Brogressive & The Electorate Crossover Special

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Welcome back to the Progressive Podcast.
I'm your host, Max Levin. I'm actually honored to be here
today because I have a collaboration with the
Electorate podcast. We're actually here to welcome
Ian from the Electric podcast tothe show.
It's truly an honor to be here. I think our mission statements
of starting our shows are perfectly in aligned with each
other, Ian. Welcome to the show.
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
It's cool to see other podcasts kind of going after the same

(00:31):
sort of thing that we're going after.
So it's been, it's been great toto come on.
Well, thanks again. I really appreciate you coming
out here and giving us your time.
I want to talk already just off RIP.
Obviously both our show started with messaging failures.
Not to be a Mr. I was doing my detective work, but looking
through your show, I saw you also started November 24 just
like we did. What prompted you to get

(00:52):
started? What was the kick behind?
Hey, let's get this thing running.
Yeah, so it was kind of interesting around the time that
Joe Biden dropped out and was replaced with Kamala Harris,
there was definitely sort of an air of excitement and something
new and something fresh coming in, you know, 'cause it kind of
felt a little bit hopeless maybewith with Joe Biden sort of, you

(01:13):
know, floundering and the disastrous debate form
performance and all that. So I started floating the idea
that around with a couple peopleabout, hey, let's maybe put
together a podcast that kind of covers this and then covers the
election and moves forward. I had a little bit of trouble
getting people to commit to it. And, you know, finally I was
like, OK, well, maybe this just really isn't, you know, exactly

(01:34):
going to work out for me. You know, it's kind of hard to
have a podcast as a solo individual unless you already
have a pretty significant following.
And then I started watching, youknow, the election and the the
signs, the cracks started to appear like to us where she
wasn't going on the, you know, she couldn't get on the rogue
and podcast and whoever's fault that was we something different
discussion to have. But she wasn't she was only

(01:55):
doing the traditional media stuff.
And then the stuff that she was doing outside of traditional
media kind of felt like it wasn't, I don't know.
It just didn't feel right. It didn't feel, it didn't feel
organic, didn't feel correct. So I was watched the election
and obviously didn't go the way we sort of expected.
And it was at that time I was like, OK, you know, maybe I'll
just start it by myself for no other reason than to sort of

(02:16):
vent my own frustrations and, and, you know, get on and just
talk and, and see if anybody will listen and start off slow,
You know, picking, picking up being a solo individual, just
interacting with other people started to gain a little bit of
steam. Obviously still pretty, pretty
small, you know, or I have viewsaveraged around 102 hundred 300,

(02:37):
something like that. Some episodes, you know, blew up
in some of my collaborations. But it's really just all about
trying to find or trying to create that ecosystem where
progressives can show, Hey, we're not just a bunch of, you
know, means tested messaging and, and kind of, you know,
progressive nerds, like we're just people, right?
We we, we know the, we know the dinner table policy, we know the

(02:59):
stuff that effects real voters. And I think there's really a
space for that. And, and you guys are, are
showing it too. And you know, my podcast, the
electorate's very, very focused on on politics, but I love what
you guys are doing with branching out into sports and,
and, and other things to show, hey, you know, we're not just
here to talk about politics. Yeah, we're going to do it, but
we have other interests as well.And, and bring those people in.

(03:20):
And so, hey, because there was like a masculinity crisis almost
right in this and like Democratscan't speak to that electorate
very well. So it's great that you guys are
doing that. And we're we're hoping to do
some more of the same here. We appreciate that.
It sounds like the Electra just shouted out Progressive.
That's what I'm picking up here.Yeah.
Good. I mean, that's going to say.
I mean, obviously it sounds likeyou kind of had the exact same

(03:42):
sort of background we did not tohave a full like progressive
lore episode. Maybe I'll make it into like a
comic like prequel or something for anyone who's interested.
But our whole thing started kindof as a joke, actually.
I always like to tell the story because I think it's just really
funny. I I want to say it was after.
The debate or maybe after the election we just lost and I was
outside walking my dog and like I had headphones on.
I'm just in those music. I'm just like we just got like

(04:03):
part of my friend. We just got fucked Like I just I
was looking at the red States and like wow, that's bad.
But I texted my buddy or the other Co host belay and a group
chat with us and I was like guys, I know what the world
needs right now for guys for white guys need to start
broadcast. But that's.
That's literally the same kind of moment I have is like, it was
a fucking disaster, right? And then, yeah.

(04:25):
What's unbelievable, It was likeI, I again, I fell for that.
Just a gaslight of, oh, all the money were coming in and all the
enthusiasm, like, it's great, we're going to win.
We're going to smoke them. And it's like, all of a sudden
you're watching the numbers comein.
It's like, oh, Virginia's 5-6 points to the right and you're
like, I'm sorry. Like what?
Wait a minute, What New Mexico is like in New Jersey?
And I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
What the Hell's happened in here?
Yeah, but. And it's interesting because

(04:46):
during the election season, likeI was out, I was knocking doors,
like we were doing calls, I was phone banking in the area.
So I'm in Charlotte, NC, very blue city.
And like even out doing that, the the progressive, what you
would consider like the progressive base was very
excited like that. Kamala Harris was the candidate,
not Joe Biden. Your average person was

(05:07):
drastically less excited about. That's like the low propensity
voters that you go after who hadmaybe voted Democrat in the past
and then came over and maybe missed an election here and
there, didn't vote in 2022 or something like that.
They just weren't all that pumped.
I got a lot of, well, you know, yeah, what we plan to vote, and
it'll probably be for Kamala Harris or something like that.
And a buddy of mine who is on another podcast that I'm, I'm a

(05:31):
part of Jackass politics. He is Wake City town
commissioner. And he was, he's very involved
obviously within the party. And he was saying that now on
the ground, everything looks great and people are excited.
I never seen this much excitement.
And I was trying to talk myself into it as I was going, I was
trying to drink the kool-aid a little bit, but it's sort of
became evident to me. And then, like you said, I saw

(05:53):
the Florida results come in and I was like, I knew we were going
to lose Florida. Like, that's not a huge deal,
but it was a disaster. In the flood bath.
You know, yeah, I mean, just a complete disaster.
And like you said, Virginia, yousaw the shift.
You saw the big shift to the right.
Even though Virginia went blue. I mean, that we'd lost the
hemorrhage points there in NorthCarolina.
Like, you know, driving around all the precincts on Election

(06:16):
Day, the turnout just wasn't there.
And I was like, this is, this islooking real bad.
So like right around, you know, right around the time the
Pennsylvania numbers weren't they, they were trending up and
there was a lot left, but they weren't shifting.
There was no, I was like, I'm going to bed.
This is going to be bad. This is going to be real bad.
And I woke up the next day and Iwas like, yeah, that was.

(06:37):
It's I, I had the same feeling. I remember, you know, I was
waiting all morning, like sitting there thinking like, OK,
today's the day. Like it's feeling good.
Obviously enthusiasm, seeing allthe videos of of just people out
the door. And it's a really good point
that I actually want to circle back to you.
Touchdown is like the average person, right?
I've been talking to my buddy Belay, right, the other Co host
* and we were interns together in DC.
We were there on Capitol Hill. We talked a lot about messaging

(06:59):
because obviously we did our comms stuff as interns because
of course they make us write allthe tweets and shit like that.
But. It's that average person thing,
right? You know, obviously for an
aficionado or somebody who's really invested, like you're
reading The New York Times, you're reading The Washington
Post, like. If you're not.
Like breaking for a Democrat, after reading all these things
like you're, I don't know what to tell you, But the average
person like I, I explained this to my girlfriend because she's

(07:20):
obviously a political scientist,but she works in law.
She's on a very different side of these things.
And she was like, oh, I just don't know how they would do
this. And I'm like, well, think of it
like this, right? If you're the average.
Person all you know is maybe youvoted in 2020 when COVID was
bad, but inflation got really bad.
The president of the United States is like kind of like a a
corpse. Maybe, maybe not like nobody
really knows. And then the other guy who you

(07:41):
kind of probably don't like because he was racist or
something, got shot and then pumped his first and it was
really bad ass. Like I mean, credit where credit
is due. That was pretty fucking cool.
I mean. I don't know.
It did, I mean, but, but all that to say, it's like they
didn't feel these things, right?Like a you know, they didn't
care. They're like, oh, it's, it's
like it was like Joe Biden's sidekick.
It's like the way I'm trying to explain it to people is like,

(08:03):
how are you going to get people excited?
If like you're like, hey, guess what, we're making it like a new
like, like superhero movie, right or something, right.
And then like instead of Batman shows up, it's like, it's like
sidekick from a couple years agoand you're like.
Why? Why do I care?
Yeah. Yeah, and it's 100% right.
Like the average American voter consumes something like 5 to 10
minutes of news per week, right?They're not US who's chronically

