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Tom Nichols: She’s Daring Them to Pick Sides

August 17, 2022
Notes
Transcript

When Liz Cheney invoked history in her concession speech, Trumpers and anti-anti-Trumpers sneered. But they know the truth of her stance on the Constitution and the rule of law, and they know everything about Donald Trump is a lie. Tom Nichols joins Charlie Sykes on today’s podcast.

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

    Happy
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:08

    Wednesday and welcome to the Bulwark podcast to the surprise of absolutely no one. Donald Trump, was able to pick off the crown jewel of his campaign of vengeance, defeating Liz Cheney in her primary in Wyoming, and we’re gonna take deep dive into that and what it means and what happened. But let’s start with a remarkable concession speech, a non concession concession speech. A defiant concession speech. And joining us today on the podcast to walk us through all of this is our good friend.
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:41

    Tom Nichols, Professor Emeritus, Tom Nichols, staff writer, at the Atlantic and author of their Peacefield newsletter. So Welcome back to the podcast, professor. Thanks,
  • Speaker 3
    0:00:53

    Charlie. Thanks for having me again.
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:54

    Do you call you
  • Speaker 3
    0:00:55

    professor or or America? You know, Tom Tom usually works as especially now that I’m not working there anymore, but, you know, professor is a honorific title that no one has to use with me anymore.
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:08

    Okay. So let’s let’s talk about Liz Cheney because I I think this is just a a remarkable story. The MEGA world is, of course, celebrating in the anti anti Trump world. Is trying to explain, well, that’s not really because she stepped to Donald Trump. It’s because blah blah blah blah blah blah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:26

    But let’s go to the tape. We have five cuts from this and let’s spend some time with this. So here’s Liz Cheney’s opening where she explains that it didn’t have to be this way, but she chose she chose her path.
  • Speaker 4
    0:01:40

    Two years ago, I won this primary with seventy three percent of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear, but it would have required that I go along with president Trump’s lie about the twenty twenty election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:13

    So, Tom, damn that woman, the iron lady of Wyoming. It was Margaret Thatcher said the lady is not for turning. She knew what was gonna happen. Right? She she she not only knew that she was going to lose, she knew that she would lose badly, and she didn’t walk away from the fight.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:29

    Yes. And one of the things that
  • Speaker 3
    0:02:31

    was really interesting in that first clip, she’s kind of calling out the voters here a bit, a little bit. You know, where she says, hey, two years ago, I won this with seventy three percent. Three quarters of you thought I was pretty okay back then. And what’s the only thing that’s changed is that I didn’t bend the knee to Donald Trump. So that that was her shot across the bow.
  • Speaker 3
    0:02:53

    Of Wyoming’s own Republicans basically saying, look, let’s let’s cut the crap about because in these focus groups, right, you said, well, she’s kind of going to the left.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:02

    No. And
  • Speaker 3
    0:03:03

    she’s no. She hasn’t. She hasn’t even remotely turned to the left. You know, she’s she’s more liberal than she used to be. She’s more that No.
  • Speaker 3
    0:03:11

    There was one issue and one issue only, and that was the big lie and bending the knee to the Orange God king. And she’s kind of, you know, that I I I I actually think that more politicians even Though, you know, she’s paid for it, they should speak to the public that way. I two years ago, I won this thing with seventy three percent. There’s only one thing that’s changed, and I wasn’t gonna do it. And you and I both know what that is, voters of Wyoming.
  • Speaker 3
    0:03:40

    And I thought that that was a brave thing to an important thing to do as well. And
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:44

    I’ve said this before, if you can’t recognize political courage in Liz Cheney, then you then you just simply do not understand the concept and unfortunately, I think a lot of Americans no longer understand that concept. But also, I mean, she is a political rarity, you know, a politician, you know, not just willing to give up their their office and their political power, but, you know, to undergo excommunication from all of your your political world from your allies, your friends, and everything. And your neighbors, the people who live around you in your state
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:16

    who
  • Speaker 3
    0:04:16

    now, you know,
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:18

    dis stain you.
  • Speaker 3
    0:04:19

    Many of whom hate you. Yeah. Absolutely. That is, you know, this isn’t like representing a a district. In, you know, Chicago or in the suburbs of Los Angeles where, I mean, Wyoming’s a small place.
  • Speaker 3
    0:04:34

    And everybody knows everybody. And she’s basically said, I don’t care if everybody in the state hates me. I’m from
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:40

    here. This is what I believe in. And that’s how it has to be. The interesting thing about her is that she she not only didn’t walk away from the fight, I mean, she could have retired and spared her what, you know, we would normally think of as a humiliating defeat. I mean, she lost by thirty points in her in her home state.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:57

    And yet, she didn’t. I mean, that’s the In other
  • Speaker 3
    0:04:59

    words, she could have been Rob Portman. Yeah. You know, in Ohio where, you know, real profile encouraged where he basically says, wow, I’m not gonna speak up on this stuff. I’m just gonna tire, gonna fade into the, you know, like, I’m gonna blend into the draperies back here. And stay out of this instead of losing or having to speak up.
  • Speaker 3
    0:05:17

    I mean, one of the things that’s amazing is that Liz Cheney did all this while trying to keep her seat and run for reelection. And there are guys that that have retired who won’t speak up, who who aren’t ever running again for anything. And
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:32

    they
  • Speaker 3
    0:05:33

    just won’t do it. They just don’t have the stomach for it. They don’t have the spine for it. And, you know, she, again, it’s different living in a state with millions of millions of people where you sort of go on about your life. I mean, she’s living in a state where she’s gonna run into people every day.
  • Speaker 3
    0:05:49

