Pushkin.

Welcome back to Risky Business, the show about making better decisions.

I'm Maria Kanakova, I'm Nate Silver.

We're at no lack of political news.

We're going to talk about the elections that were held this last Tuesday, the shutdown that it's on its way to being over, maybe will be officially super deeper over by the time you listener are hearing this episode.

Big win for Democrats in one case, I'd argue, a big l for Democrats and the So we're gonna we're gonna talk all that through in kind of an emerged way, I think, which is how it feels as they're prossing this in real time.

Yeah, and you know what does as we often wonder on the show, what does this mean for the future of the Democratic Party and what they should be thinking going forward.

So let's get into it.

So, yes, full disclosure, we are taping us on Monday, November tenth.

Lots of things happening, Nate that you would probably agree that had we been taping this, say on Friday, it would be a very and I mean Friday last week, would be a very different segment because we'd be talking about it in very different terms.

In terms of what the democraty Democratic Party was doing, what its momentum was like, than we are after the weekend, when we had ten members of the Senate basically capitulate and say, Okay, we don't want the shutdown to continue.

Yeah, look if we've been taping on Friday or Wednesday for that matter.

I mean, look on my newsletter, I called the night a ten out of ten for Democrats.

They won basically every race that you might expect them to win.

They win Virginia a Jersey by huge margins.

They won a bunch of Supreme Court retentions of Pennsylvania, They won all the little Kitaly State Senate and dogcatcher races.

You know, depending on what type of Democrat you are, may or may not feel good about the results.

In New York City, that's a little bit of a different bucket.

You had a Democrat running against a former Democrat.

But this was like a ten out of ten night.

You know, one thing it demonstrated is that President Trump is extremely unpopular.

In fact, his unpopularity increased during the shutdown.

Let me qualify that, though, right, What really seemed to trigger an increase in Trump's disapproval rating was suspending SNAP benefits, that is, the food nutrition program a food stamps.

If you look carefully at when his approval rating spike, because at first in the shutdown it wasn't much affected.

Actually in silver bulletins tracking it increased marginally, kind of within the margin of error.

But when he tried to use that as a political cudgel and ignored court orders to funded and obviously Trump has exercised a lot of discression and what things are or are not funded.

I mean that effects forty three million Americans or something.

And you know, that combined with having these fancy dinners that Trump is inclined to have most presidents, to do with mar A Lago, and just a general insensitivity toward how Accoute might feel was you know, it seems like really starting to affect his numbers.

Also, all these issues, both healthcare, which were the a sensible six of the shutdown and snapenefits have to do with affordability, right in the case of some staff recipients, maybe the ability to buy food at all or go hungry potentially, you know, between those things and paraffs, you know, I mean, we talk about all the fuck ups that Democrats make and we'll talk about them some of them today.

But like Republicans are not exactly game theory optimal political strategists either, or at least or at least Trump isn't right, you know, on some level the kind of progressive critique the Republics want to cut benefits for the poor in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

I mean that's like directionally true for a long time.

You know, it's true of Trump.

But you know, if you fuck with people's benefits.

And by the way, we're in an environment now where Trump likes to scariotype Democrats as being poor, the ones who would need food stamps.

Again, the audience should know, I'm not super woke, Right, this often is racially coded messaging.

Right, you look at the data, then probably a pretty even mix of Democratic and Republican groups that are receiving these benefits.

Right, Trump actually does quite well with poorer white voters.

Trump also does fairly well with minorities who didn't attend college and things like that, and so so that was a big political opportunity, yeah for Democrats, and then they just they just caved.

You know, I'm busted out of my poker tournament, and like oh, the shutdowns over, Maybe I'll make my flights back and forth around the country.

But Maria, what do you think.

Yeah, well, I was looking at a lot of the number over kind of the last week, and I noticed two things.

One kind of when you see the New York election, it seems like mcdonnie was able to make inroads into a lot of the areas that had gone redder in the presidential election and that had gone Trump, right, So it seems that he was actually successful in appealing to some of that base to vote Democratic, which to me spoke of the fact that you know, there were people were starting to get fed up, right, some of those lower income areas that had been heavily pro Trump were starting to kind of feel the pain of everything that's been going on.

And as you pointed out in your newsletter, and I think this is true, some of the messaging of the Democrats during the shutdown hadn't really been landing, like the Affordable Care Act, right, the healthcare It should be landing, right, you should want healthcare.

