I know that you want to listen to your podcast, so I'll keep it short. Because if you think it's important to make a duurzame keuze, can ASR maybe help? I think, how then? Well, for example, when you're doing something to do with the things you love to do with Schade. Will you know more about the instructions where a duurzaam schade-restal can be? Go to asr.nl slash duurzamekeuzes. This does ASR for you and a duurzame community. ASR does it. So, then you can now listen to your podcast. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Hey, guys, it's Will Sommer here at The Bulwark. I'm joined today by one of our reporters, Lauren Egan. She writes the Opposition newsletter. You got to subscribe to it. It's on Democrats in the wilderness. Will they ever come back in power? Lauren has her finger on the pulse of the upcoming election in the midterms. Lauren, thanks for coming on today. Hey, Will, how's it going? Good. So I wanted to talk today about your new newsletter on Louise Lucas, a relatively little known Virginia statehouse politician. And I guess the gist of this newsletter is, can this 82-year-old politician teach Democrats to be rude again online? And so let's dive into it. Tell me all about Louise Lucas, if I'm someone who hasn't heard of her. So I feel like a lot of the conversation about Democrats this past year, and this is where our beads kind of intersect because you know all the discourse that's happening online. But so much of the Democrats focus this past year has been like, how can we rival the Republican Party's grip on social media? It's just something that Democrats have honestly been pretty bad at. And that's why you've seen people like Gavin Newsom start these podcasts. You've seen donors sink millions of dollars into all these projects about how can we get more creators to create content that's pro Democrats, things like that. And then as all of this is going on on the national level, there's this state senator in Virginia who's kind of crept up out of nowhere over the past couple of years. At least for me, I'm not a Virginia resident who's just had like the most just kind of sassy shit posting type personality on Twitter. And she's really broken through over the past couple of months because of all the redistricting stuff that's going on. Virginia right now is trying to redraw their congressional maps. This is part of the Democrats response to what happened in Texas last year. And she's just absolutely trolling the Republicans about this, giving them hell online to the point that there's been some Democratic consultants who have actually brought her tweets to members of Congress to be like, hey, guys, this is how you are good at social media. And it's hilarious that it's coming from this older woman in the party who's not even really a nationally known name. Yeah. So, I mean, as you said, I mean, the reason I think we're talking about her today is because This is jumping off of she's kind of been the drive at one of the driving forces of this Democratic redistricting in Virginia that is going to give Democrats how many it's like 11 to 1 seats or something like that. Ten, I think it's 10 to 1. Yeah. So it's going to be a big redistricting for Democrats. And I think what you're pointing to what's unique about her is that this is not the usual. I think what we think of as kind of the Democrats shrinking violet, like, oh, gosh, I guess maybe we'll do it if we have to. I mean, she's relishing it. And so to that point, I mean, what kind of stuff is she putting out there? She tweeting at Ted Cruz basically telling him to shut the fuck up getting Fox News to write headlines about the Twitter beef that she getting into with Ted Cruz And honestly what really caught my attention from her is her memes. There's been, I don't think like when you talk to Democrats on the Hill, they really don't know how to jump on social media trends. I'm obviously painting a really broad brush here. There are some that are familiar and fluent in the internet and grew up with it, But obviously, the Democratic Party in Congress is incredibly old and a lot of them don't know how to jump on these things. But she does. And it's fascinating. My personal favorite is her tweeting. She knows the terminology cuck chair, which she had to explain to her daughter, who's an adult, which is just like hilarious. You just wouldn't expect someone in the Democratic Party as well to their 80s. Well, to that point, Lauren, to that point, I mean, let's set it up. This is my favorite Louise Lucas thing is the cuck chair. And you wouldn't expect, you know, any politician to be tweeting about a cuck chair. Now, Lauren, typically I'm the one explaining the memes and stuff. But can you walk us through what a cuck chair is? Well, I would never, never take that honor from you. Never. Sure. Sure. So so, folks, so here's what happened. So basically, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe some Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, the Democratic senators from Virginia had been somewhat critical of this sort of slash and burn redistricting that is for the maximal democratic move in Virginia. And she said essential, I mean, she did say this. She said, why don't you guys go sit in the cuck chair? Now people might say, that doesn't sound like a