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Will Sommer
Hey guys, it's Will Sommer here at the Bulwark. I'm joined today by one of our reporters, Lauren Egan. She writes the opposition newsletter. You gotta subscribe to it. It's on Democrats in the wilderness. Will they ever come back in power? Lauren has her finger on the pulse of the upcoming election in the midterms. Lauren, thanks for coming on today.
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Lauren Egan
Hey Will, how's it going?
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Will Sommer
Good. So I wanted to talk today about your new newsletter on Louise Lucas, a relatively little known Virginia state House politician. And I guess the gist of this newsletter is can this 82 year old politician teach Democrats to be rude again online? And so let's dive into it. Tell me all about Louise Lucas if I'm someone who hasn't heard of her.
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Lauren Egan
So I feel like a lot of the conversation about Democrats this past year and this is where like our beats kind of intersect because you know all the discourse that's happening online. But so much of the Democrats focus this past year has been like how can we rival the Republican Party's grip on social media? It's just something that Democrats have honestly like been pretty bad at. And that's why you've seen people like Gavin Newsom start these podcasts. You've seen donors sink millions of dollars into all these projects about how can we get more creators to create content that's pro Democrats, things like that. And then as all of this is going on on the national level, there's senator in Virginia who's kind of crept up out of nowhere over the past couple of years, at least for me. I'm not a Virginia resident who's just had like the most, just kind of sassy shit posting type personality on Twitter. And she's really broken through over the past couple of months because of all the redistricting stuff that's going on. Virginia right now is trying to redraw their congressional maps. This is part of the Democrats response to what happened in Texas last year. And she's just absolutely trolling the Republicans about this, giving them hell online, to the point that there's been some Democratic consultants who have actually brought her tweets to members of Congress to be like, hey guys, this is how you are good at social media. And it's hilarious that it's coming from this older woman in the party who's not even really a nationally known name.
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Will Sommer
Yeah. So, I mean, as you said, I mean, the reason I think we're talking about her today is because this is jumping off of. She's kind of been the driving, one of the driving forces of this Democratic redistricting in Virginia that is going to give Democrats how many. It's like 11 to 1 seats or something like that.
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Lauren Egan
10. I think it's 10 to 1.
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Will Sommer
Yeah. So. So it's gonna be a big redistricting for, for Democrats. And I think what, what you're pointing to, what's unique about her is that this is not the usual. I think what we think of as kind of the Democrats shrinking violet. Like, oh, gosh, I guess maybe we'll do it if we have to. I mean, she's relishing it. And, and so to that point, I mean, what kind of stuff is she putting out there?
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Lauren Egan
She's tweeting at Ted Cruz, basically telling him to shut the fuck up. Getting Fox News to write headlines about the Twitter beef that she. Ted Cruz. And honestly, what really caught my attention from her is her memes. There's been, I don't think, like, when you talk to Democrats on the Hill, they really don't know how to jump on social media trends. I'm obviously painting a really broad brush here. There are some that are familiar and fluent in the Internet and grew up with it. But obviously the Democratic Party in Congress is incredibly old, and a lot of them don't know how to jump on these things. But she does, and it's fascinating. My personal favorite is her tweeting. She knows the terminology cuck chair chair, which she had to explain to her daughter, who's an adult, which is just, like, hilarious. You just wouldn't expect someone in the Democratic Party as well into their 80s.
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Will Sommer
Well, to that point, Lauren, to that point. I mean, let's set it up. This is my favorite Louise Lucas thing is the cuck chair. And you wouldn't expect, you know, any politician to be tweeting about a cuck chair. Now, Lauren, typically, I'm the one explaining the memes and stuff, but can you walk us through what a cuck chair is?
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Lauren Egan
Will, I would never, never take that honor from you. Never.
