Loading summary
Transcript125 lines
- [00:00]
Galen Druke
I learned yesterday about the Patti LuPone scandal. Are you familiar with this?
- [00:07]
Nathaniel Rakich
Does it have to do with Patti LuPone being racist or something like that?
- [00:10]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I mean, debatably, but yeah. So a few weeks ago, she gave an interview to the New Yorker, and apparently her show on Broadway shares a wall with another show that is a majority black cast. And she said that they were too loud. And then that predictably sparked a backlash. And then she called Audra McDonne a. And. And now she, like, got it disinvited from the Tonys and, like, it's a whole, like to do and stuff like that. And so I just learned about this yesterday. I was like, oh, my goodness.
- [00:43]
Nathaniel Rakich
Does this mean that within the next week she's going to be on Substack? Because it is literally canceling over there. I would.
- [00:52]
Galen Druke
Patti LuPone's substack.
- [00:54]
Nathaniel Rakich
You cannot. What's the expression? Like swing a dead cat and the weird subscription. Yeah, yeah. And not hit a cancelista in Cancelvania. I think we should, on substack, vote for the chancellor. Prime chancellor of Cancelvania. At the moment. It might be Terry Moran.
- [01:19]
Galen Druke
Yeah, yeah. He's getting a lot of votes.
- [01:22]
Nathaniel Rakich
Lest we forget that it started. Cancelvania was first populated by right wing cancellistas.
- [01:29]
Galen Druke
Oh, totally. Yeah.
- [01:30]
Nathaniel Rakich
And now it's becoming populated by, like, left wing cancellistas.
- [01:35]
Galen Druke
Hashtag both sides. And is becoming a swing state.
- [01:40]
Nathaniel Rakich
Is becoming a swing state. Does being laid off count as being canceled?
- [01:46]
Galen Druke
No, absolutely not. You are not canceled, Kayla.
- [01:48]
Nathaniel Rakich
I'm not a cancelista.
- [01:49]
Galen Druke
No. Sorry. Do you want to be a cancelista?
- [01:51]
Nathaniel Rakich
No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean the time. The time will come soon enough if.
- [01:55]
Galen Druke
You keep going up the rate you're going to.
- [01:58]
Nathaniel Rakich
Should this just be the podcast? Should we just publish this?
- [02:01]
Galen Druke
Yeah, well, we're recording, so.
- [02:03]
Nathaniel Rakich
Okay, well, we got a lot.
- [02:05]
Galen Druke
Do we want to talk about politics? Fine. We do have a lot.
- [02:09]
Nathaniel Rakich
Okay, now I have to, like, slightly be, like, not super excited. Somebody gave me such hate mail for sounding gay on the podcast the other day.
- [02:18]
Galen Druke
What? Can't be too gay. Can't be gay when you talk about Israel.
- [02:29]
Nathaniel Rakich
Foreign. Hello, and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Druke, and we've got a lot to talk about today. So I had originally planned to open up the mailbag and answer listener questions, which we're still going to do. But before we get to that, I do want to talk about some of the news since the last episode. So, last Thursday evening, Israel began bombing Iranian military targets with the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. And the two countries have continued to exchange fire in the days since. Friday night. A man who's now in custody shot two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, killing State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and wounding State Senator John Hoffman and his wife. Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz described the attack as, quote, targeted political violence. On Saturday, President Trump hosted a military parade in Washington, D.C. marking the 250th birthday of the U.S. military, which also happened to be his birthday. And protesters gathered around the country under the banner no Kings. Not that we need anything more to discuss, but today, June 16 also happens to be the 10th anniversary of Trump's descent down that escalator and entrance into political politics. Political politics, presidential politics. Sorry about that. You can already hear his laughter in the background. Here with me is dear friend who spent the majority of those 10 years sharing a newsroom with me, Nathaniel Rakic. Welcome to the podcast.
- [04:00]
Galen Druke
Hey, Galen. Yeah, it was a heck of a ride. And it's not over yet.
- [04:04]
Nathaniel Rakich
It is not over yet. As I mentioned, we got a lot to discuss, but you alerted me to the fact that it was this anniversary this morning. It was the first thing I saw when I woke up. Do you have any thoughts on this, the 10th anniversary of Trump's entrance into presidential politics?
- [04:21]
Galen Druke
I mean, I don't think I have any particularly deep thoughts, but I think that basically, almost since that moment, he has been the defining kind of rock of political politics. And.
- [04:36]
Nathaniel Rakich
Should we rename the podcast?
- [04:37]
Galen Druke
Yeah. GD Political Politics.
- [04:39]
Nathaniel Rakich
Gdp Political Politics.
- [04:41]
Galen Druke
Yeah. Everything has revolved around him. You know, even when he wasn't the president, things were kind of in reaction to him and the movement that he created within the Republican Party, bringing things in a more populist and anti establishment direction. And I think both parties are still kind of trying to figure out how to navigate that. And again, it's not over yet. We still have three and a half years left of his presidential term, and we also don't know what's going to happen after that and whether the Democratic Party is going to respond by going in a more populous direction. We don't know whether the Republican Party, how it's going to move on after Trump, but I think there's no question that he is, is one of the most important figures in this century's politics, for better or for worse.
- [05:26]
Nathaniel Rakich
Yeah, I have some more thoughts reflecting on President Trump, how he's practiced politics, maybe even lessons we can learn that I'm writing up that folks may see Sometime soon. So I don't want to give away too much, but some days. Can you write too, Galen? I can. I'm literate. It's crazy, but some days it feels like he's shaped the Democratic Party almost as much as he's shaped the Republican Party. And I'm curious if there are any lessons that Democrats can learn from the way that he's practiced politics over the past 10 years. But I'm going to leave it there. And we'll come back to that. Let's go in chronological order, Nathaniel, since pretty much hours after I published the last episode in this feed. So are you ready to play Middle east expert?
- [06:20]
Galen Druke
As ready as I'll ever be.
- [06:23]
Nathaniel Rakich
Have you ever seen these YouTube videos where they play pranks on people? They'll be set up in Washington Square park or something, and they're like, okay, we have a TV crew here. The person that we planned on interviewing stepped away for a second or isn't here. Can you just stand here for a second? And then they'll pretend that they're all of a sudden putting them on live TV and introduce them as an expert in something in particular and. And then start asking them questions and see if they just say, oh, sorry, I shouldn't be here on live tv. Or if they play along and start answering questions as if they are the named expert. And it's incredible, the people who just play along with it. I think it might actually literally be expert on Middle east politics or something like that.
