The Scalpel And The Chainsaw

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist — "The Scalpel And The Chainsaw"

Episode Date: February 14, 2026
Host: Mike Pesca (Peach Fish Productions)
Guest: Rui Teixeira (Liberal Patriot Podcast)

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on a lively and incisive conversation between host Mike Pesca and political analyst Rui Teixeira around Pesca’s evolving concept: “The Scalpel Versus The Chainsaw.” The metaphor contrasts incremental, targeted political reform (the scalpel) with sweeping, massive change (the chainsaw), exploring which approach is more viable or typical in today’s American political landscape. They examine how both parties seem to lean toward “chainsaw” solutions, and why attempts at “scalpel” change are so often thwarted. The discussion also touches on objectivity in journalism, the mechanics of political mobilization versus organization, and the challenges of moving toward more pluralistic, moderate politics.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Scalpel vs. The Chainsaw in Politics

• Pesca’s Concept Explained:
  • Big change in America is often pursued with a “chainsaw”—massive, all-encompassing efforts—rather than precise, incremental “scalpel” reforms.
  • Even when political figures or movements promise targeted reforms (“smart cuts”), they either get bogged down or veer into overkill.
• Example:
  • Pesca references Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw as a metaphor for drastic change that ultimately achieves “de minimis” results and sometimes causes harm.

    “We can’t really have any progress, can we, in America, without going too far, without being Elon Musk on stage with the chainsaw because there is some bloat in government.” (Pesca, 00:58)

• Political Reality Check:
  • Both left and right have favored sweeping change, such as Democrats on climate or DEI and the Trump-era GOP on government disruption.

    “They didn't scalpel it. They more like threw everything they could at it.” (Teixeira, 09:18)

  • Reforms intended as judicious often spiral into maximalist overhauls, reinforcing cycles of political backlash.

2. Politics Without Winners — Oscillation and Overreaction

• No Dominant Majorities:
  • There’s an absence of efforts to build lasting, majoritarian coalitions.

    “For decades, American politics has been stuck in this seesaw back and forth between the parties where nobody seems that interested in actually building a dominant majority coalition…” (Teixeira, 09:18)

• Chainsaw Tactics Enable Overreactions:
  • Extreme approaches become self-reinforcing. Each side treats its own moderates as traitors (e.g., Joe Manchin and moderating influences), leading to polarization and legislative whiplash.
  • The outcome: moderation is punished, and even intraparty compromise brings fierce internal criticism.

    “When you denigrate and portray the moderating influences within your caucus as evil or bought off or dishonest, you're going to get a lot more chainsaw.” (Pesca, 17:13)

3. Do Politicians Want Solutions or Perpetual Issues?

• Cynicism vs. Idealism:
  • Pesca posits that some political actors may prefer unsolved issues—they are easier to campaign on and energize the base.
  • Even genuine belief can be shaped and overwhelmed by party politics, interest groups, and pressure to demonstrate action.
  • Real intent is difficult to disentangle, as beliefs get absorbed by activist and party dynamics.

  • “After a while, the actors themselves don't know the difference. Am I doing this because I believe in it ... or because I have to satisfy the interest groups?” (Teixeira, 12:35)

4. Mass Mobilization vs. Grassroots Organization

• Mobilization vs. Organisation:
  • Democrats often excel at mobilizing support (large rallies, public protests), but fall short on broad-based organizing that wins new supporters.
  • Republicans tend to rally around one broad rule (loyalty to Trump), making for simpler, more inclusive organizing—at least internally.
  • Key Example:
    • Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) succeeded with a simple, inclusive message; DARE failed with too many rules and top-down control.

  • “Organizers are almost more effective and better long run than mobilizers.” (Pesca, 28:10)

  • Liberals, by contrast, deploy “purity politics” that can alienate potential allies who don’t perfectly align on every issue.

  • “The Democrats are mobilizers ... They can get a lot of people out for a mass protest and it doesn't matter because they're mobilizing the people who already agree with them. They're not organizing.” (Pesca, 28:10)

5. The Decline and Semantics of Objectivity in Media

• Objectivity as a ‘North Star’:
  • There’s increasing discomfort with the idea (and even the label) of objectivity among media organizations and journalists.
  • The New York Times’ AG Sulzberger rebrands the objective approach as “independent journalism,” but Pesca and Teixeira argue the term itself remains essential.
  • Critical Observations:
    • Demands for “independent” over “objective” suggest unease with the traditional goal.
    • Objective journalism should remain an aspirational value, even if rarely fully achieved.

