The Bulwark
The Bulwark Podcast
Jonathan V. Last and Ben Raderstorf: Retribution Agenda
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Jonathan V. Last and Ben Raderstorf: Retribution Agenda

Republicans had a tête-à-tête with Trump to remind him how, if he wins, he should extend the tax cuts before he gets tied up with punishing all his enemies. Meanwhile, should Biden suggest extending the tax cuts so CEOs can end their flirtation with authoritarianism? Plus, the value of 'agreeing to disagree' in the pro-democracy coalition. JVL and Protect Democracy's Ben Raderstorf join guest host Amanda Carpenter.

show notes:


Protect Democracy's "If you can keep it" newsletter
JVL's newsletter piece on Truth Social
JVL's newsletter piece on the Epoch Times 

Discussion about this episode

User's avatar
Ach's avatar

Amanda is so good, please more of her! A critical part of the discussion with Ben, which I wish they had more time to develop, was the implications of Schedule F for punishing blue states. "California didn't vote for me so let it burn" is terrifying to me and one of the most dangerous and un-American components of Trump's brand of authoritarianism. I feel like it doesn't get nearly enough attention, even though we know now that it played a role in Trump's disastrous response to COVID.

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Brendan Classon's avatar

The following passage is from 1933 (guess the author?). Substitute 'Republican politician' for 'priests' and you have the quintessence of Trump today.

"We should trap the priests by their notorious greed and self-indulgence. We shall thus be able to settle everything with them in perfect peace and harmony. I shall give them a few years' reprieve. Why should we quarrel? They will swallow anything in order to keep their material advantages. Matters will never come to a head. They will recognize a firm will, and we need only show them once or twice who is the master. They will know which way the wind blows."

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

My first guess was Lenin, but he died in 1924. Mussolini, perhaps? He was an admirer and imitator of Lenin.

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Brendan Classon's avatar

Hitler.

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Eric Levinson's avatar

Pascal's wager was as cynical in the 15th century as it is today. If we have descended to the point where we can be blackmailed into supporting a political candidate, we are lost.

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Mike Taylor's avatar

From now on, when you guys start talking about bogus poll numbers ( which is every time you talk polls ), I’m marking “played” and not listening any further. Good day.

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Craig Butcher's avatar

No one seems to understand that the R’s who are not stupid and who have read some history know what actually happens physically to dissidents and their families and friends when the tyrant takes power. So these people are physical cowards. It’s not complicated, people. Hide or die.

JVL described this but pulled his punches. The adulation of Trump from the R’s is about FEAR.. Not just fear for careers,.. FEAR as basic as it gets.

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Christine's avatar

Love the point that capitalism doesn’t thrive under autocracy. The folks who attended the Business Roundtable must see that any association with Trump is unstable.

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Howid's avatar

Some businesses do very well under autocracy. These people each believe that they are the special, extra clever one who successfully can thread the needle. Just like the people that thought they could work successfully in his administration.

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severn's avatar

Americans have no experience living under any kind of dictatorship. So they just imagine they can "try it a little bit" and then quit at anytime...

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max skinner's avatar

Somehow they think there can be a "benevolent" dictator? A dictator who exercises good common sense when it come to their personal situations and needs but who will be appropriately harsh with the bad people is what they think they want.

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Christie's avatar

Great episode! Nice to have Amanda hosting.

The Bulwark puts out so much content that I don’t catch it all, but it’s a huge help in preserving my sanity to have all you smart, thoughtful folks following events and sharing your thoughts & opinions so we can understand more.

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Scott Smith's avatar

There's a very simple fact to understand. If we institute a voting system which counts Democrats' preferences among the Republicans, Trump's power over the Republican pols ends.

IRV has not reduced Trump's power in jurisdictions using because IRV does not do so. Sure, IRV let's Democrats rank some Republicans higher than others. But that does not mean that that preference would be counted. As long as there is a candidate rated higher than a voter's highest rated Republican, that voter's preferences among the Republicans are ignored.

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Still Trying's avatar

It's been a while since I looked at alternative voting options. Is there one you prefer?

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Scott Smith's avatar

Yes, I do have a preferred methods, and a handful of honorable mentions that also fulfill the criterion I established.

First the preferred method. All voters rate all candidates on a scale from -10 to +10, with ignored candidates getting an implied 0. For each voter, the ratings determine preferences between each pair of candidates, with higher positive scores preferred over smaller positive scores, preferred over zero, preferred over smaller negative scores, preferred over larger negative scores. For each pair, tally the number of voters preferring A over B and voters preferring B over A, with the larger tally winning the pair. The candidate winning all pairs wins the election.

