A Completely Normal Republican Midterm Convention

You know, sometimes you think that a Friday's just going to be like a humdrum kind of day, and then a message lands in your slack inbox, aka your slack. And they say faves is available to do a rapid response. And you're like, this Friday just took off on Eagles wings. I have been at this microphone now for maybe 24 hours. I know you haven't left. And I'm, I like, I feel bad. You have like Kornaki syndrome where you start getting like blisters and Korns, maybe from just being sitting at least. So like, what come up? Bed sores, like something like that. Yeah. There's other people doing real jobs in the world. They're doing some, some back breaking work. I'm just, I'm just. Listen, the woolly mammoths that power your operation must be so tired. I am thrilled to have you here to talk about what just transpired in our national body politic. I want to remind everybody that I will be in Los Angeles hanging out with some of the one of the crooked guys for my book tour next week. If you haven't got tickets, please do. It's that it's in conjunction with writer's block and that other guy is john love it. And it's going to be super fun. And you should. So exciting. But really, what you should do is click subscribe. Because what follows this. In by Alex's book. And by my book, the steel for having her liners, one Republican presidency and the raid on America's courts. Yes. I like, forgot to plug that, but thank you, john. Of course, I'm not this. Okay. All right. Here's where we begin. Trump will lose the officially wrapped up yesterday. And it's impact, much like Trump's promised $5,000 bribes is yet to be seen. Fabs. I know you've talked about this a lot. So I'm going to try and find some new territory. Let's just first, I am interested in your thoughts on this Laura Ingram interview with Donald Trump. We're in. She asked the question. We've all been wondering. Here's the, here's the exchange. I want to just give the money now. If you have the money, why can't I'll tell you what? Because the Democrats can't do it. Because with them, it's negative growth with us. It's so positive. What? Okay. So Ingram's asking about these promised $5,000 bribes. And why Americans need to wait until Republicans have held the House and Senate since they already hold those two chambers. And his response is what? Because the Democrats won't do it because it's negative growth. Do you understand what he's saying, John? No, and neither does he. It's a policy proposal, policy proposal that didn't, didn't survive a single follow-up. Not even one. Not even one, which was the most, you know, it was going to say like good for Laura Ingram, but it was the most obvious question. It's like you, you're saying if Republicans win, you'll do this. Republicans did win in 2024. As did you, you control Washington with an iron fist, more so than probably any president and memory. If you wanted to do the dividend checks, why haven't you done them yet? You promised a doge dividend check of $5,000. Then you promised some tariff dividend checks. I think you promised some Obamacare dividend checks, whatever not called dividend checks, but you promised a lot of money to people in the form of checks. Haven't done any of it. Have had control of Congress for two years. Makes no sense. I am of a mind that because of all the reasons you listed, which is he's failed to deliver on these checks, these cash bribes time and time again, but I actually wonder whether this promise hollow as it is expected to be actually pisses people off more. Like I think the assertion that he made at Trumpapalooza that he is bringing prices down way, way low as they are doing the very opposite. And by the way, like we'll continue to get more elevated because Diesel's $6 a gallon and everything we get in this country is shipped in one form or another and usually ends up on the back of a truck somewhere. I just I feel like people are angry and like the worst thing you can do to an angry person is like make more empty promises on the topic that is most painful to them. I don't know. Maybe I'm overextending the level of anger that people are feeling, but I don't know. I just think this could backfire. Well, I think first of all, most people won't know that he even made the promise because it's not going to get a ton of coverage because people don't think it's serious. So I think you got to set aside most people never hearing about it. So now let's talk about the people who have heard about it. I think their intention here at the Trump administration or just Donald Trump maybe was, okay, there's a bunch of people who don't pay attention to any of this shit and maybe if they just see a headline or a chiron on a news channel or on their screen that says Trump promises $5,000, they won't bother to ask why or look anything up or Google or anything. And you know, maybe they'll vote for public. Who can what do we get to lose? What do we get to lose? So they are they're I think their bet is that people would believe this just site unseen. And it's a bad bet. I think it's a bad bet because most people are primed not to believe politicians in general or cynical about government, particularly about him, his approval ratings are in the tank. So is the Republican Congress? People also live their lives. They can see that nothing has improved that that the president hasn't done anything or the Republicans haven't done anything to make their life more affordable. So who is really going to believe that this is that this will happen? Some some number of people will for sure, but like, is it going to make someone vote Republican? Yeah, I mean, well, I think if you are believing in it and you do accept it at face value, you probably were already going to vote for Trump anyway. Yeah. The vast majority of people, it's like, you know, the failure to deliver on one of his key promises, no more new wars is playing out like as we speak. So why would you believe him on something like this? Speaking of Trump and his failed promises and his lackeys that surround