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Bill Kristol: Be Alarmed

November 4, 2022
Notes
Transcript

Republican rhetoric is like rightwing Mad Libs — it’s also emboldening Putin over aid for Ukraine. Plus, Kari Lake juniors are surely coming our way, and Trump could get so antsy, he’ll announce on Election Day. Bill Kristol joins Charlie Sykes for the weekend pod.

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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:08

    Welcome to the Bullworn podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We have made it almost to the weekend and in my newsletter morning shots. I I just ran through a series of stories that you probably gotta keep your eye on. I mean, the world richest man begins mass layoffs at Twitter.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:23

    Which may actually be illegal because you’re supposed to give a sixty day warning before mass layoffs. And of course, this comes the day after the world richest man figured out that he wanted to shake down people for eight dollars a month for a meaningless blue check. New poll out nearly nine in ten Americans are concerned the political divisions intensified to the point, there’s an increased risk of politically motivated violence. More than six in ten Americans are very concerned. Meanwhile, the strange economic news continues.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:54

    Employers added two hundred and sixty one thousand jobs in October, assigned the economy is resilient. Meanwhile, the House Republicans not even waiting for the midterm elections to release a one thousand paid roadmap for Biden FBI probe. We talked about this on the podcast yesterday with Bart Gillman that we’re about to see probe palooza followed by an impeachment palooza from the House GOP. Meanwhile, the former guy Donald Trump says that Congress should impeach Mitch McConnell. I just I’m I’m gonna get the the popcorn out for all of this.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:27

    I’m not exactly sure how the Congress will impeach Mitch McConnell, but clearly he’s warming up for what’s going to be a lively twenty twenty three. Oprah snubs her old pal doctor Oz and endorses John Federman for the US senate. I’d actually forgotten. Believe it or not because there’s just so much going on. That doctor Oz became a thing because of Oprah, and apparently she’s feeling a little bit of, you know, some regret like many of us have also felt and gonna do something about it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:57

    And meanwhile, another ominous indication of what might be coming this new Wall Street Journal poll finding Republican opposition to helping Ukraine is growing. Forty eight percent of Republicans say that we’re doing too much to support Ukraine. This is something we’ve been warning about for some time, given the Republican id, the MAGA hostility to Ukraine, the fascination with the pro Putin wing of the party and the entertainment wing of the Republican party being all in in opposition to Ukraine. So to hash all of this out, our colleague, Bill Crystal. Good morning, Bill.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:35

    Good morning, Charlie. That’s a pretty impressive amount of hash we have to get through here. Well, and, of course, there’s this election next. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:42

    We don’t even have to talk about that. That’s gonna happen, you know. Yeah. That that that is gonna happen. At least from
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:47

    now, we will be so much smarter than we are right now. So let’s start with this. You we with Ukraine because I think this is really ominous. You know, we we we’ve had indications for some time that that Republicans support while it looked pretty solid, might be shaky, you had Kevin McCarthy indicating, hey, we’re not gonna be giving a blank check And then, with this yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Green, who apparently traveling the country because she’s now such a rock star. She’s at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, and this is what Marjorie Taylor Green had to say yesterday.
  • Speaker 3
    0:03:22

    Democrats have ripped our border wide open. But the only border they care about is Ukraine, not America’s southern border. Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:45

    Yeah. So, Bill Crystal, how alarmed should we be about this? I mean, I’ve probably underestimated, though, I shouldn’t have after these last five, six years, the degree to which the Magna Wright could drive let’s say, normal Republican public opinion as the journal suggests. Even Trump hasn’t been that outspoken on Ukraine and yet, Here we are, almost half Republicans being, what, very skeptical or hostile to aid you. Great.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:12

    Tom Cotton came out this morning and said, no, Republicans are gonna continue. Harming the Ukrainians and and helping Ukraine. And I think that’s there’s enough of the Republican conference. Certainly, the Republican conference has said and I think enough for Republicans in the House that there’s no real threat to Biden’s ability to continue, you know, doing what he has been doing, which I think is pretty good on Ukraine. But on the other hand, you know, those numbers have been moving.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:36

    Could they continue to move? Could the marshmallow, the green wing of the house cause a lot of trouble? I don’t think we literally can cut off the aid. Because they create a situation a little bit like the Democrats in o seven zero eight with Iraq. They didn’t ever cut off Bush’s ability to continue in Iraq and indeed to to surge troops in Iraq.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:52

    But they certainly conveyed the sense that we were gonna get out of their suit rather than later, and that turned out to be true. I mean, so could the Republicans make it harder for us to go to the Europeans and say, don’t worry. We’re there. We’re we’re solid. I mean, that part is dangerous.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:07

    It would be nice if Kevin McCarthy said something. Like what Tom Cotton said that no, no, no, March retail agreement. She has a right to over her opinion, but she does not speak for the Republican conference on this. But of course, Kevin McCarthy is pathetically cowardly and who knows one of even believes anymore. I mean, that is what strikes me.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:23

    Right? He he had Marcha’s yellow green with him when he announced that fake Republican agenda, what was that four, six weeks ago or something in prison workers’ hour ago? When the Democratic progressives, thirty of them signed a letter saying, ugh, not so much Ukraine. To the Democratic Party’s credit, and they do have the presidency, so it helps. But, you know, clearly, calls were made by Nancy Pelosi, for all we know, by the Biden White House and others.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:43

