Will Saletan and (Hubert Humphrey alum) Bill Kristol join Tim Miller before a live audience in Philadelphia to discuss the uncanny parallels to 1968, the big 420 news, and the South now living back in pre-Roe days. show notes Tim's playlist
I tend to think the campus protests are getting outsized attention in proportion to their scale. They've already made themselves look pretty silly, and I'm just having a difficult time believing they're going to make much difference in the election. I do wish folks would be a little more careful about conflating these kids with the "youth vote." It's a small group of privileged, ideologically motivated college students who are nothing like representative of young Americans.
Once again (and The Bulwark is far from the only entity that does this), the entire "abortion" discussion centered around elective abortions. This issue is so much more than that. It's about the woman whose desperately-wanted baby dies inside of her, and her state won't provide her the appropriate medical care. It's about the woman with an incomplete miscarriage, and her state won't provide her the appropriate medical care. It's about the woman whose fetus has abnormalities incompatible with life, and her state won't provide her the appropriate medical care. I could go on.
It's about women deserving the full range of reproductive medical care, provided by her doctor and decided upon by her, not lawyers or politicians. Full stop.
GREAT show! I sometimes take exception to things Bill says, but thoroughly enjoyed him on this. And Will, you've renewed my hope that the abortion issue will be significant.
The three of you + Sarah and JVL have such wonderful chemistry; it's a delight to watch any combo of you interact.
Finally, Will, I'm 67 years old and have never had pot in any form - joint, brownie, gummy, etc. But I've considered trying it if I'm somewhere it's legal!
Listened to the pod. Best yet. As unfiltered and dark as it was Philly was strangely comforting. Dry wit is in short supply these days and I welcome it.
Any person, group, or protest that does not put aside their grievance or purity test for Biden in essence are supporting Trump. When democracy is on the line the luxury of principles seems self indulgent and reckless.
Trump doesn't want to be president to avoid jail. Trump wants to be president because his malignantly narcissistic self cannot let go of the trappings of the presidency: the most powerful person in the world, the white house, airforce one, etc. He surrounds himself with as much of that stuff as he can out of office.
Love your podcast, also TNL. I’m a lifelong DEM but you people have the best advice for a way out of this mess. Plus you’re funny (so is JVL). COME TO PHX!
Excellent podcast. Just a few thoughts. As usual, regarding Gaza. First, I'm noticing we are no longer caveating Gaza casualty statistics with the disclaimer that these numbers come from Hamas. Hamas is supported by Iran (who wouldn't think twice about nuking Palestine along with Israel). These organizations are sophisticated enough that they've helped to manage protests and promulgate a narrative gobbled up by the NY Times, the Washington Post, and so on.
But if Hamas' casualty numbers of 40,000 are true, and if we also take Israel's estimates for the number of combatants killed as 10,000 to be true, in the annals of urban warfare, those numbers are small. The Battle of Manila, a city of 6 to 7 hundred thousand, experienced 100,000 civilians dead. Quadruple that population, add four times the expanse of what the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam were, and add the Islamists of Mosul, then you've got Gaza. Hamas says 75% of residential structures are bombed out, but only about 1.3% of non-Hamas Palestinians have died. That's extraordinary. That's amazing to me. Clearly, not genocide. Clearly, not indiscriminate.
Even if we believe Hamas' numbers - which we should not - Gaza is not as bad as the worst U.S. soldiers have experienced in urban warfare. It should be four times worse.
Now let's throw on more numbers. Tokyo bombing: 100,000 civilians. The nuclear bombs: 200,000. I've been researching the number of Japanese who died from starvation after their surrender, and the numbers are too large to believe, but probably the order of a million. It's important to have these orders of magnitude in our heads.
Consider the casualties of a civil war among the most formidably armed citizenry in human history (that's us). Not to diminish to real-time tragedy suffered by Gazans, we are not using our imaginations to what mass casualties could really look like.
Edit: P.S. I'm so tempted to celebrate Mike Johnson's neocon revival. But remember Liz Cheney's warning about him. He was a coup plotter.
