The Red Wave That Wasn't

grade weed for like fifty bucks. But you find out later that like kind of in the middle of it was like half of a paper towel roll that they stuck in there to push up the weight. But it's like, well, least I got weed. All right, I've introduced the podcast Who Do We? Who do we have here? Today? You got me? I'm James Still, that's rightly? Yeah, yeah, I'm Garrison. I didn't vote. Look at you wow. Way to be a way to be an anarchist Garrison or a Canadian

same deff democracy? Yeah yeah, I like committing voter fraud for the Democratic Party. Yeah yeah. I also decided to not vote for the people who are doing like the war on drugs in California right now, Garrison, you you continued your your years long tradition of submitting a crewed drawing of the Premier of Canada. Um to to a ballot box. Shut, let's Trudeau coming out of a cave. Who else do we have on with us right now? I'm here, Christopher Wong, and I absolutely despise elections, so

I brought my friend who actually does like elections. That's excellent token election in Jodan pretty much. Yes, Hi, I am Jack. I am Christopher's token friend, as mentioned um and I'm here partly because of nepotism for knowing Christopher and partly because, as you reminded me, before we got started, I had a ninety three percent accurate prediction rating for all of the elections that I was paying attention to

this year, so I know some things. Congratulations. I only made one prediction before this election, which was, well, it doesn't feel like Dr Roz is gonna win, which which means you did better than a lot of the people who are paid to do this. Like, Okay, that man, that man said the word crew detay in an election in Pennsylvania, Like there was he was never good. The moment that d came out, he was going to lose.

I see, that's much more nuanced than my my political analysis, which was the fact that the other guy was much taller than him and also way hot, Like if they just sounded it with a fist fight, fat could have taken it. Yep, which that seems good. H It was fun. It was a fun election. We all had a good time. I enjoy that. Fucking Marjorie Taylor Green and j d Vance are going to be in Congress together. That's going to be fun for everybody. We're all gonna have a

good time. But I suspect there's probably some stuff we haven't like. As you may have noticed listeners, we didn't do much in the way of pre mid term content because we all hate it. But but now now we're talking about it. So what what what? What should we know about these mid terms? What? What? What kind of occurred to you as somebody who's like actually has spent a lot more time delving into the nitty gritty and

thinking about what was likely to happen. Um. So I told Christopher I would say this, and in arness, I do genuinely believe it I think the story of these mid terms when historians look back at it, will be that the Dabbs Supreme Court decision had the same electoral impact in the United States as nine eleven did. I think that is going to be like how this plays out over time, um, because when you look at how things were going before Dabbs and then how things were

going after Dabbs. Obviously things got a lot worse on the policy front because abortion became illegal in a lot of states. Um. But the election essentially flipped overnight from what was going to be a Republican wave to the even split that we got. And that makes this one of three post World War two midterms where the incumbent party did well, and so this is definitely going to be him in term that gets lectured about in policy

one on one courses for the next hundred years. Also, one of those, one of those other three, was the nine was to push that left. It was yeah, actually, I really because obviously I was aware, just because there was so much cover in saying like this is the best performance from an incumbent party in a mid term since two thousand two. So it was aware of that fact.

But for some reason I hadn't put it together in my head that way that like, yeah, the this means that, like the Supreme Court's decision on Roe v. Wade had kind of a comparable electoral impact to flying two planes into a pair of skyscrapers and the Pentagon three plates. I mean, to be fair whatever, to be fair, the Supreme Court have killed like in terms of the immediate impact, the Screme Court will have killed more people than that by like thurs Day or something. So yeah, the other

one was was fdos fest made tim right? Uh No, the other ones that so I said post World War Two. The other the other one was when the American electorate apparently got so mad at Republicans and pe team Bill Clinton that they decided to vote for Democrats in a good term. Again, well that's yeah, that's the other thing Biden can do if it, if it goes south. It's good to know their options. Yeah, but um, I think non zero chance that'll happen anyway. I mean, I guess

we're still waiting. Who knows. Yeah, Doc Brandon, I enjoyed, from from an entertainment perspective, the like three months of lucidity that we got out of Joe Biden this year, We'll see how many more he has in him. Yeah, who knows? So yeah, like it. So you're you're suggesting that Dobbs has been like the really pivotal thing here in swinging a lot of these close races, right, absolutely, Um,

and Dobbs definitely being the number one factor. Um. Tragically, because it's very cringe and I wish this hadn't happened. The January six investigation does actually seem to have also swung several important races. That's I mean, I'm interested in your thoughts on this, but I actually I'm I'm glad that it mattered that they tried to do a coup, and like I'm glad that people cared about that. I'm

glad it mattered. I just I just think it sucks that because the way they went about the investigation was so incredibly terrible. Yeah. Um, like Marrick Garland is going to go down as like one of the most cowardly attorney generals in American history. But um, yeah, It's it's pretty clear that in a lot of races like the the investigation made a difference. I think this is really clear.

