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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.
Nia Rodgers: Hey, Aughie
John Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
Nia Rodgers: Oh, I'm alright. I've been doom-scrolling. How are you?
John Aughenbaugh: I'm thinking about perhaps getting dual citizenship with another country. What do you think? Do you think another country would go ahead and accept my application?
Nia Rodgers: You, probably not. Same as me, probably not. We seem like rabble rousy people.
John Aughenbaugh: Bike the power.
Nia Rodgers: That's right. I have to say, I saw the best meme on, I don't remember. Somebody sent it to me that it was your emotional support Canadians will be assigned to you, which I thought was funny. Because I don't react to elections in that way. My first thought about elections is to try to pull them apart and understand what happened. Regardless of who wins or who loses, I want to understand what it's saying about the country, what it's saying about people's thoughts. I am not, I will admit here now publicly at the beginning of this podcast, not the biggest fan of Donald Trump, which I think has probably come across in many of our episodes. I don't hate Donald Trump. I don't wish Donald Trump ill. I certainly do not wish Donald Trump assassinated.
John Aughenbaugh: No. We have moved behind that.
Nia Rodgers: We've heard talk of that, and both of us are appalled by the very idea, because both of us are institutionalists. We believe in the checks and balances in the system, we believe that the system is strong enough to withstand any one individual's monastic. You and I both know that we have seen worse times in this country. Ask Abraham Lincoln. There have been worse things that have happened. I say to all the people who listen to this podcast who right now are doom scrolling and feeling very tragic and very sad, I appreciate your feelings. I think they're real. I'm not undermining your feelings. But I also think there's lots of reasons to not be filled with despair, because the United States has survived a lot of stuff.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Listeners, if you haven't picked up on our intro, what today's episode is about, basically what Nia and I are going to do here for the next 45 minutes to an hour is discuss what happened in the 2024 national elections in the United States, and perhaps delve into some of the implications. There's a lot of meat on this bone, as my great-grandfather used to say.
Nia Rodgers: Can we start with time? You and I did an entire episode where we were like, oh, we will not know for days, we will not know for weeks. It will be years before we have the final count, blah, blah, blah, and it was done within five hours. I have to admit, I was like, really you just trying to make us look bad? Is that what this is?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. I was the same.
Nia Rodgers: I was sure that it would be significantly closer and therefore more drawn out.
John Aughenbaugh: At the time of this recording, listeners, it has been reported and has been verified. These are verified by state officials who do the counting.
Nia Rodgers: But not certified.
John Aughenbaugh: Not certified.
Nia Rodgers: Because that's at the end.
John Aughenbaugh: That's at the end. But right now, it's been reported by state officials Donald Trump has won 295 electoral college votes. For those who don't understand the electoral college math, a presidential candidate in the United States currently has to achieve 270 to win the election. Vice President Kamala Harris has earned 226. The margin will probably be a little closer when all the results get done. So I'm looking at you, for instance, Nevada. I'm looking at you, Arizona.
Nia Rodgers: Oh, her numbers might go up slightly, but she's not going to get to 270. He has achieved.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: He has won this election, and she has conceded in a, what I thought was a very classy of concession speech about, we need a peaceful transition of power, and we need to support the new president. I thought I was like, look at her. That's a really good.
John Aughenbaugh: I thought that was a really graceful concession speech.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly. Graceful is a good way to put it.
John Aughenbaugh: In regards to the United States Senate, we have a change in power. The Republican party has won 53 Senate seats. The Democratic Party has 145. According to most election experts, at most, the Republican Party will get 54. But the worst that the Republican Party will have is a 53-47 seat margin. We'll discuss the implications of that in just a couple of moments. What has not yet been decided is which political party has control of the House of Representatives. At the time of recording, the Republican Party has 211 House seats. The Democratic Party has 199. To have a majority in the House, a political party has to get to 218. Now, theoretically, the Democrats could win all of the still not decided House elections. But the likelihood of that occurring isn't all that good. The most recent projection I saw is that more than likely the Republicans will have perhaps 220, 221 which is not a significant majority by any stretch. But will be very similar to what the Republican Party has had in the House of Representatives, currently.
Nia Rodgers: As Aggie pointed out to me off recording, when the margins are that small, when you only have four or five votes that can be peeled off on a piece of legislation for a variety of reasons. Some people feeling that it's not far right enough. Some people feeling that it's too far to the right. Some people blah, blah, blah, it is harder for the House to pass legislation and get things done, because the margins are so tight. That has been something that the Democrats in this as it currently stands, have more or less voted as a block together in order to try to peel off and change some of the Republican things. He also pointed out to me because I was like, undivided government, it's terrible. It's never. He was like, well, actually, undivided governments not a bad thing, he was trying to calm me down. Get back off the ledge, Nia. Get back off the ledge. But he also pointed out that when they had the majority, the House took 20 votes, three weeks, and incredible levels of angst to get to a speaker of the House.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: This is not like this is 220 people who are all singing from the same hymnal.
John Aughenbaugh: No.
Nia Rodgers: They're not even close. Some of them are hitting each other with the hymnal whilst other people are trying to sing. It's a whole thing.
John Aughenbaugh: Even if they are using the same hymnal to extend that metaphor, they're not on the same page.
Nia Rodgers: Some people are singing a different song. Some are singing Amazing Grace, and the others are like, wait a minute. It's Christmas season. Shouldn't we be singing Christmas songs? What's going on here?
Nia Rodgers: For listeners that are concerned that this feels like a monolithic Republican victory, I would not assume that. When you look within the divisions of the Republican Party, I'm not entirely certain that you have a monolithic unit.
John Aughenbaugh: We will get to some of the implications for governing. But first, Nia and I wanted to go ahead and explore some of the more interesting aspects of who voted and how they voted.
Nia Rodgers: Can we too long didn't read this episode right now?
John Aughenbaugh: Excuse me.
