September 22nd, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] 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,

[0:00:22 Speaker 1] they have become the norm. At what point must a female senator raised her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the

[0:00:30 Speaker 0] room? I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. And welcome to the second reading podcast. I’m happy to be joined today by Josh Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project. How are we, Josh? You think I know You noticed? I mixed it up a little there in the beginning,

[0:00:51 Speaker 1] You know? I like it. I keep me on my toes. I’m excited, I guess.

[0:00:55 Speaker 0] Well, you know, you gotta have a hobby. Um, so today, I think we’re gonna join into the discussion that everyone else in the country is having for the most part today, from the perspective of Texas and talk about what is gonna happen with the Supreme Court in the aftermath of the sad death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I wanna focus really on the view the looming battle over Ginsburg’s replacement from the perspective of public opinion in Texas. And I you know, and I think we ought to really think about this even less in terms of the in and out of the of the choice before the Senate before the country and start really, with the perspective of what Texans have thought about the Supreme Court in the context of elections. So, you know, it’s a well rehearsed point now that national election polls going into 2016 showed that a large share Republican voters said that the Supreme Court appointments were an important factor in many the most important factor influencing their presidential vote. And when we were in the field in October 2016, we saw something similar in Texas.

[0:02:08 Speaker 1] Yeah, that’s right. So in our in our October election poll of that that year, we we asked voters, Thio, tell us, you know, from a list of sort of the main issues will be discussed in that time, including, you know, the economy, immigration, foreign policy, health care, education and also nominating justice to the Supreme Court, among others. You know what the most important issue is for them and their vote choice. And at the time we found that 25% of Texas said that nominating justices of the Supreme Court was the most important issue for them. So one in four voters and that was the plurality of opinion. So no other issue past it. Among Republicans, that share jumped up to 33%. So almost one in three Republicans said it was the most important issue in their vote, compared to 19% of Democrats who were split between that and the economy. So still an important issue for Democrats, but not necessarily rising to the level that we saw amongst conservatives in that polling, and then also in exit polling as well,

[0:03:00 Speaker 0] you know. And at the time, you know, I think we noticed that on Donald Trump had and other Republicans had had made that part of the camp made of the campaign. So So the question is now, do you think that pattern holds?

[0:03:15 Speaker 1] Yeah, that’s a tough question.

[0:03:16 Speaker 0] And how do you know?

[0:03:18 Speaker 1] Right, right? Yeah. I mean, That seems to be a lot of the discussion in the, you know, sort of. The immediate discussion here is you know, I think you could probably pretty easily just search the web and find, you know, a list of articles on either side saying how this is or is not going to mobilize either Democrats or Republicans, you know, depending on the writer. And sometimes you depend on the piece. You know, you see the case made for both that this is gonna be a mobilizing issue for both sides. I mean, you know, I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, I guess is ultimately, you know, one of those things, because I mean the thing, the thing about this I mean, just just just kick this off is ultimately, you know, I’m not a big fan of these types of questions, and we asked it here. And, you know, I’m not a big fan of these types of questions ultimately, because ultimately, because, you know, people are actually pretty bad at telling you their motivations for doing things. And this isn’t just politics. This is in general. So ultimately, when someone says, you know Oh, you know my vote choices based on the Supreme Court vacancy. It’s like, Well, are you a Republican? Yeah. Okay. Have you do you vote normally? Yes. Ideo. Do you always vote for Republicans? Yeah, well, I’m not sure that it’s because of the Supreme Court vacancy. It’s probably because your Republican, right. So I think that all these kinds of you know explanations and ideas out there need to be taken with a little bit of a grain of salt. In terms of, you know, is it shifting opinion or changing people’s choices? Now does it mobilize people?

[0:04:43 Speaker 0] That’s that’s probably the more important question

[0:04:45 Speaker 1] that that is the MAWR important question. Right? Um and so I think that’s, you know, one of the things that is sort of the first piece of this I don’t see this is being, you know, a big game changer in terms of maybe how people vote. But I mean, you know, is this something that’s going to, you know, fan the partisan flames and really, you know, increase the urgency amongst some people to vote. I think that’s fair. And I think that’s probably true on both sides, don’t you?

