Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday,
Speaker 2: have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a look at a few aspects
Speaker 1: of the Kamala Harris defeat. First of all, she did
Speaker 1: give her concession speech, so we have a little bit
Speaker 1: of that. Also some of the various competing theories of
Speaker 1: what exactly went wrong. Also a lot of finger pointing
Speaker 1: people on both sides of the like Biden Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: like his staffers versus the Harris staffers and the Obama staffers.
Speaker 1: So a lot of blame flying around, including people who
Speaker 1: are still I knew this would happen, credulously, like geez,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't ditch Biden. One that was as wild wild
Speaker 1: to imagine that that could be the case. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll dig into all of that. We're also going to
Speaker 1: have David Serota on of course of lever news. Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders put out a really scathing rebuke of the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party echoes, you know, some of the things I've been saying,
Speaker 1: some of the things others have been saying about where
Speaker 1: they went wrong, and very curious to get Serota's take
Speaker 1: on that. And there's also been a funny development of
Speaker 1: people like David Brooks now being like, gee, maybe Democrats
Speaker 1: need like their own Bernie Sanders style disruptive movement.
Speaker 4: It's like, dude, you were a core part of.
Speaker 1: Destroying that movement, crushing it, salting the earth and making
Speaker 1: sure that there's no vestige of it less left to
Speaker 1: be resurrected. And of course, even if it were to be,
Speaker 1: we know David Brooks would be at the vanguard of
Speaker 1: once again doing the same exact thing. So anyway, excited
Speaker 1: to talk to David Serota about all of this, forgive.
Speaker 2: Us his thoughts, forgive us for a more truncated, spontaneous,
Speaker 2: extemporaneous show. Today all of us are still from all
Speaker 2: of the sleep deprivation over the last couple of days.
Speaker 3: We're going to do our best here.
Speaker 2: Let's start, I think with the Kamala Harris speech, so
Speaker 2: control and please go ahead and get that queued up,
Speaker 2: and we will take a listen to some of the highlights.
Speaker 2: I watched the entire thing, and we'll break it down after.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: And historian once called a law of history true of
Speaker 5: every society across the ages. The adage is only when
Speaker 5: it is dark enough can you see the stars. I
Speaker 5: know many people feel like we are entering a dark time,
Speaker 5: but for the benefit of us all I hope that
Speaker 5: is not the case. But here's the thing, America.
Speaker 4: If it is, let.
Speaker 5: Us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant,
Speaker 5: brilliant billion of.
Speaker 4: Stars, the light.
Speaker 5: The light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service.
Speaker 3: At you and made that.
Speaker 6: Work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward
Speaker 6: the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.
Speaker 5: I thank you all.
Speaker 6: Make God bless you, and may God bless the United
Speaker 6: States of America.
Speaker 4: I thank you all.
Speaker 2: About as perfect as an end to the campaign as
Speaker 2: we could get.
Speaker 3: There. In that concession speech, Crystal.
Speaker 2: Pablom and whatever the hell that was. The star stars to.
Speaker 1: Me are very like twenty sixteen resistance, and you know,
Speaker 1: I just I don't think that the energy from the
Speaker 1: Democratic base is going to be quite the same because
Speaker 1: I mean, for when they're exhausted, right, yeah, and for
Speaker 1: number two. You know, back in twenty sixteen, it felt
Speaker 1: very much it felt like it could be just a
Speaker 1: one off.
Speaker 4: Yes, like a fluke.
Speaker 1: Okay, you had the Komi thing and Hillary was a
Speaker 1: bad candidate and Russian interference and whatever. Now it's like, okay, no,
Speaker 1: this this wasn't a fluke. By the way, people people
Speaker 1: aren't just rejecting Democrats.
Speaker 4: They're doing that.
Speaker 1: They're also embracing this particular candidate. I mean, he outperformed
Speaker 1: every Republican on the ballot, So let's reckon.
Speaker 4: With that too and what that says.
Speaker 1: But you know, on the on the Democratic side, I
Speaker 1: see Lisbon Warren put out like kind of a similar
Speaker 1: vibe of statement that was like, let's not point fingers,
Speaker 1: just like when is the time to point fingers?
Speaker 4: If not right now?
Speaker 2: Like Matt Stolar had a great tweet he was like, actually,
Speaker 2: right now is the exact right time?
Speaker 3: Correct fingers? And for recruit Yeah, bitter recruitment.
Speaker 1: Like that's like, now is the time your party has
Speaker 1: been burned down to the ashes.
Speaker 4: Yes, thoroughly repudiated in.
Speaker 1: State after state, county after county, demographic group after demographic
Speaker 1: group across the country. And there's no one to blame.
Speaker 1: There's no one, you know, there's no boogeyman out there
Speaker 1: that you can just point your finger at and say, oh,
Speaker 1: it was there, it was their fault. So you know,
Speaker 1: now is the time to try to learn those lessons.
Speaker 1: But you know, I like, I think that they will
Speaker 1: learn all the wrong lessons. I think that's already we
Speaker 1: see them moving in that direction. But the other piece
Speaker 1: with Kamalo's speech, I'm curious your thoughts. Like, I think
Speaker 1: she's delusional enough to believe that she's still part of
Speaker 1: the future of the.
Speaker 3: Dem That's actually what I wanted to highlight.
Speaker 2: So an important part of her speech actually was her
Speaker 2: really laying the groundwork for the possible future run.
Speaker 3: So I have a direct quote here Kamala.
