The Art of Political Warfare: Rachel Bitecofer’s No-Holds-Barred Guide
Rachel Bitecofer drops some serious knowledge in this episode, dissecting the absurdity of political campaigns and the inherent disconnect between party strategies and voter engagement. She dives deep into the Chuck Todd theory of elections, throwing shade at how the media misrepresents swing voters, and highlights the dire need for Democrats to embrace a more aggressive, centralized approach to messaging. Bitecofer, with her PhD chops, doesn't hold back as she critiques the current Democratic infrastructure, calling for a total overhaul to compete with the well-oiled Republican propaganda machine. She argues that it’s high time for the left to stop playing nice and start hitting back, or risk losing ground to an electorate that’s more tuned into sensationalism than substance. With her sharp wit and unapologetic stance, Bitecofer makes it crystal clear that the stakes are way too high for Democrats to keep tiptoeing around the truth.
The episode takes a rather sardonic turn as Bitecofer elaborates on the Democratic Party's struggles to connect with the average voter. She sarcastically points out the party's tendency to show up to knife fights with salad instead of a knife, reflecting a deep-seated issue of strategy and messaging. This conversation sharply contrasts bold Republican tactics that often prioritize discrediting opponents over presenting coherent policy platforms. Bitecofer’s perspective underscores the importance of understanding voter psychology, particularly how cultural and identity politics have alienated many working-class Americans. The trio discusses the disconnection of Democratic leaders from their base, emphasizing that to win, Democrats must reframe their narrative and engage with voters on issues that resonate with their everyday lives, rather than abstract ideals that seem distant and irrelevant.
The discussion kicks off with a light banter between Colonel Mo Davis and Rachel Bitecofer, who brings her expertise in political science to the table. The trio dives into the absurdity of today's political landscape, especially how often the media misrepresents electoral dynamics. Bitecofer's unique insight stems from her extensive research on political polarization and its impact on voting behavior, particularly among swing voters. She humorously critiques the Chuck Todd theory of elections, suggesting that it oversimplifies the decision-making processes of voters. Instead, she argues that many voters are woefully uninformed and easily swayed by negative campaigning, which has become the hallmark of modern political strategy. As they peel back the layers of political communication, Rachel emphasizes the need for Democrats to adopt a more aggressive, sometimes ruthless approach to campaigning—a stark contrast to their often genteel tactics.
The episode takes a rather sardonic turn as Bitecofer elaborates on the Democratic Party's struggles to connect with the average voter. She sarcastically points out the party's tendency to show up to knife fights with salad instead of a knife, reflecting a deep-seated issue of strategy and messaging. This conversation sharply contrasts bold Republican tactics that often prioritize discrediting opponents over presenting coherent policy platforms. Bitecofer’s perspective underscores the importance of understanding voter psychology, particularly how cultural and identity politics have alienated many working-class Americans. The trio discusses the disconnection of Democratic leaders from their base, emphasizing that to win, Democrats must reframe their narrative and engage with voters on issues that resonate with their everyday lives, rather than abstract ideals that seem distant and irrelevant.
Takeaways:
- Rachel Bitecofer emphasizes the importance of understanding that most voters are not well-informed, highlighting the absurdity of political discourse that expects them to engage thoughtfully with complex issues.
- She critiques the prevailing electoral strategies, arguing that Democrats need to adopt a more aggressive and direct approach to resonate with swing voters who are often disengaged from the political process.
- Bitecofer points out the irony in how the Left often refrains from using effective, albeit harsh, tactics that the Right employs, which she believes is necessary to win over a complacent electorate.
- The conversation reveals a stark contrast between the Republican Party's centralized messaging and the Democrats' fragmented approach, suggesting that without a coherent strategy, the latter is doomed to failure.
- Bitecofer’s analysis sheds light on how the Democratic Party has lost touch with working-class Americans, arguing that their focus on marginalized identities has alienated potential voters who feel overlooked.
- The episode explores the challenges Democrats face in the current media landscape, where the Right has mastered rapid-fire propaganda that drowns out nuanced discussions about policy.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- MSNBC
- Substack
- Turning Point USA
- Heritage Foundation
- American Legislative Exchange Council
- ALEC
Transcript
You know who made it.
Speaker B:Welcome to mucu, another episode with my good friend Colonel Mo Davis.
Speaker A:Say hello, Mo.
Speaker C:Hey, David, how are you?
Speaker B:You know what, it's sunny up here in the mountain and it's warming up.
Speaker C:I said snow's coming, so enjoy the sunshine while you can.
Speaker B:Today our special guest is Rachel Bitcover and she's on on the Line from.
Speaker A:Where today, Rachel, I'm coming from the heart of the Hippie Capital, Eugene, Oregon.
Speaker B:Oh, cool.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker B:I thought you were at DC.
Speaker A: Yeah, I came home in: Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:As a, as a.
Speaker A:It looked like Trump wasn't going to leave the stage and that this was going to be a fight for the.
Speaker A:For to the finish.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I think that fight to the finish is begun this year, so it's a delight to have you on the show.
Speaker B:And, and Dr.
Speaker B:Bitter Coffer, we're thrilled to have you joining us.
Speaker B:Obviously you made a name for yourself on MSNBC dissecting into various issues.
Speaker B:Tell, tell us a little bit about yourself and, and before we get too far, where can people find you and follow you and, and contact.
Speaker A:We give a daily sermon all day long on X at Rachel Bitter Coffer.
Speaker A:There's nobody else with that name.
Speaker A:So it's B I T E C O F E R podcast.
Speaker A:It's called this is America and it's a fusion between political science, history, current events, and it's really based on my four year research project into the rise of the Nazis and the Third Reich.
Speaker A:So people can find that on the cycle at Substack or whatever your pod place is of choice.
Speaker B:Tell us a little bit about what you got your PhD in and why, why did you head down this path?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's such a great question now that I'm kind of down the road, not at the beginning anymore, but I, I knew I wanted to, to get a.
Speaker A:My last couple of years of undergrad at U of O.
Speaker A: And so in: Speaker A:Not only because it made me hireable after I got my PhD, but also because it really taught me how to talk to a student body that was ideologically conservative.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And anyway, I did that stuff.
Speaker A:I got my first professor gig at Christopher Newport University and took over the Watson center there.
Speaker A:That's really where my odyssey into the public eye came.
Speaker A:I was doing polling, horse race polling, using my political science background in Virginia.