Nia Rodgers: Can we too long didn't read this episode right now? Can we just give a, I think, a one phrase? You can wrap the election up in this one phrase, and then Aggie is going to go. No, you can't, Nia.
John Aughenbaugh: Go ahead, Nia.
Nia Rodgers: It's about the election. It's about the economy.
John Aughenbaugh: Aren't we stupid, yes.
Nia Rodgers: It is James Carvill who we love. I can't say it with a New Orleans accent like he does. But when he kept hammering the economy for Clinton and this nuanced argument that the Democrats tried to make about, well, the greater economy is better and blah, blah, blah. Aggie was telling me that he took he himself and his daughter, a 12-year-old, a daughter, not a son, not a boy who eats like a teenager, but a girl who eats like a teenager out for a simple meal at McDonald's, and it was how much Aggie?
John Aughenbaugh: Slightly over $18.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That is the real economy to real people. It's not how's the stock market doing, how's housing doing. It's not all that stuff. It's people who go to the grocery store and say, Dang, that much for a box of cereal?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Or a dozen eggs.
Nia Rodgers: Or a dozen eggs or a gallon of milk?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, and you see a real disconnect here, so the exit polling and because I'm a political scientist, I will go ahead and say, exit polling, like most political public opinion polling gets criticized because it's not always reliable. Because people who just got done voting sometimes will lie, when they are polled as they are leaving the school, the precinct, wherever they cast their vote, there is some self serving, reporting going on. But nevertheless.
Nia Rodgers: By the way, listeners, this is Aughie, who's about to give you nuance to, it's the economy. There's more stuff than that.
John Aughenbaugh: But we knew as far back as the spring of this year, that for likely voters, the two dominant issues were the economy and immigration.
Nia Rodgers: Which Donald Trump hammered.
John Aughenbaugh: Donald Trump just hammered on them. Now, for sub-populations of likely voters, other issues became more important. For instance, many likely women voters said that women's reproductive choice rights was the primary issue.
Nia Rodgers: We saw that in several states that moved to protect those rights or enshrine those rights.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, in state law or in state constitutions. But overall of the likely voters, the two dominant issues were first the economy, then immigration. We're going to see this with some of the more surprising, if you will, stats from the exit polls. One of the first things that jumped out at me, Nia, and it's the first bulleted item on my research or my prep notes for this episode, was that 46% of Latinos voted for Trump. This is the highest percentage that a Republican presidential candidate has received from the Latino community in at least 50 years, and I know this has just confounded Democrats because they keep on pointing to the fact that Trump as he discussed immigration, went ahead and discussed, about how all these.
Nia Rodgers: Rapists and monsters.
John Aughenbaugh: They're criminals, and they should be sent back to their home countries, and if you elect me President, I'm going to engage in the biggest deportation effort in the history of the United States. How can these people vote for Trump? For those voters, Latino voters for Trump, economy was the most important issue. Crime was the second most.
Nia Rodgers: A lot of the people no, excuse me, all of the people who voted in the election with very few exceptions are American citizens, which means they followed the correct path to become American citizens.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: They may also feel pressured to say, or like within themselves, other people need to get in line like I got in line. I don't think that that's unreasonable. I think it's surprising in the percentage but I don't think it's surprising in the concept, of dude, you know what I had to do to get an American citizenship? You need to do the same thing.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. I did it, so can you.
Nia Rodgers: Not only can you do it, but you should do it because it's the right way to.
John Aughenbaugh: Where you really see some pretty shocking results in regards to the Latino vote, are the border towns, the Texas Mexico border. Trump did extremely well. I have this one example from Star County, Texas, the country's most heavily Latino county on the US Mexican border. Trump lost that county in 2016 by 60 percentage points.
Nia Rodgers: Sixty, six zero.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: How much did he win it by this time?
John Aughenbaugh: Sixteen.
Nia Rodgers: He had a 76% turn around.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, in eight years.
Nia Rodgers: If you wonder why that is, in part, it's because of the violence at the border. You have gang violence. There's a lot of that going on at the border, and people are scared.
John Aughenbaugh: Now, Vice President Harris's favorability rating and exit polls was one point higher than Trump's. But voters still picked Trump, by a significant margin, and again, this confounds a lot of Democrats because they're like, our candidate was liked slightly better than her opponent.
Nia Rodgers: Why didn't she at least win the popular vote. You know what I mean? She may not have won the electoral college, but historically, recently, Democrats have won the popular vote.
John Aughenbaugh: That's another interesting stat our listeners. If you've not read it or heard it, more than likely Trump will be the first Republican presidential candidate to win the overall popular votes. Bush 43 in 2004. Yes.
Nia Rodgers: But they liked her.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It's interesting. I like you, but I'm going to vote for the other guy.
John Aughenbaugh: The next exit points that nearly just fascinated me was one in 10 voters in the United States didn't like either candidate. I was actually surprised it wasn't higher.
Nia Rodgers: I'm surprised it's not higher too.
John Aughenbaugh: But of those, 10% of all voters, Trump had a 26 point margin over Kamala Harris. I was just like, of those voters who went to the polls and did what I joked about in the past, because you dislike both candidates.
Nia Rodgers: They chose Trump.
John Aughenbaugh: By an overwhelming margin, 26 points. That ain't even close, I was just like, wow. His character issues really just didn't resonate with a whole bunch of people who decided to vote for Trump. If you think about that, you're just like, what do you have?
Nia Rodgers: He's right. He could walk out and shoot somebody on eighth Avenue?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Maybe he's correct about that.
John Aughenbaugh: There's a couple other exit points stats that I think are particularly relevant. The county in the United States, that is Arab majority, is not the county, the city that is Arab majority is Dearborn, Michigan.
John Aughenbaugh: Donald Trump actually won that county.
Nia Rodgers: City.
