The Texan Podcast - Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have a Winner: SMSS Ep. 9

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

On this episode of Send Me Some Stuff, Cameron and Rob go line by line through election results-- Swing states, demographics, going back to 2016 and 2020. Predictions were made, and some were proven right. Surprising or not, we go thought it all on Send Me Some Stuff. Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Last time on Send Me Some Stuff. I think the RFK endorsement is going to be really important. There was quite a few people, when he was in the race, he was garnering 18 to 20 percent sometimes in these polls when he was included. And if those individuals shift over, because the RFK supporter was a staunch RFK supporter and if he's able to flip those to being Trump voters then we could see um Trump winning by a large percent I think it's possible and I'll give you winning the popular vote maybe no winning the popular vote the popular vote the popular vote maybe no hello and welcome in to send me some stuff episode nine my name is cameron abrams reporter here for

the texan i'm joined once again by our assistant editor robches. Rob, how are you feeling? It was a crazy night, Cameron. It was a crazy, crazy night. Yeah, no, I don't think it really went the way anybody was expecting it, except maybe one of the two people in this room. I was on and off the phone all night. I was talking with other members of the Texan team, family and friends. Yeah. Well, you were telling me because I was in Dallas on election night.

You were here in Austin. What time did you leave the office? We left the office at about 3 p.m. We're all thinking we're going to get situated for because, you know, those of us who are still in Austin on election night, who are not out there in the field like y'all reporters, we just need to be at our computers, you know, getting through all these pieces as they're coming in, getting out those breaking emails. Yeah. And so we left a little bit early. We were getting situated for a long night. And so, yeah, left the office at about 3 p.m. and went to bed about 12 hours later. Yeah. Well, yeah, because it was so funny because I'm sitting there at the All Red event,

two giant screens with MSNBC giant Rachel Maddow heads talking about the polls and what was coming out at the time. and the energy in the room was just getting sucked out every time it would say trump picked up this state trump picked up that state and lots of booze and then it was so interesting because early in the night it was pretty clear cruz was going to cruise to a win yeah and. And I'm sitting there in the press box, and there was people from the All Red team that would come by and say, he's coming out soon, just wait. And people would go up on stage and say, it's not over yet.

That's not over until it's over. Well, I'm sitting there on my phone communicating with you guys on Slack, and I see Cruz has already given his speech. Cruz has already said he's won. Like, everything was kind of falling in line. On the Cruz side, I'm sitting there at the All Red event. Nothing has happened. But, yeah, it was funny, and you could see the tone shift in the people in the room.

It was really interesting to watch. Well, I don't know if you saw any of the live stream feed of the Kamala Harris rally at Howard University in D.C. I saw it once I got back to the hotel. I had a friend who was following it the entire night, and he was texting us updates and saying, guys, they are looking more and more and more disappointed as time goes on. Well, the funniest thing was when they announced she wasn't going to come out. And then everyone just floods out of the whatever auditorium they were at. And I remember saying to you guys in Slack, like, I'm watching the live stream of people leaving the Harris rally.

And outside, it's just covered in trash. Just people who just looked awful. Tossed their wrappers and walked out. Yeah, heads down, just walking out. The old Charlie Brown, you know. Yeah. And something, if people are interested, this week I wrote all about the election night and the issues with the polls beforehand and a whole bunch of other

stuff. I encourage everyone to go read Redacted. That's going to be coming out the same day this pod comes out on Monday. Absolutely. Definitely worth a read. And one of the things I want to bring up is there was a lot of focus on swing states. There was a lot of focus on demographic shifts and that all came out in these exit polls. And by the end of the night, it was very clear that Trump had not just won, but dominated across the country. Absolutely. And so let's look at some of the numbers in terms of this Trump domination. Let's do it. Through the night. So you wanted to hit some of these big shifts, like I see you have down here, Florida, New York, Virginia, won't you?

Yeah. Tell us about what happened there. So Trump was able to get closer margins of victory in several Democratic dominated states than in Republican ones. For Harris, I mean. So to put this into perspective, New York and Virginia were closer than Florida. Florida, Donald Trump won by 13 points. New York, Kamala Harris won by 12. Virginia, Kamala Harris won by five. So the fact that Trump was not only able to flip like all seven swing states that were, you know, everybody was debating what was going to happen with these swing states, but the fact that he was able to flip voters in those Democratic states that I think everybody knew he wasn't going to win. But nonetheless, you know, as one of my friends pointed out on election night to me said, this is how you win the popular vote is that Trump didn't just say,

well, I'm going to lose New York. So whatever. He went to New York, held a big rally in New York. Everybody was talking about that rally in New York. Everybody was talking about that rally in New York. And, you know, he was able to close the gap in a lot of these states and thus overall turn out more voters. Even in states he wasn't going to win. Yeah, well, it was interesting, right? A lot of the discussion in the weeks before election night was, why is Trump campaigning in California? Why is Trump campaigning in New Mexico? Why is Trump holding a rally in New York City? And we saw on election night, whatever their internal polling was telling him is there was a real possibility for him to win the popular vote. So him going around the country to these states that might not have been normally thought of as places Republicans vote,

or there's a large Republican electorate, Trump saw something, or his team saw something like, hey, we can go there and take advantage of this. And it really paid off because, you know, we saw election night. It was so interesting. Like you were saying, there is the blue wall discussion, like Kamala Harris has to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. And Trump picked up tons of votes in those states. And one of the interesting things is if you look at New York and you drill into like individual counties, like if you look like I remember I forget who was talking about this. It might have been Ryan Gersky. He is a Republican who has had some troubles on CNN being a host.

People will know what I'm talking about if they know. But he was saying in AOC's district, Trump actually picked up a large percentage of Latino and black voters as compared to previous elections. So even drilling down into like really deep blue counties, Trump was picking up votes. If you're looking for a political podcast that goes beyond the headlines, check out the Beltway Briefing. I'm Howard Schweitzer, CEO of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies. Every week on the Beltway Briefing, our team of former Republican and Democratic presidential appointees, Capitol Hill veterans, and political advocates shares behind-the-scenes perspective that cuts through the noise. If you want the inside scoop, subscribe now to the Beltway Briefing here or wherever you get your podcasts.

