A Unified Theory of Trumpism

- My name is Erin Haines. - My name is Mitch Landrieu. - My name is Jennifer Palmieri, and we're hosting a new series from Left Right and Crooked Media called Long Play. - For both major parties, the path to winning America runs through the South. But to win it, you have to understand it. - And that's where Long Play comes in. Across six southern states, Long Play examines the issues driving voters and the assumptions that no longer hold in a region that could shape the future of our politics and our country. - You can binge the whole series right now by subscribing to Long Play series on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time. - Hey everybody, welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Lovett. I just wrapped a great conversation with Jonathan V. Last of The Bulwark. It went all kinds of places to what went wrong inside the Republican Party, what a post-Trump Democratic Party should be fighting for, and what it means to have a politics that centers virtues like kindness and what happened to lead a country to a place where someone like Donald Trump could be president in the first place. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate the way Jonathan thinks and writes about politics, especially as one of the rare conservatives who understood from the beginning why it was so toxic to embrace someone as awful as Trump. I'm grateful to him for coming on the show, and I think you'll really enjoy the conversation. So here it is. Jonathan, welcome to the show. - Thanks for having me on, finally, John. - You know, I understand that there is a text chain in which whenever Sarah Longwell or Tim Miller has been on the show, you note that you hadn't yet been invited. I'm sorry that it took this long to have you on because I am genuinely such an admirer of the way you think about politics, the way you talk about politics. And as I said to you on a Substack, a compliment that you then wrote an essay about to kind of dispute, I appreciate those who did something that is clearly harder than it looked, which is be honest and moral from the right or the center-right in the face of Trumpism when so many refused to do that. And so I think you have a lot to say to help understand this moment. I wanna talk about what you called a grand unified theory of Trumpism, which you summarized as, and I quote, "The essence of Trumpism is that the other side "will always choose surrender over discomfort." I wanna use that to kind of help us understand a bunch of different stories, but just what do you mean by that, and what are some of the salient examples to you? - Yeah, so I was writing about the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and it strikes me, this is a lot of the way Trump has approached waves, hands, you know, all of it. And especially the way he approached the Republican Party. And I have to say this, I mean, Trump really did understand the Republican Party and the conservative movement much better than I did. You know, he saw those people for who they are. And one of the things, you know, he said, you know, he said that one of the things he has found, even with, not them, but just sort of mainstream culture, is that if forced to make uncomfortable choices, people normally choose comfort over, like, unpleasantness. And so this was, you know, the White House Correspondents' Dinner. They invite up onto stage this group of Wall Street Journal reporters who did fantastic reporting about Trump and the Epstein stuff. And these people, like, come up on stage and they're like, "I guess I'm supposed to shake this guy's hand." And they shake hands. And then he, and he even, like, when he went and gave his speech afterwards, noted it. He's like, "Yeah, can you believe it? You know, these guys up here, they kill me all the time. Then they just come up and shake my hand." It's like, yeah, it's a little weird, isn't it? And he, he does that again and again. He's doing that right now about Todd Blanch with, with Thalm, Phyllis, and, and John Cornyn. And they are saying, "We're totally in on this Todd Blanch thing." Even though he's your personal lawyer. And even though he aided and abetted the Epstein cover-up, and even though it was his idea to do this slush fund. The one thing is that we really would love, we know you said you won't do it, but if you could just write that down for us, that'd be great. And, and Trump's response to this is, "Fuck you." You know? And, and when, when confronted with the "fuck you," their response, I don't know if you saw this, John. - I was, I was, this is literally where I was going next. I want to read Tom Tillis. So, so John Cornyn and Tom Tillis have been the holdup in the Senate Judiciary Committee, just for people that haven't been following that closely. Yesterday, Thursday, they were supposed to vote on the, on the Todd Blanch nomination. This is Trump's former personal defense attorney, the guy that met with Ghislaine Maxwell, wants to be attorney, the guy who said that the attorney general is not independent, which was, by the way, Tillis' or, or Cornyn's, Tillis' red line that's now been crossed, obviously. They have said they're not going to vote because they haven't received a guarantee that they won't pursue a fund to give millions of dollars to insurrectionists and other allies of Trump who have been, quote, unquote, "persecuted" by Biden. Trump puts out a stemwinder of a statement defending the fund, justifying it completely, saying, "I, I want this. This is good. Let's do the fund." Tillis quotes that statement and writes, and I quote, "Senator Cornyn and I have been working with acting AG Todd Blanch to end the anti-webinization fund, and he has been forthright, thoughtful, and patient. It's a shame his confirmation has hit a snag only because an incompetent personal advisor to the president refuses to amend the bogus settlement." Once again, Stalin has been failed by the secretariat. - If only they would tell him, John, the kulaks would never have been liquidated if Comrade Stalin had known what was happening. - All the wheat they would have had were it not for these bourgeois farm owners. Even now, right, Cornyn and Tillis, these are people that have lost their seats in part because of Trump, who are ostensibly, I would say, probably, you know, when they're alone with their thoughts, believe they are actually doing something good right now. But we have allowed Trump to move our baseline so far that this is what kind of stands in for Republicans not going along. What was your reaction to that statement? - I mean, my reaction was befuddlement. I mean, I don't know about you, but I remember a time when people in Washington could be motivated by spite. - Yes, and like, I don't know. It's just like, wouldn't there be a fuck me? No, fuck you. I'm not gonna confirm your, you know, you just cost me my Senate seat. I'm never gonna confirm your Senate seat. I'm never gonna confirm your AG. You know, good luck. Hope the Democrats don't capture the Senate, right? And there's none of that. - There's none of that. And, you know, you're right about the other side choosing surrender over discomfort, but it's that there's a kind of, I think it comes from a place of decadence, which is some version of, I don't think these guys have really thought very deeply of what it is to use power via negotiation, right? Because the idea that they're saying, "Over and over again, I want to get to yes on Todd Blanch." Like, Donald Trump, who is, at his heart, what he believes himself to be is a negotiator. That's what he sees himself as. And, you know, obviously we can attack whether or not he's genuinely good at it, but the basics, you know, set a crazy anchor, be erratic, whatever, he has those tools in his tool chest. And these guys are such, they're just babies about it. It's unbelievable. - Yeah, they're babies. But here's the thing, and this is why I think it's vanity. I think this is about them wanting to feel like they drew a line in the sand, but