There we go. Yeah, now we're just waiting on. We're gonna get robbercy and witness protection. Also, like Peter, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Mister garbachaw tear down this wall.
It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Stephen Hayward. I'm James Lillax and today we talked de roy to Schera about demographics, democrats, the election, So let severs was a podcast.
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Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast.
Number.
Well, I've been waiting for this for years. It's the number of the area code of the house where I grew up, seven oh one. I still remember my I remember my childhood, my childhood phone number seven on one. I probably shouldn't say it, but I had the same My parents had the same phone number for decades, which is a by gone A a by gone time, and B a sign that I probably had a stable upbringing, which I did, which makes me the high bound person resistant to change that I am today I am? Did
I say James Lilas Minneapolis? Yeah, Rob Long Gotham. People in New York hate when they say that.
Too bad. Stephen Hayward is an in Frisco, so I.
Can even complete the bicoastal injury. Steven Hayward was sitting in for Peter Robinson. Welcome guys, What a week again?
Where to start?
I'm going to go with a big cliche, and the big cliche is, okay, if you had a bunch of crazy right wingers shown up in Washington, d C. With a giant statue of a class shade Jew with a big nose and horns and blood dripping out of his mouth, and they defaced all the monuments and wrote to angry things, I think we would be having a conversation about civil order. But we're not the people who do. Who descended and had basically a fascist Jew hating rally and defaced a whole bunch of things.
And I hate the defacement.
You know, some got arrested and charges dropped, and Kamala Harris has deplored the violence. But whether or not she would advocate for these people to be actually clapped in irons, are sent off to the Who's goal is something I suppose we'll find in her new I forget. Has she reincardinated herself as the old iteration of tough on crime? Or are we still in the twenty twenty mode?
What do you think is?
Which?
Which one are we going to see in this election cycle? Guys, Steve, oh, you want me? You want me to go for dicta Right?
Well, I mean I don't know.
I'm in the camp that thinks we're about to get a rerun in some ways of the Night eighty eight campaign. You may remember the Ducaucus argued in his famous speech, this selection is not about ideology, it's about competence, which meant he wanted to disguise his ideology. And according to some polls he was seventeen points ahead of George H. W.
Bush.
Bush ended up winning by eight. She had almost twenty five percent swing. And so right now there's a big surge for Harris. Her approval ratings were up fifteen points. She's up maybe above water, above fifty. But I think, I mean, among other things, she's going to try and straddle her past record, and I don't think she'll be able to get away with that once the Trump campaigns opens up on her. And like Ducoccus, I think she
has her own Willy Horton problem. You know, we've got the receipts of her urging people on Twitter to donate to a bail fund for the Black Lives Matter rioters in Minnesota in twenty twenty one of whom was bailed out and went out and murdered someone just like Willie Horton thirty some years ago. And I think he's going to have a hard time. She'll lie about it, the
media will cover up. By the way, last point, I you know, the media is trying to give fake news a bad name right now the way they're covering up for her past. Right, she was never called the borders are never But even though what Google will bring up thirty one thousand mentions of Kamela as the borders are. It's unbelievable. Although you know, I've been joking that maybe they're right. You really can't be a czar unless you're
from the Tsarist region of Mother Russia. Everything else is just sparkling Habsburg aristocracy.
Well, she was a bizarre in the sense of the czar. You know, they they presided over chaos. They didn't write much. So yeah, there's a little that.
What did docacas in Was it the dandie and a helmet in the tank moment.
Or was it?
I was also that there was no I mean, it was a change election kind of, but there was no argument for change in eighty eight because the things were going great. And I mean the hard part about his you know, campaign histories and looking for signs in the past for me is that we've never had so many candidates running for higher office that so much of the country despises, not is indifferent to, not doesn't know, but
actively loads. And so you have this sort of bizar the Democratic side, you have this bizarre kind of like a you know, cultish thrill, like they're all kind of in their weird zone where they think it's going to happen. Everybody loves her. They know people hate her.
And they hate the Democrats, and they hate what they did on the border and they what they did it in crime and the Yeah, these Republicans saying he's gonna win, My guy's gonna win. Buy a landslide. Don't know, everyone who hated him still really hates him. That's a whole lot of people.
So the best way, which is which is not the case in eighty eight that nobody had ever heard of Caucus and people were indifferent at the worst. To George H. W. Boyce, they are indifferent. So this is going to be a really interesting few months. What's fascinating about it is that I think the one thing we're gona be able to take away from historically is that.
We now know I think.
I mean, however Kamala Harris does, She's not gonna get trounced. She's gonna do. You know, She's gonna either win or lose by a small amount. And that's probably what Trump will winner loses by it. Right, And we're going to discover is that these things go on too long that you can't actually in the middle of the summer throw in a candidate and have an election.
Kind of other countries do this too, for a slightly less important job.
But like, yeah, I have an election in November a few months later, and everybody's happy with that. Like, I don't think anybody's going to be complaining, Like, well, I really wish that had started a year ago. Like most people are like, man, yeah, these things go on too long.
We're gonna this is this is an experiment in that and I suspect that I don't know how we how far you can take this in terms of political logic, But I suspect that we'll discover that they go on too long and that it and I think there's a secret desire, not to desire, but I think they're happy. These political operative class of people are happy to have the
candidates despised. It's easier because then you're only going to win by like a few points anyway, right, that's their whole goal in the in the brain trust of the Democratic Party Republican Party. That point is that I want to win by one. Right, That's how smart I am. I can win by one.
So if you do that much except run negative bads, you can see the guy which everybody prefers because it's easier.
So I feel like we're in a really good political science laboratory right now.
That will be interesting to see it unfold.
Well, when you say that everybody despises them, wrong, I think you've completely misjudged the electorate. Everybody loves Kamala Harris. This is what we've learned in the last week we're besotted by her. We had an opinion piece in my paper today which began the antidote to Mega is feminist laughter right away, sort of coming up against the contant an oxy North make America.
The joke, how many feminists to take the Screon light bulb right?
That's not funny, that's not funny. That's right.