And he flipped a lot of those more rural counties. I mean, Texas, if I recall correctly, 22 of Texas counties overall went Democratic in 2020. And this year it was 12. Yeah. And of course, obviously those big population counties amount for a massive portion of the state's population. But there's all these – I believe there's one county in South Texas, like a heavily Latino county that – Stark County. Yeah, hadn't voted Republican since the 1890s. Yeah. And Trump flipped it. Yeah. And the Financial Times has put out some really interesting charts and data on this recent election.

This is from this Financial Times piece called U.S. Election Results, How Trump Won in Maps and Charts. Trump increased his vote share in every state apart from Washington. He was particularly strong in areas he had won in the last election, turning red states redder, in particular Florida and Texas. The performance has put Trump on track to win a majority of the national popular vote for the first time. Trump has also gained ground in traditional Democratic strongholds, closing the gap on Harris by 12 points in New York, 11 in Connecticut, 11 in New Jersey. And it's just remarkable that he was able to do this in Latino majority counties. He

increased his vote share. He flipped Miami-Dade, you know, something people didn't think was possible. You want to talk about things you didn't think was possible? I mean, you know, if you visit the New York Times breaking down the presidential election, they have it divided into states that each candidate was expected to win easily and win narrowly. And then your most competitive, which are obviously our big swing states, right? But Trump was expected, they listed Florida, Iowa, and Texas as three states Trump was expected to win narrowly. He won Florida by 13 points. He won Texas by 14 points. He won Iowa by 13 points. And if you remember after that Seltzer poll came out that showed Harris up plus three, I think there are a lot of people who took that to say, wow, I mean, if this is accurate. It's going to reflect in these other, you know,

sister states around them. I've seen people saying if Iowa's plus three, this election's over. Harris has it in the bag because by that point she would have already flipped like Pennsylvania. She's going to take back the blue wall. But that was not the case. That poll was not accurate to the electorate yeah well something worth mentioning is the betting markets had the spot on early yeah and um one thing i saw uh that's related to why the betting markets were more accurate than these pollsters was one because there was some big whales betting whales in these betting markets and one of them said he i forget which outlet he gave an interview to this is the french guy the french guy yeah he said he ran his own poll but he used a methodology called the neighbor method, where if pollsters go and ask someone who they're going to vote for or what party affiliation they might have in order to gain an understanding of the demographic there.

It's going to be a bit unreliable because people are not as true and honest with how they feel. But if you ask that person, how do you think your neighbor is going to vote, it might give a more accurate illustration of the demographics here. And so this whale— Is that because their own views might come out in describing how they think? Well, they might have a more accurate— they might be more honest when describing someone else so if you're say a shy trump voter and you think your neighbor is going to vote say oh i think he's going to vote for trump you know because which is interesting okay yeah so i thought that that's a little interesting wrinkle in trying to understand like

why the mainstream pollsters got things so wrong. It should be noted that that French guy made like $40 million. He made so much money off of this. And I was one who was saying, you know, I don't trust these betting sites. I mean, this is more or less just people's opinion, and the betting sites had it more accurately than the big pollsters who had all predicted coincidentally the same thing. Oh, it's going to be so close. You know, Nate Silver was accusing everybody of hurting,

a term that I think election Twitter learned a week before the election and could not stop saying that, oh, it's hurting. They're all just manipulating their data to look close to each other so that they can kind of protect their reputations, which you have to put some respect on Seltzer for she decided, I'm going to release my data no matter what it says. Her data was incredibly unrepresentative of what the actual results. But nonetheless, I mean, can't accuse her of hurting.

Sure. Well, I think pollsters have got a real reality check, and it just shows the changing dynamics of how pollsters are contacting potential or likely voters, where traditionally it was through landline phone calls. And you would do voice polls or voice interviews, surveys of that nature. But now people don't answer the phone because they don't answer numbers they don't recognize. And so there's going to have to be a new way how these— No wonder they couldn't predict Gen Z voters. Gen Z people don't, you know, if you're under 25, you see a phone call, you don't recognize it, you don't pick up the phone. True, true.

And another interesting—well, with young voters, there's, they're increasingly identifying as independent. And they see themselves as not having any party affiliation because they disagree with both the parties. They're not Democrats or Republicans. They're really independent thinkers in this sense. And a lot of people thought that all those independents were going to break for Harris. I remember seeing people on Twitter, some election predictors. Well, this is something we can get into a little bit later, why this break happened. But a couple other things I want to touch on in terms of these demographics. Harry Enten from CNN, he's really done a great job over the past few weeks with breaking down the electorate.

And he put out a tweet just today, this is Friday, November 8th, saying more states swung in Trump's direction versus last election than anyone since 1992. Best GOP showing with age 18 to 29 in 20 years, black voters in 48 years, Hispanics in 52 years. Best GOP showing with age 18 to 29 in 20 years, black voters in 48 years, Hispanics in 52 years, best GOP showing in the House popular vote in presidential year since 1928. I thought that was very interesting. And another interesting wrinkle to this and how the demographic coalition shifts have shown up is there was a data analyst, Patrick Flynn, who put out a really interesting tweet as well about how the electorate that went for Harris was more representative of Bob Dole in 1996 than... Due to having more higher income and higher education voters.

That's right. Well, it's increasingly, I don't know if we want to get into this now, but how the party shift in terms of the class coalitions have really split where upper class voters are more Democratic leaning and working class, working poor voters are more Republican. And that same chart shows Trump's coalition 2024 looks much more like Obama in 2012 or Clinton in 1996. So, yeah, just really interesting shakeup. And this was happening across, you know, this was happening across the world. Something I've written about in Redacted's past is these populist uprisings across the world, really, with Victor Orban, Bukele, Millais. We saw Nigel Farage. AMLO in Mexico probably falls into the same category,

even though he's on the left. Marine Le Pen. And so drifting rightwards, drifting towards a more populist vision for these nations has been across the world been represented. And now America has seen that as well. So I don't know. Do you want to hit on anything with some of these other numbers?

