A Major Shift in Voters Will Impact 2024 - With Mike Madrid

There's a major shift in voter demographics happening right before our eyes. Yet, many candidates and strategists don't see it. It's a shift that will have an outsized impact on the 2024 races - and beyond. Strategist and data expert Mike Madrid walks us through the minefield of political data and explains how it will impact the way we vote - and what kind of an America we will leave to our grandchildren.

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Is it just me? Or havewe all lost our minds? It's a
question I've been asking myself on repeatfor the last eight years, and I
know I'm not alone in that.Is it the politics, is it the
culture? Or am I just gettingold? Hi? I'm Jennifer Horn and
I'm a former Republican strategist and partyleader turned independent sanity activist. I decided

(00:25):
to do this podcast so we couldexplore these questions. I'll bring experts to
the table from politics and media andculture. We'll have raw, insightful conversations
with the clear goal of getting tothe bottom of it all. One way
or another. We've all lost ourminds, and I hope you'll join us
on the journey to find them again. Hi, this is Jennifer Horn and

(00:47):
you're listening to Is it just me? Or have we all lost our minds?
My guest today is someone who's veryfamiliar to you. Talking to Mike
Madrid, a long time Republican politicalstrategy just I say about him all the
time that he's on my list ofsmart guys. There is nobody that I've
been working in politics for twenty years. There is no one I have ever

(01:08):
worked with ever who is as goodat data as and especially political data and
understanding it as Mike is, andas many of you know, he was
one of the co founders of theLincoln Project. He has a very cool
book coming out, and we're goingto start by asking him to tell you
a little bit about that. It'smy pleasure to welcome back Mike Madred.

(01:30):
How are you doing, Mike Jennifer. It's so great to be with you.
I was love connecting with you,love our conversations, and I appreciate
you asking me to join you today. Well, it's good to have you
here. I think that you're oneof the people in the pro democracy movement
that the wider audience for that reallynot only enjoys, but really trusts.
And you know they have come tothey have come to see your your You

(01:53):
know your history, and you knowyou have a pattern of just being right,
which isn't always and sometimes that canbe painful. But I want to
start first with the book that youhave coming out in June. I believe
I know we mentioned it the lasttime that you were here, but just
kind of give us the three minutesynopsis of what the book is about.

(02:14):
IM here's the important question. Canpeople pre order it on Amazon. Yeah,
so, yeah, thanks for theopportunity. So the book is called
The Latino Century, How America's largestminority is Transforming Democracy. It's basically the
culmination of thirty years of work inpolitical demography and campaigns and recognizing as kind

(02:35):
of a young political consultant that towardsthe end of my career, which I
can kind of see it from thehorizon here at the top of the mountain,
that America was going to be avery different place. And by that
I mean for the first time wewould be a non white European majority country
and that's going to happen in aboutten years. And the questions that I
was asking myself then as a youngman, was can people of non European

(03:00):
descent, basically, you know,take the reins of this American experiment.
Can they run a country without thetraditions and the background and the legacy of
Western European thought and run a republic, self governed republic. Because this is
a very unique experiment. America isa very unique, fragile thing. As

(03:22):
we've learned and been working to fightand protect and as Latinos started to you
know, grow in great numbers inthe Southwest and in Florida and throughout the
Sun Belt. I wanted to spendmy career watching the act of democracy happen
and unfold, and that's why Igot involved with campaigns. And now we're
looking at, you know, tripledigit growth in places like Tennessee and Montana,

(03:43):
in Ohio and Iowa, and soa lot of the lessons that I've
learned throughout my career with what theRepublicans do right and wrong and the Democrats
do right and do wrong. Iwanted to kind of leave this after thirty
years of being involved, this sortof mark in the road and say this
is what's happening. This is whowe're going to be in the next five,
ten, fifteen, twenty thirty years. This is one of the challenges

(04:08):
that democracy faces, and this isone of the hopeful things that democracy faces.
And I'll wrap it up real quickby saying this, it's a much
more optimistic book than I would everimagine whether when I started. And what
I mean by that is, Idon't believe that with all of the fights
that we've been involved with politically,campaign wise, all of the reforms that

(04:28):
we talk about, whether it's theelectoral college reform, or campaign finance reform,
or all of the norms and guardrailsthat have been violated over the past
six eight years. Nothing. Ilearned this from our friend George Conway.
Nothing can prevent a constitution from beingover thrown, overthrown if the people themselves
don't want it, exactly, Andall of the culture that has changed dramatically

(04:55):
is being reinvigorated in such a positiveway by this growing Latino demographic. And
when I look at the faith andconfidence and institutions that are required to keep
democracy working, it's overwhelmingly Latinos whosupport our government, or corporations or media,

(05:15):
or academia or the church community.All of these social institutions, which
are record lows with every other group, are really at high numbers with Latinos.
And so I write in the bookthat we're in this demographic foot race
between can Latinos now come onto thevoter rules and take societal positions to protect
these institutions when so many Americans wantto tear them down. I think that's

(05:41):
fascinating, And I hadn't ever thoughtof that one piece of it that you
just talked about, the social institutionsthat have always sort of been the cornerstone
of the American people, the Americanculture, and American politics. It's central
to democracy. And that's one ofthe great secrets that we've had as Americans
is we have confidence in our institutionsthe way a lot of other countries and

(06:04):
cultures have not, and that hasprovided tremendous stability even when we lost or
didn't get our way. The socialcontract you make is, well, I
don't get all you know, democracyby definition is I don't get everything I
want. But the value proposition iswe work together as a community. And
now we're in this culture where wewant everything zero sum, right, and