    • “It’s hard to or impossible to attain. But it’s an unbelievably useful North Star. And just like other concepts like justice, right, or love … isn’t it better that the courts have this goal of justice rather than jettisoning some idea of justice …” (Pesca, 34:02)

  • Rest of the mainstream media, say both, is far from recommitting to objectivity, and the problem isn’t just rhetoric—it’s practice.

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the futility of measured reform:

  “I can’t think of too many great examples where there was just kill or where the fat was cut out without cutting into a lot of muscle.” (Pesca, 07:28)

• On the pressure for maximalism:

  “Because the very fact it’s sort of winding up the opposition is actually like a feature, not a bug.” (Teixeira, 14:57)

• On losing sight of incrementalism:

  “If we are in a sort of chainsaw versus chainsaw dynamic, how do we get someone to pick up the scalpel and stick to it for more than five minutes?” (Teixeira, 16:45)

• On internal party purity tests:

  “It’s calling the most moderate versions on your side traitors … Manchin was assailed left and right. And of course, his motivations were called into play.” (Pesca, 17:13)

• On the reward structure in activism:

  “The history of looking at the correlation of people in the streets and winning policies is a history of mistaking correlation for causation.” (Pesca, 25:30)

• On organizing versus mobilizing:

  “Democrats are mobilizers … they can get a lot of people to show up at a women’s march and then what they do is use purity politics to strip away all the people that don’t do it perfectly.” (Pesca, 28:10)

• On the “Omni Cause” problem:

  “You don’t have to get very far over to the left … before you’re embedded in the Omni cause. And you basically have to subscribe to … 25 different positions if you’re going to hang out there.” (Teixeira, 30:14)

• On objectivity’s decline:

  “If you can't call the thing what it is, then you're probably going to do not as good a job getting to that thing.” (Teixeira, 35:04)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:58 — Introduction of “Scalpel vs. Chainsaw” concept
• 06:59 — Pesca explains American change models; Musk “chainsaw” metaphor
• 09:18 — Teixeira: Both parties use “chainsaw” reforms
• 11:33 — Discussion: Do politicians want solutions, or just the campaign issues?
• 14:57 — The political incentive to antagonize, not just persuade opposition
• 17:12 — Moderates in both parties as scapegoats; the Manchin example
• 19:32 — Aftermath of Trump’s 2024 win: missed opportunities for moderation
• 22:30 — Debrief on reaction to crises, political overreach, and lack of incentive for moderation
• 25:30 — Does street protest lead to policy change, or is it a misread pattern?
• 28:10 — Mobilization vs. organization: why Democrats struggle with broad coalition building
• 30:14 — Conservative coalition more “pluralistic” than often acknowledged
• 31:47 — Decline of objectivity in journalism, Sulzberger and NYT’s hedging language
• 34:02 — Objectivity as an unreachable yet necessary ideal

---

Overall Tone and Takeaway

The exchange is wry, self-aware, and earnest, with a willingness to critique both sides and question inherent partisan assumptions. Both Pesca and Teixeira express skepticism about the current political and media environment’s ability to encourage moderation or factual objectivity, offering sharp analogies and references rooted in recent and historical political events. The episode suggests a longing for more thoughtful, modest reform—and for a media landscape that isn’t allergic to calling things what they are.

---

For further listening, check out Rui Teixeira’s “Liberal Patriot” podcast and Pesca’s essay-in-progress on this very theme.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments when the killer's identity is about to be revealed? During that perfect meditation flow on Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment.

[Rui Teixeira]

That's why we've got millions of ad free podcast episodes so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts. Ad free included with prime.

