Josh Kraushaar: The Pro-Hamas Left

It’s October twenty seventh two thousand twenty three. I’m Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the Bulwark podcast welcoming back one of our long time, friends, and guest Josh Crochauer, who, has a new job, editor in chief of the Jewish insider, also the author of act Cios’ Sunday sneak peek, which I always read every Sunday. So Josh, welcome back on the podcast.

Charlie, it’s great to be back with you.

I have to give people a trigger warning. This is going to be one of the most disturbing podcasts that we have done in a very, very long time because, I’m wanna lean directly into, I think, the the moral depravity of the pro Hamas left, which my caveat, I am not confusing sympathy for Palestinians with being pro Hamas. Those are two distinct things. I’m also not suggesting that all leftist and all progressives are embracing the kinds of things that we are talking about. But as I’ve learned, that caveat doesn’t work with a lot of people because there’s kind of a culture out there that the sense that you’re engaging in both sides ism or what about ism if you criticize anybody on the left, but this is a huge problem.

And Josh, Look, you and I have been doing this long enough. I am haunted by, I think, the worst mistake that people on the right made which was to not confront the crackpots or the extremists, the people who are out on the fever swamp because we never imagined that like Marjorie Taylor, Green, or Lauren Bobert, or Matt Gates would be significant that the, you know, bizarre YouTube freaks like Alex Jones and Steve Bannon. And, yes, I am lumping them in would, in fact, ever rise a position of real influence. And then you wake up one day and you realize that the Republican party is not Mitt Romney. It’s not Liz Cheney.

You know, it is Donald Trump. It is these freaks that we all told ourselves were kinda the crazy uncle in the corner. And I guess I’m sensing on the left, and I can just feel that the comment section exploding here. This sort of the sense that okay. So there are some really extreme folks out there who are rationalizing Hamas, who are anti Israel.

But but you know what? They don’t represent most Democrats. They represent a very, very small minority, and it’s true Joe Biden has been solid on Israel. The vast majority of elected Democrats have been very solid on this issue, but I wanna bounce this off you. How significant and how should we react to the fact that there is a large segment, not just on college campuses, but you know, obviously focus there of people who have decided that three weeks after the atrocities of October seven, that they are gonna rationalize what Hamas did minimize.

To that question, Charlie Sykes mean, first of all, it’s it’s shocking. The I feel like we can’t hit more rock bottom that the way you always see a new development in either par either extreme of either party that makes you just Yeah. Your jaw drop. How is this degree of depravity? This degree of extremism celebrating the worst massacre of Jews at any given time since the Holocaust, and you have days later college campuses erupting in celebration.

And this isn’t just a few fringe beep if, you know, when you had in twenty nineteen, the awful spectacle at UVA of neo Nazis marching on UV’s campus saying, Jews will not replace us. That was bad enough, but that was and that and Trump’s reaction to that was was bad enough. But that was one campus in one moment with a bunch of fringe figures. What we saw Charlie this week, really the last couple weeks is on dozens, if not hundreds of college campuses across the country, student groups on the left, on the far left, marching and celebrating the the massacre of Jews and putting out exterminationist slogans and ensuring never thought I’d see that.

What’s an extermination to slogan? Let’s be precise here. So, I mean, free Palestine is Yeah.

I mean, from the river to the sea.

That is wiping out the the Jewish state completely.

Yeah. That’s true. And I never thought I would see. Yes. There’s always crazies.

There are extremes. We’ve talked about campus culture, Charlie Sykes show, quite some time. But the degree to which both you would have the number of students celebrating and ripping down posters of hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas and the same protesters ripping them and tearing them apart. And saying all kinds of insane things. I never thought I would that would be like a hundred UVA’s, right, in one day.

And again, we’re not saying that you have support everything that the government of Israel is doing or not be critical of Israel. But what is happening now, I think is is at a different level, you know, for example, you know, when when you have students at George Washington University project onto the side of the library, glory to our martyrs and free Palestine from the river to the sea. These are Hamas slogans. But this is what really gets me, Josh. The one thing I wanna I wanna focus on one thing.

We have have had hundreds of Israeli civilians who are kidnapped or held hostage by Hamas, including children. Little kids who’ve been taken away from their parents. And there has been this campaign around the world to call attention to the fate of the children. And so what they have done is they have put up posters. And again, these are not political posters This is an information campaign called, let the world know.

