Erosion of Trust in Institutions

It's today explained. I'm Saan Rasfrom, and I'm joined by our senior reporter, Miles Bryan. What are you reporting on? Sean, I'm here to talk to you about redistricting. A very popular trend in the United States right now? Yes. we're in the middle of a redistricting war, as you might have heard, Republicans versus Democrats. I heard, but but It's not always that simple. Okay. Take Mike Beltron, Puerto Rican guy lives near Orlando. Republican lawmakers blew up the old congressional district he was in to make it harder for the Democrat to win. I think it's a little messed up. I think they're trying to dilute the minority votes, especially the Hispanics. Okay, Sean, but who do you think he' supported for president Uh manan, Florida. Florida man, Donald Trump. You're supposed to say Kamaless, but it was Trump. I did vote for Trump. Yes, sir. The same guy who kicked the redistricting Wars off I went to Florida to report on the Trump voters who got the short end of the stick in redistricting, and I'm going to tell you about it On today, explained from Vox. Yes, sir The port for today explain comes from Fetch Fetch is pet insurance if you hadn't figured it out. Do you have a pet According to a study from a pet insurance company from a few years ago, every six seconds a pet owner in the US a vet bill over a thousand dollars and it almost never comes at a convenient time So check out Fetch. you get paid up to ninety percent of vet bills. you can use Fetch for any vet in the U.S and Canada. Every vet is in network. Go to fetch com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet. com slash save Support for this show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance Do you have a pet Every six seconds, a pet owner in the US gets hit with a vet bill of over a thousand dollars, and it's almost always an unwelcome surprise That's where Fetch pet insurance comes in Fetch is the most complete pet insurance get paid back up to ninety percent of vet bills. You can use any vet in the US and Canada. All vets are in network Go to fetchpet dot com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet dot com slash save. The House will be in order The clerk may call the roll Today Yay blamed Yay Okay, Miles, why did you go to Florida? I should tell you where I went first. I went to Kissime, Florida. Kiss Kiss me We're colleagues, buddy. He can see no way Kaseim, Kaseimi Kaseimi. Mike from the Billboard helped me out with this one. San it for me? Kasimi. Kasimi. I I keep thinking about it. Kimi. Ki Where is Kaseimi? Is that like Which part of the boot Okay Simmy is city outside of Orlando. If you close your eyes and think Florida, it's basically what comes up. There's lots of palm trees, lots of parking lots Crossing a new road means dodging like six lanes of traffic. It's really close to Disney World, so you see a lot of Disney people around. Did you go? I did not because I'm a reporter and I was focused on this story. and what defines Kaseimi politically is that it's the hub for a large and growing Latino population. Nice. A actuallyually I grew up in Puerto Rico, Bamo, Puerto Rico. My family is fromaay, Puerto Rico They've been in an army family for decades. That's Ricardo. He's fifty. He's a retired infantry officer and still looks the part. dude has built like a brickhouse. Casimi. Yeah. Ricardo actually moved to Orlando in two thousand one after he left the service. But we were chatting in Kasimi, which is right next door and in a county called Oceola. Back then, Osola was about a quarter Hispanic Since then, the area has grown exponentially, and Hispanic people make up most of that growth. Puerto Ricans, especially. Relief flights have been heading to Puerto Rico daily since Hurricanearia hit the island. dropp. Florida officials say more than one hundred sixty thousand now have arrived here in the state since the st. I read that a lot of people came from the island after Hurricane Maria. Have you noticed that in your own life Of course, my mother is a survivor of the Hurricane Maria incident. Now Ricardo's always been pretty conservative, but all these new Puerto Rican voters helped elect Florida's first Puerto Rican congressperson, a Democrat named Erren Soto He was elected in twenty sixteen, and he's been in office since then. Okay, so a Democrat, even though Florida now a red state. Yeah, and this is where the story gets tricky Osola County, this area, they voted for Biden in twenty twenty Then flipped to Trump in twenty twenty four. Yeah, it was mentioned in a lot of stories about the great racial realignment, you know, Latino voters moving towards Trump for populous reasons. Did Brick House Ricardo vote for Trump too? Yes. Ricardo, you know, he was skeptical of Trump initially in the first term, but by twenty twenty four, he was excited about Trump and making it twenty nineteen again What were his policies that really appealed to you Just being aggressive, the aggressiveness that he has in regards of business growth the plan, you know, during his first term, everything was great To me, as a business owner. S Ricardo helps get Trump elected. He's a conservative guy. He's a Republican. He even did some organizing with the party But right now He is extremely mad at the Florida Republicans. Frustrated, angry, concerned, upset. Because Jamandering? Yeah