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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Ken Martin has been elected the

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Speaker 1: new DNC chair. We have such a great show for

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Speaker 1: you today the Lincoln Projects. Rick Wilson stops by to

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Speaker 1: talk about Trump's many assaults on.

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Speaker 2: The rule of law.

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Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to author Thomas Frank about why Democrats

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Speaker 1: fear embracing populism.

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Speaker 3: But first the news mally tariffs.

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Speaker 4: It's tariff time, baby. We're going to crush the market

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Speaker 4: to own the libs.

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Speaker 1: So Donald Trump on Saturday, because there's no weekend in

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Speaker 1: how he said he was going to enact these tariffs,

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Speaker 1: signing Steve tariffs twenty five percent Mexico Canada, ten percent

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Speaker 1: are China, and then of course a little less on

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Speaker 1: the crew because Donald Trump loves oil. Ten percent on

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Speaker 1: the fuel. He acknowledged what economists, members of Congress, and

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Speaker 1: some of his old aides have said, Americans will find

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Speaker 1: themselves paying the cost.

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Speaker 2: I love this.

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Speaker 1: He posted a non truth social this will be the

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Speaker 1: Golden age of America.

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Speaker 3: Explanation point.

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Speaker 1: Will there be some pain question mark Yes, maybe and

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Speaker 1: maybe not. Explanation point again the message, which appeared an

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Speaker 1: hour before Trump arrived in his West Palm Beach, Florida

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Speaker 1: golf club for the second day in a row. Because

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Speaker 1: when you're crashing the economy, it's important.

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Speaker 3: To make sure you can play golf.

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Speaker 1: He's serious about fulfilling his campaign promise to end a

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Speaker 1: legal migration by making everything more expensive.

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Speaker 4: Listen that blue You don't understand how it sells in

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Speaker 4: America because you don't drink molly. But let me tell you,

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Speaker 4: we're really going to be upset about this Canadian teriff

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Speaker 4: for ex sports.

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Speaker 3: It's so stupid.

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Speaker 2: It's so stupid, it doesn't.

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Speaker 3: Even make any sense.

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Speaker 1: But you know what does make sense is that hedge

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Speaker 1: funds are betting billions that the market's going to crash

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Speaker 1: on Monday. When you're listening to his podcast, just don't

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Speaker 1: go look at your stocks because they're going to be down.

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Speaker 1: And look, maybe here's the amazing thing about this, Donald Trump.

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Speaker 3: If you look at the stock market.

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Speaker 1: Tomorrow morning, when you're on your way to go play golf,

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Speaker 1: you can just cancel the tariffs and then the market

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Speaker 1: will bounce back. This person is one of the few

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Speaker 1: people in a position to be.

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Speaker 2: Able to do this.

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Speaker 1: In January, right before Donald Trump took office, Investor's placed

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Speaker 1: ten times more bets on the US stock market falling

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Speaker 1: than equivalent bets. So they were shorting the market. You

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Speaker 1: know why they were shorting the market because we have

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Speaker 1: a lunatic as a president.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's almost like for months people have been begging

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Speaker 4: him to reconsider the stupidity.

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Speaker 1: But it's also just I mean, markets really hate uncertainty.

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is really unpredictable and uncertain.

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Speaker 2: And look, the other thing is, as much as.

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Speaker 1: People were mad at Biden for not doing enough for inflation,

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Speaker 1: one of the things he did was he didn't do

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Speaker 1: wildly inflationary things like making everything more expensive, which we're

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Speaker 1: about to see.

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Speaker 2: How that goes.

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Speaker 4: I think the thirty five dollars egg prices in Los

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Speaker 4: Angeles right now would like a word.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's just really bad.

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Speaker 4: So may we know One of the things that these

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Speaker 4: Heritage Foundation types and Republicans have longs to do is

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Speaker 4: take a torch to the Education Department.

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Speaker 5: We don't the flames are here.

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Speaker 1: They do want to dissolve the Department of Education. You

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Speaker 1: know why because Jimmy Carter started it and part of

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Speaker 1: Trump's thing is that he wants to get rid of

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Speaker 1: everything Jimmy Carter did, so that's everything from the Department

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Speaker 1: of Education to FEMA. But this is actually a McCarthy

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Speaker 1: ish witch hunt for people who have ever ever attended

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Speaker 1: a diversity training event. So several employees began receiving leave

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Speaker 1: notices late Friday and reported them to their local union

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Speaker 1: president at the American Federation of Government Employees, which, by

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Speaker 1: the way, that guy's real busy right nowsically trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out whoever has gone to a DEI training could

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Speaker 1: end up being fired. Now, I think it's important to

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Speaker 1: realize that literally everyone has been doing DEI training. This

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Speaker 1: is not it wasn't even an opt in or opt

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Speaker 1: out thing. People just did it. So, just like Trump

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Speaker 1: has fired people in the FBI who slow walked the

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Speaker 1: January sixth investigation, people who were white conservative men who

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Speaker 1: thought the whole thing was silly, but still maybe prosecuted

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Speaker 1: one or two cases, those people got fired. Well, now

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Speaker 1: we have federal employees in the Department of Education, many

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Speaker 1: of whom may actually not even be liberals or even

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Speaker 1: for a DEI or even for diversity, some of which

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Speaker 1: could be huge racists, and those people will be fired too.

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Speaker 1: So I just want to point out like at every

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Speaker 1: point this is like taking a sledgehammer to something that

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Speaker 1: you know, I think weeding people out because of their

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Speaker 1: ideology is is not how the federal government is supposed work.

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Speaker 1: But even if you were to do that, that's not

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Speaker 1: what's happening here. What's happening here is just chaos. And

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Speaker 1: again this will of course end up being litigated to

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Speaker 1: the hilt, but more than anything, it's also just a

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Speaker 1: question of just such a stupid way to go about things,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to see more of that.

