The Dispatch Podcast - Maybe Voters Are Trying To Tell You Something

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Ruy Teixeira, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot, joins Sarah and Jonah to do some break down The politics of the Trump indictment, Chicago’s mayoral election, the Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, and how the abortion factors into all of this. Show Notes: -The Liberal Patriot: Bragg's Indictment of Trump is Nothing to Boast About -Subscribe to our Podcast YouTube Page Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com. Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Jonah Goldberg and Rui Tashara, author of the

Emerging Democratic Majority and Now AEI Scholar. We're going to talk about the politics around, well, all of it. Yep, we're going to have to talk about the politics around the Trump indictment, but also, and this is really why we need Rui today, the politics around what we saw in the results, both in Wisconsin and Chicago, what it means for the Democratic Party, the progressive movement. And then we'll see where the conversation goes. Let's dive right in. Rui, thanks for being here. Oh, thanks for having me.

All right. So Jonah, as you know, on that flagship niche legal podcast that we have, we talked about the legal parts of the Trump indictment, which, you know, David French and I tend to agree is weaker than one would otherwise have thought if you're going to indict Donald Trump. But that has nothing to do with the politics of this. And whether inditing Donald Trump is going to rally Republicans, whether indicting Donald Trump ensures he's getting the Republican nomination, whether indicting Donald Trump is actually great for Democrats because it ensures he'll be the nominee, and that's good for them, whether inditing Donald Trump actually will hurt him with independence and women and even some parts of Republican primary

voters who are just sick of the drama. I mean, there's endless theories out there backed up by increasingly little data. Jonah, where do you fall across that spectrum? Yes, to all of them. Look, I think that, you know, you and I have, we haven't quite locked horns on this, but we have, we have scratched at the dirt like we were preparing to lock horns on this a couple of times.

Are you supposed to talk about Jews having horns? I thought that was kind of a no, no. Particularly on Passover. That was probably a poor choice. Yeah, especially, I mean, you know, that's what we're trying to keep, that one under wraps, you know? Don't let the don't let the Goyim know.

That's why we have yarmikas. No, look, the I have, like, my point, you know, from the beginning is, I think the indictment sounds sketchy for largely the reasons that you and David have laid out. Sketchy in the sense that it's just not, it doesn't rise necessarily to the merits

of being the precedent-setting thing that it is and sparking all of this Hazarai and drama but at the same time I have no sympathy for Donald Trump right my view is that he spent his entire life looking for trouble pressing his luck

and often when you press your luck day in and day out trying to stay five minutes ahead of investigators and subpoenas and whatever sometimes when things go bad for you it's kind of like not your fault and it's very difficult for me to feel sorry for him as I said in a newsletter yesterday

you know you spend your whole life juggling chainsaws, eventually you're going to lose a finger, right? And the thing is, I think this is the way a lot of Americans look at this. If you look at some of the polling, and I know the polling is sort of all over the place on this, but if look at the CNN poll, I think there was an ABC poll, there are a lot of Americans who say they think this is political, and a lot of those people are, they say politics played a role, but they also think the indictment is fine. and I think there are a lot of people can hold those two things in their head simultaneously.

I think it was Nate Cohen of the New York Times who said a lot of Americans are not going to get into the weeds on the legal stuff. They're just going to see this as like a lifetime achievement award for living a sketchy life and pushing the edge of the envelope. And so I think a lot of the catastrophization that has come from the right about this is overblown.

At the same time, I don't think Bragg should have done it. And so, and then just one last point, I watched that Trump Mar-a-Lago thing, and I don't think, I think Trump is so deep in his own bubble, and so surrounded by yes men, that he doesn't understand that even a lot of really pro-Trump people, I mean, like very deeply into Trump people, had no idea of half the things he was talking about, right? All these, like, I mean, he was so. deep in his own grievances, talking about various, you know, previous scandals and whatnot. And I just don't see how that is an additive strategy to building a coalition that, you know, who are the voters who are joining ranks with Trump now for purposes of a general election that otherwise wouldn't have? And so I think this is great for fundraising. I think it is great for cable news.

I think it is great for Trump's ego personally and for his domination of the primaries, but it's awful for the Republican Party and it's not great for the country either. Rui, I'm curious, not that I want you to be the spokesperson for all Democratic thoughts on this podcast today and feel free to weigh in on the Republican side as well.

But there's been a lot of angst, I think, of whether it is the case, that Democrats want, in fact, for Donald Trump to be the nominee because they think that it is easier for Joe Biden to defeat Donald Trump than, say, a Ron DeSantis so that actually anything that makes it more likely for Donald Trump to become the nominee is overall a good thing because ends justify the means and not having a Republican in the White House who is either Donald Trump or Donald Trump light like a Ron DeSantis. or whatever, is just the most important of all the considerations.

But then you hear from others like, no, no, no, Democrats absolutely do not want to risk Donald Trump getting back in the White House. They understand what happened in 2016 when they were rooting for Donald Trump, and they rooted him all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Again, I'm sure there's people who actually do just fall on both sides of that. Where do you think most people fall? Well, I mean, there are two questions here, really. I mean, I think one is by and large.

would Democrats be happy to have Trump as a nominee? And then the second question would be, do they actually like implicitly or explicitly or below the surface or in some other way push for this to happen, right? Because if it's going to hurt the Republicans and, you know, it's going to help us get Trump as a nominee, that's something we should all be for it. We should work for.

So the first question, I mean, I don't think there's, it's not really in dispute that most Democrats, I think, believe Trump would be, the weakest nominee they could face, they believe they can beat him. And the number of people who might say, as I do, well, yeah, okay, maybe it'd be a little easier to beat, but what if he wins? That would be kind of bad. Maybe that's something we shouldn't be working for and rooting for.

