Tom Nichols: Testing the System ‘Til It Breaks

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. Man, it is Friday the thirteenth, and what a hell of a news cycle. Of course, you need to know introduction, but Tom Nichols is Professor Ramirez at the naval war college and now a staff writer at the Atlantic Magazine, and author of the Atlantic Daily newsletter, And his books include the death of expertise, which I am told has an update coming this winter. My apologies for bringing you on on a particularly dark and gloomy and, cursed day professor.

You know, I hadn’t thought

of Friday the thirteenth because every day is Friday the thirteenth now.

You know, I was just thinking about just the news cycle. And, you know, in in my morning shots, I was talking about, of course, you know, the complete utter chaos in the house of representatives, Steve scalise wins the vote for speaker and his candidacy lasts, what, less than twenty four hours he drops out. Every headline in America, has some version of the word, chaos, turmoil, anarchy, paralysis, dysfunction. Disfunction. You know, we are a world power We’re facing one crisis after another.

And this is the moment that our deeply serious country, the theme that you’ve written about, Tom, has decided, to be deeply un serious and to shut down the House of Representatives. And, frankly, let’s be honest about it. Okay? Nobody knows what’s going to happen now. Steve’s police couldn’t get to two seventeen.

Kevin McCarthy couldn’t get to two seventeen. That’s the number of votes you need. Maybe the second coming of Kevin McCarthy. Well, no. He’s not gonna get to two seventeen.

So we’re at a moment now where no one knows what’s going to happen. And the Republican Party, which is supposed to be the majority party, the governing party, is demonstrating in real time, in bright colors, that it is uninterested in the business of government or has lost the ability So, again, it’s the juxtaposition of the horrors of the real world and this fucking clown car that we’re seeing in Washington, DC.

You said it this morning, clowns with flamethrowers.

This is what Republicans wanted. This was kind of I said. I mean, they’ve been asking Right? They they wanted the revolution. They wanted to burn it down.

They empowered the political suicide bombers. This is what you get when you elevate and you empower the fringe players when you hand flamethrowers to clowns. And they’re like, how did this happen to us?

Yeah. I you know, when you when you mentioned the problem of, you know, they don’t understand governing or they don’t wanna go I think this is all the cascading failure that began in twenty sixteen of people who never expected to be where they are suddenly in positions that they both, they don’t understand. I think you know, it’s objectively true that Lauren Bobert or these other they have no idea what they’re doing in Congress, but it’s also a group of people who finding themselves where they are have decided that the most important thing is to stay where they are. And that removes any possibility for governing, which requires not being on camera all the time, which requires not you know, just scoring cheap points all the time.

But, I mean, that that’s the incentive structure for these guys.

You know, who do I always blame? The voters. We, the people who, you know, have looked at this clown show and said, well, I’m getting what I want. I’m not getting but I don’t want legislation because the voters and, you know, I’m just gonna bang the desk again here. The voters don’t understand how government works.

They don’t understand how it is that all this happens so they don’t care what their representatives are doing.

I’m gonna take your point there, but I also think that it’s worth pointing out that something like ninety four percent of the Republican caucus did not wanna do this. I’m not trying to defend Kevin McCarthy, but you do have seven members of the caucus who decided to blow things up. So you you had the crazed, you know, slavery Jackal caucus that threw Kevin McCarthy out. Now there’s a whole group of others that were saying we’re never Elise, there’s going to be a a group that’s never whoever the next name is that comes up. It is this tiny minority in the party, but they’ve been empowered.

They’ve been given the clout.

I’m not gonna let you just boil this down to those seven because after this happened, everyone else in the house should have gotten together. And so we need a speaker, needs to be a compromised candidate, needs to happen right now. And the first thing we’re gonna do is defang these seven kooks. The fact that you and I are living in a world where it is at least notionally possible that Jim Jordan would become the speaker

I know.

Of the people’s house and in line to the presidency of the United States is so utterly fantastic not because Jim Jordan is some, you know, transdimensional warlock. Yeah. But because he’s an idiot, he was a, a kind of Charlie Sykes candidate whose job was to represent some people in Ohio and their cookie conspiracy. These Frankenstein were never supposed to get off the table.

And by the way, as another sign of how deeply unserious all this is the fact that for a few days, they were actually talking about electing Donald Trump as speaker. This is how ridiculous it is. And so then, I mean, look, in a rational universe, Jim Jordan would never be allowed close to the speaker’s chair. You’re absolutely right. I agree with you on the, on on the that this is not just seven.

I wanna make that clear.

Is it eight now? Seven or eight?

Well, it’s a different group. It keeps shifting. I mean, there’s a large group of people who frankly don’t care whether or not they’ve shut down the Congress of the United States. And, you know, it’s you know, one day it’s Matt Gates, you know, the next day it’s I don’t know. It’s always Nancy Mace, one, you know, with one outfit after another.

But, you know, look, this is a party that has been losing its mind for a long time, and now it’s lost its way. And now it’s basically proving that it has no interest in governing. But, I mean, this is also what you get when you, you know, you sneer at things like, compromise, prudence when you, treat bipartisanship. Or consensus as bad things. You know, when you snark about norms, when you flout the law, when you do all of these things, when you when you go deeper and deeper into these hermetically sealed alternative realities, you know, and you indulge, you know, you know, year after year of demagoguery and indecency when you take your cues from Donald Trump, really should you be surprised?

To wake up finding out that, you know, you are being roasted by clowns with flamethrowers. So there is that that sort of in comprehension on the part of so many of these Republicans. Look at how did this happen? Well, you’ve been doing this now for years. And all of the incentive structures, all of the bomb throwers that you’ve elevated, the Marjorie Taylor greens, really, what did you think was going to happen?