[0:05:10 Speaker 0] Yeah. I I think Honestly, I think it comes out in the wash in terms of, you know, might we see some very incremental increase in mobilization on this issue because of this? Possibly. But I think we’re already looking at a pretty high voter turnout. Despite all the things that are gonna make it difficult to go vote. Like if you’re an older person, you could get fatally ill. I think this is now. It’s sort of baked into the partisanship. I mean, you know, I mean, I mean, I think the question is here who gets more of, ah, ramp up in intensity on this and the intensity ISS so ramped up. I mean, you know, in our last poll in June, and this has not gone down, you know, Donald Trump’s disapproval among Democrats was 93%. You can’t get 93% of Democrats to agree on anything, but they will agree on the fact that they hate Donald Trump. And within that, the strongly disagree was, you know what high eighties

[0:06:15 Speaker 1] high eighties, something in that range. And yeah,

[0:06:19 Speaker 0] and and and on the flip side, you know? Yeah, go ahead on flipside. Approval for Trump is also pretty strong.

[0:06:23 Speaker 1] Well, that’s the thing. I mean, you know, the thing about this is I mean, needless to say, this is a huge event and it’s a huge event, partially because I think any time you replace the Supreme Court, justice is a big event and sort of just the political space. I think you know, the thing that people are focusing on and we can kind of move towards this discussion is the process by which those replacements that replacement happens. Right? And that’s kind of I think, where the You know where the quote unquote smart people are thinking about about the impact of the process. But the thing is, is that you know, ultimate E ultimate

[0:06:52 Speaker 0] share of the electorate. What you say smart people.

[0:06:55 Speaker 1] I’m not gonna answer that question. E. Just

[0:06:59 Speaker 0] know you’re in a little bit of mood because you you’re home schooling and you never know when you’re going. I’m just gonna get an answer from you

[0:07:05 Speaker 1] know, I’m not gonna do that, but, I mean, you know, the thing I would think is, you know, if you’re thinking about this in terms of, you know, again as a mobilization effort, you know it. Probably, you know, as I’m sitting here thinking about, you know, it probably does help Republicans a little bit more than Democrats, I think. And I think you know. But but But marginally And that’s and that’s the thing here, right? Ultimately, you know, if you’re the type of Democrat who’s a big Ruth Bader Ginsburg fan, odds are you are voting and you were gonna vote for Joe Biden. I mean, that’s that’s a pretty safe bet. There’s not gonna be a lot of, like, sort of pro gives. Trump. Yeah, I don’t think there’s a lot of that going on. So ultimately, if this is a big issue for you, the issues that you know are on the table now because of a change composition of the court. And if you’re thinking about those kinds of issues, you probably know how you’re gonna vote. I think you know the extent that you know it might be a little bit more helpful for Republicans, and I’m only really talking at the margins here. You know, I think the idea here would be that if you are a Republican who has reservations about Donald Trump in the important point here that you’ve already made with our job approval numbers is that’s not a huge share of Republicans. It’s a very small share of Republicans, but for whom a conservative majority on the court is very important. Well, maybe this pushes you in the direction of sort of reaffirming that vote choice. Now, having said that, I could also make the case. Hey, if they put a replacement on the court before the election, even now again, I think they’ll do it after the election. You know, you could say, What difference does it make? But I think again, at the margins here again at the margins of maybe some dissatisfied, satisfied with Republicans. Maybe this is helpful.

[0:08:37 Speaker 0] Yeah, And that math. You know, it’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down to, but it is an interesting one that, like, you know, if those people are also the same people that are aware of the process intricacies and choices here, it could have what you could. You could have your cake and eat it, too. You could vote for Joe Biden and then go. You have You know, I’m still gonna get I’m still going to get, you know, a conservative justice. But I’m really I’m what I’m really locked up in right now is thinking about that. People that are Ginsberg and trump fans. I’m imagining somebody looking at their hat rack and going. Should I wear my notorious RBG or should I wear my today? I’m not sure. Um,

[0:09:17 Speaker 1] yeah, I’ve got some weird speculation Is running through my head right now is gonna just Very well. There’s another dimension I’d be like, Can I ask, sir, can I ask you how you feel about our relationship with Israel?

