Old Bull

This week Rachel and Aaron investigate the three words that hit hardest from Donald Trump's recent interview on Meet the Press, and the one word missing from the New York Times's editorial criticizing his first 100 days. Plus the Lord of the Shadows, Stephen Miller, wants you to know MAGA has BIG plans for your children and grandchildren. Don't miss an eye-opening comparison between Trump's “Lord of Shadows” and the Nazi Party's youth indoctrination programs. LINKS:* NBC's Meet the Press: Full interview with Donald Trump* NBC News: Fact-checking Donald Trump's May interview with ‘Meet the Press'* 60 Minutes: How law firms targeted by Trump are responding to White House pressure* Marc Elias: Democracy Docket* SNL: ‘Lord of the Shadows'* Stephen Miller: ‘Children will be taught to love America'* New York Times: Editorial: There Is a Way Forward: How to Defeat Trump's Power Grab* Mike Pence Receives JFK Profile in Courage Award* Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game* The Cycle on SubstackLove This is America? Tell someone else you love about it by hitting the share button!This is America thanks our paid subscribers and urges you to consider supporting independent media by upgrading to a paid subscription today! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

As another texting scandal jolts the Pentagon into “full-blown meltdown,” Rachel earns national attention for her internet sleuthing skills and gets vindicated in the aftermath of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Plus, she and Aaron take a close look at the first rule in fighting tyranny… and share a masterclass from a European internet troll.LINKS:* Politico Opinion: Former Top Pentagon Spokesperson Details ‘Month From Hell' Inside the Agency* The Daily Beast: Rachel catches bad White House photoshop job* George Carlin: Methods of Execution* SplitTicket.org tweet: The story of Wisconsin's Supreme Court election was turnout* Timothy Snyder on Substack: Obeying in Advance* European Parliament Member Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy trolls Trump's New York* Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game* The Cycle on SubstackThe Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

This week Rachel and Aaron change up the format to take a deep dive into the arrest and deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, imprisoned in El Salvador without due process despite a U.S. Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return. The case has chilling parallels to what happened in Germany between 1933 and 1945. This is a warning from history worth understanding.In Nazi Germany the Gestapo didn't even have to watch everyone: your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even family members had the power to destroy you. Much of the terror came from not knowing, you know, who was watching or listening. History doesn't replicate like DNA but it does repeat. LINKS* The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany, 1933–1945* Full news conference: Trump and President Bukele of El Salvador* Rep. Steven Horsford blasts U.S. trade rep after Trump tariff pause* Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Trump's planned destruction of America's economy is a pivotal political moment. This week Rachel and Aaron offer advice for “normies” who are just now waking up to the mess. Plus, a reading of the tea leaves after the recent special elections, how to send us your best signs for this month's next nationwide protests, and why was this week's show a little late? We've got an exciting reason!LINKS:* The 50501 Movement (April 19th protests)* Sen. Rand Paul's resolution to “Reassert Congressional Authority Over Tax Policy”* Project 2025 Tracker Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

It's Election Day! Will it be a difficult one for MAGA in Wisconsin and Florida? Plus, Rachel and Aaron get into the nitty gritty over Third Term Gate… and Signal Gate. The Trump Tax, er “Liberation Day,” prompts Aaron to move up his car shopping timeline. Musk gives away millions. And what's the one issue voters associate most with the Democratic Party? The answer may surprise you...LINKS:* NBC News: Trump won't rule out seeking a third term in the White House* The Intercept: In Trump's America, You Can Be Disappeared for Writing an Op-Ed* The Tufts Daily: Op-ed coauthored by Rümeysa Öztürk* The Cycle on Substack: Voters Have No Idea What Democrats Stand For* The New York Times: Marine Le Pen Barred From French Presidential Run After Embezzlement Ruling* Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

This week Rachel and Aaron chase the firetrucks to the dumpster fire of the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress who're trying to defend it. How do you explain an unprecedented security breach involving secret war plans accidentally shared with a news editor? Where do voters draw a line in the sand? Plus, a closer look at why Elon Musk is trying to break the Overton Window. And are spring breakers really this… dumb?LINKS:* The Atlantic: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans* New York Times: Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts* Campaign Website: Judge Susan Crawford for Wisconsin Supreme Court* Greenland's Prime Minister: “Taking over our country over our heads”* CNN: Angry voters confront GOP lawmaker at town hall in Washington* LibertyHangout.tv on YouTube: Spring Breakers Fail American History Trivia* Rachel at The Cycle: What is the Overton Window and Why is Elon Musk Breaking It?* Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

This week Rachel and Aaron explore the good, the bad and the ugly. Why is Schumer's vote to keep the government open an important political move? What prompted a pissed-off federal judge to issue an order from the bench? And what do the latest poll numbers mean for Trump 2.0? Plus: adios, habeas corpus. And we drop into a fiery town hall meeting in North Carolina's bright red 11th Congressional District.LINKS:* Rachel on The Cycle: Never Interrupt Your Enemy When They Are Making a Mistake* MSNBC: ‘A sham: Federal judge blasts Trump admin on improper firings of federal workers; orders rehiring* Quinnipiac University Poll: Voters' Ratings on Economy and Trump Dip* NBC March 2025 Poll* Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own GameDo you like This is America? This podcast needs your support to continue so please consider becoming a PAID subscriber today! If a podcast falls in the woods and there is no one to hear it, does it still make a sound? I'd argue no, it needs ears! Help us find some by sharing this pod with your own network! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

As the Trump administration tanks the stock market and sends prices soaring even higher, Rachel and Aaron examine the stupid in “it's the economy, stupid.” Europe reconsiders a new world leader while here at home, Republican politicians become snowflakes. Plus, a chilling observation from the New York Times' chief White House correspondent, and how would Rachel have responded to Trump's boring Joint Address to Congress?Do you appreciate my fusion of political science, history, data, and current events? I can't make this content without YOUR support. Support Indie media by subscribing to The Cycle- OnShare the gift of knowledge to someone who needs it! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

This week Rachel and Aaron cut through the noise as Elon's "Chainsaw for Democracy" cuts thousands of federal jobs, and as Steve "Prison Toady" Bannon massacres the Constitution--surprising even a fellow neo-Nazi. Trump's honeymoon is over though, according to public polling (surprise! Americans don't seem to care about DEI). And members of Congress face the music at public town halls, even in deep red districts. LINKS:* NPR: DOGE released data about federal contract savings. It doesn't add up* Washington Post poll: Many of Trump's early actions are unpopular* CNN Poll: Americans worried by Trump's push to expand power* Wyomingite gives master class in "pivot, belittle, attack"* Alarming scene from Republic of Gilead (Coeur d'Alene, ID)* Hit 'Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

This week Rachel and Aaron go behind the Resolute Desk with Elon, Donald and "X Æ A-XII." They untangle a "very weird 20 minutes" from failed comedian JD Vance in Munich, start the clock on Marco Rubio's tenuous tenure as Secretary of State, and shine light on the plain-sight quid-pro-quo between Trump's Justice Department and NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Oh... and how does Trump's controversial "Napoleon Dynamite" tweet compare to Hitler's rise in Fascist Germany?Do you appreciate my fusion of political science, history, data, and current events? I can't make this content without YOUR support. Support Indie media by subscribing to The Cycle

This week, Rachel and Aaron keep up with Trump 2.0's strategy of flooding the zone, resulting in a chaotic political and media environment that can only be described as "everything, everywhere, all at once." They explore the parallels of what's happening now to the rise of Nazi Germany, particularly the "golden age of culture"--which MAGA America desperately wants to control. Rachel and Aaron also discuss the threat of democracy falling apart when the Executive Branch refuses to listen to the Judicial Branch... at the encouragement of Vice President Vance. Buckle up!Hello! Are you enjoying This is America? This pod is hosted on The Cycle On Substack- a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.I don't need your extra time but I do need you to share this pod with your friends and family and then ask them to share it with THEIR friends and family. Without love in the dream it will never come true. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Checked In for the Checked OutThis week Rachel and Aaron take a tumble through the spin cycle of Donald Trump's second full week in office, which included chaos and confusion, a stock market nose-dive, another off-the-rails news conference, pissed off allies, economic uncertainty and threats of a new consumer tax. They also take the temperature on batshit crazy Senate confirmation hearings and share some thoughts about the incoming leader of the DNC.Links: Letter to senators from Caroline Kennedy re: her cousin Bobby Our Book: Hit 'Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game (Crown, 2024) The Cycle on SubstackLike what you hear??? Tell your friends and family about it! The Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

This week Rachel and Aaron dive into the deliberately exhausting 'shock and awe' strategy by Trump 2.0, drawing comparisons to the "Working Toward the Fuhrer" strategy of 1930s Germany. They also discuss a powerful warning from the New York Times, coffee, inflation, shrinkflation, what you need to know about ongoing confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate, and some tough love from... The Daily Show.The Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading The Cycle- On Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

