The following is a lightly edited transcript of the September 2 episode of theDaily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
In a little noticed move, Fox News appears to have contacted Republican senators and asked them a question, Would you be open to Trump deploying the National Guard in your state’s blue cities? The answer Fox News got back was, Yes. We think this is an ominous turn in this debate. Republicans in Congress are openly debating how far Trump can and should go in militarizing U.S. cities, and they’re expressly discussing this as something that should only be inflicted on Democratic constituencies. Meanwhile, Democrats are consumed in a big debate over whether they can talk about any of this at all. Yet polling is quite clear: What Trump is doing is unpopular. We’re talking today about this bizarre disconnect with Jamison Foser, who has a very good new piece on his newsletter, Finding Gravity, about the reality of public opinion on all this. Good to have you on, Jamison.
Jamison Foser: Thanks, Greg. Always happy to be on.
Sargent: So Fox contacted GOP senators to ask if they’d support Trump sending troops to their state cities. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said this, “Blue cities like Memphis need all the help they can get to combat violent crime.” And Senator Eric Schmidt of Missouri told Fox News, “Local leaders in blue cities have allowed crime to run rampant,” while signaling an openness to troops coming to St. Louis. Jamo, your reaction to all that?
Foser: Well, my first reaction is that Fox, as a standard for them, loaded that question up for Republicans by asking them about sending troops to blue cities rather than about the crime-ridden areas run by Republicans in those red states. If you look at the national stats on murders and other violent crimes over the last two decades, you see a pretty consistent pattern of places with the highest murder rates are in red states run by Republican governors, and a lot of them are in red cities. That’s the fundamental lies at the heart of all this. And you might’ve gotten a little bit different response from Republicans there, but the bigger picture is striking and important and really horrifying how openly Republicans are talking about using the military against the opposing political party. And that’s really what this is about. It’s obviously not about crime, because they’re not focused on high-crime areas. They’re focused on Democratic-run cities. And you have an entire political party, not just Donald Trump, pretty eager to deploy the United States military to intimidate and harass and dominate Democratic voters in Democratic cities.
Sargent: Well, in fact, both senators used the phrase “blue cities.” This is expressly about inflicting troops on Democratic areas, even ones made up of their own constituents. Although maybe these senators don’t think of those people as their own constituents, which is the core of this as well. Either way, it strikes me as a dark new turn in all this. Now Jamo, I have to confess, I originally thought Trump would never be willing to send troops to any area in red states—but he was recently asked about this and he expressed openness to sending them to cities in red states. So as long as Democratic areas are the ones targeted, it’s all good, right, Jamo?
Foser: Yeah, I think they’re perfectly happy to suppress and harass and intimidate Democratic voters in red states as well as blue. That’s one thing they’re pretty consistent on: their willingness and even eagerness to do everything they can to make life miserable for and intimidate and harass any opposition they have anywhere.
Sargent: Well, let’s talk about Democrats right now. They’re having this big debate over whether they can talk about any of this stuff at all. A memo recently went around from David Shor, the numbers guy in the Democratic Party, advising Dems to treat the issue cautiously. Can you recap that debate a little bit?
Foser: Yeah. Basically, on one hand, you have some folks like David Shor who don’t want Democrats to talk about really, I guess, anything other than some narrowly defined economic issues and think everything else is politically perilous. And they’ve sent around a memo on this. And frankly, I didn’t find it a very persuasive memo. It recapped some message testing around some messages that it said did poorly and this means you should avoid these topics—but a lot of times if you read those messages, it’d be a 30-word message and the component that they were saying was toxic and people should stay away from was three words. So I think it’s a misuse of message testing in the first place. Then there’s a bigger question of whether we should really be obsessing this much about trying to test every syllable of every word we use. And I just don’t think that’s where we are right now.
I don’t have anything against opinion research or message testing. I’ve conducted it myself, and I’m sure I will in the future. But I think we’ve gotten something lost here in the obsession. And one thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is: If you went back a decade to just before Donald Trump started running for president, there isn’t a pollster, a message guru, a strategist in either political party who would have said that the kinds of things Republicans have been saying for the last 10 years would be politically effective. And if you tested any of these statements 10 years ago, or frankly even now a lot of them, that are just completely bananas, they’d test very poorly. And I’m not saying that means the whole enterprise is worthless, but it should certainly give anyone pause who thinks that you can just run a poll or a test and that’ll tell you whether a topic or a message is completely toxic. The last 10 years really should have disabused us of the notion that that’s how communication works.
Sargent: I want to get into that in a second, but first we should point out that actual polling on this suggests very strongly that this is not an issue that Democrats need to shy away from. Quinnipiac found recently that American voters oppose sending troops into D.C. by 56 percent to 41 percent, a 15-point margin. If we’re going to look at polling, then why don’t Democrats look at these numbers? Why don’t Democratic strategists look at these numbers and say, Hey, there’s a good one for us.