(06:27):
if we don't, then we'll tearthe institution down, we'll destroy it.
And both sides do that, bythe way. Democrats say that absolutely,
it's not just it's not just aMega thing, and I've said that a
few times. We get so focusedin on the Republican Party, rightly so
at this moment because of Mega andTrump. But they're not alone. You

(06:47):
know this is and you and Ihave talked about this before. This is
a decades long problem that's been creepingup on it. And I always say
Trump just saw the opportunity. Youknow, he just saw the chance to
jump in on this. So beforewe move on, give you the name
of the book one more time.Yeah, the book is. The book
is called The Latino Century, HowAmerica's largest minority is Transforming Democracy. It's

(07:10):
published by Simon and Schuster. Itis available for pre order. I would
appreciate any pre orders you could putout there on it. The book will
be released on June eighteenth, butyou can find it there on the Simon
and Schuster website or just google MikeMadrid, Simon and Schuster. It will
pop right up. Or yeah,available on Amazon or wherever you buy your
books. And I don't want peopleto be offended that it sounds like this

(07:31):
is a you know, an advertise, a commercial for Mike's book. That's
all on me, not him.I think it's a really important read.
It's going to be a powerful read, and it's going to really bring clarity
to a lot of the things thatthe pro democracy, anti Trump movement have
been talking about all along the wayhere. So I'm excited. I can't
wait till it comes out. Solet's continue on, because everything you just

(07:54):
talked about in the book really sortof lays the foundation here for what we're
talking about today too, and thatis and for folks who might have missed
it, I had a part ofthis conversation with Bill Crystal just a couple
of days ago, and that podcastis already up there. You can go
back and listen to that one aswell. I suppose the electorate, the
demographics, everything about the human partof the election, the voting, the

(08:18):
voting that's coming up, is changing. And it's not that I didn't know
it, or that I couldn't seeit, or that I didn't understand what
you've explained to me in the past, But just in the last couple of
months, I've just suddenly become overwhelmedwith the awareness of it, the degree
to which Republicans no longer look orsound like Republicans, and in many cases,

(08:39):
Democrats no longer look or sound likedemocrats. And I want to I'm
going to read the opening two paragraphsfrom an article in Political two or three
days ago that this is the oneI sent to you where I said,
let's do a podcast and talk aboutthis. Something weird is happening beneath the
overall stability of the early twenty fourpolling and it's either a sign of a

(09:00):
massive electoral realignment or that the pollsare wrong again. Polls show former President
Donald Trump is ascendant with the youngestblock of the electorate, even leading President
Joe Biden in some surveys as lessengaged young voters spurn Biden. Meanwhile,
Biden is stronger with seniors than hewas four years ago, even as his

(09:22):
personal image is significantly diminished since hewas elected last time. So it goes
way beyond just those two groups.But that kind of you know, that
encompasses it. And when you andI were chatting just before we started and
I made that comment about Republicans andDemocrats, it's like they're both kind of
redefined, and I said end democratand you said democrats even more so,

(09:43):
which I hadn't seen. I hadn'tthought of it that way, So explain
it to me. So there's reallythree major social dynamics that are unique in
our country's history, any one ofwhich would dramatically change the political contours of
our election system. But all threeare hitting at the same time. The

(10:07):
first is the one that we werejust talking about, which is this ethnic
racial transformation. We're becoming a nonwhite country, and there's this emergence of
primarily Latino voters as a percentage.Asian American voters are growing actually faster because
they're smaller in number, and theAfrican American vote sits at about eleven percent

(10:31):
of the population, about twelve eleventwelve percent of the electorate as well,
and it has since the nineteen twenties. So the African American vote itself is
not growing, but the Latino populationis exploding, and right behind it is
the Asian American vote that's creating thisshrinking share of white voters, which will

(10:52):
slip under fifty percent of the electorateof the population and the electorate in about
eight to ten years, so it'sgoing to happen well within our lifetimes.
So that's the first major change.The second is this extraordinary technological change,
which is we're communicating with ourselves verydifferently than we ever have before, and

(11:13):
the whole notion of community has changed, and that's made things like old adages
like all politics is local, reallyno longer true anymore. All politics is
now national. National issues really dominatein their cultural issues, by the way,
they're not. Economic issues dominate thediscourse of both major parties. The

(11:35):
third, and this is a reallyimportant one, is the divergence between the
haves and the have not, thevery wealthy and the poor. The divibe,
the income inequality divide, is bigand getting bigger at a rate faster
than any time, including the GildedAge, which was the last time we
saw a lot of similarities with whatwas happening in this country. So there's

(11:58):
technological change, ethnic demographic change,and wealth and income changes, and all
three of these, again are happeningat the exact same moment. And there's
one other characteristic that kind of wrapsall of these up, which is going
to be the common thread that pullsthese together. And I'm going somewhere with
this, So sorry about the longlindup, No no go. This is

(12:18):
fascinating already. But is the educationdivide those with college degrees and those without
college degrees is emerging as the singlemost important demarcation point in our political system.
Those with college degrees are moving towardsthe Democratic Party very rapidly. Those

(12:41):
without college degrees are moving towards theRepublican Party at an equally rapid pace.
So that's what you meant. Yeah, And so there are correlations with this
education divide between race and ethnicity,white people overwhelmingly occupy those that are college
graduates. Latinos are the fastest growingshare of the non college educated population.

