SIO237: Dissecting the Primary, with Jamie

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 237, I'm Thomas Smith, and joining me is Jamie Lombardi! How you doing, Jamie?

0:00:36 Jamie: I am plague addled, to be perfectly honest, Thomas, but it's nice to be back and have an opportunity for some adult conversation that hopefully will in no way include Pokemon, I,

0:00:40 Thomas: Yeah, are you not getting, uh, rigorous intellectual stimulation from your kids right now? Is that what you're hinting at?

0:00:57 Jamie: I', I'm gonna murder Pokemon, Pokemon, I can't, I can't anymore with the Pokemon, I just, my brain is going to melt right out of my ears, um, if there is any more Pokemon, yeah.

0:01:08 Thomas: Well, contrary to popular fan theory, you haven't abandoned the show or anything, it's just been really, our schedules are, are that much harder to coordinate now in the end times. It's really tough with both of us having kids and being on opposite coasts everything. It's a challenge. So glad you're able to make the time to be able to talk. I know it's not easy, so I really appreciate you being able to do it at the time that kind of works for both of us.

0:01:32 Jamie: No, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated, I'm still gonna, you know, come in and do the show, it's just, it's so, I'm finding this to be so incredibly difficult, trying to manage to teach my classes, trying to navigate some book projects and raise kids and homeschool, and I have not been very good at managing all of it, but I am particularly bad at being a second grade teacher, let me, let me just say that, and

0:02:00 Thomas: I don't know how anyone could be good at that. I know there are some people, and I know they deserve a lot more money than they currently get. That's all I'll say about that. I, I, if, again, I think I already, we already talked about this the first time, you know, we did a post-apocalyptic recording, but gosh, yeah, it better be clear from all this, that people who take care of our kids deserve more money. I hope, I hope that's all very clear, but I'm sure no difference will be made and we'll go, but it's like that tweet, uh, take comfort in the fact that we, after all this is over, we will have learned absolutely nothing. And, uh. That's sorry. I'm being too cynical. Uh, let's, let's uh, maybe talk about what we wanted to talk about today, which is we didn't, we haven't gotten a chance to do a bit of a postmortem on the primary. And, uh, I, yeah,

0:02:45 Jamie: In fact, we are all dead, I'm just kidding, so

0:02:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. A little, not, not a metaphorical post mortal than actual postmortem. Um, so I guess I would just start it off and ask you, um, what are your thoughts on, I mean, I guess overall thoughts, but also maybe in your view, what went wrong for, for, for us, for progressives, for Bernie, for however you see that, right?

0:03:10 Jamie: There's so much here to unpack, it might be best to just go backwards and deal with what's happened most recently. Obviously, I think at least for me the thing that's most immediate is there's obviously a divisive debate right now about whether or not we should rally behind Biden and whose fault it is that we're here, and I find a lot of this to be getting at things that are interesting and important but also really tedious and frustrating. I'm deeply angry that Joe Biden is the nominee. I have serious concerns about what this suggests for our likelihood to come through this and actually learn lessons and create the alternative world that this obviously demonstrates that we need. But at the end of the day, it doesn't seem to me like there's any real question about what you should do in November, you have to vote for Joe Biden. And I hate that, it makes me physically ill to have to say it, but I don't even know how there can be debate about that, oh.

0:04:22 Thomas: Well, uh, you did cut to the cut to the chase on that one, but I'm so glad to hear you say that, again, not at all glad for the situation we are in. Like, I can't stand Joe Biden, every couple days I, I'm in the midst of all this where I've been having arguments of like, yes, of course we have to support, and I don't even put it, let's stop even, sorry, there's gonna be, you know, there's going to be vulgarity on this podcast because I'm I'm just so mad about this.

0:04:45 Jamie: I'm glad it's you first this time, yeah.

0:04:47 Thomas: Stop. Yeah. Stop fucking even talking about voting for Joe Biden. We're voting for the Democratic Party in the choice that we have between two parties. That's just how it is. And I have so many thoughts about this, I go through all these like philosophical thought experiments. But I did want to try to maybe do a little examination about the primary first, because I will probably not be able to stop if I go down that road of why we should still vote for the Democratic candidate, whoever that is, the person with the D in their name after their name in the presidential contest. That's how we need to look at it. And Republicans have been better at doing that. And that's why they win more. That's why the control so much of the judiciary. And that's why they're going to be able to make our lives miserable for decades and decades if we don't start realizing that that's the game.

0:05:36 Thomas: It's not about finding being perfectly in love with your vote. It's just not. And they've been better at realizing that. And we we unfortunately you can't beat that.

0:05:45 Jamie: So, I think that's true, I do worry though, I think it's overly dismissive to kind of disparage people who are upset about Biden about it just being wanting, having a candidate to love. I don't think that's fair. And while there are certainly people who vote or don't vote for a variety of different reasons, I think for the most part, people who are outraged and saying that they're not going to vote for Biden aren't doing it out of some juvenile, idealistic notion that there's ever going to be a perfect candidate. It. I think a lot of that reflects just the general anxiety of living in a world that is so clearly fucking broken. And we are putting in charge someone who has a long standing history of getting every single big question that led to this moment wrong. I have no faith in Joe Biden's decision making or his leadership ability.

0:05:58 Thomas: Oh, for sure. Yeah.

0:06:46 Jamie: I don't think he's going to be inspiring any in any way, though I certainly think people are going to be brought to tears when Obama comes out of retirement to be giving speeches. And I think that's something that's going to be very difficult for people to navigate over the next seven months that are still left in this godforsaken, cursed election, is how to funnel and channel that energy that the world really does need to be made different than what it is because it doesn't work, and it doesn't work in ways that it was predicted not to work, and we had good reasons to know wouldn't work, but for lack of political will we did nothing about, and the constraints of reality as we find it.

0:07:32 Thomas: Um, yeah. Gosh, so much there. I think that there are a lot of ways that Joe Biden, as much as I really strongly disliked him, by the way, I'm a hipster about this. I just like Joe Biden back before it was cool. I didn't like him during all of Obama years. I've never liked. And I think Jamie's probably been there, too. I'm sure we're the hipster Joe Obama, Joe Biden, not likers. But anyway, I think that what we need to do, and I don't mean to be dismissive when I say like, oh, he's merely not the perfect candidate that you're love with. I hear you. You're right. But I also was talking about throughout the last couple of decades we've been doing that, you know, whether it's John Kerry, whether its Al Gore, whether It's, you know whether whether it's, by the way, senators that we needed to be voting for to make sure that we had the Senate to be able to actually do things, stuff like that.

