August 18, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode, Ryan welcomes Charles Fain Lehman to analyze recent polling that shows voters in deep-blue California and New York strongly oppose partisan gerrymandering, despite Democratic leaders’ threats to pursue it. The discussion shifts to America’s violent crime trends, highlighting the surge in homicides since 2014, the impact of progressive policies, and the disproportionate toll on Black communities. Ryan credits renewed law enforcement efforts and demographic shifts for recent declines in crime, emphasizing that sound policing and public safety remain top concerns for voters—despite left-wing narratives and social media activism. It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Girdusky is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gurduski. Happy Monday, folks.
Hope you had a great weekend. I know Thursday's episode
was a bit of a Debbie downer for a lot
of conservatives. I didn't have a lot of great polling information,
but I kind of do today, and I have an
interesting story that is good for everybody. It's not just
good for conservatives, it's good for literally everybody who lives
(00:24):
in America. So on the polling, two polls have come out,
one in California and one in New York, asking if
voters in those states support a mid decade redistricting and
partisan jerrymandering. You may remember Kathy Hogel and Gavin Newsom
in response to the efforts by Governor Greg Abbott to
(00:45):
redistrict the state and give Republicans more seats, they threatened
to do the same in their respective states. But they
do not have the same power in either New York
or California because those states have independent redistricting. The polls
that had come out asked voters in those states whether
or not they would support changes to the constitution because
(01:10):
both those dates forbid mid decade redistricting and for a
bid partisan jerrymandering. You have to go through independent commissions
and it is in the state constitution, so you would
need a rev You need the voters to participate in
the process to change the laws. It can't just be
Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hogel on their own core, on
their own women. So a poll from the University of
(01:33):
Berkeley found that only thirty six percent of Californians supported
Newsom's plan, in sixty four percent opposed. Making things worse
for Newsom is that not a single demographic latinocrats and
then it's women. No one supported the idea. Now, not
a majority of anyone rather supported the idea. It was
(01:54):
majority posts by every single constituency. Now that pole did
not allow for people to be undecided. You had to
decide whether you were supportive.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Or against it.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Another poll came out in New York that did allow
people to say they were undecided. It was from Siena
College and it asked New Yorkers the same question, do
you support this mid decade redistricting that's partisan jerrymandering. Thirty
five percent of New Yorkers said they supported it, thirty
four percent so they opposed it, and thirty two percent
were not sure, so it's virtually the same. Only about
(02:26):
a third of voters in both New York and California
say they support this redistricting efforts. In New York, there
was an actual outright plurality or majority in certain demographics
that supported it. The Democrats supported it, people lived in
New York City supported je support it in young people.
But that a majority does not make right. It is
(02:48):
the plurality by one point, but you would need over
fifty percent. And there was an election just three years
ago asking the same question. New Yorkers and New Yorker
said no, we don't want partisan jerrymandering. So there you go,
after weeks of liberals lighting their hair and fire and
stomping their feet and saying we're gonna oppose, you know,
govern apports efforts by jerrymandering New York and California, voters
(03:11):
in those states, in those overwhelmingly democratic states, sat there
and said no, because voters overall. I bet you, even
in Texas, that there was a vote for an independent commission,
they would probably pass independent commission. The idea of an
independent commission, whether or not it's truly independent, is overwhelmingly
supported by voters, so that's important. I actually also, by
(03:33):
the way I thought of this, I was thinking of
Kathy Hockel and Gavin Newsom and who they are as people,
and I have an alternative view to what I think
most people believe. I actually think Kathy Hochel and maybe
because I live in New York and I have been
there my whole life and I'm a New Yorker through
and through, I have a different affiliation to it. In California,
(03:55):
I think Kathy Hockel cares less about the letter of
the law the will of voters than Gavin Newsom does.
Because new someonelike Hokeel is running for president, right Hokeel.
If Hokeel is running for president, you know, if she's
the Democratic nominee, good luck. She sounds like she's deaf
and she acts like she's crazy. But if she, if she,
(04:16):
if he is running for president. I think what Newsom
is doing right now is something that I call chasing
the Internet. It's something that Tim Waltz did. Tim Waltz,
when he was a congressman, was a very moderate member
of Congress from Minnesota. He becomes governor and he moves
the far left and he chases these outlandish, stupid ideas
(04:36):
from the far left that you see on Twitter, because
that's really who governs a lot of the thought process
of staff. They sit there and say, oh, this is
what people really want. I'm going to follow it, and
they follow the Internet, and it leads you to being called,
you know, tampon tim It leads you to being thought
of as being not normal and that you are a
little bit out there and a little bit crazy. It
(04:57):
doesn't work out of people's favor. You never want to
chase the internet. Never chase Twitter if you're an elected official,
because Twitter is not real. It's a good sounding board,
but there's a lot of crazy and it does not
make up the majority where people actually are. So pulling aside,
there is a news story this week that I think
(05:18):
has important data and is an overall positive development in
our country. Edward Christine, who otherwise is known as Big Balls.
He was the nineteen He is the nineteen year old
DOGE staffer. He was attacked by a couple of black
teenagers in Washington, c while protecting a woman who I
believe was his girlfriend. They kind of said of significant
(05:40):
significant other in some reports, but while he was protecting
her he was attacked by some black teenagers and very
badly beat him. A total side note, by the way,
nothing to do with this overall story, but side note,
Big Balls comes from a very famous family. The liberals
lost their mind that this nineteen year old was trying
to slash the size government. So one day I was
(06:01):
up late at night, wasting time I should have been sleeping,
you know, looking up stuff on Wikipedia, either late at night,
if things are really really I'm truly suffering with sleeping,
which is a lot of times. I'm either on Wikipedia
looking up random music discographies of who produced what music
when like a complete knutbag, or I'm watching twenty twenty
(06:23):
four election reaction videos and playing Pimball on my computer.
But anyway, I was looking at big Balls one day
for whatever reason. And he is the grandson of a
man named Valerie Martinov I think I'm pronouncing that name correctly,
who was a Soviet spy that became a double agent,
inspied on behalf of the United States and was executed
(06:44):
in Moscow. How randomly cool of a lineage is that,
I mean, Big Balls is definitely in the genetics anyway.