If we're getting into like very kind of under the hood. Um, Democrats ran the table in competitive state level secretary of State races, and these are the officials that run elections. UM. And not only did Democrats run the table, pretty much every single one of those candidates out pre formed the top of the ticket. So they outperformed governor and Senate candidates. UM. So there are a lot of people. This is another

big story the midterms is that swing voter. Your swing voting is back, not swing voting, I'm sorry, split ticket voting is back. Um. There were quite a few, there were quite a few millions of voters this year who voted for Republican in the Senate or a Republican for governor and then a Democrat to run their states actual elections. That's kind of good. It's so that's also like speaks promisingly of people's engagement with the political system and education

about it and the awareness of what these different things do. Yes, um, but other like like that, other than that, but just overall, high level dobbs was the big one. Um. There is a person whose name I'm going to unfortunately mispronounce, and that I should have looked up beforehand. So all right,

this is a safe place for that, Thank you. But there's a person there's a guy down in Louisiana named John uh cool Van I think is my best guests, and he is one of the people who makes money off of like looking at elections UM, and his big thing is that you can predict the outcome of elections just by looking at the nationwide composition of the primary electorate. So like, if Republicans turn out more voters in their primaries and Democrats to Republicans are going to win the

election and vice versa. This has been true in pretty much every single election for the last thirty years or so UM, and he unfortunately got led astray UM this year because nationwide at the end of the primary season, Republicans were up by about like five points, and so he was insisting the whole rest of the campaign that Republicans are going to win. That's obviously not really what happened. But if you look at pre DBS versus post OBS, the primary elector at post OBS was Democrats plus like

up by one point. That is the electorate that we got in the mid terms. So Dobbs set the tone of like what the mid terms were going to be UM, because we are not going to be legalizing abortion nationwide in the next two years because we are going to have a Republican House almost certainly, Dobbs is almost definitely going to be a huge factor in twenty four as well.

I mean, and I guess that, like because the question I had, and I think a lot of people had running into this, especially people who are not election lovers, is like, do things matter? Right? Like? It was Dobbs going to matter? And was the were the constant sort of Republican assaults on on the ability of people to vote? Was the fucking attacks on children's hospitals and on trans case and stuff like? Was all of that going to work? Like? Do do things matter? Still? And? Uh, you know, we

have to renswer that question. But it does kind of seem like that's the positive take out from this is not like, you know, it's it's probably probably too early to say are we seeing some sort of grand progressive swing or are people coming around on Biden or whatever things politicos want to take. But it does kind of seem that, like, on a on a very like ground floor level, Uh, it mattered that the Republicans were doing

awful things, Yes, mattered. Um, I think Christopher and I have talked about how, in his words, Leah Thomas cost the Michigan Republican Party of the election. Um, let's talk. Let's talk about that, because I think a lot of people I mean, yeah, let's yeah, let's talk about Okay, I'll give them I'll give the meme version of it first.

The meme version of it basically is that there was Okay, so there there there was a report released by the Republican Party in Michigan after the election when they sort of got hammered. Part of what they're talking about was like, okay, so inflation is like seven point seven percent right now, right, this is the freest election anyone has ever been handed, like in human history, Like a child could have won

this election. And the Republicans vanaged to blow it. And one of these they talk about this, they spent they spent like twenty five million dollars, like specifically on ads about trans like trans kids in sports and everybody mission. It was just like what the yes, real care not just not just blew it, but blew it in a way that they haven't blown it in forty years. Because for the first time in forty years, Democrats will have complete control of the Michigan state government. Yeah. Yeah, And

it's like it's like the other things. It wasn't just in Michigan where this happened, right like like quite possibly, Like one of the ways they're going to lose the Senate is because like the Republicans like entire sort of apparatus and Nevada was against the Equal Rights Amendments, which and specifically they were running against the equal nevented passing diversity of the Equal Rights Amendment, like specifically on the grounds of transphobia, and the e ARRA passed by seventeen points. Uh,

and replicants are about to lose that Senate. See, and it's just like my mein version of this is that the Republican Party ran a platform that is like the political equivalent of like a street preacher, right, like that that is the constituency for this. It is like they unbelievably hate trans people. They like an unbelievably hard line

anti abortion position, which again like nobody actually likes. And you know, it turns out like if if if your constituency is street preachers, like the thing an average person does when they run into a street preacher is walked past them, and it turns out that's what happened to hear like this and they got, oh, that's that's that's the mean version of it. Absolutely, I mean that's not