But I do think most Democrats do perceive Trump as being the easiest nominee for Biden to beat. And I think they're probably right about that. So, you know, looking at the fallout from this particular, you know, indictment, I think, in the short run and perhaps in the medium run that the Democrat and the Republican primary will probably enhances a probability that Trump will be the nominee. And if enhances a probability that Trump will be the nominee, it therefore enhances the probability Democrats will win the 2024 presidential election. Now, you know, that could be right, that could be wrong. But I think

that's their logic. I think that's what they believe. So then that leaves you to the second question, why is this happening? Why did Alvin Bragg decide at this rather late date to bring this extremely weak case against, you know, an ex-president, you know, things that basically are never prosecuted on this level. They've been done by Democrats. They've been done by Republicans. They've been done for decades, if not hundreds of years. This is hardly the case that you would think you would want to bring against an ex-president because it is so weak. It might not even make it into a trial. It's so weak. But, you know, you could see the logic out of if you're a Democrats. So is Alvin Bragg responding to what he perceives to be the Democrats' interests? Is he

being nudged in this direction? Is it really mostly he realizes I could build my political career off of this because I'm the person who actually went after Trump and first bagged him, at least in terms of an indictment? I think there are a lot of sort of moving parts here. But I think if you live in the democratic world, I think there are a lot of incentives for you to think seriously. about indicting the orange one, even if you don't have the best case, and that you can congratulate yourself. You've done a solid for the Democratic Party, and probably not incidentally, for someone like Bragg, it probably enhances your career in the medium to long run. So those are my answers to those two questions, which I do think are the ones that are really on the table at this point.

Jonah, some of the talk from the right has been, all right, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And now we're going to go find some right-wing district attorney to indict Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, I guess, for also under weak legal pretences. How likely do you think that is? And if that were to happen, is everyone just going to switch teams and talk about how it's okay to bring weak and on the one side and the other side's going to say, no, no. I mean, I have been on the one hand, my reaction's been all over the place. Lawyers from across the political spectrum have talked about how weak this indictment is. And that makes me feel good about the state of politics and the country. Nevertheless, there have been lawyers who have said, like, just wait, he's going to release the

crack in. I mean, truly in this like very 2020 sense that the right wing lawyers were doing of like, oh, sure, this doesn't look like a good election fraud case brought by Donald Trump. It's because they're hiding the good stuff. I just really, like, are we, there are people who are that deep in their political teams that I think they genuinely believe that. And I, I leave with concerns about where it goes from here on the Republican side. Yeah, I mean, I've, Maybe you just misspoke, but when you said that a bunch of lawyers from across the political spectrum talk about how weak this case is, that makes you feel good about politics, I thought you were going to say that makes you feel good about the legal profession, which is a different

thing, right? Because the politics suck. And it seems to me that, you know, look, this has been, and I've done my Maya Coppals on this, I've been talking about for about 15 years now how the right has a really bad case of Saul Olinsky envy and it's this dynamic that you see all over and over and over again where the left does something or the left allegedly does something that is actually sort of a phantasm or a caricature that is invented by right wingers that are over-interpreting something that's not nearly as bad right but either way the right has this boogeyman understanding of the left it says look how the left always wins that's the first premise that's wrong

the left doesn't always win and then it says we must do the same thing the same evil things that they think they're doing we must do for the forces of righteousness and light and I think this psychological mindset explains

so much of the tit for tat stuff that we get in our political culture I think it explains 92.3% of like common good constitutionalism and various forms of national conservatism which is just sort of like we need to be

the mirror image of the imaginary boogeyman we see on the left. And so I strongly suspect that we will see some prosecutor in some state find some bogus case

that meets some superficial level of similarity with the Trump case and they'll bring it. And, you know, we saw the same thing happen with the dynamics of impeachment, right? I mean, like Trump started calling the incoming House Republicans saying, so not are you going to impeach Biden, but how many times are you going to impeach Biden?

And it's the same dynamic with the filibuster stuff, all of these kinds of things. And so it's very difficult for me not to see how this doesn't, that the race to the bottom, the vicious cycle stuff doesn't continue. I'm just going to say I agree with Jonah completely on that, on that. I think that it's very likely to happen. I think that's the direction we're going in. They may be permitted a brief plug in the liberal patriot, the new improved liberal patriot, which we just relaunch. We have a new piece by John Judas about this very question that just came out this morning. And John's point is that whatever you think about, among others, is whatever you think about the political fallout in a sort of real politic sense in terms of the races and all that.

This is terrible for democracy. I mean, because this will, you know, definitely move things in the direction that Joan is talking about. There will be prosecutions. There will be people who will come out of the woodwork and try to make these cases. It really is a terrible precedent. It really will contribute to the continued deterioration of the quality of American democracy. And, you know, this is like fools gold for the Democrats in many ways. But this is where I get then angsty because everything that Jonah said to me,

is true whether the New York indictment went first or the Georgia indictment. The New York indictment, I think, undermines the rule of law. I think it's an incredibly weak case, all the things that I've said before, right? The Georgia indictment doesn't suffer from any of those infirmities. I think Trump's team has, sure, I think Trump's team has a defense at sort of a 30,000 foot separation of powers level, but totally different. But nothing that Jonas said depends on the relative weakness or strength or viability or correctness of the indictment itself. And I guess that concerns me a little because I don't think presidents, former presidents,

should be above the law. If Donald Trump shot someone on Fifth Avenue, he should be indicted for it. But I think our politics have left it in the same place, regardless of whether it's falsification of business records, shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. or anything else in between? Well, actually, I don't think I agree with that, that it, you know, it's sort of, you get exactly the same reaction of Georgia had gone first. I think that really would have complicated things quite a bit. I mean, the brutal thing about this particular indictment is given how weak it is,

given how political it seems, there are just so many things that line up to inflame the other side to do roughly the same thing. I mean, in other words, I think some of that inflammation and response was inevitable no matter which indictment went first. But this one is, particularly bad and will produce a particularly bad outcome in terms of the response to the other side. It really fits, couldn't fit more perfectly into the Trumpian line about the nature of democracy today and his enemies on the other side, especially like, look, this case might just get thrown out. It might never go anywhere. I mean, what's that going to do to the people out there are thinking of bringing cases against the Democrats and the other side and Hunter Biden and whatever?

