Adam Hamilton: Knock Holes in the Darkness

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a super fun doubleheader for you today, so buckle up. In segment two, it's my buddy Rob Flaherty, who is Deputy Campaign Manager for Kamala Harris. He wrote an autopsy of that campaign for us at the Bulwark in the spring, and so I wanted to give him the opportunity to do a victory topsy and come on and we could just go through all of the data and all of the strategies that led to this massive democratic tsunami. That's coming up in segment two. Stick around. But up first, I had him on the morning after his primary victory in the Kansas Senate race earlier this year and was dying to have him back as soon as possible after the mass. Massive, massive victory in Kansas that we saw on Tuesday. Delighted to welcome back to the show, not just Reverend Adam Hamilton, but Senator-elect Adam Hamilton. How's that feel? You know, it doesn't seem real yet, actually. My wife and I look at each other like, did this just happen? Are we actually doing this? It's very exciting, obviously, and we feel a tremendous sense of responsibility and feel humbled that the people of Kansas chose us. But the main thing I feel is like, okay, we've done this. Now we better make some real difference. You know, we've got to, we've got to make sure that when we get up there, it's, I mean, I'm not doing it for my health. I want to make sure that we are actually working to bring positive change. And I know I'm a junior senator from Kansas, but I'm going to do everything I can to try to positively impact our country. Take us in there on election night, though, and you're seeing the returns come in. What was coming over you? Well, you know, you, you, at least I go in, went into it like, okay, I'm going to lose. I need to be prepared for that. But in my head, I, you know, I knew the numbers and I knew what the polls would look like the last few days. And I knew our team felt like, okay, we really have a good chance to win tonight. You know, we had a room with my kids and my granddaughter and, you know, other family and close friends and the watch party was downstairs. I wanted to go hang out with them, but they wouldn't let me, you know, you got to stay up here in this room until they announced. So it was really exciting. We kept getting notices. Well, they're about to announce, they're about to announce that, you know, that was like an hour and a half before they finally did. And so like, well, we waited 94 years for a Democrat to be elected to Kansas. What's another hour or two, but it was very exciting. It was, uh, and I, you know, it's fun for my kids, uh, watching them, you know, because this is something so historic and, uh, none of us thought this is where we would be, you know, this year, a year ago, I didn't plan on doing this. So, well, let's go back to that. I want to go back to the origin story. Cause we had you on the morning after you won the primary, you're a little tired, um, but eloquent. And, uh, you said, you said this to me and discussing why you decided to get out. I said, I have these arguments with Roger Marshall. I'm in the shower. He wasn't in the shower with me, but I'm having these arguments with him. And I'm like, dude, I'm like, dude, you have got to speak up and do something. And I think that's so interesting about your origin story, right? Like this was not a recruitment from DC. I tell us a little bit more about that. This was really just you feeling like you had to do it. Yeah. It was funny. You know, my opponent kept saying, you know, Chuck Schumer, you know, recruited him or whatever. I'm like, I had never talked to Chuck Schumer and not until, you know, we were finally won the primary. It was like, uh, I just had a deep sense of conviction that what was happening in our country was not right. That there were people being hurt, that there were decisions being made that were inconsistent with our values as a country. And certainly inconsistent with what I preached. There were people in Washington who claimed Christian faith, but I couldn't figure out which gospels they were reading from. Cause it wasn't Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. And, you know, it seems like almost weekly, sometimes nightly, there'd be one more thing that would happen. You know, recently, just in the last month, I mean, this is, you know, every week, what a month ago, we were going to televise live the execution of a, of a person. I think there's only two other countries in the world that do that. And we don't want to join their company or it was watching, you know, the president belittle and berate a Reuters journalist who's standing there asking him a legitimate question. Why did you cancel your trip to Kansas? And then of course he rescheduled it. But I just thought this is, this is crazy. This is just not who we are as Americans. But those were just two tiny examples. There are just so many bigger examples. Of how decisions made in Washington were hurting people in my state and people across the country and jeopardizing our international relations and, and changing how people looked at America. And it just was like, this is not who we are. Something's got to change. So I felt that there's a passage in the book of Jeremiah, the prophet who's, he talks about, he had a fire pent up in his bones. And that's what it felt like to me. It was like, I couldn't shake this feeling over the course of the last year and a half. Like, okay, you got to speak up. You got to speak up. You know, my wife was a hard no to begin with. And she was like, no way, you know, you've sacrificed too much. We've sacrificed too much for you to do what you've done at the church these last 36 years. I'm not going to do that again for something else. Now, not like this, even though she strongly believed things were broken. Right. And then, uh, and then it was January of this, of this year where she turned to me one day after I preached a funeral on Saturday morning, she just said, I think I was wrong. I think things are so broken and you might be the, the strange enough kind of candidate. You could actually get elected. And I think, I think we need to try. Well, January this year was when Renee Goode was martyred. So it had to have been around. Yeah, that was, yeah, it was all around that same time. And, uh, you know, protests and, you know, having to warn my congregation, if you go to a protest, please don't take a gun with you. But even then my struggle was, so I love God first in my life. That may sound trite, but it's really what my aim is to love God first and to love my neighbor. But the first neighbor I love is my wife and my children and my granddaughter. After that, is I love this church that I pastor. I love these people. And the thought of stepping aside from that or doing anything that would jeopardize their, you know, cause we're a church divided roughly equally Republicans, Democrats, and independents. And, and I've devoted 36 years to caring for them and loving them. And so, you know, I, I was, every time I think about, you know, stepping aside from leading them full time right now and, you know, stepping into politics, which could jeopardize, you know, some of their deciding to be a part of the church, I'd find myself in tears. And at the same time, I just couldn't shake the thought that something has to happen. I'm just taking us back to January and it was the scale of the problems that we faced. I, you know, I mean, like if you really are in this moment where, you know, a woman who is trying to care for her neighbors, you're talking about love thy neighbor. And that's what Renee Good was trying to do. And, you know, she gets gunned down in the street. It's like something has to change. I mean, you see this, this should not be happening in our country and people who were trying to care for their neighbors, you know, people who were concerned about their neighbors at just again and again. It was so crazy. I was in Texas. I was nervous. I didn't want to jinx you. I thought about coming to Kansas for your party, but I didn't want to jinx you. I felt better about Tallarico's chances. I felt it was less likely I was going to jinx him. So I went to Austin and I got to talk to him for a second afterwards. On the podium of his victory speech, it said, love thy neighbor. That was the message that he had on there. I guess I have two thoughts about that for you. Like on the one hand, this is pretty crazy to have like two Democrats now coming in, like kind of offering this fresh view of Christianity and what that means to you. But then in particular about these immigrant neighbors and the way they've been treated, I'm kind of wondering how you think about that and your obligation to them as you go in next year. Yeah, I think a lot about that. This is an issue that's really, really matters to me. I've included it in sermons multiple times over the last 10 years and in particular this last year. So I was in Southwest Kansas. Southwest Kansas is the meatpacking industry. Kansas produces, we're the number two producer of packaged meat across the country. And so the meatpacking industry, the livestock industry, the dairy industry, these are all in West and Southwest Kansas. And in some of the towns out there, you know, a majority of the population are Hispanic. So when ICE was out there just a few weeks ago and, you know, there were parents who were afraid to go pick up their children at school after school because they were afraid they'd be arrested. And so there were children who waited there after school, you know, for, I don't know how long, hours, I think. I mean, people were there. Teachers were there with them. I was out there. I was in