No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - How Trump won and where we go from here

Episode Date: November 10, 2024

Brian offers a postmortem on what happened on Election Day, how we got here, and where we go from here. And Pod Save America's Jon Favreau joins to discuss the election results.Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week's podcast is going to feature a conversation that I had with POTSafe America's John Favreau. But first, a bit of a postmortem on what happened on Tuesday, how we got here, and where we go from here. Let me just say one thing to get off my chest before I go into the actual useful conversation year. The stolen election narrative on the right disappeared in one fell swoop the moment Trump won. In other words, after the last four years of these people insisting beyond any other any semblance of a doubt that Trump won in 2020 because of rampant fraud, apparently elections are secure again. So what happened?

Democrats knew how to cheat in 2020 when they didn't have control of the federal government, but now that they do have control of the federal government, they, what, forgot to cheat? I know that the sun will freeze over before we hear any acknowledgement from these people that they were wrong or deceived or purposefully peddling lies, but they were. And I hope that we all take into account that this encapsulates perfectly. the shamelessness with which the GOP operates. A four-year campaign claiming that Democrats commit fraud in elections and that our elections can't be trusted that vanished the instant, instant,

the system worked in their favor. Which, I suppose, brings me to the crux of my argument here in discussing what went wrong. So a couple things here. First, we can't have this conversation without first acknowledging that the global environment was horrific for incumbents. According to the Financial Times, this is the first time since 1905. that every governing party in the world lost vote share. There was a period of global inflation sending from COVID, and even though the U.S. managed a soft landing with no recession and 16 million new jobs,

the reality is that inflation means higher prices and higher prices means people hurt. And it doesn't matter to a lot of people out there, if our inflation is less bad than other countries' inflation, that's not how people think about things. They're not comparing our egg prices to egg prices in Portugal. They're comparing our egg prices to our oil. egg prices last month or last year. So again, it doesn't matter that we're doing better relative to the rest of the world because our people don't live in the rest of the world. All that matters

is that they're hurting and they're going to take it out on the people who are in charge and the Democrats are in charge. I could argue that it wouldn't even matter what candidate we put up we were going to lose. But let's zoom into the U.S. specifically here. According to Blueprint 2024, the number one reason that swing voters broke for Trump, the number one reason is, quote, Kamala Harris focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class. And of course, this isn't even close to true. In fact, she was silent on trans issues. As far as policy is concerned, she did offer policy. She did offer $25,000 for first-time homebuyer. She did offer $50,000 for small businesses. She did offer raising the minimum wage,

legalizing marijuana. But that's not what right-wing media showed. Right-wing media showed a quote that she made in 2019 on repeat, where she advocated for inmates to get transgender reassignment surgeries. And that position was repeated millions of times on right-wing media. There was a $215 million campaign where commercials were aired nonstop, including during the literal world series showcasing that as her position. And so most people don't know her policy positions, but they sure as hell did think that she was uniquely focused on gender reassignment surgeries for trans Americans who were locked up in prison. And I know people are going to blame the Democrats for losing the plot and catering solely

to the woke stuff. You hear Elon railing against the woke mind virus, same with Joe Rogan, same with people like Barry Weiss and Bill Maher. The reality is that Democrats don't predicate their politics on those issues. Republicans say that Democrats care solely about those issues and the Rogans and the Weiss's and the Mars all accept that Republican framing. These people aren't enlightened like they claim to be. They're just being manipulated by right-wing propaganda

in exactly the same way that the right's base is manipulated by right-wing propaganda. I like to think that I have a decent handle on what the Democratic Party is talking about on any given day, right? You know how many videos I've done on gender reassignment surgeries for trans inmates? Zero. Literally none. You know how many videos I've done on Harris's economic policies or housing policies or business policies? probably hundreds at this point

but because Fox News says that Harris is doing woke stuff media figures will just take their word for it, accept their framing for it, and then blame the left for being too woke. And so how do we fight back? Two ways. First, meet these people where they are

and make the argument like I'm trying to do right now. We gain nothing by avoiding Fox News and Joe Rogan because we can't validate right-wing platforms. Guess what? They're validated. That ship is sailed. They have got millions of loyal fans. They are beating us. They've got more fans than we do.