    And that letter was first everyone immediately distanced themselves from it, and then they ended up retracting it. So, you know, it’d be nice if anyone in the Republican party more people have more of a sense of responsibility. Not a serious matter of foreign policy. It’s one thing to investigate how to abide. And I’m not, you know, crazy about that, but whatever.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:59

    I mean, that’s that’s gonna happen. Right? Right. And that’s what parties do when they control Congress and and the other parties in the White House and so whatever. But really, and you create a fundamental matter, you know, real inflection point in in in in post cold war foreign policy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:13

    It’s unbelievably irresponsible that more people aren’t speaking up. To explain the case for helping Ukraine to our own voters and reassure our allies abroad at the Ukrainians, which is awfully important going forward. Well,
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:24

    you look at you look at the trend line as well, and Aaron Blake from the Washington Post laid this out. The percentage of Republicans who say that we’re doing too much to support Ukraine back in March, It was only six percent of Republicans by May that had risen to seventeen percent. In September, it was thirty two percent. And now it’s forty eight percent. So you see where it is going.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:45

    And the real world effect of this, you know, whatever the votes eventually are, has got to be to embolden Vladimir Putin. I mean, look, you know that in the Kremlin, he is sitting there. He is looking at these numbers. He is listening to this. I’m guessing that Marjorie Taylor Green’s sound bite will be played on Russian state television.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:02

    We’re going into a very difficult winter. This war is far from over. And any prospect that Vladimir Putin would feel while I’m cornered. I need to, you know, cut some sort of a deal. I need to withdraw.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:15

    No. It’s it’s undermined by this because this has to tell him that if he is just patient if he waits out that the United States, you know, might crack. And
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:25

    also, don’t you think he will take it maybe right after the election if Republicans win the House soon after the election if the Republicans went to the house, which does look likely. Mhmm. He’ll do some fake offer of a, you know, let’s have it in negotiation. Here’s a compromise. We’ll just keep three quarters of all the lands we’ve taken and, you know, ignore all the war crimes we’ve committed.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:44

    And part of the yellowgreen will say why aren’t they doing that? And before we know Kevin McCarthy, I still think Biden can resist it. And I think enough Republicans will resist it that it’s it’s, you know, we can keep up the policy. But I agree it’s it’s it’s ominous and it’s ominous. And then when the presidential campaign gets going, which I guess is gonna do in two or three weeks.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:02

    Right? Won’t the incentives be based on that trend line you just laid out for Republican candidates to go in that presidential candidates to go in that direction?
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:11

    Well, exactly. And and this is why I think that, you know, this is to the to the extent that that Congress will continue to fund Ukraine, it will have to be on a bipartisan basis because Mitch McConnell will not have fifty, fifty one votes to pass this. In the Republican congress, he will need democrats, same thing with with the House of Representatives. Which means that there’s going to be a really intense civil war among Republicans. You already have Trump saying that Mitch McConnell should be thrown out or he should be impeached.
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:40

    So every vote on this will become more fuel for the bubbling cauldron of outrage out there. So this will split the Republican party, I think rather significantly, and it will obviously play out in presidential politics. I mean, how that ends up? I don’t know. But I think we can see where the beating heart of the Republican Party is right now.
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:02

    Because, I guess, everything flows downhill. So, you know, I always to now look at the fever swamps and see something bubbling up over in the fever swam. And if you just wait long enough, that becomes the mainstream. And this has been the pattern over the last two years, hasn’t it? We’re crazy stuff that’s out there.
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:19

    The most bizarre outlandish positions, whether it’s replacement theory or election denialism, etcetera. You know, just give it a few months and then you wake up one day and you find out that it’s kind of a litmus test for Republicans and it’s become the mainstream of the Republican Party. I mean, isn’t that what we’ve learned in the last two years?
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:39

    Yeah. And what we’ve learned in the last two years, really the last six years also is that there’s one person who really can take something that’s bubbling and sort of making it into the mainstream, but there’s still some shying away from it and make it just dispositively a must believe for any Republican who wants to have a future, and that’s not all Trump. And that’s why I do think the the these are two different issues Ukraine and Trump’s presidential candidacy. They’re being reported as two different issues and they are. Different issues to some degree.
  • Speaker 2
    0:10:07

    But they really intersected this way. Trump will have a huge incentive, I think. If he looks at patents, SUSPRO, to Ukraine if maybe DeSantis had or he’s not he’s a governor. He hasn’t said much. But in in the house, he was a more normal internationalist, Republic, and even Pompeo has been for that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:10:24

    And Trump sees how do I discredit these guys who wanna be mini me’s, mini Trump’s, you know? How do and how do I discredit Penis, what she’s happy to do anyway? And how do I frame the race in a way that locks in everyone on on the magazine and behind me and that seems to be an increasing number as you were just saying from the trend lines, I’ve got to think Trump will be tempted when he announces two weeks after the election to make maybe to put Ukraine even front and center even though he hasn’t been that front and center on it. And then you’re in a different world, the most recent ex president, making this a litmus test, not just, you know,
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:55