In April of this year, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting rightights Act. They're like racism, that's over now. I remember. Ct writing that quote, The Constitution almost never permits a state to discriminate on the basis of race. This ruling is a win, I think we can say, for Republicans. And as soon as they did that, a bunch of Republican controlled states looked to redraw their maps, including Florida And Trump has been, you know pushing for this Tyot on M gently Anybody that votes against redistricting and the success of the Republican Party in DC will be, I am sure, met with a MGa primary Florida Gveror R Des Santis changed the congressional map for this area to include more rural, more Republican, and more white voters. Basically, spread Latino voters out over a bunch of districts, dilute them as a voting block. The new map actually drew Ricardo out of his old district, which is currently represented by Darren Soto. It reallyally pissed him off. That's one of the things I'm upset about because this realignment takes me out of the district. And as a Republican, as a voter. I think they're Reaching my trust No matter if you're Hpanic or not or Puerto Rican or not you don't get the the right to choose Okay, so Ricardo likes Trump. But then this gerrymandering thing happens in Florida and he's not into it, he's having his Puerto Rican block diluted before his eyes, are his neighbors feeling the same way? Yeah, I met a lot of Hispanic voters who voted for Trump but were disturbed by the redistricting. People like Mike from the top of the show who's Puerto Rican, or Yolanda, who's an immigrant from Mexico and owns a nail boutique in town Serpano. She told me it was really important for this area to have a Hispanic representative because the Hispanic population was so big. Another voter I want to tell you about, I met at an event for Cgressman Soto in Kasimi. Hey Keith, Congressman. My name's Keith Dinateali. He's a guy nam Kith Dinaalk. Cool Keith.ose thirty three out the samet cloud I've been working with Tice for Tots for o. Keith is not Puerto Rican. He's a transplant from Michigan. He kind of looks like Ned Flanders. Idaly home, Neborinos No. Yeah, he lean's Republican. He told me he voted for Trump. Trump doesn't really inspire me at all. It's more Lesser evil. I hate saying it that way. A lot of people felt like that. Yes But in twenty twenty four, the same year Keith voted for President Trump, he also voted for the Democratic Cgressman, Darren Soto.ven though Republican leaning I still prefer the person. Dern Soto has been very solid through many years. He's helped veterans out I've seen them All the events. He's had my vote Um The redistricting You know, I neither agree with it nor or I am against it because there's really no They change things so bloody often. You know, I'm sorry, I'm just kind of used to the government moving stuff around in their favor. And then when the next administration comes in, they'll probably move it around again. My man sounds exhaustive. Yeah, that's si, Sean. That's what really stayed with me because I feel like it really conveys how frustrating and dispiriting this kind of thing is for normal people. Are you in his new district, you know Do not know? If don't know yet, I'll find out where I fall But I heard more of Keith's sigh in talking to other people in Kissimi Here's Felix who owns a bar downtown. Politics, that's the problem with politics. They change the system on their behalf so it could be better for them It sound like you kind of just accepted that you can't control this stuff. No, nobody can control anything, you know? Politics is a powerful thing. Like if you already have a sense that the system doesn't care about you about what you have to say, being shuffled into a district where you can make less of a difference is the ultimate confirmation of that, right Hm. And I also got to talk to Darren Soto, the Democrat congressman for the area, who's facing a very difficult uphill battle to win reelection in November. All right. Can I get you slightly farther from the fan just for noise, maybe right here I'm sure he's not happy No he's he's upset. and he said the stuff that I expected, you know, like that This is ripping the Hispanic community apart. But our largest populations is here and it's been split across five districts and that is B hurting the vote to Central Florida and hurting the voice of the Hispanic community. But he also said something that surprised me The corruption is one of the most potent issues they have in trying to motivate people to come out to vote Corruption makes voters angry and energized and engaged and sort of the opposite of checked out. And this is part of corruption changing a map in the middle of an election. I could say Republicans, independents, Democrats, corruption is the second biggest issue right now and this is part of that along with your ballrooms and your cryptocurrency, multibillion dollar pay to play funds and all these other things that people see. What's more corrupt than changing the rules of the game on voters? I should say that the Florida courts have blessed the new maps, but you see his point. Okay, so of course this Democrat who might lose his seat is mad, but he has Republicans or at least Trump voters in his district Kind of on his side saying we don't