Chuck's Commentary - Putin’s BIG Mistake When Dealing With Trump + Why Divisiveness Became Political Strategy

in the information ecosystem. Just because I think it sucks doesn't mean I'm not going to participate in it as best I can. So would love that. But we're making a slight tweak on the audio front, really based on sort of our own sort of consumer demands, if you will, We're going to break the We're going to offer the podcast now in sort of two different ways. You can get the entire thing as one every episode and that

regularly is somewhere two hours or less. Or we will also offer it so if you just do the audio feed, you may see one episode, you may get three beads. One is the entire thing, soup to nuts. One is just are just the feature interview for that episode. So today, for instance, it's Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's, and then one is just my thoughts for the day, coupled with the Q and A. So it's a way if you want to absorb in chunks or if you

want to do it all at once. My feeling is, in this day and age, you know you're in charge is the consumer. We're putting all the content out there and we want it. We want you to be able to consume it anyway you want, not forcing you to consume it the way we want you to consume it for what it's worth. I do think of it as one one whole meal, sort of thoughts of the day, something you know that I've been thinking about, an interview on a topic that I think you should know more about,

and then responding to your question. So I do think of it as sort of a complete meal. But I also know in this day and age, people you want to grab Hey, I'm curious of this, So that's an interesting interview, but I want to listen to that later totally get that. So we want to provide the opportunity to give you, to give you basically both options and of course if you want to watch, that's what YouTube is for as well. So we appreciate all the different ways.

And that's the thing I've learned since going independent, which is I preached it all the time when I was at NBC. Platform neutral. Don't force consumers to take your content the way you want it. You got to sort of meet them where they are. And this is another attempt of me trying to meet you where you are. Speaking of that and the information ecosystem, there actually was a huge development and how you consume information that is going to have a gigantic impact on local news and

it's probably a headline you had no idea. I was going to single out this morning about it, but I want to make a brief mention of it since I talk about local news all the time and how I think, really, we're not going to repair the reputation of national news until we clean up the local news ecosystem. But we're about to see another devastating blow to local news this morning. There's a merger that was announced next Star Media Group and Tegna essentially buying out Tegna merging. Of these these

are the two largest at this point. Now this is going to be the largest single company that owns local affiliates. So your local channel four, channel ten, channel nine, channel seven, whatever market you live in some way, your single digit markets, your local ABC affiliate, your local NBC affiliate, your local Fox affiliate, your local CBS affiliate. These are not the O and os. Sometimes the networks we call them O and os owned and operated where the national network also

owns the local news. If you live in New York and LA, for instance, those local channels KNBC, WNBC, WABC, KABC, those are owned by ABC and NBC. But if you live, say where I grew up in Miami, one of the affiliates is owned by by one of the big networks. The local NBC affiliate is owned and operated by NBC National, NBC Universal, but the other ones are not. Channel ten was the ABC affiliate, they've now they're now an independent channel.

They have no network affiliation. Channel seven is the Fox affiliate. They now also are the ABC affiliate. And this is what I want to get to, this merging. We are going to see consolidation in the local TV sector, just in the same way we saw consolidation twenty years ago when it came to local newspapers, right, the morning papers and the afternoon papers that we used to have. Essentially that all collapsed the day of the internet. You didn't

need the whole afternoon paper. And essentially we saw that sort of consolidation take place in the eighties and nineties and it has left us with the with the mess that we have today in the local newspaper news arena. Well,

now we're going to see it on the TV side of things, this consolidation. You're going to have something that you're going to see show up in some of your markets now called doopolies. And what that means is one local affiliate will be the same place you go to for ABC programming and CBS programming, or for NBC in Miami, now it is ABC programming and Fox programming. The same local entity will be who serves you up that programming. And instead of now having two distinct local news organizations,

you'll now have one. Right, That's what this consolidation is going to lead to. So we're going to a few local journalists. You know, in theory, you should mean you take one outlet and make it bigger, but that is never how this stuff works out right. It is simply the consolidation does not. You do not have take two entities and hope that then you take two hundred percent and say cut that in half, but you still have,

say a greater amount of resources than one alone. That is not how this is going to work, sadly, and this is why I'm so obsessed with trying to reanimate and recreate the local news information ecosystem, community based news that is more platform neutral. I think you have everybody's in retreat right now. Resources are collapsing, just at a time when there's actually demand for more local information. So

this this was something that was going to happen. The FCC is going to allow likely allow more and more looser regulatory decisions. The point is this is a big deal that's going to get very little coverage, but the impact on local communities fewer resources covering what's going on locally. It is only for me motivating me to try to figure out this larger idea that I really believe we've got to scale the expansion of local news, reanimate it.

