Just Winning Won’t Be Enough in 2022

CLAY: The Biden Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland, is suing the state of Texas over the redistricting map that they have put in place for 2022 that would theoretically add a couple of Republican districts to the House tally. This is going to fail. I’m just telling you right now, Buck. Based on Supreme Court precedent, there is virtually no way this is going to succeed. It is entirely a politically motivated lawsuit that is going to lead to Democrats charging as they have tried to charge for the past year and more that this is a racially motivated map designed to disenfranchise minorities. That is what they are gonna argue. They have zero chance, zero chance of winning this lawsuit.

BUCK: Oh, Clay, it’s almost like whenever redistricting is done that favored Democrats, that’s democracy.

CLAY: Yeah, right.

BUCK: That’s the system we have. But when there’s redistricting in a state that Republicans have control of the state legislature, it’s racist. Do they even know what the redistricting is? No. It’s racist. Doesn’t matter. It has to be racist. This is so divisive and so obvious, too, at the same time. I mean, they don’t even… They will always try to come up with ways, in red-controlled states, where they want a judge to intervene.

They want someone else. It’s an inherently political strategy. It’s literally where you draw lines on a map question, right? There’s no such thing as one that’s not going to be something you could interpret as having political implications because you’re drawing congressional districts. I mean, it’s pretty straightforward, folks. We’re not all living in castles in Medieval Times and we know that everyone has to be within the walls.

CLAY: Yeah. And for an easy example, to your point, Illinois has drawn maps that will disenfranchise Republican voters who wanted to have a Republican congressman. The state of New York, I believe, where you live, Buck, has already provided a map that will knock out some Republican districts as well. Not gonna surprise you. But blue states create maps that favor blue state representation, and red state maps are built by red states that would lead to Republican representation.

This is what’s going to happen. Now, there are a few states legally that have tried to create a bipartisan process to draw new maps after each census and even some of those end up getting challenged too. So this is a mess. I think the end result is going to be to argue against Texas because Democrats know they’re going to lose the House in 2022. But also, I think end result statewide is that this is probably going to end up helping Governor Abbott who is in a reelection contest now against Beto O’Rourke who is trying to come back.

Beto is gonna get smoked in Texas, and I believe that this is gonna work to Greg Abbott’s favor because right now we have lawsuits pending where the federal government is challenging vaccine decisions made by the opposition to mandates made by Governor Abbott, and it’s gonna be part and parcel of the larger story the Democrats try to tell in 2022 which is when they lose, the reason they lost was because of racism.

BUCK: One thing. I want to set our expectations on our side of things, folks. For all of you and our 440 or 450 or so affiliates across the country, it’s not enough to win back the House and win control in the Senate next year. You have enough — and we’re going through day in and day out the ways in which these are things that affect your lives, right? With those talking about vaccine mandates, people losing their jobs, people’s kids being masked up, being forced to get the shot, the misery.

The discomfort, the economic loss, the inflation that’s eating away at your savings, all these problems we talk about it so that one, you know truth. Because if you go to traditional media/legacy media you’re gonna be lied to about all this stuff, as you all know. That’s why you’re here. But also, because we’re trying to galvanize and mobilize. We have to have… I mean, this is gonna have to be an absolute wipeout here because —

CLAY: We need a red wedding.

BUCK: Yeah. It’s not enough for this to be what the Democrats had in 2020 which is they eke out a win on the presidency and they kinda have control of — no, no, no. We’re not eking out anything. This year has to be a year of political reckoning; 2022 (which I know we’re starting here in a few weeks) has to be a year of political reckoning for the whole country where we finally get to say “no” to these — let’s just be honest — dumbass ideas that Democrats have been pushing stretching back even into the Trump administration, of course, but have gotten their way with it this year when it comes to covid and the economy and the border and everything else.

Never mind — you know, Clay, we haven’t even talked about what’s going on with the Russia military buildup next to Ukraine which there’s a lot there, by the way, tell you this much. If there were a Buck Jr. — not yet — but if there was — would I be all excited to have him sign up and go fight for Ukraine? No one’s saying we’re gonna do that right now, but when you talk about military conflict that’s always something you should be thinking about.

Does the Biden administration think that they’re up for this? I mean, they’re up for making sure our military leadership is woke and progressive. But ready to handle a situation like this deftly? I mean, Clay, this is for the good of the country we’ve actually gotta get Joe Biden and the Democrats as far as away from power as fast as we possibly can.

CLAY: My concern, Buck, is we could have a simultaneously invasion of Ukraine by the Russians and an invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese. Because I believe they see the Biden administration as so feckless and weak and incapable of mounting a coherent response that they’re using as evidence certainly Biden himself but also our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Would we be able to in any way handle simultaneous invasion of Ukraine and simultaneous invasion of Taiwan such that we could have a response to either? I don’t think we could. Now, I do think that because the winter Olympics are happening in February that the invasion of Taiwan would be highly unlikely to happen in the close proximity to that. But in 2022, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if both of those countries invade.

BUCK: Let’s deal with one prospective invasion at a time.

CLAY: Could be a simultaneous agreement invasion.

BUCK: That would be a wild call to have made, Travis. I like it, though. Clay is calling a shot in the upper, upper deck right now.

CLAY: I’m pointing like Babe Ruth back in the day.

BUCK: So we’ll come back into the later. There’s like 80,000 troops built up on the Ukrainian the border. There will be a thing that we need to pay some attention to even if we’re not that focused on foreign policy these days in the national political discussion.