But you know, because people are very in the moment and they don't always You and I are you know, very much online and kind of pay attention to this, but a lot of people they're not online and they're not really listening, and they're like, I don't know what the Affordable Care Act is, you know, like I don't care.

My payments still seem the same.

They don't realize, oh, this really might be affecting me.

So the messaging wasn't exactly landing, but with the combination of you know, tariffs finally starting to kind of play out in the pricing, and Snap, which does immediately affect you, right, It affects your ability to get food, It affects your ability to get benefits right now.

It's kind of it's a very emotional, very kind of visceral experience that caused.

If you look at Google searches for Snap benefits, they have this weird cyclicality based on I don't you know, I've not been I'm like Sam some my loft.

I don't know the timing of when they're released, but you can see syclicality that indicates people are searching for information about whereas the grocery store can go with with food stamps the moment they receive yeah, those benefits and things like that, right, and so it's literally eating is about the most visceral exactly exactly that one can imagine healthcare maybe you know, one absolute degree removed from that.

In the Suden said, it's hopefully mostly preventative, or IF's not preventive, and it's things that you don't realize until you have a problem.

Right, But food is something that we really care about, right obviously, and now this was kind of a double whammy because food prices are going up.

You know, I don't care what Trump is saying that the prices are down, It's not true.

Right, we know that inflation is actually hitting kind of that angle, and we know that Snap benefits where finally, you know, people didn't know there was a lot of uncertainty.

We also talk a lot on the show about how the human mind really doesn't like uncertainty.

So it's horrible.

Can you imagine if you have a family to feed and you're in limbo, You're like, I don't know if I'm going to get my Snap benefits, right, Like, I actually have no idea if they're going to come this weekend.

I don't know if I'll be able to afford my meal.

Like, I don't know what's going to happen.

And it keeps going back and forth, and they release funds and they don't release funds, and people, you know, this is a moment where you can really appeal to people and be like, see, you know, this is actually because people also were you know, I think about equally blaming and correct me if I'm wrong Democrats and Republicans for the shutdown.

It wasn't like Republicans were getting all the blame.

But with the Snap benefits, it's very clear that there are people who are saying, hey, you know, release the money.

We need to pay, we need to get money to the families.

And you have Trump saying no, right, It's actually he's saying, no, I don't want to release this money.

I don't want the Snap benefits going out.

So, you know, Nate, who knows what in the world he was thinking.

But what we do know is that the effect of this was felt.

Right.

The approval ratings were going down, and I think that this helped kind of the momentum, the victorious moment of the Democrats saying, you know, because this all happened at the same time, right, there was this coalition.

I mean, I think Democrats have the problem, the same problem that Marie and I do, which is that, you know, most people who comment on politics are are fairly privileged, right, and in certain ways, it's the privilege to talk about abstract concepts like creeping authoritarianism or long term impacts like climate change, for example, as opposed to the visceral can I eat today?

If I get into a car accident, do I have insurance to cover my you know, broken leg or whatever else?

Right, those things are a bit more visceral.

And I think, you know, one of the problems you had with the shutdown is that, like so, the a sensible basis for it was healthcare.

Right.

If you look for Google searches for the Affordable Care Act, right, they were up a little bit, but they're they're tiny as compared to searches for snap benefits or a shutdown, or other news stories that came up, like the no King's protests or even even the White House renovation, slash destruction, construction of the East wing, creation of a new ballroom.

You know, all those things have a much bigger registry.

And I think because there are some Democrats like alexandriro Kazak Cortez or Bernie Sanders that are very effective on healthcare, a lot of Democrats are going TV want to talk about these kind of more abstract themes instead.

That's kind of what the democratic we spelt like the blogosphere, right, you know, democratic podcasters, substackers, social media personalities, cable news guests.

Right, you know, they are usually talking about these abstract things democracy and so forth, right and so like, you know, it wasn't quite like democrats hearts were rellion the message either.

And I mean there are a couple of stories by democrats cave right.

You know.

One story involves we're afraid about the tangible impact on people and we are the kind heart of people.

We can't make people suffer for this thing.

That's not going to work anyway.

Right, it's once story.

You know.

Story number two is that ultimately that if you listen to Maria and I are read by writing a silver bulletin, you know, recognized early on that like a lot of this comes down to you, are you willing to have Republicans blow up the filibuster?

Right?

If you do that, you don't need any Democratic votes.

Right, you have majorities in both chambers of Congress, and you know, reportedly there were some centators who didn't want to go that far.

