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Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.

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Speaker 2: With a presidential inauguration fast approaching, we're turning our attention

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Speaker 2: from food to politics. My guest on Ruthie's Table four

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Speaker 2: this week is James Carville, And in this bonus episode,

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Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with my friend Adam Govnick of the

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Speaker 2: New Yorker magazine. Adam is in New York, I'm in London. Adam,

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Speaker 2: can I start by asking about James Carville and his

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Speaker 2: role in US politics?

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Speaker 1: Well, James Carvill is a political consultant political commentator. He

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Speaker 1: became famous as a Bill Clinton's campaign manager in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two election, when Clinton no won anyone longer

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Speaker 1: remembers very much against the odds, defeated the first George

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Speaker 1: Bush to become president. Carvill is famous in part because

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Speaker 1: of the efficacy of that campaign, but even more because

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Speaker 1: he is a unique personal style. He comes from Louisiana,

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Speaker 1: speaks with a strong Cajun style accent, and doesn't represent

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Speaker 1: the normal run of California New York Ivy League politicians

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Speaker 1: who tend to dominate the Democratic Party, And as a consequence,

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Speaker 1: he has a kind of a common touch and common sense,

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Speaker 1: which are sadly too often rare on the side of

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Speaker 1: progressive politics. He first became famous as Clinton's campaign manager

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Speaker 1: because of a simple slogan that he was legendary for

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Speaker 1: having plastered on the computers we weren't yet quite in

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Speaker 1: the laptop age of every one of the young people

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Speaker 1: who were working in the campaign, and that was it's

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Speaker 1: the economy stupid. Wanted them to focus on that. People

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Speaker 1: sometimes misunderstand that, Ruthie, because it wasn't that that was

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Speaker 1: the only issue in the election. That was the one

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Speaker 1: that the kids who were working passionately for Clinton at

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Speaker 1: that point were likely to forget because it wasn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: at the forefront of their attention. And he was one

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Speaker 1: of the people who said, already back in twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: that we are disabling ourselves if we use language like

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Speaker 1: tofund the police or obsessed about pronouns. He has that

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Speaker 1: Cajun accent, and he said, you know, that stuff is

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Speaker 1: for the Sarah Lawrence faculty club. It's not for politics.

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Speaker 1: And he was proven right time and time again, and

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Speaker 1: he was trying constantly to divorce the rhetoric of liberal

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Speaker 1: politics a democratic party politics from and I hate this

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Speaker 1: term woke, but let's say from the progressive pieties that

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Speaker 1: had infected it, because he recognized that they were a

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Speaker 1: barrier to communication. Somebody very smartly said once Ruthie, that

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Speaker 1: the thing that you have to remember at every moment

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Speaker 1: in American politics, particularly presidential politics, is that the median

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Speaker 1: American voter is a white man over fifty, who only

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Speaker 1: graduated from high school, who never went to college. That's

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Speaker 1: the median voter. That's the voter you're trying to reach,

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Speaker 1: and you have to moment think about how what you're

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Speaker 1: doing is going to appeal to that voter. And Carvell

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Speaker 1: is brilliant and understanding what that voter is thinking, feeling,

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Speaker 1: what frightens him or what doesn't. And so he recognizes

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Speaker 1: that a politician like Bill Clinton, for instance, Obama appealed

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Speaker 1: to that voter.

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Speaker 2: So how did Obama win?

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Speaker 1: Well, Obama was very conservative on so called social issues.

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Speaker 1: It seems shocking to us now in retrospect, but Obama

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Speaker 1: was not in favor of gay marriage. Obama was very

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Speaker 1: cautious in favor of civil partnerships. He wasn't in favor

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Speaker 1: of gay marriage. And it was Joe Biden, ironically, who

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Speaker 1: led the move for gay marriage, which was eventually endorsed

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Speaker 1: by the Supreme Court for a variety of political and

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Speaker 1: personal reasons. So Obama was very appealing to those voters

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Speaker 1: could be made appealing. You know, you don't have to

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Speaker 1: win all of them. You have to win a significant

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Speaker 1: chunk of them. If you don't win any of them,

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Speaker 1: can't win an election. You don't have to win a

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Speaker 1: majority of them. You just have to win enough of them.

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Speaker 1: And Obama was somebody who had a magical gift for

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Speaker 1: being able to speak to almost anyone. You know, if

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Speaker 1: you if you ever watched you know, early videos of

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Speaker 1: Obama giving restaurant reviews on a local Chicago station, you

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Speaker 1: can find it on YouTube. The young Obama was on

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Speaker 1: some local cable station and he was giving restaurant reviews

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Speaker 1: and you could see, oh, this guy is appealing. Everybody

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Speaker 1: found him appealing because he you know, he spoke forthrightly,

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Speaker 1: spoke with charm. He said, you know, he was reviewing

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Speaker 1: sign I think it was a rib joint. And he said, now,

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Speaker 1: I don't go to this place expecting amazing flavors or

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Speaker 1: revolutionary cooking. It's something solid. He just had it exactly right.