[Mike Pesca]

Hi, it's Mike. It's Saturday. It's the Saturday show. And what we do on Saturdays is one of two things. One from the Vault, One from the week, a standard format for the Saturday show. We also play you an interview or an appearance that I might have done on another podcast and that is the case today. It is also kind of a twist on One from the Vault and One from the week. This is one from the future in that Rui Teixeira of the Liberal Patriot and I talk about a piece that I will be writing that a piece I've been stewing on that a piece that's been germinating and it's the idea of could I can announce it here? Of the scalpel and the chainsaw, perhaps. I've talked about it in other formats. We can't really have any progress, can we, in America without going too far, without being Elon Musk on stage with the chainsaw because there is some bloat in government. And for a second just putting aside the hate this phrase good faith assessment of Elon Musk. Even when someone really does want to change things in a massive way, they either fail or do way too little or get thwarted by and tangled up in the system. Which is pretty much the whole lesson. Abundance, that book, that idea. Or they go so far and they make it such an all of government or all of society overhaul that it either doesn't work or the solution is worse than the problem, the cure worse than the disease. And in this interview you'll hear Rui to share of the Liberal Patriot offer DI access as that. I didn't consider it beforehand, but this is why it's interesting to talk to a guy like Rui. Maybe I'll bat around that idea when it eventually becomes a written essay and it could become a spiel got a lot of outlets and this was a good one. Thank you for joining me on the Saturday shows. And check out Rui's own podcast. This is what the episode was taken from was untimely ripped from to quote Macbeth, the Liberal Patriot. The full episode is on his podcast feeds and also his substack. We'll play you most of the episode here. Enjoy. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance Fiscally responsible Financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and Save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progress, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. We thought our regular LA Times reader they would be against showing ID, but something like 80% of them said yeah, why is this an issue? We think it's perfectly logical. Even the pundits and media thought leaders don't realize or understand where the public is on this issue.

[Rui Teixeira]

Well, hello out there podcast land. Welcome to a new edition of Liberal Patriot podcast. I'm your host Rui Teixeira and I come at you every couple of weeks with the very finest and heterodox conversation analysis with the most interesting and stimulating guests. And who could fulfill that mandate better than the great Mike Pesca? Mike and I'm just going to steal here from some of his stuff I got sent because I think it's just so accurate. Mike is an award winning journalist with bylines in the Atlantic, the Free Press, the Washington Post, and more. He offers sharp analysis and even sharper wit that has kept listeners coming back for over a decade, making the just a mainstay on Apple's top charts. Each episode includes candid conversations on issues that don't fit neatly into partisan lines. He critiques the right and the left honestly with the help of expert guests. Hey, I was once one of those from politics, entertainment, academia and economics. As you can see, he covers the waterfront. I mean, I'm sure many of you are very familiar with him and his commentary. He has an upcoming essay which he assures me is still germinating on a concept he calls the scalpel versus the chainsaw, which has been a recurring theme on his podcast and his various commentaries. So Mike, for our eagerly attentive audience, explain your basic argument about the scalpel versus a chainsaw and what that means for today's politics and discourse.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, we want change, we should want change. And sometimes the change we want is vast and great. And we saw this exemplified with Elon Musk on Stage wielding a chainsaw to show how much he was going to cut from Doge. Well, that was a disaster. I think that what he actually accomplished was de minimis, except for very much hurting a lot of people in Africa, from what I can understand, maybe even hundreds of thousands of lives on the.

[Rui Teixeira]

Line, I don't know.

[Mike Pesca]

But bad achieve, achieving very little. But the impulse was right. So then I started thinking about this chainsaw. And then you always hear the analogy, well, what we need to do is be smart about the cuts. We need to have targeted cuts. We need to use a scalpel to cut out the fat. But not only does that never seem to work, the gist, if you will, to borrow word of the essay, is going to ask can it work in our political environment? Because there have been past initiatives where some well meaning, usually Democrat, although on the state level, Mitch Daniels, a lot of Republicans actually have tried to effectuate this kind of change. We'll come in, we'll talk about we're going to do smart cuts. And they seem to be thwarted more often than not. And in our politics, it seems like the huge idea, the huge swing, you can't get anything going until you get a massive amount of momentum behind it. And once you do, we see things like trying to and failing to reform Doge by overkill or to take reining in the excesses of college by overkill. And is this just a characteristic, I want to ask you, is this just a characteristic of the Trump administration? It certainly is a characteristic. But can we get anything done without a huge massive all of government or all of the American psyche program that will always yield overkill? I can't think of too many great examples where there was just kill or where the fat was cut out without cutting into a lot of muscle or where actual change, change happened because maybe especially with Trump, the announcement in the specter, or at least the visual of the chainsaw might have been all he wanted. What do you think?

