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Resist Trump, Don't Cower · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_00: So then Trump rambling a little bit says, and you know, you go back through history.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: This is just like before the Holocaust.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I swear, if you look, it's the same thing.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: You had a weak president or head of the country and it just built and built.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden you ended up with Hitler.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: So this is Trump is constructing an analogy in which Joe Biden is the Weimar Republican.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: He's Hitler, right?
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Hey, everyone, you're listening to a free preview of The Politics Podcast.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: In this episode,
0:33
SPEAKER_01: we discuss the increasing menace of Donald Trump and what the political
0:38
SPEAKER_01: implications of it are.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: Have his threats to the American system become more literal and less figurative?
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Should the Trump resistance adopt a posture of defensiveness or one of defiance?
0:51
SPEAKER_01: And how have the people in America and abroad,
0:54
SPEAKER_01: with the most on the line,
0:56
SPEAKER_01: responded to the likelihood of a second Trump term?
0:59
SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to hear the whole thing, you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, welcome to the Politics Podcast.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm Brian Boitler.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm Matthew Iglesias.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: So first, a quick housekeeping note to kick things off.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: As we record this,
1:20
SPEAKER_01: New York jurors are hearing closing arguments in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: So that means they'll enter deliberation soon and we anticipate getting a verdict
1:32
SPEAKER_01: sometime soon thereafter, a day, a few days.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: But anyway,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: our plan is to record a quick bonus episode whenever we know what the verdict is,
1:40
SPEAKER_01: unless I guess it lands on Monday afternoon,
1:43
SPEAKER_01: in which case we'll just make that the focus of next week's episode.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair?
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds like a plan.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: This week, we wanted to pick up where last episode left off.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: So we ended last week on this idea that the liberal instinct to kind of stipulate
2:01
SPEAKER_01: that Donald Trump is this existential threat to democracy,
2:05
SPEAKER_01: which is a true stipulation,
2:07
SPEAKER_01: but then to sort of cower at the threat
2:12
SPEAKER_01: is a bit politically self-defeating, right?
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Like it makes Trump seem like this resolute figure and Democrats seem like these fearful opponents.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: And that strikes,
2:22
SPEAKER_01: I think,
2:23
SPEAKER_01: both of us as a recipe to demoralize Democratic voters as much as to galvanize them.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, with a similar impact on swing voters.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: So we want to take a step back and think about what Trumpism in 2024 really is, right?
2:39
SPEAKER_01: There was this conservative trope during his first term that we should take Trump,
2:45
SPEAKER_01: quote unquote,
2:45
SPEAKER_01: seriously,
2:47
SPEAKER_01: not literally.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: which meant that a lot of the most menacing things he said and did were blustery
2:54
SPEAKER_01: and untrue as a textual matter,
2:57
SPEAKER_01: but were kind of directionally correct.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: Immigrants aren't all rapists,
3:02
SPEAKER_01: and he doesn't want to expel all of them,
3:04
SPEAKER_01: but all of that rhetoric did imply a serious restrictionist bent in his administration.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: So, Matt.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: To kick us off, is that still true?
3:16
SPEAKER_01: Is Trump someone we should take seriously, not literally?
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Or is he more literally menacing now?
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Or was the whole conceit just kind of bullshit to begin with?
3:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, it's a complicated question, I think, that has different layers to it.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I mean, one thing that I think is aggravating
3:33
SPEAKER_00: about Trump as somebody who, you know, covers him as an opinion journalist, right?
3:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so I have to write about him in a way that's informative.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: I care about outcomes.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Is that, you know, Trump has a reputation for being a liar.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: That reputation is well-deserved.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it reflects poorly on him as a person, that he is so dishonest.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: But he is often able to wield that well-deserved reputation for dishonesty to his
4:04
SPEAKER_00: political advantage so that he's very old,
4:11
SPEAKER_00: much older than traditional presidential candidates have been.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: You may have heard this in Joe Biden's context.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: But if Trump goes on a speech and he says something that's ridiculous –
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Most people,
4:22
SPEAKER_00: like authentically,
4:23
SPEAKER_00: it's not just pro-Trump spin,
4:25
SPEAKER_00: but like most people's head immediately goes to,
4:28
SPEAKER_00: oh,
4:28
SPEAKER_00: there he goes again.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Not this guy's lost it, right?
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Like the presumption is that Trump is a clever, shrewd liar who lies to people for personal advancement.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: So if he's saying something that's not true,
4:42
SPEAKER_00: that does not reflect confusion or mental incapacity,
4:46
SPEAKER_00: but it's all part of a plan.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Similarly,
4:50
SPEAKER_00: if you start trying to talk to somebody,
4:53
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to somebody in the business world who is warming to Trump,
4:59
SPEAKER_00: as many people in that landscape are.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And I was saying to him,
5:03
SPEAKER_00: look,
5:04
SPEAKER_00: if you establish vast open-air detention camps in order to greatly increase
5:11
SPEAKER_00: America's deportation throughput capacity,
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Because there's always been a thing, right?
