Tom Nichols This Is What They Want
00:08:
(Tim Miller)
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast.
00:09:
(Tim Miller)
I'm your host, Tim Miller.
00:11:
(Tim Miller)
We're bringing in friends and fam this week.
00:13:
(Tim Miller)
That's the only way to deal with it.
00:14:
(Tim Miller)
So I've got Tom Nichols, professor emeritus at the Naval War College, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Atlantic Daily Newsletter.
00:22:
(Tim Miller)
Tom Nichols.
00:24:
(Tim Miller)
What, what should we do?
00:26:
(Tim Miller)
What do you want to say?
00:27:
(Tim Miller)
What happens?
00:29:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, you know, what we should do is be on a beach somewhere right now.
00:33:
(Tom Nichols)
And, you know, just with a couple of my ties, but you know, what do we do?
00:38:
(Tom Nichols)
You get up in the morning and you, you square your shoulders and take a deep breath and say, okay, four more years of this crazy shit.
00:45:
(Tom Nichols)
And yeah,
00:46:
(Tom Nichols)
I think as long as he doesn't bumble us into World War III, you know, we just kind of get up and do the work every day and try to hold this administration to account the way we would and, you know, criticize and discuss and write about them the way we would.
01:02:
(Tom Nichols)
Look, Tim, the saddest part, American people made their decision and 51% of the American people made their decision.
01:09:
(Tom Nichols)
This is what they want.
01:11:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay, so we're all strapped into the same rocket, and we're just going to have to deal with it.
01:18:
(Tom Nichols)
That's all we can do.
01:20:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, they're going to get it good and hard, as many people have sent me.
01:25:
(Tom Nichols)
They just don't believe that that stove is hot, and they've decided to touch it three or four or five or ten more times.
01:32:
(Tim Miller)
Well, I want to talk in a little bit more detail about what actually the next steps look like for practically.
01:37:
(Tim Miller)
But I want to go back first.
01:39:
(Tim Miller)
So you wrote for The Atlantic this week saying Trump voters got what they wanted.
01:46:
(Tim Miller)
But in the article, you know, you kind of talk about the various explanations and the various excuses and recriminations that are happening.
01:55:
(Tim Miller)
And I guess you have a more you have a different view.
01:58:
(Tim Miller)
Why don't you talk about what you what you think?
02:00:
(Tom Nichols)
First of all, as you know, I was never part of the, yeah, she's going to make it chorus.
02:05:
(Tom Nichols)
I said, I hope she makes it.
02:07:
(Tom Nichols)
She's running a good campaign, doing the right things.
02:10:
(Tom Nichols)
She's not taking Trump's bait.
02:12:
(Tom Nichols)
She's doing all the stuff she needs to do.
02:15:
(Tom Nichols)
But I always had this kind of sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that if Trump could win the Republican nomination and this country had not shunned him and driven him out of the public space, then he was going to win.
02:27:
(Tom Nichols)
Biden couldn't have won.
02:29:
(Tom Nichols)
Let's get that.
02:29:
(Tom Nichols)
Let's just stop all that right now.
02:31:
(Tom Nichols)
There's no way Joe Biden had the energy for the kind of schedule she was on.
02:37:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't understand a lot of criticisms of the Biden first term.
02:41:
(Tom Nichols)
People say, well, she should have run away from the Biden record.
02:43:
(Tom Nichols)
His first term was awful.
02:44:
(Tom Nichols)
Maybe it's the former Republican me.
02:46:
(Tom Nichols)
I keep I keep looking at his first term and going, that was a pretty good term.
02:51:
(Tom Nichols)
That's a term most people would have run on, you know, hands down.
02:56:
(Tom Nichols)
Oh, she's got to talk about the economy because people are suffering with, you know, full employment and two and a half percent inflation.
03:03:
(Tom Nichols)
I just couldn't get my arms around what she was supposed to do there.
03:07:
(Tom Nichols)
So I think a lot of the recrimination and the what ifs and, you know, I think he was just going to win because and this is the part that's hard to say, Tim, she was going to win because that's who most of us are now.
03:20:
(Tom Nichols)
you know, that millions of people have become they're not accepting of Donald Trump.
03:26:
(Tom Nichols)
They have become like Donald Trump.
03:29:
(Tom Nichols)
They they identify with him.
03:31:
(Tom Nichols)
And that means that he was just going to win.
03:34:
(Tom Nichols)
But now with that said, I think if the Democrats are having a come to Jesus moment about the baggage that she had to carry with her, some of which she packed herself earlier in her career,
03:46:
(Tom Nichols)
you know, then fine, have that argument, you know, about how far left.
03:52:
(Tom Nichols)
Just this morning before you and I started talking, I saw the numbers for Dearborn, Michigan.
03:58:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay, you're going to have that kind of, you know, loss in Dearborn.
04:02:
(Tom Nichols)
First of all, I think the tweet was from Jim Manley, who basically said to the Arab voters of Dearborn, good luck.
04:09:
(Tom Nichols)
Now that you've got Trump and Netanyahu.
04:11:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay, I guess, you know, wow, you showed them.
04:14:
(Tom Nichols)
But, you know, if you're going to lose a place like Dearborn place that you used to win handily, and you want to have a discussion about whether college students ought to be, you know, driving big chunks of the Democratic Party, great, have that conversation.
04:28:
(Tom Nichols)
But I don't think it was going to matter that much.
04:30:
(Tom Nichols)
in 2024 i think the american people a lot of the american people especially in the swing states just said still believe presidents have the magical ability to do things and trump especially plays into that right you know i'll make gas cheaper how uh you know jedi mind trick i just can because i'm i'm magic because i'm superman
04:51:
(Tom Nichols)
But also the other thing that he did is he said, basically, and I take a lot of static about this.
04:58:
(Tom Nichols)
He said, I'm not boring.
05:00:
(Tom Nichols)
I'll bring back the drama.
05:01:
(Tom Nichols)
I'll bring back the reality TV show that you all love so much.
05:05:
(Tom Nichols)
And they got what they voted for.
05:07:
(Tim Miller)
I'm torn about this.
05:09:
(Tim Miller)
That's undoubtedly true.
05:11:
(Tim Miller)
And I'm torn about the response to it because I have the two wolves inside of me in response to that.
05:16:
(Tim Miller)
And the one is...
05:18:
(Tim Miller)
Fuck the rubes.
05:20:
(Tim Miller)
These people are going to get what they want.
05:22:
(Tim Miller)
Like, you want it?
05:23:
(Tim Miller)
Good luck.
05:24:
(Tim Miller)
We'll see.
05:24:
(Tim Miller)
I can afford those tariffs.
05:26:
(Tom Nichols)
You can't.
05:29:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
05:29:
(Tim Miller)
And the angel inside of me also says...
05:34:
(Tim Miller)
You know, the Dems actually didn't really do a good job of trying to care, trying to show that they care, right?
05:44:
(Tim Miller)
And that's hard, right?
05:45:
(Tim Miller)
Because at one point, you're like, what?
05:46:
(Tim Miller)
You're supposed to show that you care about their deep-seated concerns about transgender reassignment surgery in prison or whatever the other thing is?
05:56:
(Tim Miller)
But it's like, I don't know.
