Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/4/21: Election Day Takeaways, Media Meltdown, SALT Tax, Barstool Conservatism, Worker Demands, and More!

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Saagar and guest host Marshall Kosloff talk about the election night takeaways, mainstream media melting down, GOP 2024 possibilities, Dems SALT tax cut for the rich, foreign money in elections, the new culture war, Biden's mandate, what American workers want with Oren Cass, and more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Oren Cass’s Work: https://americancompass.org/essays/not-what-they-bargained-for/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. Crystal has a little bit of a family emergency. She assures me everything is going to be okay. But Marshall has graciously agreed to step in. Marshall, thank you for coming down. We really appreciate it. It's always good to be here. Awesome. So we have so many amazing topics to cover today. We have got a very interesting FEC decision around foreign money being allowed in U.S. elections. Very troubling news that hopefully we're going to try and fix. We'll break that all down for you. The Democrats are trying to cut taxes for billionaires.

It's not a joke. It actually ends up being one of the largest social provisions within their so-called infrastructure bill. So I'm going to bring all of that to you. But obviously, we have just got election news cover to cover. We're going to cover the 2024 implications, how MSNBC was handling it over there when Republican Glenn Young can win. And let's start with the major takeaways. Now, look, at this point, all the hot takes that have been given have been given. What I want you guys

to take away from this segment is exactly what it means electorally and the macro political shifts that we've seen in the country over the course of a year. And I think nothing sums it up better than this graph that we have been able to put up for you. Let's put that on the screen, which is what you're seeing there in front of you, for those who are just listening, is every county in the state of Virginia. And there is either a blue arrow, which says that they became more Democratic, or a red arrow that said it became more Republican. Now, you may notice on the screen, there ain't no blue arrows. And that is because every single county in the entire state went more Republican than it did back in 2020. So in the course of one year, every single county had more of an increase in its Republican vote.

That's the takeaway. There is no just one micro demographic, and we will get to that about white women, about Latinos. But the main one is that across the board, the Republican Glenn Youngkin was able to increase his margin with all voters. So that is the single most important thing. But beyond even just Youngkin himself, we need to look at the actual issues. And so ABC News actually had a pretty good exit poll, and let's put that up there on the screen, which is that 33% of Virginia voters named the economy and jobs as the most important issue facing the Commonwealth. 24% said education. 16% said taxes. 13% said pandemic. 9% said abortion. So what's your main takeaway there, Marshall? Mine, and this was my entire monologue, was on Tuesday, the day of the election, is I was like, oh, COVID is over in terms of how it plays

electorally. Only 6% of campaign dollars in October were spent on COVID-related messaging. It's all economy right now. And guess what? The economy is terrible. And Biden's approval rating is extraordinarily low, which is, if you put those two things together, it basically explains the state of Virginia. Yeah. And I'd be remiss by not giving a shout out to my barbershop in New York City, Maid Van Barbershop. Everyone here knows that the comment section of breaking points basically determines whether I get a haircut or not. so I got a last-minute cut there. Really appreciate that, and it's always great to be here. Shout out to them.

Look, we're talking about Virginia right now, but this also happened effectively in New Jersey and Long Island as well, too. So as much as we want to talk about critical race theory and education, to your point, that wasn't even the first issue on it. There's going to be a big narrative there. There is a broad level of dissatisfaction in the country right now. And that is most likely relating to that underlying issue of satisfaction with the economy, satisfaction with the idea that COVID was not even over. But it's more that there was supposed to be some type of return to normalcy there. And we can talk about the big bills. We can talk about Build Back Better, all those different things. But none of that, especially given these are 10-year spending bills, would actually address those facts.

So everyone who wants to say if Joe Biden had passed this thing or if Kyrsten Sinema had did that thing or Joe Manchin did this thing, that probably wouldn't have affected the results at any of these levels given the timeline. Yeah, I mean, it would have been marginal at best, and that's basically my view. Nate Cohn actually put this very well. Put that on the screen, please. Biden has nearly the worst approval ratings of any president on record at this stage in his presidency. Just something to keep in mind if you're struggling to understand what happened tonight. Look, it's a confluence of everything. Many Republicans are claiming victory on the

critical race theory front. Democrats are saying, oh, we should have passed the bill. It's much more simple than all of that. I'm not saying critical race theory or even the bill didn't have an effect. It's just that stuff's not working properly. When you order something, it doesn't arrive on time. That's really annoying. The economy is in crisis. We have a supply chain problem. People are also quitting their jobs, something that I generally support for labor. But guess what? That causes chaos whenever it comes to employment decisions. Same thing whenever it comes to increasing prices, which we see all across the board. What it comes down to is that the country's

not running properly and Biden is the president. Gas prices are high. I mean, he's out there begging on his knees to OPEC being like, please pump more. It's like, well, that's what happens whenever you structure your gas system based upon the back of the Saudi Arabians. But all of what it comes down to is this. It was a wide rejection of the status quo. That's really important because what's really crazy is we have now had three, actually even four separate elections, or at least presidential cycles if you include some, where we just see swings from one end to the other. 2008, Obama, a resounding rejection of George W. Bush. 2010, Republicans, Tea Party wave. 2012, a sort of tepid backlash against the 2010s. It's a re-endorsement of Obama's politician.

A re-endorsement of the 08 thing. But then 2016 comes, and what happens? Trump, obviously, a rejection of Obama. The Democrats have a big wave in 2018. Biden, a rejection of Trump. And now, Glenn Youngkin, and expectedly in the midterms, we're going to have a rejection of Biden. What Americans are saying is, yeah, this is just not it. Like whatever this is, you guys keep promising us change and nothing seems to change. Or if it does,

not in the way that we actually want. And there's county level data, which just goes to show how screwed the Dems are in the upcoming midterms. Put this Philip Bump tweet up there on the screen, because this is the key, which is that Virginia data shows that counties that voted for Trump actually shifted 14 points to the right in aggregate, and counties that voted for Biden shifted 18 points to the right. So in effect, what has happened here is that Trump districts became more Trumpy at the same time that suburban districts also shifted to the right. So in a sense, here's what's happened. Glenn Youngkin basically won the same type of coalition that a Mitt Romney type politician would have won, as in with a suburban

vote, in addition to massive gains amongst a Trumpian base. There has never been a coalition like this in the history of Virginia politics, which is why it's so fascinating. I mean, in the white women data as well, you can see this massive swing. And again, it's a story of education, which is another main takeaway that I want you guys to have. Put Sahil Kapoor's tweet up there on the screen, please, which is that for white women with college degrees in 2020, they went 58 Biden, 41 Trump. Now in 2021, they actually went 62 McAuliffe, 38 Yunkin. So not only did McAuliffe hold onto that white women college basecollege, 56 Trump, 44 Biden. Now 75% Youngkin, 25% McAuliffe. So here's what happened. McAuliffe actually held on to a lot of the suburban white female vote. So Fairfax County went 30 points. It's the largest county in the state, went 30 points for McAuliffe. Here's the issue. Rural counties, they didn't just go for Youngkin. They went for Youngkin more than they went for Trump. So there's this fascinating dynamic, Marshall, where Youngkin

not only drove up his numbers with white non-college educated voters, but also black voters, Hispanic voters, which we'll talk about, basically all across the board. But all the Democrats really held on to was their suburban vote. But even that, there was an 18-point shift to the right. It's a collapse both of their coalition and an increase in the old Republican coalition. You almost never see anything like that in politics. And you know, what's fascinating here is we did not get the test of the Trump factor here. Yeah, that's right. And that, the key thing, and I want to make this very clear when Sagar's talking about the rural voters here, what Young can manage to do is without Trump on the ballot, despite McCaul's attempts to put him on the ballot, without Trump even entering the state, he

was able to maintain that rural advantage that the Republican Party has. So now, if you're seeing, and this is probably where the education culture war issue CRT debates actually matter, because as your polling stated at the top, this was not the number one issue. And to reduce this to a CRT election would really confuse everybody what this is going on. That's why everyone from Jemele Hill to Joy Reid, who said this election is a complete example of white supremacy. This is just a terrible, terrible, terrible take, especially given the fact that you think about it for a second. I love chances where we could actually take a step back.

