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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Schumer.

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Speaker 1: I hardly know where Welcome back to Behind the Bastard's

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Speaker 1: a podcast that just started, the worst way a podcast

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Speaker 1: can start.

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Speaker 2: I think we can all agree.

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Speaker 3: I didn't like that.

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Speaker 1: It's compulsive, Like Lee Atwater. I can't control it, you know,

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Speaker 1: so you can't be angry at me for it, you know,

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Speaker 1: just like we can't be angry at Lee Atwater for

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Speaker 1: all the people you hurt. That's the way it works anyway.

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Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, part two

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Speaker 1: of our series on Republican strategist Lee Atwater, the guy

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Speaker 1: who invented modern presidential elections. My guest today, as with

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Speaker 1: the last episode, Garrison dav Iss. So that if there

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Speaker 1: are any two year olds in the audience, they can't

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Speaker 1: spell your last name, Garrison, they don't know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 4: I was going to do this whole episode as another

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Speaker 4: extremely successful political operator, a Chuck Schumer, but then I

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Speaker 4: realized I don't know what Chuck Schumer sounds like like.

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Speaker 4: So now I'm just stuck with these glasses falling off

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Speaker 4: my eyes.

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Speaker 1: I think it's something likely doo up Chuck Schumer.

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Speaker 2: That's that's basically it.

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Speaker 1: I do not think that is how he said.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty close.

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Speaker 1: I've certainly heard him speak before, but I think it

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Speaker 1: sounds like that. You know.

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Speaker 3: It's however, you imagine a like like if somebody was

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Speaker 3: made of stone trying to speak.

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Speaker 1: Yes, like that's that's what exactly what I did. You're right, Sophie,

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Speaker 1: thank you for praise. I appreciate it. I live off

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Speaker 1: of it. We'll return to this topic later, I guess. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: Now, last episode, we closed out with our friend Lee

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Speaker 1: atwater Front, friend of the pod, Lee atwater has just

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Speaker 1: done a fucking fake school election for his friend who

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Speaker 1: depending on the source, some say his buddy didn't even

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Speaker 1: know that he was like putting him up for election

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Speaker 1: until like this magazine comes out where he's like rating

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Speaker 1: he like mimiographs this fucking zine, basically being like he

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Speaker 1: won this comedy he's the funniest kid in school based

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Speaker 1: on you know this, it's unclear like how this ranking

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Speaker 1: was done, and you know, promising free beer on tap.

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Speaker 1: He's got his little fucking student ss out kicking people, right,

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Speaker 1: and the first part of this the fact that he

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Speaker 1: starts it with like this fake pole basically that he's

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Speaker 1: handing results to people. It is noteworthy because fake poles

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Speaker 1: are going to be key to Lee Atwater's adult political style.

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Speaker 1: Now today we call a fake poll conducted by an

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Speaker 1: independent pollster, funded by a campaign or a dark money

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Speaker 1: operation not legally connected to a campaign for the purpose

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Speaker 1: of pushing a political agenda a push pole. And what

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Speaker 1: Lee's done here isn't quite a push pole yet, because

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Speaker 1: the goal of a push pole is to propagandize a

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Speaker 1: voter under the guise of polling them. So you they

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Speaker 1: call them and say, hey, we're doing a pole. If

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Speaker 1: you were to find out that Canadate X was a pedophile, would.

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Speaker 2: You still vote for them?

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Speaker 1: Right? And you're not accusing them of being a pedophile,

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Speaker 1: But also it makes people think about them that way, right,

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Speaker 1: And it's usually you can get a little more direct

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Speaker 1: than that, But that's the basic idea, right, is it's

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Speaker 1: a poll where you don't actually care about the result.

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Speaker 1: What matters is you're trying to subtly propagandize to people

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Speaker 1: when their defenses aren't up because they don't think they're

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Speaker 1: being subjected to a political ad right. And that's it's

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Speaker 1: not exactly what he does in high school with his

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Speaker 1: friend because again he just releases the poll. But this

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Speaker 1: is going to like, this is going to work so

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Speaker 1: well that it kind of gets him. He's always he's

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Speaker 1: always a guy who's going to do a lot of

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Speaker 1: what he does through different kinds of bullshit polls. And

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Speaker 1: part of the reason why is that after this election happens,

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Speaker 1: he notices that like kids that he didn't even know

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Speaker 1: keep coming up to him and telling him jokes or

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Speaker 1: like cutting up in class and then looking at him

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Speaker 1: to gauge his reaction. One kid even wore a plastic

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Speaker 1: display bottle of soap for an entire day, and they're

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Speaker 1: trying to they want Lee to see them because they

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Speaker 1: realize that he is the guy publishing this list of

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Speaker 1: the funniest kids in school, and they want to get

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Speaker 1: on the list. They don't realize that it's a completely

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Speaker 1: bullshit list, right, Lee writes, quote, it took me about

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Speaker 1: an hour to realize they all wanted to get into

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Speaker 1: the comedy ratings. So he keeps publishing the flyer, and

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Speaker 1: he expands it. He adds a bad Breath of the

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Speaker 1: Week award, and he adds fake ads for a dial

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Speaker 1: a slut service, which he claims, is run by one

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Speaker 1: of his female classmates. So as a kid, he's learned

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Speaker 1: how to use the media to manipulate his classmates, to

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Speaker 1: hurt people, to help a campaign. He's already figured this out,

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Speaker 1: and he's like, not yet eighteen or just about turning.

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Speaker 5: Eighteen, Kyle a slut service.

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Speaker 1: He's a prodigy in the evil arts of politics.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, suir, He.

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Speaker 1: Would later recall, nothing taught me more cleanly and clearly

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Speaker 1: that people like to see their names in the paper,

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Speaker 1: and people liked me number one at something. I always

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Speaker 1: remembered that lesson.

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Speaker 3: I mean.

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Speaker 4: He also has discovered the inherent charm of the DIY magazine,

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Speaker 4: which it's addicted, which everyone usually around eighteen falls victim to.

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Speaker 1: Right of course, everyone, Yes, absolutely, Garrison kids love DIY magazines.

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Speaker 1: Some kids do, yeah, yeah, the cool kids and the

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Speaker 1: Lee at Waters. It's a real mixed bag. If you're mimeographing,

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Speaker 1: you're going to go one of two ways. Lee himself

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Speaker 1: was never featured in the paper that he put out.

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Speaker 1: He wrote, by not being involved, I could have a

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Speaker 1: lot more fun with it. I learned back then that

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Speaker 1: I was just going to cool it and stay out

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Speaker 1: of the scene. So he's also figured out, I don't

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Speaker 1: want to be in politics.

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Speaker 2: I don't want the spotlight on me.

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Speaker 1: He wants to be behind it, but I want to

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Speaker 1: be folky. Yeah, I want to be behind the spotlight right,

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Speaker 1: focusing it on people. He's like, he's like the Lauren Michael. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's he's like a less evil Lauren Michael's that's right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So the one area where Lee was weirdly positive and

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Speaker 1: like weirdly ahead of his time was when it came

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Speaker 1: to black musicians. When black back bands would play at

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Speaker 1: his all white school, he would use all of his

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Speaker 1: manipulative prowess to ensure that his peers weren't shitty towards them.

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Speaker 1: His friend Debbie Carlson recalled he showed sensitivity toward blacks

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Speaker 1: that he didn't always show to his good friends, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it's worth noting this is black musicians right

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Speaker 1: that he likes. It's not like a general behavior trait,

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Speaker 1: but he is noted by his white classmates. It is

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Speaker 1: like he was like the non racist one, right, or

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Speaker 1: at least the one who was most aggressively anti racist

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Speaker 1: when there was something he wanted to get out of it, right,

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Speaker 1: I think that is like an important thing to add

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Speaker 1: that this is not just happening in a vacuum. He's

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Speaker 1: not like seeing someone be racist and confronting them outside

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Speaker 1: of this. It's specifically because I like this band. They're

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Speaker 1: going to be playing at our school and I don't

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Speaker 1: want them to get embarrassed. Hmmm, yeah, No, it does seem.

