Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And George Santos has asked a judge
Speaker 1: to delay his sentencing so he can make more podcasts. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a cursed sentence and that might be Peak twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Evil Genius is author KURTA. Anderson gives us his historical
Speaker 1: perspective on how bad Buchanan brought us to the Trump
Speaker 1: of today. Then we'll talk to author John Gants as
Speaker 1: he examines the path that led us to this current
Speaker 1: political moment. But first the news.
Speaker 2: Somali, I have to say my mental health has not
Speaker 2: been doing well for watching fires raging throughout la very
Speaker 2: close to where I used to live once upon a time.
Speaker 2: It is not looking good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is really this. We're just watching and it
Speaker 1: we're watching and thinking and praying for all the people
Speaker 1: in California. My brother and my father and my other brother,
Speaker 1: all of them live in California, and we're just thinking
Speaker 1: about everybody. So there are three major fires. The Palasades
Speaker 1: fire is the one closest to Los Angeles, or is
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. It's burned about eighteen square miles. And
Speaker 1: then there's the Eton Fire, which is north of Pasadena,
Speaker 1: which has burned about sixteen and a half miles. And
Speaker 1: then there's the Hurst Fire Hurst Hurst Fire in the
Speaker 1: San Fernando Valley, which has burned a little bit less
Speaker 1: than a mile. So this is you know, we're watching
Speaker 1: these videos come out of California and they're just really dystopian,
Speaker 1: so dark, and we're just thinking about everybody and hoping
Speaker 1: they're okay. Seventy thousand residents so far under evacuation orders,
Speaker 1: and a lot of those evacuations were in the Palasa
Speaker 1: Hides parts of Santa Monica. Four hundred thousand people without power,
Speaker 1: that's half a million people. Continues with these high winds,
Speaker 1: no ray and lots and lots of fire. It's really important,
Speaker 1: you know. Right now, Trump and a lot of Republicans
Speaker 1: are trying to blame these fires and Governor Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, like we all know, these fires
Speaker 1: have been getting worse and worse because of climate change,
Speaker 1: because California is a hot, dry climate, and as it
Speaker 1: gets hotter and drier and the weather gets more intense fires.
Speaker 1: You know, they spread more, they cover more area, and
Speaker 1: you know they have eighty mile an hour winds, And
Speaker 1: it's just this is not Gavin Newsom's vault. It is
Speaker 1: the fault of Exxon and Chevron and all the oil
Speaker 1: companies that knew about climate change fifty years ago. So
Speaker 1: there are things we can do to cut back on
Speaker 1: all of the you know, effects of climate change, or
Speaker 1: we're just going to keep living like this. And so
Speaker 1: it's really dark and just thinking about everybody in California
Speaker 1: and hoping that they stay safe, smiling.
Speaker 2: One of the things you and I often talk about
Speaker 2: is there's some people who when they have a hammer
Speaker 2: and everything is a nail. And I'm starting to think
Speaker 2: that's Trump. With the economy and tariffs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this guy really really really really really wants to
Speaker 1: really really wants to enact these tariffs. He is now
Speaker 1: has this he's considering declaring a national economic emergency. By
Speaker 1: the way, that is insane. Our economy is really really good,
Speaker 1: and he's going to do it to provide legal justification
Speaker 1: for a series of universal tariffs on allies and adversaries.
Speaker 1: Cianna and who's reporting this again? It's Trump Earlier this week,
Speaker 1: he said he was going to rename the Gulf of
Speaker 1: Mexico the Gulf of America, or as those of us
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party call it, the Gulf of Trump
Speaker 1: being unable to make egg prices any lower. Look, you know,
Speaker 1: Trump is going to throw a lot of stuff at
Speaker 1: the wall. This would be a terrible, terrible idea. I
Speaker 1: hope Democrats will push back on it as much as possible.
Speaker 1: We know historically Herbert Hoover did this. It caused the
Speaker 1: United States economy to crash. It was a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants these tariffs, not you know, but Trump somehow
Speaker 1: thinks that it would make things less expensive. We all
Speaker 1: know tariffs are wildly inflationary. It will make everything more expensive.
Speaker 1: You know, he wants to put a sixty percent tariff
Speaker 1: on Chinese goods and ten percent tariff on global exports.
Speaker 1: Let's hope that there are enough cornups in the room
Speaker 1: who convinced him not to.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, another fun news. Everybody's wondering why President Trump is
Speaker 2: so interested in Greenland and the Panama Canal and willing
Speaker 2: to use military coercion to get them. What do you
Speaker 2: see here?
Speaker 1: May so Trump is saying he's willing to use military
Speaker 1: coercion to get there. I wouldn't trust him. My thinking
Speaker 1: is that Trump says a lot of stuff. He speaks
Speaker 1: in this fombastic way, and the hope of getting our
Speaker 1: allies to do what he wants, he wants people to
Speaker 1: think he's crazy. He wants Mexico and Canada to think
Speaker 1: he might invade them in the hopes of them negotiating
Speaker 1: with him on tariffs. I don't think any of this
Speaker 1: is Again. His justification here, or least according to USA Today,
Speaker 1: is that it's an expansionist minded that he's worried that
Speaker 1: an expansionist minded China and Russia might be jocking for
Speaker 1: geopolitical supremacy. This is really stupid. China is in the
Speaker 1: middle of having a somewhat of a financial crisis. Russia
Speaker 1: is very very much, you know, financially exhausted by the
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine, and this is ridiculous. Republicans have been
Speaker 1: using about taking back the Paama Canal since Carter, and
Speaker 1: it's really been a kind of dog whistle. It's totally
Speaker 1: not going to happen. But it's also just a way
Speaker 1: in which republic and are able to kind of show
Speaker 1: themselves to be colonialists and to say, you know, these
Speaker 1: other countries, we have supremacy over them. And so I
Speaker 1: would just look to this as kind of it's its
Speaker 1: own sort of dog whistle. It's like they're eating the dogs.
