Trump’s Base BETRAYED by another FOREVER WAR, as America SPIRALS into CONSPIRACY (ft Astead Herndon)

0:00 People have always projected the version of Trump

0:02 that they wanted to see and so much of his appeal was rich guy for little

0:07 guy and like you know outsider of the club.

0:10 He was pushing back against an elite class more than he was a member of it.

0:13 And I think there are ways that he

0:15 was outside of the establishment particularly in Republican politics.

0:18 But he's now the Republican establishment.

0:20 And I think that the behavior of this administration has driven that home.

0:25 that group of people who really saw Donald Trump as a means

0:29 of busting up the cabal like has lost faith in him.

0:37 Welcome to Raging Moderates.

0:38 I'm Jessica Tarlov and today I'm very lucky to be

0:41 joined by Estad Henden who hosts America actually at Vox.

0:45 He's also the editorial director.

0:47 Um he's also a political analyst at CNN

0:49 and you may recognize him or at least that's where

0:52 I became familiar with the Stead when he was

0:54 a national political reporter at the New York Times.

0:56 It's so cool to have you here.

0:58 Thanks for coming on.

0:59 Thank you for having me.

0:59 I'm pumped.

1:00 Yeah, I'm pumped too.

1:01 If you aren't already, please make sure to subscribe to our YouTube

1:04 page to stay uptodate on all of the politics.

1:07 There's a lot to get to.

1:08 Um we have some very heated testimony taking place on Capitol Hill already.

1:13 Defense Secretary Pete Hegsath is there.

1:15 He would like to be talking about the budget.

1:17 Everybody else is talking about the war in Iran.

1:20 Um, and he's also talking about Joe Biden a lot, which is one of my pet peeves.

1:24 The guy is gone and you won.

1:26 So, just enjoy it.

1:27 But the 60-day deadline to draw down the conflict in Iran is fast approaching.

1:31 Lots of reporting surrounding how,

1:34 especially on the Senate side for the Republicans,

1:36 that they're getting a little uh twitchy about it.

1:39 But let's take a look at Hegsath answering a question.

1:42 So, they haven't broken yet.

1:44 Okay, we haven't gotten there yet for all of the

1:47 Well, their nuclear facilities have been obliterated underground.

1:50 They're buried and we're watching them 247.

1:53 So, we know where any nuclear material second here.

1:58 We had to start this war you just said 60 days ago

2:03 because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat.

2:06 Now, you're saying that it was completely obliterated.

2:09 They had not given up their nuclear ambitions

2:12 and they had a conventional shield of thousands of

2:14 operation midnight moment nothing of substance we're

2:18 not in the same place we were before so much so

2:22 their facilities are bombed and obliterated their their ambitions continue

2:27 timelines are pesky things in all of this um what do you make

2:32 of Hexath on the hill and kind of where we are with the war

2:35 yeah I mean I think that Hexath is

2:38 scrambling to backfill an administration that is recognizing

2:43 a a quagmire they're in over there that's one

2:45 of their own making and one that was completely predictable.

2:47 I mean, we talked to John Bolton for today explained Saturday who,

2:51 you know, has been advocating for something just like this for a long time,

2:55 and he was saying, uh, not like this, though, that he thought he's like,

2:59 "Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Like, I didn't want it like this.

3:02 Because of just how they've walked

3:03 into this, not preparing allies, not recognizing,

3:06 uh, uh, kind of clear uh, points of retaliation from the regime,

3:09 things like closing the straight of Harus,

3:11 which were brought up to Donald Trump and the reason

3:13 he didn't do this in the first term.

3:15 And I think like we're we're we're seeing an administration that was a trigger

3:19 happy frankly I think after Venezuela and just wanted to to press on.

3:24 I mean I I you know from my work

3:26 through the runup into now it's been so consistent

3:30 even how much the MAGA coalition would tell themselves

3:34 that Donald Trump would not do exactly what he's done.

3:37 So, I think for a lot of people, you know,

3:38 Trump hypocrisy is just a thing that's built into the cost.

3:41 And I completely understand that as a man who like flip-flops every

3:45 second and you like doesn't believe many words he's saying at the time.

3:48 But this was the specific issue that a lot of people

3:51 from the Steve Bannons to the Tucker Carlson's to the kind

3:54 of broader group of Republicans who had changed the party

3:57 had told themselves that this is what made Donald Trump different.

4:00 He would not do the forever wars.

4:02 he would not uh uh kind of walk

4:03 us into a foreign conflict without an exit strategy.

4:06 And that's exactly what he's done.

