The Realignment: Going-Full Time, Ending America's Great Stalemate, Peter Zeihan, & Next Week's Discussion Episode
The end of our Supercast soft launch, episodes of the week, and more
We’ve Hit Our Stride. Time to Take this to the Next Level
We’ve wrapped the second month of our Supercast launch, meaning that we can actively shift from soft launch to the real deal. Like I said in April, launching our paid subscription option was an experiment. Our conclusion’s not only that we’ve exceeded our wildest expectations, but we greatly erred in not launching a Patreon/paid option far earlier. The best time would have been right as we left Hudson and got editorial independence. The second best time is obviously right now.
With the support we’ve received so far, we’ve gone from two episodes a week to three, paid the extra bills that came from publishing 30 straight days of Ukraine audio/video, and began paying our staff like producer Aaron.
The other thing we’ve been convinced of is that the show’s reached the point where we shouldn’t just treat it as a side hobby/hustle. Therefore, the request this week is that you support the show to help us make this a meaningful, full-time endeavor.
We have three price points: $5 a month, $50 a year, or $500 for a lifetime membership (aka ten years of subscription paid upfront).
The general rule with subscriptions is that 3-10% of your overall audience will pay for a membership. Last month, hundreds of thousands of unique listeners tuned in, so one can do the math. If only 3% of that number subscribed, even at the $5 rate, we’d be off to the races.
We’re also going to launch our subscriber-only content such as an additional Q&A/audience response-focused episode with me and Saagar. Paid subscribers can submit questions and comments at the Q&A section of our Supercast website:
Welcome Back to The Realignment
Thanks for checking out The Realignment’s Substack newsletter.
If you’re new, hit subscribe to get future issues in your inbox every *Friday*.
Here’s the top line for today’s newsletter:
Peter Zeihan on 6/8: Our number one most requested guest is geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan. Saagar and I’ve booked him for a recording this upcoming Monday. The episode will come out on the 14th, the launch date for his latest book. If you’re a Zeihan fan, reply and/or comment on/reply to this Substack with any questions/comments you have about what we should discuss. You can also email us at realignmentpod@gmail.com.
Next Week’s Discussion Episode: Saagar and I will record next week’s discussion episode on either the 8th or the 9th. It’ll release on the 10th. We’re obviously going to spend a lot of time on the San Francisco recall race for DA Chesa Boudin. More info on that topic here.
We also asked for audience submissions of topics, and I really liked this one from a listener named Peter:
“I'm a subscriber and listen to the re-alignment pod religiously. In your last debate episode, you guys touched on the notion we're in 1890 where we have big problems but no political ability/will to solve them. I think this is dead on.I'd love for your next debate to have a section on what realistically needs to happen before we can expect real change in our country. Or perhaps what conditions need to be present/change?"
Part II - what are the types of outcomes you see as possible at the other end of a transformation? Again, I'm not interested in pie-in-the-sky fantasies.”
Reply below/to this email or hit us up realignmentpod@gmail.com to submit your topics.Last but not least, as you can probably tell from the length of this email, I’m taking this Substack more seriously now that folks have given us substantial monetary support. Thanks again to everyone who has subscribed so far and I know we can do what it takes to convince more of you to take this from a hobby to a substantial platform.
Producer Aaron’s Perspective + Marshall’s Response
Aaron Visser, The Realignment’s producer/researcher, contributes his perspective on a recent theme covered by the show.
I particularly enjoyed his contribution because it captures the meta-reality of our politics right now: total stalemate without any clear path forward. As Aaron put it to me this week, “I’m less interested in us interviewing guests with their latest policy proposals that we all know won’t pass. I’m still waiting for someone to actually come out with an actual plan to get around the stalemate.”
Yes, I’m sure Andrew Yang fans will respond with “But the Forward Party’s working to implement electoral reforms to change the rules of the game to encourage legislators to actually do things.” Personally, I think Andrew’s heart is in the right place, but wonky, technocratic election reform hasn’t captured the country’s imagination for a reason. Plus, reformers really overestimate the impact of their proposed policies.