[Rui Teixeira]

Really? What do I think? Well, I mean, it's like, well, the chainsaw and the scalpel fits best in terms of like massive, you know, sort of shock and awe cuts and you know, sudden attempts to reform the system. I mean, you could also argue that a lot of what Democrats did was pretty chainsaw ish in terms of what they tried to do on a variety of different fronts on dei, on climate, on immigration. I mean, there were, there was a, there was a, a concept of what they wanted to do that was going to correct previous excesses or move in a certain direction of reform. They thought was good, that was being undersupplied by the system. And they didn't scalpel it. They more like threw everything they could at it. Right? They threw everything at di, threw everything at dealing with racism. They threw everything at having a kinder, more open immigration system. They threw everything at renewable energy and so on and so forth. So in a way, it just. Don't you think it's just kind of the characteristic of our current politics without winners era, where every side, you know, both sides see any political advantage that they gain for a while as being a mandate to do whatever they want and they overdo it. They by no means scalpel it that they tend to chainsaw it. And then the seesaw just moves back in the other direction. Voters say, are you kidding me? This isn't what I wanted. I mean, this is too far, too much. It's not working. And then the dynamic continues. I wrote about this with my colleague at AI Yuval Levin in our essay Politics Without Winners, which I think we'll update for this year, came out before the 2024 election. But basically, for decades, American politics has been stuck in this seesaw back and forth between the parties where nobody seems that interested in, in actually building a dominant majority coalition, which I think would entail wielding more the scalpel than the chainsaw, because that's how you get the best results and that's how you don't, you know, you don't piss off the maximum number of people. But, you know, the currency of today's political debate is basically, you know, the other side is Satan and, you know, we're going to take it to him and then the other side does the same thing. What do you think?

[Mike Pesca]

Do the politicians genuinely want change or do they want the issue? And that has a couple of second order effects if they want the issue. Actually if they solve the issue, then they don't have the issue anymore. So sometimes I think about that with immigration, but let's take Trump out of it, because I think right now our minds are concentrated on Trump and it really does seem he just likes these issues and doesn't really care if he solves problems. But I think not even Biden. Let's take someone within the Biden administration who seemed to really have a genuine interest in a lot of the environmental initiatives. Right.

[Rui Teixeira]

I don't know.

[Mike Pesca]

Pick someone, Ron Klain or someone who was actually with it and on top of things all the time. Do you think he wanted. I don't. Do you think he was more interested in giving his party the titular win and the. And the example of the win that they could campaign for and talk about, look how much money we subsidized in terms of green energy. Or do you think that he wanted to subsidize green energy? Because I think in that case it's the latter.

[Rui Teixeira]

Well, I mean, I think this is a difficult question, right? Where do you draw the line between your beliefs in a particular issue and how that bleeds into and is shaped by the politics that surround the issue and the dynamics within your own party and a certain amount of ideological capture that you yourself may have been susceptible to? Right. I mean, it's one thing to say it might be a good idea if we could do something about climate change and we could have more clean energy. It's another thing to be committed to the kind of program the Biden administration was committed to, and it was under so much pressure from NGOs to maximize on. That wasn't the scalpel, that was the chainsaw. So I think it's very hard to disentangle them. And I think after a while, the actors themselves don't know the difference. Am I doing this because I believe in it and I totally understand what I'm doing? Am I doing this because I'm being kind of bludgeoned into it? Am I doing this because I have to satisfy the interest groups and dynamics within the party? Am I doing this because now that I committed to it, I've got to continue doing it? I mean, these things get all mixed up, I think, with our political actors today.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Rui Teixeira]

And I think they're. They're helpless to get out of the, out of the prison in a way.

[Mike Pesca]

And if our politics had. Yeah, and if our politics had winners, there would be more of the dynamic of a gang of eight or something sitting down and working out to take the environmental issue for the Republicans, the least worst version of that, and they also have their interests, and there wouldn't be a such punishment for actually compromising on some things. So maybe some of the most excessive parts of, of the green initiative would have been cut out. Now, maybe the things that would be cut out or compromised on would be just political and not what an absolute expert in environmentalism would say. This is the most effective way to put a bill forward. But I think absent any sort of compromise, there are no. Or mechanism for compromise. There are no ways for the worst parts. The where scalpel. I'm trying to think of an analogy. Think of this, a video technology where a scalpel morphs into a chainsaw. There is no way to stop it along the way. So you have a scalp saw or a chain skull, which is like the combination of whatever those weapons would be.