I believe youth sports and high school sports is maybe the connective tissue that can sort of bring trust back, unite different communities to do this. But This is a This is a transformative moment today and the impact on how you get local information is going to be dramatic.

You may not notice it in the next six months, you certainly are going to notice it over the next eighteen months to two years. This has huge you know, this means fewer local entities to put on debates, fewer local entities to give candidates access to the public. So this has a lot of impact on our political communications, on how we campaign politics, all of those things, how

you get basic information about your community. So this is a huge you know, as more developments happen, I obviously want to we'll be doing my best to surface this, but this gets it. This is this is the moment. This is why, oddly I actually think there's opportunity, right whenever there's consolidation, that's actually the opportunity, Right, You have a whole bunch of big entities that are in retreat, nothing like a little startup to show up and actually

try to expand. And so it's something something I want to focus there. Obviously, one other big obviously, the other big actual political headline has to do with Zelenski's trip to Washington, d C. With with his super friends in this case, the super super European friends, right, the G seven Allies, the heads of Italy and France and the UK and Germany. And clearly, you know, everybody has figured out how to play kate Donald Trump, right, every thing

is about placating him. And you know, whether I think somebody referred to the phrase tongue bathing Trump is what Zelensky's finally learned to do. Even showed up in a nice looking, very modern looking suit. Let me just tell you if I would hope that this becomes the model of what is considered dressing up in Washington because there was no tie, right, how great was that there was no tie? It looks looks sleek. You know, the all black look helps you look thinner. I need to look

thinner these days. So hey, I endorse it. Let's see it come. But in all seriousness, you could see that this was a case where they were there, that the European Allies and Zelensky were hoping if they're the last person in the room and I you know, and as

you could see, Trump seems to be vacillating. And it's interesting here that he sees himself more as a mediator between the two sides, rather than as an ally of the West. It is weirdly head scratching, right, He's the one that would leave the room and go talk, go talk to Putin for forty minutes to see what was possible, right he was, he was the go between. Now he does have the best relationship among the G seven leaders

with Putin. Right before Trump, when Biden was in office, and even actually during the Biden assume me, the Obama years, and even the first Trump termam it was thought of his Merkle who had the best relationship with Putin, in part because he spoke German and so they seem to be able to communicate better than the other world leaders. These days, it really is Trump who apparently has the best relationship with Putin. So look, I think it all

went it could have. I guess the best headline on all of this over the last ninety six hours is it could have been worse. Right. It wasn't Helsinki when it came to Putin, and it wasn't February when it came to Zelenski. And for that, I think everybody's grateful, and I think part of that is the effort the Europeans have made. I mean, in some ways, perhaps Trump

deserves some credit for this, both in action and in action, right. The inaction has sort of forced the Europeans to start working more together, to start thinking about security, which actually is some of the rhetoric we've heard from some on the right who've said, hey, you know, you heard jd. Vance say that Europe has been a bit free. I think he'd referred to him as freeloaders at one point

when it came to American security. And the fact is, if you know, this is not you know, I think what Trump's been a wake up call to Europe, right, which is the assumption that America was always going to be there. You never know which way America could turn, and suddenly now the instability of the partnership with America has forced Europe to to rethink how it conducts its alliances,

rethink its continent security. And in that sense, if you're you know, if you're on the right of center and and wanted the US to have a smaller footprint when it came to our national security, our commitments, then this is a victory because it's Europe that's taking the lead on defending Zelenski. It'll be a European I'm trying to figure out, you know, how the Russians view you know, he you know, Putin's red line is no NATO troops

in Ukraine to providing security. But if it's a collection of European troops, what's the difference if and if all those European countries are members of NATO? Is that is that a distinct different distinction without a difference or is that just enough to play Kate Putin? Right? I think that's going to be an important, an important moment, There's no doubt there's Look, politically, you're not gonna be able

