The Bulwark Podcast XX
[0] Welcome to the Bull Work podcast.
[1] I'm Charlie Sykes.
[2] We have made it almost to the weekend.
[3] And in my newsletter and morning shots, I just ran through a series of stories that you probably ought to keep your eye on.
[4] I mean, the world richest man begins mass layoffs at Twitter, which may actually be illegal because you're supposed to give a 60 -day warning before mass layoffs.
[5] And of course, this comes the day after the world's richest man figured out that he wanted to shake down people for $8 a month for a meaningless blue check.
[6] New poll out nearly nine and ten Americans are concerned the political divisions have intensified to the point there's an increased risk of politically motivated violence.
[7] More than six in ten Americans are very concerned.
[8] Meanwhile, the strange economic news continues.
[9] Employers added 261 ,000 jobs in October assigned the economy is resilient.
[10] Meanwhile, the House Republicans are not even waiting for the midterm elections to release a 1 ,000 -paid roadmap for Biden, FAA.
[11] FBI probe.
[12] We talked about this on the podcast yesterday with Bart Gelman that we're about to see a probe paloza followed by an impeachment paloza from the House GOP.
[13] Meanwhile, the former guy, Donald Trump, says that Congress should impeach Mitch McConnell.
[14] I just, I'm going to get the popcorn out for all of this.
[15] I'm not exactly sure how the Congress will impeach Mitch McConnell, but clearly he's warming up for what's going to be a lively 2023.
[16] Oprah snubs her old pal Dr. Oz and endorses John Federman for the U .S. Senate.
[17] I'd actually forgotten, believe it or not, because there's just so much going on, that Dr. Oz became a thing because of Oprah.
[18] And apparently she's feeling a little bit of, you know, some regret like many of us have also felt and is going to do something about it.
[19] And meanwhile, another ominous indication of what might be coming this new Wall Street Journal poll finding Republican opposition to helping Ukraine is growing, 48 % of Republicans say that we're doing too much to support Ukraine.
[20] This is something we've been warning about for some time, given the Republican id, the maga hostility to Ukraine, the fascination with the pro -Putin wing of the party, and the entertainment wing of the Republican Party being all in in opposition to Ukraine.
[21] So to hash all of this out, our colleague Bill Crystal, Good morning, Bill.
[22] Good morning, Charlie.
[23] That's a pretty impressive amount of hash there.
[24] We have to get through here.
[25] Well, and of course there's this election next.
[26] Yeah, we don't even have to talk about that.
[27] That's going to happen, you know.
[28] Yeah, that is going to happen.
[29] And a week from now, we will be so much smarter than we are right now.
[30] So let's start with this Ukraine, because I think this is really ominous.
[31] You know, we've had indications for some time that the Republican support, while it looked pretty solid, might be shaky.
[32] you had Kevin McCarthy indicating, hey, we're not going to be giving a blank check.
[33] And then was this yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Green, who apparently traveling the country because she's now such a rock star, she's at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa.
[34] And this is what Marjorie Taylor Green had to say yesterday.
[35] Democrats have ripped our border wide open, but the only border they care about is Ukraine, not America's southern border.
[36] under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine.
[37] Our country comes first.
[38] So Bill Crystal, how alarmed should we be about this?
[39] I mean, I've probably underestimated, though I shouldn't have after these last five, six years, the degree to which the MAGA right could drive, let's say, normal Republican public opinion, as that journal poll suggests.
[40] Even Trump hasn't been that outspoken on Ukraine, and yet here we are, almost half of Republicans being, what, very skeptical or hostile to aid to Ukraine.
[41] Tom Cotton came out this morning and said, no, Republicans are going to continue arming the Ukrainians and helping Ukraine.
[42] And I think that's, there's enough of the Republican conference, certainly the Republican conference in the Senate.
[43] And I think enough Republicans in the House that there's no real threat to Biden's ability to continue, you know, doing what he has been doing, which I think is pretty good on Ukraine.
[44] train.
[45] But on the other hand, you know, those numbers have been moving.
[46] Could they continue to move?
[47] Could the marshal the green wing of the House cause a lot of trouble?
[48] I don't think literally can cut off the aid, but can they create a situation a little bit like the Democrats in 0708 with Iraq.
[49] They didn't ever cut off Bush's ability to continue in Iraq and indeed to surge troops in Iraq.
[50] But they certainly conveyed the sense that we were going to get out of their sooner rather than later.
[51] And that turned out to be true.
[52] I mean, so could the Republicans make it harder for us to go to the Europeans and say, don't worry, we're there, we're solid.
[53] I mean, that part is dangerous.
[54] It would be nice if Kevin McCarthy said something, like what Tom Cotton said, that no, no, no, Marjorie Talley Green, she has a right to her opinion, but she does not speak for the Republican conference on this.
[55] But of course, Kevin McCarthy is pathetically cowardly and who knows what he even believes anymore.
[56] I mean, that is what strikes me, right?
[57] He had Marjorie Chellegrine with him when he announced that fake Republican agenda, what was that four, six weeks ago or something in Pittsburgh as I recall.
