I have to say that this podcast is exactly what is wrong with political punditry. First, the idea that matt thinks that this election was about policy at all is a farse. No one gave a shit about policy or ideology this what about outcomes. Second, brian is right that Dems are screwed by the media but (1) not solvable and (2) even if it was dem voters would reject it for the same issue matt highlights.
Matt, the Republican Party is the definition of cancel culture. The issue is it’s only about one issue: Trump
I think Matt is right on his diagnosis, but his solution to purge leftists from the coalition seems to indicate the same destructive instinct to *crush the enemies within your coalition to win factional fights*, that he diagnoses on the left. The level of antagonism and hostility that Matt wants Dem politicians to display by punching left is going to just cause those ppl to not want to be part of Dem coalition. It goes both ways. Brian’s solution of papering over factional differences and trying to establish republicans as the common enemy is a better idea to unite the coalition. However, the leftists are not partisan. If you listen to Bernie talk, the enemy is not republican politicians but the “billionaires and millionaires”. Brian wants them to make Republicans as the enemy and be more inclusive of Dem billionaires. IMO Dems should just try to deemphasize culture, and run on economic issues (2016 Bernie).
S., but that is my point. I agree with matt in his complaints. He is right that leftists are annoying and more interested in fighting the coalition than working within the coalition. I agree with that. I disagree it’s worthwhile to punch left. Not because it doesn’t feel good. It would. It’s that he never connects that to getting independents and/or Republican leaning centrists to join the coalition. In fact, if anything the Republican Party and the maga philosophy actually disproves this theory. The crazies took over and the right leaning centrists fell in line. They weren’t pushed away even when the issues they cared about were punted on.
I also agree with brian that the media is an issue. I disagree that it is fixable. Basically right leaning media is a political mouth piece for the Republican party AND the Republican voters eat it up. It’s not clear to me that Dems are interested in that type of propaganda. If you look at the most left leaning media companies, like crooked media, they spend as much time criticizing Dems as they do republicans.
I do think it was a little unusual how enmeshed and solicitous Dems were of tech and finance billionaire types in the 2010s. The left wing labor parties in Europe don’t operate that way, there's no permeating revolving door where left wing government officials in good standing then go on to become oil lobbying consultants.
But Matt is right that one has to decide what coalition Dems want to form and either moderate on culture or on economic populism. The leftward lurch on both is unsustainable. Obv it’s not that neat of a cut but either try to get the Romney-Clinton voter (by moderating on Econ) or Obama-Trump voter (by moderating on culture).
Is Matt the high-pitched bald one? ‘Cause that guy needs to calm down and let the other guy talk. Horrible broadcast habits. He dominates and makes it totally difficult to listen to.
I love Brian and follow him wherever he goes but I literally can’t bring myself to pay for a subscription because Yglesias can’t stop loudly stammering and talking over him.
I listened hard to your take. It feels like you’re at 20/20 hindsight. She ran a reasonable campaign. They also hit Trump hard. That he won and won the popular vote is scary. There will be long term consequences. We are in for a rough ride. There is a Putin Musk Trump Netanyahu bromance. The domestic economy is most likely in trouble within two years.
losing to Republicans isn't going to get you closer to the result you want, step 1 is get elected and stay in power so if that's not working you've got to change something...
Quoted from someone much smarter than me re: Yglesias - Guy gets his platonic campaign: messaging is shaped by his ‘popularism’ confederate David Shor, Harris almost never mentions her identity, he gets yimby rhetoric, police and border demagoguery, microtargeted consultant speak—his ideal campaign!—and he’s still blaming the wokes!
Dramatically more centrist?! Like policy positions are the reason Dems lost. Outrageously out of touch, and why we’re stuck where we are, cycle after cycle.
In all the Politix episodes, Matt hasn't been able to convince Brian that Dem's leftward policy shift matters, so I don't think this comment would do anything but still leaving it here in hope that I can challenge at least ONE of Brian's readers prior on this.
Musk was not this active in politics in 2020 or 2016 or any election before that. Would not doing all of the above kept Musk out of politics this time too and not heavily tilt everyone's twitter feed in favor of right-wing accounts. Would we have a different result today?
