4:01

through the prism of demographics,

4:03

through the prism of economics.

4:07

Today, we wanna talk about the

4:09

bro-tocracy. The fact

4:11

that they talked a lot about

4:13

that males, that the Donald Trump

4:15

phenomenon is that males have

4:18

felt rejected and that

4:20

they have turned to this in a

4:23

matter of an acceptance. Richard,

4:27

is that how you understand this phenomenon? Well,

4:30

it's interesting that the election did become about,

4:32

a lot of it was about masculinity, quite

4:35

a performative masculinity, I think, kind of

4:37

on the right. And so it

4:39

was weird, because we thought it was gonna be election about

4:41

women and women's rights and so on. And especially with Harris

4:43

at the top of the Dem ticket. But actually this question

4:46

about what's happening with guys, who's side

4:49

of guys on, but also like

4:51

who's on the side of guys, really,

4:54

I think kind of came up in this election pretty

4:56

strongly. And the way I think about it was that

4:58

it's less, I think the sort of

5:00

young men in particular, turned

5:02

so strongly away from the Democrats as much as

5:04

they would say that they felt the Democrats weren't

5:06

really offering anything specific to them. And

5:09

so they felt like welcomed and heard and

5:11

seen, if I can use those words, like.

5:13

I love this. I love

5:16

the idea that the appeal of Trump is

5:18

that he makes you feel seen. He makes

5:20

men feel seen. I mean, obviously we can

5:22

get some criticisms here, but like he

5:25

appeared to like the things that men

5:27

liked. Sure, sure. He

5:29

appeared to like men. The song YMCA. Right.

5:33

And there was maybe a bit of playfulness

5:35

there too. And of course we can get

5:37

into this. Annie's reported on this, but they've

5:39

sort of freewheeling podcast appearances that they did,

5:41

et cetera, as opposed to the tightly scripted

5:44

stuff they heard from the left. Basically the

5:46

Democrats, I think, assumed they could win on

5:49

the back of the votes of women, and

5:52

particularly around the ambitions of what? That turned out

5:54

to be wrong. But I would suggest, and Richard,

5:56

you're bringing up great points. And Annie, let me

5:58

ask you this. we keep talking

6:01

about, well, he appealed to men in

6:03

the freewheeling. She didn't do that well

6:05

with women. She didn't do as well

6:07

with women as Biden

6:09

did, as Hillary Clinton. So I

6:12

almost think the criticisms that Richard is levying, which is

6:14

sort of the freewheeling nature, there was a sort

6:16

of a sense of humor to it, was

6:19

more broadly appealing, not just to

6:22

men. Absolutely. So I

6:24

think that Kamala Harris, we knew

6:26

when she took over from Joe

6:28

Biden, that probably if there had

6:30

been a competitive primary, she's probably

6:32

not the candidate that Democrats would

6:34

have picked. An amazingly talented politician, but

6:36

she came in in this kind of

6:38

funny way. She was sort of appointed

6:40

because she was VP. Her

6:43

favorability went up, but she was not like the

6:45

most, you know, like, well-liked politician.

6:47

When you go back and you look at

6:50

the kind of generational political talents that you've

6:52

had in both parties, Bill Clinton,

6:54

people talk about being in a room with

6:56

Bill Clinton and feeling like the sun was

6:58

shining on them. Right. Like people

7:00

talk about Barack Obama. They

7:02

talk about some other things being in a room with Bill

7:04

Clinton. Yeah, but he's like likable. And

7:06

I think the Democrats have not wanted to

7:08

credit Donald Trump with

7:11

being a generational political talent, with being

7:13

kind of magnetic, with actually being likable.

