The Texan Podcast - The Election, the Shutdown, the Interview: SMSS Ep. 22

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

In this episode of 'Send Me Some Stuff,' the Cameron and Rob discuss election aftermath across the U.S., Nancy Pelosi's retirement, and key political shakeups. They explore the potential impacts on local and national politics and delve into the GOP's internal conflicts concerning the recent Tucker Carlson controversy.Listen to more Send Me Some Stuff podcasts from our team wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.

Hello and welcome back to send me some stuff. Episode number 22. 22, I'm feeling 22. It's been a... You love the number 22. Do I really? Why do I love the number 22? What reminds you of 22?

22. And Tuesdays. Yes, Jaden and I's favorite place to get lunch on Tuesdays is Tumbled 22 here in Austin good uh great fried chicken restaurant um not sponsored not yet not sponsored if they want if they need a professional spokesman and i'll get free food for life they they know where to find me they send me some stuff right here yeah well episode 22 i can't believe we've done we're on episode 22 yeah um but we're talking about a lot of interesting stuff today we got the election fallout, all sorts of craziness after the election on, what was it, Tuesday, stuff in New York, Virginia, California, and here in Texas, all sorts of different things happening.

Then we're going to run through some of the shakeups with the shutdown. There's been some interesting things, stuff we've written about even here at the Texan. so we'll cover that and then we'll devote some time at the end to talk about the heritage foundation Tucker Carlson and the whole dust up there it's kind of if you're any sort of person online you're aware of what's been going on there and so yeah if you follow the online discourse around politics you already know what we're talking about yeah there's lots of heat there. So we'll talk about that a little bit, but just today, while we were rolling into the office, we got a big announcement that longtime California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, she's retiring. She's retiring from Congress. I believe it's been 30, I think she's going

to serve a total of 38 years, if I recall correctly. Former Speaker of the House. So she is a absolute force in the Democratic Party. She has been the face of the Democratic Congressional Coalition. And she's had a long career, story career, all sorts of things. Almost four decades. Yeah. So it really is going to be interesting to see who is going to replace her in Congress because this sort of gets into a little bit to our election conversation because, you know, Pelosi is, she's been in Congress for four decades.

She's kind of part of this old guard and she held a lot of power. So bringing in a new young Democrat, are they going to be a bit of a, you could say, moderate, centrist Democrat type? Are they going to be more of the mom-dani sort of on the further left side of that democratic spectrum? It'll be interesting to see, though. Well, it'll be interesting because, you know, conservatives don't like Nancy Pelosi, but a lot of, like, leftists and progressives also don't like Pelosi. They think that she's too moderate. They think, you know, the whole meme about how Nancy Pelosi's a great stock trader, right?

that she has her own personal uh what is it her own her own account has outperformed several major index funds because you know this is the criticism that uh people in congress are kind of always insider trading because they know what the government's about to do they know what to buy and what not to buy when to sell so you know for that reason she's considered to be kind of you know by a lot of people on the left to corrupt part of the establishment it's true now of Of course, everybody in politics, almost everybody in politics is rich. You can't get around that fact. And speaking of a figure you brought up a more energetic, young, progressive, like insurgent type of candidate.

Like Zoran Mondani, who is also rich, you know, has a very wealthy family. So it's not, you know, you can always say the other side of the rich people, but as Brad has written about in fourth reading, one of his good newsletter editions, everybody has billionaire. Everybody has billionaires on their side, whether it's the Koch brothers, whether it's George Soros. You can't get away from the thing of, you know, you need the money, honey. You need money. You need money. You need money. Yeah, you need it.

For every, you know, those yard signs, they cost money. They do. They do. Well, let's get in a little bit to the election and some of the outcomes here was not a good night for Republicans, Democrats, winning across the country. there was obviously lots of national coverage on the New York mayoral race like we mentioned mom Donnie 34 years old he was a member of the State Assembly becomes the youngest mayor of New York City in over a century he won by securing 50.3% of the vote Slewa 7% you know people thought

Cuomo was going to have possibly a bit of a surge at the end didn't come to fruition. Another race people were keeping an eye on was the Virginia mayoral race. The attorney general's race? Well, the gubernatorial. My bad. The gubernatorial race. Thanks for correct to me on that. No problem.

The gubernatorial race, again, Democrat went there. And then also, like you mentioned, the AG race. Jay Jones, despite those text messages, still one. But there were some other... The text messages being where he, you know, sort of fantasized about shooting certain Republican politicians in Virginia and their children. And their children, yeah. Yes.