So at this point, we can go there and make our case, or we can cede that ground to the people who will frame the left in as battle light as they can, and then they'll get zero pushback. Which one sounds better? And the second way is to build up progressive media and try and reclaim the ground that we've lost. I don't want to talk in sweeping generalizations here, but the left has largely lost culture. Young people and even not young people

are consuming a ton of content that basically serves as a gateway to right-wing ideology, whether on purpose or not. Joe Rogan is a gateway to right-wing ideology. The Nelk Boys are a gateway to right-wing ideology. Theo Von, a gateway to right-wing ideology. And again, it's not necessarily intentional,

but it's happening. That's the reality. And we have ceded that ground. And to Trump's credit and Republicans' credit, they lay hands on every influencer on the right, big or small, because they know that giving them an interview means that person will then derive a huge audience from that, and they know once they've validated those people,

those people will go off and do their bidding, advocate for them, work for them, speak for them. And then they've just got one more mouthpiece for their party. Democrats don't do that. You know, speaking from personal experience, I've got three and a half million subs on YouTube, I've got people who I email for months and months and months for interviews and I get ignored. Democrats give all the attention, all the interviews, all the news

stories to mainstream media and they don't do nearly enough to build up a partisan ecosystem that can then go out there and advocate for them. And by the way, this isn't everybody. There are plenty of people who come into my shows, come onto other shows, support independent progressive media. A lot of our people get it, but not enough. And most people in the Democratic Party, most of these politicians and congressional offices, they still view the mainstream media as the principal outlet to make news. And every time they do that, they deprive progressive media, independent progressive media, from getting the validation that we need.

Tell me the last time that a Republican broke news on CBS or ABC or CNN. They don't. They give that news to their people. They give the interviews to their people. They go to Breitbart or Washington Examiner or the Free Beacon or the Daily Wire. That is the asymmetry at play. One party actively supports and validates. grows their media infrastructure.

And look at the way that media infrastructure benefits them. The other tolerates it, but that's about it. Now, with all of that said, obviously, you know, there is a lot of work that we have to do moving forward. But I do want to take a moment to say that we should be proud of the work that we did, especially over the last few months. If you've donated or canvassed or volunteered or phone banked, it all mattered. It matters when you do the right thing.

And it'll matter when you stay in this fight. because in the same way that the Democrats watched Trump get elected in 2016 and then took back the House in 2018 by the biggest margin in modern American history, we are going to do it again. So take the time you need, but don't check out. We've got a long fight ahead. We've got a lot of changes that we have to make, but I promise you the fight is worth it.

And remember most of all that you are not alone, you've got a massive community of people behind you. And if I can guarantee you anything, it's that that community is going to grow. Next up is my interview with John Favro. I'm joined now by the host of Podsafe America, John Favro. John, thanks for joining me today. Thanks for having me, man.

Okay, so I guess in trying to autopsy a little bit of what happened, given the messaging that really won out in this election, the right-wing media ecosystem was able to really have more of an impact getting their message across than the left. I don't know how many Americans out there knew that Kamala Harris supported a $25,000 payment for first-time homebuyers, but I'll bet millions of people think that her. campaign was predicated on gender reassignment surgeries for trans inmates, right? So how are you thinking about Democrats' responsibility now to invest in and bolster progressive media outlets like yours at Crooked Media like mine, over here, and like others? So obviously I think it's

super important, but I just want to take a step back because I think it's important to know the context of this race, the political and economic context in which it took place. So all over the world, incumbents have been losing, losing vote share. In fact, this is the first time since 1905 that every single governing party in a developed nation lost vote share at the same time in the same year, same election cycle. And the reason for this, one big reason for this is the inflation that hit every country after the global pandemic that we went through. And And, you know, we can talk about all the statistics that show the economy is doing well and greatest economy in the world and blah, blah, blah.

But the truth is, like, people aren't feeling it. A lot of people aren't feeling it. And wages have not kept up with price increases for long enough. Interest rates have just started coming down. And so people's feelings about the economy were not great. And that has been true for a couple of years. And so that's number one. So I think that's like the overall sentiment that is, that sort of characterizes the electorate, right?

