Tim Miller: LOLs in DeSantis-Stan

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast on Treleysetics. It is Friday, which means we have made it through another extraordinary week actually, this is my first five day week since the summer. And of course, we’re sort of back to our normal rhythm, which means I am lucky enough to be joined by New York Times best selling author. I mean, you love that, aren’t you? Tim Miller.

Yeah. And and, Tim, you are actually on the East Coast. Today. Right? You’re doing you’re doing your book tour.

You’re down in Florida. You were in Georgia? Doing the whole south.

Yeah. I’m in Tallahassee today. I’m at an undisclosed location. I’m trying to keep a low profile as I travel to the state of Florida. Every time I see a Florida state policeman somewhere, I start looking for potential exits.

I don’t I don’t wanna be shuttled onto a plane against my will while while I’m in the state or I’m in the Santa Stan. So I won’t let anybody know. But last night, I was at Stanley Bradshaw’s bookstore, the midtown reader, and it was so so great. If you find yourself in Tallahassee, do go go support it. It was so fun.

A lot of bold work. People there. There was one person actually double screening Thursday night bulk work while sitting at my book event, you know, trying to trying to multitask so the superfans are out there. And I do just wanna say because I did a drive Charlie from Atlanta to Tallahassee. And I for some reason, in my head, I don’t know if I googled this or I imagined it or hallucinated it, but I thought it was a three hour drive when I decided to drive and set a fly.

And after about six whiskey’s after the Atlanta book event. One of my friends was like, well, when you leave in tomorrow and I told him and I said, I I think that’s cut in a close. It’s a five hour drive. So I had five hungover hours driving from Atlanta to Tallahassee, which allowed me to get fully caught up on my podcast. And I’m I’m a little for the first time since maybe the first time I was on with you, I’m a little intimidated because your last two podcast, General Hertling and Katherine Rappell, I mean, these people are bringing facts.

They they I learned a lot of things on the on this drive. And, you know, today, listeners are just gonna get canned. Just gonna give my bullshit. You

know what? We need candy after the spin. I think of yourself not as candy, but think of yourself as the well earned dessert And for a lot of heavy lifting, you know what I

mean? You know

what I mean? You know, talking to, you know, general hurtling into into Catherine Grand Palle, you you come away I come away smarter because I’m asking them to explain very complex things in the in the world. And they did a masterful job.

They were doing

great. It is Friday. It is the weekend. We need dessert. So, okay, deep breath here.

Since you are in Florida, we have to talk about the absolute real genius of Ron DeSantis who has who has this isn’t just an epic troll. It is triggered the lips. There are, you know, think of all the tears that you’re getting in Martha’s Vineyard. He is flying refugees slash migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. It is as I’m being told by right wing media, including our friends at commentary, and and even at the daily basis, just chef’s kiss just brilliant political theater because it exposes all of the hypocrisy in the North.

So Tim Miller. Tell me about real man of political genius who is the governor of the state that you’re you’re hanging around in.

I mean, maybe it’s a political winner, but I do find it very weird that you would write a column if you are, you know, a person of even a modicum of empathy that you would write column talking about how it is a political winner to use refugees, escaping Venezuelan communism, as just pawns and a big fucking joke. And and if you assess that that is a political winner, which I which they aren’t be right about that, The the question then kind of becomes, well, what does that say about our fellow man that that would be considered a political winner? Because There’s nothing that we haven’t heard of. Yeah. Exactly.

Nothing good. I mean, it feels like it’s something we should at least be reflecting upon if if you’re gonna talk about how great it is at Here’s the thing. I would almost understand the argument if it was if this was a situation. Veronica Santos is a governor for You could even have imagined this in the nineties. You have a governor in a southern state.

It’s like we have all these refugees coming in. I’m gonna call my buddy Charlie Baker up in Massachusetts. You know, we are gonna create a Who’s also a Republican? Yeah. Who’s a Republican, by the way?

