WEBVTT - Brian Klaas & Matt Tyrnauer 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.200 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.200 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:08.720 today's best minds. 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:10.880 We're on vacation, but that doesn't mean we don't have 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.040 a great show for you Today. Director Matt Tiradaur examines 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.400 how we see Gourvidal through today's political lens. But first 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.439 we'll talk to author Broadclass about how we fortify ourselves 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:21.440 for Trump two point zero. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.960 Welcome to Fast Politics. 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.200 Brian, Yeah, thanks for having me back. 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:27.639 I feel like it's one of those moments that you 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:29.920 have written about so much. 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:31.040 Explain to us. 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:35.160 There's so many headwinds and tailwinds and so many unknowns. 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:36.680 Explain to us where we are. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:38.880 Yeah, I mean, I think there's sort of a couple 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.280 parallel stories happening, and the ones that I'm paying the 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:48.200 most attention to first is the sort of absolute meltdown 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:53.320 of norms and guardrails where stories that used to be 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:58.320 five alarm fires in twenty sixteen are now just simply 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.520 shrugged off before the day is even halfway done, right, 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.240 I mean, there's so many crazy appointees who would have 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.160 instantly been done out of arrival in early twenty seventeen 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.720 that now are likely to be confirmed. And I think that, 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.800 along with the politicization of rule of law, is what 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.400 people like me had been warning about would happen if 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.119 Trump returned to the White House, and I think we're 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.639 on the sort of precipice of that happening. The second 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.600 story that I'm looking at is how the Democrats are 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.039 responding to their loss and the sort of ways in 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.160 which the party is trying to think about not just 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.880 how to reposition itself, but how to end up being 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.240 an effective tool at blocking the worst machinations of the 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.680 Trump machine. And I think that's the sort of calm 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.320 before the storm as we all get ready for January twentieth. 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.959 You know, it's interesting because last time there was a 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.640 feeling in the mainstream media that Trump was a sort 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:47.960 of five al on fire. But in the end Democrats 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:53.760 were able to block a lot of Trump's more heinous instincts, 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.400 so you know, he didn't end up deporting as many 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.360 people as Obama did. I mean, certainly there was a 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.520 terrible payandemic and a million people died, and they did, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.040 in fact have refrigerated trucks in front of hospitals, but 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.280 some of his worst instincts, he was not able to 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.079 engage in. It feels like that's not going to happen 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:12.600 this time. 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:13.040 Yeah. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:14.800 So I think there's two ways that responded that. The 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.840 first is that I separate out of my mind the 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.000 worst of Trump's behavior and the threat he poses to 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.000 the country into two camps. One of them is policy 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.720 that's reversible. Right, So, this is the kind of stuff 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.799 where you pass legislation and then if the Democrats win 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.400 in a couple of years, they could undo it. Right now, 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.639 that stuff is very bad, potentially, like a lot of 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.079 the policies he's proposing are awful, but it is reversible. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.480 The stuff that's not reversible is the destruction of democracy 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.360 and the erosion of democratic institutions and norms, which can 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:46.760 take literally generations. 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:47.280 To rebuild, if at all. 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.080 And so I think the thing that the mainstream media's characterization, 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.440 as you put it before, of the sort of first 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.480 Trump presidency as not as bad is that, yes, some 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.359 of the policy stuff was blocked, but the erosion of 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.480 americans civic life, the erosion of democratic norms, it's so 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.160 clear that that has happened for precisely the reasons I'm 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.160 talking about where we're now thinking about putting, you know, 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.720 a person in charge of health who's an anti vaccine, 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.760 person who beheaded a whale. I mean, you have aspects 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.200 where you have sexual offenders up and down the list 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:21.680 of nominees, and that's viewed as something that's not just 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.520 acceptable but actually being cheerleaded by a lot of the 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.760 Republicans in power. And the sort of just normalization of 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.640 attacks on the press and talking about shutting down news organizations, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.200 the politicization of rule of law, etc. So what I 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.400 worry about is that the second term is going to 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:39.480 have both of those things. It's going to have a 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.640 lot more terrible policy and a lot worse violations of 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.920 democratic norms and attacks on institutions. So you know, I 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.640 think that there is a way in which Democrats can 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:51.760 try to block some of this stuff because of the 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.320 really narrow majority the Republicans have in the House, for example, 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.600 But you know, they're prepared this time. The agenda is 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.760 much more set, and I think I think that Trump 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.800 also is not going to be as hesitant with his 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.560 instincts in power, because I think he thinks that his 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.800 first term was was sort of hampered by the fact 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:09.920 that he didn't go far enough. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.720 So what do you say to people who say, and 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:15.680 I am one of these people, and I think I'm 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.320 probably wrong because I've decided that optimism has been my 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:24.000 achilles heel when it comes to political prognosticating. I mean, 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.400 not prognosticating, but because we don't want to prognosticate here. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.000 But what do you think about the idea that somehow 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.040 public markets will provide some kind of check on Trump? 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:35.200 Well, I think that the problem with that is that 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.840 there's a lot of authoritarian regimes that make a lot 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:39.520 of money. What we're talking about, and this is where 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.720 I think it's important to sort of highlight what people 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:43.400 like me are talking about when they say that a 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.520 country is going to become, you know, semi authoritarian or 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.120 lose its democratic institutions. I'm not envisioning, you know, a 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.600 situation like a lot of people picture where you have, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.640 you know, martial law and tanks rumbling through the streets 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:57.960 and all this type of stuff. When I went to 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.720 when I've gone to authoritarian regimes and lived in regimes 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.440 to study them, what you realize that life sort of 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.800 goes on. It's just that people don't have a meaningful say, 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.919 in politics anymore. Right, So what's the big difference is 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.520 the reversibility and markets are able to adapt to this 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.760 as long as they have some level of predictability, so 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.360 you have you know, obviously it's terrible, right, I'm not 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.839 trying to sugarcuat authoritarians. It's a terrible, terrible system that 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.560 stifle's freedom of expression, crushes rights, is really bad for 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.040 the economy over the long term, is terrible for innovation, 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.159 and is awful for freedom. But at the same time, like, 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.080 there are a lot of companies that I think would 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.640 adapt to a semi authoritarian regime in which you know, 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.720 you can't criticize the presidents as openly, or judges are 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:49.000 simply overtly partisan and going after political enemies. I think 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.080 there's a lot of companies that would still make money 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.040 in that situation. And so while I think that your 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.920 rights in terms of things like there might be pushback 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.760 on you know, millions of people getting deported if it 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.520 was going to hurt GDP and hurt the labor force 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.200 and so on, that's slightly different from you know, how 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.120 much is Wall Street going to react if you have 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.720 judges and henchman from the FBI who are going after 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.320 Liz Cheney, and I suspect the answer is probably not 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.320 that much, which is the sort of dark side of 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.159 how capitalism and authoritarianism can sometimes work together. 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:26.480 I'm more thinking about, Like, again, the Liz Cheney stuff 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:28.280 is for sure coming down the pike. 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.680 That seems inevitable. The thing that gives me pause. 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:35.920 Here is the idea that actually America has done this. 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.279 I mean, you know, I am a person whose grandfather 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.400 was jailed by a Republican president for his political beliefs, 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:45.640 so you know, I wasn't born yet because I'm only 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.560 thirty six. But the idea that America is a benevolent force. 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:52.240 First of all, if you live in the Middle East, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.280 that's never been true. But even like, the idea that 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:59.440 America's a benevolent force to Americans is a pretty new ideology, 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:00.200 you know. 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.320 I think it's a very worrying development. 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.200 It also strikes me that, I mean, you even see 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.040 in this admin, in this coming admen, that they are 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.480 going to go for laws that are still in the books, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.160 right like Jim Crow era laws, Victorian era laws. This 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:19.280 is the America we know. Not to be too Synegalue. 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:20.880 I think there is a truth to that, which is 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.640 that there's a way in which the past is romanticized. Right, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.040 So like when we talk about like the sort of 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.160 America of the past, we tend to think about many 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:31.760 of the good bits. We talk about d Day, but 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:33.880 we don't talk about Jim Crow, or we talk about 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.320 you know, Abraham Lincoln. But you know, there's a lot 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.200 of stuff in the aftermath of the Civil War that 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.240 was disastrously terrible for a significant part of the country, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.640 particularly minorities. And so I think this is the kind 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.040 of stuff where, yes, there is a romanticization of the past. 