August 31st, 2022 – Second Reading Podcast

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to the second reading podcast from the university of Texas at Austin, the Republicans were in the democratic party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the constitution.

[00:00:22] Intro: They have become the norm. At what point must a female Senator raise her hand or her voice to be . Recognized over the male colleagues in the room.

[00:00:33] Jim Henson: And welcome back to the second reading podcast. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin. Happy to be joined again today by Josh blank research director of the same Texas politics project. How are we this? Uh, late August morning

[00:00:51] Josh Blank: ambivalence.

[00:00:52] Jim Henson: I’d be confused with the hot August night. Let’s say. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a dad joke if ever there was one.

[00:00:58] Josh Blank: I love dad jokes.

[00:00:59] Jim Henson: um, [00:01:00] I that’s that literally your dad would get that joke and that’s, you know, yeah. A couple of our listeners out there I know will get it, but that’s about it.

[00:01:08] Jim Henson: So today I, I thought we’d fold in a couple of overlapping subjects, but really, you know, something of the moment kind of returned to the overarching theme that we keep coming back to in a lot of ways. And I, that is the state of democracy in the us and in Texas. And this is kind of front and center. As we record this on Wednesday morning.

[00:01:28] Jim Henson: President Joe Biden scheduled to deliver a speech on Thursday that the white house has heavily advanced, uh, as addressing . Quote unquote, the continued battle for the soul of the nation. Now the, the symbolism here has been, and the

[00:01:44] Jim Henson: language. I’m retching a little

[00:01:46] Jim Henson: bit over here, guys. Don’t worry. Yeah. You know, have been pretty, you know, it’s been pretty focused and relentless, but it’s worked.

[00:01:50] Jim Henson: Yeah. I mean, in the sense that, you know, the, I think you have to call it much anticipated, but it’s also, I think it’s fair to say it’s a little heavy handed. They’re delivering the speech [00:02:00] from independence hall in Phil Philadelphia in, in prime time, a little cringy, but you know, well, you know, I, it’s interesting cringy for us, but I, I, you know, I’ll be interested to see how it goes over.

[00:02:13] Jim Henson: and it, you . Know, one of the reasons I really wanted to talk about this today, I mean, we’ve talked about this theme a lot and I think for good reason, but one of those reasons is that this is one of a number of things that we’ve . Now seen in the last few years where, you know, the substantive context of this speech as it’s been communicated to us, mm-hmm,

[00:02:34] Jim Henson: Very apparent political . Context of this speech. As we talk about the Biden team hammering the speech home sort of relentlessly, you know, are, are on a continuum in a lot of ways. I mean, I think there’s a. there’s . Sometimes a, a tendency to kind of say, well that, you know, that wasn’t substantive. That was just politics.

[00:02:53] Jim Henson: Well, the politics and the substance here. Yeah. Perhaps cuz we’re talking about the functioning of the political system, right. Are [00:03:00] closely intertwined though. There are obviously some politics of the moment, you know, and it could be. Again, the nature of the beast, because certainly developments that we’ve seen in national politics provide a rationale for this speech.

[00:03:13] Jim Henson: I mean, 30 years ago, if . You gave a speech about democracy, it would be in the us, it would be seen as kind of a symbolic speech or something that was, you know, maybe not directly related. Well, the

[00:03:26] Josh Blank: context, the context in which people would receive, it would be pretty different. Yeah.

[00:03:29] Jim Henson: To what was going on at the moment.

[00:03:32] Jim Henson: But, you know, there’s been a lot of shifts in the political context in the last decade that you can’t ignore that are also part of this political strategy. But also I think a substantive thrust that the Biden administration thinks is important. A lot of people think is important

[00:03:45] Josh Blank: right now. Yeah. And I think the reason that, you know, I mean, I think your whole idea about the continuum there versus sort of, you know, policy and politics.

[00:03:52] Josh Blank: Context and, you know, politics or whatever, you know, prag, pragmatism and whatever, right. I mean, ultimately everything principle and [00:04:00] pragmatism. Yeah. I mean, but every, you know, anything that’s effective is going to have some mix of those. And I mean, the balance, you know, ultimately if you’re completely political and has nothing to do with the substance of the time or the moment or whatever, it’s gonna miss the target.

[00:04:10] Josh Blank: And if you’re completely. Over, you know, over focused on the substance thing, but it’s not practical and it’s not, it doesn’t have the same sort of political juice. It’s not gonna go anywhere. Yeah. So ultimatly everything that’s relatively successful is gonna have some mix of these things that is, you know, I think.

[00:04:23] Josh Blank: Turn some people off automatically, not surprisingly and, and make some other. And I think, you know, the thing about this right now in the moment is that it’s making other people like us a little bit, let’s say skeptical,

[00:04:31] Jim Henson: but let’s well, yeah. And I, you know, and the thing is, well, and it’s funny. I mean, I, I would say two things about that and, you know, before we even get started, but I mean, I , we haven’t started, you know, I think one of the things that’s interesting is that, you know, you kind of said, you know, that there’s always this mixture.

[00:04:45] Jim Henson: It’s not gonna work. On the other hand, we’ve just come out of a presidency where there were times when it felt. It was purely political at times at times. Right.

[00:04:55] Josh Blank: Not, yeah. And I’m not sure that that really worked, I mean, depends on what you want. I mean, depend on what, and again, it’s like, you know, be [00:05:00] all get in this all sciencey, but like, well, what’s your outcome measure, right?

[00:05:03] Josh Blank: It worked how, but anyway, yes. You know, well,

[00:05:05] Jim Henson: I would say outcome, you know, electoral success, we won for two . Yeah. Well, there you go. Okay. Which isn’t bad if you’re running for president. I mean, since most people that run for president. Zero for

[00:05:17] Josh Blank: one zero for two. I mean, you know, I don’t, this is, this goes too far into the way.