In addition to that, if you look at the counties and the states where Kamala Harris and her campaign actually competed, they lost by much less than places where they did not, the non-battlegrounds. And what that tells me is that, you know, they were going up against an environment that was just, and headwinds that were just too tough to overcome. And so their campaign mattered. The information they got to people mattered. It changed minds. That's why the people in the battlegrounds were more likely to vote for them than people who weren't in the battlegrounds. Obviously, it wasn't enough. But, you know, I do think that they got the message out.

Now, obviously, as Democrats, we need to figure out a way to reach more people, not just our people, but reach people who are not just like listening to or exposed to more right-wing propaganda, but people who are not paying much attention to news at all. And, you know, this, I was reminded of this when we were canvassing knocking on doors in Phoenix and Vegas the weekend before the election. A lot of the voters we talked to, it's not like they were spouting right-wing talking points or left-wing talking points. Some people were going to vote. They just literally had no idea what Donald Trump stood for or what Kamala Harris stood for. And this was like a couple days before the election because most people in the country lived their lives without thinking about politics, I'm thinking about news that much. And I do think we have to figure out a way to get information and get information to these folks and reach them in ways that are not necessarily like purely political content like you and I do.

Well, to that point then, I mean, what the right really does have is an entire media infrastructure that's not even just predicated on politics, right? I think that there's a difference between people who tune into our stuff because it's expressly politics. But I think a big gateway for the right and why they have been success. is because a lot of their stuff is using culture as a gateway to get into politics. And so you have people who aren't politics first. You have the Joe Rogans of the world. You have Elon, although he's been so red-pilled that he's basically politics first now. But you have the Theo Vons and the Shane Gillises and all of these people who folks online listen to,

especially Gen Z listens to, especially an overwhelmingly male audience listens to, that do offer a gateway for them to then start to consume, whether it's conscious or not, a lot of these right-wing talking points that win out over over over over what we're trying to push on the left yeah and i think well first of all like you need you need those personalities on our side right who are who are have progressive values or liberal values or just left-leaning values um but are out there popular have big reach and don't necessarily just talk about politics so it's hard to invent those people but hopefully they'll you know they'll come forth um but but But I also think it's time for Democrats and liberals to, like, go on those shows more,

interact with those people. And knowing that if you sit down with the Theo Vaughan or Joe Rogan or whatever, like, that doesn't mean that you agree with everything they say. And it doesn't mean that, like, if they just had a guest on who is, you know, you don't agree with or who's just an awful person or whatever. That you being there validates their existence. It doesn't matter. It does not validate it.

Like, if that's where people are getting their information from, that's where we should be. And we should be making our case there, you know? Or at the very least, if it's not an explicitly political case, just letting people who listen to those shows know that we're not the caricature of liberals that you see on Fox or you hear from Donald Trump. So, like, you know, with the young male demographic specifically, how are you thinking? I mean, you got you and your co-host Tommy Dan and Love It are some of the few people in our party that are not, you know, septuagenarians are not, you know, longtime cable hosts. Like you guys are young guys and in a way exactly the demographic that this young male demographic is looking to, to like, form their political opinions or form their opinions about the world. Like how has that informed what you guys, has that changed your strategy at all? in terms of what you're going to be doing, moving forward at Crooked.

How are you thinking about that in terms of really where there's a giant dearth in influence on the left? Yeah, well, I wish we were young guys, but we're pretty old now, so I don't even, we're sort of older political nerds. But if what we are passes for being in touch with young men, that just goes to show the extent of the problem that we have. But I will say like when the president is like, when the president is like, when the president is like, like a septuagenarian heading toward being an octogenarian. I feel like everything pushes forward like three decades. So you guys are the young bucks in the party now. I will say this.

