Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

Congressman Max Rose says he has no regrets. Elected in the 2018 blue wave, he flipped New York’s conservative-leaning 11th district, which includes all of Staten Island and a corner of Brooklyn. Now, two years later, he’s one of the frontline Democrats who lost their reelection left wondering what went wrong. In our continuing dissection of the 2020 election, we sat (back) down with Rep. Rose to get a candid perspective on what pundits are getting wrong and what, if anything, he’d do differently. You Might Also Like:From Red to Blue with Rep. Max Rose (June 25, 2019)The Democratic Coalition After 2020 with David Shor (Dec 15, 2020)The Down-Ballot Democrats with Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (Dec 1, 2020)How Red is Texas with Abby Livingston (Nov 17, 2020)

What were the shifts in the 2020 election? Why was the polling so off? How did the coalitions change? As the dust settles, and we can dive into official numbers, a clearer picture is forming of what actually happened during this election cycle. David Shor is a political data scientist who works to help elect Democrats. This week, David joins to look at the data and help answer some of the outstanding questions about the 2020 election. As well as layout the trends that have led to this political moment and the landscape going forward.

The local newspaper is dying. Across the country, newsrooms are either shuttering completely or struggling through massive staff layoffs. It's becoming increasingly clear that in the void left by trusted local reporting, misinformation is taking root. A sweeping investigation by the New York Times uncovered a conservative pay-for-play network that disguises itself as unbiased local coverage. The enterprise includes 1300 sites spanning all 50 states, and with familiar web layouts and innocuous titles like Wichita Standard or Illinois Valley Times, you may have come across one and been none the wiser. New York Times reporter Davey Alba is one of the journalists who broke the story and joins to explain what tipped her off, who is behind it all, and the role social media plays in this moment.RELATED READING:As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place by Davey Alba and Jack NicasHere Are the Hundreds of Sites in a Pay-to-Play Local News NetworkFind more of Davey Alba’s work hereDozens of new websites appear to be Michigan local news outlets, but with political bent by Carol Thompson

What happened to the down-ballot Democrats? Going into election day, Democrats were expecting to pick up seats and expand their control of the House. Instead, they suffered consequential blows, still managing to hold the majority but ultimately losing seats. It was a shock that launched a bevy of post-mortems trying to figure out what went wrong. For Florida Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell it was impossible to sit back and listen as folks diagnosed from the sidelines what she had experienced firsthand; elected to office in part of the 2018 blue wave, Rep. Mucarsel-Powell lost her re-election bid this November. In fact, her majority-Hispanic district swung 22 points to Trump this year. While there are no straightforward clean cut answers about what unfolded in the election, Congresswoman Mucarsel-Powell offers a clear-eyed take of what she witnessed in Southern Florida and what she thinks the biggest lesson is for the Democratic Party.

Has online activism and doomscrolling through twitter turned politics into just a hobby for people? At what point is it just a way to spend time rather than affect meaningful change? This week Tufts University professor, Eitan Hersh, joins to talk about what he diagnoses as “political hobbyism”, what real political engagement looks like, and argues how this self-gratifying online hobbyism can be detrimental to the real political activism needed to create change. Politics is for Power: How To Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, And Make Real Change

Are Republicans losing their grip on Texas? Election night saw Democrats largely unable to build on the gains made in 2018 when an insurgent Beto O’Rourke ran a grassroots senate campaign that gained national attention. But despite frustrations from Democrats that they didn’t perform as well as they hoped this November, there’s still cause for concern among Texas Republicans. The population in metro areas is growing rapidly and demographics are moving to the left. So just how strong is the Republican hold on Texas? Abby Livingston is the Washington bureau chief for The Texas Tribune and just so happens to be a seventh generation Texan. She lays out the origins of the Republican domination of the Lone Star State, what clues she picked up on that things were starting to change, and what to keep an eye on in future elections.

The U.S. just surpassed 10 million confirmed cases of coronavirus as infection rates spike across the country. If you look at the charts tracking the reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, it shows the country on a dangerous trajectory. How did we get to this point? Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has spent time studying the sociology of pandemics and says her alarm bells were going off all the way back in January. She’s spent months writing with an almost unparalleled clarity about the many interlocking aspects of the pandemic, often with insights than turn out to be well ahead of the curve. Tufekci lends her insights on the early missteps in containing this pandemic and what a success story would look like.How Zeynep Tufekci Keeps Getting the Big Things Right (New York Times, Aug 2020)Follow Zeynep on TwitterTwitter and Tear Gas by Zeynep Tufekci

What is the deal with all those fundraising emails? The ones with increasingly dramatic subject lines and maybe a dash of emotional manipulation – they’re everywhere, but do they work? There’s a science to the fundraising email, a lot of data, research, and trial and error. It’s something Michael Whitney’s spent a lot of time thinking about, first in ‘03 on the Howard Dean campaign, and most recently on both the ‘16 and ‘20 Sanders campaigns where he worked as digital fundraising manager. Online fundraising is a massive source of Democratic funds and this year it has exploded, with campaigns taking in record breaking sums. So what are the strategies at play? Whitney breaks down the power of small dollar fundraising, what works and what doesn’t, and when campaigns go too far. Plus, hear Chris describe his campaign stress dreams for some #relatablecontent.Follow Michael Whitney on Twitter

Why is Donald Trump doing better with Latino voters in 2020 than he was in 2016? The central tension in even asking that question is – who exactly are Latino voters? As campaign veteran Chuck Rocha points out, beneath that label is a deeply diverse group. Still, Rocha found success in reaching Latino voters as senior advisor to the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign. So what did he do right that other campaigns are struggling to do? From outreach to messaging to the undeniable generational divide, Chuck Rocha dives deep into the voting bloc that could decide the election.RELATED READING:Tío Bernie: The Inside Story of How Bernie Sanders Brought Latinos Into the Political Revolution by Chuck Rocha

What does the world think of us right now? Former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power says it isn’t surprising that our standing in the world has dropped, but rather just how precipitous those drops have been. This conversation, conducted as part of the Texas Tribune Festival, unpacks the sources of humiliation and isolation brought about by the Trump administration and what the stakes are for American democracy in the international context.RELATED LINKS:Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power