We’re, you know, we’re gonna create a transfer you know, this happens all the time. Right? We’re you’re a one in Afghanistan refugees. We’re trying to move people to a state where, you know, maybe they have family or there’d be more job opportunities, more housing. Like, okay.

Like, that there’s nothing in in this it’s kind of underlying the argument about the people who are defending this. Like, there’s nothing inherently wrong about moving to a different state. It’s not like they were sending them back to Venezuela or whatever. Mhmm. But it’s but it’s a way in which he goes about it.

It’s like a purposefully purposefully cruel like troll. And they’re treating these humans, you know, to this to this big troll that is also, by the way, totally unnecessary. Totally unnecessary. I mean, at least in Greg Abbott’s situation and and screw that guy forever. And and but at least Greg Abbott is having to manage, like, a a challenging border situation.

And, you know, I I I wish again that he was in good faith, like, looking to help for help from other states, which is not. Rhonda’s interest isn’t even in that situation. You know, I don’t know for those of us, our readers up north in Canada, or people who haven’t spent any time down here in Florida, you might want to consult a map, but we’re not even fucking close to the border. Here. Can you go through multiple states?

Ronda Santos is not managing influx. He had deported people from San Antonio.

Here’s an interesting detail. He’s using Florida tax dollars. To fly Venezuelan refugees fleeing communism from Texas to Massachusetts. That that may be somewhat, you know, complicated there. But again, they’re yeah.

They’re not even they’re not even Florida migrants. It is interesting that you chose the the Venezuelan. But it can you know, let’s not get hung up on the details because this is just brilliant political theater because it owns the lips. I mean, they’re tiers are the sweet sweet Effortesiac for the base. So this is working.

Look, you’re a former, you know, political consultant slash hatchet man. In this part of you that goes, oh man, I wish I could have pulled off this kind of shit. I mean, this is this this is better than coming down a golden escalator and blaming Mexican rapists. I mean, okay, so Trump did that. You know, these guys are actually putting them on buses and sending them to Chicago and Washington DC.

I mean, what? I mean, I really don’t hard the lives. I don’t I this is the other thing. It’s it’s like now

the part of the owning the lives, I I don’t think you even have to actually own them. You just have to imagine that you are — Yes. — and and and consider that you’re being lever. Right? Like I saw this.

I was I was, you know, just doing a quick scroll through Twitter before we get on this morning to make sure I didn’t miss anything overnight. And, you know, I saw a guy Benson. He’s another one of these Yeah. On the more conservative on the more normal side, if you have to do, you know, he’d be a team normal person of the of the fox pondic crowd. Like, not the not the the most obnoxious, not on the Tucker side of things.

Yeah. And and he’s like, you know, doing this tweet, making fun of the Martha’s Vineyard People acting like they’re not welcoming the refugees, and and that deliberals are now getting a taste of their own medicine. And it’s like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, the people in Martha’s Vineyards seem to be very welcoming to these fifty refugees. And, like, the complaints are about how how absurdly pernicious this was, like, to to send these people somewhere where they don’t know where they’re, you know, with no plan in place, just dumping them off here.

Like, that is what people are complaining about. You know, there are plenty of videos you can go see online of how welcoming the folks are in in monozas and you’re they’re welcoming people everywhere in the country actually.

They don’t look triggered. They don’t get a look owned. No. It’s ultimately on Twitter. Well, this is the difference between, you know, actually, you know, consummating and act and simply masturbating, fantasizing about it.

Right? Well,

yeah. I was, like, the point that’s and that I mean, that’s I was just kind of contemplating, you know, that that imagery and and just decided to to to, you know, move on.

So give people a little bit of, you know, insight and sort of behind the scenes. We’re doing this just a little bit earlier because you got to get on the road. Usually, I’ve sent out my newsletter morning shots by now, and you’ve had a chance to see what I’m ranting and raving about. In this particular case, though, I wrote it this morning. But as you and I are speaking, our brilliant and incredibly talented art director, Hana Yoast, who comes up with comes up with art.

