Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / PREVIEW: "What Can Democrats Do?" with David Pakman

Transcript

PREVIEW: "What Can Democrats Do?" with David Pakman · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Get a humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. Here's a dangerous conundrum
• 0:08
  to find yourself in. Imagine if you felt you were entrusted, not only with ensuring and
• 0:14
  upholding the fate of your political party, but of American democracy itself, saving the
• 0:21
  Republic from a slide into a soft squishy authoritarianism, the likes of which countries
• 0:27
  like Hungary and Turkey have been dabbling with. That's the concern that a lot of senior
• 0:32
  Democrats face in the United States. They regard what the Trump administration is doing
• 0:38
  as being fundamentally inimical to the American Democratic project. So how do you respond?
• 0:45
  There seem to be two factions at the moment on the left in America. The whole thing feels
• 0:50
  fairly moribund and stale and apathetic in terms of how it's approaching. Push back to
• 0:56
  the Trump administration, but it does seem splitting, nonetheless, between those who feel
• 1:01
  they should stand up for a very, very long time in the Senate and give grand speeches against
• 1:06
  Donald Trump, or those who feel they should be jumping onto social media all the time
• 1:11
  and slam dunking him rhetorically on the one hand versus on the other hand, a school
• 1:17
  of thought that says this administration is not going to be very popular anyway. Let it
• 1:22
  play out. Don't risk injuring yourself by being seen as a party of pontificating losers.
• 1:29
  Instead, just stay quiet, make yourself a small target, and let the Trump show collapse
• 1:35
  in on itself eventually. Democrats cannot just offer resistance to Trump,
• 1:41
  of course, they do need to offer an alternative at some point, but how exactly they should
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  is the question for today's conversation. Whenever I need a vibe check of the American
• 1:49
  left, I turn to today's guest, David Pakman. He hosts one of the most watched progressive
• 1:55
  YouTube shows in the world. The David Pakman show has over 3 million subscribers. Some
• 2:00
  of his episodes get 10 million plus viewers. His latest book is The Echo Machine, how
• 2:05
  right-wing extremism created a post-truth America. Just a reminder that you can now subscribe
• 2:11
  to the premium version of this podcast on Spotify and also on Apple podcasts. Previously,
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  you had to go to Substac in order to get the premium. Now you can do it with one click
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  on Apple podcasts. You won't get all the other benefits of Substac, but if you don't
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  care about any of that, and you just want the ad-free feed and the bonus episodes, you
• 2:30
  can do it from right inside your Apple podcasts app. That being said, you should come to Substac
• 2:35
  if you can be bothered, because this episode was actually recorded as an appearance that
• 2:40
  David gave on my live, sort of, I suppose, new television shows, Ep's Live, which is
• 2:45
  on Substac every Tuesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern time in the United States. Well, it goes
• 2:50
  to where, everywhere, but that's the timing in the United States. I wanted to get David
• 2:55
  on the line to discuss our criticisms of the president, what he sees the threats as being
• 3:01
  the curious spinelessness of congressional Republicans, and why Trump has such a hold
• 3:06
  over them, how the Democrats can recover, and the topic on which David and I routinely
• 3:13
  disagree when we're spoken in the past, which is how much of the left's woes are caused
• 3:17
  by purity tests and social justice dogmas. You can follow David's YouTube show. You can
• 3:23
  tune into my Substac show for free every week by registering on the Substac. I hope you
• 3:27
  enjoy the one, the only David Pakman.
• 3:30
  I've been trying to tune it out for the past couple of weeks, and it's hard. It's tricky.
• 3:41
  It leaves me with a heavy heart for the Americans, for whom I feel so deeply. Can you give
• 3:49
  me a snapshot of where your head is and where I don't know how you are personally responding
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  and how one ought to respond?