So her laughter, says the piece has become a national contagious laughter, has become a national symbol of collective healing, affirming the powers of joy to unite community across bitter divisions of culture and identity. So the fact that she laughs and it's not put down as a Hillary cackle, I guess, is going to be the thing that carriers her to mass affirmation. So I think you're misjudging that, just as you're misjudging the fact that a lot of people who are voting for Trump are doing so with
complete admiration of his messiah like stature. I mean, in other words, yes, I think you're absolutely correct. I mean, one of the big things on Twitter this week is the strange things that jd Vance has been saying about women and cat ladies and single cat ladies and the rest of it, as if this is a demographic that's on the costpin. You know, he could just need a little nudge to shove him over to vote Trump. But now he's done it. Now anyway, Stephen, Well.
Look, it was nice having an honest and objective news media for at least a month. I think we can file it away for the future. Right now they're back to their old mode. Look, I do think also I was going to say this about people despising Trump. Certainly the Democratic base in the media do. But you know, his approval ratings have actually been rising a bit ever since the shooting. And I think for the same Reagan
reason that Reagan's did in nineteen eighty one. The knock on Reagan was he's a Hollywood cut out, He's not really a real person, he's a creature's staff. And his response to that dispelled all that. And likewise, with Trump, I think a lot of people who may not like him still, but they don't they no longer think that
he's also a fraud of some kind. I mean, he showed, you know, as we saw that day, we saw the real Trump emerged, I think, and more people respect that and That's why I think you still give him the advantage.
I would say, probably give him the advantage.
But I mean, I just I think all the Trump supporters and the Kammala supporters have the same kind of delusional quality that when they're surrounded by people who love the guy or love their guy, they just think that's everybody, We're going to win, and they just forget that these are polarizing politicians who have very very very poor, clumsy maladuat ways of appealing to the center, and they turn people away, they turn the Democrats and the Republicans, and
it's a hard thing because you wake up and it's down now, it's going to be August through September. You're running in general, and you wake up and you're like, okay, well now I got to get those people back. And the goal of the opposing campaign is to point out that you are an extremist and a weirdo, and often that's unfair. But in this case, I think both of
these campaigns have a very good point. They've got a lot they can talk about, and I just, you know, running for the presidency is not running for them to be the you know, the lead on a Fox News show or the lead on the view well.
People to vote.
But I think this is I don't want to say bubble dog, but maybe the people who look at this a lot and think about it a lot think this way. I think the average Trump and the average Harris voter do not think that everybody is absolutely raw run thinks that person is great. They're probably where most most Trump voters know that half the country doesn't like them, and
most of the Harris voters know likewise. I think, you know, the absolutely gung ho people guess may be subject to illusion, but so it ever is I mean, well.
I mean the good news for the good news for the people for the Trump side, I mean the sunniest perspective on the Trump side is that they actively they realized that the abortion issue was a killer and a killer for the Republicans, especially in those swing states, and so they in the platform they try, I can neuter it.
And so the Democrats are now trying to resurrect it and make it still an issue, and it kind of isn't is because at the top of the ticket, there's some there's some there's some daylight between the two of these guys. So that that is that I'm just talking about pure politics, right. That was actually kind of smart on the Republican side to come up with it to
try to tame their weirdness a little bit. And then on the Democrats is up to them to attain their weird It can be harder because their weirdness is basically the city of San Francisco and which you could never put or the state of California, which you can't point to really for any reason.
You know.
So there, but but I again, I think the problem with both these parties is the same, which is that they they love show business so much that they think they're in show business. So they think that having a really popular being a really popular Fox News talk show host or being you know, getting clappier on the view is going to be as a sign of some kind of political momentum, which it's not. You need seventy million
people to lose the presidency. The other guy's gonna get seventy five or eighty, right, So that's a lot of people, and those people aren't watching cable news.
They are normal and they are sort of in the center.
Well, okay, but it's gotta hard if you do the last two election cycles in twenty sixteen, the double haters, the people who didn't like Hillary or Trump, they broke for Trump by you know, five to three or even two to one. In twenty twenty, just the reverse, the double haters maybe didn't hate Biden as much as they should have, but went the other way. They retired to Trump and the chaos and all the rest, and Trump still almost won. So now it's where those double haters
are going to go. I think you're right, Robin. A lot of those double haters are not cable news and view watchers. But I do think you are seeing not only is Cambella trying to move to the center, but the Democratic Party is trying to help her out. Two things in the last couple of days. One is Gavin Newsome yesterday.
Issuing on the border.
Camps stunning.
Okay, wait, can we just can you just explain that to me because I was reading it today and I thought, well.
What, yeah, Well, I think it's two things.
One is, you know, new some to his credit, did call for the Supreme Court to reverse the old Boise case that prevented governments from and so that was what was done by a Supreme Court. Now Newsom kept silent and by praising them, but he's now acting on the
new legal regime that they're allowed. I think that means that he's a trying to help Kamala Harris in the meantime by saying, see, we can fix California or b he thinks he's going to be the candidate in twenty twenty eight and he needs to help fix California or he's doomed. But another little one that probably got by most people is Shared Brown in Ohio, the incumbent liberal
Democrat is in great trouble there, tough race. He came out a couple of days ago saying he would vote against the Biden Administration's climate plan because it would hurt Ohio energy workers and manufacturing people. That's the sign of a Democrat in trouble, trying to run away from the progressive agenda, which they always do in election years. But I thought, ah, they're trying to neutralize some of their progressive baggage.
Well, we'll get to that in a second.
By what we should do right now is be grateful that we have a fascinating person to talk to.
Rui Tu Sierra. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. I'm you know, from North Dakota to what Do I Know?
Roy is the Senior Fellow of the American Enterprise institutionary focuses on the transformation of party coalitions and the future of American electoral politics. Co founder and politics editor the Substack newsletter The Liberal Patriot.
Welcome right sar having me interesting times?