I mean, when you said you wanted to burn it all down, when you said you wanted a revolution, when you said, you know, norms are for cocks And we don’t ever need to compromise or or actually maybe we’ll even shut the federal government down. You know, where did we think this was going?

I don’t think they really believed that they were gonna get away with any of that. I think they thought it was cool stuff to say. I mean, it’s kind of like, you know, the ongoing discussions about Republicans and Roe v Wade. Right? The dog’s catching the car.

It’s like, wow. You know, we agitated for that for years, and then we had no idea that it could actually have and and now we’re kinda stuck. The other thing that’s, I think, important to point out, you know, you’re right about the media talking about dysfunction and chaos. But it’s not the dysfunction of the institution. It’s the dysfunction of one party in the institution.

Amazingly, was a JBL who said something like the Republicans turned the Democrats into a better party that the Democrats are actually holding their coalitions together and you know, sort of in more fighting trim.

You and I are both old enough to remember when, you know, the joke was that they know that the Democrats we’re not an organized party, right, that they were always fighting with one another. The Republicans always fell into line. Now that’s been absolutely flipped on its head.

Do Republicans I remember somebody saying to me Republicans are a church, Democrats are a street fight. It is the other way around.

Yeah.

That means it’s unfair. And I think it’s wrong to portray this to the American people as Congress is in disarray. Part of Congress is functioning in a perfectly normal way.

Well, okay. So what’s what’s your Democrats do right now? I mean, where where do you come down on this that okay. So you had the seven bomb throwers who said we’re gonna vacate the chair. The only way they were able to get rid of Kevin McCarthy is that if every Democrat went along with it.

So there are Republicans who will say, well, wait. Okay. So We had seven, you know, bomb throwers who blew up the speakership, but Democrats went along with this. The reason why there is no speaker is because every single democrat voted to vacate the chair as well.

It’s just so awesome.

Well, okay.

That is such an awesome evasion of responsibility. You know, if we do the thought experiment, right? And let’s say, Nancy Pelosi were endangered by with Corey Bush, you know, and five other Democrats. So what we’re gonna take down Nancy Pelosi. Could you imagine anybody saying in the Republican caucus?

Now, you know, you know, guys, the constitutionally responsible thing to do here is to help Nancy Pelosi They’d be laughing their asses off. They’d be ordering pizza and popcorn. It is not the job of the opposition party. To rescue the majority party from its own idiocy and internal political squabbles. But

So what happens now though?

At this point, I don’t know. At some point, this Republican dysfunction becomes so dangerous that if the Republicans say, look, we’re gonna have something like a, you know, a compromised speaker that you can live with. And Joaquin Jeffries needs to give x number of his people have passed. This happens. And by the way, and, you know, we we both know this, but that sometimes the party leaders will give a set number of their guys have passed to say, look, Go vote against us with the opposition on this, and we won’t hold it against you.

It’s necessary to do it like on on the gulf war. The first gulf war. I I saw it with my own eyes where guys that were against the war voted for the war and guys that were for the war took path, you know, there there was horse trading to basically make it come out that the war could happen. So could something like that happen? I mean, I what do you think?

I I think it could, but it’s unlikely.

Every possible scenario is unlikely. So we are left with rule out the impossible, and we’re gonna be left with the improbable. Right? But it’s going to be something It’s

a very

good quote. What are the various options? Jim Jordan, which I don’t think he’s gonna get to two seventeen total freaking clown show. The return of Kevin McCarthy, I just don’t see how that happens. You know, given the fact that they’ve already blown it up.

There’s talk about having some sort of a bipartisan compromise that would give the acting speaker Patrick McHenry more power to run the the house. And Matt Gates is very upset about this idea because Matt Gates understands that if there’s any sort of a bipartisan compromise, He is completely marginalized. He suddenly becomes irrelevant. So that’s possible. Is there somebody else like a Tom Emer who’s going to come out of the weeds?

What’s kind of fun, Tom? I don’t know if you if you’ve done this, but go back and read the insider accounts, like an hour before everything happens. And what you realize is that even the insiders of the insiders have no idea what’s going on. I mean, honestly, it’s it’s remarkable. So I’m sitting here in Wisconsin.

You’re sitting in

Rhode Island.

Rhode Island? No. Not Rhode Island. One of one one of those small states. And yet the people who are in the know, don’t actually know anything.

So what is going to happen? I mean, I thought Jake Sherman tweet last night really captured it. This was moments after Steve’s police said screw it. I’m not gonna get to two seventeen. We’re not gonna have a speaker.

He wrote the House Republican Conference is a mess, complete and utter mess. They are no closer to picking a speaker. They are a month away from a shutdown. Israel is asking for aid which needs to pass in the next few weeks, they are completely lost, and they have no idea how they will get out. So one option is that they don’t get out, that it becomes the dumpster fire forever.

But I don’t know how at some point they don’t sit down with some Democrats and try to work out some deal, which is Mindblowing when you think about it.

Well, and puts the Democrats in a really strong position if they decide to go that road. But But I I think then you’re courting open war within the GOP.

I had to be close to that right now.

Right. They’re not there yet, and I wonder if they’re willing to go down wrote. I wanna believe taking your scenarios. I wanna believe that no matter what, enough Republicans say that Jim Jordan in the speaker’s chair would be so completely unacceptable that they just have to either come together on any solution and like What? Keeping McHenry in the in the chair.

I mean, that in some ways, that’s the worst of all possible worlds. Right? I mean, then they can just have this fight every day over and over and over again. They’d almost be better off to say fine. Patrick McHenry is the new speaker.