even their line isn't a real line. Like, I am sorry, if Todd Blanch signs a piece of paper saying that, you know, "We won't do this one." What is the, that is a worthless guarantee. It is not worth any, it is not enforceable, you know? It's not a law, it's not something you have to go to the Supreme Court and have them overturned. It's just a piece of paper. You do whatever, they, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified under oath that he wasn't gonna do anything about vaccines, he said that thing under oath. He went and did it, it's not worth anything. And this is something, Trump just signed a deal with Saudi Arabia, did you see this? - Yes. - Over, over nukes like two weeks ago. And the deal was signed and then he was like, "Oh yeah, and I want them to recognize Israel too." And the Saudis are like, "Hey bro, what are you talking about?" "We, the paper's signed, bro." And he's like, "Yeah, no, don't, don't care." You know, it's like, this is, this like, so even the idea that like, oh, well, we got him to sign this piece of paper is itself ludicrous and decadent, which is why I think it's all about self-image and it's what they've got to tell themselves. And I don't understand that. Like I, I could understand, here are the things I could understand, John. I could understand them just saying, I'm getting too old for this shit, fine. Have your Todd Blanch. I don't give a fuck. I'm out of here. Right? I would understand that. I wouldn't like it. I wouldn't respect it, but I'd understand it. And the, you know, no, the spiteful, I don't care who, you could nominate Jesus Christ himself and I would not, I would not, uh, you know, vote to confirm him. What I can't understand is I'm going to look at the totality of this nominee. I'm going to find one thing about it that I'm going to set as a condition that makes it surmountable. And then I'm going to pretend to hold out until you give me a meaningless assurance so that I can say I satisfied my one condition. That is bizarre. Do you understand that? Like just as a piece of human psychology? I don't other than perhaps because they're so, um, solicitous towards Blanche himself. And I think they sort Blanche into the category as a guy we can work with, right? Like, you know, you know, he's a guy we can work. He's a, he's a serious guy, right? Yeah. He's Trump's personal attorney. He's one of the serious ones. You know, he's, he's one of the. Good ones. He's not one of the kooks, right? He's one of ours, right? And he's one of ours. He's not like that cracking lady, right? And he's not, you know, he's not like, he's not like a Bill Pulte. He's a Clayton, right? We have, we have the Bill Pulte's right. And we have a Clayton. Now, the fact that in practice, Bill, you know, a Pulte really believes what he says about Trump being persecuted and wanting to destroy his enemies. And Clayton just performs that way for the cameras. They still view that as having a distinction as important, right? And so because Blanche. Is their kind of guy when they have that meeting and Blanche says, look, some version of. He can't admit it. He can't say it's bad. We're not pursuing it. There's no intention to pursue it. It's, it's dead. But the more you press on it, you know, him, the more he's going to dig in, right? So I am giving you this assurance. It will never be something that I pursue as attorney general. And, uh, but beyond that, it is just very difficult. I need, I just need room, right? I just need room to operate within this administration. And. He's the, they've allowed, you know, there's a, like, it's true in, you know, relationships, you know, crazy. You'll move your baseline, right? You've been in a terrible relationship for a long time and you're just trying to get through the day and you just, you just trying to kind of eke out a little wins, get things a little bit back towards normal. Meanwhile, what are we talking about here? We are negotiating over whether the president can take 1.776 billion in taxpayer money and just give it to his buddies, some of whom beat up fucking cops at the nation's Capitol in an insurrection. That these guys all believed at the time was so destructive to Trump politically and to the country that they didn't worry, have to worry about him ever again. So they didn't have to, to your, per your theory, do something uncomfortable for the base, which is, uh, uh, impeach him and remove him so that he couldn't run again. And, and they have never learned that lesson because if they learn that lesson, it requires something else. Remember Mitch, like they'll take care of this son of a bitch for us, right? We don't have to do anything on this. They'll do it. And, uh, this is, I don't know. And maybe this is persistent. I mean, maybe this is a persistent trait of the human condition that we see in all times in all places. I'm sure if we were to look at the progress of authoritarianism throughout history, we would see a lot of this, um, from people, but it's, uh, Trump is, Trump is very smart about human nature, I think. And he was smart about understanding that America is not exceptional. Oh, that's interesting. I don't agree with that. I think that is too, too many moves away from the way he sees these people. I think like. When he shakes the hands of those reporters on that stage, he's actually doing what was a criticism of the dinner that actually in hindsight, wasn't as true as we said it was, which is, oh, it's all a game to these fucking people. And that the original criticism of the white house correspondence dinner was these people are supposed to be antagonists, the press and the administration. And they have this cushy dinner and both optically, uh, so optically it represents something that is like ugly to the American people. But on a substantive level, it reveals something. Which is, uh, their commitments aren't real. They aren't serious. I actually, in hindsight, don't agree with that. I, I disagree with that. I actually think their commitments were real. And actually what that dinner, it turns out was about and something we took for granted is yes, they're an opposite sides in the game, but they're all believers in the game, right? They're in the stadium together playing the game of democracy. Trump's not in that, which is why it's so ugly. Uh, because it's not just that people aren't uncomfortable with discomfort. I think that what Trump. It's not that America wasn't exceptional or, or that, that we don't believe in America, that in America is sort of, uh, uh, special virtues. It's that he understood that there's a lot of people, um, who, uh, uh, don't actually care about those virtues enough to do something right. That's true of the press in that room. That's true of the, the, the lawyers at those firms that capitulated. That is true of the corporate media that actually, that is that, that after 30 years of post history, liberalism, there is a lack of understanding of, of who, you know, uh, uh, there's, there's a, there has been a gunshot in the courtyard. Someone's got to call 9 1 1. We all can't look out the window and wait for someone else to call 9 1 1. Somebody who's got to call 9 1 1. And his great realization actually is that, that none of these people realize it's their job. Right. And I don't think that's an indictment of our view of America. It's an indictment of this generation of elites. All right. I'll to chew on that. I mean, I think it's certainly. I think that is certainly true. It may also be true that the rest of America is worthy of indictment, but, uh, I'll take that under advisement. Pod Save America is brought to you by simply safe. If an intruder were to approach your house, what would the average security system do? Not much until a window breaks. Then the alarm goes off. Then you get a notification. Then maybe the police will come. But shouldn't true home security be about stopping that chain of events from happening in the first place? That's the question. Simply safe answered. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway. 