Episode 95
IN THE MAKING: Can Elon Musk Disrupt the American Political Landscape?
In the latest episode of America: A History in the Making, we dive into the evolving political landscape in the United States, focusing on recent developments regarding Trump's shift in stance on military aid to Ukraine.
We discuss how Trump's promise to provide weapons through NATO has sparked mixed reactions among his supporters, particularly from notable figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who openly criticizes his approach.
And we explore the implications of Elon Musk's potential formation of a new political party, examining the challenges he might face in a system traditionally dominated by two major parties. Finally, we discuss how these changes could signal cracks in the MAGA base and what that might mean for future elections.
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Transcript
With reaction and insights to the biggest stories and breaking news from the usa And a little bit of history thrown in.
Speaker A:This is America, a history in the Making.
Speaker A:Hello, and welcome to another episode of A History in the Making.
Speaker A:I'm Liam Heffernan and joining me is is regular on the show, Emma Long.
Speaker A:Welcome back.
Speaker B:Hi, Liam.
Speaker A:And still in D.C. i am still.
Speaker B:In Washington, D.C. yes.
Speaker A:That is wonderful.
Speaker A:Is it as hot there as it has been here?
Speaker B:It has been, yes.
Speaker B:I think last time we spoke, I was sweltering through a heat wave.
Speaker B:Temperatures are back kind of to more normal Washington D.C. summer temperatures.
Speaker B:But that still means that, you know, temperatures are in the low 30s with high humidity, so it's not as bad, but bad enough.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It's cooled down a little bit over here.
Speaker A:So we had a bit of rain as well recently, which is nice.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'm starting to navigate the world of gardening, which is.
Speaker A:Which is new territory for me, so I'm hoping.
Speaker A:I'm trying to grow some trees, so a bit of rain is nice.
Speaker B:That's always good.
Speaker B:I dread to think I've been away for, what, three weeks or so now, Just over three weeks.
Speaker B:I fear my garden will be dead by the time I get home.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, fingers crossed.
Speaker A:But, yeah.
Speaker A:Well, talking of morbidly talking of death, what about the.
Speaker A:So the war in Ukraine?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think one of the biggest stories.
Speaker A:Let's just cover this.
Speaker A:It's fairly recent developments is Trump appears to be doing a bit of a U turn against his campaign in that he's now promising to provide weapons for Ukraine, but it's going to be via NATO.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So it almost feels like a weird kind of half compromise that we're not directly giving them to Ukraine, but we also are.
Speaker A:And this hasn't gone down well, has it, with other MAGA folk?
Speaker B:No, not with some.
Speaker B:I think there's kind of been a range of sort of responses to this.
Speaker B:On one hand, I think from supporters of Ukraine, there's been this kind of relief that American aid and technology is going to find its way to.
Speaker B:To Ukraine.
Speaker B:And President Trump, of course, has sort of sold this as a kind of NATO are going to buy them.
Speaker B:So this isn't, you know, this isn't the Biden era just giving them stuff at the cost of the American taxpayer.
Speaker B:These things are going to be bought and purchased, and then whatever NATO members do with them, it's none of our business.
Speaker B:You know, the culture of deniability that has got American presidents so an awful lot over the years.
Speaker B:But Yeah, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think, has been the, like, the biggest critic of this and sort of saying, well, no, no, no, what my constituents want to hear is that we're not thinking about foreign stuff anymore.
Speaker B:We're not getting involved in foreign things.
Speaker B:You know, Trump and all of us last year campaigned on getting out of these kinds of conflicts.
Speaker B:And no matter how much of a distance Trump claims there is, this is still an engagement that we're, we're not going to do so.
Speaker B:And there have been other number of other Republicans who've kind of sort of sat on the fence slightly, who kind of said it's not ideal, but at least these, this stuff is being bought.
Speaker B:So there's been a range of responses to it.
Speaker B:But, yeah, Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's kind of an interesting one in that it's rare to see people from within that MAGA crowd really kind of openly criticizing Trump these days.
