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- [00:01]
Galen Druke
Hey there, listeners. Galen here.
- [00:03]
Gabe Fleischer
I've been doing the podcast rounds this week, chatting with the folks at the Bulwark and Raging Moderates. So if you heard me there and you're new to this podcast feed, I want to say first and foremost a big welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. For regular listeners who want to hear me spout off, you can find some of that spouting in those feeds. I also talked to Gabe Fleischer of Waking up to Politics in a live substack chat this week, and you're going to hear part of that conversation in this episode. For context, he's 23 years old and has been writing a morning political newsletter since he was 9. So although I'm a decade older than him, we've been at this for about the same amount of time. We began by talking about the piece.
- [00:45]
Galen Druke
That I wrote in the Times last.
- [00:46]
Gabe Fleischer
Week, and I won't make you re listen to all of that. I also had a conversation with Nathaniel Rakic about that piece, which is further down in this feedback titled why Democrats Need Their Own Trump. In the conversation you're about to hear, Gabe and I were speaking on Wednesday while the House was considering the bill formerly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill act, and he asked me a pretty good question, which is, okay, in your piece, you talk about Trump punching to the right and to the left while he's campaigning, but when he's been in office, he's governed with more traditional Republican fare. So will he be able to actually transform the Republican Party long term in the way that a character like Bill Clinton was able to realign things for Democrats? Here's that conversation.
- [01:32]
Nathaniel Rakic
And so I guess the question, and I think that is a good point, of Clinton as this kind of realigner. And I think maybe we don't think of him that way, but is kind of a transition figure, like you said, of that kind of Republican dominance to Democratic dominance? I guess the question being to the extent Donald Trump is going to become, whether he becomes a figure like that or not. I guess the kind of way to square the circle is do we see Donald Trump campaigned in this poetry? To the extent he hasn't governed in that way, do we see that hurting him politically? Will something like the One Big Beautiful Bill act hurt him politically? Is there a political price to be paid? Obviously, he won't be on the ballot again, but JD Vance very well could be. He's the one who cast the tiebreaking vote. Kamala Harris was frequently leveledly unsure that she Cast the tiebreaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act. So this will definitely be a theme of 2028. You know, coverage and discussion. Like, to what extent do parties pay a political price if they kind of talk in the campaign trail in this way, kind of punching left and right, but then don't actually govern that way?
- [02:29]
Galen Druke
To speak specifically about the artist formerly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill act, or artist formerly known as abba, how do you like that? You know, this bill is unpopular, and I think it's unlikely to get all that much more popular because Democrats have every reason to keep talking about it. And the media, I think, has a lot of reason to keep covering it. So let's talk about where things start. To cite some analysis from Chris Warshaw at George Washington University, this, if this passes, will be the least popular major legislation passed since at least 1990. And looking at an average of recent polls, it's about 25 percentage points underwater. Even Republicans, only about two thirds of Republicans support this legislation. And there's a lot of aspects of this legislation that are changing sort of by the hour. And so Americans don't have the full picture yet. But what they do know about it, looking at some recent polling from, for example, YouGov, is 57% of Americans, when asked, you know, who is this bill going to help? They choose wealthy people. A majority of Americans also say that it's going to increase the debt and deficit. And so Americans have a general sense of the contours of this bill baked into their minds. Now, why do I say that folks are going to keep talking about it? The Trump Tax Cuts and jobs act in 2017 was almost as unpopular when it passed. But by a year later, Americans were practically split 50, 50. Ultimately, tax policy not so sexy. The economy was doing pretty well. Democrats weren't going to keep fighting Trump on, like, lowering taxes in the economy and whatnot. But on healthcare, Democrats and the media have very different incentives. First of all, Democrats own the health care issue. And even during, you know, Biden's unpopular presidency, Democrats still had some advantages on that issue. Even as their advantages on things like education and immigration and whatnot faded, they kept those advantages on healthcare. And you better believe that those advantages are only going to increase now and in the coming three years. And so Democrats have every reason to talk about it and raise the salience of it. And the media is going to have stories about, like, people losing Medicaid, people losing their Affordable Care act, subsidies there being increased, you know, paperwork or hurdles involved in snap benefits. And so the kind of, you know, if, if the media likes a negative story or a conflict driven story, this is likely legislation that's going to keep provided.