[0:09:28 Speaker 0] You know that there’s gonna be a very odd that z gonna be at the intersection of some very odd recumbent e. You know, I would hazard a guess to say they’re independent voters. I would say this that the other you know, the other way that I think. And I think this is also a marginal advantage, But one, I think advantage way that this does advantage. Republicans is in media sort of media attention and, you know, agenda space and just public attention bandwidth because I think it is an advantage for Republicans at the presidential level, and I think it’s gonna vary probably at the sub presidential level. It’s gonna It’s gonna different different states, and it’s even its particular gonna be different in different District’s. But it’s a congressional or in Texas State Legislative District’s, you know, and this is a little oversimplified. But I think it’s still right that, you know, they Republicans would much rather be talking about this, even with all the charges of hypocrisy and the Lindsey Graham videos and whatever than talking about the pandemic and the response of the pandemic as the deaths keep rolling up and as we do are getting some indications that in some places were getting a little bit of ramping up again

[0:10:49 Speaker 1] well, and

[0:10:50 Speaker 0] so I just think it’s a better It’s a better issue for Republicans than talking about pandemic response or the economy.

[0:10:56 Speaker 1] Yeah, you know, to link that back up to what I said at the beginning about, you know, not being a big fan of the sort of, you know, kind of these sorts of questions that ask, you know, Well, what was your what was the deciding factor in your vote or what was the major issue? But what those what those items often do reflect is they do reflect proximity. They Yeah, and I would say they reflect the salience of the conversation. So ultimately, you know what I think you saw there was, You know, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided that he wasn’t gonna hold a vote on Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, until after the 2016 election, what he was signaling was, Hey, the Supreme Court’s a big issue in this election, and I think we picked that up in our voting. Whether people were voting particularly because of that issue or not, I think, is an open question. But ultimately it tells you what became. I think, you know, sort of what we say is like what the election was about for a large number of

[0:11:47 Speaker 0] this time is a lot noisier,

[0:11:49 Speaker 1] this times a lot noisier, right?

[0:11:50 Speaker 0] There’s a lot of Trump is the and there’s an

[0:11:52 Speaker 1] incumbent. And so I think again, that complicates all those things. But I think that’s sort of again. I agree with you. I mean, ultimately here. I think you know, Republicans at this point would much rather be having a discussion about, you know, the process, even even the process of replacing a Supreme Court nominee than they would be About 200,000 coronavirus deaths and

[0:12:13 Speaker 0] 30 years is gonna glaze over after. Yeah, the process discussion anyway. So, you know, I think another another interesting aspect of all this is is a little wonky, Er, but I think ultimately comes back to the moment we’re in. And that’s the place of the Supreme Court in Texans in thinking about federal institutions and the U. S. Government and this’ll really pregnant issue of trust in government and declining trust in government and institutions. And, you know, we’ve done, you know, luckily for us on but for the state of Texas Ah, lot of polling on this. Where we’ve asked people, what branch of government do you trust the most? And we’ve been doing this since 2012. And so this is one of those issues where we got we have the benefit of having seen both changes in the presidency and changes in control of Congress and developments across the court s Oh,

[0:13:14 Speaker 1] yeah, the composition of the court.

[0:13:16 Speaker 0] Well, you know, and you know, and you know, I think interestingly for the Supreme Court discussion, right, now, you know, shifts within the apparent orientation of the court itself. Or at least some of the justices. I mean, you know, no need being coy about it. John Roberts position is what’s kind of key in this on DSO. You know, if you go back, you know, the patterns were pretty clear, right? E mean, they’re complicated, but they’re clear.

[0:13:42 Speaker 1] Yeah. I mean, I think for this discussion, you know, the most important thing here to note is, you know, you see, you saw an uptick, as I recall, you know, an uptick in and trust in the court amongst Republicans. As you know, basically Mawr. Republican appointees were making their way onto the courts. But then you saw a pretty steep decline once, you know, a Roberts led majority again, who is appointed by George W. Bush upholding the A c A. Right, uh,

[0:14:13 Speaker 0] approving the constitutionality of

[0:14:15 Speaker 1] gay marriage. Right? And so those two issues, I think pretty much instantly led to a fair amount of skepticism and especially amongst republicans and conservatives towards the court, right?