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I'm afraid I'm falling for a brainy quote like Gandhi once said, live, laugh, love. But the gist of it, I think, does apply a point you've made repeatedly, which I think there's very little equity equity to in politics is you can blame Trump. You can blame misinformation. You can blame Republicans. But and this is a paraphrase of something you've written. Seventy seven million Americans who voted for Trump are some combination of unserious, decadent or weak. Now, it's a lot cheaper in politics to blame the powers that be. That's true on the left. That's true on the right. There's not a lot of discussion about the culpability of the actual voters and and their agency in this. So can you just as somebody that has been an observer of conservatism from the inside for a long time, what what have you learned about the voters themselves through this period? Well, so I mean, I could tell you my impressions. I can't tell you that they are like facts that I've learned. What I have seen suggests to me, though, that you to avoid. To avoid coming to the conclusion that voters wanted what they chose, you got to start creating a whole bunch of Rube Goldberg contraptions. And the minute you push on any of these constructs, even a little bit, they start wobbling and you have to build another one. Right. And so, you know, when people say something like, oh, they really they only care about the economy and you're like, well, but the economy is terrible when Trump left. left office oh well they that was just the last 18 months of the economy and they really they they think about the first you know two and a half years and uh and you're like well wait a minute america's always say what do you do for me late daily they say well yes but then they they really understood that the the covid was an exogenous event and that you can't blame the president for exogenous events you're like what the fuck are you talking about you think what percentage of the country could spell the word exogenous right and and so you wind up making all of these things to avoid coming to the conclusion that no people saw donald trump for who he was they heard what he was saying they heard the things he was saying and they said i would like that and i and i think the reason people don't want to go there is because that's a dark place right i mean if if the conclusion you end you wind up with is uh some large portion of that 77 million voters maybe not all of them maybe not uh maybe not even a majority maybe maybe it's only like a third of them wanted this like this this is what they understood trump to be to be promising and they wanted it that's tough right you're now saying well hold on so that means we've got like 25 million voters in the country who are fascist like who who want to be the president of the country who want a strong man and who are not sold on the liberal order uh because the reality is like you don't need a majority right if if you have a i mean how many how many bolsheviks were there right when for the russian revolution it wasn't like there were 50 million of them you know they had like 50 000 guys if you've got a a core group of people committed to illiberalism you will eventually get a liberalism and i think that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing i that's the sort of stuff that you know it just keeps me up at night because i don't know if there's an answer to it other than maybe the culture heals itself well that's not very satisfying or there has been you know forever because i do think that the how many matters right whether it's because i don't think it is i you know i i don't think it is um you know there's there's a big difference between weak unserious and decadent and the distinction between them does matter but uh even if there is this this this group of people and look trump's approval rating always remains you know we've we've never gotten below 30 right like let's say it's in the mid 30s on a good day that's a third of the country that's like i'm still good with this which tells you something whether some combination of loving it or actually kind of not getting really good information about it and and sort of and not yet willing to walk away i do think though like you know to get to get dark and to think about like how many you know how many does he have there is something about the blood and soil trumpism it may appeal to 25 million people but there's not that many that are willing to kind of put a lot of blood onto the soil like it is an online movement right it is a lot of people on facebook and instagram and social media that's right and tick tock and wherever and and watching television not i think it's you know not as many on tick tock as they would like but it's an online movement of people rattle riling each other up based on kind of uh narratives about cities and places they're not at and people they don't really observe or talk to but they see through television whether it's an aoc or trans people or whatever and when push comes to show you know he put a good show on at the insurrection uh that is a dark day in our history for which trump is responsible it could have been stopped with uh uh a little bit of uh planning by uh uh uh security officials if they had taken it more seriously right like like this wasn't exactly uh this wasn't a mass mobilization that could have shut down the capital prevented traffic that kind of things that have been traditionally part of what a true like whatever revolution or counter-revolution would look like so uh maybe they just don't have the guys totally possible totally possible and i you know i i look at it and it's it's just hard to know and i would say it's not new this is the other thing that i've really come to i mean so i lots. And my biggest is, is always been race. Right. And part of this is just because of the Connie and I grew up in a very middle-class suburb where it was normal and race wasn't a problem. And, uh, and you, you look at, you know, like, Oh, we have all these authoritarians. Well, you know, before the civil rights movement, we had a whole swath of the country that was committed to authoritarianism, right? Before the civil war, we had half the country that was committed to a form of authoritarianism. And so there was, I mean, for people of our age who came of age in the post civil rights era, um, there is a sense of like, Oh, the, you know, so everybody was sort of aligned by the cold war. And so, you know, once you get in that 20 year period, post civil rights before the end of the cold war, it looks like you've got this vaguely liberal monolith. This isn't to say that there aren't racists in the country and whatnot, but just sort of broadly speaking, right? Right. The kind of both Democrats and Republicans were against the commies, you know, and, uh, there was the last two years of the Carter administration's approach to the cold war were indistinguishable from Reagan's approach to the cold war. Like, uh, and so there was this like, Hey, we're all in on liberalism. We don't like this authoritarianism stuff. And I, because of when I was born and, you know, my, the, my political upbringing just thought, okay, so that's America. And so this, this Trump stuff is new and different, but it's not really, it's much closer to a reversion to, uh, a strain of American political thought, which actually ran for a very, very long time. It just happened to have come to an end right before I was born. Does that make sense? Yes. Well, no, it does. It does. It does make sense. Uh, you know, whether it's the ways that, and, you know, I think there was downsides to this version of a liberal consensus, the, the, the, the kinds of topics that were, the kinds of people that were considered respectable, like there was a, there were real downsides to this actual strange period in which also in the media, there was a, there was a real narrowing of kind of the bounds of the debate. And there