- [07:03]
Galen Druke
I have not seen that. That's amazing. Is it like, all the men, like, try to bluff their way through it, and all the women are like, I don't.
- [07:09]
Nathaniel Rakich
I don't remember that specifically, but based on some of the YouGov polling that we've recently discussed, it wouldn't shock.
- [07:16]
Galen Druke
Yeah.
- [07:17]
Nathaniel Rakich
I was trying to track down polling since the war began between Israel and Iran, and I couldn't even find that. What I was able to find was polling that was conducted right before on hypotheticals. So there's this one poll from the Ronald Reagan Institute, I'm quoting here, 45% of those surveyed said they would support Israel conducting targeted airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. If diplomatic efforts between the U.S. and Iran fail, 37% said they opposed, 18% unsure. And then the partisan breakdown was 6 in 10 Republicans support, 35% of independent support, and 32% of Democrats support. There's a lot of caveats in that. You know, if diplomatic negotiations break down. It was before any of these airstrikes actually happened. Do you think that that data even tells us much?
- [08:11]
Galen Druke
No, not really. I mean, yeah, hypothetical polls are always, you know, they can be good guides if you have nothing else, which in this case we do. I also went and looked for things and, you know, I expect that like YouGov for instance, will probably come out with something in the next couple of days, but. But it doesn't seem like anything's been released yet. But people's reactions when things actually come true can be very different. We saw this with things like, you know, Trump's conviction and, you know, Harris jumping into the race after Biden dropped out. So I'm going to reserve judgment. But also, like it's not the most important thing. Right. Or the other thing too. Right. Is the Ronald Reagan Institute is a conservative think tank. It probably has a point of view, not just kind of a conservative, like Republican kind of the way that we think about Republicans now, but also kind of like Ronald Reagan old style conservatism, which is much more about, you know, like more interventionist. Exactly right. Having a bigger role in the world. So. So yeah, so the Team America World.
- [09:09]
Nathaniel Rakich
Police Institute, actually, if I can save this poll for a second.
- [09:12]
Galen Druke
Yeah. So basically we should treat this like an internal poll and it's a hypothetical poll. So. Yeah, but I think my prior is with regard to this, that Americans are probably going to be pretty freaked out that this is happening. We know that, for instance, they weren't huge issues in the election, but the general sense that the Russia Ukraine war and the Israel Gaza conflict were kind of happening contributed to a sense of chaos, I think, around the Biden administration and kind of dissatisfaction with the direction that if not the country, the world is kind of heading in. And this kind of would add to that. I think it's something that is going to put people on edge. I think in terms of where people, public opinion might come down. I think we have seen, obviously Israel is generally popular with the American public being an ally. And that has kind of decreased a little bit as I think the conflict in Gaza has developed. And a lot of people, particularly on the left obviously have come to be more sympathetic toward the Palestinian cause. But I think even in polls that, that are kind of like the worst for Israel, you still see about a 50, 50 or at least an even split between the two. But I think in comparison to Iran in particular, you know, I think that most Americans are probably going to side with Israel, but again, it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, they're, yeah, Israel go bomb Iran. Like, I think Probably Americans are going to be nervous about this development, but again, we need to see more detailed polling.
- [10:44]
Nathaniel Rakich
Yeah. So it's worth saying here that when you look at Trump's approval rating, he does worse on foreign policy now than he does overall. I'm just going to say RCP here, real clear politics, because I don't see foreign policy separated out from either our friends Nate Silver or Elliot or the New York Times. But RCP's average for Trump overall is net negative 4, and his approval on foreign policy is net negative 9. So although that may have been an advantage against Biden when people felt like Biden didn't have a handle on foreign policy, it's not an advantage now, particularly above and beyond what Americans already view. You know, you brought up the question of Israel, and I think it's really interesting. CNN actually did quite a good write up on this recently, and I'm going to quote extensively from them because I think they put it better than I could off the cuff in terms of how some of these views are shifting. Now, to your point, when it comes to comparing Israel to Iran, you know, there's no comparison. The University of Maryland Critical Issues poll asked something along the lines of who do you think should have nuclear weapons? Israel? Iran? Both? Neither. Americans generally preferred neither. It was 69%. But in terms of only Iran having nuclear weapons, it was 1% of Americans. So at that point, you're kind of rounding down to just people that are punching in.
- [12:10]
Galen Druke
You know, the B answer for every question.
- [12:12]
Nathaniel Rakich
Yeah, exactly. And for what it's worth, 10% said only Israel should have nuclear weapons.
- [12:18]
C
As a Comparison point, actually, 6% said.
- [12:20]
Nathaniel Rakich
Both should have nuclear weapons. So that's a little higher than 1%. And it was.
- [12:26]
Galen Druke
People believe in mutually assured destruction.
- [12:29]
Nathaniel Rakich
Exactly, Matt. And that was even across the partisan divide. 7% of Republicans, 6% of Democrats, 6% of independents. Anyway, I mentioned that there's some good polling on how Americans view Israel. You know, a year and a half on from the war with Gaza, and here I'll quote. Polls for decades have asked Americans to choose whether they sympathize more with Israelis or Palestinians. And Israel is almost always the runaway favorite. But a new Quinnipiaq poll showed Americans sided with the Israelis by a historically narrow margin, 37% to 32%. After Hamas, October 2023 terror attack on Israel, that margin had been 61% to 13% in Israel's favor. So a 48 point edge has shrunk to 5. They go on to say that's not only the Lowest advantage for Israel since Quinnipiac began polling this question in 2001. But it appears to be about the lowest since at least 1980 across multiple polls, according to data compiled by the Roper center for Public Opinion Research. They continue on to cite some other polling which was also interesting. A February Reuters Ipsos poll showed that about 4 in 10Americans leaned toward the idea that Israel's problems are, quote, none of our business. What was particularly striking about that last one? These views were almost completely Nonpartisan. It was 4 in 10 Democrats, independents and Republicans who said Israel's business was none of ours. Thank you, cnn, for providing me with that much content. But, Nathaniel, I'm curious for your thoughts about all that.
