No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - McConnell makes fatal mistake with ill-timed comment

Episode Date: May 9, 2021

Mitch McConnell makes a fatal mistake with an ill-timed comment and the Republican Party’s attempt to purge Liz Cheney from its leadership has major implications moving forward. Brian makes an announcement about one of his own projects that’s several months in the making. Angelo Carusone, the president and CEO of Media Matters, joins for an interview about Fox News’ lunge off the deep end and what steps we can actually take to stop them. And Run for Something co-founder Amanda Litman joins to discuss how her organization is rebuilding the Democratic Party from the ground up."Don't Be a Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchUn-Fox your cable box: https://unfoxmycablebox.com/Run For Something: https://runforsomething.net/Written by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CAhttps://www.briantylercohen.com/podcast/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Mitch McConnell's fatal mistake with a really ill-timed comment, what the Republican Party's attempt to purge Liz Cheney from its leadership means moving forward, and I have an announcement about one of my own projects that's a few months in the making. I interview Angelo Carousone, the president and CEO of Media Matters, about Fox News's insane lunge off the deep end and what steps we can actually take to stop them. And I chat with Run for Something co-founder Amanda Littman about how her group is rebuilding the Democratic Party from the ground up.

I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. So for once, it's not Dems and Disarray. The Republican Party is in the midst of trying to throw Liz Cheney, who's currently the number three Republican in the House, out of her leadership position, all because she committed the crime of acknowledging objective reality that the election wasn't stolen and that Donald Trump bears responsibility for the insurrection on January 6th.

She also joined Democrats in calling for a commission to investigate the events of January 6th without the poison pill of trying to make it a commission that also looks into the George Floyd protest, which is what Republicans have resorted to to try and defuse responsibility off of themselves and instead be able to, you know, both sides of this thing into a stalemate. And the target on Cheney's back is basically evidence of this. If you want not just to succeed, but even survive in today's GOP, you need to embrace Trump's lies about the election. And if you're willing to embrace those lies, then you are inherently

opposed to democracy. If you're willing to pretend that there was fraud, pretend that the machines were rigged, pretend that votes were being shipped in from Asia to pretend that officials were in cahoots with foreign powers, all in service of this imaginary scenario where the guy who lost somehow didn't lose, then you are opposed to democracy. It's all evidence of the fact that the big lie is the only thing that the Republican Party stands for. Now, when reporters speaking to McConnell in Kentucky asked him about whether Cheney would keep her leadership position, here's what he had to say. One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping. this new administration.

Now, where have we heard that before? Oh, right. Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term. So when you hear Republicans wail about their desire for bipartisanship, remember that not only do they clearly not care about bipartisanship,

which is obvious given McConnell's admission that a hundred percent of his focus is on stopping this administration, but that they never cared about bipartisanship. Considering McConnell was pulling this same shit a decade ago with the last Democratic president. His entire career is predicated solely not on helping people or making government work, but on obstructing Democrats so that he can be in power. Again, same theme. They're not

fighting for principles. They're fighting for power for the sake of being in power. And that's not just me being partisan. Like, what bills are Republicans passing across the country right now? Do they have to do with fiscal policy or limited government or state's rights or anything else they claim to support? No, they're introducing voter suppression bills. More than three. 300 of them across the country because their only goal is power. Their sole priority as a party is to do whatever's necessary to entrench their own minority rule. So between these bills, like the ones just passed in Georgia and now Florida and a number of other states, along with McConnell's outright statements promising that his only goal, literally 100% of his energy,

is going to be spent on stopping Democrats, that is all the proof you need that the only discernible priority on the right is taking power. No values or governing principles, just power. And by the way, if you needed an example of asymmetric partisanship, just remember, the White House is still, to this day, holding good faith negotiations with Republicans. Even after the umpteenth admission in broad daylight that their only goal is to stop Democrats. And so, you know, with regards to Biden, look, I get that he wants bipartisanship. I get that's his brand. He campaigned on it.