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Speaker 1: So I think that was part of Obama's Obama's great,

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Speaker 1: great gift. So it's not undoable. And let's remember too, Ruthie,

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Speaker 1: because and this is something I'm trying to say to

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Speaker 1: all of my Democratic friends. A Democrat are depressives. They

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Speaker 1: just they're naturally depressive. And so they're treating this last

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Speaker 1: election as though it was some overwhelming defeat. It was

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Speaker 1: a hugely depressing defeat. But the margin the popular vote

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Speaker 1: was tiny, the smallest ever, and the numbers in the

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Speaker 1: key states cliched phrase swing states, the numbers were quite small.

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Speaker 1: If you had changed one hundred thousand votes in those states,

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Speaker 1: you would have changed the course of the election. So

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Speaker 1: the notion that there's this kind of overwhelming wave of

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Speaker 1: trump Ism is a complete historical fiction. That's not And

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Speaker 1: American elections are close, and the oscillation of parties in

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Speaker 1: power is the most normal thing to have happened. What

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Speaker 1: makes this election so unusual, of this approaching inauguration so

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Speaker 1: potentially sinister, is that Trump is not a conservative politician.

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Speaker 1: He comes from a dangerous authoritarian tradition. It's very, very different.

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Speaker 2: You listen to my conversation with James Carville. Did you

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Speaker 2: agree with him?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely? I think because you know what he was saying

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Speaker 1: in the conversation you and I listened to together was

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Speaker 1: much more tactical than it was. I don't know how

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Speaker 1: to put it in philosophical and others. What he was

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Speaker 1: saying is that if Biden had stepped down in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three and there have been a real primary, that

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Speaker 1: could have brought someone else who was not attached to

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Speaker 1: the Biden administration to the four could have been rich

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Speaker 1: and Whitmer, or could have been Josh Shapiro, or it

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Speaker 1: could have been my favorite peak, Booty Judge, the Secretary

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Speaker 1: of Transportation. So someone of that kind. I have a prejudice,

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Speaker 1: Ruthie in favor of over educated short men whose fathers

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Speaker 1: were university professors of English, which is Booty Judges. I

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Speaker 1: can't imagine, it's just my class interest. Anyway. The point

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Speaker 1: is that someone of that kind would have emerged and

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Speaker 1: would have been independent. This is I'm simply parroting the

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Speaker 1: point that Carvel was making, and would have been independent

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Speaker 1: of the Biden White House, which fairly or unfairly, rightly

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Speaker 1: or wrongly, and politics isn't fair. Had become wildly unpopular,

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Speaker 1: and Biden and the people around him, with what seems

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Speaker 1: in retrospect to be scandalous almost criminally irresponsibility, refused to

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Speaker 1: pay attention to what was transparently obvious to everyone that

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Speaker 1: they were, that they had lost the confidence of the country.

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Speaker 1: Did they deserve to lose the confidence of the country

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Speaker 1: after many accomplishments, including navigating the inflation and the risk

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Speaker 1: of a recession better than anyone thought. No, they didn't

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Speaker 1: deserve it. But you know, Jimmy Carter, who died last week,

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Speaker 1: didn't deserve to lose the confidence of the country either.

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Speaker 1: He had done a very good job. He had brought

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Speaker 1: an abiding peace treaty to the Middle East. People. Now

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Speaker 1: forget that all of the things that Ron Reagan has

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Speaker 1: given credit for, deregulation, for instance, that was all Carter's initiatives.

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Speaker 1: Even the appointment of Paul Volker, who was the head

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Speaker 1: of the Federal Reserve and helped to limit inflation, that

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Speaker 1: was a Carter initiative. So did he deserve to lose

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Speaker 1: had he rescued the hostages, he probably would have been

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Speaker 1: elected politics or business of contingencies in that way. In

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Speaker 1: any case, I think Carville's point that had Biden stepped

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Speaker 1: out in twenty twenty three, there's a very real chance

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Speaker 1: that a Democrat would have won the election relatively easily.

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Speaker 1: I think that's true.

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Speaker 2: Before the election, you wrote a New Yorker article looking

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Speaker 2: ahead to a Trump second term. Tell me about it.

