Trump's Triumph (w/ Ian Ward)
Added 2024-11-08 18:45:00 +0000 UTCAs the reality of Donald Trump's decisive victory sets in, we wanted to talk to Politico's Ian Ward, who's done some of the very best reporting on post-liberal intellectuals, JD Vance, and MAGA-world, in addition to spending time on the campaign trail this fall. After breaking down the results of the presidential election, we discuss Vance's role in the campaign, his standing with Trump, and friendship with Don Jr.; how the Trump transition is taking shape and who's likely to influence his decisions at the start of his second term; whether Project 2025 will actually be implemented; if the Republican Party will actually govern in a pro-worker way; and much more!
Sources:
Ian Ward, "Trump Loves Her. His Allies Don’t Trust Her," Politico, Oct 25, 2024
— "What the Mainstream Media Can Learn from 'Bro Podcasters,'" Politico, Oct 24, 2024
— "The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview," Politico, July 18, 2024
— "Is There Something More Radical than MAGA?" Politico, Mar 15, 2024
— "The Socialists Who Love Talking to Conservatives," Politico, Feb 4, 2022
Sam Adler-Bell, "The Shadow War to Determine the Next Trump Administration," NYT, Jan 10, 2024
Matthew Sitman, "The Morning After," Liberties, Nov 7, 2024
...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!
Comments
You're totally right. We gotta define these terms! -SAB
Know Your Enemy
2024-11-17 09:31:03 +0000 UTCAgain, I voted for Harris. Many on the left do for utility. Third party votes wouldn’t have made up her margins. The Democratic establishment will not save us, especially with the millionaire consultants and morons like you pushing them further right. It’s going to take an insurgent willing to buck the party establishment and their donors to embrace left wing populism, not capitulating to hateful rhetoric. Have a good night.
Addison
2024-11-14 01:04:09 +0000 UTCI honestly thought abortion would kill the GOP. Kamala went hard on it, but I guess it wasn't enough. And though I have lucked into some success in this capitalist system doesn't mean I support it. Once automation really takes over, non of us will have jobs and this have no power. At that point we will be less than slaves, because even a slave has some value from their labor. Remove that and we are merely prey for sociopathic billionaires. My straight white privilege will evaporate along with everyone else's rights. If we had held the democratic coalition together and elected enough squishy centrists like Obama and Biden, we would have something to build on. But Nader and Stein voters gambled that away for moral purity. Maybe that's the point, purists like you want to remove our ability to effect change through legislation, with the hope that change through revolution will get you what you want. I hope that is not true for you as that would be colossally stupid hubris.
Antony Mills
2024-11-14 00:47:46 +0000 UTCYou’re missing the point, and I have a hunch that it’s because the only solutions you’re interested are those that wouldn’t affect your life in any way—you want to maintain the system that protects you and you alone and are somehow deluded enough to believe that will lead to positive change. The problem isn’t that the democrats didn’t exclude the right people, it’s that this entire system is built and sustained and controlled by capital. Democrats are unwilling to do anything that would help working people because it would piss off their donors AND their new educated wealthy base (that’s you!). They’ve refused to use the levers of power to prevent something like a Trump from happening for 50 years now because it would hurt their and their donors’ bottom lines and because political decorum was more important to them. The genie is not going back in the bottle, no matter how many concessions you make to the right. While you’re building your winning coalition, I found another social issue with comparable approval/disapproval polling to trans rights and Gaza: abortion! Maybe if dems switch to being pro life they’ll convince enough republicans to vote for them and finally implement meaningful structural change to usher in a democratic socialist utopia with the approval of their corporate donors. Good luck!
Addison
2024-11-13 23:47:10 +0000 UTCIf you can think of a better vehicle for bringing about an equitable multi-racial democracy, I'm all ears. I really want to live in a democratic socialist system that uses RCV or some other method to avoid illiberalism. Bashing the DNC may feel good, but Jill Stein ain't gonna do nothing to help black women (and other marginalized groups) get what they deserve. As a straight white male who has finally lucked my way up the ladder, I can survive my much of the disasters Trump will visit in America. People who don't have those privileges will just have to feel good about the "Gaza Purity" of the Uncommitted movement.
