so now, without further ado, tonight, i'm very excited. welcome, rachel beta for celebrating the release of hit and where it republicans at their own game. as america into the election cycle that will its democratic

future. hit them where it hurts is the book for any democrat has ever bang their head against a wall when obviously reasoning failed to sway voters over to their. this guide is aeline to save american democracy in its darkest hour. rachel bitter cofer is a political scientist and election turned political video offers interviews, analyzes have been featured in the new york times. the post salon, among others. but a cofer was recognized for novel theory that predicted the size of the blue wave back in 2018 midterm elections much earlier th forecasters. tonight, rachel will be in conversation. adam parker mingo, an american political strategist, consultant in who served as national field director for the democratic national committee in 2016 under donna brazile. so please join me in welcoming to politics and prose rachel bitter, cofer and parker mingo.

'll kick it off. i'm adam parker, manco and. thank you guys for being here on a coldriday. i got a ten month old in the back who can't be silenced. so you may hear him, but we're here for. rachel andn incredible person who, i don't know, maybe five or six years ago, i first started hearing about it was in advance of8, i first started hearing about her from people who didn't like her and i didn't like the people who didn't like her. and i thought, you know,t was a perfect opportunity to to really judge somebody by who their enemies. and then i got a little closer and, you know, this sort of hypothesis of she to the table was to be true so she is not just a you know incredible seasoned person, but she understands the best ideas come from outside of washington, d.c. and oftentimes she is being

criticized. ■1it's by a very specific groupf people who think that they know how to run the numbers. the best. i've been extremely impressed her and was so excited that this book came out and to have the opportunities here and ask you some questions and in addition there's time for you guys to ask questions of we don't cover any of them. i know people have kids and other stuff. so in the event you have to leave and you you really want to get a question out, let us know and just raise your hand and we'll do before 745. so with that, what inspired you to write this book that was such a kind introduction and thank you so you're right, i should be judged by enemies i keep in the twitter world. yeah. you never beat boys. they get very mad when you do that. so i am so happy to answer that question. inspired me to write that book. i will tell you is that i was watching the returns in 2020 and on election night and i knew, you know, they didn't call it for a couple of days. i knew we had hit what we needed

to hit for the presidency and to get that dangerous, dangerous man out of office right. but i also saw, as the returns continued to come in, that we dramatically underperformed formed our potential down ballot and managed to losehe u.s. housn forecast work, which is like hard database, not polling based, said we should be winning seats right and so at point i was telling people don't think they're going to transfer the power peacefully and people thought i was nuts. whatever they had done all their planning in advance and in plain sight. so i didn't feel like to like hat by saying i don't they're just going to like, lose and walk away. right. and i realize that the 2022 midterm was going to come hard for america and like, explain what i mean by that. in the second that unless and until we fixed how talk about

politics how we do electioneering what are our top our strategy is the very base of how we do electioneering that we would probably get hammered in 2022. and if we did we may not even be able to host a free and, fair 2024 presidential election, especially in those midwestern states. so at that point is when i started to think how can i, as an outsider, as you pointed as a person, has no role index into washington, d.c. or york city? how can i democrats to stop doing this wrong as fast as humanly so that we don't all collapse into a fascist hellhole? right. and i admit that does kind of crazy to be like, i'm going to go try do that. so, you know, vote for folks. been following me long enough. they know i initially went to an i created strike pac of make some advertising to show what i meant about negative partizanship and branding and all of these things that i discuss in the book. but at the end, ultimately, i

had the opportunity to work directly with people like jamie harris and the dnc, others, and knew that i could have more then and there inside, outside. and you know the book was like, okay, can i we're getting we're getting across to places in michigan and arizona, other places, but we're not this not something that's ready to roll out in 22 across the board, not ready to roll out in the virginia cycle the next year that would be coming. and then, of course, year where the whole fate of american won't be on the ballot and. i knew i could write ways to put this information, but ultimately what mattered was that it doesn't work unless people read the book. people have to know about book to read it. and therefore i decided the best thing to do would be try to do the improbable and publish a national book with, you know, a real publisher. i'm not i was an academic published you academic publishing is very different and that way the knowledge that's in

my brain could be transplanted into brains all across that are activities that are, you know just citizens online that are running, the parties that are running committees, that are running campaigns. you know, so the consultants, everybody would be able to understand some basic truths about the american electorate that should and must shape our strategic approach to electioneering. and sohae book. i'm really, really excited that. erin murphy joined me on the book. i could never be more grateful for him. my co-writer on this book who helped me make sure that what i was saying to you guys and the way it was presented was that anybody could understand and not wonky, academic. and so i do want to give a shout out to my coauthor, he's the best decision i ever made. and the book would be nearly as good without. his assistance. i think the hypothesis how do you get something done really quickly knowing you, you know,

if you tell if rachel says she's going to do something, she's going to do it seconds later and that's how quickly she moves. but that's not how quickly just about anyone is moves. sometimes the yellow tape is helpful, sometimes it's not. but that a lot of sense in terms of why you put this into a book but that book has to be shared by lots of people so everyone obviously read it and pass on the word what do think is a key takeaway lesson that and love jaime harrison but the national party as a whole if you had to highlight one could take away from this book that you have to brand your as an extremist that you escape partizanship and i in the book i talk about my brain is a trained political scientist that studied american voter behavior voter psychology campaigns and elections and polarization from an academic quantitative perspective, which is very different than like, you know, philosophizing about it. right.

