The Political Industrial Complex: How Consultants Shape Democracy w/ Eva Posner

Watch the full episode: YouTube

Episode Summary

Political expert Eva Posner examines the political industrial complex and how political consultants shape democracy, revealing the behind-the-scenes forces that influence elections and policy decisions.

Key Topics: political industrial complex, political consultants, democracy, Eva Posner, campaign consulting, political influence, elections, policy making, political strategy, democratic process

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Table of Contents

• Introduction and Guest Background
• The Political Industrial Complex
• Campaign Consulting Industry
• Behind the Scenes Influence
• Impact on Democracy
• Reforming the System
• Conclusion and Call to Action

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Introduction and Guest Background

Evan Meyer: 00:07 Alright, we are recording. I'm going to trim this bit and then I'm going to do your intro. But just when we're done with this and I say goodbye, don't leave.

Cool? Because it's still uploading. made sure it's uploading. And it doesn't matter that it's recording. Oh, OK. Yeah, I'm going to snip this. So you know the drill.

Eva Posner (00:19.49) Yep. Yeah, yeah. I've used River, I've used Riverside before, so I've got it.

Evan Meyer: 00:32 Hey, everyone. Welcome to Meyerside Chats. Today we have Eva Posner. I'm so excited. Eva is a political renaissance woman. She's filled roles in field fundraising, management, operations, and communications in dozens of democratic campaigns and political organizations across the country. She's overseen million dollar races with national attention, grassroots school board races with no staff, and everything in between.

She opened a Vinko strategies in 2016 to focus on electing candidates who increase representation in government, specializing in first time candidates from diverse backgrounds who face barriers in traditional campaigns as well as issue campaigns that tackle systemic justice. She's passionate about social and criminal justice, local and state level campaigns, diverse representation in politics and training the next generation of political operatives. Prior to her work in politics, she worked as a journalist with a focus

on government human trafficking as well and she is a member of the Truman National Security Project earned her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. Eva, hi.

Eva Posner: 01:41 Hi Nick, how are you? Evan, not Nick. my gosh, I'm so sorry.

Evan Meyer: 01:45 That's okay. That's okay. I look like a Nick.

Eva Posner: 01:49 Well, so you kind of do but also I have another recording right after this with a guy with a nick and I think I just flipped him in my head I'm so sorry

Evan Meyer: 01:56 I'm sure he's a great guy. Any Nick that looks like me or

Eva Posner: 01:59 I

Eva Posner: 02:04 Hi Evan, how are you?

Evan Meyer: 02:05 Hi, good to see you. Happy holidays, happy Thanksgiving, merry joy, all the things. So give me a brief, let's do a brief intro if you can about yourself and a little bit about your, why you started Avinko Strategies and what that role, taking on that role for people running for office looks like for you. Yeah.

Eva Posner: **[02:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W

The Political Industrial Complex

ZVi5pgp4mE&t=134s)** I gotcha.

Eva Posner: 02:32 Yeah, so like you said, I grew up, I went to the University of Tennessee, up in the South. So I'm from Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, or Tennessee, depending on the conversation I'm having and what mood I'm in that day, based on how much I moved around as a kid. And then I moved to California after college and I was based in San Diego. I was working in journalism.

And I got my degree, my specialization was actually in political journalism and so I, you know, have

been politics or politics adjacent my entire adult life. I've always been very interested in how decisions get made, who's allowed in the room, why, etc. And so it wasn't a huge, huge leap when I decided to go, you know, to leave journalism and go into the campaign world, which happened in 2013. I was pregnant with my son and

the Sandy Hook shooting happened and I had this moment of shit the world is actually a really scary place and I'm about to like leave it to this kid right and he's gonna inherit this from me and so I you know I have to do something to try to fix what I can and I have a lot of respect for journalism done well but I also there is a different role in the world in

You

Eva Posner: 04:03 accountability and exposing problems than there is to trying to be in the room when someone's fixing the problem to actively try to fix it. And so I wanted to be on the fixing side, I decided. And I started working in campaigns, took an internship and then a campaign management position. And my first race, I had no idea what I was doing. It was a county assessor's race, real sexy. And, you know, countywide in San Diego,

is more voters than a governor's race in 22 states. So it was like a really big voter, know, voter universe to bite off for my first time, but also so far down ballot, nobody gave a shit. So that was a good combination of factors to kind of let me learn how to do everything. After that, I went to work for a fundraising firm, loved my boss, loved that job, but, you know, really wanted to...

do more than just fundraising. I kind of consider myself a Jane of all trades, if you will, and I really wanted to kind of diversify my skill set and diversify the services that I was using or doing, providing. So I decided to go out on my own between kind of wanting to do more than what I was doing at work every day for the fundraising firm, but then also seeing other consultants

that I had been working with on some of those races do what I considered to be subpar work. They were lazy, they were old school, they were stuck in the way that things, you know, things had always been and I didn't want to listen to any of them. I didn't want to have a boss. And so I guess it really comes down to the fact that I don't like to do what I'm told. I like to set my own path and so

I went out of business for myself i

Campaign Consulting Industry

n 2016 and have been doing it ever since. Avinco is what I call full service consulting firms. So we will help you raise the money and we'll help you spend it. everything from locking you in a closet to do call time and helping you with your fundraising events or text messages, fundraising emails, et cetera, to...

