Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 852: This is why Kamala Harris really lost

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

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This one is going to be a long form in July. Oh, there you go. So long form July. And I do want to preface this that we are recording this just, uh, I believe the day before Trump's big military birthday parade, possibly the end of time. I don't know with the hopes that there is still a time things something right? Like it's like there's a there's a certain amount of embedded optimism in recording for the future see so because it presumes a future Yeah, so I like that. I like that. I don't like the thrust of and message of the entire article

We're gonna cover. Oh, I don It's a little bit of a bummer. And this one is a little bit farther back, right? So this, this article comes out, I think in March was when it came out. So it came out in March. Still important. And it's, it's entitled, this is why Kamala Harris really lost. TikTok is making young voters. It's so crazy.

TikTok is making young voters more Republican. Yeah, it's a question. It's a question. TikTok is making young voters more Republican. Yeah, it's like it's a question. TikTok is making voters more Republican. It's it's like the fucking Yoda. Who wrote this? Like what is happening? More Republican they are. With just the question mark without the is in front of it, it reads like a dog cocking its head for treats.

You know, TikTok is makingoshaggy lower grocery prices. It's like, it's like, well, let's, let's all pile in the mystery machine and figure out what Kamala Harris lost. So bad. But, but in any case, this is an older article already, right? It's already an older article and we're going to cover it. The byline is a fucking afterthought. It makes me crazy guys, because when Cecil, so I want to just share this behind the scenes

thing. So Cecil picks out a bunch of long form articles and he sends them to me and he says, hey, pick one and let's go through it. Now these are long form articles. So if there's five or six or seven of them and they're each an hour long, I'm not reading seven hours of articles. I'm skimming them. You can read the first five, six paragraphs and be like, okay, this looks good.

I skim through them to figure them out. So for this particular one, I actually was like, Haley was, was getting ready for something and I was like, Hey, I'm going to read you some of these as a listener, cause she's a listener to the show. I was like, as a listener, which would you want to hear? You know, like I was get your opinion. And this is the one that she picked because we were both really mostly wanting to answer the question.

Poorly phrased as it, from the subheading. And this article has almost nothing to do with that. It's still an important article. It's got a touch, but there's not much that doesn't, it doesn't dwell. It doesn't dwell. It skips a stone across that surface. It does talk about how Kamala Harris lost because it has what they consider the largest data set of voters that are, this is a Democrat think tank that has a large data set of voters.

And it's, it's months after the election. So at this point, six months after the election, they go through their data and they say, why did she lose? What's the exit stuff say? What does our polling say about these demographics? And it's a giant data set they have that they're working with. It's something like 29 million. Yeah, it's huge.

It's a huge data set they're working with. And they came up with some things that upturn a lot of what the Democrats have been playing for for a long time. Yeah, this really, I think like one of the takeaways that I have from this article is that most of the sort of left side assumptions about voting and demography are wrong. Most of the strategy therefore is wrong. Like, you know, on a go forward, it's just, it's not right. It's that you don't wanna perform a strategy

that, you know, obviously doesn't match what the customer or the demographic is looking for, the citizen in this case is looking for. I think it also tells us that we are living in a polarized America that is much more complex of a situation to sort of assess and analyze and understand than we had previously maybe given credit to. And that, you know, a lot of the demographic shift in America leans much more Republican and favors Republicans way more than I thought. I had always had, and I want to call myself out

for how wrong I've been over the years. I have always said, man, as young people get more engaged, what we're seeing is this leftward shift. This leftward shift is happening. And the only chance Republicans have is to cheat, right? We've said it before, oh, they got to stack the deck. They got to cheat. They got to bend the rules.

They've got to do this gerrymandering. They got to do all this stuff because their messaging isn't popular. And we've said it and said it and said it and said it. And I've thought it and thought it and thought it and it's wrong. It's not accurate anymore. What this article really says is that we are living in,

in America, which is leaning heavier and heavier right, many of the demographics that we have credited with being solidly democratic and reliably democratic and we've always said like, if we could just get these guys to turn out, they're not reliably democratic anymore Yeah, and that jives with an episode of I think the daily that I heard not too long ago Which analyzed something like, you know, the 30,000 counties across

maybe is more than that but however many counties there are across America and Almost all of them like over 80% of those counties Almost all of them, like over 80% of those counties, experienced a rightward shift in their voting block. So we're in a place in America where I think that the traditional narrative that Democrats have relied on, that young people, people of color, these are reliable democratic votes, that is less and less true every year.

What I wonder, because while this is a snapshot, right, we know stats don't, like, what they don't do is tell us what the human thinks, right? What they tell us is a large group of people believe this stuff right now. We don't know what they believe tomorrow. We don't know what they believed last year. What we know is what they tell us what they believe right now. And I think that there's an interesting, one thing that might be something of a saving grace is it doesn't overturn the hypothesis that a lot of people had on the last election

that really what's happening is there's a turning on and a turning off of things, right? It doesn't overturn that idea that there's a, this isn't working, let's flip the switch. This isn't working, let's flip the switch to something else. And so my thought is, I'm wondering if that still stands up in the sense that people are frustrated with how their lives are going.

