Full Episode - Algorithms Are Destroying Our Brains… & Democracy + Can Independent Candidates Break The Two-Party Stranglehold On American Politics?

today with two candidates for the US Senate. One is running as an independent in South Dakota and another is running as an independent in Idaho. It's Brian Bangs and Todd Achilles. They both run for office previously as Democrats and basically have decided the Democratic brand makes it impossible for them to have a conversation with voters. You'll hear

better letting them describe their attempts at doing this. Both of them, I think, do feel they've always been independent and only aside to run for office because of the so called doopoly, and in this case this cycle we've seen and they're working pretty closely with Dan Osborne, who was a pretty successful independent candidate in Nebraska last cycle. He ended up getting over forty percent. Now he benefited from the fact that the Democratic Party in Nebraska essentially

took a knee right, didn't really compete. And that's obviously what these two independent candidates in Idaho where Jim Reisch is the nominee, that's who Todd A. Chilles is running against, and Brian Bangs is running against Mike Bround's a Republican

senator there. Now I think they both it's it's I think it really goes to underscore sort of the brand problem the Democratic Party has in Read America that even though there is you know, and both of them will argue that there is there is a there is you know, there is a mainstream middle in all of these places,

it's just that the Democratic brand, particularly in Red America, where there's only been essentially one side competing one side branding, it's really put the Democrats in a hole. Even though there's an electorate that they're not a one hundred percent MEGA. There might not even be fifty percent MEGA. So there's

an opening, but there's not the Democrat. Putting a D next to your name in some of these places makes it impossible to have a conversation with some voters and it is, you know, in some ways, this is where we you know, it's it's a result of the of the the polarized politics that have that are arguably paralyzing us as a nation right now. Look, and I'm going to be honest. This has been I always say when people use that phrase, I use it as a crutch.

I'm gonna be honest as if I'm not being honest before. I'm trying to cure myself of using that crutch. But

what I'm trying to say is is that I'm letting you in on sort of some personal feelings that I normally don't like to share, and that is I just feel rotten about the state of the country. I'm not sleeping very well about it. And because I don't see a path out of this right now, I'm long term optimistic. And I'm still going to be a long term optimistic. We've gone through a lot of bad things in this country and gotten out better each time. Each time we

have formed a more perfect union. Whether it was the scourge of slavery, whether it has been then giving civil rights and Jim Crow, whether it has been the internment of the Japanese, whether it was prohibition The point is

is that we've gone down. We've had a lot of the red scare, which I'm bringing that up for a reason because I think we might be seeing a fervor, particularly on the right, that wants to try to essentially stain an entire political party with an ideological belief that I don't think the country shares, but one side of the aisle shares. I mean, the initial what folks around the president have been promising when it comes to retribution, going after the left, sort of being blind to the

violent outbursts that have taken place that people have, you know, violence and murders that have been done in the name of a far right ideology. The fact of the matter is we have got a poisonous information ecosystem that can radicalize somebody on the left or somebody on the right to do bad things. Our system is rigged towards it. I spend my sub stack this week talking about this,

and I know I've brought it up here before. In some ways, it's you know, some of you may be listening and going, oh, there's Chuck on his soapbox about big tech. But the fact of the matter is, we know we have two problems right, we all know this is a problem, which is social media has completely screwed

up our information ecosystem, and the tech companies, for some reason are getting no blame and not being held accountable for this their algorithms, and they're look, it's the efficiency of technologies. And I say this was sort of without sort of animus in this point. Right, technology, every time you know, we advance, you know, it creates an efficiency. And when it came to sharing information, we created an efficiency that it turns out is actually bad for public

discourse and it's bad for democracies. And what is that efficiency. It's the efficiency of getting information, of boiling it down to the one thing that matters. It's the efficiency of being able to eliminate people that you don't want to hear from. It's the efficiency of only being able to see like minded people. And so that may make sense if you're a quilter and you just want information about quilting, or if you're a baseball card dealer and you just

want information about trading baseball cards. But it's when it's on politics and suddenly you're only getting one side and these algorithms, you know, I don't want to sit here

I will. I've been trying to sort of right. I want to turn down the temperature too. I want big tech to participate in this. But I do believe the second an algorithm is created to curate how I see information that has made these companies publishers. And once you're a publisher, you should be held accountable for how the information you're curating is being used and manipulated. But ultimately it's going to take some leadership from Washington to do this.

And you know, I look at what's happening in the state legislatures at the moment. Over the last two years, particularly post COVID, state legislatures have been passing have been very aggressive on two things. And it hasn't matter whether it's a red state or a blue state. They've all

been passing essentially the same laws. Which is a tougher age verification to try to limit the exposure kids are getting to pornography and it is and guess what, the fact that the pornographers are complaining about this shows you that the just forcing age verification, which you have to do if you want to buy booze in you're underage, or cigarettes or anything other vice you want to participate in and you know, we've never the Internet's always been

very loosey goosey on identification and forcing a tougher standing there, and we're suddenly seeing, oh, so you can put in some some guard rails here that can do a better job of protecting young people from this extreme pornography. And

the other thing that has been passing in state legislatures all over the country, whether it's in a red state or a blue state, is getting rid of cell phones and classrooms. Right, private schools had been doing it earlier, Right, the public schools are now following suit. Look, there are and I think i've we've discussed this before. I mean, I am, I am empathetic to divorce parents who need to have want need to make sure they have access

to their kid during the school day. But there are ways to do this, right, you put you know, you can look at your phone in between classes. You can have it in your backpack, in your locker, you can have it in a in a pad which you don't

have it while you're learning. You take one hundred percent attention to your teacher, one hundred percent attention to what you're to what you're doing, and maybe as our friend Spencer Cox and Uteh likes to say, you know, maybe touch grass every now and then, which, as a kid, touching grass is pretty important. But when you think about it,

we're so worried about what social media and the and the tech companies are doing to our kids that we're trying to do something about it. Guess what, if it's toxic for our kids, it means it's toxic for us too, isn't it. And so look, I'm a free speech absolutist. I am. I do think bad speech is fixed with good speech. But amplification is not free speech. Right, dialing up and dialing down what you see and what you hear, that's not free speech. That's curative speech. Right, that's a campaign.

That's that's that's that's something that that and it should be up to the user. If I want to curate my feed a certain way, it should be in my hands. I don't need the tech companies suggesting what I should be looking at. A for you tab like our friends a X do, which is just nothing, but you know,

it thinks it knows my interests. But it will always be the most incendiary thing about a topic I care about, even when it comes to Miami Hurricane football, Green Bay Packer football, or Washington Nationals baseball, let alone the various political things, you know, attacks on the media, sometimes personal attacks on me. They make sure it shows up in the four U tab. What does that accomplish. I didn't

ask for this. In fact, I've gone out of my way to mute the idiots, and yet it's still you know, these things still show up. So you know, we are in that sense, we're powerless on this. And then you have the two parties who have been very reticent to write. You know, they talk a big game. Individual members talk a big game about regulating big tech, but they don't

end up doing it. And part of the problem is I just was talking to a former US senator and you know, you'll you'll figure it out in a couple of weeks when you when you see the interview that pops up in a and when I do it. But I was talking to a US senator who said to me,

he said in passing that you know, you know, I think we have to do something about tech. And he said within two within an hour, he had he suddenly had Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey calling him to like, are you sure, what are you talking about? What are you concerned about? With what tech is doing? Tech, the big tech companies have really just saturated Washington with money left and right. They've hired up all sorts of strategists and former staffers left and right. It is frankly standard

practice for a powerful industry. Okay, this is no different than big oil in the eighties and things like that. And so what you've seen is kid glove treatment. Right. We haven't had anything on maybe repealing Section two thirty. We haven't had anything remotely close to trying to have a digital bill of rights that protects our data, right rather than allows so many other entities to own and buy and sell our data. And you know they've done

a good job with that. And so what you have now is twenty years of elected officials who don't know how to attain power without the tech tools. Right. So that makes him hesitant. I mean, look, I'm not going to be labor this point. I want the president to rise above his partisan instincts and meet this moment the way it needs to be met, the way George Bush met nine to eleven, the way Barack Obama did Charleston, the way Bill Clinton handled Oklahoma City. We haven't gotten