Agree about Mike Johnson. I’ll give him credit for Ukraine aid, but he’s a right wing religious extremist who is well outside the mainstream. Despite the tailored suit, I think he’d have no problem with turning this country into a theocracy.
Thank you for bringing attention to the issue of the number of casualties. This is one part of the conflict that is not regularly bringing questioned or brought to the attention of viewers that the numbers are from the Gaza Health Ministry which is Hamas, and therefore extremely questionable. I sympathize with the people of Gaza as I do the Israelis, however, I still think there is a selective outrage over this conflict. Bashar al-Assad killed hundreds of thousands of Arab non-combatants and there was no outrage. The Iraqi military, with US assistance, leveled Mosul, and no one cried foul. When you consider how densely populated the Gaza Strip is, it's honestly quite remarkable there are not more civilian deaths.
Every Republican anti-anti-trumper always asks “why won’t Biden do a sister souljah moment?” (Even though it’s a stupid comment and actually means little). Isn’t Biden’s actual Israel policy or talk about free speech or anti-semitism a sister souljah moment?
The original "Sister Souljah moment" was in June 1992, when challenger candidate Bill Clinton distinguished himself against extremist race politics from "his side."
The analogous moment for Biden was in June 2020, when he rejected the "defund the police" message.
Great podcast. Commenting on campus unrest. Unless you live near a university campus or you work or have a relative who is a student or employee, why would anyone care? Campus unrest has no effect on my life, but I understand that Biden wants it to stop. He is not responsible for the horrifying death in Palestine. Hamas and Natenyahu are. I feel terrible about antisemitism in general but I'm not seeing it here.
Finally, I hear people complaining about the protests being annoying, disruptive, destructive and generally a terrible pain in the ass. Well that just means they are successful because isn't that the point of protests? If they were quiet and polite no one should pay attention or care.
Pretty good Reagan impression from Will.
I tend to think the campus protests are getting outsized attention in proportion to their scale. They've already made themselves look pretty silly, and I'm just having a difficult time believing they're going to make much difference in the election. I do wish folks would be a little more careful about conflating these kids with the "youth vote." It's a small group of privileged, ideologically motivated college students who are nothing like representative of young Americans.
Once again (and The Bulwark is far from the only entity that does this), the entire "abortion" discussion centered around elective abortions. This issue is so much more than that. It's about the woman whose desperately-wanted baby dies inside of her, and her state won't provide her the appropriate medical care. It's about the woman with an incomplete miscarriage, and her state won't provide her the appropriate medical care. It's about the woman whose fetus has abnormalities incompatible with life, and her state won't provide her the appropriate medical care. I could go on.
It's about women deserving the full range of reproductive medical care, provided by her doctor and decided upon by her, not lawyers or politicians. Full stop.
I LOVED both episodes from Philly. Can’t wait to listen to next LIVE show
GREAT show! I sometimes take exception to things Bill says, but thoroughly enjoyed him on this. And Will, you've renewed my hope that the abortion issue will be significant.
The three of you + Sarah and JVL have such wonderful chemistry; it's a delight to watch any combo of you interact.
Finally, Will, I'm 67 years old and have never had pot in any form - joint, brownie, gummy, etc. But I've considered trying it if I'm somewhere it's legal!
Awesome guys, I laughed a lot
One day I cm going to make it to one of your live shows
Listened to the pod. Best yet. As unfiltered and dark as it was Philly was strangely comforting. Dry wit is in short supply these days and I welcome it.
Any person, group, or protest that does not put aside their grievance or purity test for Biden in essence are supporting Trump. When democracy is on the line the luxury of principles seems self indulgent and reckless.
Overall good show. But Tim seemed over the top to the point of distraction. Perhaps he should skip the beers.
Will, I appreciate your valiant effort at trying to find a pony...
Also, it was a fabulous show...thank you.
Trump doesn't want to be president to avoid jail. Trump wants to be president because his malignantly narcissistic self cannot let go of the trappings of the presidency: the most powerful person in the world, the white house, airforce one, etc. He surrounds himself with as much of that stuff as he can out of office.