Speaker B:So it's kind of interesting to see her doing that on this particular issue.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, because obviously, Marjorie Taylor Greene is hardly known for being a voice of reason by any degree, but she does, she does represent the opinions of a fairly hardcore faction of Trump supporters.
Speaker A:So it is really interesting that she is now being quite outspoken against Trump because, I mean, Trump has been making a lot of threats about pulling support and, in fact, funding other candidates if other people talk up against him.
Speaker A:And, I mean, it just, it strikes me as very strange that someone who has basically built her whole career politically on the back of Trump would be so outspoken against him.
Speaker B:Yeah, it is odd, and I guess we'll see how it plays out, whether it continues in other issues or whether it's specific to this particular one.
Speaker B:I mean, it may be that there is something about her particular constituency where she kind of feels that this is an issue that she has to.
Speaker B:To push on, because that's what she's hearing from the people that she represents.
Speaker B:And you know that, you know that that's entirely possible.
Speaker B:I mean, she's, you know, she's up for election every two years as a member of the House of Representatives.
Speaker B:You know, you're constantly, you are constantly running for election, as the members of the House will tell you.
Speaker B:So whether there's some kind of particular concern to do with where she's.
Speaker B:She's running, or whether this is sort of a bigger issue about trying to raise a profile, perhaps for a step up maybe to the Senate or to some other kind of some other kind of office, it's not clear yet, but you're Right.
Speaker B:It is kind of unusual for, well, these days for almost anybody from within, kind of high up in the MAGA crowd to be openly critical of Trump.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's definitely unusual.
Speaker B:I'm not entirely sure what, what's going on there.
Speaker B:We may see it, it may become something, it may, may sort of disappear, I don't know.
Speaker A:But this is it.
Speaker A: since even, you know, before: Speaker A:Because this isn't the only issue.
Speaker A:I mean, you've been hearing a lot about the Epstein files because that's becoming a real thing over there, isn't it?
Speaker B:Yeah, it really is.
Speaker B:And in a way that seems to be surprising Trump.
Speaker B:I mean, there are lots of reasons why it shouldn't do, including a tendency amongst the right wing to conspiracy theories.
Speaker B:And also actually, Trump's own sort of language on the Epstein files.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That, you know, yes, he would release everything now.
Speaker B:It's not going to be released now.
Speaker B:He's trying to say that something about, you know, the files, the files were created by Obama or Hillary or who knows who else on the radical left of the politics.
Speaker B:So it all kind of, that constantly changing language isn't new to Trump.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We've seen him defend policies that he wants to take for different reasons over time.
Speaker B:But because this one, because the issue of the Epstein files, there's something particular about that and the crimes that Epstein was accused of that seem to have got the MAGA crowd riled up.
Speaker B:And because of this sort of leaning towards conspiracy theories that they're almost seeing what a lot of people on the left have been seeing in Trump's changing language.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Which is.
Speaker B:Why would you say different things about it over time unless you were trying to cover something up?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So that seems to be quite a big talking point here.
Speaker B:And Trump gave a press conference, I think, this morning, UK time, in which he's trying to kind of wave supporters off.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:He's like, epstein's not important, he's been dead for years.
Speaker B:Why are you still talking about it?
Speaker B:And that sort of weirdly, that's fueling the thing, Right.
Speaker B:It's a kind of, you know, people are going, well, he's sort of standing there saying, nothing to see here, nothing to see here.
Speaker B:It's odd that this is the issue that Trump supporters are.
Speaker B:Trump supporters are really picking up on because there have been, you know, people on the left have been pointing out inconsistencies in Trump for.
Speaker B:For a really long time.
Speaker B:So this seems to be one where there's kind of some kind of bipartisan support for.
Speaker A:But do you think, though, that the reason why this has become a thing is because covering up, or at least just not releasing the details in the Epstein files after promising to.
Speaker A:It can look like Trump is now becoming part of the corrupt system that he spent years saying needs to be dismantled.
Speaker A:Lock Hillary up, lock Biden up, lock up everyone, because they're all part of this corrupt system that I'm going to change.
Speaker A:And now suddenly he's saying, no, actually, let's keep these files quiet.
