Speaker 1: Welcome to off the Cup with me, se Cup. It's
Speaker 1: the week of July fourth and America's two hundred and
Speaker 1: fiftieth birthday, and I don't know if you're planning to
Speaker 1: head down to Trump's Great American State Fair, but be advised.
Speaker 1: I hear the crowds are just unmanageable. There's so many
Speaker 1: people down there, covering every inch of the mall, which
Speaker 1: is nice and big, which is a good thing, because
Speaker 1: it's packed. Everyone looks like they're having so much fun.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, it's empty. It's empty. Have you seen the pictures?
Speaker 1: Have you seen the videos? My god, I've seen bigger
Speaker 1: crowds at a Renaissance fair. And that is no dis
Speaker 1: to Renaissance fairs. They're great.
Speaker 2: They're just you know, a couple hundred people.
Speaker 1: I've seen more people having a good time at a
Speaker 1: Billy McFarland festival. I've seen more excitement at a poetry reading.
Speaker 1: What is going on down there? Seriously, it's been such
Speaker 1: a dud. And I guess as we actually get into
Speaker 1: July fourth, you know, it could fill up. Maybe people
Speaker 1: aren't starting their vacations yet. But my god, the videos
Speaker 1: I saw over the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday
Speaker 1: they were sad FM. You remember how many artists dropped
Speaker 1: out of the concert that was planned, Well, that was
Speaker 1: sort of like the first.
Speaker 2: Bad news.
Speaker 1: There have been power outages that have melted the food
Speaker 1: haul ice cream. There's been empty booths, rain delays, feuding
Speaker 1: event planners. The Trump administration has spent ninety million dollars
Speaker 1: on security, sixty eight million dollars on the event. States
Speaker 1: have to pay big Bucks to build their own exhibits,
Speaker 1: but a bunch of them, like Connecticut and Again and others,
Speaker 1: have just opted out.
Speaker 2: They don't want to be a part of this. They
Speaker 2: don't want to spend this money.
Speaker 1: They don't want to participate in an event they're worried
Speaker 1: is going to be super political. And that's probably smart
Speaker 1: to opt out, because did you see what happened at
Speaker 1: the North Carolina State booth. Someone put a Confederate flag
Speaker 1: on the display screens, like the governor had to get involved.
Speaker 2: What are we doing? What are we doing.
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: This doesn't make me happy to see this event be
Speaker 1: a failure.
Speaker 2: I like it when America wins.
Speaker 1: I like it when Americans feel good about America.
Speaker 2: And the truth of the matter is we just don't.
Speaker 1: And we have a brand new poll to prove it again.
Speaker 1: This doesn't make me happy. New report from Gallup shows
Speaker 1: American pride has fallen to a twenty five year low.
Speaker 1: Just thirty three percent of adults say they're extremely proud
Speaker 1: to be an American. Now, that's shocking and sad, and
Speaker 1: it should give, you know, the sitting president and his
Speaker 1: party reason for concern.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it does not, but it should. It's the
Speaker 2: two hundred.
Speaker 1: And fiftieth birthday of our nation. We should all be
Speaker 1: feeling great about who we are and how we got here.
Speaker 2: I just don't think we do.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to hear people talking positively
Speaker 1: about America, they're out there.
Speaker 2: They're just not Americans.
Speaker 1: Have you seen all the videos and news footage and
Speaker 1: tiktoks of World Cup fans from around the world talking
Speaker 1: about how pleasantly surprised they are at how great America is.
Speaker 2: It's so heartwarming to see our country through.
Speaker 1: Someone else's eyes and to have that experience be a
Speaker 1: positive one. That's not always the case, right, and especially
Speaker 1: you know, certainly in this Trump term, with all of
Speaker 1: his fights with our allies and wanting to invade our
Speaker 1: allies like Canada and Greenlad. You know, we don't hear
Speaker 1: foreigners talking very positively about America right now.
Speaker 2: I get it so to see these fans come over.
Speaker 1: And talk about how great our food is, how great
Speaker 1: our stadiums are, how beautiful our national parks are, and
Speaker 1: how nice our people are, Like I love.
Speaker 2: I've been going down.
Speaker 1: Rabbit holes with these videos because they just feel good,
Speaker 1: and I want to pretend. I want to put myself
Speaker 1: in their shoes for a minute and pretend I was
Speaker 1: born here. I haven't grown up here. I don't cover
Speaker 1: American politics. I don't know, you know everything there is
Speaker 1: to know right about being an American because I am one.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pretend I don't have that vantage point.
Speaker 1: And I'm just coming over here and looking at us
Speaker 1: as a stranger. And it's a really nice view, actually,
Speaker 1: because when we're not talking about politics and how terribly
Speaker 1: our government is being run, how bad our leaders are,
Speaker 1: how corrupt our politicians are, how much we hate each other,
Speaker 1: how mad at each other we are, when we just
Speaker 1: look at our great country, there's a lot to be
Speaker 1: proud of. But this is the problem, that thing right there.
Speaker 2: We can't do that. We cannot take politics out of
Speaker 2: any thing. It feels like.
Speaker 1: I came across the social media post yesterday from a
Speaker 1: woman that I don't know. She's not famous, she doesn't
Speaker 1: have a ton of followers. That's not the point. But
Speaker 1: the post got picked up by various social media outlets
Speaker 1: and accounts because, I think.
Speaker 2: Because it was so sad.
Speaker 1: She posted a photo of her and a bunch of
Speaker 1: ladies I imagine friends or family in like red, white,
Speaker 1: and blue outfits. A couple of them are holding adorable kiddos.
Speaker 1: They're outside at Lake Powell, which is beautiful. There's also
Speaker 1: she posts a fun video of someone kiteboarding on the lake.
Speaker 2: The day looks awesome.
Speaker 1: It's fun in the sun, it's bathing suits, it's lake classic,
Speaker 1: all American fun, enjoying our beautiful our beautiful land and resources.
Speaker 2: But her caption.
Speaker 1: On this beautiful post is like everything that's wrong with
Speaker 1: American politics today. She writes, do Democrats have more fun
Speaker 1: at Lake Powell than we do?
Speaker 2: I seriously doubt it. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: What does that even mean? Can democrats not have fun
Speaker 1: in the sun? What are you talking about? Now? I'm
Speaker 1: sure she didn't think that hard about it. It's not
Speaker 1: that deep. She just did it because it's content. But like,
Speaker 1: this is the brain rot that so many of us
Speaker 1: are experiencing right now. We can't even go on a
Speaker 1: vacation or have a weekend with our friends and family.
Speaker 2: Without both.
Speaker 1: Making a political statement about it and using that political
Speaker 1: statement to ding the other side. What do you mean
Speaker 1: do Democrats have as much fun at Lake Powell as
Speaker 1: we do? This is nonsense, This is garbage. This is
Speaker 1: designed to turn Americans against each other.
Speaker 2: And if this is the world view.
Speaker 1: Of this woman, and I bet millions of Americans, I
Speaker 1: don't think she is unique at all. And I don't
Speaker 1: think this is just on the right, although I think
Speaker 1: it's mostly on the right, But this happens on the
Speaker 1: left too, where like politics becomes your entire identity, your
Speaker 1: entire personality, it guides everything you do.
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine living.
Speaker 1: In that kind of prison and feeling good about posting
Speaker 1: my friends and family having a great time and making
Speaker 1: it political us versus them. We have more fun than
Speaker 1: you have. It's so silly and trip but it's not
Speaker 1: really right. This is not a deep post. This wasn't
Speaker 1: the worst thing I've ever heard someone say to someone.
Speaker 1: She again, she's not famous, she doesn't have a platform.
Speaker 1: I'm not naming her because I'm not trying to punch down.
Speaker 1: This isn't about some lady on Twitter. This is about
Speaker 1: all of us and the way we see our lives.
