Trump is not drawing support from black voters because of his criminality—that's just MAGA's bigotry of low expectations. Meanwhile, he's now promising a green card to every foreign Harvard grad to please tech bro donors. Plus, the attempt to create a race war over Caitlin Clark, the annoying liberals on the coasts are creating MAGA reactionaries, and more from the mailbag. Jane Coaston joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.
show notes:
Reid Hoffman's reply to David Sacks
Tim interviews Reid Hoffman
Tim's playlist
Jane is one of my fav guests whenever she comes on. I think that if I could have a "Bulwark guest blunt rotation" it'd be between me, Jane Coaston, Derek Thompson, and Bill Kristol as the odd/older standout lol. Plus I'd just really like to see what Bill would look like high. Could that smile of his possibly get any bigger? haha.
To hear Jane Coaston likening Trump's theoretical explanation of cryptocurrency to "a cat falling down the stairs" Hilarious...!
I don't like Joan's theory. It works for some people in some places but I know plenty of rural folk in WVA or VA who fear the godless crime ridden coastal cities and they have never seen an annoying leftie except on TV or *maybe* their facebook feed. Perhaps they are the exception that makes the rule but I very much doubt it.
The secret to success during the internet revolution of trusted news has been the ability to lie with conviction. We see this with Trump, musk, the techbros, etc. They recognize each other and support each other, because that is how you keep the grift going.
Grifter flock to each other.
Good podcast. One correction. Tim Tebow won one Heisman, not two.
Jane is one of my absolute favorites. She makes me laugh, and she makes me think; a perfect combination. I still think about what she said the last time she was on-that new House Reps want to be in Congress to complete a task(s), then they find out that "this is not a task-completing place". Love it.
"ALONE" is fantastic...the women are so fantastic in this series!
Some of the guys are totally MAGAts, others don't give a shit about the outside world, and women take this shit seriously.
How do find new music and bands? Do you listen by streaming or CD? The diversity of music at the end of the podcast suggests a great widespread taste level.
Bears. Bears were mentioned. I love bears. Last year, a new mom “introduced “ me to her two 4-5 month old cubs. No lie. My house has a four foot rock wall holding back a little slope that has trees and bushes. Mom came down up to about the wall to my right. She looked at her cubs and told them to come down to my left. Mom looked at me, then looked at her cubs, then back at me. I couldn’t believe it but wasn’t going to turn down the offer to introduce myself. So I walked up to where the cubs were and said hi to them, they smelled my hand. And that’s how I met the two newest bears in our hood. They returned with their mom this spring, a year older.
Why isn’t Jane a regular contributor to The Bulwark? She is intelligent, perceptive, measured, knowledgeable, and a gifted interlocutor. I miss her podcast she used to have withe NYT (The Argument)……maybe that could become a Bulwark thing??
Also, you Tim kill it daily! 😘
I thought the exact same thing-get Jane on board at The Bulwark!
Tim, are the moderators in the debate going to push back against Trump when he starts his fire hose of bullshit? Seems like you know Jake pretty well.
I’d love to hear your opinion, please ?
Interesting commentary by Ms Coaston on purity and the reason why young people are't too interested in having children. I'm in my 60's, so older than her, but in my high school years a girl getting pregnant was the end of her aspirations to go to college, to have a career that might come from that. Getting pregnant meant withdrawing from high school maybe for good or maybe just going to class but no extracurricular things. It wasn't called purity then. It was called don't have sex and if you get pregnant you pay for it by having the kid and dropping out of school.
I think you are overthinking the tech bro support for Trump. Sure, there is lower taxes and access to government entities, but deregulation is their north star. The degree to which they want to be ogliarchs who are free of burdensome labor, immigration, antitrust, and financial regulations cannot be overstated. To your point, they know that if they stroke Trump's ego and donate enough money, he will repeat back whatever they say.
They’re not for deregulation; they’re for regulation that benefits them, as you rightly point out.
That whole All-in/Trump saga has sent me over the edge because it’s just so nakedly cynical. They’re smart enough to know the quid-pro-quo-ness of their exchange with Trump and smart enough to know their audience will buy it. They’re just a more digestible version of crypto boys.
exactly. Marc Andreesen says the not so quiet part out loud when he gives interviews openly calling for a return to the Robber Baron dynamic. Big tech is going to have to stick it to orders to keep providing shareholder value (e.g. Google announcing a 10 billion dollar stock buyback after announcing thousands of layoffs).