You came across some interesting things. Yeah. So in my opinion, the most shocking thing of this election, because I would have been I think I would have been surprised if Trump had won without the popular vote. I think I would have been, you know, but it would have been within the realm of possibility in my mind that he would win. Yeah, to win without the popular vote, that he would win with the popular vote blew me away. I could not believe what I was seeing on my screen. And I think I want to break down some of these popular vote numbers. Go for it. So in 2016, Trump took 63 million votes.

Clinton took 65.9 million. And obviously Trump won the Electoral College. And in 2020, Biden took 81.3 million. That's a pretty dramatic jump of almost like over 15 million more voters. Right. Trump took 74.2 million. So over 11 million more voters. Right. Due to the restrictions. Well, due, first of all, to the fact that the election was, you know, very polarizing and a lot of people wanted to turn out because it felt so important.

In 2020. In 2020, combined with the new rules about voting, relaxed restrictions, easier mail-in drive-through, a lot of people got back out there, right? A lot more people voted. So it's about 155 million people voted in that election. And I encourage, I told you this in the office. I encourage everyone, every time I get the chance, I link to this Time magazine article from 2021 where it's a very long piece, but it breaks down how the 2020 election was not stolen. It was simply what they call fortified. There was a whole network of people working to change voter laws

in order to maximize turnout. Change voter laws, maximize turnout, ballot harvesting. The Democrats ran an incredibly successful ballot harvesting operation. Yeah, but it breaks it down. So it's so it's you can understand like there were things that are eyebrow raising, like why this was happening, why is this happening? But it was a coordinated campaign to get more ballots casted in 2020. And when a lot of Republicans argue that the election was stolen in 2020, you know, a lot of them are arguing that that's what they're talking about.

Or they argue that these changes were unlawful. They argue the changes weren't authorized. They argue that, you know, they're made last minute. Which are all valid concerns. Yeah. I mean, you can debate whether or not that's, you know, now the people who believe that there were simply mass ballots being printed out of nowhere. That's a different issue. Yeah, that's a different issue. Whether or not the laws were changed in an unlawful way in order to maximize turnout is

a matter of contention. But getting to this 2024 popular voter turnout. So as of right now, Harris has about 69.1 million voters. Trump has 73.5 million. In total, 144.6 million votes. So I've seen a lot of people on Twitter. I've seen progressives saying, where did those 10 million voters go? Why are there fewer voters? I've seen conservatives saying, where did those 10 million voters come from in 2020? There's a lot of people who are

saying the numbers don't add up, something stinks. But it should be noted that at the time we're recording this, according to the New York Times, an estimated 91.9% of votes have been counted. So around 8.1% are left to be uncounted. If you multiply that by the votes we have, we should expect to get around 156.3 million votes in total. That's higher turnout than 2020. Yeah. I would assume. Yeah.

And I think what's interesting is the Trump campaign really outsourced a lot of their outreach to people like Charlie Kirk at Turning Point, Scott Pressler, and his voter registration efforts. Both Charlie Kirk and Scott Pressler should be commended for their efforts because it really showed up. Yeah, no, I mean, the Trump campaign should definitely give them their props for doing that successfully for the campaign. Yeah, because in the weeks leading up, well, in the four years post-2020, for people who pay attention to this stuff, you would see Scott Pressler traveling across the country. Registering those Amish. Yeah, registering.

In Pennsylvania. Yeah, registering voters in these swing states. And Charlie Kirk and Turning Point going to college campuses in these swing states, getting young people engaged. And they really turned up. It was, it's just incredible how successful they were. And the craziest thing to me is that when you look at the votes we have right now and the votes that are yet to come in, many of these coming from like rural counties, right? Many of these coming in, there is a very good chance, very, very good chance that Trump is actually going to surpass the number of popular

votes he won in 2020. Whereas for Harris, she will have definitely fallen by maybe a little less than 10 million. I don't have the math is, I have not mathed all the math. But yeah, no, I mean, Harris, Trump will probably have turned out more voters than in 2020, whereas Harris will have turned out significantly fewer than Biden. And that's why Trump will have won the popular vote, because obviously the popular vote does not determine who wins the election in our system, right? I mean, even the concept of like a national popular vote is a little bit of an abstraction because no such thing exists, you know, legally in our system of elections. But it certainly is a very strong rhetorical tool, right? Because a lot of progressive Democrats could argue in 2016 that, you know, Trump, if you don't believe in the electoral

college, you think, well, Trump won, but he kind of won on a technicality, right? He didn't really win the popular vote. He didn't really win the popular mandate. You know, he cheesed it a little. And that argument is impossible to make now because now Trump has definitively won the popular vote. And if you believe that that grants the mandate, then Trump has won the mandate. So, you know, that's to me is the most surprising feature of this entire election. That's the one thing that I would have probably bet against if I could. Yeah. Well, there's quite a bit of big surprises for me.

You know, as we talked about, like, I kind of predicted that Trump was going to win. You did predict it. I've been saying that for a while. And I made some hints about my prediction that Trump would win the popular vote as well. And the biggest thing for me is just how staggering the win was, how dominant it was. You know, this financial times chart about Trump gaining in every single state but one, I think that's the craziest thing for me. Because I had talked about with you in the office just casually like,

oh, I predict Trump's going to win young people at a higher percentage. And even saying I think young women are going to go for Trump. You know, the only reason why I would say these things is because I try and keep my finger on the pulse of how people are getting their information these days, like really doing media analysis just individually. And I think the strategies of the two campaigns is what really led to this big shift. We can talk about the differences in the policies that were being presented. But when the only source of information people have had in previous decades of presidential elections was television, mainstream media.

And Trump in 2015, after descending the golden escalator, he was immediately called an existential threat. Yeah. And people had harped on him as being this xenophobic, homophobic, whatever it is. Everything under the sun. Everything under the sun, casting him as this evil character. That democracy is at risk with donald trump yeah but what his strategy

and his overall campaign focusing on speaking directly to the people through these alternative media platforms with podcasts and really utilizing social media to his advantage really broke down that facade that the mainstream media had created. And people saw, oh, Trump is just a normal guy. You know, he's highly successful. You know, he might say some off-the-wall things. But in a long-form conversation, in an intimate setting, you really got to understand who he is and his speaking patterns like one of the i think that if i can point to one podcast interview that really broke the mold was trump's appearance on andrew schultz andrew schultz not a political guy not a political guy, not a partisan hack or anything. He's a comedian.