Speaker A: predicting North a big win in: Speaker A:And then I decided I'm going to take that methodology and predict the midterms and the rest is history.
Speaker A:Because I, you know, if people look me up, the first thing they're going to see is, oh, she was the one that saw the big blue wave coming.
Speaker A: Months and months of ants of: Speaker A:And that was, you know, based on my expertise into political behavior and political polarization.
Speaker A:So teaching data scientists like Nate Silver and Nate Cohen and Ezra Klein how to actually understand data given polarization of up their games.
Speaker A:So that's me.
Speaker A:And that's how I ended up here.
Speaker C:Yeah, Rachel, I'm interested.
Speaker C:I was doing, reading up on some of the stuff that you've written and you talked about the Chuck Todd theory.
Speaker C:Can you, can you explain that a bit?
Speaker A:The Chuck Todd theory of elections is what started that strategic journey for me.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I, I'm watching how elections get covered in the press and like, here's the thing.
Speaker A:It's like all of them.
Speaker A:I mean, everything that you consume is wrong when it comes to like, coverage of elections and campaigns because the people there don't seem to understand really.
Speaker A:Foundational findings about political behavior from political science literature, particularly.
Speaker A:Two things.
Speaker A:The one is the most important, especially for the audience of MUCU who are not typical people.
Speaker A:They are well informed.
Speaker A:They're the information 1%.
Speaker A:You have a political interest that drives you to listen to shows like this, to watch other stuff that's related that most people, and I mean most like 95, don't have.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And so average Americans don't know anything about politics.
Speaker A:They don't know.
Speaker A:They know who the president is.
Speaker A:They might know who the vice president is, but that drops like.
Speaker A:And they can't tell you who their senators are.
Speaker A:And I just want you, if you can hear my voice now, just take one second, close your eyes, and imagine a world in which you pay so little attention to current events in politics that you don't know who your senators.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And then once you get into that, that manifestation, then I want you to think about what you would know about Donald Trump if your brain was so uninterested in politics.
Speaker A:All you really knew was who the President was and could have senators, let alone your member of the House.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And that's, that's where Donald Trump is, is, is getting most of his.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:That civic illiteracy problem that's foundational to our democr.
Speaker A:Frankly, pretty unique too.
Speaker A:I mean, although there's, you know, challenges with, with citizens everywhere, our citizens really is like particularly tuned out and Dumb, right.
Speaker A:And I'm civically dumb that it could be very smart.
Speaker A:You can be Elon Musk smart and still be dumb.
Speaker A:As you can see it play out every day on the Internet when it comes to understanding how the government works and civics is so complex that our interest has led us to, to develop the skills to understand it.
Speaker A:But other people don't have that interest.
Speaker A:And so swing voters, Chuck Todd's theory is o got two candidates, you put, you put the most attractive policy to the swing vote, right?
Speaker A:I'm going to do this, this, this and this for you.
Speaker A:And the other guy is supposed to do, I'm going to do this, this, this for you.
Speaker A:And then this swing voter is, you know, he's a connoisseur.
Speaker A:He can't be, he's not one of these partisan hacks, right.
Speaker A:He's a free thinker, independent guy.
Speaker A:He's going to go and read the candidate profiles and he's going to choose based on the best program that best matches his own self interest.
Speaker A:No, that's not how swing voters are.
Speaker A:And it' engage.
Speaker A:Most swing voters were socialized into voting by a parent because that's really what makes a voter.
Speaker A:When I do us, I always, it doesn't 10 or 500.
Speaker A:I know the answer is going to be 100%.
Speaker A:When I asked the room how many of you guys had parents that voted on every hand, okay.
Speaker A:And so socialization is what teaches someone to vote but that doesn't necessarily give them an interest.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Interested people tend to be ideological and that's what drives the interest.
Speaker A:And that's why both parties bases are kind of insane.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:But in the swing bucket voters are not paying no attention at all.
Speaker A:So my theory that replaces the Chuck Todd theory of politics which I haven't referred to it in that in many years but you're right is exactly that is to get people to understand swing voters have two products to buy.
Speaker A:And about 15 years ago the Republicans figured out they could sell their product better by ignoring them themselves and just shitting on Democrats.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Their entire electoral strategy is not persuasion in the way we do it.
Speaker A:Hey, here's these programs we want to do for you, vote for us.
Speaker A:It's hey, John Kerry is a, he's a liar, he's a, you know, the swift boat veterans for true thing.
Speaker A:He's lied about his war service.
Speaker A:It's about disqualifying the other option in the right.
Speaker A: d so that's what my work post: Speaker A:And that's what hit him where it hurts.
Speaker A:How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game lays out for readers.
Speaker A:Want to check?
Speaker C:Well, what's the reception then with Democrats?
Speaker C:I can tell you, at least my experience here has been that, you know, the Republicans, it's all about winning.
Speaker C:You know, they'll come to a knife fight with a, an AR15 and Democrats show up with a quinoa salad.
Speaker C:It just seems like trying to get Democrats to get some backbone is a.
Speaker C:An arduous task.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You're not wrong.
Speaker A:I mean, you know, and when I started off, I knew how arduous it was, but I still had hope I could do it, you know, I mean, I had to try because the price was going to be a Donald Trump dictatorship.
Speaker A: I left it all on the floor in: Speaker A:But through that year of flying around the country talking to Democr talking, you know, people who are in the party are the most, you know, engaged activist type too.
Speaker A:It is, it is against the nature to be mean.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:I mean, if you're a progressive person, you're probably not very good at being mean.
Speaker A:I'm a freak of, of nature.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Because I'm a progressive person.
Speaker A:That will you up.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's rare.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So to answer your question, I have to say my argument, and I think Ken Martin, the new chair of the dnc, would probably agree with this, though we had the road map in the book.
Speaker A:We KN like we needed to make these changes or we would lose.
Speaker A:But convincing people to do something new and scary, especially incumbents like John Tester, Sherrod Brown, is very difficult.
Speaker A:And what my work is, is not tinkering up in the branches of strategy and messaging.
Speaker A:It takes the whole tree, root and branch soil, boom, yanks.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A: uldn't get people to do it in: Speaker A:It very hard.
Speaker A: was a single race run in that: Speaker C:I was going to ask you about Ken Martin.
Speaker C:He's the new head of the DNC and at least in the early days, seems to be making more of a pro union, pro worker push for the Democratic Party, which seems, you know, where we've, we've really lost ground and over the years.
