Our Exhausted Politics

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is Monday. We are almost at the end of October. So, Will, you and I have a lot of ground to cover this morning.

A lot. You actually watched the the R JC, the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting over the weekend? Hours and Hours of politicians talking to Jews. Yep. Oh my god.

And, of course, we have a lot of other things going on. What was your best memory of the Mike Pence presidential campaign?

I mean, we

Mike, we hardly knew you.

Now? I love Mike Pence. I have come to admire late late Mike Pence.

I’m not a Pence Basher, even though I I did this. But, I mean, it isn’t, you know, McKay Copin’s new book has Mitt Romney describing Pence this way. No one had been more loyal, more willing to smile when he saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe god’s will to things that run godly than Mike Pence. All of that’s true. And, you know, that’s not what did him in.

I mean, the the thing about it is is that he was the artifact of the Republican Party before Trump He actually had this sort of nostalgic, hey, let’s bring back Ronald Reagan, but none of that actually mattered because in the end, his unforgivable sin was that he wouldn’t go along with the coup. I mean, and it is it is worth just stopping right there to realize that in the last week, Tom Emma, had his candidacy for the speakership blown up because he wouldn’t go along with the big lie in the coup. And Mike Pence, the former vice president of the United States, His entire campaign was dead on arrival because he wouldn’t go along with the coup. And there we are. Right?

I mean, this is This used

to be a joke for me. I used to joke that how many coups do you have to support, I said, to lose the support of this party? There’s an answer. The answer is zero Any number greater than zero. If you support any number of coups greater than zero, you can be speaker of the house.

Right. You can be the presidential nominee, but if you only support zero, you can’t.

You know, I I was thinking this morning, and I’m sorry to go off sort of randomly of the real problems that we face right now. And I think one of them is we talk about fascism. We talk about all these other things. I I think the real danger democracy is just simple exhaustion. You know, you think about that speaker’s election last week where every single normie ended up voting for Mike Johnson, you know, full throated election denier, you know, coup supporter.

And, yeah, it’s a collapse of will. It’s a collapse of principle. All of that is true. But ultimately, it was just like people were just tired of it. Right?

They just they just gave up. And, I mean, isn’t that how authoritarians win When everybody is like, okay. Whatever. I just I cannot take this anymore. I’m not gonna pay attention to the news.

I’m not gonna be engaged. It’s all just two. Freaking exhausting. I mean, that and that’s how we got Mike Johnson. Right?

So, okay, I agree about the exhaustion, but there’s a specific thing that happened here, which is So was it Daniel Patrick Moynihan who wrote about defining DVNC down? Oh, yeah. And this was Moynihan, a Democrat, but this was a fundamentally conservative insight. Right? You look lower and lower your standards.

And I think that is essentially what’s happened here. You literally had House Republicans saying, you know, the best of them, the best of them, such as it is, saying if we were to impose that standard that you couldn’t have voted to overturn the election, we wouldn’t be able to get a speaker. So they had to drop that standard.

Yeah.

And that’s essentially what happened here. They normalized because they had to because it’s a pathological community they had to accept it.

I another one I’d necessarily pick on anyone because I understand how difficult it is, you know, to catch up on the weekend and to catch up on all of the all of the things that are that are going on. But I was I was watching a cable show this morning, and they were focusing on Donald Trump confusing Sue City with Sioux Falls, which kinda funny, you know, he thinks. He thinks, hey. Sue falls and somebody has taken beside and whisper, you know, mister mister president here actually different states You’re here in Sioux City and everything. And it’s like, okay.

Fine. But okay. It’s like, that was not the worst thing that happened weekend. I mean, you had Donald Trump. And where do you even start with all this?

He’s bringing back the Muslim ban. They’re gonna deport anybody that opposed as Israel at this point. And it’s it’s, like, doesn’t even, like, move the needle. He’s sucking up to Victor Orban again. Showing that he’s got this king for authoritarian strong men, even though he confuses Orban as being the head of turkey.

Okay? Just leave that aside. Doesn’t know where Hungary is on a map. He thinks that hungary is you know, adjacent to Russia is like one thing after another. And then he actually, once again, suggests I’m just sorry because I think we just gotten like, okay.

Do we have to talk about Donald Trump anymore? Donald Trump was bragging about threatening our allies are NATO allies that he would not defend them from, an attack from Russia. I mean, I am old enough to know when something like that would have been disqualifying. The spoiler alert here is that it will not even cause a ripple in the Republican Party. Because when you play that little sound bite in case you think I’m exaggerating, this is Donald Trump.

In either Sioux City or Sioux Falls. I don’t give a shit. Saying, really, saying that he would have betrayed our article five obligations to our NATO allies if they didn’t pay up or something. Listen to Donald.

And I remember the head of a country stood up. So does that mean that if Russia attacks my country, you will not be there? That’s right. That’s what it means. I will not protect you.

Really, part of the exhaustion problem is is that on a daily basis, we get so much disinformation, so many outrageous comments from Donald Trump, it is sort of like people have almost tuned it out. Right? I mean, the Muslim ban was a big thing at one time. Remember? I mean, actually, there was a time when he said, you know, idolology, a Trump will ban all Muslims, And Paul Ryan had to, you know, have a press conference saying, you know, this does not represent what the Republican party is.