5:16
SPEAKER_00: A stumbling block for interior immigration enforcement in the past has been that
5:22
SPEAKER_00: arresting undocumented immigrants,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: holding them in detention,
5:26
SPEAKER_00: proving that the person who you've arrested is in fact an undocumented immigrant,
5:31
SPEAKER_00: and then getting them sent out someplace is very resource-intensive.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: And in a practical sense,
5:37
SPEAKER_00: ICE's ability to do that has been very,
5:39
SPEAKER_00: very limited,
5:40
SPEAKER_00: which is how you got the old bipartisan idea that we needed to create a kind of a
5:44
SPEAKER_00: limited amnesty to reduce the deportable population.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, Stephen Miller has cooked up this idea.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: probably maybe illegal,
5:57
SPEAKER_00: but maybe the Supreme Court will greenlight it,
5:59
SPEAKER_00: idea for how to greatly increase detention capacity and deportation throughput.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And Trump says that's what he's going to do.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: So I was saying the impact of this on the American economy would be really strongly negative,
6:13
SPEAKER_00: in a way that should influence your rich guy business interest view of the world.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: And his response to me was like, well, yeah, I mean, of course, like that would be terrible.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: So he's not going to do that.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Because like Trump is this smart,
6:29
SPEAKER_00: shrewd businessman,
6:30
SPEAKER_00: and he's just kind of saying that stuff,
6:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
6:34
SPEAKER_00: to play to the people in the cheap seats.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: But he really knows better.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to argue with that kind of thing because it's not like I can come
6:44
SPEAKER_00: back and say like,
6:46
SPEAKER_00: no,
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Mr.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Rich guy who wants tax cuts,
6:49
SPEAKER_00: you're dead wrong.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump is a man of his word.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Any pledge he makes on the campaign trail, he's going to deliver it.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Because it's like, what am I going to say, right?
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Like he said a ton of shit in 2016.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: He did some of the stuff he said.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Some of the stuff he said he tried and failed for whatever reason.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Other stuff was just 100% nonsense.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: He said he was going to negotiate down the price of prescription drugs.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: He said it time and again,
7:17
SPEAKER_00: like weird Hillary-hating leftists kept talking about Trump's finally taking on big pharma.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: And then he just didn't do that at all.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: And then Joe Biden did.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: And now nobody cares.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: I certainly know weird Democratic Party-hating leftists care.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like,
7:35
SPEAKER_00: perfectly plausible to me that some main plank of Trump's campaign is total bullshit.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, to me, that's like, um,
7:45
SPEAKER_00: part of the second-order dangerousness of Donald Trump,
7:48
SPEAKER_00: that he's a man without any principle or integrity or sense of personal honor who
7:54
SPEAKER_00: would be willing to do very extreme things for self-interest in a way that is
8:00
SPEAKER_00: uniquely destabilizing.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: But once you have people in this kind of normalized mindset...
8:07
SPEAKER_00: It's just like, ah, so he's bullshitting.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
8:10
SPEAKER_00: Whereas this same guy is like,
8:12
SPEAKER_00: his hair is on fire about this Treasury Department white paper on taxing unrealized
8:18
SPEAKER_00: capital gains,
8:19
SPEAKER_00: which I agree is a moderately bad idea.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm quite sure it's not going to happen in a second Joe Biden administration.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: The odds of Democrats controlling both houses of Congress are really, really low.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And even if they did, the Blue Dog Caucus or some moderate Senate Democrats would block this idea.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: But because Biden has a reputation of being a serious person who means what he says,
8:53
SPEAKER_00: this kind of out there policy aspiration is really alarming people.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: Whereas things close to the center of Trump's
9:01
SPEAKER_00: politics, right?
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pardon insurrectionists.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to use the Justice Department to selectively prosecute my political enemies.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to eliminate 20% of the agricultural workforce.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't impress certain people.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: And then to your point, I feel like it's pathetic to
9:24
SPEAKER_00: for us to be sitting here being like, please take him seriously.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: He's so dangerous.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: You know?
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Cause like he said what he said.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, Oh, it's scary.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: But like,
9:37
SPEAKER_00: That to me is just weak.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: After Dunkirk,
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Winston Churchill doesn't go like,
9:44
SPEAKER_00: man,
9:44
SPEAKER_00: it's going to be fucking awful if the Nazis conquer us.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: He's like, we're going to fight them on the beaches.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: We're going to fight them in the towns.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: And if we should submit, we'll retreat and we'll fight from beyond the seas.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: And that's how you do politics.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: You don't complain about how terrible the guy on the other side is.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: You talk about how you're going to beat him.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: You know,
10:07
SPEAKER_01: I haven't talked to rich business assholes about Trump,
10:10
SPEAKER_01: but I've talked to...
10:11
SPEAKER_01: Have you talked to Winston Churchill?
10:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: Good takes.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: Ouija boarded with him.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: He's still a total drunk.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: I've talked to people who I've known for 35 years who...
10:30
SPEAKER_01: aren't political junkies.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I don't know that any of them are going to vote for Donald Trump.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: Some of them might,
10:38
SPEAKER_01: none of them,
10:38
SPEAKER_01: I think are like in the tank for MAGA,
10:42
SPEAKER_01: but they all seem to think along the lines of this,
10:45
SPEAKER_01: this business asshole you talk to that,
10:48
SPEAKER_01: that,
10:49
SPEAKER_01: that,
10:51
SPEAKER_01: things did not go so badly in the first term that we should all,
10:55
SPEAKER_01: that like the freak out about Donald Trump makes any sense.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: And I've tried to like remind them that January 6th happened on television and they
11:02
SPEAKER_01: can just go watch it,
11:03
SPEAKER_01: right?
