WEBVTT - Kurt Andersen & John Ganz 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:12.360 today's best minds. And George Santos has asked a judge 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.880 to delay his sentencing so he can make more podcasts. Well, 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.239 that's a cursed sentence and that might be Peak twenty 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.040 twenty five. We have such a great show for you today. 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.800 Evil Genius is author KURTA. Anderson gives us his historical 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.640 perspective on how bad Buchanan brought us to the Trump 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:37.120 of today. Then we'll talk to author John Gants as 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.720 he examines the path that led us to this current 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:42.839 political moment. But first the news. 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:48.320 Somali, I have to say my mental health has not 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.720 been doing well for watching fires raging throughout la very 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.400 close to where I used to live once upon a time. 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:57.000 It is not looking good. 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.520 Yeah, it is really this. We're just watching and it 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.680 we're watching and thinking and praying for all the people 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:08.400 in California. My brother and my father and my other brother, 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.240 all of them live in California, and we're just thinking 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.600 about everybody. So there are three major fires. The Palasades 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.280 fire is the one closest to Los Angeles, or is 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.600 in Los Angeles. It's burned about eighteen square miles. And 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.400 then there's the Eton Fire, which is north of Pasadena, 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.200 which has burned about sixteen and a half miles. And 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.160 then there's the Hurst Fire Hurst Hurst Fire in the 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.520 San Fernando Valley, which has burned a little bit less 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.560 than a mile. So this is you know, we're watching 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:43.160 these videos come out of California and they're just really dystopian, 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.080 so dark, and we're just thinking about everybody and hoping 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.120 they're okay. Seventy thousand residents so far under evacuation orders, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.160 and a lot of those evacuations were in the Palasa 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:57.680 Hides parts of Santa Monica. Four hundred thousand people without power, 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.720 that's half a million people. Continues with these high winds, 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.680 no ray and lots and lots of fire. It's really important, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.560 you know. Right now, Trump and a lot of Republicans 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.040 are trying to blame these fires and Governor Gavin Newsom. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.000 But the truth is, like we all know, these fires 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.880 have been getting worse and worse because of climate change, 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:22.280 because California is a hot, dry climate, and as it 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.200 gets hotter and drier and the weather gets more intense fires. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.680 You know, they spread more, they cover more area, and 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.200 you know they have eighty mile an hour winds, And 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:36.000 it's just this is not Gavin Newsom's vault. It is 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.400 the fault of Exxon and Chevron and all the oil 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.760 companies that knew about climate change fifty years ago. So 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:47.720 there are things we can do to cut back on 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.639 all of the you know, effects of climate change, or 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.240 we're just going to keep living like this. And so 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.760 it's really dark and just thinking about everybody in California 0:02:57.760 --> 0:02:59.880 and hoping that they stay safe, smiling. 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:02.400 One of the things you and I often talk about 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.680 is there's some people who when they have a hammer 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.079 and everything is a nail. And I'm starting to think 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.359 that's Trump. With the economy and tariffs. 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:17.239 Yeah, this guy really really really really really wants to 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.400 really really wants to enact these tariffs. He is now 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.880 has this he's considering declaring a national economic emergency. By 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.720 the way, that is insane. Our economy is really really good, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.320 and he's going to do it to provide legal justification 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.120 for a series of universal tariffs on allies and adversaries. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:43.000 Cianna and who's reporting this again? It's Trump Earlier this week, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:44.840 he said he was going to rename the Gulf of 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.040 Mexico the Gulf of America, or as those of us 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.360 in the Democratic Party call it, the Gulf of Trump 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.240 being unable to make egg prices any lower. Look, you know, 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.080 Trump is going to throw a lot of stuff at 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:01.040 the wall. This would be a terrible, terrible idea. I 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.920 hope Democrats will push back on it as much as possible. 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.200 We know historically Herbert Hoover did this. It caused the 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.400 United States economy to crash. It was a huge mistake. 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.200 Nobody wants these tariffs, not you know, but Trump somehow 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.640 thinks that it would make things less expensive. We all 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.880 know tariffs are wildly inflationary. It will make everything more expensive. 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.200 You know, he wants to put a sixty percent tariff 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.440 on Chinese goods and ten percent tariff on global exports. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.880 Let's hope that there are enough cornups in the room 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:34.479 who convinced him not to. 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:35.560 Yeah. 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:41.159 Well, another fun news. Everybody's wondering why President Trump is 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.679 so interested in Greenland and the Panama Canal and willing 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.080 to use military coercion to get them. What do you 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:47.440 see here? 