So Big Balls was attacked by black teenagers, and President
Trump deputized federal officers to patrol the city of Washington,
DC and have this crackdown on crime. Now, I have
to say, I've never lived in DC, but I've been
there more times than I can count, and it is
(07:06):
a garbage jump. It is genuinely for our nation's capital.
There are homeless encampments underneath bridges and in parks. It
doesn't feel safe. I've seen shootings in the Chinatown area.
I've been followed by crazy people who are talking to themselves,
and those were not Democratic members of Congress, genuinely crazy
people who lived on the street. It is not safe.
(07:27):
It is just not a safe city, especially in certain hours.
And as of twenty twenty three, it had the fourth
worst homicide rate in our country, only behind Saint Louis
and Baltimore. I suspect actually they're now they're higher than
Baltimore because they've had a crackdown on crime there. The
homicide rate is so bad it is eight times the
homicira is eight times higher than the city of Fallujah
(07:49):
in Iraq. So I think anything to change the city's
current trajectory is welcomed. I mean, that is just the truth.
And I know that liberals are going to that. I mean,
I don't know that they're going to they have lost
their minds. You know, you know who else put troops
in their federal capital Hitler? I don't. I don't know
if they actually said that, but verbatim. But I'm going
(08:10):
to assume that someone invoked Hitler to make a comparison
to Trump about this move, because that's what lazy brain
deed people do. But while washingt d c. Is incredibly
dangerous still and especially in international standards, and let's see,
if you know, uh, international standards by the West, it's
safer than cities in like Columbia and Brazil, but it
(08:30):
is not safer than cities and like Sweden and Canada,
the people that we have to actually compete with on
the global stage. While it is, while it is dangerous,
overall crime in America has become much better. American crime
(08:51):
in America is on its way to a place that
we have not seen in living memory for most people.
So in the story of crime overwhelming Washington c And
by the way, the perpetrators of crime are overwhelmingly black,
the victims of crime are overwhelming black. I looked up
the statistic before in a black person in Washington CE
(09:13):
is ninety seven times more likely to be murdered than
a white American. There were one thousand, two hundred and
forty one Black Americans who were murdered in Washington C
in the last seven years. There were just eleven white Americans.
So anyone who wants to sit there and say that
this is white supremacy or whatever, the overwhelming group of
(09:36):
people who will benefit from any kind of crackton and
crime are almost always Black people. Rudy Giuliani, for what
he did in New York, saved more black lives than
Mandani will in ten thousand lifetimes of social justice bs
Washington C. Aside and that that statistic, though of crime
being higher in black communities, is overwhelmingly true. Across the
(09:58):
all country. Crime is down, and we are trending in
a way that we have not seen in a decade.
I know it's easy to forget because it's been over
ten years, but violent crime was on a steady decrease
from the early nineties until twenty fourteen. Then the death
of Michael Brown happened in Ferguson. The Black Lives Matter
movement was born in decades of progress. We're just like
(10:21):
wiped away in the blink of an eye, as is
always the case of progress. You know, everything that we
have that we enjoy society can be wiped away by
bad governance. And that's what happened with crime. You'll see
a number of studies that say violent crime more or
less continue to decrease. A big part of that is
because burglaries have massively declined over the last several decades
(10:44):
because people have home security systems and cameras and whatnot.
But I'm going to focus in on homicides because it
is the most violent of violent crimes, and it tends
to be a hard crime for cities to underplay because
there is a dead body. I mean, that is that
is the big thing that really makes sure you can't
(11:04):
fidget with the homicide numbers all that much. The homicide
rate in twenty fourteen hit four point four deaths per
one hundred thousand people, which was a decade lower. It
was considered a massive accomplishment in twenty fourteen. Then obviously
Ferguson happens and it rises to four point nine and
twenty fifteen, then it continues to increase through the rest
(11:27):
of the decade between five point five to five debt
murders per one hundred thousand people. Then Floyd happens and
it hit six point eight and twenty twenty the highest
rates in nineteen ninety six, and things are just I mean,
there's thousands and thousands of excess deaths. Well, the news
are breaking that this first half of twenty twenty five,
(11:50):
murder is down, not only just in major cities that
have had long standing high rates of homicide like Baltimore, Philadelphia,
and New Orleans and Saint Louis, even cities like Chicago
which have a bad mayor bad governance and still have
a disturbing high amount of homicides five hundred and one
so far last year. Crime is still declining Washington C.
(12:16):
Even in Washington C. Which is an outlier for being
high levels, I think twenty three murders per one hundred
thousand people, it is still on the decline side. Note
that was very, very funny. There's a New York Times
reporter by the way, named Linda Quinn who chided Trump
that she was like he said, DC's had the most
murder ever in twenty twenty three, and it's not the
(12:37):
most murder ever Justin's nineteen ninety seven, as if anyone cared,
like twenty years and give it a break, all right.
So the FBI statistics say that homicide will hit four
murders per one hundred thousand people this year. That is
the lowest level in sixty five years. Lowis since Neil
Armstrong walked on the Moon, or at least film that
(12:58):
he walked on the moon. I mean, whatever your opinion is,
but it is the lowest levels in sixty five years.
There has not been a time, basically in living memory,
that America has been safer when it comes to homicide.
And this is a great, wonderful development that we all
should be celebrating across party lines. I spoke to Charles
(13:20):
fain Layman of the Manhattan Institute of Hadding on this
podcast before to discuss why this has happened and how
it maybe could reverse in the coming future, how we
could see crime level spike. He's coming on next.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
With me today is Charles fain Lehman. Thank you so much.
He has a great story in the Free Press discussing
why the murder rate has fallen so significantly. Girls. It's
fallen by an estimate fourteen percent. According to Jevin Asser,
what would you say is the biggest leading indicators is
why our homicide rate is declining so substantially.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, you know, Look, I think that there's are two stories.
One is the story about burnout, which is murder is
concentrated among a small number of people. Usually it's a
function of those people beeping with each other, they get
into arguments, those arguments escalate, they shoot. Once I shoot,
you shoot that there's a cycle. That cycle burns out
because to put it very bluntly, eventually enough of the
(14:20):
shooters we did that, you're not gonna a pink pat
affectedies off. I I think it's quite likely that's.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Part of the story.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
But then another part of the story is that you
know that there's a large spike and murder in twenty
twenty that was downstrough both the cob pandemic and shutting
down the needle major institutions, schools, rich jails, et cetera.