- [05:17]
Nathaniel Rakic
One thing I do wonder though, I know something I've been thinking about and I've been writing a lot about this FEC installation bill, obviously, and just a lot about, I mean, I think how subverted our legislative process has become to that. Like this is that basically, you know, obviously we have the 60 vote filibuster means, you know, political parties can't really do much legislatively even when they win majorities, but yet we make this one exception for it every year. But then we have all the exceptions to the exceptions and we have all these random rules and there's the parliamentarian and it's a very complex process such that like there's this random hodgepodge of things you can do once a year. And that's basically like the biggest legislative accomplishments of a presidency. It's just kind of a strange spot that our political system has ended up in. We kind of all agree that, you know, and each time we move the yard lines a little bit more of what's acceptable, as Republicans did in this process Democrats have done previously and. But we all kind of just agree not to move too much, not to let too much happen. It's kind of weird, but I do wonder about kind of the political effects of that sort of legislating. And I do wonder whether it's kind of also starting to subvert like the political policy feedback loop. And I think that we've already seen during the Biden era. And this is more, I mean, it's gonna be interesting to see how the Republicans try to positively kind of promote this package. But to the extent Democrats were trying to positively promote, you know, the Inflation Reduction act, the American Rescue plan, I think it was very difficult for them partially because they were bills that were just such random assortments of all these different policies kind of stuffed together under the rules of the reconciliation process because they knew they weren't going to get that many other bites at the apple. And that I think for that reason it was very difficult to campaign on. Obviously Inflation Reduction act sounds good in theory, but doesn't necessarily mean you know that much about what's in it. We know things like the prescription drug pricing negotiations that were very popular, but not a lot of people ended up knowing about them. And I do wonder, I guess both for Democrats, if they'll have the same issue trying to message against the Republican bill just because I think you're right Obviously, the Medicaid changes are very unpopular, will lead to all these sort of negative stories, but they're also somewhat confusing. You know, the Republicans can credibly say, you know, they're not cutting benefits in the sense that they're not literally, you know, changing, you know, the structure of. Of receiving benefits and kind of cutoffs like that, although they are making a lot of changes, kind of basically paperwork changes and work requirements.
- [07:39]
Galen Druke
Work requirements, yeah.
- [07:41]
Nathaniel Rakic
You know, in essence, that will. I mean, the estimates are 12 million people will lose their health insurance, but. But I wonder if that will. All these kind of quirks of the process and the bill will hurt Democrats ability to message against it and then also Republicans ability to message for the tax cuts and the border security stuff that they think pull really well, just because it is this kind of hodgepodge now, literally a nameless hodgepodge, that people just might not have a great sense of how it all ties together and what it is.
- [08:08]
Galen Druke
And which, by the way, Medicaid work requirements are popular amongst the American public. They're also the last time I looked at New York Times polling, they have a bare majority of support amongst even Democrats. And so at face value, work requirements for Medicaid are not unpopular. Now, once you give respondents information like this will, you know, put x many people off of Medicaid opinion changes. And so Democrats and Republicans will fight it out over which message becomes the more dominant one. But to answer your question, in a broader sense, yes, the parties can control to some extent what legislation they pass, but they can't always control the political environment and which issues become most important. And so if for some reason environmental issues were like the number one issue during the 2024 election, Democrats could have run really aggressively on the Inflation Reduction act and been like, oh, look at all we're doing with solar and wind and these subsidies and blah, blah, blah, blah. But what were in fact the biggest issue. Biggest issues were inflation and immigration. And the American rescue plan, first and foremost, did ultimately, Fed banks around the country concluded, contributed to the inflation that Americans endured during Biden's presidency. The San Francisco Fed bank concluded by the end of 2021, and it added 3 percentage points to annualized inflation. Now, you know, you can just, you don't have to stress that as the party that's in power, you can say, oh, we're doing everything we can to, to lower prices. But that wasn't the perception that Americans had. You know, prices were growing faster than wages for most of Biden's presidency. And so trying to Say, oh, we're pursuing, you know, wind and solar power. That doesn't really address what Americans are necessarily most concerned about. And then on immigration, we all know how that went down. And so in some ways, the Democrats were not really laser focused on the issues that Americans were saying were most important to them. And if that legislation had addressed those things, I think they would have been in a better position. The other issue is, like, Republicans also didn't have a lot to run against them on when it comes to that legislation. It's not like that legislation was unpopular. It just didn't. You know, part of being a successful politician sometimes is being adaptable to new political environments. And maybe you're really passionate about, you know, these issues over here, and your activists are really passionate about them. But this moment calls for leadership and new policy on, on this area over here. Sometimes you got to switch. And I don't think the Biden administration did that. So what's going to happen to the Trump administration? The policy landscape is going to change over the next three years. And in the same way that the country turned against Biden on immigration, I don't think it's unlikely that the country will turn against Trump on immigration as well. We're already starting to see that happen in the polling and sort of the emphasis switch from a border that seems out of control to an immigration enforcement process that seems inhumane. And so the more that that becomes the emphasis over the border, I think the more we're going to see blowback against Republicans and to the point where even saying, hey, we passed all of this border spending, people that you already have in your camp will be excited about that. And I do think that Americans want a secure border, sort of a large majority of them. But the conversation may no longer be there by the time Republicans are making that argument on the economy. You know, they're always going to want to make the argument on the economy, but Democrats are going to have this opening to say, hey, you're, you're looking out for rich people. I think you put in your newsletter today the distribution of benefits to Americans across the income distribution, which is like by the Yale Budget Lab, which shows that the bottom 20% are after tax and spend, going to have like $700 less annually, and the top 20% are going to have 6 or 7,000 more. And so I don't ultimately think, I think that will be a vulnerability for Republicans, especially when they're in a spot where they want to try to say that they're now the party of the working Class. So to try to string that all together to does the legislative process itself make for less popular governing, less popular politics? I think that's probably the case too. Right. Like, who's going to argue against the bipartisan infrastructure bill? Not too many people. But who's going to argue against a sort of passed in the middle of the night while things were getting taken in and were put in and taken out, you know, bill that ultimately took health care away from poor people? I think you're going to see a lot of it.