(13:05):
They're catching up, but it's goingto take you know, probably thirty forty
fifty years before that happens. Andthere's other things that are correlate that you
know, income is correlate, butit's not that single driving factor. In
fact, if you're a college graduatebut you earn less than a non college
graduate, you're still more likely tobe a Democrat. So it used to

(13:28):
be that income was a big demarcationwhen when I was younger. That is
no longer the case. There's there'ssome correlation there, but the fact that
you have a college degree is avery significant indicator of your being more on
the Democratic side of the aisle.Still, you know, four years ago,

(13:48):
when we first met, we talkeda lot about kind of college educated
white suburban women. And this isa demographic that has been moving away from
the Republican Party for some time,I'm now, but it really picked up
pace in the twenty sixteen election cycleunder Donald Trump. It expedited even more
in the twenty eighteen midterms, wecontinued and pushed it. You and I

(14:09):
were very involved with that effort withthe Lincoln Project in twenty twenty and then
it really took off like jet fuelin the twenty twenty two midterms after the
Dobbs decision came down, and veryimportantly, these voters are motivated overwhelmingly by
cultural issues, social issues, noteconomic issues. They're largely resistance to things

(14:30):
like the inflationary pressures and the typicaldining room table issues that used to drive
this voter ten years ago. Nowit's issues like abortion rights, gay marriage,
being against the Confederate Resurrection that thepower Republican parties part of. These
cultural issues are tends to be whatanimates people who went to college. It's

(14:56):
changing their perspective of what the futurelooks like, the different diverse groups that
are there. It's not necessarily moneyand tax cuts and you know the S
and P. Five hundred anymore.It's now really about the comfort and confidence
you have in a changing America andyour role in it commercially. So that's

(15:16):
the group that is moving the fastestaway from the Republican Party. Okay,
these are these establishment folks, theglobalists as kind of the MAGA crowd calls
us At the same time, whatis happening with this right word shift is
happening with non college educated US born, not the recently migrated, but US
born Hispanic men. They're moving tothe right. And so these two columns

(15:41):
are passing in the night. Onewhich was a traditionally democratic group, people
of color, non white voters aremoving to the right. And a really
rapid clip. Now it was,you know something Mike Madrid was saying ten
years ago, Hey, this isgoing to happen one or two points.
It's happening. It's happening. Alot of Democrats were saying, no,
Mike Nuts, this is bad methodology, bad science, bad pulling. It's

(16:03):
not happening. It's not happening.Consensus now is okay, it's happening.
Now we get to say, youknow, we can see it, and
you can look back over ten years. It's happened. It happened, and
it's continuing right correct. When it'shappening two percentage points of a year,
everybody dismisses it. Until after thetenth year people were like, whoa wait
a second, what's going on?What happened? What happened? But this

(16:25):
has been going on since the highpoint of twenty twelve. Hillary Clinton lost
Hispanic share and that moved down againwith Biden the midterms. It held in
a very democratic year. This shiftis is, you know, sitting there's
a new high level of support inthe Republican Party that is non white voters
historically. Let me, you justmade a great point about and it's obvious.

(16:48):
I guess this really the obvious movement, this significantly measurable moment we can
trace back to Hillary Clinton. AndI remember how people talked about her losses
and how they were inexcusable for aDemocrat and that sort of thing, But
really they were part of this largershift. Yes, and I'm glad you
said that, because you know,there were a handful of us pointing this

(17:11):
out. I was kind of reallya lone voice because the country was so
shocked in twenty sixteen, right itwas. It was shocked at a lot
of levels, like how could thisbe? Right? But one of the
data points that I was trying topoint out was, wait a second,
Hillary Clinton lost about eight nine percentagepoints from Barack O. Palma's numbers with
Latino voters, Hispanic voters if shehad just held those numbers, she would

(17:33):
have won Florida and she would havewon Pennsylvania, meaning she would have been
president of the United States. So, and no one's really talked about that
because everyone was concerned about the lossof you know, white non college voters
and diners. Right, And that'sunderstandable. That's the dominant, larger voter
group. And you know, Iunderstand that. I was interested in fascinating

(17:56):
by that too. But now asthe number of Latinos are getting bigger and
it's becoming more apparent, and it'sin all of these other states, there's
a lot of consternation because all ofthis polling is coming out saying, wait
a second, how can Latinos bepulling in the forties for Donald's trump of
all people in the high thirties?You know, aren't they basically and I'm

(18:18):
gonna be really fast and direct here, aren't they basically black voters? Right?
If you're right, And the wayDemocrats think about and treat non white
voters is as a monolithic block wesee all the time. Latinos are not
monolithic. I mean, the truthof the matter is Democrats treat all non
white voters as the same you shouldbe voting seventy five eighty percent as Democrats

(18:40):
because we're the people that like nonwhite people. And the truth is,
non white people have been saying that'snot true for some time. But as
the numbers get bigger and the datastarts showing this, now there's a lot
of consternation. It's absolutely right true, it's kind of common sense, and
it won't even be debatable in acouple of years. But for right now,
the Democratic parties really struggling with thefact that, and this is a

(19:03):
really powerful statement, is it isless diverse now. The Democratic Party is
less diverse now than at any timesince nineteen sixty, before the civil rights
shift with African American voters. TheDemocratic Party is becoming more white, and
it's becoming more college educated, andit's becoming more progressive, and it's becoming

(19:30):
more animated by cultural issues, notthe old working class. This is not
the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt anymore. This is not the party of lunch
buckets and hard hats. And peopleon the construction site are working in the
energy patch. These are high techworkers that are culturally very progressive, that
view and prioritize things that are importantto a lot of us but maybe not

(19:52):
a priority, things like abortion rights, climate change, gun laws, marriage
equality right. And the moderates inthe Democratic Party are working class people,
which are increasingly black and brown people. So it's important understand that the moderates
really in both parties are Latino voters. And I write about that. I

(20:15):
write I cover this a lot inthe book because this could also help us
from the hyper partisanship that we're lockedin. Is if both parties by math
have to start appealing to a moremoderate voter, the same moderate voter that's
growing exponentially, it could save usfrom the extremism that has pulled these two
parties apart. Does that make sensevery much? So? So where you're

(20:40):
going to go? Because I goand ask a question at your touch?
Okay, So we're talking about thevoters that the difference in the voters that
are now leaning left versus leaning right. And to your point, they're kind
of like two ships that pass thenight. They're starting to crosspaths. Now
what has changed? And I havethis other okay one, I have two
big things. I want to makesure that I asked you about that idea.

