Matt is such an excellent writer that I am always surprised that his podcast style is so bad. He seems incapable of letting Brian finish his point, and has an infuriating habit of finishing his own points by saying “And that’s why this is so…so…” and then instead of completing his sentence heads off on another train of thought.
Brian's argument feels like conservatives complaining about Academia's leftwing dominance.
Overall I think the sources of discord are timing and tactics. Brian is thinking a bit more tactically and short term. But Matt's argument is more that they should invest in the long term by really becoming more genuinely like moderate voters. Then you trust the media environment and tactics to take care of themselves.
The Democratic party brand sucks. The policies they allegedly support (min wage, abortion, etc) will be on the ballot and win in the same states that Trump wins easily.
Here is my capsule summary of how we got to this point: scorched earth partisan politics + the internet + systemic shock(s)*
Really once you had people like McConnel obstructing the government and causing public opinion of the government writ large to plummet into single digit approval ratings, and combined this with the destruction of the media's gatekeeping power to keep demagogues languishing in obscurity, all bets were off. It was just a matter of time before a shock, or some series of shocks, would break the system. And here we are at the precipice.
* Pick from a menu: 2008, Iraq War, deindustrialization, opioids, pandemic, inflation...
Trump has created a Bismarckian coalition of the lower educated of all races and the rich. This is extremely bad news for the Democrats because this coalition will always outnumber college educated folks.
Has Matt explained why he partnered with Brian to do this podcast? I agree with Matt’s take on the sanctimonious progressive “groups”, their extreme ideological rigidity, and suicidal support of finger-wagging identity politics. Today’s progressivism repels more voters than it attracts. Blaming the media (or calling voters ignorant racists) ignores the big elephant in the room.
I think the entire thesis Brian posits here is THE core reason democrats have struggled with elections. It’s not a matter of people being fed incorrect media diets — it’s people actively choosing to repudiate the attitudes and norms of liberals. The bottom line is people have heard about the Trump corruption and fascism and just don’t buy it. There’s a certain patronization that pundits like Brian exude that people notice — it’s a lack of respect for their agency and interests that makes people thinks Dems are out of touch. Screaming about fascism or whatever doesn’t matter if the average voter thinks Democrats are cancel culture metropolitan losers.
Doesn't help that NY, California and Illinois are all shedding population. When people are "voting with their feet" against the flagship blue states, it gives a lot of credibility to complaints about blue state governance.
We all knew Harris had no chance back in the early days of the Biden administration but convinced ourselves that she could be a viable candidate. As much as I love Biden, he really screwed us by 1. Overtly selecting Harris because of her immutable traits and 2. Not stepping aside soon enough.
A candidate like Harris that could credibly be attacked as an insane Leftist in this environment had no shot.
I wasn't surprised this time, but that's only because I was surprised the first time I ever heard him speak. I don't remember what audio-only podcast I put on a few years ago that Matt was supposed to appear on, but I was only half listening to it and kept wondering when Matt's segment would start before having the shocked realization that he was the person speaking at that moment.
I was much more shocked and disappointed in 2016, given a transition from a good politician and man in Obama to what Trump is.
In 2024, we see the reality of Biden holding on long past the point his mental faculties allowed. I think they could have overcome inflation with some clear, aggressive language (and without preceding it with cringe “Let me be clear” bullshit they’ve all abused since Bernie). But they didn’t defend the economy and also allowed two years of fake aslyum claims to flood the country which, contrary to past illegal immigration, taxpayers were then required to pay for.
Republicans and voters could pin that on Harris - and she never offered a clear defense why.
Democrats felt good about the “weird” punchline in the middle of the summer. And it’s true, electing a guy who pals around with a pedophile and professes his wish to fuck his daugter is pretty weird. And yet, pretending a guy in an 80s who can barely get out a sentence should still be president is also weird. As is not acting sooner when we were flooded with tens of thousands of fake asylum claims, and is all the bs language policing and save trans kids” hysteria.
Stay away from California or blue city politicians. Start meeting voters where they are again.