Speaker A:Miraculously, only a short time after Elon Musk fell out with Trump and told everyone that Trump was in the Epstein files, suddenly he doesn't want them to be released.
Speaker A:It just, I feel like I don't really know what he gets at this point out of not releasing the files.
Speaker A:I feel like if he was going to have a strategy at all, and let's say, hypothetically he was in the Epstein files, the plan should be, okay, how do we spin this so that it doesn't actually make me look bad and go ahead and release the files?
Speaker B:Yeah, and it's also possible that there's just not that much in them, to be honest.
Speaker B:I mean, it could just be that having made a big issue of this sort of on the campaign trail before actually having access to documents, you know, they've suddenly realized that actually there's not really anything there that could be one example of that, which is kind of, it's not worth releasing because there's just, you know, not much of any interest and, or, you know, what is going to be there is going to be completely out of some kind of context.
Speaker B:And there'd be.
Speaker B:There may be people who, you know, possibly, possibly Trump supporters, possibly others who, you know, will get caught up in it when actually there's no reason to.
Speaker B:Yeah, so it may be that.
Speaker B:And I mean that.
Speaker B:But that.
Speaker B:That idea that somehow, you know, instead of Trump changing Washington, Washington is kind of impacting on the way Trump does business or the way that he has to do things isn't, I guess, going to sit well with MAGA supporters.
Speaker B:And I think maybe that's also part of the reaction to the ukra Ukraine, the sending military aid to Ukraine via NATO.
Speaker B:There's the risk that it kind of, you know, that it seems like going back on something he said when most people, I think would say, well, yeah, you campaign in one way and then you get into government and you have to deal with the practical realities of everything that's there and all the stuff that you didn't know about.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so you have to, you know, you have to amend accordingly.
Speaker B:But I think as electorates, and you see this in the UK as well as the us, we're not very forgiving when people change, you know, change position or they change their minds.
Speaker B:And actually, sometimes there's good reason for that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:As people learn more things come in a different context.
Speaker B:And, you know, MAGA isn't unusual in that.
Speaker B:It's just sort of unusually vocal.
Speaker A:But, you know, I mean, going back to you suggesting maybe Washington has changed Trump a bit, I'm not sure it really has.
Speaker A:I think Trump's failing is that he has verbal diarrhea and his language is aggressive and it's threatening at times.
Speaker A:And I think he boxes himself in, and he's now in a position where he's promised one thing and.
Speaker A:And he's been saying for years that he's going to do this and that, and now actually, he's got too many political allies and too many people that he.
Speaker A:He kind of needs.
Speaker A:It's kind of fitting that there's sirens in the background talking about this, but he's got so many.
Speaker A:He's got so many political allies and people now that he relies on that he has to pander them and play along and play the politics game the same as every other president has had to do.
Speaker A:Like when you.
Speaker A:When you strip away all of the crazy, you know, press antics, he's no different.
Speaker A:Really.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's a really interesting perspective.
Speaker B:And I didn't mean to suggest that Washington has changed Trump, only that critics may well be seeing that in these tiny little issues.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That are coming up.
Speaker B:But, yes, I mean, you can't keep promising things to people and then not deliver if you don't want them to kind of bite back at you.
Speaker B:And I'm sure there are backroom deals that have gone on with Trump and Trump supporters, because they've gone on with every president and presidential candidate for generations.
Speaker B:It's not like that's new or surprising to anybody.
Speaker B:So, yeah, very, very possibly that part of what is different about Trump is his methodology, should we say, or his approach to doing these things, rather than necessarily the outcome of it.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:And I think you look at any sort of seasoned politician, and I think most presidents bar Trump have been career politicians, or at least they've come from a very disciplined background, law.
Speaker A:And I think that teaches you to have a particular skill set.
Speaker A:One of those skills being discretion and knowing when not to talk.
Speaker A:And I think that comes in very handy when you're playing the politics game, especially when you're the president, when no one can actually pinpoint exactly what your opinion or your stance is on something until you actually have to make one.
Speaker A:Trump isn't really very good at that.