And there’s no Israeli flag on the posters. There’s no mention of politics They’re kinda like, you know, missing children. The kind of thing that used to appear on milk cartons. And I wanna read this article from the free pass. And still, People all over the world, especially young cool looking people with nose rings and neon backpacks, are ripping them down.

Across the internet, videos have emerged of people angrily tearing down those posters wherever they find them in New York City in Los Angeles and San Diego. In Santa Cruz in Richmond, in Miami, in Philadelphia, in Ontario, in Paris, in Paris, in London. They’re ripping the faces of real people who are missing. Babies, children teenagers, women elderly, that ripping them to shreds. I have a real hard time getting my head around that what would motivate?

Someone to think that this is the way I’m going to express my political views. I’m gonna go and I’m going to tear down these missing person signs. Just talk to me about this a bit, Josh. Because to me, this is really embodies the moral depravity of the moment.

This is Charlie Sykes equivalent of Holocaust denial. Some of the people who when they’ve been interviewed or what why are they tearing down the posters of hostages? They’ve said no. No. Hamas didn’t kill fourteen hundred Jews.

They didn’t butcher fourteen hundred Jews talk about information bubbles. I mean, the the the degree of, epistemological closure that it can’t accept reality You’re seeing this not not just among a couple of random people, but this is widespread among a lot of folks on college campuses and we talk a lot about sort of, you know, the right wing and you can qanon on some of the extreme factions on on the far right. That’s been a running theme in our politics. For quite some time. We’re now seeing sort of an emerging degree of extremism on on the far left.

And, Charlie, this is really important. It’s not among most of the Democratic party, but it’s concentrated among eighteen to, you know, twenty five, eighteen to twenty nine year olds. There was a poll, Mark Penn, Clinton’s former pollster, get a poll that got a lot of attention. It’s consistent with other public surveys that have been done in recent weeks. That, you know, ninety five percent of people over the age of sixty.

Eighty percent of people over the age of thirty five, they view Israel very favorably. They condemn Hamas. Kamas is as popular as Vladimir Putin among most Democrats.

That’s the

good news. But among eighteen to twenty four year olds, college campuses. It’s basically fifty fifty. There’s just this dramatic change at the very youngest end of the progressive and and left wing spectrum at the youngest voters. Well, I think we we kind of shared anecdotes.

We’re like, yeah, well, these these kids are crazy. We look some of the stuff. Some of the things going on on college campuses on the activists.

There’s real data. Showing.

But now we have hard data. It’s not just that one pole. There are other pulls that back that up. That this one fringe, this one, you know, faction, young, young, the youngest, left wing voters have a better view of Hamas than they do of the the Jewish state. And that is something that has been a real wake up.

You’ve seen Jewish Democrats, especially. Liberals. These are not these are not even not, like, conservatives or liberal progressive Jewish Democrats. We’re wondering what the heck has happened to the movement. What is been going on on our college campuses.

And we’ve seen so many examples, Charlie Sykes this at the leadership level where you it’s not just the students, Charlie, but you have university presidents, university administrators that don’t have a negative thing to say about Kamas. They can’t muster the strength. The to speak with moral clarity about what happened in Israel on October seventh. And that’s been a real wake up call. I think a lot of folks on the on the center and on the right knew this was going on and maybe they didn’t realize scope of it, but it’s been a real wake up called the progressives that are that are for Israel that have seen just the rock that has been taking place at these left wing institutions.

I’m gonna dive into this a little bit deeper, but I mean, obviously, though the political implications, ought to be obvious and they are immediate. I know that you’ve, tweeted about this or whatever tweet is called, these days. There’s a new poll showing a really dramatic drop in support for Joe Biden among Democrats. I think eleven point drop. We don’t have all of the crosstabs, but is your suspicion that that may reflect his strong position on Israel, that it is young people who disapprove of his full throated, support of Israel and his condemnation of Hamas terrorism.

Yeah. I mean, that’s a gallup poll that does show a notable drop off in the last couple of weeks. Among favorability of Biden among Democrats. So it was in the eighties, which is a good position for anyone to be in, and it went down to the seventies in this last week. I would love to see a test of Biden.