just the mean version of it. Is essentially what happened, UM in Michigan and Pennsylvania, in all of these states where hardline Christian nationalists won Republican primaries, like they went down hard um and so as Robert said, yeah, things

actually mattered this election, and that's a good thing. UM. And I think I know for me, as like, I went into election night very nervous about my own predictions because when I put together my um Google spreadsheet that will never be shown to any of you because of how insane it is. UM. And I was picking, you know, I got more races wrong, by the way, by picking Republicans to win that Democrats actually won, then the other

way around, because I kept second guessing myself. It's like no, no no, no, I'm not I'm being too kind to Democrats and then I went too far. But when I was making those predictions, honestly, I just kept thinking about, like, so I'm adopted, my parents are both white, and my mom is this like white woman from appalation, Ohio. And she is is UM in her upper sixties, so she grew up in a world before Roe v. Wade UM.

And I had never seen my mom so angry about anything in politics, and like she was very very angry when Trump won. UM. She has been very angry. She's been very angry about like January six. She's been angry about a lot of stuff the last several years, as is my dad UM, because they're both very normally Democrats. But my mom has never been angrier as far as I've seen her than she was angrier about Dobbs. And

it wasn't just like my mom. I was hearing from friends of mine from across the Midwest who also have like normy white suburban parents, and that was kind of the same thing that I was hearing from them too, is like, my mom is so upset about this, My grandmother is so upset about this. These women who remembered what it was like to grow up in a world where abortion it was not something that that they had access to if they needed it. UM, And that honestly,

you know, it's it's obviously completely anecdotal. It's not databased or data driven in any way. But that was just what I kept thinking about as I was making predictions about how the midterm was gonna go. Was you know, I think that these people are angry enough that they are not going to care about inflation. They're not going to care about the fact that our economy is very clearly headed for recession, um, because this is going to

matter more to them, um, And it did. I kind't want to move on to talking about what what we think this sets us up for because I think the clearest and we talked about this a little earlier, but sort of the clearest thing that's positive about this is that we have of fewer state secretaries of state and state legislatures in the hands of the Republican Party, which means more of a chance that like what people actually

vote for is going no matter. Um. Now, we're still dealing with the judiciary that is as fucked as it was prior to the mid terms and probably won't be less fucked in a way that is notable, um and aggregate, Yeah, we can. We can always hope and pray. Yeah. Then there could be a couple of very specific car accidents. Yeah, yeah,

yeah on that point. Actually, so there, I know, I bang on about about like how the United States deals with its indigenous people a lot, but like that they slated and we'll do an episode on it, but we're

trying to do it properly. Like slated for this Supreme Court session is to look at AQUA, right, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and like the challenge to it, challenges on out of the basis of other tribal law and in places like Arizona, right, Like, indigenous people are a large like often like they're supposed to be like the swing electorate and for like blue Arizona, so they could have positive outcomes for for Democrats, it could they could.

I don't know how they could go out their way to this in French trans indigenous people, but they find you and exciting ways to do it all the fucking time.

So like that will be interesting. And one thing I wanted to raise is like, so I live in California, which I think is seen as like the left coast and stuff, but we have an alarming amount of really chuggly people going to the house from California, and yeah, it's becoming increasingly a bit like where like some of you live in Oregon, where like you have a very The far right in California is larger than the population

of like many United US states. Yeah, yes, and they're increasingly big mad about like it's small things, m but yeah, Like I'm just looking at the districts around the one I'm in, and a number of them have sent like anti reproductive rights house representatives back to the House. California is a state where, um, the Democratic Party likes to flop its way to victory. It's one of it's one of the most incompetent state Democratic parties in the country,

which is really saying something because they're competing. They're competing with they're competing with Florida. Like, I mean, hey, Oregons not didn't do great either, Like the state Democratic Party in Oregon had the most narrow governor's race in a long time, and also the Dems lost their their supermajority

in the state Congress. They did lose their supermajority, but Democrats in Oregon do now have the ability to redistrict again, so they can take back that seat that Republicans picked up because there were is a constitutional amendment that got passed by the voters of Oregon that says that if Republicans do what they have done in the last few years in Oregon, which is walk out of the state House any time that a lot of my past they

get banned for running for re election. But also, like without the supermajority, I don't know that there's as much of any I mean, we'll see what happens. Um, but yeah, it's there. As a general rule, it seems like when you've got there's no meaningful competition for what party is

