Ron Brownstein: A Republican Realignment?

Hey there. Happy Friday. I am pumped to have Ron Brownstein on today. This guy does, I think, the best work and analysis about the realignment happening in our politics. He’s been doing it for years.

He is must read material in the Atlantic. So I want you to enjoy this conversation. On the back end of it, we’ll have a mailbag We really dorked out on politics. I gotta tell you it’s like almost a political science class. So if you want some bonus content for your weekend with a little more laughs, I stepped in for JBL on the Secret Podcast with Sarah Longwell today.

We talked a bunch about women’s basketball. We danced on the grave of no labels. We joked about RfK junior’s steroid use. There’s a little saved by the bell talk. I mean, you get it all.

That is for Bulwark Plus subscribers only. So we’ll put in the show notes, a link to the Secret Podcast, or you can go to the Bulwark dot com slash free trial to get a free trial for Bulwark plus get access to Secret Podcast for thirty days. I hope you’ll enjoy me and Sarah over there. Up next, Ron DeSantis, and I take your questions with a mail Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m your host Tim Miller.

It’s the Friday. It’s the weekend show I’m delighted to have Ron Brownstein, senior editor of the Atlantic Senior political analyst for CNN, his most recent book Rock Me on the Water nineteen seventy four, the Year LA, transformed music, movies, television, and politics. Hey, Ron. How’s it going, man? Thanks for doing this.

Damn. Good to be. Last time I saw you, was it the Austin Tribune fest You know? And you guys have like a turn away crowd. You had like, you know, practically you had groupies in Austin.

We do have board groupies. We do have board groupies. You know, it’s not really the demo, you know, in my mind when I think about, you know, rock me on the water and, like, having groupies, there would be, like, you know, early twenty something gay men, you know, kinda throwing their shirts at me. That wasn’t exactly the vibe, but I we appreciate all of our supporters no matter the demo.

It may have been literally the same people, though, who are like the early seventies groupies in their twenties. It

may have been the same people. That’s a good point. It may

have been the same people, you know, but again, Austin had kind of a music scene, obviously, going at that point too. So, you know, it could have been.

It definitely could have been. I will say, you know, obviously, our core base is the never trumpers but we definitely have a lot of Democrats, center left Democrats are kind of warily eyeing their younger, their younger brethren. They’re like, I don’t know. I like these former Republican anyway, Ron, the other side of the realignment is where I wanna start. And we’ve a ton of days.

We’ll get into no labels. We get into the actual news of the day, but I was teaching a, a study group at USC about realignment and about what’s happened with the Republican Party. And I was going through, you know, the source docs supporting documents and going through articles to give to the students to read. And I basically came down to the conclusion that really they could just read Ron Brownstein. They didn’t have to read anybody.

The ones that I wanted to send them one from you, basically. So just did the biggest picture, you know, before we get to the news. Like, is that realignment still happening? Is it over? Where do you think we are?

And I think twenty four is gonna give us a a really good sense of where we are and what is legit and grounded and what may be kinda froth in in people’s reaction. We know that, you know, the basic lines of division in American politics are geographic and demographic. Democrats You know, you could draw an imaginary Beltway. I’m sure you you, you know, you looked at this before around every major metro area in the country. And generally, Democrats are doing better inside that imaginary beltway and Republicans are doing better outside of it.

And Democrats you know, still win the vast majority of minority voters, and they are winning an increasing share of college educated white voters they’re running better among those voters than they ever have. And I’m not sure, by the way, that Biden has tapped out on those voters for reasons we can discuss I think it’s likely he’s gonna run even better with them in twenty four than he did in twenty. And, you know, Republicans, the Republican coalition in the twenty century has been centered on the voters who feel most disconnected, most alienated from the ways the country is changing non urban voters, non college white voters, evangelical Christians and other really religiously devout voters. The twist that has emerged really under Trump, not so much in twenty sixteen, but in twenty twenty and to some extent in twenty twenty two, is that the educational and gender divisions that have long been familiar among whites are increasingly visible among non whites. And that is a critical change.

