Welcome to the deep dive. We have a heavy stack
of sources today and they're all pointing towards
political calculations, crises and these big
structural shifts happening in American power.
especially with that September 30th government
funding deadline just, well, looming. Yeah, it's
a lot. The sources are just packed with high
stakes political gamesmanship. You've got this
deep voter dissatisfaction running through everything
and then these institutional battles. I mean,
they could reshape everything from the economy
to, you know, fundamental civil rights. Right.
So our mission today is to connect these threads.
Because they seem separate, but they're not,
are they? Exactly. We want to link, say, what's
happening, or rather not happening, on the Senate
floor with a massive $30 million ad spend in
California over redistricting. It's about giving
you a quick, clear grasp of the strategies leaders
are using right now. And the overall signal,
instability, profound instability. OK, let's
dive in then, starting with that immediate instability,
the shutdown threat, this Washingtoning of chicken.
And the core fact seems to be. just a total communication
breakdown. That's right. The key players, Senate
leaders, John Thune for the Republicans and Chuck
Schumer for the Democrats, they're just not talking.
Even though they've known each other for years,
decades. It's decades. And this isn't just the
usual failure to compromise you see in Washington.
This feels different. It's like the personal
and electoral calculations have completely swamped
the basic job of governing. Yeah. And the relationship
itself, Thune and Schumer, is reportedly very
strained. Especially compared to how Schumer
managed to work, functionally at least, with
Mitch McConnell before. And part of that strain,
the sources suggest, is political maneuvering.
Thune's apparently, uh, miffed, is the word used.
Yeah, miffed. Because Schumer tried to go around
him. Tried to set up a meeting directly with
Donald Trump. Exactly. Which, by the way, didn't
even happen in the end. But the attempt itself...
That caused friction. Okay, so Thune's position
is I offered a clean bill kick the can down the
road seven weeks Just take the deal pretty much.
Yeah, but Schumer. Mm -hmm. He's Politically
trapped by his own base. Yeah, he's still feeling
the heat from that funding fight back in March
Remember his base felt he caved them right and
there's actual data on this internal threat There
is. They surveyed 18 Democratic Senate challengers.
Ten of them flat out refused to say they'd back
Schumer for leader. Wow. And the other eight,
they just wouldn't answer the question at all.
So that's that's more than dissent. It's basically
an internal revolt brewing. And that's before
you even factor in the the generational pressure
from the left, like AOC. Oh, absolutely. The
2028 shadow hangs over him. There's this theoretical
primary poll showing Representative Casio -Cortez
leading him, what, 55 % to 36 %? Huge gap. It
is. So the key insight here is that this shutdown
calculation, it's completely moved beyond governing.
It's just a zero sum fight now over who gets
blamed. OK, and this whole drama is playing out
against a backdrop of just incredible national
dissatisfaction. Staggering is the word. Multiple
polls are showing voters feel like the country's
in a crisis. Like the Strength in Numbers Verisite
poll, 60 percent say wrong track. That's a net
negative of 32 points. Yeah, and Gallup has it
even higher. 67 percent dissatisfied, a net minus
38. Quinnipiac found 79 percent of voters think
the U .S. is in a political crisis. I mean, those
numbers are... almost universal. They are. But
interestingly, the blame isn't really sticking
to one side yet. Look at Trump's approval. It's
underwater by 13 points overall. And specific
policies, like his tariffs, way underwater minus
24 points. 34 % approve, 58 % disapprove. You'd
think that would translate into a big Democratic
lead, but... But it hasn't, not really. The generic
House ballot, just asking Democrat or Republican
for Congress. It's only D plus five among likely
voters. Only five points. Which is, well, surprisingly
narrow given everything else. And if the shutdown
actually happens, what does the blame look like,
then? It's a perfect split, almost. 34 percent
say they blame Republicans, 34 percent blame
both sides, and just 23 percent blame the Democrats.
So the blame game is basically a draw right now.
Which means from a strategist's point of view,
you need a different angle. You can't rely on
just blaming the other side. And that's where
this tactical shift comes in, the Democratic
strategy. Exactly. This is really crucial. They
seem to be deciding to nationalize the election,
but not around, say, threats to democracy or
institutional norms. They're focusing on the
economy. pocketbook issue. Precisely. It's what
the sources are calling the price of eggs strategy.
And it's very targeted. Highly targeted. Yeah.
You've got this super PAC House majority forward
dropping three million dollars just on ten vulnerable
House Republicans. And the message is simple.
