The Jackpod: Off the mat
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Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from BU Questrom School of Business. Follow wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode about executive compensation. I'm Dori Scheimer filling in for Meghna Chakrabarty, and this is The Jackpot, where On Point news analyst Jack Beattie helps us connect history, literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique clarity to the world we live in now. Hello, Jack. Hello.

Hello, Tori. It's episode 68. What's the headline? Off the mat. Tell us more. Well, this alludes to the latest poll. Quinnipiac this morning. This is Thursday. Only 28% of Americans approve of how Democrats in Congress are doing their job. That is an all-time low. The question is, how can the Democrats get off the mat?

It might seem a superficial concern in a week that has seen Donald Trump essentially play the role of Neville Chamberlain and concede to the dictator everything the dictator wanted and more. There can be no more disgraceful episode in American foreign policy exists than

And it is a shameful, ignominious moment with the president calling President Zelensky a dictator and a word he's never used about the real Russian dictator, Putin. It goes beyond exaggeration to say how this moment is going to live in shame. Maybe that's just a good moment to try to look to see if there are any signs of hope there.

of a turn, of a movement toward

accountability, because of course the Trump administration, there is no accountability other than from the judiciary, and it still remains to be seen whether ultimately from the Supreme Court, no accountability from the Congress. So is there something in the works that could, if not change things overnight, at least give people of

the friends of democracy a little a Philip perhaps of hope I just want to ask you one question about that approval rating is Congress's I mean Republicans control both the House and Senate right now is the overall approval rating as bad as Democrats or are Americans do Americans think that Democrats uniquely are doing a bad job in Congress

The Republican rating is 40% approved. Democrats, 28% approved. So there's the answer. You know, a lot more Americans think the Republicans.

are doing their job than think the Democrats. And of course, that finding about Congress, it tracks. Remember the polling in January about the opinions of the Democratic Party overall, and it was about 30% approval, the worst rating for the Democratic Party, I think, since the late 80s.

So they're in a terrible spot. The question is how, you know, they're on the mat. How can they get off the mat? And you're going to tell us some things they can do. Yes, some things they can do and some things the Republicans may be doing for them. So I'll outline an idea that's gaining currency in the commentariat.

And then I'll light up a road-tested blunder that the Republicans are near committing that could swing the midterm elections to the Democrats. So what the Democrats can do to help themselves. Well, you know, sometimes you hear an idea and it's so mechanical. It's so superficial.

You think, well, that's just a cosmetic change. It means nothing. And you're even embarrassed raising it because it just sounds so beside the point. And yet people of deep perspective like Timothy Schneider, the author of On Tyranny, the Yale professor, the

you know, really a sort of voice of resistance to the turn to American authoritarianism. He's been pushing an idea. It's been pushed by the Washington Monthly. It's been pushed by the Washington Post. And that is that the Democrats should form a shadow cabinet.

Essentially, think of the British model where you have the home secretary of the incumbent party has a shadow home secretary who criticizes what the government has been doing that week and so with foreign policy and so with economic policy.

And the idea is the Democrats need something like that. You know, there are 28 or so Trump cabinet members. They don't have to cover them all. But something like a weekly airing of here's what's happening here under this department. Here's what Musk's raiders are doing to that department. Here's the difference it'll make. And, you know, the Democrats have all kinds of people who can speak publicly.

But it's crucial, and I think, you know, make or break, that they not give speeches. Speeches are yesterday. You could see that happening even in the Obama years. President Obama was one of the great speech makers, but in that second term,

On our program, on point, weeks would go by without any mention of President Obama. And then he'd give a speech, and the effect of the speech would be boredom on the part of his supporters, really, unless it was something like dramatic, and he could come up to those moments. And it polarized Republicans. It made Republicans angry. So the speeches were futile, and no one was listening.

And of course, under Biden, I mean, the only thing worse than Biden's silence was his speech, his feebleness. As I say, his speech did not improve the silence a whit. And then with Harris, you know, I mean, it was evident that she just didn't want to talk about

I mean, her one-liner was, remember this? She said, "President Trump has an enemies list. I have a to-do list." And everybody applauded, "Oh my God, what a clever line." And she never said, "And number one on my to-do list is to help you do this. Number two," she didn't. She was just so happy that she had made it to the end of that little trope. It was frightening. The Democrats need people who can talk.

