It's pretty clear (to me anyway) that Paul or someone reads through the automatically-produced transcript, adding in the speaker and editing out some peripheral comments. That becomes apparent when you follow along in the transcript as they speak. Whoever is doing the work is doing a great job.
I assumed a human was involved as well. I subscribe to 7 Substacks - and ask each one that does podcasts to emulate Paul's great transcripts - or better yet, get Substack to improve its automated version.
To ID speakers in Substack-generated transcripts, creators simply need to open the transcript page and tell Substack that Speaker 1 is so-and-so, Speaker 2 is such-and-such. Unfortunately, Substack doesn't present that particular settings page in a very obvious way, so it's too easy to overlook. But def encourage your favorite Substackers to ID speakers!
I do prefer transcripts as well, but I do think that it’s useful to see demeanor and facial expressions from senior politicians and policy makers when they speak. And BTW, great interviewing.
Indeed. According to legend, people who watched Kennedy debate Nixon on TV favored Kennedy but people who listened to the debate on the radio favored Nixon. Which some people say is evidence that physical appearance distracts people from what they were actually saying - but if people who could see Nixon saw something suspicious, later events proved that they weren't wrong...
The delivery medium matters. The three alternatives can give very different impressions, depending on the individuals involved.
It can be important to see the visual cues that people give when they are speaking. Expressions can convey information that words alone don't. I've watched and listened to the same presidential debate where watching left a different impression than simply hearing the candidates. In one debate, the conclusion that candidate A had won was very different from the impression left by audio only. The "winner" sounded very nervous in the audio only version, but his appearance gave a different impression.
I agree that transcripts are welcome, and sometimes I will read through a transcript after watching a video or listening to a podcast.
Really good point. Some guests say a lot with their facial expressions too. I’m becoming a more frequent viewer of podcasts that crosspost to YouTube, depending on the guests. Audiobooks allowed me to keep up my reading habit when my kids were young. There are some fantastic narrators out there.
Try living in North Carolina, which despite both court action and a couple of very lengthy and genuinely motivated attempts to address the extreme gerrymandering in that state (where I lived at the time the fight went 'viral') the districts remain heavily weighted toward the GOP. They have been using every trick in the book and inventing new ones at least since the late 19th century to rig elections and stay in power. The battle of more-or-less good and pretty much evil, goes on.
And let us remember that Thom Tillis was NC Legislature House Spkr and , as such, was once selected national state legislator of the year by the Kochs.
If that's a surprise to anyone they need to wake up and smell the fumes set off by the grinding wheels of the efforts of various segments of the billionaire class to take over the whole country, by means fair or foul.
Gerrymandering won't go away because we have a two party system and both parties do it to maintain their power. The two party system and a supreme Court that ignores the Constitution are responsible for all the rot in the system.
That was hyperbole on my part. The Dems and the Repugs both bend the rules to win elections (R's more blatantly than D's IMO), but Democrats are typically better on taxes, not starting wars (Vietnam excepted) and creating and sustaining what sort of pathetic excuse for social services we have in this country. IMO, though, we need a leftward shift. The only party in the world with bragging rights is the Democratic Socialist party throughout Scandinavia. Their entrepreneurs still get wealthy, although not obscenely so, and their people are happier, healththier, better housed, and longer lived than any other peoples on the planet. Call me crazy, or call me a data geek.
California has been under a system, put into place by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and a Democratic legislature that ended gerrymandering. Wisconsin and Michigan have been trying to end gerrymandering, which allowed Republicans safety in what are actually purple states. People need to realize that a safe incumbent of either party is an incumbent who will ignore the needs of the people in the district. However, when Democrats work to end gerrymandering in some states, that puts them at a disadvantage nationally in other states where Republicans exploit the gerrymandering. Thus there is a desire to go ahead and gerrymander. (That got the Democrats into trouble in New York in four congressional house races in 2022, I seem to recall.) One of the problems with modern gerrymandering is that computers--and maybe AI?--can make it even more detailed. I live in Indiana, so I experience the result of gerrymandering. Just look at how our districts are drawn, particularly in rural areas.
It isn't just about 2 parties, it is human nature for people in power to cheat to stay in power.
In SF we have a progressive controlled Board of Supervisors, and almost always have a center left Mayor. The progressives draw the district boundaries.
They aren't done. After the 2020 Census, Texas gained 2 seats in the House. The growth was almost entirely driven by increase in minority population but both seats went to Republicans due to gerrymandering. They are already drawing new maps for the 2026 election because they know what they do will not be challenged by the Dept. of Justice under Trump/Bondi. We have to really work on getting some Republicans to switch their votes once they understand the harm their party is doing to its members. The MAGA will starve before they leave Trump, but there are many others who have always voted Republican but will be persuadable. But it will require a lot of work but I think Trump will do a lot of it for us just by becoming so out of control people will begin to wake up to the fact that we are sliding towards a de facto dictatorship.
"in 2024, if you reran the election with only people who reported watching the news more than once a month, then Kamala Harris would have won in a landslide. And that's an information thing. It's also an education thing." This, to me is the biggest problem in this country. The fact that you can have a propaganda outlet (mostly FOX) along with social media influencers that were actually paid by somebody in Russia to spout their propaganda with no accountability is mind boggling. I know free speech and all that but WTH America?
Garrison Keillor put it well recently - "The simple fact is that MAGA is the revolt of stupidity against education, science, government, the legal system, journalism, people who aren’t from here, people who don’t look like MAGGOTs; it has less to do with conservatism than it has to do with a cheese omelet. It’s a revolt fostered by the 94-year-old Australian MAGGOT Rupert Murdoch, whose loudspeaker tells the uneducated that the world has conspired against them and needs to be destroyed. Anarchy is what Murdoch has to sell and he’s been quite successful: it isn’t journalism, its cynicism, vandalism. The First Amendment gives Murdoch the right to spray-paint trash talk on the marble walls of government and now at last he has elected a vandal to spray them from the inside."
George, Parties in general are like big tents and they have to be viewed that way. The current fetid rot that used to be the gop is a coalition; The coalition is being steered by influencers, professional ones at that and they have enlisted the very best at the 'dark arts and sciences' of marketing. That's one hint to the makeup of the deplorable leadership coalition; Koch's and that corporate ilk. The other, and a very powerful one is a far extremist coalition led by Leonard Leo, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society. Leo has been quoted as saying he deplores democracy and favors a theocracy led by an extremist sect of catholicism, not mainstream worshippers of that faith. Tear that coalition down, piece by piece; That's the task.
I agree. As Heather Cox Richardson wrote after the election last fall:
"There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.
"There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat.
"But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media 'political technology'" (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-6-2024).
Kelly Ann Conway's' quip that the WH had "alternative facts" regarding crowd sizes sent shock waves! Republicans got a little beat up for that one, and it spoke volumes to the country of how Trump lies. Tame stuff compared to today. Fox knows if you control the message, you control the people, and there's nothing they won't do or say to do that.