[00:05:20] Josh Blank: I mean, I think thinking about the context in which the one happened and what the nature of that was, there was a lot more, you know, both, I think substantive and political alignment than there was over time where sort of the political and the substantive started to get further and further apart. And you know, so anyway,

[00:05:36] Jim Henson: I think we’re drowning an abstraction here.

[00:05:38] Jim Henson: Lets stop drowning abstraction. that’s good. But you know, substantively right. There are a lot of current events driving. Biden’s address right on that spectrum from, you know, kind of principle and politics, you know, so let’s start from one end. I mean, certainly the, you know, issues of the design and, and the principles underlying American democracy that have been RA have been [00:06:00] raised by the current conflict between Trump and the federal government over the presidential and national security documents that we now know without a doubt.

[00:06:09] Jim Henson: We’re at Mar Lago. And I think the extent that one is trying to, you know, it’s gotten hard for anybody to deny that. And I think, uh, as we’re recording this Wednesday morning and the filing late last night, justice apartment went as far, and this is an interesting combination of the pragmatic and the right and the legal, you know, release the photo of, you know, some of the, the cover sheets that said top secret, confidential, et cetera.

[00:06:32] Jim Henson: So right. They were there. This conflict between Trump and the federal government, you know, has really raised a lot of fundamental. Issues of principle and, and, and, and how institutions should function in, in the system. I mean, I think you’d be pretty hard pressed to deny that Donald Trump has a view of presidential power that is almost without limits.

[00:06:56] Jim Henson: I mean, he certainly seemed to feel that way when he was in office, [00:07:00] all the accounts are suggest that certainly. Especially early in his presidency, but really, even towards the end, anytime he ran into some impediment to exercising presidential power, you know, he thought it was unreasonable. And, you know, at some points didn’t seem to even understand why that would even be

[00:07:18] Josh Blank: the case.

[00:07:19] Josh Blank: And again, if you sort of into the point of, you know, Sort of taking this as effect or whatever. The reason we know this is because the people in the administration have sort have leaked these conversations. Yeah. What they’re trying to say, explain to, you know, Trump at the time, why he could not do this or why this would be extra constitutional or, you know, again, right.

[00:07:35] Josh Blank: So this is pretty much out there. And so

[00:07:36] Jim Henson: now we’re seeing, you know, we’re, we’re seeing at some degree of evidence of a extension of this thinking, even when he’s out of office right now, you know, Donald Trump is nothing. If. An example of a very personalistic conception of political power and institutional authority.

[00:07:54] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm . Understate the case. So it’s not especially surprising, but [00:08:00] it’s still fairly unprecedented in terms of his presumption of power. And at a moment when very clearly he is, you know, the front runner in the Republican field, as of this moment to, to run again, you know, it also raises these order, you know, these, these issues of.

[00:08:17] Jim Henson: The orderly succession in the presidency, which has now been sort of disrupted by the last succession. I think we can just say, has been disrupted. Yeah. Um, and you know, and, and issues of the rule of law. They’re not the same, but they are related and look to be fair. There are real. Issues about the legal prosecution of a former president.

[00:08:38] Jim Henson: Mm-hmm , you know, particularly one who is still considered a political contender, right. As we’ve said, you know, and, you know, I, I think to be fair on the other side, it’s been noted recently that, you know, it’s become relatively common in other democracies, including, you know, more populous democracies within kind of north Atlantic Alliance, if you [00:09:00] will, for legal investigations of former.

[00:09:03] Jim Henson: Chief executives or heads of state to take place. And occasionally for people who be found guilty and suffered penalties, right. But it’s not common in the United States. Right. And this does make this investigation and the prosecution. Tricky, not only in political terms, just pretty obvious. And as we’re seeing, but also in institutional terms, and we’re seeing that in the way that this process is unfolded, I mean, no matter.

[00:09:26] Jim Henson: And so no matter how much there’s a lack of evidence, you know, that how much the evidence at hand begins to grow that it’s justified. The lack of president precedent does make it kind of a boundary testing development in this

[00:09:38] Josh Blank: moment. Yeah. I think, you know, on its face, you know, in the moment this, this notion of, well, you know, a former president in the us has never been treated this way has never been investigated this way has never been prosecuted.

[00:09:47] Josh Blank: But when you link the two points you make about sort of Trump’s view of power, uh, and sort of both in office, but then, you know, now really especi. Outside of office, you know, we’re the most charitable kind of interpretation we can take. I think that [00:10:00] one could take about his, his holding of these, you know, very classified government documents at his house is that he felt that he was entitled to them as a former president.

[00:10:07] Josh Blank: Right. Which that’s the, that’s really the best we can do. But then the problem with, again, what came out last night is that if you kind of go through the legal ease of it all is like, and he also hid them when asked, right. It’s very hard to defend, but this is the whole thing we say, well, it’s unprecedented to prosecute former president.

[00:10:22] Josh Blank: We. But like, honestly, it’s unprecedented for a president who lost an election to, you know, whip up a crowd and sort of send them to the capital. It’s also unprecedented, unprecedented for a former president to take a bunch of, you know, classified documents to his house. So like we’re in a time that’s unprecedented.

[00:10:37] Josh Blank: I mean, I think some people point out Riley and people say, oh, you know, we’ll get to this, but you know, the country will be torn apart if we go through in this. And, and I think what some people point out is like, cuz we’re in a state of normalcy right now. So that’s sort, you know, to layer some of those things together in the context.

[00:10:49] Josh Blank: Yeah. The train’s

[00:10:50] Jim Henson: a little bit left the station on that least pulling out. Um, certainly so another, so, so there’s that whole cluster of things that are again, concrete, institutional. [00:11:00] Questions, but with very powerful political overtones in the moment. So another thing that’s, you know, at play here then that this obviously sort of touches in is the, on, you know, we, we’ve sort of backed into this a little talking about January 6th, but yeah, the ongoing conflicts over popular views of how the, you know, how well the election process is working, how it should work.

