Bill Kristol: The Intersection of Trump and Roe

The Fulton County Board of Health provides a variety of important services that help the county citizens live healthier lives. Offering the bivalent COVID nineteen vaccine is one of them, This booster is designed specifically to protect against both the original and Omnicron strains of the virus. Vaccines work and can keep you and your family safe. So get boosted. Do it for yourself and for those you love.

Learn more at Fulton County b o h dot com and follow hashtag vaccines work to learn about our COVID nineteen vaccination efforts.

Good morning, and welcome to the Bulwark podcast on Travex. It is Friday, September ninth two thousand twenty two, a day after the end of the second Elizabethan era. The BBC

is interrupting its normal programs to bring you an important announcement. This is BBC News from London. Buckingham Palace has announced the death of her majesty, Queen Elizabeth the second. In a statement, the palace said the queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The king and the queen consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.

BBC television is broadcasting this special program, reporting the death of her majesty, the

queen.

Well, that’s remarkable. And I’m joined by my colleague, Bill Crystal in this weekend’s Bulwark podcast. First of all, good morning, Bill. Good morning, Charlie. So here we are a bunch of Americans sitting around celebrating the life and reign of the queen of England I mean, you know, among the many remarkable things I wanna touch on here, the fact

that

that you you watched the American media yesterday and it was one of the wall coverage of the death of a monarch that a monarchy that we had actually rebelled against some time ago, and apparently, those those are still the ties that bind. Aren’t there?

I think it is a remarkable, you know, you played that clip and actually it chills, you know, in my listen to it. But I’ve always discounted my own sort of interest in and fondness for Britain. And various institutions and trappings of of, you know, British history and society. Because I I did spend the first four or five years of my life there, not that I remember anything of that, but my father entered a magazine there, and my mother was a historian primarily of Great Britain. So always said, okay.

I’m unusual just because of accident of birth and family and having a kind of feeling a connection to, you know, to Britain, but obviously, there’s no reason most Americans, not nine percent of Americans should have the slight, you know, resonance it has for me, not so slight maybe, but and but it turns out as you say that an awful lot of Americans hey, they well, they look, they were our great allies in the last in the two great wars in the twentieth century, and that maybe Trump’s the revolution of almost two hundred and fifty years ago. And then the seventy year reign

and the it’s it is just kind of extraordinary thing in so many ways. Well, and she’s such an extraordinary woman. I I I in my newsletter, I

let off with the BBC obituary where they which began the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II was marked by her strong sense of duty and her determination to dedicate her life to her throne and to her people. She became for many the one cons in point in a rapidly changing world is British influence decline society changed beyond recognition and the role of the monarchy itself came into question, Her success in maintaining the monarchy through such turbulent times was even more remarkable given that at the time of her birth no one could have foreseen the throne would be her destiny. And as I wrote to, hey, you know, turbulent times is kind of classic British understatement. I mean, you know, her the arc of her life spans a century that saw the world broken apart, remade again and again. So even though and I guess I was struck by this as well.

I mean, she’s ninety six years old. This is not like a huge surprise, but her death did come as kind of a shock to a lot of people. And I I think it’s because she was that sort of rock of stability in this world. And, you know, she wasn’t just Quench was the Queen who most of her lives. But also, you know, Billy, it really strikes me what a counter cultural figure she is.

When you think about that she’s being celebrated, not because of any policies or accomplishments or wars one, but because of the strength of her character. And the sense of duty and the contrast between sort of, you know, the modern sensibility about, you know, it’s all about me and all about, you know, kind of no triviality of of celebrity. We are talking about a woman who is just characterized by her sense of self sacrifice and duty and those values, and it really does seem like a throwback to a lost world. Yeah. No.

That’s what I said, and you said it well

also in the something relating to the newsletter and we should read that and think about that. I mean, I guess, for me, I would just add one thing This again comes maybe particularly for my own interest. And the fact that she became queen of Winston Churchill was prime minister, and there’s a very moving speech by Churchill, which will to an audio of announcing the death of her father, King George, and and then welcoming saying, God saved the queen, you know, for the first time almost to to day or two after King George’s death. Just as we’re now say, the crowds in London this morning, we’re singing God Save the King in for the first for the first time at seventy years, you know. And so that it’s a link to Churchill.

She was a living link to Churchill. She was a teenager during the war. But, you know, Churchill was prime minister for the, I guess, what, first two, three years of her reign. And Churchill was Churchill. And nineteen forty, in my opinion, still kind of one of the greatest moments in history really, the Britain standing alone, you know, against against the Nazis, us helping some, but, you know, not engaged yet.

And so I think there’s that too. Don’t you think it’s her her own personal steadfastness and and sense of duty, and then the real the connection to one of the really, you know, greatest moments of the defense of freedom in in in world history, and she wasn’t quite involved herself, but but she was very much of a living lake to it. Well, she was

very much a living link to it. And, you know, for a lot of the people in the world today, did I see this statistic that ninety percent of the people alive today were born after she became queen. So, I mean, for a lot of for the vast majority of people in the world, certainly in this country, that’s ancient history. And yet, that was part of her life and and her legacy. And it was an extraordinary legacy.

I mean, she became you know, the accidental queen in some in some ways because she was not really close in the line of succession until until her uncle Edward the eighth, rather flamboyantly, abdicated the throne so he could get married to an American divorcee. Maybe a foreshadowing of things that’s gonna happen to the royal family. And so she had to hold everything together after her father died, but No. You’re going back to that that greatest moment during World War two and the role that her father played in in uniting Britain and of course reminding people why they still wanted a monarchy. But even as a teenager, she played a significant role.