(08:27):
online, always plugged in, knowsexactly each candidate's policy
from top to bottom. They they know that their
groceries were too expensive, housing is too expensive,
vehicles are too expensive. Like, everything's too
expensive. You know, people tend to under
kind of underestimate the power of nostalgia.
And they remember, hey, you know, Trump said mean things

(08:49):
back last time he was president.But my taxes were a little bit
lower and stuff was reasonably affordable.
And you can kind of see that in his own numbers, how he came
into office in 2017 deeply unpopular.
He left office even more unpopular and remained unpopular
until inflation skyrocketed. And then you can see his

(09:09):
popularity figures start to go up and up.
And of course, that was a, you know, how do you sit there and
explain to people this is a global phenomenon, right?
Every incumbent party. Yeah, Right.
You know, people lost. It is.
And it is. That's that's 100%.
And we tried, right? That's one of the bad things
that Democrats did is they triedto make that argument and it

(09:30):
just doesn't play. People do not care.
And it's hard to go. You can't just sit around being
like, oh, econ one O 1, like it's a global supply shock and
and pent up to like just you know, I don't know.
I truly I don't know what you did.
And like again, I spent a lot oftime.
I'm a college student, right. Obviously, I spent a lot of time
around college students, all my grad students that I've, I've
had, again, I say this with a lot of contempt, who I have to

(09:52):
answer to because technically I'm still undergrad, right?
I'm not a grad student. I don't get to talk to these
people as if I have an authority.
But they're like Kamal Harris should have promised like
Medicare for all. Like you don't enthusiast the
base by campaigning with Liz Cheney or whatever, or you don't
you don't win more votes by likegoing to further to live, right?
And I kept trying to explain like, OK, we lost the argument
on inflation and all these things.

(10:14):
So the answer is we're not goingto win more votes with this
magic like super progressive electorate that wants Medicare
for all. We're not going to win on like
cost, like on any of these things.
We're going to win on cost of living.
Like if Kamala comes out and says, hell yeah, I'm for cost of
living. And that means more houses.
More like cheap taxes or no tax on tips like if it's.
If it's what? People think that works, that's
fine, but they don't seem to understand.

(10:34):
It's like we didn't lose becauseshe was too far right, too far
like, well, maybe the too far left part, but like if that's
perception thing, we lost because of the incumbent shit.
And like she put up a good performance like it compared to
incumbent parties. I'm going to go to live here.
So you're referencing that same FT like a bar chart where it's
like below with incumbent parties.
Yeah, and. It was.

(10:56):
It was basically the only one that that buck the trend was
Claudia Scheinbaum in Mexico. Now she wasn't the incumbent,
but same scenario in that she was the one, you know, same
party. She was just the one to take
over. And when you when you and again,
you know, I was on. I don't know if you guys follow
them organizer memes on on next.Yeah, so I did an episode with
them and it was, you know, Emma Montt made a really good point

(11:19):
there and that there were a lot of problems with the Harris
campaign of. Course, as they're all with
everyone. Sure.
And most of them were just exacerbated by the fact that the
campaign was only 107 days long.You have 107 days to, you know,
a lot of people didn't know muchabout Kamala Harris at all.
And the and the people that did know about her remember her in

(11:39):
the 2019 Democratic primary where she was very far left,
very progressive at the time. So you had two problems there.
Fix that and then introduce yourself to the people who don't
know who you are. And that's incredibly difficult.
I don't care how much money you have, that's incredibly
difficult to do in 107 days. When I like when I talked about
the average American consumes like 10 minutes of news a week,

(12:00):
you have very limited opportunity to get through to
them. And I I agree with you.
I think she ran a great campaign.
I think she's a good candidate. Were their faults?
Yeah. And, you know, I listened.
I'm sure you guys probably listen to it too.
The Pod Save America episode with Jen O'Malley, Dylan and
David Plouffe. And I was, I was a little
frustrated listening to that Andkind of they just, they just

(12:22):
didn't feel like they, they thought they did anything wrong
or could have done anything better.
And you know, that's, that's nottrue.
If, if you lose, there's something you could have done,
right. And, and whether it's small or
big or whether these massive changes.
But we're, we're in a position right now where it feels like
everybody is sort of on that sort of same side, right, where
they, where they realize that we've got to do something

(12:44):
different. But now we're just sort of
bickering over what that is, right?
It's it's like the direction of the party, right, The direction
of the future. And it's like, I'm, please
pardon me if I say this wrong because I love this guy.
I would bring him on in a second, but Lakshya Jane, his
account and he said like, it's alow party lowest point for
parties after losing because we're trying to figure out

(13:05):
direction, figure out our voice again.
And it's like we're at that point.
So everyone's busy like dunking on Joe Biden, dunking on Kamala,
dunking on the campaign. It's like, OK, in a couple of
weeks after Musk continues to fuck with more federal agencies
And like if he if he fucks over Social Security, it's like, OK,
well, then we're going to find our voice and be like, Hey,
we're the ones who just don't fuck things up.
Like it's but it's hard because it's accumulating and we have to

(13:27):
like go everything over with like a fine tooth comb of, you
know, this money was allocated wrong here or this ad was bad.
And it's like, listen, what I have loved to do everything
differently, but hindsight is 2020 and I feel like everybody
has their take of like, Oh, I would have done this.
It's like, would you though, Because these are, you know,
experienced professionals who have done this for 20 something
years and you're just someone onon fucking X thinking you know

(13:48):
better. And it's like.
This is really fucking. Hard to take Hey, this like
background figure who, let's be clear here, like was in the
background because Biden like doesn't want her to be in the
forefront and she kind of I don't say shit the bed.
But the thing with like the border in the very beginning,
he's like, all right now you gotto come in the back and she did
her job right. Like she didn't overstep her
boundaries. She didn't overtake Biden as

(14:08):
much as it would have been a very different story of like
02022. He's like, Nah, you know what,
not running for re election. It's her two years to build a
name like or even a primary thatshe probably wins.
What comes out like it's whole different things, but like to
dunk on her as if like, Oh well,she did a bad job and like she
just to be punished for. It's like it just I I just think
it's mean. I mean, honestly, I'm just going

(14:28):
to go out there and say it's mean.
It's like, listen, 107 days to convince what, 7070 to 75
million people? Maybe you should vote for it.
Maybe you shouldn't. Look, that's insane.
It's incredibly hard and like you hit, you hit the nail on the
head there. There's no point in going back
and being like, well, you know, they should have done this or
they should have done this or they should have done this.
Anybody can do that. That's not fair.

(14:50):
If you want to take lessons fromwhat happened and apply those to
sort of how the particularly themedia ecosystem, but the, the
whole political campaign landscape, how it's changing
from social media podcasts, likeall this stuff, it's, it's
totally different. That's fine.
Learn your lessons. And I think in my opinion,
everybody earned a little bit ofthat brief period of, of

(15:12):
bitching and whining and just like having those complaints and
just being cathartic and, and, and just letting it out and then
being done with it. But now we just got a new DNC
chair, couple DNC vice chairs, like the party is ready to move
in a new direction. Now we need to see what that is.
Because we look at like what Chuck Schumer was doing the

(15:33):
other day, you know, launching into those very kind of cringe
worthy chants about we will win.And you know, we won't rest.
And on Maxine Waters out there. And I'm just like, it is time
for a new generation of leadership, a younger generation
of leadership, because you guys have had your opportunity and
we've just floundered at every moment.

(15:53):
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's one of those
things where it's like I, one ofthe last people we interviewed,
talked a lot about like the proceduralism and all these
jumping through hoops of like communications.
And again, having seen how they do these things, where a fucking
it was over. And it's like for a fucking
tweet for our offices, for Democrats to go out, has to go
through like 5 layers of approval, has to make sure we
use the correct. It's like at that point we've

(16:14):
already fucking lost. Like the whatever event or thing
we're talking about, people havealready moved on and that was
the thing that killed me on the hill.
It was like, OK, we have a tweetand we're talking about fucking
like a holiday, right? It's fucking Labor Day.
We don't have to use the word Main Street like 6 times.
Like it's like just fucking postabout Labor Day.
Done. That's it.
Nobody cares about this. It's going to get a couple 1000

(16:34):
views. Nobody's going to care and move
on. Focus on the big picture shit.
That's what, you know, a buddy of mine is we're in a group chat
together. We were we were talking about
this and we were talking about that being kind of the point of
Kamala HQ. That account, when it came up,
it was like it just be fast. And sure, they said some stuff
wrong and some of it was cringe worthy a little bit, but it was
quick, it was responsive. But you're right.
You see all these tweets that have to go through several

(16:56):
layers of approval to get out there.
And then you see like, you know,them calling, meeting emergency
meetings, but we'll convene tomorrow at 4:00 PM.
Like what's the point at that point?
It's just the damage is done. Like you lost your chance to
respond to it. So not only do we need to be
like as a party, do we need to be stronger, we need to be, you
know, responsive, but we've got to be quick.

