Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Vice President Harris has raised so
Speaker 1: much money that she's giving twenty five million dollars to
Speaker 1: down ballid candidates. We have such a great show for
Speaker 1: you today Bolts Magazine Daniel Nickanean tells us about how
Speaker 1: many local government legal battles will affect the upcoming election.
Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth
Speaker 1: about how to create a college campus that is both
Speaker 1: safe and also political. But first we have legendary campaign manager,
Speaker 1: my friend, the author of the Conspiracy to End America
Speaker 1: Five ways my old party is driving our democracy to autocracy,
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Projects, Stuart Stevens. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: That one the only Stuart Stevens.
Speaker 2: Thanks for after me to the party.
Speaker 3: Molly, I'm such a fan of yours.
Speaker 1: But more importantly than being a fan of yours, I
Speaker 1: think you are a realist.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I was telling my brother this on the phone and
Speaker 1: he was getting really bored. But I thought it was
Speaker 1: a good point, which is that there is a certain
Speaker 1: sense in which the hive mind of punditry. Political punditry
Speaker 1: feeds off itself and comes up with some dumb ideas,
Speaker 1: and I feel like you don't ever get stuck in that.
Speaker 5: I think that the greatest danger on the Trump moment
Speaker 5: is the way in which he has normalized so much
Speaker 5: that we normally wouldn't accept right. And I think that
Speaker 5: there is this deeply human need to see the world
Speaker 5: as normal, to see people as normal. We even have
Speaker 5: a language that talks about that. You know they'll revert
Speaker 5: to normal, And there is a desire to look at
Speaker 5: this race sort of like Romney Obama. It's gonna let's
Speaker 5: talk about taxes, let's talk about economy, let's talk about
Speaker 5: which I find to be sort of like a debate
Speaker 5: on your cholesterol count when you're in the middle of
Speaker 5: a knife fight. Not that the cholestical count is an unemployment,
Speaker 5: but maybe there's something more important going on. And I
Speaker 5: think that it's difficult to keep framing the race and
Speaker 5: the choice that it means, but I think it's really
Speaker 5: critically important that we do. That Trump is just gauged
Speaker 5: by a different standard now, and he's allowed the party
Speaker 5: to be gauged by a different standard. Now, and I
Speaker 5: think that that historically is a very dangerous path to
Speaker 5: go down, the way autocrats use the benefits of democracy
Speaker 5: like free speech to end those benefits. So I think
Speaker 5: it's just really important to constantly try to frame the
Speaker 5: race for what it is. I think it's really more
Speaker 5: beholden upon those who are outside the Harris Waltz campaign
Speaker 5: to do that, because when you're inside the Hair Walts campaign,
Speaker 5: you can't be waking up every day and saying, my
Speaker 5: opponent wants to ruin America, my opponent wants to It
Speaker 5: just doesn't work. You have to be able to reach
Speaker 5: people where they are and all of them. But I
Speaker 5: think that's why it's important for everybody else who believes
Speaker 5: that to be saying it consistently and loudly and clearly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. And again, like
Speaker 1: this is the question of, like, how do you keep
Speaker 1: American democracy going when one party fundamentally no longer believes
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't think that the Republican Party is a normal
Speaker 5: traditional American party. I think it's become an extremist movement.
Speaker 5: That's how we should and no extremist movement ends because
Speaker 5: a moderating element within the extremist movement emerges dominated. It
Speaker 5: wasn't like the moderates inside the Red Guard finally ended it,
Speaker 5: you know, or the moderates inside like the Shining Path,
Speaker 5: decided well, yes, it's gone too far. The party is
Speaker 5: not going to save itself. The party is invested upon
Speaker 5: having a unified front that would help them eat to
Speaker 5: deny what they have become. And when you look at
Speaker 5: those who say no, they are expelled from the party.
Speaker 5: I mean, this goes back to twenty sixteen when Romney
Speaker 5: called out Trump. I think it's fair to say that
Speaker 5: amit thought the more people would join him. Yeah, And
Speaker 5: of course they finally did with the Access Hollywood tape,
Speaker 5: But then they reversed themselves. There is nothing within the
Speaker 5: Republican Party that's going to save itself. I mean, if
Speaker 5: you think about it, what line can you cross that
Speaker 5: is worse than sending a mob into your office to
Speaker 5: try to kill you. Do you accept that?
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 2: You go, Oh, well, they went too far in the
Speaker 2: law of the Seat treaty.
Speaker 5: I can't go there. It is a complete collapse of
Speaker 5: a party. And that's why I don't think this race
Speaker 5: is going to be particularly close.
Speaker 3: I hope it's not. But tell us why you think that.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the structure of this race is is
Speaker 5: pretty sent. Trump has never gotten north to forty seven percent.
Speaker 5: He won with forty six point two percent. Romney lost
Speaker 5: with forty seven point two percent, He lost in twenty
Speaker 5: with forty six point nine percent. And even at the
Speaker 5: worst of after the terrible debate that the president had.
Speaker 5: It was a lot of people saw that debate and
Speaker 5: had doubts about Biden but didn't become Trump voters. And
Speaker 5: Trump has this self limiting ceiling of around forty seven percent.
Speaker 5: Campaigns can deal with that, and the campaign understands that
Speaker 5: they're not stupid. So if you read the speech that
Speaker 5: was written for Trump to give, it was an effort
Speaker 5: to try to expand that base. But then you look
Speaker 5: at what Trump give. He couldn't stay on the speech
Speaker 5: for ten minutes. I mean, you could write a dissertation
Speaker 5: about those two different texts. And they know that they're
Speaker 5: theory of the cases, that there's a winning set of
Speaker 5: issues immigration, prime inflation, that they can win this racehome.
Speaker 3: They're going to win on policy.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is going to win the presidency on policy right.
Speaker 5: I don't buy that because when I look at the numbers,
Speaker 5: I don't see immigration as a number one issue from
Speaker 5: the majority of the country at all. I see it
Speaker 5: as one issue of people who are supporting Trump. But
Speaker 5: even if you believed in that, and so, how do
Speaker 5: you do that. You have to have message discipline, have
Speaker 5: to wake up every day. You know. Famously, when Bill
Speaker 5: Well ran and got elected the first Republican governor of
Speaker 5: Massachusetts in over twenty years, he talked about crime welfare
Speaker 5: taxes everywhere?
Speaker 2: What crime welfare taxes.
Speaker 5: Trump can't do that because he can't stay to any message,
Speaker 5: and he can't not respond to any slight and he
Speaker 5: can't let anything go. So that makes a very easily manipulable,
Speaker 5: vulnerable candidate. So if you just take this back and
Speaker 5: forth about Arlington Cemetery, any singing campaign would let us
Speaker 5: go and.
