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Journalist Nathan Stone and Producer Josh Carmody invite you to sit down for deep dives on the rapid changes happening in Trump’s new America.
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Top Democrats have been taking to television to warn Americans about what they say is Trump's desire to postpone or cancel the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. Despite their dire warnings, there doesn't seem to be any legal path for the president to take control of the nation's elections. But would the law be enough to restrain the president if the Democrats' fears come to pass? Welcome to the Politics of New America.
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On the show today, we look at the constitutional handcuffs stopping Trump from meddling in America's federal elections. We'll also take a look at the soul-searching, that is, consuming, federal Democrats as they grapple with disastrous approval ratings amongst their base. I'm your host, Nathan Stone, and joining me is producer Josh Carmody.
01:39
Soul searching is what they're calling it now, are they? That's what I'm calling it. I was going to say, yeah, I thought it was searching their pockets to be like, oh, wait, what receipts do I have from people that I have to respond to because they paid for my way in here? It's their their blank white piece of paper with ideas written down. Now, all I can think of is that episode of The Simpsons where we found out about Ned's.
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Ned Flanders uh upbringing where it was two beatniks. Yeah, and they're like we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas That's what I think of when I think of the American Democratic Party Really should be their slogan Yeah, so Josh Like so often when we sit down to record these episodes What a week Yeah, didn't think that
02:33
Donald Trump would declare war on Chicago, but it happened. It did happen. Yeah. he he's got a AI generated Vietnam image. Oh, people are mad about it. There's been a few. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is a man who uh dodged the draft in Vietnam. And I will also say now.
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People should not have been drafted for Vietnam, but when it comes down to the way that you got out of it, I think you should really be conscious of that before you make a post of yourself in Vietnam War Gen, like Officer Garb. And I really feel like the president of the United States should know how that war went.
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because it's going to be really sad when they have to get the helicopters and get the hell out of Chicago because they've Yeah. And I mean, he clearly doesn't know how it went because he did say the reason that they're oh, and there's the other thing. The Department of Defense is now going to be named the Department of War. uh But he said like we won World War one. We won World War two and every war in between. Like, well.
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I know about that. I think they have a very different story. Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of questionable uh historical achievements being proclaimed by the White House, I want to say. But this is yeah, this whole thing with Chicago is utterly insane. But it is kind of par for the course now. And I'm getting upset about how
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Normal it feels to me now this because what we're talking about is of course deploying uh the National Guard into an American city, which in any other uh You know presidential Timeframe would have been absolutely ludicrous, right? It had been done a couple of times around the civil rights movement uh in terms of you know, protecting people trying to
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to go to school, that kind of thing. This is entirely different and I feel like it's already been kind of normalized. I don't know. Is that a feeling you're getting at all? Like, I feel like it's a big deal, but it should be earth shatteringly big. And I feel like we're I think we're talking about the difference between how us and regular people feel about it and how all the
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media empires that are controlled by Republican interests and people who gave money to the Trump campaign for 2024 feel about it. And that's the disconnect. So I still hold on. I hold fast onto it being upsetting and bad. But there does seem to be not many people talking about it. No, no. So.
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Yeah, we're still in the waiting stages as of this recording of what exactly is going to happen to Chicago and when it's going to happen, but... Yeah, they're fucking around, we're waiting to find out. Exactly. So it's kind of the normal state of things on this show. uh We're just waiting for the Sword of Damocles to come down on us.
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One of the really kind of interesting things that's happened in the last couple of weeks that I wanted to kind of talk about, because we love diving into the Constitution on this show. At least I do. Josh tolerates me doing it. I'm very happy that he does. I mean, yeah, I guess I love it. And that is around this idea floated by most recently, uh Illinois Governor uh J.B. Pritzker.
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and uh last week by Gavin Newsom of California that Trump is in some way looking to interfere with the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. And it's a really uh bold and kind of audacious claim at any other time. In our current times, again, much like
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invading Chicago, I'm just like, OK, yeah, yeah, I see it. Yeah. If in any other timeline, this would be the sequel, the the final chapter in the escape from trilogy. Like you've got to escape from New York. You got to escape from L.A. We'd have escaped from Chicago. The president's invading Chicago. We got Kurt Russell's coming in with his long feathered hair and he's saving the day.