(17:17):
We there can't be this delay, this lag.
And, and don't you know, you look at AOC and everybody talks
about one of the better messengers in the party.
She's very real. She says what she says and she
just gets up there and does it. And if it's raw or she makes a
mistake or what, who cares? You know, look at Republicans.
Do they ever apologize for anything that they said that was
incorrect? No, of course not.

(17:38):
They just say it and move on. And obviously, I don't think we
should be the ones that lie or not correct.
You know, if the information that we gave out was was wrong,
not correct it, but just go, don't be afraid.
Just just get it out there and be done.
Just don't. I mean, it's the speed is the
name of the game. I don't know if you listen and
Ezra Klein show, but they had a great segment about yeah, war
for attention. It's like if we're too busy,

(17:59):
like fighting for approval of like, should we refer to them as
Latinos or Latin X for this holiday?
Like at that point, the whole event is over.
Yeah, we've lost. The event is over by the time
the tweet gets sent, people evenstart to consider it.
It's like it's doctored, It's weird, it's annoying, it's late.
It's like it doesn't even matter.
Like at that point, I'm sure you've seen Senator Chris Coons
or was it Chris Murphy doing thelive stream?

(18:20):
Yeah, Murphy, who's been doing these like live streams And
like, it's like as much people are making fun of them for,
because of course they side too.It's like they're raw and
authentic. Like I like, I think that's more
of what we need. It's perfect.
That's what we want, that's whatwe need.
And, and, and if you're the person that's kind of making fun
of that or has a problem with it, you know, to me, you're the
person who wants that means tested message, that precise

(18:41):
100% message every time. And honestly, you're probably
somebody that's going to vote Democratic anyway, so yeah, 1
after. Well, those people that are
like, those are the same people that are the ones that would
rather spend their time making fun of Democrats and holding us
to this like impossible standard.
Then it's it's it's a there's a word for like I always try to
explain. It's like, it's like, like a
weird modified version of game theory where like, they're going

(19:02):
to vote Democratic anyway, but they're going to hold them to
this standard that's impossible.And they're going to spend this
whole time dunking on us when Republicans are like, by the
way, I'm going to raise your taxes and destroy Social
Security and they don't say a word.
And it's like, what are we supposed to do when you're too
busy? We're arguing with these people.
It's like, OK, either get on board or lose.
Because it's like, in my mind, Ilook at like the game theory,
right? The four different personal
theories. But they've already accepted

(19:23):
that either we win and they get what they want roughly, and they
can bully us anyway, or they lose and they get to bully us
anyway for not doing enough. And it's like, OK, listen,
dipshit, there's two options. Either you vote for us and you
help us and we'll give you a sandwich, or you go to the other
guy and he's going to punch you in the balls.
Like just again, what do you think is going to happen?
Like I, you know, that's. Not that's not who you should be
going after. Just do the things that you need

(19:44):
to do to bring over the, you know, the, the middle class
voters and the working class voters who, who maybe go back
and forth a little bit, tailor your messaging to them and
everything else will fall in line from there.
Nobody hates Democrats like Democrats like it's just, you
know, the most, the most left wing part of our base is just
like it's in an arms race to point out every fucking thing

(20:06):
wrong with the party that, you know, it's not even worth our
time. It is so much better time spent
doing other stuff, you know? Better messaging, talking to,
you know, like where I said working class and middle class
voters and you know, these kitchen table policies that
really speak to what they want do that don't means test don't
come out. And you know, and it's so this

(20:26):
kind of conversation leads me toAI saw a New York Times Ipsos
poll and in the crosstabs there is this section where it said
what American said were the mostimportant issues for each group,
right? And the three groups were
themselves the respondent, what they thought of the Democrat
Party's top issues and what theythought of the Republican
Party's top issues. And all the respondents top five

(20:50):
were the economy, healthcare, immigration, taxes and crime.
OK. Those were the top five for all
the respondents. What they thought the top five
were for Republican Party was immigration, the economy, taxes,
guns and abortion. Decent amount of overlap there.
Most importantly, the most important ones, the economy,
immigration, and then the Democratic Party, abortion, LGBT

(21:14):
policy, climate change, the state of democracy and then
healthcare, right? And, you know, the fact that
LGBT policy was number 2 on whatrespondents thought was most
important to the Democratic Party is a problem, OK?
And I'm not saying at all by anystretch of the imagination that

(21:36):
that shouldn't be important to us.
We should not be running on thatat all.
Those are, you know, protecting LGBTQ rights should be the
things that we just do when we get elected.
But if you want to get elected, the economy was nowhere in
there. Immigration was nowhere in
there. What they thought the the
Democratic Party's top issues were.
And to this day, even now, we still don't have a cohesive

(21:57):
message on how to deal with immigration.
We still don't really have a cohesive message on how to deal
with the economy or healthcare. Healthcare messaging is getting
better, but it's still, it has along way to go.
So with the if you're telling methat these are the issues,
that's what we need to focus on,focus on the economy.
You know, the Republicans are the the party of the

(22:19):
billionaires and, and giving taxcuts to the elite.
And, you know, they said they were going to lower your prices
and they're not doing a fucking thing about lowering or lowering
your prices. You know, there is a common
sense way to approach immigration and it's not doing
mass ICE raids. It's not, you know, doing the
things that the Department of Homeland Security is doing right
now, which is proven so far to be very ineffective and very

(22:42):
inefficient. But you go back and look at like
President Obama, his immigrationpolicy viewed at the time as
sort of being very liberal. It was very strict.
I mean, he was very pro legal immigration, but very, very anti
illegal immigration. And we were just afraid of
saying that. I was watching the 2019
Democratic primary where every, you know, everyone was asked the

(23:04):
question, do you think that undocumented immigrants should
be provided free healthcare by the United States government?
Every single candidate, including Joe Biden raised their
hand. And to me, I'm like, this is
that messaging does not work, right?
That is not going to play for the for the electorate as a
whole that populate the population is not going to go

(23:24):
for that. So you look at that and you say,
OK, tailor your messaging to what people want.
Tailor your messaging to what isactually what the party should
be about. What makes you the big tent
party? Stop focusing on the fringe of
the population. Just do those things when you
get elected. That's a, that's again, that's a

(23:46):
great point. It's like that primary that just
kills us because it's, it's thatweird cultural moment, 2019-2020
where it's like, it was just therace to be who's more
progressive. And it's like that came back to
bite us in the ass so fucking much.
And and it's embarrassing because like you look back at it
and you're like, I'm sorry, whatthe fuck were we thinking?
Like, I just, I don't, it doesn't make sense.
And truly it's Matthew Iglesias had a really good piece about
like the groups, right? Obviously these big powerful

(24:07):
groups that influenced Democrats, you know, versus the
Obama years where they were pushing our messaging and
helping US versus 2019, they kept pushing and fighting
against the party to push us further and further left and
say, I hate to be the bearer of bad news because who wouldn't
love if we could just magically have free healthcare and fix all
these things? Like that'd be awesome, That's
great, whatever. But here's the thing.
When you tell that to most of the country, they're going to be

(24:28):
like, I'm sorry, wait, you're going to take my healthcare away
and then do this weird government system and like, you
guys can't even figure out how to build a road.
So why would I trust you with like my it's just fuck off,
Stick with the basics. Because all that that and I feel
horrible because I keep saying like all this like woke shit, as
if it's like like I'm a Republican.
But it's like when you spend allthis time on identity and all
this stuff. Actual members of these
communities don't see that right?

(24:51):
They're not college educated. Sitting there in a classroom
going what is the? Chicano or chicken necks like
identity, they're going OK, my fucking eggs are too expensive.
Like normal people don't give a shit about all of that.
That works in a college classroom when your professor is
an activist from the 60s who has.
Your PhD and spends all your time talking about it, but in
reality, people are like, well, gas is like 5 bucks and I have

(25:12):
to drive 30 miles to work. Yeah, that's not helpful.
Yeah, talking about fucking freehealth care for people,
immigrants or all this shit or whatever it is, doesn't matter.
They don't fucking care. And it's all that thing of like,
like you said, like crime, immigration, economy.
It's like, you look at all the groups that shifted to the
right. What do you think of actual
members of these groups? Not.
Not the ones that go to Harvard.Not the ones that go to Yale.

