It Could Happen Here - The Red Wave That Wasn't

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

The crew talks with electoral analyst Jack Rasul about the recent midterm elections.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by

an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him.

Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everything's dead! Oh, wait, no, sorry. It could happen here. A podcast about stuff falling apart. And today, about the fact that things fell less apart than people were worried they were going to fall apart.

And in some ways, might get better. So that's kind of nice. Sure. Yeah. On the whole, we're talking about the midterms today. And on the whole, okay. I feel okay. Mid is an excellent description yeah yeah it's the midterms equivalent of getting like an ounce of of of like mid-grade weed for like 50 bucks but you find out

later that like kind of in the middle of it was like half of a paper towel roll that they they stuck in there to push up the weight but it's like well at least I got weed alright I've introduced the podcast who do we have here today oh you got me I'm James still that's right

yeah I'm Garrison I did vote look at you wow way to be a way to be an anarchist garrison or canadian same diff democracy was on the ballot is this what yeah uh-huh yeah yeah i'm not committing voter fraud for the for the democratic party yeah yeah i also uh decided to not vote for the people who are doing like the war on war on drugs in California right now. No. Garrison, you continued your years-long tradition of submitting

a crude drawing of the Premier of Canada to a ballot box. Yep. Shirtless Trudeau coming out of a cave. Yeah. Who else do we have on with us right now uh i'm here i'm christopher wong and i absolutely despise elections so i brought my friend who actually does like elections excellent token election enjoy pretty much yes hi i am jack i am christopher's token friend as mentioned um and i'm here partly because of nepotism for knowing christopher and partly because uh as

he reminded me before we got started i had a 93 percent uh accurate prediction rating for all the elections that i was paying attention to this year. So, I know some things. Yeah, congratulations. I only made one prediction before this election which was, boy, it doesn't feel like Dr. Oz is going to win. Which means you did better than a lot of

the people who are paid to do this. Like, okay, that man said the word crudité in an election in pennsylvania like there was he was never good the moment that ad came out he was going to lose that's much more nuanced than my my political analysis which was the fact that the other guy was much taller than him. And also way harder.

Like if they just, uh, settled it with a fist fight, Fatman could have taken it. Yep. That seems good. Uh, it was fun.

It was a fun election. We all had a good time. I enjoy that fucking Marjorie Taylor green and JD Vance are going to be in Congress together. That's going to be fun for everybody. We're all going to have a good time. Mm-hmm. Huzzah.

But I suspect there's probably some stuff we haven't, like, as you may have noticed, listeners, we didn't do much in the way of pre-midterm content because we all hate it. Thank Christ. But now we're talking about it. So what should we know about these midterms? What kind of occurred to you as somebody who's like actually has spent a lot more time delving into the nitty gritty and thinking about what was likely to happen?

So I told Christopher I would say this, and in fairness, I do genuinely believe it. I think the story of these midterms, when historians look back at it, will be that the Dobbs Supreme Court decision had the same electoral impact in the United States as 9-11 did. I think that is going to be like how this plays out over time. Because when you look at how things were going before Dobbs and then how things were going after Dobbs. Obviously, things got a lot worse on the policy front because abortion became illegal in a lot of states. But the election essentially flipped overnight from what was going to be a Republican wave to the even split that we got. And that makes this one of three post-World War II midterms where the incumbent party did well. And so this is definitely going to be a midterm that gets lectured about in Poli Sci 101 courses for the next hundred years. Also, one of those other three was the post-911 midterm.

Yes, yes, it was. Yeah, yeah, I find that actually a really – because obviously I was aware just because there was so much coverage saying like this is the best performance from an incumbent party in a midterm since 2002 so i was aware of that fact but for some reason i hadn't put it together in my head that way that like yeah the the the this means that like the supreme court's decision on roe v wade had kind of a comparable electoral impact to flying two planes and to a pair of skyscrapers at the Pentagon or three planes. I mean, to be fair,

whatever, to be fair, the Supreme court have killed like in, in, in terms of the immediate impact, the Supreme court will have killed more people than that by like Thursday or something. So yeah.

The other one was, was FDR's first midterm, right? No, the other one. So that, so I said midterm right uh no the other one so that so i said post-world war ii um my bad the other the other one was 1998 when the american electorate apparently got so mad at republicans impeaching bill clinton that they decided to vote for democrats in a midterm again well that's the that's the other thing biden can do if it if it goes south it's good to know there are options on the table. Yeah, but I think...