Very simple. Hitting them hard on failing to
lower prices for consumers and on votes that
made health care more expensive. And the thinking
behind this is based on polling that suggests
What? Well, the polling, according to these sources,
is pretty blunt. It suggests voters are so focused
on economic relief right now that they'd, quote,
happily give up democracy to get the price of
eggs down a dollar. Wow. That's stark. It is.
And that finding is directly driving their ad
campaigns, like in Wisconsin's third district
against Representative Derek Van Orden. What
are they doing there? They're running ads on
TV that look like social media posts featuring
an influencer, Kate Duffy, talking about cost
of living failures. It's tailored, it's modern,
and it's all about those grocery bills. OK, so
this intense focus on local prices, domestic
concerns. It's kind of a sharp contrast to what
seems like major fractures happening in bigger
political relationships, even globally. Yeah,
it feels like even alliances that seem stable,
whether personal or political, are cracking under
all this pressure. Let's look at two really unexpected
splits the source has highlighted. First, Trump
versus Russia. Right. Trump recently called Russia
a paper tiger. said Ukraine could easily take
back its territory. Which is quite a statement
from him. It is. And the reaction from Moscow
was fast and, frankly, pretty cutting. It really
suggests that old Trump -Putin bromance, as some
called it, might be well and truly over. What
did they say? Well, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov shot back. Russia is more compared with
a bear. There are no paper bears. And other big
names chimed in, too. Dmitry Medvedev, Margarita
Simonian from RT. They openly mock Trump, called
him a carnival huckster, said he'd been given
an alternative reality. So what's the significance
here? Why the change? Well, the speculation is
it's likely a fundamental split over how to end
the war in Ukraine. If that's true, if that alignment
is genuinely broken, that has huge geopolitical
implications. For NATO, for Republicans in Congress
who leaned on Trump's previous stance, it changes
the game. OK, now for a crack closer to home.
Trump versus Senator J .D. Vance. What happened
there? This one's interesting. Trump made a non
-medical claim warning pregnant women against
taking Tylenol, acetaminophen, claiming a link
to autism. Which the sources say has almost no
evidence. Close to none is the phrasing used.
But then J .D. Vance, who's known for being very
calculated. He contradicted Trump publicly. He
did, but subtly. He advised women to ask their
doctors that all drugs have side effects, doctors
know best. It was a clear, if polite, break from
Trump's statement. OK, Vance is known for being
strategic. So why risk pushback from the loyal
base by disagreeing even on something like this?
It looks like a calculated play for 2028, most
likely. Positioning himself. Exactly. He's trying
to carve out that lane of being mostly like Trump
on policy, but maybe not quite as... whack -a
-doodle on the personal stuff. The pragmatic
Trumpist lane, maybe? Sort of, yeah. Support
the platform, but skip the unnecessary drama
or, frankly, bizarre claims. If he can walk that
line while others maybe try to out -Trump Trump,
he potentially positions himself as the more
grounded, maybe more electable heir apparent
down the road. It's a long game. OK, so we've
gone from the immediate shutdown crisis to tactical
shifts like the price of eggs to these fracturing
relationships. Now let's get into those longer
term structural power struggles. The sources
point to battles over the very rules of the game.
Absolutely. Two big examples here. First, in
California with Proposition 50. Right. Governor
Newsom wants to temporarily take map drawing
power away from the state's independent commission.
Yeah. Take it away from the commission, give
it back to the state legislature with the very
open goal of flipping about five Republican House
seats by redrawing the districts. And the fight
against this is huge. Enormous. The opposition
is being bankrolled mainly by one mega donor,
Charles Munger Jr. He has a Ph .D. in physics
and he's a Republican, but he believes in the
independent commission. Deeply. And he's put
30 million dollars in so far just to defeat Prop
50. 30 million. And he's very hands on with the
campaign. Apparently so. He's dictating ad content.
Like the main ad right now shows a kettlebell
literally smashing wooden blocks that spell out
fair elections. Which sounds a bit old school.
That's exactly the criticism from some Republican
strategists. They're saying it's kind of boring,
very traditional, totally out of sync with the
fast paced, you know, very online tactics you
need to grab attention today. It's the old guard
versus the new map, basically. OK, so that's
a fight over legislative power. But maybe the
highest stakes structural fight is happening
at the Supreme Court. Definitely. Specifically
concerning the potential threat to same -sex
marriage, which was established federally by
Obergefell v. Hodges back in 2015. And the concern
is based on the court's potential makeup and
its recent rulings. Yes. Looking at the likely
ideological lines of the current justices, there
are probably six votes on the court right now
that could potentially overturn the federal right
to same sex marriage. And this comes down to
the standard the court used in the Dobbs decision,
the one that overturned Roe v Wade. Exactly.