(25:33):
Not the ones that have thousandsand thousands of dollars to
their name. We're talking about the ones
that live in communities like I,I like to go to the one in San
Francisco, right, of Asian population there had that huge
increase of crime during COVID and a lot of the Asian hate
crimes. And then when we're talking
about decriminalizing crime and it's like they're feeling this
like rise in, in, in hate crimes.
Are we are we tone deaf? Like you say, no crime is not OK

(25:56):
Put Josh in jail. If you do that.
Like that's not cool. We don't, we're not going to
stand for people getting attacked on the streets.
Not going to fly. Like I just, I don't, I, it's,
it's weird because this, this election is like a mask off
moment. We're all kind of sitting here
being like, wait a minute, this is weird.
Why did we all like, allow this to happen?
It's like a weird group think like I don't.
Yeah, I really. And you're right, like that,
that 2019 was this Nexus point because like 2017 when Trump

(26:20):
comes in, this was like kind of almost like where we are right
now, right? Where we're like, how the hell
did we let this happen? And at the time, of course, we
thought it was a blip, right? We're just like, OK, we fucked
up. You know, we didn't take it
seriously. Nobody thought Donald Trump had
a chance, blah, blah, blah. But then he gets into office and
was like his extreme views. The only way to offset those

(26:43):
extreme views would be to have extreme views of our own.
And it just sort of spiralled. And, and you know, part of the
problem was when you have a primary with that many
candidates in it, right? You know, and Tulsi Gabbard was
even running at the time, but I don't know how many were at the
peak, how many were were in a ina debate, 8-9, something like

(27:05):
that, maybe even 10. I don't know is a lot.
But how do you separate yourselffrom the rest of them and show
that you're a candidate that youshould that they should vote
for, Right you? You've got to have more extreme
policies that that get attention.
And there was a lot of that going on.
And, you know, until Joe Biden came in.
And then it was like, OK, well, he's got the brand.

(27:26):
He's got the name recognition. Nobody else showed, you know,
that they were that they were going to rise above the rest of
them. And nobody showed that they were
a candidate worth looking at. And he kind of, in my opinion,
at the whole time, I thought he was going to be a stopgap
president, right? I thought he was there to beat
Donald Trump and then hand it off to somebody else who, like
you said, probably would have been Kamala Harris.

(27:48):
She probably would have come outof the top of the primary
because if she had been the vicepresident, who would have been
allowed to be out in the forefront and be sort of a voice
and a face, I think she would have come out on top.
I think that also would have given her more time to show how
middle of the road she truly wasin her policies.
You know, there are some things that I don't necessarily agree
with. I think no tax on tips is a good

(28:09):
one. I'm not sure it necessarily gets
at the root cause of the issue that we should be paying all
workers some sort of minimum wage and not just relying on
American citizens to subsidize those jobs.
But down payment on down paymentassistance on houses.
We can sit here and and talk about how well that, you know,
would actually work would increase the cost of houses

(28:30):
because there's more money flowing into the housing market.
Who knows? But most of her policies were
very common sense, straightforward, not ultra
progressive policies, but she just didn't have enough time to
do it. She was still viewed as that
sort of 2019 moment. And then when she came on the
scene, Fox News and ON and all them and Newsmax could just play

(28:52):
those moments from back then over and over.
And you know, I was talking to abuddy of mine who runs who works
for Politi Fact. And here in North Carolina, they
do fact checking on on politicalcommentary.
And he works for WRAL as well, which is a local news station.
But he was he made the comment to me that California Democrat

(29:12):
nationally is almost viewed likea slur at this point to a
certain amount of our and, and no offense to you guys, but the,
you know, here we see it too. We're a very, I say purple
state. We have a, you know, a blue, a
governor, blue attorney general.We voted Republican for a while
now. And and that looks like it's not
not changing anytime soon. But that message plays so hard

(29:35):
here. California Democrat, California
Democrat. I'm like, you know, we've got to
find a way to message against that because her policies were
not, they were not extreme, theywere not crazy.
They were level. They were, could they have been
worded a little better? Could they have been messaged a
little better? Yeah, sure, of course.
But they were not crazy policies.

(29:55):
And we just never got out of that moment, that 2019 moment.
We just never seem to really leave it.
Like we said, it's a lot of things that happened that
shouldn't have. But that's that's sort of how
we, you know, being all the way over here on the East Coast
viewed it. And it's it's again, another one
of those testaments like, do we spend all our time fighting
saying, no, I'm not a CaliforniaDemocrat?

(30:16):
Or do we fix the fact that when you say California Democrat,
people go because it's again, living in California?
I get it. Like our party is an
embarrassment. Like our Democratic
establishment in California is an embarrassment.
And before everyone jumps to go,Oh well, it's just because you
guys are, it's just hold the hold the phone.
There's a reason why because it's a one party state.

(30:39):
Like there is no scenario where a Republican wins.
And when you don't have that competition, it's beef between
Democrats, right? You have the more progressive 1,
the moderate one. It's like that's I guess
conducive, but we're not interested in making real big
policy change. And there's so much more that
goes deeper to the infrastructure, the governance,
the way the state is built down to our environmental regulation

(31:03):
at whatever, right. And it is just a unmitigated
shit show. And I don't see any point like
in the future where it's going to get better.
And truly, that's the only way we're going to get better and
improving this reputation is until we can fix blue States and
make them a bastion of good governance, right.
If New York City and California are places like everyone's going
shit like I really would love tolive there.

(31:25):
Not it's too damn expensive. Like that's that's going to be
the the breaking point. I really think.
I'm sure you saw Richie Torres is going to ways for governors
and obviously he's on the board of that abundance agenda.
It's like, I think that's a great idea.
If he can win that if I mean, atthis point, I'm all but certain
Harris is gonna take the California governor's mansion
most likely if she takes it, like if she chooses to go and
say, hey, this whole abundance stuff, this new era Democrat of

(31:47):
26, like that's that's good shit.
And if you can really fix that, that's going to put us on that
like long term trajectory to fixthat image, right, rather than
having to fight the image, whichis true, right.
You know, I can't I can't come out and say, hey, I'm a
California Democrat. People go if if and I'm not
going to win an election that way.
You know, at this point it's like a death sentence.
If you you're from California, you want to run for whatever.

(32:09):
It's like you're just you have to accept that you're most of
the fight is going to be actually, I am not like the
other one since like that's losing.
That's that's not going to win. So at this point, fix it.
Do the substantive work, make your trains run on time, make
the subways work, make you know,again, New York City is a great
example. Your subway is late.
There's people everywhere. It's expensive dials of the what

(32:30):
are the things you have to jump on?
If again, if your infrastructuresucks, people aren't going to
use it. California, another good
example. Like we have public trains.
They're late all the time. They're have they don't even
show up. It's like our buses barely show
up. They're just you're waiting for
the goddamn bus and it's not there.
You wait for the bus or the train and it's late.
It's like, OK, well, that doesn't work.
So then you have to drive and then you have to buy a car.
Then everything's on the freeway.

(32:50):
It's like start fixing these things.
Start fixing the cost of living.Don't just do a one time payment
of like, oh, here's a subsidy for your your rent.
It's like that's not going to fix it.
More rent control doesn't fix it.
Like actually sit down, do the nuts and bolts policy to make it
work. And they're not interested in
doing that. Until we fix that, people are
going to just point to us and belike they're losers like it
were. And it's true.

(33:10):
We we shoot ourselves in the foot and all that to play.
It plays into the whole economy thing like of of cost of living
and and winning normal voters. If we can't show like, Hey,
we're actually doing this substantive work, like, yes, the
Biden administration could pointto all this money they put out.
They can point to all these things they did, which is
awesome. It's all this money to be
allocated that's putting us on long term trajectory for success

(33:30):
for a long time. CHIPS Act infrastructure,
bipartisan infrastructure, IRA, all of it.
But if the money's not getting dispersed and it's sitting in
court where 10 layers of approval are are going to take
it to get it out of money out. Like look at the broadband one,
right? It's $42 billion rural
broadband. And they?
Allocate it. Not a single, not a single house
kind of thing. It's, it's embarrassing.
It's embarrassing. It's truly, it's like, this is

(33:51):
the IRA. You allocate all these money for
climate change and then you spend half the time arguing of
whether or not it's a good idea to build a wind farm, build
battery storage. It's like, look, if you care
about climate, the answer is getrid of the permits and build the
goddamn infrastructure. If you care about jobs, build
the things because we're going to need people to do it again.
It's a good thing. But the fact that we're too busy
arguing over it and holding it up in court going, is this good

(34:13):
for the land? Is it good for the people who
might live here? Is it?
It's like it's a fucking wind farm.
Build the goddamn thing because they're going to appreciate
their electricity being a coupledollars instead, like and it's
embarrassing. You're right on the money and
you know, those like infrastructure and broadband and
all this stuff is already stuff that's going to be long term.
You know, you might not reap thebenefits of it right away as far

(34:36):
as the party and and how it's viewed.
So why are you holding it up even more?
Why are you delaying it even more?
You know, all these years are going to go by and then finally
10 years down the road. Oh, you remember who did that?
Joe Biden, you know, he's has hasn't been in office for
however long and nobody cares anymore, right?
But, you know, back to your point, California really should
be a bastion of progressive policies and ideas.