(21:03):
I'll start with what has changed withinthe parties that has caused that.
I know you just talked about theDemocrats are more cult you know, uh,
animated by cultural issues than they usedto be. They're not the they're
not the lunchbox guys anymore. Butwhat is it within the party that has
changed that who they become the platformof, you know, part of the

(21:26):
party. So both parties have changed, but for different reasons. And I'm
going to make a really strong argumentagain, this is really kind of the
premise of the book, is thisshift of non white voters to the Republican
Party is happening despite Republicans' efforts,not because of them. They're not doing
anything that is helping their cause.There's not a silver bullet, you know,

(21:52):
policy issue that they've tapped into thatsomehow, you know, brown voters
especially and increasingly African American voters aremoving to the right on What is happening
is in the mid early nineties,when you and I were very active in
the party, there was this wing, the Pat Buchanan wing of the party
that was pushing these cultural issues andbasically declared a kind of a culture war

(22:15):
on the George Herbert Walker wing ofthe party, and there was a conflict
between at that time, this collegeeducated voter, non college educated blue collar
worker that morphed after the Cold Warended into this populism which was really an
anti establishment. They started to loseconfidence in the leadership of the party.

(22:38):
You started to see this in theRomney campaign when there was that famous scene
where Romney said corporations are people andthere was a revolt in the crowd saying
no, they're not. Where hestarted to realize the Republican base was no
longer pro big business. It wasno longer pro corporation. In fact,
it's becoming anti business. If youlook at the heated relationship between Kevin McCarthy

(23:03):
when he was Speaker and the USChamber, they were openly enemies, which
I never thought in my lifetime Iwould see the Republican Party at war with
the Chamber. But the Republican Partyis no longer a base of support for
the business community because it's much morepopulist. It's not in this and that's
where the immigration fights come in,is the business community needs more immigration to

(23:26):
keep companies running. There isn't aworkforce to sustain our agricultural industry, our
hospitality industry, our agricultural industry.It's one of the key drivers of inflation
because there are not enough workers outthere. We need a lot more immigration
to keep our economy going and tofund our entitlement programs. Someone's got to

(23:49):
pay these taxes. But the populisbase of the Republican Party does not want
any immigrants, and so it's ahuge point of contention. They're fully anti
immigrant at this point, completely fullyanti immigrant legal ill it's not, but
it's not. We see that that'snot true, and so and so it

(24:11):
totally makes sense because immigration has alwaysbeen some piece of the economy in the
United States, the necessity for mostbig businesses. Absolutely, So, how
do how do we how do howdoes the Republican message make good with that?
How do they make good with that? Yeah, well, it's appealing

(24:33):
to it's appealing to nativist sentiment.Here's one here, and that's really all
it is. It's it's the appealingto the fears of a change. And
when you say that it's nativist,natives has a real that's different than saying
I'm for legal immigration as opposed toillegal immigration. There's a negative connotation to
nativist. Nativism is basically racism.Yes, it's a polite way of saying

(24:56):
it's it's racism, and we don'twant the one that are different than us
coming here. Yeah, I mean, look, let's just I mean we're
friends here, you know, let'sjump straight into this. I have been
working on the immigration issue for thirtyyears. I have never met a Republican
ever. And they, you know, ninety five percent of them will say,
oh, I support legal immigration.I don't support illegal immigration. They

(25:19):
will all say that. Not oneof those people stood up during the Trump
administration and said no, that's wrong. Right when Donald Trump said we need
to end immigration and cut legal cutit, cut it, like, stop
legal immigration, not one Republican stoodup and said, no, no way,

(25:41):
I support legal immigration. No.And they say it, but they
I haven't met one that has actuallymeant it. He wants to know,
he wanted to know why all thosepeople from that, why are we letting
all these people in from shithole countries? And I believe it was recently he
said again something like why are wehaving an immigrants from Sweden, from Norway?

(26:02):
From didn't just say that a fewweeks ago or am I remembering it
from four years ago, but hejust we all know what this is about.
We all we all know what thisis about. But we have to
understand. This is what I meanwhen I'm like when we talk about the
switch and the parties and all this, this is what Trump is about.
This is what the GOP is about. Like the party has been redefined.

(26:26):
But not just by the numbers,you know what I mean. It's by
the policy. It's by the yeah. Yeah, well that's what part of
globalism is, right and right.Look, I became a Republican. I'm
a Mexican American kid from southern California. I'm from literally from my mom's you
know, the house I grew upin. I could see the Reagan Library

(26:47):
and oh and the field workers thatwork the fields below the Reagan Library.
Like that's my life existence both worlds. The speech, the Reagan Shining City
on a Hill speech is a speechabout immigration. That's what people don't understand.
And Republicans conveniently stop is Reagan said, you know, we're a shining

(27:07):
city on a hill, wind swept, God blessed, and then Republicans stopped
right there. But the next sentence, the next sentence, he says,
is and if there needs to bea wall, there must also be a
bridge and an entrance to that cityfor all who want to come here.
Meaning you're not a beacon unless you'rebringing people in. You're not a shining