Dodge City twice. I was a liberal twice. And to hear this is not right. There were nine Republican state legislators who sent a letter to the president saying this is not okay. And, you know, they were concerned about it both from a workforce perspective in terms of what's happening. People don't show up at work at the meatpacking. You know, there's 150 rail cars coming in every day with cattle with nowhere for them to go because people are afraid to show up at work. And, you know, a lot of the people at Western Kansas who are ag people, these are people who voted for President Trump three times. But they were, you know, talking to one guy and he was describing how, I don't know, it was a tornado or a very heavy winds that came through and destroyed some of their rotating sprinkler systems that are out there in the fields. And he described first, you know, how expensive these things had gotten now because of the terrorists. But then he said, but, you know, the people who show up the day of to try to help me get, you know, get these things back online, they were all Hispanics. Many of them, you know, they were immigrants who'd come here. You know, I didn't ask to see their papers. They showed up and they showed up and they worked all day and late into the night because they knew that my crops would die if they weren't there trying to keep the sprinkler systems going. And there were six of them that were out. And he said, the thought that these people have to be afraid that somebody's going to come and arrest them when they've done, you know, they've done everything they can to help me. He said, it's just not right. Again, this is a, you know, lifelong Republican is saying we don't treat people this way. And so when I was out there, the citizens, you know, Hispanic citizens who were children of parents who had migrated here were like, we are doing everything we can to get people registered. We want them to vote for you. We know you're going to speak up for us and you care about what we genuinely do. And it's interesting. I think we won two or three counties out there. Yeah. And one of those counties flipped by, I think it was 56 points from what Donald Trump got two years ago to what I got in this race, 56 points. And part of that was making sure people were registered to vote. But part of it was people saying, we don't want our country hurting us or our parents or our siblings or our children or our family members. And there's so many things to do and so many obligations next year. But I wonder what you think about the obligation is to the people that are already suffering at the hands of ICE. And as I said, I was in Texas. There are people in detention centers right now in Texas that are separated from their families that have legal citizen children who are in schools that they can't go pick up because they're being detained indefinitely in Dilley. What do you think is the obligation to those folks that are in the detention centers right now? We have a lot of work to do when it comes to immigration, immigration reform policies. I support ICE doing what they were created to do after 9-11. So ICE was created, I think it was created. Shortly after 9-11. It was created to make sure that- The Department of Homeland Security was created after 9-11. Like before that, it was INS. Right, right. And they were created to make sure that dangerous people weren't training to fly airplanes into buildings. They weren't threatening to hurt American citizens across the country. I mean, we were all anxious about what was happening. And I support that. Like, I think that's good. I'm grateful. I want them to do that. It's just that we have, we fund ICE at a level that's more than, I think, all other federal law enforcement combined now, something like $70 billion between ICE and border control. They have been militarized and politicized and many times not properly trained to be able to do what the kinds of things they're doing because there was this, you know, effort to set quotas of the number of people who'd be arrested. This is not how this should work. And so, yes, these are things that we need to be focused, you know, we need to be working on along with a lot of other things. But this is one that's important. And the detention centers itself, I'm sorry, I'm pretty just focused on right now because there are people in the detention centers right now that have been left there. And, you know, I think that there's a long-term funding fight. And I'm with you. And obviously, you should still have border security funding. This is not about eliminating it. But what about, you know, there have been people these last two years that right now we're being detained. Yeah, that's what I sort of say is I get emails all the time from people who have family members or friends or other people have been detained. And the process, it seems as though there's nobody who can help. So they reached out to me because we checked with our congressperson, we checked with our senator, and nobody seems to be doing anything about this. You know, there's always a story. It's a particular person. And I think that's what I'm trying to do. You know, this and, and so yeah, my heart breaks for those. And, and I'll tell you, so in my victory speech, if you get a chance to ever listen to it, it was built around the I watched it. You don't think I watched it at 4.30? You don't think I watched it at 4.30 a.m. in my hotel room? I did. Exactly. Well, you know, my focus in that was on the parable of the Good Samaritan. And this idea, you know, I've talked about love your neighbor all the way through. I had my love your neighbor pin on, you know, this is my, this is really important to me. And I'm glad it's a lot of other people. But by the way, that's not necessarily this. It doesn't matter whether you're a person of faith or not. That is an idea that matters. You know, I had a guy come up to me and he said, I think I shared this with you. And I think it was Holton, Kansas, who said, I'm a one issue voter. And my one issue is I will not vote for anybody who doesn't believe we should love our neighbors. We love ourselves. And so I think that's a, that's just a, that's just a human thing. And it just happens to be in Moses and in Jesus, Leviticus and in the gospels. But, but anyway, when Jesus says, somebody says, ask Jesus, I know you remember this parable, but somebody asked Jesus once, a religious lawyer, you know, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? And he says, well, what do you think? You're a smart guy. What do you think? And he says, well, we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Our heart, soul, strength, and mind is how he says it there. And we should love our neighbors. We love ourselves. And Jesus says, do this and you'll live. And he says, oh, but wait, I have one more question, Jesus. Who is my neighbor? And, uh, I think it was Dr. King who said, you know, the question he was really asking is who don't I have to love? And, uh, so I know president, he wanted the Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. And so, um, who don't I have to love? And then Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan. And, you know, remember the story, there's a guy who's going from Jerusalem to Jericho. I've taken that road probably a dozen times in the Holy land, going to Jerusalem, Jerusalem to Jericho. He is beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the road. And then you've got two religious leaders, one, the Levite and the priest come by, they see him on the side of the road. They go to the other side of the road. This is all part of my victory speech. They go to the other side of the road and they ignore him. They pretend not to see him. You know, they, leave him, leave him there. And then along comes the Samaritan and the Samaritan is the other. He's the person you don't like. He's the person in this story who is not expected to be the hero. And he stops and he bandages his wounds, close him with his own cloak, puts him on his donkey, takes him to Jericho, provides for his continuing healthcare and food and lodging. And, uh, Jesus says, you know, which one was the neighbor? And of course, you know, it was the Samaritan. And I, you know, I reminded people of Jesus. We're telling that story today in a room filled with Democrats. He'd say it was the good, it was the paralytic Republican. And if it was the, you know if it was a room filled with republicans be the parable of a good democrat good liberal good conservative whoever's the other to you yeah but i said there's three characters in the story there is uh there's they're the people who robbed the man and so part of what we ask is who today is hurting other people who today is stealing from them taking from them harming people who's doing the harm today and and then we've got the two religious leaders and these two religious leaders what's the answer to that question who's doing the harm today well i think we could find a lot of people like that are doing that including sometimes billionaires who are you know who are taking advantage of people it's it's uh looking to see how are we cutting benefits from people uh health insurance snap benefits and other things it's people who are choosing to create quotas for a number of people we're arresting but it's also in our daily lives it could be in our daily lives and who we and how we harm other people but then you get the two religious people and they pretend not to see the guy and just remind you you know dr king preaches this uh text on the last night of his life he's he's assassinated the next day he's in memphis tennessee and he's speaking up for the sanitation workers two of whom had died because of