to sell in this country putting American troops in Ukraine. Okay, so this is not that that is off the table. I'm not sure there would be bipartisan support for that, to be honest. There is definitely an exult austion from American national security commitment still when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan. So I don't think that there would be

the political will in this country for that. The question is if it's an alliance of European countries that are providing it, you know those you know, how to me NATO and European countries are kind of one and the same thing is that the way Putin is going to see it, which sometimes he chooses to see it that way and sometimes he doesn't. So I think that's an

important sticking point. But I want to get at one aspect to this that is still which to me and perhaps it's why Trump is still gettable by the West here for them to take their side. First of all, I think it is pretty clear that unlike most issues, there really is multiple points of view inside the West wing in Trump's here that unlike many other issues, there's a healthy debate internally about Ukraine that see Putin and Russia much more as a threat to the West than

others see Putin and Russia. So I think the fact that there's that spirited debate inside the West wing and that Trump seems to vacillate a little bit is why we have this sort of weird sort of takeaways from this last ninety six hours, right, which I do think, and I think there's part of the more Europe flatters Trump. It clearly works right, just like it's worked for Putin. The Europeans have figured this out. Trump just wants respect, right.

He may not have earned the respect, but he wants people. I was saying this before. He's in some ways desperate for it, right. It goes back to his complex about you know, being an outer Borough kid trying to make it in Manhattan. He's you know, at the end of the day, he's been wanting to be respected by the New York Times, respected by the elites. The less they give him respect, the angry or he gets, and the

more it goes against the elites. But even as he goes against the elites and he tries to build his no, you know, if he's paid, you know, he still wants the elite awards. Right. If he doesn't actually care about the elites, why does he want to Nobel Peace Prize? Right? But in some ways it's he still craves it, right, And I think that that the Europeans have finally figured this out and are placating him in ways that you

look at it and you may just shake your head kind of laugh that this kind of stuff works. But it does get me at one point, and a huge miscalculation by Putin. You know, I do think that Putin really has very low regard for Trump and thinks Trump is really easy to manipulate. Why do I say this because he's given Trump nothing and and you know, he pays him lip service. Right, he tells Trump what he wants to hear about mail in voting. You know what Trump wants to hear about whether the war would have

started if Trump been president or not. But he never

actually gives Trump a win that Trump is asking for. Right, the fact that Putin couldn't even give him a one week cease fire, couldn't even give him a ceasefire during the time that they were meeting in Alaska, couldn't give him a ceasefire just for the seventy two hours that he was playing Shuttle diplomacy between Putin and Zelenski, that is, that is total disrespect by Putin, right, It totally should undermine the idea that Putin wouldn't have launched this invasion

of Ukraine and Trump had been president if he respected Trump so much? Why is any Why can't even give him a temporary ceasefire? And I think Putin thinks he can just pay lip service and not actually have to match the lip service with an action. I think he's messcalculating. I think this is success. I think over time Trump, you know, he has said it a few times. I think Putin's tappened me along. I remember he said that at one point, and the fact that you know, this

is where Putin's never going to have. You know, maybe he has ambition that he's going to have an even more pro Russian, more pro Putin president after Trump. I don't know who that would be, but maybe he somehow fantasizes about that. But I think it's safe to say this is going to be the most friendly leader that

he's ever going to have in the United States. So to not to not enhance his reputation at a time when he's desperate to enhance it, not to help him get his seaes Fire, get his Peace Prize, give him more credibility with the West, with the guy that you have influenced, really seems to be a mistake on Putin's part,

and I think it's shorted. I think it tells me how myopic Putin is, how sheltered Putin is, how much he doesn't quite see the world very well, and the miscalculations he's making on this right, he thought he was going to roll over Ukraine. I mean, he is not getting very good intelligence. It's pretty if he was. He never would have probably done the invasion in the first place. They really thought this was going to be quick and easy, and they were wrong. And they continue to be wrong

on some of the military capabilities of Ukraine. They continue to be wrong about the ability to divide Europe from

the United States or to divide Europe amongst itself. And so I think he's done it again, and he had an opportunity to give Trump more leverage. Trump has more leverage over him than he refuses to choose. Right. I mean to me, it's a simple way to get him to get Putin here, just say, look, come out and say, you know, the more I think about it, I'm going to put Ukraine in NATO because I don't ever want to see another war again. It's pretty clear Putin won't

touch a country that's a member of NATO. And see how fast Putin might suddenly retreat and talk about a ceasefire. But he's never used that leverage, right, Trump has not used the leverage that I think he has. But the same goes for Putin has an opportunity here to essentially give a few wins to Trump that would enhance his reputation, and only while still preserving that personal relationship he has

with him. So again, you know a lot of times I really want to be dispassionate and looking at these things and just sort of like saying, hey, wait a minute, forget what you think is the right thing to do.

