Ep 71 | Polling Insider Reveals What the Election Polls AREN'T Telling You I Henry Olsen

Summary

Zero Hour with James Poulos – Episode 71 Summary

Title: Polling Insider Reveals What the Election Polls AREN'T Telling You
Host: James Poulos
Guest: Henry Olsen, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Release Date: November 4, 2024

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Introduction: Understanding Election Polls

In this episode of Zero Hour, James Poulos welcomes Henry Olsen to dissect the intricacies of election polling in the 2024 race. Olsen, with his extensive background in political analysis, differentiates his role from that of traditional pollsters.

[00:58] Henry Olsen: "The pollster... puts together the questionnaire, pulls the sample, runs the numbers and puts it out. I've done that in my life, but I don't do that now. I analyze the polls."

Olsen emphasizes that polls are not precise predictions but indicators of electoral trends, often subject to late shifts that polls might miss.

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The Reliability and Interpretation of Polls

Olsen critiques the perceived obsolescence of polls, especially after the disappointing outcomes in 2022 where predictions failed to align with reality. He attributes this to last-minute shifts in voter sentiment that polls can't capture.

[01:28] Henry Olsen: "Polls talk about directions as margins of error... if you understand what polls can tell you and what they can't tell you, you're a lot less worried about what's going on."

He advises against relying on a single pollster, suggesting instead to consider poll averages to gauge the election's direction accurately.

[02:37] Henry Olsen: "Look at the averages and understand that if they say it's, you know, H +1 or T +1, you could easily be off by a point."

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Challenges Facing the Harris Campaign

Olsen delves into the vulnerabilities of Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign, highlighting her struggles to solidify support across diverse voter groups.

[06:00] Henry Olsen: "The only thing that unites their coalition is vibes and in opposition to Trump."

He explains that the Democratic coalition is fragmented, relying heavily on opposition to Trump rather than cohesive policy stances. This fragmentation makes it difficult for Harris to appeal to both progressive and moderate voters without alienating key demographics.

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Impact of Identity Politics and Intersectionality

The discussion shifts to how intersectionality and identity politics are affecting the Democratic Party's ability to maintain a unified front. Olsen argues that focusing narrowly on issues like abortion without addressing broader voter concerns is detrimental.

[11:12] Henry Olsen: "The Democrats overestimate its [abortion rights] impact... they're alienating certain groups."

He points out that issues beyond abortion, such as economic concerns of working-class voters, are being neglected, causing a drift towards Republican support among these demographics.

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The Republican Party and Donald Trump's Strategy

Olsen provides an analysis of the Republican landscape, particularly Donald Trump's campaign strategies. He contrasts Trump's disciplined approach with previous Republican campaigns that often faced internal turmoil.

[25:05] Henry Olsen: "Trump kept his head about him. He kept his campaign staff moving along. He focused himself a little bit better than he was in the initial weeks..."

Olsen credits Trump's ability to remain calm and strategic as a key factor in his campaign's professionalism and potential success.

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Media Consumption: Legacy Media vs. New Platforms

The conversation then shifts to the evolving media landscape, emphasizing the decline of legacy media's influence and the rise of podcasts and niche platforms in shaping political narratives.

[36:47] Henry Olsen: "It's hard to say there's a singular narrative. Just like when I was growing up, TV shows on the networks would get 30% of America tune in... Now it's such a wide range of places where people congregate, get information and share information."

Olsen highlights the challenges candidates face in reaching diverse voter groups spread across numerous media outlets, contrasting with the more centralized media consumption of previous decades.

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The Religious Right: Evolution and Influence

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the transformation of the religious right and its impact on the Republican Party. Olsen explains that the religious right has shifted from being a majority moral compass to a minority seeking protection against perceived cultural and institutional threats.

[52:10] Henry Olsen: "It's like this is a... We need protection. We need to be able to practice our faith... Evangelical Christians will vote for him [Trump] enthusiastically..."

He underscores that modern evangelical communities prioritize protection of their religious freedoms over specific policy endorsements, making Trump an appealing figure for their perceived defensive stance.

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Demographic Shifts and the Youth Vote

Olsen discusses the complexities of the youth vote, noting that while young people are increasingly diverse and politically active, their influence is still limited compared to older voter demographics.

[41:04] Henry Olsen: "The single biggest group in the electorate is still the boomer generation. The second biggest group is the X generation... the median age of a voter this year will be somewhere in their 40s."

He cautions that although younger generations are becoming more politically relevant, the bulk of the electorate remains predominantly older, traditional voters who consume legacy media.

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Technological Sector's Political Leanings

The episode also touches on the shifting political affiliations within the tech industry, noting a noticeable swing towards Republican support among tech entrepreneurs who prioritize free speech and entrepreneurial freedoms.

[35:53] Henry Olsen: "They really care about things like free speech... And they're sharply polarizing."

Olsen suggests that this shift is driven by tech professionals' frustrations with what they perceive as left-leaning suppression of free expression, aligning them more closely with Trump's rhetoric and policies.

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Potential Fractures in Major Political Parties

Towards the end, Olsen speculates on the future stability of the major American political parties, highlighting the internal conflicts within the Democrats between reformative and transformational factions.

[59:17] Henry Olsen: "The Democratic Party is a simmering pot... It's going to take another 20 years for enough of that to die off and enough of the people who grew up in the online era to be the dominant."

He foresees that the increasing ideological split within the Democratic Party may eventually lead to significant fractures, although he does not predict such a split before the upcoming election.

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Conclusion: The Road Ahead

James Poulos and Henry Olsen wrap up the episode by reinforcing the unpredictability of the 2024 election. Olsen emphasizes the importance of understanding polling nuances, the fragmented nature of current political coalitions, and the evolving dynamics within both major parties.

[62:22] James Polis: "Incisive analysis as always. I know. I will be reading come what may."

Olsen leaves listeners with a reminder of the complexities and ever-changing landscape of American politics, underscoring that the next two weeks could still hold unexpected turns.

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Key Takeaways:

• Polls as Indicators, Not Predictions: Understanding their limitations and the importance of averaging multiple sources.

• Fragmented Democratic Coalition: Reliance on anti-Trump sentiment rather than unified policy positions weakens the party's appeal.

• Trump's Strategic Calm: His methodical campaign approach contrasts with past Republican disarray, potentially swaying undecided voters.

• Media's Fragmentation: Diverse media platforms complicate narrative control, requiring multifaceted campaign strategies.

• Evolving Religious Right: Transitioning from majority influencers to protective minorities seeking Trump’s defense stances.

• Youth Vote Dynamics: Increased political engagement among youth but limited electoral impact compared to older voters.

• Tech Industry’s Shift: Growing Republican support within tech circles driven by free speech and entrepreneurial concerns.

• Party Fractures: Internal divisions within the Democratic Party may lead to future splits, impacting national politics.

This episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the 2024 election landscape, offering listeners valuable insights into the underlying factors shaping the political battleground.

