The Pollster

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A common problem for citizens of the free world is that they do not have the vocabulary to understand authoritarian regimes and leaders.

They expect their own terms and experiences to translate, when often they are meaningless or even contrary.

Long before the question of autocracy in America became an issue, I spent a lot of time trying to explain these differences.

One example stands out.

My appearance on the Bill Maher Show Real Time in October 2007.

Maher, who considers himself well informed and often is, walked right into the point I wanted to make.

He said, but when you look at what's going on in Russia, Putin has a very high approval rating.

I had to interrupt.

How do you know?

I mean, are you seriously are you relying on the polling results in the police state?

I think that with the same tight control of media and and the pervasive security force, I believe Bush and Cheney could enjoy the same cruel rating here.

The audience erupted in cheers, and Mark could only respond.

Checkmate to me.

From the Atlantic, this is Autocracy in America.

I'm Gary Kasparov.

The American political system has been an example of a stable democracy for some 250 years.

But half Americans grow complacent, thinking that nothing can shake a system that has worked so well for so long.

My guest, longtime pollster Frank Lance, is well versed in taking the temperature of the American public.

Frank is perhaps best known as a behind-the-scenes operative in Republican politics.

But he is also an author, advisor to CEOs, and most recently, an instructor in American politics at the Military Academy at West Point.

Frank is a pioneer of instant response focus group technique that lets you understand not just what people think, but why.

That's how he began to sense more than 10 years ago that something was very wrong in American politics.

Hello, Frank.

Hello, Gary.

Let's start with personal stuff.

Do you remember when we met?

I believe we were introduced by a human rights activist about 15 years ago.

And one of the coolest moments for me is when you and I marched in a protest in Russia, and you told me to be careful.

It was, I could not believe I was with you.

And to be doing this podcast right now, I know you're going to get into some stuff, some pretty heavy stuff about where we are and where we're headed as a country and the leadership.

But this is Gary fucking Kasparov.

I can't believe it.

But what I respect the most is your courage.

The courage of conviction.

You know, I teach at West Point, and we teach students to have leadership of character.

You have character, courage, and selfless service.

So whatever you want to know from me for the next, however long we go, this is an honor and a privilege.

And by the way, I may even get emotional.

I've had two strokes, and that disconnects my emotions from my head.

And so you'll know that I really mean it.

But Gary, this is very special.

Frank, I'm speechless.

I want people to feel that you are so special also, because no one can read the minds of voters and all the

underground trends in American politics better than you did and you still are the master of it.

And I want to go back.

So just it's...

But you're going back and yet it's so bad right now.

No, no, it's so bad, but

let's analyze it.

We have never been this angry.

We've never been this distrusting.

We don't trust any institution except for the the military.

We don't trust any people who lead anything right now.

We're fed up.

We're mad as hell.

If I were to summarize in a single word how Americans feel, it's all caps with an exclamation point, enough.

Enough politics.

Enough lies.

Enough being ignored, forgotten, betrayed, which is an emotion that's that breaks society.

And however bad you think it is, it's worse.

Because I can't sit 15 people in a room that's a little bit bigger than this and have them not tear each other apart.

The problem that I have right now, and I don't know how to fix it, is that we don't want to listen to each other.

We want to be heard.

We want to speak and make sure that other people listen.

And when a democracy stops learning and a democracy stops listening, that democracy is in trouble.

And we're going to get into all of that.

But first, as a chess player, I did a little research.

And researching this project, I came across a 2014 profile of you in the Atlantic by Molly Ball.

Yeah, you know, that profile almost cost me tens of millions of dollars.

I don't know if you know this.

No, I didn't know.

She didn't tell us.

But it was a good interview, and she told the truth.

I believed

that America was breaking apart back then.

Yes.

The level of anger, the level of disrespect.

What did you see?

That's again, can you be more specific?

What did you see then?

Because the picture that's from this interim emerges of a man who may be in the political wilderness but you were getting a sense of what you know what was wrong you know in America the real American problems and it's not what I saw it's what I heard I did focus groups I've been doing focus groups now for 35 years but this country has zillions of pollsters they all heard the same stories how come that you indicated just just you know just deep down you know just many layers beyond what others saw this is the

rotten core because they could hear it but they weren't actually listening.