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Speaker 2: To be like he is interesting. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: One of the few.

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Speaker 4: Things that keeps him from being like at the most

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Speaker 4: evil that he could be is yes, like love of music,

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Speaker 4: and how that alters his perception of like racial politics slightly.

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Speaker 1: I guess what's interesting is it alters his perception of

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Speaker 1: racial politics, but his politics are always very racial, and

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Speaker 1: he gets really angry. The one thing that seems to

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Speaker 1: bother him is when people call him out for being

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Speaker 1: racist for the racist things he does, because some of

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Speaker 1: his best friends genuinely are black musicians, and he doesn't

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Speaker 1: want to be seen as racist, but he wants to

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Speaker 1: be allowed to campaign as one. And that's really it.

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Speaker 1: The fact that he does seem legitimately offended when people

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Speaker 1: accuse him of being racist while consciously using racial politics

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Speaker 1: in a way that is undeniably conscious, is really interesting.

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Speaker 1: To me, but we'll see more of that later.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd like to hear about that in the context

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Speaker 4: in which it exists.

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Speaker 1: In it's a common So he'd gotten his parents to

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Speaker 1: agree to let him go back to public school by

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Speaker 1: laying out an ambitious plan for his future. He'd written them,

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Speaker 1: I think I would like to be a lawyer and

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Speaker 1: maybe someday go into politics. He told them he had

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Speaker 1: tended to apply after graduating to the University of South Carolina,

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Speaker 1: the Citadel, North Carolina State, and Wafford University. And that

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Speaker 1: last one he didn't really want to go to, but

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Speaker 1: it was his dad's alma mater. And so he adds

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Speaker 1: it again, it's part of this manipulation tea, right, he

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Speaker 1: just can't turn that off. As I noted in the

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Speaker 1: last episode, as soon as he's out of military school,

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Speaker 1: he gets back to his old tricks, and in fact,

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Speaker 1: he is more out of control than ever his Yeah, service,

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Speaker 1: that's not even like. His high school has an unofficial

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Speaker 1: fraternity system, and he joins a fraternity who called themselves

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Speaker 1: the Dark Horseman. And I think you can tell how

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Speaker 1: what these kids, these dudes are like from that. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: I I want to hear more about this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, theism I'm covering my my drink even though he's dead.

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Speaker 1: Yeah you do, you want to cover your drink? When

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Speaker 1: they're mentioned, it's like fucking you see it three times

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Speaker 1: into a zoom call. They up here behind you.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Yeah, they'll fucking roofy. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They viciously hayes their members. When Lee is admitted, he

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Speaker 1: has to rub icy hot on his balls and then

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Speaker 1: be paddled for hours. He has to get into like

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Speaker 1: an hour's long slap fight with a friend where they're

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Speaker 1: like really hurting each other and like he apologizes afterwards

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Speaker 1: they both do, but like they're willing to do it

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Speaker 1: to get into this club, and it's this is going

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Speaker 1: to be This is not uncommon for fraternities back then,

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Speaker 1: although the fact that it's a high school fraternity is

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Speaker 1: kind of weird and an example of.

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Speaker 2: Like who Lee is.

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Speaker 1: So they would pool all of their money to rent

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Speaker 1: dance halls or warehouses and throw these massive parties for

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Speaker 1: their high school and when they couldn't afford liquor, Lee

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Speaker 1: has a great idea for how they get booze, which

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Speaker 1: is there's this stretch of road outside of town that's

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Speaker 1: like the dating spot where like people will pull over

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Speaker 1: to make out slash fuck with their girlfriends, right and

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Speaker 1: you know, periodically the cops will come by, and so

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Speaker 1: you'll like toss your liquor out of your car to

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Speaker 1: like get away so they don't realize that you're like

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Speaker 1: drunk and trying to have sex in a car. So

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Speaker 1: he has his friends. They all go out to this

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Speaker 1: spot and they start searching in like the brush around

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Speaker 1: the makeout point, and they pull out all these half

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Speaker 1: full bottles of like beer and liquor and they mix

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Speaker 1: it together in a barrel and then they fill the

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Speaker 1: barrel the rest of the way with what is only

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Speaker 1: described in my sources as purple juice. This sounds this

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Speaker 1: soundstrensid It sounds awful. The resulting beverage is called purple Jesus,

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Speaker 1: and it did a spectacular job of giving teenagers alcohol poisoning.

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Speaker 1: It just sounds like, helly, how that's awful?

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, you love to see it.

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Speaker 1: I mean I didn't. I'm not going to pretend I

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Speaker 1: did much better, yeah, because we would be just.

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Speaker 4: I do feel very alien to this sort of stuff.

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Speaker 4: Like I enjoy a cocktail every once in a while,

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Speaker 4: but I'm not rummaging around like this is this is

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Speaker 4: completely foreign to me. Now.

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Speaker 1: There was a period when I was like nineteen or

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Speaker 1: twenty where we got one of those like big things

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Speaker 1: of just the raw doctor peppers syrup and we would

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Speaker 1: just add that straight to ever clear, don't do that

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Speaker 1: bad idea. That sounds awesome.

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Speaker 5: My stomach immediately hurts.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, what a nightmare.

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Speaker 1: So you won't be surprised when I tell you that

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Speaker 1: Lee's g p A was not impressive. By isn't really

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Speaker 1: pulling through in the grades.

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Speaker 2: No, he is.

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Speaker 1: He's not doing great. Now it's kind of an open

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Speaker 1: question whether or not he's even going to graduate. Until

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Speaker 1: the last possible moment, his psychology teacher comes close to

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Speaker 1: failing him, and his psyche teacher actually calls Lee's mom Toddy,

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Speaker 1: because she teaches Spanish at the same school and as

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Speaker 1: a fund side, she gave her own son a D

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Speaker 1: once and like wrote on the report Carty, what she

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Speaker 1: wrote on the report card you need more discipline at home.

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Speaker 1: Her sounds report card.

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Speaker 2: So this teacher goes to.

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Speaker 3: But also take accountability my girl.

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Speaker 1: What yeah, I mean, I mean I think it was

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Speaker 1: a bit but yeah, So this teacher goes to Toddy

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Speaker 1: and he's like, I don't know if I can pass

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Speaker 1: your kid, and she's like, yeah, you should just do

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Speaker 1: what's best. And he's like, yeah, I'll do what I

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Speaker 1: think is best for the boy. And ultimately he passes Lee,

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Speaker 1: even though the grades weren't there. He decides that Lee,

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Speaker 1: when he would talk in class, he was better. He

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Speaker 1: participated more than anyone else in terms of like classroom discussion.

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Speaker 1: He just again refused to study or do homework ever, right,

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Speaker 1: and it's this, this is the fateful decision that will

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Speaker 1: allow him to go to college. So I mean, really,

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Speaker 1: never show mercy to a student who's struggling. Teachers out there,

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Speaker 1: you know, cast her a lesson of this podcast. No

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Speaker 1: mercy to children. They'll turn into Lee Atwater if you

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Speaker 1: give him a second's grace. So Toddy had resigned herself,

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Speaker 1: you know, part way through this year, twelfth grade year,

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Speaker 1: to the likelihood that her son would not go to

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Speaker 1: college at all and would wind up working a menial

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Speaker 1: job despite his obvious intelligence. Lee himself wanted to leave

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Speaker 1: from graduation and immediately travel around the South with a

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Speaker 1: friend of his who was professional musition and like this

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Speaker 1: would be like a vacation, but I think it was

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Speaker 1: also the idea was he was going to explore maybe

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Speaker 1: whether or not he can make it as a musician.

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Speaker 1: This sounds like a positive development. Yeah, if only now Again,

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Speaker 1: it looks likely that this is going to be his

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Speaker 1: path forward because he applies to the University of South

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Speaker 1: Carolina and he gets rejected and that's like, not no offense,

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Speaker 1: University of South Carolina. But it's not like an Ivy

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Speaker 1: League school, right, Like his grades are not good. He's

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Speaker 1: getting rejected from like the state school. And Lee keeps

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Speaker 1: this rejection letter in his office for the rest of

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Speaker 1: his life. The fact that he gets this is something

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Speaker 1: he's got this weird sense of pride towards. But before

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Speaker 1: he can start his trip, his mom pulls some strings

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Speaker 1: and she gets him an interview with the dean of

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Speaker 1: admissions to Newbery College. Because she knows the guy and

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Speaker 1: she knows her son. She's well aware of the fact

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Speaker 1: that if he gets face to face with someone, he

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Speaker 1: can charm them right face to face. He's going to

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Speaker 1: do well.