[58] When the Democratic Progressives, 30 of them signed a letter saying, oh, not so much Ukraine to the Democratic Party's credit, and they do have the presidency, so it helps.
[59] But, you know, clearly calls were made by Nancy Pelosi, and for all we know, by the Biden White House and others.
[60] And that letter was first, everyone immediately distanced themselves from it, and then they ended up retracting it.
[61] So, you know, it would be nice if anyone in the Republican Party, more people have more of a sense of responsibility.
[62] Not a serious matter of foreign policy, it's one thing to investigate Hunter Biden.
[63] You know, crazy about that, but whatever.
[64] I mean, that's going to happen, right?
[65] Right.
[66] And that's what parties do when they control Congress and the other parties in the White House.
[67] And so whatever.
[68] But really, on Ukraine, a fundamental matter, you know, real inflection point in post -Cold war foreign policy, it's unbelievably irresponsible that more people aren't speaking up to explain the case for helping Ukraine to our own voters and reassure our allies abroad and the Ukrainians, which is awfully important going forward.
[69] Well, you look at the trend line as well.
[70] And Aaron Blake from the Washington Post laid this out, the percentage of Republicans who say that we're doing too much to support Ukraine back in March.
[71] It was only 6 % of Republicans by May that had risen to 17%.
[72] In September, it was 32%.
[73] And now it's 48%.
[74] So you see where it is going.
[75] And the real world effect of this, whatever the votes eventually are, has got to be to emboldened Vladimir Putin.
[76] I mean, look, you know that in the Kremlin, And he is sitting there, he is looking at these numbers.
[77] He is listening to this.
[78] I'm guessing that Marjorie Taylor Green's soundbite would be played on Russian state television.
[79] We're going into a very difficult winter.
[80] This war is far from over.
[81] And any prospect that Vladimir Putin would feel, well, I'm cornered, I need to cut some sort of a deal.
[82] I need to withdraw.
[83] No, it's undermined by this because this has to tell him that if he is just patient, if he waits out that the United States, It's, you know, my crack.
[84] And also, don't you think he will take it maybe right after the election if Republicans win the House, or soon after the election, if Republicans win the House, which does look likely, he'll do some fake offer of a, you know, let's have a negotiation.
[85] Here's a compromise.
[86] We'll just keep three quarters of all the lands we've taken and, you know, ignore all the war crimes we've committed.
[87] And Bartry Jail of Green will say, why aren't they doing that?
[88] And before we know Kevin McCarthy will.
[89] I still think Biden can resist it.
[90] And I think enough Republicans will resist it that it's, it's, you know, we can keep up.
[91] policy, but I agree it's it's ominous and it's ominous.
[92] And then when the presidential campaign gets going, which I guess it's going to do in two or three weeks, right?
[93] Won't the incentives be based on that trend line you just laid out for Republican candidates to go in that presidential candidates to go in that direction?
[94] Well, exactly.
[95] And this is why I think that, you know, this is to the extent that Congress will continue to fund Ukraine and we'll have to be on a bipartisan basis because Mitch McConnell will not have 50, 51 votes.
[96] to pass this in the Republican caucus.
[97] He will need Democrats.
[98] Same thing with the House of Representatives, which means that there's going to be a really intense civil war among Republicans.
[99] You already have Trump saying that Mitch McConnell should be thrown out.
[100] He should be impeached.
[101] So every vote on this will become more fuel for the bubbling caldron of outrage out there.
[102] So this will split the Republican Party, I think, rather significantly.
[103] And it will obviously play out in president.
[104] presidential politics.
[105] I mean, how that ends up, I don't know.
[106] But I think we can see where the beating heart of the Republican Party is right now, because I guess everything flows downhill.
[107] So, you know, I always sort of now look at the fever swamps and see something bubbling up over in the fever swamp.
[108] And if you just wait long enough, that becomes the mainstream.
[109] And this has been the pattern over the last two years, hasn't it?
[110] We're crazy stuff that's out there, the most bizarre outlandish positions, whether it's replacement theory or election denialism, et cetera, you know, just give it a few months and then you wake up one day and you find out that it's kind of a litmus test for Republicans and has become the mainstream of the Republican Party.
[111] I mean, isn't that what we've learned in the last two years?
[112] Yeah, and what we've learned in the last two years, really, the last six years also is that there's one person who really can take something that's bubbling and sort of making it into the mainstream, but there's still some shying away from it and make it just dispositively a must believe for any Republican who wants to have a future.
[113] And that's Donald Trump.
[114] And that's why I do think these are two different issues.
[115] Ukraine and Trump's presidential candidacy, they're being reported as two different issues.
[116] And they are two different issues to some degree.
[117] But they really intersect in this way.
[118] Trump will have a huge incentive, I think, if he looks at Pence, who's pro aid to Ukraine, if maybe dissent is, I don't know, he's not, he's a governor, he hasn't said much, But in the house, he was a more normal internationalist Republican.
[119] Even Pompeo has been for that.
[120] And Trump sees, how do I discredit these guys who want to be mini -mees, midi -Trumps, you know, and how do I discredit Pence, which he's happy to do anyway?