Know that they are Chinese. Curse all that. Well, let's go back to two thousand and two, which seems like another era, another civilization. You co authored The Emerging Democratic Majority. Now, last year you and John Judas teamed up again. You published Where have all the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of the Extremes? So what were you noticing in the early aughts and why did the demographic trends do what they did over the past decade.
Well, in the early book, the two thousand and two book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, we're looking at the ways in which the sort of underlying terrain of American politics was changing in ways that seemed to favor the Democrats in terms of demographic shifts toward non wide voters, the rising
importance of professionals and their realignment toward the Democrats. Shifts among women voters, shifts in the more dynamic metropolitan areas of the country, the fact that Republicans seem to be at a step with sort of increasingly liberal social attitudes and were doubling down in a sort of uncomplicated Reganism or almost libertarian approach to economics that really wasn't consistent with where a lot of these voters were coming from.
We thought that would give them a bit of an advantage.
Then we described what might be their emerging philosophy as progressive centrism, which could take advantage of these changes and make them an attractive package to the shifting availability of voters.
But we also had a caveat in the book which is widely ignored, about how you still needed to maintain a very significant share of white working class voters because they were still a huge sector of the electorate, particularly in some very important states, and even though their relative weight in the electorate was declining, you still needed to maintain a strong minority and not lose too much ground
among these voters. So that was widely ignored and sort of the triumphalism of say, the Obama victory in two thousand and eight, and essentially what our book is about the new book is about whereof all the Democrats Gone, is tracing the ways in which Democrats have kind of blown in a sense, their opportunity because they're losing so many working class voters, not only white working class voters, but now non white working class voters, and they've just
become a party this much more dominated by the views and culture and priorities of relatively liberal, college educated voters, and that makes some less attractive to working class voters who aren't as enthusiastic about how the country has evolved in their fate in life as some of these Democratic supporters are.
So that's a.
Very broad brush where we're at today, where the Republicans are increasingly a working class party and the Democrats increasingly less.
So, hey, really, thanks for joining us.
In my career in TV, we used to say that the only way to become a number four network is you first have to be a number one network.
That's how you go. You go from number one and number four. You don't go.
You don't slip down the ladder because you just suddenly you wake up one day and you've lost. And so I did you mention Obama? Because I think it's fascinating. A two thousand and eight smashing popular vote victory fifty three plus percent, and then in twenty twelve he lost a lot of votes. But you know, you start, you know, it's like you start with twenty billion dollars and you lose five billion dollars, you still got fifteen you know,
you don't notice. It did seem like there was some leakage there in twenty twelve that in twenty sixteen became fatal. Still pretty tight, and we were just talking before you got here, Steve and I were talking about like twenty six twenty sixteen, twenty twenty, still pretty tight.
Elections ten it was seventy eight thousand.
Another type one this time. I wouldn't be surprised.
But you're also that also matches something else happening in the country, which is an incredible volatility. I mean, I believe, fifty nine years old, most of my life there was one speaker of the House, tip On, you know, and there was one party that ran the House, and that
was the Democrats. And since then, yeah, that's ninety four, right, it's been Yeah, Nancy, Nancy Pelosi has been speaking of the House twice, like that's crazy, you know, goes back and forth, and we talk about on election night and even in the in the midterm elections, we talked about the control of the House and the Senate the way we never used to do that. We entering because of these demographic ships. Is just a period or are we
in it or are we coming out of it? Or is it just about to get a lot more interesting of just political volatility that we haven't seen in this country for a century and a half almost, That's what.
Yeah, well, I think we're we're basically in that era and it's not clear when we're going to get out of it. I'm writing doing a big paper now with my colleague you Ball even at at Ai on the
evolution of party coalitions. We call it party politics without Winners, tracing the history of party coalitions in the United States and the general tendency of politics to be you know, sort of reflected in there being a dominant majority coalition and a coalition that's trying to become the dominant majority, but nevertheless you know, the dominant majority in print. It's but as political pallprint what's going on, and it's sort
of widely acknowledged to be to be such. But we're out of that era now, and we have been for an era like that for quite some time. Going back to the cut points you were talking about, where basically we're sort of fighting on the fifty yard line of American politics. Things can swing back and forth, you know, many times, just because nobody really does have a dominant majority.
And what's peculiar and interesting about our current eras you could argue that, and we do argue this that not only does neither party seem like they're forming a dominant majority, they don't necessarily even seem that interested in it. I mean, they're so beholden to the extremes of their own parties. The people who dominate those parties are not really thinking very strategically and clearly about how to form a dominant majority. So the strategies that could lead to that are sort
of closed off intellectually in other ways. And I think that, you know, that's where we are now.
It sometimes seems to me that they misunderstood what the president office of the presidency is that you you're not the prime minister. You win the election and you take the office, and all.
The people do is can yout the microphone you only get the gabble, you get the microphone. Now you have to You are by definition a wheeler dealer.
You know, a moderate Democrat, Rhino Republican. If you want to be successful, you need the party as the president of the United States. We also also have heard for years that demographics is destiny. That's something that was demographics is destiny. But if you look at the you look at the the map right now, if you're a Republican, you're looking at a lot of second third for even
first generation Hispanics voting Republican. You're looking at this large South Asian population seems to be leaning conservative.
Our demographics destiny definitely not.
And that was a widely.
Mooted about this interpretation of what John and I rot and some other people.
We never thought demographics was destiny.
We never thought that Democrats, because of these changes, had a sort of lock on the presidency and political domination generally going forward. There was a question of the terrain changing in such a way that favors you, but you still have.
To take advantage of it.
And one way to think about this mathematically is, in a sense, demographics is destiny only makes sense if you're thinking about it in all else equal.
Context.
In other words, if the groups that favor you are increasing and the groups that don't favor you are decreasing, then all else equal, that's very good for you. However, even if say the amount of non whites in the voting electorate is increasing, if their support level for you, their margins go down, that can cancel out the effect of having more people in that bucket.
And that's what people.
Repeatedly forget about this, you know, the sort of the issue of demographics and how they affect politics. You really have to take intoccount not only just of how many people are in a bucket, but how many how those people in the bucket are voting, and whether it's changing from what it was before, and if it is, that can really change, you know what the calculus, so to speak,
that as these changes manifest themselves in the electorate. And I don't know how many times I've explained this to various reporters or what have you, but.