[00:11:19] Jim Henson: And we talked about this in some detail a few weeks ago, but you know, obviously we’ve got candidates who are running for office. Based on a promise to manage the system in a partisan way. And we talked about that quite a bit, a couple weeks ago, you know, we’ve got increasing evidence of, of intimidation, of state and especially local election officials, recent examples in Texas and Gillespie county.

[00:11:41] Jim Henson: Um, you know, Gille county outside of Austin. For those of you’ve done with Texas geography or from live another part of the state where county seat Fredericksburg. you know, known mostly as kind of a tourist destination mm-hmm , but currently without any election administration personnel, after all three people that staff that operation in the county, [00:12:00] and it’s not a highly populous county, even though it’s growing, uh, they all resigned in the face of harassment efforts to intimidate.

[00:12:06] Jim Henson: Now, that story is a fascinating rabbit hole for the latest. There’s a really good Texas Tribune story from earlier, or maybe over the weekend by Natalia Contris and, and the vote beat folks, including Jessica Husman, which introduced this weird angle of the convergence of the very public kind of election integrity.

[00:12:25] Jim Henson: True. The vote folks on the far right, who are making this concerted effort. To take over election apparatus and change this function of elections in a lot of ways, but also, you know, the, the oldie, but goody anti fluoride movement. Yeah.

[00:12:40] Josh Blank: And just to bring this back to sort of Biden’s response in the moment, you know, you mentioned sort of the candidates who are running for office based on this promise basically to manage partisan way.

[00:12:47] Josh Blank: And the reality is where we’ve been focusing on that the Moch most has been in the states that were the most contested in the last election cycle. Right. But here’s the thing I would point. An election cycle in which Biden won most of those states. [00:13:00] And so ultimately to some degree, and to my mind, you know, there is an advantage to be played to sort of going on the offense on an issue that was, you know, in some ways kind of already decided in some of

[00:13:08] Jim Henson: these states.

[00:13:09] Jim Henson: Right. Right. Well, and that’s one, you know, and, and that, the flip side of that is, you know, it’s a strange thing in Texas. I mean, You know, we went into this in the podcast, but it’s just to flag again, historically speaking, you’d be hard pressed to find too many other places in the state. There are a few, but it’s Glo be county.

[00:13:25] Jim Henson: And that hill country, certainly one of the areas that have been most reliably Republican, not just during the recent Republican ascendants, but in the history of the state. Yeah. I mean, there were Republicans in Gillespie county or there weren’t Republicans hardly

[00:13:38] Josh Blank: anywhere else. So, I mean, there’s some stuff in that, in that article we’re gonna, we’ll come back to this a little bit later.

[00:13:42] Josh Blank: Yeah. But there’s some stuff in that article that I think is really, you. Very troubling in thinking about the way that elections are gonna be conducted in Texas going forward. And there’s a couple nuggets in there we’ll come back to, right.

[00:13:50] Jim Henson: So another piece of this then that is, you know, uh, part of this institutional political context is the, the uptick in political violence that we’ve seen in the country.

[00:13:59] Jim Henson: [00:14:00] And, and, you know, maybe just as important as what we’ve already seen. And obviously January 6th is very important, but you know, to my mind, it’s just as important if not more so that there’s a growing expectation of violence and. Out in the electorate and in the population and the citizenry and the views that political violence is justified.

[00:14:22] Jim Henson: Yeah. Or, yeah, I mean, and there, you know, we’ve seen lots of examples of this. Now. Some of it is, you know, I mean, you know, the Lindsay Graham warning. Last week that there would be rights on Fox news. I think about that there would be quote, unquote rights in the streets. If Trump is prosecuted, he sense had to walk that back a little bit, you know, but that’s what we expect from Lindsay Graham right now is he’s trying to be all things to all people without alienating Trump.

[00:14:47] Jim Henson: But more importantly, we’ve seen a lot of this in national

[00:14:49] Josh Blank: polling data. Yeah. And I mean, when we’ve been talking about this over the last couple of weeks where, you know, there’s sort of this very, very. You know, fine line between, you know, reflecting the views of your constituents on the one hand [00:15:00] and, you know, inciting, you know, potentially dangerous actions on the other.

[00:15:05] Josh Blank: And so, I mean, the Graham quote is kind of a perfect example of that, especially when you know that this is out there. Yeah. You know that it’s, I mean, you can’t say you can’t play dumb. Right. Right. And we can’t, we can’t. And part of the data that we’ll just go real quick, this national point data points out the fact that you can’t assume when you start sort of threatening or, you know, opining about the possibility of violence.

[00:15:21] Josh Blank: If something happens that for a large share of Americans at this point, they’re gonna say, okay, Because what we found is, you know, as we look around, so in nationally, March, 2021, uh, CNN poll conducted found that 71% of adults nationally said that there would be political violence in re in re in response to an election result.

[00:15:40] Josh Blank: In the next few years, one in three said that it was very likely that this would happen, right. Uh, From may, June 20, 22, uh, life in America survey by UC Davis found 67% of people perceived a serious threat to democracy. This is, uh, this must be in Cal. Yeah, this is in California. No, this is everywhere. 48% express some agreement with the statement.

[00:15:58] Josh Blank: If elected leaders will not protect [00:16:00] American democracy. The people must do it themselves, even if it requires taking violent actions. I don’t think that’s a great survey question by the way, nor do I like the response options, but just to paint the point, I mean, but, but if you’re looking to see whether there’s appetite out there or, or acceptance of this kind of view of things it’s out there, right?

[00:16:14] Josh Blank: Yeah. You know, in the same poll response were nearly evenly split on whether they agreed or disagreed, uh, that there will be a civil war in the us the next few years, statewide polling. Whether of democratic state or Republican state in January 20, 22, 40% of California adults said they expected an increase in political violence in the us.

