Hello #Risers!
Welcome to our newsletter. If you haven’t already, tell your friends to sign up by sharing the link to this post!
As promised every week we’ll tell you what our favorite segments of the week are, give you a written and expanded version of #RisingQs, and give you our weekly takeaways. If there’s anything you love, like, dislike, or hate don’t hesitate to reply to this email with your thoughts!
Book Q&A:
Many of you have asked us questions about our book ‘The Populist’s Guide To 2020,’ SO here is everything you need to know and a plea for us.
1) Please rate us FIVE stars on Amazon in the review section. We’re told that this helps a lot with the Amazon algorithm so if you purchased the book and you like it, please help us out
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1947492454
2) If you haven’t purchased the book yet, please use the above link and let us know what you think! If you tweet or instagram a photo of yourself reading it we will do our best to repost it on our social media channels.
3) Don’t forget we added a new show in DC on April 24th! Special guest announcements to come, but let’s just say it will be a STACKED stage of hometown talent. All VIP tickets come with a signed copy of the book. We expect these to sell out just like LA and NYC did so don’t wait until the last minute!
TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/risings-krystal-ball-and-saagar-enjeti-live-tickets-91618492377
Favorite Segments Of The Week
1) New Hampshire Primary Live Show:
Why: We loved this live show because at least this time we actually got results! Not only did we have results, but our fiery panel had great debates about the viability of Micheal Bloomberg, whether Bernie Sanders has a ceiling and much much more. You won’t find anything like this on cable news! For example, we actually gave credit to Bernie for winning!
2) Ryan Grim:
Why: Ryan and AOC caused a bit of a dustup over the weekend with accusations that they were moving the goalposts on Medicare For All ahead of the general election. Ryan stopped by to explain the contradictions within the Culinary Union’s objections to Bernie Sander’s candidacy and to explain what he and the New York Congresswoman meant in their tweets.
3: Benjamin Dixon:
Why: Benjamin Dixon is a journalist who unearthed the Aspen stop and frisk audio of Micheal Bloomberg. He was smeared on CNN by a reporter who seemed more concerned about Dixon’s “motivations” than the content of that damning audio. Turns out she used to work for Micheal Bloomberg! We’re shocked! Benjamin laid out how he found the audio and previewed some more things he has in the pipeline.
Weekly Takeaways:
Saagar’s Takeaway:
Risers know that I have become a bit obsessed with Michael Bloomberg. That’s because I refuse to discount what 350 million dollars can buy you in America. So far we have seen Bloomberg poise himself #3 in national polls, #1 in critical states like Florida, and we have heard anecdotal evidence that he is purchasing talent all across the country.
I laid it out here:
In one case, Bernie Sanders senior advisor Chuck Rocha told Krystal and I that one of his organizers told him that while he is going to continue to support the Senator that he is going to go work for the former New York Mayor to “make that money.”
Bloomberg’s strategy right now is to vacuum up as many delegates as possible ahead of the Democratic convention. HIs hope is that by coming with a decent amount of delegates he can strike a deal with party bosses to either emerge as the nominee or buy himself access to whomever he decides to help out.
Bloomberg’s strategy is unprecedented in American politics. He owns a literal media company and much of the NYC, DC press corps is afraid to critically report on him. The truth is this as close as we’ve ever seen to a literal plutocracy in America and it should scare us all.
Krystal’s Takeaway:
Well Bernie won New Hampshire but you would never know it from the media coverage. Whether it was Chuck Todd saying that he just can’t understand how you could call Bernie the frontrunner or any number of pundits asserting that the real loser in New Hampshire was Bernie because he “underperformed 2016” the media dissembling was actually hilarious. I got to challenge a few of these tropes on CNN.
What was especially gratifying however was how quickly their tropes fell apart. First the idea that Bernie is not really a frontrunner fell apart when a new national Morning Consult poll came out with Bernie jumping up to a ten point lead. Then the idea that Bernie would fair less well once we moved to more diverse states was demolished by that same Morning Consult poll which showed him winning 30% of Black voters, just a bit behind Biden, and at a dominant 48% among Latinos. Then the idea that Bernie has a ceiling and is in fact destined to lose because if you add the totals of Pete, Amy, and Biden together you get a higher vote total fell apart. A YouGov poll tested Bernie head to head against every other Dem candidate and defeated every one of them.
Just like Trump in 2016, the more he wins the higher that supposed “ceiling” goes. Right now Bernie is leading in Nevada too. What excuse do you think the media will find to deny his success there as well?