The Bubba Vote

In every rural Republican there's a Democrat trying to get out.

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Self-described rural advocate and Democratic strategist David “Mudcat” Saunders joins Jamie to discuss the issues concerning bubba voters.

The Agenda:
—Who would Mudcat vote for?
—Haley as a uniter?
—Evangelicals
—Calls from Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon
—Bring manufacturing back?
—Mudcat’s thoughts on Rich Men of North of Richmond
—Democratic conventions and all hell breaking loose

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Comments (35)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Jeff Walden

    Wow. This interview was an absolute treasure.

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  2. ChamaGrande

    Mudcat mentioned the term 'Roosevelt Democrat' like it was a common phrase. I went looking for a more concrete definition and couldn't find one. Which Roosevelt was he talking about?

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    1. Cody Murphy

      FDR - my state was full of FDR Democrats.

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  3. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

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    Lesherman

    I respect the commentary and view from the guest, but I swear I am going to tear my hair out the next time that I hear someone say that we don't make things here anymore. I have been working for companies that manufacture stuff here for my whole freaking career and we still have a TON of manufacturing in this country. What we don't make anymore is the cheap and easy to manufacture items. Complex or large items we make and we make very well. I would love to get a Lincicome take on his opinion.

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    1. Martinbtatuch

      And we are going to have to start making more military items, which are complicated and expensive to make. We need to train people up and pay them a wage commensurate with their skills. There are a lot of small shops which make specialized items. That's where innovation will come from Those are the companies we need to help, not the big industrial behemoths.

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  5. Jeff.Oster03

    The big problem Rural America has is that most of the goods produced by rural economies are now too cheap to be produced at a profit without massive protectionist subsidies. There are some key exceptions: oil and some types of mining. But three big rural industries that forged the American frontier- farming, ranching and logging- can only be profitable if they are done at enormous scale (farming / ranching) or sticking to only specialty products (logging). Most of small town America built around the small farm or ranch is dying economically, because these goods are just too cheap to support the high standard of living Americans expect. There just isn't money in staying in rural areas, and younger generations move to the city to seek their fortune.

    So what to do? Well, the government could heavily subsidize these industries to keep these ways of life alive, which is much of what farm policy is today, and it's what Mudcat is expecting a rural-friendly government would do. The problem is that it essentially amounts to roundabout welfare, transfer from the money-making cities to the hinterland, simply to buy the votes there.

    I completely sympathize with his sentiment: I grew up in a ranching town myself. But protectionism / immigration restriction all just drives prices up, and talking honestly about these ideas requires asking Americans if they are fine chipping in to make things in the US that are now too cheap to turn a profit here more expensive. This isn't a story of Rural America being "betrayed" by the city folk, it's a story of what happens to a First World economy when living standards get this high.

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    1. MIZ

      Randolph County IL population 33000 about an hour from metro st louis is home to multiple profitable privately owned manufacturing companies. If one digs into the details many rural communities have similar examples. Other rural area certainly are in decline. Not all.

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    Retired Prosecutor

    It was interesting but would have been better if I understood everything he said. “Mush Cat.”

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    Dina

    What’s wrong with me? I couldn’t understand him and gave up after five minutes.

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    1. Jeff.Oster03

      You are clearly a big city elitist!!

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        Dina

        Haha, that must be the case!

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  8. Brian Wheeler

    Loved this Podcast. As a native West Virginian married to a a native Southwest Virginian I can identify with Mudcat and his views of rural Virginians. The Democratic party has lost the ability to connect with this demographic and the Republican party panders to them without any intention of actually addressing their problems and concerns.

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    1. Rons

      The dems pander to blacks and other minorities without doing much to help them, and the GOP does the same for rural folks? Heckova system. Both parties assist the Elites.

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      Carolyn

      Yes, that is what drives me the most crazy ... "the Republican party panders to them without any intention of actually addressing their problems and concerns." I live in Indiana, the most heavily dependent manufacturing state. Joe Biden's policies, in conjunction with the focus of state leadership, has manufacturing humming. What we need most is more workers, for manufacturing and service industries.

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        Carolyn

        A good read that is topic adjacent:

        https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/blue-states-dont-build

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    Patrick

    What a character. Our manufacturing output is through the roof in this country, it just doesn’t take as many employees. I would have liked to hear his response to that.

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    1. Jeff.Oster03

      It's also heavily skewed toward high-tech / high-value goods (electronics, etc), and most of those factories are in cities / suburbs. The manufacturing he seems to be talking about are the old "factory towns" of the rust belt that manufactured more low-tech / low-cost goods.

      https://www.nist.gov/el/applied-economics-office/manufacturing/manufacturing-economy/total-us-manufacturing

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  10. Jeff.Oster03

    I spent the first half hour of this interview thinking "wow this guy has a lot of insight into the political landscape" and then at 31:30 he states that he thinks it's very possible that there will be a brokered GOP convention with the superdelegates taking the nomination away from Trump. That's.... just... not going to happen, and it's the kind of prediction that tells me the person making it is out of touch with how things really work inside a party. This isn't a political TV show, it's real life, and parties just don't step in and yank nominations away from candidates who win primaries like that.

    I would compare this to the recent prediction by Ilya Shapiro on Twitter that the Democrats will "replace" Joe Biden at the convention. Folks, that's just not how parties work today. I wish they did! But they don't.

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    1. Rons

      as for Shapiro's idea that Dems will replace Biden at the convention, that's too ... uh, ,conventional. I have some friends who are rabid activist Dems and they say the game plan is reelect Biden (because Trump will be too crazy to elect) and then Biden will step down in favor of Kamala Harris.

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      1. Jeff.Oster03

        And even that plan I highly doubt and would take bets on (with the big exception of if a major health event happens while he is President). As long as he can exercise his will, he will stay in office. This is his entire identity and his life's goal. The Joe Biden who says "well if it's the best thing for the party and country, then okay I'll leave office" doesn't exist.

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        1. Rons

          you forget there are means under the 25th Amendment for a president to be ousted from the office if enough of the inner circle (cabinet) vote him off the island.

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            Peter S.

            They're not just voting him off the island, they're voting to declare that he is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," which is more specific.

            But let's say it's a simple vote of preference. To make it stick requires a similar vote of ⅔ of each house of Congress, meaning:
            - A lot of Democrats to want Biden out; and
            - A lot of Republicans to want Harris in.

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    2. Seth

      Yeah, that was the moment I did a double-take as well. I'm not sure whether he actually thinks it will happen, or it was an attempt to immanentize the eschaton.

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    3. Jeff.Oster03

      Also, one more thought: I think Mudcat's bearishness on Trump's chances vastly underestimates how the culture war has been nationalized, and a whole lot of the Bubba vote is caught up in the culture war. They are sticking with Trump regardless of if any of his economic policy changes anything, because they have been very alienated from the Democratic Party due to cultural reasons. That's much more important for a lot of them.

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    4. ClassicalLiberal

      It's an even more astonishing screw-up when considering that the GOP has never had superdelegates as part of their nominating convention.

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      1. Jeff.Oster03

        Right, small detail!!

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