And it is probably the change that has propelled Trump into the lead even that he has in most polls, not all polls at this point. So, basically, you know, the the story among whites is that you if you drew quadrants you know, on education and gender. And you divided the whites into four group, white voters into four groups by education and gender, college educated men, college educated women, non college men, and non college women. The most Republican group are those without a degree or men, non college men. The most Democratic group are the college educated women, non college women, very importantly lean toward Republicans, the college men have grown more democratic.

This has been the basic structure of politics among whites for, really, since the nineties, late eighties. You know, ten in the nineties pollsters used to call that quadrant the Brownstein crosstabs because I would always demand it before it was so common. And what’s really happening in this election is that the same kind of quadrant like behavior is showing up among non white voters, and Trump is making a lot of gains among non college, non white men, the college non white women are growing and democratic, but the other groups are are kind of in the mix. So, basically, we’ve had this, you know, restructuring, reconfiguring of the coalitions that goes back I would say our modern era began in the ninety two election since then, although some of this behavior is obviously goes back to the seventies. And the new twist we are seeing is the potential for Trump.

Y ninety two Buchanan?

No. Really Clinton Clinton’s victory. I mean, like, the suburban places that we think of now as kind of core Democratic places, Oakland County, Michigan, Montgomery, and Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Even Berg in New Jersey, Santa Clara, which is Silicon Valley. All of those places voted six for six republican from sixty eight to eighty eight.

It’s really hard to imagine that world. Know, where the Republican presidential candidate was winning Berg County, New Jersey and Fairfield County, Connecticut, and the suburbs of Philly in Oakland County, which is the White College suburb Troy, several of us in Minneapolis, but in ninety two is when they flipped, you know. So, like, if we take the long arc, if we maybe go back one step, From the thirties through the sixties, Democrats ran even into the seventies. Democrats ran better among voters without a college voters with a college education. That was the new deal, political alignment.

Every Democratic nominee from Stevenson through Carter, ran better among white voters without a degree than white voters with a degree. The Democrats for the party, people who work with their hands, Republicans are the party of people who are tied to the office. And that world began breaking down in the sixties, obviously, with the civil rights act, and then really in the seventies with all of the kind of follow on issues of busing and affirmative action and later guns and same sex rights and abortion. And you got to a world where those non college whites famously described as Reagan Democrats in eighty four, became the backbone of the Republican Party. It took about twenty more years for the reverse to really kick in, which was the college educated whites leaning toward Democrats.

And Clinton, as I said, in ninety two, winning a lot of these white collar places that previously had been Republican, and basically what we are seeing in the Trump era is this same pattern somewhat surprisingly applying to minority voters where non college men in particular are showing a lot of this affection with Biden showing more willingness to vote for Trump and Biden depending on college educated voters in the non white community in much the same way that he is among white. So that’s what we’ve got. We’ve got kind of this educational realignment with gender tremendously important within it, and Ray is still important. I mean, let’s not, you know, the non college, non white men are not the non college white men in any way, like, in any of their attitudes or voting preferences, but they are showing a lot of receptivity to Trump. And his breakthroughs in that community is probably the most important change for him from twenty to twenty four And for Biden, the question will be whether you can offset it with even further gains in those white collar places Democrats first kinda planted the flag in under Clinton.

Okay. So a lot to chew on there. But just speaking on the the non college voters of color, non college black voters in particular, and I guess a Latinos. And and many Latinos are different than black voters, you know, she just took some noncollege black voters. But is your sense that Trump has some unique appeal there just because of his kind of celebrity and that that he doesn’t come off as a, like, as as a Christian conservative.

It’s, like, it’s kind of hard to imagine. Ted Cruz, you know, having the same ability to kind of move that realignment. So so do we think that’s a one off, or do you think that this is part of this long history that you’re talking about of a seventy year history where just inexorably working class people are moving more towards a Republican party.

Right. It’s a it’s a really good and important question. And the honest answer is that we can’t entirely know until Trump leaves the scene. First of all, A big part of it this year is not candidate specific or ideology. It’s just discontent over the economy.