[121] And how do I frame the race in a way that locks in everyone on the MAGASide and behind me?
[122] And that seems to be an increasing number, as you were just saying from the trend lines, I've got to think trouble be tempted when he announces two weeks out to the election to make maybe to put Ukraine even front and center, hasn't been that front and center on it.
[123] And then you're in a different world, the most recent ex -president, making this a litmus test, not just, you know, Marjorie -Tale agreeing.
[124] I think that's very likely to happen.
[125] And, you know, so let's keep our powder dry on that, because we haven't even gotten through the midterm.
[126] And we're going to have this very, very short interregnum before the presidential campaign starts, Axios reporting that Trump is going to announce on November 14th.
[127] We have plenty of time to speculate about who's going to run, whether there's any way to stop him from getting the nomination again?
[128] You know, I had one thought just on the November 14th, to make the next day to me, if I were Trump, what is that, the Monday after the election after the election day on the next?
[129] So it's less than a week and a half from now.
[130] Oh, my God.
[131] But, you know, I thought, why don't you announce on election day?
[132] This I think is a rather clever idea, which I'm worried about putting out because maybe Trump will, is listening to this and we'll do it.
[133] But, you know, if you can imagine midday on Tuesday, November 8, Trump announces, just by a tweet or something, I mean, doesn't you have to do anything.
[134] And I mean, everyone will say, oh, how foolish Trump, he doesn't understand politics, he's like it's a different news cycle.
[135] Of course, it would become a huge story on the one night when normal Americans are actually paying attention to politics, right?
[136] It would hover over everything.
[137] If the Republicans do well, and I'm less confident of that or fearful of that than most people, but whatever, they'll do pretty well.
[138] They're most likely in the house, at least.
[139] Trump gets to sort of take credit in real time if Carrie Lake wins in Arizona.
[140] there his person is winning the night on the night of the day that he's announced his candidacy.
[141] So I'm a little worried that Trump could even think.
[142] I mean, you probably won't because it is a little too confusing just to announce it the same on the election day itself.
[143] But I don't know.
[144] Why isn't that a non -crazy idea?
[145] Actually, when you started talking, I thought this is a crazy idea.
[146] But you persuaded me that actually there is this real method here.
[147] Maggie Haberman, I think, was on CNN's and noted that, you know, conservative media is kind of pivoted away from Trump, that Fox News never mentions him.
[148] You don't think that Donald Trump knows this.
[149] So, you know, obviously his job number one is to stay relevant.
[150] You know, I mean, his view of every news cycle is, is it about me or not?
[151] Are they talking about me or not?
[152] So the idea that Republicans would triumph without him standing up and saying, me, me, me, yeah, no, I really get that.
[153] I could see the appeal that it would have for him that he may officially announce a week from Monday, but he might say something next Tuesday or Wednesday to basically say, look, this is all about Donald Trump winning.
[154] And it's obviously very important for him because he's obsessed with shaking the fact that he's been a big loser, right?
[155] I mean, the big thing that's been hung over his head is, you know, you are a one -term defeated, disgraced ex -president who also managed to lose control of both the House and the Senate.
[156] So for him to be able to stand up and say, see, I am not a loser.
[157] I am a winner and look, you know, we're going to have the trifecta here.
[158] I can see the appeal and I'm feeling nauseous about it already.
[159] So is it too early to start day drinking?
[160] I don't know.
[161] No, never, never, never, never too early.
[162] I bet never did, never day drinking, right?
[163] No. Okay, so on, I have one more soundbite that I just wanted to share because, and this is not breaking news, but just watching what this whole political season has done to people.
[164] And I continue to be, have a morbid fascination with the devolution of the mind of J .D. Vance, who I would like to remind people used to be a serious person who wrote bestselling books, who wrote for the New York Times, who, you know, would show up at things like, you know, the Aspen Ideas Festival, you know, to talk about, you know, the forgotten American.
[165] And this is what he is reduced to going on Fox News.
[166] This was, this is J .D. Vance talking about his Democratic opponent, Tim Ryan, last night.
[167] If you look at his views on, for example, flooding America with illegal aliens and then using American tax dollars to fund gender reassignment surgeries for those aliens.
[168] That's exactly what Tim Ryan has proposed doing.
[169] It's kind of like right -wing madlibs at this point, right?
[170] It's just like these ideas are out there.
[171] The borders, crime, gender reassignment, grooming, just you just throw all that shit together and it just comes out J .D. Vance's mouth.
[172] The transgender caravans are going to be really something to, you know, quite a spectacle at the border, I suppose.
[173] The transgender caravans, yes, you know, all waiving CRT books or something like that.
[174] Here in Virginia on CRT, I don't know if I would have international use the Scott.
[175] If I can, the Glenn Yonkin having campaigned on it, set up a tip line, a complaint line for critical race theory, for parents to call in.
[176] They've stopped.
[177] They ended the line on September 30th because there were so few calls coming in.
[178] And so it was, I mean, there was like three schools where there was teaching sort of stupid stuff and inappropriate stuff.