Speaker 1: If you have made decisions about where you send your
Speaker 1: kids to school, kind of carry drive, kind of clothes
Speaker 1: you wear, kind of TV shows you watch, what kind
Speaker 1: of things you buy, kind of Fuji, kind of vacationis you.
Speaker 2: Take based on politics?
Speaker 1: Well, you're not alone, but I would just encourage you
Speaker 1: to be introspective for us.
Speaker 2: Second, is it good that politics is defining our lives?
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about caring about politics because of policies
Speaker 1: that impact your life. Of course, worse, of course, we
Speaker 1: should all do that. We should all be engaged enough
Speaker 1: in the political system to care about and affect change
Speaker 1: around issues that matter to us. I don't know what
Speaker 1: issue this woman was fighting for when she posted do
Speaker 1: Democrats have more fun than we do?
Speaker 2: At Lake Powell?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: The kind of political costume that you never take off,
Speaker 1: that guides the way you live your life outwardly the
Speaker 1: way you talk to people, the way you interact with people,
Speaker 1: the way you see people. Well, I see people as
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats us in them. They don't have as
Speaker 1: much fun we are. We love the country more than
Speaker 1: you do. I mean, this is sick, This is corrosive,
Speaker 1: This is bad for us.
Speaker 2: Can we not do this?
Speaker 1: I don't like it, and believe me, I do not
Speaker 1: excuse the professionals in my business, the media, from engaging
Speaker 1: in this. The media does and us versus them kind
Speaker 1: of thing more than it should, agreed, But like when
Speaker 1: you're just off on vacation and taking pics of your family,
Speaker 1: can you can we not make it about everyone else
Speaker 1: you hate? Can we just make it about how much
Speaker 1: you love your family and your loving life?
Speaker 2: And right?
Speaker 1: Why does it have to be about your enemies? Why
Speaker 1: are identifying enemies? Why is that more important than identifying
Speaker 1: our friends?
Speaker 2: Why do we want to be known more by who
Speaker 2: our enemies are than by who our friends are? I
Speaker 2: don't get it.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't we be defined by the people we stand up for,
Speaker 1: not the people we stand up against. Alone, Right, that's
Speaker 1: important too, but they can't be the only thing that matters.
Speaker 2: That we all hate the right people.
Speaker 1: I think that's so much of what drives mega, that
Speaker 1: Trump hates all the right people, and that he's convinced
Speaker 1: the Republican Party to hate all the right people and
Speaker 1: the only thing binding them all together. Because it's not principles,
Speaker 1: it's not policies, it's not even really politics. It's just
Speaker 1: that they hate all the right things, they hate all
Speaker 1: the right people, and that is so gross, that is
Speaker 1: so bad for us.
Speaker 4: I hate it.
Speaker 1: So please do me a favor. Go enjoy your families
Speaker 1: this holiday weekend. Go enjoy life, have popsicles, have hot dogs,
Speaker 1: swim in lakes safely and responsibly, light fireworks, enjoy your pets.
Speaker 2: I hope for everyone. Are it's sunny like Do that
Speaker 2: for you. Believe me. Politics will be waiting when you return.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're not going anywhere, but we can't keep doing
Speaker 1: this to ourselves.
Speaker 2: It's not good for us. It really isn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's not the holiday yet, so we're still talking
Speaker 1: politics here when we come back. A new book, The
Speaker 1: Trump Realignment, How Donald D. Trump Redefined the American Party System,
Speaker 1: looks at Trump's hostile takeover of the Republican Party. You know,
Speaker 1: that's right up my alley, So I'll talk to the
Speaker 1: author next. Welcome back to Off the Cup. I'm pleased
Speaker 1: to welcome Kirby Guideal, co author of the new book
Speaker 1: The Trump Realignment, How Donald J. Trump Redefined the American
Speaker 1: party system. Welcome Kirby.
Speaker 3: Glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is.
Speaker 1: Maybe unsurprisingly a topic that's occupied my mind for the
Speaker 1: past ten years. Right as you can imagine, I'm a
Speaker 1: former Republican, I'm still a conservative. I came up in
Speaker 1: the conservative movement. What Trump managed to do both to
Speaker 1: the movement and the party is bonkers, bananas, impressive, lamentable,
Speaker 1: all the things. And I, along with many of my
Speaker 1: like minded colleagues, have been attempting to figure out just
Speaker 1: how Trump managed to take over the Republican Party in
Speaker 1: a relatively short period of time and so completely.
Speaker 2: We all have our theories. What is yours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty remarkable story. And one of the things
Speaker 3: we wanted to do when writing a book was we
Speaker 3: felt like lots of people were talking about norm violations
Speaker 3: and democratic and all that sort of stuff, but people
Speaker 3: weren't telling this part of the story. And what's remarkable
Speaker 3: was his transformation into this party leader who sort of
Speaker 3: defied conventional wisdom about how you up rate within a party,
Speaker 3: Like if you look at sort of traditional ways that
Speaker 3: leaders might look, they say, yeah, we really need to win,
Speaker 3: so go out and be there on your own and
Speaker 3: don't be loyal to me. Do what you need to
Speaker 3: win so we maintain control. Trump completely rejected that and
Speaker 3: went after anyone who was disloyal and really has had
Speaker 3: His ability to control Republican primaries is remarkable. He's a
Speaker 3: remarkable party boss. Now, the people he puts in don't
Speaker 3: always do well.
Speaker 2: Don't always get through a general but yeah.
Speaker 3: The general election can be another thing. But in a
Speaker 3: lot of places, the way our country has gone, we
Speaker 3: now have these districts that are overwhelming Republican, are overwhelmingly democratic.
Speaker 3: So you're just replacing one Republican with another one in
Speaker 3: a district that a Democrat probably can't win in anyway.
Speaker 1: So what you're talking about right now, just to be clear,
Speaker 1: what you're talking about right now, this could have happened
Speaker 1: to any party. You're not talking specifically about what he
Speaker 1: did to Conservatism. You're talking about a guy who didn't
Speaker 1: operate the way most party leaders behave and We've seen
Speaker 1: evidence of that over ten years. We're seeing evidence of
Speaker 1: it right now with this housing bill. Right bipart is
Speaker 1: a housing bill. Democrats liked it, Republicans liked it.
Speaker 2: All he's got to do is sign it.
Speaker 1: Republicans could go back and talk about something positive.
Speaker 2: They don't have much to their constituents.
Speaker 1: He is denying them that because to your point, he
Speaker 1: doesn't behave the way party leaders behave. He doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to care about the midterms. He doesn't care about the
Speaker 1: kinds of things conventional presidents have cared about.
Speaker 2: Again, I have my.
Speaker 1: Theories as to why that is, but like, why has
Speaker 1: that been so successful for him?
Speaker 3: Well, the remarkable thing is his ability to move his base.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the other important things I think
Speaker 3: about the book is he's fundamentally changed the Republican base.
Speaker 3: He's brought in people who are different. These are folks
Speaker 3: who are not traditional Republicans. They're not small government Republicans,
Speaker 3: they're not pro free trade, and and and so what
Speaker 3: he's done is he's changed the people who make up
Speaker 3: the base of the political party. And those people go
Speaker 3: out when he tells them to go out. And so
Speaker 3: his endorsements within those primaries really really matter. But yeah,
Speaker 3: but if he didn't have control of the base, his
Speaker 3: threats wouldn't matter. It's it's the ability. Republicans are afraid
Speaker 3: that he will come out and say, don't support this
Speaker 3: particular and he's done it over and over again, and
Speaker 3: he's been successful and knocking off people who have challenged him.
Speaker 3: And and as an analyst, sometimes I watch and I'm
Speaker 3: sure you're thinking the same thing. Sometimes you're like, why
Speaker 3: don't Republicans all get together and say we're not going
Speaker 3: to take this anymore?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: But he's been really too late for that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but he just picks.