Speaker 3: Move back because it's a bad luck. It's, among other.
Speaker 5: Things, it's just if you think you've got something out
Speaker 5: of it, you got it, you're not going to talking
Speaker 5: about it, You're not going to get more out of it.
Speaker 5: And when you're the one thing a campaign can control.
Speaker 5: The three three things campaigns can control what you say,
Speaker 5: where and how you spend money and where you go.
Speaker 5: And all the bullshit about campaigns, all the fault of war,
Speaker 5: what they really say, all the spend you really cut
Speaker 5: through when you look at what they are saying, where
Speaker 5: they're spending money, how they're spending it, and where they're going.
Speaker 5: So where is it in a recent expenditure of thirty
Speaker 5: seven million that they put on advertising, they put twenty
Speaker 5: three million into Georgia. That's what they think. They know
Speaker 5: that they're now back to having to defend the state
Speaker 5: that a couple of months ago they thought was a gimmee.
Speaker 5: And compared to the PRIs campaign, their Reproductive Freedom tour,
Speaker 5: bus tour, fifty stop tour. Where does it begin? Right
Speaker 5: down the floor at Florida. Yeah, and then they're going
Speaker 5: to Jacksonville. That is a campaign that is expanding the map,
Speaker 5: that is making an other campaign spend money from where
Speaker 5: they didn't think it was going to be. And it
Speaker 5: really shows who is driving the agenda.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really important and I think relevant and also
Speaker 1: just interesting. So here's my question for you, why do
Speaker 1: we think that, Like, for example, Trump last week was
Speaker 1: like I'm going to get every man, woman, and child
Speaker 1: at IVF okay IVF tens of thousands of dollars. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump tried to overturn Obamacare. Like, why doesn't anyone ever
Speaker 1: bring up in the policy that Donald Trump tried to
Speaker 1: enact during his four years as president?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think I think everybody think the
Speaker 5: Harris campaign should. I'll tell you who is asking that question,
Speaker 5: and that was any any abortion moves who were like,
Speaker 5: what you know, what the fuck are you doing here?
Speaker 2: When Trump is talking about idea, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: he says.
Speaker 5: He's losing. This is a losing issue for him. He
Speaker 5: had shut up about it. It's same on abortion. He's
Speaker 5: now flip flopping around about abortion. So instead of spending
Speaker 5: time talking about these issues immigration, crime, inflation that he
Speaker 5: thinks he can win, he's over here saying, look, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna we're gonna have mandatory idea require nobody believed.
Speaker 1: But it also runs contrary to this embryonic personhood that
Speaker 1: his party is super obsessed with.
Speaker 5: It's why attorneys remind clients they have the right to
Speaker 5: remain silent. You don't have to keep saying this inside
Speaker 5: that campaign.
Speaker 2: He drives them crazy.
Speaker 5: I promise you you've already got Corey Lewandowski. You've got
Speaker 5: Chris Losovita is working for Corey Lewandowski.
Speaker 6: Really you're really doing that, you know, I mean it's
Speaker 6: come to that a guy like Corey Landowski and the
Speaker 6: you and I used to just mock a guy who,
Speaker 6: you know, part time puddle cop.
Speaker 5: Who couldn't even get a full time a cop. Andy Sure,
Speaker 5: he's most known in politics for a guy. When he
Speaker 5: was working for the Nanfra State Party, he debated a
Speaker 5: cardboard cutout as a Democratic good theatorial candidate, and the
Speaker 5: consensus was to cut out Onewhelmingly. You know, we never
Speaker 5: would left these people in the campaigns. He's a thug,
Speaker 5: he hates women, assaulted reporters, but he charged with that
Speaker 5: so much of Trump World. Do you rise in Trump
Speaker 5: World by flattering Trump?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: So what does that mean? It means whatever he does.
Speaker 5: You have to say, that's great. You can't coach that way.
Speaker 5: You can't have a play or run some crazy route
Speaker 5: that's way off targeted. When they talked off to the
Speaker 5: sidelines the coach, So that was great, that's great. I
Speaker 5: don't know what happened to the quarterback. You should you know.
Speaker 5: It's instead of like, well, don't do that. This is
Speaker 5: what you're supposed to be doing. We can't do that
Speaker 5: because you get expelled from Trump world. And it's why
Speaker 5: there are no serious people around Trump and it greatly
Speaker 5: limits your ability to really run a campaign as opposed
Speaker 5: to just go out in public in a moat.
Speaker 2: And that's really what Trump is doing.
Speaker 1: Now, what do you think about this? There's sort of
Speaker 1: their strategy is they're kind of just getting mad a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, he's doing a few rallies.
Speaker 1: I mean, and then they think that the debate will
Speaker 1: change everything for Trump.
Speaker 3: How would that even work?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you have to say, debates rarely matter. It didn't
Speaker 5: matter and Trump button. So I suppose you could sit
Speaker 5: there and talk to yourself that it's going to happen again.
Speaker 5: The problem is every other debate Trump had he lost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't go.
Speaker 5: Up after any debates with Clinton, go up after the
Speaker 5: Biden debate. If I was in the Harris debate prep,
Speaker 5: I would say, look this it's just very very simple,
Speaker 5: and this debate can be about a lot of things,
Speaker 5: like all debates are, but we have to decide what
Speaker 5: this debate is going to be about, and what this
Speaker 5: debate should be about is prosecuting Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Play to your strength.
Speaker 5: A lot of political consulting is grasping what a Canada
Speaker 5: does best and reinforcing that so they take what they
Speaker 5: do well and may help them do it great and
Speaker 5: just let make sure what they don't do well, they
Speaker 5: don't do it badly enough to the cost them the race.
Speaker 5: And so she's a great prosecutor. I mean, I would say,
Speaker 5: in the old Ning statement, this has never happened before
Speaker 5: in American history. A kreparent is on stage. Fortunately there's
Speaker 5: a prosecutor on stage.
Speaker 2: That's me.
Speaker 5: In the course of this debate, I'm going to show
Speaker 5: you what Donald Trump is unfit to be president of
Speaker 5: the United States and wise a danger to the American experiment.
Speaker 5: I would just prosecute the most aggressive candidate usually win
Speaker 5: the debate, and I think it would drive Trump crazy.
Speaker 3: Do you think she'll do that?
Speaker 1: I mean, she's been very smart about doing things that
Speaker 1: fight the world didn't necessarily have the stomach for, but
Speaker 1: was the right way to meet Trump where he is.
Speaker 1: Do you think she'll do that?
Speaker 2: I think that. You know, candidates tend to like to
Speaker 2: do what they do well.