And so I I I do wait for for her to come up with the art, and and it just came through in the last, like, sixty seconds. And so I’m going to press send

on this Okay? Okay. And

the title is the cruelty and the crazy. Migrant airlifts in the Univar candidate. We’ll get to that second one. And I hope people don’t misunderstand my slightly sarcastic tone here. But when I start up by saying, you know, sorry.

But shipping migrants to Martha’s Vineyard is brilliant, a political master stroke. An effect role and above all hilarious. You can tell because of all the reactions on the right, you know, the LOLs, the triggering the Lib Huzzah’s. Right? You know, and sending, I mean, a busload of migrants to Vice President, Terrace’s Residence.

I mean, I’m right wing Twitter. Needs to catch its breath. It’s laughing so hard. And now guess what? They’re gonna send them to Delaware.

This is just I mean, and then you see all these folks on the right including the normies. You see people like, you know, Matt Lewis and The Daily Beast, and you see Nora Hoffman in commentary saying, you know, this is pretty good stuff. This is a political coup. You know, blue states finally getting a taste of what Redwater states have had to deal with every day. And the cruelty is sort of like a sideshow or it’s a bonus.

And I think, you know, part of this And I think this comes back to the world that you have escaped from, that you are a refugee from. Yeah. Is the narratives more important than all these cuckfish concerns about morality because I’m I’m willing to stipulate. There’s a real problem at the border. There’s a legitimate debate over how migrants should be handled.

Right? And there’s a legitimate case to be made about, you know, we should share the burden of all of this. And so Abbott and DeSantis, I think of every right to raise questions about border policies. They could do all kinds of things about it. They can make speeches.

They can hold press conferences. They can run ads. They can raise money off any immigrant outrage. They can even stage political events. Right?

I mean, and there’s nothing inherently awful about a stunt except this one is fundamentally different. And they and so this is why you and I are at a step here because this one’s done because they chose to use people including very vulnerable children as their pawns and props. I thought JBL made a great point yesterday. He said those planes were filled with actual human beings. People with dignity, people with hopes and dreams, problems and challenges, people with names and families.

But again, DeSantis knows what he’s doing. He’s doing it in a way to create as much confusion and cruelty as possible. And for a lot of the and and they and, of course, now it turns out they lied to these people. They told them that they were going to Boston for expedited work papers. So, I mean, the whole thing is a scam.

Think what we’re revealing is for the fanboys, people like hardcore bigots like Kurt Schlichter. I mean, the deception is is like a bonus because it is just like an x you know, extra dose of cruelty and he loves it. He he tweeted out, good. I hope it’s true that they lied to these people. I’m utterly indifferent to what happens to a bunch of people who shouldn’t be here anyway.

And who disrespected us by breaking our laws. So if they got screwed over, I think it’s funny. See, and I think that this they the way or or right wing politics has become The cruelty is the point, but also then this is the point I’m making in my newsletter. The laughter is the point. This spectacle of cruel laughter that is has become like this animating juice for I’m sorry to say, millions of people.

And even the people who ought to know better look at this and go, well, if they’re jazzed, then it must be a good tactic. Right? No. Whether or not it is just inherently unchristian and fundamentally inhuman and cruel. Oh, come on.

Oh, come on. There’s a lot there, Troy. And so I have I have two kind of separate thoughts. The dehumanization element of this though, and that’s really the word. Right?

It’s just I they’re not treating these people with the that they are individuals that have human dignity. Right? And it ties into what we’ve been discussing every week, almost when I’m on here about the pro life question? And what does it mean to be pro life? And and, you know, is it about more than just having the most restrictive abortion policy imaginable?