    March retail agreed. I think that’s very likely to happen. You know, let’s so let’s keep our powder dry on on that because we we haven’t even gotten through the midterm and we’re gonna have this very, very short interregional before the presidential campaign starts Axios reporting that Trump is gonna announce on November fourteenth. We have plenty of time to speculate about who’s gonna run, whether there’s any way to stop him from getting the nomination. Again, you know, I had one thought — Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:21

    — on the director for team
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:22

    to speculate, referencing, to have the data correctly. If I were Trump, what is that the Monday after the election? After the election day and next so it’s less than a week and a half from now. Oh, my gosh. But, you know, I thought I’m afraid of them.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:32

    Why don’t you announce on election day? This I think it’s a rather clever idea, which I’m worried about putting out because maybe Trump will is listening to this, and we’ll we’ll we’ll do it. But you know, if you can imagine midday, Tuesday, November eighth Trump announces just by a tweet or something, I mean, doesn’t even have to do anything. And, I mean, Everyone will say, oh, how foolish Trump he doesn’t understand politics. He’s, like, he’s a different news cycle.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:52

    Of course, it would become a huge story on the one night when normal Americans are actually paying attention to politics. Right? It would hover over everything. If the Republicans do well. I don’t know.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:04

    I’m less confident of that or or fearful of that than most people. But whatever, they’ll do pretty well. They’re most likely with the house, at least. Trump gets to sort of take credit in real time if Kerry Lake wins in Arizona. Their his person is winning the night the day on the night of the day that he’s announced his candidacy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:20

    So I’m a little worried that Trump could even think, I probably won’t be this too. It is a little too con maybe too confusing just to announce it the same much in itself. I don’t know. Why isn’t that a non crazy
  • Speaker 1
    0:12:30

    idea? Actually, when you when you started talking, I thought this is a crazy idea. And but but you persuaded me that actually, there is there’s real method here. Maggie Habermann, I think, was on CNN and noted that, you know, conservative media has kind of pivoted away from Trump that Fox News never mentions You don’t think that Donald Trump knows this. So, you know, obviously, his job number one is to stay relevant.
  • Speaker 1
    0:12:51

    You know, I mean, his view of every news cycle is, is it about me or not? Are they talking about me or not? So the idea that Republicans would triumph without him standing up and saying me me me Yeah. No. I I I really get that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:13:06

    I I could see the appeal that it would have for him that he may officially announce a week from Monday but he might say something next Tuesday or Wednesday to basically say, look, this is all about Donald Trump winning. And it’s obviously very important for him because he’s obsessed with shaking the fact that he’s been a big loser. Right? I mean, the big thing that’s been hung over his head is, you know, you are a one term defeated, disgraced ex president who also managed to lose control of both the house and the senate, so for him to be able to stand up and say, See, I am I am not a loser. I am a winner.
  • Speaker 1
    0:13:41

    And look, you know, we’re gonna have the trifecta here. I I can see the appeal. And I’m feeling nauseous about it already. So is it Is it too early to start day drinking? I don’t know.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:52

    No. Never never never never too early. I bet. Yeah. Never
  • Speaker 1
    0:13:55

    never day drinking. Right? No. Okay. So on I have one more sound bite that I just wanted to share because and then this is not breaking news, but the just watching what this whole political season has done to people.
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:09

    And I I I continue to be have a morbid fascination with the devolution of the mind of JD Vance who I would like to remind people used to be a serious person who wrote bestselling books, who wrote for the New York Times who that would show up at things like, you know, the Aspen Ideas Festival that, you know, to talk about, you know, the forgotten American. And this is what he is reduced to going on Fox News. This was this is JD Vance talking about his Democratic opponent, Tim Ryan last night. If
  • Speaker 4
    0:14:38

    you look at his views on, for example, flooding America with illegal aliens and then using American tax dollars to fund gender reassignment surgeries, for those aliens. That’s exactly what
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:49

    Tim Ryan has proposed doing. It’s it’s it’s kinda like right wing Mad Libs. At this point. Right. It’s just like did these ideas were out there, the borders crime, gender reassignment, grooming, just you just throw all that shit together.
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:04

    And it just comes out JD Vance’s mouth. The transgender caravans are gonna be really something to, you know,
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:10

    quite a spectacle at the border, I suppose.
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:12

    The transgender caravans, yes, you know, all waving CRT books or something like that. Here in Virginia on CRT, I don’t know how international
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:20

    used to Scott. If I can the Glenn Youngkin having campaigned on it, set up a tip line, a complaint line — Yeah. — for critical race theory, for parents to call in. They stopped the ended the the the line. It’s on September thirtieth because there were so few calls coming in and so Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:37

    Just back
  • Speaker 4
    0:15:37

    in March. I mean, there was, like, three schools
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:39

    where there was teaching sort stupid stuff and inappropriate stuff, but it is kind of evaded. Reality doesn’t seem to matter, you know, and my father famously said he was a neo conservative because he he was a liberal who’d been mugged by reality. Don’t know. No one since you get bugged by reality these days and — Yeah. — reality is just ignore it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:55

