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“The Jackson Pollock of racism.” · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
0:22
Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:23
Speaker 3: Later in the pod, Lovett talks to Adam Serwer of
0:25
Speaker 3: The Atlantic about Trumpism and the fight for multiracial democracy.
0:28
Speaker 1: Before that.
0:29
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about the president doubling down on
0:31
Speaker 3: his racist attacks, the administration's latest restrictions on immigration, and
0:35
Speaker 3: whether or not Trump has an electoral college advantage heading
0:39
Speaker 3: into 2020.
0:39
Speaker 1: A few programming notes.
0:41
Speaker 3: Today we're releasing the final episode of This Land, where
0:44
Speaker 3: you can hear about the next battleground in the fight
0:46
Speaker 3: for Native rights. So check out that, and be sure
0:48
Speaker 3: to binge the entire series at thislandpodcast.com.
0:52
Speaker 1: Binge it. Very compelling, exciting story.
0:56
Speaker 2: Just check it out. It's funny what we've done to
0:57
Speaker 2: the word binge.
0:58
Speaker 1: Binge. Yeah, we made it a good thing, and it
1:00
Speaker 1: wasn't for a very long time. Now it's great.
1:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:03
Speaker 1: Just take all those pods at once.
1:05
Speaker 3: Also, big news about our LA Pod Save America show
1:08
Speaker 3: at the Greek Theater on August 17th. In addition to
1:11
Speaker 3: being joined by Jemele Hill, Amanda Seals, Best Coast, and
1:14
Speaker 3: Jim James, Maggie Rogers will be performing.
1:17
Speaker 1: Huge update.
1:18
Speaker 4: Huge.
1:19
Speaker 2: What a show.
1:21
Speaker 1: Another benefit. I think my mom's going to come out.
1:24
Speaker 5: Whoa.
1:24
Speaker 1: Just know that you'll be in the presence of the person.
1:27
Speaker 1: that led to this. Wow, we got Tommy's mom and
1:31
Speaker 1: Maggie Rogers. Louise, see you there.
1:33
Speaker 3: The show starts at 7.30, and proceeds will be donated
1:36
Speaker 3: to organizations at the forefront of the fight to protect
1:38
Speaker 3: the vote across America. So, it's a good cause. It'll
1:41
Speaker 3: be a great show. Get your tickets now at crooked.com
1:43
Speaker 3: slash the Greek. All right, let's get to the news.
1:47
Speaker 3: Over the weekend, the president made clear that he meant
1:50
Speaker 3: it when he told four congresswomen of color to leave America.
1:53
Speaker 3: On Saturday, he tweeted that he doesn't believe the women are, quote,
1:56
Speaker 3: capable of loving our country. And today he called them, quote,
2:00
Speaker 3: a very racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced,
2:03
Speaker 3: and not very smart. And just days after the president
2:06
Speaker 3: said he wasn't happy with the sender back chants at
2:08
Speaker 3: his rally in North Carolina, he reversed himself on Friday
2:11
Speaker 3: and said the following to a reporter who asked if
2:13
Speaker 3: he was unhappy with the crowd's chant.
2:15
Speaker 1: Quote, those are incredible people. They are incredible patriots.
2:19
Speaker 3: All this comes as the Washington Post confirms that Trump's
2:22
Speaker 3: original attack on the squad was not the carefully planned
2:25
Speaker 3: strategy of a political mastermind. but the gut reaction of
2:28
Speaker 3: a dotty old racist to a segment on Fox and Friends. Guys,
2:32
Speaker 3: what did you think of the Post story? It says
2:34
Speaker 3: that White House aides didn't think that Trump fully understood
2:37
Speaker 3: that his tweets were racist and said that, quote, he
2:40
Speaker 3: thought he was interjecting himself into Democratic politics in a
2:43
Speaker 3: good way.
2:44
Speaker 1: So, yeah.
2:46
Speaker 5: I thought you guys wanted me to do this. Well,
2:48
Speaker 5: one thing that comes across in the piece is, It
2:51
Speaker 5: clearly was a strategy and a discussion they had to
2:54
Speaker 5: go after the squad. That is something that they've been
2:57
Speaker 5: talking about, trying to insert, thinking about how to insert
3:00
Speaker 5: himself into that to elevate those members. It does seem
3:04
Speaker 5: as though his way of doing it was something that
3:06
Speaker 5: was more of a kind of Jackson Pollock-esque kind of
3:10
Speaker 5: exploration of form.
3:13
Speaker 2: So I think both things are true.
3:15
Speaker 1: And once again, a segment on Fox of Friends sets
3:17
Speaker 1: the national debate. The Democratic Party had its worst news
3:21
Speaker 1: days in a long time when that fight was ongoing,
3:23
Speaker 1: and he just was like, I got it, guys, jumps in,
3:26
Speaker 1: tweets the worst thing possible, and unites us behind our
3:29
Speaker 1: reminding that we hate him. A couple things on what
3:32
Speaker 1: he said over the weekend. One, it's just he's always projecting, right? Like,
3:35
Speaker 1: he's a man who's incapable of loving anything but himself,
3:38
Speaker 1: and he's accusing them of not being able to love
3:40
Speaker 1: their country. I don't think anyone should be surprised by
3:42
Speaker 1: the pattern we saw. This is exactly what happened in Charlottesville.
3:45
Speaker 1: He was rebuked for being a saying shameful, disgusting things.
3:49
Speaker 1: And he walked it back a few weeks later because
3:50
Speaker 1: he cares more about looking weak than he does about
3:53
Speaker 1: actually treating people with decency and humanity. But what's unfortunately
3:58
Speaker 1: depressing and still the case is that Republicans in Washington
4:01
Speaker 1: don't view racism as immoral or antithetical to our values
4:06
Speaker 1: as a country, at least not publicly. They talk about
4:08
Speaker 1: it as bad politics. And the media often adopts this
4:12
Speaker 1: framing in the discussion of that should be about right
4:15
Speaker 1: and wrong and moral and immoral becomes laundered through the
4:19
Speaker 1: prism of a political strategy discussion, whether this will turn
4:22
Speaker 1: out his base or, you know, fire up people on Twitter.
4:25
Speaker 1: And it sucks. And then the final Republican move is
4:28
Speaker 1: always to play the victim and say that Democrats are
4:30
Speaker 1: really the racists and the squad. They're actually racist and
4:32
Speaker 1: they hate their country and that they the the good
4:35
Speaker 1: people at the Trump rallies are the ones being victimized.
4:39
Speaker 1: So it's the same bullshit we've seen for years. Yeah.
4:41
Speaker 3: I mean, And last week also we were told by
4:45
Speaker 3: various pundits and strategists that calling out Trump's racism might
4:48
Speaker 3: actually help Trump and the Republicans. But it's clear from
4:52
Speaker 3: the Washington Post piece that a bunch of Republican politicians
4:54
Speaker 3: and White House aides didn't agree.
4:56
Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
4:57
Speaker 5: It begins, of course, with an obviously very personal account
5:03
Speaker 5: from a White House insider who cares only for the
5:05
Speaker 5: country explaining how Kellyanne Conway was very upset.
5:09
Speaker 1: Farron Sutton was like, hey, you went too far. And
5:11
Speaker 1: Trump was like, I don't understand. What did I say? Yeah.
5:14
Speaker 1: Which is like, which just goes to.
5:15
Speaker 3: Show you how racist Trump really is, is that it's not,
5:19
Speaker 3: he doesn't even know when it's racism. He's just like, oh, well,
5:22
Speaker 3: that's my belief that they should go back to their countries.
5:25
Speaker 1: Is that a problem? Again, projecting, it's in his bones.
5:28
Speaker 1: The racism was grown inside of him. It's a part
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Speaker 1: of him. It's who he is.
