How power, corruption & lies influence voters' choices
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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One of the key messaging themes emerging for Democrats this year is corruption. But in an age where scandal does not seem to matter anymore, will that work? Let's dig into it. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Eric McDaniel. I cover Congress.
And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent.
And Eric, I want to start with you to start big picture. How are voters thinking or are they thinking about corruption right now? They definitely are. I mean, I recently saw some polling from the Brennan Center for Justice, which is a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for various kinds of small d democratic reform, good governance stuff. And they polled, they asked voters of this. And what shocked me was how many voters think about corruption as a huge problem in American politics. We saw 90 percent of Republicans say it's a problem, 93 percent of Democrats and 93 percent of self-identified independents. So basically all voters. Right.
How concerned are voters about corruption according to recent Brennan Center polling?
And two-thirds of them, of voters, think of corruption as a systemic problem in governance, something that is part of the way American government is almost designed and functions rather than an ethical problem with politicians, right? So it's not that folks without ethics are going into politics hoping they can make a buck, but rather that the system incentivizes, voters think, lawmakers to prioritize their own self-interests and those of big corporations' interests. over the interests of regular voters. Oh, I do feel like the alarms start going off when I hear poll numbers where a wide majority of Democrats and Republicans feel a certain way. But the word corruption does feel a little squishy, Mara.
I mean, when voters say something like that, what are they actually talking about?
Well, I think the simplest way to think about corruption is when people who are elected officials make money based on their office. In other words, when Donald Trump makes $2 billion in a year by investing in companies that have business before the government, where he's going to make decisions or his Justice Department is going to make decisions about a merger between two companies and he invests in them. or as in the case in Palantir, he invested in Palantir. Then he praised Palantir as a company and posted a social media post that included Palantir's stock ticker. So that's what people don't like. They don't like the idea that they're paying higher prices while the president or members of Congress and their billionaire friends are making a lot of money.
Yeah. And what's interesting, Mara, that I think about is when you and our colleague Ashley Lopez watched those swing voter focus groups in Pennsylvania and corruption came up. Those voters, I mean, responded to Trump specifically when asked about it. And they were kind of split over whether Trump himself was a specific problem or whether the whole system was kind of rigged. And that's why they weren't surprised by it. Right.
Right, but that could be all of the above. In other words, you just talked about some pretty eye-popping numbers of percentages of people who think corruption is a problem. In our focus groups, we basically had samples of three reactions. One is a shrug. Everyone does it. I don't think it's right, but eh, all politicians do it. The second one were among Trump supporters who said, well, he's a great businessman. No wonder he's making so much money. And then the third reaction was, this is morally wrong. It's an abuse of power. He's making money not as Donald Trump, the businessman, but as Donald Trump, the president of the United States.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:25
2
How concerned are voters about corruption according to recent Brennan Center polling?
1:25–8:23
3
What do voters mean when they say 'corruption'—individual greed or systemic failure?
8:23–11:57
4
How did swing voters in Pennsylvania react when corruption and Trump were discussed?
11:57–17:17
5
How are Democrats framing corruption in their midterm messaging beyond attacking Trump?
17:17–17:53