Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.
Speaker 3: If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
not because I put my hand on a book and
made a.
Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
Truth Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: Rachel Bitakoffer is a political scientist. You may have seen
doctor Bitakoffer on MSNBC. You might have read her work
in the New York Times. She's been featured on Politico
and in The Washington Post and elsewhere. And she's authored
a couple of books that interested me from title alone,
including the Unprecedented twenty sixteen Presidential Election. And she co
authored the book Hit Him Where It Hurts, How to
Save Democracy by beating Republicans at their own game. Oh,
I wanted to talk to this person, so I invited
Rachel to join me. May I call you Rachel? I mean,
I can go with doctor Buddy, call.
Speaker 3: Me anything you want, as long as it's not late
to dinner.
Speaker 2: I thought about bringing you in in like some gold
glitter and firework, kind of an Erica Kirk entrance, which
seems to be like the way to bring people into
a conversation. You've been following the Erica Kirk thing, and
here's let me qualify it a little bit, like I
am grieved by the murder of another human being, Charlie Kirk.
I am opposed to political violence. I don't want to
live in a world where we assassinate the people that
we despise. And I was not a fan of Charlie Kirk.
But in an example of many things can be true
at the same time, his murder does not whitewash his
reputation has past, his history is legacy. That's not unfair,
is it, Rachel No.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's also why he's dead, right, And for
full disclosure, I have the whole same position. I'm able
to separate humans and I don't support political violence of
any type. So it was obviously upsetting to see Charlie
murdered on live Internet. Unfortunately, because of Elon, you can't
then see some of the things that you see without
those filters. But for full disclosure, I met Charlie Kirk.
I did his show once. He brought me down to
a state of the art financed by billionaires Turning Point Empire,
and I agreed to go because I figured, a, he
doesn't know who I am, because I'm not some like
crazy left as he can make a fool out of
and be I wanted to see his infrastructure, you know.
And I mentioned that because I said to him backstage,
I got a chance to talk to Charlie Kirk. And
you know, I didn't go there to like, you know,
make him look dumb. I went there to try to
get to his audience a little bit and make them think, hmm,
maybe what I seem right, and so, you know, but
I said to him, listen, you know, are you know
this is not going to end well? Like you were
at an event a couple months ago and one of
the speakers said that it was time for Second Amendment
solutions to the left, okay, And Charlie was on the
stage at that point, and he looked like uncomfortable and
kind of moved on right, and I told him that
you're playing with fire. Like, this is very dangerous work.
And you know what, it is absolutely not okay that
he was killed for political reasons, but the fact is
it was that work that got him killed. That's why
the shooter was motivated. About as far as we understand,
the hated Charlie Kirk for spreading hate, right, so you know,
and Erica though, okay, that's a whole different topic. And
I was a little shocked, to be honest with you.
I figured turning point was going to be handed over
to maybe Ben Shapiro, and the idea that it went
to Erica Kirk because Charlie's last wish was that his
wife and mother of two young young children would go
work full time, Like seemed a little weird. I'm just saying,
good for the goose, not good for the ganders.
Speaker 2: Wasn't Charlie's hold stick almost a tradwife thing, you know,
woman should be at home making babies, serving her man.
And yes, Erica was the epitome. She was the antithesis
of that huge hypocrisy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that in the freaky grieving. Okay, Now, I think
people do grieve weird, like Amanda Knox for example, that
woman that was arrested in Italy, you know a for
murdering her roommate. Part of her arrest was motivated by
the weird way she was grieving. Okay, uh, Erica Church Church, Eric.
I don't know what motivates Erica's grieving, but it is weird.
My husband's dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah a wwe entrance, ladies and gentlemen, Erica Kirk. And
this was right on the heels of her husband's murdering like.
Speaker 3: My husband and I would be crushed it he was
murdered at an event, right like I wouldn't be getting
up and like woo.
Speaker 2: And I mean, help me understand from your perspective, Charlie
Kirk's talking about how we need to return to the
traditional family and we need women back in the home
raising the kids and all that. Meanwhile, Erica, I mean,
I'm wondering, how do you even freaking reconcile that?
Speaker 3: You know that you can't you can't reconcile it. And
you know what turning points audience not missed that for
those of us that monitor Mega opinion for a living
like there was, it was not without notice, like, oh
wait a minute, what who's taking over? Isn't she have children?
Isn't this exactly the point of Charlie Kirk's entire like
pivot to Christian nationalism. He didn't really start in that space,
but once he saw the money and the money is
good griftin MAGA, right, especially on the Christian nation Christian end,
you know, he saw, he really started moving into that way.
And so the day that he was murdered, his position,
at least from what I understood, it was that Erica
should be at home, barefoot taking care of babies, wasn't.
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk also on record talking about how that gun
murders in this country are kind of a yeah, I mean,
it's it's collateral damage. If we're going to have a
strong second Amendment occasionally, you know, if you're going to
have the omelet, some eggs are going to get broken.
And then ironically he's murdered with a gun, right, and
it sucks.
Speaker 3: I don't want anyone to die the way that Charlie
Kirk died, but he was fine with small children of
other families dying that way, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you ever have that feeling that you know,
I mean, you're a political fire brand, many would say
in a culture that timely charged do you ever find
yourself looking over your shoulder.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, I get plenty of stuff. Now. Number one,
I don't platform any of the weird stuff I get
because that just makes them do it. That's the whole
point of them doing it, so that you'll go on
Twitter and be like they got I got docs today,
or I did this or that, or they sent me
this or that. Right, So I don't profile it. But yeah,
you know, when you are in the public sphere against
a fascist maga. I mean, it's already cost me my career.
To be clear, I was a mad success at CNU
and the Lawson Center. I took this little survey University
Center and University New Ones ever heard of, and had
it in political mag in the New York Times. And
then I got denied my tenure. Well, they canceled the
tenure conversion process to deny my tenure. Conversion had been
approved at the department and social science school level, right,
got vetoed by the president. And you know, so I've
already sacrificed an academic career. I spent years in a
PhD training to have you know, and I did all
that because I understood the threat we were facing. I mean,
Donald Trump. I knew he wasn't going to leave office
in January of twenty twenty one without like a scene,
and what ended up being was an insurrection, right, you know,
you just got to be you got to be truthful.
I can't live with myself if I'm not being truthful,
and I had to make a decision, I think. And
you'll see this in all the Beltway media, right, especially
the people who do election analysis. They never once in
twenty twenty fours coverage ever talked about, well, isn't it
weird though that the Republican nominee is a fell in
that he has all these indictments should he be running.