• 3:58
  Well, I mean, I think if you have a platform to talk about this, your response might be
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  different than if you didn't. So my response may not necessarily be the obvious or logical
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  one for voters who have real jobs for a living. I think my situation maybe is a little different,
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  but I think my areas of focus are creeping authoritarianism, wannabeism, and we can talk
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  about the desire versus the reality and how much that matters. Rule of law increasingly
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  irrelevant when we say, you know, the Constitution guarantees X, guaranteed in what way? I mean,
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  if an administration ignores court orders, what does it mean that something is guaranteed
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  by the Constitution? It's increasingly sort of a question mark. And the number three,
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  economic chaos, you know, the tariffs are on, the tariffs are off, whether they're on
• 4:56
  or off, there's the general question of, is the U.S. even a reliable party to any kind
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  of agreement if it's by the whims of whoever is in the Oval Office? So those are kind of
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  the three, forty thousand level things I'm thinking about.
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  So the tariffs and economic chaos going in back in reverse order, the little law and
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  ignoring court orders and all of the first one? Creeping authoritarianism.
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  So how do you define that? Well, increasingly a government that is by the one person in
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  the Oval Office for him and his friends, rather than for the greater opinion of the three
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  hundred and forty something million who vote and expect that the norms, checks, balances
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  and kind of framework, which would be the judiciary, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
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  as the primary law of the land, it's increasingly secondary to what is convenient for the dear
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  leader. Right. And the politicization of the bureaucracy of the public service would
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  probably fall under that rubric as well, right? Yeah, because they're technically constitutionally
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  in the executive branch. That means that every single postal worker and environmental
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  scientists who works in the public service or in the NHS or something has to display personal
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  field to the leader of the executive branch. I in some ways have been feeling lately, David,
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  maybe the third tranche of those concerns is a distraction tool from the first two, especially
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  from like the second one. I mean, I think the idea that the United States can just grab people
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  off the street and fly them to Gulagas in friendly countries abroad with no recourse, no appeal,
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  no habeas is much more worrying and the idea that the government would ignore court orders in
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  so doing, I think is way more threatening to the long term survival of liberal democracy than
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  any economic damage could be done by the tariffs. And I fear or wonder or suspect that maybe that
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  is partly the point of the tarot. I'm basically with you until everything but the last thing,
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  only because the last thing requires some coordination and kind of calculation that I'm unsure
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  if this administration is really capable of. I think that it's certainly serving as a distraction.
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  You know, the distraction narrative always ends up with people arguing about what's the real thing
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  and what are all the other things that are meant to distract from it. And ranking by seriousness,
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  I do agree with you. Trump's been talking about the tariffs for much longer than could have
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  been predicted that these court orders would have come down and that they would have been ignored
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  at this point in time. So I think that the timeline on the tariffs predated the other stuff in a
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  way that makes me suspect Trump didn't plan it quite so precisely. No, I take a point that I'm not
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  my position would not be that he sat down the day before he was sworn in and wrote out a list
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  of how he's going to strategize things and that the tariffs are an ingenious ploy to distract
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  attention while he sees his power. But more than in his almost 80 long years, he's developed a
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  terrific carnival barkers aptitude for understanding the show and almost a magician's level sense in
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  eight cents of the redirect. And so he has got pulls him in areas where I think he whether it's
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  conscious or not, he is just masterful at being able to get away with things whilst dangling,
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  jangly objects on the in his other hand so that you don't pay too much attention to the other
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  thing that's going on. In other words, he wants to be playing. It's like Reagan said, when you're
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  explaining, you're losing. He always wants to be playing on the terrain that is strongest for him.
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  And this whole thing about rooting out people who aren't loyal to you in the public service,
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  it just doesn't play well. It doesn't, it doesn't sound spicy. It's not interesting. Whereas
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  creating economic havoc is definitely going to dominate the front page. And it's possible that
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  he just instinctively goes towards things that are going to dominate the front page, send people
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  into a tizzy, detonate a hand grenade that he can then go in and clean up, set a scenario for
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  him to be the hero, set a scenario for him to be the emperor to whom all the other world leaders
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  have to come begging. You know, he knows how to put on a show. And then while the show is going on,
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  he can also do a bunch of other shit that isn't going to make the front page. You know what I mean?