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Speaker 4: Even though he's like aids and emissions would get easily discarded,

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Speaker 4: but he would be compelling in like an actual meeting.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and she knows this, and she gets him the

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Speaker 1: face to face meeting, and obviously Toddy's right. And the

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Speaker 1: Dean also seems to have understood Lee pretty well, and

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Speaker 1: he kind of plays hard to get right. He repeatedly says,

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Speaker 1: I don't think you have what it takes to handle

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Speaker 1: this college to be a Newberry man, right, And this

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Speaker 1: flips a switch in Atwater's head, and so he becomes

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Speaker 1: obsessed with proving the dean wrong. And so they make

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Speaker 1: a deal. If you take the gamified thing, yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: right now, it's a deal. Now I've been challenged. So

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Speaker 1: the deal is, if he can take two summer classes

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Speaker 1: at Newberry and do well, he'll get admitted to the fall.

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Speaker 1: And Lee takes an ace as both classes, which proves

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Speaker 1: that the only way to get him to actually work

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Speaker 1: hard is to trigger his oppositional defiant disorder. That's the

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Speaker 1: entirety of how this guy works, right, What a brat.

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Speaker 1: He's like the Republican Party distilled into one man. It's

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Speaker 1: just pure oppositional defiance. So Lee enters Newberry in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty nine. Nice. This is a tense year for America.

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Speaker 1: For students in America at colleges yet this year, but

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Speaker 1: not for Lee. Newberry is not kind of in. It's

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Speaker 1: off the beaten path a little bit. It's not one

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Speaker 1: of the schools that's going to be the center of

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Speaker 1: things happening. Lee later described it as a pretty laid

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Speaker 1: back environment. The anti war movement and the attendant protest

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Speaker 1: had mostly skipped the campus over and Lee doesn't find

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Speaker 1: himself pushed into political activism and immediately instead he gets

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Speaker 1: very into Greek life. And I'm going to quote from

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Speaker 1: an article by Eric Alterman in the New York Times.

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Speaker 1: At Water and his fraternity brothers used to rent black

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Speaker 1: and white pornographic movies in charge fifty cents admission. You

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Speaker 1: can bet nobody asked for their damn money back on

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Speaker 1: those flicks. He volunteers, sitting with his wife and parents

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Speaker 1: in the family living room. We weren't like the guys

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Speaker 1: who took your money and then showed a bunch of

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Speaker 1: people horsing around and Leotard's sir, you just.

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Speaker 2: Talking in front of his wife and kids.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we showed the best porno in college. Sir.

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Speaker 2: We didn't rip you off by showing you fake porno.

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Speaker 1: No, nothing but real naked people fucking in our fraternity.

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Speaker 1: He opened a DIY porn theater. He opens a DIY

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Speaker 1: porn theater. That's how his fraternity makes beer money. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty funny. Now his frat is Alpha Tau Omega And

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00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:27,720
Speaker 1: just for shits and giggles, I was like, I want

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Speaker 1: to see what kind of reputation ATO has.

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Speaker 6: Well, I'm sure, I'm sure it's great. I'm sure we're

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Speaker 6: gonna learn ye love Garrison. It would be fair to

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Speaker 6: say in many schools they are regarded as a party house.

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Speaker 6: Just from stories in the last decade. I found an

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Speaker 6: article about a chapter the last Yes, just from that

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Speaker 6: the last decade, because there's not a lot recorded from

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Speaker 6: the sixties, right, a lot of stuff. What's gonna get

338
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Speaker 6: sexual assaults not getting reported generally, But within the last decade,

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Speaker 6: an ATO chapter in Muhlenberg College was suspended for hazing

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Speaker 6: and life safety violations due to out of control drinking.

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Speaker 6: You and Ce's chapter got suspended earlier this year for

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Speaker 6: alcohol violations and financial mouth seasons. The Ohio state chapter

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Speaker 6: was likewise suspended this year for hazing and alcohol violations.

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Speaker 6: I've also found multiple stories of brothers in different states

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Speaker 6: being investigated for sexual assault over the years. Now, Lee's

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Speaker 6: in college decades before these things go down, but cursory

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00:17:23,840 --> 00:17:26,920
Speaker 6: examinations suggest that Atli's Just Got, it's had a long

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00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:30,480
Speaker 6: reputations like this is a party house, right, That's the

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Speaker 6: case in Lee's day, and that's kind of the legacy

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Speaker 6: of this fraternity up to the present day.

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Speaker 2: This is a party I.

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Speaker 3: Kst got shut down at my college when I was

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Speaker 3: in school.

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Speaker 1: Get that. I found a lot of stories of them

355
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Speaker 1: getting shut down. This was literally just seconds of googling, right,

356
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Speaker 1: just like a lot of ATO chapters Get in Trouble.

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Speaker 2: And the fact that this.

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Speaker 1: Would be a party fraternity is consistent with the stories

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00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:58,240
Speaker 1: Lee and his brothers would later tell reporters. He was

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Speaker 1: known for staying up all night drinking, dancing, and singing,

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Speaker 1: and then, in his words, would quote be the guy

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Speaker 1: to wake up the day shift with a flip top

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Speaker 1: at six am. So he's like still awake, waking his

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Speaker 1: friends up with a beer at six in the morning.

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Speaker 1: You know, to keep the party going. Never let the

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Speaker 1: party die.

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Speaker 2: Never let the party die.

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Speaker 1: Garrison, you remember when I showed you PCU the classic

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00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:26,840
Speaker 1: nineties college film. It's a special movie starring Saving a

370
00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:29,760
Speaker 1: Parliament Funkadelic and then's with a p Funk concert.

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Speaker 2: Great film.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I do remember this. Yes, I found an article

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Speaker 1: in the Newberry Observer that interviewed Carlos Evans, who is

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Speaker 1: another ATO member and like future executive at no relation

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Speaker 1: because he winds up as an executive at Wells Fargo,

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Speaker 1: and Carlos's recollections make Lee's life in this period sound

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Speaker 1: identical to the plot of PCU.

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Speaker 7: Quote.

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Speaker 1: We was always joking around and entertaining his fraternity for

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Speaker 1: Brothers by improving crazy songs and his guitar, Evan said,

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00:18:58,119 --> 00:19:00,479
Speaker 1: which made him an ideal social chair for his frat.

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00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:03,600
Speaker 1: One slow, weakened on campus, no football or planned parties.

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Speaker 1: At Water came across a band whose trailer had broken

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Speaker 1: down on the side of the road, already running too

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00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:09,719
Speaker 1: late to make it to their gig in the upstate,

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00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:12,280
Speaker 1: Atwater convinced them just to stay a Newberry and play there,

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Speaker 1: thus creating an impromptu party. It's it's just literally the

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00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:20,439
Speaker 1: plot of PCU. It just happened to Yeah, but his

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00:19:20,520 --> 00:19:23,440
Speaker 1: life feels like a lot of different movie plots. Yes,

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00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:26,480
Speaker 1: his life is written by John Hughes. Like I almost

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00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:29,240
Speaker 1: feel like there's a stranger than fiction situation here. He's

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Speaker 1: like Will Ferrell in that movie, but written by John Hughes.

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Speaker 4: I also wonder what his thoughts on Wild at Heart are.

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00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:40,639
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, in terms of like the Elvis blues, like

395
00:19:40,800 --> 00:19:45,080
Speaker 4: dancing performance deception, like Nick Cage's whole character in that

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00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:47,600
Speaker 4: has like a slightly similar vibe.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately we'll never get to ask him. Garrison. Uh, spoilers

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00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:57,240
Speaker 1: for where this episode ends. Speaking of spoilers, you know

399
00:19:57,280 --> 00:20:01,880
Speaker 1: what can't be spoiled these as quality? Yeah, the quality

400
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401
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:11,160
Speaker 3: And here's our ads for one eight hundred dial a slut,

402
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Speaker 3: and that's really bothered by that.