And that she introduced herself or she was introduced to the the the British people. By making, which is remarkable now, making radio addresses think when she was about fourteen, fifteen years old — Mhmm. — to the country. And this is a little bit of extended tape, but

keep

in mind that this took place in the middle of World War two were a teenage girl named Elizabeth who could never imagine you know, what her life would be like or how the world would change. This other teenage girl spoke to the British people in one of their darkest hours. In

wishing you all good evening, I feel that I am speaking to friends and companions. Who have shared with my sister and myself, many are happy children’s hour. Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers. My sister, Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you. As we know from experience, what it means to be away from those we love most of all to you living in new surroundings we send a message of true sympathy.

And at the same time, we would like to thank the kind people who have welcomed you to their homes in the country.

All of

us children who are still at home think continually of our friends and relations who have gone overseas, who have traveled thousands of miles to find a wartime home and a kindly welcome in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States of America. My sister and I feel we know quite a lot about these countries.

Our

father and mother have so often talked to us of their visits to different parts of the world. So it is not difficult for us to picture the sort of life you are all leading and to think of all the new sites you must be seeing. And the adventures you must be having. But I am sure that you too are often thinking of the old country. I know you won’t forget us.

It is

just because we are not forgetting you, but I want on behalf of all the children at home to send you our love and best wishes to you and to your kind hosts as well. Before I finish, I can truthfully say to you

all.

That we children at home are full of carefulness and courage. We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant, sailors, soldiers, and salmon. And we are trying to to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war. We knew every one of us But in the end, all will be well. For God will care for us and give us victory and peace.

And

so at the age of ninety six, the queen passes away. And of course, Britain will spend the next fortnight. In very formal and very formal morning and, of course, introducing itself to the new king, which is gonna take take a little while getting

used to the idea of King Charles the third bill. Yeah. It is. I mean, that speech was kind of amazing. It was — Yeah.

— not kind of. It was silly. First of all, one forgets how many children from London went to the countryside, I believe. Right? I mean, a lot more sensitive than relatives, even not relatives.

So maybe the immigrant children the children took in from Europe, went off into the countryside, slugs was too dangerous in nineteen forty with the blitz. The king, I’ve if I’m not mistaken, I’d rather famously refused to leave London, you know. The height of the blitz and that was quite important and Churchill thought that was quite important for rallying the country. But it was a fair number went abroad if they had relatives as as as princess says in in in Canada and elsewhere. And so, you know, again, it just brings home what a moment nineteen forty was.

This was, you know, it is, like, Ukraine today in the sense that they were, you know, people had to leave. I think or if they couldn’t contribute to war, I thought it was safer for them to leave and friendly better for them to leave. So people didn’t have to worry about them and and so forth. So the whole thing is is reminds one of so many things about speeches. There’s so many church chili and phrases formulations in it.

And I suppose the Churchill was giving those speeches real time any confidence we tried to could have simply appropriated them from Churchill’s, but one sort of wonders why the Churchill didn’t personally. Have a hand in that way. I’ve never read the history of that, but, you know, it’s just some some of the formulations are so much like Churchill’s own, especially when Churchill gave occasional speeches too younger children actually have a jetties that Christmas Eve address in nineteen forty one. And I I just wonder if I’m sure historians know this and we can look it up, but maybe they don’t know, but Churchill did it privately, but, you know, that he helped out with those with those remarks. Yeah.

Well, and again, there’s just so much history embodied in this woman. I mean, the thirteen american presidents, all the things she’s on. And I was really struck by the fact that, you know, well, you could imagine that you know, had she passed away earlier, people might have fought her for reign as being a reign of disappointments. When you think of, you know, the decline of Empire, the decline of Britain as a world power, you know, domestic terrorism, economic crises, you know, the breakup of the marriage of of her her children, all of those royal scandals, you know, some of which were were truly, truly awful. And yet in the end, people look at her and they say, no, you know, she did keep calm.

She did, you know, keep us together. She was that symbol of unity. She kept the stiff upper lip and everything. And people admire that. So really and again, in an era in which, you know, we’ve moved past, you know, character matters, basic her whole story.

Is her values in her character. I mean, that’s it. Right? I mean, there’s not there’s not, you know, with all of the the tragedies and the disappointments of of her life, you could say that she was presiding over the dissolution of both Britain and the monarchy, and yet no one feels that way today because of this singular, this frail, elderly woman and her strength of character that really you saw you know, first on display in the nineteen forties. This is again amazing.

Yeah. And

I guess I would add I’ll make our side anymore. Political point in the sense of geopolitical. I mean, I think there was obviously the empire to dissolve and the family life is a happy story, particularly, and who knows what will happen to the monarchy in the years ahead. But somehow in some ways, she’s associated with me maintaining the unity and of a nation that is was itself the embodiment for so long. Of of the rule of law and liberty and, you know, progress if if sometimes halting it, you know, for people within that nation and even around the world that we can then litigate the whole colonial stuff and all that.

But still at the end of the day, that was that was a kind of progress. Those their point of view as well as the dissolution of the empire. Mhmm. But it was done and it was done awkward. The guy was awkwardly and not just as fast as people killed, but still it happened and they managed to try to retain ties in the Commonwealth and all this, but more broadly speaking, Britain with us remained a bastion of liberty.

