Speaker 1: This week's episode of the Tribecast is brought to you
Speaker 1: by the Texas Tribune Membership program. Hello and welcome to
Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune Tribcast for February tenth. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff,
Speaker 1: joined as always by Editor in chief Matthew Watkins.
Speaker 2: Hello there, how's it going good? You know, enjoying the
Speaker 2: Winter Olympics.
Speaker 1: Oh, all that entails huge Olympics heads over here? Are
Speaker 1: you in the Talk Olympics channel on Slack?
Speaker 2: I am, but I have not chimed in yet. Same.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's too embarrassing to be like in
Speaker 1: the middle of work, being like making it so obvious
Speaker 1: that I'm watching the Olympics, but you know there are
Speaker 1: on a different time zone. Well, as we've discussed frequently
Speaker 1: on the trip Cast, our podcast hosting demographic is pretty
Speaker 1: firmly in the millennium category.
Speaker 2: We were once described as.
Speaker 1: Being having being millennial funny, which was devastating to me.
Speaker 1: That is a compliment. Hurt really bad. But today, as
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about sort of TikTok social
Speaker 1: media influencers, online outrage, how all of that is impacting
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty six primary elections. We are thankfully joined
Speaker 1: by two gen Z voices. Politics reporter Kayla Guo, Hey.
Speaker 3: Thanks for being here as our happy to be gen
Speaker 3: Z correspondent.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's me, yeah, and then democratic strategist and online
Speaker 1: content creator Olivia Juliana Olivia, thanks for being.
Speaker 4: Here, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, kil did you write about the influencer role? Like,
Speaker 5: did you get selected for that story because you are
Speaker 5: gen Z?
Speaker 3: Now I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1: We got to call Jasper and right now do I
Speaker 1: think it probably was due to your otherwise phenomenal coverage
Speaker 1: of that Senate race.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's up with that?
Speaker 5: But okay, look, I just want to say that, like,
Speaker 5: I think you can write about all generations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can write about boomers, you can write about
Speaker 1: the Silent generation, the greatest generation. But we do tap
Speaker 1: you to write about gen Z sometimes because it would
Speaker 1: be embarrassing otherwise for those of us who are, you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit older.
Speaker 3: It's okay, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I am really really online though, so I really do
Speaker 1: think I could.
Speaker 2: I could hack it.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk. Let's take a step back and talk
Speaker 1: about the story that you wrote. Kayla, This sort of
Speaker 1: drama that it bubbled up in this Democratic primary for Senate,
Speaker 1: and you know, I thought we're gonna take a step
Speaker 1: back and talk about this issue more broadly, because it's
Speaker 1: sort of a symptom maybe of.
Speaker 3: A larger of a larger theme. But what happened here
Speaker 3: a lot I think it was last week last week
Speaker 3: on Monday. A content creator. She's Dallas. Her name is
Speaker 3: Morgan Thompson. She was previously a Tallarico supporter before Jasmine
Speaker 3: Crockett got into the race. She made a TikTok alleging
Speaker 3: that in a private conversation with her, James Talerico had
Speaker 3: referred to Colin Allred, who was a twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: sent a Democratic nominee who's in this race but dropped
Speaker 3: out as Crockett was getting in. She alleged that Talerico
Speaker 3: referred to him as a quote mediocre black man.
Speaker 2: That video went viral.
Speaker 3: She laid out some of the contexts of the lead
Speaker 3: up to the conversation and.
Speaker 2: That on its.
Speaker 3: Own would have been somewhat remarkable, like how big this
Speaker 3: video itself got. But then of course Colin Allred waded in,
Speaker 3: made his own selfie style direct to camera TikTok video
Speaker 3: in which he just like ripped into tall Ico and
Speaker 3: all but called him an outright racist indors Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 3: And that is, of course, when it sort of became
Speaker 3: news for us, and when we wrote about that whole
Speaker 3: thing going down, and Talarico's camp took a while to
Speaker 3: respond that day, Talerico said it was a mischaracterization of
Speaker 3: what he had said. He had referred to Alread's campaigning
Speaker 3: as mediocre, but would never you know, attack him on
Speaker 3: the basis of race, is what his statement said. But
Speaker 3: that was really that whole blow up was kind of
Speaker 3: a culmination of what had been going on for weeks
Speaker 3: on x threads, TikTok instagram of just a lot of
Speaker 3: people chiming in with really strong takes one way or
Speaker 3: another on this race and becoming sort of a battle
Speaker 3: between these two camps, even though the candidates themselves have
Speaker 3: sort of stayed out of the fray. And so this
Speaker 3: was really just like the blow up and you know,
Speaker 3: peak of this long simmering hostility before.