Speaker 5: Like athletes, fastball pitchers like to throw fast balls, so
Speaker 5: I think she'll do more of it than not. The
Speaker 5: danger in debates is always going into him with either
Speaker 5: having not really felt through the goals or going in
Speaker 5: with too many goals. I think you can go into
Speaker 5: a debate with two or three goals and that's it
Speaker 5: in this dynamic. I think it has been true from
Speaker 5: the very beginning. I think it was two with Biden.
Speaker 5: The essential goal that the Democratic candidate now Harris has
Speaker 5: to accomplish this That person has to represent the future,
Speaker 5: and I think Biden had a chance to do that.
Speaker 5: Because of this policy, Harris has a better chance to
Speaker 5: do that and to be the safer choice. I have
Speaker 5: to make Trump a dangerous choice, and I think that
Speaker 5: that's easy to do. I think the simplest way to
Speaker 5: do it is to say it, don't be complicated. Voting
Speaker 5: mac Donald Trump is dangerous. We know what he has done,
Speaker 5: but we don't know what he will do. Whatever the
Speaker 5: next time is going to be worse. The history of
Speaker 5: authoritarians becoming less authoritarian in office is non existent.
Speaker 1: I don't want to laugh because it's so serious, but
Speaker 1: it is true.
Speaker 5: And you don't want to make it a necessity to
Speaker 5: vote for Harris that you buy into all of her
Speaker 5: proposed You may not agree with some of her proposals,
Speaker 5: That's okay. I mean, this is what Jeff Junkin and
Speaker 5: Adam Keinzinger were saying. You don't not to agree with everything,
Speaker 5: but what you have to do is agree on a
Speaker 5: few basics that we must defend in the selection, like
Speaker 5: rule of law right.
Speaker 1: And then also it creates a permission structure for Republicans
Speaker 1: to vote for her.
Speaker 5: The one essential element of a democracy is someone has
Speaker 5: to be willing to lose, and Donald Trump has proven
Speaker 5: that he's unwilling to lose. You can't have a democracy. Then,
Speaker 5: I think that Harris should be just unrelenting in the
Speaker 5: debate and not worry about mocking him, not worry about
Speaker 5: baiting him, Just go at them. She has a very
Speaker 5: good feel for this, and I think she's going to
Speaker 5: do really well.
Speaker 1: Do you think Trump just sort of keeps sleepwalking into
Speaker 1: this now? I mean, do you think there's a way
Speaker 1: for his people to reset the campaign when he seems
Speaker 1: so sort of bored with running for president?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he does seed border he's done it. Three times now.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, he's basically run for president almost now
Speaker 5: as long as he's been married to one person and
Speaker 5: doesn't have a great track record, Trump won't allow the
Speaker 5: campaign to be about anything but Trump, And it's just
Speaker 5: a reality of it. He's uncoachable and he's not going
Speaker 5: to follow any directions. And by bringing in Corey Lewandalski,
Speaker 5: you're just reinforcing that. He really brought Cory Lewandalski because
Speaker 5: he was tired of arguing with Susie Wiles and Chris Osceovido.
Speaker 5: So now he's just going to put Corey Daron. Corey's
Speaker 5: going to tell him the shadow and he can go
Speaker 5: out and do what he wants to do. I think
Speaker 5: that Trump is going to become increasingly desperate because at
Speaker 5: a certain point it is going to occur to him
Speaker 5: that he is going to lose this race, and that
Speaker 5: that means he probably will go to jail desperate Canada,
Speaker 5: like desperate people are usually at their most unappealing.
Speaker 1: It just is so crazy to me that we have
Speaker 1: a race where it's basically one person is running his
Speaker 1: day out of jail.
Speaker 3: It's so insane.
Speaker 5: We have a convicted felon, so so think about it.
Speaker 5: You're a Republican in twenty sixteen. You start out with, ah, no, no,
Speaker 5: I can't really swallow Hillary Clinton. Let's give this guy
Speaker 5: a chance. And then what do you end up? You
Speaker 5: end up defending a sexual predator who's a convicted felon.
Speaker 3: It's been impeached twice.
Speaker 5: Has been in peach twice, he says, any won't recognize
Speaker 5: the results of the election.
Speaker 3: Just insane.
Speaker 5: It just shows why character does count and the party
Speaker 5: just prove that it didn't believe in anything. I don't
Speaker 5: know any other conclusion to come to power.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us. This was so important.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bally.
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Speaker 1: Daniel mccanean is the editor of Bolts Magazine. Welcome back,
Speaker 1: too Fast Politics, Daniel.
Speaker 4: It's great to join you. It's always fine.
Speaker 1: I always think of you as like the guy who
Speaker 1: knows local because you're the editor of Boltz Magazine and
Speaker 1: Bolts does a lot of really important local election stuff,
Speaker 1: which doesn't get a lot of coverage because we're in
Speaker 1: the post post post news apocalypse.
Speaker 4: And there's so much to track and watch right now
Speaker 4: and in the next two months.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Yeah, I want.
Speaker 1: To talk about Florida, the school boards, et cetera. There
Speaker 1: were these Florida primaries that didn't get a ton of notice,
Speaker 1: but they did in fact involve a bunch of America
Speaker 1: first school board candidates, and then now some of them
Speaker 1: have advanced. These are not school board candidates, obviously, these
Speaker 1: are other elected officials or elections have advanced to the
Speaker 1: general right.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think what's important context is that the
Speaker 4: governor of Florida, you know, obviously the very conservative round
Speaker 4: the Santas has pursued it in recent years. You know,
Speaker 4: he's really wanted to leave a deep mark on the state,
Speaker 4: to transform the state, take it very far to the right,
Speaker 4: and for him, that has taken the road of being
Speaker 4: very intentional about going after county level offices all over
Speaker 4: the state. So you're mentioning school boards, but it's not
Speaker 4: just that, it's also election officials, it's also DA's It
Speaker 4: is also shriffs and so on, And that's not something
Speaker 4: we always see from a governor. Obviously governors have levels
Speaker 4: of but the centers have been particularly intentional about it.
Speaker 4: So one way this has to taken form in recent
Speaker 4: years is the school boards. As you mentioned obviously the
Speaker 4: months for liberty groups, the conservative groups that are trying
Speaker 4: to take more Florida's school boards have been very active
Speaker 4: in Florida. That that's the state where the Santis has
Speaker 4: also signed a lot of laws that affect what's going
Speaker 4: on in schools and with book bands and so on.
Speaker 4: And he endorsed a bunch of candidates running for school
Speaker 4: board all around the.
Speaker 3: State really and a lot of them lost.