These are voters both Bulwark and Hispanic working class voters, you know, like any voter living at or below the median income is really feeling the pressure of inflation to a greater than white upper middle class Americans are, you know, for for whom it’s an inconvenience. This is more of an existential challenge. I think there are a lot of pollsters who think that Trump has kind of an outlaw persona, you know, like, I don’t give a a hoot, you know. And there is a certain segment of particularly younger non white men who find that kind of attractive. I think the evidence is much more mixed on there being a fundamental ideological realignment among these voters.

I go through some of those numbers in my Atlantic story today. You know, and pretty much broadly across the non white community, you know, voters agree with the statement, for example, that the Republican Party has been taken over by racist. They support gun control. They support legal abortion. They are taking harder positions on immigration, you know, maybe somewhat surprisingly.

They do show some ambivalence about the transgender rights issues, but there is not, like, a big cultural disaffection from the Democrats. I think it’s more economic, discontent. You know, in this story today, I talked to a guy. I don’t know if you ever talked to him named Matt Morrison. Who runs this thing called Working America, which is the the group that tries to organize blue collar workers who are not in a union.

Okay? And they do a tremendous amount of door to door canvassing in communities of color, working class communities of color, exactly what we’re talking about. You know, and he said to me, you know, the voters moving toward Trump are not Maga Republicans. They are voters who don’t see a reason to vote for president Biden. Right?

They’re very different still than the non college whites in their views about most things But there is a real risk this year. And I do think, I mean, if I had to bet, the floor has been raised for Republicans with non college men of color, you know, partially just just like a cultural thing. The share of non white men of color who identified as conservative was always higher than the share who voted for Republicans. There’s kind of a cultural barrier. There.

And I think now the evidence is that more of those working class conservative minorities are willing to vote republican. That will probably outlast Trump, but I do think it’s being inflated or enlarged this year, both by inflation and by his personal appeal.

Yeah. The article, by the way, in the Atlantic, is out today how Trump is fracturing minority communities. The other factor in that group I think it’s interesting to monitor his r f k.

Yeah. You know,

I think that there’s mixed feelings about r f k, you know, about who he hurts. Unlike some of these other third party options out there. It’s a little bit more opaque with him. RF obviously has some core, anti vax, anti establishment, types that would maybe hear more towards trumpiness in a way. But this demo that you’re talking about, non college, non mega, Bulwark men, Hispanic men that are unhappy with the economy.

He might be an off ramp for them and and maybe who knows. We know, but you would just based on the numbers that on balance come November at least a greater proportion of that share if it’s a two way, you know, head back to Biden just because of the trends. RFK gives some of them an option in in a way that might hurt Biden. What do you think about that theory?

Yeah. I I completely agree. I mean, I I think, like, first of all, I think our mutual friend, Bill Crystal tweeted that today was RfK’s speech and, you know, the real, the original.

RfK senior.

Yeah. F. Peningist,

r f k.

Yeah. Exactly. In Indianapolis that he gave that beautiful speech, you know, quoting Escalies off the top of his head, which probably neither of us would be doing in the same circumstances.

Maybe crystal. Crystal could maybe do that. That’s nothing.

Maybe do that. Yeah. On the back of a truck, I think David Broder was there. Pretty sure David Broder was physically there when RfK gave that speech in the in the in the in the primary in nineteen sixty eight. But, yeah, I agree.

I think anything, anything that lowers the number that you need to win benefits Trump. I mean, I can’t get too deeply myself into these analyses of, like, you know, who these candidates draw more from because I think it varies so much from pole to pole. We’re talking about a small number of people. It’s hard to get a handle on. What I think is likely is that Although I know there are some holes with the exception to find the opposite, I still think it’s hard for Donald Trump to reach fifty percent of the vote.

And whatever makes it more possible to win without fifty percent of the vote. I think in the end benefits him, and I think RfK is a very logical landing point. For some of these voters were talking about particularly younger Bulwark and Hispanic men who’ve never, you know, warmed to Biden. Let’s go back to twenty twenty. I mean, he was not exactly quickening the pulse of a lot of these voters.

It’s unclear to me how many will vote. I mean, their turnout, as I point out in the story today, their turnout is much lower than any other group. If you if you think of my four quadrants, the other three quadrants of a non white voters turn out at much higher levels. And then the the white quadrants turn out at higher levels. So I’m not sure.