Try to figure out why is any doing this? And this is a bit of a mystery to me, but I think it has to do with he's getting bad information, he's getting bad intelligence, or he thinks that little of Trump, that Trump has been so easy to manipulate with words, that he doesn't have to bother with an action or two to give to give Trump a win or two that would ironically strengthen him. It's in, which of course would be, but that would be long term thing, and

normally Putin's usually thinking long term. He really is miscalculating this one, and I think he does leave it up for grabs, and you know it. I think the more you look at Putin's actions, you realize he is nothing but a thug who wants to take over a sovereign nation, and there's only one person that can stop the killing.

It's him, right, Ukraine could put down arms tomorrow, and he's not going to stop the killing until he gets that country, so it is on him, and so it's a I think we need to ask ourselves that question. And there's certainly a question that I'd love to get more clarity from our Intel community, but I'm not sure how public any of that can be because it's so

sensitive when it comes to dealing with Donald Trump. Right, But why is Putin sort of not giving Trump a little something here because it would actually help him both of them in the long term, which you would think, Again, I go back, Putin's never going to have a president who's this let's just say, supportive, probably in one hundred years, and if not even more maybe ever. So it is this is where I think Putin is making some strategic mistakes here, because he's now unified Europe in a way

that Europe wasn't unified before the invasion. Right, it continues.

He may have successfully, you know, cracked the American partnership with Europe thanks to Donald Trump, but in doing so, he's united Europe in a way that the US could have only dreamed about ten years ago. All Right. That takes me to my substat column this week, and it is in some ways it's more of the longer term exercise that that I've been using this podcast for and using my substack for, which is simply trying to explain how he got here and trying to offer up idea

is to get us out of this mess? Right? What do I mean? Right? Well, let me put it this way. If there's a through line in the way I've been analyzing politics lately, it's this how we got here and how we get out? And what do I mean by here?

I mean the politics of division, the politics where we emphasize what separates us, not what we share, Where every identity slice gets thinner, every disagreement gets sharper, and the incentive structure rewards conflict over consensus. It's not a new thought for me. You've heard me talk about this before, so I'm not naive. Politics has always had conflict, that's not the point, But it hasn't always been this polarized, this performative, this locked into division as the strategy itself.

So today I want to walk you through two moments, two sort of forks in the road, if you will, that I think actually go a long way in explaining how we ended up here, and perhaps it actually by figuring out how we got here it's perhaps a half for a better politics than frankly for a potential future president to take advantage of. So here's FOURK one. It was two thousand and four in the age of micro targeting. Before two thousand and four, campaigns treated undecided voters as

moderates centrist types, facillating between the two parties. That's why the closing TV ads of your youth used to sound so bipartisan. Democrats would brag about working with Republicans, Republicans like John McCain or Republicans like you know, Jim Bush or something like that. Republicans would point out deals that they cut with Democrats, Democrats like Ted Kennedy. You know, you'd pick the most you know, even the most ideological candidates in their final ads wanted to look like they

knew how to be consensus builders. Right. You know, why did we find out about orn Hatch and Ted Kennedy Because the oarrn Hatch wanted it, brag about it. He thought it was good politics for him. By the way, Kennedy thought it was good politics for him to brag about his relationship with orn Hatch. Because the belief was simple, undecideds were wouable if you could sound more consensus oriented than the other guy. But two thousand and four changed that.

Karl Rove and the Bush reelection campaign team pioneered what we called what we called then and what we still kind of call micro targeting. They built detailed voter files that told them exactly what church you went to, what magazines you subscribed to, Yes, magazines, now, of course it would be what subscriptions you have on the internet. But stay with me here, what causes you supported? And suddenly

campaigns didn't have to guess about undecided They actually knew who they were. And the big discovery the undecideds weren't centrist, not at all. They were independent, but they were independents who didn't fit neatly into either party. But they had strong views on certain issues right, which kept them from being in one party or the other. But if you hit those pressure points, if you told them you agreed with them on that one issue, you could win them over.