11:04
SPEAKER_01: And that the,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
11:06
SPEAKER_01: the part of the reason why they might feel like that doesn't count for some reason
11:11
SPEAKER_01: is that it happened at the very end of the presidency and it didn't succeed at the objective.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: And then Donald Trump was like,
11:21
SPEAKER_01: grounded,
11:22
SPEAKER_01: essentially,
11:23
SPEAKER_01: put on probation for the last two weeks of his presidency,
11:26
SPEAKER_01: and then he disappeared for a while.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: And then Joe Biden took over, and it's like, okay, so democracy prevailed.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: How imperiled can it actually be?
11:34
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like if I were going to talk to people like the business asshole, I would want to...
11:45
SPEAKER_01: push them on a couple points.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: One is, do you think Donald Trump will be more adept
11:54
SPEAKER_01: at putting these kinds of schemes into motion in a second term after he's had been
11:59
SPEAKER_01: president for four years already,
12:00
SPEAKER_01: learned some things about where the skeleton keys and hidden tools of the
12:05
SPEAKER_01: government are,
12:06
SPEAKER_01: and he's going to have a much more loyalist-filled administration in round two.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: And what do you make of that?
12:11
SPEAKER_01: If a lot of the things that he talked about in 2016 on the campaign trail
12:17
SPEAKER_01: didn't come to pass because of incompetence, do you think that that's still true?
12:21
SPEAKER_01: And then the second thing is just to imagine,
12:23
SPEAKER_01: like,
12:24
SPEAKER_01: what would the business climate in the United States be like today if January 6th
12:28
SPEAKER_01: had succeeded?
12:29
SPEAKER_01: If Donald Trump
12:31
SPEAKER_01: If the rioters found Mike Pence and hanged him,
12:35
SPEAKER_01: and then so Congress fled,
12:37
SPEAKER_01: and so there was no certification of the election,
12:40
SPEAKER_01: and for at least a period of time,
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump was president past January 23rd,
12:45
SPEAKER_01: at least inhabiting the office and trying to wield its powers.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: How would American business be doing today?
12:54
SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
12:54
SPEAKER_01: it's like that could have ended in a horrible civil war that destroyed everything,
12:58
SPEAKER_01: or it could have ended in a dictatorship,
13:00
SPEAKER_01: or he could have slinked away after trying to hold down the fort for a few days or
13:06
SPEAKER_01: something like that.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like the range of possibilities is pretty wide, but none of them is good, right?
13:12
SPEAKER_01: I think that there would have been a huge crisis of confidence in the rule of law
13:17
SPEAKER_01: in the United States and in American political stability that would have been
13:20
SPEAKER_01: really economically harmful.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: And-
13:24
SPEAKER_01: If Trump is becoming more adept,
13:27
SPEAKER_01: and thus something like what happened on January 6th is more likely to succeed,
13:32
SPEAKER_01: at some point along the lines of a second Trump term,
13:35
SPEAKER_01: then what basis do informed people actually have to think that that would be better
13:44
SPEAKER_01: than a Joe Biden presidency where maybe corporate taxes go up a tiny bit?
13:47
SPEAKER_01: I just... Like, to me, it doesn't make... It doesn't compute.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Right.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean... So, I mean, I think there's like a few different things here, right?
13:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, one is kind of like tail risks, right?
13:57
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, like...
14:01
SPEAKER_00: January 6th,
14:03
SPEAKER_00: nothing that occurred on January 6th at the end of the day had particularly dire consequences.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: But it pushed us up to the edge of like some crazy shit, right?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And like probably even if they had like
14:19
SPEAKER_00: busted into the Speaker's chamber and physically harmed Nancy Pelosi,
14:25
SPEAKER_00: that still wouldn't have actually ended American democracy or caused Donald Trump
14:31
SPEAKER_00: to have an extra term.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: But you would be that much more into the loopy zone, where we don't know what's going to happen.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: You're pushing into these real outlier areas.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Trump, by his nature, is an incredible envelope pusher, right?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And always has been,
14:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:49
SPEAKER_00: and will kind of like just like spin out these election conspiracy theories and like,
14:54
SPEAKER_00: let's see where it goes.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: And people will be like, that's really irresponsible.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't care, right?
15:00
SPEAKER_00: On policy, I mean, one point I want to make to people always is that like the Senate map
15:07
SPEAKER_00: is very skewed toward Republicans.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean Democrats can't have a Senate majority.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: They have a Senate majority right now.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Their odds of keeping it, even if Biden wins, are low.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: But just inherently,
15:19
SPEAKER_00: the odds of an off-the-rails executive branch being a Republican executive branch
15:26
SPEAKER_00: are a lot higher because of the way the Senate map is drawn,
15:29
SPEAKER_00: right?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's on policy,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: personal misconduct,
15:32
SPEAKER_00: anything else,
15:33
SPEAKER_00: a Republican is naturally going to have longer strength.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Then you add to that the Supreme Court, right, which is we've been talking about.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: It's now got a 6-3 majority, right?
