1. The People
Sarah had Tim on The Focus Group this weekend. It was . . . sublime.
The subject was the May 16 Louisiana Senate primary and my best friends listened to Republican voters explain why they are not voting for the incumbent R, Sen. Bill Cassidy—and also give their thoughts on his two rivals, state Treasurer John Fleming and the Trump-endorsed Julia Letlow.
I cannot endorse this episode strongly enough because it demonstrates a valuable lesson about voters in 2026 America.
There is no logic. No consistency. No ideology, even. They are nothing but bundles of impulse and appetite. They want what they want, when they want it. Come and meet The People.
Every single voter in these groups was firmly against Bill Cassidy. The considered opinion of the group was that Cassidy has changed.
How has he changed?
“It’s one face for the media and then it’s another face for the public.”
“If you look at Bill Cassidy 10 years ago, as opposed to today, it’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“I’ve worked with Cassidy and I was 100 percent behind him for every election for it all. But lately, it started with the impeachment of Trump and a lot of other things where he changes his mind. He’s just changing too much.”
You might think that if Cassidy had been changing politically, Louisiana voters might be able to name some issues on which he’s changed. Democrats, for instance, look at John Fetterman and say, “He’s in favor of Trump’s ballroom; he’s in favor of the Iran war; he jumped to support Markwayne Mullin at DHS—and that’s all in the last 12 weeks.”
But no. The only thing these Republicans could point to about Cassidy was his vote to convict Trump on impeachment after January 6.
Which—sure, fine. But it’s instructive that these voters aren’t capable of saying, Voting to impeach Trump is disqualifying because Trump is right about everything.
Instead, they construct complicated rationales to justify their base desire.
There was actually one voter who was able to name one other thing about Cassidy that she didn’t like:
He just seems to be very full of himself. Like he, you know, he’s an expert. And whether it be [the] political field, [the] medical field, or whatever it may be, [he] always seems like he’s got the facts behind him but rarely does he back himself up.
He was also very vocal during Covid about how you know the importance, like, wanting to mandate the vaccine, the isolation, things like that. So, I mean, I get he has a, you know, a medical background, but um he was just, he kind of followed Fauci’s, you know, “trust the science” mantra.
Leave aside the “doesn’t back himself up” nonsense. This voter was upset that Sen. Cassidy was supportive of Anthony Fauci and the federal government’s handling of Covid.
Who did Anthony Fauci work for? Who was responsible for the federal government’s Covid response? Who was president in 2020?
But of course, none of that matters. People want what they want and then they invent reasons to justify themselves.
They don’t want Bill Cassidy. They do want Trump. So they blame Cassidy for “following” the Trump administration’s Covid policies, while holding Trump blameless for them.
Sarah and Tim went on to listen to these same voters discuss John Fleming and Julia Letlow. It was even more amazing.
One voter explained why she was leaning toward Fleming:
I was at the doctor’s office the other day and there was a group of gentlemen that were sitting in the waiting room and they were talking about Fleming and they had one of them knew him from when he was younger and they were talking about how he’s very steadfast and everything but the fact was that his age was up there and they all concluded that the reason why he was running was that he felt that the state really needed him to at least get through one more term to find younger politicians.
This is literally my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night.
Another voter did not like Fleming. He explained:
John Fleming the way they say he, he wanted open borders I was against that so I mean you look at these candidates and it’s like they don’t vote for the people once they get in . . . Have they ever enacted a bill? I mean it’s like they got a free lunch that’s all I have to say.
It is unclear who “they” are who say that Fleming wants “open borders,” but on the subject of enacting legislation, Fleming is the treasurer. Not a legislator.
The Republican voters were similarly unhappy with Letlow:
I feel like she’s more left-leaning and she’s somewhat deceitful when she gives her speeches out to the public but behind closed doors I think she votes more liberal more like DEI and other things and [LGBT], whatever, all those kind of issues.
I am not the world’s foremost expert on Julia Letlow’s career, but I am skeptical that she is now, or ever has been, a proponent of “DEI.” But that’s not even the point here: This voter claims that Letlow has been secretly voting her left-wing agenda “behind closed doors.”
That is not how legislative votes work.
But then, as the voter says, she only “feels” that way about Letlow. And that’s all that matters. She wants what she wants and she doesn’t want Julia Letlow.
So she makes things up.
The best part of this week’s Focus Group was when these same voters—who were furious with Bill Cassidy for bucking Trump—began explaining what they really want in a senator:
“I want someone who can be their own person,” said one voter explaining that it would be a negative for a Republican to blindly follow Trump and do whatever Trump wants.
“If he believes in a certain thing and he doesn’t believe exactly what Trump does, then it’s okay,” said another voter.
One of the Trump-loving voters lamented the distinct lack of good character in today’s politicians: “It just seems like they all have some kind of skeleton in their closet. They took money from somebody, inside trading, had affairs, stole money.”
2. What We Do Here
My basic conception for this newsletter is that it is the anti-matter version of The People. I rarely talk about what I want, or what I believe should happen, or what the best thing would be.
I have my own views and preferences and sometimes we discuss them. But on the whole, this newsletter is designed to see around corners.