Now what, eight years later, we’re going, yeah, that is what the Republican party is. And so it doesn’t even make the top five news stories of the day. It doesn’t even make the top twelve news stories of

the day. First of all, in terms of what Trump said about NATO. The thing you have to understand about Donald Trump in case you didn’t already is that Donald Trump has no conception of right and wrong in foreign policy good guys, bad guys. He he only understands money. So Yeah.

His entire focus has been on getting the Europeans are real enemies according to Trump. To pay more money for NATO. It’s just a financial, you know, are they paying enough? Trump’s just an idiot, but Putin is not an idiot. And Putin knows that because that’s Trump’s thing.

If you can get Trump back into power in the United States, that tears apart in NATO, and that’s Putin’s goal number one. So Trump’s playing right into that. The thing about the Muslim ban, it’s a little different. Trump is actually not bringing back the Muslim ban. The essence of Trump isn’t hating Muslims.

It is racial and ethnic and religious generalization as a whole. And so the the current version of this is not banning all Muslims. It’s banning people from all these countries, and at the moment, it’s anybody from Gaza. It’s important that this is anybody from Gaza. There’s no distinction being made here between terrorists and innocent people between, for god’s sake, Charlie, there’s no distinction being made between adults and children.

It says half the population of god says children.

Yeah.

The position in the Republican party right now, and it’s gone way beyond Trump is not just banned Muslims, but banned anybody from Gaza because they’re all being taught to hate Jews. So it’s the same thing as the Muslim ban in terms of making unwarranted generalizations and categorically prohibiting certain people from the United States, but it’s not specifically about Muslims. And of

course, predictably Ron DeSantis is all in on all of this. You know, he is he’s calling for the deportation of of anybody that participated in these marches. But also more specifically, he’s using the power of the state of Florida to shut down student organizations that might have taken positions he disagreed with. I am concerned about some of the things that are coming out of the universities. You know that.

We have talked about this. But I’m trying to reconcile this with the the rights claimed enthusiasm for free speech. It’s all about free speech. And then it comes to Ron DeSantis. And time and time again, he basically says, yes, you know, this is the free state of Florida except if you’re a student organization that says x, y, or z, or you were a corporation that disagrees with me on on all of this So how do these folks square the circle on free speech?

And yet are now talking about deporting, shutting down, banning, based on speech?

Well, let’s be fair to Ron DeSantis. Right? He cares as much about free speech as he does about free market. That is to say That’s true. Not at all.

Yes. Ron DeSantis personifies what has happened to the Republican Party. It has abandoned any of the principles that were in this platform about freedom. About markets and speech, and it has become simply a culturally right wing party. So it will use any means available, including the state.

In fact, especially the state to enforce its cultural agenda. Right? So I’m going to punish a corporation, Disney, that engages in speech I don’t like. And the same thing with college campuses. What does this work?

I I can’t remember students for justice in Palestine or something

like that. Some like that.

Some organization. Ron DeSantis has concocted this story that this organization has violated a Florida law about material support to terrorists. The law prohibits that. Right? And he’s claiming that because some members of this organization said something, identifying with Hamas.

That’s material support. That’s not material support. It’s free speech. It’s repellent free speech. But the point, as you know, Charlie, and as you’ve said before, the point of protecting free speech is not protecting popular free speech.

It’s protecting unpopular free speech.

I wanna make it clear that I think that you can push back against speech that you disagree with. You can ridicule it. You can condemn it. But Ron DeSantis doesn’t draw that line. He wants to use the power of government to punish, which is precisely what the first amendment I thought.

Would have prohibited. Okay. So let’s talk about some of the developments over the weekend, and there were so many of them. Probably one of the most dramatic was Pogrom in Russia. I’m sure you saw this.

Is this, in dagestan? I’m gonna confess that I can’t find dagestan on the map. You wanna talk about crystal slash pogrom, you had a mob go through a hotel looking for Jews, attacking an airport after an airplane landed from Tel Aviv. And people were interviewing, what what are you looking for? I’m looking for Jews.

Why? Because I want to kill them. And the authorities were absolutely nowhere. So we have this rising tempo. We also have the rising tempo of violence in the Middle East.

So, let’s talk about what’s going on in Gaza. Because October seventh was horrific. The big question was, how would Israel respond? Would they show any restraint? I wanna get your sense.

About the proportionality. And I know that that’s a loaded word, but the proportionality of the response that we’re seeing now in Gaza where the rubble is bouncing. Yeah. The rubble is bouncing. And, you know, if Israel were accomplishing something specific, like, we’re actually destroying the Hamas organization, its leadership, its tunnels,

if they were able to get hostages out, that would be compensating for the collateral damage in the civilian casualties. I don’t see evidence a that their particularly accomplishing in that or be that they will. And a lot of people who support Israel. Look, I am very sympathetic to Israel. I’m Jewish.

Okay? This is the homeland of my people, nominally. Mhmm. But a lot of people, Tom Friedman, and others, you know, agree that Israel does not seem to know what it’s doing here. It’s punishing because that’s what you do.

