Unpacking the Republican Victory

Caitlin, welcome back after doomsday. Thanks for joining us.

Here we are again, yay. Here we are again,

100 times worse, yeah. So let’s just start with the table set. So it looks like the Republicans are on track to perhaps have all branches of government under their control. Of course, Donald Trump won, won narrowly, but still won. The Senate has flipped. It looks this week like the house is favored for the GOP, although that’s not certain. Yeah, and you know, it may be a couple weeks before we know, depending on how fast California counts, which tends to be slowly. And of course, we know that the Supreme Court is firmly within the grasp of the GOP because of the appointees made under the last trump administration. And of course, there will be new appointees, probably at least two, maybe three, to firmly cement the court in their court. Yeah. So as you look out upon these results, what for you is coming up, first of all, let’s take it from political analysis like, Okay, what as you were working the MSNBC political feeds and giving updates through that what occurred to you and what occurs to you today. The biggest thing that jumps out of me is the looking at the exit poll data. And I know, you know, people have differing opinions on how valuable exit polls can be, but one thing jumped out at me, and that was there was a complete reversal between 2020,

and yesterday when it comes to how wealthy voters voted, versus people who don’t make as 120 right? So if you look at voters who make over $100,000 a year, last election, they by 12% went for Trump. I think it was like 54 42% this year, by like 15% they went for Harris. So there’s a huge switch there. And then you saw it completely the opposite with people who make under $100,000

where Biden really cleaned up with those folks four years ago, and both categories went for Trump by narrow margins this time around. So you saw a complete reversal of how wealthier people voted versus people who aren’t doing so well. And the thing that jumped out to me with that is basically like talking about Biden’s administration and his economic success is really difficult because they it arguably made the fundamentals of the economy better, but people weren’t feeling it, because the benefits of that economy no longer go to regular people. They go to the wealthy. So when I see that kind of voting split and that kind of diversions from four years ago, what I see is wealthy people who are doing well in this economy, wanted the good times to keep going, and everybody else wanted to vote for a change. And I think at the end of the day, that’s basically what’s spelled too for Democrats. I think that one of the things that probably is going to be really hard for everyone listening, and probably us as as trans people, is to understand that the cost of living would give people the permission structure, and this is me talking as a person, not as an analyst, as an analyst, I would Say, would allow them to overlook other issues,

and focus just on the economy, for that to be the only thing that people thought about when they went into the polls. We’re talking about these marginal voters. I just, I’m struggling with that. Yeah, I’m struggling with that. And I’m wondering for you, how you process and absorb that. It’s like the only thing that mattered was this transactional issue of the cost of living is higher, and so I’m voting for Trump and ignoring literally everything else.

Yeah, I first got the feeling of dread yesterday when I saw a statistic that Google searches for who is running for president basically maxed out yesterday, like that was the most searched term of the day, and it was by far the most searched term like the the day that it was that who was running for president was most searched on The Internet for, like, the last three years, and at that point, I was like, Oh boy, here we go. Like, this is not going to turn out. I think the way, maybe I’m expecting it to at the end of the day, I don’t think people are as tuned into politics as you and I are, or even listeners to this podcast. So it’s genuine.

Only possible that there are people out there voted yesterday who just have no idea the monstrous plans that Trump has to deport people and to, you know, punish trans people to the level that that Trump and the GOP have promised to, and that’s really hard to take, right? And especially for somebody like me as a trans journalist who writes about these issues for a living, is certainly a lesson in humility and lesson about my own reach, and something that I think I’m gonna be sitting with for a while. I have certainly haven’t had time to process it, you know, we’re the day after the election now, yeah, it

it makes me feel small and it makes our existence feel small at the same time.

