November 9, 2024 • 45 mins
Semafor’s Dave Weigel examines the 2020 election. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson details how her state will fight back against a potential second term for Trump.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and Governor JB. Pritzker says, you come
for my people, you come through me. We have such
a great show for you today. Semaphore's Dave Weigel tells
us what he's found in his examination of the twenty
(00:22):
twenty four election. Then we'll talk to Michigan Secretary of
State Jocelyn Benson how about how her state will fight
back against Trump's next term. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
By why don't you tell us where the House is
at in the election? Right now?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Right now, Democrats have two hundred and one seats and
Republicans have two hundred and twelve seats. They flipped six seats,
Democrats flip five seats, so there's at this point Republicans
have a one seat net gain. There are still thirteen
uncalled races to watch that are just not finished being counted.
Some will go to recount, and so if Democrats can
(01:00):
net seventeen of those thirteen seats, they will have the majority.
That seems unlikely since that math is not mathing, but
it will be a very slim majority. That Republicans will
have in the House. So we'll see what happens, but
it certainly Democrats will pick up a few seats, probably
main second district, Washington's third district, a couple of seats
(01:23):
will be picked up, so it will end up being
very close. There's still a bunch of Senate seats that
aren't caught, so there's one seat Nevada. Rosen is going
to win Arizona. Ruben seems like he has it. In Pennsylvania.
There's a chance because it's point because the Republicans leading
by point five, that there might be a recount, and
(01:45):
there's a possibility that McCormick might end up. If they
recount and they find enough ballots, it's possible that the
case will keep his seat.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Smile. This is what I'm coing the mask off section.
It seems the Republican were so giddy about Trump's when
that they're already showing exactly what many of us knew.
They were already. But these attacks on women are really
something else. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
White supremacist Nick Flint has said your body, my choice forever.
He posted that before the race. We saw a text
campaign of obvious hate crimes, issuing a threat to students
of color across the nation, claiming they had been selected
to be slaves and appear at plantations. Pretty horrendous, misogynistic
(02:32):
claims of you know, wanting to do horrible things to women.
It's really not surprising, but it's this is what trump
Ism does.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And then of course we have all the right wing
influencers who are taking their mask off about Project twenty
twenty five and other things. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So you'll remember that Trump said he had knew nothing
about Project twenty twenty five and that Project twenty twenty
five was not at all connected to him. So basically,
mediately after Trump onon, Matt Walsh She's a right wing
podcast host wrote on X now that the election is over,
I think we can finally say that, yeah, actually Project
twenty twenty five is the agenda. L ol.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Matt waalsherre. You will all be know from making a
documentary reason called Am I Racist? Where he shows how
racist he is.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Ex Trump White has advisor Steve Bannon praised Walsh and
amplified his post during his war Room podcast Wednesday, telling
his staff to promote Walsh's comments on social media. Right
wing influencer Bennie Johnson also posted an on X it
is my honor to inform you that Project twenty twenty
five was real the whole time.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
He wrote, you may know Betty Johnson from the Justice Department,
saying he was a recipient of Russian disinformation money.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
That's right, he got a lot of money from Russia
to spread disinformation. Bo French, a Texas GOP official who
came under fire recently for using slurs to describe gay
people and people at this abilities, wrote on X Wednesday,
so we can admit now that we're going to implement
Project twenty twenty five. So there you go. They'll say
(04:08):
they were kidding, but they always say they were kidding.
But we know the truth. And you can see the
documentary we did on Project twenty twenty five. It's on YouTube.
Just google it. It's I think a very worthwhile use
of your time, MILLI.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So we have the first hint of at least what
we'll start as a romance. Elon Musk was on a
call with mister Trump and Zelenski today. What do you
see here?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Donald Trump won the presidency on Tuesday, and almost immediately
the richest people sixty four billion dollar gain for the
world's ten richest people, so Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry
Allison all among the top gainers. US stock surge dollar
gained on US election result. The net worth, led by
(04:54):
Tesla's CEO, the world's wealthiest person, surged to sixty three
point five billion dollars on Wednday Day. Musk added twenty
six point five billion to his pot. Amazon's Jeff Bezos
Oracles Larry Ellison were all among the top gainers. It's
the biggest increase since Bloomberg's Wealth Index began in twenty twelve. Look,
(05:16):
Trump is going to pick the winners and losers in
this economy, and he's going to make big tax cuts
for very wealthy people. And I think that these people
who decided to support Trump made a bet that he
would deliver for them, and he already has. So it's
(05:37):
pretty grim. Sometimes I want to just talk for a
minute to our listeners about sort of where I am
right now and just be honest. This was not the
result I've talked about a little bit, and I really
did think Harris was going to win, and I really
was quite devastated and sad for what happened, but I
want to just point out that it was really, you know,
(05:59):
a couple one hundred thousand votes in a few swing
states that did this for him, and a lot of
us in this country don't agree with Trump or trump Ism,
and at this moment, really the goal has to be
to protect institutions, to protect the rule of law, to
make sure that we continue to bring sunlight to the
(06:20):
stuff that people aren't covering. Trump has a bold and
deeply unpopular agenda he's going to try to implement, and
the only way that it can be gummed up is
by sunlight, is by talking about it, is by covering it.
So as much as there's a feeling like we all
(06:41):
want to just turn off the news, and maybe we
should take a week or two to do that, but
this is going to require vigilance on all of our
parts in order to make sure that we do have
elections in two years and we do have a functioning
democracy and we do protect the rule of law. So
I think every one of us, including myself, needs to
(07:03):
watch some Netflix and eat some cookies. I'm planning on
that later, But I feel very heartbroken for like a
lot of young women in this country, But I feel
more than ever that the importance is that we continue
to not engage in false equivalencies, really give you the
news as you needed, and try to do our best
(07:24):
and be transparent with you as listeners. I'm so grateful
that you guys come to us four times a week
or three times a week or no. I know, but
you might not listen to every episode. But I'm really grateful,
and I really feel that it's a responsibility of mine
to try to do the best we can, including to
be transparent, and to just continue to bring you things
(07:45):
so you can really stay completely up to date with
the news and to know what's happening. So we're really grateful.
And I know you're hurting, and we're hurting too. I'm
hurting too, and I know Jesse's hurting too, and it's
really dark, but I do want you to know that
there is hope here and that there are federal governors
(08:06):
who are committed to taking care of their people and
do not give up. Dave Wigel is a reporter at Semaphore.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Dave.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
It's going to be back. Thank you, under great circumstances.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So I want you to talk to us about what
went wrong. First of all, my whole place is that
I want I'm going to this is we're going to
just do therapy for me.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I see.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Now. My whole place is I want to know what
happened in this election and how I got it so
wrong in my mind, like, I just want as much
information as possible. So I have seen that you have
been sort of parson through what happened. So can we
(09:03):
start at the macro and then go to the micro?
So what happened in this election? Broadly?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So I'll start by saying a lot of people are
looking at the numbers on their screen and assuming, oh,
Kamala Harris turned out fewer voters than Joe Biden. Therefore
she didn't excite Democrats. It looks in the swing states,
we already know she basically hit the Biden numbers. In
the swing states, they executed their strategy, which was knowing
(09:31):
that some voters were moving toward Trump, replacing them with
other voters turning out as many persuadable people as possible.
It was Consin's one example of this. Harris got more
votes than Biden did in Wisconsin. She got almost as
many votes as Barack Obama did in two thousand and eight,
which was the biggest Democratic landslide in Wisconsin since the sixties,
and the state's population's been pretty static. That's why I
(09:51):
focus on that one. But she didn't win it. So
what happened it was that Donald Trump was not discredited
for ninety five percent of Republican votvoters, some had already
left the party. He saw this at the convention, Right,
They're just people who weren't for toront like Mike Bends,
who were never a lot back in the tent. They
left and he was replacing them with voters who he
promised everything to. And I had This part is important
(10:13):
because what Donald Trump does differently than other candidates, and
he does it because of a very friendly mediate environment
that he helped create but that he also lucked into,
is just promising everything to everybody. So if he did,
he's not hide bound by saying, well, if I get
in there, I might have a deficit to deal with.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well he will.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
He's just not going to. He just will pretend that
he's going to fix it all with terrors he appointed,
the justices that were turned to row. He just says
that he's actually not going to do anything else. On abortion,
he proposed a suite of new tax cuts that are
not paid for and that would shrink the lifespan of
Social Security. But this came up with Democrats. I was
talked to this week, just a narrow focus on this point.
Trump proposed tax cuts that would make the Social Security
(10:51):
Trust Fund run out faster. But because he said I
want to cut taxes on social Security, lower information voters.
I'm not trying to be too negative or insulting, but
lot lower information voters back and said it sounds like
I heard the word social security and I heard tax cut,
and they just and I didn't really say, that's a risk.
He is hard to run against. And Democrats went from
in twenty sixteen thinking this is a fluke, we never
(11:11):
should have lost it to thinking a candidate this brazen,
who doesn't care about being called out for criminal convictions
or offensive things or not being honest. A candidate who's
just that that brazen is very hard to run against.
And they've now seen in two midterms. I would be
surprised as the next midterm their coalition will turn out
better than the Trump coalition. But when he is there,
(11:33):
five hundred thousand worket pople come out of the woods
and vote for Republicans.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Explain this to me again, because this is so interesting.
So let's just go back to Wisconsin. This is super interesting.