If they could all agree Jonathan Last this notion that they find somebody somewhere and that five Democrats get the Jedi, you know, and wave is fascinating. Maybe my I’m having a failure of imagination to say, could things actually get that bad? Yeah. That this situation of separated powers becomes basically like a parliamentary system.

Well, I think you can get a lot worse than that. I mean, if they don’t do something, the government shuts down, there’s no aid for Israel, certainly no aid for Ukraine. All kinds of other bad things happen. But let’s say they come up with some sort of a compromise. I mean, for the Democrats, I mean, there’s gotta be a few red lines.

Right? What my proposal would be, you’re not ever gonna vote for or open the door for anyone who was an election denialist who voted to decertify the results of the twenty twenty election. I think that would be a red line. Number two, I think that you have to demand that, okay, we’re gonna keep the government open. We’re not going to do that.

Right. Because Jordan’s already threatened to shut it down

Exactly. So, I mean, there’s no point in making any kind of a deal if you don’t have a deal on that. So you have to make a deal on on Israel. I don’t know whether they make a deal on Ukraine. I don’t know whether it’s possible.

For them to say, okay. You want us to bail you out. You have to drop this, the sham impeachment hearing, but there are some basic things that they could perhaps get done. But here’s the thing. You know, we’re we’re talking about all this chaos turmoil, anarchy, paralysis, and dysfunction today.

And probably it’s gonna last for several, several days. But even when they resolve this, it doesn’t change this dynamic. Right? I mean, whoever gets in will have the same Republican party, the same incentive structures. The same need to to bow the knee and kiss the ass of of Donald Trump, who is the, you know, ultimate agent of chaos, they’ll still only have a four vote majority.

You still let people who wanna blow the place up. So, you know, I mean, we’re gonna lurch from one chaotic moment to the Ron DeSantis stakes will keep rising. Right? So it’s chaos about electing a speaker. It’s going to be chaos when it comes to keeping the government open.

It’s going to be chaos when we decide what kind of foreign aid we we do. You know, it’s going to be chaos when they, you know, continue the impeachment votes. I mean, so There’s no resolution at the end of this.

The thing that has to get done, I think, before they can move forward is that the Republican conference has to figure out how do we undo the deal, first of all, that created this possibility? How do we undo what Kevin McCarthy did? But also, and now I’m just wishcasting. Where is the come to Jesus moment where you sit down with these half a dozen reps and say, Can’t have it anymore, you know. The de niro and Goodfellow’s moment.

Can’t have it. I can’t have it, Henry.

They come to Jesus’s moment may be the normally publicans who have gone along with all this, kept their heads down. You know, been told that you have to be loyal foot soldiers here. They come to Jesus moment, maybe when they realize, okay, we’re out of here. We actually have clout. We’re tired of of, you know, just watching the extremists get their way.

We are gonna, you know, sit down with the democrats. Now, by the way, it’s complete fan fiction. That any Republican’s gonna vote for a Democrat. That is not gonna happen. Right?

I mean, can we just, like, leave this aside? This is deeply unserious conversation. But You know, you have, you know, a dozen, maybe twenty, normally Republicans who could say, you know what? We have the balance of power. We could go find some some counterparts on the other side.

And then everything changes. The way legislation is drawn up, the way legislation is voted on, the way the committees are structured. We could run this place if we wanted to.

I mean, just as the incentives for the clown caucus is to be as difficult and ridiculous possible. These people also have a have an incentive to work with Democrats and to tell that when they run for for reelection when I was a working political scientist and a professor all those years, I was not a fan of parliamentary systems. I will say though, at a moment like this, this is when you would have what’s called a clarifying election. Right? You would just say, okay.

I really stop what they’re doing. Whole country’s gonna vote. We’re gonna say, you know, how many seats do you really want in Congress for this and for that? I don’t think that works in this country very well because we are so polarized and because of a lot of structural things. But the problem is we’re not gonna get a clarifying election until twenty twenty four.

And that’s dangerous.

Let’s shift to the actual ultimate reality check is the world is still a dangerous place. The world is in crisis. We have the ongoing warrant in Israel, which

Yeah.

Is beyond ghastly. I mean, I’m running out of adjectives to describe as the horror of everything that we have seen, what’s being done, the reaction to it. Now we have Israel, launching ground operations in Gaza. I mean, the civilian casualties are gonna be considerable. So you are a student of international affairs.

Just talk to me a little bit about what you’ve been thinking about since Hamas, which, by the way, is not just one among many Palestinianian organizations. It is an organization that is committed and has been committed to the destruction of Israel for a very, very long time. But your thoughts since Hamas launched this bloody brutal barbaric terrorist attack on Israel last week.

I think my colleague at the Atlantic Elliot Cohen subbed it up really well when he said this is civilization against the barbarians, and not just in Middle East. I mean, you know, Armenia, Ukraine, you know, that there are parts of the planet where, you know, the bad guys are making a run for it. Maybe because of, you know, I I’m not a Middle East guy and I look at, you know, the rest of the map. Hamas’s attack on Israel. Timmy fit into this larger trend of just horrific groups and state leaders who are just deciding to test the international system until it breaks to just burn things to see if they can do it.

Our enemies are really testing all of these all

of it.

I mean, there there does appear to be, hey, do, you know, bring back the whole axis of evil, but you can see the way that Russia and China and Iran and Hamas are all testing the United States or all really, you know, in a very, very aggressive stance. Trying to figure out.

Hamas plan this for a long time. Right. Long time. They didn’t plan this saying gosh. We have no idea what the international reaction could be.