And I do think that also matters Right? If she had simply been a person of dignity, but it really had just collapsed into, you know, an authoritarian state. Let’s just say — Right. — that’s right. Twenty twenty two, it would be, well, that’s a sort of sad story of the last monarch and people would be writing books like that the way they do about, you know, Austria Hungarian emperors or something like that, you know, preceding the fall of that empire.

But but because Britain remains a free country and a vigorous democracy and upholder of liberty around the world. I mean, the last thing she would have seen or supervised in a sense as queen would be very aggressive British efforts to help you create and real leadership in that role. I do think that matters to it. It sure reminds one that, you know, being on the side of freedom matters. Even if you’re a monarch who is therefore has a slightly ambiguous relationship with, you know, full democracy.

And even if the colonial past, people can use that against you still at the end of the day, written hugely on the side of freedom for the last century or so and more, I would even say. And and therefore, she somehow came to a body of that as well, I think. Well,

and she she stayed out of politics. She didn’t have many interventions, but but the ones she had were decisive I think in order standing by Ukraine was certainly was certainly important. But also, she pushed back against Margaret Thatcher during the debate over sanctions against South African apartheid. And I think that she understood that in order to hold together the commonwealth that time, the Commonwealth nations were overwhelmingly opposed to apartheid and overwhelmingly in support of taking a strong stand. That she needed to to change Margothatcher’s mind about that, and she did draw that line.

And as I told you a little bit about about who she was, that she didn’t She didn’t get into fights very often, but when she did, she managed to win and was usually on the right side.

So

let’s go from the sublime to the ridiculous absurd and grubby. Should we make that transition? I am, of

course, talking about Steve Bannon. The simple I was always a little ridiculous. So it is if we can be honest,

so, you know, it’s it’s a good transition to make, you know, a lot of one of the greatest British comic, you know, writers and ironic novelists and, you know, poets would have liked this transition. So we’re we’re entitled in my opinion. Well,

yeah, again, you wanna you wanna talk about the the importance of character versus the the the opposite. The thing that strikes me today. And I wrote about this in my newsletter, is that, you know, Steve Bannon, you know, obviously wants to portray himself as a murder against the deep state and everything. The fact is that he is just a grubby work. And that he is both an architect and artifact of this Mago world, which has, you know, despite all of the and we we can talk about the semi fascism and Biden speech and everything.

You know, at Root, it’s just this cynical fraud that were Donald Trump and peep and people in his orbit like Steve Bannon. You know, have such contempt for their own followers that they have built this movement based on lying and cheating their most loyal backers and milking them for every last nickel of cash. And Bannon, you know, was was nailed on this back in twenty twenty. He got hardened by Trump. But if you read through the indictment, you just get the sense of, you know, at the bottom of all of this is this cynical.

Shabby griffed. And at some point, I know it’s naive at this point, but, you know, instead of constantly saying to, you know, Magnus orders, you guys are all fascist or anything. How about, do you understand that this guy is lying to you? He he thinks you are rude. He is the one that thinks you are gullible yokels.

He is the one who has been lying and ripping you off. I okay. I’m I’m I confessed to naive, but but it’s certainly a reminder about how, you know, central drift is to Mago world

to read about Steve Bannon. Yeah. Very much so. And Trump was is Anne Rebate and supposed presidency, a con man. I mean, and a and a very successful sadly con a con man who was so successful as to endanger America democracy, who’s which means he’s more than a mere con man, more than someone who, you know, makes a lot of families unhappy and miseryated even and and and and all that, but but really does damage to the political structure fabric of the country in a way that’s rare.

So he is a very dangerous con men. So as the girth doesn’t as as you sort of said, the girth doesn’t Aviate the real danger. Right? They can go together and and the people around drop many of them at the higher levels of those who are active are also conmed and in some cases women. And that’s very important to remember that you all I think you pointed out in the newsletter that saying that is not necessarily well received.

We’re in theory about the victims of the con man. I mean, that’s what someone wrote a very good piece about this. I’m gonna say in the middle of the Trump presidency. He’s only gonna be four or five years ago. I don’t really I don’t remember.

About, you know, the history of cons in a way, big cons like this though, and how resistant people are to being told they’ve been conned, and how much they disliked the people who were telling them they’re conned, and how long they hang on to the con. I mean, if you look at the history of consi or I think this is true of meat off meat off too. And others I mean, it it sort of the con became obvious at some point, and then people just continued to you know, be part of it is true, but it just comes from, you know, the the kind of famous instances of that too, where you’d think it all come crashing down immediately, and it takes longer than that. Again, people’s first reaction is to defend the con man who’s condom. And so I may hopefully, we’re at that stage and maybe ultimately, it does come crash down or maybe that ultimately maybe that can happen kind of suddenly, you know, they defend, they defend, they defend, the con man, and suddenly it’s like, oh my god, you know, but you would have thought there have been a lot of, oh my god, moments by now that people could have broken from it, but the Khan was is attractive and and and people haven’t paid much of a price, so it’s not like made off that sense.

Right? If you’ve been a Trump supporter, you’re if you’re an upscale Trump supporter, you’re probably doing pretty well with your different gigs and and and and TV or preferential access to cabinet agencies to generate joint if you’re a, let’s say, normal, you know, working class, middle class, Trump supporter out of the country again, you haven’t really paid too much of a price one way or the other. You paid a price if you believed that you shouldn’t take the vaccine, I guess. But So it hasn’t it hasn’t come it hasn’t been the sort of real reckoning that you get with Ponzi or made off. But but I don’t know.