Not great. You could say what he said, well, he gets a bullet to the head, so maybe he's implying somebody else is doing the shooting if you really want to stretch it. But certainly a very controversial comment, a lot of Republicans were calling on in between to drop out of the race. But, you know, the Democrats sort of took it in stride and, you know, Jones won. I mean, he won the election. So that speaks to perhaps voters' willingness to tolerate, you know, the kind of things that 10 to 20 years ago, maybe not 10, I mean, 10 years ago is kind of when this started, but 20 years ago would have been arguably, you know, disqualifying.

Yeah. Well, in New Jersey, a Democrat won in Georgia. Democrats won two statewide seats, public service commission in Pennsylvania, Democrats retained all three incumbent seats on the state Supreme Court. California's Prop 50 passed. So some really big things happening in this election November 4th. You know, we talked a bit about what happened locally and across the state on our weekly roundup. that'll be going that'll be live um you know this is going out monday that'll be live on friday but um what for you because what what me and brad sort of talked about and what he wrote about in his five takeaways um was there was the democrats win in these big national races

but at the local level it seemed like especially here in texas something like prop q where sort of a bipartisan coalition came together and won in their appeals to vote against Prop Q. So maybe what's your big takeaway from this past election? Do you have anything? The big takeaway? Yeah, what is this sort of? Certainly something with Prop Q, I think what it should show, because as you said, with Proposition Q, the city of Austin wanted to levy a new property tax, hike in order to cover a shortfall in the city's budget and also one of the biggest things that was advertised for was to raise funding for homeless services in the city. And a group of Republicans and some Democrats and independents sort of came together, created a lot of, like put out a lot

of messaging against Prop Q. And ultimately Prop Q went down like a lead balloon. It wasn't close. So I think something it shows there is that there is a very real. difference between the kind of national politics that shows up on the TV and in your social media feed and the local politics that's sort of more at the human level. Yeah. You know, um, a lot of people don't know what's going on in their own backyard. A lot of Austinites probably didn't know what proposition Q was, you know, a lot of people don't pay that much attention to, uh, the more local politics, which is interesting because

of course, that's the one that actually affects you the most, you know, but I think we could all agree that national politics is just so exciting, right? It's so, it's so bombastic. It's so ideological. The thing, of course, is that local politics is just as exciting, but often it's less ideological, and it's more driven by the interesting personality traits of people involved, you know. Interest groups. Yeah, it's just, it's always interesting to see, you know, when the stakes are lower, as it were, each person's individual, the idiosyncrasy, of their personality come out and create a more interesting situation, I think. So it's local politics is fun to follow too, but it's also very important to follow if you

want to actually know what affects you. So that's a big takeaway for me is that there's not a one-to-one correlate. National political trends might not necessarily follow local political trends. Well, I think the big crossover in terms of your analysis is that on the ground, around campaigning really matters. Oh, yeah. Where we can look at a campaign like Zora Mondani, and he really generated a lot of energy with not just his social media campaign, but a lot of the things that I saw was him actually being out in the community,

talking with people, really speaking to the issues there. You know who else did that? What? Can you know who else did that in the New York mayoral election was Curtis Sliwa? Well, the partisan makeup of New York was not favorable to show Republicans there. But as opposed to someone like Cuomo and that same race didn't run the same type of campaign that Mom Donnie did. But the reason why I say there's the crossover with your analysis is when we look at something like Prop Q, lots of billboards, lots of yard signs, lots of on the ground activation by the types of activists that, were really fired up about that issue.

And so I think that sort of highlights where if you really care about an issue, you have to actually go talk to the people about it. Like social media campaigns, you know, I think Brad wrote about this as well with like the bots, right? Like social media is real life in some sense and then another, it's not at all. And so you kind of have to strike a proper balance on those two things between generating energy online getting those that engagement but also getting actual real world engagement from voters but I want to talk a little bit more about some of the outcomes in terms of the exit

polling in New York because I think that's interesting especially since there was so much made about Mom Donnie's ascension and then now his victory in the New York mayor all race he ran as a Democratic Socialists. He was not shy about sharing some of those views. His proposals, government-run grocery stores, fast and free buses, freezing the rent. But something I mentioned on our weekly roundup is he was hitting on a topic of affordability. And I think that really resonated with people. And you can see that in the exit polling here, young voters. About 70% of voters under 45 supported Mom Donnie, a strong backing from those under 50 and first-time voters. He garnered major support from black voters, Latino voters, as well as one-third of Jewish voters, mainly younger Jewish voters, showing a coalition of a bunch of different minority groups.