    Goods. Right? Who really don’t like her? You know? And I think that’s just a remarkably courageous thing to do.
  • Speaker 3
    0:05:56

    I think a lot of our friends on the left just can’t get that the fact that Liz Cheney is a conservative and a hard right conservative. But this is one of those places where you say yes and we have deep disagreements you know, among conservatives, among liberals, between conservatives and liberals, but we have to all start from the rule of law and fidelity to the constitution. And that’s what Cheney stood up for, and that’s that’s what’s worth our admiration.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:22

    And this is also distinctive. To your point, is issue recognizes Donald Trump as a unique existential threat. And so she hasn’t changed her position on other issues, but she’s saying, look, we need to prioritize the defense of democracy. A lot of, you know, her liberal critics will also say it’s an existential threat, but then we’ll go, yes, but she doesn’t support us on climate change or she didn’t vote for this particular bill or she still, you know, opposes, you know, whatever build back better is called, all of those things. But that’s crucial to understanding the position that she is take that this is not normal.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:57

    Donald Trump is not just one more Republican. He represents something that is a dire threat to all of those traditions. I we we didn’t download the the clip of this where she says, look, I’m I’m a conservative Republican and I I respect what this party used to stand for, but I love my country more. That’s the key thing. Alright.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:18

    So back to these sound bites from this remarkable speech. And by the way, knowing for a long time that you’re going to lose, you’re going to lose badly, and you have to give a concession speech. And, you know, she obviously gave a good deal of thought to it. People need to understand, this is not easy, you know, to walk out when you have been subject to what other politicians would regard as worse than death, this humiliation. Okay.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:45

    So number two, she’s invoking history. And talks about how Abraham Lincoln lost other political campaigns before he ultimately saved the union. This is clip number two. The
  • Speaker 4
    0:07:59

    great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the senate and the house before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed. He saved our union and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history. Speaking at Gettysburg of the great task remaining before us, Lincoln said that we hear highly resolve, that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation, under god, shall have a new birth of freedom.
  • Speaker 4
    0:08:36

    And the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth. As we meet here tonight, that remains our greatest and most important task So, Tom,
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:48

    something else strikes me about Liz Cheney is that unlike many of her colleagues in Washington, she has her eye on history. She actually is looking at what’s happening now within that scope of history and is clearly concerned about what her historical legacy will be which is something that I don’t think ever even crosses Kevin
  • Speaker 3
    0:09:09

    McCarthy’s mind. I’m not sure very much ever crosses Kevin McCarthy’s mind. Which strikes me as a vast and flat and air in place. But I think her awareness of history is unusual because people who are afflicted by presentism —
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:27

    Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:27

    — that
  • Speaker 3
    0:09:28

    everything is, you know, in the next twenty four hours. And that section of the speech along with a few others got a lot of sneering and ridicule from the trumpeters and even some of the anti anti trumpeters And let me just say again, after a speech like this to be, you know, among the anti anti trumpers, you know, you and I’ve talked about this so many times. It requires such an expenditure of caloric energy to keep trying to figure out how to not be on the side of the anti trumpers or or how to not be on any side really. But after a speech like this, where she’s basically invoking history and daring you to pick sides, that gets harder and harder. And I think it tells you something that the reaction of the speech in some quarters, it shows you how sort of cynical and vacuous and unmoored from the American tradition so many Republicans have become.
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:21

    And that’s painful. And I’m sure it’s painful to you as well. Mhmm. It’s painful to me because part of the part of what I always what attracted me as a younger conservative to the Republicans was this kind of respect for tradition and history that, you know, progressives by their by their very name are progressing. They’re looking toward the future.
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:43

    The the past generally, you know, is always inferior. It has to be junk. It has to be overcome. It has to be left behind. And conservatives by their nature and by the by their name about, you know, in terms of conserving, think about things like tradition.
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:57

    And thinking of themselves as part of a a a a a a present that includes not only a future but a past. And Cheney really kind of reached out and and took that and embrace that. I think in a way that politicians just don’t do anymore. And one of the things they’ve learned from Donald Trump is, screw all that. You just have to win the next eight hours of the new cycle.
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:21

    You just have to get through the day. And she clearly She knew she was losing. You pointed this out. Right? Right.
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:28

    And instead of trying to somehow soften the blow or moderate or win over some of the doubters. She dug in. Right. She said she leaned into it. She she leaned into it and said, If I’m gonna lose, I’m gonna lose and by speaking the things I think are true, instead of trying desperately to peel off two more percent of people, you know, somewhere in the middle who aren’t paying attention or may might have been gettable votes.
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:57

    This is who I am. This is what I stand for, take it or leave it. And again, I think that I wish there was a lot more of
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:03

    that in American politics. So the next two clips go to that point of the way that she is leaning in, how she in invokes January sixth and and the significance of it. And then makes the case that this is an ongoing clear and present danger that it that the threat of political violence is ongoing which is something you wrote about earlier this week. So let’s play cut number three. Liz Cheney last night after being defeated.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:32

    Talking about January sixth conspiracies and lies. Like
  • Speaker 4
    0:12:36

    so many Americans, I assumed that the violence and the chaos of that day would have prompted a United Response, a recognition that this was a line that must never be crossed. A tragic chapter in our nation’s history to be studied by historians to ensure that it can never happen again. But instead, major elements of my party still vehemently defend those who caused it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:13:04