Speaker 1: It's this idea that Trump thinks that he can sort
Speaker 1: of do whatever he wants. And again it does feed
Speaker 1: into this Nixonian idea that maybe he can be the
Speaker 1: strong man and that can intimidate our allies and adversaries.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't put a lot of stock in this.
Speaker 1: But I would also say that I think that they're
Speaker 1: you know, Greenland continues to not be for sales, so
Speaker 1: and Trump does not have you know, a one percent
Speaker 1: win in the popular vote is not a mandate to
Speaker 1: go to war with Denmark. So I think we all
Speaker 1: just need to take a deep breath here and realize that.
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't I Also the mistake, I think is
Speaker 1: to sort of say that Trump is doing something that's
Speaker 1: well thought out, when in fact, a lot of times
Speaker 1: he's just doing whatever's right in front of him or
Speaker 1: whatever somebody told him on plane on the way there.
Speaker 1: So don't give Trump too much credit.
Speaker 2: Somalie I think we have to eat a little crow here,
Speaker 2: and I'm not talking about Harlan. We're not going to
Speaker 2: eat the rich here. Merrick Garland intends to release Special
Speaker 2: Counsel report on Trump's Gen six case. Doo JSAs So.
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland says he's going to release the Special Council
Speaker 1: Report on Trump's January sixth case. Look, Merk Garland has
Speaker 1: tended to not be the horse to bet on for bravery.
Speaker 1: But you know who knows.
Speaker 4: Those are very very polite saying there you have there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but perhaps now he will change his spots. We
Speaker 1: never know. It's possible. Good for Merrik Garland if he
Speaker 1: wants to be brave at the eleventh hour. Anyone here
Speaker 1: is welcome. Though he has really been such a disappointment,
Speaker 1: let me tell you, you know, talk about not having
Speaker 1: been playing three dimensional jazz.
Speaker 4: Or even the two dimensional one or even two. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: i'd call it. You know those chess games where somebody
Speaker 4: just leaves the board for a while, it doesn't do anything.
Speaker 4: She decides to not make a move for a long time.
Speaker 4: So I think we've been looking at.
Speaker 1: That's it, Marca. Yes, Kurt Anderson is the author of
Speaker 1: Evil geniuses and the co creator of Commands THEE. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 5: Kurt, My pleasure as ever.
Speaker 1: You know why I wanted to have you on was
Speaker 1: because I was reading a book that was all about
Speaker 1: how Pap Buchanan, you know, said a lot of early
Speaker 1: Trump stuff, et cetera, and that got me thinking about
Speaker 1: sort of the history of how Republicans lost their minds,
Speaker 1: and that is you So let us talk well.
Speaker 5: Happy Canon obviously was the Trump prototype. You know, he
Speaker 5: was a famous journalist, media funded guy, and and that
Speaker 5: is what led him to run for president in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety two, nineteen ninety six and did pretty well as
Speaker 5: a Trump Trump plus thirty IQ points and Trump who
Speaker 5: actually knows stuff and knows history, but and has this coherent,
Speaker 5: more coherent idea about you know, the right wing populism
Speaker 5: that from the degree he has in ideology bodies. So yeah,
Speaker 5: there he was doing all this stuff, you know, back
Speaker 5: in the nineties. And at the same time that, you know,
Speaker 5: he had the new gingrich taking over the House and
Speaker 5: being a right winger in that way and moving the
Speaker 5: party right. But no, but Patty Cannon was really in
Speaker 5: his way ahead of his time. That's why when we
Speaker 5: did one of our spy magazine specials in right right
Speaker 5: around then when he spoke at the right after he
Speaker 5: spoke at the Republican Convention in ninety two, and he
Speaker 5: gave this cultural war speech, and we we just we've
Speaker 5: put it on our special on NBC Prime Time, ran
Speaker 5: thirty seconds of it translated into well, not translated but
Speaker 5: actually just with a soundtrack of Hitler speaking as his
Speaker 5: book and amazingly standards and practices at NBC let us
Speaker 5: do that. But yes, Pabriu Khan was there early, and
Speaker 5: Donald Trump grew and inherited that beginning version of the
Speaker 5: modern Republican party.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because it's like I'm thinking about, like
Speaker 1: the big Senate loss that Democrats had in nineteen eighty, Right,
Speaker 1: wasn't that the biggest the second biggest loss a single
Speaker 1: party had ever had?
Speaker 5: I trust you on that. But the eighties were, yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean obviously the Reagan land slide and then bigger
Speaker 5: Lan slide in eighty four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm just wondering, like I'm trying, because I'm
Speaker 1: trying to grapple with what exactly happened during this election
Speaker 1: that I still am not able to process, and so
Speaker 1: I'm trying to sort of think about it in the
Speaker 1: historical precedent. I mean, do you when you think about
Speaker 1: this election, what does it remind you of?
Speaker 5: Well, does it remind me of Reagan? Particularly because that
Speaker 5: was genuinely, you know, a mandate in a landslide, especially
Speaker 5: eighty four, so it was different there. I mean, you know, yes,
Speaker 5: we finally had a Republican the first since you know,
Speaker 5: two thousand and four, to become president, having won the
Speaker 5: popular vote. But he won it barely, and I don't
Speaker 5: want to over diminish the reality and the significance of
Speaker 5: he won. He won by you know, healthy electoral vote margin,
Speaker 5: and one in many areas, including New York City. Of course,
Speaker 5: moves significantly right in being voting for trumpmore so it
Speaker 5: meant something, But it isn't to me yet anything like
Speaker 5: eighty eighty four. One thing is one I'm thinking about
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty is you know, Yes, in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 5: seventy seven, eight nine, all of us liberals thought, oh
Speaker 5: my god, this guy's a nut. What's he going to do?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 5: Immediately, he didn't govern as a nut. He governed as
Speaker 5: a very conservative Republican and talked to Tipple Neil, the
Speaker 5: Speaker of the House, and yes, said mister Gorbacheff, tear
Speaker 5: this wall down, but pursued daytide with NATO. You know,
Speaker 5: it was it was a whole different thing.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 5: It was in retrospect. Although there was a lot of
Speaker 5: hair on fire Sky's falling talk in seventy nine and eighty,
Speaker 5: it didn't turn out that way. I'm not saying he
Speaker 5: was a great president, but he was a normal president
Speaker 5: and we all like adapted to it and it didn't
Speaker 5: do crazy things. So it isn't like that, so I
Speaker 5: know in my lifetime, you.