[179] But it is kind of amazing.
[180] Reality doesn't seem to matter.
[181] You know, my father famously said he was a neo -conservative because he was a liberal who'd been mugged by reality.
[182] I don't know.
[183] No one seems you get mugged by reality these days.
[184] Just ignore it, right?
[185] Yeah, exactly.
[186] That really is true, you know.
[187] So we are both of an age that we remember in real time the whole Pauline Kale story.
[188] I wrote about her Don't be Pauline Kale Although what I should have written As soon as I press Sunday I realized that the headline should have been We are all Pauline Kale these days Now for people for the youngs out there Pauline Kale was a very famous Very prominent movie critic right For the New Yorker right They were probably the most famous in America I would say at that time I would say yeah Yeah she was she was dominant But she's largely at least in political circles Remembered for something that she allegedly said after the 1972 election, Richard Nixon won this massive landslide.
[189] And allegedly she said that Nixon couldn't have won because she didn't know anybody who voted for him and that was equipped that was recycled in conservative circles for a long time.
[190] It's sort of an example of hermetic liberal provincialism, you know?
[191] And what's interesting is as I was looking this up, I noticed that her defenders in the New York were very indignant, very angry, insisting she never actually said this.
[192] This is a fraudulent factoid.
[193] But what she did say in a speech to the Modern Language Association was, here's her direct quote, I live in a rather special world.
[194] I only know one person who voted for Nixon.
[195] Where they are, I don't know.
[196] They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater, I can feel them.
[197] So as John Podora had said, this was, that was actually even worse than what been attributed because it indicates that kale was actually acknowledging her provincialism, living in a special world, and from its perch, expressing her distaste for the unwashed masses with whom she sometimes had to share a movie theater, what this indicates is that even then liberal provincialism was as proud of its provincialism as any babb it.
[198] And it strikes me that the reason we remember that was because she basically said, I'm in a bubble and I have no idea who these people are.
[199] And yet, Bill, I'm sensing that almost everybody lives in that bubble.
[200] We're kind of all Pauline Kale.
[201] So next week, if there's a senator, you know, Herschel Walker and Blake Masters and Kerry Lake, we're all going to look at each other and saying, who are these people?
[202] I don't know any of these people, right?
[203] So we're all in this mutual incomprehension.
[204] Yeah, and I think Maga World is if there's a senator, which I think they could well be actually, Mark Kelly reelected and Ralphiel Warnock.
[205] reelected, Magar World's going to say, who are those people?
[206] Like, we didn't know people moved to Atlanta and that there's now a much younger and more diverse electorate there.
[207] And we didn't know that Phoenix is full of people who don't like Trumpism.
[208] So, yeah, the whole country is so, I mean, the reason the Pauline Hill thing, I think, was funny.
[209] And I always wondered whether she was saying it's somewhat ironically or self -knowingly, you know.
[210] And then I guess that quote, of course, isn't so great about the unwashed masters being near her in the theater.
[211] But it shows that she understood in a way that she was in a bubble.
[212] But at the time, it seemed weird to be.
[213] in a bubble.
[214] I mean, I think you and I remember this.
[215] We were all in bubbles.
[216] Of course, we knew that.
[217] I grew up in the west side of my head.
[218] I didn't think the rest of the country was like that.
[219] But when I came to Washington in 1985, more than half the states had a Republican senator and a Democratic senator.
[220] I think this number is correct.
[221] The 26 states had one Republican and one Democrat.
[222] So in the case of New York, it was more than a tomato.
[223] But it was certainly true in many states, right?
[224] And Wisconsin had that at many times, too, I think, didn't they?
[225] And now six states have a Republican and a Democratic senator.
[226] 44 are all Republican and all Democrat, and that's 22 each, but that's 50 -50 Senate.
[227] And almost all those 22 states also voted for the candidate of that party for president and also have a governor of that party.
[228] So, I mean, the truth is we are really much more siloed than we were in 1972 when you could joke about being siloed, you know, and this is a geographical sorting phenomenon, and social economic phenomenon, and a social media phenomenon, and a Fox News, MSNBC phenomenon and a lot of it's beyond anyone's control to be fair it's not like people necessarily chosen this as a you know the way to go up to organize the country but i think it is a striking phenomenon though well it is and i think this is going to be something that we're going to have to wrestle with you know particularly with 2024 you know hanging over our heads right now is that is that if there is this republican sweep in both the house and the senate and you're somewhat more optimistic i think than others and that we are looking at some of these deplorables winning we're going to have to take kind of a deep breath.
[229] And, you know, unless you're going to engage in election denialism, we have to acknowledge that most of those people will be elected democratically, with exception of the voter intimidation thing, right?
[230] Totally.
[231] No, and I think this is a very important point you're making, which has this implication that won't Democrats, let's assume it's a mixed bag and whatever, you know.
[232] It's going to be close either way.
[233] The truth is the biggest picture point to make about this election is the country is 50 -50 divided, which it has been in the past, but it's now 50 -50 divided between a Democratic Party that's pretty much where it was two or four or six years ago, honestly, I would say, and a Republican Party that is much more extreme than it was even in 2020.
