Will Saletan: Elon Musk’s Hellscape

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast on triple a site. It is Monday, which means that I am joined by my colleague Will Salitan. How are you, Will? Happy Halloween, Charlie. Are you excited?

We have leftover Reese’s in case you wanna come over and pick them up. You know, we kinda live in the woods, you know, in a scary long driveway and two large dogs. For some reason, it’s a disincentive. I don’t know. Could you explain something to me?

So they had a presidential election in Brazil, yes, yesterday and

they they had a winner by the end of the evening. I don’t know whether a ball scenario is going to concede. Because that would be kind of a remarkable thing.

Right? An incumbent president who is defeated in a very close room election, who actually then goes along with a peaceful trans for a power. I mean, wouldn’t it be like

mind blowing if Brazil managed to do that when we have failed so spectacularly? Yeah. That would be so we’ve got I mean, I’m just thinking about the whole axis of Trump, Bolsonaro, Putin, or Bond, Bolsanaro would be the only one of them to concede an election loss. He hasn’t done it yet, but you’re right. He’s the only

one by the way, there is an axis. Just think about that for a minute. What you just said? The access of was it Trump, Putin, or Bond, Bolsonaro? I mean,

it’s like,

bros. And they’re probably all on the phone with each other going, don’t go. Don’t go. Say it was rigged. You know, I I I think of

them as a cook. Yeah. Right. I I think of these guys as a country club. I mean, the way that Donald Trump, when he was president, talked about them, was like, hey, these are my fellow CEOs of of, you know, authoritarian countries.

And he he kind of felt like a kindred spirit with them. So

just before we started, you said that Steve Bannon said something’s had a truth bomb or something?

Yeah. So Steve Bannon apparently on truth social this

morning said

Yes. The the talking about the Brazilian election. So Bolsonaro, the authoritarian lost, and Bannon apparently troughed. This election was stolen in broad daylight, outrageous charges. It’s surprising.

No. But you know what? You and we talked last week, I feel an obligation now to find a pony every week. Right? Okay.

I I would have dig into the pile of, you know what? We’re gonna find a pony. And my pony start off with a pony up for today, which is I think that if Steve Bannon says that the Brazilian election is stolen and Steve Bannon says that every election stolen. And all of Steve Bannon’s buddies and a whole bunch of right wingers and Donald Trump keep saying it every election is stolen. People are gonna get used to the idea, oh, These are the guys who just say every election is stolen and they’re no longer gonna be taken seriously by most people.

Okay.

I hope you’re right about this. I am willing to embrace your feces covered pony here. But I would look at it slightly differently saying that The more they they say this, the more they normalize the complete discrediting of elections. And this is how we we we managed to de legitimize the entire democratic process because you have tens of millions of people who go I I don’t believe anything. I don’t believe anything.

I hear or read. I don’t believe vote counts. I’m just not gonna accept. The fact that that my guy might have lost.

That’s also a good theory. Yeah. And, I mean, it’s a bad theory, but it’s a good theory. Yeah. And I guess we’ll just play it out and see

how what happens in the course of history. Okay. So speaking of things actually getting worse, my newsletter headline today was an attack of LI and Elon’s inferno. Everything just got worse, so we’ll talk about the hellscape of Twitter. I I don’t know.

I’m I thought it was rather striking. I think it was Thursday that Elon Musk sent a note to advertisers saying, I have no intention of allowing, you know, if it were to become a free for all hellscape. And then within the next forty eight hours, it

became a hellscape. I mean, by almost any measure. We’re not gonna get into all of it, but clearly, you had more racist tweets, you had any semantic tweets, you had

conspiracy theorists, you had, you know, the worst grifters and trolls celebrating, Elon Musk’s take over in the crisis possible way. But the real test I thought was the the aftermath of the vicious attack. On Nancy Pelosi’s eighty two year old husband. And and this is we’re still getting our heads around the way that people reacted to this. Before we get to Twitter, I just wanna start with the debate that broke out.

And it’s always a little bit problematic to try to link political rhetoric with acts of violence. There’s a little bit of danger in that. Do you agree? I mean, it’s it’s it’s one thing for people to say, you know, we we we need to replace Nancy Pelosi. We need a new speaker.

It is perhaps a little bit problematic then to link that to an act of violence. But It was interesting how quickly top Republicans raced into, you know, the usual, what about is on playbook? I thought one of the most interesting exchanges was Margaret Rennan with congressman Tom Emera who is one of the

is he head of the campaign committee or something? I

think that’s what he is. Yeah. And she’s she’s basically calling him out for a tweet in which he has it looks like a, you know, a semiautomatic rifle and he’s he’s at the range talking about how we have to fire Nancy Pelosi while he’s shooting a gun. And to her credit, Margaret Brennan kind of called him out on this.

On your Twitter feed, you posted this video we’re gonna show just a few days ago where you’re firing a gun and it says enjoyed exercising my second amendment. Right? Hashtag fire Pelosi. Why is there a gun in a political ad at all? I wasn’t an ad.

HASTELLING OUT.

I WAS TWEETING OUT SWEETING OUT SWEETED

BY THE WAPAN. Andrew: WOW. WOW. WOW.