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That's not the case. It's our lives. Kurt Russell will will not be riding in to save us. No. Nor will he be riding out on a giant tidal wave. Was that L.A.? That was L.A., right? That's a skit from L.A. Yeah. And not even the climax of the movie. The climax of the movie is they they fly around on like uh like hang gliders that can like.
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like rocket assist backup or something like that. forgot about that. I feel bad. don't I love John Carpenter. I don't want to speak ill of Escape from L.A. because he really likes it. And there's a very famous, uh you know, kind of panel interview where someone in the crowd tried to ask, they were like, hey, you know, like, uh what went wrong with Escape from L.A.? It was really bad. Like, kind of why do people not? And he literally just told that guy to like go fuck himself. So he's.
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Very fond of that movie. I don't want to like just completely, you know, take it out. But yeah, not great. Well, Pritzker to to bring us back to the please Pritzker, uh he was on Face the Nation on CBS very recently. And he basically claimed that Trump's threat to send troops into Chicago.
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and other blue state cities was part of a larger plan. So this was his quote, the other aims are that he'd like to stop the elections in 2026 or frankly take control of those elections. He'll claim that there's some problem with an election and then he's got troops on the ground that can take control of it, if in fact he's allowed to do this.
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And where he's saying if in fact he's allowed to do this, he's talking about kind of the plan in general as he sees it. So going into Chicago, doing these things and yeah, Gavin Newsom uh the previous week floated a very similar theory. And uh because he was asked about his plans for 2028, if he would run for president and he kind of seemed to shrug them off by
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saying, you know, I don't know if that election would be above board or if it would even happen at all. And so this is a really interesting kind of and terrifying uh idea to kind of dig deeper on. And so that's kind of what we wanted to to get into here. So it's important to realize, too, that
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This isn't Democrats just kind of pulling these theories out of thin air. You know, Trump has. Kind of flirted with these types of ideas on several occasions. Oh, flirted. uh The pictures of Zelensky at the White House include one where they're in a closet that has all of his merch and you can see hats there that are Trump.
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2028. So he's already like he's ready. I don't think it's certainly not being coy about it. No, no. And I'm glad you brought out brought up Zelensky here because ah during that visit, Zelensky told Trump that in Ukraine, the the election laws don't allow for elections during periods of martial law, which, of course,
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Ukraine has been under since the Russian invasion. so Trump's response I have here. So you say during the war, you can't have elections. So let me just say three and a half years from now. So you mean if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? Oh, that's good. It was a of a word salad, but the idea behind it is basically he was quite excited. There's this like, oh, huh. Now, again, he needs to know that.
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Ukraine does not have the same election rules as the United States, but no. And I was going to point that out. Yeah. Don't think it works the same way here. I think I say here I'm using the royal here because we are talking about American politics. And there are a lot of times where I say like us or here. I feel we're so close to it that we are still very affected by it. And especially on this show, it's hard to kind of be like, well, up in here in Canada all the time. So I try to, you know, relate.
12:33
to the people we're talking to. I don't think there's been a war in America's time where they haven't had an election. I think that is they've always had elections. that? That's 100 % correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. are 100%. And this is a country that has fought a lot of wars, declared or otherwise. We count them all. But yeah. And so let's kind of get into that because
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During. So there's been uh several big major wars where the United States has still very successfully held elections because honestly it's something that is. For uh a kind of a federal government of that size and that scope notwithstanding all the Doge cuts managing an election isn't the hardest thing that they do.
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So, for example, there was the Civil War. In the midst of the Civil War in 1864, President Lincoln was re-elected. During World War II, uh FDR was elected to his third term. And then his fourth term, same war. uh And now, of course, that's not possible any longer. yeah, just to give you an idea, the United States Just so we don't blow past that.
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There was different rules you were able to have. Yes. More than two terms. And that's why. Yeah. So FDR. uh So what happened was Washington set the precedent of the two term president. So Washington very famously was retired before he was the president. And they went to to his his little his his farm or his ranch, his estate.
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and basically just had to convince the guy, please come on, like you are kind of like the guy. uh Like if you run, this will be great. Like we will have a successful nation. The argument that they made to him was basically like, you are our celebrity. You have legitimacy beyond our shores. Everyone's heard of you. You're famous worldwide. If you lead us through at least like these first few years,
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we can kind of get off to a good start. And that's why he agreed to do it. Polish up those horse teeth and yeah, fire yourself right into the Oval Office. That's right. And yeah, so he um he set the precedent of the two term president, but it wasn't specifically codified anywhere. It was it was just a political norm and political norms as we've.