05:57:
(Tim Miller)
To me, if there is any recrimination and you look back, it's like there's a big part of the country –
06:04:
(Tim Miller)
that rightly or wrongly feel like the Democrats don't care about them.
06:08:
(Tim Miller)
And I know that's the Republicans who are like, facts don't care about your feelings.
06:11:
(Tim Miller)
But, you know, we're in politics.
06:13:
(Tim Miller)
This is politics.
06:14:
(Tim Miller)
The whole point is to win campaigns.
06:16:
(Tim Miller)
And if you have 42% of the country that their impression of you is that you think that they're racist and stupid and idiots and you want to make fun of them and look down on them, then you're already starting from a pretty low base, you know?
06:29:
(Tim Miller)
Of achievable vote, especially when some of these people have voted for Democrats in the past.
06:33:
(Tim Miller)
So I am genuinely torn.
06:35:
(Tim Miller)
This is a genuine question.
06:36:
(Tim Miller)
I'm wondering what you think about it.
06:38:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay, I think three things.
06:39:
(Tom Nichols)
First of all, there's an irony here because nobody hates the kind of rural working poor as much as the Republicans do.
06:46:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, you and I know this.
06:47:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, they Trump hates them.
06:50:
(Tom Nichols)
Most of the people who represent them hate them, don't want to be around them, don't want to have to visit those community centers and schools.
06:57:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, look at the lengths to which so many of these Republican legislators go not to live in their own districts.
07:03:
(Tom Nichols)
But the sense that that there is a big chunk of the Democratic Party that just doesn't care.
07:10:
(Tom Nichols)
is true.
07:11:
(Tom Nichols)
But let's split that into two things.
07:13:
(Tom Nichols)
First of all, maybe the anxiety about, you know, like prison transgender reassignment.
07:18:
(Tom Nichols)
But you know something, the Democrats, I'm going to say, the Democrats helped to bring that on themselves.
07:23:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, at one point, there was a really revealing moment
07:26:
(Tom Nichols)
when Kamala Harris was getting prodded about this by Bret Baier.
07:31:
(Tom Nichols)
And in kind of frustration, she said, why are you focusing on something that affects such a small number of people?
07:37:
(Tom Nichols)
And I was watching this and I wanted to say to the screen, because you did, because your party does, you know, because you've made this a kind of symbol.
07:46:
(Tom Nichols)
And I was watching the day after I was on Morning Joe and just before I, you know, my hit time came up, you know, you can watch the show and
07:53:
(Tom Nichols)
I think it was Donnie Dwight saying, look, you know, the Democrats have to not be, they have to move to the center.
07:59:
(Tom Nichols)
And one of the panelists said, the center.
08:01:
(Tom Nichols)
So we don't care about trans people.
08:03:
(Tom Nichols)
And I was like, oh, there it is again.
08:05:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, it's like, why is everybody so obsessed about trans?
08:08:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, because if it's the first thing you think of when someone says you need to move to the center, then...
08:14:
(Tom Nichols)
Maybe you're playing into that.
08:17:
(Tom Nichols)
But the problem that I have in joining those Democrats who don't care, when people say, Tom, you don't care enough about how people are suffering in this economy because eggs are five bucks.
08:31:
(Tom Nichols)
Yeah, they're five bucks a carton here in Rhode Island where, you know, Trump increased his share here in Rhode Island, too.
08:38:
(Tom Nichols)
He lost the state.
08:39:
(Tom Nichols)
But, you know, I have a hard time with the typical American who complains about five dollar eggs driving, you know, the big truck.
08:49:
(Tom Nichols)
And spending the money that we spend on gambling and sports and all the other stuff.
08:54:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, there is a part of me that says the very poorest people in this country, nobody seems to care about except the Democrats at this point who have always kind of been there to say we need to have free the Tim Walsh Democrats.
09:09:
(Tom Nichols)
Right.
09:09:
(Tom Nichols)
We need to have free lunches for hungry kids.
09:11:
(Tom Nichols)
Right.
09:11:
(Tom Nichols)
But that other argument about you're supposed to really empathize with the suffering of, you know, people who are living in half million dollar houses and driving big trucks who just happen to be pissed off because eggs for a year or a year and a half have been a couple of bucks higher, even as all the other stuff cools off.
09:31:
(Tom Nichols)
I admit it.
09:32:
(Tom Nichols)
I have that same problem of saying, you know what?
09:34:
(Tom Nichols)
I give up.
09:34:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't know how to talk to you.
09:36:
(Tom Nichols)
And when Trump starts, you know, dumping tariffs on things, here's the part that really worries me.
09:40:
(Tom Nichols)
If I can just jump from that subject to the thing that the popcorn kernel really stuck in my teeth.
09:45:
(Tom Nichols)
Trump is going to inherit a great economy.
09:49:
(Tom Nichols)
I can't even think about it.
09:49:
(Tom Nichols)
It's so annoying.
09:50:
(Tom Nichols)
Right.
09:51:
(Tom Nichols)
And the day after he's inaugurated, he's going to say, there it is.
09:54:
(Tom Nichols)
We've solved everything.
09:55:
(Tom Nichols)
Economy's great.
09:56:
(Tom Nichols)
Oh, you know, flow interest.
09:58:
(Tim Miller)
I can't even think about it.
09:59:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
09:59:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
10:00:
(Tom Nichols)
And he's going to take credit.
10:02:
(Tom Nichols)
And for a year, he's going to skate on Biden's soft landing.
10:05:
(Tom Nichols)
The thing, the problem of not caring, right?
10:08:
(Tom Nichols)
When people say, but Tom, the economy, I'm like, listen, two years ago, we were expecting a massive recession.
10:15:
(Tom Nichols)
The soft landing that got pulled off by this administration and by the Fed, nobody thought was possible.
10:21:
(Tom Nichols)
And now you're bitched out about it because the recession didn't happen.
10:25:
(Tom Nichols)
But gas is only $2.99 a gallon now.
10:29:
(Tim Miller)
The death of expertise.
10:30:
(Tim Miller)
All your experts failed us on that one.
10:31:
(Tim Miller)
All the economists said there was a recession coming.
10:34:
(Tom Nichols)
The economic experts were like, of course, you know, there's always that trap door phrase.
10:38:
(Tom Nichols)
If current trends continue, right?
10:40:
(Tom Nichols)
Listen, when I was gaining weight, if current trends continue, you know, I'd be 3,000 pounds.
10:45:
(Tom Nichols)
At some point, you try and do something.
10:47:
(Tom Nichols)
And that's what policy does, right?
10:49:
(Tom Nichols)
It's to make sure you don't end up weighing 3000 pounds to make sure that you don't end up in a recession.
10:53:
(Tom Nichols)
And good policy created a soft landing.
10:57:
(Tom Nichols)
Trump's going to take total credit for that.
10:59:
(Tom Nichols)
He's then going to screw the pooch.
11:01:
(Tom Nichols)
He's going to do that thing with tariffs.
11:02:
(Tom Nichols)
He
11:03:
(Tom Nichols)
We don't have to guess at this, right?
11:05:
(Tom Nichols)
Remember, he had to bail out the farmers.
11:07:
(Tom Nichols)
He had to do relief for small businesses that he screwed over by messing with China because he didn't understand how supply chains work and doesn't understand how tariffs work.
