Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello everyone. Welcome to Morals and Markets, the podcast presented by the Atla Society and hosted by Atla Society, senior Scholar and Assistant Professor of Political Economy at Duke University, Dr. Richard Salzman. This month's episode is why the g o P lost the midterm elections. I hope you enjoy the content, and if you do, I hope you consider sharing, liking, subscribing to the podcast. We are available on all your favorite podcast platforms as well as new to you. Without further ado, I hand things off to you, Richard.
Speaker 1 00:00:28 Thank you Abby, and thank you Scott for co-hosting as well. And good to see, uh, my long-term colleague and friend Peter Murphy here as well. So Peter, don't be shy about chiming in, uh, later. Now, as usual, I'll speak for about 20 minutes or so, maybe 25, and then open it up for comment questions. Uh, we're we're slotted for 90 minutes. I don't know if we'll go that long tonight. It is Thanksgiving week. I wish you all happy Thanksgiving. Let me start as I normally do my reading the abstract and then I'll dig into it. So here's my abstract of a title tonight called Why the G p Lost the Midterm Elections. The abstract says the g o P got more votes in the recent house elections, by the way, 50 million to 44 million, 6 million extra. But the widely expected red wave didn't materialize after two years of Democrat incompetence corruption and vice with inflation at a 40 year high.
Speaker 1 00:01:20 No economic growth, rampant crime, border anarchy, civil liberty assaults, bans on fossil fuels, publicly subsidized genital mutilation. Get that one. Republicans still only want a bear, majority of house seats and they lost its teams a seat in the Senate, although there's still a runoff December 6th. Why? I'm gonna dig into this a little bit, but here are some candidates, poor G o p candidate quality. I don't believe that one. I say no to that one. Election fraud. Well, there's always election fraud, but I don't think there was enough to materially change the outcome. Abortion issue. Where do you see the numbers that give you on abortion? Possibly a bigger issue than the go P is willing to admit. But the simplest explanation I'll end with is actually something that's, um, goes to the philosophy of the electorate. I think it's possible to start concluding that the majority of American voters prefer anti-capitalist policies.
Speaker 1 00:02:18 That's a hard thing for pro-American to say. For years, iron Rand and the objectives have said that there's a gap, a breach between the intellectuals and the electorate. And that there was a trailing residue American sense of life that made sure that politics didn't go too crazy. But, uh, the objective you also is ideas matter and ideas coming outta the university's matter. And it's undeniable that the ideas coming outta the universities and not just there trickling down to elsewhere. The intellectuals have been anti-capitalist most of this century. Now it was pro capitalist for the last two decades of the last century, but the last 20 years have been pretty bad. And I believe that's starting to show up in the electorate even when these races are close. They shouldn't be that close. The G o P generally, I think is the party to back the party that we should be working to make more pro liberty and pro capitalists more secular.
Speaker 1 00:03:14 Um, I think the Democrats are a lost cause. They have totally gone over to the left. There are no liberals really left of any voice in that party. But I also blame the liberals so-called liberals for decades cuz they are the ones who let in the lefties. Now let me go to some of these. And by the way, I'm gonna give you some tonight some, some exit poll data, uh, which is very, very interesting to give you more a flavor of the electorates. So that I take that, I'm gonna take that from the cnn, uh, exit poll data. They gather it from others as about 20,000 people selectively that were interviewed coming out of the polls on election night. And the, the answers they gave are very interesting, very revealing. So I don't want to just, uh, comment, you know, from 30,000 feet tonight and, you know, pontificate or theorized about things.
Speaker 1 00:04:01 I want to give you some inductive, uh, knowledge about the state of the electorate and what they think about a whole bunch of things that I think might better explain, uh, what happened. Now, candidate quality, this is always something people comment on after the fact. Ben Shapiro was known for doing this. They'll go through and say, well, if this person losses cuz the candidate quality was low, and that was never predicted ahead of time. So that's kind of an arbitrary thing. But this is true. I mean, candidate quality to me means are they articulate? Are they experienced? That's key. And are they right on the issues that are most salient? I mean, you could be absolutely excellent on the issues, but if they're not the issues of the moment, if they're not what political scientists call salient, uh, for those of you who are talking in the background, please mute.