Wait a second. If you're Joy Reid and you're Jemele Hill, Donald Trump is like the epitome of white supremacy. Let's buy their premise. They voted him down by 10 points. So, wait, what? Not only that, Marshall, these people in the rural areas actually voted more for Youngkin than they did for Trump. They actually rejected Trump in many ways compared to Glenn Youngkin. So this isn't just a case where for like culture reasons, Sagan and I are like, oh, Jamel Hill, it's wrong. It's like, this is actually

a really bad and confusing frame, which if you take this frame and apply it to New Jersey, no critical race fights. Long Island, no critical race fights. It's this big story of deep dissatisfaction with the status quo. And once again, I want to go back to what you said about these big swings, 2008, 2016, 2020. What we all have to do as hosts and an audience is really just look at that fundamental part because everything you've just said is really just not sexy. It's very sexy to say 2008, it's a hope and change election. 2010, there is this Tea Party libertarian right. In 2016, the neoliberals are done. Bernie is rising.

Trump is overthrown. No, Joe Biden, we're going to talk about this. Joe Biden's new FDR. Actually, pretty much none of those big narratives actually bear out the fact that no party, no politician, no institution even has been able to basically say, hey, these things that you see in the world that you don't like, and frankly, probably aren't related to any specific bill. So there's no big bill Joe Biden could pass to deal with the supply chain issue. There's no big bill looking at address education. We just see a distinct lack of political talent or ability to just follow through in a way that frankly politicians in the past were able to do.

Yeah, no, they were able to. I mean, that's what a lot of the stuff behind me is a monument to. And just to give you guys an idea of what the midterm elections are going to look like, Patrick Ruffini put this on the screen. What we saw in 2020 works out to a 50-seat Republican gain in the House. This is also very important that I've missed, which is that a Fox News voter analysis actually showed Glenn Youngkin won the majority of Latino votes there in the state of Virginia. So yes, Jamel Hill, it was an affirmation of white supremacy, of course. It really is just amazing. And go ahead and put that next one up there I was talking about whenever it comes to the 50 seat gain in the House. You know, when you put these things together, you see him winning a majority of Latino voters. And again, when you look at the polling, it is a combination of economy

and of education, of taxes, and the pandemic right there down low. The Dems just really don't have anything, especially when it comes to McAuliffe. The McAuliffe campaign was centered on a couple of things. Number one was abortion. They were going all in on the idea that Texas-style abortion was going to come to the state. Now, that just didn't work out. So that culture problem, it didn't work for them. The second thing was Trump. All Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. That was, if anything, the number one issue that they tried to elevate. People just aren't buying it anymore. And to the extent that he had a COVID message, it was basically an embrace of vaccine mandates, which actually, if you look at the polling, people in Virginia were fine with vaccine

mandates. I'm going to get to that in my monologue. But they don't particularly care either way. It's not the animating issue. They're like, listen, my bills are going up. What are you going to do about it? Youngkin actually had an excellent commercial that we played here on the screen where he just went through grocery prices and talks about how Virginia is one of the only states to tax groceries. And he was going to repeal that tax. Now, look, is he probably going to repeal that tax? I don't know. Probably not. Okay. But let's be honest here. I'm going to go ahead and put my cynical hat on. But given the fact that now he and the Virginia House of Delegates put that final tweet that we have there on the screen is now going to be controlled by Republicans, you have a really crazy situation where Virginia, a blue state through and through, has now become

effectively red. And I mean red in very temporary terms, but it's going to produce a very interesting type of governance and coalition. I'm watching Young, with a real hawk's eye to see what exactly this looks like. If he can capitalize on it, is this just part of the Biden backlash or is this something that could be sustained in the future? It's a big, big election. There are a lot of takeaways there that we've just thrown at all of you. Do you have anything to add? Yeah. And just one last thing that we have to talk about because it's forward facing. The big question here is what is Trump going to learn from what just happened here? In the sense that, very purposely,

Trump did not intervene in Virginia. When we're going into 2022, the real question here is, obviously he can't ignore every single, he's not going to sit back the way he sat back in these two very blue state elections. So there's a big test there. He will be much more of a usable boogeyman for people.

I suspect, as in this race, it's not going to work as much. And I just want to raise a point that David Sachs and our friend Antonio Garcia Martinez raised, which is that in a weird way, the social media bans on Trump have probably actually rebounded to Republicans' advantage in the sense that Trump just is not on anyone's mind. I think this is a different election. This is a different state of our politics. If every single day Trump is posting cringe or Trump is just posting things that are just annoying and remind people of the bad old days. But because it's all just gone now and people just think of Trump, they probably think of, man, like remember before COVID? Remember when this wasn't happening? It's really set up a really useful set of confluences for Donald Trump. The question is, and this is where we would once again put on our cynical hats, does Donald Trump have the self-discipline to avoid leaning into that post-2022?

Almost certainly not. So that's the big question that I'm really interested in right now. Yeah, it's fascinating. We're going to get even more into 2024 in a bit. But let's move on here to the media. Oh, man, this just gives me so much joy. So of course, MSNBC was in total meltdown of what was happening on election night. We've curated two of our particular favorite moments and some of the worst takes yet from the commentators out there. Let's start with our old friend, Nicole Wallace. Here's how she was reacting to the

results. I think we know the answer to some of this. I watched Glenn Youngkin's interviews on Fox News and he did nothing that Claire, he did not, I mean, he worshipped at the altar of Donald Trump on Fox News. He flew an insurrection flag at his rallies. He simply didn't, he played dumb about a Zoom rally. He did not really put much distance between himself and Donald Trump on the big lie or the deadly insurrection in which police officers were maimed by flagpoles. So I think that the real ominous thing is that critical race theory, which isn't real, turned the suburbs 15 points to the Trump insurrection endorsed Republican. What do Democrats do about that? How many times are you going to say the word insurrection there, Marshall? I mean, look,

these people are such a joke. Critical race theory, she says, which is not real, which is a total lie. Critical race theory is obviously real. I mean, take a look at any of the documents or whatever that have been released from these diversity trainings or whatever. And here's the thing. If you believe in it, then defend it. That's fine. But they know that they can't even defend it. So they just say that it's a total made up lie. It's completely ridiculous. If you want to have a real debate around what these people have been pushing, so be it. But if anything, I think they're again, just not even getting to the core of it. It's actually mighty convenient, both for the Republicans and for the media to this be some referendum on race. And I just simply don't

believe that whatsoever. Did it play a part? 100%. Did the economy still rank as the number one issue in all the exit pollings? Yes. And yet they are remiss to do a single segment or discuss inflation, supply chain, gas price, general dissatisfaction with the Biden presidency, vaccine politics, mandates, mask wearing, vouching. I mean, there are so many elements to this, Marshall. And yet all you see from Nicole Wallace is both critical race theory and the Trump insurrectionist, insurrectionist, endorsed, endorsed, insurrectionist. By the way, did you know there was an insurrection? They're calling it deadly, which is, I mean, yes, people

died. Most of them were boomers who had heart attacks. But like, let's, yeah, go ahead. This is the key thing. And this is what is shocking watching that clip. There is Nicole Wallace, a former major White House Bush campaign person. You have one of the Castros. I didn't catch which Castro brother that was. And then you, of course, have other – Claire McCaskill. A senator.