going to be in control of the state. It becomes a haven for like the political equivalent of grifters to suck in huge salaries and do very little um and yeah, yeah math, or to just do like star mayor look at that may also yeah, and she's up for re election in a few months, and we can only hope that she that she loses. I can't imagine her winning. I mean, it could happen, It could happen, It could happen. Here here's here's an ad break. Yeah what a professional. Ah,

we're back. And you know what, talking about the mid term elections makes me feel like doing smoking a cigarette. Buy cigarettes, kids, they're is good for you. As democracy. All right, we're back in some other interesting news. This is also the this this Pessiman terms had more lgbt Q candidates win office than ever before in a midterm election. There was a few notable winds uh, specifically with trans people in the Midwest actually, which has been probably a

decent side. It's it's a good sign, you know, heroes are doing good. Yeah, there's been a multiple multiple trans people and trans uh particularly quite a few trans women elected to state legislatives across across the Midwest, like in Montana and inside uh Midwestern I'm calling that out. Yeah,

well Mountain West. See. Well, the thing is I grew I grew up in Saskatchewan, which is like above Montana, and whenever you would drive down, we would always stay in the more Midwest east sections and everyone talks it felt very Midwest to me because of where I lived

in Saskatchewan. So apology apologies to people who are Montana Mountainers, I guess apologies, No, no, we don't need to be upon So Zoe Zephyr, who testified against anti trans legislation previously is now able to vote against it um in Minnesota. I talk about that, like very briefly, which is that like, Okay, there are a lot of queer communities in places that people just fucking ignore. Absolutely, it's just can you cannot discount these places? Yeah, it's like Missoula specifically has has

a like like pretty substantive queer community. They do good ship, they're out there like they're like there's there's this sort of tendency I think to like like look at like a state and go like, oh, it's a red state, like there's whatever. They're just fleeing, and it's like it's not true, Like there there are a lot of people who are like have for many years been building a community there and hanging aucenaciously and building it. And also

in Missoula, people take notice. Also in Missoula, the first non binary candidate was elected in UH s J. Howell, So tou to trans people. It's elected there in in uh in Missoula. But the way did did did Missoula, Missoula do this? Portland? Probably Portland's like city councils like four people. Yeah that's true, yeah, entirely. Yeah, and it

swung and it's pretty conservative that this past election. Actually, um, but we also had in Minnesota, uh lay a think because the first transperson in state lets legislator and in New Hampshire, Uh, they elected the first transman to a

US state House. So yeah, and and the other other good thing is um Arizona got a Democratic governor, which means a whole bunch of potential legislation will probably not get signed on because Arizona did have some pretty pretty pretty bad anti trans station to come up in the

past few years. I also want to talk about So the Arizona election was critical, not just because it's amazing that fucking carry La is not going to be governor because she is an election denying google Um, but the nicest thing Blake Masters might be the scariest person who was running for a life. He is. He is the scariest serial killer. Yeah, yeah, yeah he was. He was scary until he was funny, is the thing, because like I,

you know, when they failed, they're always funny. Yeah. But Christopher and I were talking about this before the podcast, and like during the during the final debate between Blake Masters and Mark Kelly, like and I just swear on this podcast, like we're allowed to say whatever the hell we want perfect Um debate. In their final debate between Mark Kelly and Blake Masters, Mark Kelly's like final statement, his conclusion argument was essentially pointing at Blake Masters and going,

look at this fucking freak. Yeah, yeah, it was great it which is the which is one of the most powerful things he could do in politics because he was just like, like the specific thing he did, because his language was was I think a lot more nuanced than that,

because what he was saying is Blake Masters. For those of you who don't don't know, like one of the most like famous moments of this campaign is he he put out a campaign ad that was just him parking in the desert with a silenced handgun, mentioning which is a child's gun, first off, but anyway, mentioning twice that the gun was German and like German, rested and then firing it blindly at nothing. And then the ad he fired it across the lake. Don't see him shoot at something,

We don't see him hit a target. He is his stances dogs anyway, But it's just him taking a silence pistol out repeatedly mentioning that the gun is German, firing it, and the ad ends that's the whole a seconds of him just fondling and badly shooting it. It's worth giving the context that the person he's running against is someone whose wife was shot in the head. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, because so that's but it's also just like, look, guns

are a big part of American life. A lot of politicians have, including Democrats, have ads that involved guns, and usually it's like here is me hunting, you know, or even like here is me the range with friends, engaging in a thing that many Americans do. Masters was just blindly shooting a twenty two caliber handgun after immediately mentioning

that it's German. It was like someone showed an alien, like a regular campaign ad someone shooting a gun, and then yes, I mean it's funny that that's the term that you use, because that was a term that was flying around like Arizona social media the entire campaign. It was like Blake Bastard's looks like an alien and you get pumped with Peter Tiel money for so so he has this and he has a couple of others like he is, he is on he's a number one. He