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, sure. I mean, I think once you're. You're plugged into something like that, it is hard to, you know, to avoid the scalpel turning into the chainsaw or just starting out with a chainsaw for full scale. I mean, basically, you're relying on the reactions of your opponents to what you're doing to drive your political support, and that just pushes you in the direction of the chainsaw and a sort of maximalist approach to what you're trying to do. Because the very fact it sort of winding up the opposition is actually like a feature, not a bug. Right. I mean, the more you push it, the more the other side says, you know, these people are crazy. They're hateful, they're bigots, they're, you know, they're ruining the country. They're doing this, they're doing that. They're crazy wokesters who just want to herd us into woke concentration camps. I mean, this is a problem, I think, is people don't want to draw back from that because they feel like that's been the most recent evidence of their success. They haven't had the big win that sort of hegemonizes a country with a new political and economic model. So they're kind of drawn to the idea of maximizing their offensiveness to the other side and sort of maximizing the mobilization of their own base, even as they mobilize the base on the other side. Now, maybe there's a way out of this soon, maybe there's not. But I do think that characterizes a lot of what we've seen in the last quite a few cycles and the general state of politics and the political discourse. So, I mean, that's. That's sort of the big, you know, $64,000 question. If we are in a sort of chainsaw versus chainsaw dynamic, how do we get someone to pick up the scalpel and stick to it for more than five minutes?

[Mike Pesca]

Right. And to not answer that question because it's hard. But the further. Yes. And you. Another dynamic. It's not just calling the other side. You know, crazy wokesters are looking to round us up into camps. It's calling the most moderate versions on your side traitors. And so most of the discourse around Biden's last gigantic spending bill, which Manchin was, I guess, smart enough to rebrand the Deficit Reduction act or something, you.

[Rui Teixeira]

Know, is to Inflation Reduction Act.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. Is to tear into Manchin because, you know, Manchin got a couple of based on his constituents in, in West Virginia, got a couple of items taken out of that bill. And so he became the huge villain. And before the gigantic Bernie Sanders proposed $2 trillion spending bill was reject was ridiculous, Manchin was assailed left and right. And of course, his motivations were called into play. And let's even say that's true. Let's even say he happened to be a tool of fossil fuels. He's from West Virginia. There's a number of things to say about that, like he's the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. But the thing I'd want to say is, you know, he was right. The worst things that Biden did was just let immigration get out of control. And that was more in his power than he and his people portray it as. But the second worst thing he did was that inflation got crazy. And his defenders will always say it got crazy everywhere. And look at all these other countries. Yes, but there was inflation that hit about 10%. And I've talked to many, many people, including economists within the Biden administration who said that last spending bill, which Manchin did not approve of, probably caused at least 3% of the 10% headline inflation. And so to wind it all back, when you denigrate and portray the moderating influences within your caucus as evil or bought off or dishonest, you're going to get a lot more chainsaw. And we'll be back with more Rui Teixeira and me right after the break. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. And now some more of that great interview I did on the Liberal Patriot with Rui Teixeira.

[Rui Teixeira]

Sure. And it's a little hard to see that dynamic changing that much at the current time. You know, sort of not to get all inside baseball politics about this, but I did think that there was a window right after the Trump victory in 2024 when it looked like the Democrats might actually really do some serious rethinking about their political strategy and the need to reach working class voters and reach people in many different areas of the country and moderate in a lot of different ways that clearly were necessary given the reaction of the elect actually existing electorate. But I think that really didn't happen. And I think we're now seeing the evolution of that in terms of how the Democrats are currently conducting themselves. I mean, I think that, you know, they came up with this great idea of affordability, you know, that had its five minutes, and now they're back to, like, you know, Trump is a fascist and.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Rui Teixeira]

You know, which is an existential crisis. And anyone who doesn't think it's an education existential crisis and doesn't think Trump is a fascist is obviously, you know, more or less working for the other side. So, I mean, I think that's interesting that there was this window and it closed so quickly, and now we have weird situations like Jasmine Crockett may get the Democratic senatorial nomination in Texas, which is not exactly what a party should be doing that wants to, like, develop sort of correct their errors and present a more moderate face to the American people. We're the sane ones here. I mean, it's not hard to get a lot of people to agree that a lot of what the Trump administration has done is crazy, but it's a lot harder to convince them that you yourself are not crazy.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, well, it's. It's okay.

[Rui Teixeira]

You're going to use the scalpel, not the chainsaw, right? I mean, who's. Who's merchandising the scalpel out there?