    At
  • Speaker 4
    0:13:04

    the heart of the attack on January six, is a willingness to embrace dangerous conspiracies that attack the very core premise of our nation, that lawful election reviewed by the courts when necessary and certified by the states and electoral college determine who serves as president. If we do not condemn the conspiracies and the lies, if we do not hold those responsible to account, we will be excusing this conduct. And it will become a feature of all elections. America will never be the same.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:38

    Alright. Now let’s go to cut number four because again, it’s very clear that not only is she putting this in the historical context, making it clear that this is not just one issue among others, and of the anti anti trumpers are saying, well, you know, I mean, it’s one thing for her to say this stuff, but, you know, why does she keep talking about it? Well, she’s saying because, you know, the very identity of America is its day. And then she actually and this kind of surprised me. She she goes on to talk about the the Maranago raid slash search warrant.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:10

    And the violence that Donald Trump and his allies are stirring up, which again makes the point that January six is not one discrete event in the past. It is an ongoing threat, an immediate, you know, clear and present danger of political violence in the future. Let’s play cut number four. As
  • Speaker 4
    0:14:29

    of last week, you must also believe that thirty career FBI agents who have spent their lives working to serve our country, abandoned their honor and their oaths. And when tomorrow, Lago, not to perform a lawful search or address a national security threat. But instead, with the secret plan to plan fake incriminating documents, in the boxes they seized. This is yet another insidious lie. Donald Trump knows that voicing these conspiracies will provoke violence and threats of violence.
  • Speaker 4
    0:15:04

    This happened on January sixth, and it’s now happening again. It is entirely foreseeable that the violence will escalate further. Yet he and others continue. Purposely to feed the danger. So
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:18

    let’s talk about this. Tom, you wrote a great piece which I cited in in the Bullhorn newsletter the other day. The new era of political violence is here, and you wrote the dangers not organized civil war. But individual Americans with deep resentments and delusions. And you know, I I I was really struck by by one of by one paragraph you talked to one of the original Never Trumpers over the weekend.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:44

    Amanda’s lost its friends and family because of his opposition to Trump. And he told me, I’m reading from you, peace. And he told me that one of the most unsettling things to him is that these same pro Trump family and friends now say they believe the Trump broke the law. But they don’t care. They see Trump and his crusade, their crusade against evil, the drama that gives their lives meaning as more important than the law.
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:10

    And some of these people are ready to snap and to resort to violence. So talk
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:15

    to me about that. Yeah. A lot of that came from a discussion I was in on morning Joe where we were talking about Civil War. And I keep bristling at the term Civil War because when we think of Civil War, we think of, you know, the fifty fourth Massachusetts going into battle against the Kentucky volunteers or the thirty fifth Alabama rifles or, you know, It’s not that organized. It’s people like the guy in Cincinnati.
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:43

    Right? Where he just spends too much time watching television, too much time staring at a computer screen. You know, Donald Trump says corrupt FBI agents that that raided my house. It’s the worst suits that were having. And he says, okay.
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:55

    My empty life will now have meaning because I’m gonna go shoot a nail gun at FBI agents. And that I think in some ways is even more dangerous is because it’s unpredictable and the people that are unstable walking around among us and that’s spreading and it’s becoming like a mess. It used to be and say, well, every neighborhood has one guy that I’m really worried about. But, you know, this is like a mass psychosis that is spreading among your friends, your neighbors, your family. The person I was talking to in this case was talking about, you know, his mom who
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:32

    literally said his modeling I
  • Speaker 3
    0:17:34

    mean, not not not she’s gonna be violent, but he genuinely believes that, you know, Donald Trump is on the side of God and Jesus Christ and that the people who work against him, including her own son, you know, are doing the work of the devil. Eitan. Yeah. And I think But again, I think this is this is the result of a long period of decades of people living in an affluent, safe nation that has no great causes in it anymore, and they are you know, and they’re living in places that maybe they’re not happy, there is an emptiness in the in the peace. I talk about the spiritual and moral void that they’re trying to fill.
  • Speaker 3
    0:18:17

    With great dramas, with great crusades, with great stories of good and evil. And one of the things that I think to to bring this back to Liz Cheney is that she has been this kind of unflappable, even kind of icy presence who says, yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, this is about the constitution, the rule of law, and just keeps coming back to that, you know, kind of tapping the sign that says, This is about the constitution and the rule of law and the future of democracy in America. And she has never let herself get sucked into that crazy drama of, you know, madness and these nutty theories. And again, she’s calling out in that speech She is calling out her voters by calling out Donald Trump right in front of them to say, you knew this is fake, you know your line, and you know this is gonna lead to violence.
  • Speaker 3
    0:19:09

    And now everyone listening to me knows that that’s the truth and it’s a matter of whether or not you’re going to accept it. And I think part of the reason people turned against Cheney in places like Wyoming and the same that the Trumpers have become even angrier at this point in history is because again, and Charlie, you’ve heard me say it, they know. They somewhere deep down they know and they don’t care. I I can’t remember who set up, but somebody made the point the other day that Trump could show up in China, you know, with a folder of nuclear secrets and a treatise and fluent Chinese on Xi Jinping thought, and the Trumpers would say, look, he’s just trying to help the country. There is nothing anyone can say that’s going to dislodge these people because every revelation is a humiliation.
  • Speaker 3
    0:19:59