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.000 What I will say though, is that much of American 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.920 institutions in the modern era have been broadly speaking democratic, 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.080 And what we talk about when we study, you know, 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.840 the breakdown of democracy and so on, is really about 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.880 institutions which base means are you able to have fair 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.040 rules in politics such that if a different party comes 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.640 to power, can they undo what has been done before? 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:11.680 And I think that's the stuff that's really scary. That's 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.440 the stuff that you see in Hungary and Poland and 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.320 the Philippines and Russia over time and so on, where 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.600 it's like, at some point it becomes what is deemed 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.200 as you know, competitive authoritarianism, where there's sort of an 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:28.200 aspect of competition where parties do compete, but basically the 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:29.280 field is not level. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.480 In other words, it's a rigged game. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.160 Which is what's happening right now in North Carolina. Right 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.040 North Carolina, the governor is about to take over. It's 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.360 another democratic governor. The state House is freaking out, and 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.040 so they're trying to pass non democratic norms. I just 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.600 wonder how much this was cooking under the scenes before Trump. 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.400 Isn't this in some ways like the work of John 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.000 Roberts as much as anyone. 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.360 Yeah, I mean, so you have to have a certain 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.920 level of permissive factors before. 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:00.840 He gets destroyed. 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.880 Right, So in other words, you know, Trump didn't create 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.280 the situation where US democracy was vulnerable, but he is 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:08.800 the person who's likely to burn. 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.320 It down exploit it. Yeah. 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.640 Yeah, There's so many things that American democracy has obvious 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.160 need of reform. I mean, jerrymandering is a classic one. 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:16.600 You have an. 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.440 Aspect with the electoral college, which is unique in modern democracies, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:22.680 where you have a person who gets fewer votes wins 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.640 the presidency. You have the Supreme Court justices in a 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.720 political appointment for life that doesn't exist in most other democracies. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.040 You have the role of money in politics, right, which 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.559 is again the US is a major outlier. So all 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.480 of these things are areas where the US is like 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:42.120 completely different from most quote unquote normal, advanced democracies. And 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:44.960 what Trump is doing is he's exploiting this such that 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.920 you could have potentially minority rule for the foreseeable future, 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.880 where even if Republicans lose future elections, their policies might 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.800 continue because, for example, the Supreme Court knocks them down. 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.920 Or you could have Trump overtly committing crime and not 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.640 be held accountable because his Supreme Court, which he largely appointed, 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.200 is saying he's immune as law as an official conduct. 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:07.400 Right. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.440 This is the kind of stuff where the danger zones 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.640 are created by the sort of breakdown of norms and 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.880 these sort of steady slow shifts, and then Trump is 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.320 the person who takes advantage of it and knocks democracy 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.720 down in a much bigger way in a shorter period 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:25.959 of time. So I agree with your characterization, like there's 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.560 a huge number of vulnerabilities, but I still think that 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.160 like if Hillary Clinton had won, or if Kamala Harris 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.760 had won, that those vulnerabilities would sort of stumble on 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.160 weak but not destroyed. And now there's I think there's 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:38.839 a risk of some of. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:40.120 The institutions getting destroyed. 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.360 If you are a Democrat in the Senate right now, 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.560 what would you say they should be doing? Because I'm 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:52.040 seeing Klobashar do a fucking bill about the ball devil. 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.200 Yeah, yeah, I think you know, this is the kind 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.840 of stuff where you need to have both moral clarity 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.560 that you don't get how because you lost an election 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:03.840 and you need to pick your battles. And I think 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.320 this is the kind of stuff where despite the fact 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.480 that I, like you, have been at times overly optimistic, 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.400 I still believe that there's a significant majority of Americans 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.440 who look at someone, you know, if they knew about 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:18.600 Pete Hegseth's police report or his past misconduct, that they 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.439 would care about that, right, And like, this is the 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:22.920 kind of stuff where you have to you have to 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:24.760 draw lines in the sand and say these people are 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.640 not fit for for office. It's not a question of, 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.120 you know, whether we agree with their policies or not. 