Non-zero chance that'll happen anyway. I mean, I guess we're still waiting to see the shakeout. Who knows? Doc Brandon. I enjoyed, from an entertainment perspective, the three months of lucidity that we got out of Joe Biden this year. We'll see how many more he has in him. Yeah. Who knows? that we got out of joe biden this year we'll see how many more he has in him yeah who knows

so yeah like it so you're you're suggesting that dobbs has been like the really pivotal thing here in in swinging a lot of these close races right absolutely um and dobbs definitely being the number one factor um tragically because it's very cringe and i wish this hadn't happened uh the january 6th investigation does actually seem to have also swung several uh important races that's i i mean i'm interested in your thoughts on this but i actually i'm i'm glad that it mattered that they tried to do a coup and it's like i'm glad that people cared about that i'm glad it mattered yeah i just i just think it sucks that because the way they went about the investigation was

so incredibly terrible oh yeah i mean there was yes yeah um like merrick garland is going to go down as like one of the most cowardly attorney generals in american history but um yeah it's it's pretty clear that in a lot of races, like the investigation made a difference. I think this is really clear if we're getting into like very kind of under the hood. Democrats ran the table in competitive state level secretary of state races. And these are the officials that run elections. And not only did Democrats run the table, pretty much every single one of those candidates outperformed the top of the ticket. So they outperformed the governor and Senate

candidates. Um, so there were a lot of people, this is another big story. The midterms is that swing voter swing voting is back, uh, not swing voting. I'm sorry. Split ticket voting is back. Um, there were quite a few, there were quite a few millions of voters this year who uh voted for a republican in the senate or a republican for governor and then a democrat to run their state's actual elections that's kind of good it's that's also like it speaks promisingly of people's like engagement with the political system and education about it and the awareness of what these different things do yes um but other like like that other than that but just overall high level dobbs was 100 the big one um there is a person whose name i'm going to unfortunately mispronounce and that i should have looked up

beforehand it's all right this is a safe place for that. Thank you. But there's a person, there's a guy down in Louisiana named John Kulivan, I think is my best guess. And he is one of the people who makes money off of like looking at elections. And his big thing is that you can predict the outcome of elections just by looking at the nationwide composition

of the primary electorate. So like if Republicans turn out more voters in their primaries and Democrats do, Republicans are going to win the election and vice versa. This has been true in pretty much every single election for the last 30 years or so. And he unfortunately got led astray this year because nationwide at the end of the primary season, Republicans were up by about like five points. And so he was insisting the whole rest of the campaign that Republicans are going to win. That's obviously not really what happened. But if you look at pre Dobbs versus post Dobbs, the primary electorate post Dobbs was Democrats plus like up by one point. That is the electorate that we got in the midterms.

So Dobbs 100% set the tone of like what the midterms were going to be because we are not going to be legalizing abortion nationwide in the next two years because we are going to have a Republican house. Almost certainly Dobbs is almost definitely going to be a huge factor in 24 as well i mean and i guess that like because i the question i had and i think a lot of people had running into this especially people who are not election lovers is like do things matter right like it was dobbs going to matter and was the were the constant sort of republican assaults on on the ability of people to vote was the the the fucking attacks on children's hospitals and on trans kids and

stuff like was all of that going to work like do do things matter still and uh i you know we'll have to re-answer that question in 2024 but it does kind of seem like that's the positive takeout from this is not like you know it's it's probably probably too early to say are we seeing some sort of grand progressive swing or are people coming around on b or Biden or whatever things politicos want to take. But it does kind of seem that like on a, on a very like ground floor level it mattered that the Republicans were doing awful things. Yes.

100% mattered. I think Christopher and I have talked about how in his words, Leah Thomas costs the Michigan Republican party, the election. Let's talk, let's talk about that. Cause I think a lot of people, I mean, yeah, how, in his words, Leah Thomas cost the Michigan Republican Party the election. It's true. Let's talk about that because I think a lot of people, I mean, yeah, let's talk about that. Okay, I'll give the meme version of it first. The meme version of it basically is that there was, okay, so there was a report released by the Republican Party in Michigan after the election where they sort of

got hammered and part of what they're talking about was like okay so the inflation is like 7.7 percent right now right this is the freest election anyone has ever been handed like in human history like a child could have won this election and the republicans managed to blow it and one of these managed to blow it was they talked about this they spent they spent like 25 million dollars like specifically on ads about trans like trans kids in sports yeah and everyone in michigan was just like what the yes okay not not just not just blew it but blew it in a way that they haven't blown it in 40 years because for the first time in 40 years democrats will have complete control of the michigan state government yeah yeah and it's like it's like the other things it wasn't just in michigan where this

happened right like like quite possibly like one of the ways they're gonna lose the senate is because like the republicans like entire sort of apparatus in Nevada was running against the Equal Rights Amendment. And specifically, they were running against Nevada passing a version of the Equal Rights Amendment, like specifically on the grounds of transphobia. And the ERA passed by 17 points, and Republicans are about to lose that Senate seat. And Republicans are about to lose that Senate seat. And it's just like, my main version of this is that the Republican Party ran a platform that is like the political equivalent of like a street preacher, right? Like that is the constituency for this. It is like they unbelievably hate trans people.

