Sarah Longwell is a longtime Republican strategist and prominent never-Trumper. Her podcast, The Focus Group, is a peek at the thousands of hours of focus groups she has conducted all across the country. Sarah comes on to give her thoughts about the state of the current Republican Party and why its future remains bleak.

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, President at NextGen America, is back to talk with us about young voters. She talks about whether the rising numbers of young voters we saw during the midterms are sustainable, and what still needs to be done to achieve more young voter participation in our democracy as we progress toward a better America.

Markos and Kerry are joined by University of St. Andrews Professor of Strategic Studies, Phillips P. O’Brien. O’Brien, an expert in military history, explains how we got to where we are right now, what is unique about the world’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the parallels between the conservative movement’s isolationism in World War II and now.

The Republican Party seems locked in a death spiral of unpopular anti-American rights policies. They seem to believe that the most important things to America are taking away people’s rights to choose what they do with their bodies and Hunter Biden’s junk. Kerry and Markos were right in their hypothesis about the midterms and they have predictions for the upcoming year and 2024.

Happy New Year! Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter is on the show today to talk about the wild garbage fire that was the Republican speaker of the House vote. Kerry and Markos also break down what this onionskin-thin conservative majority can and cannot do in the coming year, as well as what the Democratic representatives can do to make Kevin McCarthy’s life just that much tougher.

We speak with the Texas-based President at NextGen America, Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, about what she is seeing on the ground with young voters. Historically, midterm elections hurt the political party in power. Historically, young folks do not come out to vote in high numbers. These are historic times and the Republican Party’s full embrace of fascism may have changed the traditional narrative forever. 

The Republican Party continues to flail and point fingers at one another. The traditional media pretends it did not completely blow it on predicting a “red wave” a few weeks ago. On today’s episode, Markos is joined by Democratic political strategist Simon Rosenberg. Rosenberg was one of the few outsiders who, like Daily Kos, kept telling the world that these midterm races were closer than was being reported. The two do a little gloating about being right in their optimism coming into the 2022 midterm elections, give their analysis of Democratic candidates' successes, and point to signs that the Republican Party is terrified as we head into the 2024 election cycle.

Markos and Kerry discuss this past year in politics and news. It was a tough year, but it was also a year of hope: Democratic voters showed they are more engaged than they have been in decades. The discussion also includes Elon Musk and the debacle that is his reign at Twitter. Daily Kos’ The Brief will be back with new episodes in January 2023. Have a safe and happy New Year!

Jenifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win is our guest on this week’s Daily Kos’ The Brief. When we spoke with Jenifer back in April, she was right about Democratic messaging—and had the data to prove it. More election data has been rolling in from the midterms, and Jenifer is back to talk about what worked and what needs to change in order for the Democratic Party to keep winning.

With the Republican Party gearing up to take the majority in the 2023 Congressional term, the disarray they have been experiencing the past six years is now at Keystone Cops-level hilarity. Markos and Kerry speak with Daily Kos Senior Staff Writer Joan McCarter. Joan covers the Congress day-in and day-out, and has done so for a decade. She gives Markos and Kerry an enjoyable blow-by-blow of the Republican mud wrestling match going on right now.