And, you know, when you start to look at the people that could do it, there's a, you know, look at the education department. There's a congresswoman from Connecticut, Johanna Hayes. She's a former teacher of the year. You know, she could talk about what's happening in the education department and could also say, by the way, here's what the Department of Education does. So that not only could the Democrats be criticizing what Doge and Trump are doing to the departments,

They could be reminding people, wait a minute, we need these. Maybe we need a Department of Education. And of course you could have people on the corruption beat, Elizabeth Warren, Jamie Raskin, sort of saying, here's where we are on corruption this week. Here's the conflict of interest that Musk is involved in this week. In other words, something that would get into the bloodstream.

into the media stream. Also, by setting up shadow cabinet members, the press would have people to go to for quotes. In other words, rather than some random Democrat in the hallway to talk about foreign policy, they'd go to Christopher Murphy, and he would be equipped with all the latest stuff on the degradation that Trump is visiting on American foreign policy. He'd have all that

And that's how it works in Britain. The shadow cabinet ministers are up. They know what's happening there. The press goes to them for the quotes. Jack, I just want to push back a little bit on this idea because regardless of oratorical style, regardless of how good Pete Buttigieg could do that job in the shadow government or Chris Murphy could speak authentically about foreign policy, we are in a world where

where who's listening? I mean, there's a recent Bloomberg deep investigation of right-wing podcasts and just the numbers.

I hate to admit this here, but their numbers dwarf us. They probably have more listeners in a single episode than we have in a year, quite frankly. And traditional media as a whole is facing the same problem. Democrats have seemingly failed over the past decade to develop the media ecosystem where their people and their ideas get 10 million listeners, right?

So at this point, that feels like a huge hurdle for Democrats to overcome, even if they have the right speaker and even if they have, you know, the winning message. Quite true. But, you know, what's that JFK line? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. They've got to make a step. They've got to do something. You know, I read that after you mentioned that the other day. I went back and looked at the Columbia Journalism Review article.

with those Bloomberg reporters who looked at the podcast world. And one of the hosts of one of these podcasts told the Bloomberg reporters that the way to grab people's attention is to create enemies or boogeymen and then frame yourself and your friends as heroes.

That that is the dramaturgical twist that these shows use. There are enemies and there are heroes. We're the heroes, they're the enemies. That shouldn't be beyond the wit of Democrats. And, you know, they also, a further observation one of those reporters made was on these bro podcasts, and they are bro. This is very much about young men.

Columbia journalist person said, you know, why the conservative guests, you know, have more to say and do better than Dems? What's the difference? And the reporter said, I think the question is, can they hang? The Democratic Party can no longer hang. I guess hang means hang out with.

Can the Democrats learn to hang? Can they connect with the bros? So, Jack, that's what the Democrats can be doing. One of the things they can be doing. Tell me a bit about what the Republicans are doing that you think could actually help the Democrats. Well, yeah, the Democrats could do near term accountability that way with, you know, a shadow cabinet. The Republicans, again,

There seems to be, well, something's happening in the polls just now, the Wall Street Journal poll just out. Sixty percent of Americans are against these purges that are going on in government, even though they want reform in government. And I must say, 60 percent do want to end the Department of Education.

But what the public seems to be wanting, and even Republicans want, seems to be what the Journal calls "mega-light." They quote one Trumper saying, "He's doing 80 miles an hour. I wouldn't mind if he went around 55." And they quote several voters who have buyers remorse.

One woman said, "When he said safe borders, I thought he meant stopping drugs. I didn't know he was going to start raiding places. Now I'm like, dang, why didn't I just pick Kamala?" Signs in the wind, moments. Look at what's happening with Musk. Right after the election, Republicans were asked, "Do you want Musk to have a lot of influence on the Trump administration?"

or a little, and he's essentially lost about 20 points since then. And Hart Research has done a study of what happens when you prime voters, when you say, "What do you think of Elon Musk?" And they come up, "Well, I think he's okay. He's doing a good job." And then we prime them and say, "Well, he's doing this. What do you think of that? And he's doing the other, and he's rating this, and he's looking at your tax returns."