You know? Right? You hurt in order to reestablish deterrence. But who you are hurting And the United States government, never mind the the Gaza health ministry, which I’ve disagreed with about

the numbers. Right. And you wrote about.

The United States government agrees. Right? That there’s thousands and thousands of civilian casualties at this point. So it’s not clear to me that Israel is accomplishing strategic objectives, and it is certainly doing moral damage. It is killing innocent people?

Well, they they clearly are suffering a PR setbacks, particularly because people are trying to now compare what they are doing in Gaza with what the Russians are doing in Ukraine, which I think is strained, but, of course, then the pictures are pretty horrific. What are the Israelis saying? Because They are saying that much of this bombing is, in fact, aimed at the Hamas infrastructure, the tunnels. They did warn people to leave. They are saying this.

They are clearly targeting the leadership of a mosque. But I guess the point is they have to show the linkage between what our goals are taking out Hamas versus what looks like just mass carpet bombing of civilian areas. So What are they saying they’re doing? How are they explaining slash justifying what’s going on over the last, say, seventy two hours?

Well, of course, they’re talking about. They’re quoting numbers of Hamas leaders that they say they’ve killed. Yeah. But it’s always like this guy, that guy, maybe a dozen here or a dozen there. These things matter because those are people who helped orchestrate a a grum, a a slaughter of Jews on October seventh.

Yeah. But it’s a very small number compared to the number of civilian casualties and to the damage that you can obviously see in Gaza. Charlie, you and I talked about this the weekend. It happened. It’s It’s a no win situation for Israel just because of the composition of Gaza.

Because if you you look at the way it’s laid out, and as long as you have an air campaign, The Hamas guys are underground. Right? You’re gonna have to go through the hospital above them, the school above them, whatever it is to get to them. So in a way, Charlie, ground forces going in, which is obviously what’s beginning to happen now, would be potentially more surgical in terms of being able to find specific people.

Right.

But then you’ve got the additional problem of Israel soldiers are gonna get captured and additional hostages. And I just think it’s all bad from here.

But, also, you know, let let’s not downplay the role that played because, you know, they have traditionally used these facilities as human shields or as infrastructure shields for what they are are doing. Secondly, there is the concern about the humanitarian, no absence of of food and water and everything in Gaza. And yet, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of focus on the fact that Hamas itself has been stockpiling much of this and has refused. To share this with the civilian population. I mean, again, a reminder that Hamas has had decades in order to help its own people share the resources, the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid that have gone to them.

And they have scrolled it away. They have squandered it. They are holding it. So in many ways, they have orchestrated the humanitarian disaster as well. As a what?

As a propaganda club to use against the Israelis? Absolutely. Absolutely. And but this

is the paradox. Right? I mean, I saw Ron DeSantis on TV this weekend complaining that there’s a double standard. Right? And the double standard is Charlie Sykes exactly what you just described.

Israel gets held to this standard that hamas we just forget that hamas just ignores it.

Right.

But the double standard is part of being the good guys. Being the good guys means you’re gonna follow rules that the bad guys don’t follow. Right? And so it’s all true about Hamasas and its contempt for human life and its abuse of the innocent people in Gaza as well as the murder of the innocent people in Israel. That’s all true, but you still have to hold yourself to a higher standard.

And the current construction of this Israeli campaign it doesn’t make that possible. Honestly, Charlie, the only thing that would actually make this work would be to allow almost the entire civilian population of Gaza to temporarily be out of the area. You can call it northern Gaza. You can call it Gaza altogether. That requires the cooperation of the Arab States.

And as you know, the Arab States have not made that possible.

Okay. So let’s switch back to domestic politics. The linkage between aid Ukraine and aid to Israel. This is something that the Biden Administration is pushing Democrats seem to support. Mitch McConnell seems to support, but the new speaker made it clear over the weekend that he wants to decouple it.

And They are straining to explain why it is an America’s interest to support Israel, but it is not in America’s interest to stand with Ukraine against the the aggression of Vladimir Putin. How is that playing out?

Well, there’s a lot of political calculation going on about how many votes you can get for the Israeli aid, how much you can get for the Ukraine aid, and whether Right. You know, one argument is Charlie Sykes can put together two different coalitions. You get Republicans on board for the Israel aid, and then you get some Republicans to go with Democrats on the Ukraine aid. This is, as you know, very difficult in the house because of the idiotic caster rule, because the idea of that you have to have a majority of Republicans to get anything done. If that’s true, then Ukraine gets screwed because they don’t get enough of the House Republicans.

But the Mike Johnson versus Mitch McConnell situation is important and quite interesting. So McConnell and I’ve had a lot of problems with McConnell the way that he grabbed the Supreme Court, but McConnell seems Charlie, I’m looking for a nice way to say this. In his final years, I don’t know exactly what’s going on with this guy, but he seems to have decided that it’s this is a really important cause in life to get the money for Ukraine.

Yeah.

God bless him for that. Right? He’s working with Chuck Schumer and Biden on that. But he’s now up against a speaker who is trying to separate the two. And to me, Charlie, the interesting question is, what is Mike Johnson’s game here?

Is Mike Johnson trying to separate them out because he thinks that he can’t get the Ukraine aid. Or is Johnson actually planning to satisfy his isolationist right by separating them, but then to cut a deal with Democrats to do the Ukraine aid anyway separately.