And then, you know, if they’re not usually enthusiastic about Trump and they dislike Biden, some of them won’t turn out, and some of them will vote for RfK junior. I think it is a problem for Biden where he gets on the ballot. Like, I think Nevada is a state where he’s on the ballot. And given what we are seeing with hispanic voters, you know, that could be a that could be a challenge for Biden. Now, you know, in a place like Nevada, you have a structure.

You have the culinary Bulwark ResUnion. You have the remnants of the Reed Machine that can kind of educate people. But, yeah, I agree with you. I think I think it is a risk for Biden

Do you share them? I’m just looking at the demos. I’m sure you’ve looked at this more closely than me. Of the six main swing states, Nevada, Georgia, do you think, are the ones that are the most worrisome for Biden based on demos?

I will give you a preview of what I’m writing for Monday. I mean, you know, the paradox here is that Biden is doing better in the states that are less diverse. You know, essentially, if you look at the swing states, You’ve got Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were famously part of what I called in two thousand nine, the blue wall. Right? So the the blue wall go back to the January two thousand nine National Journal, which is where the concept was introduced.

It was eighteen states. It wasn’t just the Midwest. It was eighteen states that had voted democratic in every election since nineteen ninety two. And ultimately, all eighteen of them voted Democratic Ron DeSantis straight elections, which is ninety two to twenty twelve, which is the most States, Democrats, have ever won in that many consecutive elections. But in twenty sixteen, famously, Trump dislodged Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from the blue wall, and that was why he won.

And then in twenty twenty, Biden won them all back, as well as breaking through in Arizona and Georgia. And winning Nevada for the fourth consecutive time, I think, since two thousand eight. Well, if you look at the polling now, as I said before, Biden, in a way that we have not focused on is essentially holding his white vote from twenty twenty. He’s doing slightly better in many polls among college whites, not that better, but, like, slightly better. And he’s surprisingly sort of where he was among non college whites from twenty twenty.

You would think you know, given the inroads, Trump is making among non college non whites that Biden might be slipping back down to the Hillary Clinton level among the non college whites. It’s not happening. And as a result, you know, given that Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are overwhelmingly white states where, you know, minorities are less than twenty percent of the vote, I believe. And all three of them, He’s kind of, you know, standing his ground there with the exception of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin definitely. But if you look at Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Those are places where the decline among minority voters really bites him, you know, and if it lasts all the way to, you know, the finish line, leader states where he’s polling in the mid forties among hispanics in Arizona and Nevada, and he’s only getting seventy seven five percent.

Maybe on a good day, seventy eight, seventy nine, among the Bulwark voters in Georgia and North Carolina, and he can’t survive that in those places. The rust belt path, you know, somewhat surprisingly, actually looks better right now for Biden than the sun belt path. The problem is he’s got kind of unique problems in Michigan. And he’s gotta figure out a way around them because replacing Michigan is not easy for a Democrat.

I wanna get to the unique problems in Michigan, but I I wanna go back to Arizona first because a group that it’s kind of implicit in what you’re talking about, something that I obsess over because it’s just it’s not really invoked to be like, you know, who he really should care about college educated white men.

Not right.

The forgotten group. College educated white men. But but as you said that Bidenstow’s room to gain, this does seem to be the spot Right? In Phoenix suburbs, and maybe it is also relevant, Michigan, frankly, and and certainly it is in Pennsylvania.

Yes. Everywhere. It’s relevant everywhere.

Yeah. But especially if you look at Arizona, it’s like, okay. Well, how is he gonna do it? Well, he’s gonna do it winning over. They already made some progress, but there is more meat on the bone, I think, of the flake McCain do see college educated men a lot of their wives are already voting democrat, but these college educated men, some of them moved to Biden in twenty twenty.

I think he can gain even more in that group, and that is where he offsets some of these losses.

Right. So, well, first of all, I think, you know, we forget that Dobbs and January sixth both happened. It’s easy to forget. They both happened after the twenty twenty election. Like Right.