I get the whole concept of catching more flies with. Honey, I understand all of that. But at the end of the day, we are kidding ourselves if we think there's going to be bipartisanship with a party that's not only not pretending to want bipartisanship, but literally telling you that their only priority is stopping you. It's not even discreet. McConnell didn't even get caught on a hot mic. This is the public facing position. They're broadcasting it. They are taking you by the shoulders and putting their faces right in your faces and telling you point blank that they don't want bipartisanship.

just like they'd done before, by the way. We watched the Republicans cry out about wanting bipartisanship when Obama came to office and tried to pass the Recovery Act. Republicans got it whittled down and then they didn't vote for it. Same with the ACA. Democrats succumbed to all these Republican demands. Democrats incorporated them to make it more palatable for Republicans who in turn refused to vote for it.

But then they took office and enacted their entire agenda with zero Democratic support. Like, think about it. What do Republicans care about? Judges and tax cuts. Okay? They nuked the filibuster for what two things? judges and tax cuts. They passed the 2017 tax cut for millionaires and billionaires with a simple

majority. They confirmed three SCOTUS justices with a simple majority. At no point in more than a decade have Republicans actually been concerned about bipartisanship. Not when Democrats were in the majority, not when Republicans were in the majority. And so now that they have zero power to claim that they want bipartisanship is so false. Such a bargain basement, transparent tactic? I don't know how they can say it with a straight face, honestly. And so look, when it comes to optics for the White House, fine. If they need to meet with Republicans to say that they met with Republicans, fine. But at the end of the day, Democrats have the majority. And so we would be fools to water down a single bill or surrender an ounce of power to a party so dedicated to obstruction that they're literally

admitting it out loud. Now, having McConnell basically give the entire ballgame away is actually a perfect segue into the announcement that I've been teasing. So here goes. I'm, like, I'm launching the Don't Be a Mitch Fund, aimed specifically at making sure that Mitch McConnell never again becomes a Senate majority leader. I've compiled eight amazing organizations from the eight states with the closest Senate races in 2022. These organizations basically recreate the strategy that Stacey Abrams used to flip Georgia. They focus on voter registration and voter outreach with a special focus on people of color

and young people. What we can't do is just throw millions upon millions of dollars at SuperPacks, five minutes before an election. That money is going to television stations and consultants. We need to be investing now and we need to be focusing on the people. That is what these organizations do. So the states I'm focusing on are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Ohio, Iowa, and Florida. The organizations that I'm working with are the New Georgia Project Action Fund, Pennsylvania stands up, black leaders organizing communities or block in Wisconsin, Advance Carolina, Florida Rising, Ohio Organizing Committee,

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund, and Living United for a Change in Arizona, or Lucha. Your money will go to phone and text banking, door knocking, voter registrations, and getting commitments to vote. It's reaching people where they are within their communities and getting them engaged and educated and registered. And by the way, while I'm focusing on states with competitive Senate races in 2022, this will help both the Senate and the House in those states,

Because again, this isn't about promoting any specific candidates, it's about getting the people who are most commonly disenfranchised and gauged. You know, people who have to overcome barriers specifically erected to ensure that they can't participate. And that takes time and money to fix. So that's where I'm asking for your help. If you go to my website, Brian Tyler Cohen.com, click on Don't Be a Mitch, and you can get to the Act Blue from there. I'll also put a link directly to the Act Blue in the episode notes of this episode and every other episode I do moving forward. I also want to note that because it's done through Act Blue, I don't see a dime of this money. It goes directly to the organizations.

I'm going to be selling merch. It'll be available in the coming week or so also from my website, and the profits from that will go to this fund as well. So ultimately, my goal is to raise $800,000. That would be $100,000 per organization. And if we can exceed that, then I'll add more states. I'm hoping we raise enough money to be able to add Texas next and hopefully more states after that. The fact is that we've seen what the Republican Party is capable of. And I'm not even talking about policy.

I'm not talking about their position on taxes or limited government versus big government. I'm talking about a party whose only position right now is accumulating power by any means necessary. I'm talking about a party that if they win in 2022, we'll break our democracy, we'll rig it to their own benefit. Like, we don't even have the luxury right now of talking about policy because the foundation of this country is under attack. And so we need to make sure to activate the people. people in these states who don't vote or might not be paying attention because a lot is at stake. We are teetering on the brink of democracy versus autocracy. We can't wait for the next elected official or candidate to fix it.