5:33
Speaker 3: And you've got this whole Washington Post piece, too, with
5:35
Speaker 3: all these Republicans, strategists, donors, who are like, you know,
5:39
Speaker 3: They privately disagree. No one wanted to touch it, one
5:44
Speaker 3: of the advisors said. No one wanted to go to
5:47
Speaker 3: him and talk about how this was bad. Lindsey Graham
5:49
Speaker 3: is quoted as saying, he realized that part of it
5:52
Speaker 3: was not playing well, which is to your point that
5:54
Speaker 3: we're going to skip the moral part of this and
5:56
Speaker 3: go right to the political strategy. And then this was
5:58
Speaker 3: a quote from one of the donors who were all upset,
6:00
Speaker 3: Republican donors. Quote, you put your head up and you
6:03
Speaker 3: get it cut off, this person said, and then everyone
6:05
Speaker 3: remembers you weren't loyal enough when this blows over, which
6:08
Speaker 3: just says so much about the entire fucking useless Republican
6:11
Speaker 3: Party at this point, is that there's a bunch of
6:14
Speaker 3: people who know how wrong this is, but they don't
6:16
Speaker 3: want to be the one to say it's bad because
6:17
Speaker 3: Trump will punish them. This is what happens in authoritarian regimes.
6:21
Speaker 2: Well, right, it's a tragedy of the commons.
6:23
Speaker 5: No one wants to be the first one to pop
6:25
Speaker 5: their head up because they're afraid they're going to get their.
6:29
Speaker 2: Heads taken off. And actually, they're correct.
6:31
Speaker 5: They are correct because so few Republicans have been willing
6:33
Speaker 5: to stand up to Trump. Whenever anyone does it, Trump
6:36
Speaker 5: directs the full force of his antipathy at them. And
6:41
Speaker 5: yet that is not an excuse because, first of all,
6:45
Speaker 5: when they have decided to say something together, it has
6:48
Speaker 5: in the past mattered. We have been through these cycles before.
6:51
Speaker 5: The Washington Post and The New York Times have run
6:53
Speaker 5: many of these stories after Trump crosses a new line
6:56
Speaker 5: of the internal deliberations about how upset they were about
6:59
Speaker 5: Trump crossing this new line and none of them knowing
7:01
Speaker 5: how to convince him.
7:02
Speaker 2: That he made a mistake.
7:03
Speaker 5: Yeah.
7:04
Speaker 1: I mean, if you dare to speak out, he makes
7:06
Speaker 1: you chief of staff for six months and tortures you
7:08
Speaker 1: like Reince Priebus. You know, you can tell the writers
7:10
Speaker 1: are getting bored in season three, though, because we're also
7:12
Speaker 1: seeing the emergence, reemergence of the Ivanka as savior narrative. Oh, yeah. Which,
7:17
Speaker 1: you know, thank God for Ivanka, which is why we're
7:19
Speaker 1: still in the Paris Climate Accords. The women's right to
7:21
Speaker 1: choose protected, you know, LGBT rights are being respected. You know,
7:25
Speaker 1: she is like delivering on this getting rappers out of
7:28
Speaker 1: jail in Sweden platform from the convention.
7:32
Speaker 2: Maybe.
7:32
Speaker 5: Right.
7:33
Speaker 1: Or they fucked it up.
7:33
Speaker 3: But I want to talk about where Trump and the
7:36
Speaker 3: Republicans plan to go from here. So the Post story says, quote,
7:39
Speaker 3: Like others, Lindsey Graham urged Trump to reframe away from
7:42
Speaker 3: the racist notion at the core of the tweets that
7:45
Speaker 3: only European immigrants or their descendants are entitled to criticize
7:48
Speaker 3: the country. Advisors wrote new talking points and handed him
7:51
Speaker 3: reams of opposition research on the four congresswomen. Pivot to patriotism.
7:55
Speaker 3: focus on their ideas and behavior, not identity. Some would
7:58
Speaker 3: still see a racist agenda, the argument went, but at
8:00
Speaker 3: least it would not be so explicit. So basically, their
8:05
Speaker 3: strategy is, don't say that these women of color should
8:08
Speaker 3: leave the country, just say that they hate the country.
8:11
Speaker 3: Is that what we're expected to believe that the Republican
8:14
Speaker 3: Party's strategy is here?
8:16
Speaker 5: And I presume that that subtlety will not be lost
8:19
Speaker 5: on the chanting hordes of of Trump rally attendees.
8:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, they will definitely.
8:26
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just the idea that pivoting to questioning
8:30
Speaker 3: people's patriotism is the good strategy, is the more mild
8:34
Speaker 3: criticism now when, you know, for a long time in politics,
8:39
Speaker 3: when you started saying that someone hated the country or
8:41
Speaker 3: didn't love the country, that in itself would be seen
8:44
Speaker 3: as completely outside the bounds of normal political behavior is
8:48
Speaker 3: somewhat troubling. I agree.
8:50
Speaker 2: I agree. It is troubling, John. That's a good way
8:52
Speaker 2: to describe it.
8:52
Speaker 1: Demand to see their birth certificate next.
8:53
Speaker 3: But it is clear that this is how they want to...
8:56
Speaker 3: This is how the Republicans want to frame the 2020 election.
8:59
Speaker 1: If they can, right?
9:00
Speaker 3: Like, they know it's not popular to go as far
9:04
Speaker 3: as Trump went, but they like the idea of elevating
9:07
Speaker 3: these four congresswomen and making this election about, are you
9:10
Speaker 3: a real American or are you not?
9:12
Speaker 1: But I don't even know if it's that. The... Lindsey
9:14
Speaker 1: Graham explicitly said, he said, quote, I don't think a
9:16
Speaker 1: Somali refugee embracing Trump would be asked to go back in,
9:19
Speaker 1: end quote. So they're not asking if you're an American
9:21
Speaker 1: or not. They're asking if you're a Republican or not.
9:23
Speaker 1: And if you're a Republican, then you're on their team
9:24
Speaker 1: and you're okay. And then anyone else can't say what
9:27
Speaker 1: they think or believe.
9:28
Speaker 3: And like- Well, what they're trying to say is, yes,
9:31
Speaker 3: you have to be a Republican to be a real American.
9:34
Speaker 1: Exactly. And this is where I get a little frustrated
9:36
Speaker 1: with the press because- This craven strategy to pivot away
9:40
Speaker 1: from and pretend he didn't say something racist has been
9:42
Speaker 1: laid bare in the Washington Post and is obvious from
9:44
Speaker 1: all the tweets and all the comments from his supporters.
9:47
Speaker 1: And the reporting will fall into this frame and become
9:51
Speaker 1: bloodless again and immoral and be like, well, how's it
9:53
Speaker 1: playing in Wisconsin or whatever state? And it drives me crazy. Right.
9:57
Speaker 3: Well, because like you say, in the Washington Post story,
10:00
Speaker 3: we're basically being told that we are being lied to
10:03
Speaker 3: all the time by these people like this whole this
10:05
Speaker 3: whole veneer that all the republicans have have put up
10:08
Speaker 3: about how like oh, it's not really racist and it's
10:10
Speaker 3: about all the bad comments these congresswomen made, blah, blah, blah.
10:13
Speaker 3: We know that's a lie because we see these stories
10:16
Speaker 3: and we see Trump's tweets. Like, they are bullshitting us.
10:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, we know.
10:21
Speaker 5: They didn't introduce the idea of, oh, the real reason
10:23
Speaker 5: that they're so upset is because of several old comments
10:27
Speaker 5: by Ilhan Omar from months ago. That is actually what
10:30
Speaker 5: has been driving this entire thing.
10:31
Speaker 1: It's just a lie.
10:32
Speaker 2: It's just a lie. It's just a lie.
10:34
Speaker 5: It's retconning to explain what he did before. And there's
10:38
Speaker 5: too many people willing to go on with it because
10:40
Speaker 5: either they want to because it's better for them or
10:43
Speaker 5: because they have their own equities and see a lot
10:46
Speaker 5: of value in attacking Ilhan Omar themselves.
10:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know that they're not feeling great about
10:51
Speaker 1: their argument when they send out their two biggest bootlickers
10:53
Speaker 1: to the Sunday show. So you had Stephen Miller and
10:56
Speaker 1: then Mercedes Schlapp, who, you know, would just say or
11:00
Speaker 1: do anything Donald Trump told them. Rudy Giuliani is still
11:04
Speaker 1: in his... cage somewhere we haven't seen him in ukraine
11:07
Speaker 1: trying to take.
11:08
Speaker 5: Yeah he's got a he's got a he's got a
11:10
Speaker 5: he's got a uh a magnifying glass and a fingerprint
11:13
Speaker 5: duster he's in kiev oh i.