4:08 And so I think Hex says to what is trying to do on the Hill is, you know,

4:11 what the administration's been trying to do over the last several weeks,

4:14 which is backfill an explanation that most Americans aren't buying.

4:18 And I think that's why the those, you know,

4:20 the timelines flail, the kind of answers don't make sense.

4:23 And I think for most for most like individual voters,

4:26 and I think for an electorate that we're

4:28 tracking for the future, people get that.

4:30 I don't want to say this is such

4:31 an important day because tomorrow it'll tick higher,

4:34 but today gas is 423 a gallon and that's pretty high for the average American.

4:40 You know, diesel up over six in a lot of cases.

4:43 We have a huge fertilizer problem.

4:45 Um, and Donald Trump is making this argument now that he wants to basically

4:50 just play an economic pressure game and he'll just keep the blockade going.

4:53 So, he's not interested in resuming even the air attacks.

4:58 He certainly doesn't want to put puts

5:00 on the ground because there's no appetite for that.

5:02 But it does feel like they're making

5:04 an argument that there aren't economic consequences for us.

5:07 This is about squeezing Europe and China and Russia.

5:11 And from your reporting, what are you, I guess, hearing about that and the kind

5:17 of cognitive dissonance between what what they're

5:20 saying and people who support him are feeling because this split and you already

5:25 mentioned some of the key figures in it like a Steve Bannon

5:27 or a Tucker Carlson is really hype certainly on my side of the aisle, right?

5:32 Like I love to see infighting, but I never know how real it actually is.

5:36 I think it's fair to be skeptical of it.

5:38 And this is what I tell people.

5:39 I'm like baseline Republicans are largely with Donald Trump,

5:42 but we've seen some of that change over the last 7 to 8 months.

5:45 I think it started before the Iran war.

5:47 This is principally about tariffs in my opinion.

5:49 Like this is principally about a decision that this administration

5:52 made that spiked inflation that was the exact

5:54 opposite thing of the egg prices reason a lot

5:57 of people put him into office in the first place.

5:59 And so we started seeing that drop off really last summer

6:02 from even some people particularly the independent

6:04 swing voter who voted for him.

6:06 And that's why I say make a distinction between

6:08 MAGA coalition and Republican because Donald Trump's success um

6:13 as an electoral candidate is that he pulls together

6:16 a type of person who will vote for him,

6:18 you know, outside of the Republican party.

6:20 Now, that's where I think the Tuckers and and others matter is

6:24 because they're more representative of that group

6:27 than the traditional Republican base.

6:30 And so I think that like tariffs were the initial driver and even

6:34 when we see uh some of the backlash from Iran when we talk

6:37 to folks that's mostly driven by gas prices as you mentioned by um

6:41 you know I think an underestimation of the diversity of goods that would

6:45 have been affected by the straight of harm you mentioned fertilizer and others

6:48 and so I just think that the economic concerns are the tangible ones

6:53 but there is always um I think there is a a sense of loss

6:57 of credibility and dysfunction that's really

6:59 plagued this White House since his return.

7:02 And I think that is not just, you know, tariffs in Iran, that's also Epstein,

7:06 which I think was a backtrack that really split some of that base.

7:09 And I would say Minnesota and ICE, uh, I think, um, that was widely, you know,

7:15 even if he correctly named a problem

7:16 that some people felt about border security or something,

7:19 there's been a mass rejection of his big deportation push.

7:22 And so I think across the board you've seen a White House that has lost its own

7:27 ability to narrative set and they don't really

7:29 have another play in my opinion like they're busy.

7:31 They've busy they've been busy and they've gotten used to being able to tell

7:34 their voters what to believe to kind

7:36 of play assignment editor to media and I think

7:39 kind of dictate uh uh you know block out the sun I think on a lot

7:42 of issues and I I I frankly don't think he has that power anymore.

7:45 I would also add in he's just kind of diminished like you know

7:49 this happened in Biden era too but I think this is not you

7:52 know I think the sleepire yeah the sleeping he doesn't sound the same

7:56 he doesn't look the same and I don't think that stuff is meaningless I

8:00 think that also has like I think caused a group of people to really

8:04 see this as like a a more expected I think you know traditional

8:08 Republican administration rather than what they were trying to do um at least

8:13 on the campaign trail he hasn't followed through on the premise he set out.

8:16 Yeah, I I think that that's really important,

8:18 especially because the MAGA coalition now has so many casual Republicans,

8:22 seemingly the Latinos and young voters in particular who seem to be

8:26 shifting back to the Democratic side because they were just visiting, right?