They like a unbelievably hardline anti-abortion position, which again, like nobody actually likes. And, you know, it turns out like if your constituency is street preachers, like the thing an average person does when they run into a street preacher is walk past them. And it turns out that's what happened here. Like they tried this and they got owed. That's the meme version of it.

Absolutely. I mean, that's not just the meme version of it. It's essentially what happened in Michigan and Pennsylvania in all of these states where hardline Christian nationalists won Republican primaries like they went down hard. And so, as Robert said, yeah, things actually mattered this election. And that's a good thing. And I think I know for me, And I think I know for me, as like I went into election night, very nervous about my own predictions, because when I put together my Google spreadsheet that will never be shown to any of you because of how insane it is. know i got more races wrong by the way by picking republicans to win that democrats actually won than the other way around um because i kept second guessing myself it's like no no i'm not

i'm being too kind to democrats and then i went too far but when i was making those predictions honestly i just kept thinking about like so i'm adopted my parents are both white and my mom is this like white woman from Appalachian, Ohio. And she is, um, in her upper sixties. So she grew up in a world before Roe v. Wade. Um, and I had never seen my mom so angry about anything in politics. And like, she was very, very angry when Trump won. Um, she has been very angry. She's been very angry about like January six. She's been angry about a lot of stuff the last several years, as is my dad.

Um, because they're both very normie Democrats, but my mom has never been angrier as far as I've seen her than she was angrier about Dobbs. And it wasn't just like my mom. I was hearing from friends of mine from across the Midwest who also have like normie white suburban parents. And that was kind of the same thing that I was hearing from them, too, is like my mom is so upset about this. My grandmother is so upset about this. These women who remembered what it was like to grow up in a world where abortion was not something that they had access

to if they needed it. And that honestly, you know, it's obviously completely anecdotal. It's not data based or data driven in any way. But that was just what I kept thinking about as I was making predictions about how the midterm was going to go was, you know, I think that these people are angry enough that they are not going to care about inflation. They're not going to care about the fact that our economy is very clearly headed for a recession because this is going to matter more to them. And it did. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well.

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Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I kind of want to move on to talking about what we think this sets us up for in 2024. Because I think the clearest, and we talked about this a little earlier, but sort of the clearest thing that's positive about this is that we have fewer state secretaries of state and state legislatures in the hands of the Republican Party, which means more of a chance that, like,

what people actually vote for is is going to matter. Now, we're still dealing with a judiciary that is as fucked as it was prior to the midterms and in 2024 probably won't be less fucked in a way that is notable in aggregate. Yeah, we can all we can always hope and pray yeah there could be a couple of very specific car accidents yeah yeah yeah on that point actually so they're um i know a bang on about about uh like how the united states deals with its indigenous people a lot but like they're they slated and we'll do an episode on it but we're trying to do it properly uh like slated for this uh supreme court session is to look at

the indian child welfare act uh and like the challenge to it challenges a lot of the bases of other tribal law and in places like arizona right Like indigenous people are a large, like often like in 2020, they were supposed to be like the swing electorate for like blue Arizona. So that could have positive outcomes for Democrats. It could, they could, I don't know how they could go out their way

to disenfranchise indigenous people, but they find new and exciting ways to do it all the fucking time. So like, that will be interesting. One thing I wanted to raise is like so i live in california which i think is seen as like the left coast and stuff but we have an alarming amount of really chudly people going to the house uh from california and um yeah it's becoming increasingly a bit like where like some of you live live in Oregon, where you have a very divided state. The far right in California is larger than the population of many US states.

Yeah, yes. And they're increasingly big mad about small things. But yeah, I'm just looking at the districts around the one I'm in, and a number of them have sent anti-reproductive rights House representatives back to the House. California is a state where the Democratic Party likes to flop its way to victory. It's one of the most incompetent

state Democratic parties in the country, which is really saying something because... We should talk about New York after this. They're competing with New York. They're competing with Florida. I mean, hey, Oregon's not didn't do great either. Like the state Democratic Party in Oregon had their most narrow governor's race in a long time. And also the Dems lost their their supermajority in the state Congress. They did lose their supermajority, but Democrats in Oregon do now have the ability to redistrict again so they can take back that seat that Republicans picked up because there was a constitutional amendment that got passed by the voters of Oregon

that says that if Republicans do what they have done in the last few years in Oregon, which is walk out of the statehouse any time that a law they don't like might pass, they get banned from running for re-election. But also, like, without the supermajority, I don't know that there's as much of a... I mean, we'll see what happens. But, yeah, as a general rule, it seems like when you've got... There's no meaningful competition for what party is going to be in control of the state it becomes a haven for like the political equivalent of grifters to