Speaker C:So what's your take on the early days for the Ken Martin reign?
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm very pleased with what I see.
Speaker A:Obviously, after the election, if you Followed me and if subscribe to the substack on, on the cycle and substack, you can go find these analysis.
Speaker A:I, I, you know, it's, it, there's not a, there's a lot of opinions about why Democrats lost.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:As required innate silver.
Speaker A:But the fact is there's data.
Speaker A:So like you shouldn't have to have an opinion.
Speaker A:You can look and see, okay, what did the campaign pay money to distribute.
Speaker A:To the eyes of what I've explained to you just now, and you can learn more in the book, is an electorate that doesn't care about your product, in fact hates the product and doesn't have any interest in learning about it.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like that, you know, given that constraint, like what can you possibly, you know, unveil to, you know, get people to pay attention?
Speaker A:And I looked at the data in Ad Impact.
Speaker A:You know, luckily we're living in a really data centric environment so we don't have to question what did Kamala run on?
Speaker A:People might look at a stump speech or the DNC convention and say, oh well, that she ran on freedom and threats of democracy and abortion.
Speaker A:No, she didn't, dude.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:What matters is what you pay to put in front of these tuned out people who are most of the people, okay, Most of the people we need to get to vote are completely tuned out.
Speaker A:And so the only message they see is the one that you put money behind.
Speaker A:And the data don't lie.
Speaker A:What happened was she came in, took over the campaign, was good at first, brought in the Obama bros.
Speaker A:They switched us to Joy.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:And I you, not you look at the ad data.
Speaker A:What we find out unequivocally is that we spent about 2 billion largely on positive ads defining Kamala Harris.
Speaker A:And the reason that we did that, just so you guys can understand my personal angst, is because despite four years ago when I started strike pack, me going to meet some of these big donors, right?
Speaker A:And my pitch to them was like, no, no, they're doing it all wrong.
Speaker A:The consultants that you're hiring don't understand what they're doing.
Speaker A:They're trained on the wrong system and what we should be doing.
Speaker A: Because in: Speaker A: e evangelical mission through: Speaker A:And these guys, what did they do?
Speaker A:They ran almost 90 positive ads, positive ads doing the Chuck Todd theory of democracy, dude.
Speaker A:And so when we look at what happened when we lost.
Speaker A:We can see.
Speaker A:What did they do?
Speaker A:They ran the campaign the book is designed to run.
Speaker A:And they wedged two issues.
Speaker A:Trans, scary trans people, scary looking trans people and a federal and a prisoner sex change.
Speaker A:And they, they wedged scary migrants immigration, Right.
Speaker A:And they just pounded the hell out of us on that.
Speaker A:There wasn't Trump's agenda and Trump's policy is 10 point economic opportunity zone plan do that.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:All he did was say Kamala Harris paid for sex changes for prison.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:And they ran millions of that all across football watching a.
Speaker A:To know that.
Speaker A: es out and it's from like the: Speaker A: foundation and their Project: Speaker A:They came in with the Reagan administration and destroyed working class America.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:That's what Reaganomics did.
Speaker A:It destroyed working class America.
Speaker A:But at the same time, you can see this time series where people were asked, what do Democrats stand for?
Speaker A:And at that same time period for 30 years where they're doing their voodoo economic experiment that's killing the middle class.
Speaker A:You see, our, our high brand identity.
Speaker A:Identity is standing for working people starts to collapse, okay?
Speaker A:And it's flat.
Speaker A: By the time we get to: Speaker A:So the party that passed Obamacare and gave 20 million working Americans Medicaid expense doesn't have a brand.
Speaker A:Has a worse brand than stands that stands for the working class.
Speaker A:Republicans do.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:And so also on that same graph, you'll see a different timeline.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:That timeline is stands for marginalized groups.
Speaker A:And as that working class graph is collapsing, that line stands for marginalized groups is rising, rising, rising through those decades.
Speaker A:And you might be thinking, well, that's good.
Speaker A:I mean, our brand is we stand for marginalized people.
Speaker A:And I think that is a great brand for humans.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:But not when you got to get racist and sexist white people to vote for you.
Speaker B:Well, it works yet when those marginalized groups don't vote for us either.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm excited to see Ken is focused on that problem.
Speaker A:It's absolutely the problem.
Speaker A:I mean, all the problems that we have can be boiled down in that one graph, boys.
Speaker A:And it is, you know, it's wonderful to stand for marginalized groups.
Speaker A:But here, let me explain something to you.
Speaker A:You might think all the marginalized groups are like, oh, we're in it together.
Speaker A:No, they hate Each other too.
Speaker A:Okay, so like a black voter reading that might think, oh, all they care about is trans people.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Because humans, most humans, are not wired the way we are for empathy, nuance.
Speaker A:We all have high IQs.
Speaker A:People aren't like that.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And, you know, if we gotta.
Speaker A:We gotta win elections with the electorate.
Speaker A:We have not an electorate that we would like to have.
Speaker A:And we have an electorate that is civically illiterate and prone to human psychological traits that all humans are prone to.
Speaker A:Tribalism in group bias and things like that, right?
Speaker A:So we need a system, an electioneering system from across every agency, across the dnc, the D Trip, the dscc, the dga, every state party, every show, right?
Speaker A:We need everybody pounding this theme because you look at a survey and voters are 50, 50 on which party protects Social Security.
Speaker A:I mean, that.
Speaker A:What a.
Speaker A:What a messaging fail that is.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And the.
Speaker B:The party that asked it in the first place and pushed it through and has grown it over the years, the one being penalized for all of that hard work.
Speaker A:Yes, we are.
Speaker A:We're actually paying a penalty for it.
Speaker A:And listen, I want to be clear.
Speaker A:Like, every time someone says to me, well, Democrats left the working class behind, you know, they get it from me.
Speaker A:I'm like, oh, really?
Speaker A:And I lay out, like, all this economic shit that they've delivered, right?
Speaker A:But, but, but where we class and really replace working class with just middle America, we have left them behind culturally, okay?
Speaker A:We're way ahead.
Speaker A:What has happened in the Democratic Party as it's trying to give marginalized voices a bigger platform is that we have.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:We have defined ourselves in a way that most of America, okay?
Speaker A:And yes, we can make fun of jading couches all day long, right?