Eva Posner: 06:26 the part where it's time to outreach to voters. So, you know, writing ads or mailers, yard signs, coming up with field programs, telling you which doors to knock, those kinds of things. So it's really both sides of the campaign. And my version of consulting is a little more hands on than most general consultants. So it's it's more it's somewhere hybrid between.

consulting and campaign management. But because we work with first-time candidates who, you know, are, they don't know what they don't know. We've really found that it's important not to just tell people what to do, but to show them how to do it and to be partners with them along the way.

Evan Meyer: 07:10 Great. Yeah, I mean, your experience also in so many different states, right, has made, I'm sure, given you some perspective that crosses political lines, right? You've been in California, Mississippi, if I remember, Louisiana, Virginia.

Eva Posner: 07:33 Yes.

Evan Meyer: 07:33 So, you know, you it's interesting. You've been able to and and and at the same time, so three of those states would be considered normally red. Right. And one of them dominantly super, super dominantly blue. And, you know, how is that? And now you live in Virginia. Yeah. Yes. So how is that change? You know, this this must be put put your

Eva Posner: 07:43 Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eva Posner: 07:57 Yes.

Evan Meyer: 08:03 really shape how you think about these things because you also handle only democratic campaigns, is that correct? Okay, so put these together here for me.

Eva Posner: 08:09 Yes, that's correct. Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is also is just being able to see what makes a community unique, being able to talk to people, meet them where they're at.

And, but also seeing the things that they actually have in common that they may or may not understand. San Diego, California has a ton in common with Virginia actually, like a ton. The way that the economy functions, the makeup of the voters, the fact that it is actually much more purple than it is blue. A lot of those things are, are.

Eva Posner: 08:52 Sorry.

A lot of those

Behind the Scenes Influence

things are...

things that people assume that they have opposite of folks and then they actually don't. And one of the things that's really been interesting for me my entire like adult life essentially or really spanning backward is if you're Southern, California has this reputation of being like this like hippie hellscape and like nobody ever wants to go to California. You're not supposed to want you. Nobody likes California. California is this boogie man that is, you know, used against

you know, people to keep them from having certain opinions or particularly political opinions or societal opinions about how things are shaped. Whereas if you're in California, then the entire South, you know, is written off into these like rednecks who don't know what's good for them, you know, they're hateful, they're all these other things. And so there's all of these assumptions that people have. And all of those assumptions have been

levied at me at some point. I found it really difficult to find a job when I got to California because I had a degree from the University of Tennessee and a Southern accent. And then moving back to Virginia, I found it difficult to break in here even though I was raised here.

Evan Meyer: 10:03 Huh.

Eva Posner: 10:10 because people see California and they don't want California in their politics. And so, you know, in California, they assume I'm like this super moderate may as well be a Republican and in Virginia, I'm like a progressive, you know, socialist pig. It really is extremely interesting to see how those things work out. But for me, it's really allowed me to see both the common ground

that we have as Americans and that like we all things that we all think are important even though we think somebody else thinks something else to battle a lot of my own assumptions and it's also allowed me to see the things that really do make a community unique the different cultures that we have as a country. I mean our country is bigger.

than some continents. So like, it's a very diverse place and meeting people where they're at is actually really hard to do on a massive scale. And so I think it's given me a lot of respect for the diversity of the American voter.

Evan Meyer: 11:09 Yeah, yeah, you said a lot of interesting things there, you know, and the idea of, you know, what it brings up for me is I think people are different than their government and the things that they talk about that they see at the latest thing with their historical understanding of, you know, the evil nature of the other party.

Eva Posner: 11:33 Mm-hmm.

Evan Meyer: 11:34 It's like it's such top level stuff. It doesn't get to the heart of what people r

Impact on Democracy

eally care about at all, unfortunately, which is mostly the same stuff. Safety. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who doesn't value public safety. I guess the question is, do you value it in policy? Sometimes it's about whether you value something more than say, let's just use climate for example. What's more important to run on as your first priority, public safety or?

climate, environment related stuff.

Eva Posner: 12:06 Right, well and where that value comes from because just because you value something does not mean that you're approaching it in the same way. Some people approach climate change from an existential human crisis perspective, some people approach it from an economic green jobs perspective, both are correct. Some people...

approach public safety from a response times and resources for first responders perspective and some people take it from a mass surveillance and police state perspective and both are correct. The things that make people feel safe, the things that make people feel seen, they may end up being the same umbrella issue but there's a different way of getting

there's a different factor at play for them in how they interact with their government.

Evan Meyer: 12:54 Right. We talked a bit about the political industrial complex and its effect on the work that you do. Can you explain a little bit when you hear the term political industrial complex, what that means to you and how it affects the work that you do?

