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Politics Politics Politics

Politics Politics Politics

By: Justin Robert Young
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 Unbiased political analysis the way you wish still existed. Justin Robert Young isn't here to tell you what to think, he's here to tell you who is going to win and why.

www.politicspoliticspolitics.comJustin Robert Young Politics & Government World
Episodes
  • Marjorie Taylor Greene's Crazy Resignation! Picking Top 2028 Democratic Hopefuls (with Gloria Young)

    Marjorie Taylor Greene's Crazy Resignation! Picking Top 2028 Democratic Hopefuls (with Gloria Young)
    Nov 26 2025
    There’s no two ways about it — Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation came as a shock. She’s leaving Congress at the start of the year, which means Republicans will immediately lose a vote they absolutely cannot spare. Governor Brian Kemp now has to call a special election, and even if he moves at the fastest pace legally possible, Georgia’s replacement likely won’t arrive until April or May. At that point we’re deep into a cycle where dozens of House Republicans are juggling competitive reelection campaigns, statewide ambitions or both. Losing a seat now isn’t a problem; losing a seat during the most politically fragile stretch of the year is a crisis.The fascinating part is how we got here. Greene was once one of Trump’s fiercest and most loyal defenders, a political brawler who generated attention, small-dollar fundraising and cable hits. Her real institutional power, however, came from her alliance with Kevin McCarthy. When McCarthy fell, Greene’s entire support structure collapsed with him. She wasn’t able to transfer that leverage to Speaker Mike Johnson. In fact, her attempt to oust Johnson failed so publicly that it effectively isolated her. Add to that the now-infamous Tony Fabrizio polling memo — sent from the inside of Trumpworld directly to Greene herself — telling her she couldn’t win statewide, and suddenly the relationship that once powered her rise curdled into animosity. Once Trump’s giving you mean nicknames on a Truth Social post, it’s pretty clear your days inside the tent are over.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.In the past few weeks, Greene has been everywhere—Real Time, The View, CNN—adopting a noticeably softer tone about political adversaries, including Nancy Pelosi. None of that happens by accident. And while no one close to her has confirmed anything, I can’t shake the sense that she’s plotting a pivot toward statewide office. The national rebrand won’t work; she’s too defined. But in a state like Georgia, where the Republican base still views her as a heroine and suburban women remain the barrier to statewide wins, maybe she sees a narrow path for a remade persona. Insiders I’ve spoken with don’t think it’s likely — but nobody dismisses it out of hand. After all, Georgia politics has delivered plenty of stranger twists than Marjorie Taylor Greene trying to run as a kinder, gentler insurgent.A Bad Week for DOJ: Sloppy Cases, Angry Allies and a Political CostWhile Greene was calculating her next chapter, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice was stumbling through one of its most humiliating stretches since the start of the second term. Two high-profile cases—one targeting James Comey and another targeting New York Attorney General Letitia James—fell apart in spectacular fashion. The Comey case wasn’t dismissed on a technicality; it was thrown out because the Department of Justice may not have even properly secured a grand jury indictment. Not good. And because of how the dismissal occurred, the case cannot be refiled. Comey is permanently in the clear. The Letitia James case was dismissed for different reasons, and that one can theoretically return — but in practice, it’s now damaged and politically radioactive.Look. These cases were clearly pushed at the direction of Donald Trump himself. He said the quiet part out loud on Truth Social, publicly urging prosecutions of Comey, James and Adam Schiff before deleting the message. Trump wanted consequences for people he sees as political enemies. But wanting something and executing it competently are two very different things. And what happened here wasn’t just sloppy — it undercut the credibility of his claim to be the only person who can “clean up the system.” If you’re promising a more efficient, more disciplined government, you cannot afford your Justice Department to mishandle prosecutions this badly.This is also where the political costs begin to show. Punchbowl reported this week that Greene’s resignation has other Republicans eyeing the exits. I’ve heard similar grumbling from people close to MAGA-aligned lawmakers: they feel neglected by the White House, shut out of decision-making, and deprived of the small wins that normally help hold a caucus together. On issues like Venezuela, they simply want explanations — and aren’t getting them. Add the DOJ fiasco on top, and you have a governing coalition that increasingly feels taken for granted. The math is brutal: Republicans are two retirements away from losing the House majority outright. No one thinks a mass exodus is imminent, but the fact that the scenario has become a topic of conversation tells you how fragile the coalition is.The bottom line: if the Trump administration wants to restore confidence — inside the party and beyond — it can’t afford more weeks like ...
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Trump's Rough Approval Ratings. The Ups and Downs of Our Economy (with JD Durkin)

    Trump's Rough Approval Ratings. The Ups and Downs of Our Economy (with JD Durkin)
    Nov 21 2025

    Donald Trump’s approval ratings have entered their roughest stretch of his second term, with three separate polls showing him hitting new lows after months of a seemingly bulletproof floor.

