The Insurrection Hoax
00:10:
(JVL)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Next Level.
00:14:
(JVL)
I'm JBL with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, and my sort of best friend, Tim Miller.
00:19:
(JVL)
We are back together again after having Sonny Bunch guest for us.
00:24:
(JVL)
And it's a very special episode because Sarah is doing a total pro move with a two-year-old quasi next to her watching Paw Patrol while she tapes a show.
00:37:
(JVL)
Since we all have young children, I would like to posit to you that Paw Patrol is the most insipid of all of the children's cartoons.
00:46:
(JVL)
Yes or no?
00:48:
(JVL)
Proposed.
00:49:
(Tim Miller)
I have to concur.
00:50:
(Tim Miller)
As usual with JVL, I've banned Paw Patrol, and we are running a very liberal household here.
00:58:
(Tim Miller)
You know, the three-year-old watches The Simpsons with me.
01:00:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not a hard line on the types of material.
01:04:
(Tim Miller)
But Paw Patrol is just a massive marketing effort to get kids to be obsessed with dog-style off-television toy content.
01:16:
(Tim Miller)
That's the whole purpose of the show.
01:18:
(JVL)
To be clear here, Sarah, I am not criticizing your parenting because my four-year-old likes Paw Patrol, too.
01:24:
(JVL)
I'm just saying of all the things which G-Money can choose to watch...
01:28:
(JVL)
Including, right now, we're bopping around the whole Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Expanded Universe.
01:34:
(JVL)
That's in our rotation.
01:36:
(JVL)
To me, the one that I cringe most when he puts on is Paw Patrol.
01:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
You?
01:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
That is my, no, my least favorite is Mighty Express, the train show.
01:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
But here's the deal.
01:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
You are correct about the marketing.
01:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
And as a testament to that, I will tell you that we have absconded from the four-year-old's room with the Paw Patrol tower, as well as the Paw Patroller, because the two-year-old never gets to play with them.
02:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is how I'm going to get through this podcast, is by letting him play with his older brother's stuff.
02:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
And by watching Paw Patrol, and I have no opinion on Paw Patrol because I've never watched it.
02:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't like sit there with them while they watch cartoons.
02:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's like the one 25-minute period where you don't have to talk to them.
02:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
I put them in a closet.
02:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
I put Paw Patrol on.
02:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
Send me your Parent of the Year awards.
02:20:
(JVL)
Please don't call child services.
02:22:
(Tim Miller)
It's nefarious.
02:22:
(Tim Miller)
Please don't call child services.
02:24:
(Tim Miller)
Paw Patrol is nefarious.
02:25:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, you could go to get Disney Plus, go to the classics.
02:28:
(Tim Miller)
You know, we're working through all the classics right now.
02:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
Your kid's like three, and my kids won't even sit through a movie yet, including the four-year-old.
02:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
He will watch one movie, which is Cars.
02:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
And actually, I should say, he'll watch three movies.
02:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
Cars 1, Cars 2, and Cars 3.
02:42:
(Tim Miller)
So is that a bad sign that my child will watch all of the Ice Ages in a row for 10 hours straight?
02:48:
(Tim Miller)
No, it's not a bad sign.
02:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is that a bad sign?
02:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do you not have a screen time limit?
02:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
We have a very rigid screen time limit in this house.
02:56:
(JVL)
No screen time limits.
02:57:
(JVL)
We had incredibly rigid screen time limits for children 1, 2, and 3.
03:01:
(JVL)
And by 4, we literally bought the fourth one, his own tablet.
03:07:
(JVL)
We're like, here's $20.
03:10:
(JVL)
Go watch a Star Wars.
03:14:
(JVL)
All right.
03:15:
(JVL)
So today I would like to start by flipping open the Wall Street Journal opinion page.
03:21:
(JVL)
Really, the place for serious conservatism.
03:24:
(JVL)
And an op-ed by one Pierre Delecto.
03:32:
(JVL)
Headline.
03:33:
(JVL)
Biden's stimulus bill is a $1.9 trillion clunker.
03:39:
(JVL)
Wah, wah.
03:42:
(Tim Miller)
Little cash for clunkers throwback there, do we think?
03:46:
(JVL)
And he, subhead, Senate Republicans are eager to get aid where it's needed, reopen schools, and encourage work.
03:54:
(JVL)
Now, I don't want to cap on Mitt Romney because he did stand up against the attempt to conduct a coup.
04:07:
(JVL)
God bless him for it.
04:08:
(JVL)
But this piece reads as if it was written in...
04:15:
(JVL)
2010 or something.
04:18:
(JVL)
It's, you know, well, we really have to be mindful of our P's and Q's here.
04:24:
(JVL)
And if you look at the CBO score, it seems that only 4% gets spent in the first six months.
04:31:
(JVL)
And then another... And I just look at it and I think, my dude, as they say on the Twitters, my dude, you are living in a different reality.
04:44:
(JVL)
That is simply not a world that we inhabit anymore.
04:48:
(Tim Miller)
We don't have to mind our P's and Q's in 2021.
04:50:
(Tim Miller)
It's just that's a 2010 thing, minding your P's and Q's.
04:53:
(Tim Miller)
Now it's just anarchy, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
04:58:
(JVL)
The idea behind publishing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where you pose as the voice of fiscal sanity and are retreating into CBO scoring and talking
05:17:
(JVL)
In some of it, I'd say much of this is good faith.
05:20:
(JVL)
I would say we've run pieces at the bulwark which have made similar points to this, which is that the stimulus plan as written is maybe not optimal in some of its targeting.
05:33:
(JVL)
Like, for instance, a bunch of the state and local aid seems to be extraneous.
05:37:
(JVL)
You could spend the same amount of money but in more effective ways.
05:41:
(JVL)
But some of the stuff in here is not super good faith, I would say.
05:47:
(JVL)
Here's a line from it.
05:51:
(JVL)
The Biden stimulus calls for $170 billion for education, yet has no realistic plan to reopen K-12 schools.
06:00:
(JVL)
Well, the federal government does not open or close K-12 schools.
06:03:
(JVL)
Those are local decisions.
06:06:
(JVL)
You know, it is the Fairfax County school system which opens.
06:09:
(JVL)
Joe Biden cannot say to Fairfax County, you shall open.
06:14:
(JVL)
That's not...
06:15:
(JVL)
And so everything about this just feels like it is coming from a universe where it is, A, having a conversation from 2010, but B, is presenting itself as emanating from a Republican party of 2010 that no longer exists anymore.
06:35:
(JVL)
The Republican Party, which, you know, cares about this stuff, that's gone too.
06:41:
(JVL)
The Republican Party is Ron John standing in the well of the Senate reading from The Federalist.
06:47:
(JVL)
That's the Republican Party.
06:48:
(JVL)
And so I look at it, and I mean, on the one hand, the part of me which loves good faith and good government and stuff, boy, Sarah, you look unhappy.
06:56:
(JVL)
It reads this piece and thinks, yeah, no, we need to be able to have good faith policy debates about optimal outcomes.
07:05:
(JVL)
On the other hand, I think, I don't know, like Mitt Romney's party fucked around for the last 12 months.
07:12:
(JVL)
They kicked the can down the road at every opportunity.
07:16:
(JVL)
They nickel and dimed and did stimulus packages that were wildly inadequate to the moment and which everybody knew were wildly inadequate for the moment, which is why they had to keep going back and doing more of them.
07:30:
(JVL)
And now when we're nearing the end of the pandemic and we got to create a bridge for, you know, 80 million people or so who are screwed, screwed by this stuff before we get to what we hope is going to be somewhat normal by August or September.
07:44:
(JVL)
Now we have the good government Republican Party in the person of a single guy writing for the Wall Street.
07:53:
(JVL)
Give me a fucking break.
07:56:
(Tim Miller)
Sarah, would you like to take it or me?
07:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't even understand what your argument is here, JBL.
08:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, you're mad.
08:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
Joe Biden promised a return to normalcy.
08:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
We're having a normal policy debate on the merits of which Mitt Romney is correct.
08:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, it is a poorly targeted...
08:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
Many of the merits.
08:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
Much of the previous stimulus still hasn't been spent.
08:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
It is poorly targeted.
08:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
We are not focusing on the people who need it most.
08:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Many of the states are not in distress and, in fact, haven't tapped into the rainy day funds.
08:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, he's making a bunch of perfectly good points that are perfectly normal.
08:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
And you know who gets to continue to have good faith arguments right now over policy?
08:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
The handful, the three or four Republicans who consistently stood up to Donald Trump.
08:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
The one.
08:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's fine.
08:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's fine.
08:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
But like Mitt Romney does.
08:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's absolutely earned the right to continue to try to have a normal functioning government that has these policy debates.
08:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
I am here for the go.
08:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
But when you say go back to 2010, do you mean before we had the autocratic surge?
08:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like I want to live in that world.
09:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, what is the problem with that?
09:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, do we have to at every...
09:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I agree with you that Ron Johnson should be... What do we do with these people?
09:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
We strut them to a falconhead rocket and we shoot them into the sun.
09:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yes.
09:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm fine with that for Ron Johnson.
09:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's the policy.
09:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
So that's true, but like...
09:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be having policy.
09:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
In fact, I would like this muscle to be something they work on.
09:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
I would like them to forge deals and to have policy debates.
09:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is loaded up.
09:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
It is true that this bill has a bunch of
09:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
uh democratic things that they want that they normally can't pass legislatively uh that they are trying to jam in here for to to make sure that like they happen under the guise of like that's a true thing that's happening now you can say that's okay you can say that that you support that but like it's a true thing that is happening
09:47:
(JVL)
You know what Mitt Romney ought to do if he cares so much about compromise?
09:52:
(JVL)
Switch parties.
09:54:
(JVL)
He could extract a lot more of what he wants as the 51st member of the Democratic Senate than he could as a Republican minority member arguing in the Wall Street Journal.
10:06:
(Tim Miller)
So as a person who's capable of being a squish who lands in between two extreme polls, no matter who my audience is and what the debate is, I will fall in between the two of you here.
10:17:
(Tim Miller)
Sarah is basically right on the merits, while JVL is basically right on the politics.
10:24:
(Tim Miller)
The merits of Mitt Romney's op-ed are mostly correct.
10:30:
(Tim Miller)
I agree with you there are a couple of cheap shots and bad faith lines but it is true that particularly for example some of the school funding like a lot of the school funding in this 1.9 trillion dollar
10:45:
(Tim Miller)
You know, bailout stimulus is not going to be spent until like 2026 when, God willing, the COVID-19 will be very deep in our rearview mirror.
10:56:
(Tim Miller)
The problem is the politics.
10:58:
(Tim Miller)
And I do think Mitt, who I just adore...
11:02:
(Tim Miller)
um is is living in 2010 not for the reason jvl said that you know caring about budgets is a thing of the past but he's living in 2010 in how to play the political game of this and and i think the fact that he rolled this out as you said in the wall street journal ed board he went on fox news radio yesterday he's on the guy benson show talking about this and
11:24:
(Tim Miller)
I had a little bit of fun and I scrolled through the replies to Guy's tweets when he shared the Romney interview and it's entirely insane MAGA people telling Mitt Romney that he is a simp wuss and that he might as well just become a socialist and that he tried to steal the election from the great Donald Trump and all this stuff.
11:48:
(Tim Miller)
I don't think that he's convincing any of these people.
11:51:
(Tim Miller)
And so I don't know that he necessarily needs to become a Democrat, but I do think that he needs to live in the reality of where the Republican Party is.
12:01:
(Tim Miller)
And I think that his fantasy of, well, I'm going to go on Fox Radio and go into the Wall Street Journal opinion board and I'm going to win over a few of these Republicans who are mad at me for betraying God King Trump is a fantasy.
12:15:
(Tim Miller)
And that maybe had he recruited five of his fellow Republicans and went to Joe Biden and said, hey, man, we're going to give you your 1.5 trillion of the 1.9.
12:28:
(Tim Miller)
If you take this 400 billion or whatever, my math isn't great or whatever it is that it's supposed to go to something stupid and not do it.
12:37:
(Tim Miller)
So I can say that I have a win.
12:38:
(Tim Miller)
Now, maybe the Democrats would say, why would they negotiate?
12:41:
(Tim Miller)
But that would, I think, be in the spirit of what Joe Biden is trying to do.
12:45:
(Tim Miller)
You know, proposing $800 billion, like a third of what the bill is, railing $600 billion.
12:55:
(JVL)
$618 billion was their counteroffer.
12:57:
(JVL)
Their counteroffers will give you one third.
12:59:
(Tim Miller)
That's absurd.
13:00:
(Tim Miller)
And then going into the Wall Street Journal to rant about it, it's just the process of it.
13:04:
(Tim Miller)
is wrong.
13:05:
(Tim Miller)
Like Mitt needs to recognize that he lives in the center squishy bulwark space.
13:11:
(Tim Miller)
Now he should be speaking to this audience.
13:14:
(Tim Miller)
He should be speaking to Joe Biden's audience and center left audience and thinking, what can I get out of the Democrats that will make this bill better?
13:22:
(Tim Miller)
That's good governance.
13:23:
(Tim Miller)
That's what Sarah should be wanting.
13:25:
(Tim Miller)
What can I get out of the Democrats realistically to make this bill better rather than railing against it and calling it cash for clunkers and going on Fox News Radio?
13:34:
(Tim Miller)
That's not advancing the ball at all because they're just going to ram through the $1.9 trillion anyway.
13:39:
(Tim Miller)
Tim, you're super hot.
13:41:
(Tim Miller)
Just to either sit back a little bit.
13:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
He is so hot.
13:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's got a half ponytail going.
13:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm shirtless.
13:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm shirtless.
13:48:
(JVL)
You should see the one ab that I have right now in this little photo.
13:52:
(JVL)
Crank the game back or sit back a little.
13:54:
(JVL)
I mean this sincerely.
13:59:
(JVL)
Do you think Mitt Romney is, as the two parties are currently constituted, closer to being a Democrat or closer to being a Republican?
14:07:
(JVL)
I just think he should put his existence in harmony with his essence.
14:14:
(JVL)
Because he is a Democrat at this point.
14:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
No, he's not.
14:18:
(JVL)
So why not just become a Democrat and then work from inside the system?
14:23:
(JVL)
Thank you, David Shaywitz, for my New Yorker cartoon.
14:26:
(JVL)
He should be working within the system on the Democratic Party.
14:29:
(JVL)
Instead of standing on the outside with, as he said last last night or yesterday, he said, yeah, you know, if he runs, Donald Trump will be the Republican Party nominee in 2024.
14:39:
(JVL)
So so Mitt, who again, love the guy, love the guy.
14:43:
(JVL)
Just come over to the other side.
14:45:
(JVL)
Go be a red dog.
14:47:
(JVL)
Go be a Red Dog Democrat and you can get way more.
14:51:
(JVL)
Also, I got to say, I would bet you dollars to donuts that like Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney is way more favorably viewed by Democrats than he is by Republicans.
15:03:
(JVL)
For now.
15:04:
(JVL)
You guys saw the poll yesterday where Liz Cheney is underwater by one to two with Republican voters and has net favorable with Democrats.
15:19:
(JVL)
I bet you anything the same is true for Romney.
15:21:
(JVL)
So why not just do it?
15:24:
(JVL)
Why not just start the realignment?
15:26:
(Tim Miller)
I totally agree with you on the fact that Romney's probably more popular right now with Democrats than Republicans, just like Liz Cheney.
15:33:
(Tim Miller)
I totally agree with you that he should reassess how he plays his politics.
15:38:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe for some people that would mean becoming a red dog Democrat.
15:41:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know if in Utah that is really a smart political move.
15:45:
(Tim Miller)
But I do think that by recognizing...
15:50:
(Tim Miller)
Who he can persuade and who he could win over.
15:53:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, this is my point.
15:54:
(Tim Miller)
Is that Romney, if he made a tailored argument, could persuade many Joe Biden Democrats.
16:02:
(Tim Miller)
I think there are probably people listening to this podcast right now who are Democrats.
16:06:
(Tim Miller)
who were like, I want a stimulus to happen, I just want it to get through.
16:10:
(Tim Miller)
If you told me that it'd be smarter to do it with $1.6 trillion instead of $1.9 trillion, and we moved column A to column B, I think that he could probably persuade some of those people to say, okay, this is a smarter thing to do.