    And what Cheney did in that speech was very calmly and very patiently to say, I’m gonna humiliate you one more time because all of you listening to me know this is a lie and you know Donald Trump’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:12

    lying. Well, I think
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:14

    that David Trump has also made made the point that one thing that con men know is that if you’ve successfully pulled off the con that your mark will hate the person, the tells you you have been coned more than the person that coned you. That the one thing you you really don’t want is you know that person lied to you and suckred you or a sucker people are more likely to turn on the truth teller than the person who lied to them. Donald Trump with his
  • Speaker 3
    0:20:41

    reptilian instinct understands that. There’s a wonderful book, and I’ll recommend it to folks as written in nineteen forty, and it’s called the Big Kong. When it was a lot of it was the source material for the sting. But one of the things that and Rick Wilson actually recommended this to me back at the beginning of the the Trump era. And he said, if you really wanna understand what’s going on, You’ve got to read this book.
  • Speaker 3
    0:21:02

    That was a professor had interviewed all these turn of the century con men, you know, the yellow kid, and you know, the, you know, slim and the big Danny and, you know, all that stuff. And one of the things they also said aside from the fact that the Mark hates the person who outs the game is that there were cases where the mark is so dedicated to not feeling like a fool that they actually went into court and served as character witnesses for the con men who had ripped them off that they literally walked into court and said, your honor, you know, this guy is, you know, one of the nicest, the most honest people I’ve ever known. I don’t know what, you know, because they could they they simply could not internalize. How badly they’d been taken and rather than accept that ego destroying, humiliating fact they would literally walk into a court of law and say, this guy’s innocent. He didn’t rip me off.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:58

    Okay. Because I can multitask while I’m doing this. I just ordered this book. While we were talking about it. I was able I was able to find a great
  • Speaker 3
    0:22:04

    book. The
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:05

    big con, the story of the confidence man, and it came out in paper back In nineteen ninety nine, interestingly enough. Interestingly enough. Interestingly enough. Interestingly enough. So we had been warned So the whole question of political violence is is no longer theoretical, I think, on several levels.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:23

    I mean, number one, we’ve seen it with January six, We’re seeing what’s happening right now. This Navy veteran in Ohio was killed after the standoff, after he attacked the Cincinnati FBI office. He had the guy in Pennsylvania. Arrested and charged with threatening to slaughter federal agents, whom we call police state scrum. But pull back a bit.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:43

    The other, you know, role of political violence is right now, and Trump fully understands this. The implicit threat that if he is held legally accountable, that there will be mayhem, there will be disorder, and there is that implicit threat that if Donald Trump is charged, if he is indicted, if he is put on trial, that all hell will break loose. And even some people who I think are usually level headed are going, whoa. Okay. We believe in the rule of law, but this is scary.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:15

    Which means that they are willing to blink they are willing to say that threat of violence should cause us to rethink whether or not we’re going to hold Donald Trump legally accountable. And so that’s the reality right now. You are balancing, you know, justice versus domestic peace because we know that Trump and his allies are prepared to destroy the domestic peace if they think that that will protect the Orange God game. Not only that, but that intimidation that Trump
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:46

    signed against me sent he sent this thing to Merrick Garland, oh, you know, the country’s on fire and — Yes. — how can I help how can I how can I help lower the temperature? Yeah. Right? Like you care.
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:57

    But that intimidation is not just aimed at the federal authorities. It’s aimed at your neighbors. It’s aimed at your friends. It’s aimed at people who, you know, I personally, I like voting in person. Why?
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:10

    Because I love running into my neighbors who have volunteered to staff the local, you know, polling place at at in my there’s two polling places near one’s a high school, one’s a church. You know, when you go in and you find these people that are just part of this civic celebration of democracy. And they they take your ballot and they hand you your i voted sticker and they wish you a nice day. Those are the people that Donald Trump is trying to intimidate. He’s trying to scare them out of letting people vote and then counting the votes fairly.
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:41

    And I think part of the reason that I dug in over the years, because when I first started this, writing about this stuff, as you well know, I was a federal employee and, you know, every day, people were trying to get me fired. They were leaving death threats on my phone. You know what I thought, I spent most of my career studying the Soviet Union. I didn’t spend all that time studying the Soviet Union and communism just to have to kind of shut up and withdraw from the public space in the United States of America just because a a failed real estate con man and his cult. You know, don’t wanna take away my first amendment, right, to speak.
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:21

    And I think Cheney, you know, again, has really stepped forward and and, you know, taken a lot of the hits for that to say, this is not a time to be quiet. This is not a time to compromise or negotiate with lunacy. This is a time to say to tell the truth even if It has consequences, and I agree with you, Charlie. There are people who I I’m not gonna be
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:41

    hard on them for wanting to blink. I think we’ve all felt better at the right point. That’s a normal human reaction. And so this is the point is is people engage in intimidation because intimidation works and And so we’re talking about Liz Cheney and encouraged because it is so vanishingly rare, because most people will say, I don’t wanna go through this. You know, I I don’t wanna put myself at risk.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:03

    I don’t wanna put my family at risk. I actually had dinner last night with my former radio producer. And we were talking about some of the intense, you know, times in in Wisconsin politics. And as the producer of a of a talk show, he answers the phone before people get on the air. So he gets it raw.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:20

    And he was saying, you know, some days, I just I went home and I was just drained out and everything. And, you know, we were talking about the level of the intensity. And one of the things I said to him, I said, you know, most people don’t know how hard it is And most people are not used to being subjected to that kind of abuse, and most people will will back away. So that kind of bullying and intimidation works. And obviously, this is so clear.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:50

    I mean, look at the entire Republican Party right now. I mean, look at, you know, from one end of the country to to another. Why is this happening? Well, because these tactics work. And because they’re they’re abject cowards.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:02