It seems to I don't know, there's some problems with it. They just like, there, isn't that great for the Democrats?
Well, okay, yes, all else equal, but look at what's happening on the ground. Look at where these voters are coming from. Look at how they view the Democratic Party. Look at their margins.
I mean, look at I mean, isn't it part? I mean, don't you?
I mean I'm going to change. I have one question for you about Trump in a sense, because I feel like Trump represents a psychic break with the Republican past in a lot of ways. Sure that probably if you are running, we're just talking about Sure, pure branding. If you're running, a brand is a good thing, right, because there are people who are going to vote for Republican for the first time that wouldn't have voted for you know,
some Republican who looks and sounds like me. So that's probably a good sign for the branding of the Republican Party that it is changing and shifting. The downside for the Democrats seems to me that they're doubling down on the stuff that got them into trouble and has got.
Them into trouble for years, which is the kind of twee academic stuff that Jim carvill I think rightly and correctly identifies as the killer Yeah, Alcolie lounge talk, right. I guess my larger question is, if you're.
If you live in a culture that is obsessed with race and obsessed with demographics. There's a lot of downside that, but one of them is if you're a political professional, you tend to just think that that's your job is to identify who the people are live in this district, and you already know how they're going to vote, instead of marching around and knocking on doors and finding out
what those people really believe. So, if you are a politician running for the mayor here in New York City, and Eric Adams is a terrible mayor, but he was a fantastic campaigner, marched around it and he talked to a bunch of older black ladies and he said, what do you care about? And they said crime. He said, what else do you care about? They said no, no, no, it's crime.
Crime.
And he ran on that very successfully. He seems like the only.
I think democrat on a national stage who has actually listened to voters instead of putting it in a category.
Is that. I know, that's interesting.
I think there are others who they're not quite as much national figures. I mean, Charrelle Parker and Philadelphia ran in a pretty similar way.
For some of the similar reason.
But I think it is true that in terms of people have a national profile, we've seen very little, a lot of reluctance to say things that are really off the reservation as far as today's Democratic Party and its activists and you know, the certain we call the shadow Party in our book John Judas and I who you know that, the number of foundations, NGOs, activist groups, you know, the various parts of the media who the moment you deviate from, you know, the current consensus about how to
approach an issue like crime or immigration or race or gender, they're on you like a ton of bricks.
So there's there's a reluctance to do that.
I mean, you can look at even people like Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro, who have you know, sorts quasi national profiles, and you know, if you look carefully at what they say, they strike a moderate tone, in a pragmatic tone at times, but really it's hard to see the areas in which they've really in a big way departed from the Democratic consensus. And that's certainly true of the leaders in Congress, your Schumer's and your Colosia Now
hackem Jeffries and so on and so forth. I mean, the Democratic Party in a national level is dominated by an approach on a whole vector of issues that is actually pretty far from the media and working class voter and they're very reluctant to And why do they do that? Well, I think you know, there's pressures within the party. I mean, part of it is too, I think, never underestimate. You know,
where do people live and who do they talk to? Right, they live in a bubble, you know, they don't talk to people who have different points of view than them very often, And the extent they're aware of them, they tend to write them off as you know, the great unwashed, the deplorables, the reactionaries in the heartland. They're racists, they're sexists, they're transphobic whatever.
I mean, this is like not a really.
Productive way to understand what voters in America really think. That on the one hand, you're talking to people who agree with you all the time, but on the other ignoring the other people because you know they're they're not even worth talking to. They're not they're not they're not
some of the good people, they're the bad people. So I just think that that really handicaps the Democrats in terms of taking advantage of the ways in which while Trump has been a path breaker in terms of making the Republicans more of a working class party, breaking apart the old three legged stool that included sort of more
libertarian economics, you know, it's them. I mean, people forget about how important it was what he said about Medicare and social security in twenty sixteen, and of course what he said about trade and you know, manufacturing and offshore.
I mean, these were things that are pretty different than the.
It was to be crazy as a classical liberal.
I'm like, no, yeah, yeah, said, well that's bad juju.
But it really worked with the owns.
He totally did it, totally did quiet their rob.
But but then the other side of it is Trump is Trump, and they're not able to to sand off the rough edges of some of the pro working class appeals and sort of present a more moderate but nevertheless pro working class.
Right. I mean it's hard to do.
I mean, or in classes frantically trying to push them in that direction. But you know it's not under his control basically to try. The Republicans need you know, less trumpy Trump.
Really it's a Steve Hayward out in California, and I want to draw back and take a longer term perspective on things and not just the current moment. I always enjoy listening to you in reading you, not because you necessarily say things I agree with, but because it seems to me you have the disposition of the older optimistic, happy warrior liberalism of John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.
And that's why I want to bring up your book that you published in twenty seventeen, you know, at the beginning of the Trump Darkness, your book The Optimistic Leftist Right. And I have a couple of particular questions about that book, and I think it's playing out. But in addition to I want to add a different fort of field theory of what ails the Democrats that that doesn't disagree with faculty lounge dominance.
Of the party.
I actually think the turn that hurt the Democratic Party happened in the seventies when it went from being the party of you know, you know, the doctrine under John F. Kennedy was growth liberalism. That was the doctor of their political economy. And again Humphy the same way in the seventies, you started getting Jerry Brown, Jimmy Carter talking about the limits to growth, and I think that accelerated what was already a you know, a latent strain of redistributionism in
democratic politics. But I think that I think that has made the Democratic Party more sour than it used to be. And now, is that too broad a generalization or do you think some of that maybe is onto something.
No. I think that's that's actually pretty fair.