They just normalized the absolute abnormal. And they do that
because if they are truthful, then it looks like they
are not being non partisan, right. And I would never
choose anything over my ability to be honest with people.
So you know, it's it's a it's a choice that
you make when you go into public fights against maga,
and you know you live with it.
Speaker 2: I had this note in my prep for our conversation
about how the media in so many cases really is
failing us with this sort of sane washing series of
headlines I made a couple of notes. This was back
when Donald Trump was making some of his earlier comments
about those immigrant murderers who are coming over the border
to you know, steal, kill and destroy, and you know,
murder genetically. I think he felt like some are genetically
predisposed to kill Americans. The New York Times covered it
with this lead. In his remarks about migrants, Donald Trump
invoked his long held fascination with genes and genetics.
Speaker 3: How they do it?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. There was another one. ABC wrote Unprecedented, how
Trump has pushed the limits of presidential power in his
first one hundred days, which makes us think that what
he's still within the limits. Not that this is just
straight up fascism. I mean they've sainwashed the whole party.
Speaker 3: Yes, the Saane washing is why we are here, Okay, Like,
had we chosen not, I mean everyone had done what
I did was, which was decide for truth instead of career,
we wouldn't be in this position that most people are
not going to choose. That people choose their economic security
over everything else. And you know, I guess that's understandable.
But at the end of the day, you know, the
media owns a lot of this, and you know that
it was funny because I was doing an interview with
Don Lemon, who, since leaving CNN has you know, moved
his stuff to YouTube. And you know, Don was arrested
right for covering a protest. They went and got him
during the Grammys in La like literally why he was
out there to cover it and arrested him and tried
to charge him with like rioting in a church when
he went and followed a protest crowd into the church
and he was holding his camera saying, I'm in here
as press. I am just covering this event. It's like,
you know, I said to him before that, just you know,
we talk about sarendipity. I was like, hey, do you
guys ever like get together like you guys, I mean
like major news people, right, do you guys understand that
like you're first on the trains, like has that like
not sunk first? They are gonna come for you.
Speaker 2: Like do you not get them the conduits of information?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: They want, dear Leader State Television. They right now they're
Fox newsifying CBS. Oh my godness, the idea of I
don't know, journalists banding together. I'm referencing this recent open letter.
Two hundred and fifty journalists in advance of the White
House Correspondence dinner, Sam Donaldson, Dan and others put together
this open statement saying, hey, stop putting up with this shit, like,
don't stand up and applaud the president. Don't give him
any quarter. He has been attacking you and threatening you forever,
and they're asking journalists to finally grow a spine. Do
you think that's going to happen ever?
Speaker 3: You know, I want to believe it, but no, don't.
I don't think it's going to happen ever. I mean, here,
let's take this one thing into example. Yesterday, the BBC
broke a story that says it looks like there's been
insider treating from the White House. Okay, well that's the
first media outlet been willing to cover that story. You
see it obviously in independent media. But you know, you
haven't seen a New York Times expos about the insider
trading that's happening in cleanside from the White House. You
also haven't seen any coverage Rep. Garcia. You know, the
Epstein files are only viewable by members of Congress, right,
soocratic Rep Garcia, I think he's in California. He went
into the Epstein files and he found evidence of a
settlement paid to an Epstein victim by one Donald J. Trump. Okay,
and even that never got covered in the New York Times.
From Washington Post, same thing with this obey in advance
that Tim Snyder or authoritarian expert taught us. It's what
we're seeing is obeying in advance so that they are
not reporting the Epstein stuff. They're not reporting the insider
training stuff. And it seems like they're afraid to cover
him because he's going to sue them. Well, he sued
the Wall Street Journal and they and he lost. Right,
and now we all know for sure as we already knew,
because they would never republish that Epstein picture of the
preblessent girl with the Donald Trump's signature and the you know,
and the pre boom booms. I mean, it's pretty obvious
when Trump balludes to I have a shared secret with
Jeffrey Epstein in a naked teenagers picture what he's talking about, right,
And yet you know, you see very little willingness in
the media. They barely talk about Epstein files, but when
they do, they talk about Trump as his problem, as
he's blocking access and visibility. Okay, transparency, but they also
so and by the way, he may be doing that
because he's in these files and they already tried in
one release to scrub it out right, and we know
that they had to come and re release it. So
you know, it's a mess, and the media is a big,
big part of that. For sure.
Speaker 2: How do we know he's a sexual predator? He freaking
told us he's a sexual predator. I know a lot
of legal experts saw the lawsuit against paramount CBS sixty
minutes and they said, you know what, if they hadn't settled,
they probably would have won that lawsuit. Yes, right, I
mean if CBS would it just stuck it out, Trump
would have lost, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean we saw that with the other seats
for the firms and the outlets that did stick it out,
they're all winning. And that's because none of this. You
can't do Earth two in court. I mean Trump figured
that out with the election, big lie stuff, right, sixty
three cases trying to claim fraud while the judges are okay, great,
where's the evidence we have? You know what I mean?
Like at some point, like reality does still luckily come
in right, we could talk about where that will go
if Trump isn't dislodged from power in twenty one or
twenty eight. And you know, this dictatorship that he's establishing
continues because eventually he's not going to want to be
chewed up in the real legal system. But right now
he's still playing in the real legal system. It's a
huge advantage for us. We have two good things that
have happened since election night in twenty four, really dark
here in twenty five. But one of two things is that.
And then the second thing is that Trump's plan whatever
he is planning, and we all know or should know anyway,
that he is planning something. And a man that didn't
leave office the first time and had an insurrection, like
you know, he could just be like, oh, I guess
we lost here you go, Gavin Newsome. He's not going
to do that, right, and so we need, you know,
we need to cover and talk about the reality that
we're facing. And you know, the courts are holding up,
but you know, who knows what's coming next. He's we
saw him last year. He was happy. So like last
year was a Maga celebration year all year. You know,
they're feeling very powerful. They are convinced that like America,
the mass of America was behind them for the crazy
stuff they wanted to do, when really the massive America
voted for Trump because he was not in power at
the time and Joe Biden and Biden was old and
Harris was too liberal, right, so like it wasn't like
they were like really like, you know, dissecting Donald Trump.
And now, of course what has happened. Their memory has
been refreshed, And you want to know where Trump started
Election day? He was plus ten among independents. Now he's
negative sixty.
