The Failure of Spencer Pratt

Yaoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, Maurizio Catalon and more This summer experience Guggenheim Pop nineteenty to now. a vibrant look at the Pop art movement and how artists are engaging with its legacy today, featuring major works from the museum's collection by Jim Dene, Roy Lieichtenstein, and Claus Oldenberg Alongside contemporary artists from around the world, this exhibition at the Guggenheim New York reveals how pop continues to shape what art can be. Learn more and get tickets at Guggenheim d. org Graham Platner Pitical unknown year ago come from nowhere. To so thoroughly dominate the primary that Janet Mills, the sitting governor of Maine, dropped out or suspended her campaign, I should say, and didn't even come back in as Platin I was rocked by even more scandals. Now the national pundits, the political establishment, they keep looking for that one story That one headline, that one moment in my life that they can define the campaign by. But in trying so hard to understand me, they fail to understand that this is not about me at all This is a movement about us The answer is that he had the most important political resource right now. and she was not able to grab any of it That resource is attention. Cstant theme now for me on the show. that you need to see attention as its own substrate of American politics. And attention is working. in really unusual ways this year. in the Michigan Democratic prrimary for Senate where Bul Sayed is now in the lead. Wh here believes in Medicare forle This stand not buish ice And Who believes you gotta get money out of politics and in your market in Texas where James Talico, another person people hadn't really heard of a couple of years ago is now the Democratic nominee for Senate. One thing is clear today. We're about to take back Texas In Los Angeles, where we actually saw it fail in the mayoral candidacy of Spencer Pratt. Reality TV star Spencer Pratt's insurgent campaign for LA Mayor has officially run its course. These corrupt crooks really do look out for each other, don't they? What's happening with John Osf and the sudden rise in interest in what he's doing? All of it has a lot of lessons, I think, for how attension is working right now in American To help me unpack them, I want have on my favorite person to talk about this particular topic with. Our friend Crisses hosted All In with Crisses author of the great book on atttention in the modern moment, The Sirens Call, how atttention became the world's most endangered resource As always, my email, if you need our attention As R cllients show at NYimes. com He Heys, welcome back to the show. Always great to be back. So I want to have you here for one of our every so often check inss on how attention is working in American politics I' to start with a Wall Street Journal interview that was with the people who recruited. Graam Plner How to do find Graham Platinner Well, so I mean, we went through thousands and thousands of prospects. We, you know, throughw a number of means, you know assessed just a huge amount of people, then, you know, Bam pulled up this video of this guy with an oyster farm My name is Graham Platner and I live in Sullivan, Maine, the owner of Frenchman Bay Oyster Company. My She pulled up his FEC history and saw You know, the money he had given to Bernie Sanders and, you know, some other people. that was enough information to know that We had the best prospects that we'd maybe ever seen Okay, I want to flesh this out because I've been told the story by multiple people how this played out This group like they were like Who could run in Maine? rightight? loobster farmer, oyster farmer, some kind of fisherman. Yeah And so when he says we looked at thousands of people like look through occupational and other forms of records. I was like, which Lobster farmers, What is it like Who is donated to a populist candidate which is to say that, you know, we normally think of candidates as being recruited because they're important in their communities. They're a lawyer, they run a hospital, something like that. A lot of people grow up wanting to run for office Graham Platner was Right? It was like like Hollywood looking for somebody to fill a role There's a long history there The Democrats are running someone in in Tom Keeen's distict who's a like helicopter pilot. Mikey Sheryll was a helicopter pilot. They like, you know, that's that's a bio that's Abigail Spamberger, a former CIA excess. So like that part of it is interestnteresting version of a sort of grassroots leftfty populist group doing what the D tririp will do or the SEC. But the reason this worked was because of the charisma And Chisma, at one level, it's like, I do think there's a kind of full circle thing happening in politics, which is like, of course, charisma is important to politics But I think particularly at the level of scale, there was a period where the formula really didn't take into account charisma.. It was like, Bio social capital connections, ability to raise money all that stuff. and then like Whatever, we'll cut some ads for them, we'll get ' them a good team and they'll be fine I think charisma matters much more now because attention matters more and charisma is the talent for grabbing and holding attention. So I want to hold on what you just said about the DJLC because I think we both know a fair amount about the way they recruit. And one of the grim realities of how they recruit is they very heavily emphasize how much money you can raise. O, they will force you to sit on the phone., sixix hours a day. Y, six hours a day. and they will punish you if you don't, right? You want to be on things like their red to blue lists.. And so I know candidates who are just brow beaten into being on the phone raising money for hours and hours and hours a day And the DribleC, which is the sort of Democratic congressional campaign committee isn't doing that Be they're cynics. Right, netish for it. They love money. Yeah. you need money. R. But the thing money is buying A largely is a attention. I mean it also buys field and organizing things that buys attension. it buys TV. And so what what this group is doing when they they cast Platinner He's not a person who you go to and think Can you raise the money to buy attention? He's a person you go to and think Can you Unleash the charisma earn attention. Yes, exactly, which then will bring in Money. Yes. but evenven if it doesn't attention And this is the point is that you have to, I think You have to have a theory of attention for a successful campaign right now in a way that when that formula was as dead set as it was in the kind of high point of broadcast TV ads, right? Like raaise as much money as possible. Hit the airways with a ton of broadcast TV And that's the that's the recipe. That's ninety percent of a campaign As broadcast TV, particularly and as broadcast TV ads decline in their saliens, right? You have to have some alternate theory of how you're going to get to people In some places, like in North Carolina, with Roy Cooper, like everyone in the state knows who Roy Cooper is Right? He doesn't have the same problem. The guy's been elected statewide, I think five times at this point, something like that. So he doesn't have to do that But if you're running another race you do have to come up with some theory of how you're going to do it. In this case it was Casting and then it was finding a person who genuinely has real Obvious raw political talent and cr. Okay, but we're underselling here the accomplishment of Platner because They are running in that race ultimately against a Roy Cooper like figure Yes in Janet Mills. Yes. This is not a situation where there is an open primary of noodies It's not a situation where they're going into a place like Nebraska where they recruited Dan Osmorne and the independent who ran, you, a cycle goo and is running again this cycle This is a situation where Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senate campaign committee had candidate in mind. They have a Democratic governor of Maine I'm going to run the Democratic governor of Maine against Mills to pick up that seat And what happens just very, very, very quickly Platner squeezes Mills out attentionally. See justust the charisma gap between them. Yes and the ability that he has to command attention Particularly online, but that then translates into all other forms of attention because like the newspapers follow it, The cable news follows it ladies on your show He also he knocks out a sitting governor. Right. But he also, I mean, this is the other part of it is he outcampaigns her in that state on the ground Like it's not just the online part of it. I mean and again, this is part of attention too. Maine is a small state, right? I mean, Maine is a state where, you know, Susan Collins At this point knows. like literally knows a shockingly high percentage of