And first of all, Steve, I want to thank you for being aware of that book and abeat it. I had a bombed basically it came out after you know, Trump got elected, and so I mean, I'm optimistic, laughtist, but I do think you're capturing some of what the book was trying to talk about. And I think, you know, in retrospect, I was way too optimistic in a sense about the ability of the Democrats to pick up on what you might call a pro growth, optimistic approach to
political economy and toward reaching voters. I thought they would maybe do a better job. I don't think they did. As we've seen, They've gone down various rabbit holes which don't have much to do with that. But I think the fundamental point that I was making is the connection between in a sense, growth and.
Progressivism, growth and the good society.
If you want people to feel good about their fellow humans, if you want to have enough resources available to do the good things you want to do in terms of, you know, sort of making the country a better place, you goddamn well need you know, relatively fat as economic growth, and you need to figure out a way to do that.
Now, you know, I might dissent a little.
Bit from my own prescriptions in the book about how to do that, but I think the fundamental idea is very sound, right. And Democrats, I think, as you're pointing out, they're really not that interested in growth quad growth anymore.
They disparage it.
They think it's you know, it's like consumer society man, and it's ruining the earth man. I mean all that kind of stuff. But you know, this is like should be mother's milk. This is this is how you know, the sort of the boom after World War two has a very non trivial relationship to all the good things people.
Like about that thirty year period.
It doesn't happen without that level of economic growth.
So so I do think that and you know, I look at Kamala.
Harris, right, I mean back to today, I mean, is she the pro growth candidate? I don't even know she ever at the word even you know, passes her lips, right, I mean, it's just not her thing, and it's not really for I think most leading Democrats what they think about a lot and certainly I mean they're I mean, in a sense, what I was writing in twenty seventeen was a precursor of what is now called abundance economics. Right, supply side progressive is so it's basically coming out of
that same bag, you know, a little bit early. You never as a premature you know, like supply side progressive or something, but definitely on the side that you know, we need growth and we need a lot more of it.
Yeah, I mean it was Ghima yoursing.
But you actually have as studies of d growth now which people use people their fingers and figure out how to wait and make our lives less abundant. How what I want to know is how much of the Democratic Party at the at this point is completely infected by the idea of scarcity in abundance and how much of them are just simply paying lip service to it because they believe that that's the thing that they should be saying.
Now.
Well, I think the latter definitely is a big part of it. There's a lot of preference falsification going on there and sort of a b a sense to what people think they need to say aboutomic issues and about growth. But I do think there's a ton of people out there who who believe in this stuff, and I think a lot of it is driven by something I've written a lot.
About climate catastrophism. I mean, it is very difficult to overestimate.
The influence of the whole climate issue on the changing attitudes with the Democratic Party toward energy and economics. I mean it's totally hegemonic, right. I mean, you don't get Joe Biden saying this is you know, this is an existential risk. This is worse than nuclear war. We've got ten years to solve it. I mean these are absolutely
bonkers points of view on energy and economics. But because they dominate the Democratic Party and because they have such a strong relationship to the issue of growth and how do we get it, I think it does cast a p number of negativity am on the very idea of growth because you know, God, I mean, you don't have to be like know a lot of energy economics, their economics area to at least have an intuitive sense. Our
growth is based on fossil fumists. They will not disappear very fast, and in fact, if you try to zero them out fast, they'll actually be bad. So if you're you know, sort of halfway aware of the world around you, I mean, your attitude as a Democrat who thinks climate change is the most important issue might be well, so be it. Then we'll have less growth. No, you know,
that's that's fine, will save the planet. Yeah, and yeah, as you're pointing out, you know, the growth, right, maybe that's really what we need, you know, like, which, of course, is is so insane that you know it's it's amazing anyone affiliated with the major political party would.
Think these things.
Deep is a booming is a booming thing?
Yes?
Well, well it's well right now, really the the what I mean I'm following with great interest the abundance economics or supply side progressivism, but that caucus right now is really you Matty Glacias ez Recline, our friends at the Breakthrough Institute and small but mighty well that's right, I think, I mean, I think the parallel would be you may not like this, parent, Well, it's a little bit like the supply side economists on the conservative side of the seventies.
I said, hey, we should be for growth and tax cut out of theory.
Okay, one of the things in your book is that you say, I mean, the broad banner was we need to think about ways of reforming capitalism.
And so here we are about seven eight years later or nine years later.
And you know, I've been joking that if rip fan Winkle were rewritten by Washington Irving today, the figure would wake up with Karl Marx's beard, because all of a sudden you have a lot of conservatives, at least the trumping nationalists, attacking finance capitalism, attacking big corporations.
I'm like, this is where I'm be a little bit like Rob. I'm like, what has happened here?
So anyway, either there's some observations about that, or maybe say a little bit about one or two things about about reforming capitalism.
And then I have one more last question after that for you.
Right, well, the really I mean the big question I mean on the you know, sort of going off from the growth theme is how do we what should what are the policies that we need to develop you know, high productivity growth capitalism, right, not just you know growth per se, because you actually just had a lot of people labor force, like we're doing a immigration and you
know that gets you some growth right there. But no, we need you know, a dynamic period of rapid productivity growth that will then you know, allow for you know, the rise and living standards of the great majority of the population.
So how do we do that? Now?
I think, you know, I would argue, and I did in the book, and I think, uh, you know, certainly the people like Lauren Cass and so on, or are close to those some of those national conservatives would say, we do need to reform capitalive and change the way it works.
We do need an industrial.
Policy, We do need different policies toward the working class, and so on and so forth. If we're going to do this, we need different trade policies. So I think it's all a very healthy conversation. I'm not sure that anybody's really figured it out. I mean, you could argue, I mean the Democrats have made a big deal, for example, out of and it's true they have made a sort of break from what is loosely called neoliberalism. You know, it's kind of a very vexed term if this avariety
really knows what it means. But they're definitely doing something different. I mean, they're definitely changing their economic philosophy and the amount of money they spent, the so called investments they've made. I mean, it does represent a kind of industrial policy and a new new approach to American political economy. But that, as I've said many times, just because you know it's industrial policy doesn't mean it's the right kind of industrial policy.