that from him yet. If anything, he views it, he's done. What about ism? You know, when he was questioned on Fox about extremists on the right, he essentially rationalized their extremism, saying, well, they care about they're upset about crime, I think, is what he said. And when you see these leading partisan

politicians saying that they're going to investigate the left, that's red scare stuff, right. That's what happened in the fifties, and it was an ugly It was an ugly period in Washington where guilt by association was the coin of the realm. And that seems to be what's happening here is that you have a lot of folks here that see an opportunity right for political exploitation. But here's the other thing. If you attained power in this polarized era,

you don't want it to change, do you. You don't want to go back to an era that might be a bit more unifying, a bit more bipartisan. Bypartisanship is

not good for Donald Trump, right, by partisanship hasn't been you know, partisanship has been you know, the Democrats arguably have done better because of reactionary partisanship with Trump. You know, the brand has been problematic now arguably going back to the Hillary Clinton nomination, but their success has been due to polarization. Trump's ability to get a second term was due to polarization. And so you know, when you're sort of stuck, you know, the only way you know how

to win is this way. Then the incentives are all. You know, our incentive structures are broken. And you've heard me use that phrase before. You've heard a lot of people say this, Okay, so how do we create better incentive structures? Well, the only way I think, which then

fits the theme where I have today, which is the rise of the independence. The fastest growing political party in America is no party right. People are registering are you know if they were registered? A lot of former Republicans registered is Independent because they don't like Trump. You now have a lot of former Democrats registering is Independent because they don't like what's happened to the Democratic brand under

Biden Harris, and you're starting to see that. We're seeing gen z is sort of be on the on the age front. You're seeing a lot more of registered independence. And you know, I always love I always love to go around. I mean, and we're up to I think half the states where non party or no party or registered independence outnumber at least one of the two major parties. And I believe it's in ten states where independence actually outnumber both major parties. So there's a huge constituency out

there who don't like what's happened to the two parties. Now, look, I am I am done sitting here making the do I think in a perfect world, I think we should be a four party system. I think it would actually provide some relief bout would force coalition politics. But I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole today because I do I want to stick to topic here. What

the two parties need is a time out, right, they both need to lose at the same time, or they both need to be punished, essentially in order to force an inward Look, you know, I railed on Monday about the fact that there's there is zero incentive to call out your own party. If anything, if you call out your own party for bad behavior, you're seen as a trader, not as somebody looking out for the best interests of

the country or the party. And if you're going to sort of get them out of their partisan rabbit holes. They're going to have to be set back at the same time or be under threat. And we've had an example of two independent presidential candidacies that didn't win, Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Purot, but effectively forced both parties to reform themselves and forced you forced an issue. You know, I look at a guy like Spencer Cox, and he's

decidedly on MAGA. Okay, in a in the pre Trump world, Spencer Cox would be already identified as a rising star in the Republican Party. He has no chance right in the Maga Republican Party. But his voice and how in his north star about what the tech companies have done to us and how this has happened. I kind of think because he's a little bit younger than I am. He's in his forties, so he's a millennial governor, and I think he's in some ways more digital native and

unders and is better. He's just more conversant at explaining the harm. Right. I did this interview with this older senator and they've identified the harm, but they're not very conversant in explaining the harm. You know, Donald Trump doesn't really you know, he's not as conversant and couldn't explain it if he chose to. Right, that's just just in

some ways he's just demographically out of touch. But it feels like we're in a moment that if we're going to force the two parties to sort of wait a minute, we've got to put the country first every now and then they have to be punished for their ways. And if the public won to just like they're exhausted from this,

it may be that that you need a third party scare. And whether it's a third party scare, can you know every every political party needs needs a check on itself, right, The whole point of checks and balances are good whether you're organizing a government or you're organizing policy, you're organizing a political party. You know, you a political party doesn't needs to have a check on its potential ideological excesses. There's nobody checking the maga wing of the party anymore.

There was a lot of checks in the first term. There's not many checks this term, and we've seen fewer checks. You know, you had you had your Joe manchiins and cinemas that were kind of the centrist check on the Democrats before they're both gone, and there really isn't a lot of space. I guess John Fetterman has suddenly sort of kind of adopted that role, but I don't think he has I don't think he has really the credibility yet to be that check with the middle of the

road voter right. I think some of the right love what he's doing, but but I think only for owning the Lib's purposes, right, this whole trolley, this whole trolley mindset. So that's what's frustrating is that we do have a problem.

We're going to have a part of it. Looks like partisans on the right want to just try to harass the left in under the name of trying to you know, root out political violence, but without it all sort of accepting the premise that hey, it's it's sadly a bipartisan affair,

and that basically it's the Internet that radicalizes folks and it doesn't matter whether they come from stage left or stage right. The one thing that we haven't that we haven't common here is the Internet has has been, has been what's radicalized them. And if we're not going to confront this problem this way right now, it is going to get worse. Okay, if you ratchet up a radical view of what you think the other side is doing, I promise you the other side is going to respond

in a radical way, right and radicalism, reactionary radicalism. And here we are right, and this is this escalatory polarization that we've been experiencing. I mean, you know, it's we've seen it in the US Senate with the absurdity of how how we've destroyed the judiciary branch. And make no mistake, we've destroyed the judiciary branch with this, with this partisan gamesmanship in the Senate, and there's always this attempt to well, but they started it. It doesn't matter which side I

of the eylight talking about, but they started it. The right will scream foror the left will scream, will scream about Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Merrick Carlan. The fact is they they both chose punishing the other side without thinking about what it would do the judiciary itself. Right, we turned the judiciary into the freaking House of Representatives where a whole bunch of fifty percent plus one judges are out there. So you either have super liberal or super maga.

There is no, you have sixty sixty five votes, you would have this sort of moderate temperaments, you know, which

is really what our politics could use. I'm not suggesting we all ideologically have to move to the center. You know where I stand. I'm an incrementalist, but what we need is moderate temperament to lead us. When you're trying to lead three hundred and fifty million people, a moderate temperament goes a long way. And our most successful presidents have been of moderate temperaments, regardless of how you know.

Reagan and Obama pretty mainstream liberal dem are crap mainstream conservative Democrat almost identical temperaments, and in many ways they had I'm sure there's some of you out there that that have been voting long enough where you voted for both of them almost as much because of their temperament. You know, it's it's a huge factor with my vote. I want to know how this person's going to handle a crisis. I want to know how this person's going

to handle you know. I certainly have issues, and there are you know, there are there are veto there are candidates, there are issues that I might veto at candidate on because the issue matters to me. That much. But for the most part, I'm a character and temperament guy, and we could use a moderate temperament. But we have a we have an information ecosystem and a political and a

political system that punishes moderation, not in ideology, which it does do that too, but even punishes it in style. I think that's what we would prefer as a body politic, But the way our information ecosystem works, it seems it seems to almost force us into the exact opposite persona. There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury

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So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. All right, I, like I said, I wanted to mostly focus on a little bit of update on the campaign trail. I do think as you as those of you that listen to me because you're campaign junkies and trying to figure out where's the party going, I really think you're going to where both parties going.

I think you're going to enjoy this conversation with these two independent candidates because you know they are trying to to say, hey, look i'm a little bit on the left over here, and I'm a little bit on the right over here, and this is how I want to work in the se And they even have an interesting

idea the answer to the question. And I'll let the interview speak for itself. But the answer to the question of Okay, if you win, you have to pick a side who you're going to work with, Well, they have a plan for this, and let's just say it's a plan that I've heard others talk about in the past,

and I've seen senators chicken out at the time. The pressure party leaders put on these folks who would make the who could become committee chairs versus becoming ranking members, which means being in the majority versus being the minority, is quite you know, the pressure can be quite quite aggressive. But I think that's that's most interesting, interesting challenge assuming they get traction. And I have to tell you, in this political environment right now, I think anything in the

thirties is a huge story for these independent candidates. But I'm betting you know, I you know, I'd set the line at thirty seven, thirty eight percentage points and I'd take the over. I think we're going to see a lot more. I think there's a there's certainly, and this is something I'm watching for in these off off year

elections in twenty twenty five. I think it's going to be a tough time for incumbents and we're seeing some incumbent mayors struggle, and I think that across the board, if there is a viable alternative to an incumbent, especially they don't come from one of the two major parties. But they seem normal. Boy, I tell you, I think there's a constituency out there that's quite large. We'll see, we'll see if they have the funding to get their

message out. That's always a huge challenge with third party candidates.