Speaker 2: Someone was talking about those people who say, I didn't
vote for this, and they responded that Trump's like an
open book exam like it was all right there. And
so I don't have a lot of patience for people
who say I didn't vote for this. I don't have
a lot of patients anyway. I don't know. Pete Boudages
was in town, right, and I like Pete. I like
a lot about Pete. But he's he's so generous, you know,
the Olive Branch, and you know, I know a lot
of people have come. There may be people in my
town hall who, man, you're looking around and you're having
some questions and I'm so glad you're here. And Natalie
and I got in the car afterwards and we're like, well, okay,
I appreciate the spirit of it, but we're pissed, like,
look at what you've done, Look at the damage you've wrot.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, yes, you.
Speaker 2: Know, so beyond the quiet quitting and they's sitting on
your hands in the flop sweat. You know you're gonna
have to pay some restitution And I don't know, do
you go there in your brain? How do you feel
about that? Oh?
Speaker 3: Well, how I feel and how I act or always
two different things. I wouldn't be a very good strategist
if that wasn't the case. Okay, So how I feel
is I want to reach through my computer and grab
them the Bible lapel, shake them and be like, what
the fuck did you think you were doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I get that.
Speaker 3: It's like a hunderd percent, and I may have indulged
in a bit of that. Coming out of election night,
I was pretty mad. I knew what was coming and
knew it was going to be bad, and I knew
people were going to suffer, right literally die and suffer
for the mistake that people had made. So I get
that right, But like what my life, My life is
devoted to winning elections, maximizing the probability of Democrats winning
every race they can win at every level that they
can win, so that we can stop fascism. That's it.
That's the only thing I ever consider, right, And so
in that mission you can see the buddhaj edge strategy
is very important. There is something that people can look
at on the cycle on substack my blog that breaks
this down a little bit to you. But like at
the end of the day, yes, they're my whole work,
My dissertation and my academic work is focused on polarization.
So I'm really familiar. So I know it's very difficult
for somebody who's a partisan to vote for the other party. Okay,
so when we think about, like you know that seventy
five million voters for Donald Trump, you know, yes, forty
million of them or forty five million are Republican voters.
They are not just voters who voted for Republicans. There
are actually Republicans and they are never going to switch
on Trump ever, no matter what he does, no matter
Hoovie rapes and Hollie steals. They're sticking with this guy
to the bitter end. But when we look at the
other thirty million votes, right, those are people who voted
for Republicans but are not partisan Republicans. We have to
have them, guys. I mean it's a matter of need. Right. So, yeah,
we can win a presidential election again without him. Suddenly,
this one where the blowback to Trump is going to
probably carry our Democratic nominee over the line. But we
need sixty votes in the Senate. That means we have
to regain a lot of people who cast ballots for
Republicans normally. We have to get them coke drinkers to
be pepsi drinkers. And here's something remarkable, something that should
be impossible. We've seen this happen like five times already
in the special elections, right, and it Texas State Senate
district that Trump carried by thirty seven percent, which had
a majority Republican electorate show up, gave the Democratic nominee
fifty seven percent of the vote. Right, So we know
that people are coke drinkers, are open to drinking pepsi
for the first and only time, and they're open to
it because Trump's not just not delivering on promises like
a traditional politician that runs in to the system and
finds delivery difficult. What's happening with Trump is he is
delivering the exact opposite of what he promised. And it
was bad when it was lower prices than he did tariffs.
It got worse when it was Epstein. Oh, now I'm
in the Epstein files. But this last thing, the Iran
wre the no war wars, I mean, that was Trump's
quinn essential first brand in twenty fifteen. The way he
won the Republican nomination, in part was by calling the
Iraq War a mistake, which was very you know, you know,
it's saying that George Bush made a mistake. No new wars,
no new wars, no new war. Way don't need the wars.
Speaker 1: Foreign lands, countries you've never heard of, countries that don't
even want us there.
Speaker 3: And so that's his core brand. And what we're seeing
is people aren't happy about it. And you know, luckily
it's not some abstract foreign conflict. He managed to make
the biggest mistake in foreign powers. He blunders in the
history of the country. And this includes things like the
Bay of Pigs invasion. This was a mistake, right, Like
the second he did what he did, he lost, Like
you cannot. We cannot be in a better position now
with Iran that we were in the day he sneak
attacked them when a really good deal was on the table.
So you know, people are mad, and you know, I separate,
like my personal desire to be like and like, what
did you think was going to happen? Or of course
you didn't care when it was someone else, but now
it's your wife deported, right, I get that. And people
can have at it all they want on social media.
I'm not going to deny you. You're shading fruit in fun, okay,
and I might even indulge in it here and there
little leopard in the face right with like the latinos
for Trump guy getting deported. That was pretty great. But
at the end of the day, in forward facing comms,
we need to be telling these folks Trump betrayed you. Okay,
you were lied to, you were beach trade. Here's how
you hold him accountable and and that means swallowing pride.
Speaker 2: Yeah, much more to come with my guest Rachel Bitti
Coffer in just a second, hag On, thanks so much
for your support on Patreon. If you like the show
early in commercial freedom, just go to patreon dot com
slash Seth Andrews continuing Now, a conversation which actually originated
on video. If you'd like to watch that YouTube link
is in the description box, talking with political strategist doctor
Rachel BiDi Coffer. I'm watching Maga Catholics. Now they have
to be totally figuring out there's a real probably he's
going hard at Pope Leo. So now you've got that
cognitive dissonance going on, You've got that conflict in their brains.
You've been watching the whole pope thing. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Well pretty closely, in fact, I just cut out an
article you're I think on Monday and said Pope versus Trump,
versus the Pope because the Pope is right. Okay, there's
a thing called just war theory, and Trump is in violation,
America is in violation of it. We have committed a
war thing, a act of aggressive war. It's the old
international community knows it. Trump knows it right like he you know,
oh they had nuclear bonds. Well three weeks ago or
three months before that, he said he wiped out all
their news so which is it? Right? We know that
the imminent threat excuses is fake the pope. That's interesting.
I know a lot of people are like, oh, surely,
maga Catholics are going to not choose Trump over the Pope.
I'm like, oh, don't count them out. And then Hannity right,
He's like, I'm not a Catholic anymore.
Speaker 2: Like which Supreme pontiff are they going to go with
when it's all over with? You know, it's a true
the just war theory originated from a Catholic somewhere, someone
to Augustan or somebody or I don't know.