That a lot of people on the street who are
going to bend. And then also of course defend the
(14:47):
police movement after Don George Floyd, which pushed cops to
do less and push them cops out of the profession.
I think that we have seen a slackening of both
of those tendencies where A we were opened back off
and then b I think a lot of big city
sex have realized that getting on board with the rhetoric
fund was probably a mistake. The New York Trains this morning,
(15:09):
I had an op ed basically acknowledging that defunds helped
drive the increasing time and saying don't bet sake again.
I think a lot of big city executives are saying
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Okay, So in twenty we had a declining homicide rate
from like the nineteen nineties all the late twenty fourteen,
and then Ferguson happens. And after Ferguson, I mean, it
goes up, it goes down, but it's really always kind
of never declining at a certain level. And twenty twenty
happens and its spikes are we below the Ferguson effect yet?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, I mean so I've written a little bit of this,
and my argument is basically, like the structural determinatives of
homicide say it should keep going down, which by that
I mean basically the population is aging and homicide is
mostly a young man's game, and also way more surveilled
in the population than we were twenty thirty years ago.
Everyone in the camera in the pocket, that should drive
down attending all speed. I said, we've now gone through
(16:03):
two of these cycles where twenty fourteen, twenty sixteen and
twenty twenty to twenty twenty two twenties homicide took off,
and you know it was mogely responsiblity, the viral instance.
You now have a lot of highqoloity evidence and says yes,
these viral incidents following followed by police protests really can
drive increases it increased in pose activities and increases in homicide.
(16:24):
Pollis into that. So you know, I think unless is
like the version of prices, when it's like the version
of creates these cycles. And we've now gone through two
of these cycles, and the question is what can we
avoid more of these cycles? So I think the answer
is there was a big backlash in you know, twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty three, you saw a bunch
of mayors come in. Eric Adams of New York, a,
Januel Luria and San Francisco is the most recent example. Folks,
(16:47):
who has public safety becomes the sale issue? Pro voters,
it becomes their top priority. They really focus on it,
and they exact will respond to that to be hopitabile
sometimes respond to that and like the is that you
can be a victim of your and the success at
this part of what you're seeing here in New York
City where the Acadams really has eventually gotten the crime
rate down platy precipitously, and now voters are like, Okay,
(17:10):
I'm less worried about crime. I'm more worried at cost
of living. From Mondanie for better or worse owns that lane.
And I think a lot of the reasons He's are
going to win and Ober Adams are not is because
public stagey is less saliens of issues. You know, I
think I think there was the backlash. I think we
kind of come to the end of the backlash, and
now the question is like, oh, we're going to start
Look at New York, you look at Seattle, you look
(17:31):
at Minneapolis. Are we going to start installing reacent these
asters going to start the cycle again?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
There?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
These are a free city that are likely to install
DSA member far left become the police tips in their mayalties.
I am very concerned that they're gonna you know, they
occasionally talking of your gay about the fund, but I
think they're going to start backpacking on the games that
we've seen over the past couple of years because they know,
you know, we're at we're at a local minimum. We
don't have to worry about anymore. We can go back
to the more radical priorities.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, I mean, Brandon Johnson's a mayor of Chicago and
Chicago's my rate still don't mind, So that doesn't seem
like it's basically what you're saying, it's a race between
progressives versus an aging society. What will happen that will
the DSA candidates overturn everything or will the aging society
eventually went out and we'll just have less murder because
(18:20):
people will be older, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I think the executive isn't the sole determinate And there
are structural factory right there is that burnout and she
looks I had a major humicide problem for a very
long time, and I think that's part by Johnson is
historically and flopular is good like a four percent of
profal rating and stuff. But yeah, I mean I do
think that the reality is that we do know what
works to suppress crime. We have the tools. It's no
(18:44):
only a seventies in the seventies, the nineties happens when
the only happens.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We know what works.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And since the question is like do you choose to
use this tool to not I think a lot of
cities chose to not use those tools for a couple
of years. Uh, they got the expected result. They bratched
it a deck, and then now it's just like, are
they going to learn History's lesson? I'm skeptical, but they will.
I kind of I'm concerned that we're going to go
back to this model like crime is down, therefore we
can know from the jails. That's my worry.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Well, Charles, thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Where can people go to read more about you?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
I think you find me on x at Charles MTh
Lehman and I'm alsoever at Cityjournal, citdydeak journal dot org.
You can find all of my writings.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
You're listening to It's a numbers game with Ryan Grodsky.
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Charles was traveling, so the conversation was short, but essentially,
we are falling in our crime rate because the local
municipalities have dumped, the defund the police, democrats, and we're
in an aging society. I think people underestimate how much
age plays in a role in our crime rate. There
is a wonderful book called The Rise and Fall of
Violent Crime in America by Barry Latser. He talks about
(19:49):
this a lot like the nineteen seventy saw this explosion
of serial killers and large crime, a large homicide rates,
in part because the baby boomers had hit their twenties,
and as Charles said, killing is a young man's game,
murders a young man's game. People usually don't start becoming
serial killers in their fifties and sixties. So as the
(20:12):
baby boomers hit their twenties, especially later baby boomers, homicide
starts picking up in the seventies. And as they start
aging out of the process and there are less children,
as the birth rates fall, there's less homicide, and that
completely that slows down. There were things like the crack
explosion and whatnot that increased it in some spots in
some cities, but that is the overall trend is an
(20:35):
aging society produces.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Less criminals, and we are in an aging society.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Whether that's good or bad.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That's a whole other conversation which I've talked about and
I probably will continue.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
To talk about. We'll see if the likes of like
Mandani and others will reverse these trends because they are
committed to the socials vision that doesn't include strong polasing.
I hope not, because overall this is very, very good news.
Now it's time for the ask Me Anything segment of
this podcast. If you wanted part of the Ask Me
Anything segment, email me Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com.
(21:04):
That's Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com. You guys mostly
asked me about campaigns and politics, and I completely understand,
but you could ask me about virtually anything and I
will try to get to it on the show. And
you know anyway, So this email comes from Brian J. Fox.