- [14:05]
Galen Druke
Yeah, so I think that's an important part of it, too. Right. Is that Americans, I think, you know, led by Republicans, are also getting more isolationist generally over the long term. And I think that feeds into it as well that, like, again, you know, in the abstract, they might prefer that Israel win a war between Israel and Iran, but they want that war to happen. They don't want America to be involved. They don't want the war to affect their lives as Americans. Obviously, Trump, as we mentioned, has been taking a more isolationist direction for the Republican Party. There was a report recently that said that he had vetoed a plan by Israel, Israel was going to allegedly take out the supreme leader of Iran. And Trump said, no, you shouldn't do that.
- [14:51]
Nathaniel Rakich
And that was an internal leak. Right. So I assume the Trump administration would have given that information to the Wall Street Journal. So in some ways, that is shaping the narrative. Always important to keep in mind, where does this information come from? What do they want us to think as a result? But yes, the Trump administration seems to want Americans to think that they don't want war.
- [15:11]
Galen Druke
Right. And. Exactly. And I think they want to show that, like, the United States is not trying to exacerbate the situation, which is obviously good. Maybe it's good politics domestically, but it is also obviously good for not inflaming the situation internationally.
- [15:25]
Nathaniel Rakich
Okay, let's move on and talk about another difficult topic, which is political violence. So we still don't have a lot of the details on the assassinations and assassination attempts in Minnesota. But talking about political violence, Nathaniel, is unfortunately not new for, I think the place where we've left off or where we've usually landed when we talk about this from a data perspective, which of course is not the only perspective here, is that a lot of polls will come up with numbers in the range of 20 to 30% of Americans supporting some kind of political violence. But more rigorous research suggests that that number is far too high. And when you use polling mechanisms to ensure that people are paying close attention to the questions that you're actually asking them, you get numbers closer to the low to mid single digits, which would be like 2 to 5% of Americans, when forced to think about it in a more concerted way, still supporting political violence, that nets out somewhere in the range of, you know, I don't think we're asking three year olds about their views of political violence. So if you do the math of just people over the age of 18 in America, it's somewhere in the range of 10 to 15 million Americans. But even that number is still not all that important because how many people did it take to assassinate a Minnesota lawmaker? It took one person to assassinate a Minnesota lawmaker. So, you know, that's where we've left things in the past. I'm curious if we have more to add, Nathaniel.
- [17:04]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I mean, I think that's all exactly right, that, you know, support for political violence is, is still very low and that is reason for optimism. But you know, any support for political violence is bad. And you do see, you know, kind of in the non polling data, you see that political violence has been on the increase. Right. We are in an era of political violence in the United States. And that I don't think, unfortunately will surprise anybody who's paying attention to the news. And you know, some of these things like the Trump assassination attempts or other political violence January 6, obviously that we have lived through unfortunately in the last several years, but there have been some good studies.
- [17:43]
Nathaniel Rakich
Do those numbers include, for example, the protests when they turn violent? So, for example, in the summer of 2020 when folks were attacking a courthouse in Portland or even setting Waymos on fire in Los Angeles, does that count as the, in the political violence data?
- [18:04]
Galen Druke
I think it depends obviously on the study. So you know, Reuters did this study that looked at both, you know, like all sorts of violence, so that included property destruction as well as like fatal attacks or attacks on people. And so they probably did. I don't want to speak for Reuters, but for instance, they logged 58 instances of violence among dueling groups at public demonstrations and events. So maybe that would fit into it. 73 instances of violence resulting mainly in property destruction. So it could, I think, depending on the methodology. Right. But so speaking of this Reuters study, they did a really good investigation of this a couple years ago now. So it's a little bit out of date, it's from 2023. But they found that we've had these moments of political violence in the past. So for instance in like the 1970s, but that was the 60s and 70s and obviously 1968, a year of a lot of assassinations. But overall during those times, it was actually mostly property damage. And this spike in political violence that has happened now, which has basically started in 2016, has been much more focused on people, which is obviously very scary. There was also a good study out of Princeton University, the Bridging Divides Initiative, that looked at different types of political violence. And they found that vigilante activity was on the rise as a proportion of political violence. So I think, I mean, again, I didn't conduct the study and I don't know exactly how they coded things, but my impression is that this Minnesota shooting would probably fit into something like that. They also noted that there could be a lot of issues with trust around like first responders and like police and stuff like that, because the number of police killings has also been on the increase. And in 2024 it reached a 10 year high. And so the concern there is that especially in these environments where you have maybe protests and then police kind of cracking down or other law enforcement as well, obviously Trump also sent in National Guard and Marines that those crackdowns could decrease, kind of continue to widen the divide between the protesters and the authority figures, which could lead to more incidents like that. So I think there's a lot of reason in the data as well to be concerned. I'll actually add one more thing from the Princeton study, which found that they logged more than 600 incidents of threats and harassment against public officials in 2024, which was a 10% increase from the previous year and an even bigger increase from 2022. It was almost twice as many. So, yeah, again, just putting numbers on something that we already kind of know.
- [20:47]
Nathaniel Rakich
Anecdotally, from a non data perspective, it's just worth saying that what happened early Saturday morning, Friday night is extremely up and sad for all of us in America and particularly sad for the community in Minnesota. I think it's been for a while that we've known that federal lawmakers are targeted and have spoken openly about their death threats. But these are state representatives who you're more maybe used to seeing at the mall, at the store, what have you, who are now obviously also afraid for their lives. And we've talked about even election workers and things like that being afraid.
- [21:30]
Galen Druke
Exactly. And those people obviously have less protection. Right. Obviously the president is very closely guarded. But members of Congress. For instance, I went to the Congressional baseball game last week and there's always a big Capitol police presence there because they're really freaked out by these threats. And there was that shooting in 2017 at a practice for the Congressional baseball game that I think was also a seminal moment for this and kind of happened at the represented, I think a transition into this period of political violence. But yeah, but state representative is going to is fairly anonymous and maybe, you know, that we've been lucky where you know, January 6th, obviously, you know, people died, but no elected officials died, which I think easily could have gone another way. And, and this, you know, shooting in, in Minnesota is an example of an elected official actually dying. And you know, I think that, yeah, it hopefully will be the last, but I don't think that we can count on that.