8:29 They were like, we'll try this out and if it's shitty,

8:32 you know, we'll we'll move on.

8:34 Um, so I do think the aging part

8:36 of this matters a lot and especially in the context.

8:39 I think a lot about all those autopsies, not the one Ken Martin won't give us,

8:43 but the ones that we actually saw about

8:46 how folks felt about the parties and it was

8:48 weak versus strong and part of being strong is

8:51 being awake and Donald Trump is struggling with that.

8:54 But I wanted it was easier to pitch himself as change agent when he

8:57 was running against a Democratic party pitching himself as status quo.

9:01 his I think the solutions he was pitching

9:03 on the campaign trail were never universally agreed.

9:06 I think he won a he did a better

9:07 job at Democrats at diagnosing problems people felt.

9:10 And so that's what I think is the tension we're seeing now

9:13 is the gap between the solutions he was always pitching and the fact

9:17 that I remember on the trail when you would ask people about tariffs

9:19 or you would ask people about the kind of project 2025 of it all,

9:23 they wouldn't necessarily love that.

9:25 They just they just thought what was happening right now wasn't good.

9:28 Now we're seeing them seeing his proposed solutions

9:31 and I think there's a backlash against that.

9:33 Yeah, I I 100% think that's right.

9:35 Obviously, it's reflected in all the polling,

9:36 but I want to ask you about this lack of power

9:39 to agenda set because someone as someone who works in conservative media,

9:44 I've been frustrated for several years by the fact

9:47 that a Donald Trump seemed to have his finger more on the pulse of the average

9:51 American than a lot of people in Democratic leadership.

9:54 But also that he could essentially order everybody, no matter your politics,

9:58 to talk about what he wanted to talk about.

10:01 And I don't see that anymore.

10:03 I think Epstein is a key plank in that where people are just like, "Yeah,

10:06 he's just trying to hide the Epstein list or whatever." But, you know,

10:09 what do you think about that diminishing power?

10:12 I I think you're right to really point that back

10:14 to Epste and some of the other issues we talked about.

10:17 I tell folks like, you know, particularly I think if you don't follow

10:20 conservative news or talk to Republicans or whatever,

10:23 I think that a lot of like more um you know, news watchers can be like,

10:26 "How did you ever think that Donald Trump was uh you know,

10:29 someone who wasn't part of the Epstein class?" Right?

10:32 We knew they had a long relationship.

10:33 We knew all of those things coming in to to to 2024 and that.

10:37 But, you know, people have always projected

10:39 the version of Trump that they wanted to see.

10:42 And so much of his appeal was rich guy for little guy and like, you know,

10:47 outsider of the club who people felt uh was more of um uh you know,

10:52 like you know, like he wasn't he he he was pushing back

10:55 against in the league class more than he was a member of it.

10:57 And I think Epstein really showed how much that's not true

11:00 or they were pushing back against him because

11:03 he always wanted in and they were like actually

11:06 that's a better way to put it because he has

11:08 been desperate to be in that kind of club and I

11:10 think we kind of saw that rejection and so he

11:12 was able to pitch that electorally as a reason he

11:15 would be fighter for you and I think there are

11:18 ways that he was outside of the establishment particularly in Republican

11:21 politics but he's now the Republican establishment and I think

11:24 that the behavior of this administration has driven that home.

11:28 And so I think Epste's a key link there.

11:31 Um because it, you know, I was I remember I was so you know that kind

11:36 of um Qani conspiratorial wing of the right isn't small,

11:42 you know, like and I remember, you know,

11:44 that kind of Ron Paul wing that, you know,

11:46 like that group of people who really saw Donald Trump as a means

11:50 of busting up the cabal like has lost faith in him.

11:54 And so I don't think that means that, you know,

11:57 Republicans ain't going to win an election again.

11:59 But I do think that means that, you know,

12:02 that kind of approval rating collapse or the midterms are

12:05 something that as we get closer to referendums on Trump,

12:08 that's better and better for Democrats.

12:10 I want to talk Supreme Court with you,

12:12 but you already brought up the conspiracy theories,

12:14 which I also wanted to talk about with you.

12:15 So let's let's stay in the land of redpilled and bluepilled

12:19 um because it's a great time to be a nut case, right?

12:23 And I I I'm sure you saw the Manhattan Institute survey

12:27 that had 46% of Democrats think that Butler was staged to benefit Trump.

12:32 I actually messaged uh the Manhattan Institute to ask

12:36 if they had data on the right for that question,

12:39 which they didn't ask them about,

12:41 which frustrated me and I I voiced that concern.