And then they're just kind of general risk aversion, you know.

So it's kind of the flip.

You know.

On the one hand, the public assumes, perhaps correctly, and that it's Republicans who like to not pay for a shit that helps working class people and shut government shit down.

Right.

So on the one hand, that might create I don't know if you call it a bias, but create like kind of the presumption among the public that like, if things aren't functioning well in government, then and it's some type of policy choice opposed to incompetence or whatever, right, then that is a Republican choice, right, and that message is pretty hard for them to overcome, especially when Trump is saying about things like snap, benefit's no, we don't want those right.

You know.

The other hand, like if they're big like softies who are going to like cave on everything, then then okay, then that creates a predictable outcome.

You're gonna cave at some point, and what consequence does that have?

I mean, Maria, you know, since we've been out here playing poker, yea, let's let me go for a poker two to oh one kind of more detailed analogy.

Right, there's times when let's say I'm playing a tough player.

Right, the tough opponent raises, you know I'm playing you.

I'm playing you, and I just feel like you're owning me today.

I'm sorry, you know, I just got your number today.

You raise.

I'm defending my blind right, and I have a hand that I know according to the computers.

According to game theory, defense right is a is a thin defend for example, a king for offsuit or something right.

And the way that you realize money with that hand is, Yeah, sometimes you thought the king or a pair of fos a hold on.

But it's also stuff like sometimes you're supposed to turn it into a bluff.

Sometimes you're supposed to call down really thin right, someone's supposed to hope that Maria is a turn from betting, and like, and all those ways to realize the value of the hand are difficult and require a lot of skill and discipline on every other street.

Right, yes, And I'm just gonna I'm just gonna caveat this because for people who don't play poker, yes to kind of one, yes to a one for kind of and applying it to kind of the broader political thing like big caveat in poker.

Just to remind you, you do not actually have to have the best hand to win, right.

It is the only game where you can win with the worst hand if you play it correctly, if you execute the strategy correctly.

And yes, some of it is just outright bluffing, but it's also putting your opponent to a to a hard kind of test when they might have a decent hand but not a great hand.

So it's all about being able to figure out how do I exert pressure correctly?

So your King four offsuit.

For people listening, they're like, wait, I thought that was a bad hand.

Yes, it is a bad hand.

However, there are reasons why we might still want to play it if we have kind of this future game tree in mind and we are confident of our abilities to be able to execute that correctly.

Please continuate.

So you've defended King.

Four, and now you get a good price from the pot, right, you have good pot odds.

If let me just you know, if you are not willing to make those thin call downs and creative bluffs from time to time, then the hand is not profitable to defend.

Just if everything goes right, yeah, now, and then you hit two pair or make trips or some weird straight with the four or something.

Right, it just happened enough just by the time when you have a better hammer rear right, you know.

In other words, if you are not willing to be strategic and exercise your options and adapts, circumstances just unfold, right, then just don't do it, yeah, because like you're not gonna like, you know, this thing about Snap.

I mean, people kind of mischaracter you know, all these kind of we're partisan Democrats who are like we're waiting the checkdown.

It's like, I don't really think you're wanting to checkdown because at first Tripschoo writing didn't really decline at all.

We talked about it on the show, right, and then Snap when there were some of the stuff there was a white House and no Kings.

But like it seems based on the persistence of Google searches for Snap and the persistence of that in the dialogue and the discourse and the real world impact of it, that like that was a real gift to Democrats and you know, about the best possible turn of events they could have, and they still cave, which means that like their whole strategy was really miss gotten in the first place, if something goes well for you and you still don't know how to play right or still give up, and that means you're already then close to having.

Yeah, imagine, imagine, you know, to continue nate your poker analogy since you started it.

Imagine that you did decide, you know, okay, you know what, I'm going to defend this.

I'm not quite sure why, but I am.

And then the flop comes, you know, king three six something like that, so you have top pair, and then you know, you check, I bet big, you call.

Basically you end up folding the king anyway, right, and you you end up folding the king on a board that doesn't really change at all from the flop, and you already or let's just let's say you made a pair of fours and there's nothing else.

Let's just imagine that you actually did well right, and your hand became something much more playable than it was originally, and yet you still end up bending to pressure because you're like, well, Maria's betting so big that she probably has a better king, right, she probably has you know, an even better kicker.

Kicker is the second card for people who don't play poker.

You know, she probably has like King ten or something like that, I'm just going to fold just in case.

