Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie 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 TikTok has sued the US government
Speaker 1: for violating their First Amendment rights.
Speaker 2: We have a historic studded show today.
Speaker 1: MSNBC is Jen Saki stops by to talk about her
Speaker 1: brand new books, Say More Lessons from Work the White
Speaker 1: House in the World. Then we'll talk to philosopher Jason
Speaker 1: Stanley about America's creep towards fascism. But first we have
Speaker 1: former White House communications director and host of the podcast
Speaker 1: How to Win twenty twenty four, Jennifer Paul Mary. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics. Jennifer Paul Mary.
Speaker 2: Happy to be here, Mollie, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm such a fan of yours, and I also like
Speaker 1: anytime I see you, I'm like, oh, you know, there
Speaker 1: are people where you're just like, there's a little bit soothing.
Speaker 2: I get. That's good. That's good, that's good. I hope
Speaker 2: I make people feel better today.
Speaker 1: You worked in white houses, you've worked on campaigns, You've
Speaker 1: literally done it all. There's something horrible about how it
Speaker 1: feels right now. Can you match it to any other
Speaker 1: moment in your sort of history at.
Speaker 3: Such lower stakes that people might find it laughable, but
Speaker 3: it reminds me of twenty twelve and being in the
Speaker 3: White House in twenty twelve when Obama was running for reelection.
Speaker 2: And it was just the same kind of sense.
Speaker 3: Now again like in the parallel universe, you know, different
Speaker 3: kind of scale, but just like we felt like we
Speaker 3: had done a lot, we didn't feel like any of
Speaker 3: it was taking hold. Obamacare was not popular, and you know,
Speaker 3: Santa Romney, who's someone like even in the time, our
Speaker 3: opponent we had a lot of respect for, Like we
Speaker 3: really thought the wrong chords and it was very hard
Speaker 3: to get traction, and the polls were not great, and
Speaker 3: there was a lot and we could see a lot
Speaker 3: on the horizon from me until November that could be problematic,
Speaker 3: from Gad's crisis rising to met healthcare premiums possibly rising.
Speaker 3: People associated that with health care and just like having
Speaker 3: non gotten over the recession and feeling like things that
Speaker 3: were out of your control we're going to impact the election.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that it's kind of a good
Speaker 3: parallel to how it feels now where we see Lake.
Speaker 3: It's hard to fathom than although there were two national
Speaker 3: poles that had Biden up by five, very excited and
Speaker 3: ascy that particualing with where you feel like you have
Speaker 3: a good argument to make and it's not taking hold
Speaker 3: and things outside of your control and to determine the election,
Speaker 3: it feels like twelve. David Ploff was the President's senior
Speaker 3: advisor in the White House that year, and he would do,
Speaker 3: you know, Bridger for us every week, and then at
Speaker 3: the end, I would wait for my servame thing Molly,
Speaker 3: which was for David to say in the end, I'd
Speaker 3: rather be up for them, And there were some weeks
Speaker 3: where he did not say that. He never said up one,
Speaker 3: I'd rather be them than us. But it's just and
Speaker 3: I would in this case, I would definitely rather be
Speaker 3: a side of Bide then than then. I think in
Speaker 3: the end, what Biden has to do to win is easier,
Speaker 3: even by sort of like traditional electoral standards, than what
Speaker 3: Trump has to do win.
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for giving me a modern
Speaker 1: historical precedent, because one of the things I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: is that we never, for whatever reason, punditry is shaped
Speaker 1: in a way that we're never asked to just look
Speaker 1: back at like four years ago, and there's so many
Speaker 1: lessons to be gleaned from the very recent past that
Speaker 1: I'm always shocked that we don't do that. Like the
Speaker 1: midterms a great example. I do think like that is
Speaker 1: so useful. But also when I was in DC for
Speaker 1: White House Correspondence Weekend, the Blur of parties.
Speaker 2: Though, there was a place where they had a chocolate station.
Speaker 1: By the way, my friend was like, I've never seen
Speaker 1: you happier than when you wandered into a party and
Speaker 1: they had like a whole chocolate station.
Speaker 2: Was it like a fountain, Like I talk about fountain.
Speaker 2: They have it in Manhattan. It's very expensive.
Speaker 1: It has these sheets of chocolate, like you go in
Speaker 1: for a chocolate bar and you spend eighty bucks, you know, so.
Speaker 2: It's very expensive.
Speaker 1: But they had it's ledakorie anyway, I'm mispronouncing if someone's
Speaker 1: going to write me an angry email, but they had it,
Speaker 1: and I like found a bag and started like it
Speaker 1: was like I was at a barn.
Speaker 2: It's fars up thing.
Speaker 1: And I always say, you know, so that was the
Speaker 1: best moment of the whole weekend. But I went to
Speaker 1: you know, some of those things have, like we present
Speaker 1: information to you, which usually is not so interesting. But
Speaker 1: this was some polling numbers which I hate, and think
Speaker 1: that the poll was maybe a little bit, a little
Speaker 1: bit suspect. But what I thought was interesting was he
Speaker 1: said the closest parallel was twenty twelve. Oh interesting polling wise,
Speaker 1: because he said people are not happy and they're not excited.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of parallels, you know, he said
Speaker 1: the stakes are obviously ten times higher, right, but that
Speaker 1: Biden too looks a lot like Obama.
Speaker 2: Too, right right, Yeah, that's all Field.
Speaker 3: They were the same, you know, all on a different scale,
Speaker 3: the same but the same dynamics. But I do feel
Speaker 3: like there are things in our favor this time that
Speaker 3: definitely did not exist in twelve two.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the things though that are on Budden's favor
Speaker 1: this time are like the things that could seriously end
Speaker 1: American democracy if they're not, you know, like Mitt Romney.
Speaker 1: Nobody worried that Mitt Romney was going to end American democracy.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the salad days, Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 2: I mean that's not how you eat fish. I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: When he has a catchup and this he makes a
Speaker 1: fish hamburger, I mean that is like the he's a.
Speaker 2: Very rich guy. Did they not send anyone to just
Speaker 2: like make a little food for him? It's definitely his
Speaker 2: own man.
Speaker 3: Like we learned that, you know, like you still to
Speaker 3: learn that they had that great documentary about him. Of
Speaker 3: the course that his family I think children that are
Speaker 3: pine and it was really great that they didn't. You know,
Speaker 3: like all back campaign decisions came out after the election
Speaker 3: and I was like.
Speaker 2: Not happen, you know.
Speaker 3: Then he saw the mcmah every kind of know today
Speaker 3: not that met Romney the Obama campaign to fight in
Speaker 3: June of twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they did a good They did a really good
Speaker 1: That was a good campaign.
Speaker 2: You were in the White House then I was in
Speaker 2: the White House then.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because Biden world, it's like it's so
Speaker 1: quaint compared to Trump world. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: ask someone in the Biden White House about the campaign there,
Speaker 1: oh we can't talk about that because that there's a
Speaker 1: firewall between the two. Meanwhile, Trumpetti's press secretary writing checks,
Speaker 1: you know, not checks, but dealing with the porn star checks.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh yeah, it's amazing just looking at at
Speaker 1: the landscape. The thing that people love to do is
Speaker 1: like saying, well, you know, this is how Biden world
Speaker 1: should be doing this or that. Oh yeah, you actually
Speaker 1: know how to do that stuff. Most of the people
Speaker 1: working in the White House, I can't speak to everyone,
Speaker 1: but the people I know who work there are like
Speaker 1: some of the nicest people in the entire world. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it seems like a very kind of organized,
Speaker 1: you know, not very dramatic, you know, work environment, which
Speaker 1: is why people don't like to read books about them.