and my frustration, really, the whole reason i even got into the forecast sting work was i was so frustrated when. i would look at fivethirtyeigh's crystal ball at that time and not see them recognize how we have a new tngelectorate calleds polarization. it's a thing. it's not just a word, it's an actual condition that the electorate has entered and grown evolved into. that is impacting how people make decisions, how they behave what they're willing to tolerate anall kinds of other. and so, you know, getting people into the brain of a political scientist, the main lesson that for so rnd even though it's been known for 70 years now by academics, is that the american anything about politics. okay, like our worlds do. and certainly here in d.c. and in the in new york city, everyone you might know does.

but if you go out into the real and start talking to people about complex political anonymous like, you know, this jury verdict from. trump they are they. it's not like i'm going to go into my if i'm a barista at starbucks tomorrow like, hey, are you doing i'm great. did you hear about trump verdict? you're like, that's not outside of our bubble. okay? and our little bubble is i mean, it's so insular that. i have had a really hard time explaining to people. actually, the amber heard johnny depp relationship fight trial thing that happened in 2022. more people interested in that roe versus wade and like more people were like, i need to know what happened between johnny and amber. then wait a minute. what is this thing about abortion? right. and like you think about what that means. it means that that the public

does the public is not reacting a lot of stuff. some of it's partizan, polarization. like republicans are nerg a good job. but a lot it is complete and total ignorance. they don't know that there was a coup plot that, there were fake elector schemes that they tried to steal, you know, the voting machines and almost clear marshall like no one knows that it's a for us and why that matters is that voters average americans we're still talking about 50% of the adult population that won't even bother to vote. we got it to like 60 something in 2020. and that was a historic okay, but still means 5% of people who are like you and me, they may even look any different than you and me. they may be college educated, they may not didn't bother to vote between joe biden and donald in the midst of a pandemic where 3000 people were dropping dead on a daily basis. so that's clay that we're working with. even the half that's somewhat engaged they

don't they might know who joe the joe biden's the president, but they don't know that the republican party controls house, right? they don't know even if they do know that. they might know that. they don't know what that means for legislation they don't realize when immigration doesn't happen that it's actually house republicans refusing to put bill up that's killing the bill and why when you look at polling data and they and you know, they were making a big deal out this last week, look, voters blame and not trump, even though trump kill the immigration deal. and if you start to think about, okay, no one knows nothing, no wonder they aren't to that. and the political scientists that discovered this, they went on to add don't worry, america, because voters have a thing that they they can rely on that they don't need to know a lot. they don't need to know much about any particular politics, john, you know, or policy, whatever, because they have this thing called the party label. and they can that to categorize

their political world, basically into two spheres, right. and so i may not know who what jane smith stanton, i know anything about her platform. never been to her websites. we haven't donated to her campaign because only freaks money to political candidates and that's all right i couldn't you know there's nothing about about her that i could know as a but i know i'm going to vote for her because. she has a d next to her name, right? it's telling me this woman's on my team and most people even the ones that lie about it actually do have a team about 35 or so of the electorate that are independent. but they're prodded. half of them will admit, yeah, i lean to the democrat■ where lean to the republican party and data after dataset election after election that those people basically behave the same as someone who admits that they're a partizan okay. so you have this that's going to dictate the vote choice for 90% of the electoraten su powerful way that if amanda here, my friend amanda, if i

didn't know she was a woman i didn't know she was white or black, i didn't know was older, young, urban, rural, suburban, all the -- that you hear analyst out on tv, kind of focusing on. i don't need to know any of that. i don't need to know any of it. just give me a big black dot and give me a party label. and nine out of ten times, 90% of the time i will be able to predict that person's vote choice a year out from the election. and no specified of who those candidates going to be. now, if you think about what that means and how you hear contemporary american politics discuss, but you don't hear a lot of conversation about how powerful of a vote predictor partizanship and, you know, we created or our side that has evolved to us not realizing that you to sell the party brand if, the voter at the end of the day is going to go on that heuristic. then it's going to be whether in whether tim ryanan of class whie

declined and to maga and they're all going to have great conversations but second they get into and he can pretend he can tell people i'm not a real democrat know i'm not one of those democrats i'm a moderate. i want get stuff done for you. nd of the day, they're going to go in and see that product label that the next to his name. so unless you have broken that brand allegiance and made the connection then you're not going to win over those votes. that's how we have lost so many voters to the republican who is, of course, running that exact strategy and their brand into that into the voter file has been about us. it's always us. it's all we everything that they do in electioneering, outward focusing and, they focus on us. and it's about two things. you're driving strong turnout with issues that motivate people like crt in schools. so that's red meat for republican base. yes, but it was also the bucket message. okay. so it's one message that that

combines them all, rules them instead of what we do, where we have messaging the base. and it's really micro targeted, then we have some persuasion messaging where we're like, look, val demings is a motorcycle cop and she is going to get stuff done. they we have incredible candidates mean massively on paper, objectively better people that are qualified good, that are temperament, better, everything they lose y because. we're running campaigns where we're trying to sell the individual, we're minimizing partizanship. so we're not branding democrats as good. and all they hear is democrats as bad and we're not wedge the republican party's extreme against them to make sure these people that we now know and understand don't know much about politics and really don't care to, at least for them to hear one thing, one thing about the republican party than what they've alreadyer about it, which which polling data

tells us low taxes, good on the economy, good on defense. even after these last 20 years where they have been, you know, bad on all those average people tell pollsters all the time who is good on the economy. the republicans. that's their brand. okay. so at the end of the day, we have to lean into partizanship. yep, we have to ride for the be a brand us a brand down them in that approach. so i can totally how defining your opponent's brand would work with any normal candidate up and down the ballot. but donald trump versus joe biden. how do you define donald trump and i guess. i would maybe one comment, but also a question in first of all, there's been five or six things that have happened today, right? already just today, people forgot that six days, seven days ago, he said he did nothing in four years for guns. and then we had another mass shooting.