Speaker 1: Know, it is its own thing, closest to Nixon, except
Speaker 1: if Nixon had gone realized.
Speaker 5: As he was an inheritor of Pat Buchanan, Pat Buchanan
Speaker 5: before he became the famous Pat Buchanan running for president,
Speaker 5: of course, worked for Richard Nixon. That was his big
Speaker 5: first thing as a political figure. And he was to
Speaker 5: Nixon's right and he was the House right winger, whereas Nixon.
Speaker 5: Because it was nineteen sixty eight, sixty nine to seventy
Speaker 5: seventy one, it was still the sixties. Effectively, it was
Speaker 5: still this liberal hegemony. Democrats still ran Congress and everything else,
Speaker 5: and you know, we have the Democrats and liberals were
Speaker 5: complacent because they basically run the show for you know,
Speaker 5: since the New DA in World War Two and done
Speaker 5: pretty well, so like it was fine. So Nixon was,
Speaker 5: in fact, until arguably I think the Biden administration the
Speaker 5: most liberal president we've had in my life. But what
Speaker 5: Nixon did and felt and embodied the way Trump does
Speaker 5: in his bizarre worldwide was this resentment of the elite,
Speaker 5: you know, the resentment of the elite. And he created
Speaker 5: his silent majority during the Vietnam War and during the
Speaker 5: counterculture and during the anti Hippie period, during the protests
Speaker 5: that all of you regular, normal, good Americans, don't we
Speaker 5: hate these the media and these hippies and these uppy
Speaker 5: black people and all the rest. So, yes, Donald Trump,
Speaker 5: in his crewed again Nixon minus fifty I key points
Speaker 5: revived that he is, in his semi witning, unwinning way,
Speaker 5: the inheritor of this of the worst of Republicanism of
Speaker 5: the last sixty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's funny because when we talk about I
Speaker 1: just want to fact check from Jesse here in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty Democrats lost fourteen seats in nineteen eighty four. They
Speaker 1: lost too in the Senate.
Speaker 5: Even though Reagan's victory was bigger, right, and you see
Speaker 5: that and when it gets hopeful, like the electorate goes, okay,
Speaker 5: we give you fourteen more seats in the center, Oh
Speaker 5: my gosh, Senate, you know majority, Oh, big landslide for Reagan.
Speaker 5: But it also at the same time pulled back, you know,
Speaker 5: it reacted and kind of in his overall way, does
Speaker 5: this thing of forward or to the right one two
Speaker 5: steps back to the central one. And that's what it did,
Speaker 5: as those numbers about the Senate and Congress showed. So
Speaker 5: we'll see. I mean, it's very hard because you know,
Speaker 5: we've gotten all tired of saying, oh, it's unprecedented, it's unprecedented. Well,
Speaker 5: this is a freakishly new unprecedented thing. So well saying
Speaker 5: it's like this election or that election in the past,
Speaker 5: I don't know, I don't see it. You know, it's
Speaker 5: not there. I mean, there are bits and pieces they're like,
Speaker 5: I mean, there is some nineteen sixty eightitionists here, but
Speaker 5: which was a close election but a victory for you know,
Speaker 5: this bullying Richard Nixon version of the beginnings of you know,
Speaker 5: working class appeal, which was, to say, in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 5: as it was in sixty four, an appeal to the South,
Speaker 5: that was the white South which was so upset about
Speaker 5: civil rights.
Speaker 1: Right, you're bringing this up a really important point here,
Speaker 1: which is this idea of like the backlash from a
Speaker 1: sort of backlash to this, a backlash to that, the
Speaker 1: sort of movement of the sixties, and then a backlash
Speaker 1: with Nixon, and then the seventies and Carter, and a
Speaker 1: backlash with Reagan. It feels like if you look at
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, it was Trump and then it was me too,
Speaker 1: and then there was there just been backlash and backlash
Speaker 1: and backlash and back What do you make of that
Speaker 1: and talk to us more about it.
Speaker 5: Well, it's you know, the right being the right uses
Speaker 5: the backlash effectively again and again. I mean, that's almost
Speaker 5: the nature of its different nests from the left in
Speaker 5: this country to do it. But whereas what Democrats do
Speaker 5: over and over again, did it with Clinton in the nineties,
Speaker 5: did it with Obama in the aughts, Yeah, the aughts
Speaker 5: and tens, and then did it again with Biden is
Speaker 5: clean up the basically budget busting, deficit building messes of
Speaker 5: the Republicans who precede them. So that's what they have
Speaker 5: over these last six years, in addition to stupidly and
Speaker 5: incorrectly dumping the white working class and labor unions as
Speaker 5: they started doing in the seventies and eighties. They because
Speaker 5: they're responsible good boys and girls, are the ones who
Speaker 5: sort of balance the budget and try to be responsible
Speaker 5: and govern after the kind of drunken, fiscally nuts benders
Speaker 5: that they inherit from Republicans, you know. And that's how
Speaker 5: we turned into in this last election, and Kama Harris
Speaker 5: and the Democrats into the goody goody elitist responsible people
Speaker 5: who are effectively conservatives. They want to get back to normality.