Speaker 3: Just war theory argues that there are certain principles your
military action needs to meet. Okay, there's several component parts
to it, but probably the most important is just cause. Okay.
You you know, over all of the years of humanity,
like the common threat of humanity really is is war, Okay,
war and domination, conquering, raping and pillaging and taking over
the people's right. So over time, you know, people became
a concerned, especially moral leaders in the Catholic Church, which
was the one church until the Protestant Revolution, became aware
of this idea that you know, there's a conflict between
what God's teaching about life and the church is like
mortalent more rules of morality and war killing people, right,
so they needed to kind of find a philosophical framework
that allows them to get around, like, Okay, God says,
do not kill what we're killing. And you know, over
the centuries, especially as war became more technologically advanced, I mean, guys,
keep in mind, every war in this country prior to
World War One was like basically horses. But after World
War One, we gets this technological leap that produces weapons
of mass destruction, and so the heat to rein in
when people wage and aggressive war became much hotter. And
you know the Raq War, if you guys remember, like
it may have all been bullshit, but they spent six
months presenting evidence to get around and to satisfy the
most important part of just war theory, which is just cause.
That's the first and most important provision. From there, though
there's also conduct of war provision. It's like proportionality. For example,
so Donald Trump, but Donald Trump, like he didn't just
go do a little thing and Iran, okay, like he
went and decapitated like eighty liters. What I mean think
about like how that event would be received here. Okay,
so it was it was an out of proportion initial shopped.
Then what does he say in these negotiations, Well, you
give me what I want. Reopened the strait that I
you know, I got closed and created this problem. But
you fix my problem where I'm going to wipe out
your civilization. Right, So the proportionality aspects of just war theory,
which are equally important are really being tested here and
maybe tested here in the next coming days. As you know,
the negotiations seemed to be falling apart when.
Speaker 2: You say I hate Iran, the regime of Iran, like
we talk about the Iran Revolution.
Speaker 3: Talk about I hate all religious like. So if you're
a religious fundamentalist, I don't give a shit if your Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu,
no matter to me. Don't want you near me, certainly don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't want Gilead, right, this state is not
your church we talk about there there is a movement
of people in within the borders of Iran who are protesting,
often at the risk of their own lives, the regime.
But I mean, I understand the spirit of what you're
saying Iran, since nineteen seventy nine has been a human
rights nightmare. So by saying that the war itself is unjust, again,
this is an example of many things can be true
at the same time. It doesn't mean that, hey, we
love Iran and we think the theocracy is valid and
legitimate and should continue. That's not the argument.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's not the argument. And you know,
here's the thing. If he had acted in January when
those protesters went out to the street to popple the regime,
and he had acted with some restraint and not just
taking out eighty people on the whole like he could
have done this, I think he could have actually made
maybe seeded a democratic revolution or at least it will
start that way. We all know it didn't end like
that with the Arab Spring Right revolution and Iran. But
that's not what he did. And you know, instead, you
know what has happened now, And my guess, I mean,
it's very hard to know anything that's the truth because
we've never had a position. I mean, the government lies. No,
it does not really now it does, Okay, now it
really really bad. So we don't know what's happening because
Trump will say they're in negotiations, and then Iran will
say no, no negotiations, and so who do you trust? Trumph?
We know he can't trust a Rand's leadership, but you
know you can't trust. It's a real mess and trying
to figure out what's happening. But my guess is that
the sheer extent of that attack, this just a broad,
sweeping murder and assassination of so many public figures, has
probably can it made this regime stronger, not weaker, especially
as he's moved on to these threats of mass genocide.
Speaker 2: Is it one of those things where they cut the
head off the snake and the new head just grows
right back over and over and over again.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's worse than that, But the sun that's
taking over is much worse than the ready the other
guy was. At least that's what the CIA file say
about this guy, like he's a hardline militant religious extremist
who was so extreme that he was too extreme for
the you know, current, the old leadership.
Speaker 2: That's what it's like when we've been out and took
out Saddam, right. I mean, no one's saying Saddam was
anything but an absolute monster, a murderous monster. But without
having a plan, without having a good planner, even the
facts in place, the vacuum that was left led to
isis and you don't say it like we are very shortsighted.
Is that maybe that's a human thing? Is it certainly
an American thing? I don't know how you want to
comment on that.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a reason guys the rest of the
world was like, oh, hell, no, okay about this, like
they you know, we laughed about the Coalition of the
Willing in two thousand and four because it had you know, Ubeka,
Stan in it, but it had France and England and
Germany and all these other Western NATO alliances that in fact,
that's the only time NATO's ever been in voked Article five,
and we invoked it to get the Western democracies to
support our invasion, which was by the way, completely also
a war of aggression into Iraq. Right, So you know,
the idea that our foreign allies are so abhor like
they find what Trump has done in Iran abhorrent. They
know it violates international criminal war crime law. Certainly if
he carries through on these this plan to kill bridges
and infrastructure, which we know will be human shielded, right,
there will be, whether they're there by choice or love
of the regime, because you know, there is some portion
of the population that probably does love the regime, always
has loved it, right, it doesn't matter why they're on
that bridge if Trump blows them up, Like, imagine how
the world will view America. And you know, as a
person who's been studying the Third Reiche for five years,
I can tell you this. You never think about the
Germans that opposed Trump or Hitler, do you You don't.
You just think about Germany and Hitler to the world.
You know, even those of us that didn't support this,
that had worked devoted our elias to fighting it, It
doesn't matter to the world. America has lost its way,
and that means all of us and our own national reputation,
which liberals you know might sneer at. Oh well, it's
all based on colonialism anyway. Well, you know what, it's
nice to live in a hedgemonic power, especially for women.
You don't have to look very far to find out
how women fare in countries other countries like I ran right,
and like, you know, the idea of Western liberal is
a you know, rejecting America. It should really hit home
to people how out of bounds what Trump has done
in Iran is I.
Speaker 2: Want to come back to left in just a second,
because I know you have opinions on this. You were
on Bill Maher at least once. Is that right?
Speaker 3: Twice?
Speaker 2: What's your take on Bill? Because you know there have
been times I'm like, yay, you know, I'm glad you
said it, Bill, And then there are other times he
issues an opinion and I want to crawl through the
monitor and into his studio and shake the man and
say what, what the hell have you have an opinion
on the man? After being face to face twice?
Speaker 3: Well, the first time was very pleasant and I was
his side guest panel person, interview, not on the panel.