Speaker 1: But right, I mean, because it's like pretty boring. But
Speaker 1: do you see anything where you feel like they're not
Speaker 1: doing it right?
Speaker 3: Their biggest challenge is breaking through, right, and so I
Speaker 3: think that they and I would say from the beginning
Speaker 3: of the year to now, I think they've done a
Speaker 3: They've done a really good job.
Speaker 2: Everyone's like, oh, they're so late.
Speaker 3: You're like, it's many people Like they had people in
Speaker 3: battleground states earlier.
Speaker 2: Than usual, earlier than we did in twelve.
Speaker 3: They had you know, the president was doing battleground state
Speaker 3: travel on January fifth, you know above, but we didn't
Speaker 3: do that until June. They have a ton of money
Speaker 3: and they're using it really smartly and the polls are right.
Speaker 3: So like that is there's like group of concepts right there,
Speaker 3: and it is like there will I'm sure there will
Speaker 3: come a time in the next sixth month where some
Speaker 3: mady charitable will happen or gas prices will go up
Speaker 3: or whatever, and like he will fly back down.
Speaker 2: But the point is, like why people.
Speaker 3: Should feel good is that, you know, when they've had
Speaker 3: some runway of you know, obviously the GODSA conflict is
Speaker 3: a huge problem, but they've had some runway to make
Speaker 3: their argument and there's evidence that it is taking hold.
Speaker 2: So like that's durable, Okay.
Speaker 3: But the thing that I think, I think that in
Speaker 3: terms of because it's harder than a breakthrough if they
Speaker 3: try to go to places when they were doing events
Speaker 3: that were in direct conflict with Trump, like go to Wakeco,
Speaker 3: Texas where.
Speaker 2: He announced his campaign.
Speaker 3: Everyone like this the scene of the branch Davidian fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was insane. That was insane. That was last April.
Speaker 3: He went there to announce his reelect and you know
Speaker 3: the Dan six him and the whole you know, the
Speaker 3: whole bit, you know, go there and to talk about democracy,
Speaker 3: go stand out in sead of Jocelyn Benson Home and
Speaker 3: Michigan the Secretary of State, where people were you know
Speaker 3: there like an arm protests after the election, saying and
Speaker 3: like they wanted her to overturn Michigan election to try
Speaker 3: to find the dramatic backdro off or something that's in
Speaker 3: durrect conflict with Trump that will like let their argument
Speaker 3: puncture the bubble, because it is very hard. The one
Speaker 3: time where I felt like they really broke through and
Speaker 3: got to Trump was when Biden went to the border
Speaker 3: a couple of months ago. I guess he announced he's
Speaker 3: going to the border, and then Trump chases him to
Speaker 3: the border. You're like great, And then polling showed that
Speaker 3: sixty three percent of Americans blamed Trump and the House
Speaker 3: Republicans for the border security bill not getting pad. You know,
Speaker 3: so that it's like, I think, if you have you know,
Speaker 3: that is the one sort of tactic that I think
Speaker 3: would work that I don't see them doing. Always VP
Speaker 3: did that. She went to Florida, Right, That's where I
Speaker 3: can do. Somebody needs to be in Florida on May one.
Speaker 3: I would go to some red states too, you know,
Speaker 3: particularly one abortion, because I think that women everywhere in America,
Speaker 3: even if you're part of the sec you have rights
Speaker 3: and the re United Stations have your back, and I
Speaker 3: think that and not the kind of thing that would
Speaker 3: break through as well. And by it, I think ultimately,
Speaker 3: you know, part of white Biden will win. It's this
Speaker 3: decent thing and you like for opportunities for that to
Speaker 3: come through. That just work keeps popping up a lot lately,
Speaker 3: and it's very true of him.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point and that we
Speaker 1: have seen more of that. And by the way, every
Speaker 1: time we see that, when we see like you know,
Speaker 1: them go aggressive, people in the mainstream media are like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like you're running against a guy who wants to
Speaker 1: end American democracy and.
Speaker 2: You're like and so wow, right, it's like, oh Biden
Speaker 2: wor all this going? You know, Oh this is that
Speaker 2: we're not used to this from Biden.
Speaker 1: It's like we're not used to him wanting to win,
Speaker 1: so we don't all have to move to Brazil.
Speaker 2: I mean, the framing is insane.
Speaker 3: I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
Speaker 3: I mean, I know I've been doing only with it
Speaker 3: for twenty five years, and but you know, I go
Speaker 3: back and read books just like the Crater White Health
Speaker 3: bitching about the New York Times, the Kennedy White Health
Speaker 3: pitching about the cart like some dictator was attacking him
Speaker 3: in the third world country is like, oh Di's the
Speaker 3: first work with leaction of posts. You know, the mainstream
Speaker 3: media liked to beat up on Democrats to prove that
Speaker 3: they're not really on our side.
Speaker 2: Okay, that is what it's about.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what it's about. And that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was listening to this audio book now
Speaker 1: I can't find it about how the right loves autocrats
Speaker 1: because basically the history of the right and autocrats.
Speaker 2: It's funny because you know, I had these.
Speaker 1: You know, my grandfather was this liberal writer who wrote
Speaker 1: for the Nation and for a lot of places, went
Speaker 1: to jail for the House of American Activities. People were
Speaker 1: mad at him because he was very late to disavow Stalin.
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad, he was the last living recipient
Speaker 1: of the Stalin Peace Prize.
Speaker 2: Okay, so whoa they were.
Speaker 1: Mistakes were made, Mistakes were made, but when you look,
Speaker 1: I know, not good.
Speaker 2: My dad said he founded in the garage. That's amazing
Speaker 2: was that that he done it. We were in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty four. That's late to begin to stall in peace price. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not good.
Speaker 1: So anyway, you know, even the times with the Autocrat
Speaker 1: stuff like, there is a sort of over correction on
Speaker 1: the part of the mainstream media.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a really important point. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember talking to somebody when I worked for all
Speaker 3: the way back the network for President Clinton, and they
Speaker 3: were giving us a really hard time about gas pricess.
Speaker 2: The press were and like, what President's going to do
Speaker 2: to solve it? No?
Speaker 3: No, And I was like, I don't know when hw
Speaker 3: Bush President, I remember you all going on after, you know,
Speaker 3: work like this, and they're like, because Republicans don't intervene in,
Speaker 3: they hunt me, and that's what you guys do, so
Speaker 3: we're gonna be a hard time about it.
Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, alright.
Speaker 3: I see, like what you know more, you know, it's
Speaker 3: just sort of revealing why they're harder on Democrats.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how they prove they're not really on our
Speaker 3: And I think they all big Democrats get help you
Speaker 3: a way higher standard than Republicans do. Like why why
Speaker 3: shouldn't they just be on Republicans to solve that problem too.
Speaker 3: Why is name but disolling on Democrats solve problem?
Speaker 1: The Clinton white House. That must have been a complicated job.
Speaker 2: It was volatile. It was a volatile place. I loved it.
Speaker 2: That was kind of like my first family in politics.