Speaker A:But at the end of the day, the public perception about us is that we're uptight, nagger do weird like that.
Speaker A:You know, that's trouble.
Speaker B:And it's true.
Speaker A:Price of having.
Speaker A:Yeah, but it's true, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's the problem.
Speaker A:I mean, that's the problem, right?
Speaker A:And like, someone's gonna have to.
Speaker A:To be willing to bust some heads to fix it, you know, because at the end of the day, I told people this all through the cycle.
Speaker A:Listen.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:I'm telling you, if you're making an ad for suburban, you know, white use white people only in the ad, okay?
Speaker A:And you know, I get that that's not warm and fuzzy, great liberal progr.
Speaker A:Standing, but it wins, right?
Speaker A:When.
Speaker A:When you go into the rnc, there's one mission win, okay?
Speaker A:You go into The DNC or any of these organizations.
Speaker A:There's what we call mission creep.
Speaker A:So we want to win, but we have to do it the right way.
Speaker A:And we need to use union printers and we can't do anything negative.
Speaker A:And oh my God, there's two trans people who can have babies out in America.
Speaker A:So we can't say the word pregnant women anymore.
Speaker A:We have to say pregnant people.
Speaker A:And like, guys, we're gonna.
Speaker A:People are gonna die if we don't get our.
Speaker A:Together know nothing hurts marginalized people more than letting fascist have power over them.
Speaker A:So I'm not saying we abandon our causes.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We can have all of those causes, but what we define ourselves on has to be this economic populism.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:You know, my mom was a member of the CWA and back when they, you know, had switchboards and.
Speaker B:Always been a fan of unions.
Speaker B:I grew up in Iowa.
Speaker B:Pretty big union place.
Speaker B:But the unions have abandoned us too, so.
Speaker B:So I don't understand this love of union printing.
Speaker B:We got to have the union bugger.
Speaker B:You're in deep sh.
Speaker B:Well, they don't give a crap anyway, so we got to abandon those old ideas.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:You know, listening to you right now, one of the things that comes to mind is the Republican Party, despite what we educated elitist snobs think is much more connected to what's going on in the world, in the American world.
Speaker B:And unfortunately, even the candidates we run are even more disconnected from maybe the.
Speaker B:The donor class as well as the kind consultant class.
Speaker B:How.
Speaker B:How do we get candidates that can connect better with people and understand that Boeing and.
Speaker B:And focus groups is not the way.
Speaker A:Of the future as they gave billion dollars to Future Forward and Blue Rose Research.
Speaker A:Those are the super PACs that worked with the Harris campaign.
Speaker A:None of it on positive ads.
Speaker A:I wanted a billion dollars.
Speaker B:Unbelievable.
Speaker B:Hey, did you know that we unseeded Mo and I worked really hard to get Madison Co and we had a strategy of get Democrats to unregister as Democrats and registers independency.
Speaker B:Take the ballot run affiliate, as we call them here, take the Republican ballot and vote against the.
Speaker B: Well, Cawthorn lost by: Speaker B:We and Professor Cooper out here at Western Carolina University did a study.
Speaker B:We switched 3,500 people and we got shit to this day by the Democratic Party in Buncombe county money for unseating Cawthorn in that election.
Speaker B:And we spent.
Speaker B:You know what we spent on that?
Speaker B:We spent less than 100 grand to get rid of Madison Cawthorn.
Speaker B:Then we went after Boebert we spent about 150 grand and came within 346.
Speaker A:And would have had her ass too, if she hadn't jumped districts because she was going down.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, but, but how is it that, you know, we spend 250 and we got.
Speaker B:Nearly got rid of two atrocious members of Congress, but we can't get any attention of the, these big donors?
Speaker B:What, what's the issue there with the, with the donor class in this country?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I'm out of.
Speaker A:To give so I could permission to speak clearly.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, here's the problem.
Speaker B:Is I haven't had permission granted.
Speaker A:I can't get a meeting with those donors because the Obama bros.
Speaker A:And the bro, you know, Pod Save America bros.
Speaker A:And Nate Silver and Ezra Klein, they all hate me because I beat them one.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And refuse to give me those meetings because they understand the gravy train ends the second I get into where it happened because I'm the only person capable of explaining why they're doing it all wrong and how much money we're wasting letting them get rich doing so.
Speaker A:You know, there's an incentive to, to keep me away.
Speaker A:And you know, the truth is, is that, you know, if you're a billionaire listening to this podcast, your money is not well spent, okay?
Speaker A:Like it's, it's, and it's not well spent because it's, it's basically a money pit.
Speaker A:We're throwing billions of dollars on a model of electioneering that's fundamentally flawed because it violates the most important takeaway you could possibly have if you study the American electorate, which is that Americans are neither informed nor engaged.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:They, they are neither of those things.
Speaker A:And so your strategy from the very base has to be designed with that reality in mind and, and to optimize winning under that model.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And so, you know, I, I hope maybe, I mean I haven't given up total hope like year going forward.
Speaker A:I'll finally get that meeting.
Speaker A:But until and unless I do, we're going to continue to flounder because there's infrastructure that we need to build and that's what the donors should be.
Speaker B:Over to you, Mo.
Speaker C:All right, well, Rachel, how do we, you know, you talked about there's this inability for the Democrats to effectively engage with those low information voters and it seems like it's even more challenging now.
Speaker C:You know, Jesse Waters recently, this is a quote from him, says we are waging a 21st century information warfare campaign against the left.
Speaker C:The left.
Speaker C:What you're Seeing on the right is asymmetric.
Speaker C:Someone says something on social media.
Speaker C:Elon Musk retweets it, Joe Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcast it, and by the end of the day, we've reached millions of people.
Speaker A:And you're hearing it back from them.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:You can hear them literally report to pollsters or on the swing voter, you know, stump interviews.
Speaker A:You literally hear those talking.
Speaker C:So how do we punch through?
Speaker C:Because now you've got the, you know, the right controls most of social media.
Speaker C:They've whipped the mainstream media into compliance.
Speaker C:So, so just the, the mechanisms for reaching those low information voters has gotten inherently more difficult.
Speaker C:How do we, how do we reach out and touch those people?
Speaker A:So when I, when I was alluding to like this meeting I need with the donors.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's part of what we're going to be talking about.
Speaker A:Because you can populate some new progressive talk shows or we can build out Midas Touch.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:Midas Touch is already a machine that's built and ready to get gas.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You can do those things and that's good.