worked with Peter Teele for years. Um, he's doing all sorts of fucking gohoule ship on Twitter, like really mask off, fascist, unhinged, shit. And Mark Kelly in the debate, isn't just like, look at this freak. He's like, hey, we all know guys like this talk about how dangerous and how scary they are,

but they they've never done anything. They're just like weirdos trying to scare you so that you'll think that they're they're powerful, and like, don't don't fall forward it And it was perfect and the good news is that Arizona voters did not fall for it because you know, not only did Blake Masters lose by the best performing Republicans in Arizona where their House candidates, like the statewide house pular vote for the for U. S Congress, not the

statehouse was I think Republicans want it, are going to win it by like five. So Cary Lake already drastically underperformed that by six because she's gonna lose. And then to Blake Masters underperformed his House candidates by like ten or eleven. Unbelievable. It's it's I mean it. It really goes to show that whatever most Americans want, they don't want a fucking weirdo fascist freak threatening. Uh there an

astronaut's wife with a gun. Yeah, really briefly, like also like on this note, of all of the queer and trans candidates who won, um, I will point out this follows the pattern that has taken shape in the last decade, which is that these supposedly well not supposedly they are, but like these red and purple states in the South and the Midwest are sending queer and trans people into the hall of power a lot faster than deep blue

states on the West coast and in the Northeast. The first non unfortunately forget their name, but the first non binary state legislator in the country was elected in Oklahoma. And they're not only non binary, they are black and Muslim non binary. UM. So it's like, you know, these um, these communities as Christophers, like a, these communities do matter, and we can't forget about them, we can't abandon them.

But also like not just they matter, but like, as I will happily argue, with any political operative from either coast, we are much more likely to see some kind of progressive resurgeons resurgeons in this country led by candidates out of the South or Midwest than either yeah, yeah, well and like like look at like this is one of the everythings that that you know, So I have a lot of friends in the like Michigan teachers Union, right, and you know, like right right now, what is happening

in the Michigan Like in Michigan is that the teachers Union is literally sending lists of laws like to to the governor that are like you need to get rid of this. And you know, if you like if even if you look at like like almost every other Democratic Party like in the country is just constantly at word their teachers unions, and you know, and then you look at like you look at what's happening in Wisconsin, and

it's like, like, what's happening in Michigan. Wells also Wisconsin too, with like they have a much more labor friendly like the Democratic Party even like fucking San Francisco or like the ghouls in like like honestly the ghouls in the Chicago machine, right Eric Adams office. Yeah, right, Like there's there's there's I don't know, they're like everybody doors the Midwest and we're here, damn it, and we do good things.

Well it's a little bit like I mean, it's a little bit of what we were saying earlier that like when you've got these states where because of the population layout, the Democratic Party doesn't have to struggle to actually win for the most part, you're a hell of a lot. Number one, the party becomes effectively a cartel, so they're very good at stopping any like upstart, young progressive, non binary, queer trans people from like getting a hold on in

local politics. You know, we we just had the most progressive member of the Portland City Council ousted by corporate business interests UM and you know it, which is very different from the trend that you're seeing in places like Montana, places like Oklahoma with a lot of these very progressive, you know, young candidates. And it's because um number one, maybe the state parties are a little more willing to

throw a hail Mary. But also, just like those individual people, the people running in the folks doing their campaign have had to be a lot harder and a lot smarter to survive surrounded by people who hate them. And I think also like there's one of the ways that I was pretty sure that this wasn't going to be a read tsunami was so I have some friends, I have friends who go to Wheaton College, and for people who don't know who what Wheaton College is. It is like

we're sorry that we're about to inform you. Yeah. So Wheaton College is one of like I don't know, maybe the second behind like Graham Young like most right, we can evangelical college in the US, like they they famous. It's it's not as bad as the Liberty Yeah, yeah, it's like number three, right, but like so it's it's it's this is this is like the the intellectual center of um like of sort of evangelical politics, like make sure I have this right, yeah, Like Billy Graham's family

has funneled money into wheat In College for decades. In two days now and okay, so like Wheaton is a like broadly beking like a fucking ferociously hostile place to be anything other than a like assist head white person. Right, it is like unbelievably homophobic. It is really anti semitic.