WOULD YOUR HINK SLIP BE MORE FITING IF IT’S ABOUT firing her. It’s interesting, Myra.

It’s interesting, Myra, that we’re talking about this this morning. When a couple years back, when a Bernie Sanders supporter shot Steve’s speech. He was horrendous. Bernie Sanders reporter. She’s not.

I never heard from you. Anyone else in the media trying to blame Democrats for what happened. We need to stay focused on what caused all coverage

of what happened to the police.

There’s extensive press to equate democrats rhetoric people I’m not

talking about your rhetoric. I’m telling you what you posted. You’re shooting a gun. Our viewers just saw it. Yeah.

Right. Hashtag fire Pelosi.

Exercising our second amendment rights. Having

fun. About the second amendment. Yes, son, it made about the second amendment. Hashtag car Pelosi. Yes, yes.

I’m trying to understand that that is suggested to people who are in a bad state and in this current environment, how risky it is as you’re talking about the importance of lowering the rhetoric. Additionally, why don’t you leave that out?

Again, I never saw anyone after Steve scalise was shot by — We see every quarter. — now I just Wait down that rhetoric with those actions. Please don’t do that. Yep. Please.

Please. Please don’t. Please don’t do that. Hashtag fire Pelosi. Okay.

So Will, what do you make of this? Okay. I have some very complicated views that I Yeah. Okay. So I I am with you, and I’m a little bit disappointed because I I was hoping that you would argue that this is all connected, the rhetoric, and the violence.

And it is connected, but I I think they’re distinct. Wait. You’re disappointed because then you were, like, smash me. Is that what you were

saying? I was gonna I

thought we were gonna help an argument about I

see. Okay. And I have disappointed you by having a complicated nuanced approach to this.

Alright. So let me draw a few distinctions here. I mean, first of all, this guy attacked the guy who attacked speaker Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, did it with a hammer, not a gun. Right? So it’s not like these gun ads inspired this guy to go out and get a hammer.

But it is a little weird, Charlie, that like all the all the gun ads are by Republicans. You don’t see ads by Democrats saying, you know, we’re going to, you know, take down Kevin McCarthy, and meanwhile, I’m shooting a gun. And some of that is just gun culture. Right? But you would think that Republicans would be a little bit judicious about this, like, after there’s a violent attack, just take down the gun ants.

Just take them down. It’s not directly connected, but everybody needs to lower the temperature and let’s just do that. I mean, it I could draw the same distinction between let’s take let’s go back to January sixth. Rudy Giuliani is saying, let’s have trial by combat. Did Rudy Giuliani mean go attack the capital?

No. When Donald

Trump

said, we have to fight and fight and fight did Donald Trump mean, you have to go, you know, take flag polls and beat up, you know, police officers and threaten congress, not directly, but you would think that after January six happened after people literally staged a violent attack in response to those provocations. Republicans would just say, let’s be judicious and not push it anymore because there are a lot of people out there who clearly plainly do and did take it literally. And

exactly the opposite has happened. Particularly in the current environment where you have a real significant uptick, both in threats of violence and actual violence, you have this intelligence bulletin that went out just last week from the FBI and homeland security and US capital. You know, saying, look, there’s a real threat of domestic violence, you know, aimed at candidates, elected officials, election workers. This is a real problem. You would think that, okay, everybody, let’s slips button down just just a little bit.

Well, that’s not what happened. So I think we need to be a little bit careful about linking political rhetoric. Two acts of violence by one extremist. On the other hand, as people pour more and more kerosene, rhetorical kerosene on the fire, you don’t need millions of people to act on it. You just need a handful.

And this is where, you know, once you create this talk sick environment, you have unbalanced individuals who are almost inevitably going to act on all of this. And so it is the tolerance for this kind of rhetoric. The unwillingness of leading voices to say, we need to stop this and that hasn’t happened. So what did happen over the weekend, which is why I say everything got worse, was this toxic campaign of disinformation aimed at Paul Pelosi, implying this was somehow, you know, part of a gaze, lover’s tiff. It’s completely bogus.

It is complete bullshit. It went absolutely viral. And yet, there was all of this mockery. From the usual suspects like, you know, well known convicted felon, Nash D’Souza, who tweets out, you know, assailant in his underpants now. Paul Pelosi knows his name, tells police he’s a friend.

No. A salem ask where’s Nancy to make sure she’s not home? No. Port Pelosi takes bathroom break from spat and makes nine eleven call conclusion the guy was a sex partner or male prostitute. This toxic bullshit went viral.

You had people like Monica Crowley tweeting things out. You have Donald Trump junior, tweeting out a picture of a hammer and underwear got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready. You actually have a sitting member of congress Clay Higgins. Tweeting out. That moment when you realized the nudist hippie male prostitute LSD guy was the reason your husband didn’t make it to your fundraiser with a picture of Nancy Pelosi.

Now, there was this moment where I think, you know, people might have wondered, okay, whoa, this is Elon Musk first weekend? What’s he gonna do? What’s he gonna do about this? You know, cataract of defamation and hate? Is he gonna condemn it?

Is he gonna block it? Is he gonna rethink maybe his approach to content moderation? No. Because the ship posting billionaire jumped into the ship posting himself, didn’t he? He pushed the conspiracy theory to millions of his own customers.

