Trump Bans Woke AI, TikTok Cancels Sydney Sweeney, and How MAGA Became Multiracial

Summary

Offline with Jon Favreau – Episode Summary: "Trump Bans Woke AI, TikTok Cancels Sydney Sweeney, and How MAGA Became Multiracial"

Release Date: July 31, 2025

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1. Trump Bans "Woke AI" and Its Implications

In the early segments of this episode, host Jon Favreau interviews Max Fisher about President Donald Trump's recent executive order aimed at regulating artificial intelligence (AI). The executive order seeks to prevent the federal government from contracting with AI companies whose technologies incorporate what Trump terms "Woke AI." This encompasses concepts like critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality, and systemic racism.

Key Discussions:

• Regulation and Free Speech Concerns: Max Fisher criticizes the executive order, highlighting potential First Amendment violations. He questions the feasibility of policing AI responses based on the vast and unregulated content available on the internet. Fisher states, "It's also feels like a First Amendment violation, though I realize the Constitution is more of a suggestion than anything else at this point." ([05:42])

• Impact on AI Development: Fisher expresses concern that AI companies might engineer their models to align more closely with MAGA-friendly ideologies to secure government contracts. He remarks, "Preventing Woke AI... that the executive order says. Preventing Woke AI. What is Woke AI, you may ask?... Proving that their chatbots do not incorporate, quote, concepts like critical race theory..." ([05:29])

• Consequences for Free Speech: Fisher draws parallels between this executive order and past attempts at censoring media, suggesting that such actions could lead to broader attacks on free speech. He notes, "There's literally a rule in the executive order that says that any Vikings generated by AI have to be white." ([06:02])

• Economic and National Security Concerns: The discussion also touches on the economic incentives for AI companies to comply with the order, given the substantial government contracts at stake. Fisher warns, "They're giving them a big carrot... which are, you know, potentially a pretty big national security concern given how many of them end up in China." ([07:51])

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2. Controversy Over American Eagle's Sydney Sweeney Ad

The episode shifts focus to the backlash surrounding American Eagle's new advertising campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney. The ad tagline, "Good genes," has sparked intense reactions across social media platforms, particularly TikTok, with some critics labeling it as having Nazi undertones.

Key Discussions:

• Public Backlash and Misinterpretations: Austin Fisher, a recurring guest, accuses the ad of being "Nazi propaganda," stating, "Saying that a blonde hair, blue eyed girl has good genes is Nazi shit." ([19:01])

• Media Amplification: Favreau and Max Fisher discuss how the controversy has spiraled into a cyclical discourse, with multiple media outlets and social media platforms amplifying the backlash. Favreau observes, "So the circle, the circle of content is complete." ([19:30])

• Critical Analysis of Reactions: Max Fisher argues that the backlash is exacerbated by social media algorithms that promote outrage, leading to overreactions to relatively benign content. He asserts, "We all have trained ourselves to look for these hidden messages in our culture and these like, hidden manifestos and political statements in the most banal places." ([25:48])

• Cultural Significance and Misuse of Symbols: The discussion delves into how seemingly innocuous phrases can be co-opted by fringe groups to propagate harmful ideologies. Fisher points out, "These examples of them doing this deliberately are so everywhere that I don't feel like I need to give them the benefit of the doubt, if that makes sense." ([28:38])

• Impact on Public Figures: They speculate on the potential consequences for political figures and public personalities if similar controversies arise, emphasizing the ease with which messages can go viral without substantial backing. Favreau quips, "You know what's going to be brutal is when someone asks Chuck Schumer whether Democrats are against, for or against Sydney Sweeney being hot." ([25:48])

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3. Interview with Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang: The Rightward Shift Among Non-White Voters

In a comprehensive interview, Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang, a political scientist specializing in voter behavior, discusses his research on the recent rightward shift among non-white voters in the United States. Hosang explores the underlying factors contributing to this trend and its implications for American politics.

Key Discussions:

• Historical Context and Research Motives: Hosang explains that his research began during the Obama administration, observing unexpected support from non-white men at far-right gatherings. He notes, "They started going to some like militia and far right rallies for our research... and the right has never been in the last few generations terribly interested in bringing any meaningful presence of folks of color, voters of color on." ([43:30])

• Economic and Social Factors: A significant portion of non-white voters express frustration with stagnant economic conditions, declining public services, and the inability of Democratic governance to address pressing issues like housing and healthcare. Hosang mentions, "Their sense is like someone else has been put first because I'm looking at the state of my schools and that hasn't gotten better for two generations or more." ([51:38])

• Influence of Modern Media and Social Platforms: The transformation of information consumption through social media platforms like WeChat has fragmented traditional community structures, making voters more susceptible to right-wing influencers and misinformation. Hosang states, "They have many, many channels... there's a whole kind of black manosphere now... influentials and hosts... it gives you a sense of like, let's work through this." ([59:38])

• Cultural Events and Grassroots Movements: Hosang discusses the appeal of conservative events like Turning Point USA's America Fest, which attract young voters of color by creating an inclusive and engaging atmosphere. He observes, "These events are a chance to join America's smartest organizers and least annoying politicians... It is fun." ([61:36])

• Lack of Buyer's Remorse: Despite policies perceived as undermining civil rights and increasing deportations, many non-white Trump voters do not exhibit regret for their support. Hosang attributes this to a lack of effective Democratic solutions and persistent economic hardships. He notes, "Most people are like, I don't know those things... they see what's happening down the street and it doesn't seem to be doing much difference." ([71:33])

• Recommendations for the Democratic Party: To regain the trust of these voters, Hosang emphasizes the necessity of tangible policy actions that directly address economic and social issues, coupled with a welcoming and inclusive approach. He suggests, "Fixing things, making sure at local levels there's a real commitment and people can see how it's impacting their lives." ([73:32])

Notable Quotes:

• "We have much more politically heterodox moment... people are mixing and matching and are much more pragmatic in terms of how they think about these questions." ([55:45])

• "It's not just one way... We have fewer people that are in, let's say, unions or churches, like traditional churches." ([49:38])

• "There's no equivalent on other groups happening. So there is a pipeline there." ([66:17])

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Concluding Insights

This episode of "Offline with Jon Favreau" delves deeply into the intersection of technology, politics, and cultural dynamics in contemporary America. From regulatory attempts to steer AI away from progressive ideologies to the complexities surrounding public advertising and the shifting political allegiances of non-white voters, the discussion underscores the intricate challenges facing American society. Dr. Hosang's insights particularly highlight the need for the Democratic Party to engage more effectively with diverse communities by addressing their immediate concerns and fostering genuine inclusivity.

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Notable Quotes:

• "AI Keeps advancing at breakneck speed with no regulation. But fear not, Donald Trump is on it." ([05:01])

• "They're using government contracts and a lot of these companies need the contracts because there's, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars at stake here." ([07:13])

• "People are trapped in their phones forever. You're never escaping." ([20:45])

• "We have to make sure ... how do we make sure that as we move into an AI world that like, yeah, sure, there'll be new jobs created." ([07:51])

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This summary encapsulates the main themes and discussions from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't had the chance to listen.

Transcript

[John Favreau]

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[Max Fisher]

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[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

About white liberals from other parts of the state telling them that they were being brainwashed and that they don't know anything about racism and they were kind of flabbergasted by it. So for this piece, I've gotten a fair amount of comments from people, Trump critics who are saying, well, why didn't you tell them they were wrong and why didn't you tell them they don't know what they're talking about? We should be clear that's not going to work or kind of further discrediting Trump in their eyes. It's not going to work.

[John Favreau]

Foreign I'm John Favreau and you just heard from today's guest, Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang. Professor Hosang is a researcher at Yale where For the last 15 years he studied the rightward shift of non white voters. So, boy, has that finally paid off. I wanted to talk to him because he just wrote a piece in the Times about his research, including quite a few interviews he did recently with non white Trump voters. Many of whom used to be Democrats. It's a great conversation. Maybe more wilderness than offline, but he does have an interesting theory about the decline of institutions where people gather in person, and the rise of online spaces as one driver of this political shift among non white voters. So we'll get into all of it, but before we do, we have a special guest joining us today to talk through the news. Max Fisher. Welcome back.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, thanks, man. What a pleasure to be here. Well, you keep having these, like, cherished auteur filmmakers on, I assumed to entice me back to the show, and it worked. You really got my jealousy going.