Speaker A:He says what he thinks at any moment and that can also change 10 minutes later, which can be problematic for him.
Speaker B:Right, yeah.
Speaker B:And for pretty much everybody else around, I think, in terms of trying to work out what's going on.
Speaker B:But yes, I think career politicians are very good at being careful about what they publicly commit to.
Speaker B:Should we say that language of deniability or kind of smoothing things over, saying, well, maybe kind of, that they can then go back and, and kind of say, well, he didn't absolutely commit to it.
Speaker B:All of which, of course is language that the Trump supporters would say, well, yeah, that's what we're sick of.
Speaker B:You know, we want that plain speaking, we want that sort of, that sense of being told the truth and so on and so forth.
Speaker B:But yeah, you're right, it does in some ways make Trump's life more difficult when then he changes his mind.
Speaker B:Although one of the interesting things about Trump that I think scholars will be trying to unpick for many, many years is why say Biden changing his mind on something attracts so much criticism and claims of flip flopping and not being consistent.
Speaker B:Trump changing his mind on things four times a day, he's not held to account in quite the same way for that.
Speaker A:Yeah, but I think that's, you know, the process over the last decade of Trump really desensitizing people to that.
Speaker A:Because I think when other politicians, you know, let's take Biden is the most recent example of another president.
Speaker A:You know, he, he's very careful with what he says and, and when he says it, he's learned to be like that as a politician.
Speaker A:But then when you do have to go back on something and you do a U turn, I think it feels a lot worse.
Speaker A:Whereas Trump just, there's this, it's just a constant storm of things and he says things and does things and then does something else and says something else.
Speaker A:Like you just, you're waiting for the next crazy antic.
Speaker A:And it kind of just becomes part of just the, I don't know, it's just because part of what we expect from Trump.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And maybe that is part of what covers him when he, when he does make those changes because he does it all the time on big things and small things.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it just kind of becomes part of the ether.
Speaker B:But I do think it's, I don't think it's necessarily something that we can look at sort of while we're in the middle of it.
Speaker B:I think it's something that future scholars are going to have to try and unpick about, you know, how it happened and why it happened and why Trump was able to get away with it in a way that others have.
Speaker B:Haven't been.
Speaker B:Yeah, I, I just think when you're living in the middle of it, it's hard to, to get that kind of objective perspective on.
Speaker B:Yeah, I guess on, on why, you know, it's proved so, so potent at this particular moment.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I mean, history scholars in, in 50 years time are going to have an absolute gold mine of stuff to, to work with.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But probably no archives.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:We have no idea what, what the Trump admin with the, with their, their papers and records.
Speaker B:So who knows?
Speaker A:Yeah, true.
Speaker A:And I guess kind of on that note, you know, thinking about some of the stuff that's been going on just in the last, I mean, man, it's only been six months since Trump was inaugurated, but in that time, obviously one of his right hand men was Elon Musk.
Speaker A:And you know, talking of, you know, u turns sort of biting him in the butt, obviously him pushing through this big beautiful bill resulted in the very public fallout with Elon.
Speaker A:And since, you know, I mean, there's been a lot of back and forth on social media.
Speaker A:It's so hard to actually keep up with all the insults they've thrown at each other.
Speaker A:But Musk seems to have made some sort of concrete action in, well, or at least declaration, in kind of telling everyone that he's going to set up his own political party.
Speaker A:I mean, is, is this all, is, is this all just fluff or is there actually something to be worried about here with the potential of Musk setting up a party?
Speaker B:I suppose it depends who you are and where you sit really.
Speaker B:I mean, it's not surprising, Right.
Speaker B:These are two men with two very big egos who are used to being in control of the realms in which they, they work.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Seeing them work together, there was always going to come a time when they were going to split.
Speaker B:I'm sort of surprised that it hasn't been messier perhaps than it seems to have been.
Speaker B:Although as Regular listeners will know I'm largely absent from social media, so maybe I'm missing some, some of it here.
Speaker B:But I mean, I think one thing that perhaps we don't know about so much in the UK is that there are a lot more parties in the US than you might think.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Yes, there's the Republicans and the Democrats, particularly at local level.
