Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other

Mike Madrid on why both parties are running on empty, and what's actually filling the vacuum.
Mike Madrid, author of The Latino Century and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, joins Corey to argue that neither party is being reshaped so much as replaced. The conversation moves from a 13,000-person Texas town that could decide the midterms to what it costs a person to spend a career in gladiator politics, and why Madrid traded that fight for painting, pilgrimages, and personal writing.

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Key takeaways
Madrid argues both parties are "zombie parties," hollow shells running on inertia while voters increasingly organize around issues instead of labels.
Beeville, Texas, a 70% Hispanic town that went 70% for Trump, is why Madrid calls it the most important town in America for the midterms.
State Rep. James Talarico is connecting with Latino voters by framing politics as class, not identity: the working class had the American dream stolen from them.
After years of "gladiator politics," Madrid stepped back from the fight and now spends his time writing, painting, and teaching, calling it work that's better for his soul.

About Mike Madrid
Mike Madrid is a longtime Latino GOP political consultant and co-founder of the Lincoln Project. He's the author of The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy, and co-hosts the Latino Vote Podcast with Chuck Rocha. He writes The Great Transformation on Substack, where most of his reporting and essays now live, and this fall he's teaching courses built around his book at USC and UC Irvine.

Links
"The Latino Century" by Mike Madrid: simonandschuster.com/books/The-Latino-Century/Mike-Madrid/9781668015278
The Great Transformation on Substack: greattransformation.substack.com

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Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

The parties aren't just dying. Something else is already replacing them.
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Two megaphones, two drinks, one bar. Corey quits talking about talking and just gets to the talkin'.
Second edition of "To the Republic... To the Pub." Corey sits down with his buddy Chip, a Tea Party guy since the '70s, and it turns into a real fight: Trump's second term, JD Vance, ICE and the Home Depot raids, and whether bipartisanship even means anything anymore. Not talking about people we disagree with. Talking with them.
FOR THE RECORD: Biden's Last Two Years vs. Trump's First 20 Months
Jobs: averaged 216,000/month in 2023 and 168,000/month in 2024 (BLS, revised). Under Trump, growth has slowed sharply, roughly 716,000 jobs added total from January 2025 through June 2026, versus 2 million over Biden's final 17 months.
Inflation: fell steadily under Biden, from a 4.1% average in 2023 to 2.9% by December 2024. Under Trump it's climbed back to 3.4% for the 12 months ending July 2026.
GDP: grew 2.9% in 2023 and 2.8% in 2024. Grew 2.1% in 2025, Trump's first year, and slowed to 1.5% in Q2 2026.
Stock market: the S&P 500 gained roughly 53% and the Dow roughly 31% combined over 2023 to 2024. Since Trump's inauguration, the S&P is up about 26.5% and the Dow about 21%.
Consumer sentiment (University of Michigan index): rose from 69.7 to 74.0 between December 2023 and December 2024. Fell to a near-record low of 44.8 in May 2026 and sat around 52 as of August.

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Pull up a stool. Folks we disagree with? It's more fun to talk to 'em than to talk about 'em.
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A newspaper editor from East Tennessee on why Dolly Parton was one of the last people almost everyone agreed on, and what that says about faith, place, and the work of editing well.
Michael Reneau, executive editor at The Dispatch, joins Corey to talk about growing up 50 miles from where Dolly Parton was raised, and what her death revealed about a country that still finds a handful of people impossible to dislike. The conversation moves from Appalachia and Hurricane Helene to Bryan College, Flannery O'Connor, and the hardest thing Michael has ever watched his parents live through.

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Key takeaways
Dolly Parton's death pulled praise from across the political spectrum, and Michael sees that as a clue about what Appalachia's isolation and hardship actually produced: solidarity, not the caricature.
Editing longer-form work, learned in part from mentor Marvin Olasky, means being ruthless about finding a story's essence, and Michael treats AI strictly as a tool, never as a substitute for that judgment.
The formative event of Michael's faith was watching his parents grieve his infant sister's death and hold onto their belief anyway, not any theological argument he later studied.

About Michael Reneau
Michael Reneau is executive editor at The Dispatch, where he oversees editing across the newsroom. Before joining The Dispatch in 2022, he was editor of World Magazine, and prior to that spent several years as editor and writer for an award-winning daily newspaper in East Tennessee. He lives in Greeneville, Tennessee, with his wife and four kids.

Links
The Dispatch: thedispatch.com
Michael's tribute to Dolly Parton: thedispatch.com/article/dolly-parton-tennessee-music-philanthropy

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Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Nobody agrees on much these days. Dolly was the exception.
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A friend's Facebook post asks who's afraid of the truth. Corey wonders if he's who she means.
A couple weeks ago, The Fulcrum published an essay Corey wrote about an old friend's social media post, and what it stirred up about the walls we build online without meaning to. This episode, Corey reads it to you himself.

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Links and Resources
Read the original essay at The Fulcrum: Walling In, Walling Out
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone
The Village Square: villagesquare.us

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Clarity, charity, and conviction can live in the same room. Yes, really.
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The theology quietly staffing Trump's cabinet, and why it doesn't need to make sense to work.
Dr. Keri Ladner studies the radicalization of the American religious right, from the Moral Majority to the New Apostolic Reformation. She joins Corey to unpack Christian dominionism, the Seven Mountain Mandate, and how movements with contradictory theologies ended up governing together.

Calls to Action
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Key Takeaways:
Contradictory theologies, same movement. NAR, Christian Reconstructionism, and neo-Confederacy don't agree on doctrine, but they've united around Trump and the belief that Christians are called to take dominion over government.
The Seven Mountain Mandate isn't about church. It reframes government, education, and business as spheres apostles are called to control, well beyond the pulpit.
A neo-Confederate is advising the Pentagon. Doug Wilson calls himself "paleo-Confederate." Ladner traces his influence in American Dominion, including his role leading prayer at the Pentagon.
Dr. Ladner's advice is deliberately unglamorous. Vote in the midterms. Turn abstract political fights into stories about real people you already know.

About Our Guest:
Dr. Keri Ladner is the author of Endtime Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon (2024) and American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom (Bloomsbury). Her work has appeared in Christian Century, Religion Dispatches, and Good Faith Media.

Links and Resources:
American Dominion, published by Bloomsbury (also on Amazon, or ask your local library to carry it)
Substack: "The Boogaloo," by Keri Ladner - keriladner.substack.com

Connect with us
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Partners
Proud to be part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts examining what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

"Just talk to people."
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