0:08:26 Thomas: I think we as a party would be better served if we were less in love with, or sorry, I shouldn't even say that, we're less oriented toward individual candidates and more oriented toward big picture and platform and that kind of of thing, um, uh,

0:08:43 Jamie: Yeah, so interestingly that's exactly how I would push back on this. Similarly, for decades we've been told that the solution to many of these problems were, were to address them incrementally and pragmatically and to sort of kick the can down the road and to never rock the boat too much, to sort of chart a course that was maybe a little bit to the left of center but decidedly center. And what we see now is that really has been a strategy that when taken in its totality has resulted in utter failure. We have not made the bold, meaningful action on climate change that we should have 20, 30 years ago when we knew that this was a problem. We have not made the bald actions on health care that we shouldn't have when Hillary Clinton, as First Lady of Arkansas, was saying that we should be addressing this.

0:09:36 Jamie: And these, many of what we're facing now are structural problems that need decisive, large scale alterations in order for there to be any mitigation of human suffering going forward. And so I think that's one of the ways where this, – how this debate gets framed can be sort of misleading and sort of misses the way that people farther to the left are frustrated that they're being told, well, choose the lesser evil, choose a lesser evil. And like, yeah, it's absolutely true, I'm also not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but it's indisputable that we would be in a less horrible world today if Hillary Clinton were president. That is true. And that's a fact that is worth noting. And it's important when we discuss whether or not we should vote for Joe Biden. And I think people should.

But we also, I think, need to take stock that we didn't find ourselves in this position out of thin air, that this didn't result out of, you know, some sort of like cartoonish not knowing, wing. We've had these warning signs, and we've not been willing to take the bold initiatives we need to address them because we've lacked the political will.

0:09:57 Thomas: And well

0:10:45 Jamie: And I'm sympathetic to people who are skeptical of politicians that aren't showing sort of moral leadership or courage during these times. So

0:10:56 Thomas: I guess, maybe I'm, it was a doomed effort to try to get back to a post-mortem on the primary, because I think this is, this is probably a debate that we, I don't know, maybe it's a debate we're wanting to have right now, but I think that every problem you're outlining, I would rephrase it as not lacking the political will, but losing elections to Republicans. And I, it's not, not it's hard because, like, obviously there are tremendous flaws in, in areas of Democratic Party throughout history, you know, like, of course, like, nobody, I'm not going to sit here and say it's perfect, but we get in this position because Republicans beat us in elections. Obama had two years of an ability to do things, and also barely that, because while, while he had 60 votes for a second there, the some of those 60 votes were people who didn't want to do the things that he wanted to do, who wanted to, uh, you know, not have a public option, all that kind of stuff.

0:11:50 Thomas: Like there are reasons that that hasn't happened. And most of the time it's because of Republicans and after getting wiped out in 2010, there, what were the options? I mean, we need at a certain point, it's, we

0:12:01 Jamie: I definitely agree that Republicans don't act in good faith, and they certainly aren't helping Democrats pass any of their legislation. This seems to me, though, to just be sort of a foil, um, as a way that prevents Democrats from ever having to take responsibility. As I, as you point out, you know, obviously this is getting away from the primary post-mortem, so I'm happy to to pivot back and discuss that um but

0:12:25 Thomas: Haven't even started that. So it's okay. We can, we can just not, well, I, I have, you know, a decent number of things more to say on this because, um, when we're talking about the, not sure what you're talking about. You're talking about a lot of structural stuff and I get that. But when we talk about merely the fact that thousands, tens of thousands and who knows how many more people are dying unnecessarily of a pandemic, there's a very, very tangible reason we're there. And it's because of Donald Trump and it's because of Republicans. We had a pandemic team set up under Obama. We were rated as one of the best prepared nations in the world and then Republicans wiped that out.

That there's, that's just as simple as it gets. I mean, I'm sure if we lived in a world where Hillary Clinton were president right now, I'm sure we could quibble with elements of how they're handling it, but the overall point I want to make is that Democrats offer something that is in and of itself, no matter who the candidate is, even if it's fucking Joe Biden, they offer competency and a belief that government can do things to help, and that already is enough to make the world better if we vote for for the Democrat in the in the election. And that's kind of the point I

0:12:28 Jamie: Right yeah, I I don't think anybody's right

0:13:40 Thomas: Want to make overall.

0:13:41 Jamie: So I I guess the the what I'm sort of responding to is I think when you say like we we lose to Republicans. And the reason that I brought this up was specifically in the context of Joe Biden is that I think part of the reason that we we lose two Republicans is that the only thing that Democrats seem capable of putting forth is that we're better than Republicans and they sort of leverage Republicans as these bogeyman that we have to put Democrats back in power in order to stop the evil bad Republicans. And like, yes, I agree with you.

The Republican agenda is bad and, you know, possibly evil, which is like a really heavy word to use because of its complicity in death and destruction. However, it is also still true, right, but it is Also still True that even under Hillary Clinton, far more people would die than would be necessary, and suffer would be necessary because of the inequities in our systems.

And I think when the sort of people who are saying that they are not going to vote for Joe Biden, or they're just not going to vote at all because they're like disengaged from American politics, are those people who feel like it doesn't make a difference in their life who is the president, because they still can't afford to see a doctor, they still can't afford their rent if governors issue shutdowns throughout the country.

And I think part of unpacking both the primary and where we sit as it relates to who's going to be president and who's going to turn out to vote is what is

0:14:27 Thomas: End of sentence. We agree. OK.

0:15:16 Jamie: The sort of demographic that this political messaging is geared to. And one of the things that really stands out to me and really just makes me weep is that there are these blue "Make America Normal Again" hats that are both being made and sold and purchased non-ironically. This just makes me weep.

0:15:39 Thomas: I think I could see both sides of that. You know, I think that on the one hand, yes, I I think there's so much progress we need to make. But the problem with any of these attitudes that involve, okay, the way to, you know, like, because we don't have exactly the candidate we want, we're going to fail to win the election is that it takes us backwards irreparably. I

0:16:01 Jamie: So, I think that's missing who's actually saying that. I don't, it's not not people who are relatively well protected from the realities of our political system that are in any meaningful way saying, "I'm not going to vote because I don't have a perfect candidate." The reality is that people who aren't disengaged and aren't voting are those people who are most impacted by our political realities, and particularly, the failures of those systems.