History does not replicate like DNA, but it echoes. It's echoing now. Welcome to This is America Episode 1: Oh s**t, there goes the neighborhood Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

If you've been following the transition of the Republican Party from the party of Reagan into whatever the hell it is now you'll know that the once “useful idiots” of the Republican Party, the Christian Right, now rule the party and they have big plans for Trump 2.0.As Dr. Taylor points out in our interview about his book The Violent Take it by Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening our Democracy, for all the attention January 6th received, a key part of that story has been largely ignored. Along with bear spray, confederate flags, and combat gear, Christian nationalist iconography was all over the insurrection. In fact, you might remember watching this motley crew of Trump loyalists anointing their violent take over of our nation's heart of democracy with a group prayer. You may also remember the 2023 reporting that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew something called The Appeal to Heaven Flag many of us were introduced to for the first time on January 6th flying at the highest peak of the Alito family flag poll at various points since 2020. Even worse, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson flies on on his office door right there in Capitol Hill. And worse yet, our likely Trumpian Defense Secretary is an out and proud Christian Nationalist who, I s**t you not, is a fan of the Crusades. THE CRUSADES. So what in the hell does it all mean??! What are these religious fanatics planning for the rest of us? That's why I've brought Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies on for a conversation about the Christian Nationalist movement and what we should expect from them as they ascend to power for the first time in American history. Don't miss this conversation because the survival of the separation of church and state depends on it. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Today's pod is with Rachel Maddow producer and editor of Maddow Blog Steve Benen and his important new book Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republican'' War on the Recent Reality. Benen's important book documents how Republicans managed how to rewrite the history of recent events like January 6th and COVID to make millions of people believe in a false reality for something they saw with their very own eyes. Despite the deserved attention on Republicans efforts to white wash American history, very little scholarship has explored how Republicans use their propaganda system and coordination to shape public narratives that have no basis in reality. That makes this work critical. Although the presidential race remains a toss up, advantage Harris, I for one think it is prudent to consider a Trump win scenario and what it might mean both in the short and long term. I want to be clear, by acknowledging Trump can win, I am not suggesting he will win, but as my good friend Edna says “luck favors the prepared.”Benen's book documents how Trump and MAGA media disappeared recent history for millions of Americans, right before their own eyes and will be a valuable tool for that brave new world should we end up living in it.Catch our conversation and buy the book! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Its Holocaust Remembrance Day. Not only did Hitler and his Nazis murder 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, its HOW they murdered them you should know more about.After first being dispossessed of their businesses and homes, then being "ghettoized," the Jews began to be "deported East." Deported East meant being packed like sardines into a cattle car sometimes for a week or more with NO WATER, let alone food. People died standing up and the trains were full of excrement. Once they arrived they walked into a carefully laid trap. They didn't know it, but they faced the first of what would come to define the life of the people who ended up with the Auschwitz tattoos: selection. At Auschwitz, between 10-30% of each train load was "selected for work." The rest, men, women, children, and babies were "selected" to be gassed. At its height in 42/43, the German's killing machinery was performing at its peak, murdering and burnings thousands of humans a day. To make their murder machine work, they needed to keep their victims docile. So, using Jewish prisoners to unload and process those "selected for death" into the gas chambers, these "Sonderkommando" were forced to calm those condemned to death with lies about getting showered and deloused and about what would happen next. If they did not, they would be immediately murdered themselves. The Nazis actually staged the train platform with fake "to the showers" signs and even went so far as to tell people with just seconds left to live to fold their clothes and make sure they can refind them. Anything to get their 1,000 or so victims to walk willingly into the shower room with its fake faucets. If you were "lucky" in the Holocaust, the Nazis selected you to be worked till death. Selected for work was what stood for "luck" in Auschwitz. The most important thing you need to remember this year is that what happened to the Jews happened by the intentional "othering" of the Jews by a tyrannical despot. There was nothing special about the millions of Germans who became silent accomplices to the near total destruction of European Jewry. There was nothing special about the Germans then, or us now. We must stop Donald Trump and his MAGA movement here, now. The whole world is watching. In Episode 2 of Shadowboxing the Apocalypse Ep. 2: How the Nazis Seized Power I bring historian and author of The Death Democracy Benjamin Hett back onto the pod to discuss how Hitler went from being sworn in as a weak chancellor on January 30, 1933 to suspending the German Constitution and outlawing the opposition in less than 60 days. The Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Some of you may know I am also using twitter (which is by far my biggest audience) to try to draw attention to the parallels between our current crisis and the fall of democracy in Germany. This work, which I call Project 1933 is tied to the Republican Party's Transition to Autocracy plans laid out in the Heritage Foundation's Manual for Leadership, more commonly known as Project 2025. I've been tweeting the Nazi's quick rise to fascist autocracy in real time as events unfold in Germany in 1933. Please check it out if you are not already and if you are already, PLEASE RT THOSE TWEETS!!(Editors Note: If you are not familiar with Project 2025 yet, please AT LEAST read this which will cover the most important points). Have you read my book, which is reshaping how Democrats do elections?! Well, what are you waiting for?! Thank you for reading The Cycle- On Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it.. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

https://arkansasadvocate.com/2022/10/05/study-more-republicans-than-democrats-likely-died-of-covid/Researcher Max Taves closes his analysis in David Cay Johnston's DC Report by asking a very important question: “Republican politicians can talk all they want about how pro-life they are, but these data defy and belie their rhetoric. Facts are stubborn things.So what does it say about a political party which incessantly promotes its respect for life and yet whose states' policies overwhelmingly and repeatedly produce the highest rates of death from cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, Alzheimer's, influenza, diabetes, traffic accidents, guns, workplace accidents, suicides and murders?How pro-life can Republican states be when their own constituents literally get less life?”Taves' analysis comparing health and death outcomes between Red and Blue states reveal a shocking and inescapable conclusion: Republican policies kill people. Pick any metric, from covid death rates, to heart disease and diabetes, cancer, car accidents, to gun suicides, Taves shows that Red State's offer their residents a plethora of ways to die younger and poorer than folks in Blue States. As I always say, the data don't lie. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

As soon as Heather Cox Richardson's new book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America came across my algorithm I reached out and invited America's favorite academic back onto the show. HRC's newest book lays out how a small group of wealthy men financed and developed a right wing propaganda machine that 54+ years later, stands to topple America's nearly 250 year old democracy. But perhaps even more importantly, Cox-Richardson lays out how marginalized Americans of the past have risen up to meet their own historical moments and saved the American experiment in the process. Heather's right: if you have ever wondered what you would do during the Freedom Rides, WWII, the fight to end segregation, or the effort to hold America together during the Civil War, Heather deftly reminds us all: you're doing it right now. Folks! We're down to ONE WEEK before Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at their Own Game is released and I have BIG NEWS for you! Penguin Random House has given me special permission to give YOU a special preview of the book! Watch for that in the coming days and pre-order your copy RIGHT NOW!! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Like all good lefties, I cut my teeth in progressive politics learning all about the horrors of America's massive military industrial complex. In one of my very first college classes ever at the local community college, a passionate instructor who spent his spare time organizing peace marches against the Iraq War made sure each of his students left his class well-versed in America's overinvestment in defense spending and underinvestment in well, everything else.20 years ago I had zero appreciation for the reasons why America had amassed such tremendous military might. Like everyone else, I found America's disproportioned military budget to be one of our country's greatest sins. It was only 18 years later, after I undertook my exhaustive study of world history that I came to fully understand the antecedents that led American presidents of both parties to leave something called isolationism behind and lead America into creating by far the world's most powerful military. Instead, administration by administration, America fully embraced the concept of internationalism by building and continually reinforcing a military apparatus larger than the next ten countries combined. One large enough to “police” the entire world. So, before before you dig into this incredible conversation with Politico national security reporter Alexander Ward about his new book The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump I want to be sure you have a solid working definition of both these concepts: Isolationism: a policy of remaining apart from the affairs or interests of other groups, especially the political affairs of other countries.Interventionism: Interventionism is characterized by the use or threat of force or coercion to alter a political or cultural situation nominally outside the intervenor's moral or political jurisdiction.In short, in the early 20th century, isolationism became the dominant attitude among Americans who came to believe U.S. involvement in World War I was unnecessary, a product of messing in affairs isolationists believed had no impact on Americans and killed thousands of American men. The use of the word ‘believed' here is intentional because as appeasement (isolationism) failed to stop Hitler's aggressive plans to occupy and rule Europe it became obvious how war and turmoil abroad impacts Americans. Then the surprise attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor put a finer point on it: America ignores the rest of the world at its own peril. The rest, as they say, is history. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Throughout 2024 I plan on highlighting core grassroots organizations working on the frontlines of the Democratic Party's messaging revolution. Now, maybe you think the word “revolution” is too strong, but trust me, moving a party away from approaching voters with wonky policy appeals and achievements to focusing on making sure regular Americans know what the modern GOP has planned for them is no small reform. It requires a revolution of thought based on the cold, hard, realities of the American electorate i lay out in the book. In my forthcoming book Hit Em' Where it Hurts: How to Save Democracy By beating Republicans at their Own Game I highlight the other massive problem that hampers Democrats in terms of message distribution. You can have the greatest messaging in the world but it doesn't do s**t if no one sees it and folks, as I keep using google trend data to show how little Americans care about news and politics, no one sees it. This is the fundamental flaw behind the White House's efforts to lift Bidenomics: paid ads, speeches, and social content will never replace the ability of the right wing echo chamber to propel things, even false things like Joe Biden has dementia, to top-of-mind awareness which is what Democrats would have to accomplish to make voters responsive to Biden's record. Yes, message distribution is a tough nut to crack because it requires money, lots and lots of it. Which is why I want to talk to you today about something I call digital direct mail, but what you likely call memes and gifs. Direct mail is a staple expenditure for competitive campaigns and often voters in swing contests receive plenty of it even if you never do. In the book I highlight how much better Republicans tend to do with direct mail because they understand the target, the average voter, knows next to nothing about civics, cares even less, and will give the same direct mail your team agonized over for hours about 3 seconds of a glance before it is tossed directly into the recycling bin.Republicans understand voters and have constructed their direct mail to deliver the main message in just that one glance using very little copy. A rigorous direct mail campaign, one that targets voters with the multiple contacts research says voters need to actually show up and vote, easily runs l into the tens of thousands. It is expensive to produce and then distribution direct mail through the USPS. But when you strip down direct mail to its purpose, delivering a message, it is easy to see that the internet creates a massive message distribution advantage if campaigns choose to see it as such. That is why I'm delighted to introduce you to the Freedom Writer's Collaborative and one of their dedicated grassroots volunteers, marketing strategist Yvonne Brandon. Yvonne joins me to talk about the ready-to-use messaging toolkits created with the also awesome folks at DemCastUSA where the meme that leads of this post was pulled from. I hope you will consider using these toolkits, and even more importantly, getting your friends, family, and followers to do the same. Whether your network is 150 people, or 150, everyone is an influencer. FWC makes it easy. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