And and marginal. And this is, you know, the in the book, I I kind of categorized all the different enablers of Trump. And and one of the categories is this LOL, nothing matters for publishing — Mhmm. — which was coined by Ben Dominic over at the federalist. And and I said in a book that in a lot of ways, Even though it’s kind of the most bin all, it’s it’s it’s the most pernicious because what I had observed over the past in a decade was that among the people that staff republican campaigns, like this was the most common actual rationalization.

It was becoming more and more popular and as peep and as younger people come out of college, I spoke enough to Schuh yesterday. I was talking to the kids about this, actually. The types of people that are drawn to wanna go work for somebody like Rhonda Sanders are the ones that are that get the biggest laughs out of the out of stunts like this. Right? And so It’s like a magnet for more and more of this kind of nihilist people that have this nihilist viewpoint into Republican campaigns, which you know, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, then there’s more candidates that that are acting like this.

And and, you know, that is just the way now that they avoid having to deal with the moral ramifications of Trump’s party. Right? That they no longer even have to justify. Right? And and it’s not as if there wasn’t cruel policies from Republicans in the past or any political party for that matter or things that ended up hurting people, policies ended up hurting people, but there’s always this feeling that, okay, we had to justify why we did this.

Right? It was maybe it was better. You know, we thought that this policy would be better for certain people or we reject the critics who say that this policy is gonna hurt immigrants or, you know, we think on balance, we need a rule. Right? Right?

You have to come up with some some policy justification for this. That is not the case anymore. Now these these staffers’ protection against having to deal with the moral questions of our time are LL, nothing matters, owning the lives is all that matters, trolling them is all that matters. They’re so evil. There are enemy in this war that we can do whatever we want.

And if they’re complaining about it, then that’s it ended to itself. And the the war also I I think the other thing about JBL’s newsletter, just wanted to comment on what you went through that I think that he hit on very well yesterday in the triad was this, you know, for certain types. Like, for that DC crowd, it isn’t really a Christian nationalist war. It’s kind of this kind of cultural war against people they resent. But out in out out here and the provinces where I am right now.

There is this element of Christian nationalism and thinking about what DeSantis said, and I I pulled this up, you know, in his speech, at Hillsdale about putting on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left schemes. You’ll face the flaming arrows. But if you have the shield of faith, you’ll overcome them. Again, now, that that is even more pernicious.

Right? Because he’s giving these folks the cover of, like, that there is a religious crusade here. Right? That you can dehumanize these people. You can you can be cruel to them.

You control them. And that is all part of our you know, onward Christian soldiers battle, which you don’t need a a religious scholar to talk about the flaws of that mindset. Well, apparently, it did. Yeah. Because apparently you do.

But but but right. I mean, so now you can see if you are part of this ecosystem and you’ve accepted the oh, we’re in a religious war. Well, then no cares. Fuck these fifty people. If you’re part of this ecosystem and you’ve decided that LL nothing matters, the Libs pain is all that matters, and like winning today’s one hour Twitter fight is all that matters, then who cares fuck these people?

Right?

And and you don’t have to treat everybody, like, you know, like they are humans with dignity. Okay. So I think this is related to it. The number of political pundits who in theory don’t think necessarily as partisan activists. And in theory, don’t think like political consultants, you know, from from this world, have now seemed to have internalized this idea that you evaluate something just based on does it work or does it not work?

Does it win or does it not win? As opposed to wait, is it fundamentally wrong? How how people have we have gotten so into this mentality that we judge everything by the needle as opposed to wait. You understand, you lied to a child. You who is vulnerable, who just come from another You can imagine the fear and the dislocation.

You put them on a plane. You drop them off as part of a political stunt. You have used people who have been lied to, who are, you know, really at probably one of the most perilous moments of their life. You’ve used them as as as pawns. Yes, it’s going to play well in the media.

You might actually score points in the polls. It might help you win a primary but it’s wrong. And and it’s sort of interesting. It’s it’s like there’s this whole world of punditry that goes, well, yes, it may be wrong. But the most important thing is does it work, does it effective?