11:15:
(Tom Nichols)
And then he's going to say, I had a great economy.
11:18:
(Tom Nichols)
Democrats messed it up.
11:19:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't know what happened.
11:20:
(Tom Nichols)
I take no responsibility at all.
11:21:
(Tom Nichols)
That's where my lack of empathy overcomes me because I know that's going to happen.
11:25:
(Tom Nichols)
And I know that the people that are going to believe that horse shit are the same people right now telling me, I don't know, Tom, eggs were five bucks.
11:33:
(Tom Nichols)
And, you know, I mean, I know fascism is bad, but, you know, eggs.
11:38:
(Tim Miller)
I'm with you on the fucking rich Trumpers and who are complaining and will spend, unfortunately, way more of my brain power than I would like unraveling all of their...
11:51:
(Tim Miller)
fake grievances for the foreseeable future.
11:54:
(Tim Miller)
That said, when I think about the Democrats' problem, and maybe this is wrong, I'm open.
11:58:
(Tim Miller)
I'm going to try over the next few months to have some lefty populace on.
12:02:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe they need to do lefty populace policy.
12:04:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe.
12:05:
(Tim Miller)
My instinct is I don't think so, though, actually.
12:08:
(Tim Miller)
I think that the Democrats' answer is always a policy paper.
12:11:
(Tim Miller)
And to me, the reality is, when I think in my mind's eye, who could go to a town hall, not what we call a town hall, who could go shoot the shit with the guys at the MMA fight that Trump goes to?
12:23:
(Tim Miller)
Who could go to, you know, the SEC tailgate and just, you know, shoot the shit?
12:29:
(Tim Miller)
Who could go to a farm...
12:30:
(Tim Miller)
You know, in Lamar's, Iowa, you know, like where everybody's sitting around doing coffee and like demonstrate that they actually care about these people and are listening to them.
12:41:
(Tim Miller)
I don't think the Democrats have anybody.
12:43:
(Tim Miller)
I literally can't think of any.
12:45:
(Tim Miller)
I can't think of anyone.
12:46:
(Tom Nichols)
They had Sherrod Brown until 10 minutes ago.
12:48:
(Tim Miller)
And he's OK with that kind of Fetterman.
12:49:
(Tim Miller)
I guess the answer is Fetterman, but he struggles to talk.
12:53:
(Tim Miller)
So he's not a particularly strong communicator.
12:55:
(Tim Miller)
But to me, it's as much about like some of it is policy, but some of it is like they're just not showing up.
13:02:
(Tim Miller)
And for a group of people, the Democrats are always like, oh, you've got to show up.
13:05:
(Tim Miller)
You've got to listen to this group.
13:06:
(Tim Miller)
You've got to elevate that group.
13:07:
(Tim Miller)
You've got to do like that is the Democrats ethos.
13:09:
(Tim Miller)
And so I just don't understand if you're like, oh, you have to make space for the native community and you got to make space for the LGBTQ community.
13:17:
(Tim Miller)
But you don't make any space for 42% of the country.
13:21:
(Tim Miller)
Listen to yourself, I think.
13:23:
(Tim Miller)
To me, that's my instinct, is that is the main issue.
13:26:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, I'm of two minds of this, as I am about everything now.
13:30:
(Tom Nichols)
One is I don't want presidents doing that.
13:33:
(Tom Nichols)
I liked, you know, I mean, yeah, Reagan used to put on his hat and all that stuff.
13:37:
(Tom Nichols)
But remember that the big slam on Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan was that they were too regal.
13:41:
(Tom Nichols)
Right.
13:42:
(Tom Nichols)
Right.
13:42:
(Tom Nichols)
That they had this kind of lazy majesty, you know, the designer dresses and the whole thing.
13:48:
(Tom Nichols)
Yeah.
13:48:
(Tom Nichols)
But fast forward, W could do it.
13:50:
(Tom Nichols)
Obama could do it.
13:52:
(Tom Nichols)
Obama.
13:52:
(Tom Nichols)
All right.
13:53:
(Tom Nichols)
I will give you Obama and I would give you Bill Clinton could do it.
13:55:
(Tom Nichols)
But among Republicans.
13:56:
(Tim Miller)
Bill Clinton could do it.
13:57:
(Tim Miller)
Every president.
13:58:
(Tim Miller)
That's every president except Biden who was elected during a pandemic.
14:00:
(Tim Miller)
Clinton, Bush, Obama.
14:02:
(Tim Miller)
Bush 41 couldn't do it.
14:04:
(Tim Miller)
43 though.
14:05:
(Tim Miller)
After 41.
14:07:
(Tim Miller)
Message.
14:07:
(Tim Miller)
I care.
14:08:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, but there are still only three networks in Bush 41.
14:10:
(Tim Miller)
In the modern media era, in the modern media era, all of them have been able to do it.
14:14:
(Tim Miller)
I know.
14:14:
(Tim Miller)
And I don't.
14:15:
(Tim Miller)
I think that's a problem.
14:16:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't want presidents.
14:18:
(Tom Nichols)
I want presidents that are competent, who know their job, who know foreign policy, who are people of steady character and steely nerves.
14:27:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't really.
14:27:
(Tom Nichols)
I want that, too.
14:28:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, I don't really care if they can go do the corn dog, you know, and all that populist bullshit.
14:35:
(Tom Nichols)
I think part of the reason that we're in the situation we're in.
14:39:
(Tom Nichols)
Is that people have come to expect that, you know, it's like, well, he needs to be just like me.
14:44:
(Tom Nichols)
No, I don't want the president to be just like me.
14:46:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm, I'm not that competent.
14:47:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm not that good.
14:48:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm, I'm just a, you know, middle-aged guy in Rhode Island.
14:51:
(Tom Nichols)
I want the president to be somebody who has real talent and ability and whether he can hang around with me down at the clam boil.
14:58:
(Tom Nichols)
you know, here, here in Middletown.
15:01:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't give a shit about that, but I understand, as you just said, in the words of Hyman Roth and Godfather too, this is the business we've chosen, right?
15:13:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, this is politics and you have to win those elections.
15:17:
(Tom Nichols)
But,
15:18:
(Tom Nichols)
On the other hand, a lot of those folks live in such an epistemic bubble.
15:23:
(Tom Nichols)
At some point today, I'll tell you more about this conversation I had.
15:26:
(Tom Nichols)
Two hours I spent talking to a Trump supporter in Pennsylvania, and it was trippy.
15:32:
(Tom Nichols)
But I will agree with you about this.
15:34:
(Tom Nichols)
How many times, and I know you've said this to friends, and I know I've said it when talking to other never-Trumpers or former Republicans or centrists, stop scaring the normals.
15:46:
(Tom Nichols)
That's all you have to do to win these elections.
15:49:
(Tom Nichols)
Don't scare the normies.
15:52:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think Harris, to her credit, figured that out fast.
15:58:
(Tom Nichols)
Because in 2019, you know how I felt about Harris in 2019 and 2020, I was like, oh man, this is really a...
16:04:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, bad idea, you know, far to the left and doesn't.
16:09:
(Tom Nichols)
But, you know, she was a different candidate by 2024.
16:11:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm glad, you know, people learn they can change.