They were dismissing it.

And this is a problem that I have.

It makes me a good pollster

and not particularly great to be around at nights and weekends, which is if I'm surrounded by angry people, I get angry.

If I'm surrounded by people who are depressed, I get depressed.

For some reason, and this is partially my upbringing, I become the people that I'm talking to.

And it's more than just even empathizing.

I understand it, I appreciate it, and I become one of them.

And in 2014, my head was exploding because we were heading towards the conditions that gave us Donald Trump just two years later.

And my company was for sale right then.

And Molly correctly indicated that I was getting ready to give up.

And the owner of my company, the company that was buying me, literally pulled me out of the room, pulled me out to say, what the hell are you doing?

You sound like someone who's giving up.

Frankly, you sound suicidal.

What am I buying here?

Tell me.

And I'm thinking to myself, oh, shit.

I have now, to my honesty, to my candor, let's put it that way.

I have now doomed myself.

So I'm telling the owner, no, I'm not quitting.

I'm not giving up.

And the truth is, I was.

He figured it out.

He'd have to read through the lines.

I was very blunt about it.

But I did not want to lose the the money.

I did not want to lose the sale.

So I said to him, no, she misquoted me.

She misread it.

She doesn't understand.

This is my clarion call to say we have to be better.

We have to do better.

We have to find a way to get out of this.

That's not how I felt.

And even today, if I can be candid with you again, if I didn't have West Point to give me hope, and a belief in the future, if I didn't have these 4,000 incredible young people that you've met twice now, I did.

These cadets are just amazing in their commitment to their country, in their willingness to sacrifice, and even the greatest sacrifice.

And they know what this means.

And if I had not discovered that, I was heading out.

I was getting ready to move to the U.K.

Not that it is so wonderful, but I just couldn't watch my country tear itself apart.

Because I still have, I still have even deep down a love for this place, even with its flaws and even with the anger that we get out there.

But it seems to me that we have to go even deeper, because if in 2014, you already sense this anger that gave us Trump two years later and then led to January 6, 2021 and to current crisis.

And in 2014, I got it.

I got how awful our country already was with each other.

And that's because all these focus groups I was doing would degenerate into delegitimization, dehumanization.

It was all the bad that we were to come to see 24 months later.

And the reason why I saw it is because I heard it, because I did these focus groups, not the polling.

I have to sit with people and see them.

First, the arms get folded.

Then the head starts to nod back and forth in a rejection of what they're hearing.

Then the eyes roll and the head goes back.

And at that moment, they're getting ready to be

disrespectful, disingenuous.

I see it coming.

And I saw this again and again and again.

And my issue is, I don't know how to fix it.

But just to clarify, so this is this is the, you were a Republican pollster at that time.

At that time.

But did it mean that in 2014 you sat only with the Republican voters or you had independents and Democrats as well?

No, I've always sat with the entire electorate.

Yeah, you could feel feel the temperature

in various segments of American politics.

And the temperature was hot?

In 2014?

Yes.

The temperature was hot.

And that's why Trump emerged.

And I felt that in 2014.

And when you and I first started to engage in this,

I did not believe at the beginning that Trump was going to win.

Let's be completely candid in this.

So at what point you knew he would be winning?

Oh, by September.

2015.

So let me tell you something that nobody knows.

Okay, good.

You're sharing it with many more people, of course.

But I'm sharing it with you and other people are just listening.

Okay.

I held the meeting.

I sat down with the Senate leadership.

And I thought I was only meeting with John Thune and Mitch McConnell.

John McCain shows up.

John Barrasso shows up.

The entire leadership, and no one tells me because they're afraid that I'm going to be nervous.

The entire Republican Senate leadership walks into the room.

Mitch McConnell folds his arms like I'm doing right now and says, I hear you have something to tell me.

What is it?

And I said, sir, unless you do something right now,

Donald Trump is your nominee and he may well get elected president.

Not a single vote had been cast.

No Iowa, no New Hampshire.

But Trump is rising and rising in the polls.

And this was their wake-up call that it was working.

And

they didn't do enough, and it was too late.

Donald Trump is a phenomenon.

Donald Trump is a, we've never had anything like him, and we never will.