faulty equipment and so he's there even though he's sick and he is has been threatened you know people threaten to kill him if he comes there but he still shows up and he's preaching from this text and i love the question he asked he said you know so those two religious leaders maybe they were afraid there were still thieves around maybe they thought it was a setup and so the question they were asking was what's going to happen to us if we stop and help this guy but the samaritan comes along and he asks a different question what's going to happen to him if i don't stop and help and i just said you know we got to decide which characters we are in this are we the people who are taking advantage of people hurting people most of us are not those people but are we the people who make up excuses and are in our fear don't stop and actually help the person who's in need are we the people ask the question what's going to happen to this guy if we don't stop and help and i think you know at our heart in america at our best we're the person you know we're the people who stop and say how how do we help but when we eliminated snap you know the benefits for thousands of people millions of people across america hundreds of thousands i don't know the exact number i know in kansas it's about 20 000 for children alone or when we decided that we were going to get rid of usaid we were going to gut the you know the organization when they're helping the poorest the poor with a tiny little fraction of our budget you know we decided we were going to cut you know a trillion dollars from medicaid over a 10-year period of time you know we decided we didn't really see those people when we think about the people who are who are warehoused in places who've been arrested you know under these quota systems and we don't say anything we don't do anything we've decided you know we're going to be those people who we think we're good people but we don't say anything and that's that's part of how i got in this race i just felt like somebody's got to do something and if i have the best chance of winning then i'm willing to do that you know and it's not it's not heroic it's just like this is just what we all should do what do your part whatever your part is all right guys during this election week i haven't really been eating very much i've missed some meals i've had some cigarettes don't tell my you know that's led to a little bit of weight loss but that's not really sustainable you know not eating and smoking it's not really a sustainable solution for your health so so one thing that you can turn to if you're trying to lose a little weight get to 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learn more including important safety information wagovi clinical study information and restrictions visit hymns.com i didn't just watch your victory speech i've watched some of your old sermons um last oh yeah this morning oh yeah including you had an issues that divide series yeah it was interesting i can watch one i think it was in 2016 and you're discussing about like what people think is the biggest threats to the country and you how you see you know at that time kind of the division as more of a threat than some of these external threats that face the country it's now a decade later and you're about to be in the senate and have to deal with that divide i'm just kind of wondering like how you think about that today and how you think about balancing you know the want to unite the country with moral clarity on issues where there are real divides so i think part of what you have to be able to do and i've is to listen to people and understand why they feel so strongly their particular views. This is Republicans and Democrats or liberals and conservatives. And as you listen, you go, oh, I see what's going on in your mind. I see the assumptions you have or the fears that you have. And a lot of times our decision making process is built around fear. And politicians are masters at making us fear other people. That's a you know, that's a big part of all the political rhetoric. It's the advertisements, the 43 billion that was spent in this election or whatever that number was, is making people afraid. You know, this is what's going to happen if the Democrats get control or this is what's going to happen if that Republican is in charge, you know, is in charge. So so once you begin to understand people's fears and you actually listen and you show that you're not just trying to get a gotcha moment, but you're actually you care and you're listening. That opens the door to be able to have conversations. And I found those conversations take time. So if I've got somebody who's got a, you know, a strongly a strong position on on immigration, it's not mine. And they're really afraid of the rapist and the murders that Donald Trump talks about. And and they can point to an example. Here's a story and here's a story. And that's what's that's what's going through their mind. You know, it's going to take a while to have a change that happens there. But it never happens if I just belittle them, look down on them or dismiss them. It does happen if I can begin to hear their concerns, share with them other concerns and we can begin to develop a relationship. And, and what I've had, what what's been a great joy for me in our church is watching people's views change over a long period of time. So my first book I ever wrote was called Confronting the Controversies. It was a sermon series I preached in 2000 on the most controversial issues. And I found if I could understand why somebody held the view they did about the death penalty or about abortion or euthanasia or whatever it might be. If I understood them and I could articulate, you know, their fears, and then I could come in and offer a different bandit. You know, different viewpoint, but I did it with respect and with kindness. Oftentimes, people change their minds and entering the word repent in the New Testament, it's a Greek word metanoia, and it means to change your mind. And then when you change your mind, you change your heart, and then when you change your heart, you change your behavior. And oftentimes, when we try to argue with people about a particular view, we just argue past each other, we can't actually hear each other, we get angry, the angry, you know, we get more and more angry when we're hearing somebody say something we think is just totally stupid or immoral. If we can figure out how to actually listen and hear where they're coming from and what their fears are, build a relationship, we can find things can change. And that's part of what I'm committed to in the Senate is, how do I begin to build relationships with people on the other side? Easier said than done. I was talking to our mutual friend, Guy Cecil, and I said, what should I ask Adam about today? And he was like, a lot of people have gone to the Senate saying that, that they wanted to bridge divides. It is a little easier said than done. You know, this means you're gonna have to, I don't know, it was the old Obama line about Mitch McConnell. It's like, you have a choice. You have a drink with Mitch McConnell. You have a drink with Ted Cruz, Adam Hamilton. You want to go off to sit down with Ted Cruz and bridge the divides? Why do you think you can succeed at that where others have not? Because I've done it for 38 years. I've done it for 38 years. I've managed to, not always, we've lost, you know, church members over time. But there's a lot of them that when we sat down together, you know, we walked away and we hugged and we like, it's not about hugging and polyanalysts and kumbaya to each other. It's about how do you actually change somebody's mind? I think I may have mentioned this last time. I'm not sure, but I learned something a long time ago when it comes to what's sometimes called prophetic preaching. Preaching about hard issues is, you know, the kind of speaking truth to power or whatever. And there are prophets and they go into town, they blow into town, they say the hard thing and then they leave. But when you're a pastor who's trying to be prophetic, what you're trying to do is figure out how do I, and this is the question I say, I got to ask myself, is my goal here in this sermon or this relationship or whatever merely to irritate someone or is it to influence them? It's super easy. It takes no skill. Just poke them in the eye. Say your thing. I'm good at that. I got that down. We need irritators. We need people who do that. But we also need people who are able to have a conversation with somebody in a way that they feel heard and respected. And because of that are willing to, you actually do this, Tim, you're so good at this, but that where they feel like you, you actually cared about them. And that opens the door. And I think about, you know, again, I think about Ted Kennedy and I don't know if it's Orrin Hatcher. I don't know who it was after he died and after Kennedy died. And he said, I really love this man. Something to the effect of, I really love this man. And he got me to, you know, we worked together to get some things done. And somebody said, well, why did you love him so much? I thought this was so great. He said, because when my wife was sick, he came to the hospital to see her. Yeah. Like, you know, there's something happens when you, when you can build a relationship and then you begin. And look, I'm not saying this is everybody's cup of tea. I'm not saying everybody should do this, but I'm saying as a pastor, this is part of what I bring to the table. And I've watched people change their minds, radically change their minds. I think about LGBTQ inclusion in our congregation and in the United Methodist Church, you