[234] And so that's, for me, the biggest story that the Republican Party has become more Trumpist, more extreme, more conspiratorial, more chuckling at violence against 82 -year -old men and so forth, and they're paying no price.
[235] So that's a worrisome thing about the country.
[236] But don't you think that one consequence of this is if you're an actual Democrat who wins in a swing, state.
[237] If Tim Ryan wins, honestly, even if he loses by a point or two in a state like Ohio, which Trump carried by eight, if Gretchen Whitmer wins by six points in Michigan, don't people think, gee, that's the kind of Democrat.
[238] We do need to have Democrats who can win states like that.
[239] I don't know how much effect that has.
[240] A Democratic Party has its own dynamics.
[241] Maybe they all decide, you know, what we need is just more progressivism and more, you know, we weren't woke enough here in 2022.
[242] I kind of think, though, the dynamic in the Democratic Party could go much more in the who in the Democratic Party can speak to.
[243] these voters we really desperately need.
[244] Oh, and they urgently need to have that discussion.
[245] Look, I know I've been beating on this drum of, you know, the same drum that Ruiz Cheshara has been beating on, which is like, look, understand that, you know, the key to the future rests with Democrats who can win in these swing areas, not the AOCs of the world.
[246] And I think this is what's important.
[247] And I hope that is the discussion that, you know, the Tim Ryan's who run effective races or the Gretchen Whitmer who ran an effective race.
[248] And also to ask this really important question, that given how crazy and extreme and reckless and irresponsible and content -free, the Republican Party in terms of policy, the Republican Party has become, Democrats really have to ask themselves this really tough question.
[249] Why can't we beat these guys?
[250] Why can't we beat the most reckless, woolly conspiracy theory -laden party out there.
[251] What are we doing wrong?
[252] You know what I'm getting at here?
[253] I mean, at a certain point, this needs to be a very urgent question.
[254] You know, that you're looking at a party that is going to be empowering Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bobert, and Matt Gates and Jim Jordan.
[255] And, yeah, it's deplorable.
[256] But Democrats have to ask themselves what kind of political malpractice leads to the point where we can't beat these guys.
[257] And the people worth talking to it, this might be a good agenda for the podcast for the next two months, are the Democrats who either will have won and survived or gained votes conceivably as in Ohio or will lose on Tuesday in districts where they ended up getting pulled down, not by their own deeds, but by the parties.
[258] In Virginia, here where I live, both Elaine Lurie and Abigail Spanberger are in very, very tight races.
[259] I mean, they would be worth talking to them.
[260] They actually will have campaigned for the last two months, the last year, really, and will have lived the experience of having been had this not being able to convince voters of having pretty wacky Republican opponents and having paid a price for what other Democrats and others on the left have done.
[261] So I think talking to the Spanburgers and Lurias and Slotkins of the world, whether they win or lose because they're going to be in close races either way, will be very important, I think, for the future of the Democratic Party, whether they'll have that discussion or whether they'll just be a kind of denial or circling of the wagon.
[262] or now let's get to work on the Biden reelect, you know, that was a depressing piece the other day on the Washington Post.
[263] Like 40 DNC Democratic National Committee staff has been working on the Biden reelect.
[264] Really?
[265] Maybe they could go to Georgia and Nevada and Arizona and Pennsylvania and actually try to make sure that election deniers should not become governor.
[266] I mean, that could have been a little more of a priority for the party and helped Tim Ryan in Ohio where they did almost nothing, so very little.
[267] I don't know, which is bizarre.
[268] I mean, I just feel like it's not the best organized and most focused party in the world, but maybe they'll do okay anyway.
[269] Well, and the reason why this is an urgent conversation is because if, in fact, these crackpots do win democratically, if this is the choice of the voters, you know, we have to figure out what the hell happened to those voters because they could do even worse in 2024, which, you know, again, brings you back to Pauline Kale, where you can go, I have no idea what happened there, you know, the economy is wonderful, crime is non -existent.
[270] at what problem at the border.
[271] At some point, there's going to have to be some reckoning with all of that.
[272] And I understand that what's happened is that I think there's been kind of a bubble formed around Democrats where they can turn on cable shows and read websites and people will reassure them.
[273] Oh, don't worry about the crime issue.
[274] The crime issue is not that bad.
[275] Here's a chart showing it's not really there when the reality is that every public opinion poll will say that people are very concerned about inflation.
[276] They're very concerned about the economy.
[277] They are very concerned about crime and about illegal immigration.
[278] And if you do not aggressively address those questions and deal with the problem that your party has in addressing those questions, then however bad 2022 is going to be, it's going to be much more dire in 2024.
[279] Yeah, and having the White House makes it harder to do that because I think no one wants to be disloyal.
[280] And so, quote, addressing the questions might suggest that, you know, the Biden White House has a bit perfect in doing so.
[281] I mean, can they make an adjustment as the Clinton administration did after 94?
[282] One forgets the first two years.
[283] There was all Hillary's health care plan.
[284] I spent you and I spent a fair amount of time criticizing that, as I recall.