Transcript

[James Polis]

Election 2024. It's not enough to know which politicians you trust. You got to know what polls to believe. Henry Olsen is here to break it down. I'm James Polis. This is Zero Hour. Yes, Henry Olson is here with us today. He's a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy center, and he studies and commentates on American politics. An analyst, not a pollster. Henry, welcome.

[Henry Olsen]

Thank you for having me, James.

[James Polis]

All right, so just quickly cue up what's the difference here? You're not the guy out in the field talking to people. You are absorbing all the information and trying to make heads or tails.

[Henry Olsen]

The pollster, it's the person who puts together the questionnaire, pulls the sample, runs the numbers and puts it out. I've done that in my life, but I don't do that now. I analyze the polls.

[James Polis]

All right, so let's dig in. I thought that polls are supposed to be obsolete. You know, a lot of people had a bad 20, 22 or so. Predictions are flying, didn't pan out, really contributed to that feeling that shenanigans were running rampant across the country. However you want to interpret that. Did you go through that process and what did you learn about how to make sense of the polls?

[Henry Olsen]

You know, the thing is that you have to understand what polls are. Polls are not going into the doctor's office, and the doctor gives you what you expect to be like 98% accuracy, exactly what's ailing you and how to treat it. Polls talk about directions as margins of error, and we can get into how they're constructed. What you want to do is you want to get a sense of where the race is heading. And the fact is that what a problem with the polls in 2022, to the extent there was one, was that there was a late break away from candidates, there was a late break in the last weekend away from Republicans and towards Democrats. Polls are not going to catch that because they're in the field before the last weekend. I just think if you understand what polls can tell you and what they can't tell you, you're a lot less worried about what's going on. I got 2016 largely right because I knew how to read the polls, which is, say, seriously, but not literally.

[James Polis]

If you're just a regular, ordinary American person who is recognizing that they have to care more about the numbers going into the home stretch if they want any kind of clear picture of what's going on. Where do you look? How do you know that the information that you are putting in front of Your face is true is accurate enough.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah. The thing is that what you should not do is put your faith in any one particular pollster. Every poll today is basically a constructed model, and that's because you can't get a random sample. Certain types of people are likelier to respond to polls. Certain people are less likely. So every poll, it takes the survey data and matches it to what the pollster believes or usually with good reason to be what the likely electorate is like. There's no pollster who has the multi year record of saying, oh, they always get it right. So look at the averages and understand that if they say it's, you know, H +1 or T +1, you could easily be off by a point. It's. There's no way to get it any closer than that. So you look at the direction, look at the average, and that's the best way to consume the polls.

[James Polis]

I thought maybe you would say that people should just read your analysis and that's it and they'll be fine.

[Henry Olsen]

Well, you know, but the thing is, my analysis can reflect that uncertainty. Yeah, that. One of my favorite sayings is from Lord of the Rings where Sam's talking to the elves on the way to Rivendell and says, go not to the elves for advice. For they'll tell you both yes and no. I'll tell you yes or no the weekend before election. And I'm almost always right. But until then, you have to be willing to say there's a degree of uncertainty and you have to be willing to say that things can change. Right now it looks like Harris is slightly in the lead, but not by enough that anybody should place comfort in that. Which is why the Harris side is talking about all her weaknesses, because she knows that this is a jump ball election and that movements of tenths of a point can be the difference between victory and defeat.

[James Polis]

Yeah, Okay. I mean, it seems to me that it's really a fool's errand to try to follow things day by day here. It's like the stock market. If you just watch the number go up and down every second, you're going to go crazy. But just taking sort of like a longer view or maybe a broader view. If Harris is up or is running about neck and neck with Trump, then why is this campaign acting like they're in meltdown mode?

[Henry Olsen]

Because first of all, when you're talking about tenths of a point, it's better to be acting like in meltdown mode than not. Secondly, she's been losing some altitude. If you were Looking earlier in October, you were looking somebody who's maybe two and a half to three and a half points ahead. Well, in a winner take all scenario in the electoral College, that gives you just a little bit more room for comfort. She's not there right now. She has lost some altitude. So they're just freaking out because the alternative to freak out is complacency. And you better be freaking than complacent when your candidate is losing a little bit of altitude and bringing it into the zone where, hey, if this keeps up, we are going to lose.

[James Polis]

So when in doubt, freak out. This is a campaign that has conspicuously not run on policy. You know, maybe not the first to kind of drift away from policy and talk about sort of larger themes or whatever, but it does seem like it's been at least a choice of some kind, maybe motivated by kind of what the campaign has to work with in terms of the candidate. But really, you know, it seems like it's difficult to run polls, to analyze polls, to assess the performance of a candidate who you can't kind of go to voters and say, well, what do you think about their stance on X?

[Henry Olsen]

You know, the thing that unites the Democratic. The Democratic Party is no longer the natural majority party in the country. The only thing that gets them to a national majority is opposition to Trump, which means the more specific they are, the more they alienate part of their coalition. They go and lean too far to the center and the left says, hey, that's not good enough for us. You know, we'll vote for Jill Stein, we'll vote for Cornel west, we'll stay home, tilt to the left. And the Republican leaning independents who may not be crazy about Trump, say, hey, that's too crazy. I'll hold my notes and vote for Trump. So that's why they're doing this. The only thing that unites their coalition is vibes and in opposition to Trump. And you, I expect to see that not specific stances on policy to dominate the Harris narrative in the last couple of weeks.

[James Polis]

Yeah, but even that kind of opposition looks like it's starting to become unreliable. You look at, you know, men across all categories, across all sort of racial, ethnic categories, definitely problems here. Harris not appealing. And that kind of the danger factor that they've tried to handle hang around Trump for so long, that seems to be watering down.

[Henry Olsen]

The thing about the danger factor is people have already factored that in. The people who are motivated by he's a purported threat to democracy are already in Harris's camp. That they think that in 2022, that brought undecideds into their corner. And I think they might be right. But 2024 is not 2022. There's an extra two years of Biden, Harris, people still don't like the direction. And when the president's on the ballot, as opposed to faceless Congress, people. People are more likely to cast a ballot as a referendum on the incumbent. 2022, the incumbent wasn't on the ballot. 2024, the incumbent is on the ballot because Harris is part of the administration. That means it's a lot tougher to run that be afraid of big Orange man campaign, because as the Trump campaign always points out, hey, by the way, you've had power for the last few years. How do you like the last four years? And they can't run away from that. It's harder for them to do, even though they're trying to do it.

[James Polis]

Yeah. So as Orange man seems less bad and people get more used to Trump being around. I mean, he's been in the spotlight the whole time. It has been interesting to see these kind of dilemmas start to emerge out of the Harris campaign when they do have to turn to sort of policy matters. And I think, you know, what's going on with Israel is case in point. I mean, they seem to be in danger, at least of backing themselves into this corner where they're not satisfying Muslim and Arab voters in, for instance, Michigan. But they're also not satisfying a big chunk of Jewish voters, too. And it's almost like they're getting it from both directions.