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Speaker 4: So Maley with the tariffs, of course, Mexico and Canada

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Speaker 4: are actually fighting back. I think particularly some of Canada's

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Speaker 4: strategy around this is pretty interesting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: First of all, they're, yeah, make it worse for red states.

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Speaker 1: So Canada is going to target red states. They're going

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Speaker 1: to target red state exports, things like orange juice that

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Speaker 1: comes from Florida and liquor that comes from Kentucky, and

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Speaker 1: they're going to go after the things that will actually

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Speaker 1: hurt Trump voters.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and now Trump is saying that he'll raise the

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Speaker 4: tariffs even more on Canada if they try to do

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Speaker 4: things like this as usual in this era, the stupidity

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Speaker 4: just keeps being a race to the bottom.

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Speaker 2: Correct.

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and

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Speaker 1: the host of the Enemy's List. Welcome back to Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 5: Hello, Molly John Fast. Welcome to the forty second month

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Speaker 5: of the second Trump presidency.

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Speaker 3: We're closing in on two weeks.

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Speaker 5: Yes, indeed, but it.

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Speaker 3: Does not feel like two weeks, does it.

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Speaker 5: You know, they promised that they were going to flood

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Speaker 5: the zone with shit, and I think it's important to

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Speaker 5: emphasize the with shit part.

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Speaker 2: You Know.

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Speaker 1: What I'm struck by, as someone who who has done

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Speaker 1: a lot of research on Project twenty twenty five is like,

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Speaker 1: what we did that documentary on it?

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Speaker 5: Wait? What project?

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Speaker 2: What? Yeah?

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Speaker 5: Exactly Trump's talking to do that. He said he wasn't, He.

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Speaker 2: Said he wouldn't.

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Speaker 1: But when we got involved in covering it in July

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Speaker 1: and interviewing all the people who were academics to talk

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Speaker 1: about it, one of the things I was struck by

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Speaker 1: was just how it was like a laundry list of

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Speaker 1: everything everyone who's conservative I had ever wanted.

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Speaker 3: So it was like, you know, make life harder.

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Speaker 1: For LGBTQ people were going to do this, We're going

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Speaker 1: to do that, But the central focus this sort of

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Speaker 1: unraveling of the federal government at breakneck speeds. I did

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Speaker 1: not realize how much DOGE would be a part of

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Speaker 1: trying to dismantle the federal government.

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Speaker 2: And it's really something.

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Speaker 5: I think it's important to understand that there are three

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Speaker 5: factions inside of the Trump universe right now, and they're

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Speaker 5: working together for the moment. There are the political arsonists

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Speaker 5: who believe you have to not only reform government or

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Speaker 5: shrink it, but.

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Speaker 2: Kill it right and that's who That's.

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Speaker 5: The russ Voughts. That's probably the majority of the coalition

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Speaker 5: right now. There are the rologarchs and the kleptocrats, and

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Speaker 5: I put Elon in kind of both camps, who want

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Speaker 5: to take control of the systems in the government that

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Speaker 5: will make them more rich. You know, call me crazy,

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Speaker 5: but a guy who receives billions and millions and billions

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Speaker 5: of dollars of taxpayer money every year having control over

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Speaker 5: the system that hays people who get billions of dollars

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Speaker 5: of taxpayer money every year is a little bit of

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Speaker 5: a conflict. Call me crazy and Finally, there's the what

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Speaker 5: I call the faith based weirdo community who want to

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Speaker 5: reorganize American society along biblical lines and all this.

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Speaker 3: Stuff we want to bring about the rapture.

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Speaker 5: They are so hot for the rapture. But all of

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Speaker 5: these groups right now are working somewhat together. Oh and

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Speaker 5: there's a tiny fraction of the normies who just want

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Speaker 5: their tax bill.

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Speaker 2: Cut, right. I mean, I think that the voters are

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Speaker 2: more like that.

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Speaker 5: Some but a lot of them also are these revolutionary

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Speaker 5: types who believe that, you know, things like the Agency

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Speaker 5: for International Development is a Satanic cabal, right.

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Speaker 2: I mean, not a lot of them, but that's the base.

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Speaker 2: That's the base.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not a lot, but it is a meaningful

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Speaker 5: part of the basis what I call the catalog of

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Speaker 5: imaginary demons.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that.

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Speaker 5: Right now we have one overwhelming piece of fact evidence

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Speaker 5: right now, overwhelming piece of data about this world, and

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Speaker 5: that is that President Musk is the single dominant force.

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Speaker 5: As you point out, we did not some people did

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Speaker 5: not anticipate the doge, which is just Elon by the way,

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Speaker 5: and his minions, that they would be running and breaking

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Speaker 5: into government computer systems that today they'd be at the

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Speaker 5: State Department, an agency for international development, trying to get

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Speaker 5: into classified records for which they have zero clearance.

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Speaker 3: Right, and we're not elected to do more importantly.

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Speaker 5: Right, as somebody said the to day, if Barack Obama

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Speaker 5: had said to George Soros and his team go rifle

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Speaker 5: through all the payment systems and government records in the government,

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Speaker 5: what would the reaction on Fox be? Nuclear war?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 2: This is the kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: If Democrats did a fifteenth of this, they would all

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Speaker 1: end up there would be a mutiny. But the thing

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Speaker 1: is Democrats would never do this, nor would they do

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Speaker 1: the things that they should do that would counter this,

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Speaker 1: which is basically how we got here.

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Speaker 5: I was on an email chain and I kind of

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Speaker 5: lost my mind with somebody this morning. And I don't

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Speaker 5: really do that a lot. I don't really go are

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Speaker 5: you fucking kidding me? Very frequently to allies. But this

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Speaker 5: very good intention person is arguing to me, Oh, man,

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Speaker 5: come on, we can just get him on the economy. Now,

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Speaker 5: he's going to screw up the economy and we'll talk

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Speaker 5: about how we're good for working people. And all I

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Speaker 5: could think of was, are you ef thing kidding me?

