Devil's Cut | Will Democrats Get The Message? w Rachel Bitecofer

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Devil's Cut | Will Democrats Get The Message?”

Podcast: Truth in the Barrel
Hosts: Amy McGrath, Denver Riggleman
Guest: Rachel Bitecofer, PhD
Date: September 9, 2025

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Brief Overview

In this incisive episode, hosts Amy McGrath and Denver Riggleman welcome political analyst and strategist Dr. Rachel Bitecofer to dissect the current state of Democratic messaging. Drawing on her new book Hit Them Where It Hurts and years of research into political polarization, Bitecofer critiques the Democratic Party’s approach to messaging, branding, and election strategy, especially in contrast with the streamlined, negative, and often successful tactics deployed by Republicans. The discussion is intense, unsparingly honest, and focused on both practical insights and urgent calls for action.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rachel Bitecofer’s Background & Perspective

• Military Connections: Bitecofer’s husband is an Iraq War vet; her father a Navy cryptologist, giving her deep respect for the military community (01:23).
• Political Journey: She began as a professor studying polarization, but the rise of Trump in 2015 compelled her to focus on activism and public warning about the dangers of growing polarization (02:35).
• Escalation of Threats: “Never in 10 years could any of us…have predicted that we'd be on the precipice of Democratic collapse in the year of 2025.” (02:55, D)

2. Democratic vs. Republican Messaging Structures

• Homogeneity vs. Diversity:
  • Republicans benefit from a more homogenous (largely white, Southern-based) coalition, making message discipline easier (04:42, D).
  • Democrats are “a party of group interest that have banded together in a coalition,” lacking ideological cohesion (05:14, D).
• Branding and Identity:
  • The “D” and “R” on the ballot often matter more than candidate biography, particularly with low-information voters (09:52, D).
  • Negative branding—defining the opponent—is critical: “When you're talking about everything, you're talking about nothing.” (08:21, D)

3. Republican Negative Partisanship—A Winning Formula

• Disqualification Over Persuasion: Republicans shifted from persuading with positive messages to disqualifying the opponent (06:32, D).
• Focused Messaging: “Republicans understand…these wedge campaigns around one theme that are very loud are what you need to get through. And they're so good at it.” (08:43, D)
• The Sniper vs. Shotgun Analogy: Republicans use a "sniper" (targeted, singular focus) strategy, while Democrats use a "shotgun" (broad, diffuse) approach (09:52, D).

4. Tactical Advice for Democrats

• Go on Offense: “If you're not on offense, you're losing.” (14:23, D)
• Paid Media is What Matters: Most swing voters will never see a debate—paid advertising is the lever (15:10, D).
• Rebranding the Party: The only path back to power is “to rebrand us back to the working class and rebrand them as the people who ruined your life.” (18:57, D)
• Relentless Focus: Pick a single weakness of the opponent and exploit it—“blood and guts” politics (08:56, D).

5. Communication Pitfalls & Cultural Disconnects

• Democrats’ Cringe Factor: “Our party is, is cringe AF…There are problems within our party that are exploited to make us look bad.” (22:31, D)
• Misreading Voters: “We are rational, fact-based and logical people, right? But we’re up against an opponent that does not tell the truth.” (21:02, D)
• Adjusting Language: Avoid "wonky goobly goob" and culture war triggers in swing/white, suburban districts (21:56, D).

6. The Limits of “Positive Vision”

• On Balance Between Hope and Attack:
  • “Obviously if you're running for office, you have to have a vision and a positive platform…But…what does America want right now? America…wants a leader, right? We’re terrified, right? Where’s our goddamn Winston Churchill?” (24:00, D)
  • The notion that simply having a positive platform is enough is “the prevailing wisdom that I'm up against for five years.” (23:57, D)
• Defensive Messaging is Losing: “That's all defensive, dude. Oh, my God. George Patton would hate it all, wouldn't he?” (14:23, D)

7. Republican Strategy—Turning Nothings Into Wedge Issues

• CRT as a Model: Republicans made “something that didn’t even exist [CRT]…the number one issue for a year” in Virginia using a sniper strategy (32:21, D).
• Lesson: Focused negativity can redefine entire elections, while Democrats “took the debate” and defaulted to defense (31:10, D).

8. Handling Crime and Other Attacks

• Stay Off Defense: When attacked on crime, “you flip and pivot and attack” (33:42, D).
• Turn the Table: “Every time they mention crime—boy, how do you want to talk about crime? Let's talk about crime. We have a guy sitting in the White House…He’s a serial criminal.” (34:12, D)
• Counteroffensive Is Key: Keep the opponent defending, not the other way around (35:30, D).