    Right? Real yeah. Exactly. That really is true, you know. So we
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:00

    are both of an age that we remember in real time the whole Pauline Kale story. Mhmm. I wrote about her don’t be Pauline Kale. Although what I should have written as soon as I press and I realized that I that the headline should have been we are all Pauline Kayle these days. Now for people people for the Youngs out there, Polly and Kaye was a very famous, very prominent movie critic.
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:21

    Right? For the New York. Right? For the New York. Right.
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:22

    I’m a find the most name is in America, I would
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:24

    say, at that time. That was
  • Speaker 4
    0:16:25

    dope. Yeah. She was
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:26

    she was dominant, but she’s largely at least in in political circles remembered for something that she allegedly said after the nineteen seventy two election, Richard Nixon won this massive landslide And allegedly, she said that Nixon couldn’t have won because she didn’t know anybody who voted for him, and that was that was equipped, that was recycled in conservative circles for a long time is sort of an example of, you know, hermetic, liberal, provincialism, you know. And what what’s interesting is as I was looking this up, I I noticed that the her defenders in the New York were were very indignant, very angry, insisting she never actually said this. This is a fraudulent factoid. But what she did say in a speech to the Modern Language Association was, and here’s her her direct quote, I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon.
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:16

    Where they are? I don’t know. They’re outside my can, but sometimes when I’m in a theater, I can feel them. So as John Maduro had said, this was that was actually even worse than what had been attributed because it indicates the kale was acknowledging her provincialism living in a special world. And from its purge, expressing her distace for the unwashed masses with whom she sometimes had to share a movie theater What this indicates is that even then, liberal provincialism was as proud of its provincialism as any babbitt.
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:49

    And it strikes me that the reason we remember that was because she basically said, I’m in a bubble and I have no idea who these people are. And yet, Bill, I’m sensing that almost everybody lives in that bubble. We we’re kind of all pulling kale. So so next week, if there’s a senator, you know, Hershel Walker and Blake Masters and Carolina, we’re all gonna look at each other in in saying, who are these people? I don’t know any of these people.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:12

    Right? So we’re all in this mutual incomprehensible. Yeah. And
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:17

    I think Mago World is if there’s a senator, which I think that could well be actually Mark Kelley reelected, and and and Rafael Wernock reelected. MaguWorld’s gonna say, who are those people? Like, did we didn’t know people moved to Atlanta and that there’s now a much younger and more diverse electorate there. And we didn’t — Exactly. — Phoenix is full of people who don’t like Trumpism.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:34

    So I yeah. The whole country is so is is I mean, the reason the public health thing, I think, was funny. And I I always wonder whether she was saying it’s somewhat ironically herself knowingly, you know. And then I guess that quote, of course, is so great about the unwashed masters being near in the theater. But it shows that she understood in a way that she was in a bubble.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:52

    But at the time, it seemed weird to be in a bubble. I mean, I think you and I remember this as we were all in bubbles. Of course, we do that. I grew up with the west side of my head. I didn’t think the rest of the country was like that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:01

    But when I came to Washington in nineteen eighty five, more than half the states had a Republican senator and a Democratic senator. I think this number is correct. The twenty six states had one Republican and one democrat. So in the case of New York, it was more than had a tomorrow, but it was certainly true in many states. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:17

    And Wisconsin had that many times too, I think, didn’t they? Mhmm. And now six states have a Republican and a Democratic senator, forty four — Right. — or or Republican at all Democrat. And it’s twenty two each, but that’s fifty fifty Senate.
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:30

    And almost all those twenty two states also voted for the candidate of that party for president and also have a governor of that party. So, I mean, the truth is we are really much more siloed than we were in nineteen seventy two when you could joke about being siloed, you know, and this is geographical phenomena, sorting phenomenon, social economic phenomenon, and social media phenomenon, and Fox News, MSNBC phenomenon, a lot of it’s beyond anyone’s control. To be fair, it’s something people have necessarily chosen this as a, you know, the way to go to organize the country. But I think it is a striking phenomenon, though. Well,
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:04

    it is. And and I think this is gonna be something that we’re gonna have to wrestle with, you know, particularly with twenty twenty four, you know, hanging over our heads right now is that is that if there is this Republican sweep in both the House and the Senate and you’re someone more optimistic, I think, than others, and that we are looking at some of these deplorables winning, we’re gonna have to take kind of a deep breath. And, you know, unless you’re gonna engage in election denialism, we have to acknowledge that most of those people will be elected Democratic with the exception of the voter intimidation thing.
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:33

    Right? Absolutely. No. And I think I think this is a very important point you’re making, which has this implication that won’t Democrats Let’s say it was a mixed bag and and and whatever, you know, it’s it’s gonna be close either way. The truth is the biggest picture point to make about this election.
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:47

    Is the country is fifty fifty divided, which it has been in the past, but it’s now fifty fifty divided between a democratic party that’s pretty much where it was two or four or six years ago, honestly, I would say. And a Republican party that is much work stream than it was even in twenty twenty. And so that’s for me the biggest story that the Republican party has become more Trump as more extreme, more conspiratorial, more trucking at violence against eighty two year old man and so forth, and they’re paying no price. So that’s a worrisome thing about the country. But don’t you think that consequence of this is if you’re an actual Democrat who wins in a swing state.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:23

