A Unified Theory of Trumpism

This is LeVar Arrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Let me tell you about Xero. That's X-E-R-O. Xero is a financial management platform that loves giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers. It puts accounting payments, payroll, and analytics all in one place, so you always have one clear picture of your business. With visual dashboards, Xero makes it easy to understand your cash flow. You know exactly what's coming in and what's going out, so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business. Xero's AI can even offer insights to help you make your best move. It's powerful enough for an accountant and simple enough for you. Xero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at Xero.com. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon 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 situation. What the 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 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, Jon. 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 want to 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 want to 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 that 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 he saw those people for who they are. And 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 unpleasant, unpleasantness. And so this was, you know, the the White House Correspondents Dinner. They 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, he's like, yeah, I can 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? Yeah. And he he does that again and again. He's doing that right now about Todd Blanche with with Thalm, Phyllis and and John Cornyn. And they are saying we're totally in on this Todd Blanche 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. 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. I was. This is literally where I was going next. I want to read Tom Till. So, yes. So John Cornyn and Tom Tillis have been. The hold up in the Senate Judiciary Committee, just for people that haven't following that closely yesterday, Thursday, they were supposed to vote on the on the Todd Blanche nomination is Trump's former personal defense attorney, the guy that met with Ghislaine Maxwell, who wants to be the guy who said that the attorney general is not independent, which was, by the way, Tillis's or Cornyn's Tillis's 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 stem winder of a statement defending the fund, justifying it completely saying, 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 Tom Blanche to end the anti-webinization fund, and he has been working with acting AG Tom Blanche 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 are, have lost their seats in part because of Trump, who are ostensibly, I would say, probably, you know, when they, 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, this is what kind of stands in for Republicans not going along. What, what was your reaction to that statement? Uh, I mean, my reaction was, was befuddlement. I mean, I, 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, that's just like, wouldn't, wouldn't there be a fuck me? No, fuck you. I'm not going to confirm your, you know, you just cost me my Senate seat. I'm never going to confirm your AG, you know, good luck. Hope you, the hope the Democrats don't capture the Senate. Right. And there's none of that. There's none of that. And it's, you know, you're right about the, 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, 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 Blanche, 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, we would, we can attack whether or not he's genuinely good at it. But the basic. You know, set a crazy anchor, be erratic, whatever. He has those, 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, 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. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If Todd Blanche signs a piece of paper saying that, uh, you know, we won't do this one. What is that? That, that is a worthless guarantee. It is not worth any, it is not enforceable. You know, this is not a law. It's not something that you have to go to the Supreme court and have them overturn. It's just a piece of paper. You do whatever they, Robert F. Kennedy jr. Testified under oath that he wasn't going to do anything about vaccines. He said that thing under oath. He went and did it. It's not worth anything. And this is something. The company Trump just signed a deal with Saudi Arabia. Did you see this 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 do you, 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 i would understand 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 gonna find one thing about it that i'm gonna set as a condition that makes it surmountable and then i'm gonna pretend to hold out until you give me a meaningless assurance so 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 blanch himself and i think blanch 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 kraken 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 pull 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 blanch is their kind of guy when they have that meeting and blanch 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 gonna 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 just need room right i just need room to operate within this administration and these 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 ex 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 cops at the the nation's capital 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 of them remember mitch like you know they'll take care of this son of a 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 and 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 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 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 in 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's sort of 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 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 there's there's a there's 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'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 have 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 simply safe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside smart ai powered outdoor cameras detect suspicious activity at the perimeter and alert live us-based agents to step in simply saves agents assess the threat intervene through the outdoor camera to scare off trespassers and call for 9-1-1 dispatch uh big update in the simply safe world love it our ceo lucinda recently installed a simply safe system herself she loves it uh she said it was easy to set up it's easy to turn it on and off from her phone it's keeping her safe it's keeping her big puppy safe it's been great so far she loves it simply safe has been protecting your world for 20 years right now you can get 50 off a new simply safe system go to simplysafe.com crooked that's simplysafe.com crooked for 50 off there's no safe like simply safe this episode is sponsored by betterhelp you've heard us talk about betterhelp for a long time but it's worth mentioning just how much people actually love using it if you want to see for yourself head on over to betterhelp.com reviews they update their page daily with hundreds of real reviews from people sharing how much therapy has helped them in fact betterhelp holds an average live session rating of 4.9 out of 5 across more than 1.7 million client reviews check out the reviews yourself to read feedback directly from people who use it more than six million people have used betterhelp globally the consistent feedback from real users