Chapo Trap House - 1049 - Trapped Between Borders feat. Ettingermentum (6/29/26)

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Josh Ettingermentum is back to recap Zohran’s hostile takeover of the New York Democratic Party, with his three endorsed candidates cruising to victory. We talk about this new wave of left insurgency throughout the country, what it means for the sclerotic Democratic establishment and the stillborn Abundance movement, and what we make of Zohran’s time in office overall. Plus: John Fetterman fires shots at Chapo and Hasan. Find the Ettingermentum newsletter here: https://www.ettingermentum.news/ Get CHUNKS here: https://www.patreon.com/chunkstv

everybody it's monday june 29th and uh we've got some choppo coming for you uh joining us to talk uh the political scene and uh last week's socialist sweep in new york city is our good pal josh etting germenta who's back with us today josh how you doing hello everybody i'm good i'm great officially congratulations on the birth of your child from from chapo from the whole chapo family here before before we get into the elections josh you're on the show now and i just like this is a a slight digression, but I would like to begin today by crediting you. I mean, maybe this wasn't a novel observation on your part, but it was one that I feel like I had at a similar moment, and I would like to give you credit for pointing out that the Norwegian man lost in India

looks a lot like Matt Iglesias. He just reminds me to Matt Yaglasis. He's like, if Yaglasius had aura, like as soon as that guy just started showing up to become like the new character of Twitter, I was like, this guy's got a Yaglacius look to him. Yeah, there's a whole like race of people kind of like that. Also like Eli Lake I like kind of immediately. I thought that. Oh yeah. Yeah. He also he could be like if you um

if you sharpened that uh Norwegian Indian man's head you would also get Mark Andresen. It's a really it's a really like popular look and it's not just it's not just being bald. It's like it's a bunch of other stuff too. Yeah. The eyes. Josh you posted this because like

thankfully there was there was new video of Euclacius just dropped. And it was like him and that woman, Jerusalem Dems us on the argument podcast. And I was like, oh boy, I can't wait to watch this. And it's just like, it's like the clips I saw were just on my sex playlist.

The clips I saw were just like, Eglacius with this like shit eating grin on his face talking about like, it's it's Hamas's fault that so many people have died. Why do they just surrender? And I just like, all I could think about watching that clip, And I know, like, I'm looking at the subtitles and he's just like, you know, like, Hamas shit I surrender.

But all I'm hearing is fucking smoking on the, smoking on the fucking road. Looking as a tour guide. I was, I was abandoned by Sam Bankman Fried. He promised me money to expand my substack. And I was fucking abandoned. 40 years no schooling. I gave him a smack. They haven't done shit they promised.

David Shore tells me he's going to share his kidney nasal spray. I never hear from him again. He says he's not supposed to be a rabbi. Where my papa's, David? Fuck you. Yeah, he's gay now. I always like to imagine that Matt Iglesias, his brothers were Gabriel Fluffy Iglesias and Rike Iglesias.

And he's like the odd man out. They have like MMA names like Socrates Like something Eglacius Gabriel Fluffy Iglesias is probably Josh this is great article idea for you Yeah

I know you're doing pretty well But if you want to piss off If you want to be yelled at as much as I am You should write this article Gabriel Fluffy Iglesias Is probably the most famous man in America And would win by like If Huey Long hadn't been

killed, he would win by like those margins. Like every, Gabriel Fuffy Iglesias would win 90% of the vote. 100%. Does he have like the same politics as like Matt Yaglasis, but he just like has like a bunch of like tattoos of like teddy bears and stuff for no reason? That would be, it would be funny if he was an abundance guy, but no, his politics are just like, you know, if he got political at all, he'd be like, man, Trump is like the guy your job who's like, man, I just started here.

motherfucker you work here for seven years. And that would be, that would be like his there you go again moment. Yeah. Yeah. And the Enrique Anglacia song, I could be your hero baby. It's actually about Jared Golden.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I just like the idea that he's just like, it's kind of like a who is Arthur Chu situation where all his brothers are like, why don't you become a sexy singer or a beloved comedian? And he's like, yeah, everyone loves my articles. The thing with the loss between borders guy is kind of like an experiment.

I think they really need to ask his opinions on like apprentices or something to see if like looking like that, like is the reason why you have those politics. Or if like Matt Iglesias and like Eli Lake or whatever his name is could have like become like kind of cool like lost between borders types. But only the only conditions where they could have been like had any swag. if they were dropped off in Mumbai and abandoned by their parents with no schooling for 33 years. Do you think? Do you think he, Euclesias could have survived in Mumbai?

No, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Eli Lake, though, I do think Eli Lake, under the proper circumstances, could be like the, the Drusky skits where he plays the white guy who hangs out in the hood. thinking around as like a mascot

yeah uh felix do you remember when we had the idea to do a remake of belly but with eli lake and jami kurchick and the naz and dmx characters and the end is like the end is uh is in the uh elize as naz goes to israel and he's like yeah israel man it was amazing the people were beautiful it's like i've been a whole different world here

yeah who is the guy who is the guy Who's the minister that Jamie Kirchick's supposed to assassinate? Probably, like some, some, like the CIA wants him to kill, yeah, like some, some kahanist rabbi in America.

No, it would be Jonathan Van Ness. And, like, he would be, he would convert him from, like, conservative neo-conservatism to liberal neoconservatism.

That's, oh my God, the final scene where Eli is like, I'm going to, Israel and Jamie Kurchick is just going, that's ill. I can't, that's such a good idea. It's a slight digression, but I really love the caught between borders, Norwegian man, Norwegian citizen born in Norway, lost in Mumbai, abandoned by his parents.

I love someone as a new character, but this is just a slight digression. And I'm wondering if my esteemed colleagues could weigh in on it. I've noticed that there's a trend in people who become sort of meme personalities on Twitter. And it seems like they're all white people who do some flawless version of another racist accent. And I think, I mean, I don't know, I think it's like some way, some easy way for white people to engage in, like, ethnic humor in a way that's okay. I'm thinking about, you know, like, whoa, Vicky as well. And, uh, that's different. That's different. Whoa, Vicki, like, there's a million girls like Wo Vicki who talk like that. What makes Wo Vicki special is she speaks to

deep sorrow in the human condition. There is a poetry to how Will Bicky speaks. Okay, what about, do you guys like the, the, the white kid eating the Kool-Aid pineapples,

the that big guy? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I still don't even know what that big guy is, but it's just, I know what it is. Okay, what is it? It's, um,

I'm a Gen Z correspondent. This is like my subject matter expertise. This is why they bring me on. It's, um, pineapple. dipped in like really concentrated Kool-Aid. So it's just like the

guy is the name of what he's eating. Oh, he's saying it's gas. Oh, that bitch is gas. Oh, I thought he was saying that bitch is good. But that-no, yeah. Yeah, and then it's that bitch tough. So it's like, that's also a similar like said to that. I'm a little bit of this point.

I know what it means now because it's become like an all-purpose nonsense phrase that I can say to Catherine around the house. Like, did you remember to do the litter box? that big guy that big guy Josh what is the meaning

of like dropping the S like dropping the S oh yeah yeah because but before before God the big thing I would see

would be you know people on election Twitter people named you know like Josh Godheimer fan

in the year they were born they would be like all these goofy a squad members trying to front on Josh Gottheimer.

And it's like, I'm sorry. Hyde Park, at least where I grew up, the only place with total parity equal amounts of white and black people. I didn't hear anyone drop the ass. Maybe it's a generation thing. Yeah, it's an attempted AVEE thing.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Josh Gottheimer stands are kind of a lost era now. It makes me a little sad. They've become radicalized, much like and it's happening like in rapid, time. Like I saw like some person who had like a profile picture of like an anime character wearing a Gore Lieberman 2000 hat. And I was like this is one of the last remnants of like an old culture that used to exist. And I want to like I was fond of them. And they just started

posting the other day like, yo, does anybody else feel like the socialist candidates or the only one with the vision? And it makes me like it made me like legitimately sad. It's like you're no. Yeah. You're supposed to be too. Like I thought that there was a level of autism that like made you insulated from like that process, but it looks like it's just breaking through all the regular barriers. It's refinement culture. I don't appreciate it. Yeah, it's one of those things where it's like it's overall positive thing. But like I just as someone who, you know, again, one of my things I would do if I was a billionaire, making whole island where all these people would be like these people would be living with like Brian Pumper and Dan Quinn and shit.

I was like you, equally fascinated by the idea of a 17-year-old who's like, you know who I love, Gene Kerpatrick. Yeah. Or like Bill Nelson, even after he lost. Yeah, yeah. That was awesome. Yeah. Those people are, um, Zogran Mizrahi has. Yeah.

Misrari. So Zogran Misrahi. Zogran Visarai is In case, look, if you really That's a good one Look, that's for free. If he really fucks off, you have people,

anyone can break that out. It's not, I'm not legally liable if you get fired for. Josh Gatenheimer needs to break that one out now. Yeah. Yeah, he's stressing. Yeah. It's part of like the,

the hyper war between like European Jews and Arab Jews that like Gottheimer's very your Ashkenazi name. He could say that Mizrahi's like Oriental intellect makes him unable of understanding democracy, which was basically like part of the Israeli concentration for 40 years. Yeah, yeah, he can say he can say that he has genetic memories of looting the treasury in Ottoman-administered Baghdad. That is why actually going back to our discussion about if Matt Iglesias could survive being lost between borders, I think the only way he survives in Mumbai.