Speaker B:There are other parties that often run in local or statewide elections.
Speaker B:So the US isn't strictly a two party system if you look outside of like presidential and congressional races.
Speaker B:And I mean there are several independents of course, who sit in the, in Congress at the moment, which doesn't make a separate party, but does kind of is a glitch in that two party system.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And these parties historically have come and gone and you know, round particular issues or particular individuals.
Speaker B:So it's not unusual.
Speaker B:And for Musk, it's not hugely difficult to say I'm going to set up a party and maybe get people.
Speaker B:What is harder is to then have an impact on the electoral process.
Speaker B:Especially if what you're talking about is the national trying to make an impact at the national level.
Speaker B:I mean, we've talked about US elections, right, Many, many times in terms of sort of not just what was happening at a particular election, but sort of the processes and the challenges and what it takes to be able to run for office.
Speaker B:And you know, you need money.
Speaker B:No one's doubting that Elon Musk has got plenty of it.
Speaker B:So that's perhaps one less obstacle that some people might face in trying to set up a party.
Speaker B:But you also need, you need the infrastructure, you need it at state level and you need it at national level to be able to organize people, to get the kind of just the paperwork done to be able to run in elections, then you need the infrastructure to run a campaign and then knock on doors and to do all of those kinds of things, to organize the literature, to make and run adverts, those kinds of things.
Speaker B:And that is much harder to do.
Speaker B:So, you know, yes, Musk can say he's going to set up a party.
Speaker B:He can file the relevant paperwork, he can get a few people on board.
Speaker B:Will he manage to get enough to actually have an impact?
Speaker B:That remains a question to be seen as we go forward.
Speaker B:Will he lose interest and you know, just sort of for this issue just to kind of fade out into the background as other things happen?
Speaker B:We don't yet know, but he can certainly set up a party.
Speaker B:The question is whether it can actually do anything.
Speaker A:Yeah, and I mean, we have seen a precedence, especially here in Europe, for traditional political systems to be challenged in recent years.
Speaker A:I mean, who would have thought 40 years ago that the Conservative Party in the UK would have such sort of a small presence in Parliament as it does today?
Speaker A:So there is the possibility.
Speaker A:But the American two party system for the last 100 years has tightened up so much.
Speaker A:I do wonder the, you know, I guess I've got a two pronged question here.
Speaker A:If Elon Musk did seriously set up a US political party, where on that spectrum would or should he position himself and then as someone who can't actually run for president himself, who would he want to do that?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a really good question, particularly sort of the issue of positionality.
Speaker B:One of the reasons that the US sort of the two parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, have proved to be so durable, I think, is that they've turned out to be kind of really good vultures.
Speaker B:So every time a third party or third movement has sort of threatened or arisen, they've managed to like, cherry pick the bits that fit within them and kind of subsume them under the umbrella.
Speaker B:So I'm thinking particularly of the progressive movement of the early 20th century, a lot of which kind of ends up being part of a Democratic platform.
Speaker B:But there are other sort of smaller examples along the way.
Speaker B:So with Musk.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker B:Who's he appealing to?
Speaker B:Is he appealing to disgruntled Trump supporters?
Speaker B:Which, you know, there may be some, but it's hardly enough to build a party on.
Speaker B:I can't, given his support of Trump in, you know, the last year or so, and probably his, his role in giving Trump a push over the finishing line to the election last year.
Speaker B:I can't see many sort of hardcore Democrats being attracted a Musk party.
Speaker B: those who voted for Trump in: Speaker B:Who might perhaps be attracted to someone like Musk.
Speaker B:But yeah, it's sort of, it feels a little bit like this is motivated by, I don't like you anymore, therefore I'm going to try and challenge you.
Speaker B:And it's not as if, you know, it's not as if Trump doesn't have challenges.
Speaker B:You've still got.
Speaker B:There might be a declining number, but there are some moderate Republicans still around, you know, who may well fight against a MAGA response.
Speaker B:There are the Libertarians who have a tendency to find their home in the Republican Party.