0:16:26 Thomas: Think it's, it's a mix, isn't it? I mean, we already know that, you You know,

0:16:30 Jamie: No, the majority of Non-voters are disproportionately low income, low education. They're more likely to be making minimum wage. They're more likely to be on the front line of this pandemic right now, and so it seems really dismissive to me to say that those people whose lives are literally on the line, somehow they are just holding out because what they really want is a perfect candidate. And I think it's a way of of not having to wrestle with what's normal for the sort of people who get to do political punditry is still a death sentence for so many people. Ball so.

0:16:31 Thomas: OK, So why did the Black vote overwhelmingly show up for Joe Biden? Why do you, are we going to make the argument that Black people in this country are more privileged on average than other people in this country? Those are the people who have, when people keep saying the establishment or the whoever, the DNC, the Democrats gave us Joe Biden. I wish every single time that was said we could translate it into Black voters in South Carolina and black voters as a whole.

0:17:10 Jamie: This is just not something I'm so I've not said that and

0:17:32 Thomas: I I didn't say that.

0:17:32 Jamie: I've not Right.

0:17:34 Thomas: You did, but I'm saying that the reason we're in this position.

0:17:34 Jamie: But you're asking me to answer for it Okay.

0:17:38 Thomas: I feel like you're currently not giving me a chance to to really get out what I, what I'm trying to have anyone answer for, I mean I've got several backlogs of thoughts that I'm trying to get get out, but that's one of them, that when I see people online saying whoever gave us Joe Biden, I would just like to remind everybody that it was Black voters, and I I hope that that at least you you have that knowledge when, when you say stuff like that, and it's fine. But like he was dead in the water, but for Black voters in South Carolina. And, uh, it's as regards, I think you're right about, uh, you know, most of what you're saying. I think it's a, it's a question of what, of what we can do. 'Cause I do think you're right that, that these voters you're talking about who aren't voting, I do think they have the impression that it doesn't matter who's president. And I I think they're, they're probably right a lot of the time. And I, and I accept that, but I'm not always just talking about the president.

0:17:45 Jamie: Yes.

0:18:34 Thomas: Like I'm like, why did we lose in a landslide in 2010? And why did we lose in 2014? I think the 2014 election was probably maybe the most important in our history is, and I think is particularly underrated. Because had we had control of the the Senate. We would have had a justice, another justice in there. I don't even know that Obama would have nominated Merrick Garland, who's kind of a centrist, but would be a massive improvement over, you know, five of the justices at least. He probably would have nominated somebody a little more to the left. I think he did Merrick Garland because of trying to appeal to Mitch McConnell, knowing that he, you Know, it wasn't going to work anyway. But anyway, anyway, that election left us vulnerable to various attacks on our electoral system.

0:19:25 Thomas: It left us without a justice that we should have had. And you look at, OK, why did we lose that? And there's... there's talk about, you know, well, we're disappointed in Obama. And where does that come from? Well, does it come from not being able to do anything for those four years between 2010, 2014? And every time I go in depth in trying to research this stuff, it comes back to the the fact that like there tends to be, and I think it's born of totally legitimate necessity that there are people who are suffering out there, and I totally agree with you on all those counts. And so oftentimes when when we get out the vote and do this stuff, things don't immediately change, and then people have to try to reconcile with that, and people come up with various responses for that. And personally, I think that people tend to be overwhelmingly wrong about why things don't change.

I think things don't change because we rarely have the power to make them change, because we haven't won enough elections yet. And that's not all that's going on, but I think that's a lot of what's going on. 2010 was just a massive racist backlash to Obama, for the most part. And I don't know what he could have done about that.

I don't know what any any Democrat that we put into office from 2008 to 2010 could have done about the bizarre racist Tea Party backlash that that caused a wave election that just totally threw Obama's reign into,

0:20:50 Thomas: You know, Obama's presidency into like chaos. There was no way they were going to get anything done for the rest of the time.

0:20:56 Jamie: So um, I agree with almost everything you said, at least about 2010 and then the backlash to Obama. I don't know how, you know, far down this road you want to go. I think it's important, historically presidents generally experience setbacks during midterm elections. I don't think it was helped that obviously there was this racial element to it as well, helped along, no doubt, by Donald Trump's birtherism. I think that's all definitely true. True. I think, you know, as it relates to this broader conversation, I think one of the things that came out of that at the time was the talking heads were very much of the sense that while Obama had pushed too far left, and that was part of it, and I'm not sure that that was correct.

0:21:45 Jamie: But as it relates to where we are in 2020, with the nightmare timeline and Joe Biden, one, I am absolutely absolutely unqualified to speak on behalf of Black voters. That is just not something that I am particularly knowledgeable about at all. As it relates to South Carolina, it's certainly empirically correct, right, that but for that electoral outcome, Joe Biden was dead in the water. But what I had in mind when I was talking about, you know, how people who are saying these, the sort of people who get swept up, and I think mistakenly in the description that they're They're not going to vote for Joe Biden because he's not some perfect candidate. I think what that misses is the 58% of Muslim voters that Bernie Sanders won on before Super Tuesday, the 41% of Hispanic voters in Texas who came out or the 49% of Hispanic voters in California that he won.

0:22:42 Jamie: I think there's a sense in which particularly these demographics, who have been the hardest hit under Donald Trump's policies, both Muslims and the Hispanic community, have a sense in which the Democratic Party is not sensitive to their needs or not interested in how the realities of politics impacts them outside of whether or not they're going to be giving them their votes in November. And so it's, I think it's understandable to sort of be frustrated with the way that people who are kind of superficially paying attention to politics sort of dismiss everything as this conspiracy of the establishment. I think that's fair. But I also think it sort of too easily dismisses the way.

0:23:28 Jamie: That they did consolidate power. And I think it's possible to make an argument that it was good that they consolidated power before Super Tuesday. In effect, they did to Bernie Sanders what everybody thought the Republicans should have done to Donald Trump in 2016. And you can make an argument that it was good and in the best interest of the Democratic Party and what it values for them to do that. But I think to make sense of this primary without acknowledging that basic fact, that the Democratic Party very much did consolidate power to put forth one candidate up against a challenger who, because of the size of the field, was going to very likely sweep on Super Tuesday, I think that has to be acknowledged in terms of making sense of the selection and why people are feeling the way that they are feeling at this moment. Argument.