He actually tweeted out there’s a tiny possibility. There’s more to this story that meets the eye, and then he links to a fleet bullshit conspiracy site. I mean, this thing is so bizarre. It once reported that Nancy Pelosi, in fact, you know, was dead that, you know, she she’d been killed on nine eleven and was a UFO body double in twenty sixteen, but whatever. So here Elon Musk push pushing this out.

And, okay, this is NBC’s Ben Collins. Talking about this moment, what we saw happen over the last forty eight hours. This is

Ben Collins this morning. The lies that were pushed were from that piece of information they found. For example, they said that Paul Pelosi was in his underwear. Of course, he was two thirty in the morning at the time he was attacked. They that led them to believe this was a lover’s quarrel between two different people that knew each other.

The reason they believed they knew each other is because the police had to say saying that they didn’t really know who opened the door. So they that led them to believe there was a third person in the house. Mhmm. So from there, there was this world building on the pro Trump Internet. What could be the opposite of reality here?

And the opposite of reality they came up with was these two people were having a lover’s quarrel at a house and the police sort of intruded on us It’s fundamentally incorrect. It was pushed by the richest man in the world. And then yesterday, it was pushed by Donald Trump Junior, who posted a picture of underwear and a hammer and said it’s a halloween costume for papillosy.

That’s a brown mother.

If we don’t cut this out right now, not just the normalization of allowance, but the idea that reality can’t even exist anymore because it cannot catch up to lies on the Internet. I’m not a scholar on authoritarian history, but I’ve read I’ve read a hanoveran. I’ve read all these people. Mhmm. This is how it gets really bad.

This is how it gets really bad. Okay? So, well, I will warn you that I do not have a nuanced reaction to this aspect of the story.

Yeah. I’ll I’ll I’ll accept your lack of nuance here. Yeah. There there’s a lot going on here, Charlie. First of

all,

let me just put a plea out there to people when they hear stories like this. Use use a little bit of common sense upfront. Okay? I mean, the Jesse Smollett story was pretty far fetched on its face. The Covington Kids, if you looked at the video at beginning, you could see there was something wrong with it.

It was cut off. It was either we’re not showing you the whole picture. This guy an eighty two year old man gets hit with a hammer over the head and his skull is fractured. Probably not a lover’s quarrel. Right?

I mean, just let’s go with some impossibility at the outset. So use some judgment, but But, Charlie, this is a big problem in terms of I mean, we’re talking about Elon Musk, and we’re talking about Twitter. And I love Twitter. I’m the biggest Twitter defender at the Bulwark, I believe. But Twitter allows you to to speak quickly and to and it allows speculation to travel quickly.

And that is dangerous. Right? And it’s not Twitter’s job. It’s our job as human beings to manage that. Slow down everybody.

Slow down. If you don’t have information, I mean, what Ben Collins is talking about is absolutely right. Do not substitute your speculation for your ignorance. Right? If you don’t know, just shut up for a while and wait for information.

If you start injecting your speculation and send it out to everybody on Twitter, which is now possible. Thanks to Twitter. Very soon, other people are picking up your speculation and that echo chamber, it adds somehow credibility in the minds of people to this fiction that you’ve invented.

I actually take a harder line than you do on this. Okay, because I don’t think it’s just speed and speculation. I mean, I think there’s malice of forethought here. I mean, I think here’s here’s the fundamental problem is that The the guy who broke into the Pelosi house and the sergeant Paul Pelosi, you know, was obviously targeting the speaker and he’s his his online footprint is this. You know, mass of right wing conspiracy theories.

I mean, it’s very clear where he is coming from about vaccines, about Jews on race queen on, etcetera. So as as as Matt Gertz writes, you know, so this is very bad for the right because those conspiracy theories are either trumpeted or skews at the highest levels of the right wing media, and they need to come up with something else fast. They don’t want to be connected with this. So The conspiracy theorists went to work here. And what they did was they take these existing facts and they twist them and they they distort them you know, through these wild leaps of logic and and, you know, fabulous, etcetera.

And so I think, you know, part of this is just the denial is that we know we can have before the election. We cannot allow people to actually be concerned that our rhetoric of what we have been pushing might be responsible for all of this. So there’s a real agenda at work here. And you see this as you watch, you know, the the fact that you have, you know, elected officials. Including this Clay Higgins, even Ted Cruz, doing it just asking questions here.

We don’t know what the answer is. This is all complete bullshit. But there is a method to the madness. There’s an evil method to the madness. It’s not the real it’s not just people with, you know, fast thumbs.

Who are speculating about this. This is this is part of this this group of people who are in, you know, fundamentally propagandistic mode. Who just do not want to ever have the shit come back on them. I don’t disagree with you about that. I just

wanna draw a distinction, right, between the people you’re talking about you’re talking about the propagandists. Right? People who have a political agenda and they’re setting the fire. I’m talking about separately about the public. Because the fire can’t spread very far if the public right away recognizes that they’re being misled.

And I’m just asking people to slow down and not help the propagandists spread this. And one thing else one other thing I will add, but the people listening to us are not the problem. No. No. But we but but we’ve gotta we’ve gotta do what we can.