Well, then what the fuck were you doing defunding the king for if you're either going you know, if you're not actually able to navigate those situations.

And it seems to me that over and over what Democrats have done is have these principled positions where they're like, you know, we can't do this, and I'm you know, great, you know, I also don't think we should be taking away health care from people.

You know, kudos, this is a great thing to stand up for.

But then why the hell did you do it.

If you're going to say, okay, well fine, you can take away the health care as long as you you know, pay them food benefits right now, well, then why did we even get you know, if you didn't even have a shutdown, if you capitulate on everything, then we wouldn't even be in this snap situation or this airline drama or any of this.

And the Republicans get everything they wanted originally anyway.

So it just seems like, you know, if you already know that, then why in the world.

Then it means that your strategy was not principled.

Because you are stepping back from all of those principles, right Like if you were saying we're the nice party that just doesn't want people to get hurt, well, you know, then sometimes you have to take immediate pain.

And it seems like they're not able to do that.

And we'll be right back after this break.

So back to kind of this broader question of how is the Democratic Party doing now?

I'm in a you know, as I said last week, it was such an amazing moment where you could see an amazing moment if you're a Democrat, where you could see all sorts of different kinds of candidates when right in different places.

It's not like the progressives.

One, yes, Mamdani won in New York, but much more moderate candidates won in you know, New Jersey, in other states, and you know, people, it seemed like there were people coming together to say, Okay, you know what, we're getting fed up and there is some Democratic momentum and this might hold through the midterms and if you can keep it going, this might have all sorts of good things for the party.

I think actually Nancy Pelosis saying she's not going to run again was also a good thing for the party to say, Okay, we need some younger blood, we need some of these these people who probably shouldn't have been running for reelection already last cycle.

It's good that they're finally stepping down.

There were a lot of good things, and now, you know what, it's kind of in some ways, Nate, and maybe this is a little bit harsh.

What they did over the weekend seems like a little bit of a fuck you to the people who kind of banded together and stood by them and said, you know what, we can actually affect change and then said, eh, you know what, We're just gonna We're just gonna anyway.

At least that's what it felt.

Like to be.

Look, we haven't mentioned the chuck of Chuck and Nancy Chum.

He, by the way, was opposed to He was one of the voices that was that it was opposed to ending the shutdown.

Correct, he voted against it.

But what the party leader does is theatrics, right, it's theatrics.

And fair enough, Look, if he if he couldn't control his caucus after this very good turn of events, then he should resign anyway, because he has no right.

So so yes, it either means that he is disingenuous, and he was okay with these votes that are ending the shutdown, and he just wanted to publicly say no, I'm not or it means that he's ineffective.

One of the two, and either one is not a particularly good thing.

Remember he didn't shut the government down last March at a time when it was a lower boil for democratic disarray.

I guess.

I mean, you know, look, when you're the op position party, in some ways, there's never that much a rake.

You don't really have to do that much.

Right, But you know, Schumber didn't command any confidence in his caucus.

Right, He's often very unpopular even among Democrats.

A florality of Democrats in the recent PW Research poll have a negative opinion of Schumer.

Right, Like, all these things to me suggests he's not tenable as party leader.

Like I don't understand why.

I mean, actually I do kind of you know, one reason why you might have someone to replace Schumer's because like it's kind of a bad job.

It's kind of a terrible job.

You're going to piss people off no matter what.

But you know, look, here are in my view, kind of the the long term stakes, right, which is that do you kind of trigger a a mini kind of Tea party movement among Democratic voters, where where if they don't do kind of what the activist base once right, then they're voting office in primaries.

Right.

That is a powerful extentive.

It's a very powerful for Republicans.

You know, you always hear stories, oh privately, Republicans are very reasonable, but they're terrified at being primary.

Right.

I kind of halfway by that.

I think sometimes it's it's spinning through reporters.

It's probably mostly true most of the time.

Right.

You know, if Democrats certificate that dynamic is it's you know, a that makes leadership even more inflexible.

If you think the base is smart about its demands, then maybe that's fine.

Right, I'm not sure.

I think they're particularly smart, irrational about kind of the kind of things they want Congress to do.

Right.

But also, in effect, what type of candidates win.

The incumbency advantage is diminishing matters less than it once did.

At the same time, more experienced candidates do tend to win office more often.

At a big point of controversy in my research, I spent a lot of time on this.

More moderate candidates, on average win office more often, other things being equal, all those qualifiers there are important, right.

