This interview does not take into account the media bias that swayed voters to believe that Biden was doing nothing and and his administration was a failure. While he aged terribly his policies were creating a stable growing economy. This was such a sad omission on the part of the mainstream media and the pundits. I hope they look back with guilt.
Yes, very much this. A lot of people had a bad case of Fox-poisoning - directly and via social media - so they simply did not know that the inflation of the early Biden years was the same in most of the developed world, because of Covid - and Biden did not cause inflation in France or the UK or even in Canada. And they did not realize that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was messy because of how Trump had set it up, and they certainly did not know the amount of private investment pouring into manufacturing in the US because of Biden's legislation... and I could go on.
AND the tens of millions of ads on Fox etc about trans rights - the Dems did not fight back because it was so stupid, but ... It's not that the Dems were too woke, it's that they were labeled as supporting stuff they did not support, they could not take all the lying as seriously as they should have.
Biden was too decent a person to blow his own horn as much as he needed to. And Harris probably should have made the effort to go on Joe Rogan's podcast too..... but the media environment was and is SO poisonous against Democrats... talking about the objective merits of any particularly policy proposal is almost beside the point. (Trump may be managing to change this with his and Musk's madness, but .... who knows?)
Yep, like a lot of the pontification about why Kamala lost, it overlooks the insidious effect of Pox News--the only "news" that millions of people pay any attention to.
While it would be great to blame it just on FOX and right-wing media outlets, voters were not well served by major newspapers and regular television newscasts. Even the PBS News Hour let us down. False equivalency and both-sides coverage helped sane wash Trump and Republicans.
Bingo, any analysis that doesn’t take into account the far superior Republican messaging machine should be dismissed. We know the less informed were getting bombarded with #fakenews by Republicans and that’s what swayed the election.
That’s why the right wing echo chamber focuses more on jacking up Democrats’ negatives than Republicans’ positives…because the economy could implode like in 2008 and then all of the work increasing positives gets vaporized. So make the Democrats so hated that under no circumstances can their viewers/listeners vote for them.
Exactly. These polls are nothing more than a study in the effects of oligarch run mass media and Russian psyops. We already know they work, its why we're here. Meaningless dribble at this point.
It was also a tragedy for Kamala to concede the point to the pundits. She should have fought fiercely to defend the Biden/Harris recored, seemingly popular or not. It made her look weak.
Tim Waltz failed spectacularly. Vance was basically arguing for things that Biden accomplished at their debate and Waltz just let him get away with it. Waltz should have been saying that Vance should have voted for Biden and should vote for Kamala.
I find what I consider ‘visceral’ most interesting in the Krugman/Morris interview. Morris looks at a broad range of data in making his projections. In the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump’s blathering about a poor economy (not true) was viscerally more powerful that the Harris ‘joy’ campaign.
Morris suggested that the 2026 congressional elections could be a bigger Democratic blow out than Trump’s mid-term losses in 2018. For Morris a possible visceral key was that, according to CNN, 5,000,000 people turned out at nationwide protests last week. That’s a great deal of VISCERALLY!
Morris points out that Trump, in his polling slippage in his initial weeks, has done more poorly than every other recent president, except #45.
My sense is that a number of Americans are disillusioned with #47 and a number of his (and Chainsaw Musk’s) bizarre and often illegal blitzkriegs.
Trump in his campaign savaged the excellent Biden economy and promised swift ‘economic relief’ for Americans. Instead, he is now speaking of a possible economic recession in 2025 and his tariff blitzkrieg should heighten inflation.
Also, a number of American groups, ranging from veterans to Blacks to women to professional civil servants to Medicaid, other social service recipients, farmers, recipients of federal research grants, and others are experiencing visceral losses.
With the surging ground swell of Americans who are being disadvantaged by the Trump administration, Trump is seeking to stifle media and legal push back.