[00:16:30] Josh Blank: Well, in June 22, polling 22 polling here in Texas, we found 64% of Texas voters said the same. So ultimately there, there are a lot of people out there who perceive an environment that, you know, that is inviting more political violence. Yeah. And I think if

[00:16:43] Jim Henson: you step back and kind of look at that, just all those examples.

[00:16:47] Jim Henson: I mean, when. Use that CNN poll for March, 2021. I mean, one might say, okay, well, yeah, that was within a couple of months of January 6th, but we were getting that result more than a year after that. Yeah. In June of [00:17:00] 2022 mm-hmm and there are multiple factors that are keeping this in the public eye and it’s, you know, it’s kind of taken on, you know, a life of its own now.

[00:17:08] Jim Henson: As a discussion point out there, but there’s an in, there’s an institutional piece of this. And again, with political overtones, I mean, certainly in addition to, you know, Liz Chaney’s desire to make sure that Donald Trump has never, never holds elected office. Again, one of the broader points of the January 6th committee is to make sure that the public doesn’t forget that the January 6th Rio in the capital.

[00:17:31] Jim Henson: Was an unambiguous instance of kind of anti-democratic political violence. Mm-hmm , you know, certainly when they started those televised hearing. Right. They started by saying, Hey, let’s just all remember what we’re talking about. Okay. So as we tease out what this context is, you know, now we sort of get a little bit more into the, you know, the balance between the political and the, and the institutional begins to shift a little bit on the spectrum.

[00:17:59] Jim Henson: I mean, [00:18:00] the re eruption of Trump as a major storyline in the national news, In the wake of the Mar Lago search, the revelations about the retention of restricted documents has really contributed along with several other things to a reframing of Biden’s public position. Right. And even, you know, what people are thinking about when you mention the rule of law and certainly.

[00:18:24] Jim Henson: The Biden team is seeing that happening and sees that as an opportunity. Yeah,

[00:18:29] Josh Blank: absolutely. I mean, I think what you’re seeing is a couple things one after a number of years in which sort of the discussion around the rule of law was really centered around the police response to, uh, You know, black lives matters protests, uh, and then sort of the response to the responses.

[00:18:47] Josh Blank: Right? Right. Yeah. They defund the police, defund, the police move and all that. There really benefited Republicans, especially in 2020, you know, all of a sudden this sort of situation where, and we talked about this a few weeks ago, but the idea that, you know, , you know, the FBI [00:19:00] executes a search warrant on Mar Marla, which honestly, as we said at the time, Gotta be a pretty high bar for this to happen.

[00:19:05] Josh Blank: Right. And to have basically almost every Republican, almost basically immediately defend the president, just notably everyone who’s running for president 20, 20 immediately. And on the Republican side defending, uh, Trump, you know, this starts to raise this question. It’s like, well, okay. But like, we’re talking about defending the FBI, we’re talking about, you know, uh, shooting.

[00:19:24] Josh Blank: You know, and attacking FBI offices, right. We’re talking about attacking the IRS. We’re talking, you know, about the fact that yes, Trump had national security secrets at his resort, but you know, why should he be prosecuted over, you know, a clerical error? You know this idea of like, well, wait, who’s for the rule of law, it becomes muddied.

[00:19:42] Josh Blank: And I mean, I’m not saying that all of a sudden this becomes some issue that the democratic own, but just as I think Republicans have made a lot of gains on the education issue by muting the waters around what we talk about. When we talk about education, we’re talking about like paying teachers, test quality, you know, high standards to like, you know, essentially grooming children to become, you know, sexual targets, [00:20:00] all of a sudden whether that’s true or not, it muddies the water.

[00:20:02] Josh Blank: And I think there’s something here too. Whereas you know, something so unambiguously, a Republican issue, usually law and order. Now you say, well, It’s becoming a little bit more complicated.

[00:20:10] Jim Henson: Right. And, and, and I think that, you know, clearly the Biden folks have done a very focused job of attempting to. Put that 2020 issue to bed as much as they can.

[00:20:22] Jim Henson: Yeah. In terms of the, you know, this is like, I mean, they’ve really flipped the police issue and they haven’t completely flipped it. I mean, I don’t, you know, I don’t expect it, you know? No, but you, in any polling we do in the near future, we’re gonna say, oh wow, Democrats have issue ownership of law enforcement and public safety now, but certainly.

[00:20:39] Jim Henson: They’ve blunted that as, as you’re gonna attack, you’re gonna

[00:20:42] Josh Blank: be pretty hard pressed to find a clip of Biden or a clip of any Democrat running in any competitive district one way or another talking about defunding the police post. Yeah, 20, 20. Yeah. I think that’s a couple’s

[00:20:54] Jim Henson: over. I mean like, so, and, and, you know, there’s been a lot written about this recently, but certainly, you know, and this is, you.[00:21:00]

[00:21:01] Jim Henson: this is reminiscent of what we saw during the Clinton years. Mm-hmm and, and I think, you know, there is grumbling on the progressive side of the spectrum about this. Sure. You know, but I think it’s fairly muted because of the election. And it’ll be interesting to see what this looks like depending on the election outcome.

[00:21:16] Jim Henson: As we go into the, the, the next phase of the political cycle after the. You know, and just the kid, you know, we don’t really have to sort of beat this to death, but I mean, the flip side of this is that now in the holy political part of this really anxieties about the economy while certainly still present.

[00:21:33] Jim Henson: And I think the Biden people have to be careful. Oh yeah. About overplaying. This they’ve certainly become less intense. As the inflation rate seems to have stabilized gas prices are down. All the other economic fundamentals are still fairly good. Now you. The fed is gonna continue to ratchet this down.

[00:21:51] Jim Henson: This is not gonna go away, but at least in this moment, That has subsided a little bit and created some space for the [00:22:00] Biden folks to pivot in, to talk about this. So,

[00:22:02] Josh Blank: yeah. And experientially, there hasn’t been a slowdown in, in jobs and job creation. Right. Which I think, you know, there’s always, there’s been this interesting kind of sub discussion and kind the political economy kind of space about what people really react to and how found who’s in power.