They knew. When I used to teach about terrorism at the war college, we always brought up the issue of drawing the foul. That one of the things terrorists try to do is to pull the target state into being as ghastly as they are. You know, something that you can kind of draw the foul and tell the multiple audiences who are watching. See, they’re as bad as we are.

Or our cause is just because they’re doing this. I could not even begin to know how Israel should respond. I mean, my my gut feeling is the same as everybody else’s. This this organization has to be destroyed. But as you say, the price, the damage is gonna be high, But I think that’s, again, part of a trend around the world of saying we are gonna push until it breaks because you people, you countries who defend the international, what the Americans now call the international rules based order.

You’ve actually been pretty good at this. And it’s really constrained us. And we wanna break that rules based international order and go back to chaos And I think that’s part of what’s happening here is that this is a deliberate attempt in Israel. A deliberate attempt, not just to you know, push back the Israeli. I mean, it’s it’s an attempt to create horror and terror and to soak the region in that chaotic terror,

and it may work. Okay. So hanging over all of our discussions of the unseriousness of our domestic policies, but also America’s role in the world is the possibility that Donald Trump might once again be the commander in chief. Let me play this one sound byte, which, again, not sure has gotten as much attention as it deserves. Here you have Donald Trump, who has dined out for a long time as a big defender and supporter of of Israel, but He was, unstinting in his attacks on Benjamin Netanyahu.

By the way, which I think is very, very interesting that he’s broken with Benjamin Netanyahu. Mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist, does it? To figure out why Donald Trump is dumping on the Israeli government right now. Right? Because Benjamin notanyahu, acknowledged the fact that Donald Trump lost the twenty twenty election.

And said nice things about Joe Biden.

But this is Donald Trump saying something nice about the terrorists who have unleashed this horror. Let me just play this and get your reaction on the other side.

And then two nights ago, I read all of Biden’s security people. Can you imagine national defense people? And they said, gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack from the north. Because that’s the most vulnerable spot. I said, wait a minute.

You know, hezbollah is very smart. They’re all very smart. The press doesn’t like when they say You know, I said that president Xi of China, one point four billion people. He controls it with an iron fist. I said he’s a very smart man.

That’s smart.

He killed me the next day. I said he was smart. What am I gonna say? But hesitant, they were smart. And they have a national defense minister or somebody saying, I hope Hezbollah will it doesn’t attack us from the north.

So the following morning, they attacked. They might not have been doing it, but if you listen to this jerk, you would attack from the north because he said that’s our weak spot.

Oh, okay. So, Tom, I don’t know how to unpack all of the stupidity there. So I’ll let you do it.

Thanks. Over to you, Tom.

Yeah.

First of all, I’m always struck, and it’s happening more and more these days. How much like a little boy he sounds?

Oh, I know. Yeah.

Like a little kid. They they they own the sing songy voice and the I mean, he’s just, like, somebody the other day pointed out that even by his standards, he sounds Like he’s really losing his shit. Imagine any other Republican candidate saying, Hamas is really smart. And you gotta hand it to Thomas, you know, basically.

You just gotta hand it. And that, by the way, can I just throw in the president Xi who rules a billion people with iron hand and engages in extra digital turns and stuff? He’s smart. I mean, it is interesting. Another tell what Donald Trump admires what he thinks is smart brutality is smart.

Appression is smart. Right?

Admirable. It’s tough. Admirable. The thing is Donald Trump, And you and I have said this for years that he has worn us down into just going, yeah, it’s, you know, what

can you do?

Because I actually brought up a little boy voice with a more serious point under it, which is that he does the little boy, whiny, singsong yee, toddler thing, almost in parts so that you don’t hear how horrific the thing is that he’s saying. Because he stood there and said in a very adult calm voice. You know, I think Hamas is very smart. And has, you know, and you gotta hand it to him and try and and that she look, there’s billion people in China. He rules them with an iron fist.

People would say, oh my god. But because he does the he does the whole performance art, you know, for Rub America that loves the little boy in the the hands and the the pinky extension and all that. It’s almost like you lose sight of the fact that he’s saying things that are horrifying that would be a career ending comment for any presidential nominee. And just to to go back to that Republican base, if any other Republican nominee had said that the Republican base would destroy him. Trump gets a pass because I bet you’ve talked to many trumpers who do this.

And well, I understood the agreement. He didn’t really mean that. I understood what

he meant. Or I didn’t see that. I didn’t hear that.

I didn’t I didn’t hear that.

No. I mean, to to their credit, some of the Republican candidates have been pushing back. I think Mike Pence push back on all of this. Ron DeSantis even push back on all of this, Nikki Haley. Good luck with that.

Yeah. I know good good good luck with that. The Israelis issued a very strong statement saying, you know, how unconscionable his his comments were. Will it make a difference? I think it’s naive to think that it will.

Okay. So let’s talk about Joe Biden’s response. It’s interesting to me how it is become this talking point that Not only is this Joe Biden’s fault because he projects weakness, but that in Tim Scott’s words, He has blood on his hands because he’s had dealings with the Iranians. Now my understanding is the administration working with Qatar has refrozen the six billion dollars, which was the talking point for the last week that this financed it, that six billion dollars in in Iranian money that was unfrozen. This is what was used to attack Israel.

Apparently, it’s been sitting in the bank the whole time. No money has been transferred, and it’s not going to be transferred now. But give me your your reaction to the way Joe Biden has handled this so far.

Look, I’m an admirer of Joe Biden’s foreign policy. The only times I’ve really been critical of him is when he goes into gaffe mode and he says, my god, you know, we have to take Putin. You know, Putin has to go. You know, and I wrote about that. I’m like, okay.