I agree with Morris that visceral focus on the damage that Trump is inflicting on diverse American cohorts could result in a Democratic win in the House and possibly the Senate in 2026. I fear how Trump will use blackmail and illegality to offset his failure to deliver to the American people domestically and globally.
Keith, you are too kind. The country is in full autocratic disaster. Unless we all get to work to save US, we will not make it to 2026, much less 2028. Please see George Conway on MSNBC at approximately 8:30 EDT this morning. It’s the REAL story, no punches pulled. Also if you can, please send a small donation to the NC federal fund for the Democratic judge.
Trump is relying on his outsized media megaphones and his GOP sycophants to bolster his chances in 2026. This one of the key reasons for the Dems and Progressive s to keep marching..
Perhaps closer to the 2006 Midterms and the Gingrich repudiation that resulted in a 31 seat swing…Trump and Gingrich both have / had the capacity to engender very intense feelings from their respective opposing parties…
Also not a given: free and fair midterm elections. BTW, if the SAVE voter identification act passes, there’ll be a lot of surprised married women with hubby’s last name who discover they are ineligible when they show up to the polls. That should be fun.
Voter identification could work in society’s favor; it would require the government issuance of a standard document (card) to all eligible voters at no cost to the individual with all costs covered by the authorities.
Canada does it - I just got a voter's card by mail from Elections Canada for the federal election at the end of the month. I present it at the polls and they give me the voting slip. But we also have a fair system for designing electoral districts, without gerrymandering. Still first-past-the-post, for better or worse, but otherwise fair.
I think lots of this convo is way off the mark. Two main things: 1) why are approval ratings not what they were? The root cause is redistricting which has dramatically increased partisanship extremes, this is well documented. 2) why does the stock market count so when when only 50% of the population is not in the market? Easy - so many Americans have their retirement wealth tied up in 401ks today. And those are people more likely to vote because they are a bit better off. The greed of American companies who put profit before people and the enabling legislators, made us all captive to the stockholding class; so many times that we have to bail out the banks that helped create this monster. 401ks were supposed to be a way to "free" employees from being tied to companies. No, it just made us captive to the stock market. We had fallout in the 70s when individual companies failed to properly finance their pension promises. When they failed it hurt thousands of workers. When the market collapses now, it hurts millions.
Good dialogue but why do I think that Morris is loathe to admit that his tools are blunt? Yes, there is macro-level complexity but there is also micro-level simplicity. For individual voters, it often boils down to one thing, which, in my own case, was: who will be the best steward of our institutions? Harris — hands-down. Trump was a tried and true human wrecking ball and a highly probable usurper of power. He was outspokenly anti-constitutional both in the formal and informal sense of constitutionalism. For example, leaving aside January 6th, Trump had spent four years subverting Americans’ faith in election integrity and triggering a voter suppression movement. I never had any doubt about picking Harris — never! Was my decision multi-variable or mono-causal. The latter, I’d say.
I was a little frustrated with your guest’s performance…..it was difficult. To follow what he was saying….there was so much qualifying of his statements that following him was difficult. Thanks for the frequent summaries.
If the government offered every American $1,000 a month to quit bitching about DEI and woke and trans and immigration — basically to keep their bigotry to themselves — everyone would take that deal. Those issues are how the GOP distracts voters from the economic hardship the GOP itself inflicts by tax cuts that have funneled $50 trillion to the wealthy since Reagan.
I disagree with your statement that roughly half of Americans have basically no exposure to the market. Their exposure is through their 401(k) accounts. They know what's happening in the market as they see their 401(k) is going down and this is a very direct exposure to what's happening in the market for them even though they don't trade stocks actively. I think you're grossly underestimating the backlash to that. They've come to realize they had a great ride with Biden's market.
Per Sherlock Holmes: MOM! Lestrade also used MOM but in reverse order - Method, Opportunity, Motive - because he had to build legal cases for court. Focusing on Motive first provides the most efficient filter. That's why Holmes always solved the case before Lestrade. Building a causal model is necessary to know which variables have the most leverage (the best conditioned analysis method).