    If Tim Ryan wins, honestly, if he loses my point or two in a state like Ohio, which trunk carried by aid. If Gretchen Whitmer wins by six points in Michigan, don’t people think gee, that’s the kind of Democrat. We do need to have Democrats who can win SaaS like that. I don’t know how much effect that has. The democratic party has its own dynamics.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:40

    Maybe they all decide, you know, what we need is just more progressivism and more, you know, we weren’t woken up here in twenty twenty two. Kind of think though the dynamic in the Democratic Party could go much more in the who and the Democratic Party can speak to these voters we we really desperately need. Oh,
  • Speaker 1
    0:21:56

    and they urgently need to have that discussion. Look, I I know I’ve I’ve been beating on this drum of, you know, the the same drum that Ruvi Teixeira has been beating on, which is, like, look, understand that, you know, the key to the future rests with Democrats who can win in these swing areas, not the AOCs of of the world. And I and I think that this is what’s important, and I and I hope that is the discussion that, you know, the the Tim Ryan’s who run effective race or the Gretchen Whitmer who ran an effective race? And also, to ask this really important question, that given how crazy and stream and reckless and irresponsible and content free the Republican party in terms of policy. The Republican party has become Democrats really have to ask themselves this really tough question.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:44

    Why can’t we
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:45

    beat these
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:46

    guys? Why can’t we beat the most reckless, woolly conspiracy theory, Layton party out there. What are we doing wrong? What No. No.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:57

    I’m getting at here. I mean, at a certain point, this needs to be a very urgent question. You know, that you’re looking at a party that is going to be empowering Marjorie Killeguin and Lauren Colbert. And Matt Gates and Jim Jordan. And, yeah, it’s deplorable, but Democrats have to ask themselves what kind of political malpractice leads a point where we can’t beat these guys.
  • Speaker 1
    0:23:16

    And
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:16

    the people we’re talking to in this might be a good blank agenda for the podcast for the next ones or the Democrats who either will have won survived or gain votes conceivably as an aisle or will lose in on Tuesday. In districts where they ended up getting pulled down, not by their own deeds, but by the parties in Virginia here where I live. Both Elaine Lurie and Abigail’s Bamburger are in very, very tight races. Mean, I would they would be worth talking to us. They’ve actually will have campaigned for the last two months of last year, really, and will have lived the experience of having been had this not being able to convince voters of having pretty wacky Republican opponents and having paid a price for what other Democrats and others on the left have done.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:58

    So I think talking to the Spann burgers and Louriers and Slockins of the world, whether they win or lose, because they’re gonna be in close races either way. Will be very important, I think, for the future of the Democratic Party, whether they’ll have that discussion or whether they’ll just be a kind of denial or circling of the wagons or let’s get to work on the Biden reelect. You know, that was a depressing piece the other day on the Washington Post, like, forty DNC, Democratic National Committee staff has been working on the Biden reelect. Really? Maybe they could go to Georgia and and and Nevada and Arizona and Pennsylvania and actually make sure try to make sure that elections rise become governor.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:33

    I mean, that that could have been a little more of a priority for for the party and helped him ride in Ohio where he did almost nothing, so very little. So he’s visited I don’t know. Which is bizarre. I mean, I just feel like it’s not the best organized and the most focused party in the world, but maybe they’ll maybe they’ll do okay anyway. Well
  • Speaker 1
    0:24:49

    and the reason why this is an urgent conversation is because if in fact these crackpots do win democratically, if this is the choice of the voters. You know, we have to figure out what the hell happened to those voters because they could do even worse in twenty twenty four, which, you know, again, brings you back a pulley and kale where you can go, I have no idea what happened there. You know, the economy is wonderful. Crime is a nonexistent debt. What problem at the border?
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:16

    At some point, there’s going to have to be some reckoning with all of that. And I understand that what’s happened is that I think there’s been kind of a bubble formed around Democrats where they can turn on cable shows and read websites and people will reassure them, oh, don’t worry about a crime issue. The crime issue is not that bad. Here’s a church showing it’s not really there. When the reality is that every public opinion poll will say that people are very concerned about inflation.
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:41

    They’re very concerned about the economy. They are very concerned about crime and about illegal immigration. And if you do not aggressively address those questions and deal with the problem that your party has in addressing those questions, then However, bad twenty twenty two is going to be it’s going to be much more dire in twenty twenty four. Yeah. And having the White House makes it harder to
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:03

    do that because I think no one wants to meet this loyal. And so, quote, addressing the questions might suggest that, you know, the Biden White House has to look perfect in doing so. I mean, if can they make an adjustment as the Clinton administration did after ninety four? One forgets the first two years that was all Hillary’s healthcare plan. Spent a you and I spent a fair amount.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:21

    It’s like criticizing that as I recall. That went down. That disappeared. Then suddenly, we’re doing welfare reform, and Clinton was, you know, debating advise they had. It was all different look for the Clinton administration and and Republicans overplayed their head, which will happen again.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:34