But in some of these smaller states, at least, the ballot access issue isn't isn't a huge challenge. We're not talking these large states like California, New York, Florida, where it can be very difficult to get on the ballot

of the Florida you can usually just pay. But it's definitely definitely something that I have made a priority to keep track of this year, which is these these well organized independent candidacies, particularly in states where one of the major parties is willing to quote unquote take a knee. By the way, stay tuned after the interview, I've got

my new top five list for the week. This week, it is the top five states most likely to elect an independent to the US Senate, which I think is a much harder thing to pull off than it is to elect an independent as governor. And I will explain that on the other side. But before we get to the other side, which I'll also take some questions, just a few interesting updates on the campaign trail that you

might have missed. We have the redistricting horse, obviously, and one of the questions is going to be, you know, the big the big campaign fight on the ballot is

going to be in California where essentially the maps are going to be on the ballot for this Novembers election up or down. You have a huge amount of money. There are now three different entities essentially trying to stop this remap. You have Charlie Munger Junior, who is the son of Charlie Munger, longtime business partner to Warren Buffett back in the day. He's really been a political lately.

He used to be a big Republican donor. I don't think he's a big trumpy is not as trumpy as some other Republicans, but he was a big supporter of the original redistricting commissions that are out there. So he wants to defend what he did. Arnold Swarzenneker. He said he's going to campaign, but interestingly, it sounds like he's

agreed to sort of not be the face of any of the no movements. He's chosen not to work directly with Munger's group, he doesn't plan to work with Kevin McCarthy's group. He does seem to be focused on keeping his independence. I think he doesn't want to look like he seems to be trying to find a way he wants to be. He wants to be pro reform, but not necessarily looking like he's help I don't think he wants to use the Republicans to help him get that

message across. I think he's trying to have it. But that's a real challenge if you're Gavin Newsom and the Democrats who are trying to get this referendum pass, and that you have sort of you have three different entities that are all trying to spend money to get those in different ways. Right, You're going to have now Arnold who is going to not associate himself with the Republican groups but sort of be talking straight to the independence you got. Charlie Munger's put a ton of money in there.

Kevin McCarthy's got a hundred million to spend. We'll see. It's my understanding and focus groups that the surprising thing to my sources who've been talking to about this are is how engaged voters are in California about it. They're pretty well educated, they get it, and those that believe

they can get this map passed think that this is not a bank shot. That it is important to these voters. If you want to get them to approve this map, they really have to believe it's temporary, and they have if they don't believe that this will revert back to the public process, the sort of the commission process for twenty thirty and beyond that. That's the key when a voter is is here's the message for it, and they believe that aspect of it, that this is just temporary

justify what Texas is doing. They think it's enough to get a majority. So I do think this is still a campaign and it's infancy, but it is obviously in some ways. May even have Virginia governor, you have New Jersey governor, you have New York City mayor. It's you could argue this California referendum is suddenly the most important election this in twenty twenty five, even as the Virginia and New Jersey are traditionally a little more high profile.

And of course Mayor of New York City. Speaking of the redistricting, watch Missouri very closely because Missouri did its map, but they have an interesting addendum to their constitution. So under state law, if a petition reaches roughly one hundred thousand signatures in six of eight congressional districts, the law

that the Missouri legislature passed with this new redistricting proposal that would eliminate all but one Democratic leaning congressional district, basically getting rid of the Kansas City Democratic seat. The law would actually go before voters for an up or down vote, and it could get repealed, and the lines

don't go into effect until that ballot referendum happened. So if they get it, the Missouri would potentially have to put a special election if they wanted to count for November twenty twenty six, and they successfully have a challenge to the state law that qualifies for the ballot, we may have a special spring election in like March or April. Perhaps the August primary Missouri is in August primary state.

Perhaps it goes on there, although that seems super late, right, because that's when congressional candidates got to know which district am I running in? So keep an eye out on wather and it's going to tell me how organized are the Democrats nationally? Right? The California Democrats turned out to be very organized. I mean, whatever you think of the idea, what Gavin Newsom has pulled off is something that I

was circumspect. I thought that with so many different stakeholders, so many different people wanting caring about their district lines and all of this stuff, the fact that Gavin Newsom got that whole party to row in the same place,

it's just, you know, you got to admire the political leadership there. That is not an easy thing he has pulled off. Is that him or is there a pretty strong national Democratic Party organization behind him. We're going to find out a Missouri, right, whether there is a whether the Democrats are as organized nationally is they clearly were in California to push back on this, because there is a you know, essentially a plan B in Missouri to go to the voters and get an up or down there.

I just think it'll be really telling, But I have to tell you there was an item in my old my old publication I worked at before NBC, the hotline, and they and it was just a simple construction, which is what's always the beauty of the hotline covering the coverage, right, and they note, I'm just going to read you the item verbatim. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Boodage will return to his old state this week and rally with the Indiana

Democratic Party against redistricting. That came from a press release. Meanwhile, Hacking Jeffrey spent the weekend in California raising millions for Fournia Proposition fifty, the Democrats redistricting ballot initiative. This is the second trip Jeffries is made to California to support the redistricting effort. This is to me the real sort of challenge for the Democrats. On one hand, they're trying to stop redistricting efforts, bringing in a national star to

try to do it in Indiana. Simultaneously, they're going to California to raise money to try to support a re redistricting effort out there. You know, it doesn't take a communications genius to say, yaganta messaging problem right. Gone are the days where you could message in isolation. You could somehow talk to one group over here, tell them something,

talk to another group one hundred miles away, and somehow they wouldn't hear. You know, you promised that you were going to deal with this landfill issue in this county over here. You told them, don't worry, the landfill's not

coming to your county. It'll stay there. And you know, back when when communication wasn't shared so quickly, you know, a politician could essentially talk out of both sides of their mouth and get away with it for a period of time until reporters over time shared information quick enough that you couldn't do that. And I think this is what I was reading this item. You're like, it just

made my head hurt. On one hand, a major Democratic Party star is trying to stop a redistricting effort in Indiana. On the other hand, a major Democratic star is going out to California to raise money to help a redistricting effort in another stay it. I think it goes to why this is again, I understand the tactical decision that the Democrats made here. Uh they feel as if, hey, look what they're doing they they had no choice, but it is a reminder of how complicated, uh this effort is going to be.

early Trump critic, was on a glide path. He was Brian Kemp's essentially, you know, on a you know, kind of running mate. I mean, you run for LG on your own, uh in a in a primary. But you know he was seen as potentially assumed era par to Kemp. Duncan became, you know, particularly after the attempt by Trump to essentially overturn the Georgia election, you know, twisting the arms of party operatives. Over time, became more and more

of a Trump skeptic to the point where he is, you know, he has now changed parties completely elected as a Republican in Georgia. So you're not a moderate Republican when you're winning a primary, you're pretty conventional conservative Republican. As lieutenant governor in twenty eighteen and now eight years later, hopes to be the Democratic nominee for governor in twenty twenty six. Now, look so he clearly is more in

that supermoderate lane. You now have a state Senator Jason Stevies, your former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has worked for Biden, state repend Derek Jackson, to a chief executive Michael Thurman, who I believes run for state wide office. Before it's suddenly a pretty crowd primary. There's a lot

of Atlanta Democrats in there, which could give Duncan an opportunity if there's enough vote outside. If all of that, all of this vote gets split up there. But it's a just like the Michigan Democratic primary for Senate, there's a handful of Democratic primaries that if they all go in the same direction right the progressive wins or the or the more center center left person wins, it may directionally tell us where where are rank and file Democrats right?