[Henry Olsen]

That is exactly what the polls are saying is, again, it's not a huge defection. Harris will still win Jewish voters, she will still win Muslim voters. But the polls are showing that she's losing margin among both groups. And again, she's not in charge of the policy, Biden's in charge of the policy, but she's obviously echoing it. And this half of one, half a dozen of the other is a alienating certain people in both groups. And this is going to be a problem in Michigan where they're both mostly of the same size, but it's going to be really a problem in Pennsylvania where Jews are 4 or 5% of the voting population. It's not huge. But if your margin is down by 10 points and you're talking about tenths of a percent, you know, that's votes that you're leaving on the table. But if she goes in one direction, the progressives and the Muslims get upset and she loses more votes in the other direction, she's just caught betwixt in between. And neither she nor the Biden administration have figured out that they need to pick a side and take it. And instead they're losing in both directions.

[James Polis]

Yeah, intersectionality, rainbow coalition stuff looks really persuasive on paper, like, oh, yeah, we'll just sort of ban it. But in practice, it's turning out to not be quite so straightforward.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, well, the thing is that people want presidents to lead. They don't want presidents to assemble coalitions and ameliorate differences. But Biden spent his whole career ameliorating differences. Biden's superpower politically is that for 50 years he's been able to effortlessly figure out where the center of the Democratic coalition is and occupy it. That's great if you want to be acceptable to everybody, but that's not what a president does. A president takes a position, brings people to that position. Biden is conspicuously unable to do it. Harris seems to be unable to do it too. And if people want leadership, if in the last stretch, as people are making up their minds, not crazy about either person, who do I trust more? Those people tend to want leadership and that means they're likelier to be flipping to Trump in the last week.

[James Polis]

It's almost like a live by identity politics, die by identity politics thing, because one interpretation of what's going on in Michigan and Pennsylvania, other states is it is kind of the Israel thing. But another interpretation is it's actually just the sex or gender thing where Harris is not appealing to men. You look at the gender gap, it's enormous. This isn't, you know, it's not just an America thing. You look around other parts of the, of the world. I mean, I think in South Korea, the political gender gap is even more enormous. How much longer can that kind of differential exist without it really starting to do serious damage to the Democrats?

[Henry Olsen]

Well, the thing is, it's an equal and opposite reaction thing is that all the polls in the United States show that over the last few years, young women are moving conspicuously to the left. Well, young women at that age group are about half the potential voters. You don't get the female advantage until, you know, the older because men die earlier. That's where women are 52% of the electorate because there's a lot more 85 to 90 year old women than there are men. And you have men turning more conservative. So the Democrats say, look at all the gains we have with women. And they're forgetting that women are only half of the electorate at that time and that they are alienating young men. So it's a net wash for the Democrats. But at the same time, the things that are helping them with their base are alienating moderates of all ages. So the sex and gender extremism and the woke extremism is hurting them across the board, particularly with working class voters who look and say, I don't care about this stuff. My kid's never going to go to college. I just want my kid to move the next rung up on the American ladder to success. And how about talking about what I care about instead of the stuff that all of you friends at your cocktail parties care about? It's hurting them with working class voters, which is why Trump is doing much better with working class voters who are not white. They're beginning to say, hey, I need to vote. These people are more in line with my whole worldview than the party I used to vote for. And the Harris campaign is freaking out and doesn't know how to respond to it.

[James Polis]

What's going on with the abortion rhetoric? You got family formation is in rough shape. Cost of raising children is through the roof. You got young women crying on TikTok about how it costs $200 to get a bag of Doritos and a case of Mountain Dew. The promise of good jobs for young women is really just, you've got girls who are working jobs that are worse than the bad jobs their dads had that made them mad at their dads. And so you've got the Harris campaign and its surrogate saying like, well, you gotta vote for us because abortion, meanwhile, you look at what's going on on the ground with abortion. And yes, states are taking steps to codify abortion rights into a state law. Is that not sinking in with these women voters who are supporting Harris? Are they pretending that it's not gonna happen? What does an analysis actually show about how. And that reduction of all of sort of women's issues to abortion is working out.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah. The thing is that abortion rights is a motivating issue for people who are inclined to vote Democrats anyway. So it is a motivating issue to give. It is a motivating issue to volunteer. And if you're inclined to vote Democrat, but you're not always a habitual voter, it is a motivating issue to turn out to the polls. Everyone else, it's a mile wide and an inch deep. So we have yet to see that Republicans, who, for example, about a third of Republicans are pro abortion rights, they'll vote for abortion rights initiatives and they'll vote for Republicans. There's little to no evidence that says it's a party switch issue. I think Democrats overestimate its impact, overestimate its appeal, and consequently aren't spending time talking about things that matter to people who are already gonna vote for them. And a lot less time talking about things to people who used to vote for them and now feel alienated. The African American working class voter, the Hispanic working class voter, the person who wants to get ahead and says it's harder to get ahead now, they're not talking enough about that. That's one of the reasons why Trump is doing well with these groups.

[James Polis]

Well, and it might just boil down to the fact that they had their four plus years, whatever it is they took their swing, didn't really work. We didn't have complete catastroph and meltdown and global thermonuclear war. But things don't seem to be working out very well. There doesn't really seem to be a plan B. They're hanging on to this, looking somewhat competitive right now, but apparently the internals are terrible and maybe we can talk about that too. But just sizing things up from where you stand right now, do you expect this campaign, the Harris campaign, for the bottom to drop out going into the home stretch?

[Henry Olsen]

Well, yeah. I think what you'll see is increasingly sharp rhetoric that again, what unites their coalition is fear of and anger towards Trump. And you've started to see this in the last week. Moving back to the democracy rhetoric that the Biden campaign was running on. Running on the he's unstable, he's this, he's that. You know that the more you see that, the more you see them implicitly saying, we can't sell our vision, we can't defend our record, we have to make them scared of the other person. So beginning to see that. And I think that's, it's not that the bottom's falling out, but when tenths of a point matter the direction, that means you're going to win by, you know, win the national popular vote by one and a half points rather than two and a half points. That's the difference between the chance to win and probably losing most of the swing states. So I think they are seeing that trend. They want to stop it and they don't know how to stop it other than by attacking Trump because nothing else seems to work.

[James Polis]

Yeah, it seems like we saw that strategy roll out with the Bret Baier interview, which I assume you saw they spent most of the Time talking over each other. But Harris, let's get back to Donald Trump. Let's get back to Donald Trump.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, I think that is a really good indication that she chose Fox as the network to make it clear that she's going to define the race in the final days as it's me or that man. And what that means is the abortion messaging. They'll use it, but it's not selling the deal. Open change, new way forward. They'll use it. It's not making the deal. She chose Bret Baier to say, I'm making his character the centerpiece of the campaign and hoping that that produces what a positive view of her has not so far produced.

