Born From Anger
00:02:
(JVL)
Hello, everyone.
00:03:
(JVL)
This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark on The Secret Show and also Tim Miller.
00:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is that like the McDonald's theme song?
00:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
What was that?
00:18:
(JVL)
I don't know, man.
00:19:
(JVL)
I'm just like, this is a weird mashup.
00:22:
(JVL)
This is the next level, but we're actually going to treat it like it's The Secret Show.
00:27:
(JVL)
Where it's all sort of, you know, lights are down.
00:30:
(JVL)
We're having a couple of Siggy's.
00:31:
(JVL)
A little bit of.
00:33:
(JVL)
Yeah.
00:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do you know that?
00:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
So when we did the secret show a couple, maybe it was last week and I was just like in my T-shirt and I was, you know, got wound up and did it.
00:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
Had like a bit of a yell at one point.
00:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
That.
00:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
00:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
We put it out when somebody made it public.
00:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
We did, I think.
00:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
And Fox News grabbed it and started running it on Fox News is like and they took it out of context because it was me kind of hectoring Republicans.
00:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
It was me saying, like, this is on you, like George W. Bush and the generals.
01:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
And instead, it just sounded like I was yelling at voters.
01:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I was nice.
01:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm just saying, Tim, it's not always a secret.
01:12:
(JVL)
Yeah, well.
01:13:
(JVL)
Maybe we shouldn't put it on the interweb.
01:16:
(Tim Miller)
That's actually a good transition to one of my things I want to talk about, which is I've really decided to not give a fuck about those people.
01:24:
(Tim Miller)
There's a whole cottage industry out there of Republican types and even media types and even some of us who are like...
01:36:
(Tim Miller)
The Never Trumpers really missed this.
01:40:
(Tim Miller)
And this is a wake-up call.
01:42:
(Tim Miller)
And they don't understand the people and understand the voters.
01:46:
(Tim Miller)
And as part of my...
01:48:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, all those things are true.
01:49:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, yeah.
01:50:
(Tim Miller)
As part of my complex nine-layer cake of depression, I was taking some of that in upon myself.
01:57:
(Tim Miller)
And I was like, maybe I did miss something.
02:00:
(Tim Miller)
And then as I was thinking about this last night after a cigarette, I was like...
02:03:
(Tim Miller)
No, no.
02:05:
(Tim Miller)
Fuck you.
02:05:
(Tim Miller)
I'm right.
02:07:
(Tim Miller)
We're right.
02:07:
(Tim Miller)
I'm right.
02:08:
(Tim Miller)
I'm going to be right about what happened with Donald Trump.
02:11:
(Tim Miller)
My obligation as a commentator is only to say what I believe to be true.
02:17:
(Tim Miller)
Like, that is it.
02:18:
(Tim Miller)
Like, that is the...
02:20:
(Tim Miller)
Right?
02:20:
(Tim Miller)
Is that not the limit of my obligation?
02:22:
(Tim Miller)
Do I have an obligation to try to...
02:25:
(Tim Miller)
persuade the people of Waukesha County that what I believe to be true is true?
02:30:
(Tim Miller)
I don't think so.
02:31:
(Tim Miller)
My obligation is to say what is true.
02:32:
(Tim Miller)
I believe that everything we warned about Donald Trump is going to come to pass in some degree or another.
02:39:
(Tim Miller)
And the people, a bare majority, kind of small majority, but a bare majority of people disagreed and are not worried about that and are going to support him anyway.
02:49:
(Tim Miller)
I don't really get the, like...
02:53:
(Tim Miller)
I've taken off the hair shirt, I guess is what I'm saying.
02:57:
(Tim Miller)
I've moved into defiance mode.
03:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, that's good.
03:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I don't think, I mean, I guess I saw Scott Jennings do this.
03:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
Scott Jennings is just taking shots while he has a chance to take shots.
03:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, that's all.
03:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
He's feeling himself and he wants to be like, those never Trumpers who were so mean to me, you know, they've been lecturing voters, but we weren't.
03:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
We were lecturing Scott Jennings because Scott Jennings was a never Trumper who decided.
03:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
And it's funny how like their thing is like,
03:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
They built it so they could all have beach houses.
03:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm like, bro, you got your CNN contract to be like a Trump surrogate.
03:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
And you're going to go into the way.
03:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, we all know what you did.
03:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
Don't shut up.
03:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
You're just this is all projection from you.
03:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
And the bulwark maybe became profitable like five seconds ago.
03:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
So, like, you know, JBL hasn't gotten a chance to, you know, run to the casino with it yet.
03:47:
(JVL)
So anyway, the yacht, my big yacht, it's coming.
03:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, it is.
03:52:
(Tim Miller)
We're going to have boat parades coming soon.
03:55:
(Tim Miller)
Anti-Trump boat parades.
03:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
Anyway, here's the thing that the analysis.
03:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I think, Tim, we're talking about a couple of different things.
04:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
So that's true.
04:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
Our part of it is for us to be like to say what's happening in the Republican Party.
04:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that that is the different question from like whether what's happening is like good or bad, right or wrong.
04:16:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that, you know, we, the argument that JVL and I are having, right, I don't think there was any illusions about the fact that voters were feeling like the economy wasn't good and that they were being hurt by inflation.
04:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
The question was whether or not...
04:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
JBL thought that was a fair thing to vote on in the face of, I think, Donald Trump's many problems.
04:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
And also how there were lots of people who were going to vote for him who did not, who were actually on the upside of a positive macro economy.
05:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
Now, I was always like, look, there's a lot of people, though, who don't feel that, a lot of young people.
05:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
Sure.
05:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
People who make one hundred thousand dollars and like those people broke for Trump in a major way.
05:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that made a big difference in this election.
05:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
So that's that's an analysis piece.
05:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
05:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think, look, I was doing the pod with George yesterday and George was like, I can't believe anybody would vote over the price of eggs versus, you know, American democracy.
05:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I'm like, well.
05:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
I do not think that.
05:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
OK, that is that is that is I am I think that it is very difficult to make a case about American democracy in an abstract way when somebody is like my grocery bill has gone up one hundred dollars and I don't have one hundred dollars for my grocery bill to go up.
05:42:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, I agree with that.
05:43:
(Tim Miller)
No, I agree.
05:45:
(Tim Miller)
So you're right.
05:45:
(Tim Miller)
There's two elements here that I'm lashing out about.
05:48:
(Tim Miller)
One is, was the analysis correct?
05:50:
(Tim Miller)
I stand by it.
05:52:
(Tim Miller)
On the very last podcast, I expected that Kamala Harris would have a narrow victory through the blue wall.
05:59:
(Tim Miller)
That obviously turned out to be wrong, but it was caveated gravely, and it was, what, three weeks ago on this next level where I was like, we need to end the next level with me telling you the truth that I think Donald Trump is going to win?
06:10:
(Tim Miller)
That was, like, three weeks ago.
06:12:
(Tim Miller)
And, like, it changed because of the fucking Ann Seltzer poll.
06:15:
(Tim Miller)
So, yeah, like, my analysis was kind of grayed by the New York Times Sienna poll.
06:20:
(Tim Miller)
And so that's a Nate Cohen and Ann Seltzer problem.
06:23:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, I don't know.
