Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews 5/18/21 - “Stop the Steal” Update

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

This week, the return of Smart Mark! We discuss how Stopping the Steal is going (spoiler: dumbly), as well as some fantastic Dumbassery, headlined by MTG and featuring The Great Chicken Sauce Shortage of 2021. Also, our guest, pollster John Ray, updates us on Dems progress with reaching rural America. Join us!Support the show

Howdy y'all? Welcome back today. It's Tuesday, May 18th, 2021. I'm Trey Crowder, and that he hath returned as Mark A.G. Mark, welcome back. How was Florida with your in-laws? Fantastic, Trey. I did. I love Florida both as a place and as a general concept. You know, I love, uh, it appears like there, there wasn't a place that was just populated with like, you know, uh, rednecks, rich Yankees, uh, Puerto Ricans, Cuban, expats and CIA agents who retired to run cocaine, then you'd have to invent it. Uh, love it. It's great.

I saw, I saw a guy drinking with his emotional emotional, emotional support horse. So that's probably the most forward to thing that's off. There it is. I was going to ask you if you didn't have any kind of like, uh, you know, just some of the Florida aesthetic, but there you go. I knew you'd have one. Yeah, I think that, like, you know, Florida gets a wrap of being the crazy place. That's where the crazy people are or whatever.

Like you just said, you know, just when you break it down the way you just did, it's like, well, yeah, you know, but you'll have that in a place that has all those different demographics there in the sun. I mean, the whole place, like, it shouldn't exist. Like, it's like, it's like, the whole place of the crime is, like, anything sounds. or the Everglades start is absolutely uninhabitable if you don't pump it dry, which you actually have to do to put houses there. But like there's all these stories if you read by anything with their environment of history of Florida about like, like what would happen was they would invite people down to like scout for winter homes, but they would do it during the winter when it was when the water was low.

They would sell all these idiot rich Yankees land. They would immediately be underwater as soon as summer have. Right. Like that was that was based the basis of the beginning. of the Florida economy, and it hasn't gotten much different since then. Yeah, I kind of have the opposite experience with, like, New England and, like, Maine and stuff. I've literally only ever been there, like, during the summertime, and I'm like, this is the most picturesque, beautiful part of the world.

This is insane, but you talk to people that live there, you know, who love it. They're like, yeah, you should probably see it in the winter first before you think that way. It's kind of a whole different thing. There is a, I got to find it, dig it up, but there's like a congressional testimony from this army captain, because what would happen was people would go down there and then need to be, like, they would get lost and need to be rescued and stuff. So these guys testifying in front of Congress begging them to wall off Florida halfway down so morons can't go down there.

We do, yeah, I mean, we may need a Florida wall. People don't talk about that enough. All right. So let's get into the show. I'm Trey. That's Mark with us as always, producer Matt, producing, Matton. This is weekly skews tonight, a long overdue update on the progress of the Maga World's attempt to stop the stale. Spoiler alert, it is comically absurd.

Also, we will be joined by our guest tonight, pollster John Ray, for a discussion on one of our pet topics here on the show. Democrats' efforts to reach rural America, a conversation that I'm sure will be as enlightening as it is encouraging. The article in the Washington Post are going to reference today with this guy's research, and it's going to make you one of, yeah, we'll talk about it later. All that and more on tonight's skews, but first, as always, we begin with the Daily Dumbass. Matt, graphic, please. Tonight's dumbass, you know her, you've missed her, don't lie. It's Marjorie Taylor Green. vote before Congress in opposition to a bipartisan committee being formed to investigate the

events surrounding the January 6th Capitol insurrection. What reason could you possibly have for opposing such a commission? Well, why hear it from me when we can hear it straight from the bitch horse's mouth? Matt, play the clips. People who breached the Capitol on January 6th are being abused, some even being held for 23 hours a day and solitary confined people who breached the You can play that.

Yeah, man. Play the context clip. Yeah. They let into that. Okay. We got a text from Matt that just says shit. So you have what you said. People, the People involved with the January 6th insurrection are being abused, being held in sales for up to 23 hours a day. And it's horrible how the criminal justice system is treating these people. But the context that preceded that was she said, why are we so worried about this when we aren't talking about all of the riots that happened in the wake of George Floyd?

So she brought up the Black Lives Matter protest and then talked about how horrifically unjust the criminal. justice system with no trace of irony whatsoever, which, you know, who would have thought, but here we are. She, uh, yeah, I mean, one, she's not wrong. Like, right. Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. But she doesn't care that it's fucked up. Like, first of all, her premise, people involved in George Ford protest have been arrested a bunch capriciously. So we were spending a lot of time in jail, awaiting trial. Like, someone were locked up like a year. or two before they're going to get a date like they so the system does grind everyone who protests it up into power it's not just the maga people and if right for it and the american government

cracks down much harder on left-wing protest moments i don't know how to like right i don't have evidence in front of me because it's just take my word for it if there's the entire history of the fbi and the CIA and how they function how they work if you get caught with weed at a left-wing protest you're going to go into prison for 20 years if you break in the capital and where five people are killed, you're probably going to get off of probation. And so I don't know. I don't know how to... Right. The way she kind of talks about, the way she frames it is like she implies that

why aren't we doing anything about Black Lives Matter protest and the people that riot at those when we're treating these, you know, the capital people so unjustly, which is what makes it all so absurd because, of course, that's... The whole reason for the former protest is the way the justice system has treated those people for so long. And this is the first time that the other breed has ran into these problems. And they're like, man, this is fucked up, y'all. But they still don't care about, you know, the people on the other side have gotten the same treatment. Here's a good way to judge the difference, all right?

like Antifa people argue about whether it doesn't or anything it's not that it doesn't exist it's not organized specifically because these people are paranoid about the federal government trying to crush them right they don't want to be on any lists they don't have organized meetings because the federal government will infiltrate them and try to put them in prison these proud boys and oathkeepers are just having random committee meetings on Zoom and Facebook because they know nobody's going to fuck with them right some of them have been infiltrated and stuff but they're not paranoid about it and like the circus around the people that got arrested they're focusing on the silly weird people the Q Shaman who we'll get to in a second for an unrelated thing and a bunch of other dumb shit because it makes for good B-roll, but like if this is a left-wing protest, whoever the left-wing equivalent of Roger Stone and Steve Bannon would be in Cuffs, right? I don't think that's really up for much debate. Yes, absolutely. I agree with you. Matt and Mark, listen to me.