- [12:40]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah, I think you're right and I think that is an important point, just about the degree to which different issues become salient. And I think you're Certainly right in 2018, health care is obviously a deeply salient issue. We'll see if that is the case again in 2026, especially as people start to see their insurance. You know, I think Medicaid work requirements can sound very nice in theory, and a lot of things sound very nice in theory. Once people actually start seeing changes, you know, then. Then there's a different story and then different issues become salient. You might not be worried about your health care now, but once you've lost your insurance, you might suddenly have a different top issue kind of in your kind of hierarchy of things you're basing your vote on. I do want to ask you, and I also, you know, I encourage people to drop questions in the comments. Your questions for Galen or for me, you know, about any, any of this. But I do want to ask quickly. You know, we started with, with your op ed talking about kind of, we've covered a little bit the Republican side of that equation. But to go to the Democrats, I am curious to hear, who do you think is the Democrat that maybe, obviously we're far away from 2028, but who has a shot at kind of fitting that kind of framework? I think just for me, the obvious answer to me that comes to mind is John Fetterman as someone who's kind of gone very left on some of these cultural issues around trans rights and LGBT issues, but gone to the right, obviously on immigration and Israel, which I think kind of codes more now as kind of going to the right issue where he's definitely, you know, kind of moved there. But now in the last few days and last few weeks, he doesn't seem very up to even being a senator, much less running for president. I don't know if people saw the other day he complained that voting against the big beautiful bill was taking away from his vacation. So not sure that he is necessarily going to be the one to kind of take this mantle. So who do you think kind of has the best ability to kind of go in both these directions?
- [14:23]
Galen Druke
It's a good question. And I did a 2028 Democratic primary draft with Nate a couple months ago that got too much attention for how unserious it was. But we both chose AOC as our first round pick, or I chose AOC as my first round pick, and he was like, that was going to be my pick. And then chose Josh Shapiro. And this was looking at not who can win a general election, but who we actually thought Democrats might pick in a primary. And so in a very fractured primary, if there are. If there are a bunch of people who run in 2028, somebody who has an ardent group of support, quasi celebrity, a lot of charisma and enthusiasm behind them may do well in an environment like that. But I think that if somebody is going to come in and sort of shake off the past decade of politics, that I don't think Democrats feel very good about. Um, you know, even after winning in 2020, I don't think Democrats feel great about how the Biden presidency went, obviously, like, not least of all because it ended in a Trump presidency. It's probably somebody who can do that most successfully, sort of run against what the party has been, maybe run against some establishment failures. It's probably somebody who's not super well linked to the party. And I think of people like I. I saw people at a judge mentioned in the chat, for example. I mean, he was in the Biden administration. And Gavin Newsom has been a sort of Democratic Party boogeyman for years at this point. Aoc, of course, is also extremely well tied to the Democratic Party and even some of the less popular ideas of the Democratic Party of the first Trump presidency. And so, you know, people who come to mind are maybe people like Wes Moore or Josh Shapiro who haven't been sort of stained by the disappointing past decades of Democratic politics and can sort of start fresh. I don't know that that's the direction that the party will go in, but it is the Barack Obama, Bill Clinton mold, where, like, they kind of came out of nowhere during the primary and had this bold and positive vision for the future. I think there's. There's a lot of. There's a big market for that, and I think there's a whole generation of young people who have never actually seen a Democratic Party headed by somebody who's good at politics. You know, like you have Hillary Clinton, then Joe Biden, then almost Joe Biden, but instead Kamala Harris and the sort of candidate that the youth got behind, Bernie Sanders lost twice in ways that probably felt pretty defeating for that part of the Democrats Democratic Party. And so I guess that's, that's what I'll say about the, the Democratic side. And you know that's, that's maybe doesn't fall in line exactly with the sort of Trump but for Democrats mold, although breaking with the Democratic Party of the past is I think, yeah, kind of being a fresh face is, is, is one of the important through lines.