Speaker 4: A lot of them lost on August twentieth in the primary. Yes,
Speaker 4: and he was hoping to take over a bunch of
Speaker 4: swing county school boards and that didn't work out in
Speaker 4: some places, it did. You know, I would say it's
Speaker 4: a mixed message, and in some places that are very conservative,
Speaker 4: it goes a long way to have the centus say
Speaker 4: please work for this person. But also, Mollly, i think
Speaker 4: it's very important to pay attention to other offices. So
Speaker 4: you know, maybe one of the craziest thing that's happening
Speaker 4: in American politics right now is that the Centus over
Speaker 4: the past few years has just removed elected officials from office.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've had people like that on the podcast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that, for instance, he's removed the Democrats who
Speaker 4: were elected prosecutors in Tampa and Orlando, you know, very
Speaker 4: big areas, effectively over not agreeing with them. He didn't
Speaker 4: like that prosecutor in Tampa had said he wouldn't prosecute
Speaker 4: wortioning cases, and so he removed him from office. One
Speaker 4: thing we're watching at Bolt is these people now are
Speaker 4: trying to make a comeback. So the prosecutor in Tampa
Speaker 4: one is primary in August and now is going after
Speaker 4: this incumbent prosecute who was appointed by dissentists who replace them.
Speaker 4: But you know what's super odd is what does it
Speaker 4: even mean to run for office in our circumstances? Like
Speaker 4: when are you going to be removed? Again? Is that
Speaker 4: what elections look like in America?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 4: It's just a very odd, very odd situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. It is so
Speaker 1: anti democratic that you could like run for something be
Speaker 1: removed by a MAGA governor. That's not how any of
Speaker 1: this is supposed to work. So Nebraska has some stuff
Speaker 1: going on with redistricting and making it harder to vote,
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of like Nebraska facrory because
Speaker 1: of that one electoral college vote that they have talk
Speaker 1: to me about what's happening there at the state level.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is really the time of year where
Speaker 4: you have to pay attention to, like with themening the
Speaker 4: state officials honor the radar, because that's really what everyone like,
Speaker 4: that's really what's going to decide, you know, the actual
Speaker 4: details of the close elections. And there's really a very
Speaker 4: extreme situation unfolding in Nebraska right now that everyone should
Speaker 4: be aware of, which is is so Nebraska has laws
Speaker 4: that allow people who have finished their felony convictions to
Speaker 4: get their voting rights restored, and there was a new
Speaker 4: law passed by Republicans actually that expanded that bit to
Speaker 4: make it a little easier. And now suddenly over the summer,
Speaker 4: two statewide elected officials Republicans, the Attorney General and the
Speaker 4: Secretary of State of Nebraska, abruptly, surprisingly, unexpectedly announced that
Speaker 4: the laws should stop being enforced, that officials who register
Speaker 4: people to vote shouldn't stop doing that, and that has
Speaker 4: thrown the voting rights of tens of thousands of people
Speaker 4: in limbo, even people who were already registered to vote
Speaker 4: based on existing law that was in effect for twenty years.
Speaker 4: Even they are now suddenly in this limbo of wait,
Speaker 4: do I have the route to vote? What has happened?
Speaker 4: The state is now suddenly saying I don't, even though
Speaker 4: the law says that. And that's frightening for people who
Speaker 4: have been involved with them criminal legal system already, and
Speaker 4: the last thing they want is to suddenly do something
Speaker 4: potentially legal and be thrown back in prison or be
Speaker 4: thrown back in front of a court. So our reporter
Speaker 4: Alex Bernest talked to people who are affected in Nebraska.
Speaker 4: We have an article on this on our website, and
Speaker 4: a lot of them told them, listen, I don't know
Speaker 4: what's right or wrong here, but I can't take a risk.
Speaker 4: I'm too frightened. And they're speaking to other people in
Speaker 4: this situation and that that's what we're hearing. So this
Speaker 4: is a very, very shocking situation. There was a court
Speaker 4: case a few days ago where the States Swim court
Speaker 4: at least heard the case. But you know, in many ways,
Speaker 4: the damage is done. Even if the state smime Court
Speaker 4: steps in in a week or two and says, which
Speaker 4: this is insane, but these will have the right to
Speaker 4: vote because law says that in many ways the harm
Speaker 4: is done, the pr issue, the confusion, the fear is
Speaker 4: going to remain. And you absolutely right that the Omaha,
Speaker 4: which is obviously a city in Nebraska, they have an
Speaker 4: electoral vote that just effectively omahas and that's super important
Speaker 4: for the presidential race. There's also a key race for
Speaker 4: the US House in Nebraska that we are all watching,
Speaker 4: so this is very important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is some thought that the House Republicans are
Speaker 1: in so much trouble, and again this is a theory
Speaker 1: of the case, maybe not correct. The House Republicans are
Speaker 1: in so much trouble. They are no longer doing offense,
Speaker 1: they're doing defense. And there is some money issues. Democrats
Speaker 1: have more money, though Republicans have superpacks that are not
Speaker 1: necessarily being counted. Right today, there's been just a ton
Speaker 1: of media about ad bys and like, well, it shows
Speaker 1: that Democrats are buying more than Republicans. A lot of
Speaker 1: the Republican pack stuff is not in those numbers, right right.
Speaker 4: You know, everyone has a lot of money or Republican
Speaker 4: packs have a ton of money. They've obviously used it
Speaker 4: in the past in all these races, and you know
Speaker 4: a place like Omahai is going to see a lot
Speaker 4: of spending for the house rates for the presidential race.
Speaker 4: It's also very hard in this time of any campaign,
Speaker 4: any cy goal to trust. Everyone wants more money, and
Speaker 4: the leak stories about not having enough money for to
Speaker 4: create a sense of urgency. It's hartunallyxactly what's going on
Speaker 4: at that level. But yeah, a lot of dark money
Speaker 4: obviously everywhere. There's also a lot of money now that's
Speaker 4: flowing in judge races across the country. There was just
Speaker 4: an announcement a few days ago by a Conservative pact
Speaker 4: about the money that they're going to pure into state
Speaker 4: judge races, which are also very important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want you to talk to our listeners about
Speaker 1: what you think are the races that people are not
Speaker 1: covering that seem important.
Speaker 4: Let's jump into Yeah, that's one, yeah, yeah, yeah. State
Speaker 4: Supreme court races are super important. The courts are super important,
Speaker 4: so under the radar. I think they're ten percent left
Speaker 4: under the radar since stops because they will we shoot
Speaker 4: important decisions. Auction rights which have made them more salient.
Speaker 4: But you know, let's start with Michigan. Michigan is obviously
Speaker 4: the key swing state for the presidential race, but it
Speaker 4: also is one of the states where the part is
Speaker 4: then majority on the State Supreme Court is at issue
Speaker 4: in this fall, and obviously that's super important. There's a
Speaker 4: four to three majority right now for Democrats on the
Speaker 4: court and two seats are at play in November, and
Speaker 4: that could swing one way or the other. You know.