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.360 May so Trump is saying he's willing to use military 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.560 coercion to get there. I wouldn't trust him. My thinking 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.880 is that Trump says a lot of stuff. He speaks 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.280 in this fombastic way, and the hope of getting our 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.760 allies to do what he wants, he wants people to 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:09.159 think he's crazy. He wants Mexico and Canada to think 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:13.200 he might invade them in the hopes of them negotiating 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.719 with him on tariffs. I don't think any of this 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:20.720 is Again. His justification here, or least according to USA Today, 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.320 is that it's an expansionist minded that he's worried that 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:29.640 an expansionist minded China and Russia might be jocking for 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.600 geopolitical supremacy. This is really stupid. China is in the 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.560 middle of having a somewhat of a financial crisis. Russia 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:42.320 is very very much, you know, financially exhausted by the 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:47.280 war in Ukraine, and this is ridiculous. Republicans have been 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.280 using about taking back the Paama Canal since Carter, and 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.359 it's really been a kind of dog whistle. It's totally 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.760 not going to happen. But it's also just a way 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:03.760 in which republic and are able to kind of show 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.520 themselves to be colonialists and to say, you know, these 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.400 other countries, we have supremacy over them. And so I 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.560 would just look to this as kind of it's its 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.720 own sort of dog whistle. It's like they're eating the dogs. 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.520 It's this idea that Trump thinks that he can sort 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.239 of do whatever he wants. And again it does feed 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.839 into this Nixonian idea that maybe he can be the 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.880 strong man and that can intimidate our allies and adversaries. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:31.520 But I wouldn't put a lot of stock in this. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.960 But I would also say that I think that they're 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.960 you know, Greenland continues to not be for sales, so 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.440 and Trump does not have you know, a one percent 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.600 win in the popular vote is not a mandate to 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.159 go to war with Denmark. So I think we all 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.600 just need to take a deep breath here and realize that. 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.080 And I wouldn't I Also the mistake, I think is 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.320 to sort of say that Trump is doing something that's 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:56.599 well thought out, when in fact, a lot of times 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:58.800 he's just doing whatever's right in front of him or 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.239 whatever somebody told him on plane on the way there. 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:03.400 So don't give Trump too much credit. 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.800 Somalie I think we have to eat a little crow here, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.160 and I'm not talking about Harlan. We're not going to 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.240 eat the rich here. Merrick Garland intends to release Special 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.480 Counsel report on Trump's Gen six case. Doo JSAs So. 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:19.680 Merrick Garland says he's going to release the Special Council 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:24.240 Report on Trump's January sixth case. Look, Merk Garland has 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:29.440 tended to not be the horse to bet on for bravery. 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.800 But you know who knows. 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.480 Those are very very polite saying there you have there. 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.520 Yeah, but perhaps now he will change his spots. We 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.920 never know. It's possible. Good for Merrik Garland if he 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.200 wants to be brave at the eleventh hour. Anyone here 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.840 is welcome. Though he has really been such a disappointment, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.360 let me tell you, you know, talk about not having 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:54.600 been playing three dimensional jazz. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:01.160 Or even the two dimensional one or even two. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.160 i'd call it. You know those chess games where somebody 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.040 just leaves the board for a while, it doesn't do anything. 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:08.960 She decides to not make a move for a long time. 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:10.480 So I think we've been looking at. 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:18.160 That's it, Marca. Yes, Kurt Anderson is the author of 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:22.000 Evil geniuses and the co creator of Commands THEE. Welcome 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.680 back to Fast Politics. 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.280 Kurt, My pleasure as ever. 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.320 You know why I wanted to have you on was 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.000 because I was reading a book that was all about 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.640 how Pap Buchanan, you know, said a lot of early 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:42.120 Trump stuff, et cetera, and that got me thinking about 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.840 sort of the history of how Republicans lost their minds, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:50.040 and that is you So let us talk well. 