And during this conversation, it was over two hours long. And Trump talks about his speaking cadence, talks about the weave and why he uses it. And so people who had been hit over and over and over again with media hoaxes, pulling clips out of context, saying. Stuff at his rallies where he's doing something for a gag. He's trying to be funny. And so people who have shifted away from watching mainstream media and moved to getting their information on X or getting their information on podcasts, on Spotify or on YouTube. Trump was able to explain who he was, showed the people that he's a normal person, that he's not going to do anything dangerous. He has these policy ideas, and he might say some off-the-wall things, but put in the full context of his overall vision, it's not only coherent, but it's also there's an element of humor.

Oh, it's true. An element of relatability that people, I think, connected with. This is how he was able to get so much media attention in 2015. I mean, this was his big thing during the debates was he was a bit of a clown, but he immediately got himself attention. You know, during that August 2015, the first primary debate when they asked, you know, are you willing to support all the candidates? Are you willing to support whoever wins Republican nominee who is not willing to support the eventual Republican nominee if it's not himself. Trump raised his hand and immediately got all the attention on him. I mean, the way he badgered Jeb Bush, you know, Jeb Bush saying, or what is it? The funniest one I think is where... Be quiet. Yeah, the whole be quiet. I mean, the one where Jeb Bush says, you know, we need somebody tough

for president. He's like, oh yeah, you're a real tough guy, Jeb. Or where Bush was accusing him of being, you know, anti-woman. And he said, you know, my mother, she's the strongest person I know. And Trump said, oh, she should be running then. Right. I mean, he uses humor to get attention on himself. And I mean, this is what he does at his rallies. Like, I had the chance to cover one of his rallies in um actually

wow it's october 2022 feels like a long time ago because it was yeah uh two years wow and you know he he he's he is an entertainer yeah he's been an entertainer and that's i think something people like about him is that he you know good vibes good vibes. Is he the joy candidate? What happened there with the vibes? Well, yeah, the vibes really shifted. And towards the end of the Trump campaign, another thing that was really interesting is how we saw this diverse coalition of well-known names coming over to Trump. We saw RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan endorsed Trump in the final days of the campaign. And I think that, again, is a big signaling factor for people that, wow, I really agree with Tulsi on her anti-war stances. And she used to be a Democrat. She's now a Republican. She's endorsing Trump. Oh, I really loved with Tulsi on her anti-war stances. And she used to be a Democrat. She's now a Republican.

She's endorsing Trump. Oh, I really loved RFK. I really agree with him on his health stances, on his criticisms of the medical establishment. If he's with Trump, there must be something there. Oh, I really like Elon Musk. He is someone who's an entrepreneur. He builds businesses. He has a vision. Catches rockets. He builds businesses. He has a vision.

Catches rockets. Launches rockets. He has a vision for the future. If he's endorsing Trump, there's got to be something there. I am a dedicated listener to Joe Rogan. I had never watched an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast. But on Wednesday, I was like, you know what? I'm going to put this on in the background because I want to see what it was. And I was impressed because, you know, I mean, Trump,

he is, he is, I think, more lucid than a lot of his detractors present him as. He's certainly, he's, he was capable of holding a three hour conversation. You know, I think, I don't think Trump, you know, they say, well, he can't stay on topic. I just think he's kind of a, kind of a conversation hog. He just wants to talk about whatever he wants to talk about, you know, they say, well, he can't stay on topic. I just think he's kind of a conversation hog. He just wants to talk about whatever he wants to talk about. You know, he's not mentally deficient to the point where he can't follow a conversation. It's just if something new strikes his fancy, he'll just change his mind about what he's talking about in the middle of a sentence. It's the weave, right?

Right. And so I think all these people getting behind Trump really signaled to the average person that it's now openly acceptable to be a Trump supporter. Which allowed people to say, okay, I'm going to go with Trump this year. And yeah, it's just very interesting. It's, it's, you know, what's gonna, what this new coalition, what does it, what does it mean for the Republican Party, right? Because as we were talking about at the top of all this, is there's this huge shift that's occurred between the two parties. The only demographic Harris gained in as compared to 2020, young voters, who all have different policy interests. But they saw Trump and the Republicans as being more aligned with their viewpoints than the Democrat Party. Well, that's the thing. I wanted to get into this as well.

Like, what's the thing. I wanted to get into this as well, like what's happened here. I mean, something else that you showed me here is another thing I believe from the Financial Times talking about how educated, like wealthier than average white Democrats tend to be very socially progressive, more socially progressive than middle class Latino or black Democrats. I mean, they hold, there's a great article in Vox, The Great Awokening, which talks all about this, you know, written from a left of center perspective, but talking about how big of a change it is that white liberals are the most socially liberal group in the United States. And how, you know, as time goes on, perhaps that has

eroded some, even eroded some support from people who otherwise would have considered themselves Democrats because of how socially progressive they are. And I've seen other people saying, you know, well, Kamala Harris didn't run on those issues. You know, she wasn't the one going out and saying all of this stuff. But the last four years, ever since 2020, it's certainly been in the zeitgeist. You know, it's a lot harder to separate now a candidate from their supporters. You know, with the internet, it really feels like it's all one big amorphous thing, right? It's obviously always very easy for people on their own side to say, well, I well i you know believe this and my

candidate believes this and those other crazy people who like my candidate well they they're just crazy but it's harder for people to do that for the other side where it appears to be you know and on your own side you say well the normal people are the representative of my side but the other side it's the crazies that are well the only thing i'll push back on is this has been proven out in data as well, is that those who have more conservative-leading politics have a better understanding of those who have more liberal-leading politics than those who are liberals have of conservatives. Yeah, I've seen that as well. And so these media bubbles, it really is only isolated to those on the partisan left. And so there are any number of whack jobs on the right that you can find on the internet, but they might be less representative, significantly less

representative. And I think a really interesting illustration of this is you're familiar with Anna Kasparian from the Young Turks. I am. Right. And she's caught a lot of heat over the past two, three months because she has pushed back on a lot of the progressive policies instituted in these deep blue cities, particularly the soft on crime policies. policies and it's really brought her um away from pulled her away from uh the democratic party um and she told this really interesting story on a podcast that i listened to where she was saying when uh at the time she was moving into a new apartment she needed help moving a couch she asked the neighbor okay can you help me move this couch? And the neighbor comes out, sure, helps her move.