it's going to say, look, these idiots, these Democrats went so far as to bring an indictment so shaky that it never really went anywhere. This is completely political. This doesn't raise any questions other than how bad the other side is. So I do think there's a difference here. And I think this is the worst of all possible worlds in terms of Trump indictments that could have happened. I do think this is a really bad thing. All right, Jonah, last word to you on this topic. But I do want you to touch on the fact that another thing that doesn't seem to matter is that the underlying allegations, whether it was illegal or not, what he did, is that the de facto head of the Republican Party was paying off women who were going to accuse him of having affairs while

he was married, his wife was pregnant, et cetera, et cetera. All things that used to matter. I know we've touched on this before. But not only does it not matter, which I guess we all knew, but like, it's not even a part of the conversation. They're not even saying it doesn't matter. We're not even talking about whether it matters. Yeah, so it's funny. I've been on a bunch of TV shows in the last couple weeks about all this stuff. And the only comstockish, judgy finger wagging correction I've gotten from anybody is the one I'm now going to give you, Sarah, is when I've used the phrase affair to describe Trump's transactional relationship with these women. We were like, come on, let's not

elevate what this was to an affair. This was an encounter or a one-night stand or whatever. It was like, really, we have defined moral probity pretty low where we are... Affairs are now the good thing. Like, well, I mean, an affair is a relationship. Yeah, exactly. That's like the kind of, that's the kind of pushback I've gotten. Yeah, so look, I think... I would love to see Scott try to make this distinction. or you. The only place I'll push back a little bit on Roy and he can push back on me is that

when he says this case was perfectly designed to illustrate the things that Trump is saying about democracy and the law and all the kinds of. I don't think it's perfectly defined because of the point that Sarah's making. Trump's literally guilty of the actual underlying actions. The only debate is whether it rises. the level of felonious crime, right? But, like, Trump is not making any serious effort, nor

are any of his defenders, you know, like when have we heard anybody say, how dare you, sir, suggest that Donald Trump would cheat on his wife with a with a porn star? Outrageous, you know, I will not sit here and let you slander this good man, right?

No one, everyone believes he did it. And I think part of the reason why they believe he did it is there's a big chunk of the sort of magabro subculture. I was very proud of the fact that he did it. They think it's cool. And so in some ways, I do think that this case

is, again, I'm against brag bearing it, and I think it's flawed for all the reasons we've discussed, but I don't think it's as good for Trump as some other case might have been, including like a business, a business scandal.

Because you've got, you've got a business scandal, he can just say, look, I'm an aggressive businessman. I did whatever, or I didn't pay my taxes because I'm smart and blah, he'd do all the other. But he's running in the Iowa caucuses, presumably, and I don't know that it's great day in and day out to have his marital infidelity just sort of shoved in people's faces. And he can't, there are all sorts of other kind of cases where he could deny plausibly the underlying factual allegations. He can't really, here. And I think that's a, that's a, at the margins, it's a political problem for him. Well, but isn't that already priced in that, you know, the people's views of Trump,

that he's kind of a philanderer and not, not the friend of women everywhere. I mean, come on. Or anywhere. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain on top of everything else is why life insurance indeed matters. Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy

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of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, Lisa 2026 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 biweekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Condition supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Rui, I said that was going to be the end, but it's not, because I do have one just purely base politics question, by which I don't mean the base of the parties, but politics qua politics. And that is the images around the Trump indictment. And there's really three that stand out, right?

There's him walking into the courthouse where he does the fist bump. There's him coming out of the elevators on the 15th floor where he sort of glares at the camera. And then there's the still picture that we have from the courtroom. itself, where he's, they've called it the OJ shot, right, where he's at the table with counsel. I have found it fascinating to hear pundits describe and psychoanalyze what Trump is thinking in all of these photos because I think they're all wrong. Like, right, McKay Coppins writes

this, you know, the defeat of Donald Trump. They were like, oh, he's in agony. He's miserable. He looks so sad and upset. He's taking this so seriously. I just think there's a totally different way, especially him coming out and glaring at the camera on that 15th floor, like, walk into the courtroom. I did not see that as Trump being defeated or anything other than pissed. And I don't think it matters because you don't know what's in someone's head just because they're making a face in this nine-second video clip. I just found the whole thing. really bizarre how people are projecting onto him what they want him to be feeling. That's all idiotic. I mean, these people have no idea what's really going on and they just feel

like they got to write stuff. I mean, there is, you know, Trump derangement syndrome. It does bad things to people's heads. They feel they need to comment on each and everything that happens that's related to Trump, even every, you know, three second clip or whatever. And in truth, they have no idea what they're talking about and they should just keep quiet. That's my view. And Jonah, speaking of keeping quiet, how about all those other people who are trying to become the Republican nominee? Is this 2015 all over again where it wouldn't really matter if you figured out how to solve the energy crisis into legal immigration and, you know, make everyone have babies or whatever the fun thing would be for Republicans? You're not getting

any attention right now ever again while this is going on. And whether you're Rhonda Sanders or Nikki Haley or anyone else. You're just sort of a long for the ride. If you criticize Trump, people are mad at you. If you don't criticize Trump, you don't get attention and they're screwed. I'm a little more polyanish about this than some people are. And as everyone knows, unbridled optimism

is my stock in trade. But I if you recall, Trump's numbers did not go up after the moral log of the thing. You know, there was a lot of talk about how they were going to go up, but they really didn't. There's a lot of rhetorical support for Trump after the Mar-a-Lago raid, but his poll numbers generally stayed flat while DeSantis rose considerably.

And then after the 22-22 elections, things got even worse. You could argue for Trump. Meanwhile, I mean, these are just sort of, let's put it this way. I think that staying quiet right now probably makes a lot of sense for these guys. I don't like it. I would rather they all teamed up and attacked Trump and called them out and all that kind of thing. But as a political strategy, staying quiet while this sort of drama plays out, getting other things done. Nikki Haley went to the border.