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  It's like, I don't know whether that's a better or worse diagnosis of his psychosis than if it was,
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  you know, if there was forethought to it. No, I think that's basically right. And there's two
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  kind of important currencies, I think, for Trump. One is the perception of being manly and alpha
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  and tough and also loyalty. Those are important currencies to Trump. And the tariff stuff really
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  covers both of them in the sense that it's putting his fellow Republicans in a position
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  to have to maintain loyalty through policy that clearly many of them disagree with. Some more
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  vocally, like Senator Rand Paul, who has just said, no, at the top level, I'm against tariffs
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  as an economic tool. So, so the loyalty test is very much there. And then also this idea of
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  the countries came to me with tears in their eyes ready to negotiate. And I was so big and tough,
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  and they capitulated and now I can pause the tariffs. That's the other currency, the strong alpha.
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  So it fits perfectly for both of those. Yeah. And so then the what are the priorities for the
• 11:02
  left? I mean, I feel we can get into the causes of where the United States find itself politically.
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  Actually, just before we leave the authoritarian question, you know, you I know have an international
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  background as I do. So neither of us sees the United States entirely through the prism of someone
• 11:21
  who has family that stretches back many generations in the United States and where it's the
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  only place in the world you've lived abroad. And the whole point of erecting the kinds of
• 11:34
  political systems that have been the most successful was to constrain and protect the people from
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  people like Donald Trump and from would be authoritarians. It should come as no surprise that
• 11:47
  people like him sometimes ascend to the executive. Like that's just going to happen. And so the one
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  hopes that the founding fathers and the constitution and the norms and all that is able to withstand
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  such people. It strikes me that the judiciary is still capable of doing that in the United States.
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  It hasn't been wholly corrupted. But the third branch of government, the legislative branch,
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  is completely missing in action, is totally derelict in its duties because it's controlled by
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  what they seem to regard as being the president's party, the Republican party, rather than a bunch of
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  loosely aligned independent congresspeople and senators who, you know, are working for their
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  constituents. Do you understand what's happened there apart from the obvious answer that Donald
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  Trump bullies people who step out of line? But is it a collective action problem that like everybody
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  would be able to stand up to him in some way, but nobody wants to make the first move? Is it that
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  they're all unremitting cowards? Why aren't they pushing back? I think there is cowardice. I think
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  it's primarily self-interest. And what I've been thinking is likely, and I've been talking to
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  others about recently, is that once it's, if and when it becomes clear, that Trump no longer has
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  anything to offer them, and that crossing Trump presents much less of a risk to their own re-election,
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  I do think you're going to start to see more Republicans peel off. Now, whether that happens
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  after the midterm elections in 2026, or whether first we need to see, does Trump hand the baton
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  to JD Vance successfully? And so MAGA is going to persist as the movement controlling the Republican
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  party. I think it's primarily self-interest, which is right now it still feels risky to publicly
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  just say this guy's been bad for our party, and the policy he's pushing is wrong. There's nothing
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  that resonates with a so-called constitutional conservative here. There's nothing that resonates
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  with a fiscal conservative here. I just think it's too early and the risk feels too great for
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  Republicans to really do that in any significant number right now. But why does it, it's less and less
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  of a risk than more of them who do it, right? I mean, I'm surprised that, well, look, I'm not
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  privy to what's going on behind the scenes, but I'm surprised that there hasn't been a quorum of
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  somewhat moderate Republicans who have come together and said, look, let's just do a collective
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  action here where all together, all 20 of us or all 30 of us say, we're not going to be voting