What you've realized is, man, you people are terrible at politics. I think we're both increasingly obsessed with this topic of what is politics and who's actually good at it. Like, once again, like, to push back a bit, I'm not asking, neither of us are asking Democrats to not care about the Capitol insurrection. That isn't the point. This isn't about debating what happened at the insurrection. This is just sort of like, you know what is definitely not a thing? That narrative as a narrative that drives votes. There are all sorts of things that you and I individually care about and are obsessed with. rural voters, those Hispanic voters, the black voters in those swing districts that help give the House of Democrats to Republicans are not voting on that issue is insane. And at its core level is simply cope. Like that is what's actually insane here. What's also insane here is once again,

this discussion of critical race theory. A, number one, if you're good at politics, you understand. If you're telling, hey voters, this thing you think you believe in isn't actually real, I don't think that's quite it. Like, I actually want to sit down with Nicole Wallace, if she would ever come on either of our programs at this point, and just have a real question of, hey, you know, trust in media has just completely collapsed. Yeah, especially you. Trust in every institution has collapsed.

Do you think that you going to these, like, let's say, centrist, center-left voters who, this was reported in the New York Times, like for Biden but were skeptical of critical race theory. Do you think you telling them, oh, don't worry, it's not – in what issue area would that work? But what's insane to me is I don't understand why there isn't a Democrat there, out there, who basically says the following. He says, look, Rob DiAngelo is crazy. What's funny is we talk to a lot of center-left Democratic folks. On background, aside from what's public, they will all admit these things are true. They say we think Ibram Kendi goes too far.

We think the diversity trainings are nuts. We don't actually believe those things. So just say that and just say, look, like we think America has a history of race. It's complicated. We're going to teach that. But don't worry. We're not going to tell your son or daughter that they are like evil because they're white. That's nuts.

That's a fake Republican talking point. But instead, rather than address what this is actually about, because I hated this segment, but there was some, you know, he was a Vietnam veteran in Virginia who was, you know, got on camera and they were saying, define, they stuck a camera in his face. They're like, define critical race theory. And he couldn't give an eloquent articulation of it. Once again, actual politics is about understanding what people are trying to say. Obviously, he's not going to be able to define critical race theory. But what he thinks critical race theory is and what it represents is the fact that he doesn't feel like he has any input or ability to influence what his grandchildren are taught. He thinks that there is this idea that he is taught that he is to be hated in this country.

And that's bad. Most Democrats don't actually agree with that, a.k.a. why Glenn Youngkin actually did pretty well in these contexts. So just own that and don't be condescending to voters. It's stupid. And yet they continue to keep this up on the Joy Reid front. We have this clip where it's again just emphasizing January 6th, you know, Republicans are dangerous. Take a listen.

They would have to be willing to say what you have said on your show. I think we've all said a version of it. You have to be willing to vocalize that these Republicans are dangerous, that this isn't a party that's just another political party that disagrees with us on tax policy, that at this point, they're dangerous. They're dangerous to our national security because stoking that kind of soft white nationalism eventually leads to the hardcore stuff. It leads to the January 6th stuff because if people are tolerant of it in your party, they're tolerant of the soft racism. It's a really short trip to get to the January 6th insurrectionist place.

They're content. They just keep going, Martin. Republicans are dangerous. And apparently, January 6th had to do with critical race theory. Now, this is just so completely ridiculous. As you said, actually, either acknowledge it and defend it or say, no, that's not what we actually believe. But gaslighting people about how it's, you know, how it's racist or how everybody who voted that way is racist. It's just not going to work. But they continue to do this. And you know what? At this point, keep going.

God bless them. Because this is what's going to keep happening. Virginia, New Jersey. How the hell do you come within half a point of losing New Jersey, a state that Biden won by 16 points? But Jemele Hill, the gift that keeps on giving, let's put this up there on the screen. She says, very simply, all, actually, no, this is a Jonah Goldberg tweet, but this is also very important. He says, all of the people on MSNBC convincing themselves that all of these VA voters who voted for Biden a year ago are idiots, racists, and or dupes is pretty wild. And you know, I'm loathe to agree with Jonah Goldberg,

but that's actually a pretty good point, which is that as we saw, the rural voters themselves that these people are decrying, they actually did not vote for Trump in the same numbers that they voted for Yunkin. These suburban voters actually totally rejected Trump. But with Glenn Youngkin, I mean, what they're trying to do is describe him as some, you know, like I think Van Jones called him the, quote, the Delta variant of Trumpism. But it's important to see. That one's fun. Yeah, it is fun.

That's a classic Van Jones. I'm like, I'll give it to him. The man has a way with words. It's kind classic man joke. I'm like, I'll give it to him. The man has a way with words. It's kind of a joke. But look, Jemele Hill, if we have that tweet, please put that on the screen because this is what they are. This is their takeaway. It's not the messaging, folks. This country simply loves white supremacy.

Wajahat Ali, it's a similar one. And these people are all over MSNBC. They're contributing editors at the New York Times. Jemele has a huge podcast. She's at similar one. And these people are all over MSNBC. There are contributing editors at the New York Times. Jamel has a huge podcast. He's at the Atlantic. Put the Wajahat Ali tweet up there also on the screen, please. He says, quote, whiteness remains undefeated. Let's wait and see who these white suburban voters went for tonight in Virginia.

Any guesses? Once again, this is the key thing. They went for Glenn Youngkin. He's a rich, private equity, normal guy. Once again, I said a bunch of things that are very not normal, but the key thing is it's not normal. And look, this is where we have to talk to the Republican Party for a second. This was a normal campaign. Everything that Trump did, especially after COVID, just was not normal. And the thing here of it, you just, and this, by the way, this is just a tragedy of the nationalization of American politics is what we're seeing in these clips.

We're not just – I know it seems like we're just doing all these dunks on the media. It's MSNBC. It's obvious. It's cringe, whatever. What's becoming increasingly clear is that because all these folks who have these prominent purges could only think of issues through the lens of national politics, it literally rots their ability to think about anything. In any of those segments, did you hear someone say, okay, rural versus urban? Okay, Long Island. Okay, New Jersey. No, the only thing they can do is talk about January 6th.

I'm from Oregon. Sagar's from Texas. We're not just in this Asala corridor bubble. I do not know anyone who is organically talking about January 6th right now. Maybe if Trump were on the ballot, that would be a point of conversation. And actually, frankly, I think if Trump was on the ballot, that is a completely reasonable 2024 narrative. But once again, people, people, people, especially speaking to the Democrats in the audience, just because you have a niche specific policy and political interest does not mean you can go talk to everybody. You know, I'm really into like local media funding.