0:24:17 Thomas: So I, it sounds like within, maybe we will transition to a talk of what happened in the primary, Mary, then, I think it's a little, I gotta say it's a little weird, because you start this out by saying you, you can't speak for Black voters and why they did what they did, and then you go on to speak for Latino voters and Muslim voters about why well yeah you've made a claim about you

0:24:34 Jamie: I'm not speaking for them, I'm talking about the percentage of voters who voted for Bernie, I'm just I just made a claim that they did it

0:24:39 Thomas: You made a blame about why they did that, and I think honestly it's reasonable to make a claim no You said they did so because the Democratic Party hasn't, been you made claim about why did that, I'm not, sorry, I'm not even saying that was a bad thing that you did, but I feel like we could go back and see what you said. And you said that they were disappointed that the party hasn't given them anything beyond wanting their vote, is I believe what you said, right?

0:24:44 Jamie: Okay.

0:24:58 Jamie: Well I think that's a, it's a possible understanding when you try to make sense of, so when you're trying to make sense of voters who are not voting for Joe Biden because they want a perfect candidate, what I'm pointing to is the the demographic of what those voters really are. And my expectation, and again, I am I'm also not qualified to speak on behalf of Muslims or Hispanics, but that people who are turning out in these numbers that are part of the demographic most negatively impacted by Donald Trump's policies don't seem to me to be the sort of people who are just refusing to participate because they idealistically and naively and ignorantly think that they deserve a perfect candidate, or that the only improvement in their lives, given how the politics impact them, requires a perfect candidate. That to me seems really dismissive, is what I had meant to say.

0:25:53 Thomas: Well, I didn't say that about them. I used the words perfect candidate earlier, and after you pointed that out, said, you know what, you're right, I take that back. And now everything you've said since has involved saying that I was dismissive for saying they want a perfect candidate. I understand that. I didn't mean to say, and I took that back a sentence after I said it. And I feel like we've been really caught up on that one thing and I don't feel like it's productive. I get that, you know, it's about, so I think that, I think we can actually try to do our best to see why people voted for certain people. And I think that involves, you know, we can look at the data.

And I think that one thing that is really interesting to me, and when I've been trying to do research on, you know, what we were trying to talk about, which is what happened in this primary, is it just, it struck me in looking at the data, how little I think a lot of our conceptions of what happened really bear any reality to the truth.

Um, for example, you know, I was, I was so surprised, um, about how much worse Bernie did, you know, this time around than the last time. And, uh, I, it really does seem that a lot of his support was due to a protest vote of Hillary Clinton. And what, what blows my mind is there was a data regression done.

0:26:21 Jamie: Happy to drop it.

0:27:17 Thomas: Sorry, regression analysis done. And the weird thing is that, uh, and, and I can try to link this, I think, I was done by FiveThirtyEight. A lot of that support for Bernie in 2016 was because people thought Hillary was... there. There was a segment of voters, a pretty large segment, that then Bernie lost in 2020, that thought Hillary was too progressive on certain issues. And it just goes to show you how weird this is.

Like, we all have our ideas and notions of who these candidates are and why people vote for them. But, like, the reality is, is people vote in a lot of weird ways that are kind of unpredictable. And it looks like rhetorically there's a group of people that thought Hillary was, like, too progressive on race and gender issues. Maybe it's a perception thing because she's a woman, I think that's got to be part of it, and therefore voted for Bernie in 2016, but then were happy to vote for Biden in 2020. And it's data like that that I'm just like, I, what do you even do with that? How are we supposed to form strategies or make sense of what's happening when a lot of people are voting for reasons that you're like, what? I don't know. I just found that so striking. Striking, I

0:28:31 Jamie: Yeah, so this was something that stood out to me throughout the primary, especially when there were still 45 candidates running. And we would see things that, you know, people's first choice for president was Michael Bloomberg, and their second choice was Elizabeth Warren, as though there was any sort of meaningful overlap between these two, aside from, you Know, like not being Donald Trump, that suggested that this was like a sort of natural migration. And I think it's true that most people, probably for good mental health reasons, actually, are just not that engaged in politics and what the different candidates' platforms are. Because it obviously wasn't the case, right, that Hillary Clinton was to the left of Bernie Sanders.

0:29:16 Jamie: And so it's fascinating that people sort of come up with all of these reasons to make these sorts of choices. But I think that gets to just the general way people aren't very honest with themselves about how they make their decisions, or the extent to which they're rational. And people engage in all sort of self-deceptive confabulation thinking to kind of justify the conclusion that they've arrived at, instead of following any sort of, like, first principles to arrive at a conclusion that's like logically consistent.

0:29:47 Thomas: Also think it's a product of privilege, especially for me, I'll just speak for myself, like to be able to follow this so closely all the time, you know, like a lot of people just don't have the time to do that. Um, and maybe they don't, how they're not looking into policy proposals and like, all the data says that, you know, policy doesn't make as much of a difference as we think.

There's one thing that I, I have to kind of disagree with you on, um, when you talked about, oh, the, the, the, remind me the words you use, but the establishment, maybe, or the whoever it is, mainstream Democratic voters or candidates, consolidated around Biden before Super Tuesday, that kind of thing. And I just don't think that that's an accurate way of looking at what happened. Like, well, what I mean to say is, it was never going to be the case.

Like, it sounded like you were, you said, you said, you know, he should have, Bernie should have done a lot better because there's a wider field before Super Tuesday, and then all these, you know, these, especially I think Klobuchar and Buttigieg, you know, drop out and endorse Biden, and, like, that it was never going to be the case that the field would stay crowded the whole time and that 35% would get you the, the nomination. I mean, that just never was going to be the case.

And the idea that this was at all out of the ordinary is weird to me. Like, in 2016 there was only ever one other candidate, like there was, a for a minute there were a couple of other candidates in the first debate or whatever, but it was just Bernie against Hillary, and he did better than

0:30:35 Jamie: Oh.

0:31:26 Thomas: He did in 2020 when there was a wider field of candidates. And then all of sudden, when it consolidates out, by the way, wait, Bloomberg was still in for Super Tuesday and taking quite a bit of Biden's vote. The idea that anything happened that was like not predictable or somehow unfair or anything like that, I just reject that notion.

0:31:46 Thomas: And if anything, Bernie had more advantages this time around than in 2016, wouldn't you think?

0:31:46 Jamie: So I'm not saying it's, So I'm not sure that I understand the way that you are connecting those claims. I don't think it needs to be the case that Bernie was worse positioned in order for it to also be true that there was an obvious consolidation of power. I, it doesn't need to be unfair, and it doesn't needs to be a conspiracy. But I don't know how to meaningfully make sense of the claim that in the few days before Super Tuesday, the candidate in second place in delegates, as well as Amy Klobuchar, who was just days before making the case that she was best suited to run against Trump and was staying in the race, all drop out and endorse Joe Biden. I really cannot make sense of that combination of events as not a consolidation of power. I don't.

