Checking In On The Very Fun Election

There is still an election going on and this is an election podcast so this week we talk about, you guessed it, the election and Joe Biden's chances of winning.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together everything, So don't don't don recteal polyps are

(00:23):
more pleasant and generally a better thing than the year, which,
as many of you know, is the worst year ever.
And that is also the name of the podcast that
I just introduced. Well done, Thank you. Yeah, we almost
called this show worse than rectel polyps. You glad we didn't.
Glad we didn't. We really we really dodged a recteal

(00:46):
polyp with that. One side note, Now that Public is
selling masks, our worst year for masks look very very nice. Yeah, yeah,
we are officially grifting off the Rhona, so reward us
for this shameless behavior. But not sure how I feel
about that, But I mean it's cool because for every

(01:06):
non medical masks sold too, Public will donate one medical
grade mask to direct relief. Yeah, but they sold out
really fast, but I guess there'll be more in stock.
Why are they Why are they holding medical grade masks hostage?
They should just give those away for free, anyway, I
should say to our audience. I would I would say more,

(01:29):
but I have been stealing a medical grade mask from
a doctor's hands. For every one of these masks, we've
we've sold, so I should probably just step out and
Dan'll clean this up to whatever is appropriate. No, this
is all appropriate. So this week we decided it was
time to do a bit of an election update. You know,
hard to believe there's an election going on, but there

(01:52):
is that still happening. That's still happening, to remember that.
So we're gonna, you know, honor the original vision of
this show, which was to discuss the election today. By
discussing the election, everyone's favorite topic, lots of stuff, a cover.
We have to vote in November. Jesus Christ, we have

(02:15):
to vote in November. And I wanted to start by
by talking about that a bit, specifically about voting by mail. Um, so,
yesterday Nancy Pelosi vowed to proof the general election by
ensuring that everyone can vote by mail. Uh so, yeah,
let's talk about that really quick because it's generally a

(02:35):
good call. Thanks. Thanks, yeah, Bandana, Queen Nancy Pelosi. I mean,
she's got a whole array of scarves more like for
this Nancy Pelos Antifa. Right. Um, I don't love her politics,
but I do love her collection of next scarves. Um,

(02:58):
most of you are probably a where that Democrats have
been fighting to include funding for vote by mail in
the upcoming election in the next stimulus package, you know,
to avoid that, you know, to avoid an unmitigated disaster
in November, like the situation we saw in Wisconsin in
early April. In case you need a quick refresher, Democrats

(03:18):
um and the state's Democratic governor pushed to delay Wisconsin's primary,
but then Republicans overruled that, forcing people to choose between
doing their democratic duty and obeying the law and protecting
their families by sheltering in place. Um, look partisan, Oh
why am I so hard for me today? It's okay,

(03:39):
it's hard for everybody. Because there's a horrible outbreak that's
changing life in terrible fundamental midways, and the people in
charge of responding to it are incompetent at best and
actively malicious at worst. And I said, yeah, what Google
current Events? Yeah, Google incompetent at best and actively malicious

(04:03):
at worst. And several photographs will come up, and they
will all be of Nancy Pelosi hybridized with Donald Trump
through some sort of horrific algorithm that forms them into
one collective monster that simultaneously forces people to vote in elections,
except for elections in which somebody is supporting Medicare for
all could win and also simultaneously attempts to restrict And

(04:27):
I don't know, it's fucking I hate all these people
so much. That's fair. But upon googling that phrase, the
first hit is a Reddit post called Reddit's head of
Network Security. That's also probably accurate. Yeah, anyway, thank you
for that. My point is that public health and safety

(04:50):
shouldn't be a partisan issue, but apparently it is. Um
interesting since we just we're mentioning Wisconsin. As of this week,
already forty cases of coronavi iris have been linked to
the Wisconsin primary. Wow. Look, requiring that people show up

(05:10):
to vote in person, honestly, any time, but especially during
a pandemic is voter disenfranchisement. It disproportionately affects poor people,
people of people of color. Uh, and that is even
more impacted during a crisis like this. Um. But unfortunately,
Donald Trump, the White House his allies Republicans are continually

(05:32):
attacking the proposal to expand mail in balloting, despite Trump
himself using a mail in ballot in the Florida primary.
You know. Uh, they're arguing that it is vulnerable to
fraud uh, and Trump even openly admitted on Fox News
that it would probably hurt their parties chances in November
if we had vote by mail. Uh, He said, quote,

(05:52):
you'd never have a Republican elected in this country. Again,
also at at a recent press conference, he said, may
ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because
they're cheaters. They go and collect them, they're fraudulent in
many cases. So is that true. No, it's not. Thank
you for your report, Katie. In conclusion, you are wrong. Um.

(06:16):
This is a excerpt from a writer's article. Quote. A
series of academic, government, and news investigations over the years
have found little evidence of election fraud of any kind.
Utah and four other states that vote entirely by mail Hawaii, Oregon, Washington,
and Colorado have reported little fraud. Trump, who was often
said without evidence that millions voted illegally in twenty sixteen,

(06:38):
formed a commission after the campaign to investigate It disbanded
in January without finding any evidence to back his allegations.
Election experts say there have been scattered incidences of people
collecting in and manipulating absentee ballots in a process called
as known as ballot harvesting. The most recent example came
in North Carolina congressional race, the alcome of which was

(07:00):
overturned when it was determined and operative gathered ballots for
the Republican candidate. Way. Just to summarize, it's not a thing,
but the only time it's been a thing, it's been
a Republican thing. Um. As I just mentioned, five states
already vote entirely by mail. Uh. Since this started, this

(07:22):
crisis started, more than a dozen states have postponed their
primaries and expanded vote by mail for their citizens. New
York State just canceled their primary. We're gonna talk about
that a little bit later, I believe um uh. More
states are now allowing people to request vote by mail
ballots without meeting an excuse like they have in the past.

(07:43):
What's interesting is that today, the day that we're recording
this Tuesday, UM, is when the Ohio primary is taking place.
Ohio was one of the first states to postpone their
primary back in March to buy themselves time and give
everybody a mail in ballot who wants one. So all
eyes are kind of on that primary right now to
see how it plays out, to see how the mail

(08:06):
in balloting works for them. So far, we've been hearing
a lot of mixed reports. Some people have requested a
ballot and got it right away, Others requested several times
without it showing up. In this situation, anyone who does
not have a ballot in the mail can also cast
their ballot in person, just not at a traditional polling
place because those are closed, but at local boards of elections. UM.