[James Polis]

All right, so let's talk about that man, Donald J. Trump. I don't know if I can remember a time when Republicans have been so divided on just their gut feel, their sense of the odds. Yeah, you had a close race with George W. Bush, but most people were like, we don't know. It's going to come down to the wire. Other than that, it's usually been sort of like wild optimism in a sense of impending total victory, Reagan years or this kind of barely a pulse. Romney is going to lose, whatever. This is a lot different. You got some people who are like, yes, this is it, maybe 22. There was no red wave. But look at these polls. All the trend lines are in our favor. Trump is charismatic. He's confident he survived these assassination attempts or survived one of them. A real feeling of having a real momentum going into the hump stretch and others going, no, it's a game of inches. And you can't read too much of these swing states. He's only up by 0.9%. And then you can't just paint it red. How much of that kind of confusion or disagreement about how this is going to play out is showing up in D.C. in the movement and in the attitudes of the folks on the ground who are really going to have to figure out the turnout thing.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, I think the more attached, the closer you are to the center of things, the more you're in the inches game. I think it's clear that there is movement to Trump or more accurately, movement away from Harris. And that's why the Harris campaign is flashing the big or the Democrat operatives outside the Harris campaign are saying, be very worried, be very scared. Flashing yellow. If you don't turn things around now, things are going to be disastrous. But again, when I take a look at what's happening, when I take a look at the early, early voting Stats. What it looks like is Republicans are turning out to vote in non traditional Republican voters are turning out to vote. You know, it's very early, but it looks like the person who may, like Trump, is an habitual voter is motivated to vote. Well, that is a good sign for Republicans. And if that keeps up, then I think you could very well be looking at Election Day at another surprise, you know, which is to say that the media will never see a Republican wave until it washes over them at 10:00 Eastern Time. But wiser people who look at data, the trend lines are good, but you don't want to be too giddy and optimistic and say they're going to continue because there's so much at stake and it's so close. But the trend lines are good, both in the polls and in the early voting numbers that suggest a more pro Trump movement than the media narrative is letting on. And I think the professionals on their side see it, and that's why you're getting the free kids.

[James Polis]

Well, this was sort of the curse of the Democrats for a number of cycles, which is the youth vote. We'll turn them out. Unlikely voters will save us. There's this sea of people and you just have to activate them. Does it seem like, though, that unlikely voters are gonna break for Trump and that it is gonna be significant?

[Henry Olsen]

You know, everyone agrees is that the more engaged you are with politics and the likely you are to vote, the better, the more you are likely to be for Harris. And that makes sense is that across the world, voting propensity and engagement politics rises with formal education. The Democrats are now the elite party. The Democrats are now the party that dominates among people with postgraduate degrees and stuff. So everyone knows that it's better for Trump with the higher turnout that you get. The person who doesn't consume politics doesn't look at the Real Clear Politics poll average, but may or may not vote. And what we're seeing is, again, it's early. What we're seeing is it looks like that person is engaging in voting. And if that continues, then what you'll see is a bunch of polls that built into their models an assumption, well, low income, low education, voters who may lean to Trump aren't going to vote. The trend line suggests that those will be wrong, in which case the polls will be proven wrong on election day. And I think that's the sort of thing that's freaking Democrats out. And they know also that Harris isn't where she needs to be with blacks. She isn't where she needs to be with Latinos, she needs higher degrees of support and higher degrees of engagement. And when you're talking about a core element of your base for 30, 40 years, that's not giving you that margin two weeks before election time. That's reason for freak out. I mean, if Trump was talking about evangelical Christians, my gosh, Trump is only winning 2/3 of evangelical Christians. He needs 80%. So he's got to go to churches, he's got to talk about God. Republicans would be freaking out. They're not seeing that with their base. Democrats are seeing that with their non white base. And that's freaking them out. And there's a reason they should be freaked out.

[James Polis]

Back in 2016, I found myself in this weird spot as kind of a commentator guy where people were freaking out about Donald Trump. But that didn't start happening until fairly late in the race. I'm old enough to remember when those think pieces were coming out. And it's like, no, Marco Rubio is the real extremist and Donald Trump is this kind of squishy New York guy. All that changed almost overnight. And so I was out there trying to make the point of like, Donald Trump is a normal human being and like a normal candidate and there's no reason for the freak out. But at the same time, the campaign itself was so bad, even once Bannon kind of got in there and got some control over it, it was still pretty bad. And so I was the guy who said, like, look, the convention shouldn't throw him out because he's a danger to democracy. If anything, they should throw him out because he's obviously not trying to win. So there have always been these criticisms about Trump and about his campaign style and about his campaign managers. And they come and they go and sometimes they come back. And the current crop was really feeling the heat just a couple of months ago. They're sabotaging the campaign. The former never Trumpers. You can't trust these guys. You gotta throw them out. You gotta bring in the professionals, bust Bannon out of prison and put him back in charge of the campaign. But now Trump campaign team is looking pretty clever. What happened?

[Henry Olsen]

What happened was people stopped reacting to momentary changes and Trump didn't panic. This is the most professional campaign that Trump has run out of the three campaigns that he's run. Harris came in and was boosted by a Democratic desire to win and of course the uncritical media attention. And that inflated her numbers as she consolidated wavering Democrats. People who didn't like Trump but really thought Biden was too old or too incompetent. And that led to a freak out when there was nothing wrong that was going on. Nothing wrong that was going on. And so now we're back to normal, which is say that the honeymoon phase is over for Harris and people are beginning to settle down. And Trump kept his head about him. He kept his campaign staff moving along. He focused himself a little bit better than he was in the initial weeks afterwards. I think he's settled on themes to attack her on and themes to promote him on. And he's better. His campaign never wavered, and Trump didn't blow up the bus. And I think not panicking when there was a little bit of a squall was the right thing to do. And look, this is a jump ball election. But the trend lines are slowly in Trump's favor. And if that continues, then we should expect a media freak out on Tuesday night, election night. But again, two weeks to go, lots of things can change.

[James Polis]

Do you think his brush with death on that stage, at that rally made him a better candidate?

[Henry Olsen]

No, I don't. I think he is who he is. He had a moment where he could have embraced a rethink, embrace a softer side. That could have moved again, a point or so, but in the race this close, that could have been the difference. He is who he is. He is a candidate with enormous advantages. He is somebody who can set a narrative and dominate the media like nobody we've seen. He's somebody who knows how to cut through and energize people. He is also sharply polarizing. The assassination attempt could have given him a chance to sand down a little of the polarizing while keeping his advantages. He didn't do it. He is an enormously gifted candidate who also has some flaws, and that's who he is. And that's the horse that the Republican Party is going to ride into election day.

[James Polis]

Yeah, to me, I mean, one of the most amazing things about Trump is this kind of polarity that sometimes comes out. One of these moments he goes and sees the truckers and he climbs into the truck and he's sort of sitting there and, you know, I'm paraphrasing, but basically he says he's like, yeah, you know, I lived a good life. Like, all kinds of crazy stuff happened to me. And, you know, sometimes I wish I could just, like, take this truck and just drive it off into the sunset, but I'm not going to do it. And, you know, there are other times you see him in his speech and he does have this incredible Softness that comes out in the voice and the hands, and then he goes right in for the kill. And that swing back and forth is just so powerful. And there was a moment where it seemed like he was going to sort of soften things and become a little more reflective, a little more introspective, but it didn't last. It seems like it never does.