Speaker B:Because of the sort of the small government hands off approach, but are not entirely, entirely comfortable within that, that sphere.
Speaker B:So, you know, then does he appeal to them?
Speaker B:But again, none of these are big enough constituencies, I think.
Speaker B:So it'll be interesting to see, I think, how if he does move forward with this kind of who he's appealing to.
Speaker A:There is a scenario though, I wonder if, where sort of center right Republicans see a sort of strategic benefit in allowing Elon Musk to bankroll them in the name of another party because they could still run as essentially a conservative party.
Speaker A:But there's also going to be an appeal there to the Trump supporters who do still like Musk and are just going to blindly believe that actually because Musk is financing it, they're going to be more right than they are.
Speaker A:I wonder if there is like there's a way to play that where Musk could move to the center in order to challenge Trump effectively and actually win a lot of votes for it.
Speaker B:Perhaps.
Speaker B:I think they'll come up against various obstacles.
Speaker B:I mean, there's the, we don't talk about it a lot, but there's kind of the nativist sentiment here, which is, you know, Musk's a foreigner and you know, foreign money in US elections.
Speaker B:It's not to say it's not not there, but, you know, Musk openly bankrolling it is kind of a very obvious version of that.
Speaker B:So it would become a target for those, those groups talking about, you know, foreigners getting involved in our elections and so on and so forth, no matter how much they might support America doing it elsewhere.
Speaker B:I think that that's probably an issue.
Speaker A:It didn't put off the MAGA voters, though.
Speaker B:Well, no, I suppose that's also true.
Speaker B:Although how much they, you know, I think there's a lot of people who kind of thought of Musk's money as kind of an additional add on, despite the amount that we were talking about rather than kind of the fundamental funding of it.
Speaker B:I also think that there are groups for whom Musk is just way too toxic to be involved in.
Speaker B:They might have accepted him when he was this slightly eccentric billionaire who was trying to send stuff into space.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And built electric cars.
Speaker B:But his move into politics, as often all moves into politics do, has, I think, alienated certain groups of people who would be resistant to that.
Speaker B:Again, may not be enough people to cause a problem, but yeah, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see.
Speaker B:I think the history of third parties in the United States suggests it's not going to get very far.
Speaker B:But what it could do, thinking about the things we've already been talking about on this episode, it could be another crack in the MAGA facade and you can only take so many of those before everything falls apart.
Speaker B:So it could be a factor along with other things and undoubtedly other issues that are going to come up over the next three and a bit years of the Trump administration.
Speaker B:It could be that things fall apart not because there's like one big implosion of one particular issue, but kind of these smaller things that eke away at it and eventually it crumbles under its own weight.
Speaker B:Possibly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, I think if history has taught us anything when we look at the US political system, it's that if anything, Musk might just split the Republican vote, which is just going to make it harder for them to get re elected in what, three years.
Speaker B:Yes, Democrats might be thrilled.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah, they'll be financing Musk's party to get themselves in.
Speaker A:I think it's probably the best tactic they have right now.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think one of the interesting things, I don't know if it was reported there, but certainly here, that there was a Democratic meeting last week, earlier on this week, where Obama basically told Democrats to stop whining and stand up and fight, which I think is kind of interesting.
Speaker B:Obama has largely kept a pretty low profile, except at particular moments in time.
Speaker B:He was active in the election last year, but otherwise he's not been kind of at the top of the headlines a great deal.
Speaker B:But, and I don't think this was intended to be either, but sort of saying to Democrats basically stop looking for.
Speaker B:I think the language that was used here, I haven't seen the speech, but was like, stop looking for the Messiah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Stop looking for the single person who can head the party who's going to defeat Trump and lead us out of this mess.
Speaker B:You have to work at this from the grasp which fits.
Speaker B:You know, that's where Obama started.
Speaker B:That was in part why he was so successful at campaigning.
Speaker B: king about why did we lose in: Speaker B:And you can only do that with a sort of positive forward looking program, not one that sort of looks backwards.
Speaker A:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker A:I think next year's midterms is going to be really Interesting.