(08:27):
And it's pretty much expected that people are going to
be standing around in long lines to do that. That
is to say, the Ohio turnout will almost certainly be down.
Part of the problem is the disorganization and the chaos
that's happening right now. People needed to have their ballots
already weeks ago so that they can mail it back
in time, and right now we're also experiencing postal service

(08:48):
delays UM. And so there's a lot of uncertainty, and
it makes people feel like they can I wonder if
they can even trust that their their voices are getting hurt,
their ballots are being counted. UM. So that's going to
be interesting, uh to see how how today plays out. UM.

(09:10):
But they're so very important important Because I say this,
I mentioned that it's great that Ohio has made these
steps and we're gonna see what happens. But if we
are going to have mail in ballots and the infrastructure
there for the November election, we need to get that
approved and started now. The delays that are happening in

(09:31):
all of this chaos and confusion cannot be a factor
come November. UM. And we're still looking at seventeen states
that will need to change their policies immediately in order
to guarantee that, and and those states are the ones
that are experiencing very fierce political battles. For example, New
Mexico County Clerk's petition the state Supreme Court to allow

(09:53):
their June primary to be vote by mail, but state
Republicans are then suing to stop that. Um. And it's
just all it's incredibly frustrating. It's just kind of a
big fucking mess. Uh. And it's going to be expensive. Again.
This needs to This is why Democrats are fighting to
have it included in the stimulus packages, and that itself

(10:15):
is becoming a partisan battle, you know, saying Democrats are
standing in the way of getting people their relief money.
But if we are going to have vote by mail,
this is it's going to be billions of dollars, you know,
millions just on postage, let alone the printing of you know, uh,
pamphlets to the actual ballots. You know what I mean. Uh.

(10:36):
So it's just a huge thing to coordinate at this
late stage. Cool. And the other thing that's important to
note is that Americans overwhelmingly want the option of mail
in voting. Um apparently uh. This is from NBC. A
new poll from the Associated Press NORK Center for Public

(10:57):
Affairs Research finds Democrats are now much more likely than
Republicans to support their state conducting elections exclusively by mail.
The poll finds that of Americans favor conducting all male
elections up from and another are opposed, but even more
percent favor a move to voting by mail if the

(11:20):
coronavirus outbreak is ongoing in November. UM. The poll also
shows six of Americans support allowing people to vote via
absentee ballot without requiring them to give a reason if
the outbreak is still happening. So basically, yeah, overall approval
for mail and balloting has gone up a lot, but

(11:40):
especially now that the coronavirus is happening, this seems like
a pretty obvious thing that we should be working towards implementing.
It seems like, yeah, it seems like there's another one
of those things that um is true and has been needed.
And the current since you're wation is really really really

(12:01):
highlighting that. And it's difficult because we have the way
our government works is that states make a you know,
decisions an individual level. So uh, and there's a lot
of reasons for that, but it's very difficult in a
time like this to make an overarching decision that affects everybody,
you know what I mean? M you know anyway, I

(12:28):
like this how this show is often a bunch of
details about what's going on and what's possible we can
and can't do, and then just like a dumbest things
going alongside. Yeah, in in Oregon, you just getting mailed
a ballot and you mail the ballot back and that's

(12:50):
how all voting has done in Oregon. And it's fine.
So do they not have the option? Do not have
the option of going to a poll? It's all mail in?
Or can you drop it off on the day somewhere?
I don't know, I don't think so you get it
a couple of weeks ahead of time, and I don't
know if there's actual like they probably are. I think
you can drop it off on the day. I'm pretty
sure they have like a drop off sets. Yeah, I'm

(13:12):
pretty they've got to have pulling. Yes, I'm I'm seeing
that they have pulling locations, they have drop boxes and stuff.
It's hard for me. I've never done a mail in ballot.
I've appreciated having the opportunity to because I like to
physically go down in person. I like to get my sticker.
I like to know for sure that I'm seeing it

(13:33):
going into the machine, and so I'm coming from that perspective.
I also desperately do not want to have to show
up to a poll in November. Uh. I want to
have faith that we've worked out the kinks and that
me mailing in my ballot means that it will get counted.
I want to make sure that I have my ballot,

(13:55):
you know, And I'm lucky I live in California, so
I will have that option. But for other people, UM,
it's terrifying. And again we're looking at Wisconsin people already
for you that they know of linked to the primary
new cases, and you know, it's much more than that. Yes, yeah,
because all those people have spread it to other people

(14:16):
statistically about two other people each somewhere around there, um,
maybe more. And it's yeah, it's incredibly irresponsible and um
I'm just looking it up a little bit right now. Yeah.
So one of the things like when you move to
Oregon and you register for a driver's license, you're automatically
registered to vote. Voting is done by mail. There's drop

(14:37):
off locations, and it's just like, you know, when I
moved to Oregon, I just immediately started getting and registered
for a license. I just immediately started getting ballots for
like voting and stuff, and it was just always as
simple as you check your vote off, you put it
back in the mail. You're gonna go very simple. No
reason every state can't do the same thing other than

(14:57):
it would be very bad for Republicans. There you go.
I was going to say, there's surely there are reasons.
So I guess my advice, uh, And in conclusion of
this section is call your representatives, especially if you live
in conservative states. Um, which always seems like a very
feudal action, but it's something that we can do and

(15:18):
maybe it will make a difference. Yeah, you know, It's
frustrating because this is one of the many a number
of things that would like if if we had done
the reasonable thing like Oregon did nationwide and had a
mail by a vote by mail system nationwide years ago,
the one thing we wouldn't be worrying about right now

(15:38):
is how to take care of the election. Everyone just say, well, okay,
but this this doesn't have to change at all because
we all just still everyone can mail a thing. You know,
we'll have to make sure that the post office maybe
we'll stop it from them from delivering you know, Amazon
packages that aren't food or whatever for five or six
days to make sure that they can like handle the load.
But like it wouldn't really require There would be plenty
of time this hitting in March for them to to

(16:00):
gure out a solution to it, and it would be
one fucking thing that we don't have to worry about
this year. But instead it's going to be a stupid
ship show that is differently stupid in every single state.
And I just hate it. Like it was guaranteed this
election was going to be not as smooth as other
elections when the coronavirus said, that's understandable. No government could

(16:23):
possibly handle a major national election perfectly. When a massive
surprise and precedented epidemic its, it was going to cause
some some some friction, right, Um, but it it doesn't.
It didn't need to be as dumb as it's going
to be. Nope, I mean I don't know. Are you
sure it did? We can't. We just we hate we
hate voting. Um, it's uh, I mean, every every single

(16:47):
election we have, the reaction is, wow, we haven't figured
out voting yet. We need to fix our elections. We
need to we need to do this better. And it
never happens. We just do it again. Uh. This country,
from what I can gather, one of the things it
was built on was the idea of voting. And we
still have not figured it out. No, why would one could?