You know you have in Maine Graham Platner, who was outsider.

Have we talked about good old Grammy.

I think some of the name of the controversial reddit posts and tattoos and tattoosgically happens to be associated with the with a certain pancer division of the army fully known as the Nazis.

You know, probably not, you're cover it up.

You cover it up.

After how many years, after twenty years or the years to.

One hundred percent by that he was on some drunk and sojourn in Croatia when he got the statoo and called crossbones.

It kind of looks so cool man.

You know, if you have it on your body, you're probably gonna know what it is.

Yes, after years?

Yeah, after whatever?

Yeap.

Or this is like the Schumer question.

Either you know what it is, which says something very important about you, or you never bother to figure out what it is, which also says something very important about you.

And neither one is something that you particularly want in somebody who's going to be representing you.

Yeah, but like a tart of you know, he's running against Janet Mills, who is the two term governor of Maine, seventy seven years old.

You know, couldn't really be a bigger contrast between the kind of old safe establishment choice and this new kind of thing right tighter' is like, oh, I won't turn into John Fetterman.

You're someone who shifts their ideology all the time.

It's like, well, actually you just did you know?

So anyway, they hear another he would be fun to get a beer with.

That much seems to be.

It would be interesting to get a beer with, that's for sure, and he could probably drink me under the table and get some tattoos as a result.

But anyhow, I think that what you know, that the broader point is like what is yeah, what does the face of the party look like?

And you know, the moderate candidates there is all thing being equal.

I think the data I've seen it too, and Nate obviously, like you said, you've worked with it.

That that does make a difference.

But there is also kind of this I think movement, and I think this is inspired by Biden for you know, younger candidates right now, because oh yeah, so this in main like the fact that she's seventy seven like that also plays into it, Right, I think people are fed up.

They're like, we do we do not want another one of these debacle debates, right, we would much rather have someone even though experience matters, We would much rather have someone who can at least, you know, be vibrant and more youthful.

And you know, it doesn't always have to be a thirty four year old.

But let's stop nominating people in their late seventies and eighties.

Yeah, look, I mean there are signs that you know, on lots of political issues, there's a a kind of divide that cuts about midway through kind of millennials, where people who kind of grew up in an age where they were on their phones from early childhood.

Right, Like, that's that's quite different, you know what I mean my age.

It's kind of like, well, you got computers early in life and then phones when you were in college, right, Like, I think technology is behind a lot of these shifts.

I mean, probably not that uncommon, but like, look, you've had you had Democrats dominate.

Ironically, Bernie Sanders is older than Hillary Clinton, right, I think older than Joe Biden by half a year two if I have that, right, And but he was a choice of the youth, right you'd go to I went to Rally's in New Hampshire's your reporter, and you know, I saw Hillary Clinton speak at some college and like she was talking about the Vietnam War, and shit, that fucking these college students.

This is now.

I don't care about twelve years ago, don't don't know where care about.

Right, Nay, I mean that was the Vietnam War.

I recently gave a talk to a financial audience and realized that a lot of people in the audience not only did not go through, but didn't realize basically that there was a huge crash in two thousand and eight.

So like it was I was like, oh my god, you know, right, that is how far removed we are from.

You know, you're talking to people who are in finance and they're like, oh, like two thousand and eight crash.

You know, that's basically like Black Friday, right, It's like the Great Depression.

It's forever ago, and I don't care and I don't really know and what are you even talking about?

But that is one of those I mean, I'm just pointing that out to say people's memory really is short, and we are talking to a very new generation, and we do need people who know how to appeal to them and how to say words that actually resonate.

That's important.

That's part of a politician's job.

Youth goes a long way, right, Like maybe you want more Moneric ha mean, you know Cheryl and Spenberger in New Jersey and Virginia.

I know how old they are, but they're like you know even that some you know, even me middle age basically seems to help quite a bit, right, and there Josh Shapiro, by the way, you know, he was ranting about snappings.

That's he understands politics.

For you what care is like fifty nine or.

But he seems to But he has youthful energy, right he has.

You know, one could accuse him of borrowing a little bit from the Obama cadence.

I'm not gonna try to imitate it.

Maybe that will be a future silver bulletin easter egg, right, you know, one might say Josh Shapier, but like, but he's extremely effective.

And something too is like when you have a county who has run for and one office before then, depending on how much they ever performed relative to the typical numbers in their state or district.

Right.

You know, again, my view is always I'm not sure.