And this seems like this part of this disease that we’ve gotten into, that the media, that people who ought to be have some arms length. From this sort of thing, have internalized, you know, basically, you know, hatchet man, war room, activist, troll thinking. Yeah. The

game. Right? So that’s the

game. Right? That’s right.

This is the game. Like, we’re in the game. Winning the game is what matters. Not anything else. Not the merits.

Not what the actual impact on people are. Right? And you can just imagine this. It’s not as if this is a new thing, but it’s just completely on steroids that there is this this ecosystem has developed where where that is the prime interest. Right?

You can just imagine going through history. Like, when loving versus Virginia was passed, you know, saying that was wrong, saying that was bad, trying to come up with some troll that would have kept interracial couples from getting married in your state would have been a political winner. Right? I you know, that was not a you know, an interracial marriage was not popular when loving past, but it’s hard to imagine, you know, like the local newspaper praising, writing a headline, praising the politician that did that. Right?

With, like, well, this was a savvy move here by the local, you know, whatever governor of Florida who passed some thing that made it harder for interracial couples to get married or or bust them to Martha’s vineyard or whatever. Right? Because that we didn’t have this — Yeah. — that this whole mindset hadn’t developed. Right?

And and so I do I totally agree that that is that’s part of what is kind of allowing this to happen. Yeah. But,

I mean, I think it’s important to point out that we understand this because we’ve been there. Okay? You were part of the game. I looked back on some of the things that I said and didn’t say and and things that I did, you know, particularly in in the in the first decade. Not this first and second decade of this century.

And you do that caught up in the game, in the fight, us versus them. And therefore, all information is evaluated by the simple standard, not whether it’s right or wrong, but whether it works or it doesn’t work. Right? Whether it wins or it rises. And so you are looking for credules you’re looking for weapons.

You ignore things that might hurt your case. You will find a way to spin something that helps your case. You know, after you’ve been in it, you can step back and, like, wow, I really got caught up and then that’s basically the theme of your your book. You get caught up and it but it’s easy to get caught up in it. And I watched the spread of this and you wonder because it feels this morning.

As if to take, you know, the normals out there who are praising this as as a smart political move and to say, okay, wait, but it’s fundamentally inhuman, immoral, and cruel, that that feels like there’s a new relevance in the in the current dial. Do you understand what I mean here that you Right.

No. You’re looking out of

if you even raise these questions any longer. Yeah. A

the wrong one. You’re the ridiculous one. I I I wrote about this anecdote about how there in politics, there’s this notion of the guy that literally taught me campaign school said that highest compliment that you can get as a political staffer is that is for somebody to say that guy gets it. And what they get it means doesn’t mean that they get that, you know, you gotta do your best for people. Well, they they get it mean as if they get that winning is what matters.

So and they get they get, you know, how to play the game. And and that if you are a person right now who’s saying, this is crazy. Like, this is wrong. Like, think about these kids in Republican world, in conservative world, even in pundit world, know, that’s kind of like, alright. Get off your high horse.

I mean, that’s That’s right. The one of the gold yeah. You’re the gold. The the Lindsay Grant the saddest I think it was in Liebovich’s book for me. One of the saddest quotes was Lindsey Graham interviewing with him and talking about how he looks back on the McCain.

His time with McCain is saying that sometimes me and John, we’d get on our high horse too much. And I was like, no, that’s when you and John were right, actually. Like, when you and John were on your high horse, or the times that you were doing the most good. And and so, you know, in addition to all this stuff that we’ve all been talking about, you know, about how inhuman it is. The other thing just on the fundamental merits, you would think that there’d be someone in conservative world left who would be like, you know, welcoming people who are fleeing communism is good, actually.

It’s like a fundamental tennis on the Republican Party for, you know, most of my life. Was that fleeing, you know, people fleeing communism was something we should welcome as part of our broader world of war against this ideology. But but that yeah. No. It’s a it’s a stupid detail.

