Right About Now with Ryan Alford - You Might Also Like: Lovett or Leave It

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

Introducing So we ARE going back from Lovett or Leave It.Follow the show: Lovett or Leave ItThis week, Lovett or Leave It takes a big sip of coffee and reads who won the 2024 presidential election. Donald Trump takes the White House, Republicans take the Senate, and RFK Jr. takes the fluoride out of our water the first moment he can. Lovett opens the floor to questions from his audience like, “What the hell?” and “Are you kidding me?" and we cycle through the five stages of being an American, before taking our listeners on a much needed joyride.Tour dates & cities: crooked.com/events For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.   DISCLAIMER: Please note, this is an independent podcast episode not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in conjunction with the host podcast feed or any of its media entities. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the creators and guests. For any concerns, please reach out to [e-mail].

What if I just didn't come out? Welcome to Love It or Leave It! I know it's my job to sit up here and make jokes, but I also know that everyone here and everyone listening at home only has one thing on their mind right now. So I just want to say that I'm also terrified at the idea of living through another Star Wars trilogy. I didn't see it coming. I was caught off guard by watching it roll over my phone, and I'm as worried about it as the rest of us put Oscar Isaac's dreamy eyes in some sleepy Indy. Anyway, tonight on the show,

I'm going to pour what's left of my heart out here and talk to as many of you as I can. And then we're going to end the show as we always do, because no matter what's going on in this country, rain or shine, democracy or fascism, we will always have a wheel. And isn't that what... And really, isn't that the American dream?

But first, let's get into it. What a week. Tuesday was election day. Maybe the last one. Get those I Voted stickers laminated. They'll be worth a lot of crypto-Trumps election day. Maybe the last one. Get those I voted stickers laminated. They'll be worth a lot of crypto Trump's one day. What did you think the show was going to be about? As results rolled in,

pundits and pollsters combed through the data and crunched the numbers, looking for any evidence that Kamala Harris was about to win, just digging and scratching for any hopeful clues, like someone close reading a three-word, hours-late text for signs that he's actually in love with you. Unfortunately, like GOP senators to a Ted Cruz birthday party, that evidence would never come. I even, I made this graph during the day on Tuesday. And the good news, the graph I made at 2 p.m. based on preliminary and unreliable exits that I clung to for some sign of hope in the absence of any trustworthy information suggests Kamala is winning. Could a depressed person do this?

We all presumed we wouldn't know the results of the election for days, if not weeks. And doesn't that sound amazing right now? To not yet know the results of the election, to be glued to MSNBC, eating handfuls of stale candy corn, saying stuff like, it's not over till it's over. What a dream. What a stupid, stupid dream. But as the evening progressed, slowly things started to feel very familiar, very 2016. And much like the socks in 2016, Kamala was a no show. We felt the skinny jeans of history tighten around our groins. Once again, in the end, Donald Trump won the presidential election decisively on Tuesday night. Sorry, that was, that was in the hopper for Kamala. It wasn't the outcome we, yeah.

It wasn't the outcome we wanted. But it was the outcome that millions and millions of people, people with kids and sisters and working long-term memories and everything, did apparently want. So that's crazy. So that's crazy. But who could have expected otherwise after a 78 year old twice impeached convicted felon ran a campaign of personal grievances out and out corruption on behalf of billionaires, violent fantasies about the deaths of his enemies, all connected by an unending torrent of incoherent rambling. The man simply had no weaknesses. Even worse, Jimmy Carter has to stay alive for four more years now. Even worse, Jimmy Carter has to stay alive for four more years now. I mean, there's still a chance Jimmy Carter sees a female president before he dies, but it requires Joe Biden doing something awesome. Celebrating his win, Donald Trump took to the stage at Mar-a-Lago and had this to say to the American people.

Fire! Here I go! Powerful stuff. The win makes Trump the second president ever to serve two non-consecutive terms following in the footsteps of Grover Cleveland. Said Grover Cleveland, no way, people are talking about me again? What's the context? Is it because there's a cool new rap musical? Oh, oh, oh no. Trump won all seven swing states and improved on his 2020 margins in both red and blue states in all demographics with counties across the country shifting rightward. Everyone immediately seemed to have a confident take about why this happened. And mine is chapel roan. Not only did Trump end up with a decisive win in the electoral college,

he's projected to win the popular vote, which would make him the first Republican to do so in 20 years. This is what's particularly tough. It's not that the system is broken. The system is broken. But also, more people wanted this than didn't. Also, Elon Musk is having a great week. There are a lot of tough aspects. Musk, who spent $130 million to get Trump elected, saw his net worth surge by $26.5 billion after Trump's victory. But is he happy? Congressman Lauren Boebert

tweeted after Trump's win, this is not the end, but a beginning. We have work to do. We need to ensure that our Republican majority in the House remains strong, and we must rally behind President Trump to secure his third term. A pantless Boebert was then escorted out of the matinee performance of suffs. While voting went fairly smoothly on Tuesday, polling places and liberal strongholds were disrupted by bomb threats from email addresses based in Russia. But in the end, Trump didn't even need the election interference. Russia must feel so silly. Putin must be like, dare I go again, being the extra.

Dare I go again, being the extra. Dare I go again. In a statement, Bernie Sanders said it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people, would find that the working class had abandoned them. I love Bernie. I appreciate the anger. There is a point. But wouldn't he say the same thing if Kamala had won? Hasn't he said the same thing for 40 years, regardless of external circumstances? And he's not the only one doing this. Everyone is. My point is the election was dramatic and surprising. We can't all have been right about everything the whole time. Also, Joe Biden, who I am mad at, is the most progressive president in our lifetimes. He walked the picket line and went after union

busters. He extended overtime. He canceled student debt. He put Lena Khan at FTC, the American Rescue Plan, put thousands of dollars in people's pockets. He capped the price of insulin. He invested in manufacturing jobs and clean energy jobs as part of the largest climate bill in history. His administration went after banks and corporations for overdraft fees and junk fees. He delivered. And Donald Trump and Republicans opposed virtually every one of those policies at every turn and won. I am, as I said, mad at Joe Biden, and I want to understand the path Bernie sees for us going forward. But the problem here is not that Joe Biden abandoned the working class. The problem is perhaps even worse. He didn't. But millions

believed he did, and the result is a president in the pockets of their bosses. Now, if what Bernie is saying here is that populist spirit needs to be more evident not only in our policies, but in our story of politics. I agree. Bernie goes on to say, will the big money interest and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as how we can take on the increasingly powerful oligarchy, which has so much economic and political power? Probably not. Did he not see the camo print campaign hats? Was that not at least a step in the right direction at least, Bernie? Let's be constructive.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, RFK Jr. reiterated his desire to remove fluoride from America's water supply. I think fluoride is on the way out because of that court decision. I think the faster that it goes out, the better. It's interesting that RFK Jr. hates fluoride, considering that his voice sounds like someone dumped a bucket of teeth into a Coinstar machine. And you know what? We're allowed to make fun of his voice now. I know why it's wrong. I agree. We're doing it anyway. He sounds terrible.

to make fun of his voice now. I know why it's wrong. I agree. We're doing it anyway. He sounds terrible. Yeah. Imagine having the ear of the president, a president who does not have a single core belief, who is purely transactional and who basically said, if you can support me, you can implement any policy you'd like. And this is your pitch. It's like if a genie popped out of a lamp, offered you three wishes, and you wasted one wish on removing fluoride from the drinking water. Kennedy also said that people ought to have a choice about vaccines. I'm not going to take away anybody's vaccines. Well, looks like we all freaked out for no reason. You can still vaccinate your kid. It's just that none of the other kids will be vaccinated. So as long as you don't think too hard about how vaccines work, we're fine. On Thursday, the Washington Post broke down the 41 actions Donald Trump has vowed to do on day one in the White House.