Now maybe you believe all of the above actions against Musk are extremely important and Dems should never pacify a billionaire. But this was done on top of Afghanistan withdrawal which pissed off lot of influential people in TV media and made Biden extremely unpopular
Now maybe you ALSO believe Biden was principally right on Afghanistan withdrawal, and we should not bow down to military-industrial complex. But as you see if you keep going down this list and keep antagonizing every influential person or industry who's not already an active Dem, you can never build a friendly media environment for Dem.
Brian says all top popular podcasts are right wing, but this is because Dem's policy is too left wing for median voter and listener of popular podcasts. Brian says he would like Dem friendly Billionaires like Mark Cubin to fund Dem friendly media, but this is strictly incompatible with strong "Every Billionaires is a policy failure" left faction within Dem party.
It seems pretty obvious to me that Dem can't get a positive media environment without shifting right in policy.
Elon's drift to the Right had started a while before he bought Twitter and even before the Biden Administration came in. After splitting donations between Democrats and Republicans in previous cycles, in 2017 he started ramping up his donations to the GOP by a lot and praised a lot of Trump's actions over his first term. Remember that whole whole "trapped Thai cave divers" story from 2018 where Elon tried to force himself into the narrative and make himself a hero and then got so very pissy that the Thai government didn't accept his help that he started slinging around accusations that the actual rescuers were pedophiles? The signs were there.
I get the feeling that while he was already on the rightward lurch at that point, the two main radicalizing factors that threw gas on the fire were California's COVID regulations and his daughter coming out as trans and the two of them having a very bitter public falling out and total estrangement over it*. I think the Biden Administration not snubbing him probably wouldn't have done much to stop him from diving into conspiracy theories and becoming obsessed with "the woke mind virus" stuff.
*Also possibly the rumors that were widely circulating that after Elon and Grimes broke up that she started dating Chelsea Manning, a trans woman. They weren't true, but with Elon already feuding with his trans daughter it wouldn't surprise me if he took those rumors badly.
Yesterday (November 5th), Rachael Maddow published a “Maddowblog” that she titled “Russian efforts to interfere with U.S. elections reach a new level. The questions isn’t whether Russia is targeting U.S. elections to help Donald Trump. It’s why?” To quote the first paragraph from this blog: “As Election Day got underway in Georgia, a handful of polling locations in Fulton County were temporarily evacuated after receiving bomb threats. The threats, fortunately, weren’t credible. As for who was responsible for making the threats, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger briefed news organizations on the developments. ‘We identified the source,’ the Republican official told reporters, and ‘it was from Russia.” In case you forgot, Brad Raffensperger is the same person who taped a phone call from then President Donald Trump in 2020 asking him to find 11,680 more votes. This bomb scare via the Russians is just the beginning of Trump’s revenge toward those who oppose him.
To answer Maddow’s question “why” are the Russians interfering in U.S. Elections - well, I have been writing about this since 2019 and attempting to warn Americans about Putin’s intentions toward the U.S. He now has maneuvered a man into the U.S. Presidency for a second time, that will provide him with U.S. top-secret information, that will not allow the U.S. to help Ukraine in their fight for freedom, and will DO AND JUMP THROUGH HOOPS to keep Putin happy in any way. This time around, Trump may pull the U.S. out of NATO - an alliance of democratic countries started in 1947 to protect the world from another Hitler. Unfortunately, another Hitler is now about to sleep in the White House again for not just another 4-year term but perhaps for the rest of his life. Remember Trump’s quote to Christians “that if you vote for me in November, in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” (Reuters, “Trump tells Christians they won’t have to vote after this election,” by Tim Reid, July 28, 2024) Keep in mind, Russia has their presidential elections every five years. Putin was first elected in 2000. In 2024 he will now stay in power until he dies.
The massive ignorance of “red-state” voters has once again allowed a criminal to rule this country. Trump is a convicted fraud (business, tax, and bank reports proved it without a doubt); he was convicted of 34 felony counts; and adjudicated and legally labeled a “sexual predator.” He instigated the insurrection to prevent the certification of the 2020 election. This, my friends, is treason.