7:15

He doesn't drink, but people kind of

7:17

want to spend time around him. He

7:19

is, I think, the funniest person almost

7:21

in politics, perhaps not always intentionally, but

7:24

the whole thing where he, you know,

7:26

calls the kid and is asking, they're

7:29

talking about Santa and he's like, do you believe in

7:31

Santa because it's seven, it's marginal. I'm like, that's the

7:33

funniest thing I've heard a politician say in a long

7:35

time. And so I think that in

7:37

any election like this, that's really close, there's probably like 10

7:39

or 15 things that could have flipped

7:42

it. But I do think that one thing you

7:44

saw is that people just like maybe it's not

7:46

even like like ability, but it's a certain magnetism

7:48

because I do think that Democrats ended up sort

7:50

of celebrating the fact that Kamala Harris was this

7:52

kind of like funny, wacky. She

7:55

actually seemed really, I think, as time

7:57

went on, more authentic and more human.

7:59

Yeah, Donald Trump. really does authentically appeal

8:01

to people. And I think Democrats

8:03

had a hard time recognizing that

8:05

because so many of them found

8:07

him racist, sexist, repulsive, and they

8:09

wanted to focus on that, on

8:11

the threat of him, you know?

8:14

Well, I mean, it does bury the lead that

8:16

he's fun and

8:18

private, but maybe that's, you

8:20

know, are different groups receiving

8:22

different messages from him? Because

8:25

it almost sounds as though we're talking

8:27

about two different people, sort

8:29

of this lovable comic figure

8:31

that makes people feel

8:33

seen, who also stands

8:35

up on a stage and says, you

8:38

know, Democrats are the enemy of the

8:40

people and I am your retribution. So

8:43

which is the one that

8:45

was clicking in for people?

8:48

And maybe if they dropped the

8:51

more angry talk and the

8:53

rhetoric of, you know,

8:55

I'm your hammer, I'm your vengeance, maybe

8:57

this thing looks more like a Reagan victory

9:00

over Mondale and 49 states go,

9:02

you know, what do you think, Richard? Yeah,

9:05

I think weirdly, people

9:07

are able to discern these different things, but

9:09

they probably do so selectively. And so like

9:12

at one hand, I

9:14

think a big question that lies behind this is like, did

9:17

people vote for Donald Trump because of some of

9:19

those views, or at least the expression of those

9:21

views, or despite them? And

9:24

because he is, in some ways,

9:26

so as I said, freewheeling, long

9:29

form, inconsistent, jokey, that of course

9:31

is a perfect fit with the

9:33

media landscape within which kind

9:35

of many people, especially kind of young

9:38

people, are consuming stuff. And it's not

9:40

like they're not agreeing with

9:43

every one of his tightly defined 10

9:45

point plan for America. They heard that

9:47

joke, they heard that. Right, oh my

9:49

God, he's better content. He's Mr. Beast.

9:53

And he was up against worse content. Yeah, and

9:55

I'll say one more thing about this spot, but

9:57

what Annie said, which is that I really worry

9:59

when I hear. vision

24:00

and leadership. And the

24:02

fact of the matter is, you

24:04

can design a policy prescription that

24:07

meets certain boards and makes perfect

24:09

sense and allows for the

24:12

manufacturing basically come up. But if

24:14

you don't display vision and leadership,

24:16

and I think truthfully, if you're

24:18

asking me, I

24:21

think that the Democratic Party's biggest issue, and this is

24:23

what used to get me in trouble with the Obama

24:25

White House and why I would get called down there

24:27

to be yelled at on occasion,

24:31

if your platform is government has a role

24:33

to play in people's lives in improving it,

24:35

then your job one is to make sure

24:37

that it is efficient and competent, and

24:40

that you have to not have institutional

24:42

and status quo thinking. You cannot run

24:44

on the audacity of hope and

24:48

govern with the timidity of the

24:50

possible. And like, that's just not

24:52

going to connect with people. And

24:55

if you're asking me why I think DeSantis

24:57

and Haley would not have, and DeSantis may

24:59

be different only because he's just

25:02

such an incredibly unlikable person. Like

25:05

he's definitely like has the vision,

25:07

but the leadership is a little

25:09

more like, come on, Napoleon, chill

25:11

out. But Haley, I

25:13

think is McCain. And

25:16

so I think vision and leadership

25:18

are lacking in the Democratic Party

25:21

and has been for

25:24

a very long time. And

25:26

even when they have the vision of leadership,

25:28

they don't govern that way. They

25:30

govern institutionally and to the status quo,

25:33

and they're not creative in their thinking.