16:21:
(Tim Miller)
So that is at least step one in the process of becoming a red dog, is just recognizing who your constituency is.
16:29:
(Tim Miller)
The people that are listening to Fox News Radio is not his constituency.
16:35:
(Tim Miller)
Bringing back out cash for clunkers is just going to leave him unpopular with both sides.
16:41:
(Tim Miller)
He's not winning any of these people over, and the Democrats that he's gotten strange new respect from are going to start saying, okay, enough of this guy.
16:49:
(Tim Miller)
It was nice that you were anti-Coup and all, but give me a break.
16:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, which is where JBL is landing, I guess.
16:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
But so I agree with that, Tim.
17:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I do think that Mitt Romney should be focused on on figuring out who he can persuade.
17:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
That being said, but the idea that he should be a Democrat makes little sense to me.
17:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, this guy is a socially conservative Mormon.
17:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
who has been a, I mean, I do think that Mitt Romney, look, he was a Massachusetts Republican.
17:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
So he is, I think, before he became the Mitt Romney that ran for president and sort of shifted who he was, he was a pretty moderate Republican.
17:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that that is a good place for him to be.
17:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think that somebody should model what it means to be a moderate Republican.
17:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
Otherwise, there will be none of them.
17:44:
(JVL)
I think it's in terms of what the actual landscape looks like.
17:51:
(JVL)
Much, much.
17:53:
(JVL)
There's much more ground to be made by just going and being a moderate Dem.
17:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
You know, here's the thing.
17:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
If you think.
17:59:
(JVL)
Because the Republican Party and the Republican voters are pro quo.
18:02:
(JVL)
So just leave those people behind.
18:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, I wonder how much.
18:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, well, I was just going to say, I wonder how much he and Joe Manchin really have in common or how much he and Kristen Sinema really have in common.
18:18:
(JVL)
Beast mode.
18:19:
(JVL)
Is that what she wore?
18:20:
(JVL)
Was that her T-shirt yesterday?
18:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't know, but I – look, I don't – there's no – I will say like I like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush for sure.
18:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
Or Jeb Bush, sorry.
18:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
But like I have Republicans that I have liked or politicians that I've liked, but I try not to be a politician stan because they always disappoint you.
18:41:
(Tim Miller)
Dangerous creature was her show.
18:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
Dangerous creature, that's right.
18:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
Dangerous creature.
18:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I do like –
18:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
kristin cinema like i used the way i used to like sort of love ben sass and then he completely broke my heart um i'm starting to find those feelings for for kristin cinema and
18:58:
(Tim Miller)
Can I just mention really quick on the side that it's Sarah that is parenting a two-year-old and yet I was the one that just dropped a light coffee and milk drink all over the ground of my child's playroom right now and almost ruined my podcast setup.
19:13:
(Tim Miller)
So I'm an adult two-year-old right now.
19:16:
(Tim Miller)
I'm in the middle of a cleanup crisis over here.
19:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
I was wondering what you were doing, and if I sounded distracted, it's because my son walked out of the closet to hand me a wrapper.
19:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
Here, Mom, have us.
19:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is good content right here.
19:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, I know.
19:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is the content people are paying for.
19:32:
(JVL)
Uh, so, uh, okay.
19:34:
(JVL)
So that's my rant about the stimulus bill and Mitt Romney's politics, but, uh, so, so his is nicely into Sarah's topic.
19:42:
(JVL)
Actually, no, I want to, I want to jump to your topic first because I think Sarah is the bow on this package.
19:48:
(JVL)
The, uh, the cherry on top of this always, which is, uh, so again, as I say, does, does Mitt Romney have more in common with Joe Biden or more in common with his colleague from Wisconsin?
20:02:
(Tim Miller)
So Charlie wrote about this this morning.
20:06:
(Tim Miller)
So if you've already read Morning Shots, you can just press the fast-forward 30-second button.
20:10:
(Tim Miller)
But I do want to talk about what, as Charlie called him, Ron Anon.
20:18:
(Tim Miller)
I like that.
20:19:
(Tim Miller)
Do you get it?
20:19:
(Tim Miller)
Do you get it, Jacob?
20:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
20:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Ron Anon.
20:21:
(Tim Miller)
Love it.
20:22:
(Tim Miller)
I like that a lot.
20:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't get it.
20:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
Oh, like QAnon.
20:27:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, like Ron John, Ron Anon.
20:29:
(Tim Miller)
You're getting it now, Sarah?
20:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
I got it now.
20:31:
(Tim Miller)
It's a dad joke.
20:32:
(Tim Miller)
This should be right up your alley.
20:34:
(Tim Miller)
So Ron Anon is in the well of the Senate yesterday, and he is reading into the record a first-person account from a man named J. Michael Waller, who is a conspiracy theorist that works for a fake think tank that was started to put a little bit of a serious...
20:55:
(Tim Miller)
high-minded sheen on the Trumpist foreign policy agenda.
21:01:
(Tim Miller)
And J. Michael Waller attended the rally on January 6th.
21:06:
(Tim Miller)
He was a big proponent of the idea that Hugo Chavez was part of a deep state coup to change the voting machines and steal the election.
21:16:
(Tim Miller)
And so he wanted to kind of see what was happening firsthand.
21:19:
(Tim Miller)
And he gets off the Amtrak, right, because he's a coastal elite, to just see what the scene's like with the regular folks.
21:30:
(Tim Miller)
And what he and Ron John found, and Ron John, if you remember when he called our friend that wrote for the Bulwark, who is the county chair in Wisconsin, and told him that Trump...
21:42:
(Tim Miller)
Trump fans that he needs to go to a Trump rally because Trump fans love this country and the Bernie Sanders fans do not love this country.
21:50:
(Tim Miller)
So this is kind of a longstanding view that Ron John has had.
21:53:
(Tim Miller)
So this Federalist article really, you know, kind of hit all of his erogenous zones.
21:58:
(Tim Miller)
And what J. Michael Waller found was that a very few in the crowd did not share the jovial, friendly, and earnest demeanor of the great majority.
22:11:
(Tim Miller)
They obviously didn't fit in.
22:13:
(Tim Miller)
Some of them were younger 20-somethings wearing new Trump or MAGA hats.
22:18:
(Tim Miller)
Must have just got it right off the internet to cover up their Antifa hats that they would have been wearing that would have looked much more worn.
22:28:
(Tim Miller)
They'd have a visor in the back.
22:30:
(Tim Miller)
They didn't have the same enthusiasm and joie de vivre as the rest of the crowd.
22:35:
(Tim Miller)
They were glowering.
22:36:
(Tim Miller)
They were holding out their phones with outstretched arms to make videos of as many faces in the crowd as possible.
22:42:
(Tim Miller)
Their body language was wrong.
22:44:
(Tim Miller)
So this expert, this is a security policy expert, decided that the crowd was not exactly a Trump, a pro-Trump crowd, and that there were a few Antifa troublemakers in the midst.
22:57:
(Tim Miller)
And that the rest of the good, God-fearing, police-loving, Blue Lives Matter-wearing protesters were basically instigated into tearing out the eyeballs of police officers by the victims' own actions, the cops with their tear gas, that really radicalized people and changed the mood, and by this small number of secret Antifa hiding amidst the crowd.
23:26:
(Tim Miller)
That's an interesting theory, especially since we've had a couple dozen people arrested and they all have very extensive histories of MAGA and that there were Donald Trump flags in the crowd and Confederate flags and, you know, the Holocaust was fake shirts and all that.
23:42:
(Tim Miller)
But it's, I think, particularly interesting that the senator from Wisconsin...
23:47:
(Tim Miller)
decided that that needed to be shared into the public record.
23:50:
(Tim Miller)
So that is his theory, that the real victims here were the innocent, MAGA, America-loving, Blue Lives Matter-wearing protesters who were just saying their piece, and they were victimized by the secret Antifa and by the cops themselves who shot the tear gas into the crowd and forced them.
24:10:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, they basically...
24:11:
(Tim Miller)
They basically forced the Trump fans to attack them with flagpoles and try to stab them to death and throw fire hydrants at them, you know, and as I said, try to kind of claw out their eyeballs and call them the N-word over and over again.
24:27:
(Tim Miller)
You know, they were asking for it.
24:30:
(Tim Miller)
They were wearing kind of a little bit of a short skirt.