Young people aren't going into these, you know, higher paid positions. They're sort of stagnant in the workforce or they're losing their job and having to start over. There's not these, this housing that needs to be there so people can like own their first home. There's not a, we're starting to lose more and more jobs based on certain technologies, are starting to wipe certain fields out completely. Other manufacturing is essentially gone from America and you're not getting it back with tariffs. That's nonsense.

So like there's a lot of, you know, people that are looking out in the system and being like, well, this isn't working for me. And so do I turn it off on this one again and do I turn it off on this one? Is that why that Republican shift happened or is it something deeper? Is it something very values-based, right?

Is there a values-based reason or is it a economic reason? And one of the things that they suggest in here is that for the most part, the biggest indicator for why people were going to vote the way they voted was the economy. And so I'm not a hundred percent disheartened to the point that I'm like, oh shit, we can never like, these are, these are died in the wool conservatives. I think what I'm thinking is like, we've got to have a much better message if you want to reach these people and you've got to produce.

It can't just be a good message. It's got to be next time. It's got to be, we have a good message and this message changes how people live. This message changes how much money you make, how easy it is for you to get a house, how easy it is for you to get an education, how easy it is for you to advance in your career.

All those things are important and they have to be absolutely work in and you've got to make it work in four years. You got to make something work in four years, right? Because if you can't, then you're that's, I really do think it's going to be another pulling of that lever to be like, fuck it. Now it's conservative again, because you might be able to swing it because certainly Trump hasn't fixed the economy and he's not going to fix the economy gonna fix the no no I think you're not wrong I think that there's a lot less people I think people are conversely more polarized than ever before and in many ways less ideological yeah so they're polarized in the sense that right now the thing that is upsetting me is driven

by that asshole and I am against it. So, you know, when they, from this article, when they looked at like the voting record and what was important and like why Biden won, Biden won because people were most worried about COVID and healthcare, right? So Biden won. And then after Biden,

people were most worried about rising prices. And so the messaging was better, obviously received by the population from the Republicans on how to solve the rising prices issue and who is responsible for it. Right. Right. So the Biden administration, unfortunately, just timing wise, ate a lot of the shit for an event that was global in scope rather than national in scope. And I will say like not to not to pat myself on the back

so just talking about how wrong I was about so many other things but I do remember fucking calling this as this was happening at one point and saying like what really sucks is that all of the things we have to do to control inflation are Unpleasant. Yeah, and they take a long time and the problem is that if you are a responsible steward of the economy, you're going to have to do unpleasant shit that's going to take a long time. And everyone's going to think you're the problem and you still have to do that work and it still takes time. And that was fucking true, right?

The thing you have to do to control inflation is to raise interest rates. And then inflation takes a long time to get under control because it's a big fucking ship that we're trying to steer. And that is literally what happened. And inflation was coming down, strongly coming down. They achieved the recession list soft landing, but that shit took almost four years. And that's exactly bad timing. And the Democrats ate shit for it. The the thing is too that like Democrats are terrible about messaging and I don't know why but we are When you look at the inflation reduction act There was a ton of stuff in there that created jobs good jobs

Lots of jobs moved real money into the economy built real infrastructure created real into the economy, built real infrastructure, created real opportunity for people in new fields that addresses a lot of the concerns that you were just bringing up that are legitimate concerns that I have too for the future of our economics and our children. And like, I worry about like my kids turning out into the world and being totally unable

to afford to live independently. Sure. You know, with rent going up so high and housing prices going up so high and housing prices going up so high and all this stuff. The Democrats have real answers for that stuff and they've done real work and they've not done a good job taking credit

and going around and victory lapping that shit. And I think there's a real messaging problem and I don't know how we get past it where the problem is complicated so the solution is complicated but the message needs to be simple. I don't know how to do that, but I know we have to do that.

Because if we don't produce a simple message and solve a complicated problem, we will lose to the simple message that doesn't address the complicated problem. Simple messages are always better received. Critique is better received than complex solutions. So that's a tough spot for us to be in collectively with a low information voter.

Low information voters are not going to hear the complexity of a problem and like, oh wow, tell me more about like all of the stuff that's in the Inflation Reduction Act. Tell me about like, you know, all of the stuff that's in the inflation reduction act in the way They don't tell me about global trade. Yeah, that's that's too much. That's too much. We've got to produce by lines We've got to produce tag lines. We got to produce catchy slogans We got to get our foot. We got to get our Don Draper on bro. That's what we got to do well, I wonder too because this was something that they clearly lost out on last time,

was the, you know, I hesitate to call it new media, because it's not new media anymore. But the alternative media sources from MSNBC and cable news and, you know, main TV stations, those people are carrying and talking about the Democrats and the Republicans, you know, they're doing, some stations are doing more, some stations are doing less depending.

But new media, there was a lot more new media stuff that was focused on Republicans because it's a bigger chunk of the pie, right? We talked about this, you know, with Marsh, where there's just a bigger chunk of pie. There's just a bigger, bigger group of people who are like listening to this stuff and there's more money that goes into it

because these, you know, there's a lot of billionaires who save a lot of money if you vote Republican. And the Russians will help fund it too. And the Russians will help fund it. Like there's a lot of people who will help fund those spaces to make those spaces better and make those spaces more pervasive. So they're gonna reach more deeper

into all these other places that regular traditional media is not even gonna be heard. I mean, hell, we heard Joe Rogan this last time was one of the major reasons why, you know, like he pushed a lot of people to even hear Donald Trump, right? Same thing is true, cause Trump made the circuit on podcasts.