Speaker 3: I just learned so much and it was such an
Speaker 3: exciting place to be and it was a sink of
Speaker 3: so much possibility. Demographs had not been in charge for
Speaker 3: so long, and both Bill and Hillary Clinton were such
Speaker 3: banks that made it fun and exciting and thought anything
Speaker 3: was possible. I mean, we just had obviously like a
Speaker 3: roller coaster of experience there too. So I mean talk
Speaker 3: about like I've never had an experience again, even every
Speaker 3: you know, everything we stained up like downs and downs
Speaker 3: of the Clinton white House. It was awesome and every
Speaker 3: in every sense of network.
Speaker 1: He was such a talented politician in a way that
Speaker 1: Democrats had not had talented politicians like he was. He
Speaker 1: had this charisma that even though I think of Obama
Speaker 1: as a kind of gifted orator of which we have
Speaker 1: not had since and may never have, Clinton had a
Speaker 1: certain kind of charisma that you just don't associate with
Speaker 1: Democratic politicians.
Speaker 3: Here, like the person at the person I have met,
Speaker 3: and I thought all things people were like that had
Speaker 3: that kind of aura, and I came to realize that
Speaker 3: it's something that is unique to him. But Democrats had
Speaker 3: not been you know, he got elected in ninety two,
Speaker 3: the left time my Democrat had been elected with seventy six,
Speaker 3: and even then the charter people are only there for
Speaker 3: four years, so it had really you know, have a
Speaker 3: sort of an admiration. So it really felt like nobody
Speaker 3: had been there sixty eight, so no one had any
Speaker 3: idea what they were doing. But it was a very
Speaker 3: grilling time and you know, lots of disappointments obviously all around,
Speaker 3: but like incredible.
Speaker 1: When you think about Hillary and sort of like in
Speaker 1: history what happened there. I mean, it strikes me that
Speaker 1: the fundamental reason that she lost, besides Jim Comey, is
Speaker 1: that Democrats felt they had it in the bag. And
Speaker 1: like we saw that in twenty twenty two, Like when
Speaker 1: Democrats feel they have it in the bag, they do
Speaker 1: not happen in the back.
Speaker 3: I went into that campaign thinking I was a great
Speaker 3: choice for communicating this darker because I've been through I've
Speaker 3: been White House communications darker, I've been through sooo of
Speaker 3: any things. I knew the Clayton as well, and I
Speaker 3: was ill prepared, and that I had never worked for
Speaker 3: a woman, and no one had ever worked for a
Speaker 3: woman on that scale. And it's not that everyone in sexist,
Speaker 3: but just the unconscious gender bias that just blew us
Speaker 3: away at every turn. You know, there's just something about
Speaker 3: her I don't like that no one could ever define,
Speaker 3: or it's just something about her I don't trust, even
Speaker 3: though when you go through the litany of things I
Speaker 3: have questions about, from you know, Whitewater to emails, letter's
Speaker 3: like nothing unprecedented or nothing that someone else hasn't done.
Speaker 2: Or nothing that people didn't really explain away. There's all that.
Speaker 3: But I think the fundamental problem was it wasn't that
Speaker 3: Democrats were over confident.
Speaker 2: We were very you know, like we were really scared
Speaker 2: and worried.
Speaker 3: It was that no one thought it was possible for
Speaker 3: him to win, and that kept a lot of people,
Speaker 3: I think at home when it was just sort of
Speaker 3: the you know, I could see just all along in
Speaker 3: the years I've worked for politics, things becoming just pulling,
Speaker 3: more broken, and people more centical, less people voting, and
Speaker 3: just kind of the whole game of politics becoming calcified
Speaker 3: and kind of needed, you know, in some ways needed
Speaker 3: to be blown up and revitalized. You know, obviously not
Speaker 3: in the start of way that it's happened, but I
Speaker 3: do think now it is, you know, getting revitalized at
Speaker 3: grassroots level and either will win you know, when this
Speaker 3: big fight or not. But I think we will win
Speaker 3: this big fight, and I being beyond twenty four, and
Speaker 3: then we will come out of this with more people voting,
Speaker 3: more people running for off It's different kinds of people
Speaker 3: running for up. There's more diverse people running for office,
Speaker 3: and that part of it feels good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I saw her last night, by the way, and I'm
Speaker 3: just I don't have to say how brown I am
Speaker 3: of her, And I just think in history, ellery I mean,
Speaker 3: in history, she is going to be a just I
Speaker 3: think she's going to be a very big figure and
Speaker 3: people appreciate talents that she has, but also what she
Speaker 3: went through in sixteen and I think that like, yeah,
Speaker 3: she'll be rightly remembered.
Speaker 1: Well exactly and also just super interesting. Thank you so much, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: Paul Mary and tell us what the podcast is called.
Speaker 2: It's called How to Win twenty twenty four, How.
Speaker 1: To Win twenty twenty four, and it's you and Claire
Speaker 1: mccaskell and filled with a lot of really important insight
Speaker 1: and very modern history that none of us look back
Speaker 1: to ever.
Speaker 3: Because what can I say one thing that will make
Speaker 3: people feel that you remember, like to hold on too
Speaker 3: when you're freaked out.
Speaker 2: It's like, let me here are the things that beat
Speaker 2: to hold on to.
Speaker 3: Trump's job is harder, which is he has to get
Speaker 3: people who have never voted for him to vote for him.
Speaker 2: Biden's padless easier. He's got people. You need to get
Speaker 2: people who voted for him before to vote for him again.
Speaker 3: Biden's problem it's people don't know enough about him, and
Speaker 3: he's spending money to solve that problem. And I think
Speaker 3: you know that will work out. Abortion abortion abortion, man.
Speaker 3: I thought in twenty two like everyone like I was
Speaker 3: out on the road and people are like, it's not
Speaker 3: really bringing through.
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just talked to three guys with twenty four year
Speaker 3: old white guys in Pittsburgh with trumpads who said they
Speaker 3: thought the Democrats were going to win because of abortion. Yeah,
Speaker 3: help for me, Like it's breaking through Republicans who don't
Speaker 3: want to support Trump because them Jan sick. Then Democrats win.
Speaker 3: Democrats know how to win in the battleground state. It's
Speaker 3: been a long time since Republicans had think about the
Speaker 3: battleground state. Think about them in eighteen twenty and twenty two.
Speaker 3: Democrats the ground game there, like the headlock, faith in that.
Speaker 3: So those are the four or five things you can
Speaker 3: hold on to, Okay when you're like wake up at
Speaker 3: a start in the morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you too. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back, please come back.
Speaker 2: I love it, love talking with you.
Speaker 1: Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
Speaker 1: look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all
Speaker 1: new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store
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Speaker 1: Jensaki is the host of MSNBC's Inside with Jensaki, former
Speaker 1: Biden White House Press secretary and author of SayMore Lessons
Speaker 1: from Work the White House.
Speaker 2: In the World. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4: Jensaki, Thank you, it's so great to be here. One
Speaker 4: of my favorite commentators out there, Molly.
Speaker 1: Oh you're so nice. I am such a fan of yours.
Speaker 1: I always feel like you're a person where people really
Speaker 1: like you.
Speaker 2: And I also like you. Thank you. I like it.
Speaker 4: I like you. There are normal people in this normal
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's the right word, but like
Speaker 4: good humans in this business.