So by 2014, the Republicans were ready to embrace Donald Trump, and some independents moved in the same direction.

So what did go wrong prior to 2014?

So it's the, clearly we're seeing now the the decline of political system, two-party system.

So when did it go wrong?

Because there were many moments where people talked about, you know, this is, this is, we probably needed a third party, we have to do change this and that.

But now we are, you know, deep down in this, you know, just in this swamp, political swamp.

So 2014 was already the moment where you, you know, the only one or just one of very few great experts that could read the minds of people and could smell the

trouble.

So where did it start?

So 2000.

2000, that's the presidential elections are you talking about?

Yes.

So the the Florida recount?

Yes.

Okay, tell us.

Five weeks.

We went on and on, and no one knew who was president.

And one-third of the Democratic Party never gave

George W.

Bush the respect that he'd been actually elected president.

They thought that the election had been stolen, and they were bitter, and they never forgave him.

They never accepted him as their president.

And then we had another close election in 2004.

No, it wasn't that close.

Yeah, with John Kerry, yeah, it was close enough.

He lost Ohio by quite a margin.

Yes, but people thought that Kerry was going to win.

They thought on election day that Kerry had the lead.

So they were wondering, why is this happening?

It was the beginning of the divide.

And then in 2007, 2008, our economy went to hell.

A whole lot of people lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost their savings, and lost their future.

And in the end,

politics is a reflection of the economy, not the other way around.

And when you're promised a better future, when you're promised that you're going to have it better than your parents, and that it doesn't happen, and worse than that, all these life savings are destroyed, not only are you mad, that's where the word betrayed comes in.

And people

and their future, their whole perspective on life began to close in on them.

And America wasn't the land of opportunity for them.

America was a broken promise.

And I'm afraid that we're back to the same way right now,

which is why this thing on tariffs has me so concerned and why I'm reading again

about the rise of anger.

And this time it's coupled with complete distrust of our court system.

of our health care system, of our media, of our government and the people who are in it.

All the institutions that keep America moving forward are disliked and distrusted, and the only one that's left is the military.

Okay, this is very, very important because you said a few times the word, key word, in my opinion, trust.

Yes, that is trust.

So trust.

Let's stop there.

That is the key word.

It's the number one priority that Americans have.

Trust and truth.

They're connected to it.

Of all the values that are essential to democracy, none is more important than the truth.

It's more important than participation.

It's more important than anything else because if you don't trust the information or the people providing it, how can you possibly govern yourselves when you have no idea what's right and what's wrong?

So are you telling us now that over 225 years, Americans never lost trust in the government or in government agencies and all other institutions created

throughout this time period and in the various places in the country.

What was our worst economic calamity, 1929?

And it took 10 years, 11 years, 12 years for us to come back from what happened in 1929.

And eventually it was the war.

So we had few other moments in American history, but something I remember, so the late 70s, also the

mood was dark, the country was not doing well.

Then you had Ronald Reagan.

Yes, at the very moment we were so upset, at the very moment they were giving up, the malaise of Jimmy Carter gave us the hope and the passion of Ronald Reagan.

Okay.

Now, the question is, so why the Great Depression

and all the tragic consequence of Great Depression for millions and millions of Americans gave us AFDR as a leader?

Why the malaise, in your words, of Jimmy Carter's rule

brought Ronald Reagan

to power and to the Oval Office.

But why the relatively

small crisis on the surface, visually, compared to these two periods of American history, brought us not a new Reagan or new FDR, but Donald Trump?

For tens of millions of people, Donald Trump is Ronald Reagan, is FDR.

For tens of millions of people, Donald Trump speaks the truth, and only Donald Trump does.

And his graphic descriptions and language that is accessible to a high school grad

is exactly what FDR was to people back in 1932 and what Reagan was to people in 1980.

That's exactly the point.

I know how you feel about him, but there's a reason why he beat

Vice President Harris.

And they knew what he stood for.

And they knew that he had been indicted And they knew that he had been impeached.

And they knew what kind of administration he would do.

And they still voted for him.

Because to half of America, Donald Trump is exactly the kind of leader that they're looking for.

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Going back to people expected Trump and still expect Trump to do something.