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00:20:13,520 --> 00:20:17,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, one eight hundred dial of slut. You know, they

404
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:18,840
Speaker 1: did offer us a lot of money. So if he

405
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Speaker 1: actually I was going to.

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00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:23,159
Speaker 5: Say, somebody, I know, I just don't like that he

407
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 5: did it.

408
00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:27,280
Speaker 1: I love slut. I love sluts. Sluts are some.

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00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:29,440
Speaker 5: Of my favorite humans in the whole world.

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00:20:30,040 --> 00:20:38,280
Speaker 3: Would be so cool if it wasn't him.

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00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:41,000
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412
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413
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Speaker 1: to finally have a sponsor ethically that that we can support,

414
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Speaker 1: you know, finally we have a clean conscience. Uh. No

415
00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:54,480
Speaker 1: longer doing the ads for blue apron or whatever, you know,

416
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:57,359
Speaker 1: just just some some honest, god fearing people.

417
00:20:57,440 --> 00:20:59,080
Speaker 4: Are we allowed to say blue apron on the pod

418
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:00,159
Speaker 4: now or is it that?

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00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:00,680
Speaker 1: Is that?

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00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:02,160
Speaker 5: No?

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00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:07,600
Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe we'll see. So Lee's been interested,

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00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 1: you know, since high school in the political process, but

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00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:12,879
Speaker 1: previously it had been a game for him, purely a

424
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 1: way to amuse himself. College is where he gets interested

425
00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:19,000
Speaker 1: in and involved in real politics for the first time.

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Speaker 1: And there are two stories about how this happened, right,

427
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,360
Speaker 1: and they're kind of divergent. I think there's a way

428
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:28,600
Speaker 1: to reconcile them. His frat brother, Carlos, says that like,

429
00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:30,719
Speaker 1: basically in his first year, his grades were so shitty

430
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:32,400
Speaker 1: that he had to go to summer school in order

431
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Speaker 1: to not get expelled, and then, per an article in

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Speaker 1: the Newberry Observer, while in summer school Atwater secured an

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00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:41,480
Speaker 1: internship with a young senator named strom Thurman who was

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00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:45,800
Speaker 1: sixty seven at the time. This fucking guy. He came

435
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 1: back that fall and he was a totally different person,

436
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:50,639
Speaker 1: Evan's recalled. His hair was short and his dress conservative.

437
00:21:50,760 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 1: Gone were the remnants of the hippie saturated nineteen sixties.

438
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:56,639
Speaker 1: Evan said at Waters went from coming dangerously close to

439
00:21:56,680 --> 00:21:59,159
Speaker 1: flunking out the previous semester to a straight A student,

440
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 1: and Evan said he became highly engaged in his political studies.

441
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:04,280
Speaker 1: That was the point when we started to believe that

442
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:07,080
Speaker 1: Lee had possibilities beyond being just a jokester and a

443
00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:11,440
Speaker 1: fun guy, he said. So Strom started like politically grooming

444
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 1: this guy. Yeah, yeah, that's that is. Every version of

445
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:19,320
Speaker 1: the story has that part. The question is what leads

446
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:21,440
Speaker 1: up to it, because Lee and his mom will later

447
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 1: tell a different story, like, instead of his it happening

448
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:26,200
Speaker 1: in his freshman year because he had to take get

449
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: summer credits because he was failing in the summer of

450
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,919
Speaker 1: his sophomore year. His mom says she convinced tchrom Thurman

451
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,199
Speaker 1: to take her son as an intern, and that this

452
00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 1: ignites his love of politics and gives him direction for

453
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:39,359
Speaker 1: the first time in his life. So I claimed, I

454
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: decided that summer was time to get serious, and yeah, uh,

455
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:47,240
Speaker 1: Thurman was by this point a Republican, and in a

456
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:49,560
Speaker 1: Congress that was still full of white supremacists, he was

457
00:22:49,600 --> 00:22:52,200
Speaker 1: the one who was famous for being a white supremacist,

458
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:55,680
Speaker 1: the most supremacist of yes, the whitest of the supremacists,

459
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: and the supremacistist stuff the whites. He and Lee got

460
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 1: along very well. Per The New York Times, Thurman remembers

461
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 1: a bright young boy of extraordinary energy and charm, who

462
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:08,399
Speaker 1: in seven years progressed from college intern to political director

463
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:11,919
Speaker 1: of Thurman's re election campaign. Atwater remembers listening to a

464
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 1: man who embodied for him the virtues of Southern conservatism,

465
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 1: economic libertarianism, a strong military opposition to federal interference. Both

466
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 1: men insist that the historical identification of Thurmand with the

467
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: segregation is unfair. The issue then, is now, Thurman insists,

468
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: was states' rights, And there's a couple of things about that.

469
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,399
Speaker 1: First off, the discrepancy between his frat brother's story and

470
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 1: in his mom's story, I think is easy to reconcile.

471
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 1: I think his frat brother got the year wrong, which

472
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: is easy to do decades later. I think his grades

473
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 1: were shitty, probably in a sophomore year. And I think

474
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: his mom got in this internship because he needed summer

475
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: credit to not get kicked out of school, and she

476
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: pulled another favor. That's kind of my way of reconciling this.

477
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 1: But also there's a good documentary about Lee Atwater and

478
00:23:57,760 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: it interviews a lot of his friends at the time,

479
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 1: and a couple different people who knew him will say

480
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 1: variations are the same thing, which is that he didn't

481
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:07,679
Speaker 1: believe in conservatism. He was not ideologically. He could have

482
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 1: done work for either party and been just as happy,

483
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: but he saw there was more of a place for

484
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,679
Speaker 1: him in the Republican Party, in part because the Republican

485
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: Party at the start of the seventies is a party

486
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 1: in massive transition. One of the things that has happened

487
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: is that they have bled young people, and Lee has

488
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: an idea for getting young people to join the party,

489
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:33,439
Speaker 1: and there's just more of an opportunity because the party

490
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: is in flux, because they're realigning. He can find a

491
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: place for himself there, and the Democratic Party he can't

492
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: find as much of a place for himself there. It

493
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 1: would be harder to insert himself and make a name

494
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 1: for himself. And so some of the people who knew

495
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: Lee will argue that's the only reason why he gets

496
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,399
Speaker 1: involved in the Republican Party is that this is where

497
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: he can make a name for himself. And that's the

498
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 1: only thing he actually cares about, right, whatever the case,

499
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: you know, because in that version of events, season gives

500
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: a shit that strom Therman is an economic libertarian and

501
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: loves a strong military. He just again, this is a

502
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 1: guy he can because he's kind of disgraced and whatnot.

503
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:11,920
Speaker 1: I can get involved in it, and I've got an inn.

504
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: This is where my inn is. It'll be easiest for

505
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: me to succeed here.

506
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, he seems more interested in music and performance,

507
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 4: like like on like a personal level than like like politics,

508
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 4: even though he enjoys the process of it, and it

509
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:27,439
Speaker 4: seemed like he had saw more opportunity for yeah, innovative work,

510
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,360
Speaker 4: and we're having fun with the process in the Republican

511
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 4: Party at the time compared to the Democratic Party.

512
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:34,199
Speaker 1: Right, and the process is what he cares about. So

513
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 1: who gives a shit what the politics he's fighting for are?

514
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: You know?

515
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 4: We need we we need him, we need one of

516
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 4: him for the left.

517
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: We shared, we shared. Do you get that from some

518
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 1: of his friends who are like, can you if only

519
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:49,919
Speaker 1: he had picked it different the other party.

520
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 2: You know, we might have all had better off.

521
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 1: We're going to be looking for a Lee at Water

522
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: of the left. Yeah, that's what we need, Not a

523
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: fucking Joe Rogan, a Lee at Water, somebody who can

524
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: fucking play hardball at any rate.