To repeat a passage from my last Substack message “From 1924 to 1933, the Nazi Party transformed from a small, violent, revolutionary party to the largest elected party in Germany (The Holocaust Explained, The Wiener Holocaust Library) “Following his release from prison on 20 December 1924, Hitler - yes he was a criminal too just like Trump - convinced the Chancellor of Bavaria to remove the ban on the Nazi Party. The rest is history. Hitler decided to change tactics and instead he focused on winning support for his party democratically and being elected into power. The Nazi Party changed from a paramilitary organization centralized on overthrowing the republic by force, to one focused on gaining power through elections and popular support.” Hitler’s decisions and actions are just like Donald Trump’s and the January 6th insurrection with American paramilitary organizations like The Proud Boys. (Ibid) In a matter of only a few years, Hitler’s Germany murdered over six million humans and was the decisive and momentous force that began World War II which killed another fifteen million soldiers and innocent people - who were all fighting for freedom. Hitler played a major role in the formation of political ideals for Vladimir Putin, and now Putin has played a similar role with Donald Trump.
Worldwide devastation and a repeat of World War II may be approaching. Only at this particular time and in the United States, we may not be on the side of freedom and democracy. The loss of women’s reproductive rights will spill over to other restrictive laws backed up by an American Gestapo. In the House of Representatives, H.R.6918 and other bills may legalize the monitoring of pregnant women. Now Trump will have control of the Senate as well as the House. There is no stopping him.
Let’s make it abundantly clear or extremely obvious to understand - Donald Trump was most likely caught with his pants down in Russia and photographed from all angles. Every single hotel room in Russia assigned to a foreigner - and especially an American - has cameras and listening devices. In Trump’s many trips to Russia, he also visited the Beverly Hills nightclub, casino, and restaurant. This club is known for it’s corruption, naked women, and famous faces - and cameras in the walls. In any case, this man was caught and bribed by Russian KGB/FSB and Putin. To prevent and block his embarrassment, he submits to Putin’s will and wishes. (Cartoon drawn by Cagle Cartoons for From Democracy to Democrazy by Elizabeth Graham)
I think before we slice and dice what happens next, it would be helpful to have a granular breakdown of who voted which way and why, particularly women, who were, to my mind erroneously, treated too often as single issue voters in the sense of casting our votes solely on the issue of abortion (BTW, before someone @s me on this, I am solidly pro-choice, but that was far from the only issue in determining my vote for Harris/Walz, and not by a long stretch the most important one. For example, I was not keen on letting that wing nut RFK Jr loose on the entire governmental health apparatus). I don’t BTW blame the campaign or candidates for this—how to navigate this, what messages to choose, is always fraught—and this year, that was so more than ever. What concerns me most is that the strongman won the popular vote, too, and that the Rs kept the House as well as taking the Senate. This suggests to me that, rather than being quick to ascribe labels to those who voted for this, we need to understand much better why. (I suggest also dropping labeling various positions as “progressive,” “moderate,” or “right-wing,” all of which terms have lost any coherent meaning.) Without a granular assessment of what motivated voters, we can’t possibly come up with a strategy that makes any sense.
Completely sickening what has happened. We live in a country of crazy Christian nationalist that will now completely believe that Trump is God.
I’m gonna puke. Or cry. Or both.
We are all in this state....of ultiamte denial and real pain
ALL the women who voted for TRUMP are traitors to our gender and to future women who now are only children....BUT we will prevail
I have to say that this podcast is exactly what is wrong with political punditry. First, the idea that matt thinks that this election was about policy at all is a farse. No one gave a shit about policy or ideology this what about outcomes. Second, brian is right that Dems are screwed by the media but (1) not solvable and (2) even if it was dem voters would reject it for the same issue matt highlights.
Matt, the Republican Party is the definition of cancel culture. The issue is it’s only about one issue: Trump
As always: Whenever you disagree with Matt, you’re wrong and he’s right. Please go away or try to increase your IQ.
I think Matt is right on his diagnosis, but his solution to purge leftists from the coalition seems to indicate the same destructive instinct to *crush the enemies within your coalition to win factional fights*, that he diagnoses on the left. The level of antagonism and hostility that Matt wants Dem politicians to display by punching left is going to just cause those ppl to not want to be part of Dem coalition. It goes both ways. Brian’s solution of papering over factional differences and trying to establish republicans as the common enemy is a better idea to unite the coalition. However, the leftists are not partisan. If you listen to Bernie talk, the enemy is not republican politicians but the “billionaires and millionaires”. Brian wants them to make Republicans as the enemy and be more inclusive of Dem billionaires. IMO Dems should just try to deemphasize culture, and run on economic issues (2016 Bernie).