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.360 It's that how can we not agree that this person 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.080 is not qualified? To lead the most advanced, you know, 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.880 fighting force the world has ever seen. And it's the 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.319 kind of thing where I think the Senate Democrats really 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.280 need to get together with one voice and not engage 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.160 in sort of overtures of fake by partisanship like the 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.920 Bald Eagle Bill, but really really be a clear and 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:55.760 sort of selective fighting force that actually goes against the 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.520 worst of the Trump machinations. But this does require and 0:11:58.600 --> 0:11:59.959 this is something that I think needs to be different 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.240 from the first term. It's something I've learned personally. You 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.040 don't need to chase every single you know, shiny object, 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.160 and you know, I simultaneously think that it's important to 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.920 highlight a lot of the crazy behavior that Trump does 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.600 that's disqualifying. I also think that you have a case 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.000 where you can only get so much of your message 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.720 through and so the Senate Democrats really need to focus 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:26.120 on a couple things that are really really important and 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:27.680 that they're going to win on politically. 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.560 Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. That is the flooding 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:33.280 the zone, right, They've fled the zone. 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.440 They make so much outrage that you can't keep the 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:41.000 outrages straight. And the reality is right now, it's his inauguration, 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.560 then it will be these cabinet hearings. Then it will 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.000 be something else, right, I mean, so here's another question, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:53.079 and again remembering our optimism problem, you and I, there 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.040 is a CR, a continuing resolution. It is sitting on 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.800 the desk of Mike Johnson to pork Laiden bill. It 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.679 is also the only chance to keep the government funded. 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:10.000 It expires in March. Elon is mad about it. The 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.320 Vague is furious. Neither of those guys work in the 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.200 federal government in any capacity. But it does show that 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.360 Donald Trump has many, many, many people who put him 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:25.000 in office, all of whom are going to want their goodies. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.040 Yeah, you know, I think this is an issue though 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.360 where what's going to happen is what happens to most 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.120 populist parties who are actually given the chance to govern. 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.480 Is that what you say in a tweet, as Elon Musk, 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.880 he knows very little about how the government actually operates 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:42.120 or what you promise on a campaign is very different 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:44.560 from what actually happens when you govern. And you know, 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.680 I think at some point reality is going to bite 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.440 here when these people talk about two trillion dollars of cuts. 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.040 I mean, the delusional. Right, It's like simple basic math 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:53.680 that if you were going to do this, it would 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.839 require you to do some of the most politically unpopular 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.480 things in a century. And so maybe they do it 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:00.679 and it blows up in their face, or maybe it 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.439 just becomes another one of those empty promises. But I 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.439 think this is the kind of stuff where at some point, 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.480 you know, I am of two minds on this, because 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.600 the Democrats can only block so much. And I think 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.680 that if you end up having a situation where the 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.760 Republicans try to govern and catastrophically fail at doing so, 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.840 that over the long term, that might actually be beneficial 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.200 for American democracy to show people this truly does not work. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.000 And that's a ten million dollar question. 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:28.960 Yeah, And the question is how much harm is going 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:30.800 to have to happen in the meantime. Right, That's the 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.160 debate I think Democrats are having is that if you 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.320 block everything, you might muddle through and you might still 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:37.240 get blamed for everything. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.720 You can't block everything. The good news is that's a 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:41.480 false choice. 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:41.800 Right. 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.560 They don't control the House, they don't control the Senate. 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.680 There is no blocking, right. I mean, that's the other 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:51.200 thing is like there, it's sort of just a triage situation. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.680 What I'm wondering when we talk about. 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.280 Like, you know, the thing that I'm so struck by 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.720 is they want to cut the federal government but don't 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:05.400 exist right because Republicans want to keep these tax cuts 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:06.080 for billionaires. 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.480 I mean, you know, they could just let the tax 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.560 cuts expire. I mean nobody is talking about that. Why 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:12.720 is nobody talking about that? 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:14.520 Well, this is the kind of stuff where like the 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.880 Democrats have a really easy and actually like good form 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.000 of populism that they can run on, right, that they 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.040 can actually highlight what exists in this moment for most 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:28.080 Americans is anger at elites and also grotesque inequality that 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.120 people are really fed up about, right, And so I 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.000 think it's kind of one of these things where you 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.120 have this bizarre situation where a series of ultra rich 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.840 people are sort of self dealing, right, whether it's through corruption, 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.040 funneling stuff to the Trump organization and trying to make 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.640 money off government, or Elon Musk trying to get you know, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.240 much better advantages and also doubling his wealth after the election. 