And they found that just that kind of informed poll cost Musk a 10-point dip there. In the Quinnipiac poll that I mentioned that showed how powerless the Democrats were doing, it shows every Trump position from trade to Ukraine, Russia, to, you know, Musk raiders to whatever it is, is underwater.

Trump himself is underwater. If you look at the 538 graph, it shows approval going down. That's the trend. Disapproval going up. That's where Trump is. So there are signs that there's a political opening that Trump, even in the first month of his administration, is overreaching. But beyond that, there is what's happening in the House.

And the best way to put that is quoting the AP earlier this week. Republicans are weighing billions of dollars of cuts to Medicaid.

threatening health coverage for some 80 million U.S. adults and children enrolled in the safety net program. And they go on, Republicans are looking to slash federal spending in order to offer lucrative tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy, that's quoting the AP, now see a big ripe target for trimming in Medicaid.

but the target might be on their own backs. Steve Bannon reacted to this by saying, "A lot of MAGA is on Medicaid. Don't mess with it. Don't fool around with it. You're going to get in deep trouble."

And President Trump reacted to this by saying, oh, no, we're not going to touch Medicaid. And then the question is, how are you going to pay for the tax cuts to the rich and corporations unless you cut the budget? And he said, oh, no, no, our tariffs will take care of that. Because tariffs don't exist at the moment. And that, of course, have their own benefits.

universe of troubles and counter indications connected to them. So it showed you how neuralgic he is about this idea of cutting Medicaid. There is a precedent for what happens when the GOP gets its hands on Medicaid. In 1994, as we remember, contract with America, the GOP won the house for the first time since

I think 1954, huge. Newt Gingrich became the speaker. And things were going great, and Bill Clinton was sinking like a rock. Clintoncare had failed. The public had lost confidence in him. He was heading for defeat in 1996, people said. Then what happened? Well, he got off the map. And what got him there?

Gingrich and company proposed steep cuts to entitlements, to some to Medicare, as I remember, which was even more dangerous, but far more to Medicaid, which would be bad enough. You know, we're going to cut these. But it was coupled with tax cuts predominantly to the wealthy. So Bill Clinton could say, wait a minute.

These people want to cut your benefits to transfer your, you know, what was going to you to them. They want to raid you to pay their campaign contributors.

putting his finger right on the class resentments of America, which Americans, which are never, they're dormant sometimes, but they're powerful. And it, you know, a sort of populist moment for the Democrats. What happened? The Republican Congress lost popularity. Bill Clinton gained popularity. He was reelected easily in 1996. That's the opening the Republicans are giving, may give the Democrats now.

It was tested 30 years ago. Maybe nothing works anymore in American politics, but I wouldn't be sure of that. And, you know, of course, by 2026, the price of milk is going to be all Donald Trump's.

Yeah, and people can't find eggs. Jack, I want to ask you a bit for some more historical context here, because, I mean, just yesterday, I believe it was reported that the Trump White House is...

eyeing an 8% cut to the defense budget, for instance, their justification for, you know, what they're doing at the federal agencies like Department of Education and USAID is we're saving Americans money. We're protecting your tax dollars. We're finding the waste in making these cuts. In the context of cuts to Medicaid, I mean, these kinds of, you know,

Balancing the budget is often pretty popular. Do you have concerns that Trump's kind of across the board big cuts to the size and spending of the federal government will be more popular than one particular cut to Medicaid?

I don't think so. Well, and of course, what are the initial findings? I mentioned that Wall Street Journal poll. They found general support for the idea of significant changes to our government. Changes. But 60% of people were against these purges. And, you know, we haven't yet had an epidemic of tooth decay.

The measles haven't, you know, it's not yet epidemical and thank God it won't be. But you know, with a crockpot like Kennedy in charge of our healthcare, who knows what's going to happen? We haven't had a test of FEMA, you know, another disaster. And they can't send people on. They did fire people that were handling the nuclear weapons and then they realized, wait a minute, we need these experts for our nuclear weapons.