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Speaker 5: These guys have already taken away working people from the

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Speaker 5: Democrats by calling the Democrats satanic, pedophile satanists every day.

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Speaker 5: And the Democrats think they're going to sit across the table.

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Speaker 5: And this person said to me, in good faith, you know,

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Speaker 5: our focus groups keep telling us that voters want us

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Speaker 5: to work together. And I'm like, so you're gonna let

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Speaker 5: them fuck you in public and then fuck your mother

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Speaker 5: and your dog in public and humiliate you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So one of the things I was struck by.

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Speaker 1: And again I think there's way too much talking about

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Speaker 1: strategizing and not enough just actually doing stuff.

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Speaker 3: But one of the things I was stripped by was

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Speaker 3: the Justin Trudeau.

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Speaker 1: Was explaining how tariffs work in a really clear way

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Speaker 1: that I had not heard any of the Democrats, do

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Speaker 1: you know. He said like, Donald Trump is going to

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Speaker 1: punish us. But then he started speaking to Americans and

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Speaker 1: He's like, and here's what he's that's going to.

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Speaker 2: Do to you.

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Speaker 1: And and I think that some of it was this

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Speaker 1: fundamental like I didn't know that there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of products like car parts that would come to Canada

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Speaker 1: go back, go back again.

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Speaker 2: You know that that will go.

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Speaker 1: Back and forth, you know, four or five times, and

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Speaker 1: so you know, they these things will be impossible to

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Speaker 1: teariff Mutually.

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Speaker 5: Beneficial trade between the United States and Canada and between

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Speaker 5: the United States and Mexico has been one of the

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Speaker 5: most fundamental economic facts that has helped all three countries meaningfully.

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Speaker 5: This crap Trump's spewing out today, Oh, we're subsilois Canada. No, Donald,

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Speaker 5: we really don't. All of it comes down to a

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Speaker 5: fundamental misread and misunderstanding of modern economics. If Trump had

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Speaker 5: any macroeconomic thinkers on his staff, they would say, oh, God,

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Speaker 5: tariffs are a disaster. You have to stop this. You know,

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Speaker 5: everybody was sort of like, oh, Steve Bissona seems very normal.

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Speaker 5: The Treasury Secretary seems like a normy. He should be good.

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Speaker 5: And now what is he doing? I mean, I'm looking

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Speaker 5: right now on my screen. The world is shorting American

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Speaker 5: markets for tomorrow. The stock Mark's going to open tomorrow

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Speaker 5: or today? Is when this is being heard with a

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Speaker 5: blood bath?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 5: And these people they understand that Donald Trump has a

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Speaker 5: wrong and dumb approach to this, but they are too

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Speaker 5: afraid to say Donald, this is wrong and dumb.

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Speaker 3: Well, they don't want to get fired.

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Speaker 5: Well, they would be fired, that's true.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, And I also think that this incredible story.

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Speaker 1: Now we have Mayor Pete talking about Pete Buddhadage talking

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Speaker 1: about how a lot of air traffic controllers were actually

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Speaker 1: offered by it. Right, So even though there weren't necessarily

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Speaker 1: though you know, there's a real crisis getting enough air

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Speaker 1: traffic controllers, but a bunch of air traffic controllers got those,

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Speaker 1: you know, got something similar to the emails right, the

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Speaker 1: fork in the road email.

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Speaker 5: The quick now get till August, or will fire you

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Speaker 5: and you'll get nothing.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: So watching that, you know, that's another thing. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the whole idea of mate, you'll make the government more efficient.

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Speaker 1: It will happen the way that Elon made X more efficient,

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Speaker 1: which means that all of these services that made it

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Speaker 1: a place you wanted to go will disappear.

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Speaker 5: I want people to understand very clearly that Elon is

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Speaker 5: looking for sort of b s, you know, splashy, fox

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Speaker 5: friendly cuts that he'll be able to say, oh, well,

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Speaker 5: we did this because we had to cut this program

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Speaker 5: at aid for Lutheran Social Search that's FAD five million

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Speaker 5: dollars a.

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Speaker 3: Year today's Elon enemy is Lutherans.

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Speaker 5: In case you wondering, those perdicious Lutherans are the problem.

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Speaker 5: Here's my point on this though, and I think it's

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Speaker 5: really important we understand this. The Lutherans are the rounding

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Speaker 5: error of a fraction of a fraction of a deminimous

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Speaker 5: amount of trivial spare change money. If you really wanted

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Speaker 5: to cut trillions of dollars, as Elon claims he wants

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Speaker 5: to do, you have to go for the big things.

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Speaker 5: You have to go for Social Security, you have to

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Speaker 5: go for Medicare, you have to go for Medicaid. And luckily,

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Speaker 5: now that Elon Musk is in charge of all those

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Speaker 5: payment systems, he can start cut. This is what makes

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Speaker 5: me crazy about this right now.

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Speaker 1: Who is a person who made billions of dollars on

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Speaker 1: government subsidies?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and then let's let's be very real and very clear.

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Speaker 5: Elon Musk is a welfare queen. He produces pretty rockets,

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Speaker 5: which I really like, and his company receives billions of

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Speaker 5: dollars of federal subsidies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, billions of dollars billion, way more than US Aid does.

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Speaker 2: And I think right, order of magnitude right, and.

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Speaker 1: I think that it's also worth remembering. So basically Trump

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Speaker 1: doesn't understand soft power, right, he doesn't understand why you

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Speaker 1: give money to AID organizations.