Maybe people are gradually are gradually awakening. I don’t know. Well, you’d hope so because

you would think that that normally people don’t like being like to them when they realized that they have been lied to when they have been looked at with such contempt that they would push back, but that hasn’t happened so far. Part of it’s a sunken cost. You know, once you’re in and you you bought into so many. You made so many sacrifices. You’ve broken so many norms.

You you’ve done so much. You’re so invested that you just can’t back out. And we know how that works. I mean, you get you get, you know, imaged into that world and Tim writes about that in in his book. Okay.

So let’s step back and look at the state of play right now. You gave a very interesting interview to Greg Sargent in the Washington Post. I’m looking at the headline here, a longtime conservative insider warns the GOP can’t be saved. We have been discussing this for the last, if you like, forty years or so, but I I I think originally you had held out hopes that GOP could be saved. Maybe they were very tentative and tenuous hopes.

But, you know, can you point to one moment where you said, okay,

that’s it. There’s no salvation for the Republican Party. I wanted to decide to help you for answering the good question. Yeah, this I mean, I was laughing last night with Tim Miller who’s been told about this too that, I mean, we four years, you’ve been saying over and over the same stuff that you wrote in your book. What

was that? How that would Right. Two thousand seventeen. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, it’s it’s almost all been vindicated, honestly, and been correct. And and we’ve elaborated on things and learn more, obviously, as we’ve gone along about the character of the collapse of conservatives of the republican party that it is always funny that a certain number of people and are like, wow. He was I got a fair amount of this, you know. Crystal was really handed in saying stuff that I feel like I’ve said a hundred times. And you’ve said two hundred times, and Tim has said three hundred times, I mean, it’s a but it’s fine.

I mean, obviously, I I happy to say it over and over again and maybe it’s worth saying over and over again. I mean, I would say this I think it’s less of a psychological thing. It was helpful. Not helpful. I I thought I think we all thought this.

Look, if you maybe there’s a word in three chance you would have said in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen that Trump is a passing phenomenon, that these the guardrails hold the establishments, sort of hold the conservative establishment. Republican and the Congress hold that evaporated pretty quickly, but still by mid-twenty seventeen, it wasn’t obvious. So it was reasonable to say, look, if it’s a one and three chance or one and eight chance, one in fifteen chance is very important if you to have a sane, two sane parties in the country. And so we should do our best. We that time we had so much war allegedly influencing their republican party or let’s just say credibility in in making a case to conservatives or Republicans.

We did that much to tell the Democrats who were in opposition except calm down. Don’t go too far left, but do do oppose this stuff. So it made sense, I think, for us to focus our efforts there. By twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, it became a little hard to believe that there were – there was anything was going – much was going to good who’s gonna come out of that party. I think going along with the first impeachment was the fact zero Republicans in the House, and one in the Senate — Yeah.

— voted to impeaching committee was a pretty big moment. The utter failure of the Republican establishment when they could have risen up in twenty nineteen and tried at least not to re dominate Trump. Then once he was re maybe that would have failed, of course, but once he was re nominated the total falling in line behind Trump. Those were decisive for me. Maybe for other people who are still hanging out to hope, but I’d say, which changes in this category.

January sixth was November third to January sixth. Was decisive as it should have been. And I give Lishini a lot of credit for, you know, I don’t she hung on longer than maybe she should have. She was in a very different position So I understand what she was thinking, so I’m speaking, you know, in those during twenty nineteen, twenty, don’t quite agree with her analysis then, but she was in a different position. As I say.

And then she at least came, you know, drew the correct conclusion from November third to January sixth. What’s amazing is how everyone else just that we drew the conclusion for forty eight hours and then just went right back to to going along and to this day are pretty much going along. So the Wall Street Journal had sort of still mostly than exactly Pro Trump. He shouldn’t have taken the classified documents, but oh, but got a they spent a heck of a lot of time more more time criticizing the FBI. For its behavior.

It seems to be printing off as at least the criticized the FBI, then criticizing Trump. And the criticism of Trump is all it’s kind of fortunate he’s doing this. He’s hurting Republican chances in the midterm. You know, I’m not serious, deep fundamental criticism. Sounds preferred to say at this, obviously, all that.

So long way of saying that I think, you know, people sometimes interpret this as kind of when did you finally, you know, beat your breaking point, and that’s fair enough. And then, of course, we all have slightly different breaking points. But I think a lot of this was just an empirical judgment, and I think a correct one. It wasn’t some of the people who weren’t involved in this, and who looked at it from the outside, who were just unsympathetic to the whole Republican party and conservatism. So for them, it was just all awful from the beginning, and it and it was pretty awful.

But for twenty fifteen on. But, you know, it wasn’t there was a pretty big change in people’s views. I mean, we were all anti Trump. We didn’t vote from it all, but but wasn’t crazy in twenty seventeen to still think about how this could be controlled and contained in the public. We still thought there

would be a break Yeah. If he did a, then this would be the reaction. Right. If

he didn’t grow in office and and so it wasn’t crazy to hope for that and and to work for that on slay was a decent investment. It just turned out to be false, not to happen. And yeah. But by the impeachment around twenty twenty, it was it was obvious. And Yeah.