Speaker 4: As one example, just a few weeks ago, the state
Speaker 4: Supreme Court issued a super important decision on a four
Speaker 4: to three vote that said lawmakers can trust immediately ignore
Speaker 4: the results of a ballot initiative. And that was a
Speaker 4: four to three decision. So that was at the same
Speaker 4: time a win for the people who want bad initiatives
Speaker 4: to have authority, to have power. It was also molly
Speaker 4: a very stark reminder of the fact that these decisions
Speaker 4: come down to very narrow majorities in state Supreme Court
Speaker 4: and that itself is up to voters. Another state that
Speaker 4: where the majority could flip on paper is Ohio. Ohio
Speaker 4: just has a four to three majority on the court
Speaker 4: right now for Republicans and Democrats have a shot if
Speaker 4: they have a very election night at flipping the Ohio
Speaker 4: Supreme Court. You know, it seems like a stretch. Ohio
Speaker 4: has become a difficult state for Democrats, but the rewards
Speaker 4: for Democrats in terms of being able to break the
Speaker 4: Republican gerrymander would be so huge if they manage to
Speaker 4: flip the court. And I'll also flag maybe to end,
Speaker 4: there's four judges in Florida and Arizona that have just
Speaker 4: recently this spring voted to allow abortion bands that are
Speaker 4: up for retention this year. So that's two in Arizona
Speaker 4: and two in Florida, all of which issued extremely high
Speaker 4: profile or abortion decisions upholding abortion bands and are now
Speaker 4: on the ballot. There just isn't a lot of attention
Speaker 4: to these retention races that I'm going to imagine that
Speaker 4: a lot of people who are listening to this, who
Speaker 4: care about abortion rights and maybe are in these states,
Speaker 4: have not heard about these state supreme courts we are
Speaker 4: on the ballot. So there's just like an attention deficit
Speaker 4: around these races.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to me how they work these states
Speaker 1: supreme court races?
Speaker 4: That's a hard question because then terry dependent on the state.
Speaker 4: In some places, it's an election like any other. It's
Speaker 4: an election where you know there's a Democratic Republican. In
Speaker 4: some states, the party labels don't show up on the ballot,
Speaker 4: so people need to do a little more research to
Speaker 4: have their vote aligned with what they want. And then
Speaker 4: in places like Florida or Arizona, it's just a yes
Speaker 4: or no question, do you want to retain this Supreme
Speaker 4: Court justice. So in Arizona, for instance, if the justices
Speaker 4: were not retained by voters, then the governor would appoint
Speaker 4: new justices. And the governor in Arizona right now is Democrat.
Speaker 4: You know what's really crazy, though, there's also a referendum
Speaker 4: on the ballot and Arizona in November that Republicans have
Speaker 4: put that would cancel judge elections, and it would apply
Speaker 4: to the November vote.
Speaker 3: Oh, judge elections do people? That seems insane.
Speaker 4: What's particularly extreme again is it would apply to the
Speaker 4: campaigns that would have just ended. So let's say a
Speaker 4: judge is not retained that day, but voters also passed
Speaker 4: this measure, it would cancel the fact that the judge
Speaker 4: was not retained. Again, this is a referendum that would
Speaker 4: cancel from now on all judge elections, effectively giving them
Speaker 4: life tenure without any check, which, you know, you could
Speaker 4: argue whether or not be like that as a system,
Speaker 4: but the way way in which is being proposed with
Speaker 4: something else.
Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy, right. I mean, the sort of
Speaker 1: larger framing is that these red legislatures have kind of
Speaker 1: taken trump Ism as an excuse to just do every
Speaker 1: crazy thing they've thought of. Ultimately, this is like it
Speaker 1: feels like there's sort of this like you know, going
Speaker 1: out of business fire sale, and they're just throwing everything
Speaker 1: they can against Wall.
Speaker 4: We could just talk about Arizona for a long time
Speaker 4: as the emple of lost a worth you're saying. They
Speaker 4: was the proposal in Arizona a bill, an actual bill
Speaker 4: in early twenty twenty four that would have just given
Speaker 4: the state's electoral votes to Trump with no votes being cast.
Speaker 4: That bill did not past, but someone who's currently into
Speaker 4: the legislature introduced it and what wanted to see it
Speaker 4: pass then, and it was actually heard in the legislature.
Speaker 4: The fact that that didn't pass, I guess is good
Speaker 4: means for democracy. But just the very fact we even
Speaker 4: having that conversation.
Speaker 3: But it's crazy. It's a purple stay right.
Speaker 4: The venue having that conversation just captures and Molly, the
Speaker 4: person who introduced the bill at a primary a month
Speaker 4: ago and won the primary, the Republican primary. So it's
Speaker 4: not like voters were like appalled Appaufman enough to do
Speaker 4: anything about it. So adepts of proposals we're saying, we're
Speaker 4: seeing in some places right now in the world. Where
Speaker 4: Trump loses the election in November, we could see more
Speaker 4: of that after that.
Speaker 1: Right, there is a sense that if Trump keeps losing
Speaker 1: and again this is this fundamental problem, if Trump keeps losing,
Speaker 1: eventually maybe Republicans rethink this.
Speaker 4: Right, I guess we shall see if you lose this.
Speaker 4: I mean, at the moment, what's happening is that conservatives
Speaker 4: who are aligned with Trump and with lives about elections
Speaker 4: are making progress still in the Republican primary, like we're
Speaker 4: talking about Florida and Ares. In both states, there's a
Speaker 4: bunch of people who just say that the election was
Speaker 4: robbed in twenty twenty, you know, echoing the lives of
Speaker 4: President Trump. We're advancing to the general election for election
Speaker 4: offices in twenty twenty six. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 4: a long time off. Let's not talk about it entirely now,
Speaker 4: but it's possible that come the fall of twenty twenty
Speaker 4: six will be in a situation where, even if Trump
Speaker 4: is in an office, the people who have echoed these
Speaker 4: these false conspiracy theories about elections are going to be
Speaker 4: even more entrenched in the trenches. And that's something that
Speaker 4: is important to pay attention now because in these places
Speaker 4: the elections to decide whether they'll be in power are
Speaker 4: also happening right now.
Speaker 3: It's not good.
Speaker 1: It's not good if you are someone listening to this,
Speaker 1: where can you get the most bang for your book
Speaker 1: donation wise?
Speaker 4: Well, I think people should should look at what's happening
Speaker 4: first of all in their state and local in state offices.
Speaker 4: The majority of people who are going to listen to
Speaker 4: this right now probably do have a state court race,
Speaker 4: for instance, where they are.
Speaker 2: They may have a DA race where they are.