Speaker A:It's better than nothing.
Speaker A:But at the end of the day, it's not going to come up against what you just described.
Speaker A:A system where somebody tweets it, Elon, repost it.
Speaker A:Trump, repost it.
Speaker A:Fox News reports it.
Speaker A:The mainstream media does it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:All in a day often.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:It could be in a day.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So like, that is a purposeful infrastructure in my strategic plan that to build an infrastructure that is basically a war machine, rapid media hub for Democrats.
Speaker A:Because the reason they can do that, that is centralization.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What do we have?
Speaker A:We have the opposite of centralization.
Speaker A:In fact, for the last 20 years, I don't, I don't know how anyone could have watched the Occupy Wall street protest the way that, you know, it started off really strong and then fizzled away.
Speaker A:And a lot of it was because of how tedious and annoying the left is with.
Speaker A:So remember when they would have the meetings and they would, you know, say a line of a speech and the whole crowd would repeat it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Decentralization is the death of winning.
Speaker A:And we have decentralized the hell out of ourselves.
Speaker A:We have no centralization system between the dnc, the dccc, the DSCC and the dga, which are our three big campaign arms.
Speaker A:Plus DNC does party infrastructure in the States.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We don't have any centralization system.
Speaker A:We don't have a hierarchy.
Speaker A:We don't have somebody up at the top of that.
Speaker A:And I, you have to have a chief who says, you know what, if we're making ads for swing voters in the burbs of Ohio, we're using white people in the adult ads, okay?
Speaker A:We're using white people in the ads.
Speaker A:And we're going to tell white people this.
Speaker A:What's going to happen to you?
Speaker A:Because white people don't give a about other people.
Speaker A:If they did, they'd be us.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:They're not us.
Speaker A:So we need to be doing it that way.
Speaker A:And that's why, you know, the infrastructure part of it is so serious.
Speaker A:It's, it's, you know, we can around with tactics all the time, but strategy is different than tactics.
Speaker A:Strategy is the plan to win.
Speaker A:The tactics are the tools you deploy to achieve this.
Speaker A:Where we're lacking his grand strategy and we lack a brain trust to create it or execute it.
Speaker A:And that's what I'm really focused, hoping we'll develop.
Speaker C:Yeah, I agree with you about, you know, we need to be.
Speaker C:Have some more Democratic assholes.
Speaker C:But I can tell you, you know, here in, you know, where we live.
Speaker C:After Cawthorn took office, you know, he was big on the toxic masculinity stuff.
Speaker C:And I responded to one of his screeds and referred to him as a limp dick loser.
Speaker C:And I got reprimanded by the.
Speaker A:Oh, I'm sure you did.
Speaker C:For being mean to dare you make.
Speaker A:Fun of people with impot.
Speaker C:Well, then, then a week later, we had Mark Robinson, you know, our gubernatorial candidate.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:The black Nazi.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And Robinson came out.
Speaker C:Yeah, Robinson came out with his, you know, the, the LGBT community is filth comments.
Speaker C:And the Democrats said, well, we reprimanded Mo for his comments.
Speaker C:Surely you'll reprimand Mark Robinson.
Speaker C:And the Republicans said, shove it up your ass.
Speaker A:No shit, dude.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, you know what I'm saying, dude?
Speaker A:And like, some of it comes down to this, right?
Speaker A:So like you said it, your comments blew up and people are lecturing you.
Speaker A:And it's about an individual capability for someone in your position, especially to just say, I don't give a if people think what I've said is factually on.
Speaker A:Because, you know, to be hyperbolic, you can't be technically correct, right?
Speaker A:So for me, the message is Republicans are going to steal your Social Security.
Speaker A:Now, technically speaking, that's not how Social Security works, right?
Speaker A:We pay now.
Speaker A:Now, they paid before.
Speaker A:It's not our money, but doesn't matter, right?
Speaker A:Like, so you just have to be willing when I say we need more.
Speaker A:What we.
Speaker A:What I really mean is we need candidates, party leaders, influencers, people in charge of to be willing to look dumb, to make outlandish claims like Donald Trump.
Speaker A:You know, with this Easter's coming with no eggs, right?
Speaker A:My messaging Easter is going to be that Donald Trump.
Speaker A:We got Trump potatoes.
Speaker A:We're okay because he killed all the eggs.
Speaker A:Like, obviously that's not true.
Speaker A:And I have a PhD.
Speaker A:I know it's not true, guys, but I, I'm willing to look stupid to be effective.
Speaker A:And you should be.
Speaker C:Yeah, well, certainly the other side just.
Speaker C:I just got through writing an op ed today that I just sent in and it's on.
Speaker C:Elon came out with this crap about Fema and the $59 million that New York was spending putting migrants up in luxury hotels while people here in western North Carolina are suffering.
Speaker C:And those.
Speaker C:And again, that's.
Speaker C:It's a lie.
Speaker C:There are two separate pots of money, money that, that came out of and you can't use one for the other.
Speaker C:But they don't give a.
Speaker C:Whether they're telling the truth or not.
Speaker C:And the MAGA faithful could care less.
Speaker C:They lap it up.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And, and to be honest with you, I mean, look, we're, we're three weeks in now.
Speaker A:People believe I've spent stood I would.
Speaker A:Or the last two months between until he got rolling with people being very skeptical about today, you know, narrative Team Doom.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:But like, you know, the hour is long late, right?
Speaker A:Like there are in red states right now.
Speaker A:I guarantee you there are attorney generals, Republican Attorney General keen to prosecute parents who medically help their children transition or did a gender affirming care.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like the hour has grown late.
Speaker A:So like, if we, we can't even like, be hyperbolic and they're over there doing stuff like that.
Speaker A:Like the asymmetry is no longer a gun and a knife fight.
Speaker A:We're talking about, about a nuclear weapon and us still showing up with a flower.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it's hard because the, the base is what drives maga.
Speaker A:Like, it may look like a really big universe on Twitter and X and, and Elon certainly has confused it to be the real world.
Speaker A:But it.
Speaker A:No one's on Twitter of the population of the world.
Speaker A:Very few people are on Twitter.
Speaker A:Almost all the content comes out of like 300 accounts, including mine.
Speaker A:And it's not representative in any way of the demographic ethics of America, but is, you know, a, a critical propaganda tool.
