The Chris Cuomo Project - Chris Cuomo on What Will Determine the 2024 Election

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Chris Cuomo dives into the critical theme of enragement versus engagement in the 2024 election, explaining how this dynamic will shape the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Chris breaks down why Trump continues to thrive by fueling voter outrage, what Democrats need to do to shift the conversation toward engagement, and how voters’ emotions and responses to political messaging will ultimately determine the election’s outcome. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Try AG1 today and get their special offer of TEN, yes ten, free travel packs, AND a bottle of Vitamin D3K2 with your first purchase at drinkAG1.com/CCP. TEXT CHRIS TO 511511 OR ON THE WEB AT RADIOACTIVEMEDIA.COM. TEXT RATES MAY APPLY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I now know what's going to happen in the presidential election. I do. I know that's a heady thing to say, but we have seen a repeated cycle long enough for me to tell you what I think is going to happen in this election. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Now the only game I'm playing with you here is I'm saying what will happen, not necessarily who will win.

But I believe this is just as instructive a point because if you're going to follow the race, what matters most, what has taken so long, and I'll explain why in this election cycle, is to distill, to isolate, to identify what is this race about? What is it turning on? That's why we always love the October surprise. Why?

Because we are desperate as consumers and arbiters and sellers and marketers of our politics to make it about something specific. This peccadillo, this allegation, these hostages, this war, this tax policy, something that defines what brought the most people out to vote for or against that proposition. And I now know what that proposition is. Who will win? The candidate that gets more people to believe in their side of the following proposition. One more step into context of why I think this.

Why are the polls so freaky tight within the margin of error all over the place? Why are places that are assumed like Iowa to be a blow away Republican win, why is the margin shrinking? Well, part of it is that Trump has been trying his damnedest to lose, right? Now I believe the election is his to lose and I'll explain why in a second. But not that he definitely will win, but that he has an advantage based on the state of

play that he is intent on blowing. This guy had someone shoot him in the head and did not expand his base. This man just had another guy poking AK-47 at him within two months, and he misplayed it. That's on him because he is missing the proposition of what this election is about. The polls are very tight because we have about bottomed out in the two-party reductive

battle to the bottom. Everything is about dividing us. Everything is us and them. Why? It works for the parties. Why is Kamala Harris's pitch to you? Trump is a threat to democracy. It's another way of saying he is worse. Fear him. Okay? Why is Trump's allegation she's a commie? Socialist isn't even enough anymore. Full commie. Ironic that he also defends Putin at the same time. Yes, because what does it instruct you to? It instructs you to the point that this is bullshit. He doesn't really, he's not really afraid of communism because if he were, he'd hate Putin.

You see what I'm saying? So what is it? It's a way of saying she's worse. And that's why we're divided, because that's all you're being conditioned to. So of course the polls are going to be really tight. It's a binary proposition. And it's not like love versus hate, where you would hope that love would manifest itself in a majority, right? This is which is worse. It is inherently negative. It's a suggestion of relative suckiness.

So of course it's going to be really tight. You want a pea sandwich or a poo sandwich? I don't want to try it. I don't want to really pick either of those. This is where it takes you. Now here's the proposition that will determine this election. It is, ready? Enragement versus engagement.

Those are the dueling propositions. Okay? Explain. Enragement. If this is a straight grievance election, look at our history. I think it's 10 out of 46 presidents haven't won a second term, assuming they weren't killed. You see almost in every case

that the overwhelming atmosphere of the election was negativity about what was going on that was wrong. Let's take a recent example. Trump blew it on the pandemic, okay? Blew it, was unrelentingly chaotic and the mendacity factor, the lying. He created an atmosphere of such toxicity that he was doomed to the same.

Carter, the economy, gas prices, the hostage crisis, bad, bad, bad, atmosphere of negativity, of grievance. Now you could say, yeah, but there's always grievance in an election. Of course, grievance is always an aspect of a campaign, but it's about how dominant is it, okay? And if this election stays about grievance, what people are afraid of, what they're angry about, this is Trump's election to lose. Now, why don't I say Trump wins?

One, because I don't know which of these two propositions is going to win out, and it could go either way. And frankly, Trump has the easier burden to carry, because we are in a really negative space. We are dominated by the social media dynamic, which is magnified fringe voices. And they are by definition angry, okay? Animus is the rule, okay? Not the exception.