- [22:34]
Nathaniel Rakich
Yeah, there was a headline from a piece of analysis from the New York Times over the weekend that said, you know, we've become inured or something along those lines to school shootings. Are we going to become a nord to things like this? And I hope that the answer is no. Let's move on and talk about the protests and military parade over the weekend. First, we're gonna take a little break.
- [22:54]
C
Today's podcast is brought to you by you, dear listener. When you become a paid subscriber@gdpolitics.com there's a little message you can fill out explaining why you ch to subscribe and support the podcast. One of the main themes you've mentioned is rigor. That's important to me and it makes me really happy to hear that it's important to you. Steven says you and the FiveThirtyEight podcast helped me better understand politics and the world. For years I couldn't imagine not having the same rigorous data driven analysis on politics in my life and in my ears. Kayla said, one of the most trusted voices in American politics and public opinion is. In a world where accessible evidence based media is fleeting, Galen offers digestible, insightful analysis.
- [23:42]
Nathaniel Rakich
Wow.
- [23:42]
C
Thanks, Kayla. Warren says Galen offers calm data presentation and guides us through context, possible causalities and potential implications. This thinking process becomes second nature, making listeners into more critical consumers of media.
- [23:58]
Nathaniel Rakich
Wow, Warren, I mean put on my tombstone.
- [24:01]
C
And lastly, Odin Habler, I think that's how you say your name says I like your data driven approach. I'm not even in the US but I am a political scientist and here in Germany there doesn't even exist an equivalent in podcasts. Join these listeners by becoming a paid subscriber today@gdpolitics.com in fact, do it right now.
- [24:22]
Nathaniel Rakich
We will still be here when you get back.
- [24:24]
C
That's GDPolitics.com and thank you.
- [24:29]
Nathaniel Rakich
Nathaniel, you mentioned that you were at the Congressional baseball game. You were also at the combination protest parade in D.C. over the weekend. You're really just, you know, Forrest Gump here going to all the important events you were at.
- [24:44]
Galen Druke
You were at the unemployed Galen. So I'm just around and seeing what there is to see.
- [24:49]
Nathaniel Rakich
Well, even the last time we spoke as employed people, you had just left the non State of the Union where Trump was speaking. So you're really taking advantage of your location in Washington D.C. that is true.
- [25:00]
Galen Druke
In all seriousness, you know, it is. We are living through historic times and I think that, not that the Congressional baseball game is that historic, but it is interesting, I think, to see this stuff in person and I think it gives it a texture that is difficult to get some from somewhere else. So I do feel lucky to live here and be able to see this stuff. But yes, I did not actually attend the parade itself. I didn't go inside the security perimeter. Speaking of security, it was extremely hunkered down. A large portion of the mall was fenced off and there were only, I think a couple of security entrances and the main one was near the Washington Monument. And it was just too much of a madhouse. So I kind of hung out outside. I was curious to see the crowds, both, you know, the people who were presumably pro Trump and pro military parade and the people who were obviously doing the kind of no Kings protests. And it was not as bad as it could have been in terms of certainly violence or kind of confrontation. There were a couple of pockets of left center protesters holding their signs and kind of doing some chants. But they really didn't interact much with the very predominantly Republican crowd based on the things they were wearing, MAGA hats, like Trump shirts and stuff like that. But yeah, but it was fairly respectful. It was, you know, we'll talk about crowd sizes, I think. But you know, inside the perimeter, based on the photos I saw, it did not seem very crowded. It was pretty crowded, certainly more crowded than downtown D.C. was normally, especially as people were funneling into that security area. So I do think that there was probably an element of some people were deterred by the line or just kind of were late to arrive to the, the parade because of the security line. But, but yeah, but it does seem like the, the attendance, it was also raining, I should say, or like it was kind of a dreary day. It was like lightly drizzling. So it, the, the military parade maybe was not as big of a spectacle as Trump wanted it to be. But, but, yeah, but crowd sizes are, Are, are not where people need to be looking when kind of assessing support for these things.
- [27:12]
Nathaniel Rakich
Well, you're teeing me up here perfectly, Nathaniel. So, you know, a frequent pastime for the sort of Trump versus resistance crowd is comparisons of dick sides. Sorry, I mean crowd size. And so according to the Trump administration, there were 250,000 people watching the parade on Saturday. Organizers of the no Kings protests say there were 5 million people in attendance to their protests nationwide. Obviously, comparing a single event in Washington, D.C. to a national event is nonsense. So that's not what I'm trying to do here. But we do know from a data perspective a couple things about trying to estimate crowd sizes, because this is actually a mathematical problem. So how accurate are crowd size estimates, Nathaniel?
- [28:06]
Galen Druke
They're, they're just not very accurate. Right. It is difficult to assess crowd sizes. First of all, like, you know, it's like crowd. Like the kind of traditional method is you just like, kind of look at the area that's filled and you kind of like estimate the density in like, you know, one square x portion, and then you kind of extrapolate that out. But, like, that's difficult, first of all, like, it's difficult to estimate the density. And then it's like some areas might be more crowded than others, so like, closer to the stage or whatever in the case of a rally. And it's just very difficult. And there typically aren't, you know, like, there's no turnstiles or tickets that are actually counting people. So it's very difficult. And what ends up happening is that people who aren't. And the best crowd size estimates that we have come from academics who study satellite photos and stuff like that. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Trump administration and the no Kings organizers were not studying satellite photos and counting everything and doing a bunch of math. I think that they were making pretty ballpark estimates and probably inflating them because these are not unbiased actors. Right. They want to talk up the size of their crowd. And that's another issue with, especially with, like, political rallies, which is usually the context in which we talk about it, or like Trump's inauguration crowds, which is.
- [29:23]
Nathaniel Rakich
Actually we're fighting about something that has no bearing on or not. No bearing is not representative of actual public support.