Speaker 2: While I concede this election, I do not concede the
Speaker 2: fight that fueled this campaign.
Speaker 3: And she says, I'm so proud of the race that
Speaker 3: we ran the way that we ran it.
Speaker 2: We have been intentional about building community and building coalitions,
Speaker 2: but the most important was really about the not conceding
Speaker 2: the fight and continuing or not. I'm conceding election, not
Speaker 2: conceding the fight. And I really do think that she
Speaker 2: is trying to position herself as a future of the resistance.
Speaker 2: And this is actually a very stupid bet in my opinion,
Speaker 2: because it's, like you just said, the quote unquote resistance
Speaker 2: is not going to be the same last time around.
Speaker 2: They had two pillars that they could correctly cling to, right, Sorry,
Speaker 2: one was correct, the other was bullshit. The first one
Speaker 2: was the popular vote and the one off things. Right,
Speaker 2: I mean that's fair, right. It actually didn't win the
Speaker 2: popular vote. Hillary did, so they could talk about that.
Speaker 2: They're like, well, it wasn't a rejection of us, It
Speaker 2: was just a couple of ways the swing stay Trump
Speaker 2: is a one off et cetera.
Speaker 3: Number two also it was Russiagate.
Speaker 2: Is they were like, this is fundamentally like an illegitimate president.
Speaker 2: But if you so, obviously Russiagate turned out to be bullshit.
Speaker 2: And also, frankly, the entire like this is a one
Speaker 2: off thing is also.
Speaker 3: Turned out to be bullshit.
Speaker 2: So when you put those two things together, she is
Speaker 2: making a very incorrect bet. Let's be very honest here.
Speaker 2: This is a candidate who has performed worse than Hillary Clinton, right,
Speaker 2: this is a candidate who was thoroughly rejected by the
Speaker 2: popular vote and a landslide victory in the electoral college.
Speaker 2: You know, in the British system, somebody like her, it's over.
Speaker 3: You resign, You're gone.
Speaker 2: You know, at best, you pop up somewhere for constabulatory
Speaker 2: or whatever they call it over there.
Speaker 3: And that's it.
Speaker 2: You're just some backbencher and we never hear about you again. Fundamentally,
Speaker 2: it's an incorrect bet because it's, like you just said,
Speaker 2: the liberal mind and all that is both exhausted from
Speaker 2: eight years of quote unquote resistance, but also there is
Speaker 2: a baseline acceptance this time of the Trump victory and
Speaker 2: of the thesis that this is. You know, Peter Baker
Speaker 2: over at the New York Times, he's a guy I respect,
Speaker 2: he does a pretty good job, and he was like, look,
Speaker 2: elites made a fundamental bet that Trump is not who
Speaker 2: we are. And he's like, actually, this is Donald Trump's America,
Speaker 2: and we are the ones who don't know what the
Speaker 2: hell is going on. It's kind of a trite take,
Speaker 2: but fundamentally like what Kamala is betting on in terms
Speaker 2: of her resistance, it cannot look like her because her
Speaker 2: style of politics so thoroughly failed. Her entire theory of
Speaker 2: quote unquote resistance was incorrect from basically the entire time around.
Speaker 3: So whatever does.
Speaker 2: Come next, obviously there's going to be a lot of
Speaker 2: soul searching it like that inside of the party. But
Speaker 2: she cannot seek the nomination again because her electoral track
Speaker 2: record now is two times failure. She failed in the
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen Democratic primary. She did not win or even
Speaker 2: get close to the Iowa caucuses because of how she
Speaker 2: flamed out for some reason, mostly because of like twenty
Speaker 2: twenty BLM craziness. She gets selected as the vice presidential pick,
Speaker 2: one of the worst modern picks obviously, I think we
Speaker 2: can say, and then there's no primary system. That happens,
Speaker 2: and she runs a terrible campaign in addition to having
Speaker 2: inherit the baggage of Joe Biden, and she loses in
Speaker 2: a historic margin like it is over and in any
Speaker 2: modern sense of like how these things should go, it
Speaker 2: cannot be allowed. Now, the big question is whether Democratic
Speaker 2: elites will allow this nonsense, because right now all the
Speaker 2: recriminations are on Joe Biden, which we'll get to, but
Speaker 2: I haven't seen enough of Kamala herself and her own
Speaker 2: role in it. So she seems to think that she
Speaker 2: can just coast on it was Biden's fault that I lost.
Speaker 3: Well not you know mine.
Speaker 1: I've been saying the whole time that Democrats are never
Speaker 1: going to run a woman again, right, and I do
Speaker 1: think like the first woman president is going to be
Speaker 1: a Republican, Like, I think that that is pretty clear
Speaker 1: at this point. But I mean, I agree with all
Speaker 1: the critiques of Kamala's campaign, right, I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: I've been saying is like too much Mark Cuban and
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney and not enough Sean Faine and Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But I also I think it's sort of unfair to
Speaker 1: lay all the blame at her feet, because that would
Speaker 1: it would almost be too easy to just look at like, oh,
Speaker 1: you made this tactical wrong decision, you gave this tactically
Speaker 1: wrong answer, all that thing, all of that is, you know,
Speaker 1: worthy of debate and discussion, et cetera. But there's a
Speaker 1: deeper problem with the Democratic Party, and you know, the
Speaker 1: medium term issue is that they even though they claimed
Speaker 1: to be fighting for democracy, they're actually very scared of democracy,
Speaker 1: which you see both in the refusal to have a
Speaker 1: democratic primary this time around, in the refusal to have
Speaker 1: like even an open convention after Joe Biden drops out
Speaker 1: of the race. If you go back further, you see
Speaker 1: it in the crushing of the Bernie Sanders movement, you know,
Speaker 1: an organic democratic movement that sprung up that they moved
Speaker 1: heaven and earth to make sure that they crushed and
Speaker 1: put their finger on the scales and bring the primaries
Speaker 1: back in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: And if you think about it.