Yeah, I think that one of the things that I was struggling with is that, you know, I’ve been, we’ve been, you have been others have been warning about the danger posed by the Christian nationalist movement and its takeover of the Republican Party, and

the fact that that didn’t seem to take even amongst people who should have been listening, I think is one of the things that is on my mind with these results. Yeah, you know, I’m thinking about it. You know, I shouldn’t say this, but I’m gonna say it. You know, thinking about the fact that MSNBC, who you write for, and have worked for MSNBC, who I’ve been on their programs, many times,

there’s not one trans contributor for the entire network, for any of their their programs, even though we were a part of the closing argument for a major presidential campaign. Yeah, it would be like not having anyone who was Latino on any program. And we’re not talking the barb wasn’t journalists. We’re not talking analyst for everybody listening. Those are like, higher levels of engagement and connection with the network. We’re talking like people who are just brought on from time to time to clarify issues in a meaningful way. Regular paid on air talent exactly doesn’t exist, and not on CNN and so like, yeah, like the other side, I understand. But even promoting that level of understanding amongst people who you know should be clued in that absence is something that I am thinking about today. Yeah, ironically, there’s only one paid contributor to any of the major cable news networks that I’m aware of, and that’s Caitlyn Jenner on Fox News. That’s exactly right, which is, you know, that says a lot, right there. It makes me want to throw my phone at the camera.

I’m gripping it tightly, yeah? I mean, at the end of the day, it’s, it’s not really about us, but it’s, yeah, it’s tough. It’s just on the one hand, you know, it’s a double edged sword, right? Because then I’d be at this point, and you’d be at this point, I’m pretty sure, at some point. But it’s like most people don’t know a trans person, still, that’s right, that’s right. And they don’t generally care about us. They care about what’s going on in their own lives. And on the one hand, that’s good, because you’re not gonna have mass demonstrations in the street to like, you know, burn trans women at the stake, or whatever they want to do in a given week. But on the other hand, it also means we are not at the top of their minds when they go into the voter booth, even though that’s right, Trump has run, you know, the Republicans have run two $15 million in anti trans ads, according to a journalist that I saw tweeting about it this morning from the Washington Post. So, yeah, you know, I think that we are a petty obsession, unfortunately for a lot of powerful people, and we don’t have the commensurate power or interest from powerful people to defend us either. So that’s right, that’s right, you know, I’m going to take a lot of time to think about how we manage this going forward, how I manage it personally? Going forward, I’m going to spend a lot of time thinking about my own career. Maybe it’s time to write that novel that I’ve had in the back of my mind for years and years, I don’t know, like I can ever see myself not doing the work, but at the same time, like, boy, Today feels bad,

I mean, and on that point, like, they have very clear, articulated, reiterated plans for and about trans people in this country, yeah, like, I think that that is, this is not esoteric. It’s not rhetoric, right? There are firm plans. There’s it’s all over project 2025 Yeah, it’s all over. The subsequent people in his administration who have project 2025

there’s a Supreme Court case coming up next month, which you know, the Supreme Court will be emboldened, because they’ll think and see that the country has moved rightward on these issues, and that will influence their.

