The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 30 episode of the Daily 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.
We’re four days out, and Donald Trump is in a very dark mood. New reporting indicates that he’s privately raging over a possible looming loss, yet at the same time he still holds out hope that his formidable cultural power can pull out a victory. In a sense, this election really is a referendum on Trump’s deep faith in his limitless control over the culture. Yet it comes as the final burst of polls really paints a powerful picture to the contrary.
So we’re digging through all of it with Tom Schaller, who has a good piece for the Public Notice Substack on the fizzling of MAGA culture war slop. Tom, good to have you on.
Tom Schaller: Great to be back, Greg.
Sargent: So the New York Times talked to a lot of White House insiders and now reports that the mood among them is grim. Republicans are privately warning Trump not to campaign in any swing areas because he’s too toxic.
But then the Times reports that Trump is angry with naysayers and has dismissed polls that reflect his unpopularity. And there’s this: “Trump remains convinced that his dominant place in the Republican Party is enough to mitigate a tough political climate.” Tom, your immediate thoughts on that?
Schaller: Parties generally focus on base mobilization in the late stages. They believe that the conversion window for persuadable voters is largely closed, even though this is the time period of so-called closing arguments. So it’s not unusual for either party, whether they control the White House or not, to try to focus on base mobilization.
But there’s a base mobilization when you think you’re going to win, and then there’s a base mobilization when you know you’re going to lose. And I think the where of it is very telling, Greg. Where is Trump?
The fact that he’s campaigning in deeply red states to try to protect Senate seats is the tell. And it’s base mobilization to pull the bacon out of the fire for incumbents in states you’d normally never think would be in trouble.
Sargent: Donald Trump isn’t just going to red states in order to juice the base. He isn’t just staying away from swing areas because he’s been told to. He’s campaigning in states with incumbent Republican senators, in places that he won by double digits.
And so it’s all triage. It’s packaged as him on offense, as him rallying huge crowds, but it’s really a profoundly defensive posture at its core. It’s again in places that he won by double digits, and they’re desperately trying to get out that Trump base in order to compensate for his deep losses among the middle of the electorate, even in those places. I think that’s what’s going on.
Schaller: Yeah. And I think, depending on the magnitude of the losses on Tuesday, and certainly if the Democrats get to 54 or 55 Senate seats, there’s going to be a reckoning. Because the one thing that we do know, in terms of a principle that is held fast by Republican incumbents, is their belief in their own political survival. And if it becomes a conventional wisdom that Donald Trump is a net negative drag on the party, watch for the defections to begin.
We’ve already seen early waves of it. The seven House Republicans who voted to curb Trump’s Iran war powers, the votes against, or at least public declarations against, his tariff policies, courageous always-concerned Susan Collins vocally criticizing Trump and asking for these recent exemptions on certain Canadian tariffs. So it’s desperation.
But I also think we could see an emboldened Republican Congress and some emboldened Republican governors after this result, because Trump will truly be a lame duck with little gas left in the tank.
Sargent: God, I hope so, man. I hope that’s enough to do it, although one never knows. I want to point out that you mentioned something like a 54- to 55-seat result for Democrats. We should stress, that’s at the outer tiers of what’s possible here. That’s like if things go really, really well.
I want to read another tidbit from the Times report: “As the elections approach, Trump is feasting on a media diet of fawning press coverage, disparaging clips about his perceived enemies, and helpings of flattering photos and AI slop.”
That’s a Trump insider who called Trump’s media diet AI slop, by the way. And others tell the Times that Trump is “increasingly cloistered” with a small group of “acolytes.” Now, obviously that’s Natalie Harp.
Tom, it’s interesting how they need to limit Trump’s media consumption in the present in order to sustain his belief in this kind of cultural dominance he imagines he has, isn’t it?
Schaller: Yeah, he’s obviously living in a bubble. And as much as they have to limit his consumption of the content, I feel like they would love to find ways to limit his delivery of the content. I mean, he goes so off the page. I know you’ve already probably talked on earlier pods about this remarking on Jon Husted’s physique, bringing up old stories that are completely irrelevant and, like, sort of Trump 2024 greatest hits.
And he’s so off message and he’s so undisciplined. I don’t think they know exactly what to feed him. And when he stands up there and says, I’ve got 99 support among Republicans, when I think the polls show it around—correct me if I’m wrong—like 78 percent.
Like, 78 percent is low for your own party when you’re the incumbent president. For him to think it’s 99 percent means that they literally cannot tell him the truth in the White House. And so he goes out and says things like, the economy’s great, and sure, you’re paying a little bit more for gas, but the oil companies are doing great. Like, he’s so off message, it’s absurd.
Sargent: You know, that’s really interesting, because what you’re getting at there is the self-defeating nature of this kind of campaign to keep Trump in the bubble.
Because when they tell him that he’s at 99 percent with the Republicans, when they tell him that all the criticism that he’s receiving is bullshit, it’s just fake news, the polls that are showing his unpopularity are fake polls—he says that constantly and clearly has begun to believe it.