Speaker 1: We started get into that you know, broader context. I mean, Olivia,
Speaker 1: you were watching this unfold, what were you making of this?
Speaker 1: As a may I say, very online democrat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. I My inclination obviously always is to
Speaker 4: look at things as a very online Democrat. But I
Speaker 4: was also looking at this through the lens of I
Speaker 4: am a twenty three year old voter who lives here
Speaker 4: in the state of Texas and who will have to
Speaker 4: cast a vote in this primary election, and who, like
Speaker 4: I've known all three of these people in this story
Speaker 4: since twenty twenty one, when I started at like seventeen
Speaker 4: years old, and so seeing all of this play out,
Speaker 4: I had many thoughts. First thing was, if you just
Speaker 4: flashed back to the twenty twenty four Senate campaign, seeing
Speaker 4: these two people James Talerico and Jasmon Crockett, who were
Speaker 4: like very visible surrogates for Colin all Red, now entrenched
Speaker 4: in this I would almost say proxy war through these
Speaker 4: different online factions and not through the things that came
Speaker 4: out of their own mouth. It was very different than
Speaker 4: what we've seen in Texas before because of the severity
Speaker 4: and the volume of it. There was very similar chatter
Speaker 4: to this in division like this during the twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four Democratic primary between Roland Gutierres and Colinel Red, but
Speaker 4: it was much more insulated to people who were very
Speaker 4: hyper online in Texas whereas this, and I think it's
Speaker 4: because Jasmine Crockett is such a renowned national figure really
Speaker 4: broke out into like national online conversation, and I think
Speaker 4: that's because of her, but also because James Talerico is
Speaker 4: a social media star in his own right. Like I
Speaker 4: don't think I can name any other state rep in
Speaker 4: the country who has over a million followers on Instagram.
Speaker 4: And so I'm just kind of watching all of this unfold,
Speaker 4: and the two main thoughts that I had were, God,
Speaker 4: it's always Texas, isn't it. It's always Texas.
Speaker 2: Business, Yes.
Speaker 4: And the secondary thing was, I think it's just a
Speaker 4: reminder of how powerful social media has become an influencing
Speaker 4: political conversation, because even if you know these these posts
Speaker 4: aren't reaching a significant percentage of primary election voters, you know,
Speaker 4: the Texas Tribune is reaching a pretty significant percentage of
Speaker 4: primary electorate voters. And now, like you all have written
Speaker 4: articles about this, so like it is something that's breaking through,
Speaker 4: whether it be on social media or because of the
Speaker 4: traditional press coverage that comes from these incidents happening on
Speaker 4: social media.
Speaker 2: Olivia, I want to ask.
Speaker 5: You, I appreciate you saying that I'm curious about the
Speaker 5: Text Tribune reaching a large number of voters. I'm curious though,
Speaker 5: as someone who I feel like is smart enough to
Speaker 5: observe this and be like, Wow, this is really important
Speaker 5: and meaningful and says a lot, not just about this
Speaker 5: race but where politics is going. But maybe someone who's
Speaker 5: not smart enough to know exactly what it means. I'm
Speaker 5: curious whether you think this is a bad sign or
Speaker 5: a good sign for the primary.
Speaker 1: Do you mean, like the average person who comes across.
Speaker 5: It, Well, just that this is happening, right, Because what
Speaker 5: you're I'm talking about myself not being.
Speaker 1: Smart enough to like this is happening is something.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I don't. Yeah, And I think what I'm
Speaker 5: what I'm trying to gauge here is a it's a
Speaker 5: sign of division and like some hard feelings in this
Speaker 5: and I can see how that could be frustrating for
Speaker 5: someone who cares about the party and where it's going.
Speaker 5: On the other side hand, it suggests a level of
Speaker 5: engagement in this race and a level of like emotional
Speaker 5: excitement and feeling about these two candidates that is pretty
Speaker 5: rare in Texas, at least for a statewide race, and
Speaker 5: you know, I could make the argument of, like, the
Speaker 5: fact that these fights are happening is an indication that
Speaker 5: there's a level of excitement that could be really good
Speaker 5: for Democrats.