Speaker 4: They may have a race for SOS, which is the
Speaker 4: office that runs elections. They may have an off for
Speaker 4: the county clerk, for a election supervisor. You know, whatever
Speaker 4: your opinions on what matters most here. So there are
Speaker 4: ways to plug into what's happening in state politics and
Speaker 4: local politics, and pay attention, you know, be informed obviously,
Speaker 4: and tell your friends about all of those elections.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to me for a minute about Nebraska
Speaker 1: and what's happening in Nebraska, because the polls I've seen,
Speaker 1: and again I know they're just polls, and you know,
Speaker 1: but I've seen some polls that show the Democrat who
Speaker 1: was actually not a Democrat, who's an independent and rejected
Speaker 1: the Democratic label, but who is very kind of running
Speaker 1: a sort of Bernie Sanders like campaign and surgeon campaign,
Speaker 1: is actually ahead right now in the polls.
Speaker 4: There was just a poule this weekend where the independent
Speaker 4: was tied to the Republican. Super interesting. There's no Democrat
Speaker 4: at all there. Those Democrats sort of backed down and
Speaker 4: didn't feel the candidate to give space to this independent.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's a hard one because it's
Speaker 4: sort of the mirror image of Maryland, where there's a
Speaker 4: Republican ex governor Republican who's trying to live to see
Speaker 4: and I think most people expect that we've seen these
Speaker 4: movies before, and at the end of day, the gravity,
Speaker 4: the partisan gravity of the state will take over for
Speaker 4: Republicans in Nebraska and for Democrats in Maryland. But the
Speaker 4: movie is not over till till it's over. And at
Speaker 4: the very least, it'd be interesting to see if Republicans
Speaker 4: are forced to spend a lot of money in Nebraska
Speaker 4: to sort of defend themselves. You know, there's an off
Speaker 4: chance of an upset. I mean, the Democrats are trying
Speaker 4: to expand the map because Democrats have a very tough
Speaker 4: map in the Senate. They need to win a red
Speaker 4: state or to be able to keep the Senate.
Speaker 3: And they can't keep West Virginia that's already gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we're talking about Ohio and Montana. We're talking
Speaker 4: about those states. We're talking about Democrats for being to
Speaker 4: expand the map in Texas, in Florida and adding a
Speaker 4: Brasska to the list would just potentially add another place
Speaker 4: for Democrats to shield themselves and hope to keep the chamber.
Speaker 3: So interesting. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Daniel always to talk about all this, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be? Well, so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly John
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could due
Speaker 1: to this country, So please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 3: Michael S. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University. Welcome too,
Speaker 3: Fast Politic.
Speaker 1: Wesleyan University President, Michael Roth.
Speaker 2: Great to be here.
Speaker 3: We've known each other for a while.
Speaker 1: I actually briefly went to wesley and though I did
Speaker 1: not graduate from their full disclosure, but one of the
Speaker 1: things I have always thought you really need and I
Speaker 1: was reading this op edge you wrote in the New
Speaker 1: York Times today or maybe it came out over the
Speaker 1: weekend about really important takes, so talk to us about
Speaker 1: You have been a college president for a while, but
Speaker 1: being a college president has sort of become a different
Speaker 1: thing all of a sudden, right.
Speaker 2: That's what they say. I mean, I've been doing this
Speaker 2: a long time. I think that's like twenty five years
Speaker 2: that have been a college president's embarrassing.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: My first day as a college president in San Francisco
Speaker 2: at an arts school, I passed that in the bathroom
Speaker 2: because I was so ambivalent about being a college president.
Speaker 2: I thought, this is there's you know, we're usually as
Speaker 2: a factory member. I thought they were just a bunch
Speaker 2: of lackeys, you know, right, barnacles on the ship of education.
Speaker 2: But that area, I'm doing it forever. I'm doing it
Speaker 2: since excuse and ate this. My teeth year at Wesleyan.
Speaker 2: It had I don't know if it's really changed. I mean,
Speaker 2: the world has changed. People don't like education as much
Speaker 2: as they used to. Americans have always been ambivalent about education,
Speaker 2: but they have in the past, giving colleges more slack.
Speaker 2: You know, that good stuff went on there, people thought
Speaker 2: And now I think a lot of Americans, and for
Speaker 2: some good reason, believe that what goes on at colleges
Speaker 2: is that people learn how to be condescending to folks
Speaker 2: who aren't At colleges, the university people in my kind
Speaker 2: of job, they get very defensive and then they try
Speaker 2: to pretty much stay out of trouble. And that doesn't
Speaker 2: work because we should try to find ways to it's
Speaker 2: a cliche to make good trouble, but to do things
Speaker 2: that are not just in line with the prevailing trends,
Speaker 2: but to push back against those trends in interesting ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really important point. There is
Speaker 1: definitely the right has kind of declared war on education
Speaker 1: or on higher education or have they tell me you
Speaker 1: are like on the ground in a prestigious university. So
Speaker 1: I mean, is that what's happening. It's what it looks
Speaker 1: like to me from my purge.
Speaker 2: But oh yeah, I mean, you know, Jade Massi has
Speaker 2: said famously that the university's are the enemy. He should
Speaker 2: be thanking us for introducing him to his wife. Is
Speaker 2: a thing about it, And only in a university with
Speaker 2: two people with such different backgrounds find each other and
Speaker 2: one of the great things about being at a university.
Speaker 2: But the right has found convenient scapegoats, and we've often
Speaker 2: had this role. We are the scapegoat for the right.
Speaker 2: And where that that was true in the sixties, he
Speaker 2: was true in the nineties. You know, it's true now
Speaker 2: and the left is divided about universities. You know, we
Speaker 2: are kind of a pipeline for progressives with all the
Speaker 2: problems that with being a pripeline for progressive which is
Speaker 2: that a lot of people seem to leave universities these
Speaker 2: days thinking they're on the right side of history and
Speaker 2: screw those other people who don't know the right side
Speaker 2: of history is. And that's teaching people to be narrow
Speaker 2: minded and kind of stupid, actually, But we have done
Speaker 2: that too at universities, and so there are some people
Speaker 2: on the left, or people who are at least non
Speaker 2: fully on board with some progressive programs that also feel
Speaker 2: very ambivalent about universities these days, as the languages we
Speaker 2: speak and the courses we teach seem to be further
Speaker 2: and further away from the concerns of folks who are
Speaker 2: not at universities.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point, where you get
Speaker 1: removed from the actual nuts and bolts of preparing people
Speaker 1: to go out into the world. But we talk on
Speaker 1: this podcast a lot about the rise of authoritarianism in
Speaker 1: the Republican Party and how trump Ism has given birth
Speaker 1: to this kind of really nast eastrain of authoritarianism, which
Speaker 1: we're having Chason Stanley on next week, and you know,
Speaker 1: talking about this idea that they're coming for the educational institutions.