[John Favreau]

Gotta do a second season of Movie Club. How's Brooklyn? Are there any privately owned bodegas left?

[Max Fisher]

They've all been seized by Zoran.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. Has he already seized the means?

[Max Fisher]

I have joined the Zoran Red Guards, and I'm actually. I'm seizing the movie theaters because they're showing too many Marvel movies and we need to. Need to take them back for the people. No, I haven't seen Eddington yet because we're actually. We've been in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York for. Just to, like, ride out the heat. There's one movie theater here. It has one screen. And they're not playing eddington. They're playing 1985's Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

[John Favreau]

I love that movie.

[Max Fisher]

Well, we've seen it seven times, so this is the place for you.

[John Favreau]

I used to be very scared at the large Marge part.

[Max Fisher]

It's scary. Tim Burton is scary.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, it was a scary. That was a scary part. But I saw that movie many times as a child. Anyway, here we are during Movie Club. Absolutely nothing has improved since you left.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah. What the hell? I thought you were on it.

[John Favreau]

AI Keeps advancing at breakneck speed with no regulation. But fear not, Donald Trump is on it. He announced his AI Action plan last week at a summit hosted by. Who else? The all in podcast. It's a plan that will help speed the construction of gorgeous data centers all across America, just as God intended. And most importantly, Trump signed an executive order that bans the federal government from contracting with any AI company whose technology, quote, has been infused with partisan bias or ideological agendas. That's right, Max. We're getting rid of Woke AI. That's what the executive order says. Preventing Woke AI. What is Woke AI, you may ask? The AI companies must somehow prove to the government that their chatbots do not incorporate, quote, concepts like critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality, and systemic racism. No word on whether the chatbots are allowed to call themselves Mecca Hitler and act like Nazis, which happened a few weeks ago with Elon Musk's Grok.

[Max Fisher]

They're gonna say the EO is working.

[John Favreau]

Here's Trump talking about his eo. The American people do not want woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models, and neither do other countries. They don't want it. They don't want anything to do with it. That's why on day one, I very proudly terminated Joe Biden's order on woke AI, effective immediately. You don't have any of those crazy rules. Crazy rule. I didn't. I didn't realize that Joe Biden was forcing AI to be woke.

[Max Fisher]

I know we must have been off that week.

[John Favreau]

Famously, famously tech savvy. Woke Joe Biden.

[Max Fisher]

He was in the data centers, Right. Reprogramming the AI is personally to be woker.

[John Favreau]

What do you make of all this? Like, first of all, how do you even police the answers that come from what's already on the Internet, which is what AI is currently.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[John Favreau]

It also feels like a First Amendment violation, though I realize the Constitution is more of a suggestion than anything else at this point. I don't know. What do you think?

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, I had the exact same reaction to you. Is very Trump second term, and that it is simultaneously the dumbest thing you've ever heard. That seems like it's just, you know, signaling on behalf of maga. Very easy to laugh at. Like, there's literally a rule in the executive order that says that any Vikings generated by AI have to be white. Like, that's the thing that we're legislating now, but at the same time is also, like, maybe intentionally or just through blundering represents like, an enormous potential or at least attempted attack on free speech in the country. I mean, this really reminds me of, like, the Trump FCC threatening to withhold licenses for TV networks that report news that Trump doesn't like or that is too critical of Trump, where it's like, well, they're probably just saying that to appease the base. But it also forces the companies that are the ostensible or potential targets of this, in this case AI companies, to wonder if, like, well, should we engineer our AIs to be, you know, put our thumbs a little bit more on the scale so that they come out a little more conservative, a little bit more maga, just so that we don't incur the wrath of the Trump administration that clearly expects all of these companies to produce information that just, you know, parrots what Trump wants to believe about how the world works.

[John Favreau]

And you know, they're using government contracts and a lot of these companies need the contracts because there's, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars at stake here. And so, yeah, you could imagine some of these companies because I don't know if you've noticed, not a lot of institutions around in the United States have been standing up to, to Trump's threats. And so, and they've taken that for them, the path of least resistance has been like, I'll just do what he wants. But it is pretty, I don't know if we're going to all start relying on fucking AI to tell us, give us answers. If the, if the answers are going to be right wing coded. Now that's pretty, pretty alarming.

[Max Fisher]

And it's concerning because these systems aren't transparent, they're so opaque, partly because there's no way for even the engineers of the to determine how they work, how they arrive at these answers that we don't really know. And there's no way for us to know how much the companies are or are not trying to engineer the AIs to be more MAGA friendly in order to just avoid incurring Trump's wrath. We just have to kind of wonder at how truthful they decided to be or not to be. And Trump is giving them a big carrot too. He's giving them a big handout in terms of loosening all these export restrictions on AI, which are, you know, potentially a pretty big national security concern given how many of them end up in China.

[John Favreau]

Well, Trump's, Trump's social media Hype Man, Trump, J.D. vance. He was also at the summit and sat down with the all in besties. He's been thinking hard about how technology might replace human labor and he's decided he's for it. Let's listen when we talk to agricultural.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Industries and others where they say, well.

[John Favreau]

We really need labor. Well, there are a whole host of ways in which you can try to solve those problems. My favorite solution for those problems is automation.

[Max Fisher]

What, how are we automating manual labor?

[John Favreau]

We are deporting the, the immigrants who've been here for decades who are working in this country doing everything right, and we are replacing them with machines. I wanted to, to talk about this clip just because I have been, I mean, you and I have talked about sort of the, the threats and possibilities, but mostly threats coming from AI for a long time. And I've been thinking a lot about the, the job displacement lately because I do feel like it's coming Very quickly, I think you're starting to see even, you know, people. Kids graduate from college and having a hard time getting jobs and. And no one. The. Clearly, the AI people don't give a shit. I was. I was telling Austin and Emma I'd listen to this. The Theo Vaughn podcast with Sam Altman, which is both hilarious and terrifying all at the same time.

[Max Fisher]

I can't imagine.

[John Favreau]

But it's. It's like, you know, Theo keeps asking him, like, well, what. What's going to happen? What are we going to do for work? And all this kind of stuff. And Sam Altman was like, look, if there's. If there's an AI CEO that takes over my job, that's okay with me. I think that's cool because I'll just go do. I'll do something else, like art or music. It's like, oh, isn't that wonderful? We can all be like Sam Altman, and when the AI comes for our jobs, we'll just go do something else.

[Max Fisher]

I know it's very disturbing hearing Silicon Valley people who are, like, really high on their own supply talk about this, because I. I do think that this is probably a problem that is. I don't want to say solvable, but, like, I think there are things that you can do to kind of incorporate AI in a way that, you know, augments jobs instead of replacing them, or that makes people more productive instead of stealing their job, which is, you know, it's a round of disruption that we've been through with technology before. But the people who are working on these models, they have this vision of what AI is going to do, that it's going to replace literally all of the jobs, and that it's going to, you know, make our GDP go up by a hundred times so that we can just give everybody, you know, universal basic income forever. That is like, it's a nice vision, but it's so clearly not what's going to come to pass, that they're not at all thinking about how this would actually work. There are people who are working on this problem. They're economists who are thinking it through there. I mean, there are some industries that are already looking at ways to. Like, finance is kind of an interesting one, to incorporate it in ways that will, again make people more productive instead of making them lose their job. But this is a place where it would be really helpful to have a federal government that is actually thinking about this and that is actually thinking about how could we convene industry in ways that will guide them, but instead, what we're getting is JD Vance clearly just making bullshit up on the fly. I don't think he even really believes that AI is going to replace immigrant labor because that's gibberish. That doesn't even make any sense. And I think that this is just JD Vance doing the thing that he often does of just wanting to like toe the company line on maga. And he's also the one thing that I did think was really interesting about this clip is that he's kind of navigating this like slow motion kind of breakup kind of coming back together of the MAGA right and the tech right. Right. Like immigration has always been the big dividing line between these two camps. Like the all in boys really believed Trump when he said that he was going to staple a green card to every college degree. And clearly that was never true. Trump is absolutely siding with the MAGA of white nationalist right against the tech right on immigration, on labor and on the workforce. And I think what Vance is trying to do is trying to give the all in guys who are ultimately just toadies who want to like cow to Trump, give them a very, very thin excuse to do that and to say like, oh well, Trump has a solution for this. He's going to use AI to replace migrant labor. But I think that you do see murmurings on the other parts of the tech right. As much as I don't like them or agree with them that they know that this is and I think they know that they're getting taken for a riot on Trump. I don't know if it will come to anything, but I am curious, you know, we're going to start seeing spending on the midterm soon and I'm really curious what is going to happen in the tech world that spent so much for Trump and got really betrayed by him and he's getting fobbed off by these bullshit excuses from JD Vance that they're going to get what they want.