College-educated progressives, Mom-Dani was favored by college-educated voters in Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods. immigrants resonated with his message as well so you know he won a majority he won all like a wide coalition of a racially diverse electorate but also trending younger and trending more educated what it's interesting for me because if you compare that to the Virginia governor race um because there it was a much more uh moderate candidate um gosh what what's her name steinberg are you thinking of uh the democrat who won the virginia spanburger spamburger um much more which sounds like something you would get from a sleazy fast food restaurant a span burger

thing sounds like spam but yeah span burger abigail span burger yeah and ran a much more moderate campaign but still one as a Democrat in Virginia but but I think when we're looking at the messaging of these two different campaigns I think it is reflective of the type of voter in those two states like I just ran through the exit polling and what coalition's mom donning one in Virginia what do you have a lot of government workers a lot of a lot of you know you could say middle-aged professionals living there who worked in policy politics or government or things. So they're going to run different types of campaigns. Well, it's also interesting, of course, because Spanberger was running against a Republican.

Mamdani was not running against Sliwa, the Republican candidate. He was running against Cuomo, who represents the who is running as an independent because Mom Donnie won the Democratic nomination. And Cuomo was running as an independent who sort of gives you, of course, Mom Donny is a self-described Democratic. socialist and Cuomo is more of a moderate Democrat. And so the conflict in Virginia was a Democrat and a Republican, whereas in New York City, the Republicans are not going to win. It's a conflict between the progressive Democratic socialist and the moderate, more moderate liberal Democrat. Yeah. So it's possible, you know, what would it have looked like? I mean, people have been

speculating about this. What if Sliwa hadn't run? Could Cuomo have had the momentum to carry the day. What if Cuomo hadn't run? Could Slewa have? So it might have improved his margins. If I recall correctly, the breakdown in 2024 for the presidential election, it was like Trump 30 percent, Harris, 70 percent. And that's better than what Biden did for, and I'm sorry, that's Trump did better in 2024 in NYC than he did in 2020. But, you know, the Democrat was going to win but um yeah so it's it's an essentially different kind of of political contest yeah and what i think is going to be interesting going forward is do national democrats uh see a mom donnie win as something to um emulate and try to recreate in these other states well i was saying

this just the other day right is as when talking about mom dani and the incredible level of support he's getting, there is an Obama-shaped hole in the heart of the Democratic Party. Yes. I mean, there really is just this, this craving for like a young, progressive, you know, a good, good communicator, good talker. Mom, Donnie is all of those things. You know, he is the kind of person who could become a national leader for the Democrats. And, you know, we'll be viewed by this generation of younger Democrats who,

in their minds, you know, they've only known really Trump, right? Yeah. And they're coming in. They're like, we want Democrats that are not just going to, you know, push for policy, but we're actively resist Trump, actively push against him. And of course, Trump came out and endorsed Andrew Cuomo, a figure that a couple of years ago, I think you would be pretty shocked to know that Trump would endorse Andrew Cuomo. And, you know, at the end of the day, politics make strange bedfellowing.

But Mamdani will become kind of a symbol of the ascendant, young, progressive, anti-Trump force in politics. Yeah. And I, but I just am not... I've seen people saying he should run for president, which obviously he can't, but being an immigrant. I'm just not sure it can be replicated in other states. So that's why I brought up the regime. Well, I might see a special case, yeah. Yeah, I think it is a special case.

I think it's a good move for, I think it would be a good thing for Republicans if Democrats attempt to do that if a mom-dani style candidate tries to run in, you know, Georgia or Nebraska. Something that Brad talked about again in one of his good pieces that we were just published. We're recording this on Thursday. And Brad wrote a piece talking about that, how he is the perfect foil. You know, there are tons of Republican politicians coming out and saying, we're going to be, you know, anti-momda? Didn't the governor of Tennessee come out and tell people, move to New York City, escape,

I'm sorry, move out of New York City, come to Tennessee. Abbott jokingly tweeted out that he was going to put a tariff on New Yorkers moving to Texas. You know, I mean, this is, mom-dani is one of those figures that will unite progressive supporters and conservative haters around him, you know, similar to Mr. Trump, who, of course, was the big hole in the Republican Party's heart this election because, he was in office, but not on the ballot. And that certainly hurt Republicans, because when he's in office, Democrats have an incentive to get out and vote.