manors, right? It' just the way it works when you're in an institution like her. It's the kind of state where you can make inroads in retail politics in a way you can't the California governor's rightace Right. So part of it too is that he just outworks her. But I think that much younger than she is. I mean, that Mills is a seventy eight Y old candidate Yes. And I think there's actually an interesting relation here between Tension and risk appetite because I think the two are so related I think a lot of the things that have Guided deemocratic politics around attention have also related to risk aversion M Don't get negative press. If you're choosing between no press and negative press, minimize downsides. Okaykay Other people could have run that primary. They knew that Schumer was trying to recruit Mills. She actually got in after Platinner officially. Almost all of the big name politicians in the state of Maine went for the governor's race Right, Wh which was going to be vacated. It wasn't have a sitting incumbent and you weren't going to take on the electoral colossus of Susan Collins That's a lower risk choice. Platinner made a high risk bet And I do think there's a relationship between risk appetite and attention. That's very much part of democratic politics, which is There is a kind of institutional, low risk appetite. I want to pick up on the word institution there. So the Democratic Party, the Republican Party P Trump is like this too. They choose people. who succeed in institutions. So I mean, if you think about the candidates after Barack Obama, right? Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden in a different way Kamala Harris, right? They're all people They were not Toral juggernauts, right? Clinton lost to Barack Obama. She was beloved within the Democratic Party at that time. Joe Biden was Brokeama ass vice president. And it kind of goes down like this. Y I think that there is an inverse relationship. between the personality type. that succeeds institutionally. personality type that succeeds attentionally. That's for I been true. I thinkink it is related to what you're talking about with risk. Yeah. But I think it has created an almost structural problem in party recruiting becausecause parties, as you were noting They look for all these signals that are fundamentally signals of institutional capacity Social capital, right ability to raise money I Jobs that tend to have risen through the institutions. I mean, Platinner is a downwardly mobile. oyster farmer whoses oyster farm doesn't really make money and sells to his mom's fancy restaurant. right? He is not, you wouldn't just look at and think, that guy is the most impressive person in Maine. R, R? It's not like Mikey Cheryl as a NV pilot, you know. People succeed in institutions are often do not have personersalities are in the way the attentional moment currently rewards. So I think that's true I think there's a few things going on. One is we should talk about success in institutions and credentialing, which are sort of two different things. Y, right? You know, it means a lot in the world of democratic progressive politics if someone went to Yale law So there's the credential part of it, there's actual success in institutions, there's relationships to those institutions And then there's the kind of personalities that succeed in those institutions The old term that you would use in the fifties and sixties, right in a different era was like a company man, right? And like a company man is someone that gets along well with others in an organizational setting. Um doesn't make ways, doesn't upset people And I think the idea of a company man is kind of what has been the template. Again Almost necessarily, right? I mean, if you like as you said at the beginning of this part of the conversation The Democratic partarty is an institution One thing that Platiner is able to carry in a way that feels authentic Genuine feeling that the system is hollow at its core you know, people talk about, which is not a put on with him. I which is the key part of this. I think that's really, yes, I think that's important. I mean, you can say a lot about his life and what he has done or has not done. and we'll talk about some of that too. He is somebody who believes the institutions have failed because they have failed for him and he has failed out of them. Yeah. Right. The hostility is authentic. Yes. And when you listen to him on the stone, moreore than he is carrying a message about single payer health carere, Green New Dal He is carrying a message about you know, in a very different way than Bernie did, but using similar language about an unspecified political revolution. He's carrying a message about This is all. Dam And what you need is somebody who fundamentally believes It is all wrong somehow The world that we live in today is not natural We do not live in a political and economic reality that is organic It is a system that is built by policy decisions policy that is written by establishment politicians in Washington, DC at the behest of their donors and their supporters And it is a system that was made to make sure that no matter how hard you work You will never feel likeike you have power Powers for these people and they're up there, they're qualified They have the pedigree They have the background. They're the ones that are allowed to make decisions for us. Don't worry ourselves. Let them take care of it. What I'm going tell you right now, that story is bullshit And you can look across a lot of the candidates who are succeeding right now. you know, here, I do think Mam Dani, you know, is a, you know, fits in, we'll talk about Abdul Sayyed, Donald Trump was obviously like this A large number of the candidates who have broken through breaking through with a with a message more even than an agenda Of genuine. Disillusionment. Yes and anger I mean, I think there's a few related questions. So one, I think people use the term populism, which I think gets probably as close as any to what we're describing as a tendency You know, disillusionment, frustration with a failed status quo, elite failure, particularly. There's a few interesting questions that flow out of that. One is Does that have a specific ideological valence? Can you be a moderate populist? Yes, right? Can you be a centrist populist? is one interesting question. Another is Can you channel the attentional politics when you are suddenly in the incumbent position I want to pick up on something you said about being a modern populist You can be a moderate populist. And you know how we know that? because there was one in Maine The Democrat in the House representing the reddest district in the country Yes, is Jared Golden He's a main member of Congress populist who is a Bernie Sanders supporter He is also moderate, You know, you've of famously wrote this up about how Donald Trump want to be the end of the world.. He supported Donald Trump on tariffs. He is also very, very pro labor He's very, know disgusted with politics and he has existed in a kind of pololitically miserable existence. Yes been holding a seat probably no other Democrat could hold. And in fact, he's leaving now. And he is this year getting primaried from the left decided, I'm done. I'm retiring. You know You could have imagined a world where the Democratic Party You fell in love with this guy. emmbraced him elevated him to run against Susan Collins. And in that world, I'd be like Susan Collins is gone.. Like she is gone I think the issues see with Jared Golden in moderate populism is that You become very vulnerable primaries. Yes, because on both the right, but now on the left, I mean, the polling on this is really fascinating. If you look at the number of Democrats Who said they were very liberal and say nineteen ninety five, rightight?, most Democrats were not Liberal or very liberal nineteen ninety five, likeike they self described as moderate And now it's like Ver liberal U It's very hard to survive and it's also just very unpleasant. Yes.s that part of it is a big part of it. Even if you can survive the day to day of being like yelled at by the advocacy groups on your side, by your own friends The thing that you cannot seem to do right now is Hold that together. with being a successful candidate in primaries where you are having to appeal to a high attention Dt with very, very, very sordid political opinions. Y. And you have partarticularly in this sort of nationalized attentional atmosphere. I mean that's part of it too. Like in another universe Well no one online is paying attention to what Jared Golden's doing rightight? Like you could be Jared Golden for your district and like the local news would cover you and the, you know, the local TV news, the newspapers, maybe some, you know, some nerds would read about you in roll call because we're all operating in one attentional sphere There's there's little there's less and less room for that sort of variation That used to just come about because like people just didn't pay attention to what the main two conressional candidate was doing. This podcast is supported by Better Help Summer can feel like a sprint. Kids home, trips to plan, routines flipped upside down. It's easy to slip into survival mode, just trying to get through it Then suddenly it's over and you're wishing you enjoyed the days just a little bit more can help you slow down and actually be present for the moments that matter. 