I think that's a really important issue. I'm not, however, if I were going to run for governor of a state, going to walk around shouting about it, because that's not what actual politics is. So just, just, geez, everyone, just let's. Okay, well, let me give you the final take from the man that I branded a professional wrong person, Dr. Jason Johnson on MSNBC. Let me put this on the screen. So this was his political advice, that Democrats are losing because they don't talk about January 6th enough. That's actually the real take here from Dr. Jason Johnson. He continues to earn his stripe of the professional wrong person. It is amazing that they continue to have him there on the network, but this is what these people get, and you are beginning to see the results of that. Let's move on to the

next segment, which I think is also very important, around the GOP in 2024. So the obvious thing that we've been talking here about is Trump, which is what role did Trump have in this? Was it good for Republicans that he wasn't on the ballot? Bad for Republicans? Trump himself taking credit for it. We'll show you that. But check this out in terms of the state of Virginia on favorability whatsoever. Let's put this on the screen. So in the NBC exit

polls, Trump's favorability in the state of Virginia is 41-54. Okay, that's about the margin that he lost the state, so that makes sense. Youngkin's favorability is 53-44. So basically, an outright switch there in terms of his favorability. But here's what's really fascinating. Terry McAuliffe's favorability was 44-53. He was basically tied with Trump in terms of how unfavorable he was viewed in the state. It is absolutely fascinating to me to see that. Now, if you're a never-Trumper, what your takeaway is, oh, Trump's not on the ballot. This is the best we could possibly do. This shows that we need to move on from Trump. I think it's probably a lot more complicated than that. And this is where the battle for the narrative really comes into play. Trump himself immediately taking credit for it. Let's put that on the screen. In terms of the

results, he says, I would like to thank my BASE, all caps, for coming out in the force and voting for Glenn Youngkin. Without you, he would not have been close to winning. The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before. Glenn will be a great governor. Thank you to the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and most particularly to our incredible MAGA voters. Trump has an obvious interest there in trying to brand this as some sort of MAGA victory. And then once again, I reject both. This was not a repudiation of Trump. It also was not an affirmation of Trump. It was a repudiation of Joe Biden. And that kind of scrambles everything whenever we have to begin to talk about the GOP in 2024. And one thing that I would be remiss, because I think everybody is

missing this, is how did we come to the point of having Glenn Youngkin, this former Carlisle Group, super rich private equity CEO, run as some sort of West Varing, middle of the road guy, doesn't seem all that offensive, you know, seems fine, eh, kind of the shrug candidate. How exactly did he come to be the nominee of the GOP? Because what we are seeing across the entire country right now is that GOP primary races are becoming referendums on Trump. That's because of the base. But how did Glenn Youngkin overcome that? There's not a lot of discussion of this, and it's actually very important. Put this tweet up there on the screen, please. Credit to Matt Glassman, who's actually the person who flagged this, which is that both parties might

well do to investigate how much the GOP convention with ranked choice voting helped to not or produce a candidate that could win statewide. And I have, I've become obsessed with this, Marshall, because I looked into it and he's totally right, which is Glenn Youngkin was the nominee based on ranked choice voting at that convention. Now, think about the previous GOP nominees in the state of Virginia. that nomination to Corey Stewart, an outright sort of Trumpist type candidate, who then went on to lose in the next race where he won the primary but then lost statewide by a massive margin. And so I've been thinking about this, which is that Youngkin, by benefiting from the ranked choice voting at the convention, actually made it through when he almost certainly, as the type of candidate that he was, would have lost in some sort of open primary system to a Trumpist-style

candidate, was the only one capable of winning statewide. So what does that tell you? Is that the primary system, which is currently architected to produce types like Corey Stewart or other mega, mega folks, they probably would have lost against Terry McAuliffe. So it's a fascinating, not just affirmation really of ranked choice voting in the convention system, which maybe there's a lot of possible lessons to be learned there, but really about how if the system is designed to produce not even a moderate candidate, because that's not necessarily the right word, but not somebody who is wholly beholden to the base,

that they could actually go on to win statewide. Now, no Republican out there is going to want to endorse this because it's more of a repudiation of MAGA and of Trump, but there's a profound lesson here in how Glenn Youngkin himself was the candidate that ultimately won by a couple of points in the state of Virginia. Well, look, and this shows, and this is where you have to push back on Trump's statement. This is why the word base is just used and abused. Once again, the base under Trump's framework came out more for Glenn Youngkin, this more moderate person, than for actual MAGA itself. So at the end of the day, the base is a set of people who have certain interests, who vote certain ways. And frankly, no one owns it.

And you know what the worst part about this whole base discussion, which is that Trump is just such a singular, like unique figure. He is the person of the age. And when you see all these like half Trumpy fakers, weirdos, Corey Stewart's a great example of this, you just see all these people abuse that Trump's base narrative to actually take it to their conclusions. They say, well, look, it's Trump's base, so I'm going to do a weird attempt to be Trumpy. But Glenn Youngkin shows, hey, actually, there are issues. There's a broader political atmosphere here. I'm going to sound like a broken record here. But you can speak to that base with issues that are deeply important to them.

But does it mean you have to do a knockoff? You don't have to be a politician. I hate you've seen all these people. I'm not to sound like a broken record here. But you can speak to that base about issues that are deeply important to them, but does it mean you have to do a knockoff? You don't have to be a politician. I hate you've seen all these people, I'm not going to name names, but who are just like doing the weird Trumpy hand motions. Let's just call him out, DeSantis. Yeah, DeSantis. Why are you doing that, dude? Like, just stop. It's way too informal to call him dude. But it's just like, what? Like, Glenn Youngkin, this is actually what Glenn Youngkin served a lot of praise and why, once again, I think when Ross Douthat, our friend, is, you know, saying, hey, he should think about 2024, I think that's going a bit too far in terms of getting out of the horses here. But the key thing is, Glenn Youngkin, it's probably because he's a wealthy dude and this kind of happens. Correct.

He seems very secure in himself. Right. He says, hey, I'm Glenn Youngkin. I'm a wealthy dude. I look like a suburban harmless dad, and I'm going to run a campaign that way. Rather than all these deeply insecure people who are so terrified of Trump that they feel the need to just not be themselves.

And what I suspect will end up happening is voters are going to see through it. It's not going to work because, once again, no one is voting for Trump because he does this. That's right. You know, Ann Coulter actually, obviously she doesn't like Trump, but I still, you know, to be honest, she might be one of the better political analysts who was out there. Let's put that up there on the screen. And she just tweeted this, Trump is so over. And I think what's fascinating about this is that Trump himself, he can't stand the idea that this is much bigger than him. And yet it is. Look at those rural voting numbers. The rural vote, which was Trump's base, came out harder for Glenn Youngkin than they did for Trump. At the same time that suburban voters who hated Trump also came out for Glenn Youngkin. That is a total scramble of the map. And when you see, and again, it's not also a affirmation necessarily of like Jeb Bush, right? It's like Trump certainly changed the Republican Party. But what it does go to show

you is that the politics, which are going to be winning for the GOP in the future, they don't have a lot to do with Donald Trump himself, unless he himself is a person at the top of the ticket. That is the key thing here here because we have to look at the Trump is so over point and look at it from two different angles. So I think Trump is over in the sense that Glenn Youngkin, these candidates in New Jersey, people in Virginia, they're not running on immigration. This isn't a build the wall thing. They're not wearing MAGA hats. I don't think that's a particularly relevant – I think that's just taking – just as like Hillary Clinton tried too much to rerun Obama's 2008 campaign, the good way of summing up why a lot of these MAGA candidates are pretty weak is they're overdoing – they're just trying to replicate a 2016 dynamic that just does consistently not exist. So that part is over.

At the same time though, if we're talking about political talent, if we're talking about actually building a coalition, Trump can be over narratively speaking. But let's be real. The 2024 primary is still his for the taking. That's right. Because there still is not a set of politicians who has quite Trump's mix of skill set, tie to the base, and frankly, ability to say, hey, look back to 2016, 2018. I know a good friend of ours said, like, MAGA is going to take a very special meaning if Trump runs again because MAGA will basically make America 2017, 2018 again. Yes.