[0:14:27 Speaker 0] Yeah, yeah. I mean, just to put some numbers on that. So in October 2012, when we asked people. What Texans? What? The most trusted branch of government waas Supreme Court was the top response. Almost half 45% of Republicans said they trusted the Supreme Court and the judicial branch the most, followed by Congress at 19%. Um, and Onley, 2% of course, trusted The executive branch with Barack Obama is president. Um, but, you know, the thing that we’ve always watched in this and that I think gets us to this issue of trust is that 34% of Republicans, um, didn’t know, right? I didn’t really have an answer. So then if you if you for If you, you know, jumped in November of 2015 After some of these Supreme Court decisions are getting handed down and Roberts is taking heat from Republicans and particularly from the conservative end of the Republican Party, that trust among Republicans in the Supreme Court drops from 45 to 23%. You know, Congress gets a little bit of a hit. And remember that at that point there was still a report. There was a Republican majority in both houses. So, you know, it goes, you know, trust and the Congress being the most trusted branch goes from 19 to 30%. But at that 300.45% of Republicans almost half say that they don’t know, so that increases.

[0:15:50 Speaker 1] And that I should say that’s a meaningful response. In this case, we think I mean partially because it’s it’s reacting thio clear markers in the political environment and then in ways that make sense. And so sometimes I don’t know just means, Yeah, I don’t know. And sometimes those things is a Yeah, this is a I don’t trust any of these most in most cases or, you know, I can’t even pick out of these which one I trust the most, which I think you need a bit of itself is telling. And I think you know, the environment that we’re in right now. This this question about institutional trust is really important. So we saw this decline and institute, you know, entrusting the court amongst Republicans relative again to the other branches, which is important here, I think. But, you know, I mean, assuming that the Republican majority in the Senate pushes through Trump’s nominee during the lame duck session, potentially with, you know, again, potentially, they could have lost the presidency coming up, potentially, they could lose the Senate in that period, and they could still move a nominee forward. Whether that happens or not is, I think, kind of irrelevant to this point. But if they move a nominee through in that in that in that, especially during that lame duck session, you know you’re going to see Democratic trust in the courts, you know, basically fall off a cliff to the extent that it existed. And, you know, we’re talking about this a little bit before, you know, and I related to some of our items on race where and discrimination where, you know, there’s a couple ways to look at that stuff and you could kind of cut. You know that data by thinking, you know about which groups see, you know blacks is the most discriminated against group in a society versus Christians versus White. But there’s another way to look at all that data and say, Geez, there’s a heck of a lot of discrimination floating around and everybody sees it. They might not think it’s the same groups, but ultimately there’s a discrimination problem actually, above and beyond, even just any particular groups. If you take the data at its face, I think you know, this is another one of those situations where you know, you look at it, something like this, and you say, You know, what are the the enduring costs to trust in, you know, the judiciary, which is supposed to kind of set the rules and be neutral. You know, again, that’s a very simplified version of reality, right?

[0:17:48 Speaker 0] But it’s one that, but it’s one that a lot of people have.

[0:17:51 Speaker 1] But it’s one that a lot of people have. And if the process by which you know justices, you know, get appointed becomes, you know, overly political or seems to be overly tainted, you know, I mean, there’s sort of a just a broad, systemic problem that arises from that, I think.

[0:18:03 Speaker 0] Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you know, not to go a bridge too far with the implication of that description of the your characterization of the discrimination data, but I mean, it brings you back and you didn’t use this term, but I think you could that there’s a lack of social trust, right? And so, you know, one could operationalize social trust or specifically than that, etcetera, etcetera. But, I mean, I think it’s a sign of that. You know, I want I want to pick up on something you said before you went into discrimination comparison. But you know, one of the interesting things about that about this notion of you know who is trusting how much and how much partisanship, who is trusting what branches, how much partisanship ways into it is that after Donald Trump got elected Democrats, a lot of Democrats put their trust in the Supreme Court. And I think we’re heartened by the fact that Roberts led the court bond. You know, he did to some degree on the gay rights and the A C A decisions. Because, you know, if you look at trust in the in the Supreme Court in 20 you know, in 2015, among Democrats it was 23%. And that’s with a Democratic president, right? You go to February 2020 and of course, you know, uh, Democratic trust in the presidency has plummeted to about the level that Republicans had an Obama percent, while Republicans trust in the president has increased the 54. But Democrats trust in the judicial branch increased from 23 to 36% between November 2015 and February 2020. Um, and remember in February of 2020 Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House of the Democrats still have ah, House of Congress. Only 24% say they trust Congress the most. Now, of course, it’s divided government and in Congress and

