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Okay, welcome home everybody.
This is a Native Lamppod Mini pod and Today. Because sometimes we tend to be in gloom and doom, We're just gonna stay in the doom, So we at the end of most shows tell you how many days are left to the midterms. Now, Andrew might be feeling like, woo hoo midterms. I think me and Tiff really might feel a way about telling y'all how many days are left to the midterms, because I don't really know these things gonna damn happen, So tif, I think that might be.
Where you're resting.
Even if they are gonna happen, are they gonna cheat like they did? I still feel like they did in the twenty twenty four election. I don't have dad. I got a gut feeling. I'm telling about the black women in the Holy Goes We'll be spot on. So I'm curious to know if you guys think we should still be telling people how many days are left.
I say that I think it's pointless. I get so frustrated when people say, Andrew already disagree with me. But I'm just gonna tell you, Andrew, I think it is pointless when people start talking to me like we just gotta hold on for one more year then the midterms. I'm hold on to what? What do we think the midterms are going to change? And after going out and telling everybody gotta vote, gotta votetta vote, gotta vote, and the country I know Angela believes the election is stolen.
I can only go on what is before us, and that is that millions of people cast ballots for this. But I will say, Angela, the Latasha has been the most compelling to me in giving me actual facts that suggest the election is stolen. And I've really I'm hesitant to share what she said. So y'all give me a little bit of grace because I could be saying it
incorrectly because I don't know the exact jurisdictions. But she was saying there were places where people would vote down ballot completely Democrat and not the top Republican and it happened overwhelmingly, and we should have her come on so she can say it directly. But when she said that, I'm like now, that is information to me, that is that's factual, it's logical, and it gives you a head scratch where yes, that does require, you know, some investigation.
But even if they did, okay, it is here now, like what they're not gonna say, okay, takes these back seats. We stole it, like they have already instituted this authoritarian regime. And I don't know any post industrialized country that has
come this far into authoritarianism and turned around. So why we think all of a sudden we're gonna have free and fair elections in this country for midterms, which we've never really had, as black folks know all too well, and as women know all too well, we've never really had that. But we think somehow in four hundred and eighty days that we're going to have a better chance at democracy. I just don't think so. But find Andrew, you've been shaking your head, So go ahead and tell me how I'm wrong.
I think, so long as elections are still determining who is going to be running the country, serving as your mayor, on your school board, and your members of Congress, you need to participate. We need to show up, and we have to participate in the process that exists that allows for people to do exactly what they're doing right now to us, against us, and some would even say against our will. It certainly was against mine. My will when I voted, was for a different outcome, and it was
to preserve democracy. But the other choice was also pretty clear to me, which was the opposite of holding democracy, but quite frankly flipping closer to autocracy. I do think that. So one thing on the evidence around the down ballot versus up ballot. That's a trend that's happened in Florida for decades. It's only recently shifted where people elected local Democrats to school board, their mayors, their council in the
western part of Lord of the panhandular region. But Democratic registration was really the majority registration across the Panhandle for frankly all of our existence up to Governor Jeb Bush being elected. But their national voting habits were always more conservative, so they would vote for Republican presidents, Republican US senators, and Democrats all the way down. The rest of the battle. We described those folks as Dixiecrats, and Dixiecrats don't just
live in the panhandular region of Florida. Every part of the country has those folks who registered Democrats. They are not leaving their party registration, but their voting habits have shifted. And then Donald Trump came along and created a permission structure for those individuals to go from being registered ds to now fully flown, grown, registered Ours, and then their voting has now become consistent. They vote are at the lower end and they vote are at the top end.
