Michael Steele: The GOP’s Humiliation Kink

Welcome to

the Bulwark podcast. We are almost at the end of November two thousand twenty three. I don’t know how we survived this long. I don’t know how we’re gonna get through the next year. So we are joined by my good friend, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

It’s not his fault. Michael Steel. How are you doing, mister chairman?

I am great, my friend. How are you doing?

I am just hanging in there living the dream. Could we start with by far the funniest story of the day?

Okay.

Liz Cheney has a new book coming out next week. I think we’re gonna have her on the podcast, by the way. It’s just chock full of great anecdotes. But my absolute favorite, is her story about Kevin McCarthy and his visit to Mar a Lago. You know the one I’m talking about here?

Yes. She basically says Okay. So Kevin, you went down there to kiss the ring. I mean, WTF. What was that about?

And she says that Kevin McCarthy said, well, they called and said that Donald was was sad. He was so depressed that he wasn’t eating, so they wanted me to come down. So the Kevin McCarthy went down on a mission of mercy. Oh. So that Donald Trump, in his grief, in his sadness, and his loneliness, did not waste away.

So I’m I can’t get it out of my head. The the notion of Kevin McCarthy flying down to Mar a lago and feeding Donald Trump nursing him back.

That’s the part. That’s the image that I like right there. Sitting by the bedside, a for Lauren kind of you know, this is just open up. Open up Donald. Yeah.

Right. Open up. Come on one more. One more. Just one more bite for Uncle Kevin, just one more.

How poetically prepared.

Obviously, it was successful because it didn’t take too long for him to get back up to, two hundred and fifteen pounds. Right?

No. He did not. In fact, it what is amazing to me, it seems like he didn’t waste away the two seen either. So

No. But he could have if Kevin hadn’t gone down. Okay. So we have a lot of other things to talk about today, including, the Coke Bulwark deciding that it is gonna get involved in the primary. There’s endorsing, Nikki Haley.

We’ll talk about whether there’s any sort of Nikki Haley momentum Donald Trump continues on a daily basis to throw out some sort of weirdness. I guess, now he is threatening to use the government power to go after MSNBC, which is, like, feels like same old, same old. We have a new twist on the mic Pence story. Mhmm. Okay.

The Mike Pence story. Mike Pence apparently saying that he had at one point decided that he was not going to preside over the county of the electoral votes on January sixth, which which is really quite an interesting development. His son who’s a marine, apparently, talked him into doing it. We have talked in the past about, you know, what a close call things were you know, the contingency of history.

Yeah.

Things might have gone very differently on January sixth. If Mike Pence had said, yeah, I got this thing. I I I can’t I can’t make it. Let’s have Charles grassley preside over this because what could possibly go wrong.

Yeah. And and, Chuck, you can handle it. Right? I mean, I’m just gonna I’m just gonna be down the street, you know, just let me know if there are any issues. Yeah.

That’s how you know, thin, the line was between insurrection and democracy. And the attempt and insurrection I think, you know, foretold a lot about what we would later see, obviously. But it is fascinating now. It’s sorta step back and go, imagine what could have been had hence just been a little bit more manga. Yeah.

And decided that his interesting relationship with Donald Trump was worth preserving more than the country. I think we’d be in a very different space right now. And there would probably with very little exaggeration be tanks on the street and, you know, the country roiling and all kinds of stuff right now.

Well, we may have that to look forward to. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right?

I mean, we may have the tanks

in the street. Okay. I have to admit, Michael. I’m a little distracted this morning as I was preparing to do this and going through all of the serious choose, you know. Right.

Crane and Israel and the expulsion of George Santos, which is also rather entertaining story. I opened up my edition of the Washington Post and started reading this story, which I have to tell you, Michael. I don’t know whether you’ve had a chance to read it. It is extraordinary on several levels, not the least of which is that it is in the Washington Post. I wanna do this in case you think Charlie, you are cruising some bizarre corner of the internet.

And why are you interrupting your podcast to talk about this? This is the story, and I don’t know, by the way, I’d be interested to talk to the reporter about how she stumbled on this story Right. Is the headline. In the world of sexual fetishes, crossing the political aisle is a kink. And it has a note to readers, which I should share with listeners of the podcast.