(27:33):
city on a hill. To isolatethe old points is to bring people to
our values, into our idea,because that's where the human spirit resides.
That's the Republican Party. I joined. The Republican Party today is the exact
opposite of that. It wants nothingbut to be isolationists and pull up a
draw bridge and fill the moat withalligators and shoot cannon at people. Like

(27:56):
literally, I was at the ReaganLibrary. I was at the second presidential
debate. This this this primary,and I'm here in the hollowed ground of
Reaganism and Nikki Hayley is talking aboutinvading Mexico. Ron DeSantis is talking about
bombing Mexico unilaterally, and I'm like, this is not this is a this
is sick like Ronald Reagan. Notonly could Ronald Reagan not win a primary,

(28:22):
Ronald Reagan would be actively working againstthese people. Uh. And I
say that as a good friend ofStu Spencer Stu's ninety seven years old.
He's Ronald Reagan's political advisor. Andwe had a great conversation just a few
weeks ago when I asked him thatquestion, and he said, ron would
not be quiet. Ron would befighting these people as bitter enemies to conservatism
and the idea of America. Andthis is this is a Republican party.

(28:47):
So it is a completely different partythan the one that you and I joined,
you know, decades ago, andand and and and and as it
becomes a party that is more animatedby natives rhetoric, the irony is most
of these people, as they're gettingolder, they need that Social Security tax

(29:07):
money coming in. They also Igot into this really heated debate with this
woman saying, how can you nevertalk about the silver you know, tsunami
that's coming all this aging population.I say, because those are the people
that don't want immigrants coming in.Those are the immigrants that are going to
be wiping their butts and nursing homesand paying taxes for their Social Security checks

(29:29):
and themselves ones who are going tobe funding Social Security. I am taking
care of the people and the otherpeople that are hooked on the fox news
Ivy Drip, pissed off about allthe immigrants coming in, but also pissed
off because they can't pay for theirlong term health care, and pissed off
because social Security, you know,have to raise my taxes to get my

(29:52):
checks that I'm owned, but Idon't want any workers here to pay for
it. And that's that's the greatirony. And it's said that, that's
what was going through my head isyou were saying it. It is.
It's extraordinary hypocrisy. And I don'twant to get dwelled too much on the
Republican hypocrisy, because we could talkabout every time we get together. There's
a lot of hpocracy on the Democraticside too, and so let's let's cover

(30:14):
that event as well. So thebut before you, I just do want
to say that when you were talkingyou, I got emotionals when you were
talking about the Republican Party that youand I joined, because that's exactly where
my heart was when I became aRepublican. And then when you talked about
Nikki Heally talking in Reagan Library talkingabout invading Mexico, and all I could,

(30:37):
you know, all I can thinkis she's sitting You're in that audience.
She is sitting in a California audience. You were not the only excuse
me, Hispanic American in that audience, Like they will say it to your
face. Yeah, you know whatthe you know, the quiet part out
loud and nott and it's like theydon't get what they're saying, what they're
doing, they're proud of it.And then I you know, this is

(31:00):
on sacred grounds. To me,this is Ronald Reagan. Like this is
say what you will about Ronald Reagan. I know there's a ton of detractors
now, but well there always willbe about as will be past president.
Yeah yeah, but but to gointo that sacred place the debate, by
the way, with partner with withUnivision, I was Univision's guests, So

(31:22):
yeah, I wasn't the only Hispanic. There were right a Univision audience saying
let's go bomb. Yeah, Andthat is that is I mean, all
of these positions were to the rightof what the crazy that Donald Trump was
saying in twenty sixteen, and noone bats an eye at anymore because Republican
Party is just that that extreme,it's that nuts and but but more than

(31:45):
that, it's inviolate of everything thatthe idea of the universality of conservatism means
we believe, at least I believeand you believe, that we are all
in dow by our creator, withcertain and alienable rights, all of us.
Not that way. You know,Jesus wasn't making no any And that's

(32:10):
the beauty of what conservatism was tome is there was a seat at the
American table beyond America if you believedin these values. And that's when it
gets back to Lincolnism. Right makesmight. It's your values which is your
strength. And the Republican Party hasevolved into this, this cowardice, isolationist,
internal protectionist, nativist. There's thatword again, which means racist entity

(32:37):
because it's frightened. It's frightened ofthese changes, which takes us to the
Democratic Party. The Democratic Party isexerting its own values system in a much
more confident way. If you pullDemocrats and Republicans, those that are more
confident about where the country is headingwith its diverse change from everything from gender

(32:59):
to the race and ethnicity to whatever. Democrats overwhelmingly are more comfortable and confident
with what is happening to us asa species as a society beyond America's shores.
Republicans certainly are not, but itis that value system which is completely
consumed the party itself. You arenot hearing any of the language in today's

(33:22):
Democratic Party that you used to heartwenty thirty years ago, where most of
the speeches at the DNC were abouttaking care of the poor and lifting people
up into the middle class. LikeMario Cuomo would be beside himself saying,
this is not my party, whatare you doing. We aren't the advocates
for the poor to get into themiddle class. And the way they did

(33:45):
that last entry was with unions andworkers' protections and all of these things that
really don't work, not as muchanymore, but the value system was there.
You don't hear that from people likeGavin Newsom, for example, right
right, he's running abortion ads inTennessee. You know, you've never heard
of an aspirational economic agenda, ameaningful one that's relevant to this century from

(34:10):
the Democratic Party. I will saythat day in and day out, being
pro union is it going to getyou there in a global economy. That's
not a real policy position. Neitheris the minimum wage. I support increasing
the minimum wage. But you knowwhat, nobody who makes the minimum wage
is in the middle class. That'snot a middle class solution. You can't

