October 10, 2024 • 46 mins
In this episode of "The Fourscore Project," Roger Clark continues his in-depth discussion with Professor Dan Schnur, focusing on the potential for a historic political realignment in the United States during the 2024 elections. Schnur, a seasoned political communications expert, examines the possibility of such a realignment, comparing it to previous pivotal moments in American history. The conversation touches on the current political strategies of motivating core supporters versus persuading undecided voters, and the implications of these strategies on the broader political landscape. Schnur also explores the erosion of public trust in institutions, the role of social media in modern campaigns, and the complex dynamics of voter behavior in an increasingly polarized society. As they analyze the upcoming election, Schnur provides insightful commentary on what it would take for 2024 to be a transformative year in American politics.
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(00:21):
Hello.
My name is Roger Clark.
I'm your host today on this episodeof the Fourscore and Seven Project.
Today, we're going to discusswhether 2024 will be
a historical realignmentof American politics.
And we have with us to discussthat subject,
Professor Dan Schnur,professor at University
of Southern CaliforniaAnnenberg School of Communications.
(00:43):
You're also a professor at Pepperdine
Graduate School Public Policy,
and he is also a professorat the University of California
at Berkeley, where you teach politicsand communications.
Welcome back.
I just think you so much for having me.I really appreciate. It.
Well, it'sit is a fascinating conversation today.
Here it is, 2020for a very divided electorate.
(01:06):
A lot of hostility flying back and forth.
Are we on the verge of having a major
historical political realignmentthis year?
And before we get into that conversation,maybe we should define what exactly
is a political realignmentin American politics.
By two great questions.
I think if you look at American historyor history, in any democracy,
(01:30):
a realignment iswhen large numbers of voters
fundamentally reconsidertheir allegiances,
which means they fundamentallyreconsidered their priorities
and decided to make a change
that tends to be relatively rare
in a in a democracy, at least a dramaticchange of the type that tends to be fairly
(01:52):
rare in a democracy is a is 2024
going to be one of those realignmentelections?
I don't think so.
And I don't meanthat is either criticism or compliment
to either of the two likely nominees.
But I feel like at this pointwe are such a closely divided society.
(02:13):
Our next fundamental realignment will comewhen one party or the other,
and I have no ability to predictwhich one is able
to convince a large number of Americans
to fundamentally reconsidertheir priorities and therefore alignment
their alignment,as I talked about a moment ago.
And I think that whether Bidenor Trump wins
(02:34):
in November, it'sgoing to be a very close election.
It's going to bea very bitterly divided election.
And I don't see many voters
going to that typeof reconsideration process.
So I think we're overduefor that type of realignment.
But whether it comes in four yearsor eight years
or 12 years, I don't see it comingthis November.
Well, let's talkand maybe get a better grasp of this.
(02:57):
Give us some examples of some of the major
political realignment
that have occurred in the past.
You know, when you were.
My initial thought was, well,
maybe the election of AbrahamLincoln was one of those.
But on the other hand, maybe
it wasn't because he was actuallya minority president.
(03:19):
I think he got somethingless than 40% of the vote.
And it was a he was a sexual president.
So he didn't carry the rest of the nationwith him,
even though he's now revered as maybethe greatest president we've ever had.
What would be some examples?
Well, I think that's such an importantdistinction that you just made,
because no questionthat Lincoln was a successful president.
Of course, he was a great president.
(03:40):
But the election didn't his electiondid not fundamentally realign the country.
Rather, his actions as president did.
And those are two different typesof changes.
I would say that in the last century,
we've seen two realignmentsin American politics in 1932 and in 1980.
And it's not my place.
(04:00):
Everyone will make their own decisionson which one of them
was a wonderful realignmentand which one was a horrible realignment.
But there are two diametrically opposingrealignments
going in very different directionsfor the country.
And Franklin Roosevelt,the depths of the Great Depression.
Ronald Reagan, in a post-Vietnam
Watergate era, both convincedimmense numbers of Americans
(04:24):
not just to reconsider their politics,but reconsider their priorities.
And both in both of those occasions,it led to the kind of realignment
you're talking about.
Biden and Trump in different ways,I think are actually very
talented politicians,but neither one of them right now
is trying to realign the country.
What both of their campaignsbelieve with some degree of justification,
(04:46):
may be not quite as exaggeratedas they'd come to this.
They've come to believe.
Both of their campaignshave come to believe
that the country is equally dividedand the way that they can win
Biden or Trump is by motivating their mostloyal supporters to turn out at slightly
greater numbers than their opponentsmost loyal supporters.
And that is potentiallya successful campaign strategy.
(05:07):
And we can talk if there's time todayabout why more and more campaigns
run those types of motivational campaigns
rather than persuasion campaigns.
But on both sides are,if not exclusively, primarily
focused on motivating their existingmost loyal true believers.
(05:28):
That doesn'tleave much room for realignment
because no one's asking for it.
Well, that's actually,you know, profound point.
And, you know, you know,the first thing that occurred to me in 19,
you know, the election was 1932was Franklin Roosevelt.
And one subset of that realignmentwould be the African-American community,
because I believe that up until FranklinRoosevelt, the African-American community
(05:50):
was uniformly Republicanand very close to being.
Of course, it was a republic.
The first Republican president,Abraham Lincoln, freed the slaves.
Freed the slaves.
The Democrats were dominant inthe old Confederacy in the southern part.
And if flipped that yes,
that's an example of a realignmentthat you're talking about then.
So so so then here we are in 2024
(06:12):
and you made ajust a fascinating difference
between a persuasion, a leaderand a motivated motivational leader.
I just
can't let thatpass without asking you to expand on that.
So I tell my students that there'sthree kinds of voters in the world
say they're Saints sinnersand salvageable as
(06:35):
a saint, as a voter or a voter
group, a demographic or geographic votergroup that agrees with me.
And they're going to vote for meand my party
and my candidates almost no matter what.
And we know that in a national electionthat's relatively
40% of the electoratefor Democrats are Republicans.
Four out of every ten voters are.
They're saints
now are 40% of the voters are saints.
Logically speaking,that means 40% of the voters are sinners.
(06:59):
And one of the unfortunate thingsabout the polarization of our politics
in 2024 is one thingI have to go to great lengths
to explain in class now that I didn'twhen I first started teaching
is the term saints and sinners should comewith quotation marks around them
that a sinner isn't a bador an evil person.
It's just someonewho is never going to vote your way.
And we're using that termfor just verbal acts.
(07:20):
Ever believes maybe another way to say it.
All things have a pass and all sins.
Sinners have a future. Thereyou. Go. Precisely.
Though 40% of the voterswe know are going to vote for our party,
40% of the voterswe know aren't under any circumstance.
That leaves 20% of the voterswho are salvageable.
Voters who, for the most partvote on the basis of past behavior,
have indicated a willingness under
(07:40):
some circumstances is to votefor a candidate of either party.
Now, when I was coming up in politicsin the late 20th century,
political operatives in both partiessubscribe to
what's called the 8020 approach.
And this was persuasion politics.
Think of this as horizontal messaging.
There's a certain number of votersin between the 40 yard lines,
(08:02):
and I have to move them horizontallytoward one goal line or the other.
Well,
as time has passed
and for all sorts of reasonsthat we can get into, if you would like,
particularly in the 21stcentury, politics has changed,
has become more and more focusednot on persuasion
(08:23):
of the salvageable,
but on motivation of those saints.
Think of that as vertical messaging.
Those saints, those true believersare already over where I need them to be.
I just have to elevate them.Get them to the polls.
And if you've ever triedto figure out with your family
which restaurant to go toor which movie to go to, you know, that
motivating someone, essentiallyreminding them why they like something
(08:46):
and persuading them to do something
are two entirely different typesof communications challenges.
And even though a successfulcampaign has to do both
over the course of a campaign, it'sa zero sum game
because every minuteI spend motivating my sense, not only am I
not persuaded, salvageable, I'm probablydriving them in the other direction.
(09:06):
And similarly, every dollarI spend trying to persuade salvageable,
I'm not just ignoring my saints,but they're becoming less motivated
and less likely to turn out.
I'll give you one example
from the early stages of the 2024campaign.
Joe Biden has becomea very committed advocate
for enhanced border security.
(09:30):
That's a very savvy way of reaching out
to salvageable voterswho prioritize that issue also.
But at the same time that Biden is talkingabout a greater presence
on the US-Mexico border and reaching outto salvage rebels, his saints
are not only not
part of the conversation,they're actually becoming less motivated.
On the flip side,let's say Donald Trump is talking
(09:53):
to an audience about his appointmentof Supreme Court justices.
The three justiceswho overturned Roe versus Wade.
That has
the ability, that messageto profoundly motivate his sense,
but it drivessalvage bulls in the other direction.
So every campaign is about balancingbetween the two.
And I would arguethat any leader in politics or any field
(10:15):
has to find a way to do both.
How do I keep the peoplewho are already on my side,
on my side, and get them inspiredand excited about it?
But how do I reach beyond the ranksof those true loyalists
to bring in new people?
I'll give you a sports analogy.
We've talked inprevious episodes about boxing.
The famous will remember him, famousbaseball manager years and years ago.
(10:36):
Earl Weaver, manager of the BaltimoreOrioles.
And Earl Weaver used to say the point.
He said in every clubhouse,he said, there's ten players
who love you, ten players who hate youand five who can't make up their mind.
And he said the job of a good manageris to keep the ten players
who hate you away from the fivewho can't make up their mind.