    I I do think this is where I I’ve thinking about a lot about Biden recently whether he should run or not, which I’ve always been very skeptical that he should just because I think it’s I honestly just be too old in two years, let alone six years. But I also think the chance for a fresh look for fresh thinking of the Kanye and I’ve been calling for implies to me that unlike Clinton who was a young man and who was able to pivot and was good at it. I mean, I just think we they need fresh faces here at the top of the Democratic Pelosi is gonna step down. You can sell this and and it legitimately is a generational turnover, which is a good thing, you know. But part of that generational turnover has to be and this new generation is in touch with more of America than perhaps unfortunately the older generation
  • Speaker 1
    0:27:16

    was. I don’t disagree with you. I just am trying to figure out who that would be. And and and whether
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:21

    or not if you’re gonna get overdentic and, you know, how kind of I mean, this is what happens. You know? People like Charlie come along and raise these kind of Give me a name, quite a minute. Like a name. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:32

    I could give you a few, but whatever. This is why we have a healthy process that we’ll just that we’ll turn up these people, you know.
  • Speaker 4
    0:27:39

    So you and I
  • Speaker 1
    0:27:41

    haven’t spoken since the attack on Paul Pelosi and I continue to regard this as just one of the darkest, you know, moments in a series of dark moments. And now you have this new Washington Post poll out showing that basically ninety percent of Americans have sided that, hey, you know, we are kinda concerned about the threat of political violence. And I have to tell you nothing that happened this week has reduced that threat in any way as far as I can say. What do
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:08

    you think? Well, I think you’ve been excellent in the newsletters on the Pelosi question. I mean, on the reaction to the attack and how horrifying it is that people don’t feel they need to say this is terrible and we obviously have sympathy from mister Pelosi and but also that we need to we’re gonna tell anyone who is misunderstanding our own messages. This is what you would say if you were a public opposition. To think that you’re entitled to use violence against elected officials or anyone else, that is wrong.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:33

    I mean, that’s what would have been said. And to be fair, that’s what the Democratic Biden said it after the shooting of two schools. And it’s what everyone should be saying. And the fact that so few have stepped up to say it or they said it so grudgingly or like Glenn Youngkin, there was one sentence buried in the midst of a we’re sending Nancy Pelosi home. Did no one even thought that you would pause the attack ads on Pelosi side, which have fairly violent sort of adjacent language you might say in them.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:58

    I mean, it’s really I agree. I’ve been also a little rattled by the reaction to Pelosi, but I’ve been worried all along and I’m worried incidentally. I mean, I suppose if they win on election night to Gary Lake and others, they won’t, you know, they’ll be less potential for violence. But if Carrie Lake is ahead when we go to sleep at eleven PM, midnight in Arizona, and she’s fallen behind because they found they count all the early vote or late votes come in and so forth, or the state might have in Pennsylvania with us. I’m very worried of my violence next week, not just individual attacks on people that’s bad too, but I’m worried that, you know, Carrie Lake will say this is an outrage.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:36

    I’m they’re they’re stealing the election. You need to show them they can’t do this and ten thousand armed people will descend on the convention center wherever they’re counting the ballots in Phoenix. And you know, and then people want to mobilize. And I do
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:48

    not find that far fetched at all. And this is a good moment to just remind people, and, you know, this what what do we call the red Mirage factor, which we talked about endlessly and was reported endlessly in twenty twenty, and yet it didn’t make a difference. The red Mirage being, look, the early votes, the day of votes, will favor Republicans. They will do very, very well. Those votes tend to be counted quickly.
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:16

    In many states, the early votes are counted later. Like, for example, in Wisconsin and in Pennsylvania,
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:22

    that’s just the way it is it is set up. So what did it be set up? Yeah. I continue to be set up, which means that they are inviting the
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:28

    kind of misunderstanding that you’re about to explain. Right? Well, exactly. So early on, yes, you will have Republicans in the lead or potentially in the lead in places like Arizona, in Wisconsin, and in Pennsylvania. And then as the completely legal vote are counted in the completely legal and predictable way that lead will diminish.
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:50

    And what Donald Trump has figured out is that if you simply clear victory when you are ahead and make it look like there’s something nefarious when the later votes come in, then you can convince millions of people that the election is being stolen. And as you point out, in a place like Arizona where we’ve already seen, you know, armed masked people show up a drop box is, it is not at all far fetched. This scenario you just laid out that people would descend upon the accounting center and saying, you know, stop the count, stop the steal. We’re gonna fight for our democracy, and god knows what happens then. So if we’ve learned anything, it’s that even when we’re alarmed, we are perhaps insufficiently alarmed.
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:33

    Isn’t
  • Speaker 4
    0:31:33

    that one of the lessons we learned? Totally. And I I think so. Yes. Someone who was so alarmed and I think was right to have been alarmed and the press
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:41

    you say probably insufficiently alarmed. And what we were most just to get back to the sort of big picture of the forest, not the trees of the last years. We were alarm. The reason we were anti Trump, people would say, oh, why are you never Trump and just like him? Or you didn’t agree with him on trade policy?
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:54

    I mean, the reason we were never Trump is that we thought this is kind of thing could happen after four or six years of Trump. And it’s happened. It may have happened even in a worse way than an honestly, that I expected in terms of the permeating of the Republican Party and therefore of the country to some degree of, you know, really dangerous hatreds and passions and demigodgery and and resentments and so forth, feelings of victimization, which then legitimize anything. And then, of course, the conspiracies and the lies, which that part I got to say I didn’t even quite expect if you were talking about kind of the conspiracy theories and bubbles, the big lie being so pervasive, the big lie then, of course, being used, to promote elections to version going forward. It’s not just a lie going back about things that happened in the past, you know.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:35