I noticed that you made a definitive statement rather than saying something like, "I worry that they won't. . . ." So I wonder whether you have studied the electoral map and can categorically state that the Republicans can tip the scales in enough states where they control the electoral process in order to hold the House. If so, how specifically do you see that happening?
One potential factor is that if we see a blue wave election in 2026, the Democrats could do better than expected in states where they have a meaningful amount of control over election processes. Have you taken that into account in your analysis?
Yeah, the next census may raise a number of challenges for Democrats. However, that doesn't impact the 2026 and 2028 elections. What it does do is suggest that perhaps the Democrats might want to look at how to broaden its coalition by, for example, loosening some of its policy litmus tests. Are you ready to do that?
As a point of process, what exactly is the goal here? Is it to problem solve so we can build a winning coalition or is it to cultivate passive cynicism so people will give up?
We are 9 months from the 2024 election. Democratic leadership has offered no clear message, tactics, strategies, or even a vision for what they would do if elected.
You believe that pointing out pitfalls to stem hemorrhaging ofDemocratic support is "cultivating cynicism".
Exactly, what is your proposal to "build a winning coalition"?
The thing about elections is that they are very specific exercises. Either we have viable candidates to run in potentially winnable districts or we don't. My experience has been that the state and local parties tend to play a far more prominent role in candidate recruitment, strategizing and fundraising than the DNC. In addition, in my neck of the woods activists groups will also weigh in.
In other words, I am much less concerned about what the DNC is doing that what is happening on the ground. The good thing about that is people like you and me can have much more of an impact when working through local channels. So while I wish that the DNC were not so screwed up, I don't think that should get in the way of lending a hand on campaigns.
As for how to build a winning coalition, I didn't say I had a proposal -- just that we would do well to discuss how we might best win purple and even red Senate seats in order to regain the majority. For example, are there any litmus tests we are willing to loosen?
The U.S. has multi-tiered electoral processes, with state and local governments having a fair amount of control. In light of that, what specific mechanisms do you think the Republicans could take to interfere with elections enough to tip the scales in 2026?
With systems like starlink, and connected ups (power supplies) opportunities exist to manipulate the voting machines on the fly. Unusual voting patterns existed in the battle ground states for the presidential election. The anomalies were that down ballot voting was absent in too many votes for tRump. I know this all sounds crazy, but I only suggest we need to keep our eyes and minds open and challenges for fairness up. (Zev Shalev had some reporting on this among others who did graphical analysis)
I used to work with a guy who had been a manager of elections at the local and state levels in a blue state. He was a strong Democrat but would pretty regularly challenge the accuracy of left-leaning activists who were arguing that election results in our state had been rigged during the G.W. Bush era.
I vividly remember this manager talking about how emotionally worked up these activists could get. And how they flatly refused to believe him when he tried to explain in a step-by-step manner that ballot processing had more check and balances than they alleged.
In other words, he thought that a certain amount of hysteria had developed around this issue that made it impossible to have a rational discussion. I fear that this is happening again.
Here's one way: Unless the computer code used in electronic tabulating machines is open source (non-proprietary, available for all to view before, during, and after an election), it would be easy to skew the results. As Morris said in the interview, "...as we've seen, elections are so close that it really doesn't take much interference to tilt the outcome in the other way."
Open source is not a panacea. You need to know that the version that was used matches the source, you need to know the build environment, you need to know about data integrity, and you need to know about OS, compiler and runtime security issues.
And "know" means verifiable, auditable, and reproducible.
Open source is nice, but it isn't even 10% of the effort to secure the voting software integrity issue.
I agree. Open source computer code is not a panacea for the very reasons you state. We (those of us concerned with true election integrity) need to be addressing this issue now, and loudly, so that Republican operatives don't capture the voting machines.
TBH I don't think there'll be much 2026 interference. Trump doesn't care about anyone in Congress, and the safest members and governors probably want to move on from Trumpism to further their own ambitions.
But in a close election, they could manufacture disputes about a handful of Democratic winners in red states and refuse certify or swear in those people. DeSantis or Abbott would happily run interference to keep Johnson as Speaker for a few extra months.
Or in a blowout election, Fox, Newsmax, etc would use the results itself as proof there was rampant fraud. Day after day of "MS-13 and George Soros chose your Senator" will rile up enough people that they could try to justify delays in sitting the new Congress.
I don't think either is likely, but as others have said MAGA would rather give up democracy than power so they're certainly open to trying.
I’ve been looking for this comment. I feel like a broken record, questioning the assumption that upcoming elections will proceed as usual. No way. Trump will create an “emergency” then postpone elections indefinitely.
In order to prevent the planned kibosh on elections, we need to be talking about it, loudly and often. People act like it can’t possibly happen, while at the same time reporting on multiple daily unconstitutional outrages. How can anyone fail to connect the dots?
We are discussing here under the assumption that there are going to be midterms elections and even if there are going to happen we are assuming that the regime will not try to rig them. Will these assumptions hold?
No, they won’t. With what Kristi Noem said about “liberating” Los Angeles, Trump is setting the stage for declaring a national emergency in all Democrat controlled states… and cancelling elections “to prevent election theft”. And Fix News will report his claims as true… and The New York Times will STILL fail to call Trump a fascist! WTFU, people. We are not living in normal times!
What specific legal mechanism could Trump use to cancel elections in Democratic states? And why do you think whatever he tried wouldn't get knocked down by the courts?
I noticed that you have made definitive statements rather than noting that this was but one scenario. What makes you so confident in your prediction?
Kristi Noem’s statement about “liberating” Los Angeles from its voter chosen officials shows election rigging is an irrelevant question. MAGA refuses to accept the outcome of elections that don’t conform to its agenda. Another example is the Missouri legislature decision to override the voter’s decision to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. MAGA has decided it won’t play by the rules if the outcome is not what it wants. It’s like the Indiana Pacers deciding unilaterally to play by NFL rules, ignoring the ref IF he calls fouls, but refusing to accept the results if the OKC Thunder also start playing by NFL rules.
Trump will foment an emergency, then postpone elections indefinitely. So far nobody has stopped him from one unconstitutional outrage to the next. Do MAGAs act like they are worried about the next election? No. They are like a steamroller crushing any norm or law that gets in their way. Habeas Corpus being but one example. There will be no elections in 2026, or 2028.
Tanks in the streets Trump anything, including the Constitution. We have to make sure we have our own tanks available - by making sure most military personnel honor their oath to the Constitution.
Good question. federal pressure, disinformation, legal challenges, or manipulation of turnout through voter suppression laws or intimidation could still play a role….then I guess I could invalidate the response coming from the electorate…happens all the time is some countries ran by fascists
Not rigging . . . Elections will be postponed indefinitely. If a state holds an election but the federal government is In operational, what’s the difference?
