirty four.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
I think we have correct the ongoing tension between the
US and China. The fundamentals are bad between these two countries.
I think we get right a miscalculation that becomes a
spark to ignite the war that we hope we can

(01:03:08):
still avoid. One thing I think we got wrong in
twenty thirty four, which is not that far away. But
we did not bring artificial intelligence into it. It doesn't
play a role. I think that we missed by twenty
thirty four. I think AI is going to be deeply
embedded in all aspects of war.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Well, let's talk about the real world here. In this
most recent China trip that he had. You tell me,
I can't remember last time a president was so hat
in hand on a trip to China.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
I couldn't agree with you more. I think President She
had a great summit.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Oh my god, Yes, it ever was?

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
You know, I mean, let's be honest.

Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
Yeah, the title of the old Tom wolfbook, A Man
in full that's President She. He was definitely looked like,
acted like mature the senior partner. That's how it felt
to me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
I was.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
I was sorry to see that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
I think President Trump conversely, had a pretty bad summit
in the regard of how it played globally. Also, very
few deliverables. I think President Trump wanted to sell five
hundred and six hundred seven hundred Boeing jets, huge trade
deals on soybeans, beef.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
I haven't seen that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
Maybe it'll still emerge, but I don't see it as
a very good summit for President Trump. And I'll tell
you who it was a terrible summit for terrible for Taiwan.
Really brought the Taiwan question, not in a good way,
onto the jet And so I came away from the
summit thinking, no, not our finest hour, Elliett.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
How much what it? So? I participated in something recently
and I shared it with my audience. The Atolls Society
did a sort of a war game for politics, a
war game for a democracy, and there were three teams Nationalists, Capitalists, institutionalists,
and and I was curious because I was thinking, if

(01:05:30):
I were in your shoes, I'd probably want to participate
in quite a few sort of of of war games
to use it or simulations like this? Did you do that?
Is that helpful? And what simulations were in your head
as you were as you were writing this with Jim?

Speaker 5 (01:05:49):
I think you know the process of writing this together
as often, but you know, we both read very deeply.
You know, we share a lot of books, we share
a lot of articles, and I think in that, you know,
in that at we start plotting out, you know, the
direction these books are going to take, and then once
you start telling the story, the story itself starts posing
immediate questions to you. Like, for example, when we set

(01:06:11):
out to write twenty thirty four, I think the initial
premise was, you know, what would it look like if
the US and China went to war?

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
And sort of almost like a guns of all.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
We started from that, here's the thesis if they go
to war? What does that look like?

Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
And what's the new work.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):
Backwards it's going to be? You know, we're like, okay,
maybe it feels like like a Gulf of Tonkin type incidents,
So what would that look like? And so you're asking
yourself these questions. There are immediate other questions that come down,
so it probably wouldn't surprise you that very quickly, like okay,
the US you know, suffers a surprising loss, and then
we're like, well what about nuclear weapons? Like of course,
and like that question gets posed to us in twenty

(01:06:45):
thirty four and it comes up in that novel. But
it wasn't a question that we set out with, right,
It's a question that just becomes obvious as you start
going down this sequential path of what will happen? I
mean and other questions because you know, you brought up
the politics. You know, a question was, you know, in
twenty thirty four, who's president?

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
You know?

Speaker 5 (01:07:02):
And in twenty thirty four we have an independent as president,
the first endeprind in since George Washington in twenty fifty four.
We imagine domestic politics in the US that the parties
have basically dissolved, and so you have a sort of
extremist party called the Truthers against a more kind of
raventious independent party that we call the Dreamers. And by

(01:07:26):
the time you get to twenty eighty four, some of
the political contours of the US have melted away. So
you know, Florida has broken off and become an independent republic,
and some of the Pacific states are also broken away
from the United States. Now are we predicting that's what's
going to happen necessarily, But we're engaging in these types
of thought experiment. That's because what's so exciting about it is.
When you do that, it leads you inevitably to these

(01:07:48):
follow on questions about what direction you know, not only
we're going with our domestic politics, but also where we're
going with geopolitics and military questions that think get put
on the table.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
Really good at sort of identifying these forks in the road.
So walk me through the next five years of the
forks in the road we're going to have that you
think are going to make decisions about whether your novels
look more accurate or less accurate.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
The biggest fork in the road is actually not in
that great geopolitical, turbulent world. The biggest fork in the
road over the next five years is right here in
the United States of America.