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.840 Apparently all this type of stuff at the same time that, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.280 as you say, they're trying to cut taxes for rich people, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.720 and you know, the Democrats have to focus on the 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.200 sort of core aspects of this that this is something 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.440 where you know, the idea that the Republicans are seeing 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.240 to be the ones burning down the system, when in 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.920 fact they're basically entrenching this system of inequality that's gotten 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.280 steadily worse since the nineteen eighties is a failure of 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.360 political messaging. And so, you know, I think that's the 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.920 issue where Democrats really need to dig their heels on 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.960 what is truly important and pick three or four messages 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.200 and just have the discipline to hammer them over and 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.760 over and over. And Trump, for all of his failings, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:26.800 the one thing he's very good at is getting through 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.440 to people what he stands for. And he's always been 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.680 the immigration guy, and like Democrats or Republicans know that 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:34.800 about him, no matter all the crazy things he says. 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.160 And I think there's a lot of voters who don't 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.800 know what the Democratic Party at its core stands for 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.160 right now. And that's the problem. 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.800 Well, and Democrats did a very stupid thing by not 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.280 elevating AOC who is their best messenger. But instead of 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.240 putting Jerry Connolly in the leadership seventy six year old 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:57.000 through cancer patient Jerry Connolly, which as much as we look, 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.160 I mean, my husband had cancer. This is you know, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.320 a real thing that people can get through. But it's 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.760 still like here we are in a desperate moment in 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.080 American life where Democrats have told us that we are 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.760 on the precipice and they're just elevating their fracts. 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:16.680 You can't really get away with as a party arguing 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.200 that this is an existential threat to democracy, which I 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.359 think it is, and then focus your time on like 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.280 bald eagle bills and having old guard figures that don't 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.080 fire anybody up run these committees. I mean, you have 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:28.800 to fight. You have to if you say that this 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:30.880 is an existential threat to democracy and then you sort 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.399 of don't fight. It's like, well, hold on, there's one 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.359 of these two things is wrong, and either your behavior 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.560 is wrong or your diagnosis of the problem is wrong. 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:39.800 And I the other false choice that I think is 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.320 being put before the discourse as it were around the Democrats' 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.520 response to the election is like was this bad or 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:47.680 was this not so bad? 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:47.920 Right? 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.399 Well, okay, it was a narrow loss in the in 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.120 the sort of popular vote that doesn't mean you shouldn't 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.000 be smart about politics right like it means it doesn't. 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.480 It doesn't mean change nothing. And I think what's clear 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.840 about the Democrats is there, Chris, I think rightly as 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.560 a party that mostly is governed by older people and 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.480 you know, doesn't have a lot of really sharp talent 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.359 that is, you know, super super visible on a daily basis, I. 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.720 Think that's wrong. I would say they have a lot 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.560 of talent. They're just I mean, even Hakem. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:20.920 I said I think perceived. Though I said perceived. I 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.000 think there's tons of talents in the Democratic bench. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:23.560 I'm thinking that. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.320 I'm not sure that's right though, because I think I mean, 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.760 I think that, look, there's a there's a gerontocracy that 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.720 is desperately trying to grasp on and keep those young 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.760 people down. But fundamentally the leadership is still significantly younger. 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.399 I mean, Mike Johnson is young, but Mike Johnson is 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.479 It may not even be able to pass this CR 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.400 but I do agree that there is for sure. I mean, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.920 whatever they're doing, this is not the way to do it. 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.040 I really appreciate you coming on. I hope you will 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.000 come back and we can talk about this more. 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:59.760 Yeah, sounds great. 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.560 Hours the director of Carvil Witting is Everything and Where's 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:04.359 by Roy Cohne. 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:06.920 Welcome back to Fast Politics, Matt. 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:08.960 Thank you great to be here. 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:10.800 Thank you so much for coming on. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.200 I really wanted to have you on because besides your 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.760 incredible Carvel doc which everyone should watch it is really fun, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.080