The first time I posted about the harsh reality of America's collapsing democracy, it seemed like many folks were genuinely surprised to see that America is not actually the Greatest Democracy on Earth. According to the democracy index compiled by the EIU and published annually by The Economist, America is actually a “flawed” democracy. The United States was downgraded from “full” to “flawed” democracy after half of America handed the keys to the White House to a wannabe dictator-con man who immediately began to roll back civil liberties and ignore the rule of law. The Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Sadly, America's not even the best “flawed” democracy. Technically we're only the 6th best “flawed” democracy, one spot behind Israel (a state folks who have been mainlining antisemitic propaganda from Hamas for the past decade describe as an “apartheid state” of “colonizing” “oppressors” committing “genocide.”)That's why the very second I saw the topic Steve Levitsky's and Daniel Ziblatt's latest book, Tyranny of the Minority I knew I had to get them onto the show. In Tyranny, Levitsky and Ziblatt, who are both professors at Harvard and are also the authors of another important book you should definitely read titled How Democracies Die, have put their fingers right onto the pulse of something you need to understand: America's institutions are failing and must be reformed for our democracy to ever flourish again.Our institutions were brilliant constructs of an 18th century world and a newly born country with one common fear among its creators: too much consolidation of federal power. Thus, America's Constitution was constructed to remove the creation of policy from the direct control of its chief executive, which is why most Americans are familiar with the terms “checks and balances” and “separation of powers” even if they'd be hard-pressed to specify what it means exactly, or how it actually works, in any meaningful way. So concerned with the centralization of national power were the Founding Fathers that they codified checks and balances and separation of powers within each branch of government too.As America is painfully learning right now, the House of Representatives was given sole “first mover” power in the appropriations process even though the “power of the purse” was granted to Congress at large. We can not fund the government without the House of Representatives which is why having it closed for 3 weeks while the Republican Party fights over custody of the kids is so damaging to our domestic and foreign policy interests. Its why federal judicial appointments and treaty approval power belongs solely to the Senate. Its why Chief Justice John Marshall wasn't laughed out of the room when he asserted that the judicial branch had a “right of review” of actions taken by the legislative and executive branches in what went on to be called “judicial review.” Yes, the Founding Fathers were positively OBSESSED about centralized power and did everything they could to gum up the works and force compromise in a system designed with one main goal in mind: to avoid creating a tyranny of the majority. American institutions are designed to have a bias against action. It is very easy to propose legislative goals and very hard to actually enact them. This was true in America's best of times and this, my friends, is not the best of times. Fast forward 236 years and the very same institutional checks and balances that were supposed to protect us from a king have left America all but paralyzed on policy formation. Name a pressing policy problem and you'd be hard pressed to find Congress effectively legislating it despite robust public opinion begging for action on issues like immigration reform, climate change, and gun safety. So what happened? Why have the institutions that served our young Republic so well, for so long, suddenly feel like they're in danger of collapse? Listen and find out. The Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thank you for reading The Cycle- On Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

What if I was to tell you the Republican Party's villain-in-chief, the main protagonist in the Republican Party's “Democrats are socialists” Big Lie, Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is an ideological moderate serving in a likewise still moderate Democratic Party? Understandably, you wouldn't believe me, so I would have to present some pretty compelling evidence to change your mind. Enter that evidence: VoteView. What is VoteView? VoteView is a data analysis tool built by a group of now famous political scientists that measures the ideological behavior of members of Congress, from it's very first session to the current 118th. It does so in an innovative way. Rather than look at members' campaign platforms, policy position memos, ads, and stump speeches for their stated ideology, VoteView populates its ideology scores using the non-unanimous roll call votes of members of Congress. Each vote, on each contentious bill, by each member of the House, and each senator, enters a model as a series of meaningless 0s and 1s which indicate whether each member who voted on a vote voted yeah or nay. This means the model calculates an ideological score without even knowing who the member is, what each vote was about, which party the member serves in, or whether they serve in a swing or safe seat. The scores range from -1 to 1 with -1 being the most liberal score and 1 being the most conservative. IIt is important to understand how to interpret VoteView scores. -1 to +1 is a narrow scale, the difference so between a 0.5 score and a 0.8 score is substantial! In VoteView a score equal or less than 0.5 (positive or negative) is a “moderate” score. A score like positive or negative 0.8 means the member is a strong ideologue. The Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication on a mission to bring better strategy to the Democratic Party. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. #TeamDemocracyUnlike member scores from GovTrack, VoteView is blind to the topic of the vote AND (and this is very important) plots ideology for each member as they relate to every other member of both parties. This means that we can get a full, largely unbiased, measurement of each member's ideology, but we can also measure ideological change across both time and chamber of Congress (House or Senate). In plain English, that means we can compare how polarized Congress has been across different points of America's 236 years of constitutional history. As you can see from the graph below (which does not yet include the current 118th session) the ideological distribution of each party in the House and Senate has changed considerably across time. The gaps between the red line (Republicans) and the blue line (Democrats) have narrowed and enlarged at different points of American political development. A large gap between the red and blue lines means high levels of polarization. Now, look closely at the two yellow loops I marked out and you will see we are currently as polarized as we were in the 1850s heading into Civil War. Good times! You should also be able to see that Republicans have moved further to the right than Democrats have moved to the left. The data don't lie: Republicans have polarized more than Democrats in Congress. Mapped Ideology of the Legislative Branch: 1st session to the 117th Session Now, lets take a look at what VoteView data can tell us about the ideological make-up of the 118th Congress, our current Congress. Ideology of the 118th House of Representatives Ideology of the 118th Senate What you are seeing above are two plot graphs that show the ideology scores for each of the 435 current members of the House and 100 members of the Senate. Again, the blue dots are Democrats, the red dots are Republicans. The axis of relevance here is the X axis (the bottom axis) which displays a dot for each member of each respective chamber to show where they fall along that -1 to 1 ideology score range. Two things that should stand out are the number of red dots versus blue dots that are on the respective ellipses (ends) as well as proximity of each cluster of dots to the middle of the plot because that middle reflects ideological scores close to 0 (perfect moderation) while the ellipses are scores that max out as very conservative/very liberal. If you look closely, you should see a clear asymmetry between the parties in terms of ideological extremism. Here's a fun fact: there are 7 Republican senators who are more conservative than Elizabeth Warren is liberal (Schmitt, Tuberville, Paul, Lee, Vance, Cruz, Braun) and although Warren is by far the most liberal Democrat in the senate (liberal score of -0.752) she is nowhere near as liberal as Mike Lee and Rand Paul are conservative (0.891, respectively). She is an outlier, they are an entire caucus. As for AOC?AOC is just the 180th most liberal Democrat in the House of Representatives. Given that there are only currently 212 Democrats, that's pretty damn moderate! Now, you might be wondering, “Rachel, what does this even mean?” It means that America doesn't have a “both sides” problem, it has a Republican Party problem. And that, my friends, brings us to my conversation with David Corn about his recent book American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy, which is the feature of this Finally Back from Summer pod. As many of you know, Corn is the DC Bureau Chief of Mother Jones magazine and an intrepid investigative reporter who's so inside the Beltway he's outside it. What you may not know is that David offers a newsletter called Our Land which you can subscribe to here. So, how exactly did the Republican Party go crazy? It's a long story that begins…BIG NEWS!!!My magnum opus Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at their Own Game (Crown 2024) is available for pre-order RIGHT NOW! The Cycle- On Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thank you for reading The Cycle- On Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