525
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 2: Every version of the.

526
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: Lee Atwater story is consistent that at this time strom

527
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: Thurman caused you know, his time with Thurman causes him

528
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: to take his life seriously right, and he's a different

529
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: guy when he comes back to school. Nineteen seventy two,

530
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: the year after his internship is an election year, and

531
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: Atwater is determined to do his part to get Richard

532
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,120
Speaker 1: Nixon re elected. He realized that frat boys are Nixon's

533
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: natural candidacy, and he starts using frat parties and events

534
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: to sign up other young men to register as Republicans

535
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: and support Nixon. And this expands to he runs a

536
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: large get out the vote effort in South Carolina and

537
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 1: signs up twelve thousand people. This is a feat no

538
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: one gets close to equaling, No single person gets close

539
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: to equally in this period of time. Like Lee is

540
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 1: head and shoulders above anyone else in terms of like

541
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:51,959
Speaker 1: their ability to do that for Republicans. That's a lot

542
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: of people for an election at this time. Yeah, yes,

543
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. And this is what drives Lee

544
00:26:58,080 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 1: to do it in the first place. Right, it's not

545
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: dedication to Nixon. It's a desire to prove himself the best,

546
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 1: to get the most, to be to break the record. Right,

547
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:08,680
Speaker 1: I've signed up the most people. That's what is appealing

548
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: to him is it's a way he can win and

549
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: set himself up as special. His frat brother Carlos Sevans claimed,

550
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: I would say the thing that really made him different

551
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 1: was that he was incredibly competitive. He was very much

552
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: focused on winning at every level. Lee's performance was so

553
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: shocking and noteworthy that he earned the attention of the

554
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: Republican Party itself in nineteen seventy three. The next year,

555
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: as a result of this feat, he is appointed national

556
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: director of the College Republicans by party chairman George H. W.

557
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 2: Bush.

558
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:43,719
Speaker 1: This fucking guy. Yeah, yeah, and this is unfortunately h W.

559
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 1: Bush has picked his man well, because Lee is really

560
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 1: good at this. Like the number of registered like college

561
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: age Republicans increases massively.

562
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 3: He's organizing in polar After this period of time.

563
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: He is really good at this. He's going all around

564
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 1: different campuses, he's giving speeches. He is very good getting

565
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: young men. And again he's this very modern figure of

566
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: it's this mix of like crude humor and misogyny and

567
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: kind of veiled racism that he's using to like get

568
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: these young men be like no, no, no, you don't

569
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 1: want to like do this hippie bullshit and vote for

570
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: the left, like you want to, like your interests are

571
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: being served by the Republican Party as like a young man, right,

572
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: Like that's who you need to be with. And he's

573
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: very good at this. And that's the first couple of

574
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: years of Lee's political career is like reforming and turning

575
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: college Republicans into a major force, right. And there's a

576
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:39,479
Speaker 1: lot of butting heads. He has a lot of direct

577
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: competition and winds up in a lot of like ugly

578
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: fights with other people that he always wins. Anyone who

579
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: kind of challenges him for power, he beats the absolute

580
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: piss out of because he's just he's just extraordinarily good

581
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: at this sort of thing, which is it's just great.

582
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: You love to see this kind of shit. So, yeah,

583
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: before we discuss Lee's meteoric rise to what happens after

584
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: this point. I should peel back and give you all

585
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 1: a little refresher on how Republican party politics evolved from

586
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: the fifties to the start of the seventies, which is

587
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: the course of Lee's life to date. This is during

588
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: the period of time from when he is born to

589
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: when he starts being a political actor himself. Traditionally, Republicans,

590
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: the Party of Lincoln held the North and the South

591
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: was Democratic stronghold, and that had started changing dramatically in

592
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, which is often summarized as the

593
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: two parties basically switching platforms. The reality is a lot

594
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: more complex, but by the time FDR comes around, this

595
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: realignment is well underway, right, and this leaves Republicans in

596
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: a bind. Southern Democrats now felt alienated from the rest

597
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: of the party, but the main way to reach them

598
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: was with racism, and every year it got harder to

599
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: just say I hate black people and win an election.

600
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 1: Enter the Southern strategy. The gist of the Southern strategy

601
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 1: is that you advertise police that hurt black people and

602
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 1: maybe help white people. That part's not actually necessary without

603
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: saying that's why you're doing it now. There's a lot

604
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: of debate over how much of a role the Southern

605
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: strategy in particular plays and this post Civil Rights Act realignment,

606
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: because this starts in the early twentieth century, but it's

607
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: after the fifty seven Civil Rights Act that the realignment

608
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: really speeds up, and that like the Democratic Party really

609
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: loses the South, like that's when all that really happens.

610
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: And so it's you know, there's debate and valid debate

611
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: by political historians over like how much credit do we

612
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 1: give this the Southern strategy as opposed to these other

613
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: things that are going on at the time. The phrase

614
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 1: itself the Southern strategy gets popular after nineteen seventy, when

615
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: Nixon political strategist Kevin Phillips gives an interview for the

616
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: New York Times in which he says, among other things,

617
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: from now on, the Republicans are never going to get

618
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: more than ten to twenty percent of the Negro vote,

619
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: and they don't need any more than that. The party's

620
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: political future, he argued, was in making sure Southern whites

621
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 1: saw Democrats the party of black people. This would convince

622
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: them to switch parties and vote Republican. Right and again

623
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: We can debate how much of a factor this is

624
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: in the realignment and you know what happens to the

625
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: South and becoming a Republican stronghold, but it's certainly a

626
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: big part of it right totally. And Lee Atwater is

627
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: going to he's going to come start getting into politics

628
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: literally like a year or two after this. This Nixon

629
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 1: strategist has laid out the whole strategy on like in

630
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: this interview, and this is always going to be a

631
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: part of his understanding of how politics works. Right now,

632
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: one of his early political triumphs is when he's still

633
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: like with the College Republicans, there's a contest, there's an

634
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: election to see who's going to be chairman of the

635
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: College Republicans between Carl Rove and a guy named Robert Edgeworth.

636
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 2: Carl Rove, a lot.

637
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: Of you millennials will know he was George Bush's campaign

638
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: manager during Bush's campaigns, like he's the guy who got

639
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: w elected. He's famous as being a slide. Just look

640
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: at a picture of Carl Rove. He looks like he's

641
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: slithered in on a slime trail. No man has ever

642
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: looked more like a snail than Carl fucking Rove, like

643
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: touching him. Is his skin has the consistency of wet Plato.

644
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 1: You can just tell it by looking at a picture.

645
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 1: Sophie pulled the fucker up. I see him, You see him,

646
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: you see him. He's beautiful. He's beautiful, isn't he? I

647
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: got a face fulw Rove right now. Yeah, he's just

648
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: a majestic animal. Very smooth, very smooth skinned, and incredibly

649
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: smooth guy. Incredibly smooth guy just in terms of his

650
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 1: actual like uh texture, And to quote from an article

651
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: in PBS's website, quote, Rove lost, but Atwater mounted in

652
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: a peal of Edgeworth's victory. The contest was ultimately decided

653
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: by then Republican National Committee Chairman George H. W. Bush,

654
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 1: who gave the election to Rove. That was a pretty

655
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 1: early lesson for Karl Rove from less Joe Connison of

656
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: the Nation in Salon dot Com, that you could play

657
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: the hardest of hardball and get away with it. And

658
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: what Rove is Atwater is doing here is he just

659
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: starts challenging individual votes and he just keeps coming up

660
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: with and they're they're bullshit challenges like the other guy

661
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: had won. But he creates enough doubt that he's able

662
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: to create space for Bush to come in and just

663
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 1: decide the election. It's kind of a version of what

664
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court will do for W in two thousand. Yes,

665
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: I was just thinking the fact that this is how

666
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: Carl Rove gets his start in politics, and this is

667
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: a lot very similar to what happens to W in

668
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: two thousand. Not a coincidence. It's cool stuff. I'm glad

669
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: that started, right, Yeah, it's it's it's really depressing. So

670
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: Lee Atwater in the early to mid seventies is an

671
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 1: early a chief acolyte and practitioner of the Southern strategy.

