0:05

What are we recording? Yeah,

0:08

yeah, yeah, what

0:11

the episode started? Now, I was,

0:13

I was, I was going to say something something

0:15

to do with Texas. But to be honest, you

0:18

know, why, why why do we do

0:20

this? Why do we let ourselves, you know, get

0:22

famous for for for saying

0:24

a particular bit and then just keep repeating

0:26

it over and over again. Are we so creatively

0:29

bankrupt that there's there's nothing else

0:31

we can do but repeat our greatest hits in

0:34

order to recapture some of the

0:36

some of the the excitement that we

0:38

felt as younger men. Anyway,

0:42

my co hosts on this episode,

0:45

James Stout and me along, welcome

0:47

to it could happen here.

0:51

Hi, rob It. I'm glad you're doing so well.

0:53

We're all doing great. James, You've

0:55

just been having a searing emotional experience

0:58

at the border. Yeah mm

1:00

hm. And everyone else is busy living

1:02

in the United States, which is its own searing

1:04

emotional experience.

1:06

Man.

1:06

Today, today

1:09

we're going to be talking about the both the

1:11

most and least American state, Texas.

1:15

Huzzah, Yeah,

1:18

love you. Yeah,

1:20

who here has spent a lot of time in Texas.

1:22

Garrison, you lived in the Dallas area, right.

1:26

A lot that I I've made my visit to

1:28

Texas over the years with you, even

1:31

in the murder House.

1:32

You and I have quaffed many

1:34

a shiner bock together, James

1:37

Many. Okay, I guess we'll

1:39

move into the fucking episode. So uh,

1:42

there was a There was a an

1:44

email sent out by Texas Democrats

1:46

dot Org recently with the title

1:49

Texas moves from solid red to battleground.

1:52

Sure, you know, like clockwork.

1:55

A lot of Democrats got very excited,

1:58

and I made

2:00

a couple of people made posts being like, hey,

2:03

this is the same thing that happens every single

2:05

election. They are never right. Texas

2:08

is never a battleground and it always

2:10

costs an insane amount of money. It is a con

2:13

by DC political consultants

2:15

to get your money and pump it into

2:17

something that will fill up their

2:20

coffers and not achieve anything

2:22

of value for the state of Texas

2:24

or for the Democrats nationwide. And this makes

2:27

people very angry for two

2:29

reasons. One, they tend to interpret it as saying abandon

2:31

Texas and the people there, which is not the

2:34

statement I was making or anyone else was

2:36

making. And number two, everyone

2:38

kind of obsessively starts pointing out

2:41

like, look, look at how over the last

2:43

thirty years, you know, the things

2:45

have narrowed in Texas and

2:47

the proportion of like

2:49

Democratic votes is raised. This

2:52

is winnable. We can do it. We can do it. We're

2:55

going to talk today about why

2:58

anyone who talks to you about flipping Texas

3:01

as a political goal that you should give money

3:03

to is conning you, and

3:05

not only conning you, but making it actually

3:08

more difficult for Democrats

3:10

to win, both in Texas and nationwide. That's

3:12

that's that's the premise of the episode, everybody.

3:15

Here's here's how Bernie can still win. Though

3:18

at the very end we will give you.

3:20

Yeah, We're gonna let you know he's got

3:22

a shot. Look, look if

3:24

he if he is capable of putting another

3:27

three rounds of six point

3:29

five into a dinner plate

3:31

sized target at one hundred and fifty yards,

3:37

now that was a that was anyway,

3:40

he'd have to shoot a lot of people to make.

3:42

He's going to deploy bought a joy into

3:44

a.

3:48

Name, absolutely

3:51

not.

3:54

Person. So I want

3:57

to talk about this because I find it, like

3:59

I think people tend to interpret

4:02

this. I've certainly gotten accused of like, oh, you're

4:04

just kind of being like a nihilist. This

4:06

is you're being you know, just an anti electoralist.

4:08

You're not being practical. There was a there

4:11

was one particular guy who's like a local

4:13

Democratic candidate who responded

4:15

seven times to my tweet being like

4:18

with variations, and his obsession

4:21

was like, if we win Texas, it's impossible

4:23

for the GOP to win national elections,

4:25

which is true. If theoretically the Democrats

4:27

flipped Texas, the GOP would

4:30

have no chance at winning a federal election ever.

4:32

Again.

4:32

Yeah, and so simultaneous to this,

4:35

right, if the Republican there are more Republicans

4:37

in California than there are basically any other state in

4:39

the Union, and if the Republicans won California,

4:41

they would they would win every election forever.

4:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, happen. Not

4:45

going to happen. I mean, it's it's one of those things.