The second time is with Rob Reiner Rest in peace, Rob,
and just Bill, and he was in a mood and
I had a mission. My vision was to save democracy.
I couldn't let Bill get in the way that you know,
here's my position on Bill Maher. I think that a
lot of people who are more centrist Democrats do find
the woke stuff off putting. And there's no audience or
no subset of the population that found like the woke
stuff more off putting than comedians, right, because they suddenly
found themselves in situations where even in a comedic space,
a joking space, they could make a joke and then
be treated like it was a comment that they made
in a serious dialogue, right, And so like, I think
that started his upset. Nos. So, you know, Bill's right.
There's a lot of things that Bill's right about. I mean,
the wokeness was absolutely toxic for Democrats. Nobody wants to
be nagged in their day to day lives and told,
you know things like I mean, for me, I'm outcome focused. Right,
So if the purpose of DEI was to create more
tolerance and instead it creates more intolerance, I'm willing to
reassess my approach to things, right. And So, you know,
I think Bill, you know, he has his moments. I
just wish he would bring me back on. He doesn't
understand how hard people in the party are working to
write the ship on, you know, getting us into position
to be attractive enough to win Senate majorities. Because guys,
I mean, unless you just want to be in the
opposition forever and never get anything done, and our entire
agenda is always just about stopping the horrible shit that
they have a lot of power to do. We have
to get serious about how to expand this coalition and
get people to vote for Democrats. And you know, one
of those ways is by returning to its base bread
and butter issues. When I do my talks to Democratic groups,
I show them slides and I like, look the electric
coming out of the voting pool voting booth in twenty
four knew only two things about Democrats. Everything else they
were fifty to fifty about. It could be Republicans, it
could be Democrats. And those two things were LGBT rights
and to a lesser extent, abortion. Okay, so ninety percent
of them new that Democrats stood for LGBT rights. It
was the least important of the category of issues, and.
Speaker 4: Medicare, social security, education funding, all of the heart and
soul of the FDR Democratic brand was fifty to fifty.
Speaker 3: Voters are like, oh, Republicans are just as good on
social security as Democrats. Right, So like, obviously our brand
on the social issues is set. We don't need to
keep going. People know that about us. A rights are
not dropping people. In terms of policy, what we're talking
about is making sure that we're telling the rest of
the story about what you get when you vote for Democrats,
because it can't just be civil rights. It has to
have an economic program. And so you know, a lot
of that work is about getting people you know, up
to speed on that. And you know, Bill, you know,
whether you like we're not, he has an influential platform
that you know, I regret not having access.
Speaker 2: To want me invited me, and he never would, but
I'd appear. And I think, you know, I feel the
same about Rogan in a little bit of a different
way too. Rogan makes me crazy. But if I was
able to show up by imitation and say what I want,
I'd say yes, yeah, oh heck yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean the idea that we shouldn't go into these spaces.
We have so many self defeating things. Okay, we're going
to boycott everything. Our candidates can't take money except for
small donations, when the other side has Elon Musk drop
in two hundred and forty mili out of his own pocket. Right, like,
we're doing things to ourselves necessary. And one of them
is like this idea that somehow Gavin's a trader or
pizza trader because they went on some right wing you
know podcasts, right, like no, we need to go into
those spaces. Like I said with Charlie Kirk. The reason
I said yes, and the way that I postured myself
was very professor, very calm, very rational, because I wasn't
talking to Charlie Kirk. I was talking to his audience,
which is massive, which is misinformed intentionally right, And so yes,
if you get the opportunity, please take this messaging, take
the reality of the democratic person, because it's a very
caricatured right. I mean now you can see that in
the No King's rally, the first No King's rally. MAGA
reacted on Twitter on excellent like this, wa an, why
are all these white people showing up a democratic rallies?
Who are all these white old people?
Speaker 2: What I heard was we were all paid by George sorows.
I guess you did. Did you get your sorrows check?
I'm still waiting on my venmo, you know or whatever.
I don't want to let this go, but I don't
want to dwell on it, but I got to come.
Like I'm sometimes called woke, although people can't define woll
It's one of those things. Everything I hate is woke
I'm pro DEI I like diversity and inclusion programs in
my mind though, And we on the left like to
think that we're immune from extreme binary thinking, from being
knee jerkers and hyper reactive. But I feel like in
many of those conversations, the enemy is extremism, right, this
sort of dogmatism. Is that fair?
Speaker 3: Oh? It's a huge issue, right, I mean, right now
we are focused on Republican Party extremism because it has
elevated itself to positions of power. They control the committees,
they control the party now, they control the DOJ and
the FBI, they control the presidency, they control the courts.
Radical people like Alido in these major positions of power. Now,
when you look at the democratic far left problem, and
by the way, I do find far left as separate
from progressives. Not talking about progressives, I am talking about
people who refuse to vote for Harris in twenty twenty
four because she was too moderate or gozam right, Like
if you're now those.
Speaker 2: Peo left threw those people rightel those people.
Speaker 3: Right, and those motherfuckers have no place in my life anymore.
I'm done after eleven years of begging them, rationalizing them,
trying to show them, and we would be living in
a fucking liberal utopia right now if it wasn't for
those people, because Clinton would have had control of the
Court and we would have had a first liberal majority
in years and we could have used it to band
partisan Jerry Mannering and bands. But anyway, that shit is sad, right,
So those folks are separate. Please don't get offended. If
you're just your rank and file Harris voting progressive. I
I'm not talking about you when I say this. The
far left is about six or seven members of the House, okay,
and you know they are even then not they all
voted for Harris. They don't have committee chairmanships, they don't
lead the DNC, they do not have, you know, the presidency.
They aren't sitting on Supreme Court. Though I would argue
that Sodemayer and Kagan are definitely ideologically square liberals. They
are ideologic in the same way that the conservatives are,
but not obviously as bad. But it's bad. Yeah, extremism
is very, very, very bad, and we are not immune
to it. We can see this happen, you know, really
seeing this happen over Israel. So now the third Rael
of Democratic primary is going to be supporting or vocalizing
any kind of support in my opinion for Israel. And
you know, I separate net Nya, who's Israel. So I'm
very disapproving of net Nyaho and what's happening with Israel.
But I don't not support the state of Israel because
I know that Jews make up point oh two through
some of the world's population and control just one country,
just one. There's only one. So they may.
Speaker 2: The Jews of Israel hate net and Yahoo and despise
the genocide and Gaza. Yeah, I mean, so it's not
like they're a monolith.
