Harris - Walz CNN Interview Thoughts. Musa Al-Gharbi is BACK!

Introduction and Overview on this edition of the program my notes on the KLA Harris Tim wall CNN interview and the triumphant return of Musa Al garby to the program got a new book coming out it's all coming up this episode of politics politics politics is brought to you by Ki where there is a market for everything and you can take advantage of your knowledge why be right for free on Ki there's a market for everything and I want to show you one that I am very interested in and that is how many presidential debates this year only on Ki is it legal for you to put money into this market and win money back so the Ki market right now is absolutely split on this 45% of the market believes that there will only be two debates the debate that's already happened and the one that will happen on September 10th and 45% believe that there will be a third debate added meanwhile if you want to go really Galaxy brain you can make a lot of money by taking the position that only 5% of the market has taken saying that there will only be one debate that means the September 10th debate is going to fall apart and by the way it almost did this week so that 5% might have looked really really really good head on over there right now ky.com that is K ai.com PX3 we are giving a $20 bonus for the first 500 100 people who join when you go to that link and deposit $100 again k a l shi.com PX3 thank you to KI for supporting independent political journalism hello and welcome everybody to the politics politics politics program for August 30th 2024 your old pal J Robert Young joining you right before Labor Day weekend I hope everybody has a really good time maybe a little vacation shout out to all my people that are going to Dragon Con you know that's where we love uh uh to be but we're not going to be there this year because as I mentioned last Friday that was the last episode that you were going to see me not being a father and indeed my daughter Bella born this week on Monday morning at 1:20 she didn't make it the weekend before uh started knock knock knocking on the door to get out and join everybody mom and baby are healthy and happy we are back home out of the hospital I got to say it has been an extraordinary journey and we we'll see where my schedule is with the show going forward like I said last Friday I think the the the best way to to judge it is that I will likely be at a one free episode a week schedule but you never know uh we are still figuring out the Baseline here and right now I feel good I feel good although yesterday because of the irregular sleep schedule I did take a nap that felt like I got mugged I don't know if you've ever done that where you take a nap and and I guess like you're you're just woken up out of the wrong sleep cycle and and I just felt like I was on Mars so other than that everything has gone uh swimmingly so far including my ability to watch the CNN interview with kamla Harris and Tim Walls last night quick Topline thoughts because I don't really think that this is the Harris Walz CNN Interview Thoughts biggest story on the planet I don't think it's really going to affect much but I said for the patrons yesterday that I wasn't really watching this for any kind of oops gotcha kind of moments I was mostly looking at this from a temperament perspective how the Harris campaign was planning on prepping her what you know they had a long time to think about how to deal with issues that were there how do they want to get through them and I laid out that I I felt no matter what this was not going to be the best inter interview for them just because they had waited so long on it and I want to go through this right now these are just the first six questions that were asked by danab bash of CNN last night all right now I I didn't include follow-ups to those questions these were different topics that were brought up so these are just the first six what would you do day one what do you say to Americans who are nostalgic for Trump's economy why haven't you already done what you are campaigning on considering your party is in office right now and then there was a followup on whether or not she still backs bomic four why did you reverse your position on fracking so we get into the 2019 stuff several follow-ups for clarity and a big option to leave open in fact she prompted kamla Harris to hey give us an example Le of you seeing new data or something like that she didn't take it why is the Border bad and what have you done in your position with the root causes of migration several follow-ups and then six why should voters believe what you are saying now none of those were phrased super negatively you know if she were on Hannity the question would be why are you lying and why are you going to continue to lie these were delivered in a manner that CNN wants to remain accessible with the the Harris campaign so they're not going to torture but these are a lot of questions that could have been spread out over three interviews the first question that K Harris would have gotten if she would have done an interview within two weeks of getting the nomination is the questions that she got at the end of this interview how did you feel in this moment in history instead you've let pile up a a bunch of stuff that now she has to deal with and so because of that because you've delayed it for so long there's just G to be more eyes on it and there's going to be more eyes on how you answer stuff I don't particularly think she had great answers here was one of those uh uh examples fracking so she was very strident saying that she did not reverse her fracking position now she reversed her fracking position in 2020 so the way that she said it was I re uh uh I made my position UNF fracking clear on the debate stage in 2020 real heads no she was not on a primary debate stage in 2019 cuz her campaign ended before New Year's Eve she was on a debate stage with Mike Pence for the vice presidential debate and here is what she said then Joe Biden will not raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year he has been very clear about that Joe Biden will not end fracking he has been very clear on that she is now saying that is her reversing her fracking opinion to say that Joe Biden won't do it and it gets into this very plant relationship that the Harris campaign has with the last four years where they are simultaneously both very connected to it and not connected to it at all so this is an example of her being very connected to Joe Biden Joe Biden changed his mind so I changed my mind that didn't happen now that happened in 2020 and that's what we're supposed to take from her saying I switched I made my opinions on fracking clear on the debate sage in 2020 there's only one time that happened and this is the only quote that references to it here's the other thing that I have questions on and and I don't blame them for this by the way the the the catchphrase was my values haven't changed so obviously she is Moon walking away from a lot of positions that she took as a presidential candidate in 2019 among them fracking mandatory gun buyback which didn't even get asked about and uh a decriminalizing the Border she did get asked about that my values haven't changed now look the campaign has to just put a Band-Aid on it they're not going to win on it there there's nobody who's going to be thr bu that KLA Harris had a bunch of very different positions and now she has a bunch of very different positions now so you got to do your best to just you know tie a stick around it and hope that it holds until the election so I'm not going to really slam him on it I will just say that it's easy to poke holes in so my values haven't changed just the positions that I'm taking that will affect your life but trust me internally I'm the same person I just will do radically different things that actually affect you but hopefully you sleep well knowing that I haven't changed when I look