Speaker 2: All the trust.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, yeah exactly. I mean, how do you sort
Speaker 5: of evaluate that calculus?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think I think this being a
Speaker 4: good or bad thing, It really depends on which which
Speaker 4: candidate you are and which campaign you're in. You know,
Speaker 4: if you're Collin all Read, this is the most social
Speaker 4: media engagement I think he's gotten. He was the Senate
Speaker 4: candidate in twenty twenty four, Peace and love, you know
Speaker 4: much respec to Harpressman already. You know, if you're James Tallerico,
Speaker 4: this is a really bad situation for you to be in,
Speaker 4: because he surged in this primary very early on. You know,
Speaker 4: his largest fundraising day of that quarter was the day
Speaker 4: that Jasmine Crockett launched her campaign, which I think is
Speaker 4: a pretty clear indicator that, you know, she's she's a
Speaker 4: very polarizing figure, and that kind of pushed a lot
Speaker 4: of people who may not necessarily like her style of
Speaker 4: politics to inadvertently support James Talerico. But you know, if
Speaker 4: you're a Jasmine Crockett. You're someone who you were down
Speaker 4: at a couple of polls. You haven't been able to
Speaker 4: match taler Rico's fundraising numbers, you haven't been able to
Speaker 4: put up as many TV ads or do as many
Speaker 4: advis Like now you have a lot of organic, unpaid
Speaker 4: media attention happening amongst highly engaged people who live inside
Speaker 4: of Texas and outside of Texas, which is important for
Speaker 4: you know, your volunteer base, it's important for phone banking,
Speaker 4: it's important for door knocking, and most importantly, it's happening
Speaker 4: a week two weeks out from the start of early voting.
Speaker 4: And so you know, as all of this has happened,
Speaker 4: she's gained momentum and tall Rico has lost it. And
Speaker 4: you know, if you're him, you already have the disadvantage
Speaker 4: of not only are you having to spend money to
Speaker 4: tell people who you are are, but also to bring
Speaker 4: people out to vote, whereas her name idea is high
Speaker 4: enough the people already know. So now, like all of
Speaker 4: this I think has been really good for the energy
Speaker 4: of her campaign because I think it is really in
Speaker 4: vague well, I don't think I know from the conversations
Speaker 4: I've had with pro Jasmin Crockett influencers, like this is
Speaker 4: very very energizing to them, and like they are ready
Speaker 4: to like hit the pavement to help her win this
Speaker 4: primary versus a lot of the pro James Tallerico influencers
Speaker 4: who I know are a little bit more hesitant to
Speaker 4: post positive things about his campaign that they otherwise would
Speaker 4: have because of how controversial this primary has become. Kayla.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are people who have been they as
Speaker 1: you noted in your story, right, they both sort of
Speaker 1: rose to prominence through going viral, through like grabbing these moments.
Speaker 1: But I would argue in like sort of very different ways, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the repose of Crockett is like
Speaker 1: known for these like very sort of huge flashpoint moments,
Speaker 1: like sort of like the clapback style really like aggressively
Speaker 1: calling out Republicans and you know, and then tell Rico
Speaker 1: is sort of doing this more you know, the pastor
Speaker 1: the peace and love thing, the you know running this
Speaker 1: through this are you like slightly more low key god
Speaker 1: and good manners pitch? I mean, how this has all
Speaker 1: played out seems sort of in line with that. I
Speaker 1: think people the tall Rico thing. Part of why I
Speaker 1: think this broke out of containment is like this allegation
Speaker 1: is so at odds with his public persona. I mean,
Speaker 1: how much of this is just a consequence of all
Speaker 1: of this being everyone involved being very online.
Speaker 3: I mean I think, yeah, I think the fact that
Speaker 3: there has been so much just scurse. Like Olivia said one,
Speaker 3: both of them have such huge profiles, obviously Jasmine Crockett
Speaker 3: more than Teleco, but are so known online. And I
Speaker 3: think people do form somewhat like parasocial relationships with anyone
Speaker 3: who they think is like fighting for them or is
Speaker 3: aligned with them. Is this breakout star in politics that
Speaker 3: they maybe can we'll get to vote for one day?
Speaker 3: And yeah, I think people like really latch onto figures
Speaker 3: like Jasmine Crockett, like James Halerico, given their you know,
Speaker 3: how visible and online they are. And I do think
Speaker 3: that that has deepened sort of like this particular conflict
Speaker 3: and made it all the more you know, hostile and
Speaker 3: people in trench in both camps.
Speaker 5: But Olivia, you were quoted in Kyla's story saying we
Speaker 5: would all do a lot of good if every once
Speaker 5: in a while we realized social media is not real life, right,
Speaker 5: And then you also said earlier a little surprised me,
Speaker 5: Like one of the ideas that this is a concern
Speaker 5: is that it has broken through into traditional media like
Speaker 5: US or the Associated Press or all the other media
Speaker 5: that has written about this in recent times.
Speaker 2: And I guess, like I'm a little.
Speaker 5: Bit surprised to hear that, right, because I mean, I
Speaker 5: I you know, many of the people on social media,
Speaker 5: myself included, agree that maybe it would be good for
Speaker 5: us to like at times turn it off a little bit.