Top of the list, bathroom chandeliers, baby. No, they're all awful. Trump's most often mentioned first day action items, cutting funding to schools that teach critical race theory and transgender insanity, the largest mass deportations in history and repealing Biden's electric car mandate. Personally, the first thing I do is check the White House to make sure Biden didn't leave behind any killer dogs. That's just me. Transgender insanity was also my favorite class in public school. I got an A plus on my paper mache diorama of Norman Bates kissing Buffalo Bill. Vice President Kamala Harris called Donald Trump to concede on Wednesday morning. So cheer up, somebody had a worse Wednesday than you. During their call, the vice president emphasized the importance of a peaceful transfer

of power to the former and now future president. Said Trump, oh, no, yeah, for sure. The transfer of power to me can be peaceful. Sorry, that was unclear. Said the vice president in her concession speech. Now I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now. I get it. experiencing a range of emotions right now. I get it. But we must accept the results of this election. Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power. The peaceful transfer of power now gets cheers. Terrific. One last reminder of our moral superiority, one last round of applause for norms, and it's applause as we hand over our government

to a dangerous, unstable, vicious man who will be in power the next time we have a presidential election and who cannot be chastened into showing the same spirit of democratic decorum. Kamala had a message to young voters in particular. To the young people who are watching, it is okay to feel sad and disappointed, but please know it's going to be okay. On the campaign, I would often say, when we fight, we win. But here's the thing, here's the thing, when we fight, we win. But here's the thing, here's the thing. Sometimes the fight takes a while.

That doesn't mean we won't win. Not helpful, but you can't ever technically lose as long as you keep fighting was also the logic that kept us in the Iraq war for a decade. Also, this is a tough speech to give, after a campaign in which Kamala gave it her all. But you cannot promise us that everything will be OK. And I'm not sure what that empty reassurance is worth. And maybe what we need now is the opposite. Will we make it through? I hope so.

I do believe so. But it's up to us to make it so. People will be heard. If we keep sliding back on reproductive rights, the women who die in hospital parking lots will not be OK. If the Trump administration attempts to deport millions of people, the American citizens whose spouses and parents are deported will not be okay. If they come for gender affirming care, trans people may not be okay. The challenge in the next few weeks and the next few years will be in part facing the world as it is, not as we wish it

is and not as we fear it is, but as it is. Former President Obama also released a statement saying, this is obviously not the outcome we had hoped for, given our profound disagreements with the Republican ticket on a whole host of issues, but living in a democracy is about recognizing that our point of view won't always win out and being willing to accept the peaceful transfer of power. I love that everyone keeps saying this as if Kamala voters might get the wrong idea and storm the Capitol. Kamala voters are curled up in weary balls, watching their cats lick the butter off their toast and lacking the strength to intervene. Said the former president, America has been through a lot over the last few years, from historic pandemic and price hikes resulting

from the pandemic to rapid change and the feeling a lot of folks have that no matter how hard they work, treading water is the best they can do. Those conditions have created headwinds for Democratic incumbents around the world and last night showed that America is not immune. Immunity, not on my watch, added Acting Health and Human Services Secretary R.F.K. Jr. According to NBC News, Special Counsel Jack Smith plans to wind down the two federal investigations against Donald Trump in keeping with the DOJ's policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted while he's in office. Duh. We'll get him next time.

On Wednesday, Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted to Jack Smith and his team, it's time to look forward to a new chapter in your legal careers as these politically motivated charges against President Trump hit a wall, continued Graham, and even if there is a small hole in that wall, a glorious little circle of a hole, it doesn't matter. Almost nothing could fit through that wall. Not a legal document, that's for sure. And even if you pass something through the hole in that wall, the person on the other side couldn't see who was pushing it through. Is anyone else getting thirsty? Is it hot in here? I'm Lindsey Graham. In other election news, Republicans took control of the Senate.

After flipping seats in West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana, well, fuck me, said Chuck Schumer, calling the bagel place to cancel his celebratory bagel order and place a new order for consolation bagels. Ruben Gallego won in Arizona, as did Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. Democrats winning Senate seats while Trump wins their states. Everyone seems to know exactly what caused this, but for me, once again, it was Chapel Roan. A handful of Senate races are still undecided, but Republicans are looking at at least 52 out of 100 seats. If only Mitch McConnell were alive to see this. I will say one point I want to make is because, you know, there's a lot of sweeping conclusions. And one of them is, oh, is field worth anything? Is organizing worth anything?

Are campaigns worth anything? Ben Wickler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, someone that's been on this show, been on Pet Save America, he has done an incredible job organizing that state. And at a time in which the entire country shifted rightward by a bunch of points, Tammy Baldwin managed to hold that Senate seat very, very close. We really could have lost it. And if not for the organizing that people did in Wisconsin, that listeners of this show did in Wisconsin, the knocking on doors, Tammy Baldwin would not have won that seat. And that

matters. And right now, the question as to whether or not we retain the House will come down to hundreds of ballots, if not fewer ballots. Again, in districts where a lot of people listening to this show, a lot of you knocked on doors and made calls and donated. That mattered. Organizing matters when we win. Organizing matters when we lose. We have to figure out how to do it right. We have to figure out what are the ways in which the Republican Party managed to score this victory without having to rely on field, right? Because we know that Elon Musk did not put together a vaunted field program to match what we did, right? They are doing something else instead of having field, and we need to understand that, and we need to compete there, too. But that does not discount the work that a lot of people did knocking on doors and giving up their time, and that was worth it.

And I think we need to make sure we do not lose sight of that, because we're going to need you in two years, and we're going to need you two years after that. There's plenty of reasons to be discouraged, but not to believe that the work we did didn't matter. I just want to make sure people listening understand that. Several House races remain undecided. And while the Democrats' path to a majority is narrow, the House is still up for grabs. Just to reiterate, actually, even right now, if you go to VoteSaveAmerica, at VoteSaveAmerica.com, just the homepage, you can volunteer to cure ballots. Basically, that's people who voted, but their signature didn't match, or they didn't put it in the right envelope, or there's some other problem. You can help find those voters, get them to come in, and what's called cure their ballots, so their vote is counted. Those house races that are still trying

to fight for every vote here and try to eke out a victory, the people that are working for those campaigns need to be paid. There are people that could use the resources. So if you want to help in this home stretch to help these last few house races, go to votesaveamerica.com. You can donate, you can volunteer, insert disclaimer here. And by the way, you can also do that volunteering from the fetal positions. That's the beautiful part about it. It will be a while until we know. So we just keep thinking positive house thoughts. Imagine Hakeem Jeffries holding a gavel. Imagine Mike Johnson's son catching him masturbating. The election results aren't all bad.