Zilran is a great example of this because because he ran, it's kind of another quasi democrat former democrat.

Right.

But like, you know, anybody who performs objectively well relative to some reasonable baseline, right, that trump's any abstract arguments for me about moderate versus progressive or electrible or not.

You know, Bernie Sanders until fairly recently actually won by wider to Democrats presidential margins in Vermont.

That's changed lately, but he has a good long run, right.

Elizabeth Warren underperformed routinely democratic presidential margins.

Right.

To me, that is a difference between a very good politician, so you wanted up Bernie right, for him to get socialism so much into the mainstream right versus I think a very bad politician.

Right, maybe not a bad politician, a bad after retail aspects of electoral office.

I think Elizaeth Warren is surely a very smart person, right, an articulate but like but not very appealing.

And there are lots of gender based and other right, But absolutely, that difference is a big one, you.

Know, it is a big one.

And as we talk about a lot here, and I think that this is really important.

You need to when you have objective data points, you need to look at them right like because we are emotional, like we we want to say, oh, but but when you have the objective data, right, when you have the electoral performance, when you have the actual numbers for who turned out, how did they turn out, who did they vote for, what did they say?

Look at those numbers and do not dismiss them, right like, you have data, Stop dismissing data, even if it goes against your view of who should be popular and who shouldn't.

And so you know, I have not been a Bernie Sanders fan quite a quite frequently I am at odds with Bernie Sanders.

But I cannot deny that he is an incredibly effective politician, right, and that people who say, oh, we should dismiss him don't aren't looking right.

If you don't like him, it doesn't mean he's not effective.

Can I make what more poker analogy here?

I mean yes, absolutely, this is risky business poker away premise of the show, this is our show.

Note you can make a poker analogy.

Oca players who don't have a long term game plan or aren't very experienced.

What they do is they just they call too much, right, They're not just hitting the action.

And like that's a theme here too, right, Like you know, when Democrats kind of replace Biden, I guess they got so bad they couldn't really have any other option, right, But like, but you know, the kind of compromise was Kamala Harris and like sometimes and that was not the worst decision that Democrats made.

Renominating Biden in the first place was a bigger disaster than that in the predicate to it in a lot of ways.

Right, But like, you know, if you don't have a a a game plan, you wind up calling too much of poker, which means the opponent gets to dictate the action all the time, and you're like, oh shit, what do I do now?

What do I do now?

What I do now?

Right?

And to take boulder action, a bolder action sometimes means folding.

Sometimes it means turning the patre or something, or turning down and oppertun you think it's a losing battle, right if you don't have it more of a long term game plan.

And you know, again, if you look at the messaging on the shutdown, some of it is on healthcare, some of it is on authoritarianism, some of it's on SNAP benefits, some of it's just kind of blame defraying or airlines or whatever else.

Right, you know, that reflects a lack of an actual consensus on what you're fighting for, and it's like kind of leadership's job to firm up that consensus.

I think right to say, look, if we do this, we will achieve we'll have a chance of achieving objective X.

And here are the way it seems to go wrong because like nothing here again, nothing in the shutdown was really surprising except that kind of Trump picked this battle over Snap when there's a lot of ability for the president the executive branch to determine what's open and what's not right.

It picked to fight turned back badly for him, and I pressed stilldn'take advantage of that.

Maybe I've got the shutdown, But do you have any any thoughts before we return to New York?

Now I think we're on the same page here, where like this is just a failure, a failure of strategy, a failure of long term stetrategic thinking.

And to kind of close the loop on your poker analogy, Nate.

You know, a lot of what happens with these passive players is, you know, you take the passive route, You kind of go the way of inertia, You avoid risks because you think that's the actual risk free way of playing.

When you look down, you realize you don't have chips left.

Right, you have so few chips because you've put yourself in all these positions, and then you're forced to take a suboptimal risk.

Right.

Then you're actually put in a position where you are forced to play a hand that you don't actually want to play, or take a spot.

You don't want a spot because otherwise you are going to go bust.

Right, you have put yourself into a corner where you have to actually make an incredibly risky play.

You have to go all in for your tournament life, which is the riskiest thing you can do, and you're doing it not on your terms, but on the terms that have been dictated basically by the circumstance, because you've been so risk averse, and so that risk aversion ends up forcing you to take a bad risk, right, a suboptimal risk.

So it turns out that it's actually not the risk free strategy.

It turns out that it's the strategy that backs you into a corner, that forces you to take a risk that you should not be taking at a moment where you should not necessarily be taking it.