We have to do it and it has to be done now. And I really hope and believe that this fund will help. So look, if you know me, you know that I've never, ever asked for money. But if you can, please consider donating to this fund because it is so important that this work begin now if we want any hope of enacting our agenda. whether on climate change or health care, raising the minimum wage, or just shoring up democracy itself. It'll make a difference, and I promise you it is a good feeling to know that you've helped. Still coming up is my discussion with Amanda Lipman, who co-founded the amazing organization run for something.

But first, my interview with Media Matters president and CEO, Angelo Carusone. Okay, today we've got the president and CEO of Media Matters, Angelo Carusone. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Of course. So let's jump into this fight on the right. And basically this fight between truth and lies is over on the right and lies have clearly won out. We're seeing that with the mutiny against Liz Cheney, you know, for her crime of acknowledging of objective reality that the election wasn't stolen.

And that's owed in large part to the role that Fox News, not the right-wing media outlets are playing, basically by running cover for Trump. Now, we've been used to disinformation on these networks before. I think my editor would quit if you and I sat here and listed out the times that Fox News lied. But is it fair to say that what's happening now with these lies that attack the core tenets of our democratic process is different? Yeah. It's different in two ways. One, kind and two, scale. And by kind, you sort of hit the nail on the head there. A lot of the shift has really been to attack democracy itself and the legitimacy of voting. and also like a full-on assault on public health. I mean, you know, there were Fox News itself presented more than 13,150 lies about COVID last year alone.

And right now they're on sort of this anti-vax push, even though, you know, all the Fox people have gotten vaccinated. And the same thing applies on a democracy. I mean, most of it is really, it's not about partisan politics anymore. It's about the legitimacy of voting. And it is a, so the kind is different. scale is obviously different. It's gotten much more intense. It's clear that Fox News is a danger to this country. So I want to explore what to do. And a lot of the focus is on advertisers. Even me in my personal capacity, I've sat there during some of Fox's more depraved episodes or points in time

and just listed out the advertisers. And there was a number of those advertisers who didn't even know that they were advertising on Fox. And a few of them, to their credit, even pulled out and stopped advertising. Yep. But, you know, at the end of the day, Fox doesn't really have many advertisers and yet they still stay afloat. And that's because Fox relies on cable subscribers to subsidize the network. So can you speak on that? Yeah. And you're, you know, on the point about advertisers, it's incredible. I mean, it matters. It's not to say that it doesn't matter, but you're right. It doesn't seem to have an effect. I mean, Fox has lost $350 million in advertising revenue in the last two years. That's a lot of money. And yet it hasn't really produced any change in their

coverage, and that's because, as you point out, they kind of rigged the system over the last 20 years. And the way they've done it is, you know, each year, every couple years, cable companies negotiate rates. And so the way cable works is if you're a cable company and you have a hundred customers for your cable company, what you actually do is give every single channel that's part of your bundle a very, very nominal fee. It's usually a couple cents, 10 cents or 15 cents, unless it's like a premium channel like HBO and usually you have to have add on to that. But you pay per subscriber whether or not your customers ever turn on that channel, you actually have to pay that channel that amount. And it's sort of so that you can carry it. That's why it's called the carriage fee,

so that you can provide it to your customers. What Fox has done is they've gotten themselves to be the second most expensive channel on every single person's cable box. They're the second most expensive channel after ESPN. They are, and the way they've done that, the years is through these when they're negotiating with cable companies they'll fully harass intimidate they'll run these key fox campaigns they'll get their their own people to cancel their contracts and this has all been happening under the radar and now the net effective this is this they're the only commercial media company out there that does not need a single commercial if they had zero dollars in advertising revenue they would still have a 90% profit margin that's how

much money they actually get from these carriage fees You know, I was looking into this. It looks like the carriage fees from Fox, you know, being their primary source of revenue, in just this past year, Fox made $1.6 billion off of carriage fees and $1.2 billion off of advertising. So that really does insulate them from advertisers, you know, leaving the network or Tucker Carlson in particular. It does. So what can we do? You know, so as not to bury the lead here, what are we, what are, what are options moving forward?

So, you know, your question is well timed. If this was a different year, like two years ago, there'd be very little you could do because the contracts would have been done and we just have to wait. But actually, right now, Fox News is starting a sprint of renegotiations, a whole bunch of cable companies. And so what's going to end up taking place starting in June with Verizon and it's going to go right down the chain is they're going to sit across the table from them and they're going to say, we want to go from $2 a subscriber to $3 a subscriber.