4:48

I am not saying Texas will never

4:50

be a blue state. You

4:53

know, that is something that is possible, even

4:55

likely, given enough time. What I

4:57

am saying, the argument that I'm making here,

5:00

and I'll provide you with evidence, is that

5:02

number one, focusing on these

5:04

elections from the top down and when you're saying,

5:06

we want to flip Texas. That's a top

5:08

down approach, right. You are not focusing

5:11

on we want to fill up

5:13

and win a bunch of different local elections.

5:15

We want to flip, you know, the state houses.

5:17

We want to flip a bunch of mayoralties

5:19

and stuff. You are saying,

5:22

what matters is how Texas votes

5:24

in the national election. And

5:27

if you were to get if you were to kind of

5:29

eke out a bear like in Georgia

5:32

right where you get a narrow victory

5:34

in the federal election, that would be great for the Democratic

5:36

Party. One of my issues with it

5:39

is that kind of focusing obsessively on flipping

5:41

Texas isn't focusing on the

5:43

stuff that actually will help Texans, like Texans

5:46

currently being targeted by the state government,

5:48

because flipping the state in a federal

5:50

election, but not taking the governor's

5:52

seat, not taking the lieutenant governor seat, not

5:55

like actually taking the state

5:58

house, doesn't improve life

6:00

for people in Texas. I think the

6:02

kind of the degree to which the federal government,

6:05

Biden's administration, has been unable

6:08

to push back very effectively

6:10

against kind of a lot of the shit that DeSantis has

6:12

been doing in Florida. You

6:14

know, they have started to make some attempts. Is

6:16

evidence of this, and kind of more to

6:19

the point, even if you don't agree with that, fundamentally,

6:22

these strategies that the Democratic Party

6:24

has embraced in Texas do not work.

6:27

The Texas Democratic Party is

6:29

incompetent. They are bad at their

6:32

job. They are worse. People bring up Georgia

6:34

a lot when I talk about flipping Texas, and folks

6:36

are like, well, we flipped Georgia, And it's like, yeah,

6:38

because the state

6:41

elected officials and candidates in George

6:43

number one, the state party did a much

6:45

better job of kind of harvesting

6:48

is a weird way to phrase it, but of incubating

6:51

talent to run for election in a

6:54

number of local offices then the Texas

6:56

Democratic Party has ever done. And

6:59

that was a big part of what allowed them

7:01

to be competitive and eventually to flip

7:03

the state. There's a lot

7:06

of like kind of dollar sign

7:08

information on how bad the state

7:10

party in Texas is at this shit, and

7:13

I guess I should go ahead and provide some of

7:15

that now. So

7:17

in the twenty twenty two election,

7:20

the midterms famously an

7:22

unusually good showing for the Democratic

7:25

Party nationwide for

7:27

a midterm election everywhere

7:29

but Texas. O'Rourke ran

7:31

against Greg Abbott. He lost by

7:33

eleven percent. This

7:35

is kind of to contrast the election that got everyone

7:38

excited when he was running against Cruise. I

7:40

think they were like three percent apart. And

7:43

again, the only reason there was this kind of

7:45

mistaken belief and excitement among dims

7:48

that O'Rourke, because he was so

7:50

close to Cruz, had a real shot of winning Texas.

7:53

No, he got kinda close to beating

7:55

Cruz because Ted even Republicans

7:58

hate Ted Cruz. No one is ever liked

8:00

that man. His own wife can barely stand

8:02

to be in a room with him. His political

8:04

allies would turn the other cheek if

8:06

fucking somebody anyway, we shouldn't

8:09

talk about political assassinations on this podcast.

8:11

It wouldn't anger anybody though,

8:13

right. Lindsay Graham has said that, like Lindsay

8:16

Graham's like, what maybe the only

8:18

good joke a Republican elected officials ever told

8:20

is that if you were to shoot Ted Cruz

8:23

on the floor of Congress and

8:25

the trial was held in Congress, like

8:28

nobody would vote to convict the murderer

8:32

anyway. So Beto lost

8:34

quite badly to Greg Abbott and beyond

8:36

that, basically every statewide

8:39

candidate that the Democrats ran lost

8:42

in that election. It was a bad election

8:44

for the Democratic Party and people

8:46

who pay attention to Texas politics

8:48

and actually like aren't just trying to

8:50

like grift your donation money.

8:52

Know this.

8:52

Joel Montfort, a Democratic consultant in

8:55

North Texas said, quote, it's been one

8:57

election after another where we ramp everybody up

8:59

and set these xpectations that we're going to finish

9:01

in first and then we finish in second. I

9:03

don't see any indication that we can win at state wide

9:05

levels or won't continue to bleed house seats

9:07

to the other party.