(17:09):
One could suggest that that's by design, But um, hey,
who knows. Maybe it's just really really hard to figure
out the thing that Oregon figured out. Yeah. Maybe maybe
the only smart state is Oregon, the state that lets
you buy as many high explosives as you want and
doesn't fund at schools. Oregon, the perfect state. We got

(17:37):
it all figured out. You can vote, buy it mail,
your kids won't learn ship and our food banks are
out of food Oregon. All right, we're going to take
a real quick break for you know, in speaking of
a break, you know what isn't broken in these virus

(17:58):
filled times? What the fine wire guided laser missile products
that Raytheon programs. I couldn't guess that, Cody, you were
telling me the other day that you had a wedding
in Afghanistan that you really wanted to bomb, and Katie,
if I'm not mistaken, you had someone who needed a
missile made out of knives launched at their car. What

(18:19):
if I were to tell you that Raytheon can solve
both of your needs in one easy, one stop shop setting,
would be the best news I've had all day. Well,
pop on over to Raytheon dot com and listen to
these ads together. Ever, don't and we're back from those ads. Cool,

(18:49):
and I'm here com to talk about Joe Biden, the
Joe abides. Can we go back to ads? Yeah? I
wish um Now I want to We're going to talk
about the sexual very credible sexual assault allegations. Again, we've
already dedicated a lot of time. We will continue to
do that to them. At the end of this episode,
I am not going to talk much about this. This

(19:09):
here we're gonna talk about next has really nothing to
do with Joe Biden's moral character, with whether or not
you should vote for him, with whether or not he
is a monster or a decent person. We're going to
talk purely about can he like, how is he actually
faring in the polls, how does it look like he's
actually going to do against Trump based on this moment
in time and how the coronavirus has affected the election.

(19:31):
Um and it it is unfortunate, but it is a
fact that the question of whether or not Joe Biden
can get elected probably has nothing to do with whether
or not he's a rapist, because America has proven repeatedly
that they will vote for rapists. So we will talk
about that at the end. But it really there's a
good chance that even if Joe Biden comes out and says, yeah,
I did it, it will have no impact on his electability.

(19:52):
So yep, we so. UM. The most basic question I
had kind of going into my research for this segment
was can Joe Biden actually went an election against Donald Trump? Um?
Based on sort of the the information we have right now,
and if we care about trying to have accurate answers
to that question in advance of the election. We have
to start by asking the question, is there even any

(20:13):
point in paying attention to polls right now? Um? Now,
I've been very critical about Nate Silver, and I think
when we did our episode about like who you can
and cannot trust, we we maybe could have phrased that
better because people like took as we were saying, never
listen to any of these people, and that's not what
I was saying. I think our our issue with most
of them, with Tapper and with Nate Silver and the

(20:34):
others we talked, is that they often exceed their depth.
Nate Silver is a decent person to rely on when
he is analyzing how other people conduct polls, because he
spent a lot of time thinking about that, and he's
made some good points and been right about some important
things in the past. And one of the things he
was right about is he took a lot of ship
before the election for giving Trump a very realistic path

(20:54):
to victory and laying out in fact the path that
wound up happening. Um. So I do as as critical
as I am of old Nate. UM, I do listen
to what he says about the quality of polls and
what we can tell from polls in the past, And
one of the problems with trying to analyze current polls
based on polls in the past is that there haven't
been a whole funkload of presidential elections, and there have

(21:17):
really been like two that have occurred during massive sweeping plagues,
So we just don't have much good Like it's very
hard the data on how good the data is, isn't
there There are some people including m I T researcher
Alexander A, Doug Janni in UH, and economist data journalist
g Elliot Morris who will argue that early polls in

(21:39):
recent elections have been closer to the final outcome of
that election UH than early polls in previous cycles, and
thus polls at this point in the election are very
important to pay attention to. But there are other political
scientists who study polls who will maintain that well, early
election polls are more accurate, there's still not nearly as
accurate as late election polls, and the degree of shift

(22:02):
that they have is significant enough that they're not super
worth paying attention to at this point. So there's a
lot of debate even among poll analysts about this UM
and I'm going to read a quote from a five
thirty eight article about sort of this situation now UM.
So to better understand just how meaningful early general election
polling as we did our own analysis collecting all the
national surveys we could find from nineteen sixteen, spanning from

(22:25):
two hundred days before the presidential election to the day before. Then,
we created a rolling seven day polling average of the
margin between the Democratic and Republican nominees uh as that
allowed us to calculate just how far off the polls
were from the final election day votes share margin on
any given day, And what they found is that in
the last three presidential elections this kind of varied depending

(22:46):
on who wants. In two sixteen, the polls from six
months before the general election were two points more Democratic
than the final national popular vote margin on average, And
even though that's not huge, the size of the error
was enough that it kind have made what the polls
made look like a Democratic victory turned into a Republican victory. UM.
But in two thousand eight and two twelve, the early

(23:07):
polls missed in a Republican direction, showing UH six points
more Republican on average at two hundred days out than
the final outcome. Similarly, in two thousand twelve, the same
thing happened. They were biased to be more Republicans. So
kind of what we're seeing here is that when a
Republican wins an election, the early polls were biased in
favor of the Democrats, and when a Democrat wins an election,

(23:29):
the polls were biased early in favor of the Republicans.
And this has been consistent for the most recent elections.
So that's just something to keep in mind as we
talk about early polls, which is again not super useful.
M yeah, yeah, there you go. Um. I guess one
of the caveats is that posters are often surprised by

(23:52):
election results, so just yeah, um, so, I don't know.
In general, polling, particularly early polling, isn't super reliable because,
like I said, there haven't been a whole lot of
presidential elections and a lot of good polls to kind
of study as like a population sample. And also, a
one to two points swing in the polls can mean

(24:14):
a win or a loss for one party because of
the electoral college. So with all that said, let's move
on to the subject of Joseph Robinette Biden most young voters. Yeah,
so one of the things that I think is important,
like we all are on Twitter more than we should
be for our health, which is at all you should
not be on Twitter ever for your health. Um, And

(24:36):
a decent chunk of our listeners are very online people
as well, And if you are, it's easy to come
to the belief that, like Joe, Biden has almost no
support among young people and also almost no support amongst
Sanders voters, and the data that we have does not
bear that out. Currently, based on most recent polls, Biden
holds a sixty to thirty percent lead over Trump among

(24:57):
likely voters aged eighteen to twenty nine, which is one
point below the lead that Bernie Sanders has, one to
two points below the lead Bernie Sanders has, so that's
not a huge difference between them. Sanders is more popular
with young voters, but we're not seeing It's not like
a massive difference, right, It's like one ish points. Um. Now,
the leads are pretty similar, even though about fifty percent