him, I do want to get you like, I want to get your thoughts on two clips from our vice president, JD Vance. Let's play them first and then I will have some thoughts for you on the back end. We just had a protester interrupting us and waving the Mexican flag. Well, well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. I'll buy you the plane ticket. If you ever feeling down about our country, ladies and gentlemen, just take a look at the beautiful ladies right behind me. Ladies, I'd like to know what you had to drink, because I'll take two over what I'm done. Has, has, do you think JD Vance has ever hit on a woman before? I mean, having seen the content where he sits down with his wife. I mean, and like, and, and pat her on the knee, I would say no. They made babies. I just like four of them. Is he like paraphrasing the woman in when Harry met Sally who's like, all have what she's having? Like what? What even is that line? I talked about this with Fifer for today's positive America. And I, like, everything about him is so forced and phony. I think he wrote that line. By the way, I think he wrote those lines. I think they were in prompter. Well, so that's, I was wondering that about the, because I don't, you know, I'm not a conspiracy person, and I do not want to allege that the protester was a plant, right? Well, no, I was talking about the bad, like, bar line about, like, all that too. Like, I think that's literally in the script. But the Mexican protester we're going to get to in a moment. Yes, continue. My thought is even lines that may genuinely have been ad libbed by JD Vance. He cannot make seem like they are authentic or real ad libbed because he is incapable of, like, genuine human interaction. Like, I just think he doesn't know who he is. And we taught, you know, I've criticized a lot of Democrats for this for, like, reading the stage directions and just, just getting the message delivered to them in their poll and then saying it and not seeming real or authentic. And he and, you know, there's a lot of, like, you know, front of the class Democrats who were just like, they're going to study their way to the presidency and they're going to do everything right and say all the right messages. And he is of everyone in the Republican party who could be president or could be nominated for president that party. He is at the top of the list of people who just, he thinks he feels like he's going, he thinks he's going to study his way to the presidency. And it just, there's not an authentic bone in his body. No, it's because the aliens are controlling his brain like in men and black. Like, I think JD Vance has actually proved that they're aliens already on and he's one of them. Uh, I kind of wonder, like, I listened to his speech. I did myself the disservice of listening to his speech after the fact because I refused to watch this live. And I wonder if you think it's possible because he's really trying to position himself as a family, a family guy. That was my take. Yeah. Well, see, look at my hive mind. He's positioning himself as a family guy, but also as a xenophobe and a blood and soil nationalist. Do those two things go together in the 21st century? Can you do that? Can you be the aw shucks, love your kids, family guy, and then also get off my fucking front lawn? No, and you articulated what I was trying to articulate to Dan on the pod today and you did it much better, which is like the blood to the extent that he does believe something deeply. It is the blood and soil nationalism. He is also a smart person and so I think he is now aware that the blood and soil nationalism hard-edged as it is does not sell beyond a fraction of the mega-base of the Republican base. And so he's trying to put a family-friendly sheen on it, just sand off the edges, and try to make it more about conservative family values and nationalism, but like a friendly nationalism. And I just, I don't think it can work because who he is and what he actually believes is so much harsher than what he's trying to communicate to people. Well, I also, I will keep bringing this up till I'm like 90, but like his own family is an example of why blood and soil nationalism is reductive and outmoded. Like he has second-generation Americans who are his children. Like his in-laws are immigrants. His children are mixed race. Like if he truly believes that the identity of American is white, Christian, and probably male, but sometimes female, what does that mean for Alec, his newborn? What does that mean for Vivek? He has a child named Vivek Vance. And to me, it's like if the family is the central unit that needs to be preserved, look at your own family, dude. Look at the choices you made to expand it to make it multicultural and multi-religious. Like how do you square the reality you live with the words and the and the ideology that you've adopted? It like it doesn't track for me. And I genuinely think the MAGA base has been fed a diet of such straight racism for so long. I genuinely think it's a problem for him to go up there with his brown wife and his brown children. I don't know like do will MAGA will MAGA accept a first lady named Usha Vance? I know we talk about Melania, she's also an immigrant, but she is not as dark as Usha Vance. The children do not look immediately mixed race because they're not, but you know, like I'm talking about the Trumps. The Vances are a much different face of America and and it just and yet JD is adopted blood and soil nationalism and xenophobic, like, you know, jingo-wistic rhetoric thinking that nobody is going to actually look at who he is. So I thought about this a lot and I've had a lot of conversations about this with people and I think this is how JD Vance would square the circle. You heard the end of the speech where he goes after a duel, I'll say it, for a tweet where he was like, oh, because JD Vance was talking about his papa, his grandfather, and how he wouldn't recognize the party of Abdul and the party of communists and the Democratic Party today, right? All this kind of bullshit. And Abdul