To talk about what will happen. Irrespective of what I want.
Last week I wrote about the presidential prospects of Graham Platner. Basically everyone hated the piece.
A great many people jumped on me to say some version of:
JVL and The Bulwark have betrayed everything they ever said they believed. Look at them promoting the Oyster Nazi because they love Platner so much.
This is a misreading.
When I suggested a few weeks ago that DJTJ could probably win the Republican nomination if he wants it, it was not because I like Donald Trump Jr. and want him to be the Republican nominee for president.
In the fall of 2020 when I wrote that Trump would likely be the 2024 Republican nominee, it wasn’t because I liked Trump and wanted him to run again.
In early 2024 when I wrote that Ron DeSantis and Nikki Hailey were roadkill, it wasn’t because I wanted them to lose.
In late 2024 when I wrote that Trump had a good chance to win, it wasn’t because I wanted him to win.
As Bruce Banner once ruefully observed, “I don’t every time get what I want.”
I am used to this.
One of the fallacies of political analysis is that people often assume that the things they want, or think are best, will be popular.
You see this all the time in the world of pundits. “Candidate X should do this thing I like, because then he will win the election.”
Or: “Candidate Y lost because she did this thing I do not like.”
My own approach to politics begins from the assumption that the Thing I Like will not be popular. To take just one example: Legalized online gambling—especially sports gambling, but also including prediction markets—is deleterious and that society would be improved if we did away with it.
Good luck trying to propose that as part of a political platform. You might as well call for the mandatory eating of boiled Brussels sprouts.
What we try to do in this space is question received wisdom, follow logic chains, and be utterly clear-eyed about reality.
Sometimes those goals are in tension. For instance: What kind of logic chain can you find with those voters in Louisiana?
But being clear-eyed is always the key. Even when it’s only to understand that people want what they want and that their rationalizations are post-hoc nonsense.
Which is, funnily enough, why I think Platner is selling something powerful. Many Democrats like him and are deeply invested in him. Whether or not you think this is a good thing, it is real.
The other criticism of my Platner piece was that I was being ridiculous, that Platner has no chance to be the Democratic nominee.
I agree that he would have many hurdles, the biggest of which being, as I said in the piece, that you cannot win the Democratic nomination if you’re pulling 10 percent of the black vote and because Maine has 35,000 black voters, we have no idea how Platner would do with black voters at scale.
But consider that:
In 2016, the Democratic nomination was almost won by a senator from a tiny, very white state, who wasn’t even a member of the Democratic party.
In 2020, the mayor of a small Indiana town came within striking distance of being the nominee.
For the last three cycles, Republicans nominated a reality game-show host.
A podcast host is one of the obvious contenders for the 2028 Republican nomination.
Things are shifting in our politics and I anyone who thinks that a Sen. Platner would have zero chance to win the Democratic isn’t seeing the world clearly. What they’re doing is projecting their own desires. They don’t like Platner and what he is selling, so they believe he couldn’t possibly succeed.
I made that mistake in 2016 and I have endeavored not to make it again. If this is the kind of analysis that you find useful, I hope you’ll consider joining us.
3. Checkmate
This Bob Kagan piece on the consequences of Trump’s Iran failure is outstanding. Do not miss.
Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure. . . .
Some supporters of the war are therefore calling for the resumption of military strikes, but they cannot explain how another round of bombing will accomplish what 37 days of bombing did not. More military action will inevitably lead Iran to retaliate against neighboring Gulf States; the war’s advocates have no response to that, either. Trump halted attacks on Iran not because he was bored but because Iran was striking the region’s vital oil and gas facilities. The turning point came on March 18, when Israel bombed Iran’s South Pars gas field and Iran retaliated by attacking Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest natural-gas-export plant, causing damage to production capacity that will take years to repair. Trump responded by declaring a moratorium on further strikes against Iran’s energy facilities and then declaring a cease-fire, despite Iran’s not having made a single concession. . . .
The risk calculus that forced Trump to back down a month ago still holds. Even if Trump were to carry out his threat to destroy Iran’s “civilization” through more bombing, Iran would still be able to launch many missiles and drones before its regime went down—assuming it did go down. Just a few successful strikes could cripple the region’s oil and gas infrastructure for years if not decades, throwing the world, and the United States, into a prolonged economic crisis. Even if Trump wanted to bomb Iran as part of an exit strategy—looking tough as a way of masking his retreat—he can’t do that without risking this catastrophe.
If this isn’t checkmate, it’s close. In recent days, Trump has reportedly asked the U.S. intelligence community to assess the consequences of simply declaring victory and walking away. You can’t blame him. Hoping for regime collapse is not much of a strategy . . .
This is a brilliant column. You are saying the things that nobody else says. I salute you for it.
Trump seems to have a special skill in being a BS artist that very few other politicians have. He can get low-attention people to think he will give them free I.V.F. (a very expensive process) as opposed to DODging out their jobs (this is a true story)
The closest thing I can think of otherwise maybe Steyer who seems to be trying to get past the jungle primary by promising liberals all the nice things that Very Serious People including many Democratic Politicians tell them they can't have like universal healthcare, guaranteed vacation, paid family leave, etc.