Foser: Yeah, this is what’s driven me nuts the last week or so seeing some of the coverage of Trump sending troops into cities. First of all, it gets framed by the news media as an effort to fight crime, but it clearly isn’t. Nobody commits more crimes than Donald Trump. The guy’s not against crime. He’s a criminal. And what we know is obviously happening here, because he’s said it and his administration has said it, is that this is an attempt to just take power away from Democrats. And Kristi Noem, his secretary of Homeland Security, said a couple of months ago that they’re not leaving Los Angeles until they’ve liberated the city from the elected officials who are the mayor and the governor in Los Angeles and California. That’s not about fighting crime. That’s about staging a political coup. That’s about overthrowing the elected leadership of localities. So this isn’t about crime at all, but that’s how it’s been portrayed by the news media.
But then even given that and even if you ask a poll question, as Quinnipiac did, that explicitly frames Trump taking over police departments and sending in troops to D.C. as being about fighting crime, the American people still reject it by 15 points, by almost 30 points among independents. So that’s really a striking thing that I would think Democrats should notice and recognize. If the news coverage of this is this rigged against us and then the poll questions are rigged against us and we’re still in a situation where Donald Trump’s handling of crime generally is unpopular and his specific actions around militarizing American cities is unpopular, that’s something you can stand and fight on.
Sargent: A hundred percent. And before we get off the topic of polling, I want to highlight two other sets of numbers because they’re pretty clear also. Pew Research, which is not an obscure firm, recently found that 56 percent are not confident in Trump’s ability to effectively handle law enforcement and criminal justice issues—only 44 percent are confident. Meanwhile, G. Elliott Morris, the data guy, did polling as well on this, found Trump underwater on crime at 45 to 48. The Pew poll is a lot more striking, but both are underwater. What I don’t get about this, Jamo, is even if you step back from the debate over troops in cities and just ask about crime, Trump is underwater. So what are we doing here?
Foser: Yeah, exactly. And that was a big theme of my piece today as I saw all this news coverage over the last couple of weeks about crime and this specific phrase kept coming up in all these headlines—this idea that Donald Trump has set a “trap” for Democrats on crime and that Democrats would be foolish to engage on this issue and to oppose his militarization of American cities because this will play out politically well for Trump. And I saw this and I was like, Well, that’s nuts. And that’s for a couple reasons. One is the polling says Donald Trump’s unpopular on crime. People disagree with his approach to crime. People disagree with militarization of the American cities, which they seem to understand is not really about crime. But also, this isn’t how anything works. It’s true in politics that you generally don’t want to talk about things that are bad for you and good for your opponent. But that only works around the margins. That works on obscure things. You can avoid talking about an obscure House vote on some amendment if you don’t think it’s very good for you and maybe you get away with it.
Donald Trump sending tanks and troops to roll through American cities is not the kind of thing people aren’t going to notice unless Democrats criticize it. And it’s not the kind of thing they’re going to realize they like unless Democrats criticize it. You can’t actually duck this. It’s too big. And so you’re in a situation where you can either try to duck the fight and have it be solely defined by Donald Trump and his propaganda, or get your own message out there and talk about how this is unconstitutional, how it’s un-American, how it’s an attempt to assert authoritarian power over American citizens in a way that we’ve never seen before in history and, by the way, in a way that the American citizens dislike and reject. It seems pretty clear to me which of those two paths is better.
Sargent: I would think so. It seems pretty clear to me. I think we should also highlight something else about this, which is that many of these news accounts that you’re talking about rely on a certain type of quote from Democratic strategists, which almost invariably run something like, My party can’t possibly engage in this debate. We’re a bunch of total losers on this debate. We can’t win this debate. And by the way, I’m very savvy. I’m here to tell you that anyone who says otherwise is completely delusional. But the thing about this is those Dem strategists are saying that stuff in order to get quoted in places like The New York Times. I don’t care what anyone says. That is exactly what they’re doing—and they know it and the reporters as well know it. Yet this is something that’s never stated openly or acknowledged openly. We all know that’s how it actually works. You’ve been around a long time, Jamo. So have I. Isn’t that how it works?
Foser: It is very much how it works. And there’s something inherently dishonest about the whole thing, right? Because reporters go looking for the specific strategists who they know will give them the quote they want to use. And so this idea that the reporter is just reflecting the broad consensus of Democratic strategists or whoever else they’re representing through a source—a lot of times that’s not really what’s going on. They’re picking the source who they know is going to give them the quote they want to use and the source is giving the journalists that quote the source knows that journalist wants to use because they like to see their name in the paper. That’s how this works. And it’s not honest and it’s not a solid analysis. It’s not serving anyone well except the strategists who like to see their name in the paper and the journalists who get the story that pushes the point of view that they want to push without really owning that it’s their point of view.
Sargent: What’s so baffling to me about this as well is I thought for the longest time that editors believed that bucking conventional wisdom is a good thing, right? We’re constantly told that this or that reporter or writer is a star because they take on conventional wisdom. And yet when it comes to certain things, the rush to parrot the conventional wisdom is almost comical. Why is it that when it comes to these particular topics, all of a sudden that desire to buck the CW just disappears?