Because of the sensitive highly personal nature of sexual fetishes, Several subjects use their stage names or fetish site usernames to speak candidly about the subject. The Washington Post has independently verified all of their identities. And it starts off with a story of of a woman who goes by the name of Roxy Ray, of course, Uh-huh. Line on her pink bed spread her bear with me. Her bleach blonde hair draped on her black teddy.

Other details about her body. She turns her backside to the camera and hers. That looks like just the view to persuade you to vote Republican for daddy Trump. We both know you don’t know what it’s like to be an alpha. You’re just a beta.

Obeying, doing everything I say. Pretty soon, you’ll be preaching and posting the Republican way all over your social media. The best part is you’ll really believe in it. This, apparently, this video is one of dozens on okay. And you can look it up in the Washington Post.

I’m not gonna name it. And there’s no video sharing website whose content creators cater to all kinds of sexual fetishes, including one that is rarely discussed. Outside of niche, kink circles, political humiliation. See, Michael, it feels like it was always going to come to this point.

Of course it was. Where there

was so much political humiliation that, of course, it would become a poli people would go on and so, yes, yes, make me vote for daddy make me vote for daddy too.

Oh my god.

Yes. I’m a beta. Oh, I know. I know. Okay.

There are people. Okay. For people who get turned on? There are people who get turned on by the idea of having their political views mocked. Usually, but not always by members of the opposing political group.

Liberal’s desire being dominated by conservatives and called pejorders that imply they are weak and understood. Well, conservative.

Tell me I’m a runner. Tell me I’m a runner.

Want to be mocked for supporting former president Donald Trump among other perceived transgressions, according to those who participate in this sub culture. So There’s at least look, listen.

There there

are at least four political humiliation groups in case you’re taking notes from, including They’re groups. Mega Doms, Lid Tard subs also active. Okay. This is not a this is in the Washington Post. I’m I’m just telling you folks.

Okay. There are also sites that cater to the taboo turn on with names such as triggered liberal snowflake.

Oh my goodness.

According to those who are active in the world of kink and appetite for this type of political role playing grew during the Trump administration, oh, we know. Right? I mean, you know, Michael, this was the one piece of the puzzle that perhaps we didn’t have. Oh, what’s going on?

It makes so much sense now. It makes so much sense now. I mean, you you can see you can see the arc, you know. You can just all the various stories over the years that have sort of seeped out into the ether.

Call me a name, daddy, Trump.

Call me a nickname. Yes. Call me a nickname.

Point that’s pretty easy. Yes. I am weak. I am a loser. Absolutely.

Tell me my wife is ugly that my father assassinated John of Kennedy. I’m not naming any names here, you know.

Oh my god. Can I

get through the next thirty seconds without saying Lindsey Graham’s name? I know. I’m sorry. I can’t. I failed.

I I I don’t know. I just I can’t do it. So this is a real thing.

But this story, this story is in many regards. Not that surprising. Because, you know, look. Over the years, you hear stories. You’ve been, I’ve been in a few rooms, and I’m looking at people going, okay, that’s that’s not normal.

And you realize, mhmm, that a lot of this has always been projection. That for all of the haranguing of the left about their cultural and their, you know, degradation and all of this it was projection. Meanwhile, this SOB senator or that SOB congressman is going to a little night shack down off K Street.

Yeah. Yeah.

Where there’s a dominatrix there waiting. They call him a Libtard. I mean, it’s not surprising.

Okay. So they’re gonna be academic studies talking about, you know, bondage sadism, masochism, and the political moment of twenty twenty four. Explaining American politics by the number of politicians who just crave humiliation And, and okay. I’m I bet you spent so much. Charlie

Charlie Charlie Sykes all now. It’s hit me like a VA. I under stand now why they were so mad at me when, you know, we had a staffer spend money at a lesbian themed strip club in Los Angeles when I was RNC chairman because they didn’t get the invite. It makes so much more sense now. I understand.

I could actually go on on this for a long time, but we need to move on.

So We move on. We move on.

So let’s talk about the Coke Network getting into the presidential race. Now back in twenty sixteen, they said they were, you know, wanted to be anti trump But they made the decision that they weren’t going to get behind one candidate. So, we all remember twenty sixteen, right, it’s burned under our you know, into our cerebellum’s, that there was no consolidation. They made a different decision. The strategic decision, they were gonna go all in for Nikki Haley, which okay.