0:32:40 Thomas: Oh, I didn't say it wasn't taken. It was a consolidation of power. I'm saying it was to absolutely be expected, though. And And if anything, it happened far later than in 2016. So, like, I guess what I'm What I'm saying is people are, when, when, sometimes when people are looking at what's happened in this primary, they talk about that instance as though, like, but for that, you know, maybe, you know, Bernie would have had a shot. And I just don't think that was ever a realistic way of looking at it is what I'm saying. Like, there wasn't going to be a world in which all these candidates would stay in, until when, like, they stayed in long after they had any chance. They should have been out far earlier, the, like, Klobuchar had no chance and I think she talked up, they all talk up their campaigns as much as they can till the last second because they want to get a better, I don't know, a better deal out of endorsing whoever the eventual candidate is, I think. And that just happens every time, doesn't it? Sure.

0:32:41 Jamie: Oh, sure. Sure.

0:33:17 Jamie: So I think that, sure.

0:33:33 Jamie: I think there's two different things happening here, though. There's the first claim that this is a thing that it was within their rights to do and could have very likely be foreseen and was in fact good to do, and maybe should have even been done earlier. And I think it's also fair to assert that it's precisely because of the way that the field was divided, that Bernie was positioned so advantageously going into Super Tuesday, and that were it not for the diversity of the field, given how the race unfolded, it's unlikely to think Sanders would have had any shot at all. I think both of those claims are true and admissible. I think what's at stake here in terms of how we make sense of not just the primary, but how people are going to respond to the primary and how we want to motivate them to behave.

0:34:28 Jamie: Because I think you and I, at least at the, at the end of the day, both agree that the right thing to do now is vote for Biden. And I think we both agree that this sucks, but that that's what we need to do. And so I think if we want to make that argument in a way that's most compelling to all of the different people who are participating in this primary and voting different ways, is we also have to take stock of the reality of what it must have been like, right? Like, as the resident Bernie supporter, right? There is, I think, a need to allow for sort of emotional reaction to feel like, oh my god, you know, we're actually going to do this and we're going to usher in things that are good, right? Even if Bernie himself wasn't breaking 30 or 35% of support among voters, his policies are wildly popular.

0:35:13 Jamie: Universal Healthcare, Medicare for All, polls somewhere around 70% among the Democratic base. His abolishing student debt is not as favorable as universal health care, but is popular among Democrats. And so I think there's this sense in which we have to allow space for people to be frustrated that they were defeated. And I think there is this sense and the way that this is handled.

0:35:31 Thomas: I am one of those people too, by the way, like, absolutely, I thought after the, the Super Tuesday, I genuinely thought Bernie was going to to be able to win. I transitioned my sport over to Bernie, and I couldn't, it wasn't until I took a peek at the 538 model, and the, not just the model, but like the polling involved in it. And it was an absolute shock to see just how abruptly all of a sudden, I guess it was that there were so many mainstream candidates, a couple mainstream candidates in the mix, that I guess their second preference must've been Biden that whole time. It was shocking. I was, was really broken up about it. I was excited for a Bernie candidacy. Um, and I, I've also regret that I only got to be excited about that for like a week. I went from, damn, my favorite candidate is out. And I, you know, I, I agree with everyone has the emotional reaction to that. Uh, and I don't at all begrudge anyone for being pissed off.

0:35:37 Jamie: Sure. But yeah,

0:36:26 Thomas: I'm still pissed about this whole thing. So sorry, I didn't, I never meant to get to, to suggest that people shouldn't have room to grieve about, you know, this whole thing. Of course you're, you're totally right on that.

0:36:38 Jamie: And so I think one of the hardest things for me has been having to come face to face with it is just really, really difficult to make these arguments and to persuade people. People are just generally resistant to change. And there's something comforting about, you know, returning to a quote unquote, normal, and sort of mythologizing sort of the nostalgic past where things weren't quite so horrific. And the world just isn't ideologically constituted the way that I am. And so there's there's definitely a part of coming to terms with that. The biggest thing for me is, you know, I'm going to vote for Joe Biden in November. I'm gonna hate every single second of it.

I'm gonna bitch, I'm going to complain, but I'm going to do it. And my political efforts are going to go into congressional races. I'm not going to, you know, make phone calls or text for Joe Biden. I have two limited resources right now, trying to homeschool two kids and teach my own courses and manage all of the writing that I'm mostly missing out on and watching deadlines fly past. I don't have the bandwidth to text or donate for Joe Biden, but I will when I have it for congressional candidates who I believe believe in. And that's sort of how I'm coming to terms with this heartbreaking primary.

0:37:09 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:37:55 Thomas: I also want to say, so I had tried to switch a little bit to like a what happened thing, and I, I wasn't meaning to do that, so I haven't been in persuade people to vote Joe Biden mode of this episode at all. I've just been, yeah, I've been trying to like digest for myself, like, what happened. So some of the things I was saying, I, you know, you said like, oh, it's not the best way to to argue to get people to vot Joe Biden. Oh, no, I agree. I was, I'm just trying to like digest what happened because it was so surprising to me. It honestly was incredibly shocking. Like, I cannot believe how quickly it went from, okay, well, it's Bernie and Biden. And I don't, I donated a hundred bucks to Bernie on that, like, that day, and was like, all right, here we go, let's do this. And then within like three days of the polls, polls, I was looking, I was like, oh my God, he has no chance.

0:37:55 Jamie: Yeah.

0:38:42 Thomas: It made no, it's, I'm still shocked about it and I'm still pissed about it. And I think one thing that helps, I guess maybe helps for me. I think there is such, in my opinion, and by the way, Jamie, I'm almost never talking about you. I'm talking about, you know, people I hear online when I talk about this. There is such a simplicity to how people look at what happened sometimes, in My Opinion. And as you alluded to, people vote in in weird ways, as we've talked about here. And I think that for maybe you and I and folks online who are really into this, if I were to give my best summary, this is my guess of what people look at this like. People like high information voters, maybe.

0:39:29 Thomas: People who just follow this, by the way, too much. We shouldn't even be following it this much, but high information voters. They think, okay, Bernie represents radical change, healthcare for all, all that that stuff. And they're right about that. And Biden represents, let's keep things normal. Let's just, you know, status quo. And when millions and millions more people voted for Biden, that means that those people want things to stay the same and are rejecting the radical change of Bernie. And, like, I actually just don't really think that's what's going on. I think that's what's going on for some people. But I think that people look at Biden. And, by the way, we are, we've already covered that people don't really vote on policy that much. And the numbers show it. I mean, overwhelmingly, Bernie's policies are super popular. But I think people look at rhetoric.