Speaker 5: But I mean, I feel like one of the things
Speaker 5: that this campaign is testing is the idea of, like
Speaker 5: is social media the dominant sort of political like place
Speaker 5: for conversation right now in a way that like it
Speaker 5: doesn't matter if it's being discussed everywhere, if it's being
Speaker 5: discussed on social media, it makes a big difference. And
Speaker 5: I mean another part of this is just there's been
Speaker 5: some reporting, some concerns out there right now about the
Speaker 5: lack of spending by Jasmine Crockett on you know, television
Speaker 5: the most of the traditional place where you sort of
Speaker 5: get your ads out right now.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious whether you think.
Speaker 5: Like that matters at all, Like, do do we are
Speaker 5: we all sort of still judging this by the wrong metrics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think in a post twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four world, I think everyone is very quick to make
Speaker 4: snap judgments about social media and how it's effective or
Speaker 4: how it's ineffective. I've seen a lot of people give
Speaker 4: like really haphazard you know, analysis about well, what should
Speaker 4: we do instead, and like, I actually don't think that
Speaker 4: this race is the best test on you know, is
Speaker 4: it worth it to spend on traditional advertising versus social
Speaker 4: media because we don't have we do not have two
Speaker 4: traditional you know, candidates going up against each other, Like
Speaker 4: Jasmine Crockett could spend zero dollars in this race and
Speaker 4: still have more name ID than James Tellergo. So if
Speaker 4: even if you don't see anything on social media or
Speaker 4: on television and you go into that voting booth during
Speaker 4: the primary election, there's still going to be a significantly
Speaker 4: larger number of people who know who she is who
Speaker 4: have no idea who he is. And so I actually
Speaker 4: don't think that this race is the best place to
Speaker 4: kind of draw that conclusion. What I will say is
Speaker 4: I think that their electoral theories of change very closely
Speaker 4: mirror their social media strategies. Jasmine Crockett is her arguments
Speaker 4: have consistently been about, you know, we need to turn
Speaker 4: out base voters. We need to energize the base of
Speaker 4: people here in Texas who are not voting or who
Speaker 4: have voted before and have chosen not to vote in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four or in the you know, twenty twenty
Speaker 4: five down ballot elections. Versus James Salarico, whose argument is,
Speaker 4: you know, we need to have a big tent, we
Speaker 4: need to bring it independence, we need to persuade people.
Speaker 4: And I think the social media content and spaces that
Speaker 4: they've been in and the people who have been speaking
Speaker 4: out in support of them kind of mirror this strategy
Speaker 4: really well. You see Jasmine doing a lot of social
Speaker 4: media collaborations or being defended a lot by people like
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Booker, Houston, Kenny wald In, Like, these are people
Speaker 4: who are really known for being hardline democratic political content
Speaker 4: creators who are pretty decently well known among a large
Speaker 4: a large number of primary voters generally around the country.
Speaker 4: You know, these are political influencers. Versus James Talerico. You know,
Speaker 4: you see him and he's doing more of his own
Speaker 4: content creation stuff, but he's also reaching out to more
Speaker 4: non traditional political spaces. You know, he was on Joe
Speaker 4: Rogan last year. You know, he went on Ezra Clent's
Speaker 4: podcast to talk about Jesus. Like, he's doing a lot
Speaker 4: of different things that you don't see candidates traditionally doing
Speaker 4: when they're trying to use social media in a political way.
Speaker 4: And I think that the true test will come not
Speaker 4: necessarily from is she spending money on TV or she's
Speaker 4: not spending on money on TV. I think a true
Speaker 4: test will be which one of these social media theories works.
Speaker 4: Is it appealing to the base of online primary voters
Speaker 4: who you know are going to show up to the primary,
Speaker 4: who you know are highly engaged, or is it trying
Speaker 4: to add people to the primary electorate and persuade people
Speaker 4: to become Democratic primary voters who traditionally may not have
Speaker 4: been involved in those elections.
Speaker 1: I mean, looking ahead to the general, where one of
Speaker 1: these two people will inevitably be running against one of
Speaker 1: two other people, maybe current Senator John Cornyn or Attorney
Speaker 1: General Ken Paxton. I mean, how does and how does
Speaker 1: all of this shift when we start looking at a general.
Speaker 1: I mean this we've currently democratic infighting that will all
Speaker 1: sort of miraculously disappear on March fourth and we'll all
Speaker 1: go back to being friends. And then now suddenly you
Speaker 1: are trying to reach a much wider swath of the
Speaker 1: electorate with a much typically like I think, more moderate
Speaker 1: platform on a lot more sort of different venues. So
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like how you see this shifting the campaign
Speaker 1: strategy shifting going into a general.