[00:22:14] Josh Blank: You know, we talking about yeah. The strength of the economy, or are we talking about the strength, you know, the rate of the unemployment and we’re looking at inflation, obviously it depends on which side of the aisle you sit on as to what you think we should look at when look at the economy. But when we think about voters, you know, they notice if gas costs more because you’re paying for gas, you know, on a weekly, if not more frequent basis and the price of groceries.

[00:22:32] Josh Blank: But the other thing that people look at, if those things start to come under control, is, is it easy for me to get another job? Is it easy for the people I know to get a job or people working and as long as unemployment stays down and as long as you know, the fed doesn’t really blow up. The economy, you know, it’s not likely that this is gonna remain the same, at least this in the same prime position as it was as an issue at the end of the spring at the end of the fall, if things keep going this

[00:22:54] Jim Henson: way.

[00:22:54] Jim Henson: Well, well, yeah, as we’ve discussed here before, I mean, inflation was such a new thing to so many people, right. That, [00:23:00] you know, it wasn’t surprising that it got the kind of, but, but that has now like, you know, cooled a little bit. It’s

[00:23:05] Josh Blank: interesting. You sound to say as a pollster, I mean, and you know, just to say, being that I’m younger than.

[00:23:10] Josh Blank: By a bit by a bit, you know, most of my polling when we sort of talk, when we see upticks and interest in the economy are concerned about the economy, you know, it’s. Always, at least in sort of my span been about jobs, right. It’s been about, you know, whether or not there’s jobs and what the unemployment rate really is.

[00:23:26] Josh Blank: Uh, if not politics or some combination. Right. Whereas this is the first time where it’s like, well, when we’re talking about, when people say the economy, what are they talking about? It’s like, they may have a job, but that’s not the issue. Right. Right. This is, it changes sort of the way we look at these things

[00:23:36] Jim Henson: a little bit.

[00:23:37] Jim Henson: So as we, you know, arrived then towards the mower, you know, holy political part of the spectrum, you know, what is, you know, out there both. In the, in the general press. And what we’re hearing from the inside is that democratic fortunes in this election cycle were large, are just not looking as grim as they did at the outset of the cycle, let alone, you know, a year, you know, even longer ago, [00:24:00] more importantly, maybe in some ways in the short term or even at the beginning of the summer.

[00:24:04] Jim Henson: Yeah. You know, so, you know, the Democrats seem on a path to, you know, have a decent chance of holding onto the Senate. While Republicans still seem to, you know, odds on likely to take the majority in the house. It’s not, as of now looking like the total blowout, right. That it was looking like, you know, even six, eight weeks ago, you know, and there are signs that those who said the Dobs decision would be in political terms.

[00:24:28] Jim Henson: Good for Democrats election prospects seems to be the case it’s helped with mobilization shifted the ele the agenda focus. Um, we’re getting these kind. Impressionistic, but still somewhat database accounts of increases in voter new voter registration by women, you know, in states where you can look at partisanship, it seems to be looking yeah, very much as we would expect these various sort of testing to a democratic advantage, cetera, and, you know, together, the, you know, Democrats are just showing.[00:25:00]

[00:25:00] Jim Henson: You know, more mojo, you know, more of an ability and, you know, to go on the offensive where they can and Biden is, you know, clearly, you know, somebody been around the block taking advantage of this. And so that does again, I mean, the more I think about this, it’s really about creating more space for them to make this kind of a speech mm-hmm and, and refocus what this election is gonna be about for Democrats.

[00:25:28] Jim Henson: And theoretically for some other folks that are a little more persuadable. Well, I see why

[00:25:32] Josh Blank: Don you go to the next point than I think, I think it, it wraps up and I’ll come

[00:25:34] Jim Henson: back in here. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, this is all converged with helping, you know, the current bism. Right, right. Don’t don’t, you know, which is so classic, you know, Biden.

[00:25:43] Jim Henson: I, I, I hesitate to utter it, but nonetheless, you don’t compare. Don’t compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative. And this is. You know what the Democrats have really needed and what Republicans have been in that awkward position. Right. Where nobody wants to say [00:26:00] it too publicly. Right. You know, they’ll say it occasionally to a reporter, but you know, we do not want Donald Trump to be on the ballot this time.

[00:26:07] Jim Henson: No, you know, Republicans want this to be about Republican elites, the economy, and about. Joe Biden’s performance such as it is. And all these things have converged in a way that just kind of says, you know, in a lot of ways, the, the establishment geo, you know, Republican, conventional wisdom was probably right.

[00:26:28] Jim Henson: All along, even though people were loath to utter it. And so, you know, Trump may be benefiting personally from. In the short run and raising money for himself and whatever he’s gonna do with that money, but it, it is not helping Republicans up and down the ballot. And again, we’re hearing things from Texas that are suggesting that, you know, Republican candidates are beginning to see this.

[00:26:51] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, even a few weeks before, you know, kind of all this really came to a head, you know, national Republicans like Mitch McConnell and, uh, you know, [00:27:00] Minority leader. McCarthy were basically indicating as much about Republicans chances needed or Republican expectations needed to be tempered.

[00:27:06] Josh Blank: Right. You know, and they had sort of their reasons why, and that was really, even before Democrats sort of got something of their mojo back, uh, if you will. I don’t like saying that actually don’t, don’t quote me on that too late, too late. But I mean, but there is a, but there is something, you know, I think in the last week or so, one of the things that’s happened, it’s sort of the amalgamation of a bunch of things, but ultimately you kind of see like how you.