    I mean, that’s And
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:03

    because they are United States senators who live in a pretty privileged bubble. I as you know, I used to work in the senate. You know, senators live in a pretty privileged bubble. They live in work in a pretty safe space. And meanwhile, you have real examples of courage and and, you know, Cheney is one of them, but let’s give a shout out as well to the people who are like heads of their local election boards.
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:25

    And on their school committees, and the people in the Secretary of State’s Office in various states, where again, their neighbors people that live are calling them up and saying, you know, we’re gonna hang you in the street. You know? We’re gonna kill your children. We’re gonna burn your house down. And and again, over what?
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:45

    Over over Donald Trump, seriously. And I you know, it’s not I think a lot of people, when you’re talking about the the kind of the problem of wanting to withdraw from all of this, you know, there are people I think that if they got a phone call from, you know, someone who said, I support Vladimir Putin and I am going to destroy American democracy and I believe in communism and started seeing, you know, the Soviet national anthem, a lot of people would rise that occasion and say, well, I guess this is what I’ve, you know, I’ve prepared my whole life for as an American. But when somebody calls you up and says, I’m gonna kill you because you said something bad about this, you know, neurotic, unloved, narcissistic, failed casino boss from Queen’s. I think a lot of people go, you know what? I don’t need this.
  • Speaker 3
    0:28:33

    But I think what Cheney keeps reminding us is, this guy is more of a threat to the American constitution, the American way of life right now
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:40

  • Speaker 3
    0:28:40

    Yeah. — than Putin or or the Xi Jinping. And and you have to treat him with that same level of, you know, existential opposition as if it were you know, zombieurean drop off shambling ashore with a with a Soviet flag. You just have to because he in some sense, Donald Trump is vastly more dangerous than the constitution than Brezhnev ever was.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:08

    We also had
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:08

    to give a shout out to her colleague, Adam Kinzinger, who has, you know, gone on television and said, look, this is the kind of mail that I’m getting. These are the threats against me, against my wife, against my my child. A young children, exactly. It’s hard I think for the average person to know exactly how much Vitryol is being. I mean, it’s one thing to lose your job.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:29

    It’s an, you know, other thing to lose your donors and things like that or have, you know, the federalist, right, you know, Molly Hemlib, right, bad things about you, but but it’s much, much, much more intense. So I I think there’s a lot of of appreciation for that. Okay. So one last sound bite from Liz Cheney. She ends with a call for bipartisanship, and I should mention, you know, that There are reports today that she has now created this this organization going forward the great task, which has raised questions about, well, what does she ask going to be doing now.
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:00

    But this is the way she closed, her extremely defiant concession speech. Let’s play Alaska. As
  • Speaker 4
    0:30:06

    we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together. Republicans, Democrats, and independents against those who would destroy our Republic. They are angry and they are determined, but they have not seen anything like the power of Americans united in defense of our constitution and committed to the cause of freedom. There is no greater power on this earth. And with God’s help, we will.
  • Speaker 4
    0:30:33

    Prevail. Thank you all. God bless you. God bless Wyoming. God bless United States of America.
  • Speaker 4
    0:30:40

    Thank you guys. Well,
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:42

    Enzo ends the Cheney Cheney dynasty in Wyoming. Okay. So I got I got a query from a reporter saying, well, okay, she’s forming this this pack. She’s talking about possibility of running for president. And then he asked, but but what would make it more than a suicide mission?
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:59

    Is there any lane for her at all or is she just going to be a voice in the wilderness as far as Republican voters are concerned? What do you think? I am
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:08

    allergic to third party runs at a time like this in the general. And, you know, this is I wrote a piece some years ago in the Washington Post where after I’d talked with our somebody we both know and have spoken many times, Joe Walsh, I think it would it’s really important to have somebody like Joe or Lynn Cheney challenge Trump in the primaries to force Republican voters to a moment of clarity, where if they’re gonna choose Trump, it’s they can’t just do it by default, especially the anti anti Trump attorney. And just say, well, I didn’t vote for anybody, and I you know, I’m just above all this. I’m just too cool for school. I’m gonna write in
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:46

    Edmond Burke. Yeah. You know,
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:48

    right. Exactly. I wrote in, you know, Montesquieu or something. I mean, give me a Jesus Christ, and then tweeted about it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:55

    Yeah. And
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:56

    also to say, okay, if the Republicans are, you know, okay, R and C, And boy, you know, I don’t know that this would happen with this, you know, utterly vacuous chair. Ronny McDaniel, which we I just had to say. But to say, yeah. Okay. If you’re a real party, let’s have a primary.
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:16

    Let’s have a primary debate. Let’s put Liz Cheney and and Donald Trump and Rhonda Santos and everybody else all on a stage together, earn it, make it happen. But what I would not want to see I was really glad, as I said, back back some years ago, when Joe Walsh was going around the country and trying to put on a primary challenge, what I would not want to see is Liz Cheney become a third party candidate. I
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:41

    don’t think
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:42

    Because I think that just it becomes a safety valve for, you know, disrupted or posturing Republicans and independents, and some Democrats who say, well, I again, I just wanted to be above it all. I don’t like binary choices. I didn’t wanna have to take a stand. I didn’t wanna have to make a hard decision between two people I don’t like. You know, you get these very huffy objections of, well, I’m not forced to vote for anybody.
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:08

    No, you’re not. That’s right. You can, in fact, be a bystander in your own democracy while everything goes off the cliff. You know, you can sit in the back seat of the car as it’s driving off the off the cliff. It’s say, well, I wasn’t driving.
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:21