Eva Posner (13:12.94) Yeah, so I actually think I may have coined it. I don't know, but I've been saying it a lot lately over the last year, and it kind of hit me one day as I was thinking through some of the other complexes where very well, we'll use the military industrial complex or the prison industrial complex as examples. There are these industries that...

They prioritize making money at the end of the day over the impact they're having on human lives. politics has gotten to that point. And I think it's much worse than people understand. It is much bigger than Citizens United and whether or not there are lobbyists in the Capitol and all of that stuff. It actually has to do with the fact that there is an entire professional class, an entire, and not even just us, like industries that we heavily support, like printing.

and TV buys and things like that. There is a monetary value, a monetary reason to make certain strategic decisions because

a lot of the political industry is set up so that the consultants get kickbacks on a certain level of ad buy or they get kickbacks on a certain or a percentage of the the print job that they send out when they when they send a mailer to a certain number of people. Did that mailer really need to go out? Was that the best strategy to reach people where they are? Was that the best strategy to have a conversation with the voters? Is it really ne

Reforming the System

cessary to have a you know two million dollar ad buy in and blanket

Evan Meyer: 14:37 Hmm.

Eva Posner: 14:46 the airwaves, is that really is that really actually convincing people of things? Or is it because the company who placed that buy got 15 % of the ad? And the thing is, you don't necessarily know the answer all the time. I'm not saying that these strategies or these tactics are wrong. They are, you know, there are tried and true methods for reading, reaching people, but

Are those conversations being had? those strategies being made? Are those are the messages that are going into those things? Are they actually being created?

Based off of what the American people need or what a certain community needs or are they being created because there's an industry Behind it and there's a certain group of people who are gonna make a certain amount of money off of you know Putting that out out there or whatever or having that issue win and then you have a friendlier Person, you know for the lobbyists back in the door It's there's a profit motive to campaigning

And it's been that way, think. mean, I'm only 37, but I've been able to kind of do enough research to trace it back at least until the Clinton era, and it's gotten worse and worse and worse over the years. And I think that it creates what one of my friends calls a democracy input problem, in that there is an industry created to talk at the public.

Evan Meyer: 16:08 I like that.

Eva Posner: 16:13 It is not created to listen to the public about what they actually need.

Evan Meyer: 16:22 It's wild. Can you tell me the top five people you think or groups? No, no, no, no, no. Not names. Just industries. Just like market, you know, the people doing the campaign manager. Can you name like the general industry that's profiting?

Eva Posner: 16:31 I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to name names. I'm not trying. Look, I would like to.

Eva Posner (16:45.59) I mean, I think political consulting is the general industry. are, there are different types of political consultants, right? So there are general consultants like me who are, you know, we do a little bit of everything. We don't specialize in anything. We can help you solve any problem 95 % of the way there. And then there are specialty consultants. There are people who only do polls, only do TV buys, only do internet buys, only do, you know, only print mail, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so the industry is, it's made up of all of us.

And all of us have some level of guilt in it to some extent. I try really hard to price my services in a transparent way ahead of time

Conclusion and Call to Action

. A lot of folks work on percentages. I primarily work on a retainer. And the reason I primarily work on a retainer is because it allows for the candidate to...

to predict how much my services are going to cost at the end. They're not going to get a surprise bill that's like, you know, whatever percentage of some universe that they didn't see. And it also allows me to separate myself from separate the money that I'm making from the strategic decision that I'm making for that candidate. So if I only need to see send three mailers, then I only send three mailers because I don't need to send nine mailers in order to make a certain amount of money off of that campaign. And so I've set up what I can to like to

to separate it out and try to lead through this with integrity. But the, and I'm not trying, you I don't want to single out any given person or whatever, but the industry is systematically broken. And it is made to shout at people. It's made to have decisions made in a smoke-filled room on K Street by all those old men and their cigars. And then they blast out 15.

billion dollars in advertisements over the course of two months and they're wondering why the American people aren't persuaded.

Eva Posner: 18:49 It's dumb. That's, that's dumb.

Evan Meyer: 18:52 Yeah, yeah. How has this tested your, one of the terms that we used in our earlier conversation was there's a cognitive dissonance sometimes in doing these campaigns or consulting roles. How, and you've experienced that directly. How has that tested your values as a?

Eva Posner (19:14.7) Yeah, I mean, I think my job is existential every day. have, sometimes it's better than others, but I am frequently wondering, like, am I part of the problem? Am I, by trying to create a sustainable business model in this industry, am I inherently complicit in this separation from democracy, this profit motive of democracy that we're supposed that we are...

We're supposed to be in it for the people. We're supposed to be in it to improve people's lives. We're not supposed to be in it to make money. I run a business. The business has to make money, right? That's how it works in order to meet payroll and all of these things. So I often have issues with that. And then I also have some, you know, specific deliverables. One of the things that we talked about was

the ballot information booklets. So first off, I learned that they do not have them everywhere, and I find that to be really sad, and everyone should demand ballot information booklets from their government, because it is really hard to find the information about what's on your ballot in some places. But in California, every voter is mailed

an information packet or an information pamphlet. Sometimes two, think, depending on the county. So the county registrar will send you one for all your local races. And then the state.