So she actually did grow her coalition, but it wasn't enough.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yes, So the difference here is nate. If you look
at swing states where all the money was spent, Harris
is at above or right below the Biden numbers from
twenty twenty. We haven't do We don't have this from
Arizona and of Etiot and I think that like those
might be outliers. Because of the shift in the Latino
vote in states where the campaigns did not spend money,
and New Jersey's one of these, New York is one
of these, Florida is one of these. There were a
(12:09):
huge shift towards Republicans of every vote, every group of
voters except white women with college degrees, and even then
that wasn't much of a shift. That is where the
simple story of the election is. People were still angry
that prices were up after twenty twenty, no matter what
Democrats did on the economy, the fact that the economy
had proved a lot, the fact it's very easy to
imagine Donald Trump, if he had been president this week,
would have said, no one thought I could do it,
(12:31):
but we've beaten inflation, and strong men come up to
me with tears in their eyes and say, it's the
best economy we've ever seen. They know that he would
have been able to sell that economy, but they couldn't.
Those are the model causal things happening here. There's a
lot of discourse which I'm listening and skimming, some stuff
about how the party lost its lost its connection to
working class voters culturally, and that's complicated. The one part
(12:52):
I think the Democrats are actually moving towards agreement on
is that for years they thought they had an emerging
majority and they didn't need far right media or alternative
media or offensive media. I'd say that they could take
the high road. Well, then they didn't need to talk
to those people. The Harris campaign, if they did some
subtraction from the coalition, not totally intentional, but for example,
(13:16):
the RFK thing, their bet was we are not going
to be the party. We're going to lose people if
we are the party that just will say, oh sure,
we'll totally blow up public health because of conspiracy theories,
so they let him out of the coalition. The thing
that is more fixable is they hadn't prioritize going on
new media that people who don't trust the mainstream media
listen to. Some Democrats did, and every diperary did, like
(13:37):
Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, John Federando, I talk to you
this week. All of them say you just need to
do that, like you're not going to go in there
and get eaten alive. If you're getting eaten a live,
you shouldn't run for office because you should be better
at talking. You can't live in the bubble anymore where
some people are just beneath you. Maybe none of them
vowed for you, but you need to try. Maybe they
don't vote for you, but they don't hate you once
you get.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
On there, right or they know you exist.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Sure, because when they talk about messaging, the messaging means
earned media, which is you doing interviews and speeches. It
means paid media, which is you buying ads. And that's
the thing where they're running ad That's why I talked
about swinges stays where they're runing ads and people saw
the ads they held a lot of ground and where
people were just watching the news on their phones and
tuning out. They lost a lot of ground, and that.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Seems so important because there's so much blame going around,
which is I think normal winn a party loses, But
that is so important because it sounds like in a
weird way, because Democrats probably held those Senate seats, almost
all the Senate seats in swing states that were up,
(14:38):
and it almost sounds like the campaign helped those down
ballot races.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, that's the thing in the Senate seats, the almost
irony of this, just like I get I can see
if the key like Montana is a testa ran ahead,
bear around, right ahead. Well, I don't want to get
it too over complicated about what happened, but it was
Democrats were able to win and outperform Harris in a
number of places, which suggests to me that Republicans less
(15:05):
well owned than Trump, but running on the same stuff
as in twenty twenty two, just do not have the
same appeal. It's very clear.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Trump Ism does not scale right.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Not right now, And even JD. Vance is less popular
than Donald Trump. He doesn't get the same crowd, he
doesn't have the same peal. There are not people having JD.
Vance voat grades, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Now, can you imagine Not.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Really, I can imagine a lot of things, but that
it's kind of hard to imagine, but very a. Goosy
is a unique candidate because he's a Latino veteran in
Arizona and he spent three years moving to the right.
He'd been much more progressive and he moved to the right.
You can do that in three years. You can't do
it in one hundred days. That's a harder test of
this because Kerry Lake is pretty well lothed and known
for trying to overturn elections and nothing else. But that
(15:46):
was a good example where where Democrats kind of filled
the soil for a long time, and by the time
voters are paying attention, they had seen Ruben Gegel on
Bill Maher and they'd seen him say that Democrats should
stop saying LATINX, which he did three years ago. I mean,
I did, like there, go I not been saying that,
but he said three years ago, stop doing it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That example of a Democratic campaign that made some compromises
and said hey, if you're a moderate voter, I'm not
going to do anything super crazy that you hate. That
was pretty successful and Harris did a lot of that,
and again, we're voters saw her saying, here's my economic plan,
and I'm supported by some Republicans, so I'm not actually
at left winger. That was in competition with the ads
about her being a crazy left winger and her letting
(16:25):
the border explode, et cetera, et cetera. But that actually
did move some people. Just they're missing the people who
don't watch TV except for when they're seeing sports, they
didn't hear that. And the messaging because there's so much
of a post to discuss on messaging. That's where I've
come down on this was seeing what they were actually
spending money on in the States.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So explain this to me. The messaging it sort of worked.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, that's why this gulf between On average, it hired
you on average. But for example, Democratic support collapsed to
New Jersey, it just didn't matter because they won their
house seats. They could. They were's one they want to
flip and they did. If that collapsed up around the country,
Democrats would have lost New Mexico and Minnesota and Virginia,
and it didn't. It was where they had targeted messaging
to burnish Harris's image. It was pretty successful. Harris's favorability
(17:09):
improved throughout the campaign. I think the issue here is
that Democrats did not correct quickly enough, because these things
move very slowly. I see news stories as a second
hand on a clock, and campaigns as the as the
hour hand. It's really what because they had done differently
well given that they were running on we're going to
kick out asylum seekers more than we were two years ago.
(17:31):
They were running on expanding medicare in pretty incremental ways.
They're running on fighting price gouging. Had Joe Biden said
in June twenty twenty three, not twenty four, I have
to pull the cord on this, and I think even
Kamala Harris been the nominee, they would have had the
time to do that. Inflation would have continued to be
an issue for them. But every Democrat owned part of
(17:53):
the inflation situation because they owned it. They didn't own
all the immigration situation because that's controlled by DHS and
the executive, so some of them took some damage over it,
and the damage is usually you didn't stop Biden from
making things worse. But I think inflation would have been survivable,
and by survival I mean Democrats running one and a
half points better in a few states, they would have
(18:15):
narrowly won the election. They would sto would have lost
the Ohio Senate race, in the Montana Senate race, like
they were fighting for a very, very, very tough race.
But I think could they have gotten over the line
with a similar strategy that started a year earlier. I
think they could have.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah. What's so interesting to me about all of this
is that it seems to me like New York State
Democrats won seeds, right, I mean, they flipped two seeds.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, So there are the green shoots for Democrats in
a lot of places that we're going to figure out
more after the election. And this happens. For example, two
thousand and four, Georgie Wish wins and Republicans win most
of their closed races. And the exception is Colorado, where
Democrats win a Senate seat they flipped it from Republicans.
(19:04):
They do much better in local elections. They were hopeful
maybe the whole country is like that. It turns out
it's not. There's parts of the country that are like Colorado.
The key it turns out in the long term is
do people there have college degrees that is definitive. But
there were going to be places where Democrats did. North
Carolina is one where they lost the presidential election state wipe,
but they actually picked up some lower offices and broke
(19:26):
their replicans oup majority. Even in this electorate, they were
able to make some gains. When I talked about this electorate,
I mean just Trump persuading people and adding votes from
twenty twenty. Had Trump gotten exactly as many votes as
he got in twenty twenty, if you listen to him,
he says he wonted because no one had ever won
that many votes. He wouldn't have won. Harris got more
votes in a couple key states, and she would have
edged past him. He did more persuasion, And so that's
(19:47):
part of it. Two Democrats are not the only actors
of history. Trump made decisions, and I think I talked
about lying, et cetera, but he made even other policy decisions.
To this say, unlike every other Republican, and hey, maybe
unlike what I'll actually do and I take the power.
I'm never going to touch Obamacare, I'm never going to
touch Medicare, I'm never going to touch Social Security. I'm
going to defend them. All that does matter. I don't
(20:09):
think even the exact same alignment. If Trump had said,
you know what, I'm bored about running and they had
nominated run to Santus, I'm not convinced a Santus would
have won because I think the rest of the Republican
instinct is pretty tied to and we're going to get
in there and shrink the deficit. Trump's decisions are very potent. Also,
what was the story he's able to tell? Again, it
involves some bs, which is when I was president, which
(20:32):
a presidency that ended in February twenty twenty, and nothing
else was my fault. The economy is really good. Well,
another Republican couldn't have run on that. He ran a
very good campaign with a combination of a record he
could defend and some stuff he made up and could
very easily defend.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Right, I want you to put this together for me.
In the states where they didn't have the campaign apparatus
working as hard right, the non swing states like New Jersey.
Let's talk about New Jersey. How much do you think
disinformation played a role.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, depending on what type of disinformation. There are elections
that happen in fairly tough circumstances, and one of them
is which we all live through you and me, And
I assume I was listening as twenty twelve and it
objectively voters in October twenty twelve were paying more for
gas than they had been four years earlier, based on time.
Uneployment was not what it was four and a half
(21:25):
years earlier. There wasn't a good You just have to
stick through it. We are the party that's going to
get you through it. Things are improving, keep trusting us
message that was successful for Barack Obama. And I think
you can disaggregate form that from even his own talent
because Democrats across the klairemccaskill was winning and John Tester
is winning, and for a lot of Democrats it's like, Yep,
we didn't turn things around yet, but we're turning them
(21:46):
around and those other guys are terrible. That's the part
that I think Trump makes more complicated because he wasn't
running on Paul Ryan saying we're going to shrink the
deficit and black Art Medican and he might, he just wasn't.
This was running on it. This is the success he had.
This is why I not overwripe it but just really like,
if this was Jdevan's running on the same campaign without
that record, I don't think it would have worked. I
don't think you would have the same people come out
(22:07):
of the would work because the overall democratic message of
returning the corner that has been successful before it was
actually round Reagan in nineteen eighty four, things were in
some metrics, including inflation, unemployment, things were worse in morning
morning in America than they were right now. The final thing, though,
the final thing, I'm adding like twenty to twenty things,
this daisy chain of takes, but this media environment, when
(22:28):
you have to be talking about disinformation, I'm cautious say
what's different information? What it is? And I think what's
important is not just people not quite getting what's happening
in the economy. It's that there's no objective source that
a lot of people trust that's telling what's actually happening.