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:55.360 Happy Canon obviously was the Trump prototype. You know, he 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:01.120 was a famous journalist, media funded guy, and and that 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.280 is what led him to run for president in nineteen 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.520 ninety two, nineteen ninety six and did pretty well as 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.240 a Trump Trump plus thirty IQ points and Trump who 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:15.640 actually knows stuff and knows history, but and has this coherent, 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:20.479 more coherent idea about you know, the right wing populism 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.480 that from the degree he has in ideology bodies. So yeah, 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.280 there he was doing all this stuff, you know, back 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.880 in the nineties. And at the same time that, you know, 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.679 he had the new gingrich taking over the House and 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:34.720 being a right winger in that way and moving the 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.560 party right. But no, but Patty Cannon was really in 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:40.319 his way ahead of his time. That's why when we 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.719 did one of our spy magazine specials in right right 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:46.680 around then when he spoke at the right after he 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.400 spoke at the Republican Convention in ninety two, and he 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.240 gave this cultural war speech, and we we just we've 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.120 put it on our special on NBC Prime Time, ran 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.600 thirty seconds of it translated into well, not translated but 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.280 actually just with a soundtrack of Hitler speaking as his 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.760 book and amazingly standards and practices at NBC let us 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.839 do that. But yes, Pabriu Khan was there early, and 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.960 Donald Trump grew and inherited that beginning version of the 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:15.079 modern Republican party. 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:16.080 He did. 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.360 And it's funny because it's like I'm thinking about, like 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:25.040 the big Senate loss that Democrats had in nineteen eighty, Right, 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.280 wasn't that the biggest the second biggest loss a single 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:29.360 party had ever had? 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.400 I trust you on that. But the eighties were, yeah, 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.200 I mean obviously the Reagan land slide and then bigger 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:36.320 Lan slide in eighty four. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.160 Yeah, And I'm just wondering, like I'm trying, because I'm 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.600 trying to grapple with what exactly happened during this election 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.280 that I still am not able to process, and so 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.160 I'm trying to sort of think about it in the 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.800 historical precedent. I mean, do you when you think about 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:56.839 this election, what does it remind you of? 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:02.000 Well, does it remind me of Reagan? Particularly because that 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:07.559 was genuinely, you know, a mandate in a landslide, especially 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.839 eighty four, so it was different there. I mean, you know, yes, 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.640 we finally had a Republican the first since you know, 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.440 two thousand and four, to become president, having won the 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.199 popular vote. But he won it barely, and I don't 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:25.040 want to over diminish the reality and the significance of 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.560 he won. He won by you know, healthy electoral vote margin, 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.560 and one in many areas, including New York City. Of course, 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.760 moves significantly right in being voting for trumpmore so it 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.280 meant something, But it isn't to me yet anything like 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:43.640 eighty eighty four. One thing is one I'm thinking about 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.600 nineteen eighty is you know, Yes, in nineteen seventy six, 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.000 seventy seven, eight nine, all of us liberals thought, oh 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.600 my god, this guy's a nut. What's he going to do? 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:53.160 Well? 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:56.839 Immediately, he didn't govern as a nut. He governed as 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.400 a very conservative Republican and talked to Tipple Neil, the 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.839 Speaker of the House, and yes, said mister Gorbacheff, tear 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.360 this wall down, but pursued daytide with NATO. You know, 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:09.079 it was it was a whole different thing. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:09.400 It was. 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.960 It was in retrospect. Although there was a lot of 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.080 hair on fire Sky's falling talk in seventy nine and eighty, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.120 it didn't turn out that way. I'm not saying he 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.840 was a great president, but he was a normal president 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.400 and we all like adapted to it and it didn't 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.760 do crazy things. So it isn't like that, so I 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:29.760 know in my lifetime, you. 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:34.520 Know, it is its own thing, closest to Nixon, except 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:37.079 if Nixon had gone realized. 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.760 As he was an inheritor of Pat Buchanan, Pat Buchanan 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.520 before he became the famous Pat Buchanan running for president, 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:45.880 of course, worked for Richard Nixon. That was his big 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.440 first thing as a political figure. And he was to 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.440 Nixon's right and he was the House right winger, whereas Nixon. 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.760 Because it was nineteen sixty eight, sixty nine to seventy 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.280 seventy one, it was still the sixties. Effectively, it was 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.640 still this liberal hegemony. Democrats still ran Congress and everything else, 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:08.240 and you know, we have the Democrats and liberals were 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.679 complacent because they basically run the show for you know, 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.760 since the New DA in World War Two and done 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.560 pretty well, so like it was fine. So Nixon was, 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.360 in fact, until arguably I think the Biden administration the 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.160 most liberal president we've had in my life. But what 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:29.240 Nixon did and felt and embodied the way Trump does 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.520 in his bizarre worldwide was this resentment of the elite, 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.720 you know, the resentment of the elite. And he created 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.920 his silent majority during the Vietnam War and during the 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.400 counterculture and during the anti Hippie period, during the protests 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.720 that all of you regular, normal, good Americans, don't we 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:52.320 hate these the media and these hippies and these uppy 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.640 black people and all the rest. So, yes, Donald Trump, 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.760 in his crewed again Nixon minus fifty I key points 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:03.240 revived that he is, in his semi witning, unwinning way, 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.559 the inheritor of this of the worst of Republicanism of 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:09.000 the last sixty years. 