Speaker 3: Them off one by one. He's able to isolate them
Speaker 3: and and the other the other Republicans they'll say, oh,
Speaker 3: that could happen to me in the future.
Speaker 1: Instead they oh, well, I mean that is the interesting thing,
Speaker 1: because your point is correct. His brought in all kinds
Speaker 1: of new voters that you know, we really haven't seen
Speaker 1: part of the Republican coalition since Reagan. Maybe you know,
Speaker 1: Reagan won a bunch of Hispanic voters, for example, a
Speaker 1: bunch more black voters than previous Repuldicans have. But he
Speaker 1: really has the other side of that coin, though, are
Speaker 1: all the good conservatives he's kicked out so along the
Speaker 1: way in opening the tent to some unsavory characters as well,
Speaker 1: he's also shrunk of the tent, which again is like
Speaker 1: opposite of what political projects have been trying to do
Speaker 1: for centuries. Right, the project is addition, not subtraction.
Speaker 2: How has the Republican Party managed to.
Speaker 1: Win not just locally but general elections, national elections while
Speaker 1: shrinking its tent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's that's that's a great question. And and really,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're watching from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: what you see as Trump's doing fairly well in terms
Speaker 3: of the economy up until COVID, and then he's really
Speaker 3: not a very good manager of the economy. And that's
Speaker 3: the reason he loses if he we don't have COVID.
Speaker 3: Possibly he goes on and wins during that cycle. But
Speaker 3: we live in a two party system and most of
Speaker 3: the districts aren't competitive, and so all you have to
Speaker 3: do is be not as bad as the other side. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, And there's another political scientist who talks about this.
Speaker 3: He calls it the two party doom loop because you
Speaker 3: don't have to be good, you just have to be
Speaker 3: better than the other side. And so in many cases
Speaker 3: he's getting an assist from the Democratic Party, which has
Speaker 3: not been very good.
Speaker 1: Right, And I do want to talk about the Democrats,
Speaker 1: because this project, this book is really how Trump sort
Speaker 1: of reordered and redefined the entire political system, not just
Speaker 1: the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: So I do want to talk about Democrats.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, I think it's really again
Speaker 1: like impressive slash lamentable depending on where you are, how
Speaker 1: Trump got conservatives to jettison the conservatism because he didn't
Speaker 1: care about it, right, So you've mentioned things like free trade,
Speaker 1: you know, lowering the debt and the deficit, limited government,
Speaker 1: all the things that I grew up with, as you know,
Speaker 1: coming into a conservative movement led by a canon of
Speaker 1: like hayek Intwtokville, and you know, the principles and founders
Speaker 1: and philosophies.
Speaker 2: He didn't care about any of that, which is his right.
Speaker 2: But how does he.
Speaker 1: Get like the nation's top deficit hawk, Mike Pence to
Speaker 1: like co sign exploding the debt and the deficit. How
Speaker 1: does he get Republican leadership to sort of say, well,
Speaker 1: forget law and order. The insurrectionists were patriots, right, all
Speaker 1: the things that had really glued us together as a
Speaker 1: big tent. Despite all of our disparate interests, we were
Speaker 1: glued together by these found acial little things. How did
Speaker 1: he get Republican leadership, not just voters leadership, to stop
Speaker 1: care about this stuff?
Speaker 3: Well, I think one, he really captures the sort of
Speaker 3: anti elite anger that a lot of people feel, and
Speaker 3: so he really embodies that. But then you also have
Speaker 3: to sort of place it in the context of where
Speaker 3: were Where were Republicans before twenty sixteen. There's this fear,
Speaker 3: right the James Carvel argument that Obama had mobilized this
Speaker 3: group of young voters and Republicans would never win again
Speaker 3: because they didn't appeal to anybody beyond this very We.
Speaker 2: Did a whole autopsy.
Speaker 1: I worked on it just to address us, to just
Speaker 1: to address those concerns continue, and so there was.
Speaker 3: That that very real fear, and Trump brought energy and
Speaker 3: mobilization back into a party that felt like, you know,
Speaker 3: it was unsure of what its future was. Now it
Speaker 3: seems really because of the autopsy, it seemed like he
Speaker 3: went opposite.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, it did went, yeah.
Speaker 3: He completely ignored the autopsy. He didn't do anything that
Speaker 3: the autopsy reckoned, and yet he still mobilized this new
Speaker 3: group of voters to come into the political party. And
Speaker 3: so you got people like, for example, Lindsey Graham, who's
Speaker 3: very negative about Trump, but then sees like, wait a second,
Speaker 3: he really is pulling new people in. Yeah, and maybe
Speaker 3: this is a ticket to power and control. And I
Speaker 3: think that's the critical trade off that Republicans made, and
Speaker 3: a lot of the elite Republicans and the conservative Republicans
Speaker 3: and the ones that I think about it fitting very
Speaker 3: well in the Reagan mode. I put Mike Pence in
Speaker 3: that group. Yeah, who said, oh, we can have power
Speaker 3: and control and maybe we can do some of these
Speaker 3: things and maybe we can keep that other stuff under control.
Speaker 3: And then they found out, now you lost control of
Speaker 3: the party.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought up where Republicans were before
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, because there's lots of reasons of look why
Speaker 1: we got Trump and how he got to Trump, but
Speaker 1: one of them, and I'm writing about this right now,
Speaker 1: is that Republicans were fractured and vulnerable, and we did
Speaker 1: that to ourselves. I remember starting like the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: we started cannibalizing the party. We started purity testing and
Speaker 1: purging and rhino hunting. This all began with the Club
Speaker 1: for Growth in the early two thousands, and then we
Speaker 1: got mad at Bush for the bailing out the banks
Speaker 1: that entered in like the Tea Party wave, and now
Speaker 1: you've got Tea Party Conservatives met at other conservatives.
Speaker 2: People forget that.
Speaker 1: When McCain and Romney were nominated, two of like the
Speaker 1: greatest candidates, most moral, decent men we could have ever
Speaker 1: put up there, they didn't win just because Obama was
Speaker 1: so great and he was. They didn't win because Republicans
Speaker 1: weren't sold on either of those guys. And so by
Speaker 1: the time twenty sixteen comes around, the party's fractured. You
Speaker 1: get seventeen other guys running, and Trump gets to win
Speaker 1: with a plurality, not even a majority of Republican voters.
Speaker 1: And I wonder, since you're writing about this right now
Speaker 1: in this great book, if you think you're seeing the
Speaker 1: Democrats do that to themselves right now, because I'm starting
Speaker 1: to see these kind of purity tests and purging inside
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party which could create the same conditions that
Speaker 1: we created for Trump.
Speaker 3: I think that's absolutely the case. Let me also, though,
Speaker 3: take us because I think one of the remarkable things
Speaker 3: about the Trump story is in that twenty sixteen election,
Speaker 3: because there were so many other candidates, I think everybody
Speaker 3: else thought he was he's a side show, he's a
Speaker 3: curious I will.
Speaker 2: Admit I did. I covered it. I did not take
Speaker 2: him seriously at all.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, and eventually we'll end up with Ted Cruz
Speaker 3: or Marco Rubio or one of these real conservatives. Trump
Speaker 3: was a Trump was the rhino, right, and so what
Speaker 3: part of the remarkable story is just how a effective
Speaker 3: he was and then taking that term rhino and applying
Speaker 3: it to lifelong Republicans and you're like, wow, this person
Speaker 3: spent there entire they grew up, they were cradle Republican
Speaker 3: and they've been been one of the leading voices for
Speaker 3: Republican ideology through it. And you've called him a rhino
Speaker 3: in isolated. So that's that's remarkable. And I think you're right.
Speaker 3: Part of it was that purity test that started based
Speaker 3: on ideology, but then Trump was able to take control
Speaker 3: of it and use it in ways that.
Speaker 2: Had nothing to do with principles.