Antony Mills
2024-11-13 21:15:12 +0000 UTCI was able to figure it out from context, and perhaps I just missed it, but some quick definitions for education polarization and class dealignment would have been helpful for this listener. I don’t get a lot of exposure to these conversations outside of this podcast.
Tim Combes
2024-11-13 20:57:00 +0000 UTCBy the way, the hosts of this podcast and I’d wager the majority of people on the left who listen to it likely don’t personally identify with democrats, we vote for democrats out of utility. I think you’re misreading your audience here.
Addison
2024-11-13 20:46:15 +0000 UTCGood economic policy is not mutually exclusive with standing by marginalized groups. You only think that’s the case because you are a democrat (and I’m guessing a white male). If you are willing to discard allies you perceive to be blocking your political goals, you have shallow and incomplete (shitty) political goals. The left (which does not include the Democratic Party if that isn’t clear to you) is about liberation for ALL working people, of all races and gender identities.
Addison
2024-11-13 20:39:50 +0000 UTCIt can’t exist in a country where the entire political system is bought and paid for by corporations and the ultrawealthy. Left wing populist policy is wildly popular, but you aren’t going to get from the major parties because of their donors. Third parties are structurally impossible for the same reason.
Addison
2024-11-13 20:36:28 +0000 UTCWhat we lack as Democrats is the focus on income inequality. Put a (cheaper) chicken in Bubba's pot and all of a sudden he gets less angry about trans girls in the track team.
Antony Mills
2024-11-13 16:38:03 +0000 UTCA good party and a good candidate can shape public opinion. Capitulating to trans panic for (specious) electoral reasons is morally disgusting and it also reads as insincere coming from Dems (see: Allred). A full-throated defense of trans existence and trans rights would, while not necessarily convincing the unconvincable, at least have the valence of courage, sincerity and conviction. Those are qualities that people admire whether they agree with your policy proposals or not. It’s the source of Sanders’ enduring appeal, and unfortunately probably Trump’s too; that willingness to stick to his guns and say whatever he’s feeling , focus groups be damned. THAT’S what national Dems lack
Reggie Debris
2024-11-13 16:17:40 +0000 UTCThe boundaries of liberal intelligence seem to end where political economy begins.
Benjamin Pletcher
2024-11-13 05:24:58 +0000 UTCThe problem is that the Democrats (Antony) are not realpolitik enough (at all really). If they were they would have put forward a platform that addressed the elephants in the room, inflation and genocide, instead of campaigning on Republican-lite. They provided maximum alienation to their base and offered no substance to swing voters. It was a losing strategy from the start.
Benjamin Pletcher
2024-11-13 05:20:42 +0000 UTCI was indeed referring to Antony’s cowardice disguised as realpolitik as utter garbage. Sorry for the confusion, J!
Benjamin Pletcher
2024-11-13 05:13:42 +0000 UTCI am not sure if a robust democratic socialist movement can win a country where the electoral college exists.
Sue
2024-11-12 20:54:42 +0000 UTCReally? Seems to work just peachy for the GOP. Colin was a good shot, but I bet a lot of Texas either never saw that ad or simply didn't believe him. Trans people don't deserve any of this, but they scare stupid people. And we cannot help trans people when we have no power.
Antony Mills
2024-11-12 20:07:56 +0000 UTCYou can literally look at the numbers and see that all the third party votes going to Harris would not have made the difference in any of the swing states. Going right is not going to lead us left.