Speaker 5: And there is this rowing hunger that has been here
Speaker 5: for thirty years since since the industrialization of the rust
Speaker 5: belt and all that happened economically starting in the nineties especially,
Speaker 5: There has to be a change. There is I won't
Speaker 5: say revolutionary, but there is this intense reformist, populist This
Speaker 5: is screwed up, this is rig We don't understand our
Speaker 5: healthcare system. It doesn't provide for us. You know. College
Speaker 5: is unaffordable and our on. And so the electorate, in
Speaker 5: its mostly low information, ignorant way, reaches out anywhere it can.
Speaker 5: And Donald Trump looks like he'll shake it up, you know.
Speaker 5: I mean, people don't know, and they for that rather
Speaker 5: than this kind of college educated, good boys and girls
Speaker 5: version of Democrats from al Gore to Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: What do you think Democrats should do?
Speaker 1: Obviously it's a different world than it was in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: There's not the same. The mainstream media is not what
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, I am so struck by Oprah
Speaker 1: doing an event with Harris.
Speaker 3: And I love Oprah and thinks she's a genius.
Speaker 1: But Joe Rogan having doing three hours with Trump gets
Speaker 1: in front of like seventy million people, whereas television doesn't
Speaker 1: get in.
Speaker 3: Front of those numbers anymore.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering what you think, Democrats, what that solve
Speaker 1: is for this, because this is something I spent a
Speaker 1: probably disproportionate amount of my time obsessing about. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you think the answer is? Because clearly what
Speaker 1: we saw from Biden's loss was Biden passed a lot
Speaker 1: of really good legislation and voters not the voters who
Speaker 1: watch television or read the news, but the voters who
Speaker 1: make up the line and share the vote, right, because
Speaker 1: Trump won and he won the popular vote, they didn't know.
Speaker 3: So what did Democrats do?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: Donald Trump is this unwittingly brilliant person in many ways,
Speaker 5: And there's all these quotes that had such meaning in
Speaker 5: the aftermath, like a star gets to do whatever he wants.
Speaker 5: He said that you know years ago about sexual assault,
Speaker 5: Well he's living it in every way. I can appoint
Speaker 5: these idiots in the cabinet, I can shoot somebody on
Speaker 5: Fifth Avenue. All those things are so true and so real,
Speaker 5: and he's living not in so many ways. So I'm
Speaker 5: not saying, oh, we need a Trump. However, the level
Speaker 5: of understanding that politics is, and certainly for the lessons
Speaker 5: in the TV age and since, been a show. It
Speaker 5: is a show, and just face up to it. Maybe
Speaker 5: you don't like it, Okay, fine, that's the way it is.
Speaker 5: So all of that implies in a way that you
Speaker 5: can still keep your human dignity and stick to more
Speaker 5: or less the facts, live with that be a little
Speaker 5: more incautious. I mean, that's the thing about you know,
Speaker 5: whether you're again, whether you're al Gore. I don't want
Speaker 5: to keep mentioning al Gore, but he he to me,
Speaker 5: he was as people said at the time, he was
Speaker 5: the boy who got good grades and every adult's idea
Speaker 5: of a good young person and all that. Kama Harris, too,
Speaker 5: was the well behaved and highly cautious person, you know who,
Speaker 5: whether she did or didn't, have a a kind of
Speaker 5: human political center that she shared with the world. And
Speaker 5: I liked her fine, just like I like them all fine.
Speaker 5: I like all these Democrats fine. But she was highly
Speaker 5: cautious and that prevented her from being effective. So that's
Speaker 5: one thing I think democrats have to do is and
Speaker 5: people have talked about it. Whether you're Chris Murphy, oddly
Speaker 5: the most good boy Democrat, we have one of them
Speaker 5: who says, oh no, we got to be populous, we
Speaker 5: got to I agree with him. It's funny coming from
Speaker 5: that messenger, how right he is. But that's what you need.
Speaker 5: You need the you know, the Dan Odsbourn's the guy
Speaker 5: who did so well running as an independent Nebraska. You
Speaker 5: need all these people from various ideological stripes. John Fetterman,
Speaker 5: I don't care, you know, moderate, you know, progressive, socialists,
Speaker 5: maybe even conservative Democrats, But it's less about this specific
Speaker 5: ideological stripe, you know, and that all obviously depends on
Speaker 5: where they're running from for what as opposed to the style,
Speaker 5: the approach, the sense of authenticity, all those things. I mean,
Speaker 5: none of this. I'm not saying anything you haven't heard
Speaker 5: a million times and thought through. That's to me what
Speaker 5: the Democrats need to do as well as you knows,
Speaker 5: as Murphy and many other people say, you know, under
Speaker 5: recapture what I wrote, what I've spent a book writing
Speaker 5: Evil Geniuses, about a version, a twenty first century version
Speaker 5: of being on the side of the powerless and the
Speaker 5: workers against the man and capitalists and the ruling class
Speaker 5: and the evil geniuses. And when you see as we
Speaker 5: saw in this incredible Trump press comforence at his mansion
Speaker 5: club the other day, you know, the brazen corruption, it's
Speaker 5: really it's just amazing. It made me think of the
Speaker 5: as I've been thinking about that comference, oh in the
Speaker 5: week since it's happened, days since it happened, the oh,
Speaker 5: we're not going back Comaho said again again, Well, we
Speaker 5: if Trump and the Republicans have they wear, we are
Speaker 5: definitely going back and not just to pre row, which
Speaker 5: is what that The main subtext of that slogan was,
Speaker 5: we're going back to the eighteen nineties and nineteen hundreds early,
Speaker 5: you know, we're going back to robber barons. We're going
Speaker 5: back to just shameless corruption. That press conference is amazing. Okay,
Speaker 5: here it is at mar A Lago, an artifact of
Speaker 5: the era. He has his his Emiathi billionaire golf course
Speaker 5: developer partner there, who he said, oh yeah, we're going
Speaker 5: to give this guy government deals to build data centers
Speaker 5: and due real estate billions of dollars.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: Here's Eric, my son over there in the back and
Speaker 5: he's building Trump towers in the Middle East. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: and we also just got a new the Saudi Golf
Speaker 5: Tour is going to have a great tournament at my
Speaker 5: hotel in Miami, the Dural And oh yeah, yeah, here's
Speaker 5: my here's my crypto business partner who's also my middist
Speaker 5: envoy to Helly, Steve Wodcoff. He'll tell you about what
Speaker 5: we're doing in Gaza.