This is the Joe Biden that was always entertaining, you know, and with no filter, But you’re president now, and there are things that you shouldn’t just, like, explode in public about. But I think, you know, he gave his speech on this his address on on this pure evil? Do we stand with Israel? I think it should tell you how good the response is that the Republicans have had to resort to lying about it. Like Ted Cruz saying, oh, it was, you know, it was days before Biden’s no.

I mean, it’s not even a difference of interpretation. It’s flat out false. Or Tim Scott, can we stop taking Tim Scott seriously in so far as we ever did? That

wasn’t something of a surprise because, I mean, there was that, wish casting that Tim Scott was the more reasonable Republican, and he’s the one who gave the most, I think, the plausibly demagogic reaction, the blood on his hands, which, again, we can have a debate later about our foreign policy, but to say this days after the Hamas terrorists go in and slaughter all of these people, the rapes, the kidnappings, and to say that Joe Biden, I mean, that’s the kind of hyperpartisan rhetoric that used to be taboo. And, I mean, I certainly remember people were critical of George w Bush in the days after nine eleven. I mean, there was, you know, the the Michael Moore video and all of that, but I don’t recall any prominent Democrat saying in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center that George w Bush had Blood on his hands. Blood on his hands. I mean, no one engaged in that kind of rhetoric.

It’s certainly not a presidential candidate no matter how much they might have opposed his policies afterward nobody in the week after nine eleven was saying the kind of thing that Tim Scott is saying this week.

You could have seen Scott going down that road if you watched the last Republican debate. Because, you know, you could already see him saying, yeah. I I, you know, this good Republican shtick isn’t getting me anywhere. It’s time to head down Crack pot Bulwark. And that’s where they are.

I I mean, I think Benjamin Netanyahu is gonna have a lot to answer for.

This was there should be career ending for him.

You know, for nine eleven People on the left in particular really wanted to kind of nail bush on while there was this one thing that said bin Laden intends to do something bad. Well, no shit. Or in other words, it’s Tuesday. And then he wants to do something bad inside the United States. Again, finding so anodyne that you probably didn’t even have to classify Compared to that, this is a gigantic intelligence failure in Israel.

I mean, massive you know, this these camps showing the photographic evidence. I mean, come on. You could do this with Google Earth, but you know what? This is not the time. And you gotta give credit to the Israeli.

So I’ve said, you know what we’re gonna do? We’re gonna create a war cabinet and it’s gonna bring in the opposition and we’re gonna legislate and be able to pass bills about the war. This is where an said earlier, you know, being a political scientist, I was not a huge most political scientists love parliamentary systems. I don’t, but this is a one place where a parliamentary system can be flexible enough to say We’re gonna bring in the opposition. We’re gonna have a governing coalition.

We’re gonna agree that it’s only gonna be about certain things. And I think for American politicians, to talk about blood on president Biden’s hands when the Israelis themselves where there is so much more culpability to be assigned have said, you know what? We’re gonna figure that out afterward. For now, we’re gonna have an a government of national unity, and we’re gonna pass bills that can prosecute this war. And shame on Tim Scott.

I agree with all of that. And and, you know, it is premature to engage in too much of this. However, I have to say that, I guess, today on Friday the thirteenth, I just have the sense of the fragility of things, you know, how much in our lives and the world is so fragile and that many of us have taken so much for granted. I I think that probably a lot of people took for granted that that Israel was this security state with the best intelligence resources, the best defense possible. And yet, I think that in retrospect, people will go back and ask whether or not and how Israel managed to squander that.

How did they manage to be so vulnerable? Did it have something to do with the fact that they took their eye off all that they engage in this pointless culture war, that they turned on one another, because there’s a lesson for us too, because we’re thinking that America strong Americans. Mighty America is invulnerable. And yet, as a deeply unserious country, we have been squandering one value after another, one resource after another. And is there going to be a reckoning for us?

I mean, did we see that? Because it was so incomprehensible that Israel and everything we thought about Israel, that it could have, you know, failed so dramatically. What does that tell us about the fragility, even of the best and strongest nations.

One of the reasons I admire, Biden’s foreign policy is be cause Biden is a serious man when it comes to foreign policy. And he doesn’t pay attention to Twitter or social media or culture war stuff. And I kinda like that. I mean, I think that’s how you run foreign policies. See, you know, I mean, I like the kind of council of wise men approach and it’s not a perfect foreign policy.

I mean, Biden’s head is Afghanistan. There there. There’s the, you know, my which I’ve written about as a huge criticism of how you did that. But I think in general, I I still think that’s the better approach. The cautionary from Israel.

And I think it was Harrette’s who that said something to the effect of this is what happens when instead of running the country, you’re trying to stay in office to avoid criminal prosecution. You know, that was really sticking it in and breaking it off pretty early in this war, but it was also a true observation. And I think that’s the risk you take if Donald Trump comes back. Actually, even without Trump winning the election, he’s already sucked in so much of our national attention. And made such chaos out of one of our two parties that we need.

Look, whether you like it or not, and I wrote this last week. America needs a functioning conservative party. We just do for Donald Trump to basically immobilize a political party and millions of voters who can’t seem to think about anything beyond Donald Trump. I had a call from an old friend back home. Here in New England where I live.

And he was talking about a mutual acquaintance, and he said, I can’t talk to him. I can’t talk about anything. No matter what you talk about. Ten seconds in. It’s Biden’s a criminal, and Pelosi is a, you know, I see you next Tuesday.

You know, and it just goes on and on and on. And that that is corroding our ability to function as a country in an extremely dangerous world.

And we’re in a more tangible level of all of this. And again, we’ve become numb to it. Remember when when Donald Trump gave that speech talking about Very clearly how he is going to destroy the deep state. He gets back into power. He is going to dismantle the intelligence agency Ready wants to defund the FBI, you know, break down the Department of Desert.

