In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The Trump-Vladimir Putin-Elon Musk troika making moves before the voters weigh in;

• TikTok and Meta meddling in political discourse and organizing before the voters weigh in;

• Republicans trying to discredit the concept of oversight, and smear Elissa Slotkin, before the voters weigh in.

Then, why have the narrative stakes of the Michigan Senate race become so freighted? Abdul el-Sayed is on track to win, and everyone is extremely invested in telling a story about why this is or isn’t a huge deal. Does AOC really mean it when she says that if el-Sayed can win in Michigan, progressives can play anywhere? Why don’t progressives simply argue that every state and district should aim to nominate the most progressive viable candidate in the field? Also, what happens if Angie Nixon turns out to be the best progressive overperformer on the Democratic ticket? Brian and Matt offer complementary theories on what’s driving the thunderdome politics of Democratic factional infighting.

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Further reading:

• Matt takes an optimistic look at the Senate Democrats on the frontline.

• Brian defends for donning the mantle of accountability, against all the scumbags lying about her.

• Brian argues progressives have applied the wrong litmus tests to their recruits, if their goal is to set the table for transformative policy change in the future.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• Is the picture for Democrats getting rosier, or have they plateaued?

• Should Democrats be trying to expand the map, by moving money into Florida and other reach states, or is their risk-averse approach the right one?

• What fits the facts better: Quiet Trump support, going undetected in survey data, or Trump fatigue, even among three-time Trump voters?

• Is dominance a method of persuasion in and of itself?

Then, candy: Republican desperation takes many forms. One form is the orchestrated Republican smear campaign against James Talarico, which disintegrated instantly. Another is Trump’s repeated, unpopular attempt to bribe voters with $5,000—so long as they elect Republicans. A third is Trump’s desperate capitulation to Vladimir Putin, and his offer of a pittance of diesel fuel. A fourth is the Homeland Security raid on Ilhan Omar’s DC home. A fifth is the promise of a livestreamed firing-squad execution. What’s behind all these stories? What do they have to do with one another? And how should Democrats respond?

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Further reading:

• Brian on the unlikely, hopium-poisoned case for the fever finally breaking.

• Matt on the dream of blue Texas.

• and debunk the Talarcio smear artists.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The told and untold story of Denny Hastert;

• Did Democrats agree to sweep it all under the rug because they had fond professional memories of Hastert, specifically? Or is this part of a broader asymmetry?

• How does it all portend for the post-election and post-Trump worlds, when Democrats will probably have to be quite partisan, if they mean to revive liberal democracy in America.

Then, what’s the deal with the bipartisan permitting bill that Sheldon Whitehouse helped spearhead in the Senate? Why are environmental organizations split on it? Why do Republicans support it? How many of them are unexposed sexual predators? And what’s the best case, if there is one, for Democrats to walk away from this deal?

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Further reading:

• Matt’s case for the permitting deal.

• Brian huffs hopium, and then buzzkills with a does of realism.

• Reflections from the Mark Foley scandal and the end of the Hastert speakership.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The Mary Peltola bad boss scandal;

• Why are Democratic operatives seemingly trying to tank her campaign? Could there be more too it than hard feelings and ideological litmus testing?

• What’s really going on in Maine?

Then, what would it look like for Democrats to successfully check Donald Trump next year, to where Democrats could credibly contend to have met the moment, notwithstanding the constraints of divided government. Do they need to be prepared to hold the line through lengthy government shutdowns? If not, how will they meet campaign promises to end the Iran war, and hold him accountable for the kinds of things Republicans have let him get away with?

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Further reading:

• Brian on what could be a lame-duck session from hell.

• Matt on why staffers should suck it up and feed the lizard.

• The trailer Elon Musk doesn’t want you to see…

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The nature and extent of Republican peril;

• Whether Democrats are optimally capitalizing on Republican weakness and Donald Trump’s toxically unpopular agenda;

• Is the Democratic Party too solicitous of frontline members, or not solicitous enough?