Again, to the point you have to read the whole article.... their point that the dems aren't poling well (as the last question here) - If the question is simply are you angry with democrat leaders the answer is hell yeah. However, I will be showing up to vote in special and mid terms to vote Democrats down the ballot.
These poll questions are as badly worded as any word salad frump and Republicans spew. Democracy is on the line. Everyone needs to try harder to save it.
Democratic voters seem to demand 100% fealty from candidates to their own personal agenda or they refuse to vote as a mark of narcissism. They let the perfect become the enemy of the good enough.
Jerry Ferreri's good question below. This discussion is about trees, not the forest or the larger landscape. Legislatures and election officials in several states--Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina most prominently among them--have already begun to implement Trump's March 25 executive order to suppress voting in the guise of stringent voter ID. The order is unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment because the president can't dictate state voting procedures. But states can set such rules on their own, and the so-called SAVE Act, which narrowly passed the House, would codify the executive order and require all voters to register in person with a passport or certified birth certificate. 21 million currently eligible voters--US citizens--have neither. Voting will no longer be free and the voter suppression bureaucracies that states and local election offices will be required to set up will cost billions$.
The SAVE Act is the modern-day, more sophisticated version of the Jim Crow-era poll taxes and literacy tests designed to keep certain types of people from voting, even though they are eligible to vote. It's an Orwellian solution to a supposed problem--voting by non-citizens--that is virtually non-existent. In 2024, North Carolina found 9 voter registrations of persons without citizenship, out of 7.7 million voters. That's registrations, not actual votes, but if all those registrants voted, it would be a rate of .00001%. Similar in Ohio and Georgia investigations.
This. Used to live in AZ and have many friends there that are having to prove their citizenry now. Had back and forth conversations with a reporter on the ground trying to get the word out. This is voter suppression. Full stop.
Some years back, New Jersey passed a law preventing non-citizens from obtaining a drivers' license. Various things hit the news. People who were born to US citizens in another country were blocked. One worker refused to believe that New Mexico was a US State. And people who had the misfortune to be born in US territories were really behind the 8-ball.
This new requirement, at least in AZ, is set up for all elections, but NOT the general. If it is true that democrats are more likely to get out and vote in mid terms, than Republicans have successfully succeeded in stifling the voters.
Passport or certified birth certificate, a particular challenge for spouses who have changed their name. Yes, it would suppress registration and voting from rural districts too.
And who would adjudicate the validity of the new rigid documentation, amidst a tsunami of applicants? Plus, in vote-by-mail states, would voters have to submit documents before each and every election? It’s deliberate suppression and chaos. But I still think the mechanism will be indefinitely postponed elections due to a fabricated emergency.
It would be adjudicated by state and local election officials, the latter mostly at the county level. About 80% of US counties that have partisan administrations are Republican.
Right, and vote-counting and verification will take months. The NC Supreme Court race that wasn't decided until May will become the norm rather than the exception. That's not unintentional.
"in a democracy, voters just don't have too many levers to use when they're unhappy. And if you're unhappy and there's a party in power, again, this is the causation / correlation thing. Folks were simply unhappy with the party in power, even though they had nothing to do with the real problems that people were facing.
People are going to take the one option that they have. There's really not much else to do."
It's NOT the only option in a democracy. It's the only option on Election Day. But the real power of the people, in a democracy, lies in everything we do before that: informing ourselves, debating with those who disagree, understanding who does what in Congress and the WH, understand how the democratic process works (as Obama just explained, two days ago, democracy means compromising between different constituencies, so it is VITAL that people understand that compromise is not a vile word, in a democracy - let alone a betrayal of the politicians representing you).
Obviously, all these activities require high-quality media (THE main problem today, both on the left and right) and free access to high-quality education. Still, strong unions and churches can do a lot of education and informing and providing spaces for debate too.
As long as people IMAGINE that democracy means "voting" and that's it, however, the problem will continue. People will systematically vote out incumbents, unless they happen to have such star power (which has nothing to do with being good at governing) that they feel drawn to them and stick with them without even knowing why.
I have zero confidence the criminal party will allow fair elections. It’ll either be death by a thousand ‘new rules’ cuts and/or ICE creating havoc in big blue cities.
I don't see how polls can be very useful any more. I get many requests via text to participate in a poll. No, of course I'm not going to respond to a random text from an unknown source about my political views! Sometimes I get phone calls too, Same response. Sometimes I have gotten survey forms in the mail, for example, from the ACLU. The ACLU questions were so biased that I was disgusted and threw the form away even though I am sympathetic to having an organization trying to retain our rights.
So who is answering polls?
I would be responsive to a human coming to my door, having apparently good credentials, with a clear explanation about how the results will be used. I'm not going to have anything to do with messages on devices from unknowable sources.
A lot here to take in. But to me, the most important thing is the discussion of the media and how it shapes our lives, the democracy of our country. Going back to an old theory, The Media is the Message - Marshall McLuhan.
Why is it that so many of the left-center outlets like Krugman's Substack and The Contrarian rarely mention that the Democratic Party has absolutely abysmal approval ratings right now, and has for months?
The party's rating are lower than Trump's lower than the Republican Party's approval ratings... for a party that is supposedly doing so well in special elections, it is doing terribly with the American public.
People around the country are disgusted by the fecklessness and constant compromising of the Democratic Party. Here in NYC, we are likely to elect a sexual predator who resigned in disgrace after being responsible for the deaths of thousands of nursing home residents. In Congress, only a tiny handful of Democrats have loudly spoken out against a possible war with Iran, while so many lean into the never ending 'Israel has a right to defend itself' nonsense. We could hardly pick two more flailing, wishy washy party leaders than Jeffries and Schumer.
The Democratic Party will never succeed if it continues to shift right and try to win conservative voters.
Thank you! Agree 100%! Why did the democrat committee get rid of their #2, David Hogg? It feels like a party of geriatrics who keep moving the deck chairs on the titanic and expecting a better outcome. The whole party may just be out financed by everyone who is profiting from the current fossil fuel dominated system.
"Why is it that so many of the left-center outlets like Krugman's Substack and The Contrarian rarely mention that the Democratic Party has absolutely abysmal approval ratings right now, and has for months?"
This post had a whole discussion about exactly that. Either watch the video again or read the transcript again.
They mention it almost in passing at the very end of the interview, and both the answers are pretty dismissive of this glaring fact while still leaning into, 'yeah, but, special elections'... It's hardly a 'whole discussion', especially after after 40+ minutes of debating only if the Democrat's future is merely rosy or downright fantastic.
They don't really go into any details of why this is happening and why it has been the case for many months now, and offer no solutions... the final comment is 'the actual election results speak louder than the polls in this particular question' ...which is something to say after the same thing happened in 2022-2023 before the Democrats were routed across the board in 2024. It is patently obvious that special elections have little if any bearing on even midterm elections, let alone the presidential elections.
There is nothing here about what the Democrats actually stand for, besides not being Republicans (even that is questionable on a policy level for many). There is no discussion here of the GOP pickups from so much of the Democratic base...