Speaker 3: It was all about personal loyalty, and it's a turn
Speaker 3: the Republican Party into a very personalist party. But on
Speaker 3: the on the Democratic side, I think that's exactly what
Speaker 3: we're seeing now. We're seeing the same thing. They're fractured,
Speaker 3: they don't know what they want to be. There's this
Speaker 3: group who wants to be centrist, and there's this group
Speaker 3: that thinks, oh, we've got to be more populous than
Speaker 3: than Donald Trump. And it's hard to see where this
Speaker 3: this turns out other than a very left wing, probably
Speaker 3: democratic party because of the same things that propelled Trump.
Speaker 3: The primaries are where you can gain control of a party,
Speaker 3: and if you have someone who understands that, you can
Speaker 3: let the ideologue ideologues win or the intense activist base
Speaker 3: and you lose the sinner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think people like Zoron Mumdanni do.
Speaker 3: Understand that, yeah, and absolutely.
Speaker 1: Or efforting that project, maybe like to the peril of
Speaker 1: the greater Party, maybe to the peril of the country,
Speaker 1: who knows, but like, I think they're efforting that exact project.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, increasingly it looks like Zorn Mumdani
Speaker 1: I covered that race too, didn't really come uh to
Speaker 1: run New York.
Speaker 2: He came to remake the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: He's been there six months and already he's recruiting candidates
Speaker 1: and turning people into stars. And he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of establishment Democrats worried.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I mean I think he kids said he
Speaker 3: understands the idea of in the primaries and taking over
Speaker 3: the party and going back to the idea of the
Speaker 3: two parties. Someone told me we were talking about this
Speaker 3: the other day and they're like, oh, but he could
Speaker 3: never win nationally. I'm but here's the problem. We don't
Speaker 3: know who can win nationally. Because if the country, if
Speaker 3: Republicans are leading the country and the country's in bad
Speaker 3: economic shape, the country will turn to Democrats, right almost
Speaker 3: whoever they offer, right, because context matters a whole lot
Speaker 3: in elections. Ideology and candidacies and campaigns all matter too.
Speaker 3: So I don't want to I don't want to downplay that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but at the end of the day, if things are
Speaker 3: bad and people want change, they will vote for change,
Speaker 3: even if the change is worse. Right.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, let's talk about the Democrats, because you you
Speaker 1: say that. Trump also sort of transformed the left. He
Speaker 1: forced the left to respond to Trump We've watched that.
Speaker 1: We've watched I've watched the left kind of struggle to
Speaker 1: figure out how to respond, and they've tried a lot
Speaker 1: of different kinds of things. Right, They've tried beating him
Speaker 1: at his own game, you know, the mean tweets. They've tried,
Speaker 1: like policy answers to his policy answers, some of which
Speaker 1: I would argue were not successful.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I think when Joe Biden came in and undid Trump's
Speaker 1: remain in Mexico policy and opened the borders, however well
Speaker 1: intentioned that was, that actually practically didn't go very well.
Speaker 1: They've tried all kinds of things, I think in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two successfully in the midterms. They tried a different
Speaker 1: midterm message, He's for this, we're for democracy, we're for
Speaker 1: women's rights. That worked in a midterm, it didn't work
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. What kind of ways do you
Speaker 1: argue Trump has changed the left?
Speaker 3: I think the big thing is that the left sort
Speaker 3: of almost on autopilot, just responds to everything that Trump does.
Speaker 3: He is the center of gravity, and if he says something,
Speaker 3: they feel compelled to jump in on it. So you're
Speaker 3: always fight The one thing that I think Trump has
Speaker 3: been really really effective at you have to give him
Speaker 3: credit for is he makes you fight on his back,
Speaker 3: on his on.
Speaker 2: His Yeah, totally, because he says.
Speaker 3: Something and then you're like, oh, I can't let him
Speaker 3: say that.
Speaker 2: I got to chase that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got to go fight that because I've got
Speaker 3: to stand up for my print. And instead of instead
Speaker 3: of sort of are instead of articulating a queer agenda
Speaker 3: about what the party is about, they've been responding to Trump. Also,
Speaker 3: they have become really a party of I'll say this
Speaker 3: as a college professor. They're a party of college professors,
Speaker 3: and you know, and they're they're the party of the
Speaker 3: And we've seen this remarkable shift over time where in
Speaker 3: the eighties Ronald Reagan won more college educated voters than
Speaker 3: than the Democrats were running in nineteen with Jimmy Carter. Carter,
Speaker 3: we've seen this just remarkable shift of a college educated
Speaker 3: into the Democratic Party and the non college educated into
Speaker 3: the Republican Party. Well, there aren't as many college educated
Speaker 3: voters out there, so the Democrats are in a place
Speaker 3: where they believe often that oh, if we just educate people,
Speaker 3: they'll agree with us.
Speaker 1: Sure, and the whole Thomas Frank, what's the matter with
Speaker 1: Kansas projects.
Speaker 2: This is a flawed project.
Speaker 1: Don't do this right, Like, don't tell voters they're voting
Speaker 1: against their economic interests and they're stupid and if only
Speaker 1: they were smarter, they'd vote the way we wanted them to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that was sort of the Biden realize the
Speaker 3: economy is much better. Yes, I think it is.
Speaker 1: Why are you lagging indicators? It's just lagging indicators. You
Speaker 1: haven't felt it yet. But it's good, we promise, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they have to get away from that, right,
Speaker 3: and they have to have some message beyond oh, let
Speaker 3: us explain to you why you're wrong.
Speaker 1: Why your life is actually better than you feel it is. No,
Speaker 1: that was a failing project. That's politics, one on one.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the the sort of intellectual
Speaker 1: that was once foundational to the right. It wasn't just Reagan.
Speaker 1: It happened, you know, in the sixties with Barry Goldwater
Speaker 1: and Iron Rand and the sort of intelligentsia cocktail parties
Speaker 1: in Manhattan were populated.
Speaker 2: By conservative thought leaders.
Speaker 1: That's all gone, but there was sort of an intellectual
Speaker 1: foundation to conservatism some time ago. I think what people
Speaker 1: want to know, whatever side of this you're on, they
Speaker 1: want to know, for Democrats, for Republicans, for trump Ism,
Speaker 1: for Maga, how much of what we're seeing today is permanent?
Speaker 2: How much of this can be undone?
Speaker 1: If you're a Democrat worried about sort of the socialism,
Speaker 1: you know, socialism wing, can some of that be undone?
Speaker 1: If you're a conservative you want like a Romney to
Speaker 1: rise again or a Kinsinger to come in, how much
Speaker 1: of what has happened is fixable?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think the good news is nothing in American politics
Speaker 3: is permanent.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: Things are constantly changing and evolving and moving in new directions.
Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the things that I
Speaker 3: love about talking about politics, right is we never know
Speaker 3: yet we think we know, but then we learn say,
Speaker 3: oh wow, we had no idea what was about to happen?
Speaker 3: And that makes it super exciting. On the negative side
Speaker 3: is I think change is much slower than most people want,
Speaker 3: want and expect and are planned for. And so a
Speaker 3: lot of the changes that we see that Trump has made,
Speaker 3: I think both to the Democratic Party and the Republican
Speaker 3: Party in terms of how we reset the parties, They're
Speaker 3: not going to change probably in twenty twenty eight. It
Speaker 3: may not change in twenty third, they're going to start changing, right.
Speaker 3: I think in twenty twenty eight you're going to see
Speaker 3: someone from the traditional Republican party challenge the Trump wing
Speaker 3: of the Republican bos. If I'm predicting, they're going to
Speaker 3: lose because the magabase is still too big and still
Speaker 3: too important. So unless it's just a really charismatic person
Speaker 3: who can then I think it's probably not going to
Speaker 3: have happened.
Speaker 2: Before you.