16:14:
(Tom Nichols)
But I think too much of the Democratic Party, I think on this, the critics that have argued that the Democratic Party now being the party of college educated.
16:23:
(Tom Nichols)
people, basically, has lost its ability to talk to people who come from working class backgrounds, who are not steeped in the latest, you know, gender studies controversies.
16:37:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think that that's something that has to be recaptured.
16:40:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think a lot of Democrats think it's like dirty to have to do that, that there's an impurity involved in that.
16:48:
(Tom Nichols)
It's funny you brought up trans
16:49:
(Tom Nichols)
issues, you know, because I was talking to a Democrat, I said, not a winning issue right now for the Democrats.
16:55:
(Tom Nichols)
If you're swimming upstream against, you know, Republicans, they're going to take out all these ad buys, and they love this issue, and they go after it.
17:03:
(Tom Nichols)
And the answer was something like, well, trans people can't wait for their rights.
17:07:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, okay, they're not better off today.
17:11:
(Tom Nichols)
That's for sure.
17:12:
(Tom Nichols)
As is anybody, any minority community, no minority community is better off today after what happened on Tuesday.
17:20:
(Tim Miller)
I also hate the false binary, you know, and this is what I'm talking about, about being able to talk normal.
17:25:
(Tim Miller)
Like you can talk about protecting trans people in a manner that is reminiscent of how American politicians have talked for a long time about how everybody has dignity.
17:36:
(Tim Miller)
We're not trying to throw anybody under the bus, but
17:38:
(Tim Miller)
Like there's ways to do this that it is not, I'm sorry, Kamala Harris.
17:42:
(Tim Miller)
I'm sorry to obsess about this, but Kamala Harris has her pronouns in her bio still.
17:46:
(Tim Miller)
Okay.
17:47:
(Tim Miller)
It's just like, I get it.
17:48:
(Tim Miller)
I get it.
17:48:
(Tim Miller)
But like, and by the way, I respect this.
17:51:
(Tim Miller)
If you prefer to be identified as they, them, or whatever,
17:54:
(Tim Miller)
If you're trans, like, awesome.
17:56:
(Tim Miller)
I have trans friends.
17:57:
(Tim Miller)
I love trans people, okay?
17:58:
(Tim Miller)
But, like, Kamala Harris is obviously she-her.
18:01:
(Tim Miller)
And so my point is, to people that don't, like, that aren't involved in this sort of debate and aren't familiar and don't know any trans people and aren't familiar with all this, they look at this and they're like...
18:12:
(Tim Miller)
Like, this is ridiculous.
18:13:
(Tim Miller)
This person doesn't actually care about me, you know?
18:16:
(Tim Miller)
Right.
18:16:
(Tom Nichols)
Or it opens the door for them to say, I don't know what that's about.
18:20:
(Tom Nichols)
What is that about?
18:21:
(Tom Nichols)
And of course, the Republicans interpose very quickly and say, we'll tell you what it's about.
18:25:
(Tom Nichols)
It's about an attack on you and your family and God and country and all that other stuff.
18:29:
(Tim Miller)
You can protect trans people and speak like a normal human.
18:32:
(Tim Miller)
this was the frustrating thing to me.
18:33:
(Tim Miller)
You can protect everybody.
18:35:
(Tim Miller)
And yeah, I was like on MS yesterday and I was just listening to some of the politicians and just the way in which Democrats talk, like to me, that's the wake up call.
18:42:
(Tim Miller)
I know you love this.
18:44:
(Tim Miller)
This is why I wanted to have Tom Nichols on because you want, you want the highfalutin rhetoric, you know, you want the creed of core, right?
18:52:
(Tim Miller)
You want the reference to Montesquieu.
18:54:
(Tom Nichols)
No, come on.
18:55:
(Tom Nichols)
Oh no, no.
18:56:
(Tom Nichols)
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
18:58:
(Tom Nichols)
whoa, you forget who I am and where I come from.
19:02:
(Tom Nichols)
I have never quoted Montesquieu.
19:05:
(Tom Nichols)
And I mean, like I said, remember, I'm the guy in my stuff.
19:10:
(Tom Nichols)
You're going to more often find a Don Corleone quote than you're going to find Montesquieu.
19:14:
(Tom Nichols)
I know.
19:15:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, look, I agree with you.
19:17:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, we're in heated agreement about this, that if we're going to keep bashing the Democrats for a moment more, because I think we have, you know, this is part of...
19:25:
(Tim Miller)
It's not bashing.
19:26:
(Tim Miller)
It's like, it's... We're all...
19:27:
(Tim Miller)
We're all in this together.
19:31:
(Tim Miller)
It's just like, you know, you know, I think it's worth trying to figure it out.
19:34:
(Tim Miller)
What else are we going to do?
19:35:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, I think it's I think it's especially important to figure it out, not for the presidential election, which, you know, look, Kamala Harris spoke like a completely normal person for three months in this election.
19:45:
(Tom Nichols)
And Donald Trump talked like a completely normal politician.
19:50:
(Tom Nichols)
Yes, a normal politician.
19:52:
(Tom Nichols)
But Donald Trump also was, you know, a gibbering, delusional old man going on about, you know, sharks and all that stuff.
20:00:
(Tom Nichols)
So, you know, this double standard where we say, well, not Democrats have to talk like that.
20:04:
(Tom Nichols)
And Donald Trump can sound like, you know, he's he's off his medication and wandering the streets in a hospital, Johnny.
20:12:
(Tim Miller)
right i mean that's every time i hear trump i just think of this guy with the johnny open in the back and a new york city policeman saying come in come out of the road come out of the road i just would again set the table there is no shortage of of complaints about donald trump's language policies behavior character here my point is we're doing politics and when you're doing politics you're trying to win campaigns and so what so and this was this was a devastating loss
20:36:
(Tom Nichols)
And it's the down ticket campaigns where I think that really can hurt.
20:39:
(Tom Nichols)
A lot of that language can really hurt.
20:42:
(Tom Nichols)
And you saw the Democrats already started to pay that price with people like Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman.
20:48:
(Tim Miller)
Look at one yesterday.
20:49:
(Tim Miller)
In red districts, Jared Golden, Marie Glusenkamp-Perez...
20:52:
(Tim Miller)
You know, they are working class like these.
20:56:
(Tim Miller)
These are some Dems that exist.
20:57:
(Tim Miller)
Actually, I should revise and extend my remarks about Fetterman earlier.
21:00:
(Tim Miller)
Both of them are people that I think could go into these spaces and talk normal and do a hang.
21:05:
(Tim Miller)
Right.
21:05:
(Tim Miller)
And they're they're not Joe Manchin corporate moderates.
21:08:
(Tom Nichols)
My last criticism here while we're on the subject of Democrats is when you're putting pronouns in your bio, it's because you're trying to send a signal that part of it's well-intentioned, right?
21:19:
(Tom Nichols)
To say, I see you, I care about your issues, I'm an ally, and so on.
21:24:
(Tom Nichols)
But you're also trying to shore up these shaky flanks all the time.
21:29:
(Tom Nichols)
The Republicans, you know this as a former Republican guy, Tim, the Republicans never have to do that.
21:35:
(Tim Miller)
Look at how they treated Nikki Haley.