Speaker 1: We saw that in Florida with New College. Florida also
Speaker 1: has a tenure review for professors that is quite aggressive
Speaker 1: and sets up a world where you have professors less
Speaker 1: interested in taking stands that might displease the governor. Some
Speaker 1: of this is like using this sort of protests on
Speaker 1: campus as a way to malign the institutions, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Jason and I have argued about this
Speaker 2: on the radio in the past. I mean, I do
Speaker 2: think the universities we don't do ourselves a favor by
Speaker 2: cultivating a kind of political group think on campus and
Speaker 2: not taking seriously, at least in some fields and some campuses,
Speaker 2: strains of thought that also can lead to change, but
Speaker 2: are not part of the progressive consensus relays.
Speaker 1: And that's the sort of Barry Wise, you know, there's
Speaker 1: no room for conservatives on campus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's made a lot of money with that argument,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot, and found a lot of rich
Speaker 2: people who agree with her. But I think there's a
Speaker 2: point to it, which is that just like when I
Speaker 2: was a graduate student in the late seventies and early eighties,
Speaker 2: you know, professors used to say to us, well, we
Speaker 2: don't hire a bunch of white men just because we
Speaker 2: like white men. We're hiring the best people. When my
Speaker 2: colleagues turn to me and say, we're not hiring a
Speaker 2: leftists because they happen to resemble ourselves in our own
Speaker 2: political opinions, we're hiring the best people, I'm suspicious of
Speaker 2: that argument. I do think we need more intellectual diversity
Speaker 2: at universities, but I think that that's what we should
Speaker 2: cultivate within the university. We're being scapegoaded by the authoritarian
Speaker 2: right because it helps stoke resentment at people who are
Speaker 2: thought to have privileges, and we do have privileges at universities,
Speaker 2: and the response in many universities is to become more insular,
Speaker 2: to actually turn inward and to talk our own language
Speaker 2: and only talk to one another. And that makes matters worse.
Speaker 2: And so finding ways to create reciprocity rather than feeding resentment,
Speaker 2: that seems to me a really important task in the
Speaker 2: coming months. The other thing I'll say is that it
Speaker 2: seems to me the university right now the next two
Speaker 2: months have a profound obligation to energize their students to
Speaker 2: get out and work on campaigns and support the candidates
Speaker 2: of their choice and get involved in issues. Because the
Speaker 2: university shouldn't be neutral about the electoral system or democracy.
Speaker 2: We should be encouraging our students and our faculty to
Speaker 2: be engaged in the public sphere. And that is something
Speaker 2: that people can find in their mission statements. But many,
Speaker 2: I think many presidents and deans are not comfortable apparently
Speaker 2: doing that and really trying to activate the political energies
Speaker 2: of their students and their faculty and staff. We need
Speaker 2: them to get involved in politics. Whatever the results turn
Speaker 2: out to be, it's going to be worse if young
Speaker 2: people just turn their backs on policy.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to the protest for a minute,
Speaker 1: because I think some of why the Republicans are so
Speaker 1: obsessed with the protests is because protests really did help,
Speaker 1: or they think at least that protests helped Richard Nixon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so can.
Speaker 1: You talk a little bit about sort of the strategy
Speaker 1: there of using protests as a way to kind of
Speaker 1: divide Americans.
Speaker 2: Sure, the strategy is to see protests as a breakdown
Speaker 2: of order. And when you have a breakdown of order,
Speaker 2: you need the guy who says only I can fix this,
Speaker 2: And so it feeds into this authoritarianism of paranoia loop.
Speaker 2: And so the media, of course has amplified this because
Speaker 2: they cover Columbia and UCLA and UCLA and Columbia and
Speaker 2: then maybe a little bit of Emerson College. But they
Speaker 2: cover the four percent of protests that turned violent or
Speaker 2: damaged property. They didn't cover the vast majority of protests
Speaker 2: which were bearing witness to an atrocity in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: They were bearing witness to a war that's gone out
Speaker 2: of control and to a government that has not followed
Speaker 2: through on its principal obligation, which is to get its
Speaker 2: citizens released from being hostages. So students and faculty staff,
Speaker 2: but mostly students all over the country were saying, how
Speaker 2: can our government support this war as it's being waged?
Speaker 2: And I think at most places that was very peaceful. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't agree with many some of the demands that
Speaker 2: some of the protests are making, but that's neither here
Speaker 2: nor there. If young people ignore what was happening in Gaza,
Speaker 2: this would not be to their credit. This would be
Speaker 2: a shame and the fact that they are raising their
Speaker 2: voices to protest the ways in which United States support
Speaker 2: is enabling a war in Gaza that is inhuman by
Speaker 2: any definition. That's the credit of the students.
Speaker 1: One of the things I thought was smart about your
Speaker 1: ampat was this idea. There's been so much written in
Speaker 1: the political and so many hours devoted to complaining about
Speaker 1: campuses being too political, when.
Speaker 3: In fact, really college is meant to be. I mean,
Speaker 3: I ended up non finishing college too. I'm speaking in.
Speaker 1: Principle, in a largely theoretical way, but that it's meant
Speaker 1: to be a place where people can be passionate about
Speaker 1: important things.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and the students are western of protests. They're protesting me.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like there we're all buddies, you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm on their side. I'm a supporter of Israel.
Speaker 2: I should make that clear, right.
Speaker 3: And you're jew too, and I'm in Jewish.
Speaker 2: And I believe that Israel has a right to defend itself.
Speaker 2: I think this work could end if Hamas had the
Speaker 2: least concern for the citizens of Gaza, if it had
Speaker 2: the least concern for their welfare. And I've written that
Speaker 2: and then there's a link to that op ed in
Speaker 2: the Times up at and so the students know that
Speaker 2: I am not one of these from the River to
Speaker 2: the Sea people. On the other hand, I think that
Speaker 2: the students have every right to make their voices heard
Speaker 2: as long as they allow the university to conduct as
Speaker 2: regular business and its educational mission. And I have these
Speaker 2: people telling me that, oh, but the students are ignorant
Speaker 2: of history. There are a lot of people or proiser
Speaker 2: are like I am, who are also ignorant of history.
Speaker 2: I don't think history is the issue. The issue is
Speaker 2: extraordinary destruction of a land and its people that is
Speaker 2: being conducted with the support of the American taxpayer and
Speaker 2: the American government, and wanting to change that. I believe
Speaker 2: those kinds of protests are important. I think they should
Speaker 2: be protesting in Washington. I think it's a fantasy to this.
Speaker 2: Divestment is just a fantasy that somehow endowments would sure this.