Like, they didn’t test Biden versus Trump. And I think when you think about the broader politics Charlie Sykes. Biden has shown stalwart support for Israel. I mean, I think that’s in the long haul probably gonna help him a lot more than showing weakness and equivocation when it comes to terrorism. I mean, Yes.

Biden’s caught between Iraq and a hard place because he has this hard left base of young far left voters that are threatening to stay home or voting for Cornell West or even voting for Trump in some instances. I don’t see that happening, but it’s a threat that they’re making right now. But but I do think that if Biden didn’t speak out, if he didn’t show Bulwark support for Israel, he would lose support among a lot of pro Israel Democrats so that number but also go down. And he’d also lose support among moderates and and and swing voters because overall support for Israel is as rock solid as it’s ever been, right, in the aftermath of October seven. The challenge for Biden is to kind of, you know, he’s dealing with, you know, a divided party, but it’s important to to note that it’s a fringe of the party.

It’s it’s like It’s like when Republicans have to satisfy the Maga wing, the the I will say that this is a smaller wing of the at least right now, the Democratic party.

So And so far, Joe Biden is not allowed that fringe to hold the Democratic party hostage in the way that the right wing fringe has been holding the Republican party hostage So that that right now is a is a very, very important distinction, isn’t it?

Correct. And you’ve had some of the most outspoken defenders of Israel. Some of them, the Clarian calls of moral moral leadership, Ritchie Torres, Democrat from New York. Jackie Rosen, up for reelection. Democrat, some of the most outspoken defenders of Israel are Democrats.

And and they are the ones including president Biden and and a lot of the leadership and the administration have been stalwart and and shown strong solidarity with Israel. But they’re getting prepped for they’re getting pressured from that far left.

Richard Torres is a very young Democratic congressman from the Bronx, quite progressive, and has been as out spoken and criticizing, say, you know, the DSA, the Democratic socialist of America, as anyone that I’ve seen out there, I mean, really calling them out for their their extremism. Now look, critics are gonna say when we talk about the people tearing down the posters and these various other things, they’re gonna say that we’re not picking that we are taking a few random extremists, and we are elevating them. That we’re doing somebody said, this is the fox vocation of the bulwark that we’re even talking about this. But the fact is that there is data that there’s a real problem your publication of Jewish insider wrote, in the two weeks since Hamas’s massacre, Jewish students at American University have expressed frustration and sadness at official university statements viewed as weak, in addition to being fearful of pro Palestine student groups, and faculty, some of whom about rights celebrated Hamas’s attacks, and we have had these incidents. We had the incident at Cooper Union.

Where Jewish students were chased into the library, you know, where people were pounding onto the door. Students at NYU, chanting, we want it all. We don’t want no Jew state. We have John Padorets writing about this today that authorities are telling Jews in New York in New York. That maybe they ought to kinda shelter in place that there are these pro Palestinian marches, and that it might not be be safe.

So There is this sense of fear and menace among Jewish students that is real. We’re not just talking about social media chatter here. So talk to me about that. And I I’m trying to remember the last time there was this much overt anxiety and evidence of danger to American Jews.

Yeah, Charlie. I I’ve never seen this degree of open, naked anti Semitism out in the open. To the extent that we’ve seen in the last few weeks. And and and and keep in mind this happened after after the worst atrocity against Jews in any time since the whole cost. And look, I I’m a fan of data.

As you know, like, I I don’t anecdotes are fine, but let’s look at numbers right. Right. The data, the anti defamation league tracks anti Semitic incidents across the country. They keep a pretty thorough database. And they found that between last year, post October seventh, October twenty seventh, to this year post October seventh, anti Semitic incidents jump three hundred eighty eight percent in that same period.

So it’s a year by year comparison. It’s a huge that’s not just a spike. It’s a surge.

It’s a staggering number.

And, you know, we’ve we’ve seen the videos. We’ve seen the Prophamos marches on campuses from Harvard to UVA. So we can see it with our own eyes, but the data, which a the anti defamation league tracks pretty assiduously. Backs enough as well.

This data is important because, again, you know, the blowback that I get is, well, it’s just a few, you know, people here and there, you know, your blowing it out of proportion. Well, this three hundred and eighty eight percent increase in any semitic incidents has occurred just since October seventh. A map of the incident shows clusters in various states in California and San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, featured high levels of anti Israel rallied some with support for terrorism. Numerous protests also took place around Detroit near the district represented by representative Rashida To leave. I wanna talk about her in just a moment.