Addison
2024-11-12 20:05:23 +0000 UTCDemocrats did exactly what you’re suggesting in this election. Colin Allred literally ran an ad where he said he didn’t want men in women’s sports. Didn’t work. Scapegoating and excluding people is not how you build a meaningful coalition. The bottom line is people were mad about inflation, and the party in power was punished for that. It’s happened to every incumbent party in every western country since 2020, often with larger margins than Harris earned. Doesn’t matter if it’s nonsense, the vast majority of the American public votes based on their day to day experience and what they hear on the campaign stump. Trump promised sweeping economic changes. Democrats told people they were wrong about their lived experience because actually the economy is good 🤓
Addison
2024-11-12 20:00:09 +0000 UTCPlenty of pundits attributed Bush's 2004 victory to anti–gay marriage backlash, but later analyses showed that "social issues" merely juiced his margins in deep-red states. I'm skeptical of the "issue-voting" paradigm in general ("issues" confound, fold back on each other; many voters are ideologically inchoate), yet still I'd wager that 2024's a similar tale. It just seems implausible that Democrats "could have kept" red-shifted voters by saying... well, what downballot candidates were already articulating in response to trans-panic attacks, the straightforward repudiation of "boys in girls' locker rooms." To assert not only that the "they/them" campaign was effective but that it "cost [Democrats the] election" is brazen; when has something like this ever proved *that* salient, above all else? (The Willie Horton ads: another overhyped offensive that unduly influenced Dem strategy over the long haul, despite the spots' probably marginal electoral impact). As for Muslim Americans: talk about "dual loyalty"! Make up your mind: are Arabs too rooted or too cosmopolitan?
John K.
2024-11-12 19:41:10 +0000 UTCI was listening to a Bulwark podcast and they were talking about how when Reagan (may he rot in hell) was getting bashed by right wing Christians about not outlawing abortion right away. One of his aids laughed and said "fukc them! Who are they gonna vote for, Mondale?". That is the power of the Dark Side and we are loosing elections while national Democrats have to pander to a million special interests. We could have kept Hispanic men and a bunch of white boys if we just said, trans people are ok, but not in girl's sports. That is a sgitty thing to do, but the 2 (count them, 1, 2) gender reassignment surgeries performed on incarcerated illegal immigrants cost us an election that will doom a lot of people. I'm a straight white guy who won't be hurt nearly as much as the Jill Stein voting Arab-Americans will. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! I think trans people will understand if we have to publicly distance from them, knowing we'll do what we can on the margins. But Muslim Americans more concerned with Palestinians than our own nation? I won't forgive that.
Antony Mills
2024-11-12 17:58:04 +0000 UTCI get that you are angry with Harris for tacking to the center, but we need to be realistic. I would love to see a Bernie style democratic socialist movement take off, but America is just to racist, sexist and homophobic. We all just saw what the American public wants, and that is draconian immigration, trans people to go back in the closet, and for black women to stop making men (both black and white) feel uncomfortable. That is so beyond sgitty that I can barely wrap my head around it, but it's right there staring us in the face. Maybe, if enough Jill Stein voters had pulled their heads out of the ground, we might have eeked out a win that would have made our children proud of us. But that didn't happen. Hate won and we need to either learn to win with the electorate we have or we won't be able to protect anyone.
Antony Mills
2024-11-12 17:41:58 +0000 UTCI think that's right. A policy that only tangentially helps the working class while enriching wealthy people, a long-standing Republican strategy.
Paul Smolinsky
2024-11-12 17:05:17 +0000 UTCThanks for this episode. The piece by Ian in Politico on AFPI is vitally important reading ... as is the AFPI America First Policy Agenda — far more important than the (virtual) doorstop (for the virtual door) put out by the Heritage Foundation and JDV.
Henry Bachofer
2024-11-12 16:48:25 +0000 UTCI think you can count on the "tax cut" renewing the T45 cuts also including a check for $1500 for a huge number of people. That's partly why the Republican voters have such fond memories of the T45 years.
Henry Bachofer
2024-11-12 16:45:25 +0000 UTCWhat the party really needs to do, Antony, is stop listening to people like you, who have made it clear to your fellow Americans that their value as human beings is entirely dependent on how useful they are to you politically, then act surprised that this isn't a winning electoral strategy. I'm holding my tongue from saying what I really want to say to you, because the tone of discussion here is generally pretty civil and I don't want to disrupt that, but suffice to say that if the party needs to turn its back on anyone to move forward, it needs to turn its back on you, at least until you realize that you're just parroting the genocidal rhetoric of the right while pretending you're better than they are.