Industrial policy is a long history in the United States. Some have been successful, some have not. In some ways, You've had an industrial policy practically ever since the founding, but it's done in different ways, and it's had differential effectiveness. So just because Democrats are willing to break with, you know, so called ioliberalism and do stuff that's different, doesn't mean it's necessarily going to work.
I mean, look at the whole.
A vector of things that supply side progressivism is concerned about it have essentially been untouched. We still have the same regulatory environment that we've had. We still have you know, it's still too damn hard to build stuff in the United States, and there's still all this crazy like climate you know, change overlay among all that policy, which just doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's not that's not
how you produce high productivity, high growth capitalism. It's the way you satisfy the various you know, lobbyists andos and now emerging economic interests that are very committed to this stuff. So so, but then on the Republican side, I mean, look, Orn guests can say whatever he wants, but what Trump does and what his administration does are probably going to be very different things.
And I'm not even saying Orn has figured it out.
Are people like him, but I think there they make interesting points in their serious thinkers, But I think the problem is a vehicle that they're in a sense attached to, you know. I mean, I think it's a real leap of faith that think. You know, if Trump gets in the next four years, we'll see a renaissance of you know, effective.
Policy thinking on economics, because I.
Just think the party is too fragment and disorganized and that's too many different strands of economic thinking in And then besides, it's going to be headed by Trump and you know.
What that means.
Well, one last broad question for you, Ruie. It's an old question I want to reask. You probably won't remember this, but I think if I have this right, about fifteen years ago, when I was an AI and you came over one day for a panel, right, and so that's you know, that's when Obama's in office, riding high and Donald Trump was not yet even a glimmer in Roger Stone's eye. And I asked you the following question. I
want to see and I remember your answer. I want to see if your answer is the same hour has changed.
You're holding me to it if I ever said what you you think I said.
This is funny.
The question was what are conservatives right about an issue or domain that liberals may not pursue very clearly?
And you gave me an interesting answer, and I want to reverse it on you also.
Do you remember well I.
Do not remember, but you bet you better tell me.
I'll tell you.
You said you said the family conservatives were right about the importance of the family, And I think maybe you had in mind sort of you know, sixties and seventies leftists who not necessarily the feminists but people who thought the family was like less important than something or other, and I thought, yeah, that.
Was all boloney. Yeah, well, the question I agree with myself.
Okay, I don't know if there's a is there a new issue you think conservatives are right about? Well, however, you understand conservatives these days?
Yeah, sure, Well, I mean I think there are a couple of obvious things to add to that that I probably wouldn't have said at the time because it was a different era. I mean, I think it's almost a little hard to remember how quickly the Democrats.
Have evolved from like old school.
Anti discrimination kind of liberalism to the kind of illiberalism we have today and the highly ideological approach to issues like race and gender. And you know, I mean back then, I mean you could actually envision Democratic politicians talking about law and order, talking about border security. But over that period between when you ask that question and today, the Democrats have evolved in such a way as a lot of issues are off the table. The whole language in
which you have to talk about things has changed. I mean, for one of a better word, wokeness of some variety. It's really taken over the Democratic Party. So conservatives criticize that.
All the time, and you know what, they're right, Well, they're just right about this.
The second thing, I'll add a second thing here, which I definitely over underestimated at the time and wasn't thinking about a lot. Was I do think that some of the criticisms of the excessive regulation of the economic system and the barriers that were to development in a lot of places and to economic dynamism were correct out all of it, because I think there was a certain let's just blow blow everything up kind of.
Attitude and regulation.
But the idea there was too much, particularly environmental domain, I think, is what is a sound criticism.
And I agree with a lot of conservatives on that.
Well, I know we have to let you go.
But the follow up question is I often ask conservative thought leaders what is the left right about or partially right about that we don't perceive. So I'll let you ask you what are conservatives not get that liberals believe that you think we conservatives have wrong or I'll just stop there.
Right.
Well, it's a little Yeah, it's hard for me with to do this, I think just because I'm too immersed in that world. But I do think that some conservatives don't really give liberals enough credit for you know, having some serious ideas about uh, you know, sort of how how economies work, the role of public investment, the role of trum, you know, the importance of the safety net. I mean, in a sense, I think they just think all liberals want to do is spend money, right, It's
just their thing. They're just like they're crazy that way. But there's actually a method to their madness. There's a rationale for it, and that's not completely crazy, and it does have a lot of historical backing, and in a way it's you know, it just one should assume good faith rather than bad fit. These people are just all
grifters and hustlers. There are people who are trying to seriously think about the way in which society can be better, and you know, then you know, it sort of bleeds eventually into not only what do I mean in a sense, it's not just what conservatives may don't understand that well enough about liberals, but this just gets to core political, economic, philosophical differences between conservatives and liberals, which get on my
soapbox here a little bit. I think we'd be much better off debating those fundamental questions, you know, and trying to figure out you know, here's your view, here's my view.
We got a little bit.
Different economic philosophy rather than you know, that's your tribe, this is my tribe. You know, you're a tool of state. No, you're a tool of Satan, you right, I mean, just disagreements, sir, and we did, like actually talk about them, because people to talk.
Can I get a little philosophical though?
Sure?
Absolutely I agree with that all that the policy debates are great, I like that, But there has to be a fundamental I guess agreement that that the future is going to be better than the past, that the American future is always something to look forward to.
Really is subtitle to his book.
I should have said that subtitle optimistic Leftists is why the twenty first century will be better than you think?
Yeah, and also but also think why today is better than you think?
And if you can't look at the world around you now and realize, oh, actually, the best day to be alive on the planet and the history of the planet is today, and tomorrow will probably be incrementally better than yester than today.
We used to have that.
That was the bedrock of every presidential campaign every national leadership fight, it was I've got a better future a plan for you than this guy.
But no one said, boy, are we in big trouble?
Boy is this are we a Nobody ever said, boy are we a nation of criminals who've stolen land and terrible and almost all those things?
Right? Hey, check your privilege, dude, you know right right where we're exactly.
But where where can we go to get that back? I mean, I hear a lot of that on the Republican side, a lot of the sort of doom constantly. I mean here, of course, that's that's the mantra of the Democratic Party, is their national anthem, which is that we suck, so to speak.