like what's been done to our maps Is that going to equal, I don't know, some sort of Fist in the air when it's election time You know, maybe like the numbers are not on Soto's side. You know the district is now very Republican leaning But I did leave Kasimi thinking that the politicians in statehouses redrawing electoral maps to try to eke out a few new seats They're making a big bet, you know that people will largely roll over and take it, that they'll be more resigned than angry and activated it, you know, like more like Keith than Ricardo And that might be right. It might be a smart bet. but Because it's a bet, it could be wrong Well, why don't we go ask a political analyst, which it's going to be, Miles Let's do it, but first Let's go out on Darren Soto's sururf rock band that he plays in with Democratic rep Maxwell Frost, called Astromax. and this track, this track is called Wishing on a Lucky Star P for this Surday comes from talkiatry. 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You get paid back up to ninety percent of vet bills for accidents, illness, diagnostics and more All vets are in network so you can use Fetch for any vet in the U. S or Canada. getet your free custom quote in about two minutes at fetchpet. com slash save Fetchpet dot com slash save Fetch. Lve longer That's nice Oh, what's in a box? What's in a ballot? box Today exxplain is back Miles is gone, but thanks to him, you now know about some blowback from redistricting in Florida. But as you know, the redistricting is happening all over the place. It's an ongoing story. Just yesterday Wednesday, Republicans in Georgia decided to not redraw their political maps, but many other states have Texas, California, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee They've all done some serious partisan Gerrymandering, and Jonathan Martin from Political thinks it could backfire. To give you the short here, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze for the Republicans In the short term, you're only going to fire up black voters more in a midterm election year in which black turnout is crucial for Democrats. So why would you be helping the opposition by You know, you know, encouraging them to vote more, giving them an obvious turnout issue, which is they're trying to basically, you know, dilute your voice. These maps are racist tools of white supremacy at the behest of the most powerful white supremacist in the United States of America, Donald J. Trump. If you live in a red state, rally your local community to vote out every single Republican in every state legislature. We have the power to fight back Now let's use it. a second light from just a raw political steeppoint When you start cutting the salami really thin district wise, you risk imperiling some of your incumbents. Just take South Carolina, for example. South Carolina lawmakers are now considering changing congressional district lines in the middle of an election cycle. Republicans backed off of the Trump demand there to redistrict their state's house seats in part because they thought that by, you know, canceling out Jim Clyliberurn's black district, bllack majority district They could have created as many as three competitive seats in a pretty good structural year for Democrats, Is it worth ending Clyburn's career and carving up his seats Yeah because you're going to run the risk of moving those voters somewhere else. They got to go somewhere and you could create unwittingly new new competitive seats.. And that's right you just heard it. We have some breaking news at the state House today as the Senate has killed a bill to redraw the state's congressional maps. So I there's You know, moral ethical issues aside about the history of this country on race and politics, just moraw political standpoint I think Republicans are being short sighted on this in terms of shitting up black turnout and also, you know, potentially creating more competitive policies So you're saying instead of getting rid of one blue district in a red state, you might accidentally create three Precisely. And I think that was part of the concern in South Carolina, which is why legislators there resisted Trump's demand. becausecause again, when the political weather, if you will, is favorable to your party as it is for Democrats this year someome of these seats, which could be a stretch, you know, get a lot more competitive if all of a sudden. The African American share in the district has gone from like seventeen percent to thirty two percent, right How much is this animating voters so far? I mean, we're seeing primaries in some states. Do we have a sense of how much people are aware of this kind of wonky issue, gerrymandering, political maps, whatever it might be? Yeah, you know, typically when you say reapportionment in a speech, the audience has fallen asleep before you even finished saying the word, right? I mean it's just like re pretty deep in the weeds process stuff That's starting to change, I think. And I the question is, you know Is it gotten to the point where it's so obscene And this arms race is so out of control. that the average voter says, this is just too much. and this is goingone too far Frustrated, angry, concerned, upset. Secondly and more narrowly for this midterm election Have the Republicans given Democrats a turnout weapon with black