11:18
Speaker 3: Thought when you said two biggest bootlickers tell me i
11:20
Speaker 3: think you're gonna say mike pence too who was also
11:22
Speaker 3: on the sunday shows and was asked or he was
11:24
Speaker 3: he was interviewed over the weekend and asked about um
11:27
Speaker 3: the chance at the rally and he's like I think
11:29
Speaker 3: if it happened again, he may say something.
11:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was incredible. That's the other thing, too, is,
11:35
Speaker 5: you know, we're about to have, he's going to do
11:36
Speaker 5: another rally. I find it very hard to believe that
11:40
Speaker 5: Trump supporters who are just as aware as us as
11:43
Speaker 5: to what Trump really cares about and wants them to do,
11:46
Speaker 5: I do not believe that they have taken the message
11:49
Speaker 5: of the past two weeks for them to stop shouting
11:51
Speaker 5: center back.
11:52
Speaker 1: No, that's right.
11:53
Speaker 3: So let's talk about the Democratic response. Over the weekend,
11:55
Speaker 3: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, quote, the president's policies are not about immigration,
12:00
Speaker 3: they're about ethnicity and racism. And this sentiment was reflected
12:04
Speaker 3: in a great piece by Greg Sargent at the Washington
12:06
Speaker 3: Post over the weekend, who wrote, quote, it's now inarguable
12:09
Speaker 3: that Trump's overall immigration agenda is shaped around the broader
12:12
Speaker 3: goal of preventing as many people as possible from getting
12:14
Speaker 3: asylum and refugee status here, even if they qualify for
12:17
Speaker 3: it on the merits. It's also inarguable that underlying that
12:20
Speaker 3: is the goal of dramatically reducing the number of immigrants
12:22
Speaker 3: admitted to this country. And as Trump's own rhetoric has
12:25
Speaker 3: repeatedly confirmed, This is inescapably about reducing the number of
12:29
Speaker 3: non-white immigrants here. So how should this link between Trump's
12:33
Speaker 3: racist statements and his broader policy goals shape the Democratic response?
12:37
Speaker 3: Is this a fight that we need to have? Or
12:40
Speaker 3: do we think that, you know, like a lot of
12:43
Speaker 3: pundits have suggested, we have to sort of pivot away
12:45
Speaker 3: from this to talk about broader economic issues and health
12:48
Speaker 3: care and all the like?
12:49
Speaker 1: I agree with everything Greg wrote. And I think it's
12:52
Speaker 1: indisputable that the ultimate goal is to have no refugees,
12:56
Speaker 1: no asylum seekers, no anyone that isn't currently living here
13:00
Speaker 1: or of white European descent coming to this country. I
13:03
Speaker 1: think the democratic strategy here should be to pivot to
13:06
Speaker 1: impeachment immediately. There is no zeal like the zeal of
13:09
Speaker 1: the converted. I'm a recently converted impeachment advocate, but I
13:12
Speaker 1: just think that we, I don't want to have a
13:16
Speaker 1: fight where the media is relitigating, like whether this is
13:20
Speaker 1: racist or not, or whether the, you know, some comment
13:22
Speaker 1: that was made by a Democratic member of Congress 10
13:24
Speaker 1: years ago. I want to start litigating his crimes, all
13:27
Speaker 1: the things he's done and said, and his corruption, also
13:31
Speaker 1: knowing that it drives him fucking crazy and that he'll
13:34
Speaker 1: continue to lash out and make it about himself. And
13:36
Speaker 1: I think that's the terrain where we end up winning.
13:38
Speaker 5: Yeah.
13:38
Speaker 1: Lovett, what do you think?
13:40
Speaker 5: Well, so AOC also, I think, put it in broader
13:42
Speaker 5: context about, you know, this is what he believes about immigration.
13:45
Speaker 5: This is his agenda. Here's our agenda, right? It's a more,
13:49
Speaker 5: it's a humanitarian agenda. and reasonable immigration system, but it's
13:52
Speaker 5: also action on healthcare. It's action on all these, on
13:54
Speaker 5: this host of other issues. I just, look, we've said
13:56
Speaker 5: this a million times. You cannot abandon, you know, you
14:01
Speaker 5: cannot abandon an argument about Trump's moral unfitness, his racism,
14:08
Speaker 5: his undermining of our basic tenets as Americans, but you
14:12
Speaker 5: also cannot abandon a larger argument about how this fits
14:14
Speaker 5: into the policy debates we're having. You just, we have
14:17
Speaker 5: to do both. It's the most You know, it's a bromide.
14:21
Speaker 5: It's obvious, but it has been true.
14:23
Speaker 2: It will continue to be true.
14:24
Speaker 5: And no matter what these things, no matter how these
14:26
Speaker 5: fights unfold, we will always have to do both, be
14:29
Speaker 5: honest and fight him on the ways he's dividing and
14:33
Speaker 5: attacking the basic ideas of what it means to be
14:35
Speaker 5: an American while not losing the bigger argument that that
14:38
Speaker 5: fits into about why he is dividing people around immigration
14:41
Speaker 5: is because he has no answers, not just for not
14:44
Speaker 5: just for white Americans, but for black Americans, for brown Americans.
14:46
Speaker 5: He has no answers for anyone in this country.
14:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's important to understand
14:51
Speaker 3: that Trump's racist tweets, his racist comments, they are not
14:54
Speaker 3: taking place in isolation, right? There's this broader policy agenda
14:58
Speaker 3: attached to it. And I think that because there's a
14:59
Speaker 3: broader policy agenda attached to it, specifically around immigration, which
15:03
Speaker 3: this is mostly about, I don't think Democrats have the
15:07
Speaker 3: luxury of running from that fight. And we've talked about
15:09
Speaker 3: this too. I mean, while we've been talking about these
15:11
Speaker 3: tweets over the last couple of weeks, they announced that
15:15
Speaker 3: the Trump administration wants to accept zero refugees next year.
15:19
Speaker 1: Zero.
15:20
Speaker 3: We saw that they tried to end asylum for anyone
15:22
Speaker 3: coming in through Mexico seeking asylum. Just today it was
15:26
Speaker 3: announced that they want to have expedited removal expanded to
15:30
Speaker 3: everywhere in the United States, not just 100 miles from
15:32
Speaker 3: the border, and also affecting anyone not here for at
15:37
Speaker 3: least two years as opposed to two weeks.
15:39
Speaker 5: And I believe that's actually the more serious part of
15:41
Speaker 5: this because, you know, The 100-mile zone actually includes huge
15:45
Speaker 5: portions of America already. But this idea of you get
15:48
Speaker 5: stopped on the street and you need to prove immediately.
15:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, through documentation.
15:52
Speaker 2: Through documentation.
15:53
Speaker 1: Two years.
15:53
Speaker 2: Two years.
15:55
Speaker 5: Or you could be just removed from the country without
15:58
Speaker 5: the intervention of a court is terrifying to me.
16:00
Speaker 1: And I just want to be clear one thing. I
16:02
Speaker 1: want to fight those policies to the greatest extent possible. Oh, yeah.
16:05
Speaker 1: I don't think we should ever be silent in the
16:07
Speaker 1: face of his nativism or racism or nationalism. I think, though,
16:11
Speaker 1: that for the national media narrative, we need to go
16:13
Speaker 1: on offense and start taking it back to who he
16:15
Speaker 1: is as a human being, the corruption, the crimes, the policies,
16:18
Speaker 1: and just create a narrative of our own or else
16:21
Speaker 1: we will just be whipped around.
16:22
Speaker 3: I completely agree with that. I think in the short term,
16:24
Speaker 3: that's absolutely right. This is partly a question about for
16:27
Speaker 3: the long term, for the Democratic candidates in 2020, right?
16:30
Speaker 3: Like Trump is going to do this a million times
16:32
Speaker 3: between now and the election in November. And I still,
16:34
Speaker 3: I am still concerned that, and Lovett, you've talked about
16:37
Speaker 3: this for a long time now, the Democrats don't have
16:40
Speaker 3: a positive, forward-looking message of their own on immigration, and
16:45
Speaker 3: that it's always either we want to end Trump's inhumane
16:49
Speaker 3: immigration policies, and when they attack us, say, oh, no,
16:52
Speaker 3: we're not for open borders, but we don't exactly say
16:55
Speaker 3: what we are for. And I think in the last
17:00
Speaker 3: Democratic debate, there was a lot of talk about decriminalizing
17:03
Speaker 3: the border and health care for undocumented immigrants, both of
17:06
Speaker 3: which are extremely unpopular policies. Um, there's a new poll
17:10
Speaker 3: out today about that. And yet that same poll shows
17:13
Speaker 3: that citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which is where, you know,
17:17
Speaker 3: which is what Democrats have been pushing for a long time,
17:18
Speaker 3: which would make a huge difference in the lives of
17:21
Speaker 3: undocumented immigrants in this country.