I don’t know if he’s got the ability to cut a deal with Democrats. This is the thing. I mean, Mike Johnson may have been the rabbit they pulled out of the hat, but the hat is still completely dysfunctional. Right? So, you know, I mean, he still held hostage by Matt Gates.

He’s Matt Gates’s bitch. Right?

I mean Okay. Well, can I argue with you on that one? Yeah. Let me ask you this. Okay.

Jim Jordan was up for speaker, came pretty close. Didn’t quite get it, then we get Mike Johnson instead. And the the spin, the CW, we hear about this, is he’s just a nicer version of Jim Jordan. His voting record is the same. Is that true though on Ukraine?

Is it true, or did we actually trade in an isolationist and anti Ukraine guy for a closet or some semi closet pro Ukraine guy?

Okay. Well, if he’s in the closet, he’s deep in the closet on this. I think. And we’re just gonna leave that right there. Okay?

Okay.

So, well, let’s talk about JD Vance. And I have to admit that you mentioned, Daniel Patrick Moynihan before. I immediately flashed, you know, to the remembering when there were actual intellectuals in the United States Senate. And now we have the Marshall Black Burns, and we have the the Tommy Tubervilles. And what passes for an intellectual, I suppose, is the JD Vance types.

JD Vance is no. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But JD Vance was on one of the shows yesterday with Margaret Brennan, And he’s talking about helping Israel because they’re just asking for weapons. They’re not asking for troops. So let’s just play where JD Vance explains that they’re, you know, this is a strategic imperative.

I think what we have to have is some respect for our allies. They’re not asking us to send ground troops. All they’re asking us really is for weapons. Mhmm. And we should have some respect for their strategic imperative.

So he’s talking about the strategic imperative. And then Margaret Brendan though points out to JD Vance that Ukraine is asking for the same thing. Right? So JD Vance has to go okay. I’m I’m now shifting.

So here’s JD Vance’s modified version.

We should prioritize the build up of America’s industrial base and we should devote it to our true allies like Israel and of course the rising threat in East Asia.

Okay. So it goes from okay. It’s not just that they’re asking for just weapons. It’s our true allies like Israel. Because Ukraine is not our true ally.

Right? So the original line from JD Vance and the isolationist like him was you know, we shouldn’t be involved in this war with Russia. Right? And the Ukrainian said, Hey, we’re not asking you to fight. We’re doing the fighting.

Just give us some weapons. Yeah.

And Vance and these guys are like, no. And then they turn around, obviously, in the case of Israel and say, yes. We’re not doing the fighting. So then he falls back when she points out this contradiction. On this idea of who’s a real ally.

He lets that slip out. Like, Ukraine is not a real ally. So this Republican opposition in the Senate and mostly in the house, to Ukraine Aid, pretends to be about American involvement in wars. But, obviously, they don’t have a problem with American involvement in wars. What’s really underlying this is they think that Ukraine is not the good guys.

Right? And that plays right into the hands of Putin. He would like all the moral differences between himself and Ukraine to be washed away, the fact that he did the invading, the fact that he’s an autocracy, the fact that he’s the one, you know, raping and murdering and indiscriminately attacking civilians. So I just think that this anti Ukraine animus is being exposed as the real basis of the opposition.

Well, now as we’ve discussed in the past, there’s also a tax on the policy from the left. So far, the vast majority of of Democrats have lined it behind the the Biden policy, I don’t expect that to change, do I think that they’re pretty solid behind that, at least for now?

I think it’s vulnerable. I think it’s vulnerable on the left.

Okay. Well, Here’s a clip that you pulled from Representative Jayapal, who is the head of the progressive caucus. And she’s comparing Israel and Gaza to Russia and Ukraine. She’s drawing kind of, an equivalency here. Let’s listen to that of the double standard, she said.

This is a double standard. The United States rightly called out Russia for its siege of Ukraine, rightly called out the attacks on the power infrastructure, the refusal to provide food and water and fuel to the Ukrainians And we have to recognize that our credibility and our authority on the moral stage is is greatly diminished If we do not also call out these, this siege that Israel is launching on Gaza as violations of international law.

Well, this this is like a throwback to the old cold war. The moral equivalency that We criticize Vladimir Putin for trying to crush Ukraine. Shouldn’t we be criticizing Israel because Israel is the moral equivalent of Vladimir Putin will. So, Charlie, this this is part of why I’m saying that I think Biden is vulnerable on Israel

on the left because that sentiment that she’s expressing There’s a lot of people. They think right now Israel’s already the bad guys because of all the bombing in in Gaza. And again, my view is the bombing in Gaza is bad. My view is also that’s not the first thing that happened here. Right?

The first thing that happened was October seventh. And what what Jayapal is doing is just erasing that. Remember, in order to see Israel’s treatment of Gaza, the same as Russia’s treatment of Ukraine. I mean, in order for that to be true, Ukraine would have had to go into Russia to start this and murder, you know, fourteen hundred people. That didn’t happen.

But that didn’t happen. This is a retaliation. On Israel’s side, whether it’s a smart or effective one or a perfectly morally executed one, we can debate all of that, but it’s not a spontaneous attack to take territory. In fact, Israel has said they don’t want to control Gaza. They don’t wanna occupy Gaza.