(21:25):
He writes, Ryan, it's the Numbers Game is my handown
favorite podcast.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Brian, thank you. That means a lot to me. The
founding fathers designed a bicameral legislature to win the House
representing the people and the Senate representing the states. The
seventeen Amendment, ratified in nineteen.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Thirteen to address corruption and deadlock, and state legislators established
direct elections for senators, fundamentally altering the bounds. Both chambers
are now beholden to voters, reducing the influence of state governments.
If the seventeen Amendment were repealed and transparent process such
an open legislative voting and ethics oversight for state legislators
to appoint senators was implemented, how would this affect the
(22:01):
Senate's composition and representation in state's interests? Would it improve
state's power in the federal system? Thank you so much, Brian.
That is such a good question, and I am not
going to lie. It is something I've actually thought about before.
And I know that sounds like I'm crazy, but I
actually have thought about this quite a bit of time
(22:22):
because I born and raised in New York. As I
always sit there and remind people if they can't tell
by this accent, but in New York we had the
state Senate used to elect the Senate US senators. So
the state Senate in New York for over one hundred
years was Republican, and then it was like this weird
(22:43):
Republican Democrat coalition of like modern Democrats, and they had
some sharing power thing whatever. But Republicans basically controlled the
state Senate for over one hundred years. They had I
think a four year break in that one hundred year process.
And had this the seventeen Amendment not been appealed, we
would have absolutely had two Republican senators from New York probably,
(23:06):
I mean, depending when terms ended, we may still have one.
It would end up being a Democrat, but it would
I mean, it would have changed now, it would that
kind of process of having no direct election to senators
that would ultimately likely mean I mean almost sure and
guaranteed mean like there would never be a Senator JD
vance Right because we would need then we needed the
(23:28):
people to vote for him. I don't think the legislators
would have ever voted for him. It would have definitely
created a situation where a lot of our most iconic
senators who have been there because they were outside the
box and appeal to voters not the party system, may
not have been there. Would we have ever gotten a
Verry Goldwater. Would we have ever gotten a JFK? Would
(23:49):
we have ever gotten a John McCain? I don't, I
don't know. I think for a lot of the answers
is no, So our whole history changes, right then, and
there by having this system taken.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Away and changed.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And I think that that's an important coveyat because it
would be much more politics as usual, much more kind
of insider insider baseball, because you'd have to appeal to
the party as a whole. Okay, So as far as
how would it go right now, now, the legislature has
(24:25):
just had their elections, So once again, this is based
on term limits, and this is based on whether or
not if the Senator would have still been an office
when the party switched. So it's not a perfect analogy, right,
it's not a perfect analogy. First of all, Alaska would
have been in a much different state because they have
a coalition sharing thing where Democrats have representation. So we
(24:47):
would likely see maybe one Democrat out of Alaska. That
would be one of the big changes, for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I'm looking to see.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I'm looking through the list right now. We would not
have a Susan Collins. That would be unfortunate since she
votes with the Republicans more times than not. We'd have
two Democrats from Michigan as we do now. We'd have
two Democrats from Minnesota as we do now because the
Democrats control that state. We have two Democrats from Nevada
as we do now, we probably have two Republicans from
New Hampshire, So that would be a big improvement for
(25:18):
the Republican Party. That would be a sizeable change. We
would have two.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Senators from Pennsylvania instead of just one, so that would
be a net plus of three, and we would likely
have I think that that's it, and maybe two senators
from Wisconsin, so.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
We would probably add all of four Republicans to the Senate,
so instead of having fifty three, because we have five
minus two, so we'd have three, So we'd have fifty
five Republican Senators. So nothing to break the filibuster proof majority,
nothing to ultimately change. But I want you to think
(25:54):
about like key legislation, right if we had had that
system in two thousand and eight, for instance, there's no
way Obamacare would have passed, or is very unlikely Obamacare
would have passed because Republicans had a majority of state
legislatures going into that election. So maybe they would have
elected a few new Democrats, but not enough that they
(26:15):
would have had the sixty threshold that only comes from
the Obama wave and I guess the six wave, but
that wouldn't have come from. If the legislatures are elected,
it likely there would not be too enough Democrats to
like New York would definitely at least one Republican senator
in that mix, if not too and other states would
have also had a Republican in the mix. Yeah, so
(26:39):
who knows our history much much much different. Our representation
would be different as well, and who we've had as
elected officials would be different. It's almost hard to like
live in that kind of alternate universe. I think it's interesting,
it's so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I don't even know if.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I would support that, but it would be something completely different.
Republicans would have had a majority in the United States
Senate for most of our time. They would have had
a super majority. Republicans would have had over sixty seats
then around twenty fourteen, because they almost had enough legislative
Senate majorities to do a constitutional amendment on their own,
(27:17):
it would have been something close to it would have been
at least sixty, probably in twenty fourteen, So there would
be a moment at the end of Obama's time in
office or Republicans would have had this huge majority in
the United States Senate, but it would have been a
blump in history. So yeah, it would lean more Republican,
but we'd have much much different leaders and who knows
(27:37):
how that will look, and likely a lot of key
legislation that Republicans have been able to thwart would have
would have or didn't thwart, rather like Obamacare would have
never happened. Also, by the way, another thing that would
have happened, the Gingridge Revolution, probably wouldn't have happened because
Democrats controlled the legislature. Remember this. Dem Crafts controlled the
(28:00):
state Senate in West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas well into
the mid odds I think until twenty ten, twenty twelve,
or twenty fourteen in some of those states. So yeah, Democrats,
maybe they would have had it because they would have
had two Democrats in Mississippi and two Democrats in Arkansas.
It would have been a radically different map, and it
(28:23):
would have probably continued the trend of conservative Democrats from
the south and liberal Republicans from the north much longer
than it ended because of the popular vote. Well, anyway,
great question. That's my overall thing. At a Republicans not
that many. We had a peak in twenty fourteen, and
it's really fascinating kind of dig down deep down. Brian,
(28:45):
thank you for that. I really enjoyed that. That really
brought the nerd of me.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'm going to actually go and give you highlights in
the next episode and bring you bring you some alternatives.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
In that fantasy world.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I don't know if it means anything, but I find.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It super interesting and very entertaining. Brian. Thank you for that.