Holy shit, Jane for prez 2028.
Jane Coaston is a national treasure. Thanks Tim, for having her on the pod.
Tim, OMG! When you get someone on who is as smart as Jane Coaston, you light up and you light them up. Please bring her back again and again. I laughed out loud many times. She’s right. We need to laugh and we need to vote and we need to read and be smart, and we need to laugh again.
Jane is awesome!!!! Cat falling down stairs is one of the funniest lines ever
I have a production criticism. Before, you played a 7-second clip of NKOTB before moving on to the latest Johnny McEntee douchebagery. But now it's only a 3-second clip. Too short! Bring back the longer clip, to fully develop this cheese-to-douche transition.
I love the podcast and I love Jane Coaston, so this was a happy day for me : ) All of it was great, but my favorite part was hearing the two of you talk sports. I vote for more Jane on the Bulwark podcast!
Judging from some of my younger MAGA family members, Trump is admired by them as an anti-hero. These young men view themselves as rebels, and identify with comic book villains like The Joker.
But, as Dems can tell you, these types often blow off The Vote
That's wild and I've been thinking about how a lot of these young men seem so childish and energized by the idea of being a hero. Then we read articles on how young men are struggling. Maybe they need to put down their video games, pick up some books and join the adult world.
As a former young man myself (I am 62 now) I do have some compassion for them. While we should encourage ambition and hard work, the myth of meritocracy implies anyone can be successful if they work hard enough. Unfortunately, you can work and study hard and still not succeed over those who have connections.
That’s a fact, but the myth of a meritocratic society means “failure” is your own fault. And “failure” is defined increasingly as not achieving ridiculous goals such as being obscenely wealthy and cruel. The cruel absurdity of InCel is the idolization of men who cuckold the InCels, and blaming the women.
I’m glad that my father was a world war 2 veteran who put me in the Navy after high school. Gave me a set of immediate goals to accomplish and to earn a sense of accomplishment I lacked in high school. There are other paths to learning success is achievement of your own goals, and not outlandish ones from outside
So true and thank you for pointing that out. I should have said they could focus on improving themselves and their lives and that can be done through a lot of paths other than college.
It's easier to say "no I don't want to do that" than it is to face a potential failure if a path is picked but the person is unable to accomplish it. I struggled with one of my kids on this on a small scale in school. The kid would rather fail because he didn't try than to try and then fail. I think a lot of young men in particular suffer from that form of thinking/feeling.
In general, I agree with the advice about sticking it out in a crappy politics place where you have friends and family. There are a couple of big exceptions to this (even if you live in an awesome blue city in a red state). Our family left Houston because we could not get an appropriate education for our disabled son. We have met fellow Texas refugees with trans kids. As long as your kids are safe and happy, it’s better to stay and try to work on improving local politics. (BTW, our kid is now mainstreamed with a full time aide and thriving. Things we couldn’t dream about in Texas).
I've lived 54 of my 57 years in SC. If I wasn't accepting of Republicans and conservatives I wouldn't have any friends. I have 3 Liberal friends, but I don't love them any more than the conservative ones. I just have a broader list of topics to discuss with my Liberal friends.
I’m an infectious disease specialist. I heard a lot of unvaccinated patients on the verge of getting put on the ventilator who told me how sorry they were about not taking the Covid vaccine. All my dead patients during Delta, were unvaccinated. I stopped asking because I couldn’t.
One of my children is a respiratory therapist. So much heartbreak experienced close-up...
You are all saints & angels in my book, a blessing to all of us.
Thank you, Ana Maria
I remember once reading that after the influenza pandemic of 1916 ended, society moved on and acted as if it had never happened. I figured that’s how people would react after the covid crisis was under control, and that seems to be the case. The stress and trauma that medical professions like you had to endure is also largely forgotten. At the very least, I hope your life is more enjoyable now than it was in depths of the delta variant.
We've stopped remembering Covid as a society. We're thinking Covid is a bad flu and completely fail to acknowledge how deadly it was. The people who did not get vaccinated, managed to avoid the disease in 2020 and most of 2021, and who now experience the Covid of today feel satisfied that they made the right decision.
