So for some historical context, you know, the state of Georgia for
decades had Democratic leadership, a Republican governor, I'm sorry,
a Democratic governor, Democratic lieutenant governor,
Democratic secretary of state Democratic labor commissioner.
And it historically went statewide for the Republican for president.
So you had a different dynamic there where it would always split.
So you literally had democrats running the state, but the state would always go to
the Republican, running for president with few exceptions.
And now that has shifted in the state of Georgia just on historical background,
that a lot of states in the south have had that kind of
dual personality in the political arena.
Let me say this about the elections in Minnesota, what are we talking about?
We have Medicare for all Green new deal.
The child tax credit.
Our candidate is for abolishing the Electoral college,
eliminating the student debt and also eliminating the filibuster.
Well remember we don't vote for personalities and
that's been the greatest disconnect in my opinion as relates to electoral politics.
We don't actually vote for personalities, personalities sometimes want you to think
you're voting for the personality, but you're voting for policies.
And if we think we're voting for a personality,
we're playing the game of checkers.
Once again, once you understand you're voting for
policy now you're playing the game of chess as the game should be played.
And so once we transform our ideology to understanding obviously we're voting for
policy dynamics to help communities that we love.
We now go from transactional politics to transformational politics and
we care about the character of the politician to some degree.
Now, I used to be one of these guys that said,
I care a lot about what kind of politician they are.
I must say I must humbly submit.
I don't care as much as I used to, it's still there, but I care much more about
the way they vote rather than why they vote the way they vote.
And so I think there's some policy dynamics that
have shifted with the electorate.
I think people are becoming more aware of what people are doing with their vote,
with their policy position.
And I think that's why you're seeing some shifts happen throughout the country.
Yeah, so I want to pick up on both those strands of thought.
So first on the south.
Yeah, people should remember that there was a really interesting dynamic in
the south because the democrats used to be the racist party in the south.
And then in the southern strategy, they flipped when Lyndon johnson past Civil
rights act and voting rights act, the republicans adopted the southern strategy.
So let's go pick up the racist voters in the south and and
we could build a base that way because the democrats are letting them
go by being decent human beings, big political mistake.
They thought i the originator of it was Pat Buchanan.
I talked to him about it on MSNBC when we're on there together.
He brazenly basically admits all to all of that.
And and he said we had a good 40 year run and it turns out he was wrong.
It turns out it's still going they had a good 50 year run and and
still checking along, but what that created was a lot of old school voters.
They just never let go of their old brand.
Even if they kinda new, kinda didn't know that they were now in the wrong party.
The new racist party was the republicans.
A lot of the old school voters still stay democrats
because it's amazing how much brand loyalty makes a difference.
And then they would pick up the actual left wing voters.
And so they wound up winning a surprising number of times.
And remember Bill Clinton was from Arkansas, al gore was from Tennessee,
Tennessee used to be at the presidential level in contention for
a long time, jimmy carter's from Georgia.
So there was a lot of democrats that, that came from the south
in that from like from basically from the southern strategy,
almost all the way to the current years.
And I say almost all the way because hey,
the governor of Kentucky today is a democrat Appalachians a little bit
different than the south Appalachia is way more populist.
So race is less of an issue populism is more of an issue in Kentucky in west
Virginia, but the populist used to be the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately these days in Appalachia, they view the republicans is
more populist, but still you can build a coalition there where democrat does.
Yeah, yeah. The only thing I would add that
potentially to some extent, over the decades muddy that a little bit, I think,
and maybe helped out some of the democrats was while the republicans were actively
pursuing the southern strategy and
were like almost single mindedly focused on aggressive, hateful racism.
It's not like the democrats were great and there are plenty of democrats that
aren't thrown around racial slurs whose policy positions and support for
the status quo in effect is as damaging economically in terms of the policy as any
of the, you know, the out and out racist.
I think that that maybe help them a little bit that they weren't focusing on on their
camp, on their stump speeches, their campaign ads, but it's not like they were
out there, you know, like preaching CRT or anything either, that's for sure.
And then the other point that that Rashad made, I 90% agree with.
We've talked about it on air before.
I in a sense, were more transactional now.
So you give me Green Green New Deal Medicare for all you give me money and
politics.
I don't give a goddamn about any of the rest of it.
Okay.
And I don't care if you're like primeval or ted cruz or Louie Gohmert,
I don't care just get the money out of politics and and
I care about your vote 10,000 times more than I care about your personality.
Having said that there is the 10% the exception, which is I don't want crooks,
and I don't mean like Campaign money crooks, that's standard in politics.