Thank you all for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
If you like this podcast, please like and subscribe on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, wherever you get your podcasts,
and I will see you guys on Thursday.
Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gurduski. Happy Monday, folks.
Hope you had a great weekend. I know Thursday's episode
was a bit of a Debbie downer for a lot
of conservatives. I didn't have a lot of great polling information,
but I kind of do today, and I have an
interesting story that is good for everybody. It's not just
good for conservatives, it's good for literally everybody who lives
(00:24):
in America. So on the polling, two polls have come out,
one in California and one in New York, asking if
voters in those states support a mid decade redistricting and
partisan jerrymandering. You may remember Kathy Hogel and Gavin Newsom
in response to the efforts by Governor Greg Abbott to
(00:45):
redistrict the state and give Republicans more seats, they threatened
to do the same in their respective states. But they
do not have the same power in either New York
or California because those states have independent redistricting. The polls
that had come out asked voters in those states whether
or not they would support changes to the constitution because
(01:10):
both those dates forbid mid decade redistricting and for a
bid partisan jerrymandering. You have to go through independent commissions
and it is in the state constitution, so you would
need a rev You need the voters to participate in
the process to change the laws. It can't just be
Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hogel on their own core, on
their own women. So a poll from the University of
(01:33):
Berkeley found that only thirty six percent of Californians supported
Newsom's plan, in sixty four percent opposed. Making things worse
for Newsom is that not a single demographic latinocrats and
then it's women. No one supported the idea. Now, not
a majority of anyone rather supported the idea. It was
(01:54):
majority posts by every single constituency. Now that pole did
not allow for people to be undecided. You had to
decide whether you were supportive.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Or against it.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Another poll came out in New York that did allow
people to say they were undecided. It was from Siena
College and it asked New Yorkers the same question, do
you support this mid decade redistricting that's partisan jerrymandering. Thirty
five percent of New Yorkers said they supported it, thirty
four percent so they opposed it, and thirty two percent
were not sure, so it's virtually the same. Only about
(02:26):
a third of voters in both New York and California
say they support this redistricting efforts. In New York, there
was an actual outright plurality or majority in certain demographics
that supported it. The Democrats supported it, people lived in
New York City supported je support it in young people.
But that a majority does not make right. It is
(02:48):
the plurality by one point, but you would need over
fifty percent. And there was an election just three years
ago asking the same question. New Yorkers and New Yorker
said no, we don't want partisan jerrymandering. So there you go,
after weeks of liberals lighting their hair and fire and
stomping their feet and saying we're gonna oppose, you know,
govern apports efforts by jerrymandering New York and California, voters
(03:11):
in those states, in those overwhelmingly democratic states, sat there
and said no, because voters overall. I bet you, even
in Texas, that there was a vote for an independent commission,
they would probably pass independent commission. The idea of an
independent commission, whether or not it's truly independent, is overwhelmingly
supported by voters, so that's important. I actually also, by
(03:33):
the way I thought of this, I was thinking of
Kathy Hockel and Gavin Newsom and who they are as people,
and I have an alternative view to what I think
most people believe. I actually think Kathy Hochel and maybe
because I live in New York and I have been
there my whole life and I'm a New Yorker through
and through, I have a different affiliation to it. In California,
(03:55):
I think Kathy Hockel cares less about the letter of
the law the will of voters than Gavin Newsom does.
Because new someonelike Hokeel is running for president, right Hokeel.
If Hokeel is running for president, you know, if she's
the Democratic nominee, good luck. She sounds like she's deaf
and she acts like she's crazy. But if she, if she,
(04:16):
if he is running for president. I think what Newsom
is doing right now is something that I call chasing
the Internet. It's something that Tim Waltz did. Tim Waltz,
when he was a congressman, was a very moderate member
of Congress from Minnesota. He becomes governor and he moves
the far left and he chases these outlandish, stupid ideas
(04:36):
from the far left that you see on Twitter, because
that's really who governs a lot of the thought process
of staff. They sit there and say, oh, this is
what people really want. I'm going to follow it, and
they follow the Internet, and it leads you to being called,
you know, tampon tim It leads you to being thought
of as being not normal and that you are a
little bit out there and a little bit crazy. It
(04:57):
doesn't work out of people's favor. You never want to
chase the internet. Never chase Twitter if you're an elected official,
because Twitter is not real. It's a good sounding board,
but there's a lot of crazy and it does not
make up the majority where people actually are. So pulling aside,
there is a news story this week that I think
(05:18):
has important data and is an overall positive development in
our country. Edward Christine, who otherwise is known as Big Balls.
He was the nineteen He is the nineteen year old
DOGE staffer. He was attacked by a couple of black
teenagers in Washington, c while protecting a woman who I
believe was his girlfriend. They kind of said of significant
(05:40):
significant other in some reports, but while he was protecting
her he was attacked by some black teenagers and very
badly beat him. A total side note, by the way,
nothing to do with this overall story, but side note,
Big Balls comes from a very famous family. The liberals
lost their mind that this nineteen year old was trying
to slash the size government. So one day I was
(06:01):
up late at night, wasting time I should have been sleeping,
you know, looking up stuff on Wikipedia, either late at night,
if things are really really I'm truly suffering with sleeping,
which is a lot of times. I'm either on Wikipedia
looking up random music discographies of who produced what music
when like a complete knutbag, or I'm watching twenty twenty
(06:23):
four election reaction videos and playing Pimball on my computer.
But anyway, I was looking at big Balls one day
for whatever reason. And he is the grandson of a
man named Valerie Martinov I think I'm pronouncing that name correctly,
who was a Soviet spy that became a double agent,
inspied on behalf of the United States and was executed
(06:44):
in Moscow. How randomly cool of a lineage is that,
I mean, Big Balls is definitely in the genetics anyway.
So Big Balls was attacked by black teenagers, and President
Trump deputized federal officers to patrol the city of Washington,
DC and have this crackdown on crime. Now, I have
to say, I've never lived in DC, but I've been
there more times than I can count, and it is
(07:06):
a garbage jump. It is genuinely for our nation's capital.