[John Favreau]

Although you know what they did get, they got a fuckload of tax breaks in the, in the bill that just passed, including like special Silicon Valley carve outs and stuff. And so they're getting a lot of what they, they've asked for on the, the economic front, minus the tariffs.

[Max Fisher]

Although, I don't know, I think that, I mean there's also, there are a lot of cuts to things like energy to EVs that I think that they don't like. I mean, I think Elon, as crazy as he is, is kind of a useful barometer here for the tech right. And I think that the fact that he is still so outside the camp is kind of telling, but I'm sorry, please go ahead.

[John Favreau]

No, I was just going to say that the JD clip there, it sort of highlighted for me just one of the many reasons it is so. It's so problematic to have basically no government or a government by, by meme or just solve performative politics or whatever. Is, is AI because this is like a massive shift. And like you said, we've gone through these shifts before, technological shifts before, but first of all, we haven't handled the other ones that well. We are still dealing with the fallout from, you know, post industrial information economy, job displacement. We, that's, it's sort of shaped our politics now for the last several decades. We haven't solved it and it's just made things. And now we have basically no capacity, no political capacity to do anything, let alone try to get some regulations in place to sit down and actually think about how we make sure that as we move into an AI world that like, yeah, sure, there'll be new jobs created, I'm guessing, but like, what will those jobs be? How do we help people prepare for those jobs? Like all those questions that a normal functioning government might ask and debate. We're not even like, we're not even trying to debate them. We're just doing a no woke AI executive order and calling it, calling it a day.

[Max Fisher]

And they're not even looking out for their own constituents, which is something that you see, you know, you see with AI, although it's hard to say exactly which industries will or will not be impacted. But you see, especially with the mass deportations policy and not just the fact that they are targeting huge numbers of undocumented and legal immigrants who are constituencies that, you know, as we all know, moved a little bit towards Trump in this last election and towards Republicans, but also just the economic impact that mass deportations would have when you're carving out multiple percentage points from your labor force, when you're destroying whole industries and when you're cutting a bunch of tax revenue out of social services. Because of course, the Republicans who spent years lying and saying that immigrants are a net drain on social services when the opposite is true and they're net paying into it because most of them are working.

[John Favreau]

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[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

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[Max Fisher]

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[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

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[John Favreau]

All right, let's pivot to the most urgent and consequential discourse of the week. Is it fascist to be hot now? This week, retailer American Eagle announced a new ad campaign with actress Sydney Sweeney that comes with the tagline. Sydney Sweeney has good genes. A bit of, you know, just barely serviceable wordplay on the jeans she's wearing and the jeans she inherited. This being 2025, though, the ad has kicked off a firestorm that's led to angry tiktoks, lengthy think pieces, backlash to the angry takes, backlash to the backlash, and a meta Discourse about the discourse, which is what you're getting from us today. But first, here we are. Here's a sample of the critique. You guys are complaining about that Sydney Sweeney jeans ad.

[Max Fisher]

So I went and saw it.

[Austin Fisher]

That's Nazi propaganda.

[John Favreau]

Wow.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

If you haven't fully comprehended how bad.

[Austin Fisher]

It is, I need you to open.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Your eyeballs and listen. This is Nazi, pure Nazi. Saying that a blonde hair, blue eyed girl has good genes is Nazi shit.

[John Favreau]

Max, are you sorry you agreed to come back for today? Are you, are you regretting your decision?

[Max Fisher]

No, not at all. Because next we have joining us to discuss is Sydney Sweeney, Isn't that right?

[John Favreau]

Here she comes. Third chair, good jeans, good genes.

[Max Fisher]

That would look, if you wanted to replace me in the end with Sydney Sweeney, I would be sad, but I would accept that I would get it.

[John Favreau]

So I noticed this for the first time. Well, Austin brought it to my attention. We were thinking about topics and I'm like, the Sydney Sweeney discourse. What? And then I, and then I encountered it on social media and then I started texting it around, as I do to various friend groups and, and then Peter Hamby, I sent it to him and then he tweeted out something that we're now going to talk about on the show. So the circle, the circle of content is complete.

[Max Fisher]

The snake eats its own tail. I love it.

[John Favreau]

So Peter said the Sydney Sweeney ad backlash is a product of what cultural analysis has become in newsrooms. Writers lazily chewing on whatever is getting attention on TikTok. Grim. Grim indeed.

[Max Fisher]

And it has ever been thus, because.

[John Favreau]

I was like, is this just a, like something that's happening on TikTok? And it's here and there, but, like, there was a Washington Post piece about it. There was many other pieces about it now. And then our friend Charlie Warzel has a, has a piece in the Atlantic about the discourse, which now we're, and now we're talking about that. So is there an end to this cycle? Why can't we seem to help ourselves here? What is going on? Are we trapped?

[Max Fisher]

I, I, I mean, yes, we are all trapped in our phones, including here in the middle of the woods in Woodstock, New York. You're trapped in your phones forever. You're never escaping. I do think there are a couple interesting things going on here beyond the usual just like, bullshit online attentional outrage chasing. Although, by the way, what an incredible hack to go viral to attach your moralizing outrage post to images of an extremely beautiful celebrity. I can't believe I never thought of this. Like, look out for my next viral tweet, was Pedro Pascal Cecil the Lion's real killer? Was he? Can he prove that he wasn't? We're going to find out. We're going to. And you'll read about it in the Post.

[John Favreau]

What does Sydney Sweeney have to say about Epstein's list? Answer is nothing. But you clicked.

[Max Fisher]

Her silence is deafening. When will she finally speak out? No, I mean, I think as we have said many times before with like, kind of silly outrages come up when people feel scared and powerless because of what is happening in our country and our politics, we naturally look to channel those feelings against some target that feels more easily within reach and feels a little bit less scary to grapple with. Like, it's really hard to fight against the actual white nationalism being violently imposed by ICE on our communities. It's a lot easier to yell at the made up white nationalism supposedly being imposed on our culture by Levi's.

[John Favreau]

American Eagle. It is American Eagle.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, is it American Eagle. Okay, sorry to the Levi's Corporation, you.

[John Favreau]

Know, is eagles Nazi coded too? Who knows?

[Max Fisher]

Maybe there's a lot to unpack there.

[John Favreau]

A lot to unpack.

[Max Fisher]

Something else, though, that I do think is, I don't know, it's kind of an interesting aspect to this is that Sydney Sweeney, as you may know, through no fault of her own, has become held up as this kind of symbol by the white nationalist right of embodying this, like, imagined, you know, past that they are fighting for the, like, this is what they took away from you. I feel pretty bad for her that that has happened to her. But I think that part of what's happening is that people are aware of that. People are aware that, like, the Nazis think Sydney Sweeney is their new flag and they think they are oversensitive to, but naturally attuned to and ready to be outraged by anything that feels like it's an echo of that. I don't think that's what American Eagle intended. I just think that they were saying, look at how hot the celebrity is. I think that's all the ad was.

[John Favreau]

You think?