Okay lookit, Tim. Stephen Miller isn’t a free range turkey roaming the wilds of an elite SoCal beach town. He’s an ersatz Nazi douchebag with black sludge where his soul should be. So, you have to call him The Santa Monica Goebbels (“go-bulls”, for the American pronunciation, or “geh-bles” if you prefer the British pronunciation which is closer to the actual German). But “gobbles” is right out. Sorry, thems the roolz. And rules must be obeyed!
Funny story, I have a good friend (and really smart guy) and we were driving up the Jersey Turnpike years ago and the exit for the Goethals Bridge was coming up and he said "Chris, there's the Goebbels Bridge." I looked over and said "yeah, they named a bridge to Staten Island after a Nazi." One of the funniest stories I can remember.
No way! 🤣
An important thing to remember about Matthew Stoller is that he is a complete fucking moron.
I am a liberal on the Oregon Coast. I wish there were more of us.
Yes, I live in a blue city in a red state. But, I'm close to family, so there's that. We like to play cards when we get together, spades usually, or hearts sometimes.
The guy's name is David Ballsack?
His legal name is David Oliver Sacks.
You just ruined the whole joke for me!
whoo hoo Jane is back!!
On the question of Maga family you want to keep a relationship with, I found Russell Moore's book "Losing Our Religion" really helpful. He talks about finding common ground like y'all did, but also being very intentional about boundaries in conversation and being very clear that you don't want to talk politics because you love them so much.
I would go into it more, but the Atlanta Dream/ Indiana Fever game just started and my Dream had better be rough as they can be with CC if we wanna win! No lays! No lanes! Elbows out! #DoitforTheDream
Update: Atlanta is being too nice. Indiana is also shooting 80% from 3. -EIGHTY-
Yes, Russell Moore. Thanks
I think that Jane Coaston is the perfect guest for a Friday. Thank you.
Tim, thanks so much for doing this; it’s been a fallow couple of days.
Note: Archie Griffin, Ohio State, is the only double Heisman winner.
Jane's point about your politics being determined by whom your most annoyed at is something I've banged on in multiple places.
Of course if you're a centrist socially liberal (by the standards of the early 2000s) Gen Xer living in New York City, the most annoying thing in the world is leftists on college campuses or whatever. Now, I don't fault say, a 42-year old lady who runs some art gallery being annoyed at Gen Zers and thinking wokeness has gone too far.
But, people like Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan, and the rest of the IDW / The Free Press/ etc. adjcant type folks should know better, and realize that 23 year olds who complain about certain words being used in 70s movies don't actually run things.
I've said this before - any anti-woke centrist with a large platform should be forced to move to an Trump +25 exurb for a year or so, and come back. As I've said before, if Uri Berliner from the NPR really thought the Gen Zers and Millennial's made NPR too woke, I invite him to go to some exurb or rural town in Iowa and open up a newspaper to see if people are open to his moderate centrist views, or if they'd just call him a child grooming woke lib as well.
This is why somebody like Matt Yglesias doesn't fall down the same rabbit hole ironically - because he visits Trump country semi-regularly, because if I remember correctly, his wife's family live in a Texas exurb, and he also visits rural Maine regularly.
Now, to be fair, this is also true of a certain kind of leftist who thinks centrist libs are their biggest enemies, and those liberals and centrists are overhyping Trump's danger, but they're also an incredibly small part of the population, and don't shift the conversation anti-woke centrists do.
lol. So right on. All you have to do is read David French after he adopted a black child. Then he saw the real side of his community that he blissfully ignored for decades.
My issue with the centrist libs in the media is they tend to be just contrarians. They find an incident that is annoying than paint the entire Democratic Party as that. This is our boy ruy t.
A great hiruestic is the difference between conservatism and liberalism (and even more extreme right and left-wing views) is your 'circle of care.' In general, right-leaning care only about their own family, maybe their town, and if that, while in general, left-leaning people care more deeply about wider ranges of people. That's why Rob Portman, as I've pointed out before could be a down-the-line right-winger on every issue but gay marriage...because his kid was gay.
Obviously, this doesn't always line up 100% of the way, but almost always, when there's a conservative with an oddly left-leaning view on an issue or really fight for a specific sort of funding on something, it's almost always something deeply personal.
So of course, somebody like David French could ignore or downplay the wider racism in the world until it was involved in his families life. As I've joked before, too bad people's children can't wake up as 'come out' as undocumented or Palestinian.