To help you understand this, Dobbs got rid of
the federal right to abortion by arguing it wasn't
deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition.
That ruling basically introduced or elevated
this new legal test focusing purely on history
and tradition. So the big shift is moving away
from decades of legal precedent. That's the core
ideological move, yes. Away from stare decisis,
respecting prior decisions, towards this historical
test. Okay, for someone listening trying to really
grasp this, what's the single biggest implication
if precedent becomes secondary like that? Well,
the implication is pretty profound. It means
if a right wasn't explicitly protected way back
in, say, the founding era and same -sex marriage
clearly wasn't, it was illegal almost everywhere
for most of U .S. history, then this court feels
it has the justification to remove federal protection
for that right now. So established rights aren't
necessarily stable anymore. Potentially not.
It suggests the stability of law could become
secondary to whichever ideology happens to have
the majority on the court at any given time.
And there's a specific case that could be the
vehicle for this involving Kim Davis. That's
one potential path. The former Kentucky County
clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses
based on her religious beliefs, if the court
takes up a case like hers and rules that her
First Amendment right to practice her religion
overrides the established right to marry, Well,
that could be the mechanism to effectively undo
a Berger fell. And if that happens, same sex
marriage becomes a state by state issue again,
a complete patchwork. Yeah. Which then opens
up a Pandora's box of legal chaos. Like, does
one state have to recognize a marriage legally
performed in another state? That directly tests
Article four of the Constitution, the full faith
and credit clause. The potential fallout is.
OK, let's bring it back to ground level for a
final point, circling back to that theme of generational
anxiety we saw with Senator Schumer. There's
a local race in Massachusetts that seems to capture
this perfectly. Yeah, it's a really interesting
test case within the Democratic Party. Senator
Ed Markey, who's 79, is facing a primary challenge
from Representative Seth Moulton, who's 46, and
a Marine veteran. So the age gap is obviously
front and center. Markey would be 86 by the end
of another turn. That's the main driver, yes.
But there's also a policy split that Moulton
seems to be using very strategically. It's about
trans athletes. Ah, a really charged issue. What's
Moulton's position? Well, Moulton is generally
liberal. But he's deliberately broken from what
you might call party orthodoxy on this. He said
publicly he doesn't want his daughters getting
run over on a playing field by a male or formerly
male athlete. And he acknowledged that's controversial
within the party. He did. He even said Democrats
are supposed to be afraid to say that, which
shows he knows exactly what he's doing. So why
pick that fight? How does it play politically?
Well, look at the national polling. I believe
70 % of all U .S. adults actually agree with
Moulton's concern about fairness in women's sports.
70%. That's huge. It is. Now, Democrats themselves
are split more evenly. About 45 % support athletes
playing based on current gender. 41 % think birth
gender should decide for sports. So Moulton's
position, while potentially risky within a Dem
primary, actually aligns with a large majority
of the overall electorate. Exactly. It hits a
political sweet spot. He's highlighting the age
issue, but also using this specific culturally
resonant policy difference to potentially peel
off voters who might otherwise stick with the
incumbent. So this local primary becomes a fascinating
test. Can the younger, maybe more pragmatically
positioned Democrat use these potent social issues
combined with the age factor to actually unseat
entrenched power? It really could be. It encapsulates
a lot of the tensions we're seeing play out nationally.
So let's recap. We've seen a shutdown threat
basically built on silence, on non -communication
at the highest levels. Right. And an electorate
that seems united only in its deep dissatisfaction.
And political tactics shifting to focus intensely
on very local, very tangible pain points, like
the price of eggs, almost ignoring bigger institutional
crises. And underneath it all, these huge structural
battles are being fought, whether it's drawing
lines on a map in California for 30 million dollars.
Or redefining the very basis of constitutional
rights at the Supreme Court. And the common thread,
really, that connects all this and the source
material, it seems to be this increasing reliance
on just raw political power or pure ideological
tests. Not on established norms, not on precedent,
not on finding common ground. Less and less,
it seems. Whether it's the Senate threatening
a shutdown or the court potentially overturning
longstanding rights based on a new interpretation
of history, power and ideology seem to be winning
out. OK, and that brings us to our final thought
for you, the listener, to mull over. If the Supreme
Court really does continue moving away from relying
on legal precedent, if that history and tradition
standard becomes the dominant way constitutional
rights are defined, does that fundamentally change
how you think about stability? Not just stability
in the law, but stability across the entire American
political system. Yeah, I mean, if the rules
themselves can be rewritten based purely on who
holds power at a particular moment, how do you
plan for the future? How do you view the reliability
of the system itself? Something to think about.
Thank you for joining us for this deep dive.