Ron DeSantis did a bunch of things that people can rightly criticize or wrongly criticize if they want, but he's getting stuff done, the permitless carry and whatnot in Florida. Meanwhile, it seems to me that if you were planning on turning on Trump later, coming out strongly against the brag indictment now makes a lot of sense. Because you get to say later when it's the Georgia case, which is coming soon, or the, you know, the Jack Smith case, whenever that comes, to say, hey, look, I'm not a reflexive anti-Trump guy. I got his back on the brag thing. That was political overreed by Ad Soros guy, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is serious.

And the fact that you had basically nobody show up in New York for the arraignment except for those, you know, political powerhouses, margiatel. Green and George Santos, and then almost nobody show up at Maralago to show support, even though the Trump people were apparently really working fellow Republicans to make this unified popular front Republican thing, and they didn't go. It kind of tells me that some of these people are keeping their powder dry. And the news yesterday that Pence is going to cooperate with Jack Smith and not claim executive privilege about his conversations with Trump suggests to me that this may be the sort of, what was it in World War II? The phony war. And I'm not saying the walls are closing in and I'm not saying it's all going to, you know, it's really going to

happen this time. But if you're a Republican and you're looking at the fact pattern coming down the pike, you'd say, get Trump's back on this and then go quiet and then wait and see what the next two things are. Do you have any advice for them, Roy? Any advice for for the Republican wannabes? Oh, well. Well, you know, in the short term, I think they're doing, as, you know, Jonas said what they have to do, I think in the longer run, they do have this first mover problem where they're all hoping someone else will, you know, sort of join the battle with Trump and get the ball rolling to take him out. But, you know, that won't work, really, and it didn't work in 2016. So at some point, they've got to actually devise a strategy for going after the main guy here and differentiate. themselves from him.

So they're not just like someone nipping at the heels of Trump, they're the actual alternative. And DeSantis has definitely suffered from that problem so far because he has definitely gone into sort of hibernation mode in terms of taking on Trump. But eventually you'll have to come out as well, anyone else who has a serious intent to take down Trump. I mean, I want to emphasize, it's very early.

You know, we shouldn't like read too much into the current poll data where Trump has been going up, and DeSantis is going down and they look stronger. They get an additional boost from this, we'll see. But I just don't think it's that meaningful. I mean, the thing to always, to keep in mind about the Republican primary electorate is there's maybe a third of voters who, you know, would never vote for anyone but Donald Trump. But there's another two thirds who would definitely consider voting for someone other than Trump

if they're presented the alternative and it seems plausible. So, and especially, you know, then you have the problem. Well, is that large group going to be divided between five candidates or two candidates? But I think that's the dynamic they have to be thinking about over the medium term, is how do I set myself up to be the alternative to Donald Trump? A clearly differentiated product that people can buy. And right now, they're not doing that. And there are reasons why they're not doing that. And again, it's early.

They can probably get away with it for a while. But I think eventually the battle has to be joined. Oh, July of 2015. How I remember thee. All right, sticking with you for a second, will you give us the rundown of what you were looking for and looking at on election night in both that Wisconsin Supreme Court race and the Chicago mayor's race? What stood out to you, what this means, all of it. Just download your brain on us. Yeah, well, there's a lot of wrinkles to this. But, I mean, broadly speaking, in Wisconsin, I expected Prattasowitz to win and when handily, she did. It's interesting to look at the county-by-county results here.

And the overall results is incredibly similar to last time Kelly got his clock for the 2020 in a Supreme Court race, about an 11-point loss. There are differences in terms of he did better among the more rural working class parts of the state. He did better in Dane County. He did somewhat better in most of Milwaukee. I mean, Kelly did worse in Milwaukee. He did better in the more rural. and working class parts. But by and large, it was sort of the same election, you know.

And it just shows it's actually hard to win in Wisconsin, despite the fact it's a competitive state if you're basically a hardline, you know, sort of pro-life person and you're an election denier. I mean, he just walked into two big issues in which Republicans have an indisputable disadvantage and a big one. And especially in a relatively low turnout election, like a spring off off-year election, you're going to get your clock clean. And Kelly did, and Pratosewitz won easily.

So I think that's kind of the lesson there, if there is a lesson. But one thing I find fascinating is that some liberal pundits have looked at the race and said, well, there's no way a Republican presidential candidate can now win in Wisconsin. It's been realigned toward the Democrats. They're like, what are you talking about? This is like a low turnout election. You just lost the Senate, you know, a Senate race. to a flawed, you know, incumbent candidate, look at the 2020 election.

Look, if you look at the 2020 Supreme Court race, which is won by the Democrats by 11 points, and then you look at the 2020 presidential race where Trump almost won, how can you possibly say to plausibly say to me, there's no way a Republican can now win in Wisconsin. I mean, it's just like the silly season. I can't believe these people say these things and apparently even believe them. So, yeah, so I don't think it fundamentally changes the political dynamics of Wisconsin, but it does tell us about the things that Republican should not be identified with and run on

if they seriously want to win elections in Wisconsin. These things were basically the two things that killed them in, you know, 2022 overall and why they didn't have a better election. You know, bad candidates identified with election and nihilism and, you know, sort of hardcore pro-life, any abortion kind of politics. So these are all bad, bad, bad for the Republicans, and they should take a lesson from it. In Chicago, I didn't know who was going to win.