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Speaker 5: I think some of this is Elon and a lot

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Speaker 5: of these weirdos do understand how important those things are

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Speaker 5: to American soft power. If you're the Chinese and the

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Speaker 5: Russians watching USAID get dismantled, watching a way that the

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Speaker 5: United States can go into other countries in Africa, in

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Speaker 5: Asia and Latin America and South America and show our

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Speaker 5: best selves our foes, our competitors, and our foes hate

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Speaker 5: that kind of thing. They would much rather it be

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Speaker 5: about who can the Chinese roll into the Central African

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Speaker 5: Republic and bribe? Who can the Russians roll into meandmar

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Speaker 5: and bribe? They would much rather it be that kind

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Speaker 5: of world. And Elon and his calling it a criminal

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Speaker 5: or organization, we really are going to come to a

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Speaker 5: moment here. You can decide if you think it's a

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Speaker 5: criminal organization or not if your review the books, But

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Speaker 5: we're going to come to a moment here where it

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Speaker 5: is a statutory, implemented government agency, it is in law.

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Speaker 5: At some point, the Democrats in Congress will stand the

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Speaker 5: fuck up, call up the guys at Future Forward or

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Speaker 5: are still sitting on one hundred million dollars, and say,

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Speaker 5: hire every fucking lawyer in America. We're going to court.

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Speaker 5: Hire them all. We're going to court, because right now,

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Speaker 5: the idea that we're going to sort of like hope

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Speaker 5: that somebody maybe sort of steps up and defends the

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Speaker 5: institutions is clearly not happening.

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Speaker 3: Explain this a little better, you would like that to happen.

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Speaker 5: Absolutely, we need to fight this battle, even if you

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Speaker 5: lose it in the Supreme Court, and I don't think

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Speaker 5: you will, by the bye, I don't think you will

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Speaker 5: lose this in the Supreme Court. Taking it to court

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Speaker 5: slows down the chaos, and they need as much chaos

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Speaker 5: in as short a period of time as they can

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Speaker 5: possibly wrangle. That idea that we're just going to sit

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Speaker 5: here and let them do all these things is mistaken,

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Speaker 5: and it's also something that the Democrats have to do

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Speaker 5: in Congress itself. Right No, they have told on with

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Speaker 5: every lobbyist in Washington, because a lot of lobbyists are like, oh, well,

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Speaker 5: you know this, it's going to be okay, we'll work

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Speaker 5: it out. We'll bribe Trump. They need to basically start saying,

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Speaker 5: play some hardball, stop everything. If Mitch McConnell was a

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Speaker 5: Democrat right now, do you think this and it would

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Speaker 5: be rolling over like it is for Trump's nominees. If

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Speaker 5: Mitch McConnell was a Democrat.

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Speaker 2: No, certainly not.

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Speaker 1: When the market's open tomorrow and the creator what happens.

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Speaker 5: Next, Well, I think Trump will try to first break

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Speaker 5: the markets to his will right and say it's a

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Speaker 5: conspiracy by the globalist elites. But you know, I don't

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Speaker 5: think that it really is going to hold up, and

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Speaker 5: Elon is going to try to continue doing all this stuff. Look,

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Speaker 5: these guys are Elon is like a sieve for data

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Speaker 5: right now. His people are stealing American government day wholesale.

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Speaker 5: He wants this to go as long as he can.

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Speaker 5: We need to see the American financial community figure out

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Speaker 5: that the pain that Trump is trying to inflict is

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Speaker 5: fundamentally going to blow back on us. At the end

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Speaker 5: of the day. Canada and Mexico will take some damage, Okay,

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Speaker 5: you know what they will. They'll take some damage, but

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Speaker 5: at the end of the day, the damage here will

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Speaker 5: be even greater. And we need the markets to understand

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Speaker 5: that fast sooner than later.

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Speaker 2: I think they do, and I think they do.

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Speaker 5: I mean, we've seen that right now as we're recording

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Speaker 5: this on Sunday afternoon, the Dow is down almost four

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Speaker 5: hundred points in the pre market trading, and the SMP

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Speaker 5: is down about thirty three points in the pre market trading,

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Speaker 5: and Nasdaq is down as well, about thirty five points.

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Speaker 5: I think we're not going to have a pretty day

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Speaker 5: tomorrow because one thing markets want is rationality, consistency, predictability,

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Speaker 5: and right now I don't see a lot of predictability

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Speaker 5: in this system we're looking at.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I think Democrats are not doing enough, not loud enough,

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Speaker 1: not clear enough about what they should be doing to

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Speaker 1: stop this. And also again the drum beat should be this,

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Speaker 1: you did not vote for Elon Musk. You did not

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Speaker 1: vote to give him your data. You did not vote

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Speaker 1: for him to control the payments. But the other thing

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Speaker 1: that I do think is good about this moment is

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not Justice Roberts, right, He is not.

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Speaker 1: He is not Justice John Roberts. He is just as

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Speaker 1: Sam Alito. He is burning the whole fucking place down.

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Speaker 5: Whatever pissed him off in this world. He wants it

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Speaker 5: to die.

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Speaker 1: Right, And so the last two weeks it's very hard

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Speaker 1: to point to something that wasn't insane.

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Speaker 3: And now the idea that they're going to go, you know, it's.

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Speaker 1: Very hard to say. And I also think the warring fractions.

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Speaker 1: Steve Bannen has not is not giving Elon a pass

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Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, he's after

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Speaker 1: him more.

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Speaker 5: Steve right now is having a weird moment because he's

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Speaker 5: aroused by the burning down of the government and the arson,

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Speaker 5: but he hates Elon because he knows that Elon is

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Speaker 5: doing this.

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Speaker 2: Look all the.

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Speaker 5: Boom bait Elon's throwing out about wokeness and all that

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Speaker 5: craft that they're purging out of the computer systems and everything.

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Speaker 5: What it really is about is Elon becoming a trillionaire

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Speaker 5: and Elon deploying his money and power against anybody that

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Speaker 5: gets in his way. It's why Susie Wiles, the great

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Speaker 5: and powerful Susie Wiles, has absolutely failed to check Elon's power.