Some of that is people who'll say, oh, the TV
told me to wear a mask outside, and I don't
trust that anymore. Some it's that, but it's also just
(22:48):
people have moved on other media sources and they just
not only do they not hear positive democratic messaging, but
when they hear Trum's messaging. No one's really pushing back
some way. Am I the hardest interviewer in a world?
Probably not, But I would notice when kamal Aris goes
on MSNBC, the first question is why are you struggling
on the economy? Why don't people trust you on the economy?
When Trump goes on like Joe Rogan and the note Boys,
(23:10):
that's not the question that it's a lot of let's
talk about how cool and fun you are.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've really been.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
I don't think even the media environment of twenty sixteen
hard to recreate all that stuff, but that one where
just people who are still getting most of their news
from newspapers and TV, local TV, cable. The political discourse
is more shape by what's on the a one of
the New York Times. That was tougher for him, and
this is much easier.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
So interesting, I mean, that's a really important point that
he has a sort of propaganda network that Democrats don't have, right,
I mean, basically that's what you're saying, and that propaganda
network pumps him up and makes him seem But I
also think the secret sauce about Trump has always been
that he is just a uniquely talented I mean, like
(23:57):
him or loathe him, certainly, I am not a fan,
but he is uniquely good at connecting with his people.
One of the things that Trump did, which I thought
would doom him but actually has really delivered for him,
is that he was so laser focused on his base
and Harris was more interested. Obviously, again it's not a
(24:20):
fair comparison because she had three months and he had,
you know, our whole lifetimes. But he was committed to
just turning out his base and thinking and making the
gamble that that would be enough, and she was trying
to practice conversion and ultimately the bass play one out.
I mean, can you talk about that?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, I do not know if he was trying to
reach his base. It's a very complicated question because I
don't mind you in the word wrappaganda. But one thing
I'll positive here is that whenever a democratic president, Fox
News drives the truck down to Del Rio and Eagle
Pass and covers people crossing the border. And when Donald
Trump's president, they talked remov is present. So because there
(25:01):
were illegal border crossings under Trump, and I'm not being
good because there were policy changes, bind did that led
to more people across the border. There also were just
worse conditions in places like Venezuela and Haiti that led
to more migration out of there and people trying to
get into the country. But it was not false that
the Trump policy was a very unsympathetic were full go
(25:22):
away approach, including saying you're in a campaign that yes,
there are people who have legal temporary status from Haiti
that live in Ohio and we should take your status
away and kick them out. The Trump approaches just kick
them out. That is a policy difference. And the promise
of instead of you coming across the country and getting
a court date, We're going to immediately deport you, We're
going to process you in Mexico, just get out of here.
(25:42):
That is significant change. It just helps that even when
border crossings are falling under a Democrat, the stories are
still about who's coming across the border illegally. One thing
that stuck with me it wasn't my reporting, it was politico.
But one reason the Teamsters didn't endure in the presidential
race and just stayed neutral, which actually was kind of
(26:03):
victory for Harris not norsing Trump, was that there were
some heads of locals who sorry, not the teasers, the firefighters, firefighters.
There are some heads in their locals who blamed the
border for fentanyl and said, fentanyl's coming over and it's
putting our firefighters at risk. And there is an example
of something because if you if you know about how
drugs smuggling works, as everyone listen to this podcast does,
that's not like somebody that comes from Haiti with a
(26:25):
bag of fentanyl and crosses the border. Drug smuggling is
very sophisticated. Happened everywhere. It happens on planes, like we're
not stopping all flights through Mexico. This is this catch
twenty two that Democrats are in. You would see Republicans
every time law enforcement announced a fentanyl seizure and say,
look at how much fentanyl they seized. This is not working.
Whenever Republican is president, he goes down and says, look
at this, we seized a bunch of fentanyl. The policy
(26:47):
is working. I'm not convinced that Democrats wouldn't do that.
I do think Democrats are going to start revisiting not
just Bill Clinton's politics, with Barack Obama's politics and how
you just need to actually one be tough on rule
breaking and things that are disruptive to normal people's lives.
And you need to say that you are all the
time and show up all the time. Like the people
(27:08):
that I think are most out of the conversation that
Democrats want to have right now in every way are
the people who in it. And I was there covering
this for twenty four thirteen, fourteen fifteen, the Black Lives
Matter movement and also crim adjuster performers on the libertarian
left and right who were saying, we actually can start
removing some people from prison and being more tolerant about
(27:29):
getting people rehabilitated, maybe not doing as many homelessness sweeps.
We can be less cruel because crime is down. And
one thing to happen this election below blow the claridential level.
Well at the presidential level. Kamala Harris is running as
to talk about being a tough prosecutor and for one example,
and how just they've a party abandoned the that approach.
I keep want to say, soft on crime, just try
not talk to cliches. But also just in her state
(27:50):
where she lives in Los Angeles County, voters got rid
of the Progressive DA where she was born in Alameda County.
Voters got rid of the progressive DA Oakland, where she
spent some of her life. Voters kicked out the mayor
San Francisco, where she was DA. Voters kicked out from
there and statewide, and she never said how she voted
on this. There was a ballot measure to get rid
of some of these primo dust reform. They're the ones
that had passed and passed life, and the original one
(28:13):
passed with Republican support. I remember I talked to Gingrich,
who dedorsed it, for a story recently. Grige ten years
ago was saying, Hey, Californians, we need to get people
out of prison. Let's pass this bill, and people who
are just doing teddy chocolate lifting will be clogging up
the jails. And then ten years later people say, I
am tired of watching videos on TV of guys walking
out of stores with bags of goods. I'm tired of
(28:35):
going to Walgreens and there is shampoo behind the lock gate.
You might stop and say, like, is that really the
most important thing happening? Look, quality of life matters.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Thank you, thank you, thank you so interesting. I really
appreciate you. Jocelyn Benson is the Secretary of State of Michigan.
Welcome to FoST Politics, Jocelyn Benson.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I wanted to have you on the podcast because a
lot of the listeners of this podcast, and by a
lot of listeners this podcast, I mean myself, are full
on freaking out about what this is going to look
like another Trump presidency, and so I figure because you
are part of the trifactor of fabulous women who lead
(29:19):
the state of Michigan, you could talk to us a
little bit about First of all, I want you to
first talk to us about the election and what you
saw on the ground and how that was, and then
I have many, many, many other questions for you.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
I think what I saw on the ground in the
lead up to the election and throughout was a lot
of enthusiasm across the board. And basically the enthusiasm ended
up truly being across the board because we had the
highest turnout election in our state's history. Five point six
seven million people voted, which blew through our past record
(29:57):
of five point five from twenty twenty which and that
one blew through our previous record of five million in
two thousand and eight. And so we at the time
when our state population has been decreasing, we've seen voter
turnout increase and really just go through the roof.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
This past Tuesday. That's not a terrible thing, and that's
sort of that's a good thing for our for our democracy.
It really illuminates also the reality that the two party
system or is perhaps not fully equipped to reflect the
diverse perspectives in the electorate, in the electorate that large.
What we also saw on Michigan were two things.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
One extraordinary celebration at the polls, more energy than I've seen.
And this was in you know, I went to ham Tranmek,
I went down river places where our Democrats lost. I
still saw extraordinary turnout, extraordinary enthusiasm. People were really determined
to vote. The second thing I saw in Michigan was,
you know, other than that, the at the top of
the ticket women Wan. Our entire congressional delegation on the
(30:55):
Democratic side is almost entirely women. Now, we elected Alyssa Slack,
We elected two women to the Michigan Supreme Court who
ran as Democrats. So there's I wouldn't call it silver linings,
but I would add that to the lessons that we
need to take from this election to recognize that still
it's clear that women voters have something to stay. They're
supporting female candidates in our state. The women of Michigan
(31:18):
continue to expand. But at the same time, we also
have to listen to the economic message that voters who
supported Trump in Michigan and throughout the country are sending
to everyone. They are hurting and they are looking for
someone to listen and hear them at least make them
feel hard, and who can convince them rightly or wrongly,
accurately or not that they have the plan to heal
(31:39):
their pain.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But Alissa's Slatkin is going to the Senate. She is
that is particularly exciting. And there are other Democrats in
you know, Jackie Rosen and rub and Diego and who
did in fact overperform the top of the ticket and
maybe also benefitted from the top of the tickets campaign.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Yeah, I think so. You can make that argument. Certainly,
all throughout various local districts where we saw a high
turnout that we otherwise wouldn't see. The West Side of
Michigan is an example of that too. But you know,
we're still picking a part all of those all of
those things. The other piece we know protecting democracy was
a critical factor for a lot of people who did
(32:25):
show up, and I think it's important to know that
that work is going to continue and the fact that
democracy thrives when we demand that it does.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
And so for us to give up.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
In this moment, at a time where we do have
someone who's an avowed authoritarian, you know, about to ascend
to the highest office in the land, we're needed now
more than ever to stand firm and speak out against
anyone who tries to take away our voices and our freedoms.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah. So, I mean we're already hearing, thankfully from Newsome
and also from Governor Pritzker, these statements of like how
federalism can in fact protect American citizens and blue states.
Talk to me about what that looks like in Michigan.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
The power of people to stay engaged and stay involved
and to hold people accountable, no matter how powerful, is
a critical component of what democracy is. And especially in
this moment, we have to still wave that flag and
march into battle with that as our charge. And so
I think you'll see young people, women in Michigan, people
(33:29):
of color, continue to lead that if we allow our
grief and despondents in this moment to turn into an energy,
just like it did after twenty sixteen, to push for freedom,
to push for an expansion of freedom, and really again
also take on that economic opportunity message as well that
the vice president attempted to. But for various different reasons
(33:52):
that we can unpack, I didn't resonate as strongly as
the one her opponent and the ones in future president
and was able to sell.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, I actually think this election was hardest on younger
women because for some of these younger women, I don't
know if they understood just how much America could reject them, right.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Yeah, I think that was really certainly a message you
could see. And yet, you know, we only lose when
we allow others to make us believe that our voices
don't matter, you know, and so to young women, to
all women, our voices matter.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
And it's up to us.