(34:30):
be the enemy of the working classindustries and Democrats are very much viewed as
the existential threats to people who workin the energy space, in the construction
space, in the manufacturing space,in the agricultural space, in the mining
space, in the forestry space.All of these industries are viewed. All

(34:53):
of these workers view the Democratic Partyas an enemy to their ability to pay
the rent on on Friday. Anduntil the Democratic Party gets back to its
working class roots, it shouldn't besurprised that working class people are leaving.
And when working class people are notwhite people, and they're motivated primarily by

(35:15):
economic concerns more so than that racialand ethnic concerns that Democrats think they should
be motivated by. That explains whythere's this exodus, why these people are
leaving the Democratic Party and so andby the way I look, I think
build back better is great, that'sgreat, But working class people, blue

(35:37):
collar people in this country since FDR, have never believed that government spending builds
the economy. They're not looking tobuild bridges in six, seven, eight
years from now. They're looking topay the rent on Friday this week.
This week. I got kids thatare hungry today, and you're trying to
put me out of work while you'retelling me you're going to build back better

(36:00):
with infrastructure projects that will break groundin three or four five years. That's
not a real discussion for working classpeople. That's that's a discussion for college
educated people and policy wonks and DCtypes who are running government and bureaucracies who
are like, oh, yeah,we'll make these long term investments. I'm
not trying to be disparaging. Ithink they're important. We needed that infrastructure

(36:24):
right, point right. But that'snot the way voter psychology works. Well,
And you just said one of myfavorite, one of my you know,
real things that bother me so muchabout the strategists in this industry.
That's not how what did you justsay human psychology works the voters? Voter
psychology? Voter psychology the biggest tome from the I'm on the communication side,

(36:50):
the messaging side, the understanding howto get what is on this this
conversation we're having too human beings andmove them with it, move them to
an action and on election day,and that is where I see the greatest
breakdown I think in the Democratic Partyis in their messaging. It isn't it
isn't. You know. They've gota lot of policies that speak to me

(37:13):
as a right of center voter thesedays on the Democrat the democracy issues,
and a lot of other things,but their messaging is awful and I think
that they do and I think bothparties. Trump understands this. It is
one of the things that has madehim brought him where he is. He

(37:35):
understands that people's voting is an emotionaldecision. It is it is financial,
it is cultural, it's all thesethings. But they are moved by the
emotion they feel behind that. They'renot moved by statistics and numbers and or
forgets it, yeah, or evenpolicy solutions or right exactly. Is one

(37:58):
of the really fascinating things I learnedworking so closely with Democrats over the last
four to six years is they arevery different than Republicans. And the way
they approach campaigns is Democrats really believethat if you come up with a better
policy solution, you're going to winthe campaign. And that's not true,
right, Republicans. We beat themall the time by by saying, right,

(38:19):
you can talk about your policy solutionsall you want, we'll talk about
like mister potato head being transsexual orwhatever, or kneeling in a football game
where it really speaks to core values. And people are like, but we've
got a ten point plan on howto build more bridges, And it's like,
that's not the way voters determine theirvalues. And it doesn't matter if

(38:40):
it's right or wrong, because thatis the response to that is we need
to build bridges, we need tobecome energy, you know, independent,
we need to do you know,all these things. But it doesn't matter.
If you don't understand the human brainand the human heart, you are
going to win elections. So thisis and I think and I think one
of the reasons why Democrats get caughtup in that is because the more they

(39:04):
become a college educated party, themore they approach the solution set that way,
the more they get insulated from therealities of working class life. And
so they're like, how can peoplenot be concerned about the climate change?
And in fact, well, peopleare, But I think that's the worry
about feeding my kid. I wasgoing to say they're not. The thing

(39:28):
is, they're not more worried todayabout what's going to happen in forty years,
and they are with going to thegrocery store today, correct, And
that's the disconnect. That's the disconnect. And as Democrats become more and more
a college educated, upwardly mobile,wealthier party, they become more progressive because

(39:50):
those policy solutions can become longer termand more frankly removed from the realities of
where most voters are at, whichexplains a lot of the cultural drift or
the X stuff, or the wayyou approach you know, race through a
white, progressive lens and you're like, this is how we can solve these
racism problems, and Latinos are kindof like, I hear you, but
I don't relates to anything that you'retalking about. That's not relatable. You

(40:14):
are not relatable people. And sothat's where this That's why I was saying,
it's not that Republicans are winning becauseof their best efforts, they're winning
despite them. There's an unrelatability inthe Democratic Party that is allowing for their
working class, non white voters toshift to the right. Because if the
Republicans are saying, well, wewant to stop illegal immigrants from coming in.

(40:37):
We want to you know, allowyou to work in the energy patch
in the Rio Grand Valley. Wewant to you know, have more manufacturing
jobs and protectionist policies, and lookat the tariffs. Let's put tariffs on
the Chinese to protect our manufacturing industries. They're like, hell, yeah,
I'm all about that. That keepsme at work. And the Democrats are

(40:58):
like, well, wait a second, Like that's not a real thing.
The great irony of all this,and there's a lot of irony. But
you know, Joe Biden, JoeBiden, he's drilling more oil than George
W. Bush could have ever dreamedof, right he is. He is
more anti Russia than any president sinceRonald Reagan. And he's to the right

(41:20):
of any president on the border issue, including Donald Trump. Like I tell
my, you know, young Democraticstaffers all the time, I'm like,
welcome to being a conservative in thenineteen eighties. He's basically Joe Biden is
essentially a Republican president, except thathe's pro choice. He's an eighties conservatives.