The key missing factor that has changed the most in the last 15 years is the emergence of social media and its algorithms. Put a microphone in front of a speaker and turn up the gain on the amplifier. That's how the social media platforms create positive feedback amplifiers to draw people into self-similar groups and blow out their eardrums with reinforcement. It's good for revenue, but terrible for understanding. Then the ingroup - outgroup dynamics creates conflict and make compromise difficult.
So basically, what the Democrats need to do is lie like a rug in the campaign and affirm everyone's prejudices. And then once elected implement their true, liberal policies. The marching morons won't notice the disconnect, they'll just enjoy the fruits of a good economy, peace, and clean air and water. They'll never notice they've been had, even though it's all been for the best.
BTW, what is this Afghanistan thing no one is talking about anymore?
Great podcast. I found this very interesting and very informative. I hope there is a democratic swing in the midterms but I actually don't believe elections will even occur. And if they do happen I don't think the Democratic brand will recover enough in time to overcome MAGA. I hope your guest is right.
This interview does not take into account the media bias that swayed voters to believe that Biden was doing nothing and and his administration was a failure. While he aged terribly his policies were creating a stable growing economy. This was such a sad omission on the part of the mainstream media and the pundits. I hope they look back with guilt.
Yes, very much this. A lot of people had a bad case of Fox-poisoning - directly and via social media - so they simply did not know that the inflation of the early Biden years was the same in most of the developed world, because of Covid - and Biden did not cause inflation in France or the UK or even in Canada. And they did not realize that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was messy because of how Trump had set it up, and they certainly did not know the amount of private investment pouring into manufacturing in the US because of Biden's legislation... and I could go on.
AND the tens of millions of ads on Fox etc about trans rights - the Dems did not fight back because it was so stupid, but ... It's not that the Dems were too woke, it's that they were labeled as supporting stuff they did not support, they could not take all the lying as seriously as they should have.
Biden was too decent a person to blow his own horn as much as he needed to. And Harris probably should have made the effort to go on Joe Rogan's podcast too..... but the media environment was and is SO poisonous against Democrats... talking about the objective merits of any particularly policy proposal is almost beside the point. (Trump may be managing to change this with his and Musk's madness, but .... who knows?)
Yep, like a lot of the pontification about why Kamala lost, it overlooks the insidious effect of Pox News--the only "news" that millions of people pay any attention to.
While it would be great to blame it just on FOX and right-wing media outlets, voters were not well served by major newspapers and regular television newscasts. Even the PBS News Hour let us down. False equivalency and both-sides coverage helped sane wash Trump and Republicans.
https://t.co/dOfTrbq3RU
Bingo, any analysis that doesn’t take into account the far superior Republican messaging machine should be dismissed. We know the less informed were getting bombarded with #fakenews by Republicans and that’s what swayed the election.
Does “superior” mean more pervasive? And does it include the fact that many only watch Fox and its ilk? Asking for a patriot.
That’s why the right wing echo chamber focuses more on jacking up Democrats’ negatives than Republicans’ positives…because the economy could implode like in 2008 and then all of the work increasing positives gets vaporized. So make the Democrats so hated that under no circumstances can their viewers/listeners vote for them.
Exactly. These polls are nothing more than a study in the effects of oligarch run mass media and Russian psyops. We already know they work, its why we're here. Meaningless dribble at this point.
It was also a tragedy for Kamala to concede the point to the pundits. She should have fought fiercely to defend the Biden/Harris recored, seemingly popular or not. It made her look weak.
Tim Waltz failed spectacularly. Vance was basically arguing for things that Biden accomplished at their debate and Waltz just let him get away with it. Waltz should have been saying that Vance should have voted for Biden and should vote for Kamala.
Whoever prepped Walz for that debate did a poor job.