Actually, I want to make sure we get to at least the next two dumbasses we have. So let's please move on to them. We're not, I want to, I think we'll save the quote from the Q Shaman's attorney because you have got to hear it if you haven't, but I want to move on to the next thing just to make sure we can cover this. So our first honorable mention tonight is anyone who thinks that mask won't protect you from the kinds of dipshits who would wear mask. What the hell does that mean? Well, it turns out it seems that many anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers out there have landed on the idea that the only way to protect themselves from us on the left and our lunatic

mask and conspiracy theories is to wear mask because how else are they going to be safe from us? So they started wearing masks to protect them from the people who wore masks to begin with. Yeah. So they think if you got the if you got the MRNA vaccine, it's infected you with a contagion where you're now shedding deadly particles and could cough through the cough on them and give them the vaccine i don't really understand but anyways so they they do understand the germ theory of disease and do believe that masks work now right but not before right yes but it's not just it's not just to protect them from the harmful vaccine coughs that those of us who have been vaccinated and might spread to them in public.

They also are, of course, doing it to own the libs. Might put up that next screen grab there. Look at this. Caitlin Bennett, who says, might just start wearing a mask again. Now that the CDC says you don't need to if you get the jab, wouldn't want to give off the impression that I'm a vaccinated Democrat. So this is one of those things where it's like they're getting there way too late. Like, I think so often we can, if we really organize an effort too, we could just trick

these people into doing the things we wanted them to do by like somehow making them think that we want the opposite or Obama says you should do the opposite, then they'll do it just for that reason, if for no other. Yeah, it's kind of like how they always threaten to nationalize Twitter, whenever a conservative gets banned from it. Yeah, right. It's like, oh, you want the workers to own the means of production? How interesting.

Exactly. yes as soon as a big corporation starts doing some liberal shit they're yes they're always like well maybe we need to seize this corporation's access give it to the people they skip right over liberalism goes straight to full-on communism full-on communism and it's going communist to own the libs man hell yeah baby all right so here's the next horrible mention in today's daily dumbass segments uh the governor of oklahoma forever thinking that Joe Biden could pride Polynesian sauce out of our cold dead hands. If you haven't seen this, we're in the middle of the great chicken sauce shortage of 2021 Oklahoma's Governor Kevin Stitt has blamed Joe Biden for Chick-fil-A's sauce shortage,

and he's not the only one. They are fired up about this. Yeah, so one, this is sent out in a fundraising email, so he thinks it's going to be effective getting people to send in cash. And I don't think I need to tell you that Oklahoma's Republican governor is in no danger of losing to a Democrat no matter what he does. So I don't know why he needs to give him. He can run for real election with 10 cents. It wouldn't matter.

So please don't give the city any money. But so he wasn't the first guy I saw this from. Ted Cruz tweeted this last week. And honestly, I was like, this is actually pretty funny. I thought it was a joke, right? Just like, they're like, as long as Chick-fil-A has a sauce. Joe Biden is destroying America. Ha-ha, that's actually the first funny thing Ted Cruz has ever did.

But then I realize now I realize he's not kidding. Right. That's the thing like that you, yeah, it seems like some of the things I do are so absurd. You will laugh at it first. You're like, there's no way this is sincere, right? But it is completely sincere. Yes. Because then Lauren Bober said an article that said, Chick-fil-A sauce shortage,

and he said, Joe Biden is destroying America. Then Lauren Bobert said the same thing. The Hill had an article, Chick-fil-A has a sauce shortage. That's all it says. And Bobert said, is there no? limit to how awful Biden's America can get. See, this is the other, the sort of undercurrent for this for me. And we've talked about before on the show.

And part of me is glad that we're back to this. But it's like, these are the things that amount to scandals for them, you know, when we are in power. Like when Trump was in power, the things we were upset about every other week was, you know, uh, treason, dead black people. no vaccines, you name it, like literal human lives being lost, but whenever Democrats are empowered, tansuits, mustard stains, and now chick-fil-a sauces, but because what else do they have to get spun up about? Do you know what I mean? Like, I mean, white Republican people,

what problems do they have other than I can't get the sauce I want with the chicken I won't that I primarily won't because I know how much it hurts the gays or whatever from eight years ago. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't, whenever we get off in this line, I want to, I, I, the, the lefty in me wants to point out all the fucked up shit that the Biden administration. I mean, overall, I have a few specific complaints. For sure. Yeah, I'm not trying to say that they're unassailable. That's not what I mean. There's things that for us to get mad about.