And her and this neighbor become really good friends. And a couple months later, they're at some, like, meeting together. And at this meeting, whoever was running it was saying some disparaging things about Trump. And the neighbor looks over to Anna Kasparian and says, man, if you keep bashing Trump, I'm out of here. And this was the first time she realized this neighbor was a Trump supporter. And she was telling the story on the podcast saying, oh, I never talked about politics with my neighbor. We were really good friends. I had no idea.

He was right-winger. He was a Trump supporter. And it really opened our eyes to this idea that maybe the media representations of who Trump supporters are are completely wrong. And that they're normal human beings that are nice and that just care about their neighbors. Yeah. Well, I've seen people online asking, you know, how is it possible from, you know, left of center, but it's usually more from the far left perspective saying, how is it possible that so many Americans could be such bad people?

And it's like you have to, you know, wrap your head around the fact that people support the same candidate for different reasons. There are some crazy people on the right who support Trump for crazy reasons, but the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters are normal people who think he's the better candidate. And, you know, you can't just take the internet and the, I mean, social media exaggerates the most dominant personalities, right? And those people are not necessarily the most representative of the average voter. I mean, in fact, they're almost definitionally unrepresentative of the average voter. I mean, you saw on Google Trends, you were telling us about

this, that there was a rise in Google Trends of people asking, did Joe Biden drop out? Because there are a lot of people, if you don't follow politics, you might not know that Joe Biden was not running for reelection. I mean, you just can't assume. You can't assume that people view the world the same way you do. You can't assume they have the same knowledge that you do. You know, you have to interact with other people from a perspective of humility, right? Recognizing that they have a different worldview than you, different knowledge than you. And at the end of the day, that their reasons for doing things are not illegitimate just because they don't share your priors about reality. And hopefully we can all learn this

lesson, you know, from the incredible polarization of the last several years and realize that just because somebody supports a candidate that I don't support does not make them. A bad person. Yeah, it doesn't make them a bad person. They're not a bad person just because they lack, you know. The fact that they don't support my candidate doesn't mean that they also don't share values that I care about. Like, I want to help my family. I want to help my neighbors. I want to live in a country I like, you know? Yeah. Well, and the mainstream media's tactics of trying to frame this election as democracy is at risk and Trump is going to be a dictator and authoritarian.

Did you see in some of those exit polls that a non, like a non, what is it? What's the opposite of significant? A non-insignificant portion of the people who said that they were voting to save democracy were Trump voters. Right. Because, of course, if you're a Trump voter who says, oh, the lawfare, you know, all the assassination attempts, You view the attacks on Trump as an attack on democracy. Democracy can be subjectively defined. Well, in the pushing out of Biden as the candidate and putting in an appointed almost candidate, candidate Kamala

Harris. Do you think Biden's legacy is going to get better or worse because of this? You know, there are some people saying Biden could have won, Biden could have pulled it off. And other people saying, you know, the fact that Biden did not just announce he wasn't running, the fact that he tried to run again, they're saying is the worst political decision, you know, could have possibly made. Yeah. I don't think he's going to be remembered well in history, but we'll see. That's for the future to decide at the end of the day.

Yeah. But the differences in tactics between the two campaigns, like the mainstream media being surrogates for the Democratic Party, saying democracy is on the ballot, whereas Trump in his campaign and their tactics on focusing on actual issues, immigration, the economy, inflation, national sovereignty, getting the national debt figured out, our foreign intervention, foreign wars, like actual issues people care about. Well, and you can debate if he has, I mean, there are a lot of people who say that he has no

real solutions to those problems. But the thing is, he's talking about them. them he's talking about them and then also the trump surrogates were out in full force throughout the campaign really doing a great job articulating what trumpism is about like jd vance's appearance on a number of different podcasts just you know he went on joe rogan for almost three hours articulating what Trump's plans are. It's a funny interview too. Oh, you watched that one? I watched both of them, yeah. Okay.

I watched the first two episodes of Joe Rogan I've ever watched, which was the Trump interview and the Vance interview. And it was interesting to see them, to just hear them. It's significantly better than presidential debates where they sit down, they have one minute to talk, and all they do is give canned answers in presidential debates. That's all you can do. You just have to get the attention on you. But, I mean, here you have these people.

They sit down for three hours, and they have a conversation, right? And Rogan would occasionally push back against stuff they said. He'd be like, oh, I disagree with that. I mean, it wasn't confrontational. It was an attempt to have a real conversation, let voters actually learn more about the candidate, which is, you know, you've talked about this as this is a good thing because it lets voters know a lot more about their candidates in a more organic environment. Well, I think this anti-establishment sentiment that has been percolating across the country, people—