He was all over podcasts. It's not just that, it's TikTok. They talk about TikTok in here. They talk about Instagram. They talk about all these other places, these new media places. I just think the Democrats are falling behind in all these new media places.

I think podcasts lean right. Look at the top podcasts, those are leaning right. Look at the, you know, the, even, or center are right, you know, like those are the places, you know, or it's apolitical, right? Those are your right. Look at the, you know, the, even, even, or center a right, you know, like those are the places, you know, or it's apolitical, right? Those are your, those are your things that you, like you're not getting these far left people

that are getting big, big podcasts. Like, well, it's not anywhere near it. They're not the top, top juice. Yeah. So, and there's just not as much money in it. There's just not as much money in it. And the other people see it and they're like, well, fuck. I mean, if I can make $400,000 an episode versus I could make, you know, pennies on the dollar, I'm going to do the $400,000 an episode. A lot of these

people who don't have a lot of morals, really easy for them to make that decision. So I think like Democrats need to penetrate these spaces that are traditionally held by Republicans and they need to spend more money in those spaces. And the difficulty of course is that the right will always call out that hypocrisy and say, oh, well they're spending money to be in these spaces, but the right is spending a ton of money to be in those spaces too. And how ironic is it too that you see the rightward drift across all of these social media spaces,

and at the same time, you have the right squawking, screaming, filing lawsuits, creating investigative congressional committees to say that these spaces de-platform conservative ideas. Even as the most popular, you know, a podcaster in the world is Joe Rogan. Clearly a right-wing podcast. Like clearly that has become a right-wing podcast, right?

If it ever wasn't, it certainly is now. Right. And like, they're still squawking. You've got like people squawking, oh my God, like, you know, these, all these social media spaces are so left- left leaning and they censor Republican content. Elon fucking Musk owns Twitter, right? Right.

Like this so blatantly untrue, it's just so obviously untrue, but they're able to produce two messages at once that resonate. They produce a message of here are the simple problems that you're mad about and you're the underdog and you're the most important person here today. There's all these ideas that should be contrasting, but one thing I think the right does really, really well is they produce a lot of ideas and they never ask you to hold them all in one place. And by doing that, they allow their base to choose which of those ideas most closely resonates with them. I am somebody who wants to vote for the underdog. Cool. Here you go. You can vote for the underdog because we'll say we're the underdog.

We're underrepresented all over social media. We're getting kicked out of these places. You got to fight, fight, fight, because you're the underdog. You're getting kicked out of these places. You gotta fight, fight, fight, you know, because you're the underdog, you're getting kicked out. Awesome. We are, we are the party of strength and power and you know, oh, strength and power, alpha shit, great. I don't have to like reconcile these ideas if I don't want to. Sure.

They do a really good job of that. Yeah. I don't really understand it personally because like I kind of want my ideas to click together like if you hand me like a jigsaw puzzle, I would like to not have random pieces from seven puzzles. That feels weird to me. Clearly I'm in the minority though, because the demographic reality says that low information voters and it makes sense if you think about it, I'm a high information voter, which means

that I'm going to make sure my pieces compared to one another and fit favorably. Low information voters though, you just have to put out lots of information. And as long as it's slick and as long as it's digestible, you're gonna touch somebody with it. I think the rights figured that out. And I think also the Democrats, we never covered this, but it's always been, it's been our show notes,

I think like twice. Like the Democrats are getting old. Yeah. So they're not good at this. Yeah. Like the average age for like a representative Democrat is like 70 some fucking years old. So like you got a bunch of olds in charge. And you got a lot more like young fresh faces in charge on the right.

They figured this out. Yep. And they're reaching out. Yep. Yep. And they're reaching out to this younger base more often, way more often. And so they're, and they're, and look man, like Trump is on fucking Twitch streams. Yeah. You know, he's got these fucking guys on like, I don't know if that guy's on Twitch anymore, he might be on Rumble or whatever, but even still, like these people are still live streaming

and they're fucking gamers. And they got Trump on their thing because because Baron introduced him or whatever and he comes over and he fucking gives Trump like a fucking brand new Tesla or whatever and they all stand out there and they hold their thumbs up and everybody's like, wow, that's cool. You know, Trump, Trump, look at that. Look at that fucking total fucking stunt Trump did with McDonald's. Oh my God. I know.

Total fucking stunt that Trump did with McDonald's. Who does that fool? know. Yeah. Total fucking stunt that Trump did with McDonald's. Who does that fool? Who does that fool? Well, it doesn't fool you. No. Right. But it was never intended for me. We got to stop thinking like that.

Never once intended for you. It was a laughable to you. To other people that like, man, that guy's really digging his hands in. Yeah. That guy, he's, it's, it's, you gotta, you gotta figure that there's a large group of people that are easily tricked, you know, by anything. They're just easily tricked by anything. There's like, you know, half the people are, half the people are below average intelligence. You know what I mean? That's a joke, right? That's half the people

are below average intelligence. So you just got it. You gotta stop and think these people are, there's a group of people out there that are going to be easily tricked by some real simple messaging and they're not embarrassed to trick them. Yeah. Right. And I think that's the difference, right? There's an empathy chip that stops us from just tricking people. There's not that empathy chip on the other side. They don't give a fuck.