(35:00):
Like if you had, you know, the best leadership there from from
top to bottom, it should be the point.
It should be the state that you can point to and say, OK, if we
elect Democrats, it's probably going to be something like that.
But now, right now how it is, it's like if we elect Democrats,
it's going to be something like that.
And, you know, we, like I said, we run into that a lot in in

(35:21):
California. I come from a very conservative
household. I grew up a conservative until I
was basically until I was in college and then I became
independent and then later on sort of became more, more
definitely far more progressive.But, you know, I'm able to have
conversations with my father who's is very conservative and
we talk about, you know, California and he just, he views

(35:42):
it the way that your typical FoxNews watcher views it.
And I'm like, I've, I've been toCalifornia, actually been to
California. And yeah, there's problems, but
there's a lot of good shit theretoo.
There's a lot of things that aredone correctly.
And in North Carolina, it's no different.
You know, Charlotte is a great city, but there's a lot of shit
that we've done wrong. We've got bad crime here.
And there's like there's bad crime all around the, you know,
the suburbs. There's we, we've got bad drug

(36:04):
problems. I'm sure you've heard of, you
know, the Western North Carolinaissues with the, you know, with
the flooding that we've had and not getting funding out there
and not getting these people help.
And our party or our state is incontrol.
There's like a super majority inour state's state's house, and
it's controlled by Republicans. And then you've got a blue
governor and a blue attorney general.

(36:24):
And we've elected a blue governor now several times.
But we were sort of in this state in particular, and we are
a battleground state and gettingeven a little bit even closer
now. But we're sort of in this in
this moment where it's almost like North Carolina is going to
become a bellwether state for how elections will go at the
national level. We have Raleigh and Durham and

(36:45):
Wake County up there. We've got Charlotte and then
we've got Asheville and then some into western North
Carolina. But it kind of looks like a map
of the United States where as a such a massive landmass or swath
of it is red, but the major metropolises and university
towns are kind of holding it down as blue.
And in this most recent election, we had had a kind of a
downturn in Democratic turn out in Charlotte, which we should be

(37:07):
the strongest city in in the state.
And part of that was our mayor and our our City Council are
doing nothing about the homelesspopulation, doing nothing about
crime. The mayor only pops up, you
know, to make speeches on, you know, MLK Day or Labor Day or
July 4th. And basically, other than that,
she's an absentee mayor. And we have probably one of the

(37:29):
best young DNC, not DNC, but state party chairs in the
country. And Anderson Clayton, she's
phenomenal at what she does. Well, she's limited because
there's still so much of that old guard in the state that just
don't want to let it go. Like our local in my district,
NC Adams, has now announced thatshe's running again in 2026.
She's going to be 80 years old. I'm like, it's time.

(37:51):
Like it's time it we got to moveon.
Because if Charlotte can get excited about a candidate
anywhere on anywhere on the ballot, if they can get excited
about a candidate, they can really turn it out.
But we've got to get excited andwe've got to change things here.
And like my all coming full circle around to say, you know,
my dad was viewing what Charlotte has become lately as

(38:13):
kind of like California in that we, you know, we're very
Democratic controlled here in the city.
We should be doing things betterand we're not.
You know, it's improving a little bit, but we should be
doing way better than we are. Absolutely.
And it's like, it's one of thosethings like if we're just, you
know, some basic econ one O 1, you know, cities are where the
growth happens. Cities are where the jobs are.

(38:34):
Cities are where and as much as we like to like, oh, like rural
life and that stuff for like cities are where things happen,
right? They're the epicenters of power.
They're sending some money. And again, we'll, we'll flip it
back to California. It's like California is huge,
right? We have San Francisco, we have
Los Angeles and we have San Diego.
We have all these cities that are these weird quasi like super
suburbs. It's like if we want to cover

(38:55):
them, well, it's like, OK, well,you shouldn't be walking down
like Los Angeles Ave. or like down Sunset Blvd. and seeing
like people like, like slumped over on fentanyl.
Like you shouldn't have to worryabout the fact you're paying
$4000 for a little shoebox. Like it, there's so many of
these problems. And it's like when you have Fox
News in this video ecosystem that can just point at you guys
and go look at this and you're like, what do I say?

(39:17):
Like I can't, I can't deny it. Like I've, you know, you live in
Los Angeles, you know, there's abad homeless problem.
You know it, I know it. I think Noah Smith had a really
good explanation of being in SanFrancisco with female friends,
right? They don't feel safe walking
down streets because homeless people are calling them and and
causing this. Just social disruption where
it's like, OK. We can deal with this, right?

(39:37):
And the answer is build the homeless shelters.
The answer is crack down on it. Like don't allow this public
disorder. Like people don't like that.
People don't like chaos and like, can you blame them?
I don't like chaos. Like I don't like social
disorder. Like I don't I don't want my
girlfriend walking down the street getting catcalled by
homeless people. Like here's the thing.
You can do the whole progressiveshit of like they're mentally

(39:58):
ill. They need to be taken care of.
We need to just like, OK, fine, fine, fine.
We can do that. That's great.
Put them in the place they need to do it.
Actually get the permits to build the fucking thing and put
them there. Don't don't get all like wishy
washy with me and go. Actually, it's no, you need to
give them a space to be on the street.
Shut the shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up.
Yeah, put them in the place theyneed to be.
Get them the help they need. It's it's like a forceful hand

(40:18):
where it's like you can't have your cake.
You need it to deal with the problem, but don't deal with it
in a way I don't like. Well, like the answer is fix the
fucking problem. And it's like, if you really
want to do that, OK, become outcome oriented, get
innovative. And, and, and Jennifer Polka,
the woman who works at the Nicholson Center, she wrote
Recode in America. She's wonderful about it.
She talks about outcomes. If you really want to fix

(40:39):
issues, stop worrying about the semantics of is the language
correct? Is the shit.
Just fix the fucking issue. When people say housing is too
expensive, the answer is build the goddamn homes.
If you want cheaper houses, the answer is not a actually we'll
do all these things and all thiscrazy like wonky shit.
No, scrap that bullshit. Rezone it.
Build the fucking houses becausein a year or two people are

(40:59):
going to go oh damn I can afforda house and it's brand new and
you can save the wonky policy like 10 step program of reducing
lumber costs and subsidizing people to go into the trades and
we can save that for a backroom door with.
Do that. Just do it.
Yeah, we'll talk about it exactly.
Save that for people like me in a closing door doing the econ

(41:19):
papers. But for the met rate of America,
I'm going to say I'm making yourhousing cheaper.
You want rent cheaper? Yes, ma'am, yes, Sir.
We're going to fix it for you right away.
If that's our goal. You want cheaper gas, cheaper
oil, cheaper as utilities? Well, the answer is we're going
to build a bunch of solar farms and nuclear and and solar.
We're going to put it everywhereand we're going to bring those
costs down like it's really, it's not easy.

(41:40):
What do people understand? There's 3 words that people
always understand when it comes to the market, supply and
demand. You want to fix the housing?
Just frame it as supply and demand.
Everyone understands it. It's an easy message to just
hammer home to people. Supply and demand that will make
your housing cheaper. And it's, you can even go
further than that. Just say you don't even got to

(42:00):
workout, fly and bend. It's like if people are
listening, just say we're going to bring rents down just
directionally, just they understand that we're going to
save you money. We're going to build you, get
you, get you new jobs. You want better pay done.
We can do that. And, and the hardest thing is
that that like fetish for proceduralism, right?
I, I, and for the folks who don't know that, like there's
this weird thing into the Democratic Party where we spend

(42:22):
hours slaving away, whether it'son the Hill, whether it's a
local level, it doesn't matter where Democrats will spend 20
hour days busting their ass to do every paperwork, every legal
memo and call every person to doeverything correct.
Just to get like 1 little project across the board,
whether it's like even just likea tweet, right?
And in the, the, the converse isyou have Republican who have no

(42:42):
problem, just like a bull in a China shop coming in and
destroying things. So the answer is, are we going
to just build things that we need and get things done, son?
And or do we just let them come in and just bulldoze it?
And it's like, and it's embarrassing.
It really is embarrassing because I can't wait for the day
where someone like a Jared Polisor Richie Torres or haven't.
I pray to God if if Harris wins the governor's mansion just says

(43:04):
fuck all this like. Reform shit like I'm just going
to fix it. We're going to fix the housing
stuff in California, make us a bastion of good governance.
You know, could you imagine? And obviously it's North
Carolina by N Carolinian, right?Is that what you guys call
yourselves? Perfect.
All right, I'm getting my my stage.
But could you imagine if San Francisco wasn't considered this
expensive, crime ridden shit hole?