When he's not on the ballot, a lot of Republicans don't feel any to get out and vote. So it was one of those things where, you know, Democrats up, Republicans down, Democrats win the day. Yeah. Well, there was also California passed their Prop 50, which is going to allow for the legislature to redraw its congressional all that work we did in august reporting on the congressional redistricting swept away because california is going to bow all balance it out yeah well it's my work i mean our reporting on it yeah well again i think this is something to think about is is this new redrawing of the maps not just here in texas but california many other states proposing to do

things similar in them rejoined the map electing you know more solidly Republican in in some of these congressional districts further bifurcating our U.S. Congress in both the House of Representatives so it's going to create even more deadlock sort of votes in well if it's all balanced out I mean if all the redistricting balances each other out then it won't really change all that much. You don't think so? Well, I mean, I'm saying if the number, if the proportion stays basically the same, then might not have a big effect until 2030.

Yeah. Because when the 2030 census is issued and then there's a congressional reapportionment of, you know, Texas is projected to gain seats, California is projected to lose them. And I think that also New York is, I think, also projected to lose seats. in general, like red states are projected to gain seats at the expense of the blue ones. So that is, yeah, I think if there is this wave of partisan redistricting, then it might all balance out at the end of the day. And we might not be in a worse situation in terms of gridlock than we are right now.

We'll just have to wait and see. Yeah. But speaking of gridlock and an inability to work together, that's a great segue into our next topic. So unless did you have anything else? No, let's go into the shutdown because... As of right now, 36 days, 16 hours, 33 minutes, and 48 seconds. You got the countdown called up right now.

Also, the record, because the longest one ever was from 2018 to 2019, 35 days when Congress would not authorize the, I believe it was $5 billion for Trump's border wall. And that led to the government shut down. And that was the longest in American history until right now. Right now. Well, if we go all that. It is. Well, if we go all the way back to what started this off, it was disagreements and disputes concerning, you know,

health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. That really sparked this entire thing. Once again, the Obama, The cast to the long shadow. Well, but there's been some interesting things that have happened since then. There was laying off thousands of federal workers. There was the Pentagon saying we're not going to be able to pay the military and then somehow some funds showed up. And there was a bunch of, there was money appropriated then, not appropriated, but.

sent out to pay for our military personnel, despite the shutdown, there was, on October 24th, I'm looking at a timeline here. Over 500,000 federal employees missed their first full paycheck. October 30th, President Trump publicly called Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster to reopen the government. John Thune rejects it. And now, you know, we wrote a story today about. how the FAA is going to be reducing some flights out of major airports, possibly shutting down

some airspace, which is going to... I believe they said there's going to be a 10% reduction in flights at the top 40 airports, which will mean thousands of flights. Thousands of flight. That's going to become kind of a problem as we go into the holidays. I don't know if you've noticed this, but it's November. And if this continues into Thanksgiving, it will be an, I was about to say it will be one of the most disruptive things to happen to an American holiday season. But honestly, it will probably be second to COVID in terms of one of the most disruptive things Americans cannot fly to see family for the holidays.

Yeah. Well, and then there was also the rollback of SNAP benefits. Yes, that's the other. Well, yes, that is, of course, the other big thing. That's the other, you know, even more severe thing is the fact that, yeah, SNAP benefits are just not showing up. And I believe the Senate did reject a specific deal, was it that would have solely continued. Oh, no, what am I'm saying? There's the debate over, you know, Trump, there's federal emergency funding set aside for SNAP.

And the Democrats were saying that Trump has the authority to do that and release this federal funding and continue funding snap. Trump's argument, and his lawyers are saying, no, we can't do this. I believe they're saying it doesn't apply in this situation. A federal judge recently just ordered Trump to do it, and Trump's saying we're not going to do that. So a bit of a, you know, the judge has made her decision now, let her enforce it decision. Right. So that's, yeah. And of course, the health care premiums are already on the rise because those subsidies have expired.

So the shutdown is going to become. increasingly punishing as time goes I have a good friend who works for a federal judge who is just not getting paid right now you know and he's it's he and his co-workers are like well to tie in this shutdown topic and the elections topic yeah do you think the shutdown had an effect on the elections this past week um maybe I mean the problem here is I think Democrats are generally going to view it as the Republicans' fault, and Republicans are generally going to view it as the Democrats' fault. I know that some Democrats, like John Federman, I believe,

came out and said we need to work with the Republicans to end this shutdown. But the thing about a shutdown is, technically speaking, it is both sides fault. If one side caved, the shutdown would end. So obviously, then you can, both sides can blame each other for it. The problem here with this particular shutdown, and I'm going to get back to your question, but the problem with this particular shutdown is that the Democrats have to make a show of force against Donald Trump and have to say, we are drawing a line in the sand, you're not a king, you're not omnipotent, and actually you have to, you have to answer to us now. It's a staring contest. Democrats are saying, you have to blink. Trump is saying, I do get to do what I want,