Ability to be able to do whatever they want to do like the consequences for our community are extremely high, and it would be easier, from a political standpoint, for Trump to focus on trans people and make trans people kind of the scapegoat for the agenda that they’re trying to move in America more than immigrants, because that’s a large group of people that you would have to immediately. You have to build an entire bureaucracy to contend with that and mobilize National Guard and do all this stuff to deport 9 million people, or whatever he’s talking about. But trans people are much smaller group of people that you can, you know, focus on, and I’m wondering how you were thinking about that. I mean, because the plans are real, like they’re not joking around, and all of those people who wrote project 2025, and who created all of the anti trans administrative actions in the Trump administration, like Roger Severino, all those people are going back in the administration. Oh, yeah, I don’t know. I wish I had a better answer for you. I just don’t, I mean, personally, I’m, you know, I tweeted about this, or I posted on blue sky about this, but, you know, there’s a lot of people talking about leaving the country. You know, if you have the ability to do so, I don’t think that’s a terrible idea, but most of us can’t. That’s right, I have kids here. I’m not leaving. I’d rather get, you know, three more years with my kids than 20 years in some strange country that I’ve never lived in, but I am updating my passport. We don’t know what Trump administration is going to do with government IDs for trans people. I think we do know. I am printing out DIY, HRT guides and just in case. I mean, I think I have to be very lucky in that I live in an extremely clear, friendly community in Massachusetts. So I think, you know, as the cascade of horrors comes down, I think I’ll be one of the last to get hit, but that’s because, you know, I’m one of the lucky ones that can afford to live here. So in my head, I’m like, putting the safety mask on myself, and then I can worry about helping others. And we’re gonna need a lot of mutual survival. We’re gonna have to look back at times in this country when trans people were more marginalized than they are now to see how they survived to get through this, and I worry about clashes between groups of trans people and the police like we saw back in the 60s and 70s. The cascade of possible horrors is greater than I want to articulate right now, but I can go there pretty quickly, and I can get there pretty quickly. And if I were Trump, these are some of the things, from their perspective, that I would start doing on day one, because again, they’re relatively easy to implement. It. It’s a small group of people, yeah. So I think that there’s a lot to come that’s really hard. But one of the bright spots, though, let’s let’s move there, is the election of Sarah McBride, yeah, to Congress, who is just a great political talent in her own right, and who is going to be in the national spotlight in a way that I don’t think that anyone could be prepared for. Yeah, to be perfectly honest, given what’s coming, there are lots of other trans people, some of those races we’re still tracking across the country that were elected to local offices and state offices. So there is also that, there is the passage of Proposition one in New York, which enshrines gender identity protections in the state constitution for the very first time alongside abortion rights. So there are those other things that happen, and I’m wondering, how do you put those in the context of this election, if at all, are they a counterpoint, or are they just kind of one offs given the trend, because there’s always something unexpected that happens. So do you think that it says something about the country, or is it just kind of a one off thing? I think it’s a continuation of something we’ve talked about before. That’s how there’s this new crop of trans elected officials who are doing things, quote, unquote, the right way, where they go in, and they start at a lower level of elected office, and they get experience, and they build constituencies, and they work their way up. And I think Sarah was rather lucky that she was able to start at the State Senate level, because she had relatively a lot of name recognition built up in Delaware and a lot of political connections to start her career with, that’s right. So I think that she just happened to be the first. I don’t think she’s going to be the last, but you mentioned other local races. I mean, Zoe Zephyr was re elected in Montana after getting an unprecedented censure from Republicans of her state. That’s right. Legislature, Brianna Titan and Colorado was reelected, going coming from a very rural district in Colorado. And you know, they have both been really great voices for trans rights. But I know Brianna, for example, passed a really good right to repair bill for farm equipment right where now, Colorado and.

And farmers have the right to repair their equipment, and they don’t have to necessarily go through dealers that sell works with supports. So like these are people who are getting into the nitty gritty of the political process and figuring out how to appeal to their local voters. And I think Sarah McBride, you know, certainly fits that, though, as well. I’m also very scared for her going into this Congress, especially if it turns out the Democrats can’t win a majority. One of the things that I that kept me up last night thinking about her was, you know, every Congress person is called Mr. Mrs. Or Ms, when they’re doing the roll call vote, right? Are we going to see a Marjorie Taylor green put up a stink and trying to get a policy or a rule pass that they address Sarah as Mr. In the chamber? Like, how are they going to handle that? I can see a lot of moderate Republicans possibly try to do away with gender honorifics, but Congress is a place with a lot of really deep, weird traditions, like, I remember when I was reporting there, like women, not official business, cannot show their shoulders.