You might find an independent who was an economic populist but cared about gun ownership, or you might find a fiscal conservative that cared about planned parenthood. You see where I'm going here, right, So the strategy flipped instead of we're all in this together. A kind of campaigning started,

sending surgical messages to activate one slice at a time. The Obama two thousand and eight campaign, in some ways took this to another level with digital tools, and yeah, Obama wrapped it up in some unity rhetoric. No red states, no blue state, and in fact that might explain why he's the only twenty first century presidential candidate to win by more than five percentage points, right, essentially to have

a decisive victory an actual popular vote mandate. But by twenty twelve, and certainly by twenty sixteen, there was no attempt at a unity messaging. Right. It was all about slicing and dicing. That was the whole ballgame. And then, of course came the big accelerant social media. Right, this all seemed to fit together. Facebook were built on the same logic as micro targeting. Right. They came up, by the way, they start up just after the micro targeting

boom of campaigns and four both of those entities. Right, So it was narrow casting engagement, slicing people into categories. Campaign ads fit perfectly into that system. Division onesn't just

a campaign tactic anymore. It became a business model. And the uncomfortable truth is this, our politics were less divisive when campaigns actually knew less about us, about voters, once campaigns and these tech platforms started seeing us as fragments, learning about us and fragmented pieces, if you will, well, they treated us like fragments. And when all you see are things that divide you, then it's division that becomes

your identity. And that takes me to the second fork in the road. And that was the total, complete misinterpretation of the twenty twelve election that I think is one of the original sins. If you will, to borrow a phrase, Barack Obama, this reelection should have been much harder. The economy was sluggish, unemployment was high. History said he was more likely to lose than win because of that high unemployment.

But he didn't why well, he reframed the question. It wasn't are you better off now than you were four years ago? Considering he took over during the Great Recession? That was never going to be a good way to talk to voters. Instead, he asked, will you be better off four years from now? And then he cast met Romney as the wrong answer, the out of touch boss who wasn't on your side. One of the best examples of this strategy came on Saturdays in the fall of

twenty twelve. The Obama campaign bought up airtime on the Big ten network, something campaigns hadn't done before at the time, college football Saturdays, and they hammered Romney as a job outsourcered at China. These ad barely even mentioned Obama by name, basically just the Barack Obama and I paid for this.

That was it. The entire thing was aimed squarely at working class voters in Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, all five states Obama would carry in twenty twelve, by the way, and of course these are the very states that that working class coalition became the heart of Trump's mega coalition. But at its core, what Obama was appealing to was class, not identity. Obama won those voters by convincing them Romney didn't understand their lives, he was out of touch, He

didn't get them. I'm with you, he's not right. Ultimately, I've always believed that's the most important question. You know, who's with you? Who do you think's with you? But it's not the lesson Democrats absorbed from that victory in twenty twelve. Instead, they convinced themselves Obama had won because of demographics, because of the so called coalition of the ascendant black voters, Latino voters, young people's, single women. They

believe demographics were destiny. Ironically, Republicans at the time, pre Trump Republicans drew the same conclusion, just in reverse. They're twenty thirteen Autopsy said they needed to reach out to minority voters because identity was going to dominate future politics. Right,

both parties embraced this what now looks like faulty conventional wisdom about what happened in twenty twelve. But what if that was the wrong lesson? I think it was. What if the real reason Obama won was class? What if the decisive blow was Romney's forty seven percent remark. If that's true, then Democrats spent the last decade chasing the wrong's strategy, doubling down in identity politics just as class was reasserting itself. Clinton leaned into the first woman president

in twenty sixteen, break shattering the glass ceiling. While Trump talked about forgotten men and women, Biden tried to reclean some of the class frame in twenty twenty, but the party still treated identity as its foundation. Hence the promises he made about VP and about the Spring Court. Those were identity promises, not class promises. By twenty twenty four, that coalition of the ascendant theory was exhausted and clearly

not big enough to win in the irony here. Trump's populism, as cynical as it is at times, actually as more in common with Obama's twenty twelve message, even mon Dail's appeals back in nineteen eighty four to working class solidarity than with Reagan's or Bush's republicanism. And that's the thing