Putin said exactly the opposite in Ukraine. Again, this makes my head hurt here.

Let’s go back to this, Republican Jewish conference over the weekend where Mike Pence drops out One of the more striking moments of that was, Nikki Haley, who is now, according to this new Iowa poll, has now moved up into second place where a tie with Ron DeSantis, we can talk about, that because there’s some buzz, including in the Bulwark, about whether or not it’s time to consolidate behind Nikki Haley. And Nikki Haley, who has tap danced around, like, am I really running against Donald Trump? How strong am I gonna be against Donald Trump? She certainly seemed to be raising the temperature a little bit. She really went right after Donald Trump at this RJC meeting.

Let’s listen to, Nikki Haley.

As president, I will not compliment Tesla nor will I size Israel’s prime minister in the middle of a tragedy and war.

That’s in his name, but we know he’s stuck there.

We have no time for personal vendettas. I will also not compliment Chinese Communist President Xi. Nor will I call North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, my friend? These are not good or smart people. Along with Iran’s Ayatollah, they’re the most evil dictators in the world, and the last thing they want is an American president who knows it and calls them out for.

So, well, what grade do you give her on this? What do you think?

Oh, I’ll give her an a on this.

Great inflation.

Oh, true. True. Okay. I can’t give her an a. It’s on

a curve, right?

It is. It is. It’s terrible. I’ve been corrupted by, had my standards lowered. Okay.

We can’t give her an a because an a would mean actually mentioning Baltimore’s name.

Yes.

Right? She won’t do So we’ll we’ll give her a b or a b plus or something like that. But she’s doing more than anybody else. By the way, I gotta say something about Haley and Pence.

Yeah. Yeah. Go.

Okay. Charlie Sykes Pence goes to this event, the Republican Jewish Coalition. Each of these candidates is speaking for, like, half an hour. Pence gives his spiel, and in the last five minutes of his speech drops out of the race. I’m leaving the race.

The whole room is, like, Whoa. No. Oh, Mike. We love you. None of these people are actually voting for them or giving you money, but, like right.

But there’s not a scene ago. Right? So Pence finishes He and Karen comes out and they wave to the crowd, they walk off. Okay. There’s now three minutes of a Ron DeSantis video.

Rhonda Santis is the next guy up. At this event. Now, Charlie, I’m only a straight guy, but even I know that if your fellow candidate just dropped out, And you come to the mic, the first thing you do is say, oh, Mike Pence is a swell guy. I love him. I really love what he fought

for in

reference to

it. Right. PS under my breath, like, all you, Penn supporters, you one percenters or whoever many you are, you know, come to me. Right? Charlie Sykes didn’t say a word.

Ron DeSantis just spoke like a robot as though nothing had just happened.

Almost like he’s robotic, you know? Well,

Okay. We’ve said before that Ron DeSantis seems socially retarded, but this was really extreme. And so the reason why I’m bringing this up in the context of Nikki Haley is Haley’s the next person up after DeSantis.

Mhmm.

And the first thing Nikki Haley does is say, Mike Pence is a great and I’ve, you know, supported all the right things, and we we all owe him a debt of gratitude and all, just like basic human Ron DeSantis. Right? Just talk like a human being. So To me, this drove home how bad a politician DeSantis is, and how by comparison, Haley is normal and decent, and I think this is one reason why we’re beginning to see a consolidation around her rather than DeSantis as an alternative.

Okay. So let me read you what, Mike Murphy, the legendary, Republican political consultant writes in this morning’s Bulwark. He said, to be clear, I have been a great a Nikki Haley critic, I found her to be depressingly cynical. If left it up to me, her secret service code name would be too clever by half. It’s kinda nice But in a race against the ghoulish democracy loathing madman Donald Trump, it is an easy call.

Go, Nikki. Go. I’m all in. Why? Alone among the contenders, she has a shot.

Nikki stumbled to the top in the last four months because she is the most talented candidate in the also ran caucus. She’s also the only enteredate running for real in both Iowa and New Hampshire. If she’s able to pull off upsets in the first two states, Trump will be hobbled. And she’ll have a real chance to administer the killing blow in South Carolina. Okay.

I think that’s that’s a little bit exuberant. But at some point, you have to have a consolidation. And at the moment, when you and I are speaking right now, is she the most plausible alternative to Trump? Yeah. It’s not Ron DeSantis.

Okay.

No. No. Ron DeSantis is I’m looking for a nicer word, but his social retardation is not reparable. He cannot be fixed. That is who he is.

Right.

She’s got that. So we have the other zombie candidates out there. I guess the the the question is whether or not it actually a difference looking at the poll numbers because as somebody pointed out this morning, I think it was Jonathan Lemir. The poll shows that if you ask Ron to Sanda supporters, who is your second choice, they say Donald Trump. So it’s not clear that if other candidates drop out that it would actually hurt Trump as opposed to.

So I’m just trying to imagine this morning, So what if? Republicans acted like Democrats acted back in twenty twenty. What if? And, again, we’re in looking for the unicorn stage of our conversation, today. Mike Pence.