15:41
SPEAKER_00: So,
15:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:44
SPEAKER_00: what,
15:44
SPEAKER_00: quote unquote,
15:45
SPEAKER_00: can the president do is like very up for debate and people are always disagreeing.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: But when,
15:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:53
SPEAKER_00: some smart leftist attorneys are like,
15:55
SPEAKER_00: oh,
15:55
SPEAKER_00: hey,
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden can cancel every student loan in America,
15:58
SPEAKER_00: according to this old provision of the Heroes Act,
16:01
SPEAKER_00: like Biden does that.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And then the Supreme Court says, no, actually, you can't.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: So that's not a symmetrical dynamic, right?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: There are many fewer judicial constraints on what a Republican president is going
16:14
SPEAKER_00: to be able to do just kind of inherently to how these things are stacked.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: So if you feel that there are like irresponsible promises on both sides,
16:25
SPEAKER_00: right,
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Trump is much,
16:26
SPEAKER_00: much,
16:26
SPEAKER_00: much more constrained.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: I also do think,
16:30
SPEAKER_00: though,
16:30
SPEAKER_00: there is this question of serious versus literal,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: right,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: that is always out there.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think there is something to it, right?
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Like,
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I remember I wrote some article,
16:45
SPEAKER_00: I think,
16:46
SPEAKER_00: in the 2016 cycle that was,
16:48
SPEAKER_00: like,
16:48
SPEAKER_00: about the construction logistics of a border wall,
16:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:52
SPEAKER_00: which is,
16:52
SPEAKER_00: like,
16:52
SPEAKER_00: taking Trump literally seriously.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And as it turns out, that article was completely correct.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: The construction logistics of the border wall are quite complicated.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Trump was not able to complete a border wall during his term in office.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: He was also not able to make Mexico pay for the border wall.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: And also,
17:10
SPEAKER_00: also,
17:10
SPEAKER_00: also,
17:11
SPEAKER_00: the existence of walled segments has a fairly minimal impact on asylum seeker flows.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: All that being said,
17:20
SPEAKER_00: taking Trump seriously is to say that Donald Trump has a very strong and
17:26
SPEAKER_00: emotionally authentic antipathy to refugees and asylum seekers.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And he is trying hard.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: to keep those people out of the country, right?
17:37
SPEAKER_00: With a lack of mixed feelings about it.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Now, his efficacy in doing that, right?
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Like whether he can think of the right ideas,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: these construction logistics,
17:47
SPEAKER_00: like all of that matters in life and that's part of journalism.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: At the same time,
17:52
SPEAKER_00: there are human beings in the United States of America who have a like gut level
17:56
SPEAKER_00: repulsion to refugees and asylum seekers.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And they correctly perceive that like Trump shares their view of this.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: And Biden, even as he's moved to crack down on refugees and stuff like that, sort of does it, right?
18:10
SPEAKER_00: That he's got humanitarian concerns,
18:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:15
SPEAKER_00: and he has people in his ear who are like,
18:17
SPEAKER_00: we have commitments under international law,
18:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:19
SPEAKER_00: so feelings are more mixed.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: So,
18:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:22
SPEAKER_00: I agree on that level that we should focus a little bit more on like what Trump
18:28
SPEAKER_00: means than on like the text of what he's saying.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: But also what he means is that he doesn't believe that friends and allies of his
18:41
SPEAKER_00: should be constrained in any way by the law.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: That's the meaning of pardoning Rod Blagojevich,
18:48
SPEAKER_00: of campaigning,
18:48
SPEAKER_00: of courting Black voters,
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Black and Latino voters,
18:51
SPEAKER_00: with Kwame Kilpatrick and Ruben Diaz Sr.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: These are politicians...
18:56
SPEAKER_00: who have been convicted of corruption charges.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And he's rallying this rainbow coalition of corrupt Pauls while talking about pardons.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, what literally is he going to do in office exactly is very hard to say.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: But directionally, what he's saying is that if you're on Team Trump...
19:23
SPEAKER_00: you will be able to break the law and there will be no recourse.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's incredibly dangerous,
19:30
SPEAKER_00: so much more dangerous to the stability of the business climate or whatever else
19:36
SPEAKER_00: than any kind of...
19:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:39
SPEAKER_00: rulemaking done through the Administrative Procedural Act that then ends up on the
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Supreme Court.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And,
19:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I think it's not unique in the history of global politics that a certain number of
19:51
SPEAKER_00: business people would decide to throw in with dictators or aspiring dictators who
19:57
SPEAKER_00: trash the rule of law to prevent them from needing to deal with a government that's
20:03
SPEAKER_00: friendly to labor unions.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: But it's really bad.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, and I think...
20:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think something that has changed a little bit.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
20:11
SPEAKER_00: I feel like during Trump's first term,
20:13
SPEAKER_00: like most of corporate America was a little bit intimidated by the executive's
20:19
SPEAKER_00: wives and the senior ranks of middle management who like all really hated Trump.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And they were like, eh, we're just going to get regular Republicans back.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Whereas now it's like Trump is what it is.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: And people with money and influence are going to try to throw in with him to...
20:36
SPEAKER_00: crush their own enemies.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And like, it might work.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: So I feel like did this like tease of the question of like, what's the right bent?