Like that place is ancient, and she’s gonna be the first one of us to walk into that chamber as an elected and I worry about how she’s going to be treated, like you have this Republican party that’s on the ascendancy. They just won an election where they spent over $200 million on anti trans ads, and this might be the first like trans related fight that we see, because it’s going to happen immediately, like it’s going to happen within two months, early January, where they had to figure these rules out. So are Democrats prepared to defend their own member? I don’t know that. I have an answer to that. I think there’s gonna be a lot of Democrats, especially in the consultant class, who are looking to cover their own ass, and they’re gonna wanna blame trans people, and I can see them just conceding it and not wanting to take up a fight. I hope through it all, the rep elect McBride can keep going with it. I don’t know if she’s a tough cookie. She’s dealt with a lot before. I mean, I remember she was verbally harassed by British turfs inside a congress building, like inside the congressional office buildings. I remember because I was there. You know, she has a pretty thick skin, but that doesn’t mean I can’t worry about it, given the political landscape that exists, this domination of one party of all of the levers of government, and the fact that they also have an entire paramilitary force, that I think is one of the reasons why a lot of Republicans run scared. I mean, it’s one of the reasons why Mitt Romney, for example, didn’t want to run again, not necessarily because he couldn’t take the heat, but because he’s spending so much money and has to worry about protecting his entire family out of his own pocket because of the death threats that he receives. So a lot of Republicans don’t do the right thing because of the party’s association with paramilitary groups who threaten and pose real, real dangers to people who speak up. Yeah. So given that, as the landscape, I’m wondering, what do you think is the next best political step for trans people? I mean, what I mean by that is, you know, last time there was this immediate idea of resistance, right? And that’s because there wasn’t complete domination by Donald Trump of everything. Now there’s complete domination of everything. So I guess what I’m my question is, is the political sphere limited for trans people right now at the federal level, or do you think that there is some move on the chessboard. Ironically enough, the move on the chessboard is filibuster, which is

deeply ironic and funny to me, because it’s the thing that has stood in the way of us getting full legal equality for years and years, and now it’s the only thing protecting us from the harms of it. But also, Republicans could choose That’s right, and be like, yeah, we’re not anticipating having elections anymore, so let’s just kill the filibuster. That’s right. We don’t know what’s coming down the pike. I don’t know that we have political answers. I will say that. I think that we should potentially be making priorities among our policy concerns as trans people. And this is a very difficult thing for me to say, given all the time blood, sweat and tears I’ve put into arguing about trans athletes, I don’t know that that’s a politically viable position to hold anymore. When our very livelihoods are on the line, we might have to take three steps back on that in order to not also take three steps back on other policy areas, I think we should prioritize above all else, maintaining access to health care in whatever forms that we can and actually one of the more viable ideas that I’ve been sort of noodling around in my head is collectively getting together and putting pressure on corporations to.

Keep trans affirming health care in their private plans. One of the things that I worry about is the Trump administration coming in and barring federal funds to be used in Medicaid and Medicare absolutely or gender affirming care. And unfortunately, private companies do look at what Medicare and Medicaid covers when they’re making out their own policy plans, but I think that collectively, we can publicly pressure private corporations to continue to cover those things through private insurance. There also might be a way that we can coordinate with unions to make gender affirming care part of their union demands, although I think that seat feels less viable now than it did a week ago. Yeah. I think one of my concerns overall is that, you know, because of the small population of trans people, less than 1%

you know, trans people need allies. It’s, it’s just, it’s a numbers game, right? That’s just, like, that’s literally life. If you, if you don’t have the majority, you have to have, you have to get allies, the basic rule about anything, yes. So one of the things I worry about in this moment is the possibility that those who would be natural allies or trans people are going to be more skittish and more skittish because of the storm that’s brewing administratively from the Trump administration focused on trans people. And you know, this idea that trans people are not popular with the public because of the way that this issue was deployed so successfully over the last month of the campaign. So I worry about that, and I think that one of the things that I kept saying publicly is that the issue of trans people politically is not meant to be a huge vote getter for them. They understand that it’s actually, it’s actually something that they deploy most effectively in really, really close races, like it’s the thing that’s meant to pull out things when they’re tight for them. And that’s the fact that they ran all those ads said to me that they thought that they were in a tight race, and they were, they weren’t. I mean, he didn’t, he didn’t win by a huge majority. He won, but not by a huge majority. So it worked. It worked. Yeah, I kind of worry about that atmosphere. One last question that I have, because, I mean, we have to just admit that this conversation is a bit of a downer. How could it not be?