It's, you know, he's a doer.

And he's already in power, so just, it's just, it's several months.

And he did a lot of things.

So.

Are they still happy with what he's doing?

Because you mentioned tariffs a few times.

They're happy with most of what he's doing.

They're not happy with how he's doing it.

They're happy with the agenda and the priorities, but they're not happy in the execution.

Best example of this is Doge and Wasteful Washington spending.

So they want to cut government spending.

They want to reduce the bureaucracy, but they don't want to do it haphazardly.

And when Elon took a chainsaw on stage, And everyone saw this visual.

That's not what they, that is what the Trump, hardcore Trump voter wanted, a chainsaw to Washington.

But the people who put him over the top wanted a scaffold, not a chainsaw.

And that's what's been happening is the idea that, yes, this is the right agenda, but this may not be the right approach, and this is definitely not the right communication.

And I don't think Trump cares, because to him, the only...

his priority are his voters.

And we've never had that before either.

Someone who says, I'm really not president of the whole country.

I'm president of the people who voted for me.

And I'm going to damn well ensure that they get what they voted for.

You don't see.

We don't see.

And this is something that's important to this conversation.

I hear from these people every day.

But they're not obvious.

They're not people we talk to.

They're not going to be listening to this podcast, I'll tell you that.

I have no doubt about it.

Because they're struggling, because they live paycheck to paycheck, because they're holding three jobs between two people or four jobs between two people.

And I sympathize with them.

And they were promised that if they worked hard, played by the rules, pay their taxes, and raise their kids well,

there would be something good at the end for them.

And you know what they got?

Nothing.

They didn't get a raise.

Some of them got fired.

They were unable to save for the future.

What does that mean?

If they get into a car accident, they're done.

They can't afford a new car.

They can barely afford a used car.

They truly are struggling.

And I sympathize with them.

I don't think that justifies their rudeness.

I don't think that justifies how so many of them are mean.

But they were promised something as they grew up.

In their textbooks, in their history books, they were promised an America

that would deliver for them a better future, and it didn't happen.

But it is not happening now.

Correct.

So what will they do?

I think they tune out.

So

they will just

drop dead.

I mean, this is not physically, but just politically.

They will cease to pay attention.

They will cease to care.

And that's just as dangerous.

I'd rather hear from my enemy.

I'd rather know where they are.

I'd rather know what they think because it gives me a chance to talk to them.

They will tell their kids that democracy doesn't work.

Don't bother to vote.

Don't participate.

Democracy doesn't work.

For these people, it does not.

No.

And capitalism, you call capitalism, I like to use the phrase, economic freedom.

Capitalism is about the rich.

Economic freedom is about everybody else.

I need them to buy into the economic system because that will help them buy into the political system.

But that's not going to happen.

There's a shot that that could happen.

How?

If people once again see that the economy is not rigged against them, if they once again can save for the, to live the good life, nobody wants the American dream anymore.

They just want the good life.

If, if, if.

So

what should happen for them to change their mind?

So they can afford to take a long weekend at a nice place.

So they can afford to buy their children birthday gifts or Christmas gifts or these things that they want in their life.

So once again, they can afford to live the good life.

But is it happening?

No.

Okay, so that means, you know, it's the further, you know, um

distrust in politics.

That's why all the institutions are upside down in terms of public support, because they're not being protected.

If they get sick, they can't can't afford the health care bills.

But are they going to blame Donald Trump or the system that prevented him from delivering to them?

They're blaming the system at this moment.

So if they are blaming the system and not the president, does that empower the president to work outside the system?

So can you imagine the situation where the president will find himself above the law and will try to act on this belief?

So does it mean that Donald Trump will be in a unique position to be above the law?

Uh-huh.

So the answer is yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what are the chances?

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe.

Do you think it's a real threat that at one point he decides that, you know, he should not bother with the legal restrictions and will try to impose his direct rule?

When he made a comment about the Constitution, whether or not he has to follow it, I think that said it all.

You know, at West Point, they don't defend America.

They don't defend the President.

They don't defend the people.

You swear an oath to the Constitution.

It is genuinely sacred because it gave us our freedoms and it protects us.

And when you start to say that I'm not sure if I have to do something, if the Constitution mandates that I do it, that's a problem.