21:37:
(Tom Nichols)
Didn't matter.
21:38:
(Tom Nichols)
didn't matter you know i always think of that great it's possibly apocryphal but i think it's been attributed to um deaver back in 84 when somebody told the reagan campaign the evangelicals are really mad at you yeah right because reagan didn't get prayer in schools and outlaw abortion and do all this stuff he you know but on the campaign show yes yes of course we're gonna do it of course then he gets an officer yeah we're not doing any of that shit
22:04:
(Tom Nichols)
And so they told the campaign, they're really mad at you.
22:08:
(Tom Nichols)
And this Reagan aid says, fuck them.
22:10:
(Tom Nichols)
What are they going to do?
22:11:
(Tom Nichols)
Vote for Mondale?
22:13:
(Tom Nichols)
Right.
22:13:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, because they won't.
22:14:
(Tom Nichols)
The problem is that the Democrats are constantly getting these kinds of, you know, pasted up hostage letters from various constituencies saying, you know, remember us or or this section of the vote gets thrown in the river, you know.
22:29:
(Tim Miller)
And it's also part of the nature of the coalition, though, because the fuck them strategy actually didn't work with Arab voters that were concerned about Gaza and potentially young progressives.
22:38:
(Tim Miller)
And we got to wait for the numbers to come in.
22:39:
(Tom Nichols)
But I mean, she did try to I mean, she did stay away from that third rail.
22:43:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think part of the reason that she didn't pick Shapiro, and I don't think that was a.
22:46:
(Tom Nichols)
I think that was a good call not to pick Shapiro for a lot of reasons, is that she didn't want to have to walk with him through Michigan and go through all that.
22:54:
(Tom Nichols)
But the problem is that there is always something, you know, you and I and other Never Trumpers went through this in 2016 when we were trying to make the big tent argument to our friends in the Democratic Party to say, this is the nature of coalitions.
23:08:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean...
23:09:
(Tom Nichols)
Roosevelt didn't like Stalin, but they managed to work together.
23:14:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think that there is just this kind of purity testing among Democrats that makes that really difficult.
23:20:
(Tom Nichols)
And it's not about Gaza or trans people or anything else.
23:25:
(Tom Nichols)
It's about all of it.
23:26:
(Tom Nichols)
It's about a very segmented coalition that is like a parliamentary party where every small party says, I must have my issue satisfied or I will withdraw during the vote of no confidence.
23:37:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think...
23:37:
(Tom Nichols)
Harris, again, going to give more kudos to Harris.
23:40:
(Tom Nichols)
I think she held that together pretty well.
23:43:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think she threaded that pretty well.
23:45:
(Tom Nichols)
And I'm not sure that in 2024 there was any abandonment of, you know, wokity pronouns or any of that stuff that was going to help her.
23:53:
(Tom Nichols)
But I think now going into 2026, which could be.
23:59:
(Tom Nichols)
Right.
23:59:
(Tom Nichols)
you know, really the speed break on a lot of, I mean, if the, if the Democrats can do what you're supposed to do in a president's first, second, first term and put the brakes on Trump, you're right.
24:11:
(Tom Nichols)
They're going to have to learn to talk to it.
24:14:
(Tom Nichols)
And can I add one more thing as a son of the working class and a man who grew up with an accent that I had to shed by the way, let's hear it.
24:23:
(Tom Nichols)
My accent.
24:23:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
24:24:
(Tim Miller)
Say this last point in your old accent that you shut it.
24:26:
(Tom Nichols)
All right.
24:27:
(Tom Nichols)
So, you know, so I grew up near Springfield and them guys, let me tell you about them guys.
24:32:
(Tom Nichols)
They come in here.
24:33:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay.
24:34:
(Tom Nichols)
They come in and they don't want to hear nothing about, about those things.
24:37:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay.
24:38:
(Tom Nichols)
And I grew up there.
24:39:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, I had, I had to learn how to pronounce TH, you know, this, that, them, those.
24:43:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay, fine.
24:44:
(Tom Nichols)
Don't mimic these things.
24:47:
(Tom Nichols)
Don't be a college educated, you know, go and say, and now I'm fixing and I'm a gonna.
24:53:
(Tom Nichols)
And, you know, just just be yourself.
24:55:
(Tom Nichols)
It's OK. You know, I don't need to.
24:58:
(Tom Nichols)
Yeah, don't do that.
25:00:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think both parties do that, except the Republicans get away with it.
25:03:
(Tom Nichols)
Because Republicans are so, their party discipline is so strong.
25:07:
(Tom Nichols)
They just don't give a crap about any of that.
25:09:
(Tom Nichols)
But you don't have to walk in.
25:11:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, I know she got accused of code switching and all that stuff.
25:15:
(Tom Nichols)
But you can talk to normal Americans in your normal voice and not have to pantomime caring about that stuff.
25:24:
(Tom Nichols)
Just talk to people.
25:25:
(Tom Nichols)
Talk to people and realize that not everybody went to grad school and not everybody is on Twitter.
25:31:
(Tim Miller)
All right.
25:32:
(Tim Miller)
We spent 28 minutes of hair shirt.
25:33:
(Tim Miller)
I want to go forward, but one more quick back question, which is the anti-hair shirt question.
25:38:
(Tim Miller)
I'm going to put the link to this in the show notes for people who want to look at this.
25:41:
(Tim Miller)
Derek Thompson, who we've had on the pod, posted a chart that goes back to, I don't know, like the middle of the 20th century about how global incumbent parties did work.
25:52:
(Tim Miller)
And in 2024 is the only year, I guess we're in November, so I guess some incumbent party could, I don't know if there are any elections between now and January, but it's the only year where every incumbent party lost share.
26:04:
(Tim Miller)
Everyone, all around the world.
26:06:
(Tim Miller)
I find this very strange.
26:07:
(Tim Miller)
that 2024 is the year of suffering for everybody?
26:10:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, the inflation, certainly, inflation's annoying.
26:12:
(Tim Miller)
I'm with it.
26:13:
(Tim Miller)
And some people really suffered through inflation.
26:15:
(Tim Miller)
But there's been a lot of suffering over the course of the last 80 years.
26:18:
(Tim Miller)
It's a little strange to me that it's an outlier, I guess, in levels of suffering.
26:22:
(Tim Miller)
But maybe there's just nothing.
26:24:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe this is all just hot air.
26:26:
(Tim Miller)
And it was just...
26:27:
(Tim Miller)
It was literally just the eggs.
26:30:
(Tim Miller)
It was just the eggs.
26:31:
(Tim Miller)
And that's it.
26:31:
(Tim Miller)
And the phones.
26:32:
(Tim Miller)
It's just the eggs and the phones.
26:34:
(Tim Miller)
People hear more complaints now than they did back then.
26:37:
(Tim Miller)
And the inflation was annoying.
26:38:
(Tim Miller)
And that's it.
26:40:
(Tim Miller)
All incumbents were fucked.
26:41:
(Tom Nichols)
Okay, but I saw Derek's chart.
26:43:
(Tom Nichols)
And the explanation for why now, by the way, is that like...
26:46:
(Tom Nichols)
In the first wave of inflation, people got it.
26:49:
(Tom Nichols)
It's like, yes, it's the pandemic.