so how do you define, donald trump, in this sort of constant way where it's happening every single day, if you're the joe biden. right. and then, too, i just guess an asterisk from what i can see. i don't work for them. i think that biden campaign seems to be doing a better job, or at least at this sort of new a january 20, 24 version of a campaign that we've terms of rew how does that play into what, you know, defining? yeah, i mean, the biden team i'm don't i don't lose sleep at all right now over the biden team strategy i know it's to be humming they've already s it up to define trump and the republicans as a threat to your freedom to your health. well security and safety is what i say in the book. andoing to pound that message pretty hard. where i'm worried is is in the swing map, especially on the senate races, because in the book, talk about centralization and coordination, how they you know, they have these

infrastructures that they've built. and i lay those out and and how they operate and help but one of the most important things that they have is coordination. so i use virginia's 2021 governor's race, crt. had never heard of, probably in january of 2021. and i know almost every dumb thing you could possibly know. okay. because i monitor maga a lot, right? and i had never heard of crt, but as soon as i did and saw what they were doing, i realized, oh, they're going to they're going to take something no one has ever heard of. and that is so we get stuck on that. oh, no one knows what fascism. and the republicans are like, that's right. because we can define any ambiguity in that gets filled with the voters own personal fear. right. so you know, we were laughing at stump reporters crt they can't define. it doesn't matter because. they defined it in their in their own way and usually that way was not making me f about being white right. that's what it came down to.

and i point out in virginia in 2021, all the state legislative races that$m three statewide, so is ag's secretary of state and and then the governor's race what the campaign was completely devoted to crt and they took something i had never heard of, let alone other people and made it the define issue of an election cycle. so by fall you're having voters in polls about crt, right? i mean in high degrees. and now we all know what crt. okay. something no one had ever heard of within a year, a defining issue and you will never sell me that sweater vest. glenn, as i to call them, sweater vest. glenn sweater vest. glenn gives a -- about race in schools. he doesn't give us a scrap of intention all to anything about public education because he's a republican and republicans eight public education. but it you know, you don't how it doesn't take a stretch to imagine what glenn would like to be talking economics business

policy, stuff like that that's asked, would have been out on the stump doing because that's what he's and that's what he would sell. and then all the state legislative candidates, some of them would talk about this and some will talk about that, this and that, that's interest driven. but the republican party is able to do that, we need to be able to do is say, hey, we have found thisp? powerful issue that's vey emotive, that's freaking people out. let's all talk about and define our campaigns around, because not only do they have the right media machine, but you want it if you're going to create a cacophony and mainstream media, you need a lot of noise and. that layering up effect from state legislative candidates up to the governors in secretary of state ag races cause the media to pick up the narrative of crt and then what did we do? we did what we always do. we had a factual discussion about how crt isn't really a thing and it's not taught

schools. and even if it was, is it really so bad to acknowledge structural racism? and tony morrison has a pulitzer and whatever, like and i'm like texting jamie, you know, like no republic guns want to talk about public education, then we should be like, yes let's talk about public because every day i'm sending my eight year old to a school and every day i tell him when he's leaving the house, i him, i love him because in this country the republican party is america that you've built. i know if he's going to get slaughtered at school today or not. right. so of playing defense and defining crt and like it was on everything for like three months, msnbc all this plays what we should have been doing is reminding americans, the republican party will let your children die before they stand up to the gun lobby. right. the the republican party have

taken american education and the k through 12 system that some you guys grew up in and turned it from the best in the world to the worst of the world right. so we should be going defining d one salient thing or theme land. i call it threat to freedom because you can tie in climate, you can tie in abortion, whatever, but we need to get all of machine that we do have because hanging head and going oh, we don't have fox news. we've been doing that now for 20 years, folks, so we don't have that stuff. got to start doing what we do have. we can start doing it really can compete with the noise machine. so when we think about biden and worried about that, what i'm worried is that the rest of the ballots from the state legislative races in places like michigan or ohio up won't see how important it is to run the maga extremism and make sure that voters don't walk into a ballot box and mark an r

because. all they know about republicans is they're good taxes. ok, sure they see the modern republican party. they're not going to look on their own. they're not getting it on their social algorithms, which are all for entertainment and celeb stuff and cooking stuff and fun stuff. we're sick people that like, okay, our algorithms are very different, but like regular twitter, like all of political twitter is actually very small, which is what ellen found out when he bought it and started going after people is like, actually, i'm hurting like most of the business on twitter is about celebrity stuff. are twitter's are very, very weird algorithms and so we have to if we voters to know they're facing the collapse of american democracy and what that means to them not to other people, not to outgroups humans are wired for self-interest and tribalism what is going to happen to them. their retirement, their social security, their children, their wife being tortured by a death

