How Healthy Is U.S. Democracy One Year After Jan. 6? l FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast

In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, it seemed like Republican leaders might be ready to break ties with then-President Trump once and for all. But a year later, Trump still appears to be the de facto leader of the party. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses why the country responded to the attack the way it did and how healthy America's democracy is today.
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[@dannypockets]

Haha so Nate isn't even pretending that he's not getting blazed before the show?

[@WeatherManToBe]

Ikr, tbh why even have him on?

[@IanZainea1990]

Had someone opened fire and killed a dozen people, had a congressperson been taken hostage and/or killed, had the Capitol been set ablaze, had police been taken hostage... I think things would be viewed differently. Heck, I think if the footage of the officer who was getting crushed in the tunnel doorway been played over and over again people would view it differently. I mean, we can look at Vietnam vs Afghanistan. Vietnam they constantly showed the human cost of war. They printed photos of dead bodies, they talked about it. Media doesn't do that anymore. Most coverage of Jan 6 was wide shots of the crowd, or wide shots of people walking, etc. They hardly ever played the most gruesome and hard hitting stuff. And there's part of your problem as to why it is seen as "just a thing that happened"

[@TheDilettante]

Honest Feedback: Nate can sometimes take over the conversation in the podcast and sway the opinions, which is natural but he should be mindful of. Other Honest Feedback: A filler episode with Nate and Galen talking about food, consumer rating systems, and hacks would be AWESOME!!!

[@samkart8646]

They were content to talk about yelp reviews, and I was content hearing it.

[@SYLXM]

I saw the title and thought to myself "Well, we'll have to get there first." I was a bit shocked a few moments later. Feels like Biden took office yesterday.

[@alabamaman1684]

I'm pretty right wing but 538 isn't the worst podcast going around... they seem very progressive but they're measured in their analysis and they do good work.

[@kungfreddie]

Measured? Are u insane??? They call jan 6 a real insurrection... its like they have never seen the afa pictures over 100 days. Or the pictures from. Inside jan 6 when ppl just walked around and took pictures with the police.... yea that's some insurrection... these ppl are idiots.

[@alabamaman1684]

@@kungfreddie I don't think they called it a real insurrection bruh... you can tell they think it's way more than it is but they kept a lid on it for the most part. You're allowed to think something in America, even if it's wrong.... and for a bunch of progressives they're pretty measured.

[@kungfreddie]

@@alabamaman1684 anyone even calling jan 6 an insurrection has totally lost it... did they call trumps inauguration an insurrection? No.. why not? It was much more violence then.. except the police didn't shoot a totally defenseless and unarmed woman through a window... imagine if that woman was AFA, black and it was trumps reelection. U think that cop would just get off... fuck they put a cop away for murder bcoz a junkie took an OD. I'm swedish and a heroin addict, swedish police would have acted the EXACT same way. And would have done nothing wrong. Ur whole country is fucked. U better of giving 13% of it to blk ppl and let them govern themself... good luck, would b Guatemala in 2 yrs.

[@buckyharris9465]

Kaleigh Rogers is great! Very smart, very articulate! I hope to see her in more 538 videos.

[@atreana]

kaleigh's cat appearing out of nowhere is pure gold.

[@Choochificational]

the near miss comment is spot on, im beginning to harden o the belief that worst thing about 1/6 is it wasnt allowed to be successful; now people can point to it as THE lowpoint for the Trump Era instead of a portent for (worse i fear) things to come. If theres one thing humanity is good at is ignoring things that make us uncomfortable as long as they arent actively dangerous, it doesnt bode well.

[@waltergribble1507]

I’ve seen a lot of posturing around the, “we are a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy”. To me that seems like posturing to justify eroding our democratic norms.

[@brucebrown2720]

One of the things I disliked the first poll us that there were three choices, and two of the three were reported as alarmist. If "a little concerned" and "don'k know" were included, the first poll would have been better.

[@charlese.5438]

Brunch...so 1982. Back in the day The Patio Cafe was the place for brunch in S.F. Primarily due to low priced Mimosas.

[@mgeherman]

I want to know Kaylee's cat opinion on the insurrection!

[@timkoch5039]

Happy new year from Germany everybody. It's amazing how much of a campfire this podcast has become these past five years.

[@IanZainea1990]

Dude in the second half interview could be played by Connor Trinnear in the movie version of this interview, haha.

[@Ohhelmno]

I think perhaps the fact that democrats made voting so easy for 2020 bit them a bit here. If Trump hadn’t gotten the sheer number of votes he got, I think we would’ve absolutely seen the republicans cut him loose. But because he got like 10 million more votes than any republican presidential nominee ever has they’re hard pressed to let someone that successful leave when they’re struggling so much with voters in other places.

[@jiayangshao4736]

12 million votes, and the biggest for sitting president. remember trump polling is higher than biden now

[@koehl405]

Democracy is in big trouble!