[Henry Olsen]

That's the thing is it never does. He is who he is, and you dance with the lady what brung you. And. And Donald Trump has produced something that 12 years ago, Republican strategy just wanted, but their strategy would not have accomplished, which is when, if we're sitting here in 2012, you're looking at a world which is just like the last century. Democrats have a partisan edge, and in the post Reagan era, you know, five to eight points, more people say they're Democrats than Republicans. The Trump era was supposed to, in the media's eyes and the experts eyes, usher in a wave of Democratic dominance. In fact, we are now in the most Republican electorate in the last century. He has not yet brought Republicans to the promised land of majority status, but he has taken them out of the bondage of Egypt, of Democratic partisan edge. And you gotta say that's due in part to his genius that he has found a way to drive millions, tens of millions of people away from the Democratic camp and made them open to voting for Republicans. He's driven a few million away from the Republican camp. So it's not a dominance that you might have hoped for, but it's an enormous accomplishment, and it's due to a man who is willing to break China in order to get things to happen. And it's amazing to see how he's accomplished it. And if he wins, he could very well enter the promised land and bring Republicans what they've dreamed of for a century, which is being the real default majority, not just an occasional majority.

[James Polis]

Well, and it's fascinating because, you know, the electorate has changed and continues to change dramatically. One of the big cases against Trump, you know, just sort of analytically, was all these boomers are going to die off, and the electorate's gonna skew young, and all the young people are gonna do what the Dems always want them to do, which is just vote Democrat straight up and down the ticket. That hasn't really happened, but the electorate has grown, we could say coarser, I guess the culture has grown coarser. Republicans wanted that outright majority, but they kept putting up these guys fresh out of the country club dining hall or whatever. And yet Trump really hasn't Changed. He's the same guy as he was in the 80s. You go back and watch the tapes and he's kind of making the same points. We're getting killed out there, the competition. We're not, we're not living up. And that message is really translating now among a courser electorate. I'm Alexis de Tocqueville, scholar in a previous life. I don't have a problem with coarse Americans. Tocqueville is out there saying the elites look down on these people and they're disgusted, trying to watch them solve their own problems. And so they want to take away all the tools and just impose the problems from the top. You got to let people struggle through it and figure out how to govern themselves. That seems to be Trump's style, even if he hasn't really, I don't think, had the opportunity to govern in a way where you can say this is more than Trump's style. This is how he actually governs as a politician. This is really. He's the least experienced politician that we've had in ages. But how do you think those demographics actually are gonna play out as we head into November and then going through, I mean, there's gonna be another election cycle in not that long.

[Henry Olsen]

We are in the permanent election cycle, aren't we? You know, the thing is that I'm going to. I'm in my early 60s and as long as I've been alive, Pepsi has been the voice of a new generation every couple of years. It's always the same message. And the Democrats are the Pepsi of politics. It's always going to be the youth, but what they forget is that youth gets older and people who vote when they're 18 don't vote when they're 18, do vote when they're 45. And those people tend to be more conservative. That the sort of person who isn't excited by politics when they're 19, but when they're responsible, they have a family, they decide to start voting. Those people tend to be more conservative than people who are excited at voting when you're 18. And so what happens is this misplaced idea that we're going to change personalities, we're going to Change the way 18 to 24 year olds look at politics. Never works. They think abortion is going to be their cutting issue this time, maybe on the margin, but it's not going to change the basic nature of things. And the basic nature of things too is that this is the least white 18 to 24 generation in history. And increasingly the white elite dominated progressive Democratic Party are saying to 18 to 20 year olds vote on the things that we care about. But the 18 to 24 year olds are not those people. The 18 to 24 year olds is the son of a Hispanic truck driver or the son of an African American factory worker. And they are motivated by white, progressive, college educated issues. And they're saying, why should I vote for that? And that means that younger people of color are moving more to the Republican Party that is talking about those issues. So the Democrats misplaced focus and knack of understanding of the youth vote could very well be what costs in this election. And they again will never see it coming till it comes and knocks them over like a Mack truck.

[James Polis]

Well, speaking of youth and age, for a guy in his 60s, your head of hair must be the envy of Washington. Certainly something Donald Trump would respect. There's another dynamic I want to get into here and spend a little bit of time.

[Henry Olsen]

And no hair plugs, no dye.

[James Polis]

Yeah, that's all natty, baby. That's an achievement all by itself in 2024. So you may have seen this kind of, I don't know if you describe it as a graph or heat map or something showing partisan distribution in business or in tech. And it's been morphing. And last time around tech was pretty blue, and now this time there's this trough in the middle, or what is described as the middle. And you got a lot of tech guys skewing left, and then now suddenly a lot of tech guys skewing right. Obviously, Elon Musk is literally on the ground in Pennsylvania doing the campaigning. He's got the dark maga hat, he's got the gold maga hat. I know this is kind of anecdotal, but I'm sure if you ran some numbers on it, you'd find this to be true. A lot of these kind of movement conservative guys who have been in the movement for a long time, sort of professional conservatives, really feeling the heat. These tech guys roll in and they say, you know what, I'm gonna align myself with these issues and then I'm gonna own these issues. And you guys with your chicken dinners and your yellow ties, we don't actually need you anymore. Trump is our guy. Now, that might be. It's maybe a little too early to tell, but there's only so much runaway we're gonna figure out one way or the other. That tech swing to support Trump 2.0, I think is significant. I'm not sure how much it's driving polling or moving those kind of Blue collar guys. But blue collar guys know tech too, and they know how it can help and they know how it can hurt. What do you make of it?

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, I think it is indicative of a couple of things. First of all, tech has always tended to be entrepreneurial and socially libertarian, which in some ways cuts against a Republican position on the social libertarian side. But on the other hand, this is the thing that Musk talks about. They really care about things like free speech. They really care about that. And they look over at the left and they say, wait a minute, the side I thought was defending me is actually the surprise that's oppressing me. They're the ones who are saying I can't do this. They're the ones who are saying I shouldn't say this. And that's driving a lot of them to say, hey, wait a minute, maybe I need to take a look at these other people because they defend me and protect what I really, really care about. And then you've got the entrepreneurial side, which is they need to have people who understand the need to take risks. And when you take a look at a managerial, again, the more progressive you get, the more they want a top down approach to the economy. Government plans doing this, government plans doing that. They look and they say, wait a minute. The people who I thought defended me as the entrepreneur of the future actually says, we don't want you to be an entrepreneur. And so, yeah, on the margin these are things that help. And particularly you've got a living embodiment of that Vivek Ramaswamy, who did best in the Republican primaries and caucuses with younger conservatives, presumably the sort that are tech friendly. And I think you'll see that show up a little bit on election day, but particularly more in the future. As you see, who cares about free speech, who cares about people taking risks? It's likely to be in the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and over time that's going to matter.