Secretary of State's office will send you one for all the statewide races and propositions. And in those measure, in those pamphlets, you have, you know, the general information of like, okay, these races are up, here's who is running, here's what party they are, if it's a partisan race, etc, etc. And it gives you that basic information. But then on top of that, there is information that is printed in those booklets that is from the campaigns themselves. So each candidate or campaign has the opportunity to make

Eva Posner (21:09.25) an argument for themselves. Which means that, you know, the campaign is writing a deliverable that goes out to the entire voting universe. And I'm talking to every single voter in, you know, whatever district, knowing that this is going out. To be fair, we do pay for it. It is not taxpayer funded. Those pieces, you do not get a statement if you do not pay for it. So the campaign pays for it. But we pay for this thing to go out and then

You know, I think the question that you asked me when we had the pre-conversation is, do you write them to be honest or do you write them to win? And I write them to win. And I have to live with that. That's my job, is to help this person win. so now I have very specific standards that I hold myself and my team to that I am proud of. We do not print lies. We do not, we don't do, you know,

negative campaigning in the sense of like character attacks and whatever, things like that. But that said, your record is your record and I'm gonna tell people what you voted for. I'm gonna tell people the money you took. If you did something shitty, people are gonna know. And so, you know, some of those, balancing of how do I present this in the best possible light for my client.

to give them the best chance of winning and also not lie. Not be a spin doctor. I don't wanna be a spin doctor. I was a journalist. That's not how I want to do things. But there are certain talking points you're gonna put first. There are certain numbers that you're gonna put first. There are certain ways that male candidates are perceived differently than female candidates that are gonna make you present it differently. And so it is...

you know, at the heart of it, I do manipulate information to get, you know, as a means to an end. And sometimes that feels shitty.

Evan Meyer: 23:09 Yeah, yeah, I bet it's got to be a challenge, but you're trying to do sounds like you're trying to do the right thing in a difficult space, right? That makes it really does test your boundaries sometimes.

Eva Posner: 23:23 That's what I tell myself. I think, I mean, I think I do a decent job. But I, you know, sometimes you have a swing and a miss. Sometimes you end up in a situation and you just do something and you're like, turns out I'm that person. Who knew? You know, and the longer you're in politics, the more of those situations that you find yourself in, the more every day there's an opportunity for you to.

do something you wouldn't be proud of. And it's a battle, for, and it's not just a battle for the candidates, the politicians, the person on the ballot, they get all of the headlines and all that stuff, and that's fine, credit where credit is due, but those of us who are behind the scenes in the industry face a lot of the same, if not sometimes worse, because there's a lot of things that we can do that the candidates can't.

Evan Meyer: 23:55 Hmm.

Eva Posner (24:20.64) And so you end up finding yourself in potentially shady situations.

Evan Meyer: 24:25 give me an example of one of the things that you can do that your candidates can't.

Eva Posner: 24:30 I mean, I think like a general easy one is like, it's easier for me to go negative than it is for a lot of my clients. So I can get in the newspaper and I can say, Joe Schmo sucks and here's why. and yeah, yeah. And it gives me. Right.

Evan Meyer: 24:42 about the other candidates. But that's the negative campaigning.

Eva Posner: 24:48 But it and trying and it gives my client like a level of separation from it because they didn't have to say it. I did. But then it's coming out of my mouth. So now I have to figure out how like what I'm going to say about why this person sucks. Is that a legitimate reason? Am I giving legitimate information that I think the voters need or am I just talking shit because I don't like that person or I want to win?

Evan Meyer: 24:56 Evan Meyer: 25:05 Yeah.

Evan Meyer: 25:13 Right, right, well does that, so how do you do, when that kind of thing comes up with your team, do you say, look we're not doing this type of negative campaigning, do you say that's too much negative campaigning, do you say this type is okay here, like.

Eva Posner: 25:30 Yes, yeah, so I have, mean, I am, I don't go after people's families. I do not go after their children. I do not, I do not go after their like dating life or anything like that unless, but then there's like, I'm not going to go after your dating life, but have you, but if you've been sued for sexual assault, that is an open book, right? That is, that's.

that's fine to me because that's maybe something that people should know about their politicians. I'm not going to go after your finances. I don't care if you've had a bankruptcy. Most people have that make, you know, a lot of, or a lot of people have financial troubles, particularly nowadays that makes you relatable. I'm not going to use that against you. But did you not pay your taxes for like three years? Cause that is something maybe the voter should know. It's like there is a

Evan Meyer (26:19.52) Hmm.

Eva Posner: 26:21 There are things that I consider to be public record. Your voting record is, especially if you're a sitting politician, if you are a sitting elected official, every vote you've ever taken is fair game. And I will shout that from the rooftops in any way that I need to. There are certain things that people have done in certain jobs maybe that people need to know.