[Mike Pesca]

It's right. Big scalpel is taking it on the chin. Yeah, well, it's fine. Jasmine Crockett, as your nominee is fine. If you don't want to win the Texas Senate race, and that's not probably not winnable or not, you know, above a 40% chance. But if Cornyn doesn't get the nomination there, it seems very much like the least optimal choice, given the choice. Now, if you want to say Jasmine Crockett could be the face of the party representing, you know, New Jersey's 11th district or something like that that we just saw, that's one thing. But, yes, of course, you're absolutely right. But the analysis is, I'm sure you won't disagree with that, is that the reaction is because of Trump. And it's hard not to overreact. And I can't say in a lot of cases, not with the rhetoric, but with these shootings in Minnesota, I can't say that the Democrats overreacted. All their incentives seem to line up to say, treat this as the horror it is. Trump pulled back. The Democrats are winning on that issue. But there's nothing about that that makes the case for moderation. And so you take that and you Extrapolate it into other realms and I don't know.

[Rui Teixeira]

What do you mean it doesn't make the case for moderation? Why should the only reaction be to the events in Minneapolis? You know, we're on the verge of fascism and, you know, we're not. ICE is basically a terrible fascist force. I mean, what. What's wrong with reform? What's wrong with, you know, Democrats having an actual position on immigration? What's wrong with getting rid of sanctuary cities, which is like a terrible idea and actually contributes to the dynamic that resulted in the tragedies? Why not have an actual sensible position on the immigration issue instead of, you.

[Mike Pesca]

Know, basically going off. What I mean, what, what I mean by it doesn't make the case is if you look at, if you do a case study of Minnes and say what won and what didn't? I think that the Harvard Business School would say it was a whole mix of things, but mainly the things that worked were the more extreme versions of these arguments. So getting out in the street and confronting ICE and really, actually the thing that worked, which is the martyrdom of these two people, and then.

[Rui Teixeira]

But that was because they were out in the streets confronting ice.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Rui Teixeira]

I mean. Right. And it was just.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Rui Teixeira]

You know, that was partly because it was a sanctuary city. So it's all, you know, it's all connected, man. So, you know, we need. Anyway, I mean, what. Or maybe you mean by work, you mean, like for the Democrats. Politically, it works. I mean, there's no, there's no payoff for being modern in a situation.

[Mike Pesca]

That's exactly what I mean.

[Rui Teixeira]

In a raw.

[Mike Pesca]

If Minnesota was a win, it was a win that had a lot of extreme tactics to it, and maybe a less extreme would have won, but that's not how it played out. And if you look at all, what did Gavin Newsom do to become the republic, the Democratic front runner, it's more of an embrace of true that. More extremism than moderation. So I think you're right. All these frontline Democrats who might be imperiled or, you know, given 20, 26, it's. It's going to be a good year for Democrats unless ICE agents get in there and monkey with the voting booth.

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that in a bit.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. But I really do think that the frontline Democrats, your Tom Suozz, your Goldens in Colorado, they're not help all by the, everything you're talking about the mode of politics now, and that's, that's so much more important than you know, the ID reward of having Jasmine Crockett be your nominee in Texas.

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, I mean, connected to that in terms of that kind of dynamic. One thing that I've been picking up on lately, as you see it, a lot of the, you know, our punditocracy, left leaning punditocracy, the resistant liberals were right. You know, I mean, basically what has happened in the last period of time just shows that the people who are out there in the streets, you know, back in Trump won saying we are on the verge of fascism. It's all about resist, resist, resist, and forget this moderation bullshit, appealing to the center. They were right. You know, we have to amp it up. We have to turn it up to 11, like every day in every way. So I think that's interesting, that it's interesting.

[Mike Pesca]

But, you know, the history of, the history of looking at the correlation of people in the streets and winning policies is a history of mistaking correlation for causation. People are in the streets because people are upset with the Republicans or whatever policy. People were in the street in Vietnam because they were upset by the number of American boys who were being killed. Right. It wasn't the people in the streets who caused the Vietnam War, caused the pullback in the Vietnam War. It was the number of boys being killed. So it was the same cause that caused these two epiphenomena. And they get, especially in the punditocracy who just wants to reward themselves or feed the audience this line, they get reaffirmed with the wrong lesson. Did you read the do hig piece Charles Duhig piece in the New Yorker about mobilization and organization?