They are already shooting themselves in the foot and the public is getting it. I did see, though, and maybe this will change with the Pentagon, that that 19-year-old who calls himself his moniker online is, quote, big balls. Big balls is going to the Pentagon so we can all relax. He's bound to find waste, fraud and abuse, you know,

to beat the band and we can all be at ease with that. No, I think these purges are going to hurt in themselves because

We've just begun to hear the repercussions, the starving children abroad, the holes here in the safety nets, even the layoffs here. Those are going to start in some local economies having an effect. The dry cleaner, the coffee shop, people are going to start feeling it.

And I think it's going to I think it's already on the cusp of backfiring. So, no, I think that this is the purge is not going to help them. OK, so looking ahead to when this this question is answered, whether it hurts, you know, the Trump administration or not, that comes up at the end of 2026 in the midterm elections. How do you see that moment?

Yeah, you know, George W. Bush, in 2005, a month or so after he was reelected, he said, you know, he was asked, well, what about all the troubles in Iraq and the no weapons of mass destruction and all this? And he said, look, we had our accountability moment. That was the election. The people decided and we moved on. He didn't want to talk about the failures. Let's look ahead. Well,

2026 is the accountability moment, not just for the Trump administration and not just for the Democratic Party, but for democracy.

You know, Trump is going to do a lot of damage between then and now. In fact, we might even be in a full-scale dictatorship by then. If he neuters the courts or if he overrules them, we will be in a dictatorship. There'll be nothing. So maybe none of these calculations will matter. And who knows whether there'll even be elections. But if there are elections...

It is so clear that that's the only moment that the people who want democracy can speak up. 2026 is the accountability moment for American democracy. And, you know, if we get there intact and the constitutional order hasn't been

you know, riven by Trump, anybody who wants democracy to at least survive in whatever form has to want the Democrats to win the House.

Okay. Well, Jack, you have given us a lot to think about, and this is what we want to hear from you jackpotters this week. So what do you think about Jack's analysis of what the Democrats can do to counter the Trump administration? Would it work? And if not, what do you think they should be doing? So hop on your phones, go to the On Point Vox Pop app and let us know what you think. If you don't already have it, go to the On Point Vox Pop app and let us know what you think.

Got to get it. That's where everybody's chiming in on Jack's points every week. Search On Point Vox Pop in the App Store. We are going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll hear what you thought of the last episode of The Jackpot. We'll be right back.

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The CEO of McDonald's makes over 1,200 times the company's average salaried worker. Why are executives paid so much? Do they deserve it? We all agree on one thing and pretty much one thing only. Big companies pay more. A recent episode from Is Business Broken? from BU Questrom School of Business breaks it down. Follow wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a sneak preview.

And we're back. Last week, Jack looked back at Elon Musk's traumatic childhood as a lens through which to understand his worldview. And of course, we looked at this as Musk seems to be gaining power every day in the Trump administration. So we asked you what you thought of Jack's analysis about the root causes of Elon Musk's worldview and what you think of what his Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE is doing now.

Kevin Pilgrim in Buena Vista, Colorado, says he can personally relate to the kind of childhood Jack described Elon Musk having. He says through therapy and introspection, he was able to find empathy and love in himself and others. I can see how if someone did not find love, did not find empathy within themselves, they could never find it in the world.

And they see the world through the lens of the ugliness of their insides. And they do want to control. And it's fear, fear of loss of control, fear of not seeing empathy in the world. And that is what drives them to this chaos and to this destroying the world. And here's Justin Skrinski in Detroit, Michigan.

One of my favorite axioms is you seek what you lack.

And if you look at what people like Musk and Trump are seeking, it reveals a really unenviable, resentful kind of character. And they're seeking power because they've been powerless. They're seeking aggrandizement because they felt humiliated. And this is a complete capitulation to the ego. You see great statesmen who have sought the betterment of others, and that indicates control of the self. But these people are venal and immediate and vain. Jack, what do you think?