And you have to blink. So it is a contest of wills over, you know, does Trump get what he wants? Does Trump, yeah, that is the right grammar. Does Trump get what he wants? Yeah. And after, I mean, Schumer took a lot of heat for when the continuing resolution was last passed in March, if I recall correctly. And now in the wake of the no king's protests,

and even more opposition to Trump, which you can argue that opposition was expressed in this most recent election, the Democrats do feel emboldened to put up their resistance. Or, of course, Chuck Schumer is afraid that if he caves to Trump, he's going to get primaried. You know, in Texas, we're very used to these politicians. The threat, the primary challenge threat is very real. So a lot of progressive. Well, just progressive. voters want to see

Democratic candidates push back against the Trump administration. Building a wall against the Trump administration for all intents and purpose. They want to see Trump stopped. They want to in their own minds shatter the myth of Trump's invincibility. Trump is very invested in his myth of

invincibility. He believes it. So he wants to make sure that that doesn't happen. So it is really a contest of wills. And the question is, you know, A higher percentage of Democrats are on SNAP than Republicans. A lot of federal workers, I think, are generally viewed as a more democratic sort of constituency.

So are the Democrats going to suffer more losses, essentially, from this contest than the Republicans will? That's a matter of debate. Or saying, you know, is it worth it to suffer those losses if it means putting up a final, if it means, you know, finally getting this big win against Trump and saying, no, you have to stop, you have to cave, you have to blink. So I don't know I'm not in the room where it happens No, I agree and I think It'll be interesting to see because obviously in the short term here

We just had the election November 4th and Democrats won But And Republicans are getting some of the things that they want Out of this shutdown in terms of rolling back the administrative state The firing of all these federal employees With the rest And then what has been a huge issue for

conservatives for decades is government handouts, one of those being SNAP benefits and something that gets rolled back during this government shutdown. Yeah, if you've been on social media, you will see that there are a lot, there's little love lost from

a lot of the conservative posters on SNAP benefits. Yeah. And so there's sort of some policy wins Republicans want, but those don't aren't those are not going to transfer in terms of votes um yeah well those are the kind of structural changes structural changes that are not that might be unpopular with a lot of voters but never the yeah

it's well you know a lot of i think trump officials are saying this is our this is our moment yeah if we want to get rid of if we want to gut the federal bureaucracy we hold the cards so let's start doing it yeah but but democrats can turn that right around on them and in the short term like we saw like i was mentioning they can run an anti-truthers campaign where Trump is responsible for all the bad things in your life, including this government shutdown. You're not getting your snap benefits because of Trump. You got fired from your federal job because of Trump. You're not going to be able to fly and go see grandma on Thanksgiving because of Trump. And so it's a messaging positional sort of war here with the shutdown.

on. I think they're going to be coming back, I think, tomorrow to vote again. Yeah, I think so. And I know there's some people saying, well, maybe now that the elections passed, that the Democrats are finally going to come to the negotiating table because they'll believe they have had enough of a win. So they'll be more willing to cooperate now is the, I guess the hope from a lot of people, but also the fear, of course, of a lot of progress. So, again, it's about making, make Trump blink. That's what they want him to see. They want to, they want to make, they want Trump to have a loss. Yeah.

You know, and obviously, you know, this election was a loss for Republicans. But they want to see Trump specifically have a loss. They want to, because they're afraid, you know, they're afraid that he is the guy in the Oval Office abusing his executive authority, you know, behaving in a royal way. You know, the Note Kings and all that. Yeah. Accompanied by AI videos of Trump. Trump advancing crowns and, you know, politics is not a serious business. No.

Well, let's get into some not serious business that has become serious for many. Is this big few that's been going on with the Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes interview and then the subsequent fallout with Heritage Foundation and all sorts of different responses? This is what we were talking about. This is the other shoe just dropped. That thing we were saying at the beginning, if you're very online, is that if you don't know what we're talking about good for you well it there was just for some background there was Tucker Carlson what when even was the conversation last week oh gosh was it

like a week ago it was a well time moves very fast yeah I don't know about you but like you know weeks weeks can sometimes go by quickly it's been a very slow week I can't believe it's only Thursday feels like Sunday yeah but this uh podcast came out, Tucker Carlson, Nick Flintes, Nick Flentes, part of this far right, he's, you know, those white supremacist, anti-Semitic sort of guy, and he has a streaming platform, and, you know, has caused tons of controversy, and he ended up on this, on Tucker Carlson, and they had a conversation like how Flintes rose to whatever position he has and some of his views on things. And it was sort of like a Tucker Carlson podcast where he's, you know, laughing and going back and forth with the person, not pushing back a ton in that sort of style.