26:51:
(Tom Nichols)
Nobody can do anything.
26:52:
(Tom Nichols)
But then when, because prices persist and stay high for another year after that, that's when people said, okay, the government should do something about that.
27:00:
(Tom Nichols)
Of course, governments, unless they want to institute price controls, they can't do anything about it.
27:03:
(Tom Nichols)
This is part of that myth of executive power.
27:09:
(Tom Nichols)
The difference is, and the one place I'm not going to let...
27:12:
(Tim Miller)
the united states off the hook first of all we're supposed to be smarter than that and in those other countries getting rid of the incumbents did not mean trading off for a sociopath i'm not letting us off the hook either okay bill crystal has a newsletter this morning that is a stealing your spine the fight must go on we must fight you know we must band together again and i don't know we few yeah we few we marry few uh we band of brothers
27:40:
(Tim Miller)
I'm letting the devil inside me talk now.
27:42:
(Tim Miller)
This is just going to be this podcast for the next month.
27:44:
(Tim Miller)
So if people want that, that's great.
27:46:
(Tim Miller)
You're welcome here.
27:47:
(Tim Miller)
Do we actually?
27:49:
(Tim Miller)
Shouldn't we let them burn it down?
27:51:
(Tim Miller)
Shouldn't we let them just stew in their own shit for two years?
27:55:
(Tim Miller)
Do we fight?
27:56:
(Tim Miller)
Why?
27:57:
(Tim Miller)
What?
27:58:
(Tim Miller)
Let them have it.
27:59:
(Tim Miller)
Let them get it.
28:00:
(Tim Miller)
Let them get Trump.
28:02:
(Tim Miller)
And I guess there's a strategy of how to fight, right?
28:03:
(Tim Miller)
If he appoints an insane person to one of these cabinet positions, great.
28:08:
(Tim Miller)
Let him appoint the craziest fucking person that he can find to all these things.
28:11:
(Tim Miller)
Why would we push back?
28:12:
(Tom Nichols)
Why fight?
28:13:
(Tom Nichols)
I think it depends on what it is.
28:15:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm going to tell a tale out of school from the days when Bill and I were at these early, you know, holy crap, never Trump meetings.
28:23:
(Tom Nichols)
I'd show up sometimes.
28:24:
(Tom Nichols)
You were there?
28:25:
(Tom Nichols)
That's one of the ways we met.
28:27:
(Tom Nichols)
I love that we practically met in a bunker.
28:29:
(Tom Nichols)
Remember that?
28:30:
(Tom Nichols)
It was literally, yeah, it was a basement.
28:32:
(Tom Nichols)
It was dank.
28:32:
(Tom Nichols)
it was like the man from uncle, you know, it's like, go over to the elevator and a guy nods and you go down and, you know, a typical elevator in a big city or is it?
28:43:
(Tom Nichols)
And I remember one of the discussions that I had with bill back then was, um,
28:49:
(Tom Nichols)
And there were other people, you know, Elliot Cohen wrote a very famous piece about this, about should you work for Trump?
28:56:
(Tom Nichols)
And I said this in my piece yesterday, the decision that the Republican Party, the people that worked for Trump came to is to put baby bumpers and pool noodles on all the sharp edges around Trump.
29:10:
(Tom Nichols)
Yeah.
29:11:
(Tom Nichols)
And I remember that that was a big discussion among that group and among a lot of other Republicans of saying, you know, do we let them just.
29:19:
(Tom Nichols)
But, you know, Tim, it goes back to the thing you said earlier about, OK, but then a lot of people suffer.
29:25:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, needless.
29:26:
(Tom Nichols)
I think we might need that.
29:27:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, OK, but not needlessly, actually.
29:29:
(Tom Nichols)
Maybe there's a need.
29:30:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't want to be one of them is the thing.
29:32:
(Tom Nichols)
So when it comes to places like the Defense Department, look, if Trump wants to, I think tariffs is a great example.
29:40:
(Tom Nichols)
He keeps on tariffs, tariffs, tariffs.
29:41:
(Tom Nichols)
Hey, go for it.
29:43:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, I'm I'm the guy that back when I was still.
29:45:
(Tom Nichols)
writing at USA Today, I said, let's have that trade war.
29:49:
(Tom Nichols)
Get it started.
29:50:
(Tom Nichols)
Do it.
29:52:
(Tom Nichols)
Touch that stove.
29:53:
(Tom Nichols)
Embrace it, because that's the only way you're going to learn.
29:56:
(Tom Nichols)
But I do think if he wants to put Robert F. Kennedy in charge of national health, I mean, I think in that case, Bill's point is well taken, that you have to really square up and say, no, I'm not going to let this...
30:12:
(Tom Nichols)
deranged weirdo kill children, you know, simply because it would be fun to watch it happen and watch the world burn.
30:22:
(Tom Nichols)
But there's a different way to approach it.
30:24:
(Tom Nichols)
Say we have to fight.
30:25:
(Tom Nichols)
The first thing I wrote, the thing that I finished writing at three o'clock in the morning, you know, with a bottle of bourbon next to me was, um,
30:33:
(Tom Nichols)
to say, look, deep breath, square your shoulders, one foot in front of the other.
30:38:
(Tom Nichols)
Don't run into the streets screaming, you know, but start talking to other people, you know, citizen associations, figure out the candidates you're going to support, the organizations you're going to donate to, places that are going to, you know what I'm saying?
30:54:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm sorry, you know, no more demonstrative canceling of subscriptions, you know, help pay for journalism that will, you know, hold these people to come.
31:02:
(Tom Nichols)
You may hate some of the people
31:03:
(Tim Miller)
Local ones in particular.
31:04:
(Tom Nichols)
Subscribe to your local paper if you have one.
31:07:
(Tom Nichols)
Be engaged but not obsessed.
31:10:
(Tom Nichols)
Don't stare at the TV.
31:11:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't know about you.
31:13:
(Tom Nichols)
I haven't watched the news for like two days.
31:15:
(Tim Miller)
Unfortunately, I've been on the news for fucking two days, and I'm considering jumping off the 30 Rockefeller.
31:21:
(Tim Miller)
I was...
31:22:
(Tom Nichols)
I was on Morning Joe yesterday, so yes, I watched an hour of TV.
31:27:
(Tom Nichols)
But the minute it was over, I said, okay, I don't – because it was like, okay, we have more results coming in.
31:33:
(Tom Nichols)
No, I know the result.
31:34:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't need to know what Hamden County, Massachusetts –
31:41:
(Tim Miller)
And in Winnebago County, you can see this.
31:44:
(Tim Miller)
Trump is plus five.
31:45:
(Tim Miller)
And then you go to, you know, whatever.
31:47:
(Tim Miller)
We're in county and he's plus nine.
31:49:
(Tim Miller)
And I'm like, he's plus in every county, Steve.
31:52:
(Tim Miller)
I don't need to listen to this for 20 minutes.
31:53:
(Tim Miller)
You don't need to keep.
31:54:
(Tim Miller)
He's pressing every new county, you know.
31:56:
(Tim Miller)
Okay.
31:57:
(Tim Miller)
Oakland County, he's up 11.
31:59:
(Tim Miller)
And I'm like, yeah, he's up in every county.
32:01:
(Tim Miller)
Steve's got a job to do, dude.