It's funny that an article titled' Will the Midterms Be a Blowout"? can mention in the very last seconds of the interview that 'the Democratic brand is in the toilet' and then go on to discuss the unimportance of that fact.
The title should be 'Will Democrats Ever Learn Anything?'
It might have seemed to be mentioned only in passing, but a major point was that a lot those low poll numbers were disaffected Democrats who are (rightfully) disappointed with the leadership - but will still be out there voting, and specifically voting for Democrats.
The only concrete example of this they can point to is the same special elections that, as they discuss in detail, are a small sample of voters which is overrepresented by particular segments of the Democratic voters that do not reflect even the larger Democratic Party, much less the general electorate.
Of course it is true that some upsets Dems will vote Democrat anyway, but it's also true that many more will simply not vote at all, which is of course a big part of what happened in 2024, when many Democrats were very disillusioned with their party's decision to boost sympathetic but unpopular GOP leaders (which amounted to exactly zero GOP support for Harris in the election) while largely shunning important parts of its base.
CNN reported in March that the Democrat's approval rating of 29% was 'a record low in CNN’s polling dating back to 1992', and this hasn't 'improved much since then. Certainly some of this is driven by angry Democrats, but abysmal numbers like that surely indicate a much bigger problem.
You did not see the DNC convention which features several Never Trumper Republicans, while Por Palestinian activists were not give a moment on stage?
Harris's campaign went out of their way to embrace Republicans with this terrible idea that this may attract from disaffected GOP voters...not to mention pivoting hard right on a number of issues.
In case, the point remains that 'yeah , Democrats are historically unpopular, but, so what, special elections!' is a weak argument...it's not wonder it was only an add-on at the very end of the interview...it's pretty clear that Krugman felt obligated to bring it up, just so the guests could dismiss it without any real discussion at all.
Pal Krugman is brilliant, but not so much as an adversarial interviewer. I would rather hear Mehdi Hasan interview these guys any day.
I agree but at least with presidential elections, as long as the Electoral College remains in a place, it will be extremely difficult for any third party to have a real chance of being anything but a spoiler, unfortunately.
I dream of an impossible future where we have a more parliamentary type system, where coalitions of parties would need to join forces to form majorities.
Alternative parties can and do occasionally break through on the local and sometimes state level.
Another advantage of parliamentary style governance is the ability to quickly correct an error and avert disaster. See Liz Truss who lead England for about 18 days.
Since you are such a good reader, see my comment above, where I already addressed the 2 total minutes at the very end of the45 minutes interview, at the very end, both the answers dismiss the softball question, without going into any details or specifics.
The fat that the kinda, sorta acknowledge this huge problem,, then basically blow it off as not that important, is even worse than if they didn't mention it at all...but since you are such a good reader, you'll see I said 'rarely' not 'never'.
Your stammering gobbledygookish reply and about-face of topic aside, the entire article is about the 'importance' and likelihood of 'people voting D'.
Not so sure you 'looked into the details', or that you understood them if you did.
Did I say 'lots of words' or just 'meh'? You seem to have a hard time deciding your point, if you actually have one....At any rate, my responses have been far from 'meh' which is obvious if you 'looks into the details.
For reasons of the shortage of time in life, I don't always listen to Paul's music clips at the end, but today I did note the Buffalo Springfield reference at the end. You might have added in today's LA world, "there's a man with a gun over there etc." Clearly you have great taste in music as it is much the same as my own! I just read about our lame VP referring to Sen. Alex Padilla as "Jose Padilla". For an educated guy, he sure is lame! and dumb! LIke the organized assault on Zelensky on live TV where both Dump and JD went after a national hero in his country, and to my mind, much of ours. I guess this tells us that JD thinks that most MAGAs are really stupid, and he sure does stoop to their level with schoolyard insults. Yes, they did serve in the US Senate together!
Canadians looked at their options last federal elections. Poilievre has the personality of a mean bully. Mark Carney exudes financial competence. Enough folks had had enough of the Liberals under Trudeau to make it a race but Carney was elected.
The transcript is greatly appreciated. I’m an old soul that prefers reading to listening or watching for the most part.
Ditto. I'm a reader, not a viewer or listener.
I like to listen sometimes but this morning I decided to read. Quicker.
Paul K, what do you do that other Substack content providers don't do to make your transcripts readable?
It appears to me that Substack's default provides a automated transcript - not even identifying speakers.
It's pretty clear (to me anyway) that Paul or someone reads through the automatically-produced transcript, adding in the speaker and editing out some peripheral comments. That becomes apparent when you follow along in the transcript as they speak. Whoever is doing the work is doing a great job.
Jack the cat helps with the transcripts, I believe.
Supervision is a cat specialty.
I assumed a human was involved as well. I subscribe to 7 Substacks - and ask each one that does podcasts to emulate Paul's great transcripts - or better yet, get Substack to improve its automated version.
I pass on listening. Totally prefer to read.
To ID speakers in Substack-generated transcripts, creators simply need to open the transcript page and tell Substack that Speaker 1 is so-and-so, Speaker 2 is such-and-such. Unfortunately, Substack doesn't present that particular settings page in a very obvious way, so it's too easy to overlook. But def encourage your favorite Substackers to ID speakers!
Thanks. I'll do that.
It was so clear! I edit transcripts after they’re done and the difference can be vital.
I do prefer transcripts as well, but I do think that it’s useful to see demeanor and facial expressions from senior politicians and policy makers when they speak. And BTW, great interviewing.
Indeed. According to legend, people who watched Kennedy debate Nixon on TV favored Kennedy but people who listened to the debate on the radio favored Nixon. Which some people say is evidence that physical appearance distracts people from what they were actually saying - but if people who could see Nixon saw something suspicious, later events proved that they weren't wrong...
I'm an old soul that prefers listening to reading... especially while I'm cooking or doing something else.
The delivery medium matters. The three alternatives can give very different impressions, depending on the individuals involved.
It can be important to see the visual cues that people give when they are speaking. Expressions can convey information that words alone don't. I've watched and listened to the same presidential debate where watching left a different impression than simply hearing the candidates. In one debate, the conclusion that candidate A had won was very different from the impression left by audio only. The "winner" sounded very nervous in the audio only version, but his appearance gave a different impression.
I agree that transcripts are welcome, and sometimes I will read through a transcript after watching a video or listening to a podcast.
Really good point. Some guests say a lot with their facial expressions too. I’m becoming a more frequent viewer of podcasts that crosspost to YouTube, depending on the guests. Audiobooks allowed me to keep up my reading habit when my kids were young. There are some fantastic narrators out there.
On the other hand, the audio versions are useful to fall asleep to at the end of the day. Try it!
I like to listen first and then go back to the transcript for clarification.
Me, too! I depend on transcripts.
Me too!
My husband is so busy, audio books are perfect for him - doesn't work for me, and I love the feel of a book in my hands.