Are they angry and ready to go left? Or are they exhausted and frustrated? And looking for what I call our peacemakers right trying to trying to win win over the middle. But in particular now Georgia Democratic Primary for governor, Michigan Democratic Primary for Senate. Both of them feature candidates from all wings of the Democratic Party, so they're all going to be pretty good tests where the energy of the party is A couple more things to talk about quickly.

On twenty twenty five, we're now seeing the real money is coming into both New Jersey and Virginia. There was some question with the National Republicans invest is heavily in Virginia as they did the last time. They now have and there's a real reason for that. Like it Ultimately in the Republicans I've talked to about the Virginia races, it's not that they're conceding the governor's race to Abigail Spamberger,

but they're conceding that it's an uphill battle, but they don't want to get swept. And if there's one candidacy that they're trying to save, it is the Attorney General Jason Miaris. And I had a smart Democrat say that he thinks it's the single most important race to understand whether Democrats truly have a shot at the midterms or whether Republicans can hold off the flip. And it's because of the you know, you're seeing. You have a Republican

incumbent with a lot of financial advantages. You have a Democratic challenger who's being painted as soft on crime, which is what both Republicans and Democrats tell me is is likely to be among the bread and butter issues you see in the midterms, especially if the economy is not good.

Republicans are going to be running against Democrats is sort of softened the border, soft on crime, soft on law and order stuff, especially if they can't run in the economy, and right now things don't look great with the economy. And by the way, it may not matter, right the economy may be everything, and it may overwhelm that. But we're going to find out how effective can a law and order campaign overcome sort of momentum that autumn sort of sort of the momentum that the Democrats have as

simply being the out party. Right, you know, they have a few advantages going for them in these off yer elections in Virginia, federal government workers being laid up, they have a lot of advantages can munt Can the financial advantage they will have, and the issue of law and order combat that right. That Virginia AG race this cycle

could foreshadow what the midterms look like. In particular, we're seeing a little bit in the governor's race, and don't get me wrong, I think there'll be some culture war

type back and forth between the two governors candidates. But in many ways all that, you know, there's Spamburger's now up with a lot of negatives, almost just exclusively in Northern Virginia hitting win some earl sears on just simply being supportive of Trump, which ironically she doesn't have Trump's endorsement yet I think she'll get it because everything is about helping turn out for the pot of the ticket

there the AG candidate, and if you don't have people enthused about the gubernatorial candidate, he's going to you know, you're just going to have a turnout issue that's going to trickle down and cost you down the ballot. So I suspect Trump comes in. It's why the RGA, I think, has come in with real money to help the top of the ticket, because ultimately the one they're trying to seek and they save one of the three seeds that

they currently hold in Virginia. As for New Jersey, you've seen the Republicans have also sort of equalized money there. We're going to have our first debates, They're going to have two debates. I want to watch those debates. I think that they may matter more than we fully appreciate. I think gubernatorial debates voters care a little bit more about than Senate debates. To be frank, I think Senate campaigns are always read versus blue again, one of the

challenges for these independent candidates. But governor's races, I think more often there are voters that will, well, we'll choose a person over a party if there's a specific issue that really animates them. And that's why I actually want

to withhold judgment. I have a sneaking suspicion that New Jersey is going to be awfully closed. But let's see how the debates play out on that front. And then we've seen it looks like Donald Trump is conceding the New York City mayor's race to Mom Donnie. It is fascinating to watch these progressive pressure campaign on a Keem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who have not yet endorsed Mom Donnie. The governor of New York did. But remember, everybody, you know,

I talked about incentive structures at the top. Why does Kathy Hulkkele have to endorse Mom Donnie because she's got a primary challenger from the left. Neither Jeffries or Schumer are worrying about that at the moment. Hochel has to worry about that in the very very near term. Her numbers aren't that great anyway. She can't afford a very competitive primary that would likely be negative, ugly, and only make her potential campaign against the leastaphonic that much harder.

So I look at the whocal endorsement as a She's got primary opponents, that's what she's worried about, and she can't afford to alienate the progressive flank as much. Jeffries has got a whole other He's got a whole bunch of Democrats running all over the country who are don't want the future Speaker of the House looking like they endorse a socialists. And so I don't envy the situation

Jeffries finds himself in. But I go back Jeffries and Schumer should have been more hands on when Cuomo jumped into that race and basically screwed it all up for the for the for the mainstream wing of the Democratic Party. The fact that they sort of look the other way is arguably why they're in this situation they're in. But that's a tough that's a tough position he's in politically.

let's have the interview. You're going to enjoy this conversation with two candidates running for the US Senate as pure independence. Well, we got a fun a little different type of interview today. Instead of one person, I have two candidates for the

United States Senate running in super red states running as independents, not as major party candidates. We have Brian Bangs from South Dakota Todd Achilles from Idaho. They've agreed to appear together in some ways their campaigns are trying to be helpful to each other, share best practices, try to figure out what's the easiest way to raise money without getting sucked into one of the partisan vortexas which seem to

can blow up independent candidacies in some cases. It's the model is a bit of what we saw in Nebraska with Dan Osborne. But that also But I hesitate to throw the Dan Osborne example out there because I don't think I think well, Brian and Todd probably share some issues where they agree with them. They may not agree with Dan on all issues, and everybody wants to be seen when you're running as an independent. You're an independent for a reason, as I like to say. And both

Brian and Todd joined me. Now, thanks for agreeing to do this. And obviously you guys are familiar with each other, so you're, in fact you guys pitch this, so I appreciate it.

regular voters being left behind. Republicans take us for granted and Democrats forget we exist. And I've been a registered independent for ninety seven percent of my life, which is similar to a quarter of South Dakota's registered voters and

nearly half of national voters. If you're paying attention to everybody, regular people like me, And obviously the independents are angry at the DC establishment and the party system that doesn't work for them, and I think justifiably so, So that's why I'm running because the system hasn't worked for regular folks for quite a while.

and chanting for the murder the vice president. On January sixth, when the South Dakota Democratic Party was poised to give now Senate Majority leader John Thune an unchallenged free pass for reelection, I felt somebody needed to do something, so I stepped up to run.

so I thought I could only be a legitimate candidate with one of the two parties, and I set aside, had to set aside my independent affiliation for what I

thought was the pragmatic alternative to John Thune. What I learned, which is why I shaped why I'm doing this now, is that my approach in that race was I would go up to people introduce myself as a candidate, and I would go up to people wearing trump hats, introduce myself and literally say, I'm going to guarantee with one hundred percent certainty that you and I will agree on at least two, but probably three, and then I'd run down my list and they're not in along and typically

it was all three and we get to the end and I'd say, so can I count on your vote November?

the Tim Johnson voter?

one thing I heard when I was knocking on doors is, wow, town, you're a better Republican than that crazy on the ballot. And when you look at Idaho, there's you know, there's multiple factions of the Republican Party. There's no good definition of what it means to be look and so now you know, the question is what does it mean to be conservative? And how do you meet the needs of the state. But you know, when you look at Idaho,

we have this really strong tradition of being independent. So when we close the primaries in twenty twelve, seventy percent of Idahoans were unaffiliated with the party. Seventy percent. That was the highest in the country. Noise State University does an annual public policy survey, sixty five percent of Idahoans said they were they were independent, or they self identified as independent or I'm a Republican but I leaned independent.

And importantly, a couple of years ago, when we passed medicaid expansion, we did it with sixty one percent of the vote. That was by far the highest of any

red state in that country. Eighty percent of accountings voted for medicaid expansion. And so there's this, you know, on these consensus issues, Idahoans can come together, and that's what we're you know, we're trying to get back to those core values by being in an and not being part of the Republicans.