There's things for us to be mad about, but like, for them, when they, they're not. they've got to like generate a scandal or whatever it's you know we don't have the chicken sauce we won't it almost made me feel funny i could feel bad for ted crux because he had a pretty funny bit going and then a bunch of his but it's like he think he he he knows this is a joke or a stupid issue and he's trying to gin up the rubs who vote for him but he forgot that a bunch of other rubs also serve with him and they ruined his joke that's what's really funny to me uh but what i really i surfed across this uh working on the show today, and I do want to show this clip of this Australian News Service trying to cover

this. And this is a good example of how gross and fat and dumb and stupid they think we are. Listen to this lady trying to describe how we eat Chick-fil-A. The reason as to why Joe Biden is copying blame for the shortage of source is because there's been a massive fuel shortage across several states in the US as a result of the colonial pipeline cyber attack. Chick-fil-A released a statement apologizing. Due to industry-wide, chain shortages. Some items like sources may be unavailable. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience. They've told customers there will only be one source per entree, two sources per meal and three sources per 30 count chicken nuggets. Social media erupted with President Biden

copying it. Texas Senator Ted Cruz was quick to slam Biden with a simple message. Joe Biden is destroying America. Republican politician Josh Mandel wrote, in Joe Biden's America, Chick-fil-A has to limit sources because of supply chain issues. Gas stations are having mass shortages and prices are soaring. LaVern Spicer wrote, Chick-fil-A is out of source. Joe Biden is officially messing with our chicken. It's a problem.

All right. So the part of the clip that I really wanted to show that we, I think, skip past. But she goes, they're limiting the sauce, Americans go crazy for it. It's ranch. And mustard and barbecue sauce all mixed together. Now, that is not a thing. See, I've got a list of the sauces. And yeah, that's all right, Matt.

Don't worry about it. All right, let's move on. No, but still, even in that part we show where it's like explaining Americans outrage, it's like, here's what they're so upset about. Chick-fil-A has told them you can only get one sauce per, what was it, one sauce per entree, two sauce per combo meal, or three sauces per 30-piece chicken nugget. And it's just the implication. It's like, now, when we eat 30 goddamn chicken nuggets, we need at least seven to eight sauces. Like, the outright, like three sauces, that's not enough sausage. Which, hey, I'm not saying I don't agree with the premise there, but that it would lead to this outrage is obviously absurd.

But yes, in the other part of the clip, they explain the sauce we're upset about when really, of course, it's America. It's all the sauces we're upset about it. It's a shortage for all of the sauce. them god damn it's not one particular sauce but they seem to think that it's one specific sauce that is this like alchemical amalgamation of all of the fattest sauces on the earth mixed into one and that's what we dip our fried homophobic chicken into they describe like this you know when when you're a kid you go to the soda fountain and mix all the drinks together yeah describe the sauce yeah they describe the sauces like that yeah yeah but it's like but it is funny

like I wonder what people were hoard like we're like there was there was a gas store unless you needed to drive across country in the middle last week it was no big deal but I was like oh now I get what people were hoarding gas they needed to go to chick flavor repeatedly to get enough sauces so now I get it right all right you want to the uh yes yes let's get into it like I said big update on what's going on with stopping the steel and it's very dumb and mark take us into it all right so we talked about the Arizona recount uh audit audit side of you. They already did two recounts. This is the audit of the two recounts. So

it's become a full-on clown show it's even embarrassing half the state's Republicans. This is the story of me yesterday. Even this is a vice. Even Republicans think stealing Arizona for Trump is a disaster. The Republican-led board of supervisors put out this letter. These are four to five of this board of Republicans. And they said

you have rented out the once good name the Arizona State Senate to grifters and con artists who are fundraising hard-earned money from my fellow citizens hunting for bamboo and something they call kinetic artifacts while shining purple lights for effect. None of these things are done as serious all. The results, the Arizona Senate is held up to ridicule in every corner of the globe and our democracy is in peril. Now, you know, people don't usually get that mad in government documents. Right.

So the funny part was, so Cyber Ninjas, who we talked about a couple weeks ago, so Cyber Ninjas took a box that everybody knew had 200 ballots in it. it. And when they counted it, they got 218 ballots. There's a huge paper trail. So they added 18 votes for Trump and just thought no order to fucking notice. And immediately got busted. Now, they can't even count to 200. The important thing I need to know here is they're supposed to count 2.1 million ballots. So at this rate, they're going to count 2.1 million ballots and end up with about 2.25 million ballots. So that's going to go great. but they seem to be pivoting away from Arizona because it's getting really obviously embarrassing and Arizona Republican. Hang on before you get to that because I know you're going to circle back to this, I think, because one of the people behind one of these things is about to come up while you get into New Hampshire and everything. But also the methodology is absurd because they literally were at one point scanning for bamboo artifacts on the ballot. because obviously that would mean that it came from China

because everybody in China just got bamboo fingers. That's how it works. They're all just, you know, the pandas are working at a ballot factory while shining purple lights for effect while shining purple lights for effect and looking for something called kinematic artifacts. So they literally just make up things that sound like conspiracy-e, automatic artifacts you guys heard about this and but this is an actual you know high level audit

and a state involved with the presidential election they're just making up these x-files these sounding words i mean it's insane yeah uh so uh the republican so this guy who took over is america county this this audit's happening in maricopa county this guy took over is the election uh i forget his actual title but he runs the election's america county he won he won the election Trump lost in November. He just took office in January. He beat Democrat, and he's already horrifically embarrassed in getting that threats. And he, like, Trump put up on his blog, Trump has a shitty little WordPress blog now. That's how he communicates with the world. And he put on a thing saying that, like, a bunch of the whole election database got deleted

and he got at a Twitter threat. I'm sitting on a computer looking at the database right now. You're a moron. This is dangerous. Yada, yada, yada. He went on CNN. So anyway, Republicans in Arizona, There are enough of them with backbone where this isn't going the way they want, and it's becoming embarrassing. So they have pivoted to a state delegate recount in New Hampshire. So New Hampshire is now the biggest part of the Arizona auditory. Because there's no way this will turn out to be embarrassing. No.