know, starting in 1972, we had language that was harmful to people. And, you know, I was just a kid. I was just eight years old when they put that language in there, trying to find some way to hold people together. But when I began preaching about this, you know, I started with preaching where I was at and that was just, we're going to love everybody. But I, you know, but we may, you know, this is what I think the Bible says. And over time, my views of the Bible began to change in terms of how I. I read those six passages of scripture that speak directly to this. But when I, when I finally, my views changed, I started preaching to people. I had to understand where other people were and they were where I was 10 years before. So how did I speak to them where I was 10 years before? And it was fun. I had this woman come up to me, gosh, probably 10 years ago. And she said, you know, when I started coming to this church, I was very conservative on same-sex marriage. And, you know, you preach several sermons and I'm like, at first I was mad, you know, that you preach that sermon, but you did it so gently and so respectfully that I. I actually had to listen. I didn't leave the church because of it. And she said, you know, over a period of five or six years, my views changed. And today, you know, I'm somebody who's a champion for people, same-sex marriage, people being able to have, you know, all the civil rights that everybody has. But she said, it wouldn't happen were not for the way you preached, you know, the way you talked to me when I was at a different place and the way you. So I think that's, you know, I'm going to get the D.C. and I'm going to figure out is does that work? Maybe it doesn't work in the Senate. I love that story. Obviously, I know a lot of people have been on that journey in my life. That woman's ears were open, though. You're going to talk to some people in D.C. whose ears might not be. The vice president of the United States and the president of the Senate. He just like a week or two ago said that you're a guy who uses your pulpit not to lift people up. You use it not to serve the Lord or to serve your congregants. He said that he admits that he makes up lies about people if it helps him politically. Yeah. How do you deal with that? OK, so first of all, you know, so I've heard these things and I listen to the president. He spoke in Salina and Wichita and he talked about me to both these both these men. Here's what I think. First of all, at 62, I listen to that. I just roll my eyes. I'm like, give me a break. You know, anybody who knows me knows that that's not who I am. And I know you know that, too. But then I, you know, I pray the Lord's Prayer every day. And one part of it is forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And then I remember Jesus saying, blessed are you when people say all manner of evil against you. And I'm like, OK, all right. And, you know, it's funny. It's again, at 62, it's different than when I was 40. At 62, it's just easier for that to roll off your back and to roll your eyes. But I think in a campaign, people say whatever they think they need to say to get their person elected. It's sad and pathetic. It should not happen. But that's what happens. So I would just say my hope is to have a conversation with J.D. Vance, you know, and we'll I'm sure we will have conversations. I hope we have a chance to talk about faith, theology. He clearly has never listened to my sermons. He hasn't. He has no idea what I've done or who I am. He's just saying whatever he was just saying, whatever he needed to say to try to support Roger Marshall getting reelected. But, you know, I, I don't have any animosity towards him. I'm like, let's have a conversation. I'd love to talk with you, but I won't kowtow to him. That's for sure. You know, you'll have at least one conversation with him because he's going to have to swear you in on a Bible. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping it's not going to be the Trump Bible. I get to pick my Bible. OK, I'm going to bring it. But yeah, I mean, he's he's had a couple of conversions. Maybe you can win him over. You know, maybe changing. You know, I really do think part of part of what has to happen. Ted Cruz is the same way. You know, he said some things about my theology. I'm like, dude, are you kidding me? Let's talk theology. We'll have a we'll have a debate about that if you want to. But but really, I think it starts with having a conversation and trying to get to know people and then trying to say, OK, once you build trust, then how do we work together? To try to find some common ground and then try to, you know, try to create real solutions. Let's talk about these things that are painful or hurting people. This is my only disappointment about your win was that if you'd lost, I was going to send you an email and invite you to do a religion podcast with me. But I don't think you're going to have time for that, unfortunately. I'm not going to be able to debate that. They didn't work that much this year. So maybe in August or something, we can have an August series. Maybe so. I really would love to do that. It'd be a lot of fun. And, you know, the thing that matters most to me in my life is my faith. Yeah. But and it's out of that faith that, you know, my values, my my sense of ethics and what's right and wrong come. And, you know, you've heard me say this before. I get on my knees every morning. I'm just like, OK, God, thanks for today. Thanks for my life. Thanks for the great privilege. I mean, I was weeping the other day thinking about how in the heck did I get to this place where I get to do it? The hotel room at the Marriott, you know, like, thank you that I get to do this. And but also, please help me to do it well. Help me to love people. Help me to reflect, you know, what your will is. In terms of how we treat each other and what we do. And so talking about winning people over. The other thing I needed an update on from our last conversation is did you win your dad over? You know, there was a lot of swing voters in Kansas. Yeah. He doesn't live in Kansas. He lives in Washington. Yeah. And I love my dad. He called me yesterday to say, Hey, you know, good job. You, you got elected, you know, your team's in control now. I hope you guys can do some good stuff. And it meant a lot to me actually, that he called because, you know, you need, you need that. I want to end with this. I watched one other video of yours this morning. It was in 2013. You spoke at the national prayer service at Barack Obama's inauguration at the national cathedral. And you ended that with a piece of advice for him that I think we can now turn back to you. So I want to play your advice to you. Okay. Stevenson, the 19th century author once told how as a boy, he'd been sitting in front of the window at nightfall, watching the lamplighter light the gas street lamps. He would erect a ladder at one post and he would climb up and he would light the lamp with a torch and then he'd take it down and go to the next one and the next one and the next one. And, and his father walked in the room and he said, son, what are you looking at at the window? What do you see out there? That's so fascinating. And the young Stevenson said, daddy, I'm watching that man out there knock holes in the darkness. There's a lot of darkness in our world. Lead us to be a compassionate people, to be concerned for the marginalized, help us rediscover a vision for America that is so compelling that it unites us, and calls us to realize the full potential of this country, to be a shining city upon a hill. And when you feel your lowest, don't give up. Wait upon the Lord. He will renew your strength that you might lead us as a nation to knock holes in the darkness. Probably more relevant now than it was in 2013. Well, it certainly feels more relevant to me personally right now. Although I will tell you, I preach this to my congregation all the time. We talk about knocking holes in the darkness, and I'll do it again. I'm going to be preaching through the season of Advent, coming up the Sunday after Thanksgiving. And that entire series is going to be about light and darkness. And that's what I'm going to call them to do. And on Candlelight Christmas Eve, we have last year, about 140,000 people who joined us for worship on TV, online. And, you know, in person, we have them get their candles out. We turn off all the lights and we're like, okay, this is what the mission is from Jesus. Let's go punch holes in the darkness. Let's go knock holes in the darkness. And that's what I intend to do in Washington, DC to the best of my ability, God willing, and with God's help. All right. I'm wishing you the best. I'm really proud of you and happy for you and happy for the country. There's a lot of darkness there. I've spent more time over there. You've done more preaching. And let me tell you, it's going to be a little harder than you think, but we'll get an update on it next year. All right. Hey, Tim, I really appreciate you. I appreciate your heart and who you are and what you're trying to do, your role that you're playing and trying to knock holes in the darkness. So thank you for doing that. Thank you. Sounder of Light, Adam Hamilton. Appreciate you very much. I'm next, my friend, Rob Flaherty. All right. I'm at that time of life where the Democrats elected like three senators who are younger than me. So, you know, I got to start thinking about what the future holds and making sure we're prepared to make sure that if something happens, you know, my daughter, my loved ones are taken care of. And one way to do that is to go to Trust and Will. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney designed estate plans that will help you get a job. So if you're looking for a job, you can go to Trust and Will. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney designed estate plans online that you can create in minutes. It has a super easy to use website. It's fast and minutes. You can create a will that lets you document your wishes for guardians, asset distribution and healthcare planning. 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He's the co-host of the podcast. Nobody knows anything. He knows a little bit though. He was deputy campaign manager of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign director of digital strategy in the Biden White House. It's Rob Flaherty. What's up, homie? Hey, Tim, how we doing, dude? I couldn't be better. Yeah. I've had a couple of people texting me over the last 12 hours, like complaining about this or that annoyed about this. And I was like, you, nobody can bring me down. Yeah. We're living on a cloud. Nobody can bring me down. I mean, the only thing I, and literally nobody can bring me down. I'm like running into the Cialis commercial warnings where I'd have to go to Ochsner down the street here in a little bit. It's been three days, Tim. I'm just waiting. All right. After the, famously after the 2024 election that, uh, your candidate lost, uh, nobody wrote an autopsy. There was a partial autopsy. There's a lot of drama about it. We don't want to relive all that. You wrote for us though, for the bulwark, what ended up being kind of the most comprehensive autopsy out there since nobody else would do it, which we really appreciate. You can trip over a low bar. Yeah. And so, you know, I, that was kind of a, that's kind of a downer of a project that you had to take on for us. And so I decided that I wanted to have you back today to give the life topsy, the life, the life topsy. What happened? How did this happen? Well, um, Democrats are now enormously popular. Everyone loves us and, uh, it's, it's all over. Um, we're in charge forever. Uh, no, look, I think there's like, there are the things that, that we got right. And then there are the things that are like features of just like a midterm election. Right. And, and in that category, it's like the people who show up in the midterm elections are like more likely to be civically engaged and like care about the project of democracy. And so that is a good thing in the short term still has some concerning things for the longterm, but who cares? We'll take it. Um, but then the things that Democrats got right is like, we talked about the issues people gave a shit about. This is an anti-status quo election. We talked about affordability. We talked about, uh, corruption. We talked about the things people hate about the system. And I think that a lot of people dialed in on a really smart sort of mix of like kind of an economic populist message with sort of a pragmatist ethos. Um, and we had a bunch of compelling candidates everywhere. Uh, and that leads to, that leads to good outcomes. And so I think a little bit of it is, you know, we were, we were beneficiaries of a good environment and a little bit of it is like, you know, they, they got a lot of things, right. They communicated better. All right. That's kind of like the big picture stuff. This lets like nerd out for a second. I mean, your background is in digital and, and, um, et cetera. Like what about some of the tech tactical? I mean, there's a lot of kind of conversation about the ways in which Trump and MAGA were like talking to people, um, in more kind of modern ways, more up-to-date ways about how, where, about where people are getting information. They were reaching people, people that Democrats weren't even like speaking to. Like, was there a change in that this cycle, do you think? Or was it just like the type of electorate change really more? Look, I think there was a change. You know, you saw a lot of people who were good at communicating. Like the thing that I think was my worry coming out of 24 was that people were going to overlearn that like, yup, you just got to do the TikTok dance and you're going to be fine. Right. And, or go on all the podcasts and you'll be fine. And that only works if you have something to say. And if you're doing it in a way that like resonates with you or like, rhymes with like who you are. And so there were tons of candidates who did an incredible job with that. Right. Like Asaf is a great example of like, he wasn't doing the like TikTok dances. He was doing these like big speeches that were like beautifully composed that worked for him. Tallarico had an incredible social media operation that featured a lot of smart people from his campaign and some folks who were on the Harris campaign too. They did an amazing job. And then you look at like Scott Cologne, who looks like he's going to be a Senator in terms of like a content driven communications operation. I mean, that guy, you have to hold him up as a model. It was perfectly on his brand. It felt fun. It felt like he was having a good time, felt like he wanted to be part of it. He went everywhere and he had something to say when he went there. And so like, I think you, you saw people getting a lot better at this. And I do think, you know, materially the sort of outside game of building a communications infrastructure to like reach more people and reach different people like that definitely came into play too. Yeah. I was on Nicole Wallace's podcast, The Best People. And we were kind of talking about this, on the inverse of that, about what you're saying about, you know, to, to win the algorithms, you have to have something compelling for the algorithms, the nature of how Trump communicates and acts like the fact that he's insane. And he says crazy stuff all the time that like, that allows him to dominate the narrative, like really was a superpower in different, you know, races versus, you know, the race you're running with Harris, for example. Yeah. And some of that stuff was tearing down what the Biden administration was doing. Some of that stuff was like, you know, whatever, tearing people down, trans people are going back to COVID, you know, talking about the Wu flu or the shiny virus, like all that sort of stuff, right? Like, that's how you got into people's feeds. And then like, you fast forward to this year, and it's like, okay, but, but they're in charge and people's lives are going badly. And it's like, you know, the John Husted's ass talk in the, you know, caulk discussion at the reflecting pool is like, fine, it's in people's feeds, but that's not, it's not like landing with anybody like dominating the world. It's like, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're candidate. He's going to blow the whole thing up. When you're the guy in charge and you're doing that, it plays really, really differently. And it went from being a thing that showed that he was an agent of change to being, he's sort of an agent of stasis in your life staying worse. And so, yeah, like he had, he had fuck all to say. And so it, I think it worked counterproductively. So reality matters, I guess, is the, is a little bit of how to sum up your, your take there. You heard it here in the bulwark. I think that it's reality, but it's also like your sense of values and like what you stand for matching with what people want. And at this point, at this point, they're like, get fucked anyone who's elected. And by the way, I think that is a thing that you saw in blue States, right? Where Democrats kind of underperformed in places where Democrats were in charge. Right. And so, you know, I think that people are just mad at, at everything. And we were able to take advantage of that. All right. I want to talk about the. Blowouts. We're here on Thursday of the show. This is, it's almost like these, a couple of candidates were punished by doing so well that, uh, it's like, there's not even any room to talk about them anymore because it got kind of boring. But, uh, last time I checked Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina were swing States. And actually I was looking at an analysis this morning of what the tipping point States are in 2028. And it's those three, right? So you got to win all three of them if you're a Democrat to become the president. And so, uh, it's probably worth looking at the races. Roy Cooper, wins 58 to 39 in the Senate race in North Carolina, John Ossoff, 59 to 40 in Georgia, Josh Shapiro, 60 to 38 in Pennsylvania. Quick quiz. Did they do better or worse than you guys did the Kamala Harris campaign in New York, Washington, and California? Uh, listen, Tim, I think what's important is that we, do you want to guess? Do you want to guess who they did? I'm going to say, I'm going to say they did, uh, did better, better in New York and Washington and worse than California, California, Kamala Harris in her home state, eat them out. She had a 20 point victory. These guys, uh, Oh wait, I lied. Josh Shapiro did better in Pennsylvania, California, but she did, she did beat out Ossoff and Cooper by a hair in her home state of California. And that is insane. Yeah, it is. It is crazy. And it, look, it speaks to like good candidates. It speaks to like good candidates. It speaks to candidates who, um, like are just dominant in their state. And I think also like, like Roy Cooper is like the God King of North Carolina. And the thing that comes from that is like, there's national and local implications, right? The state legislative situation in, uh, uh, North Carolina has been a fucking shit show for Democrats forever. Like we are like, I mean, we're talking about flipping chambers. No one ever talked about flipping because he's so