Peter Aidan Byrne
2024-11-12 12:57:17 +0000 UTCHey Antony, scapegoating small groups of people for the failures of your political party/economic system is sounding very familiar. You should reconsider that impulse. If there’s any hope of building an actual coalition on the left, you’re going to have to cut that shit out. Be mad at the consultant class and the millionaires/billionaires who forbade the Harris campaign from giving anything meaningful to the progressive part of the base. I voted for Harris so no need to divert to that argument with me.
Addison
2024-11-12 02:01:51 +0000 UTCMan, what?
John K.
2024-11-11 18:28:15 +0000 UTCNot me. Trump can kick out every Palestinian-American and drop them off in Gaza just before Kushner paves over the whole thing and I will be sad for them. But I won't lift a finger. I no longer have the bandwidth to really care.
Antony Mills
2024-11-11 18:25:30 +0000 UTCI think you are painting “Arab Americans” with way too broad a brush and ascribing a malice to actions that are not meant to “punish” anyone. And I think your comment about Islam is unfair as well. There are many ways to practice one’s faith, as our leftist Catholic convert show host Matthew demonstrates. And no matter how someone or how their ‘demographic group’ votes, I will still support efforts to protect them from fascism and aid in their resistance.
J English
2024-11-11 18:13:47 +0000 UTCI absolutely do not want to throw trans people under the bus, but we cannot afford to sacrifice the country and the planet just to protect a tiny minority. Trans people will just have to 'trust' that Democrats will do the quiet things necessary to protect them. Arab-Americans have clearly decided to burn everything to the ground to punish the rest of us. That is unforgivable and I will put zero effort into protecting that community from Trump. We have only a few decades before automation concentrates all power to a few trillionaires and we just flushed 4 years down the drain for the most conservative ideology on the planet: Islam.
Antony Mills
2024-11-11 17:45:42 +0000 UTCWell I certainly agree with that. My initial comment about kicking us out the tent was about what I see as the likely move from the Democratic Party, given their track record thus far. The Democratic Party since at least Clinton tends to move right on issues they seem to be ‘losing’ rather than bolstering a genuine left position. I do see this as a failure and a major reason the party has lost labor and become a faceless, unexciting, elitist machine to many voters. Also this platform should make it more obvious who is replying to who!
J English
2024-11-11 17:02:46 +0000 UTCI'll assume Ben was responding to Antony, and if so, I agree that what he said was garbage. Throwing trans people under the bus is despicable and not the answer. Moving to the right is not the solution. That's exactly what Kamala was attempting by courting the Cheneys and it failed. If Arab Americans in Michigan "stabbed Dems in the back", then I guess Dems should've given some ground on Gaza instead of vowing that nothing would be different from Biden.
Axel Herrera
2024-11-11 15:59:54 +0000 UTCHelpful and informative reply, Ben.
J English
2024-11-11 06:45:48 +0000 UTCThanks Chad, I take your point. In my defense, I really was just giving the immediate, top line takeaway I had based to the results we have so far. And we're hoping to do an episode soon on rural-urban/suburban divides! Appreciate the thoughtful comment and insights. (Matt)
Know Your Enemy
2024-11-10 21:48:57 +0000 UTCPlease, yes, echoing this. I spent a lot of time this week reading missives from young men Trump voters over on the GenZ subreddit and there were many, many variations of “lecturing me about my demographic’s historical privilege when I can’t buy a house isn’t helping me over to the side of liberals” or “I feel bad about what’s happening in Palestine but my first priority is being able to buy groceries for my family.” There was also a lot of anger that the Democratic Party seemed totally uninterested in winning their vote, so why should they vote for them? That so many young dudes were saying a repetitive version of this makes me think that this is a huge project for the left to take on.