was like, oh, would you bring Usha to papa? And you know, I he was annoyed by it and I get it's like, we don't know what Papa's politics were, but maybe maybe they were better than JD Vances, right? But anyway, so he gets really angry and he's like in the idea that he wouldn't like Usha just because she's not white is like offensive and racist and all that because I think what he thinks and what some of these nat cons, the national conservatives and the blood and soil nationalist people think is no, there are there are good minorities and there are good immigrants and the good minorities and the good immigrants assimilate and are grateful every day don't criticize the America. JD Vance can criticize America because he is seven generations, you know, buried in Kentucky, but someone who has just arrived at the country and who is a new citizen should never criticize the country. This is I mean, he basically when he gave his, what I think is the blood and soil national, national speech at Claremont a couple years ago, a year ago, I don't know the time. He specifically went after Mamdani for this and he was like, how dare he on the 4th of July in Mamdani had like a very nice message on the 4th of July two years ago, there's an even this year and then also said like, but our journey's not done and the union's not perfect yet. Like something very, I think it's a very benign and he went after him for it and be like, how dare he, an immigrant to this country, criticize it. So if Usha is conservative and has assimilated and believes what he believes and doesn't complain about the country, then Usha is great and he of course he loves Usha and of course he loves his children, but like other people that he doesn't know who just came here, be careful. Right. Know your place boy. Did he refer to Mamdani as boy? I mean, because that's you notice, that's a subtext. I will just say there is a candidate, there was a candidate, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state of Tennessee, who was trying to outlaw Hinduism and Islam in the state of Tennessee this year and believe that the Tennessee state constitution would allow that. JD Vance may have figured out a workaround. Nobody else in the Republican Party like the virulently racist xenophobic blood and soil nationalists that now make up a core subset of the Republican base do not see a need for workarounds. There is no need to accept people who practice Hinduism, which again would include the second lady of the United States and her family. And that is the problem. They have unleashed the hounds of like darkness within their party as a means to an end and now there's no getting them back. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle. And therefore like I just this is what I'm like JD I don't know how he I truly don't know how he like wakes up and is a father to these children and then goes out and says the stuff that he does knowing that children that look just like them are going to be punished by people who believe in the shit JD Vance is saying. Setting that aside, if he is going to be the nominee in 2028, he's going to have to speak to rooms full of people who support the outlawing of certain religions in this United States in these United States. One of which is practiced by his wife. I'm just saying. Good luck to you. And again, this is much like Trump getting the question from Laura Ingram. This is a a tight rope that he's walking that does not survive contacts to mismix the metaphors with like even one question about it, right? Like because all I could think about when he was so outraged about, you know, Abdul's racism against his family is like, okay, just a quick reminder of how this went. A couple, you know, in the Biden administration, they allowed legally a bunch of Haitians to come to America fleeing from a country that is still maybe one of the most violent places on earth has gotten worse. Has gotten worse. And so legally allowed, a couple hundred thousand Haitian immigrants into the country, many of them settled in Springfield, Ohio, where by all accounts from people in Springfield, Ohio, their hard workers, part of the community. And then like, you know, was there, there were like a few driving incidents and this, you know, like in the right wing media, took those incidents and made a big thing. And then and then people started spreading rumors, conspiracies that they were eating people's pets, which the current president of the United States decided to push and then JD Vance supported and when was and when was asked when asked about it, was said, well, if we have to push around a few memes just to get a draw attention to an issue, then we should do it. Knowing that like he's putting people in danger by saying that they eat pets that that these human beings who are just wanted to like live in this city and work and and raise their families and be safe or eating pets who are now in ankle monitors and being deported because of all this or meeting suicide because of the humiliations and shame that's been visited upon and you're and you're so fucking outraged that anyone would dare accuse you of racism or xenophobia. My dander is up. I know makes me mad. I don't know. I don't actually I don't like him. I don't care for him. We did an episode on we spoke to one of the Haitian residents of this country who's about to be deported on runaway country and she has a child here who's five who's an American like we it is so wrenching what is happening to communities across the country and we don't pay enough attention to it and when you do pay attention to it, it's just like so appalling it makes your eyes bleed. Hey, it's John. Last year 2500 people joined us at CricketCon for conversations with some of the smartest organizers least annoying politicians and most interesting voices in politics about how to fix this mess. We're doing it again November 5th through the 7th in Washington DC, even more podcast panels and workshops plus there will be drinks which will lead after the midterms no matter which way they go. Get your tickets at