Welcome to Party Politics.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor, also here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for coming hanging out with us, talking some politics because it's been a pretty interesting week.

We've got Taylor Swift, we've got Dan Patrick, we've got maybe a raise for teachers like a lot of things swirling.

around.

A winning combination, I think Taylor Swift.

Right?

I can see that.

Yeah.

Like maybe, you know, governor or Lieutenant governor.

I don't know.

Who knows?

Right.

Well, let's talk about it, because I know you're a closet swifty.

I know.

Oh, no, I'm online, like, recharge.

Recharge, like waiting for your tickets.

I'm open openly for Taylor Swift.

I mean, I think she's very talented.

I think her music and good.

No, that's good.

Because you're not alone.

Obviously, a lot of people do.

Yes, but almost too many because Ticketmaster got in some trouble right this week.

Actually, it was reported that Ticketmaster had to cancel a sale for the tour that was producing, you know, millions of hits on their website.

This became a major problem and the Senate decided to call the Ticketmaster head in to testify about what went wrong.

Fans were stuck in line for hours in these virtual queues.

Even Taylor Swift herself came out and said, This is totally unfair.

Ticketmaster apologized guys for this, but it didn't mean that you weren't going to see some political points scored off of them.

I assume that you've got lots of staffers who've made playlists of Taylor Swift songs for their bosses, who are 70 to 85 years old and have never heard of Taylor Swift.

But this was an interesting hearing, and I actually think that independent of like what happened that moment, I think that it's a time where you're going to see a lot more young people get engaged in politics like they're at the point now where it's not like you know, they're ten years, 12 years old anymore.

Like they're growing up and they're seeing that they can move the needle politically if they invest.

So if that was going to happen here.

Well, I think so.

I mean, first of all, I think that Live Nation and Ticketmaster just bought one of the roles in Monopoly.

So they're going to, you know, do that.

And they're going to keep building houses.

They can sell your house.

They bankrupt.

All exactly.

And then no jail free card or anything like that.

But I think it's interesting because we can see that when young people are involved, they can immediately thread the needle.

Why?

Because once again, this is demographic growth.

And if they tend to participate more, participating more in terms of, you know, digital participation.

But once that is translated into actual votes, then politicians start to pay attention.

Yeah, I think it's the number and how the population pyramid is composed.

Yeah, that means that, you know, they're growing, growing and growing and their political influence is going to grow exponentially as well.

Your population pyramid is going to be the term of the week, right?

Know.

Well, not yet.

I have.

You have more.

Oh yeah.

Okay, do.

That's your brand, though.

I know that's true.

I'm actually too.

I thought that is interesting that polling came out this week in Texas that suggested that there are a lot of people who are dissatisfied with democracy.

Polling suggested that 60% of Texans agreed that democracy is the best form of government, which is a 14 point drop since 2019.

That's a little bit scary among political independents.

Their belief that democracy is the best form of government plummeted from 89% in 2019 to 45% when the poll was taken.

So this is pretty dramatic, and I think it suggests that there are people who don't think the government matters.

It doesn't work for them.

And this is a great example of how like, you know, it's a regulated industry and yet somehow you're still like in this virtual line forever to try to get tickets to Taylor Swift.

So, you know, this is something I think that people can see effectiveness in government.

So maybe Taylor Swift will unite Washington after all that way.

So, yeah, we'll have to see.

But speaking of online presence this week, Donald Trump is back in the news META has announced that they're going to reinstate Donald Trump.

That means basically Facebook and Instagram can look forward to all kinds of rants and misspellings.

And so.

Right, it's back.

What does this mean for politics for Donald Trump and generally speaking, kind of what happens in 2024?

Well, this is about money, right?

I think that, you know, the campaign funding mechanism of Trump never stopped.

They were not banned from Facebook or Instagram or anything like that.

They keep, you know, getting a lot of money.

Yeah.

So just to give you an idea, in 2020, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Trump raised around $378 million.

Right.

Who gave less than $200 during the 2020.

And that's about 49% of what he he got.

Wow.

Even though that we don't have, you know, the exact amount of money that he has raised through Facebook or Instagram.

Yeah.

A lot of people suggest that it is a pretty huge amount.

So starting 2024, he already started campaigning in some of the early primary states, not with the huge crowds that we were used to.

But, you know, these funding is going to be very, very important.