Yeah, I think these are very pertinent and profound even observations. Kevin on childhood, and he speaks from his own experience of pain, and he says that the people like Musk from...

traumatic childhoods, quote, see the world through the ugliness of their insides. What a comment. They see the world through their wounds. So they don't even see the possibility of empathy or love. It's dark in here and it's dark out there and I can't escape empathy.

And so they can't even recognize the signs that there might be another way. There is a French psychiatrist of the 19th century, Charcot, who made this study of traumatized people, and he said they're frozen. They build their life around the injury, and they just freeze. They grow, but they don't develop. They just are frozen in that moment of trauma. And the only way, as Kevin says,

to get out of it is through therapy, through talking about it, through until it loosens its grip. And then, Justin, seek what you lack. Yeah. You know, there's a Harold Laswell, who was a Yale political scientist a couple of generations ago, had this sort of picture of leaders in politics. And he said, leaders try to fix in the world things they can't

fix, ameliorate in their own lives. And he went through examples of how, well, I mean, look at FDR who was severely handicapped and yet the vitality that he wanted everybody to have it seemed was, you know, he was sort of solving that for the, that he couldn't solve for himself for the nation.

Laswell Sartre and de Gaulle and other people. Anyway, that idea that they're seeking to remedy what's in themselves by fixing the world, I think it also works, and Justin implies this, in a negative way.

They're seeking to create a world they can live in harmony with. The darkness inside finding a darkness in the world. And other people suffering, rather than making them compassionate, it makes them think, well, I'm at home in a world of suffering and pain. And I've made that world, or as far as I can, to be just as bad outside as I am inside.

And I think to assume that others lack the empathy, the compassion that they lack. And I also just want to say to Kevin, I'm always so grateful for our jackpotters who share so openly about their personal lives and backgrounds. And we really, really appreciate that. So moving on to a couple of reasons.

of regular jackpot contributors. I don't want them to think we forgot about them as we've gotten so many awesome new voices lately contributing. Howard Turner, the man with the view from Elkhart, Indiana, left a message saying he does not think it has to be either nature or nurture when it comes to musk.

The cruelty Elon endured as a child taught him how to use cruelty to get his way. For Elon, the nature part gave him the idea that he was better, smarter, more important. While the nurture part taught him the cruelty and how to use it. All Elon is doing is getting rid of the investigators of him while he learns how to take more of our taxpayers' money. It's kind of simple. He is an evil, cruel person.

that is wired to think he's better than everybody else and taught how to use that to his advantage. Unfortunately, we suffer because of this narcissistic idiot. And Kyle Joyner from Helena, Montana, says he's talked to many friends in civil service who say Doge is causing anxiety and anger among workers.

As you noted in a few previous shows ago, cruelty is the point.

But any administration, any person who seeks to make cruelty into a virtue is not one that's worth following. And I wonder what damage Doge will do to the country, to the people who might want to go into civil service and want to pursue service generally. Jack, what do you think the broader impact on the civil service is?

Oh, I think it's going to be devastating. Would you, you know, can you imagine thinking, well, I want a career in government. I mean, come on. The only people that would want such a career would be the kind of people we wouldn't want in government. That is to say, under the Trump spell. No, Kyle is absolutely right. This is going to devastate the people we depend upon for, you know, safety of our food, the airline, everything.

And somehow... I mean, the outcry just this week about the firing of National Park Service workers. Oh, my gosh. Smoking the beer. Yes. Okay, Jack. We got an interesting message from someone with a very different perspective on Elon Musk than what we've heard so far today. Alex is from Portland, Oregon, and he now lives in Japan.

I think there's danger to the mass media fomenting so much hate for Tesla and SpaceX, which are really the best companies at what they do in the whole world and should be a source of pride for Americans by demonizing Elon Musk and the only American car company that's globally recognized, the only company that can launch 100 rockets a year, SpaceX. And yet the

The Democrats seem to want to demonize them and turn them into the enemy rather than celebrating successes. Okay, so Alex added that Tesla drivers are facing harassment and vandalism because of this, what he calls the vilification of Musk. So Jack, I'd love to hear what you think about that. Well, nobody can be in favor of that, that's for sure. But doesn't Musk deserve criticism? Leave out, say, well, yes, Tesla is fine, SpaceX is fine. Although, as I pointed out,

They are bruising employers. They're tough companies to work for. And there are lots of injured workers whose injuries testify to the Musk drive for perfection. And he seems to have found it. I know someone who owns a Tesla, and they say, you just can't believe how great the car is. So all credit to him for that.