Speaker 2: I think you're really smart.
Speaker 1: And also I was thinking about this because you actually
Speaker 1: may have been on this podcast when you were still.
Speaker 2: In the admin. I was I think I've also done
Speaker 2: this podcast since I left. Yeah, so that.
Speaker 1: You know the problem is because we do nine thousand
Speaker 1: interviews a week, Jesse and I are.
Speaker 2: I was like, just where am I and what am
Speaker 2: I doing? It's all good, I'm like, Molly, it was
Speaker 2: really memorable for me?
Speaker 3: Was it not all for you?
Speaker 2: Kidding? And you won my show a ton of times?
Speaker 4: I mean fun Midnight when I asked stravaganzas together, so may.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you do a really fun streamer. So now
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about say more. So, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this book. Why did you decide to write
Speaker 1: this book? What was the sort of thinking behind it?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: So, when I was leaving the Biden administration, you know,
Speaker 4: I'd been working in politics and in government for presidents
Speaker 4: and politicians for twenty years at that point, and you
Speaker 4: and I both know them this same age. You learn
Speaker 4: a lot over time, thinks, you make things you wish
Speaker 4: you would have done differently, things you wish you would
Speaker 4: have known. And I was sort of thinking through the
Speaker 4: prism of my kids are younger than yours, But what
Speaker 4: do I want to tell my daughter my son too,
Speaker 4: when they're old enough to have the conversation about the
Speaker 4: work world, about how to talk to people, about how
Speaker 4: to have tough conversations. So I just had all these
Speaker 4: stories and I didn't I didn't want to do it
Speaker 4: through the frame of a memoir. I joke that I'm
Speaker 4: too young for that, but so I'm not kind of
Speaker 4: like then at this point, this person said this in
Speaker 4: this meeting and it was so seedy, and you just
Speaker 4: didn't know about it until now.
Speaker 2: Like not my personality.
Speaker 1: The people work in the Biden admin tend not to
Speaker 1: have books like that.
Speaker 4: No, it's true, or Obama really, but I really wanted
Speaker 4: to write a book that was about lessons and things
Speaker 4: I wish I would have known when I was starting
Speaker 4: my career.
Speaker 2: And so that's what this is. And since I've never
Speaker 2: written a book before.
Speaker 4: The challenge was the structure, right, like how it's a
Speaker 4: way that's like not chronological, but people can follow it.
Speaker 4: And it took me some time to really figure that
Speaker 4: out in a lot of smart people giving me advice
Speaker 4: on how to do that.
Speaker 2: But that's that's the kind of book I wanted to write. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really writing a book.
Speaker 1: I just say, I've written a bunch of books and
Speaker 1: it's always a fucking nightmare.
Speaker 2: Like you are literally like how do I do this?
Speaker 1: And also now for you know, I can write you
Speaker 1: two thousand words on almost anything, but now do that
Speaker 1: you know twenty times?
Speaker 2: Is not you say?
Speaker 4: I mean, first of all, I am a total book nerd.
Speaker 4: Like my dream would be just like sit in a
Speaker 4: hammock or a comfortable chair and like read all day
Speaker 4: with copy. That's what I'm gonna be doing when I'm ninety.
Speaker 4: People underestimate how hard it is to write a book.
Speaker 4: It is hard, and I could talk about probably any
Speaker 4: issue under the sun until I'm blowing the faith.
Speaker 2: I have no shyness about that.
Speaker 4: But really articulating and I love to write, but articulating
Speaker 4: and making it cohesive and clear, I have so much
Speaker 4: respect for authors.
Speaker 2: And I always have, but now even more so. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just think that it's tough, and I also think
Speaker 1: the loneliness of it is really just crushing sometimes.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, and just kind of thinking, am I making
Speaker 4: this clear? Is this a story that's accessible? And I
Speaker 4: want I hope people when they read the book, take
Speaker 4: away and feel like things are applicable to them.
Speaker 2: I mean, whether they're in politics or not.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think any maga people are buying
Speaker 4: my book, maybe, but even for people love politics. There's
Speaker 4: lots of stories about politicians and there people people know,
Speaker 4: but a lot of things in there are more broadly
Speaker 4: applicable than that.
Speaker 2: And that's what I hope people's takeaway is when they
Speaker 2: read it. It's opunny because we're both forty five.
Speaker 1: I think it's a weird age because you consider yourself
Speaker 1: to be young ish. Yeah, but you know you're not
Speaker 1: young because there are people who are twenty years younger
Speaker 1: who are adults walking around and as hard as a woman.
Speaker 1: You know, I had this feminist mother, so she spent
Speaker 1: all her time talking about like how hard it was
Speaker 1: to be I don't want to say we're middle aged
Speaker 1: because we still have a little runway.
Speaker 2: But very hip Molly. First of all, about aside.
Speaker 1: I hate to say something positive here, but it does
Speaker 1: seem to me like society is a little more interested
Speaker 1: in us than they were twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: I think that's true.
Speaker 4: I also think and this is just like as like
Speaker 4: self benefiting our mutual age. Here, I am a much
Speaker 4: more comfortable in my own skin. I don't give a
Speaker 4: fuck about a lot of things. That means I can
Speaker 4: focus on the things that do matter. And that obviously
Speaker 4: applies to obvious things like kids and my husband, but
Speaker 4: it also applies to like friendships and.
Speaker 2: Who you surround yourself with. I mean, like you, I'm
Speaker 2: like not, I hope.
Speaker 4: I'm certain there's many people who hate me out there
Speaker 4: so much trying to underestimate that, but like, I try
Speaker 4: to have like civil relationships with everybody, right, But it's
Speaker 4: more about being selective about how you live your life.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I've actually found and you mentioned people who are in
Speaker 2: their twenties.
Speaker 4: So one of the things I've found, like at forty five,
Speaker 4: is like I seek out people who are different than
Speaker 4: me to be friends with. I find that to be
Speaker 4: most interesting, right, It's like I'm not I'm like, I
Speaker 4: like it when people are like they have different points
Speaker 4: of view, they have different life experience, maybe they're different age,
Speaker 4: and that to me is life giving in a way
Speaker 4: that is different from when I was like twenty two
Speaker 4: and you're just like looking for people to.
Speaker 2: All be like like you. Yeah, you surround yourself with
Speaker 2: You're not in the admin anymore.
Speaker 1: But that job is a tough job and you were
Speaker 1: wildly popular in it.
Speaker 2: Why thank you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sorry, but I mean it's a tough question because but
Speaker 1: it's something I think a lot about because as a
Speaker 1: feminist and also as a writer, I often wonder why,
Speaker 1: like you have something about you and in that job
Speaker 1: you were quite beloved, and that is not an easy job,
Speaker 1: and most people who have that job are not beloved.
Speaker 4: Thank you for that, I would say, I know how
Speaker 4: I approached the job, and in a weird way. I mean,
Speaker 4: being in that job during the height of COVID was
Speaker 4: incredibly challenging in a thout ways. There was a weird
Speaker 4: benefit of it in that, like my life was so
Speaker 4: small in the sense that like I was focused on
Speaker 4: being as prepared as humanly possible every day right, reading everything,
Speaker 4: consuming everything, and then I would go home and see
Speaker 4: my kids and my husband. I like barely left the
Speaker 4: White House when I was there. And I remember that
Speaker 4: summer in twenty twenty one where I like, I think
Speaker 4: I was at a baseball game and people recognized who
Speaker 4: I was and I was like, are they looking at me?
