If Both Sides Stop Keeping Score....David Drucker Talks to A&G

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: If Both Sides Stop Keeping Score... David Drucker Talks to A&G
Date: September 17, 2025
Guests: David Drucker (The Dispatch, author of "In Trump’s Shadow")
Theme: Political polarization, the incentives shaping political civility, and whether politicians like Governor Cox can change the national tone.

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Main Theme / Episode Overview

This episode centers on the aftermath of the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk and uses it as a lens to examine the escalating polarization in American politics. The hosts are joined by David Drucker—a senior writer for The Dispatch and author of "In Trump’s Shadow"—to discuss why efforts for civility (like those of Utah Governor Cox) rarely transcend state boundaries, the roots of the "fighter" mentality in partisan politics, and whether there is any path away from the growing "race to the bottom" in political tactics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Context: Polarization after Political Violence

[01:04 - 01:27]

• Governor Cox of Utah’s statement following Charlie Kirk’s assassination was highlighted as a call to unity and defense of American civic values.
• Drucker and the hosts recognize that while such statements are praised, skepticism remains about their practical impact nationally.

2. The Dispatch’s Editorial Philosophy

[02:00 - 02:56]

• Drucker praises The Dispatch for its trust in reporters and its commitment to context and accuracy—prioritizing thoughtful analysis over clickbait and hot takes.
  • "They give me the freedom to report news, to report good stories... And the fact that we just don't do clickbait." — David Drucker [02:14]
• The Dispatch purposely waits for factual clarity before commenting on breaking events, valuing context above speed.

3. Governor Cox and Utah’s Unique Political Culture

[03:36 - 07:49]

• Drucker explains that Cox’s civility works because Utah Republicans have a "Reagan-era" sense of decency, even when critical of Trump.
  • "The incentive structure that he gets from Utah Republican voters is different than Republican voters in other states." — David Drucker [04:10]
• Utah’s GOP electorate allows criticism of Trump without political reprisal, a dynamic absent elsewhere.
• Cox and Romney’s ability to win as principled critics of Trump is peculiar to Utah’s distinctive blend of values and voter expectations.

4. Could Cox’s Tone Work Nationally?

[07:49 - 08:43]

• Drucker doubts whether a less-combative, conciliatory Republican like Cox could win a national primary, especially against combative populists.
  • "I don't know that a Republican like Governor Cox can win a Republican primary against a combative populist like J.D. Vance..." — David Drucker [07:55-08:00]
• Republican primary voters now prefer "fighters" over conciliators.

5. The 'Fighter' Mentality and Political Imitation

[08:43 - 11:37]

• The demand for a “fighter” is why voters accept Trump’s provocative tone, feeling he’s an effective bulwark against the perceived dirty tricks of Democrats.
  • "He's a fighter. He's fighting for us. He is not allowing the Democrats to do... unfair things..." — David Drucker [08:43]
• Republicans, seeing Democrats succeed using hardball tactics in the past, now imitate those strategies (e.g., boycotts, executive overreach).
  • "Republicans in a sense said, well, if you can't beat them, join them." — David Drucker [11:36]
• Both parties claim the other plays dirtier, fueling a cycle where each escalation justifies another.

6. The Race to the Bottom: Can It End?

[12:39 - 14:59]

• The hosts ask how the political "race to the bottom" can stop when both sides feel justified retaliating against perceived wrongs.
  • "Each side thinks the other side fights dirtier than them, so we need to adopt their tactics. Both sides think that." — Armstrong or Getty [12:39]
• Drucker shares a personal anecdote: lasting marriages and, by analogy, healthy democracy require "sometimes you have to know when to punt"—to let go of keeping score and not always retaliate.
  • "The only way that any of this stops is if... both sides stop keeping score and just stop." — David Drucker [13:20]
  • "If you look at the United States of America like an extended big family, we never punt." — David Drucker [14:21]
• They conclude grimly that, without such restraint, the current pattern can only end badly.