So it is his to lose. Now he is trying his damnedest to lose. Why? Because he's trying his damnedest to isolate and concentrate his base. Everything he's doing is almost designed to not appeal to independent undecided voters. He's almost impossibly negative and irrational.

And what he is prescribing to fix things, I'm gonna round up all illegal people in this country, everyone who's here illegally, nobody believes you can do that. Nobody believes you should do that. Not really, not independents, not critical thinkers. And I'm not saying that that means you're about open borders.

That stupid reductive battle to the bottom, zero sum, bullshit. Just because I don't think you should round up or try to round up 11 million people, it's also called declaring war, doesn't mean I'm for open borders. Who would be for open borders? The Pope. Great. Let him stay in Rome. That's not what we're about here.

You gotta have borders. It's gotta be secure. It's not fair to the people coming across otherwise, and it's not fair to the people who are already here. It's not fair to what we wanna be about as a country. But grievance is the rule of the day. And as such, Trump has the advantage, which is why the polls are so close.

This man has no business being in the hunt for the presidency of this country. He has done everything wrong that you can do, okay? And yet he is right there. Why? Power of grievance, the power of people's disaffection and desperation to disrupt what they hate, to use a word I do not like.

Hate that word hate. That's, well see, that's the secret, by the way. I should probably do a whole podcast on this. You gotta stop thinking that the people who support Trump are like Trump, that they speak like Trump, that they speak like Trump, that they act like Trump. They don't. They want to hire Trump to do a dirty job.

They want him to be a virus to the political corpus. They want him to disrupt, to destroy, to demean those that they disrespect and dislike, the system that they distrust and despise. They want someone to do what they believe has been done to them and that they cannot do themselves. That's why they don't care that he exhibits terrible behavior because they're putting him into a terrible place.

If you're sending somebody into the jungle, do you really care if they're a savage? You see what I'm saying? And you have to understand it that way. You may not agree, you may not accept, you may not like, but that's what it is. And if it stays grievance, if it's about enragement, and that's why this guy responds to someone pointing an AK-47 at him

by trying to get people to do the same thing to his opponent. Who does that? Somebody who believes in outrage and enraging people, in grievance, that's what he's about. Look, even his slogan, make America great again. What does that mean? We're not great. He says, this is a failing country. I disagree 100%.

But I'm also not running for office. I'm just saying that I believe his rhetoric alone should disqualify him, but not if we are overwhelmed with an atmosphere of grievance. MUSIC Support for The Chris Cuomo Project comes from GetMainLobster.com. And I gotta tell you, we're coming into the holidays.

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Notice I'm not going dark versus light. Why? I don't see it that way. It's not good versus evil. It's not love versus hate. That's not really what it is. Because there are a lot of people who are voting for Trump who absolutely love this country,

who absolutely believe in love, who do not want hate, who don't condone, to use a stupid word, that we love in politics, we're not about evil. They're not bigots, they're not prejudiced, they're desperate for better. And they think everything is rigged and dirty. So that's not what it is.

It's enragement versus engagement, meaning what? That you get more people that prefer the proposition of doing something about it that seems calculated to possibly get us to a better place. Because people aren't stupid. They know it's all about Congress. They know that in reality, neither of these people probably make a huge difference to your life. You'll say it now during campaign season. But if you look at Republicans

and Democrats, not only are many of our preconceptions false, but the needle just doesn't move that way much in either direction. You know, it turns out Democrats, you know, they're going to tax and spend. Well, the economy, the stock market, the job market, absolutely 100 percent, you cannot say I'm wrong to suggest that Democrats have not been worse on those two metrics than Republicans. And almost every indicia that you're going to look to as a collection of factors shows that it does better under Democrats. Why? You'll get varying ideas about that. They expand government, they put more money to the economy,

they, you know, whatever, whatever you want to explain it or rationalize it or excuse it as. So what we say during the election doesn't really translate into what happens in the governance, right? That's why my father loved the expression, you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. Meaning what? You talk shit now, and then you do what you have to do, which may not be what you were talking shit about.

Engagement is getting more people specifically independent to believe that Harris has a chance of making things better. Wait a minute, why does that apply to Trump? Because that's not really his cell. Well, he's saying great again, but inherently he is about harnessing the outrage and anger towards what is. He does not really have great plans, plausible plans,

likely plans to get to better. Rounding up immigrants, it's not gonna improve our situation any more than the wall would in terms of something that's really feasible, plausible, that's gonna happen. Our economy, another tax cut. I mean, if you don't target it the right way

like he did the last time, and you couple it with grotesque spending as he did, that's not gonna get us to a better place. Just look at the numbers of his last election. Well, but he's gonna lower gas prices. That's a promise. It's not a probability. Certainly not the way he's saying drill, baby, drill.