thing I want to be in, but this is internet terminology. Now we're all used to the phrase cuck, cuckold, the guy whose wife is cheating on him. And maybe he gets some sexual satisfaction out of it. Maybe he's into it. I think that got big in like the 2016 election, right? But now the cuck chair is sort of a relatively new internet idea, which is that in a hotel room, you know, you got the bed, but typically your average hotel room, you've got one chair. And I think ostensibly it's for taking your shoes off or whatever. But now people, you go into a room and it's got one chair, especially facing the bed, that's called the cuck chair. Because the idea is that's where the cuckold is while the action's going down on the bed. That's where he's watching from. And, you know, this terminology, once you know it, it kind of sticks with you. I, I in a room sometime that there were just one room. I literally, it was my friend sometime or someplace. And I was like, well, there's the cup chair. And they said, what? And I think it's fascinating that Louise Lucas is, is getting into the same kind of stuff that I am. This maybe represents a new direction for Democrats, Lauren, wouldn't you say? I think so. I think there's this tension in the party right now. It's like, how far do you want to go? Do you want to go to kind of model your social media presence off of some of what we've seen in the GOP? Do you want to be kind of vulgar, I guess? I mean, I find some of it kind of funny, but like, do you want to do that? Is that the brand you want to want to embrace? Some Democrats have really prided themselves on being like kind of above this and not getting into the mud on these things and being a little bit more buttoned up and school president like, but I mean, they lost the last election. So like, is there a trade-off there? If you're a little bit more bland and a little bit more, uh, you know, just professional, so to speak online, does that come at a cost? And what's interesting, I think with her story too, is obviously a lot of the more like resistant types folks on the internet love Luis Lucas. She's built up a pretty impressive following for, um, a state official, um, for her memes and her tweets and things like that. But there also are some people who are like, this is not what we want to be as Democrats. This is really unhelpful to try and get our agenda passed in the state of Virginia. And importantly, she does represent a district that is really blue. So she can get away with punching Republicans in the face Whereas if you coming from a more purplish district this is probably not something that you going to do But I do think that she is kind of setting this model for a way to engage online And we've seen it from other folks, too. Obviously, Gavin Newsom's Twitter account over the past couple of months where he's really just trolling Republicans is the prime example of doing this on a more national scale. Yeah, I mean, I guess that was going to be my next question is, is who else is doing this? I mean, I think obviously any kind of successful social media stuff these days is, you know, people say this is a Zoran Mamdami type move. But, you know, Gavin Newsom, I mean, I feel like there's this sense of like Democrats, do they want to get like kind of Trumpy with it? Do they want to even like kind of a J.D. Vance type of tone, which is sort of what I mean, he's not saying cuck chair, but what she's saying kind of reminds me of J.D. Vance to this kind of just like, yeah, we're going to do it, like deal with it type of attitude. So are any other, you know, kind of prominent Democrats, especially ahead of 2028, embracing this? I think Newsom really is like the prime example. I think there's other folks that are trying to really be like, I'm going to speak in my own voice. We've used the word authentic so much over the past year, but I think of someone like Brian Schott. So I feel like when I'm Senator from Hawaii, when I'm reading his tweets, it really does feel like he wrote that. And you can tell when he's really pissed off about something. He's not using the kind of language. He's a different person. He's going to sound different, obviously, than Luis Lucas. But I think what's kind of the shared trait between all of them and like someone like Diego, the Senator from Arizona is I read their stuff and I feel like it's really them hitting send. I don't feel like it's a staffer who's tweeting it out for them. I don't feel like it's something that they went and tested or, you know, carefully crafted. Um, I think Brian shots, for example, was on a plane a couple of weeks ago and was like, AMA asked me anything. I'm on this plane, And LOL, like might regret it. And it was, I read the whole thing. He was engaging with people and it was really interesting. So I do think that there's Democrats that are kind of saying, all right, we got to be like a lot less cautious than we have been in the past. That's going to look different for different people, depending on what your end goals are, what you're trying to, are you trying to run for president or not? Or what kind of district do you represent? So I actually had a Louise Lucas story myself here in the district, in the district of Columbia, Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Wizards and the Mystics, he