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Memorable Quotes

• “The incentive structure that [Cox] gets from Utah Republican voters is different than Republican voters in other states.” — David Drucker [04:10]
• "You can be critical of Donald Trump in Utah and win a Republican primary." — David Drucker [06:16]
• “I don't know that a Republican like Governor Cox can win a Republican primary against a combative populist like J.D. Vance...” — David Drucker [07:55-08:00]
• “He's fighting for us. He is not allowing the Democrats to do the sort of unfair things that we believe for years they were doing...” — David Drucker [08:43]
• "Republicans in a sense said, well, if you can't beat them, join them." — David Drucker [11:36]
• "The only way that any of this stops is if somebody or both sides stop keeping score and just stop." — David Drucker [13:20]
• "If you look at the United States of America like an extended big family, we never punt." — David Drucker [14:21]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:04] – Reflections on the Charlie Kirk assassination and national impact
• [02:00] – What sets The Dispatch apart in the media
• [04:05] – Why Cox’s tone works in Utah, but likely not nationwide
• [07:55] – The national Republican preference for "fighters"
• [08:43] – Explaining the ‘fighter’ mentality among voters
• [11:36] – The cycle of mimicking the other side’s tactics
• [13:20] – The "keeping score" metaphor and the need to punt
• [14:21] – “If you look at the USA like a family, we never punt.”

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Overall Tone and Takeaways

The episode is thoughtful and somber, with candid acknowledgment of the deep divides in American politics. Drucker and the hosts share a slight nostalgia for a less combative era, but also a pragmatic skepticism about the likelihood of a return to civility without fundamental changes in political incentives.

Final note: The significance of political restraint and ending the cycle of escalation is underscored, but no one on the panel holds out much hope it will happen soon.

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Transcript

[David Drucker]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[David Drucker]

This is certainly about the tragic death, assassination, political assassination of Charlie Kirk, but it is also much bigger than an attack on an individual. It is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack.

[Armstrong or Getty]

So that's Governor Cox from the other day after the Charlie Kirk assassination of Utah. And he got a lot of play and a lot of attention across the country and a lot of people thought he sounded like a rock star and then came across one of our favorite pundits who thought, nah, that ain't gonna work. So we thought we would talk to that pundit, favorite friend of the show, David Drucker. David Drucker is with the Dispatch, a senior writer, author of In Trump's Shadow, the battle for 2024 and the future of the GOP. David Drucker, welcome back to the Armstrong and Getty Show.

[David Drucker]

Yeah, good to be back.

[Armstrong or Getty]

How do you like the Dispatch, by the way? I'm one of the founding joiners. I paid the big check right off the bat so I could be a lifetime member. That's how much I like the Dispatch. But how you, how do you like working there?

[David Drucker]

We, we appreciate it. I think we're building something really great here.

[Armstrong or Getty]

I agree.

[David Drucker]

They give me the freedom. They give me the freedom to report news, to report good stories. They, they invest in campaign travel. And I just can't say enough about what I think we're building here, but also the sort of trust they give me to pursue really good stuff and the fact that we just don't do clickbait. Nothing that we think is clickbait. Right.

[Armstrong or Getty]

Yeah, I know, Steven. Jonah, one of their things is, and I see this every time there's a big giant breaking story like Charlie Kirk's assassination, you don't see a bunch of comments immediately out of people with the dispatch. They wait until, you know, facts come out and things settle down a little bit before you start shooting your mouths off or tweeting your mouths off.

[David Drucker]

Yeah, we, it's, it's a philosophy with us and sometimes we've had to move quicker. After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the president at that time a presidential candidate in Butler, Pennsylvania, we moved very quickly to at least post the news and probably moved quicker with our follow up coverage the next day. But in general, we like to make sure we know what we're talking about or that we don't sort of report anything in the heat of the moment that then just turns out to be all wrong in terms of the context. Context is a very big deal with us.