Cecil Andrews.

issues in the state. They're not really representing outa ho. And so if you think about both parties have kind of gotten into the corners, and you look at this big distribution of people in the middle who feels underrepresented, and that those are the folks we're trying to meet.

are very much what i'd call Bush Republicans. Okay, whatever, that what the definition of conventional conservative Republican from the first decade of the century. You know that's Mike Simpson, right, That's that's Jim Reish. And yet, so I guess let me ask you. I'll start with you, Brian. You know why because in Kansas, when it was one party, basically the split and basically the Chamber of Commerce, Republicans said, you know, we are going to go support a Democrat

for governor to create some balance. Now, we're not going to support Democrats for federal offices, but we're going to do that. Do you sense that the Republican Party is going to split in two? I mean where the mainstream sort of Mike Simpson Republicans going to go if the state Party keeps moving further and further to the right.

the state party state GP. We have I think last count was four candidates for governor right now. And you've got, you know, a super hardcore Mega and then you've got hardcore Omega, and then you've got Dusty Johnson is currently our representative in the House who's running. And he's tried. He's a former Truman scholar, He's a smart.

this going to shake out? I don't know, because they're going to fight and they're gonna fight hard about this. And I agree with you that John Thune and Mike Rounds they're not hardcore mega and Mike Rounds has gotten criticized for that before. He's been labeled to Rhino Trump and fact labeled him rhino himself before changing his mind later when he fell in line. So what's going to happen? I don't know. I can't predict what the voters, that

the GOP voters are going to do. But we've heard from several multiple GPO voters that are unhappy with the situation because this is obviously farm country. So the tariff situation and John Thune and Mike Rounds going like, oh no, do what you want with the tariffs, even though that is the legislative branch's power explicitly in the Constitution.

in some ways. How how have the Mike Simpsons and Jim Reisch's and even the look the governor got pushed from the right, you know kind of I'm still I think it was Governor little who you know, was was sort of so distraught over the mask wars that he that he got emotional about it, like what are we doing? Like you know, I'm not making anybody do this, but don't criticize somebody who does. And that was like how

is that controversial? Right? And here was a very conservative guy being seen as not mega enough.

pulled from mainstream conservative values. And Governor Little, who I spent a lot of time with Governor Little when I was in legislature. I have a ton of respect for him. Uh, but it's he's in a really, really hard place. And I would push back on this idea of risk being a Bush Republican. Frankly, I'm a better Bush Republican than than Senator Rishes.

it's not getting better. And I think the fundamental problem with Rish is that he's a career politician. And listen, the far right in idahook don't like him. The moderate Republicans don't like him. He hasn't done town halls. I've done more town halls in two weeks. And you know, we think he's done in ten years as best as we can account. And he's just lost touch with the challenges of Ida owns. And it's, you know, it's it's tough to live in our state. Wages are low, costs

are high, and everybody's getting squeezed. And you know, Jim Yish just seems to be a loop of all these these challenges.

you voting for Thune? Right? Are you going to who do you organize with? And I'm going to preface this with a what a poster friend of mine described if it was the campaign, the Evan McMullen campaign against Mike Lee, where this poster is convinced that Evan McMullen said, definitively, if he wins, he'll vote he is going to vote with the Republicans to organize the Senate. That doesn't mean he'll vote with Republicans from all these issues, but he will vote that. Had he said it, it would have

been the difference between winning or losing. U Tah's a pretty conservative state. So's Idaho. So I'll start with you. There's a populism to South Dakota that might might be slightly different to me than I think Idaho's electric. But I'm willing to be persuaded. But where are you on this question?

We've spent a lot of time talking about this. We listen to the root problem in Congress right now is the money is the corruption. And you know, we decided we're going to we're going to cauc us on our own, right, And if you just if you just look through the numbers and.

parties have built up. And then that's how you try this reform on campaign finance, on stock trading, on ending

these revolving doors, all of this stuff to get the you know, all of these misincentives out of the out of the institution.

Dashel delivered for South Dakota. So we have roads that were funded only because Dashel was there, and a variety of other infrastructure projects. So if that's how you judge things, then Dashell brought money in. If you look at Thune and Rounds now they are literally taking money out. So we're losing Medicaid funds, Medicare funds, and this and that

and the other thing. Infrastructure funding goes away. So the point too, If that's the point, then the existence of Thune and the silence of Rounds as not advocating for things that South Dakota's want because hey, the party says we don't want to do this.

what we stand for, the good government reforms and a variety of other things that we commonly agree on, and say, you are not going to be able to have a majority, and you are not going to be able to have a majority, but if you want our votes, you have to earn it. And we're looking out for the regular folks that work for a living. So that is the power. That's what we're selling here. I think fundamentally is the disruption, entire disruption of how the system is dysfunctional right now

in the Senate. If you get three four of us in there, things have to change because there's no majority to do whatever you want to do.

I'm trying to build here. It's the information ecosystem really punishes the middle and nuance and independence. Right, it's very hard for you to get your message out. So Brian, let me start with you. You know, right, the the the way algorithms work, right, you either get pushed to the left or pushed to the right.

or what I stood for. But when they heard who I was and what I stood for, they liked it. They just didn't know. So that is the big problem, I would say, And that's why the elections are now so expensive, because you have to spend so much to

get the attention of people.

you can elect all the good people in the world. If you don't have good incentive structures, they're not going to do the right thing. Bad people will do the right thing if you have really good incentives. So there's some truth to that. Right, we have terriblest incentive structure, and the incentives work against moderation and work against sort of if you don't fit into left right paradigm, how are you trying to be? Back at this?

the three reasons why this bill is just ridiculous. And uh and I got a ton of traffic people coming up to me in coffee shops and in restaurants.

have the conversations and meet with people. And I you know, I've been doing a statewide tour. We just wrapped up the third leg of this thing. I've done twenty more than twenty town halls, traveled all over the state, I mean, and just reinforcing what an incredible place Idaho is. But this is it. It's these face to face conversations. It's it's talking with local reporters and the local weekly paper and this is you know, we're building a huge volunteer organization.

This is how we're going to win in November twenty six it's it's face to face, it's conversations.

We've had it all year long. We've had it for the last I would argue that we've had a decade of escalating violent episodes. January sixth We can rattle them off, and you can, and they're sadly pretty bipartisan. How do you think we got here?

that's where we are. And not to dismiss the fact that we've had increasing not political violence, but increasing violence with guns over the last you know, several decades, but fundamentally, democracy is supposed to be a pressure relief valve for these conflicts, for these arguments that we're having. And if

we think that democracy isn't working, which is one of the things that I believe that it's the system is corrupted by money, principally to serve some aspect of society and leave the rest of us down here fighting for scraps. When we're fighting for scraps. You know, if you think about a pack of dogs that are hungry, they fight each other for things, and that's what we're seeing. If we can fix democracy, I think we can fix the

prospect of political violence and minimize it. If you can just vote and say, hey, I disagree with you, here's my vote, and it actually matters.

I'm doing a different approach time. So the bolt my average contribution for the first quarter that I was in was twenty one dollars, and if you contrast that with Mike Rounds, he had two hundred large dollar contributors and he had eighty seven percent of his funds came from two hundred packs and the big money individuals. So the way we do politics and the fact that this is allowed and the Supreme Court says, oh no, there's no problem with you know, given money, you should have more

money in politics. This is the problem. Why are things

bad for you? Why is healthcare so expensive because of politics? Why is there inflation that's not being addressed because of politics? This, this is the issue. It's the same thing. We need to fix democracy to make it work.

this issue with that same fervor. But I'm going to put a pin in that because Todd, I'm curious where you are in the climate issue. Yeah, I mean from the Charlie Kirk situation and this. Look, there's a race to blame, right and I can already feel it right each side. It's yeah, budding, Yeah, we have our crazies,

but they're worse. And you're like, that's not how we get.