I first learned about Way to Win when they published an analysis after the 2020 cycle empirically demonstrating the weakness of the Democratic Party's messaging strategy against the GOP's in the 2020 cycle. While Republican's focused on branding Democrats as dangerous socialists intent on destroying America, Democrats were branding Republicans as good friends they just couldn't wait to work with it! The poll-tested value of telling swing voters how great the other party is and how much you can't wait to work with them is pretty high, but the electoral viability of such a strategy is low, very low. In 2020, Democrats running on bipartisanship underperformed in “down ballot” elections losing 13 seats in the House and dropping winnable senate races in North Carolina and Maine that would have given Democrat's the power to reform the filibuster. So, heading into 2022, I was hyper-focused on getting Democrats to understand that because most Americans don't follow the news, especially not political news, if you want them to know the Republican Party has collapsed into a dangerous cult that's coming after their health, wealth, and freedom, you damn well better tell them yourself! Way to Win is on the frontline of groups working to bring that exact message to the masses and played a key role in helping to push Democrats to run on the Supreme Court's evisceration of Roe. In this episode I talk with Jennifer Ancona, co-creator and VP of Way to Win, about Way's MUST READ analysis of 2022 midterm messaging and how new messaging strategies helped Democrats defeat the Republican Party's “red wave” against all the odds. If you want more Democrats to find a Way to Win, donate to support Way's CRITICAL work right now!Thank you for reading The Cycle- On Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

If you want to get someone out of a cult, Dr. Steven Hassan is your man. Inspired to a career focused on cults by his own personal experience being tricked into joining one, Dr. Hassan has spent decades researching, writing, and talking about cults and is skilled at getting folks out of them. In fact, he literally wrote the manual on understanding and breaking cult allegiance, Combating Cult Mind Control (4th edition), which I strongly urge you to check out, ESPECIALLY if like me, you've lost friends and relatives into the Cult of Trump.Dr. Hassan has also created an excellent free resource called Freedom of Mind Resource Center which provides a wealth of information on how to help someone escape a cult. Especially compelling is Dr. Hassan's recent Ted Talk How to Tell If You're Brainwashed where you will learn some easy to implement techniques to bring your MAGA relatives back to reality. Please keep in mind, our Republican friends and relatives are victims of a targeted, intentional, well-funded multi-decade propaganda operation. They are NOT going to fix themselves. As the good Dr. points out, the only people that can save victims of the Republican's propaganda system are the people they have long term personal relationships with. In other words, if not you, who? Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Two years or so again I began an extensive research project into the totalitarian movements of the 1920s and 1930, with a heavy emphasis on Germany and Italy whose totalitarians regimes hailed from the political right. When I started this research project I knew very little about the process by which the National Socialists actually rose to power, this despite holding both a college degree and a PhD in political science. My general knowledge was limited to the major battles of WWII and what was by far the Nazi's worse crime: the systemic slaughter of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. With the tail end of the chaos of the Trump Administration and the Republican Party's attempt to seize power after the 2020 election, what I wanted from my research was to feel better about the durability of democracy in America. Instead, it made me feel worse. MUCH worse. Turns out, how fascism rises is a tale as old as time, and its one that has profound implications for America's current democratic woes. That means it's a tale that must be told. This is the first in a series of episodes designed to bring what I've learned the past two years to you and hopefully from you, to your friends, relatives, and other associates. To assist with this effort, I'm teaming up with real experts on the Third Reich and on authoritarianism to talk about different aspects of how exactly, the Nazis seized power. Today's expert is Benjamin Hett, Professor of History at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, author of the must-read book The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic. Whether it is the Weimer Republic in Germany, pre-Mussolini Italy, modern Hungary, or most Cold War Russia, the common thread behind every successful totalitarian movement is underreaction by the rest of society while there is still time to stop them. Once the crisis is obvious to everyone, it is already far too late. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Leigh McGowen, of IamPoliticsGirl and The Politics Girl pod fame, intrinsically gets the purpose, the proper forms, and the distribution realties of modern messaging. That's why I was jazzed to bring my fellow messaging (and messy bun) aficionado onto The Cycle to talk about her rise as one of the Democratic Party's brightest and best messaging stars. Leigh has launched Politics Girl on YouTube so PLEASE SUBSCRIBE NOW. You'll find links to all of her great messaging content in one convenient space! So, what happens when you bring two fiery suburban mom messaging reformers together in one pod? You'll have to listen to find out. Spoiler Alert: Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

If you find polling interesting or frustrating (or both!) this is the episode for you! U-Mass Amherst pollster and Associate Professor Alex Theodoridis is on the pod to talk about challenges facing modern polling and how to properly conduct and present survey results given the impacts on mass behavior of hyperpartisanship, which you should think of as partisanship, but on steroids. In addition to the above conversation I want to make damn sure you see Alex's data drop from their latest poll, which quite clearly illustrates the effect propaganda is having on rank and file Republicans (and ONLY on them) in regards to mainstreaming the very dangerous Great Replacement Theory. Right wing media has been working hard to lay down the antecedents to the same type of dehumanizing “othering” perfected by Joseph Goebbels for the Nazis and folks, IT'S WORKING. What you are looking at is data being properly reported out to account for the reality that political survey data must now be analyzed broken down by party, with each party's independent “leaners” added to the pool of admitted partisans. You see “All respondents” which is the collective responses from everyone surveyed, followed by the responses by party group. The poll question, “Do some elected officials want to increase immigration to bring in obedient voters to vote for them,” is derived from a narrative increasingly common on top-grossing Fox News shows such as Tucker Carlson's show. The first graph, subtitled “all respondents” shows the collective opinion of all people surveyed and finds 37% of all respondents agree, or strongly agree, with the statement. It is important to note that Alex and team, quite shrewdly in my estimate, left their question free of a partisan “nudge.” There is nothing in the survey question that provides a partisan “clue” as to which party is for, or against, the viewpoint because partisan cues are so powerful I once used an experimental survey design to demonstrate I could move support for cap & trade by 40 points among Republican respondents simply by telling respondents Republicans proposed the policy! Thus, this pool of respondents were given NO HINT of the “proper” partisan position. This is why the data reported is especially notable because as we look at the responses broken down by party, nearly half of Republicans and their leaners STRONLY AGREE with the statement. The best point of comparison is the “pure” independent pool (no leaners) where just 21% of respondents strongly agree. Two main takeaways here, folks. One, Great Replacement Theory is now a mainstream, near majority, attitude among rank and file Republican voters That's REALLY bad because as we're already seeing that when you've been brainwashed into thinking your facing an existential race crisis, you do crazy s**t like armed insurrections and ordering drive bys on Democrats. But its also important because it quite clearly quantifies what I will call the GOP's propaganda effect. It is real, it is measurable, and it is coming for democracy. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

When you have to google the spelling of “cuckold",” you know you're about to drop a hot pod! The Liberty Way reads like some kind of modern Footloose, forcing students to adhere to a moral code so strict, you expect the punishments to include stoning. That's why the revelation that when “America's largest Christian university's” President Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becki Falwell have a “cuckold” itch, they sneak off to South Beach to scratch, its a REALLY BIG DEAL. And because Falwell Jr. had the good sense to be exposed as the world's biggest religious hypocrite during the heavy news cycles of the Trump Administration he helped create by handing America's evangelicals to Donald Trump on a silver platter, this particular scandal may have slipped past you. That's a damn shame because it couldn't have happened to a more deserving person, which is why I'm deeply grateful to Miami filmmaker Billy Corben not only for making a doc about Falwell's sex scandal, but making it so compelling you have to watch it all. And as Billy says, “good night and good cuck.” Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Did you know that in order to advance in ‘degrees' in the Proud Boys you have to vow to stop jacking off so you can unleash your pent-up violence on your innocent victims?! That's why you NEED a copy of Andy Campbell's new book: We Are Proud Boys: How A Rightwing Street Gang Ushered In A New Era Of American Extremism. I haven't had a chance yet to present the sum of my research into the collapse of democracies and the rise of totalitarians, but rest assured, I intend to spend the next year of my life impressing upon you just how far down the fascism rabbit hole America has already slipped. Especially in the formation of the violent, right-wing domestic terrorism groups American law seems hapless to preemptively address. We'll kick off our year-long effort with a look at Nazi militias like the Proud Boys, which Republicans have spent the past few years normalizing and legitimating. The “extremism” beat is usually a lonely beat, but that was before the American Republican Party decided to collapse into a fascist cult. Now it is one of the most important, and dangerous, beats in contemporary journalism. That's why you should give Andy Campbell an immediate follow and pick up a copy of his book, RIGHT NOW! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