Speaker 3: I mean very conflicted, right.
Speaker 5: I mean conflicted, beyond conflicted. It's just like, nope, this
Speaker 5: is corrupt and this is no logarchy. Welcome to it now.
Speaker 5: In the last time this happened in the center good
Speaker 5: ended in what was you know, certainly until Watergate, the
Speaker 5: most famous presidential scandal in history, which was the teapot
Speaker 5: Dome scandal, which was oil and all that. This stuff
Speaker 5: doesn't last forever. I guess that's what I take my
Speaker 5: knowledge of history and my long view being old, is
Speaker 5: that none of the there is all his here tofore
Speaker 5: unless history suddenly changes. And I don't think it's going
Speaker 5: to in this sense. It's one way or another. It
Speaker 5: swings back. There is a counter reaction, and you know,
Speaker 5: I mean the Republicans in a certain sense, and some
Speaker 5: of them do know it, which is why the you know,
Speaker 5: in his disgusting, egregious way, Josh Hawley, you know, for instance, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, mouths and sometimes does more than mouth does
Speaker 5: things with Bernie Sanders on behalf of you know, versions
Speaker 5: of actual economic populism rather than just cultural populism and
Speaker 5: be more manly and all that stuff. So so there
Speaker 5: are you know, there are Republicans who understand that. To me,
Speaker 5: the the the inherent contradiction that they've lived with, you know,
Speaker 5: in the in the fifty odd years, they've been trying
Speaker 5: to be both the party of the white working class
Speaker 5: and the party of the billionaires. You know, at a
Speaker 5: certain point, one hopes, one thinks it just becomes you know, irreconcilable.
Speaker 5: But we'll see. I mean, that's that's that's the weird
Speaker 5: contradiction that has exists among Republicans and on the right
Speaker 5: and has which is, oh, yeah, we're the working class
Speaker 5: party of people who are who are just you know,
Speaker 5: who have undertaken and successfully done and now want to
Speaker 5: redouble the transfer of wealth from the have not to
Speaker 5: the tops of the haves. You know, that's what they
Speaker 5: want to do in their big one bill that gives
Speaker 5: you know, extends these twenty seventeen tax cuts for billionaires
Speaker 5: another five or ten years.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Kurt. I hope you will come.
Speaker 5: Back always and happy to be your little resident historian
Speaker 5: or when I play on podcasts anyway.
Speaker 1: John Gantz is the author of When the Clock Broke,
Speaker 1: Comment Conspiracyists, and How America Cracked Up in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, and the author of the substack on Popular
Speaker 1: front Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 5: John, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3: Molly. How are you doing You know, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I mean, whatever is happening here.
Speaker 3: In fact, let's talk about what's happening here. I read
Speaker 3: your excellent book.
Speaker 1: Thanks, you're welcome. I want you to give us a
Speaker 1: sort of how you think we got here?
Speaker 7: Where to begin? I mean, my book begins in the
Speaker 7: nineteen nineties, and essentially what it begins to pick up
Speaker 7: in the story that was still kind of going on
Speaker 7: in the underbelly and hadn't really made its way through
Speaker 7: the mainstream, was that there was a fact that the
Speaker 7: Republican Party, who called South of Paleo Consbermaden, which wanted
Speaker 7: the Republicans that pursue a very different kind of politics,
Speaker 7: and they had pursued up until that point, which was
Speaker 7: sort of moving to the sector, moderating, embracing certain ideas
Speaker 7: of liberalism while you know, rejecting their own and bringing
Speaker 7: along ideas of conservatism. For them, Ronald Reagan was two
Speaker 7: at wing, which probably sounds to you and I, you
Speaker 7: and I as being rather crazy. They wanted a type
Speaker 7: of politics that could smash the institutions and elites of liberalism,
Speaker 7: and they believed a kind of charismatic emigog figure. They
Speaker 7: put it that bluntly would be the man to do it.
Speaker 3: They almost sort of got it.
Speaker 7: Huh, there were prefigurations of it. Patu Cannon's primary campaign
Speaker 7: against George H. W. Bush was kind of unexpectedly strong
Speaker 7: and gave that campaign fits and may have even sunk it.
Speaker 7: And then you have Ross Perrot, who comes along in
Speaker 7: that era, not exactly considering movement, would certainly come kinds
Speaker 7: of conservative and right wing ailance to his populist campaign
Speaker 7: running against the establishment as a kind of billionaire who
Speaker 7: could fix everything. That era, you get kind of eerie
Speaker 7: precursors to what's happened since I noticed that there is
Speaker 7: a terrible distance act between the American public and the
Speaker 7: institutions that are supposed to represent it. And this has
Speaker 7: created an enormous amount of of resentment and anger. And
Speaker 7: the least which which could be the beneficiary of this
Speaker 7: of this anger against say, an unequal economy, hasn't seized
Speaker 7: upon it. The right has with a different set of
Speaker 7: issues and concerns, part of which is an unequal economy,
Speaker 7: but they would do don't know why that is so. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I think that we have come to the terminus of
Speaker 7: this political wave that began at this time and likened
Speaker 7: toy sixteen. What unites the rather contradictory, incoherent coalition behind Trump.
Speaker 7: You know, you had people who were angry about the
Speaker 7: war in Gaza for exactly opposite reasons. Voting for Trump
Speaker 7: is a sense that he's a protest vote is a
Speaker 7: sense that he represents the interruption of as usual. Now,
Speaker 7: how much of that is real and how much of
Speaker 7: that is part of the Trump showmanship? I mean, I
Speaker 7: think we can tell, but that is definitely a big
Speaker 7: part of his appeal.