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Speaker 5: She's not even trying anymore. So President Musk is running wild,

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Speaker 5: and Steve Bannon is now like the guy who's like,

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Speaker 5: I didn't want to go to the problem with you anyway.

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Speaker 1: Right, there are a lot of most people in the

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Speaker 1: federal government, though a lot they're in places that they

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Speaker 1: probably should not be, and some of them have SUPRISD.

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Speaker 5: Which is within one hundred mile radius of Washington, DC.

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Speaker 1: Right, But I mean, are there checks and balances for

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Speaker 1: the hat No?

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Speaker 5: No, because right now Trump is now aware that every

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Speaker 5: single one of these people that is out there trying

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Speaker 5: to get into classified data systems like they're doing at

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Speaker 5: the State Department right now, trying to get into skiffs

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Speaker 5: as Elon Musk tried to do today. Elon Musk doesn't

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Speaker 5: have a security clearance. Guys, he was denied a security

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Speaker 5: clearance because he is a ketamine addict and a weirdo.

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Speaker 3: Well, we don't know why he has denied it. Let's

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Speaker 3: not consued here.

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Speaker 5: Ok. Yeah, then, as someone who had a security clearance,

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Speaker 5: I can tell you that if you're a ketemine adict

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Speaker 5: and a weirdo, they won't give you a security clearance.

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Speaker 5: So but long story short, all of this, to my mind,

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Speaker 5: is still about the financial incentives for Elon and the

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Speaker 5: billionaire class. They really, really really want to control of

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Speaker 5: these government monetary systems and payment systems and everything else,

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Speaker 5: because you see what Elon's already doing, Like government agencies

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Speaker 5: are now posting only to Twitter their information at press releases. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: how is that not Elon Musk receiving a government benefit

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Speaker 5: and a molument of a contract without any sort of

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Speaker 5: of propriety. Well, I mean, I know, propriety is like

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Speaker 5: low on their checklist, right anyway, Right.

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Speaker 2: Rick Wilson, thank you for joining us.

443
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:11,600
Speaker 5: You are welcome as always. I will talk to you

444
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:12,440
Speaker 5: again next time.

445
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,159
Speaker 1: Thomas Frank is the author of books like What's the

446
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:22,000
Speaker 1: Matter with Kansas and The People Know? Welcome back to

447
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:23,960
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Thomas.

448
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 2: Frank, Well, thank you for having me.

449
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 1: Jesse and I are big fans of yours, so whenever

450
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:32,720
Speaker 1: we get an opportunity to have you on, we're.

451
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 3: Both like, oh my god, we're your people. So I'm

452
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:39,200
Speaker 3: hoping you wrote a really.

453
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 1: Smart topic in the New York Times which you described

454
00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: the moment you knew that Trump was going to win again.

455
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: Would you explain to us what happened there and how

456
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:53,200
Speaker 1: you got to that thought process.

457
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,399
Speaker 2: Well, look, I mean I could also have said I

458
00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:58,600
Speaker 2: understood all of this stuff was going to happen when

459
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:01,959
Speaker 2: I was back in high school. There's just been a

460
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:05,399
Speaker 2: recurring theme of my of my entire life. You know,

461
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 2: it just goes on and on and on. What's the

462
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:11,160
Speaker 2: matter with Kansas came out twenty years ago. It never ends.

463
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 2: I've been looking back over, you know a lot of

464
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 2: the sort of the raw material of the Democratic Party's

465
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:20,960
Speaker 2: downfall of the last Oh jeez, is it fifty years?

466
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:21,400
Speaker 5: Yeah?

467
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, since sixty eight is the sort of the was

468
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 2: the moment when it all changed?

469
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 1: Why is sixty eight the high water mark in your mind?

470
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 1: They started losing working voter.

471
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 2: They lost the election that year, and it was close, right,

472
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:37,639
Speaker 2: It wasn't like, it wasn't a blowout. Everybody thought that

473
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,119
Speaker 2: Hubert Humphrey was going to go down in a landslide,

474
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:42,159
Speaker 2: but it turned out to Richard Nixon. It turned out

475
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:46,399
Speaker 2: to be fairly close. But it nevertheless convinced the Democratic Party.

476
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 2: Their failure that year convinced the Democratic Party that they

477
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:51,919
Speaker 2: had to change course, you know, that they had to

478
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 2: undertake this like self examination and become something very different.

479
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 2: And they did it deliberately. Well, it was. There was

480
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,360
Speaker 2: a reform at called the McGovern Commission, but they've been

481
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 2: basically doing that ever since, right, constantly, constantly isay.

482
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 5: What went wrong? What do we have to do differently?

483
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:14,120
Speaker 2: I mean, so for you know, I was fifteen when

484
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:18,199
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan got elected, and it's just been one self

485
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:22,160
Speaker 2: examination after another since then. But what's amusing about it

486
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 2: is that all of these self examinations, and sometimes they're

487
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 2: very liberal.

488
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 5: Right.

489
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,280
Speaker 2: We think of George McGovern as being very very liberal,

490
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 2: and then we think of the Democratic Leadership Council where

491
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton came out of. We think of them as

492
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,360
Speaker 2: being more centrist or even conservative, But they all lead

493
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,479
Speaker 2: to they all take the party in the same direction

494
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 2: no matter where they come from, right, which is why

495
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 2: the catchphrase is that the New Deal has to end. Right,

496
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 2: That's what they would always say when I was young,

497
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: we have to stop being the party of the New Deal.