Also, you have you know, incidents of over advocacy for Hamas and outright hatred toward Jews in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland. This, again, any defamation league, on October eighth in Clifton, New Jersey, a car with individuals holding Palestinian flags appeared to intentionally swerve out of its lane nearly hitting a visibly Jewish family. Next day, on October ninth in Detroit. Jewish student was harassed, called a fucking zionist, while painting a free speech, rock with an Israeli flag on the campus of Wayne State University on October tenth in Los Angeles. An individual shouted.

I am Hamas and made death threats to Jewish individuals standing by a KosHA restaurant. On October twelfth in Indianapolis, a man carrying an Israeli flag was assaulted by a pro Palestinian protester. This goes just on and on, October fifteenth in New York. An individual allegedly punched a Jewish woman in the face of Grand Central terminal when she was asked why he responded because you are Jewish on and on and on. Okay.

So, Josh, just step back from the politics of the moment. Why is this happening? Why is there this huge generation gap? As you pointed out, among older progressives and Democrats, overwhelming support for Israel, when you get to this younger demographic, the hope, the future of the Democratic party, much, much more divided what has been going on that has caused this kind of a dramatic rift fall off of support for Israel to the point where we have a minority. But a sizable, significant minority, willing to actually rationalize some of the worst atrocities in our lifetimes.

Well, we could spend the Secret Podcast, go into the origins of this this antisemitism, but I’ll bring up two two big points. Number one, the universities have become, you know, rotten in many ways where you have the standards have gone down the kind of activism and and far left propaganda being taught to students. There’s been a lot of documentation of this, been more on the the center center right side of the aisle, but it’s been we, you know, this is an ongoing theme. And I think a lot of people are like, well, colleges are always like that. And we kind of took it with a grain of salt.

And now you see the product of, like, these professors. These are not just students, Charlie. You have, you had a professor at Cornell, you know, literally spouting Prophamos, slogans who was suspended for the time being who was, being cheered on by his students. And you see, you know, professors all over the country giving leave and and excused absences to their students so they can protest Israel and and participate in some of the vialists of anti history.

Okay. But is this really new? Let let’s go to this point. People Will Saletan. You know, college, they’ve always been considered hotbeds of radicalism.

They’ve always been radical professors. I mean, you go back into the nineteen fifties, and you see the same kinds of complaints Is this just the same old same old? I mean, isn’t this like the nineteen sixties or or is there something new? Is there something distinctive happening now.

I think there is something new. You know, the fact that you didn’t see many university presidents condemn Hamas in the aftermath of I mean, there’s something different. That would not have happened ten years ten years. There’s an ideology you call it critical race theory, the woken, whatever you wanna call it. I I don’t I don’t I’m not an academic.

I don’t study these things closely, but people have been writing about it. There’s something different. There’s a sickness going on at the university level where a lot of very extreme ideologies have been propagated and being anti Israel is part and parcel of a lot. It’s like buying the bundle. You can’t be a true progressive in the eyes of a lot of these academics if you’re not anti Israel.

So that’s one part of it. The other big part though, I think, is important, which is social media. Jonathan Last has written about, like, the changes in our politics after twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen when kids started using smartphones and the rise of extremism within the parties during that period of time. That tracks pretty closely with where this public opinion shifts when it comes to public opinion of Israel and and even, like, tolerating Hamas, there was a a good, analysis that was written yesterday, looking at TikTok and how TikTok basically promotes all kinds of, like, the most idiotic anti Israel propaganda to unsuspecting kids that I’ll just scroll on their phones. By the way, Charlie, there there’s been a lot of data from Pew that show that among eighteen to twenty four year olds, what’s the main source of news.

TikTok. It’s not it’s not the Wall Street Journal. It’s seven year time. It’s not the ball work. It’s not duplicates.

Ticks

are doomed.

I’m a dinosaur. I’m forty. You know, I’m kind of a dinosaur these days, but it’s hard to imagine that, like, you would actually get your news from a bunch of kids spouting off crazy things of these videos, the data is pretty clear that the youngest Americans, the the college students don’t reduce papers. They don’t read any real traditional news source don’t even get their news from, like, a digital news source. They they get it from TikTok.

They get it from these closed social media leads.