strong. And that means sort of very expensive States and could put them elsewhere on the map because these candidates were so good. It really is. Um, uh, it really is a testament to candidate quality. Um, uh, being able to sort of beat the environment like that Shapiro, um, is just talking about the North Carolina state house for a second. Cause it's, it's, I do think it's pretty, it's, it's super important when you think of, I was, I've talked to Anderson Clayton like a couple of weeks before the election, the party chair there in North Carolina, who's, she's just unbelievable. And she's like, you know, she's like a positive vision, you know, Southern accent version of it. And, and, and even in her like rose colored glasses, like positive, we can do this vision. It was like a two cycle fix to like even get North Carolina back to where it could be because the state had been gerrymandered so bad. And Roy Cooper wins by so much that it breaks the gerrymander. The Democrats are like, Oh, I'm going to win. I'm going to win. And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to win. And I'm like, I'm going to win. And I'm like, I was doing kind of a nine to five Dolly thing on election night. And then it's like, wait a minute. They might be Virginia Fox for 10 to four. And now it's like, they might be Greg Murphy for 11 to three when all the votes are counting in. There might be 11 Democrats from North Carolina in the house. The real world ramifications of this are that like whatever policy issue you care about at a local level in North Carolina or the way that that impacts, you know, the congressional delegation, like she was basically like, we can't even hope to fix it until 2029 because we got to win two straight cycles to get the Supreme Court back. But now they can just fix it. They can just fix stuff. Now. It's incredible. No, it's totally incredible. And I think I hope Anderson takes a nice victory lap too, because I remember she gets elected to that role of party chair. I think she's like, what? She was like 25. Yeah, I think she's 28 or 29. Now. She went to Appalachian State when I interviewed her. I was like, so we I was like, so were you there for the Michigan the Appy State went over Michigan and she was like, I'm not gonna try to do her accent. But she was like, Tim, I was six. And I remember I remember people on the national stage being like, Oh, my God, it's an important state. There's a 25 year old in charge. And look what happened, man. I mean, this is like a total testament to like, young people can do great shit. Roy Cooper has like a read on that state in a way that like very few political figures have credit needs to go to Schumer for getting him to do it and taking it off the map. Because it's going to have huge national implications. All right, now back to George. with ossoff ossoff wins by 19 there were some concerns that he was not going to win by enough to carry quiche lands bottoms in the governor's race across the line just you know coattails wise she ends up winning by nine yeah not even close yeah total blowout i mean bigger victory than um anybody i mean i don't know what what more is there to say about the ossoff campaign but even the most bullish pro ossoff stands were kind of like floated to me he might win by 15 yeah he won by 19. i know i know man like what was impressive about ossoff and what i think is translatable for future campaigns perhaps is he got really good at making novel arguments that like were in line with what voters wanted to hear and so every time he said something he said something new and interesting and that sort of helped break through but then they they got the tactics right i mean they got the sort of method of distribution they got the advertising right the way they did the camera angles like all that kind of stuff and they played to his strengths right uh so it's it's a well-run campaign and a candidate who matched the moment shapiro then wins by 22 yeah i was like yeah 19 that's pretty good and i'm gonna win by 22 in pennsylvania the win was so big when i was putting together this segment i just google searched you know senate and governor results and they the in the google like breakdowns of the races to watch for governor's races they don't even include them it was like it was that big of a blowout like he didn't even make you know like there were other states like you wouldn't i forget like i don't know north dakota or something was on there like there are other going way closer states so anyway i don't you look at it i don't want to do too much 2028 punditry but um depending on how crazy everything goes i do think there's a little bit of maybe this idea of josh shapiro as like the backup binky choice for a lot of democrats it's like if i get really worried i'm gonna win by 22 that tucker carlson's gonna be the president maybe we should just go with the guy but that won by 22 yeah i think it's totally possible i mean that's his argument right is he is he has an iron grip over the most important state in the country for who gets to be president um it's a compelling argument i think that you know he's gonna have some uh fire coming at him from the left i think on the presidential but for sure it is it is a compelling argument and he's a compelling i mean he like you know people make they make fun of the obama thing but if you've actually been in a room with him watching the president he's gonna be the president of the united states watching him speak i mean it is it is electric he's really good my other glaze of josh is that you know he's he's conversational on my show like he can he can do all of them you know what i mean like he can do the such we need to do the podcast speeches and which you know is is challenging i mean now now this now finally after a bunch of wins where there are a bunch of people that can do that like talarico and others and the democratic side like that's a longer list now for democrats than it was last month yeah yeah yeah still there just weren't there still aren't a huge number of people that are good at all the different communications venues what's funny too is um they keep having him back like i think about how after 24 like everyone was sort of tripping over themselves to go on pat mcafee yeah and very few people have and he's gone on like what two times three times yeah they like having the conversation with him down to plexus plexus i didn't mention this in your bio of losses um you have some wins too um but you also uh worked for betos presidential campaign that is true people know um who are listeners of the show that i have such a soft spot for beto and i love beto and i had a little bit of like when i was in texas on tuesday this just kind of this feeling of like pride in him and happiness for him and also like a little melancholy like kind of mixed all these feelings kind of mixed together right because it was like he had he was there like it was the right idea and the right message the 18 race in particular it was just a little early like that happens timing is everything better work never wrong only early except for like a couple things at the end of the presidential but but other than that and i think you have to give credit to beto for building the infrastructure to make like when he won in 2018 like he left behind powered by people an organization that has spent years building for this moment and he's still doing not left behind really there's he's still doing it they have it's college campus registration and so if you look at texas and there are a bunch of reasons why by talarico and by 12 and most of them talarico and trump are the reasons but um you know huge shift in the rio grande valley on hispanic vote you know they're you know huge shift in the rio grande valley on hispanic vote you know they're you know huge shift in the rio grande valley on hispanic vote you know they're you know huge shift in the rio grande valley on hispanic vote that like this was kind of a long time coming but also like on the campuses since he stopped the presidential campaign has been doing that this organization's been registering kids on campuses not just ut like all the random ass colleges like all over texas and you did see big turnout um in a lot of those places totally i mean look he had a vision you know and um and it's it's coming to fruition and he's worked at it so that's that's fucking great good for beto skateboards water burger for everybody i did listen when talrico and gina went to the water burger uh after after i was there i was you were there i was there it was really cool that was cool it was really cool the uh the fun part or one of the fun parts was uh they walk in and you know in kind of the hispanic like whatever tex-mex accent i guess from that they want to be employees you know that's working at the water burger she like screams out like gina i love you let me take your order and i was just like that's pretty cool because you know there are a lot of people that like me that gotten tipped off that were there but um i just like the sense of the natural excitement of the just regular denizens of the water burger at midnight on a tuesday it was pretty fun i will say that that does sort of bring it to gina who is like everyone talks about talrico but oh my god what a campaign like flawlessly executed the media stuff was was brilliant the abortion ad like all that kind of stuff talk about that because i haven't really covered that that much yeah you mean by that so she ran this ad that you know was sort of told her own story her own abortion story but you know sort of moderated on the issue overall just kind of talking about like the value you know you know how much she wanted to have a baby and