If I had a choice, I would like to be not alive when we make contact with

extraterrestrial

Intelligent life. Why?

Yeah, Gail, I'm serious. I don't like you. I thought you liked meeting people.

You're not super like this diverse and you were scared of the aliens. That's kind of lame.

Aren't there some risks that you see that you're like, I'd rather not engage with that at all?

Like the day after tomorrow, like do you watch the day after tomorrow and you're like, hmm, that would be interesting to see.

I was in a shark infested beach this weekend. What?

Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Gail and Druke. I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day.

Since we do have a shorter week this week, we're gonna have one podcast episode this week. So here it is.

The period after the September 11th attacks in 2001 was a unique time for tracking public opinion in the United States.

Americans rallied behind President Bush in a way that has been uncommon in our history.

Almost 90% of Americans, including 78% of Democrats,

approved of how Bush was handling his job in the immediate aftermath. Trust in government spiked to its highest point of the past 50 years

and 80% of adults said that they displayed an American flag. As we approach the 20th anniversary of September 11th,

we're gonna look back at how those attacks shaped public views.

Why did that consensus form? What came of it? How did it erode and would it be possible today?

We are also now exactly one week away from the gubernatorial recall election in California.

The fourth ever recall election of a governor in American history,

Californians currently favor keeping governor Gavin Newsom by about 10 points according to our polling averages.

But just a couple weeks ago, the race appeared to be a dead heat.

So we'll look at how that race has evolved and how competitive it really is at this point.

...