People look at what in their mind is like a leader. And, by the way, people were really, really, really worried about beating Donald Trump. And we are in this bizarre situation that I think, is I don't know that there's much anyone could have done about it, because millions of people got the idea, from polling data, by the way, because Biden was doing the best against Trump.

0:40:43 Thomas: Bernie was doing well, too. But for most of those polls, for most of the primary, especially early on, Biden was doing incredibly well in head-to-head polls against Trump, and so a lot of people got this idea that that was the way to beat Trump.

And so, you know, to put it simply, that's why a lot of people, I think not everybody, but that's why a lot of people vote for Biden, Biden, and then in the end, what we get is a candidate that nobody's excited about who very well could lose to Trump, because, like, even though we all thought he was going to do best and that's why a lot of people voted for him, it turns out he's not inspiring to anybody.

So just like you said, Jamie, I bet so many people are like you, where they're like, well, I'm not going to go out of my way, like, and I don't mean to put it that way, like, you, you have too much to do and Biden does not excite you enough, me too, does not excite us enough to be like, I'm going to find that extra hour to to volunteer, to text, a phone bank, to do all that stuff that inspiring candidates would, like, I would have done for Bernie, you know, and I know you would have too, you already were, uh, and so therefore we could be left with a losing candidate, even though all, most of these people wanted to do, most of these voters wanted to pick what they thought was the sure bet, and I don't know how we could have fixed that, you know. Yeah.

0:41:53 Jamie: So I, I agree with all of that. To be very clear, if I have any additional, you know, energy, I would sooner build myself a cannon to shoot myself directly into the sun than knock doors for Joe Biden, that's how I would, that's how I feel.

0:42:06 Thomas: I know that Tweet. Did you see that tweet early in the primary that just, I've been meaning to go back and find it, but the one that was like, you know, beginning of the primary, "oh, radical change, revolution now," and then end of the primary, "hi, do you have time to talk about voting for Joe Biden for president?" And it was like a year ago, I want to say that this tweet was, and it's unbelievable how much it nailed it. I thought it was going to be wrong, but it was not wrong.

0:42:08 Jamie: Yeah.

0:42:30 Jamie: So exactly, I think that's right, I think you're absolutely right that a lot of this election or the primary election at least can be understood through people trying to strategically vote and give themselves the best chance to beat Donald Trump in November, and to that end I think this was a sensible decision. I have a couple of friends who work in politics, and even before Super Tuesday I had, I had text one of them to say, you know, if the Democrats really are most concerned with beating Donald Trump, Joe Biden is the candidate that they should rally behind, not Pete Buttigieg, not Amy Klobuchar, because at that time, at least insofar as we had evidence to guide any sort of decision making, Joe Biden was defeating Trump head to head in the swing states where it matters, where Pete Buttige decidedly was not, Elizabeth Warren was not.

0:43:28 Jamie: Amy Klobuchar was not, Michael Bloomberg was not. Joe Biden at the time really did do the best in the head-to-head swing states against Donald Trump. The only person who came close was Bernie Sanders. And depending on the different polls, either Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden won as many of the same swing states, or Biden won one more, or Bernie did better in Florida, but Biden did better on Ohio or something like that. In terms of Head-to-head polling with Trump, to the extent that we have any evidence to guide this decision, Biden was the best choice for the Democrats to do that. And I think that helps make sense of the sort of claims about whether or not consolidating power in the way that they did was good or right. And I think it's, it's totally coherent to make the argument that it was good and it was right because insofar as we had any evidence to direct any action, Joe Biden did fare better against Donald Trump.

0:43:55 Thomas: Yeah.

0:44:25 Thomas: Well, can I just make clear, I wasn't making any claim on good or right. My only, when we talked about that, I was just saying it was expected. Like, I, okay. Gotcha.

0:44:29 Jamie: Oh. Right. Oh. Yeah. No, I didn't mean that you were making that claim.

0:44:34 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:44:34 Jamie: That it was good or Right, I'm sorry, um, just in terms of making sense of all of this. And so, again, I think this is a place where human prediction is just not very reliable about who's electable or how this is going to turn out. And if this primary has taught us anything, it's that you just cannot impose order on a chaotic universe with polling data. You're just not going to be able to do it. And so given my particular view on the world, I have my reservations and concerns about Joe Biden. I am terrified that Donald Trump is going to absolutely make mincemeat of him in a debate. But I don't know this. And this is just sort of my interpretation of my gut feeling of the world as is everybody else's. And we

0:44:34 Thomas: Okay. Sure. No. No, that's okay, right.

0:44:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:21 Jamie: Don't, we don't know. I mean, this election has been so bonkers. The world itself is so bonkers. Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow. There may be some new plague.

0:45:33 Thomas: I don't think we need a new plague, I think we're, we got our hands full, yeah.

0:45:35 Jamie: We've got locusts and Chernobyl is on fire. There were, you know, tornadoes in the southern United States last night. There was something else today. I can't even keep track because there's just too many noteworthy events.

0:45:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:48 Thomas: I think a lot of weather stuff, I just got an alert that like 20 people died for weather, so there's a lot going on, yeah.

0:45:53 Jamie: Yeah, so who knows? What's going happen tomorrow or in six months or four four months while this election is still going on. I think we're just all sort of strapped to our seats in this roller coaster, whether we like it or not.

0:46:03 Thomas: There was a trade-off, um, for anyone who hasn't looked at a lot the polling data, I still think Biden could win, by the way, I, I don't, I'm worried that he'll lose. He might just win, though. I mean, because the polling tradeoff that, that it looked like there was, that you talked about with, you know, some states that Bernie did better and all, that was the tradeoff, seems to be Bernie certainly had new, would bring new voters in and would bring voters that don't normally turn out because for whatever reasons, you know, they're, they're disappointed with leaders, whoever it is, and a lot of legitimate reasons, but they would turn out for Bernie. But there is a downside to Bernie that's very real. And I know people don't like to hear it, but there are a lot of people who just won't vote for a socialist. There are a bunch people who think he's too far left and they, that's the trade-off.

0:46:51 Thomas: And the polling was interesting because it ended up being pretty similar. Like Bernie would do pretty well against Trump and Biden would do well against Trump, but it was because of different groups of people. And what, what's been, I guess what's the bottom, if I were to bottom line it, you know, when I see a lot of very angry tweets and I, again, I'm very, again I'm right there with you that I'm so fucking mad that Biden's our candidate, but people are very angrily saying now watch Trump's going to win. Trump's gonna win. And a lot of, you know, very angry Bernie voters are like, well, you've just handed us more, whatever Trump. And if we were looking at that modeling and saying, okay, who's got the better chance? Is it, is it Bernie bringing his new voters or Biden, you Know, bring some centrists and some, maybe even some Republicans or independent ish voters.