Let’s stick with this for a moment because, you know, for some of our our listeners, why did it become part of the bundle that if you are left wing, you have to be anti Israel. I mean, that’s not completely obvious. Right? So what has happened here? I mean, I I think there’s been an escalation, but what is the left’s objection to Sarah Longwell standing.

There’s this doctrine that’s, like, that that propagates it. Israel is a colonialist state, and we’re we’re here to cleanse the world of colonialism. And there’s been a lot of commentary in recent days about the origin of these ideologies, the revolutionary nature, Charlie, of some of these, how someone could actually defend the bloodthirsty murder of children and elderly and and civilians. Like, what happened in Southern Israel? Like, it’s hard to get your head around it, but there are ideologies that kind of rationalized these behaviors and they’re percolating on college campuses.

But I also think Charlie Sykes you ask about the the bundle, like, we’ve seen it on the right. We’ve seen, you know, How is, like, being against funding for Ukraine having anything to do with anti wokeness. Right? What do they have to do with each other? But in the social media age, when people are just you know, not thinking, but they’re just emoting.

Right? That is like the incentive to just kind of bundle all these ideas together, and you’re you’re part of this this tribal group. And that’s We we saw that a lot on the right in recent years, and we’re certainly seeing it on the left. And dare I say this is almost even more extreme when you rationalize the butchery of of children and everyone.

They’re kind of in the bundle of people who are oppressed. So we’d have to have solidarity among all of the oppressed peoples of the world, including the Palestinians, it does seem to be a leap though. And I think this is what was really shocking to me and and to others. It’s a leap to say Okay. I may sympathize with you politically, you know, Gaza is the kind of a scandal for a long time.

But then to watch what happened on October seventh and find ways to say, yeah, the Israelis had this coming. The lack of visceral discussed human reaction to what was done. Because it’s hard to imagine more graphic atrocities than what took place here. And so you would think that, okay, people may have an ideology, but still have the capacity to be horrified. And I guess this is why I’m drawing this distinction between being sympathetic to Palestinians and just horrified by Hamas.

I can understand why people would be very disillusioned and very suspicious of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu who has been very divisive, you know, among Israelis. So, you know, nobody’s giving him a blank check right now. And yet, How do you read these stories of the rape and the murder of women and old people and children? And then decide that the next day you’re going to go out and tear down posters with the kids’ pictures on them? There’s something about the callousness and the depravity that seems almost separable from the ideology.

These far left activists Charlie Sykes they view themselves as revolutionaries. We’ve seen this throughout world history, you know, the the Jackamons or the the during the Russian revolution. I mean, that’s the model for for a lot of and then then you’ve seen Then I’m, again, I’m no scholar of of of the intellectual history behind some of these ideas, but that’s how they justify. They think that, you know, you know, you need a revolution, and you need to have awful things to happen for a revolution to take place. And, sure, they also think a lot of these people are ignorant.

They’re following the mob. I mean, I think, yeah, how many kids actually know anything about what they’re, you

know, chanting or they’re, you know, they’re going through the high school halls going, you know, from the river to the sea. What percentage of those kids have any idea what that means? Right. Right.

The shock is that there’s been sort of this alliance of, like, Islam groups and and far left campus activists. So what what does an lgbt group have anything to do with, you know, Israel, but there there’s these alliances among certain communities on campus I don’t think anyone knows at all about what they’re talking about, but there there’s a mob mentality where everyone kind of sees a video on social media and then all of a sudden they gather and and It’s a festival of rage and hate.

Let’s go back to where we started. The the need of, you know, every group to police its own. Give me your take on all of this. It it seems that for the moment, the Biden administration has been very solid. The vast majority of Democrats pushing back very hard.

People like Rashida to leave seem very isolated in the party right now. How do you evaluate the pushback. I mean, yes, a lot of university presidents failed the moral test here, but but at least in the political world, I am sensing a willingness to push back on it. And you you, at the Jewish insider, you’ve done some reporting

on this. So what’s your take? How do you, tally this up? Publicly president Biden has been pretty pretty rock solid on showing his support for Israel. In fact, yeah, I think a lot of people don’t appreciate the differences between the last Democratic president, Barack Obama, who know, engage in some time, some degree of normalization and diplomacy towards Iran and had a lot of top staffers that vary.