(43:24):
Right? Could you imagine what the we
could point to if we say, hey, you're San Francisco?
It's the Bay Area tech hub. It has some of the best housing
on the planet, the best infrastructure, the best like
whatever. And it's a cheap, affordable
place where anyone can get a job.
Like if you have skyscrapers with housing and apartments, you
can have plumbers and working class people live there.
But right now, if you're not a high value plate like high, high

(43:45):
performing lawyer, if you're notin AI in tech, you can't afford
to live there and. It's just, it's horrible.
Governance, and it's embarrassing.
Yeah, I mean, there's so much onand underdeveloped land out in
California and just surrounding San Francisco.
And you know, I was out in, I was out in Long Beach.

(44:06):
So I flew into LAX at the end ofJanuary.
And you know, it was interesting.
You kind of talked about the homeless population, the
fentanyl issue there. And I got off the plane and went
to catch the shuttle out to to my rental car rental car place.
And on the bus walks this woman who's obviously, you know, been
been doing drugs, having a mental health crisis and all

(44:28):
that. And she's just, you know,
raising hell cussing at everybody.
It's like the but you would see somebody film and not my thing
wasn't going to do that to her. I was just sitting in the back
of my own business starts askingfor, you know, a phone that she
can borrow to call somebody who stole all of her stuff or
something like that. Well, she comes up and, you
know, reaches for my phone and tries to take it out of my hand
and I, you know, control the situation, held it and all that.

(44:48):
And everything was fine. We got there, but we got off.
There's a security officer on the hurts.
And I was like, hey, you know, there's a woman on there that's
having some sort of some sort ofmental health crisis.
Like I think she might be dangerous.
She might, you know, do something.
And he was basically like, there's nothing I could do.
And I was like, OK, well, that'sgreat.
But it's just that's the thing that people, that's the thing
that people hear, you know, outside of California and in in

(45:09):
swing States and then in battleground states, that's the
thing they hear and they go to experience it.
And I see it. And that just is a lasting image
and a lasting experience. And we can do better than that.
Like you said, stop the procedural shit.
We're such a procedural party. We're such a wait your turn
policy. Stop with the procedure, stop
with the wait your turn, elevateyour best candidates and let

(45:30):
your message fly and just figureyourselves out on the go.
I mean, that's the way it needs to be done.
You know, get get your messagingout there.
And if it's bad or it doesn't play, people will tell you and
you can adjust from there. But stop campaigning 6 months
before an election and then stopping right when an election
is done. Campaign year round.
Let your messaging flow year round so that if you do mess up,

(45:53):
you've got time to fix it. Absolutely.
And it's like I said, and it's that same thing of, you know,
Republicans are in this like weird new media that they've
built. You know, you have X as their
own feedback loop. You have Instagram and it's like
they understand that they're posting Republican leaning
things, taxes, whatever you you name it.
These concepts that are leaning conservative of like taxes are

(46:13):
too high or like any number of policy objectives are getting
pushed people 24/7. And like you're not going to
break that by a couple silly posts with like your candidate
looking up and looking hopeful of like, you know a better to
future whatever like to do or democratic values for all.
It's like I just you're going towin it by being I mean truly, I
don't know how to say this nicely being a shit poster.
Like the real reason Trump won is because every you suck

(46:36):
fucking second of the day. You could go on in 20/17/2020,
whatever it was. And even back in this this news,
this new election, like he was posting all the time.
You could go anywhere and see like, what was it like?
No thin person. I've never seen a thin person
eat and drink Diet Coke. And people are like, I mean,
that's mean, but that's really funny.
Like. Yeah, I mean, to his credit, and
you know, a lot of Democrats don't want to say it, he's
sometimes funny since I'm, he hits the nail on the head and

(46:59):
this shit is funny and that I tell people this all the time.
It is specifically within the party who are trying to come
with all these complicated messaging plans and do all this.
And I'm like, you know what people vote on aside from from
us who are chronically online and just fucking love policy.
You know what people vote on if they fucking like the person.
So many people will vote on a candidate just because they like

(47:21):
them. Thought they were funny, watched
watch them appear on a podcast or a show or something was like,
Dang, they look, they look cooler.
I laughed at something they said.
It's that fucking simple. You've got to have the policy.
Of course you do, no doubt aboutit.
But at the same time, you've gotto be likable.
You've got to be got to be a person.
Stop being a politician and justbe a person.
I. Think a really good example of

(47:42):
what you're like hitting on is the like Veep stakes with Tim
Walz, right? You had all these groups that
thought, oh, people are going tolove him, right?
He's like the embodiment of a manly man.
And like, they kind of had the right idea by putting him on
like TikTok and Instagram for a bit of like, oh, here's him
hunting and here's him with his dog.
But instead of having it be a scripted video where you have a

(48:02):
camera crews and everyone recording the way you should,
this doesn't have to be a fucking film production.
Just have him give him the phoneand be like, how does this thing
work? It's funny.
People are going to like that because if it's real, it's even
better. Like I I don't understand this
weird fetish of like having him be this like ultimate manly man
thinking it's going to work and win voters.
It's like if you're having staffdrafted, you know, the football

(48:23):
tweet when he was. Playing with it, yeah.
Look, I'm not going to lie to you and pretend I'm a football
guy and I I watch it every single day like I but that got
more attention of. This is just.
Embarrassing than anything I'd seen about him prior.
Like people do, you know, it's Panda.
And I think the worst part of, you know, you spend enough time
in Democratic circles, you know,most of the comms people are Ivy

(48:45):
League or, you know, highly educated.
They have a bachelor's, a master's or whatever.
And for the most part, especially in Democratic
offices, they're like, like, I don't even know how to say this,
like just, but it's just they're, they're female, they're
LGBT and they don't have interests that share with the
kind of constituents we're trying to reach.
And the the problem lies the fact that we're trying to reach

(49:05):
these constituents, outsiders, right?
We're not punching in. And the answer is like, well, if
you're member of whatever or whoever, find somebody who knows
football. Like don't Google football terms
if you're off, if you don't likefootball.
Also, if your member isn't interested in that, don't
pretend. Yeah, it's like if your comms
team is female and LGBT and you guys want to talk about this and

(49:27):
your member is cool with that, talk about that.
Find your niche. Own your thing.
Be like. People understand and and can
point out in off the city in a heartbeat.
It does not work. Stop pandering and like you
said, be who you are that you know that video that he had
where he was working on his truck, Fantastic video.
It was really cool. Like you know, as somebody who
also has an old truck, I, I loved it.

(49:48):
It really played for me. It would have been better if,
like you said, he just popped out his iPhone, hit record, set
it in the engine Bay and then started working and just talked
to the iPhone, not 5 cameras and, you know, all these.
Yeah, No. No, no, no, no, no editing.
Yeah, none of that. No script.
No script. Rating and all this stuff just,
and I do think to some degree they nerfed him a little bit,

(50:12):
right? They didn't let him really be
what he could be. And it was like right after that
football tweet that he started, started to kind of get pushed
off to the side. And I'm like, why did you, why
did you even pick him? Why, if, if this is what you
were going to do, why did you pick him?
Because OK, maybe Tim Walz isn'tthe most manly guy in the world,
but he relates to men. He coached football like he's he

(50:33):
knows young kids and young guys.He's got, you know, he's got a
just like the really happy fucking dad or uncle that
everybody knows and has. Like it would have been perfect
but they just nerfed him and puthim on the sideline.
It's 100%. It's like I thought, you know,
again, in my time at the Hill, Ithought about the same thing
with, you know, President Biden.It's like, you know, you think
of a Trump, right? He goes up and says a crazy

(50:55):
thing every single we've been doing this for 10 years, right?
I'm 21. I remember when Trump was
elected. I was in 8th grade and I
remember the day after and I'm like, he just says whatever and
it just nothing sticks. So at this point, with someone
like Joe Biden, right, who is known to say weird things and
like this weird kind of like, I don't even know how to call it
like cornball esque way like uncle from weird state that says
strange things. Own it.