(25:18):
of likely young voters view Widen unfavorably and Sanders is
viewed favorably by fifty eight percent. Of young voters compared
with forty two percent for Biden, which means a number
of things. Number One, young voters do favorably view Bernie
Uh significantly more than they do Biden by about sixteen points,
but also a lot it seems like most likely young

(25:38):
voters who don't view Biden favorably are still willing to
vote for him, primarily because he's not you know, Donald Trump. Um. Now,
it's worth noting that in two thousands sixteen, Hillary Clinton
had a larger lead among young voters against Trump at
this point, but it was still only about a one
percent you know, additional lead over where Biden is right now. Um,

(25:58):
she ended up with just a thirty six percent advantage
among young people in the election over Trump, and that
did contribute to her defeat. So it is worth being
concerned that the fact that Biden's even a little bit
weaker at winning young voters makes him less electable. But
also the difference between his kind of electability with the
young is is less than you'd think. And also we
have to keep in mind the fucking coronavirus is going

(26:20):
to continue to bite and hit young people particularly hard,
and that may as well make more of them likely
to go for Biden, just depending on kind of how
they react to everything. Yeah, and I found an interesting
quote in a USA Today article analyzing all this by
John Della Volpe, the director of polling for Harvard UH.
He said, quote, Currently, this is of young voter voters

(26:41):
picking Biden. Currently they are giving him the benefit of
the doubt. There are a lot of young people who
preferred Sanders, voted for Sanders, but are willing to say
in a two person matchup, they'd be with Biden right now.
He cannot take that cohort for granted. And my read
over his activities in the last few weeks is that
he's not taking them for granted. And I don't know
anything about John Della volt but I don't think he's
uper right about that. I'd love to be proven wrong,

(27:02):
but he It sure seems like Joe Biden is doing
everything he can to take Sanders voters UH for granted. UM.
And this is not just because of the sexual assault
allegations we're going to talk about at the end. UM.
There's a number of reasons to suspect that he's going
to have issues UM continuing to win these people over. UM.
One of them is a change that was made recently

(27:22):
to the d n c's delegate selection rules, and this
was made for twenty and this change pushes that any
candidate no longer running loses the statewide delegates they have
run and those delegates are real allocated to candidates still
in the race, which will lose Bernie Sanders about a
third of his delegates, which cuts his ability to force
concessions from the d n C at the convention by

(27:44):
about a third. Um. Yeah, So, and if Sanders doesn't
get about the delegate threshold, which he would make with
these delegates and won't without them, it'll be harder for
him to secure concessions. Frustrating. Yeah, and it's not likely
to make convinced young voters that Biden's not treating them
for granted, m No. I mean one of his most

(28:06):
recent concessions uh to attract them was to lower the
age of medicare to sixty. A lot of sixty year
old millennials also, like Hilary, that age was five. So
I don't know what Joe is trying to do there.
I mean, you're not excited by the fact that you've

(28:27):
only got twenty to thirty years to wait to be
able to afford to go to the doctor. God, to admit,
doesn't really get me fired up to knock on doors. Sorry,
what if I were to say that's just the length
between the original Star Wars series and the Star Wars prequels,
then hello, may I interest you? Uh? Joe Biden? Yep?

(28:51):
Did you guys know Joe Biden has a podcast? Yes? Yes,
we did, about downloads a week. Really is that all? Yeah?
We get we get that in a day. Sometimes that's
so sad. Oh, Joe, a lot of people trying to
gotta have him on the pod. No, we don't get
him on the pod. Amplify that ship. Now. I found

(29:14):
a more detailed breakdown of the situation in the New
York Times, and I'm gonna quote from an article in
that periodical that that is very um paints a very
negative picture about Joe's chances. Quote. President Trump and Joe
Biden began the general election campaign locked in a highly
competitive contest. The remains fought along the lines of presidential election.

(29:34):
According to national and battleground state polls, if anyone holds
the early edge, it is Mr Biden. He leads by
an average of six points in national life interview polls
of registered voters, But the election will be decided by
voters in the battleground states, not registered voters nationwide, and
there the story is not so clear or rosie for
Mr Biden. At the moment, a reasonable estimate is that

(29:55):
Mr Biden is performing four or five points worse among
likely voters in the tdtical states than he is among
registered voters nationwide. Now, the President begins the campaign with
strong support from white working class who powered his upset
when four years ago. He leads among white voters without
a college degree in an average of live interview polls
conducted since March fifteen, matching or perhaps even exceeding his

(30:18):
margin over Hillary Clinton and methodologically similar polls conducted late
in the twenty sixteen campaign. Now, there's a few things
that's interesting about what the Times found and kind of
their analysis of this, and everyone's analysis of these polls
is different, and they're all looking at different things. This
is the Times. We'll go into some other stuff later
that other periodicals have kind of looked at this differently.
But one thing that the Times analysis has shown is

(30:41):
that Trump's polling has improved with working class whites who
didn't go to college, which is the group that Biden
explicitly ran promising he could reach right like that was
a big part of his campaign, is that these Trump
voters are people that he can reach out to, and
so far there is no evidence that he has succeeded
in reaching this group at all. Um And the fact
that he campaigned on this as a huge thing and

(31:02):
there's no evidence he succeeded in doing it should be
a big red flag for the d n c UM. Now, well,
that may seem like it's Biden has been totally useless
as a candidate. It's actually not quite that simple, because
while he hasn't shown an ability to reach these kind
of um, poor working class, white, uneducated people that that
Trump has improved his performing with, Biden has shown a
marked ability to attract a voting population that Sanders did

(31:25):
poorly with and that the president relied on In two
thousand sixteen, uh quote, On average, Mr Biden leads among
voters over age sixty five by a margin of fifty
three to forty four percent nationwide, including a lead in
every live interview national poll was reporting a result for
the group. It is a substantial improvement over Miss Clinton
six point deficit among the group and pre election polls

(31:45):
in twenty sixteen. Now, that's fascinating to me because that
means that this the core we all kind of complain
about a lot old voters. Um went from backing Trump
in sixteen to at least right now backing Umden by
a significant margin. That's a really interesting change to ye.
And I I don't want to read too much into that,

(32:08):
but there's a number of things that could be I
wonder these are all from recent pulls, So I wonder
how much of that is the coronavirus hitting right? There's
like is it corona? Is there? How much of it
is sexism with that age group. Yeah, and that they
just didn't like right and just like the whole her
entire political history and then being like politically active and