Me too
San Antonio Texas just elected the most progress city council and a woman mayor. MAGA spent a lot of money to defeat her.
The gerrymandering part is scary. Texas succeeded in doing that in the early 2000s
Try living in North Carolina, which despite both court action and a couple of very lengthy and genuinely motivated attempts to address the extreme gerrymandering in that state (where I lived at the time the fight went 'viral') the districts remain heavily weighted toward the GOP. They have been using every trick in the book and inventing new ones at least since the late 19th century to rig elections and stay in power. The battle of more-or-less good and pretty much evil, goes on.
And let us remember that Thom Tillis was NC Legislature House Spkr and , as such, was once selected national state legislator of the year by the Kochs.
The Koch's have their dirty fingerprints all over the country.
They have been opposed to Trump since the beginning, so at least they draw the line somewhere.
If that's a surprise to anyone they need to wake up and smell the fumes set off by the grinding wheels of the efforts of various segments of the billionaire class to take over the whole country, by means fair or foul.
🤮🤮🤮
That says all anyone really needs to know about the modern Republican party.
Gerrymandering won't go away because we have a two party system and both parties do it to maintain their power. The two party system and a supreme Court that ignores the Constitution are responsible for all the rot in the system.
Yeah they do, but who does it much more aggressively, and, sad to say, effectively?
That's the big problem with Democrats, they are just slightly better than the Republicans.
That was hyperbole on my part. The Dems and the Repugs both bend the rules to win elections (R's more blatantly than D's IMO), but Democrats are typically better on taxes, not starting wars (Vietnam excepted) and creating and sustaining what sort of pathetic excuse for social services we have in this country. IMO, though, we need a leftward shift. The only party in the world with bragging rights is the Democratic Socialist party throughout Scandinavia. Their entrepreneurs still get wealthy, although not obscenely so, and their people are happier, healththier, better housed, and longer lived than any other peoples on the planet. Call me crazy, or call me a data geek.
California has been under a system, put into place by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and a Democratic legislature that ended gerrymandering. Wisconsin and Michigan have been trying to end gerrymandering, which allowed Republicans safety in what are actually purple states. People need to realize that a safe incumbent of either party is an incumbent who will ignore the needs of the people in the district. However, when Democrats work to end gerrymandering in some states, that puts them at a disadvantage nationally in other states where Republicans exploit the gerrymandering. Thus there is a desire to go ahead and gerrymander. (That got the Democrats into trouble in New York in four congressional house races in 2022, I seem to recall.) One of the problems with modern gerrymandering is that computers--and maybe AI?--can make it even more detailed. I live in Indiana, so I experience the result of gerrymandering. Just look at how our districts are drawn, particularly in rural areas.
It isn't just about 2 parties, it is human nature for people in power to cheat to stay in power.
In SF we have a progressive controlled Board of Supervisors, and almost always have a center left Mayor. The progressives draw the district boundaries.
It's gone in Washington state, and we need to continue the fight. Gerrymandering enables corruption.
San Antonio Texas just elected the most progressive city council and a woman mayor. MAGA spent a lot of money to defeat her.
The gerrymandering part is scary. Texas succeeded in doing that in the early 2000s
They aren't done. After the 2020 Census, Texas gained 2 seats in the House. The growth was almost entirely driven by increase in minority population but both seats went to Republicans due to gerrymandering. They are already drawing new maps for the 2026 election because they know what they do will not be challenged by the Dept. of Justice under Trump/Bondi. We have to really work on getting some Republicans to switch their votes once they understand the harm their party is doing to its members. The MAGA will starve before they leave Trump, but there are many others who have always voted Republican but will be persuadable. But it will require a lot of work but I think Trump will do a lot of it for us just by becoming so out of control people will begin to wake up to the fact that we are sliding towards a de facto dictatorship.
So did Ohio, and others. Sanctity of every vote has to become an incessant battle cry - regardless of party.
Btw Dorothy; I adore San Antonio. Done right, I feel it should be 'the' honeymoon and anniversary capital of America !
"in 2024, if you reran the election with only people who reported watching the news more than once a month, then Kamala Harris would have won in a landslide. And that's an information thing. It's also an education thing." This, to me is the biggest problem in this country. The fact that you can have a propaganda outlet (mostly FOX) along with social media influencers that were actually paid by somebody in Russia to spout their propaganda with no accountability is mind boggling. I know free speech and all that but WTH America?
Garrison Keillor put it well recently - "The simple fact is that MAGA is the revolt of stupidity against education, science, government, the legal system, journalism, people who aren’t from here, people who don’t look like MAGGOTs; it has less to do with conservatism than it has to do with a cheese omelet. It’s a revolt fostered by the 94-year-old Australian MAGGOT Rupert Murdoch, whose loudspeaker tells the uneducated that the world has conspired against them and needs to be destroyed. Anarchy is what Murdoch has to sell and he’s been quite successful: it isn’t journalism, its cynicism, vandalism. The First Amendment gives Murdoch the right to spray-paint trash talk on the marble walls of government and now at last he has elected a vandal to spray them from the inside."
Our First Amendment has turned into a suicide pact.
We allowed it; I allowed it.
George, Parties in general are like big tents and they have to be viewed that way. The current fetid rot that used to be the gop is a coalition; The coalition is being steered by influencers, professional ones at that and they have enlisted the very best at the 'dark arts and sciences' of marketing. That's one hint to the makeup of the deplorable leadership coalition; Koch's and that corporate ilk. The other, and a very powerful one is a far extremist coalition led by Leonard Leo, Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society. Leo has been quoted as saying he deplores democracy and favors a theocracy led by an extremist sect of catholicism, not mainstream worshippers of that faith. Tear that coalition down, piece by piece; That's the task.
I agree. As Heather Cox Richardson wrote after the election last fall:
"There is no doubt that a key factor in voters’ swing to Trump is that they associated the inflation of the post-pandemic months with Biden and turned the incumbents out, a phenomenon seen all over the world.
"There is also no doubt that both racism and sexism played an important role in Harris’s defeat.
"But my own conclusion is that both of those things were amplified by the flood of disinformation that has plagued the U.S. for years now. Russian political theorists called the construction of a virtual political reality through modern media 'political technology'" (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-6-2024).
Kelly Ann Conway's' quip that the WH had "alternative facts" regarding crowd sizes sent shock waves! Republicans got a little beat up for that one, and it spoke volumes to the country of how Trump lies. Tame stuff compared to today. Fox knows if you control the message, you control the people, and there's nothing they won't do or say to do that.
Will the Republicans allow a loss of power via elections and what are we prepared to do about it if they don’t?
No, they won’t. Look at what the GOP is doing or has done in states where they lost.
I noticed that you made a definitive statement rather than saying something like, "I worry that they won't. . . ." So I wonder whether you have studied the electoral map and can categorically state that the Republicans can tip the scales in enough states where they control the electoral process in order to hold the House. If so, how specifically do you see that happening?