Where do you where do you go to get that back?
Well, that's a great question, you know, I think Steve will probably recall from my book, I was all over that whole general idea that we've lost our optimism, and related to that that people vastly underestimated.
How much better things are today than they used to be.
People didn't have much real understanding of the actual changes in living standards, that changes in you know, sort of discrimination whatever. I mean, like, actually, this is there's a lot of things that have been improved, and you have this, like and I wrote about this in that book, you have this bizarre situation where even though things are obviously better, I mean.
Obviously there's been rising inequality.
Okay, there's some problems here, but they've just they've taken leave of their senses in terms of understanding how most people live their lives in this great country of ours. And I used to be at the Economic Policy Institute, which fervently documents the underside of the American economy. And I and I was okay with that in the sense that I think, you know, they were Their data was solid.
There is an argument there to be made, there were problems, but the general, the general approach seemed to be denied that anything ever got better at any time. And I just thought that was whacking. I mean, most people, you know, believe in the American dream. They want the American dream to come true. They have optimism they will attain it, and you're not speaking to that. People want to believe
in the future. And if you're telling them, you know, not only is today terrible, the past was terrible, and the future is likely.
To be terriblen and the rising seas I mean this is.
Not how you I mean back to the issue of how you form a dominant coalition, right, You don't form a dominant coalition off of you know, that kind of approach. You really you unite people around their quests. Were a better tomorrow. This is not rocket science, you know, but.
That we have lost we have lost track of that.
And part of the mythology that underpins the incorrect approach is what you're alluding to wrong, that nothing ever gets better, you know, it's all it all sucks all the time. And besides, we stole the land from the Indians and there were slavery and stuff like that.
So it's the classic Walt Disney approach.
There's a bright, new, beautiful tomorrow, and I agree with that, and I agree with Rob at the same time, though, Yeah, I mean overall, yes, trends are up, things are great, all these you know, the arrows are pointing in the right direction.
It's great. But in the last four years, the light today twenty twenty four in my city is not better than it was in twenty nineteen.
Yeah.
The combination of COVID and the social violent street upheavals that ripple through the whole country after the death of George Floyd have made this an empirically provable worse place than it was before.
It's not unlivable. It's a beautiful place and I love living here, but it's not what it was before.
So telling people, actually, you know, things are better because life, expectancy, discrimination, et cetera, et cetera. These things are all getting better. That's true. That's a head thing. The hard thing and so many people in America is that there are corrupting elements. There are things that have just fallen apart from disuse or indifference, and that that optimism has to be measured with, you know, not to sit back, but roll up our sleeves and we have to figure.
Out that it's fair. I completely agree with that, and.
I agree with you you're saying before about how having policy discussions, but I don't think that right right now is having a policy discussion. Wants to have a discussion on the existence of the safety net. It is the nature of it and the knock on effects of it.
I mean, so we can have a discussion, for example, about what happened to the nuclear family in cities when the state stepped in and took the role of the fathers to say that is not to delegitimize the idea of having a safety net a welfare system to help the poor.
But we can't have that argument because.
That argument somehow turns into cultural hegemonism and a whole bunch of bad ideas that we're not supposed to say. In other words, what I mean is we need another well, we need another you lots of views, and we need another and we probably need another twelve hours. So we'd like you to commit to a series of marathon podcasts, right yeah.
All right, yeah, yeah, Okay, we'll figure it all out then we will.
But thank you for coming today. And I know we've taken a lot of your time and we want to take more of it more of it in the future as well. So the book, which everybody should now go out and read because you have an appetite for it, is Where have all the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes? Roy, thanks for being with us today, Hey.
Thanks for having me. It was a really fun discussion.
Yeah, great fun. And I know I did my typical thing there by making a speech in the form of a question and then get getting rid of the guests, so that I can have the I can have the illusion of the intellectual superiority and challenged just to hang in the air there family like a perfume. Before we go, though, we got a couple of things and one I'm going to hand off to Rob, which tells you that Ricochet is not just a bunch of guys yammering on a podcast.
It's human beings who what is that? Let's be honest, it is it is.
It is that.
But it's also human beings who get together and have fun and probably talk about anything except politics.
Yeah, you know, look, I mean the great thing about Ricochet is that it exists as a kind of a thing you can listen to, which was this, and we hope you enjoyed it.
And it also exists as a thing on the line, on the on the internets, which we hope you join. But it also exists. These are nice people and they want to get together. We have meetups.
Is a German Fest meetup in Milwaukee last weekend of this month, so actually it's this coming weekend, and then we have one schedule in Saint Louis in early October.
That's gonna be amazing too. Saint Louis a great city.
The way to do this is to show up, and if you can't make it to one of those, join Ricochet and put up a little note and say, hey, how about a meet up in my region at this date, at this time, and people will show up because Ricochet members won't get together and the last couple of meet us have gone to I think, and Perry may correct me, or Charlie may correct me. I think we talked about politics for like an hour an hour and a half.
We were in New Orleans, and there's a lot to talk about New Orleans, a lot to do in New Orleans. So it is a way to sort of like, you know, there's a big, wide world out there, and it's a lot about life that is not about politics, although you know I would.
There's another more fun that's sitting around with a bunch of people who are smart and funny talking about politics.
So there's that too, but no, we're more about more than that. So if you've enjoyed this podcast, join Ricochet and join us irl as a kid, say, and you never know who.
Will show up, because you never know who's out there in the Ricochet podcast audience, I mean audience podcast. I said, podcast. That's maybe the best word I'm going to use for us going forward, podcastic podcast. Steve, you're a music guy, and I know Rob is too, but I don't think of Rob as a music guy, which is I don't know what.
I don't know why.
Perhaps because we've never discussed it, or he's a show tunes guy.
You've never heard me singing. That's the thing.
We'll go to keep it that way.
So.