Then, thanks to Matt’s dying laptop battery and lack of charger, a packed overview of the sudden controversy surrounding effective altruism. What is E.A.? Why is it weird? Why is it suddenly at the epicenter of political debates over whether and how to regulate artificial intelligence? And, quite apart from efforts to scapegoat them, is it a good idea to put people who have immense faith in the power to optimize systems in charge of a technology that leaves no room for error?

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Further reading:

• Matt on whether there’s reason to doubt the blue wave forecast.

• Brian’s 30 thoughts on the (valid) A.I. freakout.

• runs the math on how many statehouse seats Democrats need to win to build new trifectas. (Spoiler: 22 seats to win five trifectas.)

• Jared Golden endorses Mike Lawler. (🖕)

• Joe Manchin endorses Susan Collins. (🖕)

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• What’s happened over the past week, and where does it leave us?

• Are we anywhere close to a place where we can learn to stop worrying and love A.I.?

• What can A.I. safety really look like with Donald Trump and his rich V.C. buddies in charge, and how should Democrats navigate the politics?

Then, the same deliberativeness that makes Dems slow to embrace the cause of A.I. safety makes them hard pressed to think outside the box ahead of elections. Fortunately, the world Donald Trump built seems to be collapsing on him. Between leaks and adverse Supreme Court rulings, will he be able to alter the trajectory of the election before November? Is he now purely at the mercy of forces he unleashed (in the Middle East, Canada, and elsewhere)? Should Democrats fly an airplane into the border wall?

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Further reading:

• Brian goes full-Bernie on frontier A.I. research.

• Matt’s somewhat more restrained plan to save the world from runaway A.I.

• ’s interim measures, already on the books, that could discipline A.I. companies before they build killer robots.

• Brian also thinks Talaricomentum is real, and not an artifact of “shy” Ken Paxton voters.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• Donald Trump’s seemingly deteriorating mental state;

• The political valence of antisemitism vs. Islamophobia;

• Why institutional opponents of antisemitism don’t hold Republicans to any standard.

Then, should there be a moratorium on artificial intelligence development? The nature of the risks suggest yes, but the logistical and political challenges seem insurmountable. But, then, shouldn’t A.I. developers be taking a firmer stand? Why do they make dire warnings about A.I. risk out of one side of their mouth, but then devote all of their political efforts to attacking candidates who support A.I. regulation. Will there be a grand settlement before something terrible happens? Or will catastrophe be what spurs action, and we just have to hope it doesn’t come too late?

Answers are available in full to listeners and viewers on YouTube. Check out our new channel, or upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

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Further reading:

• Matt on the known unknowns about data centers.

• Brian goes insane.

• Jacob Pachoki—chief scientist at Open AI, whose president funds the big A.I. Super PAC—on A.I. risk.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• Why is Donald Trump clinging so hard to the wrong side of a 25-75 issue?

• Is free-floating data-center hatred a good thing, or is the public making a mistake?

• What’s the right line for Democrats ahead of the election—and in the new Congress?

Then, Hakeem Jeffries hinted this week that Democrats would run on a simple agenda: End Trump’s Iran war; end his trade wars; end his war on people’s pocketbooks. But he has not provided similar specificity about the Democratic oversight agenda. Are Democrats going to repeat the mistakes of 2019 and 2020, when they were too eager to work with Trump substantively, and too reluctant to check and expose him? Is the spirit of Resistance One really dead, or are Democratic voters mostly just frustrated by the lack of follow through.

Answers are available in full to listeners and viewers on YouTube. Check out our new channel, or upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

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Further reading:

• Brian argues that Democrats will regret it if they think their voters no longer want them to wage “resistance” style politics.

• Matt argues Democrats should promise to surrender to Canada in the trade war.

• David Wallace-Wells on what the data-center backlash is really about.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• Why Donald Trump keeps doing the same kind of stupid shit over and over again;

• What Congress (maybe the next Congress?) could do to stop him;

• The extent to which this is driven by corruption vs. Trump’s own personality disorders.