9:10

I love these to finish in second.

9:12

There is if there's like a podium on election

9:14

libertarians.

9:19

Yeah, the text Democratic Party

9:22

to take the l to like giald Stein.

9:24

Yeah, there were some kind of site.

9:26

There were some wins by Democrats

9:28

in Texas. They managed to hold onto two out

9:30

of three seats congressional seats

9:33

in the battleground regions in South Texas,

9:36

but they still lost one. They did

9:38

what they did, still lose one, and

9:41

you know, the GOP had to spend a lot of money

9:43

to do that. But like one of the one of the points

9:46

is that so they they held onto two of those seats,

9:48

and they won a contested seat in the suburbs

9:50

of Dallas. Uh.

9:52

And you know, like but basically

9:54

in all of these areas, Uh, these

9:56

were like super narrow wins, like these

9:59

the big successes, and they were

10:01

narrow wins in areas that Joe Biden

10:03

had carried by double digits two years ago. And

10:05

Joe Biden is a historically like that is

10:08

part of some of them. Some of it will show you how bad the Texas

10:10

Democratic Party is. Joe Biden is not a popular

10:12

president, and the fact that he carried a

10:15

lot of these areas by more than

10:17

the candidates who narrowly won in twenty twenty

10:19

two could is not a great sign

10:21

for the way things are trending.

10:23

Yeah, It's probably also worth pointing out

10:25

that like those southern Texas seats, like in

10:27

the Rio Grande Valley, right, like, yeah,

10:30

those people are normally Democrats. Yeah, but you have guys

10:32

like Henry is it Quella Quala,

10:34

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, who is opposed

10:37

to abortion rights are yeah yeah

10:39

and extremely hawkish on the border,

10:41

and like yeah, yeah, what do we

10:43

gain by having like, yeah, blue team good,

10:46

Like not really if this person's going to take away

10:48

your bodily autonomy and brutalize people

10:50

for coming to this country for one day about

10:52

a life.

10:53

Yeah, it's it's like a lot of the some

10:55

of these wins are kind of like marginal

10:57

at best, given the compromises or

10:59

just given the kind of Democrats who can win it. It's

11:01

like a Joe Manchin kind of situation. Yeah,

11:04

exactly. And more to the point,

11:06

like it's

11:08

not only is this like evidence

11:11

kind of that the Democrats strategy isn't isn't

11:13

working. It's not simply that they tried something and it failed.

11:16

They tried something and it was so expensive

11:19

that it stopped them from trying things

11:21

in other areas where the money could have

11:23

gone better. For example of how fucking wasteful,

11:25

particularly the Beto wort campaign was. Right, he

11:28

loses by eleven points to Greg Abbot. He

11:30

raised seventy seven million dollars

11:32

to lose by that much. A few

11:35

years earlier, Lupe Valdez ran

11:37

against Greg Abbot. She spent raised

11:39

like two million dollars and lost by

11:42

thirteen points, So seventy

11:44

five million dollars may have

11:46

bought Beto two percent. You

11:48

know, like if you assume that national trends had

11:51

nothing to do with that gap closing by a tiny

11:53

amount, Like.

11:54

With seventy five million dollars, I

11:56

could take control of a moderate at least is

11:58

Texas City.

12:00

Yeah that is like, yeah, I could

12:02

buy my chunk of Texas specific

12:04

Like you could purchase a large

12:07

chunk of Fort Worth with that much money. No, yeah,

12:10

that's how I'll go here at cools the own media.

12:12

Yeah, yeah, to own fort Worth. Finally

12:14

my dream completed. I'll be able

12:16

to be I'm gonna

12:18

buy those horse statues that los kalitas.

12:21

Finally be happy.

12:23

Let's get blucifer as well. It's probably

12:25

a good time to pivot to ads that help us

12:27

pay for a piece of food.

12:28

Sure, yeah, you know, who isn't a waste

12:30

of money these fucking ads.

12:44

So overall, we just talked

12:46

about it. You know, Beto raised seventy seven

12:48

million dollars. The gubernatorial race cost

12:50

in total something like one hundred and forty million dollars,

12:53

which is a huge amount of

12:56

money for something that fails that badly

12:58

and doesn't there's no evidence that Beto's

13:00

campaign, like he was he's obviously

13:02

good at fundraising, right, And

13:05

there was kind of this belief among a lot of dims,

13:07

an errant belief that this meant that he would

13:09

be good for down ballot races. Right, He's going to bring

13:11

the entire because of how much attention he gets. He's going

13:13

to raise the entire Democratic Party up. The poor

13:15

showing of the Democratic Party in Texas in twenty

13:17

twenty two suggests that that's not the case.