We’re much more hostile to Israel. Than the current administration. And I don’t think you would hear, like, a president Obama say, Hamas is Isis as president Biden has said. Yeah. I think I think the degree of support, the the the reminder that, you know, Khamas, you know, started this war and and Israel’s defending itself.

That’s John Kirby said, at the White House briefing yesterday. Those are important things to say, and the White House has been pretty strong when it comes to showing a moral clarity that that you haven’t always seen. I’m a democratic party. So look, I think I think Biden has done a great job in terms of his public messaging. There’s a concern in Israel about, well, they they call it the bear hug where president Biden goes to Israel meets with the families of hostages shows an incredible amount of solidarity.

Biden’s approval in Israel has surged in the last few weeks But there’s also privately some urging that Israel should be more restrained in its ground invasion of Gaza that they shouldn’t maybe they shouldn’t, you know, take out Kamas as aggressively as they want to. Maybe they shouldn’t open up another front and try to take out Tesla and then so there’s there’s concern that privately, they’re they’re kind of using the capital they built up. To sort of caution the Israelis and not to go quite as quite as tough, you know, like it’s come off.

You hope they are though. Right? I mean, you hope that they are we’re straight and saying, you know, if, in fact, if you go in and there are massive civilian casualties that you will squander a lot of goodwill and, that you will have handed, Hamas, the kind of propaganda victory that perhaps they had hoped for.

On the Israeli side too, but there’s a war cabinet in Israel with Netanyahu and and Gallant his defense minister and one of the opposition leaders who’s now a part of this this war cabinet they need to figure it out that there are different views on how to prosecute this war. So I I I think that’s just sort of a a sidebar to the the public displays of support that this White House has shown Israel. You know, you mentioned Rashida to leave, and I think the one similarity I think you’re seeing, and we’ve reported on this at Jewish insider, between the early years of Trump when you ask Republican lawmakers, what do you think of this trump tweet? What do you think of this crazy thing? Trump said, and they claim not to hear it or they they would say, like, I don’t believe that, but I I don’t I don’t know, you know, I’m not gonna condemn Donald Trump.

We’re we heard, aside from a few Jewish Democrats that have been very, very strongly pro Israel like Richard Torres and Jared Moskiewicz from Florida, a couple others. But the vast majority of house Democrats claimed not the really. How came Jeffrey said he can didn’t know about Rashita Talib’s tweet about basically falsely accusing Israel of of bombing that hospital and in Gaza keeping it up even after it’s been debunked. We talked to at least I I think about a half dozen additional house Democrats who condemned what to leave had to say, but would not criticize to leave herself. So you’re seeing that same dynamic where it’s like I don’t I don’t know the tweet.

I haven’t seen the tweet. I haven’t seen seen what they’re saying or I don’t agree with what they’re saying, but I’m not gonna criticize the extremists themselves. Okay.

So this is this is actually a pretty good segue to, our discussion of what’s going on with Congress right now. One of the first things that’s gonna happen under the new speaker, the fifth string speaker of Mike Johnson will be censures and votes on expulsion. They’re gonna have an expulsion vote, apparently. On George Santos. They’re also gonna have a censure vote on Rashida Fleet.

What is your sense? I’m guessing that that will pass because the Republicans head of the vote How will Democrats vote on that? The center of Rashida to leave?

I don’t think it was a smart first move to have Marjorie Taylor Green be the person who, wrote the legislation. I mean,

Nobody’s accused them of being political geniuses here. So

I mean, you’re you’re literally looking at the two extremes. I mean, that that’s where politics are these days, Charlie, that It’s complete versus, Marjorie Keller Green. Look, the resolution, I think, is generally sensible, but there is there’s some language about an insurrection. There were a bunch of procomas you know, people that gathered in a house office building. It wasn’t January sixth, though.

It wasn’t. There were a lot of awful slogans, but it wasn’t an insurrection. That’s the language of that resolution. So, essentially, Marjorie Taylor Green is giving Democrats an out to the vote against this resolution even though I think you would get if it was a more sensibly worded resolution calling for Rashida Taleep Center, I think you would get bipartisan support. But everyone misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

That’s the state of our politics these days. Exactly. Well, yeah. I I I don’t think that’s gonna get much democratic support just because there’s some poison language that was written in that resolution.