And I would imagine that that's a trend that exists all over the country. But Latasha's point, if we're going to find irregularities in the election system, it is going to happen at a precinct by precinct level in each county and every you know, and all over the country, but both very specifically in states that are considered basically beil weather states or states that could flip either Republican
or Democrat from cycle to cycle. But the ability for someone to hold sales steal an election by flipping a switch, and if impacted the entire country, it is less likely given the decentralized nature of our election system, which is run county to county to county, and I mean not in but just make this final point, which is simply say, I think we have to be really careful and responsible with how we talk about our elections systems, because it's the only thing that people can have faith in if
they're exercizing the process of going out of their house down to a precinct or in their house in filling out an absentee ballot and letting their voices be heard. Because I don't know too many people who willingly participate in what they find to be a futile experience. Most people, if I'm going to take my time, energy effort, in some cases money to fuel a gas tank or otherwise, it better have an outcome on the other end of it, hopefully in the direction that I would like it to go,
but an outcome nonetheless that can be trusted. And if we erode that process, we think we have problems now with the couch winning quote unquote, we're really going to exacerbate a problem of people deciding to just check completely a wholesale out of elections because they don't believe that they're legal, that they're fair, or that it will count. Let alone the debate around whether it matters because of what happens once people get elected, but whether it will count.
And I think that create that that crisis of confidence and a system opens up a whole new barrel for us to have to fight.
I think that's all completely fair. I just want to punctuate the point that you made around being careful how we talk about it. Something that you said that is in real time made me reconsider about midterms is when we talk about those down ballot races, when in your explanation of Dixiecrats, yes, those down ballot races may not be impacted by impropriety. You know, this is like school board elections, city council members. So at no point am
I ever discouraging people from participating in the process. I'm really speaking more from a federal perspective. I don't know what midterm elections might change. Even should Democrats take seize power of the House and or the Senate. I'd be curious about what things that have happened that that could actually stop. I think there's a big tent in the party.
There are conservative Democrats. So that's really my perspect in terms of your explanation on malfeasance in the past election, I just want to be clear there too, I am not saying the election was stolen. I'm not saying it wasn't. My only thing is before the responsibility for me personally, the responsibility I have before an audience. I would not say the election is stolen if I have not well researched it and said, here is the data chain that
leads me to that. So I'm simply sharing what Latasha said to me, which is why, Yeah, I know, I just want to be clear for the audience, because I you know, I want them to understand this is what I'm told. I have not personally gone down that rabbit hole to say, oh, yeah, I see how this can happen. I'm curious when you say stuff like county by county,
because you're not the only person to say that. I think Roland Martin did a segment on his shows that I haven't watched that I should, and Roland Martin is in a stude journalist, so I don't know what he did. But a lot of people were saying, oh, Roland Martin explored a report by somebody that gave them pause on the election. Those are the things that will entice me to say, okay, well, let me look at the information.
I don't know if the election was stolen. I just think that some of us, maybe not you, Angela, but there are some people out there who are so traumatized at the pronouncement of white supremacy in this country that we can't even fathom it. That were like, there is no way y'all went out and put this half witted political idiot back in office after he said every racist, awful thing. There is no chance that you all could
have done that, And that is where I'm torn. I'd rather the election be stolen than to know that the majority of people in this country right felt this way. So I don't know, And I want.
To back into this a little bit because I had to think about, like I know that I did some research on the other side of the election, and there were definitely reports that were coming out from election experts on why this is a very likely phenomenon. So I went back and looked. There was a lot of discussion
around county level manipulations. When we talk about mid term elections, we're talking about local state elections, and then of course our members of Congress that are elected in those off year elections, as well as House of Representatives and senators in some instances, I think it's a third normally that are up for election. There were five states that one entity said needed investigation into whether or not there was
any count county level manipulation. Please look these up so that you're not just going off my smart elections one I'm about to I'm about to smart elections is one. Election Truth Alliance looked at Clark County, Nevada. The drawing off rate in Clark County, Nevada was astonishing to them. The way that they would have they flipped from the presidential nominee, the two presidential candidates to who they voted for in the Senate was astonishing to Election Truth Alliance.
Additionally, for this as a quock question, when you say the drop off, you're saying that people are voting basically what Latasha was saying, that at the top they're voting Republican and down ballot.
Ballant as Democrats. Yes, no, yes, even between the fads even yes, yes, exactly. And then the other thing is, and I forgot about this comment, but Donald Trump said right after inauguration that Elon Musk understood the Pennsylvania voting machines on a local level better than anyone and they ended up winning by a landslide, which caused a lot
of alarm as well. So if you have someone saying that there are five states or an entity that studies this five states from an election integrity standpoint that need to be looked into because it looks like there could be some county by county manipulation. You have the President making this pronouncement about Pennsylvania voting machines and Elon Musk,
and you have this Clark County analysis. And I remember going back and looking at what the Attorney General put out as well, Stephen horse Ford, to be fair, because when I raised was Stephen Horsford, he was like, well.