Speaker 1: You know, the last time that they actually allowed a
Speaker 1: democratic process to play out was two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: with Obama and Hillary. They got the candidate that the
Speaker 1: you know, the Democratic base actually wanted, and lo and
Speaker 1: hold turned out that guy was a really good politician
Speaker 1: and he won two terms and probably if you'd been
Speaker 1: allowed to run for more, probably would have continue to win.
Speaker 1: And I say this not as the biggest fan of Obama,
Speaker 1: but just you know, respect of his particular political talent.
Speaker 1: So there's a democracy problem in the Democratic Party. I
Speaker 1: don't see I really don't see anyone reckoning with that.
Speaker 1: But there's also an ideological problem in the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: and you know, Kama is a reflective of that ideological problem.
Speaker 1: Neoliberalism has been rejected. The right has offered, through trump Ism,
Speaker 1: their vision and their story about what went wrong and
Speaker 1: what to do next. The left offered out of Occupy
Speaker 1: their own version of that story of you know, who
Speaker 1: was to blame, what went wrong, and how to fix it,
Speaker 1: and it was compelling. It was compelling to a lot
Speaker 1: of the very same people who now are supporting Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: including a like Joe Rogan being the sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, figurehead of that shift. But many Listino voters,
Speaker 1: many working class voters, et cetera. And you know, I
Speaker 1: would love to fantasize that, oh, now they're they're going
Speaker 1: to realize the error of their ways, and they're there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a new movement that springs up.
Speaker 4: But I just don't believe.
Speaker 1: It, because they've already crushed that movement so thoroughly. The
Speaker 1: people who previously we're a part of it, many of
Speaker 1: them are gone. They're disillusion they're even either like just
Speaker 1: liberals now or they're on the right, and so I
Speaker 1: don't know, like there is no less to speak of
Speaker 1: that could recreate that energy.
Speaker 4: That's where we are.
Speaker 1: One thing saga I wanted to get your view on
Speaker 1: is let's put this incumbent party graphic up on the screen.
Speaker 4: Guys. The second element that we have here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is very important.
Speaker 1: This is this is important, and it is an important
Speaker 1: part of the story of what went wrong here. This
Speaker 1: is Derek Thompson tweeted this out. He said, for the
Speaker 1: first time since World War Two, every governing party facing
Speaker 1: election in a developed country this year lost vote share
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Democrats are the red dot absolutely critical
Speaker 1: context to any post mortem, and I think that is true.
Speaker 1: But I also think that you can use that to
Speaker 1: just explain away the failures of Kamala herself, the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: the ideology underlying, you know, because that's the other thing
Speaker 1: is like, well, what is the what we're the governing
Speaker 1: parties that were rejected, many of them were many of
Speaker 1: them were, you know, neoliberal parties, and it's one more
Speaker 1: reflection of the fact that the public is done with
Speaker 1: an ideology that is has you know, been proven to
Speaker 1: be broken, you know, putting markets above human beings and
Speaker 1: you know, individual values, and Democrats have failed to recognize
Speaker 1: that this has been rejected and they have to offer
Speaker 1: a different story in a different ideology.
Speaker 2: Let's go through that list is actually very important. So
Speaker 2: we have the British Tories, right, the Tories basically abandoned
Speaker 2: all of the spirit of Brexit and pursued like market
Speaker 2: based Brexit, whatever that is under Richie Sunac.
Speaker 3: Just to start with trust, I mean even Bojo who.
Speaker 2: Actually had a lot of respect for Boris back in
Speaker 2: the day because he, I mean he got himself elected
Speaker 2: Mayor of London. That's not exactly the easiest thing. And
Speaker 2: they have lect freaking Sadikon then goes on to become
Speaker 2: like this very dynamic figure. But he that's the farm,
Speaker 2: you know, all throughout COVID in the post Brexit era
Speaker 2: on this like market managed Brexitism. It eventually evolves into
Speaker 2: Liz Tross after his own failure, and then of course
Speaker 2: Rishi Sunak and in all cases like they abandon the
Speaker 2: spirit of Brexit in the first place, which was about immigration,
Speaker 2: it wasn't just about the market. And so what happens
Speaker 2: is that the Reform Party under Nigel Faraj now surges
Speaker 2: takes all the energy away from the Tories and leads
Speaker 2: to an immediate Labor victory. But in Tory or sorry,
Speaker 2: in the UK, it's not an accident that even though
Speaker 2: Starmer may have gotten himself elected, he's almost immediately as
Speaker 2: unpopular as the Tories, like what are we doing here them?
Speaker 1: And they also with Corbin brushed there, oh, they absolutely
Speaker 1: left version of Bernieism too.