I mean like I don't wanna be mega where the FBI raids the home of one of our
progressive politicians and it turns out they've broken like 16 different laws,
they're stealing from their own supporters, and we go, I don't care,
I don't care, I still want them, right?
So you don't want to be that you don't want crooks.
Yeah.
And I would say this about something you said,
jake brand loyalty, Let's talk about brand loyalty for
a minute since roughly 1954 America through marketing,
engaged in massive advertisement and it kind of devolved us to be consumers.
Brands exist primarily because they want you to trust the brand,
look at a food product or a pop drink, right?
A soda, they want you to purchase whatever they put on the shelves, so
so that you connect to the brand, they want you to purchase the brand,
they don't want you to really know the ingredients.
So that brand dynamic says, trust the brand,
let's not think about the ingredients that you're actually buying.
So every time you vote for a politician, you vote for a public servant,
you're not voting for a brand, even though they are brand, you're really voting for
the ingredients.
So the progressive angle we want you to see the ingredients first.
That's why we preach a gospel of transparency.
We want you to see the ingredients up front,
we want you to know exactly what you're getting, we want you to understand exactly
what you should be getting out of this deal and so we flip the model,
we turn the pyramid upside down where we don't have a brand first appeal.
We have more so of an ingredients first appeal and we think if you actually
know what the ingredients are, you will reject the bad ingredients thus rejecting
the bad brand and if you know what the ingredients are for the good stuff,
you will accept the good ingredients, thus accepting the good brand and
brand loyalty has been detrimental to be quite frank with you,
especially to voters who have routinely voted a particular way just because
a person connects them one running for office to a particular brand.
Yeah, really fast.
I really love that metaphor.
Although I wish the fact that ingredients were listed on so many foods bothered
people more like they seem perfectly fine to eat a lot of processed stuff,
The processing being the corporate control in this metaphor but
also I like your metaphor,
I just wish the democrats if they're gonna do that they'd go further with it.
Like they mainly pitch themselves not as the good thing that their product does for
you, but purely about how bad the other product is.
Like when, when coke does those ads where like your taste testing coke and Pepsi,
it usually ends with like, my God, the coke is good.
Not someone like drinking a Pepsi and then like, projectile vomiting,
like you're supposed to make your product appealing.
It's about you drink this and then you're surfing all of a sudden,
not you drink the other thing and you, you fall like dead on your back.
They should learn something by modern branding strategy.
Okay, I'm now going to do what Mr. Pemberton accused me of
in 11th grade english, I'm going to reach, I'm going to reach.
Okay.
And and stretch this analogy too much.
Okay, so, the democrats do the coke and
Pepsi taste test, right?
And their coke and republicans are Pepsi, and
then the minute somebody says Pepsi, they're like, Adeboye adult boy.
No, no, no, no, no.
Your coke.
Pepsi though. Exactly.
They're like, look, we're not winning with good coke, we don't,
don't worry about coke.
We really need a strong Pepsi.
Okay, no focus, focus, but now a serious point.
Here's another giant problem in that brand issue.
If you watch cable news or you watch mainstream media, They will tell
you that the more conservative democrat is the real democrat and
a progressive is challenging, Wait, why are we challenging, right?
Why aren't they challenging us?
You see the framing, the framing is always claire McCaskill,
who tells you how great the republicans are, is the real democrat,
the person who's more left wing in the left wing party is the less real democrat.
I mean, it happens almost every time and that's that's why one of the many reasons
why I'm obsessed with mainstream media, I think they're magicians,
I think they're far more sophisticated than right wing media and
they make you believe things that are the exact opposite of the truth.
In fact, I mean, look at what I just told you like, everyone that has watched cable
news and everyone that has seen mainstream media will have seen that phenomenon.
None of you will be surprised by that the corporate democrat,
the more right wing, the more moderate or conservative democrat is
painted as a real democrat when that by definition makes no sense.
The one who's more left wing in the left wing party should be the real democrat and
they just turned the truth completely on its head and gas lit and and honestly,
I think brainwashed the entire democratic voting base,
at least the older democratic voting base into systematically voting against
their own interests by confusing them on what the brand is.
I noticed something just kind of in this, you know,
two party system we have is a ridiculous system.
It's horrible.
But in that two party system, look at what republicans have done.
Republicans, the mainstream republicans like mitch, McConnell mitch doesn't like
marjorie taylor green hell he doesn't even like matt gates.