you cannot ever forget right. The real divide of our era hasn't been race or cultural identity. It's been class. Right, It's what drove us in the twentieth century. So what are the consequences of basically these two forks in the row. Put them together micro targeting and the misreading of twenty twelve, and you get today's politics. Campaigns that no longer practice the muscle of unity, parties that organize themselves in identity silos. Social media amplifies it all, and it creates a self

reinforcing cycle. Campaigns fragment us to win. Platforms reward division because division drives engagement. Voters consume difference and sort themselves more deeply into tribes, focusing on difference rather than on what unites us, and parties double down on identity appeals, treating consensus as weakness. Right, the result of politics that overvalues division at the expense of coalition. You know, be careful when somebody says, well, you got to stand for something. Well,

the something can be to bring the country together. That's not a bullshit something. I think it's a good something. But it shows up not just in campaigns, now shows up in governing. Politicians who win by scraping fifty percent plus one feel no obligation to reach beyond that slice. Just look at how partisan lely both Greg Abbott and Rond De Santis govern the state of Texas. They do not govern the state of Texas as a whole or the state of Florida as a whole. They only govern

the red parts. Right. They almost go to war with the blue cities if they can. They think that's good politics. But here's the irony. America's strength has always been the opposite We're not an ethnic nation, we're not a religious nation. We're a collection of people from everywhere are bound by

an idea, and at our best moments, our politics reflects that. And here's where I want to leave you. It's worth remembering the public does respond to unity messages if they're delivered authentically. Right. Think back to Reagan's nineteen eighty four Morning in America ad. That wasn't a micro targeted message. It was a broad appeal to shared optimism, and it worked across party lines. Obama's twenty oh four keynote address really resonated. There is not a liberal America and a

conservative America. There is the United States of America. Speech launched them nationally because people wanted to believe that messaging. The lesson isn't that unity is easy or that division will disappear. The lesson is that politicians still have a choice. You can be a fifty percent plus one leader and lead by division and survive politically by division. It's a way to win, it's a way to stay in office. It's not a way to be in the history books.

Or you can claim to be a sixty percent consensus leader. One is arithmetic, the other is nation building. We haven't had a nation builder as president arguably since Obama this century, and you know we haven't. You know. The irony is that that that you know, and maybe that was the Cold War mentality that made us think we needed to think this one because Reagan and Clinton in many ways shared very similar rhetoric, even as they were of two

different political parties. Because that was the twentieth century rewarded leaders who spoke to the whole. The twenty first century so far as rewarded those who narrow cast to the part, but pendulum swing and when the next leader comes along, who can authentically summon the politics of unity, not just say the words, but actually do it. Indeed, we're going to rediscover something important. Americans still want to hear this, they still want to believe this, and most importantly, I

think they want to see US government that way. So with that, we'll sneak in a break. How are that? Let me take a few questions ask Chuck. First, one comes from John in Memphis and he says, I've really

enjoyed how your new media venture lets you take off the gloves when analyzing the news. It's interesting that you put it that way. I feel like I've always been this, but I might I will confess to you maybe rounding the edges in order to please bosses at times. Right,

as he said, it's been refreshing and insightful. For years, I've been trying to understand the mindset of those who took over the GOP and the Trump earrow, and your ability to cut through the contradictions is invaluable. My question is about the Republican diaspora. Do you think there's a sizeable group of classic Reagan Conservatives outside of the Cheneys and Kinsingers who are horrified by today's GOP but too quiet to see if so, have they given up or

where are they? Well? I think that's the million dollar question, right. I think we found out how many of them show up to Republican primaries. Was what was Nikki Haley's vote total? Somewhere somewhere between twenty percent and maybe thirty five percent depending on the state. So it's about a third of the party, okay, And I think this is what's made the Democrats have a hard time figuring out how to talk to these folks and why in some ways they

haven't won them over very well. Because the Democrats are in their own sort of what identity crisis, right, sort of pre you have the consensus Democrats versus probably the progressive Democrats, right, those that look at what the look at Trump's success and say, hey, he stood for something, and this gets it to my whole point. Yeah, but he did it through the politics of division and in

some ways progressive. You know, to stand for something in progressive politics, you're also sort of embracing a form of that politics of division, because you know, it's an US and against you know, in some form or another. And I don't know if that can successfully woo that center