Eira Tansey
2024-11-10 13:47:35 +0000 UTCUtter garbage
Benjamin Pletcher
2024-11-10 04:27:32 +0000 UTCFrom your fingers to God's ears, could not agree more with this comment. I think the boiling frogs metaphor may actually be even more apt for describing the epistemic criss/two realities problem than it is for climate change. Voters prefer Dem policies every time, as long as they don't know who's policy it is. Searches spiked for "is joe biden running" the day of the election! In an election defined by economic hardship due to inflation, the people just selected the candidate who promises tariffs that will dwarf recent inflation?! In exit polls Voters most often said "anything has to be better than this" even though the US is objectively having the strongest recovery in the world meaning, definitionally, anything else is literally worse than this!?!
Ben Harloe
2024-11-10 03:14:42 +0000 UTCTime to dust off my old friend "Our old friend the blues"
Ben Harloe
2024-11-10 03:03:38 +0000 UTCHey Sam, you’re not alone in not reading the news as much lately. But it was reassuring to hear some dispassionate analysis on what’s ahead to help prepare for it.
Burdperson
2024-11-10 02:24:22 +0000 UTCSorry!: **did NOT stab us in the back**
Antony Mills
2024-11-10 02:20:22 +0000 UTCI feel terrible to say so, but trans people may just have to accept a public distancing from the Left. Trans people did stab us in the back like the Arabs in Dearborn, so I take no joy in suggesting we throw trans people under the bus. But without power, the Left cannot even offer much of a rear guard defense.
Antony Mills
2024-11-10 02:19:44 +0000 UTCI’d echo Kathleen’s fear. We can only pray it will be a chaotic mess that can’t get out of its own way and implement the noxious policies it wants to
Kyle Mitchell
2024-11-10 01:35:17 +0000 UTCMy hunch is that he’s giving billionaires direct seats at the table this time, which is almost certainly not going to result in anything good for working people.
Addison
2024-11-10 01:07:54 +0000 UTCI’m going back and forth between this thought and the thought that the right knows Trump is their ticket, they were embarrassed by how little his last admin accomplished, and this is their chance to break everything to their liking since republicans will likely struggle in elections without Trump on the top of the ticket again. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Addison
2024-11-10 01:04:56 +0000 UTCScrew it; I un-canceled my post-election, depression-induced cancellation to the show because this was a good episode, and I can't NOT hear you guys discuss topics I can't hear addressed elsewhere (I am down for any potential future episodes on Freud and psychoanalysis). My feelings and thoughts have been shifting since election day. I was angry and distressed by the results, but then I became weirdly angry at myself for not seeing it coming. And then I became super angry at the Democratic Party for...well, aside from losing, I'm not sure. Gaslighting me? Gaslighting all of us? Why were we not aware of how badly the Democrats were doing? Did *they* know what they were doing and what they were up against? Also really would like to hear you guys discuss the election and its relationship to online information environments. Bluesky is abuzz about "the real problem" being our hyperreal, "choose your own reality" era of siloed, algorithm-controlled information consumption (yet here I am consulting a siloed, algorithm-controlled platform like Bluesky to tell others that the real problem is *their* silo, not mine).
Taylor
2024-11-09 23:15:34 +0000 UTCI am surprise to hear the urban-rural divide ignored in most of the discussions of exit polls. Using a single dimension — voter demographics and beliefs — without looking at the spatial distribution of voters of different types — has a major statistical problem: spatial autocorrelation. In other words, without thinking of “country mouse/city mouse,” demographic breakdowns are almost worthless.
Chad Bailey
2024-11-09 19:01:53 +0000 UTCMy biggest apprehension about Trump 2.0 is the feature that will likely have the longest tail: his appointments to the Federal bench. The Trump 1.0 and now Trump 2.0 judges will be a malignant force for at least a generation.