(32:30):
engaged during that time, and um yeah, the Hillary death
list generation ru yeah and I I yeah. And that's
one of those things that might be a good sign
for the Democrats in UM if it turns out that
like old people are kind of over Trump, that's really
gonna hurt him. Um yeah, I will see. I found

(32:52):
that really surprising, to be honest. I didn't expect to
see that with Joe. Um. Yeah, now um. The New
York Times notes quote Mr Biden's early strength among older
voters is not easy to explain. It cannot be fully
accounted for by the changing composition of each age group,
although the ascent of the baby baby boomers into the
oldest age cohort maybe part of the reason, along with
the gradual departure of the more conservative silent generation from

(33:15):
the electorate. All together, Mr Trump seems to have made
gains among voters forty five to sixty five or perhaps
even younger, canceling out his losses among older voters. Overall,
Mr Biden also holds the expected wide advantage among non
white voters, although there's some evidence actually that that shifted
a little bit in the president's direction. Um. He also
seems to do worse among Trump is is doing worse

(33:36):
among white voters, though, So it's kind of like, yeah,
these numbers are kind of just shifting a little bit, um,
and a lot of times kind of cancel each other out.
And these big picture numbers are important and worth looking
at to see kind of where the country is trending,
but they're really only important for the election in as
much as they impact how things are likely to shake
out in battleground states. And yeah, Trump maintain is a

(34:00):
relative advantage in the electoral college, but it's not unshakable.
It's not like guaranteed. So he's very strong. It shown
to be pretty strong in Wisconsin, but that could shift,
especially after this debacle. And where it seems to be
shifting is an Arizona in Florida. Um, and this is
like Florida. People talk a lot about Florida as like

(34:22):
a Republican stronghold now, but he actually wanted to beat
Hillary there by a pretty narrow margin. And I found
a Newsweek article UM looking at kind of like Trump's
performance in swing states, and it noted that two recent
polls by Univision in Florida Atlantic University showed Trump ahead
of Biden, but another survey by the University of North
Florida showed Biden with a huge lead. An average of

(34:43):
the recent surveys by Real Clear Politics shows Biden overhead
by about point zero four or by about point four
percent forty six point seven percent support compared to Trump's
forty six point three. Now, that points to a really
competitive Florida and it also points to like maybe a
decline for Trump there because he won Florida with to
the vote, but he's pulling it like forty point three

(35:03):
right now. Um. Of course Obama had won that before. UM.
Pennsylvania also seems to be significantly more competitive. Biden is
ahead by six points there based on an average of
a couple of studies to Trumps, and Trump won that
state in two thousand sixteen with forty eight point six
percent of the vote. Yeah, so that's really interesting. An

(35:27):
analysis of a number of recent Michigan polls shows Biden
ahead of Trump by about four point four points in Michigan,
which is really significant. And what's most interesting to me
is that it seems like Biden is actually there's at
least some evidence, and it's not perfect evidence, but some
evidence that Biden is pulling ahead in Arizona. Yeah. So

(35:52):
if Biden were to flip Arizona and Pennsylvania, that makes
it real hard for Trump to win, especially if Flora
or is actually in play. The battleground situation. It's one
of those things I will probably continue saying right up
until the day of the election. I don't know, it's
impossible to actually gauge. We've all been but astray in

(36:14):
the past. Um, this is constantly involving. It is important
to track it and to see what's happening. I mean,
we see already. I mean there's all these reports about
the president's daily briefings through throughout the coronavirus. He's been
not not reading them because he can't read, that's right. No,

(36:34):
I mean the daily pressers he gives. He considers them
as a replacement for rallies, kind of, you know, a
way to get himself out in front of people, in
front of the camera. But it's not helping. I mean,
his approval writing right now is low. He keeps lying,
doing stuff that's proved demonstrably false, creating more chaos. And

(36:54):
now there's all these reports about how advisors and his
people don't want him to do them any more. Yeah,
I guess you need to block him from doing all
that stuff. I don't know, It's it's such a toss
up because even stuff like that, it's like nothing about
him or his behavior has changed, like since he started

(37:15):
trying to become the president. So like the whole like, oh,
he's lying, he's doing this, he's doing this. It's like, yeah,
but I think more people are piste off about it
because it directly affects him in a very weird, real
tangible way. Yeah, this the material situations have is there's
another interest one could assume. I think about it, but
it's just like I still go back and forth on

(37:38):
I'm not saying that it's something for us to get
comfort in. I'm just it's a thing. Yeah, And this
this brings me to another really interesting thing I found
in my research. So again, if you kind of are
stuck in the Twitter lefty bubble, people have talked about
what it is astered is that Biden kind of back
the funk away for a couple of weeks as the
virus really started to hit, and that this was like
a major failure of strategic or was the Democrats seating

(38:01):
ground to Trump. But the latest set of polls that
have come out, which are like kind of our first
raft of of of credible polls since the coronavirus started
to bite, show things looking better for Biden. His his
his electoral position has improved as he faded into the background.
And I find this really noteworthy because it does suggest
whatever you think about this morally, is a good idea

(38:23):
is a bad idea. It suggests it's possible. Too early
to say for sure, but it suggests that him backing
the funk off might have actually been an effective tactic.
And if this is the case, it's because Trump has
been a gigantic funk up, but because Biden always does
better when he says less. His best performances on the

(38:43):
debate stage were the ones where he barely talked and
will say he my my friend, continues to contend and
I agree with him. It was like the best thing
for Biden to do is shut up and go be
quiet and not do any gaffs, not step on any
more rakes. Um. Yeah, I mean that's that's what's That's
one of the reasons he was so successful, I think

(39:06):
is he's got he's got that name recognition that he
goes in the background. Um, he's been given that advice
by a lot of people too. It was like, yeah,
just like, don't don't speak, just like let everybody think
that you're you're the president guy, and just yeah, and
and it'll be fine even like because there's also like
a lot of you know, there's a lot of uh

(39:28):
we've talked about for distaste for Hillary Clinton specifically. Um,
and if you look in in a way that is
I think hard for most liberals and moderates to understand.
I grew up with this. My parents are convinced that
she has she has had individual political enemies murdered by
gunman um and that is a common belief. Millions of

(39:50):
Americans share it. Like it is. It is hard to
get across the level of specific hatred to Hillary Clinton
that exists. And if you look at like even like
averages of holes during that entire election, she was ahead
quite a bit, often like up up by nine points
this day and so on and so forth. But if
you look over time, there's a lot of fluctuation, there's

(40:12):
a lot of crossover. She would go down during this
month and then go up and then like he'd be
a little better and so on. But Biden seems to
be very consistently up ahead. Um, Like there's no there's
no back and forth. Really, it's it's like, yeah, he's
consistently at least higher. Yeah, And it's it's not impossible