- [29:32]
Galen Druke
Right, Exactly. And that's the other issue. Right. Is that even if we could get accurate, totally accurate ideas of how big the crowds were, it doesn't really mean anything. So, for instance, one of those academic groups that does study crowd sizes is the Crowd Counting Consortium at Harvard University. And during the 2024 election, they studied crowd sizes of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's rallies. They found that Kamala Harris's average crowd size was 13,000 people and Trump's was 6,000 people. But guess what? Kamala Harris lost the election despite having the bigger crowds than Trump. And of course, this can come down to all sorts of reasons, like the geography, as you mentioned, like obviously the DC Versus all around the country is an apples to oranges comparison, but also like Democrats are in cities. And so maybe it's easier when Kamala Harris has a rally in Philadelphia versus Donald Trump having a rally in maybe like a smaller town in Georgia or something like that. In addition, the types of people who come out to rallies are not going to be representative. They're going to be highly engaged. And that's the same is also true with protests. They're going to be highly engaged people, more likely to be white, more likely to be college educated. This is a group that in recent years has become very Democratic. So I think that, you know, and also, but also with, you know, with regard to Trump and the inauguration and the military parade, it's still only the most engaged supporters and the people with the means to go to these events. And. But everybody gets a vote. And this is why, yet again, right, we talk about polls. Polls are, they're asking everybody, or at least a cross section of everybody in the country. They are weighted to be representative in a way that crowds at rallies are not weighted to be representative. And they are going to tell you what people's support is. So YouGov actually did do polls regarding these events. And obviously that can cut through things like if you're on the other end of the country from the military parade and you can't go, but maybe you would have gone if had been in a position to. But basically, for both the no Kings protests and for the military parade, about 45% of adults said that they approved of the gathering and about 40% said that they disapproved, with, of course, a healthy chunk, not sure. So, you know, I think this basically just tells us the country is divided. There are a lot of people on one side. I mean, there are a lot of.
- [31:56]
Nathaniel Rakich
People on the other side. The fact that this even happened, like this story of sort of there was a military parade in Washington D.C. for the military's birthday, slash, what's also Trump's birthday. And then there were protests around the country. Already tells us kind of what we need to know. We live in a divided country where we have very clear symbols of that division. We've gotten a little academic here. I do want to ask as well, and if you have something more to say on the academic side, please chime in. But I do want to ask as well. Like. Like, does it matter sort of when people see. Because the reason that people inflate crowd sizes is for the PR effect, the bandwagoning effect. When you see that there are maybe protests in LA or protests around the nation, or when you see that there's a big Trump rally, or you see Trump with the military, these are supposed to be symbols of. There's a lot of support for this. This is exciting. You should come join. You know, whatever sentiment that these people are expressing is an okay sentiment to hold, and maybe you should hold that sentiment, too. Maybe you should also be outraged about immigration, or maybe you should also be proud of being an American and support the military. And so, you know, maybe there are some. Some things beyond just crowd sizes that they're trying to achieve. And the very least, I don't know if you can say that the protests contributed to this, but there seems to be a backlash against the immigration raids and the way that they've been carrying out immigration raids in Los Angeles. And in fact, Taco Trump has already done a U turn on workplace raids at restaurants, farms, hospitality groups.
- [33:29]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I think there's definitely a PR aspect to it. I just, you know, as a data person, would rather that those headlines being like, Trump draws Huge crowds, would rather trumpet, like, you know, Trump's immigration policies, like, are popular according to an average of five rigorously conducted polls.
- [33:47]
Nathaniel Rakich
Wow, you're going to be the next editor of the New York Post.
- [33:50]
Galen Druke
Yeah, right, exactly. It's real clickbaity stuff. But. Yeah, but. But definitely, I think that it can contribute to a positive narrative, which is everything that obviously these politicians are trying to do. I also think. Yeah, absolutely. Protests have been shown throughout history, both here in the US with things like the civil rights movement and abroad, things like the Arab Spring, like, they can absolutely affect change. And I don't want to minimize that. But a lot of that, of course, like, you know, it's not necessarily just the protests that cause the change. It's also a broad kind of support among the people that aren't necessarily out there protesting. This also somewhat feeds into, you know, the Previous conversation. You know, not to say that these protests were violent. They weren't. At least the ones on Saturday. But I think that we have been a divided country before. Right. And I'm thinking about, like, the 2000 election or something like that. And, like, that was a pretty bitter time. But the fact that you have these very visible displays on both sides does show that the temperature is higher, I think, today. And, you know, obviously, and I think that that temperature is also a cause of the rising political violence. And so I think that, you know, and then on kind of the. Also the military parade side, obviously, you know, Trump having other countries have had military parades in the past, including, like, France and the UK it's not necessarily a sign of a descent into totalitarianism. But also the optics are not great on the fact that it's also his birthday and that, you know, at the same week that he sent troops into Los Angeles to quell the protests there. So I think that there is something. I agree that, like, I think I simultaneously want to make the point that crowd sizes are not reflective of public opinion, but also that these are big news stories in and of themselves in maybe more qualitative ways.
- [35:46]
Nathaniel Rakich
Right. Not being representative of public opinion, does that mean not important?
- [35:51]
Galen Druke
Exactly.
- [35:53]
Nathaniel Rakich
So we can porcana les doce. We can talk. We can be rigorous, we can be academic, we can be nerdy. We can also acknowledge that there are important aspects of this that go beyond the numbers. With that, let's move on to the fun part of today's episode, which is, have you had enough talking about military parades, political violence, and the Middle east crisis?
- [36:16]
Galen Druke
Yeah, no more weeks like that one, please.
- [36:20]
Nathaniel Rakich
I'll. I got God's phone number right here. I'll see what I can do. Okay, so first question, we're going to start things off on a lighter note. Jeff says, and I'm starting. I opened the, you know, the phone line, the mailbox, to everybody on Twitter, on substack, whatever. There is a special chat for paid subscribers to GD Politics, where we can talk about whatever we want, but you can also ask questions. So I'm going to prioritize some of those questions here. Jeff asks, has a date for the Virginia 11 special election been set yet, and should I run for that seat? Jeff didn't tell us any other information about himself. For example, if he even lives in Virginia's 11th district.
- [37:05]
Galen Druke
He doesn't have to. As long as he lives in Virginia, he can. He can run. You don't have to live in the district that you represent. Just in the state that you represent.
- [37:14]
Nathaniel Rakich
Speaking of data, a quarter of our listeners are non American. So we don't actually even know if Jeff is American.
- [37:20]
Galen Druke
Okay, that would be a problem, Jeff.
- [37:23]
Nathaniel Rakich
Okay, so Nathaniel, answer the question for us.