I think he's Sephardic so he could tap into his ancient memories of like doing empezzlement and like East Asian sort of cultures I think that that could be his path but he wouldn't be he wouldn't be surviving as a tourist guide No no yeah he would

It's like he either He either just get shape like One Man Pogrom or he's like Scarface for opium trade Which you know I am not Me and Josh have kind of It was kind of like the Michael Jackson

Beated video. We kind of squashed the beef between the two types of jizz. But I think it's cool that you guys did that Scarface shit with the Ophiom. Yeah, for 500 years. Opheme comes from the earth. It's fine. It's not

like, you know, morphine. You know what? The Ottomans actually kept us around, which wasn't the case for the Ashkenazi. They were throwing you all around. They thought we were cool. So, yeah, we were, I mean, We went from weakness to weakness, one could say. Speaking of weakness, I mean, just to bring up, we mentioned Josh Gottenheimer, and I said we

talked about the election results last week. And there have been a lot of very, very good reactions that I've been enjoying. But one of my favorite is that, like, centrist Democrats are now coming out with their own manifestos. And there's a new group called Promise to America. And it says the broad majority deserves a politics that represent them. join us. And I just looked at the Promise to America account. And they're replying to a clip of AOC talking about centrists who are now pledging to stand against socialism. And, you know, they're dealing with a fallout of, like I said, basically a sweep in New York City of either DSA or Mamdani-backed candidates who all won their primaries last week. And the response to this is, this is the promise to

America. They say, hi, AOC. Our promise to America isn't just about rejecting socialism. It's a vision for the future. Our principles say it best. You guys ready for this? We believe in an economy that works for everyone, not just those already at the top. We believe in secure borders and safe communities. We want government that works to solve problems. Or sorry, it's a typo here. It says we want a government. We want government that works to solve problems. And we want a politics of persuasion. And most of all, we are proud of America. Yeah, nobody's ever said this before. This is like huge. I've had to go into like my bunker like to just process this.

And so and also one thing I will note, this was started by like a 20 year old guy, just like a 20 year old like college dropout. That person is actually my doppelganger from the Black Lodge. They, um, release him, which is what he's doing now. So he's very dangerous.

But yeah. So yeah, I like that it's like that. It's like that is basically what they've been saying. I like that they're saying this is not in response to socialums. It has like nothing to do like with socialism. And they started this like in the past like five days. So.

Yeah, we would like a, we'd like a politics that works on solving problems as opposed to, you know, ones that this safe. We actually, we're trying to create more problems. Yeah. Too long the Democratic Party has been focused on creating problems.

And I think it's time for pragmatic solutions to problems rather than more problems. But Josh, per the results last week. I mean, I don't know how you felt going into this New York City primary. As someone who just watches the games, I watch the commentary after the games, you know, I watch the pregame. Like, I'm not really into the analytics. I'm not into the weeds. Everybody knew that Dan Goldman was done.

Oh, yeah. That was a fate of complete. Yeah. Redlander was going to beat him regardless. As for the other. Crying at campaign events and stuff. Yeah. As to the other two ones, we got Darlaiza, Shepard.

Valleye and Chavez. I thought of the two of them, I thought Chavez would win. And I thought if they're like the wild cover was Daraliza because she has the, let's just say the wackiest posting history. And she was going up against the guy. He was talking about the ancient vaults in Russia. And she was going up against a guy who is like,

you know, chair of the house Hispanic caucus, you know, like a real representation of like that old school, like ethnic machine city. politics. And I just thought two out of three would be like a landslide. But like, could you give some context for what three out of three from Mondani endorsed candidates and then like a nine out of 10 for the DSA slate in New York City? Just like some context of like what that means,

if anything. Yeah. Well, I would say I think I felt the same way as you. My expectation and I nearly like, like you could sort of imply from what I was posting. I thought it would be about two out of three. Yeah, like what you said. I thought Goldman obviously, he was. He was, was literally lost between borders because it was not a good district for him. He had only won his primary, like with about 25% of the vote. I think like in 2020 against like every single other candidate in the district was like to his left. This is very much like how Daniel Biss when he won his race in Illinois, he was doing like the J Street Crip Walk like saying get the fuck out of here. Apec. This is a J. Street. This is J. Street territory. That part of Brooklyn and

Manhattan is a very similar, like, part of the world. That is Jay Street Town. If you were, like, the wrong kicks in there, they're going to get, like, some, like, a 50-year-old, like, lawyer, like, entertainment lawyer to just, like, put you in a van. So, like, that's very, it was, it was, like, they have, like, audies coming around with, like, machine guns attached to them if, like, you have the wrong colors. Yeah, they, they do, um, they do the infamous, their own take on the infamous savage life from Cook County Jail where

if you're you know they open up your circumcised urethra and spit into it that's a really that is a really low percentage joke I don't know how many people know what savage life is

we can edit that everybody like in weird of it does this also voted for Hillary in 2016 but um like this is just one of those like Lib Left districts that's like very much like kind of like a war type area if there ever was one. And those areas have become like kind of more

radicalized since 2020 which you like there was like the BIS race you saw like between Cat Abu and Biss there was like the APEC candidate that race came in like third place. Like the constituency for like the classic kind of like rich inner city centrist Democrat just isn't really there anymore. It was already

like kind of not there like in the 90s and now it's just definitely not there. So that race that was really just like a matter of time. Goldman got like a very poor result against like a kind of a paper candidate, I think, in 2024. Yeah, his first reason was 20, 22 after they withdrew the lines. So, yeah, that one was like, that one was always obvious. The Chavez race was interesting. And I was also, I posted something like I didn't think these races were especially indicative of things, which I still do sort of agree with now. But like, I think that the context, especially with the size of the victories and obviously

with DAC winning in her district, that does like, obviously. changed expectations. Her district is this very, it's like the heart of like the so-called commie corridor. Like if you think of like any like stereotypical like transplant neighborhood like Ridgewood or Bushwick, it's probably in there like those places that are all like former like crack.com contributors like next to like Hasidic Jews. It was the strongest for Mamdani of like any of the congressional districts.

I think in all like in the primary in like he got like I think operas of 70% of the vote there. So this is like the heart of left-wing politics in New York, if not the country. It's like the online left world. Like this is the place where you could probably elect somebody running on like unequal exchange or somebody running under like being Jake Sykai's like psychic muse in Congress. Like it's very, very left wing. And so the, but it had this incumbent representative Nidia Velasquez who was like this beloved like long, long serving like Latina, like the abulita of the new. York left sort of and she was like an early Zoron backer and she decided to retire and it opens up this open race here and this becomes this very heavyweight contest because you have Claire Valdez

who immediately becomes a person who is like a very recently elected DSA assembly woman in the New York State Assembly who Zoron backs and this is not without controversy because this is seen by the sitting representative and the Brooklyn sort of Brooklyn Queens is like Lib Left like sort of reform machine that had been elected and like to replace the actual machine Democrats like in the 2010s. Like this is sort of like the working families party type people. They're like, wait a second. We did all this work to get rid of like the actual machine candidates like 10 years ago. And now you're just trying to preempt us in this district. Like fuck you. So they run Antonio Raynoso. Who I thought I was really surprised by is a sitting Brooklyn

borough president. We know historically that that is a very high level position in New York City. Oh, Eric Adams. Yeah, that's where Eric Adams came from. Like, that's where like the current comptroller is a Manhattan Borough president. Like if you're a borough president, you're a big deal. And he gets backing from like Velasquez and the Working Families Party. And it's kind of this fight like between sort of like the new socialist left and the traditional like lib left reformist types that were there before the like the DSA sort of organized itself after 2016. And I thought like, I thought it was a little tricky and there was a lot of like discussion or at the time around like,

oh, did Zoron overstep his boundaries? Did he go too far like kind of this is, he does this a lot. He did, he was doing like LBJ master of the Senate shit in this race just, just flagrantly switching up on his day ones. Like like I think like he was just going like just stabbing every, But every major endorsement he got against Cuomo in the back, like left and right, like Falasquez endorsed against him, like the saying congressman that DAC defeated also endorsed him in the primary, or at least in the general election. I don't know if it was the primary, but these were all people like who were relatively positive towards him.

And he was just stabbing them in the back, left and right. Like for Chavez, it was like kind of like, that was pretty reasonable because she was, I always thought she was a very quality candidate. And it seemed like, well, if she loses, like in this race, it would just be kind of a testament to like the strength of her opponent being the sitting borough president. And then there was the New York 13th district race. And the context of this is another district that was also very pro Mamdani in the mayoral primary. That only really that goes. I think that means a lot.

It obviously only goes so far because like a lot like there's questions about if Zoran's appeal can like stretch beyond his. himself and into these lower level races is like what everybody says like oh it wasn't about the ideology he just had all these great TikTok videos but so if you're not great at making that maybe you won't be able to get his appeal so it wasn't taken for granted that these districts would really like necessarily vote for anybody that he endorsed so while you have you have the goldman district they're running the former comptroller of new york city you have the valdez district there open seat. They're running like a sitting state assembly woman.