The result is that he goes full MAGA porn at just about every turn. And no matter what he tells himself, there’s absolutely no way this is helpful to Republican senators who are embattled, or Republican House members who are embattled. Just no way.
Schaller: My theory of the case on Trump has always been, starting in 2015, 2016, is that he’s like a comedian on the road. And I don’t mean that he’s funny, because he has no sense of humor really, and he certainly can’t self-deprecate or take a joke about himself, because he’s a malignant narcissist.
And so when he goes out on the stump today and it’s quiet, he doesn’t notice—by the way, Greg, as you’ve seen, empty seats in there. He claims there’s thousands of people waiting outside. He can’t even fill the seats that are inside. He’s desperate to get that little… it’s like a fix for him, right? It’s like a dopamine fix.
And so he goes to the old standards, because that’s what works. And he’s there really for his own ego glorification more than he is for really helping the party.
Sargent: I think that’s obvious at this point. There are these new CNN polls today. They find Abdul El-Sayed leading by 49 to 42 in Michigan. James Talarico is up by 49 to 43 in Texas. Troy Jackson is leading by 49 to 45 in Maine. And Adam Hamilton, the Democrat, is up by 49 to 45 as well in Kansas over Senator Roger Marshall.
If those are right, that points to a big Democratic victory and a Senate majority of at least 52 or 53 seats. But I can tell you that top Democrats don’t believe those numbers. They don’t believe the CNN numbers. They think everything’s a toss-up. Where do you think things are?
Schaller: I think we’re going to have some surprises on Tuesday, but I would be surprised if it’s all of them, right? That would mean that these early voting data are real, and that this massive surge in under-30 voters, this massive surge in Latino voters turning out early, is real, plus a certain amount of MAGA stay-home effect, plus a certain amount of crossover, sort of moderate Republicans, independents crossing over to vote Democratic. I mean, I think you need to have all of those things to get to 53, 54, or even 55.
But I’ll be surprised if Democrats lose all four, though, Greg. I mean, they’re not going to lose Kansas, Texas, Michigan, and Maine all at once. I think there’s obvious candidates that are more likely, like Kansas.
Maine, however, could be a surprise, and Susan Collins is very formidable, and I’ve covered that race pretty closely. But, you know, I don’t think they’ll sweep all four, but they certainly won’t lose all four.
Sargent: I want to flag two numbers from the CNN polls in the deeper red states. Trump’s approval in Kansas is 42 percent, with 57 percent disapproving. In Texas, Trump’s approval is 41 percent, with 59 percent disapproving.
In Kansas, he’s underwater with white voters, Tom. You wrote a book about these people, so you know how extraordinary that is. In both states, he’s underwater with non-college voters. I just have a little trouble believing it’s quite that bad in places like Kansas and Texas.
The book, by the way, is White Rural Rage. He wrote that with Paul Waldman. You spent a lot of time in these places. Is it possible that Donald Trump’s approval is that low in these deep red places?
Schaller: It’s amazing, and it’s quite possible, given what he’s done to destroy farming communities and rural communities, who maybe, maybe, maybe are finally waking up.
I mean, I think the complaint of Democrats and liberals for years is like, how do these people keep getting fooled by these culture war politics, this culture war slop that I wrote about in Public Notice?
And they don’t recognize that the Republicans peddle this stuff as an attack-and-distract set of politics, so you don’t pay attention to their horrible mismanagement and their complete lack of concern for working-class Americans, as they win elections and then they cut taxes for the rich and deregulate and cut taxes for corporations. Every single time it’s like Lucy and Charlie Brown, right?
And I want to say, though I’m smart enough not to be fully convinced of this, I want to say maybe this is finally the moment where this wake-up is happening. And that’s why I really think, if you said to me, Tom, you can have any two Senate results you want today, four days in advance, I would say give me Iowa and give me Kansas. Because if the Democrats win Iowa, it’s a big night.
And if Democrats win Kansas also, it’s a huge night, because these are largely white states. There’s pockets of African Americans. There’s significant Native American population, eastern Oklahoma. But that means Trump is losing among white voters. And if he’s losing among white voters there, then he’s getting killed among white voters everywhere.
Sargent: I want to home in on that a little bit more. Kansas and Iowa are also very rural states, and they are chock full of the type of territory that you wrote about, that we’re talking about here. This is an argument that goes back decades now. Tom Frank, What’s the Matter With Kansas?—that’s sort of the touchstone that set off this kind of way of theorizing about elections and about Democrats and about the problems the party faces.
So we would be in a situation where, after decades of wondering when are white rural voters going to stop getting hoodwinked by GOP cultural politics, which has been supercharged by MAGA into MAGA cultural politics—they’re related, but MAGA is something else, it’s more authoritarian, I think, or at least more explicitly authoritarian, right?
We’ve been asking, when is this going to happen? When will economic conditions finally break the hold of that stuff? And we might be on the cusp of that happening, right, Tom?