Kathleen R. O'Connell
2024-11-09 18:10:35 +0000 UTCThinking about the ‘Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you’ line. In addition to being virulently transphobic, I think it also functions as an anti-elite, anti-establishment, education polarization message. As in, using the right pronouns is the kind of PMC-talk the Dems want to push on you, the humble voter 4 credits shy of an associate’s degree. Recalls Gillian Branstetter’s point that hanging a trans rights flag at the entrance of CitiBank can make it seem like an elite issue, which Rs can use to drum up resentment.
adam fleming petty
2024-11-09 14:06:27 +0000 UTCI live in KS so also a red state. The people around me are pissed that prices for everything are not back to pre-COVID levels and at the border stuff. You can't repeatedly tell people that the economy is doing great and border security isn't that big of a deal when they absolutely are dealing with aspects of that stuff on a personal level -- even if things are actually fine on paper and nothing that Trump does is going to fix these issues. It just pisses them off more. Yes, there is a pretty large contingent of conservatives who will always fall back on the "social justice warrior" crap to justify voting for Hitler 2.0 and we live in states with swarms of them but there are plenty of people who just don't care, who think the trans obsession and book banning is weird but they're more mad that they can't buy a house and afford daycare and they occasionally get hassled by brown people in the Walmart parking lot wanting money. MAGA lives in a different fucking universe but the DNC does its own handwaving too.
Hannah Vig
2024-11-09 12:51:25 +0000 UTCI don't have a good answer. From what I can tell, people don't care all that much or thought the eradication of "grooming" or w/e was worth the cost. Also, extreme positions often get passed off with interpersonal effectiveness, and if you raise alarm, you're being dramatic or difficult. There is an inertia against effort against power, I guess? After multiple election cycles, though, you start to realize, "Oh, this is what people want." They *chose* this option, knowing the consequences.
Christopher Harrelson
2024-11-09 12:36:45 +0000 UTCI'm just curious, genuinely asking. Don't the parents in your sisters' school think its a bad idea their kids don't have a library? It doesn't bother them their own kids don't have access to books? I just wonder about when/how people realize (or don't) that policies aimed at some bogeyman are boomeranging back on them.Or maybe they don't care?
Sam D.
2024-11-09 05:22:47 +0000 UTCSam, you have to be able to countenance abandoning the Democratic Party in full. That the hard road is not in building up its back bench, but in wresting it away from class ‘enemies within’. We cannot beat the enemy you know so well when our own vehicle for doing so is self-driven by faraway ‘friends’ who are totally fine with us dying on the freeway.
Benjamin Pletcher
2024-11-09 05:08:05 +0000 UTCThis is a fantastic episode, thank you guys!
Where there’s a Wills there’s a Way
2024-11-09 05:05:06 +0000 UTCRichie Torres stumping in Michigan was a nice touch tho
Where there’s a Wills there’s a Way
2024-11-09 05:04:40 +0000 UTCNo one wants to talk about how effective the anti-trans rhetoric has been for the right. Right wing leaders have convinced a large swath of people that all trans people are deeply mentally ill pedophiles. It’s worked out well for them. Mainstream democrats basically wish we (trans people) didn’t exist because we’re a political loser for them. No one seems to care on the left, as millions of dollars were devoted to push the successful and effective narrative that Trump and his people will protect children from the scary trans menace. The mainstream left can either kick us out of their tent and send us back to political wilderness (likely) or mount a serious defense to the idea that we’re all sick predators. But I think that doing neither and just letting the right run wild on that front was disastrous for this campaign cycle.
J English
2024-11-09 04:44:55 +0000 UTCthis was excellent. Please have on Gabriel Winant next to discuss his Dissent article!!
Cavan Bonner
2024-11-09 04:08:30 +0000 UTCI'm pleased with how level headed this discussion is. My sense is that we will get something similar to Trump 1.0, constant internal upheaval and some standard issue Republican economic initiatives coupled with some more aggressive immigration enforcement. I haven't really been that nervous about it. I don't think it's gonna be good, certainly Republican administrations never are but he's a known quantity at this point. I will take a dispassionate conversation any day over scaremongering so thank you for that.