So I wrote my newsletter today. I said let’s start with the stipulation that they are unlikely to win. Nikahilly is not going to beat, Donald Trump. On the other hand, you know these folks. This is a lot of money.

There’s a lot of organization. It’s a strategic decision. It signals that this is the moment for consolidation, and then Nikki Haley is gonna be the last person standing. Right. And it will probably shake loose other big donors who might coalesce around her as opposed to Ron DeSantis I guess I wanna get your take on all of this because, of course, the big question mark looming overall this is, does the money actually matter anymore?

So let’s start with that. No. It doesn’t. How do I know that? Look at the polls.

It’s not complicated people. The moneyed class inside the party did what at the very beginning this campaign. They decided, oh, we don’t like Trump anymore because he’s bad for business, whatever that business is. And so they, you know, galloped over to the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and they started pouring cash in and showing him love and elevating him and getting him out on Fox news and Rupert in the organization. She was like, oh, no bright shining object.

Let’s do this. And what happened? His numbers went nowhere before he started to tank on his own. He got close and the closest he got was twenty points within Donald Trump. Alright?

K.

But how much of that is the money and how much of it is the fact that Ron DeSantis is is an asshole?

And he was just a terrible candidate. Assholeishness notwithstanding. Money will buy you an asshole.

Yeah.

If he can buy you one. If that actually worked, if Trump voters looked at DeSantis and say, you know what? You guys are right. He’s a better value proposition than Trump. I’ll move over there even though I may some issues.

And yes, at the end of the day, he’s an ass. But they didn’t. So then they pivot to Tim Scott. Oh, Tim Scott. He’s so Reagan esque.

Oh, he’s so wonderful. He’s from the south yada yada yada. That went nowhere. Now they’ve pivoted to Nikki Haley. The same result is going to occur.

It’s not gonna move the Trump base off of Trump. Why would I take someone like Trump when I got Trump?

Let me take a more positive view

of it. It was being positive.

And I’ve been critical of of the Coke Network in the past. I think that their their position on foreign policy is very different from mine, actually, very different from from Nikki. They didn’t have to get involved in in this particular race. Sure. But they had decided that it is so crucial to stop Donald Trump that they are willing to do this.

The difference with Nikki Haley is and I have lots of problems with her, and I understand that she’s a flip flopber. She’s a hell of a better candidate than than Ron DeSantis. She’s much, much better than Tim Scott. She’s better as a candidate She’s got a more plausible thing. I don’t think she’s going to win here, but I do think that it’s a worthy effort if we wanna stop Donald Trump, if we recognize it twenty twenty four.

The the number one imperative is preventing the return of Donald Trump. Then it’s kinda all hands on deck. You know, and you’ve made alliances that you’re not proud. I certainly have. I actually have a picture in a desk drawer of myself.

I’m really sorry to say this. Right for the Wisconsin primary with Ted Cruz. And I’m thinking you’re like the worst human being on earth except for this guy, and I’m willing to, you know, work with you to stop Donald Trump. You know, so so I feel like we’re in twenty twenty four. You have Nikki Haley.

And again, what the Coke Network did was interesting. In one respect, they are very different, I think, ideologically from Nikki Haley, but they decided we’re gonna put aside our ideological differences We are not gonna let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We are not going to apply a purity test. Right now, it’s like, anybody but trump. Who is the most likely to be able to put either stop him or put a major speed bump.

And so I have to say that, you know, at least one and a half cheers for them getting involved in the because if you wanna take back your party, the Republican Party, then you’re going to have to have somebody.

Okay. Number one, you’re not taking back that party. That’s gone. So the framework has gotta be different. Yeah.

Because in order to take that back, you gotta excise or, you know, maybe have an exorcism of all the Maga meltdown bullshit that’s inside the party. The party infrastructure So all that, the Coke Brothers aren’t investing in that. They’re not gonna invest money in that. Don’t disagree. I’ll be honest, a little bit conflicted.

I work with the Coke Brothers on various other projects times. And so I really appreciate a lot of what they’re trying to do here. But at the same time, the reality is this. If I were the Coke Brothers, the first conversation I would’ve had was with Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis. Vivik is is a joke.

So we just take Kim Assad. He’s not probably wanting to be on the stage the next time because I think he’s now polling at one percent. Yeah. But have that conversation say gentlemen, You know, we love you. Yeah.

But we need you to leave the stage stage right.

Yeah.

We need you to go We’re consult. We wanna consolidate your support, our support, right mind at Republican support behind Nikki Haley.

Aren’t they saying that now? Isn’t this what they just said?

No, baby. You have that conversation before you have that conversation before you roll out your endorsement and your announcement.

Mhmm.

You think you’re going to back pressure Chris Christie into jumping off the stage? No. You get that done upfront. That’s the first conversation you have because you need to appreciate the landscape because you’re now pouring this money into a race And there’s still two of the guys who arguably can at least drain votes from her. So there is no consolidation here.

Not yet.

You get that agreement before you run out and then make that announcement. In fact, when you make that announcement, you make it with the two of them standing by your side, And then now you’ve created momentum. Now you’ve changed the paradigm.

If in two months, something like that happens, then the strategy will have work.

Are you too late in two months, baby? You too late. Okay.

Well, this is all the the the question with it. But I don’t disagree with you. I mean, I I think this is Trump’s party Trump’s party all the way down. Right. I said yesterday, you know, if you squint hard enough in the right light, if you turn your head in a certain way, you know, you’re looking to be Haley and you think this is what a post Trump Republican Party would look like, but no.

It’s not going back to norm so going forward, though, What would you advise them to do? They have resources to put into this race

I shut down the money, train access, the donors, and the support network for the other candidates.

If this were a functioning Republican

party, That’s a conversation the chairwoman would, as as national chairman with Donald Trump on that stage, not being on that stage, I would have had this conversation months ago. I would corrout everybody and say, look, okay. Somebody in this room needs to stand up and be the one and the rest of you need to get behind him. I’m leaving room. I’m going to lunch.

I’ll be back in an hour and you let me know your decision. Because if it’s the wrong decision, when we walk out of here, let me tell you what I’m gonna do is national park. And then you just lay out how you’re gonna manage the resources.

That party obviously doesn’t exist anymore, and there is no discipline.

It doesn’t exist. So all those little things Charlie Sykes weren’t put in place for this moment to be any different two weeks two months from now.

But this is different than twenty sixteen. And, you know, you think about where we were in in late in late November, twenty sixteen. You had a bunch of candidates who were not getting out of the race unlike, Scott Walker. At that point, it wasn’t super clear that Donald Trump was gonna walk away with this. They were all thinking somebody else is gonna take him out.

Maybe my moment will strike. There’s a chance. There’s just a chance. They hung on four months. Now at the end of November, it does look like Rhonda Sandes’ own life support.

He’s being abandoned by the donor class. Chris Christie has a niche campaign. I mean, I think he’s doing the word’s work by telling the truth about Donald Trump. I’ve said this before. I I’m not urging him to get out because every single day he’s pounding him.

He’s got a one state strategy. It’s all about New Hampshire. The only candidate now that has any sort of a reasonable path, and I think it’s, you know, big question, Mark. Is Nikki Haley. I mean, a whole Donald Trump under fifty percent in Iowa.

But a reasonable path to what?

See, here’s my problem. I’m not now let me let me jump ahead because What I can’t get to is, and then this happens, and she becomes the nominee, and Donald Trump does what?

Yes. You

know, this is this is the moment where it’s like, let’s play out all the game theory and she runs the table and she wins in South Carolina. And then this happens and this happens. And then Donald Trump, you know, graciously concedes and shows up in Bulwark. You know, wearing his ankle bracelet, and he walks around the stage holding her hand. No.

See, this is it, Michael.

Oh my god. It doesn’t happen. There’s no world in which any of that happens. I’ve been saying it. You’ve been saying it.

You know what I know for over a year now, this is such a farce. Not even on earth four. Let alone one, two, and three. Does Donald Trump say, you know what, Nikki, you bested me. You outlasted everybody else there.

So you served with me. You were my ambassador at the UN, You did all these great things you stood by me. Here are my resources. Let me go out and campaign for you. Let me get the manga base behind you to defeat Joe Biden.

That ish does not happen. Okay. Here’s something else that doesn’t happen, and

I hope that people get their heads around this. No matter what the result in November is. Yep. I mean, no matter what the result is, Donald Trump is not gonna concede this election. Donald Trump will never say that he’s legit.

So what you had happen after twenty twenty will happen again after twenty twenty four. Now he won’t be in the White House. He will not have the levers of power. He does have a, you know, manga dominated, you know, house representative, but this is going to be ugly. And I guess this is where you get to the the Republican Party in general.

And I wanna get to Chris Zanunu in just second or the Christian Nunez and the Peter Myers of the world.

Before you go there, I don’t want you to roll past. He will have a Republican dominated house in Congress. That’s very important.

Right.

There is a reason why Johnson is speaker.

I think so.

There’s a reason why you’re seeing things late play out the way they’re starting to play out because that has always been from what I pieced together, talking to various people, that has always been the play is the house is going to be the break wall. It is going to be the space where the twenty twenty four election will ultimately get decided. That’s their goal. And so we can’t lose sight of that. Let’s clarify what you’re what you’re specifically talking about because for people who think they have

a worst case scenario, what you’re describing is What happens if nobody gets two hundred and seventy electoral votes? If you have one of these no labels candidates or or third party candidate, that peels off just even one state somewhere. I don’t know which state it would be. If you don’t have a majority, under the constitution, The presidential election is decided in the House of Representatives, but not by a vote of members of the House of Representatives No. And, like, what percentage of Americans know how this works?

You have fifty state delegations, and each state gets to vote. So the woman who replaced Liz Cheney in Wyoming. She is the only congressman in Wyoming has the same number of votes. Uh-huh. They have one congressman as California.

California. Right. And so you have the majority of states delegations, which is dominated by Republicans at the moment. And I cannot imagine, you know, you wanna talk about the political chaos that we live in now after something like that. This has only happened once in American history.

Am I right? It was, eighteen twenty eight. The twenty eight Correct. And, of course, resulted in Andrew Jackson not winning. He said that he was defeated as a result of the corrupt bargain which created this massive backlash four years later.

He was elected. I mean, it shaped an embittered American politics for a generation back then. And, of course, they worked things out amicably in the middle of the nineteenth century.

And they didn’t have Twitter.

Well, we don’t either. We don’t either anymore.

And we don’t either.

You’re fine. It’ll be interesting the debates, and I’m starting to just jump ahead here because I think about this all the time. What is the debate about democracy gonna look like then? What is the democratic outcome? Joe Biden wins the the popular vote by seven million votes, let’s say, you know, theoretically.

Mhmm. Donald Trump becomes president of the United States without winning the electoral college, but winning in this house election that no American even knew existed Right. Right. Right.

You know, it would make Bush gore in all the complaining that Liberals did about their lack of understanding of how the institution empowered the Supreme Court to make the decision they made because of the constitutional clock that apparently the, you know, the Gore team was not aware of. That argument will pale in comparison to the noise. That will come out about this election. And certainly if it was the other way around where Joe Biden is short of the electoral college vote by, you know, two sixty nine, you know, to as opposed to two seventy two. And that gets thrown into the house.

And Donald Trump is, you know, twenty or thirty electoral college votes behind Joe Biden He still wins. It’s a mess. So it’s an important feature of this that I think we will need to spend some time educating and preparing people for because Not only is that likelihood. What sets up the likelihood of that is not just the fact that you don’t get the fifty plus one But what certain states decide to do because they’ve elected Maga election officials to go back and try the Jerry rig and outcome in their states. That is also a very real possibility.

And we’re doing a lot of war gaming around that now to try to understand exactly what those consequences look like and what the responses should

be. So this is where I was going though with the question about the Northern Republicans like the Chris and New News and the Peter Myers, knowing that if, in fact, Donald Trump is the nominee, You have the a very high probability of election chaos, this kind of disruption followed by the possibility of just an absolute shit show, you know, one constitutional crisis after another if he gets back into power. And yet they’re making the calculation. Yeah. We’re willing to go along with that.

This is where I come back to the Coke Brothers, and I’m I’m not trying to carry water for them because I’m not a huge fan, but At least they’re willing to say, okay. While there’s an opportunity to take an off ramp, let’s goddamn let’s take it. You know, the Republican Party has Nikki Haley versus the guarantee of chaos winner lose from Donald Trump, and they’re saying, yeah, we are willing to put country through that. We’re willing to put the country through these felony trials, the fact that he may be a convicted felon, the fact that, you know, he will try to disrupt the election, and we’re willing to do that to America because of X when we have reasonable alternatives right there. And even guys like Kristinounu, who knows what a crazy son of a bitch, Donald Trump is.

Peter Meyer, who voted to impeach the son of a bitch is now saying, yeah, I’m willing to support him. I’m willing to put America through that again.

I agree with you on the coach. I look, I’m glad they’re doing what they’re doing. I’m glad they’re putting that pressure on the political class within the party. But that class doesn’t give a crap about it. They don’t care.

So how do we think the outcome is gonna be any different when I mean, Peter knew damn well what the landscape is and was. And yet he full on embraced it because he wants to be a US senator.

Yeah. I mean, this is a perfect example of putting party over not just party over country, but putting raw personal ambition over everything else, putting your humiliation kink over the country. Yeah. So I guess at this point, I guess I’m the, you know, all hands on deck. Anyone that’s willing to stand up and say, we cannot do this.

This is an emergency. This is an existential threat. And so we’re willing to put all of our ideological differences aside. So don’t disagree with you about whether this is gonna work, but but at some point, I think that if we all recognize this as an existential threat to democracy, then let’s act like it, which means that we are going to have to make alliances and deals and even launch charges that are doomed from the beginning. Like, for example, Chris Christie

Yeah. Who

is a political suicide bomber and like more power to him.

No one is willing to do that. Yeah. And the reason they’re not willing to do that is because there’s still a Republican primary in process. Yeah. There’s still the Peter majors out there who are willing to endorse Donald Trump.

And that creates a greater problem for the efforts by the cokes and others to try to persuade and to move those pieces in alignment against Trump. Whether it’s behind Nikki Haley or anyone else, there is still that resistance. And that resistance has been in place since two thousand sixteen. When you look at the people who capitulated, who shouldn’t have. And we started this conversation about Kevin McCarthy going down to Mar a Lago because Trump didn’t feel well.

Well, I would have told that son of a bitch, take an aspirin. I’ll talk to you later. I’m not coming down to Mar a Lago to feed you soup, but they did, and they do. They continue to. So in one sense, what the coke effort is is inspirational.

And you we hope that people will get behind it I’m behind it. You’re behind it. We’re trying to move the needle. But at the same moment we’re doing that, Peter, Stanu knew. I know.

Other. I know. Stand up and go. No. Trunks my god.

And we’re picking on

them because we know they know better. Yeah. This is the best lack all conviction, and this is the story. It doesn’t actually bother me when you see the gases or the George Santos’s or the Margie Taylor Greens? Because I mean, that’s who they are.

Okay? Right. It’s the guys who make the compromise. The the ones and and you and you know this, Michael. These are the ones who sit in a room with you and y’all pashire scotch, and they’ll say, absolutely, this guy is terrible.

This is the worst thing. He doesn’t understand the constitution. Liz Chaney, you know, tells the story of one congressman named Green who’s, you know, signing the the support for, you know, bogus lawsuit saying, you know, oh, what we have to do for the orange Jesus, but he does it. It’s the people who know better that that are the ones who break your heart. Okay.

Let’s get to the section of the podcast that listeners hate the most. Okay?

Okay.

As former republican. Are you a former Republican?

No. I’m still a Republican. Oh, dude. I’m still I’m still inside the tent.

You’re just over in the corner there.

Well, snow, everybody, everybody inside the tent. That’s what I’m it. Yeah.

See, I think there’s a big tent, and I think there’s a little pup tent out there that’s like, that’s that’s Michael’s. It’s Michael Becca’s out there over over by the trees. Yeah. This Go over there by the latrine. That’s that’s where to Pete Michael.

I just I do you’re not in the tent, Michael.

I’m not in the tent.

I I I do not wanna be the one to tell you this, but you are not in this tent.

Okay.

And I’m not sure you wanna be under this big top either. Okay. So but okay. So given everything that we know about how crazy this party is, and Donald Trump on a daily basis, He’s not like dialing it back. And you can tell there there’s nobody at Mar a Lago saying now it’s time to be statesmanlike.

No. You know? No. And could we also mention that he still is facing, you know, four criminal trials, you know, ninety one. It’s almost like that’s become, like, the background noise.

K. So why are the Democrats not beating him? Why is Joe Biden losing to him in the swing states? Why do Americans trust Donald Trump over Joe Biden by double digits on key issues. What is happening, Michael?

I don’t believe they trust Donald Trump over Joe Biden on key issues in an absolute way. That is actually a form of voter projection. Projecting their frustration with the administration.

What is it that they’re frustrated about?

Their frustration is they believe one thing but are being told something else. And that happens in politics when you don’t communicate the thing you’re doing And so voters begin to backfill stories and narratives. They begin to connect dots that shouldn’t be connected. So for example, I’ll give you how this all began. Two years of Democrats talking about the filibuster.

While the American people were asking, who’s Phil? Who’s Buster? And what did they do? Why is everybody so angry at them? What did Joe Manchin do to piss off Phil and Buster?

Right? There there was no connection there.

That’s worked out so well for them by the way.

It worked out so well. Yeah. And so they started backfilling stories about it. And so when you try to educate and inform after the fact, people are like, what the hell are you talking about? Second example is the age narrative.

Now instead of getting out in front of that because a, you knew it was coming and b, we all knew it was coming.

Getting worse.

They didn’t. Yeah. So what happened? Who set the age narrative? Republicans did.

Republicans start talking about old biden is. Right? And there was no counter narrative to it. There was no what the hell are you talking about? Your guy walks up a plane with toilet paper on his shoe?

What are you talking about? Right? But there was no punch back. And that’s the thing. More than anything else, Charlie, the Democrats are the most politically inept party I’ve ever watched in the modern era with no ability to punch back.

They sit there and they whine and they grind and they ring their hands and they’re like, oh, We can’t say that. That’s too political. Meanwhile, they’re getting their lights punched out politically by a party that didn’t give a shit about politics. Apply to policy. And that’s exactly why they find themselves on the defensive on good stuff that they’ve done.

So now they’re trying to figure out how do I tell Americans that all those shovel ready projects that are popping up in their neighborhoods, all the roads that are being fixed, all the bridges are being fixed. We’re not the result of, you know, infrastructure week for four years under Donald Trump, but infrastructure legislation actually getting passed under Joe Biden. And they don’t have the president out necessarily telling that story. So you now find yourself layered on top of that Ukraine later on top of that Israel Palestine. Later on top of that.

You know, all these other things. The weight of it, and the voters are like, you know what? These people don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t trust them. And it’s not that they trust Donald Trump more.

It’s just they’re frustrated with the process of being told something that their eyes and their experience is saying, well, that’s not true. Okay.

I I’m really working on on coming up with the right analogies. I am trying to figure this out because When I talk to Democrats versus, you know, listening to Republican voters, it is like two separate realities, but not in the way of alternative realities. It’s like two split screens where Democrats believe that politics is about policy. It is about legislation. It is about shovel ready projects.

Right. And the American public looks at that and go, okay. That that’s fine, but that’s not the show. The show is politics. And there’s a separation there, and the Republicans bring the show, and the Democrats bring the whiteboard.

Yep. And they bring the simple broad strokes where the Democrats are bringing my white paper. I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna read you. I’m gonna tell you how you don’t understand what’s going on. But it’s not just a messaging issue.

I think that there’s a disconnect, which I find fascinating. I was talking to David French about this yesterday. You know what? You talked to Christian businessmen. And parents.

And they think that character matters, values matter. You ask them to do something dishonest. They won’t do it because they’re Christians. You ask them to they won’t do because they’re Christians. Their children are being raised to respect people to be good sportsman.

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. Well, no,

And then you have this incredible disconnect between the way they live everything else in their lives versus then when they walk into the ballot box and they go, yeah, Donald Trump. He’s the man that

I’m Yeah.

I do hope for the

guy who’s antithesis of everything I claim to believe. Right.

Right. So I get the sense sometimes that these are, like, conversations that are just not happening on the same planet. That we sometimes think that politics is about this. Okay. Let me let me torture this analogy.

The Democrats have come prepared for the championship cricket match. And they walk into the stadium, and it turns out it’s rugby. It’s rugby instead. And they play three quarters of the game, and they’re getting killed by the rugby players.

But here’s the thing. They won’t even hit the other po the other planes with their cricket sticks.

Well, no. They’re holding their cricket stick saying wait until the fourth quarter when we get our ups. Or whatever the hell they do in in cricket. It’s like, wait. Wait.

Have you not noticed that for the last three quarters, you have had the shit beat out of you because it’s actually rugby not cricket. And they’re going, you know, if we just could, you know, message the fact that we need to follow the rules of cricket we’re going to do better. I mean, there’s some just like folks. You know? I’m trying not to go to the, you know, bringing the the white paper to the gun fight, I think.

No. But you make an incredibly important point, and it is in one sense a way of speaking to what has happened among the American electorate, not just in the last four years or eight years with Donald Trump since sixteen. But actually over a longer period of time, so that the entertainment value of politics became much more important. Because it became like a live action series. And you would have all these great characters who would come out and everybody was watching and wondering and anticipating.

And to your point, the Democrats wanna present a fifty page analysis. Of all of that and how policy fits in at various points. And the public is like, yeah, but I got popcorn. Right now. And and a soda pop, and I’m watching some really crazy stuff.

And that’s actually more interesting than reading your fifty page thesis on why health care is better here than there.

Yeah.

There is this disconnect Not just from the political structures that have changed, but a disconnect from the voters themselves. Who are much more interested to your very, I think important analogy to the action on the field. Yeah. Right? A rugby match is far more entertaining to watch than a cricket match.

Trust me. I’ve watched both. Right? And the reality of it is I like the scrum. Okay.

Well, then In NFL right now, everybody is like, oh my god. How does Philadelphia always on fourth and three push the opposition that that is an amazing. I mean, that there’s always that thing that people latch on to. And the Democrats don’t have that thing that people are latching onto. And they need to find that thing that people will latch on to in this election.

Yeah. That’s It

is not just, oh, let’s have a in-depth conversation about Israel and Palestine to convince young voters that Joe Biden is right here. Right? It’s actually in a weird way deeper than that because it involves things that so far they’re not prepared nor willing to do that actually will get the voters attention that show the one thing that publicans consistently show. I’m willing to fight not just for what I believe in. But what I think you should believe in.

And that’s the difference.

The public likes the idea. Maybe maybe they want the the mango mussolini. Okay. So let me close on this, Michael. With a return to the Washington Post.

School full circle. Mhmm. Okay. What what is your name here? Roxy Gray.

Did not start out making political fetish videos. The Dominatrix began working as a stripper age eighteen transitioning to online videos a few years later specializing in foot fetish, Washington Post. Now she works full time online. And says she earned six figures annually. About ninety percent of her work is producing other performers, and ten percent is making her own content.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, where Ray advertises. She’s open about her conservative Republican beliefs. She voted for Trump twice, although she currently supports Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary. Ray received her first request for a political humiliation video in March two thousand twenty one from a fan who deemed her. Writing, one of the most difficult and humiliating sacrifices to make is to vote for a Republican candidate when you’re a Democrat.

If I were to surrender control of my vote to you, that would be the ultimate sacrifice. She charges about a hundred and fifty dollars for a five minute custom video and resells them for a dollar per minute in length. Okay. So Michael Really

in the long business.

We are spent this, you know, we spent this hour talking about politics and policy And there’s a world out there where people are, like, no dominatrix humiliate me I want to have the tears of a Libtard. So, Michael, this is, again, we think It’s one show. It turns out to be something completely different.

And when I started my day to day, the last thing I thought I’d be doing is having this conversation with Charlie Sykes.

Well, I think that political reporter is obviously gonna have to spanned the kinds of things they’re looking at online, by the way. No. There’s a reason why you don’t read a lot of stories like this, you know?

Yeah. There there is a reason. There’s a reason. And I love that you emphasizing. It’s in the Washington Post.

It is in the Washington Post. So don’t

need to call me or Michael

about this. Michael, it is great talking with you.

Always good to be with you, Charlie Sykes. Absolutely.

And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We’ll be back tomorrow, and we’ll do something like this all over again. Is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.