Speaker A:Just to see if the Democrats have managed to find a way out of the pickle that they're in.
Speaker A:I think it's going to take longer.
Speaker A: s get the White house back in: Speaker A: nk they need to be looking at: Speaker A:You never know, you might just do something.
Speaker A:But I mean, this is a long term rebuild for the Democratic Party, I think.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it may be.
Speaker B:It may be that someone emerges.
Speaker B: dicted as a candidate back in: Speaker B:You know, somebody charismatic may, may break through, you know, may sort of try to take the lead on this.
Speaker B:Somebody perhaps we're not familiar with or we're sort of familiar with on the sidelines.
Speaker B:That's not impossible to run some kind of campaign that motivates people and kind of grabs voters across the political spectrum.
Speaker B:So those kinds of surprises may happen.
Speaker B:But yeah, institutionally, I think the Democrats don't quite know.
Speaker B:They still haven't figured out how to deal with Trump and they haven't figured out really how to deal with MAGA either.
Speaker B:And that's the bigger problem.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Trump can't run again.
Speaker B:And even someone who tries to mold themselves on the Trump approach isn't going to be Trump.
Speaker B:We've seen people try that and fail.
Speaker B:So it's not really fighting, trying to work out how to fight against Trump.
Speaker B:It's about what kind of message you can get out to sort of people on the fringes of MAGA.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B: ose who shifted from Biden in: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I don't think they haven't seemed to get to grips with that.
Speaker A: AOC Bernie Sanders ticket in: Speaker A:I think that that's, that's not a ticket that's going to win the White House, as much as I love the two of them, but it just feels like right now they're clutching at straws and it's going to be characters like that that just stand above the parapet in a couple of years and get noticed because there just doesn't seem to be any direction in the party.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I mean, they went with Harris, who in many ways was kind of the establishment candidate.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:As vice president, even though as a woman and a woman of colour, her running and had she been elected, would have been historic.
Speaker B:But the campaign itself was pretty kind of middle of the road.
Speaker B:Some would say, too, middle of the road.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You might say that's why she lost.
Speaker B:So maybe it is.
Speaker B:Maybe it's going to take a character.
Speaker B:I mean, that's what Trump is in many ways.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If you sort of take a step back and think, here's somebody with personality and character and, you know, has dominated as a result of that, and you can't.
Speaker B:It's much harder to argue, like the kind of rational approach when you.
Speaker B:When you are dealing with somebody who's sort of larger than life in, in many ways.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B: we, we say, well, he lost in: Speaker B: lso have to remember that the: Speaker B:People were in various stages of lockdown.
Speaker B:The campaign couldn't run in the same way that it ran before.
Speaker B:A lot of it was done digitally because public appearances were limited.
Speaker B:People were.
Speaker B:The death toll was high.
Speaker B:People were worried about what was happening.
Speaker B:You've got Trump talking about injecting bleach as a possibility.
Speaker B: So the: Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It was the much bigger context.
Speaker B: ll the reasons that he won in: Speaker B:I mean, I'm a historian.
Speaker B:I'm much more comfortable when I deal with the facts.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The what did happen rather than what might have happened.
Speaker B: dd and unusual things were in: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, on that note, I think we're never, never short of news all the time.
Speaker A:Trump is in the White House.
Speaker A:So I'm sure everything that we've discussed now will be completely irrelevant in about two days time.
Speaker A:But it will hopefully entertain you all listening for.
Speaker A:For a very brief while until we get back on the mic and do this again.
Speaker A:But, Emma, thank you as always for joining me on the podcast.
Speaker A:It's a pleasure having you.
Speaker B:Thank you for the invitation to be here.
Speaker A:Oh, no problem.
Speaker A:And yeah, I'm sure if something crazy happens, we'll be back with another in the making.
Speaker A:But for anyone listening, you can always catch our main episodes on a Tuesday where we do actually talk about history.
Speaker A:So check that out.
Speaker A:Follow the show and if you do care to support us, there are links to do that in the show notes as well.
Speaker A:So thanks for listening and goodbye.
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