13:20

And the money like there are there are

13:22

fights that could have been won and

13:24

probably weren't because the money wasn't

13:26

being invested in those fights.

13:29

It was going to bettle. And I'm gonna quote from an article by the

13:31

Texas Tribune here. This year,

13:33

the party ran Rochelle Garza, a civil

13:35

rights lawyer with little political experience, against

13:37

Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was widely

13:39

seen as the most vulnerable Republican incumbent.

13:42

But Garza struggled to raise money or gain

13:44

traction in Auric's shadow and lost

13:46

by ten percentage points against Paxton, who

13:48

has been indicted on felony security fraud

13:50

charges and is being investigated by the FBI

13:53

for abuse of office accusations. And

13:56

it's what maybe she couldn't have won

13:58

no matter what you did. But one of the rules

14:00

of politics in this country is

14:02

that the money you spend at a

14:04

big race, like a gubernatorial race, like

14:06

a like a like a Senate or a congressional

14:08

campaign at the federal level, like a presidential

14:11

campaign, goes

14:13

less far per dollar than the money you spend

14:16

in smaller local elections. Right,

14:18

ten million bucks going into

14:20

that election might have done something, you

14:23

know, as opposed to seventy five million

14:25

going into Bedo O'Rourke and accomplishing

14:28

very little. This has been not

14:31

just a problem in Texas in previous

14:33

elections, throughout the Trump area and a little

14:35

before in particular, this was a problem

14:38

the DIMS had kind of from the middle of the Obama

14:40

years until the last couple

14:43

of like really the last midterm at twenty

14:45

eighteen is when it started to turn around nationally, and

14:47

the DIMS have learned a lot in other

14:50

regions about like not spending stupid

14:53

amounts of money on hopeless contests,

14:56

but not like comprehensively.

15:00

Example, in twenty twenty two, the second most

15:02

expensive house race was the fourteenth

15:04

Congressional District of Georgia, where Marcus

15:06

Flowers raised sixteen million

15:08

dollars and lost by thirty two points,

15:12

not a great return on the investment.

15:16

And it was like, the reason why he raised

15:18

so much money is because he was running against Marjorie

15:20

Taylor Green and nationally, DIMS outside of

15:22

Georgia wanted to put in money because they

15:24

hate her. And it's a trend that relies a lot on social

15:26

media on kind of the way in which

15:29

like hardcore dims, the dims

15:31

that do a lot of the small dollar donations

15:34

think about politics where it's like Marjorie

15:36

Taylor Green bad donate money to opponent,

15:39

Well, her opponent had no chance of winning in

15:41

that district, Like no amount of money would

15:43

have flipped that, and you just wasted sixteen

15:45

million dollars that could have helped somewhere

15:47

else. Like maybe that's an

15:49

insane thing and it's not as bad

15:52

as it used if you want to look at like the

15:54

like the kind of the dumbest it ever was. In

15:56

twenty twenty, so

15:59

Lindsay Graham's seat was up in South

16:01

Carolina and Jamie Harrison

16:04

ran against Lindsay Grant and dims again because Lindsay

16:06

Graham evil, you know, raised one

16:08

hundred and thirty million dollars and he

16:10

lost fight ten points. Amy

16:13

McGrath lost to Mitch McConnell, who

16:15

is another Like you can always get a shitload of money

16:17

to fight Mitch McConnell ninety four

16:19

million dollars lost by twenty points

16:22

either of the like one hundred and thirty million,

16:24

ninety four million, that's two state legislators.

16:27

You could have flipped, or at least made progress

16:29

on flipping, right, Like that amount

16:31

of money could potentially do that or at least

16:33

help set up, you know, get a

16:35

couple of people elected who have a chance at kind

16:37

of broadening a base of support and becoming

16:40

you know, leaders in states that are

16:42

currently like dominated by red

16:44

legislators, Like there's a chance

16:46

at least here.

16:48

And that like specifically the state legislature.

16:50

Thing is this has been a

16:52

problem with the Democrats for fucking

16:55

ages, which is that they just yet like it

16:57

is only genuinely in the last

17:00

years the Democrats are started giving a ship about

17:02

state legislatures, like and this is this is one of the things

17:04

from the Obama era, Like one of the reasons everything sucks

17:06

so much is that the Democrats managed to lose,

17:09

Like, oh god, I forget.

17:11

It was like they I think I think the total they lost

17:13

like a thousand seats. It was like

17:17

yeah, and and and you know, on the we were seeing

17:20

the product of this right like this like like Wisconsin

17:22

was sort of just a hell hole for the last

17:25

decade. Uh and you know, I mean

17:27

like and these are like Minnesota to like the like there

17:29

are lots of these states that like that,

17:32

like not Minnesota or am I talking about Michigan?