Speaker 2: And so in both cases, like what you really have
Speaker 2: is you had the establishment forces in both the Tories
Speaker 2: and inside of Labor that try and crush them and
Speaker 2: keep the country on their you know, on this like
Speaker 2: one track direction. But the voters just keep saying, they're like, no,
Speaker 2: this is not what we are asking for. They also
Speaker 2: point to well Emmanuel Macrone and his you know fall apart,
Speaker 2: you know, really there Macron bet the farm in twenty
Speaker 2: seventeen on like French they call it like jubiterarianism or
Speaker 2: something is basically like you know, call this like Napoleonic
Speaker 2: centrist figure. And he saw France as like the head
Speaker 2: of this liberal democratic European Union. And the French of course,
Speaker 2: like you know, even though they kind of keep electing him,
Speaker 2: they also just keep grasping in different directions. And it's
Speaker 2: not a surprise that the you know, basically socialist leftist
Speaker 2: Coalition and LAPENN have basically been battling it out ever
Speaker 2: since that happened. Again, it's the same fight that's happening
Speaker 2: over there. Theirs is actually way more intense than ours,
Speaker 2: or about the soul of France, about who we are,
Speaker 2: and it's about immigration, and it's also really about the
Speaker 2: like the future of their own welfare state and also
Speaker 2: have their own conception of themselves, whether they want to
Speaker 2: be like a French like liberal neoliberal managed economy or
Speaker 2: they want to return to, you know, the roots that
Speaker 2: they've always had in their country. They even point to
Speaker 2: the Japanese Liberal Democrats, which frankly is kind of an
Speaker 2: interesting one. I don't know a ton about Japan. I'll
Speaker 2: be there in two weeks, so I'm actually excited to learn.
Speaker 2: But you know, that Liberal Democratic Party there actually lost
Speaker 2: as parliament terim majority for that first time in fifteen years, and.
Speaker 3: The other's I mean, that's another thing about Japan.
Speaker 1: Japan on all the countries that they pulled about, like
Speaker 1: how do you feel about Donald Trump. Israel was number one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they fucking love Donald Trump and Israel.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think Japan.
Speaker 1: Was like towards the top of the list, a large
Speaker 1: like pro Trump sentiment in Japan.
Speaker 2: Look, Japan, it's not a secret. This is a very
Speaker 2: conservative society. And I don't mean this in like the
Speaker 2: Christian Stanse so I think some of them are Christian.
Speaker 2: But look, I mean, you know, in terms of gender
Speaker 2: equality and their own like what they view is like
Speaker 2: masculine and feminine ideals. Also in terms of their economy
Speaker 2: and all of that actually aligns very very much with
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Also, Shinze Abbe and Trump were great friends
Speaker 2: and they had a very good relationship in the past.
Speaker 3: What makes sense.
Speaker 2: But I guess the point in all of these cases
Speaker 2: is that you have very highly developed societies like Japan,
Speaker 2: like the UK, even like France, but also you know,
Speaker 2: the newer ones like in India where Narrara Modi also
Speaker 2: lost you know, some of his ground despite being one
Speaker 2: of the most popular figures.
Speaker 3: I also would point to one of our own neighbors.
Speaker 2: Mexico, like, look what happened on that not only with
Speaker 2: the election of Amlo, but then the continuation of that
Speaker 2: and the literal falling apart of the they're like predominant
Speaker 2: col I'm forgetting the name of that party that's there.
Speaker 2: And then also our other neighbor to the north, look
Speaker 2: at Canada.
Speaker 3: Canada.
Speaker 2: Justin Trudeau sounds like Donald Trump on immigration right now.
Speaker 2: He's like, we're done with immigration here Canada. I hear
Speaker 2: you and I see you. Their party is very, very unpopular,
Speaker 2: and they also are poised for some major political realignments.
Speaker 2: So I think the case in all of them is
Speaker 2: that highly developed Western societies are asking what's next, and
Speaker 2: it's the first time since World War Two, which is
Speaker 2: what that's actually what Derek pointed out, and I actually
Speaker 2: think that's really because what's happening here is that for
Speaker 2: the first time since World War Two, we're asking fundamental
Speaker 2: questions about who we want to be in the global
Speaker 2: system and about our relationship to government. It was a
Speaker 2: titanic shock that they had to live through since such
Speaker 2: a short period of time. For us, it's actually been
Speaker 2: like a slow burning disaster since two thousand and three
Speaker 2: and the invasion, I guess really since nine to eleven,
Speaker 2: then the invasion of Iraq, then the financial crisis in
Speaker 2: almost twenty years of just like feeling tense and constantly
Speaker 2: voting for these change elections. Now Trump has a chance
Speaker 2: to get that done and to actually forge some sort
Speaker 2: of new consensus. But each country has to ask itself, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: what's like the relationship between the government and the citizen.
Speaker 3: What is the relationship of what the citizen re means
Speaker 3: in terms of immigration?
Speaker 2: And there's very different ways that's playing out across the
Speaker 2: West and in these developed societies.
Speaker 3: What though, is our relationship to the globe.
Speaker 2: And that's another one where I mean, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to you know, put the death knell yet,
Speaker 2: but Atlantis, which is like this worship of the alliance
Speaker 2: between Europe and the United States, like that's basically dead.
Speaker 2: Under Donald Trump, we are returning much more to a
Speaker 2: much more mercantilist like transactional relationship.
Speaker 3: The rise of Asia. One of the reasons that Japanese
Speaker 3: loved Trump.