But what they have done they have figured out that it actually benefits
their party more so to allow these individuals to be spokespersons
to allow them to be allowed to proclaim certain conservative messages
to continue to be visible without them placing them on an island.
Now we don't agree with their politics, we don't agree with right leaning politics.
We don't agree with marjorie taylor Greene.
We don't agree with the Tea Party movement inside of the conservative movement
typically.
But look at what the left has done.
So we have individuals who are willing to fight ready to fight.
We have a O.
C.
We have senator turner, we have others right?
We have Cori Bush.
Now what did the left do?
Well they tried to number one coop them to make them more like one of them
a corporate democrat.
And when that didn't work instead of allowing them to proclaim the message of
left leaning progressive politics that actually moves communities forward,
they said let's put them on an island.
Let's strip them from power.
Let's stop them from having actual rank.
Let's limit their authority within our left leaning political arena.
That's a calculation but a calculated mistake obviously.
So while McConnell and the Republican party at large,
they get to benefit from the rhetoric and the propaganda, the proclamations of their
more conservative members on the left, we have a tendency through the mainstream
democrats and the executive leaders in the Democratic Party,
we have a tendency to isolate the individuals who are ready to fight,
who say let me at him who say I'm not afraid of them.
Well, yeah, I got to jump in on that job.
Sorry, one second.
So it's such a great point.
So on the right wing there, the the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, and
how are they painted?
They were painted as more right wing, more Republican and
they were fighting the rhinos, the establishment republicans,
but they gained the mantle of more republican,
which appealed to the republican primary voters.
And what did that do to to Rashad's point about how mitch McConnell tolerates it.
It's because it pushes the overton window more right wing.
So now McConnell might not like some of those cultural things as much right, but
he's very happy to get pushed over to a window so
that corporations pay even less taxes and have even less regulation,
so that that helps the Republican Party that helps corporate rule, right?
In the Democratic Party.
The same press that makes it seem like the more extreme right wing is more
Republican right and has pushes the entire spectrum to the right says
the just democrats are less democrats, wait, why are the more right wing,
more Republican, but more left wing is less democrat and and
that's part of the point, it's part of the illusion that they create.
So the overton window is always pushed to the right and not to the left.
Yeah. To some extent,
I think it's it's an illusion, but it's an illusion that cloaks I think sort of
the the important point that I think Rashad is getting at is we have this
perception that you have sort of four groups you have on the Democratic side,
you have the more radical the fighters perhaps, as Rashad was saying, and
then the more establishment democrats on the right, you have a version of that,
you have the more aggressive combative, the upstarts, the marjorie greens and
all that.
And then you have the mitch mcconnells and everything, but that it is only skin deep.
The metaphor there because what your fight writing about is so
different in these two different versions.
The combative right wingers might be a little bit more enthusiastic about guns,
so there might be a little bit more hostile to democracy, but
what they will accomplish if they succeed economically is indistinguishable
from what the establishment republicans would accomplish.
There's a little bit of style, you know,
a little bit of like a little bit of more offensiveness to it, but
they're fighting for the same thing with different styles on the Democratic side.
It isn't just that these more progressive candidates want to fight more they want to
fight against the establishment, that not only both sides of the Republican Party
are defending, but also the establishment democrats.
There's a reason why, for instance, the supposed independent right wing media is
constantly featured on Fox news, why Ben Shapiro and your, your,
your charlie Kirk's always brought on their way.
You don't see an equivalent of that on the so called left with MSNBC.
It's because we don't actually agree with MSNBC, the independent and
establishment right wing media wants the same thing.
One might like make more racist jokes, one might, you know,
threaten political violence a little bit more openly.
But even that gap has faded over time, tucker, Carlson and
Alex jones make largely the same monologues.
And so there's this supposed dichotomy on Each side, but on one side it's illusory,
whereas on the other, it's 100% substantive and that's why both
the media and the politicians on the democratic side box out the left.
Every chance they get super last point on that notice,
in american media landscape, the right wing is allowed.
The extreme right is allowed and
has now kind of enveloped the establishment republicans.
So that's allowed and right wing democrats are allowed.
But the only folks that are not allowed in media are left wing democrats.
So that's to john's point, you'll almost never see
independent media figures that are progressive on MSNBC?
Isn't that interesting, like Fox News will bring on everyone from establishment
republicans all the way to the most crazy right wing or you could ever find right.
MSNBC's window is only moderate to right wing democrats and republicans.
And so at the end of the day, hey, look at that corporate rule by corporate media,
both right wing and mainstream gives you only the corporate part of
the spectrum and not the part that is actually fighting for the voters.