9. The Stakes: Democratic Erosion and Need for Leadership

• Need for Courage: The hour is late—leadership and boldness are vital: “We absolutely crave and need leaders right now who will step up against this stuff because it is completely un-American.” (26:14, C)
• Fear and Retaliation: Even institutions like the military and alumni are afraid—many wish for anonymity for fear of retribution (26:12, C; 26:14, D).
• Electoral Warnings: If negative partisanship and focused attack aren’t adopted, “that Republican House [in the future] is not going to certify the 2028 elections.” (36:47, D)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Campaign Strategy:
  “When you are talking about everything, you’re talking about nothing.” — Rachel Bitecofer (08:21, D)

• On the Ballot:
  “The D and the R on the ballot are the most important things on the ballot. Even more important than the candidate's name.” — Rachel Bitecofer (09:52, D)

• On Defensive Messaging:
  “If you’re not on offense, you’re losing.” — Rachel Bitecofer (14:23, D)

• On Republican Messaging:
  “They win swing races all the time on that strategy. So somehow we’re supposed to believe that the psychology of the electorate will only accept that kind of messaging from Republicans…It’s just not true.” — Rachel Bitecofer (18:45, D)

• On Effective Ads:
  “Paid ad strategy… what matters. Not speeches, not debates. What you pay for in the media.” — Rachel Bitecofer (15:10, D)

• On Policy and “Cringe” Branding:
  “You can’t be saying stuff like pregnant person, okay? All this wonky goobly goob. I mean, it’s cringe, dude.” — Rachel Bitecofer (21:56, D)

• On Fear and Leadership:
  “People are living in fear right now…We absolutely crave and need leaders right now who will step up against this stuff because it is completely un-American.” — Amy McGrath (26:13, C)

• On Republicans Inventing Issues:
  “They took something that didn’t even exist and made it the number one issue for a year. That’s the power.” — Rachel Bitecofer (33:28, D)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction of Rachel & Her Political Transformation
  [01:23] – [04:04]

• Breakdown of Party Messaging & Historical Shifts
  [04:04] – [09:20]

• How Branding Overpowers Biographies
  [09:20] – [13:20]

• Going On Offense: The Patton Doctrine
  [14:23] – [17:30]

• Paid Media Trumps All; The Addictive Power of Negativity
  [15:10] – [18:57]

• Rebranding, Cringe, and Swing District Realities
  [21:02] – [23:27]

• Attacks, Vision, and the Need for Leadership
  [23:57] – [26:14]

• Republican Propaganda: CRT & Crime as Case Studies
  [27:22] – [33:40]

• The Dangers of Defensive Messaging
  [33:42] – [36:47]

• Call to Action & Where to Find Rachel
  [37:15] – [38:12]

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Conclusion

This episode is a wake-up call and tactical briefing for Democrats (and anyone interested in America’s political future). Dr. Rachel Bitecofer makes a compelling, data-driven case that Democrats must eschew broad, diffuse, defensive messaging and, instead, embrace focused, ruthless negative partisanship and offensive branding—backed by relentless paid media. The stakes, Bitecofer insists, are nothing less than the survival of American democracy.

Final Call to Action:
Read Rachel’s book Hit Them Where It Hurts, support effective messaging efforts, and recognize that “the house is literally on fire.”

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

Predicting what many believe is unpredictable. Speaking about what is often unspeakable. My guest today does both. In 2018, she accurately predicted the size of the blue wave. In 2020, she was one of the first to say Donald Trump was destined for defeat. These days, she's trying to help Democrats get their messaging act together, which, you know, is really, really important. She is Rachel Bitticoffer, PhD. Welcome to the show, Rachel.

[D]

Oh, Amy, it's such a deep pleasure for me to be here, especially to engage with you and your audience. I come from a military, a civilian. My, my husband is an Iraq War vet, but my father was a Navy cryptologist. So, you know, I have military background. So I'm very excited to be here with this community today because I believe the military community X and Current is probably going to be the most important people, group of people that we have in this country going forward.

[C]

Awesome. Well, I appreciate that. And your dad's service as well. And, and yours. You know, you know, your life, your adult life has been spent talking to voters, talking to the American people. You're sort of, you're a strategist and a national political analyst and you're somebody that believes that Democrats need to speak a little more bluntly, shall we say, about how to fight this sort of authoritarian bent of the other side and win. You have a, a book called Hit Them Where It Hurts. You have a best selling substack called the Cycle. And that's what you do right now. Is that correct?