Speaker 4: Or like, what's happening me?
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I just like kind of lived in what my job
Speaker 2: was and I hugely benefited.
Speaker 4: And this is like I talked about this in the book,
Speaker 4: but like a lesson you probably have these two. Mollie
Speaker 4: is like I was the runner up for that job twice, right,
Speaker 4: and set it obviously either tie.
Speaker 2: I think I knew this, yeah, And you know the.
Speaker 4: First time I was like relieved because I was like, christ,
Speaker 4: I don't know how to do that job. And Jay
Speaker 4: Carney became the press secretary and that was the right
Speaker 4: choice and he was amazing at the job in all things.
Speaker 4: The second time, I really really wanted the job and
Speaker 4: I knew I could do the job. And John Journies,
Speaker 4: who's a friend and amazing and crush that job and
Speaker 4: was so good at it, got the job and it
Speaker 4: was like.
Speaker 2: You know, crushing in the moment.
Speaker 4: But what I've realized is that like I was as
Speaker 4: the most prepared the third time around, right because I
Speaker 4: was a little bit older, a little bit more sure
Speaker 4: of myself. I had already been the spokesperson at the
Speaker 4: State Department, so all of these nerdy things about Russia
Speaker 4: and Ukraine, it's just.
Speaker 2: Like I'd lived that.
Speaker 4: So I feel, in a weird way lucky that it
Speaker 4: like didn't work out till the third time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, I'm a big fan of rejection.
Speaker 1: Like, one of the seminal moments of my career was
Speaker 1: I wrote this enormous historical novel and a fancy agent
Speaker 1: said this is going to make your career and then
Speaker 1: it did not.
Speaker 2: Sell, which and like what?
Speaker 1: And then I went to an even less good agent
Speaker 1: and I was like, if I write something, will you
Speaker 1: and she was like she didn't quite say no.
Speaker 2: But it was basically no.
Speaker 1: And I was like oh, And you know, I was
Speaker 1: like twenty four or something, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is oh, this part of my career is clearly over.
Speaker 2: And thank god it was, because you know, that's not fun.
Speaker 4: It's so well. I mean, first of all, you've written
Speaker 4: a lot of amazing things since then.
Speaker 1: So it's like, but I had to start over again,
Speaker 1: and it was amazing for me.
Speaker 2: It's the best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 4: It can be so good and like life clarifying. And
Speaker 4: I think sometimes the toughest moments can be that right
Speaker 4: where you feel like rejected or beaten down or and
Speaker 4: she you know, it's also a realization. And I write
Speaker 4: about this in the book too, of like, well, I
Speaker 4: didn't get the job the second time. I was like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, all of these people rejected me in
Speaker 4: your work right house, right, it felt so just like embarrassed.
Speaker 4: And then I had to go on this trip just
Speaker 4: because I was still doing my job at the State
Speaker 4: Department right with president and the Secretary of State. And
Speaker 4: I said to my mother, who's a therapist and I
Speaker 4: write about her a lot in the book, is like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, how can I go on this trip?
Speaker 2: I want to die? Like all these people have been
Speaker 2: so embarrassed. Yeah, And my mother.
Speaker 4: Was like, it takes two to make it awkward, which
Speaker 4: is so true, right, It's like you just have to
Speaker 4: go and hold your head high. And she didn't exactly
Speaker 4: say this, but all I learned from that is like,
Speaker 4: these people aren't worried about me, they're not rejecting me.
Speaker 2: They got a lot of things on their plates. They
Speaker 2: picked somebody else from the job, who, by the way,
Speaker 2: was great at it.
Speaker 4: So it's it's also good to experience rejection because it
Speaker 4: brings you down to planet Earth yourself too.
Speaker 1: Oh, such a good point. And I really do feel
Speaker 1: like that myself. And it is like, you know, they're
Speaker 1: not doing it to you, They're just doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just happening sometimes. You know.
Speaker 4: My mother used to always say when I was growing up,
Speaker 4: she grew up in Queens, so she always tells me
Speaker 4: she just like brings us all down to Earth. Is
Speaker 4: like life is unfair, life is unequal, and life is
Speaker 4: what you make it.
Speaker 2: Which is a pretty simple thing but very true. Well,
Speaker 2: and it is.
Speaker 1: And it's also you know, this idea that it's personalizing rejection.
Speaker 1: And one of the great things that I've experienced in
Speaker 1: my career is, you know, I've done a ton, ton
Speaker 1: ton of freelance writing, and you know, I've had the
Speaker 1: experience where they're like where you convince an editor to
Speaker 1: run a piece and then they get the piece and
Speaker 1: the you they're like we're sorry, or even they just
Speaker 1: ghost you. And then I've had the experience where you know,
Speaker 1: they seem so excited about you and then they get
Speaker 1: the piece and they're like mah, yeah right, so but
Speaker 1: it's so good because what it did was it really
Speaker 1: did make it so I understood that really huge quantities
Speaker 1: of rejection are just the.
Speaker 2: Biz and that I need to just keep going totally, totally, totally, and.
Speaker 1: If I had taken every rejection as proof. And by
Speaker 1: the way, like the other thing which I think is
Speaker 1: such a like incredible moment that I have understood at
Speaker 1: forty five is that as I do things more, I
Speaker 1: get better at them.
Speaker 4: Oh for sure, this is you know, it's so interesting
Speaker 4: and I'm sure you live this too. It is like
Speaker 4: the other one of the things I talked about a
Speaker 4: lot in my book is about feedback. And now it
Speaker 4: took me a long time, I mean not the turning
Speaker 4: forty was like some marketing point, although sort of maybe yeah,
Speaker 4: to really seek aggressively seek feedback from people, in part
Speaker 4: because I think when I was growing up in politics
Speaker 4: I mean by growing up, I mean in my twenties
Speaker 4: and early thirties, and I had a lot of jobs
Speaker 4: where I was seen as young for the job, right,
Speaker 4: And so you don't want to almost expose yourself as
Speaker 4: somebody who recognizes they're not perfect that the thing they're doing.
Speaker 4: It's like I can't feedback from people because then I'll
Speaker 4: expose myself.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: What I've learned is that feedback is what makes you
Speaker 4: better and once you get over and this is what
Speaker 4: rejection teaches you.
Speaker 2: Once you get over this.
Speaker 4: Notion that like we all can always be improving, we're
Speaker 4: all works in progress, it's super helpful, you know. And
Speaker 4: if you can create a form for feedback, I mean
Speaker 4: I go through ebbs and flows of this. But since
Speaker 4: you know my whole show team, it's like I go
Speaker 4: through periods of like harassing them for feedback, right, like
Speaker 4: I wish I would have done it better. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: And it's like every show you think that, and then
Speaker 4: once you're free of like, oh and it's okay if
Speaker 4: people like criticize me.
Speaker 2: It's very freeing and it's also so helpful.
Speaker 1: I mean, Ali Mettali and I were texting because I
Speaker 1: watch my hits, which which is like so masochistic, But
Speaker 1: you don't do it because you want to feel bad
Speaker 1: about yourself.