I've explained to you numerous times, we are not drill, baby, drill away from lower gas prices. We don't have that much control over our domestic market. It's a world market. We're already drilling more than we ever have. Most of the restrictions they're talking about are on public lands, not private lands. Private lands are fracking and doing all these other things

at record levels, so much so that the producers, the suppliers are cutting back because the price is already coming down for crude. Just look it up. Crude oil prices are coming down. So what are suppliers gonna do? They're gonna make less. Why?

Because that's how you enhance the demand supply ratios. So he's just feeding you a fiction. Enragement, I'm really pissed off about this. Everything is wrong, we must punish. Engagement, I'm gonna pick somebody who I think is gonna lower the temperature and try and get us to a better place. Now, is Harris that?

Not as much as Biden was in the last election. Why? Because everything about him spoke to less. Less drama, less crazy, less talk, less, which is what we wanted. Okay? And interestingly, Trump is proof of concept here. That was a grievance election. People wanted punishment for the administration and they got it. Will that be what they want now?

Well, militating in favor of that. You have some low level culture war fruit, but I don't really think that matters. You have pain in the pocketbook. And yes, there is a story to be told that we're doing better in terms of most other places, major economies recovering or not recovering from the pandemic.

But do you really care if at the end of the day things cost more? Probably not. And that's something that Harris has to deal with. And in a real way. Which is why they're pushing the Trump is a despot thing because they're trying to make something more important than your pocketbook.

And I don't know that that works. And I don't know that they should even be playing at it, frankly, because I don't think they beat Trump in a battle to the bottom of grievance. I do not think they win that. The, he's a despot versus you're a commie, I think she loses. And not because I think she's a commie,

I think that's absurd. I also think the idea that he's a despot is absurd. I don't think he has this strategy, the ambition or the intelligence to be a despot. I don't think he does. I think he just wants to win because he thinks that's cool. I don't believe that it's I think he just wants to win because he thinks that's cool. I don't believe that it's about patriotism and getting things done.

Look at his last administration. He had plenty of chances to prove that he could transcend politics, that he could be different, that he would change the money, he would drain the swamp. He did none of those things. So enragement versus engagement, that is the proposition that will determine this election. We're not a peccadillo away. We're not a scandal away. We're past that.

We're so exhausted by the flaws and failures after cancel culture and Me Too and all of the investigations and the impeachments and the trials and the prosecutions and the race baiting and the murders and the policing and everything. Everything is so bad and it's always a new bad thing. The wars, we're exhausted. We're exhausted by it.

Now, that is a double-edged sword. On the one side, then there must be an opportunity for somebody to come in and pitch something else that makes you feel relief and get you to a better place. Yeah, but you're also conditioned to that negative space. It's where you are. It's where your head is. It's what you see all around you. Social media. It's the media. It's the politicians. Guy points a gun at Trump. He says, this is on the Democrats for saying I'm a threat to the democracy. points a gun at Trump, he says, this is on the Democrats for saying

I'm a threat to the democracy. By the way, they're their threat to the democracy. Who does that? If it's wrong that they're doing that to you, why would you just do it to them? Because I do to them what they do to me. That's enragement. That's enragement.

Look, we see the Democrats playing that in my response to Trump having a gun pointed at him again and saying we gotta be better than that, that I don't like what comes out of his face. I think it is beneath what we should expect from a president. I think it's disqualifying for him in the presidency. And I find it unlikable in substance and in his person.

But the idea that someone would want to take him out and that so many of you, thousands of you responded by saying he deserves it, you're no better than what you oppose. You're no better than what you oppose. And you will lose this election on that basis. Who hates who more? You lose. Who can change what people actually matter about, that's the space for Democrats to win. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Oracle. Oracle is looking ahead. AI is

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Go to 120life.com. That's 120life.com. Use the code CHRIS15% off. And I'll give you one more insight into why I'm so confident about this now. What we saw in the switch from Biden to Harris. Once you get past the theatricality of how Democrats just found religion on Kamala Harris when they didn't have a nice thing to say about her six months before Biden dropped out, people get distracted by that. That's politics. What are they supposed to do?