17:23
Speaker 1: Is it 64% approval? People think it's one of the
17:25
Speaker 1: best new ideas.
17:27
Speaker 3: So like, I do think Democrats have to be able
17:29
Speaker 3: to have a message on immigration that says we want
17:31
Speaker 3: to end Trump's humane policies. We want to make sure
17:33
Speaker 3: we give citizenship to the people who've been in this
17:35
Speaker 3: country for a long time. We're undocumented immigrants, but by
17:38
Speaker 3: the way, Yes, we do want– if you come here
17:42
Speaker 3: and you come here by crossing the border as an
17:45
Speaker 3: unauthorized immigrant crossing the border, we will send you back,
17:49
Speaker 3: you know, after we've already legalized 11 million people here. Like,
17:53
Speaker 3: we do need to– people are like, oh, well, you
17:55
Speaker 3: don't need to do all this stuff just to please Republicans.
17:57
Speaker 3: It's not about pleasing Republicans. It's about letting Americans know
18:01
Speaker 3: exactly what our immigration agenda is.
18:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
18:12
Speaker 3: All right, let's talk about 2020. Over the last few days,
18:15
Speaker 3: the New York Times and NBC have both published pieces
18:17
Speaker 3: by Nate Cohn and Dave Wasserman arguing that Trump could
18:20
Speaker 3: have an even greater electoral college advantage.
18:23
Speaker 1: Than he did in 2016.
18:25
Speaker 3: Last time, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 2.1%,
18:29
Speaker 3: but walked away with 306 electoral votes. And this time,
18:33
Speaker 3: Cohn argues that Trump could win re-election while losing the
18:36
Speaker 3: popular vote by as much as 5%. He also says
18:40
Speaker 3: that the president's advantage... could grow even further in a
18:42
Speaker 3: high turnout election, which could increase the Democratic candidates' margin
18:46
Speaker 3: in states like California or get us closer than ever
18:49
Speaker 3: in a state like Texas, while doing almost nothing to
18:51
Speaker 3: help us in must-win states that are dominated by non-college-educated
18:55
Speaker 3: white voters like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Guys, what was
18:59
Speaker 3: your takeaway from these cheery pieces?
19:02
Speaker 1: It's the worst thing I've read in a long time.
19:04
Speaker 1: I didn't like it. Thank you for making me read
19:07
Speaker 1: it even more in depth and talk about it today. No, it's, it's, it's, seriously,
19:11
Speaker 1: intensely scary. I mean, I think maybe we need like
19:13
Speaker 1: a swear jar for polling where, where we, and all
19:16
Speaker 1: our listeners, every time you like go deep on a
19:18
Speaker 1: poll or read an article about it, you donate $ 1
19:20
Speaker 1: to the unifier dice fund so that we feel some
19:23
Speaker 1: agency in like our ability to shape things like we
19:25
Speaker 1: can win this election. We can shape these events, but
19:27
Speaker 1: there are some structural disadvantages we have in terms of demographics,
19:30
Speaker 1: in terms of the electoral college and all the States, uh,
19:33
Speaker 1: where they have put in place, uh, the toughest voter
19:36
Speaker 1: suppression tactics possible.
19:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:38
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Levin.
19:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's a reminder.
19:41
Speaker 5: You know, if you ask people, if you ask people,
19:44
Speaker 5: was Trump a fluke, a black swan event that no
19:48
Speaker 5: one could have ultimately seen coming? Or was Trump's victory,
19:53
Speaker 5: though perhaps unlikely, the culmination of a huge number of
19:59
Speaker 5: forces in our politics, cultural, social, political, electoral? I think
20:03
Speaker 5: most people would obviously agree with the latter phrasing of that.
20:07
Speaker 5: And then you say, well, how many of those dynamics
20:09
Speaker 5: have fundamentally shifted since 2016? I don't think we'd save
20:12
Speaker 5: very money. And I think these kinds of polls are
20:14
Speaker 5: a reminder that the dynamics we saw play out before
20:17
Speaker 5: are still in play today.
20:18
Speaker 1: Well, in the economy, at least your view of how
20:21
Speaker 1: the economy is doing has gotten better. Right. In fact,
20:23
Speaker 1: he's benefiting.
20:24
Speaker 3: And so the reason these studies are particularly worrisome is,
20:28
Speaker 3: so the New York Times estimated Trump's approval rating among
20:30
Speaker 3: people who voted in the 2018 midterm. So we do
20:33
Speaker 3: have an election to look at, right? And this approval
20:36
Speaker 3: rating that they estimated is more accurate than your average
20:38
Speaker 3: poll because they matched it with actual election results, right?
20:41
Speaker 3: So this is a very accurate view of Trump's approval
20:43
Speaker 3: rating in these states, at least for the people who
20:45
Speaker 3: actually went to the polls and voted in 2018. And
20:48
Speaker 3: we also know that from all the other polls since
20:50
Speaker 3: 2018 that the approval rating hasn't really changed much since then.
20:53
Speaker 1: So it's pretty static.
20:55
Speaker 3: So the good news is that according to these approval ratings,
20:59
Speaker 3: Trump is currently underwater. He's under 50. in states that
21:04
Speaker 3: total 310 electoral votes. So that's good news. It's possible,
21:08
Speaker 3: like you said, Tommy. But in many states that we need,
21:11
Speaker 3: it's really close. So in Wisconsin, his approval is 47%.
21:15
Speaker 3: And a reminder that we won the governor's race there
21:18
Speaker 3: by a point in 2018. And in Arizona, it was 48.9%.
21:22
Speaker 3: And we won the Senate race there by about two points.
21:25
Speaker 3: And the reason that I mentioned Arizona and Wisconsin is basically,
21:28
Speaker 3: if you look at the map, if we take back
21:30
Speaker 3: Michigan and Pennsylvania... in 2020, which is somewhat likely because
21:36
Speaker 3: in Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2018, Democrats won by a
21:39
Speaker 3: really good margin and Trump's approval rating is at like 44, 45, 46.
21:43
Speaker 3: So there's a good, not definite, but there's a good
21:45
Speaker 3: chance we take back Michigan and Pennsylvania.
21:47
Speaker 1: No, you guaranteed it. I heard Don Favreau says we
21:50
Speaker 1: will win Pennsylvania.
21:51
Speaker 3: So you do Hillary states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and that
21:54
Speaker 3: is not enough to win the Electoral College, which means
21:56
Speaker 3: that you definitely need Wisconsin. If you lose Wisconsin, the
21:59
Speaker 3: next most likely state is Arizona.
22:01
Speaker 5: And maybe also just another way to put what you're
22:03
Speaker 5: saying is if we've won Wisconsin, it seems quite likely
22:06
Speaker 5: we will have also won Michigan and Pennsylvania. However, based
22:09
Speaker 5: on what we're seeing now, it is possible to win
22:11
Speaker 5: Pennsylvania and Michigan while losing Wisconsin.
22:13
Speaker 1: That's right.
22:14
Speaker 3: And I think the important thing here is look at
22:17
Speaker 3: your national polls, and you can look at them for
22:21
Speaker 3: responses on issues, to understand how the whole country views something.
22:24
Speaker 3: But in terms of horse race for the Electoral College
22:28
Speaker 3: for 2020, just fucking throw away your national polls because
22:31
Speaker 3: they are garbage.
22:32
Speaker 1: Throw in the trash. Remember that there's 50 million people
22:35
Speaker 1: in California that are kind of tipping the balance here
22:37
Speaker 1: and then convince some friends to move to the Midwest.