Speaker 2: You do it because you want to see what works
Speaker 2: and what doesn't. People have to watch their hits. You
Speaker 2: have to. It's painful, it's so harsh.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yes, I love feedback, and I think it's
Speaker 1: really helpful and relevant and also important for the experience
Speaker 1: of getting better at things.
Speaker 2: I agree completely one hundred percent. Talk to me.
Speaker 1: About like one of the things that when you talk
Speaker 1: to Democrats, they have a lot of complaints about how
Speaker 1: Democrats message. Right here, we have this administration has done climate,
Speaker 1: has done a lot of legislation which is kind of
Speaker 1: like FDR level stuff right bringing chips and you know,
Speaker 1: just federal money for medicaid, I mean, stuff that is amazing.
Speaker 1: I don't agree that Democrats message badly as much as
Speaker 1: like it's a war against fake news and news avoidance
Speaker 1: and people who are But I'm just curious what you
Speaker 1: think and also like answer this question for me, because
Speaker 1: this is the thing I've been obsessed with. Country of
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty million people more probably like only
Speaker 1: a couple million read the newspaper.
Speaker 4: Well, yes, and I love a good printed newspaper, and like.
Speaker 2: Oh school, In this way, it's like when I'm on
Speaker 2: a long flight, not with my kids. I love to
Speaker 2: have one with me. Right.
Speaker 4: The circulation of these newspapers, if people saw the numbers
Speaker 4: would shock them.
Speaker 2: They are tiny, even cable news.
Speaker 1: Would you and I both passionately love It's not a
Speaker 1: huge group, but.
Speaker 2: Much bigger than newspapers. Yeah, this right, It's true. There's
Speaker 2: a couple of things at play in this moment.
Speaker 4: One of them is the biggest political story in a
Speaker 4: presidential election year is the presidential election, right, And one
Speaker 4: of the candidates is sitting in a courthouse because in
Speaker 4: only one of his criminal trials. People can criticize coverage
Speaker 4: of that, too much coverage.
Speaker 2: All of that. It's a debate to be had.
Speaker 4: But it's also a historic moment now that is clouding
Speaker 4: out the sun of any Biden storyline because it's a
Speaker 4: historic moment for the bad right. And that's a challenge
Speaker 4: if you're sitting in the White House. This is not
Speaker 4: a normal time where it's like Mitt Romney and Barack
Speaker 4: Obama getting equal time to debate their social security plans.
Speaker 2: That the world we're living in, right, So that's a reality. Now.
Speaker 4: What I think is also true is that what the
Speaker 4: campaign is doing, and I don't see all of this
Speaker 4: is trying to meet people where they are right by
Speaker 4: doing a lot of digital organizing, by doing a lot
Speaker 4: of paid media.
Speaker 2: What the impact of that will be, we won't know
Speaker 2: till November, but that is how you break.
Speaker 4: Through the clouds in some ways. What I also think
Speaker 4: though is true, which is a warranted criticism. I think
Speaker 4: it's a little overtrqued. Still, I have actually somebody sent
Speaker 4: me a mug that was NACP not a comms problem.
Speaker 4: Say this all the time. It's like people would be
Speaker 4: like when I was in the Obama administration, people say
Speaker 4: that about like Syria.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, it's it's not like it's like a
Speaker 2: brutal civil war, right.
Speaker 4: But it's a brutal civil war. It is a not
Speaker 4: comms problem, and that does happen. But what I also
Speaker 4: think democrats not every there are certainly exceptions to this
Speaker 4: could be better at it's speaking in a way that
Speaker 4: is accessible English. I actually read a whole chapter in
Speaker 4: my book about this because it's like democrats.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons I love democrats. They're like intellectual nerds.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. You and I are nerds too.
Speaker 2: We are very much it's all.
Speaker 4: Relative, right, like cooler than maybe the average nerd, but
Speaker 4: democratic nerd, I don't know, maybe not convinced.
Speaker 2: I have a C Span sweatshirt. I would have one
Speaker 2: if they would get when I wear it. But like
Speaker 2: it's really good. I mean, but it's so good. I
Speaker 2: love PBS anyway.
Speaker 4: But sometimes Democrats speak in a way that is so
Speaker 4: intellectually elite.
Speaker 2: It's not. And I'm not saying dumb it down.
Speaker 4: I don't think the American public is stupid, but like
Speaker 4: speak in a way that like there's an entry point
Speaker 4: for people, right, I mean, like, and this is something
Speaker 4: actually that I think is a superpower of Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: I don't think he's like going to go down in
Speaker 4: history as like the number one orator of presidents, but
Speaker 4: I do think he speaks in a way that is
Speaker 4: accessible and that's important. And sometimes the people are like
Speaker 4: out there, like well the squad and the Paris climate agreements.
Speaker 2: Like people are like, what are you talking about? I'm
Speaker 2: living my leg here.
Speaker 4: And that's an important lesson I think to learn that
Speaker 4: Democrats could improve upon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that's the right answer. And again
Speaker 1: there are some things that are just real things in
Speaker 1: the world, like the carnage in Syria, and they are
Speaker 1: not Tom's problems.
Speaker 2: They are like actual humanitarian crisises. So I thought that
Speaker 2: was a really important point. Thank you, Jensaki. Oh my gosh, Molly,
Speaker 2: I'm such a super fan of yours.
Speaker 4: I always look to see what you write, so thank you.
Speaker 1: Jason Stanley is a philosopher and professor at Yale, as
Speaker 1: well as the.
Speaker 2: Author of How Fascism Works.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics, my buddy, Jason Stanley.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Molly. Great to be in conversation with you.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to have you, fancy Yale professor. Before
Speaker 1: we started we were just.
Speaker 2: Talking about You were like, what are we going to
Speaker 2: talk about?
Speaker 1: I was like, the death of American democracy, the hopefully
Speaker 1: not death of American democracy. But you were saying. Putin
Speaker 1: was selling your new book discuss.
Speaker 5: So Putin just said, wars are won by teachers, And
Speaker 5: my new book is called Erasing History, how fascists rewrite
Speaker 5: the past to control the future. And it's about when
Speaker 5: you're trying to establish authoritarianism, you really want to attack
Speaker 5: the schools, you really want to delegitimate democratic education. You
Speaker 5: want to delegitimate any narrative that speaks against the glory
Speaker 5: of your country. You want to erase all the history
Speaker 5: of the past crimes of your country. So people think
Speaker 5: your country is innocent. They think it's innocent and great,
Speaker 5: and they think that anything you do that might be
Speaker 5: anti democratic is justified by this glorious innocent history.
Speaker 1: You know, you specialize in reconstruction. That was what you
Speaker 1: wrote your thesis on, right, or those sort of larger
Speaker 1: post Civil War America.
Speaker 2: Right. No, I specialize in philosophy language, right, But you.
Speaker 1: Have this other profound interest in reconstruction. And one of
Speaker 1: your thesises, which I think is a really strong and
Speaker 1: important one, is that we've had many moments in American
Speaker 1: history where the country has had the opportunity to become
Speaker 1: a multi racial democracy and has been unwilling or unable
Speaker 1: to do that, and one of those moments was reconstruction.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it's an existential moment to be thinking of. I
Speaker 5: specialize in two things, philosophy of language and epistemology, and
Speaker 5: it's my work in epistemology that leads me to think
Speaker 5: about how these barriers to knowledge affect politics. So pistemology
Speaker 5: is the study of knowledge, and I'm interested in the
Speaker 5: study of barriers to knowledge and how they're strategically used. So,
Speaker 5: of course, most Black Americans vote for Democrats nowadays. So
Speaker 5: if you are strategically trying to delegitimize votes for the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party, you're going to try to delegitimize black votes,
Speaker 5: especially black votes in cities and majority Democratic cities.