Then you have this seat and they're not really exactly running that. They're running what I would say is kind of a throwback to an older age of left wing politics where you have this PhD student adult Muslim convert who has never really held elected office before, running a campaign before. Simile hasn't really had like a job before like outside of activism and organizing, which, like, obviously is, that's a lot of very important work, but it's not exactly what, like, people in political science would call, like, incredible

the CV that you would normally expect from a candidate for a high, for office. Yeah, it's not like being a lawyer or something or like a doctor, which is historically what puts you in the positions to pull the stuff off. Like, even AOC, when she ran in her race, was like a former Senate intern for, like, Ted Kennedy. She didn't exactly have that. What she did have was a lot of like a very extensive online background of a very particular character

that wasn't exactly fitting with like kind of direction that the kind of electoral left had taken under Zoran where they're like oh we just care about affordability we're not like going after the police anymore we're keeping the police commissioner on we're going to brag about like

crime falling like Lander is obviously this kind of like not cadre person in his own right. He's this guy who left the DSA after October 7th if you want to like know anything about like his whole deal. Valdez is just as down the line like former labor organizer like somebody who I bet if she probably posted like defund the police or whatever like in 2020 but like it wasn't like her whole deal. DAC kind of made this this referendum between the establishment and not this more modernized version of socialism that you are like socialist politics that we've seen with Zoron where it's been

very kind of analytical and focused on what's like the most optimal issues to have increase your salience as like a candidate or as their left wing person like what issues most favor you. It was like she was just kind of back to the sort of like full scale just like temporarily embarrassed anarchism like we're just trying to like push like this vision of society where everybody lives on volunteerist communes and like we go as far as we can to like push that kind of concept. And I did not think, I thought that this was kind of a throwback to the Diane Morales campaign, which was like the DSA's efforts in 2021, which notably did not see as much success with working class voters as Zoran's campaign did, specifically a districts like

this one in Harlem where it was, this is this incredibly racially diverse part of the city, like very Hispanic, very black, as would become like a big campaign issue in it of itself. But she ends up beating an incumbent outright with that kind of background. And with the campaign where she was, it wasn't like a Zoron thing where she was flagrantly like kind of switching up our old positions. She was out there saying like basically saying, I don't, I can't like tell you any scenario where I'd want a murderer to go to prison like in interviews. And like recently like she went on MSNBC and she refused to confirm her deny if she was a communist. And this person wins about like four points against like a pretty well established incumbent. So I, I, I, that,

seems really significant. I would have really, like, if it was just the two other races, I would be like, okay, this is just a DSA shoring up their own territory. This isn't really something we've seen before or within the past 16 months or really at any other point. And I'm kind of curious

as to what you all thought of it, honestly. I know I'm not the interviewer here, but like just this kind of really exceptional kind of candidate. Did your opponent accuse her of being Haitian? Yeah, I mean, that was that was just, that was. That was, that was. That was, the closing argument for

Espion was that basically that she's Haitian you know this is classic New York City like ethnic machine politics is like Dominican's Haitians you know well I mean it did it did almost work when Mondale

tried it against Reagan yeah well another another feature of Espiot's closing argument is I did like that he got a major endorsement but it was from David Ortiz And I was just saying like how that works Is your Dominican in New York City

We're like I mean this district You know encompasses the Bronx And it's just like where do your loyalties go In a situation like that? Because you know other Red Sox fans in the Bronx Yeah If you're a Dominican who plays for the Red Sox Is that like do the Dominicans have a term that's like

Koppo that refers to that It's like in the Dominican version of the foreword They'd announce him I don't know between him and Pedro Martinez. They're like the, you know, the kings of the DR. So I don't know. I don't know if it made many Dominican people in New York, Red Sox fans,

but I don't know how they're David Ortiz. But just answer your question how I feel about it. Like, you know, I don't know. I mean, I'm, I was surprised specifically by DAC's win. And I'm surprised partly because of who she took out. And her sort of, you know, I don't think we should put murderers in prison.

And like I said, the whack. posting history, but I have noticed that in some of the reactions to this, like, for instance... She was like anti-Ukraine, too. Like, she said that like the war started because the war started because the U.S. has been bullying Russia

since like 1990. Which, like, I mean, it's like the thing with all of this is like there's like some degrees of truth of this, but it's like, you know that if you've like said this stuff, like, you probably shouldn't be like running for elected office as a Democrat. I, like, there are just so many things that you would expect. to be totally disqualifying,

just break all the rules of everything we're supposed to know about modern democratic politics. But she still just got like that, like they did like exit polls and it's like, they still got like people like, like they're like, oh, who did they vote for it?

It's like, oh, I voted for because I want like a more progressive direction of politics. I want somebody who's more energetic. That she's still got that kind of voter despite all of that. I mean, my feeling about it is I think it's a reflection of the fact that like, per the promise for America,

like, you know, the new contract with America, like the, they're sort of the commitments that they're outlining to the American people, which is like, you know, a government that works for you, not against you. And, you know, uh, secure. The idea that like, they're like, okay, like, this is what we've got. And like, one, the first thing I'll say is that all of this is a proof positive that the abundance movement is put it in the ground already. Like, start, start chiseling a date into the fucking headstone because like,

this has got no juice. no juice whatsoever. And if anything, Zoran has basically co-opted most of the things he did. He is. He is. suspiciously. Abundance movement size bulge in his belly right now. Yeah. But like, I think like the fact that like

we're seeing now this, this rush for like, I guess like centrist or moderate Democrats now are having to like, I don't know, raise the banner and be like we're getting out organized. You know, like how do we get people to be passionate about our policies? And I think the question, I think the answer here is like, what are your

policies. Yeah. Because like that is that is a huge problem for the Democratic Party right now is that like, they're like, this is not just about defeating socialism. It's about a positive vision for the future. And that vision includes, you know,

I don't know, small business owners getting tax breaks or like, that's, even like that's too specific. The vision for the future is like, yeah, like a government that works on making things affordable for you. Okay,

good. Thanks. Yeah. But what I mean is that like for someone like DAC to win and have the average voter just be like, I think we need a younger, more progressive. I think that's a reflection of like

when a state now we're like the the DSA platform is more in tune with like the what the average like no kings protester or like the average like liberal Democrat. What they want or like that they I don't know like they they find themselves in a situation now where they realize that they can say the things that they want

and the politicians who do seem to be getting elected because of that particularly on Israel or like that being a clear dividing line. Yeah, that's a huge wedge issue. It is a wedge issue that is like a huge, huge boon to the left, the progressive left or the DSA left, whatever you want to call it. And I think now like the Democratic Party, the leaders of the Democratic Party are stuck in this bind where like they keep like, they're being like, okay, guys, we have to, we have to give people something. We have to, we have to stand for something. And then, but the thing is they haven't decided what they actually stand for or believe in. Or rather they do know.

they stand for and believe in and they know that that's unacceptable to voters. Yeah. I think that there's something pathological about how they've approached this. And this is something that I think is at its most like kind of blatant with the McMorro campaign and her trying to bring up Hassan into the race and make that an issue within the Democratic primary at Michigan. And that totally backfired into the point that it has like all but completely destroyed her campaign and like people were telling her to drop out after she like started leading the polling.

She just got she just picked up the endorsement of the Detroit Free Press. Oh yeah. Yeah, that'll be great. You got another, another Klobuchar Warren's situation. You don't know what to fucking do about that. Which the obvious thing, if you want Abdul al-Said to lose, the obvious thing is get McMoror to drop out of the fucking race. I don't know.

I think that she... I don't think that her votes would necessarily flow to Stevens necessarily. But, like, we'll... But, I mean, I'll give you a chance. Yeah. Yeah. I won't profess to be an expert on Michigan politics, but I do kind of agree with that reading that, um,

I, I think... If anything, McMorrow, I don't think that like even, I don't think I could confidently say that even like 70% of her voters would go to Stevens. I think, you know, gun to my head. I would say a lot of her voters are just people who like would be closer to the wonderful ladies from the I've had it podcast. Yeah, yeah. didn't look too deeply into this, maybe don't know a lot about Abdul Saeed, and they're going with her because she,

at least out of the gate, presented herself as, if not someone as fun as Jasmine Crockett, someone in the mold of like, oh, I'll really take these guys on. But to go back to your original question, you,

you've brought something up repeatedly with, with the Crockett and Platner model, which is obviously two very similar, but two very different politicians. But the hyper

partisanship of Crockett and the outsider status of Platner, they both they fulfill this vacuum that has existed since the election was called, which is, I think

the biggest tactical error that the center of the party made was just deciding not just deciding this but announcing okay everyone we're going to roll over and play dead for the next three years yeah automatically come back to power which is only something you do

if you don't take any challenges to you within the party seriously right and like look everyone likes joking about like how woke one was this totally different era and articles were so powerful that they would get people fired from cabinet positions and how things aren't like that now.