AOC won re-election this week. Friend of the show, Sarah McBride, won her race in Delaware, making her the first openly transgender congressperson in American history. So the next time Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene scream at each other in the bathroom, they'll have to do it across a trans woman washing her hands. That's progress. Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland both become the first black senators from their states, respectively. Could have used a willingness to vote for a black woman in a few more states on Tuesday,

but we'll take what we can get right now. Their election also marks the first time two black women have served in the Senate at the same time. So, bad news, Ukraine will have a new national anthem. Good news, the Senate will pass a black female Bechdel test for the first time. Mark Robinson, North Carolina's Republican lieutenant governor and self-described black Nazi, lost his gubernatorial race to Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein. In an unusual move, instead of a concession speech, Robinson posted his thanks to supporters in the comment section of nude sad Africa. A little bit poignant. Abortion ballot measures

passed in liberal states like New York, Maryland, and Colorado, but also swing states like Nevada and Arizona, and conservative states like Montana and Missouri. Ballot measures failed in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Florida, though in Florida, 57% of voters rejected a six-week ban, but a 60% supermajority was required. 57% of Florida voters wanted to protect abortion rights, even as Trump won Florida handily. Missouri voted to not only to protect abortion rights, but also to raise the minimum wage and require paid sick leave. Our policies are popular. We just need to become likable. If any likable people have ideas for how to do that, please, this punchable gay nerd, I'm all ears. California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday called for a special legislative

session later this year to Trump-proof the state's progressive policies on climate change, abortion, and immigration. You just hold a container of gasoline up to his hive. I'm sorry. That's yellow jackets. Stupid. But TikTok teaches you everything. It's true. Mu Dang, the viral hippo star, predicted Donald Trump would win the presidency, choosing the former president's fruit basket over Kamala's. I think I speak for everyone when I say, fuck that hippo. But also, since it was correct, what else can we ask it? Anyway, congrats to Mu Dang on her new job as pollster at the Des Moines Register. Anyway, congrats to Mu Dang on her new job as pollster at the Des Moines Register.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh Zoo welcomed their own baby hippo named Haggis, born to parents Otto and Gloria. Tweeted the zoo, Mu Dang, who Dang, introducing Haggis. Got her. Now tear him apart, Mu Dang, Make him regret being born last week. The zoo later posted an apology for comparing the two hippos. Writing, there is space in this world for two beautiful pygmy hippo divas, and we should celebrate them all. Sorry to Mu Dang.

Let's work it all out on the remix. So you're saying the zoo apologized for being hypocritical. A cloned pharaoh named Antonia. That's right. That's right. We're doing animal news. A cloned pharaoh named Antonia had babies in Virginia, becoming the first U.S.-born cloned endangered animal to successfully give birth.

Well, second if you count Grover Cleveland. Your response there is correct. This joke is funny and makes no sense. And that, I mean, I laughed when I saw it, and then I was like, what does it mean? Nothing. As for the cloned ferrets, just as scientists had predicted, no souls. You look at their little cloned ferret eyes, and there's just a void. Look, I know it's been a hard few days, but as Fred Rogers once said, when I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me,

look for the ferrets. You will always find ferrets. The first wooden satellite, a Japanese spacecraft called Lignosat, arrived at the International Space Station on Wednesday. And this just in, everyone on board the wooden spaceship is dead. The cause, scientists say, is that it was made out of wood. According to two Australian scientists, the adage that a monkey writing for an infinite number of years would write the works of Shakespeare is not true. I know they're mathematicians with fancy degrees and fancy methods,

but folks, I know they're wrong. I got monkeys writing this show every week. with fancy degrees and fancy methods, but folks, I know they're wrong. I got monkeys writing this show every week. Why are you oohing? One of the monkeys wrote that. Instead, the scientists claim before the monkeys reproduced the bard's writing, all of existence would end via the heat death of the universe, which frankly would hit the spot right now now But then we're not really talking about infinite time, are we? The saying is if you gave a monkey until the heat death of the universe The paper doesn't say the infinite monkey's thought experiment is wrong The paper just says it's not realistic

And guess what? We fucking know We know you can't actually do it, you nerds There are many other logistical challenges to having a monkey working on a typewriter forever Presumably the typewriter would need an infinite supply of ink and paper, and you'd need an infinite supply of replacement typewriters. And given the finite resources of planet Earth, we'd be building some kind of interstellar manufacturing operation to generate the supply of parts we need,

not to mention the resources required to produce an endless supply of monkeys. It's a fun thought experiment. Could you maybe work on a new kind of battery or something? All the bees are dying. That's an issue that could get your attention. Anyway, I know you're just having fun, but it's been a hard week. And then I saw somebody else say that actually the saying is an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of keyboards could produce Shakespeare in an infinite amount of time. No, depending on your definition of infinite, they could produce them instantly.

Depending on your definition of infinite, they could produce them instantly. Speaking of monkey experiments, authorities warned South Carolina residents to keep their windows and doors closed after 43 rhesus monkeys escaped a research facility. Don't need to tell me, authorities. I'll close the windows and doors the second those monkeys get inside. I'm not locked in here with 43 monkeys. 43 friends are locked in here with me. Monkeys. The monkeys escaped, it turns out,

out of frustration when they realized what they had just typed. The oldest hath born most. We that are young shall never see so much, nor live so glongo. Fucked up King Lear on the last lines. Gotta be so frustrating. Back to square one for those monkeys.

And finally, a raccoon fell out of the ceiling next to the Spirit Airlines counter at LaGuardia Airport on Monday. Set a Spirit Airlines spokesperson. We can't apologize enough. That raccoon should never have been let out of the cockpit. All right, we'll be right back. Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. You know, we talked a lot about what we wanted to do this week. And more and more clear, we realized that we just wanted to have a conversation as if around, you know, some kind of a campfire. And so we're going to have that campfire here. And we're going to roast Mudang on it. Bring out the hippo. Nice. Light the fire, Chris.

We couldn't do it. Oh, there we go. Oh, yeah. Nice. All right. Well, I think we could turn down the fire noise. All right. So Chris is going to be out there. And let's just, if you have questions, thoughts, things you want to ask about, things you want to talk about. Let's bring the lights up just a little bit. Got a question over here.

OK, I have two questions interrelated. Will the Democratic Party ever genuinely reckon with two aspects that I haven't really heard you mention? two aspects that I haven't really heard you mention. I mean, you mentioned a couple of times, but sort of in passing one, they didn't actually, the candidate that we got was chosen by the donor class in a closed back room door, number one. And number two, the democratic party for the better part of a year has been supporting a genocide. So will they actually ever reckon with that? Because I don't have faith that they will. So let's take those one at a time. One on how Kamala became the nominee. It was actually a front room deal. If Joe Biden, I think, had said, if Joe Biden had right after the debate said, I'm stepping aside and endorsed Kamala, or said, I'm stepping aside and I want there to be an open process, I think there would have been time. But by the time we get to the moment Joe Biden steps aside, there was very, very little time left.

Now, when Joe Biden says, I am not going to be the candidate and I'm throwing my support behind Kamala Harris. In that weekend, we had Doug on the show and I was like, what was that like? And he was at a SoulCycle in Los Angeles. In hindsight, maybe an omen. We had disconnected. Coastal elite. I don't know. In hindsight, maybe an omen. Are we a disconnected coastal elite? I don't know. Let's check in with Doug when he gets out of SoulCycle in West Hollywood. Are we a disconnected coastal elite?