And the world. And the world. And parties lost all over the world. Well, and people in America voted for Trump just by the fact that they can put a face to the policies that could be potentially implemented. They can put a face to Trump. They can put a face to J.D. Vance, but now they know RFK is going to be a part of this

administration. And if he's appointed to a cabinet position or overseeing a certain department, they know if something goes right or goes wrong, it's RFK. If Tulsi is appointed to a cabinet position or to a department head, they know if something goes right or goes wrong with that issue, it's Tulsi Yabard. Whereas right now with how our federal government operates, it's a bunch of nameless faces, bureaucrats who are running things. And people just have to operate in this sense of mystery and illusion to who is actually running the government. But with Donald Trump really putting this coalition of people

that have gone out, articulated their views, and now that they are going to be running the federal government, people understand who that person is, and they have someone to praise and someone to blame. It makes things much more transparent. People feel like they have some ownership over how the federal government is run because they have, in a sense, knowledge about who that person is. No, that's an interesting point. And something that I think is

also worth bringing up is loyalty to the person, right? Like, I think that this is something that a lot of, there were a lot of conservative Republicans during the 2024 primary elections who really believed that Ron DeSantis was for Trump, the man, right, the individual, is the fact that he set himself apart with his use of social media to begin with, speaking very directly to people on a popular platform. He set himself apart during the Republican primary debates. He said, everybody around me is a bought and paid stooge, and everybody who booes me are their their their lobbyists their donors yeah he was one of the debates you know he was saying hey just say that's just that you all know you know this is uh all these people are donors these people are

paying a lot of money to be here you know and trying to argue that he's the guy who stands up for you know he's the one who stands up for the little guy he's the big guy but he sees the little guy right i mean the the movement because this is something I've been wondering, is will the movement outlast Trump? My temperament leans me to say no. I think there's too much loyalty to the man as an individual for somebody else to simply pick up the torch and keep it going in the exact same way. But 2024 has been a bit of a tempestuous year for Donald Trump from the criminal arraignment, you know, his conviction, the assassination attempts. You know, if you're a Trump supporter, you're thinking they're putting this guy through the ringer. If you're a Trump supporter, you're like, I am not going to miss out my opportunity to support donald trump

again because he has just gone through a lot you know this year um and well just think about those instances you spoke about like the arraignment and the mugshot this has been one campaign for photos that you there should be a coffee table literally i. Literally, that was exactly my point, is Trump and his supporters and his campaign have done a great job of reframing every issue. Yeah. Whether, like, the arrest, the mugshot, turn it into a T-shirt. You know, people wear that around. Yeah, I support the felon. Yeah, he's the felon.

I voted for the felon. Let's have Trump do a photo op at McDonald's. Iconic. If I was in charge, if I was running this business, I would make a coffee table book and calendars. I mean, the McDonald's photo, the garbage truck photo, a couple of assassination attempt photos, you know, the mug shot. There's all this just stuff he did that really put him in the public eye and I think caused a lot of people to say, you know, I kind of like this guy. I don't think he's as bad as his detractors are portraying him, you know. I think one of the little moments that I thought was very funny is when he comes out on stage in the orange garbage vest.

Yeah. And he says, you know, oh, they wanted me to wear this. I said, no way. And they told me, you know, it's very slimming, makes you look thin. He said, oh, maybe I'll keep it. Maybe I'll never wear a suit again. You know, he is an entertainer. And whether you think that that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to you, right?

If you think he's a bad politician, then you view his entertaining features as very dangerous because he's, you know, a demagogue. But evidently, the majority of voters thought at least it was better than Kamala Harris. And I know a lot of people who are more traditional conservatives, Republicans, might have been hesitant about a Trump presidency in 2016, 2020, and 2024. But I think what this new iteration of the Trump coalition is that everyone on the right now sort of has a seat at the table, has an opportunity to have their views at least influence what potentially could be the outcomes of the policy of this new

Trump administration because you know something I continually hear when I because again I listen to a lot of podcasts I read a ton of articles trying to understand the sentiment surrounding Trump, why he's become so popular, why people have so much loyalty to him, both the supporters and the people surrounding him in his inner circle. And what I routinely hear is Trump is not a demagogue, is he has opinions on issues,

but he is open to criticism and he's open to new ideas like yeah if you would have said in 2016 or even in 2020 trump is going to speak at the libertarian national convention he's going to endorse bitcoin and he's going to promise to free ross olbrich that would have been crazy no i don't think i would have believed it right so uh those two big those are two big things to the libertarian-leaning individuals on the right. Because Trump's not very ideological. He doesn't sit down and he doesn't have like a manifesto. He doesn't have a treatise on his political philosophy, his worldview. He's like, well, that sounds like a good idea. I should do that.

It's this attitude. He doesn't want to alienate people. I think it's kind of this businessman's attitude of, you know, let's keep as many people in as possible. We don't want to alienate people unless we know we can't get anywhere with them. Right? I mean, he's willing to be convinced. He's willing to listen to arguments. He goes, I like that, and then we'll do something with it.

Yeah, and I think that's a positive thing. And something I think is worth discussion maybe is we've talked a ton about Trump and Republicans. What do the Democrats do now? No, that's the big thing. You know, what's next for them? What do they do after a trouncing like this? What do you think? So I've seen there there's basically two big arguments that i've seen the first people are saying harris ran too far to the right and

she you know just ceded ground to trump and that pushed voters towards trump um harris needs to run more progressive next time harris needs to well a lot of them aren't saying that harris needs to run on like so much social issues as progressive economic issues. Right. She needed to be pushing more health care. I've seen that pushing, you know, UBI families. Yes. I'm like universal basic income or I haven't seen those claims as much. Certainly, like I've seen pushes on health care, gun control policy. You know, a lot of people are saying, well, when she cedes ground to Donald Trump, a lot of voters might just be pushed towards the right anyway. I mean, even in Texas,

we just had our Texas Democratic Party Chair, Gilberto Hinojosa, just resigned. Yeah. Saying, you know, because in Texas in particular, I mean, Democrats got trounced, Republicans. Ted Cruz tripled his margin of victory from 2020, I believe. It was like, I'm sorry, from 2018. I believe he had like a three point margin of victory. And now he had like a nine point margin of victory. Trump won by six points in 2020. Now he won by 14 in 2024. And so I've seen some people saying, you know, the problem is Hinojosa was not progressive enough. We need somebody who's more progressive. But I've also seen claims from people saying that what the Democrats need to do is they don't need to become the party of LBJ.

