Brian is on vacation, so special guest McKenzie Wilson joins Matt to talk about Blue Rose Research’s retrospective on the 2024 election and their work on message-testing. McKenzie came to Blue Rose after working in the private sector, working for Jamal Bowman, and working in the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services — she believes in progressive values and she wants to win elections.

In this episode, Matt and McKenzie discuss:

* The central role of the cost of living in the 2024 election.

* The importance of partisan realignment based around engagement with news and politics.

* The deep unpopularity of Joe Biden and the need for Democrats to internalize that as they move forward.

Then, behind the paywall, what are the Trump administration’s biggest points of vulnerability? What are Democrats getting right and wrong about highlighting those issues? Most of all, McKenzie makes the case for a disciplined approach that ties everything back to core values that motivate progressives and also resonate with swing voters.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* The full Blue Rose slide deck.

* Matt’s article on Republicans’ Medicaid cuts.

* A corporate marketing guru’s appreciation and praise of Bernie Sanders’ message discipline.

By the time you listen to this episode, the Republican bill to give rich people trillions in tax cuts, and throw millions of people off of Medicaid will be…somewhere. It could be on the glide path to passage in the House, or on life support, or somewhere in between. But the basic shape of what Republicans want to do, and what Donald Trump wants them to do, is clear.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* How this terrible bill, which many Republicans really do not like, might become law anyhow.

* Should this bill, if it passes, change the way Democrats think about the social compact, where productive, younger, more tolerant Americans underwrite Republican populations and politicians that despise them?

* Will Republicans be committing political suicide by passing a huge, debt-financed tax cuts given inflation pressures and high interest rates?

Then, behind the paywall, the renewed but cursed Joe Biden discourse. Did Biden or his advisers actually perpetrate a coverup of any kind, or is that just hype from reporters and Republicans trying to sell books and hurt Democrats? Do Democrats really need to have any kind of “reckoning” or are the lessons of 2024 and electing extremely old presidents pretty obvious to everyone? And how should they go about engaging in this and other forms of discourse that are frustrating and unhelpful, but impossible to avoid.

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Update: Biden says his last PSA was in 2014.

* Greg Schultz on the REAL reason Democrats lost the 2024 election. (The real reason was that Biden was very old.)

* Brian argues Democrats should spend less time staking out positions on controversies, and more time reflecting privately on what their real views are.

* Jonathan Cohn on the highly irregular way Republicans are trying to force their tax and Medicaid cuts through the legislative process.

Donald Trump blinked, as many people suspected he would. This week, he reduced the embargo-level tariffs he imposed on China a month ago, and did so unilaterally. So in exchange for a month-long crisis, a still-looming supply shortage, lost jobs, and lost wealth, we got nothing! But Trump’s supporters are all too ready to cover for him.

In this episode, Matt and Brian discuss:

* What does Trump’s reversal mean for the economy in the near and medium term?

* Will his army of propagandists be able to sell his flailing as a “win,” and, thus, blunt the political consequences of his economic mismanagement?

* Would Democrats be better off if their grassroots were similarly cult like, or is Trump’s “superpower” actually a big weakness, both for the GOP and the country?

Then, behind the paywall, how should Democrats think about the damage Trump is doing, not just in the trade realm but across government? It’s (apparently) easy to tweak tariff rates, but much harder to convince trading partners that we’re trustworthy. Could this be a basis for Democratic opposition? Should Democrats unify behind a general promise to reconstitute the government Trump broke, and rebuild global faith in the United States? Or are technical questions surrounding how to rebuild destined to leave the party mired in infighting?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Further reading:

* Brian argues it’s counterproductive to wallow in the fact that building things is harder than breaking them, and that Dems should adopt a posture of resolve and defiance.

* Matt on Trump rediscovering the virtues of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and how he succeeds politically by claiming credit for renegotiating shittier versions of deals he broke in the past.

* Adam Serwer: “The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying.”