06:24:
(Tim Miller)
They can put on their hair shirts while they drink their seltzer.
06:27:
(Tim Miller)
So, like, there's an analysis question.
06:29:
(Tim Miller)
But then there also is, like, this mission of, like...
06:31:
(Tim Miller)
wither never Trump, like, wither anti-Trump.
06:34:
(Tim Miller)
Like, wasn't the raison d'etre to galvanize people?
06:41:
(Tim Miller)
And I was like, yeah, like, yeah, I wish we would have galvanized more people, but, like, the purpose...
06:48:
(Tim Miller)
the existence is to rate like is to raise the alarm right is to is to create a gathering of people who are like-minded about the alarm and to to try to raise it and to cover it and to analyze it and if we you know are paul revere like riding the horse through the villages you know telling them that the fascists are coming and everybody's like
07:13:
(Tim Miller)
Whatever, bro.
07:14:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
07:15:
(Tim Miller)
Like, I just I don't know what more.
07:17:
(Tim Miller)
You know what I mean?
07:18:
(Tim Miller)
Like, I stand by I stand by the warning.
07:21:
(Tim Miller)
I stand by the warning and I think it will bear itself out.
07:23:
(Tim Miller)
I hope not.
07:24:
(Tim Miller)
I would love to be wrong, actually.
07:25:
(Tim Miller)
But I think it will.
07:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
Also, like I'm in like in in Pennsylvania, eight percent of Republicans voted for Harris.
07:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like I like in some of these states where we're in the wow counties in Wisconsin, you know, she did she did better.
07:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's like one of the few places she improved.
07:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
The problem is and I think that there needs to be some some real grappling with this is that like.
07:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
Parts of the Democratic coalition that they just sort of rely on, you know, like there's a slide with black men.
07:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
They the Republicans now have a much more multiracial working class coalition there.
08:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
They are focused on non college voters, of which there are many more than college educated voters, especially low propensity ones who only turn out in elections and who do not follow the news at all.
08:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
And who are voting on, like, very specific things that are personal to them, like their costs or like their housing or whatever.
08:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so I just – I think that – I just – that's what I think is happening.
08:31:
(Sarah Longwell)
And, like, I don't – I feel like that is – you know, I just –
08:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
That like that's what we are focused on trying to pull those people.
08:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I feel like those and that's just people who still identify as a Republican.
08:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
We already have a huge swath of those college educated suburban voters who are now firmly moved to independents and Democrats.
08:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
08:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so they are treated.
08:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
08:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
But they got swamped.
08:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's right.
08:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
And we always knew, like we argued this all the time around how these non-college voters and this was it.
09:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
She had to do four points better with non-college white women.
09:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
And she didn't because there was always this tension with the non-college white women around abortion rights and how people cared about that.
09:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
And the fact that a lot of these women are the primary shoppers and the people who do their household budgets and felt really unhappy with the economy.
09:23:
(JVL)
All right, well, I will put on my hair shirt then.
09:26:
(JVL)
Okay, great.
09:26:
(JVL)
Because I do feel...
09:28:
(Tim Miller)
I've been wearing mine for two days.
09:29:
(Tim Miller)
I'm just saying.
09:30:
(Tim Miller)
It was like, finally, after 48 hours, I was like, fuck this.
09:34:
(JVL)
Well, so I feel as though there are two parts of my analytical worldview which were deeply wrong in which I need to do some examining of.
09:51:
(JVL)
The first was, you know, I always said 50-50 chance he could win.
09:56:
(JVL)
Right?
09:57:
(JVL)
You know, at our bus tour, I would tell people, look, you know, my heart tells me he's going to win.
10:01:
(JVL)
My head says that she is, but my heart says Trump will.
10:05:
(Tim Miller)
People should re-listen to that Pittsburgh stop at the bus tour.
10:09:
(Tim Miller)
Which stop was it?
10:09:
(Tim Miller)
It was Pittsburgh.
10:11:
(Tim Miller)
It was Pittsburgh.
10:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, it was Pittsburgh.
10:15:
(JVL)
But I really did not take, and you and I talked about this yesterday, Sarah, I did not countenance the possibility that he could win a flat majority of the popular vote.
10:26:
(JVL)
I did not believe that that was an outcome that was on the table.
10:31:
(JVL)
And that's a huge mistake in a huge blind spot.
10:34:
(JVL)
And that stems from me not understanding America.
10:37:
(JVL)
That's I mean, that's on me.
10:39:
(JVL)
But the second thing I worry about is like, I don't know that the answer is that Democrats need to be more moderate and centrist.
10:49:
(JVL)
Maybe that's an answer.
10:50:
(JVL)
I don't know.
10:53:
(JVL)
So what we're looking at right now is we're looking at all these counties where Trump is like plus three, plus five versus his margin in 2020.
11:03:
(JVL)
What we don't know is did he increase his number of votes or did her votes just disappear?
11:10:
(JVL)
And so far it looks like
11:12:
(JVL)
Democrats simply didn't show up.
11:15:
(JVL)
Maybe the answer is, and we wouldn't like this because we are not progressives.
11:19:
(JVL)
We are not commies.
11:21:
(JVL)
Except for one of us.
11:23:
(JVL)
Maybe the answer is Democrats need to be providing something that is much more demagogic, populist and radical.
11:33:
(Tim Miller)
And that that is what will get the blood of space is so good.
11:37:
(JVL)
I'm not saying it is, but I'm saying we ought to consider that that's a possibility.
11:42:
(Tim Miller)
As usual, JVL is producing the commie view, Sarah the counter view, and I'm going to be in the middle ground.
11:47:
(Tim Miller)
So Sarah, why don't you go?
11:49:
(Tim Miller)
Synthesis.
11:51:
(JVL)
I'm not saying yes.
11:52:
(JVL)
I'm just saying if the case is, like if she had the same Biden numbers and Trump's were just like 3% higher, then I would say, okay, well, then the answer is probably more centrism, more moderation.
12:07:
(JVL)
But if the answer is that, like, she ran with Liz Cheney and she ran on, like, I'm going to have a lethal fighting force and I own a gun, bitches.
12:15:
(JVL)
And, you know, I love capitalism and small business owners.
12:19:
(JVL)
And her her the number of votes she went, she she got or that the Democrats got for 2020 went.
12:26:
(JVL)
Then maybe the answer is that they need to be a little bit further out there and provide something more radical.
12:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, this is super wrong, in my opinion.
12:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
Maybe it is.
12:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
Let me just explain what I think is especially wrong about it, which is like, yes, she in her the the last hundred days.
12:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
12:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
And then in the last, you know, 15 days of those hundred days or 20 days of those hundred days, she was doing a closing argument with Liz Cheney and
13:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
But videos exist, man.
13:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
The number one thing, the number one ad that people ran or that people saw was the ad of Kamala Harris back in 2019 talking about gender reassignment surgery, taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for trans criminals, convicts.
13:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
And if you watch the ad,
13:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
It is a it includes like shocking imagery of like kind of bearded women, like things that would shock the sensibilities of many in the Midwest.
13:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
And it's Kamala Harris on tape being like, yes, I think we should fund these now.
13:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
The fact that it happened a grand total of twice.
13:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
There are two gender reassignment surgeries that happened for prisoners.
13:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
13:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
The fact is, that was the ad that Donald Trump and his team put the most money behind.
13:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
And they put a lot of other money behind.
13:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
She's a radical progressive from California, which is the last time voters had seen her was that person.
14:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'll tell you something I hear in the focus groups that I think to me is instructive.
14:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
When she shows back up as like a pretty different candidate than the person that she was back in 2019, voters are like, huh.
14:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, and let me tell you one thing voters really understand.
14:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
They're like, I know when someone's lying to me to get my vote.
14:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do they?
14:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
14:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do they know?
14:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
Listen, Donald Trump's been saying the same things for the last three elections, right?
14:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
They know him very, very well, and especially for younger voters.
14:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
We talk about this all the time.
14:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
They do not see him as the aberration that people like us see him as.
14:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
you know us being able to explain why he's such an aberration uh but you know uh and in any event i think that it was the fact that people perceived her as a radical trying to be more moderate to win an election uh and they didn't feel like they really knew exactly who she was and i'll tell you voters will take an authentic person saying insane garbage or
15:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this is a manifestation of our new culture, whether it is the marinating for decades in antiheroes, whether it's the way people now live on TikTok and these in the podcast and this universe of like, I want this person to both like say the things I want to say on policy, but I just like mostly I want them to be real with me.
15:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
And this not a regular politician that I hear over and over and over again for why people like Donald Trump.
15:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
That was always my big fear.
15:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
I know I said it on here that like my fear was that people would perceive her as a regular politician.
15:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that is just especially for young people where she really underperformed.
15:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
They don't want regular politicians.
15:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
15:47:
(JVL)
Tim, before you synthesize, let me offer the counter view of this, which is, I mean, A, if the answer is you can't run a regular politician, then Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer need to leave because they're not going to be able to run for president.
16:02:
(JVL)
Gavin probably can't run for president, right?
16:04:
(JVL)
I mean, he is just a regular politician.
16:06:
(JVL)
It has to be somebody like Fetterman or Mark Cuban, somebody who codes wildly different.
16:13:
(JVL)
But when I talk about the radical stuff,
16:16:
(JVL)
You're hearing me saying more like progressive.
16:23:
(JVL)
And what I mean is more anti-institutional.
16:27:
(JVL)
Like Kamala's message was like we got we got to protect these institutions like capitalism and the rule of law and all these things that, again, we love.
16:39:
(JVL)
Right.
16:39:
(JVL)
Sign me up.
16:40:
(JVL)
Sign me up.
16:41:
(JVL)
But maybe what voters would respond to is a much more burn it all down liberal populist message.
16:50:
(JVL)
Like, for instance, the billionaires are blood sucking oligarchs and we need to go after Elon Musk and
16:59:
(JVL)
And Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and confiscate their wealth or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
17:07:
(JVL)
Right.
17:07:
(JVL)
You could just like they're the ones who rigged the system against us.
17:11:
(JVL)
They're the reason you can't get ahead, et cetera, et cetera.
17:14:
(JVL)
And maybe that is more fruitful.
17:17:
(JVL)
Again, I'm just proposing it.
17:18:
(JVL)
I'm not saying it necessarily is true.
17:21:
(JVL)
Maybe you can do that while also throwing trans people under the bus and throwing immigrants under the bus, too.
17:28:
(JVL)
I don't know.
17:30:
(JVL)
But I just worry that it isn't the case that the things that I like are going to be popular enough to get to 51%.
17:37:
(JVL)
That's my concern.
17:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think we should be careful about over-reading things.
17:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
Also fair.
17:46:
(JVL)
Maybe it's just like inflation and the anti-income bias that's all the whole world, right?
17:50:
(JVL)
That's the other problem with this.
17:51:
(JVL)
Maybe the answer is as simple as that, and all of these other explanations are over-reading.
17:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, I do think it's not over-reading to say that Americans are incredibly desensitized to a bunch of things that should matter around character, rule of law, and all those other things.
18:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I also just...
18:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
don't think it should be like, okay, Trump won this way, so the correct thing to do is to do exactly what he's doing.
18:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
Go ahead, Tim.
18:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
Sorry.
18:14:
(Tim Miller)
No, it's okay.
18:15:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know how much of a synthesis I'm going to be because I'm kind of on JVL's side of this.
18:19:
(Tim Miller)
But I want to explain why.
18:20:
(Tim Miller)
Just maybe less radical than you.
18:22:
(Tim Miller)
But I want to explain why, though.
18:23:
(Tim Miller)
And maybe my language will be more appealing to Sarah than your joker language.
18:29:
(Tim Miller)
But...
18:31:
(Tim Miller)
It is obviously true that a big part of the story is inflation and anti-income bias and global stuff.
18:37:
(Tim Miller)
That said, I looked at the chart this morning.
18:40:
(Tim Miller)
I forget who posted it, so I apologize to them, of the quadrants of education and income and what candidates share the vote is from high education, high income versus low education, low income, etc.
18:55:
(Tim Miller)
And the Kamala Harris...
18:57:
(Tim Miller)
Like where she fit in that was like closest to Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, like of the past, you know, whatever, Florida years of candidates.
19:06:
(Tim Miller)
That's a bad quadrant to be in.
19:09:
(Tim Miller)
as evidence for the fact that all three lost.
19:11:
(Tim Miller)
Right.
19:11:
(Tim Miller)
And, and like, she, and like, it's not good, but it makes sense that we all liked her because we all like Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, right?
19:20:
(Tim Miller)
All my favorite candidates.
19:22:
(Tim Miller)
Um, it's a bad quadrant to be in though.
19:25:
(Tim Miller)
Um, and I'm happy to give away some of my policy priors to product from, uh, like, you know, 12 years of Donald Trump and JD Vance or whatever.
19:34:
(Tim Miller)
Um, so, um,
19:36:
(Tim Miller)
That means the Democrats have to do something to appeal to working class people that that's a little bit different.
19:40:
(Tim Miller)
That is not just maybe it's just Donald Trump crashes the economy and they don't actually have to do anything.
19:45:
(Tim Miller)
That's one possibility.
19:47:
(Tim Miller)
But if that doesn't happen, they have to come up with another idea if that is not the answer.
19:51:
(Tim Miller)
Right.
19:52:
(Tim Miller)
And so to me, this sort of stuff, I had a very long podcast I did yesterday with Pablo Torre about which which whatever you can Google it.
20:04:
(Tim Miller)
Pablo Torre finds out.
20:06:
(Tim Miller)
Um, and, and we were talking just a lot about cultural stuff and how, and he does mostly, he's like at the sports culture intersection.
20:14:
(Tim Miller)
And, um, and it's like about how all these institutions have collapsed, right?
20:18:
(Tim Miller)
It's not just politics, right?
20:19:
(Tim Miller)
The democratization of everything.
20:20:
(Tim Miller)
Like, you know, he was doing it from his sports lens.
20:22:
(Tim Miller)
He's talking about sports illustrated and, you know, ESPN, right?
20:26:
(Tim Miller)
Like, and, and all of that.
20:27:
(Tim Miller)
And like, you could do it in any, in any vertical, right?
20:31:
(Tim Miller)
Like we've seen this across the board and,
20:33:
(Tim Miller)
And the Democrats have, and us, by Trump, for very defensible reasons, were forced into the situation at this anti-elite moment where everything is democratizing and everything is crumbling.