Dobs had not happened at that point. And if you look at twenty twenty two, I point this out in the story today. If you look at the governor’s races, in the key swing states of twenty twenty two. The first election that was held after dobbs, the Democrat did even better among college white women than Biden did in twenty twenty. And that suggests there is, in fact, room to grow.

I mean, there is room for him to grow. And the Democratic gubernatorial candidates in twenty two did better than Biden did in twenty also among college white men. Like, you know, Whitmer ran six points better than he did among college white men. Josh Shapiro, seven points better, Evers, four points better, even, Katie Hobbs, three points better to your point. I was

gonna ask you about Hobbs. I was like, those other ones are good candidates. But even even Katie robs is running better than you. That is a good sign. That’s a reserve to grow.

So I think the likelihood is that he will run better among college white women. The men are a little harder to parse because they are pretty down on Biden’s performance, particularly about inflation. But, you know, college white men are not exactly you know, they are essentially the most privileged group in the economy. Right? And, you know, they are the most likely to have four zero one k.

I mean, you know, so there is good stuff that is happening in the economy. They don’t like Trump They don’t like the idea of a national abortion ban. I think Tim, Democrats would be happy to hold their serve with not the climb with college white men and try to gain a few more points out of the college white women, improving among them would be usually Kelly Kelly also in Arizona ran better among them than Biden did. So there is an opportunity there, but I do think they are pretty down on Biden’s performance. So that might limit the upside even though they don’t like trump.

I think there’s room to grow because I think about the cafeteria room of politics. And it’s like, yeah, they might be tech Kxton with their other dad buddies about how they’re annoyed about the economy, but they don’t wanna have to listen to their spouses and their other friends and the other people in their lives talk about Donald Trump anymore. They’re done. They’re they don’t want pressure. They don’t wanna be called racist.

They don’t want they’re just Some of them are like, okay. I’ll I’ll vote for the Republicans down ballot, but I’m not gonna vote for this guy. And and I think that there’s some room to grow with that type of Wall Street Journal man.

The barometer of that question is to increase the improvement in Trump’s retrospective job approval. In a variety of polls, like, the Wallsey Journal thing that came out week where they did all these swing states, or is that this week? I mean, the weeks are blurring. You know, Trump’s retrospective job approval, was it like fifty percent? He never got to fifty percent as president, and it really is going to be in these white collar communities, I think, above all.

It is going to be critical to remind the men what they didn’t like about Trump the first time. Because right now, what’s improving Trump’s retrospective job approval is the comparison with Biden on the economy and the border. And so they’re thinking like, you know, stopping in January of twenty twenty in terms of their assessment of his presidency. But, like, basically, I had more money in my pocket. You know, things didn’t cost as much.

Border wasn’t out of control. Trump did a better job. I think what you are describing is very possible that it can again be culturally unacceptable below for Trump especially given the things he’s saying and doing in this campaign, which are pretty consistently radical and extreme, but those elements of the package that you get with Trump have to become more central to the discussion than they are right now.

We’re running out of time. So rapid fire through a couple of these Michigan. I’m noticing you’ve been you’ve been whatever we’re calling it, tweeting concerns about Biden’s, about the Israel issue, and now it’s hurting him among core demographic groups. Obviously, Michigan is where this acute. What what’s your sense for the impact potentially of Gaza on Biden’s coalition?

Yeah. It’s like a it’s like a convergence of a lot of bad things. First of all, the important point Wisconsin was literally the tipping point state in both twenty sixteen and twenty twenty. If you rank the states from most democratic to most Republican, It was the two hundred seventieth electoral college vote for trump in sixteen, and then the two hundred seventieth for Biden. In twenty.

And I, at least, I don’t know about you, but I think a lot of people began this year thinking Wisconsin is again the tipping point state, but it doesn’t seem to be. Like, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have moved slightly on the blue side of the line, I think. Largely because of the suburban realignment, there talking about and the unbelievable vote margins that Democrats are getting out of Dane County, which is Madison. And Michigan now looks like the tipping point state to me where Biden has a better chance than he does in Arizona or Georgia, but not as good a chance as he has in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. And in Michigan, you’ve got multiple vectors kind of squeezing him the potential for less enthusiasm, less turnout, lower margins in Detroit, the problem, which is real among Arab American voters outside of Detroit.