One potential factor is that if we see a blue wave election in 2026, the Democrats could do better than expected in states where they have a meaningful amount of control over election processes. Have you taken that into account in your analysis?
I am going on past history in Texas. They redistricted in 2003 and Democrats lost seats.
Even without extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, and DNC incompetence, Democrats are projected to lose 12 House seats in the next census.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrats-future-crisis-the-biggest-states-that-back-them-are-shrinking
Yeah, the next census may raise a number of challenges for Democrats. However, that doesn't impact the 2026 and 2028 elections. What it does do is suggest that perhaps the Democrats might want to look at how to broaden its coalition by, for example, loosening some of its policy litmus tests. Are you ready to do that?
As a point of process, what exactly is the goal here? Is it to problem solve so we can build a winning coalition or is it to cultivate passive cynicism so people will give up?
We are 9 months from the 2024 election. Democratic leadership has offered no clear message, tactics, strategies, or even a vision for what they would do if elected.
You believe that pointing out pitfalls to stem hemorrhaging ofDemocratic support is "cultivating cynicism".
Exactly, what is your proposal to "build a winning coalition"?
The thing about elections is that they are very specific exercises. Either we have viable candidates to run in potentially winnable districts or we don't. My experience has been that the state and local parties tend to play a far more prominent role in candidate recruitment, strategizing and fundraising than the DNC. In addition, in my neck of the woods activists groups will also weigh in.
In other words, I am much less concerned about what the DNC is doing that what is happening on the ground. The good thing about that is people like you and me can have much more of an impact when working through local channels. So while I wish that the DNC were not so screwed up, I don't think that should get in the way of lending a hand on campaigns.
As for how to build a winning coalition, I didn't say I had a proposal -- just that we would do well to discuss how we might best win purple and even red Senate seats in order to regain the majority. For example, are there any litmus tests we are willing to loosen?
The U.S. has multi-tiered electoral processes, with state and local governments having a fair amount of control. In light of that, what specific mechanisms do you think the Republicans could take to interfere with elections enough to tip the scales in 2026?
With systems like starlink, and connected ups (power supplies) opportunities exist to manipulate the voting machines on the fly. Unusual voting patterns existed in the battle ground states for the presidential election. The anomalies were that down ballot voting was absent in too many votes for tRump. I know this all sounds crazy, but I only suggest we need to keep our eyes and minds open and challenges for fairness up. (Zev Shalev had some reporting on this among others who did graphical analysis)
I used to work with a guy who had been a manager of elections at the local and state levels in a blue state. He was a strong Democrat but would pretty regularly challenge the accuracy of left-leaning activists who were arguing that election results in our state had been rigged during the G.W. Bush era.
I vividly remember this manager talking about how emotionally worked up these activists could get. And how they flatly refused to believe him when he tried to explain in a step-by-step manner that ballot processing had more check and balances than they alleged.
In other words, he thought that a certain amount of hysteria had developed around this issue that made it impossible to have a rational discussion. I fear that this is happening again.
Exactly!
You beat me to it.
Here's one way: Unless the computer code used in electronic tabulating machines is open source (non-proprietary, available for all to view before, during, and after an election), it would be easy to skew the results. As Morris said in the interview, "...as we've seen, elections are so close that it really doesn't take much interference to tilt the outcome in the other way."
Open source is not a panacea. You need to know that the version that was used matches the source, you need to know the build environment, you need to know about data integrity, and you need to know about OS, compiler and runtime security issues.
And "know" means verifiable, auditable, and reproducible.
Open source is nice, but it isn't even 10% of the effort to secure the voting software integrity issue.
I agree. Open source computer code is not a panacea for the very reasons you state. We (those of us concerned with true election integrity) need to be addressing this issue now, and loudly, so that Republican operatives don't capture the voting machines.
TBH I don't think there'll be much 2026 interference. Trump doesn't care about anyone in Congress, and the safest members and governors probably want to move on from Trumpism to further their own ambitions.
But in a close election, they could manufacture disputes about a handful of Democratic winners in red states and refuse certify or swear in those people. DeSantis or Abbott would happily run interference to keep Johnson as Speaker for a few extra months.
Or in a blowout election, Fox, Newsmax, etc would use the results itself as proof there was rampant fraud. Day after day of "MS-13 and George Soros chose your Senator" will rile up enough people that they could try to justify delays in sitting the new Congress.
I don't think either is likely, but as others have said MAGA would rather give up democracy than power so they're certainly open to trying.
I’ve been looking for this comment. I feel like a broken record, questioning the assumption that upcoming elections will proceed as usual. No way. Trump will create an “emergency” then postpone elections indefinitely.
In order to prevent the planned kibosh on elections, we need to be talking about it, loudly and often. People act like it can’t possibly happen, while at the same time reporting on multiple daily unconstitutional outrages. How can anyone fail to connect the dots?
Here here !
We are discussing here under the assumption that there are going to be midterms elections and even if there are going to happen we are assuming that the regime will not try to rig them. Will these assumptions hold?
No, they won’t. With what Kristi Noem said about “liberating” Los Angeles, Trump is setting the stage for declaring a national emergency in all Democrat controlled states… and cancelling elections “to prevent election theft”. And Fix News will report his claims as true… and The New York Times will STILL fail to call Trump a fascist! WTFU, people. We are not living in normal times!
If Trump gets it to that point, it will have been already true that he has flouted numerous SCOTUS decisions.
I hope California's lawyers are not forgetting to include the public statements of Trump and Noem in their pleadings.
Well, the SCOTUS >did< give him blanket immunity, didn't they.
Only from criminal prosecution. Call me Pollyanna, but I'm still expecting impeachment and conviction.
We can only hope.
🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏
What specific legal mechanism could Trump use to cancel elections in Democratic states? And why do you think whatever he tried wouldn't get knocked down by the courts?
I noticed that you have made definitive statements rather than noting that this was but one scenario. What makes you so confident in your prediction?
Kristi Noem’s statement about “liberating” Los Angeles from its voter chosen officials shows election rigging is an irrelevant question. MAGA refuses to accept the outcome of elections that don’t conform to its agenda. Another example is the Missouri legislature decision to override the voter’s decision to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. MAGA has decided it won’t play by the rules if the outcome is not what it wants. It’s like the Indiana Pacers deciding unilaterally to play by NFL rules, ignoring the ref IF he calls fouls, but refusing to accept the results if the OKC Thunder also start playing by NFL rules.
Trump will foment an emergency, then postpone elections indefinitely. So far nobody has stopped him from one unconstitutional outrage to the next. Do MAGAs act like they are worried about the next election? No. They are like a steamroller crushing any norm or law that gets in their way. Habeas Corpus being but one example. There will be no elections in 2026, or 2028.
States run elections.
Until states are ignored.
Tanks in the streets Trump anything, including the Constitution. We have to make sure we have our own tanks available - by making sure most military personnel honor their oath to the Constitution.