into the mirror I still see kamla Harris or and this is probably a little bit more honest my values haven't changed I wanted to be president then so I said things that the polls told me I should say and I want to be president now so I'm saying things the polls are telling me that I should say my values of wanting to be president desperately are consistent throughout and then there was this and I'm going to assume we're going to talk about a little bit more with Musa El garby but I assume that this was Focus tested on some level but I'm just going to read this for btim Harris I am proud to be running with Tim Walls for president of the United States and to bring America what I believe the American people deserve which is a new way forward turning the page on the last decade of what I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies bash with the last decade of course the last three and a half years has been part of your Administration Harris I'm talking about the era that started about a decade ago where there are some suggestions warped I believe it to be that the measure of strength of a leader is based on who you beat down instead of where I believe most Americans are which is to believe that the true measure of strength of a leader is based on who you lift up that's what's at stake as much as any other detail that we can discuss in this election I have to imagine that the decade number is something that they went over I don't particularly see the logic a decade ago Obama was still president so were you saying Obama started in the midterms of his final term in office an era where you beat people down then Donald Trump took advantage of that then Joe Biden took advantage of that and now you're going to change it are you making Barack Obama Donald Trump and Joe Biden complicit in this toxic culture that you are the antidote to I I get what they're going for which is she is a a breath of fresh air she is a Democrat who is not a Democrat that you have known before she represents change and if that's the case then you got to start the clock somewhere and you can't start it with Just When Donald Trump came in because Joe Biden came in after that and you guys didn't do anything so 10 years I guess is just a round number the only thing is that she doesn't have a history of turning the page in fact when people liked her the most she was one of the chief inquisitors of beating people down at the Democratic National Convention they repeatedly played these Sizzle reels of her uh uh being very pointed during Judiciary hearings and Confirmation hearings she is the prosecutor she is not the let's all hold hands uh uh and and turn the page so I don't know if it really fits her strengths if there is a messaging thing that I would like worry about it's stuff like that but again it it is a sign that this is not a specifically busy week in politics that this became what it was I do think they made a mistake made a mistake by not just having her on Joy Reed 3 days after she got the nomination so she could be slobbered over and they could laugh together but here we are there we go Harrison walls on CNN after the break Musa Al Trump WILL NOT Vote for FL Abortion Amendment garby this is your update brought to you by Tak politics seriously. head on over to take politics seriously. if you want to get two bonus episodes each and every week we are going through a little bit of a uh adjustment as I adjust to the new baby when it comes to the free feed but the patreon feed hell high water I'm doing those uh uh we are here in the first couple days I'm getting a sense of the how much time I got but I can always do the patreon and so head on over there right now if you want two bonus episodes each and every week it's uh only three bucks so for the price of a cup of coffee you can go ahead and uh get two bonus episodes and these days oh brother these days take politics seriously. comom and a mey update as we are you know down to one episode here Donald Trump expressed disagreement with Florida's six week abortion ban and seemingly supported a referendum that would reverse it saying that 6 weeks is too short he then on Friday just before I recorded this said he will vote against it in the interview Thursday Trump hinted at saying that it was too restrictive and now has clarified his position Trump emphasized that 6 weeks is an insufficient amount of time for an abortion ban but did not explicitly State his stance initially his comments reflect an effort to moderate his position on abortion a contentious issue since their Supreme Court overturned Ro versus Wade Trump stance could influence the amendment for vote in Florida meanwhile he has pledged to make in vitro federalization treatment free this week although specifics not provided so let's get into do the Trump of it all I haven't talked a lot about Trump in the intro because we talked a lot about Harrison walls first things first the 5D chess is this Donald Trump saying something to re-inject himself into the news cycle quite possibly but uh I will in general defer to the idea that Donald Trump is not uh uh every moment thinking about the calculations of how he's going to get into the news cycle and short circuit his opponents in general he just constantly throws a lot of stuff at the wall and sees what people are responding to with that being said Donald Trump has been trying to moderate his abortion stance since 2022 since roow versus Wade fell he was critical of candidates in the midterms who left any room open for the idea that uh the exceptions rape incest and life of the mother would not be respected and judging on a curve for other Republican candidates for every Republican candidate since I was born in 1983 he is the most moderate he has said the most moderate things he has adjusted his platform to say the most moderate things that being said he's done Donald Trump and so his opponents in the Democratic party will say you can't believe the word he says cuz he's a liar salt to taste however you want on that do you believe what Trump is saying do you believe that he cannot be trusted and therefore project 2025 is his real heart and in his real heart IVF is banned and abortion is banned Nationwide and we are living in a handmaid's tale Society where women are tracked when they go across state lines yada Yad y we're going to talk a little bit more on this with Musa El garby so I will leave that for that conversation but it is fascinating that we live in a reality where both Donald Trump wants to pay for IVF pay for IVF so now if you are trying to conceive and you can't you can now apply for government IVF the Republican wants that or he wants to ban it forever I Altercation at Arlington National Cemetery mean oh what a world another story that popped up this week an altercation at the Arlington National ceremony during a wre laying ceremony honoring Serv members killed in the Afghanistan war withdrawal the Trump campaign had been warned to not take photographs in section 60 where military personnel from Afghanistan and Iraq are buried despite the warning two Trump staff members allegedly pushed aside a cemetery official who tried to stop them from filming Trump's campaign has denied the allegation claiming that they had permission for a photographer uh by one of the families that they were invited to the cemetery with and the incident involved an individual quote suffering a mental health episode unquote Cemetery officials confirmed that an incident did occur and filed a report but provided no further details the incident has drawn criticism from various quarters including the Democratic representative Jerry Connelly who condemned Trump and his campaign's behavior as abhorent and shameful meanwhile Trump's running mate JD Vance downplayed the incident Shifting the focus to the Afghanistan on withdrawal specifically the families that Trump was there with were the gold star families meaning that their family members were killed in a suicide bombing during