Julia
2024-11-09 03:54:32 +0000 UTCFound myself again watching the horror film No One Will Save You, and it is terrifying because it tracks the psychology of this moment we live in now. And I know how bad this moment is when I enjoy horror this much.
mark o'hare
2024-11-09 03:30:05 +0000 UTCI really appreciated the tenor and overall tone of this conversation. And of course , the questions asked and points raised. I’ve been too queasy to look at much news as we are officially in one of the stupidest moments of the election discourse: the aftermath takes. I remember when Bush 2004 meant the Dems needed to run a heartland candidate in ‘08, preferably a veteran. I remember when Obama 2012 meant the rise of a new liberal majority that would reign for a generation, and that Romney’s defeat meant that the GOP would only survive if it moderated and moved left on immigration. Needless to say, no one who is currently making sweeping statements about what any of this means or portends knows what the fuck they’re talking about. I suspect Trump is just a unique figure, a charismatic, once in a generation politician, the Obama of the Right. I think a lot of trends or impulses are obscured or warped by the sheer force of his personality. He’s clearly selling oligarchic policy while somehow maintaining his reputation as an economic populist. The funny thing is, if he just did nothing, let inflation continue to cool, let interest rates continue to fall, and let Biden’s industrial policy continue to take hold , and maybe passed some tax cuts, he could totally claim credit and vindication. As it stands he’s openly threatening to do the ONE thing a president can unilaterally do that’s guaranteed to raise the cost of living (across the board tariffs). One more short point: I don’t think it can be overstated just how grim our epistemological crisis is. There are just two totally competing versions of reality at play. Much has been made of the electorate’s move right on immigration, but that didn’t just organically come out of nowhere. It was manufactured by years of relentless, hateful, dehumanizing propaganda. If you tune into these right wing media streams you would genuinely believe there’s an ongoing migrant murder and rape wave in this country. It is a CONSTANT drumbeat. What they don’t see is stories about pregnant teenagers dying preventable deaths in ER waiting rooms. I can only see this getting worse until some uniquely gifted politician somehow manages to break through the noise.
Reggie Debris
2024-11-09 02:03:44 +0000 UTCYour dulcet tones always make the horror we are facing seem, if not better, at least more within my comprehension, so thank you. I would love to hear your opinion about the information ecosystem of the right and how it played into the rightward drift of young men, plus what leftists can do about it. I am a young person myself, and my job sent me to college campuses in a swing state to turn out voters, during which it occurred to me that many of the young men I talked to had been totally bamboozled and had utterly nonsensical ideas about what would happen under a hypothetical Harris administration. How do we even address that level of disinformation? How can we go about building a left wing propaganda machine (beyond this very podcast) to combat such rightist bologna?
Gracie Patten
2024-11-09 01:45:19 +0000 UTCToward the end, Matt wondered whether the Republicans will deliver economic benefits to the working-class. I try not to predict the future because I can’t possibly know what will happen. Maybe the Republicans will deliver on their new found concern for working people. But I am skeptical. I have trouble believing that Republicans will now champion a $15 minimum wage, strengthen laws on labor organizing, and support parental leave or subsidized chid care. Instead, I think they will seek to appease the working-class with more anti-immigrant bullshit.
Paul Smolinsky
2024-11-09 01:40:15 +0000 UTCWhenever somebody writes an insider book/ article about the Cluster F*** of the Biden/Harris campaign, can you guys please try to have them on? Would be very interesting to find out what the hell happened and what the story is behind campaigning with Liz "the Loser" Cheney.