[Max Fisher]

But, but it's just to say that, like, if I can, if I can strain to be sympathetic, I do think it's that feeling of, you know, it's like when every time Trump does something really horrible, what do people get outraged about? They get outraged about the, you know, New York Times headline writing up the horrible thing that he did because it's easier to yell at the New York Times than it is to yell at Trump because we can't do anything about Trump. So I understand the kind of directional thing that's happening.

[John Favreau]

We did go through all this once before when everyone thought that like the Nazis liked Taylor Swift for a while and everyone thought that Taylor Swift was sort of right wing, white nationalist coded. You know, there's the, the white nationalists who may be claiming Sydney Sweeney as their own. There's also just the traditional maga right, which has been like, oh, the left doesn't like hot women and now we're reclaiming hot women. So that's another slice of the discourse as well. But from the naturally, as a political hack, my mind went to the right, jumped all over this and was like, oh, the left hates hot women now. This is the new, this is the new leftist thing. And I do think it's like if Austin had never said to me, do you. Have you heard the Sydney Sweeney discourse? And I somehow was off my phone and never, never watched it and I just saw the ad for the first time, I would never have imagined that the ad was controversial. That's just me. And I also imagined that if I had put that in front of, I don't know, a polling sample of 5,000Americans, the percentage who thought that it was Nazi coded, a right wing code or anything, I don't know, I'm 1%, 2%.

[Max Fisher]

I know we have all become a little bit QAnon in the way that we have all trained ourselves to look for these hidden messages in our culture and these like, hidden manifestos and political statements in the most banal places. And like, guys, I don't think that's what's in there. I don't think it's a great ad, but I don't think that there's anything weird about saying that Sydney Sweeney is hot or like a Nazi agenda there. But this is something our phones have trained us to do, is to find these, like, hidden signals and hidden symbols and then to, you know, blow them up online and to say, I found this thing that we all need to now rally either behind or against. So as always, I would rather blame the phones and blame, you know, the TikTok algorithm that incentivizes and rewards and promotes this shit over, you know, whatever random person decided that they read an ad this way. I don't really care if someone reads an ad a different way than me.

[John Favreau]

You know what's going to be brutal is when someone asks Chuck Schumer whether Democrats are against, for or against Sydney Sweeney being hot. I want to see the answer to that one. That's going to be Viral.

[Max Fisher]

We've had worse discourse cycles than asking loyalty oaths for. Can you affirm that you agree that Sydney Sweeney is hot? I would sign it.

[John Favreau]

Let's pivot to some real fascist propaganda. Last week, the official Department of Homeland Security Twitter account tweeted out a photo of a famous painting depicting an allegory for American manifest destiny with a caption that many are considering a Nazi dog whistle. The caption reads, a heritage to be proud of. A homeland worth defending. John Gat's American Progress on X, the Everything app where it all happens, people were quick to point out that both H's are capitalized, and the caption contains exactly 14 words. If you are not a white nationalist or deranged like us, you might not be aware that 14 words is a rallying cry for white nationalists that was originally attributed to American domestic terrorist David Eden Lane. The double capitalized Hs more simply appear to reference the phrase Heil Hitler. Max, what do you think? Too much red string here or just enough?

[Max Fisher]

I mean, just for people who are God bless you not familiar with the 14 words or the double H. Like, that's not just us reading into it. If you were a white nationalist, one of the things that you were supposed to do to kind of signal to other white nationalists is you make references to the number 14. You make references to double H. Like, this is an idea that that community has generated, but in this specific case, like, it's impossible to say. But that is the point. Often when these kinds of things like, for years and years, the Nazi far right and including elements in the Trump campaign going back to 2016 have played this game, which they are internally very open about, wanting to play and seeking to play of this, invoking Nazism and invoking references to Nazism just openly enough to get a reaction so that people like you and me who know the dog whistles will recognize it, but just deniable enough that they can then ridicule people for reacting to it and saying, oh, how dare you react to this? And it shows that you're humorless, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's trolling. It's designed to be trolling. And the point is both to kind of frog boil Nazism into our culture by baking in more and more little references to it, but at the same time to make people look and feel silly for calling that Nazism out. So whether or not this was a deliberately specific instance of that, you know, I don't know. But these. These examples of them doing this deliberately are so everywhere that I don't feel like I need to give them the benefit of the doubt, if that makes sense.

[John Favreau]

It does make sense. And, you know, I think Tim Waltz at a speech a couple months ago called ICE the Gestapo. And then, and then they've also figured out, like, enough Democrats are calling ice, have called ICE the Gestapo or Trump's Gestapo, that they've now cut together some video of all these Democrats saying it. And then they like to put that next to, you know, the worst of the worst criminals that they're. That they're deporting and they're wrapping all of these posts and everything else in like traditional Americana. Right. To try to claim American and American history for themselves and their bullshit. Like they're, you know, now that they have 45 fucking billion dollars to hire 10,000 more ICE agents. Just yesterday they had the Uncle Sam we need you poster that they were all tweeting because to get people to join ice, to apply to ice signing bonuses, all the rest, loans forgiven bullshit. It's really. This is. It is. Is sinister. And I don't think. And like it is exactly for the reason you suggest, which is it's not necessarily like there's a bunch of white nationalists at DHS who are trying to send signals to other white nationalists, though. Probably.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[John Favreau]

But more likely it's this. Is it trolling? Is it not trolling? Can we, can we get the libs angry? Can we troll the libs? Can we own the libs? Can we make them cry? Can we make them seem hysterical? And then that helps our agenda.

[Max Fisher]

Right. And that's always, again, this is like you could go back and read openly. This is something that comes very specifically from white nationalist neo Nazi forums and white nationalist neo Nazi platforms that were really big in boosting Trump in 2016. Some of these same people are kind of cycling in and out of Trump world and these outlets. So it's not like we're not making up a connection. But the agenda for behind this tactic is, as you say, to draw people out to accuse Trump of being the Gestapo and accuse him of being a Nazi so they can ridicule it. But part of the strategy is very much to do a Gestapo and to do Naziism.

[John Favreau]

Right.

[Max Fisher]

That has always been part of the strategy. So I think it's not just like, oh, we want to trick you into calling ICE the Gestapo. And I think it is also we want to make ICE the Gestapo. And I'm sure that no one is sitting around in the White House saying we're going to do Nazi stuff now, but it's not a coincidence that explicitly neo Nazi messaging strategies are now part of coming out from the Twitter accounts of federal agencies, Department of Homeland Security.

[John Favreau]

Don't we feel safer?

[Max Fisher]

I know. Don't you feel that Homeland is secure?

[John Favreau]

Finally, 404 Media recently reported that T, the viral woman's dating safety app, has experienced a series of data breaches. Breaches exposing the private messages, phone numbers, photos and even driver's licenses of thousands of the app's users. If you're not familiar, which I was not, T is a fast growing app designed to help women spot red flags of the men they're trying to date and report bad behavior about men they have dated. T screens all users who join the app, requiring users to submit a photo to prove their gender, and up until 2023 required users to submit a photo ID. Let's talk about the data breach. How was it discovered and what data has been compromised here?

[Max Fisher]

So apparently when the tapp, as you mentioned, would ask users to submit a selfie and a picture of their ID to verify their identity, it would claim that we are just going to hold this image temporarily and then instantly delete it, which is customary for any sort of online ID verification. There are tons of services like this and in fact, what the TAPP was apparently doing is out of laziness. It was just storing all these images on a server in perpetuity that was more or less unprotected. They were just uploading them to like basically the equivalent of an unguarded Dropbox account. Users on 4chan who were mad about the tapp for reasons we can get into, discovered this, grabbed up the Data for about 72,000 users, including the selfies that they took pictures of their driver's licenses and photo IDs and then uploaded them all on the Internet publicly in order to humiliate and punish these 72,000 women for participating in this app they were upset about.

[John Favreau]

What do you make of the strong backlash From Men On 4chan to this app?