[285] That went down, that disappeared, and suddenly we're doing welfare reform.
[286] And Clinton was, you know, debating in Bosnia, and it was a whole different look for the Clinton administration, and Republicans overplayed their hand, which could well happen again.
[287] I do think this is where I've been thinking about a lot about Biden recently, whether he should run or not, which I've always been very skeptical, that he should just because I think it's honestly just be too old in two years, let alone six years.
[288] But I also think the chance for a fresh look, for fresh thinking of the kind you and I've been calling for implies to me that unlike Clinton, who was a young man and who was able to pivot and was good at it, I mean, I just think they need fresh faces here at the top of the Democratic Party.
[289] Pelosi's going to step down.
[290] You can sell this, and it legitimately is a generational turnover, which is a good thing, you know.
[291] But part of that generational turnover has to be, and this new generation is in touch with more of America than perhaps, unfortunately, the older generation was.
[292] I don't disagree with you.
[293] I just am trying to figure out who that would be.
[294] Well, that's a little problem.
[295] If you're going to get all pedantic and, you know, kind of, I mean, this is what happens.
[296] You know, people like Charlie come along and raise these kind of questions.
[297] Give me a name.
[298] Give me a name.
[299] I could give you a few, but whatever.
[300] That's why we have a healthy process that we'll just turn up these people, you know.
[301] So you and I haven't spoken since the attack on Paul Pelosi, and I continue to regard this as just one of the darkest moments in a series of dark moments.
[302] And now you have this new Washington Post poll out showing that basically 90 % of Americans have decided that, hey, you know, we are kind of concerned about the threat of political violence.
[303] And I have to tell you, nothing that happened this week has reduced that threat in any way as far as I can see.
[304] What do you think?
[305] Well, I think you've been excellent in the newslet.
[306] on the Pelosi question, I mean, on the reaction to the attack and how horrifying it is that people don't feel they need to say this is terrible.
[307] And we obviously have sympathy for Mr. Pelosi and, but also that we need to, we're going to tell anyone who's misunderstanding our own messages, is what you would say if you're a Republican politician, to think that you're entitled to use violence against elected officials or anyone else.
[308] That is wrong.
[309] I mean, that's what would have been said.
[310] And to be fair, that's what the Democrat, a Biden said it after the shooting of these Gilles, and it's what everyone should be saying, and the fact that so few have stepped up to say it, or they said it so grudgingly, or like Glenn Yon, there was one sentence buried in the midst about, we're sending Nancy Pelosi home, and no one even thought that you would pause the attack ads on Pelosi, some of which are fairly violent, sort of adjacent language you might say in them.
[311] I mean, it's really, I agree, I've been also a little rattled by the reaction to Pelosi, but I've been worried all along, and I'm worried, incidentally, I mean, I suppose if they win on election night, Carrie Lake and others, they won't, you know, there'll be less potential for violence.
[312] But if Carrie Lake is ahead when we go to sleep at 11 p .m. midnight in Arizona and she's falling behind because they count all the early vote or late votes come in and so forth, or the same might have in Pennsylvania with Oz.
[313] I'm very worried about violence next week, not just individual attacks on people.
[314] That's bad too.
[315] But I'm worried that, you know, Carrie Lake will say this is an outrage.
[316] They're stealing the election.
[317] You need to show them they can't do this, and 10 ,000 armed people will descend on the convention center wherever they're counting the ballots in Phoenix.
[318] And, you know, and then people will work to mobilize.
[319] I do not find that far -fetched at all.
[320] And this is a good moment to just remind people.
[321] And, you know, this, what did we call it the Red Mirage factor, which we talked about endlessly and was reported endlessly in 2020.
[322] And yet it didn't make a difference.
[323] The red mirage being, look, the early votes, the day of votes will favor Republicans.
[324] They will do very, very well.
[325] Those votes tend to be counted quickly.
[326] In many states, the early votes are counted later.
[327] Like, for example, in Wisconsin and in Pennsylvania, that's just the way it is set up.
[328] So did it be set up, right?
[329] Continue to be set up, which means they're inviting the kind of misunderstanding that you're about to explain, right?
[330] Well, exactly.
[331] So early on, yes, you will have Republicans in the lead, or potentially in the lead in places like Arizona, in Wisconsin, and in Pennsylvania.
[332] And then as the completely legal votes are counted in the completely legal and predictable way, that lead will diminish.
[333] And what Donald Trump has figured out is that if you simply declare victory when you are ahead and make it look like there's something nefarious when the later votes come in, then you can convince millions of people that the election is being stolen.
[334] And as you point out, in a place like Arizona where we've already seen, you know, armed, masked people show up at drop boxes, it is not at all far -fetched.
[335] The scenario you just laid out that people would descend upon the counting centers and saying, you know, stop the count, stop the steel, we're going to fight for our democracy.
[336] And God knows what happens then.
[337] So if we've learned anything, it's that even when we're alarmed, we are perhaps insufficiently alarmed.
[338] Isn't that one of the lessons we learned?
[339] Totally.
[340] And I think so.
[341] Yes, as someone who was so alarmed and I think was right to have been alarmed and, as you say, probably insufficiently alarmed.
[342] And what we were most, just to get back to the sort of big picture of the far as not the treaties of the last years, we were alarmed.
[343] The reason we were all anti -Trump, people would say, oh, are you never Trump?
[344] Or you just didn't like him or you didn't agree with him on trade policy.
[345] I mean, the reason we were never Trump is that we thought this kind of thing could happen after four or six years of Trump.
[346] And it's happened, it may have happened even in a worse way than an odyssey that I expected in terms of the permeating of the Republican Party and therefore of the country to some degree of, you know, really dangerous hatreds and passions and demagoguery and resentments and so forth, feelings of victimization, which then legitimize anything.
[347] And then, of course, the conspiracies and the lies, which that part I got to say I didn't even quite expect.
[348] If you were telling the kinds of the conspiracy theories and bubbles, the big lie being so pervasive, the big lie then, of course, being used to promote election subversion going forward.
[349] It's not just a lie going back about things that happened in the past you know it's a little worse than i expected which is why we were never trump but it's even worse as you say and trump's going to go to pennsylvania on saturday that's his final rally and mastiano's so far back it's hard to believe that there's a real chance to do that much trouble in that race but if oz fetterman is very close trump is already laying the ground work in pennsylvania and he's looking ahead to his own presidential bit obviously for a kind of chaos uh uncertainty uh some violence and that all helps him going forward.
[350] I mean, that is to say that's the world he wants to exist in 2023 and 2024 for his presidential campaign.
[351] Pat Toomey should stand up on Saturday and say, Trump's coming to my state.
[352] I'm not going to be there, but I'm going to say this.
[353] We need to be responsible on Tuesday night.
[354] We need to let the votes be counted.
[355] The state legislatures decided to count the early vote later.
[356] That's fine, but then we need to let that vote happen.
[357] Pat Toomey is the current senator, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, but others need to say it, too.
[358] And are they going to bother saying it or are they just going to be, you know, busy, you know, cleaning out their offices in the Capitol and looking to their next jobs?
[359] I don't know.
[360] I mean, Rob Portman went to, didn't he go abroad this week to the current Republican senator from Ohio to show support for Ukraine?
[361] He's been very strong on the Ukraine issue.
[362] But he's supporting J .D. Vance for the Senate.
[363] I mean, the Republican, the collapse of the Republican establishment of conservative elites remains very damaging, I think.
[364] Well, I agree.
[365] And I was thinking about this that I thought, and you would did as well that would be bad, you know, a Trump presidency and what, you know, Trump dominance would mean.
[366] I thought it would be very bad and continually, you know, over the last few years, thought that it was going to be even worse.
[367] However, it's gotten so much worse than I expected.
[368] And for exactly the reasons that you just mentioned, I mean, the speed, the velocity with which the lies are spread and then accepted, the complete collapse of the Republican establishment.
[369] By now, this seems like an old story.
[370] but it seems to be picking up momentum.
[371] And so we're talking about, you know, the lessons that would be learned from a Republican victory next week.
[372] Obviously, Vladimir Putin is going to take, you know, a certain solace from that, and I think it's going to emboldened him to continue his campaign of aggression and genocide.
[373] But also, I think that, unfortunately, you're going to have the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Kerry Lakes and others look at the election results, and they will see that as a vindication of their recklessness, that they will, that it will underline the fact that they can laugh about the attack on Paul Pelosi without any consequences, that there are no consequences for the extremism.
[374] And I think that that's something that as you point out, Donald Trump is basically going to, you know, come swanning in and saying, see, remember all the people who said that if we became, you know, crazy and extreme and bigoted, that it would be electoral disaster?
[375] No, follow me. And we will win these elections.
[376] And we're going to continue to win these elections.
[377] And I think that's going to be very demoralizing to the handful of Republicans who, you know, keep their heads down are sort of just hoping that some meteor of death comes and saves them from another Trump regime, right?
[378] I mean, there are just so many of them, I'm sure you talk to them, are just kind of waiting for this to pass.
[379] A Republican victory is going to reinforce all of those bad tendencies, I think.
[380] Especially if the most election denying Republicans and many of whom Trump has recruited to run and supported win.
[381] I mean, I guess I'd make two points.
[382] One, which is separate is that I also think, of course, Marshala LaGreene will be emboldened, but a ton of younger people or just people who are thinking of running in 24, people who are thinking of stepping up from state legislature.
[383] What's the lesson they take?
[384] The lesson they take is, you know how you succeed in American politics, stay in the Republican Party, your Kerry Lake, or your Carrie Lake, Jr., right?
[385] And so the degree of that and Marjorie Taylor Green and everyone else like that, And so the degree to which the party's complexion will continue to change before our eyes was the kind of people who will choose not to run in 2024.
[386] And I'm not even thinking of incumbents.
[387] Some of that will be some of that Portman, you know, SAS to me leaving phenomenon.
[388] But also the 42 -year -old who decides enough, you know what, I'm not going to run that kind of race.
[389] I'm going to go into business.