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We're on the same page Connect even more with someone you care about Learn more about giving a New York Times subscription as a gift at nYimes d. com slash gift brings up some of the flip side of Platner. And one reason I think Platinner is such an interesting figure to start with here is he represents both sides of the gamble being made, right? The high risk, high attension, char Chisma on the one hand. On the other hand, the point of getting this high risk candidate with a sort of anti institutional life story is You're not getting somebody who has been watching his step for a long time. and you're getting somebody who's maybe misstepped quite a lot. So you've got the Nazi Tonkov tattoo on the chest.. pulsing question about whether or not he knew about that I'm honestly a little skeptical that he did not know about it for as long as he says he didn't. I sure that skepticism. You have him sexting seems like about a half dozen women during his marriage or at least, you know texting with them in an effort to of some kind of relationship. Al the abent claims from an ex girlfriend, the one who works in Republican politics that he was you know, borderline abusive one they fought I've had this trouble with Planner because On the one hand, I've been very charismatic Much of what he says I like No particular thing that has come out about him has been I mean, he's alsos these very politically incorrect Reddit posts is probably the best way to put it Nothing that's come out about him on its own has been disqualifying for me Yeah. I don't think's anti Semite. He's He's so politically incorrect on Reddit. R that if he were ant anti Semite I think we would know. like I think that one would have come out pretty clearly. good point. I think that's I think he knew what the tattoo was earlier. Yeah. And I think the spirit in which this is my view of him, right? This is not based on anything but myitas situation The spirit in which he and his friends got it was Eedgelordy It was about it as a signal of a kind of vicious badassery, not a signal aboutou Jews or Nazis. That's my view. I don't have I cannot prove it, but I'm telling you what I think The thing that worries me about Platinner isn't any one thing. It is the sense that There is bad judgment in the guy. I mean, the Sexting with like the women It's early in a marriage and that's pretty recent. Yeah, right? The thing that worries me about Platinner isn't kind of any one of these things individually It's that you know, one thing about a guy who's failed out of a bunch of institutions and has kind of been downwardly mobile and has made a bunch of weird decisions and had to kind of Nazi tattoo is you might think, yeah, I want the best for him I hope for all the best for him Should he be a US Sen Should he be a US. senator is a very different question than that, right? Yes I mean would I if I were appointing people from Maine, would I appint Graham Platinner? L I would not. But that's also not how right elections work. We have the seventeenth Amendment, right? Yes. But so that I think is Here's like the thing. He's not running a genereneral election yet Susan Collins overperforms in polls. He has been totally generating attention and energy among Democrats. and among partly like the online left And whether or not it creates an attack surface You know, you can attack this guy as fundamentally unreliable, which is what they will do, which is what they are doing are doing with a lot of money. Yeah Democrat win that seat Maybe this all looks genius. If they lose that seat, I think there's going to be a level of Factional hell to pay. So Let me say that I basically share every Eessentially share everything you said and have made those arguments. Let me just For the sake of this conversation takeake the other side for a second One is they did run someone in twenty twenty who was the most standard possible state legislator. No scandal to speak of, raaised a ton of money. A woman and She got her bucket Yeah In fact, she lost by like, I think nine points, right? When she was up in all the pole. She was up and all the part of why people are so nervous about this race. They're nervous about the race. but the other thing is it's not like that was not tried against Susan Collins. It was tried, it didn't work. The second thing I would say and this goes back to our risk thing is They were like five people in that gubernatorial primary. could have run for Senate. Like the big names of Maine all ran for governors. so Part of this is a little like everyone's sort of bringing their hands Well, you have to have people running tootally. They didn't run He ran. Yeah. What do you want to like what is the magic wand that makes them run? And they didn't run because that was a harder race The third thing I would say is I think there's a theory of the case here, and I'm not saying this is true. I'm just presenting it as a possibility is that part of the brand problem for the Democrats has been excessive conscientiousness. Yes. that this is the party of essentially kind of like school mm tis tisking. Now that's extremely gendered I want to be very clear about that And I think a lot of the conversation about pllatinner on both sides of the very intense polarized debate within the Democratic coalition is very geendered That said, I think it's you know, there is a kind of post COVID hangover of the sort of idea that the Democrats are just this like Again, this kind of like cancel, tell you what you can and can't do, kicking people out who talk a little salty, etcetera. I think there's something to that. I think there's a particularly something to that with a certain subset of cross pressured swing voters And maybe this is a kind of antidote to it Yeah, maybe maybe none of this is negative for him R L that's like the Reddit posts, people join me this joke. The Reddit post are the median voter, right? That's the joke people me. When saw Reddit post, I was like, that's a asset. rightight? I don't have to agree with them or like them. to be like, that's a political asset I mean, this is a line I say all the time. And at some point need to like spin out into an essay but the personality type of the left is bureucratic and the personalally type of right is autocratic. Yeah And those are failures, right? The left is another version of it that I use is the left is overformed by institutions and the right is underformed by institutions.'s well said. But you can imagine a world where Platner loses or doesn't win by as much as you could have And the answer simply like you kind of almost got it right with him. Yeah. You know, you just pick somebody like a little too Underformed, right? You don't want The Straight A student And you don't want the kids smoking pot in the parking lot. You need something R. you need something in between there. But The question is really we're going to see a test of whether or not this works in of whether not this works to Main, it's going be very, very interesting Totally, to see how that plays out ' had two more things about him. So one is I think the way that I also think there's something interesting in how he has handled the last few weeks. He has been doing a lot of press. And I think this is another thing where you have to if you're going to do it, you got to be all in, which is you're going to go in your face questions and you're going to talk to people And that is, I think one of the lessons of our new era of the dynamics of scandal, whatever they are is that attention moves very quickly and If you embrace that and you're like talk to people, you can move through things in a way that used to be very difficult. Yeah. And then the last thing I'll say about Platinner, I think this is a really important aspect of his appeal. People have talked about the fact, oh, he went to private school and his grandfather was this famous architect and his mom is his restaurant Um Dad bought his house, Dad bought his house. There's a guy who was enlisted An enlisted marine during the Global warar on terror in multiple tours fighting in really brutal circumstances. And here's what why I think that's politically salient He has an ability to, for lack of a better word, code switch I think code switching is actually like one of the superpowers of a successful Democratic politician because the Democratic Party is so Varied and diverse and pluralistic You have to move between different groups And it's hard to learn how to do that without some organic experience in different worlds Graham Platner really genuinely has that. It gives him that thing where he's able to talk to different audiences Barack Obama really had it? Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton, Alexandriro Ocasio Cortz. All of these people Bill Clinton was like, that's interesting. Does Ocasio Cortez have code switching at that level? I think she does, actually. And I think one of the things that you see also You saw this with Obama, you saw it with you know, they used to call Barack Obama in the right wing press Barry because he was Barry in high school at a certain point. The idea being, this guy's inauthentic, he's not really who you think he is. He's pretending to be this thing. The flip side of that is, this is a person who's had many different experiences in radically different life worlds that has given this person an organic ability to connect across difference proves to be the superpower in democratic politics. Take a beat on Occasio Cortz here because it's something I'm really interested to see with her. I think Nobody knows if she's going to run for president. I'm not sure she knows if she's going to run for president She is a tremendous political talent by any measure Unlike Sa Bernie Sanders or as weird just saying a grand platinner She stays away from disagreement. You do not see her doing Bernie does Yeah what Rokanna does. Yes She's not onflagrant. Now she's not out there with Lex Friedman. No. She I mean, she just did thing with M Perfect Union, which is like a lefty content producer, you know, talking to Trump voters, but in a very controlled environment, contontrolled environment, right? She's not on Jubilee, which Rokana and for that matter, James Talerico went on I think one of the biggest questions for her is actually whether she is comfortable. Yeah, that's interesting. Either switching into places that are not natural alliances for her. or being herself in those places. Gavin Newsom is doing this everywhere right now. right? He will go anywhere he's asked and he particularly wants to go to places where it's going to be unusual to see him there G runs a very, very, very, very careful operation. Yes. And often when she is in spaces where she's not comfortable, like the Mut conference security confference can get hairry for her. She can sort of fumble. And Congress, I' start with you. would and should The U. S actually commit U. S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move Um, you know I think that this is such a, you know, I think that This is a u This is, of course, a very long standing policy I mean, if I were her advisor and I'm not I think can promise she's not doing enough. So she's not getting the se legs.'s not getting comfortable with things going wrong and also not getting the sort of like swiftness to sort of rescue them when they do. R? You remember the Gevin New something a couple month ago where he's doing a book talk and he's like, I'm just like you to a mostly bllack audience. I'm like you. I'm no better than you. You know, I'm a nine hundred and sixty SAT guy MySAT sucked if I can barelyad I can barely read, yeah. like It looked really bad. It was every where for a couple days. But then you just go do something you just just moving for Partly, though, I think all of these calculations about risk reward, control, lack of control, how much you're going in is is what your own personal position is with respect to attention, right because she is so commanding of it She has the luxury to take much more sort of conservative stances about what press she does And I think that's a trade offff. I agree with you that like there's probably a degree to which more would be done Tis Swif doesn't need to do a lot of interviews. Exactly, that's exactly it. That she just doesn't have to go. Yeah Whereas R chasing around Jubilee. like Roan is everywhere because he is trying to build Exactly L attentional strength. I want to move to Michigan Let's start here. Do you want to just give an overview of the Michigan? Senate Democratic primary. I mean, you have a situation which you have a departing incumbent Democratic Senat Criry Peters who's retiring So you have an open se You have a a very, I would say from the Republican perspective, high quality recruit. For the Republican side who is Republican Congressman Mike Roggers Who is truly out of like normy Republican kind of central casting. Like if you'reing to win a swing state He is not, you know, he's not some Peter Teal Weirdo who's gonna to do an ad with his gun silencer. This is designed to kill people I'm Blake Masters. I'm running for the U. S. Senate in Arizona. And then on the Democratic side, you've got Abdul Sayan, who is a really fascinating dude who was a public health official in Detroit. He's a Rhes scholar MDHD MDPHD incredibly credential has run has datewide and lost for governor. Exactly. And but it's very, very charismatic, extremely bright too.ot a crook media podcast. H a coked media podcast. I don't know if you've you know I've spoken him at length, An incredibly impressive deud. Yeah just incredly. He's a really smart guy who knows a lot of stuff. You have a state Senator Mallory McMorrow, who has been kind of like, I would say, like a charismatic up and comer in national politics, even when she was a relatively obscure State Yeah. startarting with this big speech she gave after being accused of being a groomer. Yes So I want to be very clear right now. Call me whatever you want. hope you brought in a few dollars. I hope it made you sleep good last night I know who I am I know what faith and service means and what it calls for in this moment We will not let hate win But she also has good like good video content. She's very charisteric. know Like a year ago if I were doing this, I'd be like Mallory McMora, like one of the big attentional, like emergent attentional stars. And then you have the person who I think There's reporting to indicate that I think and it's probably sure that Haley Stevens, who's a sitting Cgresswoman, U who is, I think probably the establishment choice to this Sems like is recruited by the establishment part And what's happened is She has not Take it off. And she's not of the three candidates Whatever you think about Hailey Stevens issue positions qualifications whether she' be a good senter? likeike I think she' the least attentially gifted of the three Um And I think the polling indicates that right now, Abdul Al Said is probably in the lead. He's gotten a huge amount of benefit from sort of the Bernie faction of the party. Streamer Hassan Piker, who came and did a rally with him, which was both controversial, but got a ton of attention And in a first pass to post again, first pass the post, primary, split field, what do you have to get You got to get thirty percent, thirty five percent of the vote. thirty percent of the vote. So I want to talk about this primary because first in one way, A Bill Sad is like the opposite candidate from Grand Platner Right? he is attentionally capable He is not a outside the institution right likeike is a guy he taught of Columbia. The Rhodc Rad sc It's like the ultimate rass ring of credential in the American meritocracy is worn on his hand. Yes he has run before and lost. When people talk about candidates who have wanted to be in public office for a very long time He is one of those candidates And If you look at the polling in this race, you look at poolymarket orklscie in this race you can see that He did not walk in and start dominating it was that He started centering Israel and Gaza Hassan Piker coming was part of this and the role Piker played in this to me when the way at least I observed it happening, it's not that it was Pikers's endorsement or something that mattered It's that Piker himself was so controversial oututside groups like third way And then the other two candidates attack And in attacking the centered Israel and Gaza which turned the like Israel and Gaza is. intentional supercondnductor. Y. right. It is like no other issue. the exception may of Donald Tump himself in American life And for an engaged Democratic primary electorate Abdul Al Sad is more on the right side of that issue And so I think you're seeing something that's going to be very important about attentions. like there are certain issues in any moment. Like his background, the way I came to know him as a political figure is Medicare for all. Yeah. right. He emerges in politics, you know, Bernie Sanders guy and like like his whole thing is Medicare for all. And like he still believes in that and from ass from healthca public he from a public health perspective Yeah But what has happened here is that they're like A lot of attention on Israel and Gaza and it has become the defining issue. and Michigan, obviously very big arab population, right? So And also the Haley Stevens opponent of