panel of republican politicians. right. and we do that. i think we have a really chance of saving democracy in 2024. i'm going to correct thing. yo■u sa meant lieutenant governor. and i'm always saying that because she's now disqualified for running for president united states and. nobody can fact check us on ■f■>c-span in virginia on twitt, though. i know what you meant. but leading to the next piece, age, what do we do about this age conversation and was more pointing that out because we all say that something we mean to say and we say that different way and he's just getting eaten alive for it. he is. and if you if anybody if you read the book, you're going to learn how the republican party has that eat it ecosyste it's so powerful and we don't have anything like it. but they also have our ecosystem. i would just explain how they manipulated it with. crt they manipulated with bill ba of the mueller report, the muller, if you read it, finds lots of

collusion. it says we're not going to charge it. but lots of collusion. the barr memo, though, came out three weeks before, and because he's the ag, the press took it like look line and sinker just like with the her report last week and helped amplify it and if you ask average people not even maga just average independent type, was there collusion? no there was no collusion, right. they know what barr did. barr said happened not what the mueller report says. so with age, they've been working now for two years, they a paid infrastructure on their digital and so like a veryexpane i pretty much any two bit grifter on twitter that's a maga grifter has a million followers okay and that's a lot on twitter especially if you compare it to some of the progressive counterpoint people that would be on there and they have been very shrewd. did the same thing with hillary clinton starting 2014, two years

after benghazi when they started finally investigate benghazi because realized hillary clinton was a and be running for president right so you know they they manipulate our own system to us to respond and do respond predictably and if you look at day that came out a couple of weeks ago yeah i saw this making its rounds. voters think that biden points is senile but don't think that about donald trump okay now if you guys like i know i keep harping because this seems to be the hardest part of getting the book to people to the what i'm trying to say in the book accept the fact that no one follows news and information politics. right. and then imagine like, okay, who have i heard things about in terms of infirmity personality, ageism, right. they don't hear anything about donald trump. all you hear is about donald, about joe biden.

and they've been, you know, paying digital to go make these vios time, makes a stutter or trips over something. it's a it's a video that goes viral online. and it has really created this within the public that's there that's before the war. her report last week. okay. so that's why i was deeply critical when. the white house decided to turn down the super bowl interview again. if you accept the premise that no one knows anything and. it's very hard. and it did. and the's diversifier meant with all the choices we have or streaming, no one's in a common information environment. it was in place until the mid thousands. everyone's in their own world. if you accept all that, then you realize voters are telling us they think biden is old or we should have probably taken the offer unity to put him in front. 127 million people no matter they edited like just to show that he can because in their in their perception he can't even speak they they have created caricature of biden that is so

profound my parents think that he might not even be able to like think on a day to day basis. okay so it's a long wind up to this. the temptation is and of course, they rolled out the talking heads on sunday. you're going to have to do the defense. you know, biden's you know, i just talked to biden last week and we a complex trade agreement. he's biden, right. we could do that all day. but at the end of the day, we have to neutralize the issue. if donald trump has one advantage over joe biden and it shouldn't be an advantage, we all just discuss that. but it is right age issue. we're uniquely lucky that they've picked donald trump because it turns out that guy is almost brain dead. okay. so we just need to sure that we show america with paid advertising, with all the digital stuff that we as much as humanly possible how infirm and mentally like unwell donald trump is because you're not

going to convince people that joe biden is not senile. but what you can do is take that negative and neutral lies it by making the other candidate appear just flawed in that one care one one component part. i don't think he's going anywhere because as mary trump has said many times that donald trump eats so many preservatives he's literally preserved. right. and he's just here with us. so michigan and wisconsin should democrats be worried about polls. they're okay so right before christmas, i put out something on my blog the cycle on substack you can access it for free if you want to. it's also you can sign up and pay if you want to. but but mostly just the information's important. i was like, i can't let people go through christmas. this they're all going to be unhappy. they're not going to be able to like have the holly jolly because all these polls. so i'm going to put out something to give people the amount of modicum of that i can offer you.

okay? and what that is, is we have severe limitations with polling data due to lots of reasons and some of them you're probably aware of response rate and sampling and internet, the phone and all these other things. but the biggest problem that we have is that the electorate is flux right now. it's declining and realigning especially along education and you to at the end of the day when you have 800 respondents in the survey and i should know because i was a pollster for five years you have to decide and i'm in a view this information to reflect what i think the electorate will look like in terms of its demographic composition black, white or, young, urban, rural, whatever right. and the reason i need that is that allows me to figure out the partizan composition because those demos predict which party you're going to be at. you know, some of them are very clear black voters vote for democrats 90% of the time, right? but others are more mixed

a sense of that. partizanship and then kind of estimate from there, right like, well how how to how to get this to to move or whatever. but i lost my train of thought actually sorry, that's paxton. yeah. no, i know. it's okay. love babies. i love babies. yeah. michigan, wisconsin. so so. so what? what i put for people was this. okay, look, the polling data has a bunch of flaws. we don't know how to wait it. we don't. we know that there will be more non-college educated voters showing in 2024. butt convinced will even see the turnout saw in 2020. right. and so like it so much of it is to the pollster the questions weighting the sample and then the end of the day, folks were surveys and people are so mad at the horse race surveys. let me tell you,asking surveys to do something. they are mathematically not designed. do they have a thing called, a margin of error? they can only estimate it within

this margin of error and. what we want it to tell us in a toss up race that we know is going to end up 4951 is who's going to win okay, but it can't tell us that because if it says trump's 51 and biden's up 49 it could that trump has much as 53 or it could be as much biden could have as much as 52. right? so you're talking about these large intervals of just of unconfid about that. you need a great deal of specificity to determine a poll. so there's that as well. butabout the polls at all because every off off year and most of the polling is still there. we're getting into the new year now, the election year, and things will start to change. but most of the measures, what public knows about politics the president and they're never happy americans are never happy. okay? no matter how good -- is, we're never going to be happy. okay. so you're you're seeing kind of like a latent incumbency.