Speaker 3: They are not a monolith. So you know, it's extremism
is dangerous and we knew that, Like you know, my
dissertation was on polarization in twenty fifteen, and of that
community of scholars, like we knew, we'd go like, oh,
this is not good. Things are not going well. Things
could get bad. If I could go back and this
is I'm a person who Cassandra's most things. I see
them coming. But I still would be shocked if I
could go back and talk to myself in twenty fifteen
and tell myself, hey, in eleven years America will go
from full democracy in the indexes to flawed democracy to
collect to collapsing democracy in twenty twenty six. Right, like
that is extraordinary. It's required full attention on radicalism and mega.
But it doesn't mean that we don't want to make
democratic reforms, small d democratic reforms going forward that mitigate
partisanship as much as we can in the system.
Speaker 2: One last break more with Rachel Bitakoffer as we talk
about potential front runners to twenty eight and more. Hang on.
Final segment with my guest political scientist and author Rachel Bitakoffer.
What's the left getting wrong?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: We want to win, but it's hurting cats, and you know,
we don't I don't know, we don't necessarily maybe Obama qualifies,
but we don't revolve around savior figures. I mean, let's
face it. Trump is kind of a proxy savior for
at least the Christian nationalists right, anointed by God. We've
got the AI golden statues, we've got all of he
wants to be on rush More and people support that,
you know, and we have a hard time getting our
shit together on the left. You have seen us squander right,
we pull failure out of the jaws of victory all
the time. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3: It's our inability to centralize and accept that voters know nothing,
are not smart engaged in four none of those three things,
and therefore only and will be more susceptible vote on
hyper propagandized gut style messaging, and that they're getting that
from the other side. That's how the other side conducts
their persuasion campaigns. Hurting cats is right. I wrote a
piece in the cycle that people can find in the archives.
It followed a piece on why Democrats should wedge, not
just run on affordability, but tie Republicans to high prices
and then attack them relentlessly. And then the very next
article I published was and this is why we're not
going to do that, And I laid out like our
psychology right, like, yeah, our biggest problem is ourselves where
we think everyone is like us, and I think humans
do that. I think humans understand, like there's different strokes
for different folks, Okay, but I don't think you really understand,
like your entire world is contingent on you, your IQ,
your worldview, and your own interest in perspective. So in
your world, you know who the governor is I can mention,
Katie Porter, you know who that is, Liz Warren, You
are about three percent of the public, Like in terms
of political information, like most people who are going to
vote in twenty twenty six and twenty twenty eight don't
even really know who their governor is. When I talk
to normal Oregonians, they usually cite the old governors, our
current ones getting ready to run for reelection, and we
will refuse to accept, like what does that mean for
how we talk to people because we're going in with
these detailed wonky policy thinks, Well, people don't give a
shit about policy, They don't have an interest in politics
or policy. Don't even understand it for them, Like there's
a president. They know that there's other parts of the
government and something called a Congress, so they don't really
understand anything about how that works. It begins and ends
in the White House and with the president. And so,
you know, we have to stop wanting to go to
war with the electorate that we would like to have
and go to war with the electorate that we actually have,
which means that we have to be mean. We have
to make our campaign's opponent centric because the swing pool
if we want them to know that. You know, the
Republican Ohio governor candidate against Sharon Brown is an extremist
who you know helped Trump betray them. We have to
pay in ads, which we need money for to do,
to do that work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this whole hey, typical politician, and we need to
reach across the aisle kind of thing. You say we
need to go hard or those two different conversations.
Speaker 3: No, you can do all that shit in your town halls,
like Pete does all that shit in his town halls,
and I'd keep all of that the same. But when
it comes to what matters in a campaign, what I'm
trying to get Democrats to understand is not what happens
on social and it's not what happens at an event,
because only freaks weirdos go to an event. When you
talk about a governor's debate, like California's governor, big ass
important position, you want to know what the audience size
for that will be. It'll be like less than five
percent of Californians will even watch that debate. Right, So
the candidates don't have to change anything. They can do
all their feels about big tent whatever, because that stuff
is important. Right now, people feel betrayed and we want
We're not going to be able to tap into that
betrayal unless we open our arms to them. Right, but
the paid ads better be seventy percent, in my opinion,
one hundred percent. Contrast messaging. Okay, but you want attack
the opponent and here's the hero. Okay, adapt the opponent,
here's the hero. We've seen this work all across the map.
We saw it work in twenty two in Arizona, in Michigan,
in Wisconsin, Ben Wickler and the Wisconsin Dems are big
believers in that strategy. Elected state Supreme Court justices even
when Trump was still in office using that strategy by
huge margins. It's not difficult. And yet, like we get
into these talking head pundent things. I see this on
MS NOW every day. I mean I want to go
through my TV like 'mus now all the time because
you know, everyone's an election expert, but I'm the only
one with like a PhD. And it's not the same thing.
And they get shit wrong all the don't right. And
one of the things that they get wrong is like, well,
deaths need to run on something. No, they gess Trump
run on how This guy's a fucking shit show. He
betrayed you, and we're going to put a stop to it.
It's not you know, I don't need like the things
that you're progressive followers who are committed to you on
X need or say that they need they don't need,
and why that's dangerous because I don't want to like
neglect to tell people why it's dangerous. It's dangerous because
of this. Okay. The buying campaign was wedging Project twenty
twenty five. We made it. We made it a household name, okay,
and people didn't need to know everything about it. They
understood one thing Trump is project twenty twenty five, and
twenty twenty five is bad, right, And instead we get
the switch right, and Harris's consultants listen to the Beltway media.
That Way media is like, well, no one knows who
Harris is. They're going to have to define her. So
that's what they did. They switched and you can see
this in the data. It's not an opinion. This is
a data based analysis where they spent what messaging they
were pushing closing out it was the opportunity economy, tax
stuff and joy. Okay, they stopped wedging Trump and why
that mattered. Well, we get the exit polling out of
the battleground states. Guess what, sixty percent of swing voters
thought Trump had favorable memories of Trump's first term. That's
what they told bolsters.
Speaker 2: Well, how much of kamalist defeat was just straight up
sexism and racism? I mean, I mean we have to
talk about that. I mean, I'm surrounded by some people
are like, hell, no, I'd rather die than vote for
a black or a woman and sit in that same way.
That's certainly part of the mix, right that is I.