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, so in a lot of ways this is just a continuation of the same toxic male misogyny that has been at the center of 4chan culture for literally decades now, especially when it comes to anything related to sex and dating. This is the site that really helped birth a lot of these movements like Incels and Men rights activists for Gamergate partly originated and all comes out of this long standing belief that, you know, quote unquote, social justice warriors and feminists are seeking to emasculate and control men as part of this, like, hidden secret war of the genders that's happening and that men are being, are under attack by women. And so to the extent that the T app was engineered to help women gain a little bit more autonomy and agency and online dating, these men unfortunately took this as part of this larger, you know, attack on their independence as men that needed to be met with coercion and hacking and public harassment of the sort that have been there like favored tools, you know, going back to Gamergate many years ago. But I think what is interesting about this is that mixed up in all of this and separate from the 4chan bullshit that motivated the hack, like the Tapp has been kind of controversial for a little bit. And it is, it's this kind of interesting double edged sword to me, where on the one hand it was designed to help answer this very real problem and need that was created by our collective shift to online dating.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Right?

[Max Fisher]

Like basically everyone meets through the apps. Now when we used to date, it was through in person networks, you know, friends, college. And that would come with this kind of social referral where you would know the person you were going on a date with was like legit and they were okay and they were not going to be a threat to you before you invited them into like your private life, invited them into your home, whatever. Now that we've moved on to the apps, these people are just strangers. We've kind of lost that natural social network safety check and that is especially dangerous to women. And the Tapp is kind of meant to replace that. The idea is that like, well, because these aren't people you're meeting in college where you have friends in common who can refer you. Instead we're going to link you up with this network of women who are also in dating apps who have maybe encountered this man in some context and can tell you like he's okay, he's legit, or can tell you actually be careful because he's a threat, which is a great idea. But on the other hand, the other end of this is that the app that was meant to answer some of the problems created by the like, you know, online attention app based economy ended up reproducing some of them too. Like, the marketing touts T as primarily built around safety features like background checks and criminal checks. But in practice, what the app encourages because it's subject to the same attention economy laws as any other smartphone app, is engagement. And that means gossip.

[John Favreau]

It reminded me of, remember Lulu? That one? No, that was, that was a couple years ago. And that was basically women could anonymously rate Men that they dated or hooked up with and it was public.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, it's, it's very similar.

[John Favreau]

Tapp is much more like these are safety features. Whatever. Lulu was just like, oh, this guy sucked or he was lame or whatever. Yeah. It is a consequence of online dating that we have Yelp reviews now, right?

[Max Fisher]

Yeah. And so it's on the one hand, like that is a good impulse to have that to have people be able to flag someone to say this person is a threat. But on the other hand, when the app is designed around engagement, you know, what have we seen? Rises on any engagement based app is not the most responsible or pro social behavior, but it's often it's toxic behavior. What's the most toxic? I mean, the app is named for a slang term for gossip. So I really, I want to be clear. I'm not holding the, like women on this app accountable for the ecosystem that the app set up, but I think you are sending mixed messages when you're dating. Safety app is also named for a slang word for gossip. And there's, you know, there's privacy concerns because they basically the app is setting up what's called a shadow profile for men. And shadow profile means it's a social media profile that you have without your knowledge or consent, but that is of you. And I think that there is some legitimate, you know, is it. Should men have a chance to consent into this before their image is used by this app? A profile is set up for them where anyone can comment and say anything they want about them. So it's, you know, I think this is a good, this is a need that needs to be filled. But the economic incentives and the engagement incentives of the app based economy have created an answer to it that is maybe not necessarily the best one, but I do hope that someone creates another version of this app that is geared maybe a little bit more towards safety and less towards encouraging engagement and that maybe has some fucking security features instead of putting everyone's driver's licenses on an open server.

[John Favreau]

Also imagine if a man started a website where you could just rate the hotness of women on campus. What would happen to that guy? Probably he could end up running one of the largest social media platforms in the world and has built a nice little bunker for himself in Hawaii.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, right, right. I mean there is a, like, there is almost a like, turnabout is fair play here where it's like, okay, we had 20 years of face mash being the basis of our app based economy, so should women get a turn now and like I am sympathetic to that. I don't think it should just be women's safety zaps who are required to be pro social, but the broader. It's a symptom of the broader social web. Encouraging, not always the healthiest behavior, for sure.

[John Favreau]

And apps that are saying, hey, take a picture of yourself. No privacy there. Just letting you all know. No privacy there.

[Max Fisher]

This is one of the things that really upset me about this is, as you know, I'm a big proponent of. I think that we should all have real identity verification to be on the web. I think that that's in everybody's interest. But fucking T being so careless with everybody's personal data is going to make it a lot harder to set up the next one, for sure.

[John Favreau]

Max, it was good talking to you, buddy.

[Max Fisher]

It was great.

[John Favreau]

Thanks for doing this. And you know, next time I bring Sydney Sweeney on, I'm going to think twice and say maybe I should get Max on instead.

[Max Fisher]

I think we could have both of us on. I would be willing to share the chair with Sidney, so to speak.

[John Favreau]

Austin is just shaking his head now.

[Max Fisher]

You should. That's correct.

[John Favreau]

Juni's barking. Austin shaking his head. It's time to go.

[Max Fisher]

We're all upset.

[John Favreau]

Max, thanks for joining. We've missed you here. Come back again soon.

[Max Fisher]

Anytime, pal.

[John Favreau]

All right, in a moment, you'll hear my conversation with Daniel Hosing. But before you do some quick housekeeping, we have some very cool news to share. The folks here at Crooked Media and Vote Save America are hosting our first ever Crooked Con. Crooked Con is a chance to join America's smartest organizers and least annoying politicians. We're gonna strategize, debate and commiserate about where we go from here. And hopefully it's up. We will be in Washington, D.C. november 6th and 7th. It's gonna be great. We're gonna start with a Pod Save America live show at the Warner theater on Thursday, November 6th. And then on Friday, November 7th, we'll be at the Wharf, joined by some of the most influential names in politics for a full day of conversations, workshops, live pods, as we all figure out how to build a big pro democracy movement that can defeat the rising. It's already risen. Really. Authoritarianism. Before it is too late. This is going to be really fun. I think it's really important. We're going to have some real honest, good conversations. Hopefully productive conversations also have a lot of fun. So tickets are on sale now. Head to crookedcon.com for tickets, lineup announcements and more. That's C-R-O-O-K-E-C-O-N.com and we have a discount code that you can use to buy your November 7th ticket early. The discount code is FREEDOM and CONTENT. One word. All caps. Freedom and content. Discount tickets are limited, so act fast. Up next, Dr. Hosang on the rightward shift of non white voters. Offline is brought to you by Amnesty International usa. Right now, the world feels like a mess. A dangerous playbook is unfolding at pretty shocking speed. The Trump administration's anti rights agenda is fueled by efforts to intimidate silence and punish opposition. We know many of our listeners want to do something and that's where Amnesty International comes in. For over six decades, Amnesty International has been on the front lines of protecting human rights from bullies and bad guys. They're aggressively pushing back against Trump's cruel mass deportations. They're working hard to bring home people unlawfully sent to El Salvador. And and they're protecting your right to peacefully protest Trump's policies. In short, they're standing up for truth, accountability and refuse to let Trump style cruelty become the new normal. Amnesty doesn't accept funding from governments for its research and campaigns. Instead, they rely on people like us to power their work. In a time of increasing misinformation, disinformation and intimidation, they pride themselves on their independence to hold human rights abusers accountable. Amnesty works diligently to protect human rights whenever and wherever they're denied. Visit amnestyusa.org to help to make your tax deductible donation today and your gift will be triple matched. That's amnestyusa.org help.

[Austin Fisher]

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[John Favreau]

Daniel welcome to Offline.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

John, thanks for having me. I really appreciate the invitation.