I thought Valis, you know, obviously had a great shot, and he was slightly ahead in the polls. But I did think at the end of the day, Johnson's ability to mobilize the true democratic, a hardcore democratic base, the educated liberals, black voters, might prove decisive. And it did. And interestingly, I was watching a Latino vote. And he did, Johnson did better than I thought he would do in Latino awards. He basically carried them, not by a lot, but he did carry them. So it's interesting that even in a city where crime was a number one issue, and Valis clearly tried to run on that,

it just wasn't enough to overcome the baseline progressive democratic inclinations of a lot of the Chicago voters. So we'll see how it all works out. I mean, I think that, you know, Johnson, you know, if he doesn't fix the crime problem and otherwise, govern Chicago well and wisely. He may be in the crosshairs pretty soon, just like Lori Lightfoot. But I think in the short term, it looks great for the progressives. I mean, they are absolutely over the moon about this stuff. They think this just proves that progressive Democrats can win anywhere and everywhere. And, you know, the wind is at their back. And pretty soon they'll be taking over the entire United States of America. I mean, I would say they should

probably curb their enthusiasm. This was a Democrat on Democrat election. election. And the more progressive black candidate did well against the charizmatically challenged more moderate white Democrats. So I don't know how much you can read into that as a general, you know, sort of, I don't know how much evidence that is for the increasing salience and strength of the left or progressive democratic brand in the United States. I think this is pretty specific to Chicago. But I do think it's being interpreted in that way by progressive Democrat. It was a Democrat on Democrat race, but the Johnson campaign was certainly running things against Valus about how he was a Republican. And they had, you know, Maga yard signs with Valis's name on

it, had quotes from him saying, I'm basically a Republican now. You know, they were trying to paint him as a Republican, which maybe goes some way to even bolstering your theory of this. But Jonah, I mean, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, if I were to tell you to pick the one that Progressive see their biggest victory in, probably wouldn't have picked Chicago. Yeah, and I think, you know, I think the point you just brought up

is if we're going to think about what the national politics consequences of this that's probably the biggest one, which is that in an era of tribalism, even a lifelong democratic candidate can be painted as a Trumpy candidate and lose to tell you something about the polarizing effect that Trump had, right? So the two things that these two races together tell us, which is also what we learned from 2022 with all of the election denial candidates,

is that Trump costs somewhere between. between, you know, I'll just put like 5% of the vote in any place where, when I mean 5%, I mean the election denial stuff if he's not actually running, but there's just this sort of assumption that a vote for a Trumpish candidate is a fundamental betrayal for moderates and Democrats to make. And then the other one is any place where abortion is threatened, it's good for another I call it 5, 10% of Democratic turnout. And so like the abortion restriction stuff, particularly first trimester, and Trump as the symbol of the party are the two things that are going to make a very, very difficult for Republicans to win over moderate.

And even, you know, even on the indictment thing, if you go through the internals on those polls, you find that maybe one in five Republicans are in terms. favor of the indictment. How a general election, a Republican presidential candidate who hasn't, you know, we haven't had a Republican win a majority of the popular vote since, what, 2004? How you expect to win when you can't, when you have one in five of Republican voters thinking that the nominee is a, deserved to be indicted for his payoff money to porn stars, seems to me problematic. I feel very bad about the results in Chicago as someone who's getting more and more interested in urban politics again and the idea that what Chicago

desperately needed at this moment was to finally fulfill the dream of the Chicago Teachers Unions and actually have an out... I have a dream. This is how NPR covered it. I was listening to NPR and the NPR was like the Chicago Teachers Unions

for decades have dreamed of having one of their own in the mayor's office and now they have it. Like The teachers union, look, there are a lot of great, wonderful teachers. We don't need to litigate all that. I don't want to trigger some of Roy's vestigial progressive responses here. But I think the teachers' unions are fundamentally a sinister force in American politics

and are bad for the kids that they claim to be representing. And I think what you're going to see is an acceleration of Chicago's problems. You're going to see more people, more businesses leave the city. You're going to see more white flight, which, in and of itself, it's not a problem just white people, but you want a city that has, you know, a lot of middle class people in it. And a lot of middle class people are going to leave if these problems continue. But it just does show that there's a bottomless capacity for progressive Democrats to keep voting for the same policies over and over again, even though

there's very little evidence that they've actually done much to fix the problems with urban America. Okay, but I want to push back on that and hand it back over to you, Roy, which is if you look at a map of where violent crime is most prevalent in the city of Chicago, and then you lay that map over who voted for Johnson over Valis, it follows pretty closely, i.e., the people who are most experiencing the worst problems in Chicago made their choice. And I guess for me, yay representative democracy. I think that's a good thing. That's why we have votes instead of allowing Jonah to pick the mayor of Chicago.

They believe that Johnson is better able to address the issues that they have. They're the worst off in the city. Good. And I think the whole like, well, but they were, you know, paid off or overwhelmed with false information from the teachers union. I just reject all that stuff when it comes to politics because we've seen it happen so much on the right. These people aren't voting their own economic interests. They were tricked by the Koch brothers and blah, blah, blah, give people some credit. They were able to look at the two candidates.

They made their choice. That's what this whole thing's about. Isn't that a good thing? Yeah, well, you know, I'm pro-democracy. I think the people should be able to choose their people in office. Yeah, that's a good thing. And I don't think they were just tricked by the teachers' unions. I think that, you know, for some of the reasons, Jonah laid out, other reasons, I think that they prefer Johnson over Valis. I mean, I think that Ballas was IDed as being a weird kind of, you know, crypto-Republican. They didn't have faith that Ballas, despite what he said, could get the crime problem under control in their neighborhoods.

They didn't quite buy it. They didn't quite buy him as a leader of Chicago. These are, you know, voters don't make decisions based on a finely grained. understanding of the policies that either candidate is likely to implement. It's more like a feel thing about who they think can actually get things under control and who will just make things worse. I guess a lot of voters decided ballast would just make things worse. And they voted for Johnson instead. You know, I mean, we'll see what happens, right? I mean, this is why they have the elections because someone can get in there and try to solve problems and they don't solve problems.

Then you kick them out. I mean, it is remarkable the extent. to which certainly a lot of progressive Democrats who convince themselves that you can get tough on crime without being tough on crime. So, I mean, this is, there was actually an article by Jonathan Weissman in the New York Times which basically sort of hypothesize that this must mean that the Democratic,

a progressive democratic approach to the crime problem is now like really that the solution to the Democrats' crime problem. If you basically don't say you want to defund the police, but you say you want to have a lot more money for social services, and mental health workers and, you know, provide more economic development and hire some detectives to solve crimes.