12:43 But they also had asked the right about a bunch of other conspiracy theories.

12:47 And it's mostly these new entrance

12:49 into the into the coalition who think the crazy stuff.

12:53 Everything from, you know, 9/11 was an inside job, moon landing faked, etc.

12:58 Um, what do you make of the state of the American consciousness?

13:03 I guess it's wild.

13:05 I mean, like I think that we're in a we're in a breakdown of shared reality.

13:10 And I keep telling people like I think that's been building for a long time.

13:13 like whether that has been you know you know all the way dating back

13:17 to like the collapse of shared media

13:19 or monoculture whether it's our kind of self- selecting

13:22 social media ecosystem or kind of deference

13:24 to the algorithm whether I'm like whatever kind

13:27 of version you want to do I don't think we all you know we don't agree

13:30 on the the the the version of events that are in front of our face and I

13:33 think that's been building we know

13:35 that from the Republican side like I tell people like

13:38 um you know I you know I follow a lot of conservative news I talk to Republicans

13:41 all the time I do a lot of traveling uh to make sure we hear those voices.

13:45 And one of the things I always remember was like

13:47 the fever pitch after 2020 before January 6th and the kind

13:52 of like fervor and anger that was taking over people

13:55 that like were going beyond the kind of conspiratorial folks you expect.

13:59 I always tell the story about like being at I was covering the um

14:03 the special elections in Georgia for the Senate after uh Biden had won.

14:08 And I remember being at like an Ivanka

14:10 Trump event in um suburban Georgia with all

14:14 of these kind of wellto-do uh Georgia ladies and everyone

14:18 was talking about like machine machine fraud and like

14:22 the kind of conspiratorial like Biden stole the election

14:25 and it really was this moment for me like this is not as fringe as you

14:29 kind of thought like this is becoming more mainstream.

14:32 Obviously that culminates in January 6.

14:34 Now, I don't want to say it's onetoone with Democrats, but it's been building.

14:38 Like, I totally think it was undercovered.

14:41 How many people think that the 2024 election was fake?

14:44 I mean, I talked to some Democrats who still tell you

14:46 they're not sure that Donald Trump really won every swing state.

14:49 And so, you started seeing some of that.

14:50 Then, you stall it in Charlie Kirk and I think in Butler.

14:54 And I think it's really exploded, you know,

14:56 even this weekend with the shooting at the White House Correspondents Center.

15:00 Um and so like I think that is somewhat a function

15:04 of our institutional trust loss like right like people have stopped believing

15:10 um in kind of institutional media and I think like and I

15:15 think some of that has has led to um conspiracy rising

15:20 like if you believe the creators more like if you if

15:23 you rather uh advice come from your like kind of individual friend

15:27 rather than like trusted doctor I can say this back to co

15:30 I think this was a big part of that institutional breakdown too.

15:33 I think it leads to some of those conspiracies bubbling up.

15:37 I would also say in their defense I

15:39 do think something like Epstein shows how institutional

15:45 media can be missing like doesn't want

15:47 to touch things that are somewhat in their sphere.

15:49 And so in there that like independent media that kind of like tick- tock

15:54 driven journalism hasn't been able to seize on our our willing blind spots too.

15:59 So, I think some of it is self-inflicted on like our part,

16:02 but I think it's a much bigger breakdown of shared reality.

16:05 And I think it's going to make stuff like politics harder.

16:08 Um, because I don't think we're all working from the same premise.

16:12 And, uh, those those silos that folks are living

16:16 in have only grown to be more and more further apart.

16:19 Yeah.

16:19 But when you also have,

16:20 and this links back to what we were just talking about with Trump,

16:23 that you have politicians that are

16:25 scared of telling their constituents the truth for sure

16:29 about, you know, anything from I mean,

16:31 it's still over 50% of Republicans who think 2020 was fraudulent.

16:34 Yeah.

16:34 I mean, like like if we start to at like Donald Trump's origin story,

16:39 I always say this, like birtherism was

16:41 a popular opinion among the Republican electorate.

16:45 Like when we think about his rise,

16:48 we should not think about birtherism as a problem

16:50 for him in that early 2016 primary.

16:53 It helped him.

16:54 It was it was an asset because it was w I remember um this is a long time ago,

16:58 so I don't have the poll on hand,

17:00 but I remember doing a story at that time about how the majority

17:03 of Republican voters in Iowa in 2016 thought Obama was born in Kenya.

17:08 So like I'm like he wasn't off the pause,

17:10 he was on the ps, he was driving the ps.