And with these voters who are retiring, that's going to mean something. And look, like, DeSantis, Rubio, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, none of these people will have any ability to defeat Trump in a primary. No chance. None of these people will have any ability to defeat Trump in a primary. So we basically have a situation where anyone looking for hope about the future of the Republican Party basically shouldn't find any. Because at a core level, we're stuck in this weird point that basically means this decade is just going to be a total, total wash. It's a crazy system where they both have the advantage and they will have major, major wins back here in this election and in 2022. But come 2024, we could just see a redux of 2020 because of Trump himself. It's a crazy system, but that's the one we have. Let's get to some of the economic news. This is very important, what Crystal and I have been tracking here for a long time. So the SALT deduction, Just a brief explainer here at the top. So what is the SALT deduction? State and local tax deduction. New Jersey. Previously, New Jersey, you were previously allowed to deduct what you paid to the state government

from your federal taxable income. This led to five- to six-figure savings for many rich people. It was disproportionately given to the top 1%, and specifically people who make over $1 million a year, and especially in the billionaire range. Okay, that was repealed and taken away in the Trump 2017 tax cut, and it was seen as a punishment of blue states. It has since been a top priority of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and New Jersey politicians to put into this reconciliation bill. So we've been watching this like a hawk, because once again, given the fact that Kyrsten Sinema has ruled out

tax increases on people making over $400,000 a year and no increase in capital gains, that if a SALT tax deduction was brought back, that it would be a massive tax cut for the wealthiest people in America. And I have good news for all of you. They have decided to do that. Let's put this in the screen. Josh Gottheimer tweeting, great news. Here come tax cuts for New Jersey families. Reinstating the state and local tax deduction will be in the final legislative package. Now we need to get it to the floor for a vote. We're going to get this thing done. Gottheimer is famously the man who proclaimed, no salt, no dice. And from what I have heard, it is literally one of the top priorities for Democratic leadership,

both in the House and the Senate, given that House leadership is from San Francisco, Chuck Schumer is from New York. So they are going to make sure that this thing is inside the bill. But I want to make people understand just how big of a tax cut for the rich that this is. Let's put this on the screen. Mark Goldwine, he's been excellent on the SALT tax. Here's how he describes it. The SALT cap deduction, which is being proposed by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, would be a $500 billion tax cut, with over $400 billion of it going to the top 5% of households. That is more than the Democrats are spending on anything else in the bill. It is 2.5 times as much as they are

spending on the child tax credit and the EITC combined. So let that sink in, which is that the largest spending provision, and by spending, what I mean is given their whole accounting games, they have to make up for revenue elsewhere. The largest thing that they are outlaying in terms of giving up federal revenue for is a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires. And it just goes to show you that this is, think about all the things that have dropped in this bill. So I'm going to try and channel Crystal here. They tried what they promised, $6 trillion. That's what Biden ran on.

Free community college is gone. Now it's going to be Pell Grants. Paid family leave is gone. Now it's going to be some sort of subsidy system. Child care provisions are in there, but the way that they're going to be enacted are actually almost certainly going to raise child care costs for the middle class. So it'll be a poor subsidy, but overall will be a total wash. There's several, oh, child tax credit is not being extended fully and is going to be means tested. So all of those

programs there that I just listed, climate provisions, I know that the progressives are very upset about. But the one thing they're making sure comes in is a $500 billion tax cut. Here's the thing, Marshall. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was rightfully reviled, in my opinion, as a massive corporate giveaway and tax cut for the rich. And yet, these Democrats who ran on this bill, they ran specifically against this, and yet, in effect, are making sure that such a tax provision is in there. Now, I would be remiss if I did not say that there is some sort of developments on this. Senator Bernie Sanders, put this on the screen, please, said that he would vote against this tax cut for billionaires. He called it, quote, beyond unacceptable. But from developments

as of this morning, what we're basically seeing is that they're going to try and cap it at like $72,000 or something in terms of the deduction you can take, which would still be a five-figure tax cut for the majority of people who are making over a million dollars a year. There is no way to frame it. Any sort of SALT tax deduction repeal would be a massive giveaway to the top 1%. It's a fascinating thing. Let me play establishment devil's advocate here. No, because, you know, look.

It's like he said. Yeah. No salt tax, no dice. So, like, think about that. Just think about that for a second. Because, like, once again, like, parties are coalitions of people. And as we just saw last night, not last night, but we saw in Virginia and New Jersey and Long Island, when Democrats don't deliver for upper middle class people, there is a very serious thing. Because once again, I know Bernie's talking about millionaires and billionaires.

Those are not the – no billionaire is voting on – Millionaires certainly are though. But the primary people who are getting this are upper middle class people. Yeah, it's probably people who make over 500K a year. But that's the point though. That's your upper middle class family. That is like the target here. This is basically a significant base of the Democratic Party.

I do not think there are significant numbers of like real, real, real, real millionaires. You made the statement that the richest people in America are benefiting. It's like the people who actually care about this. Gottheimer is speaking really about those people making $400,000 to $600,000 when he's talking about his New Jersey base. So look, I think if you're a Democrat, it's horse trading. The real thing that if you're a Democrat that you should frankly be concerned about here is to get some bill passed, you literally need to have this provision because there's a real coalition with real voice that wants this. The reason why paid sick leave is getting cut, the reason why these other things are getting cut is because guess what?

Kyrsten Sinema won't go for it. Joe Manchin won't go for it. Joe Manchin won't go for it. So the broader question here is it's easy to just be like, oh, like Nancy Pelosi, she's a corporate stooge, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like we get it. The bigger question is why is it that there isn't enough actual political power to be welded by Democrats to actually put the other parts of the bill in here? Because in an ideal state, you'd have a situation where, look, you give the upper middle class people what they want, some sort of self-deduction, but also you then get paid sick leave. You then get some form of green new deal. See, this is a good point.

That's the bigger thing. No, that's a good point. And this is actually where, once again, to channel crystal, it does go to show you how weak many of these progressive voters are because they are not drawing similar lines. And they've actually budged on every single one of them. So for example, they said originally, no paid family, no dental or whatever, I won't vote for the bill. Now Bernie is saying, well, okay, maybe, you know, maybe I'll

vote for this salt, you know, thing. But actually, I'm not going to hold the line whenever it comes to dental. But can Bernie... Well, yeah, I mean, Joe Manchin can do it for one thing, but they can't as well. And this is where progressives are in a real bar. And I think I'm trying to defend Bernie here weirdly because I think what a lot of progressives don't understand is that Joe Manchin, if no bill passes, that's a win for Joe Manchin. Kyrsten Sinema will girl boss her way to no bill as well too.

Getting nothing is still a victory for them. If you were Bernie Sanders, he still needs something. So, like, I don't want to, so how can he draw the line? Because then it's like, then for Manchin, it's like, all right, dude, too bad.

And that's continually, that's what Manchin has told him. Manchin apparently held up a fat zero and he goes, this is what I can live with, Bernie. Something like that, which, you know, in a way, I guess I respect it. And it's the same in the House, though.

And this is actually where they probably have the most leverage in the House because I think today the official margin of the House moves to just two Democratic votes. It's like 2-8, 2-21 or something. Anyway, so they have almost no majority there. And they could easily try and force. Look, and like you said, you're not getting a Green New Deal. Everybody knows that ain't going to happen. But in terms of like paid family leave or actually the Medicare prescription drug pricing in terms of negotiating on that, these are things that none of them were willing to hold the line on. And ultimately, the stuff that is going into the bill is exactly as

you said. These Gottheimer people actually would vote this thing down if it did not have a tax cut for the richest. Okay, let's say everybody making over $500,000 a year. Those are the people getting the biggest tax cut from this. That's just true. But the progressives who claim that they had all these red lines, again, it goes to show you that their threats are empty. They're like, we will vote down this bill. And then they just vote for it. Pramila Jayapal had even abandoned their strategy where they said that they were going to vote for, they would only vote for their infrastructure bill as long as the social welfare bill passed. That has now been given up.