Speaker 4: Well, uh, you know, first and foremost, I think it's
Speaker 4: gonna be really dependent on who the Republican candidate is
Speaker 4: because the social media strategy of whoever it is is
Speaker 4: going to be very different. Then, you know, like John
Speaker 4: corn and social media strategy is I feel, and in
Speaker 4: the instance of him, it's very much so you cannot
Speaker 4: teach an old dog Nutrix. Like it is very clear
Speaker 4: he is not comfortable with social media. His team does
Speaker 4: not really understand it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, Wesley Hunt is doing his best. He's he's
Speaker 4: trying to lean into the rage bait content of it.
Speaker 4: But you know, Ken Paxton, ultimately, when it comes to
Speaker 4: social media, I would say that Ken Paxton and Jazz
Speaker 4: mccrockett are probably like a perfect inverse of each other
Speaker 4: when it comes to engaging and enraging people on social
Speaker 4: media and getting a reaction. And and you know, social
Speaker 4: media algorithms don't measure feelings. They don't know how you
Speaker 4: feel or what your opinion is when you make a post.
Speaker 4: All that it measures is velocity and volume. And so
Speaker 4: if you're someone like Ken Paxon or Jasmin Crockett, who
Speaker 4: is known for getting very strong reactions out of people,
Speaker 4: when you make a post on social media, you're likely
Speaker 4: to get that strong reaction from people on the left
Speaker 4: and on the right. And when you get that combination
Speaker 4: of reaction from both sides, that can catapult you to
Speaker 4: reach those people on the periphery who are not necessarily political.
Speaker 4: And those people on the periphery are the ones that
Speaker 4: are the reason why Donald Trump won the twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four election because they were getting reached in those spaces.
Speaker 4: So I think if this were going to be a
Speaker 4: true like brawl in non traditional voters who are getting
Speaker 4: their information on social media, the Ken Paxton Jasmin crocket lineup,
Speaker 4: I think we are going to see a social media
Speaker 4: be a war waged in this state you've never ever
Speaker 4: seen before. I genuinely believe this could be like presidential
Speaker 4: level engagement numbers from these two just because of how
Speaker 4: polarizing and cutthroat they both really are, you know, Versus
Speaker 4: if it's someone like James Tallerco, that's just not his style.
Speaker 4: Like you're I don't think you're ever gonna see James
Speaker 4: taal Erco call Ken Paxton and an adulterist fraud, which,
Speaker 4: like frankly he should, but like it's just I don't
Speaker 4: think the engagement is going to be the same now.
Speaker 4: I do think that there are a lot of people
Speaker 4: out there who are these more you know, mild mannered, uh,
Speaker 4: moderate voter moderate independence traditionally like Reagan Romney Republicans who
Speaker 4: do exist in Texas, who probably would vote for John
Speaker 4: Cornyan in a primary, who if Ken Paxon is the nominee, Uh,
Speaker 4: there's a really strong chance that they could end up
Speaker 4: voting for James Talerco. I think the only person in
Speaker 4: this scenario who really is a wild card is Wesley
Speaker 4: Hunt if for some reason he wins the primary, which
Speaker 4: I do not find to be particularly likely. I think
Speaker 4: that that really is the only unknown scenario of how
Speaker 4: this is going to play out on social media before.
Speaker 2: We move on.
Speaker 1: I do just want to take a quick break to
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Speaker 1: Join us at Texastribune dot org slash donate. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do want to sort of revisit this idea of
Speaker 1: just these I think in many ways and this is
Speaker 1: not a unique thought, like the Republican and Democratic primaries
Speaker 1: in this race are sort of, like you said, in
Speaker 1: verses of each other. Right, You've got a like polarizing
Speaker 1: really not to undermine either candidates sort of power, but
Speaker 1: like polarizing performers versus these sort of people casting themselves
Speaker 1: more as statesman's style, you know, at least moderate in tone,
Speaker 1: if not in sort of political ideology. Kayla, I mean
Speaker 1: we have no idea what the you know, which two
Speaker 1: pieces of this quadront are going to end up with
Speaker 1: each other and with the Wesley Hunt piece of this
Speaker 1: as well. What is your sense You've talked to a
Speaker 1: lot of voters, You've talked a lot of campaign consultants,
Speaker 1: like what are the bets everyone is sort of make.
Speaker 1: I don't mean the predictions. I mean, like, what are
Speaker 1: the different sort of personalities that we're investing in and
Speaker 1: sort of gambling on what voters want here?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think what you'll hear consistently excuse me,
Speaker 3: is that just like people don't know James Talerco and
Speaker 3: you know that has been a big challenge for him.