Speaker 3: Mean, frankly, I mean, here's the thing right now. So
you said Democrats want to win, but they do, and
I almost ignored that and forgot it. But it's so
important because when like in the Republican world, they just
want to win shit, okay, And what they're going to
do is they're going to maximize the probability of winning
and all other goals are like down here in our world,
what we want to win shit. But we can't have
a convention in Atlanta because there's not enough Union hotels,
and we got to make sure that there's five trans
people on the panel. And da da da da da
da da da right. It all is what we call
mission creep strategic mission creep right, and it's bad. Right.
So what we want to do is get people to understand,
like we can represent people through policy, we do not
need to represent everybody through messaging, because when you try
to represent everybody, you make no message. No one hears
your message. For the Republicans are very good at this.
Everybody who own one theme be louder like Horton hears
who we are here, We are here and with us
got one candidate on education and one on this and
one on that it's a disaster. So like representation with power, Okay,
that's what I am working towards, and I will do
anything to maximize the probability. So if I was choosing,
I'd have a white man run as the nominee. That said,
in twenty twenty four, Harris's biggest problem was that she
was the end party and that Diden had saddled her
with that border I mean that border disaster. Like four
million people crossing a border in a three year period
is not good, guys. They should have been closed down.
And her inability to say that because progressives would have
turned on her was really harmful, Okay, I mean to
Middle America, having just random people cross the border in
tunes of millions of eight years is not you know,
a sustainable or good idea versus security reasons for economic reasons.
So you know, some of it was just, but it
had to be Harris. Guys, we couldn't have done a
snap primary. Everyone thinks, oh, we should have had a primary.
It was ninety She started her campaign literally ninety days
before the general in a system that votes starts voting
about a month early, by the way, So really she
had sixty days for a whole campaign, and we would
have taken two weeks or three weeks to do a
primary out of that, like or whatever we did, it
would have been bad. So you know, it is what
it is. We're here. We're here, and Democrats are going
to win a lot of shit now because we're not
in power. But my goal is to make sure that
that is as many things as possible by getting people
coming on you know, the need, especially in progressive media,
to put the attention on the opposition party. Their media
is focused on us, Our media is focused on us.
Who is focusing on them?
Speaker 2: To make sure I'm understanding you're saying, in order for
us to be better advocates for LGBT people, including and
especially trans people, we don't lead by having them at
the front line, which would immediately polarize the people that
we are trying to defeat in the election. Once we
gain power, we can then be better advocates. Am I tracking?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would argue that when you look
at results, which is again the only thing I give
a shit about is what happened, right, the trans movement
has not been served well by progressives because this bandwagon
effect happened and they became so visible and blah blah blah.
I think there's a lot of trans people that wish
that they just never had been picked up because of topic,
you know, because now they've got this full like, you know,
scrutiny coming down on them, you know. So yeah, No,
to me, it's like, Okay, trans issues are important. I
believe that all people should have a right to be
whoever they are, right, But like trans people make up
less than one percent of the population. It's like, it
can't be like the thing that you're focused on, right,
Like you have to focus on shit that matters to
the most people in the district. Or the state that
you're or the country that you're running in. And these
you know, issues, by the way, as I pointed out,
are saturated. People know that we're the party for pro
civil rights, voting rights and gainess. They get that, but
they don't know that we're the party that's good on
the economy. They don't know that we're the party that
got them Social Security and Medicare and the party that
keeps Republicans from taking it away. And so, you know,
we need to recenter our conversations around these broader bread
and butter issues. And it's not about taking Republican positions
or appealing to the right. It's about highlighting the shit
that's most important to voters and not getting letting ourselves
get tricked into cycles like like a Virginia in twenty
one where they flipped a blue state red by running
on CRT, which isn't even a real thing. Okay, Like
they did that because they attacked us on CRT and
made the election cycle about that, and what we do.
We came in and played defense the whole time. Oh well,
it's not really that or Tony Morrison or this or that,
And it didn't matter because at the end of the day,
what the voter knew about CRT was that it's about
to make it's designed to make white kids feel guilty
for being white, right, And they were able to wedge
that very effectively. Now, Glenn Youngkin, the guy who benefited
from that sweater dusk Glenn, he's a business guy. He
doesn't give two shits about public education at all, let
alone curriculum on race. But he ran and made that
the center point of his campaign. Then he used the
power of the governor's race or a governor's position to
litigate or to do the rest of his policies. Do
you see what I'm saying. So it should be running
on the thing that's most salient, that's easiest to wedge,
that can hit the Republicans the hardest, which is these
betrayals that Trump has done. You're the avenger, they're the villains.
Don't complicate shit. And then when you and a bunch
of shit, you have power to protect trans people. I mean,
I would say Latinos also weren't well served by like
our extremism, okay on the border because now they're sitting
in dilly concentration. Can't we have children who have spent
you know, two thirds of their lives in a prison camp.
You know what I mean? So like, the results to
me is what matters.
Speaker 2: You know, you're talking about strategy before ideology. You're not
sacrificing your values. We're simply trying to.
Speaker 3: Stop the throwing anybody under the bus. We're just saying, like, look,
when run on these big issues that really matter to
the most people, and don't let yourself get fooled into
a defensive posture on attack, attack attack.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Rachel, a bit of confer But are
we gonna have mid terms? I mean, we're gonna have midterms,
But is it going to be like Putin's elections? You know,
it's been nationalized or whatever the outcome is going to
be contested and nothing will ever change. I mean, I
know that a shit ton of Republican senators and House
representatives are like, you know what, I'm going to be leaving.
I'm not going to run again. I'm going to spend
more time with my family. I guess they see the
writing on the wall. They're trying to save face. But
I mean, midterms, you know, I guess maybe I'll make
this the last question. What do you think midterms, I'll
just leave it there again.
Speaker 3: I would refer people to the cycle on substack. It's
an open source publication that relies on people like you
have money to support it, letting other people enjoy the
content for free. And I do a couple of mid
term analysis in there. My most latest is talking about
the real potential because we're seeing people who normally vote
for Republicans being willing to vote for Democrats and these
special elections for us to recapture the Senate, which is
a very difficult thing to do, we have to win
Ohio and Texas and North Carolina and main places where
we've just been losing, losing, losing. So we're in this incredible,
incredible position because the back to guess Trump has been
such a disaster, right, So, you know, I think we're
going to win big in the midterms. I'm not worried
about them certificate certified at all of except for Georgia,
where they gave themselves the power of vitail to the
Republican legislative majority in the state House. That's a little
concerning in terms of John Othof's reelection, But really where
people should be nervous is about twenty twenty eight. I
don't sugarcoat shit. I tell people what they need to
know and not what they want to hear. Donald Trump
is not going to just be like, oh, we lost, okay.