672
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: You know, he's this huge figure in getting the College

673
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: Republicans organized, and he graduates from that to being a

674
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: campaign like he's like a he's like a mercenary campaign

675
00:33:56,320 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 1: strategist and you know eight or whatnot, Like you'll bring

676
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: him on if you need a dirty tricks guy. And

677
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: he proved himself incredibly good at that. One of his

678
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: first big jobs in nineteen seventy eight is working as

679
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: an advisor to Strom Thurman's re election campaign. It's here

680
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 1: he would notch his first major victory. The guy that

681
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: Thurman is running against is Charles Ravenel, who The Times

682
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: described as the then rising young star of Charleston politics.

683
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: Lee set himself to the task of strangling Ravenel's career

684
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: in the cradle. Through relentless digging, he came across a

685
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 1: quote from Ravenel in a small This is how he

686
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: describes it. He finds like an interview in a small

687
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:38,399
Speaker 1: weekly newspaper called Manhattan East, quoting Charles Ravenel as having

688
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: told a Park Avenue fundraiser that if elected, he'd be

689
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 1: the third senator from New York. You see, what's the

690
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: quote is him basically saying like, I know I'm running,

691
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: you know, in South Carolina, but if I get elected,

692
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: you know, if you donate and help me get elected,

693
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: I'll vote like a senator from New York. Right this

694
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: shouldn't be legal, right now. Ravenel denies ever saying this.

695
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: There's no actual evidence that he says this, and the

696
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:06,840
Speaker 1: rumor is that Atwater planted the story. He either bribed

697
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 1: a reporter or an editor to put an article in

698
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 1: this tiny paper with minimal circulation because it didn't need

699
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 1: to get read by people. There just need to be

700
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:16,839
Speaker 1: something he could grab and then like read out and

701
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: have put in attack ads. Right, yeah, he can turn

702
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 1: it into a problem, right, And this quote becomes the

703
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: single most repeated claim in Therman's attack ads against Ravenel.

704
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: And again, I can't tell you to a point of

705
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:31,479
Speaker 1: certainty that he planted that story, but if he did,

706
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: it wasn't the only time he did that in a

707
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight election, because that same year he also

708
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: consulted on a House of Representatives race for his old

709
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: friend Carol Campbell. This we talked about their friendship, they

710
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:48,479
Speaker 1: were buddies in high school, and their competition of fame, yeah,

711
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: of soup, fame of the Campbell's fortune. The competition is

712
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: a guy named Max Heller. At the time, Max Heller

713
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 1: was the mayor of Greenville. He was also Jewish and

714
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: the literal Holocaust survivor. Right It like, oh, yeah, this

715
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 1: is going in such a dark direction. Per the New

716
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 1: York Dimes, Atwater's accusers claimed that as an informal adviser

717
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: to Campbell, he passed secret polling information to Don Sprouse,

718
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: a third party candidate, who then used the information to

719
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: undermine Heller's campaign. Political analyst Alan Barron has revealed that

720
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: Campbell's poster in nineteen seventy eight, Arthur J. Finkelstein of Irvington,

721
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: New York told him that his data showed South Carolina

722
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 1: voters would reject a foreign born Jew who did not

723
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior. Marvin Chernoff, a

724
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 1: Democratic consultant in Columbia, claims that Atwater specifically told him

725
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 1: of passing Finkelstein's secret poll to Sprouse, and Atwater denies this.

726
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: But Sprouse is literally going up to Max Heller and

727
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 1: being like, do you believe in Jesus as our Lord

728
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: and Savior? And like saying like, I think at one

729
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: point you basically asked, like you did the Jews crucify Jesus?

730
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 1: Like it's really anti Semitic shit. And this is not

731
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: this is not Campbell, that's not the guy that Atwater's

732
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: working for. It's this third party who he is using

733
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: to be to put this racist stuff out so that

734
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: voters are thinking, well, this guy's not really a Christian, right,

735
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: And they're also they're not tying Campbell to the anti Semitism,

736
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,399
Speaker 1: so he gets the best of both worlds. It comes

737
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,840
Speaker 1: from a different origin, yeah, right, right, And this is

738
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 1: the way Atwater works, right, And you know he denies this,

739
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: there's significant evidence in a number of people who tie

740
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: him to this happening. Finkelstein and all of the Campbell's

741
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: campaign staffers deny the accusations too, but Campbell's campaign manager

742
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: has since admitted to a late night meeting with Sprouse

743
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: representatives in a Greenville parking lot before the election, and

744
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: the Finkelstein poll released by Campbell did ask voters to

745
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: compare how they would feel about a race between a

746
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: Jewish immigrant and a native South Carolinian. Oh that's good,

747
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 1: that's expert stuff. It's all this is all very very

748
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 1: Lee Atwater shit, right, And if true, these allegations are

749
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: just entirely consistent with what we've already seen from Lee

750
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 1: and high school. This is the guy who's making up

751
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 1: fake polls to swing elections. At Water is also engaging

752
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 1: it during this seventy eight election in more school uggery

753
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 1: on Thurman's behalf right to help the segregation of senators

754
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 1: shake off some of the bad pr from his constant

755
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: public racism. And this really shows you how smart at

756
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 1: Water is. His solution to the problem of Thurman being

757
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: a famous racist is very inative, it innovative. He has

758
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: campaign representatives announce that they're throwing all of their efforts

759
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: into getting out the black vote. Thurman goes so far

760
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 1: as to send his six year old daughter to an

761
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: integrated public school. So it looks like Thurman's really trying

762
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: to reform his image and get black people to vote

763
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: for him. But they know that's not going to work.

764
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: This is a feint. Right, Black people are not going

765
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: to vote for strom Thurman and at Water knows it.

766
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 1: But Ravenel's campaign, he knows, is going to panic when

767
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 1: they see Thurman going out for this vote, and they're

768
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: going to redouble their efforts to get the black get

769
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: the black pet which is already going to go to them. Yeah,

770
00:38:57,239 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 1: and that's that's number one. They're not focusing then on

771
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: the they're votes they need to get. And also it's

772
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 1: going to convince the white voters who is really who

773
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,879
Speaker 1: the primary amount of Atwaters pr is going out towards that, Well,

774
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:12,439
Speaker 1: this other guy is campaigning for black people. He only

775
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: doesn't care about white people. Right, That's the strategy and

776
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: it works perfectly. A Democratic Party operative at the time

777
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:22,919
Speaker 1: summarized the result the Ravenel campaign looked like it spent

778
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 1: all its time going after black voters. Well, swing voters

779
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 1: are turned off, they vote for Thurmond and he retains

780
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: his seat. So yeah, that's that's where we are at

781
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: at nineteen seventy eight. He's gotten his political career off

782
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: to a rousing start. Yeah, that's that's a smart operation.

783
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: It's a smart operation, evil but smart. Speaking of evil,

784
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: but smart. The sponsors of our podcast all very evil,

785
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,800
Speaker 1: but all geniuses. So why fight them, you know, just

786
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: let it happen to you if you can't beat him.

787
00:39:54,000 --> 00:40:03,280
Speaker 1: If you can't beat him, take their money and we're back.

788
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 1: So by nineteen eighty, Lee Adwater's got himself a reputation

789
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 1: not as a great political thinker or even as like

790
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: the best campaign strategist, but as a connoisseur.

791
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 2: Of dirty tricks.

792
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: And so wherever a Republican is in trouble, he is

793
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: increasingly the guy they call for, or increasingly the guy

794
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 1: the RNC sends their way to set off a couple

795
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 1: of bombs. Right, he is their secret weapon. Like, we

796
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: can deploy Lee anywhere we need. We need some extra help,

797
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: and we're willing to be unethical with it. Right, They

798
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: just like air drop him in. Yeah, parasue, he's the

799
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: eighty second Airborne of being a scummy political campaign manager.

800
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 4: Takes off his flight suit, has a black suit underneath, briefcase,

801
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 4: ready to.

802
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 2: Go, Ready to go.