right voter. Right that it's really the we used to call it the managerial class, right, This where the white collar workers, the ones that are homeowners, that were classically sort of Eisenhower Republicans, you know, I think of the happy days that used to be the first place where you saw that the kids were for Stevenson and the parents were for Eisenhower, that sort of mindset. So it is. I So I do think there is that the it's sort of the business class, right, the ones that want stability,

that's really what they're craving. Stability. It's why I think some of these why Biden seems so appealing to this crowd, right? Do why John Kasick, John kay Sick, in some ways is probably the best avatar for the Republican you're asking me about. He left the party, he supported Biden, and he couldn't support him again. Right, He thought Biden was going to be a consensus Democrat and instead Biden govern more to the left, right, more progressive, sort of leaned

in on that end of the spectrum. And I do think it turned off that group of Republicans. I don't know where they went. Right. Some of them, I think clearly voted for Trump more as an against vote. Some of them may have voted third party, or some of them may have skipped the ballot in the presidential a

little bit. So I think we're going to the twenty twenty eight primary could tell us something, right, I guess the real question is if Trump is considered to be a failed president, and to me, it'll be how what does the economy look like in the fall of twenty seven when the presidential campaign is starting to kick in. Is his theory of the case right or wrong? Right? Did the tariffs work or are they considered a spectacular failure? And I think by the fall of twenty seven will

have a clear answer on this. And if it's a failure, I think I think you will see this silent minority of Republicans begin to speak up. But if it's seen as semi successful, some of them may become like Marco Rubio and just acquiesce and move closer into that direction. So, like I said, the polling indicates if you look at the primary season in twenty four, it's somewhere in the twenty to thirty five. You know, I think it's about a third of the party that fits your definition there.

The question is whether they're in many cases they're the donor class. That's the irony here, the big donor class.

I don't think they liked this economic model that Trump is put together. Do they reassert them? So I think if it's seen as a collective failure in a couple of years, I think this this winging tries to reassert itself. Next question comes from a Receives Pallo from three es Day, Italy. Dear mister toddam an Italian engineer who has followed your work since twenty eighteen, and I appreciate how you called out health Secretary Kennedy and the Gang of ding Dong's

for undermining the US health system. We faced a similar situation in Italy when two anti VAXX figures were appointed to our National Vaccine Council, until public pressure forced their removal. I've just finished Why the South Won the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson, and I was struck by the parallels between the oligarchs of eighteen sixty fighting to preserve privilege in today's elites working to restore it, except now

the president seems aligned with them. My question is, have you read the book and do you think history is repeating itself in this way. I've not read that book, and I actually I have a similar thesis, but it isn't it's less. I mean, there was some of that.

I think it's I think the better comparison is really twenty years later and sort of what we saw the Republican Party of the late nineteenth century morph into, which did into sort of the you know, where they sort of align themselves with the industrialists if you will, And you know, there was you could argue that in eighteen sixty there were different you know, you had some that were making a business case against slavery and some that

were making a business case against disrupting the Southern economy, which is one of the arguments that gets made about that period of time. I think it's just a clearer contrast.

But you know, it's just all about what are you Are you comparing it to the essentially the eighteen fifties, or are you comparing it what I think we're sort of repeating, which is circa eighteen eighty to nineteen nineteen twenty eight, right, which you know culminated with the Great Depression, and that was a huge right and in that sense you had the Republican Party of that era align itself with the industrialists, and the protectionism was about protecting American

business because back then trade seemed common implicated and if anything, we were always trying to protect our borders. It is you know, today's big business would prefer to be global. The industrialists of the eighteen nineties through the nineteen twenties they wanted they didn't they didn't see any money to be made overseas. They wanted to protect their investments here. And so that's where I think the brologarchs and the industrialists at that era sort of that that is where

the commonality is. So I don't, like I said, I think there is. They definitely think that. I guess I'm more of post Civil war. Our post civil war politics is where what today feels like more so than the pre Civil war politics. But you know, from sixty thousand feet, her thesis and my thesis look more similar than different on that, so I do need it to I've read her columns on this, but I will She's not. She's not the first one to sort of frame that, right.