[D]

Yeah, it's all I do. I mean, just for a little context for people who've never heard of me, which should be most of your audience, I got a PhD in political. I just wanted to be a lazy professor, okay? I wanted to work and have summers off and publish here. Next thing I know, I'm running this polling firm. But really what changed everything was the escalator ride of Donald Trump in 2015. That happened in June of 2015, the same time of, of of year, in fact, almost to the day, that I was defending a dissertation that was on polarization in the United States. And back then, 10 years, just 10 years ago, the scholarly community that I was a part of, we knew that, like the polarization thing was bad, like it wasn't, it wasn't a good thing. It had only arosen one time before and that was the Civil War, okay? So we knew things would be bad. But never in 10 years could any of us, even on the Cass Cassandra of all of us, right, could any of us have predicted that we'd be on the precipice of Democratic collapse in the year of 2025, and that thus is where we find ourselves. So I really reconditioned my career to, to try to wake people up to the threat prior to it actually being here where you can see it. Because unfortunately, what my research, I've been studying the Third Reich for five years now has found is that it's hard to get. People cannot panic until it's way too late. And that's where we're at right now in this country we see every day.

[C]

Well, I want to start out by talking about messaging, and I have my own opinions on this and branding in particular. But it's often been said that Republicans, and this is not me saying this, and I'll tell you my opinion in a minute. But the Republicans have an easier time messaging to their base because their base is less diverse, whereas Democrats struggle with messaging because they have this diverse coalition. So I'll tell you my opinion in a second, but I wanted to get yours. Does that reasoning hold true or is it more sort of just electoral folk wisdom?

[D]

No, it's not. It's absolutely true. When I used to teach political behavior and campaigns and elections, this is one of the things I would focus on. And this comes from some great research from a friend of mine and his co writer, Matt Grossman. But what it talks about. Okay, to answer your question, yes, we have a homogenous political party and it is now regionally like, centered in the south, right? So 50 years ago, the south was as Democrat as it is currently today, Republican. And because that has made it almost a completely white, it's a white party, frankly, it's been. The Republican Party has always been robustly white, but now it's really like the party of white identity politics, which is a backlash to our side of the identity politics crusades. And because of that, Amy, I'm so glad you mentioned this, because I talk about this in the book. I explained it a little bit more deeply if you want to get that background. But I want to focus on what that means right now, because I think that's what Amy's trying to get at. And what it means is like over our 20 years of Obama, right. And the emergence of digital technologies, especially micro, that gave you the ability to micro target. Our thought was, oh, now we have all these diverse groups in our coalition. And it's not a co. It's not an ideological movement. The Democratic Party is not an ideological party. It is a party of group interest that have banded together in a coalition to, you know, kind of push their interests together. The Republicans have always been an ideological movement until recently. Right now it's a cult. Right. But used to be really about, you know, cold war, fiscal conservative, free market. I mean, it's just really not what the modern GOP is about. Right, right.

[C]

So it's actually quite the opposite now.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, which is, you know, if I could, my father was alive, he would just be horrified. Right. So, you know, so what we did, you know, that caused a divergence. Until that time, Democrats and Republicans kind of did electioneering basically the same. Republicans were always better at it because they were always had the ability to do. To do racism, dog whistles, to win conservatives. Right. But they got really much, much better at it because they went onto the strategy that I've built for the Democrats in 2004 when they took John Kerry, who was a Vietnam war vet hero, and what did they do? They swift vote vet veteran for truth, his war record. Yeah. And that was the first time that people, strategists, and this is a Karl Rhodes special, Right. Realized, oh, there's a different way to do persuasion. Right. Up until then, persuasion was about selling the better product of two. From that moment on, for Republicans, persuasion became disqualify, the other option and win by default. Okay. And so by 2010, they have institutionalized that. Within a year of the Great Recession that they caused, they win 63 House seats. Right. And they do it on this strategy. We, on the other hand, were taking. Embracing this tech, and we're like, okay, we'll talk to women about this and Latinos about that and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Well, here's the problem. We. When you are talking about everything, you're talking about nothing. And if you read my book, you'll understand why. And most Americans don't follow any news. They don't even know who their state, who their state federal senators are. They don't, they don't realize there's a state legislature. I know that sounds insane, but in the book, I, I'm going to show you that a lot of America doesn't pay attention to politics. And Republicans understand then that these wedge campaigns around one theme that are very loud or what you need to get through. Right. And they're so good at it. Right. I mean, look what they did to Clinton. When I ran a poll in 2020 for Clinton and Trump, and we all know that Trump lies literally every time he opens his mouth. The word that popped up when voters thought of Hillary Clinton, the largest word in my word cloud, was liar. Okay? And she was running against a guy who at that point already was a serial liar. So we, we have to stop that urge. And what my work in the book does is it says, look, no matter what Mic, you're focused on, that's great. Like when you have power, you can take care of everybody, but you run on a strategy on the most. What is your opponent's biggest weakness? And then you run against that and you run hard at it. Right. Like it's a George Patton strategy for politics. Okay, Right. I'm trying to sell here blood and guts. Right? Yeah.