[Armstrong or Getty]

So I have a pretty healthy dose of bipartisan disgust with politics all the way around and just the tone of things for quite a while now. And be nice if we can calm that down. And it kind of fits it with what I saw you saying the other day. I don't remember where I caught you, but you were a little not so fast on Governor Cox of Utah. Even though I liked what he had to say. You don't think his tone is going to work in our current politics, is that correct?

[David Drucker]

No, no, I, I don't think I meant that. I think what I was probably, of course, like you, I've been sort of providing so much analysis that I don't totally remember everything I said. But I think what I think the discussion you're probably referring to was a question of whether or not Governor Cox's approach to politics can travel beyond Utah. And I think I was trying to make the particular point that one of the reasons you can have a Governor Cox who is a Republican in Utah, Utah is because the incentive structure that he gets from Utah Republican voters is different than Republican voters in other states.

[Armstrong or Getty]

So I love this, I love this angle. Explain that to us.

[David Drucker]

So, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying necessarily every single Republican leaning state would reject Governor Cox in a Republican primary. But if you're looking for reasons why, for instance, in 2018, Mitt Romney was able to win a Republican primary being exactly who he was, critical of Trump at times enough that people noticed so it was a regular thing, but was still able to be the overwhelming favorite in a Republican primary the reason Governor Cox has been able to succeed in Republican politics in Utah despite being critical at times, enough that everybody notices of President Trump, is because Republican voters in Utah, although there are, although they are supportive of Trump and there is a strong sort of MAGA faction or populist or just pro Trump faction of Republicans in Utah, the broad Republican electorate in Utah is basically a very, very Republican state by the numbers. They look at politics in a sort of Reagan era with a Reagan era sense of, of rules and decency and decorum. They look at even the issue of illegal immigration. They look at a little bit differently in that they want a secure border, but they believe in more immigration and they believe that immigrants, even illegal immigrants, should be treated not necessarily as criminals unless they are criminals. And so you can be critical of Donald Trump in Utah and win a Republican primary. I don't think that you can be an opponent of Donald Trump and win a Republican primary in Utah. They still would prefer Trump as president because he's a Republican and more likely to push conservative policies and support conservative values. But they will brook criticism and they will see that as a sign of leadership. And yes, there are Republicans in Utah that will run against that or speak out against that as being insufficiently conservative and too critical of Trump when we should be critical of the Democrats instead. They will say, but Utah is just a different sort of place. And it gives Governor Cox, you know, and I'm not taking away from his willingness to speak out in this way, but what I am saying is he does not have to now look over his shoulder in a primary for future office, should he choose to run for another office after his time as governor is up. And he does not have to worry about a complete revolt of the Republican Party in Utah because of the things that he said.

[Armstrong or Getty]

Do you think he has any interest in running for president, like trying to beat out J.D. vance for the nomination?

[David Drucker]

Well, I don't know because I haven't asked him. And I never put it past the idea that somebody that rises to the level of governor or senator, you know, let alone dog catcher, doesn't have it in their head that they, they should be president. I don't know that a Republican like Governor Cox can win a Republican primary against a combative populist like J.D. vance or, you know, pick somebody else, because I think Republicans, broadly and particularly when you're looking in a lot of these early states, but even beyond that, have, would prefer somebody that is less conciliatory and appears to be more of a fighter.

[Armstrong or Getty]

Right. That whole Fighter thing.

[David Drucker]