It's blah, blah, blah. But in order for something like that to be so powerful, you do have to have millions of people who do believe that stuff. And presumably, even though Donald Trump won, which, again, the reason for this roll over and played dead strategy was this idea that Donald Trump won this amazing upset landslide when in reality it was a 1.5% popular vote victory in a cost of living election against a dying incumbent and a campaign that seemed like it was trying to throw half the time. A lot of Democrats don't even agree that he won at all. It's a contested position.

But that left open is a vacuum of like tens of millions of voters who even though, you know, woke one is no longer in vogue, they still are very much of that persuasion. Maybe they're not all of them or all the way there with like sharing web comics where they ask the protagonist,

okay, you're a prison abolitionist, what would you do with a serial killer? And the protagonist goes, I don't answer those questions anymore. But they're like they're they are still strongly craving some type of hyper-partisan leadership

that will meaningfully challenge and consternate Trump and Bants and all of these guys. Or anything that will just attack Republicans in general, because that is like what both of those kinds of modes of operation do. The outsider ness that Platner does, like he

obviously attacks his own party all the time, but it's always on the basis of these people are weak. They haven't able to stop Republicans or not different Republicans. Or Crocket, just in her case where she just only ever attacked Republicans and once she had to like actually engage with somebody within her own party, her appeal like totally floundered. And that is, like the centrist just became so good. They are like not so, they became like so kind of like committed to this kind of surest understanding of things where like, oh, we know, we have all the statistics.

We know that people who like are oriented a certain way along like some kind of like congressional voting scale outperform whatever set expectations by X amount. And this definitively proves that like our side is right. Like to such an extent that like the left could have only got it to this point if they were total paper tigers. And the best thing to do is just ignore them and attack them. And what they end up doing is they end up running against left wing candidates like how like Republicans would run against Democrats. And that's what McMurro did and her thing with Hassan. Yeah. Bringing up how like, oh, Abdul is a fucking anti-Semitic bigot like piece of shit or like the way that espiat like tried to run against DAC.

like just bringing up like Yeah like two left wing It's it's the funny thing is that It's known in politics That one of like the ways you sabotage another person's party Is to run ads in their primary Where you say exactly these things

Where you take out like a candidate who is like more like on the more radical end And you run an ad that's pretending to attack them But is actually trying to increase their appeal within the other parties Electrant by saying oh they're too radical for Missouri or Michigan. Yeah, I mean, I want to get into another reason for, I really did not go into this with any expectation at all, but just before I get into my secondary reasoning for why I, for, you know, just a clean sweep.

I do want to point out that surest understanding of the left being paper tigers is so hilarious to me because it, I mean, it reminds me of that post that got made making fun of the AI people where he said, oh, my, my newborn son was, he was eight pounds when he was born and now he's 32 pounds. Within the next 20 years, he will be 10 million tons going at this current rate. It's that same understanding of mathematics. It's like, like, Shores modeling was basically like, if you were trying to calculate a major league baseball player's future batting average going off of their statistics from T-ball. Yeah.

Oh, this guy, this guy is just he's never going to get on base every single time. Yeah. He's batting a thousand, literally. Yeah. The comparison I heard was that it was like trying to like decide how somebody should try to be good at baseball by saying they should change their first name. like, oh, you should change

to the end of air because they'll hit a lot of home runs. Yeah, yeah. If you want to make it to the major leagues, the first thing you got to do is alter your birth certificate. That correlates so strongly with guys who stand out

who stand out in the Little League World Series and have great careers. Yeah. But, but, but, um, I, just as far as like the success of these candidates, though.

And like, obviously, DAC's stuff from 2020. is hilarious. But need I remind everyone that even Ritchie Torres was posting to fund the police. Yeah.

She was saying more stuff to that. She was saying like COVID actually came from France and that POC had stopped every plague in history. Oh yeah. No, she was, I thought she was a successor to Diane Morales, my favorite candidate ever. Yeah. A candidate who got into a feud with Ross Barkin

calling him racist for writing an article. about how fucked up, how poorly run her campaign is. I love her thing. Yeah, she used like child labor. Dude, I, dude, if we keep, again, if we keep going at this current rate and in the next 10 years, Clay Higgins is the only controlled opposition, I want to give Diane Morales, like, I want to make her like the minister of defense or something. She deserves something.

But, but, uh, we still call us secretary of war, but we put her in. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But the other thing, though, it reminded me of something that we talked about on this show. I think also on an episode you were on during the general election in 2024. And it was, you know, during the efforts of the Democratic establishment and their allies in the media to kind of whip up support for Kamala by pointing out that like, you know, she famously said, we can't look away from Gaza and presenting her as this alternative and going, oh, well, you know, oh, do you want, oh, if you care about Palestine so much, do you want Trump?

And, you know, I remember that our point about Israel as an issue within democratic politics. And this was in response to their secondary argument, which I always found so ridiculous, which was, oh, why do you care about this little country with like 12 million people? that's on the other side of the world. The people saying that always are guys who work for magazines called, like, Jewish Daily for the Jewish Studies of Jewish Judaism. Guys who, if you click on their muckraker, like all their articles are just accusing, like, random hot dog vendors of anti-Semitism. Yeah, are stuff like called like the Jewishness of Jalen Hertz every time there's a Super Bowl. Yeah. The secret Jewish history of backgammon.

But our They never do it about something Where it actually worked like Fromm games That would actually be cool But they never do it with that It's always like Taylor Swift They never say we invented the sitcom But whatever whatever neither here nor there

But our retort of course was like Whether you are passively You know Distrustful of Israel Or not But you're framing of this issue is A, it's just something that's it's foreign policy. It's happening over there.

Our point was, no, this is a test of what you will tolerate. What level of brutality, dehumanization, and horrors you will tolerate. Will you, if you are shown the worst fucking images you've ever seen in your entire life every day for three years, can you just swallow that? And the bet of the Democratic establishment was yes. you know, if you would ask me in 2022 if, you know, to take the others out of that, that

I would have been very pessimistic about it. Yeah. But I think for a very significant amount of voters, both in these elections and I think probably at the country at large, they may not put it in such explicit terms, but I think they made the exact

same calculation. It is not just that they are upset by the images that they are seeing, they have intuited that what the Biden administration was responsible for in Gaza, what Israel as an extension of American policy represents, it represents everything that they want to do everywhere. It is the petri, that it is, in addition to every other awful thing it is, it is also the Western world's petri dish of brutality.

And even if these people maybe weren't as well-read or did not have an extensive background following this issue for decades, maybe a lot of them were new to it, they correctly intuited something that, frankly, makes me pretty hopeful. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the Democratic base is now correctly figuring out that every single thing that they are, every, you know, small diameter. bomb aimed at a tent every fucking you know drone that is a program to imitate the cries of a child these all represent the apex of human cruelty and you can ignore it you can plug your ears you can go that's oh it's happening to them it's Hamas's fault i don't give a shit i live in america but no even if you are completely cynical they are planning to use that on you on someone you know one of these days.

And you cannot separate what has been done over there with anything else. And I don't know. Yeah. It just I continue to be very encouraged by not just Democratic base, but a lot of independent independence, their response to this. Yeah. And Felix, just to go off that, like, in terms of like, another thing I'm thinking about, like, why are, like, why are we seeing such an incredible crash out from,

centrist and moderate. And like the sort of centrist Democrat reaction I've imbibed after the results of this election are basically just outright anti-democratic. Yeah. They basically want to, they want to gerrymender New York City so that like Long Island suburbs and New Jersey are now part of it. They're, you know, putting the state in some sort of, like putting the city in some sort of state receivership. Or like, you know, like Letitia James or Corey Booker or like a lot of the other response

so like these big upset wins against incumbents. I think Letitia James said a lot of these new candidates, they don't understand the voters in their communities. It's like, really? They just won. What are you talking about? But like I think the crash out and like, you know, this American, the promise to America,

like this, this very tepid, vacuous slogan earring. I think the panic is setting in because I think like what these wins show. And then Felix, to your point about how is, Israel has really like completely done a 180 as far as the Democratic electorate goes. I think it's putting the lie or it's putting them in a difficult situation because for so long the Democrats could tell their base, oh yeah, okay, like there's the things that we all believe in together, wink, wink, right, like Medicare for all or, you know, a higher minimum wage or taxing billionaires, but you trust us, right?

Like we can't just rent candidates that say that they believe in the things that you believe in or want from an elected official because you got to win the general election. You got to win against Republicans and you have to moderate. So you have to like come up with all of these vague sounding non-polices that like are sort of standing as a substitute. But you don't want to,

you don't want to frighten the independence or the swing voters away. And like when you add the horror show of Gaza over the last three years to the fact that like, they lost to Donald Trump in 2024. That like they've lost, I think like the, a lot of the salience of their most potent sort of like base disciplining method, which is that like no candidate, you may think you like this candidate,

but no candidate or political movement should ever give voice to the policies or opinions that you share. Because even though you may like them, they're wrong in the sense that we'll lose an election as a result of it. And if you're going to lose elections regardless, why not just stand up for the things that you're supposed to believe in? Yeah. And I would say with that the thing that's so crucial thing, and I think that this is like the most important thing to understand about the whole aftermath of Biden. Between 19 to 76, 1980 and in 2024, the Democratic Party did not have a single president who left office unpopular. They had lost elections, but Bill Clinton was, had a high beretting when he left office, like Al Gore, like won 2000, like even if he wasn't like seated as the president. And like in between. then, and you have Obama and he leaves office popular too.