In this short, but spirited conversation, Tom Bonier of Target Smart and Simon Rosenberg of NDN and host of the With Democrats, Things Get Better series, joins me on the pod to laugh at the Republican Party's red tinkle. Target Smart, it is the Democrat's premier voter targeting firm and creator of the incredible Target Early tool, which allows users to easily and quickly access critical information such as registration and voter turnout. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

I'm excited to bring you this conversation with Francesca Tripodi, Assistant Professor at the School of Library Info and Library Science & senior researcher at the Center for Info, Tech, and Public Life at the venerable UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss her new book, The Propagandists' Playbook: How Conservative Elites Manipulate Search and Threaten Democracy, which is a deep dive into how the Right dominates social media. This book and pod is a must read/listen for anyone involved in social media, from big time influencers to regular digital activists looking to maximize their online reach. I'll leave it at that. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow opened her now famous speech on the floor of the Michigan senate by calling out the reason her Republican senate colleague chose to target her in a fundraising email that is part of a party-wide effort to brand Democrats as child groomers (proof positive of QANON’s continued influence in the modern Republican Party).McMorrow knew why she was personally targeted, saying it is “because I am the biggest threat to your hollow, hateful scheme because you can’t claim you’re targeting marginalized kids in the name of quote ‘parental rights’ if another parent is standing up to say no.” Sadly, McMorrow is right that it matters she is a “straight, white, Christian, suburban mom” because above all else in 2022, Democrats must convince white suburbia that the modern Republican Party is not fit to govern a democracy and disqualify their structural predisposition to ‘change’ which is the mechanism that drives the midterm effect among swing voters. To win in 2022, Democrats need to drive their own coalition of voters to the polls to dominate the turnout game, while simultaneously pushing the small, but critical, pool of swing voters away from casting ballots for Republicans-any Republican. If Democrats fail to do so, control of Congress will flip to an anti-democratic, fascist-curious Republican Party who as of today, intends to use that power to help reinstall an insurrectionist into the most powerful office on Earth. What McMorrow then dished out to her Michigan Republican colleagues was precisely the kind of offensive, matrix-breaking, moral outrage messaging Democrats up and down ballots and across America must bring to bear in their own campaigns if they hope to defeat a radicalized, frankly dangerous, Republican Party this fall. Though “the speech” is well known, what is lesser known is the story behind the woman who gave it. Activated by the election of Trump Mallory McMorrow rode her “incandescent rage” from being a postcard-writing grass-roots activist, to flipping a Republican-held state senate seat in 2018. I love her story so much because it could easily be yours. We need 1,000 Mallory McMorrows out there on the stump. If we had them, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Maybe YOU are the next one? Redistricted into a safe seat, McMorrow is now lending her considerable political talents and her small, but mighty, war chest to one of the most important offensive efforts for Democrats at the state legislative level in the 2022 cycle: flipping both chambers of the Michigan state legislature. Thanks to the ballot initiative process and Michigan’s voters, Republicans must face free and fair districts for the first time in decades in Michigan leaving them uniquely vulnerable to defeat this cycle. SOGive Michigan some love! Editors note: “Democrats are child groomers” emerged as one of the most often cited rationales by Trump supporters for their “anything goes” tolerance to the boss’s behavior. It is designed to win elections, of course. But it is also serves to dehumanize Democrats in order to justify past and potentially future acts of political violence. It is critical for everyone working for democracy to understand what will be coming at Democratic candidates already running against hostile in-party fundamentals this fall, and why the GOP has settled on such a noxious line of attack. Whatever strategy Democrats ultimately settle on, it will have to compete against the Republicans’ no-holds-barred approach to 2022. Please consider supporting my efforts with this substack with a subscription, paid or for free (and PLEASE do not do paid if you are broke!) Paid subscriptions allow me the time and resources to devote to this project. Another fantastic way for you to support this effort is by sharing it on your social media accounts. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

If “guilt by association” also works for “coolness by association” I have officially arrived! Its not every day that I get someone who has interviewed the President of the United States to come onto the pod (though I should probably note I’ve had at least 3 on here) but STILL! She’s an academic so it counts for more! When THE HCR (as some of her fans refer to her) agreed to come onto The Cycle I was…. I was especially keen to talk to Heather about America’s current democratic crisis which has half the country at least fascist-curious. BUT, I also wanted to give you folks a glimpse into Heather herself- what motivated her efforts to bring her scholarship to a mass audience and why its resonated with so many people. If you somehow haven’t heard of heather until now, I strongly recommend you subscribe to her #1 substack, check out her pod cast Now & Then, and check out her SIX books on American history. Like this podcast? Consider subscribing to support its production and sharing it with your friends! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Political Behavior 454! Today I am going to expose you to one of several research books that have come out in the past few years that help explain modern political behavior, which is distinct from political behavior of previous decades in several measurable and important ways. Dr. Jonathan Weiler, Director of Undergraduate Global Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and co-author of Pick Up or Prius: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain American’s Great Political Divide is on the show today to help you understand just how profound the “divide” between the Left and the Right is. So exactly what are these 4 questions that are so powerful they can “explain our political divide?” You’ll have to listen to find out! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve had a lot of fascinating conversations with my Cycle guests, but this pod with David Pepper, former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party and author of what Politico Mag calls “the thriller that predicted the Russia Scandal,” is one for the record books. His new book, Laboratories of Democracy: A Wake Up Call From Behind The Lines takes you into the complex world of state politics- a strange new world with new life, and new civilizations that pass legislation via simple majorities. When you agree with the legislative agenda of the party controlling your state and a “simple majority” system is everything the federal system is not: responsive, efficient, competent. Federalism and simple majority requirements allows states to serve as what Justice Brandeis "called “laboratories of democracy.” Some of America’s best policies have been grown in these labs. But now, the Republican Party, is using states to pass a veritable smorgasbord of radical, even fascist policies aimed specifically at giving conservatives direct control over modern American culture. Why? Because by the late 1980s it was clear to the Republican Party’s oligarchs the “culture” ship had already sailed, stranding them at port. So they devised a new strategy. Instead of fighting culture, they’d simply criminalize it. The Republican Party spent more than 20 years building the power and infrastructure it needs for this moment. You can ignore it, but I promise it won’t ignore you. Thank you for reading The Cycle- On Substack. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Believe it or not, when George W. Bush ran for the Republican Party’s nomination in 2000, he was able to at least tacitly support reauthorizing the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which was set to expire in 2004. Yep, you read that right. As radical as they might have seemed to you back then, as of 2000 most of the Republican Party was still quite sane, and intent on being a governing party. Their insanity didn’t really start until the mid-2000s, after Karl Rove demonstrated the power of base politics and everything went to s**t. Imagine that, party nominees with an incentive to cater somewhat to members of the opposition party to win national elections. Those were the days! If you are a subscriber to The Cycle (I love you all, but I most especially love those subsidizing my efforts to save democracy via a paid subscription) you likely have decent working knowledge of the politics of gun control, the GOP’s nearly 20 year obstruction of literally ANY reform, and the radicalization of the NRA under Wayne Lapierre. In Gun Politics: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized the Rest of America, gun industry insider-turned-whistleblower Ryan Busse gives us what old school radio icon Paul Harvey called, “the rest of the story.” And what a story it is! If you want to hear it, you’ll need to tune in! Also, don’t forget to buy Ryan’s book at any fine independent book store (or Amazon if you’re lazy like me). Can’t afford a subscription? PLEASE use the free subscription option- I don’t judge! Who isn’t broke right now. What matters to me is you get the info. And remember, its tots free to share this pod with your friends so they don’t miss out on all the fun (and the profanity!) Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Mary Trump has been very busy since she first emerged on the national stage after sacrificing much to share thousands of personal records documenting Trump family corruption with investigators from the New York Times.She doubled down on her gift to America by next releasing audio of Trump’s federal judge sister admitting his entire schtick is an immoral long con. In other words, Mary Trump is one bad ass motherf*cker. Two books later, and a podcast you should be sure to check out, Mary is making her 2nd appearance here on The Cycle to discuss her latest book, The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal. Enjoy! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