this, right Be I mean we should we should give the backstory here, which is that Hailey Stehvens primary and eleven Anyleon was was this, you know labor organizer and very kind of To state solution, Israel critical Jewish leftty synagogue president synagogue president. Wh was who had like ton of APAC money dumped on his head. Yeah because he was insufficiently loyal to the essentially the Netany Yahu line and Stehvens knocked him off as part of that effort. And the other thing I would say is And I think this is incredibly dangerous for the folks who spend their time worrying about America's relationship to Israel and defense of Israel You have a situation in which you have kind of stacked these different things atop each other where it's like money in politics, the establishment, the failed status quo, the pro Israel lobby are all stacked atop each other and very hard to disentangle And so being the populist insurgent against the status quo Your criticism is Israel, your criticism of the war in Gaza views on that put you across these incredibly salient divides that sort of reach up and down from the actual issue of Gaza. And I wrad a piece on this when all the attacks were centering on Piker And one of the points of that piece was that it is going to be very, very, very important two Break the effort to conflate Yes antiemitism and Zionism. And it is going to only become more important as Israel's actual actions makeake anti Zionism Ay more popular and like morally compelling among progressively minded people. I mean lookook, you can look at polling of young Jews Yeah. Right. How many of them want a one state solution? It's pretty high now So I will say also and it's worth playing this. I thought Abul Sayed himself had a very, very good answer Disentangling this What do you say to the Jewish community who you're going to want to vote for you about your positions on Israel, on APAC funding, et cetera, and how they shouldn't feel alienated. by a candidate like you. Okay I'll tell you this Nobody understands what it's like to be discriminated against for how you pray like someone who gets discriminated against for how we pray. And most of the time, we don't ask how we pray. Most people are asking what you pray for And I pray for peace and dignity and basic goodness for all of our kids, whether they're Jewish kids who are neighboring a couple of houses down from me or my kids who are Muslim And I'll tell you that it's really important for us to be able to differentiate between Judaism The Jewish people, Jewish culture, Jewish contributions to this country, which are vast and ApPC and Israel. Th those are two different things I, when I'm elected, will be the chief opposition to what the Egyptian government does. Now my family immigrated from Egypt. That doesn't make me anti Egyptian That just means that I want my tax dollars to be spent here rather than sent over there to cement the chokehold of a military dictatorship on its own people And I apply the same exact principles to Israel. I don't want my tax dollars being spent to back backstop apartheid and genocide when they could be used to provide things like glasses or health carere or schools for our own kids. And I worry that a lot of times people want to use the word anti Semitism to spread to defend a foreign government And I think it's just really important for us to differentiate between those two because I don't want to be held accountable to what another government does simply because I share ethnicity with the people who live there. And I know the same for my Jewish sisters and brothers I remember a sign that was put up in Los Angeles. I saw a picture of in two thousand eight It was on a lamppost and it was during the Hillary Rck prrimary And the sign was a campaign sign And it had one sentence and it said, she voted for the war Mm And it was like, That's all you need to know That vote for the Iraq warar, that was the thing. That was the reason Hillary Clinton lost that primary ultimately. There's a million reasons and she came very close. talkal it rel litigate it, but that was the thing. I know a lot of part like older Jews who will say to me I don't understand why you' get so much attention, Right? You know look China iss doing to the Uyghurs or One of the things I say is that making themselves a center of attention, right? they really pushed hard to have America join them in a war. They've expanded the scope of that war. They have allow just constant, you know, in addition to Netanyahu saying he wants now seventy percent of Gaza, they have like allowed and enabled and protected and causeed like a constant stream of atrocities out of the West Bank. you can it is you can support what Israel is doing But I don't think you can deny that it's going to come with a tremendous cost And if you are not willing to have Israel pay the cost of its actual actions I don't think you should be supporting its actions. I mean, let's talk about what happened in the Israel Day Parade here in New York In terms of attention. So you got this, you got the Israel D playarade. It's happened every year and in in the context of New York, it has been a kind of, you know cross ideological day of Jewish unity and solidarity. Now this year, it's controversial for reasons. The mayor's not going attend for the first time in a long time Other politicians will be there. What happens in that Bzel Smotrch The one of the most far right ministers who's in the Israeli government who is pushed for along with Ben Gavveir the La Execute people by hanging who has been You know oppponent of the settlers and more than that has put out a functional plan for the expulsion of Palestinians. What I think it is reasonable to call the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Yes. He shows up at the Israel Parade with a bunch of like also hardcore extremist right wingers His attental politics. H his attential politics, and they do a bunch of interviews. and he even says to one of the interviewers, I love this parade. It reminds me of Jerusalem Day, which of course is like the far right parade that happens every year in Jerusalem where like very extremist right wing Israelis march through Jerusalem in an act of like very clear provocation. Yes, L chanting horrifying things. deathusalem parade Soatrich says this because he's playing his own attentional politics It's like, so then after that it's like, well, whose faultse is it? that people are paying attention to the parade. Yeah. you know, witit And you could say, well, he's an extremist, he doesn't represent he's in the Israeli government. He's got authority over the West Bank. Yeah, it actually drives me completely insane. And it happens all the time in conversations mean, but it drives me insane the effort to say that what The sitting cabinet ministers in Israel are doing is irrelevant or they're controversial or It is what it is There is They're in power. There's also there's a southern expression I love. that's throwing rocks and hiding hands, which I love. And there's just also, I feel like this isn't the Israeli government, but APAC and sort of groups around them and associated suuperpacs. There's a lot of throwing rocks and hiding hands. You've just played in a succession of the most expensive congressional races in history, like a set of record setting ones where you have The money that have made them the most expensive That's fine. It's America, in the post Citizens United era. People get to do that What you can't do is be like, why is everyone focused on us? It's like you spent tens of millions of dollars to knock people out. Like you could do one or the other. You know you play in these races, you play in these races, but then you get to be criticized for it. I'm opening up crossplay. I've been playing against Dan, my colleague at the New York Times. I'm gonna to play stoop ST UPE across the tripbward multiplier square. Cats played another move. Oh, and she did have an S. She played stoop for thirty six points. I've got a Z, which is ten points. If I can put my X over there, I can make box. I have two A's inss and T'sm guessing Tenanga is not a word, let's see. Tanga is a word. Oh. I donon't know what Tanga means, so I'm gonna press down on the word and oh, definition popped up, former monetary unit of Tajikistan. leararn something every time I play this game. Even though I'm about fifty points ahead, one thing I've learned in crossplay is that the game is never over. I just got a notification and Dan played his last turn, let's see who won? It's so close But I did win New York Times gamame subscribers get full access to Crossplay, our first two player word game. Subscribe now for a special offer on all of our games I want to move to Tex I want to move to Texas is so interesting right now. James Talorico because I think he He reflects maybe something different than what we've been talking about. He is the one case in which I think you can really