Speaker 3: I think that's right.
Speaker 1: Right, So the idea is the nineties again, is this
Speaker 1: New Gingridge set the table for this?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I think New Gingrich is definitely a part of it.
Speaker 7: New Gingrich, I think saw the kind of confrontational politics
Speaker 7: his constituents wanted. He was still a creature of the
Speaker 7: Republican Party. Trump kind of brings us to his conclusion
Speaker 7: by attacking the Republican Party from outside. You know, the
Speaker 7: Tea Party was already beginning to do that, but again,
Speaker 7: closer to the conventional conservative movement perhaps than Trump. But Trump,
Speaker 7: you know, represents a kind of hostile takeover of the
Speaker 7: Republican Party, and in a weird way internal democracy in
Speaker 7: the Republican Party. The elites of the Republican Party could
Speaker 7: not stop him and decided that it wasn't worth it.
Speaker 7: Two because he was where their constituencies were at, where
Speaker 7: the voter, what the voters wanted, and he was the
Speaker 7: only really powerful figure on the national stage that they had. Now,
Speaker 7: you know what's interesting even about this election, and I
Speaker 7: think going forward to think about, is where are the
Speaker 7: limits of Trump's electoral power?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, he won the popular vote this time,
Speaker 7: which he couldn't do before. But you notice the really
Speaker 7: fringy people that he tries to bring along with him
Speaker 7: often go down. It seems like the electorate has a limit, right,
Speaker 7: So Roy Moore goes down, Mark Robinson goes down, Blake
Speaker 7: Masters goes down. There are certain people who they just
Speaker 7: decided are a little too weird. Now the line seems
Speaker 7: to be that jd Vance is okay, He's relatively normal
Speaker 7: in their view. Trump is relatively normal in their view.
Speaker 7: But the line sort of gets dropped at the Moors
Speaker 7: and the Robinsons.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Jady Mans for another minute,
Speaker 1: because Jadvance is a fascinating character to me because he
Speaker 1: was never Trump, and then he was Trump curious, and
Speaker 1: then he was Trump. So Trump loves a convert. But
Speaker 1: does this crew just go along with that?
Speaker 7: I mean, jad Vance is an extraordinarily ambitious man who
Speaker 7: came from a modest background and advanced himself through America's
Speaker 7: elite institutions. He became, for a brief period of time
Speaker 7: a kind of darling of Liberal America when Hillbiliology came
Speaker 7: out as a kind of explainer of the Trump enthusiasm.
Speaker 7: I think he had a bit of a falling out
Speaker 7: with Liberal America because they soured on him and picked
Speaker 7: up on some of the weirder, nastier parts of that book,
Speaker 7: and we're not thrilled with its adaptation for Netflix. I
Speaker 7: think he felt personally wounded by this, but I think
Speaker 7: he also knew that the future of the Republican Party
Speaker 7: was with Trump, and as a politically and socially ambitious person,
Speaker 7: he went through this. He also had many of his
Speaker 7: mentors and close friends moved in those circles. I mean,
Speaker 7: he worked for Peter Tiel. He is part of what
Speaker 7: I would call like the authoritarian Right family, which is
Speaker 7: a kind of intellectual demimon that's you know, probably built
Speaker 7: their social media and group chats. That's interested in kind
Speaker 7: of post liberal and post democratic visions for America.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm going to make you like explain this to
Speaker 1: our listeners because you and I know the shorthand here,
Speaker 1: but like I don't want to have a moment of
Speaker 1: saying bacon if that makes sense for sure, So I
Speaker 1: want you to explain. This is the mensches mo bug
Speaker 1: that's Curtis Jarvin's stage name. These are this is the
Speaker 1: intellectual dark Web, So explain what that is.
Speaker 7: Well, I think essentially what it is, I mean not
Speaker 7: to get to you. Conspiratorial is is a is a
Speaker 7: group of intellectuals and semi intellectuals and media figures that
Speaker 7: exist in a broad patrenage network created by Peter Teel
Speaker 7: who combine authoritarian ideas about American governance with a kind
Speaker 7: of belief in technological advancement. So they're kind of reactionary
Speaker 7: futurists or reaction ra a modernist group. But they have
Speaker 7: a variety of different theories about American government that's non democratic.
Speaker 7: Curtis Jarvin Menius mobug Is is very into It sounds silly,
Speaker 7: but he's very into the history of absolute monarchy. He's
Speaker 7: very elitist.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was hoping you were going to bring up monarchy,
Speaker 1: because can you explain to us what the history there is.
Speaker 7: He aligns on this idea by taking his anarcho capitalist
Speaker 7: ideas to their absurd limit, which is that basically the
Speaker 7: world should be modeled on family businesses, which he interprets
Speaker 7: the history of monarchies and feudalism in Europe to be.
Speaker 7: That's not quite right, but that's basically what he thinks
Speaker 7: the model of the world should be is these kind
Speaker 7: of patriarchal family businesses, of which Trump is close enough.
Speaker 7: So yeah, he's interested in monarchy as a replacement of democracy,
Speaker 7: which is different than say, people on the populist right
Speaker 7: or even on the fascist right, who have a populist
Speaker 7: notion of replacing liberal democracy with something that's more representative
Speaker 7: of the true people. Now, Curtis Jarvin mentions Molbug, he
Speaker 7: doesn't believe in the true people. He believes that the
Speaker 7: Republican voter is not some kind of sturdy, heartland person
Speaker 7: whose common sense could be relied upon. He thinks that
Speaker 7: they're kind of redneck idiots who need to be ruled
Speaker 7: by what he calls the dark elves, these true elites,
Speaker 7: of whom, of course he's a member. So there's a
Speaker 7: variety of different visions here, but what unites them all
Speaker 7: is basically a belief that the liberal democratic model of
Speaker 7: capitalism is exhausted, is over, and needs to be replaced
Speaker 7: with some kind of form of authoritarianism. Some of these
Speaker 7: people look very favorably to Singapore. Obviously, there's a lot
Speaker 7: of interest on the right in dictatorships like Franco's and Salazar's,
Speaker 7: and you know, among some people who don't get as
Speaker 7: much public hearing, of course because they try to keep
Speaker 7: them in the shadows Hitler and Mussolini, and a lot
Speaker 7: of interest unsurprisingly and apartheid South Africa, where David Sachs,
Speaker 7: Peter Teel and a lot of muscle got their start, yeah,
Speaker 7: which was you know, an extremely hierarchical, brutal, authoritarian form
Speaker 7: of capitalist development that took place in the middle part
Speaker 7: of the twentieth century. So they basically believe in capitalism
Speaker 7: without democracy. The thing about what united the American left
Speaker 7: and right for you know, in the post Warrior and
Speaker 7: longer than that, was a belief in capitalism plus democracy.