was trying to take his team and move it to Virginia a few years ago. And this was going to really, really leave DC and dire straits. It was kind of a tough time for the city economically. And he had teamed up with Glenn Youngkin. He's going to move it to Alexandria. And Louise Lucas is, among other things, Glenn Youngkin's archenemy. And so she used her position on the, I really thought I was like, DC is over. But Louise Lucas stepped in and she said, I hate this. She called it the Glen Dome. And in fairness, it was going to be like incredibly expensive. She used her key role on some committee to totally sink it. Then Ted Leonsis had to come slinking back to the district and we still have our stadium. So, you know, I do appreciate that about her. You know, Lauren, on another topic, speaking of Virginia, have you seen this increasing rumbling on the right about seeding Northern Virginia back to the district in an attempt to get rid of blue voters and try to hold on to Virginia. I have. What do you think of it? Well, it's interesting. I feel like there have been some kind of viral Twitter threads about it. And now just this week, there was a Fox News article from some think tank about it. Basically, their argument is somehow because folks, D.C. used to be a square and then the Alexandria portion was ceded to Virginia. And so the idea is that Republicans would suddenly champion the integrity of the District of Columbia and our political rights and cede Northern Virginia back. And then you would take out a bunch of Democratic voters including a lot of I think aggrieved federal staffers after the doge cuts And suddenly maybe Virginia could be a battleground state again You know on one hand it seems pretty crazy to me On the other I feel like I can really rule anything out, you know, from this administration and any kind of kind of antics. So it's just one as long as we were talking about Virginia, I kind of wanted to put a pin in as one to watch. I feel like Virginia has gotten pretty blue. I don't know. I don't. It would certainly be more competitive, obviously, but it's just one of those things where I'm like, I don't really know if that accomplishes exactly what you're looking for. On the other hand, would the district shape be more aesthetically pleasing? Because I would be interested in that. Would it be more of a square, perfect square? You know, there could be some common cause with like the, the, the cartography nerds perhaps in the Trump administration. Yeah. I could see that as an avenue. Just to close it up here. I mean, I think there are people who, you know, after obviously I think the Trump campaign was helped a lot by their sort of constant fire hose of attention in 2024. But there may be people who look at this and say, okay, so this Virginia state senator, she posted pictures of herself with glowing red eyes, right? Or these memes. I mean, does this really impact voters? And I guess this may be a difficult thing to measure. But I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. I mean, are there voters out there who are following? Maybe not Louise Lucas. Maybe she's kind of just, this is kind of internal Virginia, Richmond stuff. But I mean, do voters care about, you know, candidates who have a bit of voice or kind of punchier online? I think the base certainly does. And everything we know about what Democratic base voters want right now, it's they want someone like Luis Lucas, who's going to show that they're fighting and show that they're punching Republicans in the face. I think how people define fighting kind of differs. But from the reporting I've done from the voters that I've talked to, from the lawmakers that I've spoken with, it does seem like there is a segment of the Democratic base that does define fighting right now as simply taking it, engaging in a Twitter war. Democrats are obviously out of power right now. They're working with some limited resources, so to speak. And there are people that want this, want to see this from folks. I think Gavin Newsom has gotten a lot of credit from Democratic voters for his Twitter account. Obviously, that does that translate into electoral success? I don't know. I think it really clearly worked for Mom Donnie, who you brought up earlier. I do think it's interesting though, like what Mom Donnie was doing was super different than what Luis Lucas and even what Gavin Newsom is doing. There was more of a hopefulness and conciliatory sort of element to what this is very much more, we're just going to punch the opposition in the face. And that's what we're here to do. And, you know, I think there are a lot of people who want to see exactly that. I mean, I think you're pointing to sort of the divide that I think Democrats will continue to face for a while. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, El. And thank you for reminding all of us what a cook chair is. You know what? Absolutely. This is one I've been meaning to introduce to the audience. And as for everyone else, thank you for listening today and watching. And I hope you'll hit that subscribe button to the Bulwark. Again, Lauren's newsletter is The Opposition, coming out all the time. She's got the latest on Democrats. All right. Thanks a lot. and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side.