20:44
SPEAKER_01: If you oppose this kind of ambiguous, like,
20:53
SPEAKER_01: performance of menace that actually does have some undefined menace behind it.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: We're not really certain what it's going to look like,
20:59
SPEAKER_01: but it's going to entail a bunch of hardship for people and maybe be very
21:06
SPEAKER_01: destabilizing to the country.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: It's like,
21:08
SPEAKER_01: So I feel like there's two tracks on which the response can work.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: One is the substantive track,
21:15
SPEAKER_01: like what should Joe Biden and Democrats and maybe skeptical Republicans in
21:21
SPEAKER_01: Congress be doing now to try to both reduce the chances that Trump wins or reduce
21:29
SPEAKER_01: the damage he can do if he happens to win?
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like you can kind of slot –
21:34
SPEAKER_01: the immigration bill that they tried to pass onto that track.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of think that if Joe Biden loses the election,
21:46
SPEAKER_01: you will see some effort during the lame duck to do things kind of along the lines
21:50
SPEAKER_01: of – they amended the Electoral Count Act after the insurrection to try to reduce
21:56
SPEAKER_01: the procedural –
22:00
SPEAKER_01: tools Trump had available to him to try to overturn the election.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: Then you'll see stuff like that in the November to January lame duck to try to
22:10
SPEAKER_01: retrofit the US government so that Trump can't abuse its powers so much.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: And so there's that stuff.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like we can talk a little bit about it if you want.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: But then there's just the like,
22:25
SPEAKER_01: What do you say about it and how do you act about it?
22:27
SPEAKER_01: And in the past week, week and a half, there's been a lot of conversation about the, you know,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: repeatedly throughout Trump's life cycle as a politician,
22:40
SPEAKER_01: and then more and more on other Republican campaigns,
22:43
SPEAKER_01: you see that these,
22:45
SPEAKER_01: like the junior staffers,
22:47
SPEAKER_01: maybe more senior staffers are like inserting basically like Nazi iconography into
22:54
SPEAKER_01: campaign literature,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: campaign advertisements,
22:57
SPEAKER_01: and people then notice and then they respond.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: But the response to me does not feel like
23:05
SPEAKER_01: the response Joe Biden had to Charlottesville,
23:08
SPEAKER_01: which was sort of like,
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump praised Nazis,
23:13
SPEAKER_01: and so my job is to crush Donald Trump,
23:16
SPEAKER_01: which I think is inspiring.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: It gels with this sort of American World War II fascist fighting mythos.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of people across the political spectrum,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: I think,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: find that kind of thing appealing,
23:34
SPEAKER_01: invigorating.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump puts, what was it, unified Reich, like that there will be a unified Reich in a second term.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And the response is not,
23:46
SPEAKER_01: and like,
23:47
SPEAKER_01: this is why we stopped him before and why we're going to stop him again.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: It's like,
23:52
SPEAKER_01: I wish I had the Kamala Harris quote in front of me right now,
23:54
SPEAKER_01: but she just basically was like,
23:56
SPEAKER_01: he echoed the language of Nazi Germany,
24:00
SPEAKER_01: which to me is just like,
24:02
SPEAKER_01: you should be more scared of this man and therefore vote against him.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: And I just don't feel like it works as a political appeal because yes,
24:12
SPEAKER_01: some people I think are scared of Trump.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: They've been scared of Trump all along.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: They thus have intended to vote against him since it was clear he was going to become the nominee again.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: But how do you enlist people to join that cause if they're not
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Just repeating that he's scary, I don't think works.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: But creating this idea that we are going to join a fight to stop evil, I think is very appealing.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's tricky.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, something that I am struck by in life is that when Democrats win elections...
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: Like when Joe Biden won in 2020 or when John Fetterman and Raphael Warnock won in
24:58
SPEAKER_00: 2022 and Democrats held the Senate.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: My observation is that progressive minded people like people who are more
25:06
SPEAKER_00: progressive than I am and people who don't like me,
25:08
SPEAKER_00: they seem pretty happy.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Like in a practical sense, you know, and like at least relieved.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: But like, honestly happy.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Like they, they think like they don't like Republicans and they like to see them lose.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: They like to see them humiliated.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they think that that's, um, entertaining and amusing.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they just like, you know, on an emotional level, like they're, they're thrilled.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, then oftentimes though, when we're discussing it just hypothetically, those exact same people, um,
25:44
SPEAKER_00: articulate different emotions about that.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
25:48
SPEAKER_00: In advance of elections, they'll be like, oh no, I'm really concerned about these issues.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
25:57
SPEAKER_00: what good will it do for Biden to win if it doesn't fundamentally transform energy
26:04
SPEAKER_00: or liberate Palestine or whatever else?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: And of course, it's true that
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Like,
26:10
SPEAKER_00: if your only emotional investment in American politics is that you want fundamental
26:16
SPEAKER_00: transformation of the economy,
26:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:19
SPEAKER_00: to like end capitalism and avert global eco dystopia.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Biden versus Trump is just like not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that the people who say that stuff,
26:33
SPEAKER_00: like they don't actually act like it's true when they're like there in the moment,
26:38
SPEAKER_00: you know?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: And so I do think that like,
26:42
SPEAKER_00: not complaining exactly about how bad these guys are, but emphasizing it is important.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: But then it also kind of has to come from... So here's something that just flashed past my screen, right?