32:03:
(Tim Miller)
I know, but I'm just saying there as a consumer of it, it was driving me insane.
32:07:
(Tom Nichols)
Like that character on, see, I don't go for Montesquieu.
32:11:
(Tom Nichols)
I was thinking of that character on Galaxy Quest who says, repeats what the computer says, I have one job on this ship and it might be stupid, but I'm going to do it.
32:21:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, all systems are normal.
32:23:
(Tom Nichols)
Captain, all systems are normal.
32:26:
(Tim Miller)
I needed that laugh.
32:28:
(Tim Miller)
I want to make one more case for that resistance is futile.
32:32:
(Tom Nichols)
We're like 40 minutes into this and we're slap happy.
32:34:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, I know.
32:35:
(Tim Miller)
Here's Nick Cataggio over at the Dispatch.
32:37:
(Tim Miller)
And if you'll indulge me, I just need to read quite a bit of it because it spoke to my dark soul in a deep way.
32:43:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
33:06:
(Tim Miller)
If you've been dismayed by what Trump voters have been willing to condone in the past, get ready.
33:10:
(Tim Miller)
You ain't seen nothing yet.
33:11:
(Tim Miller)
We're going to hear a lot of nonsense from never Trumpers in the months ahead about how the valuable work of democracy goes on and we must fight to save America or whatever.
33:21:
(Tim Miller)
And that's fine.
33:21:
(Tim Miller)
It's human nature to answer defeat with defiance, but it's also silly.
33:25:
(Tim Miller)
Ultimately, a country is just his people and you can't save these people from themselves.
33:31:
(Tim Miller)
That's a heater.
33:32:
(Tim Miller)
That's a heater.
33:33:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know if I agree with it, but there's a lot of truth there.
33:36:
(Tom Nichols)
I do agree with it.
33:38:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think that's why I love to read Nick, because that's the 180 proof white lightning right there.
33:48:
(Tom Nichols)
But, you know, look, he's I this is the misanthrope in me.
33:53:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, after the 2016 election, I gave a talk at a college of state New York and one of the faculty who was actually a Trumper.
34:00:
(Tom Nichols)
There are college professors who are Trumpers, believe it or not.
34:04:
(Tom Nichols)
I wrote about this in my last book, this incident.
34:07:
(Tom Nichols)
He said, your contempt for the voters is palpable.
34:11:
(Tom Nichols)
And I said, yeah, for some voters, it is.
34:14:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm not required to, you know, I'm not Jesus.
34:18:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm not required to love them for their votes.
34:21:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm required to love them as human beings, but I don't have to love them for, you know, what they've done.
34:27:
(Tom Nichols)
He said, yeah, that contempt is palpable.
34:29:
(Tom Nichols)
And I said, so is yours.
34:30:
(Tom Nichols)
I said, you just hate a different bunch of people and you hate them deeply and
34:35:
(Tim Miller)
And you think it's okay to hate them because of the power dynamic or whatever you justify.
34:40:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, the power dynamic and right away he went to an abortion.
34:44:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, they support something evil.
34:45:
(Tom Nichols)
Oh, all right.
34:46:
(Tim Miller)
So we're about to see some evil.
34:48:
(Tom Nichols)
Yes, exactly.
34:49:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think the one thing I hope and that I really liked in Nick's
34:54:
(Tom Nichols)
screed there is enough of this double standard.
34:58:
(Tom Nichols)
You can't judge them for their votes.
35:00:
(Tom Nichols)
The hell I can't.
35:02:
(Tom Nichols)
You need to reach out to them and we're all in this together.
35:05:
(Tom Nichols)
No, no.
35:07:
(Tom Nichols)
I respect their right as citizens to vote the way they want to, but I'm not required to affirm them.
35:15:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think that's the thing, that double standard where we infantilized Trump voters for so long, right?
35:22:
(Tom Nichols)
This is the same dynamic.
35:24:
(Tom Nichols)
And I think Nick's railing against this quite rightly.
35:27:
(Tom Nichols)
This is the same dynamic that had well-meaning reporters trumping out to diners in East Cupcake, you know, to say, you know, you're a 65-year-old retiree driving a Cadillac
35:40:
(Tom Nichols)
Why are you so angry?
35:41:
(Tom Nichols)
What can we do to make you less angry?
35:43:
(Tom Nichols)
In a sense, I've always said, you know, the answer is like, well, you can get that girl at the Starbucks named Rainbow out of there because I don't like her nose rings.
35:51:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, I mean, it's like you can't reason with any of these folks.
35:55:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, when you're asked, well, are you saying that by making this choice, they're bad people?
36:02:
(Tom Nichols)
Some of them.
36:03:
(Tom Nichols)
Some of them.
36:04:
(Tom Nichols)
Yeah.
36:05:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, I'm willing to grab millions of people who said, I really don't know that much about this.
36:09:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, I've come to accept that there are people who literally are so detached from the day to day affairs of their own country that they really don't.
36:18:
(Tom Nichols)
know the difference between donald trump and kamala harris in any meaningful way and they say like you know friends back home and say well i don't know about any of this republicans are always better for the economy okay i think that's irresponsible and it's bad citizenship but i don't think it makes them bad people but the people who want what trump was selling and there are tens of millions of them yeah they
36:42:
(Tom Nichols)
Yeah, this is a, I think Nick is right on the money about something here that no more talk consigliere, no more, you know, no more rationalizations about this.
36:52:
(Tom Nichols)
This is, these are people making a moral choice and it's really a bad one.
36:58:
(Tim Miller)
stop me before i rant some more but no no that's right um no i have one edit to nick's point and i think we don't have time to hash this out now but i just so people know where my head's at and and there'll be much discussion about this in the months to come you know i do think that the valuable work to save america goes on the valuable work of democracy goes on i guess maybe i don't know my edit to him is maybe there is some element of for this year for 2025
37:25:
(Tim Miller)
letting people see unadulterated Trumpism actually might be the work of saving America.
37:31:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, trying to do little things to make yourself feel better about putting bumpers on it might not be it.
37:37:
(Tim Miller)
So anyway, much to discuss on that.
37:39:
(Tom Nichols)
You know me, I have, I argued from day one, don't put the bumpers on things other than things that could produce nuclear disaster or the deaths of millions of children.
37:51:
(Tom Nichols)
The rest of it, especially the economic stuff, people,
37:54:
(Tom Nichols)
Have at it.
37:55:
(Tim Miller)
We've learned America's resilience.
37:58:
(Tim Miller)
And maybe, well, I just go back to the top of the podcast.
38:01:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe people need to get it good and hard so that we can get back to an equilibrium.
38:04:
(Tim Miller)
Because if not, otherwise, then you're in a total nihilistic place, which is like, well, nothing.
38:09:
(Tim Miller)
It's unfixable.
38:10:
(Tim Miller)
And I'm not there.
38:11:
(Tom Nichols)
Well, and also, I think people to our left, you know, one of the big arguments that I had over the years was, because I will do this when he becomes president.
38:21:
(Tom Nichols)
I will write about him.
38:22:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm going to cover those crazy press conferences.
38:24:
(Tom Nichols)
I want to amplify, partly as a way of keeping the record, you know, but also because I think that the more you see of Trump, the less you can deny it.