[0:19:58 Speaker 1] Congress kicked around all the time. There’s

[0:20:00 Speaker 0] a there’s a Mitch McConnell issue and yeah, I mean, you know, people just don’t like Congress, right? Even Democrats. The other piece of that, though, in terms of this face so so two points to make about that movement. One. There are still some residue of that sense, that of trust in the judicial branch, even among partisans, even though it’s well known that the court is dominated by conservatives at this point, I mean, this is after Donald Trump has already you know, this is post Cavanaugh by a while, Um, but the trust problem then transfers in terms of the don’t know responses to Democrats, and so 38% in February of 20 of Democrats say they don’t know which we’re taking is a surrogate forever. They don’t trust any of them. So now if you take those two numbers, I think that actually buttresses the argument for saying that all things being equal in terms of science and mobilization, you know, the Democrats were in a different place now than they were in 2016. You know, the court. I mean, this fight is gonna be more salient, I think, to Democrats. Now, that may not translate into some big gain and mobilization, But my guess is we’re going to see

[0:21:21 Speaker 1] what has translated Translated it. I mean, it’s translated into fundraising. I mean, that was sort of the most immediate,

[0:21:27 Speaker 0] which is an interesting indicator.

[0:21:28 Speaker 1] You know, I think in the two hours I read, you know, I think this morning, you know, in the two hours sort of after the announcement between nine. And 11, You know, basically, I think some of the various Democratic surrogates raised something like $100,000 a minute during those. Yeah, those two hour window. So I

[0:21:43 Speaker 0] mean, it’s all kinds of numbers, depending on where you drive it. But they may. You know, they have a lot of money. Yeah,

[0:21:48 Speaker 1] I would say this You know, I think the thing is is that e You know, my my feeling about this is that is going to increase intensity, right? I think, you know, ultimately, But it’s probably increase intensity, mostly amongst the people who already were pretty intense. I mean, for Democrats, this is basically their worst nightmare. I mean, if you’re sort of ah, you know, someone who follows this stuff closely, it’s a Democrat, you know, for Republicans, I think this is a big opportunity. And I think, you know, the far side This kind released the public opinion on this and kind of what sort of questions we should expect to see, you know, over the next couple of weeks. But, like, you know, and then there’s this sort of other thing kind of hanging out there. I think that I would again put this kind of in the thing that smart people are, you know, thinking about. But that probably doesn’t matter, which is, you know,

[0:22:29 Speaker 0] we should say smart and interested to be fair,

[0:22:32 Speaker 1] right? That’s fair. So smart and interested people are thinking about Thank you. Uh, you know, it is this idea of, like, you know what does the hypocrisy of it matter and the hypocrisy I’m talking about it, you know, is basically the idea of, you know, Obama nominated, uh, Merrick Garland. You know, America, you know, over 200 days before the election, McConnell said no too close to the election. We’re not going to do that. Obviously, Trump is going to nominate someone, but sounds like by the end of this week, which will be about, you know, within about 40 some odd days of the election and McConnell on the night that, you know, get that there was announced Ginsburg diets that we’re gonna hold a vote. Yeah. And so for some people, they’re saying, you know, I mean, the Lindsey Graham comment you point out is I mean, that’s the starkest of it all, which is basically say, you know, he basically said, If this situation comes up, you show this clip again, is kind of, you know, is his piece of it. And there’s this idea that somehow well, does this matter? And you know, my short answer to my mind is, Well, no, because generally, hypocrisy doesn’t seem to matter too much in politics. Although their limits, we kind of get come back to that a little bit

[0:23:37 Speaker 0] about the bar. Seems way to talk about the bar moving.

[0:23:41 Speaker 1] Well, that’s the question will come back to you, but, I mean, but the further question is this I

[0:23:44 Speaker 0] don’t even mean in this. I just mean generally,

[0:23:46 Speaker 1] No, I mean that as well. But, I mean, I think the public opinion question is, you know, you’re gonna see a lot of questions of the next couple of days are gonna be trying toe, you know, poke it. This idea of, like does does the hypocrisy matter or, you know, or is this situation different in some fundamental way? So therefore, it’s not hypocritical or whatever. Ultimately, you know, if you think about where we started about you know what I would you know, Would you ask me not answering? You know what share of the electorate a smart interested or whatever.