John Aughenbaugh: That city by six points. Again, if you think about Donald Trump, in Trump's first term, he issued an executive order that was a travel ban that basically Arabs. Almost every single country on that ban was a majority populated by Arabs.
Nia Rodgers: But you know what that was? That was before Gaza.
John Aughenbaugh: That was before the Gaza War.
Nia Rodgers: Now. They'd rather have him than somebody that they perceive supports Israel.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Go ahead.
Nia Rodgers: I think is interesting about Dearborn is that Jill Stein got 18% of the vote.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Which Jill Stein usually gets about 2% of the vote.
John Aughenbaugh: Or less.
Nia Rodgers: In most places and she took 18% because people didn't want to vote for Trump, but they didn't want to vote for Harris. They chose Stein. She benefited in Dearborn from that.
John Aughenbaugh: The next two stats address if you will, the gender gap among American voters. Basically this millennium, Democratic candidates have tended to do anywhere from 9-12 percentage points better among women than men. According to EAPolls, Harris did 11 points better among women compared to Trump. That gender gap is consistent with the last three presidential elections. One of the common explanations Nia and I talked about this off recording. One of the common explanations for why Kamala Harris did not win the election was that there were a whole bunch of voters who could not vote for a woman to be president. That still might be the case, but it's not any greater than in previous elections.
Nia Rodgers: Right. It's staying at a steady, 11, 12, 13% level. It's not going up, but unfortunately, it's also not going down.
John Aughenbaugh: Interestingly enough, Trump actually siphoned off some women voters because Harris' margin among women was only eight points. Though the gender gap remained constant, in terms of the expectation that women would really support Harris, because Harris made it very clear that if she was elected president and Democrats had control of Congress, she would support federal legislation. That would again, legalize a woman's right to choose at the federal level, not just state government level Again, Nia, you pointed this out. What's fascinating is that in some states where the voters voted to support a woman's right to choose. Those percentages in some states were higher than how women voted for Harris in those states.
Nia Rodgers: Translate to supporting her. Supporting reproductive rights did not translate to supporting Kamala Harris.
John Aughenbaugh: Harris, as a candidate.
Nia Rodgers: Thank you. Sorry. I don't want to mispronounce her name. Vice President Harris. I think that the one of the most interesting statistics that you have on your list is the under-performance of Harris versus Senate candidates. The way listeners that Aggie explained this to me was Harris did 3.6% worse with the voters than Democratic candidates on the same ticket. She was actually a drag to local races. One of the things that should be happening with local races is that if your presidential candidate is popular, it can help carry and live all the boats from one party or another. She actually well, I guess it's true that Donald Trump lifted the boats of the Republicans in the races where she was lost ground.
John Aughenbaugh: That was particularly the case, Nia, in the swing or battleground states. You really see this. For instance, in my home state of Pennsylvania, the incumbent senator Bob Casey lost his reelection bid to businessman McCormick. But Bob Casey did better, percentage wise, then Kamala Harris. In Wisconsin, Trump won the state. But the incumbent Democratic Senator Baldwin got reelected. Trump won Michigan. The Democratic candidate for the open Senate seat in Michigan, actually won. You see this.
Nia Rodgers: She did or she might have had positive influence on those seats. But she did win.
John Aughenbaugh: She did worse than the Senate candidates.
Nia Rodgers: I see what you're saying. That's she didn't lift any boats. They might have lifted her boats a little bit. They were doing the heavy lifting.
John Aughenbaugh: Amazing. I mean, 3.6 points.
Nia Rodgers: That's a lot.
John Aughenbaugh: That's a lot. It helps explain why Trump basically took what, almost he took them. More than likely he's going to take all the battleground states, because he's ahead in regards to Nevada and Arizona. But Trump won North Carolina, he won Georgia, he won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. That was pretty stunning. Other stats you wanted to go ahead and look at?
Nia Rodgers: That really what we saw with a lot of the statistics is that Trump just did better this time. He overall did better. In counties where he had, he may have won, he won by bigger margins this time.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: In counties where he lost, even if he still lost those counties, he still improved his performance.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Like, he was just whatever else you may say about Donald Trump, this campaign went really well for him. Some of it was that he kept certain issues at length, at arm's length, he didn't talk about certain issues. He stayed away from the reproductive rights issue.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, he did.
Nia Rodgers: Which was probably very smart for him.
Nia Rodgers: He took a couple of issues, and he hammered them, but he found the pulse. He found the pulse of the nation. When people talk about a populist, that's what they do.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: They are able to say, "You know what people care about, they care about this one or two things." That's what he over and over. Every sound bite, every commercial, everything hammered those issues. He didn't try to talk about all the things. He kept a pretty disciplined which I have to admit, for me, was a little bit of a surprise because discipline and Donald Trump don't usually go together. He's not generally all that super disciplined, either that or his campaign this time was more disciplined. I don't know if maybe that was, I don't know.
John Aughenbaugh: It's probably a combination of both of those things. But also, you and I, again, have talked about this off recording. The media and even the Harris campaign focused a lot on Trump's impromptu, off the teleprompter comments about Liz Cheney, or Harris, or former speaker, that's what he do. He doesn't speak in a civil way about these people, and he makes comments, but Trump supporters have long been able to go ahead.
Nia Rodgers: Separate.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Separate, disassociate, if you will, the more inflammatory stuff that many of us get turned off by.
Nia Rodgers: Which started with his comment about grabbing persons by intimate parts of themselves. They all dismissed it as locker talk. That's locker talk. That's how men talk. I'm like, well, "It's not how any men I know talk," but okay. Well, at least they don't talk like that in front of women.
John Aughenbaugh: But again, that was an issue in 2016. Scholars and commentators were just like, "Okay. How can they ignore this?" That question gets asked in regards to Trump's support among religious Americans is been rock solid 2016, 2020, in this year. I get asked this question because again, as some of you may know, I'm a churchgoer.