Pourage the generals.

Pourage the generals, if not execute them. Imagine what that will do to national security. If Donald Trump does what he is openly and explicitly saying he will do, about our intelligence world, about the defense, about our justice system, about the investigative tools. And again, I think there’s gotta be a major issue. I mean, look, in terms of, like, weakness.

I mean, we’re already seeing the Republicans and I’ve said this several times on the on the podcast. Tommy Tuberville. Even in the face of all this, continues to hold up the military base. We still do not have confirmed ambassadors to these crucial countries because of this game playing. And yet, you know, Republicans want us to think that it’s the other side that’s, you know, showing weakness.

Well, you were about to nominate a guy who might pull us out of NATO who sucks up the Vladimir Putin who thinks that g is is a genius who, again, wants to tear down fifty, sixty, seventy years of a national security infrastructure. Everybody’s like, yeah. That doesn’t, project a weakness. And for what? For what?

Not out of any ideological conviction. You know, I mean, in a way, I I respect people of any political persuasion, even if I think they’re hateful, I kind of respect sincerity or authenticity. This is the emptiest kind of attack. I’m gonna pull out of NATO. Why?

Because everybody thinks I shouldn’t.

Yeah.

That’s why. Because I can. There’s a Henry Jamestar. I’m gonna go all literary on you. He always reminds me of the boy in the turn of the screw.

You know, this nasty kid who’s being influenced by a bad ghost. And the the governess says, why did you do that? And he said to show you that I could

and

that I can again. And that to me, that’s that’s all there is to this. Is this just why? Because I can. Why am I gonna blow this up?

Because a bunch of a bunch of people with some money will send me twenty five dollars and keep me afloat and keep me out of jail because I fight Going back to my earlier point, you know, you keep talking about if he comes in. He’s told us what he’s gonna do. But just saying those things is corroding us and weakening us right now.

Yeah.

Because he’s making millions of Americans who should be thinking soberly and seriously about foreign policy about everything, really, about the, you know, life in America, about the debt, about taxes, whatever. And instead, they’re talking about this. And they’re saying, Hey, kill the generals. That’s a great idea. Defund the intelligence community.

I’m all on board. And, you know, our enemies in the world, they know this. They see it happening.

And you can’t pretend it doesn’t matter because the former president of the United States was leading the Republican candidate for present of the United States. It’s not like some Randall on Twitter

or a couple of guys on a podcast or some guy on, you know, AM radio at three AM, when you’re driving through the mountains, you know, and you’re picking up a a signal from, you know, East Jesus somewhere.

Those guys are now in the United States Senate. That’s that

the thing.

Okay. So we’ve talked about Donald Trump. We talked about the Republicans. We have to talk about the pro Hamas left. And by the way, I’ve spent much of the week being reassured by people that, though, the Pro Hamas left is too small.

It’s not significant. We can simply ignore them, and it’s certainly true that this does not reflect most of the left. It does not reflect certainly a very many, you know, elected Democrats. On the other hand, This is a thing, Tom. And I wanna read you.

You had a one of your colleagues, at the Atlantic has just an absolutely fascinating story, which I would strongly urge people to regale Beckerman in the Atlantic After the brutal violence committed by Hamas against Israeli citizens, I looked around for my friends on the left and I felt alone. The sense of betrayal, you know, the callousness of, you know, folks on the left who say, well, you know, the Israel headed coming or, you know, this is what you for oppression. Michelle Goldberg, right, in the New York Times, very progressive columnist, said this sense of deep betrayal is not limited to New York. Many progressive Jews have been profoundly shaken by the way that some on the left are treating the terrorist mass murder of civilians as noble acts of anti colonial resistance These are Jews who share the left’s abhorrence of the occupation of Gaza and of the enormities inflicted on it, which are only going to get worse if and when Israel invades, but the way keyboard radicals have condoned war crimes against Israelis has left many progressive Jews alienated from political communities, they thought were their own. So, again, they are certainly not dominant, but they are a recessive gene on the left, and I have to say among the things that were very shocking, we’re watching many of these organizations, including the demo socialists of Americans.

Some of the chapters of Bulwark Lives Matter, and many of these student organizations at least schools like Harvard and California, issuing statements that were just objectively speaking, pro Hamas. I mean, it’ll actually embracing and endorsing the atrocities.

Morally, a term I use maybe too often morally vacuous, but also just immoral. Depraved. Depraved. Yeah. I think depraved is the right word for this.

Yeah. And I loved, the piece that you linked to at Wankette.

Oh, yes. Yep. You tweeted it. Yep.

That was great. You know, I and I set that out about saying, no, you know what? You know, the the writer was like, I’m basically a secular Jiu. I don’t really care about Israel that much. I think Netanyahu’s a jerk.

But, oh my god. Just stop. Just shut the fuck up. And I think, you know, that alienation, not to both sides of this, but to say, to empathize somewhat, that alienation I think is something you and I felt when we watched former conservatives cheering on Russian atrocities in Ukraine of, like, They’re killing children. They’re blowing up schools.

Well, you

know Exactly.

Hey. You talked about Ukraine joining NATO. This is what you get. You deserve it. It is the keyboard cruelty.

It is the people who have decided that I wanna be on a tribe, and I wanna indulge, you know, my two minutes hate with everybody. I also think this goes you, you know, you asked a question earlier Charlie Sykes I think was really good about. How did Israel, like, lose its way and not reckon you know, how did this garrison state kind of get to the point where people didn’t think there would be a problem having a music festival walking distance from Gaza, you know. Yeah. And I think it’s partly part of the reason things are coming apart is because the world has been not dangerous for a long time and because we haven’t had a sense of threat for a long time.