Honorable mentions include: 1) Using the second part, but ratings consisting of ordinal

ranks. 2) Using the same first part, but simply summing/averaging each voter's rating for each candidate. 3) Same day primary and general in which all voters cast a ballot for the party they want to win the election and a ballot in each party's primary for which candidate they would want to win if that party were to win. First the votes for party would be counted, with the primary ballots of the winning party being counted to determine the winner. Not my favorite, but it does count Democrats' preferences among Republicans and Republicans' preferences among Democrats.

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Gene W.'s avatar

JVL, maybe someone has already commented about this, but Joe Biden has already said he will continue the Trump tax cuts for everyone making under $400k per year.

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Gene W.'s avatar

The Fuhrer's birthday was a big deal in Nazi Germany, too!

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Leila Gough's avatar

Yea California!!!!

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KO in LA's avatar

Question - JVL is exactly right that they fold because Trump will end their careers and try to ruin their lives. But there is something I've stuggled with since Trump first came on the scene.

Have any of them ever considered that there is strength in numbers and that if they resisted Trump as a group they could counter that? That it may actually resonate with voters if every "normie" Republican told the truth about Trump and said they cannot support him?

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

Game theory has the answer to that scenario: the prisoner's dilemma. It is rational for every individual to defect if he cannot ensure the cooperation of all the other participants.

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Angie's avatar

I always wondered about that too...in a large group it would be impossible for him to attack and ruin them all...

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Andrew's avatar

Gordon Tullock looked down and smiled at this podcast.

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Steven's avatar

There are a lot of examples of the MAGA Republicans’ short sightedness. My favorite is the change to Florida pedestrian law; after the Republican base got a boner to run over protesters Ron DeSantis gleefully hurried to make vehicular manslaughter legal so his voters could run over protestors. But the law does not say “for people who vote Republican.” It applies to everyone. Now if they want to protest anything or march the people they hate can lawfully run them over, too. It is, however, amusing when in conversation with a MAGA or MAGA adjacent person gleeful about such “policy” to bring that up. They’ve almost always never considered that weaponization made legal can also be used against them. I usually get something like “well Democrats/liberals are too much wussies to ever do it” and I always laugh and say, “Willing to bet your life on it? Cuz according to you, they are also all violent Antifa thugs and that’s why you need all this MAGA machismo, so, which is it?” They usually don’t want to talk anymore.

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TomT's avatar

my only note is how you gonna cut California Love off before Pac's verse?

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Sandy's avatar

More Amanda and JVL please!

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Lisa French's avatar

JVL, your darkism shtick is starting to get on my nerves. Yay Amanda for her 80% optimism. JVL, if we dodge the Big Bullet in November, you have to buy all of us double scoops of ice cream. And a pony.

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Andy Fairchild's avatar

mortal coil is something that is on you not that which you are on; you'd want to know

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Slide Guitar's avatar

Mortal coil" is a poetic term for the troubles of daily life and the strife and suffering of the world. It is used in the sense of a burden to be carried or abandoned. To "shuffle off this mortal coil" is to die, exemplified in the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

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Slide Guitar's avatar

From Wikipedia. So "shuffle off" must mean something like "put down," "shake off," etc.

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Deborah L. Hall's avatar

Melania was watching TV with the rest of us. Watching Guilty come up 34 times.

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Vik's avatar

The optimistic take on the Monmouth poll numbers is that the 47% who now approve of Trump's presidency is the same as the 47% who plan to vote for him. This is logical, because if you disapprove of Trump's previous presidency then you wouldn't vote for him to become President again.

Biden's job is to convince the 50% who disapprove of Trump's presidency to go out & vote Democrat for President.

A 50% vote for Biden & 47% for Trump should be enough for Biden to win.

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

That's cutting it pretty close. In 2016, Clinton beat Trump 48%-46%, and it wasn't enough.

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Hortense's avatar

Humoring Trump to protect yourself while you are safe under Biden is some perversion of Pascal's wager, where you live a life as if you believed in God, because if God exists, you will be rewarded and, if God does not exist, your losses are minimal, some various pleasures and luxuries.

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Various internet opportunities's avatar

Trumps super power is — do as I say or I’ll leave the Republican Party and you will never win an election ever again. I do not care if I burn the house down.

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

It's hard to believe GOP leaders accept this deal. How is it "winning" if you have to accept left-wing policies like tariffs and abandoning NATO to survive as a party?