Nia Rodgers: You're a person of faith.
John Aughenbaugh: I'm person of faith. I get asked this question, how can people in your congregation, your denomination, vote for somebody who's had multiple wives? Is very misogynistic about women, has been found guilty in a civil trial of rape? How can they continue to vote for him? But they have this ability. I wouldn't necessarily call it a skill, but they have this ability to, if you will, disconnect the inflammatory speech of Trump with what they think will be his policies and what he says he's going to do when he is president.
Nia Rodgers: Well, I have a theory about that.
John Aughenbaugh: You do?
Nia Rodgers: I do. It's called my crazy uncle lives on the porch. That is my theory. In the South, at least, we don't hide our crazy people. We put them out on the porch, and we just say, "Yeah. That's my crazy uncle Oggi. He's just a nut job." We embrace and own that that person's going to say and do things that are weird. But we love them, and we have fondness for when they do a good thing, we have fondness for it. I think there may be some of that, as well Donald Trump is so over the top. That it's hard to take any of that seriously, because you're like, how much of that is just him acting in a moment? Is him being a big giant id publicly, and how much of that is something he really believes. When people say, "Oh, he's had multiple wives," I'm like, "Yeah. At least five women have fallen in love with him." Do you know what I mean? When you look at it in those terms, you're like, "Oh, I didn't think about it in that way, it came to me one night." I was like, "Well, he's been married a bunch of times because a bunch of women have fallen in love with him." Now, and you could say they marry him for the money, but half the time, he doesn't have any money, so I don't know that that's true. I think he must be charismatic in some way that allows people to say, "Yeah. He's all talk. Don't worry about that." Watch what he does. That may be. The other thing is, he's also an outsider, and we are living in a time of extreme institutional distrust. Most Americans, you're like, "How do you feel about the Supreme Court?" They spit before they answer. How do you feel about the bureaucracy? They spit before they answer.
John Aughenbaugh: Another part of this is, I remember reading a month or so ago, Nia, a column by New York Times columnist John McWhorter who's a linguistics professor at, I want to say Columbia. McWhorter is not a big fan of Trump. But he oftentimes in his column, he caution Democrats that many Trump supporters view his speech as performative that he engages in hyperbole to get the attention of those who show up for his rallies or his press conferences. As you just pointed out, he likes poking the elites who run these institutions that many of his supporters believe no longer work for them. This is classic, if you will, populist leader rhetoric.
Nia Rodgers: Populism 101. The Institutions don't understand you, don't understand your position. I do. I will fix them so that they will respond to you.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. Let's pivot now, Nia, to implications for governing.
Nia Rodgers: Can I say something here?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Go ahead.
Nia Rodgers: You put in your notes, and I think it could not be more true.
Nia Rodgers: The GOP has a three-seat margin for about two years. Aughie reminds me on a regular basis that there are elections every two years at the federal level.
John Aughenbaugh: Federal level, yes.
Nia Rodgers: Not every four years. People think that the presidency is like the, but the chance for you to actually vote people out happens every two years.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: That midterm can be a very powerful statement. In the midterms in 2022, we saw abortion rights. We saw reproductive rights take off as an issue and percentage-wise, it was enormous. Who knows what it will be in two years, but it is unlikely that Donald Trump will have undivided government for four full years. Who's the last president that that happened to?
John Aughenbaugh: That's a good question. It's been a number of years. I mean, 2022 was somewhat surprising because the Democratic losses were not as severe or significant as we've seen in the past. The Democrats didn't even lose control of the Senate which was somewhat shocking. They did lose control of the House. But typically, as listeners, as Nia points out, the president's Party typically does much worse after the midterm elections or during the midterm elections. Effectively, Trump's got two years to deliver on his "mandate". In some ways he can go ahead and say, I won the popular vote. I have this huge margin of victory in the electoral college. But again, remember something listeners that Nia mentioned a few minutes ago, which is margins in the Senate and the House will be small. If you have parts of the Republican Party caucus in the House or the Senate, who want legislation to go farther or not as far.
Nia Rodgers: They can stop it.
John Aughenbaugh: They can stop it. You got to know in the hyperpolarized time that we live in currently, the likelihood that any Democrat is going to support legislation sponsored by Republicans and desired by Trump is slim to none.
Nia Rodgers: But also, you have the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and the Matt Gates who are level rousing within their own parties.
John Aughenbaugh: Also, in the Senate, there are two moderates. Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Susan Collins from Maine. They have at times pushed back against hardcore Trump-desired legislation or even federal judges. Basically, the other 51 Republicans are all going to have to stick together in the Senate.
Nia Rodgers: It just takes one crabby Republican.
John Aughenbaugh: For whatever reason.
Nia Rodgers: For whatever reason. It doesn't go far enough. It goes too far. It's too dramatic. It's whatever. I don't think he'll have as much trouble with the Senate, to be honest, as I think he'll have with the House. The rabble-rousing in the house is a lot louder.
John Aughenbaugh: Again within the House, you have individual districts where their constituents probably want government institutions to be torn down. Merely reforming, for instance the Department of Education isn't good enough.
Nia Rodgers: Your project 2025 doesn't go far enough.
John Aughenbaugh: Far enough. Reforming the Department of Education ain't good enough. We want to disband it, right?
Nia Rodgers: Right. They are willing to vote against something that's lesser in order to try to force something greater.
John Aughenbaugh: Greater.
Nia Rodgers: Which is interesting. It is interesting that they are willing to go for broke in that. Hey, can I ask a question?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: Is Special Counsel Smith going to have a job after January 6th?