Most of all, 46% of GOP donors are on Facebook every single day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think too, I mean, the money is certainly important and definitely for his kind of coffers, he's got to have that, although he gets so much free media, like, you know, you even have to pay for it to get it.

But I think you're exactly right.

This is really the model that he uses to be able to raise a ton of money.

But I think also the implications are severe in terms of like just the toxicity of social media.

I don't know if this is, you know, part of your daily life, but like it's pretty nasty out there, right?

I think that people probably know exactly what we're talking about where, you know, the arguments have become much more angry and.

Right.

The thing is that the scholarship on this shows that in the immediate aftermath of some Trump tweets where he's toxic online or he makes threats, the level of toxicity in social media goes up.

And so the scholarship on this is pretty interesting.

In fact, we know, too, that misinformation spreads really fast on social media.

You and I have done work on this in especially the Latino community.

And so we know that this is something that's pernicious.

Right.

So there are obviously potential problems going forward.

Now, Meta has said that they're going to have a much more restrained kind of atmosphere.

They're going to restrict his ability to run ads and should he kind of violate the policies in the future.

And we know this works to actually a scholarship suggests that that basically a warning message to potential, you know, violator is useful in terms of dialing back some of that hateful language, at least in the short term.

So it's possible that would work.

But again, Donald Trump's going to Donald Trump.

And so it's going to be hard to kind of slow that train once you let it go.

So we'll see how that plays out.

But actually, there's more bad news for Donald Trump.

That is this week that the Manhattan district attorney has announced that they are presenting evidence to the grand jury about Donald Trump's role in paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign.

This actually has laid the groundwork for potential criminal charges.

And so obviously this is problematic for him.

David Pecker, not a joke, is a former National Enquirer editor and is one of the people who is going to be interviewed for this.

So obviously, conviction is not assured here and that's just an evidence, the grand jury.

But what do you think about this happening at this moment?

I mean, we're basically of a month plus beyond when the president former president announced he's going to run for president again.

All kinds of people are now kind of trying to figure out what that vacuum looks like, what's going to happen in 2024 for Donald Trump?

Well, I don't know.

I mean, it's completely unpredictable, right?

Because to these new New York City case, we have to add Georgia, we have Mar a Lago and we have to add that there were some other suits suing the Trump Organization, etc., etc.. Now he's suing Bob Woodward right now for releasing those interviews.

So we don't have all day to cap like every single lawsuit.

Exactly.

But you're right.

So I guess, you know, he can use these things.

Remember, Trump is not talking necessarily to the country.

He's talking to a very specific chunk of the Republican Party and to a very particular constituency.

So these issues.

Right.

Can be flipped in one nanosecond.

Right.

And just say, you know, it's a witch hunt.

I didn't do that.

She just wants money, she wants fame, etc., etc., and use that as his advantage.

Right.

And, you know, we know that he's very good at doing that.

He did that in 2016 with all the other investigations regarding, you know, groping of woman.

The issue regarding the balls, what was that?

Yeah, Access Hollywood tape, etc., etc..

He flip it and he make it right as a Clinton issue.

Yeah.

So he can do that very easily.

But again, you have Michael Cohen, right?

That apparently was the one delivering the money.

Who has to flip for them to get the conviction?

Exactly.

So, I mean, okay, there's something I see.

Is there a case to be made that Donald Trump is like the most successful politician in American history?

I mean, I'm only half joking because given what he's weathered and the kind of candidate that he's been, nobody would have given him credit for absolutely none.

Yet he survives every time.

I mean, whether her winning it or not, you know, we can't know.

But wow.

Right.

Like, that's an impressive record of getting out of these things.

So beyond maybe Bill.

Clinton, right.

Who had lots of problems getting elected.

Right.

This might be in that category.

And part of the reason is that polling this week came out that suggested that 34% like a fully you know, one third of the Republican Party would follow Donald Trump to a new third party.

So he has got a hold on a very specific segment of.

Exactly.

That's probably enough to get a nomination.

Now, I don't think it's enough to win a general presidential election.

That's a very different kind of animal.

But in terms of winning the nomination, that's a very healthy amount of Republican potential voters.

The problem, though, is going to be, of course, for him that the race is on.

Right.

With all due respect to George Jones, not that it has ever not been on, but basically you've got Will Hurd, who going to be in New Hampshire.

You've got Nikki Haley who's making moves.

You've got Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, who's talking about running and so there are a lot of people who are going to be in this mix.