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.840 Yeah, And it's funny because when we talk about I 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.400 just want to fact check from Jesse here in nineteen 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.680 eighty Democrats lost fourteen seats in nineteen eighty four. They 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:20.800 lost too in the Senate. 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.720 Even though Reagan's victory was bigger, right, and you see 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.960 that and when it gets hopeful, like the electorate goes, okay, 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:29.520 we give you fourteen more seats in the center, Oh 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.560 my gosh, Senate, you know majority, Oh, big landslide for Reagan. 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.880 But it also at the same time pulled back, you know, 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.520 it reacted and kind of in his overall way, does 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.920 this thing of forward or to the right one two 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.920 steps back to the central one. And that's what it did, 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.760 as those numbers about the Senate and Congress showed. So 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.120 we'll see. I mean, it's very hard because you know, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.680 we've gotten all tired of saying, oh, it's unprecedented, it's unprecedented. Well, 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.880 this is a freakishly new unprecedented thing. So well saying 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.680 it's like this election or that election in the past, 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.480 I don't know, I don't see it. You know, it's 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.280 not there. I mean, there are bits and pieces they're like, 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.080 I mean, there is some nineteen sixty eightitionists here, but 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.320 which was a close election but a victory for you know, 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:21.800 this bullying Richard Nixon version of the beginnings of you know, 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.520 working class appeal, which was, to say, in nineteen sixty eight, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.000 as it was in sixty four, an appeal to the South, 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.800 that was the white South which was so upset about 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:31.640 civil rights. 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:34.360 Right, you're bringing this up a really important point here, 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.520 which is this idea of like the backlash from a 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.280 sort of backlash to this, a backlash to that, the 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.640 sort of movement of the sixties, and then a backlash 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.800 with Nixon, and then the seventies and Carter, and a 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.960 backlash with Reagan. It feels like if you look at 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.960 twenty sixteen, it was Trump and then it was me too, 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.960 and then there was there just been backlash and backlash 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.800 and backlash and back What do you make of that 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.040 and talk to us more about it. 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:08.720 Well, it's you know, the right being the right uses 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.160 the backlash effectively again and again. I mean, that's almost 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.760 the nature of its different nests from the left in 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.400 this country to do it. But whereas what Democrats do 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.520 over and over again, did it with Clinton in the nineties, 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.480 did it with Obama in the aughts, Yeah, the aughts 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.200 and tens, and then did it again with Biden is 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:35.760 clean up the basically budget busting, deficit building messes of 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.880 the Republicans who precede them. So that's what they have 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.800 over these last six years, in addition to stupidly and 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.200 incorrectly dumping the white working class and labor unions as 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.200 they started doing in the seventies and eighties. They because 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.440 they're responsible good boys and girls, are the ones who 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.920 sort of balance the budget and try to be responsible 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:02.640 and govern after the kind of drunken, fiscally nuts benders 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.720 that they inherit from Republicans, you know. And that's how 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:09.399 we turned into in this last election, and Kama Harris 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:14.359 and the Democrats into the goody goody elitist responsible people 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.080 who are effectively conservatives. They want to get back to normality. 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.680 And there is this rowing hunger that has been here 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.400 for thirty years since since the industrialization of the rust 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:31.600 belt and all that happened economically starting in the nineties especially, 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.320 There has to be a change. There is I won't 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:40.360 say revolutionary, but there is this intense reformist, populist This 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.160 is screwed up, this is rig We don't understand our 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.199 healthcare system. It doesn't provide for us. You know. College 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.040 is unaffordable and our on. And so the electorate, in 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:55.240 its mostly low information, ignorant way, reaches out anywhere it can. 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.600 And Donald Trump looks like he'll shake it up, you know. 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.760 I mean, people don't know, and they for that rather 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.480 than this kind of college educated, good boys and girls 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.119 version of Democrats from al Gore to Kamala Harris. 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.160 What do you think Democrats should do? 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.920 Obviously it's a different world than it was in twenty sixteen. 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:16.840 There's not the same. The mainstream media is not what 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.040 it was. I mean, I am so struck by Oprah 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.000 doing an event with Harris. 