You know, there's always been this idea that the South lost on the battlefield but won the culture right, and the longer we go right, they won the post war with the with with all the rise of the anti Bellum movement and all that business that they've they've done a better. You know. It's sort of like the Russians, right lost, the lost the Cold War, yet Putin has done a better job spinning things on Russia's behalf sometimes

than the West has. And in this case, the South has done a better job spinning things and winning the culture even as they lost on the battlefield and lost in the at the battot box for a time. Next question comes from anonymous all Right, isn't anyone worried about the fact that Trump might be trying to take over the capital so that he can dictate the results of the next presidential election. He tried to do the same thing last time around, but the DC police stopped him.

With Republican States sending the National Guard into DC, it would seem that the stage is being set for conflict between the red and blue states. Well, I am as you know, I think it's a you can look at things through one eye and say, Jesus, this is This goes back to a bit of this the last question. This is the eighteen fifties, and we're on our way to some sort of war between the states. Right. This redistricting battle between Texas and California is a proxy. Right,

It's a war between the states. Right, The fight for political power of the country is being waged state by state. That's a similarity. That's a little bit uncomfortable think about. Look at this point, I still believe in the will of the voter to win out. But I do think it's obvious that Donald Trump is not a constitutionalist, right. I mean, you know, I'm of the if we're going to sort ourselves right now, let's sort ourselves properly. Are

you a constantitutionalists or aren't you? You don't have to be an ideological agreement on ideas on what to do with the economy, what to do with healthcare, things like that, to be on the same side when it comes to the Constitution, and it's clear he doesn't believe in it, he doesn't care about the separation of powers, that stuff. I mean, you know, it's frustrating to me when somebody is in that high of elective office and probably has

never read a federalist paper. You know, I sort of look at this, you know, I want somebody who wants to be a senator or a member of Congress to know more about this stuff than I do. And it bugs the shit out of me when it's crystal clear these people hold offices are that only exists because of the Constitution, and yet they've never bothered to read the history. You know, when I join a company, I like to know the history of the company. How did it become

what it is? Right? I like, you know it is. It is startling to me how few, how few folks really and truly understand right that the Constitution was a compromise right, the entire country was formed. The Republic was formed as a compromise because we didn't have consensus on what kind of breakoff country we should be, so we came up with the best way to create compromise anywhere

we could find it. And when you see, you know, he just doesn't believe in these things, and so you know, I'm concerned he could use he could sort of use the will of the people in his head. You know, Hey, this is what they wanted. So I'm gonna abide by that as a way to break constitutional restrictions, like when it comes to the vote count, running for a third term,

et cetera. I will say this, one of the reasons I'm less worked up about Trump running a fourth time, trying to get a third term, or whether he abides by the elections or not, frankly, is is he doesn't live a very healthy life. And he you know, I don't think you know, I just don't think he's I don't think he's going to be healthy enough to run for president again. And I think that's going to get clear and clear. All the time. We've seen some of the some of the symptoms that he seems to have,

so he's he's going to have to. You know, Mother Nature and Father Time are both undefeated on that front. But you know, he certainly is feeling his oats and he is. There's no doubt that he has an information feedback loop that is really warped that he doesn't sort of understand how unpopular he actually is outside of his group of folks. But you know, I understand. Here's the thing. I always two years ago, I would have dismissed your comment as alarmist, and I'm not going to do that now.

I just think we should be prepared for anything, and we should be prepared for anything. I still have faith in the American voter. I still have faith in over time we're going to get it right, and that the voter sentiment is going to win out, and that there are there's still there's still a there's still some good in Darth Vader, whoever you view as Darth Vader in

this moment. I'm going to leave it at that. On that uplifting Darth Vader moment, Right, We've got to hope that maybe Star Wars shows the way just a little bit, just a little bit. There's always there's always someone who can't who can't truly you know, somebody is going to step up. I'll put it this way. It's something I said to them. I've said to my own family members

over time. Be careful judging some people in the moment, because you never know when one of these people you don't like in the moment becomes the hero that stands in the breach. Think Mike Pence January sixth, Think Liz Cheney, I think John Bolton. These are people that I bet you some of you listening to circa twenty sixteen didn't have you didn't think much of them. What do you think about those people today? There's you know, I still think that that you sort of have to at the

end of the day. Right, Democracy only thrives if the will of the people is respected and if the will of the people is noticed. And I guess I'd like to think that both of those things are still going to be true with just enough people to keep us from totally collapsing. But I can't dismiss your question and your concern that I can. All right, for that, We'll take a twenty for hour break until we upload again.