makes it easy to see why so many people continue to choose betterhelp betterhelp therapists have at least three years and one thousand and a half years of experience in the field so if you're interested in learning more about what betterhelp is and how to get started you can go to betterhelp.com or visit betterhelp.com or go to betterhelp.com and visit betterhelp.com at one thousand hours of hands-on experience i prefer my therapist to be hands-off like soccer rules no hands in therapy that's my rule but i understand what they mean it's a metaphor for being actively engaged they also hold all required education training and certifications across a range of mental health specialties betterhelp makes it easy to get started answer a few questions get matched with a therapist based on your needs and switch therapists at any time if it's not the right fit therapists you got to have one you know go to therapy see reviews see what stands out and see if there's anything else you want to learn or if you're interested in learning more about betterhelp please visit betterhelp.com or go to betterhelp.com or go to betterhelp.psa that's better h-e-l-p dot com slash psa there's a quote going around uh it's something to the effect of more americans are fascist than we realize and one day we're going to find out and so i i want to i want to this is actually where i wanted to go next because um i think this is an old hemingway this is like the hemmingway quote yes and i um many people are fascists and they'll find out when the time comes during this i know i i was afraid 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 uh you can blame trump you can blame misinformation you can blame republicans but and this is a paraphrase of something you've written 77 million americans who voted for trump are some combination of unserious decadent or weak now it 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 uh like what what have you learned about um the voters themselves through this period well so i mean i can tell you my impressions i can't tell you that they are like facts that i've learned um what i have seen suggests to me though that you to avoid to avoid uh coming to the conclusion that voters wanted what they chose you gotta 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 so 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 was terrible when Trump 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 and you're like, well, wait a minute. America always say, what did you do for me lately? They say, well, yes. But then 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 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 the conclusion you and you wind up with is some large portion of that 77 million voters, maybe not all of them, maybe not, maybe not even a majority. Maybe maybe it's only like a third of them wanted this. Like this is what they understood Trump to be to be. Right. 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 a strongman and who are not sold on the liberal order, because the reality is like. You don't need a majority, right? 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. Right. And so you're saying, well, you don't need a majority. Right. Right. Right. And so you're saying, it wasn't like there were 50 million of them. You know, they had like 50,000 guys. If you've got a core group of people committed to illiberalism, you will eventually get a liberalism. And 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. Wow. 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. You know, I don't think it is. You know, there's there's a big difference between weak, unserious and decadent. And the distinction between them does matter. But even if there is this this group of people and Trump's approval rating always remains, you know, 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 at it. Right. And I think that's a big difference. And I think that's a big 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 twenty five 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 and tick tock and wherever and and watching television. 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 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. That is a dark day in our history. For which Trump is responsible. It could have been stopped with a little bit of planning by security officials if they had taken it more seriously. Right. Like this wasn't exactly a this wasn't a mass mobilization that could have shut down the Capitol, prevented traffic, that kind of things that have been traditionally part of what a true like whatever revolution or counterrevolution would look like. So maybe they just don't have the guys. Totally possible. Totally. And I, you know, 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 talk a lot about like my my blind spots. And my biggest is always been race. Right. And part of this is just because of the kind of I grew up in a very middle class suburb where it was normal and race wasn't a problem. And 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, there is a sense of like, oh, 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 are racists in the country and whatnot, but just sort of broadly speaking, right. The kind of both Democrats and Republicans were against the commies, you know, and 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 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, OK, so that's America. And so this this Trump stuff is new and different. It's not really. It's much closer to a reversion to 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, 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 kinds of topics that were acceptable, right, 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 darkness in us, in people, right, in our culture and in people. And there was clear whether it's, you know, 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? Because 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 are 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 in. 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'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, is a bulwark against those ideas. We all feel them. Some are better than others and 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? 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. Pod Save America is brought to you by CHIME. Look, we all know someone who could use a quick reality check when it comes to their money. And hey, maybe that someone is you. But no matter where your finances stand, we can all agree on one thing. A good bank should offer great rewards without slapping you with hidden fees. That's where CHIME comes in. CHIME is changing the way people bank. They're not like a traditional bank that loves to gatekeep the best rewards and pile on hidden fees unless you have a massive balance. Chime offers the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, no minimum balance fees. You get 5% cash back on 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 overdraft 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. That's X-E-R-O. Xero is a financial manager. It's a management platform that loves giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers. With visual dashboards, Xero makes it easy to understand your cash flow, you know exactly what's coming in and what's going out, so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business. Xero's AI can even offer insights. So this is, I have a very similar view about the parties in that one of the things 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, you know, guys like that. And once Trump appeared and it was like, you know, when he got big cats in captivity and, you know, like 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. 