Speaker 1 00:04:49 Um, then it's not gonna be relevant. So right out of right off there, I would say many of the Republicans lost were rookies. It's very difficult to beat at an incumbent, even an incompetent Democrat incumbent. And there were a lot of cases like that. It wasn't so much that they were Trump backed, that there might be some overlap there. The real issue was they were rookies, they were new. Uh, Carrie Lake is a perfect example. She, I thought, an excellent, decent, high quality candidate in Arizona for governor, but not in the sense of having any experience. She was a Fox News anchor. Now, she's very articulate, she's very smart. I think she would've made a great governor. But the Republicans actually both parties should not ignore the fact that experience matters. And if, you know, the trend, at least in the Republican party over the last, uh, decade or so, has been anti-establishment.
Speaker 1 00:05:39 Now, what is that? The swamp, the deep state. Now some of those critiques are relevant, but think what it means. It's a populous type of approach that says we're gonna put up people who are not politicians. I mean, Trump was an obvious example of that and he won. But the Republicans have lost really the last three elections, 18, 20 and 22. So, so it's not unimportant whether your politicians are actually experienced or not. And it's a tough, it's a tough thing because if they're over experienced, that means they've been in Washington too long and they're likely to be corrupt. But you can't have them with no experience either. The fact that many of them, like Harry Lake got so close, I would say Blake Masters as well, that they got so close to winning even without that experience is an argument for making sure there's a bench with experience, uh, in the Republican Party.
Speaker 1 00:06:28 So that's one thing. That's that issue of candidate, uh, quality for the most part, other than the inexperienced aspect of it, I think the candidate quality was fine among the go p uh, now election fraud, there's always election fraud. Those who deny that there's election fraud or shenanigans are liars. But the claim on the other side that there are quote unquote election deniers, it's not that people are denying elections, it's, it's that people, and it's turns out mostly from the Republican side. If the polls, if you believe the polls are concerned about election integrity, let's put it on the positive side, they don't want elections stolen. They don't want shenanigans. They don't want an election that takes all month instead of one day. So, uh, I believe the more the Democrats gain control, the more they, um, bastardized democracy. The Democrats are known for being anti-democratic.
Speaker 1 00:07:18 Uh, that's a kind of paradox out there. But that, so that is an issue, but I don't think any materiality, uh, pertains by that. I mean, the, the fraud has not been material enough to change the outcome, but it's still an issue. It is still a problem. And the Democrats are all for loosening and diluting and corrupting the electoral process so they can manipulate it. That's, that I think is undeniable. Uh, here's the thing I wanna say about the G O P. They need to be pro-American proli and pro capitalist. They tend not to be, they tend to be anti-liberal, anti-socialist, anti to anti, anti anti. You get the idea. You cannot win that way if you only have defense, if you're only trying to conserve the existing mix of things. So the whole conservative approach is futile. Um, the, the aggression, if you will, the momentum is always on the side of the Democrats, even though they have the worst ideas and the worst policies, they are always on offense.
Speaker 1 00:08:24 They have a plan. They, they want, they have a, whether it's environmentalism, the green New Deal, their fascist socialist elements abolish electoral college pack, the Supreme Court add two Senate. If you notice they have a plan and they have a and they work on it, and they get up every day trying to push it. You can't say that about the go P, it's sad. So Trump is a perfect example when he said America will never become a socialist country. Notice how defensive that is. Uh, almost like a sense that it is becoming one and he's gonna stand the floor and stop it all. Well, what about a president who says, we need to become a more pro capitalist country and here's how we're gonna do it. So I think that's still the devils, the g o p it wasn't really an issue with Reagan. Reagan was much more forthright, as was Thatcher.