Well,

and he and, you know, thinking back through that period, I agree with you. But also, it was still shocking to see what happened after January sixth. There was that moment on January seventh where everybody seemed to have a certain clarity. They all got it. And that lasted as you said about forty eight hours.

And now it’s it’s it’s worse than ever. So the question is, you know, and I I keep coming back to the the same number that you use with with Greg Sargent that that that and at this point, really, what we could be hoping for is you could go three percent, five percent of, you know, Trump World and Republican voters, you know, is would be decisive you point out peeling away five percent of Republican voters to stay home or better vote against, you know, Trumpy election deniers. That seems to be doable, and that’s consistent with the polling that may happen. We’re not looking for a dramatic sea change, but I guess I’m still struck by the incredible investment in Donald Trump. You would think that conservatives would be able to say, okay, here are issues.

And these are issues that we think are working for us. You know, the you know, the whether it’s, you know, immigration or it’s crime or it’s critical race theory or inflation, all of those things that they think will work for them. And yet so much of their psychic energy is sucked up in defending this guy who feels like a boat anchor on the party right now. I mean, and Wall Street Journal editorial boards are perfect example. They they appear to have no illusions about Donald Trump’s unfitnessed for office, and yet they will always come back to the barricades when Donald Trump is as opposed to saying, You know what?

We got it done with him. He’s on his own. Let’s talk about things we wanna talk about. They just cannot quit him. Yeah.

I

don’t know quite some of that psychological, some of that’s a tactical decision. I mean, I think privately they’re they’re done with him and they would say they are and would say, let’s just have DeSantis. It will advance all these policy issues and pretend we never were complicit in the really grotesque abuses of power and so forth of Trump. That’s another problem course for some of us in terms of just wiping the slate clean. But for them, that’s not a they could bake it as it were, try to wipe the slate clean.

But But then they sort of tell us about that, god, that a lot of the people out there thirty, forty, fifty, sixty percent of the Republican base want Trump. So we can’t attack Trump. We can’t tell the truth about what Trump was like. We just wanna move on, but now Trump’s be under attack, and you sort of have to take sides or you throw out the

other throw

up. Well, it can’t be pro FBI. That would antagonize all the Trumpists. So we’re gonna just be neutral. Actually, we’re gonna be a little bit anti FBI because, you know, I think that somehow, but no, they’re not thinking that way a lot of that is is just psychology.

But the degree to which, again, being a rationalizer of Trump and a private critic of structure instead of a bigger private critic but only private. Credit Corp. And a public neutral, you might say, on Trump or let’s move on. Slides so quickly into being a well, actually, I also want to make clear what he did wasn’t as bad as what the I did. And then moves on to the next step.

So I also want to make clear that, you know, he’s not as we would still prefer to move on, but we do need to defend him in this in this juncture against these horrible left foot cranks and incidentally, the left is more of a threat than the right. And, you know, the the slippery slope there is turns out to be far more slippery than I expected. There there’s no ability to stop at a certain to use the metaphor, you know, landing on the staircase and say, okay, here’s where I’m stopping. I’m not going further. And that’s been an interesting psychological, as you can call it, and cultural and political phenomenon, but a very bad one, obviously, of the last several years.

So

let’s talk about the midterms and I was talking with Mike Murphy about this earlier this week and of course he has all of the appropriate caveats have been polling fails before it is still early. We have a lot of history and a lot of fundamentals. I was watching here in Wisconsin, the wall to wall political ads, virtually all of which are negative, by the way, not a not a surprise. And, you know, just being reminded how a lot of politics today is just, you know, exercising political gravity, bringing people back to the tribe that they were in before that you may have thought about straying, but the other side is just so completely horrible. So you have been commenting for some time about the decoupling in the polls between Biden’s unpopularity and the numbers for congressional democrats.

So give me your sense of where you

think things are right now in early September. So I mean, I think for the last twenty years really being on the side of history is destiny, mid term, you know,

which first midterms are terrible for incumbent parties that control both a presence in Congress. And on the side of even more importantly of demography is destiny, red America, blue America, red districts, blue districts, when states, blue states, it always defaults to that at the end. You kid yourself that you have a good candidate and then that candidate gets crushed because people end up reverting to their party loyalty. That’s what polarization means. Literally is what polarization is, you know, and politically.

And so if you were on the side of betting on polarization, demography, and history, you would basically would have been right a lot of the time — Right. — the many times in the last twenty years. And actually, people like me who have thought, well, maybe this could be countertrend wrong. I’ve been bullish on Democrats here for the last several really several months not quite as much as CyberArk, but almost as much as probably the most ardent exposure to the fact that this indeed had been a red wave election. But I I the one thing I did see early was just again, an empirical observation were, I think, strengthened a little bit by wishfulness, but not too much, I hope.

That the generic Congressional ballot is worse, was kind of plus three Republican. And Biden was drifting down from at that point was like minus ten approval and was going towards minus fifteen, seventeen, eighteen.

And

the generic didn’t really budge for a while before it started to rally, before the Democrats started to rally. It just sort of sat there minus two point five as Biden went down. And I thought, well, this is I’m not you know, leave us at what I think should happen and why people should be more upset about this and that just as an analytical matter, a fair number of voters, this is same polls. Right? If I ever voted just saying, I don’t approve a Biden, I somewhat disagree with Biden, especially the art of Biden, prescribers were voted publicly.