are positive aspects to what happens when an entire culture is built around a kind of narrow debate that there's not as much difference. It's not as much in fact, like all of that is certainly true, but you see kind of an emergence of right-wing media during this time that slowly starts building power and influence. In part, because there is this, you know, there is this sort of, uh, uh, uh, darkness in us, in people, right. In our culture and in people. And there was clear, whether it's, you know, uh, uh, uh, Coughlin and then to Limbaugh, right. Like there was people that realized like there's a need that's not being met in a pretty broad way. How much causal effect do you give the sort of right-wing media ecosystem as it evolved in where we are now? Cause I'm never sure, like clearly there's some, it has some effect, right. I wouldn't say it has no effect. It has some effect, but I don't know how much, like if you snapped your fingers and it all went away, would things be a lot different? I don't know. What are your thoughts on this? Here's what I've been thinking lately. A lot of what we're seeing is a result of a kind of permission. Like what is fascism, right? It's a hard thing to define for people. It's a little bit murky. And I think part of the reason it's so murky is, you know, there were a lot of people during Trump 1.0 be like, Oh, stop calling him a fascist. That term doesn't apply. Look at everything's working. Right. And I increasingly just, I don't think it is best to think about it as an ideology, a goal. It is permission to a kind of evil that we all feel, which is I will give into my ego completely. I will not accept any kind of injury. I will not have to admit to any kind of fault. I will not have to be wrong. I will not have to accept discomfort. I will not have to accept nuance. The reason there was a pandemic is because Fauci. The reason I was stuck at home is because of the liberals. The reason people died is because of China. The reason I I'm not happy right now is because of AOC or Mamdani or whatever. And that is intoxicating. It is an intoxicating way to go through life. Forbearance, religious virtue, civic virtue those ideas. We all feel them. Some are better than others as naturally showing a discipline against them. Some are, you know, when you say someone, Oh, they don't have a bad bone in their body. It's actually very hard for them to go in that way. We're all on that spectrum and decades and decades of media slowly telling people to just let go, just let go. It's fine. You can feel whatever you want to feel culminates in Trump. Did the media follow the people? Did the people follow the media? Is Trump a symptom? Is he caught? I don't know, but at root, I think it is. I think it is that thing inside of us. It is as old as people and we will always have to fight it and it will come and go. Thank you so much for joining us today. and Chime Card in a category of your choice, like gas or groceries, all while building credit through regular everyday spending. No credit check required. You can also grow your money faster with a savings rate that's nine times the national average. And if you're ever in a pinch, Spot Me lets you overdrafts up to $200 fee-free. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to Chime.com slash Crooked. That is Chime.com slash Crooked. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime Card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. My name is Erin Haines. My name is Mitch Landrieu. My name is Jennifer Palmieri, and we're hosting a new series from Left, Right, and Crooked Media called Long Play. For both major parties, the path to winning America runs through the South. And that's where Long Play comes in. You can binge the whole series right now by subscribing to Long Play series on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So this is, I have a very similar view about the parties in that one of the things that the Republican Party is doing is they're trying to make sure that the Republican Party was able to do when it was strong was prevent people like Donald Trump from ever being presented to voters, at least at the presidential level, right? And so even if voters would have wanted something like that, it wasn't on offer. They got Bob Dole, they got Mitt Romney, they got guys like that. And once Trump appeared, it was like when he got big cats in captivity and they get a taste for live meat and all of a sudden they won't like take the stakes that you throw them anymore. That's what it, what it's like with, with Trump and Republican voters now that they have like, oh, I could have that. I could have the guy who talks about shooting illegals and says only in the panhandle. I can have a guy who encourages political violence, who says, go ahead and knock that guy out. I'll, I'll pay for your legal bills. Oh yeah. You know, like that's the, that's the seeing how we go back because the parties aren't strong enough to prevent people like that from coming in anymore. The, I mean, just the structure of our party systems are too weak. They're both too strong and too weak. Yeah. You know, they're too strong to, to, to be killed and to have a new party pop up in their place, but too weak to prevent things like these sorts of takeovers. And so you wind up in a sour spot and voters have a taste on vote. Republican voters have a taste for this because they were offered Trumpism. And then you saw when, when they were offered DeSantis, which was basically Trumpism without the violence, without the physical violence, they were like, that guy, what are you talking about? Well, yes. Also without Trump, which is who is a charismatic figure. And, you know, I think there's, here's where I would say there's like a little reason to be a little bit less pessimistic because I think there's a little step. I think there's a step in there that's important as part of this, which, because I, I think there's a step in there that's important as part of this, which, because I, it's not, it's not this idea that Trump suddenly appears and they can have this kind of, you know, it's like, oh, I don't want to be on burger. I don't want, I want the red meat. Right. That's certainly true. But there is a moment in you and it plays out during that first primary 2016 where you see Trump doing what Trump's doing. You see Rubio just doing what Rubio is doing and Cruz doing what he's doing. And everybody kind of looks around first and they look around at each other. And they're like, is it okay if I do this? Like I want, I'm in, I'm kind of interested. This is attractive to me, but I know it's wrong. It's still by the, I know what's wrong is everywhere still to this day. It is in the, the understanding that what we're doing is wrong. It, it is inside of, it is the unspoken part of everything. It's an everything across the media. It is about assuaging the people who know they're doing something wrong. You know, when you see that you never see a liberal, you never see a liberal say some version of this is just a political disagreement. We should still treat each other as friends, right? Like that's something conservatives, there's a conservative effort to say versions of that to kind of make what they've done be normal. But the reason I say all that is because that moment of looking around is a corrective that still exists. Like if, if you, there are, there are two, if you go, there can be two gates side by side at an airport and two airlines operating that gate. And at one gate, everybody is obeying the rules of when you board and at the other gate, nobody is. Why? It is a combination of the culture of the flyers, the expectations of the flyers and the rules of the airline. Do they enforce, do they send anybody back if they come up with their boarding group that they're not in? And also, Hey, is this an airline where everybody lines up or is this an airline where we all crowd the fucking thing? Like, like, uh, uh, like, like we're trying to storm, the best deal, right? Like what