yeah suck in huge salaries and do very little um and yeah yeah like our mayor or to just do like our mayor look at that our mayor also yeah and she's up for re-election in a few months and we can only hope that she that she loses I can't imagine her winning I mean it could happen

it could happen here it could happen here here's an ad break good work Garr yeah what a professional ah we're back and you know what talking about the midterm elections makes me feel like doing smoking a cigarette buy cigarettes kids they're as good for you as democracy all right we're back in some other interesting news this is also the this this past midterms had uh more lgbtq candidates win office than ever before in a midterm election there was a few uh notable wins uh specifically with trans people in the Midwest, actually, which has been probably a decent sign.

It's a good sign. Yeah, the hometown heroes are doing good. Yes, there's been multiple trans people, particularly quite a few trans women elected to state legislatives across the Midwest, like in Montana and inside Controversial putting Montana in the Midwest

You call Montana a Midwestern state Oh You're gonna get murdered Is Montana a mountain state? I'm calling that out Montana is a mountain West. See,

well, the thing is I grew up, I grew up in Saskatchewan, which is like above Montana. And whenever you would drive down, we would always stay in the more Midwest sections and everyone talks. It felt very Midwest to me because of where I lived in Saskatchewan. So apology,

apologies to people who are Montana mountainers, I guess. Also apologies to the people of Chicago. No, no, we don't need to be apologetic. No, we don't need to be apologetic to Chicago. They can fuck off. So Zoe Zephyr, who testified against anti-trans legislation previously, is now able to vote against it in Minnesota. Yeah, I want to talk about that very briefly. Sure, sure.

There are a lot of queer communities in places that people just fucking ignore. Yeah, absolutely. You cannot discount these places. Yeah, like I was going to say, Missoula specifically has a pretty substantive queer community. They do good shit.

They're out there. There's this sort of tendency i think to like like look at like a state and go like oh it's a red state like there's whatever the people who are just fleeing and it's like it's not true like there there are a lot of people who are like have for many years been building a community there and hanging on tenaciously and building it and Every once in a while, people take notice. Also in Missoula, the first non-binary candidate was elected in, S.J. Howell. So two trans people elected there in Missoula. By the way, did Missoula do this before Portland?

I mean, this would follow. But Portland's city council is like four fucking people. Yeah, that's true. And it swung pretty conservative this past election, actually.

But we also had in Minnesota, Leah Fink is the first trans person in state legislator, and in New Hampshire they elected the first trans person in state legislator and in new hampshire uh they elected the first trans man to a u.s state house that's dope so yeah and and other other good thing is um arizona got a democratic governor uh which means a whole bunch of uh potential legislation will probably not get signed on uh because did have some pretty bad anti-trans stuff come up in the past few years.

I also want to talk about, so the Arizona election was critical, not just because it's amazing that fucking Carrie Lake's not going to be governor because she is an election-denying ghoul, but it's the nicest thing I've ever heard him describe. Blake Masters might be the scariest person who was running for election he is he is the scariest he is he was hardcore serial killer

energy yes yes yeah yeah he was he was scary until he was funny is the thing because like i you know when they fail they're always funny yeah but, but Christopher and I were talking about this before the podcast, and during the final debate between Blake Masters and Mark Kelly, am I allowed to swear on this podcast? Yes. Oh, yeah. We're allowed to say whatever the hell we want. Perfect.

Big fat load of cum. In their final debate between Mark Kelly and Blake Masters, Mark Kelly's final statement, his concluding argument was essentially pointing at Blake Masters and going, look at this fucking freak. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. Which is one of the most powerful things you could do in politics. Because he was just like the specific thing he did because his language was, I think, a lot more nuanced than that. Because what he was saying is Blake Masters, for those of you who don't know, like one of the most famous moments of this campaign is he put out a campaign ad that was just him parking in the desert with a silenced handgun. Yes, silenced 22.

22. Yeah. Coward. Which is silenced 22. 22. Yeah. He's a coward. Which is a child's gun, first off. But anyway, mentioning twice that the gun was German and like... Made it German two times.

As he caressed it and then firing it blindly at nothing and then the ad ends. No, no. He fired it across a lake. Yeah. We don't see him shoot at something. We don't see him hit a target.

His stance is dog shit. Anyway, but it's just him taking a silenced pistol out, repeatedly mentioning that the gun is German, firing it, and then the ad ends. That's the whole ad. It's like 90 seconds of him just fondling this gun and badly shooting it. It's worth giving the context that

the person he's running against is someone whose wife was shot in the head yes yeah yeah yeah because uh martin kelly's yeah yeah very nearly assassinated so that's but it's also just like look guns are a big part of american life a lot of politicians have ad including democrats have ads that involve guns and usually it's like, here is me hunting. Or even like, here is me at the range with friends engaging in a thing that many Americans do.