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Aaron Rose's avatar

Federal minimum wage at $7.25/hr is $15,080 per year. $2,500,000/$15,080 = 165. Let that sink in, a Supreme Court justice was forced to finally reveal GIFTS, equivalent to 165 years worth of minimum wage labor.

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Aaron Rose's avatar

Now he alone amongst his fellow jurists believes that domestic abusers with legal restraining orders should not be denied arms regardless of their threat. Doesn't make the 'I only took 9x my salary in gifts' metric any better.

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

Here's another metric. In 2022, the salary of an associate justice was $274,200. So, Thomas's gifts were equal to an extra nine years' salary.

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Steven Clare's avatar

Amanda Carpenter thinks Biden has an 80 percent chance of winning??? Sweet Amanda!! LOL.

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Elizabeth Mills's avatar

This is both terrifying & nauseating

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Chris's avatar

As an Economics major, Strategy and Game Theory was one of the most useful courses I took in college.

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Dale Oak's avatar

Great to hear Amanda guest-host the pod!

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Tim Coffey's avatar

Maybe you should get Tim O'Brien and/or David Cay Johnston to do a deeper dive on Truth Social's, um, earnings.

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David Dickson's avatar

On business dudes losing their spines and bowing before Trump, a theory:

I attend a university known for its petroleum engineering program. Harold Hamm, the foremost business mind behind the fracking boom, is our university's biggest donor; you can see him at all our ribbon-cutting events.

Harold seems a soft-spoken man at first. Don't be fooled. He is one of the most bull-headed, strongwilled human beings in the United States, and probably has had a minor impact on world history the last twenty years or so.

He absolutely despises Donald Trump, for the January 6 insurrection in particular. In general, he cordially dislikes the populist vibes of MAGA and considers them somewhat lowbrow.

However:

Not only has Harold become of Donald Trump's biggest megadonors in 2024, famously arranging the Mar-a-Lago meeting two weeks ago where the latter demanded a one billion dollar tribute from the oil industry--he went so far as to make plans to *bail Trump out* after the half-billion-dollar judgements levied against the latter for fraud and rape. He probably would have pulled the trigger on those plans, had a NY appeals court not gotten ahead of him.

I've met this man and shook his hand. I can tell you for a fact that he considers himself quite intelligent and quite independent-minded. He buckles to no dictator, in his own opinion of himself.

So. . . why? Why do men like this behave so thoroughly, incredibly, supinely before this aspiring American dictator? Why do their spines, at the very least, seem to have been removed from their bodies?

I'll tell you why Harold's does, at least:

He believes--seriously, sincerely believes--that Donald Trump will be CONTROLLED by men like him.

Seriously. Not kidding. For reals.

He believes that, once president, Donald Trump will owe Harold for bailing him out, figuratively and literally. He believes that Trump will have no choice but to do whatever Harold wants. He believes, in short, that Donald Trump is nothing more than an inanimate, placid tool that he will be able to use.

Joe Biden, for all the great economy he's built, is not a tool. He owes Harold nothing. He cannot be controlled. He has a spine. He is a Democrat, not a Republican politician or an employee.

He does not worship the ground--or, more importantly, pretend to worship the ground--on which Harold walks. Harold cannot abide that.

Therefore, he convinces himself that Trump, the consummate "transactionalist", would be the opposite.

He convinces himself that second-term, convicted-felon, desperate, criminal Trump has to be--nay, must be!--that moldable, foldable clay president that Harold has been dreaming about ever since he first got involved in politics.

That is an unsung, messed-up, ironic, delusional reason why some businessmen, who consider themselves quite manly, and who have built empires through Democrat and Republican presidents alike, are not just supporting Trump, but doing so with the desperation of a. . . well, desperate housewife.

I meant to end this comment with a decent metaphor, apologies. There's only so well one's brain functions after digging into the political reasoning of Harold Fucking Hamm. :/

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Bruce Lawrence's avatar

Wow. That is insane. Hamm shows no understanding of Trump's personality. Donald Trump could have been a very successful and popular president if he had simply appointed "the best people" and let them do their jobs. (I'm told that's what Eisenhower did.) He could have been a spokesman and figurehead, taking his share of the credit. But that's just not who Donald Trump is. He refuses to be anyone's figurehead. It doesn't fit his internal narrative.

Furthermore, even though Trump is transactional, he is morally opposed to the concept of a win-win honest trade. With every fiber of his being, he is dedicated to the proposition that every interaction is a zero-sum game, and he is committed to winning every exchange. He thinks EVERY business transaction involves two parties trying to cheat each other, with one succeeding and the other failing. He assumes that everyone (except suckers and losers, who don't count because they're just NPCs) is playing the same game by the same rules, so it's perfectly fair. If he does business with Trump, Hamm will almost certainly lose. But, if he were somehow to win, that would put him on Trump's enemies list until Trump evens the score.