Speaker 5 (34:34):
To continue to stand with these young women as well,
who will inherit what we leave behind and ensure that
they remain in a country that protects them and protects
their freedom and protects their voices, protects their bodies, protects
their safety. That work is still on us to do,
and the loss of that work on Tuesday that we
(34:54):
endured doesn't change that. It just in my view, makes
it all the more urgent. And history teaches us every
time we as a people have reacted to setbacks with
a stronger organization, with a stronger determination to push forward.
We have one and every advancement throughout our history has
involved setbacks. So we have to see this as that,
(35:16):
and not a lot not to see it as a
reason to give up. I know a lot of people
want to walk away. It's a lot easier to just
least say I want to leave the country. You know,
I'm done. It's okay to feel that in this moment.
We all felt that in twenty sixteen. But we also
have to at least and a lot of people I'm
CaCu in Michigan are seeing this as an opportunity to
say not on our watch.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
And this story is not over, you know, the story of.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
The Women of Michigan.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
It's not over.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
This maybe the sequel to twenty twenty, but it's not
the end of the trilogy. And we're coming back.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. I think that's really important, and I think it's
important to be clear that it was the setback, but
that also it is an opportunity to learn a lot
of stuff and then to keep.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Going right, Yeah, and to learn from everything. And we
do this and on my team, whether it was the
after math of the twenty twenty election, whether it's you know,
twenty twenty four and the aftermath we're about to experience.
Use everything to get stronger, use everything to get wiser,
use everything to get to get better, because that's what
the issues and the people that we fight for deserve
(36:14):
and require. And so for me, it's really hard in
moments like this. You want to give up, who want
to walk away, You want to say this is too hard,
and they ever go to win. I'm up against too
many powerful forces. The richest guy in the world and
soon to be, you know, one of the most powerful
elected people in the world.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
How do we fight that?
Speaker 5 (36:30):
It's easy to feel small, But those forces that want
us to feel small will win if we allow them.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
To make us feel that way.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
If we don't give up on the ideals that brought
us to the fight to begin with, we can keep going.
And I would argue that if we do give up
on the ideals and the values of inclusion and equality
and freedom and protecting the vulnerable, everything that that brings
us to the arena. If we give up on that,
then it's a guarantee that those ideals fail to define
who we are as a nation. But if we stand
(36:58):
in the arena and we keep fighting, that's our best
shot and our only shot to ensure that we have
a chance to ensure our nation and our republic reflects
the best of what we've always been since our founding. Yeah,
I have a book coming out in May. I'm not
like saying this to promote it. I'm just saying that
this is like for me. This is why I wrote
that book after twenty twenty, is to say we all
(37:18):
have to be warriors, and we can't allow setbacks or
things out of our control or losses to do anything
other than make us better warriors for who we are
and the communities we fight for. So in this moment,
we have to ask ourselves, how are we going to
pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off, keep going, and
use this as a moment to build our stronger muscles
to you know, just like athletes. I'm a marathon and
(37:40):
we run long distances, our muscles break down and then
they come back stronger. So this is a time in
which we is a community, can feel that weakness, and
let's use that weakness to come back stronger. And if
we can focus our energy on that, then we can
and will succeed. History teaches us that unequivocally.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, the other or bright
spot if we're gonna feel better about this rushing electoral
shit show, is that the Republicans have controlled the House
for two years and they have been absolutely awful at it,
and every piece of legislation they've managed to pass has
been they've had to have democratic help. So you know,
(38:20):
they'll have an equally small margin if they don't lose
the House of Representatives. So there is some bit of
good news there.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Yeah, there is always reason to help, and there's always
a reminder that the reason why these issues, whether it
be reproductive freedom, or whether it be just sort of
keeping our kids safe in schools, or you know, everything
that making sure we can have clean water, drink, clean air,
and a breathe, everything that we fight for, there's a
reason we have to fight for it.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
It's because the infrastructure.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Of the world is not set up to make those
things automatic guarantees They're only given to us when we
demand them. And just like democracy only survives when we
fight for it. So this is an opportunity for us
to all ask ourselves, you know, what are we going
to fight for? What are we going to stand for?
And the power of the people will always be more
powerful and greater than the people in power, And we
can't forget that in moments like this, Even though there's
(39:11):
so many different reasons to forget it, there's many more
reasons to remember the strength that we come when we
come together and don't give up. And I think we
can push forward with courage, with dignity and with grace
and you know, living all of our values and fighting
for what we believe in. If we continue to build solidarity,
to build unity, and to be there for each other,
to stand up for each other, that's when we as
(39:32):
a country are at our best and no one leader
gets to define us in a way that doesn't reflect
those best ideals. We can still maintain the ability to
show the world who we are. It's only if we
give up on that then truly we have lost.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
So are you going to be able to push back
on Project twenty twenty? And what does that look like.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
Yeah, I mean, we have to see how things play out,
and I think there are a lot of entities and
organizations planning out. We still need to yet see what
Congress looks like. Here in Michigan, we still have the
executive branch, we have the state Senate. So there's a
lot we can do to define what that pushback should
look like, you know, whether it's in the environment, whether
it's in education. And then there's also, you know, a
(40:10):
parallel track of just keeping notes and planning for the
next opportunity to lead the country and what that's going
to look like. And I'm sure there's again a lot,
there's a whole cohort of people doing that. It's about
staying vigilant, staying engaged, people who have scoured through Project
twenty twenty five, scouring through it now on coming up
with a plan in response for every action it telegraphs.
(40:30):
That's the type of work we all need to be doing,
and doing it together. You know, this is not the
time to descend into our own disunity. I guess, for
lack of a better word, this is not the time
to point arrows at each other. This is not the
time to say you did this wrong, or you did
that bad and use that as a way to kind
of demoralize us even more. This is the time for
us to say, yeah, we all messed up, we miss
(40:51):
the mark. These are the reasons why. This is what
we're going to learn from it, and this is what
we're going to come back stronger. That's what the winning
team does, right every I've thought about this a lot
over the last few days. Everyone who's ever accomplished anything
has face setbacks. That's that's reality. The question is always
what do you do next? And that's what we as
a like as women, need to ask ourselves. What do
(41:12):
we do next? That's really the question, And what do
we do next? Given Project twenty five? What alliances we
do we build, what solidarity do we build? And if
we can stay in that space as opposed to space
about tearing each other down or picking things apart, Like
I'm not interested in that. Let's not waste understand that,
let's learn together from our mishaps, show grace to those
who perhaps fell short. But everyone still has to stay
(41:35):
in the arena because if we leave, we lose. But
if we stay in it and we fight, we can
still win.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
As the Vice President so beautifully articulated right in her
concession speech, which was as much as a concessiant speech
as it was a call to action for the nation
to stay vigilant and stay engaged and stay in the fight.
Maybe that's also just how I respond to things, like
I take the hit, but then I say, Okay, how
do I punch back stronger?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Right?
Speaker 5 (42:00):
Like, That's that's what being a warrior is than a fighter.
But at the same time, I think, you know, there's
a clear message that was sent in this election, which
is that people are hurting and they're looking for people
who will fight for them. And in this case, Trump
made the case, even if it was disingenuous, even if
we could pick it apart, they felt he would fight
for them, and they showed up for him. And so
(42:21):
how do we what lessons do we learn from that?
That's the type of conversation we need to have right now. Yeah,
are you feeling.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I feel like shit? I don't know. I had the
last episode. I apologize to everyone from getting the election
so wrong. I personally just really like Vice President Harrison
thinks she's smart and they did. Actually, I mean I
was just talking to a straight reporter on this who
was talking about how in many ways the campaign did
(42:48):
a lot of very smart stuff which helped the Senate
candidates in some of these swing states, which is really interesting.
I'm very disappointed. I also think black women they did
so much much for us, so it is very I
feel like it's just a very bleak. It just feels
very painful to watch the group that you put together
(43:10):
who really did come out have to watch that disappointment
is I hate. And then also it's just hard. I
also am really scared because I've asked, like between feeling
a little better because I know how bad Republicans are
at governing, and also I know how wildly unpopular a
lot of the ideas in Project twenty twenty five are,
(43:31):
right like, you know, it's all fun and games until
a concentration camp ends up on your block, right Like,
So a lot of that stuff is not popular. And
I know how ambitious a lot of this agenda is
and how hard it is to implement. It's hard to
implement good stuff, it's equally hard to implement bad stuff.
(43:53):
So that makes me feel a little better, but you know,
it does not feel good.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I know, you know, I would say, yeah, I think
it's and it's important. I think to give space to
all that in this moment.
Speaker 6 (44:07):
I really appreciate you coming on yeah, onward, I think
is the most important thing to feel to just, you know,
make sure we don't give up and make sure we
continue to fight.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
A moment.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Jesse Cannon Somali, this is a sad story. What are
you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So Trump received forty six percent of the Latino vote
compared to thirty five percent four years ago, and Associated
Press poll shows, and that's the most support Latinos have
ever shown a Republican presidential candidate. And this is Donald Trump,
who is calling for mass deportation, who is saying that
Mexicans in many cases are quote criminals, drug dealers, rapists,
(44:56):
et cetera. So he's also said that immigrants poison the
blood of our kind. A lot of these Latinos will
be targeted for deportation. So it's a pretty bleak thing
to see people vote against their own interests so profoundly.