This is what people who work in disinformation cybersecurity. This is what they’re focused on these days. How to slow down

the spread of this pernicious garment. People don’t wanna slow it down. They want to do this. It confirms their priors. They have been marinating in these kewen on conspiracy theories about sex cults and and grooming and everything and gay interests and things like that.

There are millions of people who love this because it gives them that that sweet sweet dopamine hit of a conspiracy theorist that again matches their their belief system and then also then immunizes them against any possible perhaps sympathy for someone that they have been conditioned

to hate. Yeah. But, Charlie, what’s the solution? Right? You’re as you’re saying, the people at the at the top of this chain, the people who are the propagandists, they wanna burn the place down.

They wanna spread this garbage. Right? And the only way we’re gonna stop it is to reach out to a broader population, many of whom get swept up in this thing and and somehow help to immunize them. Right? You’re like — Yeah.

— you’re not gonna stop it. If some Chinese lab is putting out a virus, you’re not going to stop the Chinese lab from the government from doing that if it’s some kind of malicious thing. By the way, this is just an analogy. I’m not saying that’s true. Yeah.

What you do is you stop other people from spreading the virus. And that’s that’s all I’m suggesting here. Right. Right. And and and it would

be nice if Elon Musk were to put on his big boy pants and understand what he’s gotten himself into. Look, I I have to say, I don’t think Elon musk has any fucking idea of what he is in for here. I mean, it’s it’s one thing to, you know, be a an Internet troll, a a Twitter troll, your self and say that you’re a free speech absolutist and you’re not going to engage and cancel culture or censorship. But the reality is that you know, if if if in fact, you don’t have any content moderation, Twitter’s gonna become this massive pool, and frankly, advertisers are not going to want to be there.

Are they? Well, look, Charlie, I’m a deep skeptic of the of Twitter content moderation. I’m a I’m a deep skeptic of of a of a bureau of content moderation in general. So let me just set that aside for a minute. A couple of things.

Musk himself is plainly a twelve year old. I mean, he’s just a twelve year old who spreads twelve year old nonsense. And he needs some kind of adult supervision. I assume he has some people around him, but the problem with being a rich powerful guy as we discover with Donald Trump and other types like him is pretty soon. The people you will start weeding out the people around you say no.

You end up with all these people who don’t get in the way of you and you’re, you know, a deeply defected person. Elon Musk is obviously defective. Anyone who reads his tweets can see that. And the fact that a guy spent how much did he spend Charlie forty four billion forty four billion dollars. He spent forty four billion dollars on a product.

I mean, he already overpaid, like, by a factor of two for this thing,

at least. And

every every one of his tweets is knocking another billion dollars off of its valuation. So it’s clearly just driven by something deep in his personality that he’s failing to overcome.

Okay. I just look this up though. Will you, like me, are a blue check And now they’re going to apparently, they’re floating the idea that they’re gonna be charging all of Blue checks twenty dollars a month. To keep your blue check. Otherwise, you get the check removed.

I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’m a know. I I don’t I don’t I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m gonna give him the the blue check is not that valuable to me that I wanna give Elon Musk another two hundred and forty dollars a year. And I think Ben Ben Willis has a great point. He says, you know, it doesn’t do anything for me to have a blue check mark by my name, Ben Wright.

And if it designated me as a sucker paying Elon Musk two hundred forty dollars a year, I would give it up. I am I am plus one on that. I just I don’t see how this is gonna work for him.

I kinda love Ben’s point there. I mean, the blue check will come to mean functionally that you’re a sucker. Right? You know what I mean? This is somebody who is willing to pay twenty dollars a month to have this little blue thing next to their name.

It’ll become a reverse filter. I think that it could actually be useful. Know,

it will be a reverse filter, and it will be a reverse filter in a in a way that maybe there’s I don’t know. Maybe some people think, hey, that’s cool. We’ll sell it in as a blue check. He must be a cool guy. A few months from now, it’ll be, wait.

So Will Sullivan is the sucker who’s willing to pay twenty dollars a month to have that fucking blue check next to his name, what a dick. Right? I’m right. I’m sorry, I used your name here, but it could have been me. You probably say, what what

a

dick. You know? Well, I mean, we’re all familiar with, like, universities that are basically selling degrees. Right? They’re online university where you you get a diploma, but actually and it’ll be like that.

Having a two hundred blue check will be like having a degree from the University of Elan or whatever it is.

That’s pretty good. I like that. Okay. So we’re in the in the final stretches of of a campaign, and I think that you and I have both been around long enough to know that Things can get pretty hairy and willy in the final days of any campaign. People begin to throw anything up against the wall.

There’s a lot of speculation. There’s a lot of wish casting. There’s a lot of okay. What do you still have at the bottom of your bag of no crap to throw out there? I have to admit, I just saw this this morning.

Our producer Katie Cooper called it to my attention. This is an ad. Being run-in Georgia. I wanna get it clear because this is so sort of a little bit over the top. By America first legal, which as far as I can tell, is this correct, is Steven Miller?

Yeah. That’s Steven Miller. Yep. That’s Steven Miller. The anti immigration racist, homunculus, who, you know, used used to used to gulk around the White House.