So there's an article to up the screen grab, how Trumpists are trying to hijack a small town, New Hampshire ballot on it. So there's just, Maga World is ascending up on this little town called Wyndham, New Hampshire. All right. So it's just to settle it questions about a state representative race because there was like a, it was an eight-weight race for four state rep seats. I don't know how they do shit in New Hampshire. It's complicated, I guess. But four Republicans won those seats. So a Democrat only lost by 24 votes to ask for a recount. After the recount, she ended up losing by like four times that amount or something. So she asked us like, we should look into this. And it was a bipartisan group of state legislators. Like, yeah, that seems like a pretty big discrepancy. So we should like double check what happened. Maybe it's a mistake. Anyway. So it took, like, sincere concerns about maybe a miscount or a flaw in a ballot design or a machine problem or whatever. And it was sputting to a huge conspiracy that's going to make Trump win New Hampshire and therefore be president, which doesn't even make any sense. So, but it's become a huge, like, if you don't follow, this is the biggest thing happening in the world, according to Magna people, right? This is going to change.

There's going to be a huge earthquake that changes everything. Steve Bannon is in on it. Seb Gork is doing stuff. it's turned into a giant shit show. Now, we want to help you understand the lens of what all this is happening through one guy who named Jovon Pulitzer. It's not his real name. We'll get to that a second.

Jovon is whom the magotypes are pushing to be put in charge of this New Hampshire recount. And he's important because he's also been a big figure of them in the Georgia recount and the Arizona recounts. He is the guy who came up with this bamboo conspiracy theory back during the Georgia. Obeck, we don't wonder where it came from. It came from Georgia back in December. And here, if Matt, you have that clip of him testifying it from the Georgia. Did you know from a forensic level that you can tell absolutely the difference between paper here in the United States or paper that was made in China?

There's different formulations. All right. So he's the bamboo guy. He looks perfectly sane, right? Trey. Yes. Now, in one of these clips, he said he was talking about himself and he said, really, what I am is, I'm. I'm a geek or a nerd in the body of a biker's body.

A biker's body. You guys saw him there. How bad, I mean, undeniably badass that guy is. I mean, yeah, he's sort of girthy, I suppose, but not what I think of when I think of bikers. So. But that's the least of this guy's insanity. So go on.

No. Yeah. So actually, this guy, we didn't necessarily cross paths, but he was a big factor in my life about 20 years ago and I didn't even know it. So he invented this device called a Q-Cat. Do you know what the Q-Cat is, Trey? That's how I made his money. I didn't before we were getting ready for this.

So when I lived in Dallas, the Q-Cat was all the rage in Dallas because he lived in Dallas. Really? He partnered with RadioShack, and RadioShack was pushing the Q-Cat. And the way the Q-Cat worked, back in the business bag, it really saved the Internet. You'd hook it up like through a mouse port, and it was designed to look like a little plastic cat, but it'd scan QR codes. Now, you would, there would be a QR code like on items or, for example, a newspaper that's arrival of the one I worked for, put QCAT codes at the bottom of news stories. If you scan the code, it would take you to, it would, you would open up your internet browser and take you to the newspaper's website to look at articles with similar content or that article specifically. So you'd have to take the physical copy of the newspaper, scan it with the QCat, and go to the same article on the internet.

That was amazing technology in 2002. Yes, and the Q-Cat has been multiple times regarded as literally one of the worst gadgets ever made. It's stupid. Essentially, but the thing is, that sounds like a QR code, which is a thing now, a QR code is. Yeah. But A, he didn't invent that general concept. He just made it into a cat. And B, it's like, at that time, everybody had a device in their pocket that could scan something like that.

It was basically a replacement for typing in a U.R. and pushing enter at that time because it had to be hooked up to your computer like you can just type that in but instead you got a little cat device to do it for you yeah I mean the highest level of use for this like you scan a can of coke and it would take you to coupons for get more coke maybe like the highest level use for it anyway it didn't work out radio shacks out of business I don't even notice so but that's how he made his money but like he got so wildly paned like mark Cuban were to blog about it and then this guy's wife left him and he openly blamed Mark Cuban for his wife leaving him. So there you go.

He also, in addition to describing himself as a geek in the body of a biker, he also has described himself in his bio as a, quote, somewhat reclusive genius with the technical know-how of Bill Gates, the daring of Richard Branson, the marketing genius of Sam Walton, all mixed up with a little touch of Ted Turner and the media hype that surrounds Donald Trump. He said he has every day he's on over 12 billion devices worldwide. So this is, I mean, this is how this dude describes himself. So, I mean, pretty important guy.

Yeah, yeah. If you wonder when it makes him an expert on computer security slash Lexington security, Kukak got hacked real bad, one of the reasons we went out of business. So he also, his LinkedIn page says he's taking free online classes at Harvard and Stanford. So this is the guy you want to go to to save democracy. Again, this is their guy.

like just so y'all know like this is the dude they all are clamoring for this dude to be the guy in charge that's why we're talking about it yeah so just to run through this real real quick he uh he so he changed his name to try to obscure as like google results i forget what his real name is it doesn't matter but it's not jovon pulitzer and he also created his own wikipedia to try to obscure his google search history i don't be but i matter don't mean he made his own page i mean he's made his own fucking wikipedia all right he's an absolute loon lunatic and he's also an amateur treasure hunter that's how he's been killing his time as a rich person since but between overturning running coos

and inventing the QCat he's become an amateur treasure hunter and he it didn't go well for him either with look at some cute this clip of him on the history channel Matt and the bottom of this hole

is going to be some of the most important pieces of treasure to mankind. We're talking about the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant? The Gold Chest, which according to the Old Testament, contain the

actual Ten Commandments? To be clear, he's claiming to have found the Ark of the Covenant in Canada. That's what he's saying. In a hall in Canada. In Canada. And he also, in the same show, he claimed to have found an ancient Roman sword that

proved Romans sailed to Canada, and it took about 10 minutes for people to get on eBay and find copies of the same sword. He just found a plastic sword and thought Romans were in Canada. I'm going to give this to everybody else, because I like it so much. Our guest, John Ray, who's in the green room, we're about to bring out here, said in the show chat, that scene looks like an AA meeting for people who have lost their families as opposed to ancient treasures. and that's funny, I'm going to like this guy. Let's go ahead and get to him. This is our guest tonight.