24:33:
(Tim Miller)
This is...
24:35:
(Tim Miller)
Fucking outrageous.
24:37:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, is this, I know that like we have a little bit of outrage fatigue, but this is even potentially more outrageous than anything that any Senator read on the floor during the Trump, the actual Trump presidency.
24:49:
(Tim Miller)
No.
24:49:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, could you imagine like the, you know, some version of this in October of 20, 2001, uh, a pro Al Qaeda reading on the house floor.
25:04:
(JVL)
No, I think this is in the weirdness of it being Ron John and not like Louis Gohmert.
25:14:
(JVL)
Right.
25:14:
(JVL)
Like it's not Tommy Tuberville.
25:15:
(JVL)
It's not Louis Gohmert.
25:17:
(JVL)
He's not a senator.
25:18:
(JVL)
But he's not somebody who everybody just knows is a crank.
25:21:
(JVL)
And Ron John himself does seem to be in on the joke.
25:25:
(JVL)
Right.
25:25:
(JVL)
He's not actually a true believer.
25:26:
(JVL)
No, I don't think so.
25:29:
(Tim Miller)
You go back to that phone call.
25:30:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, yeah.
25:32:
(Tim Miller)
I don't think he is in on the joke.
25:33:
(Tim Miller)
I think that he's bought this, that the Trump fans are God-loving real Americans, and it's the socialists that are the evil ones that don't love America, the Bernie Sanders people and their Pete Seeger songs.
25:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
So you mean you think he really means it to him?
25:47:
(Tim Miller)
I do.
25:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
25:49:
(JVL)
Oh, you think he does mean it?
25:51:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
25:51:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, I do not think that he's in on the joke.
25:53:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, just go back to the Mark Becker call that we published.
25:56:
(JVL)
No, but he also says to Mark Becker, yeah, I mean, of course, I know the truth about this stuff.
26:00:
(JVL)
You just can't say it out loud.
26:02:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, I'm sorry.
26:03:
(Tim Miller)
He does not necessarily believe that the election was rigged by Hugo Chavez.
26:07:
(Tim Miller)
But I do think that he very much believes that the Trump fans are not at all violent terrorists and that this was real Antifa and the actual evil leftists that did this.
26:20:
(Tim Miller)
I think that he really believes that.
26:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, and I'll say just to the question of would we believe it if somebody had told it to us two years ago?
26:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, not if I had to be transported into it, but having watched being like the frog in the pot, having watched Ron Johnson over the last couple of years, I actually feel like we've watched him radicalize in front of our eyes.
26:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like he's a weird Russia propagandist.
26:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
He is constantly he jumps in front of a camera every chance he gets to say the most pro-Trump
26:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
thing he possibly can the most conspiracy laden thing that he can the fact that he went this far and is quoting the Federalist on the Senate floor is absolutely outrageous but not out of step with I think the person we've watched him become do you guys think that he secretly wants a shot at the title
27:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
They all want a shot at the title.
27:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
Isn't that the whole point of being a senator?
27:17:
(JVL)
Not all of them, no.
27:19:
(JVL)
But Ron John has never looked like he wanted to go sit in the big chair.
27:26:
(JVL)
But maybe he does.
27:28:
(JVL)
Maybe he is trying to be super sneaky, you know, hey, maybe I come out of the, you know, let Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton tear each other apart and Josh Hawley.
27:40:
(JVL)
And then I sort of ride in as the true heir of MAGA because I was willing to push everything all the way.
27:46:
(Tim Miller)
I'm sorry.
27:48:
(Tim Miller)
Did you watch it?
27:49:
(Tim Miller)
Did you actually watch this feature?
27:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
I just watched the clip.
27:53:
(Tim Miller)
I'm telling you, this article in the Pro-Coup Federalist really touched Ron somewhere deep.
28:07:
(Tim Miller)
I think that Ron John has convinced himself that Make America Great Again is just about getting out the brown people and loving this country for what it had to be.
28:18:
(Tim Miller)
Singing some country songs.
28:19:
(Tim Miller)
Exactly.
28:20:
(Tim Miller)
And I love them some Willie Nelson, you know, I didn't read all of it But he starts you can almost see him get a little wistful as he's like some of these were older people They didn't look like that your types to be rioters, you know, they were maybe overweight.
28:33:
(Tim Miller)
They were families.
28:35:
(Tim Miller)
They brought their children They were waving their American flags and their blue lives met and their thin blue line flag and I think that this
28:45:
(Tim Miller)
Fan fiction article by a Trump propagandist who supported the coup in The Federalist.
28:52:
(Tim Miller)
I think Ron got convinced by MAGA propaganda.
28:56:
(Tim Miller)
I think that he really does believe that the only explanation for this is that it is the secret evil Antifa that was behind it.
29:06:
(Tim Miller)
And that these were just God-fearing people that got kind of swept up in a situation that was pretty...
29:13:
(Tim Miller)
You know, that was just not any different than the, you know, March for Our Lives march.
29:19:
(Tim Miller)
These were just people that were doing their civic duty and they got kind of swept up in the moment.
29:23:
(Tim Miller)
Kind of like when you charge the field and tear down the flagpole after a big win.
29:29:
(JVL)
Keep in mind that Ron John is smack dab in the middle of the Republican Senate.
29:33:
(Tim Miller)
The flagpole.
29:33:
(Tim Miller)
What am I talking about?
29:34:
(JVL)
The goalposts.
29:36:
(JVL)
The goalposts.
29:37:
(Tim Miller)
You're taking down the field goal.
29:38:
(Tim Miller)
I like sports.
29:39:
(Tim Miller)
Especially college football.
29:40:
(JVL)
It's the only sport in which people pull down the goalposts.
29:46:
(JVL)
But he is not all the way out on the limb.
29:50:
(JVL)
Again, I think he is a median.
29:53:
(JVL)
If you're going to rank all the Republican senators by Trumpiness, I think he is right around the fat hump of the curve.
30:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
False.
30:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
Let's name people who are more Trumpy than Ron Johnson.
30:06:
(JVL)
Everybody who voted against counting the electoral votes.
30:12:
(JVL)
Holly, Cruz, Rick Scott.
30:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
So Holly, Cruz, Rick Scott.
30:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
Those are fine.
30:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm contesting the media idea.
30:18:
(JVL)
Tuberville.
30:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Marsha Blackburn.
30:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
Lankford's not.
30:22:
(JVL)
Marsha Blackburn.
30:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
Okay, Blackburn.
30:24:
(JVL)
I mean, do I have to pull up the – do you really want me to pull up the list and just like go through the caucus?
30:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think that – I mean, and this isn't even a defense of Republicans.
30:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
I just think it's like as an empirical matter, we should say that he's in like – he's not like the median Republican senator.
30:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think that Ron Johnson has moved himself to a place where he is out there with some of the fringiest parts of the Republican Party.
30:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
Kennedy.
30:48:
(Crosstalk)
Kennedy.
30:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
But like I'm saying more they're not you can bucket that you can say like these are your MAGA people and I would still put Ron John further out than Kennedy Kennedy wouldn't say I don't think they're saying no I would still I would still in terms of the people who buy into the election we're kind of splitting hairs at this point though.
31:11:
(JVL)
Yeah, I would say we've got 15 people to the right of him, more MAGA, 15 people who are much less MAGA, and then a lump of 20 guys in the middle.
31:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is there a different axis for Q and MAGA?
31:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
They're the same, obviously, but aren't they sort of different?
31:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
Because the thing to me about Ranjan is that he is more of a conspiracy theorist than a Kennedy.
31:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
31:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Or a Lindsey Graham, but in the same bucket of MAGA.
31:45:
(JVL)
Maybe.
31:46:
(JVL)
I don't know.
31:47:
(JVL)
I think that it turns out the Q isn't real, that that was just a deep state.
31:51:
(JVL)
Did that happen on Fox News last night?
31:54:
(Tim Miller)
I'm glad you brought this up because this is the thing with the Ron Johnson.
31:57:
(Tim Miller)
As crazy and just offensive and outrageous as the Ron Johnson remarks were, this is now canon.
32:04:
(Tim Miller)
There were multiple Fox shows last night.
32:07:
(Tim Miller)
Dinesh was on with Laura Ingram.