[0:24:14 Speaker 0] You just I was just going with smart.

[0:24:17 Speaker 1] Great. But if you think about this, I mean, one of the things I would say I just writing down some of the questions. First of all, you know, do people even understand this process? It all is a fair question here, right? I mean, ultimately, the share of the electorate that understands that a Supreme Court vacancy is filled with a nomination from our president and then advice and consent of the Senate alone, right? That in and of itself is a fair amount of information that a lot of people are probably not really aware of of the mechanics. Do they know this recent history that we’re talking about? Honestly, odds are probably not. But we’re talking about this yesterday, But every year that we have an election, I’m always somewhat shocked, but less and less so by the extent to which it almost seems like the last election never even happened. I mean, in terms of the way people talk and stuff, I think that’s just almost feels like a constant. So I mean, when I don’t expect people to know this history and then what? This question, if will doesn’t matter? Well, I mean, I go back to thing I said originally about people’s motives for voting. Well, okay, you know, maybe it’s the margins for a couple people again. Maybe there are, You know, some, You know, Republicans out. I mean, maybe there’s some Democrats again. Who are Ginsburg? Trump voters. You know, maybe there are, You know, some Republicans out there who say, Hey, you know, I don’t I don’t like what this does to the process, but they’re gonna be a very, very small share of them. And for most people, you know, their decisions are baked, they’re baked into the cake. And for the people who haven’t made decisions, it’s unlikely that something that’s so process driven is this. And so really, you know, very kind of inside ary and detailed is gonna be the thing that’s gonna tip someone one way or the other, at least that that Zatz what I think.

[0:25:49 Speaker 0] Well, I think that’s right. And I think that, you know, I mean to be a little less, you know, jokey and loose about this, you know, smart, interested thing, you know, we know that, you know, this is what party identification in what you know, elite signaling does for people you know, it gives them. It fills in the gaps and information that they have about things that air complicated, you know, and both difficult and not that interesting and time consuming to figure out on they do in fact, then you know, look for a way. Look for shortcuts and partisanship is a shortcut. And, you know, the elite opinion is a shortcut. And in elections, those two things intersect tightly, and they intersect even more tightly. Now, in, you know, such a polarized than ideologically sorted political system.

[0:26:43 Speaker 1] Yeah, and I mean, you know, you know. So the thing is that, you know, this may not matter, you know, for the election so much. But, I mean, you know, take a take a take a step back. And this is sort of a discussion we were having yesterday about, you know, the broader implications for the system. I mean, I think the thing that you know you and I were kind of marveling at a little bit is you know, it wasn’t It wasn’t too long ago that, you know, you would expect a politician to potentially be constrained at the very least by the statements they made themselves recently about what they think should and should not happen, right? I mean, ultimately, I think that’s kind of something that we sort of expect from just anyone in communication that if they tell you like, well, I would never do this and then, you know, two days later they said, Let’s do this You’d say, Well, jeez, you know, that’s That’s a problem especially for someone you know, you’re elected into a representative position to represent your interest, right? Ultimately, that’s a problem. But the extent to which now you know and i e you know it Z It’s hard to say that it’s not, you know, led by the president in some way by which, you know, politicians don’t feel bound by positions. They’ve taken our statements they have made even recently. You know, it’s sort of a I mean you’re sitting, deciding how you feel about or what side you come down on it or whatever. It’s a pretty troubling thing that some people don’t know. If you’re listening to this, you may say, Hey, politicians have been lying forever. It’s like, you know, I understand that, you know, I get the whole bounds, but there were bounds. I mean, ultimately, you know Yes, you You know, you may say that politicians were lying or there two faced or whatever, but ultimately I have a video of you saying we’re doing this thing and This is the rule from now on. And then four years later, you say, Well, nope. That’s not the thing, actually,

[0:28:23 Speaker 0] Yeah. And you know, I mean and I would say that, you know, there’s I mean, there’s some, you know, to, you know, dangerously close to the edge of some kind of post modern linguistic thing here. But But there is, you know, I mean, there’s still the shadow of that need. I mean, Lindsey Graham still felt the need to come up with an excuse, right? And his ex. His excuse was that the way that they treated that that justice count now Justice Kavanaugh was treated meant that he was no longer bound by that because the rules were already broken. Ted Cruz, you know, in a very you know kind of debate team sort of manner, said, Well, no, this isn’t the same because the parties were different then. Now, like we, you know, it’s it’s more democratic because the Senate and the president of the same party, and so we’re just doing what the voters want.