But I’m still inclined to vote Democratic or at least consider voting Democratic in the fall. And that’s turned out to stick, a Biden’s down rallied some, so the gap is less, but it’s still noticeable. And the rally on the generic was pre Biden approval rally, actually. And so I do think rather Rousey’s way at this point, something like a fifth of those who somewhat disapproved of Biden now say they’re voting Democratic. In the fall.

And that is historically way bigger than it’s been in other midterms where it’s been more like eight percent or ten percent and that makes all the difference if it goes from ten percent to twenty percent of the election. So So, well, let’s stick. Who knows? We’re two months out. Mike Murphy, I know his thought, you know, he’s seen these summer rallies before.

They often fade in the fall and sort of history and gravity and tomography, we assert themselves. As I say, that has been the right bet to make in most of our recent most of the elections of the last two or really three decades, I don’t wanna say. But I maybe not this time. And one thing that may be very much influencing maybe not making it the right bet to make, is that in none of those elections, for the last twenty or thirty years, was a forty nine year old Supreme Court decision establishing right. It was pretty important to an awful lot of Americans and a decision that should become pretty well very well established and also pretty popular.

None of these other election years was that decision overtured with three recently appointed judges, appointed by a very controversial president And in one case, at least, you know, jammed through the Senate to, you know, that’s eight days before the election. They all voted to overturn it. So I think the degree to which it was a shock, the row was overturned, maybe knowledgeable people expected it, but the country certainly did. And the consequences of that, and that the people who had voted the pro life movement that had wished to overturn a Republican Party didn’t really have sensible ideas about how to then what kind of legislation to pass, you’d always to replace ready weighed and and what exceptions to make and and then the creative horrible that turned out to be not so theoretical but real in in many states. All of that together, I think, was like, jeez, this is this is pretty extreme.

And I I do think people people who just kinda watch did all half or however, probably could get overall, I guess, relatively overall, but proportion never really fundamentally an issue that moves that many voters, not like the economy. I mean, I think they underestimated the degree to of the shock of the decision, the effect on people’s lives, their expectations. The sense of extremism it conveyed. Now having said all that, I don’t have memorized the night. The gas prices also went down a little summer and that made a big difference probably.

That made more of it was for Biden, but for the generic ballot, maybe a little difference. I just did a conversation actually yesterday with Bill Galston. Sees on voters podcast all the time and, you know, well, on the politics of abortion and and he and I both for well, if people should listen to a bit, Bill who’s very modern politically and very analytical about this. This could be one of these rare moments where all the history and all the demography they don’t get swamped, but they get decisively affected by other things. And the two big other things are Trump.

And row. We’ve had neither of those situations before. Twenty fourteen, twenty ten, all that stuff. You didn’t have an ex president who had tried to stage a coup. As the leader of the opposition party and throwing himself into everything and being extremely public a and b, you didn’t have a fifty year old.

Court decision that’s important to a lot of people overcharge. So those are two awfully big extraneous variables.

Right? Right. I mean, you think about when history has has not followed. Like for example, in in the two thousand two election after after nine eleven, Republicans actually picked up seats. I mean, there were some big issues there.

But going back going back to a row, you know, at at the time it happened, it was it was such a shock. It took a while, I think, for people to fully under understand how the world had changed. And of course, all these Republican legislators went out of their way to make it as dramatically apparent as they as they could have. And, you know, Will Salmon, you know, our colleague who has written a book about her borders, made a really good point last night on the livestream. He said, you know, we wonder about which stories move the needle.

And, you know, a story about a scandal is something that happened. It is discrete. It doesn’t necessarily affect your life. It’s a story. And then four days later, you might not know about it, but it doesn’t actually affect anything necessarily going forward in contrast, the Dobb’s decision, the overturning of Roe versus Way, affects the lives of millions of people who continue to have sex, who continue to think about whether they are going to have children, when they’re going to have children.

And so it’s an ongoing issue involving fundamental issues in every part of the country. And Republicans instead of embracing the consensus position save, for example, you know, keep it at the state level, fifteen week bands, things like that, immediately within five minutes. You know, began enacting these complete and total bans, some of which do not have exceptions for rape or incest, began talking about a national ban. I do think that that is going to have a tremendous effect. I’ve talked to a number of Republican women, very conservative Republican women who have been pro choice but figured that it didn’t really matter in terms of their votes, who now have decided this does matter to them.

So there’s going to be erosion, you know, a lot of different areas. So that’s number one. And as you point out, we’ve never had an election in which the defeated former incumbent is insisting that he be on the ballot. And that this is one of the the key things about this fall is that Donald Trump is insisting that the midterms be about him. And I’m guessing the democrats are completely okay with that.

Because you have an issue that’s working in their favor. And then you have a very clarifying moment about, you know, the return of Donald Trump and what that means and we’ve never had a midterm that’s taken place under those kinds of circumstance. Now, again, I I I caution against wishcasting But those are two big fundamentals. Yeah. And they and they just

want a footnote. I think it’s well said. How is and I agree that and word agreement. So — Got it. — those will probably

the medical agreement.

Yeah. So it will probably happen here, but but they intersect too at these two parallel tracks, let’s just call it Trump and Roe intersect in the choppiness of the Republican Party leads to nominees like the transciano and and and others who who are radical and extremist on abortion, you know, because they’ve had no price and because catering to the base is meant for the last several years apparently just being more and more extreme. And they’ve got plenty of congressional candidates who thought it was costless to say, I’m for a federal ban as well. Some of them are running in the members of Congress in California and stuff in competitive races. So Trump and Roe come together in the extremism of the Republican Party as it presents itself to voters.