They don't fucking care. So if they fucking scam you, they just walk away the next day and be like, cool, you got scammed, fuck you. And then they'll be like, I'm gonna scam you again. Yeah, fool me once. Buy my sneakers. Shame on me.

Yeah, right. Buy my, for real though, like, it's actually like, I'm only half kidding. It's such a great example. Trump is selling fucking golden sneakers. Yeah. Right. He's selling his own cryptocurrency.

He's like, yeah, just look at the stuff he's selling to see this guy is happy to fool you. Yeah. Right. He's happy to run a grift on you. So and for us, I got you. You're exactly right, Cecil. Like, I think that we look at this and we see through it. So we assume that it is ineffective because it's so transparent.

But the reality that these demographics show us and the reality of waking up and living in a Trump world where we lost, we lost. More people voted for that guy. That messaging hit harder. We have to accept that that's true. So we've got to look at that and say, when we look at it and see that this is a crass and obvious attempt at pandering to stop doing that, stop. Look at it and say,

that is an effective way to reach people. How do we take our message and learn how to take our message and put it in those same spaces just as effectively? Because our message is better. Our solutions are better. We need to do a better job, not tricking people, but bringing our message into spaces where low-information voters don't have to do any work to receive it. I think the key is don't explain yourself. Yeah. I think that's really the key because look at a perfect example right now is look at any single press conference that there's that new press secretary who's talking to people and they ask them questions. There's never a

moment they have to explain themselves. They had Hegseth on the stand. Now this is a month out of date at this point, right? But I'm talking about something that happened yesterday that's gonna be a month out of date. But Hegseth is on the stand, not on a stand, at the table in Congress and they're asking him questions. And one of the senators asks him and says,

I want you to tell me what the statute is that the president is using for you to deploy troops under his command. Tell me what that statute in the constitution is. And Hegg says the answer is, well, we talked with our general counsel and they think it's legal. And he's like, and there's precedent for it.

And he said, okay, but you have to be able to point me to something in the constitution that says he has that power. So tell me what that is. And he said, well, I don't have it in front of me. I'd have to look at it and get it back to you. And then he won't ever do that. Because they don't ever have to answer any,

they don't answer any, I don't answer fucking questions, right? That's their motto. That's been their motto for a long time. They don't answer any, I don't answer fucking questions, right? That's their motto. That's been their motto for a long time. They don't have to explain. When Trump says, I'm gonna fix the economy with tariffs, how many people really genuinely pushed and questioned him on that?

How many reporters genuinely pushed and questioned him? Now don't get me wrong, there were questions about it, but how many people asked a follow-up question to his dumbass useless answer? How many people stopped and said that's a non-answer sir. You're gonna raise taxes on Americans with tariffs, correct? No, I'm not tell me how it's not going to be taxes on Americans Right the American people need to know what this is and then he just won't answer it, right? He just pushes on I think the thing is is you just got to be like we won't answer it, right? He just pushes on. I think the thing is, is you just gotta be like, we don't answer questions.

And the reason why you don't answer questions is because one, the low information doesn't fucking care. They don't give a shit. If you come up with a great solution for a problem, even if they don't understand how it works, they're fine with it, right? Clearly they're fine with it. They sold these tariffs as if it was the greatest thing

that was gonna happen to everybody. People who knew about it, knew it was to be a terrible thing for us, or it was going to do nothing for us, right? It was either going to be bad or nothing. What did he get with China? Nothing. He literally got nothing. He spent all that time through everything into fucking flux.

And now we're back to square one exactly where we were before. It's literally in the exact same space we were before, with the American people still paying more for products that he knew that was gonna happen in the first place. To be fair though, your 401k is worth less than a plus. Yeah, no, that's great. So that's good too. Yeah, that's absolutely amazing.

So you're in this place where they don't ever have to answer for those things. They just trick people into believing it's true. Well, the difference between us and them is, I don't have to lie to you to tell you I'm gonna do better, right? I don't have to lie to you to say, this is a better way to do it.

This is a better way, a more empathetic approach. This is gonna be a better way for us to do it. Don't have to lie to those people. But I also shouldn't have to explain it because it's not doing anything for us. Because what we're doing is we're allowing these reporters to ask us these questions, right? They ask the Democrats and the people on the left

these questions, and then they spend their time complicating it by laying it out. Instead of just saying, well, I'm gonna fix it. And then that just opens shit up to more criticism, right? Because every big idea and every big solution is available for critique. Yeah. And so you're exactly right. I thought you've got to you've got to stop that cycle because the high information voter is already the high information voter already leans heavily our

side and they will continue to lean that way because people who understand complexity tend to be in this space. Right? One, right? That's not likely to change. One of the things that they said in this was, someone in the working class is more likely to be a Republican unless they read a book in the last year. Right. How... That's fucking insane. It's fucking insane.

It's fucking nuts, man. It's fucking insane. Someone who read a book is more likely to be a Democrat than someone who didn't. So you're right, you're dead on. High information people for the most part are already Democrats. They're already on the left. They're already somebody who's paying attention to the world. One other thing I want to add to it that I think is really essential that we are not

doing and we need to do, and I see the Republicans do a fucking great job of it is we need to be mad about the things they're mad about. Yeah. Right? Like you can think about, I was thinking about like, why was it that COVID and healthcare were the big issues that brought the Democrats in? There are still problems now.