There are homeless encampments underneath bridges and in parks. It
doesn't feel safe. I've seen shootings in the Chinatown area.
I've been followed by crazy people who are talking to themselves,
and those were not Democratic members of Congress, genuinely crazy
people who lived on the street. It is not safe.
(07:27):
It is just not a safe city, especially in certain hours.
And as of twenty twenty three, it had the fourth
worst homicide rate in our country, only behind Saint Louis
and Baltimore. I suspect actually they're now they're higher than
Baltimore because they've had a crackdown on crime there. The
homicide rate is so bad it is eight times the
homicira is eight times higher than the city of Fallujah
(07:49):
in Iraq. So I think anything to change the city's
current trajectory is welcomed. I mean, that is just the truth.
And I know that liberals are going to that. I mean,
I don't know that they're going to they have lost
their minds. You know, you know who else put troops
in their federal capital Hitler? I don't. I don't know
if they actually said that, but verbatim. But I'm going
(08:10):
to assume that someone invoked Hitler to make a comparison
to Trump about this move, because that's what lazy brain
deed people do. But while washingt d c. Is incredibly
dangerous still and especially in international standards, and let's see,
if you know, uh, international standards by the West, it's
safer than cities in like Columbia and Brazil, but it
(08:30):
is not safer than cities and like Sweden and Canada,
the people that we have to actually compete with on
the global stage. While it is, while it is dangerous,
overall crime in America has become much better. American crime
(08:51):
in America is on its way to a place that
we have not seen in living memory for most people.
So in the story of crime overwhelming Washington c And
by the way, the perpetrators of crime are overwhelmingly black,
the victims of crime are overwhelming black. I looked up
the statistic before in a black person in Washington CE
(09:13):
is ninety seven times more likely to be murdered than
a white American. There were one thousand, two hundred and
forty one Black Americans who were murdered in Washington C
in the last seven years. There were just eleven white Americans.
So anyone who wants to sit there and say that
this is white supremacy or whatever, the overwhelming group of
(09:36):
people who will benefit from any kind of crackton and
crime are almost always Black people. Rudy Giuliani, for what
he did in New York, saved more black lives than
Mandani will in ten thousand lifetimes of social justice bs
Washington C. Aside and that that statistic, though of crime
being higher in black communities, is overwhelmingly true. Across the
(09:58):
all country. Crime is down, and we are trending in
a way that we have not seen in a decade.
I know it's easy to forget because it's been over
ten years, but violent crime was on a steady decrease
from the early nineties until twenty fourteen. Then the death
of Michael Brown happened in Ferguson. The Black Lives Matter
movement was born in decades of progress. We're just like
(10:21):
wiped away in the blink of an eye, as is
always the case of progress. You know, everything that we
have that we enjoy society can be wiped away by
bad governance. And that's what happened with crime. You'll see
a number of studies that say violent crime more or
less continue to decrease. A big part of that is
because burglaries have massively declined over the last several decades
(10:44):
because people have home security systems and cameras and whatnot.
But I'm going to focus in on homicides because it
is the most violent of violent crimes, and it tends
to be a hard crime for cities to underplay because
there is a dead body. I mean, that is that
is the big thing that really makes sure you can't
(11:04):
fidget with the homicide numbers all that much. The homicide
rate in twenty fourteen hit four point four deaths per
one hundred thousand people, which was a decade lower. It
was considered a massive accomplishment in twenty fourteen. Then obviously
Ferguson happens and it rises to four point nine and
twenty fifteen, then it continues to increase through the rest
(11:27):
of the decade between five point five to five debt
murders per one hundred thousand people. Then Floyd happens and
it hit six point eight and twenty twenty the highest
rates in nineteen ninety six, and things are just I mean,
there's thousands and thousands of excess deaths. Well, the news
are breaking that this first half of twenty twenty five,
(11:50):
murder is down, not only just in major cities that
have had long standing high rates of homicide like Baltimore, Philadelphia,
and New Orleans and Saint Louis, even cities like Chicago
which have a bad mayor bad governance and still have
a disturbing high amount of homicides five hundred and one
so far last year. Crime is still declining Washington C.
(12:16):
Even in Washington C. Which is an outlier for being
high levels, I think twenty three murders per one hundred
thousand people, it is still on the decline side. Note
that was very, very funny. There's a New York Times
reporter by the way, named Linda Quinn who chided Trump
that she was like he said, DC's had the most
murder ever in twenty twenty three, and it's not the
(12:37):
most murder ever Justin's nineteen ninety seven, as if anyone cared,
like twenty years and give it a break, all right.
So the FBI statistics say that homicide will hit four
murders per one hundred thousand people this year. That is
the lowest level in sixty five years. Lowis since Neil
Armstrong walked on the Moon, or at least film that
(12:58):
he walked on the moon. I mean, whatever your opinion is,
but it is the lowest levels in sixty five years.
There has not been a time, basically in living memory,
that America has been safer when it comes to homicide.
And this is a great, wonderful development that we all
should be celebrating across party lines. I spoke to Charles
(13:20):
fain Layman of the Manhattan Institute of Hadding on this
podcast before to discuss why this has happened and how
it maybe could reverse in the coming future, how we
could see crime level spike. He's coming on next.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
With me today is Charles fain Lehman. Thank you so much.
He has a great story in the Free Press discussing
why the murder rate has fallen so significantly. Girls. It's
fallen by an estimate fourteen percent. According to Jevin Asser,
what would you say is the biggest leading indicators is
why our homicide rate is declining so substantially.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, you know, Look, I think that there's are two stories.
One is the story about burnout, which is murder is
concentrated among a small number of people. Usually it's a
function of those people beeping with each other, they get
into arguments, those arguments escalate, they shoot. Once I shoot,
you shoot that there's a cycle. That cycle burns out
because to put it very bluntly, eventually enough of the
(14:20):
shooters we did that, you're not gonna a pink pat
affectedies off. I I think it's quite likely that's.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Part of the story.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
But then another part of the story is that you
know that there's a large spike and murder in twenty
twenty that was downstrough both the cob pandemic and shutting
down the needle major institutions, schools, rich jails, et cetera.
That a lot of people on the street who are
going to bend. And then also of course defend the
(14:47):
police movement after Don George Floyd, which pushed cops to
do less and push them cops out of the profession.