So in both of these cases with Clinton and Obama in terms of base disciplining, and this is very different from the Republican Party, which has obviously gone through so many different transformations, you have two presidencies that they can point to and say, were popular successes that proved that their way of viewing things at least can run the country well on like terms that like a majority of the country can acknowledge. And like to the extent that we ever lose elections, it's either that they're stolen by like the, James Baker or Russia or like that we are it was just a super close race or that like a candidate was two left like carry or whatever. And then you get to Biden who only serves one term.

He leaves office as the least popular Democratic president since Jimmy Carter. And there are just multiple generations of Democratic Party like elected officials and consultants and staffers and just the entire liberal apparatus that has no living memory of what it's like to have your most recent president be widely regarded as a failure. And they can't, they can't really comprehend what you need to do to move on from that. Republican just know how to do that super well. They've had, every president they've had since, like, Reagan has left off as popular. This is just another day of the week for them. It doesn't mean anything. They'll like just shift. They'll morph. That's their great skill. Democrats don't know how to do that. You still have like the candidate for governor in

my state, Keisha Lance Bottoms, like won her primary saying people are missing. Joe Biden more and more every day. Gavin Newsom is going out there saying that he wants to carry Biden's legacy and that he wants to get to finish the job for like the utmost time. And the party base, like it wasn't just that like the general electorate

dislike Biden for X or Y reason because of conservative media and cheap fakes or whatever and the liberals were just like the only ones who saw reality. Biden's approvals with Democrats were like relatively low for most of his term. on Israel specifically, and I think this is the only case that I can remember ever seeing, there was an outright majority or like a plurality of Democrats who outright disapproved of his policy on Israel, like as early as I think like 2023 or 2024, like there was real dissent with him

and there's no idea, there's no compelling argument that this was just the way things had to be done because look at the results. He served two terms. People like him. He got X or Y accomplishment done. that was credible with Clinton and Obama, but they don't know how to deal with the president who isn't Bill Clinton or Barack Obama and the legacy of that. And going back to Felix's point about, like, I'm just not expecting this to be a big issue. I think that like the one of the most telling like things that happened in the entire 2024 election was when Kamala Harris or Kamala Harris went on that town hall in October, one of her town halls that she did. And there was a young voter who went up to her and like this voter said, like Astor, which was,

she would do on Gaza because she said that was an issue that mattered to her. And Kamala's response was actually, according to polling, that's not an issue you care about. You young voters care about the cost of living and democracy and just refused to answer the question. That was how they intuited it. They couldn't really understand and they still can't really understand that even if somebody lists cost of living and housing or whatever is their number one issue, they will look at issues like Gaza and Israel and your stance towards APEC as a legitimizer towards that. It's trust that you actually can do what you promise on every other issue to such an extent that I think in the chivalier race for your average Democratic voter and these

kind of more left-leaning, like socialist-leaning districts, because this was a very strong Zorhan area. Somebody like a Spiot probably shouldn't have the representing there. He was probably like doomed like to a certain point. But he did lose to somebody who like really was not, did not fit the credible candidate mold. He didn't fit. the mold of somebody like Claire Valdez or Lander or Zoran himself. And it's just, I think that it shows, and it's something that like they really haven't reckoned with, for your average liberal voter, getting money from APEC is just as scandalous as calling the Powerpuff girls like white devils in 2020 or whatever.

That's the way they think about it now. Yeah. Yeah. And Josh, another thing I want to ask you about it is like there is with Valdez and DAC specifically, there is. there is like the sort of the the common sense or sort of commonsensical narrative that you see on CNN or MSNBC elsewhere and like reflected in the comments made by Tish James about how like these are sort of becoming higher income neighborhoods and like they're not a new voters and these candidates certainly understand the community is it's like this idea that it was basically like the Connie Carter book into Queens like Harlem is like these are newcomers these are gentrifiers these are gentrifiers these are like the DSA base of sort of college-educated, downwardly mobile, white people moving into

these neighborhoods and changing the makeup of these neighborhoods and also taking advantage of low turnout elections. As far as I can tell, that's broadly true. But the thing is, whether it's Zonon, DAC, Valdez, or any of these candidates, they would not be winning these races if it was only the D. Yeah, it used to be true.

I was saying this used to be true. And this is one of the least encouraging things like about the state of the left. like I went kind of like after like Bernie and like AOC went like balls to the wall for backing Biden and everything like after like during 2024, the Bowman lost and Bush last. I was kind of like I was very deeply pessimistic about the state of like the electoral left. Anybody who like read what I was writing around the time can attest to that. I was talking about running like Mark Ruffalo or Angelina Jolie just totally like throwing like the entire playbook out the window. And what Zoron did that was so exceptional is that he totally throwing. this out the window. And these candidates are on the, like, they're kind of extending that past the mayoral context, past the context of facing someone like Cuomo, past the context of like running for an executive office versus a congressional one, which is a very different type of race. Because it was true that this, like this was a movement of transplants. And the cases of like,

with Rashida Taleb and Ilhan Omar, they weren't even really insurgent candidates to a certain extent because they had both been in the state assembly prior to being elected. They won contested primaries. I think in Talib's case she won with like 25% of the vote is a very split field. But in the cases with like Bush or

AOC are like those two cases. Like those were races with very low turnout where they won because they got support from the white voters and their districts. Like the young like the yuppie sort of areas like the

girls TV show parts of like their constituencies as opposed to winning the more traditional working class like areas you would theoretically expect a socialist candidate to have their appeal with that was like that was true and it was a it was a black eye and like the only person who really had demonstrated any consistent appeal beyond that kind of like like educated base was Bernie in his two races where he won the first time he did very well with white working class photos a second time he did very well with Hispanic working. class voters. And he's old as fuck, so you can't run him again. So it's this big, is this just a fundamentally limited like just online, just like political tenancy? Does this have any constituency?

And what Zoron does, and we do see in 2021 with the cluster fuck race or New York mayor that wherever you go from, they were trying to run Scott Stringer for mayor first. Then he got me tuned. He was the first left candidate. Then they tried, then did Diane Morales and she got exposed for having like child labor. So she went down and then they backed Maya Wiley, who was like a de Blasio appointee. And Wiley really is like what it looks like when you only win the transplants.

When you only win the ideologically committed people who are following who the working families party endorses and who AOC endorses and you don't get anybody besides that. You get 20% of the vote. You don't make it to the final round and you like only win these certain areas of like Brooklyn and North Manhattan. That's what Wiley did.

With Zoran, he won those areas by a lot. He did even better in those areas than, like, while he did. But that was just his base. He expanded, like, the appeal of this kind of explicitly socialist kind of electoral engine to, like, these working class minority areas that were DSA candidates had never done well before. And that included areas like the SBI district and included, I wouldn't say as much like the Lander District or the Valdes District. but like it included the the the the mann district this very Asian American district in

Queens this is one of the more overlooked results because it didn't really have as much support or hype but like Grace Mang this like really established incumbent in this like the sort of northern Queens this very Asian areas she got under 60% of the vote against the like I think it was a DSA challenger and she could potentially be vulnerable in the next election if there's a more considerable effort against her this is somebody who's like a top level over performer in general election. She has a very established appeal. So with what Zoran did and with this like sort of environment after 2024 where the

Democratic establishment has lost a lot of its credibility, which was really its main selling point for these non-white working class communities, there have been major and very serious inroads in these kind of more traditionally like poorer and working class parts of New York and across like all of America really where like you have platinum winning nearly every single town in Maine are like Abdul al-Said. I think that there was a poll recently that showed him doing the best among non-white voters in Michigan. He could, he did terribly in Detroit in 2018. He could be very well win Wayne County this year. And we'll see what happens in Denver tomorrow, though that I don't know how like really diverse any part of Colorado is if I'm being totally

honest. But yeah, it's just this. It's split between hikers and mountain bikers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two big constituencies in Colorado. Yeah, the ski instructors have historically been hostile to Bernieism, but like they're upset about like democratic, like the only the $15 minimum wage. But obviously the rent, like the transplants and the people that is kind of embarrassing, they get support from like the people who like were like posting about like Dogo five years ago. Like that's your base. You're getting 90% of the vote from them. Like they're the people who back you.