17:12 And so I'm like sometimes I think our unwillingness

17:16 to deal with the scope of people who believe

17:19 in those conspiracies allow them to fester and I think

17:22 also allow us to miss political movements that are happening.

17:26 And so because we have decided that's fringe,

17:28 that doesn't necessarily mean it's fringe.

17:30 And so I think something like that Manhattan Institute poll,

17:33 something like I think the flood of um

17:35 uh I think some reactions we're seeing about Butler,

17:38 about these things things I think are forcing a conversation that isn't just

17:41 simply uh leftwing violence or leftwing

17:44 conspiracies or right-wing violence or right-wing conspiracies.

17:46 I think it is a breakdown of institutional trust overall that's led kind

17:51 of baseline voter to be just wildly out of the um of the I

17:56 keep using share reality but wildly out of the share reality that I

18:00 think you're more a lead or news watchers or news followers are existing in.

18:05 Yeah.

18:05 Um I would add maha to the another Yep.

18:08 another good

18:09 especially like I have a four and a 2-year-old and you know a mostly liberal

18:13 set of friends and they weren't they didn't you know switch to Trump for RFK Jr.

18:18 But they were like, "Why aren't you guys talking about who dies, right?

18:22 Like, why

18:23 aren't you talking about that my kid doesn't need the COVID vaccine, right?

18:26 That this might be safe and effective for adult." You're totally right to call

18:29 it back to CO because that is really where we started to go.

18:34 He really seized on that institutional distrust.

18:37 I remember being in Michigan during when he was

18:39 still running uh as an independent and I'm like,

18:43 you know, saying that both parties don't have your interest

18:46 in mind is a 70% plus opinion from voters, right?

18:49 Like saying that corporations have captured uh pharma and food

18:53 and all this is a majority opinion among voters.

18:57 And so I do think that sometimes there are issues

18:59 that are on the ground that like the the kind

19:02 of establishment or kind of corporate versions of both

19:04 parties aren't really talking about or can't touch really.

19:08 And I think that's allowed this kind of lane to fester in a bigger way.

19:13 But you know, you know, I certainly interviewed RFK.

19:15 It's so wrapped up in conspiracy.

19:17 so wrapped up in falsehood that I don't want to act

19:20 like it's um legitimate from a truthful like factual basis,

19:24 but it's definitely emotionally true for a lot of people.

19:27 And I remember like the you know,

19:29 at RFK events, the majority of those people were exdemocrats,

19:33 you know, and I think that was an underrated piece of the Trump 2 coalition.

19:40 Yeah.

19:40 Um another day that I'll cry about that again, but I I totally saw that, too.

19:46 Okay, let's take a quick break.

19:47 Stay with us.

19:51 Welcome back.

19:52 I want to make sure that we talk about the Supreme Court

19:55 because this is a massive ruling

19:56 that Louisiana's congressional map was unconstitutional,

19:59 upholding a lower court ruling that mapmakers relied too heavily

20:03 on race when they redrew redrew the state's voting boundaries.

20:06 The ruling delivers a significant victory for Republicans

20:08 and narrows the landmark Voting Rights Act.

20:11 It doesn't do away with section two, but it's on its way to gutting it.

20:16 Um, the news comes as Florida's legislature debates a new

20:19 congressional map provo uh proposed by Governor Ronda Santis.

20:22 So, I guess he is going to f around and find out.

20:24 Um, leader Jeff, please pay attention.

20:27 Uh, the new map could potentially add four more GOP leaning seats to the state.

20:31 Democrats say it'll be a dummy mander.

20:33 Um, but we'll uh see what happens.

20:35 It'll definitely go to court because their constitution, I think, bans it.

20:38 How significant is today's Supreme Court ruling?

20:42 Huge.

20:42 So, I I mean I think that like um we're at the first steps of this, right?

20:47 Like we are going to see um uh I think we're going to see a couple things.

20:51 We're going to see Republicans who are

20:52 already planning for some of these rulings, particularly Dantis in Florida,

20:56 uh test the limits of how far they can go on these jerrymanders.

20:59 Uh I think we're going to see questions of Donald Trump's power.

21:02 remember in places like Indiana, he tried uh uh to really force those state

21:06 lawmakers to to do a more dramatic jerry mander.

21:09 They did not want to do it.

21:10 That intensity is going to grow, I think, in some of those states.

21:13 And we'll see how kind of far some could go.

21:16 But I just think in general like um you know,

21:18 this is an arms race uh that has been building for a while.

21:22 And you know, it's it's so disconnected from the majority

21:25 of the electorate who don't find

21:27 these who understand Congress's brokenness, right?