- [17:25]
Nathaniel Rakic
I mean, I think it is so striking and you kind of put it there. I mean if you think of the, the before you take 2016 and the three previous successful Democratic nominees, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, the one thing they all had in common, as you just said, fresh faces outside the party establishment literally running against the party establishment. Just like you write in the op ed, they were like literally just anti the Democratic Party at that time. And then you take Donald Trump, who is like the most anti establishment anti party candidate anyone could possibly think of and who are the three people the Democrats run against him are literally the most party creatures you could ever think of. A Clinton, Joe Biden, who had been vice president and in politics for 50 years. And then Kamala Harris, a fresher, younger face, but certainly a longtime Democrat. And you never when was any time you ever heard Kamala Harris criticize the Democratic Party, even rhetorically, even when she was asked, you know, what would she would do different than Joe Biden. Nothing. And so it is kind of wild that when we see in polls Americans hate the political parties so much. There's so many people that, and especially young people who want nothing to do with either party. And yet, I mean, I can't think of a single criticism Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or Kamala Harris ever would have had of the Democratic Party, which is not, as you put it, is currently not a very popular institution. But they're not coming from a whole lot of popularity five years ago. The parties are not well liked. And it is quite striking that the Democrats never even tried this kind of formula ever. Kind of looking within to people that were maybe even just somewhat critical of the party, even if they weren't going to govern any differently. But even just rhetorically to try that, I mean, it's a pretty striking progression.
- [19:06]
Galen Druke
Yeah. And in some ways it might even be the trap that Democrats have fallen into over the past decade, which is whatever Trump is, we're just going to do the 180, even if that's unpopular. And so Democrats sort of pushed themselves into a space of supporting unpopular, some unpopular positions during the 2020 primary just because they were diametrically opposed to Trump, but also Trump as the chief anti establishment character, flocking to the more sort of safe establishment choices, maybe felt like the anti Trump and. And sort of what united the party was just really disliking Trump. And I do think that folks are a little exhausted by that. Not to go back to the New York City mayoral primary, which is like, literally the market for hot takes has just been like, off the charts. I mean, I know The S&P 500 in Dow hit record highs, but like the hot take stock market has just truly like. You've never seen anything like it.
- [20:05]
Nathaniel Rakic
I like that.
- [20:07]
Galen Druke
But, you know, Zoro Dani was running on issues and kind of against the. Well, against the establishment and Andrew Cuomo and running on affordability. And Andrew Cuomo was like, I can take on Trump. And I think. Well, and maybe a couple other things. And the campaign was barely strung together. But, yeah, I think people are a little bit tired of that at this point.
- [20:30]
Nathaniel Rakic
And I think, especially to your point of like, Democrats falling into the trap of just doing anything, Trump doesn't. To me, it does kind of fit into this very clear pattern of. I think the biggest. One of the biggest way they've done that is just this reflexive, defensive institutions. Whether and include it even at a time when institutions are deeply unpopular and whether that's, you know, the military and the intelligence community or, you know, you know, kind of the deep state bureaucracy or any. Or, you know, kind of foreign policy establishment, and then also political parties are in themselves an institution. And you've seen kind of this real fear on the part of a lot of Democrats, you know, you know, to criticize that institution as well. It kind of fits in, I think, to this larger picture. Yeah.
- [21:10]
Galen Druke
Gabe, I have a funny story for you, which is, I think it was 2017 or 2018, a friend of a friend was in the FBI and led the sort of LGBTQ organization within the FBI. And they marched in the Pride Parade and they got like the biggest cheers of anybody in the parade because it was like Robert Mueller era. And so all of a sudden you had this, you know, sort of subversive movement where like, the FBI, the police basically are marching down Fifth Avenue and they're getting louder cheers and sort of, you know, screams for Robert Mueller than, I don't know, the Delta gays or whoever else. And it was just like A really a very 2017, 2018 moment. But exactly to your point, even the parts of the establishment that Democrats had heavily critiqued for the first part of the 21st century as being misguided under Bush and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, Democrats are start to reflexively defend. And I think there are new members of the Democratic Party who are very happy about that, maybe former Republicans and the like. But I think that it has cost Democrats some of the more disengaged voters, more populist, curious voters who had propelled folks like Obama and the little stint for Howard Dean and folks like Bill Clinton as well. And obviously politics is, it is a marketplace and it's a game of trade offs and you can rarely have absolutely everything. But the Democratic Party has, during the Trump era, not always made decisions that have benefited themselves in the long run.
- [22:56]
Nathaniel Rakic
I think that that is clearly the case and perhaps when future historians start that over, it'll be the New York City Pride Parade, will be the historical document that will kind of surface as kind of proof of that. I am curious one question that occurs to me, and maybe there's no answer to this, but you obviously, you mentioned your Democratic primary draft and these are two separate questions, which is that was asking, as you said, who is most likely to win the nomination. You said aoc. And then the New York Times op ed, which is a different question. What the path you think is best for Democrats to win a general election, to be politically successful, you know, among independents, among, you know, in a general election environment. But let's say, let's say you're right and you win your draft with Nate Silver and AOC is the nominee. And if she does then want to take Galen Drew's brilliant advice from the New York Times of how to win in a general election, where, where could you see an aoc? Or maybe we could talk about Joan Mamdani too here. But like where, where is there any areas that she could maybe take your advice and zig to the right? I know that's a weird sentence to kind of to think of, but does anything come to mind there?