803
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,879
Speaker 1: For example, in the nineteen eighty South Carolina congressional race,

804
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 1: he was brought in to do push polling for Representative

805
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: Floyd Spence. Spence was running against former state Senator Tom

806
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 1: Turnett Seed. That is a real name. I have really

807
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 1: got to focus on that. I have heard of Tom

808
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,840
Speaker 1: turnip Seed before. Yes, Tom, maybe it's a name you

809
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 1: can't forget. It's it's impossible to forget Tom turnip Seed.

810
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: Now as a child, when he's like a teenage boy,

811
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 1: Tom has depression and he has to undergo shock therapy

812
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:25,399
Speaker 1: like electroshock therapy for his depression, which is I think

813
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: probably was unnecessary at the time, but it's also a

814
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:30,919
Speaker 1: not uncommon treatment at the time and obviously not something

815
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: he has any choice in because he's a child. Not

816
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 1: that this should be stigmatizing, but I don't think it's

817
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:39,839
Speaker 1: often unnecessary when it's given in this period of time

818
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: for stuff like this. Tom had discussed this in public.

819
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: He had been open about the fact that as a

820
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: kid he struggled with mental health and he went through

821
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:48,320
Speaker 1: this kind of treatment.

822
00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 2: This is the thing he.

823
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: Talked about because he, admirably I think, wanted to destigmatize

824
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:56,279
Speaker 1: mental health treatment, and unfortunately this is going to make

825
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: him incredibly vulnerable to Lee at Water. So well, at

826
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: the same time that Lee picks up on the fact

827
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: that Tom's gone undergone electroshock therapy, he finds out that

828
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: Tom is a member of the N double ACP and

829
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 1: has been a civil rights activist.

830
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 4: So he started off as a segregationist and then saw

831
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:16,359
Speaker 4: the light.

832
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:19,760
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, he's been he's been. He's been good

833
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: for a while on it. And Lee is going to

834
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: frame this as he's a radical leftist black supremacist, right.

835
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: He gets anonymous guys to do push calls you know

836
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: where they're or push polls where they're saying, are you

837
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:35,720
Speaker 1: are you comfortable voting for like a man with ties

838
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,760
Speaker 1: to the N DOUBLEACP who's like a radical civil rights

839
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:42,359
Speaker 1: activist And at the same time, are you comfortable voting

840
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: for a man who received electroshock therapy for his severe

841
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,879
Speaker 1: mental illness? Yeah? Okay, all right, buddy, On its own,

842
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: that's not enough to spin the election because push polls

843
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: only reached so many people. So he's got a question

844
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,919
Speaker 1: of how do I launder the electroshock therapy thing into

845
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,760
Speaker 1: becoming a central campaign issue with without looking evil, looking

846
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to do it? And Atwater finds a solution.

847
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 1: He finds a couple of reporters. He's giving a press conference,

848
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: and he's talking with a couple of reporters before the

849
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: press conference and he brings up the electroshock therapy thing

850
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 1: in order to be like, basically say you should ask

851
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 1: me about this, Right, He's planting the question in their heads, right,

852
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 1: So they ask him about this, and you know, he

853
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: gives an answer and they ask him something else about

854
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 1: Tom turnip seed, and he responds being like, I'm not

855
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 1: going to respond to allegations made by someone who's been

856
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: cooked up to jumper cables, right, Like that's the way

857
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 1: he frames this, Like he gets this brought up so

858
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: that he can say I don't have to answer questions

859
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: from a man who got hooked up to the jumper.

860
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 4: He has this retort pre planned and this was all

861
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 4: a scheme just to say that.

862
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: He sets up the questions so that he can give

863
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: that answer, right, So turnip seed loses and Lee's dirty

864
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: tricks are often given some of the blame. Now, when

865
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: I was doing my research, I was cure as to

866
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,239
Speaker 1: how Atwater planted questions with the press, and it seems

867
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: like he had a few different ways of doing this.

868
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 1: But what surprised me was that he would openly acknowledge

869
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: to the journalists that he used this way after doing so.

870
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: This is a quote from an article by Eleanor Randolph

871
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: in The New York Times. Lee Bandy, a respected political

872
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: journalist for the state newspaper in South Carolina, recalled the

873
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 1: time he accidentally helped one of mister Atwater's candidates, the

874
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: former governor Ronald Reagan of California. Later, mister Bandy recalled

875
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: that Lee laughed and said, Bandy, you got used. So

876
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: he celebrates this. He likes being like he wants you

877
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 1: to know when he's done this. For one thing, he's

878
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: proud of it. Right, It's like you can't help himself.

879
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 2: No.

880
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,879
Speaker 1: Now, Lee's main gig in nineteen eighty was working as

881
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 1: the Southern regional coordinator for Ronald Reagan's nineteen eighty presidential campaign.

882
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: At this point, the Southern strategy had been named for

883
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: at least a decade and practiced for much longer, but

884
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,760
Speaker 1: Lee had notes, and he suggested a revision his bosses.

885
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 1: After getting nominated, he urged Reagan should start his campaign

886
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, Mississippi. And before this, by the way, he

887
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: does like a fuck job on Bush, like he's helping

888
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: Reagan kind of win the primary against Bush, which is

889
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: going to like piss off Bush a bit, but it's

890
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: just not as interesting as his crimes against less deserving people.

891
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it makes sense because Reagan's a performer.

892
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: So Reagan's a performer, right, So after getting nominated, he

893
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 1: urges Reagan to start his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. And

894
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: if you look at videos from this, it's just white

895
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 1: people in the crowd, right, And his point to doing

896
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: this is to like he's he's basically got a revamped

897
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: version of the Southern strategy. Writing for The Nation, Antonio

898
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: d Ambrosio describes this as a not so subtle attempt

899
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: to make race the central part of Reagan's presidential bid.

900
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 2: It worked.

901
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: In an article for the Othering and Belonging Institute at Berkeley,

902
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: John Powell goes into more detail. They did so revamped

903
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:02,799
Speaker 1: the sub strategy, but not only by criticizing federal civil

904
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,720
Speaker 1: rights legislation and impugning federal desegregation orders, but by railing

905
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 1: against bussing government dependency and welfare, or by espousing such

906
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: seemingly race neutral ideas as states rights and local control

907
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 1: as signals to preserve Jim Croll from federal intrusion. Even

908
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 1: without making explicitly racist comments, the dog whistle was clearly

909
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 1: heard by those who were its intended recipients. These strategies, combined,

910
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 1: called the Southern Strategy, was designed to create a national

911
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: Republican majority built in part on white resentment. The dog

912
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 1: whistle worked because it was heard and understood by the

913
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: conservative white base, yet not by more moderate and northern whites.

914
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: It meant activating racial resentment for one part of the

915
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 1: population while denying that fact to the rest. The Southern

916
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,839
Speaker 1: strategy married the conservative politics antipathy to marginal tax rates

917
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: and civil rights, labor and environmental regulations to corporate entities

918
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: with culturally conservative antipathy towards civil rights, women's rights, and

919
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: gay rights.

920
00:46:57,600 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 4: And we've been stuck here ever since.

921
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a huge success, and to be clear,

922
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 1: I'm not giving Leetwinter all of the credit for Reagan winning.

923
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: He doesn't deserve it. He's not the main guy leading

924
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: the campaign, but he has a significant role in the South,

925
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: and he is He's a big part of He convinces

926
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,760
Speaker 1: him to do his you know, to do that first

927
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:23,799
Speaker 1: big meeting in Mississippi. He has a major role in

928
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 1: shaping how Reagan campaigns, right, you know. And it's worth

929
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 1: debating how integral was he to Reagan's ultimate victory in

930
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 1: his first term, but people within the party certainly saw

931
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: him as having played a significant role because he gets

932
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: a job in the White House, right, and he basically

933
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: has to have one created for him. And there is

934
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: fighting against this because a lot of people don't trust

935
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 1: him because he's the dirty tricks guy. Yeah, why would

936
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: you want the dirty tricks kind of right? Yes, right,

937
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:50,839
Speaker 1: But they create it basically an entry level position for him,

938
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: where he's like White House deputy political director, Right, that's

939
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: the job that he gets under Reagan. Now in nineteen eighty.