And because there's not a national voter ID, I'm not
talking about to say that, okay, but the broad concept
of the clean voter ID law, which we have in
thirty six states all operating because we don't have that,
what he's going to do is he's going to claim
that millions of illegals voted and it won't be any
more true than has ever been. But because there's no
ID requirements, that people will believe it, right, And I
do not expect that Donald Trump wil just meant, you know,
skipping out out of the office on January twentieth, two
thousand and twenty nine. I don't know how it will end,
but I don't think it will end like that.
Speaker 2: Is it sad that I'm kind of rooting for the
blood clot? Is that a terrible thing to think? Like?
I mean, the guy eats McDonald's three times a day,
and I'm like, well, maybe nature will do the job
for us. And then I feel like, is that can
you even say that about egal. Hello, the Secret Service
satellite overhead is probably right now sending people with black sunglasses.
Speaker 3: The Secret Service wants to visit everybody who's hoping every
day they'll wake up to Trump being dead. They're going
to be very fucking busy, right. You know, here's my
thought on that. I feel like evil lives, like it
has its own gas.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, just live on hate for it. Don't
judge me. Actually I don't think you would. I actually
don't even drink, but I have a bottle of wine
that's got a label with the outline of Donald Trump
on it and it says open when it happens. And
when that day comes or popping the court, Oh my god.
Speaker 3: The whole world is going to celebrate, right, I mean,
because again, guys, what sucks is what has been pissed away,
the idea that like we're international pariahs like that. That
stuff's not going to be easy to fix, and it's
not going to be fixable at all until Donald Trump
is out of office, however that might occur. But I
think the world will celebrate that like they celebrated the
death of Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 2: To be frank, it's going to take at least a
generation to undo, you know, to re establish trust or whatever.
Leave me with something actionable. We have an eternity before
the midterms, and certainly an eternity before twenty twenty eight.
And rather than curse the darkness and bitch on social media,
what should I be doing? Rachel?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, number one, if you have money, you know,
you got to invest it. Can't ask people to do
stuff in the new money. You know, these races that
are coming, like, we're looking at a potential of fore
something house races that could be competitive. So investing in
the House and the Senate races would be a very
good use of time and money in whatever capacity or
all of them that you're capable of doing. That you said,
the midterms are far away to me. They're not like
they're come in. They're hurtling towards us. And the Republicans
get that there already have you know, things that they're doing.
You never see advertising from us unless it's it's the
only text you ever get is a fundraising thing, right, So,
like we're not doing a lot of the work that
we need to be doing, and a lot of that
reason is this perception that it's a September problem, when
really it's a twenty four seven, seven, three sixty five
day war that we're in against a megaphone of influencers
paid by billionaires and you know, the behemoth that is
Fox News.
Speaker 2: It's going to take more than us complaining on Facebook.
And I'm talking to myself as much as anybody else. Right,
got to contact the power players and support the organization's
causes and people that represent your values. Get off the couch,
go out and stir the shit storm and engage. Engage, engage,
Doctor Rachel bit A Coffer, your problem is you never
speak your mind. You know you need to, You need
to open up all they do.
Speaker 3: I'm so guarded, right, really.
Speaker 2: Such a wallflower. Thanks for slumming on the show and
talking to me. I'm not Bill Maher, but oh.
Speaker 3: It's a great pleasure. I'm really always excited to have
a really cerebral conversation and enjoy every minute of it.
So I hope the audience does too.
Speaker 2: I will link to your Is the substack the best
place to find you?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean on x is the best place
to buy me? But a lot of liberals don't do that.
I'm also in Blue Sky I do cross post, But
the cycle is if you want to know what's happening
before it happens, then you should be a Cycle subscriber
because that's what you're going to get. You don't just
get like, hey, this is what happened in the news.
You get the meaning. For example, tomorrow and publishing an
article about California's scubernatorial primary. It's a jungle system, and
until this swallow Well scandal, we were headed to a
very real certainty what we might see two Republican nominees
in that general election because of the jungle primary. And
you know now we're trying to head that off. So
if we want to know what's coming and why it
matters to you and stay ahead of fascism, the Cycle
is the place for you.
Speaker 2: You think Newsom's going for twenty twenty eight, you think, really, to.
Speaker 3: Me, he's probably the front runner because he understands. I mean,
this is like people get so mad at me when
I talk about democratic nominations, and it's like I'm not
talking as a feeling person, I'm telling you as an
analyst what reality is. Okay, President, this will be the
most open presidential nomination we've had in my lifetime. Okay,
in my lifetime, there's no really dominant, strong front runner.
There was Kamala Harris, previous nominee by name I D
but sure decision not to go and run in California
was bad. If you know what I know about primaries
on when you guys go into a ballot box, and
this is why voters are so uninformed. You can look
and there's an R and a D and you're able
to use that as a shortcut. You don't have to
know who Jack Smith, the R candidate is, but if
you're a Republican and he's got the R, you're good. Right.
Primers don't have that, Okay, It's just this long list
of names that you and I know all of them,
but most voters are like, who the hell are these people?
And so it really comes down to like, oh, I
know that one, right, And so you can see Harris
had started up with this big advantage, but it's eroding
because the public is forgetting all about her. And Newsome
understands this and so you know, to me, I love
many of the candidates, and my favorite nominee is the
one that you guys vote. Okay, I don't give a shit,
I really don't. We're talking about degrees of difference against fatism, right,
so I really don't give a shit. I just want
a candidate that you guys want. But right now, if
I had to guess, that candidate's most likely to be Gavin.
Speaker 2: Newsome, perfect is the enemy of the good and me
the case in politics, I'm going to just skip the
other twenty five questions that are popped into my mind.
Every time you answer, I'm like, but but but I'm
gonna stop right This.
Speaker 3: Sign that you need to bring me back sometime.
Speaker 2: Is that it. I'll have my people contact your people
in the meantime. You know, it's good advice. Right, Let's
not get stumbling. Let's not stumble on the minutia. Let's
certainly not squabble amongst ourselves so much over the details
that we missed the big picture. The world is on fire, yeah,
and we're the only ones that are going to put
it out. So I'm going to link to your work
and your page in the show notes of this broadcast.
And thank you so much for being here, thank you
so much for having me.
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