Those are still problems, right? Like healthcare has not gotten any better. If anything, it's gotten worse, right? So healthcare has not been solved. We didn't fix any of those fundamental problems. We cared about it more. The population cared about it more. Democrats had a stronger message on it.

So Democrats were able to make a movement on that and gain ground on it. We need to just walk around being mad about the things that the constituency is mad about. So if the economy is bad, if the inflation is high, we need to be mad about it openly, not, oh, well, here's why. And it's very complicated. Like I was just doing like, oh, it's complicated.

It's actually a global problem. Supply chain issues take a long time to resolve with COVID. Like all that. No, let's just get mad about it. They're mad about it. You know, like everybody loves a bitch fest. Everybody wants to be mad about the same thing your buddy is mad about, right? Like we've been friends for 30 years.

I have called you sometimes just to be like, dude, I'm so mad about this. Be mad about this with me. That's how we bond, right? People bond like Yeah. Right? People bond like that. We need to do that with our constituency. Yeah.

The Republicans are doing a great job of that. I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore. They get out and do that and everybody's like, yeah, fucking mad too. The fucking washing machine doesn't use enough water. I need to waste more water. I'm stupid. Like whatever it is. Yeah. Be fucking mad with me is, be fucking mad with me.

Be mad with me. If we can do that, you kinda don't even have to solve what you're mad about. I've noticed that on the right too. They don't necessarily have to solve the thing they're mad about, man. They just get mad with you. And then we all sit around just fucking having

our five minute hate and then they pull the right lever. The difference is I'll fix it. That's the deal, like I'll be mad about it and then they pull the right lever. The difference is I'll fix it. That's the deal, like I'll be mad about it and then we'll pull the lever for me and then I'll be like, well cool, let's go fix it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big difference, it's a big difference.

I wanna read this part here because it says, it's a part about what we've sort of thought for a long time, Tom. This is a quote from the article, for the last 15 years we really lived in this world where the mantra was, if everybody votes, we win. But now we're at a point where more people vote the better the Republicans do.

And then the person asks, if I understand correctly, you're suggesting that Democrats cannot rebuild a national majority merely by juicing higher turnout since the registered voters as a whole were more poor Trump than those that actually showed up at the polls. And they said the register, the reality is if registered voters, all registered voters had turned out, then Donald Trump would have won the popular vote by five points instead of 1.7 points. That's huge.

That's huge, man. That's fucking huge, man. That's fucking huge. And that tells you like that it's not just get out and vote. It's not just this younger generation is going to, is going to side with the left. What it is is you got to change their mind and you got to change it in a real fundamental way to make them realize that this is, this is an important, like, like, you know, I think one of the things we were talking about information a few minutes ago, one of the things I saw mostly from the people

on the left that I was connected to was how genuinely upset everyone was that people chose Trump. They were so mad. They're like, I know so much about Trump and I can't believe you would choose him. And I think that they're missing the fact that they know so much about Trump and I can't believe you would choose him. And I think that they're missing the fact that they know so much about Trump. And they're presuming that everyone else knows the exact same things about him.

And I got into many, many, many arguments online where I said this to someone and they would be like, no, everybody knows this. And he'd be like, no, not everybody knows what you know. Not everybody compartmentalizes or thinks about everybody knows what you know. Yeah. Not everybody compartmentalizes or thinks about the things that you know and thinks these are the things that everyone should know. There is a group of people who think that if you didn't vote the way I thought you should,

you essentially knew everything I knew and you chose the wrong thing and therefore you're a bad person. Dude, that's so important. That's really important. It's that that is something I never thought of in those explicit terms. And I just think that that's I want to echo it again, because Dude, that's so important. That's really important. It's that, that is something I never thought of in those explicit terms. And I just think that that's, I want to echo it again, cause I think it's so fucking like,

that kind of blows my mind. I have done this, right? I think we all do this. Sure. I think we all do. We're guilty of it. We have a tendency as people to universalize our experience, right? So because I walk around consuming a fair bit of,

of news and information, right? My assumption is that everybody else does some version of that themselves. And I come to my conclusions with this information, and then I'm assuming you're having the same information set and coming to a different set of conclusions. And then I'm like, you're wrong, how can you be that wrong?

Well, the reality is like, most people don't consume the same things you consume. I was thinking about this and it's a new sort of like revelation I keep having lately. That like, there is no such thing, more and more and more and more. There is no such thing as a shared reality anymore. We used to have this.

It used to be that there was an evening news, right? And this is a big deal. There was a newspaper you got, like here's Chicago, right? You got probably the Sun Times or the Tribune, one of the two. Then you had your evening news and you could pick between ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox, right? And they were all local affiliates.