His version of said citizens eligibles.
(10:57):
So then by that definition,we're talking about realignment campaigns.
FDR would be a persuader.
Yes, Ronald Reagan be a persuader.
But also finding a way to still motivate.
Your existing supporters.
Having that having that talent to do that,which again, I think also triggers
another questioninto the art of communications.
So both FDR and Ronald Reagan were
(11:20):
of course,Reagan is known as the great communicator,
FDR in a different era, different, youknow, tools was also a great communicator.
You know, as well.
So can you be a persuader
and therefore producea realignment campaign
if you're not a good communicator?
I don't think so.
But this also gets back to a conversationwe had in
one of our previous episodesabout communications technology.
(11:43):
Roosevelt was the first American presidentto master the use of radio.
Reagan arguably took
his use of television to a levelthat no previous American president had.
It's entirely possiblethat Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter's
advisers would have said,How do you lead in an age of radio?
How do you lead in an age of television?
And Rooseveltand and Reagan in very different eras,
(12:06):
figured outhow to make these tools work for them.
I would argue no disrespect to Bidenor Trump or Obama or George W Bush.
We're still waiting for the first Americanpresident who masters
digital communications
the way that Reagan mastered televisionand Roosevelt mastered radio.
Still waiting for it. Yeah. So.
(12:28):
Well, let me just dwell on this.
This point, again,
is the reason
we have a Biden.
And of course,
we all remember Biden is
or maybe it was Hillary Clintonthat first used the term deplorables.
And then when I first heard that, itsays, My God, what is she thinking?
I mean, in my concept anyway,someone who's running for president
(12:51):
should be a uniter.
I think most of our listeners
on this Fourscoreand seven project would agree with that.
They're uniter, not a divider.
That's the idea.
So if you come out and callhalf the country deplorables,
then then that is not trying to persuade.
I understandnow they're trying to motivate the base.
(13:11):
So you but you'rebut your point is, is the exact right one.
At what cost?
First of all, put aside the moralityof a leader saying that half the country
doesn't. Exactly.
I always used to joke about itwith my candidates.
I did campaigns say a salvageableas a saint
who just doesn't know it yet.
(13:32):
Once you call a salvageable deplorable,
you're probably not going to win them backany time soon.
You know they're running the otherdirection.
Exactly.
Professor,it seems to me this aspect toward
presidential politics,probably a politics at all level,
focusing on motivating the saintsas you defined it,
(13:53):
as opposed to trying to motivatethe Saints, but also to persuade the
salvageable the salvageable of, again,at least 2016, maybe before that.
I'd argue it began well before that
and in the
in the 1990s and Bill Clintonfirst ran for president,
his campaign targeted a demographic votergroup.
(14:15):
You may remember the termthe soccer moms. Yes.
Okay.
And soccer moms.
And to be fair, soccer dads.
These are suburban parentswho were economically successful
and therefore tendedto be more economically conservative,
but tended to be more liberalon social issues.
And for many, many years they votedRepublican based on their economic
(14:36):
interests.
And Clinton said, I'm not one of thoseold tax and spend Democrats.
I'm a new Democrat.
You can trust me on economic issues.
So why don't you vote on the socialand cultural issues?
Instead, Republicans saw this happening
and said, Well, we can't just sit hereand let this happen.
So really smart Republicans,Newt Gingrich, Karl
Rove and others,they identified another demographic group
(14:59):
less known, which is too starkthat will call NASCAR dads
and NASCAR dads
and NASCAR moms,just like suburban parents
tend to be economically conservative,but socially moderate to liberal.
These working class blue collar
voters tend to be more economicallypopulist and working class
and more culturally conservative.
(15:22):
And so the two partiesengineered this massive shift
where these large groups of voters decidedto cast their ballots not on the basis
of economic issues, but on the basisof social and cultural matters.
And where this actually came toa head was in the 2004 election,
George W Bush versus JohnKerry for years and years before that,
(15:45):
the most reliable indicatorof partizan voting behavior was income.
The more money you made, the more likelyyou were to vote Republican.
The less money you made,the more likely you are to vote Democrat
in 2004 for the first time.
Instead of income, the partizan identifier
was a characteristic that the politicalscientists call religiosity,
(16:05):
not the religious faith that you practice,
but rather the intensitywith which you practice it.
And what we saw in that election is anindividual who went to church or synagogue
once a week or more was more than twiceas likely to vote for Bush or Kerry.
In one who went to a religious servicesonce a month or less was much more likely
to vote for Kerry and Bush.
(16:26):
And so that began accelerating after eachelection to an even greater degree.
And in 2016, to your point, Roger,
we saw in other social demographiccharacteristics be added to this mix.
And education
is more and more bluecollar, socially conservative voters
voted Republican and more and more
(16:48):
white collar, sociallyliberal moderate voters voted Democrat.
What we saw in 2016for the first time is that college
graduates began votingDemocratic in much, much larger numbers.
And those who
didn't attend collegeor who didn't graduate from college
tend to become much more likelyto vote Republican.
(17:10):
And I'm always very careful to saythis isn't a question of intelligence.
More than anything, it'sa question of educational opportunity.
And Donald Trump, tohis credit, is a politician either
intentionally or intuitively recognizedto the resentment
that many of these non-collegeeducated, these working class voters
felt towardthose who had achieved what isn't.
(17:33):
But what you're saying,isn't that a realignment?
Exactly the topic of today's conversation.
Does Donald Trump representa political realignment?
Interesting.
I would say if you look, it'sa really good question.
I would say if you went throughClinton, Bush, Obama, Trump,
you would see this.
(17:54):
We define realignment differently
because usually a realignment is thoughtabout going in one direction or the other.
What we saw from the early 1990s tonow was a trade off.
Neither party benefitedfrom that realignment
the way the Democrats did in FDR Dayor the Republicans did in the Reagan era.
So I think your point is a fair one.
(18:15):
It is a realignment that the two sidesessentially cancel each other out.
So we have had just as massivea political shift,
just less noticeablebecause the two of them.
Interesting. Yeah.
Well, again,it comes back to the definition
or the distinction between a motivationalleader on a persuasive, persuasive leader
(18:37):
or leaders just getting lazy.
I mean, our listeners, the four scoreand seven project
or I can speak on behalf of them,we're all yearning for a persuader.
We want someone to unify as leaders,as a group, build consensus.
But yet the people that are running foroffice are dividing us.
So why take the low road instead of tryingto achieve the high road?
(19:01):
Hill We talked earlier about this shiftfrom a persuasion
based campaign to a motivationbased campaign to what
savvy politicos in both parties realizedis that motivating
sense is a lot easier and a lot cheaperthan persuading salvageable.
It's a lot less risky
if I'm trying to motivate peoplewho are already on my side to vote for me.
(19:24):
I only have to convince them of one thing.
I have to convince them to vote.
If they vote, they're going to vote for mefor salvageable.
I have to convince them to do two things.
I have to convince themto vote, number one.
And then have convinced him insome do vote for me.
If I only accomplishone of those two goals,
I've turned out to vote for my opponent.
So two tasks rather than one.
Twice as expensive.
Twice is time consumingand much more risky.
(19:47):
Because if I try to motivate ast and fail, they stay home.
If I try to persuade, a salvage wouldn'tfail.
It's not for my opponent.
So the incentive structure has driven
the two partiestoward this type of behavior.
But so as we've talked aboutin the previous episode,
so is social media,
(20:08):
because people are able to establishthose ideological igloos for themselves
and isolate themselves from any news orinformation that they don't want to hear.
It's a lot harder to reachunsalvageable today than it used to be.
Well, you made a point just a couple ofminutes ago that we're still
looking for the great leaderwho can manage social media,
(20:30):
high tech,the way that Reagan was able to lead
to the televisionor FDR was able to lead by radio.
Are we suggesting
that when that individual comes along,who is able to,
with great talent, managea high tech communications?
(20:51):
Would that be an individualwho no longer is trying to motivate
but is also trying to persuade?
I think so.
I think one of the downsides,one of the limitations,
I should say, of digital mediain politics in particular,
is digital media,for all the reasons we've talked about,
is a really, really good wayto motivate your sense.
It's much harder to persuade.
(21:12):
Salvageable is online because they don'thave to pay any attention to you.
And I always joke with my students,I say, one of you is going to figure out
and one of you is going to invent an app
that's going to make it just as easyto persuade salvageable as online
citizen motivated sense, and you're goingto become incredibly wealthy.
I just want you to rememberwhere you got the idea first,
because I want my cut out as
(21:34):
well.
But I think your point is a great one.
And I do think
that that next great communicator
will be someone who figures out a way
to use digital and social media,not just to motivate, to persuade as well.
I think that's a great point.
Consider it officially stolen.
Well, will do.
Will do well.
Well, let's assume a hypothetical.
(21:56):
Let's say Biden is the nominee.
Let's assume Trump is the nominee.
And let's say that.
Let's take first example.
Biden wins.
What?
In the same question, let'sassume on the opposite that that Trump
went for this 2020for it to be a realignment each year.
(22:18):
What would either of those two leadershave to do for 2024
to be considered a real classicalhistorical realignment year?
Well, first they'd have to try,and I don't mean that to denigrate
either one of them, but as we talkedabout earlier, both of their campaigns
are pretty singularly focusedon motivating their respective states.
(22:39):
Realignment means moving people.
I don't see either one of them right nowputting forth a great effort
to move or realignlarge numbers of voters.