The Hectic Afghanistan withdrawal I'll leave it up to you how much this matters I just think it's crazy that we live in a world where msnb C are the that's the channel that's thumping the this political candidate doesn't respect the military enough we've just come a long way is all I'm saying the will we please think about the honor and dign dignity of the military for somebody who grew up during the George W Bush Administration it's odd that this is the democrat's position that being said you know what this sounds like to me is that Trump and his campaign were invited that's not in dispute they believe that they were told they could have a photographer it looks like the video and the pictures that they put out were cell phones and the question is should it have immediately been campaign material or should they have given those photos to the gold star families and had them post them that that seems like what the issue is although there does seem to have been a fight there so I don't think anyone's going to think about this in two days and it's it's obviously not going to be something that KLA Harris is going to bring up during the debate because the obvious comeback is hey say what you will about whether or not we should be taking photos where were you it was your Administration under which these people were killed so I was there where were you so I think this one's going to go away finally we didn't have a blitz primary Opposition research in the Veep Stakes for the Democratic nomination kamla Harris got it pretty instantly but we did have a vep stakes and in that vep Stakes we had opposition research fly out from all sides on everybody that was involved including Tim Walls and we've been living in the Tim Walls World since Josh Shapiro who may or may not have been too lenient on a murder within his purview before we get into any of the Jewish stuff Mark Kelly who apparently was too close to a Chinese company and then Marilyn Governor Westmore along with Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer looked at as a rising star if KLA Harris loses it'll be 2028 that you will hear these names quite a bit he was tagged as falsely promoting himself as having a Bronze Star and today he admitted that he made a quote unquote honest mistake for not correcting a claim on a 2006 White House Fellowship application that he did receive said Braun star for his military service in Afghanistan which he never received the New York Times obtained the application and reported that more than 27 included the award based on guidance from his Deputy Brigade commander who had recommended him for the medal and confirmed its approval however Moore later learned that he had not received the Bronze Star but in his mind failed to amend the application Moore expressed regret for not correcting the error noting that the Commendation was mentioned during his gubernatorial campaign though he never clarified that he hadn't received it that was for the vep stakes of at least when they were in in the process of recruiting for a campign aign that you know wasn't a guarantee still isn't a guarantee that's how much APO got leaked inside the Democratic party inside the Democratic party you know we didn't really talk about Tim Walls in the a block so let me just get my thoughts out here I thought he came off as really defensive he was asked about not The Stolen Valor thing he was asked about saying weapons of War which is something that his campaign has already corrected and then saying that his wife and he conceived their children via IVF when they did not conceive via IVF he handwaved both Away by saying you know my grammar's not the best don't love those answers don't love them cuz again these are First Impressions and you are speaking to the converted if you are not going to give an even-handed airing of these to people that have no idea what is going on and believe that Republicans can bring up things that might affect their vote in the same way that Democrats can bring up things that might affect their vote than just saying ah whatever they just they criticize me for everything not my favorite again I don't think anybody's voting for Tim Walls I think people are going to vote for either kamla Harris or really Joe Biden I mean I think I said when the VP got announced that whoever was named was going to be the third most important person in the minds of a vote for or against the Democratic ticket that in some order it's going to be KLA Harris Joe Biden and then whoever the name was it's Tim Walls now so I still believe that I also believe that you should had to take politics seriously. comom sign up at the $3 level get two bonus episodes each and every week and they're always going to be me it's GNA be me take politics seriously. comom and now Musa Al garby despite the fact that I am I'm only days into being a father and I swear I will take time off uh I had one interview scheduled before uh I was supposed to not be here and I had to do it just because this man has not been on the show in a while cuz he's been Musa Al-Gharbi writing a book that is about to be out we have never been woke Our Guest returning to the show The Great Musa Al garby how you doing buddy I'm great it's it's great to be back uh well I'll tell you what there's there's so much that I want to go over but first let's talk about the book uh give us the the the the broad Strokes the big pitch on we have never been woke so I guess the big question the book wants to ask is um basically since the 1980s there's been this big shift in the global economy in favor of what you might call the knowledge Industries so people who work in Tech and finance and Academia and media and so on and so forth have a lot more wealth and influence over Society than basically ever before what's interesting is that people who work in these knowledge Fields um have have basically always from the beginning of these jobs um thought of themselves as champions for the marginalized and the disadvantaged and uh like a lot of these professions are altruistic kind of by definition so like journalists are supposed to speak truth to power and be voiced for the voiceless and academics are supposed to follow the truth wherever it leads without regard to whether it serves anyone's Financial interests or political agendas and so on okay so what you might expect is that as people like us have grown in power and influence over Society um and since we are so committed to social justice on paper uh we're the Americans who are most likely to self-identify as anti-racists feminists allies to lgbtq people environmentalists and so on okay so what you might expect is as we have more power and resources under our control um that inequalities in America would be shrinking and a lot of social problems would be getting solved and people would have a lot more faith and trust in Institution because of all the great work that we're doing for them finally the good guys are in charge yes absolutely and what we've seen is actually the opposite of that so we see increasing polarization and social Strife uh growing inequality uh increasing mistrust of Institutions increasing institutional dysfunction and so what the book is trying to figure out basically is what's going on here why why do we see that and so that's kind of the core puzzle that the book is trying to figure out I believe the first time that I came across your work and wanted to ask you to be on this show was looking at some of the work you had done in the 2016 election and trying to parse out these questions of what is the narrative that is fed by a Joe Biden win and who exactly pushed everybody over the finish line and what is the reality of who actually voted for for who I I I want to make sure that we uh uh first everybody encouraged to go uh uh pre-order the book The book's out in October there's going to be a link in the show notes uh I'm going to say whether or not MOA will do it on Amazon because the Amazon charts matter it's it's just it's