And because of all the activism there, Tim, around the issue, it’s more in the news. It’s more in people’s face. Than it is in most places.

Which could impact Ann Arbor and, yeah, younger voters.

You took the words right out of my mouth. That’s what I was gonna say next. It could impact Ann Arbor and younger voters. And then finally, Trump’s campaign that, you know, EVs are gonna destroy the auto industry. Right?

Right. Which has a threat to blue collar white workers. Now, you know, Biden didn’t win that many of them to begin with at last time. He, you know, he It’s not like he won half of noncollege whites in Michigan. But you add all of this up, and Michigan looks really it looks like heartbreak hill if he loses.

If he loses Michigan, by the way, what replaces it? Georgia would replace it. That’s tough. North Carolina would replace it. That’s tough, but intriguing for Democrats given the very extreme gubernatorial candidate or he would have to win both Arizona and Nevada.

Your neighbor James Carville said to me for a story this story that’s coming out in a couple days. You know, if you win Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, it’s pretty safe. You’re gonna win. If you don’t win any of them, especially Michigan, you’re kinda looking at an inside straight at that point. I mean, that’s how important these states are for Democrats.

Yeah. The Arizona thing, I just spent so much time there during the midterms, and I know that the border has gotten worse since then, but man, Katie Hobbs god lover, She seems like a fine person, but she ran a disastrous campaign and for her to win and the way that Kelly won. I don’t know. I feel a little better about hers on But the

challenges, though, if he loses Michigan, he has to win both Arizona and Nevada to make up for Arizona loan doesn’t. That’s that’s where it gets a little daunting for him.

Indeed. In Nevada worries me. Okay. The no label thing though, just really quick is objectively good news. A little dance on that grave.

I mean, that was all all of the people who are interested in no labels are part of this realignment conversation. Right? That there are people that we’re gonna be moving to Biden anyway.

Yeah. I mean, right. I I think no label clearly would have heard Biden. The whole thing was kind of ridiculous. I mean, their their means, you know, were not only, not productive for what they said they were trying to do.

It counterproductive. The whole thing was really absurd at some level, but dangerous in the sense of for Democrats, you know, I agree with you. I think unlike some of these other, like, Cornell West or especially RfK junior, no labels, I think, would have been some of these traditionally Republican payroll voters, basically, you know, and can’t abide trump.

Alright. So finally, circling back to the first question because this is our shared obsession. So we let’s just say we get the hamburger from heaven. Okay. And Donald Trump disappears from our lives.

Hypothetically speaking, this realignment in my view is done. It has already continued and that what happens after that will be some form of mega. Maybe it won’t have all of trump’s crazy you know, personal issues, but, like, the the direction, like, the way that he’s moved the party, that is something that’s not reverting to what extent do you agree with that thesis?

Yeah. I agree. I agree. I I think at least for, you know, any foreseeable future. Trumpism is self reinforcing.

As you see in their coalition, the voters who are most uneasy with it are leaving the party, you know, and are less likely to participate in primaries. And if you look at the behavior of younger republican politicians. They are mostly almost entirely recasting themselves in this mold. And I do think it becomes a critical issue for twenty four and beyond. Because if you are a Republican leaning voter, a white collar voter, who, you know, prefers Republican policies on the economy, probably prefers Republican policies on the border and crime, and think Democrats are a little too liberal.

You also tend to support, you know, a robust role for America and international affairs. You’re not as wild about mass deportation as about stiffening the border. You don’t like the open racism and, you know, appeals to racial resentments that Trump puts out. And what you are being shown very, very unequivocally this year is that you are the subordinate minority in this party. You do not have control about where it’s going.

You know, a majority of House Republicans and a majority of Senate Republicans have now voted against aid to Ukraine. You know, they are almost universally forgiving January sixth. And so on, and so those voters They face a critical choice. I mean, do they give their votes out of kind of a either ancestral loyalty or a belief that Democrats are, in fact, you know, these crazy wounds are gonna destroy the country to a party that is unequivocally moving in a direction that sublimates everything they prioritize, except for maybe tax cuts. You know, they they might come together on tax cuts.