see intentional superstar who rose during this cycle didid not rise because he was so far left or so far right. He has I me, I had him me here on the show. It's a great interview. Pe should go check it out. He has Bog standard progressive politics It is connected Beautifully articulated Christian moral framework But he's somebody who has broken through intentionally by being very far left or very far right not by choosing a highly controversial issue but actually by Front loading a religiously rooted Decency in part got him on Joe Rogan's podcast and became the signal then maybe he could do something other Democrats couldn't and win taxes. So I'm curious what you've made of him Again, I would start with the thing that we've been saying about A number of these people, including Platinner and I think of'do say it is that he he's charismatic in again, in the ancient Greek sense. And I think obviously the the sort of pastoral tradition that he's coming out of means that he's both naturally charismatic and also has access to a set of rhetoricals tools that have been developed literally over thousands of years to grab and hold people's attention, right? So I think that's a huge part of what's going on. And again connects to this back to the future theme that we keep coming back to, which is like can't just raise money and run ads. If you want to be successful, you got toa have something going on about how you grab people. And he clearly has that. I think you're totally right. that he's a unicorn in that it's not connected to that kind of populist message in the same way. He is I think a populist and I think he's very much framing himself as a sort of insurgent outside the status quo, but he's not He's really not relying on any kind of us versus them framework. I mean, he' a little bit of billionaire billionaires, but but it's rhetorical flourishing. it's not going more in the way that Platner and Platinner is like That is Platner's thing. It's what the This guy is a former president of his college Democrats. like he is a different hype. Yeah. He' is a person who wanted to run for He's a teachher for America kid. Yeah. He's not a great Yes person who has been failed by American institutions He is not a person who you feel Harbors a great anger at the Democratic establishment, you know as a state representative. And and I think that's an interesting dimension of him, but he also has a quality the Platner does in a different way, which is that Well I'm not saying he was cast in the sense that Somebody came out and found him, the way they came out and found Platner. He does look like what he is. Yeah the same way that Platner looks like what he is. I mean, a lot of people are oyster farmers or lobstermen Like you wouldn't see them on the street and think, well, you definitely spend all your time on the water. Right.. And you know, Partner looks like a seamen. Yes. Puo Rico. Like you would cast him as a pastor to play the idealistic young pastor. Yeah rooting a corruption. Yes in a complicated church. Yes, exactly.. He just has the whole You could put him in a scene and there will be blood. And he right exactly. And he rises running his social media strategy. which, you know, eventually gets him on Rogan. and I think that he also reflects this yearning people that I think is really powerful and how it is underplayed which is not just for populism radicalism or even inspiration But in the Trump era for decency, totally And there's a yearning for public virtue, which I think is a sort of funny inversion of some of the politics of know, our youth. I'm to talk a lot about virtue on the show. Yeah, and I'm thinking a lot about virtue I think that's s partly the experience of Trump, it's partly that I'm a middle aged dad with three kids and I think a lot about moral instruction Um, and in world instruction in a world in which like the most powerful and famous figure in the country is aor de generate The other thing I would say is there's these different There's different kind of vibratory levels that different coalitions play on. And I do think that like the appeal for connection Brother and sisterhood, solidarity, unity. you know, that was the thing that Barack Obama was able to marshal And That's still deep in the progressive soul. I think I think it's deep in the American soul It's the not what Dald Trump. Donald Trump is totally incapable of playing in that register I think the Republican partarty increasingly, in his era is incapable of playing that register And the last thing I'll say and I think this applies John Ossoff as well. Where we're going next? Oh good Uh, in when you think about like, what's the opposite of Trump One typology of the opposite of Trump is a nice young man. Like,'s the opposite Trump's like a nice young man. Well me hold Sal Rico's a nice young man. Let me hold before go to John Austsin and the different Obama registers The nice young man The what it means to be nice, the weakness of being nice been the main form of attack Paxton campaign deced to crazy. Like Low T Tala Rico, Tofu Talor Rico, Talfrico, which now the Tal Rico campaign has Talfrico shirts. I think that one was a Paxton mistake The weakness they think they have sensed is that people want strength. Yeah And a nice young man wants you to like them. and speaks often of his own humility and has a vegan girlfriend is not strong enough for Texas. I mean, that's a charitable version. They're calling them the Eler is what they're doing. I mean that you're giving a charitable version of what the actual Well and I mean and actually quite literally like you know, you' have Stephen Miller saying The first transgender candidate rightight. You know, he's a queer. Yes. It's very schoolly yard all of it. Yes. When we take a step back's true just like cruelty versus kindness. Yes. They' really they're really playing into the campaign Taler Rica wanted to set up I once heard somebody around the Mamani Cuomo campaign be like They both got the exact antagonist they wanted. Yeah, that's great point. Right And it just turned out Mom Donny was right about which antagist he wanted in Como wasn't In terms of that race and who's making the right tactical calls, we should just take a step back and say Texas is Texas for a reason. and if you run a moderately competent campaign with a moderately competent candidate, you will win by five points As a Republican. As a Republican, it's just structurally there. So you really got to screw things up. If not more than five points. Yes. I mean, ten, ten to five. Yeah, right? You run a bad campaign. It's five. You run a miserable campaign like Ted Cruz did in twenty eighteen in a really, really good year for Democrats. You win by two What I would say is about Paxton He's kind of the worst of all worlds in this way, which is that Ken Paxson is someone with a lot of baggage. He was impeached by a super majority Republican state legislature for corruption. He was indicted for securities crimes, although not convicted. He was also not convicted on his impeachment. His wife recently divorced him for what she called were biblical reasons. There were a number of his ex staffers who came out with a statement where they talked about just how awful he was as a boss and in his public positions K packs in aon my journalism career. You don't hear him talk that much. This is not a super charismatic guy. Yeah. He's got all the baggage and none of the charisma. It's a weird combination of things, but he's there's it's not like there's some amazing magnetism on the other side of it. So If you were setting up The worst kind of candidate in this era who's got the kind of all the negatives of sort of high risk attentional strategies and none of the positives, it kind of is Ken Paxon Yes But this is where I think there's like just something genuinely interesting about Talor Rico because He to me shows there's actually A lot of pathways in. Breaking it attentionally. It's generally interesting that Teler Rico was able to beat Jasmine Crockett. Also like Big MSNBC figure, Justmin Crocket the way to put it. Big on viral video and it's not regarded and talky pointcy, you know, and I think that's a good attribute and it, you know, he beat her in that primer. But it goes to show I think that there's probably a lot of different angles. Yes that you can play here. I think one thing that these platforms sniff out and I don't know why, but podcasting, video, et cetera. I think they sniff out in authenticity in a way that was not true when you were giving quotes in newspapers or going on meet the press or being on the nightly news I think actually inauthentic figures could do perfectly well there. Somehow institutions to go back to what we're talking about Institutions don't care about authenticity They actually not you to change who you are conform to what they need. Yes. but theseese sort of anti institutional spaces. They do. Yeah. There' something about them where