But I have talked back and forth with Stephen about various elements of pop music, the more cerebral elements, mind you, the progressive groups, the Italian progressive groups. I mean, you can have an we could have an hour long podcast, Steven and I quote about progressive influences in the seventies
and such. But Steve, let me ask you this. When you look back to the music of your youth, when you look back to the groups that you followed, were you one of those guys who noticed what kind of instruments they were playing.
Yes, in the case of a couple of semi obscure prog rock bands like Gentle Giant, they played like seventeen different instruments, the five of them in the band. By the way, progressive rock is Jody Boondam put it was rock and roll that went to college, yes, which I like, right, so right, yeah, I didn't pay attention to that.
I don't rock and roll that had pronouns, right.
I don't mean whether or not they had a fife and a sack butt. I mean whether what what kind Like that's a rickenbacker that he's flying. Yeah, that's what I mean.
Do you do you play an instrument, Steve?
No, My wife does several, but I don't.
James, you what do you play?
You play something?
Right, keyboards and guitar as a matter of fact, although nowadays it's mostly just pounding away on since and the rest of it. But I mentioned that because you know, in those days, it was incredibly important to know exactly what those guys were playing and what kind of sound they got out of it, and what I mean, like, there's my man, he's got a Gibson SG with a double cutaway. That's got that's that's got a certain sound reason, or he's got a strat and he's got a strat
with a twang bar. And then Elvis Costello shows up with the telecasters like what's with that weird little neck thing there. I only mentioned this because there's a Ricochet listener here in front of the podcast who sent me a song that he wrote and performed and did the video for too, And I'm looking at it and I'm saying, I remember Beck when you played a Gibson, and now
you here you are with us with a Fender. Anyway, the Guy's Blue Oyster Cult basically, I mean, I mean there are other members of it that, but you cannot have called without Buck Dharma. And when Buck Darma sends you a text and says, hey got a new new one the would you like to hear it? Yes, I would like to hear it. And I told him, well, first of all, my next Diner episode is sort of all about music and how the people that you meet change what you listen to. And I advise everybody to
listen to that because we're going to lead. You know, I realized I'm spoiled where that particular episode is going. But since we have more of a reach here, I want everybody to know that Buck Dharma's got a new
song out. It's called the End of Every Song, and it has this melancholic feeld with this of not just a song but the song being this civilizational project in which we all have such an investment, not that it's over, but that sometimes when you feel that there's something diminishing in the greater country around you, it's time to redouble your efforts to preserve and keep and reinflame those cities
of civilization. City's unflame with a rock and roll. So yes, we're going to go out with a song, and it's I advise everybody to go to YouTube and listen to it and admire the little video that he that he put together for it, and thank him for being a Ricochet listener, and thank all of you for being a Ricochet listener. And that doesn't mean that everybody has to send us a song and.
We'll play it, but you know it, that's what it means.
I'm sorry, Rob it right, Rob is right. Send us the song. We will play it.
After all, after seven to one hundred and one podcast, we're going to need something for the next seven hundred. So yeah, send us your songs, send us your reviews.
If you will, go to the Apple podcast thing or the spot of where wherever you get your podcasts and give us those five stars because it helps service that and of course as Rob, one of the founders, would tell you go to Ricochet and join go to the member side and find out the conversation of the community you've been looking for all your years on the interweb. I go there every day. I'll see you there, Stephens. Oh yes, Rob, go before we go yep.
Predictions because it's okay, we say this is Friday prediction one pm. Oh, who's what do we want? On going to choose for be her running mate?
A white guy?
Yeah?
Right, that's an easy part.
Is the first smart political move she's made in a long time.
Yeah, there's talk that she wants our guy here, the governor of Minnesota, Yeah, which I find interesting because he's I guess he's seen outside the state and outside the party, is just the most you know, white bread, kind of cool, smart, he's a teacher, he's got National Guard experience, to all the boxes. But I'm of the opinion that I think probably Minnesota is going to go for her anyway, and so the enticement of the locals wouldn't be that great.
So I don't know what he brings to the ticket necessarily.
Hmm, we'll see. I don't know.
I have I mentioned that to my wife the other day, and she thought that I was that I was just huffing tester's glued from a plastic sack.
It's like, what are you kidding me? I said, no, you're seriously being considered.
And then I had to show with the stories, and she once again realized that she should listen to me in our household.
And my guess is.
It'll be Roy Cooper from North Carolina. People say Shapiro, but I've said this before. I don't think today's Democratic Party can tolerate a Jewish running mate.
And isn't that a strange thing to say? Yes, well, it could be Shapiro, but unfortunately the party hasn't.
Unfortunately, yeah, right, who again, the parties have switched a lot that was that was definitely a Republican theme in the well forever, well including now, except for later.
I don't know.
I think Mark Kelly, I'm gonna say a bailon.
Yeah, that's the other possibility.
Astronaut, you know, veteran, you know.
All right, So all right, so just to our producer, we've we've done that. Now let's redo it and do all the other names, and then you can cut in the one.
And she choosers. Yeah, here's me.
We'll just drop in the correct one.
Yeah, here's me, three two one. I know you're gonna think it's crazy, but I'm pulling for Tim Walltz. I think it's just gonna happen. Okay, so drop that in and then we'll do.
You have to say things like, here's what I'm hearing, James, Well, James, what I'm hearing.
What I'm hearing.
Yeah, well, I don't know what you're hearing, but here's what I'm hearing. As if we're hearing anything. That's what every reporter always sys. It drives me insane. Here's what I'm hearing. You're not hearing anything. You're on Twitter like everybody else.
But we're still live. Yeah we are still never mind, never mind, never mind. We'll see all the comments, said Ricochet for a point, but bye. The fire is.
Out and spent the warth barol. This is the end of every song man sings the golden wine drunk. The dregs remain.
As bitter as worm wood and salt as pain.
This cisy hell over res.
This sisy.
Resound, see yellow resol.
And help and hope have gone away of love into the dream oblivion of most things goes to go along with us until the end. This was a loved woman, This perhaps a friend.
Cyri City, sizy Sele.
With pail and indifferent eyes, we sit and wait for the drop curtain and the closing gait. M. S. S.
Ricochet joined the conversation.