And although Trump's got this kind of lock on this third of the electorate and the Republican side.

It's not a clear, high hold.

It thrives when there is, you know, 14, 15 people.

And in 2016, he got rid of every single candidate one by one.

Yep.

Which is.

And then turn them into his allies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a really good point.

Yeah.

I like the picture of with Mitt Romney, right.

Where they had like dinner after the election.

Right.

I mean, he's got that look on his face like, you know, record scratch, you know?

How did I get here?

Yeah, yeah, you're totally right.

So we'll keep an eye on these things.

But obviously, you know, Donald Trump still continues to make news, but 2024 is making news in Texas because it was announced this week that Houston will not host the DNC convention in 2024.

Should we read anything into this politically?

Well, I don't think so.

I mean, Houston has not hosted the DNC since 1928.

So, yeah, I mean, true.

It has been a while.

It's been a little while.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's good.

There was no air conditioning in 1928.

Can you imagine what Houston would.

Look like in the summer?

In the summer?

Oh, yeah.

You know where I mean, like, I'm trying to think of a historic place.

Actually, I know this because if you come to my office, I'll show you the I've got one.

Actually, one of our colleagues gave me a program from that.

Oh, it's a I think it's like a Sam Houston Coliseum.

It's a place it doesn't exist anymore.

Oh, yeah, it would definitely this.

Would have been the humid and hot.

Absolutely pretty.

Nasty.

Yeah.

Now 92 hosted the RNC convention because that's what I did.

Exactly.

But that's definitely been a long time, too.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm like you.

I mean, I don't think that this means that the sort of party is writing Houston off, but it's obvious that they don't think that Texas is probably a winner for them.

Yeah, and I don't think it's like a banner headline that's, you know, Houston, Texas, not a battleground, but that's the subtext here, it seems to me.

Right.

And I don't know that it's that wrong.

I mean, Texas has not been in play in a significant way.

Right.

The the kind of state party and candidates have over promised and under-delivered.

Yeah.

The Republicans have won like 140 straight statewide elections.

I'm not joking.

Like, that's a real.

Divide, right?

Right.

I just think that at some point the DNC is going to say we want to go to a place it's going to pay off.

And actually, we know too that academically, like the scholarship suggests that when there is a convention in a city, that city does show like a bump for the right candidate of the party.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, part of the issue is, I mean, yes, you're 100% right.

Yeah.

But again, if you want to win, you have to start investing, right?

Yeah.

And I think that the Democrats, as you say, they always shoot for the stars, but they always under, you know, return or whatever it is.

And the problem with that is, is very simple, right?

That at the end is they're not putting enough resources to make this a competitive race because you have the numbers, you have the demographics, you have the composition of the electorate.

And they're not investing.

So it's something that, you know, I from a political science perspective, I truly do not understand why you're not developing that market right at the very, very beginning.

It's a good point.

Yeah.

And honestly, if they're going to pick a place that's like emerging as a democratic place, you'd pick like maybe New Mexico, you know, possibly Arizona trying to plant the flag.

Vegas right now, Vegas is always fun anyway.

Yeah, I like.

I think we should go.

Maybe we should go?

Oh, yeah!

And scout it?

Just go to the convention.

Okay.

I think we ought to.

Yeah, well, the other contenders here, in case you're wondering, are New York, Atlanta, Chicago.

Those are all the finalists.

And, you know, these are all very blue cities, as most cities are.

But, you know, George is not a bad choice because Georgia is one of those states is kind of teetering between red and blue, very purple.

I think that Texas will be like Georgia in the next decade.

But like you say, it's going to take some investment.

And so far we haven't really had that maybe part of the reason is that things are not going so well in Texas, especially in some specific things like the social safety net of the foster care system.

This has been an ongoing problem.

We've hinted at it a couple of different times, but we can drill in on it here because this week the federal judge is threatening again to hold the state's child welfare agency in contempt of court for failing to comply with at least three of her orders.

This is a an ongoing saga, not just of this week or these orders, but like for years and years, the sort of action from the judge follows a report that was released by court monitors following this lawsuit that found basically some improvements to the foster care system, but that there are still serious risks to Texas's children who are in this in these situations.

So, I mean, politically, is this going to matter?

I mean, like I said, this has been on the radar for the state for a long time.

It doesn't seem to politically hurt any Republicans, especially Greg Abbott, who's more responsible for this.

Is it just something people forget about ignore or is it just kind of feds versus Texas and, you know, go Texas?