Not according to the people in my Pilates class this morning who are worried about the country. But Kamala Harris, what Doug said is, by the time he got out and spoke to her, Kamala Harris was already working the phones and had already decided that she was going to pursue the nomination. Now, in that period of time, there was actually nothing to stop Gavin Newsom from putting out a statement saying, really glad Joe Biden made this decision. No, he's throwing support around Kamala Harris. But I'm asking all the senators and donors and everybody to take a moment before they endorse because the Democratic Party deserves a say in this. The delegates deserve a say in this, and we ought to have a contest.

There was nothing stopping Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or Wes Moore or Raphael Warnock or any of those senators or governors from saying, Jared Polis, any of those people from saying, I want this nomination. And Joe Biden doesn't get to choose this nomination, the delegates to the Democratic Convention get to choose this nominee. Now, I think it speaks to something about the fact that none of those, none of the people who I think want to run for president and wanted to run for president and would have run for president if Joe Biden hadn't stubbornly insisted that he was going to be the nominee. I think it says something that

none of those people said, you know what? Fuck it. For the good of the country, for the sake of the country, I think that he has big liabilities as an incumbent. I think his age is too big of a factor. I've seen all the polls that say it's a huge problem. I'm going to challenge him. Nobody took that chance, right? It says something about this crop of people. Maybe they're too careful. Maybe they're too cautious. Maybe they were right to not challenge him because it would have, wait, hold on. Maybe they would have been wrong to challenge him because it would have led to a contentious fight that they ultimately would have lost and would have wounded Joe Biden, right? We don't know. We don't get to do the counterfactual,

but that didn't happen. Kamala Harris worked the phones and she became the nominee. That didn't happen in a backroom. That happened in front of all of us. Now you can be mad at Joe Biden for doing that, but that wasn't a decision of the donor class. That wasn't a decision of any group of people in the back room. That was Joe Biden on television and Joe Biden in a statement saying, I support Kamala Harris. Anyone could have fought that. Nobody did. Now, you can be critical of the people that chose not to challenge Kamala Harris or not to challenge Joe Biden. But I don't think you can find a back room where the decision was made because it happened on television. Now, to your second point, I think there are plenty of people now talking about, well, let's, I think there's two points to this. One is the moral horror of what's unfolding in Gaza and the U.S. contribution to what is unfolding and how disgusting and wrong that is. I talked about this with Bernie Sanders before the election, that your objection and horror, what's happening at Gaza, can stop at the deaths of the tens of thousands of people there, but it can continue to include the way in which it is Benjamin Netanyahu

seeking his own interests, not only at the expense of the Palestinians, but at the expense of the long-term security and existence of Israel. I think it is horrible what is happening. I think the regional conflict is horrible. Now, the question is, if you want to get mercenary about it, is what was the impact on our politics? We don't know yet. We can see that there are places in Michigan where you have Donald Trump and Jill Stein outrunning Kamala Harris.

I'd say that's a pretty bad fucking sign. However, in a defeat that is this sweeping in basically every part of the country, in basically every demographic, I think we ought to be careful about saying, hey, this issue that I take really seriously, that you're right to take really seriously, is part of this loss. It may turn out to be. It may turn out to be really important with the youth vote. I think that's totally possible. But I think we need to wait till we get more information about what drove this incredible shift, right? Because that may explain why we lost a bunch of young people. It really may be a big part of it. But it doesn't explain why we why we lost border communities in Texas that were that went to Joe Biden by 20 percent and then and went to Donald Trump by 10%. It doesn't explain the loss of suburban women and all kinds of groups, right? You can't see a loss this widespread requires a widespread answer. I'm not discounting what you're saying,

but I think we just need to wait till we have a bit more information. The right often frames our cities like LA and San Francisco as crime-filled hellholes where no one wants to be or can afford to live. Strong start, I know. But if we're going to succeed on a national scale, we have to prove them wrong. How are we going to fix our shit at home before we try and spread it nationally? We have council members in L.A. that don't believe there's a housing shortage. We need to be pushing everything we can locally to prove democratic policies and democratic cities kick ass, and you want them in your city too. How are we going to do that? I think it's a great question.

And by the way, that's a talking point that a lot of conservatives use, right? That they were worried, conservatives, that all these Californians moving to Nevada and Arizona would turn their states bl for. But I think like your question is important regardless of what happened yesterday. And like sometimes I do think there was there was an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood growing up. And my dad would always say some version of, oh, nobody ever goes there. There's always such a long line. And I sometimes think that like, like, you know, San Francisco, Los Angeles, these cities are terrible. Nobody wants to live there. The housing is so expensive. Housing expensive because of fucking demand. It's awesome to live in San Francisco.

It's awesome to live in Los Angeles. No, but we've got to build more. And I like, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of like down river arguments from the problem around housing, around rent control, around gentrification, around zoning, like that are, some of those are really important conversations, but all of that is down river of, there's just not enough fucking places to live. Like that vast amounts of new housing that we have not been building over decades needs to be built to create the marking conditions where costs would start to come down, or at least the cost of housing would not rise faster than incomes, faster than the cost of living.

I think the good news is, I think a lot of leaders in California now get this. I think Gavin Newsom really gets this. The problem is, this is a decades-long problem that's going to take decades to untangle. And it's some of it is we're seeing it, right? We're seeing fights to get approvals. We're seeing cities fighting against the state mandate to build more, right? Like it's taking time, but like, I think we just, we just have to fucking build. We have to build. And then we have to figure out how to build infrastructure to connect our cities and to as we're building more housing. That's not incredibly expensive to build. It is bananas that we cannot build a rail line that connects San Francisco to Los Angeles.

It makes no sense. It makes no sense. I like I can't tell like I've talked about this too much on the show, but like Barcelona and Madrid, similar distance, a 10th of the population connected by high speed rail. They have labor laws in Spain. They have environmental laws in Spain. They have mountains in Spain. They take breaks in Spain. We can't fucking do that in California. We can't, we can't build in the same way that they can build in Europe. Oh, it's too hard. Or, you know, it's like, we've got so much, but they build subways in fucking Rome around, I don't know, basilicas. Like they, like we just have a real problem. And I think it takes leadership. It takes a change in culture. It takes attacking laws that were put on the books for good reasons that have been exploited by bad actors. It takes reforming

those kinds of laws. It's hard, but I do think people get that now, right? Like, I think that a lot of people, Kamala Harris in her convention speech, Barack Obama in his convention speech throughout this campaign, she talked about building millions of new units of housing. She talked about getting rid of the kind of red tape that's been abused, right? Like the YIMBY, the YIMBY, the YIMBY forces are rising and I think are ultimately going to win out. It's just hard. And I think at the local level, we've got to make sure we elect people that aren't going to do kind of economically ignorant talking points instead of the actual policies that will make a difference. And it's a hard fight.

We've got to fight it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, hi. I have two questions. I'm dealing with anger and bargaining right now. Okay. Anger is I'm going to be okay.

I want to bury my head in the sand right now, and I know my two daughters are going to be okay, and my family is going to be okay, and I know that's not the right place to think. That's where I'm at bargaining is and this isn't i don't want to upset anybody because i don't think this is true but the obama was to the right it was like just so bad the worst we're gonna take they're gonna take all our guns and all that stuff. Is Trump, I know we lived through four shitty years, but is Trump going to be the boogeyman and not be as bad as we think? Tell me that's how it's going to be, please. Bargain me that he's just a boogeyman because, please.