And like a few months ago, I was walking like through Wheaton downtown to visit a front and in the middle of fucking Wheaton Downtown, they're they're they're like there there there was someone who on in there in there like fucking lawn had had like had a giant Pride flag and like it wasn't like it was like it was like the it was the like the Brown Pride flag too, right, Like that was like even like five years ago, that would have been unimaginable, Like you would

have been like you would have been fucking chased out of town by a bob. Like and it's it's just there now, and I don't know, like they haven't been run out. It's still there. No, it's literally yes everything that Christopher just said. And you know, these are people that Christopher, Christopher and I grew up with, like we literally I was there was a granddaughter of Billy Graham in my high school class. Um. And I think, you know, as much as you know, these people are not going

to be socialists or progressive as anytime soon. They are very much like normy moderate Democrats now. But there were a lot of suburban white people who got very turned off by Trump for the Republican Party. And I think this mid term is the confirmation that, barring you know, some kind of economic catastrophe that always always throws elections to the out of power party, Uh, these Norman white suburban nights are not going back. Uh. And we you know,

when you look at trends across the country. Um you know JB. Printker one do Page County, which is the county that Wheaton is in, which is like you know this is this yeah, like this used to be within Christopher and I his lifetimes. This used to be a county that Republicans banked on getting three hundred thousand votes out of on a statewide margin level. Um and now it's being one up and down by Democrats. Like Democrats flipped the county executive office in du Page County this year.

Um So, like Chicago suburbs are trending are continuing to trend left, Atlanta suburbs are continuing to trend left. Uh the like Raleigh Durham area in North Carolina is trending left. The Texas urban areas are trending left. And this isn't just like in comparison to twenty six. This is in comparison to two years ago, which was a democratic environment.

Um So, the fact that these counties are swinging left in a year where the country, even though the overall results were fined, the country definitely swung right, like these people are not going back. And not just that these people are not going back, but the ones who are staying Republicans A. They're moving, they're leaving the suburbs and they're establishing their little new white flight outposts in other places. Um. And the people who are replacing them are largely people

of color. Like the suburbs today in America are sixty percent white as compared to in the year two thousand when they were something like percent white. UM. So this is I think this year was the confirmation we needed that this is a permanent trend that the suburbs from now on are either going to be a wash or even frankly just democratic places where Democrats will net votes.

And this is all. There still is a lot of fear, and there's still is reason to be very concerned about the ability of the GOP's power to push things in a revancheus direction, in an anti democratic election, to remove the ability of people because that that is you know, we're seeing them talk right now. We're seeing guys like Matt Walsh, Christopher Rufo talk right now about the need to like stop young people from voting, to crack down

on mail voting. Like this is not not to say like all right, it's all done, um, but this is like I guess the thing that's that's optimistic about this overall is that it is um it's evidence that the the there there was this kind of open question after Trump won in UM and if one thing you could look at, you could look at, you could look at two and go like, well, clearly the trend since then has been for the GOP to lose big in most

of these elections. But that was also anything but clear, kind of as a result of the way COVID fuck things up. And this this does seem to like submit that that like, yeah, it may it may have in the long run proved to be a major, major tactical failure to to have gone for this guy the way that they did. Oh yeah, I mean, and we can only hope. I mean, I personally, from an entertainment factor, cannot wait for the the Santa's versus Trump primary. Um, I will be I will be rooting for Trump because

he is funnier online. Um. And also I don't think it would make a substance of difference, uh in whether or not like who would be the nominee, because the Santis is just Trump without the charisma. Um. But I think, yeah, hopefully, like we saw the Republican party pay a price this year for arguably the first time in a long time for their insanity. Um and it's good to see that that happened. Hopefully it will happen again. And I will also note for anyone listening, who does you know, you

care about elections, you want to get involved somewhere. The next somewhere for you to get involved in is the state of Wisconsin, where the there is a state Supreme

Court seat up for election in April. If Democrats win that seat, they will flip the Supreme Court in Wisconsin, and that means that the absolutely insane Republican jerry managers in that state, which pretty much render the state of Wisconsin a non democracy, will likely get over charged if Democrats are able to flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which would mean a lot of good things could happen for

a lot of people who live in that state. Okay, there is one other thing that is like basically umbul agist I don't want to touch on before we blows up, which is that the extent to which the Republicans have sort of entered chaos mode now a with with Trump just sort of like going off on the Santis and like the Remolican civil war happening. And then secondly, because they seem it looks like they've gotten the chaos mode

configuration of their House majority. Yes, Um, any anyone who pays attention to Congress, I would encourage you to get very, very familiar with the term discharged petition, which is a mechanism by which if you have a majority of the House is willing to sign a piece of paper that says we should put this bill on the floor no

matter what. It goes to the floor, no matter what. Um. And I think you're probably going to see Democrats successfully put a lot of bills on the House floor in the next two years because they're gonna get They're going to pick off the Republican moderates in the northeast to sign these these pieces of paper. We should I think we should explain what exactly Republican position looks like because

it's oh sure, so, UM, it's so. I I should caveat this with the statement that there is still like I would say, a five percent chance that Democrats managed to scrap, like scrape their way to a one seat majority. Um, it's not likely by any means, but like it is still theoretically on the table, mostly because Lauren Bobert managed to put herself into position where she might actually lose. UM and but default modal outcome I would say is Republicans end up with a three or four House seat majority.