When I first spotted the title of my friend Tom Nichols’ new book I knew it needed to serve as the opening pod cast for season 2. Why? Because Tom’s excellent thesis, that 80 years of peace, prosperity, improving life conditions, and tech have led us to what I call a “decadence" issue. Put simply, Americans are so comfortable, and so far removed from past tribulations, they have done what comfortable people do: turned their angst both inward, and towards the respectively trivial. In short, we’re fat, happy, comfortable and charging head first into a self-imposed chaos mostly out of boredom. I refuse to tell you anymore about his book, if you want to know, you’ll have to listen to this short, but critical conversation on why Americans have become Our Own Worst Enemy. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Political scientists of the future will no doubt burn a lot of digital ink trying to identify where things went off the rails in 21st century America. Like the first shot of the Civil War, the near-collapse of our democracy in 2020 and 2021 stand out as pinnacle moments in what is, at least for now, a “cold” Civil War. With the rule of law under severe strain from the full-frontal assault against it by President Trump and his Republican Party peers, the GOP is increasingly using control of government at the state level to codify their anti-democratic efforts. As my friends Cornell Belcher, Kurt Bardella, and I tried to make as clear, a country in which one of its two ruling parties is changing laws to consolidate power and to undermine democracy’s most sacred tenet, free and fair elections, we have moved way beyond a Susan Collin’s “very concerned” and into So, to say that author Brynn Tannehill’s in her new book American Fascism: How the GOP is Subverting Democracy is timely is an understatement. Tannehill adopts a “watch what they do, not [just] what they say” approach to her meticulously researched book to answer THE core question of our time: is the modern Republican Party developing into an Americanized version of german or Italian fascism? The fascism label may sound like nothing more than the same type of rhetorical red meat thrown about by the Right accusing Democrats of “socialism.” But two things make contemporaneous concerns about the Right adopting fascism distinct and very different than the Right’s accusations of socialism on the Left. The first is the GOP, unlike the obscure and powerless socialists of the far left, is now controlled by its radical factions. Extremists now hold critical party leadership positions at both the state and federal level. The second distinction is the GOP is already using unilateral control in states like Texas, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, to redefine government- allowing governors to usurp local authority implementing legislation to undermine free and fair elections. Al Gore called impending climate change from man-made activities an “inconvenient truth” in his seminal lecture of the same name, presented as a documentary in the early 2000s. The collapse of America’s conservative party into fascism is our second “inconvenient truth.” Gore’s clarion call about climate change failed to provoke action.Will we make that mistake twice? Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Friends, I’m sorry about the hiatus for the pod so many of you have graciously endured while I launched Strike Pac, prepped my house for my exodus back out West, and dealt with my appendix trying to murder me. That so many of you suffered in silence was not lost on me, and is massively appreciated. Y’all are some really good humans! Also, before I get into the summary of the pod, I am now at a place where I can start to incorporate some of Strike Pac’s work into the paid subscriber only content/opportunities and start paying you guys back for all of your support (and patience). I happen to owe my paid subscriber crew a special preview opportunity. SO, I am going to host a paid-subscribers sneak preview at our next ad that includes a panel discussion with some of my Strike PAC team mates. Watch for that in your inbox in the coming days. Now, with no further ado, I hope you enjoy my fiery conversation with the great Kurt Anderson, a multiple New York Times bestseller and author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America. As I tell Kurt in our conversation, his book pulls together two of the most important elements that drive my work. The first is that nothing that happened to move our economy from post-New Deal Keynesian economics to a redux of Gilded Age economics was accidental. The GOP came to dominate economic policy, regulatory policies, and other core policy areas because they created short and long term strategic plans created by smart people to do so. AND they executed them. I want to highlight that because that is, of course, lies at the heart of what I am trying to build for Democrats. One of the largest disadvantages Democrats face in the polarized era is the belief that there is some inherent inability for Democrats to centralize their strategy to compete with the GOP. Not only can we, we must! The second point ties closely with my economic branding strategies. Kurt’s work in Evil Geniuses clearly explains how and why the Republican Party’s “Reagan Revolution” ended up decimating the American middle class, killing social mobility, strangled Johnson’s Great Society in infancy, and yielded American infrastructure and research superiority to pay for tax cuts for their billionaire donors. My job is to distill the above indictment of the Republican Party’s failed economic policies into hard-hitting, emotive ads and hopefully, get all Democratic candidates hammering this message. Your job is to listen to this pod & read Kurt’s book. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

When UC-San Diego political science Associate Professor Seth Hill and his co-authors dropped their latest article in the journal Science Advances, the title immediately caught my eye. That title was “Not by turnout alone: Measuring the sources of electoral change, 2012 to 2016.” Now, having spent the better part of 2 years arguing with people about the role of turnout on electoral outcomes, my immediate thought was, “why are they burying the lead here?” That’s because from my perspective, the novel finding is turnout does, in fact impact election outcomes. That a small portion of Independents, largely the 5%-10% of the electorate we call “pure” Independents switch from one party’s candidates to the other party’s candidates, often cycle-to-cycle, is what I consider the status quo. But demonstrating turnout rates of various demographic groups within each party’s coalition (what the authors call “composition” explains at least a portion of the variance in party electoral performance cycle-to-cycle? Let’s just say that before that became the new conventional wisdom, it helped make me a pariah on Election Twitter after I waded into an ongoing “this not that” debate I was previously blissfully unaware of. Its not just that the authors of this analysis deploy a really artful research design to tease out “conversion” versus “composition” effects on vote outcomes in the 2012 and 2016 cycles. That alone makes this research some of the most consequential political behavior work to be released in the last few years, at least in my biased opinion. What really makes this analysis interesting is that the authors demonstrate party asymmetry in “conversion” versus “composition” impact. Republican vote share is more influenced by “conversion,” while Democratic vote share is more heavily influenced by “composition.” But wait, that’s not all! The authors also discover that a state’s status as a “realigning” versus “dealigning” state also matters. In states moving towards competition for Democrats such as Georgia, the composition effect is more powerful. But in states moving away from competition, like in the Midwest, conversion is more powerful. And that’s with just 2012 and 2016 data before turnout really juiced! This led me to ask Seth Hill, the guest on this episode’s pod about what he expects the 2020 data to look like. And a whole lot more interesting questions that you definitely don’t want to miss! Rachel Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