a publishing World thing go do it there of course we support your local bookstore buy another one there as well uh the the questions about this election we have not talked since uh this election has has really kicked up the polling is crazy when it comes to racial realignment uh the narratives around it have been fascinating you now have kamla Harris as the nominee she's playing down the idea that she is either black or a woman and Donald Trump is the one at the National Association of black journalist talking about the the concept of when you are really black I will say is something that I only heard exclusively within black communities previous to Donald Trump deciding to kind of M mainstream it uh uh what do you make of what has happened in this election at least on terms of some of the the studies that you had done from 2016 yeah so it's a wild election to model um from uh from a social science standpoint uh first because even before you know this big transition uh it was already a super weird race it had been like it had been like a century uh since we had a former president and a current president squaring off against each other uh they were both super unpopular they were both super old one of them was a convicted felon who was twice impeached and so it's just a crazy even even before this leadership change um but also uh we haven't really had um it's been a very long time since we've had anything like this happen where the nominee has dropped out this close to the race and someone else has um stepped in to replace them and uh and Kamala is is a really weird candidate for a lot of reasons as well um like a highly unusual candidate so she would be the um the first uh female president if she won she would be the second black president the first black woman president if you want to get intersectional um also the first uh Asian President because she's uh of South Asian descent uh and so on and so forth but setting aside that kind of identitarian first business um she's also uh an unusual candidate for a lot of other reasons and um yeah and so it's hard to like for social science uh we are like so far off the grid in terms of historical precedence and what to expect but it's uh it's it's hard to know what to make of of of it um in terms of the uh in terms of the racial dynamics of the race yeah so one one of the things that's um that I've noted in my work for a while that people have been really really really hesitant to accept but people are starting to accept now although the narratives around it are still weird is that uh for the last decade or so basically starting after 2011 or so um non-white voters have been moving consistently away from the Democratic party um and uh they've been increasingly alienated from democratic party uh and they haven't been moving towards third parties necessarily so much they've actually been voting Republican so they've been not only alienated from the Democrats but actually voting Republic um meanwhile uh Highly Educated relatively affluent white people have been increasingly aligning with the Democratic party and so if you look at at 2020 for instance um Joe Biden uh did worse than Hillary Clinton did with black voters with Hispanic voters um with black women included uh in Hispanic women with Asian voters and the reason Biden was able to squeak out a wind despite doing worse with minority voters than Clinton did was because of games he made with white people especially white men especially Highly Educated white men and that kind of narrative is basically um the opposite of what everyone says uh so no I was I was reliably informed it was black women in Atlanta that solely won Joe Biden the White House in 2020 yeah what's Wild is if you do a deep dive into Atlanta actually the the the more um ethnically homogeneous parts of Atlanta actually shifted the furthest towards the Republicans and it's the the The Wider diversifying area so you know Atlanta is a major knowledge economy Hub a major media hub CNN's headquarters are there you have major universities like Emory and other uh other big uh universities there and a lot of professionals who have been moving out of States like California because it's unaffordable miserable so on have been migrating um to Sun Bel States and to Georgia and uh some State some some cities in North Carolina and stuff like that and so it's these professionals moving from um States like California to States like Georgia that helped shift the the that helped flip Georgia into the other column it was not black people if you look at um again if you look at black voters in Georgia and in their trend lines whether you look at men or women um they shifted towards the right uh so if you want to um thank someone for uh for the for flipping Georgia and the election going the way it did find a a white professional somewhere and TI a never Trumper find a never Trumper if you are a Biden supporter and you're very happy about it then the next time you see a never Trumper say thank you for your service because they they they they they certainly delivered the goods for you in 2020 and may well do it again in 2024 in 2022 you saw the same thing actually um uh the uh the Republicans um held or or or increased their um uh margins with minorities uh compared to 2020 and the reason um but you saw these greater defections from whites especially whites who are increasingly alienated by Trump um uh relatively affluent uh Highly Educated people Suburban people Urban people and these are and it makes sense that they would be alienated right these are the Americans who if you look at why people vote and what they look for in a candidate these are the voters who care the most about things like decorum and Civility and the president being presidential and you know uh uh uh following the correct protocols and respecting separation of powers and that kind of stuff and Trump is not any of that right so if that's if that's what you're looking for in the candidate Trump's not your guy um and this yeah yeah and this gets us back into the the weirdness of this election and it's so funny that you you stated this from the scientific perspective of this is so abnormal it's hard to find Historical precedents that you could uh uh you know set against it which makes you only believe like okay well this is going to be the precedent that we will measure a bunch of stuff going forward on just because it's so odd but to that point you're you're absolutely right you have a lot of the the Min Norms uh never Trump kind of dispatch bullwark uh uh folks that that very much have tilted to the the the Democratic side and now you have the Democrats that are you know pushing more than they have before into the idea of you know ending the filibuster criticizing the Supreme Court and mainlining uh uh Twitter jokes about uh uh a couch sex uh which you know was normally the thing that turned everybody off with Trump to begin with the idea that there should be radical change and we need to take the gloves off yeah uh I mean in both you know what's what's Wild here is kind of both uh you see this movement on the Republican side too right so what used to make Trump um what what made part of what made Trump appealing or popular in the last uh Cycles um was that he portrayed himself as a nonconventional republican in terms of his policymaking and he uh and someone who's not also who's also not going to just follow the polls and you know whatever um and uh he was someone who said identitarianism was and like we sorry that's fine it's fine you're allow and so the same guy who's like identitarianism is we shouldn't lean into it is going oh is Cala black enough though is she really the first black president right like it doesn't it doesn't um the math doesn't M there it's it's it's crazy to me because stuff like that it was exclusively the domain at least for me in my media diet for only black influencers on Instagram like that's pretty much the only place that I ever really heard anything like