So it goes to show you that the only people who were really willing to hold a hard line in this were the salt tax people, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, and they are getting everything that they want. But last thing here, here's the question. Put on your political consultant hat. What should progressives do? Because what you seem to be articulating is this idea that they talk to big game, that at a practical level, AOC, Pramila Jayapal, Bernie, they can draw as many red lines in the sand, and then Joe Manchin will literally laugh at them. That was a bad misallocation of political resources and rhetoric. What can they actually do? Because they cannot say zero.

Yes. So what do you actually advise? They should not have drawn red lines. Look, they should have been honest. Like, look, Joe Manchin's got the thing. Here's the thing. Unless you're actually willing to not vote for it, then don't say that. Then like, don't come out and say, I'm not going to vote for it and then vote for it because then you look like an idiot. And guess what? You'll

look like an idiot. That's what's happening here. So be honest. I mean, if anyone, Bernie was probably the most honest of them. He's like, look, we got some hard problems here in the Senate and, you know, Joe Manchin, I. Crystal pressed him repeatedly in her interview, and he was pretty squishy whenever it came to, am I going to demand this? Am I going to demand that? I mean, AOC and Rashida Tlaib and all those people straight up said they would not vote for the bill, and now they're going to vote for it. So it just goes to show that your threats are empty, and unless you mean it, don't say it because you look like a total joke. Okay, let's move on to the foreign money in elections.

This is a really crazy story that I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while. So let's put this up there on the screen. The FEC is going to let foreigners finance U.S. ballot fights. Now, this opens up a long-stranding tradition against foreign money in U.S. elections. What the FEC has ruled here is that foreign donors can finance any referendum campaign. Now, the reason it matters is because foreign nationals have long time been barred from donating to not only any political candidates, but also committees. Now, the FEC decision is going to allow them to support ballot committees, which is a very, very dicey provision because, as we see in states like California and elsewhere, referenda come on the ballot all of the time. And the reason it matters

is because only seven states currently bar foreign funding to state-registered ballot committees. And this matters especially in actually border states with Canada, because sometimes Canada wants to finance elections in Maine or Vermont against maple syrup regulations and all kinds of stuff. But Mexico as well, it could also lead to any sort of state-wide referenda whenever it comes to social cultural issues. We've seen BDS laws all across the nation. You could easily see Israeli money come in on that one. You could see Chinese money come in if there was ever referenda whenever it comes to domestic manufacturing regulations or also meat

regulations in states like California, Iowa, and more, which govern massively the Chinese market who buy many of these things. It's a huge, very concerning thing there, Marshall, because the decision stems originally, and I just want to give people the background, from a Canadian subsidiary of an Australian firm, which actually financed a measure to block restrictions on hard rock mining in Montana. And I think that's a great example because in practice, that's the stuff that it's really going to look like. These very small things within states, which, you know, we may not necessarily get a lot of attention, but which have massive business interests for varieties of countries across the globe. Here's what I'm going

to, yeah, broken record myself, say, here's what I don't understand about Joe Biden and his Democratic Party. People really care about this integrity of elections issue. Yeah, that's true. Obviously, sorry to piss anyone off in the audience here, the 2020 election was not stolen. Anybody who watches Breaking News knows that. Yeah, at this point, hopefully those viewers have been shed. I hope this isn't a shocker. Dominion wasn't a weird, corrupt Venezuela.

I don't even articulate that one properly. But here's the broader point. There is still a broad narrative in our society that, hey, we don't trust this process. It's always new. No one voting. I'm from Oregon. I'm totally fine with no one voting. But I understand if people see these changes and they say, hey, this doesn't seem okay.

I don't trust the system. The big story of our time is declining institutional trust in basically everything. Therefore, here's what Joe Biden should just do in order to lead up to 2024 to build credibility with people when it comes to these actual narratives. Like Joe Biden should actually just be like, hey, this isn't cool. It's my FEC. I own it. Maybe there's something he can't do about this in terms of like the actual bureaucrats there. But why aren't Democrats saying, hey, we're going to support ballot measures in all these states to make sure this doesn't happen?

We don't want foreign money in our elections. We want them to be integral. We think that this is entirely compatible with mail-in voting and expanded access. I actually do not get why this is not at the top of everyone's mind. It really should be. And luckily, two people in the Senate actually do want to do something about it. And I want to give total credit where it is due. So let's put that on the screen. And what I'm calling for is for everybody in order to back this legislation. It's by Marco Rubio and Kirsten Gillibrand, which would close exactly the loophole, which allows foreign

nationals to bankroll efforts to reshape state and local laws. That way, you don't even have to do state ballots for all of that. The Biden administration, the White House should come out and endorse this legislation now. All the Republicans should also get behind it. And same with all the Democrats. It would actually send a real message if this were to pass 100 to 0 through the Senate and 400, I'm sure, you know, some idiot like Thomas Massey or whatever will vote against it in the House. But anyway, 434 to 1 in the House because the federal government shouldn't be telling foreign nationals not to vote in our elections. I can't wait to hear that libertarian talking point. Okay, all that snark being said, I'm calling on everybody to try and push this type of legislation.

It's very important because as I said, if you're on the left, you should be concerned about Israel coming in and funding BDS campaigns. If you're on the right, you should be concerned about China, Canada, Mexico, or others trying to influence our mining regulations in Montana. I mean, look, that's up to Montana. It ain't up to you, Canada. It ain't up to you, Australia.

We run our affairs the way that we want. To give people an insight into something that's happening right here, right now, the Biden administration pushing those electric vehicle subsidies through Congress, which are all US-made and more. Guess who's lobbying hardcore right now in Washington against that? The Canadian government, because they have EV facilities that they subsidize back in their hometown. And they're saying that, oh, we're going to sue you in the WTO and we're going to make sure that this doesn't go unanswered and all of that. Guess what?

Bring it on. You know, if we want to subsidize our EV business, we're going to do that. And you are welcome to try if you would like to in the Canadian markets or you can just acquiesce to what we're doing. It's just an example of if this were up to a state ballot initiative, this is exactly the type of thing that they would fund. So there's a lot of different nefarious actions that could come into play here. It would undermine faith in our elections and already should. And if people in DC are serious, this is exactly what they should get behind. Okay, let's go ahead and get to my monologue. There's nothing like election

night in America. Every year, I genuinely love it. After all the talking, the gaslighting, the money, the actual people show up and show Washington just how full of it that they actually are. Tuesday night did not disappoint, obviously with Glenn Youngkin's win in the Virginia governor's race, but a near tie for Republicans in New Jersey as well,

with massive sweeps in more suburban districts like Nassau County in New York State. Now, obviously, the right is ebullient. This is probably their best night nationally since election night 2016. And already, the battle for the narrative as to why Republicans won so big is on. The general consensus, as far as I can tell, within the right is this. It's the culture war, stupid. In this telling, Glenn Youngkin's relentless pursuit against critical race theory in Virginia schools was what pushed him over the edge, drove out Trump voters, and won back suburban voters. And there's something to this, but it's important to parse it

deeply to figure out which and what exact culture war is being fought. A particular thread that I found very useful was this by Stephen Portnoy of CBS News, breaking down the exit polls issue by issue. Number one, should Confederate monuments be taken down? 54% said no. 40% said yes. On abortion, 60% said it should be illegal, while 37% said it should be illegal. How much should parents have a say in schools? More than 80% said either some or a lot, requiring vaccine mandates for employers. It was 54 for, 42 oppose, and 84% of the electorate in Virginia was vaccinated. Now, pretty confusing stuff, right? The biggest problem that our media and our national discourse has is they don't really understand that the culture war changed some time ago. Guns, abortion, and gay marriage, that is so yesterday. As you can see in the Confederate

Monuments question and what people have to say around having parents to have a say in education, the new culture war, which benefits the right, has big majorities, and its majority lies under a theme of pushing back against political correctness by the activist, culturally left, higher elite. Now, my friends on the right who are so ecstatic about the results in Virginia would be fools to think that this is some referendum on social conservatism, or at least social conservatism as it was previously understood. It really has nothing to do with that. Instead, the culture war of today is simply this.