    I didn’t buy the gas. But in the end, you will suffer the consequences just as as much as anybody else. So I I would like to see I hope she dogs him right through twenty twenty four, but I I think in the end, the only way to defeat Donald Trump And the Republican Party is that when it comes to a choice between a candidate who can win, who is almost inevitably going to be a Democrat, and a and a Republican who has sworn guilty to Donald Trump, you’re going to have to choose a Democrat whether you and you’re gonna have to put aside those policy differences. And and do it because you’re gonna defend the constitution and democracy for as long as that takes. I don’t think she’s
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:59

    gonna run as a third party. I’m guessing that she will run as a republican. So let me tell you how I answered that question from the reporter. I said, well, I I think this is more about having a platform that actually winning the nomination. I mean, she’s a realist.
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:12

    She’s she’s a very smart person. She knows she’s not going to beat Donald Trump in a Republican primary, but she also knows that her candidacy would give her an opportunity in a megaphone to continue to prosecute the case that he poses this existential threat. Trump, of course. And this is what’s gonna be delicious. He will refuse to get on any debate stage with her.
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:33

    He will never ever debate her. So she will be this constant thorn in his side. And do you remember in twenty twenty, the RNC actually was canceling caucus’s canceling primaries? I mean, talk about any democrat. Yep.
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:46

    And they and they will be tempted to do the same thing again. Now it’s one thing to do that. And and I mean no disrespect here when it’s Joe Walsh or Bill Well, but Liz Cheney has raised the opportunity cost of that kind of bullshit much higher. It will make it much and she will call him out and she will have that platform she will have the the audience to be able to prosecute this case. So she knows she’s not going to be president and she knows she’s not going to be Donald Trump in any of these primaries, but she’s also made clear that she’s going to take the stands.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:24

    And and if if it has to be a kamikaze mission, to make sure he never gets back in the Oval Office, the Iron Lady from Wyoming is is there
  • Speaker 3
    0:35:34

    for it. I think. Two things occurred to me about that. I want I think you’re absolutely right, Charlie. If he thought she was a problem when she was a congressman during the January sixth committee, Why he I mean, now in in a sense, she is not weighted down by having to be a member of congress.
  • Speaker 3
    0:35:52

    And sharing committee. She can just, you know, make him her project full time now. But With that said, I’m less optimistic than you are. I think, you know, Ronald McDaniel, I think they’re also spineless, and they are also completely sold out to Trump. That despite the opportunity cost, don’t just cancel those debates.
  • Speaker 3
    0:36:11

    They they won’t do everything they have to do. Don’t get me wrong. There’s there’s not a shred of optimism. About
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:18

    how Republicans will respond. It’s not a long trip. It’s that when they do it, it will be called out, there will be a brighter spotlight on it.
  • Speaker 3
    0:36:28

    Absolutely. When they
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:29

    do it because it will be Cheney and she will be eloquent and merciless. In putting that in making the case. I’ve I mean, I’m just gonna be in heated
  • Speaker 3
    0:36:37

    agreement with you here that, you know, it’s it’s one thing to say that Joe Walsh or Bill weld, you know, we’re gonna kinda swap you out of the way because you don’t really you’ve never developed that national platform. Cheney has already become a national politician. Not just because of January sixth, I mean, this is somebody who was like the what? Number three in the House leadership until you know, taken down by the likes of Elise, the fanic, which is, you know, an amazing thing in itself. But Yes.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:09

    And the opportunity cost will be high. And unlike some of her other opponents, some unlike some Trump’s other opponents rather, Cheney will capitalize on it. And she will stay, again, we’re kind of speculating about what she’s gonna do next. But if that’s the road she goes, she has the opportunity, she has the savvy, that she’s gonna do that. You know, there’s a meme going around that she is ghost Jedi Liz Cheney now.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:33

    You remember that scene in Star Wars where Obi wan says if you strike me down, I’ll become more powerful than you can imagine. I almost used that quote in
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:40

    my newsletter today and then I thought was two geeky slash nerdy. The comparison will be one.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:45

    I
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:45

    I’m sorry. I I choked. I actually had a written in there. I told I told our art director that I’m doing the Obi Wan Kenobi thing. And then I thought, no.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:56

    But you’re right. You strike Talk down she
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:58

    becomes more powerful. Remember who you’re talking to? There’s no such thing as too nerdy and too hazy for me. So but I think that there’s some there’s some truth on that because when you’re a sitting member of Congress, I mean, Cheney actually took the job being a congressman seriously. She’s not you know, a Marjorie Taylor Green who says, yeah, I don’t go to committee meetings.
  • Speaker 3
    0:38:16

    I don’t pass legislation. I don’t care about anything. This is all Showtime. But now that Cheney has been, you know, released from that obligation. Trump’s gonna find out what it’s like, I think, to deal with her full time twenty four seven.
  • Speaker 2
    0:38:30

    I I think you to hit my my fantasy here, and this is this is my not optimism, but perhaps irrational exuberance. When Ronald McDaniel Romney, whatever, canceled the primaries last time. Joe Walsh put out a press release and everybody pretty much paid no
  • Speaker 1
    0:38:48

    attention. She’s
  • Speaker 2
    0:38:49

    gonna do the same thing this time. And I could imagine Liz Cheney doing a full Ginsburg on all of the shows talking about She will — Yes. — she will not be
  • Speaker 1
    0:38:59

    ignored. And I will be
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:00

    ignored, Dan. I will be ignored
  • Speaker 1
    0:39:04

    Donald. But I
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:05

    but I also think that she already has that that level of access and prominence in the media that when she says, I’m not gonna be ignored. You know, I think you’re right. I think she can she can actually make that stick. And I think it’s one thing for the the R and C to think about, you know, taking a a backhanded slap at Bill Weld or or Joe, whoever spent. Yeah.
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:29