They're your volunteers. often your candidates. It is what it is. But you would not be winning these races if it weren't for inroads with these genuine working class voters. Why do you think that is? Is it like, is it a result of the overall lack of credibility and trust that is broken down between the Democratic party and their overall base? Is it the candidates themselves? Is it the organizing of DSA? Like, what accounts for this shift? Yeah, I think there's the credibility thing is a big part of it. But I, and there is, like, it's kind of like the Zoran style, like the kind of like people would call it like social fascist way of like kind of orienting his politics. But there is something to be said about the most

effective way you can run as a left wing candidate in this country is to focus relentlessly on your best issues. This is something that was like kind of theorized by Paul Wellstone like three years ago before he was killed by Dick Cheney in 2002 and condemned us to a century of darkness. But it's basically like you can't win along the obstacle course set up for you by the establishment and the right. You can't try to like win along the kind of environment that they set up where at the sort of the New York City race, the presumption was that it would be focused on immigration and crime. And when Zoran was losing terribly in the early polling, that was the case. Voters prioritized immigration and crime. And what he does, despite being

this kind of cadre socialist who had his own fair share of like Putin opened the oldest vault, like on all the biblical figures are black type post in 2020. He relentlessly focused on this, on these issues. And he had like the issues that were the best for the DSA, like housing and, um, affordability. And that changed the issue environment in his favor. And that ends up kind of like, if you're like making like these kind of non-white working class voters think about like policing or like something along those lines or the left's appeal historically is not at its most. potent, you're not really going to do as well with them, like you're going to continue to do

pretty poorly. If you make them think about housing or like economics or the areas where your side has more trust and the existing establishment has a lot less trust, ARP Gaza, I would say, and like these congressional races, reform policies, a lot more salient of an issue, that changes the whole dynamic. And that is really what these DSA candidates I think have done very well at over the past year. What's fascinating about DACs is that she didn't really do that as much. Like she did run like sort of along

like as a Zoran style candidate, but she wasn't like shying away from like really kind of like wacky 20-20 beliefs in the way that he did. Interracial relationships. Are they good or bad? Let's have that conversation. But like I mean like to reiterate the point here

like I really don't think Gossack can be undersold. Yeah. As like how poisonous this. has been to the Democratic Party because this is like a 90-10 wedge issue that cuts against party leaders cuts against party leadership. And I can't remember. It's worse as anything. I think it's worse that immigration was in 2016 because like at least like Republican elites at that point. Like I don't know the, like they had like moved far to the route and immigration by the time that Trump came along. Like it would be the equivalent of like if like Chuck Schumer was like saying, oh,

maybe we should invade Israel to spread democracy to the Middle East. Maybe we shouldn't. And like, We still elected DIC anyways. Like, so, like, this is something like where Democrats are just as far afield from their base as anything you'll ever see in politics. And honestly, I think for like, for both Rianoso and Espiot, maybe not Rianoso, but like, yeah, he like endorsed AOC. But I think he could, like, like, these races would, would, I think like the standard template would have persisted. And like, maybe the DSA's candidates would get a little bit closer, but ultimately, like, they would succumb to the.

the, you know, name recognition and, I don't know, like the inertia of party politics. Rinoza was a very legitimate candidate. Yeah, but the thing is, like, they lost because, like, they are incapable of fucking putting a leash on Israel or even saying anything, even remotely like that. Like, if the Democrats had, like, sometime in Biden's before he, like, decided not to run for election, decided to put one meaningful, like, stop selling weapons to Israel. Just stop giving them bombs to kill all these people. I think they could have sort of smothered in the cradle these incumbent losses that they've just taken and even like a grand platinum situation

I think they'd be in a much better but like they have intentionally shot themselves in the foot on this and like they're left to say things like you know to get back to my original point I saw Josh Shapiro commenting on the DSA and he was like well it's one thing to win races but it's another thing to govern in a way that actually delivers things for people

and it comes back to the original fucking thing I said He's never even governed. He's not like fucking like Newsom or whatever. He has some legislative accomplishments. He's at a Republican state sent his entire tenure. He's that. He's a larper. But it's also accomplish what.

Not just like not just what your record is. But what do you want to accomplish? Like what do you want to achieve? And these people cannot answer that question. Because like the answer is what? Another another $10 billion for Israel? No thanks. Well, well, it's especially astounding to use that as a line.

now where for again the average Democratic voter not only are they I mean I defer to Josh on these polls I do think that Trump's disapprovals

are the lowest they've ever been but just beyond any mathematical calculation I think this is the most disgust and like just pure hatred and exhaustion that the Democratic base and independence have felt with Trump.

Yeah. When you say, oh, it's one thing to say these things, but another thing to govern, you are as a Democrat taking ownership of everything that is happening now and going, hey, hey, see everything that's going on now? I help make it possible. Not only that. And a lot of the responses. If you want to keep going down this road, stick with me.

Yeah. And not only that, but a lot of the Democrat responses to this, to their to the incumbents getting knocked off is their reaction to the upstarts winning. They sound like Republicans running against Democrats. They'll start saying things like, oh, it'd be easier to win in office if you just promise everyone free stuff.

Yeah, like the Charlie Kirkland, Cucleville shit. It's exactly that. Yeah, it's, I think that another point that somebody has made is that like for like the longest time, a lot of these politicians are so used to being the most left-wing candidate in the elections that they run. They don't know how to run on, the right. They don't know how to run

against somebody who's to their left. So they either try to like outwardly imitate it. Like, um, rhinoso like trying to like become like, like, every like a DSA Canada only like an all but a name. I think there was like a debate where he outright like said, oh,

I want AOC to be the nominee in 2028. Like he wasn't like a chump here. He was really trying to appeal to like where the base was. It was just a question of credibility. Somebody who had already been in office for such a long time and like was just flagrantly seeking a promotion. like to help establish interest for as much as people might have liked the outgoing congresswoman like that was just a very affirmative i would say in that rate in that district and obviously

this is like a 75% zoran district his approval rating maybe 90% now like in that area and it's another thing like um that i like a point that i made on the election night this you can't take this away from zoran because a big part and the fact that he's in office right now this is kind of like the biggest, I'll say the biggest, broadest victory lap since the Rosenberg's released the nuclear blueprints. As a candidate, your appeal only goes to a certain extent. Like, with Zoran, he was like his, I think this is like the most remarkable story about him because everybody's been kind of glazing him since the beginning. But there is a huge difference in terms of the popularity of the appeal of candidate Zoron and Mayor Zoran. Whereas candidate, he obviously did well enough

to win in New York City. But, like, like that isn't really the highest bar ever. His favorability ratings were like a plurality, 45%. He had, like, in New York City itself, he barely just got,

he barely got a majority of the vote against Cuomo and the actual general election. His appeal was very kind of like, like, or like kind of divided by like age, and race to a big extent and like education. Like especially like both in the primary and the general election. But now he's the mayor of New York City.

His approval ratings. have gone from like minus 15 to like nearly break even, which is like exceptional. I think he might, like, I think there was one survey that could add him as the third most popular politician in the country, only behind Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama. That's just like how much he's really like, and he used to be registering worse than Kamala Harris and like AOC and Gavin Newsom. So he's had that huge revival at the national level. He's a popular figure at the statewide level of New York state. And his approval ratings in New York, I think, or something around like the latest poll was 75%. Like there's like a significant, it's got into such a high level. There were people who

say they personally dislike Zoran Mamdani as an individual, but approve of the job that he's doing. Like 10% of like people in New York City believe that or like around there. So his appeal like in these races wasn't like and there was a lot of talk that like the young voters weren't turning out. It was like a lower turnout older primary elector. And that was true. But what people miss is that the old voters who were turning out now. And New York City. They're the kind of, they like Zora now, a lot of former Cuomo voters like him. I think he's a good mayor and they're willing to listen to who he endorses. And I don't, DAC does not win at all if he doesn't make these kind of enroes that he has as an incumbent

with these kind of like baseline Democratic voters. And so it shows that just the fact that somebody's in leadership now doesn't necessarily mean that like everybody's going to hate them. If you're a new person and you're coming into these new kind of leadership positions and you can, even if you're an incumbent in like a position that is historically seen as this like all-time political poison chalice like the New York mayoralty. I think at this point in Eric Adams, when he was in charge of New York, like in the midsummer, his approval rate would fall into 29%. Oh, yeah. John is at 75. So he's done something really exceptional while governing. And he has expanded his appeal to a lot of people who proudly voted for Cuomo, not just once, but probably twice last year. And there is. still this presumption among Democrats, elected Democrats, centrist Democrats, that, oh, this is just some bullshit where he's just winning, like, people who know what nowadays is. Like, we don't need to care about this. It's not real. This is very, very real. And him being an office has really opened the door in a way, like that if you, like, somehow, some way get like someone like AOC or

somebody like generally left-wing elected president in 2028, there won't be a center of the Democratic party anymore because there's such a leadership vacuum, the same way. way there was in the Republican Party that anybody who can demonstrate any kind of credibility or any kind of competence or any kind of ability to even just piss off like I piss off all the people that you hate

yeah people you hate that is a very powerful skill in politics I think it talks about credibility where does most political credibility come from to voters the ability for a candidate to piss off the people that they despise and I think there's definitely seeing that with

Zoran and you know a little bit of free advice here to the new contract of America. That's why they all loved her. Yeah. It pissed me off enough and they hate me. So, uh, but you know, my advice to like the, the new liberal party, the neo-neo-liberals or the new contract of America's real moral majority of moderate Democrats, the way you run against someone to your left in a primary is you've got to outflank them from the left. So for like, like Matt Eglacius, like all those types, you got to start calling DSA social fascists. Yeah. You need to point about how Zagran Mizrahi is not building dual power.