(41:44):
It's like Joe, I like thispresident. It's like I don't need
to tolerate him. I like thisguy. This guy is like an eighties
Republican. Yes, he doesn't wantus to go out there and say that
he's a Reagan Republican. That won'thelp him with his brother, not with
his present base, but he is. There's a blueballar guy from Scranton and
Vultia, right, He's an IrishCatholic, working class, blue collar working

(42:09):
Joe. I love it. Iguess it. That's that's who I am
too. So yeah, his policiesare essentially, I mean not entirely,
but largely this is eighties Republicanism,right. I mean, he's got some
positions I really could argue with obviously, but you know, to kind of

(42:30):
bring us back to the beginning ofour relationship even is you know, this
is about with all of these shiftingvoters, with the shifts in the democracy,
the ships in who leans right,who leans left, the messaging,
the policies and solutions in the end. For me and I think for a

(42:52):
lot of people still, this electionis about democracy. So when I look
at everything you and I have talkedabout, everything that you have just said,
and it kind of it came tothe right point at the end here
that people are moved in their heartswhen they are elected, when they are
thinking about who they're going to votefor. What. I look at the

(43:12):
Democrats and I think they're upset becausethey get upset because they'll say, why
don't these voters understand what is happeningwith climate change? Why don't they understand?
Why isn't that important to them?And so they put all their effort
into trying to make it important tothem, and they don't understand because because
because they don't understand, I know, I'm not making out of sense now,

(43:35):
why why why something isn't important asimportant as putting food on the table
today. That's the disconnect. That'swhere they're losing. To me, when
I think that's where there's overwhelmingly whatit is, overwhelmingly it's there's just there's
such a massive disconnect in this countrybased on this education divide that is not

(44:00):
economic anymore, it's cultural. Andthey are they're they're miles apart, they're
world's apart. So both parties literallystart to think the other people are just
stupid, they're just dumb, andthat doesn't play well when your party is
forty percent of the voters. Fortypercent of the voters in America, I

(44:21):
have a college degree, that's aminority. And so when people are like
can I get this all the time, and I'm like, hey, I
put out like I'll tweet out Latinonumbers and pulling numbers and it's show them.
They're like, well, these peopleare too dumb to know what's good
for them. Wait till they're fascist, or wait till you know Trump is
trying to deport them, or what'shappened. They don't speak the language,
and they're just not that smart.Right, First of all, that's racist.

(44:44):
That's racism. And by the way, i'm Hispanic American. But it's
really to you, they really do. And these are progressive voices that are
coming right at me saying they're they'rebasically they're too dumb if they if they
listen to us and told them howto live, rather than listening and learning
themselves and saying, well, maybeyou're not connecting with these folks. It's

(45:07):
just inconceivable. Well you know,and and that that is the biggest barrier.
And so I start I very muchsee in the Democratic Party today what
I was seeing in the nineties inthe Republican Party, which was these purity
testes lit right, and if youdon't agree with us, you're either not
smart enough, or you're not righteousenough, or you're not there. Right

(45:29):
through the two thousands. That wasn'tjust the nineties. I mean, it's
being worse and worse. It growsuntil it metastasizes with Donald Trump. That's
exactly right, and that the Democrats. All the signs are there on the
Democratic Party too, one hundred ornot. And like I said, and
as it becomes less diverse, whichit is ethically and racially, the likelihood
of them continuing to talk to themselvesand be an echo chamber is growing exponentially.

(45:52):
And they have to remember they're nota majority of the voters. College
educated voters are not a majority,are not a sure no, and so
the so the coalition the Democratic Partycurrently is constituted or at least Joe Biden
voters, Democratic voters of what wecall pro democracy voters or anti Republican voters.

(46:14):
People are voting against Republican Party becauseit's an existential threat. Now,
if Donald Trump loses in November,and I expect he will, I think
two things are going to happen Ithink the Republican Party is going to completely
adamize. It's not going to it'snot going to split into two pieces.
It's going to go in like eightdifferent directions. One hundred percent. We've
got to talk with that in thefuture too. Hundred I think people are

(46:35):
totally misjudging where the DUP will bewhen this election is over. But the
Democratic Party is going to split alsobecause the Democratic Party's coalition is held together
by anti Republicanism right now. It'sDonald Trump's crazy is the glue that it
is holding the Democratic coalition together.So the good news is I and again

(46:55):
I don't know seven months of theway, but I hope we beat the
Trump I think that we will.But what's going to happen is Donald Trump
and Bernie Sanders and RFK Junior andall these populists are a precursor of what
is coming post November, and nobody'sthinking about that right now because of the

(47:15):
existential threat Donald Trump exists. AsI'm not saying it's not a good thing,
but we need to start understanding thatour democracy is going to change profoundly
regardless of who wins this race.Yes, so if Trump loses and again
I think you will. Both partiesare going to completely trans morph into something

(47:37):
different. Well, and who knowswhat comes out of that. And this
isn't worth really spending a lot ofenergy on. At the moment No Labels
is out, they've made their positionclear. But when you look at the
top line numbers on the No Labelspolling, and I have said the weakness
and their message is that they're nottalking about the second you know, the

(47:59):
next page, in the next page. But when you look at their top
line numbers, the American people areabsolutely looking for something else. They're looking
for something other than GOP and Democratsand Democrats. So it's going to be
we're an extra part of it.We are entering a phase because of those
three dynamics that I shared at thebeginning, into a new age of digital
populism. That's what's happening. Ohyeah. The philosophy, the idea,