And because it’s like, you know, if I type about how, you know, Ukraine had it coming or or Hamas You gotta hand it to Mars. I’m just kind of self actualizing and and that doesn’t have any real world implications. And I think we we’ve lost the sense that there was once a time where when adults said things, those things had meaning and potential consequences. Now college kids, I’m not gonna give a pass to the college kids. I’m just gonna say college students, you know, I I love Dan Dresner’s point.

He he made years ago. A college is where you go to say stupid things and then to learn how stupid they are.

And hopefully that’s happening.

Well, I’m not sure. I mean, hoping this is

a clarifying moment where people realize, okay, did I really say that?

Well, I’m hoping that there are liberal professors, and I’ve seen this happen in the past. In my teaching career. I’m hoping there are liberal professors taking their students aside saying, you know, this is not what being on the left really means. That’s not what this is about. And not everything’s about you.

Yeah. So this this could be a clarifying moment, and there might be some realignment. It will be interesting to see whether or not This actually pushes some folks on the left who maybe have been somewhat ambivalent about Israel to look around and go, okay. No. I really don’t wanna be on that team.

I really don’t wanna be associated with these people You know, maybe this will serve to completely marginalized groups like the Democratic socialist of America. Yet a congressman from a Minnesota Democratic congressman who said I’m out. I’m just I don’t wanna be part of you. Even AOC is denouncing this sort of thing. The anti semites on the left can be counted now on one hand.

I think it elected members of Congress, but it was stunning. And I think that, you know, for people on the left who say you guys shouldn’t be talking about this or they’re not significant, One of the experiences that we’ve had over the last decade that continues to haunt me is the fact that we didn’t take serious some of the fringe figures on the right, people on the far edges of the of the fever swamp, who then suddenly became in positions of of influence. So I’m not saying that’s going to happen on the left, but they are there. There’s a demographic division. There’s a split in the democratic coalition where I think most older Democrats are supportive of what the Biden administration is doing supportive of Israel But you look at public opinion polls, and there’s been real erosion of support for Israel among younger progressives.

And I I I think that That needs to be highlighted. We need to have the kind of debate in in the article that was, in the Atlantic about this, the Michelle Goldbrew piece tells me that there’s going to be a reckoning Jonathan Last, people are saying, we thought we were on the same side. But if we’re not on the same side when it comes to this issue, then we’re really not on the same side.

One thing about the left, and one place I think they are less dangerous than the right is The extremists on the left tend to grow out of their extremism. The extremists on the right tend to grow into their extremism.

I hope you’re right. Well, I mean, we’ve seen it on the right. I mean, as the people get older, rather than becoming more mellow and more savvy, they become more sealed off from reality.

Well, one of the things that we know has happened, and they say we, you know, that researchers and people who follow social media usage, for example, is that people over fifty five who are either, you know, for various reasons out of the workforce or they’re retired or, you know, certainly after sixty five, they have plenty of time. They spend a lot of time just marinating. I mean, this friend we were talking about earlier that, you know, no one can talk to anymore. He just sits and bathes in Fox News, like, you know, like the hulk taking in gamma rays all day. I mean, it’s just, you know, there’s just no talking to him.

But I do think that, yeah, there has to be a reckoning on the left about this particular issue because there is a inhumanity to it. Conservatives, we always sort of, you know, this. We always sort of reveled in our spock, like, indifference to, you know, Jack Donaghy on thirty rock, you know, human empathy. It’s as useless as the winter Olympics. You know, that we were we were the cold hearted, cold blooded, you know, realist foreign policy guys.

But the left, you know, has always been more about heart and empathy. And this is really cold and inhuman, and I hope that there are people on the left talking to their comrades about this. Because I wanted to jump on the one point and sort of add to that Mia Copa when people start, you know, and you’ve seen me play this game with people on social media, oh, this all began with Reagan and it began with Nixon and it began with No. If you really wanna hammer the conservatives, it is those of us who did not wanna look around us to see who we were in a coalition with. That is the great sin, I think.

You know, when I was a Massachusetts Republican, I didn’t care what the Wyoming Republicans were doing. I just cared that they were Republicans.

Right. But also you also thought they were the recessive genes that that they were never going to really be

in the majority.

But one of the things that we’re describing here though is that with these new hermetically sealed alternative realities, it’s very easy to be walled off from people who will tell you. That’s crazy. That’s nuts. And we’re seeing that accelerating on the right Hopefully, what’s gonna happen on the university campuses and and on the left is there will be this dialogue because it’s not you and me telling, you know, the Palestinianian justice, coalition, whatever, that you should not be putting out literature with hang gliders, glorifying the rape and murder of those young people, at the concert, it is fellow progressives who are saying to them, okay, this is not part of the left. Hamas is not part of the international left.

So because one of the things that, you know, in these hermetically sealed universes, like university campuses, which you’ve encountered as well, are the number of people who have never heard a different point of view who are actually shocked when they encounter someone with a different opinion or a different perspective. Yeah. And it comes as a shock to them because they assume that everybody shares these views. And so they don’t have to analyze them. They don’t have to think it through.

That doesn’t challenge their conscience. I think that what’s happening right now is not cancel culture as much as, hey, guys. We really need to think through which side we wanna be on, who we are, what we believe in, what our values are. And, I think this is gonna come as a shock to some students. It’ll be it’ll be a transformational event I hope.

It’s not cancel culture to tell people to grow up. Yeah. You know, I’m hoping that’s one of the places these kids hear about how unacceptable this is is from the kid next to them in the dining hall.

Yeah. Right.