And what you can do is to make sure that the cable companies do two things. One, don't capitulate the Fox News and allow their fees to be raised, which they then pass on to the customer. They make everybody pay that money back through them. And the second thing is, so hold the line and, in fact, correct the Fox News fee. If Fox News even got a 50% reduction, they'd still be more expensive than almost every other channel, but all of that revenue would matter. They'd have to care about commercials again, which means it had to have to.

to care about being less toxic. And the second thing is they should take Fox business off of everybody's base in cable. It doesn't get watched. Nobody pays attention to it except the most extremist. And yet Fox business alone makes as much money for the Murdox and Fox as all of MSNBC does, just because of the carriage fees. So two simple things.

It's an easy thing you can organize. There's one campaign on Fox.combox, which we've been doing. So people go in, they give up, they say which subscriber they have. And then we've been giving them back, like, hey, here's the alert. your renegotiations are starting. Here's the one, two, three that you can do. That's it. That's the cleanest thing, is to actually fight Fox where they are.

Repeat that web address so that people know where to go. This web address is unfox, my cablebox.com. And you go in, you sign up, you say which cable company you have, and what you get back is a set of when the negotiations are, and then what are the steps you need to do along the way so that the cable companies can actually have a little bit of a spine. And the crazy thing about all of this is the cable companies want this. They have been getting beaten up by Fox News for the past 20 years as well.

It happens, it's been happening. It's sometimes not under the radar. Just last year, Fox News turned off the Super Bowl on Hulu because they were fighting him about these fees. And Sean Haney, Janine Piro, were all telling their people to cancel Hulu because they were trying to censor Fox News. It was all nonsense. They all know it.

It's just it's never been a thing. that we've organized for. And this is an easy way to make sure that Fox News can't cheat. And that's it. And is there any indication that when people, because I'm 100% going to be doing this on Fox MyCablebox.com? Yep. Is there any indication that when we're able to follow the steps that are outlined on this site, that the cable companies are going to be responsive to the pressure that's put on them? Yes. And there's two. One, Hulu. Right before the pandemic happened, we had actually started organizing around it. They were the first to really actually stand up. And what ended up happening is Fox did exactly what we expected them to do. They

were so over-aggressive and heavy-handed that they really forced, you know, a little bit of pressure on Hulu. They said they weren't going to accept that massive increase. Fox then went way over the top in their response. And that only made Hulu want to stick it to them even more. So that's the first thing. The second thing is math. There are 90 million cable subscribers in the country. at most, there are 3 million, like, really die-hard Fox viewers. That's math. And they know that. But what they also know from market research over the years is that the Fox customers,

every time these negotiations come up, it's actually the Fox customers that are the ones that quit cable. And so there's never been a counterbalance to what the Murdox have been able to organize. So we saw a little bit of positivity leading into the first round with Hulu, and math is on our side. So those are the two biggies. I want to talk about cord cutting and switching over to streaming services instead as a way to, you know, pressure these cable companies into changing their tune. Won't cord cutting hurt the media more broadly?

So in other words, is the only way to punish Fox basically to punish everyone. It's like kind of like chemo, right? Like you blast everything and that kills the bad cells, but it'll also kill the good cells too. Yeah, you're right. It does. It cuts money away from everybody else. And I think that's a big reason why, even though the name of the campaign is on a Foxxmed cable box, because it's kind of nice and it rhymes and it makes sense. The reality is what it actually is not so much about on Fox.

It's just, it's actually reduce how much you're paying Fox News. You know, that's really what the campaign is. And the threat is that you're going to cord cut, which is actually something that the cable companies really care about because their metrics are actually based off of their churn rate. How many customers they lose a quarter? Not every year. How many customers they lose a quarter? and a few thousand makes a really big difference for them. And so the idea that a few thousand people could cut their cord in one quarter,

it has such a huge effect on how they think about the problem. So it's kind of like the threat of cord cutting in order to get them to stiff in their spines. But you're right, when you do stop paying for these bundles and these providers, you ultimately, a lot of other outlets lose money. And increasingly, it's usually the ones that can't afford it are the smaller cable channels and that service niche audiences, they get hurt the most. You're right.

It's totally true. Yeah. So I think, you know, at the end of the day, kind of just building on what you said, really so as not to hurt these companies. And clearly, these cable providers have a vested interest in protecting all of the networks, you know, because that's their business, right?