And you probably got your news from one of those five or six sources. It's a really small number of sources. And the material in there is from traditional journalists, and then it is run through editors, and then it mainstreams its way out. And much of it is homogenous, right? So like, it doesn't matter that much in terms of like,

what I'm going to know if I watch the nine o'clock news, the 10 o'clock news, doesn't matter that much. If I watch the ABC affiliate or the NBC affiliate, right? Different weather, maybe that's about it. So we had this kind of shared space, right? That we were all in together that no longer exists. And it doesn't exist in a huge and important way. There is no such thing as a representative experience

online. Every experience that we have online is a bespoke experience. It's curated. Intentionally so. By the platforms that we choose to use, by the way those platforms choose to interact with us and feed us data and information,

by the things that we click on in terms of like what comments we read, we are having an entirely unique experience in terms of our access to and delivery of information. That's new, that's never been the case ever before. So now when somebody is voting in a way or thinking in a way or develops ideas, political ideas, social ideas, moral ideas in a way that seem so out of step with your own experience and your own thoughts, it's exactly what you said. They've not been fed the same.

The same stuff didn't go into the machine. Yeah. Right. It used to be we all put the same stuff in the same machine. It was kind of like, wow, we didn't diverge them. Yeah, sure. Now we're putting way different stuff into the fucking machine and it produces a different widget. And you're like baffled by how somebody gets this widget out. And there's a lot of

people that don't put a lot in the machine at all. Right. I put a lot into the machine. You put a lot into the machine. Some people, the low information voters, they're putting relatively little stuff into that particular machine. So they're not getting the same, the same widget. It's not gonna be produced the same way. It's like, it's really important to recognize that experience doesn't universalize. It used to.

This is new. We have to figure out new ways to interact with that if we're gonna be successful. The right is figuring it out faster than we are. They're being more successful, figuring that out quicker than we are. I think too, there's a part of this and it's the one part they talk about TikTok.

It's the one piece, right? Where they talk about TikTok and they say, they bring up the idea that, I'm gonna read it directly. It says, we used to live in a world where in order to get your message out there, you had to have people who wrote it really well to absorb the message and put it out. And now we live in a world where you can make a video

and if that video is appealing, it will get out there. And that's naturally bad for the left because people who write really well are more left-wing than the overall population. So, and this goes back to how TikTok works versus how other places work. In this article, they talk about how Instagram reels, for instance, is very different.

So if I'm on Instagram reels, it'll first take into account my follower base and it'll say, oh, you have 6.8 million followers? This will go out to more people automatically than it would if Tom, who has a thousand followers, is going to send this out to everybody. There's just going to be more chance that they're going to reach out and they're going to send it to way more people if you have a lot more followers. They're suggesting that the algorithm on TikTok isn't as choosy. What it does is

it sort of looks at the video and says, this looks like something that people will enjoy. And then it shits it out to people. It doesn't matter if you have two followers or we have 10,000 or a million or a trillion, whatever. It will go out to a lot of people if their algorithm thinks the video has merit. That's a real problematic thing because TikTok is unmoderated by anyone. So unlike the other things where you kind of have

to build up a level of trust with other people in order to get to a certain level of, you know, followership, there doesn't have to be any of that on the other side. So what they're able to do is have a completely unvetted opinion about something, which could be completely, and we've seen this multiple times on TikTok,

where they'll post something and it's a complete lie or a fabrication or obvious disinformation and it will take off. It's the thing that flies, right? So I think there's a real issue. Like you were just suggesting our internet experience is bespoke. Well, if it's bespoke and the guy's spitting in your food,

now you're in a real problem. And that's, and I think we're coming back to how difficult it is to, you're going to have to be able to just create engaging content and hope that engaging content is more engaging than the other side. And we talked about this again with Marsh. Conspiracies are a better story. It's just a better story. Lying is a better story. Lying about COVID is a a better story. It's just a better story. Lying is a better story. Lying about COVID is a way better story.

If I can tell you that Anthony Fauci was in on this so he can make a bunch of money off the vaccine, that's a way better story than a bunch of scientists, boring scientists got together and made a vaccine that helped some people. This is a way better story. Way better story. It's got more juice.

It's got more legs. A way to think about it, I was just thinking, a way to think. Way better story. It's got more juice. It's more interesting. It's got more legs. A way to think about it, I was just thinking, a way to think about it would be like, would this make a good citation needed story? Yeah. Does it have like a lot of twists and turns and like, you know, fumbles and fuck ups and dark shit? Like, oh, if it's a good citation needed story, then like it would make good, engaging content.

It is, it is interesting that TikToks and I'm just going to I'm just going to be a little conspiratorial here, so maybe we'll put this on TikTok, but it's interesting to me that TikTok's system is built to review the content itself and to determine based on an AI review of that content whether or not that content is more or less likely to engage people. whether or not that content is more or less likely to engage people. I'm sorry, but like, if I were, let's say, a Chinese company, right, that owns TikTok, would I not be vested in making algorithmic determinations that decide what's engaging. The decisions about how those algorithms are built are human decisions.

So it's not like the machine writes itself. Over time, these things become iterative, I understand, and they have a snowball effect and all those, I understand that. But it is not not true that we are in, at the very least, a Cold War of types with China. That TikTok is a Chinese-owned platform and that these systems are working in ways

that destabilize the American political landscape. That is not, none of those things I just said are untrue, right? So like, it's just another reason. I was talking to our employees, Sarah, not that long ago. And I feel like TikTok is such a, because of this, is such a dangerous space for us to be in at all,

because it requires such an extreme amount of vetting, because the virality possibilities in TikTok areting, because the virality possibilities in TikTok are much higher than the virality possibilities elsewhere. So the likelihood of you seeing bullshit is higher. It's way higher, because like you said, before there was a vetting process based on how many people also sort of like, it's like the who wants to be a millionaire?

