It’s been a week since most of us woke up in the morning and learned that Donald Trump had secured enough electoral votes to ensure his return to the White House. Like many of you likely have, we’ve gone on quite an emotional journey since then. From despair to anger to resignation to introspection to resolve, it’s been a process, and we’re nowhere near any kind of satisfying unified theory of how we got here.

To help us figure some of that out—or perhaps just to have someone else to suffer through the question with us—we’ve invited our friend Eric Kocher to join us as the first-ever guest on The Official Unofficial. Eric is a Spartanburg resident, a pretty great poet, a former arts nonprofit director turned academic type, and the perfect person to have around should you need help describing the contours of our shared existential crisis.

Showing off some of those skills in today’s second segment, Eric had us try to change the minds of three fictional voters that the Democratic Party failed to reach in 2024. Were we able to do that, or did we ruin our chances with imaginary persuadable voters forever? You’ll have to listen to find out.

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