20:47:
(Tim Miller)
We were forced into a position of being like, the institutions are strong.
20:52:
(Tim Miller)
Like, the system is good.
20:54:
(Tim Miller)
Like, the system works.
20:55:
(Tim Miller)
Respect the system.
20:57:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
20:57:
(Tim Miller)
And that just might be a losing hand, right?
21:01:
(Tim Miller)
And the Democrats just might need to find themselves in a position of being anti-system in a way that is not the joker, that is not...
21:13:
(Tim Miller)
We're going to, you know, whatever, seize the means of production.
21:17:
(Tim Miller)
But in some other way that is more populist, that maybe is economically populist, that maybe is just about punishing the oligarchs.
21:25:
(Tim Miller)
Trump might make that very easy over the next four years by, you know, giving handouts to Elon Musk and all these other guys whose profiles are going to improve.
21:35:
(Tim Miller)
I'm open to what it looks like, I guess.
21:38:
(Tim Miller)
But I'm just...
21:41:
(Tim Miller)
just saying i feel like we that those of us who are kind of more that thinks the system is good um you know might if protect it we might need to change the system to preserve the system i guess we need to we need to uh be a little bit more radical in in the way that you view the system to save the system i don't uh this is we're three days out and i've i've slept like 12 hours and i haven't i haven't been home and i'm like living in no exit in my this little hotel room in 30 rock
22:09:
(Tim Miller)
And I think I'm losing my mind.
22:10:
(Tim Miller)
So I reserve the right to change this view next week.
22:15:
(Tim Miller)
But anyway, that's where I'm at.
22:16:
(JVL)
See, on the secret show, Tim, we're not taking stands.
22:21:
(JVL)
We're just trying on ideas.
22:23:
(JVL)
Yeah, okay.
22:23:
(Tim Miller)
So that's where I'm at.
22:25:
(Tim Miller)
Sarah, did that shirt fit for you a little bit better or still no?
22:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
You know, I don't know if you listened to JVL and I do our secret pie yesterday.
22:32:
(Tim Miller)
I caught back the first half and then I forget what happened, but I had to change.
22:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
So it's okay.
22:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, in the second half, one of the things that I said that I would say is...
22:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
I guess could fit a little bit into this is that I am thinking more about what income inequality is potentially sort of doing to voters, right?
22:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like if you look, Donald Trump is winning, right?
22:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
People who make under $100,000.
22:58:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that there's like all these cultural factors that are shifting people.
23:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
So one of them is the way that social media
23:07:
(Sarah Longwell)
it used to be that like if you lived in a neighborhood, right, people had rough in your neighborhood, the people you saw had roughly the same kind of stuff you did, right?
23:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
They had the same kind of car, the same kind of house.
23:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
And now everybody's got like a better life on their phone that they see other people having.
23:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think it's causing a level of grievance.
23:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that is like slightly different.
23:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
And people are like, well, why can't I access this life?
23:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
And those kind of disparities sort of always existed, but they are much more
23:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
in people's faces.
23:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
Look, I also think, like I said, 20 years of marinating and Tony Soprano like anti heroes.
23:42:
(Tim Miller)
Because I've been wanting to say this on every podcast, I just never get the right to that chart that everybody keeps showing about how the incumbent parties did the worst in 2024 about any year since 1905 or whatever.
23:54:
(Tim Miller)
I keep looking at it.
23:56:
(Tim Miller)
I'm like, yeah, okay.
23:57:
(Tim Miller)
Inflation is annoying.
23:58:
(Tim Miller)
I get it.
23:58:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not trying to understate it.
23:59:
(Tim Miller)
But, like, there have been so many bad years since 1905 that were objectively worse than 2024 across every economic war, like pandemic, right?
24:12:
(Tim Miller)
And so, like...
24:15:
(Tim Miller)
The phone has to be a part of the story, right?
24:18:
(Tim Miller)
If people are so mad, they can have both legitimate grievance about how annoying the inflation is, but also it's being exacerbated by the phone.
24:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
Absolutely.
24:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
And you're in silos and like, look, making people mad is like the coin of the realm for a lot of this stuff.
24:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
And as a result, that's why I think it's not just the anti-incumbent sentiment right now.
24:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think we're going to be...
24:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
in a thing where being an incumbent is no longer like a fundamental that works in your favor, right?
24:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
That for a long time, incumbency was like a thing that people really needed.
24:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
And now I think it might either be a wash or actually a net negative because we're going to be in this perpetual change election if people always are angry because their phone gives them like a distorted sense always of like, well, it's better over there.
25:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
25:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
somewhere.
25:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
And also, oh my gosh, now I know what the people who live over there on that other side of the mountain that I didn't used to know, I know what they think.
25:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think what they think sucks.
25:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I'm mad about that.
25:23:
(Tim Miller)
Imagine living in Waukesha County in 1984 and knowing what the protesters on Columbia University's campus were doing every day.
25:33:
(Tim Miller)
You had no idea.
25:34:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe there was one article about it in the paper or something.
25:37:
(Tim Miller)
Now it's in your phone constantly.
25:39:
(JVL)
Well, this is our sixth consecutive change election, right?
25:43:
(JVL)
Going back to 2014.
25:45:
(JVL)
Like, I mean, that is weird.
25:47:
(JVL)
I guess let me I want to ask you a question, Sarah.
25:50:
(JVL)
And this goes to the sort of fundamental change in what people want from a candidate.
25:59:
(JVL)
If I was a genie and I popped out of the bottle and I said to you, all right, it's November 8th, 2024.
26:07:
(JVL)
If you want her, I can give you Gretchen Whitmer as the Democratic nominee in 2028.
26:16:
(JVL)
Pass.
26:17:
(JVL)
I can't promise you anything else, but if you want her, you can have her.
26:21:
(JVL)
I'll take the field.
26:22:
(JVL)
Would you take it or no?
26:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
What are my other options?
26:26:
(JVL)
The other option is like, I don't use my genie powers and we just like let it ride on.
26:30:
(JVL)
And who knows?
26:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
Tim, is your immediate reaction, because I got some like personal DMs about JVL saying it can never be a woman, like we can't run a woman again, where people are like, he is being so deeply misogynistic and awful.
26:44:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I did write back in your defense to say like, no, he thinks other people are misogynistic and awful.
26:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
And that's why he doesn't think a woman can get elected.
26:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
Is your question though, JVL,
26:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
can she get elected?
27:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, could Gretchen Whitmer get elected in 2020?
27:02:
(JVL)
Would you like her chances as what she is, which is both a woman and very moderate, but also like a politician?
27:10:
(Tim Miller)
She's not very moderate.
27:12:
(JVL)
Somewhat moderate, but also like a politician.
27:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
But she's better than a regular politician.
27:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
She knows how to talk to people.
27:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
Have you ever heard her do like a radio interview?
27:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, Kamala Harris.
27:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, she seems like a regular person.
27:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
So is Kamala Harris.
27:27:
(JVL)
I mean, but a regular politician.
27:30:
(Tim Miller)
Can I interject something to this convo really quick?
27:34:
(Tim Miller)
Because I've had several people message this to me when we start doing all this stuff.