[00:27:27] Josh Blank: How on the ropes Democrats were through much of the spring, right? I mean, there’s really no response that they could really muster about the issues that were really kind of driving, you know, most of the agenda at that point, which was inflation the border and this idea of kind of like Biden, you know, sort of ineffectiveness, but ultimately, you know, since then they, you know, the script has been flipped in other kind of nasty cliche.

[00:27:48] Josh Blank: In a way that I think is really it’s. It’s interesting to see, you know, again, how on the defensive Republicans are on the issues that seem to be kind of emerging. And, and I think about it this way, which is one, you know, as you said, I mean, [00:28:00] the conventional wisdom is true is I think Republicans would like this to be a standard election with a Democrat in the white house and control of Congress and about a bad economy in the border.

[00:28:08] Josh Blank: Right? Yeah. They don’t want it to be about defending. a former, president’s clearly difficult to defend actions, right. Which I think, you know, this is what you know, or about, you know, what they wanna do to extend abortion prohibitions that are unpopular or what they’re unwilling to do further about guns and some of these other issues in a place like Texas and ultimately this has kind of all been opened up.

[00:28:31] Josh Blank: And so, I mean, what’s interesting is on the one hand, you know, this whole idea of like Biden kind of take, you know, this whole soul of a nation thing, it’s kind of cringy, but it’s also, this is, this is the election. He. Right. I mean, ultimately if we’re talking about, you know, some degree of normalcy versus the sort of, you know, personalistic drive to kind of highlight grievances.

[00:28:48] Josh Blank: Well, you know, I mean, I think, you know, politic apolitical strategist will say this to the point that I think it’s probably true, which is, you know, most campaigns have to have some sort of focus on the future. It can’t just be about the past. Now, [00:29:00] sometimes you can say we’re, you know, it’s a referendum on the incumbent.

[00:29:01] Josh Blank: It is about the past, but usually that’s not enough. And it’s. It’s even less than enough. When you think about the ideas, you know, Republicans do not want to be in a position in 2022 and let alone, it’s certainly not in 2024 where they’re basically having to re-litigate the outcome of an election that took place four years ago, that the majority of Americans think Joe Biden legitimately won.

[00:29:23] Josh Blank: and in the states that, you know, they’re gonna be competing in, uh, nor further, they don’t want to be sitting here and defending basically, you know, I, it’s one thing to mobilize Republican grievances broadly about things. Right. It’s another thing to try to mobilize Trump’s own personal grievance that he’s being mistreated by the government again, in his, you know, ABCO with and hiding highly classified documents.

[00:29:45] Josh Blank: Yeah. I mean, that’s not a great, you know, that’s just not a great place

[00:29:47] Jim Henson: to be. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I, you don’t have to. In the tank for the Democrats or, you know, a tr you know, a Trump hater, something to point out that in a lot of ways what’s happened with the documents at Mar [00:30:00] Lago is kind of the worst distillation of Trump.

[00:30:05] Jim Henson: For Republicans. I mean, even January 6th gave people, you know, however, implausible it was, it’s a certain distance, some kind of sense that look that, you know, there was a popular discontent here, you know, people have, as you said, people have grievances, et cetera. The, the. The national security doc, you know, the document situation at Mar Lago doesn’t really admit itself of any of that.

[00:30:29] Jim Henson: Well, you know, we

[00:30:30] Josh Blank: we’ve looked, you know, these sort of polling questions about, you know, that are interesting out there about, you know, Trump’s response, people’s views of Trump’s responsibility for, for the January 6th riots. And if you think about, you know, the sort of two. You know, polar ends, scale points.

[00:30:41] Josh Blank: One would be, he was completely responsible and one would be, you know, he had no responsibility whatsoever, but the reality is, is that for a lot of people, there’s, there’s stuff in between, right? Yeah. Even for a lot of Republicans, there’s a space in between to say, you know, he is partly responsible or he could have done more to, you know, stop it or, or whatever, but ultimately, right.

[00:30:59] Josh Blank: There’s a [00:31:00] certain distance there. Say, look, people are gonna go to the, he didn’t, you know, he didn’t give him the guns, you know, or whatever. Yeah. But, you know, again here, there’s no distance between him and the

[00:31:07] Jim Henson: act in this case. Yeah. And yeah, there’s just not a lot. You know, there’s just not a lot of alternative narrative here other than what we are seeing, which is that, you know, the Biden administration is out to get ’em right.

[00:31:18] Jim Henson: And that’s, you know, and that’s not, or question that’s obviously

[00:31:21] Josh Blank: taking right. Or to further question the application of the rule of law in this context. And again, I think it’s a pretty hard, it’s a hard case to argue. I mean, one of the things I’m thinking about just, you know, yeah. The questions that need to be answered, that’ll be answered or need to be answered going forward.

[00:31:32] Josh Blank: If you think about, you know, if you’re trying to defend Trump on holding these documents there, I mean, one thing we don’t know is, so in the period in which these documents were at Malago. Could we see a list of all the people who visited Malago right. Because really, you know, and that’s gonna happen and it’s not gonna take many bad, you know, names or potential, you know, national security threats or potential agents or foreign, you know, whatever to create a bad situation.

[00:31:53] Jim Henson: Right. Well, and I, yeah, and I was saying here, when this first broke, I mean, the other shoe that hasn’t dropped is [00:32:00] that eventually we’re gonna wind up seeing some of that video yeah. Of who was just walking around, who was walking in and out of those rooms. That is not gonna play well, no matter what. So, you know, to wind this up, like, how does this all kind of land in Texas?

[00:32:14] Jim Henson: I mean, you know, we’ll on one hand, you know, we’ve talked a lot about the evidence of the decay of democratic norms and, and faith in institutions. That’s clearly evident here. We’ve seen it in our polling that we’ve talked about a lot. We talked about Gillespie county earlier and, and the Gillespie county thing is really just one instance of something that is still.

[00:32:36] Jim Henson: Kind of GU you know, bubbling along in Texas politics. I mean, we’ve talked a lot about elite signaling its reciprocal effect on public opinion. That is, you know, public doesn’t know much about a situation. They look to elites for guidance, elites provide guidance. It feeds public opinion that becomes, you know, That grows.

