David, you've talked before about how the modern Republican Party under Trump is basically just
about owning the Libs. And Meems, it's no longer about policy. Does it matter if they
keep on winning? I mean, listen, they didn't. Win, they lost in twenty eighteen and they lost
in twenty twenty, so it's not clear that they're continuing to win. But I think the important
question is, when you have so many Republicans who don't really know anything about policy
and you have so many Republicans that no matter what, aren't voting for Democrats,
policy really doesn't matter very much when you put out policy and then you fail
and then your constituents don't hold you accountable anyway. Why bother putting out
policy at all? And there are some Republicans who are actually taking this and running with
it. Madison Cawthorn, this new Trumpy, an elected Republican member of the House of Representatives,
one of his aides, I think it was that someone in his circle said, we're not running a policy
office. We're running a communications office, which is social media and interviews and
confrontations that that are visually compelling in this type of thing. These are their voters.
Right. And if they don't need to put out policy and risk failing to achieve it and the voters
are more interested in ways to own the Libs and Meems, in this type of thing, then they're going
to be that's what they're going to get. And in fact, it's happening. Republican voters have
been fed a constant stream of propaganda for about six years now. Right. It's twenty twenty one. You
go back to twenty fifteen. When Trump started running and they've rewarded this behavior,
the guy who said without any details, I'm going to get rid of Obamacare and do something beautiful.
I'm going to build a wall across the entire border. I'm going to fix trade. Except he ended
up, you know, replacing NAFTA with the I don't even remember what it's called now, but it was
more or less the exact same thing. They're fed the propaganda and they reward the candidates
that feed it to them. They're represented by the political equivalent of Internet trolls and they
love it. And when your priority is messing with the other side, making liberals feel bad or look
bad or whatever, it becomes a feedback loop. The propaganda of Fox News and of Republicans
gives an alternate reality to the Republican voter so that the Republican voter no longer cares about
policy. And they use the propaganda to say, well, I can't vote for Biden because he's a communist
socialist. I can't vote for Hillary because she has Parkinson's or whatever the case may be,
and then they don't. And then it makes it so Republicans continue to say, why run on policy?
I'll run on Meems. And this goes for elected officials. This goes for Fox News, Newsmax. And
that's how they push this stuff. And generally speaking, it works. Now, you can make the case,
well, does it work? They lost the house in twenty eighteen. They lost the Senate
in twenty twenty. They lost the White House in twenty twenty. I just have a hard time believing
that policy would have done better for them because their voters have been so propagandized
to. And that's the question I'll leave to you. Is there an advantage? I know that some of the
traditional Republicans, you get back with a focus on policy, assuming it's the right policy,
but do they lose all of these trumpeter's who never paid attention to politics to begin with
and just showed up for the Mexican rapists type comments? Is it really a net benefit to go back to
policy for the Republican Party? Let me know what you think. Bonus show today, this is the last show
and bonus show before our break, we are off next week. The show's not canceled. Everything's fine.
We're just taking a week off to regenerate some energy. And then we'll be back to we got.