You know, next week says, you know, not only am I dropping up, but I am endorsing Nikki Haley, and Chris Charlie Sykes says Okay. I wanna take down Donald Trump. I am endorsing Nikki Haley. And Paul Ryan comes out of wherever he’s hiding. It says, I endorsed Nikki Haley.

Would any of that make any difference whatsoever? What do you think? Because I am I’m skeptical that that would make any difference really at all at this point as of today. Charlie, let let’s test the proposition at least. I mean, I’m willing to do that, by the way.

Yes. Right. Right. So one of the things that Penn said as he dropped out was, you know, basically, it’s a bummer losing, but the the only thing worse than losing would have been if we hadn’t tried. So let’s take that attitude about consolidating the non Trump vote.

Let’s try. Let’s at least try and see what happens. I I don’t know what the number is. In Iowa, Trump is sitting at forty three percent right now. I think in New Hampshire, he’s a little bit lower.

Which is not fifty percent, which is interesting.

And then, of course, Hayley’s got South Carolina as a backup. And, you know, I don’t know how much that would count for. It’s her state. But the point is, I believe in New Hampshire, Trump is slightly more vulnerable because the number is a little bit lower. And if at some point, Haley could just break even with him or slightly ahead anywhere along the line.

I think that might fracture some of the feeling of invulnerability. I would just like to see it tried. So we’ve got Hutchenson, I think, is still nominally in the race, but he’ll be out. Oh, really. He’ll just out.

You can’t even know. These guys are officially in, but nobody thinks they’re in.

Doug Bergam is still in the race just as a reminder, you know.

How did it happen that the vice president is out the governor of North Dakota is still in. How did this happen? Okay. Anyway, let’s see what the consolidation can be. The real question now is, You and I both like Chris Christie among the Republicans.

Do you want Chris Christie to get out and endorse Haley at this point?

No. I don’t. I don’t because I think he still serves a useful function, but at some moment. And remember how

it worked in twenty twenty with the Democrats? I mean,

there was a moment where it was obvious, you do it now, or you end up with Bernie Sanders. And they all consolidated right before South Carolina. I don’t know what that moment is. You know, maybe it’s too early right now. But at some point, he’s gonna have to take the best shot he can take and then realize that this is it.

It’s a it’s it’s going to be a binary choice. I don’t think it’s going to be enough. One of the problems, of course, is that In order for this unicorn scenario to work out Republicans will will have to say, okay. We can win with Nikki Haley, but we’re gonna lose with with Donald Trump, but they don’t believe that. Because it might not be true because Donald Trump can actually be elected president.

Do you disagree with that? That whole electability argument has just Boon up.

Okay. I agree with part of it. He can be elected, and we’ve seen polls that show him beating Biden. Right? The difference is Nikki Haley compared to that anyone else on the Republican field has pulled better against Biden.

So with Trump, he could win, but it’s very close dicey. I think he probably loses With Haley, the odds are much, much better statistically based on the polls as they exist today, and that’s not true of anyone else in the Republican field.

Okay. So speaking of Halloween and scary reads, in my newsletter, I had my horror show read of the day. This is the, the axios piece, which I’m sure you have read Biden’s dual horror shows threatened his reelection campaign. And this gives you an idea of what the mood is at the at the moment. Top officials believe that Biden has been at his best in managing the early days of the Israeli Hamas war, but they privately concede.

That things have never been worse politically since the eighty year old took office.

Most troublesome, it’s hard to see how

to brighten his public image on issues haunting the American public, crime, immigration, inflation, race, trust, and now two divisive wars that America did not start. Biden’s top aids are deeply frustrated and somewhat bitter, said one backer in frequent touch with the West Wing. They think he’s doing a great job And by many measures, he is, but private polls show the same hurdles as the public ones brutally and stubbornly low popularity broadly and on top animating voters. So how bad is it? Let’s just start with the economy because this is the one

that’s Democrats are tearing their hair about. And not just Democrats, economists, like JBL and others have written in the bulwark about this. The economic indicators, objectively, have been pretty good on paper. Yeah. Household economic initiatives.

Right? But people don’t feel it. Right? It experiences a thing. It is.

It is. But I understand their frustration because this wasn’t true a decade ago. This wasn’t true two decades ago. This disjunction of feelings the way people feel about their economic situation versus their actual economic situation as reflected statistically. Charlie, there’s no precedent for managing this Nobody knows how to manage a gap like that between we we’re doing a good job and people aren’t feeling it.

I think there’s a lot you know, fanboy is going on here because, I mean, yeah, there are the numbers that have ticked up, but the fact that the rate of inflation is not rising doesn’t change the fact that things still cost a lot more. This is the lived experience of people. So Also, there has been a lag between wages catching up with with inflation. So, yes, if you could just force Americans to sit down and listen to economists whiteboard presentations. They would surely understand how wonderful bidenomics is.

But the problem is that most people, rather than sitting and looking at the whiteboards, are going to grocery stores and going to places where things still cost a lot and where they’re nervous. So, yes, there is a disconnect here. I would think that over time that disconnect would narrow, but I think that the the argument that, well, people are just stupid. I would hope that the Biden folks are not listening to that kind of advice. Because the voters are really, really stupid is, first of all, not a winning message.