The representative of Clark County, uh huh, Las Vegas.
And he said, well, they've been looking into this for some time. It wasn't about this election, but it was about this election.
So I'm not.
Sure what the dis like, what the issue was, And I can't remember when how he responded to my response. Know, they are talking about the twenty four election, not twenty two, not twenty It was this year. But they did make an analysis and have data from the year prior or, the presidential prior and the one before that. And they show how there was a more significant drop off like ten percent from Harris to Jackie Rosen.
Two women.
So you also can't say, well, it was a woman thing.
Two women on the.
Versus YEP, versus what it was in twenty twenty versus twenty sixteen.
Pennsylvania.
Yeah, I need to go back, and Nevada was one. Pennsylvania was one.
The interesting thing about those there are two swing states.
They were a Democrat, I would imagine then Michigan.
I don't want to even imagine you go back and pull on.
But while you're looking that up, Ange, I'll just say in Florida and my race for governor, we had the US Senate race at the same time, which of course had a white male nominee Democrat on my side, and then my race obviously black male Democrat, and there was about a point difference. And when I say a point,
I'm talking about like seventy thousand votes. Who were people who were comfortable voting for a Democrat for the US Senate, a white male Democrat for the US Senate, and who then and the race for governor appeared to have switched from their Democratic ballot to choose the Republican nominee. What makes it alarming for outside groups who are looking at these elections is if you see, usually these habits of flipping or going back and forth between D and R
are sort of well laced. There's a history of it. There's a way in which you can go back and explain this to be a voting pattern of a particular area, be it a whole state or congressional districts, so on and so forth. What is anomalous is if there is no history, yet you find a significant difference, especially at same levels. Right, so you're talking about a statewide race. A Senate is a statewide race. A governor is a state wide race. So you're looking at two comparable races.
But then there is a difference between whether folks so for a Democrat or a Republican in those seats and most states, you can vote an entire Democratic line or you can vote an entire Republican line, which means anyone who is running for partisan office and they are a Republican, your ballot will choose them, and the same for Democrat exactly. And then there is there are the people who go back and forth. Even when you have to make individual
selections back and forth. Overwhelmingly, people vote party line ballots. That's where anomalies come from when folks don't do that. And you see a difference between a statewide race where democrats, the Democrat got four million votes and the Republican got four point one million votes. But it then switches to a governor's race and the Democrat gets three point nine million and the Republican got four point two million. That
is a pretty significant difference without a trait. We have to identify what the trait was that made the difference possible. In twenty sixteen, this confounded a lot of us because we had not seen the kind of drop off that we'd seen before between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and the races that came below them, with folks choosing between
Democrat Republican. And what we found in later research is that Trump was able to hyper activate the white vote turnout, and he did the same in this last election.
In this last election, that is the thing.
Turnout of white voters about turn out totally skewed. It threw all the polling off, of course, but it also throws out a lot of these what do you call those closing numbers at the end of the day they say exit poled numbers and that kind of thing, which because these people a lot of practice around exit polling, and if they were, they're still not giving an honest answer, and so it confounded a lot of us.
Okay, so just really quick.
So now I went to the Smart Elections thing and they have a chart. I'm just going to send you all the link. And they examined seventeen states, and the swing states had the most significant drop off versus the non swing states for reasons.
We understand there are swing states for a reason.
But the swing states were Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And then there are non swing states where there was also drop off, but it was no where near I mean it is. It is astonishing. So I'm gonna send you guys to craft.
Send it to me. I remained unconvinced to be honest. I mean, I and my challenge is when I'm citing someone else's research, I want to know, like, how you got this research. And then I got to talk to five other people explain to me because this is what
they said they got how they got the research. Andrew, you'd be one of those people like I don't read cross tabs and feel all that stuff, Like I don't know what I can look at the numbers, and I remember I was at Michael Harriet's house when the new Pew data drops and I was asking him to explain it to me, and we talked about it in our chat.