Uh in. But what that means is that UHL, we get Calvin Ball for the next two years, essentially because Kevin McCarthy as a person, UM is well a he's like very unintelligent in general. And this is like a very common sentiment that you will run into uh in people who pay attention to Congress. He is not personally

capable of managing a House majority of four. This is so widely accepted that Nancy Pelosi was willing to go on the record in an interview the other day saying that UM and so who knows Kevin McCarthy made not even end up being the speaker. We may not have a speaker until March because no one would get two and eighteen votes. Um. But whoever has that job, whatever Republican has that job, it is going to be the most thankless job of their life that they will suffer

through for the next two years. Because you know, the the pundit class and political operatives love to talk about how ideologically diverse the Democratic Party is in the House, and it's true because like on the left wing end of the of the caucus you have people like Rashida Slab and Ellen Omar, and the right wing end you have people like Henry quay Are, who tragically survived his

primary this year. UM. But I think it has gone under the radar that Republicans in the House are arguably more ideologically diverse than Democrats are because the moderates, the moderate Republicans in the House are like your very standard like socially liberal, fiscally conservative types that were very popular and like two thousand ten, UM, Like you have like some of these Northeastern Republicans who are were more than happy to vote for same sex marriage, though they would

probably vote for uh like to quodeafy Row, they would probably vote to codify birth control legal like reality. And on the other end you have Marjorie Taylor Green and like if MT yeah, if if there is a person on this earth who is capable of managing that caucus, UM, I don't know who they are. I don't think anyone

knows who they are. UM. And I think that the smartest thing that that person could do is, um not take the job and let someone else take the fall for what is going to be two years of chaos that will most likely hurt the Republican brand a lot

in the next two years. Yeah. That that's like one of the things that actually makes me like slightly optimistic is that like the Republican Party like is it is it like a first coalition and it had been being held together sort of like by Trump and now Trump's not on Twitter anymore and Twitter may not exist by like the time need be speaker. Well, it's also I think I might add Chris, it's not just by Trump.

And a part of why Trump was able to get the position did is it's it's a mix of Trump and owning the Libs, right, Like that's that's a huge part of why the most visible members of this caucus are where they are. Like, there's no there's no Marjorie Taylor Green right without the way that particular social reinforcement pattern works. And um yeah, I think that like that's

not like number one. If Twitter goes away, which could have happened by the time you listen to this episode, that really gets gets in the way of their ability to own the Libs. But also if they're just getting their asses kicked up and down the country, they're they're no longer owning the Libs. The Libs have not been owned, No, they have not. And I think the other, you know, the other consideration here is that, um, we like to talk a lot in this country because it's true about

neither party ever puts forth a substance of policy agenda. Um. And there are a lot of Republican political operatives who are running around right now complaining and saying that Republicans lost because they failed to offer a viable alternative. Except that's not true. Republicans did offer a policy agenda in this mid term and that policy agenda was Christian nationalism, and American voters took one look at that and said,

are you fucking for real? Yeah, like that that's the that's the thing that like everyone like like people like all the fucking New York Times calumn this, like people don't understand that. Like there's maybe thirty percent of the population who actually likes that ship, and everyone else in

the country is like, what the fuck? And you know, and but but you know, like the like the the the actual sort of median person in the US is so much less like that than the median person that every pundit imagines that like the version of reality that exist since sort of like the minds of the media class, like it's not yeah, they've they've, they've they've created incredible sand castles in their mind. Now the tides like washing them away. I don't know if the tides washing them away.

I think we we can. We can only hope that The New York Times gets washed out to see But I think you know, I sorry, go for it, no, no, no, please. I was just gonna say, like, you know, obviously, the next two years are going to be the next two years,

um and no one can predict the future. Anyone who anyone who tells you and literally the next eighteen months that they know how the two elections are going to go is lying to you, and you should block them and perhaps to report them to like whatever like non

retributed forms of authority exists in your local area. But um my, you know, based on how this went, if the same trends play out for the next two years, which would be suburb continue swinging left Democrats continue to rack up problems with minority voters, but like not to

the extent that we're gonna lose urban seats anytime soon. Um, and Republicans continue racking up margins in the states and like the seats that they're already winning by eighty points, which helps them on a statewide level but does not help them in the U. S. House. My I would say, like, assuming the current trends continue the trends we've had since sixteen, UM, that would mean Democrats flip back the House in two

thousand twenty four. Uh. It would also mean that we are once again in like the fight of our lives for the Senate, as we likely will be for every single cycle for the next ten years. So you know, just kind of get used to that, um while you

can when you have the breather. UM. But yeah, like, we had an okay mid term that was literally a year ago looking like it was going to be possibly the worst midterm wipe out, possibly the end of the Republics literally literally yea literally, UM, so it might be good. I think the responsible thing to do now is to close out by each giving one of our unhinged predictions for what we're gonna see in and I'm going to start.