That's the sweet spot. That's what all voters want. I mean, I really kind of doubt that, but I think they really kind of talking themselves into it. I think what people really want is friggin' public safety. And you basically, you deliver it in any way you can. And it defies logic and sort of the empirical record at this point to say by throwing some more money at mental health care workers and social services and economic development, you're going

to magically going to kind of disappear the crime problem. I mean, to me, that's kind of crazy talk. But I think it does sell in certain sectors of the world. I think black voters just don't trust, you know, a tough one crime approach to some extent, even though they're the ones who suffer from it. And I think white college educated liberals all have their heads up their wazoo about this stuff. So, you know, they're pretty easy to convince. like the Bragg thing to me. I actually am great with an elected DA because he may do something that I think is stupid. And there will be another election. We didn't put these people in these jobs for life. Chicago will now get to see whether they like this version of, as you say,

whatever the crime policy may turn out to be. And they'll then get to vote on that in a few more years. Same with the people in New York. You know, if this thing gets tossed and Bragg gets embarrassed, they'll get to decide whether it was worth it. If Donald Trump gets the nomination or becomes president, like Bragg and Chicago or whatever else, like you asked for the big job, you got the big job. Let's see how you do. That's the whole point of political accountability. I'm for it as that's an old. Well, I appreciate your reverence for democracy, but I'm not sure this is really the issue at stake here. I mean, when we look at say the Valis Johnson election.

I mean, it's a pretty bad thing, I think, when urban governance goes down the tubes as badly as it has in many cities. And it's really bad for the Democrats to increasingly be the poster child for bad urban governance. So I think there are all kinds of knock-on effects to this election, which are bad

and not just for the people of Chicago. But, you know, I reiterate. I stand with you, Sarah, resolutely for democracy and for people making their choices of the representatives. Here, here, here. All right. So I'm going to have to push back on this. And heaven for fan, I get into a fight with one of America's premier political scientists or with Sarah, who I'm just afraid of.

But there's one thing that both of you have left out in all this kumbaya BS about democracy is that Chicago is a machine run city by one of the most corrupt enduring political machines in. modern American history. Illinois has Michael Madigan as the Speaker of the House, who's the longest serving speaker of a legislature in American history. And he says, you know, I don't want to get in trouble with slanderous kind of things, but like he is a very Tammany Hall type figure. And the idea that these various cities are, you know, testing grounds of democracy and there's accountability for when the, when, when, when, when leaders make mistakes, leaves out reality that the reality is that these are, I don't want to sound too much like Donald Trump, but for all of the stern and drang and rending a cloth and gnashing

of teeth about voters oppression in this country, there's actually a lot of very good political science on the fact that teachers unions in particular and public sector unions in general love discouraging large turnout in primaries in major cities because then they have control over the they have much more leverage or leverage over the response. If you had mandatory voting in New York City, it would be terrible for teachers unions.

If you had mandatory voting in Chicago, it would be terrible for teachers unions. It is not a triumph of democracy that a bunch of stakeholders in a corrupt and enduring system that is poorly serving its own constituents manages to manipulate public sentiment and say that

a guy who actually wants to reform the schools is really a Republican and a Trumpy and things are so tribal that that alone wins an argument. I am not saying that... I'm not saying that Valas was some sort of Messiah figure or anything like that. He was a lifelong Democrat too. All I'm saying is that you guys sit in here

talking about how this is all a triumph of democracy and there's a accountability for mistakes and stuff just happens to leave out the fact that you haven't had, I don't know, I don't, I think the last Republican mayor, someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this, the last Republican mayor of Chicago was, I think, left office in 1936. These are, this is a machine run city. Choices are constrained. Policies are constrained. And, and Democratic accountability is constrained. And you should put away your acoustic guitars. and put out the campfire with all of this celebratory nonsense.

Michael Road, the boat of shore. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, you're writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick, intuitive,

and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and email campaigns to stay connected with subscribers or clients. And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools, all seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Jonah, we're going to leave Chicago. I want to go back to Wisconsin because I want to talk about

abortion politics with you and whether you agree with the overall vibe that seems to be coalescing around the Wisconsin Senate race that abortion is bad politics for Republicans and that they need to stop it and whatever stop it means. I'm curious what you think on both fronts. The narrative and the what should stop it mean. Yeah. So I just talked to A.B. Stoddard on my podcast about this yesterday. I think the first interesting thing post Dobbs was to see who was actually making a constitutional case against Roe and who was actually sincerely and who was actually making a constitutional case

against Roe pretextually but actually didn't care about federalism and the second Roe went away would go for a national ban on abortion, right? For years, it's like Irving Crystal used to say the right has two strains, anti-left and anti-state. And you can never tell really who's who until there's a testing

point, right? Similarly, for 50 years we had people who said that they were anti-Roe because they were pro-lifers, and you had people who were anti-Roe because they were constitutionalists. And then when Roe goes away, all of a sudden, there's this distinction between

the two. And I think the GOP got really caught up in the sense of victory, and everyone thought, okay, this proves that we can go all in on being actually pro-life soup to nuts, don't have to talk about this federalism stuff, give up on all of our previous talking points

about how Ruth Bader Ginsburg was right about letting the states sort all this out. And that's biting them in the ass. And I thought it was very interesting that immediately post Dobbs, two of the smartest governors, about being majority governors of their own states, just very quickly said,

15 weeks, that's our cutoff and then didn't talk about abortion again. And that was Glenn Yonkin in Virginia and Ron DeSantis in Florida. And they just went, they went silent on it. And I think that was the smart political thing to do for them. The smart political thing for the Republican Party, if the pro-life faction, which is very strong and very sincere, and I have many of my closest friends are ardent members of it,

would let them is to say, hey, look, this was really a big deal getting rid of Roe. America needs time to digest this. Let different states do what they want, but we're not going to talk about a national ban. And it is an enormous pro-life victory to get to a 15-week cutoff. That is a huge advance.