So, yeah, do do they stay part of that party? Do the Haley voters vote for Trump after the case, the she made against him, and she didn’t even go to some of the things that, you know, some of those voters believe about his behavior. There are about a quarter of Republicans who think that he tried to subvert democracy that what he did on January six was wrong. And these may be Republican leaning independents but they have a choice. I mean, they have a real choice.

You know, they are Biden’s best hope, I think, of offsetting what is like to be some of these blue collar non white erosion.

That is the key question. That’s a great tease because that’s what we’re gonna be talking about on the Bulwark podcast all year. So thank you so much. Run Brownstein for, you know, pulling it together after Bruce Springstein last night. Yeah.

Thanks for being on the Bulwark podcast, and we will be having you back I hope later this summer. We’ll be back on the other side with your mailbag questions. Alright. We are back Friday mail bag. We’ve got some fun ones.

I’ll start with Mike. Why do third party effort always seem to focus on the presidency where they have no realistic electoral prospects, except spoiler. Would an a Congress focused effort make more sense? Thought with the no labels news this week. This would be a good place to start.

And, yeah, Mike, you were singing for my hymnbook. I’ve been telling rich people and moderates, that call me and ask me for advice about this stuff. A similar thing for years now. I think that the third party effort at the presidential level is mostly about narcissism and attention. It is a hopeless effort.

And I think that there is actually a lot of room in the country to do two things. One is to look at particularly deep red and deep blue states and figure out how to work as a third party, you know, maybe with kind of an allied party in order to try to create a coalition that could stop the dominant party in the state. So for example, we saw this with Evan McMullen in Utah. He’s former Republican, never Trumper, ran as an independent. The Democrats, you know, sort of blessed that and did not put up a challenge of their own Evan ran against Mike Lee.

Obviously, that wasn’t successful. I think that had some hope of success. I think a big part of the reason why that didn’t work was less that the idea was bad, but that Evan know, had gone pretty resistance y during, the Trump years. Hey. Welcome to the club.

Me too. But I think that kind of put cap on his appeal, to some Republicans in the state. And Mike Lee, as much as I find Mike Lee totally insane, he didn’t seem unacceptable enough for Republicans to peel off of him for Evan McMullen, but I think that that concept could really work in other states. I think it could work here in Louisiana. I said this when I moved here to I didn’t understand why they weren’t looking to a more moderate Republican or a more conservative Democrat to run-in the jungle primary here, rather than they ran a guy Sean Wilson, good guy, but just a mainstream Democrat didn’t have much hope against Jeff Landry.

Who I wrote about in yesterday’s triad. You should go check out my Jeff Landry dunking in in yesterday’s triad. If you haven’t at the at the Bullorg dot com, but That, I think, is the right path forward. I think that that is also potentially workable yet even lower levels. And I think that then you can build a group that goes from there.

I I’d love to see a coalition of kind of like a party that runs in red states conservative Democrats and and blue states runs kind of more moderate Republicans and tries to figure out how they can put together a coalition that breaks up the polarization I think that’s a long run deal, but at least there’s a hope of success. That might not succeed, by the way. We might just be so polarized that there’s no hope for an alternative. At this point because the nature of our system, but I I think that proposal at least has potential for success whereas these quixotic presidential campaigns that are all about ego and, you know, getting to go to fancy parties with with Nancy Jacobs and her friends in New York City, that have no chance of succeeding. At least you’re trying.

Try to try is something that I’ve always I’ve always believed. Okay. Christina, She asked what was the context of you saying blowjob on MSNBC. I watched it live, but I can’t find it anywhere online. This is a series question.

I know it’s serious. That’s why I’m answering. I couldn’t remember myself, actually, so I went and searched for it. I can’t find the video either. Maybe somebody else can find it and and put it comment section on sub stack, and I can re up it on social media.

But, I found the day that it happened, people tweeting, laughing at me, I was able to figure out what day it was. It was January eighth twenty twenty one. So needless to say I was running hot two days after the insurrection. And, I said it in the context of, our friend Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham had said that day after saying he was done with Trump on January six, it said two days later that he was not going to go along with an impeachment of him or conviction.