[John Favreau]

Appreciate you being here. I want to start with some context for our audience. Since 2012, Republicans have gained around 20 points with Latino voters around 16 points, with Asian voters around 8 to 9 points with Black voters, all under the leadership of Donald Trump. You have been studying these trends As a political scientist for 15 years. I believe. Why did you start looking into this and when did you begin to notice a shift?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

So our work on this actually began really during the first Obama administration. So right after the kind of Great Recession and the foreclosure crisis, we just started noticing how, I mean, you'll remember, and I wrote about this in 2012, the autopsy report that comes out of that election, and the Republicans cautioning their own leadership, they had to tack back to the center. They were in danger of losing people for a generation. I, like many people, thought that seemed like just baked in. But in the Pacific Northwest, where I was based at the time, as kind of like the Trumpist feeling, even before the elections are leading up, we started going to some like militia and far right rallies for our research. And we were surprised to see a small but not insignificant number of primarily men, men of color, who seem to be playing really important roles, legitimating that sense of feeling left behind outside, kind of sacrificed by a certain system. And the fact that it was men of color speaking to that experience rather than, I mean, there's a long history of like, ethnonationalism in the Pacific Northwest. It gave it, it wasn't just a, like, look, we're not racist. It was like, no, who knows more about what it means to feel left behind by a government than a black Latino man in some ways. And so even though the audiences there were mostly white, there was something very important about that shift. And look, the right has never been in the last few generations terribly interested in bringing any meaningful presence of folks of color, voters of color on. So that was the first sign there was some shift saying that. John, in 2016, after Trump's entrance, I would like everyone else thought, there's no way he can win an Obama electorate in there. And had you told me at that time that every single election he was going to increase his margins, I would say that's just impossible. It's just what he's done. And that's what we're trying to figure out.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. And it's interesting because after 2016 in some ways was an outlier, at least with Latino voters, because Hillary Clinton did do quite well with Latino voters. And I almost think that that might have masked sort of the underlying trends and the problem that we were facing. And, you know, I think, I think the post election analysis of 2016 in some ways sort of contributed to the Democratic Party's blindness towards this issue, because whenever someone said, oh, it was economic anxiety that led voters to Trump, you know, it was dismissed as, of course, it's not economic anxiety, it's racism. And so it was a lot of white, you know, non college educated white voters moving towards the Republican Party, moving towards Trump out of, because of racial resentment. And there was all kinds of studies done, you know, that tracked racial resentment in the Trump vote. And so I do think that obscured it. But how did you see that back in 2016 or post2016?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think both can be true. Just to your point, on Latinos and the Clinton campaign, I mean, she and the Clintons have strong ties to places like South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, parts of South Florida, other parts, you know, connections to elected. So it's not surprising that on that first for that campaign, just like kind of older black voters, she had institutional connections. So they'll say, folks, but I mean, I think looking back, I mean, you know, right after 2012, it's actually communities of color that are struggling much more to come back from the foreclosure crisis. It's also at the time when the opioid epidemic kind of, you know, shifts from this regional crisis to something far more general. It's reaching the cities. So just that sense that, like, you know, I went back to write this piece to that, you know, a speech, you probably know, well, the 2012 inauguration address. And it, and it's not that the tone was unexpected, that made sense. Right. This is, we want to be inclusive, forward looking, et cetera, but this notion that our best days are inevitably ahead of us, what a bright future we're having. You could just see it right underneath what was happening with foreclosures and opioid epidemics and deaths of despair that weren't just limited to those kind of white communities. And I think that's what we missed in that time.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, Look, I remember flying around in 2012 in the reelection campaign with the president and Obama saying then if we win this one, maybe the fever will break and finally and Republicans will want to work with us and we can get more done. And I do think part of the challenge for the second Obama term was we didn't have much of a legislative agenda that we could pass because of Congress. And so he naturally turned towards actions he could take that were either, you know, related to foreign policy, international affairs, or things you could do without Congress. And that necessarily is not going to make a tangible difference economically for a lot of people who are struggling because we just didn't have the votes to do that anymore.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah, I mean, this raises a larger point about it's not just about gridlock. I mean, the kinds of financial, like economic inequalities and wealth inequalities. What's happened to housing markets? These are outstripping what are in the traditional arsenal of progressive policies. So think about housing. Right, Some inclusionary zoning, renters rights, subsidies, etc. A place like San Francisco, Louisiana, New York, that's not going to even put a dent in it. Yeah, so, you know, and the same thing with income inequality. We're not just talking here about a child care subsidy on the margin, you know, or, or another expansion of healthcare access. Those are important. But the issues that were driving these voters, and that's what actually I worry about, that we're not just what's a better messenger or message, it's what's governance look like at a time when the crises have grown so acute, when people feel so cynical about the conditions they're facing. What do you say to them in the face of that?

[John Favreau]

Yeah, you make a point. I mean, the reason I thought about talking to you is you have this piece in the New York Times last week about a lot of this and you write that to understand the movement towards the right among non white voters, we have to understand the transformations in the places they are happening. What are some of those transformations in those places?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah, so I spoke to voters in black voters in Milwaukee, Asian Americans in San Francisco and Latinos, mostly Mexican Americans in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. So let's, I mean, Milwaukee, many other kind of Midwest aging industrial city, but again, also one that was really decimated by the foreclosure crisis. So you now have lots of out of town landlords who swept in and brought properties. So there was just a huge kind of like transfer of generational wealth even in black working class communities from Scott Walker, the kind of attack on public sector unions that took place in the state of Milwaukee, public pensions, the kind of withering of public goods. So just across those eight years, and you know, I talked a lot of those voters who were now Trump supporters said I was so happy to see Obama in the White House, even symbolically, it meant something I could understand a measure of, you know, he can't do everything. But there was just some sense that very concretely life, the kind of quality of life just continued to erode during that time. And if you look at now again, opioid epidemic, episodes of violence, declining schools, et cetera. So what many of them said to me is, and just to contextualize this, they might say, look, I think about marriage in so called traditional ways, LGBT rights. That's not my first, but many of them also said, but I want to be clear that I'm not like that's not what gets me up in the morning. I don't hate folks. But what they're. Often their sense is like someone else has been put first because I'm looking at the state of my schools and that hasn't gotten better for two generations or more. I'm looking at what's happening. Life is just more and more of a grind. And in a two party system, they're saying it's all Democrats in my city mostly who are representing us in the state legislature nationally. They don't seem like they're open to anything. So that's why I'm now open to these appeals from Republicans.

[John Favreau]

And I do think, I mean, it seems people are frustrated with the Democratic Party's inability to improve their lives and communities in tangible ways. And that's jobs, incomes, housing, cost of living. It also seems like there's some frustration with crime, safety, public services that don't work well or work at all that are really frustrating. Did you get that sense as well?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's just, yeah, people want things to work, you know, even on. I had these really interesting discussions about immigration and migration. And you know, this one cafe owner I spoke with said, look, I think of my, the cafe is not around anymore but, but it's an open place. I like, I welcome people. I think it's a community spot. I have this black, he's a vet, he's barely hanging on, barely. Like every penny has to count from his VA benefits. And then he says, I saw this woman, she came in, she was really interesting. We talked. She told me that she has this housing voucher for two years that's putting her up in this hotel and she has money. And she really took pains and said, I identify with her in many ways. But I also thought about my other guy over there like he's scraping by for everything. And you told us you had nothing left. So for me it's just another example of where sometimes it's crime, sometimes it's other things. And there's no solutions offered by the perception Democrats, these explanations that someone else has cut in front of. You seem to have new kinds of residents.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. I do think that the Democrats have underestimated the concern over this idea of line cutting that I think is usually associated with working class, poor white Americans being upset that, that non white Americans are getting benefits. But that's also an issue with immigration and migration, especially in the, in the Biden years, I think.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah. And I don't think it has to be. I think, you know, there's nothing inevitable with that. Right. We could point to all the cuts that have been made in the safety net during that time and the role Republicans played in that. So there's nothing natural about that. But lacking another explanation, it's not surprising to see people say, this is where I'm at and this is how I'm understanding why it feels so tough day to day.