Speaker 4 (01:08:32):
And there are two distinct forks in the road.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
One is will democracy continue to be our central organizing
political feature, democracy being defined as the legitimate will of
the majority of the people making decisions. I think that's
a question. The second internal fork in the road, and
even more important, is can we pull together? Can we

(01:08:59):
overcome the big divisions in the nation. I think both
of those are questions that Elliot and I interrogated in
the middle book in this trilogy twenty fifty four, and
I think we're going to learn a.

Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
Lot about them over the next five years.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
It's going to be a very exciting time for brilliant
political analysts like Chuck Dodd to help us understand the
answers to those two forks.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
You know, sometimes Elliott, though, I worry that we can
be constrained by history, and it goes back to that
failure of imagination. So how do you both ground the
work in history so that there's a logic for readers
like me versus, which is how we began our conversation

(01:09:47):
this failure of imagination issue that I have a friend
of mine who says this constantly about the Trump era
failure of imagination. He goes, that's the number one thing
he talks about all the time when it comes to
how why opponents keep keep whiffing on Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
You know, I think it's sort of it it's it's.

Speaker 5 (01:10:08):
It's sort of that, you know, that classic idea that
you have to hold to contradictory I had thoughts in
your mind at the same time and not go crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
And what I mean by that is.

Speaker 5 (01:10:20):
We can't be trapped by history, but we have to
look to history to understand how human beings behave in
a whole host of situations. And I've written a lot
about war over my career, and I think one of
the things that's interesting about writing on war is that
it's this singular human activity that we have always engaged in,
and you can you can see how patterns repeat. But

(01:10:42):
at the same time, you know, the only thing you
can truly hang your head on is that everything will change,
and this idea that you know every you know that
that everything must change so that everything can stay the same.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
So I think we're we're.

Speaker 5 (01:10:53):
Always looking at, you know, human motivation, understanding the way
human beings consistently.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Behave in war and paulics.

Speaker 5 (01:11:00):
While overlaying on that all of the things we know
are going to be different, fundamentally different away humanity has
never experienced before, everything from artificial intelligence to breakthroughs that
are going on right now in the enhancement of you know, biology,
you know, the enhancements that we're seeing and the changes
in climate in warfare. So trying to take that sort

(01:11:21):
of deeply rooted understanding of history and human behavior and
merging it with new, unprecedented technologies and rankly turning that
into you know, a story that people want to read
that's character driven.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
At the center of all of these books.

Speaker 5 (01:11:39):
Are the characters, and many of those characters have through
lines that go from twenty thirty four all the way
to twenty eighty four, both them individually and their children
who appear in multiple books.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
What were your to both of you?

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
What were some.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Did you have any books that you read in the
past that attempted to do that served as pretty good
examples of what you were trying to do, or books
that you read to sort of help give you a
sense of, you know, how other authors have done this. Yes,
what was your inspiration?

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Very consciously, as we sort of mapped out the whole
project was Cold War fiction? And what I mean by
that is there were many brilliant books films in the
Cold War era that did help us imagine what the
terror and the horror of a global war.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
Would be like.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
Think Doctor Strangelove, on the Beach by Neville Shoot, the
Bedford Incident, Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy, Sir John Hackett,
the Third World War. Those were very much in our
minds as cautionary fiction, and they succeeded. I think it

(01:12:59):
helped frightened the world that contributed to avoiding a nuclear confrontation.
I always say the Cold War is the most important
war we ever didn't fight, and it is also a
singular victory for the West for our ideals, very very important,

(01:13:20):
and I think part of that can be traced to
this idea of cautionary fiction.

Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
So there are a few books on my mind.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
And final thought Elliott's wonderful point about character. You know,
you can write all the policy books in the world
about how awful it would be if there were a
nuclear holocaust event. Read on the Beach by Nevill Shoot
about Australia as the last country left as a nuclear
cloud descends to the south, knowing they are all going

(01:13:50):
to die, how do they spend those final days. It's
an extraordinary cautionary tale, deeply moving novel that has.

Speaker 4 (01:13:58):
Always been very much in my mind writing these books.