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found out on this show are great as long as everyone thinks that they uh should work. But as soon as someone breaks that norm, it's no longer in effect. after FDR, and not to say that people really disliked FDR or the job that he had done over uh what was uh probably the most tumultuous time to be an American president in history, because he started in the Great Depression and ended.
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in World War Two. yeah. Markedly turbulent. Yeah, yeah. There was a lot going on there uh and had to navigate a ton of factors kind of pulling him in every direction. But after FDR was the big push to say like, that's a little too long. We might get a guy in here that's just like he's popular, but he's terrible. And no, I think we need to keep refreshing this so that we don't accidentally get a king or anything.
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And so that was the big push um on two terms. And that's laid out in the 22nd Amendment. um So all that is to say, the United States has held elections during the Civil War. Forget World War I, World War II, any of the wars. America has fought.
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precious few of its wars on its shores. There's the Mexican-American War, there's the American Civil War, there's the War of 1812, the War of Independence. There's a handful. But in the grand scheme of America's eternal wars, there's very few of them that they've fought on their own shores. The bloodiest, disruptive one, the Civil War, they still manage to have federal elections.
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absolutely almost no event that I could think of that would require canceling elections. Now, let's talk about what the Constitution allows us to do in terms of elections. Oh, I'd love to do that. So as we know about the Constitution, it gives each branch of government their own explicit powers. Yeah. So Article 2, Section 2,
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is all about the president, gives him uh very narrow powers, those powers have expanded over the years, but none of which include any kind of authority to change the timing of a general election. really importantly, the Constitution explicitly tells us that the president and vice president shall hold the office for a term of four years. So
18:22
That's not four years, ah except if there's a crisis and you have to go longer, right? That is irrespective of any outside influence. Your term is four years. You can't have more than that. You can get elected to a second four year term, but you extend the term in any way, shape or form. Now, Congress, on the other hand, has the authority to choose the timing of the general election.
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So all the way back in 1845, they enacted a statute that established a uniform time for holding elections. And that law, and I love the wording on this, Josh, you'll enjoy this. The law states that the election shall be held in each state on the first Monday in the month of November.
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They could have said I have all the to say that where Solomon Grundy is mentioned. Seriously. uh So that might be the weirdest way to word that that I can think of. But it is somewhat clear. ah It establishes a firm date for when this this has to happen. So.
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With uh these rules, the idea that you could postpone a presidential election, uh would break basically 175 years of precedent. Congress, because Congress enacted this statute, Congress could change that. They could change the timing of the election. But they could
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could not change when the president's term runs out. So there's a real drop dead date. You have basically just so long to uh do a general election before the president runs out of runway. uh And this is all constitutionally, of course. um So there's a couple of other
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little things that could happen as well. uh Where states control how elections happen within their own jurisdictions. States could delay an election through their own individual actions, uh but that would again take some kind of probably giant statewide emergency or other thing that would delay.
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and not cancel. uh If we're building up to me defending states rights at the end of this episode, I'm going to be livid. I don't think we're... I think you're safe on this one. Yeah, technically you could push elections from November into December, maybe January if you really wanted to get spicy with it.
21:45
But the drop dead date is always January 20th. That is the four year anniversary at which point the president can no longer serve as the president. uh So this is all covered by the 20th Amendment. And basically the ah 20th Amendment tells us that the president and the vice president as well ah must end their terms of office on
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at noon on January 20th uh in the year following the general election. of course, November general election, January 20th, you leave the White House with all your stuff in a cardboard box. uh So that is important as far as it establishes that drop dead date. uh Congress has another one though. uh
22:43
And another part of election law that requires states to send in their electoral votes to Congress by December 23rd. So throughout the Constitution, there's basically a series of kind of dates that that you check the boxes for. this is why this Tuesday after the first Monday in November uh made a lot of sense, because it gives plenty of time.
23:12
ah for those votes to get to Washington, especially in the days where it wasn't uh immediate, you know, electronically, it could take time for especially Western states and stuff, all of that to filter to Washington to get.
23:30
Officially counted. Yeah, which is reminding me of another post apocalyptic movie the post man Such an important delivery uh So To kind of summarize States themselves can postpone their own elections uh So and that's certain states have rules around that certain states don't
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And it's always during kind of big emergencies.