And I wanted to bring it up, not because it's
(45:17):
fuckery in the fact that it's funny, but fuckery in
the fact that it's so dark and profoundly and disheartening.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
(45:39):
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and Governor JB. Pritzker says, you come
for my people, you come through me. We have such
a great show for you today. Semaphore's Dave Weigel tells
us what he's found in his examination of the twenty
(00:22):
twenty four election. Then we'll talk to Michigan Secretary of
State Jocelyn Benson how about how her state will fight
back against Trump's next term. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
By why don't you tell us where the House is
at in the election? Right now?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Right now, Democrats have two hundred and one seats and
Republicans have two hundred and twelve seats. They flipped six seats,
Democrats flip five seats, so there's at this point Republicans
have a one seat net gain. There are still thirteen
uncalled races to watch that are just not finished being counted.
Some will go to recount, and so if Democrats can
(01:00):
net seventeen of those thirteen seats, they will have the majority.
That seems unlikely since that math is not mathing, but
it will be a very slim majority. That Republicans will
have in the House. So we'll see what happens, but
it certainly Democrats will pick up a few seats, probably
main second district, Washington's third district, a couple of seats
(01:23):
will be picked up, so it will end up being
very close. There's still a bunch of Senate seats that
aren't caught, so there's one seat Nevada. Rosen is going
to win Arizona. Ruben seems like he has it. In Pennsylvania.
There's a chance because it's point because the Republicans leading
by point five, that there might be a recount, and
(01:45):
there's a possibility that McCormick might end up. If they
recount and they find enough ballots, it's possible that the
case will keep his seat.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Smile. This is what I'm coing the mask off section.
It seems the Republican were so giddy about Trump's when
that they're already showing exactly what many of us knew.
They were already. But these attacks on women are really
something else. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
White supremacist Nick Flint has said your body, my choice forever.
He posted that before the race. We saw a text
campaign of obvious hate crimes, issuing a threat to students
of color across the nation, claiming they had been selected
to be slaves and appear at plantations. Pretty horrendous, misogynistic
(02:32):
claims of you know, wanting to do horrible things to women.
It's really not surprising, but it's this is what trump
Ism does.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And then of course we have all the right wing
influencers who are taking their mask off about Project twenty
twenty five and other things. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So you'll remember that Trump said he had knew nothing
about Project twenty twenty five and that Project twenty twenty
five was not at all connected to him. So basically,
mediately after Trump onon, Matt Walsh She's a right wing
podcast host wrote on X now that the election is over,
I think we can finally say that, yeah, actually Project
twenty twenty five is the agenda. L ol.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Matt waalsherre. You will all be know from making a
documentary reason called Am I Racist? Where he shows how
racist he is.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Ex Trump White has advisor Steve Bannon praised Walsh and
amplified his post during his war Room podcast Wednesday, telling
his staff to promote Walsh's comments on social media. Right
wing influencer Bennie Johnson also posted an on X it
is my honor to inform you that Project twenty twenty
five was real the whole time.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
He wrote, you may know Betty Johnson from the Justice Department,
saying he was a recipient of Russian disinformation money.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
That's right, he got a lot of money from Russia
to spread disinformation. Bo French, a Texas GOP official who
came under fire recently for using slurs to describe gay
people and people at this abilities, wrote on X Wednesday,
so we can admit now that we're going to implement
Project twenty twenty five. So there you go. They'll say
(04:08):
they were kidding, but they always say they were kidding.
But we know the truth. And you can see the
documentary we did on Project twenty twenty five. It's on YouTube.
Just google it. It's I think a very worthwhile use
of your time, MILLI.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So we have the first hint of at least what
we'll start as a romance. Elon Musk was on a
call with mister Trump and Zelenski today. What do you
see here?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Donald Trump won the presidency on Tuesday, and almost immediately
the richest people sixty four billion dollar gain for the
world's ten richest people, so Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry
Allison all among the top gainers. US stock surge dollar
gained on US election result. The net worth, led by
(04:54):
Tesla's CEO, the world's wealthiest person, surged to sixty three
point five billion dollars on Wednday Day. Musk added twenty
six point five billion to his pot. Amazon's Jeff Bezos
Oracles Larry Ellison were all among the top gainers. It's
the biggest increase since Bloomberg's Wealth Index began in twenty twelve. Look,
(05:16):
Trump is going to pick the winners and losers in
this economy, and he's going to make big tax cuts
for very wealthy people. And I think that these people
who decided to support Trump made a bet that he
would deliver for them, and he already has. So it's
(05:37):
pretty grim. Sometimes I want to just talk for a
minute to our listeners about sort of where I am
right now and just be honest. This was not the
result I've talked about a little bit, and I really
did think Harris was going to win, and I really
was quite devastated and sad for what happened, but I
want to just point out that it was really, you know,
(05:59):
a couple one hundred thousand votes in a few swing
states that did this for him, and a lot of
us in this country don't agree with Trump or trump Ism,
and at this moment, really the goal has to be
to protect institutions, to protect the rule of law, to
make sure that we continue to bring sunlight to the
(06:20):
stuff that people aren't covering. Trump has a bold and
deeply unpopular agenda he's going to try to implement, and
the only way that it can be gummed up is
by sunlight, is by talking about it, is by covering it.
So as much as there's a feeling like we all
(06:41):
want to just turn off the news, and maybe we
should take a week or two to do that, but
this is going to require vigilance on all of our
parts in order to make sure that we do have
elections in two years and we do have a functioning
democracy and we do protect the rule of law. So
I think every one of us, including myself, needs to
(07:03):
watch some Netflix and eat some cookies. I'm planning on
that later, But I feel very heartbroken for like a
lot of young women in this country, But I feel
more than ever that the importance is that we continue
to not engage in false equivalencies, really give you the
news as you needed, and try to do our best
(07:24):
and be transparent with you as listeners. I'm so grateful
that you guys come to us four times a week
or three times a week or no. I know, but
you might not listen to every episode. But I'm really grateful,
and I really feel that it's a responsibility of mine
to try to do the best we can, including to
be transparent, and to just continue to bring you things
(07:45):
so you can really stay completely up to date with
the news and to know what's happening. So we're really grateful.
And I know you're hurting, and we're hurting too. I'm
hurting too, and I know Jesse's hurting too, and it's
really dark, but I do want you to know that
there is hope here and that there are federal governors
(08:06):
who are committed to taking care of their people and
do not give up. Dave Wigel is a reporter at Semaphore.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Dave.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
It's going to be back. Thank you, under great circumstances.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So I want you to talk to us about what
went wrong. First of all, my whole place is that
I want I'm going to this is we're going to
just do therapy for me.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I see.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Now. My whole place is I want to know what
happened in this election and how I got it so
wrong in my mind, like, I just want as much
information as possible. So I have seen that you have
been sort of parson through what happened. So can we
(09:03):
start at the macro and then go to the micro?
So what happened in this election? Broadly?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So I'll start by saying a lot of people are
looking at the numbers on their screen and assuming, oh,
Kamala Harris turned out fewer voters than Joe Biden. Therefore
she didn't excite Democrats. It looks in the swing states,
we already know she basically hit the Biden numbers. In
the swing states, they executed their strategy, which was knowing
(09:31):
that some voters were moving toward Trump, replacing them with
other voters turning out as many persuadable people as possible.
It was Consin's one example of this. Harris got more
votes than Biden did in Wisconsin. She got almost as
many votes as Barack Obama did in two thousand and eight,
which was the biggest Democratic landslide in Wisconsin since the sixties,
and the state's population's been pretty static. That's why I
(09:51):
focus on that one. But she didn't win it. So
what happened it was that Donald Trump was not discredited
for ninety five percent of Republican votvoters, some had already
left the party. He saw this at the convention, Right,
They're just people who weren't for toront like Mike Bends,
who were never a lot back in the tent. They
left and he was replacing them with voters who he
promised everything to. And I had This part is important
(10:13):
because what Donald Trump does differently than other candidates, and
he does it because of a very friendly mediate environment
that he helped create but that he also lucked into,
is just promising everything to everybody. So if he did,
he's not hide bound by saying, well, if I get
in there, I might have a deficit to deal with.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well he will.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
He's just not going to. He just will pretend that
he's going to fix it all with terrors he appointed,
the justices that were turned to row. He just says
that he's actually not going to do anything else. On abortion,
he proposed a suite of new tax cuts that are
not paid for and that would shrink the lifespan of
Social Security. But this came up with Democrats. I was
talked to this week, just a narrow focus on this point.
Trump proposed tax cuts that would make the Social Security
(10:51):
Trust Fund run out faster. But because he said I
want to cut taxes on social Security, lower information voters.
I'm not trying to be too negative or insulting, but
lot lower information voters back and said it sounds like
I heard the word social security and I heard tax cut,
and they just and I didn't really say, that's a risk.
He is hard to run against. And Democrats went from
in twenty sixteen thinking this is a fluke, we never
(11:11):
should have lost it to thinking a candidate this brazen,
who doesn't care about being called out for criminal convictions
or offensive things or not being honest. A candidate who's
just that that brazen is very hard to run against.
And they've now seen in two midterms. I would be
surprised as the next midterm their coalition will turn out
better than the Trump coalition. But when he is there,
(11:33):
five hundred thousand worket pople come out of the woods
and vote for Republicans.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Explain this to me again, because this is so interesting.
So let's just go back to Wisconsin. This is super interesting.
So she actually did grow her coalition, but it wasn't enough.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yes, So the difference here is nate. If you look
at swing states where all the money was spent, Harris
is at above or right below the Biden numbers from
twenty twenty. We haven't do We don't have this from
Arizona and of Etiot and I think that like those
might be outliers. Because of the shift in the Latino
vote in states where the campaigns did not spend money,
and New Jersey's one of these, New York is one
of these, Florida is one of these. There were a
(12:09):
huge shift towards Republicans of every vote, every group of
voters except white women with college degrees, and even then
that wasn't much of a shift. That is where the
simple story of the election is. People were still angry
that prices were up after twenty twenty, no matter what
Democrats did on the economy, the fact that the economy
had proved a lot, the fact it's very easy to
imagine Donald Trump, if he had been president this week,
would have said, no one thought I could do it,
(12:31):
but we've beaten inflation, and strong men come up to
me with tears in their eyes and say, it's the
best economy we've ever seen. They know that he would
have been able to sell that economy, but they couldn't.