When we started Cricket in Pate of America, one thing that we told ourselves is like, we want to take politics seriously and the issue seriously, but we do not want to take ourselves seriously. And part of the issue with our political system is that too many people in politics, don't take the issues seriously enough and do take themselves very seriously. And you need to be able to laugh at yourself. You need to be able to make fun of other people in good humor, good fun, not without being too mean, right? You need to be able to like take a joke,

laugh at a joke, make jokes, have gallows humor when things go wrong. Some of it is just like not being so self-serious, which is I think what you see sometimes. on cable and like pundits on cable and sometimes people on on twitter and like i just so it really is just being yourself and connecting with people like you would talking with them at a bar talking with them at a restaurant how you talk to people in your own life like i just think we have i mean and that this is getting into like how you know some of the politicians in the democratic party but um we're just too too on message sometimes too focus and on how and it comes and it comes across as like inauthentic because when you when you when you put

that up against the joe rogans of the world people are going to defer to that over over like you know political talking points seven days you know every day seven days at a seven right it's that and yes and and also it's like you know there is a a streak in the democratic party of like being scolding towards people who disagree with you who say something wrong or who exactly who say something wrong who agree with you and just don't agree with the way you said it right and we're like quick to label people as opposed to criticizing their behaviors or their comments we like we criticize them and say that they're wrong so like i just think part of it is just being open to like i've been saying this for years now but like politics we're in the persuasion game and what that means is

when you encounter someone who doesn't agree with you the goal is to change their minds. And if you've ever tried to change someone's mind, you don't get there by yelling at them or scolding them or making them feel inferior in some way. And even if mocking them is deserved, even if you know that their position is not just wrong, but you feel like it is immoral, right? the game of politics the whole point is to get enough people on your side that you have more people than the other side it is addition it is not subtraction like kicking people out of the coalition kicking people out of the party that is not going to win us elections and if we do not win elections we will not have power and if we do not get power we will not be able to help all

the people that we profess to care about that we need to help and so part of this is showing some empathy to other people who do not agree with us and trying to figure out where they're coming from and trying to change their minds and trying to bring them into the coalition so we can beat the people who are on the extreme who are now going to be running the country for the next four years. Yeah, I think the expression that comes to mind is you catch more flies with honey. That is very true. Yeah. You know, I think one thing that's tough, though, and this does lend itself to the initial question that I open the interview with is that even though we do have the,

the more economically populist agenda. And even though we are running against somebody who is not only a billionaire himself, but has ran and not only bankrolled by the literal richest man in the world. So unto itself, already the notion that these people are going to have a populist platform that they're going to abide by is a joke. But Trump's done this before. Like he ran on a populist platform once, when he actually got into office, all he did with his political capital was pass a tax cut that overwhelmingly favored millionaires and billionaires.

I think 83% of the benefits were conferred to the richest Americans, like the top, top tenth of a percent of Americans. And so, and so we already know that, that when you compare the two parties, the Democrats are actually walking the walk when it comes to actually delivering an economically populist agenda. I mean, we have, you know, it was allowed the government to negotiate lower drug prices, cap the cost of health care at $2,000, automatic refunds for airline cancellations, eliminate junk fees at banks, $35 insulin.

So you have all these things where they've actually done something versus Trump just giving a tax cut to the richest Americans. So that's on the merits. But that message isn't breaking through. And as far as I think about it, it's just that we don't have a means to compete with the rights messaging distribution system. We don't have a means to compete with starting at 5 a.m., Fox and Friends, and then Newsmax, and OAN, and Steve Bannon's podcast, and InfoWars, and the Nelke Boys, and, you know, nine of the top top. 20 podcasts are all right wing podcasts, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, right? And they own YouTube and Rumble and Facebook and TikTok. And so we don't have the means to come. So like, I guess there's, there's, the problem isn't necessarily that we're

not doing enough because we do have the economically populist agenda and we're, and we're living it. But it doesn't really matter if nobody knows because all of that information is being distorted on a daily basis, a 24-hour right-wing propaganda machine that is just spewing whatever they want to say to all the people that are consuming that. And so you can work until you're blue in the face to actually deliver results. But if nobody knows about it, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody's there to hear it, does it really matter? Yeah. Well, here's the issue. So for a long time, the access of the debate in America was over the size and role of government.