You're taking it for the wrong reasons.

I think that's what got us Kamala Harris right, like, that's what gets us into a lot of these situations.

And so I think that's strategically, whether you're playing poke or playing politics, you need to understand what the repercussions are of playing that sort of strategy.

And we'll be back right after.

This, Maria, are you prepared for Mayor mom Donnie.

Well Nate as a part time resident of New York.

I am very curious to see what Mayor Mum Donnie will actually do.

I remember you and I talking this past summer at Aspen when we were kind of dealing with the primaries and you know, seeing the Mom Donnie momentum.

I'm going to repeat something I said back then, which is I'm very curious to see how all of this campaigning is going to actually play out in practice, right, because campaigning is not governing, and things that you can say and do positions, you can take rhetoric that may or may not reflect your true point of view.

Is much easier when you are not yet elected, right, and especially when you're new, right, you're a new face.

There's all this hope, there's all this promise.

There, all of these things that people project onto you.

They see what they want to see, kind of, they project their dreams, and they think that you can embody them if you campaign well, which mum Donnie absolutely did, And so then you get into all and there's political reality, right.

You have to build coalitions, you have to get shit done, and you can't just bulldoze your way into the policies that you want.

You have to realize that, Okay, now I'm going to have to try to be re elected when the time comes, I need to kind of get along with all of these different things.

And so when you are suddenly put in a position where you're governing, it's a very different proposition from where you were when you were campaigning.

So I'm very curious to see how he actually does in office because he's largely untested, right, he is someone who has not had kind of this position.

Well obviously he's not been mayor of New York, but he hasn't been a very similar position in the past.

I feel like the messaging three terms in Albany.

No, no, that's that's not what I mean.

But you know exactly what I mean, And this is what I said, you know, back in the back in the summer, where like, let's see how it actually plays out.

And I would love to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he's going to be effective and that he'll step back, hopefully from some of the things that are potentially not as great for New York as a whole.

So I'm cautiously optimistic, but I have no idea.

I want to see what he does in the first six months, in the first year.

I want to see how this plays out once he gets into office, and I'm going to be very open minded and hope for the best.

Well you can ride the free bust to the communist postery.

Not just kidding.

I've been surprised that how Hoole are eyed.

Some of my more centrist friends have been against Zora and who seems to be like it right, young dude who's been a little more forthright in some ways and for example apologizing for his like the seventy two versions of him saying like defund the police, and again, when are we talking to this king?

Like, I you know, look after let I talked to the Subtec Live with Ross Barkin, who's a journalist New York who also interestingly had Zoran as his campaign Maager.

He ran for office in twenty eighteen, right, and you can listen to that.

But like but Ross was like, yeah, he actually is pretty progressive, right, and yeah, look, I mean there were stories about how like Zooram when he was running for like class president, promised like free fresh squeeze like orange juice every day.

I think this is literally true.

I think he is going to be guilty of like having over promised, especially because like you know, a lot of his coalition was younger.

When I turned out to vote a last Tuesday, and substantially notably younger electorate people I voted stickers on and you typically see in New York and at my polling place and things like that, right, and also very notable in the data.

Right, So it wasn't just wasn't just my an general observations from once Maorea, the younger people can be fickle.

They tend not to tune into, especially local politics outside of election years, Right, So in practice, the squeaky wheels during fights over a budget, which by the way, a lot of it's controlled by Albany, right, or fight's over new city policy, right, they're having vocal opposition can make your life a lot tougher.

Yeah, And I will say that a second time because I think it's a really important psychological point people in general, but younger voters in particular.

Younger people in particular are fickle.

Right.

It's not just things of the moment, but it's also especially when you're talking about like delayed gratification before like and this happens.

You know, brains mature, people mature, like as you get older, you understand that change takes time, that things kind of don't always happen.

But we're I think seeing a generation right now that hasn't had to delay gratification very often, where you do have kind of instant gratification with you know, cell phones and social media and all of these things.

And so we might see a disconnect where you know, you elect someone on these hopes and if you know the promises aren't met immediately, then there's a backlash and you're like, oh, oh, you're betraying us.

Right, because they don't understand Wait, no, like this takes time, right, things take time.

This is not you know, this is not a betrayal, and so I do wonder how that's going to play out more broadly, so Nate too, to kind of wrap up everything here, then, if we're going to be looking towards the midterms, what do you think kind of are the issues that people should be focusing on, because, as you said, like in New York, some of these issues like crime, they didn't really work as we were looking at the shutdown.