And now he’s out in the wild. And I’m gonna say it in advance because let’s get all the cliches off the table right away. The you know, saying the quiet part out loud or dispensing with dog whistles of any kind one of the the things that’s happened I think now is that watching some of these people like Steven Miller on the right, I mean, the really the extremist out there feel that that they can now say publicly the kinds of things they might have said in private before, like for example, we should really push white genocide, you know, the white replacement theory, you know, the minorities are trying to replace white people to Jews or they will not replace us and all of this. Again, ten minutes ago, you’d only find this on white nationalist websites. You’d only you’d have to, you know, search out storm font.

To find some of this stuff. You know? They’re coming for white people and white people are victims. Now the people like Steven Miller are like Screw it. We’re just gonna say it.

And there this is a kid you not an ad running right now in Georgia.

When did racism against white people become okay? Joe Biden put white people last in line for COVID relief funds? Kamala Harris said disaster aid should go to non white dissons first. Liberal politicians block access to medicine based on skin color, progressive corporations airlines universities, all openly discriminate against white Americans. Racism is always wrong.

The left’s anti white bigotry must stop. We are all entitled the Equal Treatment Under Law, America First Legal paid for this act. Will, thoughts. Wow. Well, it’s kind of interesting.

They’re basically so the the idea that that white people are an ethnic group that you can legitimately call victims. And I mean, it look, it is true. There is such a thing as anti white discrimination, but you’re pretty plainly when you appeal to it overtly. That way, you’re pretty plainly saying that you white people should focus on your identity as a white person and stand with your fellow white people against non white people. Right?

That’s that’s pretty clearly the message here that the non white people are the threat to you. And that’s not exactly white supremacism. That’s not exactly white supremacism, but it is overly, explicitly, an appeal to to white tribalism. Right? I don’t know what else we could call

white, white grievance, white victimization. But you’re right, there is a little bit of complexity here. And there because there’s two messages that are side by side people are, no, Charlie, don’t give us any nuance. Let’s wait here. Because you have you have to understand why things like this might land.

The first part is, of course, the appeal to white grievance. Right? It could be the replacement theory. But then what it does is it it close itself in a, you know, racism of any kind is bad, which is, you know, we you can’t have reverse discrimination to answer discrimination. Now that is a much more palatable argument.

It is the argument that I think a majority of Americans actually agree with. So what they’ve done is They’ve packaged the replacement theory, which is a fringe theory, you know, white grievance. With something that might appeal to, most Americans, including, you know, obviously, strong percentage of of white Americans that, you know, nobody should be discriminated against based on their skin color. And of course, that’s to be one of the arguments that the Supreme Court is going to be dealing with today. You know, that’s why I’m making a segue here.

You know, with with with the two big affirmative action in cases, And I think people need to understand that these aren’t within the the conservative movement. These are not fringe arguments. These are arguments that people have been making for years that the answer to racial discrimination is not more discrimination. So I think that what the real danger of Steven Miller’s racist appeal is that he is packaging the overt racism with an appeal to a color blind approach. So I think that’s that’s why don’t don’t just completely

brush it off. As potentially effective is what I’m saying. Yeah. And let me let me just add to that, Charlie. It’s clearly not a color blind approach.

Right? The the message of the red and white that you — Right. Focus on your whiteness. Right? That’s that’s the dishonesty.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, there’s a couple of things going on there. One is the appeal to tribalism, which we were just talking about.

And the other is the appeal to the idea that you are the victim. And the victimhood is supposed to make you feel okay about the tribalism. Look, we’re not attacking the non white people. They’re the ones attacking us and we just have to — Yes. — defend ourselves.

What what everybody needs to understand is, this is not new. Right? This is if you go back into history, If you go back and look at Nazi rhetoric about the Jews before the Holocaust. Right? It wasn’t that the we were we’re gonna do bad things.

The Jews are doing bad things to us. Right? The Jews are the attackers, and we need to protect ourselves against them. If you go back to, you know, when we enter the Japanese in this country, right, Japan is the aggressor. Japanese people are the danger, so we need to protect ourselves against the Japanese.

It’s always this way. You’re always told you the victim. You should be deeply suspicious when you are told you are the victim. When in fact, you represent clearly a majority of the population or by far the biggest ethnic group. And you have the most power?

Yes. So it’s like we are invading you, but it’s it’s a strictly defensive war. Okay. Let’s switch gears because it is we are now a week and one day away from the midterm elections. I actually broke my my self imposed rule of of of not including any polls in my in my newsletters.

I’m so sick of this. But it does seem that, you know, particularly when it comes to the senate that we are talking about some very, very, very close races. I mean, this could go either way. Mean, it could be a Republican’s week. It could be a Democratic squeaker.

Five thirty eight is saying there’s, like, a fifty two percent chance that the Democrats will hold on to the senate probably with a fifty fifty trap tie who knows how valid that is. I think the conventional wisdom is the house is going to go Democratic. So tell me what you’re looking at, what you’re seeing. I am noticing that the conventional media wisdom is pretty much into the We’re back to the red tsunami. Although the polls, at least the ones I’m seeing, a little bit more ambiguous, what do you think will?