(40:32):
that in a horrible epidemic that is going to continue
to get worse, with an economic crash that is going
to continue to get worse, and a president who was
constitutionally incapable from shutting the funk up. The best tactic
is for the the reasonable, decent candidate, or at least
the candidate you know that that's Joe's hole like him.
That's what part what he's running on is that he's

(40:53):
a decent man, that his best tactic is to be
a quiet, decent man and let Trump be a fucking
asshole and let that con and it might work. Like,
I'm not going to say that's a bad strategy, and
based on the current polls, it's certainly there's a It's
an arguable point. And again this is not getting into
the moral dimensions of it. It's just whether or not
it works, because this is politics and it's a fundamentally

(41:13):
amoral business. It might and so many people are And
again this is part of his pitch, not just that
he's a decent man, but the idea that, like people
are tired of talking about the president, people don't want
to be doing this every single day and wake up
and be worrying about that. So if you're also comparing
the constant disaster of Donald Trump to somebody who isn't

(41:33):
even there, that's going to be an easy choice for
a lot of people. To make you know what else
is an easy choice for a lot of people to
make wow, to sit through these ads were about to air. Oh,
I love them well together everything don't And we're back

(41:56):
from that really effortless adson I, um god, I missed
I missed you all too. Listeners don't know this, but
when we go out to ads, all of us as
hosts are ripped into a phantom zone of pure product placement,
and it is a nightmare of unimaginable torment which we

(42:17):
suffer for through all of you, for all of you
are listeners. Deals, amazing deals, amazing amazing deals. Yeah. So
I have a little bit more to say about Biden
and the the election. The whole picture, based on just
kind of all the research I put together, is not
super clear. The New York Times kind of analysis shows

(42:40):
a painfully close race, with Biden and Trump neck and
neck and battleground states and Biden with a comfortable lead
everywhere else. Um. Other less rigorous periodicals like USA Today
and The Hill give Biden actually a pretty sizable battleground lead,
and that has been reinforced by the most recent polling
in those states. Um. Now, there are two big factors
we see evit and stuff right now that could really

(43:01):
change this game come election day. One of them is
voter enthusiasm, where Trump absolutely annihilates Biden. Um. But about
of Biden supporters say they're enthusiastic compared to fifty three
percent of Trump supporters, which is that is shock? Uh,
it's it's yeah. And that figure for Biden is the

(43:22):
lowest on record for a Democratic candidate in twenty years
of ABC post polls. So that's not that's not great. Yeah,
it's not surprising, but it's not great. Um. That said,
the fact that only fifty percent of Trump supporters are
enthusiastic and he is a candidate who is backed by
a minority of the voting population, that also, you know,

(43:44):
you could see that as a is not a negative certainly. Um. Now,
perhaps probably as a general probably the most critical factor
in all of this is the economy. And the economy
was doing pretty well in numbers terms as we rolled
into January. Uh, um and yeah, Biden and early polls
led Trump led Biden by baout eleven points. And like

(44:06):
voter trust of how they'd handle the economy, the economy
is not doing so hot right now, so that could
have a real impact if it continues to be shifting brick. Yeah,
it comes down to for a lot of people ultimately
when they get into that booth, yep, yep, yeah, and
it's it's not looking great right now. So that's that's
another thing. Yeah. I want to close this segment off

(44:31):
by talking about where polls suggest Americans are landing on,
like the coronavirus ship and like how they feel about,
you know, all these protests cropping up stay at home orders.
About six of American voters say they are more concerned
that relaxing stay at home restrictions would cause more COVID
nineteen deaths than they are concerned that the restrictions will
hurt the economy, which is broadly good for Democrats um

(44:53):
strong majorities of Democrats and independence are more worried about
the coronavirus than the economy, while Republicans are divided on
the question, about half of them more concerned with how
the restrictions will affect the economy, and if the trend
stays well where it is, we're probably looking at good
news for the d n C. That's a pretty big
split even among Republicans, and the fact that independent side
overwhelmingly with dims on. This could move the needle in

(45:14):
a big way, especially if we see Republican dominated states
into early UH in their lockdowns early and that leads
to a corresponding wave of new deaths, and there's some
evidence that that's already starting to happen. This is the
kind of thing if it goes badly enough for the
Republicans that could flip the Senate along with the presidency,
which feels like a gross thing to say when we're
talking about potentially tens of thousands of lives, But this

(45:37):
is the soulless, gross political discussion moment for us, So
we're just going to talk about that. Um One particular
stat I find really interesting is that the percentage of
voters who say they're worried a family member might catch
the coronavirus has increased by twenty points over the last month.
UM So that again, this all kind of tracks well

(45:57):
to at least cut where the Democrats are standing right now.
UM So, Yeah. Another thing that's probably worth noting is
that since mid March, the share of voters who say
Trump is the most to blame for the spread of
coronavirus grew by eleven points, while net approval of his
handling of the outbreak fell by twelve points, and that's
by a morning Console poll. So things aren't trending in

(46:20):
a good direction for the president. All this comes with
the caveat that anything could happen at any point in
this election. It's not May yet. Yeah, it's not even
May yet. Aliens could land on the White House lawn
and Trump could fistfight their leader into submission, and that
that could have an effect on the election. Who the

(46:41):
funk knows um? Anyway, every time I realized how long
we have before the election, I my stomach drops. Just
the amount of twists and turns between now and then
are just you know, there's so many things as that
cannon will happen. Yeah, it's not even like officially, like

(47:04):
the nominee, like the convention hasn't even happened. It's yeah,
we are so early in this fucking process. But this
is all incredibly important to know and to be aware
of as a waiting through all of it. So yeah,
that carries me through my segment on let's look at
the numbers and not think about morality for a second. Cody,

(47:27):
do you want to bring us back to basic human morality. No, okay, yeah,
so we've already we've already talked about terror read before
on this podcast. UMS Allegations. You can check out a
podcast that is the name of this podcast that you're
listening to for more on that. UM. Tara was she

(47:47):
was one of the women who originally came forward UM
back in the day ninety years ago. UM about Joe
Biden's it's called a hands the approach to dealing with women. Um,
the handsiness, the grabby Joe stuff, the hair sniffing, that
kind of from all that ice cream. That's the problem.