Speaker A:And we need to start thinking we can't beat a propaganda system with your, your undergrad from, you know, Rutgers on Communications.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And the last people, in my opinion, who are able to meet this moment for the Democratic Party and its brand and, and the reality that the voters that we didn't get it stolen.
Speaker A:Elon Musk didn't use Skyl to.
Speaker A:With the voting tallies.
Speaker A:Guys, the voters chose, excuse me, Donald Trump over us, okay?
Speaker A:Like, that's how horrible they think we are that they chose Trump.
Speaker A:And it's us like our brand.
Speaker A:So we have to fix it.
Speaker A:And, and we need digital warriors to be willing to fix it.
Speaker A:It's very difficult because their digital warriors have no, no, you know, no ability to discern truth.
Speaker A:They take whatever they're told and go right out with it.
Speaker A:They don't go and verify it, you know, and they amplify the hell out of it.
Speaker A:And they're willing to say really hyperbolic things like, you know, they managed to convince the whole electorate that Joe Biden was personally in control of inflation.
Speaker B:Yeah, but we're up of steep.
Speaker B:We're up against a steep climb.
Speaker B:Rachel, I still don't see the reality having come to the far left in this country about what's going on.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, one example, you can probably not going to be shocked.
Speaker B:I was shocked when, when mom and I ran that video against Cawthra, you know, where he's face humping his cousin or whatever.
Speaker B:Literally, the pushback from the left was.
Speaker B:This was anti lgbtq.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Give me a break.
Speaker B:It is ammunition we're going to use against a guy that shouldn't be in Congress.
Speaker B:Why can't they see it that way?
Speaker B:I don't understand the mentality of the left that everything has to be perfect.
Speaker B:Is it because they.
Speaker B:They're all rich and they grew up with perfect in their life, or is it they're just so disconnected from reality that they don't understand how to win campaigns?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's basically it.
Speaker A:I mean, it's the inverse of ideologues just tend to do this.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Ideologues develop an ideological world and then project that world out into the broader population.
Speaker A:That is definitely what the far left does.
Speaker A:Now, I want to be not sloppy in my language because these terms, progress, the far left, whatever, are very interchangeable and different things and different to me.
Speaker A:When I say the far left, I'm talking about the people who don't vote for Democrats and as much about Democrats as they do about Republicans.
Speaker A:In fact, sometimes you got to wonder if they're on Putin's payroll.
Speaker A:They do it so well.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They don't vote For Democrats, okay, A lot of these people who showed up at these Gaza protests, they're not, they're not Democrats.
Speaker A:People who are, are gluing their hands to the airport access road and people out of thousands of dollars of trips and inconvenience, those are not Democrats.
Speaker A:That is the far left.
Speaker A:And, and to answer your question, the far left is, is still like marinating the final weeks of their fake world where both parties are the same and there's just a unit party and Democrats are all corporate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, and you know, they're about to find out because the very first people that are coming from for are the Gaza people.
Speaker A:It was all on his website, right.
Speaker A:I would go and I'd show them the screenshot of his plan to purge all the universities of, of Free Palestine people, all the faculty, all the students.
Speaker A:And you know, the response was, oh, you're a fear monger.
Speaker A:We're not.
Speaker A:You can't make me.
Speaker A:You can't fear me into voting for Joe Biden.
Speaker A:Genocide Joe.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Genocide Joe.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm gonna pop somebody in the nose if they ever say that to me again.
Speaker A:I mean, that's the thing is like, I'm like, you know, oftentimes I want to be like I am.
Speaker A:Ain't doing this for me.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I'll be all right.
Speaker A:I'm a white suburbanite living in a.
Speaker A:One of the best blue states in the country because I relocated strategically home for this purpose.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I don't have a lot of money, but I'm very smart and if hits the fan, I will deal with it and I will get the hell out.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:It's you, you climate change justice warriors and Gaza, you know, Hamas lovers, who they're coming for first.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And I just have to wonder like, will they?
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I'm of the opinion that these will be sitting on deportation flights to get mo and they'll still be talk bitching about genocide Joe.
Speaker B: out how Walter mondale up the: Speaker B:That's how disconnected from reality they are.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:All right, so let's pivot here.
Speaker B:Let's pivot in a different direction.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Do you see any Democrats on the horizon that are maybe headed in the right direction that could take, take on some of these, I mean, or, or is this party doomed to fail?
Speaker A:Yeah, we just, we, we have the people.
Speaker A:We don't have the strategy, the infrastructure and the centralization, which is what I'm focused on.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But we have the People.
Speaker A:Gretchen Whitmer, Pitbull.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Pete Buttigieg, Pitbull.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And he does it with this, like, all shucks, Midwestern kindness, but he's very aggressive.
Speaker A:Josh Shapiro, Fetterman.
Speaker A:We've got tools that we're not deploying, but they all the ones that are good at messaging, you know, the Jasmine Crockett's, the Jared Dan Goldmans, they're all doing their own thing.
Speaker A:Imagine all of that energy centralized under one all day, every.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Or.
Speaker B:Or even just once a week.
Speaker A:We choose a message not once a week.
Speaker A:It has to be all day, every day.
Speaker A:If we want to compete with these.
Speaker A:With these folks.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:No, no, I.
Speaker A:So we have the players.
Speaker A:We just aren't playing the game.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I get that.
Speaker B:But even if.
Speaker B:If we all just chose on one day to go one message and see how it worked, you know, I've been trying to get influencers on Twitter.
Speaker B:Problem is all those folks are so commercial.
Speaker B:They're like, well, you can't touch my.
Speaker B:My followers unless you're going to pay me.
Speaker A:Yeah, see, I can't believe that.
Speaker A:I don't do that.
Speaker A:I do a lot of.
Speaker A:For pro bono.
Speaker A:I make a living.
Speaker A:My favorite people, but no one owns my ass.
Speaker A:And like, when I look at my social tool, which has about 200,000 curated followers, like I use it to amplify.
Speaker A:Amplify people.
Speaker A:I don't charge them for the privilege.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:My goal is like, how can we get this information in front of as many people as possible?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:That's always my goal.
Speaker A:So I don't have a profit motive built into it.
Speaker A:But at the end of the day, boys in the middle of hit them where it hurts.
Speaker A:And I really recommend everybody read that book.
Speaker A:Book.
Speaker A:If you want to understand what Ken Martin's strategy is and where the Democrats need to go, read the book.
Speaker A:Like the.
Speaker A:The infrastructure that the Republican Party.