Speaker 5 (01:14:02):
And how would you answer that, I mean, I agree,
I mean all the books that Jim mentioned have certainly
been on our minds. I would also add, you know,
sort of in terms of the scope of the trilogy.
You know, books like you know orson Scott, Cards Enders,
Game Speaker for the Debt, you know, the works of
Isaaca as an off foundation, and these are not I mean,

(01:14:23):
they're not really science fiction, although by twenty eighty four
sort of probing science fiction. But structurally, you know, how
do you tell a story over generations so that you think.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
There's a TV show on Netflix based on a book
The Three Body Problem, which is also one of these.

Speaker 4 (01:14:42):
Sort of that is a terrific trilogy, by the way.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
And I have so a friend of mine is a
huge advocate of it, and I keep he's been pushing
me to do that. But when you were talking to
both of you, I kept thinking, you know, one of
the movies that may have actually helped. We don't know
how much it helped, but I just think about the
movie War Games, Yeah, and how it did catch it

(01:15:06):
got it went so mainstream. I have no idea whether
I had an impact or not, but you kind of
hope it. It couldn't have hurt.

Speaker 4 (01:15:15):
Well, I think it's one worth dusting off.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
Given well, I think it needs to be rebooted. I
cannot believe this is just I mean, in some ways
it was so ahead of its time. What happens if
a computer takes over our our military arsenal? Right, like Mike,
my god, that turned to be way too precious. Elliott,
you were about to say something.

Speaker 5 (01:15:36):
I was just going to say, I'm a huge fan
of that that movie too, Chuck, And we have a
tic tac toe reference in the books that is an
homage to Total Fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Look, I got a few minutes left, Jim, you did
Southern Command. I was speaking with somebody who's very aware
of sort of how the Cuban military works, and I
was reminded that the tourist industry is controlled by the
Cuban military, which is how they get their financing. This

(01:16:13):
isn't going to be Venezuela, is it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
I think Team Trump thinks it is going to be
ven the Yeah, but boy, I'd be cautious there. The
people of Cuba have no living memory of democracy. The
people of Cuba have a deeply embedded, hardcore military that's

(01:16:39):
been trained by Russia for decades. China has been a
participant in it. It's going to be a very different
and tougher nut to crack than Venezuela. And I hope
we are wise enough not to leap in with military power.
Having said all that, we say in the world of investing,

(01:17:02):
the foremost expensive words are this time is different, and
I wouldn't rule out that this time is different for Cuba.
And the wild card in it is the Cuban American
community in South Florida, which.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
You and I both know pretty well.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
They could be potentially very engaged here and I think
Marco Rubio is the avatar for that.

Speaker 4 (01:17:27):
So tough one to call. But no, it's not going
to be as well.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
That's I mean, that's my look. We know what the
outcome is likely going to end up being, but this
isn't going to be Venezuela. And that's sort of what
I don't I think people have an expectation that this
is going to be They're going to snatch Raoul. You know,
It'll be like taking one of those ninety year old Nazis,
you know, and you know we get to frog march
them and everything folds. That doesn't feel like it's going

(01:17:52):
to be technical. Yeah, and what about the island itself.
I think the other thing I keep hearing is that,
like you know, sometimes you buy a house that needs
to be rebuilt, but it has a good foundation. I
don't know if there's a foundation. I think it's a
I think this is almost like an abandoned island. You
got to start from scratch when it comes to infrastructure

(01:18:12):
and things like that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:13):
I couldn't agree with you more.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
I think what is.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
Underestimated is the scope of the problem here. This is
not a fixer up or this is a demolition project,
and you know it is not going to be easy.
I think Venezuela, you can make the argument they have
so many resources with the oil, the gas, the gold,

(01:18:38):
the rearers. Venezuela could be Dubai on the Caribbean. Cuba
not so much. And it's going to be expensive, hugely expensive.
And if we walk in there and suddenly we get
rid of the regime and we have to then construct
a new Cuba could be wildly expensive.

Speaker 4 (01:19:01):
I'm not sure we thought through to the far into
the economics of it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
And Elliott, since this is your you get into a
lot of writing. Is this what do you want to
do next? After this? Oh?

Speaker 5 (01:19:17):
I you know. I mean both Jim and I have
our own projects that we do independently. So I have
I have a book that came out last summer called
Sheep Dogs, which is a thriller. It's kind of a
heist novel, and so I'm working on the sequel of
that as well, and so and that's set up as

(01:19:38):
a be a TV series over at Apple.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
So I'm working hard on that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
And that's pretty good. He get the hit the series
ready to go before finishing the for the second novel. Huh. Yeah,
that's a great feel in that.