Do you like the general social norms of around 2014 or not? My friend Michael Brennan Doherty of National Review, he's been on the show before. He put this very well, quote, Republican culture war politics work way better when they are a defense of normal people versus ideologues. They don't work as let's make America more evangelical. I would add Catholic to that list too. And I would also go deeper. Remember, Virginia is not the only state that was big for Republicans. Joe Biden won New Jersey by 16 points. And it looks like even if the Democrat there does prevail, it will only be by few tenths of 1%. New Jersey did not have a hyper-nationalized race around critical race theory. This is simply a revolt against the elites in all forms. Culture, of course, but a deeper indictment of the expert class. Here again, it is important to parse the nuance. The New Jersey race shows that the electorate at large is simply sick of COVID restrictions. It is sick of chaos, and rightfully blame Biden, because he said he would take us back to normal, and he simply hasn't.

He rarely, if ever, appears to be tackling the downstream effects of chaos, like the supply chain crisis or gas prices, and is instead focusing on passing a bill that pretty much nobody in America cares about whatsoever. Now look at this. More and more, I am convinced of a theory of politics and of conservatism that I put forward months ago. This week's election was a victory for barstool conservatism. Now I know people's eyes are rolling, but hear me out. Matthew Walther, in that original piece on the subject,

observed of Trump's success that he, quote, recognized there are millions of Americans who do not oppose or even care about abortion or same-sex marriage, much less stem cell research or any of the other causes that animated traditional conservatives. He continued, quote, Instead, he correctly intuited that the new culture war would be fought over very different and more nebulous issues, vague concerns about political correctness and SJWs, opposition to the popularization of so-called critical race theory, sentimentality about the American flag and the military. Add into that that the original Barstool pushback

against lockdowns, general distrust of public health elite like Dr. Fauci, and you have an exact roadmap as to why this election went the way that it did. But as I warned in my original Barstool monologue, don't be too thrilled. While the era of socially liberal, fiscally conservative is over, it's far more likely that socially conservative, at least in the new culture war sense that we've gone over, pairs pretty well with fiscal conservatism. That's the preferences of the suburban voters that went to the Democrats in 2020, and it will once again be the electoral justification for pretty much the inherent donor preference within the Republican Party today.

While yes, this will remain at odds with the economic interests of many of the rural and working class voters who find themselves voting Republican today, the contradiction doesn't mean anything at all, as long as they rightfully distrust the intentions of a group of people that they want to change the way they speak, rule the way that they behave in their day-to-day lives, and sign the country up for a social project nobody has any interest in participating in. Just freaking be normal. That's the battle cry of today's politics. Whoever comes closer to that maxim will win. Joe Biden was closer to normal in 2020. That's why he won. The GOP today, by simply being opposed to the mentally ill professors and public health bureaucrats, is closer to that right now. Whomever is closer to that in 2024 will win too. And I'm starting to think that person's name is probably not Joe Biden.

It's amazing, isn't it, Marshall, that normalcy, as nebulous and kind of ridiculous as it may sound. Marshall, what are you taking a look at right now? I'm focused on what Joe Biden needs to take away from what just happened here. There was a lot of talk at the start of his presidency about Joe Biden is the new FDR, much as frankly happened during the Obama presidency too. And speaking of your most recent monologue, the question facing both political parties moving forward has been, how do we get office and then use our mandate to do something big? Whether it's Obama and the stimulus package, whether it's President Trump and reforming healthcare or passing the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, you've now had Joe Biden try to do the

same thing of Build Back Better. And that just has distinctly not worked. So hitting this point in Virginia, in New Jersey and Long Island, President Biden needs to take this exact moment to, frankly, hit reset and reconceptualize himself as a president. Once again, there is a almost 50-50 Senate where you have two senators on the Democratic side who Joe Biden can literally offer nothing. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, no matter what their motivations, have no incentive to push through an aggressive, aggressive agenda, which is bad news if you're conceiving yourself as FDR in 1933 or FDR in 1937. It was a mistake on the part of pundits, on the part of people in the Democratic Party to put that idea in Joe Biden's head.

That is effectively over last night. Frankly, it never really existed in the first place. If you do not have a governing mandate, you cannot actually do something. It's important to note that President Obama actually had a 60-seat Senate majority for a hot second there, and that wasn't even sustainable in the long term either. So I suggest that politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties try something a little different. Let's say they try just not doing anything. Now, that sounds counterintuitive, but it actually jives really well with what Sager is saying.

And let's speak specifically to Democrats here. If you are a Democrat, you have to recognize that for good or for ill, you are the party of institutions. You're the party of the public school system. You're the party of the federal government. You're the party that wants affirmative things. You want to pass a healthcare bill. You want to pass a stimulus package. You want to do a variety of things. As we learned during the Trump presidency, Trump could actually not do literally anything. The Republican Party could not actually even have a platform in 2020. And actually, he could improve on his votes. So if you're a Democrat, you're going to default to wanting to do things. However, whenever things

have been done, it actually hasn't worked. And part of the reason why this hasn't actually worked is the actual institutions that Democrats are trying and attempt to do things through, whether it's the Congress, whether it's the public schools, whether it's the National Institute of Health, these institutions in and of themselves have lost trust. They are not taken seriously, and they do not have any ability to actually do anything. So the Biden race that this should effectively happen is, and this is frankly what Biden should learn from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, what are voters actually saying and what does what they're saying necessitate me to actually do. So if you're a voter in 1933, you were dissatisfied with capitalism. You didn't think the American

governmental structure was set up well. You didn't think American society was fair. So for good or for ill, FDR pursued the New Deal. He had a specific big program that transformed America, but spoke to those specific concerns. Looking at America in 2021 going into 2022, it seems that our equivalent of voters utterly lacking faith in the capitalistic system is voters lack faith in their institutions at a national and a local level. They lack faith in Congress. They lack trust in their public schools. You saw this in Virginia. So the project for Joe Biden, the next three years, it's not going to be passing a big bill that's going to have a 10-year spending plan that people basically

don't understand. It basically needs to be focusing on restoring trust, or at least attempting to restore trust or get things to a default in our politics so that things could actually be done. All these big ambitious plans, whether you're a Republican, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're in the center, are going to require a reconfiguration of institutions, just a complete reset there. That's not sexy. It's not what the lobbying groups are going to tell you to do. It's not going to be what the staffers want to have big biographies are going to tell you to do. But it's actually the literal only thing that President Biden could do moving forward, especially considering the fact the Republicans are almost certainly going to dominate in the midterm elections moving in. So the claim here is reset, default. You actually

are not going to accomplish anything. That is not your historical role. Joe Biden is a transitional president that hopefully will get us to something better. But if he thinks of himself as the new FDR who's going to pass a big program, he's almost doomed to failure. Yeah, and it's kind of funny whenever you're putting that, which is, I've even said this before, I think they would be better off not passing. Joining us now, good friend of the show, Oren Kass of American Compass. Oren, it's good to see you, man. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So Oren, you've got some new interesting data around workers and a survey of American workers, their preferences, how they're feeling right now. Let's put it up there