Speaker 1: Let me stop you there, because what about this. Sure,
Speaker 1: I don't think an establishment Republican could beat a mega
Speaker 1: Republican in twenty twenty to eight either. But what I'm
Speaker 1: also starting to see is this mega alternative lane, Like
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson and Mergerie Taylor Green are trying to build
Speaker 1: this mega alternative lane, and they're trying to basically telegraph
Speaker 1: to mega voters, we're the real deal. He's the Charlatan.
Speaker 1: He promised America first. We're America first. He got us
Speaker 1: into a war that we would never have done. He says,
Speaker 1: He's Christians. We're the real Christian Americans. We're the real
Speaker 1: Judeo Christian sort of you know, muscular Christian wing, where
Speaker 1: where all the things he promised you he would be.
Speaker 1: Can a person like that who is still pulling from
Speaker 1: the MAGA base?
Speaker 2: Could a person like that win in twenty twenty eight?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: I think so? Yeah, I think because if you look
Speaker 3: at where Trump's approval rating is going down, and this
Speaker 3: is this is one of the real challenges with the
Speaker 3: with the book as well. What if Trump is a
Speaker 3: failure in terms of governing, which he looks like he's
Speaker 3: running in the you know, lots of issues. Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: not dealing with affordability, he has not been America first
Speaker 3: in the international world and especially with Iran, and so
Speaker 3: there are lots of these issues that he's gone against
Speaker 3: his base with. So can you have someone come back
Speaker 3: in and say, yes, I'm the real MAGA Right, I
Speaker 3: think that's I think that's really possible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting, And then just to button this up and get
Speaker 1: back to the original, the original point. The two words
Speaker 1: you use in this title are realignment and redefine. Can
Speaker 1: we I know you said it will take time, but
Speaker 1: what are the kinds of things you think America will
Speaker 1: want realigned and redefined when Trump is gone?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think, Well, let me not answer that part exactly.
Speaker 3: Let me say instead just that I think you're going
Speaker 3: to have the continual fights over the future of the
Speaker 3: political parties. So you will see the fight over the
Speaker 3: future of the Republican Party and the fight over the
Speaker 3: future of the Democratic Party. But I think the big
Speaker 3: challenge right now is really how if we see what's
Speaker 3: going on in the Democratic Party, if that continues, and
Speaker 3: if the MAGA control of the Republican base continues, what
Speaker 3: happens to the center of American politics? And by cena,
Speaker 3: maybe I shouldn't even use center because I don't really
Speaker 3: like the term, because I don't know what that is.
Speaker 3: But my school never trump Republicans who were like I
Speaker 3: want small government. I believe in ideology, I believe in
Speaker 3: I believe in intellectual approaches to how we think about government.
Speaker 1: What happened and moderate Democrats and right and what happens
Speaker 1: to them?
Speaker 3: What happens to those voters? And I think that's what
Speaker 3: I'm watching for, is can the system accommodate the center
Speaker 3: or do we increasingly move to the fringes. So I
Speaker 3: don't think I'm giving you a very good answer, but
Speaker 3: that's I.
Speaker 1: Mean, that is the big question, and it feels like
Speaker 1: the answers be the parties are going to keep moving
Speaker 1: to the to the fringes and leave a lot of
Speaker 1: us in the in. I don't like the middle either
Speaker 1: the center either, because that makes it sort of like
Speaker 1: a geographical uh or you know, sort of like position
Speaker 1: in between the left and the right, and it's almost
Speaker 1: transcends all of that where we all are. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and I wonder, you know, for those of us who
Speaker 1: feel orphaned, Yeah, we're a majority, you know, who talks
Speaker 1: for us, who represents us? And how do we get
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think third party is the answer. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I'd love it to be, but just practically that doesn't
Speaker 1: generally work out. What happens to us is there's a
Speaker 1: court of sort of like populist uprising from the from
Speaker 1: the center, from the from the moderates.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think something eventually has to give, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: because the system can continue to defray to the edges
Speaker 3: without the center being, without the center having a voice.
Speaker 1: But I'm wondering, if you, if you look back historically,
Speaker 1: was there another time where our parties were like this?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking back to the.
Speaker 1: Time of maybe like the half breeds, like Garfield's time,
Speaker 1: when the Republican Party was fractured, the Democrats a little
Speaker 1: less so. But like I'm wondering if there's a historical
Speaker 1: reference point for our parties being kind of to the
Speaker 1: extremes and a majority feeling left out?
Speaker 2: Has that? Have we done that before?
Speaker 3: I think this particular period is unique that way. But
Speaker 3: I think maybe if we were going to draw a
Speaker 3: historical parallel, I would probably put it into the you know,
Speaker 3: the eighteen nineties and the age of industrialization where everything
Speaker 3: economically corrupted. Yeah, and so then you have this period
Speaker 3: of Republican rule for thirty years with the only you know,
Speaker 3: time was when the Republican Party is divided so Woodrow
Speaker 3: Wilson can become president. But but yeah, but I think
Speaker 3: what we have now with especially with AI, especially with
Speaker 3: with all the technological shift, is real disruption going on
Speaker 3: in the economic world that the political system is is
Speaker 3: just not caught up with.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. I'm not done with you yet.
Speaker 1: But the book is the Trump Realignment, how Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump redefined the American party system. But before I let
Speaker 1: you go, we like to end with an exit poll,
Speaker 1: and it's a series of questions of varying degrees of seriousness.
Speaker 1: So if you don't mind indulging, this is how we
Speaker 1: get to know a little bit more about you. What's
Speaker 1: your favorite book about politics, except, you know, aside from
Speaker 1: your own.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's that's that's a that's a great question, I think.
Speaker 3: I Well, I could give you two answers, but I'll
Speaker 3: give you more. I'll give you the more fun one.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: Animal Farm is the greatest book about politics ever ever written.
Speaker 3: And the idea of what ultimately happens to every revolution
Speaker 3: and every movement is that it becomes the power in
Speaker 3: you know, yes, I think it's I think it's absolutely
Speaker 3: fantastic in terms of.
Speaker 2: And it should be postics must read.
Speaker 1: But did you see they're making a cartoon like an
Speaker 1: animated animal farm?
Speaker 3: No, no, yes.
Speaker 1: Listen to this Kirby Animated Animal Farm, starring Seth Rogan,
Speaker 1: Andy Serkis, Jim Parsons, Kieran Colkan, Woody Harrelson.
Speaker 2: Glenn Close, Steve Bushman. Like this is a real.
Speaker 1: Movie about one of like the darkest warnings, uh in
Speaker 1: modern political history. Right, but let's turn it into an
Speaker 1: animated romp.
Speaker 3: I'm I now have something on my watch this.
Speaker 2: Well, you must, you must, you must. Okay, what's the
Speaker 2: best July fourth food stuff?
Speaker 3: Oh? Wow?
Speaker 2: I told you varying degrees of seriousness.
Speaker 3: I mean it is. It is hard to beat Texas barbecue.
Speaker 2: Love it. Let's talk Texas. Where do you go?
Speaker 3: I'd go full brisket. I know a lot of people
Speaker 3: fight over what's the best. I haven't had any that
Speaker 3: I thought was bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Are you based in Texas?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean College Station, Texas.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, so you got lucky. You were very lucky.
Speaker 1: I like blacks. Blacks has been my jam.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2: When I'm out that way, it's really good. Okay, great.
Speaker 2: Who's your favorite president?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: That's that's another good one, because favor is such a
Speaker 3: such an odd word when you talk. I know, so
Speaker 3: I so I'll throw instead.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm.
Speaker 3: Gonna reward the question and say you're the presidence presidents
Speaker 3: that I'm fascinated by. I am fascinated by Lyndon Johnson
Speaker 3: because of his desire to create a great society and
Speaker 3: his overreach and then his his failures in Vietnam and
Speaker 3: how it's just sort of almost Shakespearean. I'm fascinated by
Speaker 3: Richard Nixon and especially with J. D. Vance is about
Speaker 3: comment about Watergate. You do wonder like what if Nixon
Speaker 3: had just floughted out because he was a pretty good
Speaker 3: I think he's a very underrated president because of the
Speaker 3: water dates, which right, other than water date, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's I think that's funny kind of.