Well, first of all, in in absolute terms, Charlie, in in terms of where the race is stand, I can’t tell you. I mean, they’re all literally there are people who are going to make up their minds between now and election day who are easily sufficient to change the outcomes of these races. I can’t tell you what’s gonna happen in Pennsylvania senate race. I can’t tell you what’s gonna happen in the Georgia senate race. These are some very, very close elections.

What’s really clear though what’s really clear is the trend. The trend from — during October, let’s just say, over the past month, has been very clearly nationally in a Republican direction. Races that looked like they were locked down for the Democrats are no longer locked down. I just saw the Democratic Governors Association is now shoveling money into New York. That’s a protect wealthy local.

Yeah. Right? That is and that is going on in a lot of places. So you and I are looking at media polls and media polls are notoriously unreliable. But the pros, the political pros who have their own polls that they’re not showing us, their money is moving in a direction that says the Democratic party is in trouble and it is playing more and more defense and less and less offense.

So I’m sorry about the pony. I don’t have a pony here. I expect things to be a little worse in the actual election than they are right now. Unless magically, for some reason the trend turns around and I just don’t know why that would be.

Will, I have a pony. This is, like, yes, the polarities have been reversed, and I’m going to find a pony in in the pile of mered. Barack Obama is back out on the campaign and that there was a headline likes, can can Barack Obama lead to a Democratic surge in the answer, no. It doesn’t work that way. On the other hand, you know, we have complained.

And I I know it probably feels some of the listeners. We’ve complained endlessly about bad messaging on the part of Democrats. Right? You know? And most of that criticism is turning out to be pretty valid.

On the other hand, over the weekend, we got a pretty good indication of what a you know, pretty powerful potent message sounds like. Unfortunately, you know, Obama’s figure really from the past rather than the Democratic party’s future. The contrast between him and Biden, I’m sorry, is pretty dramatic. But anyway, here is Barack Obama in my home state of Wisconsin, bringing the hot sauce.

Some of you here are on Social Security. Some of your parents are on social security. Some of your grandparents are on social security. You know why they asked those security because they worked for it? They worked hard jobs for

it.

They have stacked hands for

it.

They have long hours. And sore backs and bad knees to get that Social Security. And if Ron Johnson does not understand that. If he understands given tax breaks for private claims more than he understands, making sure that seniors who’ve worked all their lives are able to retire with dignity and respect. He’s not the person who’s thinking about you and knows you and sees you.

And he should not be your standard of the Wisconsin. I mean, the message he’s sending is pretty clear. If you’re related to him, If you don’t enter his campaign, you get a deal. If you’re not, you’re out of luck and you’re on your

own. So well, I’m trying to think the last time I heard a Democratic politician on the stump, give that kind of a stem winder. Charlie I have a hard

time being objective. Sometimes when I used to ask myself, could I be a Republican back when Republican didn’t mean crazy? I had two problems. One was I believe abortion should be legal. And the other was, I love Barack Obama.

I mean, Charlie, he is my kind of squish. On policy stuff, obama’s like, let’s be reasonable, let’s be sensible, it’s not just my opinion, it’s the opinion of some sensible conservative people, that kind of thing. But here, in that speech, he’s pounding. And what he Charlie, what he’s pounding on is a moral message. This is something which I wish more Democrats would learn.

He’s not just talking me about, they’re going to hurt you by taking away a program. He’s saying, you earned it. You earned it. You worked for it. Democrats need to talk in moral terms.

They need to talk about the culture, the ethic of work. He’s I mean, Obama’s talking about people who are getting tax breaks who own private planes. And to an ordinary person who works for a living, The message can be and that in this case is, those are people who are just rich, they were born rich, or they sit and they collect money that comes to them from royalties, from investments. And those of us who are out there working, earning it every day, are getting screwed by the attack on Social Security. That is a moral message and democrats need to go across the board looking for hard hitting moral messages to speak.

To working people.

Okay. So there’s been all this henry, like, how can Democrats appeal to working class voters? You know, what what what could they possibly say, you know, to to, you know, be able to tap into some of these economic anxieties, etcetera, hello, this. Now, in fairness, the prospect that Ron Johnson or any other Republican is actually going to gut Social Security, I think, are, you know, slim and none and and this has been a card that Democrats have been playing forever. However, this year, this was an epic self owned by Rick Scott and Ron Johnson, who on their own brought up the possibility of you know, taking Social Security from being a pretty rock solid promise and guarantee to make it, you know, an annual creation.

I mean, they went out of their way to put this on the agenda. You would have to be guilty of gross political malpractice to be a Democrat and not take that up. Right? If if Ron Johnson’s going around saying, yeah, we we should we should actually have to have a congressional vote on whether or not we keep our promise on Social Security, Fine. Let’s have that conversation.

Alright? And so Obama has that instinct. There’s another point here too. I think that one of the most fun and I’ve argued this even from the before times.

I

think that there’s a fundamental American sense that if you work hard and play by the rules, that you should be rewarded for that. One of the reasons why I think a lot of blue collar voters became alienated from Democrats as they they felt, I am working hard. I am playing by the rules, but look at all the benefits and all the things you are doing for those people over here. Whether they’re illegal immigrants, whether they’re people who are regarded as mouchers, who are not working, who are getting various welfare payments, etcetera. Now you know, we can have a debate about whether that’s racist or not.