22:40
Speaker 3: I mean, really, this thing is going to probably come
22:42
Speaker 3: down to Arizona and Wisconsin. And their two states are
22:45
Speaker 3: very interesting, too, because in Wisconsin, you have a little
22:49
Speaker 3: bit of a lower approval rating for Trump. But as
22:53
Speaker 3: Nate suggests in the article, Boosting turnout in Wisconsin may
22:57
Speaker 3: also boost the turnout of non-college-educated white voters, of which
23:00
Speaker 3: there are too many in that state compared to Pennsylvania
23:04
Speaker 3: and Michigan. And so when everyone says, oh, our coalition
23:07
Speaker 3: can just be people of color, boost turnout among African-Americans
23:10
Speaker 3: and Latinos, and then college-educated white voters, and that should
23:13
Speaker 3: carry us through. In Michigan and Pennsylvania, there are probably
23:16
Speaker 3: enough of those voters to do that. In Wisconsin, it's
23:18
Speaker 3: really tough, right? Like, Tammy Baldwin, right, very progressive senator, LGBT,
23:24
Speaker 3: one of the few LGBT senators, very progressive, for Medicare
23:26
Speaker 3: for All. She won Wisconsin by 11 points in 2018.
23:30
Speaker 3: And that means that she won a fuckload of Obama-Trump voters,
23:34
Speaker 3: a lot of non-college-educated white voters. So this idea that
23:38
Speaker 3: the only way to win over those voters is to
23:40
Speaker 3: somehow trim our sales and change our positions and moderate
23:43
Speaker 3: ourselves is not necessarily true. But it also means that
23:46
Speaker 3: we can't write those voters off. We can't just sit
23:48
Speaker 3: here and say, oh, no, no, no, we can have
23:50
Speaker 3: a coalition of people of color, college-educated white voters, and
23:54
Speaker 3: young people, and then non-voters, and that's it. That math
23:58
Speaker 3: is not correct in the state of Wisconsin.
24:01
Speaker 5: It's correct if you want to win the popular vote.
24:02
Speaker 5: It is not correct if you want to win the
24:04
Speaker 5: popular vote and the White House. We've said this a
24:06
Speaker 5: million times. You've said this a million times. It is
24:08
Speaker 5: a combination of inspiration and persuasion.
24:11
Speaker 2: We have to do both.
24:11
Speaker 5: One thing that I've just been thinking about as I
24:14
Speaker 5: looked at a lot of these polls, there was one
24:17
Speaker 5: poll that aggregated a ton of data, and it looked
24:19
Speaker 5: at a subset of people They were more evenly divided
24:23
Speaker 5: between Trump and Clinton, and actually a lot went to
24:26
Speaker 5: third-party candidates in 2016. They voted 58% for Democrats in
24:32
Speaker 5: the midterms. And these are people that give Trump a
24:35
Speaker 5: slight approval on the economy, but are somewhat disapproving of
24:38
Speaker 5: his conduct as president. And they point to his conduct,
24:43
Speaker 5: his tweets, his childishness, the way he's undermined our reputation
24:46
Speaker 5: in the world. And what I thought when I saw
24:48
Speaker 5: that is I think sometimes we combine two kinds of moderates.
24:53
Speaker 5: And I think it might actually be helpful to split
24:55
Speaker 5: them in half. And we talk a lot about people
24:57
Speaker 5: that are culturally.
24:59
Speaker 2: pro-Trump, right?
25:00
Speaker 4: Yeah.
25:00
Speaker 2: And that are being hurt by his economic policies.
25:03
Speaker 5: But there's another group of people that actually find Trump repellent,
25:06
Speaker 5: but actually find some of his policies appealing.
25:08
Speaker 2: And I think sometimes.
25:09
Speaker 3: Around the economy, around the economy, or at least his
25:11
Speaker 3: stewardship of the economy, they don't like his tax cut
25:14
Speaker 3: and they don't like the health care, his health care position.
25:16
Speaker 3: Those are awful.
25:17
Speaker 1: But in the economy overall, they're like, OK, yes.
25:19
Speaker 5: And they are sympathetic around trade and they largely view
25:22
Speaker 5: the economy in part because of what Democrats and Republicans
25:25
Speaker 5: have said for decades as something the president is responsible for.
25:28
Speaker 5: All that is a way of saying the job for
25:30
Speaker 5: Democrats is really, really hard. And it's It's both about
25:34
Speaker 5: showing people who might be sympathetic to Trump that actually
25:36
Speaker 5: he's hurting them every single day, while also making the
25:40
Speaker 5: case that we're making all the time about how reprehensible
25:43
Speaker 5: and unfit Trump is for office.
25:45
Speaker 2: It's a really, really difficult task.
25:47
Speaker 1: That conduct response in that poll is why, again, I
25:51
Speaker 1: do think that impeachment proceeding is a hell of a
25:53
Speaker 1: lot better time than passing a bunch of message bills
25:55
Speaker 1: out of the House that no one will ever hear of,
25:57
Speaker 1: care about, find relevant in their own lives. Because It
26:01
Speaker 1: will highlight all the things they like least about him
26:03
Speaker 1: and very likely lead him to do a whole bunch
26:06
Speaker 1: more stuff that they will also find unsavory and frustrating
26:09
Speaker 1: and unpresidential. That said, we as Democrats who aren't serving
26:14
Speaker 1: in the House of Representatives, I wonder why we aren't
26:18
Speaker 1: or the National Party isn't spending all its time registering
26:20
Speaker 1: voters in Milwaukee, Madison, and then the entire state of
26:23
Speaker 1: Arizona because that feels like the whole ballgame. Like Florida
26:26
Speaker 1: might be lost. And that's not just demographics.
26:30
Speaker 5: Changes.
26:31
Speaker 1: I don't think like Trump has been running a very
26:33
Speaker 1: Miami-Dade focused presidency, right? He is he's doing all this
26:38
Speaker 1: outreach to Jewish voters. He's done this huge Cuba-Venezuela play.
26:42
Speaker 1: They're running tons of digital ads that are targeted on
26:44
Speaker 1: these issues down there. Like, I think we need to
26:47
Speaker 1: step up our game a little bit as a party.
26:49
Speaker 1: Big time in Florida.
26:50
Speaker 3: And we're lucky that Andrew Gillum is working his ass
26:52
Speaker 3: off to register a bunch of voters there. But Florida demographically,
26:55
Speaker 3: you're right, Tommy, should has been very close and it
26:57
Speaker 3: should be moving towards us, but it's not. So something
27:00
Speaker 3: is very weird about Florida. In Wisconsin, you know, Tom Perez,
27:04
Speaker 3: since he's became chair of the DNC, has been like
27:07
Speaker 3: obsessively focused on Wisconsin.
27:09
Speaker 1: He's focused on Milwaukee.
27:10
Speaker 3: And he's been they've been investing a lot of resources there.
27:12
Speaker 3: And we've got the convention there. And our friend Ben Wickler,
27:16
Speaker 3: previously of MoveOn, is now the party chair in Wisconsin.
27:19
Speaker 1: So and Ben, if you.
27:21
Speaker 3: If you look on Twitter, Ben's been trying to raise
27:23
Speaker 3: money for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which would be a
27:25
Speaker 3: good use of your money to donate there because of
27:27
Speaker 3: how important Wisconsin is. And hopefully similar efforts are underway
27:31
Speaker 3: in Arizona. But I do think those two states, Lovett,
27:34
Speaker 3: actually represent the two different types of swing voters that
27:36
Speaker 3: you're talking about, right? And this is the difference between
27:38
Speaker 3: the northern battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, of
27:42
Speaker 3: which there are many Obama-Trump voters, non-college-educated white voters, and
27:48
Speaker 3: demographic change is not really hitting those states as fast
27:51
Speaker 3: as it is some of these Sunbelt states like Arizona, Texas,
27:54
Speaker 3: and Georgia, which are moving towards us. But we're in
27:57
Speaker 3: a weird moment where the Sunbelt states have not moved
28:00
Speaker 3: towards the Democrats faster than the Midwestern battleground states in
28:05
Speaker 3: the North are starting to move away from the Democrats.
28:08
Speaker 3: So we're in this tough spot, right? Like Texas, and
28:10
Speaker 3: maybe four or eight years from now, very well, because
28:13
Speaker 3: of demographic change, increased Latino turnout, could very well be
28:16
Speaker 3: a Democratic state, and then that changes the ballgame.
28:18
Speaker 1: But do we still have an America then?
28:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, do we still have elections?
28:21
Speaker 5: I was about to say, like, man, right when we're about,
28:23
Speaker 5: right when Texas turns blue, that's right when we're going
28:25
Speaker 5: to think elections aren't worth having anymore.