26:56
SPEAKER_00: So there's a report of Trump talking to Jewish donors.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And the lead news from the story is that Trump promised them that he will deport
27:06
SPEAKER_00: immigrant students who participate in pro-Palestine protests.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's like a concrete,
27:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
27:14
SPEAKER_00: campaign pledge to conservative and moderate Jewish donors who are like really
27:19
SPEAKER_00: upset about these protesters and who are finding some purchase with the
27:24
SPEAKER_00: anti-immigration arguments around it.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: But so then Trump rambling a little bit says, and you know, you go back through history.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: This is just like before the Holocaust.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: I swear, if you look, it's the same thing.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: You had a weak president or head of the country, and it just built and built.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, you ended up with Hitler.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: You ended up with a problem like nobody knew.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: So this is, Trump is constructing an analogy in which Joe Biden is the Weimar Republican.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: He's Hitler, right?
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Now-
27:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go around to every surly leftist in America and be like, you have to vote for Joe Biden.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Trump is literally saying that he will be a new Hitler.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: But that is what he's saying, right?
28:11
SPEAKER_00: It's really bad.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: This is a guy who on some level is so eyeball deep in far right dipshittery that he
28:25
SPEAKER_00: keeps posting shit about Reichs,
28:29
SPEAKER_00: posting Star of Davids on Hillary Clinton,
28:32
SPEAKER_00: analogizing himself to Hitler,
28:34
SPEAKER_00: right?
28:34
SPEAKER_00: He's like,
28:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you want to say, okay, this is like a Brian Boitler critique of Joe Biden, right?
28:45
SPEAKER_00: That he's being too weak and it's going to lead to a Nazi takeover.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: But you can't say that if you're the Nazis trying to do the takeover, right?
28:55
SPEAKER_00: And I don't...
28:58
SPEAKER_00: But it's mostly funny, I think.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: I think you want to take it neither literally nor seriously.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: It's like he's not a serious person.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: He's not a serious leader.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: He's not somebody who should be entrusted with power.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: And he's somebody whose electoral victories cast a positive halo on all kinds of nonsense.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
29:23
SPEAKER_00: You look at like the people whose profiles get elevated if Trump wins, right?
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's like the worst people in America, right?
29:31
SPEAKER_00: ranging from,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: like,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: Groypers and Reddit Nazis to,
29:36
SPEAKER_00: like,
29:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Stephen Miller and Stephen Schwarzman,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: right,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: who said that taxing capital,
29:45
SPEAKER_00: sorry,
29:45
SPEAKER_00: that closing the private equity tax break
29:48
SPEAKER_00: when Obama proposed that,
29:49
SPEAKER_00: that that reminded him of Nazi Germany,
29:51
SPEAKER_00: but now he's voting for Trump because he wants to,
29:55
SPEAKER_00: he's concerned about anti-Semitism,
29:56
SPEAKER_00: right?
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Like that guy is a clown and a dipshit.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And like, we should want Stephen Schwartzman to feel bad and to feel humiliated.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: And Trump to feel humiliated by beating them,
30:08
SPEAKER_00: not by being terrorized by them,
30:12
SPEAKER_00: but by having a sincere emotional orientation toward the idea that they are bad and
30:18
SPEAKER_00: we would like to see them lose.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: I feel like Schwarzman is just the worst in that like he is tilling the path for
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Nazism by following like the worst stereotypes about Jews is just like I am so
30:32
SPEAKER_01: greedy that I can be bought into supporting the return of Nazism to the United States.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: But like,
30:39
SPEAKER_01: I was going to like take this closer to home is I have Jewish family members who
30:43
SPEAKER_01: are either Trump curious or actually just Trump supporters.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: And like the way I talk to them about it is to be like,
30:49
SPEAKER_01: kind of like,
30:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:51
SPEAKER_01: I love you,
30:51
SPEAKER_01: we're family,
30:51
SPEAKER_01: but shame on you.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: Like, don't be scared of this man.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Don't you think that the relatives we lost in the Holocaust would find it pretty
30:59
SPEAKER_01: upsetting that you,
30:59
SPEAKER_01: their offspring,
31:00
SPEAKER_01: are just kind of like shrugging this stuff off and willing to let it back into your life?
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Allow for a resurgence of it in the United States because you dislike protesters or
31:11
SPEAKER_01: because you want your taxes to be lower.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: I feel like it's a much better approach to be a bit disdainful of it as opposed to
31:20
SPEAKER_01: try to persuade them that really you're going to be first up against the wall.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: You should be scared rather than tempted.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that I've had much success with it.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: So maybe like this is all just like a figment of my imagination or just how I wish people responded.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: But I just like I think that the general tenor of resistance politics has been more of the latter.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: The kind of like try to make people think they might end up hurt or dead.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: as a result of donald trump and thus to be scared and thus to set aside whatever
31:50
SPEAKER_01: misgivings they have about democrats and liberals and joe biden and do the right
31:54
SPEAKER_01: thing i guess i just don't think it's a
31:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's like a good method.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that it's like proven effective.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Something I think about a lot is my former podcasting partner,
32:08
SPEAKER_00: Daryl Lind,
32:09
SPEAKER_00: who I potted with a lot during Trump's presidency.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, she often talked about the slightly...