So I think we don't know. I think we don't know. Please. So I think we don't know. I think we don't know. And, you know, one of the challenges we had in this election is we said Donald Trump is going to be the end of democracy. Donald Trump is a radical who is going to be an authoritarian. And a lot of people said, but wait, he was already president. And those terrible things didn't happen. Now, a lot of terrible things did happen. Overturning Roe did happen. He did try to invoke the Insurrection Act, right? He did try to do a lot of terrible things. He did do family separation. So I think there's some gauzy memory there. But, you know, when we just spent, when Joe Biden says he's running to be, to save the soul of democracy, and we just mount a campaign that is about the threat Donald Trump poses, it is a bit of a, it creates a bit of weather to then have Kamala Harris and Joe Biden go out there and say we're going to be okay.

And I think the way you square this, we just don't know. And I think the way you square this, we just don't know. And whatever happens over the next two, four years, the risk of Donald Trump was real. And the that he had before? Of course. Of course. I just don't think we know. And by the way, one thing we know is we don't know that you're going to be okay. And we don't know that your daughters are going to be okay. And you don't know that. And it'd be nice if you did, but you don't. And none of us do. And that's how it goes. Because we don't know how far they will go. And I'm just not right now feeling like pretending otherwise. And it'll be up to us to be vigilant, to be honest about that, to not be afraid of things that haven't happened, but to not pretend they can't. And beyond that, I don't know yet that we can say. So as I approach the bottom of the bottle of Ambien, things got crazier.

Obviously, with the pending Trump's first real act, which will be to pardon his own ass. Trump's first real act, which will be to pardon his own ass. What the thought came to me is what would happen if Biden pardoned Hunter, his whole family, himself, and basically everybody who Trump could chase for the next four years as a final act. So love, love where your head's at. As a final act. So love, love where your head's at. When I was in a dark personal place about, I don't know when exactly this was, but I took an Ambien and just, and just as I was falling asleep, just as I was falling asleep, my friend Sarah called. And I remember the beginning of the conversation, but at the end of the conversation, apparently I planned some kind of a Seder with my rabbi, and then I opened up my phone

and created a dating profile on OkCupid, which I had downloaded for this purpose, set my region to the world, and then got the direction of swipe wrong. Like I, and so I woke up to an incredible array of global uggos. Uh, why did I,

I re I bring that up for an important reason. Uh, no, I, I don't know how far Joe Biden's, uh, um, pardon fervor should go. I'm, I, I, I'm sure there's reasons to not go pretty far, but I'm into it. And I will tell you something. I will tell you something. I genuinely, I'm just like, pardon Hunter, just pardon him. But you know what, Joe, I am furious at you. I'm mad at you. And I actually think you're going to be a big part of unifying the Democratic Party by accident, because we're all going to come together and say, we may disagree about where Kamala should go left and where Kamala should go right, but we can all agree that this is Joe Biden's fault. But even still, I would like a pardon myself. I do think that being on Meet the Press saying that Joe Biden should withdraw probably has put me low on the list in terms of priority. Uh, but, um, uh, I like where your head's at.

Hi. Hi. What, what do you think is going through the mind of, um, I think it was James Carville. I saw like a article in the daily beast where he, the headline was basically, she's got it in the bag. And I feel like I had, you know, we'd been through this with Hillary and I was like, I'm not going to let myself get too excited. And then I, you know, walked to school to pick up my son blasting her theme song in the pocket of my cell phone and like started to physically feel myself because I was like, no, you know, keep it down. But when I started seeing headlines like that, what is going through his head when he's putting that out there? Don't they know what that does to our emotions and how that crushes morale and that that's a risk? And what is going through their heads when they're saying things like that? I don't know what compels people.

I don't know where that confidence, and I'm not speaking to him specifically. There's a lot of people online that feel, I was like a bit annoyed. And I said, and he was doing some predicting some bleak future because of Democrats. And I remember just blurting out in anger, like, uh, how, how, how, what makes you think you can predict the future? I've seen your work. You can barely predict the past. That's what I think about that. Uh, but I, but like, look, the stakes were very high and people want to reassure each other. And I think we made that mistake even worse in 2016, which was we, we privileged our emotions in the moment leading up to the election more than we did how we would feel if Trump won. We worried about reassuring each other in advance of the election more than we worried about doing everything we could to stop him. I actually don't

think we made this mistake this year. I think the vast majority of people were pretty responsible. There are a few kooks out there being like, I've got the 13 keys and the 13 keys can accurately predict every presidential election. Okay. Wear your keys now, bud. But for the most part, people were, I think, were pretty, pretty circumspect. I think what happened in the last week, literally the last week was Donald Trump closed terribly. He did a bad job. Tons of stories inside of his campaign about how frustrated people inside of his campaign were, about his rambling, incoherent addresses. The Madison Square Garden was a bad event for her, and Kamala was closing really fucking strong. That's real. And now, for all we know, we would have lost by worse if the week last week hadn't

gone so well. We have no idea, right? Like a winning campaign, everything they did was right. A losing campaign, everything they did was wrong. We don't know what the impact of all of that was, but we went into that race saying if the polls say it's tied and it really is tied and she's closing strong and he's closing weak, she has momentum, he doesn't. Well, we would rather be, and I think that this is as far as we were willing to go on Pod Save America going into election day, rather be her than him. That's how we felt. That's how it felt. And I think what we are learning now in hindsight is kind of realizing the truth of something we

were all, I think, aware of, but not fully understanding just how deep the issue was, which is that whole conversation. He's alienating Puerto Rico voters. He's alienating voters from Puerto Rico who are texting their group threads and are upset about the joke. And he's rambling and incoherent and he's threatening people. That whole conversation is contained and it is simply not escaping to huge swaths of the electorate who are not only, we are silent to them, and they are silent to us. And they were voting on inflation, and they were voting on inflation the whole fucking time. And maybe there was nothing we could have said to change their minds. And we thought that the politics that Kamala Harris was practicing would be enough to overcome the headwinds that she faced. they weren't. Anyone who was more confident than that looks dumb today.

So it's my birthday today. Happy birthday. Thank you. So there's a lot of space on the right side, like for podcasts. They may not be like conservative podcasts, but there's definitely space on the right for that conversation. Is there a plan or is there, like how does the left go forward to build that space? Maybe not something like Positive America or Love to Relieve It, but just building space on the left side of the spectrum to have those conversations with those like undecided voters. So I feel like there's a few parts that I want to tease out from what you're talking about.

Part of it is that conservatives have done a great job investing in conservative media. Republicans have done a great job of investing their time and attention in conservative media. It's big, right? It runs from Fox News to the Daily Wire to a bunch of other satellites. And it is partisan. It is conservative. It is political. And they have all kinds of offerings, but that has a core purpose. And then outside of that, there's a ton of other politically adjacent media that isn't inherently right wing in the sense that it's not usually particularly partisan. Joe Rogan is a big part of that, but there's a lot of other stuff around that's like that. So I think we have to invest in progressive media. We just have to, you know, we have been building something at Crooked Media because we believe that that's

really important and really central to how we build political power, but they're just, we need more. We just need more. And we need Democrats, democratic politicians to tend it and use it and believe it's important and support it and come on our shows and use it as a place to make news and have big conversations and stop being so reliant on legacy media. We've been saying that for years. That's incredibly important. Then the question is, all right, what about outside of that? And I've seen people say, well, we need a Joe Rogan of the left. There's two big problems with that. One is Joe Rogan wasn't like manufactured. He was a TV guy who became an MMA guy who built a following and had a bunch of different conversations and

built an audience. Fear factor. That's I said, TV guy. And, and by the way, like then you say, well, okay, well we need a version of that on the left. Joe Rogan could have been that, or was in a bunch of issues, stupid views, things we find abhorrent. But he has a big audience. that we were going to stop trying to persuade those hosts in those places and try to alienate ourselves from them or alienate them from us. And I don't think it was particularly effective because when you tell millions of people who like someone that that person is terrible and they keep listening anyway, you've shown yourself to be pretty powerless

and also not someone they're very interested in listening to either. So I think we need to go to those places and we need to have our people go to those places. And we need to be thinking about those places as places, not just to persuade their listeners, but persuade their hosts to make them feel like we can go there. They can come on our shows that we're part of one big conversation. And I don't know exactly what that looks like. I also think we need to invest in the kinds of people that are less political, but reach a big younger audience online that are more left and make them feel like more connected to the political fight that we're fighting. I think sometimes so much of conservative media is about fighting Democrats and so much of progressive media is about fighting Democrats.