S., but that is my point. I agree with matt in his complaints. He is right that leftists are annoying and more interested in fighting the coalition than working within the coalition. I agree with that. I disagree it’s worthwhile to punch left. Not because it doesn’t feel good. It would. It’s that he never connects that to getting independents and/or Republican leaning centrists to join the coalition. In fact, if anything the Republican Party and the maga philosophy actually disproves this theory. The crazies took over and the right leaning centrists fell in line. They weren’t pushed away even when the issues they cared about were punted on.
I also agree with brian that the media is an issue. I disagree that it is fixable. Basically right leaning media is a political mouth piece for the Republican party AND the Republican voters eat it up. It’s not clear to me that Dems are interested in that type of propaganda. If you look at the most left leaning media companies, like crooked media, they spend as much time criticizing Dems as they do republicans.
Mostly agree but I don’t get the hostility to millionaires and billionaires.
I do think it was a little unusual how enmeshed and solicitous Dems were of tech and finance billionaire types in the 2010s. The left wing labor parties in Europe don’t operate that way, there's no permeating revolving door where left wing government officials in good standing then go on to become oil lobbying consultants.
But Matt is right that one has to decide what coalition Dems want to form and either moderate on culture or on economic populism. The leftward lurch on both is unsustainable. Obv it’s not that neat of a cut but either try to get the Romney-Clinton voter (by moderating on Econ) or Obama-Trump voter (by moderating on culture).
Is Matt the high-pitched bald one? ‘Cause that guy needs to calm down and let the other guy talk. Horrible broadcast habits. He dominates and makes it totally difficult to listen to.
I love Brian and follow him wherever he goes but I literally can’t bring myself to pay for a subscription because Yglesias can’t stop loudly stammering and talking over him.
Ikr?! Brian is brilliant and he’s with the worst person to bring out the best of him. Do we need to start a hashtag movement? #dumpmatt haha?
Unlistenable.
“…doomed to repeat it.”
I listened hard to your take. It feels like you’re at 20/20 hindsight. She ran a reasonable campaign. They also hit Trump hard. That he won and won the popular vote is scary. There will be long term consequences. We are in for a rough ride. There is a Putin Musk Trump Netanyahu bromance. The domestic economy is most likely in trouble within two years.
Does matt want them to change their policies or just lie?
And which minority groups is he wanting to throw off+under the bus??
Waiting for an answer to this question, as always!
We're in a bad way, as a country and a world.
We are a bad country, no matter how many pride flags we paint on the fins of our bombers and predator drones
Im sure Matt is all in to fuck the climate and trans ppl just for a few more votes.
All u get is covered in his fucking stink!!!
losing to Republicans isn't going to get you closer to the result you want, step 1 is get elected and stay in power so if that's not working you've got to change something...
Quoted from someone much smarter than me re: Yglesias - Guy gets his platonic campaign: messaging is shaped by his ‘popularism’ confederate David Shor, Harris almost never mentions her identity, he gets yimby rhetoric, police and border demagoguery, microtargeted consultant speak—his ideal campaign!—and he’s still blaming the wokes!
There is only so far anti immigrant that u can go as a dem. And if u are anti immigrant, why go 4 the light option?
I say recount ballots by hand. There’s no way he won.
Dramatically more centrist?! Like policy positions are the reason Dems lost. Outrageously out of touch, and why we’re stuck where we are, cycle after cycle.
In all the Politix episodes, Matt hasn't been able to convince Brian that Dem's leftward policy shift matters, so I don't think this comment would do anything but still leaving it here in hope that I can challenge at least ONE of Brian's readers prior on this.