In his very first podcast, Professor Emeritus at University of California, San Diego and prolific political scientist Gary Jacobson previews the 2020 updates to his longitudinal research on key voting behaviors of the American electorate. If you’re wondering what it means to say America’s politics have “nationalized” Jacobson’s research has you covered. Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Greetings cool cats & kittens,Today I’m releasing my fascinating conversation with Chris Bail, who runs The Polarization Lab at Duke University. Chris has a new book out: Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing which presents analysis from a major study he and his colleagues in the lab conducted on polarization and social media. The study attempts to answer some of the most important questions we have about the role of social media as one of many mechanisms contributing to our polarization and hyperpartisanship. Using what we political scientists call a “mixed methods” approach, the study utilizes data and in-depth interviews to uncover a surprising finding- one that you might find counterintuitive. What is it? If I tell you here, you’ll miss out on our amazing conversation! Rachel Love this pod cast? Tell your family, friends, neighbors, your favorite Starbucks barista! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,I hope you’ll listen to my conversation with fellow political scientist and political behavior expert David Moscrop. In addition to his impressive scholarly research, Dr. Moscrop has also written a very accessible book that explains why humans are poorly-suited for democracy.Titled Too Dumb For Democracy? Why we make bad political decisions and how we can better ones documents the limits of human decision-making, noting in particular how decision-making deficiencies are particularly pronounced in the political context which us political scientists understand as perpetual contests for power and resources.Now, because David is in Canada I used this opportunity to not only highlight this insightful and important research into our mental and psychological limits for fair, equitable, and healthy self-governance, but also to emphasize how determinative a country’s institutional design, rules, and regulations are for conditioning human democratic behavior.In places like Canada, where the political institutional structures, rules, and regulations rein in ideology, hyperpartisanship, and “tribalism” democracy is far healthier.Our political institutional structures, rules, and regulations do the opposite, setting us up for failure.Enjoy!(Enjoy this pod? Consider supporting it with a paid subscription and/or telling your friends & followers about it!) Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Friends,What happens when a political scientist with specific expertise in presidential nominations and general elections joins up with two of Washington’s best sourced “stump” reporters to talk about their tell-all “What Happened” book on the 2020 cycle? Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Like many of you, the realization that Democrats would have majority control of the Senate after the improbable victories of Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s runoff elections on January 5th was electrifying! I imagine that for one of my personal heroes, Stacey Abrams, it also came with a deeply satisfying “see! we told you this electoral strategy would work!” as we saw how modernized electioneering can pay dividends even in some of the harshest electoral environments. My joy was tempered only by the fact that Democrats would have a 50 seat majority-where Vice President Harris would have to step in and provide tie-breaking votes for all legislation Democrats managed to pass with a simple majority, which I’m sorry to tell you is not a lot of legislation. Only bills that qualify under something called “reconciliation” pass through the senate via simple majorities (though confirmations are all now free from the filibuster). A 50/50 senate involves a power sharing agreement between the majority party, which is the party that holds the tie-breaking vote of the vice president, and the minority party. The minority party in this case being the modern Republican Party, a party that has been completely overtaken by extremism and run by a leader in Mitch McConnell who has spent the past decade destroying the norms of the senate in pursuit of party politics with abandon. I was trying to dust of my THC-laden brain cobwebs from 2002-2003 to recall what it was like when the senate last did its 50/50 power-sharing stint. But that was a weird time. First off, Jim Jeffords quit being a Republican shortly after and the power sharing arrangement with Dick Cheney as tie-breaker stuff only went on for a couple of months. Then 9/11 happened, and for the Millennials and Zoomers, that changed everything. As Schumer was absolutely right to recognize, the agreement reached back then was bound to be far more amenable than anything that might have been negotiated 20 years later during the peak of the polarized era- with Mitch McConnell. This was immediately validated when McConnell refused to hand over control of the chairs of the senate’s committees- holding them hostage for 3 weeks until verbally agreeing to transfer them to Democrats and then taking an additional 4th week to actually follow through with it. The effect of this was to reduce the Democrat’s tenure in the majority by a full month- certainly more than a symbolic effort. Further, McConnell impacted the transition significantly by recessing the senate until January 19th, the day before Biden’s inauguration. The impact of this decision was largely discussed in terms of any potential movement on an impeachment trial- which the long recess delayed. Impactful as that was perhaps more important was the impact it had on the Biden transition, already significantly hamstrung by Trump’s efforts to pull off a coup. Reports of a “hostile” transition, of Trump officials in key departments like the Department of Defense refusing to meet with President-Elect Biden and his transition team, something we’d not seen in the modern era and for obvious reasons having to do with national security complication, tended to focus on speculations of potential pettiness on the part of the departing president and/or his team in the given departments investigators are now exploring whether access was denied for other, much more nefarious reasons.As it relates here though, the Biden Admin is starting with a very atypical deficit. Normally, pre-inauguration, key cabinet personnel like the Secretary of Defense, Homeland Security (albeit this is a newish position), Secretary of State- cabinet positions that (aside from when they are nominated by Donald Trump) tap unquestionably qualified, non-controversial nominees because they are so critical to the security and smooth operation of the country, they shouldn’t be left vacant ever. Well, so petty is the modern GOP which prioritizes f*****g with Democrats far above national security, when Joe Biden was sworn in at noon on January 20th 2021, he had 0 cabinet members in place. Yes, you read that correctly. 0. Now, it should be noted that Trump only had 2 cabinet members in place- both within the national security realm- and that is really low compared to the 6 that were confirmed by inauguration for Obama and the 7 for George W. Bush. BUT, and this is a critical distinction, Trump’s own party controlled the Senate and some of the issues on delay & low confirmation rates stemmed from Trump’s unorthodox choices in some key cabinet positions (Betsy Devos?!)- even back in that original class of nominees who unlike later picks, could at least get confirmed by a REPUBLICAN senate.And friends, here is another REALLY IMPORTANT distinction that I think makes the 6 & 7 pre-confirmed, ready to roll America, cabinets of George W. Bush and Barack Obama versus the 0 confirmed cabinet members given to Biden in the midst of a global pandemic and economic crisis even more remarkable. 16 days into his administration, with Democrats ostensibly in control of the Senate and a crop of nominees who are among the best qualified and least controversial a group ever put forward by a president, just 6 of them have been confirmed by the Senate. Two weeks in and Biden is just now reaching the starting line of his predecessors. Given this, shall we say “rough start,” I wanted to talk with someone who is really well-versed in the senate- its norms, its operations, how the rules work, and what we might expect in a 50/50 “power sharing” arrangement with the world’s most dishonest broker to function like. I wanted this person to be reasonably well-removed from the current senate, from current senators, from staffers, etc. because I wanted them to feel comfortable, due to separation from the current institution and its members and staffers, to speak frankly about the institution without the urge to protect it too fiercely. I desperately wanted that person to be Lawrence O’Donnell, who I find to be one of the most compelling and interesting hosts on MSNBC. And I’m not just saying this because when my election theory first emerged, it was Lawrence who reported on it after getting this article about it sent to him by our now mutual friend Karen Russell. Karen is the daughter of some guy named Bill Russell you’ve probably never heard of.Lawrence’s coverage of my research helped it gain an audience and also led to one of the most valuable compliments I’ve ever received, one I fall back on at times when I need to be reminded that my work has value. Lawrence and I had several great convos on his show about my electoral theory which, did, after all, end up nailing the 2020 presidential election outcome (which is one thing) but much, much more importantly, really getting the why and how the 2020 election would play out. So I was over the moon when Lawrence agreed to come onto the pod for what was supposed to a short convo, but what ended up being a long one. One in which I learned ALOT about the senate, then and now. Things I had NO IDEA about. Great stories about Lawrence’s time there. I went into this convo understanding I had serious weaknesses about understanding the rules and procedures of the senate. And about 10 versions of questions from you about how to get Joe Manchin and Kristin Sinema to give in on the filibuster (I think Lawrence’s answer will surprise you there). As best as I could I tried working your questions into this conversation and where I failed, I apologize- I’m not too proud to admit I got very nervous! I hope you all enjoy the conversation and an opportunity to get to know Lawrence O’Donnell a little better. I know I did. Rachel Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

If there is one other person out there more bullish than I am regarding Donald Trump’s capabilities for Mussolini-like behaviors, it’s his niece Mary Trump. Mary made a splash when her tell-all book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man released. The book was unique because it combined an autobiographical account of Mary’s family history as a Trump and her various interactions with the man she simply refers to as “Donald,”with detached psychoanalysis of the various Trump relatives covered in the book via her education and training in psychology, which includes a Ph.D. from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies. Thus the book is captivating- combining clinical diagnoses of various Trump family psychoses with Mary Trump’s personal anguish, loss, pain, and decades of crushing disappointment not only with Donald Trump, but with multiple members of the Trump clan. In our convo, Mary and I decompress from Wednesday’s Capitol siege, where her crazy uncle unleashed a throng of “deplorables” on Article II to try to physically keep them from certifying Joe Biden as the next president of the United States and seize control of the government on his behalf. Like many Americans, Mary & I are frustrated at the lack of security that was provided to the Capitol Building even when the threats being made against Congress were well publicized (as you know, yours truly devoted two episodes of this pod to potential violence in D.C. on July 6th and Trump’s efforts to amass a MAGA Army). Mostly, we spend an hour ranting about Donald, radicalism in the Republican Party, worrying about sustaining democracy in America, and having the same conversation many of you have been having this week: can America survive the final week of Trump’s presidency? Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