the value of life right like in that context right that's kind of an old school democratic message on abortion yeah yeah exactly like sort of in ways that resonated with i think the people who might be skeptical like she did a good job you know we say the word permission structure and our friend of the show peter hamby always rolls his eyes but she did a good job of permission structuring people and also really focused on education people are mad about public education and like this is not a national this is not an issue on the national radar i think i said this on tuesday night we're like for a while democrats talking about education got bullied into having the topics that they talked about about schools being what bathrooms kids can use like literally if you looked at the last six years of democratic campaigns like since obama raised to the top stuff like they didn't have a message on education and so it was like the republicans culture war stuff that dominated the education debate and she flipped that on them totally because people were upset about what was happening to them and she flipped that on them totally because people with public schools in Texas, and it got her out of that, you know, kind of binary that hurts Democrats on culture war stuff. They just got the blocking and tackling right. She also focused on data centers in this race, which was a wedge issue in rural areas. And I think that like, you know, to the point of like thinking about this as a strategy, Tallarico and her sort of the recognition that having two strong candidates at the top of the ticket benefits everybody, like that is a thing that, you know, it was sort of the O'Rourkean, if you drew up the model of how this was going to work, sort of the plan. And so those campaigns, I think, worked incredibly well together and just got the little stuff right. Really cool. I don't want other Blacks this thing for you. So is it a swing state 2028? Oh, I don't know about that. I think we are in the opening innings of what a long-term Blacks might look like. I just think that like, we need to get a better picture. So my Blacks is forever Instagram post. You're not there yet. I think Blacks in the will be Blacks is forever. I think the thing that we haven't accounted for is like who shows up in presidentials that doesn't show up in midterms. And it was about still a huge turnout for midterm, but I'm going from memory, but I think it was about a million fewer voters. Yeah. And 26 and 20. And I suspect those million voters are not sitting out because I think the Democrats are going to win and they're happy about it. You know, and so, you know, I think that it depends on who's in the top of the ticket on both sides. And in 28, I think it's possible, but it's an expensive fucking state. And so I don't know, but we'll see, you know, anything's possible. Can't a good billionaire, can't Dario take his AI money and just throw in plow 500 million in there to try. I was like, there's no map to, to Republican victory without Texas. I was messing around just for kicks, you know, while I was high on my own supply on Tuesday after the Whataburger, I was like, what would the map look like? You know? And you, you really, and you get into like ridiculous territory. It's like they would have to put New York or something Georgia and Arizona, you know, it's worth a think worth a think. I was hoping you'd give me a little bit. I should have had your car. I Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Yeah. If Jesse would have given me black says 28 is a swing state. He'd be like, for sure. We'll, we'll have to see. There's, I think there's a chance. I think there's a chance. Okay. Speaking of swing states, you're giving me the dumb and dumber bliss Mississippi. Maybe that's a swing state. You mentioned Scott Cologne at the top. You guys have been on this, been covering his race over on your live stream. What was it about Scott Cologne's race that made you so confident? And what do you think the state of play is or not so common? What, what was it about the race that impressed you? And what do you think about the state of play? So all credit needs to go to Jesse Larrick because he was on the Cologne train early and he got Cologne to come on our show, which, uh, is hard because no one watches our show. He is a special person. He has it. He has, he's conversational. He's down to earth. He's like very, very just like relatable, has a theory of what he's talking about. Like, I just thought he was like one of the most impressive politicians I've ever met. And even then I was like, God, it's such a bummer. He's not going to win where Jesse to his infinite credit was like, Cologne's going to win and sort of called this from the beginning. I think Scott Cologne got basically everything right. First of all, I do believe that Mississippi is a swingable state. Like I really believe that it has all the factors that as the sort of largest proportion of black voters, it is very cheap, um, relative to other states. Like I think with New Orleans and Memphis were more successful economic engines to create sprawl. Yeah. Right across our border. Cause you do have like, that has like started to help Wisconsin, right? Cause Minneapolis has gotten so successful that they're like blue people that are moving out into the Wisconsin exurbs. And it's like, no, unfortunately, New Orleans and Memphis aren't, we're not really doing our weight there. Listen, if I, for the sake of the democratic party need to move to New Orleans, I will, I will, I will move here. You didn't move to the Gulf. You moved to St. Louis. We need to move into St. Louis. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. My being there will lead to such great economic stimulation that it will create suburbs. Of course. So, you know, I do believe structurally that like Mississippi can become a, a swing state in time and, and more affordably than say other states. But anyway, taking that out, like he had a campaign that knew what it was about. He had this, like the way, like they made these videos that were like brilliant, but like not so overproduced that they felt slick. Like it kind of felt like they were just like, oh, we're going to do this. They were just like making them. So it felt very like a family affair. Like everyone talks about that, like pick another Senator ad. I thought that was brilliant. But then like on Halloween, he puts out this like sinners parody. Like they were just having fun. And there's another video of his that I love. And they just did it a couple of weeks ago. And he, there's a Trump comes to the state to campaign with Cindy Hyde, Cindy Hyde Smith, who he calls Sydney Hyde, Cindy Hyde prices, which I thought was brilliant. And he, he goes down the line and it's just talking to everybody and just like having that conversation. And that's so indicative of like his ethos. He just grant, he just grinded. And so that's really maybe the best move of the cycle. And so Ron ask, right. This works across the works for anybody. You know, you can do it running as kind of a center candidate is left candidate. Like he went down the line of, of people waiting to get into the Trump rally, asking them what they cared about, you know, telling them, you know, making little jabs and Cindy Hyde Smith's when they disagree with her on something, being friendly about it. It was really good. It's great. And, and I actually, I want to like quadruple underline that point, which is the thing that he gets right. And the thing that Zoran got right is they made videos that reflected who they were and their brand and their campaign. And you're right. You don't need to be Mr. Progressive to do that and reach your audience. And also on the other side, we had Adam Hamilton, the first segment, and he is this way too, giving a kind of independent, independent, whatever you want to call it, moderate brand, but not doing hippie punching. Yep. You know, like he didn't do it that way. You know, he didn't do it by like, you know, trying to find the issues that he disagrees with lefties on and punching them over that. He like just found different ways to distinguish from Cindy Hyde Smith on ways that felt kind of moderate and independent. And I think that's pretty noteworthy too. Yeah. A hundred percent, uh, inclusive. Okay. I want to go to my nobody knows anything segment, which I teased for you earlier. And that is the gerrymandering fight and the dummy mandering fight. We spend all this time for good reason, worried about the mid cycle redistricting, worried that the Republicans were going to steal the house. You know, Gavin redistricts all of California over this. It's, you know, it was the opening salvo to his 28 campaign, basically a lot, you know, in Indiana, they, you know, we have these brave Republican state senators who stopped their gerrymander and then they end up losing a primary because of it. Um, uh, but Mike Pence was behind that in, in all, pretty much all of the red States, except for like Tennessee, if it even in Tennessee a little bit where they were trying gerrymanders, like the opposite happened. And I want to give you a couple of prime examples in Indiana had, had we just let their, not we, like I had any, like that I had any control, but like Mike Pence, like thought he was doing good government, but had, had they let the MAGA Indiana house and Senate, like JD Vance wanted a gerrymander, the state, somebody looked at what that would have looked like. And Democrats would have, like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Democrats would have like seven, eight Democrats from, uh, house members in Indiana that happened because they would have gerrymandered themselves into a total