32:18
SPEAKER_00: odd reality that the kind of emotional center of anti-Trump politics tended to be
32:26
SPEAKER_00: people sort of like demographically similar to her,
32:30
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:31
SPEAKER_00: like college-educated professional women who felt kind of very horrified by what
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Trump signified.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't like Medicaid recipients,
32:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:49
SPEAKER_00: who were like out in the street leading marches and doing tweets,
32:54
SPEAKER_00: right?
32:55
SPEAKER_00: Or necessarily even like dual status immigrant families.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And some of that is because Trump was like very kind of like micro-targeting at
33:04
SPEAKER_00: some of the most vulnerable people in society,
33:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:07
SPEAKER_00: who don't always do a good job of organizing and things like that.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: But I thought that the peak of resistance,
33:15
SPEAKER_00: right,
33:16
SPEAKER_00: during the healthcare sort of fight did a much better job of like elevating like
33:24
SPEAKER_00: non-hypothetical harms.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, like people who were, you know, Jimmy Kimmel had his whole bit, right?
33:33
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like when people are making policy or putting policy proposals on the
33:38
SPEAKER_01: table- It was a Jimmy Kimmel bit.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: about preexisting conditions and like his son or,
33:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:44
SPEAKER_00: but I mean,
33:45
SPEAKER_00: it was just like,
33:45
SPEAKER_00: you find,
33:46
SPEAKER_00: you can find the people who are personally impacted by these things and put them up
33:50
SPEAKER_00: to not,
33:51
SPEAKER_00: not like whine and plead and look weak,
33:54
SPEAKER_00: but to talk frankly about what's at stake.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, as you've said before, it's just challenging to do that in a hypothetical.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Um,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: People are much more focused on the sort of,
34:08
SPEAKER_00: like,
34:08
SPEAKER_00: symbolic meaning of Trump versus Biden and his kind of,
34:12
SPEAKER_00: like,
34:13
SPEAKER_00: position-taking,
34:14
SPEAKER_00: right,
34:15
SPEAKER_00: as,
34:15
SPEAKER_00: like,
34:15
SPEAKER_00: someone who...
34:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:18
SPEAKER_00: will be tough and strong and let you not care about the environment or whatever it is,
34:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:27
SPEAKER_00: he's out there doing.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: But I do think that like Biden might lose the election.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: And if Biden does lose the election,
34:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't think like progressive America is going to be fleeing for refugee camps in
34:43
SPEAKER_00: northern Mexico or just like giving up.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: So I think there might be a lot of resignation, but that might be like a good topic for another episode.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: That would be bad.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Like,
34:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you want to like preconceived that Trump winning is like lights out
34:58
SPEAKER_00: for American democracy.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Right.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Not to say that you're downplaying the threat, but that like we are determined to.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Right?
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Like,
35:08
SPEAKER_00: as long as it takes in every forum available against,
35:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
35:14
SPEAKER_00: these efforts to subvert elections,
35:16
SPEAKER_00: to take away people's healthcare,
35:18
SPEAKER_00: to ban abortion,
35:19
SPEAKER_00: et cetera,
35:20
SPEAKER_00: et cetera,
35:20
SPEAKER_00: et cetera.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: And that, like, we are going to fight on election day.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: We are going to try to win.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, like, if we lose, like, the struggle will continue.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing that sort of bugs me the most about
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Some of the like apocalypticism, because like you might hit the tipping point.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: It's not this is not some like totally nut job scenario.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Like Trump could win the election and then you've got to organize for the day after.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: OK, look like and there's a there's a definite dilemma there for the politicians.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Right.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Because they don't politicians don't like even,
35:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
35:56
SPEAKER_01: answering questions from the press premised on the idea that they might lose.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: Right.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Like if you ask Joe Biden, like, will America survive if Trump gets a second term?
36:06
SPEAKER_01: I think his inclination,
36:07
SPEAKER_01: like most politicians' inclination,
36:08
SPEAKER_01: would be like,
36:09
SPEAKER_01: we're never going to find out because I'm going to win,
36:10
SPEAKER_01: right?
36:11
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be like, of course, America will endure.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: We beat bigger challenges before,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: blah,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: blah,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: blah,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: because then you're kind of conceding that defeat is a real possibility.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: And there is a – like I guess here's an analogy that just kind of popped into my head.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: It's like Republicans galvanize voters by whipping up what,
36:31
SPEAKER_01: if it was happening on the left,
36:32
SPEAKER_01: would be a bunch of fear,
36:33
SPEAKER_01: right?
36:34
SPEAKER_01: They try to get Republicans spun up on the idea that –
36:39
SPEAKER_01: democrats are letting all these immigrants in to change the the blood of america
36:44
SPEAKER_01: essentially and also that democrats are going to come for your guns right and you
36:49
SPEAKER_01: know maybe there are some like conservative um people out in america who find those
36:56
SPEAKER_01: ideas to be scary or that they're scared of democrats being in charge because they
37:00
SPEAKER_01: worry that those things will come to pass but like the the
37:03
SPEAKER_01: The tagline for the NRA is not, oh, vote for Republicans or else they're going to take our guns.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: No, it's from our cold, dead hands, right?
37:10
SPEAKER_01: There is a threat aimed at us, but we are going to fight it.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: And the only way they're going to win is if they kill us.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, I think that that's overheated and destructive, especially as it pertains to
37:27
SPEAKER_01: people carrying guns around.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: But I think that the spirit of it is correct, right?