Masters was just blindly shooting a.22 caliber handgun after repeatedly mentioning that it's German. It was like someone showed an alien, like a regular campaign ad of someone shooting a gun and then... I mean, it's funny that that's the term that you used

because that was a term that was flying around like Arizona social media the entire campaign. It was like, Blake Bastards looks like an alien. This is so fucked up and creepy. You get pumped with Peter Thiel money for your whole life. So he has this, and he has a couple of others.

He is... Number one, he worked with Peter Thiel get pumped with peter teal money for so so he has this and he has a couple of others like he is he is on he's a number one he worked with peter teal for years um he's doing all sorts of fucking ghoul shit on twitter like really mask off fascist unhinged shit and mark kelly in the debate isn't just like look at this freak he's hey, we all know guys like this who talk about how dangerous and how scary they are, but they've never done anything. They're just like weirdos trying to scare you so that you'll think that they're powerful

and like, don't fall for it. And it was perfect. And the good news is that Arizona voters did not fall for it because- No, they sure didn't. Not only did Blake Masters lose, but the best performing Republicans in Arizona were their House candidates. The statewide House popular vote for U.S. Congress, not the State House, was I think Republicans won it or are going to win it by like five. So Kari Lake already drastically underperformed that by six because she's going to lose.

And then so Blake Masters underperformed his House candidates by like 10 or 11. Unbelievable. that whatever most Americans want, they don't want a fucking weirdo fascist freak threatening an astronaut's wife with a gun. No.

Really briefly, also, on this note of all of the queer and trans candidates who won, I will point out, this follows the pattern that has taken shape in the last decade which is that these supposedly well not supposedly they are but like these red and purple states in the south and the midwest are sending queer and trans people into the halls of power a lot faster than deep

blue states on the west coast and in the northeast the first non i unfortunately forget their name but the first non-binary state legislator in the country was elected in oklahoma and they're not only non-binary they are black and muslim non-binary um so it's like you know these um these communities as christopher's like a these communities do matter uh we can't forget about them we can't abandon them but also like not just they matter but like as i will happily argue with any political operative from either coast uh we are much more likely to see some kind of progressive resurgent and resurgence in this country led by candidates out of the south or midwest than either of our coasts yeah yeah well

and like like look at like this is one of the everything's that that you know so i have a lot of friends in the uh like michigan teachers union right and you know like right right now what is happening in michigan like in michigan is the teachers union is literally sending lists of laws like to to the governor that are like you need to get rid of this and you know if you like if even if you look at like like almost every other democratic party like in the country is just constantly at war with their teachers unions and you know and then you look at like you look at what's happening in wisconsin and it's like and you look at what's happening in michigan well also wisconsin too like they have a much more labor friendly Democratic Party

than like fucking San Francisco or like the ghouls in like honestly the ghouls in the Chicago machine the ghouls in Eric Adams office yeah right like I don't know like

everyone ignores the Midwest and we're here damn it and we do good things. It's a little bit like, I mean, it's a little bit of what we were saying earlier, that like, when you've got these states where because of the population layout, the Democratic Party doesn't have to struggle to actually win for the most part. You're a hell of a lot number one the party becomes effectively a cartel so they're very good at stopping any like upstart young progressive non-binary queer trans people from like getting a hold on in local politics you know we just had the most progressive member of the portland city council ousted by corporate business interests um and you know, it,

which is very different from the trend that you're seeing in places like Montana and places like Oklahoma with a lot of these very progressive, you know, young candidates. And it's because number one, maybe the state parties are a little more willing to throw a Hail Mary, but also just like those individual people, the people running and the folks doing their campaign have had to be a lot harder and a lot smarter to survive surrounded by people who hate them. And I think also like

there's one of the ways that I was pretty sure that this wasn't going to be a red tsunami was so I have some friends. I have friends who go to Wheaton College and for people who don't know what Wheaton College is, it is like we're sorry that we're about to inform you. Yeah go to Wheaton College and for people who don't know what Wheaton College is it is like we're sorry that we're about to inform you yeah so Wheaton College is one of like I don't know maybe the second behind like Brigham Young

like most right wing evangelical college in the US like they famously it's not as bad as Liberty yeah yeah it's like number three right but like so this is like the intellectual center of like a sort of evangelical politics. Like, hold on, let me make sure I have this right. Yeah, like Billy Graham's family has funneled money into Wheaton is a like broadly speaking, like a fucking ferociously hostile place to be anything other than a like a cishet white person. Right. It is like unbelievably homophobic.