940
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 4: One, he's one of like the one of like the

941
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 4: supporting characters en v.

942
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: Yes, he's but he's also kind of a mastermind behind

943
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 1: the seams because he starts scheming as soon as he

944
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 1: gets into this job, we'll talk about that. But in

945
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, just as he's settling into the White House,

946
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,880
Speaker 1: a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University named Alex

947
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: Lamis reaches out to Lee. Lamis is one of the

948
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: first people outside of the Republican Party who noticed that

949
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:29,319
Speaker 1: Atwater is not just another consultant. Well, and he get

950
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: his hands dirty, but somebody's changing the way the game

951
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: is played. He's someone with like a generational understanding of

952
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 1: how politics works, that is shifting the way politics is done.

953
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, by playing the game the way he does, he's

954
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 4: actually changing the fundamental rules of the game.

955
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, exactly. And this guy Lambis is one of

956
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: the first people to realize it. And he interviews Lee

957
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: and it's kind of part on and part off the record,

958
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 1: but all of it's recorded, and this recording gives us

959
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: a fascinating insight. This is the thing that's famous about

960
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: Lee is this quote of him explaining the Southern strategy

961
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: in this interview. If you've ever read about it, you've

962
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: read that quote of Lee Atwater. And for a long

963
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 1: time people didn't know is this really Lee or not?

964
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: Because like the name kind of was out there. This

965
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:19,560
Speaker 1: interviewer had basically claimed it, but like no one was proof.

966
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 1: There was no proof until fairly recently when the audio

967
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: got released and now you can hear him, which we're

968
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,240
Speaker 1: going to hear in a little bit. But the interview

969
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,800
Speaker 1: gives like a really fascinating insight into Lee's expectations on

970
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 1: the future of progress and how he talked about stuff

971
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 1: like racism in politics. He asserts in the interview, my

972
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,479
Speaker 1: generation will be the first generation of Southerners that won't

973
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:44,279
Speaker 1: be prejudiced, and this seems rich coming from a guy

974
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: who repeatedly campaigned on race.

975
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 2: Right.

976
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Attwater's argument is that no, no, I got

977
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: I did a lot to get guys like Thurman to

978
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: shut up about the Civil Rights and Voting Act and

979
00:49:54,600 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: just focus on fiscal conservatism and cutting social programs R right. Yeah.

980
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: His argument is that the Southern strategy is actually a

981
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:08,239
Speaker 1: step forward because you're hiding the racism, right, And there's

982
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: a degree of I don't know if it's shame or

983
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: guilt that he has when talking about how the Southern

984
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 1: strategy works, because Lambis basically asked him, like, how do

985
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 1: you square this belief that Southerners aren't racist with this

986
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: whole strategy based on racism, and Lee gives this answer

987
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:27,720
Speaker 1: that's going to become super famous, one of those famous

988
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:30,360
Speaker 1: quotes in the history of US politics. And he prefaces

989
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:32,440
Speaker 1: it by saying, now, y'all aren't going to quote me

990
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: on this, right Jesus when they assure they aren't, and

991
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:39,840
Speaker 1: they kind of don't. But anyway, here's what he says.

992
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:41,840
Speaker 1: We're gonna play you the famous quote. This is the

993
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: actual audio of me saying it. There's a good chance

994
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 1: you've read this, but yeah.

995
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 7: Yeah, Now y'all want to quote me on You start

996
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 7: out in nineteen fifty four by saying nigger, nigger, nigger.

997
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 7: By nineteen sixty eight, keeps saying nigger that hurts your

998
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:01,280
Speaker 7: backbar So you say stuff like a fourth plus stakes

999
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 7: lights and all that stuff, and you get so abstract.

1000
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:08,359
Speaker 7: Now you're talking about cutting taxes and all of these

1001
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 7: things you're talking about are totally economic things. In the

1002
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 7: by product, maya blacks get hurt worse than whit and

1003
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 7: subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that,

1004
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 7: but I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract,

1005
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 7: and that coded that we're doing the way with the

1006
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 7: racial problem one way or the other, you follow me.

1007
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's truly. It's interesting though that

1008
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: he kind of seems like he has to believe that

1009
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 1: that like this awful racist strategy just because like we're

1010
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 1: doing away with more racism than we're embracing, right.

1011
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:46,879
Speaker 4: I mean, like does he view this as like a

1012
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 4: form of like progress in a way? I mean, I

1013
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:50,839
Speaker 4: guess he kind of does. That's part of what he's

1014
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 4: outlying in the clip. Yeah, the effect is still the same, right.

1015
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 1: And that's the and the you know, it's an open question.

1016
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:05,000
Speaker 1: Does he really think that he's actually reduced racism at all?

1017
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: Does he really think that this is better in that way?

1018
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: Or is this just what he wants this academic to

1019
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: believe because he doesn't want to have the he doesn't

1020
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:16,040
Speaker 1: want to have the legacy of a racist.

1021
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 7: Right.

1022
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:20,280
Speaker 1: Well, at least he wasn't quoted on that. At least

1023
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: he wasn't quoted on that until now. And yeah, I

1024
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:26,919
Speaker 1: think that's a good point to end. We'll be doing

1025
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 1: three parts this week, so you'll get them all this week, folks.

1026
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: An next episode on Thursday, Garrison, anything you want to

1027
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 1: plug before we close out for the day.

1028
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:40,200
Speaker 4: Well, our show, it could happen here, which you were,

1029
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 4: It's right, so on Robert and our weekly news round

1030
00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:45,919
Speaker 4: up when it could happen here called Executive Disorder, which

1031
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 4: now has its own special feed which you've been working

1032
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 4: on for a long time. A whole bunch of different

1033
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 4: series that myself, James Stout and Robert has put together

1034
00:52:56,560 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 4: have their own feeds on a candept here now, so

1035
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 4: it's easier to find episodes all in the same in

1036
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 4: following the same story, like Mean Markop City, and also

1037
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:10,320
Speaker 4: Executive Disorder. So yeah, that's that's the main thing. Also,

1038
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 4: I occasionally tell tell a mix of humor and jokes

1039
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 4: based on terrorism at a at a at a bar

1040
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:22,239
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn that you can if you know, you know,

1041
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 4: if you're if you're a gay person in Brooklyn, you

1042
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 4: can figure it out.

1043
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: Oh there you go go find Garrison in Brooklyn. Or

1044
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 1: maybe don't do that, you know, do something, do something.

1045
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:37,239
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, even if it's bad, as long as you're

1046
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:39,840
Speaker 1: taking action, that's all that matters.

1047
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 4: I feel like you're really internalizing uh huh, Lie's uh's

1048
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 4: water strategy.

1049
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:48,960
Speaker 1: You heard as many people as you want as long

1050
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: as you're doing something anything to quiet the sound of

1051
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:56,280
Speaker 1: your brothers screaming as he boils alive in oil. Christ.

1052
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:59,839
Speaker 1: You do have to keep remembering that every every one

1053
00:53:59,880 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 1: of these things he's doing the like whatever you look

1054
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:05,719
Speaker 1: at Lee, he's just like smiling blankly at you. In

1055
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 1: the You have to imagine in his head the only

1056
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:10,840
Speaker 1: sound going on instead of static, it's just his brother's

1057
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:14,920
Speaker 1: screaming as he dies. This sucks, good stuff.

1058
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:18,360
Speaker 3: I am excited that at the bottom of this page

1059
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 3: in the script where we're gonna get some we're gonna

1060
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 3: get some black maniform and stone.

1061
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, you did call it Garrison. Roger

1062
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: Stone is a key part of this story. Yes, yes,

1063
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:33,840
Speaker 1: all that and more things to look forward to my

1064
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: friends part trace.

1065
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:39,479
Speaker 2: All right, everybody get off the Internet now.

1066
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 5: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1067
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 5: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1068
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 5: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1069
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:55,239
Speaker 5: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1070
00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube.

1071
00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:00,760
Speaker 5: New episodes every Wednesday and Friday.

1072
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 1: Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com. Slash at behind

1073
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: the bastards