17:35

Yeah, Michigan.

17:36

Yeah, And there's a lot of these stats and you know, like and both of these

17:38

places were winnable right, like

17:40

like they're like the Democrats are winning there now, right,

17:43

but they just like fucking left,

17:46

like you know, they they they fucking

17:48

left Flint to get poisoned by lead because

17:50

they just not like the only the only things that the problem

17:52

is there's there's no money for consultants in

17:55

in sort of like downbout like state and like local

17:57

races just just jack ship, right, and the Democrat

18:00

the Democrat Party like is not run

18:02

by sort of like it's it's not a

18:04

party in like an actual real sense. It is a it

18:06

is a collection of consultants, and those consultants

18:08

only care about senates about Senate races. Sometimes

18:10

they care about house races, and they care specifically they

18:13

spend all of their fucking money in presidential races.

18:16

And you know, it's like again, and the Republicans don't

18:18

do that because they have a bunch of like people

18:21

they you know, because they have a bunch of like part

18:23

of their base, right is these like small

18:25

and mid scale capitalists in you

18:28

know, in cities, in rural areas who have like

18:30

immediate concerns about like, you know, there's

18:32

like there there are specific workers

18:34

who they want like lives to be worse. And

18:36

so because of that, the Republican machine is like seize

18:38

the entire fucking country. And the Democrats

18:41

have been sitting around like spending

18:44

like a trillion dollars on Wendy Davis

18:46

losing by twenty points.

18:49

Yeah, yeah, And it's like

18:51

you get these you

18:54

get these like cases where you know,

18:56

you're looking at thirty million being spent, you

18:58

know, failing to uns seat Marjorie

19:01

Taylor Green or somebody thirty three million something

19:03

like that. But

19:06

what you don't like, at the same

19:08

time as like that's happening, is all of these massive

19:11

amounts of money are being devoted to these, like to

19:13

the races that get attention because there's famous

19:15

names involved. You have, like in twenty

19:18

twenty I think it was you have or

19:21

no, it's twenty twenty two. You have the

19:23

election between Ted Budd, a

19:26

Republican against the Democrat Sherry Beasley

19:28

in North Carolina where

19:30

the Democratic Party decided

19:32

not to prioritize this election because it wasn't

19:35

winnable, and then Bud

19:37

won up wound up winning by just four points. That's

19:39

a seat you can flip with money. That's

19:42

not an unreasonable thing as opposed to again,

19:44

the races where it went to and people are losing by like

19:46

thirty something fucking percent. And

19:49

if you want to know who a serious candidate

19:53

is, who is not just trying to do the sexy

19:55

thing or not just trying to like again flip

19:57

the states so that we can win the federal election, but

20:00

actually wants to help their state. And this is again there's

20:02

very nice things about Beto O'Rourke.

20:05

I was in Texas during the ice storm.

20:07

He did good work during the ice storm, like

20:09

actual community defense

20:12

kind of stuff that I do have some respect

20:14

for. He is not and has never been a serious

20:17

politician, and I will tell you why he went

20:19

from winning an election to losing

20:21

a state election against Ted Cruz,

20:24

to losing a

20:27

presidential race to losing the governor seat.

20:29

That is so fucking scattershot. That

20:32

is not building a base of power, That is

20:34

not building from the ground up and

20:36

like encouraging the growth of other personalities.

20:39

You're just darting from whatever the sexiest

20:41

and most like pr driven race

20:43

is. That's not serious.

20:55

I want to talk about what number

20:58

one, the Democratic Party,

21:00

the ship that like, as we've said, they're getting

21:02

better. The National Party got a lot better at

21:04

this, particularly in twenty twenty two. It was

21:07

less stupid than the previous couple of

21:09

elections had been.

21:10

Really difficult to be more dumb than that. But you know

21:13

it is British British

21:15

labor et cetera, et cetera. Labor

21:18

actually is the big one. Oh my fuck.

21:23

I want to talk what has what has

21:25

worked, and what I think could work again.

21:28

And to do that, I'm going to talk about a guy named

21:30

Howard Dean, who here knows who

21:32

Howard Dean was? Garrison simply

21:35

yeah a little bit.

21:37

Have you?

21:37

Have you all heard the video of him screaming that gotten

21:39

like his career is

21:42

before. Okay, well, James,

21:45

would you load that up for us so we could play that in a second

21:47

to the Deans. Coward,

21:50

Jamie, pull it up. Howard.

21:53

Howard Dean ran

21:55

for president and was He was the first

21:58

national political candidate to use

22:00

the internet effectively to raise money

22:03

in the in the history of US politics.