Some of the things like healthcare, they weren't really working.

Kind of the let's prevent autocracy, doesn't you know?

The no King's protests did work because that was a much more succinct way of putting it.

But in your opinion, what are the issues that Democrats should be focusing on going into the midterms and how should they play their hand now that they've painted themselves into this corner with capitulating to the shutdown.

Maria inflation, inflation, inflation, the youth amis has become by ephemism, the term of arts become affordability, which is kind of more what's like the winning of Pooh meme where it's like there's pooh in a fancy anyway, call it inflation, affordability.

That's for fucking pretentious bout in college.

I prodounce that college.

Student vod in college East Coast.

Just call everything inflation.

If healthcare is more expensive, inflation, If cultures are more expensive, inflation.

If Trump takes away food stamps, if the stories them later on, inflation, right, Just call everything inflation.

That's a word that people understand me.

And affordability is a fine term.

I'm not saying it's the worst political mussing of all time, but like, but yeah, and tariffs and everything else, and generalized anxiety about the economy.

It's the economy, stupid, Nate.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, which is why I thought some check down the government.

But you know, but healthcare also gets to affordability, right, What these are actually tax credits that help you to pay for healthcare.

By the way, Obamacare is increasing.

The preemums are increasing, irregardless or regardless of of these subsidies, right, they also are getting more extensive.

People will notice that, and like Republicans will probably say, hey, look, I'm sure trupples say like this proves that Obamacare is is broken.

I don't want to get into a much of economics just late in the episode about like the initial mandate and things like that, Right, But the thing is when you are the president.

I mean, if there's one good thing from press from the shutdown and how the pulling went down, right, it's like that plus the elections, we're evidence that, like, when you are the president in power, then you get blamed for a shit and in some ways having like a nameless, faceless party makes it even harder for you to get blame.

That's probably reads I think she were.

You know, have someone fucking relatively anonymous, probably some fucking Chris Murphy or some fuck who works like get on meeting the press all the time.

I mean, like Chris Murphy was better on the shutdown than a lot of people.

I think I think it was more honest.

Right, But like, you know, you're gonna have some media horror.

Is that is that this is going to all be edited out by the producer fly.

And on that and on that fine note, No, I actually think I actually think that that's uh You've made.

You've made several important points that I think we can use to sum up simplifying the messaging and making it something that is kind of more emotional mor of us or all, like you know.

Inflation, affordability.

This affects your pockets right now.

It's not other people, it's not immigration, it's not it's not things that are not affecting me.

It's things that are affecting my ability to live kind of my ability to live the life that I want to live.

And I think that that is a powerful message obviously for either party, but one that the Democrats have kind of had been losing sight of for a long time.

Yeah.

Look, final, it's you know, my final thought here.

It's been usual to be actually a citizen in the city where my vote madderlection Democrats excuse it amount of different.

I'm actually a republic expliment before in the show, right, Yes, but as a citizen of New York in national general elections, your vote usually doesn't matter.

It's interesting having to kind of think through this.

If we do a segment how I decided to vote, that's a difference.

I'm not going to I'm not gonna I'm not going to reveal it in photo you today audience, right, but like what I will say is like if I do an issue matrix thing where I'm like, here are the three candidates on the seventeen issues in effect in New York, Right, I'm not probably wouldn't wind up.

Listeners are on, maybe with some exceptions right on a few things, but like, that's not the only thing that goes into being mayor.

Effective governance transcends ideology, especially for for city government.

Right, It's like, does it get done on time?

Right?

If there's a snowstorm high school the next day, is a good communication in public emergencies?

Right, how's everything running?

I think that that's sorry.

I'm just I know we're wrapping up, but this just reminds me and I think this is so a propos of the town in New Hampshire I'm blanking on its name that was very libertarian and kind of wanted to abolish everything, and they did and it ended up being taken over by bears by just a very funny I think there's a it sounds like a children's story, but our wonderful producers have just shared that there was a book on this called A Libertarian Walks into a Bear and that book is about this town of Grafton, New Hampshire.

And what we can learn from Grafton.

But yes, you know, does shit get done?

How does the government end up running the day today is very very important.

Let us know what you think of the show.

Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM.

Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova and by.

Me Late Slivery.

The show was a cool production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia.

This episode was produced by Isaac Carter.

Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia, Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.

Mixing by Sarah Bruger.

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Thanks for tuning in.