people I was feels when people were on the show, the first thing the audience can sense is in authenticity. The first thing they can sense is you not telling them what you really think. Yeah, and you got to be I think that's such a good point that you have to be You have to be some version of your actual self to figure it out and to do and to do it right Ram Emmanuel is not, in my view, likely to be the Democrats twenty twenty eight nominee but his someomewhat unlikely presidential campaign is going to do Bet than I think people realize it's going to do in being a sort of force in the primary Yeah because he is fundamentally himself. Totally. Yes. in all places. Yes. And so that allows him. to just sort of attack and run plays and be compelling. And also he's got the to go back to the risk calculation, he's got nothing to lose. He can say yes to everything. And he's a highisk personality. Yeah. he's got a high risk personality.'s an unusual highly institutional figure Yeah who' very high risk H has very, very, very high risk apppetes. Yes Speaking of Tight on it I We talked about ASy a little bit ago, and I think she's one of the big figures here What have you made of John Ossiss emergence As u like a Cross ideological twenty twenty eight Dark Horse, a person who I've been talking about for a while. Yeah, butan Piker is talking about, you know, the Mata Gac is talking, right like, you know, Michelle Goldberg just did a great piece on him There's something interesting in what people are projecting on to John Asa. I have been jokingly calling him and our Team slacked the Lis on Al Gaib which is which just a dune reference to to the like the the the, you know, the the Chalamet figure who is esssentially the kind of chosen one, right? The foretold prophet. This is a joke just to be clear. And the reason that I use that is Jewish Kennedy, man. there is something about the the way that he is performing his candidacy the social media videos of putting out, the fact that he is veryery conventionally handsome and young and could be in a movie Like AOC, he's very controlled in his media. Yeah, he's not playing a volume game. N play. Don't see them on podcast interviews right now. No not playing a volume game I think that he has figured out a way in a Broadly palatable ideological fashion to leverage a populist moral critique of the rot of Trump can appeal across the different Democratic factions which is important. But also he's running for reelection in a swing state and is right now polling very well We'll see what happens. Back up a couple of years. If I said to you in twenty twenty four Which of the or twenty twenty two or whatever U What are George's Democratic senators Is everybody going to be talking about in twenty twenty six as a twenty twenty eight Savior. I the answ would Ral Warnock, hundred percent and Instead Ossoff Yes is the one people are talking about. and I was looking at Raphael Warnock's YouTube page because he's doing content doesn't have any of the visual grammar. One thing that you know, you see in a Mam Don, you see in a John Os, you've seen James Telerico is we this is not just like an age of algorithms, it's visual. veryer visual And you know, you'll see Warnock and he's like talking in, you know, the Senate press conference setups, and he's just like in front of American flags and and OF They figured out you know the clip like immediately when you see it And also used to be a documentarian who did documentaries on international corruption.. So there's a background here. This guy actually knows how to create TV Corruption.. but there's something really Interesting to me about Yeah, first the scarcity that the creating want. This who is John Awset? this building anticipation M Plus this figuring out of a visual grammar that's distinct and wholly your own. And looks like Obama. Yes, it does look like a looks like It also the hero shot. It's always a hero shot. which was a constant. you remember there was an gott to be skinny that to work. I just want it for anyone else who's taking notes out there in production. You gott to be pretty thin for that hero shot. There was a great the hero shot being this sort of three quarters upwards upward. Yeah. And otherwise you get a lot of ch. Yeah, you gott aun. And there was this great article on Obama Uh something like Obama accidentally sts too far into future. Because he was He was very good at this. I mean O off shot is always It's always like this like he doesn't seem like he's looking at a crowd. Yeah. He's losing the crowd. No, you're right. And I do think it's true that kind of visual branding is so interesting There's one other dimension of OOF that I think is really worth mentioning in terms of twenty twenty eight And which is that he's Jewish. Yes And and a genuine Israel critic This see, this is so I think go back to what we werere saying about that Michigan race There's no way of getting around the fractures in the party Gaza, Israel cept of antiemitism, perceptions of undo influenced by the Israel lobby, like Poolition contains both elements And someone's going to have to figure out how to thread that needle. If I were if you were asking me what that person might look like I would say The first Jewish nominee in history who is also a critic of Israel would be one recipe to thread a very difficult nle for the coalition. And the point here is that Ov has substance on this. So he early on signed onto a Bernie Sanders letter. Yeah that I think he only had nineteen. Yes, very like with a small group. It was a small groups that was against sending more arms. Yeah to Israel given The level of humanitarian devastation was currently being inflicted by Israel upon Gaza my colleague Michelle Goldberg had a great profile of him And you know, she mentions like a Ha'z piece, which is like the liiberal Israeli newspaper saying, Well, this position is going to make it much harder for usf to win in Georgia And no, it put Of in position to actually navigate this in a way the others are going to have a lot of trouble with. Y Joshua P here is going to have a lot of trouble here. He's already having a lot of trouble here and You know, but if you go too far to the other side, you're going to have right you're going to need somebody who can represent both sides of the divide at once and Ossf who is one centering on a corruption story. who is two centering on a he moves a corruption critique into an argument for liberal pluralism. Yes. right. It's sort of a populist critique with a liberal pluralist answer R talks a lot about values, talks a lot about being rooted in the civil rights movement Um And then it's able to navigate this. dimension of the party' schism. He's also done something on corruption that I have struggled to do and I don't know if you've felt the same way The corruption is so overwhelming. And you can hear my voice right now like so It leaves me speechless. It's so brazen, It's so insane. Every single day I discover some new story that is like would have been the end of any other politician I've covered, Asf has figured out how to tell that story very, very well. But one reason is that he often He moves it would be as about Donald Trump. also about the Democratic Party also about the existing institutions, right See, I get why people voted for him because evenven before he came on the scene America had the most corrupt political system in the Western world. It's been running on corporate money, secret money Billionaire money Both sides And it's worse than ever now. Citizens United was the worst court decision in modern American history And when members of Congress aren't begging for money from lobbyists, they're trying to dodge getting carpet bombed by these super packs And see, this is why nothing works for ordinary people. It's not because of woke college kids or trans students or because there are interracial couples in serereial commercials It's because the people's elected representatives don't represent the people. They represent the donors There's a Credibility, he's very careful always to do this, which again, is another Obama move Obama would always include an argument from the other side Yes in the argument he was making. Always. alwaysways. say And He does that, right? You know, both sides He's very, very careful to make the sac critique of the system itself of which Donald Trump is taking advantage of it But it's not it's originating costs And I think that's also part of again, does help. to It helps to be getting your reps before the Georgia electorate. Yeah You know, it's like comedians Politicians are like comedians. You work the room, you see where your laughelines are You work different rooms, you work larger and larger rooms. and the room matters a lot. And what with the feedback you get from the room it matters a lot it helps to be in a context where the room that you're working is a Georgia elector. I think this was true of Bernie Sanders in