Ryeman
2024-11-09 01:03:21 +0000 UTCLong time listener, first time caller. I, too, struggle with conceding to the notions that (1) Dems are somehow to blame and not playing a terrible hand and (2) Dems are so out of touch/not messaging correctly. This is going to be very long, but living in a deep red state, and working with people in lots of rural communities in that state and other states, I think some on the Left have been hoodwinked. There is no "this" in "Anything is better than 'this'". Example: late last year, my state stood up a state legislative committee to consider whether to reject *all* federal education funding based on the proposed Biden Admin Title IX rule prohibiting bans on transgender athletic participation in schools. Granted, Republican legislators would never expressly admit that was the reason: it was always hinted, including by my state senator. (My state senator, by the way, lost his license to practice medicine because he prescribed opioids to his lover, who was also his second cousin.) I was anxiously calling and emailing people to try to talk sense into them about how wiping out free breakfast and lunch for poor students and early intervention services for children with special needs was a horrendous idea. In committee, another senator, who thank god was booted out, quipped, "Well, what do we get out of kids getting free lunches?" In the end, I didn't stop the threat: I'm a nobody. No, the problem Republicans faced was that the blast radius hit their own, so eventually, the idea was dropped. Now? School vouchers and book bans so broad the county in which my sister is a teacher had to remove *all* books from the school library at the beginning of the 2024-25 school year. Corruption otherwise abounds. How is it smug for my toddler son and I to quietly eat at a fast food place only to regaled on the side by some old-timer complaining about "all those illegals comin' over the border" again? My wife and I don't say anything anymore because if we express any frustration whatsoever, it gets boomeranged back into our faces. Eggs being $4 a dozen doesn't justify Hitler 2.0. These people are just mad because they can't have the entirely unencumbered ability to bulldoze others in doing whatever it is they want to do. And if there are any encumbrances, someone else is always to blame. I'm sorry--I just get frustrated with the, "Well, we just didn't message correctly." Sometimes, the universe throws a curve ball. Sometimes, people are just bad. It is what it is, and I don't think obsessive handwringing about what we did "wrong" is going to lead to constructive places. Trust me: the opposition I see isn't doing the same.
Christopher Harrelson
2024-11-09 00:49:10 +0000 UTCWelp, we need you guys now more than ever. I for one appreciated the dispassionate analysis because I have had a lot of intense emotions and shared some with others but I - and surprisingly many of my friends on the left- have moved on to a "let's get ready and down to work" stage. And a crucial part of that right now is analysis and dispassionate reflection. We can feel and think at the same time. BTW, I'm a therapist and even my clients are largely already there. I attribute this to the experience we've all had over the last 8 years. We have a lot to draw on now.
Sam D.
2024-11-08 23:34:03 +0000 UTCAs much as I enjoyed this more practical, down to earth episode, I hope you guys record an episode in the coming weeks that is more of a group therapy session. We all need it now.
Garett Smith
2024-11-08 23:11:03 +0000 UTCI guess we're all Swamp Maoists now huh comrades.
Byron Lopez
2024-11-08 22:33:48 +0000 UTCFound this weirdly comforting, if only because I’ve been up in the sky with scary hypotheticals; this discussion of the future is very grounded and informative, without underplaying the threat.
David
2024-11-08 20:30:05 +0000 UTCSame preston. I so do not want to engage but I know, civically, that I need to stay as engaged and active. Hard! Sucks! But trying to stay here and not just turn into another american too broke too busy and too stupid to follow politics (not to be a bitch and obviously the exceptions prove the rule and yes i know some of what i feel is ephemeral anger and nkt reflective of my deep and nuanced view of humanity etc don’t hurt me this is the first thing I have engaged with other than work since this haplened)
mary lingwall
2024-11-08 19:55:05 +0000 UTCIdk guys, Sam spoke for a long time about democratic myopia around 18-20 mins, which, fair enough. But the shit about Dems not running anyone who isn’t polished or plain speaking enough is just silly. The republicans and the media spent the whole election mocking 1) Biden for his many speech foibles (both age and speech impediment related) and 2) Harris for being “dumb” or for laughing. I don’t think we’re losing for selecting against plain speech.
Evan Nordgren
2024-11-08 19:53:35 +0000 UTCSorry, I meant I’m not sure I can stomach it.
Preston Crawford
2024-11-08 19:46:02 +0000 UTCWorking for me, too. Thank you for getting post election content up so quickly! Been eagerly awaiting it.
Luke Dietterle
2024-11-08 19:44:33 +0000 UTCWorks for me
Karim Hassanein
2024-11-08 19:31:11 +0000 UTCIt works fine for me, just checked it—is it possible your subscription lapsed? If anyone else has any trouble, leave a comment! (Matt)
Know Your Enemy
2024-11-08 19:22:48 +0000 UTCI can’t listen
Preston Crawford
2024-11-08 18:47:35 +0000 UTC