[C]

Super interesting. Because Democrats, you know, we do have this big coalition, so it, you often hear, hey, Democrats don't have a cohesive message. They don't have it. But you're saying, I mean, I don't know, are you saying that every candidate that runs needs to pick, you know, one thing and go at it hard, but recognize that overall it's not going to be the same thing for, for each race. Is that, is that sort of what you're saying?

[D]

It doesn't need to be the same exact wedge, but the wedge is this. Here's the problem reason they win and they beat us even with terrible candidates like J.D. vance against wonderful people like Tim Ryan or, you know, the new guy that beat Sherrod Brown, which is. And John Tester, two of our best senators. Right. So obviously something's happening. What's happening there, right, is that they're finding one thing and they are wedging. And Tester's a moderate, Brown's a moderate. They're both never have been socialists. They don't want to mutilate children's genitalia. But they are defined that way because the brand of the D and the R on the ballot are the most important things on the ballot. Even more important than the candidate's name, which I know is crazy for candidates to hear, but because we have low info, we have this strong partisanship effect that people have to have to deal with. So why do we lose? Well, we're running about how great we are, they're running about how terrible we are in a very effective megaphone. Sniper. Not. Not shotgun. Right. Sniper effect. We're shotgunning diversity. This blue. They're snipering always crt, you know, Biden's age, whatever it is. Right. And so what we want to be doing is making sure that Susan Collins doesn't go through the election next year without the swing voters of Maine finding out that she is not actually a moderate. Right. So the. What we have to do in. David Schweikart in the House is a great example of this. He serves in Arizona CD1. He is a. He's an extremist. He votes all for the most. He voted to ban ivf, dude. But his voters have no idea. So accept the voters know nothing. Understand that they will know only the thing that you pay to know them. Okay? So if we're, if they're running against us and we're running against us, oh, I'm not one of those Democrats. I'm different, blah, blah, blah. My party is definitely messed up, working class people. No, it hasn't. Okay, stop. What you need to do is make the race about Susan Collins. Is Susan Collins promised the voters of Maine that she would make good decisions. Did she make a good decision when she voted to confirm RFK Jr. To the Health thing? Did she make a good decision? No, she's an ex. She's an extremist hiding in moderate clothing. And we think swing voters just all read the news and they're following everything. Well, I guarantee you guys what state you're in, but unless you're in DC, LA, San Fran, Chicago, NY, you can't just walk out on the streets and find people to talk about Speaker Mike Johnson. Okay? Like, I'm in Eugene. It's a very educated place. I, I can't go to the grocery store after a 15 vote, you know, speaker vote, and go in and see the guy walking next to me and be like, did you see that speaker vote? Holy shit. Right? Like, he would have no idea what I was talking about. Right? So think about, think about how effective that propaganda system becomes when People don't have a well of reservoir to protect them from it. Right. And understand that what they're going to say about you, it doesn't matter who you are, he could be an ex military, crab fishing, whatever. Right. But what's going to matter is that D and that R. And either you, you got to shit on the R and up brand, the, the D. And that is exactly opposite of what we do in our swing races right now. Most of them. The ones, the ones I can't get my hands on.

[C]

No, it's really fascinating because, I mean, you are spending a lot of time trying to push back on all the narratives with the branding that Republicans have done so. Well, you know, when I ran against McConnell, I always said to people I wasn't just running that year, I was running against decades of branding of that D in the state. And so, you know, my military background and stances were, were good and important. But like, you're also running against that. And not to say that it can't, you know, break through. I think it can. One of the things that we often hear about is candidates needing to run away from the, that national party peace, you know, And I, I think that. Or does that present a challenge? I mean, as you, as you just talked about earlier, I mean, you're saying Democrats should just not even. Don't even.