John Ray, who is a director of polling at UGov Blue, where he does polling for progressive issues and candidates. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, he's worked for local state and national candidates across the country since 2006 and has recently been focused on polling rural America. So let's get him out here, John Ray. Howdy, folks.

Thanks for having me. Hey, thanks for being here. That was a great joke, man. I love both of it. You know, I just want to say for all that time that you just spent on a guy who claims to be a geek and a biker's body. I appreciate you take an equal time for geeks who are just geeks and fucking geek's bodies. Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, yeah. Yeah, it's nice to tell somebody who's math literary on the show for once.

It's going to be nice. So Matt put up a screen grab of an article, an opinion article in the Washington Post that just went out there that was using data from your organization and the polling you get that had to do with, Democrats' efforts in rural America, right? It was centered around the stimulus checks, and what it found was that many rural Americans are not crediting the Democratic Party for the stimulus checks. Only 50% of rural voters are doing that. 32% associate the stimulus checks with the GOP and give Republicans credit for it, and another 11% don't credit either party.

although almost 70% of them support the stimulus checks in general. So let's get into it. What's going on with that? Yeah, so yeah, for real. So this is some polling that we did specifically on rural voters who live in what we call the battleground states, which are going to be the most important states that come up in the 2022 cycle. And so, you know, what we found, you know, the good news is it's going to be kind of a really

make story here, but the good news is that among rural voters, Democrats' policies are quite popular. We got large majorities saying that they support things like the key components of the American Rescue Plan, like you just said, the stimulus checks, key elements of the infrastructure plan that's going to get proposed soon, like eliminating lead from our water pipes, super popular, over 70 to 80 percent support among rural voters, including majorities of Republicans and independents, which is always great. The problem is that Democrats, are facing is that a lot of these voters are actually attributing these policies to Republicans. Republicans are getting a lot of credit for the things the Democrats stand for.

So like you just said, about a third of rural voters, if you have Republicans credit for the stimulus checks, that includes an outright majority of Republicans. And as many independents who say that the Republicans are doing this, who also say that who think the Democrats are doing this. So basically, basically a split. But similarly, one of our really big winner policies that we've proposed for rural voters recently pertain to expanding access to broadband internet and rural areas. And almost a quarter of voters think that Republicans are the ones doing that and not Democrats. So on the one hand, we've got good policies.

On the other hand, a lot of rural voters think Republicans are responsible for them. So in your opinion, I mean, what is the cause for that? is it the Democrats brand? Is it propaganda? Like what, like, what is the reasoning for that for these people feeling that way? Yeah, so we really tried to, yeah, so we really tried to press voters on that, on that exact question in this, in the same survey. So what we did was we said, you know, we ran people through these policies, the Democrats or Republicans might support, and then finally we said, okay, look, now imagine, okay, here's some policies, here's some policies that Democrats are proposing, and, you know, do you support or oppose these policies?

And we have sort of similar things. And we found that support for them is pretty good, but in a follow-up question, we asked, okay, now let's think of these same policies that Democrats have proposed. Are they proposing them because they sincerely want to make your life better, or are they proposing them as a sort of cynical way to pander to rural voters? And for Democrats, voters overwhelmingly thought, even for the policies that they supported, the voters supported. When they thought Democrats were the one supporting them, they really thought, they sort of interpreted that cynically. Like, Democrats just want to win my vote.

They don't sincerely believe in the problems that I'm facing. Now, one thing that's important to keep in mind there is that a lot of rural voters, and we can sort of jump into this a little bit more as we go on, are almost as cynical of the Republican Party as they are of Democrats. But one of the big takeaways we saw. here is that even considering that, voters were pretty skeptical of, you know, first of all, what Democrats are doing at the first place. And then second of all, their motivations for what they do. Right. I mean, when you said they were cynical of both parties, I've told people

plenty of times, because it's the truth, from my perspective, as a kid growing up in the rural South, the way I remember it, I would have described most people as being apolitical, actually. It was this, like, this attitude of they're all full of shit, none of them give a damn about us, and fuck them, basically, like for both sides. I'm sure a lot of those people were registered Republicans or whatever, but that was the sort of general sentiment, and which is part of the reason it was so surprising to me when it became, like, kind of Trump country, and they really dove in on the, you know, identity politics of being associated with the MAGA world. that part of the GOP, do you think that, so they obviously don't believe that Democrats are actually sincerely concerned about them. Do you think that that has anything to do with, or how much that is affected by the sort of like stereotype of Democrats representing coastal elites who all think that you're dumbasses and fly over country and that type of thing? Like, they look down

upon you so there's no way they could believe that your interest are genuine and you know you're just trying to game us like that the kind of mentality yeah so i think there's there's two things that let's we can talk about sort of the democrats specifically and we'll sort of talk about rural voters views of sort of politics sort of broadly speaking so when it comes to you know democrats we ask voters to tell us like okay here are some things that are that are important to people when you think of this thing, do you associate that more with the Democrats or with the Republicans? And here's one of the things that really, really sort of surprise me. So on the one hand, voters do have this feeling that in some sense, Republicans really do cater to the wealthy. So in some areas,

it's a bit of a mixed bag. But we also ask people things like, okay, which of these parties who had to pick, the Democrats are the Republicans, which of these parties is to, controlled by corporate lobbyists, they actually said that the Democrats were the ones with that problem quite a bit higher than they said the same for Republicans. It wasn't 100 and zero, but it was, you know, something like 60, 40 or something about. Democrats being the ones associated with sort of, you know, corporate elite, which I think is a different thing from, you know, this party is for wealthy people. This is a specific thing of like, for like elite interests and stuff like that. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I'm sorry, go on, go on. Yeah, and so I think sort of on that same point, though, something else that I think we don't, maybe people don't appreciate is that if you really sort of dig in on what rural voters say their priorities are, the things that actually, you know, support or oppose a policy is one thing, but the things I actually prioritize is, I think, a different question. So if you go and you ask people, you know, okay, here's a set of policies,