John Aughenbaugh: No. In fact, the only question that remains. What Nia is referring to, listeners is the fact that the current attorney general appointed a special counsel who has brought two different cases against Donald Trump. One down in Florida, one in Washington, DC. Donald Trump has made it very clear on the campaign trail that one of the first things he's going to do when he's president is order his attorney general to fire special counsel Jack Smith. Because he was a special counsel, Jack Smith was never confirmed by the Senate. Whoever Trump picks as attorney general will have the authority to fire him. The only question in my mind is does Jack Smith go out quietly or does he go out with this is what we presented to the grand, jury and here's the evidence we would have presented if we ever went to trial. His final kiss-off, if you will, would be just to go ahead and release the unredacted grand jury testimony.
Nia Rodgers: Whoa. Can you do that?
John Aughenbaugh: He could do it.
Nia Rodgers: Talk about burning a bridge.
John Aughenbaugh: More than likely, the Justice Department for the Trump administration would attempt to get Jack Smith disbarred.
Nia Rodgers: Yeah, but he might not care at that point. That's interesting.
John Aughenbaugh: But let's just assume that the Republican Party has control of the House and the Senate at least for two years before the midterms here is what possibly could happen. This is where Aughie is going to-
Nia Rodgers: He pulls out his crystal ball.
John Aughenbaugh: No.
Nia Rodgers: He prognosticates.
John Aughenbaugh: No, I'm going to attempt to scare you.
Nia Rodgers: Good. He throws the crystal ball at you.
John Aughenbaugh: First of all because the Republicans have control of the Senate, pretty much anybody that Trump wants to run a cabinet-level department that needs Senate confirmation will get approved. Even people that we might think what do they know, for instance, about health-
Nia Rodgers: Running the Treasury Department.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Theoretically it could be approved by the Senate.
Nia Rodgers: It likely will be.
John Aughenbaugh: Federal judges.
Nia Rodgers: He will name lots and lots of federal judges.
John Aughenbaugh: They will be okay, you know, the intellectual offspring of Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.
Nia Rodgers: Right. The most extreme of the judges.
John Aughenbaugh: Of the conservatives.
Nia Rodgers: Which is a little scary.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. By the way, his legislative agenda again, I know experts have criticized his legislative agenda. But a whole bunch of Trump supporters are like, I want to see this stuff. For instance, the first Trump administration tax cuts are set to expire next year. The current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has already said. They're going to get renewed. Now we don't know who's going to be the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is retiring. The Republicans got to decide that. But let's face it, they're going to go ahead and push that through.
Nia Rodgers: Yeah. A lot of Americans don't seem to be okay with that in the sense that they are aspirational towards wealth and not really taking into account the wild gap in wealth in the United States.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: We're at French Revolution levels of differences between.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, we are.
Nia Rodgers: The very wealthy and the very poor.
John Aughenbaugh: Poor. Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Donald Trump might be presiding over a revolution, which would be fascinating. Anyway. But I think the second one on your list is.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, particularly because Nia, you, and I have heard our colleagues Chris Saladino and Bill Newman talk about how potentially harmful to the American economy, but particularly the American consumer, this next item is. That is Trump has already indicated that he wants to protect American goods from foreign competition. He wants to impose significant tariff increases on foreign imports, in some cases, 200% tariffs.
Nia Rodgers: Which if you want to be scared, you can go listen to the town hall recording on the website for this podcast. Because Chris Saladino and Bill Newman will scare the Sweep of Jesus out of you in terms of understanding what happens with tariffs when they are increased. The people who will pay that will be the American consumer.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: If you think prices are bad now, once 200% tariffs, why would a company not put that on the consumer?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That would make no sense for a company. They're not going to cut into their profits. That's what companies don't do ever, and so fascinating. Anyway.
Nia Rodgers: Isn't the last one that you have on there, actually his first agenda item?
John Aughenbaugh: His first agenda item, he said on the campaign drill was that he wants to impose drastic restrictions on immigration and he wants to increase funding for border patrol and deportations. This will require significant legislation. It will require significant budget appropriations. We're talking about a jobs program within the border patrol unit of the Department of Homeland Security. That will rival stuff that we saw from the New Deal.
Nia Rodgers: Because I have to with sheer numbers. It's a long border.
John Aughenbaugh: It's a long border. There are thousands of people who every day want to come to the United States. They don't want to follow the legal process, because they're escaping, prosecution, economic hardship, religious prosecution. They just want to come to the United States. Trump has said we need to protect our borders. By the way, it's not going to only require the hiring of border patrol agents. We're going to have to hire a whole bunch of immigration law judges to process cases.
Nia Rodgers: We're going to have to hire a whole bunch of ice to find people because we're talking about 11 million people roughly. You're right, it's a big jobs program.
John Aughenbaugh: Now, even without the Republican Party controlling both Houses of Congress, let's remember, folks, modern presidents can use regulations to achieve policy, if you will, initiatives that they can't get through Congress, so I would fully expect proposed regulations from the Trump administration that would roll back buying administration regulations on climate change, environmental protection, student loan forgiveness, because again, student loan forgiveness, wildly unpopular with Trump supporters. We have had a huge shift, Nia, in regards to who supports the Democratic Party and who supports the Republican Party. Democratic Party is supported by huge percentages by college graduates, many of whom have what?
Nia Rodgers: Student debt.
John Aughenbaugh: To pay for student debt, but the Republican Party is overwhelmingly supported by non college, American citizens. People who haven't gone to college, haven't finished college, they're overwhelmingly supporting Trump. Those folks are like, I don't have student loan debt. Why is my government paying off your student loan debt, and ain't benefiting me? Then as I also point out, we've already talked about special counsel Jack Smith two cases, they're gone. Fully expect Parnes or Clemency for a whole bunch of the January 6th rider insurrectionists. He's already made it very clear. He's going to use that presidential power. That doesn't get checked. He doesn't have to get [inaudible 00:51:25].