Speaker 1 00:09:11 It's one of the reasons they were successful. They advocated positive ideas and people loved that Reagan won two landslides, by the way. So you can't just be anti stuff. I think that's an issue. Let me lastly say what I said Originally, I think the intellectuals and the electorate gap has almost collapsed and narrowed to nothing. And so when you see woke everywhere, I've done seminars on woke before, but the whole concept of every institution now, not just media and schools, and not just Hollywood, which for years has had woke in it, but now corporate suites, now the Pentagon, now everything is a sign that this is coming from the intellectuals. This corruption of language, this corruption of principles, this anti-Americanism, these bigoted statements about the country being systemically racist, systemically homeless, POed systemically, this and that are, are just awful. But they are resonating with the electorate.
Speaker 1 00:10:11 They're the gap between the crazy things that intellectuals and academics have said, uh, is in the mainstream, is in the bloodstream of, of a large part of the electorate. Uh, unfortunately. So, uh, I mean the only solution to that is better intellectuals and better policies and better people in academia. Now, um, in looking at the exit polls, by the way, just on sheer numbers alone, you know, the Republicans were down nine seats in the house before the election. Now they're up nine seats and they control the house. So the good news is they do control the house. Nancy Pelosi is out as speaker. Kevin McCarthy is a kind of a middle of the road. Moderate Republican is in as house speaker. The gain in seats, therefore was net nine. But the, the estimates were that it would be something like net plus 25. Nonetheless, the GOP has 2 22 seats in the house.
Speaker 1 00:11:05 The peak they've ever had is two 40. So they're actually not far, they're 18 seats away from the peak they've ever had. So it's not a complete disaster. But the real trouble is in the Senate. I mean, they didn't net gain anything of the Senate, which is really unfortunate, the Senate, it being much more powerful. Um, so actually I wouldn't expect them to have much of an agenda over the next two years. They're in a more defensive mode. The house will do a bunch of investigations of the corrupt Biden regime, the corrupt Biden family, the border situation and things like that. But it's, it's more investigative. And rather than pushing an agenda, because frankly if you push an agenda right now, it would just be vetoed in the Senate or by the President. Okay? So that my overall, uh, conception of what happened is it's not candidate quality from the G O P.
Speaker 1 00:11:58 That was fine. It's not election fraud that resulted in this. I do believe there's an intellectual shift among the electorate, um, and I think the G O P is still in a defensive mode. But now let me go to, to certain aspects of the, um, exit polls that I think are very revealing. First of all, when it's asked, uh, what was the most important issue for you, the voters, uh, generally said, top of the list, 31% inflation, uh, 27% abortion. Now, that surprised me, but that says a lot about what happened. And I'll dig into that more. Next on the list was crime. Next on the list was gun policy. And, and last on the list was immigration. Now notice war in Ukraine didn't come up. I think that'll be a big issue actually over the next two years because that's a, there's bipartisan support for that.
Speaker 1 00:12:53 So when there's stasis like this, when there's more gridlock, uh, you're more likely to see common ground on something like that, which I think is very, um, um, ominous actually. I think, I think it's more likely, first of all, the president has much more power and discretion and foreign policy to do whatever he wants. And here's a case where both parties, uh, so far as the record shows are, are interested in helping Ukraine. So I think there's a greater risk that the US gets more involved in war over the next two years. But that wasn't even on the list of things in the, in the vote. Now here's the thing though. Uh, among abortion, 27% saying abortion, 76% of Democrats said it was important, and only 23% of the go p on inflation. This is a real shocker. The, the Democrats basically think the economy's just fine.