And there are good reasons to fight. It's real. And there are good reasons to fight Democrats. We talked about one. There are good reasons to fight Democrats. But that asymmetry is real and it is hard. It is hard. It is hard. And, you know, like we need to be on our own side and we need to figure out how to get more people on our side. We got a little bit of like a front of the classroom problem.

You know, we got a lot of hand raisers. But teacher, you forgot the homework types. And I'm kind of in the market for front of the classroom brains with back of the classroom vibes, you know? And we need a little bit more of that. What else you got? Hello. Hi. So there's so much that matters that affects the outcomes of elections and of voting. It matters that we phone bank and that we go knock doors and do all of all of these things that are free.

It's really difficult for me not to get completely lost in seeing Elon Musk and all of these other big names and companies just decimate legislation and candidates that would have had a shot otherwise. I don't know if there's any hope of seeing that change, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are on how we best diffuse that, how we best counteract that. Like, is there something to do, or are we just fighting money with money? Do we just need to find richer people? Well, sadly, he's the richest one. I hate to admit it, but. So, again, I actually talked about this with Bernie briefly before the election.

And he's like, it was one of his main concerns going in, which is like, we're just not doing enough to talk about corporate greed. We're not doing enough to talk about corporate ownership for our elections, money and politics. We need to be talking about that more. And I said, but wait, we like these people are dropping hundreds of millions of dollars and we have to fight fire with fire. And he's, he agreed like, of course, of course we do. You know, Andy Kim had a, had a thread about this talking about, he just won his race and he was talking about how he won a couple of years ago in a Trump district. And he was talking about the conversation he had. And part of it was about how much disgust there is in politics, how much visceral anger, mistrust and disgust there is with politics today. And he talked to those voters about what it means to be different.

And for him in that race, it was about taking on corruption. It was about running without taking corporate PAC money. It was about taking on money in politics. So I think the way we change it is by making it more of an issue. And again, I just think we all... I'm trying to just be open to a bunch of contradictory thoughts and responses right now. And I'm sure I've contradicted myself several times tonight and I will, I pledge to continue to do so. But I think one of the, like, if you look at like one, you know, one basket of where do we go from here? One basket is we got to be the anti-corruption, anti-corporate money in politics, clean up our politics party more and make that central, make that core to our identity, that we have to be anti-corruption warriors. And if you look at, I can't get specific,

but just over the last couple of years, I have seen over and over again, when I see message testing, that always shoots to the top of the list. Now, I do think some people have said it and people, I think, are very suspicious of people who make those kinds of promises. And so it's not just the message, it's the messenger. And I think also it's not just one message, right? It has to fit into a larger story that we tell about politics and the story that we tell about Trump and the story we tell about the economy and the story we tell about how Washington is broken and why people are so dissatisfied. But I think you can start to see, okay, that's part of the story that we need to figure out how to tell. And yeah, I mean, I think we got to fight fire with fire until we put the fire out.

Hi. Um, hello. I have two questions, but i promise they're both really quick um i have a silly one and a more serious one which one would you like first let's do serious then silly okay great um so i volunteer every saturday with a group of oh you don't even know what it's for yet it could be it could be it could be for libs of TikTok. It's low-income, first-generation high school students who are trying to get into college. It's a college prep program for them. Okay, I guess you can applaud me. Thank you.

I am terrified to go in on Saturday and face them because I lead this group of 20-something, 16 17 year olds who did not get to vote in this election. Some of them are undocumented. I would just love some advice on how do I, how do I go into that conversation and face those kids and talk to them? Yeah. I mean, I don't see why you deciding to volunteer is suddenly my problem. We didn't volunteer to help those kids. You volunteered to help those kids. Now, all of a sudden I'm volunteering to help those kids. Okay. Sort of non-consensual, but all right. What are you, are you a teacher of some kind? Social worker. Let's go, let's go to the social worker.

Let's get an answer from somebody else. So what you, what you do is you're honest with them. You, and it's what you guys did after the first debate. You don't tell them that what they're feeling is not real, that what they're seeing is not real. They feel it. It is happening to them and it's happening to you too. And you can hold an honest space for that and just take deep breaths before you go into it and know that you can see them through that process. It's so hard. It's like taking a kid through death it's the same thing you do when you take a kid through

loss of a parent or loss of somebody else who they care about you acknowledge it's happening and you let them know that you just make it real and that people love them and care about them and that they are not

it's not just them that are there for them and care for them and that they are not they it's not just them that are feeling it and that yeah can you tell them you're still there yep a hundred percent yep and that you will get through it too like it will yeah i was promised a silly question i don't i don't really know if you want it but my question is, which loss was harder for you, this or Survivor? Really more of a cunty question. I'll tell you something. This was harder because I saw that one coming. That's true. That's true.

That's true. Survivor, this election was 50-50. I went into that vote and I'm like, oh, 20%. I'm a high school history teacher and I teach, yeah, correct. I teach junior U.S. history and I was really, really scared yesterday about the exact same thing. How do I go in and talk to them? What's the emotion going to be? I'm in South Central.

It's a lot of immigrant students, undocumented students, et cetera. And then I went in and had almost the opposite experience, which was that a lot of the kids were super indifferent. A lot of them were surprised to find that I felt like things might change. And I think I've seen this whole year a lot of apathy and realizing that they're 16 and that Trump has been a huge part of the conversation since they were like seven and that they don't necessarily realize how abnormal this is. I'm wondering how to engage these people that are going to be voting in a couple years, but if they make the choice to do so and how to inspire them to do that and to kind of

re-engage a lot of young people right now who are super, super unengaged and feel a lot of apathy towards all of it. I think it's a larger, I think it's maybe a good place to leave it because I think what you're coming across is a part pandemic that killed millions of people, that disabled a lot of people, that terrified all of us, that changed our society, that shut our society down, that made us all quite addled and anxious and a little bit coarser and a little bit strange. and anxious and a little bit coarser and a little bit strange. Kids experienced that in even more stark relief because they were kids and their world disappeared and changed. And that was what their normal was. They didn't have any basis of comparison. They just experienced this terrible thing in the same way that they were kids when Donald Trump was president. They don't remember Barack Obama being president. They remember Donald Trump being president. And they remember some old lady named Hillary Clinton running against him and losing. And some old guy named Joe Biden running against him and winning. And then Donald Trump coming back.