- [37:26]
Galen Druke
Yeah, so the Virginia 11 is a district in the D.C. suburbs that became vacant when Gerry Connolly passed away. The special election date has indeed been set. The general election will be on September 9, and the parties will pick their nominees actually quite soon on June 28th. Now, Virginia is weird because it gives parties a lot of leeway about how to choose their nominees. So both parties are basically going to hold their own primaries, which are colloquially known as firehouse primaries, because often it's just like the party is like, hey, you, that firehouse on the corner, we're going to set up polling places there and people can come between like nine and five on Saturday and just like, you know, cast a ballot. And it's not like a government run election the way that primaries usually are. So Virginia is going to be holding those on June 28th. So Jeff, if you want to run Democrats, do it soon. Exactly. The filing deadlines are coming up. Democrats can file until this Wednesday, June 18th, and Republicans can file until June 21st.
- [38:26]
Nathaniel Rakich
Okay, Jeff, good luck. Let us know if you end up running and let us know how you do. In a somewhat similar vein, Matthew asks, assume that Democrats overperform in the 2026 midterms by the same margin as their overperformance in recent special elections. How does the House slash Senate breakdown look? First of all, I should say I don't think we should have the expectation that Democrats would overperform in 2026 to the same degree they're overperforming right now in special elections. We have talked about this many times on this podcast and its forebears about the difference between the electorates that show up in special elections and the electorates that show up in midterms and presidentials. But Nathaniel, let's still entertain the question. Let's do the math. How much have Democrats overperformed in special elections so far and how would that convert to the 2026 midterms?
- [39:21]
Galen Druke
Yeah, so I did do the math. And the folks at the Down Ballot, formerly Daily coast elections, they keep a database of special election results and over performance compared to the previous presidential election. And according to them, Democrats are doing an average of 16 points better than they did in the last presidential election. That's obviously an eye popping number. I think part of it, I should caution, is that the Democrats did particularly badly in the last presidential election, losing the popular vote, which they don't usually do. So normally what I like to do during the fivethirtyeight days and if I were writing an article on this, for example, instead of just doing an off the cuff podcast answer, no offense Galen, I would compare it to like a, a baseline that is kind of like zeroed out. That kind of accounts for the fact that 2024 was a Republican leaning year, 2020 was a Democratic leaning year. And so you would see basically once you do that, you're looking at roughly a 2018 level of overperformance in special elections, which is very good for Democrats but not insane. But if you were to apply literally just that 16 point improvement to the Democratic margins or both parties margins in the Senate and the House, what you would get is Democrats would end up with, with 55 Senate seats. So they would pick up not only the kind of quote unquote easy ones in North Carolina and Maine, but they would also pick up Ohio, Florida, Alaska, Iowa, Texas and Kansas, which is a real kind of out of left field dark horse one. And then if you did the same thing in the House, based on again the down ballots calculations about presidential results within congressional districts, you would get 279 Democratic House seats. Again I will emphasize same thing that Galen said. Obviously those numbers are massive, massive majorities by any standard. I guess the Senate one for Democrats to get 55 seats is quite difficult to imagine. Republicans, it's easier because of the rural bias of the Senate, but it's not going to happen. Democrats in special elections, first of all, there are no incumbents because they're special, they're vacancies and they're going to be incumbents like Susan Collins and Thom Tillis that Democrats have to get through in this election, that also there are candidate quality things, right? It's not just going to be partisanship. There are going to be some races where Democrats have a weak candidate and Republicans have a strong candidate and maybe they'll lose a district that Democrats quote unquote should have won based on the national environment or vice versa. And then as you mentioned Galen, it's just a different electorate, right? Like there are so most of the effects of special elections being so good for Democrats or good for Republicans in past years has to do with the differential turnout, which is to say that right now Democrats are excited to get out and vote and Republicans are not because of Trump generally being unpopular. And that means in an election where there is no basically very little spending or mobilization, the party that is Just naturally going to turn out is going to do much better.
- [42:22]
Nathaniel Rakich
All right, Matthew, you had a very comprehensive answer. Thank you, Nathaniel. Mark asks, immigration has always been one of Trump's stronger areas with the public might actions like prohibiting foreign students from Harvard do permanent damage there. Also, I like the theme music, so I'm going to get to the theme music issue in a second with actually the next question, but we can talk a little about about immigration first. First of all, we talked about it on the last episode with Nate. I will say that increasingly folks who track Trump's approval are breaking out the specific issues as well. And Trump is now net negative on immigration. So according to Silver Bulletin, his approval there is net negative 2. It has historically been one of his best issues. It still is. So net negative 2 is better than his overall appropriate approval rating. I should say, though, if you look specifically at border security, he's still net positive. Americans are pretty happy about what has happened at the border specifically. And I will also say that when you ask Americans to choose still between the two parties, they there's still a majority of support for Republicans immigration approach. Now we have another three and a half years before Americans choose our head of state again. And I imagine that if things continue the way that they've been going, even that could change. There could be what we call thermostatic backlash basically to Trump's handling. And the other thing is if the border, because the problem has been, quote, unquote, fixed, fades from the headlines, they'll start focusing on other aspects of immigration. And it could be the economic aspects of immigration. Like, you know, do we have a tighter labor market for farm workers or hospitality workers or restaurant workers? Are we seeing a lot of stories about families being separated or people being, you know, wrongly deported or what have you? It's a complicated picture on net. It's still a good issue for Republicans, but that doesn't mean it's going to stay that way.
- [44:24]
Galen Druke
Yeah. And I just think it's so important that like to bear in mind that immigration is just a very broad thing. Right. And you make the point about on border security specifically, he is like still popular. And but there are other aspects of the issue of immigration that maybe were less salient under Biden, for instance, when the border was a huge issue and there were record numbers of illegal crossings. And like nowadays when. Right. The deportations are a lot more salient. And I think that that has an impact on that kind of overall immigration top line. And that's something that people need to bear in mind. Methodologically as well. Right. Like what types of poll, like, what counts as an immigration poll in some of these averages, for instance. But I do think that, you know, to the question something like prohibiting foreign students from Harvard is not a border security issue, it is something that is probably going to be unpopular and maybe increases the salience of some of Trump's more negative immigration areas. That said, I also tend to think that that is not what people's main concern is about immigration. Right. Like, I think that people are concerned about, like, immigration as like a safety issue. I think that people are concerned about immigration as like almost like, for better lack of a better term, like a human rights issue and kind of like due process and things like that. I'm not sure that a lot of people, other than the Harvard Association, I.
- [45:48]
Nathaniel Rakich
Think a lot of people just, yes. Want like, look at the border and they're like, this isn't the way that things should work.
- [45:54]
Galen Druke
Right. But I don't think that, like, a lot of people outside the Harvard Alumni association are super, like, you know, invested in the higher education policies, like, with like, intersection with immigration. So I'm not sure that it'll move the needle all that much. I did go looking for some polling specifically on this, and I did find something that surprised me a little bit. So Harvard actually is very popular among the American people, although there are a lot of people who don't have an opinion. So according to a Morning Consult poll From last month, 49% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Harvard, 17% have an unfavorable opinion, and the rest don't have an opinion.
- [46:32]
Nathaniel Rakich
So leave it to a Harvard alum to come on the GB Politics podcast and talk about how popular Harvard is.
- [46:39]
Galen Druke
I thought it was going to be like, negative because I thought everybody was like, oh, those like Harvard assholes. Like, but no, apparently people are still. People are like, I guess like, that's like, I think thinking like two. Two steps too deep. Right. I guess people are just like, oh, Harvard less like, you know, that means like smart people. But yeah, so I guess it is interesting.
- [46:58]
Nathaniel Rakich
People popular.
- [46:59]
Galen Druke
Exactly right. I would think, no. Based on my experience. No. But.
- [47:04]
Nathaniel Rakich
Wow, way to flatter yourself, Nathaniel. Well, it's like a. It's like a backhanded self compliment. You're calling yourself smart and unpopular.
- [47:12]
Galen Druke
Exactly. Anyway, in all seriousness, I do think that that maybe does show that Harvard has some clout to throw around in this fight with Trump. It is a, apparently a more popular institution than Donald Trump is. But again, I think that there is a difference between, you know, right. Like people also really want to legalize marijuana and they're but that's not like the most winning issue in election campaigns because it is like people's like 30th most important issue.
- [47:42]
C
Today's podcast is brought to you by you, the listener. As I mentioned earlier, when you become a paid subscriber@gdpolitics.com there's a little message box you can fill out explaining why.
- [47:53]
Nathaniel Rakich
You chose to subscribe. Now, one of those main themes was rigor.
- [47:57]
C
Another theme was that through all the data and politics, we try to laugh.
- [48:01]
Nathaniel Rakich
A little bit too.
- [48:02]
C
James says, I really want to support you because I love how you talk about politics.
- [48:07]
Nathaniel Rakich
I like how you talk about data.
- [48:08]
C
Perception versus reality through polling. And I love your humor. Jesse says, I love Galen's witty personality and sensible take.
- [48:17]
Nathaniel Rakich
I mean, come on. Witty personality, sensible takes? Put that on my dating app.
- [48:21]
C
I'm a politics junkie that prefers the shows I watch to be fun and informative. Whatever Galen has planned, I just know.
- [48:28]
Nathaniel Rakich
It'S going to be good.
- [48:30]
C
John says, I really enjoyed your work. To date, the analysis was data driven with humor and rigor hard to find in today's opinion swap. And lastly, Rachel says, I really want to support you because I believe in you and I love you and you're my favorite cousin.
- [48:46]
Nathaniel Rakich
Okay, well, this is actually from my cousin Rachel, and I'm glad to hear that I'm her favorite. We'll keep that between us. Hopefully none of the other cousins are listening to the podcast.
- [48:55]
C
Anyway, join these listeners by becoming a paid subscriber today@gdpolitics.com in fact, do it right now. We will be here when you get back. That's GDPolitics.com and thank you.
- [49:10]
Nathaniel Rakich
You Jumping off of Mark's comment about the theme music, Ben says, my question is around the recent apparent backlash against the podcast cover photo and opening music as shown by John's glowing endorsement in the first thread and Mark's declaration of support in this thread. Recent substack comments indicate the potential that there are dozens of us who immediately start bobbing our heads to the beat and internally shouting politics inside our heads every time a song comes on and we see your beautiful face in the COVID photo. Thank you. Ben, before any changes are made, could you hold some sort of vote on the people's preferences? This is a show about democracy and politics and I think that we, the paid subscriber people of GD Politics and the Scottish teens deserve a voice. Your biggest fan in Japan, Ben. Okay, so I think I made a comment about this offhandedly, but I'll address it directly. Both of these things, the theme music and the COVID photo were chosen in the weeks around the days around us being laid off. They were created and chosen quite quickly. I have heard from specific individuals who listen to the podcast, who work in these spaces who have said, hey, I can help you improve these things and not so subtly be like, it's currently ass. So to put that more directly, you know, a graphic designer reached out and was like, your graphics suck. Do you want me to help you improve them? And somebody who does musical scoring for Hollywood films, like Real Deal Hollywood Films, was like, you know, I could actually do some intro music for you. So that was more reference to people, in many ways, kindly reaching out and saying, you know, you could use a little bit of help. So I've chatted with those people and we may improve on both, but don't worry.
- [50:53]
Galen Druke
I think you need a really bombastic score like Pirates of the Caribbean. You gotta get Hans Zimmer to do your theme music, Aylin.
- [51:01]
Nathaniel Rakich
Yeah, that's exactly who reached out to me, actually.
- [51:02]
Galen Druke
Amazing.
- [51:03]
Nathaniel Rakich
Anyway, I won't do anything rash. Don't worry. And I'm glad, Ben, that you like where we're at for now. Okay, moving on. I have a question about the causality of people who pay more attention to news also having a lower opinion of Trump. Is that also true of other presidents in recent history? Also, what about the possibility that this correlation is related to mainstream media's bias toward negative stories about politicians, regardless of their party affiliation? This commenter goes on to say, when I heard that relationship, my first thought was, of course, people who listen to the news are constantly listening to negative coverage and not nearly as often to positive coverage. Naturally, they're going to be less satisfied. So this gets to a conversation we had with Ruth Gelnick from the New York Times about research that she did that showed people who pay less attention to the news are more positive on Trump. So I went and I found some polling from when Biden was president about what people think of him based on how much they follow political news. In an NBC poll From April of 2024, for people who say they don't follow political news, 53% supported Trump and 27% supported supported Biden. So the correlation is, I don't think has to do with, oh, the news is so negative on these people that if you're paying attention to the news, you're just going to think negatively about the current president. And if you're not paying attention to the news. You're going to be like, ah, you know, whatever. President's great. It's something specific about Trump supporters which we have actually at this point now talked quite a bit about, which is this less engaged group, less engaged politically, less engaged in the sense that they're not following the ins and outs of political news, less engaged in the sense that they might not always vote, are more supportive of Trump. And this was a group that used to be more supportive of Democrats. So I did just want to follow up on that and say it's not just the negative news bias making people negative. Nancy, There's a correlation elsewhere. Let's see. I think we're running a little bit out of time. Was there, were there any. I sent you some of the questions. Nathaniel, were there any questions that you really wanted to talk about?
- [53:24]
Galen Druke
My bias is always toward, you know, the like, nerdy election y ones. Like there was one about the Texas Senate primary that was fun, but we don't need to go into that.
- [53:34]
Nathaniel Rakich
I think this could be fun. Let's see. Maybe we'll do this one and then if we have time, we'll get to the Texas primary. Brian asks, has there been any polling or political science research on people who choose how they vote based on the default option for the place where they live? Over the past few years, I've lived in places all the way from 80% Democrat to 80% Republican. And in all of those environments, I have known people who aren't necessarily low information voters, but whose votes are heavily influenced by the societal norms around them. For instance, I knew people who are otherwise pretty conservative but live in a 75% deep precinct, so voted for Hillary. And I know people who have a lot of identity, demographic characteristics associated with liberals, but they live in an 80% Trump town, so they support Trump. Are these trends real? And what fraction of people vote based on peer pressure rather than internal convictions? Ugh. You're asking us to be philosophers, Brian. What is an internal conviction? What does that even mean versus societal pressure? But Nathaniel, do you want to take a crack at this first? I did a little bit of research.
- [54:40]
Galen Druke
Yeah, I've done no research. So I'll do my, my uninformed view and then Galen can correct me. But I think, I think it's a really interesting question. I think it's something I would love to see more studies of because I suspect that this is a factor but is not well understood. I do think that, like, we can't specifically say, oh, 60% of people vote based on their true convictions. And 40% people vote based on peer pressure. I think it's a spectrum. And on an individual level, you are probably making a decision that is based partially on your convictions and partially on the inputs you're getting from other people.
- [55:16]
Nathaniel Rakich
Also, where do your convictions derive from, if not in part from your social context?
- [55:23]
Galen Druke
Right. I think that's a great point too. But maybe, I guess if the question is if you take someone who grew up in a deep Democratic precinct and a Democratic family, and then you move them to someplace that's very Republican, like, how would that change things? But I think that some kind of anecdote that we have from this is that Latino voters, I think in 2024, obviously continued to move toward Republicans. And I think that our friend of the pod, Carlos Odillo, who has looked into this in a lot of depth, has found that basically in 2020, when you first saw significant movement toward Latino voters, toward Trump among Latino voters that create, may have created a permission structure among other people in the Latino community, they were like, oh, like there are people like me who like, you know, also think that this Trump guy is like saying some good stuff and that gave them like some, some permission to vote that way. So I think that, that, I think that this is a good area for future study. Curious what you have, Galen.
- [56:21]
Nathaniel Rakich
Yeah, and I'll also add to that ANEC data, although, I mean, what you mentioned is real data. And this is also real data. We see that, that demographic markers about somebody have different strengths based on where people live geographically. So college educated white voters we understand to be trending left. College educated white voters in the south still vote significantly more Republican than college educated voters in the North. Religion also plays a role. But what is religion if not also a sort of social cultural norm? I mean, it's many things, but that's one of the things. Oftentimes religions form tight knit communities around church or other places of worship. And so this is also, you know, a social context. But I found some research published by Brookings that doesn't get at this exact conundrum. But this researcher focuses on voter turnout and compares it to an office environment, which I found interesting. So, so, for example, a man hired into a firm of men who wear ties will feel uncomfortable without a tie. But if the same man transferred to a company where no one wears ties, he would feel uncomfortable with a tie. There are a dozen plausible explanations for why people feel the need to emulate those around them, such as a desire to establish an identity as part of the team, fear of rocking the boat or taking others behavior as evidence of what is right. As an economist, I can make no guesses at why people wear ties, but I can say what the data on tie wearing looks like. Some offices are filled with tie wearers and some have none. And very few have an even mix of tie wearers and bare necked men. As it turns out, data on voter turnout look the same. My work on the US national election studies data shows that even after controlling for all possible individual characteristics, some groups show very high rates of turnout, some show very low rates rates, and too few show moderate rates. So you know, that's another reason why polarization in America is self reinforcing. Geographically is once you get a sense that oh, I live in a Republican area or I live in a Democratic area, then it doesn't just become something that you sort of chat about at the kitchen table, it becomes a part of your community's identity. And we've talked lots on this podcast about the importance of feeling like a part of a community, which I hope everyone feels a part of here in this community on GD Politics, by the way, we don't wear ties in case you were wondering. You can take that tie off. So I thought that was really interesting and is a, you know, it sounds intuitive once you hear it, but was a good illustration. I'm realizing that we're at about time, Nathaniel. So we're not gonna get to Ken Paxton and John Cornyn and that Republican primary today. You'll have to come on again and we can talk about it. And some of the other questions. There were a lot of questions we didn't get to. We'll incorporate more of this as we go so we can get to all of your questions. But most importantly, thank you to the people who did send in their questions and who are supporting GD Politics. We're gonna leave it there for today. Thank you so much, Nathaniel.
- [59:36]
Galen Druke
Thank you Galen. A pleasure as always.
- [59:38]
Nathaniel Rakich
The pleasure is all mine. My name is Galen Druch. I'm in the early days of getting this podcast off the ground and I appreciate your support in any way possible. Subscribe to GD Politics wherever you get your podcasts and if you'd be so kind to rate and review, maybe even tell a friend about the pod. Also importantly, subscribe to the substack@gdpolitics.com though. You'll get updates on what we're doing, you'll get paid podcast episodes and you can support this project directly. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.