27:39:
(Tim Miller)
Sarah's got the messages about the woman.
27:41:
(Tim Miller)
I think it's going to be hard for the Democrats to nominate a woman in 2028, I think for some practical reasons that are maybe unfair.
27:51:
(Tim Miller)
But I just think that that's reality.
27:54:
(Tim Miller)
But as this has been coming up,
27:56:
(Tim Miller)
There have been people actually both next to me at MSNBC and in my messages that are like, why are you guys doing this?
28:02:
(Tim Miller)
Like, why are you guys acting like there's going to be an election in 2028?
28:05:
(Tim Miller)
Like, what do you mean?
28:06:
(Tim Miller)
Like, everything's over.
28:08:
(Tim Miller)
And my reaction to that is that on every podcast I've had where I've brought up this topic, I've asked people, what percent chance do you think it is that Trump will try to stay and that we won't have a real election in 2028?
28:24:
(Tim Miller)
And the answers vary, but nobody's like 100.
28:27:
(Tim Miller)
You know?
28:29:
(Tim Miller)
But I think that there may be some listeners or people that are like, wait a minute, isn't everybody talking about the end of democracy?
28:36:
(Tim Miller)
And I think that's a fair thing to ask, which is why I bring it up.
28:40:
(Tim Miller)
Because my view of it is always like, in my mind, it's always been, no, I think that liberal democracy was on the line.
28:47:
(Tim Miller)
That we've already seen major cracks in the rule of law and the way that our government works.
28:51:
(Tim Miller)
And that, like, there's a chance Donald Trump will try to stay in power, and the chance is way too high for my liking, but that we'll likely have elections and maybe elections that Donald Trump tries to, and that rig is not the right word, but tries to, you know, institute new rules that make things harder.
29:07:
(Tim Miller)
Like, you know, whatever.
29:08:
(Tim Miller)
There are, like, various things that could happen.
29:10:
(Tim Miller)
The power of the tech oligarch, of Elon between now and 2028 is only going to grow.
29:14:
(Tim Miller)
Like, there's a lot of unknowns, but...
29:16:
(Tim Miller)
Like I was I was never on the side that was really like, oh, no, we're not going to have an election in 2028.
29:21:
(Tim Miller)
But I think when people heard that, you know, some people processed it differently.
29:25:
(Tim Miller)
So anyway, I just I wanted to throw that out to the group.
29:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
Well, and JBL, I think, has made this point where he's like what he's asked, like he asked, I don't know what we've certainly talked to this.
29:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's like, well, what what percentage chance?
29:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
29:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
would you give that we don't have a regular election in 2028?
29:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
And your point was always like, if it's 3% or 5%, that's way too high.
29:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
And so I don't think any of us are sitting here being like, there's a 95% chance that we won't have regular elections or we won't have elections in 2026.
29:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think we will have those things.
29:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I also want to say that, without going into too much, in the days leading up to the election,
30:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
I heard from a lot of people who knew Trump personally.
30:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
And there was a real Donald Trump was going to try to declare victory no matter what.
30:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
30:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like we are not like he was going to try to put pressure on.
30:22:
(Sarah Longwell)
on state legislatures to certify alternate slate of electors.
30:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
Now, Donald Trump, our analysis of Donald Trump has been dead right always.
30:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is where, I guess, I don't think I've been wearing, I wasn't even thinking of wearing a hair shirt.
30:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
I was trying to think, like, were there blind spots?
30:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
Were there things that I, you know, but that...
30:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
No, like we're 100 percent right about Donald Trump and Donald Trump.
30:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
Now, I think there's a question of like which way to his incentives go as he prepares for this next four years.
30:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I'll tell you one thing that the one piece of news that has come out that I have seen as a positive relative to like alternatives is like Susie Wiles is going to be his chief of staff.
31:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
Here's our next fight.
31:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
Great.
31:06:
(Sarah Longwell)
So, like, I think Susie Wallace is a total degenerate who went to work for Donald Trump.
31:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
But she is...
31:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't know.
31:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
I just... Like, she's...
31:19:
(Sarah Longwell)
I'm trying to think.
31:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, she's not Laura Loomer.
31:21:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, Laura Loomer is not his chief of staff.
31:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that that's good.
31:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
I would...
31:27:
(Tim Miller)
Okay, so I want to layer something onto this, and then I'm going to give it to JVL, because I think that this will be the second time on this podcast that me and JVL are on the same side, which makes me uncomfortable.
31:35:
(Tim Miller)
I prefer when I'm on Sarah's side.
31:40:
(Tim Miller)
There are two items of news I've seen today.
31:42:
(Tim Miller)
I'm sitting right here.
31:43:
(Tim Miller)
Sorry.
31:44:
(Tim Miller)
The Susie Wiles news, which the Bulwark Slack, just to speak to everybody else, to show that it's really me and JVL against the world, the Bulwark Slack was like, ugh.
31:52:
(Tim Miller)
Good.
31:53:
(Tim Miller)
This is, okay, good.
31:54:
(Tim Miller)
It could have been way worse than Susie Wiles.
31:55:
(Tim Miller)
And I saw that news and I was like, I wanted Corey Lewandowski.
31:59:
(Tim Miller)
And then the Axios thing came this morning that said, you know, I think Trump won a narrow electoral college victory.
32:08:
(Tim Miller)
where Hakeem Jeffries is a speaker.
32:11:
(Tim Miller)
Obviously, that would have been very preferable, but he would have had no levers to do any economic policy except tariffs.
32:17:
(Tim Miller)
So he would have been gone all in on tariffs in that case.
32:20:
(Tim Miller)
In this case now, if he's going to have both houses, what Axios is reporting is he's going to do handouts to oligarchs.
32:27:
(Tim Miller)
There's going to be deregulation, extending the tax cuts.
32:32:
(Tim Miller)
deregulation of tech and AI and crypto.
32:36:
(Tim Miller)
You know, there's gonna be banks, like, are gonna have rules loosened on them.
32:42:
(Tim Miller)
And that's more traditional Republican stuff.
32:45:
(Tim Miller)
And so on the one hand, I think that you could look at that and say, oh, hmm,
32:49:
(Tim Miller)
Trump's going to get these business guys in there with Susie Wiles and they're going to do tax cut deregulation stuff.
32:55:
(Tim Miller)
And you could look at that and say, that's good.
32:57:
(Tim Miller)
Or you can look at that and say, I don't know if that's good.
33:00:
(Tim Miller)
So JVL, that's where I wanted to set the table.
33:03:
(JVL)
Yeah, I mean, first, I just want to put a button on the will there be an election in 2028?
33:10:
(JVL)
Because, again, this is something I said a bunch of times, both in the newsletter and on shows with you guys.
33:17:
(JVL)
It was always a question of, like, what is the chance?
33:20:
(JVL)
And now that we have Trump, you know, in the words of Nick Fury, until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.
33:28:
(JVL)
And that is the only way to carry on, right?
33:30:
(JVL)
You can't just...