Nia Rodgers: Something come from the presidents. Most presidents don't use the pardon power that way, but Donald Trump is not most presidents. The other thing that we have to keep in mind in terms of implications for governing is, assuming that democracy holds and that everything is fine in four years, Donald Trump cannot be president anymore. One of the most dangerous things in the world is a guy with nothing to lose. If he can't be punished because as president, he can do a lot of things with immunity, as the Supreme Court has shown us, then why not go for broke? What's going to happen to him afterwards? Nothing. He can't. See, what has kept politicians in check before is that they cared a lot about the party and keeping the party in a position to win. Donald Trump does not care about that. Donald Trump does not care about the Republican Party. He doesn't care if after he's no longer president, there's never another Republican president. No, that is not a selling point for him. For him, these next four years are hands free. He can do whatever he wants because what is the government going to do to him? What is the party going to do to him? Nothing.
John Aughenbaugh: That's really interesting because in many ways, if Trump was even remotely interested in his legacy, he would care about the Republican Party because he has done something that pretty much all political scientists didn't think he could do when he first announced in 2015 that he was running for president, which is he can't remake the Republican Party in his image with his policy preferences.
Nia Rodgers: That's exactly what he's done.
John Aughenbaugh: That's what he's done. He has remake the party from top to bottom. As I've mentioned a couple times already in this episode, there are only two moderate Republicans left in the United States Senate: Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. You can count on one hand.
Nia Rodgers: All the guys who hated his guts in the primary, you see them on stage with him now. Marco is on stage with him.
John Aughenbaugh: Lindsey Graham.
Nia Rodgers: They're all lined up behind him to be supportive. Not only that, but he's picking off high level Democrats like Kennedy.
John Aughenbaugh: Tulsi Gabbard.
Nia Rodgers: He really has.
John Aughenbaugh: Think about this. In the party in a lot of ways has to go ahead, bow, and scrape in front of him. Because he's actually grown the party in the last eight years.
Nia Rodgers: Men of color. Latino men.
John Aughenbaugh: He might actually win the popular vote. Come on now. Large counties. The Republican Party didn't do well just in rural areas.
Nia Rodgers: He did well in what had been formerly Democratic stronghold cities.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes
Nia Rodgers: Whatever else you may say, Donald Trump, he has changed the Republican Party. I didn't think he could either, but he's done a lot to remake it in his image. It'll be interesting to see what happens in four years, how much of that maintained.
John Aughenbaugh: Pain That's right. Because, is this an anomalous condition or is this permanent?
Nia Rodgers: Is he Roosevelt who was beloved? Or is he a fad?
John Aughenbaugh: In terms of the Republican Party, is he Ronald Reagan? Or is he, I can't think of somebody else. Dwight Eisenhower? Eight years of normalcy. Blah, how boring. But when we think about this Nia, the Republican Party used to be supported by wealthy elites with college degrees, budget deficit hawks, foreign policy hawks who were globalists. Think about Bush 41. Think about Ronald Reagan, and corporations. There are now some corporations that Donald Trump has made it very clear that he thinks the United States government should never award a contract to because they are woke. He's gotten rid of foreign policy hawks. He's an isolationist.
Nia Rodgers: He wants to get rid of NATO. He doesn't care about Ukraine. He doesn't care about Israel. He cares about Israel, but I don't think he's going to get into it. He wants nothing to do with Iran.
John Aughenbaugh: Think about who's in in the Republican Party. One populism, huge distrust of institution as elites. Those without college degrees, men of all ages and races who don't trust government, and societal institutions. They have found a home.
Nia Rodgers: Some unionship has found a home.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Which used to be the bedrock of the Democratic Party. Can we just talk about the Democratic Party for a minute? Democratic Party needs to stop. You know that snake that bites its own tail and gets all wound up in a big old circle? That's the Democratic Party. It has got to stop doing that. First of all, and I'm just going to put this out here. I'm not saying anything bad about Barack Obama except I'm not sure that lecturing Black men was the way to their hearts.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It came off, no offense intended to and this is not the same person. But it was the same reaction people had when Bill Cosby told them they needed to get up their bootstraps.
John Aughenbaugh: Get a job and go to work.
Nia Rodgers: Now Barack Obama and Bill Cosby are wildly different people. Because Bill Cosby is a rapist. Barack Obama is not. Hello, I get that. I'm not suggesting that. But I'm saying that people don't react well to being lectured to and condescended to. That was not the best use of his time or efforts. I'm going to just put that out there. I don't think that's what cost her the election. I don't think that. It speaks to something in the Democratic Party.
John Aughenbaugh: If the Democratic Party wants to win close elections, they're going to have to go ahead and be attractive to individuals who don't pay attention to politics 247, like some of us do. We're talking about the disengaged voter who basically every 3.5, four years says.
Nia Rodgers: Wakes up and says, there's an election.
John Aughenbaugh: Election.
Nia Rodgers: I should go vote.
John Aughenbaugh: I have a civic obligation, blah. When they start considering the parties and their candidates. One party is basically saying, well, because you are and we'll use the example of Barack Obama at a campaign rally this fall. Barack Obama went ahead and chastised African-American males for not wanting to support their sister. He used language that comes off as nagging, condescending. Again, it follows, if you will, a particular pattern here. It's like the Democratic, the Biden administration saying, but the economy is doing well. Well, if the economy is not working for you, don't tell me that it's raining when in fact somebody's urinating down my back. One, if you are lying to me at least in my particular situation, but then you're telling me that I should believe your lie.
Nia Rodgers: You're gas lighting. That's classic gas lighting.
John Aughenbaugh: Gas lighting and nobody likes to be gas lit.