22:06

He's kind of pre Obama. Worked out

22:08

a lot of the strategies that Obama's people wound

22:10

up using to very successfully raise money for him. He

22:12

was really good at it. He was a

22:14

reasonably intelligent candidate. And

22:17

then he gave the speech that we're about

22:19

to play for you, and it completely created

22:21

his and ended him as a as a candidate.

22:24

You know, I always says the thing about Dean.

22:26

Dean is stunningly unlucky that he

22:28

ran in the time that he did, because

22:31

the clip you're about to hear is

22:33

one thousand times less weird

22:36

than anything DeSantis has ever done. Like

22:38

he he ran in it. I mean there

22:40

was there was dan Quayle, right, but like he

22:43

ran in an era where like the seriousness

22:45

and like non weirdness

22:47

of politicians was so much higher.

22:49

I mean, it's in the chat so you can.

22:53

Up. This is a good shit straight to that beautiful

22:55

scream.

22:56

We're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma

22:59

and Arizona.

23:00

In North Dakota and New Mexico.

23:02

We're going to California and Texas

23:04

and New York.

23:05

We're going to South Dakota and Oregon and

23:08

Washington.

23:08

And Michigan, and then we're

23:10

going to Washington, d C. To take back in the White

23:13

House.

23:17

That's it. That ended his career as

23:19

a candidate. And

23:22

like it's a little silly, but

23:24

that doesn't that doesn't that wouldn't

23:26

be a twelve second news cycle today.

23:30

But after kind of failing

23:32

out as a presidential candidate, he became

23:34

chairman of the DNC, the Democratic

23:37

National Committee, and he was a pretty

23:39

good one. His kind

23:41

of primary strategic vision was

23:43

what he called the fifty state strategy, which

23:46

is, don't focus just on swing states,

23:49

never write a state off at unwinnable.

23:51

Instead, spread the money that the DNC

23:53

has around two campaign throughout the country

23:56

everywhere, particularly to fund local

23:58

dncs, so that they can start building

24:00

a stable of candidates that can attract

24:02

voters and eventually win local

24:04

elections. It's not like an

24:07

easy It's not a sexy strategy because

24:09

a lot of it is focused on like the slow, kind

24:11

of grueling fight to build up a

24:13

base of support and unfriendly terrain.

24:17

But it worked like really well.

24:19

Actually in twenty

24:22

or so states, those that had voted solidly

24:24

Republican in private previous recent

24:26

presidential races, Democratic candidates

24:29

like won elections that had previously

24:32

like in the like gone against them

24:35

like it had.

24:35

Like.