[James Polis]

Is there enough attention being paid to the shifts of political opinion on the Internet sort of hiding in social media? It doesn't always show up. It's not like Frank Luntz sits down with 10 anonymous accounts from x.com and sort of ask them. It's kind of a different thing. And it does seem like there is kind of this pool of, of support for Trump and maybe even for a more enhanced or accelerated version of Trump that isn't showing up in the discourse. You get it in some of these sort of worried think pieces coming out of the Atlantic or wherever this, oh they're fascists and they want Trump to be the sort of space lord of America. I don't know. Half that stuff is joking anyway, I think. But is it making it harder to really capture kind of what's going on with that generation, with the tech industry, with those trends?

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, well, yeah. The thing is that the legacy media is losing power is that, you know, when I was growing up, information was expensive. You had to pay things to get it. You didn't get it immediately. And it went through gatekeepers, your editors at newspapers, your editors at magazines, your editors or your producers or your executives at networks. And today it's inexpensive, it's virtually free, it's immediate, and there's no gatekeepers. So you want to say, look, and the legacy media is used to setting a narrative and they can't set a narrative anymore. But it's also harder to figure out a narrative because there's so many places to look. If I was going to say, well, look at the discussion that's going on on X, well, that's a subpart. Look at the discussion that's going on on the Daily coast, well, that's a subpar. The thing is that it's such a wide range of places where people congregate, get information and share information, it's hard to say there's a singular narrative. Just like when I was growing up, TV shows on the networks would get 30% of America tune in. The Roots miniseries got literally 50% of America turning. Nowadays a network hit gets 14 million. You would get canceled with that before. And it's because it's not that people are consuming the media less, it's that there's so many more options, so many more sub things that are going on. So yeah, there's a tech subculture that's significant that is not being covered, but it's just one of many subcultures. It's just hard to say what America is talking about because Americans are talking about so many different things and so many different aura.

[James Polis]

And so now you get candidates going on podcasts that a lot of people have never heard of. But these podcasts are doing millions of numbers that put the cable network's a shame.

[Henry Olsen]

That's right. But then again, there's going to be 150 to 160 million votes cast. You go on Charlemagne to God and maybe you reach a million or 2 million people. That's a crucial 2 million people. It's 1% of the electorate. It used to be when you had three networks that commanded 60% of the electorate. You knew where to go, and you talked to most everybody. Now you have to seek out all these different ways to reach the subgroups where people congregate. So, yeah, Joe Rogan, Charlamagne, Tha God, all these little podcasts, they have passionate followers. They have passionate people. You need to go where the voters are, and it's a small subset. You have to add all these things up, and that's what candidates are realizing. It's a lot harder to be a candidate now because you actually have to talk to lots of different outlets, lots of different things that have all of their different styles and different concerns. Trump seems to be good at it. Harris is in a. Learning.

[James Polis]

Yeah. So, you know, as a. As an exennial, as I guess I would be classified, you know, sort of micro. Microgeneration between the millennials and the Xers, a fascinating place to be, I must say. It's been a trip. I think a lot of guys kind of that in that age bracket have been trying to stay young because they keep waiting for it to be their turn to govern. And a lot of that energy is kind of going to Trump for that reason. But even so, you know, my experience, it's been crazy where it's like the rising generations don't exist until one day they're every. Everywhere. So, like, you know, for my version of this is going to the coffee shop to, like, you know, do the laptop thing and, like, write or whatever, work on the book manuscript. And it seemed like forever every barista was a millennial, you know, and being just on the other side of that generational divide, I felt like, man, you know, these aren't. I can't. I sort of struggle to relate to these people. And then one day, I'm still not sure exactly what day it was, but it felt like there was one day, and suddenly all the baristas were zoomers. And for some reason that I'm still trying to unpack, I feel like there's this kind of generational synergy between the zoomers and the Xers that isn't present between the Xers and the boomers or the millennials. And so I'm wondering, as someone who's kind of analyzing these waves and these trends and watching these election cycles go and go and go, are you starting to feel like the zoomers have now ascended to the level where they're really politically relevant? Because I think a lot of that's behind what's going on with those podcasts.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, well, they're politically relevant, but they're not politically Dominant. That's the thing, is that you take a look, and the single biggest group in the electorate is still the boomer generation. And the second biggest group in the electorate is the X generation. So, yeah, you have to pay attention to the zoomers. They consume media differently. You see it in all the polls that the zoomer generation is much likelier to be totally online and disconnected with the sorts of media that the boomer generation still, still follows. But there's still only a segment of the electorate. And if you're in that hip tech world, it feels bigger to you. But when you're in the broad. I gotta Talk to get 160 million votes. The fact is, the median age of a voter this year will be somewhere in their 40s.

[James Polis]

Yeah.

[Henry Olsen]

And if you're in a primary, I look at these data all the time. The median age of a voter in a Republican primary, depending on the state, is between 60 and 65, the median age. So, yes, it's real. Yes, the campaigns are beginning to recognize that. But the bulk of the voter class is still the sort of person who grew up with legacy media, consume legacy media, and are much less likely to be the person who goes and talk, you know, good goes on their laptop in a Starbucks or a Dutch Bros.

[James Polis]

I remember the first time, I think it might have been the New York Times, one of those, maybe Washington Post. Someone writing this frantic column about, we now have Americans entering the electorate who don't remember how terrible Donald Trump was. They're born after 9, 11. They just don't get it. It's like they're not even thinking about it. And it's like, yes, time rolls on.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, look, I teach, and so I'm always in front of young people, and my cultural touchstones are not their cultural touchdowns. But if I'm running a campaign, what I have to remember is I have to talk to them and I have to talk to people like me. And I've talked to everybody in between. Donald Trump sometimes makes cultural references to Mad magazine, which people in his generation and down to, like the 60s or 50s recognize. Zoomers have no idea what he's talking about.

[James Polis]

Even though it's still around.

[Henry Olsen]

Even though it's still. Because it doesn't matter. The way it mattered when you were younger.

[James Polis]

Yeah, it was the only game in town.

[Henry Olsen]

It was the only satirical game in town. Right. And now life has moved on.

[James Polis]

Yeah, but it's.

[Henry Olsen]

But that's the thing, is that the memories and the experiences of the older people still matter because there's still tens of Millions of them, too. That's what's to remember is that, yes, there's this new thing out there. Yes, you have to pay attention to it, but the bulk of America is still the old. It's going to take another 20 years for enough of that to die off and enough of the people who grew up in the online era to be the dominant, as opposed to simply a new, growing, influential part of the electorate.

[James Polis]

Okay, so you teach college age?

[Henry Olsen]

I do, yes.

[James Polis]

Okay. It's sort of like the ultimate focus group, if they're willing to play ball. I know that a lot of kids are at this point just sort of like, sitting there, disconnected, not engaging, waiting to go home and tell the computer to write the essay. Say, if your students are not that way, what kind of vibes are you picking up from them right about now?