do you think this is like a really big problem in your area that we need to sort of do more about? So we sort of try to get at, you know, what are the policy, what are the, what are the issues that are like really important for your type of place as a way to sort of get this question of sort of what are particular sort of rural voter concerns? And I think something that's important for people to understand is that a lot of the sort of national conversation about rural voters is actually missing a lot of their priorities. So, you know, I'm sure, you know, most of us are from rural areas or from sort of, quote-unquote, flyover country. We're probably sort of aware of this. But, you know, for example, if you ask rural voters, you know, problems that farmers have faced during COVID, farmers in agribusiness, only about a third of rural voters really say that's, like, a unique problem to the kind of place that they live in. And I think there's this stereotype in the rest of the country about, like, you think rural America, you think farming. But we actually found were like some of the biggest issues that rural area voters said.

Tell me if any of these sound familiar. I know we've got some folks in Southern California at the moment. The sort of biggest problems that they said that they thought were particular little rural areas were the rising cost of caring for seniors. The rising cost of housing. Tell me if there's any Southern California coastal elites on the podcast who think that might be an issue as well. The rising cost of child care. of educating your kids, which obviously are problems that the whole country faces.

So one thing that I think is really important for us to understand is that when we talk about rural voters, I think there might be a tendency to think that we're talking about, you know, farmers, or are we just, are we talking about this sort of, like, magical place that we see in like a Matthew McConaughey movie or something? Like we're talking about our fellow Americans. I think that's really important to keep in mind. Yeah, future, future governor of Texas, Matthew McConaughey. So when I read the data in that article, some of it was, it was, if you're reading it first, but then the more I thought about it, it's like, it's actually like, I mean, you had a 32 and 11, it's like, okay, well, 57% of people are still open to crediting Democrats with the stimulus check. And then it's like, and then like it's like, okay, well, 32% associated with the GPGOP, but I mean, Trump was president, Mitch McConnell controlled the Senate when they passed the first stimulus. So it's like, okay, maybe, because my first takeaway,

was like, holy shit, they're so caught up in a propaganda bubble that no noise can break through and people don't even understand what they're voting for. And then you get into really deep existential questions, like, what is the point of democracy if people can't understand what's happening enough to vote based on it? You know? Yeah, so what is the point of democracy, I guess, is my question there, John. Buckle out. Yeah.

I think that, no, I mean, like, it. It is. So me and Mark have said repeatedly, ever since Biden took office and everything, don't worry about working with the Republicans. All you got to do is worry about passing democratic policies. Democratic policies ostensibly are meant to help people. If that is actually true, if you're not full of shit and they really do work that way, then pass the policies you help people and you'll be fine. people will understand that and you'll be okay you want to face this big backlash or whatever but if when you do that they give the credit for that to the other side then you know what are you supposed to do what else is there left to do other than just keep trying to help people and hope it works out like what else is the what is the others do the right thing for its own

sake, Troy? What a revolutionary idea. Yeah, but you have to stay in power, though, you know? Yeah, no, I will interject, like, the comical, like, example of this is, like, Trump put his name all over the first team of this, and Biden made a big show of refusing to take any credit for the second one. Would not put it like, like,

people try to be like, hey, sign the, put your name on the checks. Like, nope, not going to do it, right? So it's like, Democrats think, like, taking credit for the shit you gave people is, like, uncouth. Yeah. Yeah, and I think,

I think, you know, I think it sounds like we all probably agree that that might be a mistake or, you know, have certain tactical limitations or however you want to put it diplomatically. But I think the first thing, the first thing that the trace is really important to think about because in this data, we kind of try to dive in and figure out, okay, as it, you know, people, people attribute some stuff to Republicans, but they're not terrible. You know, it's like, like you were saying, it's sort of like 40-20 or 40-10 or something. It's not, you know, 100-0. So people kind of have an inkling of sort of what's going on here.

Who are the people who are either their – so there's this one question, like, who are the people who are just completely wrong? And as it turns out, the people who are completely wrong, a huge share of them are these massively motivated Republican partisans who are likely not going to be in what you might call a Target universe. They're the folks who are watching Fox News. They're the folks who haven't switched to vote in the last three or four elections. They're the folks who, in some sense, are sort of motivated sort of in their minds to think

about, like, if it's a thing that I like, Republicans must be responsible for it. If we kind of dig around in the data a little bit more and find these people who, you know, do they, maybe they mistrust both parties, these people who go, like you said, because I agree with you. I think there's a bigger problem of voters who just feel like the whole system sucks, and both parties are pieces of shit. And I think in the rural areas, that's sort of the thing that we should be talking about. Because if you look at those people who are, depending on how you measure it, somewhere between 30, 40, 50 percent of voters in these areas who have just low trust in both parties in general, something that's interesting about them is that, you know, because they are mistrustful of both of the parties, they're not getting their news about them from the places where, like, political lunatics like you or I get are news about stuff. they're not watching MSNBC, they're not watching Fox News, they're actually this whole cohort of people who are younger than the average voter doesn't say much in rural America.

It's like, you know, the average voter in the sample is somewhere in the 50s, so this isn't saying all that much, but they're younger and they also are significantly more likely to be getting their news from places where none of the parties are traditionally targeting their average campaigns in the first place. So the folks who kind of feel like both parties suck, who are sort of maybe persuadable in some measures are actually much more likely to say they get their news from podcasts, get their news from Reddit, Twitter, places like their Discord communities or online gaming communities. And I think what's really important about that is because Democrats have this messaging problem and because we're sort of on the back footing in a lot of rural areas, it's really important for us to think about the messengers that we deploy when we go to take credit for these things. we should be taking credit for. And I know we all just spent 14 months resisting the urge to start a podcast. You know, I know we, every single one, we did it.