Wednesday the 6th will be Trump-driven shitshow in D.C. when Republicans in Congress will turn a mere formality with the Electoral College certification process into a clown show. Thanks to an initial “toe-in-the-water” by senator and 2024 hopeful Josh Hawley, support for the circus in the senate, the chamber supposedly for grown-ups, quickly ballooned to a dozen (now 13) Republican senators. The effort already had robust enthusiasm in the House. Nearly 70% of that chamber’s Republican caucus, including their rudderless “leader,” Kevin McCarthy will vote against certification.Trump’s effort to steal the election, which has unfolded almost entirely in plain sight and is being done using a classic GOP methodology of “gaslighting:” accusing the victim of the very crime being perpetrated against them by making his rallying cry “Stop the Steal.” The irony of their effort to commit election fraud at a massive scale via making erroneous claims of voter fraud seems entirely lost on President Trump and most of his Republican enablers. With about half of the Republican Party devolving into what Steve Schmidt has dubbed a pro-authoritarianism faction (after all, if Republicans got what they wanted, democracy would end in U.S., Trump would be installed as a leader or an authoritarian state, and one party rule would commence) the events of the past two months are new chapters in a crisis that has been playing out within the Republican Party for the past decade. I had come to think of the wart within the GOP as over since Donald Trump not only won the Republican primaries in 2015, but more importantly, became formally nominated by the Republican Party at their party’s nominating convention in the summer of 2016. Until that event, the party still had power to stop Trump’s candidacy, and given his “outsider” status and clear lack of the behavioral requisites to perform the job, legitimate rationales for doing so. Such a move, while being accepted by the country’s middle, would have been seen as provocative by the progressive base of the Democratic Party and would have provoked a mass implosion within the Republican base. That would have surely written off the GOP’s chances of reclaiming the White House in 2016- a situation that too many elites found untenable after 8 years under Obama. Ultimately, this is what led the party to accept Trump as their standard bearer, even though many of them had devoted the months previous to arguing with their peers that nominating Trump would not only destroy the Republican Party, but likely the very country itself. Once Trump won the general election though, and became transactionally useful to Republicans the fight for the soul of the Republican Party felt over. Trump had clear control over Republican voters and because elected Republicans in Congress share his constituencies, four years of obedience ensued, leading to the least disciplined presidency in the country’s history that has already locked in “worst president” before the COVID19 crisis rolled in to allow Trump to leave his competitors so far in the rearview they can’t be seen anymore. MAGA became the modern version of the Republican Party (the 2020 Republican national convention was a great demonstration of what this means, but it can be summed up in one word: Trump) and current members of the party had just a few options to avail themselves to: conform proudly, acquiesce silently, or flee the party. Despite perceptions, the great majority of current Republicans, at least as of the onset of COVID19 were quite pleased with MAGA Republicanism, even the intentional cruelty, a fact that the other half of America, at some point, will have to allow themselves to confront. Yet, here we are, once again looking at a Republican Party being forced into a choice by Donald Trump: support authoritarianism one-party rule under Donald Trump or continued democracy. So far, because of Mitch McConnell and several other Republicans like senator Pat Toomey and Tom Cotton who remember what being a small c conservative is supposed to mean (it doesn’t involve acty of radicalism like sedition!) and like Brad Raffensperger, the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia, the anti-authoritarians within the Republican Party are maintaining the upper hand. McConnell’s anti-authoritarian faction are set to stand with senate Democrats on behalf of democracy and the rule of law on Wednesday. It’s not hyperbolic to note that the fate of 243 years of democracy hangs on McConnell’s ability to deliver their votes. Fortunately, because we’re still seeing additions to McConnell’s faction, and pro-democracy activism from Dick Cheney, this suggests the votes will be there on Wednesday. This is thanks, in no small part to to the shiny example that Raffensperger is setting for his fellow Republicans. By standing stalwartly against Trump’s illegal power grab, even in the face of extreme pressure, Secretary Raffensperger has single-handedly done more to subvert Trump’s anti-democratic coup than anyone else. Because keep in mind, Trump alludes to having made similar calls to the one Raffensperger shared with the public. Yet, we have learned of only the one. The President has cooked up a bit of political theater for the streets of D.C. to correspond with the drama inside the Capitol building. He means to stage a show of support for the country’s “rightful” king. Trump has demonstrated time and again a total lack of regard for the public’s safety, as the illegal clearing of Lafayette Square Park showed. He’s hoping to lure to D.C. clashing factions: his “team” of racists, “Proud Boys” neo-nazis, and other “deplorables” against “antifa” protesters. Whether MAGA world actually believes, or not, the totally fabricated story Trump and his team tells to convince people that Joe Biden didn’t really win the 2020 election by 7 million votes and robust margins in eight swing states (the most narrow were WI, GA, and AZ but all three of those have been recounted multiple times and thus verified extensively thanks to Trump’s efforts) is moot. They will never admit one way or the other. So long as they pretend to believe it, they can continue to wield it like a weapon and try to drag American democracy down with them. So what can be done? Having both the truth and the law on your side is not inconsequential. What people can control is the truth. The true timeline, narrative, and facts of the election leaves zero room for Trump’s thesis to be true: and at some point, the truth and the law are coming for MAGA world and Trump’s tenure as president. As Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling explained in his latest news conference, truth is immutable. Trump’s fantasy world and the real one are on an inevitable collision course. There is a firm date, time, and location for this crash: January 20th, 2021 at high noon. Once the clock runs down to that moment, Trump world’s evasions will no longer work and as Brett Baier challenged senator Hawley last night in an interview on Fox News, Trump voters that are being led-on about the prospects of a Trump second term are going to get a harsh dose of reality. The question then becomes, what will happen then? Given last week’s podcast looking at lethal mass partisanship, the willingness of partisans to tolerate, even crave, physical punishment for the opposition party’s leaders and or even voters, it seems reasonable to worry about, and be wary of, the potential for political violence this month. Far worse than the fact that Donald Trump behaves irresponsibly with his rhetoric and seems incapable of appreciating the power of the presidency’s “bully pulpit” to incite violence, is the fact that he does get it. That he understands this power just fine. Indeed, watching Trump’s actions over the 5 years of his presidential experience, it’s not unfair to say that at times, Trump has intentionally tried to provoke violence- knowing full well what he was doing and frankly, enjoying the hell out of it. But what Trump has artfully arranged in D.C. goes far beyond treatment of counter-protestors at rallies, or the treatment of arrestees by police. What Trump appears to have been up to over the past two weeks is an effort to convince the public that the election was literally stolen from him and that people should come to D.C. on Wednesday, January 6th to “Stop the Steal.” Certainly, the KellyAnne Conway’s of Trump World would shoot these allegations down, asserting that of course Trump means to only have peaceful protestors come to D.C. to protest the election and would discourage any violence in his name. But watch Trump talk about the protests and about people coming to D.C. and it’s clear- Trump vision for these protests is an angry mob, pitchforks waving, demanding their rightful ruler be reinstalled to his rightful throne. The question is, what types of people will answer his call, and what level of devotion will be they be willing to bring to the cause? With the potential for violence and unrest high, does that make it more, or less likely, the type of crowd forms that is conducive to violence? Certainly, the bulk of Republicans who have been made to be upset about Trump’s loss and have been lied to in order to convince them that the election is being stolen would want to come to D.C. to engage in peaceful protest and would have no interest in violence or mayhem.But it would be naive, after Charlottesville and the events of the past few years not to assume that neo-nazis, white supremacists, and other violent groups are currently descending on D.C., as are “antifa” protestors deploying to counteract them. Security in the city will be a mess and there is no way I’d suggest heading to D.C. on Wednesday if your interest is in peaceful assembly. So it begs a question- will people be willing to subject themselves to potential harm on behalf of Donald Trump? To understand who and why might be willing to do so, I invite physician and sociologist Dr. Jonathan Metzl onto the show. He made a huge splash last year with his book and it’s provocative title, Dying Of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland. As I told Jonathan, the second I saw this book I KNEW it would resonate with my own research and with the political science literature on polarization and hyperpartisnahip generally. I’ve been “dying” to talk to him about his research for a long time, especially given that the COVID crisis came along and at a mass scale, “horribly vindicated” his thesis. We have a great chat about his work, talk about whether Trump’s base might be willing to “die for Trump” Wednesday, and bemoan and worry over our current collapsing democracy while musing over possible ways to save it.Given that today is the Georgia runoff, Dr. Metzl and I are hosting a live Zoom event tonight at 6pm (ETA) in honor of the release of the pod & in conjunction with tonight’s nerve racking election. The Zoom Q & A is open only to paid subscribers, who will receive an invitation email to the event later this afternoon. Happy Listening!! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

In the premiere episode of The Election Whisperer on The Cycle- On Substack the show’s first in audio-only format, Rachel recaps (as quickly as possible!) the months that have passed since the show went on hiatus. The post election period has been marked by the whole of the Republican Party enabling Trump’s democracy-destroying multiple coup attempts. Senator Josh Hawley has gone so far as to commit to “objecting” to Biden’s win on January 6th when the Senate meets to approve the Electoral College- a process that is a mere formality for the Senate, but will likely underwrite Hawley’s 2024 presidential bid. With bodies piling up by the hour from COVID and Biden being stonewalled by key agencies for the transition, tensions are mounting as the clock continues to tick down to January 20th.As such, Rachel brings an all-star team of political scientists onto the show-experts in political polarization perfectly suited for this moment. Their areas of expertise are negative partisanship and something called partisan schadenfreude. What is partisan schadenfreude? Put simply, it is the desire to harm or to see your political opponent harmed. Political scientists Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe argue that in America, polarization and hyperpartisanship have created a lethal mass partisanship- a negative partisanship that is so deeply negative, it has the potential to lead people to tolerate or committ themselves physical violence for partisan ends. Steven Webster, who along with fellow political scientist Alan Abramowitz introduced the concept of negative partisanship into the polarization and voting behavior literatures, also joins the conversation with a discussion of his new book, American Rage: How Anger Shapes Our Politics. A good time is had by all! Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe

The live episode aired at 9 pm ET on The Cycle on November 3rd. Rachel Bitecofer is joined by Jessica Post and Flip Pidot for a live look at the wild election results pouring in as polls finally closed across most of the country. For more, check out https://thecycle.news. All content and opinions presented herein, whether by hosts and guests, are for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment or other advice.  Get full access to The Cycle- On Substack at thecycle.substack.com/subscribe