Now in real time in twenty twenty two, and that that may well matter. No, I I think it

may matter. And then also it’s going to be maybe a different story in the house than than in the senate. I think that the conventional wisdom is now shifting toward the possibility that Democrats might actually do better in the senate. If the Republicans win the House and it is a narrow majority. And again, trying to think ahead as opposed to new cycles, we had, you know, months now.

You wanna

talk about a just out of control shit show if you have a Republican led house where Kevin McCarthy does not have a workable majority. I mean, this will be one of those moments where however flawed Joe Biden is, you know that the foil of this dysfunctional extreme house will be beneficial. You know, people remember Aint completely. I’m sure you remember well, we all thought that that the Bill Clinton was dead man walking after the nineteen ninety four Republican landslide. And yet he very definitely was able to use the Republican Republican missteps in order to resurrect his his reelection campaign.

And I could certainly see the political narrative in this country changing rather dramatically. When you have a

house that is dominated by the margery Taylor Greens of the world. It’s a tenuous majority that that, you know, have trouble holding together on some of those, because not all of them want to go along with the most radical stuff and and there’ll be some so there’ll be dissension from the moderates such as such as romaine, but there are a few of them. And if a close-up majority, a few at her, and then, of course, from the Washington, the greens that that McCarthy is not going far enough. And but McCarthy won’t be able to constrain Jim Jordan as chairman of the Treasury from holding, you know, hearings that go after the justice department and FBI for totally clear cut black and white justified in my opinion series of, you know, reactions to the fact that Trump took extremely sensitive classified documents tomorrow. So I think the degree of kind of chaos, ineffectual extremism, along the House Republicans could be, yeah, could be very important to twenty twenty three.

Well, and they’ll impeach Biden because they have to or

try

to. And then then ten Republicans will say, maybe, will ten say, I don’t know, most of the of course, most of the probe each for Trump Republicans will go. But there might still be ten or say, oh, that’s a little bit much. You know, the Tom Cole’s of the world. And then they don’t have two hundred and eighteen votes, and then the then Washington Daily Green goes crazy and tries to purge Tom Cole from being the chairman.

Of, I don’t know, whatever he would be, I think, rules, or appropriations or something. And, I mean, I just you can imagine many scenarios. A. B. Stothart and our friend knew You’ve done excellent podcast with the new wrote certain terrific pieces for the full work recently.

And as made at this point, we are everyone wants to go from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty four, and I’m guilty of and let’s discuss whether Biden should be the nominee or shooting handed off after a successful one term to be next generation. And what about Trump versus DeSantis? Everyone wants to skip over what twenty twenty three is gonna look like. And it

could be pretty crazy. I agree with that. I think I think twenty twenty three is gonna be one of the most extraordinary political years and I think it’s gonna change a lot of our understanding of politics. Okay. So speaking of just the way the way things are playing out in terms of the midterms, We’re talking about extremism, we’re talking about a row.

The anal Axios has a very interesting piece about Abigail’s banburger. I am a fan. She’s a Democrat from Virginia. She is a very centrist Democrat very much on the line. She’s one of the endangered centrist Democrats in the general election.

But the Cook report Cook political report upgraded her reelection chances citing the fact that her Republican opponent keeps saying kinda crazy things. You know, first of all, her opponent’s name is Vega.

And, you know, it was asked about what about,

you know, exemptions for rape in abortion and said, well, I just don’t think that anybody, you know, will ever get pregnant, you know, from from from rape. So that’s number one. She’s defended the January sixth, the insurrection, etcetera. So once again, You have many of these Republican candidates in winnable districts that have been, I won’t say, forced, but have been led to embrace these really extreme positions that might have played well in the primary, but which are toxic in a

general election. Yeah. And I think this is a neighboring district to me here, Virginia. So and I know a little bit about that race from talking to people working on it with Spanberger. I mean, Vega was considered the better of the Republican candidate.

Of the primary. They were happy, I believe. The, you know, kept on McCarthy types than she was. They may have helped her water. I can’t remember the primary.

The woman when I think a law enforcement background, if I’m not mistaken, maybe her husband was in the military, but and and so they thought, you know, this was a good way to negate some Spanberger’s advantages. But yesterday, that even even the more respectable of the Republicans has said pretty wacky things and isn’t quite ready for for this level of scrutiny. But this is also a case where the, you know, there was private photo and each other that was very tied that that even basically three months ago when the generic was plus two and a half for public. And now it’s moved. Three points isn’t much, but suddenly if it if the three points is true in this district, add a point or two more, maybe for the candidate weakness, for the money that the Democrats have been able to raise as it’s become apparent that this isn’t maybe gonna be a blowout and people should step up about four or five months ago, Democratic consultants.

I knew we’re very worried about Democratic donors just sort of say a hopeless let’s just save our, you know, keep our powder dry for twenty twenty four kind of attitude. Now the people are stepping up. Suddenly, she’ll have spending advantage, it’s expensive to show you have to buy DCTV because it’s like eighty percent DCVD market in Prince William. I mean, suddenly, it’s like, oh, well, she could really be she could win, not only win, but she could win maybe somewhat handily. And suddenly, then you can use the go try to pick off a couple of Republicans instead of just having to spent a fortune defending, you know, every Democrat is vulnerable.