So one of the, Yeah, I mean, I think one of the reasons that a lot of Republican voters may at times look past Donald Trump's provocative language and behavior, even though they don't agree with it, is because they say to himself, well, he's a fighter. He's fighting for us. He is not allowing the Democrats to do the sort of unfair things that we believe for years they were doing and that the more sort of rules, following decorum, following statesman like Republicans were allowing them to do this idea of traditional conservatism where we're gonna again, I mean, Democrats will look at this differently, right? But like if you're an old school conservative of the Reagan mold, Reagan was plenty of fighter. I mean, let's not forget that. But in this idea that, listen, there are just rules we don't break, and even if they break them, we're going to argue that they shouldn't have broken the rules, but we're not going to do what they do. That's just out of fashion right now. If you're looking at how Republicans conduct themselves, broadly speaking, meaning lawmakers and the president, they really have adopted many of the tactics of the left and the Democratic Party, at least those that the Democratic Party and the left practiced, you know, in my lifetime, in the 1980s and the 1990s and the early aughts that Republicans used to complain about. And now what they've, what they've done is adopt those tactics and you know, whether it's boycotts or cancel culture or stretching the bounds of executive authority by the president, I mean, in all these ways.

[Armstrong or Getty]

And so and people, I can just hear people texting or saying to the radio right now, yes, and now and we control all three branches of government from doing that. So it's been successful.

[David Drucker]

No, I think so. And look, I think for, you know, Republicans look at it this way too. I mean, to be, and I didn't, I don't think my other comments were unfair. But you know the old saying, to be fair, they watched Bill Clinton have an affair in the Oval Office and lie about it. And Democrats didn't have any problems with that. They never complained about it. They never said Bill Clinton should resign. They never said it was wrong. They basically were tribal. Well, Bill Clinton's our guy. He's doing a good job. Voters seem to like the job he's doing. Look what we've won because of Bill Clinton. And so that's okay. And from the conservative point of view, they've seen all sorts of things like that. And so I'm not saying the right answer is therefore to act like them, but if you talk to Republicans, they're going to say, why are you on our case? Democrats have been doing this for years. The broader analytical point I was making was Republicans in a sense said, well, if you can't beat them, join them.

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[David Drucker]

That's what they did, right?

[Armstrong or Getty]

How do we whether it's political violence though, just you know, X's and O's tactics in politics. How do we stop the race to the bottom though? Each side thinks the other side fights dirtier than them so we need to adopt their tactics. Both sides think that. I mean, so where do you and I mean you don't go anywhere good with that attitude.

[David Drucker]

It's the biggest consistency in my 20 plus years of covering politics. Both Republican operatives and Democratic operatives, nevermind elected officials, consistently tell me the other size, the other side plays dirtier than us. I wish we played as dirty as them, then we would win as much as they did.

[Armstrong or Getty]

That's incredible.

[David Drucker]

The only way, the only way that any of this stops is if somebody or both sides stop keeping score and just stop. You know my and this is. I don't normally do personal anecdotes here, but I feel like it's like the best analogy I have some years back, I don't know, four years ago, whatever, we were celebrating my in law's 50th wedding anniversary and anyway the rabbi who married my wife and I is a relative a couple times removed. Something like that. Jimmy Kessler who passed away since But Rabbi Kessler was there and we were asking him because he had been married 50 plus years. And I think my wife or I asked him, like, how do you do it? We've been married at this point maybe 10 years, nine years, I don't know, like, how, how did you get to 50 plus years? And he just looked at us and he said, you have to, sometimes you have to know when to punt. And that sticks with me because, you.

[Armstrong or Getty]

Know, that's good marriage advice right there. If nobody does anything else from this, that is a good marriage advice.

[David Drucker]

Yeah. But if you look at the United States of America like an extended big family, we never punt.

[Armstrong or Getty]

Neither side ever punts. You go for it on fourth down? Always.

[David Drucker]

Yes. I mean, if that's not to say that the assassination of Charlie Kirk wasn't a distinct act with the suspect doing it for distinct political reasons. But when I'm asked the question, where does this end? Well, it either ends very badly or at some point people stop keeping score and say, stop. Yeah, okay, well, I, that's all I know.

[Armstrong or Getty]

I'm afraid we're out of time. David. I don't know if I like our chances, at least in the short term on that, but appreciate your talk today. David Drucker of the Dispatch. Thanks for coming on. David.

[David Drucker]

Anytime. Thank you. Armstrong and Getty.

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[David Drucker]

This is an Iheart podcast.