So the first thing isthat they would have to try.
The second thing is
they would have to find an issueon which to do it.
I would say that it's entirely possible
(23:00):
that that issue exists for both of themshould they decide
that they want to use it that way.
What's the issue?
For Trump, it's immigration.
For Biden, it's abortion.
The best way to realign voters,
the best way to simultaneouslymotivate states and persuade salvageable
is find an issue where you're sayingI agree with the salvageable.
(23:21):
And in this country right nowin a post Dobbs environment.
Not all but most salvageable
with Democratic states.
They don't want abortion legalup until the moment of birth.
But generally speaking,they want to see it legal.
And on the flip
side, as Biden is struggling with rightnow, as we talked about a few minutes ago.
(23:41):
Most salvageable are an agreementwith Republican states
on the needfor more restrictive border policy.
And I think ifeither one of the candidates
was willing to fashion a message
that could appeal to salvage rebelson those issues to a greater degree,
that theycould realign large groups of voters
who are either undecidedor part of the other side's cohort
(24:04):
in the coming.
Well, we again,we would love to see someone
who could bring us togetheras opposed to divide us.
But let me ask
let's assume from what we know, Biden getswe know the age issue with why
people are concerned that he just doesn'thave the capability physically
or mentally to do it.
And we're all kind of wonderingwhy is he still in the game?
(24:24):
And then we got Trumpwho was facing these indictments,
which raises the possibilitythat we could have President
Trump second term, a convicted felon.
In theory,he could be in a federal prison someplace.
Can a presidentlead the country from a federal prison?
Well.
I mean, clearly we don't knowbecause we've never experienced something
(24:47):
like that before.
Just the fact that someone can runfor president
under those circumstances is sort of mindboggling enough.
But that actually has happened.
That we've had a president in a federal.
Not a presidential candidate.
The in 1920, the Socialist Party
nominee for president, Eugene Debs,
(25:09):
and spent the entire election in jail.
And he campaigned from jailand obviously was unsuccessful.
But that's as closeas we've ever come to this.
So Biden and Trump
are two very unusual circumstancesfor the reasons you just mentioned.
Why is Biden running again?
Biden believes and there is perhapssome justification to this
(25:30):
he believes that he's the Democratmost capable of defeating Donald Trump.
And in fact, he did four years agoand was able to reach out to some of those
salvageable working class votersthat Clinton had not been able to reach.
That although he doesn't say this by name,that he clearly doesn't think
that Gavin Newsom or Raphael Warnockor Bernie Sanders can can reach
(25:51):
Trump.
On the other hand,
either truly believes or has convincedhimself that it's smart politics
to believe that these legal these chargesagainst him are politically manufactured.
Well, which is the ultimatesaint motivation message.
Isn't interestingbecause every time he's been indicted,
his support increasesnot only numbers, but in intensity.
(26:15):
What does it tell us
about the faith that Americans have
and the politicizationof the American justice system?
Because you would think in a normal, saneworld, someone is getting indicted.
Well, there must there's smoke there.
There must be fire there somewhere.
But yet people are rallying behind himafter these indictments.
To me, that suggest that peoplein this country have lost faith
(26:38):
in the justice systembecause they think it's been politicized.
Is that a fair observation?
I think that's a very fair observation,although I would actually
truncated slightly.
Instead of
saying Americans have lost faithin the judicial system
and the level of confidence,according to polls, has has gone down.
I would sayinstead, Americans have simply lost faith.
(27:01):
They've lost faith in institutions,the judicial system included.
But basically,every traditional institution,
the justice system, politics,military business,
we've seen a diminishmentof public confidence and respect
for those institutions.
And if we're a tribal speciesand if we need a group to belong to,
(27:23):
what does that leave?
It leaves the Democraticand Republican Party.
And I'm going to remain part of my party.
I'm going to become a lawyer.
I'm going to staya loyal part of my tribe, even if it means
taking a position that
wouldn't have seemed reasonableand less polarized.
Interesting.
Well, you know, it also seems to methat with a general loss of, quote, faith,
(27:47):
not just in the justice system,but in all institutions,
it seems that we're a society ripe
crime for a unifying leader,someone who would realign us somehow.
It seems like there's a great openingfor that individual, whoever or wherever
they are.
Please come forward.
I couldn't agree with you more.
And again, this is not meantas a criticism of either Biden or Trump.
(28:10):
They've chosen to run a campaign in a waythat just makes it difficult for them
to be that leader.
But as we talked about earlier,we talked about the 1840s and fifties.
We talked about the 19 teens.
We talked about the 1960s.
American history works in cycles.
And at a certain point,the voter unhappiness, the voted
dissatisfaction, the voter revulsionwith this hyper polarization
(28:35):
is going to lead to more
tangible action on behalf of the yearningthat you're talking about.
And whether that's in fouror eight or more years, I don't know.
But history suggests
that we cycle.
Because we're overdue earlyfor that realignment. We are.
We are we are overdue for a realignment.
And we're overdue for a great president.
(28:55):
And in all likelihood, at least, historywould suggest that the two come hand
in hand.
Well,in terms of the faith of the election
and polling consistentlyshows that a large swath
of the American people have not had faithin the last two elections.
I think in the 2016 election,a very substantial number of Democrats
thought that it was a false election.
(29:18):
Voter miscounted,improperly influenced in 2020.
There's a substantial numberof Republicans feel
that the election was miscounted.
It was a fraudulentelection, that type of thing.
And and still are both
large numbers of Democrats and Republicansand independents don't have faith
in the actual vote countor the actual process question.
(29:39):
And I think that's probablywell-established.
I don't think there's anythingunusual saying that.
But but how can a republic, a democracylike ours, survive and prosper
if a substantial number of the peopledon't even have faith
in our election process?
And that is a democraciesand a republic greatest test
is ultimately the responsibility lieswith the loser
(30:02):
to be willing to acknowledge defeatand come back and fight another day.
And Richard Nixon in 1960
and Al Gore in 2000,
both legitimately believed thatthey had won the election, both decided
it was in the country's in the democracy'sbest interest for them to stand up.
Well, with Nixon, it wasn't that famous.
Supposedly, Mayor Daley at the time
(30:23):
counted enough votes and Cook County,which carried Illinois,
which carriedthe nation, and Nixon was aware of that.
And Nixon just flat outrefused to challenge it
because they thoughtit would hurt the country.
And in the interest of partizan fairness,
Gore and Nixon for different reasons,came to similar conclusions.
At a certain point it was better tostand down for the sake of the democracy.
But once again,this comes back to the polarization
(30:43):
we've been talking aboutfor our few conversations we've had.
We've already establishedthat we're both sports fans.
Think about when you're watchingyour favorite sports team and they lose.
That's a really strong tribal identityfor your favorite team, right?
And when they lose,what's your first instinct?
You blame the referees.
(31:05):
Now, if the losing
team refused to abideby the referee's calls, by the decisions,
then the games couldn'tthe contest couldn't go on.
So we complain and we whine because we'reso that we belong so strongly
to our tribe, whether it's the 49 ERsor the Chiefs or whoever it happens to be,
we can't abide the thoughtthat our tribe lost, honestly.
(31:27):
So therefore, someone that horriblereferee, that ridiculous umpire,
that's those judgesmust have made an unfair decision.
Obviously,the stakes are much, much higher now.
But it comes back to that same roottribal and polarization instinct.
Well.
It could come back to and we'realmost out of time for the episode today.
And I do want to get this question in,because this comes back to how we modified
(31:50):
the voting rules.
You know, you and I both grew up in an erawhere there's the sanctity of the
of the polling booth.
You know, you goin, it was a secret ballot.
You could go in and pull the curtainsand you could vote for anybody,
regardless what your husbandor wife or your friends thought.
And you come out, you could lie about it,but you could vote your conscience.
But now we're in an era, particularly
like in California,where we have ballot harvesting
(32:13):
and we have all these mail in ballots
and which by definition eliminatesthe concept of the secret ballot
because you don't knowwho is exerting influence
when that individual at their homeor office, wherever they
where their cash in the ballot could havesomebody hanging over their shoulder.
Putting aside the issue of whether or notthey're being improperly cast
by people who aren't
(32:34):
shouldn't be even touching these ballots,but they could be subject to influence.
It's just the nature of the game,because when you have these,
what, six week voting periods, it'snot a voting day.
It all, to me, seems
to beckon for the
vulnerable vulnerabilityof our voting process.
It makes it vulnerable to corruptionor improper influence.
(32:55):
Once you move away from the sacred secretballot.
Well, and of course, this is a trade offwhich we see
in almost every aspect of lifein 21st century society.
At what price? Convenience.
There are all sorts of things
we do in our life, particularlyin a digital and social media era,
that make our lives more convenient,that require some kind of compromise.
(33:18):
I get ads on my computerthat you don't get
because they knowthat I buy certain products.
I've sacrificed my privacyin exchange for convenience
to find out about the kind of vacations
I want to take, as opposed to the kindof shoes you want to buy trade off.
And voting is yet another example of that.
The convenience of voting
(33:40):
from home, you
know, as opposed to going to the ballotbox, comes with the tradeoff.
And the tradeoff is the potentialfor vote tampering.
Now, it's worth noting that
after complaining very stronglyabout the practice of voter
harvesting for a couple of elections,Republicans are now advocating
it also not because they like it,because they realize that if they want.
To just get getting into the game,they're at.
(34:01):
A competitive disadvantage.