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 real dope for them. And that's why I have a hard time seeing how we go back because the parties aren't strong enough to prevent people like that from coming in. I mean, just the structure of our party systems are too weak. They're both too strong and too weak. 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. Pass. 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 different airlines operating that gate and at one gate, everybody is. Staying 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's 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. That's that's the big thing. And you had Steven Miller and Marco Rubio both give speeches which were, and I say this in a measured way. Distinguishable from something gerbils or Hitler would have said in the thirties. And I just went and pulled quotes like from, from Hitler and verbal speeches. And they're talking about, uh, this is Rubio and Miller about the ugly people who, I mean, they're 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 interment. I am on record, uh, predicting a phrenology come back, uh, five years ago. Yup. I agreed. Yeah. So, uh, you know, like, and this is, this is, so why is Marco Ruby 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 because I mean, it's, it's one thing to like rhyme with Nazis. It's another thing to like copy them. It is. 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. I got it in front of me. Let's hear it. Hold 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. 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 manifestation. It's a manifestation of their inner 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. This is so much deeper than issues about taxation and regulation. It's about normal, healthy, ordered living. Like this is, you, you can, you see that vermin dysgenic type. It's all right there. You could see like Goebbels looking at that and being like, Hey, I think we gotta turn this down a little bit. I think we're getting a little bit, getting, hey guys, I know. 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 many points during the day you will see a kind of brightly colored uh over the top aesthetic including face work 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 a 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 not if peter teal has his well he's saying that 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 sort of a tool of this operation do you know what i'm saying like there's a kind of like yeah there's a there's a an there's a kind of ask that they make of of their own people to kind of like deny themselves like their human their own humanity and how they kind of approach the world 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 there's a quote from a woman who says she was disappointed in trump because she said he's not hurting the people he's supposed to hurt and to me this was a 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 there will be a great incentive to use the extent 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 in the courts is a is a good thing uh pete budaj 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 have 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 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 different pathways for this. And it's not clear to me which is wisest. 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. Biden had a successful presidency. He he had a pretty good economy. Unemployment was below four percent almost the entire time he beat covid. We had about a 13 or 14 month period of 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 institutional problems, which, which led to Trumpism, things like the Supreme Court, things like the Electoral College, things like the Senate. 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, you know, 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, hey, you know what? People don't care about process. People don't care about all that stuff. They care about the bottom line. Kitchen table issues, John. And you know what? We're not going to get we're not going to get distracted by, you know, 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. Always. Yep. And that will be a real. There will 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 got to 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 say it again. John, we 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 engaged 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 I 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 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 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 announced this week a giant plan to. He personally has approved the designs for new terminals at Dulles, which include getting rid of the people movers and a 32,000 foot parking structure. Now, should the president be walking through the details of a new parking structure when 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 highway planning infrastructure, though. I am not in the. 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 ornaments and the personal monuments to himself, which are things like the arch, the ballroom, the name on the Kennedy Center. My view is that anything that looks like a presidential palace gets pulled down. Yes. Anything where. Because you have to show that there's no throne there. Show the next guy. Anything that. Any part of his infrastructure where you could imagine Uday and Kuse walking out to say hello, I think you got to tear it down. This is LeVar Arrington from Two Pros, and a cup of joe. That's X-E-R-O. Xero is a financial management platform that loves. giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers it puts accounting payments payroll and analytics all in one place so you always have one clear picture of your business with visual dashboards zero makes it easy to understand your cash flow you know exactly what's coming in and what's going out so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business zero's ai can even offer insights to help you make your best move it's powerful enough for an accountant and simple enough for you zero is the all-in-one to get business done learn more at zero.com this is matt rogers from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang this is bowen yang from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang okay we've been talking about qb mail for a minute now bow and wow the feedback we're getting i mean so many of y'all love this stuff you're stopping us in the street going i love qb and if you're thinking wait what is qb uh do you not have the internet it's the og japanese mayonnaise the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle once you know what you start seeing it everywhere people ask what makes it different from basic mayo well the answer egg yolks qb is made with egg yolks only giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything burgers fries sandwiches chicken noodles chefs use it restaurants use it people who really love food and flavor use it whatever you're eating qb hit so if you haven't tried qb yet find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about you'll understand qb the original japanese mayonnaise but but back back on this that that you want to do a cord expansion get rid of the filibuster pass some sort of uh you know repeal the big beautiful bill taxes there's a lot of sort of big strong executive leading the congress towards you know singular goal but then and by the way but then at some point you also want to reassert the justice department as an independent body 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 strong man 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 