    And who and who, you know, Joe got out there and did the work and did took a lot of face shots from a lot of angry people in a lot of places — Yeah. — where, you know, again, people were literally threatening him which is, can we just pause for a minute and say, imagine that physical threats of violence are now a normal part of American politics in a way that they never were. You know, I was talking with a friend a few years back, an ambassador, a former ambassador,
  • Speaker 1
    0:39:59

    And he
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:59

    said, you know, every time I came back from these assignments and, you know, and these guys are sent to all kinds of hotspots around the world. And he said, but every time I came back in the United States, I had this feeling of calm that I was coming back to a stable place with guardrails and rules and, you know, with all of our problems with social justice and poverty and everything else going on, that nonetheless, this was a kind of stable haven of rational politics. And he said, I don’t feel that anymore. I don’t feel that anymore when I come back to the United States. And I I knew exactly what he felt.
  • Speaker 3
    0:40:33

    I used to feel that way when I’d come back from the Soviet Union or Russia. And the plane would land the United States. I say, I’m back in a normal country. And I don’t feel that way anymore. And I think that I think what a tragedy, what a long and dark shadow has been cast over this country.
  • Speaker 3
    0:40:55

    Because of one screwed up little boy from New York, you know, who blundered his way into the presidency on a whim. Well,
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:04

    you know, sometimes we have these mantras, we say these phrases over and over and over again, and we don’t think about it. Like, for example, that America is an experiment in democracy and, you know, that became kind of, you know, just standard standard talking point. But we are experiment and two hundred years in the great scope of human history or world history is not that much. And the reality is that it was always fragile. And now we’re just seeing how fragile it is.
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:31

    And when we use words like experiment, remember,
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:34

    you know, we pride ourselves on what we’re an experiment. Okay. But part of that is Experiments can fail. Oh, yeah. Experiments can fail.
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:41

    And also, you know, the
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:42

    other thing and I I don’t wanna get too deep into this because thinking about this book I’m reading. I’m in each other. We’re out on a Wednesday already.
  • Speaker 1
    0:41:48

    We
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:49

    usually leave the bumming out stuff for Friday, apparently. I I actually just a is one of those books that people have recommended to me for years and years and years and I and I thought, I’m not gonna get around to reading it and then and then finally
  • Speaker 1
    0:42:00

    I do it,
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:01

    I go, why is it taking me so long to read this book because it’s so interesting. And I’m sure you’re familiar with Sapiens, you know, this history of humankind. And talks about the evolution of human beings. And one of the points he makes is that pretty much evolution works for a while but the pace of change has been so great that that that human evolution has not been able to keep up with it. The the the, you know, the environment hasn’t been able to keep up with it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:28

    We as human beings are experiencing a pace of change, technological change that there have been no adaptation for us to do it. Right? There’s no our brains have not gotten better at the rate that all of this other shit is happening. And as a result, you know, we’re looking around going, something has broken our brains, something has broken our culture. Well, it’s you know, this is We literally can’t process the amount of information.
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:55

    That’s what I’m getting in. Our brains
  • Speaker 3
    0:42:57

    are not capable. In a hundred and years, we went from a largely agrarian, you know, even in the advanced countries. But, you know, if you went a hundred and fifty years ago, London, New York, and Paris, you know, Moscow, Rome, whatever. The minute you got outside of that city, there are people farming. Yeah.
  • Speaker 3
    0:43:13

    You know, there are people picking things off of trees. And in a hundred and fifty years, we went from that to being a space faring, you know, hyper connected speed of light, fiber optics connected society that literally where we’re taking in, you know, terabytes and petabytes of data every week, And our brains have our brains are no different than they were a hundred and fifty. That’s exactly it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:43:38

    Yes. And the amazing thing, and you have written about this over and over again, with all of this going on with all of these choices, with all of this stimulation, with all of this at our fingertips, we’re bored.
  • Speaker 1
    0:43:51

    We’re bored because there’s
  • Speaker 3
    0:43:51

    a looking for drama,
  • Speaker 2
    0:43:52

    but we are
  • Speaker 3
    0:43:53

    bored I mean, in a sense, it’s the dark side of remember the movie, Wally, Right? Walling where people have gone into space and they just sit in big barcaloungers, you know, and weigh three hundred pounds and stare at televisions and, like, zero gravity because they’ve destroyed earth. This is the dark side of that that we just have become passive receptacles for staring at screens. And taking in a lot of empty calories. And we don’t feel like we’re part of something like we did, you know, during World War two, during the Cold War, during the civil rights movement, during, you know, these great periods of social change, we got what we wanted.
  • Speaker 3
    0:44:32

    We got peace, and prosperity, and affluence, and a very high standard of living. People always bristle when they talk about affluence, but instead of thinking in terms of income, of it in terms of the amazing standard of living that you have compared to, you know, if your if you’re close to our age, today, you know, you had thirty or forty years ago. And people are sitting back and they’re saying, what? That’s it? Where’s the flying cars?
  • Speaker 3
    0:44:59