I guess it's it'smore broadly Republicans.
I think, devote a great deal of timeand attention
on questions of voter fraud,not just harvesting, but more broadly.
Democrats spend
a sizable amount of time
focusing on voter suppression.
My own opinion, guaranteed to geteveryone mad at me
(34:23):
is that both sides are taking sometimeslegitimate concerns
and wildly inflating them for their ownpartizan purposes.
In other words, if I'm a Democrat,I can really frighten my sense
that there's all sorts of horriblevoter suppression going on.
I can turn them out in greater numbersthe same way
a Republican can do the same thingon voter fraud.
(34:43):
That doesn't mean I don't takethe instances that exist seriously,
but I also recognize that both partiessee these phenomenal ways
of motivating their respective states,and there's not nearly as much voter
fraud or voter suppressionas the two parties tell us.
And the reason for thatis because they know
it's more likely to get themsent out to vote. Well.
Let me come back to this issueof convenience, insisted the justification
(35:06):
for ballot harvesting universalmail in ballots, having a six week voting
period
of the seasonas opposed to voting day, is convening.
But yet we're talkingabout every four year election
when it comes to it'san existential determination
that we've had hundredsof thousands of folks
die the battlefieldto protect our right to vote.
(35:29):
And it should be like we most people,as far as I know,
don't get married by mailin marriage certificates.
We all like to go to our collegegraduations or high school graduation.
There's a solemnity associated with thatbecause
it impressesthe importance of the occasion.
To me, it seems that requiring in-person
voting emphasizes and reinforces
(35:53):
how important the process is,
because people have fought and died,so they have the right to do it.
The question I posed toyou is convenience, even
a legitimate value to put into that scale
when it comes to voting.
I think I would argue that the
the true value of a democracyis that voters
(36:14):
not only get to decidewhich candidate should be elected.
They get to determine the answerto questions like that.
Now, don't get me wrong,it's not like we've had a high profile
debate in American presidential electionabout in-person versus mail voting.
And as you know, absentee
voting was originally designed for peoplewho are truly incapacitated or otherwise.
(36:35):
I think the 1864 Abraham Lincolnelectronically, wasn't it?
Right.
But I mean, for years it existedfor people just who not who would prefer
to vote from home, but who had had no wayof getting the polling places.
And we've become a society that becomesmore and more reliant on convenience.
I would love to see an electionin which two principled individuals argue
this out back and forth, and the votersof the country decided for themselves
(36:59):
which of these two principles is more
is more important. And
I suspect
that they would decide.
Despite what we hear on both sidesof the political debate, that they're not
as concerned about voter fraud
(37:19):
or as concerned about voter suppression,
at least the majority of them aren't.
And this is a much broaderand longer conversation
about fears about society,not about politics,
but of the majority of American peoplesay no.
I'd like to be able to vote conveniently.
(37:40):
There are concernsthat come attached with that
and not we have not yetdeveloped a technology
that could protect against the kindof transgressions you're talking about.
That doesn't mean that we can't.
But I think it ultimately
you're asking is less a political questionand more a societal question.
I mean, just real quick, politicsdoesn't exist in a vacuum.
(38:01):
Politicsisn't just a reflection of society.
It's an exaggeration of society.
And if we live in a societyin which people decide
that they are willingto tolerate certain things
in exchange for what they perceive
as benefits, ultimately that gets decidedin a democratic process.
I'm not taking a side foror against you here
(38:24):
because I have yet to see a leader
or a political leader stand up and say,this is wrong, this is dangerous.
This underminesthe sanctity of one person, one vote.
And I would love to see that
put to a test because I'd be fascinatedto see how the public
decided that question.
But we haven't put it to them yet.
Well, raises a couple of more questions.
I know our time isunfortunately is growing short
(38:46):
on this episode, butsneak in a couple more questions for you.
Voting machines.
People don't trust the electronicsor punch
a button and it goes into the nether worldand who knows what happens.
Can voting machines
be hacked or can they be riggedso they miscount your vote?
(39:07):
And too, if that happen,is there any way for us to ever know.
Voting machines can be can be hackedif they are connected to the Internet?
And one of the good things that's come outin the last couple of election cycles
is a growing realizationthat while the technology can help
count votes more efficiently,that the transmittal of those votes
(39:28):
can't be done.
Digitally.
In other words,
if I vote on a voting machinethat is disconnected from the Internet,
I can trust the technologyto calculate the votes
accurately.
Once I plug it into the internet
or go onto wi fi or whateverthe case may be.
That's where the danger.
(39:50):
But it does have to be ultimately connected to the Internet to transmit the votes.
It does not.
And in fact, that's what more and moreregistrars are realizing,
that even if you use a computerto accumulate the votes,
you transmit themto the central county authorities
manually because the transmittalis where the danger arrives.
(40:11):
And look,
you know, the FBI director
did a presentation before Congressjust the other day.
I don't know when this is goingto be broadcast, but not too long ago,
the FBI director warnedabout Chinese interference with U.S.
infrastructure.
There's ample evidence of bad actorson the world
(40:31):
stagelooking to interfere with our elections.
And so if for no other reason than that,let alone any domestic,
the voting needs to take place independent
of any kind of online communication.
Well,
let me let me just narrowthat a little bit, because,
you know, voting machineshave to have internal software.
(40:52):
Can that internal
software be programed to miscount votes
in a way that the voter did not intendfor that vote to be counted?
It can be.
And that's why hand recounts, I don'tthink, need to be done in every election.
But why the option of hand recountsneeds to be available in many states.
And I have to admit, I'm not certainexactly how many in many states
(41:14):
if the margin of an election outcomeis within a certain margin,
that recount becomes automatic.
If you and I run against each other andyou beat me in a landslide, 70% to 30%,
odds are there's not a computer program
that's going to have concoctedthat without someone noticing.
But if I lose to you by just a handful ofvotes, then a recount should take place.
(41:38):
And as we've seen, a handrecount is more time consuming
and also it's more unreliablebecause of human error.
But I think if youif you can go through this process
with a couple of different monitors,one technological and one human,
you offer a certain level of protectionthat isn't foolproof
but is much closer to itthan relying on either one complete
(42:01):
concept.
If you have a
voting machine that has internal softwarethat's been rigged, and I know
we all have, or a lot of peopletalk to people who actually had held
a demonstrationof how you can vote for candidate A
and then the ballot spits out candidate B,
So it's pretty clear it can be done.
(42:21):
But how would we know?
I mean, if you've got let's say it's beenthe software
has been internally mimicked, you know,for the individual voting machine.
Then you recounted how do you.
Know,how do you know that it's been improper?
Because then you do a recountwithout that software.
And if after our election is overand you beat me
51% to 49%, according to the computer,
(42:42):
and the hand count shows that I beatyou 55 to 45%.
Yeah.
Then we have a problemthat we need to resolve
that to your point, at least we're awarethat we have a problem.
So having the recount optionavailable to me with a.
Different software.
Or without software altogether.
Like I said, the handthe hand count eliminates that completely.
(43:03):
So whether it's two different computersor a computer or two different
types of programsor one type of program and a hand count,
the recount is the best protectionyou can have against that.
Well, let.
Me now we're going to get
if we're not careful, we're going to getinto a discussion that I'm not qualified.
Well, let me let me just real quickjust another big issue
(43:26):
that I think causes a lot of distrustin our American election process.
And here we arein 2024, is money is money in politics,
I think money now, is it the Supreme Courtlinks it up with free speech.
I think Justice John Paul Stevensfamously said money is not speech.
He was one of ninethe others all disagreed.
(43:46):
Well, in I do, too.
And I don't disagree on legal grounds.
I disagree on practical grounds.
Roger,if you go to give a speech in the town
square,you're exercising a right to free speech.
If I pull up next to you in a sound truckand I download two huge speakers
to give my speech and completely drownyou out, I'm not just exercising my right
to free speech.I'm interfering with yours.
(44:07):
And what we see in electionsat every level of politics
from both partiesis the financial equivalent of that.
I don't believe in public financing.
I believe our tax dollarsought to be going
for schools, for public safetyand for other necessities.
But I do believe that thatthat there can be
some restraints on the amount of moneythat a candidate
(44:29):
can raise and spend without interferingwith their First Amendment rights.
Because at a certain point,
if my for exercisingmy First Amendment rights undermine yours
and I violated the Constitutionjust as the Justice of your.
Last question, then then, then we.
Are going to have to come backand do another one
of these episodes of love,love to talk this out and more.
This is my question for you.
(44:50):
Justice John Paul Stevens actuallyproposed the constitutional amendment,
which did not go anywhere.
But his conceptwas that the amendment would say,
notwithstanding the provisionsof the First Amendment,
Congress would have the right
to impose reasonable regulationson the amount of money spent in politics.
Is that something you would agree with?
I would agree to itwith a large number of safeguards,
(45:11):
because I also recognize that onceyou give that power solely to Congress,
you're very quicklycreating an income protection procedure
where if incumbentsitting members of Congress can restrict
the amount of money spent on campaignsunilaterally,
they've suppressed the abilityof their challenges to be heard.
So longer conversation for another day.
I apologize.
(45:32):
Well, I do believethank you that you do need some limits.
And thank you so much for having me.
I've enjoyed each of these conversationsand think I hope
I have the chance to do it again.
Well,I'm proud on behalf of all the listeners
at our Fourscore and Seven project,I want to thank you so much.
This has beena very fascinating conversation.