Speaker A:We are.
Speaker A:We are.
Speaker A: ree that they planted back in: Speaker A:Took the form of many instances.
Speaker A:The Heritage foundation, the.
Speaker A:The American Legislative Exchange Council.
Speaker A:The acronym is alec.
Speaker A:Alec, which does model legislation.
Speaker A:Legislation and state legislatures.
Speaker A:Which is why you'll see seven or eight red states ban transgender people all at once.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Because they have that centralization.
Speaker A:The Federalist Society.
Speaker A:I mean, there's so many.
Speaker A:I could go on and on, but one of them is Turning Point usa.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:And I focus on that in the book.
Speaker A:I got to invitate Charlie Kirk's producer who clearly didn't know anything about me to come debate him on crt.
Speaker A:And you know, not that I'm a fan of CRT or anything, but I went down there and just, you know, professored his ass for, for an hour.
Speaker A:But I wanted to see this, the infrastructure.
Speaker A:That's really what I went for.
Speaker A:Like you can't see that unless you're in there, right?
Speaker A:So they invited me in, let me come in.
Speaker A:And they have a four, five level building, like compact in Tempe, Arizona, one of the most expensive zip codes.
Speaker A:And it is not just one building.
Speaker A:Each building is five floors.
Speaker A:There's four buildings.
Speaker A:One of them had a sign on the outside that said Turning Points Logistics center.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:For the whole building.
Speaker A:Now I didn't get to go into that one.
Speaker A:I only got to go into the one with the state of the art, fully, you know, equipped TV student.
Speaker A:And in the green room up there waiting to start the show, dozens of people coming in from flights all across the country.
Speaker A:Why are they able to do that?
Speaker A:Well, they have an $80 million annual from a billion couple billionaires that finance.
Speaker A:What do we have in comparison?
Speaker A:We don't have that.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:We have 500 youth oriented grassroots groups.
Speaker A:Some of them are established and been going for a while.
Speaker A:Many of them are not because people want to have.
Speaker A:They make their own groups, right?
Speaker A:And they're all doing different strategy, they're all doing different things.
Speaker A:None of it is paid.
Speaker A:It's all on elbow grease and spit, okay.
Speaker A:Where they have it all on money.
Speaker A:And so ultimately, like, do I want to have to pay people for content?
Speaker A:I am happy to do it if I'm able to build this infrastructure and bring in, you know, these influencers and give them a check and have them be powerful the way that, that's why they're so powerful, because they aren't running on elbow grease and spit.
Speaker A:Their YouTube shows get investment, their radio shows get investment.
Speaker A:Like the people, the donor class of the Republican Party has paid big money to grow that propaganda infrastructure.
Speaker A:And they haven't relied on people doing it out of the kindness of their heart.
Speaker B:We don't need, right?
Speaker B:And they bring down, they bring, they bring down Lauren over to give everybody a hand job at their conferences too.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Oh, those conferences, do they have pyrotechnics?
Speaker A:It's you know, like state of the art.
Speaker A:He goes around college campuses all year with this big fat budget, holds these, you know, major events, gives out all kinds of free.
Speaker A:Like we got a college chapter with two kids sitting at a table, okay?
Speaker A:So no Wonder we're getting.
Speaker A:I mean, like I said, the hour is late.
Speaker A:We need to get going.
Speaker C:We got to give them credit.
Speaker C:I mean, they've played the long game, and they've done an effective job of convincing a majority of the people that, you know, the people are tired of getting by the government, but they're going to be shocked when they look back and realize that's not Nancy Pelosi's dick up their ass that, oh, it's the Republicans.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:But, you know, the general public has bought into the.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:And we have just done a horrible job of connecting and communicating.
Speaker C:And again, I think with Biden, he wasn't perfect.
Speaker C:I think history will probably have a pretty favorable outlook on.
Speaker C:On what he accomplished, but we did a horrible job of communicating that to the American public.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Meanwhile, they started up with the dementia right after he was sworn in.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And, like, every time he made a gaff or a stumble or would, you know, walk, talk awkwardly, they would cut that out and exploit it.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And they did that for a year.
Speaker A: So by the time we got to: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it could include getting electrocuted by a shark of electric boat in the water.
Speaker A:And, you know, like, he's.
Speaker A:He's not well mentally.
Speaker A: ic, public polling In July of: Speaker A:Something like 34 for dunk.
Speaker A:Like that.
Speaker A:None of this is organic.
Speaker A:They're doing it strategically.
Speaker A:Like, we have to have a brain trust, and we have to be doing the same thing.
Speaker A:That's step one.
Speaker A:Otherwise, you know, I.
Speaker A:I don't think that anything.
Speaker A:We're.
Speaker A:We'd have to make these big, big changes, and we need to make them right now, and we need to make them with a ton of money.
Speaker A:So Ken Martin got a bunch of crap at giving his speech when he won the election because he mentioned that, you know, there's good billionaires out there and we need their money.
Speaker A:Well, folks, I'm here to tell you we have unilaterally screwed ourselves out of a House majority.
Speaker A:We would have the House right now to stop Donald Trump with if we hadn't unilaterally decided to do fair gerrymandering.
Speaker A:Maps.
Speaker A:Maps only in the blue states, because that's the place where we control.
Speaker A:So we did it all in the blue states.
Speaker A:And what did we do?
Speaker A:We fair mapped our asses out of a House majority that they're allowed to gerrymander to put in.
Speaker A:And it's the same thing with the money, okay?
Speaker A:Like we had an opportunity to kill Citizens United.
Speaker A: s vote for Hillary Clinton in: Speaker A: n the supreme court since the: Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:But that ship is sailed now.
Speaker A:And we're talking about a billion we don't have.
Speaker A:We have George Soros and Reed hoffman.
Speaker A:They have 30 billionaires financing this infrastructure.
Speaker A:And you know, obviously so much money they bought Supreme Court justices with it.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So like, we can't be telling the people with money we don't want your money.
Speaker A:I'm here to tell you there is not enough grassroots money in all the world to fix our problem.
Speaker A:The problem.
Speaker B:Meanwhile, Democrats think that business people are the problem or small business people are the problem.
Speaker A:I mean that, that whole, the whole brand identity and, and you know what, I gotta be honest with you, dude.
Speaker A:I went to a lot of Democratic meetings over the last.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And you know, they're cringe.