CricketCon.com where we'll also announce the lineup. If you're a friends of the pod subscriber a limited number of discounted tickets are still available get them before they run out. See you at CricketCon. Before we go, I want to just talk about the strange, the unbearable lightness of being microtters. What the fuck is microtters doing? What was he doing here? Let's just first hear what he had to say. Microtters, I'm going to call it a closing argument because it's after Labor Day. Why why everyone should be terrified of Abdul Al-Sahad? I know what they're capable of. And I know what happens when America becomes afraid to call evil by its name. September 11th isn't something that we deserved no matter what Abdul's buddies say. Abdul's is funding his campaign with money from terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. He wants to represent Palestine. I want to represent Michigan. again. Let's just say like it's important to note that sitting Senator Ron Johnson is a 9/11 truth or like let's just be clear if anybody is officially out there undermining the grief and the I think the morning that continues this day to victims of 9/11 it is Ron Johnson who is in the Republican party. So just like put that in your pipe and smoke it for a moment. Islamophobia as a closing argument. First of all John what would you like to see Abdul do like with this? I would like him and if he's asked about I would say nothing about it unless he was asked about it and he'll probably be asked about it and then I would be like I'm just shocked that Mike Rogers had a six minute speech opportunity to communicate and said absolutely nothing about the struggles of families in Michigan who cannot afford anything right now and gave a speech that had he not mentioned the words Abdul or Hassan Piker could have been delivered at a 2000 in a 2002 midterm race after 9/11 or Tommy was saying like the 2004 convention in New York the Republican convention New York like it was very what what are you I know I realized that it's the 25th anniversary of 9/11 but there the clips you showed there was nothing else to the speech it was six minutes of 9/11 national security what he his role in this he was the FBI going after terrorists all this stuff and it's like what it's 2026 dude what are you talking about there's a whole bunch of problems there's a war going on in Iran right now there's a trade war with Canada which borders the state that you want to represent in Congress you had you had nothing to say about any of that your convention appearance insane yeah to me my takeaway was they got two things they got transphobia and Islamophobia like and I guess communistophobia whatever red scare red scare right yes exactly it's an official thing like it's no absolutely no addressing of the matters at hand and in that way I think it was like and I don't I mean of course I'm pre death I'm I am someone who was going to think it was a failure no matter what was said just by virtue of the people convening in that room but the fact that there's no line about affordability except that it's a it's a confection of the Biden era and it's the reason prices are highs because we're climbing out of the whole that Joe Biden Doug is like it's I mean but nobody's home in this Republican party no I I had the same thought I was like okay I mean what would have scared me from the Republican midterm convention like what what would I have seen that been like oh no they got they got a good argument here and like if they had made the whole thing about like you know look at the democratic socialist plans and look what they'll do if they're the Democrats take over Congress and they'll shut down the government it'll be investigations they don't care about you and their plans are all going to raise your taxes and look at the positions that some of them have taken on crime and immigration like there's stuff stuff to work with where you make an argument where Democrats would be like yeah they got us there and we're there we're on the wrong side of popular opinion there but like they didn't do nothing no like you said they just went for lowest common denominator is as online as possible in the weeds of fucking mega swamps possible with a couple shots of a naked Hassan Piker right you might better call Hassan Pekker can't believe I haven't heard that but yeah I just came up with that it's great like what they're obsessed with him and that they had nudes they had Hassan Piker nudes that's that's like where we're at right now yeah so they they they're like so you can't blurred the speed of whatever I that's Hassan Pekker I'm sticking with it they have there are people that can't afford gas they can't put food on the table their health care costs are skyrocketing and they have naked pictures of Hassan Piker ladies and gentlemen your modern day grand old party i guess out of gas well so am I and I know you are fabs sorry to make you keep talking but we love the takes no I'm going right from here to ads and then I got another another thing to record Jesus listen that's why you're at that's why you're at that's why you're at that's why you're at that and also we had we had like the same takes we haven't even talked about it ahead of time but we were like mine melt here I think it's hive mind groupthink some others might call it but we're on different coasts so they can't really accuse exactly that we're both just brilliant in our analysis um thank you for doing this if you're not subscribed to runaway country please do because you won't get awesome stuff like this and if you haven't bought a copy of my book the steel which is available for pre order now please do that too it will give you insight into how the supreme court got so goddamn radicalized it's a heist novel get into it get into it fabric fabric you are an American hero remember people avoid bed sourced by rotating frequently so if you've been in the chair too long do some stretches stand up do some stretches keep the blood moving and I'll see you next week you sure will in the meantime Godspeed thank you all you