It’s also, frankly, Not the greatest argument in favor of, you know, like, why we are champions of democracy. We believe in democracy, even though we think that the voters are too stupid to know, what is in their interest. So I think there’s a little bit of a problem there. By the way, I have much more provocative question coming for you in, in, like, thirty seconds. So just brace yourself.

Okay. About democracy. We at the Bulwark believe in democracy. That’s the north star. Right?

But it is true that people make dumb decisions, and they make dumb decisions at the ballot box. Right. The best argument for democracy is not that people make the right choice all the time. It’s that if you don’t let the people make the choice, a bunch of autocrats and oligarchs will make the choice. Right?

So you you need the people as a check on abuse of power. You need the people to be able to say, no. You’re not serving us. We’re gonna make you. We’re gonna overturn you and put in a new a new president.

So I let me set that aside. On the economy, on the economy Charlie, the argument isn’t that people don’t it shouldn’t be that people are stupid and don’t know what’s good for them. Part of the problem though is although prices have risen, wages are also rising. And in fact, the the wage increase has accelerated, And part of the economic argument is wages are catching up with prices. But Charlie, it may be true that although there’s multiple economic indicators in a household of how well they’re doing, the one they feel is the prices.

Every day, every week, you’re going to the grocery store, whatever, you’re feeling the price. You’re seeing that. And it may be that the wage is coming in, although that’s going into your bank account or whatever it is, you don’t notice that in the same way or with the same regularity as the prices So it may be that inflation in particular is a political killer.

Okay. So here here’s my more provocative question. And I was going to write this, and then I realized the analogy is so terrible that I would have to spend the first half of the piece explaining how it is not appropriate, but I’m gonna ask it anyway. Is it just possible? That Joe Biden, I mean, I understand that the fanzines would argue that well, Joe Biden is the second coming of FDR.

He’s the best president since Harry Truman is to, like, more awesome than Barack Obama, right, that he is Churchill reincarnated. But will, What if he’s Jimmy Carter? Okay. Now I understand that Jimmy Carter is a good man. I said a great post presence I understand that the economy is much better than it was in the late nineteen seventies, that, Joe Biden is not as naive about Russia as Jimmy Carter was there so many, many, many differences.

But on the other hand, there’s something about Joe Biden that he is not connecting with the American public. The American public does not look at him and see someone strong and dominant they can trust. All of these numbers seem to come back to the fact. And I’m not gonna get into the age issue. I’m just saying that There is the Jimmy Carter thing is people like, Jimmy Carter just doesn’t seem like a president.

Ronald Reagan was the strong man. Ronald Reagan had lots of flaws. And a lot of Democrats kept telling themselves, oh, don’t worry about Jimmy Carter, you know, with the with the cardigan and the Malay speech and stuff like that. Ronald Reagan is just too crazy and too extreme, and I’m wondering whether or not in the

eyes of the voters,

leaving aside because we wonks We have the whiteboards. We go through the list of legislation. Jimmy Carter had lots of legislation. Jimmy Carter had a lot of things that were really important that he got done. And yet, ultimately, voters looked at him and said, yeah.

We don’t see him as a strong president that we can rely on. We don’t see the broad shoulders. And I kinda wonder whether or not Joe Biden is suffering from a little bit of that. Is Joe Biden Jimmy Carter? You should read those pieces?

No. No. No. It’s too easy. It’s too easy.

Alright. So you’ve named them the economy is much better it was. Yeah. I mean, Jimmy Carter’s economy was terrible. Terrible.

Joe Biden’s issues. It’s not that he’s sort of wimpy. It’s not that he, you know, wears I can’t say I’m wearing a sweater, but, you know, it sits in front of the fireplace. Biden’s issue is eight. He can talk tough.

It’s just that he’s an old version of that, and it looks bad. But that, again, he can’t make that go away. The comparison, and we’ve talked about this before, I think it’s much better comparison. If you wanna talk about Biden being in trouble, the comparison is to George H. W.

Bush. Right, who actually was sitting in a better position, but and in terms of his international conduct was, you know, admirable, but that people just didn’t care about that. And they didn’t like the way the economy was going and they tossed him out.

Even though the economy was not as bad as people thought it was at the time. I mean, that was that was one of the frustrations. By the way, there was this same discussion back then. I mean, you had Bill Clinton saying this was the worst economy in fifty years and people came, no. Look, actually, it’s coming back.

It’s it’s it’s okay. It didn’t matter. Because people just thought he was weak. Yes. He just didn’t connect.

Like, you think of presidents that are one term it’s not whether or not they accomplish a lot. And I guess part of it is that Joe Biden and leave I’m gonna leave aside the age issue, that He’s never dominated the American political scene the way that more successful presidents have, that he’s never connected with people. Because there’s something going on here when you run through objectively the record. And you go, why is he got a thirty eight percent approval rating? Well, is it because voters are just stupid, or is it all Fox News, or is there something just lacking?

I mean, the people at some visceral level look at the president and they want something. They didn’t get it from George HW Bush. They didn’t get it from Jimmy Carter, and they may not be getting it from Joe Biden.

Look, the simplest version of this Charlie is that in all of us, we look for an alpha. We look for somebody who looks like he’s in charge. Right? Yeah. I was dancing around that, but you went right to it.