(51:15):
If you have President Biden going, like, how does this thing
work? Like playing with the phone and
then giving him a speech and be like, I'm President Joe Biden
and something starts with some weird shit.
Own it because he's kind of funny.
He says weird things and you're like, and the idea that they had
to have him scripted, have him be perfect and try to edit out
any faults in his stutter. Honestly, in retrospect, again,
this is my opinion, I would haveowned the stutter from the
fucking beginning. Like, look, I went to speech

(51:37):
therapy as a kid. I didn't have it that bad.
I had, I called it a stammer, but I realized that's not the
word. It was like a stutter was like,
you repeat the word own that shit.
If I was President Joe Biden andmy comms team says own it, be
like, hell yeah. I, I, I, I, I still stutter as
president of the United States. And God damn it, if I can do it,
anyone can own that shit. Be cool about it.
Like people are going to respectthat.

(51:57):
You know, don't, don't try to edit it out.
Don't try to hide it. Don't, don't put him away in a
box. Like, what was it?
What was it like 2016? And he said like if, if he had
his way with Trump, he would take him behind the bar and beat
the shit out or something like that.
Like, like have him say weird shit like that because people
are like, OK, that's real funny.Yeah, it's like the, you know, a
lot of it ended up actually playing in the, like, what
ultimately became the Dark Brandon sort of meme.
And it was because they didn't apologize for it.

(52:19):
Like, like you said, don't apologize for who you are.
Don't try to hide it. Don't be inauthentic.
Just just be who you are. People can see through that all
the time. And the one thing about, you
know, Donald Trump, for all his faults and everything that he
does wrong, the stupid shit thathe says, the word salad, the
what he calls the weave, whatever the fuck it is, he
doesn't care. It is who he is.
He's not going to apologize for it.

(52:39):
He's not going to walk it back. He's going to tell you it.
You know, he's going to say it and he's going to be fine with
it and he's going to move on. And he probably forgot he even
said it so. And then the media is gonna,
it's Steve Bannon flood the zoneconcept, right?
If you just keep saying things, new things, if you get a bad
media cycle, say something else crazy and they're gonna forget
about it. And it works.
It clearly fucking works. So why are we hiding?

(53:00):
And again, I'll go back to Joe Biden.
Like, why are we hiding our such, our best candidate, our
president's like, if he's gonna say weird things, just own it.
Just be like, hell yeah, the president says weird things and
he's cool about it. Like, you know, you know, those
like dark branded edits where it's like he'd say something and
a reporter would be like, oh, were you the one who did the
drum strike? And he would just sit there and
turn to the camera, look and smile.
Yeah, do some fucking laser eye edits.
Own that shit. That's cool.

(53:21):
That's the kind of things. And again, you want to swing
young male voters, we like cool things.
I like cool things. Who doesn't like cool things?
Yeah, like if you want to fucking have the White House
posting a picture of Joe Biden riding AT Rex with laser guns,
Like, look, is it Courtney? Hell yeah.
But is that really kind of cool?Like, yeah, put some Three Days
Grace behind it. Like, I'm liking that post.
It's the same thing. I don't understand how we got

(53:42):
put in these little loops. And I really, honestly, coming
back to college after being on the hill, I really believe in
this again, My, my theory is that all these feedback loops of
like these Comm staffers and these people that are going into
comms are coming from more elites, universities, right?
Where professors and PhD people are former activists.
And they took wrong lessons awayfrom protests to their youth,

(54:03):
whether it was Vietnam or whatever.
And they really, they think thatby causing social disruption and
getting everyone to pay attention to them worked.
But what they don't kind of think about is like Vietnam had
a really complex set of factors that went into ending the war.
And like, this is not to discredit the activists that did
all these things. Like they, that is a good
example. They did good things like, but
you have to remember old folks, the people who vote that were

(54:25):
the voter base were anti Vietnamway quicker than young people
were, you know, and all this to say is like when you push too
hard on that social disruption, people get scared.
People don't like disruption. I don't like disruption.
I like when things are calm. So own it.
Like don't go fucking overboard thinking throwing a shit fit and
teaching people that, hey, if you throw a piss fit that the
government can respond to you. It's like, well, how about
calmly come in and talk to your elected officials?

(54:47):
You can do that. We we have phones for a reason.
I was the one who's picking up the fucking phones.
If you call in and say like, hi,my name is I'm just getting my
name like Max Levin. And I have a problem with the
members policy on again, this isthe one I had to hear thousands
of 1000 times. It was Israel over and over and
over. If you have a problem with it,
it doesn't make a difference. If you scream at me on the phone
or you say it nice and calmly, I'm logging it and I'm keeping

(55:09):
it a file and we're keeping the members aware.
He knows these things. Our staff knows these things.
But if you very calmly and politely call and articulate
your policy of what you want, what you want changed, one, I'm
going to have a much better day 2.
I'm going to be working a hell of a lot harder to push these
things and and we'll be able to have a much better dialogue
instead of just coming in the office calling me complicit
genocide, throwing things and throwing a shit fit.

(55:30):
Like if you say very calmly, like, look, we want this, we
want that. We'll tell you exactly what
we're working on, right? You know, we can work with the
administration, we can work on these things.
But if you throw a shit fit, throw a temper tantrum and go
give me an all or nothing ultimatum.
And if I don't immediately tell you the four words you want to
hear of like ceasefire now or like whatever, like I can't help
you. You know, I want to help you.
That's my job. We were civil servants.

(55:51):
That's what we're supposed to do.
And and all that to say these these Comm staffers are taking
away the wrong lessons of like those activists in the past that
are teaching them, Yeah, that's OK to do that.
It's OK that you have to word police these things.
And we have to, you know, cave to activists because they're
always right. And it's like, at what point do
we go, OK, listen, we're doing our best, sit down, shut up,
help us out, or we're not going to help us.

(56:11):
Like the climate activists are getting a really good example of
this. Like with the permitting bill, I
want to say it was Mansion and Barrasso, senator from Wyoming
and senator from West Virginia, They had a really good
permitting reform bill, right? And the math kind of worked out
to something like this, streamlining permitting for
energy. So it was going to be a 2%
increase in carbon emissions foroil.
That's not good, right? We obviously know we've got to
start getting our carbon emissions down and working on

(56:32):
it. Do you want to know the other
percentage for solar, wind, natural gases even?
I think it was 14% decrease in carbon emissions.
So if you add those together, you're still getting a net 12%
reduction and you're still goingto get it through the Senate.
Like that's the thing. Either it's this net 14 percent
or nothing. And they'd much rather throw a
shit that saying you guys are destroying the planet, then

(56:53):
actually get that substance of change.
And like, at what point do we say you guys are a bunch of
spoiled children using mommy anddaddy's trust fund to come and
hang out at Capitol Hill and protest and yell at us?
Knock that shit off or help us out, One or the other.
And it, it plays bad with both sides, right, because
Republicans will look at that and see these people throwing a
shit fit and it'll end up like on libs of TikTok or, or
wherever. And, and, and it looks like, you

(57:14):
know, social disruption is the thing and everybody hates social
disruption. Your average median person hates
fucking social disruption. They think protesting is fine as
long as you're quiet and in yourlittle corner.
But if you're standing in the middle of the road or you're
rating, you know, whatever you're doing if, if you're
making more of it than just standing there with your
pickets, But even that has a negative connotation to it.
And then and at the same time, you know, those activists are

(57:35):
then blocking, like you said, a bill that could ultimately reap
a lot of benefits because they're spoiled, petulant
children who don't understand that.
And you're like you have done nobody any good anywhere and
hurt both sides. Exactly.
And it's like, it's, it's like those bad lessons taken away
from, again, I'm going to keep going back to it because I have
professors that were a part of these movements, but like

(57:56):
they're taking the wrong lessonsaway of like, if we just throw a
shit fit, things will work out in our favor.
It's like, no, the thing in Vietnam was complex and we did
bad things. And I get that, but it was a
complex set of factors, not justthe fact that you marched around
because you do that, you especially the disruption
factors. Like I look, we can talk all
about protest factors and how todo these things, but being
really fucking annoying and especially to the wrong people

(58:18):
doesn't work. I don't understand because like
I look, I live on a college campus.
I've had three different TA strikes in my years here.
My first quarter of college, right during COVID, there was a
professor strike with TAS involved.
Then my second year, there was aTA strike.
And so that lasted for two months and there was all these
disruptions. They were cutting all these
things. And like, again, I'll give a
good example of you really want to sway the two students on your

(58:38):
side. Help us out.
Like a lot of the TAS were cool and we're like, yeah, we're
cancelling it. If you just do the bare minimum,
like I can't say it confirmly, but I will be giving you an A if
the teacher doesn't do this, like you can teach me, I'll help
you. And then the other parts of the
Tasmania were like blocking parking lots.
They were stopping students fromparking.
It's like, well, if I have a midterm to get to and you just
fucked me, so now I can't get mymidterm and I fail, I'm not
going to be on your side ever. Like yeah, if you're blocking

(59:00):
me, I'm getting. Impressions.
You remember the one of like thethe protesters again with like
the ceasefire stuff when they were blocking the hospital?
Yeah, why are you blocking a hospital?
If you want to cause a problem, go pause a problem that doesn't
block a hospital. Right.
I don't understand how I have tobe the one to tell you that.
Yeah, nobody. Should have to tell you that.
If you want to go protest outside Raytheon, be my guest.