32:10:
(Tim Miller)
They were kind of doing a little pillow talk and flirting about defending the domestic terrorists.
32:14:
(Tim Miller)
Boy, that's funny, isn't it?
32:16:
(JVL)
That is a funny back-together-again thing.
32:19:
(JVL)
For people who don't know, the two of them dated many moons ago.
32:22:
(Tim Miller)
Oh, yeah.
32:23:
(Tim Miller)
And Laura was a scorned lover in that situation.
32:27:
(Tim Miller)
Sure was.
32:28:
(Tim Miller)
Dinesh moved on to Brider Pastures and Coulter.
32:33:
(Tim Miller)
And so Laura and Dinesh are just doing a little pillow talk.
32:38:
(Tim Miller)
And just like, hey, I mean, these guys are just...
32:40:
(Tim Miller)
out for a leisurely stroll uh you know they didn't know what was happening all of a sudden the capitol doors were open and they wanted to go see the statues i mean these people like america and so they wanted to do a little they thought they were getting kind of a little bonus tour you know getting to see all the former confederate leaders um that they could you know sort of leave some cards next to their statues and then tucker uh also was saying that so yeah this is now canon that these people were not that this was not actually a big deal at all
33:07:
(JVL)
It is funny to watch the evolution of the canon because the first iteration of the official truth on this was that all of the rioters were Antifa.
33:20:
(JVL)
The second iteration was there were no riots.
33:24:
(JVL)
The Capitol Police welcomed everybody in.
33:26:
(JVL)
The third version of it was these are patriots who are trying to save our democracy.
33:33:
(JVL)
And now we have finally arrived at the, there were a bunch of provocateurs and these people were 99.9% of the good ones.
33:42:
(JVL)
And there's a few of them got radicalized by stuff at the end.
33:45:
(JVL)
It is, it's any, I mean,
33:48:
(Tim Miller)
It's like a farmer's day parade in Sioux City.
33:52:
(Tim Miller)
The level of authority.
33:53:
(JVL)
But this is purely this is authoritarianism.
33:56:
(JVL)
This is how authoritarian regimes arrive at truth.
34:00:
(JVL)
Right.
34:00:
(JVL)
They test out a bunch of things and then they eventually settle on a story.
34:04:
(JVL)
And there is no everything is impervious to evidence.
34:09:
(JVL)
Right.
34:10:
(JVL)
The evidence never has any bearing to do on anything.
34:12:
(JVL)
Right.
34:12:
(JVL)
And that's where the Republican Party is, which is why Mitt Romney ought to just recognize he's not a Republican anymore.
34:19:
(Tim Miller)
Did you get to watch Dinesh and Laura's little kind of like pro-terrorist flirt last night on primetime Fox?
34:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
No, I don't sit around watching Primetime Fox.
34:32:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, that's pretty good.
34:33:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, these people are getting... Would rather watch Paw Patrol.
34:35:
(Tim Miller)
These couple two million viewers are just getting some real hot, heavy-petting, pro-terrorist content.
34:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, I'm not sure whether I should even bother with this.
34:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, there's like obviously, like to me, it is actually more about them trying to do a kind of not all conservatives, right?
34:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
They want to separate.
34:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
It seems like it seems like sort of an obvious play, which is we want to make sure we want to say that like most people are good, decent people and they they're not all insurrectionists, that we want to isolate this to a core group of bad actors so that we can say the rest of these people are blameless.
35:11:
(JVL)
But also preserve the possibility that we may have to do another insurrection.
35:17:
(JVL)
That's the key to it, right?
35:18:
(JVL)
Because you don't want to foreclose the possibility that you may have to call for another one of these gatherings.
35:23:
(JVL)
That's part of the MO.
35:26:
(Tim Miller)
That's right.
35:26:
(Tim Miller)
And part two is you can't carve out the bad actors as your fans.
35:34:
(Tim Miller)
Right.
35:34:
(Tim Miller)
You know, I mean, Tucker's like top producer was a white nationalist, right?
35:37:
(Tim Miller)
So he has to argue that there were not actually, this was not actually a white nationalist uprising at all.
35:42:
(Tim Miller)
You know, you got to carve out the bad, the bad actors are, you know, these anarchists, right?
35:48:
(Tim Miller)
Like they weren't, they aren't real MAGA, right?
35:50:
(Tim Miller)
They just bought their hats at Union Station.
35:52:
(JVL)
Yeah, you can't.
35:53:
(JVL)
They just bought their hats at Union Station.
35:55:
(JVL)
Exactly.
35:56:
(JVL)
Right?
35:56:
(JVL)
Yeah.
35:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
The thing is, it is like most lies.
36:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
There's an element of truth to that, right?
36:04:
(Crosstalk)
What is the element?
36:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
That there's plenty of people that showed up that day not planning to storm the Capitol, right?
36:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
And who didn't, right?
36:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
That there were lots of people.
36:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
So there were probably lots of people who were like, oh my God, people have broken into the Capitol.
36:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
Oh, this is... Because there were...
36:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
I haven't I don't have like a full picture of the day, but there were there was obviously a ton of people who were like pushing into it.
36:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Obviously, it was super, super bad.
36:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I'm but the capital is so big that there were sides of it where people like didn't know this was going on for a period of time.
36:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
36:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
That there was like where they were just standing around.
36:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is I'm just saying this is what they're hanging their hat on is that, of course, there were different types of people in this audience.
36:45:
(Tim Miller)
I guess so.
36:45:
(Tim Miller)
I guess so.
36:46:
(Tim Miller)
Here's my question.
36:47:
(Tim Miller)
Let's say you went to the, you know, kind of Bethesda St. Patrick's Day parade here in a couple of weeks down Main Street, Bethesda.
36:55:
(Tim Miller)
And then people started like taking bats to the glass of the SoulCycle and going into the SoulCycle and like taking out bicycles.
37:04:
(Tim Miller)
And like you were there with Karen and the kids.
37:07:
(Tim Miller)
Like, do you feel like you guys would be like, yeah, I want to check out what's happening in the SoulCycle too?
37:12:
(Tim Miller)
Or do you think you would leave?
37:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, but it's not.
37:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, that is literally the argument people made about the Black Lives Matter protests this summer, that there were protests that were absolutely peaceful.
37:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
And then there were protests that turned violent.
37:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that the Fox News crowd at the time tried to make all of it violent and destructive.
37:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
When, of course, we knew that much of it wasn't.
37:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
Most of it wasn't.
37:38:
(Tim Miller)
uh and i'm just i don't think i don't think that that's a good analogy i mean the black lives matter protests were were you know these massive protests where people were moving they walked down the street there were a handful of people that would go like whatever spray paint a bank but then everybody didn't start spray painting the bank like everybody went into the capitol i mean there i'm sure a handful of people who went home and had lunch or whatever but like the the preponderance of the crowd went into the capitol
38:02:
(Tim Miller)
I don't think that's right.
38:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't think that's right either.
38:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
Not even close.
38:06:
(JVL)
Not even close.
38:07:
(JVL)
I think they had like 300,000 people on the mall.
38:10:
(Tim Miller)
They did not have 300,000 people on the mall.
38:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
Look, don't put me in a position.
38:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
Don't put me in a position where I feel like I'm defending the insurrectionists.
38:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm not going to do that.
38:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I do think that you are over – I do think that my point is that they are hinging –
38:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
uh their argument on something that people will believe to be true because there are elements of truth to it where there were lots of people that day that didn't enter the capitol in fact probably the majority of people didn't enter the capitol if all of the people who were there in the crowd that they entered the capitol it would have i mean we're pushing in we're pushing in now i don't mean like inside the building but into the capitol like ground i mean you see those videos and there's just massive crowds that are yeah there are
38:47:
(JVL)
Well, OK, so listen, we can come back to this after I have like gone and done some National Park Service research.
38:54:
(JVL)
But I believe that we are talking about a fraction of the main body went to the Capitol.
39:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
We had a video person down there, right?
39:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
There was if you look at all of the footage, there's huge swaths of people that are just milling around like while this is happening.
39:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like it's actually the insanity of the scene.
39:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
The insanity of the scene is the fact that you've got like one group that is
39:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
violently pushing into it.
39:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
There are smoke bombs.
39:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
They are, we find out later, beating cops with flagpoles, whatever.
39:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
And then there's a bunch of people who can't really see that who are on either the other side, different sides of the building or just back farther in the crowd who are just kind of watching it.
39:29:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe preponderance was not true.
39:30:
(Tim Miller)
That's fair.
39:31:
(Tim Miller)
But I mean, there were significant people with Trump flags.
39:34:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, this is like a different...
39:35:
(Tim Miller)
This is different in nature than saying that there are like five people that went into a bank.
39:39:
(Tim Miller)
Totally true.
39:40:
(Tim Miller)
You know what I mean?
39:40:
(Tim Miller)
Like there's a significant percentage of people carrying flags and regalia like going up into the Capitol.
39:47:
(JVL)
Yeah.
39:47:
(JVL)
No, look, we're having an argument about a distinction where we're trying to be overly fair to the people.
39:54:
(JVL)
The point is it isn't like it was 0.1% of the total crowd that stormed the Capitol.
40:01:
(JVL)
It's more like it was 10 to 20%.
40:04:
(JVL)
So a large number.
40:08:
(JVL)
So has the next episode started?
40:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, man.
40:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
I just had to give him some pirate's booty.
40:14:
(JVL)
Pirate's booty.
40:17:
(JVL)
So, Sarah, if Senator Mitt Romney was not going to become a Democrat, could he become an independent or start a new party?
40:28:
(Tim Miller)
To get away from Ron Johnson?
40:31:
(Tim Miller)
Shouldn't he want to?
40:32:
(Tim Miller)
So he no longer has to go to a caucus lunch with Ron Johnson anymore?
40:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
So there's a lot of third party talk right now.
40:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that Tim Miller, Bill Kristol and I, and maybe you JVL, I don't know, I'll be interested to get your take on this, are in actually the minority position within the sort of never Trump community, but not, I think, the never Trump voting population, but the sort of never Trump Washington community.
41:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
There's a real movement
41:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
to start a third party and and it would be kind of a i mean that i'm not gonna go too much into it in terms of like what you hear in the internal double deliberations but it is the idea is kind of that there would be a either a a faction within the existing republican party or a third party like it would break off you'd form a third party and it would be like a real conservative party like a true principled conservative party
41:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I just am not into it.
41:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't think it makes any sense.
41:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
And a big part of the reason is that whether we like it or not, you know, people talk about the two-party duopoly.
41:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
And it's true.
41:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
We've got a two-party system.
41:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
And the parties are both...
41:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
too weak not to be hijacked by outside forces.
41:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, the Republican Party was taken over by Donald Trump, and he was able to completely transform it.
41:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
The Democratic Party was nearly taken over by Bernie Sanders, who almost won the nomination, who doesn't even call himself a Democrat.
42:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's more moderate forces reasserted themselves, and Joe Biden obviously...
42:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
One, but the point is, is that I don't see sort of like a quick way that you break up that that two party duopoly.
42:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
42:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
There's still there's still sort of because anybody else becomes a spoiler.
42:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
There's a reason that Tim and I, when Justin Amash was thinking about getting into the race, wrote an op ed pleading with him not to do it.
42:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that people who talk about a sort of conservative third party have this idea like, well, you'll split the Republican Party.
42:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
And it won't be able to win because it won't be able to form a major coalition.
42:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think the piece that they miss is how many...
42:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
sort of either right-leaning independents or centrists or other kinds of maybe left-leaning independents that you end up attracting as well like people's it's people's political positions aren't that linear and so when you have a whether it's centrist or center-right kind of party what you actually do is you take people who would otherwise sort of
43:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
hold their nose and caucus with the democrats tim has coined this phrase the red dog democrats so people who are sort of formerly republicans but going into this new political realignment would find the uh a a home enough in the very conservative like in a conservative wing of the democratic party uh and i think there is more
43:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
You either be Mitt Romney and you try to shore up a sane wing of the Republican Party, or I think you join a broad pro-democracy coalition with the Democrats to ensure that this very dangerous version of the MAGA Republican Party doesn't get within striking distance of political power.
43:58:
(Tim Miller)
Can I go JBL?
44:00:
(Tim Miller)
Because me and Sarah agree 100% on this, but she is being way too diplomatic in her take on our friends in the Never Trump community and their view on this third-party idea, which is fucking moronic.
44:15:
(Tim Miller)
It is moronic.
44:17:
(Tim Miller)
It is stupid.
44:20:
(Tim Miller)
They are...
44:22:
(Tim Miller)
we're gonna be running a piece on this tomorrow saying that it's time to plant a fly just so you know just just uh we are gonna be running a piece that keep going tim keep going tim it is navel gazing it is masturbatory um uh it is it's ridiculous and and and here's why because and i think bill nailed this and and he got in trouble with some of our friends at the national review and even the dispatch over this by saying what about joe biden
44:51:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, here's, Joe Biden is fine, okay?
44:55:
(Tim Miller)
Like, it is a different story if there was a socialist, an actual socialist, or an actual anti-democratic, you know, illiberal left-wing, you know, populist running the Democratic Party.
45:09:
(Tim Miller)
There's not.
45:10:
(Tim Miller)
Joe Biden is fine.
45:11:
(Tim Miller)
Do you disagree with him on some things?
45:12:
(Tim Miller)
Yes.
45:13:
(Tim Miller)
Are there going to be a handful of people who are so passionate about abortion that it is their one issue and they can't get past it and they need to have some kind of group like the Libertarians, some kind of small organizing group that advocates around pro-life issues that allies with either party depending on which ones are doing, the Republicans when they're doing abortion legislation, the Democrats when they're not trying to
45:42:
(Tim Miller)
you know stuff uh four-year-olds in the rio grande river like fine okay like if you want to start a little offshoot pro-life group that's fine that's not a national governing party right that's an issue group like that is like the sierra club right or that is you know like whatever all any other various issue groups the human rights campaign
46:02:
(Tim Miller)
For an actual organizing governing party, you need to create a coalition that can win elections.
46:10:
(Tim Miller)
And this idea that a small government pro-life Joe Biden is going to win elections is fucking asinine.
46:19:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe they could win elections in a specific state, in a specific issue.
46:23:
(Tim Miller)
If you want to gather Charlie Baker and Phil Scott...
46:28:
(Tim Miller)
and john bell edwards in louisiana and create a little team that's like the you know say what you want about the reform party back in the day that was at least an idea that could have worked right it was more of a coalition of people that had various different ideas that that worked together to try to break up the duopoly in various states that's fine like i i'm happy to hear about potential ideas that are targeted to localities
46:53:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe if Joe Biden dies or has a stroke and Bernie Sanders wins, then we can rediscuss this in 2028.
47:02:
(Tim Miller)
But the current conversation that is happening is a waste of time.
47:08:
(Tim Miller)
And it's a bunch of people on K Street that are looking for something to do.
47:13:
(Tim Miller)
Because the vast, vast majority of these voters are red dogs.
47:16:
(Tim Miller)
They've already left.
47:17:
(Tim Miller)
They voted for Democrats in 2018.
47:19:
(Tim Miller)
They voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
47:20:
(Tim Miller)
They probably voted for Evan in 2016 or maybe Hillary or maybe Gary Johnson.
47:25:
(Tim Miller)
They haven't voted for a Republican in six damn years now.
47:28:
(Tim Miller)
Okay?
47:28:
(Tim Miller)
Like, they're Democrats, basically.
47:30:
(Tim Miller)
And they might go back.
47:31:
(Tim Miller)
They might be swing voters.
47:33:
(Tim Miller)
Like, that's fine.
47:33:
(Tim Miller)
People change.
47:34:
(Tim Miller)
But right now, most of them have left.
47:36:
(Tim Miller)
There's another small but important swing group that we talked to in our VAT that are pretty much still Republicans that just hated Donald Trump.
47:43:
(Tim Miller)
They're still going to be Republicans and they're going to fight a losing battle inside the Republican Party.
47:47:
(Tim Miller)
God bless them.
47:48:
(Tim Miller)
I support that.
47:49:
(Tim Miller)
But like that, that is the political reality right now.
47:52:
(Tim Miller)
And like every conversation we have, I get asked about why not do this third party.
47:58:
(Tim Miller)
And so I'm going to tell people to scroll to the 50th minute of the February 24th next level and they can hear my answer for why not.