24:04
But neither the Constitution nor Congress provide uh any powers to the president or any other federal official to change the dates outside of Congress's uh legislative process, right? So they could make a statute to say it's actually the third Tuesday after the second Monday in November.
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That would be about all they could do. And remember, they have these drop dead dates that they have to meet constitutionally. yes, we could change the general election date and you could make it probably a few weeks later if you really wanted to, um as well as the dates that the electoral votes. Because remember, Americans, you don't vote
25:00
uh You don't vote directly, right? You uh are basically giving your opinion to the electoral college or to your representative to the electoral college that uh that person ah takes those into account. And nowadays, it's pretty much, you know, they don't insert their own opinion anymore. It's very much they are just kind of a middleman between.
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majority vote and casting their electoral vote but technically they have that vote um and that vote does get sent to Washington and then it is actually counted in Washington as part of the electoral process. We know who wins way way before that of course because everything ah is electronic right this isn't we aren't waiting for a horse and buggy to get to Washington so they can hand count all of these
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But it is part of the process and it is constitutionally mandated so it has to happen.
26:08
So basically, if you are someone who has faith in the Constitution still having uh primacy in terms of law and what the federal government does and doesn't do, there is basically no legal parameters in which Trump could postpone
26:38
or cancel elections. If those things happen, and by postpone I mean, I don't mean like two weeks later, I mean like he says they're gonna be next year kind of thing. Those would be probably the most extraordinary violations of the constitution that we've seen out of the Trump administration so far. And if that's the case, you might as well just shred the damn thing and use it for confetti for his third term inauguration party. There would be very little point.
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of having it other than as a nice museum. Someone get Nicolas Cage. We got to smuggle the Constitution out. So yeah, in case you were interested, that is kind of a breakdown of the constitutionality of postponing elections. There isn't any. ah So if it happens, you should be very uh upset and very afraid. So.
27:34
What is interesting uh about kind of this democratic uh push now that some of these some of these democratic governors are kind of finding their populist footing, right? Gavin Newsom, certainly not anyone I would have described as a populist before this point. Absolutely not. Yeah, I know. I said before on it where I was like, I don't want to completely throw my hat into his ring.
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because I don't know enough about him. But I was like, oh, you know, I'm glad to see someone at least throwing some mud back and trying to stand up. I think from what I've read about Adam Newsom, like, oh, this is basically a Republican who is fighting back under the Democratic name. Which is to say a modern Democrat, yes. Also that. And it makes sense. I California is the
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the home of Ronald Reagan. Like, know, like California, I think even prior to Ronald Reagan was very Republican. There is a lot of rural space there. There is still a lot of Republican voters there. It's these huge city centers that end up being uh kind of bastions of liberal integrity. um But, you know, that happens in a lot of states because if we're just to throw back to Trump being like, oh, I'm going to invade
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Chicago or any place that he's sending kind of the National Guard. They came up with this list of states where they're like, oh, well, we're sending National Guard to all these states. And it's like, well, a bunch of those are red states. Where do you think they're going? They're going to the cities that voted for Democrats. Absolutely. Yeah. And so you see, yeah, you see someone like Newsome.
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kind of make this swing towards what is basically uh Trumpian style populism from the opposite uh spectrum, of course, that he's coming from. the way that he is mocking uh Trump's uh social media posts, the way that he is going on and
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For a Democrat, saying something like he said, which is that Trump is looking to cancel elections, he's looking to postpone elections, he wants to be a dictator, is absolutely refreshing and new. it's of thing that Republicans say, they've been calling Democrats communist dictators for years and years. The Democrats have never...
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You know, they've always taken that mud and just warn it instead of, you know, bending down and picking some up and throwing it back. They they are the ultimate institutionalists uh playing by a set of rules that only they play by because they really wish the Republicans would play by those rules, too. So and I will say he's kind of the person who's there. They can't ignore his platform with the way he's doing it because
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There's other kind of uh people who are in the Democratic Party who are for the people and are kind of saying these things in a different way. Tim Walls, uh mean, man was uh used to be a high school coach, like has certainly not shied away from swearing, saying very plain and direct stuff that I think is to me personally more powerful than the way that Newsom is doing things. Newsom is playing the game.