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Will Sommer
Sure. So, folks, so here's what happened. So basically correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe some Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, the Democratic senators from Virginia, had been somewhat critical of this sort of slash and burn redistricting, sort of the maximal Democratic move in Virginia. And she said, essentially, I mean, she did say this. She said, well, why don't you guys go sit in the cuck chair? Now, people might say, that doesn't sound like a thing I want to be in. But this is Internet terminology. Now, we're all used to the phrase cuck cuckold, a guy whose wife is cheating on him, and maybe he gets some sexual satisfaction out of it. Maybe he's into it. I think that got big in, like, the 2016 election. Right? But now the cuck chair is sort of a relatively new Internet idea, which is that in a hotel room, you know, you got the bed, but typically your average hotel room, you've got one chair. And I think ostensibly it's for taking your shoes off or whatever. But now people, you go into a room and it's got one chair, especially facing the bed, that's called the cuck chair. Because the idea is that's where the cuckold is. While the action's going down on the bed, that's where he's watching from. And you know this terminology, once you know it, it kind of sticks with you. I I in a room, sometime that there are just one room. I, I literally, with my friends, sometime was someplace, and I was like, well, there's the cuck chair. And they said, what? And I think it's fascinating that Louise Lucas is, is getting into the same kind of stuff that I am. This maybe represents a new direction for Democrats, Lauren, wouldn't you say?
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Lauren Egan
I think so. I think there's this tension in the party right now. It's like, how far do you want to go? Do you want to go to kind of model your social media presence off of some of what we've seen in the gop? Do you want to be kind of vulgar? I guess. I mean, I find some of it kind of funny, but, like, do you want to do that? Is that the brand you want to want to embrace? Some Democrats have really prided themselves on being, like, kind of above this and not getting into the mud on these things and being a little bit more buttoned up and school president, like, but, I mean, they lost the last election. So, like, is there a trade off there? If you're a little bit more bland and a little bit more, you know, just professional, so to speak, online, does that come at a cost? And what's interesting, I think, with her story, too, is obviously a lot of the more like, resistant types. Folks on the Internet love Luis Lucas. She's built up a pretty impressive following for a state official for her memes and her tweets and things like that. But there also are some people who are like, this is not what we want to be as Democrats. This is really unhelpful to try and get our agenda passed in the state of Virginia. And importantly, she does represent a district that is really blue, so she can get away with punching Republicans in the face. Whereas if you're coming from a more purplish district, this is probably not something that you're going to do. But I do think that she is kind of setting this model for a way to engage online. And we've seen it from other folks, too. Obviously, Gavin Newsom's Twitter account over the past couple of months, where he's really just trolling Republicans, is the prime example of doing this on a more national scale.
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Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I guess that was gonna be my next question is, is who else is doing this? I mean, I think obviously any kind of successful social media stuff these days is, you know, people say this is a Zoran Momdani type move, but, you know, Gavin Newsom, I mean, I feel like there's this sense of, like, Democrats, do they want to get, like, kind of trumpy with it? Do they want to even, like, kind of a J.D. vance type of to is sort of what Lou? I mean, he's not saying cuck chair, but what she's saying kind of reminds me of J.D. vance to this kind of just like, yeah, we're going to do it, like, deal with it type of attitude. So are any other, you know, kind of prominent Democrats, especially ahead of 2028, embracing this?
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Lauren Egan
I think Newsom really is like the prime example. I think there's other folks that are trying to really be like, I'm going to speak in my own voice. We've used the word authentic so much over the past year, but I think of someone like Brian Schott. So I feel like when I senator from Hawaii, when I'm reading his tweets, it really does feel like he wrote that. And you can tell when he's really pissed off about something, he's not using the kind of language. He's a different person. He's going to sound different, obviously, than Louis Lucas. But I think what's kind of the shared trait between all of them and like someone like Gallego, the senator from Arizona, is I read their stuff, and I feel like it's really them hitting send. I don't feel like it's a staffer who's tweeting it out for them. I don't feel like it's something that they went and tested or, you know, carefully crafted. I think Brian Schatz, for example, was on a plane a couple of weeks ago and was like, ama, ask me anything. I'm on this plane. Lol. Like, might regret it. And it was. I read the whole thing. He was engaging with people, and it was really interesting. So I do think there's Democrats that are kind of saying, all right, we got to be, like, a lot less cautious than we have been in the past. That's going to look different for different people, depending on what your end goals are, what you're trying to. Are you trying to run for president or not? Or what kind of district do you represent?