you know, democrats are more still to admit when biden does something wrong. if you don't like hamas and and the gaza policy, you'll tell pollsters, i'm mad at joe biden. republicans won't do that. dude okay. like that. their data is steady, steady, no matter what does. he's a great guy. they're never on. and so i'm not surprised that biden's been polling. i feel like the summer will be the first time we can really use polling. a good indicator, but we do a really good indicator. and this is why i wrote the article and is all the elections that have happened prior to dobbs post. after we lost, we became the president because we became the party at that moment and all the enthusiasm that we had during the trump four years went away. and that's why virginia was so rough in 2021, because that went away. we're all fat and happy because now we've toppled trump. and for most people that's where politics ends at that top level.

and what happened with dobbs and i knew this was going to happen with dobbs and dobbs was a once in a generation, once in a half a century level seismic political event was the enthusiasm gap that had favored republicans as the out party and was going to power this midterm d away because suddenly we had a reason to be freaked out again. and you see that happen right after virginia. too late, right but a couple of months into, they leaked the memo and then ever since then, what we've seen is an overperformance. democrats in every election competitive of races where a lot of spending and campaigning effects were you implemented and then in places even really long shot stuff where there was like a token democrat running and there wasn't any money to field a campaign. and if you take all those races after. dobbs prior to dobbs, it's. 8.8. advantage for democrats, eight points. and that may change because, you know, we have more data sets going in. but i mean, new york was ten

points, right, the other night. yeah so what that's saying to us is that the enthusiasm, turnout and the independent like the imagistic impression that 15% of the voter pile that's independent il maga. donald trump a little bit, right? like it's still this this we were telling this guy's a threat to freedom and there were and then he stole our freedom, right? so it made it like very concrete and i told people in that article and i listen if it was n all the polls and then losing in all of these special elections, getting hammered, you know, giving up the senatehouse, 30 h, not losing and flipping the virginia legislature, which i know adam probably had a big role in in 2023 last night or this week. special election in new york at the signal was very, very clear we have we need to go up against

them. people are motivated because they're afraid and if we run right strategy we should be able to win in the fall. said, we're talking about a swing map of six states. we're going be talking about 100,000 votes between probably and there's nothing that i can do to. take that burden away from us like we going to have to sweat it out all the way to election day. if you're looking or for the big reject, it's not going to happen, folks. we're going to make it clear to america this is a choice between. democracy and autocracy this is what losing democracy will mean for you and i want you to understand, 60 million americans are going to vote for fascism. okay? they're going to vote for. and we have to outvote them, it is our only hope. and you can help by buying a

copy of this book before you leave the inside. so so democrats are are really good at two things driving ing ourselves nuts, right? yes. so kind of on the dobbs piece, you know, going into all of thes elections in kentucky, tons of bed wetting, andy beshear does incredible. i mean, he also people forget beat matt bevin, who was basically like trump jr but at the same time, you know, there is an incredible victim that came out and did an ad for andy beshear in the■y state that was part of that success. the suozzi seat holding a majority in pennsylvania is the bedwetting always going to be there and it's like a good thing because it motivates us to keep on. i mean, part of me feels like after the mueller report, it's better have zero expectations going into things because. the evs, your expectations, you're not disappoint and you're pleasantly surprised when you find out, you know, tom suozzi, his opponent conceded to him in

an environment where that doesn't really happen much anymore. yeah, i mean i think we're really fortunate like the election twitter bro's world is you know they are very convinced that they missed polling of education waiting. they've been over educate like wait they've been wait doing real weirder things like more waiting more counting on, i think than need to on education, waiting i have an education question following this. okay. so, you know, i like like we don't we wouldn't need to bed wet if everybody that was on tv or in the newspaper or published in the new york times that's talking about elections was an actual in elections. but since most■ people are not they're a practitioner expert because they've worked on campaigns or they've run for congress or whatever it is, they're not systemic academic in experts. so there are so many that, like the media hyper on that. i'm at home and i'm like, that's not how any of works.