24:36

There were about like twenty states where

24:38

it the kind of slide to red

24:41

was arrested and pushed back to blue. These

24:43

are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas,

24:45

Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana,

24:48

Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North

24:50

Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South

24:52

Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah,

24:55

West Virginia, and Wyoming. Special

24:59

list of yeah, there

25:01

we go. So basically,

25:03

Deans strategy led to a net gain of

25:05

thirty nine state House seats and

25:08

a two percent increase of all seats in

25:10

the states analyzed. They

25:12

lost two, you know, state Senate

25:15

seats net, but it worked great in the House

25:18

and gained an attorney generalship,

25:21

gained three House seats, gained a Senate seat,

25:24

and in fifteen of the twenty seats the Democratic

25:26

nominees on increase in vote share between

25:28

two thousand and four and two thousand and eight, which was the years

25:31

that so again not super

25:33

sexy. These aren't like we flipped Texas

25:35

suddenly, but it's like, oh, we started to see

25:37

real gains and like a lot

25:40

of pretty red states. Now

25:43

it didn't work everywhere. It was not particularly

25:45

successful in a large chunk of the South,

25:48

like it did not arrest the slide into the red

25:50

everywhere. But in a lot of the Midwest,

25:52

particularly the states that were like the Hillary

25:54

Clinton so called firewall that went for Trump

25:56

in twenty twenty, it was extremely

25:59

effective. And of course it got mixed immediately

26:02

after Obama won election,

26:04

and this is a big part of why in twenty ten the

26:07

dims lost disastrously. But

26:09

like the basic idea of we should

26:11

be putting money into local democratic

26:14

parties in order to like

26:17

number one, have like a big part

26:19

of winning any conflict,

26:21

whether it's a war or a political election, is

26:24

having the resources available reserves

26:27

to take advantage of opportunities

26:29

that present themselves in the moment. So you

26:31

have a solidly read state

26:34

house seat or judge ship or

26:36

something like that, or governorship or

26:38

mayor mayoralty, and

26:41

a candidate has a health

26:43

scare or has a scandal, you know, they get

26:45

caught fucking a thirteen year old or something,

26:48

and suddenly this seat that was solidly

26:50

read is in play. And if

26:52

you have no one who can like

26:54

get votes, who can get voters excited, who can run

26:56

for that, well, then you're probably not gonna

26:58

win it. It's just going to like go to whoever the RNC

27:01

you know, picks to pick up the seat

27:03

next. But if you've got someone waiting

27:05

in the wings, they have a chance at winning it. And a good

27:07

example of this is what just happened in Jacksonville,

27:09

Florida. Right you have DeSantis

27:12

make go like lunge

27:14

to the fucking most fascist end

27:16

of the right and pass this abortion build

27:18

that something like seventy five percent of the state doesn't

27:21

like. And the Dims had a decent

27:24

candidate there that was able to run against

27:26

the Republican mayor of Jacksonville and

27:28

win. And in that election, the dim

27:30

spent two million and the Republicans spent

27:32

nine million. You were not talking about the kind

27:34

of resources expended that you're seeing in some of

27:36

these dumb races we're talking about. So anyway,

27:40

like this is most of what I wanted to get into.

27:42

Is just like you can win and you

27:44

can improve things in Texas and you can build

27:46

a base from which to actually change

27:48

things electorally in that state, but you

27:50

can't do it by just like focusing on whoever

27:53

is at the top. Like it has to be smarter.

27:55

It's not just about shoveling money into a pit.

27:58

Yeah, And like I think there's there's a couple of things that

28:01

wants to add. One was that like oh

28:03

god, okay, Like so Tim

28:06

Kye, Yeah, Tim Kaine got

28:08

put in after they ran out Dean and

28:12

Jesus, like Tim Kane might be is

28:14

a is like a once in a generation

28:17

terrible politician, like one

28:19

of the worst, you know, but.

28:21

Like like you would see ship like he

28:23

is the Winston Churchill of making me

28:26

bored.

28:26

Like yeah, like like like you would

28:28

see I mean, and this still happens, right, but like there

28:30

are there are seats that are winnable that

28:33

the Dems like just literally won't

28:35

even bother finding people to run

28:37

for because they're just fucking too lazy and they don't

28:39

give a shit. And you know this this

28:42

happens if this happens in a fucking lot of races,

28:44

and you know, and part part of the other thing that that happens

28:47

in this sort of period that like, you know, is the reason

28:49

why the top down is okay. So this is like if

28:51

if we're gonna actually do this sort of like complicated

28:54

electoralism, like this is why Bernie Sanders lost

28:56

two elections in a row, is that you

28:58

can't actually like

29:01

like actual sort of like substantive political

29:03

change like doesn't happen from the

29:05

top down. It's it's like it

29:07

happens on bottom up organizing. And you know, the the

29:10

democratic waves in like the last two

29:12

years were basically like them

29:14

eating actual social movements. It's

29:17

you know, like they it's it's them basically like

29:19

they're there. There's a sort of rejuvenated anti abortion

29:21

movement that they just sort of consume. Right,

29:24

They've been doing a very very good job

29:26

of sort of like eating like whatever sort

29:29

of queer rights like movements exist alive.

29:32

And they had kind of stopped doing that for

29:34

a while because they chose to just like destroy occupy

29:36

whether rather than like try to co opt it. Yea,

29:39

And you know, I mean there were reasons for that, right, but

29:43

like part of part of the thing like if if you if

29:45

if you're a Democrat and you want to actually

29:47

like win Texas, you need to have

29:49

like actual you to have actual

29:52

sort of social movements that you

29:54

know, the Democrats can eventually take over and destroy but in

29:57

the time between they destroy them destroying

29:59

them and then and you know, like

30:01

like in the brief time while they both exist

30:03

and are control by Democratic Party, that's how you actually

30:06

sort of like build the kinds

30:08

of the build the kinds of coalitions to build the kinds of organization

30:10

that win these races. And the Democratic

30:12

Party has just no interest in doing that

30:15

like almost anywhere basically outside

30:17

of Minnesota, where I

30:19

don't know, those in

30:22

the Minnesota devs are fucking built different.

30:24

I don't, I don't, I don't know, I don't. I don't have another explanation

30:26

for that, but like, yeah,

30:29

it's I don't know, it's

30:31

it's.