So really, you know, the onus is on us to make sure that the threat of leaving, of cord cutting, which is a very real threat. And people are doing it by the thousands every quarter, you said. You know, the threat of us leaving is really what's going to be, you know, our most effective tool in pushing these cable companies to do the right thing. So it's true. On foxmycabobox.com, I'll put that link in the episode notes as well. I'll be doing that.

And I would recommend that, you know, if you listen to this podcast or watch this channel, you know that I don't exactly have a special affinity for Fox. So I think that we'll get a good number of people to be able to do that and make their voices heard a little bit. I do want to switch gears here and talk about Tucker Carlson specifically. Are we doing more harm than good by focusing on Tucker Carlson so much? Like, the guy's no dummy, right? He clearly knows that by saying the shit that he drums up, he can just create a lot of outrage on the left and that we basically act as free PR for him. You're right.

It cuts both ways. Not all attention is good attention, but I do think, you know, your observation is spot on. There is a lot of, we're playing on his terms right now. And he knows that he is tweaking the media and the public to get a response

because that then puts him at the center, which gives him more power and influence over the rest of the right, right? Because he then gets to be the defining voice of the opposition. That's a strategy he's employing. He's assuming the reactionary responses. And what that also means is that we're not doing enough to point out how full of it he is, which is an important part.

Most people about Tucker, you know, and that's, we don't really get, we focus on the outrage as opposed to how bad the information is. And then the second part is how at odds he actually is with the rest of the right. That kind of gets glossed over. And I think there's a way to respond to him that gives him the appropriate amount of attention for the destruction and damage that he does, while simultaneous. you know, ensuring that, you know, we're not playing on his terms. And I, there is sort of a needle to thread there, but it's, it's important that we don't make the same mistakes that we've done

historically when it comes to these right wingers. Yeah. I mean, something I've been thinking about a lot is like, Tucker will get what, at most three to four million viewers a night, which, which is a lot. But at the same time, this is still a country of 350 million people. So, So, you know, there comes a point when I think we have to, like, pick our battles and debunk the information or the disinformation that needs to be debunked, but at the same time, maybe not act as a megaphone for every single word that leaves his lips. And I try to, you know, personally, I try to thread that needle as best I can. But, you know, it's just something to think about in terms of inadvertently elevating the information that ultimately he wants elevated at the end of the day. It's true. We are playing a lot on his terms.

And I think that's the one thing we ought to be really careful about. Rush Limbaugh had 20 million listeners every, you know, every show, and he would do the same thing. He used to call them media tweaks, and his idea was to rile up this sort of reactionary response because that would then force his message to an even larger audience. Even he, who had 20 million listeners, was thinking about that. And Tucker is kind of trying to fill the same, you know, or at least apply the same strategy. And that's, it's a real, it's a real, on the other hand, it's a real threat, too. I mean, he does present a real danger in terms of galvanizing some uniquely dangerous experience extremists.

And this gets back to we were talking about early on about Fox being different. You know, 10 years ago, Fox was odious and destructive, but there was a line drawn around, say, explicit endorsements of violence, whereas now Tucker in particular has very much embraced the idea that violence is a legitimate tactical response to what we're seeing from the left. And that's where, you know, it is a hard balancing act. And I definitely don't think, you know, as a whole, we're balancing that well, I think we're playing into his hands just a little bit too much.

Yeah, I agree. And, you know, even building on that point more broadly, we heard after, you know, in the wake of Trump's big lie that the election was stolen, this claim was repeated over 800 times in the two weeks immediately following the election that, that in fact, there was, you know, nefarious behavior in the election. So all of that ultimately culminating into the insurrection of the Capitol. So I think, you know, you can pretty much draw a straight line between what Fox has said and, you know, the violence that's occurring in their name, in Donald Trump's name, in the Republican Party more broadly. So what is Media Matters goal moving forward and how can we help, basically?