But, you know, something's happening. In Europe, sales of Tesla have just fallen through the floor. And probably we're going to find the same thing here. People are voting with their feet. Okay. Conor Jacob left us a message from Los Angeles. He says he agrees with Jack about the dangerous moment we're in and that the people around the president are ready to impose order on the chaos Trump creates. But

But he thinks Doge is just the opening salvo. In a month's time, congressional Democrats will be in the terrible position of deciding whether or not to fund Trump's activities. If they do not fund the government, they are asking Trump to find his own way, which is why he loves tariffs so much. Only a few importers pay them, so they are easy to manage.

Budget reconciliation is the door to authoritarianism. And you'll notice that Trump's orders to his agency heads ask them to make recommendations on how to expand executive power, like by invoking the Insurrection Act, at the same time as Democrats will be negotiating in an extended shutdown. Jack, this was interesting because he's basically saying that the bargaining chips the minority party often has may not be on the table for Democrats in the Trump era.

Gee, that's so shrewd. And Trump, you know, has brought out tariffs. I mean, just the other day, he said, we're not going to do cuts. We're going to do tariffs. The tariffs will take care of the lost revenue for the tax cuts. And, oh, yeah, if he has, if the tariff can be a source of revenue apart from the Democrats. And, of course, if the Democrats are asked about this and they say, look, we're not going to stop tariffs.

defund Congress. It's their government. If two Republicans, is it two or is it three, vote against their budget, don't blame us. Blame them, even though all 215 of them will vote against it. It's going to be a perilous moment for them. And I think, oh, I really think Conor sets it up so well. If that reconciliation bill

passes the one big, beautiful bill, Trump calls it, and he gets his tariffs. Of course, he doesn't even need those for his tariffs, but he's got those in his pocket so that even if the Democrats scupper revenue, he can keep the government going with the tariff money. Except the tariffs, all of that remains to be seen. And of course, you have to deduct from what he's going to get from the tariffs

with what he's going to lose, with what Americans are going to lose in terms of their jobs as foreign countries retaliate, and in terms of higher inflation, to end which was one of Trump's, the source of Trump's victory. So the tariff is a two-edged sword for him. For sure. And Jack, okay, lastly for the week, one more. Audrey Serrico in Bologna, Italy. We got two countries outside the U.S. represented this week.

She wonders if it's fair to think of this current political moment as a wake-up moment when stability is overwhelmed by unpredictability. Is the change in politics, economics, the social consensus, and so on, is a little bit like a climate change? And we lived with a kind of...

fertile land and generous seasons and so on for so long that we're here kind of dull-witted to notice that stability is what allowed us to be so well off? And do we have any idea what it means to be unreliable, to live in a nation that is unpredictable?

Jack. And Audrey, the view from Europe, and think of what Europeans have experienced. Just in the last week, they were...

You know, the vice president went to Germany, chastised Europe for censoring right-wing figures, and then met with the neo-Nazi, the leader of a neo-Nazi party, spurning the elected chancellor of Germany. I mean, that... And then the photograph of Marco Rubio around the table with Sergei Lavrov, a war criminal!

Trump has really gone over to the Russian side. It's terrible to realize that our president is working for their interests, not for ours. You talk about instability.

Jack, I fear on that note, we have not, we have failed to end on a positive note of American optimism as Meghna would have hoped for us. But I do thank you as always anyway. Thank you very much. Just to note that the Jackpod will be taking a break next week, but Meghna and Jack will be back in your earbuds the first week of March. I'm Dori Scheimer. This is the Jackpod from On Point.

Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from Boston University Questrom School of Business. A recent episode offers a primer on executive compensation. Listen on for a preview. Here's BU Questrom professor Charlie Tharp. The whole basis of executive compensation is really the idea of what's called agency theory. Shareholders don't manage the company. They can't observe what executives do every day.

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