[John Favreau]

How salient are racial identity and issues of race and social justice to these voters?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah. Such an important question because I think the long standing assumption that many people, liberals on the left is if you're a person of color on the right, you're kind of in this colorblind space. I don't see race, we're in a post racial time, et cetera, that was really long. The template, in order even to be legible to Republicans, that's what you had to say. Almost all of these voters I talked to would not say that. They would say, not just I acknowledge I'm black, I'm Latino, Asian American. That's a big part of who I am. My concern for black communities, my experience as an immigrant, my concern with language. So it's not any kind of deracialization. I mean, they might also say I'm an American too. And that's not a kind of like, like, well, what percentage are you? This and what percentage. They can imagine both. But I just want to say it's not that they've somehow lost interest in those questions, but increasingly I think their sense is liberal governance and policies, which their account of it is, talk a lot about what they're going to do, don't really deliver much, and then tell me to be grateful and if I'm not, you know, there's something wrong with me. They're done with that. And I also thought they had a more sophisticated understanding of Trump and kind of MAGA than many people imagine, which is, I don't think he's this kind of like Christ like figure, but we don't have other options. He seems like he wants to stir some things up. Cut waste, cut fraud, put people first. I'll give it a chance. Yeah.

[John Favreau]

I always talk about the difference between Trump fans and Trump voters because I think what we see, what liberals see, especially in the media, is Trump fans. And on social media, Right. You see Trump fans and so you think everyone's a Trump fan who voted for Trump but there's just a lot of Trump voters who did so, you know, supported him with quite a few reservations and just have a much more nuanced view of him and his movement. Yeah.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Or, you know, like other, like, I'm gonna give him a chance. You know, I talked to people who are Bernie folks in 2016 and said they were for Trump now.

[John Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

So, you know, and it's a reminder we are in a much more politically heterodox moment. The idea that you're firmly liberal because of these sets of issues are firmly conservative, I think that's increasingly not the case. People are kind of mixing and matching and are much more pragmatic in terms of how they think about these questions.

[John Favreau]

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[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

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[John Favreau]

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[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

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[John Favreau]

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[John Favreau]

So this all explains why a growing share of non white voters feel abandoned or unseen by the Democratic Party, frustrated with liberal governance, especially in places where Democrats have been in power on the local level. On the state level. You also write voters of color today are shaped by many new forces, including right wing podcasts, influencers and social media, some of it specific to individual ethnic and linguistic groups that have atomized people even within their own community. Say more about this. How how is today's information environment pushing voters of color who are already disenchanted with the Democratic Party towards the right, as opposed to just leaving people feeling left out and and frustrated with both parties?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah. So first let me just say something quickly about the kind of predecessor which is just as a reminder the orientation of black Asian American Latino voters. It's something that was produced historically. It's really a post1964 development, in which case through people's unions and local Democratic Party offices, where it tended to be much more robust, and churches and civic organizations. Milwaukee had at 1.7 or 8 black newspapers. So I just want to say that every week you're having a chance to read about issues civil rights is in the social movement, governments, et cetera. So it's not something like preordained. All of those forces begin to wither right across time. So now people are kind of severed from those institutional homes in the same way or finding new ones. If you think about Asian American voters, Chinese Americans, in a place like San Francisco. But all over WeChat, the social media platform, is a big, big Source. And within WeChat, there's just dozens and dozens of channels. Some will be focused on business and on crime and on immigration and affirmative action. And you're hearing all kinds of accounts. So instead of that sense of, you know, a couple of places that might ground you and give you a public to join in, you now have many, many. It's not just one. It's many, many. And that's partly what I think. And I think just thinking about it as misinformation, there's certainly information there that's not right, is not accurate, because people need places to figure out the world. That's why your listeners and viewers come on here. It's a messy place to figure out. And so we have fewer people that are in, let's say, unions or churches, like traditional churches. And those places are just not as robust ways to kind of think through those places. So they're severed from those homes, they're opened up, then they're on WeChat and on. You know, there's a whole kind of black manosphere now, you know, a number of influencers and hosts, and they don't just tell people what to say. They talk about issues of the day and they invite people in. So it gives you a sense of like. Like, let's work through this. And I think that's what we miss out. It's not just one way.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. I was going to ask, like, how much is it specific issues pulling these voters to the right, and how much is a. A general vibe, for lack of a better word, or sort of culture on the right that's. That's appealing.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah. I'll just say so. Our, myself and folks in our kind of research team have been going to Turning Point USA Events, Charlie Kirk's group. So we've been to their America Fest, which is this big. I think last year it was 20,000 people. Phoenix Convention Center. The attention to affect and experience and feeling is stunning. You walk in, there's lights, there's music. It is fun. The first time I went, I was like, how do I dress for this? And I put on a blazer. And then everyone was dressed like you. And they were kind of looking at me like, all right, if that's your thing, you know, And I thought, like, the joke's on me because. Because this is not the like earlier version of conservatism that I had in my head even writing about it for many years. It's a Saturday at the mall and it's not just everyone in like maga hats and sequins. And you know, I think a lot of this comes from like non denominational churches where the emphasis is often in belonging over belief. And that sense of like the first thing you do is connect people. So I just can't underemphasize like how joyously it felt there. Brother, how you doing? This is amazing how few times people actually did talk about issues. There's no Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand. There's no even like, let's get behind this bill. It's really about a shared sensibility, a lot about health and wellness issues, affordability, but not in the same way we think like everyone lets a line behind this. So I think that explains a lot of just why young people are finding conservatism to have insurgency and edge and fun. And the notion is like someone said, you know, this is lit, meaning turning point. And most left spaces are cringe. They're kind of like, you know, things you like, don't want to be associated with. And I say that as someone really committed to progressive politics, but that the cultures that have come out of them have often don't feel like they're provide kind of points of entry.

[John Favreau]

And it used to not be like that. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm from the Obama era when it was, it was cool to be a part of the left.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

I mean, I listened to Charlie Kirk's podcast also because I'm trying to do it. And he basically made this point. He said he started in 2012 and his pitch to the libertarian donors that started him up was like, I'm gonna make conservatism fun again and think about in 2012, Mitt Romney. That doesn't seem possible. And why not double down on sending people to the Cato Institute and having them do a week, you know, at Heritage, like that was the way you get involved. And he said, I can make this fun. And he commented now like 12 years, 13 years later, we're having these events with 7,000 people that are parties. And I looked over, you know, the DNC just did a youth voter thing and I didn't see the coverage. But you know, in his account it's like my have the tables have turned. And certainly that's not just him, but there is some sense that like this is now where the energy's at, even I teach at Yale, so largely liberal, progressive student body. When Ben Shapiro, these folks come to campus, there's lines out the door. They feel like that's who is on the cultural edge. It's not to listen to someone talk about solar energy policy.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, no, that hit me years ago when we were doing a POD Save America live show. I believe we were in Nashville and we went to a bar afterwards and some kids came up to me and Tommy and we're like, oh, we love you guys. We listen to Pilot Save America. We listen to you and Ben Shapiro. I was like, what?

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Favreau]

And then we'd hear that, like every so often. And I do think, I mean, to your point about Charlie Kirk's, the TPUSA gatherings, the America Fest and how welcoming they are, it's interesting because, you know, the clips I always see from those events, they are villainizing people, but they.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Are all the time.

[John Favreau]

They're villainizing Democratic politicians a lot. And, you know, they love to pick Democratic politicians who are Democratic politicians of color, of course, and women. But they do, you know, with the exception of, you know, they talk about illegal migrants all the time, but they try to avoid demonizing groups of people and they sort of direct most of their ire towards politicians who aren't that popular anyway. I wonder, but like, how do you. How do you think about that? Is that right? Because I. I do wonder how, you know, if you're going there for the first time, how do you feel about, like, even if they're not talking about specific issues or Ayn Rand or all that stuff, like, it's still pretty, pretty harsh.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Oh, I want to be clear. You know, they have folks like Jack Posobec there who, if you just look at the, you know, he's behind Pizzagate. I mean, if you look at a transcript, easily, it could be at a Charlottesville unite, the right kind of place. Charlie Kirk just the other day could not believe talking about crackdowns that need to happen on legal immigration. I mean, it's the same rhetoric from the very far right nativist groups that I studied in the, like 80s and early 90s. So from the stage, nothing has moderated. But I think to your point, they don't demonize groups. You wouldn't hear them talking about, like welfare moms or something like that. And they're just not as crude as like a Willie Horton kind of thing, even though they'll say our cities are overrun or, you know, Ms. 13 gangs. So all of the codes are there, but it is, I think it's comported itself. But then the stunning thing is to listen to that and then see in the audience all these young folks of color who are kind of like don't seem to be terribly bothered by it. And, you know, and the sense is, I think they're not talking about me, they're talking about someone else. And the young leaders from diverse backgrounds who they've brought into their movement. I'm talking about hundreds of 20 year olds, you know, who are skilled, they're leading workshops, they're charismatic. They don't come across to some John Birch Society, you know, and they remind me of my students. They're kind of like idealistic. They want to change the world. And he's been going to working class campuses all over the country, setting up tables, talking to two or three people at a time. There's no equivalent on other groups happening. So there is a pipeline there That's Beyond Project 2025 of young people who see their political futures in these places.