Speaker 1 00:13:46 The Democrats were pulled as saying, IFL inflation, I don't see inflation as recession. Where I don't see recession. Those numbers are just pop off the list. It is amazing. They're either not looking at the data or they're watching media that don't even mention it. It is a real disconnect. 71% of the go p voters said inflation was important to them. Only 28% of Democrats now on immigration, what do you think the split was? 73% of Republicans said it was important to them. Only 25% of Democrats on crime. A little more split a little closer. The g o p, 57% of g o p voters said crime was important to them. Only 41% of Democrats, but 41% of Democrats, um, is a lot. Okay? So that's just as the s salience of issues. Uh, that's so turns out to be very important cuz if you line up what are the issues and then say, well, which party is winning on those issues, you can see why you would get this outcome on something like inflation, even if the GOP candidates talked about it, it wasn't an issue, it wasn't a huge issue to, uh, democrats and, and not necessarily to a large part of the population.
Speaker 1 00:14:53 So abortion, however, was, and I came to conclude after looking at these, uh, internal polls, uh, these exit polls, so to speak, that abortion was much more important to this outcome than even I expected. So let me go to that. I mean, there's some other data here, which is interesting, but let me just quote some of this. This is on, this is, some of this is on religion, but then also on abortion. First of all, by the way, there were referendum, there were ballot questions, not that many this time, but there were four on abortion. So the question either was, should abortion be guaranteed? You know, by the local state in California, 67% said yes. 33% said no, Michigan, 57% said yes, make it a make it a right guarantee. At 43%. No Vermont, 77%. So from the standpoint, I, I am pro-choice through and through, I'm actually pro-choice on everything.
Speaker 1 00:15:49 Not just woman's right to choose, but economic choice, every other kind of choice. Um, this is good news, even in Kentucky where it was worded slightly differently. It was worded as, should there be no right to abortion? No, 52%. And yes, 48%. So there's four in a row where abortion was an issue. And obviously the dobs decision last June, overturning Roe v. Wade, uh, is one of the reasons these things were, uh, on the ballot. Um, now more on this since I think it's an important issue just on religion, then I'll go back to abortion. How often do you attend religious services? Weekly or more? This is an issue of how religious is the population versus occasionally versus never. So weekly or more the go P 66 to 33, twice as many go peers, Republicans say they go weekly or more. Uh, the ones for never, it flips never go.
Speaker 1 00:16:50 66 Democrats, 31% go P. So the Democrats are much more, if you want to call it secular, uh, they have other religions like, um, socialism and, and environmentalism. But when it comes to traditional religions, they're not. And that makes me closer to them. I mean, that makes the, an objective, a pro reason person would be more sympathetic with that, uh, approach. Now here's another one. Are you a white born again evangelical? What do you think the numbers are there? Yes, Republicans, 83% of the ones who said yes, were Republicans only 15% Democrats. Okay, now I I say this as background to going into abortion. Should abortion be legal or illegal? The broader population is 60 40. So the, so the population in general is 60% legal, 40% illegal. But the breakdown of course within is enormously different. Democrats, 73%, uh, uh, say legal g o p 25.
Speaker 1 00:17:55 And when it comes to illegal, the g o P is much stronger on this. 90% of them say it should be illegal. Uh, the ones who say it should be illegal. In other words, our, our Republicans, I should say, um, at the extremes, in fact illegal in all cases. Uh, I mean even in the case of, um, Raven incest, uh, of the ones who said illegal, in all cases, 88% of them were Republicans. Incredible. Um, now on Roe v Wade being overturned, are you enthusiastic about that overturning or are you satisfied, dissatisfied, or angry? Now get this, 39% of the, uh, poll said, I'm angry. 39% of the entire population coming out of the voting booth said, I'm angry. It was overturned. But Democrats, 85% of the ones who said they were angry were Democrats. Only 14% Republicans enthusiastic. Of the ones who said they were enthusiastic about overturning it, 95% of them were Republicans, 4% Democrats.