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But like Tim Walz has already been there, like saying stuff. It was kind of part of, they told him to tone it down on the campaign trail. And I think they made the mistake. know, AOC has been very uh up to date on how to speak uh to an internet culture and how to uh engage with people that are voting in this day and age. But.
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this stuff gets ignored. mean, we can see the same thing in New York where they aren't supporting. Is it Mamdani? Is that how you say it? They're not supporting him despite how popular he is, which is insane. And this is this is the the most infuriating thing about the Democratic Party is that it is somehow a ridiculously broad coalition.
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that is constantly at war with itself and not nearly as good at fighting against the Republicans as it is against fighting with its own people. And if the Democratic Party was a character in Star Wars, it's that first robot that Uncle Owen tries to buy that breaks down and Luke goes, it's got a bad motivator.
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Oh, you don't want to be that robot Democrats. You don't want to that robot. uh So, yeah. And it's been a tough, a tough uh summer for the Democrats. Yeah, there. uh So this is this is not I don't know if this is the absolute newest polling. uh But mid-August, we had a favorability poll uh done by the Wall Street Journal. Now, Wall Street Journal is not.
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what I would consider either a centrist or God forbid a leftist uh newspaper. But uh I don't doubt that their methodology was decent for this poll. basically what it found was that despite seven months of the Trump administration going hog wild on the nation, the Democrats uh somehow
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hold worse than the Republicans at this point, which should be impossible. And I'm not just talking in terms of, you know, everything that the Trump administration has done and the effects that are hitting Americans, but just the fact that they're the opposition party, right? And they're out of power. They should be getting a bit of a bump.
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from this, would think, from everything that was going on. Oh like just from the underdog perspective. Or the, kind of being able to like, you know, David and Goliath their way back in. Yeah, anything. And they can't. Even the just like, oh, glad we're not those guys kind of thing, right? And they're not. And that is absolutely damning for the Democrats. And the idea of
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Yeah, being so they were at 34 % to the Republicans 38 % and this is a favorability rating just kind of looks at how are your feelings towards this party? ah Do you favor them? Do you not favor them? How? Yeah, and they measure a bunch of different things to they they were also measuring kind of trust in the parties with different policies as well, uh which Republicans
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basically scored higher on everything except health care and vaccines, which we haven't gotten to RFK too much on this show. But yeah, I feel like even a lot of uh Republican voters might be uh raising an eyebrow with with some of his stuff. But one of the things that they kind of identified was uh sense of despair and hopelessness uh coming from the Democratic base, which is
35:45
Again, understandable. get it. I get it. But if you can't if you can't harness that, if you can't give your base some hope that that you can win, that you can take on the Republicans, you like, what are you doing here? And so the Democrats and this isn't going to come as a surprise to anyone who's paying attention to politics. But the Democrats are in the wilderness. been in the wilderness.
36:13
since the end of the Biden administration, really since the middle of the election when Biden had to step down after that absolutely awful debate. everything has kind of gone wrong for them since that point. is really they have not recovered from it. Now, we're starting to see kind of two philosophical camps emerge.
36:42
uh in terms of where Democrats go from here. I find this really interesting. So that's why I wanted to bring it up today. And so have you heard of the abundance movement, Josh? I have not. OK, please. I know it's a very it's a real chicken in every pot kind of thing. But so this is. This this was made famous um by um Ezra Klein.
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So he's a New York Times columnist as well as a podcaster, really smart guy. I've listened to him a few times. what he's... idea is behind this is that Democrats should ah focus on a strategy that will create abundance in America ah by...
37:44
specifically by getting rid of red tape and excessive regulations. And the idea that Klein puts forward here is that uh Democrats have lost trust with voters because of certain uh governing failures in big cities where Democrats usually hold sway and blue states.
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And they need to respond to this by cutting uh excess regulations and things that stop people from building more housing, ah more energy projects, more of all of the things that America is falling short on. So a quote from Klein is, liberals speak as if they believe in government and then pass policy after policy hamstringing what it can actually do.
38:44
There is, I think, a fair amount of truth in Klein's position. But for me, it speaks of the same type of incrementalism that think Democrats have been guilty of for a long time, which is the focusing on small victories, right? ah know, oh, we...