Speaker 2: Is specifically because like he's very pro global like he's
Speaker 2: pro quote unquote fairness of trade. But more importantly, the
Speaker 2: Japanese have always felt shafted by the fact that we
Speaker 2: like love and respect like freaking Slovenia or whatever, and
Speaker 2: they're like a G seven economy sitting over there and like, hey,
Speaker 2: what about us? That realignment will happen too. So I
Speaker 2: know I've droned on a lot here, but there's that
Speaker 2: graph says everything. Because if you think about it, Crystal,
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen forty six or sorry forty five, when
Speaker 2: the UK votes out wins in Churchill and puts Clement Attlee,
Speaker 2: that's when they're like, Okay, we're done with empire and
Speaker 2: we're going NHS. You know, we're going healthcare service. Same
Speaker 2: in a lot of the European countries they were like,
Speaker 2: we're done with this whole like global project. We're just
Speaker 2: gonna kind of retreat inwards. I guess a little bit
Speaker 2: and figure out who we are. America also chose a
Speaker 2: little bit differently under Truman and Eisenhower. But we're back
Speaker 2: to that type of moment, which is really interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, what I want my liberal friends, and I love
Speaker 1: my libs on there, what I want them to understand
Speaker 1: is that the right didn't actually defeat them. Liberals and
Speaker 1: Democratic Party elites who made it their project, their primary project,
Speaker 1: not defeating Donald Trump over the past basically decade. Their
Speaker 1: primary project was defeating the left wing Bernie Sanders movement
Speaker 1: that was grassroots and populist, and especially the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: class first iteration.
Speaker 4: They made that their project, and they.
Speaker 1: Succeeded in that. I mean, it's crushed, it's done right.
Speaker 1: There's no clear successor. Listen, maybe I'll be wrong. I've
Speaker 1: been wrong about a lot, but I don't see it.
Speaker 1: You all defeated the movement that had a chance to
Speaker 1: be a competing vision. And you mentioned Amlo and Claudia Scheinbao.
Speaker 1: Amlow is, you know, not exactly like Bernie Sanders. Obviously
Speaker 1: it's a different cultural and political context, but a lot
Speaker 1: of similarities there. And he was one of the most
Speaker 1: popular leaders in the entire world, including through a time
Speaker 1: that did include you know, massive inflation and COVID and
Speaker 1: UNRAE all that stuff. And he continued to be incredibly
Speaker 1: popular and was able to basically name his successor. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, just ask yourself who were the strongest
Speaker 1: supporters of Bernie Sanders. What was his coalition? And it
Speaker 1: was predominantly working class. Many of the donors contributors was Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks.
Speaker 4: Remember how we used to cover that. Teachers also were
Speaker 4: a big part of that.
Speaker 1: It was predominantly working class Latinos loved Bernie Sanders. TiO Bernie,
Speaker 1: that was a twenty twenty iteration of Bernie in particular.
Speaker 1: They really capitalized on that support and quote unquote bros.
Speaker 1: And I think another one thing we've missed in the
Speaker 1: conversation about like the bro exit from the Democratic Party is,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a partial explanation, but you can
Speaker 1: go back and look at how were they male supporters
Speaker 1: of Bernie, of Bernie Sanders movement treated. They were, you know,
Speaker 1: predominantly young men who were smeared as being toxic and
Speaker 1: sexist and racist, like that's how they were treated. So,
Speaker 1: you know, is it any surprise then that you have
Speaker 1: this significant right word shift among men. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's everything that's going on, but if you look at
Speaker 1: the coalition that backed Bernie and you look at where
Speaker 1: they are now, I think it's it becomes pretty clear
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party instead bet on this college educated, upper
Speaker 1: class coalition in a country that is still predominantly non
Speaker 1: college educated and working class, and these are the results.
Speaker 4: I mean to me, that's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: So that's what I want people to really understand is
Speaker 1: that the Democrats, the liberals in the Democratic Party really
Speaker 1: did this to themselves by making it such a focus
Speaker 1: and succeeding beyond you know, anyone's wildest dreams in crushing
Speaker 1: the part of the party that had the most appeal
Speaker 1: to working class voters and had a chance, no guarantees,
Speaker 1: had a chance of actually competing with the vision of
Speaker 1: trump Ism. So you know, I to me, like a
Speaker 1: lot of the die has already been cast, Like that's
Speaker 1: I'm not and again I'm not saying Democratic Party isn't
Speaker 1: going to win elections, win votes, whatever, But in terms
Speaker 1: of the ideological direction of that party, I think now
Speaker 1: it's going to be more Okay, well, how do we
Speaker 1: adopt and we already see this with immigration, we already
Speaker 1: see this with crime, We already see this in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Trudeau going down the same path in Canada.
Speaker 1: How do we do like a kinder, gentler version of
Speaker 1: trump Ism? And you know that'll sell Bill Clinton, That's
Speaker 1: what he did in the nineties. He embraced the ioliberalism,
Speaker 1: did the Democratic Party version of it. There will still
Speaker 1: be don't get me wrong, there will still be very
Speaker 1: fierce surface level battles over things like immigration and cultural issues,
Speaker 1: but the underlying sort of narrative of the nation and
Speaker 1: economic direction, the general contours of that will be largely set.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Again, I could be wrong, but that's I sort of
Speaker 1: feel like the die is already effective.
Speaker 3: No, I totally agree.
Speaker 2: I mean that was actually, if anything, Trump's greatest victory
Speaker 2: is breaking the Overton window on all of these issues,
Speaker 2: from trade to immigration to foreign policy. And obviously there's
Speaker 2: been left right, you know, intercoalitional fight. The left chose
Speaker 2: to stick with the old direction, specifically because of like god.
Speaker 3: Worship under Barack Obama.
Speaker 2: Let's get to some of the inklings that we're getting
Speaker 2: right now out of the Trump transition. We don't know
Speaker 2: a ton and not a lot has come out, but
Speaker 2: there has been some interesting reporting by our own Ryan Grimm.