kind of vibe is this? And people look around and maybe there'll be a transgressor and others will follow. Maybe there won't. It's, it's luck. It's a little bit of luck and happenstance. Somebody has got to throw the first brick, but that moment of corrective is still available even now. Or is that wrong? I don't know. So I, uh, yesterday I wrote a piece about, um, about this conference that the Trump administration did two weeks ago. So they did a conference on the resurgence of political terrorism. And it was all, I mean, it's, it's about, of course, irony is dead, right? The, the, the, the people who reintroduced political violence into America after like a 30 year hiatus basically, uh, are now like all, Oh my gosh, there's violence. Right. But the only violence they care about is, is left-wing violence. And that's, that's the big thing. And you had Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio both give speeches, which were, and I say this in a measured way, indistinguishable from something Goebbels or Hitler would have said in the thirties. And I just went and pulled quotes like from, from Hitler and Goebbels speeches. And they're talking about, uh, this is Rubio and Miller about the ugly people who, I mean, like they're really getting into the, how do you say it's a physiognomy, physiognomy, you know, like the calipers, like, uh, you know, Oh, you can tell the dysgenic types, the intermensch. I am on record, uh, predicting a phrenology comeback. Uh, five years ago. Yep. I agreed. Yeah. So, uh, you know, like, and this is, this is, so why is Marco Rubio, Rubio, who is supposedly the responsible one who is the secretary of state giving a speech at a conference in which he is talking about Americans. This is what he's talking about. Americans, the protesters, uh, you know, the left-wing terrorists and all this as being ugly and deformed and who, you know, spiritually, all they can do is destroy the work of the great men and the great culture that the Aryans have built. And it just, you know, and I just think, I don't know, like Rubio is a pretty shrewd diviner of what people want from him in any moment. He seems to think that this is what Republican voters want. I don't know, man, it was pretty, I was pretty worked up about this. Cause I mean, it's, it's one thing to like rhyme with Nazis. It's another thing to like, you know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't copy them. It is a, there is a difference between like the Miller rhetoric is as fascist and, um, as, as, as you could imagine, even where it's sort of like, you know, what is good and beautiful and true, right? There's a kind of, uh, I don't even know what, can I read the passage? I got it in front of me. Let's hear it on. Uh, cause it's, it's really amazing. It's not a coincidence that when you look at these violent Antifa demonstrations and you see any photograph of those who are assembled to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person, not one looks normal. They're all deformed in some way in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism. Why is that? Why? If you look at two photographs and you see a normal American in the street and you see an Antifa protest, why do the people that are violently demonstrating, why is there not one normal looking person among them? Every one of them through the course of their life and their decisions has scarred their body and their appearance in many different ways to the point where the outer appearance becomes a hatred. Trust your instincts to all people and across all civilizations. You know what normal is, you know what beautiful is, you know what good is, you know that families are right. You know that children are precious and beautiful, must be protected, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is so much deeper than issues about taxation and regulation. It's about normal, healthy, ordered living. Like this is, you can, you see that vermin, dysgenic type, you can, it's all right. You could see like Goebbels looking at that and being like, Hey, I think we got to turn this down a little bit. I think we're getting a little bit, getting, Hey guys, I know, I know we're the Nazis, but this is getting a little crazy. Uh, yes. But so what's, what's interesting about that? I saw that passage. And if you turn on, uh, Fox news, uh, at, at, at many points during the day, you will see a kind of brightly colored, uh, over the top aesthetic, including face basework and changes to the body that are all meant to be like, there is that, that, that like you, you stop and you read that and you're like, what are you talking about exactly? What are you, what are you saying exactly? Because when you look, there is the other side of that is an aesthetic to fascism, right? Like with what kind of extreme aesthetic to what it means to be beautiful. Right. And it does flow from this idea of, which is like one of the lies at the core of, of fascism itself, which is in the same way, you do not need to admit to any flaw or fault or mistake and you can dominate and actually to lose is always embarrassing to concede is always embarrassing. One place where we all must concede is to time and death itself, right? Like we must concede to the fact that we are all Peter Thiel has his, well, yeah, the techno fascist for sure. But like that, like that we all have bodies, right. And that actually we all experience pain and we all experience loss. And, uh, part of like that, rhetoric is around convincing a bunch of people to deny their own kinds of pain, right. To like, to model a kind of a strength in which the reason it's okay to support Trump, even though he actually does nothing to improve the country is that your dissatisfaction, your pain is doesn't matter because you, you actually are, are, are sort of a tool of this operation. Do you know what I'm saying? Like there's a kind of like, there's a, there's a, an, there's a kind of ask that they make. Yeah. Of, of their own people to kind of like deny themselves like their, their own humanity and how they kind of approach the world. Uh, during Trump 1.0, there was a New York times piece written. Um, it was like, there was some storm down in Florida and Trump had like done jack shit for people. And the times reporter is like down interviewing Trump supporters who had been like, you know, hurt by, by the storm. And there's a quote from a woman who says that she was disappointed in Trump because she was disappointed in Trump. And she was disappointed because she said, he's not hurting the people he's supposed to hurt. And to me, this was like the Rosetta stone of Trumpism. Like this is, as you say, like they can't stop their own mortality, can't stop their own pain, but Donald Trump promises to hurt the people that they hate. That's really good. There's a lot of debate about what Democrats should be calling for, what reforms should look like, how we resolve a tension, which is, if we are able to, uh, retake power, it will be a great incentive to use the extent, the, the, the new executive strength powers, uh, to fix what Trump has done while at the same time, collectively understanding that limiting the power of the presidency, returning some prerogatives to the legislature and the courts is a, is a good thing. Uh, Pete Buttigieg, I think said something interesting about this that you wrote about, which is basically some version of there's places where we need to strengthen the presidency. Basically, we need to strengthen it on the stuff you want me to do. And we need to weaken it on the stuff you don't want me to do. Like we, it has to be stronger going after inequality and fighting the corporations and, but we need to be, the president should be weaker when it comes to, uh, uh, invasions of privacy and violations of the rule of law. Okay, fine. I agree with that. Uh, how are you thinking about executive power and like, and what it means sort of post Trump to kind of protect the country from another one? Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know the answer. I, you know, I, I, there are, you can see like three different pathways for this. Um, and it's not clear to me which is wisest. Um, there was a bunch of debate about this when, when Biden took office and he chose to try to like, Hey, look, Trump was an aberration. That's not who we are. And what we're going to do is we're just going to go back to being normal and we're going to fake it till we make it. You know what? That wasn't a crazy view. That was not a crazy view. It was totally defensible. It was a real theory of the case. It did turn out to be wrong though. And we just need to say that like it was, it was wrong and it wasn't a little bit wrong. It was a lot wrong. Um, Biden had a successful presidency. He, he had a pretty good economy. Unemployment was below 4% almost the entire time he beat COVID. We had about a 13 or 14 month period with very high inflation. But then he achieved a soft landing. I mean, this is, this is as good as it gets. We did not have a recession. We did not have a big unpopular foreign war. And at the end of it, people chose Trump again. Yeah. Even with the, I mean, so, so Biden's theory of the case was wrong. What could Democrats do if they take power again? Well, they could try some version of we're going to reform everything. And so we're going to go after the big, big institutional problems, which led to, uh, Trumpism things like the Supreme court, things like the electoral college, things like the Senate. Um, they could, instead of that, they could pursue accountability. They could say, look, the system is what the system is, but we're going to make sure that everybody who broke any law during that period that just happened, whether they were a member of the government doing things that were legal or whether they were private corporations who were participating in illegal things, uh, with, you know, doing, doing frauds and whatnot, everybody pays a price so that people see going forward that if you get another strong man, if you go along with him, there will be consequences, right? That's one thing. Or they could say, uh, Hey, you know what? People don't care about process. People don't care about all that stuff. They care about the process. We're not going to get, we're not going to get, uh, distracted by worrying about the past and fighting the old fights of the old generation. We're going to look forward to building something new, something that really matters to people's lives. And look, you know, more about Democrats than I do, but my sense is they're going to pick door number three, if they ever get into power again. And I'm like, great, good luck. Part of it is like, I worried about that. I worry that there is going to be polling that says very clearly, you know, some version of, do you want to look backwards or do you want to go forwards? And people are going to say, gosh, I want to go forward. And that will be a real, there'll be a lot of pressure on Democrats to say this. And then you will have the Democrats that are the smart messengers who say some version of, we kind of walk and chew gum at the same time. You know, they're going to say it on this show. They've said it before. They'll say it again, John, we've got to walk and chew gum at the same time. So we've got to look forward, but also we have to fight for accountability. But all of it to me is avoiding what I think, I think in like in the democratic heart, right? Like what is, what is, what a Democrat, what would, what would the, the kind of engage Democrats who are kind of been part of this debate for a long time? What are they really, what are they really saying that they want, what they want, or what I, what I imagine some version of this is what people think we need, but have find it hard to articulate is we need a period in which we have some version of another founding, right? Like we've been through several foundings. We, in which we kind of have a big debate about authority and limits in that period of friction. There's a lot of room to operate and then laws and norms, kick in and it gets constrained and you get stuck in that for a long time, right? That's what happens after the revolution, the constitution, the civil war, uh, and the civil rights movement. And we're kind of, we're maybe we're due. And what that looks like, right? Is to the Buttigieg point, you kind of want a period where you can have a president who can operate like Trump, tear down the ballroom, kind of remove all the executive orders. Oh, you've all come around. You've all come around with me on the ballroom. You know what? I'm going to put your values to the test right now. Would you tear down the new Dulles? There's a new Dulles? He wants to build the new Dulles airport. He wants to get rid of the people movers. You're going to tear that down too? I mean, to what end? To what end is this? It's to fix the fact that Dulles sucks. Is this an infrastructure thing? Yes. He's announced, he announced this week, a giant, uh, plan to, he is, he personally has approved the designs for, for new terminals at Dulles, which include getting rid of the people movers, uh, and a, and a 32,000 foot parking structure. Now, should the president be walking through the details of a new parking structure when we're at war with Iran and have no control of the Strait of Hormuz? No, he should not. But he did do that. Yeah. That's closer to like highway planning infrastructure though. Like I, I am not in the, like Donald Trump built a, Donald Trump's transportation department built a bridge in West Virginia. And so we have to tear that down. That's not where I am. I'm in the, the ornaments and the personal monuments to himself, which are things like the arch, the ballroom. Yes. The name on the Kennedy center. Well, that's that. My view is that anything that, that looks like a presidential palace gets pulled down. Yes. Anything, anything. Because you have to show that there's no throne there, you know, show the next guy. Anything that any part of his infrastructure where you could, uh, uh, imagine Uday and Kuse walking out to say hello. I think you got to tear it down. 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which i think we at this point depending on the court you have to do through law or constitutional amendment you want to reassert congress's prerogatives over the national security state which requires legislation maybe at this point also a constitutional amendment there's a there's a bunch of ways in what you want is a period of time where the democratic president operates like trump before a whole set of rules kicks in in which there can never be a trump again which is exactly the kind of thing that dictatorships are made of right like that like that's what that you know what i'm saying like that is what people want and yet what that is the problem that is the problem that's the tension that's what they think they got with trump that's that's the tension and the the other i mean there is also a false sense of security here which is that if the if the people in a democracy want a trump they will get a trump regardless of what democrats build in the guardrails right because the guardrails are people and if america wants authoritarianism it's going to get authoritarianism it's going to get a strongman so you can't fix that part of it right and and so that honestly that does i was making fun of the you know democrats who just want to look toward the future maybe that is the answer as i said i don't come to you with answers john um maybe the answer is you do have to look to the future so that you build something so that people don't think yes i want a strongman maybe that's i don't know i don't you know to me that doesn't feel like satisfactory but that doesn't mean it's it's not the right answer well there's a there's also i think i think your story of biden and i am a great critic of joe biden is a little um i think it's it's a little bit over determined in that if joe biden joe biden's theory right was we have to we have