But there’s a sense of, like, I am working hard. I am playing by the rules and the Democrats are not advocating for me. They’re advocating for people who are not doing what I am doing. Obama has turned this around, and he is specifically Now talking to voters of all races, you know, rural blue collar, you know, middle class voters saying, you worked hard. And then he puts the so that grain little thing, you know, your hands are chapped.

You’ve done this. You’ve sweat it. You know, there was a promise and this fat cat is gonna take it away from you. I mean, this is the

formula. Okay. I agree with you. I agree with you that it’s the formula, but Charlie what that formula entails is significant. If Democrats are seriously going to do this, if they’re gonna go with that message, we are the party of people who work hard and play by the rules, then Democrats have gotta be serious about the rules.

So when you get to an issue, like immigration. Democrats have gotta be clear about the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Democrats have gotta stop being afraid of talking about illegal immigration as an illegal act and treating it that way. They’ve got to stop being afraid of talking about criminals like their criminals because that’s what they are. This is one of the problems with the wholeness that is overtaken the party.

It is good. It is healthy. To be aware of racial disparities in policy. That is important. But that can’t be the only story.

You’ve gotta stick to the core message that you’re serious about enforcing the rules. You

know, on that point, again, I’m not making any predictions right now, but I’m looking at the ads that are airing in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by Republicans attacking John Federman and and Mandela Barnes, both of whom were quite progressive, you know, from the really from the burning wing of the party. And if Federman does not win, the go to explanation will be his poor performance in the debate and in his stroke. However, there is also the crime issue which has been hammering him particularly in the Pennsylvania suburbs, you know, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs. And and because he he is, you know, on record, you know, saying, you know, things like, you know, if I had one wish in the world, it would be to let more people out of prison. You have Mandela Barnes saying reducing the prison population is sexy.

And the ad here in Wisconsin being run by the senate republican committee, whatever that’s called. Yes, reducing prison population is sexy, juxtaposed against all of the crimes in Wisconsin, including the horrific Christmas day massacre in in in Waukesha. And these are effective. And I’m not seeing much pushback on crime. The Democrats are very much on defensive, or they will be able to retreat into the media bubble, which will assure them the crime is not a real problem.

I have a church for you. You should not care about it, etcetera, etcetera. And this is a problem I think for Democrats is is they do have this media environment that will reassure

them that they don’t have to do what you just said they need to do. Yeah. I think these politicians, Charlie, a a lot of democrats. They’re afraid of the left. They’re afraid that they’re gonna cross pressure their base.

They’re afraid of seem racist. Look, you white people who live in like nice suburbs. The black and brown people who live in crime ridden neighborhoods are not fans of crime. You should take a look at whole whole thing sometime. Okay?

Crime is a serious much more serious problem for them than it is for you. You know, a guy with a hammer go coming into Nancy Pelosi and Paul Pelosi’s nice home. Is relatively rare, but, you know, people do committing violence in these poor neighborhoods is serious and ordinary people, black brown and white want They want order. They want law and order. They don’t want chaos.

And democrats have got this problem of allowing themselves to be branded as the party of chaos that they’re not getting control of it. But laterally, I saw Chris Coons on TV this weekend standing up and saying, we’re we’re for funding the police. We’re for restoring law and order. In fact, we are right now funding more cops, but democrats really have to hit that message. They have to re claim their status as a party that believes in law and rules.

Alright. So, well, what else are you looking at this week? There’s so much going on where we’re going to have the zone flooded. I think that this is one of the more difficult weeks for anyone that wants to talk about other things. Because a lot of other interesting things, but but I sense that, you know, people are like, why are you talking about x when we should all be talking about what’s happening in the midterms?

And I I understand that, but what are you gonna be looking at this week?

The first thing I wanna do is drill down on Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire. Mhmm. Really? Yeah. I think he’s one of the good guys in the Republican Party and understand there’s a low bar for good guys in the Republican Party right now.

Yeah. But Sunu was was on meet the press this weekend and he was asked about election deniersing his party. Okay. Well, let’s listen to Christian Nuneau. Why are you supporting an election denialist And and do you think the inflation issue is enough to comp to sort of rationalize, support for somebody who thinks school buses of voters are going to show up in New Hampshire.

Yeah. Yeah.

Let me tell you you’re in a bubble, man. I love it, Chuck, but you are in a bubble. If you think anybody’s talking about what happened in twenty twenty or talking about Mar a Lago and all that. I know the press loves to talk about it. People are talking about what is happening in the pocketbooks every single

day. Look, I get When buy groceries or show a cafe or right now. With that, then tomorrow night. Yeah. Over a city of Amazon.

Okay. How can they Of course. Oh my gosh, Chuck, this is hitting people. They’re having trouble paying them mortgage. They’re having trouble making car payments because of bad policies out of Washington.

Should they be? That is Look, the beauty of the American system is every voter has the right and wants the responsibility to be selfish with their vote.

Okay. So I will. I mean, I don’t know where to begin with this. So Sannu, that this is a profile of cowardice. And and because Sannu is one of the best guys in the party right now, you can see how pervasive this mental this cowardice is.