that of you know the the strata of who is really black and when you become black and and and any of that kind of purity testing yeah and for Trump to do it I I don't know I mean it's it's uh I I I I I don't know where on the line I certainly know abhorrent to everybody that you were just talking about in terms of the the white Suburban class the idea of bringing up race and any way that that is anything other than a a laudatory uh uh element is is verboten right so you don't want to do anything like that at all but I don't even know I mean and certainly it's not a a community that I have deep roots in but like I don't know whether that speaks to Black voters if there are if you know if if there is some element of like no there there is distrust with KLA Harris for one re there is actually um and so uh one thing that you can see for instance even going back to the 2020 primary election um kamla Harris did really weak with she performed very weak with black voters so black voters um in the 2020 primaries uh typically gravitated towards um Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren before they uh like kamla Harris consistently got around maybe 5% of the black vote um throughout the 2020 primaries and um after the uh after the primary had concluded Joe Biden had hoped that um had appointed Kay as his VP in part because he wanted to shore up his um uh his standing with non-white uh voters especially non-white Women Voters um but he did worse with African-Americans including African-American women he did worse with Asians including Asian women um so there's two lessons here one of them is that the idea that um if you just put someone of xgroup on the ticket then X group will vote for you in higher numbers is just um a silly way of understanding why people vote again the people that um the the the candidates that black voters uh gravitated towards in the primary were uh first Joe Biden and then Bernie Sanders and then Elizabeth Warren so what they were concerned about is like um just like anyone else what what black voters were concerned about is like what are your policies what are you they don't go oh a black person well then I'll just vote for them who cares what they stand for um so so first that kind of identitarian calculus was just mistaken um and then the second lesson uh is just that kamla Harris is consistently unpopular uh she's just not someone who who has a lot of cache with black people um she she never has um her her Chief supporters have always been kind of affluent professionals who live in flyover cities um uh I mean sorry who live in coastal cities like in California and in New York those have been her key um her key supporters in terms of fundraising um uh and her key people in terms of activism and so on and so forth uh so um so she does have the and and I think part of it it probably is true that at least part of the weakness that she um has with black voters is because she um you know she's uh her father is afro Caribbean um Jamaican and her mother is South Asian um and uh in a lot of knowledge economy spaces we'd like to try to Tamp down any discussion of difference there but if you look at polling and surveys um there is a lot of evidence that black Americans um so native born monoracial non-immigrant black Americans people who are descendants of slaves it's so on and so forth actually don't necessarily view people of more recent immigrant background even if they are um dark skinned you know even if they're phenotypically black they don't necessarily view them as black in the same way um that they view people who share their uh closer cultural ethnic historical background um and so so there is a difference there um it is something that that black Americans do notice and and um and uh care about as far as viewing someone as you know are they one of us or not um but again um so that that that might be a little bit of a drag but again like the the bigger point is even if she was even if they did see Kam Kamala as you know one of us or whatever um it's just not the case that black voters go oh you're one of us so I'll just vote for you I don't care what you stand for what's your policies are and what you're trying to do I'll just vote for you cuz you're um that's just not how black voters think that's not how any think really um and so um it's just a thing that's important to bear in mind you are an academic which means you you make you bread and butter looking at things after they happen as opposed to looking at them while they are happening but I'd be curious your perspective you mentioned that kamla Harris has historically been unpopular she was unpopular as a presidential candidate I will remark only after two or three months where she was very popular and then became unpopular and that's something that I do hope that people still keep in mind as we are watching this uh this cycle play out but she became unpopular then she was unpopular historically unpopular below Joe Biden level approval ratings as a vice president that is not the case now she has seen a gigantic Spike not only in her in her in her popularity again it's hard to model this against stuff that's happened in the past because this is so odd but does anything pop into your mind of of why this is happening well I think actually one thing that is important to to bear in mind is that um kamla is definitely doing better than Joe Biden was um during this cycle so when they dropped Joe Biden and and and uh um appointed kamla instead the Democrats numbers went up um substantially uh in in a big way uh but it's also important to bear in mind that um kamla is actually trending below where Joe Biden was trending at this point in 2020 um and as Matt gasius and others have pointed out um she's doing better than Joe Biden was in 2024 but she's doing worse than Joe Biden was last cycle when he went against Trump and as um Matt glacia is another political and political scientists and others have pointed out um if the polling error is the because she's underperforming Biden compared to last cycle uh if the polling error from this cycle is the same as last cycle she actually could be losing um the election right now polling uh you know the polling could actually uh be misrepresenting missing enough of the public sentiment that she's actually on on path to lose the election and she's also underperforming where Hillary Clinton was against Trump in 2016 so her numbers are actually um are better than Biden's were before they dumped her but they aren't actually extraordinary compared to previous Democratic candidates in the last several Cycles who's actually kind of lukewarm to maybe doing a little worse than Democrats have and at this stage in the race in previous um Cycles so that's something that she should be worried about um and that democrats should be worried about and Nate silver actually recently um after the polling bump that she saw uh in the immediate transition and the convention um Nate Silver's updated uh estimate as of yesterday actually puts yeah he flipped it yeah he thinks Cala seems likely to win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College um and uh you know um but you know a lot can change they're still two months out right now yeah and in this election you never know I mean look there there was a CA moment not too long ago when a non-consecutive presidential term was something that we all found extraordinarily interesting and that is now like you know on the outside looking in to use a college football ranking term this is this is not even on the board uh of things that have been weird about this election I think the thing that people should take from Silver's um analysis is not that oh Kamala is going to lose it's that we really have no sorry no idea go oh you're back on the show I'm pked let's go that we really have no idea um what's going to happen over the next two months this is going to be probably chaos all the way down it'll be a nailbiter to the end anyone who's hoping