So I think our goal is to do two things. We have, you know, there's the, your point, the trench warfare of fighting misinformation, but that's just the bare minimum. That's just the day-to-day grind. When we try to focus on our, what is the one or two really big problems that we can prevent from becoming an actual problem or fix. And right now it's about making sure one American news doesn't get picked up on everybody's basic cable package because that's going to be a ton of money for them and scale. And also make sure that Fox is not successful at renegotiating all of

these contracts because this is the next six month period where they're going to do that. That's one big initiative. And then the other is focused on some of the social media disinformation. And you know, that, you know, we try to focus on what are some signature campaigns that could actually affect the overall landscape. And we focus on disinformation more than misinformation, because misinformation you have to fight every day. But the thing about disinformation is that it's cheating. That doesn't have to be accepted. You can actually eliminate a large part of that through some really specific changes that the platforms make at the algorithmic level. So, you know, we organize every day on media matters.org and so

the grind, but then we also just focus on one of the two of those big problems so that the rest of the nonsense just doesn't seem so overwhelming. And, you know, people aren't left feeling totally impotent. Yeah. Well, we're here supporting you and the organization. So thanks for the work that you do. It's extremely important. Angela, I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks so much. Thanks again to Angelo. Now, we've got the co-founder of the organization Run for Something, Amanda Lipman. Amanda, I've been wanting to have you on to talk for a while now, so I'm really glad that we can make this work. I am so excited to be here. This is going to be really fun. Yeah, so tell us about Run for Something.

So Run for Something is an organization born of the ashes of the 2016 election. I started it with my co-founder, Ross Morales, Ricketto, on inauguration day four years ago with the goal of recruiting and supporting young diverse progressives running for local office all across the country. When we started, we thought it'd be really small. We'd get maybe 100 people in the first year. You know, nobody really wants to run for office. But as it turns out, in the first four years, we've had more than 76,000 young people raise their hands to say they want to run. We've endorsed more than 1,600 and elected 503 people across 46 states, mostly women, mostly people of color, about a fifth LGBTQ, and they are just remarkable.

Yeah, that's really incredible. So the candidates that you've supported are at a state and local level, but how long until this class of candidates that came up through run for something starts running for gubernatorial races and congressional races and Senate races? It is already happening, which is the coolest part of having now done this work for a couple of years. You know, we worked with Jennifer Carroll-Foy back in 2017 in her first primary that she ended up winning by just 10 votes and then going on to flip a seat in the Virginia State House. She is now running for governor of Virginia, and if she wins, we'll be the first black woman governor ever. Similarly, we worked with Malcolm Kenyatta in his competitive primary for the Pennsylvania State House.

He's not running for the United States Senate. They'll be the first openly black gay member of the United States Senate. And I believe the first black man to represent Pennsylvania, if I remember correctly. So it's, and that's just a couple. We have quite a few who are running for higher office. But we're really proud to see them all. But building the bench is a good thing to do. We should do more of it.

Yeah. I mean, it's got to feel good. Like you're making a difference. You're literally laying the foundation for the future of this party. That's the idea, at least. It's cool to see it pay off. So what are the impacts that you've seen in terms of these down-ballot races at the top of the ballot? So we just released some research a couple weeks ago about this that I'm really excited to talk about.

We called the reverse coattails effect. Basically, what we found is that when you contest both state legislative races or all the state legislative races on the ballot in any given district, as opposed to leaving them uncontested, which unfortunately about a third to 40 percent of state legislative races in any given year ago, uncontested, meaning only one candidate of either major party runs, when you contest both of them, it increases performance for the Democrat at the top of the ticket by anywhere from 0.3 to 1.5%. And that's a big amount. And it makes sense, you know, if you think about a state legislative candidate or a local candidate as a supercharged field organizer with a ton of skin in the game who are willing to knock doors, talk to voters, connect these big, abstract issues to local

problems and solutions. You can really move voters who might not get excited about a presidential race or a Senate race, in part because they may feel like their vote doesn't really matter, but that they can really move the needle on a local campaign. Yeah, I mean, especially because if you look at some of the margins that we're winning by in these swing states and states like, you know, Georgia and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that's within the margin that we won by that 0.3 to 1.4. So I mean, having these candidates there is enough to push these top of the ballot candidates over the edge. That's exactly right. And it and it has this additional benefit of occasionally we win these local campaigns. And then we can use that power to hold more power

to mitigate some of the worst voter suppression to make sure maps are drawn fairly to do police accountability and reproductive health and climate change and criminal justice reform. You know, But it is a win, win, win all around. Yeah, that was actually going to be my next question. So a lot of these districts, these deep red districts, or, you know, we wouldn't run somebody because they're basically hopeless districts. But how often do we see somebody flip one of these seats? Oh, I disagree with the premise.