Speaker 2: We can go ahead and put that up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. Ryan and Mortaza Hussein over at the drop
Speaker 2: side are saying, quote, Trump is eyeing iron hawk Brian.
Speaker 3: Hook as a first foreign policy pick.
Speaker 2: Brian Hook, for those who don't know, previously started under
Speaker 2: George W. Bush, and there are inklings that he could
Speaker 2: be back in over at the State Department. People may
Speaker 2: remember him because He was kind of a Pompeo Bush
Speaker 2: type protege who was there for the first or the
Speaker 2: last two years of the Trump presidency, and he was
Speaker 2: one of those figures who really pushed the killing of
Speaker 2: Kassam Solamani. Whether he actually gets picked or not will
Speaker 2: be an interesting test case as to what it will
Speaker 2: start to look like for secretary of State. I cannot
Speaker 2: reveal to a ton I've asked. Nobody really knows. The
Speaker 2: two positions where the biggest question marks are right now
Speaker 2: is over State Department and over Secretary of Defense. And also,
Speaker 2: to be clear, Hook is not being looked at as
Speaker 2: the next Secretary of State. It's more like an advisor figure,
Speaker 2: like the US Special Representative or whatever for Iran. One
Speaker 2: name I had heard floated for Secretary of State was
Speaker 2: Bob Leitthheiser, which, by the way, I think would be fantastic.
Speaker 2: Lightthheiser was the US Trade Representative under Donald try he
Speaker 2: negotiated the USMCA. Perhaps like most importantly is he has
Speaker 2: a good report with the President, and Trump trusts him
Speaker 2: and likes him and actually kind of shares some of
Speaker 2: his philosophy. Lthheisser also never took the like Bill Barr
Speaker 2: resistance route and denounced Donald Trump in public, so he's
Speaker 2: got good standing. There's a lot of other figures who
Speaker 2: could get it. One of them is Rick Grinnell, who
Speaker 2: I think is would be an interesting pick too. Grennell
Speaker 2: was the US Ambassador to Germany under Donald Trump. Grennell
Speaker 2: also is a major like Trump's surrogate and has been
Speaker 2: in the past.
Speaker 3: He's from California.
Speaker 2: He has critically also shares a lot of Trump's view
Speaker 2: of Europe and of in terms of his foreign policy.
Speaker 2: Prior to that, he served as I think he was
Speaker 2: a UN no, the UN spokesperson under George W.
Speaker 3: Bush.
Speaker 2: But he's had a real ideological one eighty. We did
Speaker 2: get some good anti Neocon news. Let's put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. Tom Hotton has reportedly told the
Speaker 2: trum team he will not accept any administration role, which, look,
Speaker 2: let's all also put a pin in this, because people
Speaker 2: say this until they don't say it, right.
Speaker 3: That's that's one thing.
Speaker 2: But I mean it is kind of curious because to me,
Speaker 2: I feel like his dream has always been to be
Speaker 2: Secretary of State, Like his major first thing when he
Speaker 2: became senator was to come into the US Senate and
Speaker 2: then immediately remember he had that whole brewhaha with Iran
Speaker 2: and sent them a letter saying that the US Congress
Speaker 2: won't abide by the Iran deal. And there was like
Speaker 2: a lot of this but this is like real twenty
Speaker 2: fourteen deep cut energy. But anyway, the point is is
Speaker 2: that it appears that he wants to stay in the
Speaker 2: Senate and actually wants to run the Republican Republican Conference
Speaker 2: Chair and be maybe like number three in the Senate GOP.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, also bad, but the number three
Speaker 2: SATEP is like that's you can do a lot less, dang.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's a young guy. Maybe he doesn't do's
Speaker 3: want to give up his career.
Speaker 2: You know, you can be a life in the US
Speaker 2: Senate whereas you know, you come in and Sectara state
Speaker 2: and Trump fires you by tweet like two hours later,
Speaker 2: like Rex Tillers didn't when I was released.
Speaker 3: Sitting on the john not great, not a great place.
Speaker 1: And that is true that you look at the graveyard
Speaker 1: of former Trump cabinet level officials.
Speaker 4: It doesn't when you.
Speaker 1: Think about it in that context, you you know, maybe this.
Speaker 4: Maybe this isn't for me. So anyway, but it's good news.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Tom Cotton is a terrifying psycho,
Speaker 1: so to keep him as far away from the most
Speaker 1: powerful positions is a good thing. I wanted to get
Speaker 1: your reaction, cyber guys. Put this Celenski tweet up on
Speaker 1: the screen. This was so funny.
Speaker 3: He'sa man.
Speaker 1: He he understands, he understands the assignment.
Speaker 4: Yes she does, he tweeted.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had an excellent call with President Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: congratulated him on his historic landslide victory. His tremendous campaign
Speaker 1: made this result possible. I praised his family and team
Speaker 1: for their great work. We agreed to maintain close dialogue
Speaker 1: and advance our cooperation. Strong and unwavering US leadership is
Speaker 1: vital for the world and for a just piece. So
Speaker 1: you know Trump has always liked Zelensky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Zelensky backed him up during.
Speaker 1: His during his impeachment over remember the perfect phone call,
Speaker 1: right So yeah, so, and Zelensky never like trashed him
Speaker 1: during that threw him under the bus. But they met
Speaker 1: when Zelensky was here in the US and had a
Speaker 1: very like friendly rapport and whatever. So you know, Trump
Speaker 1: is very easily manipulated and this stuff works.