39:11
negotiated with with the health care companies on these eight drugs and they're going to bring down the prices on these eight drugs. And that was that's great. We did this great thing. This was during the Biden administration. It was either eight drugs or 12 drugs. And it's just like, that's really not good enough, guys. Like this. I mean, it's good for anyone taking those specific eight or 12 drugs. But where is universal health care on your agenda? Right. Where is were any of those drugs diabetic medication?
39:40
Probably not. I don't think so. Yeah. So that's that's where Klein kind of loses me. Although I do think there's there is probably a lot of uh and he would certainly know because I'm no expert on, you know, statewide regulations in in blue states. But there is probably some some truth to what he's saying there. The other. Movement in the party is kind of a more
40:11
populist left wing uh movement. And we've seen this through uh Senator Bernie Sanders. We've seen this through AOC. And this is the thing that I think represents a more hopeful side of the Democratic Party, that it could become a party with
40:41
identity again. These two kind of battling philosophies really come down to establishment Democrats versus kind of new wave Democrats, right? The younger side of the party. Well, plus Bernie Sanders, who I would not put in that camp. on the right side of the history for a long, long time. And what worries me for the Democratic Party is that if
41:11
this abundance doctrine becomes their reason of being, right? Their idea of how they're going to win back voters. I really don't think it's going to speak to people. um Because uh a deregulation agenda, I don't think is going to be particularly popular, especially when Republicans own deregulation. I really wish the Democrats would stop
41:40
trying to play in the Republican sandbox because the Republicans do it better than them, right? Anytime that the Democrats have moved to the right to try and woo moderate Republicans, whatever those are, or moderates in general, again, whatever those are, they fail. That's exactly what happened with Kamala. Yeah.
42:04
Yeah, mean, goes palling around with Liz Cheney and you're just like, Dick Cheney. got a, like Dick Cheney was like, yeah, vote for Kamala Harris. What a wild thing to be like, cool, we got the Dick Cheney vote. Yeah, man, that's what progressives want to see. want to, they're like, but where's Dick Park in his vote for this election? A man who willfully,
42:34
autographed a supposedly home waterboarding kit. I have never heard that, but I absolutely believe that is a true thing that I show you the video. So, yeah, the the idea that going for a deregulation agenda versus finally going after income inequality, going after.
43:00
billionaires siding with unions siding with the unions yeah like this this seems like a no-brainer to me but i don't have billionaire donors either so maybe my my thoughts would be a little bit more muddied if i did and that's really a part of this party's problem is there there's constantly pulled to the right uh by the corporate interests that that donate to the democratic party and it just
43:31
We need, I think, to see almost a, you know, Democrats, the new generation, before this finally happens and they become an effective opposition party. um Now, to get back on to Klein for a moment, um he himself, who is the poster child for this movement, um said that
44:00
that it's only one piece of the puzzle. He said, I expect there will be a number of politicians in 2028 that are running on abundance, populist and anti oligarchical themes. The idea that someone is going to pick just one of these things is stupid. I do not trust the Democrats to not just pick one of these things. Yeah. Yeah. But and just to kind of put a bow on this, I know we've we've mentioned this on the show before, but it.
44:28
goes back to this past election. What this past election was, to my mind, was a referendum on America's institutions. And that referendum ah came back with a stunning victory for anti-institutionalism. If you are going to be the party that defends institutions that have failed Americans and that are being actively dismantled ah gleefully,
44:58
Dismantled.
45:01
You're gonna lose, you're gonna lose. Progressives aren't institutionalists. Republicans aren't institutionalists. Almost no one is an institutionalist in America anymore. Except for Democrats and the Democratic Party. And that's not going to cut it. You can't get people excited about this. Everyone wants to burn it down. We're just.
45:30
arguing about what rises from from the ashes and the Republicans are beating you so hard on this that the when Gavin Newsom Gavin Newsom of all people goes out and becomes this populist suddenly becomes this this guy who's standing up to Trump everyone's falling all over themselves because your party has failed so hard that even his and I don't want to say that
45:59
he's been doing a bad job at it or anything like that, you know, him taking any kind of a stand has been so lauded because it's been crickets. It's been absolute crickets. And this is, this is, I think,
46:21
a wake up call that Democrats need. They desperately need to reinvent themselves before the 2026 midterms. You think, you think, oh, midterms, that's great. Midterms, everyone who's got an issue with the governing party comes out and, you know, you regain the House or maybe, God willing, the Senate. I don't know, guys, if your own base cannot stand you.