We did it. And you gave in. We probably should have resisted it, but hey, here we are. And you did the right, you did the right thing because I think there's this, I know this is the first time anyone's ever said it was a great thing that you began to be in a podcast. I know it's not a popular take. But because, because these younger voters,

who are paying less attention to either side's partisan outlets are actually making more and more use of this type of medium. This is an important place to become sort of a trusted messenger for the policies that you agree with, that values that you hold in the party that you support. Sorry. No, no, no, go ahead, Mark. I felt like I've monopolized it so far.

I was, like, the thing, I mean, the thing that depresses me is like, I mean, a lot of so depresses me, it shouldn't be more specific. But the, when you, negativity towards the idea of government is always going to, like, benefit Republicans, right? So, like, the cynicism, like, I get what we're saying here where they're not attached to parties, but thinking that everyone in government's a piece of shit who can't be trusted is, like, I don't know, it's bad to me. Well, it's kind of de facto Republican, you mean? Like a 30 rock joke where it was like, not everybody's Republicans. Some of them are Christians, and he's like, yeah, we count those.

Those are Republicans. Like, some people write in Jesus. That's what it was like. Some people write in Jesus Christ. Those are Republican. We count those. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's kind of the same thing.

I mean, it is, it is worrying. So I guess I just want to know, John A, you know, how could people keep up with your stuff and what you're doing and the organizations you're involved with? And, you know, if they have an interest in it, how can they find it and stay in touch with it? And then also if you have any sort of like big kind of takeaways that we haven't touched on what people need to know about real America and the democratic ideal there or whatever. And if you don't, that's fine. If you're like, I don't know, that's fine. But whatever you got, just hit us with it. Yeah.

So I think what we're going to see in the next cycle is it's going to be important for us to think about candidates who are capable of this. building kind of a personal brand that sets them apart from either party establishment. And we know Republicans are already quite astute at doing this. You know, you're from Tennessee. You've seen a million 30-year incumbents who are campaigning as the outsider, right? You know, every Republican incumbent campaigns on reform. And I think it's going to be important for us to think about ways for Democrats to do that. You know, some of the really trusted messengers in rural areas that we found include, you know,

not just, you know, doctors and teachers, religious figures. veterans. You want to think about having a good set of candidates that sort of help us cover these sort of like trusted messengers who aren't necessarily wedded to one sort of party ID or the other, but are also able to sort of communicate the fact that these things that we all sort of stand for, these things that we agree on that are sort of wildly popular, you know, when you have the opportunity, you know, I know we're, you know, it's, you know, two weeks is Memorial Day. So we're all a couple of weeks away from being trapped in a traffic jam with our family members. You know, there's never going to be a bad time, sort of make sure it's really clear who supports what.

And I think to Democrats' credit, I think they have been quite good at least in sort of the media that I follow with, and quite good in calling out Republicans who, you know, are trying to host those meetings that are like, oh, come learn about the small business benefit that they, of course, fucking voted against. I think Democrats have been pretty good about that stuff. I'm curious to see if it ends up having any sort of consequences. But in the meantime, you know, I think last we had a lot of really strong candidates who were sort of able to overperform by having that sort of personal brand where I think of them as, you know, the candidate first and then, you know, maybe a Democrat, like, I think that actually does, does do something.

So that's sort of something that I hope to see more of kind of going forward in our world, America. And then also that's the thing I was sort of saying about the importance of having trusted messengers. And again, Looney's like y'all who are running podcasts and actually dealing with doing the whole, the whole rigum role. I know this has a little bit like ask his thing, but I genuinely think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the easiest place to me. Um, I tweet every insipid thought that passes between my ears. Uh, I met, uh, John L. Ray, uh, and you gov, you know, it's, it's, it's you gov, I don't know, pick up the economist, kind of, you know, wherever. Yeah. Uh, well, thank you very much, uh, John. This has been a wonderful conversation, and yeah,

I opened it with a great joke. I always a great way to come in. I really appreciate you joining us and yeah keep uh keep doing it man appreciate it you too john ray everybody yeah um all right so listen mark i know we had a topic we were going to bring up at this point but actually it's kind of evergreen i think uh so let's let's say because i definitely want to talk about it in the future uh but everybody give us your questions and comments on what you think about anything we covered tonight but you know Democrats of rural America or the lunacy of the ballot recounts or any of that. But yeah, I just, it's one of those, because like people, that's one of the most common

questions I ever get asked when I'm doing any kind of interview. It's like, well, what can we do to, like, reach these people? And I've changed that answer multiple times. And lately my go-to has been what we've talked about on the show. Like, you know, just now that we have some power, just get some shit done and people will respond, which I do still like want to believe in, but it's like, it's just

discouraging to think that people see that and attribute it to the Republicans or whatever, and it's like just what, what can you do? You know, what can you do? Yeah, I mean, I don't, like, if the old rule, like, I was joking about what's the point of democracy, but like,

but like, if the old, we don't know if the old rules apply or not. Plus, people are pretty savvy and cynical now, so they will give wrong answers to pollsters to own the people they don't like, right? I do think when it comes down to vote to voting their actual pocketbook, when they walk into the booth and they have to choose between their kid and getting a good school or not, I think it's going to come out to people who are trying to give their kids good schools. I just lay my heart to have to believe that or otherwise what's the point of the whole American experiment? Because what else do we have if we can't

believe in that? Yeah, I agree with you completely. Monica Hansmeyer says, Dems need to refocus on the working class. Yes, that's another thing I've been saying that for forever. It's like, it seems like the most, and we've talked about it on here plenty of times before, too. It seems like the most obvious thing that they could possibly do. And I mean, they like, I don't know. They are making some efforts, but it could be better. This sounds so counterintuitive, but one of the things that's most popular across the board in American politics right now is raising taxes on rich people. Not even to pay for sex, just take money from rich people. They don't need it all, God damn it. I mean, and Democrats had Biden originally proposed raising taxes on people that make up a $400,000 a year and Democrats from the process of talking themselves out of it. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to cut back on social spending because we don't have to get into like monetary theory and all that shit right now. But it's not necessarily, taxes don't know, I mean, they've never been connected to spending.