Speaker 1 00:18:59 Uh, just to comment here, this might be controversial, so let's talk about it in the q and a. I believe I've long believed, and now I really believe if the Republican party were to drop this view on abortion, they would never lose another election. Now, it's, it's sometimes difficult to make a claim like that cuz it's one issue and you'll lose people who want that issue. But I'm thinking here, and it's long been the case hasn't changed much, that the people who have that view are very religious and the Republican party is more religious than the Democratic party, but it's not, it's not dominated by religious people. And, um, I can't imagine an evangelical saying, well, the Republican party has switched this position on abortion, therefore I will vote Democrat. I think more like, I think that's highly unlikely cuz the Democrats have the position the Republicans are switching to, I think much more likely is they wouldn't be as motivated to vote for Republicans or work for them, go to the precincts and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 00:20:01 And then there's a question of like, whether that's really true or not, because to the extent those same people are older, they're not going to be activists within the party either. They will come out and vote more than young people will. But in terms of it being the future of the party, so I'm making a point here really about electoral competition, but I'm basing it on the philanthropic principles that, um, individual rights include a woman's right to control her own body. And I think if the Republican party could bring itself to have that position and on a, in an inner principled way, um, I don't believe they'd ever lose another election. So that's a crucial thing. I they would lose some support. But, and I'm going overboard by saying they'd never lose another election, but it, these elections are close as they are, and that one issue is really making them lose.
Speaker 1 00:20:49 And I think the unexpected results this year, ha it's not coincidental that that coincided with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I mean, normally abortion was not salient, it just wasn't an issue. It was really an issue this time. And of course the fact that it's on, um, ballots, the fact that four of the country states already have it on ballots, and I'm sure more will next time means it's a, it's a present issue, a really important thing. And the battles are going on if, you know, there's even violence going on at, at, uh, planned Parenthood and at other, uh, Christian centers are being burned. So there's a lot of stuff going on. And, um, it, in looking at the data here, I think this was much more of an issue, um, than I initially expected. Um, and it's in the numbers.
Speaker 1 00:21:40 Uh, let me see what else I wanna say. But just on demographics alone for those, um, interested in where the parties parties are going, it's generally true that the younger you are, the more Democrat you are. So it now get this now in the 18 to 29 age bracket, 63% are Democrats and 35% are Republicans. So the younger cohorts, which is the future of the country, when you think about it now, people do change over time. So it's not like they'll all be in this same attitude, uh, 10 or 15 years from now. Um, but that is really a stark difference. And by the way, um, uh, 33% of people in the country say that they're Democrats or registered Democrats, 38% say Republican. So a greater percentage of people say, no, I'm registered Republican. Now the remainder is what? Independence. So one third of the country is unwilling to identify with either party.
Speaker 1 00:22:37 And if you think about why, uh, the polls main mainly show the exit polls mainly show that independents do not want to go with the Republicans because of their views on abortion and social issues. Some of them are on guns as well. But when you break down the independence on economics, they're totally for the Republicans on economics on, uh, to the extent they're seen as, uh, free market economics. Um, what else is interesting here? Let me see. Um, gender, you know, I don't like this kind of breakout, but they, they, they do provide it. Most demo, uh, most of females, many more are Democrats than Republicans than the other way around. And if you, if you go by three different cuts, older white men are mostly Republicans. Younger, non-white women are mostly Democrats. So maybe that's why when you turn on CNN and msnbc, they are so bigoted against, uh, old white men like me.
Speaker 1 00:23:39 Uh, couple of other things. This is interesting about, I think the intellectuals I mentioned earlier, college graduate or not. Now in the population, 43%, yes, 50, 57%, no, but Democrats are much more likely to be college graduates than our Republicans and they're more likely to have advanced degrees. So if you categorize as never attending college or you got an associate degree or ba all the way up to advanced degrees, 57% of those with advanced degrees are Democrats, only 41%. Republicans never attended college. 36% dems, 62% Republicans. So, uh, if we're still going by that old model that says, if you don't go to college, you're not gonna be corrupted by the current anti-capitalist college mentality. Well, a lot of go peers don't go to college. Uh, but that does mean, uh, the Democrat generally, the Democrat is more, i I won't say educated, I'll say school has more years in school.