Or he may just not have been the best choice for VP.
They are amoral. Profits is what drive them.
I find what I consider ‘visceral’ most interesting in the Krugman/Morris interview. Morris looks at a broad range of data in making his projections. In the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump’s blathering about a poor economy (not true) was viscerally more powerful that the Harris ‘joy’ campaign.
Morris suggested that the 2026 congressional elections could be a bigger Democratic blow out than Trump’s mid-term losses in 2018. For Morris a possible visceral key was that, according to CNN, 5,000,000 people turned out at nationwide protests last week. That’s a great deal of VISCERALLY!
Morris points out that Trump, in his polling slippage in his initial weeks, has done more poorly than every other recent president, except #45.
My sense is that a number of Americans are disillusioned with #47 and a number of his (and Chainsaw Musk’s) bizarre and often illegal blitzkriegs.
Trump in his campaign savaged the excellent Biden economy and promised swift ‘economic relief’ for Americans. Instead, he is now speaking of a possible economic recession in 2025 and his tariff blitzkrieg should heighten inflation.
Also, a number of American groups, ranging from veterans to Blacks to women to professional civil servants to Medicaid, other social service recipients, farmers, recipients of federal research grants, and others are experiencing visceral losses.
With the surging ground swell of Americans who are being disadvantaged by the Trump administration, Trump is seeking to stifle media and legal push back.
I agree with Morris that visceral focus on the damage that Trump is inflicting on diverse American cohorts could result in a Democratic win in the House and possibly the Senate in 2026. I fear how Trump will use blackmail and illegality to offset his failure to deliver to the American people domestically and globally.
Keith, you are too kind. The country is in full autocratic disaster. Unless we all get to work to save US, we will not make it to 2026, much less 2028. Please see George Conway on MSNBC at approximately 8:30 EDT this morning. It’s the REAL story, no punches pulled. Also if you can, please send a small donation to the NC federal fund for the Democratic judge.
Every bit counts.
Trump is relying on his outsized media megaphones and his GOP sycophants to bolster his chances in 2026. This one of the key reasons for the Dems and Progressive s to keep marching..
Trump and Co are working to not have midterms or to make them largely inaccurate in GOP favour. They are working for full autocracy.
Thank you for providing a transcript.
I wait and hope with bated breath. If so, let’s not blow it this time.
“I think people are underestimating the swing against Republicans. I think it could be even bigger than in 2018.”
Perhaps closer to the 2006 Midterms and the Gingrich repudiation that resulted in a 31 seat swing…Trump and Gingrich both have / had the capacity to engender very intense feelings from their respective opposing parties…
"Assuming the Democratic brand recovers"...far from a given.
Also not a given: free and fair midterm elections. BTW, if the SAVE voter identification act passes, there’ll be a lot of surprised married women with hubby’s last name who discover they are ineligible when they show up to the polls. That should be fun.
Voter identification could work in society’s favor; it would require the government issuance of a standard document (card) to all eligible voters at no cost to the individual with all costs covered by the authorities.
If this is not ensured it will be a fraud.
Canada does it - I just got a voter's card by mail from Elections Canada for the federal election at the end of the month. I present it at the polls and they give me the voting slip. But we also have a fair system for designing electoral districts, without gerrymandering. Still first-past-the-post, for better or worse, but otherwise fair.
You will need an id along with that card to vote. Please read what is printed on it and bring an id.
But the whole point of the exercise would be to obviate the onerous requirements. A drivers license/ state I.D. Does not do the job.
People should get government issued Identification Document (Card). Maybe at age 18 or birth.