That it's all, that we have been through a trauma. And I remember when we were in the early days of the pandemic reading about how quickly society tried to ignore or look past what they called the Spanish flu. That here's this thing that ripped through the world in the tail end of World War I. And it just wasn't a part of the story because people just wanted to pretend it didn't happen. Because in this telling that there are no war heroes in a pandemic. Now we know having gone through it, there are heroes in a pandemic and, and, but, but there's no war stories, right? There's no acts of daring do and people who storm beaches and, and there's just suffering and death and the people that die don't die for others, they just die. And so it doesn't lend itself to beautiful tales.

And so we just try to move on. And I think that's what we have tried to do, but we live in the after effects of it every single day. Now, a lot of the trends that we are experiencing precede, predate the pandemic, the atomization of our culture, the way in which social media makes us anxious and afraid and lonely, the changes to our economy, the way in which we interact with corporations that are distant and feckless and greedy. And our kids, young people, that's all they know. That's what they have lived with. We remember something else, a lot of us, or we at least in our minds can tell that this is worse than it used to be, that something's different and something's worse.

And all of politics right now, I think is downstream of that, of that cultural rot, that cultural sadness and coldness and loneliness. And people are lashing out in all kinds of ways i think trump is a response to that um that that's why i think that that his ability to come back despite the the harm he did and the ways he made himself manifestly demonstrably unfit despite all that managed to come back and win by an even greater margin as a part of that. But we as Democrats, I think we need to find a way to speak to it and reassurances about everything being okay and pay ons to the promise of America or brilliant

lights shining in the night sky. I just think ring is bullshit to people. And we sound like bullshit artists all the time. And I am interested in figuring out what it is that we can sound like that breaks through to people. And I know, I don't know exactly what it is, but I know it means not sounding like politicians. And I think it means casting aside some of these kind of morality tales

we tell about politics, about like the goodness of America and the greatness of our spirit and the indomitable American democracy and all the good that it represents for people because people don't buy it and they don't really give a fuck. And that's a failure, sure, but it's true. And we need to figure out how to make them care about it and make them believe us when we talk about it. And right now, they just don't. They tune us out or think we're cringy or think we're wrong or think we can't be trusted. And that's, I think, the hard work because that apathy is real. It is real. It has been the boulder we have been trying to push up a hill. And I just, I was feeling this before the

election. I'm feeling it even more now. It cannot be that we are beseeching people to care. Democrats, Republicans, they have a way of saying to people, you're not wrong to care about this. And it works. And I think sometimes Democrats, we run around saying, you're wrong not to care about this. And it doesn't work as well. And I'm sick of doing that. And I want to figure out a politics that respects our values and who we are as people and what we care about and what we're fighting for that doesn't feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. And I don't know what it is and I don't know what it looks like, but I think that's where I'm at. And that's what I think we have to start figuring out.

Because I think your classroom is a bit of a microcosm for what we're seeing everywhere. It's what you see when you knock on doors. It's what you see when you leave behind the hyper-engaged resistance. It's a whole bunch of people who are like, what are you talking about? And why should I give a fuck? And I think we need to be honest about that. Thank you, all of you. And boy, doesn't that hippo meat smell absolutely incredible. It's just like George Washington once said, hippo meat is the new brat summer.

When we come back, we'll spin the wheel. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back! As I said, the House is still in play. It is our best chance of stopping Trump from having unchecked power. Right now, there are a handful of House races scattered across the country, but concentrated in California that are too close to call. Four of them are in Southern California, including Derek Tran in Orange County and Will Rollins in Palm Springs. These campaigns will decide the fate of the House. They need volunteers to knock doors and help voters who messed up their mail-in ballots to correct those errors before California's

upcoming deadline. So please, if you have anything left to give, go to votesaveamerica.com slash cure. You can sign up to volunteer. This message has been paid for by Votesave America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. This ad has can sign up to volunteer. This message has been paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. After Tuesday, I'm still wading through all the feelings brought on by the loss. And since I'm a child who can only eat spinach that's been swirled around like an airplane, I'm going to Trojan horse my emotional excavation in a game we're calling the five stages of wheel. I'm going to spin the wheel. It's going to land on an emotional stage.

I'm going to talk about it. And then we're going to spin it again. I truly don't know which of the five stages it is going to land on. And I don't know how I feel. And these are just going to be my raw versions of these emotions. I'm not going to stand by them. Let's spin the wheel. It has landed on depression. It has landed on depression.

I just start crying. It's like that easy. I had a very dark moment earlier today, which was that I actually had a moment where I was really kind of mourning the good that we're not going to get. I know we're really, it's instinctive, I think, to focus on what's actually coming. And what's actually coming is quite terrifying. And we have every reason to be afraid. And we have to think about how to meet out that fear in ways that do not destroy us in anticipation, right? We can rile ourselves up with hypotheticals, but we have to focus on the here and now. But I had this moment where I just indulged

in thinking about the delta between the world as we were fighting for and the world that we're gonna get. And I realized, I had this moment where I just thought, oh, yeah, like I have a great life. I'm a very fortunate person. I have a wonderful family and friends and loved ones. I am very privileged and I don't know how bad things will get, but I have that. I have those wonderful things. And then I thought, but no matter who you are, no matter what you have, the next four years will be worse.

We've just signed on for being a bit sadder and more anxious and upset about politics. And there's no changing that now. That is coming for us. And the world that we could have had won't be for a while. And instead, we will have to just sit with this worse experience. And it will be a part of our lives. And we can ignore it for a time and do self-care and tend to our feelings and step away when we have to, and we should step away when we have to. But then what, but when we come back, the horror will be there and it's just waiting for us all the time. And that's going to

be a shitty part of the next couple of years. And there's just no reason not to be honest about that. And I'm not going to indulge in this all the time, but that was a feeling I had, which is just the next couple of years are just going to be bad. They're going to be worse than they otherwise would be no matter how good things get. And playing defense is important, but you don't score any points. And that's really hard. What's the next stage? Was this a good idea? Is this a good idea? Bargaining. Maybe it won't be so bad.

Okay. Listen. Okay. All right. All right. Hear me out. Hear me out. Hear me out.

Maybe it won't be so bad. Okay. Donald Trump at root wants to be loved. He wasn't, didn't get enough love as a child. He's never had therapy. He's a broken fucking person. He's very transactional people. He loves people who love him. He hates people who hate him. He hurts people who hurt him or don't love him or admire him. And he tries to help the people who serve him. He's transactional. And, you know, he now one. So much of the first four years of Trump was about this kind of like this fundamental grievance that here he was, this fucking guy that always ever wanted is the respect and admiration of the elites. Why he calls Maggie Haberman every fucking day and then bashes her on social media.

Right. And he couldn't have it. Why? Because we called him illegitimate because he didn't win the popular vote, because of all the interference that went into his winning, the fact that we put an asterisk there because of Comey and all the bullshit and the misogyny and all the rest. And he just, it made him a little bit fucking crazy. Now, I don't think it takes much to make Donald Trump crazy. I think he's crazy out of the packaging. But still, he won a popular vote. He did. He did. And I can't even convince myself of this. I think we still have to. That's it. Maybe it won't be. Yeah, that's the bargaining. That was bargaining. How do I end that? Come on, anger.