Because even the idea, I know we disagree here, Angela, but even the idea that the couch won, I don't know that that's true, Like the data just does not support it, but it's always my So then the couch wins every year like that. When you said that that's not that craasy number, that's the part that I actually, I think it would be nice for us as a country to get to a place where democracy was winning
enough that one candidate at least superseded that ninety million number. Yeah, to me, that's that's I think, And specifically about this idea that in this election it was so crazy because ninety million people stayed home, and when you look at over all the cycles, that is pretty consistent with how
many people stayed home. And then when you dig deeper and you disaggregate this data, you go down each rabbit hole individually, and that requires a collection of research, and it's boring, right, It's like boring to sit there and it takes hours and days to get to ask people. But when you go across that and look at all of it, and it'saggregated by race, this dude, the same way that Obama brought out the highest number of black voters and the lowest number of white voters, Donald Trump
ignited a movement among white people. And that is my challenge. Yes, that is my challenge here because if that's what it took for you all to participate in this here democracy, and you were motivated. They were united in our destruction, they are united in our failures in this country. They're united and making sure that we never even get what they have or come close. And they are so motivated by that that they put this man back in office.
That is the part I have challenged, and I understand why people are like, no, this can't be right, Like this can't be true. I just have not seen all the depth the New York Times analysis, Pew, all the data I've looked at, nothing has supported a that the couch has won, b that the election was stolen, even in these swing states, that you're talking about. I remain open. You know, I'm not saying this with certainty, but I just feel some level of disgust that these people have
that they were motivated by him to come out. I would love to hear that the election is stolen, because I'm like, oh, these people, we have to cohabitate with our fellow countrymen. They're actually not pieces of shit, and they're actually not so bad. There's only a small number.
No.
What this election showed me is, yeah, ancient chains, they are still awful people who voted for this man because they don't like you and they don't like brown people. That's I'm experiencing it.
I think we can if we talked about narcissism, it would be a narcissist thing to say if we believe that folks were motivated exclusively by why, Because I think it's probably more complicated than simple. I think it can be racist. Oh no, no, I'm not giving racist. I think you can be racist, have racist belief in tendencies ninety nine percent of your day in time or one hundred percent of your day in time, and still have other motivations for doing a thing beyond just being racist.
Is what I'm saying it doesn't make them better people. It just means that they had motivations forgetting out and voting.
And by the way, a motivation had to be first of all, when Barack Obama ran, these same white folks could have been motivated equally like that Ma's Gillham that that movie where at the end in California, like the polls will be closing and whatever you know, Chris Rock I think is the main character of that movie, and they everybody's pulled out their driveway and rush into the polls to go and vote to make sure the black
man didn't win. But just as they were motivated to see Donald Trump, when they could have equally been motivated to prevent a black man from winning the presidency. I mean, in real time, they could have showed up in unprecedented numbers to stop that from happening, and couldn't do it every time, quite frankly up to now and probably beyond for several election cycles, because that's just where the numbers
are when it comes to electoral performance. That if white folks wanted to vote and vote the way they vote right now, which is white men overwhelmingly Republican and white women consistently over a majority Republican So if they could have done that, then if this was only going to be about race, but they didn't. But they didn't do that,
then they did not prevent that from happening. And they could have, and they could have done it even with fewer of them showing up than showed up to support Trump, and in this case, they wanted Trump. And I will just I'm layering on this that in addition to not wanting a black woman there, it can also be that there's some other things that were being communicated in that.
Missing voted against her or they voted for him either and both make them racist.
Series it's a difference without distinction. Completely agree. All I'm saying is is that if that were the only motivator by itself, then why didn't that motivator also keep Barack Obama from office?
They weren't engaged then, And.
Since that's not true, some of them, some of them were voted, were voting to demonstrate they weren't racist. I'm looking, I'm trying to see where I'm missing this too, but is then looked up In twenty four ninety million people didn't vote in twenty eighty million people didn't vote, and so it was the highest turnout and voter participation since nineteen o eight, and twenty four was the second highest
since nineteen sixty. In twenty sixteen, one hundred million people didn't vote, and I'm trying to figure out what the twenty twelve and two thousand and eight numbers are tour, which is fine, but I don't remember it and sometimes might not remember it either.