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Speaker 1: I wrote in the weeks before the election, I wrote

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Speaker 1: a long piece about what I thought were the stakes

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Speaker 1: in the American election. And the piece, which I think

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Speaker 1: doubtless baffled as many people as it informed, was really

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Speaker 1: about the bizarre nature of American reality, where everything that

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Speaker 1: seems to us clownish and chaotic and grotesque and things

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Speaker 1: that have actual, real consequences in the world are so

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Speaker 1: tightly tied together that it's very hard for us to

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Speaker 1: distinguish routine the two. Trump is the prince of that

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Speaker 1: kind of disorder, and he'll say derange things like We're

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Speaker 1: going to invade Greenlander, and in part it's meant to

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Speaker 1: be entertainment. It's like professional wrestling, and his followers feel

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Speaker 1: it that way, and that great. You know, the timid

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Speaker 1: liberal politicians you know, won't say anything, and Trump, old

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Speaker 1: Trump is saying I'm going to invade Greenland and in

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Speaker 1: that sense, it's a it's a grotesque game like professional wrestling,

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Speaker 1: but it's a game that actually could have very real

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Speaker 1: consequences and catastrophic ones in the world. So that's always

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Speaker 1: the question with Trump. In that piece, I distinguish between

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Speaker 1: Trump minimalists, some of them extremely smart, progressive minded people

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Speaker 1: who think remember that famous quote of Maya Angelou's that

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Speaker 1: everyone is always repeating when someone shows you who they are,

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Speaker 1: believe them. Now, we normally use that as a kind

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Speaker 1: of lefty slogan, but people have pointed out, look, Trump

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Speaker 1: has already been in power, and what he showed you

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Speaker 1: was that he's a con artist, He's a blowheart. He

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Speaker 1: says he's going to do a million things, but in fact,

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Speaker 1: the only thing he really wants to do is get attention,

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Speaker 1: get approval, get high ratings, and get tax breaks for

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Speaker 1: his billionaire friends. That's what he really wants, and the

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Speaker 1: rest of it is a con man's blowhard fuck. That's

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Speaker 1: the Trump minimalist view. And to be fair, also the

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Speaker 1: Trump minimalist view is that the Democratic party in power

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Speaker 1: has made countless mistakes which you can't minimize. You know,

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Speaker 1: I did a book tour two years ago did thirty cities,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I love to walk, so in every

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Speaker 1: city I would walk home from the venues, a bookstore

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Speaker 1: or university, occasionally a church, to my hotel. And in

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Speaker 1: every American city, Seattle and Portland, Philadelphia. In Dallas, the

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Speaker 1: level of social disorder evident on the street was real

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Speaker 1: and appalling. And I had done a book tour ten

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Speaker 1: years before and that wasn't the case. People blamed Democrats

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Speaker 1: for that level of social disorder. Again, fairly or not,

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter that politics isn't about fairness. It's about the

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Speaker 1: intensity of perception. So the Trump minimalist case is Democrats

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Speaker 1: screwed up. Trump is a blowhard, will survive it and rebound.

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Speaker 1: The Trump maximalist case, which is the case unfortunately. I

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Speaker 1: believe it is that the pattern of authoritarian takeovers of

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Speaker 1: democratic states follows a pattern, and that pattern is that

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Speaker 1: you have someone who seems clownish, like a clownish populace,

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Speaker 1: who turns out actually to be a genuine menace. That's

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Speaker 1: the pattern, and one of the key signs of it

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Speaker 1: is already in place, Ruthie, which is the readiness of

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Speaker 1: corporate tycoons who despise the leader All of the billionaires

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Speaker 1: who pass I've crossed, and more billionaires I'm sure come

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Speaker 1: into the River Cafe at one time or another, have

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Speaker 1: contempt for Trump. They think he's a clown, but they

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Speaker 1: think they can use him. They think they can manipulate

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Speaker 1: him and control them for their own ends. And they've

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Speaker 1: already become the pattern of bribing him. That's what happens

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Speaker 1: in third world countries, that's what happens in Russia. So

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Speaker 1: the pattern, frighteningly and potently is already taken place.

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Speaker 2: And what do you think about Elon Musk's increasing prominence?

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Speaker 1: Musk is you know, you know, there've always been Ruthie.

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Speaker 1: We used to call them plutocrats, now we call them oligarchs.

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Speaker 1: Whether it was John Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller or mister Frick,

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Speaker 1: there've always been plutocrats intimately involved in American politics and

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Speaker 1: British politics as well. So that's not entirely new. But

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Speaker 1: there's something about the transnational nature of it, which is

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Speaker 1: a reflection of the Internet of social media and so on,

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Speaker 1: that is that is scary, that is scary, and there's

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Speaker 1: some brazen about it that's particularly writening. A Musk makes

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Speaker 1: no secret of his view that he completely unelected oligarch

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Speaker 1: has a right to affect and even dictate policy. As

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Speaker 1: I say, it's not a new thing for very wealthy

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Speaker 1: people to have an undue influence, sadly in democratic politics.