But everybody who’s really, yeah, everybody who’s listening, though, is feeling the same way. So if you all are listening and drinking bourbon at the same time. I hope that this helps you. It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s like, you know, it won’t stay dark forever, we think. But yeah, you know

the fact that the Democrats never answered those ads.

It’s such a glaring misstep to be kind about it, because one of the rules of modern campaigns is that you don’t let attacks on you go unanswered. It’s a very basic rule. They dropped all this money, and the ads went and answered. And when I spoke to the campaign about it, the campaign was like, well, our focus groups show that these ads don’t really make a difference. And what I said back to them was, like, focus groups are 15 people. It’s not moot. It’s not meant to move one out of 15 people. That would be high. Yeah, it’s meant to move one out of 1000 people. So like your sample, the fact that that’s your sample, your sample is wrong, right? Like it’s meant to move small numbers of people, so like, one out of 15. No one’s saying anything. Out of a group of 15 people makes sense. They’re designed to capture small numbers in much larger populations. So I don’t know when you look at this through your political reporting lens, I mean, does that stand out for you? What do you think about that? Well, I thought the ads were very specifically designed to paint Harris as too liberal. And if you look at the exit polling, the average voter thought Harris was too liberal, like they don’t understand, like they okay, I’m about to, like, go off. Do it Democrats, but the fucking consultants that the Democrats are always working with, they just, they have the political instincts of a warmed over avocado, I swear to God, like they treat every issue as if it’s a silo of its own with its own demographic that cares about it. And no these, this shit is all the this is all connected, right? Like, the point of the anti trans ads is not to like sway voters. It’s to make you look a certain way. And if you don’t want to be perceived that way, you have to answer those ads. You can’t just go around with Liz Cheney doing rallies in the town that the Republican Party was founded in in the 1800s

like, you can’t be going, oh Dick Cheney, he’s my friend. He’s also a war criminal. He’s also one of the most unpopular political he’s more unpopular than Trump, and you’re going around touting his endorsement. Like, are you.

You out of your mind, and meanwhile, like Trump is sitting back running the worst campaign of all time, but he’s running all these ads with this claim about trans people that pay you as liberal and out of touch and you’re not responding to them, which means that when an average person sees that and everything’s going unanswered. They look at that and they go, Oh, well, you must have a point. If she’s not answering it, she must be afraid of it. It must be true. And like all of these people, are afraid to make a response about transit. She’s like, you don’t even have to talk about the athlete issue, because they didn’t only run ads about athletes, right? Okay, if I was Paris and I’m and I’m not right. I’m never running for office because I have too many weird tweets in my background

to win a campaign. But if I was Harris, every time the trans ad would run, I’d want the next ad to run and be like, Look, trans people are just like us. They all have needs. They all need health care, and just like abortion. Brokens want to take away trans people’s health care? If I was when I get into office, I’m going to do this to protect that access to health care. Boom. You’ve just pivoted everything from their pet issue to your pet issue. Why can’t you do that? Democratic consultants don’t think to do that because they’re all like, rich white men who think of these issues as silos where they would go if we run an abortion issue, we can appeal to women in this demographic, and it’s like, no, it doesn’t work that way. Like you, you ran on abortion and you still lost with white women again again. What are you doing? Like you guys need fresh blood, I swear. Anyway, I did not expect to get this animated, but this is just a long standing grievance. So fine with the Democratic Party. I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, we could go on with the grievance list, but, I mean, there’s so many, right? So it’s like a basic rule of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, yes, you don’t let attacks go unanswered, period. End of story. It’s like, yeah, you know, because that’s what happened. Remember when John Kerry did the same thing, yep, and it cost the election. He went a month every single time Democrats have done it, because it’s been almost every election of my lifetime, right? The only people who are really successful at not doing that was Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Barack Obama and and Bill Clinton, right? Everybody else who did this other thing, it didn’t work. Well, I was like 10 when Clinton was voted into office, so I don’t quite, yeah, but didn’t you study political science or something and read about it? No, no, I studied sport management, which is why I write about sports so much. I don’t know. I’m obsessed with learning about campaigns so I can talk about campaigns that go back well before my lifetime, happy to have always assumed that I studied like polystyrene turtle and so like, no, actually, school, please don’t eat me.