25:35

And I speak of that from the

25:37

experience of trying to get legislation through

25:40

that Byzantine labyrinth of bureaucracy. Yeah, I

25:42

think that when I think about the

25:44

bills that Joe Biden passed, so you

25:46

know, when I talk to voters, voters

25:49

have no idea who did CARES and

25:51

who did like the Inflation Reduction Act

25:53

and what was in it. But this

25:55

was an enormous amount of legislation that

25:57

passed in a short period. Right. CARES

25:59

was functionally a Democratic bill that was

26:01

signed by a Republican. There's a lot

26:03

of great stuff in that. And

26:06

it was just it was like not very well

26:08

messaged. There's a bunch of checks and people are

26:11

like, what is the CTC payment? I'm getting these

26:13

like stimulus. Did Biden do they don't they have

26:15

no idea? They're like, I got a bunch of

26:17

cash and then they seem to

26:19

have done a bunch of infrastructure stuff. And you talk

26:21

to people in the White House and they'd be like,

26:23

it's the new new deal. And you talk to average

26:26

voters and they would have no idea what you were

26:28

talking about at all. They're like, I don't know what's

26:30

in it. And even I

26:32

would be like, it's green energy stuff. You

26:35

know, right. And and that's, you know, and I think

26:37

that Democrats got a little high on their own supply

26:39

on it, that they're like, these are the biggest and

26:41

the most transformative. And it's like, well, if you can't

26:43

point to what it did and people

26:46

are like, yeah, there were a bunch of checks and then

26:48

I don't know what happened to it. You

26:50

know, I think that they actually had it. Maybe

26:52

it was a communications problem. I think that

26:54

they tried to do too many things and

26:56

they weren't kind of hammering sort of simple

26:59

things. And I think that Democrats, I think

27:01

it is a really, really good and important

27:03

thing for parties to lose decisively. I

27:05

actually think that, no, I'm dead serious. No,

27:07

no, no. I laugh because you're

27:09

dead right. I mean, that's you're exactly right.

27:11

Yeah. And we've had a bunch of part

27:13

of the problem with the close elections. We

27:15

have these really close presidential elections and then

27:17

Congress is constantly going back and forth, back

27:20

and forth, back and forth. And there's like

27:22

never a mandate. Right. It's never like a

27:24

big giant sweep in which they're like, that

27:26

side's better. And this side is it's

27:28

this eternal campaign in which you get kind of caught

27:30

up in tiny, tiny little excuses. And I'm hoping actually

27:32

that this would be good for the Democrats. And I

27:34

hope it would be good for the Republicans, too, to

27:37

be like, OK, we got a little bit of what

27:39

looks like a mandate now and for Democrats to be

27:41

like, yeah, back to the drawing board. Maybe, you

27:43

know, what we were doing in 2008 isn't working. How

27:47

are we actually going to appeal to people

27:49

instead of being mad that

27:51

the voters aren't just naturally attracted to us? Because

27:53

I think that there's been a lot of like,

27:55

well, screw these people. I've

27:57

heard it, you know, any time that I

27:59

have brought. up criticisms

28:02

of the Democrats. The

28:05

fierce blowback that I get is

28:07

always the ACA,

28:10

the Chips Act. And you're like,

28:12

no, I understand that. But what

28:15

I'm suggesting is even things like

28:17

that when the website doesn't work,

28:19

or it's really just the government

28:22

giving money to insurance companies to

28:24

create this other pool. What

28:26

I'm saying is we're still following along

28:28

a line that's not connecting to the

28:30

day-to-day lives of people. The first policy

28:32

that they really said where I was

28:35

like, oh, that's the future was

28:37

when they said we're going to help with

28:39

home health aides. We're going to give

28:41

money to home. That was one of the first policies I

28:43

was like, that's your future. It's

28:46

connecting to the day-to-day struggles.