[00:32:56] Jim Henson: And then next thing, you know, elites are responding to the effects [00:33:00] that have been planted. And we did a whole podcast on that in elections, just to sort of flag that again. Mm-hmm but we’re seeing, you know, a lot of this kind of tension that we’re seeing, that we were just talking about nationally, or we referred to between Republican incumbents who are.

[00:33:17] Jim Henson: You know, I mean, you were talking about cringey with Biden, but you know, who are looking at the Trump and just kind of going, you know, we’ve gotten what we’re gonna get from this. Right. And now the downsides are just kind of accumulating, but now we’re kind of stuck with it. And that has, you know, metastasized in Texas.

[00:33:34] Jim Henson: I mean, we, you know, Lauren Bobert was in Yocum Texas, you know, Appearance with state Senator Lois col course recently, you know, and there’s things like, you know, the left is infiltrated. The democratic party, you know, Texas is the red line between a constitutional us Republic. We talked about that language last week and socialism, uh, And again, you know, I, I don’t wanna, I don’t want to use Twitter as a [00:34:00] representative example of what’s going on in politics in the state, but it is an interesting place to see signaling, particularly from these kind of elements in the party.

[00:34:09] Jim Henson: And this is, you know, seated state Senator.

[00:34:12] Josh Blank: Right. Well, and this is, you know, we’ve talked about sort of the, the political advantage. That’s clearly there and kind of Biden moving this discussion this direction and trying to really, you know, push this nationally. But there is actually, I think, you know, there is a very practical thing looking at Texas on the ground, we talked about Gillespie county.

[00:34:25] Josh Blank: And one of the things in that article that you mentioned is something that kind of stuck out to me, uh, in thinking about the upcoming election. Is, you know, I mean, you already pointed out, I mean, this is an overwhelmingly Republican county, you know, there’s some concern here to some extent about, you know, what happens if some number of counties in Texas refuse to report.

[00:34:41] Josh Blank: Right. Right. I mean, there’s just sort of a sense here where, you know, Where you say, like the election system is broken, the election system is broken. The election system is broken. Well, eventually a lot of these people are actually going to break the election system. If you don’t have people. Well, that’s, what’s happened in Gillespie county.

[00:34:53] Josh Blank: Well, and that’s what happened in Cales county. But the thing, if you look at that article, one of the things actually stuck out to me more so than some of the other things was they talked about, [00:35:00] uh, the belligerence. Of basically the poll watcher. And this was, you know, there who was essentially, you know, threaten physically intimidating, physically intimidating people, threatening people.

[00:35:09] Josh Blank: They had to call the police on this person. Uh, you know, they’re videotaping them now. Ultimately what has happened since that last election, the legislature has actually increased the rights of poll Watchers. It increased the penalties for poll workers. One of the things that I think a lot of Democrats were concerned about, about the poll washing provisions in, in the Texas bill, uh, you know, voting integrity bill that went through is the idea of like, so who is going to show up.

[00:35:31] Josh Blank: What precincts to, to stand there and do what yeah. And ultimately, I mean, what you see here in Gillespie county, overwhelming the Republican county is people showing up specifically to be intimidating. Yeah. And to mess up the process. One other thing that came out LA. So, so first of all, what do you think is going to happen in Harris county?

[00:35:47] Josh Blank: In Travis county? I mean, if ultimately this is a much more effective strategy and overwhelmingly democratic places, especially on election day. I dunno if you’ve been following this piece, I’m sure you saw this, but the other sort of news and sort of election. Where this all intersex this week, [00:36:00] this week and last week was the attorney general put out an opinion that basically said that essentially anyone who wants to examine the ballots in an election instead of waiting for a, sort of a set waiting period, I think it was 22 days before that could happen.

[00:36:13] Josh Blank: Basically it should be done immediately. Now what election administrators point out really very quickly is, Hey, look, you know, the ballots are like our official record of this. And the last thing we need is, you know, basically a bunch of people coming in. Could basically do anything to the, the official ballots in the immediate aftermath of an election that would then ruin our actual paper record that everybody kind of cares about.

[00:36:33] Josh Blank: Now, this guidance was in direct conflict to what the, to what they had been advising counties to do literally up to five days before it was issued now, to say this was a political move. I’m just gonna say it was a political move to, to give more juice to the people who want to challenge elections. But ultimately the result might be that you’ve got people in the polling place, disrupting the elections, maybe, you know, in certain kinds of counties, more so than others.

[00:36:55] Josh Blank: And then you have organized groups like we saw in Gillespie who might make a concerted effort literally the [00:37:00] day after the election, if they’re whether or not they’re happy with the outcome to essentially go in. And in some ways, you know, I don’t wanna say, take over the process, but essentially destroy the evidence of the process that took place.

[00:37:10] Josh Blank: Right. You know, so

[00:37:11] Jim Henson: there is, well, I mean, look by, by the very intervention you actually. The poisoning of the process that you’re saying you’re trying to

[00:37:19] Josh Blank: prevent. And so on a practical side, there is a point here to be made by Biden that has nothing to do with all, you know, people do need to be aware that this is going on, is going on in Republican counties is going on in democratic counties.

[00:37:29] Josh Blank: You know, if you, if you live in a Republican county and you think that your county government is doing a relatively good job, you are still threatened by this. Yeah. I

[00:37:36] Jim Henson: mean, look, you know, the basic facts of that situation in G Gille county and other areas where they’re having a hard time. Retaining experienced poll workers and experienced election, I should say, experienced election administrators, right.

[00:37:49] Jim Henson: Is that you have in fact undone the process. Right, right. In other words. So, I mean, nobody should be surprised if [00:38:00] even if nobody showed up to be a pole watcher and there was no, you know, tactical disruption of the process that the process doesn’t go very well next time in Gillespie county, because the experienced people.