Speaker 3: That is true.
Speaker 2: Zelensky did make a huge mistake though whenever he was
Speaker 2: here the last time and he did meet with Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: is he said that JD. Vance was quote too radical,
Speaker 2: and that was obviously a massive mistake that he should
Speaker 2: have made.
Speaker 3: And also, I will.
Speaker 2: Be remiss if I would not point out that JD
Speaker 2: is the only cabinet of person who you cannot.
Speaker 3: Fire because he's democratically elected.
Speaker 2: So he's going to be there whether you like it
Speaker 2: or not inside of the White House.
Speaker 3: Again, I've said a lot of things. If one thing
Speaker 3: I know about JD.
Speaker 2: Vance is he is rock solid on Ukraine and specifically
Speaker 2: on ending the war there.
Speaker 4: Also, he's non president. That's true, he's non president.
Speaker 2: So let me make the case four and against So
Speaker 2: Mike Pompeo and all these other guys, these are Ukraine
Speaker 2: you know, fanatics. These are people who want, they would
Speaker 2: love nothing more than to declare war on Russia and
Speaker 2: go to war there. So if Mike Pompeo gets picked
Speaker 2: at a very prominent position, that's a problem. Yeah, there
Speaker 2: are previous people like Rob O'Brien. I'm not one hundred
Speaker 2: percent where he stands. A former National Security advisor. That's
Speaker 2: an open question mark. Another big signal for me is
Speaker 2: where does Elbridge Colby stand up? So a Bridge Colby,
Speaker 2: he's been here on the show talking about Taiwan. Good
Speaker 2: friend and somebody I so deeply, deeply respect. This is
Speaker 2: somebody who has been absolutely rock solid on the Ukraine question.
Speaker 2: If he gets a big position inside the White House,
Speaker 2: maybe on a critical desk of the National Security Council,
Speaker 2: that's one direction where things could go. Another big signal
Speaker 2: will be from the CIA and the rest of the
Speaker 2: apparatus in the intel community. So you've got people like
Speaker 2: Cash Patel.
Speaker 3: A lot of people may.
Speaker 2: Not know who Cash Ptel is unless you watch like
Speaker 2: War Room or something like that. He was a real
Speaker 2: like diehard Trump figure inside of the ADMIN last time around,
Speaker 2: who led the charge on declassification. The point though, is
Speaker 2: that on Ukraine, at least as far as I understand it,
Speaker 2: he is somebody who's very skeptical of like the neo
Speaker 2: conservative worldview and on that position. The other problem though,
Speaker 2: is that the people like Brian Hook and Nikki Hayley
Speaker 2: and that entire wing of the party, they're much more
Speaker 2: pro Ukraine. And then there's a big question about Donald
Speaker 2: Trump himself, and there's there is a reasonable expectation of this.
Speaker 2: Let's say we could never get Selensky to play ball
Speaker 2: on any peace plan. Well, what's the reality, realistic alternative?
Speaker 2: Kiev is gonna fall right, Trump, watch what happened in Kabble.
Speaker 2: You don't want to deal with that shit. The media
Speaker 2: and everybody they're gonna freak out, and they're gonna be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, this is the worst thing that's ever happened,
Speaker 2: and you know, modern history or whatever. And so he
Speaker 2: has a political incentive to make sure that you have
Speaker 2: a quote like orderly transition to a peace plan, which
Speaker 2: is only possible if you can get Putin Zelenski to
Speaker 2: play ball.
Speaker 3: Also, Putin is a wild card here too, because like does.
Speaker 2: He even want I mean right Putin is literally winning
Speaker 2: right now on the battlefield everywhere, Like if he keeps
Speaker 2: us up five ten years, he'll probably gobble up like
Speaker 2: forty fifty percent of Ukraine.
Speaker 3: He doesn't care how many hundreds of thousands of Russians.
Speaker 1: But the media is also going to freak out if
Speaker 1: there is a deal that is struck, because that deal
Speaker 1: will involve some loss of Ukrainian territory.
Speaker 2: Yeh, because they refuse to accept reality, like twenty something
Speaker 2: percent of the country is already gone, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: are dead in terms of the you know, the rest
Speaker 2: of what's happening in Ukraine like that is anyway, I
Speaker 2: could go on forever on this question. It will be,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, the ultimate test for Donald Trump. So
Speaker 2: last time around, to me, the ultimate test for Trump
Speaker 2: was on Afghanistan. He ran on pulling out of Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: and then he appoints all these neo kan idiots to
Speaker 2: his cabinet and to his national security apparatus, and he
Speaker 2: basically allows himself to get fooled according to the narrative,
Speaker 2: and or just goes along with it with this actually
Speaker 2: Afghan surge of true groups in twenty seventeen landmark speech
Speaker 2: because it was really the first time that he actually
Speaker 2: completely abandoned a major political foreign policy promits. He claims
Speaker 2: he regrets it, etc. But you know, we never actually
Speaker 2: got out of Afghanistan, even whenever he negotiated a peace deal.
Speaker 2: So on the Ukraine question, you know, he said, I
Speaker 2: will have it settled by the time I get into office.
Speaker 2: Zelenski is going to Zelenski is going to butter him
Speaker 2: up as much as possible. Also, people shouldn't forget this.
Speaker 2: Trump shipped a ton of weapons, advanced weaponry to Ukraine
Speaker 2: when he was president because he wanted to combat the
Speaker 2: narrative that he was not pro Russia. Now has he
Speaker 2: learned his lesson on that? You know, he escalated the
Speaker 2: war in here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people forget Trump much more hawkish. He's a Russia
Speaker 1: than Obama.