Speaker 1 00:24:46 And to the extent the schools are teaching anti-capitalism and anti reason, that's a problem. Um, okay, I'll leave you with a couple more things because people do concern themselves with election integrity. And then what did the president say? Democracy is on the ballot. Democracy is under threat. Uh, that was a pitch. And by the way, the pitch about, uh, we're gonna cancel, uh, student loans, uh, that was a big thing for Democrats. They were very enthused about that according to the polls. So the exit polls asked, were you enthused about the plans to cancel student debt? Yes, yes, yes. And of course, that's been thrown out since by a court, unconstitutional, illegal, that was just pure pandering by Biden ahead of time. But, but brilliant, when you think about it, cynically Maia, brilliant to say, just before the election, we're gonna cancel all the student loans for all those students who tend to vote Democrats.
Speaker 1 00:25:41 How con here's a question. How confident are you in your state elections in the fairness and accuracy of elections? The population generally says 47% vary. Only 40% vary 33% somewhat. Not at all. Only 6% of the population is not at all confident in the accuracy and the fairness of elections. But of those who said not at all, 85% are Republicans and only 15% were Democrats, and it's obviously flipped the other way around. If you are very confident in the accuracy and fairness of the elections, 70% of those who said they were were Democrats. So that is a real disconnect as well. And of course, something that a politician can use if you say that's why they came up with election, denier election. If you can label your opponent, election denier, um, that's gonna help if you're a Democrat. And finally, democracy in the US is very secure, somewhat secure, somewhat threatened, very threatened.
Speaker 1 00:26:45 Well, well in here's what's really interesting in the general population, there's two categories that threatened, right? Uh, 68% said threatened. Uh, that's all, that's a little more than two thirds, right? One third of the general population say it's not really threatened, but two, two-thirds say it's threatened. And here's what's most interesting. When I looked at the, uh, partisan breakdown, it's 50 50. There isn't, there isn't any break between Democrats and Republicans. They both equally say in those categories that it somewhat threatened or very threatened. Now what that means, you know, if threatened means, um, to that the electoral system is breaking down, well, there's some belief in that, but that's mostly a Republican belief, right? And so if you change it to, well, maybe they think democracy is at risk because we're seeing more authoritarianism, that would've been a good follow up question, right? What, why do you think it's threatened?
Speaker 1 00:27:46 Is it threatened because there's more violence in the streets? Well, that's back to the crime issue. Is it threatened because the polls are being manipulated? That's only a Republican thing mainly, or do, or authoritarianism? Well, you see that both sides, uh, depending on who the other side gets in. If Obama's in the Republicans say the country's going authoritarian. If Trump gets in, the Democrats say, the country's going authoritarian when Biden gets in, the Republicans say, now my view of it is the country is becoming more authoritarian no matter who's in office. And maybe that's what's being picked up in that last question, is democracy at threat. I, I, my own view is that democracy does not ensure constitutionally limited government or liberty. And so in my mind, there's no disconnect between more and more democracy, more and more majority power and, and more chaos as a result. So I'll stop there because I've said, um, a lot and maybe some controversial things you guys wanna talk about. So thanks for listening and I'll stop there.
Speaker 0 00:28:49 Thank you for tuning in to this month's episode of Morals and Markets, the podcast presented by the WL Society. As always, if you like the podcast, I hope that you'll consider rating, reviewing, and sharing with friends on your favorite podcast platform. Additionally, if you'd like to join Dr. Salzman live for an extra hour of q and a, you can do so by visiting atlas society.org/events and registering for next month's session. Also, if you like the work that we do here at the Atlas Society to promote reason, individualism, and Liberty, I hope that you'll consider a tax deductible
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