[0:29:17 Speaker 1] And by the way, the shooter on the other foot, this is what they would do. So we’re gonna do it

[0:29:22 Speaker 0] right, and so you know, it’s interesting. So there’s still it’s still kinda out there, you know? I mean, I think they’re you know, another factor is here. I think to some degree, you know, you know, and this is just like, you know, it still makes the point that there it’s hard not to see is a degradation of public discourse because you think about applying some of these things to your personal life and it would never work, right? In a sense, No. No, really. I mean, this is just like and so I mean, this is part of the degradation of the discourse that we’re going that we’re seeing in the end of the process.

[0:29:59 Speaker 1] Well, that’s the thing. And I think you know what’s what I think is, you know, And we’re in the immediate aftermath of of the beginning of this period, right? And I think, you know, the focus is really sort of right now, you know, not incorrectly, I guess, on the immediate. But I mean, as I think what? This discussion is kind of crystallizing for me. And my thinking about this is that, you know, I think the immediate Consequences Air Limited. You know, I think there’ll be some you know they’ll be some fundraising. There’ll be some shifted, you know, Let’s say you know, enthusiasm amongst, you know, certain groups of voters. You know, you know, maybe a couple people will switch votes here or there if they had loose intentions to begin with. But but the bigger consequences their long term now, the obvious long term consequences the composition of the court is going to change. And that’s got its own sort of, you know, discussion that we could have about it. But I mean, but there’s this other piece, you know, you started, you know, early on this discussion, talking about these trust numbers. And it does raise this question about, you know, institutional trust. I mean trust. And again both. You know this. You know, let’s say the courts themselves to be, you know, neutral arbiters. On the one hand, three idea that you know, politicians, though their politicians or at the very least, going to be consistent enough, you know, within some kind of broad rubric. You know, that’s all important right now. And I think, you know, in a time where I think you know, when we look at polling, we look across polling, you see, sort of, you know, increasing distrust and institutions increasing distrust in politicians, political actors, really all kinds of traditional institutions. You know, there’s something about this. It’s pretty troubling in the long term big picture health aspect.

[0:31:30 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, talking about things we’ve talked about before. I mean, you know, this is not gonna help the condition in which you know the whole idea of rational discourse, fact based argument and something resembling, you know, truthful validation of things that are being set in the public sphere. This is not gonna help this. It all we’ve seen that, you know, the degrading of that. And look, I mean, you know, it sounds very partisan, but you know, the the bounds of this have been extended by the president. There’s no two ways about that in his willingness to say things that are blatantly untrue and repeat them and not not give in until his, you know, critics or the fact check just gets exhausted and

[0:32:16 Speaker 1] did not deny even having said something

[0:32:19 Speaker 0] right. But so that’s all kind of things is all happening within that and you know, I was looking at, you know, I was looking at these numbers and trusted branches and thinking about where I might a map. Well, how I might imagine these results looking depending on different results of the election, different results of this selection process. And look, I think you know, I will be very surprised if Trump’s appointment does not make it to the court. Given where we are now, I just don’t I just think it’s the odd. It’s the odds on outcome and I don’t you know, I mean, you know, there’s also, you know, there’s an underlying piece of how the system is supposed to work in terms of checks and balances here that is being sorely tested. So I think I’ll leave it there. Thanks for joining Josh. I know you’re busy. Thanks for listening. Thanks to our crew in liberal arts CTS, the liberal arts development studio, for giving once again technical support par excellence and enabling us to do this. All the data that we’re talking about can be found at the Texas Politics Project website in our poll archive, and maybe we’ll even throw it up in a block, keep an eye out aan dat is a Texas politics dot utexas dot e d u. Thanks for listening and stay well, and we’ll be back next week. Second reading Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin