'The Run-Up': The Republic

[0] Hey, it's Michael.

[1] Today, the run -up, our show about the midterm elections and how we got to this fraught moment in American politics.

[2] Last week, we talked about the decades -long history of both parties missing the complexities of their voters.

[3] Today, in episode three, we pick up with a president who, in 2020, asked voters to put those complexities aside and unite around removing Donald Trump from office.

[4] Heading into the midterms, we look at how that message has evolved.

[5] Take a listen.

[6] My fellow Americans, please, if you have a seat, take you.

[7] I speak to you tonight from sacred ground in America.

[8] Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[9] This is where America made its Declaration of Independence to the world.

[10] more than two centuries ago with an idea unique among nations that in America where all created equal In early September Joe Biden kicked off the midterms with a message for the country.

[11] Equality and democracy are the rock upon which this nation is built.

[12] He told a familiar story about American democracy that it's a sure shared value, enthrined in the country's founding.

[13] But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault.

[14] And while it can be tested, that's why tonight I'm asking our nation to come together, unite behind the single purpose of defending our democracy regardless of your ideology.

[15] It's resilient, as long as we participate in it.

[16] that for all its imperfections, America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept.

[17] There's nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American.

[18] But I don't think the story is that simple.

[19] That's who we truly are.

[20] And that's who we must always be.

[21] I think if we really want to understand the message Joe Biden has for the country.

[22] and the test democracy is facing right now.

[23] We need to start with the voters who were most activated by Biden's message back in 2020.

[24] The voters who saved his campaign because of their own understanding of American democracy.

[25] Today, why that group of voters rallied behind Joe Biden's message before anyone else.

[26] Are we in war?

[27] And what Biden is still missing, heading into the midterms.

[28] We are a constitutional republic.

[29] We are not a democracy, nor in the Constitution, does it use the word democracy?

[30] From the New York Times, I'm a steadherndon.

[31] This is the run -up.

[32] Bo, can you hear us?

[33] Congressman, can you hear me?

[34] Yeah, I hear you.

[35] Oh.

[36] And I see you.

[37] Oh, I didn't know either of those things were happening.

[38] Thank you.

[39] So back in 2020, Democrats had a historic slate of candidates trying to become the next president.

[40] There were over 20 of them who reflected the diversity of the party and who had a range of policy visions.

[41] Then there was Joe Biden.

[42] He was asking the country to forget all that stuff, saying that beating Donald Trump was more important than anything else.

[43] And as the primaries got underway, it wasn't.

[44] clear that Americans were willing to make that compromise.

[45] In fact, after two big losses in the first primary states, the media was riding his campaign off altogether.

[46] But the way I see it, Biden was always going to be the nominee.

[47] Because from the very beginning, the most important voting bloc of the Democratic primary, older black voters.

[48] They prefer Joe Biden to any other candidate, and by a big margin.

[49] This really set in for me, long before primary season even started.

[50] At a fish fry, in the summer of 2019, it was hosted by the highest -ranking black man in government, South Carolina's congressman, Jim Clyburn, the Democratic kingmaker of the state.

[51] It was a flex of Clyburn's power.

[52] All the candidates were there, hoping against hope that they might win Clyburn's endorsement.

[53] I was there and I remember the scene of all of them making that pitch and specifically making what seems like a pitch to you.

[54] They all had on those Clyburn shirts.

[55] What do you remember from that afternoon?

[56] That night that you were there, that was the biggest fish driver you had ever had.

[57] And we had the biggest number of people running for president.

[58] Certainly.

[59] The stage was packed.

[60] Yeah.

[61] So you got over 20 people running.

[62] and they're all there, and there was going to be a heck of a trust to be made.

[63] So how do you win all that out?

[64] Well, that night, my late wife was ailing at the time and could not have come to the fish fry.

[65] So the night after the fish fry, I said with her how successful the fish fry had been.

[66] So we have some good friends running.

[67] And her position was, no matter how many people were running, no matter how many were friends, if we really wanted to win, we needed to nominate Joe Biden.

[68] That was her position at that time, even at the end back in 2019.

[69] Were you there at that point at that time of the fish fry?

[70] Did you think that Joe Biden needed to be the nominee?

[71] Oh, yeah.

[72] I've been for Joe Biden all the time.

[73] I was always for Joe Biden.

[74] Well, there wasn't a question about that.

[75] So what was the importance then of convening such a group in South Carolina for that moment.

[76] You know, I have such a memory of that stage of everyone with the shirt on, Bernie not wearing the shirt, and then those folks making that pitch to your constituents, what was the importance of that if you knew in your head, it had to be Biden for you?

[77] Well, my granddaughter was there.

[78] And you're right.

[79] Bernie refused to put on the shirt until my granddaughter confronted him with the shirt.

[80] he put the shirt on and let him know that he was going to put on the shirt so Bernard finally put the shirt off I didn't know any of this was going on until later but what I did know was that most of those 7 ,500 people according to the fire department I did know that most of those people were a part of my network And I knew from all of the people that I interact with that Joe Biden was their favorite.

[81] And I also knew that they were concerned that Joe Biden had not caught fire.

[82] And they needed to be fired up.

[83] There are all those candidates on that stage, a constituency that can look up and see a black woman and Senator Harris or Vice President Harris now, as who can see Corey Booker can see candidates promising a lot of stuff on racial justice platforms.

[84] Why then do you think that they and you from what I'm hearing looked out at that stage and said still it needs to be Joe Biden?

[85] Because first of all, Joe Biden was, you know, Joe Biden is in and out of South Carolina all the time.

[86] That's the way it's meant with him.

[87] He's been in and out of South Carolina for years.

[88] And people knew Joe Biden.

[89] These connections were there.

[90] So you didn't have to, you know, introduce your Biden to people.

[91] What we had to do was make him valuable.

[92] The value of his candidacy is there.

[93] The big thing, who can beat Donald Trump?

[94] We felt that the best chance with Democrats to beat Donald Trump was to nominate Joe Biden.

[95] Why?

[96] It just didn't the reason.

[97] I guess I still, like, because a lot of other people didn't make that calculation, right?

[98] You had a lot of donors who went elsewhere, even on the moderate side.

[99] You had Iowa embrace Geith and Bernie.

[100] You had New Hampshire go a different direction.

[101] I'm saying why was the answer for you all so clearly Joe Biden when the answer across the democratic landscape was not him for a lot of other people?

[102] Well, you know, there's one thing I can say about Southerners, Louisiana is the South, Mississippi, it's the South, South Carolina, it's the South.

[103] We have learned over the years what it is to be effective politically in a country where race trumps a lot of things.

[104] And we have learned that African Americans in the South got a certain antenna.

[105] And they, from that antenna, they can read, they pick up things that a lot of people with other experiences don't pick up.

[106] But you operate politically in the South, you learn how to operate in two different worlds.

[107] What do you mean?

[108] I mean, you have to learn how to be successful with your base, basically black people.

[109] and how to be successful in reaching across the color line to attract white votes.

[110] And you're saying, you know, I want to be clear, you're saying in your life, that's how you've learned to navigate those different kind of compromises or what you give and take is because that's just a reality for growing up as a black man in politics in the South.

[111] Absolutely.

[112] Absolutely.

[113] And that's the way most of us are in the South.

[114] We're not concerned about who gets tomorrow morning's headline, who gets the most hit.

[115] We are concerned about whether or not we can move an agenda forward, put enough substance in place so our children and our grandchildren will have something to look forward to as they come along.

[116] Watching the Trump administration gave me some understanding of what was going on in Germany after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor and then he set out to discredit the press to co -opt the church and I saw Trump doing the same thing that he did look what he did in four years what the hell would he have done with eight years that's what was motivating me and a lot of other people we got to get rid of this guy we can't take any chances out here talking about who may be able to win.

[117] There was one guy sitting among all those people who had enough cachet to win.

[118] It was Joe Biden.

[119] With that view in mind, then, if we look back to the 2020 primary, did it have to be Joe Biden, not just because of all that history, all those relationships and such, but did it have to be a white guy that people knew?

[120] It had to be Joe Biden It had to be Joe Biden It had to be Joe Biden You don't think whiteness was key I'm sorry Was did whiteness play a role Did maleness play a role?

[121] Whiteness always play a role In the United States of America And it's still playing a role Whiteness played a role even When Barack Obama Was elected Let me share something with you I'm from the little town of Sumter, South Carolina I went to Sumter doing the primary when Barack Obama was running.

[122] And I went to speak at this Sunset Country Club.

[123] It's a country club when I was growing up was white only.

[124] And there's a lady there who was a public school teacher in Sumter.

[125] And she said to me that night, and I don't know why she said it, I don't know if she understood what she was saying.

[126] She said, you know, I'm really impressive.

[127] this young man, Obama.

[128] And I said, yes, that he is a very impressive young man. She said, I think I'm going to vote for him.

[129] You do know his mother's white, right?

[130] Now, what was she saying to me?

[131] You tell me?

[132] Okay.

[133] You know what she was saying.

[134] I want you to say it, though.

[135] As if that was a factor is why she was impressed with him.

[136] That's what she said.

[137] I just looked at and said, yes, ma 'am, I do know his mother's wife.

[138] I just smiled and kept going.

[139] The story Clyburn tells me is a version of a story I've heard many times in my reporting.

[140] Because when voters ask themselves who's electable, what they're really asking is who they think other voters will accept.

[141] And for many black Democrats in 2020, Biden was the only candidate they believed who could win a general election.

[142] And that was the first step to dealing with the existential threat they felt the country was facing.

[143] A threat that, at the time, Joe Biden said was rooted in one person, Donald Trump.

[144] But over the last two years, Biden has changed his language and what he wants the country to unify against.

[145] He no longer just points at Trump.

[146] Instead, he now talks about Trumpism and semi -fascism as a movement that must also be expelled.

[147] But it sounds like he is merely only arriving to where you were originally in terms of understanding the distance between Democrats and the Trump wink.

[148] Is that fair?

[149] Well, I don't know when Joe Biden got there.

[150] I don't know if his recent expressions mean he just got to that point.

[151] Can I offer a theory here?

[152] Sure.

[153] I mean, I partly think that you got to this understanding of unity before Joe Biden because of that history in the South, because of that long understanding that democracy is not given and the long understanding that sometimes folks are asked to make a choice that's between bad and worse.

[154] Is that fair?

[155] Yeah, absolutely.

[156] That's fair.

[157] I've been choosing between the lesser of two evils most of my life.

[158] This is not a perfect country.

[159] Alexis de Tocqueville in his righty's democracy in America wrote that America is not great because it is more enlightened than any other nation but rather because it has always been able he didn't say willing always been able to repair its faults now it's one thing to be able to repair a fault and it's something else to be willing to prepare a fault So many times, even against its window, America has muscled up the capacity to repair its faults.

[160] I mean, I'm thinking about the arc in your own life, rising to be the highest -ranking black man in government.

[161] But at the same time, your party is now openly saying that democracy is on the brink.

[162] How do you wrestle those two things, both the promise of what democracy.

[163] can give, which I think you have pointed to over and over.

[164] And what I hear from Democrats right now, which is that in doing those kind of compromises, we have also left democracy exposed.

[165] Yes.

[166] Yes.

[167] But, you know, I'm not a so -called Roosevelt Democrat.

[168] Most Democrats did you know identify with Frank Brun Roosevelt.

[169] I don't.

[170] I don't.

[171] I'm a Truman Democrat.

[172] The New Deal was a raw deal for most of the black people in the South.

[173] The New Deal gave us Social Security.

[174] And you learned from your studies that Social Security was the greatest anti -poverty bill ever written.

[175] However, What you may not have paid attention to is that Social Security did not cover farm workers.

[176] Social Security did not cover domestic workers.

[177] 65 % of the black people in this country were in those two areas.

[178] Then we go off the war in World War II.

[179] And what gave those soldiers a leg up when they came home?

[180] was a GI Bill.

[181] 3 ,000 GI Bill grants only two met the black people.

[182] Not 2%.

[183] 2.

[184] 1, 2 out of 3 ,000.

[185] See, I know all that.

[186] And I deal with all that.

[187] Most black people don't deal with that.

[188] Because most black people don't know that.

[189] But I'm saying I often here, though, from, you know, black folks, maybe younger black folks, I should probably admit, that say those are actually reasons to not work within a system, to not compromise with the system that has had oftentimes, as you articulated, and I think we both agree on, left black folks out of their dealings, right?

[190] Yeah.

[191] I'm saying, what is the response to that?

[192] Not that those reasons are reasons to continue to politically maneuver, but actually those are reasons of why, you know, compromise with Democrats hasn't worked out for black folks.

[193] And I would say that you're wrong about that.

[194] Just because Franklin Roosevelt didn't do it, when Harry Truman became president, Harry Truman was the first United States president to speak to the United States president to speak to the NAACP.

[195] Harry Truman did that.

[196] Harry Truman sat down and wrote an executive order to integrate the armed services, a white guy, a Democrat.

[197] Do you retain that hope in this moment that America is still able to repair its...

[198] I mean, if we just use Joe Biden's articulation of America's faults right now, right?

[199] Do you still have that hope that America is able to repair those faults?

[200] Absolutely.

[201] Okay.

[202] What gives you that?

[203] My goodness, I'm raising children and grandchildren.

[204] I've got to have that.

[205] How do you lose hope?

[206] I'm a South Carolina.

[207] Our motto.

[208] Our state's motto is, while I breathe, I hope.

[209] What do you think it says about the country that even after a January 6th, even after a Trump presidency, that Donald Trump endorsed candidates are up and down the Republican ballot.

[210] I'm asking what you think that says about America.

[211] It says that we are always in pursuit of perfection.

[212] Look, nothing is, nobody's perfect, no country is perfect.

[213] We're in pursuit of perfection.

[214] And we have not gotten to this point by being a perfect nation, slavery is an indication that we are imperfect.

[215] Jim Crow, we are imperfect.

[216] And when you measure this country against all of us, I can't think of any other country that I prefer to be living in.

[217] So if Clyburn is right, and the story of America is a story like the one de Tocqueville told, and the one Biden told in his speech in Philadelphia, of a country that's able to repair its faults on the road to a more perfect democracy, then 2020 was a bump in that road.

[218] And even if the midterms turn out to be another bump, America would still have the to self -correct, through participation, through voting.

[219] But when I talked to my colleague Robert Draper...

[220] Hello?

[221] Hey, how's he on?

[222] Hey, how are you?

[223] Doing all right, thanks.

[224] He laid out another possible version of history, one in which 2020 was not just another bump on the road, but a sign that for some people, democracy isn't even the destination.

[225] We'll be right back.

[226] A big theme in this year's midterms, and part of the reason Joe Biden gave that speech in Philadelphia are the shifts in the Republican Party.

[227] Throughout the primaries, right -wing candidates won up and down the ballot, and they won, mimicking Donald Trump's most extreme talking points about the election, and immigration, and diversity itself.

[228] The question's been, how these candidates are going to land with voters in the general election, or whether Republicans have gone too far, and the Trump -backed candidates will ultimately help Democrats in the midterms.

[229] But then I saw reporting from my colleague Robert Draper, who spent the last year reporting in Arizona.

[230] And I realized that that question wasn't big enough.

[231] Robert, your reporting is really astonishing.

[232] How did you end up in Arizona in the first place?

[233] I became interested in Arizona as a result of the 2020 election because it was the first contested state to be called by Fox News on election night and to swing against President Trump.

[234] and I then look to see if Arizona now finding itself in the position of being a true swing state that had been lost by the president would descend into a kind of penitent meditation and essentially do what one would expect parties do when they've been defeated to try to win back voters who they've alienated.

[235] But it didn't, and that became very clear in the days just after the election, where Arizona became ground zero for the stop the steel movement.

[236] the movement to overturn the election.

[237] That's what first put Arizona on my radar.

[238] On top of which, it's not only that they did not move towards the center, the state party, but that they actually endeavored to push out of the party or in other ways alienate those people within the state GOP, who you would ordinarily describe as kind of middle -of -the -road conservatives, censuring, for example, the sitting governor, Doug Ducey, and for that matter, the sitting house speaker, Rusty Bowers.

[239] So, you know, far from becoming a bigger tent, they actually had become a smaller tent, pushing out people who have been bulwarks of the Arizona GOP and catering entirely to the far right.

[240] And how do you see this playing out when it comes to the midterms?

[241] Yeah, well, in the immediate, the far right has taken over.

[242] the Arizona Republican Party.

[243] There's no question about it.

[244] Kelly Ward is the chairperson.

[245] Ward said to me that she utterly rejects the notion of, well, we should perhaps nominate people who are electable to the larger population so that they'll actually win.

[246] She rejected that saying, no, we've heard that over and over, and then they keep producing these spineless weaklings the Republican Party does, who are just squishes and don't do anything for the American people.

[247] We're all sick of it.

[248] So that's been the philosophy of the far right, and it has paid off as a result of the primary in which a Trump endorsed slate of Republican candidates basically swept the field.

[249] And I stand before you, a Trump endorsed governor candidate.

[250] That includes Kerry Lake, a political novice and former local Fox anchor.

[251] Anybody who was involved in that corrupt, shady, shoddy election of 20, Who is a 2020 election denier, who has spoken with extreme skepticism about COVID vaccines.

[252] We the people no longer are willing to put up with the shots in our arm, the swabs up our noses, and those filthy masks on the beach.

[253] And who in particular is a social justice warrior of the right.

[254] We are going to finish the wall.

[255] When it comes to critical race theory, for that matter, you know, speaking in terms every bit as harsh, if not more so, than Donald Trump has when it comes to border policy.

[256] So you have her, you have the U .S. Senate candidate Blake Masters.

[257] I do not think that we had a three or fair election in 2020.

[258] Who himself is an election denier, has had campaign posters everywhere.

[259] I looked when I was there saying Blake Masters, that's.

[260] Senator will not ask for your pronouns, Blake Masters will, prohibit critical race theory.

[261] At this point, it is straight up anti -white racism.

[262] I don't think we're allowed to say that, but let's call it what it is.

[263] It is toxic, and it does not belong in our schools.

[264] You have a Secretary of State candidate Mark Fincham.

[265] But ladies and gentlemen, you ain't seen nothing yet.

[266] Because when Satan wants to, when Satan wants to extinguish a light, he will stop at nothing.

[267] who not only was a 2020 denier, but actually fought first in Arizona to do everything possible to overturn the state election results there.

[268] And then when that failed, showed up at the Capitol as well on January the 6th.

[269] And rather than tweet, anything that indicated contrition doubled down, showing imagery of the rioters saying this is what happens when essentially Americans are lied to.

[270] So be on your guard?

[271] put on the full armor of God, and be prepared to fight.

[272] So that's the slate, then, that the Arizona Republican Party has come up with.

[273] Trumpism seems to be winning, at least in the primaries.

[274] For sure, yeah.

[275] But, of course, you know, that's been true largely across the boards, as you know, instead.

[276] I mean, it's been almost axiomatic that in the primaries, anyone who's against Trump loses.

[277] Are we at war?

[278] Yes.

[279] No two ways about it.

[280] But what I did not expect to encounter was a real grassroots movement, not only to continue to push the Republican Party to the right, but also to push it away from democracy.

[281] If you think you're going to vote your way out of this situation, you're wrong.

[282] I'm going to tell you flat out.

[283] And let me back into this just by observing instead that I've been covering conservative politics for over two decades.

[284] and have seen a lot of things, you know, on the right over the years.

[285] Haven't seen anything like this where in meetings both to candidate meet and greets or grassroots events.

[286] Republicans, we're conservatives, we're grassroots.

[287] We come from the bottom up.

[288] That people would begin to stand up and just talk about how they thought the democracy was, you know, an anti -American concept.

[289] And that's where I want to address something that's bugging me for a long time.

[290] And that's the history and the sacredness of our Constitution and what our founding fathers meant.

[291] We are a constitutional republic.

[292] We are not a democracy, nor in the Constitution does it use the word democracy.

[293] I heard, for example, a state representative candidate, Selena Bliss, say in front of a group, I want to make clear to everyone we're not a democracy, we're a republic.

[294] The progressives, and this is the trouble we're in, they reject the principles of our Constitution and our declaration.

[295] So it's up to us to study our enemy.

[296] I love to talk about Sun Tsu in the Art of War.

[297] He says, understand your enemy, and then you'll know your own strengths.

[298] And to hear grassroots activists openly and proactively espouse hostility towards democracy, to actually say that we're not a democracy, we're a republic.

[299] One of them said to me, to me democracy, the word democracy means mob rule.

[300] Another one said to me, democracy means that if you get 50 % of the votes plus one, it means you can take my property away from me. You can take everything away from me. Tyranny of the majority, notwithstanding the fact that there are all sorts of constitutional protections against such a concept.

[301] So what I came to realize, instead, was that what changed things was January the 6th, when ultimately the presidency was not restored to Donald Trump.

[302] And I should mention that Trump on that very day at his speech on the ellipse used the word democracy no less than four times about how we must save our democracy.

[303] This is our last ditch attempt to save our democracy.

[304] Well, when all that failed, apparently the view from the right was, well, democracy is, in fact, a dirty word.

[305] But let's interrogate that idea, right?

[306] They're saying democracy is a dirty word, that the country is not a democracy, it's a republic.

[307] Are they wrong?

[308] I mean, I don't mean to go full civics class here, but we don't have a direct democracy government.

[309] And, you know, American democracy has for a long time excluded some people, particularly people of color, women, and folks who weren't originally included in the idea.

[310] So what do they mean by the idea of republic and democracy?

[311] How are they defining those words?

[312] Right.

[313] Yeah.

[314] I mean, let's stipulate a couple of things.

[315] First, that you're absolutely correct, that, you know, we've never had a direct democracy in a kind of Athenian sense.

[316] We've always had a representative form of government.

[317] A constitutional republic is the mechanism by which we deliver democracy, but it's still meant to be ruled of by and for the people.

[318] The second stipulation is also, you know, a truth that you just uttered, which is that America has fallen well short of its democratic aims over the centuries, particularly when it comes to people of color and women.

[319] But that's not what these individuals in Arizona we're talking about.

[320] They certainly weren't saying that democracy is a goal that America has never measured up to.

[321] No, what they're saying is that democracy has now become a means by which a majority of Americans, if indeed a majority does, you know, prevail in an election, can change the country in ways that makes America unrecognizable to these people.

[322] So what I was hearing over and over Ested was mainly social stuff, you know, that the majority is now perverting our schools.

[323] We now have, you know, drag queens in our schools.

[324] We now have critical race theory being taught to our children.

[325] In that sense, it's a not unfamiliar lament that we've heard from the right, the I don't recognize my country anymore.

[326] But I was surprised in Arizona not to hear it cloaked in anything resembling economic anxiety.

[327] You know, this was not anyone to, talking about a loss of manufacturing jobs.

[328] They were talking about, quote, unquote, America as we know it, and how it has been, America has moved not just far left, but to a point where people are losing their freedoms and the anxiety has reached existential proportions.

[329] Yeah, I mean, it does feel like a lot of this is familiar from the last six years.

[330] Maybe Trumpism in Arizona is more culturally focused than other parts of the country where it's more economic focus.

[331] But it is, is a sense of loss that I think is a throughline for this political moment.

[332] What's new here is that in the wake of Trump's loss, candidates are running on a clear anti -democracy message, a message that, if it wins, would be brought to the democratic system itself.

[333] But what happens to this movement if they lose?

[334] Well, there's always an excuse for losing.

[335] But the legitimate excuse that a lot of these far -right candidates will have, these mega candidates.

[336] If they lose is, well, sure, we lost.

[337] It's not just that we were up against the Democrats.

[338] We were up against the rhinos, too.

[339] The establishment Republicans, the so -called Uniparty, as they now say, speaking of Democrats and establishment Republicans in tandem, did us in.

[340] And it wasn't a fair fight.

[341] Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[342] Can you back that up?

[343] They call the tandem of them, the Unip Party, Republican establishment, and cahoots with Democrats.

[344] That's right.

[345] Yeah, the Unip Party, again, is a term I hadn't heard really before 2020, but I've certainly heard it a lot, both in Arizona and beyond since then, from conservatives who feel that essentially the Republican Party, as imagined by the establishment, is only slightly different, only nominally different from the Democratic Party, that they're basically all one controlling organism that wants to keep the elites in power and wants to keep the will of the people.

[346] suppressed.

[347] They have a built -in excuse to an electoral loss, which is that the establishment is united against them.

[348] Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[349] And again, to be fair, they've got an argument.

[350] Yeah, I mean, it seems like for me, what you're laying out, the feeling of we got cheated encompasses the 2020 election and that conspiracy theory, but is also much broader.

[351] Bertherism is We Got Cheated with Barack Obama.

[352] Great Replacement.

[353] The replacement theory is we got cheated as new folks are coming in.

[354] The abandonment of democracy and majority rule feels like we get cheated as the face of the country is changing.

[355] I mean, it seems as if a lot of this stuff is wrapped up in that basic feeling that the kind of cultural power, you know, the cultural face of the country is changing, and that's the biggest cheat of all.

[356] Right.

[357] No, that's right.

[358] Instead, and it kind of, you know, it goes back to, I mean, to a lot of us, including myself in 2015, who wondered aloud how the world is this billionaire real estate developer named Donald Trump going to appeal to rank and file voters in South Carolina, or for that mayor, Arizona.

[359] And it's because he understood that sense of grievance and that sense of, you know, stolen victory, America's being stolen away from them.

[360] And so even with birtherism, which sounds like it's just about, you know, Barack Obama a couple of Hawaii state officials, it's basically the view that Democrats cheat.

[361] And that the other side's inherently invalid.

[362] And so is the coalition powering them, too.

[363] Yeah, that this was the active wish of other nefarious groups trying to do in ordinary Americans.

[364] And I should say that, too, that, you know, this is a language that I heard time and again from Arizona candidates, but I think especially because it is very much a notion embraced by the grassroots right in Arizona, which is that the stakes in this election are existential.

[365] It's Kerry Lake, you know, the night before the primary, basically said, you know, this is an election about good versus evil.

[366] So given everything that you're saying, that Republicans in Arizona are laying out this election as a fight between good and evil, as a battle for.

[367] civilization itself, right?

[368] How should we think about the proposal Biden has made for the country?

[369] He is asking Democrats and establishment Republicans, right, to take a stand against Maga and Trumpism.

[370] He's frankly asking for the uniparty to unify, right?

[371] Right.

[372] Yeah.

[373] But it feels like from what you're laying out, that that misses at least one big thing, which is that for this group, there is already built -in excuses to dismiss electoral results.

[374] Yes.

[375] That don't matter what happens in November, they're ready to cast it aside.

[376] Yeah.

[377] No, that's, I mean, the, when you ask either side, what is it we're trying to save here?

[378] What is it about America's greatness do you see?

[379] You get entirely different answers.

[380] And from the right, that answer largely has to do with individual freedoms.

[381] and it has to do with faith.

[382] It's, I think, almost inextricably tied to so many of these arguments that the existential stakes are quasi -apocalyptic, as if outlined in the Book of Revelations in the New Testament, that the democratic forces are quasi -satanic forces.

[383] Whether it's Antifa or Black Lives Matter, trans bathrooms, critical race theory, or an influx of immigration, the country is changing in these woke liberal directions.

[384] And for some of these folks on the grassroots side of conservative politics in Arizona, stopping that change is more important than democracy in the form of democracy that we've known.

[385] It's not only more important than democracy.