48:06:
(JVL)
Yeah, I mean, it's just a question of how many troops does the pope have, right?
48:12:
(JVL)
I mean, how many people are there who believe in small government constitutional conservatism?
48:18:
(JVL)
I mean, probably a couple dozen.
48:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's enough for a dinner party, not a political party.
48:28:
(JVL)
Yeah.
48:28:
(JVL)
The truth is, there is a viable third party constituency in America, and that's for Trumpism.
48:35:
(JVL)
If Donald Trump were to walk away from the Republican Party, he could take a very large percentage of the party with him.
48:45:
(Tim Miller)
And pick up a few Sanders, pick up a few Glenn Greenwald types.
48:48:
(JVL)
Yes.
48:49:
(JVL)
And actually, in some states, win some Senate seats, win a bunch of House seats.
48:56:
(JVL)
It would be hard to win the presidency, but not impossible.
49:00:
(JVL)
Because what you might be able to do is essentially turn the Republican presidential candidate into the spoiler, right?
49:09:
(JVL)
So where you're forcing Republican voters to choose, do I want to throw away my vote, supporting...
49:15:
(JVL)
You know, good guy Republican X when he's polling at 20 percent.
49:23:
(JVL)
Right.
49:23:
(JVL)
Liz Cheney at 20 percent when Trump is polling at 25 percent and Joe Biden is polling at 45 percent.
49:30:
(JVL)
Wouldn't it be better for me to just vote for Trump and maximize our coalition there?
49:35:
(JVL)
So because there are, you know, there are several million people who would join that party, tens of millions of people who would join that party tomorrow.
49:46:
(JVL)
So because all of these things, the third and again, we're writing a piece on this because I think it's an important conversation to have.
49:54:
(JVL)
I don't necessarily agree with the piece, but it's as I said, I think it's an important conversation.
49:59:
(JVL)
They start from a top-down idea and not a bottom-up understanding, and that is where I think so much of our understanding of politics over the last five years has gone wrong.
50:12:
(JVL)
It is from thinking about the elites as if the elites had control over events when—
50:20:
(JVL)
They should have been looking at what the voters wanted and how the tide was moving at that level.
50:27:
(JVL)
I agree with that.
50:28:
(Tim Miller)
I just want to go back to the Romney thing because the biggest criticism that I think is correct or at least has a point about the not doing the red dog thing, when I hear from people that want to do the independent route or who want to stay in the Republican,
50:45:
(Tim Miller)
is that they say that this group isn't going to have any power in the Democratic Party either.
50:49:
(Tim Miller)
Right?
50:49:
(Tim Miller)
Like, not just to the same that they don't really have a power now in the Republican Party.
50:52:
(Tim Miller)
You're just switching teams where you don't have power.
50:55:
(JVL)
Joe Manchin seems to have a whole lot of fucking power.
50:56:
(Tim Miller)
Exactly.
50:57:
(Tim Miller)
And so this is the problem.
50:58:
(Tim Miller)
It's that, like, well, that's not really exactly quite true.
51:02:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, if you see power as you're not going to be able to convince the Democrats to become pro-life...
51:09:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, you're right.
51:10:
(Tim Miller)
You're right.
51:10:
(Tim Miller)
Like this group isn't big enough to make the Democrats change their main platform.
51:16:
(Tim Miller)
But the group is big enough, as we saw in the Democratic primary, to work with a coalition to keep out socialists, which is a pretty important goal for people who aren't socialists.
51:25:
(Tim Miller)
The group is big enough if Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, they're not going to do this, but this is, again, just for fan fiction purposes, joined with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and said that they were going to be in the Democratic caucus and now that group of five.
51:39:
(Tim Miller)
Do you think that Mitt Romney could get the stimulus to look more like how he wants if he did that and joined with them in a caucus?
51:45:
(Tim Miller)
Sure could.
51:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
But you don't have to be an independent to do that.
51:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is the thing.
51:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
You could just be like, we're going to squat up in the center and we're going to have this group of moderates that come together because we've got all the control.
51:58:
(Tim Miller)
That's true.
51:59:
(JVL)
I think you have much more power if you just say, look, I'm on your team, guys.
52:03:
(JVL)
I'm here for you guys.
52:04:
(JVL)
And when you have tough votes, I'll be there for you.
52:07:
(JVL)
But we got to carve $350 billion out of the stimulus.
52:12:
(JVL)
You know what?
52:12:
(JVL)
That would be a hell of a lot more effective than writing an op-ed.
52:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do you know that Mitt Romney is from a state where they don't have Democrats, right?
52:17:
(JVL)
Okay, that's not true.
52:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's not true.
52:20:
(JVL)
In Salt Lake City, there is a Democratic party.
52:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
You're right that there are human Democrats that exist, people that are willing to admit that they're Democrats in Salt Lake City, but the state is red as red.
52:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
But he's not running for re-election.
52:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's not running for re-election.
52:32:
(Tim Miller)
This is actually an interesting thought exercise because I was thinking about this yesterday.
52:35:
(Tim Miller)
Does Liz Cheney have...
52:38:
(Tim Miller)
And I don't think Liz Cheney is going to reasonably become a Democrat, but just as a thought exercise.
52:42:
(Tim Miller)
No.
52:43:
(Tim Miller)
Does Liz Cheney have a better chance to win a one-on-one primary in Wyoming, in a Republican primary, or does she have a better chance walking down to the Wyoming Democratic Party and saying, if you guys don't run anybody and you endorse me, I will make one vote for the House.
52:59:
(Tim Miller)
I will vote as I've been voting, but I'll vote for you guys for Speaker.
53:02:
(Tim Miller)
And and you're not going to run a Democrat and I'm going to run in the general election as a whatever independent who caucuses with Democrats.
53:11:
(Tim Miller)
And I'm running a general election in Wyoming against whatever some MAGA person.
53:15:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, I think that they're both probably dead death.
53:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
death wishes but which which do you think is about i would take the former all day long i think liz cheney can survive a mega primary in wyoming i do not think she can run as a democrat not to mention it would just be preposterous based on her policy but this is this is where i just i think you guys are ignoring a certain amount of reality like adam kinzinger is actually quite a conservative person democratic voters would not find if they listen to adam kinzinger tick through his policy beliefs
53:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
They would not find him to be an attractive candidate.
53:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
Mitt Romney as well.
53:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
Liz Cheney as well.
53:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
Just because they are on an axis of pro-democracy versus pro-authoritarian, they become more attractive to a broad pro-democracy coalition.
54:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's true.
54:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
But as a pure political matter, they do not read as Democrats.
54:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
They're nowhere close, especially like a Liz Cheney.
54:10:
(Tim Miller)
I don't I mean, like I said, I don't disagree with that.
54:12:
(Tim Miller)
This is for me a thought exercise.
54:14:
(Tim Miller)
I just don't because I don't think she ever could clear a Wyoming Democratic primary.
54:18:
(Tim Miller)
Right.
54:18:
(Tim Miller)
Because of the reason she just laid out.
54:20:
(Tim Miller)
But I do wonder if she'd have a better chance because then she could be at least run as an honest person.
54:26:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, imagine how she's going to have to run in her primary next year.
54:29:
(Tim Miller)
uh you know she's gonna have to pretend like she thought donald trump was great on all these other things i mean it's like her only chance to win a mega primary like she's not gonna win a mega primary by you know talking about how you know you know crazy ron and on is and and how you know attacking her opponent for being an insane person like that's not how she's gonna win
54:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
No, you know, I gave her money.
54:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
I gave them all money after they, you know, voted for impeachment.
54:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so now I get their texts like I'm on their list and her texts that I get the like the fundraising texts are all like, you've got to stop Nancy Pelosi and her radical socialist agenda.
55:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
No, I know.
55:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
But that's my point.
55:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
But that is that is that is who she is there.
55:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
She is she's pro-democracy.
55:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
She was anti-coup.
55:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
But she is a she is a rock ribbed Republican.
55:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
And and and like that is going to be a rock ribbed Republican out of a job.
55:26:
(JVL)
I mean, if you want to be in government and you're Liz Cheney, you're better off changing some of your policy positions and become a conservative Dem who just swallows hard and votes with the Dems where you have to and tries to move the – because the alternative is that or be out of politics.
55:45:
(Tim Miller)
Well, one of them is going to survive.