Speaker 2: And we're seeing that history return.
Speaker 5: When Trump talked about errupt cities, he was t like
Speaker 5: Atlanta and Philadelphia. He's talking about cities with large black populations.
Speaker 5: Detroit often majority black populations. And that was precisely the
Speaker 5: reason that was given to end reconstruction. That was precisely
Speaker 5: the reason given to say we need the Ku Klux
Speaker 5: Klan to shut down voters in the South because black
Speaker 5: politicians are corrupt.
Speaker 2: Do you think that is a fear of black power.
Speaker 2: It's a fear of black power and equality, Black equality, yees.
Speaker 5: Overall, we see this. We see this for example in India,
Speaker 5: any movements for equality are treated as attempts to take
Speaker 5: over the country. I mean, we don't need to go
Speaker 5: to India. We can just ask any woman in the
Speaker 5: world what people say, how is men's reaction to your
Speaker 5: claim that you'd eat greater equality.
Speaker 2: Oh, the feminists are taking over, right, that's a really
Speaker 2: good point.
Speaker 5: It's that impulse in humans that patriarchy is the first ideology.
Speaker 5: Any attempt for women's equality seems like an attempt to
Speaker 5: take over. But just take that and put it through
Speaker 5: every dominant group. You find the sort of cultural representation
Speaker 5: of Black Americans and political representation that gets treated as
Speaker 5: a threat for white Americans.
Speaker 1: Right, So I think that's really interesting. So now sort
Speaker 1: of thread the needle to sort of where we are.
Speaker 2: Right now, we have.
Speaker 5: A fascist social and political movement that has many components.
Speaker 5: A fascist social and political movement can only win if
Speaker 5: it's supported by many different groups that don't view themselves
Speaker 5: as fascist. They just view democracy as, you know, the
Speaker 5: worst alternative given their goals. So suppose, now, you know,
Speaker 5: to take a very salient example, you're a pro Netta
Speaker 5: Yahoo Zionist. You might think, Okay, I don't really care
Speaker 5: about American democracy. What I really care about is making
Speaker 5: sure that no matter what Netan Yahoo does, he gets unqualified,
Speaker 5: unconditioned support whatever happens with American democracy. Then you know
Speaker 5: you're going to strategically vote or take you know, abortions.
Speaker 5: Suppose all you care about is making abortion illegal atocracy.
Speaker 5: Those okay, but more importantly, we have to make sure
Speaker 5: there are no abortions in the United States. You might
Speaker 5: not consider yourself a fascist, but you're going to vote
Speaker 5: for the fascist party. So what we have in the
Speaker 5: United States is we have, as it were, a broad
Speaker 5: tent political party, the Republicans, that appeal to multiple factions.
Speaker 5: They appeal to white supremacists, they appeal to anti abortion advocates,
Speaker 5: they appeal to male supremacists, they appeal to ethnonationalists of
Speaker 5: various kinds christian nu and then there's the overarching appeal
Speaker 5: of a macho leader whom the rules don't apply to.
Speaker 5: What we have now is we have a kind of
Speaker 5: classic mid century fascist formation with an actual cult of
Speaker 5: the leader, which unifies various longstanding elements and threads in
Speaker 5: the American right. And that, of course is a long
Speaker 5: standing danger. I mean European fascist parties only one because
Speaker 5: social conservatives started voting for them, so observatives that well,
Speaker 5: better these guys than the social democrats.
Speaker 1: Right right, So how does this sort of steep ban
Speaker 1: in flood the zone with shit crue factor into those.
Speaker 2: They're undermining any kind of way of.
Speaker 5: Tracking reality, right, So you just you and of course
Speaker 5: you know anytime when you have these interest groups, you know,
Speaker 5: different interests groups representing different goals, then it's easier to
Speaker 5: do because each of those interest groups is going to
Speaker 5: be like, I don't really care about truth as long
Speaker 5: as I get my goal fulfill. So now you're getting
Speaker 5: Most recently, we have these protests on campus that are
Speaker 5: being represented as violent riots. That benefits one group that
Speaker 5: just wants to attack universities. The same went out your
Speaker 5: critical race theory, gender ideology. They don't care about anything
Speaker 5: other than attacking and delegitimizing universities.
Speaker 2: As JD. Van said, the professors are the enemy.
Speaker 5: So this kind of all out attack on any institution
Speaker 5: that you want to delegitimate is part of the flooding
Speaker 5: the zone with shit strategy. And since all you care
Speaker 5: about is smearing institutions that you don't like, then the
Speaker 5: truth doesn't matter. Think of the campaign against quote unquote
Speaker 5: welfare called anything you didn't like welfare and people turned
Speaker 5: against them. So this is kind of the strategy to
Speaker 5: get to direct people's attitudes to create negative attitudes among
Speaker 5: people towards institutions you want to delegitimize. You connect the
Speaker 5: those institutions, say the Democratic Party with Hamas, it's a
Speaker 5: terrorist organization. You say, oh, the Democrats really are Hamas,
Speaker 5: And it's like there's no factuality there.
Speaker 2: But it works for the narrative that you want. It
Speaker 2: works in creating us, this very extreme us them narrative.
Speaker 1: Right, if Trump loses again, right, this he'll have lost
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty twenty two. If he loses again,
Speaker 1: does this start to go away?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 5: Trump had a unique ability that I think he's losing
Speaker 5: that enact with his supporters. He had what Max Weber
Speaker 5: called charismatic authority. Seeing his latest speeches, he seems to
Speaker 5: be losing that. Actually, he seems to be losing the
Speaker 5: kind of thing, but in a very different way that
Speaker 5: Barack Obama had.
Speaker 2: Bizarro Obama Bizarro right exactly? Tisaroa.
Speaker 5: I mean, so you need you know, as we saw
Speaker 5: from Ron DeSantis, a politician with zero charisma who's just
Speaker 5: a mean guy, can't really do that. Trump is an
Speaker 5: unusual figure. It's hard to predict whether you could have
Speaker 5: such a character person come and sort of get Americans.
Speaker 5: I mean I found I used to find Trump funny, right.
Speaker 2: No, of course, I mean that's the secret of Trump.
Speaker 1: I mean that's like Mussolini, right, Mussolini came to power
Speaker 1: because people sort of thought he was funny.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Mussolini had a kind of complete clownish funniness.
Speaker 5: Trumps sort of varies between accurate and you know, the
Speaker 5: system is broken and this kind of outlawsh sensibility that
Speaker 5: Mussolini has as well, So to get people unified behind
Speaker 5: that and this really macho patriarchal strutting thing, which is,
Speaker 5: you know, patriarchy always appeals. You need that kind of
Speaker 5: leader for a cult of the leader. However, this coalition
Speaker 5: that we're seeing between the old Right, it unifies traditional
Speaker 5: religious conservatives across many religions, Jewish people, Christians. Not seeing
Speaker 5: an increasing pro Trump Muslim vote.
Speaker 2: That's insane. Like the guy had a Muslim ban, Yeah
Speaker 2: you saw.