Those are the model causal things happening here. There's a
lot of discourse which I'm listening and skimming, some stuff
about how the party lost its lost its connection to
working class voters culturally, and that's complicated. The one part
(12:52):
I think the Democrats are actually moving towards agreement on
is that for years they thought they had an emerging
majority and they didn't need far right media or alternative
media or offensive media. I'd say that they could take
the high road. Well, then they didn't need to talk
to those people. The Harris campaign, if they did some
subtraction from the coalition, not totally intentional, but for example,
(13:16):
the RFK thing, their bet was we are not going
to be the party. We're going to lose people if
we are the party that just will say, oh sure,
we'll totally blow up public health because of conspiracy theories,
so they let him out of the coalition. The thing
that is more fixable is they hadn't prioritize going on
new media that people who don't trust the mainstream media
listen to. Some Democrats did, and every diperary did, like
(13:37):
Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, John Federando, I talk to you
this week. All of them say you just need to
do that, like you're not going to go in there
and get eaten alive. If you're getting eaten a live,
you shouldn't run for office because you should be better
at talking. You can't live in the bubble anymore where
some people are just beneath you. Maybe none of them
vowed for you, but you need to try. Maybe they
don't vote for you, but they don't hate you once
you get.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
On there, right or they know you exist.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Sure, because when they talk about messaging, the messaging means
earned media, which is you doing interviews and speeches. It
means paid media, which is you buying ads. And that's
the thing where they're running ad That's why I talked
about swinges stays where they're runing ads and people saw
the ads they held a lot of ground and where
people were just watching the news on their phones and
tuning out. They lost a lot of ground, and that.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Seems so important because there's so much blame going around,
which is I think normal winn a party loses, But
that is so important because it sounds like in a
weird way, because Democrats probably held those Senate seats, almost
all the Senate seats in swing states that were up,
(14:38):
and it almost sounds like the campaign helped those down
ballot races.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, that's the thing in the Senate seats, the almost
irony of this, just like I get I can see
if the key like Montana is a testa ran ahead,
bear around, right ahead. Well, I don't want to get
it too over complicated about what happened, but it was
Democrats were able to win and outperform Harris in a
number of places, which suggests to me that Republicans less
(15:05):
well owned than Trump, but running on the same stuff
as in twenty twenty two, just do not have the
same appeal. It's very clear.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Trump Ism does not scale right.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Not right now, And even JD. Vance is less popular
than Donald Trump. He doesn't get the same crowd, he
doesn't have the same peal. There are not people having JD.
Vance voat grades, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Now, can you imagine Not.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Really, I can imagine a lot of things, but that
it's kind of hard to imagine, but very a. Goosy
is a unique candidate because he's a Latino veteran in
Arizona and he spent three years moving to the right.
He'd been much more progressive and he moved to the right.
You can do that in three years. You can't do
it in one hundred days. That's a harder test of
this because Kerry Lake is pretty well lothed and known
for trying to overturn elections and nothing else. But that
(15:46):
was a good example where where Democrats kind of filled
the soil for a long time, and by the time
voters are paying attention, they had seen Ruben Gegel on
Bill Maher and they'd seen him say that Democrats should
stop saying LATINX, which he did three years ago. I mean,
I did, like there, go I not been saying that,
but he said three years ago, stop doing it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That example of a Democratic campaign that made some compromises
and said hey, if you're a moderate voter, I'm not
going to do anything super crazy that you hate. That
was pretty successful and Harris did a lot of that,
and again, we're voters saw her saying, here's my economic plan,
and I'm supported by some Republicans, so I'm not actually
at left winger. That was in competition with the ads
about her being a crazy left winger and her letting
(16:25):
the border explode, et cetera, et cetera. But that actually
did move some people. Just they're missing the people who
don't watch TV except for when they're seeing sports, they
didn't hear that. And the messaging because there's so much
of a post to discuss on messaging. That's where I've
come down on this was seeing what they were actually
spending money on in the States.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So explain this to me. The messaging it sort of worked.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, that's why this gulf between On average, it hired
you on average. But for example, Democratic support collapsed to
New Jersey, it just didn't matter because they won their
house seats. They could. They were's one they want to
flip and they did. If that collapsed up around the country,
Democrats would have lost New Mexico and Minnesota and Virginia,
and it didn't. It was where they had targeted messaging
to burnish Harris's image. It was pretty successful. Harris's favorability
(17:09):
improved throughout the campaign. I think the issue here is
that Democrats did not correct quickly enough, because these things
move very slowly. I see news stories as a second
hand on a clock, and campaigns as the as the
hour hand. It's really what because they had done differently
well given that they were running on we're going to
kick out asylum seekers more than we were two years ago.
(17:31):
They were running on expanding medicare in pretty incremental ways.
They're running on fighting price gouging. Had Joe Biden said
in June twenty twenty three, not twenty four, I have
to pull the cord on this, and I think even
Kamala Harris been the nominee, they would have had the
time to do that. Inflation would have continued to be
an issue for them. But every Democrat owned part of
(17:53):
the inflation situation because they owned it. They didn't own
all the immigration situation because that's controlled by DHS and
the executive, so some of them took some damage over it,
and the damage is usually you didn't stop Biden from
making things worse. But I think inflation would have been survivable,
and by survival I mean Democrats running one and a
half points better in a few states, they would have
(18:15):
narrowly won the election. They would sto would have lost
the Ohio Senate race, in the Montana Senate race, like
they were fighting for a very, very, very tough race.
But I think could they have gotten over the line
with a similar strategy that started a year earlier. I
think they could have.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah. What's so interesting to me about all of this
is that it seems to me like New York State
Democrats won seeds, right, I mean, they flipped two seeds.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, So there are the green shoots for Democrats in
a lot of places that we're going to figure out
more after the election. And this happens. For example, two
thousand and four, Georgie Wish wins and Republicans win most
of their closed races. And the exception is Colorado, where
Democrats win a Senate seat they flipped it from Republicans.
(19:04):
They do much better in local elections. They were hopeful
maybe the whole country is like that. It turns out
it's not. There's parts of the country that are like Colorado.
The key it turns out in the long term is
do people there have college degrees that is definitive. But
there were going to be places where Democrats did. North
Carolina is one where they lost the presidential election state wipe,
but they actually picked up some lower offices and broke
(19:26):
their replicans oup majority. Even in this electorate, they were
able to make some gains. When I talked about this electorate,
I mean just Trump persuading people and adding votes from
twenty twenty. Had Trump gotten exactly as many votes as
he got in twenty twenty, if you listen to him,
he says he wonted because no one had ever won
that many votes. He wouldn't have won. Harris got more
votes in a couple key states, and she would have
edged past him. He did more persuasion, And so that's
(19:47):
part of it. Two Democrats are not the only actors
of history. Trump made decisions, and I think I talked
about lying, et cetera, but he made even other policy decisions.
To this say, unlike every other Republican, and hey, maybe
unlike what I'll actually do and I take the power.
I'm never going to touch Obamacare, I'm never going to
touch Medicare, I'm never going to touch Social Security. I'm
going to defend them. All that does matter. I don't
(20:09):
think even the exact same alignment. If Trump had said,
you know what, I'm bored about running and they had
nominated run to Santus, I'm not convinced a Santus would
have won because I think the rest of the Republican
instinct is pretty tied to and we're going to get
in there and shrink the deficit. Trump's decisions are very potent. Also,
what was the story he's able to tell? Again, it
involves some bs, which is when I was president, which
(20:32):
a presidency that ended in February twenty twenty, and nothing
else was my fault. The economy is really good. Well,
another Republican couldn't have run on that. He ran a
very good campaign with a combination of a record he
could defend and some stuff he made up and could
very easily defend.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Right, I want you to put this together for me.
In the states where they didn't have the campaign apparatus
working as hard right, the non swing states like New Jersey.
Let's talk about New Jersey. How much do you think
disinformation played a role.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Well, depending on what type of disinformation. There are elections
that happen in fairly tough circumstances, and one of them
is which we all live through you and me, And
I assume I was listening as twenty twelve and it
objectively voters in October twenty twelve were paying more for
gas than they had been four years earlier, based on time.
Uneployment was not what it was four and a half
(21:25):
years earlier. There wasn't a good You just have to
stick through it. We are the party that's going to
get you through it. Things are improving, keep trusting us
message that was successful for Barack Obama. And I think
you can disaggregate form that from even his own talent
because Democrats across the klairemccaskill was winning and John Tester
is winning, and for a lot of Democrats it's like, Yep,
we didn't turn things around yet, but we're turning them
(21:46):
around and those other guys are terrible. That's the part
that I think Trump makes more complicated because he wasn't
running on Paul Ryan saying we're going to shrink the
deficit and black Art Medican and he might, he just wasn't.
This was running on it. This is the success he had.
This is why I not overwripe it but just really like,
if this was Jdevan's running on the same campaign without
that record, I don't think it would have worked. I
don't think you would have the same people come out
(22:07):
of the would work because the overall democratic message of
returning the corner that has been successful before it was
actually round Reagan in nineteen eighty four, things were in
some metrics, including inflation, unemployment, things were worse in morning
morning in America than they were right now. The final thing, though,
the final thing, I'm adding like twenty to twenty things,
this daisy chain of takes, but this media environment, when
(22:28):
you have to be talking about disinformation, I'm cautious say
what's different information? What it is? And I think what's
important is not just people not quite getting what's happening
in the economy. It's that there's no objective source that
a lot of people trust that's telling what's actually happening.