55:47:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, she could get lucky.
55:49:
(Tim Miller)
There could be five MAGA people that run against her.
55:51:
(JVL)
The big hope is that these people look so weak that they pull multiple challengers in.
55:58:
(Tim Miller)
yeah um and then she can survive kind of a plurality that's possible um i mean that's a much more likely path than any of the other ones we've suggested but that's based on luck like that's not based on skill you know anything that she did she just got lucky that the maga people are so incompetent that they're going to run six different candidates against her and they all split the vote but um it's like the whole republican party when donald trump was there
56:21:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, exactly.
56:22:
(Tim Miller)
An inverse of that.
56:24:
(Tim Miller)
So maybe that could happen.
56:24:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
56:26:
(Tim Miller)
And again, so maybe the answer is for some of these people in an individual situation to run as independents.
56:31:
(Tim Miller)
And that's a different calculus.
56:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
That is a different calculus.
56:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
There are places where it could potentially make sense.
56:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't know that the people that you're talking about make sense to me, but there's certainly like a David Jolly in Florida could potentially run as an independent.
56:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
Although I still think even there, I think that there is –
56:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
Merit to the idea that there's a bunch of places now where actually being a Republican who has become a Democrat as a moderate Democrat, a Conor Lamb, Abigail Spanberger type Democrat could be very attractive in certain districts or certain states.
57:08:
(JVL)
The Red Dogs, baby.
57:11:
(JVL)
All right, we've gone very long.
57:12:
(JVL)
Tim, you had something else you wanted to talk about, but I don't remember what it was.
57:17:
(Tim Miller)
I had a very heavy...
57:19:
(Tim Miller)
I spent a lot of time crying watching It's a Sin this weekend, which is a miniseries about a young baby gay coming out of the closet in the 80s in London during the AIDS crisis.
57:33:
(Tim Miller)
But I have some heavy, deep thoughts about it.
57:36:
(Tim Miller)
And this has been a very full episode.
57:41:
(Tim Miller)
And so we're just going to save it because it's evergreen.
57:44:
(Tim Miller)
It's an evergreen thought.
57:46:
(Tim Miller)
And everybody can maybe watch It's a Sin if you want to get some feelings over the next week.
57:50:
(Tim Miller)
You can watch it.
57:51:
(Tim Miller)
You can watch it or not watch it.
57:53:
(Tim Miller)
But you should bear down if you're going to watch it.
57:57:
(Tim Miller)
If you're really kind of having a bad day and just want to bathe in it and wade in the sadness, it would maybe be good.
58:03:
(Tim Miller)
Or if you're having a good day and you're looking to balance it out.
58:07:
(JVL)
All right, so if we're going to do that another time, there is something I want to just quickly handle the three of us before we get out.
58:12:
(JVL)
Tim, you posed a question on our Slack the other day.
58:15:
(JVL)
You asked the Bulwark team who was correct about the handling of the 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard.
58:26:
(JVL)
I did not vote in this, but as the Brad Raffensperger of the office, can I ask what the final tally was there?
58:34:
(Tim Miller)
It was an overwhelming victory for sending the old Nazi the hell back to Deutschland.
58:40:
(Tim Miller)
I believe six to two was the final vote.
58:44:
(Tim Miller)
But regardless of what it was, it was a significant victory.
58:48:
(Tim Miller)
And Sarah was one of the two.
58:50:
(Tim Miller)
She voted for herself.
58:52:
(Tim Miller)
I did not vote.
58:52:
(Tim Miller)
We voted via emoji and Sarah got the lady construction worker, which I was pretty proud of.
58:57:
(Tim Miller)
How did you vote, Timothy?
58:59:
(Tim Miller)
Only two lady construction workers.
59:00:
(Tim Miller)
Oh, I voted with you.
59:02:
(Tim Miller)
Send the Nazis back.
59:03:
(Tim Miller)
I don't really need to know the particulars.
59:06:
(Tim Miller)
I'm sure he's lived a good life here.
59:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
You don't need to know the particulars.
59:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
It doesn't matter to you.
59:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
It doesn't matter to you.
59:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
No?
59:15:
(Tim Miller)
No, I mean, there's some pretty clear lines.
59:18:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, being a Luftwassen is one of them.
59:22:
(Tim Miller)
And being a guard at the gas chamber is a no-fly zone for me.
59:29:
(Tim Miller)
And that also is American law.
59:31:
(Tim Miller)
by the way uh which he evaded uh we had a no um immigration for nazis you know i'm basically an open borders man um this is my this is my most socialist opinion um and even me as an open borders man uh would hold a very hard line on nazis um and so sarah
59:52:
(Tim Miller)
That's going to put you out on the pretty extreme end of things, I think, to be pro-Nazi in America.
59:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's a funny way to phrase that, pro-Nazi.
60:01:
(JVL)
That's a very interesting framing.
60:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
60:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
As opposed to me being the only one.
60:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
What I actually find mystifying is how little people cared.
60:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
thanks buddy how little people cared about thank you how little people cared about the actual merits of this case like nobody wants to know was he a guard for a couple of years was it for three weeks because the government made him go he was 19 like did he was did he absolutely have to was he was he was he terrible to people like if he if he was if he was like if he volunteered and to be a nazi death camp officer and
60:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
And he, you know, was marching people to their deaths like, fine, take the 95 year old and put him against the wall.
60:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't care.
60:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
But you guys don't even you have none of those facts.
60:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
You don't know anything about this.
60:50:
(Tim Miller)
Is whether or not he was a Nazi in dispute or are we sure that he was a Nazi?
60:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, everybody in Germany was a Nazi.
60:58:
(Tim Miller)
A bit of active, a working Nazi.
61:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, if you were 19 and you were conscripted into service, and so he was.
61:07:
(Tim Miller)
I think the area is nice, so he should have stayed there.
61:10:
(Tim Miller)
You know, that's fine.
61:11:
(JVL)
So I am happy to stipulate that you didn't have much of a choice.
61:16:
(JVL)
And if the consequence, as I said on the show, was, do we hang him or not?
61:20:
(JVL)
Then all of these details would matter.
61:23:
(JVL)
But if the consequence is, do we ship him back to Deutschland for his final years?
61:29:
(JVL)
then I don't think we need to know anything else about the story.
61:33:
(JVL)
Because that is a perfectly...
61:35:
(JVL)
Even if you say, oh, you know, I mean, it was this or gets sent to Leningrad to die in the mud.
61:39:
(JVL)
Well, he still chose this.
61:42:
(JVL)
And the only consequence he gets for choosing that...
61:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
But you're just making up those facts.
61:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, you have no idea the particulars of this case.
61:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, thank goodness our judicial system doesn't work like this.
61:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
We're like, nothing...
61:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
None of it matters.
61:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
My kid is like, why are you shouting?
61:57:
(Tim Miller)
One thing matters.
61:58:
(Tim Miller)
One thing matters.
61:59:
(Tim Miller)
Was he a Nazi or was he not?
62:01:
(JVL)
Your kid is saying, Mom, he should be deported.
62:05:
(JVL)
Mom, send him back.
62:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's not.
62:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
He wants to watch Mighty Express.
62:08:
(JVL)
He's saying, Mom, JBL is right.
62:10:
(JVL)
The nice bounce house man is right.
62:12:
(Tim Miller)
Why didn't he come forward?
62:13:
(Tim Miller)
Couldn't he have come forward and said, by the way, I was a Nazi.
62:16:
(Tim Miller)
I'm looking for a pass.
62:19:
(Tim Miller)
Probably should have done that.
62:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
That could be true.
62:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Again, we have no idea what the particulars are.
62:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
Did he sneak in?
62:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
Did he lie about who he was?
62:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
You don't know that.
62:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's amazing to me that everybody's willing to just...
62:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
I know the key fact.
62:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
I know the key fact.
62:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
All right.
62:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, I will just tell you how much I hate this particular podcast today where I have been put in the position to defend both somehow the 95-year-old Nazi and the insurrectionist just because you guys are unwilling to have any nuance in your thinking.
62:48:
(JVL)
While also parenting.
62:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
While also parenting.
62:51:
(JVL)
While high degree of difficulty.
62:54:
(JVL)
All right, guys.
62:55:
(JVL)
See you next week.
62:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
Peace.
62:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
Bye.