498
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 2: And they would come up with different reasons for that,

499
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 2: and they'd come up with different, you know, ideas for

500
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 2: how to what should succeed the New Deal Democrats, but

501
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 2: it basically always wound up being we need to become

502
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:06,919
Speaker 2: the party of highly educated professionals, you know, affluent white

503
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 2: collar suburbanites. Always so, whether it's liberals pushing this change

504
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 2: or whether it's conservatives pushing this change, and whether they're

505
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 2: doing it in the name of nineteen sixties style, you know, enlightenment,

506
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:21,920
Speaker 2: existential enlightenment, or whether they're doing it in the name

507
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 2: of globalism, war, globalization. I'm thinking of Clinton's faction here,

508
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:32,400
Speaker 2: globalization and technology and you know, the Internet and all

509
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 2: that stuff. Whether they're doing it in the name of

510
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 2: the one or whether they're doing it the name of

511
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 2: the other, it's always it's always wind's up being the

512
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 2: same goddamn thing. It's really fascinating, but it's not intentional.

513
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 1: I mean that's like sometimes it is, but a lot

514
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: of times it's not right. What we're talking about here

515
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 1: is the Democratic Party's inability to connect with the working class,

516
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 1: or let me rephrase that, the Democratic Party's loss of

517
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: some of the working class, despite the fact that they

518
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: have policies that are much more favorable to the working

519
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,479
Speaker 1: class or even to the middle class.

520
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,479
Speaker 2: I mean, look at poor Joe Biden. He did some

521
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 2: truly decent things. He was the first president to ever

522
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,360
Speaker 2: march on a union line. Yeah, in a picket line, yell.

523
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: And then his vice president was not able to be

524
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: was not endorsed by unions.

525
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 2: Like I mean, that was insane. There's something really tragic

526
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 2: about the whole thing. I don't really want to pick

527
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,640
Speaker 2: on on Joe Biden here is not able to defend himself.

528
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 2: He had there was a neo Rooseveltian side to him

529
00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:37,679
Speaker 2: that I really liked. But he was also there, you know,

530
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 2: at the same time, had a lot of these very

531
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 2: typical neoliberal democrats in his administration who are pushing the

532
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 2: other way. So maybe this is a really Washingtonian thing.

533
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 2: I don't think it is, but maybe it is. He

534
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:53,239
Speaker 2: was really good on anti trust. What he did on

535
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:55,719
Speaker 2: anti trust is like that's I've been calling for that

536
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 2: for decades, and I was overjoyed that he did these things.

537
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: The case for Lena and the fact that no one

538
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 1: explained to the American people, I.

539
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 2: Mean, oh, Harris didn't even mention it. It didn't even

540
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 2: come up. Biden was doing some pretty you know, revolutionary things. Well,

541
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:12,399
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's the wrong word, but no, but

542
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 2: it's true revolutionary is the way. We didn't even talk

543
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 2: about it at the convention. And certainly Harriston once her

544
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 2: campaign got rolling, all that stuff really fell away. You know,

545
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 2: she's out there embracing the Chinese and all this stuff.

546
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, Biden had really good policy, really bad pr I mean,

547
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: ultimately could not transmit the policy, but.

548
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 2: Not across the board. Now, there's plenty of areas in

549
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 2: which Biden failed. Okay, so talk to me about that. Well,

550
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 2: it's foreign policy. This is this is catastrophic. It's too little,

551
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 2: too late in a lot of ways. You know. The

552
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 2: handful of things about what he was doing that I

553
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 2: really really appreciated, never went far enough to be felt

554
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 2: by ordinary Americans or to be felt, you know, in

555
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 2: a way that that caused them to, you know, come

556
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 2: around to this poor guy, Joe, And I'm sorry, I

557
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 2: just feel I feel like I feel like there's a

558
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 2: tragedy here, you know.

559
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: Right, No, for sure, I mean I feel very interested

560
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: in sort of figuring out what went wrong in the

561
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,680
Speaker 1: hopes of not repeating it, you know what I mean.

562
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I liked Biden. Fine.

563
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: I think he did some very cool legislation that we

564
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: would not have had otherwise, right, Like, you know what

565
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: I mean, Like the stuff, the antitrust stuff I thought

566
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 1: was really good.

567
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 2: The Chips and Sciences Act was really good. Yeah. No,

568
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 2: his infrastructure spending that's going to you watch what happens,

569
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 2: Trump is going to reap all the all the gains

570
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 2: of that. Well, this is okay, So this is a

571
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 2: lot of this is they phased that stuff in really slowly.

572
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 2: I don't know why Democrats always do things like that,

573
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 2: but they do. And it drives me crazy. And can

574
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 2: I just say, Mollie, one of the things that is,

575
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 2: I just want to get this out there because otherwise

576
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 2: I'll forget and I want It just burns me up

577
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 2: so much. When Obama was president. You remember, in Obama's

578
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 2: second term, I was writing for Salon dot com at

579
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 2: the time. Obama wouldn't he wasn't doing anything. He wouldn't

580
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 2: do anything in his second term, and it was it

581
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 2: was absolutely maddening to people like me, and his defenders

582
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 2: made the most outrageous excuses for it. There was this

583
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 2: whole line that he used to come across and from

584
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 2: the you know, the pundit core here in Washington, d C.

585
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 2: Where they'd say the presidency isn't isn't a very powerful office.

586
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 2: They used to use this phrase, you know, to demand

587
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 2: that Obama do anything. Was what they called the green

588
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 2: Lantern theory of the presidency, where he was magical and

589
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 2: this made me so angry. Do you remember this? And

590
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 2: he made me so angry. I called a bunch of

591
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 2: my policy wonk friends and said, what could Obama do

592
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 2: without Congress? Like, really, give me five really momentous things

593
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 2: that he could do. And we came up with them

594
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 2: and I wrote the essay. One of them, by the way,

595
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 2: was antitrust.

596
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 5: Right.

597
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 2: That doesn't require Congress. The laws are already on the books.

598
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 2: You know, he just has to order his attorney general

599
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 2: to you know, start doing it. Well, bum didn't do

600
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 2: any of them, of course, of the things that I

601
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 2: came up with, But it just burns me up that

602
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 2: as a party, Democrats are committed to this idea of

603
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 2: presidential powerlessness as a party, and then the Republicans are Republicans.