They still have to do that, obviously. And I don’t wanna overstate how much of a change there’s been. But at the margin with even though there were just many competitive pieces that used to be, there’s still a fair number at the margin. And it makes a big difference if the whole playing field is is tilted three or four points to one side or the other. We haven’t even discussed that barely discussed judge Canada, but you know what?

You can do that with you. The legal beagles can do that. I guess we’re gonna have a hearing shortly and show make some decisions. Then next week, we’ll see if they should grant the justice department. Brief and so forth, but

Which is unlikely. But what what really struck me about that. And again, I’m I’m speaking as a as a non lawyer here. Was what it was very politely worded, but what a smackdown of that Department of Justice response to her ruling was pointing out all of her errors of law. Pointing out the unintended consequences of her ruling, giving her a chance.

Would you like to back out of this reasonable ruling that did you handed down? Or would you prefer that we get the eleven circuit to to over overturn you here? But, you know, this is just it it’s, you

know, number

one, it’s a reminder, you know, how fragile the rule of law is if you have judges like this. Number two, I I’m I’m really interested in the way the conventional wisdom seems to flip back and forth about how this moral Lago raid is playing. And, you know, all the all the smart kids were saying that it was backfiring. It was helping Trump. It was bringing people home.

Carl Rose said earlier this week, no, these are bad headlines. You know, that every news cycle that goes by in which Republicans are forced to talk about Donald Trump and Mar a Lago is a new cycle. They’re not able to talk about the issues that they want to be able to talk about. And then there were always also the the smart kids who were saying, well, this is good for Trump because it’s pushing January sixth out of the headlines, but I see it this morning. The January sixth committee is scheduling new hearings.

I think that maybe we’re so suffering from PTSD of all the things that haven’t made a difference. That we’re kind of numb to the cumulative effect of all of this and the fact that these charges and a possible indictment against Trump political assets for Donald Trump. I very much agree with

all of that. I just would add one point to your first point, which was sort of how extraordinary judge Camden’s ruling was, and and therefore, the rule of law is not quite as strong as we would really like to be to depends on judges and it depends on people sort of certain norms being some of which well, it depends on obviously on having judges who will be serious about about unfortunately, you know, I’m on a couple of email chains with very intelligent lawyers, very helpful to me to be on these on these chains to understand what’s going on in these cases. But the degree to which day and these are very savvy people, some of them involved and some of the efforts over the last many all of them involved in the last four, five, six years to maintain the rule of law, and they dealt with the courts and with the Trump administration, then and now the Trump, you know, the efforts post administration. To get Trump exempt from the rule of law. There’s still honestly, I don’t I barely intervene in this business.

These new lawyers are, you know, discussing things at a very high level kind of legal detail. But my intervention has always been, you know, it’s very interesting, but don’t assume that because you have shown definitively that in this case, for example, that will be kind of crazy for judge Canada and to say let’s have a special master. That it won’t happen. Right? I mean, there’s still a sort of assumption in the world that the institutions hold, the judges behave like judges, and everyone is, you know, if if if if GOG submits a really good brief, well, that’s it.

Kinda, you know, because you know, right? And I I don’t I think Let’s hope that’s true in eighty percent, ninety percent of cases, but there has been erosion. And I do think it’s very revealing that Canada went through there. It at age thirty eight in the lame duck session in twenty twenty. And I knew nothing about her, of course, and no one who voted to confirm her, and the senate knew anything about her, I suppose.

But she was a federal society approved judge, so Young, and so Rubial nominators, so put her on. It turns out, I mean, really the degree of lack of qualification this in a judgment. I’m not like a person. Maybe she would have been qualified in ten years, but literally no experience, no no publications, no nothing in terms of was a distinguished lawyer. She wasn’t a distinguished law clerk.

She wasn’t a distinguished I don’t know. Any you know, anything, frankly. Former prosecutor, former defense attorney, former corporate, whatever, you know, you should be to become a federal judge. And so the degree to which Narrow. Hopefully, this is a small minority of the judges currently on the federal bench.

And again, she’s only one district judge. But again, I I brings home so much of theme of of Liz Janie and a theme that you’ve hammered on and really is sort of relevant to our very opening discussion about the Queen. I mean, you know, the the human beings matter here. And and and there’s been damage. They can do damage even if the kind of institutional fabric and structural looks the same as it did a few years ago.

Now I agree, let’s let’s send on that dark note or

at least that that caught you. I was worried that you were being so cheerful, so I thought, you know, come on. Let’s No. Let’s hear that Jonathan let’s hear that Jonathan be last. We need to end data.

Well,

I I I

do

I do think that, you know, you just underline the experience the last several decades. It is fragility. It is the fact that we are that we are not immune to history and that a lot of things that we thought were solid in fact turned out to be very, very flimsy and and I think that one of the things that we have fail to do is is have enough imagination about what could possibly go wrong. And the answer is a hell of a lot. So, Bill, thanks for coming back on the podcast.

Appreciate it. Thanks, Joe. And thank you all for listening to this weekend’s Bulwark podcast on trolley sites. I’ll be back on Monday in a little summer tonight. Will break down the events of the last few days.

You’re worried about the

economy. Inflation is high. Your paycheck doesn’t cover as much as it used to, and we live under the threat of a looming recession. And you’re doing okay, but you could be doing better. The afford anything podcast

explains the economy and the market detailing how to make wise choices on the way you spend and invest.

Afford 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. Avoid anything wherever you listen.