I think that we have seen a slackening of both
of those tendencies where A we were opened back off
and then b I think a lot of big city
sex have realized that getting on board with the rhetoric
fund was probably a mistake. The New York Trains this morning,
(15:09):
I had an op ed basically acknowledging that defunds helped
drive the increasing time and saying don't bet sake again.
I think a lot of big city executives are saying
the same thing.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Okay, So in twenty we had a declining homicide rate
from like the nineteen nineties all the late twenty fourteen,
and then Ferguson happens. And after Ferguson, I mean, it
goes up, it goes down, but it's really always kind
of never declining at a certain level. And twenty twenty
happens and its spikes are we below the Ferguson effect yet?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, I mean so I've written a little bit of this,
and my argument is basically, like the structural determinatives of
homicide say it should keep going down, which by that
I mean basically the population is aging and homicide is
mostly a young man's game, and also way more surveilled
in the population than we were twenty thirty years ago.
Everyone in the camera in the pocket, that should drive
down attending all speed. I said, we've now gone through
(16:03):
two of these cycles where twenty fourteen, twenty sixteen and
twenty twenty to twenty twenty two twenties homicide took off,
and you know it was mogely responsiblity, the viral instance.
You now have a lot of highqoloity evidence and says yes,
these viral incidents following followed by police protests really can
drive increases it increased in pose activities and increases in homicide.
(16:24):
Pollis into that. So you know, I think unless is
like the version of prices, when it's like the version
of creates these cycles. And we've now gone through two
of these cycles, and the question is what can we
avoid more of these cycles? So I think the answer
is there was a big backlash in you know, twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty three, you saw a bunch
of mayors come in. Eric Adams of New York, a,
Januel Luria and San Francisco is the most recent example. Folks,
(16:47):
who has public safety becomes the sale issue? Pro voters,
it becomes their top priority. They really focus on it,
and they exact will respond to that to be hopitabile
sometimes respond to that and like the is that you
can be a victim of your and the success at
this part of what you're seeing here in New York
City where the Acadams really has eventually gotten the crime
rate down platy precipitously, and now voters are like, Okay,
(17:10):
I'm less worried about crime. I'm more worried at cost
of living. From Mondanie for better or worse owns that lane.
And I think a lot of the reasons He's are
going to win and Ober Adams are not is because
public stagey is less saliens of issues. You know, I
think I think there was the backlash. I think we
kind of come to the end of the backlash, and
now the question is like, oh, we're going to start
Look at New York, you look at Seattle, you look
(17:31):
at Minneapolis. Are we going to start installing reacent these
asters going to start the cycle again?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
There?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
These are a free city that are likely to install
DSA member far left become the police tips in their mayalties.
I am very concerned that they're gonna you know, they
occasionally talking of your gay about the fund, but I
think they're going to start backpacking on the games that
we've seen over the past couple of years because they know,
you know, we're at we're at a local minimum. We
don't have to worry about anymore. We can go back
to the more radical priorities.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, I mean, Brandon Johnson's a mayor of Chicago and
Chicago's my rate still don't mind, So that doesn't seem
like it's basically what you're saying, it's a race between
progressives versus an aging society. What will happen that will
the DSA candidates overturn everything or will the aging society
eventually went out and we'll just have less murder because
(18:20):
people will be older, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I think the executive isn't the sole determinate And there
are structural factory right there is that burnout and she
looks I had a major humicide problem for a very
long time, and I think that's part by Johnson is
historically and flopular is good like a four percent of
profal rating and stuff. But yeah, I mean I do
think that the reality is that we do know what
works to suppress crime. We have the tools. It's no
(18:44):
only a seventies in the seventies, the nineties happens when
the only happens.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
We know what works.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
And since the question is like do you choose to
use this tool to not I think a lot of
cities chose to not use those tools for a couple
of years. Uh, they got the expected result. They bratched
it a deck, and then now it's just like, are
they going to learn History's lesson? I'm skeptical, but they will.
I kind of I'm concerned that we're going to go
back to this model like crime is down, therefore we
can know from the jails. That's my worry.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Well, Charles, thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Where can people go to read more about you?
Speaker 3 (19:15):
I think you find me on x at Charles MTh
Lehman and I'm alsoever at Cityjournal, citdydeak journal dot org.
You can find all of my writings.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
You're listening to It's a numbers game with Ryan Grodsky.
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Charles was traveling, so the conversation was short, but essentially,
we are falling in our crime rate because the local
municipalities have dumped, the defund the police, democrats, and we're
in an aging society. I think people underestimate how much
age plays in a role in our crime rate. There
is a wonderful book called The Rise and Fall of
Violent Crime in America by Barry Latser. He talks about
(19:49):
this a lot like the nineteen seventy saw this explosion
of serial killers and large crime, a large homicide rates,
in part because the baby boomers had hit their twenties,
and as Charles said, killing is a young man's game,
murders a young man's game. People usually don't start becoming
serial killers in their fifties and sixties. So as the
(20:12):
baby boomers hit their twenties, especially later baby boomers, homicide
starts picking up in the seventies. And as they start
aging out of the process and there are less children,
as the birth rates fall, there's less homicide, and that
completely that slows down. There were things like the crack
explosion and whatnot that increased it in some spots in
some cities, but that is the overall trend is an
(20:35):
aging society produces.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Less criminals, and we are in an aging society.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Whether that's good or bad.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That's a whole other conversation which I've talked about and
I probably will continue.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
To talk about. We'll see if the likes of like
Mandani and others will reverse these trends because they are
committed to the socials vision that doesn't include strong polasing.
I hope not, because overall this is very, very good news.
Now it's time for the ask Me Anything segment of
this podcast. If you wanted part of the Ask Me
Anything segment, email me Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com.
(21:04):
That's Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com. You guys mostly
asked me about campaigns and politics, and I completely understand,
but you could ask me about virtually anything and I
will try to get to it on the show. And
you know anyway, So this email comes from Brian J. Fox.