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  for any money to pass through the government. We're going to vote with Democrats to shut the
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  government down unless we're able to amend tariff powers, the tariff powers that the president has
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  to ensure, even if it's just a bunch of common sense reforms, like there has to be a 180 day notice
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  period before tariffs are amended or they can only be amended twice a year or something on
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  particular countries, something to give the market certainty, like the most minimal possible
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  things that you could spin on Fox News as being still Trumpy, but just prudent. And nobody seems
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  to have come out and said, like, this is what we want and we're not going to allow the government
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  to continue until we get it. I have not seen any evidence for decades that the level of, I guess you
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  would call it spine that would be required for that is something that exists in that party. And
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  this is not, I'm not even making criticism or praise of Democrats right now. I'm simply answering
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  your question of why haven't 20 Republicans or 30 Republicans done it. I mean, when have they
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  done it on anything as significant as this when it comes to crossing their own party? I just don't
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  know. We'd really have to ask them because it feels like it would be so foreign to the way they've
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  operated. I'm not sure that's true. I can't quite like if you gave me five minutes, I would go
• 15:50
  back and think about the George W. Well, George W Bush trying to privatize Social Security or
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  you know, it's something like that. I mean, you know, when you remove Trump from the equation,
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  there are russians within the Republican party. Yeah, but what I'd have to go and refresh my
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  memory, I know Bush sort of paid lip service to the idea that private industry could do better
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  with that, but I don't recall any serious legislator. Oh, no, they tried. No, he really wanted it.
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  He had to refresh my memory. You may be right. We had the same as quote about how like, you know,
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  I've won reelection. I've got a mandate and I've got I've won I've earned political capital and
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  I choose to spend it. And what he wanted to spend it on was privatizing Social Security. It was
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  like a big thing in 2000. What was that five, I guess, or something. And he there was a revolt
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  within his own party and, you know, it didn't come to pass. But I mean, I'm just sort of I'm just
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  thinking I'm just trying to question whether or not it's true to say that the core of the problem
• 16:50
  is that Republicans always act in lockstep with a Republican president or whether there's something
• 16:55
  silly generous about Trump. I don't think it's always, but if you last examples 20 years ago,
• 17:01
  then it's frequently, I guess, is maybe better. Well, I haven't been well, I haven't that's the
• 17:05
  last Republican, that's the last Republican presidential term that wasn't Trump. That's true. Yeah,
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  that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Um, so then let's move on to the democratic side of politics. I was
• 17:15
  fascinated to see the spat between a Casio Cortez and Chuck Schumer like over whether or not to
• 17:21
  shut down the government. Um, some weeks ago, like what is the appropriate response, you know,
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  I've heard sort of the old guard of democratic wisdom, the carvils saying that, you know, just let
• 17:34
  the let the administration implode. It's going to get really unpopular. Things are going to,
• 17:39
  you know, side swipe it. The beginning of any administration is a period when the players are
• 17:46
  calling the shots and eventually reality will catch up with them. There will be a pandemic,
• 17:51
  there will be a terrorist attack, there will be an economic crisis, there will be something or
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  other. Um, and they will be shown up and people will vote as well retaliate and, you know, just let
• 18:01
  that play out and don't try to put yourself in the line of fire. Then there's another school of
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  thought which says we don't have the luxury of that mainly because of the first two reasons that
• 18:12
  you articulated that risk of authoritarianism, the risk of stacking the public service, the risk
• 18:16
  of ignoring judicial orders and so on and like when democracy is on the line, you have to go into that.
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  And I find myself completely torn really. I just sort of, I agree with whoever the last person
• 18:28
  spoke about to me about it was what, tell me what I should think. As far as the entire shutdown
• 18:35
  fiasco, well, as far as what kind of what you think the most efficacious, um,
• 18:41
  former resistance is likely to be the small target or the, or the big attack.
• 18:48
  I'm sort of in all of the above guy, but let me address the shutdown piece for, for a second, you know.
• 18:55
  Got a humans? Well, if you've listened to this much of the episode, then you must enjoy it
• 18:59
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• 19:04
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