33:31:
(JVL)
preemptively assume well i guess we don't get an election you know no you gotta carry on as though as though it will um i don't know who nick fury is but that's wise that's okay don't worry about it um it's probably a wrestler the foreign here's the and okay so the susie wiles question i mean objectively it's good i think
33:53:
(JVL)
that suzy wiles is the chief of staff um that doesn't mean that she'll i mean his chiefs of staff don't tend to last very long mick mulvaney was chief of staff during an insurrection wasn't he no i guess he was gone it was meadows so like i mean to the extent that you could limit some damage early probably probably that's good um
34:18:
(JVL)
But on the other hand, I do kind of, part of me would like voters to get the Trump that they voted for.
34:28:
(JVL)
Because I think that that would be an important learning experience for them.
34:34:
(JVL)
And I mean, maybe, maybe, for instance, maybe deporting 15 million immigrants, which is what he promised over and over, will turn into he deports like 25,000 immigrants and then just declares victory.
34:50:
(JVL)
And it's the wall that Mexico paid for.
34:53:
(JVL)
And maybe that's good or maybe it's bad.
34:56:
(JVL)
I don't know.
34:57:
(JVL)
Like, that's a very real question to me because then, you know, like Trump's people never got mad that there was no wall and that Mexico didn't pay for it.
35:07:
(JVL)
They just wanted to be able to say that they wanted the wall.
35:10:
(JVL)
And maybe they won't get mad that he doesn't deport 15 million people.
35:14:
(JVL)
Maybe they just wanted to be able to rage around saying that they wished he would deport 15 million people.
35:21:
(JVL)
And maybe the human suffering is, you know, fine, whatever.
35:24:
(JVL)
But on the other hand, maybe we need a little bit of accelerationism.
35:31:
(JVL)
to head off the slow slide into autocracy, right?
35:34:
(JVL)
I mean, because maybe the problem is that the water just gets keeping turned up a little bit at a time when people should see the full thing.
35:43:
(JVL)
What if, and this was something that was sent to me by a reader,
35:47:
(JVL)
Should Democrats treat Trump the way foreign heads of state do?
35:52:
(JVL)
Right.
35:52:
(JVL)
Because no foreign leaders have learned like just just, you know, Hakeem Jeffrey is just going to be like, sir, sir, with tears in his eyes.
36:01:
(JVL)
You know, you are a great man.
36:04:
(JVL)
And I am now realizing how great you are.
36:06:
(JVL)
I just want to help you out and be your partner and then try to get like the protections for the things that that Speaker Jeffrey or Speaker, but Minority Leader Jeffrey really cares about in exchange.
36:17:
(JVL)
And just sort of go along to get along.
36:20:
(JVL)
Is that a wise thing for Democrats to do?
36:25:
(JVL)
It's the real politic thing to do, right?
36:27:
(JVL)
I mean, all these other heads of state do that with Trump.
36:29:
(Tim Miller)
Look, I think this comes down to a fundamental question that might be the new fundamental thing that divides you and Sarah.
36:36:
(Tim Miller)
You know, you had the, are the people good was the first divide, and this might be the next one for the next four years, which is...
36:42:
(JVL)
I think I won that argument, right?
36:44:
(Tim Miller)
We don't have the answer to that.
36:46:
(Tim Miller)
Are they good?
36:47:
(Tim Miller)
The question is, is the...
36:53:
(Tim Miller)
Is the best way to alleviate suffering and protect people to allow there to be some suffering for a while that maybe has, shakes things loose, you know?
37:05:
(Tim Miller)
shakes us from our decadent stupor or is the preferable thing to try to protect people as much as possible in the short term from trump's whims and threats because he doesn't really care about them that much right like he's not a deep ideologue um and like
37:25:
(Tim Miller)
I think that that's a legitimate question that we're going to have to keep talking about.
37:28:
(Tim Miller)
My instinct falls on the side of I don't think that the Democrats should leave him to his own devices.
37:36:
(Tim Miller)
And I do not think that they should try to suck up to him and get things out of him and flatter him and prey on his weaknesses.
37:42:
(Tim Miller)
And we'll see how 2026 goes.
37:47:
(Tim Miller)
That's my gut instinct.
37:48:
(Tim Miller)
But again, I reserve the right to change my mind.
37:51:
(Tim Miller)
But I think that there's a good argument on the other side.
37:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
I also want to reserve the right to change my mind and have a gut instinct.
37:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
And my gut instinct is this.
38:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
I do not think that they should suck up to him.
38:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
Absolutely not.
38:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
However, I also think that instead of like full resistance, like full resistance mode, I don't think they should do that either.
38:13:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think that the Democrats should be much more strategic about which hills they're going to die on in favor of harm mitigation.
38:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
38:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I do think
38:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
We have a responsibility.
38:28:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think it's a little bit it's a little bit of like, you know, you're pissed at people.
38:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
You think people are being dumb.
38:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
So like they wanted this.
38:40:
(Sarah Longwell)
Give it to them good and hard.
38:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
That is a I understand the impulse, but I think it's an impulse.
38:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think we should it's an impulse.
38:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
We should check pretty hard because it's born from a place of anger.
38:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
And it's not born from a place like it's not coming from our best self.
38:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
38:59:
(Tim Miller)
And so I think the question is convincing me that it's coming from my best self, though.
39:03:
(Tim Miller)
The anger is convincing me that the pain that we need pain to have recovery.
39:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
39:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I guess I guess I think that you can probably I think Trump is so harmful, so deeply harmful in so many ways that you can have plenty of eye opening moments for the voters that said, oh, I didn't mean this.
39:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
I didn't want this.
39:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
39:30:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I don't know that you want it to be at the expense of, you know, people who are American citizens getting deported to places they've never been.
39:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
39:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, I just I think that there we should we should be in a mindset of what are the most important things to protect?
39:51:
(Sarah Longwell)
And like, what are our hills to die on over those?
39:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
And we should be in a harm mitigation mode.
39:57:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I don't think you have to do it by sucking up to them.
40:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
I do think you have to do it by and this is going to be a pretty constant refrain for me.
40:05:
(Sarah Longwell)
I think that making a case to the American people about things that really matter to them has got to be more like a much more basic democratic message.
40:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
Democrats don't have to decide to, you don't have to throw trans people under the bus per se, like JVL was saying, or throw immigrants under the bus to say like, okay, we are not going to have biological men playing women's sports.
40:34:
(Sarah Longwell)
like to just take that stance.
40:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's not throwing trans people under the bus, nor is saying that like, we're gonna have borders that we're gonna enforce.
40:41:
(Sarah Longwell)
And like, we're gonna have a, like, those are different things.
40:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I think that I would not die on a, I would die on a hill over them deporting the children of American citizens with their parents who are here illegally, and parents who have been here, you know, people who've been here for 30 years.
41:02:
(Sarah Longwell)
But am I going to I'm not going to die on a hill or say that that if Trump wants to.
41:07:
(JVL)
I'm sorry, can you say it again?
41:08:
(JVL)
You would die on that hill.
41:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
41:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
The deportation of American citizens, the racist demagoguing of American citizens.
41:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, those are putting 15 million people into camps.
41:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
But that is different from if they have if they pass a really tough border security bill.
41:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
You know, I think the Democrats should work with them on that.
41:31:
(JVL)
I think I agree with that.
41:34:
(JVL)
Not on the deportation stuff.
41:37:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
41:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
But this is my point.
41:38:
(JVL)
My point is, is like choosing people.
41:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, look, I think if they started and said, like, people who are here illegally, who have come here illegally within the last five years, who've committed a crime.
41:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like if that was where they started.
41:56:
(Tim Miller)
Sarah's talking.
41:56:
(Tim Miller)
I think you guys are different things.
41:57:
(Tim Miller)
JVL is talking.
41:58:
(Tim Miller)
Sarah's talking about like what is the rhetorical space that you're going to fight him on?
42:02:
(Tim Miller)
JVL is like what?
42:03:
(Tim Miller)
Legislatively.
42:05:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
42:05:
(Tim Miller)
What are the legislative roadblocks?
42:07:
(JVL)
Should you filibuster it?
42:08:
(JVL)
Like if Trump said I'm going to present it right.
42:11:
(JVL)
If there was such a thing as the 15 million deportation bill of 2025 and it came to the Senate, should Democrats filibuster it?
42:21:
(JVL)
And I think the answer should be no.
42:25:
(JVL)
They're happy to vote against it.
42:27:
(JVL)
Don't stop it.
42:28:
(Tim Miller)
We must discuss on this.
42:29:
(Tim Miller)
My main thing, thinking about all this, that as it applies to us, as it applies to me, that's going to be a little bit of a challenge.
42:38:
(Tim Miller)
But I think that should apply to Democrats broadly.
42:41:
(Tim Miller)
And we should try to model good behavior is that they should focus on objecting to Trump over the things that he does.
42:51:
(Tim Miller)
I think that the one thing that for me feels a little over from Resistance 2017 is getting mad about shit, whatever.
43:01:
(Tim Miller)
He fucking comes out of his pie hole.
43:05:
(Tim Miller)
I think that there should be a pivot to focusing.
43:08:
(Tim Miller)
Because I think that some of the things that he did in the first term got lost because people were so...
43:13:
(Tim Miller)
so um outraged over the things that came out of his fucking like disgusting mouth um and so i think that is a good place to start from and then i think that then the question is right like how much of the stuff that he does to just let him do and how much of the stuff that he does do you try to do you try to restrain and i think that's a real i think that's a real question
43:36:
(JVL)
Sarah, so you a minute ago, you were talking about Democrats having a message.
43:41:
(JVL)
How do they message without a leader, though?
43:43:
(JVL)
Because there is no Democratic leader, right?
43:46:
(JVL)
If they had held the House, it would have been Hakeem Jeffries.
43:48:
(JVL)
It would have been incredibly important.
43:51:
(JVL)
But there is no center to the Democratic Party now.
43:55:
(JVL)
How does that work?
43:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
I mean, I think leaders do emerge in these moments.
44:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
My biggest fear would be that they're bad leaders, right?
44:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
That you get that people are pretty desperate for their fighter and you end up with somebody.
44:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
Say his name.
44:10:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah, like Gavin.
44:11:
(Sarah Longwell)
Say his name.
44:15:
(Sarah Longwell)
As opposed to, you know, but I think there will be people who emerge, hopefully, who understand.
44:23:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I also look, I am I'm for this current sort of soul searching part on the Democrats to have a discussion about.
44:32:
(Sarah Longwell)
what it means to appeal to non-college voters.
44:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
They have to think about that.
44:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
Demography is not destiny.
44:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
Trump does not have a mandate.
44:48:
(Sarah Longwell)
This isn't a wild political realignment in his direction.
44:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
But Democrats are sliding with groups across the political spectrum.
44:56:
(Sarah Longwell)
The Republican Party is is very focused on building a multiracial working class coalition.
45:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
And it's a big coalition that is steeped in populist economics, isolationism, anti-immigration sentiment.
45:12:
(Sarah Longwell)
And, you know, they do not want nobody wants to be in foreign wars.
45:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
45:17:
(Sarah Longwell)
It's this and the scarcity of
45:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
The way that the people if people feel scarcity, they are then don't like it if you're sending money to Ukraine.
45:25:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
45:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
They don't like it if they think immigrants are getting something that they're not like.
45:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Right.
45:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's what Trump is appealing to.
45:33:
(Sarah Longwell)
And.
45:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
I just think that, like, Democrats are going to have to figure out – they've been tremendously vulnerable in immigration for a long time.
45:43:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I guess if we were talking about the quadrants, Donald Trump has a much more populist economic message than Republicans did in the past, and those were losers.
45:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
Yeah.
45:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
So I'm with you that like some more populist economic messaging might just be where we're headed, even if I don't like it.
45:59:
(Sarah Longwell)
But like, I think there's ways to do that that are really productive.
46:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I use the word productive advisedly.
46:04:
(Sarah Longwell)
Say, I mean, Kamala did the kind of build houses, but like, let's get some big visioning around building and around a new economic environment where like people feel excited and have somebody who can talk to them about that.
46:18:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, do you think that Kamala Harris, even though she ran a technically pretty good campaign, like, do you think that people felt a sense of, like, I know where this country is going under this person?
46:27:
(Sarah Longwell)
I feel like this person passionately, deeply cares about my well-being and is going to figure out how to make this country be better for me.
46:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, if Democrats don't figure out how to talk to non-college voters about economic opportunity and that they just feel this sense that, like, no, they're for these, like, niche demographic groups, like, that's what they're focused on, that's the fight –
46:47:
(Sarah Longwell)
That's a mistake.
46:49:
(JVL)
Can I read you guys a couple things from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution?
46:55:
(JVL)
The AJC has an immigration reporter.
46:58:
(JVL)
You know where I'm going with this.
47:00:
(JVL)
And he went down to the Immigration Naturalization Office in Atlanta where people come and check in.
47:12:
(JVL)
And he talked to people and he was surprised to find that many of the people who entered the country illegally who were there who can't vote said they would have voted for Trump.
47:28:
(JVL)
because they don't believe that they have anything to fear.
47:31:
(JVL)
And so, for instance, one gentleman told him, right now people are coming in who were bad in our countries and they'll be bad here.
47:41:
(JVL)
He says that migrants who are in the country working and not committing crimes should have nothing to fear.
47:47:
(JVL)
Quote, Trump doesn't want to stop immigration.
47:49:
(JVL)
He wants for it to be controlled and to block criminals from coming in and destroying the country because it's a mess.
47:55:
(JVL)
Another gentleman said, this is amazing.
48:00:
(JVL)
This is just a quote.
48:01:
(JVL)
Democrats talk about Trump saying he's going to deport everyone, but that doesn't really scare us.
48:06:
(JVL)
Everybody knows that's a lie, that he's not going to do it.
48:09:
(JVL)
We know Trump just says those things to get the gringos votes.
48:13:
(JVL)
It's a lie that people will be stopped in the streets and if they don't have papers, okay, straight to the plane.
48:18:
(JVL)
If they catch you committing a crime, that's different.
48:21:
(JVL)
I, uh...
48:24:
(JVL)
I don't know how to reconcile this with Stephen Miller standing in the Madison Square Garden and shouting, America is for Americans and Americans only!
48:33:
(JVL)
Like, one of these people is right and one of them is wrong.
48:40:
(JVL)
Which is worse.
48:42:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
48:43:
(Tim Miller)
I'm in a bad place.
48:44:
(JVL)
So just let's go with this.
48:45:
(Tim Miller)
Like, which is worse?
48:47:
(Tim Miller)
Like, what is worse?