And we talked about tax cuts, and we debated health care, and we debated how much the government should spend on helping people versus how much, how many tax cuts we should give to rich people. And that was the case for most of our lives through 2012, through Obama's second term, right? And because that was the central debate in American politics, that was the debate that would get covered. And even though we didn't have the same right-wing media, ecosystem then, we got that debate covered because the Republicans wanted to talk about it.

We wanted to talk about it. And that's what the media covered. Now, the central debate in American politics is over identity. It is over democracy itself. It is about all the crazy shit Donald Trump does and says and threatens and then doesn't do and then does do. And how many times do we, We, on Pod Save America, on your show, everywhere, do we, like, have debates about economics and the economy and all the economic accomplishments we're doing, right? When, I mean, Tommy and I had this, you know, debate on Pod Save America right before the election, which is, you know, and I, like, it, Kamala Harris gets asked at a town hall, hey, John Kelly said that Donald Trump's a fascist. Do you agree? And, of course, it's like, well, his own chief of staff said he was a fascist. Well, she didn't go up there that day and be like, I'm going to do a message of the day, fascists. But she said yes.

And everyone's like, oh, now they're talking about fascism. And look, I would prefer an economic message. I thought at the time, I'm like, look, the media only covers culture wars, identity wars, Trump is the fascist stuff, democracy at the stake stuff, the liberal side. We all talk about that. We don't spend a lot of time talking with the economy. So to have an economic message breakthrough in a way where. not only people who pay a lot of attention to politics, but people who barely pay attention to politics understand it requires more than talking about your list of very good economic

policies or your list of very good economic accomplishments. Because, yeah, Democrats have done a lot to help working middle class people, get people out of poverty over the last four years even. Joe Biden's done more than a lot of presidents. But if you're someone who hasn't been helped, right? Maybe the capping insulin doesn't personally affect you, right? Maybe you didn't experience the child care tax credit or you did and now you're pissed that it expired and you don't know why it expired. But you're blaming a guy in charge. Yeah, and you blame the person in charge. And so for the people who have not been helped, the people who have experienced hardship over the last year because of inflation, I don't know. We have to have an answer for.

them on why on if we haven't helped them then we have to have an answer about why we haven't been able to help them and that answer which i think is a good one which is like we had a bunch of republicans standing in the way they voted against it but like that has before we figure out like a mechanism for getting that message to them that has to be we have to we just have to live that every day in a way that's like like i'm thinking about trump's next four years and he's going to do a lot of crazy shit. Some of it's going to be really scary. Some of it could be really scary. Some of it could really hurt people that doesn't have to do with economic stuff. But I'm thinking, okay, everyone who voted for Trump or a lot of people, they thought, well,

I don't like him, but I had more money in my pocket when he was president. And so maybe I'll, maybe I'll just close my eyes and not pay attention to Donald Trump and just enjoy the Trump economy. Well, now for the next four years, we've got to be like, hey, how are you feeling about the Trump economy? Do you feel like you have more money in your pocket? Do you know that? that Democrats wanted to lower the lower your health insurance premiums or lower your prescriptions even further and Donald Trump is saying no do you know the Democrats wanted to give you a tax cut but Donald Trump wants to give it to the richest people over and over and over again and if we all started saying that on all of our programs yeah you know then maybe

the media would cover it more do you think that it that there does have to have to be a stronger through line on economic populism that that issue is so resonant that even with the most dangerous candidate in American history, somebody who a few years ago incited an insurrection against the U.S. government, for them to vote largely based on the economy, I mean, the inflationary impacts across the entire world, like you just said, have led to ousters or losing ground among incumbents across the entire planet, that there's nobody that was spared. So clearly, the impacts of inflation are strong and the effects of the economy are strong. And so knowing how how resonant that issue is with voters, like, is that going to inform how you guys do your jobs moving forward?

