Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Peering Into the Crystal Ball (feat. Larry Sabato)
Fri, 23 May 2025
Scott and Jessica are joined by political scientist Larry Sabato, founder and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. They talk about the biggest current threats to American democracy, and why talking up these threats to democracy doesn’t seem to be super effective messaging. Plus, Sabato consults his notorious “crystal ball” for early predictions about the 2026 midterm elections. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the biggest threats to American democracy?
So, Jess, today we're joined by one of the sharpest minds in American politics, Larry Sabato. He's a professor at the University of Virginia and founder of the Center for Politics, where he spent decades studying the pattern shifts and surprises in U.S. elections. You've probably seen his team's crystal ball election forecast. They're some of the most cited in the country.
And Larry himself doesn't shy away from calling out threats to democracy, whether it's Trumpism, rising voter apathy, or the nationalization of local races. In recent months, he warned that we're in a dangerous moment, one defined more by emotion than ideology, where outrage is fueling turnout. And independents are swinging fast. Larry, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
Looking forward to it. So let's jump right in. We're just a few months into Trump's second term. You spent your career studying how political eras take shape. How would you describe the one we're in right now?
Frightening. And it could get a lot worse before it gets better. And a lot of the damage being done to the governmental structure, which we spent decades as a people putting together, will take a generation or more to repair. I don't think anyone doubts that. There's a lot of it will have to be repaired because it's not working out and it won't work out.
Chapter 2: Why is democracy more divided now than in the past?
And what really worries me and I think worries everybody is as we move closer to elections, maybe it's 2026, I think it's much more likely to be 2028, things we've taken for granted, we can't take for granted anymore. It's entirely possible that Trump is going to find ways and means either of staying in power himself or
or if not guaranteeing, then assisting, whether it's Vance or I don't think it would be Rubio, it might be Rubio or one of his sons to succeed him. Now, I hope that that won't happen. I hope we're better than that. I hope there are enough checks and balances left to make sure it doesn't happen. But we can't assume these things anymore.
So if you were going to zero in on one thing that you find most distressing, I mean, part of the problem here is sort of the flood the zone of all these different things that seem outrageous that I think a lot of us feel flat-footed in terms of what to focus on. What is the one thing that has you most disturbed?
Well, democracy. It's fundamental to everything that we have done as a people and will do as a people, I hope. And look, I can get as upset as anybody about renaming the Gulf of Mexico or the possibility of invading Greenland. But what I'm really worried about is that we'll no longer have a society that can work together on at least some big issues. And we are just deeply, deeply divided.
And I've been around, getting ready to turn 73. I remember the 60s when we had a lot of polarization and division. But this is much worse. This goes right to the fundamentals. And people don't agree on the fundamentals anymore, or they're willing to follow a cult leader. And when the cult leader says, these rules don't apply to me, they applaud.
So, yes, that is what bothers me more than anything else, though I would dispute a lot of the things that Trump and Musk have done.
So, but just if I may, I agree with you, but I don't think sort of, at least to date, I'm not sure that the valid upset about the attack on democracy is working. I'm not saying that narrative isn't right. I just don't know if it's effective. And what I'm asking is, what specifically do you think presents the greatest threat so far to democracy?
Is it the illegal usurp of congressional power for the purse? Is it tearing up old alliances, siding with dictators or autocrats over our allies? Is it the weaponization of the DOJ? What specifically, if we were to try and focus in on specific things rather than this call that democracy is under attack, which a lot of us agree with, what specifically do you think
is the most disturbing specific act of the Trump administration so far?
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Chapter 3: What specific actions threaten democracy today?
But post-January 6th, you see someone who doesn't respect the rule of law, right, or someone who doesn't think that your vote should count. And Voters turned up and they elected him, reelected him, and they knew all of this about him. So how do you think we can get that to stick?
Or do you think it's just always going to be the economy and we have to hope and pray for a recession so people vote for Democrats?
Well, at base, it's civic education, which is what my Center for Politics is dedicated to and is trying to do something about at the lowest possible levels, meaning starting in kindergarten and going through at least high school and maybe junior colleges as well. You have to teach people. how to interpret the system. And they have to be willing to pay attention.
They have to be willing to remember that citizenship in America doesn't require very much anymore, but at a very minimum, it requires that citizens pay attention to big events. And they don't. I think the New York Times had a piece of a poll recently over the weekend where they separated Americans into people who follow the news carefully and people who don't.
And the people who followed the news carefully were much more critical of Trump and much more concerned about what he was doing. And the people who didn't follow what was happening in the news thought a lot of what Trump was doing was just fine. They were much more inclined to support him. And that is potentially fatal to a system like ours. We've got to work on it. Everybody's got to work on it.
Most universities have a center like mine. We all ought to be working together on it. High school and elementary school teachers have to work together on it. We started this 25 years ago, and we were able to get in the schools fairly easily. In fact, the superintendents and principals welcomed us because we were providing all the information they needed to for free. They paid for nothing.
They used what they wanted to use. Now, we can't even get our foot in the door because it's political. They're worried about offending their Republican governors or their Republican legislatures or, goodness knows, the Trump administration in Washington. And I've seen it everywhere. I've seen it here. People hunker down. They don't want to challenge things.
They feel strongly about something, but they won't speak out about it. That has never been a part of university life around the country. It is now. Fear is everywhere, which is exactly what the Trump administration has been trying to do. And they are succeeding.
So one of the things that frustrates me as a Democrat, and it sounds like we share concern over what's taking place, is that I feel like the best ally of this autocracy is an incredibly weak Democratic Party. And that if the election, my understanding is the election happened a few days ago, despite everything that's gone on, that the president still would win.