21:30 who don't who who understand that Congress has gotten uh uh more partisan has

21:34 gotten have refuses to pass like bigger

21:36 legislation because they're mostly worried about primary challenges

21:39 and they don't necessarily you know I don't think sometimes I think insiders can

21:43 overrate how much information you need to really

21:46 get like the power structures going on.

21:48 I'm like they don't need to know about section two of the voting rights act.

21:51 They know Congress is broken.

21:52 Like that's obvious to everybody involved.

21:55 And so I think the big um impact of course is going

21:58 to be about like some of these black districts in the south

22:01 um whether these uh conservative groups are going to try

22:04 to write them out fully and whether Democrats can marshall a response.

22:07 But I would just say like there's a short-term question of the midterms, right?

22:12 Like Donald Trump's goal has been to win these midterms before they start.

22:17 like is has his goal has been to functionally

22:21 uh usurp the kind of democratic process that would

22:24 make this a referendum on him and ensure

22:26 that the Republicans uh can maintain their majority through jerrymandering.

22:30 I think that's the short-term question.

22:32 I think as we build to 2028 there is

22:34 going to be increasing pressure particularly on Democrats but I

22:37 don't you know I think it might be all

22:38 around about what is the version of democracy we want.

22:42 I think there is some level

22:43 of political creativity that's been missing from Democrats

22:46 about like uh uh about a long-term plan to make democracy more responsive.

22:51 And so when you saw 2024, you know, the pitch from Harris and Biden,

22:55 I think was a lot about protecting a democracy.

22:58 That sounded like a status quo argument in my opinion.

23:01 And for the majority of voters, including some Democrats,

23:04 they don't they didn't think that what we were doing right now was working.

23:07 But I think it's a better message.

23:08 And I think what Democrats are getting closer to is improving democracy.

23:13 And so I think you're going to get proposals on the kind of structural

23:16 government rethink from all of these candidates getting ready to run in 2028.

23:21 The question will be like,

23:22 has Donald Trump blown everything up before they're able to do that stuff.

23:26 Um because as we remember,

23:28 Democrats tried to triedish to reinvigorate the voting

23:32 act in the early days of the Biden administration.

23:34 Um and they ran into some blockades, filibuster, cinema, mansion and others.

23:39 Um, but the the the necessity of it is very clear because I do think we

23:45 are I don't think like I guess I I'll just say this myself like do we want

23:49 to live in a plate like how much can we call it a democracy if the majority

23:55 of electorates votes particularly in the most representative

23:57 branch of government are completely written out you know

24:00 and so I think on a congressional level there's increasing distaste

24:04 for that I think there's certainly a distaste for like the electoral college

24:07 and how that does it on a presidential And so I think

24:10 there will be pressure from voters to say what are we doing here?

24:13 And I think that pressure increases with this decision,

24:17 but the short-term question is about

24:18 the midterms and whether Republicans can simply

24:21 use this to to um kind of finesse their way to an undeserving victory.

24:26 Yeah, I I think that's all right and super interesting.

24:30 And I on raging moderates and just in my conversations,

24:33 I'm constantly asking lawmakers like what do you have?

24:37 Yeah.

24:37 Like like what's the thing that you're campaigning on, right?

24:41 Because status quo blows.

24:44 Like nobody is no one's having fun.

24:47 No, there is no status quo voter out there.

24:50 Like maybe a 90-year-old who's like,

24:52 I want the good old days, whatever that was,

24:54 but they probably have a grandkid that's

24:56 telling them that they can't own a home, they don't have a job,

24:59 and they're drowning in student debt, and they don't have healthcare.

25:01 So like that's not working either.

25:04 And I think, you know, taking steps with like the affordability agenda

25:08 that Greg Khazar and Pat Ryan just put out,

25:10 like those kinds of things that are forward looking

25:13 and have policy heft to them matter a lot, but the institutional damage.

25:19 I I don't think we even understand how bad it is under the hood.

25:22 Like, you know, the Comey indictment, which I'm glad to see, you know,

25:25 Andy McCarthy, Jonathan Turley, they're out there being like,

25:28 "This is a joke, right?" Like, and it didn't take you 10 months to investigate

25:31 a bunch of seashells or whatever Cash Patel was saying,

25:34 but like even if there's a democratic takeover of the DOJ,

25:39 like is it broken on a longer term level that we're not even able to kind of

25:46 process at this point?

25:47 Like, how do you get everyone back?

25:49 The scope of institutional damage is like is overwhelming.