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.600 And I love Oprah and thinks she's a genius. 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.240 But Joe Rogan having doing three hours with Trump gets 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:32.879 in front of like seventy million people, whereas television doesn't 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:33.359 get in. 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:34.560 Front of those numbers anymore. 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.119 So I'm wondering what you think, Democrats, what that solve 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.720 is for this, because this is something I spent a 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:45.160 probably disproportionate amount of my time obsessing about. I mean, 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.359 what do you think the answer is? Because clearly what 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.320 we saw from Biden's loss was Biden passed a lot 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.959 of really good legislation and voters not the voters who 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.960 watch television or read the news, but the voters who 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.080 make up the line and share the vote, right, because 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.000 Trump won and he won the popular vote, they didn't know. 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.680 So what did Democrats do? 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:07.560 Well? 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.880 Donald Trump is this unwittingly brilliant person in many ways, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.520 And there's all these quotes that had such meaning in 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.119 the aftermath, like a star gets to do whatever he wants. 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.040 He said that you know years ago about sexual assault, 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.760 Well he's living it in every way. I can appoint 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.760 these idiots in the cabinet, I can shoot somebody on 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.160 Fifth Avenue. All those things are so true and so real, 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:28.200 and he's living not in so many ways. So I'm 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.240 not saying, oh, we need a Trump. However, the level 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.960 of understanding that politics is, and certainly for the lessons 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.800 in the TV age and since, been a show. It 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.440 is a show, and just face up to it. Maybe 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.119 you don't like it, Okay, fine, that's the way it is. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:49.919 So all of that implies in a way that you 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.920 can still keep your human dignity and stick to more 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.160 or less the facts, live with that be a little 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.879 more incautious. I mean, that's the thing about you know, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.239 whether you're again, whether you're al Gore. I don't want 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.240 to keep mentioning al Gore, but he he to me, 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.800 he was as people said at the time, he was 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:09.280 the boy who got good grades and every adult's idea 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.640 of a good young person and all that. Kama Harris, too, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:17.520 was the well behaved and highly cautious person, you know who, 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.240 whether she did or didn't, have a a kind of 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.280 human political center that she shared with the world. And 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.040 I liked her fine, just like I like them all fine. 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.959 I like all these Democrats fine. But she was highly 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.120 cautious and that prevented her from being effective. So that's 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.040 one thing I think democrats have to do is and 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.359 people have talked about it. Whether you're Chris Murphy, oddly 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.040 the most good boy Democrat, we have one of them 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.119 who says, oh no, we got to be populous, we 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.040 got to I agree with him. It's funny coming from 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.280 that messenger, how right he is. But that's what you need. 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:49.240 You need the you know, the Dan Odsbourn's the guy 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.359 who did so well running as an independent Nebraska. You 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.440 need all these people from various ideological stripes. John Fetterman, 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:02.640 I don't care, you know, moderate, you know, progressive, socialists, 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.760 maybe even conservative Democrats, But it's less about this specific 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.760 ideological stripe, you know, and that all obviously depends on 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.640 where they're running from for what as opposed to the style, 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.040 the approach, the sense of authenticity, all those things. I mean, 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:19.960 none of this. I'm not saying anything you haven't heard 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.119 a million times and thought through. That's to me what 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.720 the Democrats need to do as well as you knows, 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.560 as Murphy and many other people say, you know, under 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.119 recapture what I wrote, what I've spent a book writing 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:35.919 Evil Geniuses, about a version, a twenty first century version 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.199 of being on the side of the powerless and the 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:43.520 workers against the man and capitalists and the ruling class 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.520 and the evil geniuses. And when you see as we 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.760 saw in this incredible Trump press comforence at his mansion 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.880 club the other day, you know, the brazen corruption, it's 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.879 really it's just amazing. It made me think of the 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.439 as I've been thinking about that comference, oh in the 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.920 week since it's happened, days since it happened, the oh, 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.520 we're not going back Comaho said again again, Well, we 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:11.040 if Trump and the Republicans have they wear, we are 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:14.440 definitely going back and not just to pre row, which 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:18.639 is what that The main subtext of that slogan was, 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.720 we're going back to the eighteen nineties and nineteen hundreds early, 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:25.360 you know, we're going back to robber barons. We're going 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:29.560 back to just shameless corruption. That press conference is amazing. Okay, 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:31.879