[D]

That's all defensive, dude. Oh, my God. George Patton would hate it all, wouldn't he? I mean, he was an offensive guy. Offense, offense. If you're not on offense, you're losing. And that's the fact of American politics. In a propaganda system with a digital tool that emerged like radio in the 1920s and was leveraged by, with not good intentions to confuse the mind of the general public. Right. In Wisconsin, Ben Wickler is a big fan of negative partisanship. The Wisconsin and Arizona Democrats have been embracing it. Adrian Fontes used it to run for Arizona's Secretary of State against an actual insurrectionist. Okay. And he outperformed Mark Kelly in some of the precincts. Okay. Mark Kelly, who's an. Who sailed. Because it's NASA. NASA's. Right.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So. And that was against the midterm effect. So in a cycle when Arizona should have turned red, we held the whole state on negative partisanship. The Wisconsin State Supreme Court race is more recent. So if anybody listening to this or yourself watched that race play out, go look at the ads. What you'll see from the Crawford campaign is, is the exact campaign that I'm trying to construct across the swing map. And what it did. Was it focused on her opponent? Is an opponent focused strategy on the PA media? The only thing that matters is the paid media. I know that seems weird, but people who come to your speeches, people who watch a debate on TV for the Senate. I'm talking about maybe 5% of your state watching that debate. Right? So what matters. What matters is the paid ad strategy. And right now what's emerging is our 2026 new version of sucking, which is affordability, which of course is what we should run on. Right? We should have a wedge campaign about one thing. Promises made, promises bro. Broken. Right? And it's easy to go to whichever promise. I'm gonna take care of your health. Broken. I'm gonna take care of your money. I'm gonna make things lower. They're higher. Right. There's such, I mean, huge. Right. But I've seen some affordability ads, frankly, that don't even mention Donald Trump. Like, why create that product? It's a $50,000 ad that's going to be useless. Okay? So it's not enough to go and tell people both parties like screwed you over. You're doing the Republicans work for them. What we need to do now is come in and say, yeah, you should be angry. I'm angry. You should be angry too. And let me tell you why. Because for 50 years the Republican Party has built this economic model that was called. They knew what it was going to do because they called it voodoo economics. Okay? And what it did was it gutted our middle class and it gutted rural America. Right? And that's the record. I want people to run on, not on. You know, Mitch McConnell is corrupt. He takes money from China. Whoopty shit. Voter doesn't. Voter thinks Amy McGrath not, not fair, but thinks Amy McGrath is just as corrupt as Mitch McConnell. Because they're politicians and the public hates politicians. Right? So we're not selling a Toyota or versus a Ford. Right? Products that people like and want selling. Two things that people are predispositioned even if they bother to vote, which half the country doesn't to. Not necessarily like. Right? So why, when you're trying to sell this person, you're talking about you. And 80% of your ads are all about this, right? 80, 90% of their ads are going to be. Rachel Bitticoffer mutilates children. She lets. Wants immigrants, migrants to come and kill your family. She's a socialist. I mean, this is literally what goes in their ads, right? So we have. We. And yet what happens, Amy? They win swing races all the time. On that strategy. So somehow we're supposed to believe that the psychology of the electorate will only accept that kind of messaging from Republicans. Right. And it's. We're not special people like the, the research, like I call them, the research research cabal who sucks all of our distribution money for paid ads on research has, has done many, many research things to prove that voters don't want to listen about partisanship. Of course not. Voters say that all the time in polling. All polling expert. Okay. Voters hate, say, say they hate negative ads all the time. And then the next question is, what do you know about the candidate? Guess what the one thing is that they know the negative ad. Right? So those negative ads are extremely potent and powerful. And the only way pack back to power is to rebrand us back to the working class and rebrand them as the people who ruined your life. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And it's real too, because right now, like the policies are insanely bad for the everyday American, the everyday Kentuckian with tariffs and with health care and ripping away, you know, benefits, some Medicaid and SNAP and all of that stuff. I mean, it's really bad. And then all of the stuff that the president is doing that is just shredding our constitution. But I hear you in the sense that voters, many voters are not following this all the time. And some of these messages, you really have to pick one or two and go at it and really make the race about how bad the other side is.

[D]

Bingo. Right? I mean, think about CRT in 2021, which is you really, please, if you can hear my voice, I beg you, please read the have to buy it, get it from a library, get it for free, I don't care. Read the book. The reason I need you to read the book is so that you can help us stop what's coming. And when you read this book, you're going to realize pretty quickly, like, oh, okay, you know, the way that we do things are counterproductive. Like there's a current, the electorate is. I could think of it as an ocean. Right. And what they do in the ocean of psychiatry of loss aversion is a very powerful psychological effect on humans. Loss aversion. Right. And what that means is like something that gets taken from you. Right. And you think about how Republicans have framed this, you know, in 20, 30 year branding war. It's really a bit about Democrats are taking America from you. Right. So it's all loss aversion trigger. And the reason why it works so well instead of, you know, our beautiful policy plans Is that the voter. We're, we're, we're talking in a cerebral policy way that's rational based and logical. And that's because we are rational, fact based and logical people, right? But we.