Some of that is people who'll say, oh, the TV
told me to wear a mask outside, and I don't
trust that anymore. Some it's that, but it's also just
(22:48):
people have moved on other media sources and they just
not only do they not hear positive democratic messaging, but
when they hear Trum's messaging. No one's really pushing back
some way. Am I the hardest interviewer in a world?
Probably not, But I would notice when kamal Aris goes
on MSNBC, the first question is why are you struggling
on the economy? Why don't people trust you on the economy?
When Trump goes on like Joe Rogan and the note Boys,
(23:10):
that's not the question that it's a lot of let's
talk about how cool and fun you are.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've really been.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
I don't think even the media environment of twenty sixteen
hard to recreate all that stuff, but that one where
just people who are still getting most of their news
from newspapers and TV, local TV, cable. The political discourse
is more shape by what's on the a one of
the New York Times. That was tougher for him, and
this is much easier.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
So interesting, I mean, that's a really important point that
he has a sort of propaganda network that Democrats don't have, right,
I mean, basically that's what you're saying, and that propaganda
network pumps him up and makes him seem But I
also think the secret sauce about Trump has always been
that he is just a uniquely talented I mean, like
(23:57):
him or loathe him, certainly, I am not a fan,
but he is uniquely good at connecting with his people.
One of the things that Trump did, which I thought
would doom him but actually has really delivered for him,
is that he was so laser focused on his base
and Harris was more interested. Obviously, again it's not a
(24:20):
fair comparison because she had three months and he had,
you know, our whole lifetimes. But he was committed to
just turning out his base and thinking and making the
gamble that that would be enough, and she was trying
to practice conversion and ultimately the bass play one out.
I mean, can you talk about that?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, I do not know if he was trying to
reach his base. It's a very complicated question because I
don't mind you in the word wrappaganda. But one thing
I'll positive here is that whenever a democratic president, Fox
News drives the truck down to Del Rio and Eagle
Pass and covers people crossing the border. And when Donald
Trump's president, they talked remov is present. So because there
(25:01):
were illegal border crossings under Trump, and I'm not being
good because there were policy changes, bind did that led
to more people across the border. There also were just
worse conditions in places like Venezuela and Haiti that led
to more migration out of there and people trying to
get into the country. But it was not false that
the Trump policy was a very unsympathetic were full go
(25:22):
away approach, including saying you're in a campaign that yes,
there are people who have legal temporary status from Haiti
that live in Ohio and we should take your status
away and kick them out. The Trump approaches just kick
them out. That is a policy difference. And the promise
of instead of you coming across the country and getting
a court date, We're going to immediately deport you, We're
going to process you in Mexico, just get out of here.
(25:42):
That is significant change. It just helps that even when
border crossings are falling under a Democrat, the stories are
still about who's coming across the border illegally. One thing
that stuck with me it wasn't my reporting, it was politico.
But one reason the Teamsters didn't endure in the presidential
race and just stayed neutral, which actually was kind of
(26:03):
victory for Harris not norsing Trump, was that there were
some heads of locals who sorry, not the teasers, the firefighters, firefighters.
There are some heads in their locals who blamed the
border for fentanyl and said, fentanyl's coming over and it's
putting our firefighters at risk. And there is an example
of something because if you if you know about how
drugs smuggling works, as everyone listen to this podcast does,
that's not like somebody that comes from Haiti with a
(26:25):
bag of fentanyl and crosses the border. Drug smuggling is
very sophisticated. Happened everywhere. It happens on planes, like we're
not stopping all flights through Mexico. This is this catch
twenty two that Democrats are in. You would see Republicans
every time law enforcement announced a fentanyl seizure and say,
look at how much fentanyl they seized. This is not working.
Whenever Republican is president, he goes down and says, look
at this, we seized a bunch of fentanyl. The policy
(26:47):
is working. I'm not convinced that Democrats wouldn't do that.
I do think Democrats are going to start revisiting not
just Bill Clinton's politics, with Barack Obama's politics and how
you just need to actually one be tough on rule
breaking and things that are disruptive to normal people's lives.
And you need to say that you are all the
time and show up all the time. Like the people
(27:08):
that I think are most out of the conversation that
Democrats want to have right now in every way are
the people who in it. And I was there covering
this for twenty four thirteen, fourteen fifteen, the Black Lives
Matter movement and also crim adjuster performers on the libertarian
left and right who were saying, we actually can start
removing some people from prison and being more tolerant about
(27:29):
getting people rehabilitated, maybe not doing as many homelessness sweeps.
We can be less cruel because crime is down. And
one thing to happen this election below blow the claridential level.
Well at the presidential level. Kamala Harris is running as
to talk about being a tough prosecutor and for one example,
and how just they've a party abandoned the that approach.
I keep want to say, soft on crime, just try
not talk to cliches. But also just in her state
(27:50):
where she lives in Los Angeles County, voters got rid
of the Progressive DA where she was born in Alameda County.
Voters got rid of the progressive DA Oakland, where she
spent some of her life. Voters kicked out the mayor
San Francisco, where she was DA. Voters kicked out from
there and statewide, and she never said how she voted
on this. There was a ballot measure to get rid
of some of these primo dust reform. They're the ones
that had passed and passed life, and the original one
(28:13):
passed with Republican support. I remember I talked to Gingrich,
who dedorsed it, for a story recently. Grige ten years
ago was saying, Hey, Californians, we need to get people
out of prison. Let's pass this bill, and people who
are just doing teddy chocolate lifting will be clogging up
the jails. And then ten years later people say, I
am tired of watching videos on TV of guys walking
out of stores with bags of goods. I'm tired of
(28:35):
going to Walgreens and there is shampoo behind the lock gate.
You might stop and say, like, is that really the
most important thing happening? Look, quality of life matters.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Thank you, thank you, thank you so interesting. I really
appreciate you. Jocelyn Benson is the Secretary of State of Michigan.
Welcome to FoST Politics, Jocelyn Benson.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I wanted to have you on the podcast because a
lot of the listeners of this podcast, and by a
lot of listeners this podcast, I mean myself, are full
on freaking out about what this is going to look
like another Trump presidency, and so I figure because you
are part of the trifactor of fabulous women who lead
(29:19):
the state of Michigan, you could talk to us a
little bit about First of all, I want you to
first talk to us about the election and what you
saw on the ground and how that was, and then
I have many, many, many other questions for you.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
I think what I saw on the ground in the
lead up to the election and throughout was a lot
of enthusiasm across the board. And basically the enthusiasm ended
up truly being across the board because we had the
highest turnout election in our state's history. Five point six
seven million people voted, which blew through our past record
(29:57):
of five point five from twenty twenty which and that
one blew through our previous record of five million in
two thousand and eight. And so we at the time
when our state population has been decreasing, we've seen voter
turnout increase and really just go through the roof.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
This past Tuesday. That's not a terrible thing, and that's
sort of that's a good thing for our for our democracy.
It really illuminates also the reality that the two party
system or is perhaps not fully equipped to reflect the
diverse perspectives in the electorate, in the electorate that large.
What we also saw on Michigan were two things.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
One extraordinary celebration at the polls, more energy than I've seen.
And this was in you know, I went to ham Tranmek,
I went down river places where our Democrats lost. I
still saw extraordinary turnout, extraordinary enthusiasm. People were really determined
to vote. The second thing I saw in Michigan was,
you know, other than that, the at the top of
the ticket women Wan. Our entire congressional delegation on the
(30:55):
Democratic side is almost entirely women. Now, we elected Alyssa Slack,
We elected two women to the Michigan Supreme Court who
ran as Democrats. So there's I wouldn't call it silver linings,
but I would add that to the lessons that we
need to take from this election to recognize that still
it's clear that women voters have something to stay. They're
supporting female candidates in our state. The women of Michigan
(31:18):
continue to expand. But at the same time, we also
have to listen to the economic message that voters who
supported Trump in Michigan and throughout the country are sending
to everyone. They are hurting and they are looking for
someone to listen and hear them at least make them
feel hard, and who can convince them rightly or wrongly,
accurately or not that they have the plan to heal
(31:39):
their pain.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
But Alissa's Slatkin is going to the Senate. She is
that is particularly exciting. And there are other Democrats in
you know, Jackie Rosen and rub and Diego and who
did in fact overperform the top of the ticket and
maybe also benefitted from the top of the tickets campaign.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
Yeah, I think so. You can make that argument. Certainly,
all throughout various local districts where we saw a high
turnout that we otherwise wouldn't see. The West Side of
Michigan is an example of that too. But you know,
we're still picking a part all of those all of
those things. The other piece we know protecting democracy was
a critical factor for a lot of people who did
(32:25):
show up, and I think it's important to know that
that work is going to continue and the fact that
democracy thrives when we demand that it does.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
And so for us to give up.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
In this moment, at a time where we do have
someone who's an avowed authoritarian, you know, about to ascend
to the highest office in the land, we're needed now
more than ever to stand firm and speak out against
anyone who tries to take away our voices and our freedoms.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah. So, I mean we're already hearing, thankfully from Newsome
and also from Governor Pritzker, these statements of like how
federalism can in fact protect American citizens and blue states.
Talk to me about what that looks like in Michigan.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
The power of people to stay engaged and stay involved
and to hold people accountable, no matter how powerful, is
a critical component of what democracy is. And especially in
this moment, we have to still wave that flag and
march into battle with that as our charge. And so
I think you'll see young people, women in Michigan, people
(33:29):
of color, continue to lead that if we allow our
grief and despondents in this moment to turn into an energy,
just like it did after twenty sixteen, to push for freedom,
to push for an expansion of freedom, and really again
also take on that economic opportunity message as well that
the vice president attempted to. But for various different reasons
(33:52):
that we can unpack, I didn't resonate as strongly as
the one her opponent and the ones in future president
and was able to sell.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, I actually think this election was hardest on younger
women because for some of these younger women, I don't
know if they understood just how much America could reject them, right.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Yeah, I think that was really certainly a message you
could see. And yet, you know, we only lose when
we allow others to make us believe that our voices
don't matter, you know, and so to young women, to
all women, our voices matter.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
And it's up to us.