I'm not saying that, I'm just saying I don't just so people know I'm not googling something during the show, because sometimes numbers are.
I am googling it during the show because I'm trying to figure out where the breakdown is. I think what I was trying to get to is at the end of the day, what we know is voter participation is not where it should be in this country, and as a result, that means that democracy has consistently been failing people because it doesn't feel like people power. So people are not going to lean into a system where they do not feel represented, which brings us full circle to
the point of this show. Because I know we are supposed to be leaving like really soon and closing out it really soon.
What we are struggling with.
I think all in all is telling people counting down to the days where their circumstances are going to dramatically change, counting down to the days where a midterm election means that all of sudden, now things are going to be sky as blue, things are great. That is not how it's feeling, because even while we had a reprieve from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty, things still haven't drastically changed
for a number of people in our communities. And so while we count down, let us also be intentional about the work that needs to shift that is in our power to do, and be recruiting people that can dramatically change circumstances because they are showing real courage. Whether it's one hundred million or eighty million or ninety million, tip, it is too many people who are sitting out of participating in this democracy, and that means that the democracy
has to change. I think at the verities we can all agree on that point.
I can definitely agree. Yeah, none of us ever disagree. My only point was to present it like ninety million people didn't vote this time, as though that was some sort of anomalycessys crisis that's when I say crisis that has happened over a lot of election cycles unfortunately in the country.
And my question is with you to.
So, yeah, let's let's get let's fix that.
Find the idea of the couch one. It's good on a shirt, but it doesn't have effectual impact in the sense that when the couch wins, then the couch gets to decide what happens. And in our democracy, the one who actually wins gets to decide the policy. And so when the couch starts laying people off and federal agencies all throughout the land, then they won. But so long as they're there. The in the sense that more people sat the couch than got out and voted for any
one particular candidate, it is. It is a cool observation. However, the effect of winning to me is you governed. Winning means you're in charge. Winning means you get to do the thing that you're inclined to do. And unfortunately the couch didn't win because I don't think the couch would have done what Donald Trump has been doing.
I think.
I think it should absorb as much time as we've given the couches one, because it is semantical, and it has created a debate that I think again ends up talking about numbers rather than what is I think a greater, bigger, larger, comprehensive point, and that is around a democracy and a system of representative democracy that has failed so miserably that the majority of people are choosing I will stay out rather than have an impact on which one of these fools end up serving.
This is a conversation. No, that's fine. This is a conversation that I think will be ongoing because I don't think we've resolved. Do we need to start telling people? Do we need to continue to tell people how many days until midterms? So I guess for now we'll keep doing it. But what I love about this conversation I have to be honest, all three of us feel very differently, and I surmised that among our audience that there are groups of each like. We each have followers who are like, yes,
what Angela is saying, Angela's right? Yes, what Ti He's saying? Yes, what Andrew was saying?
Occasionally a good point, yes, even in your whole.
Like narcissism shade that you threw to me. I actually take that point and think about it. I think about it.
I said it's narcissistic. Believe that.
I think that's agree.
All the.
Narcissists was thrown around a lot in the show before in this show, and I.
Just want to because you got called it for yourself asking about tips too.
I'm just saying, we like that should be the default, Like y'all need to stop watching the social media videos, like let me tell you how to find a narcissist, like everything is it the way.
You're not actually believe it's actually.
But let us know it's it's over killed.
And I do think that we have to do the hard work of unpacking again. We might have some flat side, Yeah, trying to We're just trying to solve. Friends, We're just trying to solve.
Don't take up space with me either.
We must hold space.
Have a boundary. You have a boundary.
We have the boundaries, all the therapy words. Okay with that, I'm running. Y'all can keep going, but I'm kind I'm out. Thank y'all for listening. There are we'll know how many days the midterm alexis because we don't never don't have to anyway. We will see y'all next time. Welcome home, y'all.
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