And so, like, there always has to be an and the economy aspect to everything that you do. I mean, look, I think that's, I think that's right to an extent. I also think, you know, I'm using the economy as an example because inflation was such a big issue in this election. But I think in general, it doesn't just have to be an economic issue that we're talking about. It does have to be an issue that has a tangible effect on people's lives, something that they can feel, right? There is a reason the Democrats did so well in midterms and special elections after Dobbs because, like, losing access to reproductive freedom is something that affected people's lives and their families. And so that issue could be a resonant issue for people, right? And I do think if, you know, it's one.

one thing if Donald Trump is dealing with the border and Kamala Harris said she was going to deal with the border too and Joe Biden did deal with the border in his last, you know, that's one thing. If Donald Trump is going into communities and ripping people away from their families who've lived here for years and are working and are paying taxes and are doing everything right and following the law and that just because they're immigrants that he is deporting them and tearing families apart, I think that will matter to people too, and that's something that we should talk about as well, right? But I do think we've got to think about what is, how are people who are out there barely paying attention to politics, how are their lives being affected by what we're saying, what Donald Trump's doing, what we're proposing? And we just have to keep those folks in mind because those are the people that we're losing, either because they're not paying attention or because they're finding Donald Trump's demagoguery.

the demagoguery they hear on right wing media, they're finding that appealing. And our question is like, if we're going to win them back, we have to speak to their personal concerns about their lives, whether that's economic, whether that's reproductive freedom, whether that's deportations, whatever it may be, that's what we got to speak to. And I think that it's incumbent also, like, yes, and, I think it's also incumbent upon Democrats to maybe not imbue the mainstream media that is clearly not, A, not our messaging distribution system anyway, and B, not going to focus on this stuff. They're going to focus on what they focus on. Like, they're going to focus on these culture issues. Like, you know, if somebody calls Donald Trump a fascist, that's going to lead the story

for the day. And so I think it's incumbent on the Democratic politicians to recognize that there are people in the alternative media space who are actually doing the work, who are advocating for Democrats to win elections as opposed to the New York Times and CNN and ABC, who are not advocating for Democrats to win elections and, in fact, engage in a ton of both sides'ism and use their voices and their weight to kind of confirm more validation onto these outlets that are actually looking out to promote the agenda of the Democratic Party as opposed to, as opposed to the news outlets, which aren't. And by the way, even if the New York Times, all the headlines were perfect and all of their

stories were written exactly how we want them to be written as Democrats and anti-Trump like the whole anti-Trump coalition, right? And same thing with the Post, same thing with CNN, same thing with NBC. It wouldn't matter that much because their reach is so much different and their reach now is college-educated people who pay close attention to the news and politics. And guess what? Democrats have those. We have. We have. have those voters. And so the alternative media is important because most people in the country now are getting their news from some other source than the traditional media that we spend so much time worrying about and critiquing. Like it's just doesn't matter as much

anymore. Like for these politicians to lay hands on these mainstream media, these legacy media outlets who reach a fraction, a fraction, they're chasing after the same 250,000 people in a viewing block up to a million people in a viewing block who are largely Democratic voters anyway. And so if the job is, if the goal here is persuasion, which in an election, it probably should be, then it really benefits those very politicians to, to A, reach more people and B, reach people who are actually persuadable, who actually are figuring out their worldview and not just sitting in front of the news all day, highly informed, and going to vote for Democrats anyway. Yeah. Let's finish off with this. And I know that we've, we've spent

a lot of this conversation talking about people who aren't necessarily in our coalition and how to reach out to those people, how we'll kind of restructure and hone our messaging to be able to bring them into the fold. What's your message to the tens of millions of people who are in our coalition, given what happened on Tuesday and the despair and exhaustion that everybody on our side is feeling? Yeah, well, look, first, it's warranted. And Um, everyone grieves differently. And so if you want to be sad, that's okay. If you want to be angry, that's okay. If you, uh, want to just, uh, wallow and gallows humor, that's fine too. I've been doing some of that. But and, and also just like, take some time, right? We have,

there's some time left with Joe Biden as president still. And we're heading into the holidays. And so like, just, you know, do yourself a favor. Unplug. Yeah. Whatever you need to do to get away from the news. then when Donald Trump becomes president, like you have a choice, right? You can check out and you can give up. And for some people, that might be the best choice for them. And so I'm not going to make any judgments. But I will say that if you really believe in the kind of country that we have all been fighting for in the last eight years, nine years, longer for a lot of people, people, then I think it is worth staying in the fight because I was just saying, like, you know, Donald Trump wins in 2016. And the reason that we were able to save the Affordable Care Act is because people organized and marched and we won a special election in Alabama. so we had an extra senator from there which like who knew that was going to happen and um and we saved a piece of legislation that had it been repealed millions of people would have lost their health care and if a bunch of people after in 2016 had just said you know what I can't do it I can't do it