604
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 2: Look at what Trump has done in one week.

605
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: It is crazy when we look at this trumpy kind

606
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: of presidential power question. I want you to talk to

607
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: us more about what Democrats can do because the thing

608
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: that keeps me up at night, right, is this really

609
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: a lot of policy that's popular. Is the party that

610
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: wants to give people free healthcare is losing the people

611
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: who get the free healthcare.

612
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 2: So how why explain only a few of them really

613
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 2: want to do the free health care thing. That's a

614
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 2: Bernie Elizabeth Warren.

615
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,959
Speaker 1: You have one party that's encouraging Medicaid expansion, you have

616
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: one party that wants to gut it, and yet the

617
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: people on Medicaid don't want to vote for So what

618
00:30:58,760 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: make it make sense?

619
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 2: Make it make sense? As though you just ye, sorry,

620
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 2: oh Mollie, have you ever did you ever call the

621
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 2: wrong guy? Now I'm kidding. I'm like the one guy

622
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 2: who probably can I can take a swing at this,

623
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 2: and I would say first of all, that the Democrats aren't.

624
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 2: The most important thing is that what you just identified

625
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 2: would be. It would be like, really awesome if we

626
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 2: had a traditional middle class oriented party of the left

627
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 2: in America that was fighting for things like that. And

628
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 2: I think such a party would with the right leadership,

629
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 2: would be kicking ass all over the place at this

630
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 2: very moment. But the perception that people have and it's

631
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 2: not I mean, you know the words the liberal elite.

632
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 2: They've been hanging this label on the Democrats since the

633
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 2: days of Richard Nixon, and they've been doing it very successfully.

634
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 2: This is what what's the matter with Kansas was about

635
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 2: the thing that keeps me up at night and makes

636
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 2: me so angry. Is the way that democrats. This is

637
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: such a big subject here, but they walk right into it.

638
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 2: They walk right into it again and again and again,

639
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 2: and they can't see how they might be perceived as

640
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 2: an elite. You know, it's incredibly obvious, but they can't

641
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 2: see it, and they walk into it again and again

642
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 2: and again. Did I ever tell you about the neighborhood

643
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 2: I grew up in in Kansas City. It's in Johnson County, Kansas,

644
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,959
Speaker 2: you know, right over the border from Missouri. It was very,

645
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 2: very affluent. The Frank family wasn't well to do, but

646
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 2: nevertheless we lived there. But there's some weird flute. We

647
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 2: happened to live there among these people. And so my

648
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 2: playmates when I was a kid were the ruling class

649
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 2: of Kansas City. They owned the place, They owned the banks,

650
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 2: they owned the industries, they owned you know whatever, they

651
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 2: advertising agencies, they owned the place. They and they owned

652
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 2: the state. It was theirs. And they were all Republicans.

653
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I thought these were the

654
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 2: most Republican people I would ever meet. They loved Bob Dole,

655
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 2: you know, you used to when I would go to

656
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 2: vote back in well, I was in college and I

657
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 2: was I was by then, I was voting for Democrats.

658
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 2: You would go to the polling place and they had

659
00:32:57,360 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 2: this you know that you'd give them your name and

660
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 2: they had this thick rent out of all the Republicans

661
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood, and then the Democrats were a single

662
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 2: page right right. But that was in the eighties, and

663
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 2: I was there for you know, I don't have any

664
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 2: connection with the place anymore. We find my parents died,

665
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 2: We sold the house and I moved out, you know,

666
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 2: I moved all my stuff out actually just last year.

667
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 2: But I was there for the election of twenty twenty.

668
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 2: I was there with my elderly father. It was COVID

669
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 2: time and I was I was, you know, keeping him

670
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 2: healthy and safe.

671
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 5: You know.

672
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 2: I also took the opportunity to check up on what,

673
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 2: you know, our neighbors were doing, whose yard signs they had,

674
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 2: and the neighbor the neighborhood was converted to the Democratic Party.

675
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 2: Is the most incredible thing I ever saw. This is

676
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 2: the ruling elite of that part of the world. And

677
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 2: Biden won every precinct and Hillary did quite well there too.

678
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, although I wasn't there to at the

679
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 2: time to check on it. But this is happening all

680
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 2: over America. The highly educated in the Affling, yes, but

681
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 2: rich people whose wealth is associated with education, so rich

682
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 2: people who like have inherited, or rich people who own

683
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 2: the local buick dealership, if such things still exist, those

684
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 2: people still tend to be Republicans. But our neighbors back

685
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 2: in Mission Hills were you know, yeah, they became Democrats.

686
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:14,479
Speaker 2: It's the most shocking thing I ever saw. I spent

687
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 2: my life making fun of Republicans. Yeah, no, no, no,

688
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 2: it's true. And look what happened.

689
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 1: What you're talking about is a democratic party that cannot

690
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: connect with populism, despite the fact that there has a

691
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: word populist values. So well, you talk about in that essay,

692
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 1: and what you talk about a lot is this idea

693
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: that the Democrats are doing things to alienate the populist voter.

694
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,879
Speaker 2: So talk about that. This is, by the way, one

695
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 2: of my perennial subjects. The people who mate who invented

696
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 2: the word populism were guys from Kansas, and they were

697
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 2: what we would now think of as a left wing party.

698
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 2: I mean, they didn't use terms like left and right

699
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 2: back then. But that's what they were, and you know,

700
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 2: they were a farmer labor party. They of merged or

701
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 2: got co opted by, or went into the Democratic Party.

702
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 2: Beginning in the eighteen nineties, the Democratic Party became the

703
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 2: more left of the two parties. Now, this didn't work out.

704
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 2: It took years for it to work itself out fully.