We do hope to have you backsometime in the future to continue
(45:54):
another conversation.
I'll be looking forward to it.
Well, thank you.
Professor Dan Schnur talking about 2024.
And will it be a historical realignmentin American politics?
Once again, this is Roger Clark.
Thank you for listening to the Fourscoreand seven project.
If you like what you heard and watched,please like us and please spread the word.
Thank you very muchand have a wonderful day.
Hello.
My name is Roger Clark.
I'm your host today on this episodeof the Fourscore and Seven Project.
Today, we're going to discusswhether 2024 will be
a historical realignmentof American politics.
And we have with us to discussthat subject,
Professor Dan Schnur,professor at University
of Southern CaliforniaAnnenberg School of Communications.
(00:43):
You're also a professor at Pepperdine
Graduate School Public Policy,
and he is also a professorat the University of California
at Berkeley, where you teach politicsand communications.
Welcome back.
I just think you so much for having me.I really appreciate. It.
Well, it'sit is a fascinating conversation today.
Here it is, 2020for a very divided electorate.
(01:06):
A lot of hostility flying back and forth.
Are we on the verge of having a major
historical political realignmentthis year?
And before we get into that conversation,maybe we should define what exactly
is a political realignmentin American politics.
By two great questions.
I think if you look at American historyor history, in any democracy,
(01:30):
a realignment iswhen large numbers of voters
fundamentally reconsidertheir allegiances,
which means they fundamentallyreconsidered their priorities
and decided to make a change
that tends to be relatively rare
in a in a democracy, at least a dramaticchange of the type that tends to be fairly
(01:52):
rare in a democracy is a is 2024
going to be one of those realignmentelections?
I don't think so.
And I don't meanthat is either criticism or compliment
to either of the two likely nominees.
But I feel like at this pointwe are such a closely divided society.
(02:13):
Our next fundamental realignment will comewhen one party or the other,
and I have no ability to predictwhich one is able
to convince a large number of Americans
to fundamentally reconsidertheir priorities and therefore alignment
their alignment,as I talked about a moment ago.
And I think that whether Bidenor Trump wins
(02:34):
in November, it'sgoing to be a very close election.
It's going to bea very bitterly divided election.
And I don't see many voters
going to that typeof reconsideration process.
So I think we're overduefor that type of realignment.
But whether it comes in four yearsor eight years
or 12 years, I don't see it comingthis November.
Well, let's talkand maybe get a better grasp of this.
(02:57):
Give us some examples of some of the major
political realignment
that have occurred in the past.
You know, when you were.
My initial thought was, well,
maybe the election of AbrahamLincoln was one of those.
But on the other hand, maybe
it wasn't because he was actuallya minority president.
(03:19):
I think he got somethingless than 40% of the vote.
And it was a he was a sexual president.
So he didn't carry the rest of the nationwith him,
even though he's now revered as maybethe greatest president we've ever had.
What would be some examples?
Well, I think that's such an importantdistinction that you just made,
because no questionthat Lincoln was a successful president.
Of course, he was a great president.
(03:40):
But the election didn't his electiondid not fundamentally realign the country.
Rather, his actions as president did.
And those are two different typesof changes.
I would say that in the last century,
we've seen two realignmentsin American politics in 1932 and in 1980.
And it's not my place.
(04:00):
Everyone will make their own decisionson which one of them
was a wonderful realignmentand which one was a horrible realignment.
But there are two diametrically opposingrealignments
going in very different directionsfor the country.
And Franklin Roosevelt,the depths of the Great Depression.
Ronald Reagan, in a post-Vietnam
Watergate era, both convincedimmense numbers of Americans
(04:24):
not just to reconsider their politics,but reconsider their priorities.
And both in both of those occasions,it led to the kind of realignment
you're talking about.
Biden and Trump in different ways,I think are actually very
talented politicians,but neither one of them right now
is trying to realign the country.
What both of their campaignsbelieve with some degree of justification,
(04:46):
may be not quite as exaggeratedas they'd come to this.
They've come to believe.
Both of their campaignshave come to believe
that the country is equally dividedand the way that they can win
Biden or Trump is by motivating their mostloyal supporters to turn out at slightly
greater numbers than their opponentsmost loyal supporters.
And that is potentiallya successful campaign strategy.
(05:07):
And we can talk if there's time todayabout why more and more campaigns
run those types of motivational campaigns
rather than persuasion campaigns.
But on both sides are,if not exclusively, primarily
focused on motivating their existingmost loyal true believers.
(05:28):
That doesn'tleave much room for realignment
because no one's asking for it.
Well, that's actually,you know, profound point.
And, you know, you know,the first thing that occurred to me in 19,
you know, the election was 1932was Franklin Roosevelt.
And one subset of that realignmentwould be the African-American community,
because I believe that up until FranklinRoosevelt, the African-American community
(05:50):
was uniformly Republicanand very close to being.
Of course, it was a republic.
The first Republican president,Abraham Lincoln, freed the slaves.
Freed the slaves.
The Democrats were dominant inthe old Confederacy in the southern part.
And if flipped that yes,
that's an example of a realignmentthat you're talking about then.
So so so then here we are in 2024
(06:12):
and you made ajust a fascinating difference
between a persuasion, a leaderand a motivated motivational leader.
I just
can't let thatpass without asking you to expand on that.
So I tell my students that there'sthree kinds of voters in the world
say they're Saints sinnersand salvageable as
(06:35):
a saint, as a voter or a voter
group, a demographic or geographic votergroup that agrees with me.
And they're going to vote for meand my party
and my candidates almost no matter what.
And we know that in a national electionthat's relatively
40% of the electoratefor Democrats are Republicans.
Four out of every ten voters are.
They're saints
now are 40% of the voters are saints.
Logically speaking,that means 40% of the voters are sinners.
(06:59):
And one of the unfortunate thingsabout the polarization of our politics
in 2024 is one thingI have to go to great lengths
to explain in class now that I didn'twhen I first started teaching
is the term saints and sinners should comewith quotation marks around them
that a sinner isn't a bador an evil person.
It's just someonewho is never going to vote your way.
And we're using that termfor just verbal acts.
(07:20):
Ever believes maybe another way to say it.
All things have a pass and all sins.
Sinners have a future. Thereyou. Go. Precisely.
Though 40% of the voterswe know are going to vote for our party,
40% of the voterswe know aren't under any circumstance.
That leaves 20% of the voterswho are salvageable.
Voters who, for the most partvote on the basis of past behavior,
have indicated a willingness under
(07:40):
some circumstances is to votefor a candidate of either party.
Now, when I was coming up in politicsin the late 20th century,
political operatives in both partiessubscribe to
what's called the 8020 approach.
And this was persuasion politics.
Think of this as horizontal messaging.
There's a certain number of votersin between the 40 yard lines,
(08:02):
and I have to move them horizontallytoward one goal line or the other.
Well,
as time has passed
and for all sorts of reasonsthat we can get into, if you would like,
particularly in the 21stcentury, politics has changed,
has become more and more focusednot on persuasion
(08:23):
of the salvageable,
but on motivation of those saints.
Think of that as vertical messaging.
Those saints, those true believersare already over where I need them to be.
I just have to elevate them.Get them to the polls.
And if you've ever triedto figure out with your family
which restaurant to go toor which movie to go to, you know, that
motivating someone, essentiallyreminding them why they like something
(08:46):
and persuading them to do something
are two entirely different typesof communications challenges.
And even though a successfulcampaign has to do both
over the course of a campaign, it'sa zero sum game
because every minuteI spend motivating my sense, not only am I
not persuaded, salvageable, I'm probablydriving them in the other direction.
(09:06):
And similarly, every dollarI spend trying to persuade salvageable,
I'm not just ignoring my saints,but they're becoming less motivated
and less likely to turn out.
I'll give you one example
from the early stages of the 2024campaign.
Joe Biden has becomea very committed advocate
for enhanced border security.
(09:30):
That's a very savvy way of reaching out
to salvageable voterswho prioritize that issue also.
But at the same time that Biden is talkingabout a greater presence
on the US-Mexico border and reaching outto salvage rebels, his saints
are not only not
part of the conversation,they're actually becoming less motivated.
On the flip side,let's say Donald Trump is talking
(09:53):
to an audience about his appointmentof Supreme Court justices.
The three justiceswho overturned Roe versus Wade.
That has
the ability, that messageto profoundly motivate his sense,
but it drivessalvage bulls in the other direction.
So every campaign is about balancingbetween the two.
And I would arguethat any leader in politics or any field
(10:15):
has to find a way to do both.
How do I keep the peoplewho are already on my side,
on my side, and get them inspiredand excited about it?
But how do I reach beyond the ranksof those true loyalists
to bring in new people?
I'll give you a sports analogy.
We've talked inprevious episodes about boxing.
The famous will remember him, famousbaseball manager years and years ago.
(10:36):
Earl Weaver, manager of the BaltimoreOrioles.
And Earl Weaver used to say the point.
He said in every clubhouse,he said, there's ten players
who love you, ten players who hate youand five who can't make up their mind.
And he said the job of a good manageris to keep the ten players
who hate you away from the fivewho can't make up their mind.
His version of said citizens eligibles.
(10:57):
So then by that definition,we're talking about realignment campaigns.
FDR would be a persuader.
Yes, Ronald Reagan be a persuader.
But also finding a way to still motivate.
Your existing supporters.
Having that having that talent to do that,which again, I think also triggers
another questioninto the art of communications.