All right. I'm so mad. I'm so mad. Tuesday, I was shocked. Wednesday, I was sad. Today, I am fucking furious. And I think we all, I think this is a challenge. Watch me be part of the pontificating and priggish democratic elite that Bret Stephens hates while using stories about jazz era chess masters. elite that Brett Stevens hates while using stories about jazz era chess masters. Look in the mirror, pal. There's a series of essays that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote called The Crackup,

and I love it. And it's dated in all the ways it's dated. Caveats, there, done. But it's really interesting, right? Because this is a person who is clearly struggling with mental illness, depression, addiction, but they don't have the words for it. He didn't have the words for it. They just didn't have the words for it. He didn't have the language for it. He describes what is a serious case of clinical depression. Sleeping all day, making lists. And in it, he talks about the kinds of things he would write down on his list.

And one of them were the times he was snubbed by those who were not his better in character or ability. And I think about that all the time. Cause I do think it's something we all think about, right? The time where we're like, like, I mean, honestly, that's dating in Los Angeles. But also in that essay, he has says a line, which is I think relatively famous from the essay, which is the, the, the test of a first rate intelligence is keeping two contradictory eyes in the mind at the same time and still retaining the ability to function, something like that. And I do think we have to keep two ideas in our mind at the same time, which is I think we shouldn't be in denial.

We should face. We made our case to the country. And Donald Trump won this election. He won a majority of voters. Majority of the electorate went in. They had concerns about Donald Trump as a person. They had questions about his character. They had concerns about him as a human being. They do not like him. But a lot of people that do not like him voted for him anyway. Ron Brownstein wrote a great piece today that they chose the uncertainty of a different future from the unacceptability of the present.

I'm paraphrasing, but some version of that. And that is true, and we should be honest about that. We shouldn't run from that. We shouldn't pretend that isn't true. We shouldn't try to talk our way out of that. That happened, right? That speaks to something about our inability to reach people. That speaks to our inability to build trust with people.

That speaks to a disdain for the identity, the brand of the Democratic Party. That is real. We need to be honest about that. We need to figure that. At the same time, I think it is also okay to feel and think, well, wait a second here. Joe Biden did what we asked him to do domestically. I think there's valid criticism, Joe Biden did what we asked him to do domestically. I think there's valid criticism, both on policy and politics around Gaza and Israel. But domestically, Joe Biden for four years did what we asked him to do. He came in, he built consensus, he brought Bernie Sanders in, he brought Elizabeth Warren in, he brought the moderates in, and he governed as well as anyone could have under the circumstances. In a pandemic,

in an economic calamity, he passed the Rescue Plan. He passed the Inflation Reduction Act. He, this conservative man, fundamental, I don't mean politically, but I think institutionally, constitutionally, this conservative man, someone who was always at the very dead center or center right of the Democratic Party in his old age was curious enough and open enough to listen and bring everybody in. And he governed in a progressive way. He did what we asked him to do and he delivered and he delivered and that didn't matter. Why? Why? Right? It's not enough to just say, well, people were upset about inflation. Right. It's not enough to just say, well, people were upset about inflation. Yes. But that was something that happened around the world. There's a there's an answer. There's a case. There's a truth. Right. Oh, so they voted for Donald Trump. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris fought harder for working people. Republicans fought those policies every step of the way. Donald Trump's policies will be worse if your biggest issue is inflation. And so people voted based on this issue in a way that is ultimately, I think, counter to what they are hoping to get out of it, right? So that's a failure. What causes that failure? That's Democrats'

fault. Absolutely. We should be honest about that. That is a failure over decades to build trust with people who have heard us promise again and again and not deliver or people not see those differences in their lives. But that's also a media problem. That's a social media problem. That's a Republican propaganda apparatus problem, right? Because part of why Democrats have a brand issue is Democrats' fault. But part of it is because there's a massive Republican propaganda machine that picks out the dumbest fucking college professor or the most extreme dumb statement by a random state democratic representative or the worst person on the internet and make that a stand-in for all of us all the time. That's what we're coming up against all the time. And we don't have the equivalent on our side. And so I feel like I have these two competing ideas in my head

right now. One of which is, what do we do, all right, to answer for the fact that the American people collectively said, we are choosing Donald Trump over what you're offering, while at the same time believing in my bones that if they had the right information, if we had the ability to reach people and get them the information in a way that helped them understand the stakes and the actual choice in this election, we would have won. And yeah. And was this about anger? Yes.

And also, Joe Biden, I can't tell what I matter about with Joe Biden, to be honest. Am I more mad about his decision to seek reelection in the year and a half leading up to the debate? Or am I more angry about the month after the debate that he dithered and prevented us from either having a competitive primary or giving Kamala Harris enough time to actually mount an effective campaign. I can't decide which is making me more angry right now, but I don't have to choose. What are the other ones? Oh, I'm not doing acceptance. I'm not doing it. We'll be right back. And we're back. All right. Typically this is the part of the show where we have high notes, but we're going to switch it up over the last few years. Like I have loved the high notes. I have loved hearing the big stories of people's lives, their volunteer experiences,

running for office, getting engaged, getting new jobs, big transitions, happy moments in their lives. This is a moment, I think, for small distractions. And so moving forward, we're going to switch it up. We're going to end each week with something small, a tiny moment of joy, something fun or something that distracted you. Even if just for 10 seconds, our producer, Chris is standing on the audience. So please, uh, if you have, we just need one moment of a small joy in your life for a segment we call joy ride. Does anybody have just a... I do. What do you got?

My name is Alice, and I'm here from Portland with a group of my friends. And I was telling some of my lady friends tonight that Wednesday was a real bummer. And so I went over to this man's house that I sometimes have sex with. And I had an absolute amazing screaming orgasm. And I would highly recommend this strategy. It came right out. It came right out. You know what? What a perfect way to kick off a new segment. A joy ride if I've ever heard one. Let's leave it there. Hang in there, everybody. Got a long road to go and we need everybody in the fight, which means we can be sad,

we can be angry, we can feel whatever we want to feel, but we have to remember that they want us cynical. They want us angry. They want us furious. They want us mean. They want us annoying. They want us complaining. They want us bitter. They want us unlikable. They want us hateful. And we can't let them have that. We have to be the best versions of ourselves, not just because it is good for us and the lives we lead. It is because we need to be a movement people want to be a part of. And we need to show them that they are the fucking dark and dangerous and mean spirited people, right? They are not some counterculture revolutionaries taking on the power that be. They are a word I will try to use less, the patriarchy. They are the tradition.

They are the institutions. They are the establishment. Their greatest trick in this election is pretending otherwise. But we have to be fun and exciting and joyful and rebellious and welcoming to everyone with open arms. That's what we for a while. Not long enough to have your subscriptions or podcast downloads lapse, but take off whatever time you need. Get it on your phone. Click play. You can leave it on mute. We need the downloads. But we need everybody. We need everybody. So hang in there. We'll get through this. And there are 724 days until the 2026 midterms. Have a great night and have a great weekend. Long live Haggis. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, and Lee Eisenberg. Kendra James is our executive producer.

Chris Lord is our producer. And Kennedy Hill is our associate producer. Hallie Kiefer is our head writer. Sarah Lazarus and Jocelyn Kaufman, Peter Miller, Alan Pierre, Will Miles, and Mohana Dalshiki are our writers. Evan Sutton is our editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis provide audio support. Stephen Colon is our audio engineer.

And Milo Kim is our videographer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designer, Bernardo Serna, for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And to our digital producers, David Toles, Claudia Shang, Mia Kelman, and Matt DeGroat for filming and editing video each week so you can. It's love it or Leave It Love It or Leave It It's Love It or Leave It