Schaller: Yeah. I mean, people falsely accuse these sort of working-class non-college white voters, whether they’re suburban or rural, of voting against their interests. And as Paul and I argue in White Rural Rage, they’re not voting against their interests. They’re just putting greater salience and weight on their culture.
They do oppose abortion, they do want gun rights, they do want more role for the church in secular society. They are afraid of immigrants and the gay community and people who look, think, act, and pray differently from white Christian male traditional families.
But the question is, at what point do they realize, like, OK, we’re getting fed that and we’re getting some satisfaction, right? Roe v. Wade was overturned and the border is now being clamped down. At what point do they realize that they are making a trade-off that’s too severe, in terms of bankrupting themselves and bankrupting communities?
And look, I should be the last person to say this is the election that does it. But like I said, I’m going to be looking very closely at the overwhelmingly white red states. Because if we see Trump losing eight, 10, 12 points in some of these rural counties, even if he wins them—I mean, even if the Republicans win them, you know, by 70 percent, but Trump did 78 or 82 or 84 percent in the last election—that is a dramatic drop-off in those counties.
Sargent: I’m wondering if what’s making the circumstances here a little bit different than usual is that the conditions are such that Democrats can actually get heard in some kind of new way. I think part of this is people like James Talarico, who, you know, he talks—like, he sounds different. He doesn’t sound like what I think most Texans think a Democrat sounds like.
And so I wonder if that’s what’s happening here as well, that some of these Democrats are figuring out how to pick the lock on the cultural stuff, but also are being assisted by the terrible economic conditions, in the sense that people are now opening their ears to these Democrats. What do you think of that?
Schaller: Well, I think the Democrats are getting better messages and better messengers to deliver that. And I think that’s what’s scaring the Republicans. And I think they sort of saw this coming, which is why they realized, well, if we can control the megaphone, it doesn’t really matter if they improve their messenger and message delivery system, because we’ll just buy up all the media. Which is what the right is doing, right? They control X, they control Meta, they control everything now.
But notice that this week there’s a story that, like, Fox News viewership is down, like, 29 percent year against year, and is falling in the ratings, and people like Jesse Watters are being tuned out. Now, maybe that’s a short-term thing, and people don’t want to turn on the screen and listen to Republicans like Secretary Bessent or Trump himself say, hey, the economy’s actually really great, when they know they’re being lied to right to their face.
And maybe they’re going to all come home again, you know, after the Democrats, you know, win the House and/or the Senate. But maybe they are starting to wise up that they’re being lied to. And then we’ll see. I have to withhold judgment for the moment.
Sargent: So let’s conclude on JD Vance. You mentioned that you’re going to be looking very closely at some of these results in very deep rural areas. JD Vance is someone who’s really all in on the idea that MAGA’s cultural power, the cultural hold of Trumpism, is still fundamentally intact. I think that’s what he thinks.
If you look at how he apes Trump at every turn, he’s not just a vice president being loyal to a president. He clearly believes that Trumpism is a dominant cultural force still.
I wonder, if this election goes as we hope it does, I wonder whether people will start to look at that whole posture of his a little more skeptically and start to say, well, this guy made a bad bet, right? And this guy is essentially… he’s tied himself to a cultural movement that is kind of running its course, and he’s going to have to turn it around very quickly. I wonder if that’s going to happen. What do you think?
Schaller: I think Vance is saddled by Trumpism and MAGA. I don’t think he really believes in it, to be honest with you, but it’s taken him this far. I’ve got to tell you, I would be surprised if, if it’s really bad, and the Peter Thiels and the Marc Andreessens and the Mark Zuckerbergs look at the world, and this is their guy, JD Vance—I wouldn’t be surprised.
You’re going to think I’m crazy when I say this, but I’m going to write this piece after the election, if it’s as bad as the wave is supposed to be crashing on the Republicans. They’re going to turn on Trump. They’re going to turn on Trump, because their view is, do they still want his rotting carcass around, smelling things up for Republicans, right up until election 2028?
He’s getting crazier by the day on the stump. He’s eventually going to do more than just comment on somebody’s backside. He’s going to end up grabbing some woman. He’s going to end up dropping the n—. He’s going to end up saying something so batshit crazy, Greg, that there’s no way for Fox and talk radio to paper over it anymore.
And, you know, there’s going to be a huge temptation for Democrats to move for impeachment and bring articles in the House, which they can with a simple majority. The question would be the Senate, of course, because you’d need some Republicans, no matter how many seats the Democrats win on Tuesday in the Senate.
I don’t think it’s in the Democrats’ best interest to create some sympathy for Trump, a rally around the flag, a rally around the MAGA phenomena for Trump, and to put JD Vance in the White House and give him a leg up. I think, you broke it, you bought it. Let them ride that rotting dead carcass for two more years. That’s my view of it.
Sargent: Tom Schaller, that is a very arresting image, and I don’t know if I want to think about it too much longer. Great to have you on, though, man. Always great to have you on.
Schaller: Pleasure to be here. Cheers.
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