Speaker 2: On papers were into high point either.
Speaker 3: But sure, yeah, yeah, he was a little he was
Speaker 3: a little paranoid, but he might have had nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: elections stolen from him, so you know, and then and
Speaker 3: then I'm also fascinated with Bill Quinton. And part of
Speaker 3: the reason is Bill Quinton, I think was a remarkably
Speaker 3: successful president, whomed Democrats never claimed, you know, like hes
Speaker 3: eight years as president, and then and then all throughout,
Speaker 3: Like if we look at twenty sixteen when Hillary Clinton
Speaker 3: is running against the Sanders, Sanders is basically running against
Speaker 3: the Bill Clinton legacy. Unlike on the Republican side, where
Speaker 3: you have, you know, a Ronald Reagan, and every Republican
Speaker 3: after Ronald Reagan wants to be Ronald Reagan. Yeah, no
Speaker 3: one wanted to be Bill Clinton after Bill Clinton. Gore
Speaker 3: wanted to be Bill Clinton after right, right, And it's
Speaker 3: kind of a I think it's an interesting because that
Speaker 3: was a that was a pretty good period in terms
Speaker 3: of the economy, in terms of the world, and maybe
Speaker 3: we give too much credit to presidents for those types
Speaker 3: of things. But but but it's a it's a neat.
Speaker 3: I think I'm just fascinated with with why. And we
Speaker 3: know that because scandal, Right.
Speaker 1: So he did, but putting let's put the scandals in
Speaker 1: the personality aside. Today you'd have to run as a
Speaker 1: Republican right on a lot of the like the workfair,
Speaker 1: the doma. I mean, there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: he did that you could not do, just like a
Speaker 1: year after he was out of office as a Democrat
Speaker 1: that he did And uh, I think I think that's
Speaker 1: probably part of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, Oh and one more if I can think,
Speaker 3: just because I'm at the Bush school, I also think
Speaker 3: HW Bush was underrated as a president and much of
Speaker 3: the success since I just mentioned Bill Clinton, a lot
Speaker 3: of it was set up by some of the decisions
Speaker 3: that HW made, especially on the tax issue, and helped
Speaker 3: set up Clinton for success and it and it hurt
Speaker 3: his chances for re election.
Speaker 4: It did, it did?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, which party is going to elect the next president?
Speaker 3: If you have to bet right now, you bet on
Speaker 3: the Democrats. But okay, but that's assuming a lot we
Speaker 3: tend not like really, I think it's going to be
Speaker 3: a time for change election. I think Democrats will be
Speaker 3: better positioned. But Democrats also are showing this tendency to
Speaker 3: potentially go too far out to the stream, and they
Speaker 3: could and so yeah, so all things considered, I'd put
Speaker 3: my money on the Democrats at this moment, but not
Speaker 3: with any certainty.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: Uh, fireworks or parade, you can only save one.
Speaker 3: Oh, fireworks definitely though that they though they do scare
Speaker 3: the dogs and you do worry about fires, especially in
Speaker 3: dry places.
Speaker 2: So yes, okay.
Speaker 1: Last question, It's very important to me, and we ask
Speaker 1: it at the end of every pod.
Speaker 2: When is it iced coffee season?
Speaker 3: Kirby never, Yeah, coffee should always be scolding hot.
Speaker 1: Just broke my heart a little. The correct answer is
Speaker 1: year round. Ice coffee season is year round. But I understand. Listen,
Speaker 1: I am this is a podcast of strong coffee tape.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your strong incorrect strong coffee.
Speaker 3: Take it. It should always burn your mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not alone.
Speaker 4: You're not alone.
Speaker 1: You're wrong, but you're not alone. Kirby, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This was a great conversation. Thanks for coming on and
Speaker 1: talking about your book. Good luck with it.
Speaker 3: Oh well, thank you so much for having me. It's
Speaker 3: been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to have you back on to talk
Speaker 1: about other things as we moved through this crazy election year.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 1: Before we go. When we get back after the break, I've.
Speaker 2: Got a little something extra for you, so stick around.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Off the Cup.
Speaker 1: Okay, before we go, I just wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: the thing we talked about earlier, which is pride in
Speaker 1: America and how we're feeling. And I think last week
Speaker 1: I talked a little bit about how complicated our feelings
Speaker 1: may be right now. Where we want to have a
Speaker 1: great July fourth weekend, we want to celebrate the two
Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our great nation, but a
Speaker 1: lot of us aren't happy with where we're at right now.
Speaker 1: And we can hold both of those things at the
Speaker 1: same time. But I was talking to my producer, Lauren,
Speaker 1: whom you may know from our other podcast, talk and coffee,
Speaker 1: and she was telling me about a great idea she had.
Speaker 1: So Lauren joined by Lauren and Derek, my great producers,
Speaker 1: Lauren talk about what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I had this in mind about like feeling a
Speaker 5: little apprehensive about the upcoming big birthday anniversary that we
Speaker 5: had and wanting to figure out, like what is a
Speaker 5: way that I could celebrate this anniversary That felt kind
Speaker 5: of what you're saying, like of two things holding both things.
Speaker 5: And I was reading this really great why novel called
Speaker 5: We Are Not Free by Tracy ch My like eight
Speaker 5: year old randomly picked it up and it's not for
Speaker 5: eight year olds.
Speaker 2: So I read it.
Speaker 5: And it's about the Japanese incarceration.
Speaker 2: Why Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: It was at the Japanese incarceration, told through like each
Speaker 5: chapter is a new teenager. So they lived in Japantown
Speaker 5: and they were taken and they're living in all the
Speaker 5: different camps and moved around, and I was.
Speaker 2: This is a World War two and the World War two?
Speaker 5: Yes, sorry, And I was so taken by these personal experiences.
Speaker 5: And then she has this whole little thing at the
Speaker 5: background at the back that sort of says these are
Speaker 5: based on my family's recollections, et cetera. And I was
Speaker 5: so taken by this and just wanted to know. I mean,
Speaker 5: obviously I knew about it, but had never dove that deep.
Speaker 5: And so I came across this podcast by Rachel Maddow
Speaker 5: called Burn Order, which is actually about this entire thing.
Speaker 5: It was about how did FDR, a Democratic president Yeah,
Speaker 5: sign this executive order to take one hundred and twenty
Speaker 5: thousand Japanese ancestors, most of whom were American citizens and
Speaker 5: put them into these camps, imprisoned them for more than
Speaker 5: two years and beyond and what were the effects of that?
Speaker 2: And so the podcast is fantastic.
Speaker 5: I highly recommend it, But at the end she's sort
Speaker 5: of trying to get to where did we how did
Speaker 5: we evolve past this? How did the Japanese Americans get
Speaker 5: past this? And there was this period where some of
Speaker 5: the uh incarcerated had started doing these little like protests
Speaker 5: and gatherings, and it got consistent enough where they made
Speaker 5: some headway with various presidents, like there was some influence
Speaker 5: and overall concern. They were concerned that this sort of
Speaker 5: zombie executive order could come back to life at any time,
Speaker 5: which is totally fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So during the bi centennial, so nineteen seventy six, then
Speaker 5: President Gerald Ford made this proclamation, which is like a
Speaker 5: public announcement essentially that basically was an apology to Japanese
Speaker 5: Americans for this terrible thing that happened. And what I
Speaker 5: was so struck by was the language he used. He
Speaker 5: was basically like, listen, we're celebrating the two hundredth birthday.
Speaker 5: That is fantastic. There's so much to celebrate. But a
Speaker 5: real honest reckoning also is us facing our mistakes and
Speaker 5: that can be very difficult, but the only way to
Speaker 5: sort of move forward is to acknowledge what we've done wrong.