Then, are Trump’s power rivals letting him off the hook too easily? Why are Democrats supporting protectionism for cattle ranchers rather than attacking Trump’s cronyism or attacking his broader protectionist regime? Why are civil servants silent as he calls the reliability of official U.S. economic and demographic indicators into question? Why is the Supreme Court letting him impose illegal policy for months or years at a time? And what would it take to correct all of these failures?

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Further reading:

• Matt’s paean to Mark Carney.

• Brian wants Democrats to borrow from Trump’s playbook for normalizing power grabs, but to soften the public for court expansion.

• sounds the alarm over the political infiltration of the Census Bureau.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The Natalie Harp ploy, and how Ossoff yoked national attention to Donald Trump’s broader degeneracy;

• Whether Ossoff provides (finally!) a template for the moderates-who-fight synthesis we’ve been promised;

• Unanswered questions about how much of this glow up is luck, and whether Ossoff’s actual record will hold up in a presidential primary, if he run and has a left-wing opponent.

Then, Democratic Party officialdom has pulled back together pretty well after bruising primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin. But on the fringes, influential progressives and moderates continue to take potshots at the nominees they were hoping to beat: progressives at David Crowley in Wisconsin; moderates at Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan. What are they thinking? Could Bernie Sanders and AOC tamp down the cheap-seat heckling from the left? Could Chuck Schumer snuff out big-money anti-el-Sayed activism in the center? And where will moderate, pro-Israel Jewish voters take their political resources if they leave the Democratic Party, but have no home in the increasingly Groyperified GOP.

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Further reading:

• Brian asks why more Democrats don’t sound like Ossoff specifically on the Iran war question.

• Matt on the differences between the left-wing insurgency and the progressive establishment.

• Natalie Harp: More than Trump’s “human binkie.”

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• What was Woke One;

• Which aspects of it do progressive leaders now concede were “crazy”;

• Why did it happen in the first place?

Then, how relevant is any of this for near-term politics so long as Donald Trump is in power wrecking the economy? The country keeps losing jobs (or putting up extremely week monthly jobs numbers). Congress is about to give Trump more power to impose tariffs. And there’s no clear offramp to the war in Iran. Are Republicans simply fucked? If so, why hasn’t the war been a bigger political disaster for Trump? Could Democratic leaders forge a factional truce around a midterm-campaign promise to end the war next year? Or is it going to be 2007 all over again?

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Further reading:

• Matt on how the high cost of living is tearing Republicans apart.

• Brian takes a stab at a Woke One origin story.

• Why are Democrats voting to give Trump more tariff power?

• The doctor advising Republicans on how to lose weight says his miracle diet gives him orgasmic, wipe-free poops.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The deal Democrats struck with Susan Collins to avoid a pre-midterms government shutdown;

• What Democrats could have demanded that might have won back respect from their voters while either a) making the election more secure, or drawing national attention to the GOP’s intent to cheat;

• Why establishment Democrats didn’t want this fight; but neither, apparently, did leaders of the left-insurgent faction.

Then, if after all this, there’s such little appetite in the party for procedural hardball, should we have any hope at all? Would a Democratic trifecta in 2029 simply not make any structural changes to U.S. democracy? If so, would progressives be better off trying to work with GOP extremists now to abolish the filibuster while Republicans are still in power? Will a mainline figure emerge who unites the party, holds Republicans accountable, and leads the country back to normalish politics? Or is it horseshoes all the way down?

Answers are available in full to listeners and viewers on YouTube. Check out our new channel, or upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

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Further reading:

• WE HAVE A YOUTUBE PAGE NOW! You can watch this episode in full there, and we’ll be rolling out new subscription options over the coming weeks. Hit like, subscribe, and all the other buttons.

• Brian on Democrats squandering their last pre-election chance to fight Trump.

• Matt’s plan to swap voter ID for filibuster abolition.

• and on the rightward lean of unmobilized Latino voters.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• Why Trump was unable to make surrender stick;

• The peculiar case of the missing oil crisis;

• Whether Trump’s untrustworthiness, and Iran’s experience exploiting U.S. election deadlines, means he’ll be unable to get another ceasefire on the books before November.