[@buckyharris9465]

Although the participants in this video noted that "democracy" is an abstract concept that means different things to different people, they didn't address the possibility that democracy could take a very different form from what we're used to seeing, while remaining "democratic." The case in point is ancient Athens, birthplace of democracy, which had government without elections. Public office was assigned by lottery; government jobs paid a small salary; terms were limited to a single year; and after you served once you weren't eligible again. Only one political office was subject to election: the strategos, supreme commander of the military, who still had to follow the will of the citizenry as expressed in the public assembly. Otherwise the Athenians believed that all citizens were capable of fulfilling all roles in government, and they regarded any system that WASN'T based on a lottery as undemocratic. If an Athenian from 450 BC could-time travel to contemporary America and analyze our political organization, that visitor would not hesitate to call our system an entrenched oligarchy. In the Greek political lexicon, oligarchy was just one step above tyranny and two steps above anarchy.

[@chrisrecord5625]

During an Athenian election, approximately one hundred officials out of a thousand were elected rather than chosen by lot. There were two main categories in this group: those required to handle large sums of money, and the 10 generals, the strategoi. One reason that financial officials were elected was that any money embezzled could be recovered from their estates; election in general strongly favored the rich, but in this case, wealth was virtually a prerequisite.

[@buckyharris9465]

@@chrisrecord5625 -- Thanks for clarifying -- I was relying on memory when I wrote that post -- I couldn't find the source I'd read that gave concrete numbers.

[@ecka1014]

i was busy as hell at work that day. i said oh wow and then went back to work. For alot of america that jan 6. and they file this under poltical BS

[@BlarghenSnargle]

Regarding the reviews, I think Nate is largely right that brunch reviewers can be very mediocre at it. Even in the brunchiest foodie city, Vancouver, the brunch reviews are always questionable. It's almost always a correlation with the hipness of the place than anything related to food quality. There are many dubious reviewer demographics though. See: white people reviewing Dim Sum.

[@travishartzler9155]

"Hopefully won't see again"? It won't happen that way next time. The Republican controlled House will just select the Republican candidate regardless of the actual electoral votes.

[@ChrisCapoccia]

lol on playing nate. keeps the stakes low. that's my advice

[@chrisgoetz544]

I really like 538, I do. But I wish the show wasn't so slanted towards the left. Nate is usually the most centrist, Galen works really hard to not play favorites, but the rest is usually heavy left. And it's not even a manner of just being truthfully and siding with facts. Much of it has to do with how statements are framed. "Do you support stabbing fetuses to death?" Can be a factually correct question.But it clearly slanted as anti abortion, right? I just want to see nor diversity of opinions and not just New Yorkers.Saagar Enjetti maybe?

[@stargobo]

Seems moderate to me. The current political landscape isn't two equal points of view- the republicans have gone full on conspiracy bonkers and there isn't much nuance to be had.

[@WeatherStationZ41]

Same response as Daniel. They are not "heavy left", actual "heavy left" from innumerable outlets even on KZbin can be easily juxtaposed with this. Furthermore, while I like Saagar Enjeti he to my knowledge has no background in polling or journalism. He is an opinion talk show host. I wouldn't want him on here in the same way I wouldn't want Krystal Ball on this show. A better suggestion maybe would be someone like Frank Luntz, but this program more often than not features a younger cast which, both inherently and due to 21st century socioeconomic factors, lean left.

[@jjbode1]

Scary.

[@brucebrown2720]

That and every time I see Nate in a hat, I think he looks like Dan LeBetard.

[@tylerhackner9731]

Not healthy

[@kevinwoolley7960]

Will there be a similar episode exploring the decline in civility and respect for the law in relation to the much larger and more destructive BLM riots of 2020?

[@kevinwoolley7960]

And will there be an episode comparing January 6th to the urban riots that followed Trump's election in 2016?

[@VictorAntares]

What can be done to save this union?

[@push648]

Give more power to local government so there is less power at the federal level to fight over.

[@theEvilLord90]

@@push648 local governments are gerrymandered to death. It’s not even the actual representation of real Americans but select pockets

[@Semelem]

Nothing legal; the system has built itself to be impenetrable.

[@push648]

@@theEvilLord90 there are state wide races thou that are not and the solution is to fix that instead of giving more power to the fed.

[@alabamaman1684]

The union is fine. This is just a hyper partisan time in America... something will come along to unify us and we'll be back to business as usual (for better or for worse)

[@stevencaruso825]

"We were not a democracy until we franchised all of our citizens." Then we're still not a Democracy. Citizens currently serving a prison sentence aren't franchised. In many states, citizens who have finished serving a felony prison sentence aren't franchised. In all states, all citizens below 18 are not franchised.

[@Executioner9000]

I agree with most of this, but children should not be voting. Should a 5-year old be voting for president? There has to be a minimum age of adulthood, and 18 seems pretty good.

[@mopar_dude9227]

@@Executioner9000 it should be raised to 21, young people today are too stupid to vote. They have no idea what is going on in the world, let alone the US. Most of them vote for Democrats because the liberal education system has brainwashed them when asked about policies, they can’t tell you who’s policies are who’s. The only exception is for those that go into the military.

[@Executioner9000]

@@mopar_dude9227 I'm sorry an education exposes people to new ideas. But I can't agree on education as a sole reason to restrict voting.

[@kateokeeffe9720]

You lose me, when you compare to 9/11.

[@JM-fh2em]

The lighting for Alex was bad.

[@Mrs.Doubtfire007]

THAT ALEX SAMUELS IS NOTHING BUT A RACIST KUNT 🏃🏾‍♀️🦧🦍!!!

[@cwidd1929]

If Nate is on the panel, just skip it.

[@hellohello4438]

This is just propaganda