28:48

And Richard, do you think

28:50

that they will adjust

28:52

their thinking along those lines? It

28:55

depends how the post-mortem goes. I think

28:57

it's a question of, to

28:59

put it bluntly, do the Democrats

29:02

conclude that they have the wrong

29:04

voters or that they got the campaign

29:06

and the messaging wrong? I think right now

29:08

there's a very big debate, which is like,

29:11

what's the Bertolt Brecht comment that I keep

29:13

seeing being floated around online, which

29:15

is we need to dissolve this electorate and find another

29:17

one? There

29:20

is a bit of a feeling of that. Do you

29:22

trust there are people within the party that have the

29:24

wherewithal to even to do that?

29:28

Well, we'll see the next four years. But

29:30

I think Annie's right. And that the

29:32

failure to sort of connect the policy to the

29:36

feeling that I'm

29:38

on your side, that I've got your back,

29:40

that I like you. That

29:42

is not a trivial thing. And sometimes the way

29:44

I think about this is that what you got

29:46

from the Republicans, what this was this sense of

29:48

like, you know, I really like you. We

29:51

can have some fun together. When Trump was like

29:53

when he drove the garbage truck, right,

29:55

you didn't get the sense that he'd been persuaded

29:57

to do all the McDonald's thing. He didn't. He

30:00

wasn't acting like a politician who'd been persuaded to

30:02

do that by his senior staff and really hated it.

30:05

You got the impression it was his idea and

30:07

he loved it and it communicates

30:09

this sense. But there isn't that

30:12

much substance behind it. Meanwhile, the Democrats come across

30:14

as they're a bit like the doctor who

30:16

is giving you all this medicine, which you know is

30:18

they're trying to tell you it's good for you, but

30:21

they kind of don't like you. They're just doing

30:23

it like in this. So you've got to do

30:25

both, right? You've got it. It can't feel this

30:27

sense of like take

30:30

your medicine or look at these amazing things

30:32

we've done for you. Before people will listen

30:34

to the things you've done for them, they

30:36

have to feel like you like

30:38

them. You're on their side. You've got

30:40

their back and that you're not doing.

30:42

But did he accomplish that though by

30:45

scapegoating less popular

30:47

segments of the population? You

30:50

know, is his message I like you or is

30:52

his message? Yeah,

30:55

I get it. These other fucking people

30:57

are the ones that are ruining this country.

30:59

You're the good guys. Like is

31:02

it a little bit less? I think we're

31:04

making it slightly more benign than it is.

31:06

Yeah, right. It's more the hatred of

31:08

them rather than the love of you. That's what I'm

31:10

trying to get at. Now,

31:12

I know there's probably some crossover

31:15

in that, but it struck me

31:17

that look, the trans community, the undocumented

31:20

community, like you can't find a more

31:23

vulnerable population to scapegoat. Absolutely.

31:25

And look, if they go through, if

31:28

the Republicans go through the plans, they're

31:31

currently creating a plan to use

31:33

the US military to forcibly deport

31:35

like 2 million people, right? This

31:38

is going to be, we know from other ICE

31:40

raids and deportation that this is devastating

31:43

to communities, miserable for families and also really

31:45

hard for the people who have to do

31:47

it, right? You're breaking communities up

31:49

by gunpoint. I, you

31:52

know, if they actually go through with that, I

31:56

think that that is going to read really differently

31:58

than it's actually a pretty popular story. sentiment among

32:00

immigrants, right? Like, yeah, we're gonna stop

32:02

like the flood of people coming in.

32:04

And if you're here, we're gonna make

32:06

sure that we're taking care of you.

32:08

Sort of similarly, you know, the post-row

32:10

landscape has been nightmarish. We have had

32:12

women die because of the

32:14

policy change, which we knew was going to

32:17

happen. Women die of sepsis. You

32:19

know, and I think that we're still gonna have this

32:21

drumbeat of stories of people who are like, you

32:24

know, my mother, my sister, whoever, like, you

32:26

know, died in a parking lot waiting for

32:28

care. I

32:30

think especially if they go after IVF contraception, other

32:33

more popular and less polarized things, we're still gonna

32:35

get that. So I think that, you know, it

32:37

was kind of all blather, and I think a

32:39

lot of it connected. And where I think it's

32:41

going to be interesting is how much of this

32:44

they actually do now that they do have this

32:46

mandate and have said that they will do it.