Then, why aren’t Trump’s horrifying failures triggering a flight to safety among his political allies? Is it because the Democratic Party is in shambles? Or because Trump loyalists control too much of the media? A bit of both? What do Ken Martin’s failures as DNC chair tell us about the state of Democratic opposition politics? And should we take heart in the fact that Democratic pushback against an oligarchic takeover of Warner Bros. seems to be working?

Answers are available in full to listeners and viewers on YouTube. Check out our new channel, or upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

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Further reading:

• WE HAVE A YOUTUBE PAGE NOW! You can watch this episode in full there, and we’ll be rolling out new subscription options over the coming weeks. Hit like, subscribe, and all the other buttons.

• Matt on the difficulty defining class in the U.S.

• Brian on how to divide and conquer the billionaire class.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The moral and political advantages of Medicare for All as an abstract concept, and how health care had become the motive force driving the growth of the Sanders movement;

• Why no plan to open up Medicare to all beneficiaries has ever become law, and who’s principally responsible;

• How the Bernie Sanders plan came into existence, and what it would take to get a version of it enacted without accidentally blowing up the health care system.

Then, even if this is a good idea on the merits, would it serve the political purpose of dialing down the factional war? Do progressive insurgents want single payer health care or do they want the issue to run on? Do they want policy wins or do they want to take over the Democratic Party? Is another truce, like the one Joe Biden forged in 2020 with Sanders and his allies possible? And would it hold even if a consensus left-center agenda didn’t drive Democrats back into full control of government?

Answers are available in full to listeners—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

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Further reading:

• WE HAVE A YOUTUBE PAGE NOW! You can watch this episode in full there, and we’ll be rolling out new subscription options over the coming weeks. Hit like, subscribe, and all the other buttons.

• Brian’s original case: Why the Democratic establishment should surrender to the left on Medicare for all.

• Matt’s blueprint for a center-left counterinsurgency.

• Greg Casar: “In the past, there were some progressives, including people I’ve been friends with for a long time who used to say, I’d rather see you lose righteously than win politically and strategically. And I’ve learned to respectfully disagree with those people. We can’t afford to lose anymore because the cost of losing is just so high.”

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In this episode:

• Matt gives an on-the-ground rundown of how the Maine Democratic Party is going about choosing Platner’s replacement on the Senate ballot;

• Brian tries to sniff out whether Maine Democratic voters feel burnt by the Sanders operation, and thus may insist on a nominee from a different faction;

• Matt and Brian talk about Monday’s ICE murder in Maine, and how it’s shaken up the race even further.

Then, why did Lindsey Graham succeed where other’s failed to use flattery to get what he wanted out of Donald Trump? How will McConnell’s absence, and the fact that the South Carolina governor appointed Graham’s sister as his interim replacement, affect the GOP’s ability to advance its agenda, including Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination? And was Graham secretly a hero of American democracy?

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Further reading:

• Brian on how to eulogize dead fascism enablers.

• Matt on the Trump GOP’s authoritarian approach to immigration enforcement.

• ’s rundown of the Maine convention process.

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In this episode Matt and Caitlin discuss:

• Why objectively successful red state governors struggle to obtain national attention.

• The constraints and upsides of dealing with an opposition legislature.

• The New South tradition of business-friendly pro-growth Democrats.

• Applications of these points to Alaska, Michigan, and other states that lack the underlying economic strength of California or New York.

Paid subscribers also get to hear about the left’s misguided attacks on former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and a brief update on events in Maine.

Further reading:

• Roy Cooper’s tough on crime ad campaign.

• What Mary Peltola means when she says she’s “pro-fish.”

• The American Prospect complains that the Commerce Secretary met with commercial enterprises.

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In this episode, Matt and Alex discuss:

• Troy Jackson, the man who really is the thing Platner sort of pretends to be.

• Paul Le Page, the “Trump before Trump” figure likely to replace Jared Golden in the House.

• How a pedophile brought ranked-choice voting to Maine.

• Why Susan Collins is probably toast.

• Lifestyle businesses and downward mobility.