oh it's lock down we're on the right side of History we can just Co too and easy like those people are um diluting themselves and could be in for a very rude awakening I think people should bear in mind that this is still a very live race even though kamla is ahead in the National um polling and uh yeah oh and then I I'll note real quick um go go go uh another thing that people should bear in mind and that was um a big source of hesitancy for a lot of democratic insiders for having kamla be the candidate at all is that every every institution that she's overseen has been kind of Riven with extreme conflict and strife and massive turn over and lots of scandals um I wrote a piece about this for unheard uh that's available on my website um but uh mg.com but yeah so the um and so this created a a lot of fear among Dem like even even as vice president she had this High higher levels of turnover than Trum 90% turnover and and for people who do not uh you know know when you get a job in the vice president office that is a a big Resume Builder you want to show that you are somebody who can operate at that level in federal government to leave those jobs is UN unusual at those levels at the very least yeah and the the the and um the kind of dysfunction and high turnover got so extreme that Joe Biden had to actually publicly address it um which is extremely unusual for the vice president's office like mostly no one cares about the vice presid and so if the president has to take time to talk about the chaos that's unfolding within the vice president that's um and so uh even even her choice for running mate um she picked Tim Walls in part according to a number of uh uh campaign officials and other insiders in part because um Tim Walls was not going to be a a diva or create problems this was her big concern about her running mate as anyone who tried to overshadow her anyone who was really demanding anyone who had too much of a uh a backbone or ambition or something like that it was going to be a problem and she knew it CU she can't she can't um she has if I if I can point it out this is something I said at the time and I believe on at least one of my shows I have it on tape the quote was when walls was selected specifically over Josh Shapiro who is somebody who was looked at as having a very bright future in the Democratic party uh uh the the quote was wall during her inter during her interview with him said I don't want to be president I just want to make sure that that we are going to win this thing to which point my immediate reaction is that man is a liar or she's stupid like there's no there's no politician on Earth who gets that close to power and really means that if they were called they would not serve as president uh uh that is before any of the other stuff that's that's happened but still you're right whether it was Shapiro being looked at as too ambitious there was an ad that came out from somebody else in Pennsylvania that mentioned I'm voting for kamla Harris and Josh Shapiro that might have been looked at as being a little bit too cart before the horsey and if if that's what you're doing now what are you going to do in three months are are we going to be looking at the the the co-presidents label or anything like that well yeah according to the to some um uh accounts of the interviews that she had vetting the different candidates when she asked Tim wall um yeah so first he said he has no Ambitions on the presidency and again as you said if the opportunity get Rose I think it would be very tough come on come on we're talking about politics here but but setting that aside she asked questions like um do you want to be the last person in the room as you know when we're having big meetings and stuff and he's like and he was like whatever you want if you want me to be in the room I'll be in the room if you don't want me in the room like he was just like whatever you want you know uh I'm uh whereas Shapiro was trying to set up a lot of um condition he basically did want to be co-president he wanted a whole bunch of Duties um that were specifically his he wanted certain kinds of conditions for uh the kind of um fame or nodding or them being appearing together again being the the last one in the room Consulting on big issues and and so like he really did want to be co-president um in a way that uh is not compatible with so so Harris even when she's not dealing with like a type ambitious personalities like that just rofe people who work with her she can't she can't do that um for very long without burning those people out and mistreating them and having scandals and toxic infighting and so this is actually one thing to keep people's eye on as the race goes um because her her 2020 um primary campaign actually imploded and so not only it collapsed in part because of you know she just wasn't an effective candidate but it also imploded due to like very dramatic infighting and Scandals and all of this kind of stuff and so um a lot of democratic insiders are just not sure can she actually run a campaign can she hold it together without it turning into total chaos and Scandal and if she was in office can she actually govern or is it going to be non stop and um and so she she's it benefits her it's to her benefit that she has this Abridged primary thing right um she got to skip the skip the prim the primary and there just two months until the race um so she doesn't have a long 6 months or whatever to hold it together it was roll out convention debate and then it's second start of the right and straight on till morning like we are we are right here it is all fil tail py to that point I pointed this out in my patreon episode yesterday you're already seeing you saw one political article where it was the same stuff from 2019 anybody who followed that campaign you got to be having Vietnam flashbacks you are hearing the the the Choppers in the distance when you start seeing well this person is blaming this person that the deal hasn't been done and this person wants cuz you're getting details you're getting well kamla wants Gail King but the Obama people want this person it's like when you're getting that that means that people are getting really loose with the Press which is not what you want and that's in tremendous relief to the campaign through the last two cycles was that which is the Trump campaign where where they you know I said on the patreon episode the two names that you don't want to hear if you're voting if you're rooting for either candidate if you're Comm if you're want KLA Harris to be president you do not want to hear her sister's name you don't you don't want to hear Maya's name because that was the name that was mentioned the most when everything fell apart if you're a trump fan you do not want to hear about Cory leowski he was apparently hired onto the campaign we have no idea where the only thing that uh uh is really impressive about Cory leowski is his uh uh bed post notches uh I don't think he has a lot of electoral viability but you haven't heard a lot about Cory leowski you're starting to hear more out of the KLA Harris campaign and I would say from my perspective that that is anything that reminds you of 2019 for KLA Harris you you don't you want you want to get away from cuz you're right she needs she has a short time to make a new impression yeah and there's a and there's a a non-trivial chance um that uh she could have another implosion or whatever on her hand so this is a for me this is the big a big question mark of variable is like can she actually hold it together long enough to get through the election without uh major uh you know major dysfunction and Scandals um and so Tim Walls was part of that uh people say was it a mistake um because Shapiro is in um uh you know was tied to Pennsylvania and again this is a that she's actually been kind of tied in or losing this is part of the reason why Nate Sil is projecting her to lose the Electoral College um and so um people were thinking