Nia Rodgers: The other thing is, that made a big assumption that Black men weren't supporting Black women. I don't know that there's evidence for that. There may be evidence for that, but that's not how that came across. It's not just him. There's this whole also this whole if you don't agree with us, it's because you're a Cretan or Cretan. I'm never sure how that's pronounced. Who doesn't know anything about anything and you cannot be taken seriously. I'm like, no. Serious people can disagree about about things, and it doesn't mean the other person is stupid. There's this problem that Democrats dismiss their opponents as ignorant, or uneducated, or they don't really understand the world or whatever. It's toxic. It's a toxic way to view other people. Other people may have, for instance, you pointed this out in your notes which I thought was brilliant. Stop acting like people who are religious are somehow dumb. We've had religion since we had more than two people. Religion is important in a lot of people's lives. It is a guiding light in a lot of people's lives, and acting like that is somehow less, is not the way to win.
Nia Rodgers: Elections. It's also not the way to win friends. Like, hello, would you tell your friends they belong to the wrong religion or they shouldn't belong to a religion? Of course you wouldn't, so why would you tell your supporters that? It's bonkers.
John Aughenbaugh: I've been hearing a lot, Nia, the last couple of days after the election. How can all these voters vote for Trump when his policies are going to hurt them? It's not rational. I'm sorry. As soon as you go ahead and say to somebody, you're not acting rationally, many of us interpret that comment as you're dumb.
Nia Rodgers: You're an idiot. Because why else would you do this?
John Aughenbaugh: There are voters in both political parties who support candidates or their party that has policy, if you will, programs or policy preferences that will hurt them. But for various reasons, they always vote Democratic or they always vote Republican. That happens. But when you go ahead and say you're voting for a candidate or a party that is hurting your narrow self interest. Wait a minute, here. I thought that we're supposed to be looking out for not only my interest, but the collective interests. If I think a particular candidate's going to be good for the entire country, even if I have to suffer some short term gain or shorts loss.
Nia Rodgers: Then why would I not do that?
John Aughenbaugh: Why would I not do that?
Nia Rodgers: The Democratic Party is trying to be this weird umbrella, but it actually is closing some people out because people who are centrists are currently not super welcome in the Democratic Party. You cannot win on the margins. What Trump got was a lot of centrists. He got a lot of people undecided in the middle this time around. I think that's where elections are won and lost, is how do you make that case to the centrists?
John Aughenbaugh: Again, to your point, think about, for instance, you mentioned identity politics. One of the criticisms of identity politics for years, is that identity politics assumes that everybody within a certain identity thinks and believes the same way. This election really shows the flaw in that particular logic. For instance, Trump increased his support among young voters. The assumption of the Democratic Party, since the dawn of this millennium, is that young voters will vote for the Democratic Party.
Nia Rodgers: Are hyper progressive.
John Aughenbaugh: Hyper progressive.
Nia Rodgers: But they're not.
John Aughenbaugh: But some of them aren't. African-American males. There are some African-American males, who actually think that economy and crime are more important, than racial politics. Latinos.
Nia Rodgers: Same thing.
John Aughenbaugh: When you break down the sub-population that gets labeled Latino, there are some significant difference between somebody who's from Cuba or whose ancestors are from Cuba compared to Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Mexico, etc. They vote differently because they have different priorities. Even African-American, the category of African-American.
Nia Rodgers: Is ridiculous in census. Because it lines up people from China and India.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: I hate to break this word, but those are very different cultures.
John Aughenbaugh: Their view of government is different, and what government should do or should not do. The Democrats for years have banked on identity politics driving an increased, if you will, support within the American population. But when individuals within particular identities, don't think and believe the same way, then you run into problems. For instance, I have friends who are gays and lesbians who vote Republican. I've had Democratic friends and colleagues who are like, how can they do that? I said, because they focus on economic issues, and they like the Republican Party's economic issues. Or I said, a couple of them are really big on US national security. They're like, but shouldn't they? And I'm like, they've chose differently.
Nia Rodgers: Monolith. There's no such thing. I'm just going to throw this out here. The Democratic Party, in my mind, if you put up a candidate, that cannot beat.
John Aughenbaugh: I know where you're going with.
Nia Rodgers: Donald Trump who has so many negatives. I'm not entirely certain what that says about you, but I do like you mentioned to me off recording, and I want to bring it up before we wrap up this episode which is she did not go through the fire. The fire that is the primary, the fire that is a lengthy presidential run teaches you things, and it beats you up and it chews you up, and it makes you a better candidate. You mentioned that David Axelrod said that the Barack Obama that ran for president once he was through the primary process was a very different person than the guy who started that process because it does things to you. By handing her a nomination, first of all, by forcing out Joe Biden and basically declaring to half the country that Democrats didn't trust their own candidate. Then by not going through a process to force her to win the nomination by handing it to her, she was ill prepared. She was ill prepared for the campaign trail. The way that her campaign dealt with that was to keep her out of the press. No. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to see more politicians in the press God knows Donald Trump loves camera. He's not the only one. If Lindsey Graham doesn't make love to a camera every morning, I don't know who does. I'm not asking for more of that necessarily, except that when people even on the day of the election, people saying, I don't know her. I don't know who she is. I don't know anything about her. That is death to a candidate. If they don't know you, you don't count. Think about you in terms of not you, but think about you in terms of your mom. She's driving around Dubois, and she sees street signs for the different candidates. When she sits down with the ballot, the ones that she's going to vote for are the ones that she remembers having seen or heard of or know about. If you don't know anything about one candidate and you know perhaps far too much about the other candidate, but you at least have name recognition.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Because what you're pointing to, Nia, is what political scientists have long said. The reason why we still have so much negative advertising and campaigns is that, one candidates trying to define their opponent in the minds of potential voters, particularly, undecided, occasional voters. In to a certain extent, the Democratic Party let Donald Trump define Kamala Harris.
Nia Rodgers: As four more years of Biden.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right.
Nia Rodgers: He also was like, and if they don't believe in Biden, why should you believe in Biden?