38:35:
(Tom Nichols)
And I don't want people on the left saying, stop amplifying him.
38:38:
(Tom Nichols)
Stop sending on his message.
38:40:
(Tim Miller)
That's all over and done.
38:42:
(Tim Miller)
I think, and my other argument, which we'll be discussing over the next year, is I do think that maybe a refocus on the details of what is happening in the Trump administration over the words coming out of his mouth is probably going to be a useful pivot and one that I'm going to try to focus on myself.
38:58:
(Tim Miller)
Okay.
38:59:
(Tim Miller)
I'm going to have to add one more thing about that.
39:01:
(Tim Miller)
Please, one more thing.
39:02:
(Tom Nichols)
And I have one more serious topic we need to close on.
39:04:
(Tom Nichols)
All right.
39:04:
(Tom Nichols)
This person I spoke to in Pennsylvania,
39:07:
(Tom Nichols)
voted early and then i said but you're not concerned about what you're seeing like that you didn't think that matter because she said oh i'm not a racist and i don't go i don't like any of that like you know like like that was somehow like any of that other stuff as if it's not central to trump's being exactly and uh but i said well you didn't like madison's great she said no once i voted i turned off everything i don't fall i don't watch the news anymore
39:32:
(Tom Nichols)
Now, that is alarming, deeply alarming, because that is not only am I in an epistemic bubble, I am building one.
39:41:
(Tom Nichols)
I'm building it from the inside out.
39:44:
(Tom Nichols)
And that's why, you know, all of that stuff, everything he does, it needs to be, you know, covered and not normalized.
39:51:
(Tom Nichols)
Because I will say, you know, we were a little hard on the Democrats today, I think, because I want to be kind of hard on at least some journalists who did engage in sane washing.
40:02:
(Tom Nichols)
And really indulging that bias toward coherence and not really covering.
40:08:
(Tom Nichols)
I mean, there is no argument.
40:11:
(Tom Nichols)
Donald Trump was not covered the way Joe Biden would have been covered if he had done the same things.
40:16:
(Tim Miller)
For Democrats are getting sensitive.
40:17:
(Tim Miller)
There's no criticism I can offer of Democrats that is deeper than my criticism of myself.
40:22:
(Tim Miller)
So trust me, it's all all the shame is on this side of the microphone.
40:27:
(Tim Miller)
All right.
40:28:
(Tim Miller)
You know, Alexander Dugan, Putin's brain.
40:30:
(Tim Miller)
brain brain he sent some tweets this week you see those by chance yes i did i'm gonna read a couple of them to you because it's uh i think that uh there's a little bit of mocking but also some some very serious worries for us to close the podcast with so we have won that is decisive the world will never ever be like before globalists have lost their final combat the future is finally open
40:54:
(Tim Miller)
Now we have to rethink our global strategy, how the world traditionalist circle should shape their common policy.
41:00:
(Tim Miller)
We need to reintroduce our society's traditional values.
41:03:
(Tim Miller)
Here, post-modernity meets pre-modernity.
41:06:
(Tim Miller)
And then he says J.D.
41:07:
(Tim Miller)
Vance saying he's announced that, I don't know if J.D.
41:10:
(Tim Miller)
Vance actually announced this, but Dugan said that he did.
41:12:
(Tim Miller)
The post-liberal right-wing era is coming.
41:14:
(Tim Miller)
This is exactly what's needed.
41:15:
(Tim Miller)
No alliance between the right and liberals, only traditional values.
41:20:
(Tim Miller)
They're pretty happy in Moscow.
41:24:
(Tom Nichols)
Yeah, although listen, this is where I'm going to be a little bit of a, hopefully a calming influence.
41:29:
(Tom Nichols)
Great.
41:29:
(Tom Nichols)
Don't overreact to Dugan.
41:31:
(Tom Nichols)
Dugan says this, you know, every 45 minutes.
41:36:
(Tom Nichols)
This is what Dugan does.
41:37:
(Tom Nichols)
There's no doubt they're happy though.
41:39:
(Tom Nichols)
Medvedev, Putin.
41:41:
(Tom Nichols)
Oh, in Moscow, they're popping champagne again in Moscow and in Beijing.
41:46:
(Tom Nichols)
America's enemies rooted for the election of Donald Trump.
41:50:
(Tom Nichols)
As the kids say, let that sink in.
41:53:
(Tom Nichols)
So there's no doubt about it.
41:54:
(Tom Nichols)
But Dugan is a nut.
41:57:
(Tom Nichols)
And even Putin has kind of held him at arm's length on occasion.
42:00:
(Tom Nichols)
But Dugan does bring up something that people should think about that as as nutty as Donald Trump is, and he makes no sense, and there's going to be a lot of terrible policies, you know, Vance and the tech bros around him are really dangerous.
42:14:
(Tom Nichols)
Because they have really stupid ideas.
42:17:
(Tom Nichols)
They think they can be implemented.
42:18:
(Tom Nichols)
They have no experience in politics.
42:20:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, we just elected a vice president who had literally like 24 months of experience in politics.
42:27:
(Tim Miller)
To me, I think the thing about the Dugan thing that is right, I hear what your point of his clownishness and raggedosha, is we're all liberals now.
42:35:
(Tim Miller)
I think it was Bill Kristol that wrote that.
42:37:
(Tim Miller)
The fight ahead is really not about conservatism and progressivism or whatever.
42:41:
(Tim Miller)
It's the survival of the liberal order is the fight ahead.
42:44:
(Tom Nichols)
It's the global democratic coalition against a global authoritarian movement.
42:50:
(Tom Nichols)
Had Americans thought about it more in that way?
42:52:
(Tom Nichols)
Of course, you know, I don't know if that would have broken through the big egg scandal.
42:58:
(Tom Nichols)
You know, it's like, hey, you know, China and Russia...
43:01:
(Tom Nichols)
You're electing a guy who says that Nancy Pelosi is more dangerous than the guy pointing 1,500 nuclear warheads at us.
43:09:
(Tom Nichols)
Would that have really broken through the horror and the pain of $5 eggs?
43:15:
(Tom Nichols)
I don't know.
43:17:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe not.
43:18:
(Tim Miller)
Tom Nichols?
43:18:
(Tim Miller)
Tom Nichols?
43:20:
(Tim Miller)
The eggs are expensive.
43:21:
(Tim Miller)
It's a mad world out there.
43:22:
(Tim Miller)
I think that the laugh about the Kornacki map was the first real laugh, not like doomsday laugh I've had since Tuesday night.
43:31:
(Tim Miller)
So I appreciate you indulging me and sharing that with me.
43:34:
(Tim Miller)
And we'll be talking soon.
43:35:
(Tim Miller)
All right.
43:36:
(Tim Miller)
In a basement, probably.
43:38:
(Tim Miller)
Take care, Tim.
43:39:
(Tim Miller)
We'll see you.
43:40:
(Tim Miller)
Thanks to Tom Nichols.
43:40:
(Tim Miller)
We'll be back tomorrow with an old friend.
43:42:
(Tim Miller)
Friday edition of the Bullard Podcast.
43:43:
(Tim Miller)
See you then.
43:44:
(Tim Miller)
Peace.
46:20:
(Tim Miller)
The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.