Taking Musk as example, following are the changes in policy from Biden admin that directly impacted him (taken from Ben Thompson's newsletter https://stratechery.com/2024/tech-for-trump-breaking-the-deal-from-inertness-to-interest):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Biden administration famously excluded Tesla from its electric vehicle initiatives, probably because Tesla isn’t unionized, but the real shift appeared to come after Musk acquired Twitter, when Musk-controlled entities were hit with a host of federal investigations ranging from Tesla allegedly building Musk a secret house [https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/tesla-elon-musk-glass-house-doj-sec-investigation-c723166b], SpaceX not hiring asylees and refugees [https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-spacex-discriminating-against-asylees-and-refugees-hiring] (despite SpaceX being governed by strict rules around citizenship given its national security importance), X not abiding by its FTC consent decree [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/technology/ftc-twitter-investigation-privacy.html], Tesla requiring uniforms [https://www.foxrothschild.com/publications/5th-circuit-shreds-nlrbs-employee-uniform-policy-prohibition], and SpaceX launch impacts on wildlife [https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/spacex-starship-review-started-by-us-fish-wildlife-officials].
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Musk was not this active in politics in 2020 or 2016 or any election before that. Would not doing all of the above kept Musk out of politics this time too and not heavily tilt everyone's twitter feed in favor of right-wing accounts. Would we have a different result today?
Now maybe you believe all of the above actions against Musk are extremely important and Dems should never pacify a billionaire. But this was done on top of Afghanistan withdrawal which pissed off lot of influential people in TV media and made Biden extremely unpopular
Now maybe you ALSO believe Biden was principally right on Afghanistan withdrawal, and we should not bow down to military-industrial complex. But as you see if you keep going down this list and keep antagonizing every influential person or industry who's not already an active Dem, you can never build a friendly media environment for Dem.
Brian says all top popular podcasts are right wing, but this is because Dem's policy is too left wing for median voter and listener of popular podcasts. Brian says he would like Dem friendly Billionaires like Mark Cubin to fund Dem friendly media, but this is strictly incompatible with strong "Every Billionaires is a policy failure" left faction within Dem party.
It seems pretty obvious to me that Dem can't get a positive media environment without shifting right in policy.
Elon's drift to the Right had started a while before he bought Twitter and even before the Biden Administration came in. After splitting donations between Democrats and Republicans in previous cycles, in 2017 he started ramping up his donations to the GOP by a lot and praised a lot of Trump's actions over his first term. Remember that whole whole "trapped Thai cave divers" story from 2018 where Elon tried to force himself into the narrative and make himself a hero and then got so very pissy that the Thai government didn't accept his help that he started slinging around accusations that the actual rescuers were pedophiles? The signs were there.
I get the feeling that while he was already on the rightward lurch at that point, the two main radicalizing factors that threw gas on the fire were California's COVID regulations and his daughter coming out as trans and the two of them having a very bitter public falling out and total estrangement over it*. I think the Biden Administration not snubbing him probably wouldn't have done much to stop him from diving into conspiracy theories and becoming obsessed with "the woke mind virus" stuff.
*Also possibly the rumors that were widely circulating that after Elon and Grimes broke up that she started dating Chelsea Manning, a trans woman. They weren't true, but with Elon already feuding with his trans daughter it wouldn't surprise me if he took those rumors badly.
Yesterday (November 5th), Rachael Maddow published a “Maddowblog” that she titled “Russian efforts to interfere with U.S. elections reach a new level. The questions isn’t whether Russia is targeting U.S. elections to help Donald Trump. It’s why?” To quote the first paragraph from this blog: “As Election Day got underway in Georgia, a handful of polling locations in Fulton County were temporarily evacuated after receiving bomb threats. The threats, fortunately, weren’t credible. As for who was responsible for making the threats, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger briefed news organizations on the developments. ‘We identified the source,’ the Republican official told reporters, and ‘it was from Russia.” In case you forgot, Brad Raffensperger is the same person who taped a phone call from then President Donald Trump in 2020 asking him to find 11,680 more votes. This bomb scare via the Russians is just the beginning of Trump’s revenge toward those who oppose him.