28:27
Speaker 1: Also, this exact same conversation was being had about Texas
28:29
Speaker 1: 10 years ago. Yeah, I know. And we've been waiting
28:31
Speaker 1: on this for a while.
28:32
Speaker 2: Lucy at the football.
28:33
Speaker 3: But the really tough part for Democrats is straddling the
28:36
Speaker 3: line between these voters who are, you know, mostly located
28:41
Speaker 3: in these Sunbelt states, who are a little bit more
28:43
Speaker 3: moderate on economic issues, very culturally progressive, So open to Democrats.
28:50
Speaker 3: These are some of like they were never Trump Republicans.
28:52
Speaker 3: They used to be independents. They used to be part
28:53
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party. They have been driven out by
28:56
Speaker 3: Trump's behavior and corruption, all that kind of stuff. And
28:58
Speaker 3: they're open to Democrats. So that's one group. But then
29:00
Speaker 3: you have another group in Wisconsin who are, you know,
29:04
Speaker 3: economically populist and probably like Medicare for all and infrastructure
29:08
Speaker 3: and all these things Democrats are talking about, but are
29:10
Speaker 3: more culturally conservative on immigration. And they did vote for Obama.
29:14
Speaker 3: So it's not like they are racist beyond belief here.
29:17
Speaker 3: And we shouldn't say that.
29:18
Speaker 1: But, like, they are open to Democrats, some of them,
29:21
Speaker 1: some of them.
29:22
Speaker 5: And they are not as persuaded by the arguments around
29:25
Speaker 5: Trump's moral unfitness and are too sympathetic to the immigration
29:32
Speaker 5: arguments that he's been leveling against Democrats for a long time.
29:36
Speaker 3: And we need both of those voters. We don't need
29:38
Speaker 3: all of both groups of them, but we need. some
29:40
Speaker 3: of both groups.
29:41
Speaker 5: And by the way, that does not mean, you know,
29:44
Speaker 5: and we've also said that you have to do that.
29:46
Speaker 2: This is why it's so hard.
29:47
Speaker 5: You have to do that while also inspiring the millions
29:50
Speaker 5: of young people and college educated voters and voters of
29:53
Speaker 5: color who need a champion and deserve a champion at
29:55
Speaker 5: a time in which the president is an avowed racist.
29:58
Speaker 5: in which our institutions are under threat, in which the
30:00
Speaker 5: president is exacerbating systemic injustice in every way that he
30:03
Speaker 5: possibly can. So, you know, I think we are focusing
30:06
Speaker 5: on these voters you need to persuade. But what we've
30:09
Speaker 5: also talked about for such a long time is you
30:11
Speaker 5: have to do that while also not presuming your coalition
30:14
Speaker 5: will be there for you for even one second, because
30:15
Speaker 5: that's also a mistake that was made in 2016.
30:18
Speaker 3: You got that, Democratic candidates? Next nominee, you got to
30:21
Speaker 3: cakewalk here. You got to get more voters than them
30:24
Speaker 3: in the right places. And a bunch of fucking states
30:27
Speaker 3: that add up to 270.
30:28
Speaker 5: This is basically what we're describing is the part of
30:31
Speaker 5: the film Entrapment where Catherine Zeta-Jones has to move through
30:34
Speaker 5: the laser beams to get to the fucking safe.
30:39
Speaker 2: Or painting. I don't remember.
30:42
Speaker 1: What movie? Entrapment? Entrapment.
30:43
Speaker 5: Starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
30:47
Speaker 1: I remember the crawling through the lasers. You know me.
30:50
Speaker 1: I don't watch any movies. All right. When we come back,
30:54
Speaker 1: We will have Lovett's interview with Adam Serwer of The Atlantic.
30:57
Speaker 1: He's smart.
31:07
Speaker 5: Joining us on the pod, he is a staff writer
31:09
Speaker 5: for The Atlantic where he covers politics. His most recent
31:12
Speaker 5: piece is titled What Americans Do Now Will Define Us Forever,
31:15
Speaker 5: and everybody should go read it. Adam Serwer, welcome back
31:18
Speaker 5: to the show.
31:19
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
31:20
Speaker 2: So you spent the last few years.
31:23
Speaker 5: trying to explain the historical and ideological precedents that made
31:26
Speaker 5: a Trump presidency possible. But in taking stock of a
31:30
Speaker 5: crowd encouraged by the president's own words, chanting, send her back,
31:33
Speaker 5: you said, America has not been here before. What in
31:37
Speaker 5: your mind makes this moment different?
31:40
Speaker 4: I don't think that we've ever seen a president, an
31:43
Speaker 4: incumbent president, use their moral authority to hold up as
31:48
Speaker 4: an object of hate and a particular person, a woman
31:54
Speaker 4: of color, a refugee, a religious minority, as an object
32:00
Speaker 4: of hate in this way and in a way that
32:03
Speaker 4: encourages the American people to view other Americans who share
32:08
Speaker 4: those traits as somehow a danger to the republic. It's
32:12
Speaker 4: certainly something that the president would hear a lot on
32:15
Speaker 4: Fox News, in particular from Tucker Carlson's show. But it's
32:18
Speaker 4: not something I don't think we've ever seen a president
32:21
Speaker 4: do before. That's in part because we didn't really have
32:25
Speaker 4: a multiracial democracy in the United States until about 1965.
32:29
Speaker 4: But it's also pretty unprecedented.
32:31
Speaker 5: It seems traditionally presidents have sought to, I mean, politicians
32:36
Speaker 5: have sought to benefit from that idea without personally directing it, right?
32:41
Speaker 5: I mean, what makes it such a dangerous escalation that
32:43
Speaker 5: what we have is not just, say, a president benefiting
32:46
Speaker 5: from a Southern strategy, race baiting and whisper campaigns and
32:51
Speaker 5: smear campaigns and attack ads that use racial grievance and
32:55
Speaker 5: a president saying it out loud in front of millions
32:59
Speaker 5: of people, whether on Twitter or in front of a crowd?
33:02
Speaker 4: Well, I think what makes this particularly dangerous is the
33:05
Speaker 4: cornerstone of multiracial democracy is that You know, we're all
33:09
Speaker 4: as American as everybody else. Being white doesn't make you
33:13
Speaker 4: more American than someone who is Hispanic or black or
33:16
Speaker 4: and being Christian doesn't make you more American than someone
33:19
Speaker 4: who's Jewish. And the president is actually saying with these
33:22
Speaker 4: attacks that actually the only way to be authentically American
33:26
Speaker 4: is to be a white person who supports Donald Trump.
33:29
Speaker 4: And I think that that is particularly dangerous because, again,
33:33
Speaker 4: it encourages people. white Americans to view their countrymen as
33:41
Speaker 4: people who are fundamentally conditionally American and don't have a
33:45
Speaker 4: legitimate claim to the polity. And that can lead to
33:48
Speaker 4: all sorts of other things, all sorts of other both
33:51
Speaker 4: ideological and policy conclusions that are dangerous. For example, we
33:56
Speaker 4: saw recently the president attempted to lie to the Supreme
34:00
Speaker 4: Court in order to provide cover for a census question
34:03
Speaker 4: that was ultimately, we learned, designed to diminish the political
34:09
Speaker 4: influence of voters of color and enhance the voting power
34:14
Speaker 4: of white voters for the purpose of allowing Republicans to
34:17
Speaker 4: maintain their hold on power, even if they're not winning
34:20
Speaker 4: a majority of the actual votes.
34:23
Speaker 5: So what do you make of Trump's back and forth
34:25
Speaker 5: over the past few days about whether or not to
34:27
Speaker 5: embrace or reject the chant? It seems as though there
34:30
Speaker 5: was some pressure from Republicans. There was a Washington Post
34:34
Speaker 5: piece in which it seemed like a lot of people
34:36
Speaker 5: inside the White House wanted to make clear that they
34:38
Speaker 5: didn't like what Trump said, whether or not that's true
34:40
Speaker 5: remains to be seen. But Trump did at first seem
34:43
Speaker 5: to want to disavow parts of it, and then he
34:45
Speaker 5: walked that back. What do you make of the pressure?
34:47
Speaker 5: I mean, it's clearly not shame, so it's some form
34:49
Speaker 5: of pressure that's causing him to want to sort of
34:51
Speaker 5: straddle the line between embracing it and not embracing it.