[00:38:12] Jim Henson: Worked there have all been driven off mm-hmm and it’s probably gonna be pretty hard to find people with comparable experience to actually administer the election.

[00:38:21] Josh Blank: Well, and also to administer the election legally, given the fact that the requirements that have been, uh, right, you know, the requirements.

[00:38:28] Josh Blank: Of election administrators have been increased, increased basically every session, especially in the last session, in terms of reporting and other things where again, and the penalties are higher. So for these jobs that are not super high paying bureaucratic jobs that are generally, I mean, I’m just gonna say staffed by people who wanna do a good job running the election, wherever they live.

[00:38:45] Jim Henson: Yeah, this is, yeah. These are 45,000, $50,000 a year jobs. Yeah. That are, you know, hard to do. So where you and where you get threatened. So, you know, where do we wind up here? You know, the, the broader historical trajectory and the more immediate political moment are [00:39:00] converging in this speech tomorrow. Be interesting to see what he’s gonna say.

[00:39:04] Jim Henson: And. I think more substantively in Biden’s engagement of it. Yeah. You know, this is, this is very powerful elite signaling mm-hmm from, you know, one of the most powerful transmission stations for broadcasting, such a signal. Right. So I’m very interested to see what, what kind of impact it has and how much it, how far it trickles down.

[00:39:24] Jim Henson: And in terms of Texas, you know, we’re always kind of keeping an eye on. The degree to which we’ve seen increased nationalization of politics in the state mm-hmm and yet Texas being a big state, you know, with a rich political environment and a dynamic. We like to think of, you know, I think rightly so, kind of all its own.

[00:39:47] Jim Henson: Yeah. So, you know, my suspicion is that the Biden speech will not have a fundamental, you know, impact on attitudes here, especially among those who’ve already incorporated, you know, the last decade [00:40:00] and a half of messaging, encouraging skepticism of the system and skepticism of, you know, than any national signaling that’s coming through.

[00:40:09] Jim Henson: Um, there’s already been almost kind of inoculation against that. Nonetheless. When a president gives a speech on this, it’s bound to affect a lot of coverage. It’s bound to get a lot of, you know, you know, you know, the signal’s powerful. Yeah.

[00:40:23] Josh Blank: Well, and if nothing else, I mean, what you always, what I always like to think about is, I mean, I think about this in all communications in some ways, like how do you expect the other person to respond to that?

[00:40:31] Josh Blank: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s useful just as like a social thing, but also you think about it this way, you say, okay, so Biden’s gonna do this. It seems to me, there’s sort of three responses. Republicans could choose more or less broadly. Right. They could agree with them. Let’s just set that aside. They could ignore it, which I think makes a lot of sense.

[00:40:47] Josh Blank: Keep talking about the economy or border or they can push back against it. But ultimately, you know, I think they can resist it

[00:40:53] Jim Henson: internally. Yeah. Right,

[00:40:54] Josh Blank: right. And the idea here would be like, okay, and I’m talking more about the elite response. Okay. I think about the elite response more so, but [00:41:00] even, even at the personal individualistic level, I mean, I think generally speaking, you know, endorsement of democracy, fundamentals.

[00:41:07] Josh Blank: Still pretty high. Yeah. Still pretty widespread. I mean, the issue, I think, you know, in a lot of cases, again, there’s a, there’s this elite, you know, discussion going on here where sort of would say, you know, well, are we still really fully in invested in the, sort of in this idea of democracy versus Republic, but that is a very high level discussion going on.

[00:41:23] Josh Blank: I think in some corners of the party. But I think when you’re talking about the vast, vast majority of voters, the idea of one person, one vote, do you agree? Disagree, agree. The idea that the winner should accept the. You’re gonna find overwhelming agreement with these things. So, you know, there’s a lot of things to plan here.

[00:41:36] Josh Blank: I think what I’m gonna be watching for, with the, with the Biden addresses, you know, he’s also been criticized a little bit for going a little too far in some of his rhetoric. So, I mean, on the one hand he’s trying to energize Democrats. Right. But on the other hand, he’s trying, he’s gotta be a little bit careful not to just go a little too far in terms of, you know, well, that’s what

[00:41:52] Jim Henson: I was gonna say.

[00:41:53] Jim Henson: I mean, I think a lot is gonna depend on how he does it. Yeah. And how much. Part of his, the language, just how far he goes with it. I mean, we’ve, we were [00:42:00] talking before the podcast. I mean, and they’ve been sending up some trial balloons. Yeah. I mean, you know, his, his sort of, you know, semi fascist mm-hmm comment, you know, last weekend about, you know, and this adoption of the, you know, breaking out the group that he’s calling the Maga Republicans.

[00:42:17] Jim Henson: Yeah. And I think that’s gonna be a real, you know, does he deploy that rhetoric in this speech or does he try to, my suspicion is he’s gonna walk right up to it. but not quite go there, but we’ll see. We’ll see. So, uh, that speech is Thursday night, depending on when you listen to this. So I think it’ll, you know, if you wanna see it, it’s gonna be pretty easy to see prime time address from independence hall in Philadelphia.

[00:42:41] Jim Henson: And again, in terms of the. The political context of this Pennsylvania battleground state, you know, a couple of very hot races in Pennsylvania right now. So keep an eye out for that. So thanks to Josh. Thanks to our excellent production team in the audio studio in the liberal arts development [00:43:00] studio at UT Austin, and for treating us to use of their new.

[00:43:04] Jim Henson: They’re new, old gear. Um, thank you for listening. Remember, you can find, uh, much of the data we referenced today. At least the Texas data, and much more at the Texas politics project website. That’s Texas politics dot U texas.edu. So thanks again for listening and we will be back soon with another second reading podcast.

[00:43:25] Jim Henson: The second reading podcast is a production of the Texas politics project at the university of Texas at Austin.