48:48:
(Tim Miller)
Like, Trump just being a total farce and having it all be a, like, reality show for morons and a clown show where he doesn't actually...
48:59:
(Tim Miller)
care about anything and he's just appealing to people's base instincts and his bigotry and he doesn't actually care and elon and the fucking jamie diamond get a tax cut and you know a couple of random rapists get deported but nothing really not really anything
49:18:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, he tariffs a couple of things like for Elon's competitors, but not really anything else.
49:24:
(Tim Miller)
And and whatever.
49:25:
(Tim Miller)
And he golfs and, you know, has parties in the White House with McDonald's.
49:32:
(Tim Miller)
And everybody's like, yay, we are happy we got fooled by this person.
49:36:
(Tim Miller)
We don't care.
49:37:
(Tim Miller)
This is just this is just our great clown country.
49:39:
(Tim Miller)
Is that worse or is Trump doing what he says worse?
49:43:
(Tim Miller)
I guess the latter's worse, but it's fucking close for me.
49:47:
(Tim Miller)
It's a close call for me in this moment.
49:52:
(Sarah Longwell)
Not for me.
49:55:
(Sarah Longwell)
I don't want Trump to do maximally painful things for all kinds of people just because we think they deserve it for voting for him.
50:08:
(JVL)
What would it mean if Trump doesn't do any of the things he promised and then all of the people whose promises he broke to them don't care?
50:19:
(JVL)
Because for me, that makes it hard to like—
50:26:
(JVL)
That breaks my brain a little bit in how we're supposed to move forward, because if that's the truth, then it turns out we are in full nihilism mode and nothing matters.
50:35:
(JVL)
There's all these conversations about like what Democrats need to do and how they could reassure people and meet people.
50:41:
(JVL)
It means that none of that actually matters.
50:44:
(JVL)
And I don't know how to exist in that space.
50:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
OK, well, hold on.
50:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
Let's just let's just go through some of the things Trump said he was going to do.
50:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like if Trump says he's going to suspend the Constitution.
50:53:
(Sarah Longwell)
OK, if he puts if he puts Liz Cheney in front of a military tribunal, like if these things happen.
51:01:
(Sarah Longwell)
Do you think that's OK?
51:03:
(Sarah Longwell)
You think that's like it's worth it if he deports 15 million people and puts them in camps and they live in camps on the border states?
51:11:
(Tim Miller)
I don't want anything.
51:12:
(Tim Miller)
I don't want any of that to happen.
51:13:
(Tim Miller)
But how does how does this get improved if they're like Donald Trump lives in a world where there's no consequences for his actions?
51:19:
(Tim Miller)
The country lives in a world where there's no consequences for their actions.
51:22:
(Tim Miller)
And how does this improve?
51:22:
(Tim Miller)
Then fine.
51:23:
(Tim Miller)
OK, then I guess we're just in a clown autocracy forever.
51:26:
(Tim Miller)
Where we exist at the whims of the best lying con man.
51:31:
(Tim Miller)
Okay, I hear you.
51:32:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not saying I want 15 million people to be deported.
51:35:
(Tim Miller)
But it's just like, that's why it's a closer call for me.
51:40:
(Tim Miller)
Because I'm talking about what could be rather than... Well, let me give you a worse scenario.
51:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
He deports 15 million people.
51:47:
(Tim Miller)
People like that.
51:49:
(Sarah Longwell)
And people like that.
51:50:
(Sarah Longwell)
And he's a lot more popular as a result of it.
51:53:
(JVL)
Yeah, that's also very, very real possibility.
51:57:
(JVL)
All of these things, by the way, the subject that unites them is that we are finding out who and what Americans are.
52:04:
(JVL)
And it's really uncomfortable.
52:06:
(JVL)
Right.
52:07:
(JVL)
Because we're either going to find out that.
52:09:
(JVL)
I mean, there's one possibility, which is that he does all the things he promised and people rebel against it, which would be great.
52:16:
(JVL)
Fingers crossed.
52:16:
(JVL)
Right.
52:17:
(JVL)
That's the that's the there are two wolves inside of us and the good wolf wins.
52:22:
(JVL)
But the other two possibilities are that he doesn't do it and nobody cares or that he does it and they like it.
52:29:
(JVL)
And I.
52:32:
(JVL)
I'm just not feeling great about those odds because I'm feeling like I don't understand the country anymore.
52:38:
(JVL)
I feel like an old person, right?
52:39:
(JVL)
This is what old people do.
52:40:
(JVL)
They're like, this isn't like what I remember when I was 20.
52:44:
(JVL)
The world is entirely different than it was 60 years ago, and I don't recognize it anymore.
52:50:
(JVL)
And I kind of feel like that a little bit or a lot.
52:57:
(JVL)
That's all.
52:59:
(Tim Miller)
I relate to that.
53:01:
(JVL)
Do you, Sarah?
53:02:
(JVL)
I mean, do you I guess this is my question.
53:04:
(JVL)
Do you think something has changed or you think like it's it's all basically this is how people always have been.
53:09:
(JVL)
And we just we lucked into not seeing it.
53:14:
(Sarah Longwell)
No, I think that I felt maybe it's because I listen to so many voters that I just feel like much more prepared for this.
53:20:
(Sarah Longwell)
I have just listened to, I mean, go back and listen to the episode that I did with Rui.
53:26:
(Sarah Longwell)
People were really mad at this episode.
53:29:
(Sarah Longwell)
Both at Rui, like listen to the Hispanic voters.
53:31:
(Tim Miller)
To say I have to go back and listen to it would imply that I listened to it the first time, which I did not for self-preservation purposes.
53:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
Sure.
53:38:
(Sarah Longwell)
But this is the thing.
53:39:
(Sarah Longwell)
Like, OK, if you've been self-preserving and not listening to what these voters are saying, like, it's all in there.
53:45:
(Sarah Longwell)
And they've been saying it.
53:46:
(Sarah Longwell)
And I like I don't think that they're all cartoon evil characters.
53:54:
(Sarah Longwell)
And like there's and the reason that I think, you know, 2022.
54:00:
(Sarah Longwell)
This is one that I think about a lot, the fact that it was so important that all those election deniers lose.
54:08:
(Sarah Longwell)
And they did.
54:09:
(Sarah Longwell)
But the downside of that was that there were a bunch of lessons that got learned that were a little wrong in that the electorate looks different in midterms than it does in a general election and that Donald Trump appeals to a mass populace in ways that...
54:24:
(Sarah Longwell)
that Democrats are struggling to do for a variety of reasons that are not because those people are bad people, but that they are just thinking about themselves, which is not a crazy thing to do.
54:35:
(Sarah Longwell)
They are not thinking about democracy.
54:36:
(Sarah Longwell)
And they were just like this rich guy who says a bunch of things that I think are kind of funny, but also insane.
54:42:
(Sarah Longwell)
But I think he's going to like help me do better in my life.
54:46:
(JVL)
Yeah.
54:47:
(JVL)
All right.
54:47:
(JVL)
Listen, we got to wrap this up.
54:49:
(JVL)
It's been an amazing, magical secret show with all three of us here.
54:54:
(JVL)
And I feel like we were all more off the leash than before.
54:57:
(JVL)
Guys, catch you next week.