25:52 Like, I was saying this to, you know,

25:54 like uh someone else the other I'm like, you know,

25:57 whether it's like the kind of open grift

25:58 and corruption or or paytoplay of it all,

26:01 whether it's the change in federal workforce and Doge and all that stuff.

26:05 Um whether it's the growth of executive power and the way

26:08 that like I think some of those things were intentionally written so

26:12 they can have a fight and have a fight in court

26:15 to expand the president's role and actually make Congress more minimal, right?

26:19 And so I think all of those kind of structural power questions are

26:23 ones that Donald Trump has uniquely um introduced because of his, you know,

26:29 I would say like authoritarian tendencies or his his unwillingness

26:33 to I think think about democracy in its three branches form.

26:37 But to your point, it's not clear to me.

26:41 I don't think the Democrats have

26:43 offered a counterweight that recognizes that democracy

26:48 in its current form is not serving even the mo their own voters.

26:53 And so that's what I think is is is we're leading to is

26:58 okay what is the way I think that you know you know this is

27:02 the kind of work we're trying to do in America actually is like like

27:05 what is the way that a postTrump America what do we take from this moment?

27:10 What do we what do we what do we leave like what do we want

27:13 to leave behind and how much of this is here with us to stay too

27:17 and I think that is something we're we're we're just on the early versions

27:22 of because so much of his personality has

27:24 wrapped up that debate but it's not just

27:26 about his personality like right like these are

27:29 levers that are now introduced for um you know the the next president whether

27:34 it's JD Vance or Gavin Newsome or whoever

27:36 right and so I think that type of question of how do we institute how

27:39 do improve our democracy will be something

27:43 and how do we make it more responsive?

27:44 How do we think about political power

27:46 are questions that um Democrats are increasingly asking?

27:49 You know, the the kind of fight question has been more in the last year or so.

27:54 They their their voters want not just

27:56 to see their politicians like uh articulate anti-Trump rhetoric,

28:01 but use their power in ways to I think that are more affirmative.

28:06 And we weren't really seeing that as much in Trump one.

28:10 But I think it's part of a recognition from baseline Democrat that, you know,

28:14 talk isn't enough and that like they haven't

28:18 in kind of engaging in a rhetoric battle.

28:20 Uh they've let the Russ votes of the world reshape government in their image.

28:25 Yeah.

28:25 Well, we've never had great long-term planning, right?

28:29 Like they're always been comfortable with the long game.

28:32 That's the DOS decision, right?

28:33 Like if it takes planning for 20 years, you know, 30 years for that.

28:37 Yeah.

28:37 And if there's a setback, it's just a hiccup.

28:40 Yeah.

28:41 Right.

28:41 It's not like a complete meltdown.

28:43 And so I have been appreciative and feel, you know,

28:46 positive about the response, let's say, to the redistricting in Texas.

28:50 Like I like Prop 50.

28:52 I like Virginia, especially because they asked the voters.

28:54 But now, like I was reading maybe Colorado, they're going to go to Colorado,

28:58 which is increasingly blueleaning, and say it should be 80 here, right?

29:03 can be for like they could they could draw new stuff, right?

29:06 Like it's already so funking in

29:09 so weird though like so guess what I'm saying is like I mean there's

29:11 the there's the kind of tactical political question

29:14 of like how they can respond which is

29:17 which is important and I'm not trying to minimize but I do think that even

29:20 the response pulls our structures further away

29:24 from where most of the electorate wanted to be.

29:27 Like I I I hear so much about, you know,

29:31 uh term limits and ending the electoral college and get

29:35 money out of politics and like things that are DR

29:38 independent that are I feel like part of people's recognition

29:43 that like these folks are acting in their own self-interest consistently.

29:47 And so I understand if you are a person

29:49 who's personally invested in the Democratic party success,

29:52 you're just like, how do we respond?

29:53 like how do we how do we match Republican fire with fire

29:57 and that has importance but I think when you think about swing voter when you

30:01 think about general election voter people are

30:02 more distant from this process what I hear when I'm around those folks

30:07 and when we do reporting about those communities

30:09 is like the number one thing is like we don't we don't think

30:12 this is working at all you know so I so I'm like there is

30:16 there's the primary and kind of midterm

30:18 more like political invested question and then

30:22 there's a bigger one of like when we get to the presidential election,

30:25 like I do think another level of creativity is going to be required

30:30 by those voters because the structure itself is one that is pretty unpopular.

30:35 My last question was going to be, you know,

30:36 from your work on America actually and just all of your reporting,

30:40 what do you think is the most undercovered story right now in American politics?