I think we're gonna see Musk and McConaughey via for the governor of Texas once Greg Abbott is forced out god from a sex scandal. Um, that's my that's my call, proved to me. Show show when when when it happens? Everybody? Everybody alowe me? Yeah, some some French fries. Oh god, it's gonna happen. Calling it now tom Brady, I reckon, Tom Brady is gonna tom Brady's gonna take a swing at it at Texas. No one of those states up in where it's called marine at the time. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I assume he's from, broadly speaking, it Ay to Wisconsin. He is, he would be running in New England. Please do not pin that on us. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, bro, but no that kind of cold, like yeah, just just gray, not like like miserable cold like you will have the Yeah, tom Brady running in a place where you can't grow tomatoes is yeah, it's my prediction. That feels good. After his massive success selling the hit crypto platform f t X.

What what can't Tom Brady do? Who knows? Don't don't ask that wuldn't put that out there win games for the bucketeers. Yeah, yeah in Germany. Yeah, survive eating what any normal human being would eat on a given day. Garrison. I don't know. I don't. I don't care about this type of thing very much. The perfect reason to make

prediction unhinged prediction. I don't know. I think one of the funniest things is that earlier this year there's this big bit quin account who said that if things continue, bit coin is going to be a major factor in the mid terms, which is so not wrong. So I'm saying that, what's the what's what's an even dember cryptocurrency? Um? I was thinking of? I was thinking of, does coin is gonna be a significant factor in election? Yeah? Uh?

Mine is that? Mine is that? Okay, Pritzker is going to bring back like the old school democratic machine, and by bye bye is gonna fall out a window like Kamala Harris. He's going to sort of like turn up like they're going to drain a damn in thirty years and find her body and it's going to run again. Yeah, he won't because he will have fallen out of a building. Then near the end of the about Christmas, that's your prediction that Joe Biden will fall out of a window

the fourth Comtration of Prague. Like we we we all think that like the sort of like threat, like the threat to bourgeois democracy comes come comes from the Republicans. It's not. It's Pritzker. Pritsker is gonna cu the fucking country and probably sixty percent of the population is going to be completely on board because he's going to be less insane than like everyone that's been like in charge of this country for the last fifty years. And you

know who's gonna save democracy? Then okay, m yeah, Okay. That leaves me what is my unhinted prediction. I don't think I'm gonna top christophers prediction about JP prints ker Um. You know. I think my unhinted prediction will be that Taylor Swift runs for Senate in Tennessee. Oh god, oh she could do it. Yeah, yeah, don't don't look. It's if she brings on, if she brings on the head of her fan club who went to jail in Israel for refusing to serve the idea, I think they actually

might get some progressive Yeah, that may have been untrue. Sadly, the swifty refuge. But maybe, really, really, why why did you even introducing that? Why? Why would you? Why would you say that to me? Yeah, because not all these beautiful things we believe it could be true, but Taylor Swift running for Tennessee, she would almost certainly be better than whoever is a Tennessee senator now right, Yeah, it's now Colonel Sanders or someone basically the same as Colonel Sanders.

I imagine that's Kentucky. Yeah, come on, come on, British is Kentucky. It's called Kentucky fried Chicken. James, that was that was basically a slur. I there is a type of guy epitomized by Colonel Sanders, who also pies all the Senate seat south to the Mason Dixon line. That's not true. That's that's my that's my stunt, and I'm

sticking to it. I am pushing back on this. Well, I'm gonna watch a fog horn leghorn video because that's that's who I'm thinking of now, James, all right, everybody that's been the episode, m hm, go vote Swift, Yeah, vote another couple of times. Just make sure, yeah, this looks the old Chicago model. Vote early vote often pay for pay for a few meals. Everyone go to Colorado and vote against lor Yes, literally seven of you or whatever constwing this. Let move to Colorado. We can't deal

with her ship anymore. Fund raise in order to purchase a huge number of drones and drop ballots over wherever it is in Colorado. They count votes. I assume Denver, Yeah, Blanke at Denver in your ballots, and stop listening to pe podcasts. It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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