While I support your offensive approach, I think you underestimate the amount of sheer resolve and organization it takes. These sorts of strategies are rarely sustainable in the long run precisely because they take so much effort to keep up with, and tend to risk breakdowns of your own coalition.
For instance, maybe it's easy enough to have a series of votes on some abortion bill or whatever, and keep everyone in your conference on board with the plan of sticking it to the other party despite their personal disagreements with whatever that bill says. But after the umpteenth time of being told to swallow something for the good of the party, maybe some back-bencher finally breaks on, I dunno, gun control. Maybe they figure they can make a name for themselves. Maybe they are just so genuinely moved by the issue that they can't treat it like a game. The point is, the cohesion eventually breaks down, leading to splits.
I think that's why leadership is always so leery of such strategies: the splits. To use a military analogy, it's one thing to rally your troops to cross the Alps with elephants *once*. It's another thing to ask them to do it again and again, no matter how effective it'd be in theory. You can say you're fine with defections and AWOLs all you want, but at some point you simply don't have an army left*.
* Simon Bolivar learned this the hard way. Sorry for history-nerding out on you.
I was hoping this was the podcast that Matt was teasing. Hope these become a regular thing. On De Santis and being the VP - it will constitutionally tricky for him to become VP because Trump is now resident in Florida. That means technically he can't be on the ticket, unless one of them fudges their residency. I guess I could see Trump thinking it pretty funny to force the Florida Governor to pretend he lives out of state to be his deputy
lazy people who stay home and don't fill the many open employment slots is totally something the average joe trump supporters still believe - at least in my rural town!
re comment in the post debate podcast: Lazy people who stay home and don't fill the many open employment slots is totally something the average joe trump supporters still believe - at least in my rural WI town! Now interestingly - pre covid the insult was directed at the welfare queen in the nearby big city - but now we have lots of open positions in our very white area so not sure who exactly they think they are claiming is living the high life on generous unemployment.
“candidates who know they’ll never be Donald Trump’s running mate, or serve in his cabinet (Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley) experiment with more aggressive tactics.”
Really interested to hear your thoughts on Nikki Haley not being a viable pick for Trump? It almost seems obvious to me that she would be the best VP choice. Do you really think she’s crossed the line just enough to be put on Trump’s bad side?
Love the content but wish the audio was also available on a traditional podcast feed or something as the in-app audio player for Substack absolutely sucks.
Fully support this crossover content, great job with this one Brian!
While I support your offensive approach, I think you underestimate the amount of sheer resolve and organization it takes. These sorts of strategies are rarely sustainable in the long run precisely because they take so much effort to keep up with, and tend to risk breakdowns of your own coalition.
For instance, maybe it's easy enough to have a series of votes on some abortion bill or whatever, and keep everyone in your conference on board with the plan of sticking it to the other party despite their personal disagreements with whatever that bill says. But after the umpteenth time of being told to swallow something for the good of the party, maybe some back-bencher finally breaks on, I dunno, gun control. Maybe they figure they can make a name for themselves. Maybe they are just so genuinely moved by the issue that they can't treat it like a game. The point is, the cohesion eventually breaks down, leading to splits.
I think that's why leadership is always so leery of such strategies: the splits. To use a military analogy, it's one thing to rally your troops to cross the Alps with elephants *once*. It's another thing to ask them to do it again and again, no matter how effective it'd be in theory. You can say you're fine with defections and AWOLs all you want, but at some point you simply don't have an army left*.
* Simon Bolivar learned this the hard way. Sorry for history-nerding out on you.
I was hoping this was the podcast that Matt was teasing. Hope these become a regular thing. On De Santis and being the VP - it will constitutionally tricky for him to become VP because Trump is now resident in Florida. That means technically he can't be on the ticket, unless one of them fudges their residency. I guess I could see Trump thinking it pretty funny to force the Florida Governor to pretend he lives out of state to be his deputy
lazy people who stay home and don't fill the many open employment slots is totally something the average joe trump supporters still believe - at least in my rural town!
re comment in the post debate podcast: Lazy people who stay home and don't fill the many open employment slots is totally something the average joe trump supporters still believe - at least in my rural WI town! Now interestingly - pre covid the insult was directed at the welfare queen in the nearby big city - but now we have lots of open positions in our very white area so not sure who exactly they think they are claiming is living the high life on generous unemployment.
“candidates who know they’ll never be Donald Trump’s running mate, or serve in his cabinet (Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley) experiment with more aggressive tactics.”
Really interested to hear your thoughts on Nikki Haley not being a viable pick for Trump? It almost seems obvious to me that she would be the best VP choice. Do you really think she’s crossed the line just enough to be put on Trump’s bad side?
I *think* so, but she’s more of an edge case than Christie or Pence.
Love the content but wish the audio was also available on a traditional podcast feed or something as the in-app audio player for Substack absolutely sucks.