to demonstrate what a we have to achieve some big policy goals to demonstrate that government can work and because there was an insurrection and he's such a pariah the republicans will will move on and they will have a primary that sits where you end up with someone somewhere between trump and what rubio sounded like in 2014 and you kind of muddle through right like you know there there have been plenty of cases with history where the kind of charismatic leader goes away and everybody you don't go back to where you were but it mattered that there was one charismatic leader and without them people kind of go back to old habits the the the problem was to me two things one joe biden was way too fucking old and as a result kind of became very couldn't communicate and uh his weaknesses as a leader became evidence of his age his age became evidence of his weaknesses and became a downward spiral comma for her for her best efforts was unable to get out of that for various reasons the other is you could have had joe biden doing exactly what joe biden did and you put uh adam schiff at doj instead of merrick garland or somebody gave merrick garland you know some adderall in his oatmeal uh every day without his knowledge and suddenly you have some prosecutions happening faster trump is uh unable to to run for office and the world looks very different possible and uh i mean i should say in all this it is also possible that everything just kind of fixes itself on its own right it's possible that none of the things that we've talked about happen and yet a decade from now things aren't worse than they are right now they may not be a ton better but like we haven't continued sliding into authoritarianism we're only like a third of the way there the way we are now um so like that's also possible i'm you know i am open to that i'm open to all possibilities john we often find ourselves in the trap of saying well what was the real reason and the what i use is like murder on the orient express who did it all of them did it right and it is it's biden was too old and trump was charismatic and merrick garland didn't act uh you know with enough enough um impetus like it's all of those things together but it's also like and the supreme court was pretty clearly gonna try to make sure trump could run again like that they wanted trump to be able to run again they were going to do whatever they could to do that right and so you are in this uh physics physics people call it a simple complex system right it's not a it's not a fully complex like complex systems are like ecosystems they're gigantic uh and they're incredibly resilient um but a government is a simple complex system which is to say uh it's like an engineered biosystem and those sort of things simple complex systems are actually really delicate um because they don't have all the redundancy and and self-governing features built into them that true complex systems have and i think one of the things we've learned over the last decade is that the american experiment is a simple complex system not a truly complex system the guardrails are not real guardrails and that if if the people go rotten or like sort of lose their minds temporarily or decide they want something bad they will get it and uh you know maybe you don't need all the people maybe just need 47 of them distributed in the correct way or something like that but you know they're going to get it and so i i wish i knew what the answer was to all this uh virtue the answer to this is virtue let's let's let's end right let's end by talking about virtue uh for a moment because i i it's it does seem to be like you you step back from all of this and it is just a collective like you can blame the elites you can blame the voters whatever you want to do there is a there is a sense in which we've just sort of lost a kind of muscle memory for the importance of making virtue a big part of identity right just like i like i remember when i when there was a there was a there was something that would happen on sitcoms when i that that was just a part of sitcoms all the time which was there was a character who would drive back to the bank with the 20 bucks oh they got an extra 20 bucks and that character would always drive bank to back to the bank with 20 and even in that it was a cheesy thing it's obviously a cheesy thing about but but like there is a like kind of and maybe trump is a reflection of it he also makes it worse i think about fauci when public health officials said um you don't need masks right they were doing it because they wanted health in a crisis they're worried about the health system coming apart they're worried about first responders dying of covid they're desperate to get those people masks and they and public health had a choice and the choice was between trusting the american people with the truth or they're desperate to get those people masks and they and public health had a choice and the choice was between trusting the american people with the truth or they and public health had a choice and the choice was between trusting the american people with the truth or doing a kind of nudge because doing a kind of nudge because doing a kind of nudge because you want to make sure that the ppe gets to you want to make sure that the ppe gets to you want to make sure that the ppe gets to the hospitals the hospitals the hospitals they chose to lie they chose to lie they chose to lie because they didn't they because they because they didn't they because they because they didn't they because they not lie heavily lawyered i mean i would not lie heavily lawyered i mean i would not lie heavily lawyered i mean i would say this so i've done the fauci thing a say this so i've done the fauci thing a say this so i've done the fauci thing a whole lot i know fauci didn't lie what whole lot i know fauci didn't lie what fauci didn't lie what he's doing he's being smeared to be fauci didn't lie what he's doing he's being smeared to be blamed for the entire pandemic because he's being smeared to be blamed for the entire pandemic because these people are being fundamentally blamed for the entire pandemic because these people are being fundamentally dishonest these people are being fundamentally dishonest donald trump was president he was lying the donald trump was president he was lying the whole time he was a man that did his best in a massive whole time he was a man that did his best in a massive emergency and i'm not just saying him emergency and i'm not just saying him collectively the goal was to convince collectively the goal was to convince americans that they did not need masks americans that they did not need masks when they did because and i think rightly when they did because and i think rightly they knew that if you said to the country they knew that if you said to the country don't buy masks right now they're life-saving and we don't buy masks right now they're life-saving and we need to save them for the people that are in need to save them for the people that are in the in the in the right now i don't think that the in the in the right now i don't think that they were wrong right i don't think they were they were wrong right i don't think they were wrong and that and and like and to me like that wrong and and and like and to me like that is at the root of this like the that sort of politicians is at the root of this like the that sort of politicians not politicians and officials not not politicians and officials not trusting the voters the voters not trusting those people in not trusting those people in return i just don't know like the question is what does a virtuous return i just don't know like the question is what does a virtuous cycle look like in which you're cycle look like in which you're kind of getting back to a a common sense of of high trust society kind of getting back to a a common sense of of high trust society versus low trust i wish i knew versus low trust i wish i knew honestly i wish i knew john because it i think you're right