32:48

Similarly with tariffs, tariffs are

32:50

not gonna be popular if you implement them. Stuff's

32:52

about to get a lot more expensive. So

32:54

that gets to a really interesting point, and I wanna get back to Richard

32:56

on this. So what she's

32:58

talking about is the real implications

33:01

of what's been done post-Roe have

33:03

been millions of women

33:05

have lost the power

33:08

of choice and control over their

33:10

reproductive outcomes. Some have

33:12

died, there have been some horrific outcomes. And here

33:14

we are in an election where we're talking about

33:17

men just didn't feel seen, and

33:19

now they feel seen. And you're like, wait, why

33:22

are we worried about how, you know,

33:24

so in your research and what you've

33:26

seen, what have

33:29

been the implications of men

33:32

not being seen, and why do

33:34

they feel so disconnected and disaffected

33:36

when, as Annie is saying, the

33:38

real policy implications, the real tragic

33:40

implications have been roiling

33:44

women? Well, I mean,

33:46

I think we saw a very good test

33:49

of the proposition that this was gonna be

33:51

an election largely determined on those issues. And

33:54

that also that men would be persuaded to vote

33:57

on those issues. I mean, you saw Michelle Obama

33:59

give... has

38:00

been taken away. And you're almost seeing

38:02

it, you know, now if Christian

38:04

Pulisic scores a goal, he does the Trump

38:06

dance. If somebody scores a touchdown, they do

38:08

the Trump. Like there is a, and

38:11

I haven't seen this before, a celebratory

38:15

reaction from men that

38:17

I hadn't seen before. Like there

38:20

is a zeitgeist, there is a cultural

38:22

moment for men and

38:25

for Trump that I think

38:27

liberals and Democrats especially are like, wait,

38:29

what? We had Beyonce, like

38:31

now you got everybody doing the Trump dance

38:33

on things. I think there's a shock

38:37

that's occurring. Do you think that's correct,

38:39

Annie? Yeah, and I think

38:41

the fact that you are seeing millennials

38:43

as perhaps the kind of like peak

38:46

liberal generation and Gen Zers are shifting

38:48

back the other direction as really interesting.

