Takeaways From Elections in South Carolina and Texas

It’s been another week of interesting primary elections, and Sarah, David, Jonah, and Andrew discuss ...

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It’s been another week of interesting primary elections, and Sarah, David, Jonah, and Andrew discuss what we learned from Texas and South Carolina. Then our hosts dive into the details of the framework for a possible Senate gun bill and whether the House will learn to settle for compromise, not perfection. Finally, what are the key takeaways from the January 6 House Select Committee so far?

Show Notes:

–The Sweep: The Value of a Trump Endorsement

–The Dispatch: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the January 6 Committee

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  1. Avatar photo
    Joel Stewart

    To earn my public speaking merit badge in Boy Scouts, I made a speech to the class positing that the Earth is neither flat nor round, but is instead shaped like a Nilla Wafer. Des Moines, IA, of course, is the highest point on Wafer Earth. I even drew a map for the visual learners.

    I got the merit badge, but I may have disqualified myself for any future political office.

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  2. Fiona B.

    When I learned that Lin Wood was a flat earther, it further confirmed the plane of (non) reality “election truthers” inhabit. It is sad but at the same time made me laugh out loud in response to the utter ridiculousness.

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  3. Cavaliere.John

    David, since you did the deep dive on Youtube, how does Flat Earth Theory explain the phases of the moon and the round shadows cast on the moon? Is Earth more like a Frisbee than sphere?

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    Ben Connelly

    Trump will continue to hold sway over the party until he doesn’t. It will be like one of those gradually then suddenly things where all of a sudden we wake up and realize his grip is no more and it hasn’t been for a long time but until we wake up and realize that we will continue to operate under the reigning paradigm of assuming he’s still in charge.

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    Saied

    Ms. Isgur has mentioned the application of discrete choice model in the field of politics a few times on different podcasts though she did not name it specifically. Discrete choice model has been used in many fields most notably in marketing and product design to help pick the product attributes most attractive to customers. Daniel McFadden won the Nobel prize for his contributions to the field. Listening to the podcast, it occurred to me that it is odd that no one has used it before.

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  6. GregS

    Interesting concept to blame COVID lockdowns for increased white supremacist leanings among young men.
    1) is there any data showing this to be true? First, is there an increase in such leanings? Is there a greater increase in white supremacist leanings among people in areas with stricter or longer lockdowns etc? Or even an increase during COVID that was out of line w pre existing trends?
    2) is the contention really that spending more time with ones parents (since you mentioned staying home from school we're presumably talking about kids and not adults living alone) causes greater radicalization? How does this fit in with the current conservative line about parents needing more input into what kids are taught in schools?

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  7. David B.

    A gun regulation topic that I haven't heard dealth with:
    I hear many people (e.g. Sarah) talking about the need for expanded background checks, aka the "gunshow loophole". As I understand, the main expansion being discussed is requiring background checks for gun sales between private citizens. As I see, this is clearly and completely unenforceable. Since background checks are by law, destroyed after 24 hrs (or is it 30 days?), you cannot find someone with a weapon and verify if they had a background check when they bought it. Also since there is no gun registration (nationally, nor in a lot of states), there is no way to determine the origin and ownership history of a gun. So everyone can claim that either a) they had a background check when they bought the firearm in question and/or b) that they had this firearm before the requirement existed. Since imho, a nationwide firearm registration is politically impossible, I don't see any way to make this "background check on private sales" at all enforceable. You'd literally have to have a LEO watch the entire transaction and able to verify that there was not background check performed to prosecute. Could someone respond and educate me if I'm missing something?

    On a related note, I think a minor but easy improvement would be to offer free background checks to individuals when they are doing a private firearms transaction. This way, most responsible firearms owners could make such a check a condition of sale, just in the interest of not selling their firearm to a criminal. THAT seems like a good improvement to me. Thoughts?

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    Al Arcy

    Sorely missing "not worth your time" - great pod, but I richly enjoy that segment.

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  9. Jean Matheny

    I could wish that Sarah would not shout so much - she does not have a radio voice, andso it would help if the volume was turned down.

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    1. P Satter

      It's interesting that someone else commented on her voice in the past.
      She is often the youngest and the only female in a good-natured but philosophically adversarial role so her voice may stand out from the others for all those reasons combined together.
      I can be bothered by some voices, but find hers merely enthusiastic in the style of someone younger than myself.

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      1. Jean Matheny

        I should stress that I don't object to what Sarah is saying - I think she is clearly intelligent and enthusiastic - but her voice does grate on me. I wish it didn't! If she would keep the volume down instead of shouting, that would help.

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        1. P Satter

          Understood. We all have different ears.

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          1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
            Sarah Isgur vertical-nib Author

            I can assure you that I'm not shouting...it's just what I sound like. There's been some interesting studies on how men hear women's voices differently. And even that women do too. Ie our brains are more adept at listening to lower timber verbal cues. So not sure what to tell you here except that you'll know it when I'm shouting:)

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    Will Roberts

    I am generally favorable to an adversarial process and I think it helps to hone logic especially when two people are well informed but on different sides of the debate .

    I thought David's debate with Rajiv Sethi on Bari Weiss' Honestly podcast is a case in point. One of the best debates on the subject I have ever heard. They were at different ends of the spectrum but they treated each other fairly and came up with workable solutions that are not common sense because the common sense solutions really spring from the partisan mind and unexamined prior beliefs. But other debates with David such on French Fridays have been less helpful because the people he debate with simply lack his level of expertise so he can be a bit of a logic bully towards them. They are unable to refute his arguments not because they are cannot be refuted but because they can't be refuted but because of a lack of knowledge on the part of the person he is debating. An adversarial process is only good if you have a formable opponent.

    So I am not sure how useful an adversarial process would be in the case of the January 6th commission. What other side of the argument is there? The election was really stolen? No it wasn't. Trump isn't delusional? Yes he is. If such a process existed Trump's supporters would only succeed in embarrassing themselves further. And instead of admitting the illogical nature of their argument they would only dig in further. It is the he who smelt it dealt it argument. Even though they farted they will focus on how Nancy Pelosi farted by setting up the commission. Even though January 6th was a massive fart against democracy so arguing over what Pelosi did is making a mountain over a mole hill. An adversarial process is helpful when the facts are in dispute. But this is a dispute about a fundamental different worldview. A cult who want a strong man to rule and make America great again and those who think that man is delusional. We are not arguing over the facts of what happened. We are arguing over personality and character. If Trump is bad person and a traitor why are not all those who support him bad people and traitors? People support him because to not support him would be to admit that they had a flaw in judgment, that they are not as good of people as they think they are. Republicans are as unlikely to do that as Democrats are to admit that there is good evidence that Bill Clinton was seen on Jeffery Epstein's private sex island and that Tara Reid deserved more of an investigation about her accusations against Joe Biden than she was given. It is not about the truth. It is not even about whether we can handle the truth. It is about personal ego and not wanting to admit what our active support of terrible people says about us.

    Denial isn't just a river in Egypt it is what we do when our friends and allies do bad things. Not because we love them. But because we want to maintain our view of ourselves.

    Evil doesn't triumph when good men do nothing.

    Evil triumphs when we let our friends get away with everything.

    And since favoritism is common to every person evil will always plague us. If it consumes us or not is largely due to chance and circumstance at least from our perspective.

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