[390] I'm going to go back to the family, whatever.
[391] Why not?
[392] And the 42 -year -old who's not, you know, in office who thinks I can be Lauren Bobert, I can be Marjorie Taylor Green.
[393] I can figure out how to do that, and I have a little, done it a little bit locally in my Facebook group, and now I'm going to do it big time.
[394] So I think you're very right to focus on the trend, the direction, the velocity of change.
[395] You know, it's not a stable situation.
[396] It can go more in this direction.
[397] The other point I'd make more Trump specific is for Trump, he'll declare victory no matter what happens, of course.
[398] Right.
[399] He'll say he was responsible for everything good that happened, and Mitch McConnell was responsible for everyone lost and whatever.
[400] So, but I was thinking who, there are a bunch of candidates who really wouldn't be there without Trump.
[401] They probably wouldn't have run without Trump and they wouldn't have won their primaries without Trump.
[402] So I say that would be Carrie Lake, Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia, your fine gubernatorial candidate there in Wisconsin, who's escaping, Tim Michaels, right?
[403] It was literally with Trump kind of recruit and supported.
[404] I mean, if three or most of them, if all of them win or most of them win, I think that's a big, I mean, that really helps Trump.
[405] I just think Trump says, look, I pick these people early.
[406] They won the primaries because of me. Everyone said, oh, well, you're really killing yourself in the general election.
[407] The Democrats sent money to help Carrie Lake win the primary because she could ever win a general if she were to win.
[408] I'm not, you know, I think it's 50 -50 out there, but if she wins, it so much strengthens Trump's hand and Trumpist's hand in general in the Republican party.
[409] I think people haven't quite focused on that.
[410] But I think that's a general phenomenon about who wins and what the general distribution of seats is in the House and the Senate, the government's just, but they're probably, and I'm sure I'm missing some, there are like a half dozen, maybe a dozen particular races, pretty high -profile races, where Trump could say it, he wouldn't be lying, incidentally.
[411] I picked them, I picked them.
[412] People told me this was a mistake.
[413] They won the primary, they won the general election.
[414] Who's the guy who can deliver in 2024?
[415] I mean, he will say that, and there'll be some credibility to it.
[416] Well, and given how important it is to his persona to be a winner, he's really going to wallow in this.
[417] And as you point out, he's not going to be wrong about this.
[418] So I intend to spend a lot of time thinking about and reading about 1995 next year.
[419] You remember this, of course, extremely well when the Republicans swept into power.
[420] And there was just tremendous optimism of the Republicans, you know, the sense that the Clinton administration had been completely discredited.
[421] And he was, you know, it's going to be a one -term president.
[422] And yet we saw what happened with their overreach.
[423] My guess is that the overreach of the next Congress will be exponentially greater.
[424] and worse than what you saw in 1995.
[425] I just don't think they'll be able to help it.
[426] Yeah, that sounds right to me, especially the House.
[427] And also Trump's probably going to get indicted.
[428] So what happens then?
[429] They impeach Merrick Garland the next day.
[430] They defund, try to defund.
[431] They won't succeed in this, but in huge chunks of the Justice Department, the whole investigation of Trump, they'll try to defund.
[432] I mean, I think the degree of craziness, our friend A .B. Stoddard made this point in a, I think on a podcast with you, and then in a piece with the conversation with me, and then in a couple of pieces of the bulwark.
[433] I mean, the degree of craziness in 2023, the interaction of Trump possibly being indicted, Trump running for president, Republicans, let's assume winning the House and being very close in the Senate and the more extreme parts of the Republican Party being in the driver's seat after the election.
[434] I mean, the intersection of all those things, the question of whether Biden's going to run or not causing, and Pelosi stepping down, which means the Democrats are more fractured.
[435] I mean, it's just going to be, it's going to be pretty crazy, right?
[436] I really don't feel like, you know, 95 is a good analogy.
[437] Gingrich was a new speaker.
[438] That's nothing compared to this, though, yeah.
[439] Yeah, less than this is going to be.
[440] Actually, as you run through it, we're going to think back of 1995 as just a kinder, gentle, and much calmer period.
[441] Right, a brief government shut down, a little bit of jousting between Gingrich and Clinton.
[442] Yeah, right, exactly.
[443] Some awkward soundbites about the future of Medicare, and that was pretty much it.
[444] Actually, it's hard to come up with a year.
[445] We're doing this in advance that we already know.
[446] know the 2023 is going to be one of the most intense, fraught political years ever.
[447] And I'm trying to think back and, you know, 1968, I don't know.
[448] What would be an analogy to what we're about to experience?
[449] And, of course, we have no idea.
[450] Yeah.
[451] Which is why we'll keep doing this podcast, don't you think?
[452] Absolutely.
[453] Absolutely.
[454] So, Bill, have a great weekend.
[455] I appreciate it every time you come on.
[456] No, thanks, Charlie.
[457] It was a pleasure.
[458] The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Siri.
[459] I'm Charlie Sykes.
[460] Thank you for listening to today's Bowlerk podcast, and we'll be back tomorrow to do this all over again.