I think lots of this convo is way off the mark. Two main things: 1) why are approval ratings not what they were? The root cause is redistricting which has dramatically increased partisanship extremes, this is well documented. 2) why does the stock market count so when when only 50% of the population is not in the market? Easy - so many Americans have their retirement wealth tied up in 401ks today. And those are people more likely to vote because they are a bit better off. The greed of American companies who put profit before people and the enabling legislators, made us all captive to the stockholding class; so many times that we have to bail out the banks that helped create this monster. 401ks were supposed to be a way to "free" employees from being tied to companies. No, it just made us captive to the stock market. We had fallout in the 70s when individual companies failed to properly finance their pension promises. When they failed it hurt thousands of workers. When the market collapses now, it hurts millions.
Republicans control the media.
Republicans control the media.
Republicans control the media.
Start and end from there. Political analysis is a harmful distraction and distortion of reality.
Excellent point.
Good dialogue but why do I think that Morris is loathe to admit that his tools are blunt? Yes, there is macro-level complexity but there is also micro-level simplicity. For individual voters, it often boils down to one thing, which, in my own case, was: who will be the best steward of our institutions? Harris — hands-down. Trump was a tried and true human wrecking ball and a highly probable usurper of power. He was outspokenly anti-constitutional both in the formal and informal sense of constitutionalism. For example, leaving aside January 6th, Trump had spent four years subverting Americans’ faith in election integrity and triggering a voter suppression movement. I never had any doubt about picking Harris — never! Was my decision multi-variable or mono-causal. The latter, I’d say.
I was a little frustrated with your guest’s performance…..it was difficult. To follow what he was saying….there was so much qualifying of his statements that following him was difficult. Thanks for the frequent summaries.
Will we actually have free fair elections in ‘26? At the rate we are going it seems a stronger likelihood every day that we won’t.
If the government offered every American $1,000 a month to quit bitching about DEI and woke and trans and immigration — basically to keep their bigotry to themselves — everyone would take that deal. Those issues are how the GOP distracts voters from the economic hardship the GOP itself inflicts by tax cuts that have funneled $50 trillion to the wealthy since Reagan.
I disagree with your statement that roughly half of Americans have basically no exposure to the market. Their exposure is through their 401(k) accounts. They know what's happening in the market as they see their 401(k) is going down and this is a very direct exposure to what's happening in the market for them even though they don't trade stocks actively. I think you're grossly underestimating the backlash to that. They've come to realize they had a great ride with Biden's market.
Per Sherlock Holmes: MOM! Lestrade also used MOM but in reverse order - Method, Opportunity, Motive - because he had to build legal cases for court. Focusing on Motive first provides the most efficient filter. That's why Holmes always solved the case before Lestrade. Building a causal model is necessary to know which variables have the most leverage (the best conditioned analysis method).
The key missing factor that has changed the most in the last 15 years is the emergence of social media and its algorithms. Put a microphone in front of a speaker and turn up the gain on the amplifier. That's how the social media platforms create positive feedback amplifiers to draw people into self-similar groups and blow out their eardrums with reinforcement. It's good for revenue, but terrible for understanding. Then the ingroup - outgroup dynamics creates conflict and make compromise difficult.
Why did Morris keep referring to “high inflation”? What high inflation? Inflation went down in 2024 compared to 2023 and alot down compared to 2022.
..cumulative price inflation over four years was his yardstick....
12%
So add all of the year’s inflation rates to get a total? Hadn’t thought of that.
So basically, what the Democrats need to do is lie like a rug in the campaign and affirm everyone's prejudices. And then once elected implement their true, liberal policies. The marching morons won't notice the disconnect, they'll just enjoy the fruits of a good economy, peace, and clean air and water. They'll never notice they've been had, even though it's all been for the best.
BTW, what is this Afghanistan thing no one is talking about anymore?
Marching Morons
"... a society overwhelmed by ignorance and anti-intellectualism"
Heh.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51233
Exactly, PopProb
Amazing interview, informative and professional.
Great podcast. I found this very interesting and very informative. I hope there is a democratic swing in the midterms but I actually don't believe elections will even occur. And if they do happen I don't think the Democratic brand will recover enough in time to overcome MAGA. I hope your guest is right.