am and i thought i wanted to give you the book. you know, that front half should make you feel better about of the things that you tv that arg about how voters behave and make their vote decisions. but yeah, it is. it is a good featureo have right now. i would be much more worried. you guys were completely like, oh, it's going to be fine. we're going to be fine. i be. so i would be like, how shopping in canada. so the boys want to keep running. polls highlighting how much voters hate biden and how it's so competitive and this and that. i say bring it on, let's do it. keep that data coming. because if we go into november complacent and we will lose. and so, you know, it's a very useful posture that we end up in in this. the fear and the angst is asset that we, you know, will need to exploit. so it's just kind of going back on to that from an activist

standpoint, like we're in washington, d.c., and oftentimes, you know, we know it's a going to be a great jury pool. donald trump, but also know it's 90% goes our way. what can folks in washington, d.c. do? you know from like an activism standpoint, you know, i still think that's sort of the bread butter. but how does that play into some of the tools that you're providing in your book. yeah, sure. and to me, like, you know, the reason give so much pro-bono love to the grassroots is because i understand that everything begins ends with the activist okay every victory everything we've accomplished it's the people who for free are blowing three or four nights a week on political activist the most important resource any party could ever have right. so those i want to make sure that their advocacy is effective. post carding. it's one thing to send someone a postcard, it's another thing to tell them something in. that postcard, a veil. take a second to glance at and actually read.

because i'm sad to say, probably a lot. those postcards never even get written. i see all the small print and all the detail and no one's reading it. even though. it's handwritten and the goal is to have it read from the mailbox the recycle. i to those that recycle a book, a message and a glance test. because think about how you when you get a roofer direct like right unless you're need roof like if you need the roof you're like, oh, wow, this is great. but otherwise you like you glance at it, you're like, oh, it's a roofing thing. boom into the recycle thing that folks, that's how people about our stuff all the love and the joy and they should we include this and that. oh my god, we forgot this thing, they don't care. okay. so what we want to make sure, especially physical direct mail, which is an extrase for especially because you have to do it multiple times to have any effect at all is, you know, make make sure the point gets across.

they want to get it across or not. and the republicans have done. that's very well. in fact, almost everything that i'm bringing to this i took from the republican party and watching michael steele, you know, go from the republicans will never have power again in 2009, because that was the conversation that killed economy. they got us into that iraq war boondoggle and they were literally having meetings. this town, the republican party, where they're like, no one's ever going to do for us again. and mitch mcconnell is like, --, watch. okay, we're not going to give obama a -- thing. and then the public will blame obama because they don't know if we even strategy worked for republican party. yes, it has. right. is it working right now at least as as of last week when that first poll dropped? yes it is because people only heard immigration reform failed. they blame it on the presi and regardless of how it failed.

so getting you know that across is so so paramount and you the other thing i want to say about the activists especially the gotv ones because that is of the activism actually talking to people you're knocking at the door very personal. so we have these are the most committed people. all right. it doesn't help you to show up at someone's door and have a great conversation about your candidate and leave feeling like, man, that guy and i work from different sides of the aisle, but i feel like he got me and he even like connor right now, dude, he's going to walk into the ballot box. he's going to see the d's. oh, that guy's a democrat. should i not vote for him, dude. and so if you're going go to the door, you're going to send to do that, let's sure, we're sending them to be brand ambassadors to sell the whole party, to sell the whole party slate of candidates and to make a case to these people. why the party is not good them. right. we've got to start telling the

story of reagan comics. we're 50 years into this economic experiment. prior to that, coming out of the postwar period, we the biggest greatest economy, the most incredible industrial, you know, and military strength in the whole world. we built this thing. and then in the eighties, like we got to kill the beast, we got to strangle baby, we got to starve the beast and it's been nothing but american carnage ever since, right? so we want to make sure if we're going to send people to a door, it's going to be writing postcards. if going to be calling people that were not wasting our time. it's not it doesn't help us to ha g helps us is convincing people to stop buying the republican brand and to start buying cars either by default or by a compelling contra. republicans want to take away your $35 insulin. right? like gave you $35 insulin. but the republan party is coming for it. if we aren't doing that, if

we're telling people congress, got you some insulin, that's not good enough. people don't know who you're talking. so you have to be very specific if you're talking about gun legislation being blocked, it doesn't help you at all to tweet out. we need congress to act because who in congress is not acting the republicans? and we think everyone just magically knows that when we say big and big oil and in congress that we're talking about republicans, they do not. they do not. we must tell them very, very explicitly, you do not have this thing that you want because the republican will not give it to you. and i think that's you a great thing that aaron did in the book. well, which was help them make this down. basically, a sixth grader could understand and take the tools to use it. so before one goes and buys three copies each, we have a microphone phone for any questions. and if you could just wait to have the mic when you ask the question. so anyone listening online can

hear it. and you also to sing karaoke. oh, no, you don't want just so it's amanda, two of my favorite posters. i both of you. but i'm here for for rachel. i love you, too.adam. i'm sure. ali. really? the pollster. yeah. my my question. so i'm originally from arizona, as you know, is a huge swing state, heavily republican, a lot. my friends are republican. from there. most of them i flipped over to the democrat side, thank god. but i have a few stragglers that no matter what, i've tried to show them evidence. i've tried to explain to them, des don't know what else to do besides hypnosis, i don't. i just don't what else to do with them. and they're just like in denial. how do you deal with, like, like friendships? you don't want to end the you know, you still about the person, but it's just painful. and i've tried to i've tried to go through every thing and i

don't how else to get through to them. yeah, yeah. i mean, unfortunately, some people i mean, they're guys we're we're seeing something we've never seen in this country before, as it were. i mean, we don't have polling data, the civil war time period, so we n't know. but in terms of like, you know, the last 100 years, we are in position where probably 30, 40 million of us maybe little more are in the midst of a mass psychosis of that. okay. like earth to reality, which is what nicole or rachel, whatever it earth one earth to like. there's we are living on earth one everything that■1■ happens n earth one like the court case is all earth one in maga world and i don't know how much adam you know monitors. i have to monitor them a lot in world. there are some truths that they feel are self-evident. number one, joe biden is not a legitimate president. we cheated and stole the 2020 election. number two, the covid vaccine