They need to become the party of Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was a more, you know, he was more tough on crime guy. He was a more, you know, border security guy. You know, they're saying that that's the kind of party that the Democrats need to return to being at this point, because the, I think the Obama Democrats are not going, I don't know if it's fair to characterize Harris as an Obama Democrat, in the sense that leaning more into that progressive social rhetoric. But I certainly think that even though obama leaned into that rhetoric to get elected but then governed like an establishment

i'm gonna eat like saying he's gonna end the foreign wars and then just continues them yeah well i think he hit up on kind of the limits of of you know i think a lot of people assume president is is a bit like a king and that they have the power to do kind of anything they want. But there's a lot of momentum that for a president is very hard to stop, right? The government is running, right, when presidents change administrations. And for the president to simply step in and tell everybody, stop everything you're doing right now, we're going to do something different. Well, that's extremely difficult. That's what Trump wants to do. And we're going to see if he's going to pull it off. I mean, he could, he may, may not, but, but yeah, no, Democrats, um, the question is, do you run more

progressive or do you run more, um, like neoliberal? Like, do you go, do you, do you run, do you become more tough on crime and more tough on the border because those are broadly popular? Um, do you, uh, we've popular. Texas politics has been having this debate over the issue of transgender people, saying, do Texas Democrats need to reduce the amount of effort they put on this issue? Do they cede ground on the issue, for example, of biological males competing in women's sports? Do they try and hold a more moderate position on this? Well, yeah, because right now the Democrat Party is representative of socially progressive values in a weird mix-up of neoliberalism and neoconservatism like you mean nationally with people like for example

um liz cheney dick cheney coming out and endorsing yeah and so just it's just very strange um sort of audiology that they're it's a big tent it's a big tent. It's a big tent. Very big tent. But that the American public has outright rejected in this last election. So do they pick one of those three things to pull back on? Do they pick two? Do they pick all front of them to completely shift or change or uh how their policies are set up because obviously trump did something talked about it this entire podcast the democrats can do the same thing yeah just change your message i mean change their message change their policies. Do you think Josh Shapiro is sitting there in Pennsylvania?

Just waiting for 2028. I mean I've you know, did he? Would he have made a better vice presidential candidate, you know, maybe would have could have helped swing, Pennsylvania I have one friend who said I don't think he I think I don't acted it I just one friend who said I think they offered it. I think he turned it down because he's waiting for 2028 We've seen with Pennsylvania. It's a big swing state. If Democrats want to retake it again, I say retake again, of course, because Trump already cracked the blue wall in 2016, came back in 2020, broke it again in 2024. So there could be. And if I recall, Shapiro is more moderate on a lot of issues.

I mean, he's pro-school choice. That's a big issue in Texas, going to be a really big issue this upcoming year with the legislative session if I recall correctly He's also a lot more moderate on fracking I think and that could Yeah, I mean it's it's that's the problem within an electoral democracy You have to convince people if you want to win elections and you can't win by telling people you have to support me or else you're a bad person a lot of people are not going to be convinced by that argument and so you kind of have to um you kind of have to temper what you're offering to suit

popular taste right it's like a business frankly that's trying to sell its product and not making so you can't just tell people well you're all you all should like my product you have to sell product people want you know so yeah and there's so much we could get into regarding what this podcast could be 12 hours yeah frankly. But I do want to talk about this other thing. Well, here, what were you going to say? No, go ahead. Predictions for a Trump administration. I mean, what happens now?

Yeah. What happens? So we've already seen some global reactions, right? We've seen reactions in the Middle East regarding israel palestine um we've seen reactions from uh russia the russia ukraine conflict um you know peace deal is possible and uh zelensky congratulating trump on his uh re-election so uh foreign conflicts for a lot of people are a big issue. And there's already been shifts since Trump was announced as president-elect. It's going to be interesting.

We saw Susan Wiles, that's her name. She was selected as the chief of staff first female chief of staff very progressive um so he's a real bleeding heart so we get we get uh one person already named uh as as having a position and many from what i've seen online are saying that she is one of the reasons why trump won ran his 2024 campaign kept kept him on message, kept it disciplined. Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see. I've seen already, you know, certain liberal figures online saying, oh, she's going to be a moderating influence on Trump, you know.

So we're starting to see some of our apocalyptic rhetoric maybe being already toned down a little bit. Yeah. So. Well, I'll be interested to see, like, what happens with someone like Vivek. Because he has been a huge force in moving forward the Trump agenda and messaging that agenda on podcasts and articles and things of that nature. What happens to him? Because with J.D. Vance being the vice president, there's an open Ohio Senate seat. That's also true.

And so the Ohio governor gets to appoint the replacement. Does Vivek get appointed to a cabinet position, to that Senate seat? Does he run for governor in Ohio? Where does Vivek see himself in four years? seat does he run for governor in ohio where does vivek see himself in four years or does he stay with the trump administration stay with the trump administration yeah that'll be very interesting where does rfk land is seeing some people saying secretary of agriculture uh i said well i saw that uh thomas massey his name was floated out there because you know he has this Clux capacitor. Do you know about this?

No, I don't know what it is. A Clux capacitor? What is that? Yeah, so he has created this machine on his farm where it's like an enclosure for his chickens, and it moves like one inch every 10 minutes or something like that. So the chickens always have fresh grass to eat. Oh, interesting. It's a moving enclosure.

Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I think Thomas Massey is awesome. I think that'd be really interesting if he was appointed to a position. What happens with Tulsi Gabbard? You know, she was a big name that's come out and supported Trump. She's not a Democrat anymore. She's a Republican. Is she setting up herself for

a Trump appointment and then a future run at the president? It'll be interesting because as we've seen, usually the first time a country elects a female to their highest office, whether it be president, prime minister, whatever it may be, it's usually a woman of the right. No, it's true. In the United Kingdom, it was Margaret Thatcher. In Canada, oh, I can't remember her name. She was part of the, I think she was part of the conservative party at the time. Kim something. Hold on. I'm going to. Well the conservative party at the time. Kim something. Hold on.

I'm going to. Well, while you look that up. So it's interesting how she's sort of modulated her affiliations to maybe. Kim Campbell. Kim Campbell. To set up something in the future for herself. Yeah. It will be interesting to see what happens with her and who is gonna

be in charge of or rather what's JD Vance what's his role going to be in a Trump administration because most of the time as as we think of a vice president as the most insignificant office what's the quote that John Adams said you know he's I've been entrusted with the most insignificant office in the history of mankind yeah and so but it seems as though J.D. Vance really wants to be involved in policy and procedure and administrating a Trump agenda. Many say that he might even be being groomed for 2028 as the next presidential Republican. Well, and this is something that I've said to you. Again, we have lots of conversations in the office.