about honestly i wish i knew john because it i think you're right about the general public but at the the general public but at the same time the general public is made up of all of those nurses and same time the general public is made up of all of those nurses and orderlies and techs and docs and orderlies and techs and docs and who showed up to hospitals taking care of people especially who showed up to hospitals taking care of people especially like in new york i mean i don't know like in new york i mean i don't know like in new york i mean i don't know if people remember everybody is like this if people remember everybody is like this if people remember everybody is like this this mass uh you know forgotten this mass uh you know forgotten this mass uh you know forgotten this mass forgetting about covid because this mass forgetting about covid because this mass forgetting about covid because like nobody wants to remember it like nobody wants to remember it like nobody wants to remember it but new york looked like doomsday but new york looked like doomsday but new york looked like doomsday you know like there they were just like you know like there they were just like you know like there they were just like mobile refrigerators with bodies mobile refrigerators with bodies mobile refrigerators with bodies just you know stacked inside the uh just you know stacked inside the uh just you know stacked inside the uh in the alleys outside hospitals it was in the alleys outside hospitals it was in the alleys outside hospitals it was it was like seeing one of these virus it was like seeing one of these virus it was like seeing one of these virus movies um and then And the hospitals were full of people who just went in and tried to save lives and put themselves at risk anyway. You know, all these essential service workers who were like people who worked at just delivery and logistics, people who worked in grocery stores, you know, checkout lines and stocking things like that's true, too. Like those people did that. That was virtue. And so I it's become so hard to understand, well, why is it that these people will exhibit such true virtue at the individual level? But then when we ask, do you think people respond collectively in the right way or would they have run out and just like hoarded, you know, like hoarding toilet paper every time there's a warning about snowstorms? And I don't know how to square the circle there. And, you know, maybe maybe the answer is like you just have to trust people. And if they make the wrong choice, so be it. And everybody lives with radical candor. I don't know the answers. And I wish I did. I think part of it is I do think it matters that Donald Trump had been president for several years. And like he makes these these kind of he makes mistrust and cynicism more true of us. And I do think maybe the answer is in the same way. Why do I think you and Sarah and Tim? And others who have had profound disagreements over the years stepped up when others didn't. Well, I think part of it is these virtues aren't just something you believe in. I think everybody would claim to believe in them. They were they were part of your identity. Right. They were they were part of your identity and a politics in which Democrats in it find a way to make those kind of virtues central to. How we talk about ourselves, how we talk about what it means to be an American, I do think is kind of points to the way out, because I think the difference I do genuinely think the difference is, is what are you are you a Republican are you a conservative are you a Texan are you an American are you moral are you righteous are you honest are you somebody that is good at are you fair dealing right like do you cut lines or do you understand why you shouldn't even when you see others doing it right. Like these kind of simple things. Things are like kind of I think part of what Trump makes less less salient to people. And I think maybe that's part of the way, whether inside the Republican Party or in the Democratic Party, a return to that kind of moral language is maybe part of what has to happen next. Yeah. And I wish again, I don't have any of the answers on this stuff. I think a lot about kindness because kindness is one of these values that sort of sands over vices, you know, like if if you can fix. Kindness as your North Star that cuts across, you don't have to be, you know, a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or an like, it's just it's universal. And everybody understands kindness. And to the extent that we could try to just model that and be me talking about kindness. I know you're hysterical. I you're rumored to be a very kind person. That's what the rumor is. Don't believe I mean, whenever they let you out of that room you're in. But I strive for it. Right. I mean, it is something I think. Yeah. Yeah. It's something we could all we can all strive. We can all be aspirationally kind and maybe that collectively leads us back somewhere less terrible. And I will also just note, too, that like in politics, these kinds of virtuous words aren't always going to be on the list of polling questions or the list of topics that rise to the top. But I will remember when when Hillary Clinton was campaigning in 2016 and I know every losing campaign did everything wrong and every winning campaign did everything right. And. And we shouldn't have Pokemon go to the poll went to the polls. But when she would say what we need is love and kindness. It was electric. It was the most electric thing that came around her in a campaign that was kind of more in the kind of neoliberal language of kind of technical technocracy. That idea of kindness did like kind of bring something out of people. So I do think it's a very good place to leave it. Jonathan V last. It has been so good talking to you. You know, and I hope you felt I was kind today. This was so great. We had a I loved it. I would do a show with you every single week. Holy me and Alex Wagner. Wow. Great guy. Yeah, I got to talk to my bosses. Oh, wait, we're an independent media company. You mean, Alex, what are you going to do? We'll do a show about pinball. Let's show a comic. Get around. Let's get on the blow into it. Whatever you want. Yeah, we could talk about we. By the way, we talk about watches to go along. Are you a watch guy? I'm a watch guy. I got I got a grand Seiko going right now. Oh, which one? It's I got I got the it's the it's the it's the cherry blossoms. It's the cherry blossoms. Oh, the shun blood shun. Oh, you know, it's a class grand Seiko is a if you love grand Seiko, then you really love watches. I'm a nerd. This is for those. This is a this is a nerds. This is a nerds watch. And it and nerds stop me on the street because they know because they know. But everyone is, oh, that's a secret. No, no, no, no. My friends, it's a grand Seiko. And the story of grand Seiko. Ratsu polishing, my friend. And but people don't know is that there was a period of time where Seiko wanted to compete with the Swiss. And so they had two factories, Grand Seiko and King Seiko. And they said, fight to the fucking death, boys. And you know what they did? Grand Seiko won. It's the Japanese way. Jonathan, so good to talk to everybody. Go subscribe to the Bulwark. Go subscribe to the triad. His his newsletter and and subscribe right here on this channel. Help us build a pro democracy ecosystem to get good information to people and that that that prizes kindness. How about that? Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Faris Safari with Reed Chirlan, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pellevive, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. My name is Jennifer Palmieri. And we're hosting a new Seiko podcast. And we're hosting a new series from Left, Right and Crooked Media called Long Play for both major parties. The path to winning America runs through the South, but to win it, you have to understand it. 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