highlighting on. And you know, I spent twenty years on the tech sector, working for you know, T Mobile and Hewlett Packard through the biggest companies in the US, and you just see these these outrageously bad corporate practices going on. And you know, I was driving back from me sir

in Idaho a couple of weeks ago, stopped off at a Sinclair station to gas up. You know, one woman about my age running the convenience store late at night. She was working until midnight. You know, she makes eighteen bucks an hour in a part of Idaho where you need twenty three just to live, no healthcare. And Sinclair, if you look at their twenty twenty four financials, twenty nine billion dollars of revenue, a billion dollars of operating income,

and what do they do with that operating income? It didn't go back to their employees and went to their freaking and institutional investors in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Right, that's the kind of stuff that makes a difference in these lives. Walmart's the same thing. Walmart's the largest private employer in the state. And guess when you talk to Idahoans wore in the Medicaid expansion program, right, they have jobs, but not enough to qualify for the

health exchange. The number one employer of the eighty thousand Idahoans in the Health Exchange or sorry, Medicaid expansion is Walmart, followed by McDonald's, followed by Amazon. Right, I mean it's these and Walmart did close to three billion dollars to share buybacks last year. That's about two thousand dollars for

every one of their US employees. I mean, this kind of stuff is just fundamentally un acceptable that we allow corporations to push their costs onto taxpayers and the particularly in a you know, in a small state like Idaho, where Walmart does three billion dollars of revenue in the state. You know, this is the kind of stuff that guys

like Jim Risch, they just chipped away at these guardrails we've had on what's acceptable in the private sector over the last decade or two, and now we just got this where folks are running amok and you've got. You know, basically, sixty percent of Idahoes aren't earning a livable wage of the state chuck. And that's just flat fricking wrong, right, we cannot tolerate that.

But you know, I tell you I was in a rural community up in the mountains in the Idaho Panhandle hanging out with the vets for coffee, and one of them came up to me afterwards and he said, you know what, I'm an extreme conservative, Like, all right, cool man, what does that mean? Oh? He had a great conversation, you know, and he's he is deeply concerned about the national debt. I'm like, man, I'm right there with you. That has to be a bright d lot. We can't

grow this thing. And then as we talked about it some more, you know, the guy had a heart attack six months ago in that little rural hospital in this

town that is just barely keeping their doors open right now, saved his life. And with the one big beautiful bill and the Medicaid cuts that are going to come out of that, And I sat down with that hospital CEO, He's like, I don't know how we're going to keep the doors open out to this. I mean, this is the kind of stuff where what the hell are you know? We've got two of the most powerful senators out of the hundred and Idahope, the state is punching way above

its weight in terms of influence in the Senate. And what the hell do we get?

really didn't exist in the sixties and seventies. It just sort of began sort of, you know, the rise of Ralph Nader got Corporate America to say, hey, we got a response to this, and lo and behold, we got K Street and it's a very professionalized thing. And now we have it where it's no longer used to be

a corporate entity versus a people powered entity. Now it is literally one corporate entity hiring one set of lobbyists to fight for a certain regulation that helps their business and screws their competitor, and another setup like we now have K Street is just arguing about who's splitting up this piece of pie that never trickles down to the rest of us. Like you know, I used to sort of be like, well, the system's the system, blah blah blah.

Now you're just like, we've sort of it's become too efficient where now you need lobbyists to decide who gets to get to rig the regulatory process. But it's always been a challenge to get the public fired up about money. And you know, you know, have you what are different ways you've thought of trying to send this message. I mean, you've been using it with me here tonight, Brian, But what other thoughts of you tried to get the public to sort of be a bit more self aware about corporate influence.

look at the system. Let's look at who gives money to. Who are they going to you know, stop that gravy train. No, So if we can tie it back directly to why is this so expensive?

to the Great Lakes was sort of the top of the crescent, and it went all along and he was over nineteen percent basically in all of those states. He did really pour in the Deep South, did okay? In New England, Atlantic not so much. But really, look was in the mid twenties and both Idaho and South Dakota. I just double checked that twenty seven percent in Idaho and ninety two to twenty six percent in South Dakota.

Do you think those voters still exist. Todd, I'll start with you, because that is five years ago.

as well. It's one of the big ones. So the last comprehensive immigration reform was the same year that Maverick and Goose first felt the need for speed. Do you know what year that wasn't? Yes, we're going back to eighty seven, eighty eight.

you know top Don was on the screens today. Pragmatic reform requires two parts, the first one being strong border security and the second one being overhaul of the legal immigration system. I believe to allow more people, more immigrants in and to streamline the path to citizenship to make it easier and you know, something that can be accomplished with the reasonab amount of time. Now, I support both of those components, which is not the position of either

the Democratic or the Republican Party for different reasons. Republicans obviously support sealing the border, that's what they're they're trying to do now, and they impose apparently improving the legal immigration process, while Democrats support improving the legal immigration process, but they balk at stronger border security. So if we look back, President Biden's first bill when he took office was immigration reform, and the Democrats controlled both the Senate

and the House. Yet you heard crickets for the first two years because the Democrats couldn't agree on border security until they finally had to late, you know, running up to the election. Without a united position, why are they going to go talk to the Republicans about, like, Hey, here's what we're working on. Do you want to sign on board to this? So they let it go. So that would be one of the ways. I'm a pragmatic person. I look at things. I'm trained this way as attorney,

I'm trained this way as an Air Force officer. You look at things and say, hey, that didn't go the way we wanted or we're having this outcome, how can we tweak things to make it work properly? And if there's a Republican plan that does that, I'm on board. If there's a democratic plan that I think does it, I'm on board. So it's an issue by issue thing

of what is going to work. And I'm going to stay right now after forty years, I believe the trickle down economics horse and sparrow economics, if you will, doesn't work. So despite our efforts to keep cutting our taxes for the billionaires and the large corporations to make us wealthy and to pay down the debt, that's not working. So things need to change.

complaints you here in Capitol Hill or what about security for me? Right, rather than hey, maybe we ought to do a special committee here of some of our best and brightest minds and figure out how can we de escalate and actually, you know, build a better discourse. That the two parties don't know how to work with each other anymore in a horrendous way. And I think which I guess it's yeah, yeah, And I think Chuck it's it's it's baked in them system.

bother talking to that that kind of third of the room. You know, you're not going to get anywhere with them.

overturn our burgfelt and I fought that thing tooth and nail. And the person who was a sponsor of that, guess what, she dislikes monopoly power as much as I do, and so she co sponsored and some others did my build up prohibit algorithm price fixing. So and I caught a lot of crap from from Democrats in the state for even you know, for working with this woman. But like, guys, guess what, These purity tests are the reason why you're irrelevant in the state. Right, find these points of commonality.

You don't have to agree on one hundred percent. But you know, I'm trying to save Idaho renters who are being taken advantage of. And there are other people that want to work.

financial incentives. I think that's the that's the root issue.

picture of you guys. So, Brian, I'll start with you. Give me give me two senators you look forward to working with if you get elected, and then give me Yeah, just let me start there, and then I got one more for both of you too, But go ahead, give me give me a couple of senators you're looking forward to working with if you get there.

next question, Tod, give me your favorite Democratic president and your favorite Republican president.

I look at Eisenhower. He's the closest thing we've ever had to an independent being elected president, especially since both parties were recruiting him. And to me, Washington and Eisenhower sort of the are the are the North Stars for me in that sense too, And it's because when you've had to lead Americans in battle, then you see everybody as an American before you see him as a as a Republican or a Democrat. Anyway, Well, you guys go ahead.

were as that doesn't you know what I mean that somebody coming from the military being an independent makes a lot more sense to me than being a partisan.

right that that I think we're all driving towards. And you know, I was a tank commander, right, There's four guys inside of a tank and if we can't along, we're dead, right. I mean, it's very simple.

good luck out there. I'll be watching, paying attention, and hopefully more more independent voices show up as well. So thank you, guys, would be good.

of divided by polls. It's a polarized electorate. It is basically forty five or forty five d in a very small size of independence versus a place like a lack Asca which is sort of filled with sort of this sort of independent you know, little left, little right, little libertarian, little of this. And it's just a more fluid electorate as it's not as partisan, it's not as hardcore. So my top five list of states most likely they elect

an independent to the Senate, well, obviously I got to start with two states that have done it. I don't count Bernie Sanders in this one, I know, although Vermont has arguably had two independent one that was independent that caucused with Republicans. Still he switched parties and caucus with Democrats and Jim Jeffords and then you had Bernie. But in some ways I don't put Vermont there anymore. I think it's decidedly I think it's going to be very

difficult for somebody. You can get elected as an independent if you're further to the left of the Democratic Party, but I don't know if you can do that, you know, from the other way. So look, I think you have to put Alaska in Maine is one and two because they've done it, and there's their electorates are fluid enough that it's supportive. They've elected independence for governor, right, and I think that that is, you know, these are the states that are most ripe for non major party candidates

to have some success. Alaska and Maine obviously are too.