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, well, I'm not in the classroom right now. I was in the classroom last semester, and what I was picking up from them was, again, you've got some people who are there for the grade and some people who are just passionate about politics and everybody in between what they were picking. What that class I was getting was reflection of the issues. Then there was a lot of talk about Hamas and Israel. I was very passionate for them. But one of the things I find with young people, and I was in 2016 teaching a class, and again, a wide variety of opinion, Republicans versus Democrats, and the fact that they signed up for my class, which was an elective, they were already more politically interested. They had a hard time recognizing that they weren't the center of the universe. It's like just saying, hey, guess what? The way to win is not simply to talk to you. You have to talk to you, and you have to talk to them, and you have to talk to them. And that's what I try and talk about in all my classes, is if you want to win a national election, what you have to do is be coalitional. You can't just be factional. You can't just talk to a small, narrow group. Because guess what? If 10% of the country loves you passionately, but none of the rest of the country knows about you or cares about you, you're a loser. I like to say that in business, a 45% market share makes you a billionaire. In politics, a 45% market share makes you a loser. And that's what you have to understand as a candidate. And young people don't instinctively understand it. They think the world is focused on them, ought to be focused on them. I thought that when I was 19, but it's not. And that's one of the things I try in my classes to import and to take a, take a broader look at things. But naturally that's not natural to them.

[James Polis]

Yeah, I mean it's crazy to me at least to see people who think that they're the center of the universe supporting Hamas, which is something that would be utterly out of the question in America. People get worried about criticism about Israel and it's like, well, okay, America runs on criticism. It's the Internet. Everyone gets criticized on the Internet. No one is safe from the attacks. But to go that echoes extra mile to say like, you know, I'm actually affirmatively for Hamas. Do you think that kind of stuff is going to continue to happen with younger generations and change the face of politics?

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah, the thing is, again, this is me looking back. There is always a segment of the young generation that likes to protest and that likes to focus on an out issue. Sanctions in South Africa. It's Occupy Wall street or something. It's always a segment, it never dominates because the broader stretch of America has other concerns. So you just. This is particularly horrendous because of the cause that many of them are embracing. You know, you're talking about a group of people who murdered 1200 people for no other point than ethnic hatred. You don't have to love what Israel does in regards to the west bank to think that murdering people for the sake of their ethnicity is wrong. Can we agree on that? And if you can't see that that's a problem. But as far as the phenomena of a group of young people who are interested in campus demonstrations and show cause on a fringe issue, that's a recurring feature of American life that seems to be like a perennial flower. It comes up and it dies in the winter time.

[James Polis]

Yeah, I'm always most interested not in who you're criticizing, but what are you for, what are you actually affirmatively for?

[Henry Olsen]

And that's the thing is these things tend to be negative rather than affirmative.

[James Polis]

That's right. And so looking at that and looking at just kind of whether it's with tech or whether it's with the kind of intersectionality stuff, just trying to understand what are the actual factions here not in terms of who they're criticizing, but what is the non negotiable for them, what their actually for. There's a big chunk of the electorate that used to have a very clear identity and used to be, you know, maybe not totally monolithic but you know, pretty, pretty reliably consistent in Their approach and how they come down on the issues. And that's the religious right. And you Fast forward to 2024, a lot of people on the right who have a problem with Trump have been kind of a chunk of the religious right or, you know, this guy's not a real Christian. He doesn't really go to church waving the Bible around, but look at the words they're using. The religious rite has really just kind of melted or broken up into these different pods. And I'm sort of curious just for your kind of overall assessment of what has become of the religious rite and what does its future look like in politics today?

[Henry Olsen]

I think when I was young, the religious right came into being around the idea that they were the moral majority. That was Jerry Falwell's group. Today, the religious right recognizes that they're the moral minority. They used to think, okay, the problem is there's a minority elite that is taking away the majority of people's views to regulate their lives. That's what we are about. They're very afraid now. They're conscious that they are a minority. They're conscious that they have even less influence in major institutions. And what they want is protection. That's why for all of the leaders who will kvetch about Trump, and there are very prominent, very sincere Christians who are leaders of the Never Trump movement, the vast bulk of serious traditional Christians, the religious right, if you will, will vote for him and will vote for him enthusiastically, because what they want now is protection. They want protection from a culture they think is trying to exterminate them. They want protection from an elite that they think is trying to erode and eliminate their liberty to practice their faith, not just to worship in church, but to practice their faith. And that's why you have a lot of people who wish that Trump were more pro life. But they're going to enthusiastically back then, because when push comes to shove, what they want is protection rather than the affirmation and the advancement of their particular worldview, because they think that's the best deal they can get. So you're going to get, you're going to look at the exit polls and they'll show what the pre polls are, which is Trump will get near record highs, if not get record highs among people who are evangelical Christians, among people who to church regularly. He will continue the generational shift of regular church going Christians into the Republican Party, particularly if you're an evangelical Christian. That's his strongest block among Latinos. His evangelical Christians are the strongest pro Republican bloc among The Latino subset. I like to say that if you want to make the Latino population Republican, don't argue about issues, convert them to go to a Pentecostal church. It just changes their worldview and changes their voting proclivity. So that's because they want protection and that's a sea change from 20 years ago when they thought they could win victory.

[James Polis]

Yeah. And it's really interesting because you go back 20 years and you look at what's the religious right agenda, you know, what do they come out with and say, we're for this and that's who we are and that's why we should have more power or you should support us or whatever. And it was prayer in school and it was enshrined pro life into the Constitution. It was display the Ten Commandments. You know, it was all that kind of stuff that it was just like every day on in political news. And you fast forward to today and what is it? And it's. Well, the dynamic has changed. It does seem like they want protection and they're looking for some other way of characterizing their political identity. And so a lot of these guys, what do they lead with? We are pro Israel. We need to stand up for Israel. These are our allies. This is a holy land that's really been a transformation. Yeah.

[Henry Olsen]

And it's also religious liberty hang out. You talk all about the guy who wouldn't bake the cake and is continually.

[James Polis]

In masterpiece cake shop. Yeah, right.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah. It's like this is a. We need protection. We need to be able to practice our faith, which is. Yeah. You know, I'm not going to say you shouldn't be able to go out and get married. Even though I might want to vote against same sex marriage if that were a live issue. But at least let me live my life. If you're going to live yours, let me live my life. And yeah, there's a lot of people where they are majority or near majority influence. They do enact more of their values. You know, you do have pro life legislation in southern states. You do have the. I think Louisiana is passing a law to post the Ten Commandments in schools and we'll see whether or not that gets through the Supreme Court. But nationally, they know that they're in a minority. Nationally, they're in defense mode and they believe Donald Trump is going to be Horatio at the bridge, that he's going to be the shiny training night that's going to protect them from the dragon that's coming down on the killing of the city.