To answer Maddow’s question “why” are the Russians interfering in U.S. Elections - well, I have been writing about this since 2019 and attempting to warn Americans about Putin’s intentions toward the U.S. He now has maneuvered a man into the U.S. Presidency for a second time, that will provide him with U.S. top-secret information, that will not allow the U.S. to help Ukraine in their fight for freedom, and will DO AND JUMP THROUGH HOOPS to keep Putin happy in any way. This time around, Trump may pull the U.S. out of NATO - an alliance of democratic countries started in 1947 to protect the world from another Hitler. Unfortunately, another Hitler is now about to sleep in the White House again for not just another 4-year term but perhaps for the rest of his life. Remember Trump’s quote to Christians “that if you vote for me in November, in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” (Reuters, “Trump tells Christians they won’t have to vote after this election,” by Tim Reid, July 28, 2024) Keep in mind, Russia has their presidential elections every five years. Putin was first elected in 2000. In 2024 he will now stay in power until he dies.
The massive ignorance of “red-state” voters has once again allowed a criminal to rule this country. Trump is a convicted fraud (business, tax, and bank reports proved it without a doubt); he was convicted of 34 felony counts; and adjudicated and legally labeled a “sexual predator.” He instigated the insurrection to prevent the certification of the 2020 election. This, my friends, is treason.
To repeat a passage from my last Substack message “From 1924 to 1933, the Nazi Party transformed from a small, violent, revolutionary party to the largest elected party in Germany (The Holocaust Explained, The Wiener Holocaust Library) “Following his release from prison on 20 December 1924, Hitler - yes he was a criminal too just like Trump - convinced the Chancellor of Bavaria to remove the ban on the Nazi Party. The rest is history. Hitler decided to change tactics and instead he focused on winning support for his party democratically and being elected into power. The Nazi Party changed from a paramilitary organization centralized on overthrowing the republic by force, to one focused on gaining power through elections and popular support.” Hitler’s decisions and actions are just like Donald Trump’s and the January 6th insurrection with American paramilitary organizations like The Proud Boys. (Ibid) In a matter of only a few years, Hitler’s Germany murdered over six million humans and was the decisive and momentous force that began World War II which killed another fifteen million soldiers and innocent people - who were all fighting for freedom. Hitler played a major role in the formation of political ideals for Vladimir Putin, and now Putin has played a similar role with Donald Trump.
Worldwide devastation and a repeat of World War II may be approaching. Only at this particular time and in the United States, we may not be on the side of freedom and democracy. The loss of women’s reproductive rights will spill over to other restrictive laws backed up by an American Gestapo. In the House of Representatives, H.R.6918 and other bills may legalize the monitoring of pregnant women. Now Trump will have control of the Senate as well as the House. There is no stopping him.
Let’s make it abundantly clear or extremely obvious to understand - Donald Trump was most likely caught with his pants down in Russia and photographed from all angles. Every single hotel room in Russia assigned to a foreigner - and especially an American - has cameras and listening devices. In Trump’s many trips to Russia, he also visited the Beverly Hills nightclub, casino, and restaurant. This club is known for it’s corruption, naked women, and famous faces - and cameras in the walls. In any case, this man was caught and bribed by Russian KGB/FSB and Putin. To prevent and block his embarrassment, he submits to Putin’s will and wishes. (Cartoon drawn by Cagle Cartoons for From Democracy to Democrazy by Elizabeth Graham)
I think before we slice and dice what happens next, it would be helpful to have a granular breakdown of who voted which way and why, particularly women, who were, to my mind erroneously, treated too often as single issue voters in the sense of casting our votes solely on the issue of abortion (BTW, before someone @s me on this, I am solidly pro-choice, but that was far from the only issue in determining my vote for Harris/Walz, and not by a long stretch the most important one. For example, I was not keen on letting that wing nut RFK Jr loose on the entire governmental health apparatus). I don’t BTW blame the campaign or candidates for this—how to navigate this, what messages to choose, is always fraught—and this year, that was so more than ever. What concerns me most is that the strongman won the popular vote, too, and that the Rs kept the House as well as taking the Senate. This suggests to me that, rather than being quick to ascribe labels to those who voted for this, we need to understand much better why. (I suggest also dropping labeling various positions as “progressive,” “moderate,” or “right-wing,” all of which terms have lost any coherent meaning.) Without a granular assessment of what motivated voters, we can’t possibly come up with a strategy that makes any sense.
Correction: I see from Hakeem Jeffries that the House is still in play.