So both FDR and Ronald Reagan were
(11:20):
of course,Reagan is known as the great communicator,
FDR in a different era, different, youknow, tools was also a great communicator.
You know, as well.
So can you be a persuader
and therefore producea realignment campaign
if you're not a good communicator?
I don't think so.
But this also gets back to a conversationwe had in
one of our previous episodesabout communications technology.
(11:43):
Roosevelt was the first American presidentto master the use of radio.
Reagan arguably took
his use of television to a levelthat no previous American president had.
It's entirely possiblethat Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter's
advisers would have said,How do you lead in an age of radio?
How do you lead in an age of television?
And Rooseveltand and Reagan in very different eras,
(12:06):
figured outhow to make these tools work for them.
I would argue no disrespect to Bidenor Trump or Obama or George W Bush.
We're still waiting for the first Americanpresident who masters
digital communications
the way that Reagan mastered televisionand Roosevelt mastered radio.
Still waiting for it. Yeah. So.
(12:28):
Well, let me just dwell on this.
This point, again,
is the reason
we have a Biden.
And of course,
we all remember Biden is
or maybe it was Hillary Clintonthat first used the term deplorables.
And then when I first heard that, itsays, My God, what is she thinking?
I mean, in my concept anyway,someone who's running for president
(12:51):
should be a uniter.
I think most of our listeners
on this Fourscoreand seven project would agree with that.
They're uniter, not a divider.
That's the idea.
So if you come out and callhalf the country deplorables,
then then that is not trying to persuade.
I understandnow they're trying to motivate the base.
(13:11):
So you but you'rebut your point is, is the exact right one.
At what cost?
First of all, put aside the moralityof a leader saying that half the country
doesn't. Exactly.
I always used to joke about itwith my candidates.
I did campaigns say a salvageableas a saint
who just doesn't know it yet.
(13:32):
Once you call a salvageable deplorable,
you're probably not going to win them backany time soon.
You know they're running the otherdirection.
Exactly.
Professor,it seems to me this aspect toward
presidential politics,probably a politics at all level,
focusing on motivating the saintsas you defined it,
(13:53):
as opposed to trying to motivatethe Saints, but also to persuade the
salvageable the salvageable of, again,at least 2016, maybe before that.
I'd argue it began well before that
and in the
in the 1990s and Bill Clintonfirst ran for president,
his campaign targeted a demographic votergroup.
(14:15):
You may remember the termthe soccer moms. Yes.
Okay.
And soccer moms.
And to be fair, soccer dads.
These are suburban parentswho were economically successful
and therefore tendedto be more economically conservative,
but tended to be more liberalon social issues.
And for many, many years they votedRepublican based on their economic
(14:36):
interests.
And Clinton said, I'm not one of thoseold tax and spend Democrats.
I'm a new Democrat.
You can trust me on economic issues.
So why don't you vote on the socialand cultural issues?
Instead, Republicans saw this happening
and said, Well, we can't just sit hereand let this happen.
So really smart Republicans,Newt Gingrich, Karl
Rove and others,they identified another demographic group
(14:59):
less known, which is too starkthat will call NASCAR dads
and NASCAR dads
and NASCAR moms,just like suburban parents
tend to be economically conservative,but socially moderate to liberal.
These working class blue collar
voters tend to be more economicallypopulist and working class
and more culturally conservative.
(15:22):
And so the two partiesengineered this massive shift
where these large groups of voters decidedto cast their ballots not on the basis
of economic issues, but on the basisof social and cultural matters.
And where this actually came toa head was in the 2004 election,
George W Bush versus JohnKerry for years and years before that,
(15:45):
the most reliable indicatorof partizan voting behavior was income.
The more money you made, the more likelyyou were to vote Republican.
The less money you made,the more likely you are to vote Democrat
in 2004 for the first time.
Instead of income, the partizan identifier
was a characteristic that the politicalscientists call religiosity,
(16:05):
not the religious faith that you practice,
but rather the intensitywith which you practice it.
And what we saw in that election is anindividual who went to church or synagogue
once a week or more was more than twiceas likely to vote for Bush or Kerry.
In one who went to a religious servicesonce a month or less was much more likely
to vote for Kerry and Bush.
(16:26):
And so that began accelerating after eachelection to an even greater degree.
And in 2016, to your point, Roger,
we saw in other social demographiccharacteristics be added to this mix.
And education
is more and more bluecollar, socially conservative voters
voted Republican and more and more
(16:48):
white collar, sociallyliberal moderate voters voted Democrat.
What we saw in 2016for the first time is that college
graduates began votingDemocratic in much, much larger numbers.
And those who
didn't attend collegeor who didn't graduate from college
tend to become much more likelyto vote Republican.
(17:10):
And I'm always very careful to saythis isn't a question of intelligence.
More than anything, it'sa question of educational opportunity.
And Donald Trump, tohis credit, is a politician either
intentionally or intuitively recognizedto the resentment
that many of these non-collegeeducated, these working class voters
felt towardthose who had achieved what isn't.
(17:33):
But what you're saying,isn't that a realignment?
Exactly the topic of today's conversation.
Does Donald Trump representa political realignment?
Interesting.
I would say if you look, it'sa really good question.
I would say if you went throughClinton, Bush, Obama, Trump,
you would see this.
(17:54):
We define realignment differently
because usually a realignment is thoughtabout going in one direction or the other.
What we saw from the early 1990s tonow was a trade off.
Neither party benefitedfrom that realignment
the way the Democrats did in FDR Dayor the Republicans did in the Reagan era.
So I think your point is a fair one.
(18:15):
It is a realignment that the two sidesessentially cancel each other out.
So we have had just as massivea political shift,
just less noticeablebecause the two of them.
Interesting. Yeah.
Well, again,it comes back to the definition
or the distinction between a motivationalleader on a persuasive, persuasive leader
(18:37):
or leaders just getting lazy.
I mean, our listeners, the four scoreand seven project
or I can speak on behalf of them,we're all yearning for a persuader.
We want someone to unify as leaders,as a group, build consensus.
But yet the people that are running foroffice are dividing us.
So why take the low road instead of tryingto achieve the high road?
(19:01):
Hill We talked earlier about this shiftfrom a persuasion
based campaign to a motivationbased campaign to what
savvy politicos in both parties realizedis that motivating
sense is a lot easier and a lot cheaperthan persuading salvageable.
It's a lot less risky
if I'm trying to motivate peoplewho are already on my side to vote for me.
(19:24):
I only have to convince them of one thing.
I have to convince them to vote.
If they vote, they're going to vote for mefor salvageable.
I have to convince them to do two things.
I have to convince themto vote, number one.
And then have convinced him insome do vote for me.
If I only accomplishone of those two goals,
I've turned out to vote for my opponent.
So two tasks rather than one.
Twice as expensive.
Twice is time consumingand much more risky.
(19:47):
Because if I try to motivate ast and fail, they stay home.
If I try to persuade, a salvage wouldn'tfail.
It's not for my opponent.
So the incentive structure has driven
the two partiestoward this type of behavior.
But so as we've talked aboutin the previous episode,
so is social media,
(20:08):
because people are able to establishthose ideological igloos for themselves
and isolate themselves from any news orinformation that they don't want to hear.
It's a lot harder to reachunsalvageable today than it used to be.
Well, you made a point just a couple ofminutes ago that we're still
looking for the great leaderwho can manage social media,
(20:30):
high tech,the way that Reagan was able to lead
to the televisionor FDR was able to lead by radio.
Are we suggesting
that when that individual comes along,who is able to,
with great talent, managea high tech communications?
(20:51):
Would that be an individualwho no longer is trying to motivate
but is also trying to persuade?
I think so.
I think one of the downsides,one of the limitations,
I should say, of digital mediain politics in particular,
is digital media,for all the reasons we've talked about,
is a really, really good wayto motivate your sense.
It's much harder to persuade.
(21:12):
Salvageable is online because they don'thave to pay any attention to you.
And I always joke with my students,I say, one of you is going to figure out
and one of you is going to invent an app
that's going to make it just as easyto persuade salvageable as online
citizen motivated sense, and you're goingto become incredibly wealthy.
I just want you to rememberwhere you got the idea first,
because I want my cut out as
(21:34):
well.
But I think your point is a great one.
And I do think
that that next great communicator
will be someone who figures out a way
to use digital and social media,not just to motivate, to persuade as well.
I think that's a great point.
Consider it officially stolen.
Well, will do.
Will do well.
Well, let's assume a hypothetical.
(21:56):
Let's say Biden is the nominee.
Let's assume Trump is the nominee.
And let's say that.
Let's take first example.
Biden wins.
What?
In the same question, let'sassume on the opposite that that Trump
went for this 2020for it to be a realignment each year.
(22:18):
What would either of those two leadershave to do for 2024
to be considered a real classicalhistorical realignment year?
Well, first they'd have to try,and I don't mean that to denigrate
either one of them, but as we talkedabout earlier, both of their campaigns
are pretty singularly focusedon motivating their respective states.
(22:39):
Realignment means moving people.
I don't see either one of them right nowputting forth a great effort
to move or realignlarge numbers of voters.
So the first thing isthat they would have to try.
The second thing is
they would have to find an issueon which to do it.
I would say that it's entirely possible
(23:00):
that that issue exists for both of themshould they decide
that they want to use it that way.
What's the issue?
For Trump, it's immigration.
For Biden, it's abortion.
The best way to realign voters,
the best way to simultaneouslymotivate states and persuade salvageable
is find an issue where you're sayingI agree with the salvageable.