well it might have been a wise choice to appoint Shapiro but actually if she appointed Shapiro um but then had lots of conflict and strife and infighting with him that wouldn't have been dearer to the people of Pennsylvania or any other voters right and so it's um it might have been a smart choice for her given her needs as a cand to have some subordinate person who's just going to do what she wants and and not be a diva um but on the flip side on the other side of the of the ticket um also wildness I mean so Trump is a is an Unapologetic drama queen who's yes who's um that's his brand big messy drama who's being frustrated right now because uh all the attention is on Harris um he doesn't know how to how to really get himself back into the news cycle and you can see he's like um both both the fact that uh and his whole campaign had been banked on Joe Biden is Old Joe Biden is old old old old old now Biden is out and he's running to be the oldest president on record and so um so Biden jumping out dropping out just totally like flipped his whole campaign strategy he has not really a strong idea about what to do even though Kamala has so many weaknesses that she has a lot of weaknesses as a candidate but his campaign um he doesn't have a lot of discipline or focus and his campaign is not doesn't appear to be super competent so they're not really um making good use of um of these uh vulnerabilities but he uh and um and it seems like you know it can happen sometimes where when someone is is losing or they're under they make the situation worse they kind of Psych themselves out they are unable to um you know where they could turn it around they were again if they just thought about it and whatever but he seems like he's not able to do that right now he's not in a head we we call that lack of composure Panic hiring Corey lowski like that's that is that is the kind of decision you make when you are afraid that for whatever reason things are not going your way I I totally agree with you and and it's it's so fascinating to see I mean especially where we are media wise I'm sure we could probably have a a whole another hourong conversation just focusing on on the media side of this but to watch the the normally there was this Blissful moment man after that CNN debate where everybody on television was actually just kind of honest with their real opinions uh and you saw all of the people drop the Republicans look they wanted to dump on Joe Biden they were dumping on Joe Biden before but now they were being agreed with with the David Axel rods who were like yeah that was terrible that was awful Trump was also bad but this was terrible and then you know the the the the orders came back in and now we're back uh uh to everybody singing from the appropriate Hils uh as as the uh segments move on but I don't know I don't even know what people are watching I don't know what people are are are listening to I had this moment yesterday on Twitter where you know the KLA Harris campaign like the Biden campaign before them has pushed the idea of project 2025 the Heritage Foundation thing and they say that it's going to ban abortion Nationwide going to ban IVF Donald Trump comes out yesterday and says he wants Public Funding for IVF right so now we're not even in a world where you can debate that issue if Trump is out publicly saying I want Public Funding for introver virtual uh feed fertilization and the other side is saying no he wants to ban it then where do you even have Aver where is even the the the the the the discussion of of the merits of either of those issues yeah well and you know what's funny to me is I think this is a place where um so one way that Trump could solve this whole problem that he has is if he was just honest with voters about who he is as a as a as a leader as a person or whatever in the sense that um Trump doesn't read things he doesn't read things he he did not read Trump 20 project 2025 he did not sit there and go with a bunch of experts and like he not only did he not read this particular document he doesn't read and like this doesn't and you but but he has this thing where he wants to seem he wants to try to compete with people like um Camala Harris or whoever as being um kind of their equal and the kind of technocratic here for some reason as well so for instance you see things like he keeps saying that he read JD Vance's book but then describes the the book as the up so he keeps saying oh yeah Vance wrote this book that's about how hardworking Americans don't get a shot like the hillbilly elegy is all about how actually America is a place where if you work hard and you dedicate yourself you actually can make progress and get by and that the reason um why those people are not succeeding is because those people are a bunch of lazy entitled grievance mongery people who sit around asking for govern handouts unlike him who joined the military and got his life together and whatever so hillbilly elogy and this is Pop why it was popular with liberals at the time why it became a New York Times bestseller got a movie made got an Oscar got a movie made is because it was a book that affirmed liberals prejudices about those people yeah that they're um and so for for Trump to describe that book as being about how hardworking people just aren't given a fair shot and whatever shows that he has never read the this book he's never read this book in his life he has no idea what it says and um and but so he he does this he keeps trying to present himself as someone who's policy literate who reads who and so on and so forth and this actually is part of what creates this opportunity for Democrats to tie him to something like project 2025 when he's like I never read this I don't I'm not into this I don't like um if he just leaned into who he is as a as a human being he he says stuff like that it's just it's it's a it's on the right project 2025 doesn't mean anything unless you are like a hardcore Heritage Foundation person nobody on the right cares about project 2025 the left as evidenced by the gigantic prop Gallagher book that they kept bringing out on stage during the convention very much believes in it I I was joking you know I have I brought a TV into my office where I have the four major cable networks uh on going all the time uh the last time I saw a television uh uh program talk about a book that much as MSNBC talks about project 2025 is the 700 Club talking about the Bible it is a constant staple of of of that uh uh programming but for them they don't want anybody to read it either they just want to say there's a Necronomicon it has all the evil spells in it Donald Trump did not have it last time he has it now now he will re Untold Terror upon the lands if he is allowed to read the the the the profane scripture uh from the White House that's yeah they're basically banking on the fact that uh most Americans are not going to um be reading this dense right policy document produced by a conservative think tank um and uh instead they'll just take take their take everybody's word for it yeah CU Democrats want a reason to believe that Donald Trump is unique dangerous as they have in 2016 as they did in 2020 and you know Republicans want to believe that the The leftwing Establishment is going to ruin America and uh you know we we we live we the ven diagram I feel like has totally separated we are now looking at like a two distant planets and then maybe like a few orbiting uh uh satellites that that can bring messages uh uh between them but that's the the biggest thing about charting the election is like I just don't even know I don't know what uh uh Curious partisans on the inside of those vend diagram voters are reading yeah let alone whoever is in the middle that's actually undecided the 100,000 people in the Rust Belt and the sun Bel that are going to decide this election I I've been joking recently that that the for all we know the Gathering of the jugal the Insane Clown posi convention might be the