I mean, this has been going on since 2011.

Yeah, right.

2011.

Yeah.

And somehow were not able to fix the problem.

So the judge warned that the state can be held in contempt and they're going to charge them a hefty fee per day.

Yeah.

And the issues here are, you know, very, very, very important issues that every one should be worried about its youth not knowing the rights.

Yes, not responding to abuse allegations and still having too many children without place.

Yes.

So how?

I mean, it's it's mind boggling that we cannot fix a problem.

And again, these are kids on their, you know, little kids right.

Under 18 that do not have someone to take care.

Of the protection of.

Somebody.

And now the friend or tutor or whatever it is.

Right.

They have the protection of the state and the state is failing.

I mean, period is very clear.

So once again, these must be one of the legislative priorities of the governor.

Yeah.

Lieutenant governor and of the Speaker of the House.

It's a great point and they should fix it.

But unfortunately, it is not on the radar.

Right?

Like let's fix the border.

Yeah, fine.

Get started on the border or.

An insane amount of money to the border.

Really do these things right.

Know and just amplify that.

I mean, the report suggested that since 2019 47 children have died while my chair of Texas foster care system.

It's insane.

No, it's crazy.

And I think that you're right that like this is a moment where you can fix this.

And it's the problem is that we actually talked about this weeks ago where the budget is being written, constructed.

There's a huge surplus.

So the states got a lot more money to spend because people are borrowing.

The budget naturally is growing and there's a surplus.

Right.

Which also provides for more money.

But this is not being talked about.

Even Democrats haven't really talked about this enough.

Well, I think not.

No one.

Yeah.

Again, it's like one of those things where it just kind of tends to be ignored politically.

And I think it shouldn't be because it's so critical.

And these kinds of gaps cannot continue giving no numbers.

So no, it's definitely something we'll keep an eye on in terms of how the budgets shape out on that and whether taxes complies.

But part of how they comply will be whether or not the leadership is all excited.

And so this week, it turns out that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has suggested he will absolutely, quote unquote, run in 2026 to 2026, which is interesting because he had prior to that committed when they were running for two terms.

And it made all kinds of disparaging remarks about like career politicians, you know, being in office for too long was troublesome.

So this is pretty interesting to me.

I honestly did not think it would happen.

I mean, Patrick is always somebody who speaks his mind and we can take him at his word when he says something and there ought to be something that you like, but it will be the truth as he sees it.

So I think that's pretty interesting, but that's not all, actually.

I want to get your take on that, but also I want to throw in just a little bit more wood to the fire.

Okay.

He's coming out fighting, right?

A couple of things he said this week suggested that he's going to blame the House if these big priorities for the Republican Party don't get passed.

So that's one thing he picked a fight with Steve Toth, who's a very conservative member of the House from The Woodlands, basically lashing out at him for saying that Patrick was to blame for some of these bills not passing on terms of the transgender medical care questions.

He also picked a fight with a former House member who was a kind of moderate, I suppose, but like in the kind of leadership fold with Speaker Phelan, former Rep Chris Patty, who's now a lobbyist calling out former members or lobbyists, is sort of not done, I think.

But Patrick has really been unhappy about about Patty's former time trying to make some reforms to the grid.

So Patrick comes out swinging.

What do you make of this?

Is he ready for battle?

Is it going to be ugly in the session?

Well, I mean, yes and no, right.

Because people were counting right on Patrick retiring after this term and not running in 26 again.

And the reason for that is we have ambitious politicians that would like to run for the lieutenant governor.

Nobody positions him.

Right.

Career suicide, I mean.

Yes, I mean, yes and no.

Right.

Because what I'm thinking now, it's thinking strategically side you have Patrick he's one of the most smart, careful, cold blooded politicians in the state of.

Texas as a compliment.

You mean all these saying.

Oh, yeah, no, no, no, this is a compliment, right?

I mean, he's a tactician.

Yeah, I and as you said, he rules the Senate with an arm fist.

However, on the other hand, in order to do that, you need a coalition of people that are going to allow you to do X, Y and Z.

Right.

If you have these conservatives that want to move up.

Right, because they just want to move up like normal people would do.

You don't want to be comptroller for years.

Exactly.

So what happens?

Right.

You create a coalition of people that are going to be against you and then blame you for everything that you don't pass.

So they just sit back and do nothing.

Yeah.

Then who's going to be at fault?