And, of

course, one of the great inversions of of the Trump era has been this this notion that concerned about things like a character or right and wrong are signs of weakness that cruelty is a marker of courage. To someone have the courage to do something illegal, something horrible, something cruel.

Alright.

So speaking of the culture wars, let’s talk about what’s going on with gay marriage and whether or not the senate is going to have a vote for the midterms on codify, obergafel. Of course, the reason we’re all talking about this, I think the podcast listeners know is because After the Dobbs’ decision, no precedent seems absolute any longer. The court has signaled the willingness to overturn settle law even if it has massive social disruption and of course justice Clarence Thomas very helpfully kind of like waved the red flag and he said, you know, based on the kind of thing that we just did here in Dobbs and the logic in saying that there is no right to privacy in the constitution, then we need to revisit all these other decisions. We need to revisit the Griswold decision that legalized contraception, that we need to revisit the Obergafell gay marriage. We need to revisit, you know, the Texas decision that actually said, no, you can’t criminalize same sex sex.

So, what’s gonna happen? Initially, it looked like you’re gonna have a bipartisan compromise. You might get ten Republican folks. What are you seeing? What do you think is gonna happen?

Yeah. A disappointing, you know, in the broadest scale number of Republicans that, you know, did not want to protect my marriage in the house of representatives and they voted on this, but also kind of a surprising amount who did, I think it was forty seven, I think. So, you know, that I think gave people a sense that this was gonna pass. Right? That it was gonna pass the Senate that you if you get that many in the House, you get the ten needed in the Senate.

The Biden would be able to sign this and and quantify it. And and what it is just this is quantifying of Bergafel is kind of in the shorthand for this, but it would It really is because of the nature of some arcane legal stuff. It’s a congregation of Windsor, which was the case before Obergafel that that said that Domo was unconstitutional. So this would, you know, essentially ensure that, you know, that all of the things for the defense of marriage acts about the federal government you know, the federal government would have to recognize marriages of existing marriages, etcetera, rather than new new marriages. So that that might have to be a lot.

But but codifying windsor is also is still very important. And, you know, you would think that that that would, you know, be something that Schumer would wanna put up for a vote here before for the midterms. Now but here’s the political question. The Republicans and just another astounding example of cynicism behind the scenes, apparently, it’s based on reporting, it seems as if they are saying to the Democrats, you know, if if we just table this till the lame ducks section. And the lame ducks section of congress is the session of congress that that happens after the elections before the next congress comes in, in January.

We table this to the lame ducks session. You got we got the votes, you know, basically. And there’s sort of this little handshake deal happening behind the scenes. Mhmm. But but, yeah, if you put it up before the election.

I don’t know. Right? And so a little bit of cynical gamesmanship, it seems like the Republicans and the the Democrats in the senate who I think I really am of two minds about this. Baldwin is is really putting in the work on this, Tammy Baldwin. I think there’s some people in the Senate on the Democratic side who are like, this is let’s just get this done.

Like like, codifying this and protecting gay couples is the most important thing. But there’s another view. You know, I I think it was the head of the deep see Sean Patrick Mullen. He’s gay and married as a Democrat tweeted yesterday, like, no, fuck this. Like, we got forty seven Republicans in the House.

Like, let’s not be held hot. He didn’t say the f word, but this was his general tone of the tweet if you go read it. Like, let’s not be held hostage by these Republicans. Put it on the floor and make them vote. Like, put up or shut up.

Are you really gonna vote against, you know, protecting existing game marriages? In the year twenty twenty two, like that is a political loser and and call their bluff. And, you know, part of me leans that way, really. With with Maloney. Like, I think that’s right.

I think that’s a political winner. I kind of think they get the ten votes anyway. You know, if you just can sort of look at the seventeen, they got to the gun vote or or whatever many it was. You know, there’s even some buffer if you just take the people that voted for the gun compromise. So, you know, I when I was with Chris Murphy, we talked about this interview, Chris Murphy for not my party this week.