The turn on immigration was also pretty transparently a cynical reaction to Trump's advantage on that issue (although at the same time, I suspect most swing voters would be too oblivious to even be aware that it was transparently a cynical reaction, so that probably did not make that much of a difference by itself).
Tim Walz WAS their attempt at meeting small-town and rural voters where they are. Born in a small town, didn’t go to a fancy Ivy League college, veteran, likes state fairs and hunting, projects Midwestern Dad vibes.
I swear to God, no matter what the Democrats do, someone will find fault with it.
You can't just do something once and say "see, we tried". That's like saying you should practice an instrument more, and after a week you expect to get into the orchestra.
To gain blue collar voters, guys who connect with them have to be central to their image, not tacked on at the end.
VP doesn’t matter. The election ads that ran all weekend weren’t about Walz. If Walz won the primary and ran *and* we still lost like this, that woe is me belief might have more validity.
One night spot is North Carolina. Sure Trump won the state but we did pretty well down ballot, flipping the Lt Gov and State Supt of Instruction, holding the AG and breaking the GOP supermajority in the state house. We’re also holding onto the one swing Congressional seat.
What a disappointing night. I'm not surprised at the result -- it was a coin flip according to the polls after all -- but the movement toward Trump across 90% of the counties (including in traditional Blue states) does surprise me.
I'm very interested in seeing demographic shifts on who moved to Trump, although the results suggests it's very broad-based.
The only areas where voters moved left were relatively educated, booming suburban areas like Colorado Springs (I think, eyeballing the maps) and Atlanta.
Matt is such an excellent writer that I am always surprised that his podcast style is so bad. He seems incapable of letting Brian finish his point, and has an infuriating habit of finishing his own points by saying “And that’s why this is so…so…” and then instead of completing his sentence heads off on another train of thought.
Brian's argument feels like conservatives complaining about Academia's leftwing dominance.
Overall I think the sources of discord are timing and tactics. Brian is thinking a bit more tactically and short term. But Matt's argument is more that they should invest in the long term by really becoming more genuinely like moderate voters. Then you trust the media environment and tactics to take care of themselves.
The Democratic party brand sucks. The policies they allegedly support (min wage, abortion, etc) will be on the ballot and win in the same states that Trump wins easily.
The Senate polls were awful
Just posting to let Brian know he should keep the sick beard
100%
Here is my capsule summary of how we got to this point: scorched earth partisan politics + the internet + systemic shock(s)*
Really once you had people like McConnel obstructing the government and causing public opinion of the government writ large to plummet into single digit approval ratings, and combined this with the destruction of the media's gatekeeping power to keep demagogues languishing in obscurity, all bets were off. It was just a matter of time before a shock, or some series of shocks, would break the system. And here we are at the precipice.
* Pick from a menu: 2008, Iraq War, deindustrialization, opioids, pandemic, inflation...
Trump has created a Bismarckian coalition of the lower educated of all races and the rich. This is extremely bad news for the Democrats because this coalition will always outnumber college educated folks.
Thank you, Matt. You are right and Brian is not.
Has Matt explained why he partnered with Brian to do this podcast? I agree with Matt’s take on the sanctimonious progressive “groups”, their extreme ideological rigidity, and suicidal support of finger-wagging identity politics. Today’s progressivism repels more voters than it attracts. Blaming the media (or calling voters ignorant racists) ignores the big elephant in the room.
They’ve been friends for decades and I think the represent different ideological strands of center left
I think the entire thesis Brian posits here is THE core reason democrats have struggled with elections. It’s not a matter of people being fed incorrect media diets — it’s people actively choosing to repudiate the attitudes and norms of liberals. The bottom line is people have heard about the Trump corruption and fascism and just don’t buy it. There’s a certain patronization that pundits like Brian exude that people notice — it’s a lack of respect for their agency and interests that makes people thinks Dems are out of touch. Screaming about fascism or whatever doesn’t matter if the average voter thinks Democrats are cancel culture metropolitan losers.
Doesn't help that NY, California and Illinois are all shedding population. When people are "voting with their feet" against the flagship blue states, it gives a lot of credibility to complaints about blue state governance.