Let's ask the room. When you ask the room, you ask enough people, you're more likely to get a right answer. Not always, but more likely. TikTok's not asking the room. They're just using an algorithm to be like, will people engage with this? In a positive or negative way, it's indifferent.

That's a big difference, man. It is a big difference. There's another piece of this article where they talk about immigrants and non-white voters and how there has been a massive shift in immigrants and non-white voters. And I wonder, you know, like, I know that there has been a push for our group

to reach out to and try to reach out to, you know, people that are, you know, non-white and, and, you know, immigrants, et cetera, and try to reach out to that group. But I also wonder if we're paying attention to, we're, we're, we're trying to make sure that while they, they are in a demographic that you're reaching out to. They also have to think exactly like you. I have seen more, I think, people on the left who if you don't 100% agree with you, they are like, you're the enemy. You're literally the enemy.

If you and I don't line up exactly on all of these issues in the exact same way, you're essentially just as bad as someone who doesn't agree with me on anything. If you disagree with me on one thing, I will disagree with you on, you essentially disagree with me on everything. Every issue is a moral litmus test.

Every single one. And it's not that I don't think that there should be moral litmus tests. It's not that I disagree on that point, but I don't think every single, every single piece of everything we ever talk about is a moral litmus test. I think that there are some things, like I think about this in terms of immigration, I am sure there are people who have a lot of left leaning policies

There are people who have a lot of left leaning policies who are, who might even be farther left than I that dislike undocumented, undocumented immigration, not specifically because the person there isn't trying to get a better life, but because we are treating those people as less than regular American citizens. They could disagree very strongly on how we're dealing with immigration in a way that's more empathetic than me. Right.

But we don't agree on it, right? And there's some people out there that are like, if you don't agree with me exactly how I agree on this stuff, you're out. You're dead to me. You're dead to me. You're essentially garbage. You're trash. I don't need to hear what you have to say. In fact, I don't want you on my side.

Get away from me sort of thing. And I think like, like if you're going to have a big tent, you have to expand your ideas about, I mean, don't get me wrong. You still need to have hard and fast moral litmus tests. I do think that that's necessary. I don't think, you know, you should be like, you know, there shouldn't be somebody who comes into your tent who's like. I don't think, you know, you should be like, you know, there shouldn't be somebody who comes into your tent who's like, black people shouldn't have rights.

That's not a person you're gonna let it, right? So don't try to misconstrue and twist what I'm saying against me to say, well, you know, like, what do you think races should have a voice, the same like should we should? Nick, you wanna invite Nick Fuentes over to, yeah. No, get the fuck out of here. I'm not saying that.

But I, so I do think there are some hard and fast litmus tests that you still need to have. But I think like not everything is that. And we need to be more open to figure out what the not is. Because if you just, if somebody shows up and they're not in the exact same mindset or they use, you know, they say something that you think is problematic or whatever. I think like without reaching out and trying to help that person and just trying to shun them,

you're making, you're essentially making a smaller tent. Yeah, I think like most issues, not all, but most issues, the vast majority of them, what I want is someone to be on the same continuum I'm on. We don't need to fall in the same place on that continuum. Somebody might have a view that is further to one side than I am, but are we on the same,

roughly the same continuum on the topic? Do we agree on the fundamental principle of empathy? Do we agree on the fundamental principle of empathy? Do we agree on the fundamental principle of protecting democracy, the rule of law? Do we agree on the fundamental principles that are involved here? We can then work together to find out where we should be on the continuum, on the issue, right?

So whatever the issue is, the likelihood is there's a lot of nuance on it. We don't have to like, I don't have to be in the same exact space on that nuance. Like that's okay. But we should be like, that moral litmus test should be broad, not narrow for almost everything, right?

But like the author of this article or the person who's doing the demographic analysis here, what they say is, if you look predominantly at immigrant neighborhoods, whether they're white or Hispanic or Asian or African, you really see these absolutely massive shifts against Democrats. Trump won Corona in Queens. Immigrants go from a D plus 27 group in 2020 to a potentially R one plus one in 2024. Then they say this, and I think I have a thought on it. They say, I'm not sure why that happened.

We're still waiting for the data to come back. Now, that is a more responsible thing to say than what I'm about to say, which is just speculation. But I think the Democrats for a long time have taken for granted that people of color, Hispanics, black population, et cetera, would continue to vote democratic, when in fact, what we see and have seen for a long time

is many of the people in those groups are much more socially conservative than many of the viewpoints that the Democrats have espoused for a long time. These are broadly speaking, more socially conservative groups. I think that the Democrats have had access to those votes for a long time because those people trusted the Democrats on economic issues. And so they were able to say, all right, we don't necessarily agree

on these social issues where like, I'm thinking of like right now, like the Hispanic population tends to be more religious. They tend to have more conservative views on issues where like, I'm thinking of like right now, like the Hispanic population tends to be more religious. They tend to have more conservative views on issues like abortion, for example. If they trust the Democrats though, to put money in their pocket and keep them safe, then they're gonna probably set aside that one issue, right? And they're gonna vote for the Democratic party.

What the Republicans have figured out though, is that they know how to reach out and say I'm mad about what you're mad about economically. And now you're mad about what I'm mad about economically and I agree with you on these social issues. Sure. And that to me is a very potentially valid explanation for the 28 point shift. That's a huge shift.