Speaker 5 (01:19:51):
And and I know Jim's got his projects coming out
that I'm sure we'll talk about, but I will I
will say, you know, we've been working together on this
since I think twenty eighteen, and it's and it's been
a lot of fun. So handing in and publishing the
last book, at least for me, has been has been
bitter sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
It's been a great ride.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
And I assume if somebody needs to read the first
two before they pick up twenty eighty four, right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
No, absolutely not, absolutely not. They all are very independent.

Speaker 4 (01:20:19):
Of each other.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
But you're rewarded a bit if you've read the other
tu sure, okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:20:26):
True for many trilogies.

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
I am just finishing up a two volume work of
historical fiction, Chuck. First one came out last fall, The
Restless Wave.

Speaker 4 (01:20:40):
It's a novel.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
You're back and you're going backwards, right, it's sort of
it with that, true.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
I am exactly, And there are many lessons from World
War Two that feel very very influential impression right now.
And then the sequel to that novel, second volume think
Wins of War War. And remember the second one is
called The Turning Tide and it comes out in November,

(01:21:05):
and those two I think have some potential for.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
Future cinematics. We'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
There it is. Look at you, you're mister IP. You
got a lot of IP sitting out there, my friend,
so do you, well, not as much as you, but
it is a you know how this world works these days, Elliott,
you still want to play in the independent arena in politics.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
I don't think. I don't think.

Speaker 5 (01:21:33):
I don't think right now, though I'm an avid watcher,
you know, and appreciate all the work that that you're
doing so as much.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
It's other people working, taking the work your dad did
and what you were part of and all that stuff, and.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
Predicting global wars and predicting DIMESTI.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
No, it is, but it's a bunch of patriots. So
you got to love that. Yes, at the end of
the day. Anyway, congratulations, I always learned something from you. Admiral.
Thank you. It's good to see Kelly. It's good to
see you. It's been too long. Am check all right?
My friends.

Speaker 3 (01:22:13):
Ask Chuck.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
All right, We're gonna 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. Thank you. 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

(01:22:39):
that trade off? Well, I mean, you know, there's there's
always a trade off to acquire power, and the question
is what are you willing to compromise?

Speaker 5 (01:22:54):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
When? What morals or ethics are you willing to compromise in?
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,

(01:23:16):
which means anything goes right, and that love and politics
are two things that where anything goes and outcome is
rewarded more than process. And there's always a line to this.

Speaker 5 (01:23:31):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
The question is is so, let's 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

(01:23:57):
still the right thing to do, why would you give
up fighting for 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

(01:24:19):
with a basically a coercive challenge earlier this year when
he said, you know, it's going to have to get
on board crypto. They're too financially powerful and our path
the majority is blocked by the crypto money. And if
you and so you have to decide how important is

(01:24:40):
that issue to you? Right? 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 subjective. You know,

(01:25:02):
you know, once 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

(01:25:25):
up to every politician. 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 3 (01:25:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
And you don't know. Sometimes you don't know what line
you won't cross until it's presented to you.

Speaker 4 (01:25:50):
And so.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
So I understand, you know there's trade offs. I think
ultimately you have to decide, you know, I try to
put myself you put putt put this in the other shoes.
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. If you think it is

(01:26:17):
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

(01:26:40):
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

(01:27:04):
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,

(01:27:25):
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

(01:27:49):
the hopium 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
pushbury districting may ease, but if Republicans hold control, it

(01:28:09):
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 bigger issue

(01:28:31):
is the twenty thirty census and the shifting population trends.
How do you see election results shaping jerrymandering 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

(01:28:52):
of political power frankly from the east to 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

(01:29:12):
that doesn't touch saltwater doing better, and certainly you're going
to see that expansion.

Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
In the South.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
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 in Arizona, you have a form of it
attempted in Colorado. We'll see what happens in Utah. They

(01:29:43):
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 state in the Sunbelt, they're going to

(01:30:05):
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 Florida and Texas may sneak into there, and every

(01:30:26):
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

(01:30:46):
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 (01:30:57):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:30:57):
Next question comes from grand Fa, Minnesota 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, and he goes. Long
time listeners 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.