We all knew Harris had no chance back in the early days of the Biden administration but convinced ourselves that she could be a viable candidate. As much as I love Biden, he really screwed us by 1. Overtly selecting Harris because of her immutable traits and 2. Not stepping aside soon enough.
A candidate like Harris that could credibly be attacked as an insane Leftist in this environment had no shot.
To be fair, given the margins, any Biden VP would have gotten slaughtered.
The only option would have been a primary
Anybody else rather surprised by how high Matt's voice is? No knock, just wasn't what i was expecting.
I wasn't surprised this time, but that's only because I was surprised the first time I ever heard him speak. I don't remember what audio-only podcast I put on a few years ago that Matt was supposed to appear on, but I was only half listening to it and kept wondering when Matt's segment would start before having the shocked realization that he was the person speaking at that moment.
He's the journalism version of Quentin Tarantino
He’s definitely got a voice for blogging.
Seems like Trump had all the boogeymen in this one. Wokeness. Immigration. Inflation. Abortion was a good counter, but not enough.
I was much more shocked and disappointed in 2016, given a transition from a good politician and man in Obama to what Trump is.
In 2024, we see the reality of Biden holding on long past the point his mental faculties allowed. I think they could have overcome inflation with some clear, aggressive language (and without preceding it with cringe “Let me be clear” bullshit they’ve all abused since Bernie). But they didn’t defend the economy and also allowed two years of fake aslyum claims to flood the country which, contrary to past illegal immigration, taxpayers were then required to pay for.
Republicans and voters could pin that on Harris - and she never offered a clear defense why.
Democrats felt good about the “weird” punchline in the middle of the summer. And it’s true, electing a guy who pals around with a pedophile and professes his wish to fuck his daugter is pretty weird. And yet, pretending a guy in an 80s who can barely get out a sentence should still be president is also weird. As is not acting sooner when we were flooded with tens of thousands of fake asylum claims, and is all the bs language policing and save trans kids” hysteria.
Stay away from California or blue city politicians. Start meeting voters where they are again.
The real story was Biden was just too slow. Too slow on inflation. Too slow on immigration
The turn on immigration was also pretty transparently a cynical reaction to Trump's advantage on that issue (although at the same time, I suspect most swing voters would be too oblivious to even be aware that it was transparently a cynical reaction, so that probably did not make that much of a difference by itself).
Tim Walz WAS their attempt at meeting small-town and rural voters where they are. Born in a small town, didn’t go to a fancy Ivy League college, veteran, likes state fairs and hunting, projects Midwestern Dad vibes.
I swear to God, no matter what the Democrats do, someone will find fault with it.
You can't just do something once and say "see, we tried". That's like saying you should practice an instrument more, and after a week you expect to get into the orchestra.
To gain blue collar voters, guys who connect with them have to be central to their image, not tacked on at the end.
VP doesn’t matter. The election ads that ran all weekend weren’t about Walz. If Walz won the primary and ran *and* we still lost like this, that woe is me belief might have more validity.
Do Dems need to run a celebrity candidate of their own to "meet voters where they are"? Who could conceivably fit that bill? The Rock?
I don't think that they should, but it would have to be Mark Cuban, right?
Something tells me The Rock is no Trump.
One night spot is North Carolina. Sure Trump won the state but we did pretty well down ballot, flipping the Lt Gov and State Supt of Instruction, holding the AG and breaking the GOP supermajority in the state house. We’re also holding onto the one swing Congressional seat.
It may be small consolation but it’s something.
What a disappointing night. I'm not surprised at the result -- it was a coin flip according to the polls after all -- but the movement toward Trump across 90% of the counties (including in traditional Blue states) does surprise me.
Yep, I thought a Trump EC vote win was pretty plausible going into this, but I NEVER though Trump would actually win the popular vote.
I'm very interested in seeing demographic shifts on who moved to Trump, although the results suggests it's very broad-based.
The only areas where voters moved left were relatively educated, booming suburban areas like Colorado Springs (I think, eyeballing the maps) and Atlanta.