Evan Meyer: 26:35 Mm-hmm.

Eva Posner (26:48.16) you know, I don't know if you've been running, if you're running for school board, but you've been fired from three schools. have questions and maybe the voters should too. So it really depends on the topic and how I'm going to frame the topic. But I generally, I think I kind of try to go at it through a journalism lens. If I wouldn't write a story about it, I'm not going to use it on the campaign trail. If I don't think it's real news. Now, of course that's subjective, but if I don't think it's real news, I don't think that it

impacts how you can make a decision or how you can vote or how you can represent the community, then it's, it's, don't care. I'm not trying to take people down for their lives. We need more normal people in politics and normal people have skeletons. But

If I think there's a chance it shows who you are and how you can vote or it has the possibility to impact how you're gonna represent the community, then I think it's fair game.

Evan Meyer: 27:45 So if, just to paraphrase, it sounds like you're trying to do it more in an intellectual capacity that can educate. I'm trying to frame this in a way that helps think about this difficult cognitive dissonance at these moments, right, where you want to do it. And like, does it feel that education...

to the voter is most important, but not at the expense at someone's, the things that people hold dear that aren't related to the voting, like their kids and their family and stuff like that.

Eva Posner: 28:22 Yes, I think that's generally the line that I'm trying to balance. to be fair, most of my clients don't like negative campaigning. I'm usually the one pushing for it if it happens at all. And so I don't find myself in a lot of situations with this example in particular where I'm being pushed to do something that I don't want to do. It happens on occasion.

where you know somebody will bring something to me and I'm like we're not we're not going to touch that there's I will I will not touch that and I've had twice I think clients who have wanted to use something and I'm not only and I've said I don't want to touch that and then they push and they push and then I have to say if you campaign on that I will end our contract like I am not going to stand by you while you do that because it's shitty and then I've seen things done to my candidates you know that

Evan Meyer: 29:11 Yeah, good for you.

Eva Posner (29:17.31) has been awful going after their kids, going after medical conditions, things like that, that's really difficult to deal with and then I have to.

figure out not only how to stand with them as their consultant and make sure that this thing blows over or that we pivot it to make sure that it's a strength or whatever it is, but also then to be there for them as a person while their life is getting attacked, not just their political record.

Evan Meyer: 29:48 Yeah, it's a challenge. that takes a lot of...

Evan Meyer: 29:57 judiciary responsibility in a sense in being able to think about that in a way that balances all the things. When it comes to the ballots and what gets written in there, do you think that generally the information in there, knowing what you know is more helpful than hurtful?

more often than not, is it something, and if not, how do you find ways, how do you think we should be improving? And of course it's different, the counties and the states are different for every state of all the nuances of this, so I get that. How could we make that process better so that people are getting more educated more often with more impartial information?

Eva Posner: 30:53 Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. It also varies county to county. It's not just in the state, you know, things that would fly in the county of San Diego may not also may not fly in the city of San Diego, right? Different jurisdictions have different controls and different rules for how they do this. So it's and some of them are much more tightly monitored than others. And so I think some of them are frankly

doing a better job. I will say I am 85 % confident that the information that makes it into the ballot is technically true.

85 % of the time. If not 100 % of the time. There is a pretty stringent legal process that you have to go through. There's legal review. There are lawsuits. I've been in court more than once over ballot language.

there are challenge processes. It's silly season. It's so ridiculous. It's my least favorite time of the cycle. And it's actually coming up here in like two months. my God, I'm stressed out already. All right. And so, you know, there are

there are ways that that information gets filtered that I think are positive and generally speaking make it so that the information that is coming out is true. That said, it's often lacking context and it has been sent through the filter of gatekeepers from both campaigns, right, both sides of a campaign, but then also the

Eva Posner: 32:37 elected office or appointed office that filters that information so that may be a city attorney it may be the attorney general it may be you know the registrar voters whatever and so you have all of those different human lenses on it and everybody has an agenda everybody everybody on the planet everybody in politics has an agenda if you do not have an agenda you are not like high and mighty

Evan Meyer: 33:01 You're not living, god damn it! You're not living.

Eva Posner: 33:03 You're lazy. I mean, it's just like, what are you doing? You wake up every day and you're just like aimless and you're like, what are you doing? Everybody has a thing that they are trying to do. And I think in politics, people say, well, that's a political agenda. Like it's a negative thing. I mean, what's the point of trying to do all of this work if you're not trying to move the world into a certain direction? But you don't always know what those agendas are. And I think that

Evan Meyer: 33:09 Yeah, you have to move towards something.

Evan Meyer: 33:23 Right. Yeah.

Evan Meyer: 33:27 And they're not always clear. They may say one thing.

Eva Posner: 33:29 They're not always clear. And I think that that is where the problem in the system is, is that you have these things going through all of these filters with all of these people who have an agenda. And then it gets published with the logo of the county or state or city or whatever that is putting out that thing. And it is presented as if it were neutral information from the government and not...

not information that has been politically manipulated to an end result. And I think that's a problem. I also think, if I'm really honest, I think that nonpartisan races are a lie and that every race on the ballot should say whether or not they're a D or an R. I mean, the idea especially in

Evan Meyer: 34:18 I think nonpartisan is just a way to say like, not Democrat and not Republican, right? It's like.