[C]

Well, and we tell the truth.

[D]

And we tell the truth, right? And we are up against an opponent that does not tell the truth. And the nice thing about running against Susan Collins is you don't have to lie, okay? You just have to understand the people of Maine, not all of them, but many of the swing vote electorate that will come in and decide that main election has no idea that Susan Collins did some of these terrible things. And they will never hear it unless the Democratic nominee uses the only money available. Because it's, you know, you and I Both know super PACs are hard to fund, right? Most of that money is going to go into the candidates and the campaigns. So if they're wasting the money doing Harris's joy and opportunity economy crap and throwing up ads to win white voters that are, you know, there's no white people in the ad. I mean, hello, we have a racist, bigoted and sexist electorate, okay? And I'm not saying that to insult it. I'm saying it as a political scientist to say, don't swim against the current. Okay? There. You're not going to cure racism and elect Kamala Harris if you're making votes or ads to, to target swing Republican districts or districts that are predominantly white suburbanites. You gotta have white people in the ads, okay? You can't be saying stuff like pregnant person, okay? And all this wonky goobly goob. I mean, it's cringe, dude, okay?

[C]

Right.

[D]

The snapping the land. Acknowledgments. Our party is, is cringe at AF as, as anybody who's been not a partisan, but has come into our party. We know there are problems within our party that, that are exploited to make us look bad, okay? So I'm not saying we don't need, need some policy moderation. We need to be able to say Joe Biden up, he should have shut that border down right after the surge started, okay? And we need to be able to say we should get a national voter ID. It's, it's 2025. Everyone has ID. Black people even vote in polls support voter ID. And the reason, friends, that we need it is because they're going to claim 2028 was stolen from them, right? Illegals voted. And that's how you could crush that, that myth, right? But we're not going to do that because God forbid we help them do national voter id so they're going to have this excuse to use against us.

[C]

As I listen to you, you're very much an offensive and negative strategy towards for messaging. And I get that, believe me, I get that. Okay. However, you do hear people, and I do hear this a lot, that candidates also need to have a vision for the future. It can't just be running an anti them strategy. What do you, do you agree with.

[D]

That or you're like, yeah, I totally disagree with it. Yeah, that's the prevailing wisdom that I'm up against for five years. Those well paid consultants that you're referring to have, have, have, you know, perpetuated myths that, that they have created themselves and made a shit to money on perpetuating. Okay, yes. Obviously if you're running for office, you have to have a vision and a positive platform. Okay? And that's what your stump speech is all about. You're not going to go out there. I mean, I would recommend having some fire and fury in your stump speech right now because especially if you're in a Democratic nomination fight. Because what does America want right now? America, the rest of us, we want a leader, right? We're terrified, right? Like, where's our goddamn Winston Churchill? Right? And that's like, that's, you know, Gavin Newsom's going to be our Winston Churchill if not else emerges, right? But at least the public's gonna rally behind this guy because there's the one thing we want. I mean, my God, it sounds so weird to me to have a debate about abundance and populism and the New York governor, you know, mayor, like why the house is literally on fire, guys. I mean, the house falling down.

[C]

I totally agree with you about that. I'm so tired of that kind of stuff.

[D]

Mind blowing.

[C]

It is mind blowing. I mean, we need leaders and there's so many people and it's not just in politics. But I think what's scaring a lot of people is, you know, universities are caving, businesses are caving, you know, lawyers, all there's. People are living in fear right now. And this is true in the military. I mean, I read articles all the time about, you know, the firing of or the removal of, you know, the three star admiral. For example, at the Naval Academy read and read an article today that talked about 200 alumni from one particular class, I think it was her class who stepped up and wrote a letter and basically said, this is wrong. A good percentage of those who wrote that letter there wasn't even published letter. Wanted to Remain anonymous for fear of retribution. And they said that in there.

[D]

I know fear of retribution, it is real.

[C]

And so I bring that back to this, this idea that we absolutely crave and need leaders right now who will step up against this stuff because it is completely un American. But I want to ask you also about a particular policy issue and it's one that, that is in the news a lot right now. I think it may be like the policy issue that the other side, it appears, is going to be running on, which is crime. Crime. Okay. And I've always felt like Republicans don't give a about crime.

[D]

No, because.