voters by between the Trump demanded reapportionment in the Supreme Court's voting rights opinion You know could that juice black turnout this year to levels it typically doesn't reach in midtermss? because that to me is the big question because then A lot of these races get a lot more interesting. Take Texas, for example, you know, it's a hard state for Democrats to win. they haven't won a Senate race there since ' eighty eight. You know, Talo Rico's chances get a lot better to win that Senate race for Democrats if you've got historic black turnout in places like, you, Houston and Dallas. You take a look at these maps and the communities they divide, the voices they dilute, it is primarily black and brown We're talking about black voters and we're talking about Donald Trum A big story out of the twenty twenty four election was that you know, Trump got a lot more black voters than the typical Republican presidential candidates. Sure did. Are they still with him in light of what he's doing in the South and what his party's doing in the South with their map. No, The story of Trump in twenty twenty six is that he has effectively unraveled his own coalition, or at least he't he didn't sustain his own coalition. He created what was a historic Republican coalition in twenty four of younger voters and black Hispanic and Asian working class voters that threatened to break the back of the Democratic coalition if he had sustained it. Obviously, he's lost a lot of those folks. And now polls show the president's approval rating among black voters has dropped dramatically, with only fifteen percent giving him high marks. forty one percent of Hispanic adults approved of Trump's overall performance as president in march twenty twenty five shortly after he re entered the White House That's since fallen to twenty five percent in our latest poll. But you raiseed something I should have mentioned a minute ago, which is, you know, why else not do this. if you're a Republican It's also, you know Do you want to have a chance to rebuild that Trump twenty twenty four coalition in twenty eight or thirty two or beyond? If you do, it's going to be hard to keep black voters, black men, especially in the fold if you're seen as the party that's trying to dilute their political power, right? And you can be damn sure that Democrats are going to make precisely that cates You may like them on the economy more or maybe you want more your tax dollars, but you can't trust Republicans because they're trying to suppress your political power. That will be the message. And when the Voting Rights Act is gutted, it's a hell of a lot easier for Democrats to drive that message You know, I've had some conversations with Republican strategists what they would be smart to do is They should get go find some of the best non white candidates in a lot of these seats that they're creating. If you want to push back against the idea that you're diluting black's political power, well, hell, then go find the best black Republican you can find to win the primary. And that's the best pushback because then Republicans can say, Democrats, your problem isn't that we're redrawing the map It's that we' redrawing the map to help our party. And you know you know your issue is not racial, it's partisan. And I think if you had a bevy of strong black candidates running as Republicans, you could do that. Now easier said than done obviously. Miles a reporter here talked to some voters in Florida who are angry about redistricting. someome had just kind of given up. They felt I guess just fed up with this political process. When you talk to partarty officials, politicians about What they're hearing from voters right now. What are they what are they saying There is a profound cynicism. Aong among the electorate about not just politics, but about most every institution in America. They change the system on their behalf so it could be better for them you know, we're approaching our two hundred fiftieth birthday with a pretty sour electorate. it's curdled People don't trust institutions. They don't think anything's on the level. I'm justust kind of used to the government moving stuff around in their favor They think that they're being screwed and that people with privilege and means are flourishing And part of it that's economic guys, but it's not just economy. I think part of this is also. there's just a sense that institutions are rigged. And I think part of the long tale of the Epstein story is because it proves some of the conspiracy theories. Yeahah That's right. That's how elites operate. that that is the that is real U And I think it's driven or at least reinforced by social media, the algorithms they're on And that has led to an electorate that's pretty fed up I saw data that had seventeen percent seventeen percent of American voters saying that they have faith in their government. I mean, that's really low. It's hard to sustain a democracy when the voters don't trust the government. They don't trust any institution. I mean, it feels like Republicans were scared about these midterms and that's what put us in this position in the first place to have this race to the bottom with redistricting Now voters are angry and or apathetic, which might mean lower turnout than usual in the midterms, which already historically have a bit of an issue with turnout