will kill, not covid. no, no, no the covid vaccine. in fact, if had it, they don't even want you to get your blood anymore. they're trying to get state bank agencies to tell them this is covid vaccinated blood. okay, like that, or it'll win you a championship. right? right. i mean, in republican world, donald has never done'd anything to deserve all of the legal attention that he's gotten. okay. so we're talking about a situation which a good chunk of our friends or neighbors or coworkers, you people that we're not in dc, but, you know, other places you're living and working around are are in a psychosis event where i think about how rational it is to go see, though, the capitol building. you believe if you believe that the election has been stolen, that your you know, your president is kicked out and it's all a unconstitutional, you know seizure of power, if you believe that which we all know is crazy.

but they believe it, then you can understand rationally why would show up and then go and in bear spray capitol police officers egos have been radicalized and unfortunately amanda the answer that is there's not much can do you can listen to my episode of the cycle on substack wi the cult expert guy and he was in a cold the moonies if you guys are old enough to remember that the moonies and he had to get himself out and now he helps people work with family because it's not talking about strangers, they're just talking about family on breaking the cult. so i would recommend book. it's the trump of the cult of trump, and it is very practical advice for how to talk to your friends and neighbors. the one thing that will never work is facts and information. so you probably have that. and the reason is guys and what we figured out as human and keep in mind,ve liberal people, we're still human beings.

okay? we still will respond to negative ads. we might not like them, but they still move our our voter behavior is know humans are wired in certain ways. and one of those ways is to discount information that conflict with your deeply held identity, identity based worldviews. so no matter how much da or facts you hit these folks with, it's not going to be sufficient. you know, the ones that you think are on the precipice, though i think those people are winnable. but i think what you need to do is is invert the victimization and frame that the republicans are doing. that's what their their frame is all about grievance politics and victimization is why it's so dangerous. it's very similar to the nazis gained power and, built the third reich and in germany. so what have to deal with with folks that is you have to you have to i think you have to persuade them that they are a target of something that's going

to affect them personally. and that's what i would recommend that you do find, you know, somebody going to lose all their social security and try to paint that picture for them because unfortunately we're just not wired to accept informed nation. that's not coming from a source we already are inclined to trust. and the republican party had moved from trust in all institutions, especially pretty severely before. donald trump ever descended the golden escalator there. and then, of course, as you guys know, we ended up in an unprecedented situation where the person at the presidential podium with the white air force one and all the monikers of authority began to tell population that the press was the enemy of the people and that no, nothing is ever reported about him. could be true. and because of that the siloing effect with information has become ever more severe impenetrable. just quickly on the point that you made about people wanting

another piece of news from somewhere they don't trust it. are you an advocatél for running ads on fox news and newsmax and oann? yeah, kind of. but you know, for me, i look at like, okay where can i hit these folks that isn't on fox news because, you know, the fox audience demographic is very predictable. old white, old, white people. we're old people go they like sports guys. so find them on espn find them on the bachelorette the golden bachelor or whatever, you know, i think it's i think think it's a performative act to throw an ad on fox. i mean certainly if you can throw one on fox usually the denial the good ones right and you have a lot of money and you can run and pound it over and over, then that would be different. generally speaking, i think we to understand thatthe, people 'o get will watch fishing and hunting shows they're going to watch nascar, they're going watch espn, lots of sports and it's just so much easier to to them when they're not already in the in the crouch of that echo

chamber. well well, so many questions. how are you going to. so i know joe manchin today, if i read the headline correctly, he announced he wouldn't run. oh, did your party. oh, that's great news. 20 hours to you, joe. my question is more depressing with kennedy still being the race, how will a third party candidate this election and kennedy's interesting, because he has a weird lefattracts trum. yes. and his politics are super hard to define. and he has a famous last name. and if p know that kennedy name, they could be attracted to for sure. third party voting makes me very nervous. that's why when no label started all their stuff i you know was like third way was willing to take the the fight to them and i was all about helping okay it's a huge issue. and the reason why guys is we're sitting in this apocalyptic america where nine months from

now we might be looking at trans people getting round■eed up cam, latinos mean they're not being shy. they're putting it out plans thousand deep plans called project 2025 of what they intend to to the american people should they be given the chance to control the executive of the federal part of the government. and, you know, we have to we have to we have to make sure that we're meeting that, you know threat like with reality right. we can't pretend it's not happening. it's not going to go away and. you know, prepare to prepare for the moment that we're in but we would not be here if only there wouldn't have been third party voting in 2016. we would be living. i kid you not in a where all we had to do was elect hillary clinton and the first time since ths■e 1960s w had liberal supreme court majority. okay. so not only would not be like on

abyss, we would had citizens united with redistricting and gerrymandering dealt with. we would certainly have our constitution or freedom. all right. because i'm prop half property in the state now. right. and i was a third party. voting is not something that's insignificant. that said what happened in eight in 2016. in my academic book, the unprecedented 2016 election, i lay this out pretty historically high. and i think won't be as much of an this time. i call what's going in the progressive piece of the divide over the palestine stuff. a third of a bernie problem. okay, because it's a problem. there's no denying it, but it is not a bernie sanders. you're a protester or you can stand up now. all right. more questions so earlier, you were talking about how the