- [23:56]
Galen Druke
Yeah. Where does aoc, I mean, in her Fighting Oligarchy tour, she has tried to position herself as post partisan in a sense in some of the same ways Barack Obama did. Right. Like there's no red America, there's no blue America, and sort of position it as, instead of a conflict between left and right, Democrats and Republicans, a conflict between working people and the oligarchs or the billionaires or whatnot. And like, you know, Rich People are trying to divide us. But I'm here to unite working people and trying to reposition the conflict. I think that probably works for, it might work for marginal voters. I mean, like swing voters aren't necessarily just like old people at a diner in New Hampshire who are comparing the policy positions of each candidate fastidiously and making their decision accordingly. And so maybe that brings some people along for the ride. But I should say that part of the argument in the Times is like, if the Democratic Party also wants to be competitive in the Senate and so that doesn't mean like eking out victories at the presidential level. It means Obama 2008 style victories where like you can also also get maybe a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. And I think to do that, you do have to appeal to voters who have been viewed as ungettable in states that have been written off and take their concerns seriously. And so I think, you know, I don't see AOC doing this. I don't know. I mean, on immigration, border security and enforcement for people who are already in the country illegally can be two different issues. And while Americans may be happy with what Trump has done at the border, they may be unhappy with immigration enforcement. And so you could maybe try to position yourself as, I'm still going to be strong on the border, but I think that this immigration stuff is inhumane. There's another, you know, again, it's hard to see how an AOC type does this. But another sort of issue that I offer in the piece as a place where Democrats could potentially tack right is the debt and deficit. Right. Especially after the Artist formerly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill act gets passed and signed into law is presumably some form of it will, you know, I think probably charges of hypocrisy of like saying that you care about the debt and deficit, but then governing in a way that doesn't. Obviously this isn't natural turf for Democrats who have been the party that's, you know, talked less about this issue. And there are different kinds of arguments you can try out, like generational equality. Right. The more we spend today on boomers, the less we spend tomorrow on millennials and Gen Z and their health care and their education and that kind of thing. And so, you know, I think probably if AOC wins the Democratic nomination, she's not doing this triangulation thing so much. She's really, her ticket to ride is like authenticity and I'm going to fight for you and just trying to really hammer that home and put some of the other stuff to the, instead of taking the full on right position on it, just trying not to talk about it or something like that. Although I don't know. Like when she congratulated Zoran Mamdani on Twitter, her message was like, it was like Jordan Modani, a candidate for keeping New York safe, something something and like affordable. So I think she understands that if working people don't feel safe, they're not going to be all that excited about your like grocery store or healthcare policy or childcare policy or whatever. And so like if you actually want to represent, you know, I don't know, maybe, maybe they, maybe they do get the message that like if you actually want to represent working people, you have to take their concerns that may be out of step with your social views seriously. Tbd. If, if, if that's, if that's how.
- [27:34]
Nathaniel Rakic
They end up campaigning, yeah, definitely a big tbd. I will say not to step into another hot take minefield but, but the one area that does occur to me, and I think we saw Zoran Mamdani kind of trying this at the end stretch, I think to kind of bring up kind of the abundance framework, not that that's necessarily right coded in a traditional sense, but just in the idea of perhaps busting through regulations, which is obviously not a traditional province of progressive politicians in service of trying to achieve some of these things. Progressives have talked a lot of time as I'm going to write about in my newsletter in the next few days. Just got back from the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is definitely mostly left leaning, I would say, or Democratic leaning group of a lot of leaders across business and politics in the party. And that was definitely all the rage at the Ideas Festival was people talking about abundance. Mark Dunkelman was there talking about a similar book, why Nothing Works. And it was interesting. Mamdani, not that I don't think it fits strictly into your framework because at the end of the day that's still kind of a conversation within the Democratic Party that's very different than kind of like reaching across the aisle on immigration or anything like that. But an interesting, I think to me what I'm always looking for, politicians just making unexpected moves and I think Americans do react to that. I think like you said, most Americans are not top to bottom party line voters in terms of the issues they believe in. Most people don't think in party platforms and I do think people like politicians that also act that way and are also showing that they don't necessarily think in all the ways you'd expect that it's just kind of boring frankly. And I think and a turnoff to people. And so that's one area that I think she could at least zig or that kind of faction party can zig in a way people might not expect.
- [29:23]
Galen Druke
I think you're 100% right. And part of politics, especially now is just getting people's attention. And one of the ways that you can do that is by talking about issues they haven't heard talked about before or in ways they haven't heard discussed before. Like at this point some of the most well tread areas of conflict in American politics are just like so exhausting to people that they're just going to tune you out, right? You start talking about the, the left or right position on a whole host of issues and it's like I don't want to hear it. This isn't even interesting to me anymore. This just feels like combative and ugly and distasteful. And there are, you know, as, as polarized as we are. There are a lot of issues in American life that are. Have not been fully politicized and polarized yet. I think, you know, Harris tried to do this a little bit at the end of her campaign but you know, like housing is one of those things. You know, they also tried to pursue that with like junk fees and whatnot. Like you also have to keep in mind what's actually salient to people. Like you may put forth 10 policies that have like 95% approval but if it's just sort of eliminating airline junk fees and Americans ultimately are more concerned about these issues over here, you can't win on that. But you know, when you are trying to, it's a kind of the Andrew Yang effect. Like just showing up and being different and being charismatic and speaking in ways that don't automatically have voters tuning out has a lot of power.
- [30:52]
Nathaniel Rakic
I think that that's a great way to put it is kind of issues that haven't yet been politicized. I think you're so right on kind of how exhausted a lot of people are about like the issues that we've literally been talking about for decades. I think that is interesting to look for. And just as you were saying, another one that comes to mind again, also, not that the Aspen Ideas Festival is anyone's idea of like a good proxy for what American voters are thinking about. But another person I will say again was all the rage at this festival was Jonathan Haidt talking about his book about Gen Z, about social media usage and phones and about people's attention spans going away. And I think that's another issue that isn't really coded in any sort of political way in terms of, you know, people's relationship not with like obviously I think we've, we've litigated a lot. Like big tech and like that, that is an issue that's litigated. But people's like literal, personal, intimate relationships with their phones, with, with social media, with the kind of, you know, digital lives that we've built. I, I, anecdotally, I do feel like there's a lot of people that are not very happy with the state of those relationships in their own lives. And you do also wonder if that's an issue that any politician could kind of successfully leverage. Frankly, you could see a JD Vance, certainly a Josh Hawley too. I'm on the right doing this, but if any politician could leverage that into political success as well.
- [32:06]
Galen Druke
I offer myself as the first enrollee to a local government run program for cell phone addicts in my neighborhood.
- [32:13]
Nathaniel Rakic
Well, me too. I'm right behind.
- [32:17]
Galen Druke
But yeah, I mean, I'm curious, you know, you've been asking me a lot of questions. I got some questions for you. We've talked a little bit about the future of the Democrats. I'm curious what you think about the future of the Republicans. Yesterday, obviously, J.D. vance cast the deciding vote in the Artist Formerly Known as. I know that's getting old. Artists Formerly Known As ABBA vote. I think it's, he has, he has presidential ambitions. He has contorted himself in different ways to sort of stay within the graces of Trump and ultimately be chosen as the vice presidential pick. Is there anyone else? Is, does it seem like this is the accompli? What, what does life after Trump look like for the Republican Party?
- [33:03]
Nathaniel Rakic
I mean, I imagine life after Trump will still look like whatever Trump wants it to look like. Maybe that won't be the case, you know, three election cycles down the line. But I think that is still going to look be the case in 2028. So I just, it's hard for you to imagine if Trump does, you know, tap J.D. vance as his kind of heir apparent. It's frankly hard to imagine what Republican would even try to challenge that. Like, there's obviously a lot of very young and ambitious Republicans that you could see running. But why would you do it? If Donald Trump is going to tap Judy Vance now, he might not, he might rather they kind of fight it out over his endorsement. And you could certainly see Marco Rubio throwing his hat in the ring. I Just don't really know what the Rubio appeal would be. Obviously he ran in 2016. I don't know in the last eight years, what has kind of increased is necessarily his appeal to Republican voters. I do think Josh Hawley, who I just mentioned, is a very interesting figure. I think he's especially interesting just because he I think that the populist agenda that Trump and Vance kind of ran on, but as we've talked about having necessarily governed Josh Hawley, while he may not always vote that distinctly from other Republicans, although he does sometimes he's at least legislated. I think that populist agenda in ways a lot of other Republicans have, introducing bills or a lot of them bipartisan on social media and big tech like we've been talking about, on drug pricing, on members of Congress trading stocks, on all these sorts of populist issues, on taxes, on unions and labor issues. So I find him a very interesting figure and someone who could kind of be fitting the kind of formula that you've talked about. But at the end of the day, if Trump is making an endorsement of Vance or if Donald Trump Jr. Were to get in, it's hard to see that being much of a primary in the same way the 2024 primary wasn't much of a primary.
- [34:54]
Galen Druke
What do you make of Holly's decision to ultimately vote for the big beautiful bill after penning an op ed in the New York Times saying don't cut Medicaid?
- [35:06]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day it's not that surprising. I do think most of these Republicans, you know, we've seen a lot of Republicans who have criticized this bill, even J.D. vance himself, yo, in his post about this bill, doesn't even seem that excited about a lot of its top provisions. At the end of the day, though, it does seem like you literally have to retire, as Thom Tillis did, to be able to not actually vote for it. Or, you know, obviously, or, you know, there's the cases of Rand Paul and Tom Massey in Kentucky who, who I think are very kind of do stick to their principles, then obviously if Susan Collins is genuinely vulnerable in her state. So maybe you get a pass there or you get a pass. If Donald Trump has already kind of given up on you, as he seems to have on Paul and Massey. But if you want to stay in his good graces, I don't think there's much of an option. But I do wonder kind of the extent to what we've been talking about, I think both in terms of the Attention getting thing we were talking about in terms of low voters aren't paying that much attention to politics. And as I was in this kind of feedback loop between policy and politics, I wonder at the end of the day how much it matters. Maybe you can. And I think Vance will try to do the same thing. If he runs in 2028, he's going to try to run this very populist campaign. I think he'll be talking about potentially raising taxes on the wealthy. He'll be talking about kind of protecting the same kind of working class voters that as we've talked about, are the ones who are going to be hurt most by this bill. I think same as Josh Hawley. I think at the end of the day, I think it's possible that if you make those rhetorical moves, you try to center that as part of your campaign. Are people really going to, I've seen a lot of people saying that Vance's vote is really going to hurt him. Are four years from now people really going to remember the tie breaking vote of the Republican reconciliation package and is that going to be a big decider in that election?
- [36:43]
Galen Druke
Maybe.
- [36:44]
Nathaniel Rakic
But you know, if you, if he's, you know, making all these moves that Trump made to kind of talk, you know, rhetorically, you know, populism, both Hawley or Vance, I wonder if at the end of the day that that's going to make much bigger of an impact than a vote they took four years ago. For better or for worse. I obviously wish American politics was much more tethered to kind of the votes that people are actually casting and kind of the policy moves they're actually making in office. But, but I think at the end of the day you probably can talk, talk a good game and probably get away with votes like this.
- [37:13]
Galen Druke
And also it always comes back to so much of this is structural, right? Like what does the economy look like the second half of 2027 and the first half of 2028. And that's going to, you know, no matter how good of a campaign somebody runs, like you got to or bad of a campaign somebody runs, you also are, are, have to deal with the cards that you're dealt when it comes to some of that structural stuff, which is, you know, also going to play just as big of a role as this bill. If not, if not more of a role. Do we have any updates actually on where voting is?
- [37:48]
Nathaniel Rakic
Let's look. Last, last I checked they were kind of in a holding pattern. They're still on, on a rule vote.
- [37:54]
Galen Druke
Let's See, can we take bets on whether or not this is going to pass the House?
- [38:00]
Nathaniel Rakic
I will admit, I will admit I have, I have a bet with my roommate, a $5 bet that they will not pass it by July 4th, which I think right now kind of good on. I, they're going to pass something, as I think you said too. I think. Yeah. It looks like nine Republicans still have not voted. So they're still kind of in this holding pattern. And we're looking at these nine members, all kind of Freedom Caucus or Freedom Caucus adjacent members looks like, still have not cast their votes.
- [38:27]
Galen Druke
Because to be clear, a bill is going to pass. Like Republicans are not going to let the Tax Cut and Jobs act tax cuts go back into place. So something is going to pass. What gets attached to that is, you know, well, as we've been watching the process play out, it's, it's this stuff, but I'm sure border defense, whatever, that's almost sort of preordained for the Republican Party. And then they've in some ways got stuck with some of the promises that Trump made on the campaign trail, like no tax on tips up to a certain point and, you know, making, you know, tax deductions against car interest loan payments. And so it's, so it's sort of come together as it is. But. Right. Like the idea that this could be a, an Affordable Care act repeal failure 2.0 is not the case. Like they will pass something. I'm looking at Polymarket right now. So reconciliation bill passed by. Right now, it's July 2nd, actually 8% chance, folks say that it's passed by July 2nd. Going up to July 3rd, it's a 39% chance they're getting better by July 4th. It's a 62% chance. So folks, a majority, a majority of folks putting money on this say that they think it's going to be passed by July 4th. But you still have what, 38% saying not until after July 4th. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see who between you and your roommate gets that money.
- [40:00]
Nathaniel Rakic
What we've, do you have a bet?
- [40:02]
Galen Druke
Oh, boy. No, because you should just bet against whatever position I take. I, I have to think that people know they have to get something done and they know they've put themselves in, they're drawn like the party's just drawn in all of these different ways from, by the sort of conservative populace like Josh Hawley, the debt and deficit hawks like Rand Paul, the sort of people who will just do whatever Trump says. So you got to have the certain tax deductions, like I mentioned in. In the bill as well. And so I think they ultimately know that whatever they pass is, like, not going to be pretty and that they might as well just pass it during a holiday week when everyone's on vacation. Not to say that, like, you couldn't pass it at the end of August, and people also won't be paying a ton of attention. So what I will say, like, 100% chance that it gets passed by the end of August because we're not coming back post Labor Day to, you know, an electorate that's hungry for news or, like, opening their phones back up post vacation, and the first thing they learn is, like, 12 million people lose their health, whatever. We're not. We're not doing that. So I say, you know, why not? I'll probably pass it by the end of the week, but now it's gonna be, like, two months from now.