Speaker A:It's cringe to sit there and like, listen to how it was stolen from the Native American.
Speaker A:Have 10 people at a table, none of whom are transgender, introduce themselves with gender pronouns.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like these.
Speaker A:I, I know that's how it is in, in D.C.
Speaker A:and these Ivy League colleges.
Speaker A:I think a lot of it is, these people have.
Speaker A:No, it's.
Speaker A:They have a very, very, you know, unique and, and DC Belt line, Beltway, New York, east coast, like experience of perception.
Speaker A:And that's why they think everyone already knows Donald Trump tried to steal the election.
Speaker A:And everybody already knows Donald Trump banned abortion.
Speaker A:No, they didn't.
Speaker A:You don't.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, these are the same.
Speaker B:These are the same people that are bitching and moaning because a sella doesn't go fast enough.
Speaker A:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker A:And so like, you know, we, we want.
Speaker A:We can't.
Speaker A:We're not going to get back working class of this country using consultants with gender pronouns on their business card is what I'm going to say.
Speaker B:I interrupted you.
Speaker B:Mo, go ahead.
Speaker C:No, I lost my train of thought.
Speaker A:Hey, it's good.
Speaker B:I'm having like, thank God we can edit.
Speaker A:Thank God we're all seniors here, right?
Speaker B:Like, yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker C:Well, that's one thing I was going to mention early.
Speaker C:Happy birthday You've got one coming up in a.
Speaker C:In a couple of days.
Speaker A:It was coming up.
Speaker A:Oh, it's coming up.
Speaker C:It is.
Speaker C:And I wish I could.
Speaker C:I wish I could tell you things get better as time goes on, but hate to lie to you, that's the.
Speaker A:That'S the most horrible part about being old, right?
Speaker A:Is that you figure out everything the old people told you is true and, and you didn't listen to any of it.
Speaker A:And now, now your curse is of course your.
Speaker A:The old person telling everybody about how like all this truism about being old and no one will listen.
Speaker A:It's like the circle of life.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Getting old is not for.
Speaker C:But it beats the alternative.
Speaker A:It sure does, doesn't it?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Hey, we.
Speaker C:It's been kind of, you know, a lot of doom and gloom we've been talking about.
Speaker C:Obviously you've got some ray of hope or optimism or you wouldn't be doing what you're doing.
Speaker C:So what, what is it that.
Speaker C:That keeps you going?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You never let the bastards grind you down.
Speaker A:Luckily for me, like I have an insatiable appetite to win.
Speaker A:And when what keeps me going is like, it's not just that we're losing, it's that we're losing to these feros.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:We're losing to people that want to repeal the n the 20th century.
Speaker A:We're losing to people who think Donald Trump had an election stolen.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And that they.
Speaker A:They think the COVID vaccine killed more people than co.
Speaker A:They're stupid as hell.
Speaker A:And it really irritates me not it be one thing to lose the democr or democracy to a group of talented smart people that are doing talented and smart people things.
Speaker A:Now there is within that orbit, definitely that.
Speaker A:That capability.
Speaker A:But at the top of the chain you got Elon and, and Trump.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:I mean, I can't lose to these morons.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And you know, that's what keeps me going.
Speaker A:What keeps me going is understanding, as I've always understood, that I'm not the person that I'm doing this for.
Speaker A:I'm doing this because.
Speaker A:Because rural people in Mississippi, which is one of the shittiest states in the country, I mean for ever since the end of segregation, the red states have used GOP control.
Speaker A:The red states to basically slow murder the black, their black populations through shitty public policy.
Speaker A:Like, you know, those are the people who are going to pay the price because we didn't want to make fun of J.D.
Speaker A:vance for, you know, having a gay porn.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So like at the end of the day I feel pretty good where I am morally.
Speaker A:I know I'm on the right side of history.
Speaker A:I know what I'm offering in terms of the RX is a tough pill to swallow, but I also know if we don't swallow it, people are going to suffer and they may even die.
Speaker C:Well, thank you for what you're doing.
Speaker C:We need more warriors out there carrying the message and hopefully we can beat these bastards at some point.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:No, it's going to come.
Speaker A:There is going to come a day, guys.
Speaker A:I mean, I can't offer you anything.
Speaker A:Blood, toil, tears and sweat right now, but I.
Speaker A:They're at the end.
Speaker A:End.
Speaker A:It will be victory.
Speaker A:Victory at all costs.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:All right, so we, we have a tradition of talking about our favorite bourbon.
Speaker B:Are you an alcohol drinker or a.
Speaker A:Look, no, no.
Speaker A:Deadhead.
Speaker A:Didn't spend some time with, with some Sammy Smith oatmeal stouts on tour, but I, I'm, I'm a pot smoker.
Speaker A:I'm not a beer drinker or alcohol drinker anymore, but only because I'm allergic to it.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker A:That said, on special occasions, like the last time I kicked a bourbon, it was top shelf and it was with my dissertation advisor, Paul Gurion, at a little restaurant in Athens, Georgia.
Speaker A:It was a good bourbon.
Speaker A:Good.
Speaker A:It wasn't Pappy's good, but it was good.
Speaker B:Well, we, we've got some good bourbons out here in North Carolina.
Speaker A:Be surprised, I've heard, you know, and certainly if I was out, you know, in, in the wilds of North Carolina, I'd want to do a little bourbon tour.
Speaker B:All right, well.
Speaker B:Well, you are a soulmate of Mo and I's in that.
Speaker B:We both ran campaigns that were pretty tough and we're not afraid to drop the F bomb and we both got kicked out of the room most of the time.
Speaker B:So you're welcome on this show anytime and we really appreciate you taking some time.
Speaker B:And our guest today has been Dr.
Speaker B:Not just Rachel, but Dr.
Speaker B:Rachel Biticoffer.
Speaker A:Oh, dude, it was my pleasure.
Speaker A:And then he muck you as a soft spot in my heart.
Speaker B:So this has been Muckyou co hosted by Colonel Mo Davis in Asheville, North Carolina, and David Wheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Speaker B:Thanks to our friend and guest today, Dr.
Speaker B:Rachel Bittacofer.
Speaker B:You can follow Rachel on X at Rachel Bitticofer.
Speaker A:B I T E C O F E R Muck you is produced by American Muckrakers.
Speaker A: Copyright: Speaker A:You can learn more at AmericanMuckrakers.comcom and follow us on X and Blue sky under American Mug.