    It’s a little worse than I perspective, which is why we were never Trump, but it’s even worse as you say. And Trump’s gonna go to Pennsylvania on Saturday. That’s his final rally. And master analyst so far back, it’s hard to believe that there’s a real chance to do that much trouble in that race. But if OS Federman is very close, Trump is already laying the groundwork in Pennsylvania, and he’s looking head to his own presidential bid, obviously, for a kind of chaos uncertainty for some violence.
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:03

    And that all helps him going forward. I mean, that is to say that’s the world he wants to exist in twenty twenty three. And twenty twenty four for his presidential campaign. Pat Tumi should stand up on Saturday and say, Trump’s coming to my state. I’m not gonna be there, but I’m gonna say this.
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:18

    We need to be possible on Tuesday night. We need to let the votes be counted. The state legislature decided to count the early vote later. That’s fine, but then we need to let that vote happen. Patumi is the current senator, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, but others need to say it too.
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:31

    And are they gonna bother saying it or are they just gonna be, you know, busy cleaning out their offices and the capital and and looking to their next jobs. I don’t know. I mean, Rob Portman went to didn’t he go abroad this week to the current Republican senator from Ohio? To show support for Ukraine. He’s been very strong on the Ukraine issue, but he’s supporting JD Vance for the senate.
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:49

    I mean — Yeah. — the the Republican the collapse of the Republican establishment and of conservative elites remains very damaging, I think. Well, I
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:57

    I agree. And I was, you know, I was thinking about this that I I thought and you would get as well that that would be bad, you know, a Trump presidency and and what, you know, Trump dominance would would mean. I thought it would be very bad and continually, you know, over the last few years, thought that it was going to be even worse. However, it’s gotten so much worse than I expected. And for exactly the reasons that you just mentioned, I mean, the the speed, the velocity with which the lies are spread and then accepted the complete collapse of the Republican establishment.
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:27

    By now, this seems like an old story, but it seems to be picking up momentum And so we’re talking about, you know, the the lessons that would be learned from a Republican victory next week. Obviously, Vladimir Putin is gonna take, you know, a certain saw us from from that, and I think it’s gonna embolden him to continue his campaign of aggression and genocide. But also, I think unfortunately, if you’re gonna have the margetailer greens and the cherry lakes and others look at the election results and they will see that as a vindication of their recklessness. That they will that it will underline the fact that they can laugh about the attack on Paul Pelosi without any consequences. That there are no consequences for the extremism.
  • Speaker 1
    0:35:10

    And and I think that that’s something that that you point out. Donald Trump is basically going to, you know, come squanning in and saying, see, remember all the people who said that if we became, you know, crazy and extreme and bigoted that it would be electoral disaster? No. Follow me, and we will win these elections. And we’re gonna continue to win these elections.
  • Speaker 1
    0:35:31

    And I think that’s gonna be very demoralizing to the handful of of Republicans who, you know, keep their heads down are sort of just hoping that some meteor of death comes and saves them from another Trump regime. Right? I mean, they’re There are just so many of them. I’m sure you talk to them. I’m just kinda waiting for this to pass.
  • Speaker 1
    0:35:48

    Republican victory is going to reinforce all of those bad tendencies, I think. Especially if the most election denying Republicans and many of whom Trump
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:00

    is recruited to ride and supported wear. I mean, I guess I’d make two points one, which is separate, is that I also think, of course, Washington, the green will be emboldened, but a ton of younger people or people who are thinking of running in twenty four, people who are thinking of stepping off from state legislature, what’s the lesson they take? The lesson they take is, you know, how you succeed in American politics state and the Republican Party? Your Kerry Lake or your Kerry Lake junior. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:20

    And so the degree of of of that and Marjorie Yellow Green and and and there everyone else like that. And so the the degree to which the parties, complexion will continue to change before our eyes with the kind of people who will choose not to run-in twenty twenty four. And I’m not even thinking of incumbents, some of that will be could be some of that portman, you know, SaaS to a leaving phenomenon, but also the forty two year old decides enough, you know what, I’m not gonna run that kind of race. Gonna go into business. I’m gonna go back to the family.
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:49

    Right. Whatever. Why not? And the forty two year old who’s not, you know, in office who’s thinks, I can be Lauren Wilbur and I can be largely JL degree. You know, I I figure out how to do that, and I have a little done it a little bit locally in my Facebook group, and now I’m gonna do a big time.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:00

    So I think that I think you’re you’re very right to focus on the trend the direction, the velocity of change. You know? It’s not a stable situation. It can go more in this direction. The other point I’d make more Trump specific is for Trump, he’ll declare victory no matter what happens, of course.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:16

    And he’ll he’ll say he was responsible for everything good that happened, and Mitch McConnell was responsible for everyone who lost or whatever. So But I I think who there are a bunch of candidates who really wouldn’t be there without Trump. They probably wouldn’t have run without Trump, and they wouldn’t have won their primaries without Trump. So that I say that would be Carrie Lake, Oz in Pennsylvania, Hersha Walker in Georgia. Mhmm.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:36