most important political meeting place for this election because that's seems like the kind of totally outside the box low propensity voter that both kamla Harris and Donald Trump should be putting on Grease paint on and spraying fago for to to earn their vote I'll say that's my America well okay so one of the ways in which uh politics has actually changed dramatically actually over the last um decade or so is that it used to be the case that Democrats benefited from high turn because low propensity voters nonwhite voters lower income voters so on and so forth um used to vote for the Democratic party but they didn't turn out much so when you had midterm races that didn't half High turn out Republicans would do a lot better when you had big races that brought a lot of people to the ballots the Democrats would overperform okay that's been flipped on its head now because a lot of these lower propensity voters um who uh who people who are lower income who are less educated who are in less urban areas who are um non-whites religious minorities and so on they've actually been moving consistently for a decade now to the Republican party and so it's now the case that Democrats are overperforming in special elections and and midterms and and races with lower turnout and um it would behoove someone like Trump uh or Republicans in general to actually push for higher turnout now this is at odds with their strategy as a party because for decades they've been trying to suppress turnout limit voting you know create voting restrictions and difficulties uh Trump in 2020 was trying to disparage people voting by mail and and other things like this um which probably actually which could have very well cost him the election by suppressing turnout from certain uh yeah I I I I subscribe to that theory and um and so and this is actually the again I think an error that Trump is making um politically uh is that what he should be trying to do is um in fire if if you create a lesser of two evils race where you're saying um where one party is saying this guy is terrible and the other party is saying this lady is terrible a lot of low propensity voters just go okay I'm not going to vote for either of them I'll come up with something else to do on Tuesday yeah and so if uh what he needs uh what he should be doing is try to like actually tell people why should you vote for me why do you want me in the white house um not why do you the the radical Democrats and Democrats Democrats Democrats KLA Harris and Tim walz like um and then on the flip side the Democrats um mistake in a way is uh and with with this focus on 2025 and whatever is that um trying to paint Trump as someone who would be a fascist totalitarian dictator whatever if he got an office doesn't resonate as well as it used to impart because he's been in office before we had we had four years where he was in office and for most of that time the only difference that most Americans noticed um between Trump taking over and Obama taking over like most of the economic trend lines just continued on the same path that they were on the institutions just kept chugging along the the only difference that most Normie Americans would have noticed from Obama's time to Trump's time from was that people like us knowledge economy professionals and stuff spent that that last four years solid going like all day every day freaking out tearing her hair out and um you know U that said um you know uh after after after he lost the election he was trying in inappropriate ways to stay in office I mean people shouldn't be complacent about like the uh but but the fact that um they they had four years with trump it institutions continued to function the sky did not fall down America was not overrun by all whatever the dangerous threat that America would be overrun with if you had the wrong this unprepared person in office and the truth is and and and part of the reason that didn't happen is because the truth is it actually doesn't matter that much if people overestimate how much it matters who the president is um uh there was a lot of continuity between Obama and Bush there was a lot of continuity between Obama and Trump um there there would be a lot of there was a lot of there's a lot of continuity between Trump and Biden and so on and so forth you know for the most part um so but so I think to the extent that that uh Democrats are trying to present Trump as some kind of dangerous fascist or whatever my personal view is that um Trump is not fit for office as he showed when he refused to step down or whatever is my personal View as a citizen but my view as a social scientist is that that's not likely to resonate because people do have uh he does have a record where he was in office for four years he did leave office at the end even if he didn't want to and um and uh and you know um and it wasn't a four years of a fascist coup or whatever so um so I think again it would be hoov Kamala Harris and the Democrats to also um try to convince people about why they should vote for her or Sage their concerns about who she is as a candidate or what she stands for people don't really know um she as you said they spend all the time talking about project 2025 and not so much about their own project 2025 what is their project for 2025 who knows um yeah it's a you know it's like the the Seinfeld Kramer plot where he's the movie phone guy and he can't tell what people are pressing and it's just like well why don't you just tell tell me what policies you'd like absolutely uh and that's yeah we saw that I will have already done my uh uh thing on her on her uh CNN interview last night but it's it's fascinating to see how they are trying to get around what her 2019 campaign was and the you know the way I would describe this election from either side uh strategically is that Donald Trump wants this to be a referendum on the last four years economy good now economy bad there was not a world at war now World at War would you like more like before or more like now if more like before vote Trump that is the simple way that they want this conversation to go for kamla Harris and as she put it last night she wants to turn the page on the last 10 years of divisive politics which I don't know exactly whether or not that was an adlib I don't think there was much ad libed in that I think that this was all kind of focus tested but that would include two years of Obama four years of trump and three and a half years of Biden of which Biden would have been in office more than Trump was if this is you know during all that and so she wants to say let's get done with Trump all that's what you really want he is historically unpopular he can't get over 48% no matter what they're are just Independents that have closed the door on that and they did it years ago uh so we we'll see who can prove what but uh uh it's man I I'll tell you what uh I'm I'm glad that you're out of book mode and and now you are talking again during uh uh this election because I definitely want to have you on at least one more time closer to the book launching which of course is we have never been woke by Musa Al garby uh please please please go and pre-order it right now uh uh we have the the show notes link down there for you uh but do it on Amazon again the Amazon charts matter it matters on Amazon Musa thank you so much for coming on thank you for having me and I'll give you 5% Commission on and that'll wrap it up for us today politics politics politics written and hosted by me Justin Robert Young for dog and pony Show Audio in Austin Texas the youngamerican gmail.com is where you need to go to email the show if I have 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world you have and I will always always owe you for it not as much as her but close till next time this is your old pal Justin Robert Young saying some shows talk about politics others talk about politics and still more discussed politics but this is the only show that Dar discuss all three