We should absolutely run someone for every district, no matter how flippable it might seem in the immediate term. Because the only way something's going to become flippable in the long term in two years or four years or 10 years is if we keep competing for it and close the district. the margins just a little bit each time. You know, something doesn't go from a 70-30 Republican Democrat district to 50-50 overnight. It takes work and it takes losing a little before you can win big. And we know that anything can happen.

It's part of what makes politics so scary and so fun is that, you know, Republicans get indicted all the time and anything can go from a tough fight to a close race with a combination of a good candidate and some unexpected circumstances. Yeah, or expected, you know, depending on So what do you expect to change from 2020 to 22? Because you're still a young organization. You've still there, you're still working out kinks and everything. And obviously 2020 was very unique circumstances given the pandemic and everything. So, you know, to be more successful moving forward, what do you expect to to kind of change moving forward? It's a great question. So part of what we're changing is very little. And I think that's, you know,

inherent to the work that we're doing in that it's still really necessary. We have already more than 192 candidates in 2021 and we expect to endorse about 400 for this election year and about 700 for 2022. So it's entirely possible that that 500 number elected official rate is more than doubled by the end of 2022 if we do this right. But we're really focusing our efforts over the next two years and beyond on some of these more local, smaller municipal, school board, city council, that kind of thing, races. That's not to say that state legislatures aren't important. They are, and we will continue to work with state ledge candidates. It's just that in the past, probably about 60% of our candidates for state legislature. Moving forward, it'll probably about

60% not state legislature and 30 to 40% state ledge. We've just found that there's so much need for our services and for our support on the local level. So we're really thinking about how we can better deepen our engagement in those smaller races that have big impacts and especially how we can start to build some permanent in-state infrastructure in a couple places, knowing that this takes time and we just got to keep on the grind. Yeah. I mean, in theory, these very local races will ultimately form the bench for what will be those state-ledged races anyway, correct? That's exactly right. You know, a good state legislative candidate is someone who recently served on the city council or school board in the same way that a good gubernatorial candidate is someone who is recently in state legislature. And we know that these offices, these really small ones have outsized in some ways impacts on people's lives. You know, think about the pandemic and who is making decisions about schools opening or closing and how teachers were getting paid or not paid enough as it may be. And, you know, talk about police brutality. Police brutality and police accountability is, is a local issue.

It's a municipal issue. So as we think about how we can make a really big impact on the things that make people's lives better or in many places worse, we want to make sure we're electing really good people and not just any Democrat for some of these places, but the right Democrat. Yeah. Well, actually, you had mentioned the pandemic

and so I was, I'm wondering here if, you know, this issue of the Democrats really hadn't canvassed in 2020, which, you know, it was the right thing to do because it's a public health matter, but it also put us at a disadvantage in the sense that Republicans still did it anyway. So do you think that that had an outsized impact with this election specifically in 2020?

I think there's a lot of different reasons we lost in a lot of different places and that there's no one thing that explains all of it. A lot of these margins of losses were bigger than anything a field campaign is known to have caused. I do think it certainly hurts some of our local campaigns. and I think it was the right choice given what we knew at the time. And we also know that basically anyone who was sending out canvassers got people sick.

And I would rather, I am glad that our party was able to live our values and take this seriously and not do any unnecessary harm to folks, especially knowing that, at least on our side, the people that work with canvassing that, you know, that person-to-person interaction is the most effective to are our most vulnerable communities, our communities of color, our young people, our lower-income folks. It's really important to remember that we were making these decisions within the context of a really scary time, and I stand by that decision 150%. Yeah, I think that's really well said. Well, you focus on electing young progressives to office, but in those deep red districts, a lot of the prevailing mentality, and this isn't necessarily something that I agree with, but I do think this is the prevailing mentality, seems to be that, okay, to flip these seats, you really need a white moderate who has a better chance at winning versus like a young

progressive or a young person of color progressive. Like you need to, you know, very slowly go from one end of the spectrum to the next. So how do you approach that theory? I think you got to run for the place you're in. You know, in some places you need a white moderate to run because that's where the community is at. But in many others, we shouldn't write folks, write candidates off just because they don't necessarily meet our preconceived notion of ideology or race or gender or class or any of that.