That's a real problem.

If we have...

another January 6th in some form or shape, will Cash Patel and Pombondi follow Trump or Constitution?

I don't know.

You don't know.

What about the cadets?

Oh, they follow the Constitution.

Good.

Good to know.

Without a doubt.

Okay, that's good to know.

And they won't engage in politics.

So if the President of the United States decides to go against the Constitution,

they follow lawful orders, is the best way for me to answer it.

That's what they're talking.

I don't know what it means if the President of the United States, who is there, who is the commander-in-chief, you know, goes against the Constitution again.

If it's a choice between

now you're instigating.

No, I'm not instigating.

I just, you know, it's a logical set of questions because I think I saw enough in my life.

So that's it.

And that's why

it's just being in a situation, which I think I all thought would be unheard in the United States where we

ask these questions.

You know they're legitimate questions.

You don't want to answer because nobody wants to answer this question.

But the fact is, we are in the position to ask these questions and to debate them seriously.

What does it tell us about the current situation in America?

It tells us that we still have a democracy.

Still have a democracy.

It tells us that freedom of speech matters.

So what can be done, if anything, to preserve two-party system?

It's to take

the priorities of the Trump administration and add to it a level of communication which says,

I hear you, I get you, we're going to try to get this done,

but we're going to do so in a respectful way.

But you're talking about Democrats.

You're not talking about the

magic rise of the third party.

I'm talking about those who can still be talked to.

Because right now, MAGA Republicans don't want to hear any of this.

They like what's happening.

And Democrats don't want to hear any of this because they want to stop what's happening.

They want the the resistance, and that's what they call it.

That's not helpful for democracy.

You've several times have tried to get me

to tell you,

here's a roadmap to restore our democracy.

And I'm telling you that that is my source of my frustration.

That's the source of who I am right now in 2025.

There is no roadmap.

I don't have it.

You don't have it, and no one else has it.

Correct.

Do you know how that makes me feel?

I'm old.

I was the youngest person in the room.

Now I'm the oldest person.

No, you're definitely the youngest in this room.

Yeah, okay.

I have some serious people, some major CEOs, some cultural leaders, some politicians on both sides of the aisle.

And they sit me down and they say, get us out of this.

And I have to say, I don't know how.

The system is set up to reward the most extreme, angry, vicious, disrespectful voices.

The public is listening to the most awful

videos and audio.

And anyone who is thoughtful and considerate,

okay, I'll give you the answer.

I'll give you two answers.

I'll give you two specific people, Joe Rogan and Stephen A.

Smith.

Both of them stretch beyond the traditional appeal of a populist in one case and a centrist Democrat in the other.

Stephen A., more and more people listening to him first political commentary, not just sports.

In Joe Rogan's case, everybody wants to know what his podcast is going to say.

The guy has an audience that continues to grow.

Continues to grow.

Yes.

They can make a difference.

They, by what...

what guests they have, by what conversations they have and how they have it,

can instill a different set of priorities, but they have to want to do it.

It can't just be us.

But okay, is there a room, just following what you said, for a new leader and a new organization to rise and to force traditional Republicans and Democrats, whatever the name they call themselves now,

MAGA, far-left wogue,

push them aside?

Because it's happening in some of the European countries.

We see this.

Macron was a typical phenomenon, but it's, you know, it's, for instance, Romanian presidential elections.

Yes, sir.

The response to the rise of the far-right populists was not a traditional candidate, but another outsider who rallied behind him support of all people who were not ready to push Romania into the Russian country.

So in addition to the two people I mentioned, another one is Mark Cuban.

Because Mark Cuban is a businessman.

He's not a political guy, but he understands politics.

And Mark Cuban could change the tenor of the debate on the Democratic side.

So

is there room for someone in the middle to rally?

Okay, you talked about Army generals.

That's the only institution that has trust.

McCraven.

McCraven.

So in a hypothetical run from the retired Admiral William McCraven, AOC, J.D.

Vance, does McCraven have a chance?

At this moment, no.

No, we're talking about 2028.

But the idea that that's that whole word, that whole principle,

the idea that we've had enough

may work for him.

Could work for any of those people.