[Rui Teixeira]

I did not, Mike. I have to confess, I've let my New Yorker subscription lapse and I rarely read anything from that. That formerly August magazine.

[Mike Pesca]

This was good. Adam Gopnik is still a must read, I say, and I like Khalifa. Sam.

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, I mean there was sort of like the weight of the stuff worth reading started, kept on declining. So I stopped.

[Mike Pesca]

So Do Higg starts off by talking about MAD and DARE, these two organizations somewhat. One, MAD's more grassroots and DARE is a lot of corporate influence and MAD really works. The anti drunk driving message worked and DARE is now seen as kind of a joke and people wear T shirts ironically. And one of the big reasons is that MAD had one rule. You have to be against drunk driving. And go ahead, start a franchise and go ahead, use our letters and name to just be against drunk driving. And if you want to be a Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization, have an event in a bar, go for it. And if you want to be a MAD organization and be also in favor of eliminating liquor sales past 12 o' clock on a Saturday, go for it too. One rule, one thing, you do what you want. And DARE was very top down and had a lot of disqualifying rules. So MAD were organizers and and DARE was a mobilizer. An organizer gets people organized and fired up and a mobilizer takes the people who are fired up and kind of points the can in one way cut to why is this important today? First of all, organizers are almost more effective and better long run than mobilizers. The Democrats are mobilizers. Duhigg points out and quoting a lot of very smart people. They can get a lot of people to show up at a no Kings rally, they can get a lot of people to show up at a women's march and then what they do is use purity politics to strip away all the people that don't do it perfectly. And he had a couple of examples like people who are not allowed to march in a gay rights parade because they had a Star of David on their pride flag. And the Democrats are doing it wrong in terms of getting the people behind them. And the Republicans have one rule like mat one rule which is just got to like Donald Trump. And so that concept of why do these mass protests, why do they seem sometimes to work? It's because Democrats know they could get a lot of people out for a mass protest and it doesn't matter because they're mobilizing the people who already agree with them. They're not organizing. And then Duhig has a lot of great examples about rural organizers in North Carolina who could actually they do a great job. They focus on the issue of affordability and especially drugs. They're not explicitly Democratic, but they generally are. And if more people listen to them and followed them, Democrats would do a lot better in North Carolina. It's a great. It's one of these stories that, you know, gives you a taxonomy or a mental map that I haven't stopped thinking about.

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, I think that's good. I think there's a lot to that. I mean, I think in a sense what Democrats do with their mobilizing activities is they're basically like recruiting people. Not even recruiting people, they're just mobilizing the omnicause. This is all the people believe all that stuff and how it's connected to all this other stuff and we'll get them all to show up. Whereas organizing is when you cast a net Very wide. And I don't care what you think about X, so long as you're for Y, you're part of us. And I think you're right that on the the other side, it's a bit more pluralistic, so long as you generally like Trump and you're for what he's doing. You know, I don't care if you're, like, gay. I don't care if you, you know, believe in flying saucers. I don't care. Whatever. I mean. And I think there's now a lot of pretty good evidence that conservatives are sort of more pluralistic in general than liberals in terms of, you know, who they're willing to talk to, are they willing to be friends with who they want their kids to marry, you know, who they think? I mean, it's weird, but there it is, you know.

[Mike Pesca]

How's that for branding?

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, I mean, like, I'm at a right of center think tank, AI, which admittedly, it's not heritage. It's not. I mean, it's more moderate. But still in all, I think it's just true on, you know, the center right. It's a lot easier to talk to people and there's more genuine discussion than the more, you know, you don't have to get very far over to the left in the institutional world before you're embedded in the Omni cause. And you basically have to subscribe to, you know, a vector of 25 different positions if you're going to hang out there. Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And the Omni cause is suggested by the prefix. All it is is a multiple number of tripwires. All these ways to get it wrong.

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's screwed up, man. Well, actually, this, this brings to mind, since we're talking about, you know, a good article in the media, what about all the bad articles in the media? And I'm speaking here about, you know, this another pet sort of peeve of yours. Mine too. Objectivity. Whatever happened to objectivity? You've written a lot about that, thought a lot about it. And I just continue to be amazed at how little support there seems to be for just a very simple idea and trying to implement that very simple idea that what we're trying to do, you know, as journalists, you know, if you're in the media, is actually like, tell people what's going on and present the different sides and, you know, sort of fairly represent the issue. And I don't, you know, I don't have a position. I'm just a journalist. I'm here to, to tell you what's going on? I mean, are we making any progress toward being, you know, reinstituting the objectivity metric in journalism? And how. Okay, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So the answer is we are, but we can't call it objectivity.