By pulling the trigger if necessary.
Please. Are you a Russian bot?
My parents always told me I was born in Illinois, and I never had a reason to doubt. I guess that means I’m not anyone’s bot.
How specifically do you see that rigging happening -- particularly in states and localities whose electoral processes are controlled by Democrats?
Any rigging that takes place will occur in swing states and localities, not the ones controlled by Democrats.
Good question. federal pressure, disinformation, legal challenges, or manipulation of turnout through voter suppression laws or intimidation could still play a role….then I guess I could invalidate the response coming from the electorate…happens all the time is some countries ran by fascists
Not rigging . . . Elections will be postponed indefinitely. If a state holds an election but the federal government is In operational, what’s the difference?
We discussed this precise question in great depth!
Again, to the point you have to read the whole article.... their point that the dems aren't poling well (as the last question here) - If the question is simply are you angry with democrat leaders the answer is hell yeah. However, I will be showing up to vote in special and mid terms to vote Democrats down the ballot.
These poll questions are as badly worded as any word salad frump and Republicans spew. Democracy is on the line. Everyone needs to try harder to save it.
Yup. I'm angry at Dem leaders for listening to progressives too much, and progressives are angry with Dem leaders about being ignored.
Democratic voters seem to demand 100% fealty from candidates to their own personal agenda or they refuse to vote as a mark of narcissism. They let the perfect become the enemy of the good enough.
Jerry Ferreri's good question below. This discussion is about trees, not the forest or the larger landscape. Legislatures and election officials in several states--Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina most prominently among them--have already begun to implement Trump's March 25 executive order to suppress voting in the guise of stringent voter ID. The order is unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment because the president can't dictate state voting procedures. But states can set such rules on their own, and the so-called SAVE Act, which narrowly passed the House, would codify the executive order and require all voters to register in person with a passport or certified birth certificate. 21 million currently eligible voters--US citizens--have neither. Voting will no longer be free and the voter suppression bureaucracies that states and local election offices will be required to set up will cost billions$.
The SAVE Act is the modern-day, more sophisticated version of the Jim Crow-era poll taxes and literacy tests designed to keep certain types of people from voting, even though they are eligible to vote. It's an Orwellian solution to a supposed problem--voting by non-citizens--that is virtually non-existent. In 2024, North Carolina found 9 voter registrations of persons without citizenship, out of 7.7 million voters. That's registrations, not actual votes, but if all those registrants voted, it would be a rate of .00001%. Similar in Ohio and Georgia investigations.
This. Used to live in AZ and have many friends there that are having to prove their citizenry now. Had back and forth conversations with a reporter on the ground trying to get the word out. This is voter suppression. Full stop.
Some years back, New Jersey passed a law preventing non-citizens from obtaining a drivers' license. Various things hit the news. People who were born to US citizens in another country were blocked. One worker refused to believe that New Mexico was a US State. And people who had the misfortune to be born in US territories were really behind the 8-ball.
But do we know how that would influence the democratic and republican votes? What if more rural, republican voters don't have passports?
This new requirement, at least in AZ, is set up for all elections, but NOT the general. If it is true that democrats are more likely to get out and vote in mid terms, than Republicans have successfully succeeded in stifling the voters.
Passport or certified birth certificate, a particular challenge for spouses who have changed their name. Yes, it would suppress registration and voting from rural districts too.
And who would adjudicate the validity of the new rigid documentation, amidst a tsunami of applicants? Plus, in vote-by-mail states, would voters have to submit documents before each and every election? It’s deliberate suppression and chaos. But I still think the mechanism will be indefinitely postponed elections due to a fabricated emergency.
It would be adjudicated by state and local election officials, the latter mostly at the county level. About 80% of US counties that have partisan administrations are Republican.
I foresee tons of lawsuits as documents are vetted by unqualified people.
Right, and vote-counting and verification will take months. The NC Supreme Court race that wasn't decided until May will become the norm rather than the exception. That's not unintentional.
"in a democracy, voters just don't have too many levers to use when they're unhappy. And if you're unhappy and there's a party in power, again, this is the causation / correlation thing. Folks were simply unhappy with the party in power, even though they had nothing to do with the real problems that people were facing.
People are going to take the one option that they have. There's really not much else to do."
It's NOT the only option in a democracy. It's the only option on Election Day. But the real power of the people, in a democracy, lies in everything we do before that: informing ourselves, debating with those who disagree, understanding who does what in Congress and the WH, understand how the democratic process works (as Obama just explained, two days ago, democracy means compromising between different constituencies, so it is VITAL that people understand that compromise is not a vile word, in a democracy - let alone a betrayal of the politicians representing you).
Obviously, all these activities require high-quality media (THE main problem today, both on the left and right) and free access to high-quality education. Still, strong unions and churches can do a lot of education and informing and providing spaces for debate too.
As long as people IMAGINE that democracy means "voting" and that's it, however, the problem will continue. People will systematically vote out incumbents, unless they happen to have such star power (which has nothing to do with being good at governing) that they feel drawn to them and stick with them without even knowing why.
I have zero confidence the criminal party will allow fair elections. It’ll either be death by a thousand ‘new rules’ cuts and/or ICE creating havoc in big blue cities.
I don't see how polls can be very useful any more. I get many requests via text to participate in a poll. No, of course I'm not going to respond to a random text from an unknown source about my political views! Sometimes I get phone calls too, Same response. Sometimes I have gotten survey forms in the mail, for example, from the ACLU. The ACLU questions were so biased that I was disgusted and threw the form away even though I am sympathetic to having an organization trying to retain our rights.
So who is answering polls?
I would be responsive to a human coming to my door, having apparently good credentials, with a clear explanation about how the results will be used. I'm not going to have anything to do with messages on devices from unknowable sources.
A lot here to take in. But to me, the most important thing is the discussion of the media and how it shapes our lives, the democracy of our country. Going back to an old theory, The Media is the Message - Marshall McLuhan.
Why is it that so many of the left-center outlets like Krugman's Substack and The Contrarian rarely mention that the Democratic Party has absolutely abysmal approval ratings right now, and has for months?
The party's rating are lower than Trump's lower than the Republican Party's approval ratings... for a party that is supposedly doing so well in special elections, it is doing terribly with the American public.
People around the country are disgusted by the fecklessness and constant compromising of the Democratic Party. Here in NYC, we are likely to elect a sexual predator who resigned in disgrace after being responsible for the deaths of thousands of nursing home residents. In Congress, only a tiny handful of Democrats have loudly spoken out against a possible war with Iran, while so many lean into the never ending 'Israel has a right to defend itself' nonsense. We could hardly pick two more flailing, wishy washy party leaders than Jeffries and Schumer.
The Democratic Party will never succeed if it continues to shift right and try to win conservative voters.