30:45 And it might be this, you know, that we actually need a vision for 2028.

30:49 Yeah, I think some of the stuff and things we talked about like I mentioned some

30:52 of the issues that we hear about that rarely

30:54 get talked about in like kind of political world.

30:56 Um, and I think there are things that are super tangible to people.

30:58 Obviously, we know about affordability.

31:00 We know about those things that I think are still top of the list.

31:03 But I say issues like homelessness, crime,

31:05 I mentioned like fixing money in politics are things that I hear about a lot.

31:09 Um, but I would if I think about like a a kind of larger setting question,

31:13 I think in like 2016 or 2017, there was such an obsession with the demographic

31:18 changes in America and there was an assumption that they were going

31:21 to lead to this like permanent liberal majority.

31:23 Now, we know that that's not true anymore.

31:25 I think that that's something that Trump, particularly in 2024,

31:28 showed is that many of those groups are swing voters, right?

31:31 Like they rented them for one election,

31:32 but they're voting for a Democrat in the next one.

31:34 They've been voting for Democrats all through these special elections.

31:37 But those demographic changes are still very real.

31:39 you know, and I somewhat think that the backlash to identity politics

31:42 is such that we've stopped acknowledging just how how big those changes are.

31:47 And so, like there will be a way that the influx

31:51 of first generation Americans changes our politics like it's already right.

31:55 And I think that um even the ways we talk

31:58 about I think about the ways we talk about race

32:00 and a lot of primaries like that is so built

32:04 from an old school black and white dichotomy that's mostly built

32:08 in like civil rightsy politics that is changing like like

32:13 that's changing among younger black voters that's changing among an increasingly

32:17 born like black immigrant population that's increasingly changing from people

32:20 who don't view themselves in the black white binary at all.

32:23 And so, like, I just think that the way we talk about

32:27 who we are is increasingly not compatible with who we're going to be.

32:32 And so, that's a story that I find undercover

32:37 partially because once the assumptions were proven to be false,

32:40 aka all these people weren't just like

32:43 secret progressives or like secret Obama liberals,

32:46 like we now just are like, "Oh,

32:48 maybe they're just secret Trump voters." I'm like, "No,

32:50 neither of those things are true." like the reason that those assumptions

32:53 are not working is because both of those boxes are inadequate.

32:57 And so like I don't know where that leads us,

33:00 but I don't think it leads us backwards.

33:02 You know, I think that leads us to something different.

33:04 And so part of what I feel like is the work we're going to try to do.

33:08 And the work I just think I wish political media would do more of is

33:12 like being open-minded to those type of changes

33:15 rather than trying to reinforce old guard rails.

33:18 And so like that's what I am motivated by is like I

33:23 do feel like the uh question of like who America is is shifting.

33:28 Um but it's not shifting based on our past assumptions.

33:33 And so let's shed now that those are shed like

33:35 if one thing Donald Trump has done he's blown those up.

33:39 So I'm like at minimum we got to move

33:41 on and the next version of something I think will be

33:44 more nuanced will be more complex and the question will

33:47 be whether our political system is built to reflect that.

33:51 It's actually kind of perfect timing with the 250th anniversary as well.

33:55 You know a nice round number.

33:57 Um also we're out of time but shout out King Charles.

34:00 Um I thought he was great all day yesterday.

34:04 No.

34:04 Uh the shade and the charm, the the war of 1814, the war of 1812, all that.

34:09 Yeah.

34:10 Yeah.

34:10 Yeah.

34:10 I was at the um British embassy on Sunday

34:12 for this uh White House correspondence thing and they wouldn't

34:15 let us stand on the grass because the king was

34:17 on his way and I was like, you know what?

34:19 Fair.

34:20 Fair.

34:21 He is at the end of the day still a king.

34:24 Um and that the White House tweeted a picture of them

34:27 and said two kings made me just want to die a little.

34:30 Aad this was awesome.

34:31 and thank you um for coming on and everyone

34:33 should listen to America actually as well.

34:36 Thank you for having me.

34:36 Loved it.

34:37 Before we go, reminder that Raging Moderates is on Substack.

34:40 Subscribers get those adree episodes.

34:42 Is there anything more exclusive than an ad free episode?

34:45 Access to me and Scott and the community.

34:47 He's like on a live stream kick.

34:49 He did one yesterday.

34:50 Probably be doing one tomorrow.

34:51 We have a newsletter, the Monday rage.

34:53 It's really good.

34:54 Join raging moderates.proofymedia.com on Substack.

34:58 That's all for this episode.

34:59 Thank you so much for joining us today.