Speaker 7: Now what Teal at all are proposing as capitalism minus
Speaker 7: democracy or maybe a different form of democracy, not liberal democracy.
Speaker 2: Certainly.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I just recently read a book about
Speaker 1: how much right has always loved authoritarians.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's also true America last.
Speaker 1: Yes, America last, Yes. I just read that book, and
Speaker 1: in it it is all about how even at their best,
Speaker 1: Republicans were still like Franco's Gray, talk about that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there's always been a curiosity on the American right
Speaker 7: or authoritarian regimes. You know, they are not the only
Speaker 7: people who can be charged with this. Obviously, American left
Speaker 7: had a lot of sympathy and interest for a long
Speaker 7: time in the Soviet Union, and not just communist liberals. Also,
Speaker 7: you looked favorably on the Soviet Union until you know,
Speaker 7: it became clear what Stalinism really was.
Speaker 3: My grandfather was one of the last people to reject Stiles.
Speaker 7: Yeah, of course, I was going to say, you know
Speaker 7: this very well. So they can't be charged entirely with this.
Speaker 7: There's a tendency among American and American politics in general
Speaker 7: to look for models overseas. The models that the right
Speaker 7: wing looks overseas, naturally, are you know, right wing authoritarian model.
Speaker 7: You know, obviously, the Catholic National Review looked with great
Speaker 7: interest at Franco and Salazar and some of them even
Speaker 7: you know, sort of left the orbit of the National
Speaker 7: View to kind of join those politics entirely. Even before
Speaker 7: the Second World War, America firsters looked with great curiosity
Speaker 7: at Mussolini and Hitler, and before that, you know, there
Speaker 7: were some of the American rights who thought the Kaiser
Speaker 7: offered a type of governance that might be preferable. So, yeah,
Speaker 7: it is a very old tradition. The sans among conservatives
Speaker 7: and the right is that American society is able to
Speaker 7: be manipulated by liberals and changes too fast, and we
Speaker 7: need a stronger way of governing to prevent those changes
Speaker 7: from happening, a revert to older ways of doing things.
Speaker 7: So obviously authoritarian models of rule look appealing, and I
Speaker 7: think basically that that's become more less of only an
Speaker 7: elite project and something that's shared among grassroots Republicans because
Speaker 7: of the real fee years of the changes that have happened,
Speaker 7: you know, in the liberalization of the United States around
Speaker 7: issues like race and gender.
Speaker 1: Yeah, such an incredibly strange moment we find ourselves in.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could explain a little bit about
Speaker 1: why Trump is a protest vote even though he was
Speaker 1: president once before.
Speaker 7: Well, I think people have fond memories about that administration,
Speaker 7: forget very much the downsides of it. I think, you know,
Speaker 7: they feel like the economy was cooking and they were
Speaker 7: doing well and the big I think these things were
Speaker 7: Trump's fault, and because of his bad foreign policy decisions
Speaker 7: and his upsetting of certain regular patterns of geopolitical order.
Speaker 7: But you know, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are
Speaker 7: concerning to people, seem to be out of control. He
Speaker 7: comes along and says, I can put these things back,
Speaker 7: and you know, under control. I don't think it can.
Speaker 7: My sense is that he will make things much worse.
Speaker 7: But it makes sense, you know, in a world that
Speaker 7: seems to be coming apart. And also, you know, I
Speaker 7: frankly think the United States, I mean, Trump is not
Speaker 7: no spring chicken either, but the United States, where it
Speaker 7: stands in the world in terms of its importance, cannot
Speaker 7: be led by someone who looks so frail and old.
Speaker 7: It's just it invites a lot of anxiety, both by
Speaker 7: people here and people abroad. So I think there is
Speaker 7: a sense fairly or unfairly, that the Democrats were unable
Speaker 7: to govern, and Trump's kind of showmanship suggests governance. Whether
Speaker 7: he's actually able to accomplish governance, I think it's pretty
Speaker 7: clear that he's not that good at it, but he
Speaker 7: gives the impression that he can take charge. That's out
Speaker 7: of appealing to people in a world that seemed to
Speaker 7: be coming apart.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 7: The Democratic Party, you know, they got in shape when
Speaker 7: they decided to change candidates, but it seemed like a
Speaker 7: chaotic mess, you know, and it was to a certain extent.
Speaker 7: It's kind of remarkable they did as well. I think
Speaker 7: it stands to try sweaknesses and people's distrusted them that
Speaker 7: they did as well as they did. But I think
Speaker 7: in another circumstance it could have been a real blowout.
Speaker 7: But you know, I think that the fact of the
Speaker 7: matter is, rightly or wrongly, the perception among the public
Speaker 7: was that the Democrats were unable to govern, and that's
Speaker 7: usually why people vote for a different president. Trump kind
Speaker 7: of synthesizes a protest and a return vote because he says, well,
Speaker 7: I governed before and it wasn't so bad, and people
Speaker 7: kind of remember it that way, which I mean there
Speaker 7: was more to within that, and also, aren't you tired
Speaker 7: of these people who don't know their business?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that's right, but it is still just strange.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Trump World has spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking about is this idea that this
Speaker 1: time and part of twenty twenty five was a little
Speaker 1: bit of this sort of pr for this until it
Speaker 1: wasn't that this time it's going to all be different
Speaker 1: because this time Trump has got really smart people figuring
Speaker 1: out how he can do a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: that he was not able to do last time. You
Speaker 1: think that's pr we'll see.