As Aaron writes below, our political system is capturing the fact that aside from misleading polls (see my Breaking Points debate in April with Kyle Kulinski about 70% of the country supposedly supporting Medicare-for-All), the country truly is divided along big, binary questions. How exactly would increasing the number of political parties from two to four resolve the fact that presidential elections increasingly boil down to who gets to appoint Supreme Court justices capable of implementing one binary culture war/political decision or the other. Under Andrew Yang’s system, you could really have a Northeastern moderate conservative party closer to Charlie Baker or Larry Hogan, totally separate from Marjorie Taylor Green or Madison Cawthorn. I’m sure that party would be far more competitive than the status quo where anyone with an R gets lumped together with inconvenient members of their coalition.
But when that Northeastern party actually has to vote up or down on Supreme Court nominees and the related issues like gun control, abortion, LGBTQ rights, and racial issues/civil rights, they’d inevitably caucus with Democrats, replicating the same binary but with slightly different labels attached.
The deeply unsexy conclusion I’m coming to as we get deeper into the show is that 2024’s going to come down to one simple issue/debate: do we bring back Trump, yay or nay? Every topic imaginable: gun control, the war in Ukraine/NATO, social policy, climate change, etc…stems from our answers to the 2024 question. Adding more parties or tweaking the incentives for legislators can’t get around that.
Now, for Aaron:
We’ve seen this movie before. An outburst of mourning. Thoughts and prayers. A wave of outrage. “Commonsense” gun control. Legislation dead on arrival. Time passes. The news cycle moves on. New politicians, new issues. Another shooting. Let’s take it from the top.Like everything else in our politics, the debate over gun control is deadlocked. Democrats want to improve “gun safety.” Republicans suspect they don’t like guns in general. But they haven’t proposed any other (serious) solutions to gun violence, which could be implemented in Republican-controlled states ( Texas perhaps?). The NRA is a powerful force, but only because they represent many primary voting Republicans and push the sentiments of millions of Americans who value the Second Amendment. For Democrats, the cycle of violence is maddening, as they push impotently against a political system that refuses to budge. Republicans aren’t satisfied either, as the Second Amendment faces a constant barrage from the Democrats and media, which hates their guns and their way of life. Guns could be replaced with abortion, climate change, or health care. Neither side can achieve a decisive victory and the status quo is maintained.
We are in the age of stalemate. The losers are the Democrats, who want to progress rather than conserve, but the Republicans sure don’t feel like winners. They are losing the culture of America and are terrified of what Democrats would do if they won true political power. Each side has turned to new ways out of the bind.
As the stalemate continues, Democrats are going to push extreme reform with more and more force. End the Electoral College. End the filibuster. Add states. Pack the court. Eliminate the Senate. They are the majority after all and the majority cannot be forever stalled by a seemingly backwards minority.
Republicans are turning increasingly authoritarian. Denying Trump’s election loss has become a purity test. CPAC hosted their conference in Hungary, a state increasingly admired by those on the right, in spite or because of its authoritarian leadership.
The way favored common Americans is electoral disengagement. Any political battle will inevitably lead to more stalemate, so the only way to win is not to play. This can mean not voting, not caring about politics, and hatred for the entire system. I understand the temptation. Perhaps our democratic participation is a shared delusion, that one vote really can make the difference.
But we’ve been here before. Most of American legislation has come during periods of total victory by one side, such as under FDR, LBJ, and Reagan. The age of stalemate won’t last forever. We must first understand that the problem isn’t powerful special lobbies or malicious politicians, but massive differences between Americans. Living in a democracy means recognizing that your beliefs can’t just be imposed on an entire country. Then we can be honest with ourselves. I want gun control, freedom to choose, and universal healthcare, but what I crave the most is victory. The road will be long and my team might not win. That’s what living in a democracy means.
This Week’s Episodes
251 | Alex Epstein: The Case for Fossil Fuels
(PODCAST AUDIO) (YOUTUBE VIDEO)
250 | David Gelles: Undoing the Legacy of the Man Who Broke Capitalism
(PODCAST AUDIO) (YOUTUBE VIDEO)
249 | Saagar & Marshall: America’s Gun Debate + Should the U.S. Fight for Taiwan?
(PODCAST AUDIO) (YOUTUBE VIDEO)
The Realignment Bookshop
As a reminder, we’ve created a Realignment Bookshop affiliate store showcasing books by guests, what we’re actively reading this year, and deeper dives into the featured topic of an episode.
If you purchase a book using our link, the show gets a 10% commission, a local, independent bookseller gets support, and you get an awesome book!
We’re reorganizing our book lists over the next few weeks, so for now, check out our primary one:
Let us know what you think about this or any other week’s episodes. Please share The Realignment with anyone who’d enjoy the podcast.