Speaker 5: I believe Michael Flynn visited a Detroit's majority Detroit city
Speaker 5: recently or last year or two by invitation. Because you
Speaker 5: have conservative sides of religions, patriarchy can appeal to them,
Speaker 5: antioy sentiment can appeal to them. So, and we forget
Speaker 5: that Muslims were Republican voting block before nine to eleven.
Speaker 5: So you get that aspect that we call the old right,
Speaker 5: you know, the social conservatives. And then you get the
Speaker 5: billionaire class who just wants they don't want regulations, Democracy
Speaker 5: limits them, so they want to get away with democracy.
Speaker 5: They don't want to be regulated, So the billionaire is
Speaker 5: supporting this. Then you get Christian nationalists, the sort of
Speaker 5: hard edge of the social conservatives, who are like, this
Speaker 5: is a Christian country, immigrants are going to ruin us.
Speaker 2: And then you.
Speaker 5: Get, you know, people with just these very specific interests
Speaker 5: like both anti Semites I think right.
Speaker 2: Right and religious Jews I mean exactly. Yeah, how is
Speaker 2: that a coalition? Oh oh, my colleague el Yahustern has
Speaker 2: talked about that.
Speaker 5: I mean, one of the main rabbis in Germany in
Speaker 5: nineteen thirty five said Hitler will be our ally in
Speaker 5: the war against intermarriage.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Wow, we can't forget that Hitler's enemy was not religious
Speaker 5: Jews in the first instance, very clear, his enemy was
Speaker 5: Jewish people who looked like everyone else. The idea was
Speaker 5: Jews were infiltrating German society and they were infiltrating in
Speaker 5: a way that you couldn't tell who was Jewish and
Speaker 5: who wasn't. They were marrying Aryan women and polluting their blood,
Speaker 5: and they were taking over the press and infecting it
Speaker 5: with Marxism and communists. His enemies were leftists Jews. You
Speaker 5: had Jewish people religious Jews in Europe thinking Stalin was
Speaker 5: the greater threat. Of course, Stalin was a monster.
Speaker 2: Right didn't have the death camps for Jews.
Speaker 1: Also, I would like to point out that in the
Speaker 1: other episode that is going to air on this episode today,
Speaker 1: I did, in fact talk about how my grandfather won
Speaker 1: the Stalin Peace Prize and was late to disavouse Stalin.
Speaker 1: He was the last recipient of it while Stalin was
Speaker 1: still alive. So, you know, Stalin was a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but he was nice to some Jews.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a story that my family tells because when
Speaker 5: my grandparents had to decide whether to flee when the
Speaker 5: Malta of Rode Bribent trop packed when they split Poland,
Speaker 5: my grandparents had to decide whether to go east towards
Speaker 5: USSR or sort of west towards Germany. And my grandfather said,
Speaker 5: Hitler hates the Jews. Stalin hates everyone, bet or not
Speaker 5: to be singled out.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: There's no endorsement here of any foreign dictator now deceased.
Speaker 5: Yes, but Dalin killed just as many people as Hitler.
Speaker 5: He hated everyone, and.
Speaker 1: Grandpa did, in the end admit he was wrong about Stalin,
Speaker 1: which for Grandpa to admit he was wrong about something
Speaker 1: me and you really knew he was wrong about Stalin.
Speaker 1: So I do think though, was a really good point.
Speaker 1: We're six months from this election, and it really is
Speaker 1: if Trump wins, it's over.
Speaker 2: It's over. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, he explicitly tells you who he admires, and
Speaker 5: those are the people who only have sham elections like
Speaker 5: they just had in Russia. And that's what he wants here.
Speaker 5: He's very explicit, that's what he wants here. You're already
Speaker 5: seeing the sort of group, very now effective group behind him,
Speaker 5: the Heritage Foundation. You're seeing publications like the American Conservative
Speaker 5: endorse Trump for twenty twenty eight talking about how you know,
Speaker 5: the two term rule is just as anti democratic, right.
Speaker 5: So we're already seeing the brain trust, the new brain trust.
Speaker 5: What we the difference now is that there is a
Speaker 5: whole fascist intellectual cadre behind Trump now, the Claremont Institute,
Speaker 5: Heritage Foundation, and they're completely organizing what a new authoritarian
Speaker 5: society will look like in American authoritarian society. Trump is
Speaker 5: not the mastermind there. Trump will allow it through all
Speaker 5: these changes. It's an interest convergence, and then you know
Speaker 5: you're going to have minority rule rule by the far
Speaker 5: right for the rest of America's existence.
Speaker 1: Right until there's some other thing that is expensive and
Speaker 1: possibly terrifying. One of the things that Trump wild has
Speaker 1: started doing very effectively, I think, and effectively.
Speaker 2: Again, we don't know how effective it is until the election.
Speaker 1: But so Biden made a real point, and I think
Speaker 1: it was the right point of how democracy is on
Speaker 1: the line, and so you see Trump as pushing back. No,
Speaker 1: it's Biden who wants to end American democracy. He just
Speaker 1: sort of the significance of that.
Speaker 5: Well, that's just a standard. That's what I would do
Speaker 5: if I was advising Trump, and he's advising himself on there.
Speaker 5: He's got great instincts. You deflate any accusation. You know,
Speaker 5: there's an old cliche, every accusation is a confession. That's
Speaker 5: what we're seeing here. Trump very early On fastened on
Speaker 5: this seat very early on said okay, let's make this
Speaker 5: a fight about democracy.
Speaker 2: I can do that because he's very good at reversing things.
Speaker 2: Remember crooked Hillary, who was the one I'm not saying.
Speaker 2: You know, the system wasn't crooked and corrupted. It is.
Speaker 5: We shouldn't have presidents leaving office with one hundred million dollars,
Speaker 5: which we do too often. But you know, Trump is
Speaker 5: clearly the more explicitly a corrupt one of that duo.
Speaker 5: So this is a reversal. This is a pro projection.
Speaker 5: It's meant to confuse people and deflate the charges that
Speaker 5: are aimed at him. He's trying to take these criminal
Speaker 5: charges against him that are instances of the rule of
Speaker 5: law and represent them as really ways Biden is trying
Speaker 5: to undermine him politically.
Speaker 2: We know that's not true. We know that these are
Speaker 2: criminal charges.
Speaker 5: And of course it's not that surprising that Donald Trump
Speaker 5: faces criminal chartists. We New Yorkers know, right right, It's
Speaker 5: a standard propagandistic technique to project to take the accusations
Speaker 5: made against you and reverse them, and it leaves people confused,
Speaker 5: and so it deflates the power of the accusation.
Speaker 2: So interesting.
Speaker 5: Jason Stanley, can you please come back, of course anytime.
Speaker 2: I love to be in conversation with you. No moment,
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, my joining Fast. Some people predicted that this
Speaker 2: Trump trial would be boring. I think not.
Speaker 1: Trump is mad about the Stormy Daniels testimony. Different parts
Speaker 1: of it annoy him, though. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: got him upset was the recounting of their sexual activity
Speaker 1: and also other stuff. But either way, Stormy Daniels has
Speaker 1: made Trump completely crazy and now he is saying that
Speaker 1: he must have a mistrial.
Speaker 2: And the judge said to that that they should have
Speaker 2: done more objections during the trial, which is sure to
Speaker 2: make Trump blow a gasket. Yeah that's good.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.