Yeah. The weird thing about Donald Trump is although he’s the world’s worst human being.

Yeah.

He is an alpha, and he’s constantly telling you all the great things he’s doing, but which Joe Biden is not? Joe Biden is a terrible communicator about his agenda and what he’s accomplished. With Biden, it’s that he’s an old version, and everybody sort of feels that he ain’t got it. Biden behind the scenes is doing all this stuff, and it just doesn’t seem to count. It doesn’t seem to count in his favor because people don’t associate him with it.

But to come back to the Carter analogy, what about the opponent that Carter faced? Right? Carter and Reagan faced A guy who’d been around, but had not been he was a sort of a more optimistic figure. Imagine if the Republicans had nominated brought back Dick Nixon, to run against card. I feel like that’s what Trump run against Biden is sort of like.

So they can blow it all by nominating a guy. In fact, they do seem likely to to be nominate a guy who is known to be corrupt. And a lot of people in the middle feel that he’s corrupt and recognize that. If Carter had run against Nixon, there may have been a lot of people who’ve just said, You know, I don’t like Jimmy Carter. I don’t like the way he’s running things, but we can’t have that guy back in power.

And that could happen to Trump.

Okay. So the world’s changed in a lot of interesting ways, but this is an interesting thought experiment that no one’s ever gonna prove it wrong about this. Right? So nineteen eighty, It’s bring back Nixon. Give him another shot.

Okay. He was a crook, but he was strong and people trusted him, and you know where he’s coming from? No. I don’t think so, but I’ve and again, the world is a very, very different place. You don’t have the media ecosystem system that’s gonna pump them up.

You don’t have the kind of intense tribalism. I guess what I’m getting at is you use the word alpha. I think that there is a some visceral level where where people want the president to be larger than life. They want him to be interesting. They want him to be a presence in some way And Joe Biden is not that presence, and it’s not just the age.

It’s just like he hasn’t used the bully pulpit. You know, you and I, or at least, I thought was looking forward to having a president who was not in our face every day that we could act actually ignore. Well, be careful what you wish for because, apparently, what Americans are looking for is either one that they want entertainment or they want something, but I do worry about the the Jimmy Carter thing because Jimmy Carter, I don’t think was a successful president. But he was not the complete disaster, especially when you go back and you look at the bills that were passed the legislation, but the economy was horrible. And do you remember what the the thing that was just killing people back then?

Interest rates and inflation?

Right. So objectively, things were somewhat better, but No. I think that’s absolutely true.

And Russia was on the March. It felt like America was losing was slipping. I don’t know whether whether Reagan ever said make America great again, but that was kind of the theme. You know? Right.

I mean, there was that sense that that America had gone through Vietnam, had, you know, gone through all of this and that America was slipping. Carter’s appeal in seventy six was I am a good and decent man. I’m gonna turn the page And that was very refreshing, but it was not sufficient. No. Ultimately, people wanted somebody who was stronger, bigger, who could get things done.

And can make America tough again.

Right. And it’s really disturbing to me. And I don’t know how you feel about this, right, Beth. I know how you feel about this. How much of this turns out to be affect.

K. That no. No. That’s exactly what I’m talking I am talking about

Okay.

The affect. Yes. Right. And, okay. I despise Donald Trump, like, with the fire of a thousand sons.

But if you watch Donald Trump speak, as I do often, you see what Joe Biden is missing. You see the bravado. You see the confidence. You see the self assurance. You see the bragging.

I did this. I made this happen. Reminders of any good thing that resulted during his presidency. Right? And and you see also fear.

He signals to people I am a fearsome person, and I will intimidate your enemies, and I will intimidate other countries. Joe Biden tries, but he just doesn’t quite have that.

Some of the people around Biden do get this because they are trying to do this. There’s a reason why he went to Kiev in a time of war. There’s a reason why he got an an Air Force one and went to Israel He is trying to project that world leader courageous thing. It’s not hitting, but they’re trying And I don’t have a quick solution to it. How do you fix something like that?

You can’t fix Ron DeSantis. We talked about that before. I’m not sure you can do it, but I think that ultimately your point about, imagine if Jimmy Carter would have been running against Richard Nixon, what people have done. And and that’s why the matchup with Donald Trump is so problematic. If you’re a Republican I mean, this is, again, the irrationality.

Look, If you run Nikki Haley, you have a really, really good shot. I mean, I’m guessing that there’s nobody in the White House. That would be popping champagne if Republicans nominated Nikki Haley. I think they need to be worried about Donald Trump, but Nikie Haley would be a completely different contest.

Right. And if you were drawing the analogy back to nineteen ninety two, the Democrats nominated Will Saletan, who would be the most similar person on the Republican side to that. It’s clear that Ron DeSantis doesn’t have the people skills.

Yeah.

Haley could be the Bill Clinton figure. To nominate against the incumbent.

Okay. So we have, we’ve been searching for a unicorn engaging in absolutely baseless historical speculation. So in other words, it must be Monday. So it will. It is great talking with you.

We will do this again next week. Alright? Thanks, Charlie. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bullworth podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes.

We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll do this all over again. Maybe we’ll actually be a little bit more reality based too, you know. But we’re podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.