You know, the kind of, Carlson does do these kind of lead in questions where he's like, you know, they're Fuentes be like, oh, I got kicked out of this group. He's like, why would that happen? Right. Why would they do that? You know, and it's like, you know, it's this kind of softball questions. Yeah. Well, it's too softball for apparently. people's choice. Yeah, and it caused a ton of controversy, people condemning the entire

conversation, obviously Fuentes, but also condemning Tucker and, you know, his new sort of podcast platform he has sort of grown since he left Fox News. And so there was all this back and forth going on. That's great. It's been two years now since Tucker Carlson left Fox News. yeah yeah so but there was all this back and forth and then there was the video i don't even think it was that long it might have been like less than four minutes uh a clip from kevin roberts from the heritage foundation it's like two minutes long yeah it was it was short um you know sort of defending carlson and saying they're critics that are part of a quote venomous coalition uh attempted to

that cancel him um and he was sort of making an argument where you know you can criticize without being anti-semitic but then people criticize israel yeah this yeah because of course this is where this is what this all hinges on yes the united states is um foreign policy that is dedicated to um helping israel protect its national sovereignty that and and you know just generally the U.S. projecting power into the Middle East. That is kind of the what this all revolves around. Yeah. And Carlson has been a critic of that involvement between the United States and Israel. And generally of the American-led sort of, you know, the American-led world order, right? Yeah, just the expansionist sort of ideas. Yeah, he's been more, he interviewed Vladimir

Putin, for example, he has spoken to, no, no, I'm sorry, he did interview Putin, right? And he also interviewed the president of Iran, too. You know, he's, he's, am I right and remember? I'm pretty sure he he did interview the president of Iran. It's funny when you type in Tucker, of course, everybody knows, there's only one Tucker. Yeah, he interviewed president of Iran. Okay. Masoud Peseshkan. I know I mispronounced that, but, you know. Yeah, Carlson is very much a skeptic of all, like, mainstream American foreign policy. And he is very willing to talk to non-mainstream people. And Nick Fuentes is very non-mainstream.

Well, and so after the Kevin Roberts video came out, there was backlash against what he said. And remind me what exactly it was he was saying. Like, what was the thrust of his video? Oh, he was. Because people were saying, he was saying we shouldn't cancel, shouldn't cancel Tucker Carlson, saying there was a, quote, venomous coalition attempting to cancel him. Because people were saying that heritage needed to disavow Carlson. Like heritage specifically needed to cut Carlson off because Carlson associated with Fuentes.

Yeah. And then there was leaked videos and things from inside the Heritage Foundation, all sorts of different comments about how there is a growing there's a growing sentiment of people who are skeptical of America's involvement with Israel and that should be condemned as well and then there was again some all-staff meeting where Kevin Roberts admitted that it was a mistake and then there's been also it's been a whole controversy here again about a week just about a week about a week and so you know there's this growing there's these big divisions that are occurring within you know what you could call the conservative movement you know someone like

ben Shapiro released an entire episode dedicated to condemnment a lot of the stuff Fuentes said, a lot of stuff Tucker has said. Right. It was basically just a clip show of like the worst things. Because, you know, Fuente is like an independent pod, independent streamer. Yeah. He can say basically whatever he wants. And he says some pretty heinous things.

Very. And it's, yeah, it's very, and, you know, Shapiro obviously clipped all those and showed them. And then Carlson also, he criticized him for having a, you know, anti-American foreign policy for talking to all these, you know, that are historically enemies of the United States. Yeah. Well, this was something we were talking about where this seemed to occupy so much of our time over this past week. You know, we were talking about this in the office, chatting about it. I'm sure you're talking about it with your friends too. Hard to avoid.

Yeah, it's, yeah, it's been hard to avoid if you're in the media or you're following conservative politics, Republican politics. This has really sucked up a lot of the air. But, this, do you think this matters to the average person? Well, the average person doesn't know who Kevin Roberts is. The average person doesn't know what the Heritage Foundation is. You know, the average person probably knows who Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson are. And maybe now they know about Nick Fuentes. But certainly people know about individual figures easier than they know about organizations.