Right? He’s being asked about Donald Bullock, the Republican senate candidate in New Hampshire, the nominee, who is talking about school buses full of people coming in to vote illegally. And, you know, so it’s talking spinning this election fraud garbage. And Sunruno is being asked took to whether to stand up to this guy. And instead, Sunu is defending him.

He is Sunu, who previously said that Bolton was crazy, is now embracing him, and his his defense of that move is, hey, people, the voters out there, they’re more interested in pocket book issues. They’re more they’re more concerned about inflation. Yes, Inflation is a serious problem. Yes, pocketbook issues are important. But your job, Christina, you are literally the governor of the state.

Your job is to lead and these men are not leading anymore. He literally says to Chuck Todd, this is not what people are talking about. Like, I should move to where the people are which is not caring about the election denial. No, your job is to say, yes, I know that’s important. But as a leader, I must tell you that honoring elections is the most important thing in our country because without it, we lose our democracy and we lose everything else.

But

this is the go to answer to the kind of toxic rhetoric we started the show with that this has become kind of the go to excuse when you asked somebody, well, what about, you know, this comment by, you know, someone. So as well, I didn’t read the tweets. Right? I mean, well, I haven’t heard about that or or, you know, nobody’s talking about that. What people are really talking about is so it’s It’s not necessarily an embrace of the radical toxic disinformation and and hate, but it’s a refusal to come to grips with it’s refusal to to push back against it.

And there’s a perfect example. So, you know, once again, the best lacking all conviction, you know, they why are you even asking me about this. You live in a bubble to think that anybody actually gives a shit about democracy or about January six or about, you know, stolen classified documents or anything. Right? I mean, that’s an easy, easy, easy out for these guys.

And now it’s become the it’s become completely normalized.

Yeah. And that bubble comment you’re so right to zero. And on that, that infuriates the hell out of me because what Sunu is saying when he says you’re in a bubble, is saying, I’ve got more people on my side. Right? I can win this fight against you politically because more people care about inflation.

He’s saying it doesn’t matter which issue is actually more important, which is Chuck Todd’s point. Right? He’s saying what matters is I can win this political fight with you, and that is the essence of a lack of leadership.

Yeah. And and and this is a at least a a first cousin or a second cousin of the Well, you know, I have to stay relevant. If you’re bringing up something that is inconvenient to me, then it is irrelevant. And I need to stay relevant by not saying these things. Yeah.

Can let let me just throw

in here. Let’s I because I don’t wanna make this entirely about one party. I mean, let’s be honest. Right? Republicans are the main problem right now, but Hillary Clinton has I can’t remember with this, like, a week, two weeks ago, she made this statement, and a lot of people have heard it.

She was she said, that they’re the right wing literally has a plan to steal the next election. Right? And it’s true that there are people on the right who intend to do that, but everybody needs to be careful about using this language about stolen elections. And what really pissed me off this weekend about the democrats was Both both Chris Coons and Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic House Campaign Committee, were out on TV talking about this. They were asked about Hillary’s comment And both of these men said and again, Charlie, this is at least a week later.

I don’t know if it’s two weeks later after she said this, oh, I’m not familiar with that. Yep. Oh, I haven’t heard about that. I’m not gonna say. They don’t wanna criticize her.

Come on, guys. Stand up. Have some stones. Speak to your own side. Say we shouldn’t be using this kind of language.

Yeah. But that wouldn’t be fan service. Well, this I have to say and maybe it’s premature to be too worried about this. That we are going to be in this spiral where, in fact, if Republicans completely normal institutionalized their refusal to accept the outcome of elections, why do we think that the other party will continue to act like it’s twenty fifteen when it comes to elections. And so this is why I have occasionally made four rays into suggesting that Stacey Abrams refusal to to concede was problematic.

And of course, there’s a well, that’s completely different. And of course, there was no attack on the capital. I get all of this. And, you know, maybe it’s it’s not morally equivalent, but you could see very easily a twenty twenty four scenario where legislators or governors from both parties are under tremendous pressure from their bases not

to accept an outcome that they regard as horrendous. I mean, I really can see that. Yeah. And if you correctly recognize that Republicans are the main threat right now, your response should not be strictly to attack Republicans and then to look the other way when Democrats you know, when there’s an attack, when Stacey Abrams says that she actually was the winner of an election she lost. When there’s violence, for example, when there’s violence against Lee Zelens, the Republican nominee for governor of New York, when there are threats against justice Kavanaugh, You you can’t look the other way.

You need to stand up for the rule, for the principal, against your own side too, or no one’s gonna take

you seriously. And this is important, but it it it it goes against the grain, particularly because I think, you know, when I mentioned fan service, I think so much of politics is is about feeding people exactly what they want to hear when they want to hear it and a real resistance to hearing inconvenient truths. And right now the week before an election, all of that is, like, multiplied by a thousand. So don’t expect much nuance on those issues. Will.

Thank you for coming back for another Charlie and Will,

Monday. I appreciate it. We’ll do it again next week. We found several ponies this week, Charlie. I’m looking forward to next week.

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 forward podcast and we’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll do this all over again.

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