The next state on my list, number three is Minnesota, And in fact, you could argue now that if you're right of center in Minnesota and this is going to actually get I got some interesting feedback about my battleground state list and a little bit of pushback of having Minnesota ranked higher than New Hampshire of states on the Republican side most likely to make it into the battleground right blue states that Republicans might be able to contest.

And the argument is that while Minnesota is always very close, Republicans never seem to be able to, you know, to crack the code. That in twenty fourteen, for instance, Al Frankin's reelection year, he won ten points and that was a great Republican year. So I Republicans couldn't make Franklin sweat in twenty fourteen. Then the argument goes that this

is a this is a much harder state. You know that there's a hard ceiling on the Republicans, and I you know, it's an old hotline buddy that was pushing back on me. And I think my buddy Quinn is right. Quinn, I'm throwing I'm giving I'm throwing you at this bone. I do agree New Hampshire probably it should be New Hampshire over Minnesota. I still think there's an opportunity there in Minnesota. But I think you're right. I think the track record of New Hampshire recently they just elected a

Republican governor. It's been a long time since Minnesota's elected a statewide Republican has been at least over a decade. I think, I think you make a compelling case at

New Hampshire should be ranked higher than Minnesota. So Alaska one, Main two, Minnesota three, and my next two are sun Belt states. Arizona, who arguably had a couple of independent acting senators even though they didn't get elected as independents, and John McCain and Kirsten Cinema. And there's something about it's electorate, right, there's a there's a there's a it's

a state that has a huge independent voter registration. And when you're a transient state, right that where a majority of the voters weren't born in that state, that means you don't have as strong a ties on partisanship as much. And I think, and so we should give away what my number five state is of a chance electing independent.

That's Florida. Florida also is a huge growing no party UH registration vote, and I think the opportunity and ballot access isn't very difficult. Ditto in Arizona. That also matters here, right, how difficult is ballot access to get on there? You know, Texas is extraordinarily hard to run as an independent, And even though you in theory. Texas is the type of electorate that maybe could be supportive of it. I'm skeptical

of it. So my top five this week, top five states most likely with electorates it would be open to electing an independent. And you could actually picture it happening. Two places they've already happened Alaska in Maine right with Lisa Murkowski and and Angus King both did get elected as independents. Now they caut us with one side or the other, but they're I think, and they both have

elected independent governors, So I think there is a tradition there. Minnesota, right, they've they've had some you know, this is a party that even the Democratic Party is not named. It's the Democratic Farm Labor Party. It was a coalition party. There used to be the Farm Labor and then the Democrats and they merged. And in fact that back in the day the Minnesota Republican Party was referred to as the Independent Republican Party. There was almost an over emphasis on

the word independent and less so unrepublican. So Minnesota number three, number four, Arizona, and number five Florida. Other states that

I contemplated Nebraska, I do think the fact that they have a unit cameral legislature where you do not run or hold office by party. Does create an electorate that is comfortable with candidates for office that don't associate with a major party. The fact that their unit camera legislature works that way, I think does. I think it does help explain why Osborne, Dan Osborne, who's running again, has gotten into the forties. On that front, Kansas, I think

there's something there. I think the Democratic brand is probably not quite strong enough to elect a senator, but an independent that leaned to the left but had a few things that were appealing to right leaning independence, you could

see it. I put Idaho, South Dakota down here as well, because we're going to find out, right, I do think you're going to have a little better in general running again against the two major parties, as there's usually a bit more of an appetite for it out west than there is out east here, particularly in some of the in some of the states that have been around a while that have of you know that have that have

certainly have very very very strong state and local political parties. All Right, so there's my top five lists. With that, Let's do a few questions.

in two thousand and four. However, we call family members who perceived Obama as a divisive radical who hated capitalists and Americans. In the Obama years, I also noticed that compromise and unity were tough promises to deliver on. Even if a politician followed through with concessions, the opposing party could force failure by refusing to cooperate, even when offered

policies they previously supported. I hope you can share some optimism. Well, look, I mean this is why I don't think either either party. I think this has to this almost has to be a pirate type of situation where you just sort of where you have an independent that calls time out. You know, you guys have lost your privileges to lead. You need to learn how to lead it's sort of it was the It was how Jesse Ventura won his election in ninety eight. He basically turned the two parties into tweetled

the and tweedled dumb, and it gained quick traction. It was it was actually a short campaign. He was polling in the high single digits, low double digits for the longest time they have a debate. He's an outsized charismatic figure.

The two nominees, I think it was I think, if memory serves, it was Norm Coleman future you a Senator and Skip Humphrey, the son of Hubert Humphrey, and they just they came across a stale compared to the charismatic ex wrestler right and former actor you know who's uttered one of my favorite movie lines of all time, I don't got time to bleed from the first Predator, which I think he used in his campaign ads. I think it was the title of his memoir, of his political memoir.

But the point is is that he didn't run as saying this is you know. Yes, it was sort of with the Pero Reform Party at the time, but in some ways it was, Hey, I want to send a message these two parties and just sober up. And I think what you outline here, the inability for one party to concede anything to the other party right now, it's not going to happen. If you want to know how

nineteen nineties by partisanship happened. It happened because Ross Perot essentially threatened his candidacy, threatened the success of both parties at one point or another, and so it almost served as a as a force, as a mechanism to force bipartisanship. You know, the nineties recipe for bipartisanship also had one party controlling Congress, one party controlling the presidency. In the twenty first century, the handful of times we've had that it didn't, it didn't. It didn't lead to in many

bipartisan successes. And in some ways I think this is thanks to the Internet age to be fair filthy, Frank, I mean, that's that's what I think has done it. I think that in the you know where anytime you quote helped the other party, it becomes a problem for the base and they amplify it and they get everybody fired up, and they threatened primary h challenges and all of a sudden, this wayward moderate r moderate d has

been tamed by the outrages of the base. We saw a version of that on the Republican side with Joni Ernst and the confirmation of Pete Hegseth right, she was basically shamed and threatened and harassed until she agreed to do it. In the pre internet days, haig Seth never makes it. Eg Seth probably doesn't even even get out of committee in the pre internet days. But he saidially making it public and forcing it that way did so.

I concur with you that it's not going to come from one of the two major parties and that they would successfully do it. I do think a term with an independent basically just highlighting the fact that both parties have failed us and have helped tear this country apart, would could could serve as that as sort of return, sort of Like I said, I refer to sobering up the two political parties. Next question comes from Lincoln from Columbus, Ohio, but he makes it clear he's not a Buckeye fan. Well,

that's why I'm taking your question. Lincoln. By the way, I love it Lincoln from Columbus. Maybe I could meet Columbus from Lincoln anyway, Hey, Chuck La Cheeseri if you

know you know I love the todcast and appreciate the commentary, extended interviews and deep dives into all things politics and politics adjacent news stories. You're right, we need more in depth conversations and fewer sound bitdes. I have a question about Senate and House hearings. Do the people testifying have

an idea of the questions in advance? Obviously this would be more partisan, because when RFK testified, I can't imagine Democrats would provide their questions, but I can see Republicans trying to curry favor with the White House, if not overtly providing questions in advance, perhaps in a meaning mentioning that a question like that may come up with a link and a not Thanks for the work and information to look forward to the mornings when I see the

pod drop, Well, it's great to hear. Thanks Lincoln, appreciate that. On hearings, you know, it depends. There's some people do mock hearings. A friendly hearing, right your friendly side, you will know, you know, you might know they might have Hey, I'll uh, I know you're going to get attacked for this issue. I'll be able to ask you this question on follow up. So the point is the answer is yes, okay,

what you suspect is true partisan. You know, anybody that is that is favorable to the person testifying, If that person is in government and has a relationship, that likely means they have some sort of professional relationship with that senator, with that Senate staffer, with that House member, with that House staffer. So in that sense, yes, they're told, hey, I'm going to ask about this, this, and this if they're friendly. Obviously you don't you don't get the questions

in advance of the others. But you know, if you don't know what's coming, you're not very good at your job, or you don't have a staff that's very bright about this. I've never watched one of these congressional hearings and been surprised by a question. Right, Sometimes you might get surprised if it's like arcane, it'll be like oh, and again, when you're surprised as a person testifying, it means your staffers blew it. You know, a good staffer should know, Hey,