on the screen. I found a lot of really interesting stuff here. Not what they bargained for in this survey. What did you find there, Warren? Well, we went out and surveyed a lot of American workers to ask their attitudes about really organized labor. I think this is obviously a hot issue right now from Amazon to seeing increasing number of strikes. And there's a sense that workers should want unions. They should want some more power. And yet mostly they don't like unions. You know, only about one in eight actually voted for that union at the Amazon warehouse in Alabama. And we wanted to understand why. And what we found is, by and large, workers hate the politics. They hate how politicized unions are. You know, the organizers at Amazon famously had Stacey Abrams

signs out front. And so, you know, they say by more than three to one, they'd much prefer a union that only focuses on workplace issues over one that's also involved in politics. And when you ask them about particular issues, we actually, we went to the SCIU and the AFL-CIO websites. We just took all their different political issues and put them all in front of workers and said, hey, check off all of the ones you'd like to see a union working on. And not a single one got even 50%. Most got 20% or less. So workers want one thing from a union or some sort of representation. They want help in the workplace. And yet you've got big labor out there basically just fighting

campaigns for the Democratic Party. It's a real problem. You know, I want to talk about the, not contradiction, but the difficulty here, which is that labor unions didn't start out as merely in the pocket of hyper-nationalized political issues. They got engaged in politics because if you're looking at these workplace issues, minimum wage, OSHA requirements, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, they're political and it's the state actually working on behalf of workers hypothetically. So how do you think it's possible that unions could be, or any type of representative organization, could be less political, capital be political, but still actually get things done and leverage

relationships with the state? Yeah, I think it's a really important point. And it goes back to Samuel Gompers, who was one of the original great organizers in America a century ago. He was actually really opposed to using the political process. He said, look, the more that we go to government and say, hey, please do these regulations for us, please, you know, impose minimum wage and so on and so forth, that really weakens unions, that weakens the ability of workers to actually be acting on their own behalf and negotiating with employers.

And so, you know, that's not to say that we shouldn't have employment regulation. I think we need it. I think we should have a minimum wage. But it is to say that we've gotten into this sort of vicious spiral where as unions become less and less powerful and relevant in the workplace, they turn around and say, OK, well, then we'll go try to be powerful in Washington. And yet the more they try to be powerful in Washington, the more then people turn away from them in the workplace. And so, you know, in my mind, I think conservatives need to sort of take some of the blame here as well. Conservatives should want to see workers have power. They should want to have workers acting on their own behalf, negotiating with employers. But a long time ago, conservatives sort of decided,

well, we'd rather just sort of see labor die out. And so as conservatives have fought against labor, that has also been made labor much more just an instrument of progressive politics. And so, you know, I think it's a tailspin we can pull out of, but we have to acknowledge that we're in the tailspin to begin with. Right. And I guess, you know, the obvious point here, Oren, is that many workers do want collective bargaining. And you're seeing that everywhere, which is that we see an explosion right now of people quitting their jobs. I think there are 60-some thousand workers currently on strike right now. When Crystal gets back, we're going to be covering the developments with John Deere, which is one of the biggest ones within the UAW. So it's not that the workers themselves

don't want to exercise their power. What does your survey show in terms of the want of many people who are workers to collectively come together and use their power for better conditions? Yeah, that's a great point. And that's something we really wanted to delve into in the survey, because, you know, in America, it's sort of like, okay, you either vote yes for a union or no for a union. That's the only question you get asked. And what we found is that if you ask sort of, you know, what sorts of representation do you want? What activities would you want to see an organization doing for you? There's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for, like you said, for collective representation,

for bargaining, sometimes over wages, but a lot of times it's not even as much about, you know, the wages and hours as much as it's about just having a voice in the workplace, being treated as equals, feeling like you have a representative who can speak on your behalf. And then there's also a lot that I think unions can do and that they do in other parts of the world that we just don't think about as much here. Things like training, things like providing benefits. There's just a ton that workers need in the modern labor market and that they know that they need and that they want. But if they're told, you know, either you get this radically progressive group that you have

to give money to or you get nothing, that's not really a fair choice. And so I think, you know, I just saw it was a couple of days ago, the SEIU came out and endorsed packing the Supreme Court. It's like, well, like, well, what are you supposed to do with that? How is that possibly something that you're taking out to workers as the reason they should vote for you? And so I think if we actually think more creatively and we start by saying, look, worker power is a good thing. We want workers and employers to be able to bargain on equal terms. And whether you're whether you're on the left or on your right, that's what a broken model. And it's really leaving workers out.

Orrin, could you speak to the newsy narrative part here, which is we've got these two big phenomenons. One is the great resignation. So workers are quitting jobs in real mass. And then two, you're also seeing shortages of workers relating to increased wages and real, you know, every once in a while there'd be a McDonald's, $17 an hour in rural South Dakota post through go viral. How are these phenomenons at an individual level playing into the broader conversation around worker power and even just like representation in general? Well, I think it shows a couple of things. One is, you know, it shows that worker power matters. I mean, I think especially on the right of center, there are a lot of people who sort of dismiss the whole idea of worker power and say, look, you know, markets are great and everybody gets paid exactly what they're worth. And one thing that you notice in a situation like this is,

no, actually, it really depends on who has the power, on whether employers have lots of options and can offer worse conditions, or whether they're really struggling to find workers, at which point they're really going to have to treat them better and offer them more. So, you know, one thing I think it's important to recognize is just when workers have more power, we get better outcomes for workers. And that's something

we should want. The second thing, though, that I think is really interesting is to see kind of the broader breakdown that's going on here, where in a system that workers don't have collective representation, that they can't sort of constructively go and work with management on arrangements that's going to work for everybody, you can really just sort of see things break down. And so it actually, in a sense, is a reminder of back when we created organized labor in the first place, in our formal laws, during the Great Depression, where you had real strife, you know, violence. And you go look at the sort of preamble to the Wagner Act, which is the American labor law.

And it talks about, you know, needing to reduce bloodshed and things like that. And so I think it's important to recognize that this is one of the things that brings employers to the table is when the labor market just isn't working at all. And you'd say, gosh, you know, unions like we had them in the 20th century, those were really important as a remedy to just essentially a total meltdown that we had early in the century. And this time around, I think it's a very different situation, but there's a real parallel. We're seeing that there are real problems in how our economy is operating, in how our society treats workers.

And just saying, well, the market's going to take care of it is clearly not the case. And so I think it's a real opportunity, again, for a constructive discussion. OK, what institutions can we build? What structures can we put in place that are going to give workers the voice and representation that they want and that they deserve, that they should have? And that ultimately, yeah, it's going to be a lot better for them. But I think enlightened employers, many of them are starting to recognize, gosh, this might be better for us too. Really excellent point, Oren. We really appreciate you joining us, man. People can find out more about American Compass at AmericanCompass.org and at your Twitter page and more.

Great friend of the show. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for coming. Thanks so much for having me, guys. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. Crystal, we wish her the best. I think everything is going to be fine. Marshall, very happy for you to come and sit in with us. We really appreciate it. We can find us more at the Realign podcast. You want to give the plug here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, terrible, terrible pivot. Seriously, Crystal, hope everything's going well for you, and

it's always a pleasure to sub in for you. But yeah, you should go check out Sagar and I at The Realignment. It's basically a long-form version of what we're doing here. We have a really good time with each other, and it's really great to keep building out the broader cinematic universe here. There you go. And if you guys could support us, we really appreciate it.

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