Eva Posner: 34:21 Yes. So like in California, if you're well, no, if you're running for state or Congress, statewide, like state level assembly or Senate or statewide constitutional officer like governor or Congress or or United States Senate, then they are partisan. It tells you on the ballot Republican or Democrat for every person. If you're running for county supervisor, city attorney, city council.

Evan Meyer: 34:26 It's their own partisan.

Eva Posner: 34:49 school board, any of that, it does not have the Democrat or Republican on the ballot. And so you're not getting all the information about that person that is relevant to the way that they make decisions. And there is no one who can convince me that somebody runs for office without having some kind of ideological slant to what it is that they are doing. And so the, even, and maybe they're an independent, fine, cool. Put, you know, put an eye next to it. That will

Evan Meyer: 35:09 Sure, a belief system.

Eva Posner (35:18.38) give the voters more information about who this person is and how they're going to make decisions that they do not otherwise get. And they have to like, the burden is on them to go find the information themselves. So I just think there's a lot more transparency in the process. I think we could also potentially have, I mean, it's a...

Evan Meyer: 35:38 There should be a lot more transparency, you're saying. Yes.

Eva Posner (35:41.11) Yes, and I think there's, it's possible to do, I mean we could have something not unlike the redistricting commission that reviews these language or something like that, it, I mean it's going to cost money and then there's all this, you know, there's a lot of logistical hurdles to why that may not be possible right this second, but these are not problems that are unsolvable, they're problems that people do not want to solve.

Evan Meyer: 36:05 Yeah, I mean, same with the with immigration policy. seems like no one wants to solve that insurance crisis doesn't seem like a lot of people are interested in solving that. They are very interested in the Epstein files and the Comey files and you know, like things that.

for some reason distract from real issues in the country, know, affordability, insurance, stuff that people deal with day to day. I haven't yet figured it out. then on top of that, mean, the ballot, it was a great idea, like the redistricting piece in California, right? Sorry, to pause that until next, next term, right?

American, by a large majority, voted to do that so that this they can redistrict. you know, it was a really, it was interesting. mean, it really, it was, it was a very large win.

And the language in the ballot was bait was mostly we we don't like Donald Trump and we're gonna fight against Donald Trump and The whole thing was about I mean, I don't even remember anything that wasn't about Donald Trump It was and and I was like I this I'm not sure that that's the argument that you want to come with You know to go, you know, just cuz they did it this time You know redistricting happens every gerrymandering is every state all the time

Eva Posner (37:15.97) Mm-hmm.

Evan Meyer: 37:39 We seem to have taken this one very specifically, which I don't know if they determined was anything actually against the law particularly. It was untraditional.

And I'm not defending what Texas did, by the way. I don't even know all the nuances about that type of what can and you can't do for the federal redistricting level like that, right? So like, I'm for the state. I'm just, but there was so much language in the ballot that was just like, it didn't seem to focus on the things that really we should be understanding about the impacts of redistricting from a philosophical standpoint, from a morality standpoint. It was just like, Texas did it.

going to let us get back at them. All right, let's do it too. I don't know if that's the right approach to take in that in that way, right? I didn't feel right. That's why Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, actually, I'm agreeing very much. I really aligned with what Arnold Schwarzenegger said. I thought I thought he had a lot of smart things to say about it. He didn't get a lot of

review for that but you know I would just that that was my feeling on what do you what do you think about that whole process here in California.

Eva Posner: 38:44 Well, so I think, I mean, I think that first off, your definition of right is confusing because is it the right thing to print if you want to win? Apparently, right? If that's your goal, right? If that's it. So I think there's that piece. I mean, I think, look, I think the Prop 50 thing was really interesting to me for one very specific reason. And that's because I think it showed that the voters are not stupid. Because poll after poll.

Poll after poll shows support for the Independent Redistricting Commission. The voters like the Independent Redistricting Commission. The voters understand why districts should be drawn by Independent Redistricting Commission. They got it. And then they turned around and voted for Prop 50 overwhelmingly because they can hold two thoughts in their minds at the same time.

which a lot of times our industry does not give people credit for. It thinks the voters are stupid. so that's part of why you get this like broadcasting, talking at people situation is because there's this assumption that people just don't understand. And I would disagree. I think that the polling versus the results show that the voters understood the assignment and that the voters knew what they were doing.

and knew why they were doing it. And whether you agree on why they're doing it, they were holding both of those thoughts in their head at the same time. I like the independent.

Evan Meyer: 40:06 How do you know that they, how do you know the why? How do you know that they knew the why?

Eva Posner: 40:10 Because they, everybody has their own why.