[Rui Teixeira]

Okay.

[Mike Pesca]

And.

[Rui Teixeira]

And except for that. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

The labeling is so important. Right. Conservative, liberal, omni Cause. So AG Sulzberger, a couple years ago in cjr put his flag in the ground, but it was a soft ground and perhaps a muted flag washed out. But he did. So he wrote this article which was reflecting what the Times had been doing. Journalism's essential value, the debate around objectivity. And if you read this article, it is a defense of objectivity. But he says a few times, yeah, you can't possibly call it objectivity. He. He rebrands it as independent journalism, which is a really bad rebranding because that's just what everyone on Substack, or everyone who's not affiliated with Main, with lamestream Media Journalism says. But he writes, fairness, impartiality, and to perhaps use the most fraught and argued overword in journalism, objectivity. And he goes on to say, you know, we can't to. We can't even use this word, objectivity in this essay because it would. It would inspire so many objections. It is something like the most fought over word in journalism. So I have to step aside. But I think the important thing is not his argument in cjr. It's every day his argument in the New York Times. And I don't know that it's such an embrace of objectivity, but it's definitely a rejection of that. Wesley Morrison, Morris Peace, where the New York Times gave some op ed speech space. And it's fine to bandy about these ideas about how objectivity is an ill. And he was making the case that objectivity, whose objectivity. Such a complex argument, to throw that one up there. And objectivity just reaffirms power structures. And what a. What a bad moment in journalism when the people who were the self described guardians of journalism. Wesley was hired by the Philadelphia Inquirer to do a full newspaper audit. And he came up with, oh, I.

[Rui Teixeira]

Forgot about that one. Oh, God.

[Mike Pesca]

And this was after the Philadelphia choir fired their editor by saying that buildings matter to, you know, after they were after rioters had tried to destroy some buildings and burn some buildings. Hey, what about buildings? No, that reminds me of Black Lives Matter. You must be fired. Yeah. And so the, you know, my simple thought about objectivity is like, it's hard to. It's hard to or impossible to attain. But it's an unbelievably useful North Star. And just like other concepts like justice, right, or love, these are things that, yeah, they're a little hard to define. And maybe your justice isn't my justice, but isn't it better that the courts have this goal of justice rather than jettisoning some idea of justice and coming in with the idea beforehand of what's right and then backfilling what they do to justify, if you will, that conclusion? Which is exactly what the prescription for objectivity was. It was such a bad and stupid time.

[Rui Teixeira]

Yeah, well, I agree with all that. But let me push you on this a little bit in terms of the alleged progress we made on this. I mean, you mentioned Sulzberger and the New York Times. Times. I mean, obviously they pulled back a little bit from the way they are covering things. I mean, I, I still would not say, I guess I consider the, the Times completely, you know, even aspirationally objective in a lot of cases. I think they have a lot of journalists who still don't quite attain that ideal. And the very fact that maybe they think, you know, they're calling for independent as opposed to objective journalism is part of the problem. I mean, if you can't call the thing what it is, then you're probably going to do not as good a job getting to that thing. And they're just the New York Times anyway. Now admittedly, it's incredibly influential and it's still extremely well done paper in terms of the quality of the journalism it has, certainly relative to its competitors. And the resources are unbelievably good and a lot of the people, very good writers, blah, blah, blah. But what about the rest of the media? I mean, I'm not seeing a tsunami of support for the ideal of objectivity and the rest of the, the lamestream media, the mainstream media, legacy media, whatever you want to call it, right? I mean, how far have we really gotten in terms of this moving back in the direction I think you and I both think would be appropriate?

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the Gist. Jeff Craig does video stuff somewhere out there. Kathleen Sykes runs the Gist list. That Sadie interview we ran today, there's video of it, there's the written form. I mean, we basically have everything except the dance interpret. Wait, I'm told. Substack Mike pesca.substack.com the dance interpretation is up there as well. Ben Astaire is now doing our booking and Michelle Pesca oversees it all benevolently, with only fair questions. Tough, pointed, but fair questions. And yes, thanks to that question, I will in fact apologize. Umpru gpru duparu. And thanks for listening.