John Aughenbaugh: Again, the presidential campaign is way too long in the United States. But one of the things that the primary Incocus process does is allow somebody like a Kamala Harris, who's only had to campaign in one state, California. Before she was picked by Biden to be vice president, she only ran for office in California, and it was a very liberal part of California. Then she ran for Senate. Again, if not the most liberal state, one of two or three very liberal states. She was going to be accepted. But if you're going to go ahead and try to translate who you are to, for instance, a small rural community in Michigan, or Wisconsin, or North Carolina, or the suburbs of Georgia, you need to go through that process of going to town halls, barbecues, speaking at VFW halls, and getting questions where, you didn't answer that very well, so you learned from your mistakes, etc. Again, the Barack Obama example really resonates with me because I remember when he first announced and everybody was just like, this guy hasn't even completed one term in the Senate from Illinois, and he made all kinds of mistakes, but he got better.
John Aughenbaugh: She didn't have a chance to get better.
Nia Rodgers: I don't think she had enough time to get better, I think in fairness to her, I don't know that she's a bad candidate, I think if she had had a year or a year and a half on the campaign trail, she would, I think, been a stronger candidate by the end of it. She would have been able to tell a better story, she would have been far more, but she had what, three or four months?
John Aughenbaugh: That's right, and the first week was basically just shot. After Biden announced that he was withdrawing, the first week was, her working with the party elites to go ahead and shore up all those endorsements and make a decision that there was not going to be an open convention. Then it was meeting with fundraisers, and her campaign raised an impressive amount of money. But again, Nia, you and I talked about this off recording. You get picked without going through the primaries, and then the party and the party backers basically go ahead and give you $3 million. That's like giving a kid who just passed their driver's test, what did you say?
Nia Rodgers: A Ferrari.
John Aughenbaugh: Saying.
Nia Rodgers: Don't put a scratch on it.
John Aughenbaugh: Don't put a scratch on it, I'm sorry. Even the most responsible 16-year-old is going to do what to that car?
Nia Rodgers: Put a scratch on it at the very least.
John Aughenbaugh: But in a course, they're growing too, because they're just learning how, in Harris' case, learning how to be a national candidate.
Nia Rodgers: I know it's been argued that she was vice president, and she ran, but that campaign was about Joe Biden I mean, that campaign.
John Aughenbaugh: 2020 was about Joe Biden.
Nia Rodgers: It really wasn't about her.
John Aughenbaugh: Heck, I would go one step further and say the 2020 campaign was okay, how do we get Trump out of office? I'm not even really entirely sure that Biden's margin of victory was because a whole bunch of Americans wanted Joe Biden, they just didn't want another four years.
Nia Rodgers: The question is, did Joe Biden win or did Donald Trump lose?
John Aughenbaugh: In this election, almost begs the exact same question, but in the reverse.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly, how is it possible?
John Aughenbaugh: Because again, if you're a Trump supporter, we apologize, but let's face it. This is a guy who is a charlatan, he's narcissistic, he's been convicted of crimes, he treats women and people of color as punch lines to jokes. If the opposition party can't go ahead and run a candidate and a campaign to beat that person, that must say a lot.
Nia Rodgers: It needs some navel-gazing, that party needs to step back and ask itself what can we do to deepen the field? Because part of the problem with the Democratic Party is it has a very thin field. When you look at the Republican Party, it has a thick field, and it is even now building towards when Donald Trump is no longer a viable candidate for president. JD Vance is now in the mix, DeSantis is still in the mix, he's doing lots of stuff in Florida that is giving him presidential vibes. Greg Abbott is doing stuff, Mark Rubi, bless his heart, is still in it, at least trying to be.
John Aughenbaugh: Josh Holly in Missouri, you got the new Republican senator in Ohio, Moreno.
Nia Rodgers: A lot of people who are building towards Virginia's governor Glenn Youngkin. All of those guys, that's a bench that they've built out. Maybe two candidates on the bench on the Democratic side.
John Aughenbaugh: Well, I mean, I have students who are like, well, what about Bernie Sanders? I'm like, hey, if you thought Joe Biden and Donald Trump were too old, I'm sorry, in four years Bernie Sanders is too old. If the country struggled with Kamala Harris.
Nia Rodgers: Holy Kawe Elizabeth Warren.
John Aughenbaugh: Warren. I mean, come on now, she's great for Massachusetts.
Nia Rodgers: But she's said and done a lot of stuff that wildly unpopular in the rest of the country.
John Aughenbaugh: How do you translate her and her policy preferences to, again, upstate Pennsylvania, the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Nia Rodgers: The person that they have that's the closest is probably Klobuchar, but I don't know if Amy Klobuchar wants to be president.
John Aughenbaugh: Moreover, I hate to say this, I like it, but I don't think a lot of voters would like it. Senator Klobuchar is not the most engaging speaker.
Nia Rodgers: She dry, she is very factual.
John Aughenbaugh: She's Midwestern Minnesota.
Nia Rodgers: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That's something that the Democratic Party is going to have to wrestle with. If you're not going to build a bench in the next four years, you need to just get used to losing because the Republicans are not just building a bench, they're building it out at the fourth and fifth and sixth level. Unless you have some candidate come along that's like Bill Clinton that comes out of nowhere.
John Aughenbaugh: Or Barack Obama in 2000.
Nia Rodgers: Does something amazing, but you can't keep hoping for lightning to strike.
John Aughenbaugh: Because in many ways, and I've told my Republican friends this, guys, if you think that you're going to get another Donald Trump, remember, Donald Trump came out of nowhere and the party establishment didn't want him. Now, he's rebuilt or remade the Republican Party, but I said, I think they've gone about it just like you have said. They've gone about it in terms of, we have multiple candidates to fill the who's next.
Nia Rodgers: Right now, I'm not sure that the Democratic have anybody who's next. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be an interesting couple of years, we're going to stick with it. I briefly had a moment where I thought, we're done with the podcast. Then I was like, no, we're not, the government's just about to get more interesting.
John Aughenbaugh: Not less, come on, now. But thank you, Nia.
Nia Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie
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