- [41:16]
Nathaniel Rakic
Well, there you go. So me and Galen take it opposite. I've gone back and forth on this a lot, and, I mean, I think there's been points where it has seemed like the Republicans are kind of gonna be able to meet that. What is an artificial deadline? Obviously, it's not a real deadline, but. And then points they haven't. I do wonder about kind of the psychological impact if they don't by July 4th. And then, obviously, especially if the House passes something different than the Senate and then it goes back to the Senate. You know, a lot of the reason I think it passed the Senate and Lisa Murkowski said this opening was this kind of need to get it done by this July 4th deadline. I agree with you. I don't think this is going to go certainly the end of August or the end of July. But, like, I do wonder what happens once, you know, if, like, Elise Ragski only voted for it because it, you know, she needed to get it done, they need to get done by the July 4 deadline. And then it gets changed all these ways that she doesn't like. And then suddenly, if that changes the calculus of, like, suddenly that, you know, oh, actually, this deadline we are rushing towards no longer becomes relevant. And, you know, there's a lot of Senate Republicans that still want to do multiple of these reconciliation bills. Even as of this week, we're talking about, you know, really kind of really lengthening this process out and separating the bills. I don't think that's a likelihood, but. But I do. I think, you know, a deadline always really helps force things in Washington. And once you pass it it's that much harder. Which isn't to say, I think even if they don't get it by July 4th, they'll get it done very quickly publicly after.
- [42:32]
Galen Druke
But yeah, I mean, Lisa Rakowski's comments after she voted to pass the bill almost made me feel like she was hoping that it would get changed in the House enough that it would go back to the Senate. I mean, that's what she literally said. And then I was like, well, does that also mean that you'll vote against it once it goes back to the House? Because I mean, I don't, this isn't some grand political strategy. Like, she, I don't think she's, I mean she, she's doing what she says she wants to do, which is watching out for the interests of Alaskans. I interviewed her like a week and a half ago or whatever and the theme again and again and again was like, I'm watching out for Alaskans, I'm watching out for Alaskans. And, but like in terms of trying to get a bunch of people to like you and be like a masterful politician, like, this isn't the way that you do that. Like, I think she is genuinely conflicted. And in some ways after hearing that, you know, her comments to her, I was like, I wouldn't be surprised if it went back to the Senate. She then ends up voting against it.
- [43:27]
Nathaniel Rakic
Which would be wild. I mean that, you know, she's not someone who's particularly worried about her political status just because she uniquely seems that, you know, so impervious to any sorts of threats, having won a write in campaign, you know, having ranked choice, voting in her state, having a very unique political coalition behind her. But like, it's hard to imagine a, you know, worse political image than like, you know, literally the kind of saying of like, voted for it for you voted against it. I guess this would be the, you voted for it before you voted against it. But, but like, I mean, just how confusing that would be to voters to, to a bill that won't be changing that much if this, if this scenario does happen and then she votes against it. You know, how do you really message that to voters? As you know, you've, you voted two different ways in the same bill. But, but we'll see.
- [44:10]
Galen Druke
It's also just quite the position to be like, I voted for it, but I think it's a bad bill, which you know, isn't all that different from what J.D. vance himself said. Like the rest of the bill is immaterial because the immigration provisions are so Important. It's like, oh, girls, you know, you can get the team on board. Maybe before you pass this legislation, like have a team meeting and figure out what you actually want to say.
- [44:32]
Nathaniel Rakic
Yeah, no, it is, right? I've never seen more negative comments from, from, from a party about their own piece of legislation. And this is like this is ever from Vance and Mike Johnson to Murkowski people and the moderates, conservatives of the party. I mean, it's pretty wild. And I think to, to go back to what we were saying, how the public will receive the bill, I think it's pretty telling to see how the bill's authors are receiving the bill. That'll maybe give you the first hint of how the public's going to take it.
- [44:56]
Galen Druke
Yeah. Yeah.
- [44:57]
Nathaniel Rakic
Well, Galen, I guess we will see which one of us will be right on that.
- [45:02]
Galen Druke
Oh, no.
- [45:03]
Nathaniel Rakic
Well, maybe we'll see if any money exchanges hands. But it's been so great talking with you. I really appreciate you taking the time.
- [45:10]
Galen Druke
Yeah, likewise. And to anyone who's out there who follows me but doesn't already follow you, Gabe, go, follow, subscribe to Wake up to politics. It's fantastic. It's like the news that you want, like all the, like, you get to the point. It's so useful for somebody who myself is trying to like keep track of all this stuff. So I definitely encourage folks to go.
- [45:30]
Nathaniel Rakic
Check it out and vice versa. If you are someone who, you ever just feel you're reading the news, maybe you're reading like goddamn politics. You're just exhausted with it. Check out Galen. I know I've got a lot of numbers, nerds and political, political wonks in my audience and you'll definitely all love GD politics. So I hope everyone who follows me follows Galen and hopefully we'll do this again sometime.
- [45:52]
Galen Druke
Awesome. I look forward to it. Take care.
- [45:54]
Nathaniel Rakic
Have a good one. Bye.
- [45:56]
Gabe Fleischer
We leave things there for today. I hope everyone has a great July 4th weekend. My name is Galen Druke. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@d GDPolitics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes and access to the video for the podcast. You can also join our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show. And most importantly, you ensure that we keep making a podcast that prioritizes curiosity.
- [46:24]
Galen Druke
Rigor, and a sense of humor.
- [46:26]
Gabe Fleischer
Also, be a friend of the podcast and go give us a five star rating, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.