Speaker 3: But but I think exactly as Olivia said, like in
Speaker 3: a reflection of Jasmin Crockett and Tall Rico's different approaches
Speaker 3: and theories of how to win statewide, I think both
Speaker 3: of them will point you to, you know, what they
Speaker 3: think voters want is of course they think themselves. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, Jasmonin Crockett will talk a lot about people
Speaker 3: who like are watching her on the front lines of
Speaker 3: Washington now, who know that she's going to show up
Speaker 3: for them and fight for them and deliver for them
Speaker 3: in the way that she has been in Congress, and
Speaker 3: they want someone who'll She'll tell you that they want
Speaker 3: someone who is like fired up and will fire them up.
Speaker 3: I think Talla Rica's camp, on the other hand, will
Speaker 3: point you to like a lot of disaffected independent and
Speaker 3: Republican voters who are just like tired of the division
Speaker 3: and the polarization and the fight, and like the social
Speaker 3: media division and misinformation that is like pushed by algorithms
Speaker 3: and looking for someone who is like normal and willing
Speaker 3: to like bring people together. I think when I've gone
Speaker 3: to Jasmin Crockett's events, you know, it's a lot of
Speaker 3: people who really really admire her for her you know,
Speaker 3: being a fighter, for being willing to like say whatever
Speaker 3: even if it makes other people upset. At Tarrico's events,
Speaker 3: I have met a lot of Republican voters or like
Speaker 3: formerly Republican voters who are now looking for something different
Speaker 3: and are very much into, you know, his sort of
Speaker 3: inverse message of like we need to come together enough,
Speaker 3: lower the temperature, you know, like it might be entertaining,
Speaker 3: but like it feels terrible to be constantly in this
Speaker 3: state of political fight.
Speaker 5: I don't think we can talk about this though, without
Speaker 5: getting into the conversations around race that have come up
Speaker 5: in this right this idea that I mean, part of
Speaker 5: James Tallerico's pitch is that he is a more viable
Speaker 5: general election candidate for all the reasons that you described,
Speaker 5: that he can win people over that Texas is not
Speaker 5: ready to elect someone as confrontational as Jasmine Crockett. This,
Speaker 5: of course touches on some topics that are very fraught
Speaker 5: and complicated, right, And people will point out that issues
Speaker 5: of electability and things like that are often used against
Speaker 5: black candidates, particularly black women. And it feels like taller Ico,
Speaker 5: I mean, Olivia, you sort of talked about how like
Speaker 5: some of the supporters have some of his supporters have
Speaker 5: maybe been more hesitant to speak out in his favor
Speaker 5: out of concerns about blowback and everything like that, perhaps
Speaker 5: for this particular reason, but there is also a very
Speaker 5: large segment of people talking about this race who are
Speaker 5: saying the Democratic Party cannot get into this situation where
Speaker 5: you cannot you know, talk about winning the general election,
Speaker 5: where you cannot talk about electability and all those different topics.
Speaker 5: There's you know, a theory of the case that a
Speaker 5: like focus on race and an unwillingness to you know,
Speaker 5: criticize candidates of color over any particular issue was part
Speaker 5: of what turned off a lot of like moderate voters
Speaker 5: in the first place. How do you see this conversation
Speaker 5: playing out and do you think this criticism against Taller
Speaker 5: Rico or maybe more specifically, some of Tallerico's supporters, is
Speaker 5: a fair one.
Speaker 4: I think that first and foremost, I think that the
Speaker 4: people who have really negatively polarized this conversation most, most
Speaker 4: often than not, are people who do not live inside
Speaker 4: the state of Texas, people who do not vote here.
Speaker 4: And based off the conversations that I have had with
Speaker 4: people who support Jasmin Crockett, who support James Talerico, both
Speaker 4: inside and outside of the state, a common a common
Speaker 4: thing that has kept coming up to me is people
Speaker 4: who have seen these accounts who have very vocally supported
Speaker 4: James Talerico making electability arguments critiquing jas and Crocket. But
Speaker 4: those same social media accounts also praise Graham Platner in
Speaker 4: Maine for his you know, brash, blunt, non traditional style.