Speaker 7: I mean, he probably has learned some things about Washington,
Speaker 7: DC and governing and politics in his time. Him having
Speaker 7: so many challenges with the really not seemingly very well
Speaker 7: considered cabinet picks doesn't suggest to me that Republicans believe
Speaker 7: he's a particularly strong leader who can menace them, either
Speaker 7: at the polls or in other ways. It seems like
Speaker 7: they're willing to stand up to him in limited ways,
Speaker 7: especially when they think people don't care, aren't looking. I
Speaker 7: don't know. I think also the lessons he has learned
Speaker 7: may have been the wrong ones, and his opposition has
Speaker 7: also learned lessons of how to deal with him. I
Speaker 7: think right now everyone's in kind of wait and see mode.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: I think Trump has personal challenges in terms of just
Speaker 7: the capacity of his mind and focus to accomplish some
Speaker 7: of the things. And I don't believe he has fully.
Speaker 7: I mean, some people are willing to work with him now,
Speaker 7: but I don't know if he has really first class
Speaker 7: talent willing to go to bath for him. He also
Speaker 7: enters office as a lame duck on day one and less. Instead,
Speaker 7: you know, he goes through with his business of trying
Speaker 7: to remain president and so on and so forth. But
Speaker 7: I mean, I don't know how seriously that's going to
Speaker 7: be taken by you know, there are other people waiting
Speaker 7: in line right right.
Speaker 1: He's a very old guy. I mean, it's not like
Speaker 1: he's sixty year old.
Speaker 7: He could kill over at any moment. I'm sure that
Speaker 7: Vance wants to be president one day. I'm sure that
Speaker 7: he will try to take advantage of a circumstance that
Speaker 7: would allow him to do that. If that, if that
Speaker 7: means betraying Trump, he might do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't think he has any personal loyalties to
Speaker 7: him or cares for him as a person. So yeah,
Speaker 7: I think that what we're seeing is as the you know,
Speaker 7: the possibilities of a post Trump future is also being considered,
Speaker 7: and we'll see that, you know, with how much Republicans
Speaker 7: are kind of willing to push back and ignore him,
Speaker 7: which you know already looks like quite a bit. But again,
Speaker 7: who knows, a very unpredictable person who's also you know,
Speaker 7: unlike we can talk about politics normal politics, and that's
Speaker 7: true so far as it goes, but it has to
Speaker 7: be remembered and how much this stuff works or it's
Speaker 7: just bullshit and actually backfires for him, I don't know.
Speaker 7: But it has to be taken seriously that Trump is
Speaker 7: willing to also do illegal things and not just work
Speaker 7: in the in the in the channels of normal politics.
Speaker 7: He's willing to commit crimes of of really grave nature. Now,
Speaker 7: are we going to be in some kind of environment
Speaker 7: where members of the opposition have to be worried about
Speaker 7: being gunned down or thrown in prison. I think that
Speaker 7: that might be a stretch, but let's hope not. It's
Speaker 7: not totally out of the realm of possibility. Considering that
Speaker 7: mobs have been willing to get in the streets and
Speaker 7: try to do stuff for him before, So it's not
Speaker 7: something that you can last. I mean, I don't see
Speaker 7: that as being a law, long term effective mode of
Speaker 7: politics and governments. Trumpet, it doesn't seem like he does
Speaker 7: either with the way he's talking. He's talking about primary people.
Speaker 3: Right, which is much better than killing.
Speaker 7: Right of course, But you know, I don't think he's
Speaker 7: above leaning on people in an illegal ways. So I
Speaker 7: mean that is a new dynamic to American politics.
Speaker 3: It's not a new dynamic.
Speaker 1: It's everything as old as new again.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, it's a dynamic that hasn't been in
Speaker 7: American politics for quite some time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, since the sixties. Thank you, Thank you,
Speaker 1: John Gantz, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 6: Molly Moment, Jesse Cannon, Samaijung Fast former two time guests
Speaker 6: of this podcast.
Speaker 2: Justice riggs down in North Carolina. She was ahead in
Speaker 2: the final vote COUMP by seven hundred and thirty four votes.
Speaker 2: But the Republicans because they are clinging onto any power
Speaker 2: thereafter having a monumental loss in North Carolina state where
Speaker 2: they've done massive remaindering the control for well over a decade,
Speaker 2: they're cleaning on the power. What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1: So she won by seven hundred and thirty four votes
Speaker 1: and Republicans are basically trying to throw it out. It
Speaker 1: is so incredibly this is the nine to one one stuff.
Speaker 1: This is the thing. They're refusing to certify the election
Speaker 1: results because they don't like what happened. And this is
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that you should be paying attention to.
Speaker 1: This is just really really bad, really like, this is
Speaker 1: what trump Ism gave birth to, you know, is this
Speaker 1: idea that if we don't like the idea, if we
Speaker 1: don't like what happens, we can not not certify the election.
Speaker 1: This is the anti democratic stuff that is so incredibly toxic, corrosive,
Speaker 1: bad for democracy. And this is in norms and institution
Speaker 1: that Republicans are trying to destroy. And I hope that
Speaker 1: Roy Cooper will, in fact, you know, step in and
Speaker 1: there is a new Josh din is the new governor,
Speaker 1: and that Democrats will force them to certify. And this
Speaker 1: may go up to the Supreme Court. But even if
Speaker 1: you win by a litle if you win, even being
Speaker 1: a Democrat, you still win. And that is why this
Speaker 1: is just so appalling, and I hope this gets whooped down.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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