We're not saying it's a done deal that we still have the goal of being a country where abortions don't happen. But let's not try to shove this down the entire country's throat right now. And I think there are ways to talk about that, that even for a lot of pro-lifers

sound quite appealing, just because it takes the drama out. No one wants to go home for Thanksgiving or Easter, in this case, right? And talk about abortion. And figuring out a way that gives people a safe harbor to sort of just say we're going to talk about these other things

would be the smart political move. I just don't know if it's actually possible. Jonah, if Easter the fertility holiday isn't the time to talk about abortion. I just don't know what is. Well, Passover, where the angel death kills everyone's firstborn son, is complicated for abortion, too. But anyway.

But in Florida, isn't DeSantis playing with a six weeks? I have a question about that. It's a purely factual question. And I asked A.B. about it yesterday. And then I haven't had a chance to actually, she didn't know the answer. I have a theory about DeSantis where he very much needs to seem like he is always the leader in all of his decision making, right?

When in fact, sometimes he's a follower. and so sometimes the Twitter mob or the very online right gets out ahead of him and he has to get out ahead of it sort of like Ferris Bueller in front of the parade and say that he's leading it I'm curious I just don't know factually whether or not the state legislature

is tying DeSantis's hands and that they're pushing the six week thing and saying to DeSantis you have no choice but to sign this because you know you don't want to get all this grief from the proliferous if that's the case that says one thing If it's DeSantis saying that his previous position is untenable if he's running for president, that's another thing.

I just don't know the facts on it one way or the other. Yeah, I suspect the former is the case, but, you know, that does present a very difficult, puts him in a very difficult position because a six-week ban is really bad politics. So he doesn't want to be identified with this, but as you say, the state legislature at this point may be tying his hands eventually have to make a decision. I mean, I broadly agree that Republicans do want to become identified with sort of a 15-week, like other industrialized countries, limit for, you know, on-demand abortion. And then after that, exceptions for the health of the mother and rape and incest and all that jazz. So that's the sweet spot in terms of American public opinion. And most voters would be happy with that.

The problem is, you know, as you're pointing out, that the hardcore pro-life faction of the Republican Party, They just want to push ahead as fast as possible to banning all abortions with possibly just a few exceptions, which is really bad politics. And it's like the Democrats, you know, pop in their champagne courts, whenever that kind of politics comes up because they can know they could beat in it like a drum. So, you know, Republicans really need to figure out a way to put the shoe on the other foot. There are lots of forces on the Democratic Party who really do believe an abortion on this. demand anytime, anywhere. And they're actually feeling, there was a good article in political about this the other day,

about how now a lot of these forces are feeling their oats. They really want to push referenda that essentially legalized abortion throughout the entire pregnancy, which is kind of an extreme position. And the Republicans would benefit from being identified with a more moderate position than in fact corresponds to what the median voter believes, which is an abortion. to be basically legal for the first three months, and then after that, probably only with some exceptions. But it's hard to do that when your train is being driven by the people who want to get rid of abortion full stop. So, I mean, I don't know how they get out of this one. I actually think

it's really difficult. And so far, the record is not good. I find it fascinating because we've seen where there's referendums, like where abortion is literally on the ballot, it has helped Democratic candidates. You look at Michigan, for instance, where the abortion constitutional amendment turnout was more than Whitmer's turnout, which to me had like a causal arrow that's otherwise a little bit hard to prove, but that's my best read on that data. But what we haven't seen yet is what you're describing, which is, yes, but what if the referendum is like a bonkers left-wing version of an abortion referendum? Abortion for everyone all the time. And And whether that will have the reverse effect, I'm not totally convinced that it will.

And in that case, there is a great irony to the pro-life movement sending this back to the states where you will have some states that have incredibly strict abortion bans. And you'll have some states with exactly the opposite. And one wonders if the goal of the pro-life movement is to end abortion, not ban abortion, whether in fact that will have been a watch. whether you'll end up with the same number of abortions because you'll have now half the states going one direction, half the states going the other direction. And in fact, Roe had sort of had this 23, you know, whatever the viability line was, line for everyone. And it's not really, it's just an interesting political moment for movement politics. All right, I want to make one last jog over into third party world because we've sort of talked about the failures of both political parties,

the frustrations of both political parties. And yet, we never really talk about no labels or the forward party or the viability of third party candidates. And I think there's a couple reasons for this. One, for me as an operative, I get very annoyed with people who talk about, well, if Donald Trump loses the Republican nomination, he'll simply run as a third party candidate. and they have no concept of what the sore loser laws will do, how ballot access works in these states. There is just a real operational side to running for president. It's not the Michael Scott.

I declare bankruptcy and then you're done. It's all good. But on the other side of that, similarly, I guess, it is also very hard to simply have a third-party candidate at the national level in a viable way because ballot access in all these states is run by Republicans and Democrats they make it pretty hard

for ballot access to work. You've got to have a whole lot of money upfront, a whole lot of manpower to even get on the ballot in most states and even then it can be very hard. And I wonder whether and how you'll feel

about what it looks like the forward party has kind of pushed which is, yeah, yeah, we're not going to really do presidential level stuff. What we're going to try to do is local level. We're going to try to start third party

at a more, you know, mayor, city council, school board, whatever level, and build from there so that we have a foundation to then build to statewide. And then from statewide, we'll build to presidential. And whether you think that's a more viable third party route in the long term, if you actually want to challenge the, you know, sort of two-party hegemony, right? Well, yeah, it's probably more viable than just running a presidential candidate. Does that mean it would be successful or very successful? Probably not. It's pretty hard to break the two-party duopoly for various structural reasons. Ideally, if we had fusion voting all over the United States, this would make it a lot easier because then you could cross and doors and you could

only run your candidates where a third-party candidates would actually have a chance to win, but you can still have influence on the outcome. Describe fusion voting real quick. Give us a little, sing us a couple bars of what you mean by fusion voting. Fusion voting is where you have a ballot line. but the ballot line can also be, you know, the candidate of the party who actually, if they voted for your party, it would disfavor, right? So the problem with third parties is if I vote for the really liberal party, the really liberal tiny party, I'm taking a vote away from the somewhat liberal party who I would prefer to the really conservative party, right? So, with fusion voting, you know, that's avoided in a lot of cases because basically you can cross-list the, you know, somewhat liberal candidate on the really liberal party. party line. So you still have some influence. You still have a presence in the process.