[James Polis]

Yeah, really fascinating because if you do convert Latinos to Pentecostalism and it causes them to vote Republican, at the same time they are sort of abandoning this kind of traditional protection that those traditional conservative voters would find in a strong and ancient church with patronage networks. And I mean we saw the Italians and the Irish kind of running these places plays and that was kind of the model for that kind of the old religious right sort of pre evangelicalism. But now you've got churches that might be 20 years old, 30 years old, 10 days old, who knows? That kind of religious environment is one where you do need more political protection than maybe traditional conservatives would have needed in the past.

[Henry Olsen]

It's also a different world. The power of the state and the attempt of the state to get into private institutions is much greater than it was a hundred years ago. And so when you're turning talking about whether or not institutions that are affiliated with the church can enforce the church's liturgical and confessional doctrine in the running of that institution. Can a Christian college. Do they have to admit same sex couples into their college and allow them to have the same dorm rights as they would to a heterosexual married couple? Well, that's a live issue in a way. It wasn't 100 years ago and it's the civil rights laws, but also the use of federal power. What would happen if a Harris administration said you can't do that and still be in receipt of federal student loan money? That wasn't an issue 100 years ago, it is an issue today. And that's why you have this massive concern with protection rather than organization. And, and then the sheer entrepreneurialness of the modern evangelical community is that in a denominational world, the denomination sets up where the church is and usually not always assigns the pastor. The energy on the religious right is in the non denominational world where it's very pastor driven, it's very entrepreneurial. They set up their own churches, they attract their own flock and it's church pop up and they pop down depending on that. That too lends itself to a certain Republican leaning. Because in a world where the progressive left wants to have a greater state domination of the economy, that naturally means they want to have more control over the social institutions. You see it, you know, we don't want to have, we want to have disinformation outlawed. Well, what is disinformation except government planning that is extended to the information sphere? And so a religious community that relies on freedom, entrepreneur and free speech wants to be protected from that. So have the religious nature, the nature of the religious community lends itself in a way to a different type of politics than a century ago.

[James Polis]

Yeah, this stuff is so important, it's worth an hour all on its own. But I just want to pick out the point that you made, which is so crucial, I think, of just how dramatic and really it's become central to the left idea of governance, of what governance is for, to really invade the basic prerogatives of free exercise of religion. You know, you go back to the Roman Empire days and you got the 40 martyrs and, you know, why were the 40 martyrs martyred? They were loyal citizens of Rome. They were subjects to the Emperor, they respected the Emperor and the empire, and they were soldiers and they fought for the Empire. And so how did they end up in a freezing lake dying for Christ? Right. And it was because it was demanded of them that they, in fact, demonstrate publicly that they were worshiping the gods of the empire.

[Henry Olsen]

Yeah. And the thing is that this is the great fear among evangelical Christians that we're moving, Rod Dreyer talks about this, is that in the 4th century AD you move from the freedom of the Christian Church to the abolition of paganism at the end of the century. And he says we are like the pagan, that we're about ready over the next century to move to being outlawed. And what basically, evangelical Christians are saying, no, we're afraid of that. We want to have the League. We want our freedom of religion respected, we want our freedom of speech respected. And that is a motivational issue for them, because they fear, and you know, not incorrectly, that a confessional state that is geared towards modern sensibilities will eventually treat them like the pagans of the 4th century and close their temples and their worship and eventually drive them out of existence.

[James Polis]

I think I'll make this last question just to tie myself off before we go off for another hour, if for nothing else, making that comparison to the pagans, I think really what hurt the pagans was they were worshiping many gods, and sure, they had the Empire, but they were also. They were almost sort of like Protestants today, where there are all these different sub denominations. It's really hard to herd the cats. It's really hard to get everyone on the same page. And even if you do get them on the same page, well, you know, next time around it might change, the landscape, might transform. There are problems with retention rates. It's a very fluid situation. And if you have one sort of group of people who's really dedicated to unifying their worship and their understanding of the interplay between politics and theology. They can really just cut through kind of that jumble of coalition. I mean, the left has this problem with intersectionality. I think the right's got a version of this problem on what's become the. Become the religious right. And so, you know, what I want to ask is you've got Democrats looking in some ways more fractured than they have been in a long time. You look at the Jewish electorate more fractured than it's been in a very long time, maybe forever. You look at the right also terribly fractured. I was going to mention this earlier. Reason magazine, they do their endorsements. 0 Reason editors endorse Donald Trump. And these are libertarians. Party's becoming more libertarian. What's going on? So the question is, you know, everyone looks like they're becoming more fractured right now politically. Do you think that one of these major two parties is gonna crack in a serious way before the other, before the election?

[Henry Olsen]

No, but.

[James Polis]

No, not before the election, but first before the other party.

[Henry Olsen]

It's hard to say which will. The thing is that what happens in American politics is you go through a period where one party answers a pressing political question in a definitive way and sets the agenda for the next 40, 50 years or so. You know, that's what Thomas Jefferson did. It was a very close, bitterly fought election of 1800. Basically, his party ran the country for the next 60 years. They defined the agenda. And the Whigs or the Federalists or the, you know, were what political scientists called the Moon Party circling, you know, the Sun Party was the Jefferson and then the Republicans to settle the question of slavery. And they were the dominant party for 72 years. Democrats could win elections from time, but the agenda was set by Republicans and so forth. We're going through that right now. And it's messy. One party will win eventually, you know, sooner rather than later, for the health of the country, peacefully rather than non peacefully for the health of the country. And then they will set the agenda. And it's not clear which party's gonna win, but they all have their challenges, they all have their issues. The thing about the Democratic Party that I wanna focus on since Republican division are highlighted in the media every day, is that since 1932, the Democratic Party has been beset by an argument that I say is between the transformative and the reformative. Is America a good country but needs to be reformed? Or is America a problematic country that needs to be transformed? And in 1948, there were two parties that argued. There was the Progressive Party of Henry Wallace that split off from the Democratic Party saying we are the heirs of Franklin Roosevelt. And if you ever want to see a real left wing platform, read that, because they actually call for government nationalization, government economic planning and so forth. They said America needs to be transformed. Harry Truman said America needs to be reformed. And their platform was much more social programs, but not government plan. Fast forward to today. The transformationalists on a cultural issue, on an economic issue are stronger within the Democratic Party than they have ever been. The reformative are barely holding on with the majority. This is an alliance that has to blow up sometime. The way it's been kept together is the reformative side has won all the internal primaries for president and they adapt by moving closer to the transformative side, but they don't adopt it. At some point, the transformative side is going to win a primary. Their candidate's going to be the nominee, and that party will blow up because you can't be for radical transformation and still be in connection with the center of the American politics. And when that happens, it's a great opportunity for Republicans if they know how to respond to it. The Democratic Party is a simmering pot that the temperature is going up and up and up, and the lid of the establishment still winning the primary keeps it down. At some point, that lid's just going to blow open and we'll see what's really going on and it's going to be a real explosive mess.

[James Polis]

Incisive analysis as always. I know. I will be reading come what may. Henry Olsen, thanks so much for joining us.

[Henry Olsen]

Thank you for having me, James.

[James Polis]

All right, that's all the time we got till next time around. I am James Foulis. This is Zero Hour and may God have mercy on us.