(23:21):
And in this country right nowin a post Dobbs environment.
Not all but most salvageable
with Democratic states.
They don't want abortion legalup until the moment of birth.
But generally speaking,they want to see it legal.
And on the flip
side, as Biden is struggling with rightnow, as we talked about a few minutes ago.
(23:41):
Most salvageable are an agreementwith Republican states
on the needfor more restrictive border policy.
And I think ifeither one of the candidates
was willing to fashion a message
that could appeal to salvage rebelson those issues to a greater degree,
that theycould realign large groups of voters
who are either undecidedor part of the other side's cohort
(24:04):
in the coming.
Well, we again,we would love to see someone
who could bring us togetheras opposed to divide us.
But let me ask
let's assume from what we know, Biden getswe know the age issue with why
people are concerned that he just doesn'thave the capability physically
or mentally to do it.
And we're all kind of wonderingwhy is he still in the game?
(24:24):
And then we got Trumpwho was facing these indictments,
which raises the possibilitythat we could have President
Trump second term, a convicted felon.
In theory,he could be in a federal prison someplace.
Can a presidentlead the country from a federal prison?
Well.
I mean, clearly we don't knowbecause we've never experienced something
(24:47):
like that before.
Just the fact that someone can runfor president
under those circumstances is sort of mindboggling enough.
But that actually has happened.
That we've had a president in a federal.
Not a presidential candidate.
The in 1920, the Socialist Party
nominee for president, Eugene Debs,
(25:09):
and spent the entire election in jail.
And he campaigned from jailand obviously was unsuccessful.
But that's as closeas we've ever come to this.
So Biden and Trump
are two very unusual circumstancesfor the reasons you just mentioned.
Why is Biden running again?
Biden believes and there is perhapssome justification to this
(25:30):
he believes that he's the Democratmost capable of defeating Donald Trump.
And in fact, he did four years agoand was able to reach out to some of those
salvageable working class votersthat Clinton had not been able to reach.
That although he doesn't say this by name,that he clearly doesn't think
that Gavin Newsom or Raphael Warnockor Bernie Sanders can can reach
(25:51):
Trump.
On the other hand,
either truly believes or has convincedhimself that it's smart politics
to believe that these legal these chargesagainst him are politically manufactured.
Well, which is the ultimatesaint motivation message.
Isn't interestingbecause every time he's been indicted,
his support increasesnot only numbers, but in intensity.
(26:15):
What does it tell us
about the faith that Americans have
and the politicizationof the American justice system?
Because you would think in a normal, saneworld, someone is getting indicted.
Well, there must there's smoke there.
There must be fire there somewhere.
But yet people are rallying behind himafter these indictments.
To me, that suggest that peoplein this country have lost faith
(26:38):
in the justice systembecause they think it's been politicized.
Is that a fair observation?
I think that's a very fair observation,although I would actually
truncated slightly.
Instead of
saying Americans have lost faithin the judicial system
and the level of confidence,according to polls, has has gone down.
I would sayinstead, Americans have simply lost faith.
(27:01):
They've lost faith in institutions,the judicial system included.
But basically,every traditional institution,
the justice system, politics,military business,
we've seen a diminishmentof public confidence and respect
for those institutions.
And if we're a tribal speciesand if we need a group to belong to,
(27:23):
what does that leave?
It leaves the Democraticand Republican Party.
And I'm going to remain part of my party.
I'm going to become a lawyer.
I'm going to staya loyal part of my tribe, even if it means
taking a position that
wouldn't have seemed reasonableand less polarized.
Interesting.
Well, you know, it also seems to methat with a general loss of, quote, faith,
(27:47):
not just in the justice system,but in all institutions,
it seems that we're a society ripe
crime for a unifying leader,someone who would realign us somehow.
It seems like there's a great openingfor that individual, whoever or wherever
they are.
Please come forward.
I couldn't agree with you more.
And again, this is not meantas a criticism of either Biden or Trump.
(28:10):
They've chosen to run a campaign in a waythat just makes it difficult for them
to be that leader.
But as we talked about earlier,we talked about the 1840s and fifties.
We talked about the 19 teens.
We talked about the 1960s.
American history works in cycles.
And at a certain point,the voter unhappiness, the voted
dissatisfaction, the voter revulsionwith this hyper polarization
(28:35):
is going to lead to more
tangible action on behalf of the yearningthat you're talking about.
And whether that's in fouror eight or more years, I don't know.
But history suggests
that we cycle.
Because we're overdue earlyfor that realignment. We are.
We are we are overdue for a realignment.
And we're overdue for a great president.
(28:55):
And in all likelihood, at least, historywould suggest that the two come hand
in hand.
Well,in terms of the faith of the election
and polling consistentlyshows that a large swath
of the American people have not had faithin the last two elections.
I think in the 2016 election,a very substantial number of Democrats
thought that it was a false election.
(29:18):
Voter miscounted,improperly influenced in 2020.
There's a substantial numberof Republicans feel
that the election was miscounted.
It was a fraudulentelection, that type of thing.
And and still are both
large numbers of Democrats and Republicansand independents don't have faith
in the actual vote countor the actual process question.
(29:39):
And I think that's probablywell-established.
I don't think there's anythingunusual saying that.
But but how can a republic, a democracylike ours, survive and prosper
if a substantial number of the peopledon't even have faith
in our election process?
And that is a democraciesand a republic greatest test
is ultimately the responsibility lieswith the loser
(30:02):
to be willing to acknowledge defeatand come back and fight another day.
And Richard Nixon in 1960
and Al Gore in 2000,
both legitimately believed thatthey had won the election, both decided
it was in the country's in the democracy'sbest interest for them to stand up.
Well, with Nixon, it wasn't that famous.
Supposedly, Mayor Daley at the time
(30:23):
counted enough votes and Cook County,which carried Illinois,
which carriedthe nation, and Nixon was aware of that.
And Nixon just flat outrefused to challenge it
because they thoughtit would hurt the country.
And in the interest of partizan fairness,
Gore and Nixon for different reasons,came to similar conclusions.
At a certain point it was better tostand down for the sake of the democracy.
But once again,this comes back to the polarization
(30:43):
we've been talking aboutfor our few conversations we've had.
We've already establishedthat we're both sports fans.
Think about when you're watchingyour favorite sports team and they lose.
That's a really strong tribal identityfor your favorite team, right?
And when they lose,what's your first instinct?
You blame the referees.
(31:05):
Now, if the losing
team refused to abideby the referee's calls, by the decisions,
then the games couldn'tthe contest couldn't go on.
So we complain and we whine because we'reso that we belong so strongly
to our tribe, whether it's the 49 ERsor the Chiefs or whoever it happens to be,
we can't abide the thoughtthat our tribe lost, honestly.
(31:27):
So therefore, someone that horriblereferee, that ridiculous umpire,
that's those judgesmust have made an unfair decision.
Obviously,the stakes are much, much higher now.
But it comes back to that same roottribal and polarization instinct.
Well.
It could come back to and we'realmost out of time for the episode today.
And I do want to get this question in,because this comes back to how we modified
(31:50):
the voting rules.
You know, you and I both grew up in an erawhere there's the sanctity of the
of the polling booth.
You know, you goin, it was a secret ballot.
You could go in and pull the curtainsand you could vote for anybody,
regardless what your husbandor wife or your friends thought.
And you come out, you could lie about it,but you could vote your conscience.
But now we're in an era, particularly
like in California,where we have ballot harvesting
(32:13):
and we have all these mail in ballots
and which by definition eliminatesthe concept of the secret ballot
because you don't knowwho is exerting influence
when that individual at their homeor office, wherever they
where their cash in the ballot could havesomebody hanging over their shoulder.
Putting aside the issue of whether or notthey're being improperly cast
by people who aren't
(32:34):
shouldn't be even touching these ballots,but they could be subject to influence.
It's just the nature of the game,because when you have these,
what, six week voting periods, it'snot a voting day.
It all, to me, seems
to beckon for the
vulnerable vulnerabilityof our voting process.
It makes it vulnerable to corruptionor improper influence.
(32:55):
Once you move away from the sacred secretballot.
Well, and of course, this is a trade offwhich we see
in almost every aspect of lifein 21st century society.
At what price? Convenience.
There are all sorts of things
we do in our life, particularlyin a digital and social media era,
that make our lives more convenient,that require some kind of compromise.
(33:18):
I get ads on my computerthat you don't get
because they knowthat I buy certain products.
I've sacrificed my privacyin exchange for convenience
to find out about the kind of vacations
I want to take, as opposed to the kindof shoes you want to buy trade off.
And voting is yet another example of that.
The convenience of voting
(33:40):
from home, you
know, as opposed to going to the ballotbox, comes with the tradeoff.
And the tradeoff is the potentialfor vote tampering.
Now, it's worth noting that
after complaining very stronglyabout the practice of voter
harvesting for a couple of elections,Republicans are now advocating
it also not because they like it,because they realize that if they want.
To just get getting into the game,they're at.
(34:01):
A competitive disadvantage.
I guess it's it'smore broadly Republicans.
I think, devote a great deal of timeand attention
on questions of voter fraud,not just harvesting, but more broadly.
Democrats spend
a sizable amount of time
focusing on voter suppression.
My own opinion, guaranteed to geteveryone mad at me
(34:23):
is that both sides are taking sometimeslegitimate concerns
and wildly inflating them for their ownpartizan purposes.