(21:25):
He writes, Ryan, it's the Numbers Game is my handown
favorite podcast.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Brian, thank you. That means a lot to me. The
founding fathers designed a bicameral legislature to win the House
representing the people and the Senate representing the states. The
seventeen Amendment, ratified in nineteen.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Thirteen to address corruption and deadlock, and state legislators established
direct elections for senators, fundamentally altering the bounds. Both chambers
are now beholden to voters, reducing the influence of state governments.
If the seventeen Amendment were repealed and transparent process such
an open legislative voting and ethics oversight for state legislators
to appoint senators was implemented, how would this affect the
(22:01):
Senate's composition and representation in state's interests? Would it improve
state's power in the federal system? Thank you so much, Brian.
That is such a good question, and I am not
going to lie. It is something I've actually thought about before.
And I know that sounds like I'm crazy, but I
actually have thought about this quite a bit of time
(22:22):
because I born and raised in New York. As I
always sit there and remind people if they can't tell
by this accent, but in New York we had the
state Senate used to elect the Senate US senators. So
the state Senate in New York for over one hundred
years was Republican, and then it was like this weird
(22:43):
Republican Democrat coalition of like modern Democrats, and they had
some sharing power thing whatever. But Republicans basically controlled the
state Senate for over one hundred years. They had I
think a four year break in that one hundred year process.
And had this the seventeen Amendment not been appealed, we
would have absolutely had two Republican senators from New York probably,
(23:06):
I mean, depending when terms ended, we may still have one.
It would end up being a Democrat, but it would
I mean, it would have changed now, it would that
kind of process of having no direct election to senators
that would ultimately likely mean I mean almost sure and
guaranteed mean like there would never be a Senator JD
vance Right because we would need then we needed the
(23:28):
people to vote for him. I don't think the legislators
would have ever voted for him. It would have definitely
created a situation where a lot of our most iconic
senators who have been there because they were outside the
box and appeal to voters not the party system, may
not have been there. Would we have ever gotten a
Verry Goldwater. Would we have ever gotten a JFK? Would
(23:49):
we have ever gotten a John McCain? I don't, I
don't know. I think for a lot of the answers
is no, So our whole history changes, right then, and
there by having this system taken.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Away and changed.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
And I think that that's an important coveyat because it
would be much more politics as usual, much more kind
of insider insider baseball, because you'd have to appeal to
the party as a whole. Okay, So as far as
how would it go right now, now, the legislature has
(24:25):
just had their elections, So once again, this is based
on term limits, and this is based on whether or
not if the Senator would have still been an office
when the party switched. So it's not a perfect analogy, right,
it's not a perfect analogy. First of all, Alaska would
have been in a much different state because they have
a coalition sharing thing where Democrats have representation. So we
(24:47):
would likely see maybe one Democrat out of Alaska. That
would be one of the big changes, for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I'm looking to see.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I'm looking through the list right now. We would not
have a Susan Collins. That would be unfortunate since she
votes with the Republicans more times than not. We'd have
two Democrats from Michigan as we do now. We'd have
two Democrats from Minnesota as we do now because the
Democrats control that state. We have two Democrats from Nevada
as we do now, we probably have two Republicans from
New Hampshire, So that would be a big improvement for
(25:18):
the Republican Party. That would be a sizeable change. We
would have two.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Senators from Pennsylvania instead of just one, so that would
be a net plus of three, and we would likely
have I think that that's it, and maybe two senators
from Wisconsin, so.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
We would probably add all of four Republicans to the Senate,
so instead of having fifty three, because we have five
minus two, so we'd have three, So we'd have fifty
five Republican Senators. So nothing to break the filibuster proof majority,
nothing to ultimately change. But I want you to think
(25:54):
about like key legislation, right if we had had that
system in two thousand and eight, for instance, there's no
way Obamacare would have passed, or is very unlikely Obamacare
would have passed because Republicans had a majority of state
legislatures going into that election. So maybe they would have
elected a few new Democrats, but not enough that they
(26:15):
would have had the sixty threshold that only comes from
the Obama wave and I guess the six wave, but
that wouldn't have come from. If the legislatures are elected,
it likely there would not be too enough Democrats to
like New York would definitely at least one Republican senator
in that mix, if not too and other states would
have also had a Republican in the mix. Yeah, so
(26:39):
who knows our history much much much different. Our representation
would be different as well, and who we've had as
elected officials would be different. It's almost hard to like
live in that kind of alternate universe. I think it's interesting,
it's so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I don't even know if.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I would support that, but it would be something completely different.
Republicans would have had a majority in the United States
Senate for most of our time. They would have had
a super majority. Republicans would have had over sixty seats
then around twenty fourteen, because they almost had enough legislative
Senate majorities to do a constitutional amendment on their own,
(27:17):
it would have been something close to it would have been
at least sixty, probably in twenty fourteen, So there would
be a moment at the end of Obama's time in
office or Republicans would have had this huge majority in
the United States Senate, but it would have been a
blump in history. So yeah, it would lean more Republican,
but we'd have much much different leaders and who knows
(27:37):
how that will look, and likely a lot of key
legislation that Republicans have been able to thwart would have
would have or didn't thwart, rather like Obamacare would have
never happened. Also, by the way, another thing that would
have happened, the Gingridge Revolution, probably wouldn't have happened because
Democrats controlled the legislature. Remember this. Dem Crafts controlled the
(28:00):
state Senate in West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas well into
the mid odds I think until twenty ten, twenty twelve,
or twenty fourteen in some of those states. So yeah, Democrats,
maybe they would have had it because they would have
had two Democrats in Mississippi and two Democrats in Arkansas.
It would have been a radically different map, and it
(28:23):
would have probably continued the trend of conservative Democrats from
the south and liberal Republicans from the north much longer
than it ended because of the popular vote. Well, anyway,
great question. That's my overall thing. At a Republicans not
that many. We had a peak in twenty fourteen, and
it's really fascinating kind of dig down deep down. Brian,
(28:45):
thank you for that. I really enjoyed that. That really
brought the nerd of me.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'm going to actually go and give you highlights in
the next episode and bring you bring you some alternatives.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
In that fantasy world.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I don't know if it means anything, but I find.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It super interesting and very entertaining. Brian. Thank you for that.
Thank you all for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
If you like this podcast, please like and subscribe on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, wherever you get your podcasts,
and I will see you guys on Thursday.
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