Thank you! Agree 100%! Why did the democrat committee get rid of their #2, David Hogg? It feels like a party of geriatrics who keep moving the deck chairs on the titanic and expecting a better outcome. The whole party may just be out financed by everyone who is profiting from the current fossil fuel dominated system.
Yeah, Hogg represents exactly what we need the most right now.
Hogg's push out of the DNC was utterly disgraceful.
"Why is it that so many of the left-center outlets like Krugman's Substack and The Contrarian rarely mention that the Democratic Party has absolutely abysmal approval ratings right now, and has for months?"
This post had a whole discussion about exactly that. Either watch the video again or read the transcript again.
They mention it almost in passing at the very end of the interview, and both the answers are pretty dismissive of this glaring fact while still leaning into, 'yeah, but, special elections'... It's hardly a 'whole discussion', especially after after 40+ minutes of debating only if the Democrat's future is merely rosy or downright fantastic.
They don't really go into any details of why this is happening and why it has been the case for many months now, and offer no solutions... the final comment is 'the actual election results speak louder than the polls in this particular question' ...which is something to say after the same thing happened in 2022-2023 before the Democrats were routed across the board in 2024. It is patently obvious that special elections have little if any bearing on even midterm elections, let alone the presidential elections.
There is nothing here about what the Democrats actually stand for, besides not being Republicans (even that is questionable on a policy level for many). There is no discussion here of the GOP pickups from so much of the Democratic base...
It's funny that an article titled' Will the Midterms Be a Blowout"? can mention in the very last seconds of the interview that 'the Democratic brand is in the toilet' and then go on to discuss the unimportance of that fact.
The title should be 'Will Democrats Ever Learn Anything?'
It might have seemed to be mentioned only in passing, but a major point was that a lot those low poll numbers were disaffected Democrats who are (rightfully) disappointed with the leadership - but will still be out there voting, and specifically voting for Democrats.
The only concrete example of this they can point to is the same special elections that, as they discuss in detail, are a small sample of voters which is overrepresented by particular segments of the Democratic voters that do not reflect even the larger Democratic Party, much less the general electorate.
Of course it is true that some upsets Dems will vote Democrat anyway, but it's also true that many more will simply not vote at all, which is of course a big part of what happened in 2024, when many Democrats were very disillusioned with their party's decision to boost sympathetic but unpopular GOP leaders (which amounted to exactly zero GOP support for Harris in the election) while largely shunning important parts of its base.
CNN reported in March that the Democrat's approval rating of 29% was 'a record low in CNN’s polling dating back to 1992', and this hasn't 'improved much since then. Certainly some of this is driven by angry Democrats, but abysmal numbers like that surely indicate a much bigger problem.
"...when many Democrats were very disillusioned with their party's decision to boost sympathetic but unpopular GOP leaders".
Democratic party's decision to boost GOP leaders? Such as who? I've never heard of such a thing.
You have not heard of Liz Cheney?
You did not see the DNC convention which features several Never Trumper Republicans, while Por Palestinian activists were not give a moment on stage?
Harris's campaign went out of their way to embrace Republicans with this terrible idea that this may attract from disaffected GOP voters...not to mention pivoting hard right on a number of issues.
In case, the point remains that 'yeah , Democrats are historically unpopular, but, so what, special elections!' is a weak argument...it's not wonder it was only an add-on at the very end of the interview...it's pretty clear that Krugman felt obligated to bring it up, just so the guests could dismiss it without any real discussion at all.
Pal Krugman is brilliant, but not so much as an adversarial interviewer. I would rather hear Mehdi Hasan interview these guys any day.
Two parties is a recipe for adversarial politics. We need more parties to represent a wider range of beliefs.
I agree but at least with presidential elections, as long as the Electoral College remains in a place, it will be extremely difficult for any third party to have a real chance of being anything but a spoiler, unfortunately.
I dream of an impossible future where we have a more parliamentary type system, where coalitions of parties would need to join forces to form majorities.
Alternative parties can and do occasionally break through on the local and sometimes state level.
Another advantage of parliamentary style governance is the ability to quickly correct an error and avert disaster. See Liz Truss who lead England for about 18 days.
ha yes, the famous head of lettuce term.
Haha, yes! The Brits do have a sense of humor after all!
Unfortunately for us, I think Trump has the longevity of a Twinkie - forever.
Lots of words to say you didn't actually listen to the conversation or read the transcript.
I did listen and read it, did you?
Try again.
Search the transcript for "Polling does say that people disapprove very, very strongly of the Democrats."
Since you are such a good reader, see my comment above, where I already addressed the 2 total minutes at the very end of the45 minutes interview, at the very end, both the answers dismiss the softball question, without going into any details or specifics.
The fat that the kinda, sorta acknowledge this huge problem,, then basically blow it off as not that important, is even worse than if they didn't mention it at all...but since you are such a good reader, you'll see I said 'rarely' not 'never'.
Try again.
The point is that it isn't important if people vote D anyway.
People can be unhappy with their paycheck, but they don't turn down the money.
You see the topline number and want to draw your personal conclusion.
Better informed people look into the details then say "meh".
Your stammering gobbledygookish reply and about-face of topic aside, the entire article is about the 'importance' and likelihood of 'people voting D'.
Not so sure you 'looked into the details', or that you understood them if you did.
Did I say 'lots of words' or just 'meh'? You seem to have a hard time deciding your point, if you actually have one....At any rate, my responses have been far from 'meh' which is obvious if you 'looks into the details.
Bored, Next.
For reasons of the shortage of time in life, I don't always listen to Paul's music clips at the end, but today I did note the Buffalo Springfield reference at the end. You might have added in today's LA world, "there's a man with a gun over there etc." Clearly you have great taste in music as it is much the same as my own! I just read about our lame VP referring to Sen. Alex Padilla as "Jose Padilla". For an educated guy, he sure is lame! and dumb! LIke the organized assault on Zelensky on live TV where both Dump and JD went after a national hero in his country, and to my mind, much of ours. I guess this tells us that JD thinks that most MAGAs are really stupid, and he sure does stoop to their level with schoolyard insults. Yes, they did serve in the US Senate together!
JD isn’t dumb. Every slur or lie he utters is quite intentional.
Canadians looked at their options last federal elections. Poilievre has the personality of a mean bully. Mark Carney exudes financial competence. Enough folks had had enough of the Liberals under Trudeau to make it a race but Carney was elected.
Trump gave Canadians a crash course in “This is NOT a reality TV show!”
Voting machines with no physical record of results...data uploaded through Starlink, is to me, a serious concern.
Assuming they use SSL, why shouldn't it trust Starlink?
That said, verifiable anonymous voting result checks are perfectly feasible and should be required if physical ballots are not used.
Could you share with us what states allow uploading of ballot data with no physical record of results through Starlink?
I highly recommend checking out the following Substack for an informative overview of the situation.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thiswillhold
Another reasonable discussion is here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/michaeldsellers/p/part-4-she-won-or-did-she-a-deeper?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=18auiy
I'll be surprised if we even have midterms.