Let’s talk about the other big story of the week. After three weeks without a speaker, we finally have of a speaker In my newsletter this morning, I I’m with all due respect, you know, the the NPR headline is something like house Republicans end their infighting and elect a speaker of the house. And I said, sorry. No. The infighting is not over.

They still hate one another. The dysfunction is a preexisting condition. So give me your sense of this ending where you end up with a guy that we all head to Google because nobody had ever heard of Mike Johnson guy has a very Should we say checkered, colorful record? Apparently, kind of a nice guy, but Adam Kinseyger describes him as Jim Jordan in drag. How is Mike Johnson gonna do?

I mean, how much rope is he gonna get from the people who have shown a willingness to burn down the house if they don’t get their way?

You’re right. I had to go to my home and act of American politics to look at the Mike Johnson bio because he’s he’s gonna, you know, you know, he’s not been a prominent member of the House Republican caucus, but he’s a very socially conservative Republican dating back to before he got got into Congress. He is strong ties to the Christian conservative community in his district and and then across the country. Leave and Liz Cheney, in in her book or in John Carl’s book, actually. Said he was a close friend of hers, when they first were freshmen in Congress, but when he denied the results and sponsored, you know, efforts to overturn the election that that was a breaking point for Liz Cheney.

On everything else, he’s pretty pretty much in the same space as Jim Jordan, but I will say that, like, a lot of people do change. I mean, there is an evolution when you’re in leadership. It’s easy to throw bombs when you’re in the the back band, sure you’re you’re not in leadership. And it’s gonna be an interesting test to see if there’s any evolution that takes place because that was the problem. I mean, look, the best case scenario for for Republicans is that he has credibility with the right.

Maybe they they listen to him more than they did with Kevin McCarthy And if that’s the case, then maybe he has I mean, it’s the mix that goes to China dynamic. May maybe in a best case scenario, he can keep the right in line and and actually forge a more more pragmatic path. But I think as you laid out Charlie, that’s not gonna be easy. The Republican party is divided between the Magga. But I think the majority is it’s fair to say is now in the Magga camp, but you still do have a sizable share of rank and file Republicans, and that’s look, and then you then you have the eight Republicans who, you know, defenestrated Kevin McCarthy and and our nihilists, that really just destroyed the the institution for three weeks.

So it’s not gonna be easy for Mike Johnson. I guess the only thing you could say politically is I don’t think anyone really knows who he is and may take some effort for Democrats to brand him. Negatively, even though he does have a pretty pretty a Maga or a good record.

I think, unless they’re really, really bad, they will be able to brand him, but you know, you look look back on what happened and, you know, the day before he was elected, I think it was very much in doubt whether any Republican could get two hundred and seventeen votes. Steve’s Gleece couldn’t Tom Emer, couldn’t, Jim Jordan, couldn’t, Kevin McCarthy couldn’t. And so it was kind of remarkable that he got unanimous support. So a couple of things happened. You you had, you know, this as I described it, the squishes, you know, did what squishes do.

They, you know, one after another, they caved in. It just felt like the one of the underrated factors here was just simple exhaustion. They just were sick of it. He was the next man up, and all the people who, like, might have appeared to be taking stands or might have cared about some issue, the ten bucks of the world, the Michael Allers. It was like, okay.

We’re just done with It it felt like an exhausted caucus that was just done with it.

Look, Charlie, it was embarrassing. I mean, the the the republican party looked at the most dysfunctional governing body in on the planet after the the And they

knew it looked stupid.

I mean, they they defenestrated their their leader. They couldn’t find anyone else. Jordan, scalise, Emma, no one was acceptable. These ugly personal feuds, by the way, which continued to this day are now out in the open. I think it’s fair to say there’s a bigger or as much, at least as much of a divide.

Between the Magga wing of the Republican Party in the Congress and like the McConnell wing, right, in the Senate, which which has a lot of different views on major policy issues. As there is between, like, McConnell and Democrats. Right? And on foreign policy, McConnell was actually echoing Show Biden and and supporting the the four day package where you’ve got a massive rail. See what happens in the house, but I know a majority of the Republicans in that body are dead set against anything for Ukraine.

So we talk about, like, different countries of coalition governments. Right? They have Republicans essentially have a coalition party. Right? They have two sides of the party that are increasingly at odds with each other on fundamental issues of what it means to to be a a conservative.

