John Stoehr: Customer Service Politics and the ’24 Presidential Election

Sea Change Radio

No matter what your current stance may be on the upcoming presidential election, the past few weeks of debate debacles and failed assassination attempts have definitely demonstrated that unforeseen events can happen. We still have several months between now and November, during which time the plot may continue to twist and turn. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with John Stoehr of The Editorial Board to get his insights into the calls for Democrats to replace President Biden on the ticket. In this free-flowing conversation, we unpack the problem with what Stoehr describes as a "customer service approach" to politics, learn why he believes third parties are a scam, and question polling data that have so many undecided voters in an election between two well-known quantities. Narrator | 00:02 - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise. John Stoehr (JS) | 00:23 - I don't know what to say to people who are like, I need to be enthusiastic. That, that, again is the customer service attitude toward politics. It's like, thrill me, get me excited, then I'll make a decision. It's like, "no." Narrator | 00:35 - No matter what your current stance may be on the upcoming presidential election, the past few weeks of debate debacle and failed assassination attempts have definitely demonstrated that unforeseen events can happen. We still have several months between now and November, during which time the plot may continue to twist and turn. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with John Stoehr of The Editorial Board to get his insights into the calls for Democrats to replace President Biden on the ticket. In this free-flowing conversation, we unpack the problem with what Stoehr describes as a customer service approach to politics, learn why he believes third parties are a scam and question polling data that have so many undecided voters in an election between two well-known quantities. Alex Wise (AW) | 01:39 - I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by John Stoehr. He is the founder and editor of The Editorial Board. John, welcome back to Sea Change Radio. John Stoehr (JS) | 01:47 - Thanks for having me back, Alex. Alex Wise (AW) | 01:49 - Really good to speak to you. I've been kind of putting this discussion off as long as possible so that it would hold up. Why don't you first summarize what your thought process has been since the debate, the evolution of your thoughts, if you can. JS | 02:05 - Well, I should guess I should start with how I experienced the, the debate pretty much like everybody else did. You know, I was, there was a lot of shock, like, whoa, where, who is this Biden? I haven't seen this Biden before. You know, I don't think that was a consequence of previously having been in denial. I pay attention to the President, um, pretty closely. And, he broke his foot. I knew that, and so that's why he shuffles a bit. He's 81. I chalked up a lot of his behavior to age and so on, and I didn't have any sense of, of, of cognitive decline. And then, you know, I saw the debate and I start, I, myself was like, maybe I'm missing something for sure. But, you know, then as somebody who believes like, well, he does have the best shot of defeating Trump, and Trump is an existential threat to democracy, you know, the stakes are very high, and if anybody's going to do it, it's going to be him. So I, I watched that North Carolina rally very closely. I was looking for reasons to think, you know, was this just a one-off? Are his excuses true? You know, his excuses were, I was sick and, and, and so on. To me, the excuses seemed like pretty valid. I understand that a lot of that's not enough for a lot of people. I think what's going on right now is that the president's priorities are to get his people in line as quickly as possible, because without his base, he's got nothing. And he's going to have to worry about undecided people as we get closer to the election. And because,