The reality is that the right candidate for a community will be able to articulate those community's values in a way that makes sense to them. And I would encourage people to really consider themselves, you know, as an example, how ideological are you? How much are you looking at ideology when you're thinking about who you're casting your ballot for? And especially in a primary. And are you applying a racist, classes, sexist lens before you even start to consider who can lead? And there's a whole bunch of proof that that's not true. And the number one example will be Lauren Underwood, a black woman who flipped a seat in Congress in 2018. But there's countless more. Run for the community you're in and like really ground that in authenticity and

a genuine connection to voters and don't assume that we know what voters want. It's like the of hubris to say I know who any particular voter should pick. Yeah, yeah. So I want to, you know, kind of building off of that, I do want to talk about the situation that we're seeing with Joe Manchin right now. And, you know, I literally, I legitimately have trouble reconciling this because on one hand, you know, I do tend to think that the guy is a bit of an electoral miracle. Like, he's a Democrat elected statewide in the most conservative state in America. But on the other hand, he's likely, unilaterally standing the way of HR1 and filibuster reform without which we could

relegate Democrats into the minority, into the permanent minority. So, you know, I'll go through these wild swings where I'm grateful we have a Democrat in West Virginia and then furious that the person standing in the way of our agenda is a Democrat. So what's your take on this? Well, he's not the only one, which is the other thing is pretty infuriating. Like Kirsten Cinema also standing in the way and really for no good reason. But I think Joe Manchin is certainly a special snowflake in the situation and that he is probably the only Democrat that could win in West Virginia right now, except for as someone reminded me recently, the West Virginia governor was elected as a Democrat and then switched parties. You know, it is possible, and I think the right Democrat could win, but probably not immediately. They need to build up the bench in West Virginia a little bit more.

You know, I don't know what could convince Joe Manchin besides the fear. of losing his job. It is a thing that makes me basically black out with rage of this idea that he alone is standing in the way of progress. And I wish I had a better solution or a better answer except for like, come on my dude, get with the program. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that would be a good t-shirt. So I think that and that pretty much sums it up. I want to go back to to run for something. What's been the biggest change brought about in part thanks to someone that you've supported getting elected. Like, what's one of the things that you're most proud of?

I am so proud that 400,000 Virginians have access to Medicaid because we helped elect a bunch of Democrats to the Virginia State House of Delegates in 2017. I am thrilled that New Yorkers can now vote early, which didn't exist in New York before, because we helped elect Democrats to the New York State Senate, including the Elections Committee chair as Elmer Miery. it is amazing what Judge Lina Hidalgo down in Harris County, Texas, has done. It's just been remarkable to see the kind of progress. There are no longer police officers in schools in Minneapolis and Denver because of rent for something alum on school boards there.

Berkeley just ended single family zoning and is getting police officers out of interacting with traffic enforcement because of run for something alum on the city council there. 30,000 Floridians got unemployment insurance because of Representative Anna Eskimani down in Orlando and her office single-handedly, you know, helping people navigate a intentionally broken system. I could go on and on. It is, you know, as I stepped up, the coolest part of this job is knowing just how many people's lives are better because my team is working their asses off to help. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good segue into, you know, how can we help?

And what do donations go to? Great question. So run for something's budget this year is only about 3.2 million. So every dollar goes directly to recruiting and supporting young diverse progressives. Helps us run more ads. It helps us tell more stories. It helps us build better partnerships and put together resources and host trainings and events and tell the stories of our candidates and our alumni, both to support their campaigns and to help recruit more people like them. So every dollar means the world to us, and whether it's $1, $10, $100,000, $100,000. or more, we'll take it all. But I also really encourage everyone listening to think about running for office themselves. And if you're interested, go to run for what.net. You can enter your address and you'll see which offices you can run for in 2021. It's still not too late in some places. And later this

summer we'll have data for 2022. So you sign up. You'll get the information and you'll start getting the resources you need to think about launching your campaign. Awesome. And we'll put that information in the episode notes of this episode as well. So Amanda, thank you so much. much for not only coming on to talk, but also the work you're doing. Thanks for helping us get the word out. Thanks again to Amanda. Again, the links to everything that I've spoken about today will be in the episode notes. Thanks for listening and talk to you next week.

You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.