And, I went off on him on, I believe Nicole Wallace’s show. And started talking about how for Lindsey Graham, it was okay to impeach Bill Clinton over a below job. But it was not okay to, impeach and convict Donald Trump over a coup. Obviously, that is preposterous on its face and Lindsey Graham is a shameless partisan and, he, you know, should have trouble sleeping at night given such a grotesque contrast between having voted to impeach. It’s okay.

Whatever. If you wanted to vote, Bill Clinton, because you lied about the blowjob. Okay. But then it seems incumbent upon me to then impeach also the president that attempted the coup. So, Lindsey Graham, stick it.

The MSNBC producers weren’t really thrilled with me saying blowjob. But I didn’t, you know, they also kinda let it go. You know, tempers were flaring. Alright. Two days after the capital storms, tempers are flaring.

People could could have one blow job reference on TV. Okay. Last question comes from Anthony in Tennessee. Anthony says my husband and I are expecting a baby this year, congrats, brother. We live in Nashville, and we’re both from Alabama.

Do you have any advice for soon to be gay parents living in the self. Our families are very supportive of us, but we worry about the broader community as our child grows up. I’m sure this is a near universal anxiety, but I imagine even more so in the area we live, I do have thoughts for you. And, a, I think it’s awesome. I’m so happy for you.

It’s been the best thing in my life having a kid. And, I think you guys are going to just be overjoyed, maybe a little tired, but overjoyed. It’s great. Don’t let any of the negative Nellies get you down. People that are like, oh, it’s it can be hard.

Yeah. Sure. But all of the good stuff outweighs the bad stuff by miles. So congrats to you and your husband. I’ll tell you this.

I think in some ways, I’ve found this. I don’t know if this experience is universal. But I found in New Orleans, we have actually more support than we did living in the bay in some ways, being a gay gay parents in the bay was like, okay, whatever, you know, sunrises in the east, k, dog bites man, not really not news. You know, it was only gonna be news where it’s, like, the a modern family bit where, you know, the gay, the gay couple thought they’re gonna get into the, this fancy school in California and then come behind there. It’s like a disabled lesbian couple mixed race Native American.

It’s like, alright. Now now you’re talking. I know it was great being in Bay was fine. It was great, but there wasn’t really, like, a community of people that were in our boat that were, you know, finding each other and looking at each other for support just because it was so common, frankly. And in New Orleans, that is not really at something the case for us.

Yeah. There are only so many gay parents in New Orleans. Right? And so in that since, you know, we have developed some relationships, made some new friends. We had some old friends, their parents here also.

So that has helped. And, you know, people are predicting in these blue bubbles in the red states. It’s not every day. Right? It’s exciting.

Right? Like, they’re excited. They, you know, so so straight couples, straight singles, everybody, really, frankly, in the community. It’s like excited that we’re here and wants to be supportive and wants to be helpful. And so, you know, really we’re just to kinda drown and in love here.

And I I expect that would be pretty similar in Nashville. I think it’d be probably pretty similar in Birmingham, Alabama. I don’t know. If you’re saying to me you’re gonna move to Shreveport, maybe I’d say, like, let’s think about that. I don’t know kind of how how far how far down on the, city size that this concept that I’m putting forth would hold.

But I think in big cities or relatively big cities in south, particularly, you know, tying to the Brownstein conversation where you got a lot of college educated, you know, folks that are more liberally inclined it’s really been kind of positive and special and awesome to be here and to have people see us and want to support us and and want to be in community with us. So to me, it’s been great. You should let your concerns go. Maybe don’t live to rural Alabama. I don’t know.

Maybe somebody in rural Alabama could tell me I’m wrong about that. But, I think that, in Nashville or in here in Nola, we’d love to have you anywhere else. I think that you guys will be good. Big congrats. Keep me posted on the progress.

Everybody else. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Go check out the secret podcast Sarah. We’d really appreciate you. It’d be members of Bulwark Plus.

We’ve got a great lineup of guests coming next week. Enjoy the Women’s and men’s. College basketball final four this weekend should be some good stuff, and we will see you on Monday and do this all over again. Peace Hey, you. Just keep bouncing.

The Secret Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brepp.