Foser: If there’s anything they like more than bucking the CW, it’s saying Democrats are losers and Donald Trump’s invincible. That’s just a core thing that a lot of journalists, I think, do believe and love to say. And not just journalists, too many, frankly, Democratic strategists. I don’t think most of them, but as you noted, there’s no shortage of people willing to say that at any given time. I will say one quote that I think maybe you’re referring to that I came across in the last week in one of these stories, a quote from a Democratic strategist saying Democrats shouldn’t fall into this trap on crime. And he explicitly made the analogy to immigration. He said, “This is just like immigration all over again.”
Well, it just so happens that a week ago I wrote a piece on this very same topic about immigration, and it was about a Chris Cillizza column from early June saying Democrats shouldn’t fall under the trap on immigration because immigration is something Donald Trump’s so popular on. Well, from the day Cillizza published that column to the day I wrote about it last week, Trump’s net approval on immigration had dropped seven points. It was underwater. So that isn’t actually what happened on immigration. That actually should be a lesson for people saying, Don’t talk about crime. Run away from crime.
Sargent: And I would add that it’s precisely because a number of Democrats actually didn’t listen to that advice that Trump’s approval went down. At least it was a major factor. Remember, we were told very confidently that any Democrat who dared to engage the debate over the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia was, wait for it, falling into Trump’s trap. Remember that? That was exactly what was said about that. Then Senator Van Hollen of Maryland went down to El Salvador. In part because of his relentless advocacy propelled the issue onto the front pages in a different way, more Democrats started talking about it. And that is what dropped Trump’s approval on this issue. So it’s absolutely stupefying the way we keep going through these same loops over and over and nothing is ever learned. What the heck, man?
Foser: It’s a fundamentally dishonest charade here. One of the things that we’re seeing is that the very same people who two and three months ago were writing pieces saying Democrats shouldn’t fall into the trap by opposing Donald Trump on immigration, he’s super popular on immigration.… Well, what actually happened was Trump’s approval on immigration and overall have dropped since then significantly because people did oppose him on it. And those pundits and those journalists have not revisited that. They’re not saying, Oh, I was wrong. Instead, they’re just running the same columns over again and swapping out the word “immigration” for the word “crime.”
Sargent: We are actually seeing what happens when Democrats do engage this debate. J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, as you highlighted in your piece and as a number of other people have highlighted, did this extraordinary response to Trump’s threats to occupy Chicago where he said, “I’m going to defend my people from you.” Cast Trump as the threat. The primary threat to the wellbeing of Illinois residents, Illinois constituents is Donald Trump, the president of the U.S., and J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor, will defend them from him. So there’s that. Then Gavin Newsom’s been pretty good on this as well. And we’re finally seeing that when Democrats do that, they break through. And we just spent the last six months since Trump won debating how Democrats break through the noise since Trump succeeded informationally in a way Democrats did not. And then when you see two Democrats actually breaking through the noise by doing this, by taking this issue on, all of a sudden nobody’s debating how you break through the noise anymore. Where does this end up going? Do Democrats get this right eventually or not?
Foser: I think they’ll end up getting it more right than not. And we’ve both talked a little bit about some of the frustrating comments from some Democratic strategists on this. I will say that I think overall the duck-and-cover thing is a little bit more of a pundit and journalist theme than it is something you hear directly from actually prominent Democrats. And Pritzker this week was a tremendous example—not only of how you can forcefully denounce this very authoritarian and very inappropriate behavior but the reception that you’ll get from that. There was this outpouring of support for them. I think if people are wondering what can they do, well, the biggest thing they can do is encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior. So if your local paper, the journalists you consume are peddling BS on this, call them out on it. If your elected officials are not standing up, urge them to do so. But when they are, people like J.B. Pritzker, express happiness about that. Politicians respond well to people responding well to the things that they do.
And one of the things I want to say about Pritzker, just by the way, is to the extent that crime historically has often been a tough issue for Democrats, it’s largely because of the way the media covers it and this perception that Democrats are weak. I don’t think [that] is true substantively on the issue, but I will say that one of the reasons that maybe people think you’re weak is that you act weak more than the policies that you pursue. And so if Donald Trump is invading cities and you’re cowering from it, you look weak. If you stand up in front of cameras for 15 minutes like J.B. Pritzker did and basically say, Stay the hell out of my city, you’re not welcome here. And if you hurt my people, I will pursue you until the ends of the earth to hold you accountable, you look strong because you are strong. And people perceive that as strong.
Sargent: Just to really underscore your point here, what that means is that the specifics are a little bit less important than the atmospherics. The intangible things in politics are what people take from your public conduct, your public demeanor. And it’s true that poll testing the shit out of everything just makes you look weak. Folks, if you enjoyed this discussion, make sure to check out Jamison Foser’s newsletter, Finding Gravity. Jamo, always a great pleasure to talk to you, man. Thanks for coming on.
Foser: Thanks so much, Greg. Always happy to be on.
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