Speaker 5: And I was like, oh, heavy sigh, Like if only
Speaker 5: our current president. Like also I was just thinking, like gosh,
Speaker 5: there's so many things that come to mind when I
Speaker 5: think about, like, ooh, what would I love our country
Speaker 5: to acknowledge was a mistake and try to work to fix,
Speaker 5: you know, all those sort of repercussions that come.
Speaker 2: And I also think of it as a parent.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm like an incredibly imperfect human and blow
Speaker 5: up at my kids sometimes and like the best thing
Speaker 5: I can do is sort of later on be like,
Speaker 5: you know what, I'm so sorry that was I was frustrated.
Speaker 2: It's not your fault.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to work on it to show that, like
Speaker 5: we're all afallible. And so I wanted to basically like
Speaker 5: start a letter writing campaign.
Speaker 2: So this is this is what I did.
Speaker 5: Tell me Ford's Ford's proclamation was called an American promise,
Speaker 5: So I thought, like, what if we did two hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty American promises? And the idea is to acknowledge
Speaker 5: something that you love about America that makes you feel prideful,
Speaker 5: and acknowledge or list something that you wish America as
Speaker 5: a country would acknowledge was a mistake and work to fix.
Speaker 5: So the idea that what you said and what Ford
Speaker 5: basically says, like both things can be true. And yeah,
Speaker 5: so it's like a template that you can download and
Speaker 5: write or submit digitally or audio or video and it's
Speaker 5: and and the point is to try to boil it
Speaker 5: down to one thing. And when I did it, I
Speaker 5: have this little community group and we did it. It
Speaker 5: was a bunch of parents and kids, and it was
Speaker 5: really fun to do it with the kids. And also
Speaker 5: so I found it like actually like a nice, thoughtful
Speaker 5: experiment for myself, like what like really trying to acknowledge,
Speaker 5: like what does make me feel proud about America that
Speaker 5: feels unique? And also like what would be the one
Speaker 5: thing that I would love for America to acknowledge and
Speaker 5: learn to, you know.
Speaker 2: Fix or whatever.
Speaker 5: Anyway, it felt like a really thoughtful experiment and I
Speaker 5: open it up like it's very much like I wanted
Speaker 5: it to go further than my little community, and it's
Speaker 5: really for everyone. What I love about the historic model
Speaker 5: is that that was FDR was a Democratic president, Gerald
Speaker 5: Ford was Republican, and that proclamation paved the way for
Speaker 5: Reagan to do actual reparations for the sixty thousand Japanese
Speaker 5: Americans who were left who were affected by those camps.
Speaker 5: So it's really it's it's meant to be like bipartisan.
Speaker 5: It's really just like who are we as Americans? Kind
Speaker 5: of what you're saying, like separate from politics, like right.
Speaker 2: Which is yeah, but yeah, yeah, no. I love this.
Speaker 1: I mean I love this for you, I love this
Speaker 1: for kids, I love this for all of us.
Speaker 2: Like this is such a great idea.
Speaker 1: Is there is there a call out? Can people go
Speaker 1: and find this and do this themselves.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, so I made a website with the help
Speaker 5: of Claude. It is very exciting, and my lovely neighbor
Speaker 5: liz Anheart made our logo, so it's super cute and
Speaker 5: looks official. But the website is called two hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty American Promises two five zero dot org. And in
Speaker 5: there you can either answer basically you're answering these two questions.
Speaker 5: You can answer them in a digital form, or you
Speaker 5: can download the template and kind of take a photo,
Speaker 5: or you can like send me an audio message, et cetera,
Speaker 5: et cetera.
Speaker 6: But yeah, great, so that's two hundred and fifty Americanpromises
Speaker 6: dot org.
Speaker 2: Yes, two five zero American Promises.
Speaker 4: This is a great website.
Speaker 3: It looks really good.
Speaker 1: It's great and maybe when we get back here the holiday,
Speaker 1: we can you know, read some of those and yeah,
Speaker 1: look at what people were saying about America over the week.
Speaker 2: I'm interested.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like it's something that can be like ongoing,
Speaker 5: you know, like the July fourth thing is sort of like, sure,
Speaker 5: this is the technical anniversary, but yeah, just as an experiment.
Speaker 5: And then like honestly, I sort of thought like if
Speaker 5: we got enough and there seemed to be a few themes,
Speaker 5: like a few like urgent, like these are the thing,
Speaker 5: Like maybe it's worth sending to various politicians to be like, sure,
Speaker 5: this is what people are feeling, this is what people
Speaker 5: are thinking about, Like maybe there's some data that they
Speaker 5: could use.
Speaker 1: And it's a great idea because, as I mentioned, pride
Speaker 1: in America is at an all time not an all
Speaker 1: time I'm sorry, a record low since twenty twenty, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, so twenty five year low.
Speaker 2: There's lots of reasons for that.
Speaker 1: It's not just trual, but it's you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons for that. But I saw it's particularly
Speaker 1: low among younger people. And I'm not younger person, but
Speaker 1: we have one here, Derek. You're a younger person. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like what from your perspective and the America
Speaker 1: you've grown up in, Like, what are your feelings about
Speaker 1: America heading into the twenty into the two hundred and fiftieth.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I love that I can still claim the
Speaker 6: younger person identity.
Speaker 4: I just turned thirty nine.
Speaker 2: Woo, okay, so I'm solidly.
Speaker 4: In the millennial camp.
Speaker 6: And I was, yeah, I was looking at this this
Speaker 6: poll from Gallup not only has Americans as a whole
Speaker 6: lost their you know, pride in America to a great degree,
Speaker 6: but also it breaks it down by age demographics. That
Speaker 6: so you have the silent generation, baby Boomers, Gen X, millennials,
Speaker 6: and now I'm also gen Z. And in two thousand
Speaker 6: and one, my group was the lowest, but the lowest
Speaker 6: at that point was seventy seven percent feel to be
Speaker 6: an American.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 6: And now this this latest one is fifty eight percent
Speaker 6: for my generation, and the generation younger than me is
Speaker 6: considerably lower forty one percent in this latest poll of
Speaker 6: gen Z born ninety seven to twenty twelve feel proud
Speaker 6: to be an American.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, I mean, I definitely think.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, when you think of two thousand
Speaker 6: and one, the first thing that comes to mind, of
Speaker 6: course is nine to eleven and how that moment feels
Speaker 6: so particular to what it meant to be an American.
Speaker 6: But then as soon as that, as soon as the
Speaker 6: sort of patriotic rush of that, I was, you know,
Speaker 6: I was in high school when nine to eleven happened,
Speaker 6: and immediately got it was the Iraq War and George
Speaker 6: w Bush was extremely unpopular, and everyone, you know, like
Speaker 6: my concept of America through like major event, major world
Speaker 6: event on you know, all through the pandemic and to
Speaker 6: now has just there hasn't been much to be to
Speaker 6: be excited about, or there hasn't been much to be from,
Speaker 6: you know, from my perspective to be proud of. And
Speaker 6: so yeah, I was I when I heard this poll,
Speaker 6: I was like, wow, like I that I relate to that.
Speaker 6: I I also have noticed, you know, my own embarrassment
Speaker 6: of being married. I also am married to a Canadian
Speaker 6: and and she has even less American pride than me.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well listen, I mean, just.
Speaker 1: To sort of let let you off the hook a
Speaker 1: little in your defense. You guys grew up with in
Speaker 1: the midst of endless wars, I mean the Iraq War,
Speaker 1: the Afghanistan War lasted way longer than was promised. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a financial crisis, then there was a housing crisis.
Speaker 2: Uh, you watched your parents' generation.
Speaker 1: Really fuck things up for you, and you know, you
Speaker 1: know love you mind too.
Speaker 2: I mean, the boomers really fucked some things up. And
Speaker 2: it's I think it's easy to.