    The pattern itself is not unusual. Presidents in their second term often experience a dip once the early burst of post-inaugural goodwill fades. But Trump’s decline is sharper than expected, sliding from the mid-forties into the high thirties. That puts him back in the territory he occupied for much of his first term, except this time he lacks the external crises that once helped explain his numbers. For better or for worse, he has defined the narrative of this second term so far, and voters are judging him on the results.

    It’s no secret what the cause is for this drop: the economy. For months, Trump framed the United States as operating in a “golden age,” yet affordability remains a pain point. Tariffs have become an easy messaging target for Democrats, who argue that the disruptions fall hardest on consumers. Trump’s core Republican base hasn’t budged and Democrats remain consistently opposed, with the movement almost entirely coming from independents, many of whom appear to be remembering the volatility of Trump-era governance.

    Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

    Whether this downturn is temporary or the beginning of a deeper slide will become clearer after the holidays. For now, the numbers are unambiguously weak. If Trump wants to regain altitude, he will need more than assurances about economic strength. He will need voters outside his base to believe it. Just ask Biden.

    Chapters

    00:00 - Intro

    02:32 - Trump Approval Ratings

    06:05 - The State of the Economy with JD Durkin

    42:33 - Wrap-up



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe
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    45 mins
  • The Epstein Files Are Coming. How Politics is Adjusting to the AI Age (with Tom Merritt)

    The Epstein Files Are Coming. How Politics is Adjusting to the AI Age (with Tom Merritt)
    Nov 19 2025
    I came back from the UK expecting to ease into the week, and instead I walked straight into one of the wildest legislative twists I have seen in years. The Epstein files bill (HR 4405) cleared the House by way of a discharge petition and did so with only a single vote against it. I’ll admit — did not take this seriously when it first appeared. I assumed it would stall in committee or die somewhere between the House and Senate. And now that I’m holding the text of the bill in my hands, it is obvious that this is very real and very close to becoming law. Donald Trump has already said he will sign it, and with a nearly unanimous House vote, it’s hard to imagine the Senate blocking it.This portion of our story really begins last Tuesday when House Democrats released a new batch of Epstein related emails. The headline was an email in which Epstein told an associate that Donald Trump knew about his behavior and had spent time at his house with a girl later identified as Virginia Giuffre, though crucially, this email did not accuse Trump of participating in abuse. However, with the House reopened and Adelita Grijalva finally sworn in as its newest member, the discharge petition managed to mass on the exact same day — despite reports that Trump immediately called people like Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace urging them to pull their signatures.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Trump’s reaction also says a lot here. On Thursday, Trump was furious, calling allies to warn them that he would rescind endorsements if they voted for the petition. The White House framed the anger as frustration that Republicans had given Democrats a politically useful victory. But by Friday, Trump reversed himself and said everyone should support the release since there was nothing to hide. Late Sunday, he doubled down again, telling reporters the files were long overdue and that Pam Bondi should open new investigations into Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman. It was at that point that it became obvious that the bill was going to sail through. Even Speaker Mike Johnson voted for it — an unusual action considering discharge petitions are mechanisms designed to bypass the Speaker.The bill itself is sweeping. It orders the Attorney General to turn over internal DOJ communications related to charging decisions, investigations, destruction of records, detention details, and Epstein’s death. It blocks the government from withholding records due to embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity. Only material that qualifies as child sexual abuse imagery or details an active investigation can be withheld.The winners in all of this are obvious. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna get enormous credit for pushing the discharge petition from the beginning. They stared down the White House and they won. The losers are just as clear. Trump took the biggest political hit because this never needed to become a fight in the first place. If he wanted the files released he could have released them. The notion that people like Kash Patel and Pam Bondi were acting on their own is nonsense. They do not freelance on something this sensitive. Trump might be trying to rewrite the narrative, but the timeline speaks for itself.Personally, I think the files have never been released because the conclusion reached is messy rather than clean. We know Epstein abused underage girls. We know Ghislaine Maxwell helped facilitate it. The open question is whether other powerful people committed crimes that can be clearly proved. If the files contain only partial hints or ambiguous associations, releasing them will satisfy no one. People will assume something is missing, especially considering just how conspiratorial this entire story feels. People build their own conclusions in the absence of official clarity, as we’ve seen since the death of Epstein himself.Still, the fact remains that this administration took an enormous and unnecessary political loss by fighting transparency that it had promised during the campaign. They went from inviting influencers to the White House for binders labeled Phase One to issuing a one page memo suggesting there was nothing further to see. We do not know what will emerge when the full set of records is released. We do know that the political consequences of this episode are locked in place. Everyone who pushed for transparency won. Everyone who resisted it lost. And once the documents are public nobody will be able to put the lid back on whatever comes next.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:03:38 - Epstein Files00:20:44 - Update00:22:36 - Saudi Crown Prince00:26:51 - Texas Maps Blocked00:28:09 - Tariff Checks00:31:10 - UK Politics, AI, and More with Tom Merritt01:09:36 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ...
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    1 hr and 13 mins
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