    Where’s the, you know, the where’s the holographic conference? Yeah. Right. Which
  • Speaker 2
    0:45:04

    is no disappointing. I’m so disillusioning.
  • Speaker 3
    0:45:07

    But WiFi on this airplane sucks. You know? And and they just have gotten used to that. I mean, Trump isn’t really smart enough to make these cases. He’s kind of a placeholder and a RABL browser for a lot of these cases, but then aided by people in the in the conservative media ecosystem, say, This is about good and evil.
  • Speaker 3
    0:45:26

    This is about saving the babies. I mean, I love the fact that Donald Trump is now like an anti abortion crusader as if he ever gave a a rat’s ass enough. You know, you are part of the big, you are stopping the dark eyeballs that seek to undermine the greatness of America and and blab blah, blah, blah. And people say, you know, this is this is more fun than watching real fortune. I guess I’ll go, you know, I’m gonna just go down these rabbit holes and start buying tactical gear because now my life now I have meaning in my life.
  • Speaker 3
    0:45:58

    So I I need to extend and revise some
  • Speaker 2
    0:46:01

    of my remarks from the the past. You and I I don’t know. We we could say we we had an exchange on Twitter, but you commented on on this as well. And by the way, I think you were were right. On my podcast about two weeks ago, I I thought, you know what?
  • Speaker 2
    0:46:13

    I I just wanna hear out Andrew Yang about his his third party, the forward party. And you’ll see what he’s got if he’s got an idea. I mean, at least, let’s be open to this given how awful everything is. And then he goes on and and I think I gave him a fair hearing. I also pushed back on him on a couple of things.
  • Speaker 2
    0:46:30

    So he goes on CNN and Jim Acosta. I was asking questions about this new party and goes, well, how does the forward party feel about Roe versus Wade? And Andrew Yang says, The forward party has not left or right, but forward stands on even the most divisive and contentious issues. And Jim Macosta says, what does that even mean? And I I have to admit, and I know you commented on this.
  • Speaker 2
    0:46:54

    I had to take a deep breath and go, you know, maybe you guys are really aren’t ready for prime time because as that clip, you know, suggests, look, not left or right, forward as great as a bumper sticker, but when it becomes your go to answer to questions about issues like abortion or war and peace, it’s it’s kind of like nothingness. So I you know, what I what I wrote yesterday is as much as we’d like to think that Andrew Yang is offering a viable third way. It’s it’s a fanciful notion that our moment of incendiary nihilism can be countered by a rallying cry for TBD.
  • Speaker 1
    0:47:29

    You know,
  • Speaker 2
    0:47:29

    to be determined, I they’ll a blank. And it’s like, oh, man. So to your point about third parties, at least in the near term, That ain’t the answer. Thanks. They were fair to yang than I was because I I have just
  • Speaker 3
    0:47:42

    been tired of yang. Yeah. You know, for years now, and I used to being wrong now. He’s I mean, look, you you gave the guy chance, you said, okay, you know, maybe this is a, you know, maybe this can unite kind of center rights, center left, maybe we can but I I think, you know, I’m still I was one of the people looking at the democratic primaries and saying why are you on this stage? What have you done that is, you know I mean, to me, he was just you know, another version of Marianne Williamson.
  • Speaker 3
    0:48:12

    Why are you on this stage? How did you get here? What is the point? And this is a guy who couldn’t win the nomination. It couldn’t win an election from mayor of New York, and he’s gonna put together a party with you know, again, Christine Todd Whitman, somebody I think, you know, many of us respect, certainly, I do.
  • Speaker 3
    0:48:29

    But what’s the constituency for Andrew Yang and Christy Todd Whitman? You know, with a party that is not the other we’re not the other two parties. And the thing I posted and a lot of I got I got nothing. I’m going. The the thing that a lot of people posted was from that clip from the Simpsons where the aliens take over Bob Doan, Bill Clinton, and one of them’s giving a speech.
  • Speaker 3
    0:48:52

    He says, forward, not backward, up, not down, and always twirling, twirling, twirling toward democracy. And, you know, because the minute yang said all this, it’s like, all of us who grew up with the Simpsons immediately recognized the vacuumsiness of this. And I think once again, what would Yang how would Yang in twenty twenty four and the forward party be any different than the other spoilers that have brought us so much you know, misery of, you know, Gary Johnson and Joel Stein and, you know, I would just look, for the time being, our political system is premised on a binary choice between the two major end. You know what? I would love to see that change, but but we are in an existential crisis of government.
  • Speaker 3
    0:49:38

    And that crisis of government is repeatedly in various contests going to come down to a binary choice between a Republican and a Democrat. So just gonna have to swallow that hard pill and make that decision. Maybe we have the binary destiny that we
  • Speaker 2
    0:49:54

    will all end up either as a as a Simpsons episode or a South Park. I I don’t know. The Simpsons are
  • Speaker 3
    0:50:01

    the grand they they are the creepiest creepy in the sense of Clairevoyant. I mean, they called it they they were the ones who knew Donald Trump was gonna win. You know, they’re the ones who said, you know, I’ll say I’ve said it before, and I’ll say and again, democracy doesn’t work. It’s a classic Simpsons line. So they they saw it coming before the rest of us, but hopefully we can avert avert at least the craziness of a third party that’s just gonna siphon off boats and and give us another disastrous outcome.
  • Speaker 3
    0:50:30

    So Tom Nichols, I wanted to
  • Speaker 2
    0:50:32

    get into you crain, all these other things, but the pattern is full. So, Tom, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast today. Thank you, Charlie. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seres. I’m Charlie Sykes, Thank you for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast, and we’ll be back tomorrow and do this all over again.
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