[John Favreau]

You wrote that these events are not necessarily top down attempts at Republican outreach. They are a grassroots expression of conservatism firmly rooted in black culture. For some of the black voters who go there, I think our audience would be surprised to hear that there are black voters who see a Charlie Kirk conference as something that's firmly rooted in black culture. What do you make of that?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah, let me. I'll just say so. I certainly don't mean that the America Fest itself, there's millions of dollars behind it and that is libertarian donors far. You know. Right. Donors who are enjoying the kind of popularization of this. I was referring there especially to a whole group of black women I met who are. They're organizing now through this group called Blexit that Candace Owens is associated with. It's, you know, black exit from the Democratic Party. But they weren't even just like, oh, we're here because of Candace Owens. They would say, I'm from an hbcu. We're building chapters from our HBCU there. So they. And then, you know, I would say, well, what makes you conservative? And they would talk about it. Something in my family, something in my church, something how I think about marriage. So I just want to say this is not the person that was brought to stand up next to Charlie Kirk on the stage to kind of make him seem more multiracial. They were doing local events and TPUSA is just giving them resources to organize these events. I don't think they're widely attended. I'm not suggesting they're like this force. I'm just saying that from their perspective, they have a grassroots version of black conservatism that isn't even dependent on someone like Charlie Kirk.

[John Favreau]

You said that there's little evidence of buyers remorse among the non white Trump voters you spoke to. Even after six months of Trump dismantling civil rights and anti discrimination protections, mass deportations that include racial profiling, massive cuts to health care and food assistance. Why do you think that is?

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah, this was a big surprise for me and I concluded most of the interviews I did 45 overall. But most of them were done by May and I asked them and I thought even by then some people would say I wasn't thinking it was going to go this far. Almost everyone said he's doing exactly what he said he would do, which is their understanding of it as being disruptive, kind of just taking a hammer to the institutions. One thing I really was struck by, so several voters in Milwaukee especially said, I mean, the Department of Education doesn't mean anything to me because look at our schools. You know, we're constantly told again and again our schools are going to resources. It doesn't. So I think many, you know, especially liberals who follow politics every day say, but don't you know how important these agencies are? Don't you usaid, you know, it actually addresses issues of migration. I think to most, I don't think this is just voters on the right. Most people are like, I don't know those things. And I'm going to go by what I see down the street from me and it doesn't seem to be doing much difference. And you know, several made this, what I thought was a, I don't know, I was taken by it. They said they find it performative, all of the outrage that's assigned to what's happened because they said, well, where's the outrage? When it came to my school, you know, the what we have to navigate as well, no one seemed to care then, but now you have outrage. And this one guy said, come and fix these problems. Focus your energy there. And that's what gets us back. So I just think that we think these things. No kings another. And they certainly do organize a certain subset, but I don't think these folks see themselves represented in those kinds of areas.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, I have long thought and have not always practiced this myself, but anger on behalf of people who are struggling is more effective than anger at the other party and, and Donald Trump and the people who are screwing them over. Because I think people want to see you fighting for Them and not just fighting the other side.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yes. And I also say they have a very clear sense of the disdain with which many liberals, progressives, people on the left, told them, and they find that kind of, like, outrageous. So in Milwaukee, they would talk about white liberals from other parts of the state telling them that they were being brainwashed and that they don't know anything about racism, and they just, they were kind of flabbergasted by it. So for this piece, I've gotten a fair amount of comments from people, you know, Trump critics who are saying, well, why didn't you tell them they were wrong? And why didn't you tell them they don't know what they're talking about? We should be clear that's not going to work. Or kind of further discrediting Trump in their eyes. It's not going to work.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. So there was that long New York magazine piece right after the election where the journalist who wrote it went into a lot of these, into the Bronx and talked to some of these Trump AOC voters.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah.

[John Favreau]

About their concerns. And they raised concerns very similar to the ones you talked about about both immigration, crime, safety, the Democratic Party. And I remember posting that on Blue sky back when I started tripost on Blue sky, and I get the same kind of comment, you know, and it was like, how could you say this is. And it's like, look, we can be angry that this is the state of things. We can be angry that people don't have what we think is the correct information, but this is the reality. And in order to bring them back, you've got to be welcoming. And I do think that part of what you've noticed on the right is that there is this, like, welcoming energy for converts or potential converts. And we probably need to have the same level of energy on our side if we hope to sort of rebuild the coalition. But I do wonder if you have any other thoughts on what would win these voters back.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Yeah, I mean, again, just to answer that directly, it's fixing things, making sure at local levels there's a real commitment and people can see how it's impacting their lives. And I just think we shouldn't be surprised in the wake of the pandemic and again, foreclosure, crisis, war, et cetera, that people sense like, gosh, I have to navigate everything myself, like I'm on my own. So if we want to rebuild trust, that collective projects, climate change, the economy, healthcare, et cetera, people have to have those in their immediate experiences. I'll also say just to that point on welcoming, when we go to these turning point, all my colleagues are like, be careful. You know, like, it's like, do you have a safety number or something? And I think the imagination is like at the door. You have to say like all of your hateful bonafides to get in. Right. Whereas on the other side, we're so welcoming. I've actually found that. And again, I don't mean to diminish how dangerous and violent really a lot of the agenda is there, but there's many, many entries. I'm on the professor watch list. That turning point is graded. I went there, tell them, I'm from Yale, I'm writing this piece for the Times. People were not, they're not bent out of shape about that because so many of those folks used to think of themselves as liberals. So they're kind of like, it's like again, going into a mega church and saying, well, I don't know if I can do this. I was raised Catholic. It's all right, come on through. What brings you here? And I'll just one of just the last thing I'm struck there. There's no policy, actually. There's no solutions to people's problems. So they talk to people about health care and affordability, et cetera. So it's not just we need a better agenda, we need there. We just need solutions that get at people and give people some renewed sense that these collective projects are possible.

[John Favreau]

Makes a lot of sense. Daniel, thank you so much for joining and for doing this work. It's not easy to talk to and explain to people what's going on. Believe me, I've been there myself. So I appreciate you doing it and thanks for joining. It was great talking to you. Great, thanks. Take care, as always. If you have comments, questions or guest ideas, email [e-mail] and if you're as opinionated as we are, please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform for ad free episodes of Offline and Pod Save America exclusive content and more. Join our friends at the pod subscription [e-mail] friends and if you like watching your podcast, subscribe to the Offline with Jon Favreau YouTube channel. Don't forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and the other ones for original content, community events and more. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau, along with Max Fisher. The show is produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illich. Frank Jordan Kanter is our sound Editor Audio support from Charlotte Landis and Kyle Seglin. Delon Villanueva produces our videos each week. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Matt, Madeleine Herringer and Adrian Hill for production support. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[Austin Fisher]

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[John Favreau]

The world is on the brink.

[Dr. Daniel Martinez Hosang]

Wars, contentious elections, disinformation spreading at warp speed, and Donald Trump at the center of all of it. But what does it mean for the rest of us? Every week on Pots of the World, Tommy Vitor and I cut through the noise to explain how global power is shifting. No jargon, no homework, just clear, honest conversations about what's happening and why it matters. From breaking news to long, simmering international conflicts, we dissect it all with critical analysis and some jokes that will surely embarrass our children one day. Tune in to Pod Save the World every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts or catch it on YouTube.