705
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,960
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until you know, Franklin Roosevelt that that

706
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 2: was established that the Democratic Party was a left. But

707
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party has They are the natural bearers of

708
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 2: the populist tradition in this country, and yet the right

709
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 2: wing has swiped that from them. This is what I've

710
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 2: written about my whole life. I mean, I'm trying to,

711
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 2: by the way, just so you know, I'm trying to

712
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,359
Speaker 2: get away from this subject now and not write about

713
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 2: it anymore because it's become I just can't keep saying

714
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 2: the same thing over and over again. But the right

715
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 2: wing has stolen this from them, and there is no

716
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:48,240
Speaker 2: better example than Donald Trump. Well, because it wins, because

717
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 2: that's the bath to success.

718
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:53,479
Speaker 1: But why can't Democrat keep it? What are they doing

719
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: to alienate the voters they need?

720
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of things. You know. I went

721
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 2: to both conventions last year on behalf of a French newspaper.

722
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 2: They sent me there. One of the most remarkable speeches

723
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 2: at the Republican convention, by the way, Donald Trump's speech was.

724
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 2: I was down on the floor. I was within twenty

725
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 2: yards of Trump. He was very boring. Can you Amy,

726
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 2: isn't that amazed? On and on and on, and he

727
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 2: was quite boring. Yeah, always, well, I remember in sixteen

728
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 2: he was more he was slightly more exciting, but whatever.

729
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,479
Speaker 2: You know, who was interesting was Vance. JD.

730
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 5: Vance.

731
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 2: It's like they instructed him, JD. You're going to be

732
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 2: our populist guy this time around. You're going to carry

733
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 2: the populis banner. And he went out there in his

734
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 2: speech and he blamed the Democrats for NAFTA. That's fair, right,

735
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 2: that was Bill Clinton who got that done. But in

736
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 2: fact NAFTA was negotiated by Republicans, by George Bush Senior,

737
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:48,320
Speaker 2: by Ronald Reagan's government. But he blamed the Democrats for NAFTA.

738
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 2: He blamed the Democrats, I believe, yeah, for the bank bailouts.

739
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 2: I don't have my notes on this. And then he

740
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 2: blamed the Democrats for the Iraq war. Yeah really, yes,

741
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:02,359
Speaker 2: Well he blamed Biden for voting for it. I mean,

742
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 2: he did vote for it, I know, But this is

743
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:06,320
Speaker 2: a Republican convention.

744
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 6: It's like, there's a guy called George Bush. I just

745
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 6: got to tell you about this guy, George Bush. There's

746
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 6: a guy called Dick Cheney. I just got to remind you.

747
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,720
Speaker 6: And here's the Democrats go out and embrace Dick Cheney.

748
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 6: There's you know, there's a lot of reasons why the

749
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 6: Democrats have done this to themselves, and a lot of

750
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 6: it is you take a guy like Bill Clinton, who

751
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 6: really did so much to move the Democratic Party to

752
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:30,760
Speaker 6: the right back in the nineteen nineties, and he thought

753
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 6: he was doing it because of the sort of you know,

754
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 6: grand global sweeping forces of historical change, and he was

755
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 6: bringing the Party of the Left into step with modernity.

756
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 2: That's really what he thought. If you're unless you're like

757
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 2: even more cynical than me, that's what Bill Clinton was

758
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 2: trying to do. So though he sincerely thought he was

759
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 2: doing a good thing, doing the right thing, when he

760
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 2: signed off on NAFTA, when he deregulated banks, when he

761
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 2: ended welfare, and he intended to advertize social security too.

762
00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 2: He didn't get around to that. But you know this

763
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 2: is these are all the kind of things. Yeah, these

764
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 2: are no kidding, that's you know, having elderly parents, you know,

765
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 2: you you wake up and thank God for Franklin D.

766
00:38:11,640 --> 00:38:12,760
Speaker 5: Roosevelt every day.

767
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tomas, frank thank you so much for coming out.

768
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 2: We're done. I'm just getting looked up here.

769
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: It's twenty minutes, baby, We're at twenty two minutes.

770
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 2: Can I make one last point, though, please do, please

771
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 2: do the really cynical take. So I said, that's the

772
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 2: earnest take. The cynical take is that Democrats like being

773
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 2: the party of the rich. You look at their Look

774
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 2: at their presidential libraries over the years. Harry Truman's, which

775
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:41,959
Speaker 2: is in Kansas City or a suburb of Kens City,

776
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 2: very modest, one story building. It cost him a little

777
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 2: over a million dollars to build in the nineteen fifties

778
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 2: or whatever. Look at Barack Obama's, like Chike can't structure.

779
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 2: They're putting up right now in the South side of Chicago.

780
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 2: That's the difference. And that's the it's fun being the

781
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 2: party of let's be really blunt, it's fun being the

782
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 2: party of.

783
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 1: The Rich interesting, Thomas Frank, thank you, you got it.

784
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:15,800
Speaker 2: Molly anytime, no moment pactly, Jesse Cannon, Molly Junk Fast.

785
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 4: So I have to say, I don't know about you,

786
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 4: but the amount of techs I got about Elon and

787
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 4: his goons getting access to the US Treasury payment system

788
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 4: and now the skiff all weekend, it's just been a

789
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 4: long weekend of me was going.

790
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 5: I wish I could not have to think about him. Yeah.

791
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: So Elon, he got into the federal payment system that

792
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: pays out government money, and now he is looking around

793
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 1: in there under the guise of government efficiency.

794
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 3: He's tweeting about it.

795
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: He's shutting down illegal payments to quote unquote legal payments

796
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:58,399
Speaker 1: right to organizations. He's posting stuff online. I mean, it's

797
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 1: just exactly what you thought it would be. It's a

798
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,800
Speaker 1: very unstable kid in a candy shop.

799
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's not feel feeling good about what damage

800
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 4: she can inflict.

801
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

802
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

803
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

804
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

805
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going Thanks for listening,