blindiana, um, South Carolina, the same after the Annie Andrews. they were talking about uh doing a big gerrymander they ended up doing a small gerrymander in south carolina had they done a bigger one there would have been a bunch of democrats who went in south carolina and utah we got we were so excited that we got this court ruling that protected the salt lake city um congressional district and the democrats do now have um a representative from salt lake city which is nice but had we let the republicans just gerrymander utah i think there'd be three democrats yeah and so like anyway i i do i just think it's um you know what i mean the democrats are gonna have whatever 255 260 some odd uh house members so uh it's a huge win anyway but uh i just think in the spirit of your of your live stream i think that the gerrymandering fight is a great example of nobody knowing anything particularly the republicans that were trying to do the gerrymandering nobody does know anything i do think for all of his like i'm the dark arts the trump political guy james blair who cooked up the um the gerrymandering strategy i am so glad to see that motherfucker eating shit because this is a he should go back to republic spurska and stay there exactly i i think that um uh truly one of the dumbest decisions that they made all cycle that being said i if i may defend huge backlash though just really quick before you before you caveat yeah to james blair being an idiot because i do think it's important to sit on that not only did the gerrymanders functionally not being a dummy mander with a b but on top of that huge backlash and the turnout among black voters in the south if you look at like the share of the electorate and most of these states was up two three four percent more black voters as a share of the total electorate than there were in 2024 all of that was backlash oh absolutely and and look like you know if you want to go one further on the democracy stuff like hispanic voters swigging back because of the terrorism that this administration is doing to them through ice i mean the administration is doing a lot of administration made their own bed here like some of this is thermostatic but some of this is them just doing stupid stuff um that is anti-democratic and people reacting the thing is that there's no way to know we were here uh at this moment and so i still think that it was worth um fighting those gerrymanders uh fight of course you know to be clear to be clear i also think it was worth fighting the gerrymander fights it's just funny to think about the fact yeah exactly they had we lost more of those that actually would have been great you know it would have been great you know it would have been great it would have been indiana it would be pretty fucking funny for there to be eight eight to one democratic congressional delegation in indiana right now that would be funny uh but uh i don't know so indiana utah blue tall indiana some blue tall uh you know someday i think it's more house the four house democratic candidates in utah got more votes in the four house republican candidates really i didn't know that i had not i had not seen that that is great news um well and utah has always had like a little bit of anti-trump in it you know so you know there's a there's a world where you uh there's a world you could see it like spencer cox is only possible there and you know like uh he's not only possible but he's he is a function of that environment okay well i want to do one of your hobby horses which is the ai stuff yeah first you cook on the ai super packs all these masses of the universe they know everything they have super intelligence on their sides they put in millions of their dollars into the campaigns how did that turn out very bad you want to talk about you you really you made you may have noted they didn't they didn't put their strategy into claude coat and come out with something that would help if if just grock had told them uh where to put their money maybe it would have gone better here's here's what it is you want to talk about stupidest decisions of the cycle james blair probably at the very top of it but you have to also call out the folks behind leading the future who was the ai super pack who just colossally absolutely fucked up the politics of this um a hundred percent the theory of their whole thing was no one cares about ai so if we just threaten politicians with money no one will regulate this and we can all get super rich and that got hit with the fucking buzzsaw of public opinion uh saying actually we do give a shit about ai and we don't like it um and it made it so toxic that they couldn't spend anything out of that super pack but then you look at the number two spent the number one and two spenders on the republican side elon musk and and mark andreessen like the tech money was a story in this election that was counterproductive um people hated it and so ai became a driving factor in a bunch of races and so it was just one of the biggest misreads i think of the whole cycle mark anderson has all that extra cranium space you think he could have used that to come up with a strategy that might have uh mitigated the worst midterm defeat for the side that he belatedly joined since you know 1974 yeah it does seem that um what is in the cone on top of his head is just sort of singularly focused on getting rich uh and he's doing well with that yeah he's doing well at that you have the data center ballot initiatives another thing you were early on about just the degree to which this was going to be a backlash i have a friend that's working on a project he sent this to me data centers on the ballot.com i peeked at that this morning yeah of the ballot initiatives according to this analysis um where data centers were implicated um 39 uh ballot initiatives uh said no thank you to data center expansion one uh was on the other side of that the one ballot initiative was in the municipality of harwood north dakota which is 45 miles south of buxton right here as the crow falls there you go and i went and looked at the ballot initiative and i think i really think the win on that one was more about how the language was pretty misleading like random municipality like it was like i was looking at it i was like i'm i this is my job and it isn't exactly clear to me reading data center expansion so i don't know maybe the local news covered it more clearly than the actual text of the ballot initiative but a pretty big swamping for data centers yeah no they're in big trouble and you see you see the companies note this um open ai over the weekend said they're going to rename data centers ai compute campuses and that'll do it you know that'll fucking do i think that all of the ai executives should just come to uh dc in january get out the kente cloth you know get down on one knee in front of hakeem jeffries and see how that goes for them and just and and beg and beg for forgiveness beg for forgiveness beg forgiveness look i think at the end of their pronouns back in their bio sam altman he him he him exactly um the the super intelligence can be it they uh and you know i think that like ultimately though i think what is very clear is like voters are starting to see that like the data center conversation is moving on to an ai conversation and voters are mad about the build out of this entire project and um it isn't coming on democrats to have a plan for that world and for regulating it and so i you know i hope they do take a two by four to a lot of these companies who are just like getting filthy rich at people's expense all right do you have any feelings you want to share how are you feeling oh i'm talking in the interior life of rob clarity dude i'm fucking stoked this is great here's the problem i'm a democrat and so i am like uh looking at the future being like i don't know we're papering over some problems but like i'm gonna give it before i start thinking about that i'm gonna give it like a couple of months you know i'm just gonna be happy yeah any tears do you have any juju any salty discharge over the last four you know what you know what when cologne went up at two in the morning yes that was i like i was i had had like six or seven tequila shots in this fucking live stream and it was 2 a.m and i was like my kids waking up in two hours my favorite moment of our live stream was i mean it was maybe i was in tarrant county flipped and sarah sarah started crying i'm like i looked at her it's like are you crying already because fort worth has flipped to the democrats but she knew she knew she knew that the as tarrant county went the nation that so go so go to the so yeah i'm getting i'm i'm getting maybe a slight tear just thinking about old sarah's excitement on the live stream um been a long 10 years brother it has it has and and you guys look like to the bulwarks credit like um rallying the never trump crowd and and and the democracy crowd i mean it's it's part of it it really is we appreciate that homie all right man we'll keep it uh we'll keep in touch everybody check him out on nobody knows anything he knows a little bit and um appreciate also uh pastor adam hamilton cinder elect adam hamilton for coming on the show today uh we'll see you guys back here tomorrow for more gloating peace mine's a handmade pan fried sun dried south side and beat the devil by a landslide praying with a hands tied president up something told me y'all should bring my body like it's holy i've been waiting for you for the whole week the bulwark daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer katie cooper associate producer ansley skipper and with video editing by dante de chico and audio engineering and editing by jason brown