38:51

You know, I think when you talk to

38:53

liberals or to Democrats and they, you know,

38:55

15 years ago they might've said like demography

38:57

is destiny and like we're going to become

39:00

a solid majority party because the country is

39:02

becoming less white,

39:04

more Latino, more black, more Asian,

39:07

this is our future. And I think

39:09

that even now, right, you know, there's a sense

39:11

of like we have all of the young people

39:13

and once the old people have died off and

39:15

we got all the young people, then we're going

39:17

to win for forever. Hard thing to wait

39:20

for, but okay. Right? Like

39:22

these people, you would hear this kind of

39:24

derisiveness about Republicans about, you know, well, they're

39:26

racist and they're sexist and they can't even

39:28

do policy. They don't do policy. They didn't

39:30

do the ACA. People come to their senses

39:33

and recognize. And I think

39:35

that Democrats lost sight of just what voters

39:37

were telling them. I really feel this way

39:39

about inflation. I really feel this way about

39:41

the unlikeability of candidates. They were kind of

39:43

constructing these intellectual arguments about how voters would

39:45

come home and they didn't. And voters were

39:47

very clear throughout the entirety of this election

39:50

that they were not crazy about Joe Biden, that

39:52

they didn't think the economy was great and that

39:54

they felt that whether it was fair or not

39:56

and who cares, you know, that they felt like

39:58

they, the culture had shifted. You

50:00

know, you spoke about destination. I'll tell

50:02

you what I think may occur, and I

50:04

think it's something Republicans and the right have been

50:06

really good at, which is if you can't make

50:08

something illegal, make it impossible. And I

50:10

think we saw that in the reproductive fight, which is, you

50:12

know, we haven't been able to make it illegal, but I'll

50:15

tell you what we can do. Let's make it so you've

50:17

got to have, even if you're

50:19

a small Planned Parenthood or

50:21

a small reproductive health thing, you

50:23

need three anesthesiologists and four operating rooms,

50:25

or you can't open. So

50:28

it's not illegal, but it's sure as hell

50:30

impossible. Absolutely, and

50:32

you know, Republicans are very,

50:34

very, very effective at this. They're

50:36

great at doing things like applying

50:38

work requirements, shortening re-enrollment periods, working

50:40

through sludge. One of the great

50:42

kind of ironies of the Musk

50:44

and Vivek focus on administration and making

50:46

government more efficient is that Republicans

50:48

are like the great geniuses at

50:50

making government less efficient for political ends

50:53

that they can't accomplish through legislation.

50:55

You've seen this actually with immigration,

50:57

right? We're not going to make it

50:59

illegal for you to immigrate. We're

51:01

going to make it impossible. And

51:04

so, you know, I am again, just interested

51:06

to see what they do, but

51:10

there's a lot of, there's

51:13

a lot of kind of just like standard

51:15

and shitification that can achieve political

51:18

ends. And I think that they'll be pretty good

51:20

at it. If that's not coined, wait, Annie, if

51:22

that's not on a t-shirt somewhere or a bumper

51:24

sticker, that word

51:26

must be gone. Richard, before we go,

51:28

you know, it can't be just, we got

51:30

to get, you know, Democrat

51:32

leaders on better podcasts. There's

51:36

something fundamental going on here. And do you

51:38

see it turning

51:41

around in some respects? And do you see a

51:43

pathway to that? I

51:45

think if the Democrats take the lesson from

51:47

this election that they need to focus on,

51:49

A, a communication strategy that meets people where

51:51

they are rather than where they think they

51:53

ought to be, which downweights

51:56

some of the cultural issues we've talked about. And

51:58

I think actually gets past some of the. zero-sum

52:00

thinking on gender. I mean, it

52:02

is true, I think, that the Democrats thought

52:04

at some level they could win as the

52:06

women's party, and they

52:09

can't. We do rise together. And there are

52:11

a lot of mums out there who are

52:13

worried about their daughter's access to reproductive health

52:15

care, but also desperately worried about their son's

52:17

mental health and whether their husband's

52:19

going to get a job or not. And

52:21

so a politician from the Democrat side who

52:23

can speak to those concerns across gender, and

52:26

especially for working-class Americans, and

52:28

to do so authentically, I think that's the real

52:31

lesson to draw from this rather

52:33

than the more reactive pinball warming might

52:35

get. If a politician emerges that can

52:37

speak to a class-sensitive, across-gender constituency, I

52:39

think that they could win. But it

52:41

all depends how they interpret this election

52:43

result. Annie, do you see anything like

52:45

that on the horizon, or any individual

52:47

on the horizon that you think can

52:49

start to broach that? Yeah,

52:52

look, I think there's actually a ton of talent

52:54

on the Democratic side that's been somewhat overlooked. I

52:56

think that there's a lot of state politicians that

52:58

are really great, that are chomping at the bit,

53:00

that are desperate. You

53:03

might have heard of this guy Pete Buttigieg.

53:05

He's very shy about

53:07

stating his ambitions. I

53:09

don't follow the cable news. Never

53:12

heard of him. But I do think

53:14

that they're already talking about, like, okay, are

53:16

we going to do universal pre-K? You're a

53:18

three-year-old? You don't have to worry about it

53:20

at this point. Really simple policymaking like that.

53:22

Cheap rent, cheap gas, and then kind of

53:24

driving towards that center. That's

53:27

my guess. I think that

53:29

they'll be reactive to whatever

53:31

it is that the Trump

53:33

administration does. So much of

53:35

negative partisanship is more powerful

53:37

than partisanship still. Trump

53:40

is going to have

53:42

to run on his record, as opposed to against

53:45

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Whoever the

53:47

next Democrat is is going to have this certainly

53:50

anarchic administration to run against. I think that

53:52

we're just going to have to see what

53:54

that looks like. Up

53:56

until recently, it does seem like incumbency

53:58

rather than being... Paramount

1:08:02

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