Speaker 1: Say, well, gosh, what are you guys good at, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you came up in a generation where
Speaker 1: suddenly there was an app for that. So you guys
Speaker 1: were solving problems in the private sector and in your
Speaker 1: college campuses, right, like you know, blowing shit up at JPL,
Speaker 1: right Like, I mean, you guys were solving problems and
Speaker 1: watching the government not solve problems, watching the government make
Speaker 1: problems worse while you guys were in like gig and
Speaker 1: share economies and figuring shit out. So I'm not at
Speaker 1: all surprised that you look a bit askew at I
Speaker 1: won't say America, but certainly at the the apparatus that
Speaker 1: runs America. And that can mean the corporate billionaires, that
Speaker 1: can mean the oligarchs, that can mean the gerontocracy, the
Speaker 1: political establishment. All the people in power did a kind
Speaker 1: of lousy job when you guys were really coming up,
Speaker 1: And so I think it makes sense. It's also very
Speaker 1: sad because you know, as we've been saying over the
Speaker 1: past couple of weeks, there's a lot to be proud of.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things we're great at. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of things we are still leading.
Speaker 2: The world on.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of reasons why people still
Speaker 1: look to America for hope, and it's painful when someone
Speaker 1: like Trump comes along and shits on our friends, makes
Speaker 1: us more embarrassed of who we are and what we're
Speaker 1: doing and what we supposedly stand for. Right, Like, it's
Speaker 1: really painful. But again that's why I brought up the
Speaker 1: World Cup fans, because if you can find these videos,
Speaker 1: you've seen them too, right of these guys being like.
Speaker 2: Don't listen to the press.
Speaker 1: The press is telling us America sucks, and that is
Speaker 1: not true. America is awesome because they don't have to
Speaker 1: live with our politics.
Speaker 2: They're just enjoying everything we're great at, which is like sports.
Speaker 1: And fun and to full parks, and we're great at
Speaker 1: that stuff.
Speaker 2: And we're still Americans, welcoming. We're like a war we
Speaker 2: hug on a good day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I even was was listening to someone being like,
Speaker 1: I feel so stupid because as as soccer loving Europeans,
Speaker 1: football football loving Europeans, we were worried when we came
Speaker 1: to America that they wouldn't have good soccer stadiums. And
Speaker 1: he's like, that's how the way these stadiums are palaces,
Speaker 1: they are they are cathedrals to sports.
Speaker 2: Bound to our sports gods. So that's not we knew.
Speaker 2: Don't worry.
Speaker 4: We could.
Speaker 1: We could, we can, we can put a soccer stadium together.
Speaker 1: But there's there's a lot of good things that we're
Speaker 1: that we're doing and that you know, if we would
Speaker 1: just tell those stories. But it's hard when politics, to
Speaker 1: my earlier point, becomes the only thing that matters and
Speaker 1: the only thing that defines us. That is so dangerous,
Speaker 1: that is so gross, and we've got to get out
Speaker 1: of that. I know this is a political podcast. This
Speaker 1: is what we talk about here, and there's a time
Speaker 1: and place of all of that, right that's here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but when you're off with your family, please just go.
Speaker 2: Live your lives. Like, go live your lives totally.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be about who were dinging and
Speaker 1: who were it's just so gross.
Speaker 4: Don't do it.
Speaker 6: And you know, people's opinions about America may be what
Speaker 6: they are. I hope that people's opinions about their own
Speaker 6: local communities is stronger than their opinion about maybe other
Speaker 6: country as a whole. I know that is definitely true
Speaker 6: for me. I love where I live New York City,
Speaker 6: but also in particular Queens. I have talked about the
Speaker 6: Queen's Night Market before, but it's like my favorite place.
Speaker 4: I love just going on a.
Speaker 6: Saturday evening and enjoying like food from all these different cultures.
Speaker 4: And just being outside.
Speaker 6: And you know, that's a little bit of a contradiction
Speaker 6: to say you love where you live in particular, but
Speaker 6: you don't have pride in where you live as a
Speaker 6: whole as a country. And I think there may be
Speaker 6: some solutions in that to recognize that all these communities
Speaker 6: do make up America, and hopefully as we make our
Speaker 6: communities better, we will also feel more proud.
Speaker 4: In the country they do.
Speaker 1: But I think you're getting to the exact point. We
Speaker 1: love where we live for the most part. You know,
Speaker 1: I think when we talk about we're less proud, we're
Speaker 1: talking about our politics that we're less proud of.
Speaker 2: And that's yeah for good reason.
Speaker 1: Right we are watching how destructive our politics has become.
Speaker 1: But I think we all we took politics out of it,
Speaker 1: we'd all be pretty proud of our of our country
Speaker 1: if we looked at the microcosm that is our community,
Speaker 1: whatever that is, whatever that looks like, maybe that's your church,
Speaker 1: maybe that's your town, maybe that's your people. We love
Speaker 1: our community, we love our people. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot we actually do love. And I love That's why
Speaker 1: I love this idea, Lauren, because it kind of forces
Speaker 1: you to find those things that you're still proud of
Speaker 1: while identifying the things that you really wish we could
Speaker 1: we could make up for or heal from.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think it kind of centers centers human experiences,
Speaker 5: and I feel like in their last couple years decade
Speaker 5: this sort of like relinquishing to corporate and tech America
Speaker 5: that yeah, it feels so impersonal and.
Speaker 2: We've lost touch with each.
Speaker 5: Other, like I don't know what other Americans think or feel.
Speaker 5: And I think again that goes back to the World
Speaker 5: Cup stuff that you get these videos from these different
Speaker 5: pockets of America, and how like there was that one
Speaker 5: I saw of this one town in Middle America that
Speaker 5: had put up all these Spanish signs to welcome the
Speaker 5: Spanish team.
Speaker 2: Or the Spanish speaking team, I can't remember which one was.
Speaker 5: So it's like it's like, this is so we are
Speaker 5: not this sort of monolith, and it's so it would
Speaker 5: be so nice to like I would I always think
Speaker 5: of humans of New York. That guy who went around
Speaker 5: New York City and got all these like random personal stories.
Speaker 5: I would love like Humans of America and like, yeah,
Speaker 5: someone travel around and just get these pockets of stories
Speaker 5: to be like, oh, I identify with this random person
Speaker 5: in Kansas.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, I mean there are you know, there
Speaker 1: are some great projects. I know Craig Ferguson is doing
Speaker 1: something for CNN. I think it's called America No Purpose
Speaker 1: where he's going around to these towns and trying to
Speaker 1: find these pockets and stories to tell.
Speaker 2: But uh oh nice, yeah, but uh okay.
Speaker 1: So going into the July fourth weekend, I hope you
Speaker 1: all keep these two things in mind, right, Like we can.
Speaker 1: We can hold all of this together, which is we
Speaker 1: can be disappointed, we can want to fight to make
Speaker 1: our country better, but we can also love who we
Speaker 1: are and what we're made of and what we're capable
Speaker 1: of and where we're going. And I would just ask
Speaker 1: everyone to also look inside themselves and ask if you're participating,
Speaker 1: because we all do at some point. If you're participating
Speaker 1: in that US Versus Them project, that's real easy to
Speaker 1: get sort of like you.
Speaker 2: Know, trapped in It's very easy to do, but can
Speaker 2: we not? Can we not? Can we do that less? Yes?
Speaker 2: I would break? Can we do that less?
Speaker 1: So that's my wish for all of us heading into
Speaker 1: the fourth and in our two hundred and fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 2: Happy birthday. Thanks for sharing your stuff too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for giving us all right, We'll see you
Speaker 1: after the holiday. Off the Cup is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcast as part of the Reason Choice Network. If
Speaker 1: you want more, check out the other Reason Choice podcast,
Speaker 1: Politics with Jamel Hill and Native Land Pod. For Off
Speaker 1: the Cup, I'm your host, Si Cup. Editing and sound
Speaker 1: design by Derek Clements. Our executive producers are me Si Cup.
Speaker 2: And Lauren Hanson.
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