30:32

It's like one of the things

30:34

that you have the opportunity to do at the

30:36

local level is and this

30:38

is you know, this is a big factor in like, uh

30:41

politics in Georgia. You've got people

30:43

who are motivated because of a specific

30:45

political issue that Dems are strong on, like

30:47

abortion, and you

30:50

can you can get people registered,

30:52

you can get people out organizing,

30:54

you can get people donating money, and more most

30:56

important that you can get people voting and

30:59

voting in numbers that they haven't before

31:02

and make if

31:04

you're able to kind of harness that sort of thing. But being

31:06

able to harness that, again, part of it

31:08

is this is not sexy. This is not something

31:11

we can say this is going to flip a state in twenty

31:13

twenty four. But putting in the money

31:15

and the resources to have people

31:17

who are being supported to go out

31:20

and make attempts and to build like

31:22

a reputation and a base of support and

31:24

networks in the state. Like, that's

31:28

the non sexy thing that the

31:30

number one the Republicans are really good at.

31:32

If you're asking yourself looking at all these horrible

31:35

anti trans bills, anti gay bills,

31:37

anti abortion bills, how do they do

31:39

this well? Because church is organized

31:42

at the local level to build

31:44

up the kind of support and the

31:46

kind of human infrastructure that

31:48

allowed them to take advantage of

31:51

the kind of broader social trends

31:53

that drove some of those states more deeply read

31:56

and that kind of like made made it possible

31:58

for them to do things that ten years before people had

32:00

said, like there's no way to make this happen. That

32:03

can work on the left side of things, but

32:05

you have to have the groundwork

32:07

in They started with like school boards. Yeah,

32:10

they started.

32:10

They started with going after school boards, going after books.

32:12

Then you get up base people riled up that you can go

32:14

after healthcare for miners, and you can go after

32:17

health care for adults. It was a very easy path,

32:19

and it started by like going to the most

32:21

accessible places to have public

32:24

comment on issues, which was complaining about

32:26

books inside of school Yeah.

32:28

Yeah, yeah. And another thing I'd

32:30

say about the church thing is like the thing

32:33

that you used to do that for the Democrats was unions, but then

32:35

they destroyed them all. And but you know, but

32:37

like you can actually you can actually see what this looks like

32:39

like in the places where something like this.

32:41

This is why the state level Midwest Dems

32:43

are so much further to the left than the Dems

32:46

everywhere else, because like the people in Minnesota,

32:48

the people in Wisconsin are like

32:50

the the only reason they're even so remotely

32:53

in power is because and you know, you're

32:55

seeing this like at like in Chicago too

32:57

with Brandon Johnson, is that like these

33:00

those people are like functionally dependent

33:03

on like that they're on their teachers unions

33:05

to exist as like a political coalision. Yeah,

33:07

and so you know, like like union

33:10

organizing is a is a like we're just like fucking

33:12

just giving money to a strike fund is even

33:14

even if the thing that you want to do is win elections, that

33:16

is a more effective way of winning of winning elections

33:18

than fucking giving money to Beto

33:20

Auroric like a seventh time.

33:23

Yeah and again

33:25

when we the thing I want

33:27

to get across here is the right thing

33:29

to do is not say, and no one

33:32

is suggesting this here, fuck

33:35

Texas. It can never be fixed. The

33:37

right thing is saying, if you're focused

33:40

on one famous guy running

33:42

in Texas or this like top

33:44

level thing of flipping Texas, you don't

33:46

actually care all that much about the

33:48

problems being faced by people in Texas

33:51

because that's not really going

33:53

to fix them. Right, Beto's not

33:55

going to win. And even if Texas flips

33:57

for an election, that doesn't mean the state legend

34:00

your flips. It doesn't mean the governor flips. It doesn't

34:02

mean that things get better for people doing

34:05

these kind of bottom up approaches. Number

34:07

one will eventually flip the fucking state.

34:10

Right, there is a demographic trend

34:12

happening. Part of

34:14

how you flip the state, by the way, if

34:16

you're actually responsible, is like proving that you

34:18

can make people's lives better. If

34:21

you want to flip the state. That's maybe more

34:23

ethical than just being like, what if we dump

34:26

one hundred and seventy million dollars

34:28

to try to make this guy who goes

34:31

viral on YouTube or Twitter sometimes

34:33

look better? Right, maybe one of those is more

34:35

ethical than the other. Anyway. I don't want to

34:37

rant about electoralism anymore, but as

34:40

a as a transplant in Texan, I

34:42

get frustrated by this, so

34:44

I felt like we had to say something.

34:47

Yeah, I also get frustrated by Better claiming

34:49

to be punk, which is the least

34:52

punk thing in the fucking whether that's a now repisode.

34:54

No, we have one. We

34:57

have one elected leader who's gotten anywhere

34:59

close to being punk, and

35:02

it was Bernie Sanders when he

35:04

got into that cold book depository

35:06

that November morning with a manliquor carcano

35:09

rifle. Extremely punk.

35:12

Anyway, cutting

35:14

the feed here, it

35:19

could.

35:20

Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

35:22

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