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Will Sommer
So I actually had a Louise Lucas story myself here in the District, in the District of Columbia. Ted Leoncis, the owner of the Wizards and the Mystics, he was trying to take his team and move it to Virginia a few years ago, and this was going to really leave D.C. in dire straits. It was kind of a tough time for the city economically, and he had teamed up with Glenn Youngkin. He's going to move it to Alexandria. And Louise Lucas is, among other things, Glenn Youngkin's arch enemy. And so she used her position on the I really thought I was like, DC's over. But Louise Lucas stepped in and she said, I hate this, that she called it the Glen Dome. And in fairness, it was gonna be, like, incredibly expensive. She used her key role on some committee to totally sink it. Then Ted Leoncis had to come slinking back to the District, and we still have our stadium. So, you know, I do appreciate that about her. You know, Lauren, on another topic, speaking of Virginia, have you seen this increasing rumbling on the right about ceding Northern Virginia back to the District and in an attempt to get rid of blue voters and, you know, try to hold on to Virginia?
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Lauren Egan
I have. What do you think of it?
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Will Sommer
Well, it's interesting. I feel like there have been some kind of viral Twitter threads about it, and now just this week, there was a Fox News article from some think tank about it. Basically, their argument is somehow, because folks, D.C. used to be a square, and then the Alexandria portion was ceded to Virginia. And so the. The idea is that Republicans would suddenly champion the integrity of the District of Columbia and our political rights and cede Northern Virginia back. And then you would take out a bunch of Democratic voters, including a lot of, I think, aggrieved federal staffers after the Doge cuts, and suddenly maybe Virginia could be a battleground state again. On one hand, it seems pretty crazy to me. On the other, I feel like I can't really rule anything out from this administration and any kind of antics. So it's just one. As long as we were talking about Virginia, I kind of wanted to put a pin in as one.
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Lauren Egan
I feel like Virginia is gotten pretty blue. I don't know. I don't. It would certainly be more competitive, obviously, but it's just one of those things. I'm like, I don't really know if that accomplishes exactly what you're looking for. On the other hand, would the District shape be more esthetically pleasing? Because I would be interested in that. Would it be more of a square? Perfect square?
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Will Sommer
You know, there could be some common cause with, like, the. The. The cartography nerds, perhaps in the Trump administration. Yeah, yeah.
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Lauren Egan
I could see that as an avenue.
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Will Sommer
Just to close it up here. I mean, I think there are people who, you know, after, obviously, I think the Trump campaign was helped a lot by their sort of constant fire hose of attention in 2024. But there may be people who look at this and say, okay, so this Virginia state senator, she posted pictures of herself with glowing red eyes. Right. Or these memes. I mean, does this really impact voters? And I guess this may be a difficult thing to measure, but, you know, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. I mean, are there voters out there who are following. Maybe not Louise Luc. She's kind of just this is kind of internal Virginia Richmond stuff. But, I mean, do voters care about, you know, candidates who have a bit of voice and are kind of punchier online?
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Lauren Egan
I think the base certainly does. And everything we know about what Democratic base voters want right now, it's they want someone like Luis Lucas who's going to show that they're fighting and show that they're punching Republicans in the face. I think how people define fighting kind of differs. But from the reporting I've done, from the voters that I've talked to, from the lawmakers that I've spoken with, it does seem like there is a segment of the Democratic base that does define fighting right now as simply taking it engaging in a Twitter war for Democrats are obviously out of power right now. They're working with some limited resources, so to speak. And there are people that want this, want to see this from folks. I think Gavin Newsom has gotten a lot of credit from Democratic voters for his Twitter account. Obviously, that. Does that translate into electoral success? I don't know. I think it really clearly worked for mom Donnie, who you brought up earlier. I do think it's interesting, though, like, what Mamdani was doing was super different than what Luis Lucas. And even what Gavin Newsom is doing, there was more of a hopefulness and conciliatory sort of element to what this is very much more. We're just going to punch the opposition in the face, and that's what we're here to do.
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Will Sommer
And, you know, I think there are a lot of people who want to see exactly that. I mean, I think you're pointing to sort of the divide that I think Democrats will continue to face for a while. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for joining me.
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Lauren Egan
Thank you, Will. And thank you for reminding all of us what a Cook Chair is.
- [14:54]
Will Sommer
You know what? Absolutely. This is one. This is one I've been meaning to introduce to the audience. And as for everyone else, thank you for listening today and watching. And. And I hope you'll hit that subscribe button to the Bulwark again. Lauren's newsletter is the Opposition coming out all the Time. She's got the latest on Democrats. All right, thanks a. Lot.