Plus paid subscribers will get an exacting level of detail on the political geography of Maine, Platner’s specific appeal in Washington County and on working waterfronts, and the clash between what made him so fascinating as a primary candidate and what’s objectively the easiest path to win a general election.

Further reading:

• Susan Collins touts her pork barrel achievements.

• ICE detains a small town general store owner.

• How Maine’s two most recent governors changed the state.

• Refugee resettlement in Lewiston, ME.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• How this lazy and corrupt endeavor went to shit so quickly;

• Why it serves as a useful metaphor for Trump’s Iran war, and just about every initiative he’s undertaken autocratically;

• Whether this should also be a cautionary tale for Abundists, who often see the appeal of sweeping aside red tape and process to Get Things Done Fast.

Then, Brian briefly ventures into amateur architecture and engineering with some proposals for fixing the reflecting pool for all time. (Surely no one’s thought of THIS before!) But we mostly assess the damage done by Jewish-American Iran hawks, via their effort to make Israel an appendage of the GOP (currently controlled by a corrupt con artist) and steer the U.S. into a losing war. Will they ever reflect on the harm they’ve caused? Is schadenfreude the order of the day? Or is that just whistling past the graveyard? And are there lessons here for leftists who are now tempted to make common cause with Trump against Israel?

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Further reading:

• Brian on the self-righteous, right-wing American Jews who were being cavalier with Jewish lives all along.

• Matt on how Trump’s (autocratic) war on state capacity is coming home to roost.

• Brian again, on how Trump switching sides in the war he lost doesn’t make him a Palestinian liberationist.

• Matt, again, on how Trump’s “reflecting pool” foreign policy is “violent and cynical and bad.”

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• Why the terms of the peace deal, such as we understand them, are so unacceptable to the Iran hawks who made strategic alliance with Trump because they thought they could manipulate him into war;

• How a deal that’s both weaker than JCPOA and leaves Iran with de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz changes geopolitics—and is likely unacceptable to Israel;

• Whether Democrats should rub Trump’s defeat in his face, or let him pretend he won to reduce the risk that he goes back to war.

Then, Elon Musk became a trillionaire last week, after taking SpaceX public. And he did so thanks in large part to Nasdaq, which changed its own rules to require Nasdaq index funds to buy SpaceX stock, and bid up its price, despite the fact that the company lacks any near-term path to profitability. Is this a reasonable evolution in Wall Street’s treatment of mature companies when they go public? Or was Nasdaq snookered by Musk’s many grandiose promises of future growth and technological development? Should passive investors really have no recourse to scrutinize and challenge these companies when they change rules governing how our money is invested? And what should happen if it turns out Musk is just exploiting laws, rules, and markets to turn our IRAs and 401ks into piggy banks to bail out his failing companies?

Answers are available in full to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

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Further reading:

• Catherine Rampell on the SpaceX IPO.

• Vanguard urges calm on the SpaceX IPO.

• Former AIPAC spox can’t believe the leopard ate his face.

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In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

• The results, and the merits of the California election system, which maximizes ballot access, but at the expense of quick ballot counting.

• What should California Democrats, and the national party, do about the scourge of GOP election lies?

• Would Democrats really have been better off if they’d managed to lock Steve Hilton out of the governor’s race, like they locked Spencer Pratt out of the LA mayor’s race?

Then, how do you solve a problem like Graham Platner? How do you catch an oyster, and snarf it down? How embellished is his self-depiction as a blue-collar outsider? How consistent is a clear, chronological recitation of his checkered past with his redemption story? Are we even anywhere near the point where it would make sense for Democratic voters in Maine to stay home or vote for Susan Collins, rather than Vote Blue No Matter Who as a harm-reduction strategy?

The answer to the last question is “no,” but the answers to the rest are available in full to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

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Further reading:

• Matt’s 17 thoughts about Graham Platner, from before the latest developments.

• Brian argues California Dems should streamline their election process and simultaneously disqualify proven election liars from ballots in the state.

• ’s Liar’s Kingdom.

• Brian’s 2017 piece on the pitfall of embracing “believe all women” as a political standard (tl;dr, some women are committed Trump loyalists with MAGA ethics).

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