(01:31:20):
Why is in 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,

(01:31:40):
we should not be asking approved disapprove. It's strongly somewhat
on each side. Do you strongly approve? Do you strongly disapprove?
Do you somewhat approved? 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

(01:32:03):
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 you to do

(01:32:28):
would give you the quote 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 somewhat and the strong, just sort of dilutes
it all because a lot of times the somewhat approve

(01:32:50):
is you know, when somebody's growing unpopular, they're somewhat approved,
is bigger than they're strong, and they're strong disapprove is
bigger than there'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

(01:33:14):
not doing a four part ask, 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. And
guess what I confess, I think we need to lean
in more on reporting the four categories rather than reporting

(01:33:35):
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 A five point thirty eight.
I think that they they both know that the somewhats
and the strongs give you better internal analysis to focus on.

(01:33:56):
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 betther and and so
does Hugh and both of their sites I think do

(01:34:16):
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

(01:34:38):
overall approval number doesn't change much, but the the makeup
between strong and somewhat is a little more volatile, and
I think it tells you more.

Speaker 5 (01:34:47):
And so that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
If my friends at the aggregation world are listening, I
think enough pollsters are I figured out 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

(01:35:09):
to aggregate guys, I think you'd benefit from it. I
know not everybody's aggregating that well. Do those that do
guess what we should push everybody. It's a waste of
time to just ask it as a two part question.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):
Next question comes from true Bill and he ends it
with go lions. All right. He goes, thank you for
your thoughtful analysis. Always appreciate your perspective 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

(01:35:53):
some sense of healing in our politics? You know, I
go back to something that is really sort of gnawed
at me, and 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

(01:36:18):
is an incentive structure, right, and sometimes you have an
unintended consequence. And so when you when 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

(01:36:39):
you end up de emphasizing over time subjects that are
not impacted, where your funding is not impacted by 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

(01:37:01):
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 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

(01:37:26):
early awareness of that our system and that this country
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

(01:37:46):
one ideology that was that we decided to cement. You know,
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

(01:38:06):
that we by choosing to emphasize what we chose to
emphasize when it came to deciding what completes and education
in the public school system, it didn't include civics or
social studies. And I'm glad that I grew up in
a house that just you know, thought that was as

(01:38:27):
important as English and math, also thought extracurricular activities, both
sports and music. In this case, I and more musical
talent than artistic talent. We're also part right 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.

(01:38:47):
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 God,
And it is shocking to me how little civics gets
taught in all sorts of whether it's private school, public school.

(01:39:11):
I've had my kids experience 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 American history. And if you're wondering, where are
the true believers we deemphasized, I wonder, you know, love

(01:39:37):
of country is loving all of its contradictions and complications.
And you know, I look at our complications. That's what
makes me a true believer. I think our system's 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.

(01:39:58):
We have a process to find some path to majoritarian rule,
not always feeling this majoritarian sometimes, And I think when
that gets out of whack, that's when you need to
realign as statives and make sure the majoritarianism is still
is still the backbone of what we're doing. But we

(01:40:19):
have a pretty good tool toolbox. But I worry that
we've spent fewer and fewer generations teaching. You know, It's like, imagine,
imagine not teaching. I'm going to say, I'm gonna going
to be very sort of old. I'm gonna sound an
old school traditionalists, Matt. Imagine not teaching your kids the

(01:40:42):
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're you don't realize you're getting taught
until till you need it. Well, we've stopped even explaining
the tools in the in the American democracy to our kids.

(01:41:04):
We've stopped teaching it. I've I've been pitching a potential
opening class for USC that was asked to design it,
to submit a potential introductory course for a Washington program
for incoming freshmen, And I said, how about just simply
the Constitution? Because the thing that I have noticed is

(01:41:25):
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. 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

(01:41:51):
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 amil inquire 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

(01:42:11):
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 the human element altogether, like drawing
districts based on population using geographic coordinates that something like
that realistically work? You know, it's funny, Daniel. I thought
that the twenty twenty and I wonder if COVID sort

(01:42:33):
of screwed this up, But I really thought that 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. And
I thought we would start to see competing maps. And

(01:42:54):
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 map.
Show me, you know, I want to see the options,
all the options, you know, rather than the option that

(01:43:15):
only fits my politics, right, and I think it's all there,
and I you know, I was I was hopeful that
maybe if and look, my friends and partners at DDHQ
are building a terrific hub for political intelligence. And I

(01:43:37):
think that by twenty twenty thirty, I have a feeling
we're going to my friends over there are going to
build something that it'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

(01:44:00):
maybe you just you know, and maybe what we're voting on.
I'm with you, 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

(01:44:21):
prefer a map that was super fair? Like you almost
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

(01:44:41):
we use a data driven model? Please? There's so many
things we needed 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

(01:45:03):
outcomes for political power based on, 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

(01:45:28):
thought I want to 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

(01:45:48):
I think what's happened is the parties have been hijacked
by activists who don't believe the other parties should have
a say that. You know. 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 politics in proportional terms. Yet our system,

(01:46:12):
you know, doesn't really reward proportionality. You know, would we
be better off with 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.