Senator Schmengi is obsessed with this one arcane issue. No one else is going to ask about it. But you may be asked about it from him or her, you better know it. But no, your suspicion on essentially partisans helping helping the friendlies is one hundred percent trough. There's always by the way it happens in the White House press room, there are certain reporters that are essentially used

by the person at the podium. Maybe they don't know the question that's going to be asked, but they know it's not going to be antagonistic, and they go to them as almost like a break if they're if they're getting attacked. And every press secretary has had those in their back pocket, this one has more friendlies than most

that I've noticed. Next question, boy, you absolutely nail it in your nine to fifteen commentary. Politics should be about I believe in A and you believe in Z, and we meet somewhere around l M n OP. But Congress now seems allergic to compromise, acting as a blank check for Trump's agenda. I also agree that social media fuels division. I even deactivated my own accounts after hearing every network

link the latest shooting to online extremism. Podcasts can be similarly insular, Yes they can, though yours stands out for presenting multiple viewpoints, which I really appreciate. Michael C. From Douglasville, Georgia, Well, I appreciate you noticing that. It's what I'm trying to do. That's a frustration of the sort of the architecture that the tech companies have created for those of us in this independent space. I you know, I appreciate substack. You

can sort of curate yourself. They don't feel I don't feel like they use algorithms to push stuff on me. It's you're you only get pushed stuff from the actual publisher of the content or people that you know. If you decide to subscribe, then you're asked to to to spread the word. It's a it's a it's a healthier way to do it on that front. But the you know, that's the problem, right And you see, I don't want to build an audience where I feel like I'm captured by the audience. Now, I just I I am a

podcast listener because I'm trying to get more information. I I sort of listened to three types of podcasts. One is deep dives on history, one is on economic and a bunch of sports. Not Gonna lie uh, maybe one or two. And it's gambling. A few in sports cards, but quite a few in history on that stuff. And I want information over commentary, right, I don't necessarily want left right commentary. I can read the left right commentary on that front. But I do think that, you know,

I'm very mindful. I don't want I don't want to. I don't want an audience. I don't want to feel like I've been captured by my subscribers or my audience, or however you want to look at it. I think that you've seen that. I feel like I see that in the New York Times, you know, when they chased away James Bennett from being editorial page editor of the

opinion section. He didn't do anything wrong, he didn't he didn't do anything fireable by the editors, but there was a revolt among subscribers, and they were concerned about losing subscribers and losing it. And it seems like he was sacrificed for that. Well, when you make a decision based

on viewership or who's watching. Look, I don't want to get into too many details, but you know that these were these were some of the struggles when when when I was trying to do a a a non ideological partisan show on politics on a cable channel that had a history of being partisan, and it was the audience.

The audience was uncomfortable with it. They didn't like when I would put Republicans on and it would become a thing, and I didn't like that I was being used by the right at times to try to do it was just a mess. But it's what happens when you have audience capture, and it is something I'm trying really hard not to have audience capture. I appreciate you noticing it, and I'm trying, so thank you, and we'll spread the word.

Uh all right, I'm gonna sneak in at least one more question here. I've got I've got a little I'm on the clock before taping, so I want to see how mannyn't get in. James E writes, Is it me or does it seem the right are being opportunity to utilizing their friend's death as a reason to go after the left. I don't think it's just you. If you hear my commentary top, that's I think exactly what's happening. Seems like such an odd time to go on the

attack rather than to mourn a supposed friend. Have there been other instances in the past of a political death or assassination being used to attack the other side so soon after the incident. Well, here's the thing. In the Internet era, we see it all, you know, and it gets It's something that I think social media also provides us with that. God, this is why I think it's

an experiment gone haywire on our brains. I can't remember if I shared this earlier with you guys or with my friend Crystalizza on the weekly podcast I do for his feed. But John pot Horitz, who's an editor at Commentary Magazine from He's a conservative commentator, had a fascinating thread over the weekend about how the real issue with social media is that too many good people have allowed too much of their of their inner thoughts go public.

And what he was saying is that look, in any given second, if our thought, if every thought that was in our head, do this exercise and think about everything you may have thought about for a split second involving your life, anything about it, right, relationships, you name it. If if all those thoughts were broadcast on social media, do you think you'd have any friends left. Would you still be married, would you still be in relationships? Would you be seen as a madman? Would you be seen

as crazy? Right? I think you sort of get what I'm saying, or maybe maybe I'm the weirdo that that that is admitting that you know, you get. There's plenty of things you think that you don't say, and somehow social media, like I was reading, I was reading a quote from somebody who was who oh, I know what it was.

which is I grew up an unincorporated Dade County. Otherwise I describe it as East Kendall if you're scoring at home. But an elected official went out there and said something really you know, said something really not good about Charlie Kirkstaff. I don't remember the exact things. I'm hesitant to characterize it other than it was in a and certainly the timing was inappropriate, and the guy had said he goes he woke up the next morning and regretted sending it, right,

it was heat of the moment. I bring this up because I think that that's where we've let why social

media is so so toxic and so bad for our brains. Right, there's no there's no uh, there's no sort of it should sit in drafts, right, Like you know, if you if you're worried about your inner id saying something that you'll regret in the morning, It's almost like you should be able to put a small g governor and your Twitter feed and just say send all tweets to draft, and then the next morning reread them and see if

you want to send them. But of course, you know, nobody wants to do that because they want to be in the moment. You want to see if you go viral or whatever. Right, And so I just bring that up because I have a feeling in the pre social media world, there were plenty of people who had unpopular opinions about political attacks or assassinations that if they shared them, and if there had been social media at the time, would have probably gotten them, you know, canceled, and maybe

in some cases deservedly. So I'm not going to even I don't want to sit here and defend that idea. But I think this is where social media is just it incentivizes stupidity, and it sometimes you know, remember the advice I assume everybody has heard this advice, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. It's certainly a rule of thumb I have or about people that die in politics. You know, if you know you, you certainly if you've got a disagreement you want to highlight.

Maybe wait, let the family mourn, have some grace, right, whatever it is. And for some reason social media has made us think that the rules of the korum don't apply when how would you behave in you know, if you were face to face with that person, if you were trying, if you put yourself saying, if I was face to face, how would I say this? It probably would make Twitter less interesting. But maybe that's a good

thing on this front. But I'm really worried about a sort of red scare vibe as I said at the top here, and a disingenuous attack on this that this is just trying to do guilt by association, which is, you know, it's a very dangerous. It's you know, it's our polarization is bad. Are the increase in political violence that we've been experiencing is bad, and scapegoating and guilt by association is only going to make all of these things worse. All right, On that happy note, I think

I'm going to pause here for twenty four hours. This was, like I said, I wanted to make it a little canpain heavier episode. But look, we're we're living in a rough period, and if we don't have the leaders to get us out of this rough period, do little things on your own, right, you know, just say thank you, say hi to somebody you don't know, Acknowledge somebody's existence when you walk by them, you know, on a street corner. And Spencer Cox said, touch grass, right, but turn it off.

You know, I have I all the time try to do better when it comes to when I'm a news junkie. I'm an information junkie, so I'm always looking for more information. But I have found different ways now to get information without using social media. Not totally gone. I'm not totally kicked the habit. You know, I might be smoking one cigarette a day, but I'm not smoking twenty and I think that's the I think if everybody took that advice, you know, wean themselves off, we might have a better

digital atmosphere. So with that, I'll take a break until we upload again. See in twenty four hours.