Speaker 3: Obama, yeah, way more.
Speaker 2: Obama never wanted to send Javelin missiles to Ukraine. He
Speaker 2: was like, no, I don't think he's in a strategic interest,
Speaker 2: and he was right. The question then is does Donald
Speaker 2: Trump revert back to that twenty fifteen strategy? And this
Speaker 2: is also always the issue with having a guy like
Speaker 2: Trump in the office. He's very easily manipulated by people
Speaker 2: who stroke his ego, and you know, people around him
Speaker 2: all have differing agendas. One of them is named Killian Conway,
Speaker 2: who is literally getting paid fifty thousand dollars a month
Speaker 2: from a Ukrainian lobbyist right now. So that's a bit
Speaker 2: of a problem, I would say, you know, in that regard.
Speaker 2: So this will be a massive, massive test for Trump.
Speaker 2: On the foreign policy question, and you know, I was
Speaker 2: thinking about it too. The last time that a Republican
Speaker 2: won the popular vote and had a real mandate was
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, and how did that work out
Speaker 2: under George Rbush. The one thing that can truly sink
Speaker 2: you for all time in forever is a terrible war.
Speaker 2: And so I hope that Trump actually listens and doesn't
Speaker 2: get us involved in any He says he wants to
Speaker 2: avoid it, and I actually do believe him. But also,
Speaker 2: you know, you've got a lot of people around you
Speaker 2: who would love nothing more than escalate that war that
Speaker 2: they have to go to war with Iran. Well, and
Speaker 2: constraining those forces is going to be very very It's.
Speaker 1: Also worth pointing out that many of the Republicans, including
Speaker 1: Elbert Colby, who are prominent like anti Ukraine, you know,
Speaker 1: anti funding of Ukraine, et cetera. Their analysis is we
Speaker 1: need to not be wasting our weapons here because we
Speaker 1: need to prepare for war with China over Taiwan.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so it's not war which he's like, we
Speaker 2: need to prepare and have we had current first stockery.
Speaker 4: That's not true, We had it on the show.
Speaker 1: I mean he laid out why he thinks that we
Speaker 1: should go to war with China over Taiwan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, if the question of a Chinese invasion happens,
Speaker 2: his entire philosophy is that we need to rapidly increase
Speaker 2: our deterrence in the Asia Pacific to prevent an eventual
Speaker 2: war with Taiwan. He believes that we should go to
Speaker 2: war with Taiwan basically, no matter what his entire act
Speaker 2: theory is, like.
Speaker 3: We need to basically pivot completely to the age.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to lay on. It's not like it's
Speaker 1: a uniform anti war stance. The idea is we should
Speaker 1: not be wasting our weapons here because we want to
Speaker 1: be ready to use our weapons visa vi China. So
Speaker 1: just to lay out the war complete, you know, foreign
Speaker 1: policy worldview here Trump himself with regard to Iran, I
Speaker 1: mean he's been consistently hawcket visa v Iran. All the
Speaker 1: energy within the Republican Party, there's there's very little dissent
Speaker 1: with regard to you know, continued escalation and hawkishness and
Speaker 1: more sanctions and more hostility visa of the Iran. So
Speaker 1: I don't have any expectation that'll change.
Speaker 3: It's yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you
Speaker 2: that everything's gonna be rosy on that front.
Speaker 3: I have no idea. And if anything, the last time is.
Speaker 2: Usually a predictor, so that was a major issue. I
Speaker 2: would hope this time you have a guy like JD
Speaker 2: in the White House. But you also, this is critical,
Speaker 2: Elon is very anti war. So because Elon is going
Speaker 2: or at least not actually even on the Taiwan question.
Speaker 4: He's got a lot of money message in Taiwan.
Speaker 2: So just sorry in mainland China, so he's very dubbish
Speaker 2: on the Taiwan question. He's also extremely anti Ukraine funding
Speaker 2: and has been now for quite a some time. You
Speaker 2: also have Tucker Carlson, who last time around, let's be honest,
Speaker 2: he was not as influential as I would have liked
Speaker 2: him to be on the Iran question and on the
Speaker 2: Serio question two for escalating there. But this time I
Speaker 2: think he might be able to just because he independent media,
Speaker 2: you know, podcasts and all that. It's having a bigger
Speaker 2: moment and seen is more important this time. And Tucker
Speaker 2: and JD you're very close friends. And also Tucker is
Speaker 2: I assume is going to take a much more interest
Speaker 2: in the transition process this time around, and that is
Speaker 2: one of those things that he also has been very
Speaker 2: very consistent on with respect to Iran. So I am
Speaker 2: somewhat hopeful. I want to be very realistic about what
Speaker 2: all this looks like.
Speaker 3: And you know, anybody.
Speaker 2: Who's expecting some major anti war you know position, like,
Speaker 2: that's not reality. It's a coalition party. Mariam Aidelson, don't
Speaker 2: give you one hundred million dollars for free. Okay, anti
Speaker 2: war himself, yes, But I'm saying like, in terms of
Speaker 2: the coalition, who you have to satisfy Paul Singer and
Speaker 2: Miriam Aidelson and Bill Ackman. They did not give you
Speaker 2: all this money and all the support and all this
Speaker 2: to not cash in whenever they need to. And you're
Speaker 2: an idiot if you think that they're not going to
Speaker 2: so around, that's very important, Kam