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Speaker 1: But it was always previously. It was always sort of insulated,

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Speaker 1: bounded about, made acceptable by rules of conduct. Right, you

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Speaker 1: couldn't overtly bribe the president of the United States. You

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Speaker 1: couldn't give money to a far right British politician in

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Speaker 1: order to undermine the elected government of the country. And

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Speaker 1: now that's happening. It's happening openly, and it happens not

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Speaker 1: just through the timidity of the politicians and the benumbing

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Speaker 1: of the populace. It happens through the open participation of

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Speaker 1: the other plutocrats. Right. When plutocrats become oligarchs, right when

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Speaker 1: they stop thinking of themselves as wealthy men who have

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Speaker 1: an investment in the rule of law and in an

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Speaker 1: equitable society, that that's good for them in the long run,

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Speaker 1: then they become oligarchs and they have no thought accept

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Speaker 1: their proximity to power. And that's all the people you know,

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Speaker 1: you and I both know because of the nature of

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Speaker 1: our work. A lot of people that kind of decent,

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Speaker 1: good wealthy businessmen and executives who once upon a time

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Speaker 1: believed that they had to side with democracy because it

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Speaker 1: was in their interest to do it, because they made

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Speaker 1: their money, because they lived in a well governed, broadly

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Speaker 1: rule of law country. And when they stopped believing that,

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Speaker 1: we're really in a catastrophic state. And Elon Musk I

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Speaker 1: think represents the complete unmooring of money from a faith

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Speaker 1: in the rule of law.

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Speaker 2: Is normalization a problem? Do you think people are just

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Speaker 2: retreating from politics now?

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Speaker 1: This is a moment to recuperate and rebound and all

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Speaker 1: of that. And it's not clear that you know, resistance

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Speaker 1: and protest was necessarily, you know, the most effective way

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Speaker 1: of dealing with it. But there's an enormous risk of

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Speaker 1: undue passivity. We're calling normalization in our response to to

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Speaker 1: Trump and trump Ism and the wisest students of authoritarianism

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Speaker 1: Timothy Snyder wrote a book on tyranny and Apple Bam

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Speaker 1: all make the point that authoritarians depend on your passivity.

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Speaker 1: They depend on your telling yourself, oh well, it will pass,

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Speaker 1: what can I do? What can I do about it? Anyway,

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Speaker 1: it's your passivity in the face of normalizing January sixth

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Speaker 1: and so on. That is the is part of the

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Speaker 1: part of the cost. It can be a smaller thing

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Speaker 1: as not starting an argument when a rich person you

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Speaker 1: know says, oh, I'm in favor of Trump because I

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Speaker 1: think Trump is you know, good for business, and I

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Speaker 1: can't stand woke politics, and you have to be willing

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Speaker 1: to speak up at that moment and not be a

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Speaker 1: passive participant in the acceptance of authoritarianism.

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Speaker 2: We always end our podcast, as you know, with a

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Speaker 2: question about comfort food. And even though this is a

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Speaker 2: bonus edition, I'd like to know what you're planning on

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Speaker 2: eating in the next few months.

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Speaker 1: So the truth is that, and it pops right out

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Speaker 1: of the blue cookbook from the River cafe. Is I

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Speaker 1: do in a Matrechiana. Everybody loves a cupboard meal. You know,

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Speaker 1: you come home, you haven't shopped, You just have to

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Speaker 1: make dinner, and there's always a bit of penchetto or

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Speaker 1: bacon in the fridge. I'm perfectly content with bacon and

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Speaker 1: tomatoes in the cupboard and a little olive oil. And

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Speaker 1: there's always pasta someplace for you know, from back when

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Speaker 1: sitting there and you make that, you know, and it

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Speaker 1: makes everybody completely happy. And you know, there's much to

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Speaker 1: be said for pasta and tomato. Sauce is the staple

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Speaker 1: of life. So I suspect we'll be having much more

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Speaker 1: of it, and at the price of seeming a little

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Speaker 1: unduly virtuous. We live in a city here where there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of unhoused and a lot of unfed people,

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Speaker 1: and so a big part of our obligation has to

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Speaker 1: be to participate in all the good causes and the

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Speaker 1: positive places that houses the people who don't have one

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Speaker 1: and feeds the people who who are going hungry, and

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Speaker 1: so making a commitment to those small virtues. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've called my book about politics a thousand Small sanities

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Speaker 1: because I think that's where good work gets done. So

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Speaker 1: we have to have one thousand and one in the

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Speaker 1: approaching years.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Adam, it was great to talk to you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership

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Speaker 1: with Montclair Oo