Eva Posner (40:16.12) But the thing is, because all of these polls, mean, the Independent Redistricting Commission polls in the 60s, and then Prop 50 passed overwhelmingly. these things were, I mean, they were measured very close to each other. And so you have the voters saying, no, I actually really like this, but I'm gonna vote to destroy it for a second. And I think that that piece...

Evan Meyer: 40:36 yeah.

Eva Posner: 40:40 I think shows complexity and nuance in the voters. I can't read everybody's mind, but the data mismatch shows complexity in the voters that I think they do not always get credit for.

Evan Meyer: 40:42 Interesting. Sure.

Evan Meyer: 40:51 Yeah, okay, that's a good take on it. Yeah, I don't know. My feeling is that a lot of voters don't get, because it was so Donald Trump heavy, front heavy, it made it like a vengeful bill and not a, look, there's a lot of ways of solving that problem, right? Someone could draw 10 ways of, 20 ways of solving that problem.

I struggled to, it was hard for me to determine that this was the right one based on, and that language is important because it pushes people to feel a certain way about a system. So we're gonna be less democratic for a little while. We're gonna reduce our democracy here for a little while in hopes of the promise that it'll come back in order to defeat the bad guys who are Texas and Donald Trump. That was to me the meat of that whole bill.

I even I spoke to a number of politicians about it. got a I got the same feel and it felt good. And I guess based on what you what you're saying is that you feel that there was depth of thought. My feeling is that there was not a philosophical approach to thinking about that bill from a long term standpoint. Will they bring the redistricting commission back.

We moved on anger and hate and vengefulness over here in California, over what I think was probably a better long-term strategy. Even if, by the way, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with anything Texas did, Donald Trump, none of that. It just comes down to like, how are you trying to solve this problem with what attitude and with what, it's the approach, right? Like we've talked about.

So it was still a struggle for me to see. And then it won by such a large amount. I have found it difficult for people to, when it comes to having a nuanced conversation, the first thing that comes up is, how do you like Donald Trump? Liar, blah, blah. I'm like, how can anyone like that guy or whatever? And it's like, can we talk about the issue?

Eva Posner: 42:52 Yeah, well, I mean, I think you're correct in what the approach was. And I think, I mean, to be fair, Gavin didn't hide from that. This was his idea. He did it for a reason, not the least, or for several reasons, not the least of which is that he wants to run for president. And, you know, whatever. What I will say, though, is that asking for

Evan Meyer: 43:12 Nothing's better than hating Donald Trump from California if you're gonna run for president, I guess.

Eva Posner: 43:20 that level of nuance from people.

is really difficult for a couple of reasons. The first is that people are struggling to survive right now. They are not having their Maslow's hierarchy of needs met. And so they are not feeling safe. They do not have homes over their heads. They do not have healthcare. They do not have food security. They do not have basic things that allow human beings to make smart decisions and to demand. I'm not saying the decision wasn't smart. I'm saying they don't have the ability to demand the level of nuance out of their elected leader.

that they should. The second thing is that our information infrastructure is fucked and it has been for decades. And so this is where some of my journalism background comes in. You have two sides of a coin.

On one side of the coin, have all mainstream media, for lack of better word, is funneled through like five companies, right? And they're all owned by billionaires and some of them are owned by people who are not American. And I'm not saying that to be nationalistic. I'm saying that as a point of fact about where people get their information about the American political system, right? So, you know, their agenda from like a class standpoint alone is not the same as the everyday Americans agenda. So there's that.

on the mainstream media side. And then you have on the other side of this the social media internet world that has been built over the last couple of decades. And in that world every single human being has their own algorithm. And your algorithm says the sky is blue and my algorithm says the sky is orange. How are we supposed to have...

Eva Posner (45:00.63) you know, the same view of what it is to be an American if we don't even have the same view of what color the sky is, let alone a conversation about the fact that most of the time the sky is blue, but at sunset, sometimes it's orange. Right? And so you have these two things. So on one side you have propaganda, and on the other side you have brainwashing that puts people in their own personal bubble.

of intaking information. And then you have the consistent erosion of public education and critical thinking, civic skills, and things like that in the public education system, which has been happening for decades and was purposeful.

Evan Meyer: 45:36 said.

Eva Posner: 45:37 what people don't have the tools they don't have the tools they're not given the tools to create a life for themselves that allows them to make rational decisions and then on top of that have the intellectual capacity to have those deeper conversations that said i see deeper conversations on the internet in the comments section in some situations than i ever see on fox news or that i hear on most podcasts there are

People are smarter than we give them credit for, but they're purposely locked out of the system and purposely not given the information they need to make good decisions.

Evan Meyer: 46:18 I just had a conversation earlier just even about civics understanding and education. It's like what percentage of people know what a county supervisor is? And that is such an important role. is like, especially in LA, they manage more people than a senator, a state senator, are under their jurisdiction. The mental health department is in Los Angeles County. There's so many things they do and they have so much power.

I guess it's the least, like I don't even know if you said name the levels of people that represent you if someone would name a county supervisor. The average person would name a county supervisor. My question to you is this, what percentage of people know what account, would name a county supervisor if you said who represents you?