You know, look at him and say, dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that has really broken down and created this bubble but has broken down the ability of people to get out of those bubbles is that we don’t mingle in social places anymore, like the dining hall or don’t wanna do the bowling cliche, but even bars. I mean, you know, you think of a bar like cheers, right? I mean, I know places like that.

I mean, I go to a place like that here in Rhode Island. Right. And if you said something like, you know, you gotta hand it there’ll be people at the bar who just kinda look down the bar you and say, Hey, a thousand matter with you.

Right.

That’s actually an important function. It’s a social corrective that things that you think sound great you know, at a DSA meeting or online or on Reddit or something. You know, just think if you walked into a bar full of normal human beings. Would you say this stuff? And I think this is that what’s happened to people on the right as well that they are in an ecosystem of people on Fox and on radio who say to them, the only problem with you is that you’re not extreme enough.

You’re more right than you know. And there’s nobody to tell them they’re not.

This is a really good point because I I think that there is the the whole keyboard warrior type thing where you go kill them all. Let God sort them out. And, you know, it’s easy to say that and, you know, press send on the tweet. But if you actually have to confront another human being in explain why you are minimizing the killing of babies, the killing of women, the abduction of, you know, elderly people, you can’t do that. People aren’t gonna do that.

I mean, they’re willing to say things because it doesn’t feel like it’s part of reality.

And then there’s no consequences.

Right.

It’s it’s a transitory buzz It’s a little mini dopamine hit that you get from being a total shit online and seeing if you can gather some engagement. This is why an for people who follow me on social media, let me issue my plea one more time. You know, it’s okay occasionally to mock some of these dumber trolls, but every time you argue with them, you’re giving them exactly what they want. Even if you just say even if it’s one response, it says you’re stupid. They feel better.

They’re looking for that little microgram of dopamine that comes every time somebody gets mad at them, don’t do it. Just block them and move on.

So what where are you at now on the website formerly known as Twitter. You’ve been hanging on. I have to say that this is one of those weeks where I’m going. It this is such a successful Elon Musk has so destroyed it. I’m I’m edging toward the exit.

I’m I’m

useless for breaking news.

Yeah. Well, it used to be so valuable. Speaking of people who have, a lot on their hands, the fact that Elon Musk dropped many of the controls that would have stopped propaganda and disinformation, but you’re still hanging in for the duration because I’m I am looking around. I gotta say.

I am radio free Tom on Twitter and on threads and on blue sky. So I’m kind of coasting around and on spoutable. I don’t use spoutable. I didn’t just spot able and mastodon, I think, or just haven’t kind of developed the energy yet. But I’m there.

I still post I move around, but I think your point about I don’t think it can be overstated how much bad Elon Musk has done for the world.

I agree.

I’m

sorry. You know, building rockets, that’s that’s fine. You know, rich guy tells a bunch of engineers, build rockets, and then they go and they get government contracts, and they do their science thing and push him out of the way. That’s fine. He wants to build Tesla’s.

I don’t happen. I’m not a big fan of Tesla’s, but you wanna buy a Tesla, that’s great. But when you wade into the public sphere, basically as a nine year old billionaire and destroy something that millions of people relied on for breaking news for

a long time for a long time you have really done a terrible

thing you know, for a guy who claims that he’s all about, you know, wanting to help the planet and, you know, help let freedom be free and all that other yada yada yada. What he really is is a spoiled kid that nobody liked on the playground. And so he bought the playground and demands that everybody pick him first for for kickball. I think

that’s right. Well, let’s keep in touch on that because I I saw that Dan Dresner had a really powerful essay explaining why he was leaving, the site formerly note as Twitter. I know that David French is spending a lot more time on threads than in the past. And I’m hoping that threads will continue to get its act together. You know, I did experiment with some of those other sites.

And, at some point, you have only so many hours in the day, only only so much energy for social media. And I’m not gonna try to figure out mastodon. I’m please don’t DM me about this. So I am hoping With with all the caveats about threads, I think threads seems to be the most viable alternative, but we’re gonna see. We’ll find out.

The one that’s closest to Twitter in structure and feel is Blue Sky, but they’re rolling it out very slowly.

Yeah. Too slow.

And Blue Sky has has rolled out now. There’s a third party app called DeckBlue, which replicates the old tweet deck. I stop tweeting as much as I used to and stop posting in the ways to when Musk tried to monetize tweet deck. Musk does not understand that he cannot force people to pay him money. He doesn’t get that.

I get kind of annoyed with threads because it’s like everybody knew Elon Musk was gonna ram Twitter into the ground. And you’d think that a bunch of other billionaire entrepreneurs would have said, you know, there’s an opportunity here. Let’s be ready for this.

Right. Right.

And instead, they were like, I’ll kinda caught off guard saying, well, gosh, we didn’t think that would happen. So I I I’m kinda with you. I’d like to see threads get it’s acting together, come out with a desktop app, you know, straighten out the way notifications are seen because I still think it’s kind of difficult, especially on a desktop. It’s difficult to read. But you know, no one should forget what Elon Musk and his gathered homunculus is have done to an important part of the public space.

Tom Nichols, thank you so much for coming on our Friday weekend podcast. I appreciate it very much. I apologize again for being Friday the thirteenth and being one of the darkest stupidest timelines we’ve ever had. But then again, we’ve had dark stupid timelines for a while. Just happened to be that today seemed just a little bit worse.

Just another Friday, the thirteenth in this, ongoing thing, Charlie Sykes, yeah, I feel it too.

But who would I rather spend a dark Friday, the thirteenth with than you, Tom Nicholson. So thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Charlie.

And thank you all for listening to this weekend’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back on Monday,

and we’ll do this all over again.

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