37:32
SPEAKER_01: Like,
37:33
SPEAKER_01: I think it's totally reasonable for somebody like Joe Biden to,
37:37
SPEAKER_01: when confronted with this idea that Trump might bring fascism to America,
37:40
SPEAKER_01: to say,
37:41
SPEAKER_01: over my dead body.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: I will not allow it.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: It makes me want to fight alongside him.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: Whereas like,
37:47
SPEAKER_01: you better vote for me or else your life is going to descend into fascist hell,
37:51
SPEAKER_01: makes me want to feel like,
37:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we collectively have what it takes to defeat that threat.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's purely psychological, but I think there is something to the From My Cold Dead Hands appeal.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: It enlists people who...
38:09
SPEAKER_01: want to stop the threat into a large cause and one that they feel confident trying to bring others into.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
38:17
SPEAKER_00: but it does require,
38:19
SPEAKER_00: right,
38:20
SPEAKER_00: part of what you're talking about with like the Democrats are going to take your
38:22
SPEAKER_00: guns away,
38:22
SPEAKER_00: right,
38:23
SPEAKER_00: is conservatives,
38:25
SPEAKER_00: and I think this is like probably like a deep psychological attribute,
38:30
SPEAKER_00: have this very risk-averse,
38:32
SPEAKER_00: like loss-averse attitude.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: approach to politics.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: So their whole thinking is dominated by, like, I might lose my guns to Joe Biden, right?
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Various other things, like he's going to do a socialism, right?
38:51
SPEAKER_00: And that's going to be bad.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's like a conservative way of thinking about politics, right?
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the progressive way of thinking about politics is more to characterize the
39:00
SPEAKER_00: status quo as an emergency,
39:02
SPEAKER_00: right?
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Right?
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, the world is burning.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: We're the only country in the universe where we haven't taken your guns away.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: Right?
39:12
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like everything has to be affirmation.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Right?
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Or else people don't have that same kind of engagement.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, you're calling on Biden to campaign more like a Republican.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: But I'm just not sure if his...
39:30
SPEAKER_00: voters would respond in that same kind of way you know because like if we're living
39:39
SPEAKER_00: in a late capitalist dystopia under joe biden i don't think a lot of his voters
39:43
SPEAKER_01: think that i don't think a lot of his voters think that i mean i i think like they
39:47
SPEAKER_00: probably don't but i i think that this involves a little bit more of a sort of like
39:52
SPEAKER_00: conceptual um uh burning of the bridges um than you may be
40:01
SPEAKER_00: give it then you may be seeing right because like republicans really do conceive of
40:08
SPEAKER_00: themselves as this kind of like lib crushing force counter-revolutionary now you
40:14
SPEAKER_00: can see in the uk right like care starmer has just like he's just sold out of
40:18
SPEAKER_00: fucking everything as far as i can tell um like in in wild ways that go beyond what
40:23
SPEAKER_00: i would support um and he has this like
40:26
SPEAKER_00: gobsmacking lead over Rishi Sunak.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: And even though a lot of people are complaining about it on Twitter,
40:32
SPEAKER_00: like he's not facing third party challenges or anything like that.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: But that's because labor lost so many elections in a row that people up there
40:41
SPEAKER_00: really did just get into like,
40:43
SPEAKER_00: fuck these guys kind of mode.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: The problem with Trump, the difficulty with Trump is that like, you want to get them.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: We both want to get people in fuck these guys mode.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: But like,
40:57
SPEAKER_00: without Democrats having gotten their asses kicked first.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Like,
41:03
SPEAKER_00: the feeling is,
41:04
SPEAKER_00: like,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: Trump kind of,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: like,
41:06
SPEAKER_00: cheated in 2016,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: and,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: like,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Biden,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: like,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: we didn't even like Biden that much.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think it's a little...
41:14
SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Do we need to break before you solve this?
41:17
SPEAKER_01: We should.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: We should.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: OK,
41:19
SPEAKER_01: because I look like like I will concede that the affect I have in mind is not one
41:25
SPEAKER_01: that comes naturally to your median Democratic,
41:29
SPEAKER_01: like lots of normal Democratic voters are attitudinally conservative.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: Like they fall into the like, oh, I'm very scared of Donald Trump.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: And so they might not respond the way I imagine to over my dead body kind of appeal.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: But they're going to vote for Joe Biden no matter what.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: And like,
41:46
SPEAKER_01: I do think that like on the both on the left where he has critics who are like,
41:50
SPEAKER_01: well,
41:50
SPEAKER_01: what about the climate crisis or what about the Palestinian self-determination?
41:54
SPEAKER_01: are like galvanized by stronger rhetoric and that there are like,
41:59
SPEAKER_01: if you have this sort of unified front against something as dark as fascism,
42:04
SPEAKER_01: that that can also capture the imaginations of people in like swing voter territory.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: But I do think it's a good place for us to like stop and step back from the sort of
42:17
SPEAKER_01: position taking that Republicans and Democrats do to appeal to various publics and
42:23
SPEAKER_01: talk about what we've witnessed as far as like,
42:27
SPEAKER_01: People making preparations for the possibility of Donald Trump returning.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: How are they actually acting?
42:33
SPEAKER_01: Are they acting like cowering scaredy cats or are they like gearing up for a fight?
42:40
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42:43
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42:45
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