Speaker 2: If you don't buy Ford stock, that's what they're don't
Speaker 2: buy General Motors or Microsoft. This is silly that they
Speaker 2: have every right to protest. I think it's wrong. They
Speaker 2: should be trying to elect a government that will create
Speaker 2: the conditions for a sustainable peace. AVA see about investments
Speaker 2: seems to me both naive and a fantasy about the
Speaker 2: importance of endowment.
Speaker 1: Right though some endowments are richer than others, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some endowments that are the size of a small country.
Speaker 1: But I'm just wondering if you could talk for another
Speaker 1: minute about it strikes me that college presidents have had
Speaker 1: a very tough time of it lately. Obviously, you guys
Speaker 1: are not a protected you know, you're not egrets.
Speaker 2: We're pale very well, right.
Speaker 3: You're very powerful people.
Speaker 1: But ultimately it's been sort of you know, we saw
Speaker 1: the Columbia the president of Columbia leaving. We've seen a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, we saw those college presidents who testified before Congress.
Speaker 1: You know, I think all but one are gone. I mean,
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of really annoying dinner party
Speaker 1: conversation that I've been privy to about who does a
Speaker 1: good job and who doesn't do a good job of
Speaker 1: being a college president. And what I like about what
Speaker 1: you you wrote is that you talk about like that
Speaker 1: this is actually about students living in the world. But
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you can talk about sort of what
Speaker 1: you've done, what you've been able to do in your
Speaker 1: campus to keep everybody safe, to feel like people had
Speaker 1: a voys and whether you've seen that in other schools
Speaker 1: or whether you've seen people struggle with it.
Speaker 2: I think in many schools, students have been able to
Speaker 2: exercise their rights to free expression and to do so
Speaker 2: in ways that allow other people to go about their
Speaker 2: business and to continue the emissions of the university. And
Speaker 2: I think at many places that's happened. There are pressures
Speaker 2: on university presidents to please their board. Of course, because
Speaker 2: of board they reported the board and boards should, with
Speaker 2: the help of a president, have the institution's best interests
Speaker 2: at heart. Those interests include cultivating a campus where people
Speaker 2: that feel they can protest and get involved in politics.
Speaker 2: I know at Wesleyan I have such a board. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm very fortunate, and you know it's not an accident.
Speaker 2: Many of the board members now I've known for quite
Speaker 2: a while because of my tenure and the culture of
Speaker 2: the institution makes an important difference. But presidents, one of
Speaker 2: our most important jobs, maybe our most important job, is
Speaker 2: to bring resources to the university. I mean, I write
Speaker 2: op eds and I write books and I enjoy doing
Speaker 2: I teach classes every semester, but you know a lot
Speaker 2: of people could do that. What I have to do
Speaker 2: is raise more money than last year. And last year
Speaker 2: we raised more money than we ever raised before. That's
Speaker 2: because that's for scholarships, is for financial aid, that's for support,
Speaker 2: research and teaching. And that takes, you know, explaining why
Speaker 2: you lead the university the way you do and not
Speaker 2: just appealing I think to the loyalty or the sentimental
Speaker 2: affections of your alumni. And it's the end. We have
Speaker 2: an active board and an active alumni body. Some of
Speaker 2: whom you know, want me to shut down the protests,
Speaker 2: others want me to divest. But I think what they
Speaker 2: appreciate most of the time is that we're able to
Speaker 2: explain what we're doing and how it fits into our
Speaker 2: philosophy of education. I wrote a book a few years
Speaker 2: ago called Safe Enough Spaces, where I see, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't want to make the campus so safe that
Speaker 2: nobody's going to do anything interesting or offensive, But you
Speaker 2: don't want it to be so crazy that people are
Speaker 2: poisoning to each other with drugs or getting involved in violence.
Speaker 2: It has to be a place where people know they're
Speaker 2: free enough to do things that might get them in
Speaker 2: trouble elsewhere, or that might be offensive in some quarters,
Speaker 2: but they're free enough to do it on campus because
Speaker 2: there are relations of trust among the students and between
Speaker 2: the students and the faculty and administration. And so that
Speaker 2: idea of it being, you know, safe enough, not totally safe,
Speaker 2: and not totally say whatever you want or do whatever
Speaker 2: you want. But that notion I think helps keep the
Speaker 2: campus conversation going forward, makes it positive. I have this idea, Molly,
Speaker 2: that over the last couple of centuries, really in the West,
Speaker 2: the notion of being a student, especially in college, is
Speaker 2: you get to practice freedom. This book called the Student,
Speaker 2: a Short History, and my conclusion is that we let
Speaker 2: students just being free. If they just rate that what
Speaker 2: they do is practice like making money only, or they
Speaker 2: just practice baseball, or they just practice I don't know,
Speaker 2: beer pong, that's waste.
Speaker 5: They have to.
Speaker 2: Explore being free, and sometimes you know, that's messy. But
Speaker 2: if you're at a campus where there's trust, where there's
Speaker 2: some safe enough protections, then you get to practice being
Speaker 2: free in a way that prepares you for being an adult.
Speaker 2: When you leave campus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so interesting. What is important is that you're looking
Speaker 1: at this in a way that is different than everyone else.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, Molly, I looked down my
Speaker 2: window at the camp end of the sprying I've made.
Speaker 2: People were calling me a murderer and a fascist. And
Speaker 2: you know, I looked at the window at these kids
Speaker 2: in their tents and with their guitars, and they're now
Speaker 2: their computers and their inheated conversations and they're singing. He
Speaker 2: reminded me of my favorite times in college too. And
Speaker 2: I don't want to be kind of Sunday to them.
Speaker 2: And maybe I'm wrong and they're right, But I also
Speaker 2: don't want to pretend I agree with them. But I
Speaker 2: do want to protect their ability to make their voice
Speaker 2: is heard, as long as it doesn't degenerate into intimidation
Speaker 2: and harassment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's what it's about. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us, Michael Row.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Molly. Great to be with you.
Speaker 3: No momento, Jesse Cannon, Molly jung Fast.
Speaker 7: There's this police called X and I'm going to tell
Speaker 7: you something a lot of bullshit that didn't happen is
Speaker 7: spread on it every day, mostly by the CEO as well.
Speaker 7: But what did you see here today?
Speaker 1: This is a lie that comes from a fake newspaper,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. It says that in June twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: Harris was driving a car and hit two pedestrians. This
Speaker 1: is absolutely not true. It is a complete and utter lie.
Speaker 7: Keeps getting retweeted every second.
Speaker 1: Yes, thousands of people are seeing it. It's a complete
Speaker 1: fabrica and it is our moment of fuckery watching Elon
Speaker 1: Musk spread lies about Vice President Harris.
Speaker 3: That is our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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