Speaker 5 (34:34):
To continue to stand with these young women as well,
who will inherit what we leave behind and ensure that
they remain in a country that protects them and protects
their freedom and protects their voices, protects their bodies, protects
their safety. That work is still on us to do,
and the loss of that work on Tuesday that we
(34:54):
endured doesn't change that. It just in my view, makes
it all the more urgent. And history teaches us every
time we as a people have reacted to setbacks with
a stronger organization, with a stronger determination to push forward.
We have one and every advancement throughout our history has
involved setbacks. So we have to see this as that,
(35:16):
and not a lot not to see it as a
reason to give up. I know a lot of people
want to walk away. It's a lot easier to just
least say I want to leave the country. You know,
I'm done. It's okay to feel that in this moment.
We all felt that in twenty sixteen. But we also
have to at least and a lot of people I'm
CaCu in Michigan are seeing this as an opportunity to
say not on our watch.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
And this story is not over, you know, the story of.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
The Women of Michigan.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
It's not over.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
This maybe the sequel to twenty twenty, but it's not
the end of the trilogy. And we're coming back.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. I think that's really important, and I think it's
important to be clear that it was the setback, but
that also it is an opportunity to learn a lot
of stuff and then to keep.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Going right, Yeah, and to learn from everything. And we
do this and on my team, whether it was the
after math of the twenty twenty election, whether it's you know,
twenty twenty four and the aftermath we're about to experience.
Use everything to get stronger, use everything to get wiser,
use everything to get to get better, because that's what
the issues and the people that we fight for deserve
(36:14):
and require. And so for me, it's really hard in
moments like this. You want to give up, who want
to walk away, You want to say this is too hard,
and they ever go to win. I'm up against too
many powerful forces. The richest guy in the world and
soon to be, you know, one of the most powerful
elected people in the world.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
How do we fight that?
Speaker 5 (36:30):
It's easy to feel small, But those forces that want
us to feel small will win if we allow them.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
To make us feel that way.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
If we don't give up on the ideals that brought
us to the fight to begin with, we can keep going.
And I would argue that if we do give up
on the ideals and the values of inclusion and equality
and freedom and protecting the vulnerable, everything that that brings
us to the arena. If we give up on that,
then it's a guarantee that those ideals fail to define
who we are as a nation. But if we stand
(36:58):
in the arena and we keep fighting, that's our best
shot and our only shot to ensure that we have
a chance to ensure our nation and our republic reflects
the best of what we've always been since our founding. Yeah,
I have a book coming out in May. I'm not
like saying this to promote it. I'm just saying that
this is like for me. This is why I wrote
that book after twenty twenty, is to say we all
(37:18):
have to be warriors, and we can't allow setbacks or
things out of our control or losses to do anything
other than make us better warriors for who we are
and the communities we fight for. So in this moment,
we have to ask ourselves, how are we going to
pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off, keep going, and
use this as a moment to build our stronger muscles
to you know, just like athletes. I'm a marathon and
(37:40):
we run long distances, our muscles break down and then
they come back stronger. So this is a time in
which we is a community, can feel that weakness, and
let's use that weakness to come back stronger. And if
we can focus our energy on that, then we can
and will succeed. History teaches us that unequivocally.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, the other or bright
spot if we're gonna feel better about this rushing electoral
shit show, is that the Republicans have controlled the House
for two years and they have been absolutely awful at it,
and every piece of legislation they've managed to pass has
been they've had to have democratic help. So you know,
(38:20):
they'll have an equally small margin if they don't lose
the House of Representatives. So there is some bit of
good news there.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
Yeah, there is always reason to help, and there's always
a reminder that the reason why these issues, whether it
be reproductive freedom, or whether it be just sort of
keeping our kids safe in schools, or you know, everything
that making sure we can have clean water, drink, clean air,
and a breathe, everything that we fight for, there's a
reason we have to fight for it.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
It's because the infrastructure.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Of the world is not set up to make those
things automatic guarantees They're only given to us when we
demand them. And just like democracy only survives when we
fight for it. So this is an opportunity for us
to all ask ourselves, you know, what are we going
to fight for? What are we going to stand for?
And the power of the people will always be more
powerful and greater than the people in power, And we
can't forget that in moments like this, Even though there's
(39:11):
so many different reasons to forget it, there's many more
reasons to remember the strength that we come when we
come together and don't give up. And I think we
can push forward with courage, with dignity and with grace
and you know, living all of our values and fighting
for what we believe in. If we continue to build solidarity,
to build unity, and to be there for each other,
to stand up for each other, that's when we as
(39:32):
a country are at our best and no one leader
gets to define us in a way that doesn't reflect
those best ideals. We can still maintain the ability to
show the world who we are. It's only if we
give up on that then truly we have lost.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
So are you going to be able to push back
on Project twenty twenty? And what does that look like.
Speaker 5 (39:48):
Yeah, I mean, we have to see how things play out,
and I think there are a lot of entities and
organizations planning out. We still need to yet see what
Congress looks like. Here in Michigan, we still have the
executive branch, we have the state Senate. So there's a
lot we can do to define what that pushback should
look like, you know, whether it's in the environment, whether
it's in education. And then there's also, you know, a
(40:10):
parallel track of just keeping notes and planning for the
next opportunity to lead the country and what that's going
to look like. And I'm sure there's again a lot,
there's a whole cohort of people doing that. It's about
staying vigilant, staying engaged, people who have scoured through Project
twenty twenty five, scouring through it now on coming up
with a plan in response for every action it telegraphs.
(40:30):
That's the type of work we all need to be doing,
and doing it together. You know, this is not the
time to descend into our own disunity. I guess, for
lack of a better word, this is not the time
to point arrows at each other. This is not the
time to say you did this wrong, or you did
that bad and use that as a way to kind
of demoralize us even more. This is the time for
us to say, yeah, we all messed up, we miss
(40:51):
the mark. These are the reasons why. This is what
we're going to learn from it, and this is what
we're going to come back stronger. That's what the winning
team does, right every I've thought about this a lot
over the last few days. Everyone who's ever accomplished anything
has face setbacks. That's that's reality. The question is always
what do you do next? And that's what we as
a like as women, need to ask ourselves. What do
(41:12):
we do next? That's really the question, And what do
we do next? Given Project twenty five? What alliances we
do we build, what solidarity do we build? And if
we can stay in that space as opposed to space
about tearing each other down or picking things apart, Like
I'm not interested in that. Let's not waste understand that,
let's learn together from our mishaps, show grace to those
who perhaps fell short. But everyone still has to stay
(41:35):
in the arena because if we leave, we lose. But
if we stay in it and we fight, we can
still win.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
As the Vice President so beautifully articulated right in her
concession speech, which was as much as a concessiant speech
as it was a call to action for the nation
to stay vigilant and stay engaged and stay in the fight.
Maybe that's also just how I respond to things, like
I take the hit, but then I say, Okay, how
do I punch back stronger?
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Right?
Speaker 5 (42:00):
Like, That's that's what being a warrior is than a fighter.
But at the same time, I think, you know, there's
a clear message that was sent in this election, which
is that people are hurting and they're looking for people
who will fight for them. And in this case, Trump
made the case, even if it was disingenuous, even if
we could pick it apart, they felt he would fight
for them, and they showed up for him. And so
(42:21):
how do we what lessons do we learn from that?
That's the type of conversation we need to have right now. Yeah,
are you feeling.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I feel like shit? I don't know. I had the
last episode. I apologize to everyone from getting the election
so wrong. I personally just really like Vice President Harrison
thinks she's smart and they did. Actually, I mean I
was just talking to a straight reporter on this who
was talking about how in many ways the campaign did
(42:48):
a lot of very smart stuff which helped the Senate
candidates in some of these swing states, which is really interesting.
I'm very disappointed. I also think black women they did
so much much for us, so it is very I
feel like it's just a very bleak. It just feels
very painful to watch the group that you put together
(43:10):
who really did come out have to watch that disappointment
is I hate. And then also it's just hard. I
also am really scared because I've asked, like between feeling
a little better because I know how bad Republicans are
at governing, and also I know how wildly unpopular a
lot of the ideas in Project twenty twenty five are,
(43:31):
right like, you know, it's all fun and games until
a concentration camp ends up on your block, right Like,
So a lot of that stuff is not popular. And
I know how ambitious a lot of this agenda is
and how hard it is to implement. It's hard to
implement good stuff, it's equally hard to implement bad stuff.
(43:53):
So that makes me feel a little better, but you know,
it does not feel good.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
I know, you know, I would say, yeah, I think
it's and it's important. I think to give space to
all that in this moment.
Speaker 6 (44:07):
I really appreciate you coming on yeah, onward, I think
is the most important thing to feel to just, you know,
make sure we don't give up and make sure we
continue to fight.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
A moment.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Jesse Cannon Somali, this is a sad story. What are
you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So Trump received forty six percent of the Latino vote
compared to thirty five percent four years ago, and Associated
Press poll shows, and that's the most support Latinos have
ever shown a Republican presidential candidate. And this is Donald Trump,
who is calling for mass deportation, who is saying that
Mexicans in many cases are quote criminals, drug dealers, rapists,
(44:56):
et cetera. So he's also said that immigrants poison the
blood of our kind. A lot of these Latinos will
be targeted for deportation. So it's a pretty bleak thing
to see people vote against their own interests so profoundly.
And I wanted to bring it up, not because it's
(45:17):
fuckery in the fact that it's funny, but fuckery in
the fact that it's so dark and profoundly and disheartening.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
(45:39):
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.