(48:09):
I hate it when you call it sticky fingers. Oh no,
especially considering we're going to talk about Yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
Well I will not apologize. You shouldn't you get to
say that, but Cody and I have to express horror expressed. Yeah,

(48:29):
so she was part of that group back in the day.
Counted as a credible accusation, though Biden should note did,
and some really heavy air quotes, apologize for this behavior.
Let's listen to his apology real quick, I mean I
I I'm sorry this happened. Now. First, real quick, so

(48:52):
he said, he with a shrug. He says, sorry, I
invaded your space. Okay, very cool about the hair sniffing
and grabbing. Um. Yeah, it's interesting that he says that,
because when I was at uh the Buddha Bar in
Kiev and I accidentally vomited into a table full of
drinks um that that a family was having, I said

(49:16):
the same thing, um, which was that I'm sorry that happened,
because I was sorry that happened. But I still do
not take responsibility. We have no way of knowing you
know why the vomit wound up, that happened, and you're
sorry that it happened. Um. Yeah, it's interesting, like I'm
sorry that this happened. Yeah, like the time I was

(49:38):
throwing bottles onto the roofs of houses in Lubyana because
I was really drunk at two in the morning and
one of them hit a window, Like, I'm sorry that happened.
I wish it hadn't happened, but there's nothing I can
do now to make it unhappened. So why are we
talking knows if there was even anything you did to
make it happen. It's just a thing that happened. Yeah.
Correlation does not equal causation. There's there's there are ten

(50:03):
more seconds. Um. But but I'm not sorry in the
sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally
designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate. So that's ah, yes,
the classic sorry not sorry, Sorry this happened. I'm not
sorry in the sense that I intend I didn't intentionally

(50:23):
I didn't intentionally like do anything intentionally wrong. Um. I anyway,
I don't know if you you heard that apology, like,
good job, that's fine. Um, we don't need to over
analyze it. But nice try Joe. I guess it's my point. Yeah.

(50:44):
So anyway, that happened, uh again ninety years ago, and
we all seem to sort of forget about it, um
and continue continue on. Yeah, like that Ukrainian family exactly.
Yes now, but since then, uh Tara came forward with
more details about what happened to her. Um. Basically, the

(51:05):
reaction to this was largely non existent. People who weren't
ignoring it. We're calling it a smear job, a a
ploy by bitter Bernie Bros. They accused her of being
a Russian op of some kind due to a public
medium post. So great job over there at the Kremlin
on your ops. Um, uh. Some people were contacted, there

(51:29):
was some there was some extra reporting on it. Some
people corroborated certain details. Others deny that it happened. UM.
Some people remembered her being removed from being in charge
of the interns and then let go. UM. One thing
that Tara did mention also was that after it happened,

(51:50):
her mother called into Larry King Live and to talk
about this, and about a week ago that clip surfaced
UM or a clip surfaced of what seems to be
that happening. So a woman calls Arry King uh and
talks about an issue that her daughter was having with
her boss's behavior and whether or not they weren't sure

(52:13):
like what to do about it, uh, how to hold
that person accountable? UM, and weren't sure if they were
to go. I believe they specifically said, you know she
works for yeah, and and how do you how do
we deal with the situation like this? Also, what was
interesting about that is that the caller was calling for Mike,

(52:34):
don't have it in front of me the same place
where where Tara's mom owned a house. It seems legit
that this is it seems like it's it's her UM.
It would be very weird for her to have mentioned
this call and for this call to a similar call
to exist in it to not be her. Yeah, I mean,
I'll say, I think this is very clearly Tara's mom

(52:55):
calling in. Uh, it seems too direct to be doubted.
But I also think the fact that like a lot
of people might have called in complaining about senators sexually
harassing their daughters, that part I don't have trouble believing, like, like, yeah,
there could be us um, but yes, this is very
consistent with what she said before the video was found.

(53:16):
It's consistent with and so at least this detail seems
to be accurate. The call itself is a little vague,
you know, it doesn't describe the event that we've heard described.
One thing I've seen people point out was like, well, actually,
like one thing, she mentions that her daughter still expressed
like respect to her boss and the call, Yes, as

(53:36):
Tara did before the call was stated specifically, that's why
she didn't say any um. And I guess this and
we don't need to go down the laundry list of
all the things that people have been saying about this,
but it's another very similar thing we heard during the
Kavanaugh forward stuff. Um, why didn't she come forward? Why

(54:00):
she expressing this respect still? Um, I don't know, Like
women were still in Harvey Weinstein's movies, like I don't like,
I don't know what to tell you. Are we are?
I don't think it's too hard to wrap our minds
around why somebody, uh would continue to have respect or
at least publicly have respect for somebody, or wouldn't have

(54:22):
come forward with all the information, all the different things that,
especially that survivors of society is different even about this
specific kind of thing. Um, she obviously, uh like adored
him and respected him before when she wanted to work
for him. Um. So I don't know. It's just this

(54:44):
just an example of the kind of dismissive reaction to
this that we've seen, um in other scenarios where those
same people doing it now were like, don't do that
to those other people. But anyway, Um. A bit after that,
Video Business Insider published a piece by Rich McHugh, Ronan

(55:06):
Farah's old producer, um The Feast. The piece focuses on
two women, both corroborating various levels of details of Tara's story,
one a lot of details of it. One of them
was is a former colleague of Terroris. Lorraine Sanchez worked
with Reid in the office of a California state senator
in the nineties. She told Insider that she recalls read

(55:29):
complaining at the time that her former boss in Washington,
d C. Had sexually harassed her, and that she had
been fired after raising concerns. Lorraine remembers this happening. Um.
She actually she told Tara, like, don't worry. That kind
of thing won't happen until you here at this new job.
And the other woman that is in the piece, I

(55:49):
think is obviously the more compelling. It corroborates way more.
And her name is is Linda Lacass. She remembers, well,
first of all, if it matters to you, she is
a Biden supporter, Like, if that is a concern of
yours in these kinds of allegations, not a concern of mine,
but it might might be a concern of somebody's. She

(56:11):
is a Joe Biden supporter. Um, And she actually still
plans on voting for him, but still felt compelled to
come forward. So she recalls basically, uh, yeah, she recalls
she would smoke cigarettes with tera. Um. She's her neighbor. Um,
their daughters would swim in the pool, and they would
just have these conversations at night. Um and and at

(56:34):
one point violent men were brought up. What we were
We were talking about violent stories because I had a
violent situation. We just started talking about things, and she
just told me about the senator that she had worked
for and he put his hand up her skirt. I'm
going to read just a little more of Linda recalling
what she was told by read In about. I remember

(57:00):
her saying, here was this person that she was working for,
and she idolized him, and he kind of put her
up against a wall, and he put his hand up
her skirt and he put his fingers inside her. She
felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn't feel
there was anything she could do. She was crying. She
was upset, and the more she talked about it, the

(57:21):
more she started crying. I remember saying that she needed
to file a police report. Lak I said she does
not recall whether read supplied any other details, like the
location of the alleged asault or anything Biden may have said. Um,
I don't remember all the details. I remember the skirt,
I remember the fingers I remember she was devastated. UM,