It's true. We could go for 12 more hours. One of the most interesting things about Trump and Trumpism is that it has opened up the right to a lot of intellectuals. It allowed for people who might have been outside the mainstream to enter into the conversation. And someone like JD Vance, who has commented publicly, written about how people, anonymous accounts on X or random bloggers have helped influence his views on policy. And there's a lot of intellectual energy on the right right now and it'll be interesting to see in the forthcoming four years how some of these ideas find their way into policy yeah um again the right there's a lot of debate on the direction this is something rama swami's talked about i believe and i think it was in his debate with john bolton saying that the for for example, on economics, there's a divide

between people who are in favor of protectionism very broadly, who want the U.S. to reduce trade and become more of a manufacturing powerhouse versus those who I believe Vivek said he sides with, who simply want the U.S. to use trade more strategically to contain geopolitical opponents like China by, for example, increasing trade with the rest of East Asia, increase trade with Japan and Korea, and box China in. Yeah, well, these two different— That's a very big debate.

Well, the national libertarianism view of Vivek versus the nationalist populist view of someone like J.D. Vance. And there's camps within both those viewpoints. Yeah. The right has an opportunity to battle that out with holding the executive branch and holding both the House and the Senate. And you have to hope that the best policy will come from vigorous debate between these two sides to achieve something, hopefully that is good for the entire country. Well, and that's the tremendous opportunity that this new Trump administration offers,

is there's going to be a big shakeup in our trade policy, in our views of the free market, in our views of the economy more broadly. Yeah. And how that's so much the free market, but as in free trade. Free trade. Because Trump's, because people, these are different issues. I mean, free market is like, you know, regulations, taxes,

but trade is a different issue. For example, you know, the Republican Party of the 19th century was generally very, you know, in favor of freer markets, but they were more opposed to free trade, right? Because, well, I think we take it for granted nowadays that global trade is a thing. That was not the case. I mean, for a very long time, the idea that, you know, these, that trade and markets are even conflated is a product of living in a globalized world where it is simply easy to say, of course, we're going to buy some Chinese chips. Of course,

we're going to send out American made goods to other countries, you know, whereas that's, yeah, that's, that's something that had to be created, you know. So obviously, I see some people who attack Trump for saying, well, he doesn't believe in markets because he's opposed to trade. But I think we should recognize that those are not identical issues, you know. And I think that might be something we can talk about on the next episode because we can get into it. Well, really quick hits. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. No, I was just going to wrap up. But if you had some. Well, I wanted to say two other things. First of all, other predictions for Trump administration that could have an impact

here in Texas. Of course, Trump's going to need a U.S. Attorney General. And a lot of conservative Republicans really like our Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, and are wondering if he is going to maybe head to Washington, D.C. That's been a big subject of debate here. Who else from Texas could possibly jump over into D.C.? What cascading effects could that have on Texas if statewide offices become vacant, which leads people to maybe jump from the legislature to the statewides and more people get into the legislature? What effects could that have? But also, I feel like I keep blocking the camera with my hand. The other big thing that I've seen people saying is SCOTUS. I mean, what if Alito and Thomas decide, you know, we're old guys.

We're going to retire. Oh, I saw this in the opposite direction. I saw this if Sotomayor decides to step down. Would she decide to step down? I mean, that would be a pretty big blow. Decides to retire, but while Biden is president. Now, see, that would make a lot of strategic sense to get that moving very, very quickly. But, I mean, imagine if Thomas and Alito both decide, you know, we're old guys.

We're going to step down now. Trump appoints two more people. Trump will have appointed five of the nine Supreme Court justices. Amazing. It would be an absolute, that would be historically, I mean, I wonder sometimes. Would that be unprecedented? Unprecedented? I actually don't know.

That would be an interesting topic for Precedented Times, my monthly newsletter. No, the one I just wrote recently was on presidential campaign rhetoric. And so, you know, people say, of course, we live in the most polarized time ever. But we've had some very contentious elections. For sure. And I read that. The revolution of 1800. Yeah. Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland. I mean, that was the 1884 election between Democrat Grover Cleveland and Republican James Blaine, I think was was very interesting because it feels similar to our election that we just had very recently, just a couple of days ago. It was still going on given the amount of time it takes Arizona and Nevada to count their votes. But, yeah, if you would have gone back in time 24 years and said, oh, yeah, by the way, in the future, Florida is going to have it like that.

And Nevada, we're going to be Arizona. We're going to be waiting a week. I think people would have told you you were crazy. But yeah, no. What will happen with SCOTUS? I wonder if in, you know, 100, 200 years, Trump's biggest contribution historically will be the Trump court, which will shape judicial interpretation. Because, you know, I mean, look at all these presidents people considered so important at the time. I mean, Grover Cleveland, right? The average person doesn't know who Grover Cleveland is. The average person doesn't know who Chester Arthur is, you know, James Garfield, right? These aren't names that necessarily stand out. So you have to wonder, you know, in 150 years, will people still be thinking about this time period? But for historians, it might prove to be the case that this Trump court, right, if he appoints all these young conservative justices that continue to preside from like the 2020s for the next several decades, could be a very big impact on American jurisprudence.

For sure. Definitely very big. Well, anything else you want to add before we wrap up here? So much. So much. There's so much we can talk about. We are just one more voice in the massive number of people asking, what just happened?

Yeah. And I think we've hit on a lot, and we could hit on so much more, but really we've hit on all the big stuff. Yeah. And I think we've we've we've hit on a lot and we could hit on so much more. But really, we've hit on all the big stuff. Yeah. We'll have to change demographics. The what do the parties do now? You know. Yeah. But we'll leave it there. Absolutely. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. You can check out all of our articles, our newsletters, our podcasts on thetexan.news. Thanks again for tuning in. Catch you next time.