Not back their own person, not lionize their own person, not exaggerate the virtues of their own person, right? The Republicans didn't do the same thing with Trump. You heard Governor Sununu of New Hampshire say on television a hundred times, including on my show at NewsNation, look, I don't like the guy, I don't wanna vote for him, but I'm not voting for the Democrat. That's the binary battle to the bottom. It's disgusting.

I'm not saying Sununu is. I actually believe he's a face of our future. But that's the game. That's why I hate the game. I don't hate people. I don't do that. I don't invest any kind of energy in that. It doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't serve me well. You make your own choices. But I can hate ideas. I can hate propositions.

So I hate that. But what happened when Biden got out? Why did Harris get the spike? Because of what I'm describing as this dual proposition, enragement versus engagement. There were a lot of people who didn't want to vote for Trump, but could not vote for Biden. Why? He was not engaging them.

It's not enough to beat Trump by having people vote against something. And yes, I know this is a trickier, higher bar, especially in a society that is consumed with negativity. I know. I'm not saying it's fair. My therapist says fair is the only four-letter word. I think he's right. But I still think it's the reality. And when Harris came in, she got a bump. Why? Because people are desperate to vote for a black woman

in America for president. I don't buy that. I think it's despite it, not because of it. And look, we can talk about that. The idea that race doesn't play a role in our politics I think is nonsense. I think the fact that race is in a sensitivity that compels judgment by way too many Americans is nonsense. Of course it is.

So why would you get the bump? Well, because people want to default to engagement. They want somebody who they believe has the chance to make a difference in a positive way. This is America, okay? It's not Venezuela. It's not the Middle East, where people can cotton to despots and to harshness.

It's not us. We don't like bullies. I mean, we like strength and we like aggression and we like things like that, but we like sweet strength. We want to be the good guys. We don't take solace in being the bad guys. Not yet, anyway. It was because she represents engagement. And that energized a group of people who were basically sitting it out or not sure what to do because Biden wasn't doing that. And she represents that. Fair, unfair, right, wrong, true, not true. This is for the voters to decide. But as a proposition, enragement versus engagement will determine this election.

What choice more people make in the places that matter? Because remember, we're within the margin of error overall, which is very scary to the Democrats. Why? If Democrats don't win the popular vote by three to four points, they don't win the election. I know it's not based on the popular vote, spare me your attacks.

But historically, again, look it up. If Democrats don't win by three or four, because Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in the popular vote, she got crushed in the electoral college. We're not changing that system ever, let alone between now and the election. So it is what it is. Being in a dead heat with Trump is bad for Harris. Now, could this be a different election where it's so tight overall but she wins by a nudge in the places that matter? Yeah, it could be.

And I have not seen that in my time covering elections, quarter century. This could be that. Why? Because every once in a while you have a black swan event. Every once in a while you have an outlier. Every once in a while you have an aberration. Every once in a while you have an aberration. Every once in a while you have something that is different than the norms.

It happens. It's one of the beauties of democracy. It's not fixed, right? And you're within the margin of error in all the places that matter. So this is very tight. And the proposition is going to come down to which choice do more people make in the places that matter? Enragement, I'm pissed off and I want that to be known and

felt by the people in power now, which is Harris. Or I choose to engage and I want to put somebody in there who isn't just a loud mouth echoing every kind of animus he can think of. I want somebody who's got a chance of working with other people and figuring something out. And she is more of that than he is and I'm there. And if independents who are undecided, because I believe one of two groups swings the selection.

Independents who are undecided, that could go either way. I think Harris should have an edge with them, and we're seeing that in the polling, but we'll see. Or women en masse. Now we are not seeing that, even though she has gotten a bump with women. I don't know yet if there are enough married women who will vote on the basis of having had a right, a protection

taken from them with the Dobbs decision. And yes, Trump hurt himself. Again, he's trying to lose this election by saying that women and Democrats wanted Roe taken away. I don't know who told him that, but that is dumb for him to be saying. If they decide, if women decide, a majority of our population, a majority of our voting population, to make their witness on that issue, Trump is done.

But I don't know that that's what happens. It is an explanation for what happened in the midterms in 2022. But what I am sure of is the proposition that will determine this election. Is the country in the mood for enragement or engagement? What do you think? I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing and following the Chris Cuomo project. Thank you for joining the sub stack, subscribing five bucks a month.

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