Eva Posner: 47:08 Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I've not... I have a hard time answering... I know, I get it, but I have hard time answering questions like that because I live in a bubble.

Evan Meyer: 47:16 It's a litmus test on civic education.

Eva Posner: 47:23 I have to acknowledge that about myself and that's one of those cognitive dissonance things that I have to battle with constantly is that I live in a political bubble where everybody knows everything all the time. And what the average person looks like is not, and their understanding of politics is not something that I fully grasp. And I have to take some humble pie when it comes to that because...

Evan Meyer: 47:36 Must be nice.

Eva Posner (47:49.96) you know maybe they know maybe they don't I don't I don't think they know but to be fair I work for I work in politics and I lived in when I moved to Richmond I lived in Richmond for an entire year before I knew what city council district I lived in I like showed up to vote and I was like oops

Evan Meyer: 48:09 Yeah.

Well, you know, and a lot of times it's if look, if you're not concerned with certain things, then sometimes it doesn't matter if you do know it. I guess it it only matters when you start pointing fingers and applying blame. Right. And and the people to point fingers and apply blame tend to be the biggest people. So it's like whoever's got the biggest mouthpiece and has the biggest influence, you know, usually a state senator, some senator with a big mouth or some congressman or or, you know, the president, the governor. No one hears from.

the treasurer of Fiona Ma. How many people know Fiona Ma is? She's managing the money. It's pretty important.

Eva Posner: 48:50 I think people will figure it out when they need something, and I don't think that's necessarily the wrong approach. When government is functioning properly, you shouldn't have to think about it. And so I think there is an element of people taking for granted that the government's gonna do what it's supposed to do.

I could argue that they should not, but I think that that is a fair assumption that in a democratic republic that the government will look out for you. And I think when people need something, then they figure out who they need to reach out to, or they reach out to the wrong person, right? Like you need a constituent service, for example, and you call your congressperson and they're like, actually, that's your council member, here's the phone number. And then they navigate the system from that direction. I mean, I wish people understood local government more.

Evan Meyer: 49:12 Yeah.

Eva Posner: 49:42 not just because that's like my passion, but because it is where most of the decisions are made that impact your life every day. know, whether or not your community has a grocery store or a hospital or your school is funded or, you know, there are jobs available to you within a reasonable commute, that's all local government. And, you know, I wish people paid more attention to that, but they partially don't because of the political industrial complex, because the money

Evan Meyer: 49:51 here, right?

Evan Meyer: 49:58 Yeah.

Evan Meyer: 50:02 Right.

Eva Posner: 50:12 is in the big races. The industry is set up to use the presidential race as the big, like, it's a feast and famine situation. And the presidential race is the big kahuna. That's the cycle where everyone makes money and that's the race that everyone makes the most money off of. So everything starts there. If my working theory is that if the political industry was set up

genuinely to support democracy rather than to just make money, then it would actually, the funding and the messaging would go from the bottom up because it would be focused on the council members and the mayors and the district attorneys and the supervisors and the folks who are in the communities, drive those streets, knock those doors, meet those people and have the ability to identify what issues in the community are versus the president.

Evan Meyer: 51:03 Yeah.

Eva Posner: 51:11 Like, like them or hate them, Donald Trump is not going to come knocking on your door to see what's wrong. You know, Joe Biden wasn't there. He's not. And so there's that element of like, if, if this system were set up to actually hear people, then the big important races would be the ones at the bottom.

Evan Meyer: 51:18 He's also not in charge of the trash in front of your building, you know, like.

Evan Meyer: 51:31 Yeah, hey, I'm into that. And I'm into having some humble pie. think that's another good thing that you said that I want to just, I think is a good note to leave on. You know, as you know, my role here is in Myers Side Chat, just to bring these kind of thoughts together, educate people, have an impartial conversations, the best we can in order to destroy this us and them.

narrative that happens that gets people divorcing their families. And it's really sad. So I started this journey four years ago so I can do that. when I, you know, I always tell people, you don't have to believe it that hard. You could believe it. You just don't have to believe it that hard. You're very far removed from the room where it happens, you know.

So, but I want to thank you for your time, your knowledge and expertise and for sharing here today. I value this conversation and the time we have together. This was great. I've learned some things as well. And anything last words you want to say to the world? And of course, how do people find you if they need your services?

Eva Posner: 52:43 I guess my last words to the world are, thanks Nick.

I appreciate it. Just kidding. I, I'm sorry. I called you by the wrong name. And then, you can find me at a Vinko strategies.com E V I N C O strategies.com. And I have a 15 minute free call for anybody who is interested and thinks they might want to run day run for office. and you know, we can talk about it I can help you try to navigate that without ruining your life or selling your integrity.

Evan Meyer: 52:49 Ha ha ha!

Evan Meyer: 53:15 Hey, you want to run for office? You know who to contact. posing it right here, Ivenko Strategies. No. All right. Good to see you. Take care. Bye.

Eva Posner: 53:19 You

Eva Posner: 53:26 Good to see you too. Thanks.