(57:41):
so this is yeah the gist of her recollection. Yeah,
that sounds about and I think, I mean this is
all again this corroborates quite a bit here. Um, A
lot of the details that people have and saying like, well,
why did she change her story now that this and

(58:03):
this and as well, we again, this is a a
thing people have said about many other situations like this.
There are a lot of reasons people don't come forward
with specific details like this, um, and then wind up
doing that. One interesting thing I think about this is
that the reaction originally to this accusation that we've covered

(58:29):
on the other episode, that reaction is what made this
woman come forward about having heard this story. Um. Again,
she's a Biden supporter, she plans on voting for him.
But I wanted to come forward. Um. She said, you
know this happened, and I know it did because I
remember talking about it and from the piece. After seeing

(58:51):
how political operatives and news organizations responded to the claim,
the Biden camp denied it out right, and critics scoured
reads social media accounts for evidence of a reported affinity
for Vladimir Putin. Lecass said she decided to come forward.
And I'm not going to get into like specific people
or publications or podcasts or whatever who we're sort of

(59:13):
a part of that ecosystem, ignoring it, denying it, and
trying to smear her. But I do find it interesting
that that is that's what did this. The people who
have been uh putting their heads in the sand about
this or trying to discredit her are the reason that
this woman came forward to corroborate it more than anyone has.

(59:37):
And um, it's the kind of things that you know,
you've seen these articles, even this recent one, um, which
isn't what caused her to come forward, but I think
it's a good example of this kind of thing. The
Washington Post published to peace um recently yesterday titled the
developments and allegations against Biden amplify efforts to question his behavior. Um. Really, really,

(01:00:02):
I know, it's a very funny headline. They're doing, They're
doing their best, um, But that headline has been changed
and now it reads Trump allies highlight new claims regarding
allegations against Biden. Um. It is this kind of stuff
that is disgusting that is making people even more furious

(01:00:24):
about it. And it's making uh people come forward to
point to point it out. Um, even any mention of
this case, you're asked, do you like do you love
you love Donald Trump? Don't you? Um? And that's not
what we're talking about. There is zero consistency with how
people have dealt with, um, this allocation. And it's very transparent. Um,

(01:00:49):
it's very obvious. Why. I don't know how long this
can be sustained. He hasn't been asked about it. No
one wants to talk about just this, ignoring it. I
mean to be honest, right on up to the election.
Maybe yeah, it might. It might work out just fine,

(01:01:10):
like for the from of like the Biden campaign. Yeah,
like in my it might make no matter how many
more people come forward. It may have no impact on
the election whatsoever. That's just an ugly reality, the depressing Yeah,
yeah that I don't know that it will. We've already
elected I mean, we've elected tons of rapists and uh,

(01:01:32):
sexual assaulter perhaps our presidents perhaps, but um uh yeah,
I I just don't see it moving the needle, which
is a completely depressing reality. I mean, I I resent,
like hell that we're in this situation. I um, yeah,

(01:01:53):
it's it's not pleasant to be in a situation where
people are honestly saying I prefer that the competent apist
respond to pandemics and have the power to end all
human life with nuclear weapons, as opposed to the incompetent rapist.
Like that's and that all of these powerful women that
we may not like them, but you know, the politics

(01:02:15):
of the people that might be Biden's VP pick. Yeah,
that makes me sick that they have to swallow that,
whomever they are, and they do. They have to figure
out how to Yeah, they have to come to terms
with this, with this and at least at least address
it because and otherwise, um, I don't know, like how

(01:02:37):
credible any of these people can be seen as Like
that's that's one of the I think this particular case,
uh is uh really discussing that we're in, But in general,
there's this sense, um I think of of that where
like we're not even able to bring anything up anymore

(01:02:57):
without it being like this ugly, ugly discussion and like
you like Trump and you're like you like this, right,
and it's like how how how can we function? Um?
Shouldn't everybody at least be able to say, he's nobody's
first choice and he's bad for this reason. This is bad.
He should be doing this better. It would be nice
if he did this. And this is an allegation that's real,

(01:03:21):
and it sucks. It sucks in this situation, Cody, what
you're expressing frustration with is the real purpose of the
Russian disinformation efforts. More than anything, it's to make us
all feel like it's to make to make honest discourse impossible,
Like that's the goal. It's it's to crater the nation
by making it impossible for us to even fucking talk

(01:03:41):
about this ship. Um, Honestly, Russia doesn't have to do
any disinformation anymore. We just are all accusing each other
of being agents and ship. Yeah, there's You can make
a case that no amount of additional disinformation could do
functionally more damage than has already been done by the
fact that the reality of the disinformation is now in

(01:04:04):
everybody's head. Um, it's cool. Oh, oh it's cool. Yeah,
it's cool. That's it. Yeah, Yeah, it's um it is
impost drippy ice cream cone. Yeah. I mean the uplifting
part is that, outside of you know, the fact that

(01:04:24):
Joe Biden's a bad person. Um, the president's coalition seems
to be weaker than some people are getting him credit for.
And that's a good thing if it remains true throughout
at the very least, it's not nothing that is yeah
for us right now today to take comfort in. Yeah,
the right, the right rapist may win. Yeah, you can go.

(01:04:49):
You wanna pick me up? Check out today? Um, Hillary
Clinton surprise guest for Joe Biden's virtual town hall. Uh,
talking about um, women who have lost their jobs through
no fault of their own. That's a direct quote from
Joe Biden today. God damn it talking about it's all good.

(01:05:13):
I ruined it. I ruined it by bringing it down again.
I'm sorry. Well, well I've got something positive. Yeah, like
what we do. You can check us out online, a
fair pod on Instagram and Twitter. On the bright side, plugs,
I mean, I would recommend avoiding Twitter, but if you're
on Twitter, check us out. I have something positive to

(01:05:38):
earlier today, the episodes that we plugged this in specifically
haven't dropped behind the bastards. But I posted a link
on my Twitter to a go fund me for a
charity in Portland that is raising money to buy the
Portland Diaper Bank, which supplies free diapers to poor people
you cannot afford diapers, and we've raised about three thousand
dollars just off of the tweet um Bucks. So if

(01:06:01):
you go to COVID nineteen response and Diaper Need on
go fund Me, just type that in you will be
taken to the page COVID nineteen response and Diaper Need
or if you find my pin tweet on Twitter at
I right okay, you can donate and help people who
can't afford diapers for their babies afford diapers for their babies,
and that will make things slightly less awful than they
were before those women had diapers for their babies. All

(01:06:24):
of that. Robert Ever I Tried. Worst Year Ever is
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows