Bill Kristol: Pure Oligarchic Greed

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m your host, Tim Miller. It’s Monday. So I’ve got Bill Crystal, of course, but a little bit of housekeeping first. After Bill’s righteous rant about the Trump donors.

I’m gonna have a little monologue about White World rage. You may have suffered through the social media discourse about our recent guests, and their book on this topic. And so I’ve got some personal thoughts, so make sure to stick around for that. We have an update for the big mailbag fans out there. And by the way, if you if you want to send in a mail question.

You sent it to Bulwark podcast at the bulwark dot com, but our very first mailbag was Cindy, who was thinking about moving to Door County because she wanted to make a and Door County is a fifty fifty County in Wisconsin. She had some ancestors that lived there, and she’s gonna move there for six months to volunteer. She reached out to the Wisconsin Democrats, and she’s doing it. Cindy’s moving to Door County. And so amazing.

We’re we’re so happy for you, Cindy. And if you’re in Wisconsin, If you’re in Green Bay or somewhere in that region, put a comment in here, and we’ll we’ll put everybody in touch and make sure she gets a warm welcome there. One more thing. We have two events coming up. We, have May first, our first trip to Philadelphia.

What’s up? City of Brother Love. We will be in you May first, May fifteenth will be back in DC at six and I with George Conway. You may have heard of him. I’m trying to get Claudia in the building, but I haven’t heard yet whether she’s gonna be able to make So go to the Bulwark dot com slash events to get tickets for both of those events.

Bulwark dot com slash events. Alright. This afternoon. We’re eclipsing. We won’t have another total solar eclipse in the contiguous forty eight until twenty forty four.

That’s assuming that god does not punish us with another one as Marjorie Taylor Green suggested was happening this time. So, Bill, do you have some eclipse glasses? Do you feel like god is judging your actions, and that is why we’re gonna have this historic event this afternoon.

You know, I’m not really as into the eclipse either way as a lot of people are. I’ve never, since it’s Susan, the other day, and and they’ve really been that interested in the heavenly bodies. And I’m sure that’s a failure on my part, a lack of scientific curiosity or something, but I anyway, I I hope some people enjoy it. That’s it.

Humana cares about what’s happening here on earth. Feet on the ground.

Yep.

Do you also not like movies about kind of like what’s happening out in outer space?

I mean, like, every one of my age, I saw Star Wars when it came out and all that. But now I I’ve never been much of a science. Never been a science fiction person. So I think there isn’t the conventional view that there are two kinds of people for kind of casual relaxing reading. This was maybe two fifty years ago not today.

Mystery readers and science fiction readers. And I do think there’s something true to that. And I like mystery you know, like actual things set here in England or America or anywhere, and in which, you know, detective soft crimes, and it’s semi realistic at least. And science fiction. I I don’t know.

But I don’t not being judgmental here. I I there’s a lot of great science fiction.

You’re not making fun. You’re not be grudging. Another Bulwark divide. I’m more on your side of this. We do have a couple of nerds.

I I believe at least Jim Swift and Andrea have traveled. Yeah. To Prime Eclips locations. Which, you know, God love you. Whatever brings you joy.

It’s an interesting travel choice though. Alright. We’ve got a lot of business. Let’s mister Trump, you wrote in the newsletter this morning. Really a strong newsletter if I might add about Donald Trump’s comments with some rich donors.

You can’t believe the fucking word out of their mouth. I’m I’m a little frustrated by of media just blindly repeating that Donald Trump’s saying that he raised fifty million in South Florida today. Like, let’s see the numbers. Alright. First, before we just believe whatever this person says, but Here is a quote that Maggie Haberman had from inside the fundraiser.

Trump, because recounting the shit hole countries. Discussion, which, you know, he claimed to fake news back when it happened, but now he’s he’s admitting that it actually happened and he’s and he’s reflecting on that controversy. I said, you know, why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries? I’m trying to be nice. Nice countries, you know, like Denmark, Switzerland.

Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway? And, you know, they took that as a very terrible comment, but I felt it was fine. Bill?

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah. I think Maggie and Michael Gold, or coauthor, also reports. This is based on an attendee who told him about this, who I take it is a trump donor. Right? You had to pledge eight hundred thousand dollars to the Trump victory fund and the RNC and that whole medley to get in.

So assuming this is a trump donor kind of cheerfully for counting this wonderful evening at Paulson’s house in Palm Beach, and, they chuckled according to the vehicle according to the attendee. So They chuckled at this denigration of immigrants and Trump revelling at his denigration of immigrants, if they’re not from the Nordic countries, the aryan countries. I did, you know, two medicine research yesterday when I was struck by the peace in the New York Times, people should read, really. You know, this is such a big deal back in the nineteen teens and twenties in America. Right?

This element, the nordic race You know, the race, we’re losing the race, the purity of our race and and led to very, very bad results in the real world. And Hitler loves some of it incidentally not to not to go right to Hitler, but why not? That’s true fact. You know? Anyway, yeah.

So these people all chuckled at it. These donors, of course, I look quickly at the list that’s is available. I think of the it was like the sponsors or something, the the original, you know, hosts, who signed up. They do not all have names that make ones think that they are from there. Sons and daughters of the American Revolution, or Nordic, or or Tutonic, or arian, there’s the usual meditative

American for that matter?

Yeah. But now there’s the usual medley of American names, which is good. I mean, you know, right? It’s America provides opportunities for wealth and success. And

it’s concerning, actually, that there is a normal medley of Americans that are donated Donald Trump. But yeah.

Yeah. I’m sure it’s slightly disproportionately, you know, on the teutonic sides of week in the, Nordic Ron DeSantis. But I so I looked up John Paulson, but I don’t know at all. The hedge fund billionaire, who’s the host. And it turns out I had no knowledge of this.

That his father’s from Ecuador, and his mother is, the daughter of East European Jewish immigrants, and they met at UCLA, you know, a state institution of public higher education, which I’m sure everyone in that room thinks should be defunded because a y is the state wasting money on educating four kids and b You know, it’s probably woke or something. So you think someone in that room would have thought, you know, this isn’t I’m, like, my parents or my Ron DeSantis, these are the people trump not only wants to keep out. But just as contempt and scorned for, but this seems to be no such reaction.

No. And sometimes I feel a little awkward with getting this earnest and high minded, but it’s just is and it’s It is what it is. You you wrote this. You ended the newsletter today with political leaders once tried to urge the wealthy to look beyond their immediate comfort, tag for the greater good, not pull the ladder of opportunity advancement up after them, and the more responsible this group themselves criticized. You know, the real temptation to wallow and the smug self regard and indulge in fan grief.

It says not Donald Trump’s America. This is, like, right. And, obviously, there were conservative politicians, time, immororial that said that we should cut taxes and that people should be rewarded for their success, and and we can have debates over that. But I there is a category difference between that and between denigrating people based on their race, between celebrating people only because of their financial success, which is another element of what is happening at this Donald Trump just lavishing praise on these people and and focusing only on what the government can do to make their lives, you know, even easier.

Yeah. Wealth is success according to Trump, and and it’s all about success. There’s not even the obligatory nod that used to happen maybe slightly obligatory to the scientists and the artists.

I’ll take a disingenuous obligatory not. Can you at least give me that? Or somebody messaged me this, that, you know, like, Tim, you don’t you missed that sometimes these rich people were grandfucking you and then screwing you behind your back. And I’m like, I’ll take that, actually. I’ll take it.

You know, just give me some obligatory, nobliss oblique.

Hippocrisy is the tribute advice based to virtue. Right? I mean, that you want that hypocrisy. Of, you know, what? We also respect the scientists and the artists and the and the do gooders and the philanthropists and the people who’ve made wonderful discoveries that have helped mankind, but there’s not even the pretax.

I mean, there’s not even, as you say, a nod to that anymore nor is there a nod to America as a nation of immigrants, which again is something people said, and then they went ahead with whatever policies. They wanted to go ahead with to some degree. So I I do think that’s important though, you know. The obligatory nods signify something. They signify a certain deference to kind of liberal democratic norms and history, and probably limit therefore the scope of the pure oligarchic greed And in particular, the scope of the authoritarianism, I mean, for me, that’s what’s so striking about Trump.

And all these huge donors who’ve done so well in America, so well over the last thirty years, under the horrors of the Obama administration and the Clinton administration and all those Rhino Republicans running everything. Those people have suffered John Paulson has suffered so much and all those other, you know, people writing checks for a million dollars. They’ve suffered so much in America that they just have to embrace this authoritarian And it was too earnest. I mean, I get too worked up about this. No.

No. No. No. I’m earnest. No.

This is my other two thoughts, so this is not earnest. Because fuck these people. And it’s like, I have a practical and an ideological thought one more while we’re getting ourselves riled up. On a practical manner, I also just think that they’re making a bad choice here. It’s like the economy is not going that great and hungry.

And I think that just risking to completely breaking down the American institutions and taking a a flame thrower to them in the form of Donald Trump’s second term might not turn out as well as they think. Just as a practical matter of for for rich people who are listening, The other thing I just think is worth mentioning is, you know, sometimes people of our ilk look at the progressives who wanna say, talk about everything being white ism, this white Jonathan Last, this thing, maybe they’re overstating. Maybe there’s a little bit too much talk of this white Jonathan Last. Maybe sometimes they’re exaggerating it, and certainly in cases, there’s exaggeration But, I mean, a statement that we should only bring in people from Denmark and Switzerland in a room full of rich people is kind of literally white nationalism, you know, And and so a lot of times you get the pearl clutching over the use of this term. And like that is what’s, you know, the the explicit argument that Donald Trump is making that this is a country.

We should protect America first, and we should only bring in white people. I mean, that’s his explicit argument.

At well received apparently by all these dozens of super wealthy donors who’ve done so well in in America.

Good stuff. That’s uplifting. One other thing, my note here is, rich people suck. This was, rich Trump donors suck. Rich trump donors suck.

Maybe what I should have written. Okay. The the other thing Can

I just add one thing? I mean, Rich Biden donors are a mixed bag. I mean, I was to play that too, and I wasn’t a big fan of the radio city, musical, you know, glitzy thing, and I gotta criticize my some people for saying, I didn’t think that was a brilliant political move, but if I didn’t campaign maybe they could raise the money a little more quietly and up, and so owe so much. We raised so much, you know, in such a public way, you know. It’s A podcast associated with it.

There’s a little much too much courting of donors even on the left. Having said that, At least the limiting liberals do have the sense that they’re supposed to be dedicated to something bigger. And, you know, maybe sometimes they don’t, they aren’t, and they’re selfish and hypocritical, but It is, I as you said earlier, it’s kind of a category difference, I think, to some of these trump donors. Right? I mean, they they they are trying to do well, but realizing they live in a broader democracy, and they have some obligations.

And they when Biden says I’m gonna raise your taxes, they at least pretend to go along even if quietly hiring hiring some lobbyists to work on the hill to to to prevent the taxes from going up. The Trump owners, it’s all just, hey. I cut your trump says to them this quoted in the piece of the times. I cut your taxes and give me some guidance on which kind of tax cut for the tax cut would be more helpful. I couldn’t quite follow the times as little abbreviated the account, but, you know, he wants to just help those much as he can.

There’s not even a pretense of this is for the greater good.

Indeed. One other thing from Trump from this comment resolute desk is beautiful. Mister Trump said, Ronald Reagan used it. Others used it, and Biden’s using it. I might not use it next time.

It’s been soiled, and I mean that literally which is sad. Again, like, in the last week, Donald Trump has accused Joe Biden of using cocaine and of crapping like, literally pooping on the on the resolute desk. I don’t know what I really want the media to do in this sort of situation, but we go through these cycles of where we had to spend three days, you know, rending our garments, whether Donald Trump literally meant bloodbath or figuratively meant it or whether he’s talking about the auto industry or what whatever. And yet, Donald Trump just gets away with stuff. Like, Downtown can just go out there and be like, Joe Biden is on cocaine and wears diapers.

And it’s like, okay. Well, there’s no there’s no expectation. That Mike Johnson and Mitch McConnell, you know, speak out and say, no. Actually, we’re working with Joe Biden. Right now on bipartisan legislation, and, you know, he’s a decent person.

We disagree on policy. He’s not pooping himself. Right? Like, there’s no expectation that happens. There’s no expectation that that conservative commentators do the right thing.

I I like this imbalance is just a continued frustration of mine that I feel like it’s just Verint’s mentioning. I don’t want to contribute to the one by not bringing it up. Like, the media doesn’t bring this stuff up.

Totally agree. And I want to say the the media would bring it up if Republicans criticized it. That becomes a story. And the media should bring it up anyway, but it’s a little harder for them just on their own, so to speak, you know, freestanding to sort of go crazy about this, or you’re not just crazy, but even make any kind of big deal about it. But you’re right.

There was once a time, and there should be a time, and it really is important for the health of the country. That the party be a party and say, well, in this case, we think our presidential nominee has gone too far. And the last time that happened was what day was that October seventh twenty sixteen when they rebelled against the excess Hollywood tape for about twenty four hours. And once that subsided, I don’t know. They’ve just they’ve just got along and, and got along increasingly, cheerfully and unhesitatingly, I would say.

Have some other news this morning Donald Trump has has released his position on abortion for now. Let’s take a listen to to a clip of it.

The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be.

At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.

Just as somebody that had to write papers in college. Like, it’s impossible to diagram that sentence. I there’s just a lot of a lot of nonsense, gobbledygook there. Politically speaking, Bill, what do you think about where Donald Trump has landed on this? He’s gonna say just whatever whatever the states think.

Whatever y’all wanna do is fine with me. Please don’t blame me for anything you don’t like when it comes to abortion. Seems like the stance he wants to take.

Yeah. That overturning gross stuff, I was so proud well, that’s actually just starting to get back to the states. And if you live in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Arizona, you’ve got abortion rights protected in in law to some considerable degree. And right now, you have governors who will protect it. And so don’t don’t not vote for me because you fear a national abortion ban.

So I think in some short term tactical way, it’s probably a reasonably clever move. And do we any actual pro life leaders are going to I mean, there’ll be some carping at Trump today, but are they actually gonna jump ship? I don’t know. What do you think, Tim?

I’m not sure there’ll be any carping. I saw a a match slap of, c pack just off having to have his insurance, pay out a big a big number after a sexual assault. Accusation. He tweeted out that they’ve polled people at CPAC, and that this is a popular position at CPAC. And so I I don’t even know how much carping there’s gonna be.

I worry that it could be effective. I do. I keep looking back to the midterms. And I think that clearly the two big things that helped Democrats were democracy, concerns about threats to democracy and and abortion rights. Right?

And if you just look at the places where the Democrats did well, if there were legitimate concerns about abortion rights and if the Republican candidates were mega extremists wanted to overturn the election, the Democrats tend to do well if there were states where the Republican candidates were at least in the ballpark of normal. And where they the voters felt like their abortion rights are relatively secure in California, New York. Republicans did well. The the Florida, I guess, would be the one counter example to this. Trend.

But besides Florida, that was pretty much the trend. And so I do worry that, you know, there’s some practical set of voters that doesn’t want to lose abortion rights or does not want the Tennessee zero week abortion ban, but who prefers Donald Trump for whatever reason on other issues and might might choose to vote for them if they feel like abortion rights are safe because they live in Wisconsin, whatever, and their governor is a democrat. How many people is that? I don’t know. But it’s not zero.

And I think it’s gonna be incumbent on the Democrats to really focus a campaign to message to those people about what the threats are.

Now, I I think it is, his lesser cunning kind of, you know, understand. He’s always understood that abortion was a problematic issue for him, and he’s always been a tried to have a little distance from the most fervent the pro life parts of the party. He certainly has gotten a little further in that direction here based on the twenty twenty two results or for all that he’s kind of a lunatic kind of doesn’t want to listen to reality and kind of visit lives in his own bubble and so forth and drinks his own kool aid, I guess, you know, he’s not impervious to a certain kind of electoral reality and and and hearing voters. And

Well, he doesn’t care about this.

He doesn’t care at all.

And he’s impervious. He’s in his own bubble on things that he cares about. His own ego. Right. You know, the fact that he won, his narcissism.

He doesn’t he doesn’t care about it. Or, like, him not actually caring about abortion rights, it doesn’t mean that the threat to abortion rights isn’t real. And that’s kind of the conundrum that a Democrat space in in making that case to people. That’s why I think.

But I and I think the one thing I think Democrats will be tempted and they should do this to some degree to put up all the old quotes of trump sounding much more, you know, dogmatically and for life and talking about a national ban and boasting about overturning Row. I’m not sure that’s really gonna convince people for one thing I don’t think a national ban is really practical given that it would take sixty senators presumably. Maybe the Republican senate would change the rules, but then Susan Collins would get on forward, etcetera. I don’t know. I I feel like that’s gonna be hard to sell, that that if you’ll vote for Trump, you’re gonna have a national ban on abortion or even much of a national restriction.

What I think you could sell much better is he has no principles at all. Anything you like about Trump, he could just as easily toss that over board, which is pretty much true with one or two exceptions. I think he does believe in the United States of dictators abroad than to democracies. That’s kind of one of his core principles. But pretty much everything else, you know, god knows what he could do.

And I think that the notion that he’s a totally unprincipled, you know, authoritarian, only in it for himself. I think axelrod said this to me on the conversation. I did with him and I I take it. This was based. Didn’t really elaborate on on some focus groups and and polling that Trump’s in it for himself.

And you are just along for the ride. And you may like some things he’s saying, but you can’t count on them, you know, manifesting themselves in any actual action that will help you I kind of feel like his betrayal of the pro life forces won’t make as much of an issue with that as sort of saying, well, he’s deep down. He’s still plotting to do that national abortion ban.

I think that Axrod’s frame is right. I do think that Trump’s gonna continue to appoint judges. These judges, you know, are gonna have oversight over various vortion rights, IVF rights, earth control pill. Right? Like, all of that, like, is something that that that is relevant.

I think that Mike Johnson So I’ve continued to suggest that the Democrats do a little bit more to elevate Mike Johnson’s profile. This man is the speaker of the house. Like, this person definitely wants a national abortion ban. Is that a risk worth taking? I I think that all of those messages are potentially convincing.

The other thing, Mark Caputo, who writes our Magaville newsletter flagged is that it seems like he’s gonna have to vote in Florida on abortion. He’s just gonna be one man voting, but he lives in at Marlago, and Florida has a ballot initiative on upholding the six week ban or not. Eventually, somebody’s gonna have to ask him about that. I assume. Don’t know.

May he might just be able to get out of it with the word salad, but I think that’s an interesting subplot.

Yeah. Agreed. Agreed.

Okay. We’ve got house dysfunction. They’re back. They’ve taken a holiday. Cartive is just being bombed.

Speaker Johnson does not care about that. They’ve been on a a lengthy vacation, but they’re back now in Washington, DC. Here’s a quote from Marjorie Taylor Green about the challenges facing speaker Johnson in the the coming weeks. If Johnson passes the sixty billion to Ukraine and then follows it up with Pfizer reauthorization, you’re gonna see a lot more Republicans than just me coming out saying his speakership is over with huge divisions. On on both of these issues for Johnson, what say you about what to expect here in the in the coming weeks?

I mean, I’ve been moderately hopeful on Ukraine. There’s such a clear majority in the house for it. And Johnson at least has said he kind of wants to make it happen. And I think he’s under the threat of a discharge petition or maybe a couple of different ones. If he doesn’t make it happen, but I’m also he’s managed to draw it out, and maybe I’ll just keep on drawing it out.

At some point, the Republicans who do wanna do the right thing have to drop the hammer and say, okay. We’re going to a discharge partition with the Democrats, not some sort of fake discharge petition that sort of creates yet another piece of legislation that that has to go back to the senate and so forth. Ultimately, the real hammer would be if five of them said, you know what? We’re gonna support Jefferies for speaker for, like, two weeks and get this legislation through and Jefferies would make a deal not to change the committees even for that time. I don’t know.

There are things they could do if they were serious, and they all claimed some of them, you know, I think in good faith, even really do wanna do the right thing on Ukraine, but there’s the party loyalty is so deep and the, I don’t know, lack of imagination, I guess, and fear of maybe political retribution, that they just can’t liberate themselves from pleading with Mike Johnson to help an ally fighting in the largest land war in eighty years against an unbelievably brutal dictatorship. I mean, can’t they do a little better than pleading? Aren’t they elected representatives? Aren’t they supposed to act? When something crucial is at stake?

They really only need three. I mean, you’re asking for five, but there have been so many retirements. There’s so few of them that are required. There’s a letter, you put in a newsletter this morning from Mike Pompeo to Johnson. We write as individuals, it’s him and the head of the Hudson Institute.

As you consider the path forward in the House of Representatives for the National Security Supplement that includes critical replenishment of US weapons stocks, and support to our allies, we encourage you to lead with conviction and bring the aid palette package to a vote. Think we’re kinda past the point of no return on leading with conviction. But, the Pompeo factor of all this is interesting. I mean, he’s like the one person that has just tried to walk this Maga isolationist, but also I’m still, you know, I still believe in the, post World War two, World Order. You know, a tight rope as much as anybody.

Does he have any influence anymore? Is this just a retired guy, Powell at the moon?

He’s been to the hill. Hudson’s brought. He’s, I think, associated with Hudson now. Hudson’s brought him to the hill several times, and I’m told he gets good attendance of Republican members of Congress, and they him. And so he’s not like bringing, you know, one of us rhino types, or never trump Republicans to the Hill.

So maybe he could do good. It wouldn’t hurt if Pence and others, waited on this too. Nikki Haley could, you know, she’s been good on this. And, obviously, he’s taking a bit of a break after losing to Trump. But again, she can write a letter at her.

I I feel like this is the moment on, when you see what’s happening and you create it so horrible and it’s so shameful that we’re not doing the minimal thing we could do, which is simply sending the weapons. I mean, I personally am sort of open to no fly zones and much greater NATO in US Obama, but I that’s probably a minority view, and I shouldn’t even say it, so I won’t.

But If the BullWork podcast, if you can’t say it on the Bulwark podcast, where can you say it? No.

That’s cool. Okay. I said it’s up. But, anyway, I’m I I hope others have a sense of urgency. It was that I get Pompeo credit because he didn’t have to do this.

He’s probably taking some grief for it. And I wish more people would weigh in, but I wish the actual members of the house who are elected officials by their constituents. They’re not they don’t work for Mike Johnson. In the old days. And, I mean, for all of American history, they have often been splits in parties, and that’s fine if you don’t agree with something.

And here, they don’t agree clearly, and it’s a very important priority. I would say the Biden administration is not ratcheted up the pressure on this. I think they’ve wanted, and this has been reported. To give Mike Johnson room to move, not look like he’s being beaten up, making his own choice. I can see that as a tactical matter, but I think at some point pretty soon, if Biden Syria is, I assume he is about Ukraine.

He needs to kind of make an issue of this to the country the way, you know, Reagan would have made an issue on a major foreign policy issue with bush in o seven, even though the war in Iraq was so unpopular defending the surge. Yeah. President Obama thinks he cared about. I mean, I I think this use a little more pressure from, from the White House if, if Johnson doesn’t do anything this week or, or next.

I could also use some more trolling. You know, we had Jared Muscovitz on last week. Who is a democrat from Florida. And, you know, he’s done a nice job. I think of kind of pantsing, comer, and Jim Jordan on the impeachment stuff, but Not every Democrat needs to be sober and responsible.

I like we like sobriety and responsibility, but we could use a couple guys over there in the house really shaming them and making them, you know, suffer some political penalty from this dysfunction and the stall. Right? I I and I think that maybe whether the Ukraine issue itself can carry political penalty or just a broader issue of, like, these guys can’t do anything. And like they went on vacation. They’re back.

He can’t do anything. Like, they can’t govern. They don’t care. About governing. I I do think a little bit of more trolling than that would be.

I agree.

Welcome.

You know, they always set those up with those big, what are those cardboard things? What are they called on diesels? You know, sometimes it’s a chart or a photo, how about photos of Karkiv, which the second largest city in Ukraine, which is being just destroyed purely gratuitous. No military reason at all, just to kill Ukrainian and make the city less and less habitable in Ukraine, destroyed by the Russian Air Force. That’s where I do think, you know, NATO Air Force.

Why exactly don’t we declare it or no fly zone? But leaving that aside, we could help Ukraine with obviously anti aircraft and and patriot batteries and so forth. And they that’s what they’re asking for, they’re not asking for us to intervene. So people should go to the floor with those photos and say you are not doing anything. And innocent people are being killed.

By a brutal dictator. And it’s the easiest thing to do in the world. Send them the weapons. Right?

Totally agree. And can I just you might actually be providing some political help here, but we maybe might need a headline? I mean, this should be tomorrow’s newsletter. Bill Crest told No flies on over Ukraine because that allows moving the overton window, you know, allows people to be like, well, at least I’m not crazy like Bill crystal calling for a no fly zone. I’m just I’m just calling for weapons over here.

Maybe you can help move the overton window Thank

you for that suggestion.

I wanna finish with, watching women’s hoops this weekend. What a tournament?

A little bit. I think of a talk, weirdly, it was scheduled ages ago yesterday afternoon at a local kind of community organization. So I missed, most of the Iowa game.

Was Princeton the local community organization that you’re talking about? No.

I was in Princeton during the was with the Virginia Jewish community center. Very nice people. But, yeah, I was in Princeton and got chewed up in Princeton. Actually, students were perfectly sane and intelligent. And I I used to talk with different kind of groups of them as part of my little half day at Princeton and they gave a broader talk and stuff actually, So it showed me up a little bit, you know, maybe the young ones will save us.

There’s not like hang glider memes or any pro, far you know, ending overthrowing capitalism, not not none of that, you just I

I mean, they may not have come to talk to me if they were into that, but The students that has been pretty quiet there. Princeton has the big advantage of being a. It’s kind of prince to adjust different tradition, maybe, and b. It’s not in a big city. If you’re a professional activist, you’re in New York or Boston, and then you just hop on the sub bank up to Columbia or to Harvard Yard and, you know, cause a huge amount of trouble.

They’re not probably living in Princeton if you’re a professional, twenty seven year old, left wing activists. So they’re kind of a little bit insulated.

Fair. And maybe I I was discussing about this on the next level podcast last week about how I was at USC for a week doing a study group. And, Same. I’m the USC Campus was great. My study group had a diverse set of views on Israel Gaza.

We discussed it. You know, there were members of the group that were very much pro Israel. They held an event that was about freeing the hostages, which I attended on the quad and There was no, you know, and any of the kind of, like, whatever. Nobody’s throwing feces at them. There was no counter so again, one school, maybe USC and Princeton both private school self selecting maybe in a certain way.

But I was equally encouraged that people felt free to share their views, pro and anti what was happening in Israel on campuses, and that know, some of the dooms dang about the fact that the youth are too afraid to give their opinions was not what I experienced at USC either. Okay. I do wanna on women’s basketball before I leave you. I have to just rant about one thing. If that’s okay, would you mind just listening to a rant?

Happy to.

The final four was amazing. It was so good. And Sarah and I talked length about women’s basketball on the secret podcast. So if you’re not a bulk plus member, this is your chance to join the bulk plus go listen to the secret podcast. If you really wanna hear my thoughts on kind of, like, analyzing the strategic of the various, teams, but the Yukon Iowa game, I watched it a bar in New Orleans, and it was rocking fans on both sides, just people were so into it.

You know, you would have thought it was a saints game or something, the level of interest in in Yukon. I I I watched with my daughter, the championship at home, and, that was great game USC. It was wonderful. But because I was at home, I was suffering through social media while I was on it, And a few things that I noticed, the right wingers that wanna just take all our joy away. You know, we had Steve Dace who was tweeting about as great as Caitlyn Clark is.

All her records are gonna be broken by some young freshman at the citadel who decides he feels pretty and wants to pretend to be a girl. Megan Kelly who is the self appointed protector of women’s sports. I was looking at her feed this morning. She’s posted several times about the women’s tournament. Nothing nice.

About any of the players. She insulted Don Staley, coach of South Carolina for saying that she’d be open to having a transgender woman playing in woman’s basketball. She was calling some random person a reporter a disgrace for abandoning our daughters, blah blah blah. I don’t really wanna get into that. We can debate transgender sports action.

But the thing that, like, that bothers me about all this bill is, like, The people who are out there, like, donning this mantle of being the self proclaimed defender of women’s sports don’t like women’s sports. I mean, I’ve I’m raising my head. I’m new. To this. I I’m new to to caring about women’s maskable.

I’m loving it. I’ve been loving the tournament, and I’ve always felt the thing is it’s I care much more about Dawn Staley’s opinion about protecting women’s sports, one of the best women’s basketball players herself, who’s now won three championships as a coach who has to coach these young women who is with them day to day, who cares about them, who’s obviously competitive, who is crying, and just a beautiful moment. And and her congratulations of Kate Bulwark was very beautiful. I care a lot more about Don Staley’s opinion about how to protect women’s sports, and I care about Megan Kelly’s. And so, anyway, if you’re out there and you feel very strongly that transgender women shouldn’t play in women’s sports and that you wanna protect young girls and young women.

I feel like the anti for holding that position is also actually enjoying women’s sport. So so that’s anyway, that is my rant. That was just driving me crazy over the weekend and, it was a wonderful tournament And, you know, the people that are trying to kind of ruin our joy in the culture war are really pretty evil, I think. So I don’t know if you have any final thoughts on that or any any meditation.

That was well said. I’d take your point about the, you know, obviously, they should care about and like what they’re claiming to defend. The other thing is they just are so interruining everyone’s joy. No one was thinking about it. I mean, everyone enjoyed the women’s final four.

There were interesting stories about at least three of the teams. Maybe before the teams. Obviously, Caitlyn Bulwark,

Paige Bukers off an injury at Yukon.

Great player, but SC seems to have been I don’t again, I haven’t followed this for SC, a generational team. I mean, just right. I mean, Yukon, and instead of enjoying it or letting the rest of us just enjoy it. And keeping their own thoughts to themselves, you know. So how much of the culture war really is about them being unhappy, them feeling a sense of grievance and wanting to make the rest of us unhappy.

You really wonder about that. Right? It’s not about is it about any actual issue they talk about, or is it they think they see people in America enjoying themselves in a kind of healthy and good natured, but can also competitive way. And they say that I I hate it when those people are enjoying America in twenty twenty four.

There’s an element to this, and their critique is always of the left. It’s like, oh, the left wants to take our joy away with the language police and all this. And I think this is the Joe Biden Advantage. Just as a great Joe Biden Advantage is that there is a coalition, the new silent majority of people who just wanna enjoy women’s basketball. You know, who just wanna enjoy women’s basketball and they’re not interested in the language police.

They’re not interested in being shouted down and turning it into a debate about transgender politics. This one enjoy the tournament and celebrate the young women who were just so talented and so passionate. Maybe that is our advantage. As we go into November, but that is the the silent majority. People who just wanna be normal.

Okay. Bill Crystal, we’ll see you back here next month. I’m on the other side with one more rant. I’ve got one more rant. It’s a double Tim rant day about White World rage.

Stick around for that. Alright. We are back. I wanna get into the white rural rage curve fuff a little bit. For those who were, you know, enjoying their end and blissfully missed this are articles in political and the Atlantic arguing that the academic research underlying the book was misused, what liberals wrong about white rural rage, said politico, misleading book about rural America, said the Atlantic.

There’s a lot of Twitter discourse about this. A few people sending me messages about how I’m a liberal elitist, blah blah blah, for having these people on. And so I wanna get into it. I wanna get into the critiques. Some of this is a bit of a nerdy pedagogical inter academic argument.

Some of this is just about the research methods that, Shaller and Waldman used. Some of that may have merit, but it’s just not all that relevant to the broader political questions that we’re getting into on this podcast. So I wanna focus on the effort to take those academic critiques and broaden it out to try to dismiss the argument that they’re making, try to dismiss the notion that we’ve seen any uptick in right rural rage at all. We’ve seen a lot of this. There are people out there saying this is just another case of, you know, academics and morning Joe, green room types who never leave the sell a corridor staring down their nose at real Americans.

And on that part of the charge, I think that there are two minor points that have some merit. I wanna get into those. But in the big picture, I think that they really miss the ball and that that Walden and Shauler have the argument. So Let’s take a look at the two points of the critics, I think, got right. The first w is on the semantic point, and that is over the use of the word rage.

Now I wanna point out during our interview, which, by the way, everybody should go back and listen to the whole thing. And, we had a ton of feedback on it, and and a ton of folks listen to it. So, you know, if you happen to miss it, you just kinda go back to the archivist a couple weeks ago and go to the white roll rage app. But during that discussion, Shaller admits that the authors were gilding Lily a little bit with the title. Let’s just listen to what he got.

First of all, and we have pled guilty to this. In public appearances already. The title is bit provocative. We use the word rage, but we’re really talking about the academic and scholarly construct reset but White World resentment is a lot of syllables and doesn’t really fit neatly vertically. And as you know, publishers want, you know, one word, Bulwark Malcolm gladwell kind of titles We couldn’t get it down to one or even two words, but we got it down to three words and four syllables.

And so we’re really talking about resentment. And if you do a search on the galleys of the book as we done. The word rage actually appears in the actual tasks a handful of time.

Okay. So I get it. They’re slang in books. This is a business. I had to slang books.

Everybody has to do it. But it is quite the caveat on the title. When he said it, I I was wincing a little bit And I just think that calling it white roll resentment, making it accurate might have cost some book sales, but was probably on the right call given the backlash now that they’re dealing with. And so sometimes you just gotta take your lumps on this sort of thing. And, the fact that he was offering that.

I wasn’t even really pressing him on it, and he just volunteered that showed that they were sensitive and knew that these we’re gonna come. The second critique was something that I did ask about, which was whether we can really identify whether the most enraged resentful groups here are actually the rural trump supporters or whether they’re in these mega communities in the excerpts. Because in my experience, it’s where I’ve seen the most punisher stickers. Okay? And, I think this distinction is important.

And being imprecise is important. And trying to suss out whether the radicalization is the same or different or more intense or less intense in Queens Creek, Arizona, where I went to Gary Carey Lake Raleigh or in waverly Iowa where I lived where, you know, the town had been hollowed out because of globalization. I don’t know. Maybe there is a difference in these kind of rural rural communities or the small towns are acting versus you know, the kind of sunbelt excerpts. I don’t know.

And so I I think that that’s a distinction that’s worth getting into. We got into that on the on the podcast. And I’m not sure that the book provides a lot of clarity on that. Okay. But here’s my big picture defense of the author’s broader thesis.

Both in terms of the academic data, and all of our life experience. There is undeniably a radicalization happening among Royal White one of the book’s critics included this line in the article in Political. Our research, the the critic is a is a researcher. Our research found that just twenty seven percent of rural voters, including twenty three percent of rural Trump voters. Think that if the opposing candidate wins in November, people will need to take drastic action in order to stop them from taking office.

They go on and say that’s the same percentage they see in urban and suburban areas. Okay. But here’s the thing. Just just twenty seven percent? Just?

Like, that is an insanely high percentage one and four. Twenty three percent of rural trump voters, one and four think that drastic action would be needed to stop buy in from winning realx. Do we have a baseline on what that number looked like in nineteen ninety six? Because I don’t think there were one in four dole voters planning drastic action to stop the Clinton reelect. Okay.

Something has changed. And there’s another fact that you have to consider here. We’ve seen with our eyes what these people mean by drastic action and how drastic action looks in different communities. Over the last eight years. You remember the women’s march and the pink pussy hats?

That’s what left wing drastic action looked like following Donald Trump’s shocking victory. Alright? It was protests. It was peaceful. There were some rage there.

No doubt. I had some rage, but the way it manifested was within, like a normal band of how you would expect people to protest in a democratic society. Now compare that to what happened on January sixth. Alright. So we saw what drastic action looked like on January sixth.

Beating up police officers storming the capitol, raising a trump flag over the capitol and taking down the American flag. So, yeah, it worries me. A little bit when one in four trump voters are already stating that they are planning drastic action. Here’s another thing that those of us who actually venture out into Red America have seen. Alright?

There’s a tangible uptick in radical right wing political statements happening. My in laws live in rural West Virginia. That great airport options there. God love you. But, you know, sometime we gotta fly in different places.

We’re trying different things. What’s the best way to get there? For seventeen years, I’ve been doing a lot of driving around rural North care line of Virginia, West Virginia, rural appalachia, going to their house, going to different communities near where they live. And, you know, back in the late two thousands, two thousand nine, ten, eleven, the political signs I saw were mostly leftist that were mad about the fracking that was happening in these rural communities. The last few years, trump sides with quite a few f words.

Fuck your feelings. Trump twenty twenty four. Fuck you. You know, trump forever. I so an index marking the number of fuck your feelings signs, I see driving through rural Virginia might not be academic rigor, but it’s not nothing.

Alright? Like, that’s happening. The same story is true with the oath keeper stickers. Look, I I drive a lot between doing the circus and between driving to Louisiana driving around Louisiana driving through Texas. The number of oatkeeper stickers that you see on cars, on the highways is notable.

The radicalized crowd I talked about. I go to these events. I’ve seen these The crowds are different. The crowds at Mitt Romney events versus the crowds at Carrie Lake events are different. The crowds at Trump events versus crowded McCain events, it’s different.

What Tim Alberta and what David French have written about and the evangelical churches in these communities, the changes that are happening there, the number of Trump flags and the boats in Florida. Alright. I’m just telling you, but again, anecdotal, but I have friends that go down to Florida for the beach. They used to invite me. Now they’re kind of like, I don’t know.

Gay family with a black daughter pro I don’t know. That you probably wanna come right now. It’s because it gets pretty weird. There’s a lot of very political drunk people now at the beach in Florida. Okay.

These are all anecdotes. Alright? But you put them all together? How about the mass shooters with their manifestos? We’ve read the manifestos.

It’s not nothing. Alright. We’re not imagining these changes. We aren’t reversed racist elites. For noticing the changes.

So if some rural expert professors wanna have a white paper off with Shaula and Waldman on their thesis, make it more precise. I’m all for it. I’ll for it. But to take the critiques, and then use them to dismiss the thesis outright, demands that we not believe our lion eyes, that we not notice what happened on January and what’s happened all across the country in many of these communities. We’ve already seen up close the consequences of what happens when you ignore threats like this.

So speaking of our lion eyes, hope you wore your eclipse sunglasses this afternoon. We’re gonna see you back here tomorrow. We’re gonna do it all over again. Please.

Gonna be

The Secret Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.