34:55
Speaker 4: Well, I'll say a couple of things. One is that
34:58
Speaker 4: the chant was based on his own words. So there's
35:01
Speaker 4: no actual way for him to disavow it. The other
35:04
Speaker 4: thing is, is that Republicans have quietly run to reporters
35:10
Speaker 4: to tell everybody how brilliant. the president's racially divisive strategy is,
35:14
Speaker 4: which is essentially, you know, to call this strategy shrewd
35:19
Speaker 4: is to give him full moral responsibility for waging a
35:24
Speaker 4: racist campaign against four legislators in the hopes of winning
35:27
Speaker 4: over white people or more white voters. The other thing
35:31
Speaker 4: I would say is that, you know, historically, people who
35:35
Speaker 4: want to exclude nonwhite people from the polity or discriminate
35:40
Speaker 4: against nonwhite people typically frame their decisions as in a
35:46
Speaker 4: way so as to make them the real victims of
35:48
Speaker 4: prejudice or the real victims of uh, an abuse of power. So,
35:54
Speaker 4: you know, after the civil war, the vice president of
35:56
Speaker 4: the Confederacy who gave a long speech about how, uh,
36:01
Speaker 4: the institution of slavery and the fact that the white
36:04
Speaker 4: man was superior to the black man was the cornerstone
36:06
Speaker 4: of their society. After the civil war, he's, you know,
36:09
Speaker 4: he's locked up in jail. He's writing his diary and
36:11
Speaker 4: he says, you know, that was totally fake news. Uh,
36:14
Speaker 4: the reporter made it up. I don't have anything against
36:19
Speaker 4: black people and this war was not about slavery. Similarly,
36:22
Speaker 4: the Redeemers who overthrew the Reconstruction governments, they claimed to
36:26
Speaker 4: be fighting the tyranny of Negro and carpetbagger rule. In
36:30
Speaker 4: the 1950s and 60s, when Jim Crow was being dismantled,
36:35
Speaker 4: White people who supported segregation cast the federal government as
36:40
Speaker 4: a fascist force, much like Nazi Germany. So this inversion
36:44
Speaker 4: of who is actually being discriminated against is a fairly
36:46
Speaker 4: common reaction from people whose ultimate policy goal is to
36:50
Speaker 4: exclude non-white people from the privileges of American citizenship that
36:55
Speaker 4: they have a right to.
36:56
Speaker 5: So let's talk about the response from the press, from Democrats,
37:01
Speaker 5: to what Trump did. In your piece, You had criticism
37:05
Speaker 5: for both. Let's take each. You mentioned this weekend that
37:08
Speaker 5: you agreed with Crooked's editor-in-chief Brian Boitler that it's the
37:11
Speaker 5: job of reporters to bear witness faithfully. What does that
37:14
Speaker 5: look like to you?
37:17
Speaker 4: I mean, in my view, it means telling the truth
37:19
Speaker 4: about what's happening, even when power is trying to convince
37:22
Speaker 4: you otherwise. There was a dispute towards the end of
37:27
Speaker 4: the Bush administration over whether to call waterboarding torture, because
37:31
Speaker 4: that was essentially not about whether or not waterboarding was
37:34
Speaker 4: actually torture. It was about the fact that the Bush
37:36
Speaker 4: administration was contesting the definition of waterboarding as torture. because
37:41
Speaker 4: they didn't want to admit that they were torturing people. Now,
37:44
Speaker 4: with the racist chant, you see something similar. Like, go
37:47
Speaker 4: back is literally textbook racism. It's referred to by the
37:50
Speaker 4: Equal Opportunity Employment Commission as like a textbook version of racism.
37:54
Speaker 4: So to say, well, we don't know if this is
37:56
Speaker 4: racist or to call it racially charged or racially tinged
38:00
Speaker 4: is to concede to power this ability to create controversy
38:04
Speaker 4: around facts when there actually is no controversy. So when
38:09
Speaker 4: I'm echoing Brian's admonition to bear witness faithfully, what I'm
38:13
Speaker 4: referring to is not concede to power the ability to
38:17
Speaker 4: create controversy where none should exist.
38:20
Speaker 5: And then on the Democrats, you know, everyone should read
38:24
Speaker 5: the piece, but I do want to read one passage
38:26
Speaker 5: because I think it was particularly devastating. Democrats now hold
38:29
Speaker 5: the House and they are not holding Trump back. The
38:31
Speaker 5: president has abetted a foreign attack on American democracy. He
38:34
Speaker 5: has obstructed justice. He has vowed to turn federal law
38:36
Speaker 5: enforcement on his political enemies. There are squalid camps at
38:38
Speaker 5: the border where families are being separated and children are
38:41
Speaker 5: being sexually assaulted, their existence justified as a necessary response
38:44
Speaker 5: to a foreign invasion. Trump has sought to rig American
38:47
Speaker 5: democracy in favor of white voters and refused to recognize
38:50
Speaker 5: the oversight authority of Congress and now assails the cornerstone
38:53
Speaker 5: principle of multiracial democracy that none of us is more
38:55
Speaker 5: American than any other. If the Democrats convince themselves that
38:58
Speaker 5: anything they do to attack the president risks alienating white
39:01
Speaker 5: voters who believe the country belongs only to them, then
39:04
Speaker 5: they will be partially responsible for the path the country
39:06
Speaker 5: is taking. What in your mind would Democratic leadership that
39:10
Speaker 5: meets this moment, what actions would that entail?
39:15
Speaker 4: I think it would entail more rigorously fighting the administration
39:20
Speaker 4: in terms of calling witnesses and turning in terms of
39:22
Speaker 4: submitting documents in terms of pursuing investigations. But it would
39:26
Speaker 4: also entail a more rigorous defense of the principles of multilateralism.
39:30
Speaker 4: democracy against the president. I believe Pelosi's response after all
39:35
Speaker 4: these tweets was, you know, I've said what I'm going
39:38
Speaker 4: to say and I'm not going to say anything else.
39:39
Speaker 4: I mean, that is the Marco Rubio approach to presidential tweets.
39:44
Speaker 4: It's insufficient. The United States is facing someone who simply
39:47
Speaker 4: does not believe in the principles of multiracial democracy that
39:51
Speaker 4: have guided this country since 1965. That is an existential
39:55
Speaker 4: threat to those of us whose American-ness might reasonably be
39:59
Speaker 4: questioned under a regime that states that only white Christians
40:03
Speaker 4: are real Americans. The Democratic Party cannot exist without those
40:08
Speaker 4: constituents and should be doing a much more forceful job
40:12
Speaker 4: of defending them.
40:15
Speaker 5: It seems that when you pull back from specific moments,
40:17
Speaker 5: specific moments to offer a rebuke, to speak more forcefully
40:21
Speaker 5: against the president, it seems that there is a kind
40:23
Speaker 5: of feeling that Democrats in Congress are not fulfilling the
40:28
Speaker 5: mission that voters sent them on in 2018. That seems
40:34
Speaker 5: to be informing a lot of the internal Democratic fights
40:37
Speaker 5: between the squad, as we now call them, and the leadership.
40:41
Speaker 5: That seems to be informing a lot of the criticism
40:43
Speaker 5: of the way leaders like Pelosi and Schumer and people
40:47
Speaker 5: like Jerry Nadler have responded to Trump's laughing at the
40:51
Speaker 5: face of efforts to hold him accountable. Do you believe
40:54
Speaker 5: that there is pressure that could be brought to bear
40:56
Speaker 5: that could get Democrats in the House kind of to
40:59
Speaker 5: step up to this fight in a bigger way, to
41:02
Speaker 5: kind of rise to this moment? Do you believe that
41:04
Speaker 5: there are steps that people listening could take to help
41:07
Speaker 5: push these leaders to kind of.
41:12
Speaker 2: Meet the moment?
41:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, I think that if Democrats seem
41:18
Speaker 4: to be convinced that they're going to lose a big
41:21
Speaker 4: middle if they confront the president more forcefully, but if
41:25
Speaker 4: people want to persuade them that that is not the case,
41:27
Speaker 4: they can certainly do so through time-tested ways of persuading legislators,
41:35
Speaker 4: which is writing letters, calling in, etc.
41:36
Speaker 1: etc.