0:47:38 Thomas: And then the primary happens and turnout is just low. And Bernie doesn't bring the votes he needs to win the primary. Like I got to say, I'm like, I don't know what the right word is, but like, it doesn't make sense to me as a threat to be like, well, you didn't choose Bernie. So now you're going to lose to Trump when Bernie's voters didn't put him through to the primary victory, you know, like, and Biden's overwhelmingly did. He brought out millions of voters, like turnout among certain demographics. I think it's particularly educated white women turned up more than normal. Yeah, you break down all these different demographic groups. But I have to say, like, how are we going to sit here and say, oh, no, we've doomed ourselves when of the two theories, Biden won in the primary and won by millions and millions of votes.

0:48:31 Thomas: It's like it's hard to sit here and say like, oh, no, we've made a huge mistake in terms of just beating Trump. You know, I don't know. And I think you're right that nobody knows, really.

0:48:38 Jamie: Well, yeah, so I think the real answer is just we don't know and we can't know the answer to those questions. You know, in some ways, the overlap between who votes in a Democratic primary and who votes in a general election matters. You maybe the sort of people who self-select as members of a Democratic primary who meet the criteria to vote in those primaries, that they're affiliated as Democrats within a certain amount of time before the election, depending on the state that they were in, Maybe that isn't actually representative of the voting demographic that would be going to the polls in November when it's open across party lines.

I don't know the answer to that question. I do think that it does at least force people who were advocating that Bernie brings people out to vote to address that he didn't in the numbers necessary to win. I think that's something that people on the left have to sit with and figure out how to overcome that problem. Because if you can't get more votes, you're never going to win an election. I Think the other question, ultimately is an empirical question that we just will not have the answer to until November.

0:48:56 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Until it

0:49:52 Jamie: And I think at that moment is when we have to reconcile with it. If Joe Biden beats Trump, the people on the left who are saying things like Biden is going to lose to Trump, and we're going to have four more years because of Trump because of Joe Biden, they will obviously be wrong. And I hope that at that time, that proves to be a moment of epistemic humility and a willingness to listen to those views that they had dismissed as just obviously wrong. I hope the reverse is also true. If Joe Biden does lose to Trump, after the way power was consolidated, which we agree that it was, and we can, and I'm not saying that's a claim about whether it was right to do or good to do, um, but I do hope that this, that there's a similar level of epistemic humility if it turns out that Joe Biden does lose to Trump.

0:49:52 Thomas: Happens. Yeah, yeah,

0:50:46 Jamie: People who advocated this and thought this was the best way to do it, I think, have a responsibility to be listening to those people on the left who they have otherwise dismissed and not taken seriously enough about what needs to be done to overcome our current conditions. And I think part of that is going to involve thinking of Trump not as, you know, the disease, but as a symptom of a much larger disease that we have so far failed to address.

0:51:18 Thomas: Yeah. I'm trying to tie up some loose ends here. No, I think you're right. Right. I still, I still think people. So I guess the lesson will have to be like if Biden loses for a it's going to be the worst fucking thing. And we're screwed because we're going to lose probably another justice. We will have voting rights rolled back that they're already being rolled back, by the way. And that's because of Republicans that the Wisconsin bullshit happened. That's because we didn't have the Supreme Court, which is the most important thing, which which is another reason why we just have to vote Democrat, in my opinion, because you don't get to vote on the Supreme Court. This is your only chance to vote onthe Supreme Court, so if you hate Biden as much as Jamie and I do, or more, probably, maybe that's one thing to do your best to consider.

0:52:07 Thomas: I know it's hard, but it's a vote for the Supreme Court, really. I mean, at this point, because we can't get anything passed, because Republicans, Republicans, uh, because of polarization, you know, and on both sides, of course, but in my opinion, one side is more right than the other things aren't getting passed. And the Supreme court is where so much happens and we've already gotten, Republicans have already gotten to put in, you know? Two extremely young, extremely fundamentalist conservatives in there who are going to be making our life hell for decades.

0:52:36 Jamie: Yeah, I also think if you're Sorry, Thomas, I didn't mean to cut you off. There No, just, if you're frustrated about this, and you're pissed off about voting for for Joe Biden, I think it's really really really important to focus on congressional races that are available to you, and if there isn't one in your area, find one. Because that's going to be the only line we have to hold if, God forbid, Biden doesn't win. So if you find yourself terrified that the Democrats have sort of teed us up for failure, I totally get the temptation to scream into the abyss and yell that this is a disaster. I feel it myself. But that actually isn't going to alter the outcome in any meaningful way, or protect us should the worst be realized, but having progressive Democrats in Congress, or even just Democrats in Congress in some places, will help us if we need to fight a Supreme Court nomination down the road, or, you know, I don't know

0:52:37 Thomas: And yeah, no, go ahead. Go ahead.

0:52:51 Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

0:53:36 Jamie: How else we could

0:53:36 Thomas: If we have the Senate, we can just stop. We can pull a McConnell and just not let Trump happen. I want to bolster that point. You're absolutely right. And that's one thing that made me really I was pretty mad about in the wake of 2016 was that if if really Hillary was such a bad candidate, which I don't think she was, I think I wanted to ask you this, Jamie. I think Hillary. Is there anybody who thinks Hillary was a worse candidate than Joe Biden? Could that I mean, maybe there are, but like I think she Was unquestionably a better candidate than Joe Biden. But anyway, the

0:53:37 Jamie: Right, She was unquestionably a better candidate than Joe Biden, and I really don't like Hillary Clinton, right.

0:54:06 Thomas: Point is, yeah, exactly. And the point I was going to make was in the arguments I was having after 2016, where people were like, oh, she lost because she was the worst. I just was so frustrated in that it was like, OK, if she really was so bad, if I just granted all your arguments that she was the worst, why couldn't we still fucking show up for the Senate and swing Congress? Because if we had a President Donald Trump and a Democratic Congress this whole time, we would be in such a much better position. There would be so much less harm that had been done, you know, whether it's the Supreme Court picks, whether it's The awful tax bill that is bankrupted us in a time where we needed that. We needed those levers to pull because we're in a real recession. Now we're going to be in a recession for a long time.