We spend money more than we take into taxes. It's whatever. Right. But people make more than $4.4.4. thousand dollars are not a large group of people i'm not in that group definitely um and i i don't understand how many voters you think you're going to you think you're going to lose by doing that because people don't vote straight up i mean what we just talked about rural voters like voting against the people they're trying to give in broadband it's like people don't vote their pocketbook straight up

they just don't they people vote based upon chicken sauce shortages and shit like it's it's stupid but it's true so like if i could raise their taxes and see if you see if you can get an angle at it i don't i don't understand there's a question for you mark John Burton says, how can we keep the Arizona recount from turning into a snowball going downhill? I guess they've already moved to New Hampshire for the next one. And I guess it's sort of like, is like just this continuing to be a thing for a greater and then getting more and more into it. The danger in here is just like the whole part. So Georgia's lieutenant governor just announced he's not running for reelection.

whenever he's up, like a year or two or whatever. Like Donald Trump has harassed that guy out of politics for doing his job. He's a Republican, right? So the party has basically ejected everyone who's not willing to do a coup. And that's the real danger here. I don't think Democrats realize that, like, Biden can win by 14 points in 2024, but if Republicans control the House, you might not get certified. And then what?

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know what happens after that. So I don't think they're really walking to the, the ramifications of what it means if republic it doesn't matter if he wins georgia in arizona if they have republican legislatures it just doesn't so unless they all pass some similar voting rights reform and overcome the filibuster none of this none of this might matter is the thing about it so like they're not nothing's going to happen in arizona except what they're doing is testing see who will go along with this fucking bullshit and promoting the people who

will eliminate the people who won't because they're they're not doing anything in a Arizona, they're getting momentum going for the next, the next coup. Kim Shea 22 on YouTube says, I think it's too late for that snowball. And I mean, yeah, I think it's like the factors, the support that is behind all of that being such a thing is going to continue to be there, I think. Like, they're not going to just give up on it. You know what I mean? Like to move on to New Hampshire, it'll be on to the next thing before long. Steve Horvath says, do you think the worker shortage looks bad for dams?

I know it's complicated. Well, that's what we talked about why you were gone, Mark. And as far as how it looks, I mean, I get, because we just talked about how the difference in, like, what's actually happening and how people perceive it is, of course, a gulf for a lot of people in this country. But having said that, it's not, there is no worker shortage, you know, like, it's, it's, it's all bullshit. Like, it's, I mean, it's capitalism at work, really. Like if you want people to fucking work for you, make it worth it for them unless you just are down with going back to slavery or whatever, which I'm sure many of them would be if they had the opportunity. But you know what I mean? It's like people just decided, fuck you, it ain't worth it ain't worth that, you know?

I mean, I don't know what. I mean, like the data doesn't show a worker shortage. I know something individual restaurants complain about not being on a fill staff. But also like, holy shit, we just went through a pandemic where 600,000 people, 600,000 to a million people died. one of the hardest hit sectors outside of nursing homes was restaurant workers. Maybe you can't find your workers are coming back to work because they're fucking sick or dead, man. I don't know what to tell you. Like it's a, this country is like, okay, so talk about how the labor shortage isn't showing up in the data.

Like if you would have a worker shortage on like the unemployment surplus, how come the states that have the biggest unemployment surplus is or having the least amount of worker shortages and the quickest turn around their economies? Like California's not experiencing this. This is like people in Oklahoma where they're like, like, I don't know, it's like, it seems like a meme started by the Chamber of Commerce. And like they're like, yeah, the Chambers, the Chamber is like two weeks away from demanding, reinstating the draft to like try to fucking force people to run, run fajita poppers or whatever. Yeah, yeah, we talked about last week, like, economists will tell you that in a scenario where you have a genuine labor shortage, like literally there is a labor shortage. the way the market responds to that is by increasing wages

to incentivize people to work for them and that is not happening they just want a bitch about nobody being willing to do their bullshit for no money Lauren Russell Pink says glad you're back Mark and as I'm always good to see Trey thank you Lord I appreciate it

I'm also thrilled he's back yeah are you glad to be back Mark yeah I was just Yeah, I know, I really am, yeah. I mean, I was just thinking about, like, I got to, I saw our buddy Corey was in town this weekend doing the MTV Movie Awards. Shout out, Buttercream Green.

Look it up. Corey Forrester, Senator Georgia correspondent was on the fucking MTV Movie Award Sunday. Yeah, he did a, he did a, he did the Buttercream Dream on stage to a bunch of teenagers because Leslie Jones wanted him to. It was really funny. I don't quite whatever it's a crazy world

but I don't know I was just thinking about our college football team name argument the other night and how people vote based on based upon dumb bullshit and you're right like I mean like you could give people the best health care in the world

but if you try to change if a bunch of woke kids try to make the Tennessee volunteers change their name because the origins of slavery or whatever in the Civil War people are a Democrat would never win Tennessee even if the policies were like 100 to zero.

Yeah, man. Culture be that way. Guest House Rider said, Corey, yes, we say the same thing. Love Corey. He's the best. Love y'all too. Love Mark.

Thanks for coming back. And that's it for this week's edition of Weekly Skews. We'll see you in seven days, baby. See you.