[C]

Is is BS when you are, are behind the people that took batons and used American flag poles to, to spear cops on January 6th and then you raised money and then you supported a guy that pardoned 1500 of these criminals and all of that stuff. But yet it is still there. And so what are your thoughts on this and messaging for Democrats?

[D]

Yeah, I mean, this is their power. I want people to understand now people are more receptive. Last year I was having these conversations all across the state with Democrats saying, look, we got to do this. We're in power now. So they hate us. We have to run this strategy now. People are kind of receptive to it. Right. And you know, part of that strategy has to be, I think, increasing and enhancing. We have a realignment and a dealignment in our electorate. If again, read the book and you'll get some more information. But over The Democratic Party 50 years ago was the rural party of the south. Okay. Now it's the city party of like the north and the west, the two Coast. Right. And so, you know, the parties have, have transitioned a lot. And we talk all the time about the degradation or the erosion of what we call white working class voters. But when we talk about class folks, I want you to understand pollsters are really talking about education, college education versus not. Why? Because even if you have a college education, you're better inoculated to propaganda. You have a better appreciation for why rights for all have to be protected for everyone to have rights and all this other stuff that you get from a college education. And so, you know, number one, that decline of the working class is not entirely organic. Some of it was triggered by the Southern realignment and the end of segregation, blah, blah, blah, blah. But now a lot of it is triggered by a billion dollar propaganda campaign that the right was very smart when I said they, they embraced the new technology of the Internet and understood its capacity to reach the human brain. Just like The Nazis understood the capacity of the new invention of the radio directly to people's brains, and they were very shrewd. And they have a lot of billionaires that spend a lot of money on infrastructure. And so those white workingclass voters, you know, first it started in the south and spread to the Midwest, and now it's everywhere. They've been told very strategically not to like us. Like, they're just inundated all the time with the freakiest things they can find on the Internet. You know, Hamas lovers, you know, defacing the Phil, the. The Liberty Bell, or, you know, the scariest, weirdest looking trans people. Right? And it's so. It's so easy to exploit and they're so good at it that when we look at Virginia in 2021, in January of 2021 to October of 2021, there was this thing called CRT and it didn't even really exist. Okay.

[C]

I mean, nobody knew what it was.

[D]

Nobody. I didn't even know what it was CRT was until the first time. Chris. Christopher.

[C]

I thought it was like the, the head injury thing.

[D]

Yeah, me too. Right. So, you know, thing. Okay. And so like number one CRT race in schools not coming up on your 20 most important issues. Okay. If you're pulling Virginia and you're like, ah, we would be like, oh, what should we run on? Oh, affordability, right? They were like, we're going to, we. Governor Youngkin is a sweater vest wearing business guy, okay? So if he was our guy, he'd be like, oh, Glenn, your strength is the economy. And let's make sure you do this and that and that. No, on their side, evil people get paid and they control the campaigns, okay? They don't get. Sit on the sidelines like I do. And somebody over there, I was like, glenn, we think we could win this. It's a, by now a bluish state is purple. Bluish, right? So in 2021, Virginia had been going blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, and suddenly it swings back to Republican. We think we can win if we all run on this thing called crt. And we took the debate. Debate, right? So they, instead of being all high minded and having to win the right way, they just want to win. That's all they want to do. They want to win and they, and they plot war to win, okay? Plot work while being nice and making sure I have a vision and doing this and that and union things and, you know, a diverse staff and all this. No, they just want to win, right? So like, that's strategic. Creep into Mission creep. Everyone in the chat probably knows what I'm talking about. You don't want mission creep like that. Right. And so they got them all to do it. Glenn Youngkin and the two other statewide candidates. And all of the Republican House of Delegates pounded, pounded crt. National news picks it up, starts talking about, what do we do? What we always do. Well, it's not real. And actually it's a legal theory that's never taught in any law schools. And even if it was, let's talk about race in America. We had MSNBC humming for like two months about defense, defense, defense. Right. And meanwhile, I'm texting Jamie Harrison. I'm like a launch a counter offense. I can do this for you. Right? Like, we can do it cheap. Like, oh, my God. And they didn't. So think about what I'm saying. Sniper strategy. One issue. And they defined every Democrat in Virginia that cycled around that one issue.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