It is really anti-Semitic. And like a few months ago, I was walking like through Wheaton downtown to visit a friend. And in the middle of fucking Wheaton downtown, there was someone who in their like fucking lawn had like had a giant pride flag. And like it wasn't like it was like it was like the it was the like the brown pride flag too, right? Like that was like even like five years ago, that would have been unimaginable. Like you would have been like, you would have been fucking chased out of town by a mob. Like, and it's just there now. And I don't know, like they haven't been run out.

It's still there. No, it's literally, yes, everything that Christopher just said. And, you know, these are people that Christopher and I grew up with. Like we literally, I was, there was a granddaughter of Billy Graham in my high school class. And I think, you know, as much as, you know, these people are not going to be socialists or progressives anytime soon. They are very much like normie moderate Democrats now. But there were a lot of suburban white people who got very turned off by Trump for the Republican Party. that always, always throws elections to the out-of-power party, these normie white suburbanites are not going back. And when you look at trends across the country,

J.B. Pritzker won DuPage County, which is the county that Wheaton is in. Yeah, insane. Which is like, you know, this is... Understandable. Yeah, like this used to be, christopher and i's lifetimes this used to be a county that republicans banked on getting 300 000 votes out of on a statewide margin level um and now it's being won up and down by democrats like democrats flipped the county executive office in dupage county this year

um so like chicago suburbs are trending are continuing to trend left atlanta suburbs are continuing to trend left uh the like raleigh durham area north carolina is trending left the texas urban areas are trending left and this isn't just like in comparison to 2016 this is in comparison to 2020 two years ago which was a Democratic environment. So the fact that these counties are swinging left in a year where the country, even though the overall results were fine, the country definitely swung right. Like these people are not going back and not just that these people are not going back, but the ones who are staying Republicans, A, they're moving, they're leaving the suburbs and they're establishing their little new white flight outposts in other places.

And the people who are replacing them are largely people of color. Like the suburbs today in America are 60 percent white as compared to in the year 2000 when they were something like 75 to 80 percent white. So this is, I think, this year was the confirmation we needed that this is a permanent trend, that the suburbs from now on are either going to be awash or even, frankly, just places where Democrats will net votes. And this is all, there still is a lot of fear and there still is reason to be very concerned about the ability of the GOP's power to push things in a revanchist direction in an anti-democratic election to remove the ability of people because that that is you know we're seeing them talk right now we're seeing guys like Matt Walsh Christopher Ruffo talk right now about the need to like stop young people from voting to like crack down on male voting like this is not not to say like all right it's all done but it this is like, I guess the thing that's optimistic about this overall is that it is, it's evidence that the, there was this kind of open question after Trump won in 2016.

And if one thing you could look at, could look at 2018 you could look at 2020 now 2022 and go like well clearly the trend since then has been for the gop to lose big in most of these elections but that was also anything but clear kind of as a result of of 2020 and the way covid fucked things up and this this does seem to like cement that that like yeah it it may it may have in the long run proved to be a major major tactical failure to to have gone for this guy the way that they did oh yeah i mean and we can only hope um yeah i mean i personally from an entertainment factor uh cannot wait for the desantis versus trump primary um i will be i will be rooting for trump because he is funnier online um and also i don't think it would make a substantive

difference uh in whether or not like who would be the nominee because desantis is just trump without the charisma yeah um but i think yeah hopefully like we saw the republican party pay a price this year for arguably the first time in a long time for their insanity um and it's good to see that that happened uh hopefully it will happen again and i will also note for anyone listening who does you you know, you care about elections, you want to get involved somewhere. The next somewhere for you to get involved in is the state of Wisconsin, where there is a state Supreme Court seat up for election in April. If Democrats win that seat, they will flip the Supreme Court in Wisconsin. And that means that the absolutely insane Republican gerrymanders in that state, which pretty much render the state of Wisconsin a

non-democracy, will likely get overturned if Democrats are able to flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which would mean a lot of good things could happen for a lot of people who live in that state. Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora, an anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh.

And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story

is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture

in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast,

and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Okay, there is one other thing that is like basically unrelated to this that i want to touch on before we close up which is that the extent to which the republicans have sort of entered chaos mode now a with with trump just sort of like going off on DeSantis and like the, the Republican civil war happening. And then secondly, because they, they, they seem,

it looks like they've gotten the chaos mode configuration of their house majority. Yep. Yes. Um, any, anyone who pays attention to Congress, I would encourage you to get very,

very familiar with the term discharge petition, uh, which is a mechanism by which if you have a majority of the House that is willing to sign a piece of paper that says we should put this bill on the floor no matter what, it goes to the floor no matter what. And I think you're probably going to see Democrats successfully put a lot of bills on the House floor in the next two years because they're going to get they're going gonna pick off the republican moderates in the northeast uh to sign these these pieces of paper um we should i think we should explain what exactly the republican position looks like because it's oh sure so um it's so i i should caveat this with the statement that there is still, I would say, a 5% chance that Democrats manage to scrape their way to a one-seat majority.