(59:22):
But protesting that one broke mybrain.
I remember seeing that. I was like, there's no way this
is real. Like you, a hospital.
Don't interfere with people's ability to save their own lives.
Yeah, I can't believe we have totell you that.
A hospital of all places. And it's just, it's embarrassing
because it's like when we panderto those people, we're the ones
who look weak and at what point or another, we just have to
accept. We have to tell these people to

(59:43):
sit down, shut the fuck up. Either we're going to give you
what you want and you can acceptit.
You can help us. Otherwise, we got to do what we
got to do because the answer is the other guy is going to be a
hell of a lot worse. And it's just it, it hurts.
And I think winning young male voters and in swinging this
perception of us being a weak party is like, we have to own
this shit. We got to be strong.
We got to be like, and not to say tough on crime because it's

(01:00:04):
like that has bad connotation, but we have to be firm.
We can't just be like, oh, well,you know, it's a mental health
affliction. So we shouldn't put them in a
rehab facility. Like, no, you need help and
we're going to help you. Like, I don't care what the
people with like multiple flags and a bunch of emojis in their
bio on Twitter think. I'm getting the homeless people
off the street and I'm helping them.
I don't care if you don't like how I'm doing it.

(01:00:24):
The answer is we're getting themthe help we need.
If that's your mother, your cousin, your aunt, your uncle,
we're getting them the help theyneed and we're going to work on
it. That's a promise.
Like same thing with housing. It's like, I'm not going to sit
here and tell you, oh, well, I have this concept complicated
five step plan or whatever. Like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm
getting your rents down and I'm doing my best and that's my
promise to you. Look, and again, I'm not a comps
person. I don't know what campaign as
well as most people, but I I think that's a much better plan

(01:00:46):
than just here's my elaborate thing of protecting X right or
whatever, or strengthening democracy of this abstract
concept that we don't really know like think about.
I mean, how do you win over voters, right?
You tell them you're going to dosomething for them, right?
And if you're, if you're, if the, if the voting population
that you're telling you're goingto do something for them is less

(01:01:06):
than 1% of the population, obviously that's not doing
anything for, for, you know, getting your, getting yourself
elected. You've got to know what your
message is, right? And then you've got to simplify
it to where it tells them in very uncertain, but simple and
concise terms, what is going to happen when I do this thing?
Like you said, we're going to lower your rent.

(01:01:27):
You know, obviously you can say we're going to do it by building
more houses because a lot of people are going to know that,
but we're going to lower your rent.
We're going to get your wages up.
We are going to tax the wealthy so that your taxes don't go up.
Make it simple, make it understandable, and everything
else will fall in line from there.
You know, coming across and being like, well, we want an
opportunity economy. What the fuck is that?

(01:01:50):
What does that mean? Nobody knows.
What is that like? You know, it's, it's ridiculous.
Nobody understands what that is.Nobody wants to know what that
is. It sounds like means tested
liberal bullshit. And it's just like you said,
we're going to make sure your wages are better.
We're going to raise minimum wage.
If that's what you want to do, whatever it is, just simple
terms, say it. Stop the bullshit.

(01:02:11):
Exactly. That's how you reach people.
Did you ever see that clip of Obama going back and forth
about, like, his immigration thing is in that audience?
Yeah, it's that simple. If you want to come here
legally, if you want to learn our language and you want to
come here legally, you want to pay the fee and do the work,
Hell yeah. Because the answer is Americans
work hard. We are strong.
We are committed. Like you could say a lot about
all the Europeans who make fun of us.
Like, yeah, we work hard, We work smart, and people respond

(01:02:33):
to that. If you're an immigrant who wants
to come here and start a business and make your life, I
think really if you're frame it like that and you do all the
right steps, I don't think majority of Americans can have a
problem with that. Like there are few people that
work harder than immigrants who went through the legal process
to become American citizens. There are few people who work
hard. Now there are Americans, like

(01:02:53):
you said, work hard and there's many people who work just as
hard as them. But there are a few people that
work harder and they've earned it.
And no, there's not this pull the ladder up behind you
mentality with with legal immigrants.
But if they got here legally, the expectation is that anybody
that comes after them should gethere legally as well.
And that's a fair, that's a fairassumption and a fair thought.
Absolutely. It's like own the, that, that

(01:03:16):
that capital of the the house onthe Hill, whatever is the thing
on the hill, own that shit. Be like, hell yeah.
This is America. We're the land of opportunity.
You want to come here and work hard, you earn it.
You do it the right way. Hell yes.
Like I be rewarded. Yeah, and it's the same thing
for like regular. It's like, no, we're not
crowding out jobs. We're providing jobs because
that's what Americans do. Like, I really think one of the
the only good things that came out of this like campaign cycle,

(01:03:38):
and this is probably the biggest1, was Democrats owning
patriotism, right? Harris going up and going hell
yeah. We are the strongest military on
planet Earth and they do not fuck with us.
We are the United States of America.
I like that. Like own that shit.
If Republicans are too busy talking about how America sucks
because we're woken, we're all fucking whatever.
They're not patriots. I love this country.
Do you love this country? Absolutely.
Like I don't know how we it's like the culture war thing.

(01:04:00):
We apparently now Democrats are the patriots were the ones who
love this country. I.
Reversed, yeah. Right, we'll take it.
For so long it was Democrats hate America.
Everything about America is bad.They want to fix everything.
They don't believe in it now. Now is the reverse.
All we've heard from Donald Trump is constant whining and
make America great again becauseAmerica is the, you know, it's
fallen from grace. It's the worst country ever.
And like you said in this last election, the Democrats and

(01:04:21):
Harris were, you know, we love this fucking country like we
it's, it's, we want to make it better still, but it's, it's a,
it's the best country in the world.
And that messaging does work. I mean, it's people, people love
that. And, you know, we talk about
immigrants, immigration in particular, and like with
declining birth rates, use that,right.
We need immigrants. We need more consumers in the

(01:04:43):
economy. Immigrants consume, they buy,
they contribute to the economy, which creates more jobs, which
creates higher wages, which doesall this stuff that follows it.
Like, you know, we could talk all about it all day, but you
know, like we've kind of talked about the whole time.
Basically we've got to figure out the messaging, right?
We've got to figure out what we want to do on immigration.
You talked about that Obama, youknow, I guess was it a town hall
where he's basically walking around answering?

(01:05:05):
It was just perfect. And I remember at the time
hearing like how left wing and how progressive and how radical
he was. And then you listen to that and
you're like, this is this is what Republicans say.
Yeah, this is this is reasonable.
Yeah, this is, this is a normal,normal immigration policy and a
very good one. We've got to get back to that.

(01:05:25):
We do I, you know, and it's hardbecause we're at that weird
moment where we just lost and like the new administration's
taking power and we're still finding our voice.
I'm confident that we will find it and we'll find a new leader
to take up the mantle. And God only knows who it's
going to be because I, I, my guttells me a lot of members of
Congress and, and senators are really trying to fight to be
that voice. And I think they're starting to
see that, you know, you have Ro Khanna going all these places,
you have Chris Murphy, you know,you have all these people that

(01:05:47):
are really fighting to be that voice.
And I think sooner or later it'sgoing to start to emerge that
there's this new set of voices, new generation of people that
are ready to take over and change things.
And all I have to say is I hope that they can actually find a
concrete voice. I really hope that, you know,
recently elected DNC Chair Ken Martin, obviously, I hope he
understands that building this environment shows like us is a

(01:06:07):
part of that thing. It's going to be hiring comms
people who just go on fucking Instagram reels and start
talking about their member. You know, we have to start
building it. You build it now, not later, but
now and get this thing rolling, you know.
Yeah, Well, in that case, we're going to go ahead and that here.
This has been progressive podcast and we've hosted the
electorate. Ian, I want to thank you so much
for joining us today. Is there anything if you want to

(01:06:29):
leave our audience with? Yeah, if you guys could just
find me on all the social medias, you can find electorate
pod on X. We're on YouTube, Instagram,
TikTok, basically wherever you get, wherever you get your
social media and just give us a like, follow, comment and let's
try to build an ecosystem that can compete with the right wing.
Absolutely. Well, that's awesome.
We'll go ahead and link obviously all his socials below.

(01:06:52):
We'll keep you posted. And this has been the
Progressive Podcast. Thanks so much and we'll see you
next time.

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