No, no. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m happy to have a conversation about Johnson’s 1964 campaign

anytime. Listeners, if you want that, please leave it in the comments. We’ll do a special, special conversation about it. Yeah, I think that, I think that that’s right, and I think that, you know, this leads us in a really good place to end this conversation, which is this question of the the Democrats and what they’re going to do in relationship to us and our issues. And that’s a great unknown. And I think that while there was all this prediction that the Republican Party, if Donald Trump loss, was going to tear itself apart or be a war with itself, I think that there’s a there’s a distinct possibility that that will happen against Democrats, because the stakes were so high here that people will be looking to blame each other, yeah, in order to, in part, as you indicated, from consultants, and otherwise save their own careers? Yeah, I think we should probably prepare for the worst, even if it doesn’t come to pass. So in my mind, that means preparing for Democrats to drop us all together as an issue that they find worth fighting for. And they’ve done it before. They did it with ENDA back in the late 2000 odds. So I think we should just be prepared to be very lonely politically. And I think that one way we can maybe head that off at the pass is looking for instances of things that come to pass against us, that spark outrage with the general public, right? So if we could find our own version of the trans athlete issue, we might be able to to save our general issues, you know, ripping somebody off of healthcare in a very unjust way, I think would be something that might persuade the narmees, but I don’t know, I don’t know that I can answer that question. Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, it could be them taking the Texas foster care rule and making it nationwide, or expanding it, right, allowing trans kids to be taken away from parents who love them that, you know, we can’t just, we can’t just talk about it generally, like we have to have individual we’ve done names of kids under that circumstance that really sucks. And that’s right, like no kid deserves that, like no parent deserves to be put in that kind of spotlight. So.

God damn it. We’re too ethical for this.

Yeah, whereas, you know, right wing actors will take any trans athlete and blast it. I mean, did you read the Washington Post feature on election day about the 40 year old trans woman who’s been in all of the Trump ads, and how she was a registered Republican and didn’t know who she was gonna vote for until the ad started running. And I’m like, how’s that possible? I

just want to talk

Well, the thing about living in these times is that in times like this is that they’re very clarifying. And we will see where the lines are. We will see where people are, and slowly there won’t be any obfuscation or hiding, yeah. And so that will happen, and it will be painful, but at least we’ll be able to be honest about what type of country we are and what we’re doing, because that is the prerequisite for change. We may be have been telling ourselves things that aren’t true, and the fact that the country has been telling itself things that aren’t true about itself means that it couldn’t actually fix underlying issues because we were so distracted by myths. Like, you know, when something bad would happen, we would be like, That’s not who we are. Or, you know, that line or that rhetoric,

yeah,

we’re seeing I will, I will say the fact that we are not an everyday pocket book issue for most people might turn into a blessing in the long run, because, you know, if Trump does go through with his tariff regime, that he’s promised that prices will go much further up than than inflation ever made them. And if he deports, you know, all of the migrant workers, that’s a third of our construction force just gone. What do you think housing prices are going to do? And we’re in a third of that workforce disappears, like everything’s going to get more expensive again, and maybe we get a swing back again in four years if we have elections, yeah. I mean, I think that the perhaps, the, you know, the way forward here is there’s a hunkering down for two years, and the possibility of getting either both or one of the chambers back in two years time, like that. You know, that is a possibility. So it’s enduring two really, really tough years, because he’s going to crash the economy and do all those things. I’m just saying it. And so that’s all going to happen. And so when that happens, I think that there’s a possibility of a swing back, but we don’t know. We don’t know. Well, Caitlin, thank you so much for processing this. We recorded this in the morning and or early afternoon, rather, and it should have we shouldn’t have cared, and we should have had some drinks. We should have had some good times. Listen. Thank you so much for coming on. Take care of yourself. I know that we will be talking to you further and as things move along. And yeah, let’s do the best we can. Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thank you. Thank you.

That was political journalist and sports writer Caitlin burns. You.