It's surprising that Hamm could be so successful while being such a poor judge of men.

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max skinner's avatar

In other words he can "do business" with the former president?

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David Dickson's avatar

Trump will chew him up and spit him out like used chewing gum if he wins, sooner or later. Same with Elon Musk and the whole lot of them.

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Christine's avatar

JVL made this exact point on the pod with Sarah.

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Carl Spagnoli's avatar

Suffice to say, Narcissism has run amok in 21st century late-stage capitalism; every one of these billionaires has mistakenly credited their obscene wealth to their own brilliance rather than the real reason: the corruption of Adam Smith's version of capitalism (one defined by 'moral sentiments') that has allowed them profits & amassed capital at the expense of a coherent social fabric & our democratic experiment.

Unfortunately, Narcissism and Nihilism frame our current milieu.

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Deborah L. Hall's avatar

I hope we can avoid the chance to watch Harold Hamm’s comeuppance.

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Kim M Murphy's avatar

Love Amanda.

You know that’s not “what all the polls are saying” now, right?

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Liberal Cynic's avatar

She should know.

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Kim M Murphy's avatar

They should both listen to Pod Save America (Sarah was on today) and/or Rick Wilson. They’d cheer up.

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Liberal Cynic's avatar

Oh? Maybe I'll listen to PSA on the drive home tonight instead of this one then.

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Kim M Murphy's avatar

Also Rick Wilson on Fast Politics a couple of days ago. He thinks all of this negativity is pretty much bullshit. And he’s certainly no happy warrior Dem.

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David Dickson's avatar

He's got the right attitude for 2024. I hear all the objections people have had (and do have) to him as a person, to his past history, to his PAC, and to his general approach to things. They all have mild validity. But they all miss the forest for the trees.

Wilson has been right about American politics, and what needs to be done to defend America, since the beginning of Joe Biden's term, on the merits and in practice. Along with JVL and Peter Wehner, they've been pretty much the only right-of-center pundits with their head in the right place consistently.

Liberals and conservatives alike need to stop their bed-wetting and worry-panic and take a page from their attitude. Win or lose, it behooves none of us to channel Eeyore in this contingent era.

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Kim M Murphy's avatar

I found him with “Everything Trump Touches Dies” in 2016. He tells hard truths but his batting record is amazing.

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Lucy D's avatar

Welcome back Amanda! JVL I have a question about your dark view of Biden’s chances in November. Are you just trying to prepare us for a thing we don’t want to believe will happen? Or do you have some higher level agenda where you think this negative drumbeat will shake us up and get us doing something that will help Biden succeed? What do you think we should do with the information you’re sharing? This is a sincere question. I really respect your opinion and I’m trying to get myself into the mindset you’re recommending.

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Aaron Winegar's avatar

JVL is a pessimist. It is often wise to listen to pessimists, as they are the ones who question the value of doing risky things. Couple that with his use of political game theory to examine issues from all choices, and he can be very insightful. But that in no way should be equated with, "Pessimists are always right." (Though buy the shirt anyways.)

It can be a bit harrowing to be in the Democratic coalition, particularly if one has recently arrived from the Republican party. You aren't in the party with money anymore, so no more running a 3-year presidential campaign, no more paid propaganda news outlets, no more ability to control the narrative, no more bullying people into universal agreement (because you're in the party with a core of women, not men), no more being believed on things like the economy because you hold up a piece of paper with "good" numbers, etc etc. You are always playing from behind, you have to save your money and spend it wisely in the 6 months before the election when more people are paying attention to maximize what you have, your coalition comes together late because you can't unite them through bullying, etc etc. It can set many people to a lot of hand-wringing.

On the other hand, it's not as bad as it may seem. There's way more volunteers here (and always the need for more). You get the help of do-gooders, who may proselytize annoyingly often, but have high commitment. And there a lot less conspiracy theories to deal with (though not zero, unfortunately). And you still win election about 50% of the time.

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Lucy D's avatar

Aaron thanks. Just having this conversation is helpful.

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Travis's avatar

So nice to hear Amanda back again for a bit. Her convo with JVL on how capitalism is totally for sale to America's would-be autocrats was great, as was her discussion with Ben on the pro-democracy coalition. Enjoy the vacation Tim, but we miss ya!

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