And I think that the the loyalty to Trump kind of papers over some of those really serious ideological divisions that are that are only growing.

And this is what’s so interesting about what Mike Johnson’s gonna do. It like the the Gates caucus is gonna give him a little bit of flexibility on not shutting down the government, going ahead with a CR. So, you know, for the next couple of but this is not a honeymoon. This is a reprieve because, again, as you mentioned, the math hasn’t changed. The division hasn’t changed.

This is still Donald Trump’s party. So I I guess, the the immediate question was, will they shut down the government probably not? But what happens with Ukraine and Israel? Because that seems to be the one real breaking point, not just between Democrats and Republicans, but as you point out, between the Senate Republicans and now the magnified House majority, what do you think is going to happen? How will this get resolved?

Joe Biden, and and Mitch McConnell wanna link Israel in Ukraine. Republicans in the house aren’t gonna go along with it. What happens?

So I think you’re right about on the government funding, I think there there will be something of a reprieve. The Republicans don’t wanna go through the chaos of the last three weeks all over again. Considering, Mike Johnson was one of the Republicans who voted against Ukraine aid in the house beforehand. Yeah. But he did give comments since being elected speaker signaling a maybe a little bit of a degree to compromise or have have a larger discussion.

So the the the mood in the caucus is the fund Israel not not Ukraine and to or at least to separate the two not bundled them together. And a lot has happened since mccarthy was was ousted to speaker, and I do wonder if the mood has changed a little bit in terms of trying to help Ukraine. A lot a lot of Republicans in the senate are linking the fight for freedom and the fight against totalitarianism and tyranny. And then Biden’s doing the same. And it may be a tough sell, but the move may have shifted a little bit, and maybe Johnson has a little more running room than than McCarthy would have on that front.

Well, I mean, that that’s obviously, you know, urgently necessary. And, again, we’re in this situation where if there was an up or down vote on floor of the house. I think, Ukraine aid would pass overwhelmingly with a bipartisan majority. The question is whether or not he can allow that vote to take place given all this. Okay.

This this feels like a a footnote and maybe even in your relevant footnote, but it is interesting in the far reaches of manga. And I’ve I’ve gotten used to now looking at things that, again, you might have ignored before kind of the the cloud on the horizon, you know, because we’ve seen how fast that cloud on the horizon you know, comes here. The number of sort of right wing media influencers who are going after Johnson because of and they’re holding against some comments that he made back in twenty twenty that were sympathetic to George Floyd, you know, the Bulwark man who was murdered in Minneapolis. And at the time, he had some sympathy for him. He said, yes.

It was murdered. And he he talked about, you know, the the the problem of being black in America, and it’s it’s a very different Mike Johnson than we’ve seen, more recently. What you have folks on the right who are now saying, you know, he can’t really be manga if he, in fact, believe that Black Lives actually mattered and showed, sympathy and concern about racism. And so I don’t know whether this is going anywhere, but anytime these things percolate, at least have to be aware of that there are folks in the Magga world who are already, you know, planning to, you know, cut them off at the knees.

Well, I’m looking. The lesson from this whole conversation is that crazy ideas that bubble up online can suddenly become mainstream overnight we’ve seen that lesson. Exactly. And we’re seeing it all over. And the, you know, you may make joke about it or think it’s marginal, but that those are the types of ideas that can really, attach the size.

And

one of the reasons, again, to repeat what we said before is this is the real danger of the tribalization, is that when you buy in, you have to buy the bundle and you have to buy all the allies, And some of those allies are gonna take you into places. You do not want to go. And trust me, I have lived this experience. So it’s It’s with a great deal of history that I am urging people on the left. I do not down play what is happening right now because, the future comes at you really hard and fast in ways that you did not necessarily expect Josh Crash.

Thank you so much for joining us. Again, we’re gonna look forward to, your Sunday newsletter from Maxio it comes out every Sunday when when should we get it in our mailbox?

Every Sunday afternoon, just sign up at axios dot com to to sneak peek and you can sign up at Jewish insider, tuition insider dot com, and get our daily kickoff newsletter every weekday Monday through Friday.

Which I do, Josh, of course is the editor in chief of Jewish insider. And thank you all for listening to this weekend’s Bullworth podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back on Monday. We’ll do this all over again.

The bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.