I don't see any fucking beehives anywhere in New York. I don't like, I don't see any, I don't see any dual power anywhere. There's rent freeze bullshit. That's the, he wants housing to be, it's still provided by the marketplace. Yeah, he's a, he's a, he wants to freeze rent. He believes in rent people. He hasn't said ACAB. Yeah.

Not once. Yeah. He spells America with a C. You know, he talks about sports ball. Yep. Sports ball. Matt Iglesia should The next abundance conference

They should do a collab with the Spartacists Along those lines I have a huge development They renamed it from Welcome Pack It's now called Welcome Team Welcome Team But like To the

I love that's awesome I Just Just What I want to make about Running on Third World Abundance When he was talking about Like how we need sweatshops

So like poor people Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was one of my favorite Vox articles, it was a Zach Beauchamp article where he took, he invented neoliberal third worldism where he said that Bernie, Bernie's anti-swet shop, you know, let's bring good jobs back to America stuff, would be, it would be the greatest impoverishment of the third world out of anyone running for president. It was recline got on his ass about that too with immigration. He was asking him like, if you want, if you're going to close the borders, Bernie, what about all the poor people in other countries who need to get like higher wages here? And Bernie was like, I'm running for the president of America. And Ezra Klein was like, you chauvinist piece of shit.

You fucking nationalist. Yeah, it was, but, but, just to go back to a little bit about Zoran as an administrator. And obviously like, you know, overall, I am incredibly pleased with the. developments of this past week, and I'm happy that Zoran is bare. But, you know, I don't, there are quite a few criticisms I have of Zoran as a figure, as an avatar of the American lap. I, you know, not the least among them, the constant presence and descendants of Brad Lander, who like two weeks ago was just, you know, might as a little bit of, you know, might

as well have been fucking Daniel Biss Mr. J Street. I just fundamentally do not really trust Bradlander. I would like to be surprised that when Bush comes to shove, he would actually vote to rescind all aid, but

I will believe it when I see it. I do think that Zoran has taken way too cautious of a stance on a lot of this stuff. I think that this thing he does where every single time that like, you know, someone writes like

fuck Jews spelled J-U-W-Z like how Jack the Ripper spelled it yeah yeah they write that on a synagogue

not even in New York and like yonkers he like takes an entire day to condemn it which is like okay now you have to do that for every incident like for the rest of your life

that said Zoran as an administrator has impressed me a lot And one of the first things he did as mayor that I was incredibly impressed by was how they had already set up a media package, a set of to-dos and a very cogent, direct, non-condescending explanation of how they were going to mobilize all the snow plows, get clear up the streets, make everything, keep everything from. keep Manhattan from being crippled by the blizzard. Obviously, Brooklyn fared worse, but that's, you know, that's technically not New York,

so I don't care. But I did think it was very instructional because post-Biden, one of the big things that the abundance people or the third wave people, something that they love to harp on was this idea that Biden was, he was the most far-left economic president we ever had. was he you know, Lena Khan was in there. He was doing all this amazing stuff and everyone hated him for it.

And I think the most notable thing about Biden's, I mean, admittedly, yeah, I guess economically to the left of Obama policy was that, yeah, that he did do some things that were, I'm not going to say admirable, but were better than any other president in our lifetime. but he was doing it without picking out enemies. Yeah. Which was such a weird choice to me. It's all like the Biden.

Biden as a figure is the worst guy for that. Because this entire thing is about how, you know, the amazing power of friendship and handshakes. Yeah, this new American foreign policy consensus. He did have an enemy. It was Putin. And nobody really was very compelled by that. It was like this idea that we're recreating this kind of like new American consensus where everybody can like get along in it.

Like we're like the like this, like this, they love to say the high ceiling, high floor, no ceiling. Like we're going to create social welfare without like impeding on the ability for anybody to get as rich as they want. And this is like exactly what voters want and this shouldn't like piss off any like conservatives. And it just it just completely floundered. There was, he did not create that consensus. he passed a couple like bills like on like infrastructure early on but that never meant that like Republicans were like ever like they didn't fundamentally change the party and I think that's something that people were really shocked by like liberal voters were really surprised by

because and this is something I wrote about earlier like the whole I think one of the greatest things the left has like compared like to now during Trump's second term versus like Trump's first Trump the absolute dream thing here is that the leading scandal now is Epstein instead of Russia gate. Because Russia gate. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man.

And Josh. Just to finish out that thought, though, uh, just for any, if we are wish casting here, for any, like actual, um,

future Democratic administration or, you know, form of democratic governance, whether Joseph Dunford comes back and leads a Titoist, uh, Huta from the left, whatever it is, right?

I think, there are obvious cues to take from Zoran here in not condescending to voters in the way that Biden just simply was not capable of doing something that Zoran has really impressed me with as an administrator and as an elect official, but also taking that antitrust policy where, you know, there were some very good things in there, but actually identifying and going after enemies of the base. I mean, any Democratic president in the future that does not use the FTC to crush the UFC

or at least force them or at least force them to turn into a non-profit organization or like a sanctioning body instead of a for-profit company. I don't know what the fuck you're doing. They need to go after like FIFA and shit. Just everybody. Yeah.

Yeah. There are all these like now Trump aligned economic entities that, are, you know, the UFC is probably the smallest among them, but it's still a pretty big, pretty widely consumed thing, where you could quite easily create an enemy out of a pretty unlikable guy, both in Dana White and Ari Emanuel and Vince McMahon, three pretty awful guys, you could use the power of the state to break the monopoly power of the UFC as the sole provision. the main purveyor of MMA in North America

and actually make fights good again. You could reintroduce the middle class of fighters that used to make every card more exciting. They do like the thing that FDR did where he like hired every like graphic artist in America to create comic books, but for UFC. Yeah. Well, I'm just using the UFC as an example though of something where there is an identifiable enemy where you can actually, you can take all these policies that these guys like

Iglesias say that, you know, Biden did, but everyone hated. No, Biden did them, but no one was really aware of them because it was like he was, there was no avatar of hatred that he was issuing it towards. If it was like, okay, we're going after like Paul Singer, this fucking economic vampire that extorts and shakes down countries and fucking. you know, demands all these tax breaks to make your individual city worse or whatever, whatever the fuck. That may have had some currency among voters. But because it was Biden whose entire thing is, you know, the politics of the handshake,

this conciliatory bullshit, of course it never went anywhere. And I, you know, hopefully if current trends continue, that is something that the American Tito or DeGal can take to heart. I guess I'm trying to like organize my thoughts here. And one thing I want to return to is something I said at the beginning about pour one out for the abundance movement. And I think it's very indicative of, as I said, I'm trying to describe about the state the Democratic Party finds itself in because

they say like, oh, you know, we have a vision for the future. We have to govern. We have to deliver for people in a way that makes their life more affordable. after Donald Trump won in 2024, the abundance agenda, that was like the ready-made template for what Democratic candidates were going to run on and like an agenda that connected to people. And the thing is, like, under normal circumstances, that might have worked. But like back to the issue of Gaza, it doesn't work under these circumstances. Because the thing is, any sort of boutique policy prescription or slate of ideas that you're

trying to muster from the Democratic... party. If you're trying to sell it to an electorate, it can all be well and good, but it doesn't mean anything when the mouthpiece is selling it to you are killing like hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. And like you can't have like, I, you know, like, I got, I got into it the other day with this like a sort of globe emoji guy on Twitter because he said that rent control is evil and we have to stop pretending otherwise. And even if I were to take that argument seriously that like freezing the rent or rent control is bad because of whatever second order economic effects you want to say about making other housing more expensive in the long term.

It's not even in the top 10,000 most evil things currently being done by the U.S. So, like, you can't, like, when you only make moral cases and you only identify villains that you want to attack and sort of invade against, when it comes to like any policy or person that intervenes in market, I don't know, market, the dominance of the market, while you look the other way on like the, I don't know, network. work of private concentration camps that were currently disappearing people to, if not killing them in this country. The tens, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians that have been just obliterated in Gaza, you can't make these moral arguments about rent control when you're

in favor of all these other things. Because no one takes you seriously as a moral human being, nor should they when you think that rent control, like the zoning fucking laws are like the most immediate problem that needs to be solved. Yeah, that's why it's a kind of Nixon going to China thing. Only Zoran could have probably done like abundant stuff because people actually trust him to have like a moral center. Exactly. And he says like,

oh, we need to do X, Y, Z to help developers. People are like, okay, maybe he actually has people's interest in mind as opposed to someone like Cuomo where people would think he's like getting orders from like a lizard in the ground. The last thing I will say about reactions to last week's Socialist's Sweet in New York

City is on the one hand, I feel grateful more than anything that a long-time friend of the show is crediting us with these victories. And I'm going to read here now from The Hill. Senator John Federman is offering a warning about the rise of the quote, dirtbag left within the Democratic Party, a reference to candidates on the left who have run in one primaries while identifying themselves as Democratic Socialists. Fetterman says, yeah, no, I mean, These kind of people, they are trying to run out of office. They're just good traditional kinds of Democrats you would expect in New York City now. And this has just become, really, it's just been the dancing days of the dirtbag left.