Love your podcast, also TNL. I’m a lifelong DEM but you people have the best advice for a way out of this mess. Plus you’re funny (so is JVL). COME TO PHX!
That was the funniest episode to date - thank you. You might consider moving Bill to the Wednesday night slot permanently.
Excellent podcast. Just a few thoughts. As usual, regarding Gaza. First, I'm noticing we are no longer caveating Gaza casualty statistics with the disclaimer that these numbers come from Hamas. Hamas is supported by Iran (who wouldn't think twice about nuking Palestine along with Israel). These organizations are sophisticated enough that they've helped to manage protests and promulgate a narrative gobbled up by the NY Times, the Washington Post, and so on.
But if Hamas' casualty numbers of 40,000 are true, and if we also take Israel's estimates for the number of combatants killed as 10,000 to be true, in the annals of urban warfare, those numbers are small. The Battle of Manila, a city of 6 to 7 hundred thousand, experienced 100,000 civilians dead. Quadruple that population, add four times the expanse of what the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam were, and add the Islamists of Mosul, then you've got Gaza. Hamas says 75% of residential structures are bombed out, but only about 1.3% of non-Hamas Palestinians have died. That's extraordinary. That's amazing to me. Clearly, not genocide. Clearly, not indiscriminate.
Even if we believe Hamas' numbers - which we should not - Gaza is not as bad as the worst U.S. soldiers have experienced in urban warfare. It should be four times worse.
Now let's throw on more numbers. Tokyo bombing: 100,000 civilians. The nuclear bombs: 200,000. I've been researching the number of Japanese who died from starvation after their surrender, and the numbers are too large to believe, but probably the order of a million. It's important to have these orders of magnitude in our heads.
Consider the casualties of a civil war among the most formidably armed citizenry in human history (that's us). Not to diminish to real-time tragedy suffered by Gazans, we are not using our imaginations to what mass casualties could really look like.
Edit: P.S. I'm so tempted to celebrate Mike Johnson's neocon revival. But remember Liz Cheney's warning about him. He was a coup plotter.
Agree about Mike Johnson. I’ll give him credit for Ukraine aid, but he’s a right wing religious extremist who is well outside the mainstream. Despite the tailored suit, I think he’d have no problem with turning this country into a theocracy.
Thank you for bringing attention to the issue of the number of casualties. This is one part of the conflict that is not regularly bringing questioned or brought to the attention of viewers that the numbers are from the Gaza Health Ministry which is Hamas, and therefore extremely questionable. I sympathize with the people of Gaza as I do the Israelis, however, I still think there is a selective outrage over this conflict. Bashar al-Assad killed hundreds of thousands of Arab non-combatants and there was no outrage. The Iraqi military, with US assistance, leveled Mosul, and no one cried foul. When you consider how densely populated the Gaza Strip is, it's honestly quite remarkable there are not more civilian deaths.
Every Republican anti-anti-trumper always asks “why won’t Biden do a sister souljah moment?” (Even though it’s a stupid comment and actually means little). Isn’t Biden’s actual Israel policy or talk about free speech or anti-semitism a sister souljah moment?
The original "Sister Souljah moment" was in June 1992, when challenger candidate Bill Clinton distinguished himself against extremist race politics from "his side."
The analogous moment for Biden was in June 2020, when he rejected the "defund the police" message.
https://theintercept.com/2020/06/11/defund-the-police-joe-biden-cops/
Totally.
My point is I hear from the anti-anti’s “why won’t Biden do his sister souljah moment!?!”
I’m always like he does it all the time but you just want him to punch dems because that makes you feel good
Great podcast. Commenting on campus unrest. Unless you live near a university campus or you work or have a relative who is a student or employee, why would anyone care? Campus unrest has no effect on my life, but I understand that Biden wants it to stop. He is not responsible for the horrifying death in Palestine. Hamas and Natenyahu are. I feel terrible about antisemitism in general but I'm not seeing it here.
Finally, I hear people complaining about the protests being annoying, disruptive, destructive and generally a terrible pain in the ass. Well that just means they are successful because isn't that the point of protests? If they were quiet and polite no one should pay attention or care.
Getting attention is a step in successful protest, but not the last one.