Okay, you're going to have a bunch of people that say it's your fault because you didn't push hard enough, right?

I mean, they can have concessions that they know they're not going to pass, right?

Yeah.

Like you sat down the marker knowing you'll never get there.

But and.

I exactly.

You know, and force him out.

Yeah.

It's interesting because actually in working on this book for Rick Perry that I've been doing, one of the things that I found was that people said that in the legislature's past, you would let the kind of policy drive the politics.

Right, whereas in this case, the politics.

Right, exactly.

And so there's been a real sea change in terms of how Texas operates.

That's especially true in the Texas Senate.

Right.

You know, the Texas Senate went from a model where it was like let the Senate work its will to do what I tell you to do.

Exactly.

And partly because Patrick kind of changed the rules, I think because he's in the mix politically picking members of the Senate.

Right.

Endorsing people in primaries.

Right.

Getting rid of moderates like hell.

Seliger, he didn't like.

So that's definitely something I think that's been pretty important.

I mean, Patrick has gone from being a burr under the saddle to being the most influential leader in the state's history.

So that's pretty impressive.

I think that the fact that he's picking these public fights means that he's ready for battle and actually to maintain just that he wouldn't run again.

He's like, this is the last stand.

We're going to make this go.

But I think he also probably looks down the leadership train and says, I'm not sure there's anybody who's as big a fighter as me.

I mean, can you pick somebody who like would be, you know, that fighter who has a statewide presence now?

I don't think so.

I mean, there are people like that.

Yes.

But I'm not sure they're going to be.

But he he was he he did not have when he ran first time a national a state level presence.

I mean, to the contrary.

Right.

No one knew who Dan Patrick was.

But then again, winning a Republican primary, you know, you're better off kind of, as we said earlier, kind of tailored to that.

But I think there's there's people, right.

That, you know, could do as good as a job in terms of pursuing that particular agenda in in in the Senate.

No.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I mean, there are definitely people out there who could make that case.

But I mean, he's been he's revolutionized the position of lieutenant governor.

Oh, absolutely.

Can other people harness that?

I think so.

Yeah.

Good question.

Well, the last thing that is kind of interest this week was that the Republicans and Democrats have, I think, tentatively agreed on a pay raise for teachers.

This became news because obviously teachers in Texas are woefully overworked and terribly underpaid.

Texas ranks 29th in the nation in teacher pay.

That's about $7,500 less than the national average.

The bills that were proposed by the Democrats in principle that have been agreed to by Republicans would offer a 15,000 pay raise and would offer other state employees, public education employees, a 27% increase in pay.

I think this is smart for Democrats.

I think that it's them, you know, taking a popular position on a popular issue with a built in constituency.

So it's a winner.

The other is that it lets them kind of circle the wagons around public education.

Right.

They know that fights coming.

And if it's not this cycle or this session, it's going to be the next one.

So this is a way for them to be able to say, this is our guard, this is our thing, so don't mess with it.

Yeah, every teacher, administrator, principal room, parent across, you know, the whole state is going to say yes to this.

And so it's a smart political move, even if it's a very modest one.

Right, $15,000.

Okay, this is good.

But it still lags, right?

Well, I mean, and it's extremely important to maintain the how competitive the state is in the future.

Right.

If you don't start early with public education, K-through-12 education, we don't get solid students for higher education.

So it's extremely important because the state is going to keep growing, the state is going to need a lot of human capital.

And obviously, you don't want to bring that human capital from other states right.

I'm not going to mention any state.

But many states we don't like.

I would just say tribalism.

Oh, you don't like Oklahoma?

Yeah.

You don't like Oklahoma.

But it's so it's it's it's extremely important in how these issues have to be inserted into that.

And obviously for the Republicans, they cannot say, yeah, we're against higher pay to the country.

Right.

If they want to go up, they would only have to go up and say it was not going to be 15,000.

He's going to be 25,000.

Democrats are going to count.

It's like 30.

Thousand.

That's probably the smart play to one up this.

But we've got polling that suggests that people do not want their kids to be teachers.

That's a real problem.

And I do think Democrats are kind of undershooting this.

They should have gone big.

I think I would have made a bigger play.

But as it is, it's a smart political play.

Yeah, yeah.

But but we'll keep an eye on these and many other issues next week.

Hey, thank you for watching.

Thank you for listening.

And thank you to everybody who supported media for making this happen.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rott We'll see you next week.