    You’re fine. Kubernetorial candidate there in Wisconsin.
  • Speaker 1
    0:37:38

    Tim Michaels. Okay.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:39

    Tim Michaels. It was literally with Trump. Kind of recruit and support. I mean, if three or if most of them all then win or most of them win, I think that’s a big I mean, that really helps Trump. I just think Trump says, look, I picked these people early.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:52

    They won the primaries because of me. Everyone said, oh, well, you’re really killing yourself in the general election, the Democrats. Spent money to help Carrie Lake win the primary because, oh, that’s she could ever win a general. If she were to win, I’m not, you know, I think it’s fifty fifty out there. But if she wins, it’s so much strengthens Trump’s head and Trump’s head in general in the Republican Party.
  • Speaker 2
    0:38:11

    I think people haven’t quite focused on that, but I I think that’s that’s a general phenomenon about who wins and what the general distribution of seats is in the House of the Senate of the Governors, but they’re probably, and I’m I’m missing some. There are like a half dozen, maybe a dozen particular races, pretty high profile races where Trump could say that he wouldn’t be lying incidentally I picked them. I picked them. People told me this was a mistake. They won the primary.
  • Speaker 2
    0:38:35

    They won the general election. Who’s the guy who can deliver in twenty twenty four? I mean, he will say that, and there’ll be some credibility to it? Well, and given how important it is
  • Speaker 1
    0:38:42

    to his persona to be a winner, he’s really going to wallow in this. And and as you point out, he’s not he’s not going to be wrong about this. So I intend to spend a lot of time thinking about and reading about nineteen ninety five. Yeah. Next year, you remember this, of course, extremely well when the Republicans swept into power, and there was just tremendous optimism of the Republicans.
  • Speaker 1
    0:39:03

    There’s a sense that that the Clinton administration had been completely credited. He was, you know, he was gonna be a one term president. And yet, we saw what happened with their overreach. My guess is that the overreach of the next Congress will be exponentially greater and worse than what you saw in nineteen ninety five. I just don’t think they’ll be able to help it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:39:24

    Yeah. That sounds right to me. Especially the house
  • Speaker 2
    0:39:27

    and also Trump is probably gonna get indicted. So what happens then? They impeach Merrick Garland the next day. They they they they defund, huge to try to defund. They won’t succeed in this.
  • Speaker 2
    0:39:36

    But in huge chunks of the justice department, the whole investigation of Trump, they’ll try to def I mean, I think the degree of craziness, Abe, our friend, Abe started right at this point in that. Think I had a podcast with you and then in a piece with conversation with me and then in a couple of pieces of the full work, I mean, the degree of craziness in twenty twenty three, the interaction of Trump possibly being invited to Trump running for president, Republicans, let’s assume, winning the house and being very close to the senate and and the more extreme parts of the political party being in the driver’s seat after the election. I mean, the intersection of all those things question of whether Biden’s gonna run or not, causing a Pelosi stepping down, which means the Democrats are more fractured. I I mean, it’s just gonna wow. It’s gonna be pretty crazy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:18

    Right? I I really don’t feel like, you know, ninety five is a good analogy. It was a gig which was a new speaker. That’s nothing compared to
  • Speaker 1
    0:40:23

    this though. Yeah. Yeah. Less
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:26

    than this is gonna
  • Speaker 1
    0:40:27

    be. Actually, as you run through it, we’re gonna think back of nineteen ninety five as just a kinder gentle and much calmer period. Right. In brief
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:34

    coverage, that out a little bit of jousting, which is in Ganglish and Clinton. Yeah. Right. Exactly.
  • Speaker 1
    0:40:37

    Some some awkward sound bites about the future of Medicare, and that was pretty much it. Actually, I it’s it’s hard to come up with a year. We’re doing this in advance, that we already know that twenty twenty three is going to be one of the most intense fraud political years ever. And I’m trying to think back and, you know, nineteen sixty eight. I don’t know.
  • Speaker 1
    0:40:56

    What what would be an analogy to what we’re about to experience? And of course, we have no idea. Yeah. Which is why we’ll keep doing this podcast. Don’t you think?
  • Speaker 1
    0:41:04

    Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Bill,
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:05

    have a great
  • Speaker 1
    0:41:06

    weekend. I appreciate it every time you come on. Thanks, Charlie. It was a pleasure. The Bowler podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Siri.
  • Speaker 1
    0:41:16

    I’m Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. We’ll be back tomorrow and do this all over again. Yep.
  • Speaker 4
    0:41:27

    You’re worried about
  • Speaker 5
    0:41:29

    the economy. Inflation is high. Your
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    0:41:32

    paycheck doesn’t cover as much as it used to, and we live under the threat of a looming recession. And you’re doing
  • Speaker 5
    0:41:38

    okay, but you could be doing better. The
  • Speaker 1
    0:41:40

    afford anything podcast explains the economy and the market detailing how to make wise choices on the way you spend and invest. Afford
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    0:41:47

    anything, talks about how to avoid common pitfalls, how to refine your mental models, and how to think about how to think. Make smarter choices and build a better life. Afford anything wherever you listen.
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