In other words, if I'm a Democrat,I can really frighten my sense
that there's all sorts of horriblevoter suppression going on.
I can turn them out in greater numbersthe same way
a Republican can do the same thingon voter fraud.
(34:43):
That doesn't mean I don't takethe instances that exist seriously,
but I also recognize that both partiessee these phenomenal ways
of motivating their respective states,and there's not nearly as much voter
fraud or voter suppressionas the two parties tell us.
And the reason for thatis because they know
it's more likely to get themsent out to vote. Well.
Let me come back to this issueof convenience, insisted the justification
(35:06):
for ballot harvesting universalmail in ballots, having a six week voting
period
of the seasonas opposed to voting day, is convening.
But yet we're talkingabout every four year election
when it comes to it'san existential determination
that we've had hundredsof thousands of folks
die the battlefieldto protect our right to vote.
(35:29):
And it should be like we most people,as far as I know,
don't get married by mailin marriage certificates.
We all like to go to our collegegraduations or high school graduation.
There's a solemnity associated with thatbecause
it impressesthe importance of the occasion.
To me, it seems that requiring in-person
voting emphasizes and reinforces
(35:53):
how important the process is,
because people have fought and died,so they have the right to do it.
The question I posed toyou is convenience, even
a legitimate value to put into that scale
when it comes to voting.
I think I would argue that the
the true value of a democracyis that voters
(36:14):
not only get to decidewhich candidate should be elected.
They get to determine the answerto questions like that.
Now, don't get me wrong,it's not like we've had a high profile
debate in American presidential electionabout in-person versus mail voting.
And as you know, absentee
voting was originally designed for peoplewho are truly incapacitated or otherwise.
(36:35):
I think the 1864 Abraham Lincolnelectronically, wasn't it?
Right.
But I mean, for years it existedfor people just who not who would prefer
to vote from home, but who had had no wayof getting the polling places.
And we've become a society that becomesmore and more reliant on convenience.
I would love to see an electionin which two principled individuals argue
this out back and forth, and the votersof the country decided for themselves
(36:59):
which of these two principles is more
is more important. And
I suspect
that they would decide.
Despite what we hear on both sidesof the political debate, that they're not
as concerned about voter fraud
(37:19):
or as concerned about voter suppression,
at least the majority of them aren't.
And this is a much broaderand longer conversation
about fears about society,not about politics,
but of the majority of American peoplesay no.
I'd like to be able to vote conveniently.
(37:40):
There are concernsthat come attached with that
and not we have not yetdeveloped a technology
that could protect against the kindof transgressions you're talking about.
That doesn't mean that we can't.
But I think it ultimately
you're asking is less a political questionand more a societal question.
I mean, just real quick, politicsdoesn't exist in a vacuum.
(38:01):
Politicsisn't just a reflection of society.
It's an exaggeration of society.
And if we live in a societyin which people decide
that they are willingto tolerate certain things
in exchange for what they perceive
as benefits, ultimately that gets decidedin a democratic process.
I'm not taking a side foror against you here
(38:24):
because I have yet to see a leader
or a political leader stand up and say,this is wrong, this is dangerous.
This underminesthe sanctity of one person, one vote.
And I would love to see that
put to a test because I'd be fascinatedto see how the public
decided that question.
But we haven't put it to them yet.
Well, raises a couple of more questions.
I know our time isunfortunately is growing short
(38:46):
on this episode, butsneak in a couple more questions for you.
Voting machines.
People don't trust the electronicsor punch
a button and it goes into the nether worldand who knows what happens.
Can voting machines
be hacked or can they be riggedso they miscount your vote?
(39:07):
And too, if that happen,is there any way for us to ever know.
Voting machines can be can be hackedif they are connected to the Internet?
And one of the good things that's come outin the last couple of election cycles
is a growing realizationthat while the technology can help
count votes more efficiently,that the transmittal of those votes
(39:28):
can't be done.
Digitally.
In other words,
if I vote on a voting machinethat is disconnected from the Internet,
I can trust the technologyto calculate the votes
accurately.
Once I plug it into the internet
or go onto wi fi or whateverthe case may be.
That's where the danger.
(39:50):
But it does have to be ultimately connected to the Internet to transmit the votes.
It does not.
And in fact, that's what more and moreregistrars are realizing,
that even if you use a computerto accumulate the votes,
you transmit themto the central county authorities
manually because the transmittalis where the danger arrives.
(40:11):
And look,
you know, the FBI director
did a presentation before Congressjust the other day.
I don't know when this is goingto be broadcast, but not too long ago,
the FBI director warnedabout Chinese interference with U.S.
infrastructure.
There's ample evidence of bad actorson the world
(40:31):
stagelooking to interfere with our elections.
And so if for no other reason than that,let alone any domestic,
the voting needs to take place independent
of any kind of online communication.
Well,
let me let me just narrowthat a little bit, because,
you know, voting machineshave to have internal software.
(40:52):
Can that internal
software be programed to miscount votes
in a way that the voter did not intendfor that vote to be counted?
It can be.
And that's why hand recounts, I don'tthink, need to be done in every election.
But why the option of hand recountsneeds to be available in many states.
And I have to admit, I'm not certainexactly how many in many states
(41:14):
if the margin of an election outcomeis within a certain margin,
that recount becomes automatic.
If you and I run against each other andyou beat me in a landslide, 70% to 30%,
odds are there's not a computer program
that's going to have concoctedthat without someone noticing.
But if I lose to you by just a handful ofvotes, then a recount should take place.
(41:38):
And as we've seen, a handrecount is more time consuming
and also it's more unreliablebecause of human error.
But I think if youif you can go through this process
with a couple of different monitors,one technological and one human,
you offer a certain level of protectionthat isn't foolproof
but is much closer to itthan relying on either one complete
(42:01):
concept.
If you have a
voting machine that has internal softwarethat's been rigged, and I know
we all have, or a lot of peopletalk to people who actually had held
a demonstrationof how you can vote for candidate A
and then the ballot spits out candidate B,
So it's pretty clear it can be done.
(42:21):
But how would we know?
I mean, if you've got let's say it's beenthe software
has been internally mimicked, you know,for the individual voting machine.
Then you recounted how do you.
Know,how do you know that it's been improper?
Because then you do a recountwithout that software.
And if after our election is overand you beat me
51% to 49%, according to the computer,
(42:42):
and the hand count shows that I beatyou 55 to 45%.
Yeah.
Then we have a problemthat we need to resolve
that to your point, at least we're awarethat we have a problem.
So having the recount optionavailable to me with a.
Different software.
Or without software altogether.
Like I said, the handthe hand count eliminates that completely.
(43:03):
So whether it's two different computersor a computer or two different
types of programsor one type of program and a hand count,
the recount is the best protectionyou can have against that.
Well, let.
Me now we're going to get
if we're not careful, we're going to getinto a discussion that I'm not qualified.
Well, let me let me just real quickjust another big issue
(43:26):
that I think causes a lot of distrustin our American election process.
And here we arein 2024, is money is money in politics,
I think money now, is it the Supreme Courtlinks it up with free speech.
I think Justice John Paul Stevensfamously said money is not speech.
He was one of ninethe others all disagreed.
(43:46):
Well, in I do, too.
And I don't disagree on legal grounds.
I disagree on practical grounds.
Roger,if you go to give a speech in the town
square,you're exercising a right to free speech.
If I pull up next to you in a sound truckand I download two huge speakers
to give my speech and completely drownyou out, I'm not just exercising my right
to free speech.I'm interfering with yours.
(44:07):
And what we see in electionsat every level of politics
from both partiesis the financial equivalent of that.
I don't believe in public financing.
I believe our tax dollarsought to be going
for schools, for public safetyand for other necessities.
But I do believe that thatthat there can be
some restraints on the amount of moneythat a candidate
(44:29):
can raise and spend without interferingwith their First Amendment rights.
Because at a certain point,
if my for exercisingmy First Amendment rights undermine yours
and I violated the Constitutionjust as the Justice of your.
Last question, then then, then we.
Are going to have to come backand do another one
of these episodes of love,love to talk this out and more.
This is my question for you.
(44:50):
Justice John Paul Stevens actuallyproposed the constitutional amendment,
which did not go anywhere.
But his conceptwas that the amendment would say,
notwithstanding the provisionsof the First Amendment,
Congress would have the right
to impose reasonable regulationson the amount of money spent in politics.
Is that something you would agree with?
I would agree to itwith a large number of safeguards,
(45:11):
because I also recognize that onceyou give that power solely to Congress,
you're very quicklycreating an income protection procedure
where if incumbentsitting members of Congress can restrict
the amount of money spent on campaignsunilaterally,
they've suppressed the abilityof their challenges to be heard.
So longer conversation for another day.
I apologize.
(45:32):
Well, I do believethank you that you do need some limits.
And thank you so much for having me.
I've enjoyed each of these conversationsand think I hope
I have the chance to do it again.
Well,I'm proud on behalf of all the listeners
at our Fourscore and Seven project,I want to thank you so much.
This has beena very fascinating conversation.
We do hope to have you backsometime in the future to continue
(45:54):
another conversation.
I'll be looking forward to it.
Well, thank you.
Professor Dan Schnur talking about 2024.
And will it be a historical realignmentin American politics?
Once again, this is Roger Clark.
Thank you for listening to the Fourscoreand seven project.
If you like what you heard and watched,please like us and please spread the word.
Thank you very muchand have a wonderful day.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.