Speaker 4: And that's where a lot of these very strong, negatively
Speaker 4: polarized positions come in. Is Well, you're making these electability
Speaker 4: arguments about Jazz and Crockett that she is she said
Speaker 4: hyperpartisan things, that she is aggressive, that she is very
Speaker 4: out there and that's why we can't nominate her. But
Speaker 4: you also support a candidate who frankly has a lot
Speaker 4: more electoral baggage than she does. That begs the question
Speaker 4: of well, why is that. Is it because Jason Crockett
Speaker 4: is a black woman and because Graham Platner is a
Speaker 4: white man, or is it because you think that these
Speaker 4: are different these are different political environments. And I'll say
Speaker 4: I talked to one influencer in particular who has been,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of in and out of this race
Speaker 4: a little bit, and they told me if if the
Speaker 4: tall Rico supporters on you know, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, if
Speaker 4: they really wanted him to win this primary, all they
Speaker 4: had to do was let Jasmine loose. And what they meant,
Speaker 4: why that is all you had to do was talk
Speaker 4: about why you prefer your candidate instead of attack the
Speaker 4: credibility and the history and the record of Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 4: And I think that that is a very valid opinion
Speaker 4: to say. And in the article that Kayla wrote that
Speaker 4: I was quoted in, I did say, like a lot
Speaker 4: of this is not necessarily that people are extremely passionate
Speaker 4: about James Taal Rico or extremely passionate about Jasmin Crockett.
Speaker 4: It's the people have been negatively polarized into having these
Speaker 4: very strong opinions because of the attacks that they've seen
Speaker 4: on social And I think a lot of this is
Speaker 4: left over from the twenty twenty four election, where there
Speaker 4: were a lot of really unfair criticisms of Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: that were made about how she couldn't be the nominee,
Speaker 4: about how Biden had to stay in because America wasn't
Speaker 4: ready to elect a black woman, And frankly, like me
Speaker 4: as an individual, someone who has been very vocal about
Speaker 4: how I am voting for James Tallerico, like my reasoning
Speaker 4: for voting for him is he speaks to me on
Speaker 4: a personal level with his story and his record, more
Speaker 4: than jos Mon Crockett does. And you know, you don't
Speaker 4: have to denigrate the other candidate to prove your point
Speaker 4: about why you want to support the opposing candidate. And
Speaker 4: so I think that this is just kind of a
Speaker 4: remnant of a lot of people feeling like there was
Speaker 4: no real resolution to a lot of the inter party
Speaker 4: conflict that happened post twenty twenty four election. And I
Speaker 4: think that Texas has kind of become a stand in
Speaker 4: for a lot of those leftover feelings because people people
Speaker 4: feel like they're feeling and seeing a lot of the
Speaker 4: same attacks. I don't know if we're going to get
Speaker 4: a resolution from that from this race. But what I
Speaker 4: do know is that I don't think any campaign in
Speaker 4: this primary or in Texas in general, I don't think
Speaker 4: anyone is navigated uh this situation correctly. And I think
Speaker 4: that I don't know that a productive conversation is going
Speaker 4: to come out of this. Moreover, my concern is that
Speaker 4: this is going to lead to more resentment. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think it was you Eleanor who said, you know,
Speaker 4: after March third, you know, it's all Democrats are all
Speaker 4: friends again. I don't know that we're going to see
Speaker 4: that happen, you know. I don't know that we'll see
Speaker 4: James Talerico and jas mccrockett campaign together. I don't know
Speaker 4: that we'll see the Senate candidate campaigning with Colin Allred
Speaker 4: or Julie Johnson in their congressional district. Like I think
Speaker 4: that this may genuinely be an inflection point in Texas
Speaker 4: politics around this topic of conversation, and frankly, like maybe
Speaker 4: it needs to happen because Texas Democrats haven't won a
Speaker 4: statewide election in thirty years.
Speaker 1: I definitely feel like there was that talk of like
Speaker 1: this inflection point after twenty twenty four, like you said,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't maybe as much of a I don't know,
Speaker 1: there was just so much national noise to sort of
Speaker 1: drown some of that out that now it is, you know,
Speaker 1: the family in fighting is like out on a national stage.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly, I think that's happening on the Republican
Speaker 1: side as well, right, I mean, they're deciding what they want,
Speaker 1: you know, their future to look like their nomination, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of through their nominee.
Speaker 2: But I do just.