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Chapter 4: How can civic education improve democracy?
You spent your life at an institute of higher education. How would you describe the quote-unquote anti-discrimination or efforts to root out anti-Semitism of the Trump administration by cutting funding to higher education institutions? What is your viewpoint there, and can you point to any similar situations throughout history and how that informs what's going on here?
You want to start by saying any anti-Semitism is wrong, and we had a little bit of it here. It was relatively minor compared to other universities. And while it's a legitimate concern, and it's worse in some places, and it deserves a lot of focus, and it's getting it as far as I can see, it's also a cover story for the Trump administration. They're using that. That is not a reason to
to limit what universities can investigate or to withdraw grants that are looking into terrible diseases, people will die because of all of this withdrawn money. It's not wasted money. In fact, if you want money well spent, you generally go to the health side of a university. So it's a cover story to some degree.
Agreed.
I tell you what people should focus on more. It's not just Trump. It's where he's reinforced by Republican governors and or Republican legislators. In most of the states, the governors appoint most or all of the board of trustees, or we call it a board of visitors here, for public institutions. Private institutions do it a different way. But they appoint people who are going to push their agenda.
And today, the Republican Party agenda is Donald Trump and whatever he stands for. There are so few Republicans who will stand up. I should say there are so few ex-Republicans who will stand up to Trump, because if they weren't ex-Republicans at the beginning, they'll be ex-Republicans once MAGA takes care of them.
And that's the real problem, because you have the states reinforcing what the Trump administration is doing in the slight majority of the states where they control the appointments. So it's tough.
Again, elections matter, and most of the focus has to be on winning the next election, not just for the House and the Senate in Washington, but also for the state legislatures and the governorships that are up. And most of them are up in 2026 as an off-year election.
Okay, so the other day I was in Portland, Oregon on vacation. I'm hanging out, feeling really good about myself. And I walk past this store where a guy is offering free skincare samples. I say, sure, I'll take one. Then he literally grabs me by the hand and pulls me into his store. And suddenly he's putting like this goop under my eyes. And I'm not a big skincare girly, but I dabble.
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Chapter 5: What strategies should the Democratic Party adopt?
I'm Phoebe Judge. Listen to our latest episode, Action Park on Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts.
Can you talk a bit about the role of independence? Because I go to your commentary for a whole host of reasons, but most predominantly for your vantage point on independence and what actually sways them in elections.
And of course, independents have turned pretty strongly against Trump. That's why his ratings have been falling, and they'll fall more once the independents, who are not paying attention, figure out what's going on. They're the group of voters that will switch without much push or pressure. depending on the circumstances of their lives, like the economy, but not just the economy.
What influences them is what helps them in their daily lives. They're heavily concentrated in middle class and lower middle class. And those independents, as I say, are busy earning a living or busy living their lives. They don't have a lot of extra time. They certainly don't pay attention to public affairs as much as they should.
Look, so you have a kind of branded crystal ball. Given that we're still a ways out, can't come soon enough, what are we, 18 months out? What are your predictions so far? What do you see regarding the House and 26 and any Senate races?
Well, there's a bit of a satirical element to a crystal ball. Our slogan is, he who lives by the crystal ball ends up eating ground glass. And we've had plenty of ground glass like every other analyst, so I don't want to pretend that we've always been right. Anyway, what are we predicting so far?
It would be nearly impossible to predict that Republicans would hold the House, although we've just published an analysis in the crystal ball from some distinguished political scientists who have used another measure that has been ignored for the most part. What does the public think will happen? Which party do they believe will hold on?
Well, it's early, but even the early predictions often have been right from the public. And they seem to think Republicans will hang on to both the House and Senate. I don't buy it. Some of my colleagues do. I think the odds are substantial that Democrats will carry the House. We don't know the margin. We can't even guesstimate the margin. I think it could go up to around 20 seats.
If it's an anti-Trump landslide, obviously higher than that, more than that, as it was in 2018. But the Senate, there's a tiny chance Democrats could take control. But look at the map. You know, the normal balance in the Senate, if you look at the map, according to the red and blue divisions that exist in America today, is about 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats.
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Chapter 6: What role does media attention play in political engagement?
As someone who's on cable news, I apologize to the entire world for what we export.
It's okay. It's really social media more than it is TV. TV funnels what's selling on social media, I think, more than the reverse. That makes me rage. There's nothing we can do about social media. I wish we could. I gave up on flying cars, but we were promised a time machine, and we still don't have one because I'd like to go back and make it impossible to create social media.
I don't know how I'd do it, but I would try to do that in addition to preventing assassinations and lots of other terrible things. We can't survive for the long term the way we are now. We really can't. And I wish people would focus on that. I know it's hard.
As Scott was saying earlier, it's very difficult to get people to care about democracy enough to make it an issue or the issue in an election. I completely agree that that is true for now. It ought not to be true after January 6th.
Maybe the Democratic Party would do better just rerunning the films of January 6th instead of the crap they put out there on TV ads, the clever TV ads that pay the consultants enormous fees. Just remind people what was at stake and what could have happened.
And in the recesses of his mind, you're not going to tell me that he isn't thinking of ways to continue his regime, either with him or with somebody that he trusts, a member of his family or maybe J.D. Vance, I don't know, in four years. And I'm even worried about 2026. What can his CISA do? The organization in DHS that looks at cybersecurity and they know how the system works.
And if you have an honest head of CISA, they make it work better and they make sure that foreign influences are not guiding our elections. But if you have someone who has bad motives and who is listening to the devils in the Oval Office, then it is possible to tilt even a midterm election. We all need to watch everything carefully. We have to. It's a matter of our survival as a republic.
That was a long answer. I got to it.
No, it was great.
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