It's not likely by any means, but it is still theoretically on the table, mostly because Lauren Boebert managed to put herself in a position where she might actually lose. to put herself in a position where she might actually lose um and but default modal outcome i would say is republicans end up with a three or four house seat majority uh in but what that means is that uh cal we get calvin ball for the next two years essentially uh because kevin mccarthy as a person um is well a he's like very unintelligent in general and this is like a very common sentiment that you will run into uh in people who pay attention to congress he is not personally capable of managing a house majority of four this is so widely accepted that nancy pelosi was willing to go on the record in an interview the other day saying that. And so who knows? Kevin McCarthy may not even end up being the speaker.

We may not have a speaker until March because no one would get 218 votes. But whoever has that job, whatever Republican has that job, it is going to be the most thankless job of their life that they will suffer through for the next two years. Because, you know, the pundit class and political operatives love to talk about how ideologically diverse the Democratic Party is in the House. And it's true, because on the left-wing end of the caucus, you have people like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. And on the right-wing end, you have people like Henry C slave and uh illin omar and the right wing and you have people like henry quayar who tragically survived his primary this year um but i i think it has gone under the radar that republicans in the house are arguably more ideologically diverse than democrats are because the moderates or the moderate Republicans in the house are like

your very standard, like socially liberal, fiscally conservative types that were very popular in like 2010. Um, like you had like some of these Northeastern Republicans who are, were more than happy to vote for same sex marriage though. They would probably vote for, uh, like to codify roe they would probably vote to codify birth control uh legal like uh legality and on the other end you have marjorie taylor green and like if mtg yeah if if there is a person on this earth who is capable of managing that caucus um i don't know who they are I don't think anyone knows who they are

and I think that the smartest thing that that person could do is not take the job and let someone else take the fall for what is going to be two years of chaos that will most likely hurt the Republican brand a lot in the next two years

yeah that's like one of the things that actually makes me like slightly optimistic is that like. The Republican Party, like, is it is it like a diverse coalition and it had been being held together sort of, but like by Trump. And now Trump's not on Twitter anymore. And Twitter may not exist by like the time we get a new speaker. Oh, yeah. Well, it's also I think I might add, Chris, it's not just by Trump. And a part of why Trump was able to get the position he did is it's a mix of Trump and owning the libs. Right. Like that's that's a huge part of why the most visible members of this caucus are where they are like there's no there's no marjorie taylor green right without the way that

particular social reinforcement pattern works and um yeah i i think that like that's not like number one if twitter goes away which could have happened by the time you listen to this episode that really gets gets in the way of their ability to own the libs. But also, if they're just getting their asses kicked up and down the country, they're no longer owning the libs. The libs have not been owned. No, they have not. And I think the other consideration here is that we like to talk a lot in this country, because it's true, about how neither party ever puts forth a substantive policy agenda. And there are a lot of Republican political operatives who are running around right now complaining and saying that Republicans lost because they failed to offer a viable alternative, except that's not true.

Republicans did offer a policy agenda in this midterm and that policy agenda was christian nationalism and american voters took one look at that and said are you fucking for real yeah like that that's the thing that like everyone like like people like all the fucking new york times columnists like people don't understand that like there's maybe 30 of the population who actually likes that shit and everyone else in the country is like what the fuck yeah and you know but but you know like the the the the like the the the actual sort of median person in the u.s is so much less like that than the median person that every pundit imagines that like the version of reality that exists in sort of like the minds of the media

class like it's not real they've created like incredible sandcastles in their mind now the tide's like washing them away I don't know if the tide's washing them away we can only hope that the New York Times gets washed out to sea

but I think I sorry go for it I was just going to say obviously the next two years are going to be the next two years and no one can predict the future anyone who tells you

in literally the next 18 months that they know how the 2024 elections are going to go is lying to you and you should block them and perhaps report them to like whatever like non retributive forms of authority exists in your local area. But. My, you know, based on how this went, if the same trends play out for the next two years, which would be suburbs continue swinging left, Democrats continue to rack up problems with minority voters, but like not to the extent that we're going to like lose urban seats anytime soon. And Republicans continue racking up margins in the states and like the seats that they're already winning by 80 points, which helps them on a statewide level, but does not help them in the U.S. House. My I would say, like, assuming the current trends continue, the trends we've had since 2016, that would mean Democrats flip back the House in 2024. It would also mean that we are once again

in like the fight of our lives for the Senate senate as we likely will be for every single cycle for the next 10 years so you know just kind of get used to that um while you can when you have the breather um but yeah like we had an okay midterm that was literally a year ago looking like it was going to be possibly the worst midterm wipeout uh possibly possibly the end of of the republic as yeah literally literally yes literally yes um so you know so 24 i might might be good i think the responsible thing to do now is to close out by each giving one of our unhinged predictions for what we're going to see in 2024 and i'm going to start i think we're going to see in 2024. And I'm going to start, I think we're going to see Musk and McConaughey vie for the governor of Texas once Greg Abbott is forced out from a sex scandal.