you do have to look to the future so that you build something so that people don't think yes i want a strong man 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 democracy should look and sound like we have to reassert some normalcy 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 kind of 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 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 unable to to run for office and the world looks very different possible in 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'm open to that i'm open to all possibilities we often find ourselves in the trap of saying well what was the real reason and the uh 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 redundancies 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 better they're not going to be able to do it they're not going to be able to do it they will get it and uh you know maybe you don't need all the people maybe you 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 invite let's end by talking about virtue uh for a moment because i i it 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 went 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 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 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 worrying about first responders dying of covid they're 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 you want to make sure that the PPE gets to the hospitals. They chose to lie because they didn't. Not lie, heavily lawyered. I mean, I would say this. So I've done the Fauci thing a whole lot. Fauci didn't lie. What Fauci did was a very lawyerly, depends on what the definition of his is. Yes. So I want to be clear. Anthony Fauci was somebody that devoted his life to public health. He's being smeared to be blamed for the entire pandemic because these people are being fundamentally dishonest. Donald Trump was president. He was lying the whole time. He was a man that did his best in a massive emergency. And I'm not just saying him. Collectively, the goal was to convince Americans that they did not need masks when they did because, and I think rightly, they knew that if you said to the country, don't buy masks right now, they're life-saving and we need to save them for the people that are in the shit right now. I don't think that they were wrong. right? I don't think they were wrong. And that, and, and like, and to me, like that is at the root of this, like the, that, that sort of politicians, not politicians and officials, not trusting the voters, the voters, not trusting those people in return. And I just don't know, like the question is, what does a virtuous cycle look like in which you're kind of getting back to a common sense of, of high trust society versus low trust? I wish I knew, honestly, I wish I knew John, because I think you're right about the general public, but at the same time, the general public is made up of all of those nurses and orderlies and techs and docs, uh, and who showed up to hospitals, taking care of people, especially like in New York. I mean, I don't know if people remember everybody is like this, this mass, uh, you know, forgotten this mass forgetting about COVID because like, nobody wants to remember it, but New York looked like fucking doomsday, you know, like there, there were just like mobile refrigerators with bodies just, you know, stacked inside the, uh, in the alleys outside hospitals. It was, it was like seeing one of these virus movies. Um, 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, 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 I, 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, I, 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, uh, like he makes these, these kind of, he makes mistrust and cynicism more true of us. And I, and I do think maybe the answer, like it's in the same way. Why do I think you and Sarah and Tim and others who have had profound disagreements over the years, um, stepped up when others didn't? Well, I think part of it is, um, these virtues aren't just something you believe in. I think everybody would claim to believe in them. They're, they were part of your identity, right? They were, they were part of your identity and a politics in which Democrats in, 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? Uh, 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 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, um, 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, uh, 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, right? Everybody understands kindness. And to the extent that we could try to just model that and to be me talking about kindness. I know it's hysterical, but, uh, you're rumored to be a very kind person. That's what the rumor is. I mean, when they let you out of that room you're in, but I strive for it. Right. I mean, it is, it is something, I think 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 we shouldn't have Pokemon go to the po went to the polls. Uh, 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 tech, tech, uh, uh, that idea of kindness did like kind of bring something out to 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, uh, you know, and, um, uh, I, I hope you felt I was kind today. This was so great. I loved hanging out. I would do a show with you every single week. Me and Alex Wagner. Wow. This is great. Okay. Yeah. I gotta talk to my bosses. Oh, wait, we're an independent media company. Uh, you mean Alex, what are we gonna do? We'll do a show about pinball comic. I'm into it. Whatever you want. Yeah. We could talk about, we, by the way, we could talk about watches too. Uh, are you a watch guy? I'm a watch guy. I got a, I got a grand Seiko going right now. Oh, which one? It's I got, I got the, it's the, it's the, uh, it's the cherry blossoms. It's the cherry blossoms. Oh, the shun. Oh, you know, it's a class grand Seiko is a, if you love grand Seiko, then you really love watches. I'm I'm a nerd. This is for, 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, cuz they know, but it's like, oh, that's a Seiko. No, no, no, no. My friends. It's a grand Seiko. And the story of grand Seiko polishing my friend. And what 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 one. It's the Japanese way. Uh, uh, Jonathan, so good to talk to everybody. Go subscribe to the bulwark, uh, go subscribe to the triad, his, his newsletter. And, uh, and subscribe right here on this channel, help us build a pro-democracy ecosystem to get good information to people. And, and that, that pro that prize is kindness. How about that? Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari with Reed Chirlan, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevive, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the writers guild of America East. discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze Baja Mar located in Nassau, Bahamas offers your choice of three luxury hotels over 45 fine dining and nightlife venues. John Batiste's all new jazz club, the Caribbean's most luxurious casino and one of a kind experiences for the entire family. Like our 15 acre tropical water park, wildlife sanctuary, world-class golf course, and so much more visit bahamar.com today you know that moment when everything lines up when life gives you the green light and you just go that's the 2026 Toyota Camry no hesitation no friction just a car that's right there with you ready responsive in control the whole way through because when it's your moment you shouldn't have to think twice the 2026 Toyota Camry go like you mean it test drive at your local Toyota dealer or visit toyota.com today Toyota let's go places see packages and options at Toyota.com for future availability.