But, you know, so I'm casting a vote for the working families party, but it's really for the Democrat, right? So that helps you of the working families party to be viable. So if we had that all over the United States, we'd be a lot easier to start third parties because you wouldn't be basically rewarding your enemy when you vote for your preferred tiny party. So that is the theory of that. But barring that, I mean, I think, yeah, you could have some tiny success and as an actual third party alternative in, you know, local elections. But the idea this will somehow scale up to being a viable third party for the United States as a whole, I think is probably ludicrous. But what do I know? I mean, you know, like dare to dream, I guess. But,

but I'm not holding my breath. Jonah? I accept Roy's challenge to dream. I know I'm I'm I share the skepticism I'm a Richard Hofstetter guy when it comes to this you know third parties have their effect by stinging and then the eye and all that that said I do think that the coalitions that make up these parties are so febrile in a lot of ways and that how the the the you know Jonathan Roush has got some great stuff on this going back about how it turns out that that the that the most artist Partisans don't like their own parties. They just hate the other party more. And it seems to me that in an era of, I mean, in an era of negative polarization that is so heightened, that if one party's reason for existence is hating the other party,

and vice versa, if one party dies, the other party loses its reason to live. And we could actually see, I think a very healthy you know reset of the pieces on the board if we could get like I wouldn't like Joe

I wouldn't agree with a lot of things that Joe Manchin wants to do if he was the top of the ticket of this sort of no labels usually thing I can't remember who was supposed to be the Republican that they're talking about I remember at one point it was Mitch Daniels for sure and look

and if it was Mitch Daniels I would, I would crawl over broken glass to vote for Mitch Daniels for Zarr. So... It's a Mitch fanboy. Yeah, no. I take off my blue blazer and twirl it at the

concerts. But I think that delivering a defeat to both parties, again, I don't think you can sustainably have a get past the two-party system, given the structural nature of our politics, but you can get rid of one of the parties.

And I don't really care which goes, because it would change the other party in profound ways. And that's the dream, at least for me. I used to be very critical in the labels. I used to be very critical of the third party stuff. I would be very critical of doing something that was bound to fail. But a third party bid that would succeed gets me kind of optimistic and hopeful. Wait a minute.

You're optimistic about a third party if a third party would succeed? I mean, that seems like questionable logic. I mean, basically you're stipulating the thing that would make a third party seem like a viable logic. There's no rule against question begging here. I mean, if a third party works, then I'm for it, you know? Okay, well, but this is the question whether it would work? Yeah, but let's put it this way.

There are a lot of third parties that are born where it's obvious they can't work. I don't think that the no labels model, apparently they're having considerable success getting on ballots. That's why the way the Democrats are freaking out, right? and they're suing in Arizona to keep them off the ballot. I think a no-label's ticket with a mansion or Daniels at the top of the ticket, or as that's the tick, you know, President and Vice President, in a race between Trump and Biden or a race between Kamala Harris and Trump,

there's a non-trivial chance that that party wins, or at least throws it to the House and then we all envy the dead. or elects Donald Trump. Yeah, so hence envying the dead. But anyway, it's something I'm more intrigued than I normally am. All right, we end with a not worth your time question mark in which I have a parenting problem.

And it's about Easter. So there's the religious side of Easter and then there's the sort of secular pagan side of Easter. And the two are just so enmeshed together and I find it pretty confusing still. and I've got a kid who's like learning things every day. So like he doesn't know that birds lay eggs. That's not intuitive.

And so these Easter eggs are pretty confusing to him. And I feel like it's the exact wrong time to tell him that a bunny is bringing the eggs because then he's going to believe that bunnies lay eggs when I, again, I hate to break this to you, but they don't. They are mammals. They give live birth. That's what makes the mammals. And I,

this is like a real problem about the lying to your kids about things that are sort of silly. You know, Santa Claus can travel around the whole world in, you know, one night with 24 hours fine for the world, that bunnies lay eggs, that the tooth fairy thing. But then you can't avoid it because if you're the parent who is like, yeah, that's not real, then he's also too young to know he can't tell other kids.

What am I supposed to do with this, Jonah? I think you have to launch a movement to bring about, if you want a mammal, egg-laying mammal for Easter, it has to be the Easter platypus, right? I'd be great with the Easter platypus. Maybe that's what I'm going to do. Other parents aren't even going to know. Yeah. I think of all of the myths that you can like, and misperceptions that you can, uh, uh, in, instantiate in your, in your kids. brain, this is one of the least harmful ones. So just roll with it. Like candy, looking for eggs in the backyard,

it'll be a good time. If he's got probing questions, make your husband answer them. Yeah, I mean, I think that kids figure this stuff out eventually. They're not complete idiots. They eventually get to the point where it's like this Easter Bunny thing. I don't know about that. But I think

they enjoy it while it lasts. So I would just, yeah, as Jonah says, roll with it. You know, hide the eggs, have the candy and everybody will have a good time and no one will be the wiser. And eventually they'll figure it out that probably isn't an Easter bunny. But I don't think they'll like, you know, blame you for deceiving them. That's not really how it works. Childhood ends way too early in the modern society.

So anything you can do to have like authentic childhood experiences, you should do because it's going to end sooner than you want it to anyway. I think I'm going to do Easter platypus. Wally, who's a famous dog on this podcast or for those who are on Twitter, et cetera. Wally will actually be part of the Easter egg hunt because Wally has a traditional Easter egg hunt himself. So between Wally and a not quite three-year-old,

I think this will be pretty lit. But I think the platypus thing's kind of awesome because it's like a double bounce. You could dress Wally up as a platypus. Yeah, yeah. I'm not even sure how one dresses as a pletipus, but I'm going to figure it out between now and Sunday. Thank you both for joining. Thank you, listeners. Become a member of the dispatch if you want to hop in the comments section and tell Jonah that he's a tyrant for not loving democracy or tell Rui that he's just wrong about everything about all things for all time. Either way, we'll talk to you next week.

You know what I'm going to do.