For example, as many people know about Kevin Roberts. probably two or three times as many know who's Iran-Mamdani is, simply because he got so much airtime. Yeah. So much, you know, it's, I think, I think the thing about politics nowadays is in the social media era, it's much more individualist than it used to be, you know, with social, this is what, this was Trump's, like, sort of great innovation, right? Obama did use social media, but it was still a bit, you know, so when, when corporations and

politicians used it before, it's a bit more polished, but more respectable, you know, whereas Trump was just like riffing said anything he was just anything that popped into his head he's like i don't like this person they're ugly you know he just didn't care and it was that kind of authenticity resonated with a lot of people who were like they're really i mean you know the the joke had existed for a while if a politician get a beer with but how about a politician who you'd retweet him because you thought it was funny you know um and yeah i mean that that individualism in politics I think extends to political figures and news of course you know um people know who Tucker Carlson there's a lot of people who consume these um political podcasters these

streamers um like on the right you have people like Ben Shapiro you have people like Tucker Carlson who of course ideologically pretty different but they're in the same kind of technological milieu. On the left, you have streamers who appeal to young people like Hassan Piker, who is a progressive streamer on the website Twitch. You have, you know, just people, but institutional, the young Turks, right, but institutional trust is down, but trust in individuals is up. And so even if the average person, the average person I was gay probably does not know who Kevin Roberts is. Yeah. But they might know who, they probably know, know, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro and now they might know Nick Flentes.

Yeah. Well, and I think what's interesting too with how Ben Shapiro organized that episode is through clips. And I think what's interesting just generally is that's much of how we digest our news just broadly as well is through clips. whether it be a Twitter post or a TikTok video or even a mainstream news, Fox News hit, right? You get two, three minutes to say your piece and then you move on. Yeah, how many people criticize, for example, I mean, how many people, you know, have talked about somebody like Zeran, Mom, Donnie, or Tucker Carlson, but I haven't heard their voice. Well, they've heard what other people have said about what other people have said about them, you know. The thing about social media, you know, you can. argue journalism itself is you can't argue it's all a rumor mill but social media is much is

only a rumor mill yeah i mean at the end of the day really is just i heard it from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend yeah well and i think it it might you know going back to um talking about these possible broad changes with the democratic party um in terms of like mom donnie style candidates but also now with the right is how you just mentioned people consuming um like i was bringing up the clips that's how people understand news it's essentially hearing um information about someone second or third or fourth hand right um yeah you got to that's the thing never believe anything you see on the internet just because somebody said it find a source for that's why we believe in linking primary sources at the text and on all of our articles find a source

find proof if a vote if it sounds too zany to be true it probably is and always double triple quadruple check stuff yeah because it's also very easy to take stuff out of context that's the other thing lying by omission is by far the more common form of lying yeah and i think this is something that we could be seeing changing politics moving into the future is how we just digest information when trying to understand a candidate's position on an issue or understanding what is the current sentiment on a certain topic is are people going to sit down and listen to a two or three hour podcast with a certain candidate or they're just going to consume two to three hours of clips of people talking about the issue well it's true but like I think

that this is a feature of young people, like Generation Z, Zoomers, right, is we're willing to watch an hour of five second videos, but we're also willing to sit down and watch a four-hour-long podcast. It's like the single hour, no, who needs that? It's either going to be, I'm either going to spend, I'm either going to spend two hours watching TikToks and YouTube shorts, or I'm going to spend four hours watching a very long interview. Yeah. And that's the thing, either the extremely short form content and extremely long form content, all of which is just made possible by internet technology getting better and better

and better over the last, you know, even within the last 10 to 20, you know, I was about to say 10 to 20, but like even within the last five to 10 years. Yeah. That's what, that's the Gen Z media market. The five second video and the five. hour video yeah well in those are but those that young cohort is going to be the future for both the democrat and republican parties and we've seen i think i keep going back to mom donnie because he is just really the uh the firebrand in that party right now um and it seems to be they're

shifting to be much more comfortable with promoting outright democratic socialist policy positions. Well, at least in New York City. It should be noted in New York City against, I would also argue Cuomo was a bad candidate. I think that this is an, I think this is an example where the progressive wing of the party got lucky with a perfect storm of events that were very convenient for them. But I'm not sure will be replicated outside of very blue cities. You know what I mean? The reason I bring that up, though, is, and I think you articulated it well there, is kind of a perfect storm in New York. Is this storm that's sort of occurring right now on the right with the Fuentes, Tucker, Heritage, Shakeup, Controversy? Is it just a passing storm and things are going to quiet down?

Or is this really going to rock the foundations of what is, quote, unquote, the conservative movement? I'm just not quite sure right now because it seems like how we're talking about with the younger cohort of voters being much more plugged in online and viewing things through clips is there's it's going to be who controls the streams of information is who's going to rise to prominence on the right after the storm passes. Yeah, I mean, again, it comes down to who controls the message. It reminds me of the great apocryphal story of, I believe it was Deng Xiaoping, the successor to Mao Zedong in China, was asked at one point. I believe it was, Deng Xiaoping was asked, what do you think of the French Revolution, which of course occurred, had occurred 200 years earlier? He said, it's too soon to tell. How important do you think it was or something to that effect? I'm probably butchering the story.