then that's the outcome that would have happened and all the and a lot of people would have been hurt by that and so like yeah we didn't win the election against Donald Trump we didn't stop Donald Trump from coming to power, but that doesn't mean we can't stop bad things from happening and make progress, not just in Washington, but like all across the country where there's Democrats who are still running blue states and blue legislatures and in governor's offices. And also, like, you know, I was on the Kerry campaign. That was my first campaign out of college. We lost to George W. Bush, partly because his approval rating after 9-11, went like skyrocketed and never came back down even as the iraq war started becoming unpopular and

john carrie just couldn't just couldn't do it and after that race everyone was like well we're going to need someone from the heartland and and maybe you know uh someone who's like conservative or whatever and if you had told people that four years later a black guy named barak hussein obama from Chicago would become President of the United States in a in what now counts for a landslide they would have told you you were fucking crazy yeah but that's what happened and so things in politics can turn on a dime the environment can turn on a dime and it doesn't just happen because it doesn't just happen by itself it happens because people are like you know what things are bad things are awful but I'm just going to keep on fighting and I'm going to just get up and I'm

going to keep pressing and I'm going to keep and I'm not going to stop until until we win something and so that's I think that's that's my attitude and you know I hope it's everyone else's too yeah I think that's exactly right I would I would note to people that you know we largely feel the same way right now that we did eight years ago when Trump took to power and within the very next election because nobody stepped away because everybody decided to like you know stay in the fight and and stay engaged, stay involved. Not only did we save the ACA, which means that 50 million more Americans have health care right now,

but the very next election, the midterm election cycle, saw the biggest margin for Democrats in the House in modern American history. And so it's unfortunate to say the least that we are in this cyclical nightmare where it takes the election of Donald Trump first in 2016, now in 24, to get people paying attention, but in the same way that people in 2016, you know, that brought a lot of people, that brought an entire class of Americans into the political

process, myself included. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, you guys wouldn't have crooked in the way that it is today without that. My channel wouldn't exist. I would still be, you know, trying to audition for cars.com commercials and, like,

so, so, So, you know, again, it is, it is, to call it unfortunate is, is the understatement of the century, but, but there are silver linings to keeping, you know, for when bad things happen in the way that it gets people engaged in the political process and, and activates people to fight for what's right. And, you know, a lot of people back in, in, in, right now, don't remember what it was like when Trump was in office, maybe have, have been fed revisionist history by right-wing media about what it was like and they think that it was this time of great prosperity and that we weren't

burying Americans in mass graves and that nurses weren't showing up to work in garbage bags. Maybe they were too young to even remember what it was like when Trump came into office because these kids were 18, 19, 20 years old and they were 12 when he first became president. So whatever it was doesn't mean that those people too won't come to realize the chaos that follows this guy when he comes into office. And I think that's absolutely going to happen because if we know anything about Trump, It's that we can't escape that. He can't escape that.

He cannot avoid the drama that follows him wherever he goes. And I think people are going to tire of it quickly, and hopefully we'll see the same kind of activation that we saw in the midterms in 2018 that ultimately led to his ouster. And ultimately ushered in a really important era of democratic progress that we're at the end of right now. So with that said, all of this underscores how important, you know, you guys over at Crooked are going to be in the next few years as we continue to fight against what is going to be a really difficult period that we're that we're about to engage in.

But I would highly recommend for anybody watching, make sure to support Potsave America as an audio podcast. And you guys are like the, you guys are it in a sea of, in a sea of red, because I actually looked at the top 20 chart, and it is, it is grim. It's grim. You are holding it down amid some pretty bad company there. So, again, for everybody watching, please support POTSave America. John, thanks so much for taking the time, man. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Take care. Thanks again to John. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my

other channels, or you can go to bryantaylorcoen.com to learn more.