Vermont where you know, he only got to where he was after Many failures, many electoral failures, many years in the electoral wilderness, Figuring out how to talk to the median Vermont voter who was not a committed ideological socialist. That's why Barack Obama was as good as he was, because he was a black politician who had to work white rooms. Yeah You know, and he's talked about that. how much you to do in, you know, to win statewide in Illinois to win in these rural areas where people were very skeptical a person named Barack Hussein Obama in two thousand four The other thing that I think is worth touching here One thing I see among the Democrats right now is they're all competing to prove they're the fighter And relatively few are working in the more inspirational side of the tradition You look at Nsome, you look at AOC You look at Pritzker, right? L they're all like I am your brawler. Right, I will rip their throats out for you Um, And usF, even though we sort of attacking corruption He is not in that mode at all. It's a different register There's there's a type of Democrat P evenven if they haveve learned to suppress it Their fundamental feeling at all levels I can't believe this happening. I literally is't happening happen. Anbody could like this guy. these things aren't snincking him And ye he hasformed in races. Exactly. where that where that is not a register that works and cannot A lot of Democrats have to kind of abstractly come to the view that there are people in this world who like Donald Trump, but they don't know any of them Yeah. And if they do, they maybe cut them out of their lives.. And that is not Yeahah, John Asis Wl. Thats that's what I mean. So he's formed fully He's formed fully in an environment in which the appeal of Trump and Trump's power over the electorate and Trump's power over specific people that that he has to win over or whose family members he has to win over is present from the beginning And I think there's something really useful and powerful about that For just again, how you train. But if you look at polling Um, And if you part now look at the Prediction markets Plling Kamala Harris has a lead. I think people are skeptical that lead will lead to primary dominance, but I guess we'll see if she runs H Predictionarkets. The lead is Gavin Newsom We all knew Gavin Newson wanted to run for president. I would say six years ago.. I was pretty dismissive of how that was likely to go You know handsome white guy with a bunch of candles from California was like not the N what the Democratic partarty seem to be looking for Who he is in some ways has changed or actually in some ways maybe come closer to a core of him. What do you think about the way Newsom has maneuvered himself into one intentionally capable in a way he wasn't always two into, I think it is the fairly wide consensus right now that he is a democratic front runner for twenty twenty eight I think I have complicated feelings. I mean, I think that There's some part of me that just thinks Governor, California's tough a tough thing to do to win national to be the present. Of course, New York real estate developer is also pretty tough too. so What do I know Yes, I think that I think the the choice he's made attentionally is the one of the most interesting, which is He was always a charismatic guy, but he was not He has chosen omnipresence He's chosen to say yes to everything. He's chosen to go everywhere. He's chosen to host his own He's chosen was his own podcast. He saids like Ashy St Clair on it. Yeah. wred Benhapiro on not long ago. He's doing things he would not expect. Exactly And I think it is produced comfort that is really, really useful in the world that we live in. I think there's a question Both what The Democratic primary electorate wants and what the general electorate wants in relation to Donald Trump And here's what I mean by this. You were talking about like being a fighter And I think there's a little bit of Freddie Hampton said, you don't fire fire you fight fire with water. And there's a little bit of a question between Do you want to fight fire with fire or do you want to fight fire with water And the Oour fighter version Oour brawler O Trump, essentially, which I think is appealing to some people in the Democratic electorate is sort of the mode that some Democratic politicians have gone. and in some almost sort of herotic ways that Newsom has gone by doing the whole like Trump stick online Okay, but let me complicate this in a moment because it's why I find you some really interesting. Because he is doing more than that. I agree. Yes. There are two things. So one is the number of reps he's getting places he's going. I mean, you and I just saw him at the C ideas conference, he' has just gotten. He's gotone better faster than the other half. O thing I think a really big problem Democrats have faced since Obama is about describing a kind of unity that we can find as a country, a way of living here together, despite our disagreements, despite our history, despite our differences Clinton did a lot in this register. Right? He, you know, Rhode Scholar, but poor Arkansas boy, you know, New South. Y. Obama the master the register. Yes, but because he was a master of this register He somewhat destroyed the ability of anybody el to use it because if he couldn't achieve it, right? That's a good point. If what the Obama era cashed out into was Donald Trump Division and dissolution O the shared moral and democratic framework we had Then to speak like Obama did in zero four to speak like he did in OA. becomes naive. Nobody's going to believe you The weird thing Newsom is doing is containing these two opposite ideas in himself which is one like I'll be your brawler Tw. We will just disagree honestly and in public. Yeah and continue the relationship with each other under those terms u Charlie Kirk, you know, before Charlie Kirk was killed, he'll talk to Michael Savage, He'll talk to Ben Shapiro, He'll go to the left and Newsom is sort of It almost seems to be making this argument that is not that we can live here together in some way where our differences dissolve It said our fights with each other can be productive Yeah, I mean, I think that's I hadn't thought of it in those terms before. It's a very as reclinist I do wonder whether there's also a kind of incoherence in that narratively that makes it a little difficult to pull off. I don't think he's been able synthesize them yet. Yeah. I' you can. It's why I find his campaign very interesting. R. He he'll often talk about the place right now in his rhetoric that falls the most flat for me is'll start talking about they need to be a reparer of the breach or repair of the breach. It's biblical line You don't feel it. like you don't feel how he's going to repair the breach. Right I want to end here on the big attentional campaign that kind of ended in Failure. which was Spencer Pratt. So Los Angeles becausecause if you were online, it was like This former reality star is coming out of nowhere. He's got the greatest ads. You can't be on X for five minutes without seeing something from him. You know, he's going to, you know, maybe win fifty percent in the runoff, maybe, you know, maybe at least make the runoff But then it didn't Do think he underperformed Donald Trp? I I think it's a great counterpoint to many of the theories I've been supposing. So I'm glad we're talking about it because I mean, it was a very successful campaign intentionally. I do think there's something going on. We should just say, There's something going on with AX right now under Elon Musk that is a little distinct to that platform, which is that it's become kind of her medically sealed hot house of insanity that when you enter it, when you're not in it all the time, you enter it, you're like, you guys are nuts. Yeah. And that's exactly the way many people felt about like what we might call kind of peak woke Twitter. Part of it, I think, is a product of how much that was in candidacy. Yeah, there's also a question of what's real there, right? What's being cliiped on Totally. What has a lot of bots pushing it But the other lesson, I think here is never going to be the case that attention is the entire story There has to be something else happening. I think with Pratt, there was nothing else happening really. There was no reason for that man to be mayor, first of all Why that guy I do think Frat campaign to me really is an object lesson in what X is at this point that I think would be very useful for everyone to internalize because you and I both remember back in the day when people would say Twitter is not real life. And Weirdly, I think that's even more the case now under the algorithmic empire of one Elon Musk I think one of the greatest advantages Democrats have going into twenty twenty eight is not being. Is it Elon Musk? control of Twit I think people think of this as a problem for Democrats. It's the opposite.