But the important thing is, the thing is, it's only been a week. And it is impossible to know in the moment what will become historically important and what will not, right? How many Americans know about the teapot dome scandal under the presidency of Warren G. Harding? How many people, if you ask them who is Warren G. Harding would know he was president, right? Again, huge scandal. Who knows what that was? you know you don't know what's going to be historically significant until after the fact because like the present becomes the past and then the past you know but the past arrives but the yes that's that's yes that's the thing the history is written in the future because

only when you look back will you decide well here's what's here is what was important and here is what was not you know so um if you go to any like left leaning media sites, you would believe this was the most important story of the year, because they all love their dark, edgy photos of Nick Fuentes. Yeah, the New York Times profile. The New York Times, yeah, they all have these, like, cool, slick photos of Nick Fuentes. And it's like, some of these guys seem to like Nick Fuentes more than Nick Fuentes, more than the Borgers themselves.

But because I think if you are a, I think if you are a liberal-leaning site, obviously this is a good issue to pounce on and say, you know, the Republicans have these neo-Nazis in their coalition. Yeah. And, yeah, so it's one of those things that a lot of conservatives want to talk about, like Ben Shapiro, who wants any kind of anti-Israel or anti-Semitic opinions. He wants them sort of, well, I don't know if he would say he wants every kind of anti-Israel position, but he at the very, very least, wants any kind of anti-Semitism.

driven out of the conservative movement at all. You have conservatives who don't want to, who feel like they're afraid of turning away these more radical voters who they, or the more radical young people who they think can be brought into the fold. You know, they're saying, well, this is the product of a media environment that rewards controversy and what they view as an unreasonably pro-Israel foreign policy position. and mainstream conservatism. They say, but we can bring those people out of the front.

But, of course, that's a divide within the GOP. Right. On the liberal side, you want to push Nick Fuentes, Nick Fuentes, Nick Fuentes. Yeah. Because it obviously, you know, you want to paint your political opponents as neo-Nazis. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very old strategy at this point.

Yeah. And on both sides. Yeah, it's going to be something that I was asking about, is this just a passing storm? I'm not sure it is. I think this is something that the GOPU is going to have to grapple with. And I really don't think they're quite prepared for it, especially once Trump leaves office. How Trump is sort of the figurehead of the entire party, what he says sort of goes. This is an issue we've talked about a lot, is what will the post-Trump America look like?

Because we've been living in Trump's America now for about 10 years. It's been a long time. Well, and so I think there is going to be space on the right for new or changing or old opinions ascending again or new ones coming in. I think there are this battleground of ideas, not just on the question of U.S. involvement with Israel. I think a lot of different positions, even in terms of, you know, we didn't even get into the tariffs conversation in that being challenged.

That's another podcast. It's a lot of different positions that are going to be challenged. And is it going to be one person who steps in for Trump to be that figurehead and say this is the way we're going to go moving forward? Or is it going to be a battle of different coalitions where they have to come to peace with things where Trump was able to bring them together, you know, whether it be Maha or whatever it is? The foreign policy skeptics, the libertarian bick. coin maximalist yeah well every kind of as we've talked about the any kind of anti-institutional belief right Trump's like come on board there's room for you on my on on on my side well that's why I think there's gonna have to be self is gone

what will happen there's gonna the Trump dance right there well some I think there's gonna have to be someone who ascends to be the new figurehead in order to keep this coalition going if it doesn't it's gonna sort of fall apart in the GOP is gonna you know rescind from their national dominance under under Trump. So it'll be interesting to see. I think this is just the first issue that's being thrown out there to see where people are going to be aligning on it. The next thing could be tariffs. The next thing could be China. The next thing could be U.S. data centers and things of that nature. AI in general can become a much bigger technological problem. There's already

the concerns over employment and the total lack of new entry-level jobs and software. So it's going to be- In U.S. debt and how to handle that. Yeah. So lots of questions that need to be answered on the right and how they're going to, or is there always going to be constant implying? But like all good questions, it'll just remove my, it's too soon to tell. Too soon to tell. Well, it's been real, Cameron.

It's been real. So I think, yeah, if you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a like or a comment on YouTube, like us wherever you get podcasts. It's always good to take a deep dive into these kind of topics. And if you have anything interesting you find, you can send us some stuff at editor at the texan.news. So thank you very much for listening and we'll catch y'all next time. Thank you.