Speaker 1: Briefly before we wrap up Olivia, I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, President Trump, who I do think
Speaker 1: has like, uh sort of lassoed this outrage economy and
Speaker 1: this attention economy in a way unlike almost any other
Speaker 1: you know, modern presidential president or like modern candidate really
Speaker 1: has I mean what sort of sets him apart and like,
Speaker 1: how has he shifted all of this to make sort
Speaker 1: of this landscape for this, for this kind of moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there is no politician in the history of America
Speaker 4: who is better at commanding attention or dominating the attention
Speaker 4: to economy than Donald Trump. Period. You know, I've heard
Speaker 4: a lot of people say, you know, Donald Trump broke
Speaker 4: the Republican Party. I would argue that he broke the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party too, because trying to figure out how to
Speaker 4: compete with his ability to command of a narrative has
Speaker 4: been so difficult. Democrats have been trying to do it
Speaker 4: for ten years. I think that he really changed this
Speaker 4: in the way of you know, politics has kind of
Speaker 4: always been this game of decency and respectability, and I
Speaker 4: think he completely threw that out the door. And when
Speaker 4: you combined his very harsh, aggressive political strategy, if you
Speaker 4: know what I was talking about earlier, with these algorithms
Speaker 4: that incentivize strong reactions and high volume reactions, it just
Speaker 4: leads to this combustible situation where the political narratives are
Speaker 4: just constantly on fire. You know, if something is breaking
Speaker 4: through online, it's because you were seeing pure anger from
Speaker 4: people on the left and on the right. You know.
Speaker 4: The only moments that I can think of that have
Speaker 4: seriously broken through in the last year were the shootings
Speaker 4: of Renee Good at alex Pratti, And that's because half
Speaker 4: of the country was talking about how much of a
Speaker 4: tragedy it was, and the other half of the country
Speaker 4: was justifying why it happened, and I think that that
Speaker 4: is the outcome of Donald Trump being at the forefront
Speaker 4: of this. What I will say is, I think the
Speaker 4: Democrats are finally learning from not just twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: but from the kind of dip that they had through
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty to twenty twenty five when Biden left office.
Speaker 4: You know, the social media strategy people talk about with
Speaker 4: Donald Trump about how he was so brilliant and campaigning
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four and campaigning online and in social
Speaker 4: media spaces. That was not Donald Trump's strategy. That was
Speaker 4: Joe Biden's strategy in twenty twenty during the COVID nineteen
Speaker 4: pandemic that he set up and kind of loosened a lot. Once,
Speaker 4: you know, traditional campaigning came back and Donald Trump and
Speaker 4: his campaign realized what it was and they picked it
Speaker 4: up and they kept it pushing, and it was wildly successful.
Speaker 4: And so I think that the place that it's brought
Speaker 4: us to in modern politics is that the incentive structure
Speaker 4: for our politicians is different, because now it's not just
Speaker 4: you know, my comms director needs to have a good
Speaker 4: relationship with the booking producer at MSNBC or with the
Speaker 4: you know, head politics writer at Texas Tribune. It's I
Speaker 4: need to be saying things that are outlandish or outrageous
Speaker 4: or powerful enough on social media that I'm getting reaction
Speaker 4: from both Democrats and Republicans. And I don't know that
Speaker 4: that incentive structure is necessarily healthy for democracy, or that
Speaker 4: it's healthy for politics in general, because I'm of the
Speaker 4: opinion that the incentive structure for politicians should be that
Speaker 4: you get to win your election and you get to
Speaker 4: keep your job, not I'm going to get a million
Speaker 4: likes on the social media post calling an American citizen
Speaker 4: who was killed by a federal agent a domestic terrorist.
Speaker 2: Well's interesting.
Speaker 5: I mean, two things that have been said about James
Speaker 5: Tellerico on this podcast was low key god and good manners, right,
Speaker 5: but also Olivia you said that he's probably the only
Speaker 5: state representative in the country to have over a million
Speaker 5: followers on Instagram. I mean, it seems like what he
Speaker 5: is trying to do with his campaign and his persona
Speaker 5: is rise in this world with a different strategy, and
Speaker 5: what maybe this race is setting up is a test
Speaker 5: of whether that's possible. You know, bigguse, I do think,
Speaker 5: you know, regardless of your feelings of how this is
Speaker 5: or who she is as a candidate. Jasmine Crockett displays
Speaker 5: a lot of those strategies that Donald Trump does too.
Speaker 5: I mean, her most famous phrase is what like leech blonde,
Speaker 5: bad built, butch body right, which is pretty caustic and
Speaker 5: pretty confrontational and got a reaction from both Republicans and Democrats. So,
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that is why this race is
Speaker 5: so fascinating. One of the many reasons why this race
Speaker 5: is so fascinating is that contrast in styles, but it's
Speaker 5: still sort of in a lot of ways taking place online.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Well, we are a week out from early voting,
Speaker 1: so we will soon be able to discuss what this
Speaker 1: all meant and do our postgame analysis and just less
Speaker 1: than a month Olivia, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: us for this conversation, Kayla as well. This week's episode
Speaker 1: of the Trip Cast is brought to you by the
Speaker 1: Texas Tribune Membership program. Our producers are Rob and Chris.
Speaker 1: You can find us anywhere you find your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: we will see you next week.