41:38
Speaker 4: I'm not advocating that people do that. But if people
41:40
Speaker 4: want to do that, then that is, you know, I mean,
41:44
Speaker 4: Congress people talk all the time about the way that
41:46
Speaker 4: influences their decisions. But I think in general, what the
41:50
Speaker 4: Democrats have to worry about is the idea that if
41:52
Speaker 4: they're not actually going to do anything with the power
41:56
Speaker 4: that people give them, that their voters might decide that
41:59
Speaker 4: it's not really worth it to keep them in office.
42:02
Speaker 5: So we've also seen, though, Democrats have now held members
42:05
Speaker 5: of the administration in contempt. There are subpoenas are being
42:09
Speaker 5: scoffed at. We only control one house. There's a concern
42:13
Speaker 5: that if we were to, say, pursue impeachment, that ultimately
42:15
Speaker 5: it would lead to nothing and therefore is not worth doing.
42:19
Speaker 5: Is part of this just a natural consequence of Democrats
42:22
Speaker 5: just not having enough power? How much of this is
42:26
Speaker 5: Democrats not stepping up and how much of it is
42:27
Speaker 5: just the limitations of the power Democrats currently have?
42:32
Speaker 4: Well, I'll say a couple of things. It is only
42:35
Speaker 4: now that they are beginning to hold people in contempt
42:39
Speaker 4: that they're really stepping up this legal fight over the subpoenas.
42:42
Speaker 4: This is stuff that could have been done a long
42:44
Speaker 4: time ago and would have been done a long time
42:45
Speaker 4: ago if the parties were reversed. The second thing is
42:48
Speaker 4: that opening an impeachment inquiry doesn't actually compel you to
42:53
Speaker 4: pursue impeachment. It does put the House on greater legal
42:56
Speaker 4: footing with certain things. It does create an inability to
43:01
Speaker 4: rest the media narrative from a president whose stated political
43:05
Speaker 4: strategy is to flood the zone with shit. as one
43:08
Speaker 4: of his strategists put it. So the Democrats are passing
43:13
Speaker 4: these messaging bills in the hopes that they can show
43:15
Speaker 4: the country the work that they're doing, but the country
43:18
Speaker 4: isn't hearing about it because all they're hearing about every
43:21
Speaker 4: day is the Trump show. And that suffocation of the
43:25
Speaker 4: president taking all the oxygen is something that I don't
43:27
Speaker 4: think Democrats really appreciate the extent to which it blocks
43:31
Speaker 4: out the positive message that they are trying to build
43:34
Speaker 4: as an alternative to to the president. It's one thing
43:38
Speaker 4: to be an alternative party. It's another thing to be
43:40
Speaker 4: an opposition party. And I don't think that the Democratic
43:42
Speaker 4: Party has been doing a very good job of the latter.
43:46
Speaker 5: So just today, there was news that it seems the
43:49
Speaker 5: president is looking to change immigration enforcement so that those
43:54
Speaker 5: who have been in the country for less than two
43:56
Speaker 5: years can be more easily deported. And not just if
43:59
Speaker 5: they're within 100 miles of the border, but anywhere in
44:02
Speaker 5: the country. You know, the president is matching his rhetoric
44:07
Speaker 5: with actions, whether it's the treatment of people crossing the
44:10
Speaker 5: border or interior enforcement. Are Democrats and is the media
44:18
Speaker 5: doing enough to connect the rhetoric, which manages to captivate
44:22
Speaker 5: our attention more than the policies ever do, with the
44:25
Speaker 5: actual implementation of the white nationalist agenda?
44:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I mean, I think that the president's rhetoric,
44:36
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the problems is that people have
44:40
Speaker 4: sort of been conditioned to think of racism as naughty words.
44:44
Speaker 4: And so while the president offers a lot of naughty words,
44:47
Speaker 4: people might not see the ways in which that plays
44:51
Speaker 4: out in the implementation of the president's policy agenda. But
44:55
Speaker 4: you can see it in his approach to immigration, his
45:00
Speaker 4: canceling of temporary status for hundreds of thousands of undocumented
45:06
Speaker 4: immigrants who were brought to the US as children, his
45:08
Speaker 4: treatment of his treatment of Puerto Rico in the aftermath
45:12
Speaker 4: of Hurricane Maria and the family separation policy, which is
45:16
Speaker 4: a policy of systemic child abuse designed to deter illegal immigration.
45:21
Speaker 4: You can see it in the conditions of the border facilities,
45:25
Speaker 4: which are directly the result of Trump decisions made that
45:28
Speaker 4: caused people to be held longer than they're supposed to
45:31
Speaker 4: be held. You can see it in the president's approach
45:34
Speaker 4: to police brutality, the lack of enforcement of Americans constitutional
45:37
Speaker 4: rights from the Justice Department, particularly the Civil Rights Division.
45:40
Speaker 4: I mean, if there is one consistent moral and ideological
45:45
Speaker 4: principle that the president has upheld throughout his time in office.
45:50
Speaker 4: It's the idea that white people are more American than
45:53
Speaker 4: other people and have an entitlement both to political and
45:58
Speaker 4: cultural power that the rest of us simply do not have.
46:03
Speaker 2: So one last question, and I want to make.
46:06
Speaker 5: A crass political argument that you often hear, that you
46:11
Speaker 5: see in response to this conversation about Trump on race.
46:14
Speaker 5: And I'm just curious what your response is to it.
46:16
Speaker 5: And the argument would go something like... I agree with
46:19
Speaker 5: everything you're saying. I believe Donald Trump is a fundamental
46:21
Speaker 5: threat to American values and American democracy. That's why the
46:24
Speaker 5: single most important thing we can do as a country
46:26
Speaker 5: is defeat him in 2020. I am worried that focusing
46:30
Speaker 5: on Trump's racial grievances is going to cause a replay
46:34
Speaker 5: of 2016, and we will run up the score in
46:38
Speaker 5: the cosmopolitan, diverse, educated parts of America while once again
46:42
Speaker 5: falling behind in the wider Rust Belt states and other
46:47
Speaker 5: states where Trump overperformed. And these conversations ultimately don't help us,
46:52
Speaker 5: that immigration conversations redound to his benefit. And as much
46:55
Speaker 5: as I agree with you, as much as I am
46:57
Speaker 5: terrified by Trump's fanning of racial animus and hatred and
47:01
Speaker 5: his dividing the country and his attacks on the rule
47:03
Speaker 5: of law, this is a mistake because it may ultimately
47:06
Speaker 5: help him be reelected. What is your response to that?
47:10
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not a political strategist. I can't tell anybody
47:13
Speaker 4: how to win elections. But I do understand something about morality.
47:18
Speaker 4: And if your voters, your constituencies, the people who put
47:21
Speaker 4: you in office are under attack, and their fundamental rights
47:26
Speaker 4: are under attack in a direct way by a president,
47:28
Speaker 4: and you refuse to stand up to them, what you
47:30
Speaker 4: are communicating to those very same Trump voters is that
47:34
Speaker 4: Trump is correct. you are essentially seeding the argument that
47:39
Speaker 4: the president is making. And it's one thing to say
47:42
Speaker 4: we shouldn't take unpopular positions on immigration. It's another thing
47:46
Speaker 4: to say we should not speak out at all when
47:49
Speaker 4: the president makes these kinds of white nationalist arguments because
47:54
Speaker 4: some people might like it. That's fundamentally political cowardice.
47:58
Speaker 2: Adam Serwer, thank you for joining us.
48:00
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
48:06
Speaker 3: Thanks to Adam Serwer for joining us today.
48:08
Speaker 1: And, you know, we'll talk to you later in the week.
48:11
Speaker 1: You got anything, Levin? I feel like you wanted to say.
48:12
Speaker 2: One last thing.
48:14
Speaker 1: Gay news.
48:14
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to talk about Big Little Lies at... Spoilers.
48:19
Speaker 5: Spoilers. Love it or leave it, but I just want
48:20
Speaker 5: you to say that I watched the finale with you,
48:22
Speaker 5: and let's all just face facts.
48:23
Speaker 2: Big Little Lies transition to Ally McBeal is now complete.
48:26
Speaker 2: I report it is complete. It is now just Ally McBeal.
48:29
Speaker 5: It's happened.
48:30
Speaker 2: I've never seen an episode. I don't know what he's
48:32
Speaker 2: talking about. No, that's why it's called Gay News, not me.
48:35
Speaker 2: And that's.
48:37
Speaker 1: Gay news. Bye.