0:54:54 Thomas: And we are we have far fewer levers of money and just all that stuff. The Fed, all that that's interest rates, all that stuff. All of it was just to the max already because of this bullshit Republican policy of just giving money to rich people. Had we at least had Congress this whole time, that wouldn't have happened. And so, you know, I just want to echo that, like, OK, if even if, you know, you can't vote for Joe Biden, which I absolutely think people should. And by the way, my number one thing I'm rooting for is some sort of reason that Joe Biden has to step down before the election and whoever's VP is can be the candidate. That's still possible. He's an old guy. So you never know. But if you, if you can't bring yourself for whatever reason to vote, at least, you know, put the time into trying to swing the Congress because it's, it's vitally important.

0:55:46 Thomas: And it, it would have put us in a much better position had we done that in 2014 or 2016 or, you know? Or had we, yeah.

0:55:52 Jamie: Like even Even like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham have meaningful challengers as well who have both raised significant amount of money. I believe there was one poll that even showed that the race against Lindsey Graham was like a toss up. So if you can't get inspired to vote for Joe Biden, just hopefully you suck it up and you take it on the chin and do it anyway in November. Member, but in between, if you can throw a couple of bucks to some of these congressional races that can sort of help hold the line should the worst be realized, please please please please please do that. Because really, truly, if this crisis hasn't shown us anything, is that there are real human lives on the line here. Yeah.

0:55:58 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, All right. Right. A couple other thoughts. I did want to say, you know, I'd recommend there was a really good episode of the Weeds kind of diagnosing what happened in the primary recently. And Ezra Klein talked about, I really, I really am a fan of Ezra Klein. And apologetically, I think he's like the best out there. And he had some points that I agreed with. If you're interested in that, because we're kind of running out of time here. But I do want to say this.

And and Jamie, let me know your thoughts. I personally, I, what I would hope for going forward, uh, in the next, you know, for the next election and the one after, I really wish we could get a pragmatic, as my kids sound like a contradiction and maybe you'll have this, I wish we had a more pragmatic progressive faction because I think that ultimately Bernie could have won this, and I think it was within, maybe, I mean, I can't say for sure, but I think there were things that he could have done to, and his campaign could have been, to give him a better chance.

And one example that Ezra Klein brought up is he tried to get Bernie on his show, and Bernie's campaign manager wouldn't do it because they thought it was like a transactional politics thing, like, oh, yeah, you're going to promote your show, and we're, and Ezra's like, I just wanted to interview, he has, he interviewed almost every candidate. I think, I don't think Biden did like anything because it's fucking falling apart and can't do anything. But other than Biden, I'm pretty sure Ezra has interviewed every candidate, um, and Bernie's campaign manager just wouldn't do it. And and Ezra didn't talk about

0:58:05 Thomas: It until after the fact, because he didn't want to, he wasn't trying to make a political point out of it. But in that, um, podcast talking about, he was like, yeah, there's just one example where it's like, you have to do politics somewhat. Like, I get that there's a lot of cynicism about the system and it's earned, you know, it's like, absolutely, but I guess what I would hope for going forward is that we could have a progressive faction that's just a little bit more willing to do some politics, you know. And and I think that there were things that the campaign could have done, that Bernie could have done, that would have given him a better shot. Maybe ultimately still would have lost because people are just so scared and they thought, you know, Biden was the the ticket for to be for to beat Trump. It's entirely possible. But I think there were there were mistakes that were made along along those lines. And personally, I, I get frustrated because sometimes in these arguments, people just assume like, well, I'm far to the left of you.

0:58:57 Thomas: I'm part of the left. And they say that all the time. And like, sure. If you're a communist or something, yeah. Okay. Technically you're quote unquote to the Left of me. I understand. But oftentimes I don't know that our policy positions are that much different. It's just that I have a view that I believe in that while I do want these progressive policies to happen, I also want to do the most good. And I want to mitigate the most harm that we can from whatever vantage point we're in. And sometimes that involves politics and involves taking shitty compromises, you know? And, and so I don't know, that's kind of my thought on that. Uh, Jamie, if you have any thoughts on that, feel, feel free.

0:59:36 Jamie: So I don't know if you know this, but you would find yourself in very good company for articulating that thought. In fact, that that was kind of the overriding thesis of Elena Kagan's thesis as an undergraduate at Princeton. She tried to make sense of historically why movements on the left, and particularly socialist movements, did not take root in America in the aftermath of the 1920s and the Great Depression. And she was really sort of confused, given the urgency of the situation and the extent to which these policies would have meaningfully improved millions of people's lives, why these leftist movements weren't able to take root.

And she points to a similar thing, that these these groups on the left, the very things that make them so vibrant and and full of ideas tends to be, tends to put in motion a sort of like self-defeating mechanism where we're so fractured and and set off in so many different directions that despite this sort of theoretical commitment to solidarity, the left tends to be really bad at getting past this factionalism and solving these problems, and isn't good at forming coalitions with like different leftist groups. And it's it's to our detriment. So I share that sentiment with you as well.

0:59:50 Thomas: Oh, really? Hmm. Wow. Yeah. I didn't know that. Thanks for, thanks for sharing that.

1:00:57 Jamie: You can download it, you can order it through Princeton.

1:00:58 Thomas: I'll just Nice. All right. Well, I think we're out of time. Jamie, thanks again for coming on. I know it's a spirited debate, but I think it's good debate. And I always feel smarter for having had a debate with you. And honestly, Ithink we agree on a lot, but there's just obviously a few disagreements there. I think there's a lot more probably to be said about the ethics of, you know, of your vote in November, particularly in light of the accusations against Biden and all that. And I'm sure maybe at a later date we'll come back to it. So just just an FYI, because I had said on the last episode I was wanting to talk about that. We haven't fully gotten into that here. Maybe we will later. I'm not sure.

1:01:00 Jamie: Yeah.

1:01:46 Thomas: But at any rate, thanks for joining me, Jamie. And any closing thoughts before we call it an episode here?

1:01:53 Jamie: Yeah, that that's it it for today in the apocalypse. I'm good.

1:01:58 Thomas: All right. Thanks again. Everybody stay safe out there and send us, you know, send us emails, send us voicemails if you want. And hopefully, you may we can do another Q&A kind of thing to kind of see how people are thinking about this. I'm sure we'll get a lot of response to this episode. So, all

1:02:15 Jamie: Yeah, or just like a Q&A plague episode. Like, I don't know. Bye.

1:02:15 Thomas: Right. Oh, yeah. All right, thanks so much for for listening everybody and we will see you next time

1:02:32 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, if you'd like to follow Jamie on Twitter, she's at Euthyphro. And follow me at SeriousPod. If you'd like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If you're not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.