(01:46:34):
I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying that the
irony is that we're a country that essentially 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, you know. I don't know whether I'm a

(01:46:54):
mainstream voter and that I kind of think that I
want to have a foot and all in both camp
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

(01:47:15):
was the norm or whether I was raised in a
household that was unique right. And I think what we all,
what we all don't want to admit, is we think
we're the mainstream until we meet others and we wonder, wait,
are they mainstream or are I mainstream?

Speaker 3 (01:47:30):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:47:33):
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

(01:47:56):
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

(01:48:19):
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

(01:48:42):
are in one concentrated part of the state, in the
southeast part of the state. So if you just did
geographic it would sort of give an outsized advantage to
the Republicans. Right, So like, what is what is the
right way to balance it? Right? Right? And it all
depends on your own mode, right, If you're a partisan,
you're trying to put it in a way that maximizes

(01:49:04):
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 jerrymander.
You'd have to have districts that were kind of weird
in order to make sure you had a balance. And

(01:49:26):
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 less of the state. So just
an example, all right, last question mark from Ann Arbor Rights. Hey,

(01:49:50):
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 jerrymand I just
answered that first part, right, And on a lighter note,
how does your current workload compare to your time at
Meet the Press? The good work mark for man Arbor? Well,
I just talked a little bit about proportionality, right, I

(01:50:10):
think it it goes back to what what what do
a majority of your voters want? Right? Do they want
one party to have a political advantage or do they
want the market to decide this?

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:50:22):
The free market of ideas, the free market of the democracy.
And you know, like I said, I 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 smaller game.
I e. Primaries, right, I want more voters involved in

(01:50:43):
the general election, whatever that takes. And frankly, and that's
why I'm for all party primaries. I think we got
to get rid of 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

(01:51:06):
a competition between two independents, two Democrats, two Republicans, whatever
it is, that let the voters decide to the final two.
Final two ought to be. So 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

(01:51:27):
an important answer. It's an act of Congress. It isn't.
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 move
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

(01:51:49):
delegations if you want. You know, now, the reason I'm
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

(01:52:10):
we stop. We have stopped doing that for literally ninety
seven years. That was ninety seven years ago that we
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.

(01:52:35):
You know, you would see that various identity groups would
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,

(01:52:55):
it's the best relief valve to these gerrymander wars where
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,

(01:53:18):
up states turning left. So we're going to make all
the districts left and we're going to you know, all
of that. You know, first of all, majority parties will
keep chasing voters, and then you chase voters that won't
be there the next election, right, Texas Republic's are going
to find that out the hard way with Latinos in
the South. You know, they went chasing them thinking it

(01:53:40):
was going to help them with their remap and it
may end up blowing up into a dummy mander. 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 jerrymanders, I think
it brings a whole new group of activists in the

(01:54:02):
uncapped the House world. And again, I think you 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

(01:54:25):
those states too right, they would there would be more
opportunities and more likelihoods that you would have more of
your political diversity represented in the House of Representatives. And
that that was the intent, And I think the closer
we move 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

(01:54:48):
expand the house, this democracy becomes more perverted and less majoritarian.
And that that's why this is. This is the first
among perhaps men any 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.

Speaker 3 (01:55:12):
Over my.

Speaker 1 (01:55:15):
Week and month, but I'm probably as busy, if not busier,
because I don't 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,

(01:55:36):
some of which intertwined and some don't. 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 my ten my nearly ten
years and meet the press, which I was always you know, Luckily,

(01:55:56):
you know, I'd catch up every week because she still
had to put on a show. And whatever I felt
behind my I had to turn the 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 a little too much free time. Speaking of free time, though,

(01:56:18):
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 seventy two hours. Appreciate to 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.