(48:23):
the philosophies of the right and leftare no longer relevant. You don't hear
anybody in the Republican Party talking aboutthe virtues of smaller, more accountable government
anymore because Republicans don't believe in that. They believe in using the power of
government to coerce their world themselves.Yeah. Yeah, And the Democratic Party
isn't isn't isn't talking about a unifyingphilosophy anymore or the role of government,

(48:46):
because it's its existence, it's coalitionis based on being against the existential threat
of the Republican Party. That's allthat it is now. The Democratic Party
is unified by being against Republicanism.Once Trump goes away, both parties are
going to lose the glue that isholding them together. It's not going to

(49:06):
happen just to Republicans, although itwill be more severe with Republicans, it
will happen in the Democratic Party also. Not to get into the weeds of
strategy and all that sort of thing, but you know you're talking about the
what you know, what is goingto be the conversation. I look at
the Democrats and I think, where'stheir bench when this is all over,

(49:27):
where's their bench? Who's their person? And there isn't one because you know
it's not There isn't one. Thereisn't three that you can point to and
say they will be able to leadthe party, they will be able to
unify a base of voters and win. There's like to your point, you
know, there's eight or ten ortwelve who are all on eight or ten
or twelve different paths and different messages. There's and on the Republican side at

(49:52):
least I don't like it, butthey have become so unified in their anti
trump Ism that they've got, youknow, twelve or fifteen people who can
come out of this election and expressthat you know, very discouraging, devisive,
ugly message that has been holding themtogether. Does that make sense?

(50:12):
And I, you know, Ijust I just I don't. And maybe
I'm not deep enough into paying attentionto what the Democrats are doing to see
it, but they're missing it.They don't have the kind of bench in
my mind that the Republicans do,and it's not good to me for Republicans
have the bench that they have.Yeah, No, I don't see it
that way. I mean, Ithink that you've got people to judge in

(50:34):
Gretchen Whitmer and you know, GavinNewsom. My worry is is a little
bit more foundational. The worry Ihave is the Democratic Party is has no
no agenda for and working class people. They think they do, but they're

(50:54):
using last centuries policies which weren't terriblyeffective, then they're really not effective now,
so they don't really there. Andthe reason why is because they're focused
on on on a digital economy,their high tech workers. They're focusing on
their priorities, and their policy issuesspeak almost exclusively to to you know,
digital nomads and very progressive cultural youknow, people who are not affected by

(51:19):
the economy. They're not worried aboutabout the price of a dozen eggs.
They don't even have gas powered cars, they don't worried about the price of
gas. So so they're not they'renot they're insulated. They're making you know,
multi six figure incomes. Right,And that's a broad generalization, but
that's that's why I'm right, that'swhat's happening. That's that's of the division.

(51:39):
That's the definition of the division,and and and and so I'm not
worried about like the benches of eithercandidates because and this is really important too,
I think the whole concept and ideaof the bench on both sides is
going away because part of the thingthat characterizes populism is being as far from

(52:00):
the outside as possible. So beingan RFK type or a Donald Trump type
or a celebrity or a sports figureor having your own network, right,
Viva Ramaswami, right guy, right, right. All he had was a
Twitter following, which is a network, which that that is the bench.

(52:20):
Now it's not. It's you know, there's these personalities that animate our politics
that have a following. It's nota governor or a senator anymore. Those
days are gone. The new digitalpopulism will be animated by people who have
large networks, which tends to becultural figures, celebrities, musicians, athletes,
that kind of thing. It is. So I think it can feel

(52:45):
so overwhelming sometimes, but when wesit down and talk about it. For
me, when I sit down andlisten to you talk about it, I
can follow the trail. I canfollow, you know, the path makes
sense for And I think that's whyyou are so fueler on all these different
podcasts that you that you do thatyou're a guest on. So I want,

(53:06):
well, it's it's it's the truth. And and for me, you
take you take. Like like Isaid, my side of it is the
heart and the messaging and the aspirational. How do we get people to understand
and be moved to take emotional impactthe emotional impact, the thing that actually,
you know, makes people want totake an action and and you and
you make sense out of that.And without both, you don't win campaigns.

(53:30):
You have to have both. Andfrankly, that's something when I was
termined that I really struggled with gettingpeople to understand. It was the data
part. They weren't under that.I said, if we don't have great
data, that this other thing doesn'tgo anywhere. So, Mike, this
is fantastic. I really really appreciatethe conversation. And because I don't have
it written down in front of me, please tell everybody again the name of

(53:52):
your book. Thanks again. Yeah, the book is called The Latino Century,
How America's largest minority Is Transforming Democracy. See it's from Simon and Schuster.
Just put those two in Mike Madrid, Simon and Schuster. It'll pop
right up pre order. If youcould be really helpful to me, the
book will actually be in your mailboxon June eighteenth. Shoot me or Jennifer

(54:13):
a message if you want going totry to do a book signing. It's
something you're part of the country,because I will be all really for four
months and wherever I can find themost people is where I'll go and we
can have these types of conversations inperson about the book and about everything else.
I love it, Mike Madrid.Thank you so, Mike. I'm
going to get on Amazon tonight andpre order mine. I want to get
it, and the reason I'm pushingit just so people understand I'm really pushing

(54:34):
it. If you want to understandall these things that are so important to
us as a pro democracy community.This is foundational to that. Understanding what
Mike is talking about and writing aboutis going to turn the light bulb on
over your head over and over again. At least what does for me when
I listen to him? So you'relistening to is it just me? Or
have we all lost our minds?I'm Jennifer Horne. Our guest today was

(54:58):
Mike Madrid, and I look forwardto you joining us back here again.
There'll always be another podcast coming.Thanks all and Mike, thanks again,
thank you for having me. Chaverome