It's a fucking enormous shift. Fucking enormous shift. But I think it's always been tenuous. Yeah. I think it's always been tenuous because I don't think that those groups broadly when they're surveyed are socially liberal. When they're surveyed, those groups broadly speaking tend to be more socially conservative. So I think that the Democrats have had access to those votes on borrowed time.

One of the things that strikes me is like, doesn't it feel, and I'm just spit balling here, but doesn't it feel more insulting that we're saying to a large group of people, especially immigrant populations and non-white populations and saying, this is how you need to think in order to be part of this group. Absolutely. Instead of listening to them. Instead of listening to that group and saying, let's talk about all these issues

and figure out where we all stand on them and let me try to understand your viewpoint and let me try to understand your plight in the world and why you got there and how you got there. Instead of, like, it feels like a lot of the things that we suggest are prescriptive. Like, we come out and we say, this is how you need to think.

This is how you need to think about this issue. This is the right way to think about this issue. This is the empathetic way to think about this issue. And we rarely ask people what they think about it. Instead, we prescribe what they should think about it. And we don't ask these immigrant populations, these non-white populations, what they think about the issue.

Dude, I fully agree with that. The left feels sometimes like it's offering a fucking lecture. Yeah. Right? And to be fair, when I listen to people on the left, I'm like, yeah, I think those things are true and right and backed up often by data, right? I think, but that's one, nobody likes a lecture. And two, like there's a thing,

and this like people can call it out like as it's a little bit bullshit, and I get this a little bit bullshit, but I'm using it as an analogy. There is a thing that like you can do if you want people to like you, which is called mirroring. Have you heard of this mirroring technique? No. Mirroring is, if I want you to like you, which is called mirroring. Have you heard of this mirroring technique? No.

Mirroring is, if I want you to like me, I'm gonna make some adjustments perhaps to my speech, my mannerisms, maybe even the way I sit, and I'm gonna try to mirror you a little bit. I'm gonna reflect you back to yourself. Because I already know you like you, right? You wake up presumably, and you make choices that you like. So I'm going to mirror you back to you.

So it is a subtle way for people to build trust and get people to like other people. The technique is called mirroring. I think the Republicans are doing a great job of mirroring right now. And that's part of listening, right? So I hear what you're mad about. I set it back to you. I hear what's you're mad about I said it back to you. I

Hear what's important you I said it back. Yeah, yeah, I think the Democrats are saying I hear what you're mad about Let me tell you how to fix it all the stuff. I know about it, and you're like wait a minute Just be mad with me. We're mansplaining. We're mansplaining it back to everybody Just be fucking mad together Let's mirror back to our constituencies, how they feel, where they're at. Once we have the reins of power, we can work on making everyone's lives better. We can't make everyone's lives better if we don't win. You're in survival mode now.

You're in survival mode now. Yeah. You're in survival. I mean, we're in deep, like we've talked about this on many shows, we're in a deep, difficult place right now where America may be changed forever. Yeah. So who knows? It's terrifying. Who the fuck knows, right?

So it's all just wishful, hopeful thinking. But genuinely, you gotta go back to this. You have to turn back to this in the future and say, how do we do this better? How do we do this better? Because we're doing a bad job. We're doing a bad job of reaching people. We're doing a bad job of reaching people where they are.

We're doing a bad job of listening to those groups, especially vulnerable and smaller populations, minority populations. We're doing a bad job of all that. And I think, you know, simple messaging is clear and easy and you need to do it. Don't answer questions. It's another thing you gotta do.

I think all that stuff is easy to fix. I just hope that there is a chance to fix it. I do too, man. I hope we get people who understand how to do this work. The messaging, the thing that makes me crazy is like, the left has the data to back up more often than not where we're at with the solutions that need to be put in a place to build a better world, right? So the left already has the data. So we already have institutions and processes like science, right, on our side. So we don't have to like do that work over again.

That work is fundamentally, like we have it, like there is a left leaning bias to reality, right? We don't have to, what we have to do is figure out how to message. We've done a terrible job of it. We don't know how to reach out. We've lost the, like we're losing unions. That's fucking insane.

You're losing the worker vote. You're losing the worker, like the regular worker vote you're losing unions. Yeah, I know that's fucking insane. You lose it You're losing the worker vote right losing the worker like the regular worker vote. You're losing the the workers, right? Here's a crazy thing I never thought I would say the working class people in America are looking to the billionaire class Yep to help solve their problems rather than looking to the Democrats Who want to provide social safety nets and social resources. Those things seem like they don't make sense, but they do. They make sense because the Republicans have said, I hear what you're mad about, I'm mad

with you. Yep. Yep. All right. That's going to wrap it up for our long form discussion. Thank you so much for joining us. So we'll be back next week with a full show and until then we're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptics Creed.

Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil, Toil and Trouble, Pseudo-Quasi-Alternative, Acupunctuating, Pressurized, Stereogram, Pyramidal, Free Energy, Healing, Water, Downward, Spiral, Brain Dead, Pan, Sales Pitch, Late Night, Info, Docutainment, Leo Pisces, Cancer Cures, Detox, Reflex, Foot Massage, Death in Towers, Tarot Cards, Psychic towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, bigfoot, yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody,

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