So, and if people like Joe Rogan, you know, just support this, the idea that enough is enough, that you could end up with a new candidate who could win an election by opposing both parties?

And opposing the style and the substance.

Okay, do Democrats with capital D have to look for

a general, an admiral, just an officer, flag officer, to lead them in 2028?

They need to find someone who is not wedded to the past, someone who has not been responsible for the failures of government, someone who's outside the mainstream.

And I'm going to flip it on you before you end this podcast, which is you chose to be here.

You're not an American citizen.

No, I'm not.

But you love this city.

My wife is my kids all.

And you love this country.

I know you do.

Absolutely.

How do you feel when you see our democratic system, small D Democrat,

in such pain?

Awful.

Awful.

That's why I believe it's my duty to do whatever I can to aid to communicate the nature of the threat to American democracy and to help those who are willing to fight back, not resistance, but this is those who are willing to restore democracy or just probably more accurately to

make it, to adjust it to the challenges of the 21st century.

Look, I saw a lot and I have an advantage because I grew up in a communist country.

So I learned many things through my own experience, not just reading books.

And I saw democracies rise in Russia and then collapse and not only in Russia.

So I saw that the world

celebrating the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991 and then going back to the rules of autocrats.

So,

it's almost two decades that we see the steady rise of autocratic regimes around the globe.

Democracy is on retreat.

And America proved not to be immune, as other democracies, against the virus of authoritarianism, and corruption and distortion and fake news.

So,

I'm here fighting the same battle I fought back in Russia.

So, in Russia, we lost.

But here, I hope our chances of winning and helping America to recover its global prominence and leadership,

our chances are not slim to none.

I think that's a very good chances.

And also, again, I believe that without America restoring its greatness, it's not MAGA, I'm sorry, this is it, but America restoring its historical greatness

and returning to its founding values, that's the only chance for the world to actually

to reap the benefits of this technological revolution and to move us forward into the brighter future.

We need America to

recover

its place in the world and to

it's not about make America great again, it's about

finding the right combination of these ingredients, magic ingredients that have been mixed magically by founding fathers and to make sure that that American democracy, the American Republic, built on these traditional American values that made America great in the past,

would help America to adjust to the new challenges of the 21st century.

And if I can add to that,

to me,

the positive campaign is freedom.

Both kinds of freedom.

Freedom too.

Freedom to own a gun, Second Amendment.

Freedom to speak your mind, First Amendment.

Freedom to work and do what you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone.

Freedom to.

But also freedom from.

Freedom from fear.

Freedom from poverty.

Freedom from despair.

It has to be both.

One of them is basically conservative.

The other one's basically progressive.

and a commitment against corruption.

Because I think government waste is corruption.

I think what they do with our tax dollars is corruption.

I think that lobbyists and loopholes and special interests, that is corruption.

And I believe that if you combine the positive, the freedom, with the fight against corruption and a commitment to say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you say,

that that is the perfect candidate for 2028.

Sounds encouraging, Frank.

So let's fingers crossed.

Let's see if this message is being heard.

And again, I am incorrigible opinions by nature.

And I believe that what he had just said here in this studio would

become just the roadmap, roadmap for the future president of the United States.

Well, you should know that actually I will go back to my condo

30 minutes from now.

And I'm writing that roadmap as we speak.

So you just saw the initial

structure of it.

Okay, you definitely can count on me and I'm sure many of those who are listening to this podcast, I would be more than happy to join this campaign to rebuild America.

Well, Gary Kasparov.

Frank Lance, thank you.

Thank you very much.

This episode of Autocracy in America was produced by Arlene Aurarlo and Natalie Brennan.

Our editor is Dave Shaw.

Original Music and Mix by Rob Smirciak.

Fact-Checking by Anna Alvarado.

Special thanks to Paulina Kasparov and Meg Gringott.

Claudine Debate is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio.

Andre Valdes is our managing editor.

Next time on Autocracy in America.

Gary, this is very ironic.

A girl who was forced to shout death to America, the country that I wished death for, United States of America, gave me a second life.

And that's why I love America and I want to dedicate my life to fight for America as well, to protect America from terrorists, from authoritarianism.

And that's why I am full of hope and energy.

I'm Gary Kasporov.

See you back here next week.