[386] The concern is that democracy may actually be thwarting their ability to do this, You know, that democracy has become a kind of tool.

[387] Democracy is an obstacle.

[388] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[389] It's become a tool for the left in its promotion of these anti -American values.

[390] And I also should mention that, you know, I heard at one event that I was at two different individuals, one of them, a political candidate and another, I'm ahead of the Arizona chapter of the Oathkeepers.

[391] And I had a weird dream last night.

[392] about Joseph McCarthy.

[393] Talk about Senator Joe McCarthy, the former senator from Wisconsin who ushered in the Red Scare of the 1950s.

[394] Do you remember the committee, the House on American Activities Committee?

[395] Yeah.

[396] And I've talked about this before, but Joseph McCarthy was not only right, he understated the seriousness of it.

[397] Yeah.

[398] Do you remember that?

[399] They spoke of him longingly, saying that that's what the country needs now.

[400] I bring that up in this context because McCarthy was, you know, as anti -democratic a force as we've seen in American politics, trying to spread fear, trying to get people blacklisted, trying to get people pushed, not just out of the party, but arrested for treason.

[401] And it was all, you know, on the basis of a fictitious list that he supposedly had of communist sympathizers and communists who worked in the State Department.

[402] And that, you know, I actually had thought that I would never.

[403] in my lifetime hear anybody, much less Republican office seekers, speaking with nostalgia about such a man as Joe McCarthy.

[404] And again, it's an indicator of how deeply rooted the anxiety is about what McCarthy called the enemy within.

[405] Domestic enemies, this is what we are up against right now.

[406] This is why our organization exists.

[407] A phrase that I've now heard in Arizona and elsewhere espoused about the left.

[408] The Democrat Party has always been radical, left, socialists, evolving into full communists, and now we're electing communists into our own Congress.

[409] How does that work?

[410] This is the enemy within, and so when you have enemies like that, you're in a kind of state of war and you don't think about trifles such as a democratic system of government, except insofar as you view it as, as you say, you know, a kind of obstacle, you know, something that actually has been turned against you.

[411] It listens in our communities to survive World War III, which will lead to civil unrest, which will lead to an economic collapse.

[412] My fellow Americans, America is an idea, the most powerful idea in the history of the world, and it beats in the hearts of the people of this country.

[413] It beats in all our hearts.

[414] It unites America.

[415] It is the American creed.

[416] The idea that America guarantees that everyone be treated with dignity.

[417] When I think about the story, Biden's telling the country.

[418] And also the way that Clyburn and the grassroots conservatives in Arizona think about that story.

[419] I wonder who's closer to the truth.

[420] Because the thing that Clyburn and grassroots conservatives in Arizona share is a view of democracy, that isn't as much a value that beats in the hearts of Americans, but more as a tool.

[421] For Clyburn, and for many of the black voters who delivered Biden the presidency, it's a tool to perfect the country, make it more inclusive, and grow political power for people who have been left out.

[422] For the grassroots conservatives in Arizona, it's a tool that's increasingly being used against them to take away political power.

[423] Next time on the run -up, if some conservatives have turned on democracy.

[424] Any chance I could get you guys to leave the Senate wing, just want to let you guys know, this is like desacredest place.

[425] What beats in their hearts instead?

[426] For four million people are coming everywhere, all the way back is the monument on the D .C. Jesus Christ, we can vote your name.

[427] Amen.

[428] Amen.

[429] This opportunity.

[430] The run -up is reported by me, Astead Herndon, and produced by Elisa Gutierrez and Caitlin O 'Keefe.

[431] It's edited by Frannie Carr -Toth, Larissa Anderson, and Lisa Tobin, with original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lazzano, and Alicia E .2.

[432] It was mixed by Corey Shrepple and fact -checked by Caitlin Love.

[433] Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Sam Donick, David Howell.

[434] Finger, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Shannon Busta, Nell Gologley, Jeffrey Miranda, and Maddie Masiella.

[435] Catch you next week.

[436] To hear more, go wherever you listen to podcasts.

[437] Search for the run -up and hit subscribe.

[438] And thanks.