You know, some of these candidates are outrageous. You have candidates, they're abolish ICE, abolish the police, abolish the border. And I'd like to thank John Fetterman for crediting us with that because, you know, eagle-eyed listeners of the show will know that we did absolutely nothing for any of these candidates. We would have been. more lazy You barely even Like that lady in Los Angeles

Like you had her on like five years ago And she was running for city council Yeah yeah yeah The one who stole the election And against Spencer Brad You know Just like I like I know I know his name Has come out of Federman's mouth too

But you're gonna credit someone for this Or blame them for it We gotta give her a boy Hassan credit Because like he was in fucking He was in New York City more than I am He was out of the streets of New York More than I was over the last fucking month or so He was doing like 90,000 people phone banking for DACs.

Yeah, he was talking about them like constantly on his stream. There's some guy who like followed him to like watch him play like the Eldon Ring DLC. You has to hear him talk about like a primary for New York's 13th congressional district every day. Oh man. It's it's like as recently as three years ago, nobody gave a shit about any of these races. But now it's like it's a primary election for a midterm is like, prime time shit. They got like Steve Kornacki bringing up the board for like a special election in Tennessee. There is so much just interest in this. So thank you, Trump. Thank you. I'll just know one

one other opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal. This is by Matthew Hennessy. Headline, Unleash Federman on the DSA. And I'm thinking, absolutely, man. Put this Golem to work. It's like a second. It's like there's a cut scene under the second phase of the boss, boss fight starts. The DNC Horamu like rips his head off and becomes more powerful. Yeah. That tiny Jewish guy that's following him around, that's his sarash. Yeah.

Now the crucial thing about the second phase with the Federman boss fight, you're really going to want to memorize the figure eight attack pattern and get your dodge rolls in with time. You fuck up the timing on the figure eight attack. It's he who one shot you. Yeah. Look, I don't want to sound like too much of a From Soft Blazer. I obviously love their games. But I think it is such a good attention to detail that when you get Federman down to 10%

HP in his boss fight, he just sort of shuffles around and leaves the boss arena going, I don't care about it. I mean, that's the hardest part about the Federman boss fight is you have to finish him before he shuffles out of the arena to feed ducks. And then you lose. Like you have to get his HP down to zero. that before he decides to quit and go away. That when he gets in his Toyota camera

and starts speeding at 90 miles an hour on his phone. I haven't figured out to dodge that one. It's kind of R&G-based. Yeah, he's sort of, he's like Godrick the grafted. He's grafting Scoop Jackson's head onto his torso. When he starts throwing his kids at you,

that one's tough. It's input reading. Bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. And they have, like, there's a really thin one of him that you also have to fight at the same time. Braddock skin duo. Yeah.

Dude, Braddock, another fucking poison swamp map that it fronts off him. Well, I mean, like, like I said, like, if everyone wants to give me credit, wants to give us credit for it, I'll take it. you know, quite frankly, Hassan's been getting a little too much ink, in my opinion. You know, it's something to go back. Yeah. The old school, 2016 era articles. Yeah.

That is, that is so, that is so fucking funny. Like, Hassan has been, Hassan's schedule, like, if Trump tried to imitate Hassan's travel schedule for the past two months, he would die. I might die if I tried it. Hassan has been, he's been busting his ass. And, um, I just, um,

look, we've had our differences with Federman, but if you are willing to give us all the credit that Hassan rightfully deserves, I love you. You're my gullum now. I will protect you from all the dibics. I just want to also on Hassan share this anecdote for how hard he's been working.

We were all in New York on the same night for the Knicks championship. We were all watching it together. The game ended. We went down to the streets to party. and Hassan was there and just said, hey, great, seen you guys, and immediately slipped into the crowd and disappeared. And I was like, well, great, nice to see Hassan. And then we were up late.

I slept in late. And I swear to God, I woke up at like 10 or 11 the next morning. And Hassan was already in Denver, already in a fight with an establishment Democrat who was canceling his rally for the insurgent candidate around him. It's just like, was that the same way he got banned from England? Yeah. Yeah, dude, it really, like,

he really makes us look like shit. Like we are, we are, we are, he said, dude, dude, his son is Elden ring and we are demon sold.

When we were like, when we were, when like, when the spotlight was on us, it was like, they're like, okay, send Rebecca traced her after them.

And the Hassan, they are set, they are sending everyone up there, canceling his rallies. No one's even, the only thing close to that that has ever happened is for our first show ever in Philadelphia. Some like, just like,

back when Pepe the fraud was a dangerous symbol of hate. One of those guys was like, I'm going to bomb your show. And me and Matt were like, no, no, no, you're not. Shut up. What if he did? That was like, that's like,

what if you know, yeah, you got to be worried about it because they had the blue sky shooter at the White House correspondence did or sometimes those guys kind of, I would love to be killed by a blue sky user. But, um, no, yeah.

I, he, he's like, I really thought I was eschewing to at least get banned from Germany. You know how hard I tried to get banned from Germany? Yeah. I could go to Berlin tomorrow, no problem. Yeah. I don't really want to get banned from England. I had too good of a time in Manchester. I had a good time in Germany.

But just like, as far as like an achievement, I think it's so unfair that Hassan gets, like yeah he works way harder than us but I am so much more anti-Semitic than him and I get no fucking credit for it anymore I mean Josh I asked you earlier like you know what's the difference between like

why these DSA candidates getting over now versus let's say in 2016 or 2020 I think we've discovered the reason here is because when you have you know one opinion based podcast entertainment concern flacking for candidates and then you have then we get

placed by Hassan, I think I've noticed the difference. Yeah. One of them is like actually telegenic and works really hard. The other is sort of, you know, grotesques who don't really try hard at anything. No. Yeah. Yeah.

What is better? What is better? What is better? The incredibly telegenic, well-spoken, energetic, hardworking guy who just immediately charmed everyone who meets him or the

Mr. Wheat Smoker over here and possibly the most malevolent man in broadcasting. Possibly the man with the worst attitude in the entire world. We got to wrap it up there for today.

My headphones just ran out of juice. But Josh and Germantam, thank you for joining us. Everyone, please check out the substack. We will have links in the show description. But before we leave, today. Chris, you have a plug, a pitch at the end of the show that you'd like to do?

Or we'd like to do, I should say. Yes, I have a little call to action from some long-term friends of the show. So six years ago, Chappo did a promo for Economics Masters program at John Jay College in the City University of New York. That's CUNY. That promo read by Amber on episode 427, significantly boosted enrollment

and save the program from shutting down due to austerity measures within CUNY. Many who heard the original program Promo joined this program and have since graduated, including some who are now professors teaching working class New Yorkers in the undergraduate program about capitalism in the belly of the beast.

We're once again reaching out to the Chapo community to help us continue our project in putting economics education in the hands of the people. The economics master's program at John Jay College aspires to be the most radical space for the study of political economy within U.S. academia rooted in the study of history, Marxian analysis, anti-imperialism,

and anti-colonialism. Our program is diverse. and focus on critical analysis of capitalist society and the development of alternative systems. Our department is committed to solidarity with the faculty and students. We believe in practicing our principles and students are actively included in our hiring process. We support all oppressed people and struggle against their oppressors, including unqualified support for Palestine and Lebanon against displacement, occupation, and genocide. One of our faculty, Professor Karina Mullen, is one of CUNY's fired for, a group of professors who were fired or terminated

one year ago because of their advocacy for Palestine and support of the student encampment. We are proud that she will be running, returning to teach the political economy of West Asia, North Africa this fall. So the call to action. The John Jay College Economics Master's program is one of the most affordable graduate programs, especially in New York City. We're located near Central Park. Do not require a GRE nor strong math and economics background. And you can still submit your application for the fall 2026 term until July 15. If you are interested in studying economics in radical and anti-capitalist environment, come join us.

We also host speakers events in a monthly happy hour. All are welcome to attend any of our events. So if you'd like to learn more about our program or meet like-minded folks, please reach out to the graduate program director, Ian Seda, Irizari, via email at, I'm just going to spell this out, I-S-E-D-A at J-J-A-Y-J-A-Y dot CUNY. Or follow us on X at J-J-E-Con. We'll have the application links to apply below for the deadline of July 15th in the show notes. but apparently you, dear listeners, save this program before,

so hopefully you can do it again. Oh, and also, of course, Chunks by Chunks now. Chunks. Patreon.com slash Chunks TV, streaming, worldwide streaming premiere July 19th on VOD afterwards. I just watched it again last night. It's really great. You will enjoy it.

Just to reiterate what Chris said, Chunks, Chunks, Chunks, Chunks, Chunks is coming. But yes, also to support the John J. College economics program. an alumni of the city university system, never graduated, but did attend. And I would just like to say, I said many times before on this show and in print that the entire field of economics is superstitious mumbo-jum and Hocom, save for Marxist economics, which is in fact not only a science, but the only real science. They came up with the precariet. All right, everybody, that does it for today's show. Till next time, bye-bye. Bye-bye. $2,000 a month, you can believe it, man, it's true.

Somewhere a landlord's laughing till he wets its pants. No one dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything. They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard. Give me your hungry. You're tired, you're poor, I'll piss on them. That's what the statue of bigotry says.