That's my call. Prove to me. When it happens, everybody allow me some french fries. Oh, God. It's going's gonna happen calling it now tom brady i reckon tom brady's gonna uh tom brady's gonna take a swing at it at texas no no one of those states uh up in where it's cold and rains all the time oh yeah yeah yeah one of those yeah i assume he's from broadly speaking illinois to wisconsin yeah he is he is he would be running in new england please do not pin that on us yeah no yeah yeah bro but not that kind of cold like yeah just just gray not like like miserable

cold like you will have on there oh yeah tom brady running in a place where you can't grow tomatoes is my prediction. That feels good. After his massive success selling the hit crypto platform FTX, what can't Tom Brady do? Who knows? Don't ask that question. Put that out there, Robert. Win games for the Buccaneers?

Yeah. The Argentine Germany? Yeah. Survive eating what any normal human being would eat on a given day uh garrison i don't know i don't i don't care about this type of thing very much that's the perfect reason to make a prediction unhinged prediction yeah i don't know i think one of the funniest things is that earlier this year there was this big bitcoin account who said that if things continue bitcoin's going to be a major uh factor in the midterms which is really funny so i'm not wrong so i'm saying that what's a that, what's an even dumber cryptocurrency? Doge would be the obvious one.

I was thinking of Doge. I was thinking of Doge. Dogecoin is going to be a significant factor in the 2024 election. Yeah. Mine is that, okay, Pritzker is's gonna bring back like the old school democratic machine

Biden is gonna fall out a window like Kamala Harris is going to sort of like turn up like they're gonna drain a dam in 30 years and find her body do we think that Biden's gonna run again? yes he won't because he will have fallen out of

a building near the end of 2020 like the end of about 2023. Okay. Christopher is going to take over the US. That's your prediction that Joe Biden will fall out of a window. Christopher is predicting the forced defenestration of Prague.

Here's the thing. We all think that the threat to bourgeois democracy comes come comes from the republicans it's not it's pritzker pritzker's gonna coup the fucking country and probably 60 of the population is going to be completely on board because he's going to be less insane than like everyone that's been like in charge of this country for the last 50 years yep and you know who's gonna save democracy then then? Matthew McConaughey. Okay. Okay.

That leaves me. What is my unhinged prediction? I don't think I'm going to top Christopher's prediction about J.B. Pritzker. I think my unhinged prediction will be that Taylor Swift runs for Senate in Tennessee. Oh, God. Oh, she could do it. Yeah. Yeah, don't.

Don't. Look, if she brings on the head of her fan club who went to jail in Israel for refusing to serve in the IDF, she actually might get some progressive votes. That may have been untrue, sadly.

The, uh, the Swifty refusal, but maybe not. Really? Why did you even introduce that. Really? Why would you even introduce that possibility Why would you say that to me? Because not all

these beautiful things we believe in can be true. Taylor Swift running for Tennessee. She would almost certainly

be better than whoever is a Tennessee senator now, right? Yeah. It's now Colonel Sanders or someone

basically the same as Colonel Sanders I imagine. Colonel Sanders was a Kentucky the same as Colonel Sanders, I imagine. Colonel Sanders was a Kentucky blackbird. That's Kentucky. Yeah, come on, British James. Colonel Sanders is Kentucky. It's called Kentucky fried chicken.

That was basically a slur. There is a type of guy epitomized by Colonel Sanders who also occupies all the Senate seats south of the Mason-Dixon line. That's not true. That's my stance and I'm sticking to it. I am pushing back on this. Well, I'm going to watch a foghorn leghorn video

because that's who I'm thinking of now, James. All right, everybody. That's been the episode. Go vote Swift. Yeah, vote another couple of times. Just make sure. The old Chicago motto, vote early, vote often.

Pay for a few meals. Everyone go to Colorado and vote against Lauren Popper. Literally seven of you or whatever Could swing this Move to Colorado we can't deal with her shit anymore Fund raise in order to purchase A huge number of drones

And drop ballots over Wherever it is in Colorado they count votes I assume Denver? Yeah blanket Denver in your ballots And stop listening to podcasts Denver? Yeah. Blanket Denver in your ballots. And stop listening to podcasts. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast,

and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.