messaging in the book is getting to the dnc, but obviously they're not using the same in state by state. you know, the different swing races for the better part of the last 30 years, the democratic strategists have been abject. like it's just the fact. how confident are you, the states in the strategists running senate campaigns down ballot races in wisconsin and and arizona and georgia are going to revert to the same. you should vote us because we have this 18 page point plan right? right. i i'm happy to jump in on that. yeah, go ahead. i think. if you look at if you look at democratic party chair, there's the former of moveon and if you look at michigan, for last cycle for joe biden and his original campaign was eric, who was also the original campaign manager for andy beshear. and he was the main general consultant for andy reelection. and so they understand that not

only is no, no state similar to another, but understand that, you know, in arkansas, different parts the state, you know, don't relate to other parts. so i feel pretty confident just in terms of michigan and wisconsin, you've got some incredible who who kind of look at the obama approach to this, which is, you know, you just bring out two or three more people locally. that's going to be a natural for the top of the ballot. but they're coming out to vote for these local folks in some of these other states. i think they're still out. but there's there's there is some incredible talent that does things very than the national party pool. and, you know, just so you guys can sleep better at night, i will tell you this, this book, i'm going to be training all 57 state party committees in a meeting in april in chicago. go on this book, how to do this why we need to do it? because the half of the book is about why what i'm proposing is a radical departure. it's not taking democratic

strategy, which is suck for 30 years and returning the branches, which is what we've tended to do. it's saying, no, no, no, no, your tree is dead, dude. okay? and and it was planted first off, in the wrong soil. okay? soil that does not appreciate low information voters. how low the illiterate, the voters are and how partizanship vote choice. so taking it by the thets and pe tree out and recycling it and replanting it and i'm excited that the is buying into it. i think it is going to help a lot when. i am in april and talking to these party chairs i mean that's all the party committees across the country swing blue states, red states and i'm hopeful that we are going to run a campaign in the fall that will marry the strategy across the swing races in house and the senate, especially in the senate, where there is no room for error and

are not going to win florida by marketing. debbie marcel powell, where you have do it by attacking. i mean really eviscerating rick scott, especially in places like the villages where he's talking of stealing people's security. right. we should probably go and tell them that they don't they do not so let's at least go and try and tell them and tell these people down in florida. right. so i get this a lot,t't go and d money on latino in florida. we got to do that. we have to make sure we have puerto rican eyes and there's cubans and there's all these different i'm-i do the gop is not doing that okay, we're going down and they're hitting latino file and they're telling them democrats are socialists that want to turn your male children into girls or something to effect. okay. and the ones that they're keeping on the rolls and what if we were? it would be one thing if we were also contact doing already 80% of the latinos in florida.

but here's the thing we're not even talking to them like we don't have the money or the strategy or the tactics deployed to get even one message in one version of spani. let's do that first. and then we can we can we can make it more fancy later. but i think we we really have to stop at this cemetery and make sure that voters at least one message from us, especially in these poor constituencies, black people. right. the black voter electorate is going suffer so much under this dictatorship, i mean, may well get rid of the civil rights act, folks. okay. like the civil rights act. okay. so we need to be telling all of these communities, republican party is coming for your freedom. they're going to deport latinos. you know, she's from arizona in 2010, arizona's political evolution to where it is today, triggered by a law called show me your papers that terrified

the latino community. what republicans are proposing from latinos now is thousand percent more draconian than that. show you your papers lnd talking about openly about putting people into loyalty test if they're nationalized citizens, naturalized citizenship, revoking the 14th amendment, people like nikki haley, who were born here to immigrant. she's a citizen because she was born. they want to end that stuff. and so to us, to me, it's about get at least one thing to the electorate. make sure that thing is there's a real problem here. folks, we need you to up vote d up and down ballot. and this time that d stands democracy. and i know sometimes people get confus. the 57 parties, the dnc has 57 parties. so it's states dc, the territory is in democrats abroad. at least part of me will end up finally to puerto rico. yeah, yeah yeah. and the vice chairs will be. so it's 114. i know it's time to wrap up.

so we can all go by four copies of your book. any any last words? no. here's the thing, is that, if you read this book, i hope you're going to find yourself yelling, oh, i didn't seen that for years. right. so, like, read the book and me a favor. find someone else needs to read the book and then tell them i'm giving you this book are buying. i know you. have to sell it. whatever. buy the book. buy the book. buy it from here, from politics, prose. but that book, move in through your circles, make sure people read it so that they understand how important it is for us to make this strategic pivot all the time for dawdling has passed. we should have done this a decade ago, but now we're up against the wall. if we don't fix strategy, we're going to be in serious hurt. so i'll close by when republicans low, we got to hit them where it hurts.

to. thank you all so much. another really interesting person here who always pretends he's not here is keith edwards. black hoodie, white pants row was the only democrat at start of lincoln project and has worked for other great campaigns. but keith, thanks for being here. and i. can go over there and find some

oh, good evening, everybody. my name is roger zakheim. as you just heard, i'm the director of the reagan institute, the dc office of the ronald reagan presidential institute, and hope you all been enjoying this reception. christine carlucci reid's book launch, which we're excited to host here this e