In our mind, the voters don't care or know what that is. Voters knew what it meant. Okay. They understood that to them, what they were hearing is they want to make your kids feel bad about being white. Okay. That's what CRT means. So it doesn't matter if they can define it. It. And we can do show the stump video of the dumb. People are like, oh, I don't know what it is. I just hate it. Right, right. At the end of the day, they understood what it meant. It was a dog whistle for. They want to make you feel bad about being white. Right. And so, you know, they're going to do that with crime. They don't have a lot they can do because Trump screwed them on terrorists. Right. If he would have just not done anything to the economy, the economy would be getting better and better because it was already pretty good and going better and better. Better with Biden. Right. And then he could have taken all the credit for it. And he already does. He's like, you know, he would. He's good at that. But he screwed himself and now they can't run. They're going to have a real problem if we come and say he, he lied to you. He said he was going to make cheaper and he made it more expensive. Right. He got rich. He got. He got paid. You got played, right. I mean, $5 billion, right? Yep. So, you know, I think, I think it's important for, for people to know, like, just because something doesn't. They took something that didn't even exist and made it the number one issue for a year. Okay. We. That's the power.

[C]

But you can't say crime isn't a problem.

[D]

Oh, yeah, no. So you flip and pivot and attack.

[C]

It's actually better than it used to be. Yeah, but it's like now all of a sudden, President. The Republicans are, Are. Are saying that this is a. He's going to call a national emergency, I think, and he's just waiting and it's all political. Yeah, right.

[D]

Y.

[C]

So but. But as. As another. As somebody, you can't say it's not real because there is crime.

[D]

Yes, of course there is. And that's why they understand that we're suryable and we'll respond exactly how you've responded, which totally makes sense. In any normal world, in any normal country. We are not living in a normal world, man. We have Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard is the dni. And Holy right started like we're abnormality. We don't even recognize what's abnormal anymore. What's so abnormal. Right. So you know what I would tell tell you is the instinct is to be like, well, you. Crime's actually lower. Right? To do all the things we did with crt. That's our instinct and they know it. And that's why they feed that shit to us. Because our dumb consultant class will be like, oh, we can't just pretend crime's not an issue. And the worries that you express, which are reasonable things in a reasonable world. But we're not talking about reason and we're not talking about a reasonable world. So instead, every time they mention crime, boy, how do you want to talk about crime? Let's talk about crime. I mean, we have a guy sitting in the White House. He's a surreal serial criminal, right? We have a Republican Party that's run the biggest heist in America and they just got the working class to vote for a guy who took their money and gave it to Elon Musk. Right? Like we. Instead of. See how I'm on offense now, Amy, and I'm not on defense, so you can say crime. Oh, you want to talk about crime. You know, school safety, the shit with kids and the trans crap. Same difference. You want to tell me in America, you. You want to protect children? You have voted 39 times against banning assault weapons. Do you know what an assault weapon does to a child's body when the bullets enter it? Right? Like, see, I have changed the whole conversation. And now what do they have to do? Do they have to defend. They have to defend themselves. And if we can't get them and Keep them in that posture next year and in 2028, then we are, I mean we have to try to win. Right. I don't. We can talk about whether that election is going to be certified. But I will tell you guys this. Can you imagine a republic, this Republican Party as it currently is constituted if let's say we, they, Jerry, they're going to gerrymander some districts and we fail because we run weak affordability stuff. And we think people are more excited than they are. Are Right. Let's say they control the House. Is that Republican House going to certify the 2028 election? No, they are not. Yeah, like we know they will not. Right. So like this battle of 2026, I mean the real battle was 2024. I wanted to win that battle so we wouldn't have to have war. Okay.

[C]

Which goes back and I have to end on this. But, but it goes back to this, this real need to have leaders with courage. It does stand, stand up. And so we, we need to keep at it. And I, I, I so appreciate this conversation. Let's continue it because I really want to hear from you, you know, as, as things progress here. This is so important and you're doing tremendous work. If people want to follow you, Rachel, where do they go?

[D]

So I'm at Rachel Bitter coffer on Twitter. On Blue sky it's R A C H E L B I T E C as in cat O F as in Frank er and I'm the only one. Like there's no other bit of coffers because no one would want that monstrosity as a name. So I'm pretty easy to find. But I really urge the most important homework I can give you guys is, is to read the book. And you know, a lot of the people who listen to this probably are connected in the security apparatus. Now there's never been a dearth of money in the national security world. Okay. Like I know there's money out there. So if you happen to have some and you want to use it to be to wage a patent style rhetorical war, reach out to Amy and let's talk about it. Because the thing that you can do is you can fund effective strategic messaging that fights them in the trenches. And that's what I'm trying to build. And I'm so excited to have talked to you about it today.

[C]

That's awesome. Thank you for that work, Rachel. We're going to keep listening. Your book is Hit Them where it Hurts. So everybody needs to go out and get that. And you're awesome. It's great to talk with you today.

[D]

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much. Much.

[B]

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