46:53
there is a chance that the Republicans don't need to postpone or cancel elections if you cannot get your base out because they have given up on you, because all they feel is sadness and despair. This is. You can't just risk another John Kerry up in here like you can't just throw Herman Munster at them and assume that things are going to go well.
47:18
Like, you know, and you lose it and then you're like, well, OK, well, we'll figure it out. And I think there's uh a good number of people who remember Obama coming in and coming up. And I hate to break it to you. Obama was an anomaly. Obama was opposed by the Democratic National Convention. Like they were not on his side and he was very lucky.
47:46
and very charming and managed to make it through. Like he had all of the perfect little like lucky charms happened for him. Like you can't just assume that it's going to work out the next time. They have no one that they're willing to back. No. And I hate to say this, but another Obama might not be enough in this situation because
48:15
What we found with Obama was that he campaigned on hope and change. And when he got in, he was a pretty hard-line institutionalist like every other Democrat. He didn't push a lot of boundaries. There wasn't a lot that he did that would have set him apart from, you know, plug in a Democrat. um And that was...
48:44
In the same way that um Ronald Reagan is the Republican movie president, Obama is the Democratic movie president. God, that's the best way to describe him. the Hollywood version of a president. Yes. But then if you take apart any movie president, what are you left with? Yeah. And with Obama...
49:13
There was such a Bush hangover. think he's remembered maybe for doing more than he did just because, you know, he was the Gatorade. was that sweet, sweet, siphon Gatorade of that morning. Yeah. uh
49:33
It was it was uh an interesting time and he was and this was internationally too. Like he was so, so popular. And then when you kind of think back to to his legacy, you're just like, I think it's lacking. And yeah, so this is this is a problem that Democrats have had pretty much since Reagan uh and the party's been moving rightward ever since. And now it's in this place where it's a party.
50:03
for no one that is deeply divided and there's a hundred different hands trying to pull it in different directions and within that you have these these two philosophies that aren't mutually exclusive by any means but is this party going to actually coalesce behind a series of values or
50:29
are we going to see them do what they've done so many times and just position themselves uh slightly to the left of the Republicans? Well, we're not Trump. Well, we're not, you know, we're not this. We're not that. you know, you know what you get with us, right? That milk toast democratic nonsense that they've been trying to feed to America for decades now. Some of the best like jokes, and I think I brought them up before is about
50:59
American politics are on Futurama where they have the two candidates and it's like John Jackson and Jack Johnson. And he's like, I think your economic policy goes too far. And the other guy's like, well, I think your economic policy doesn't go far enough. Like, yeah, it's like what are what is being offered to the people? Yeah. And they need to figure out what they can offer Americans and what
51:30
they're willing, how far they're willing to go to do that. And to the Republicans' credit, the Republican Party, in its many incarnations since Reagan,
51:47
has always had this bedrock foundational idea of what it is, right? The small government, love guns, God and America. You know, generally they are what they are on the tin. And the Democrats have a problem where you say, what is a Democrat? And you ask five different people that you get five different answers. And that's just not good enough.
52:15
Yeah, since Bush, they've been accused of being flip floppers. All right, Josh, I could I could tear this party apart all night. I really could. I think they are just we gave them the two piece with the biscuit. I they can they can sit down with that for a minute. Yeah, well, we'll we'll get back on the Democrats when they become more relevant as well. But I did want to hit on them tonight. And it's I'm only mad at them because I'm disappointed. Oh, same. Yeah, no. Yeah, no. Which
52:45
really they should take more to heart. Yeah, seriously. I'm not mad at you, I'm just disappointed. All right, folks, I hope you've enjoyed this episode and stay tuned next week when we will bring you yet more dispatches from the ever-changing, ever-interesting world of American politics. Oh, yeah, we're going to be on the front lines in Chicago in a couple weeks, I would assume.
53:13
Can we do this set up just in the street somewhere? Just get a big battery pack. Oh, I think so. Yeah, believe in us. Yeah. We'll do some interviews with the passing troops. See how they feel. I wish I knew what a Chicago accent sounded like so I could start doing some of right now. All right. We'll see you next time. Bye.
53:35
Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, give us a five-star rating on your podcast platform of choice, and tell all your friends. The Politics of New America is hosted by Nathan Stone and produced by Josh Carmody. You can follow us on Blue Sky at Politics New America.
53:53
This has been a haunted mouse production. Cut that out.