And then he said that I asked him who’s desert island Republican was, and he said it was Tom Tillis, kind of a

surprising

answer because I was writing him. Yeah. I was, like, if that’s your desert out of Republican, is he at least gonna do the right thing on gay marriage? He said, I think he is. You know, so if you got somebody somebody like TELUS there, you know, it just feels like that’s that’s a that’s a that’s a vote that they’re gonna get.

So so this is sort of a little intro democratic debate. And and I think that the Democrats really have done well over the summer and the fall this year, putting popular things up for a vote and forcing the Republican to have to, you know, deal with their own internal divisions. And so I think they should do it. Well,

and also, I mean, you can see from the political dynamic here, including in my state’s senior senator Ron Johnson who’s been flip flopping on this issue. His initial reaction was, well, I see no reason. Not codify. I mean, it is the law of the land. You don’t wanna disrupt the lives of millions of of Americans and conservatives.

Generally don’t wanna have that kind of radical change. And then, of course, he gets squeezed by social conservatives, and now he’s flip flopped and said it’s all about religious liberty. But here’s the interesting thing, and and our and our colleague will sell it in Yeah.

I’m sorry that our we decided to let just put a finer point on this. Flip flopping back against gay marriage in twenty twenty two is, like, pretty hilariously bad. Sorry. What what

it is? That’s an important point. It’s flip flopping toward a position that is toxically unpopular. Normally, when politicians in a general light in a tough reelection fight, And and by the way, I I still think the Ron Johnson’s likely to win that race. But in a tough reelection fight in a very evenly divided state, normally, you flip flop toward a position that is popular, not away from a position that’s popular.

So in Wisconsin, seventy two percent of voters favor, legalized, same sex, marriage. Now here’s what makes it more interesting. That when you break it down, there was a poll, the Market University law poll back in April, asked people, you know, broke it down by party, and they found that, again, overwhelming support for legalized same sex merge among Democrats, among independents, but also among Republicans. In April of this year, fifty eight percent of Republican said they favored legal gay marriage. Only thirty one percent were against it.

And, you know, as our high Will Sullivan wrote, I mean, this has been the pattern all around the country. You know, since two thousand and four, there’s been a kind of a collapse of opposition to same sex marriage. You know, in the latest NBC News poll, which was taken in May, the opposition among Republicans is down to thirty one percent. And again, there was a Pew poll found fifty six percent of Republican leaders favored safe sex marriage. So I guess my point is that Republicans absolutely do not wanna have this vote in the senate because with the exception of just the most deplorables, they know where their constituents are.

This is not a vote they wanna have to take. And if they voted down, it will once again clarify what’s it stake in the elections. I’m gonna start to go back to, you know, what works politically, what doesn’t work politically. But, I mean, this would definitely, either way, it works politically on the merits Obviously, look, this is the law of the land. You’ve had millions of people including you who have relied upon it.

It is a deeply unconservative thing to do to say, okay, we’ve now changed our mind. We’ve changed the number of justices on the court. And therefore, we’re just simply going to relig on the promise the country made to you. So I think this is a disaster. Like the abortion issue, this unites Democrats and divides Republicans.

It should be very clear. Yeah. Two things. One,

the first one I’m just gonna whisper because I don’t like it. Charlie is right thing. But I did, on my travels, this week. I did have somebody tip me off to some internal numbers about the Wisconsin senate race that are maybe a little more Charlie is always right, then Tim is always right. It’s I’ve been a little bit more of a Mandela partisan.

So, anyway, a little bit of a concerning thing about what people are saying on the internal side of Wisconsin Center eight versus what what the public polling looks like. But when

the ads are just

brutal. Yeah. Yeah. On the gay marriage thing. We’ve been talking about this.

Don’t treat it like a game. You know, don’t care just throughout the polls. But, like — Right. — politics still is a competition. Right?

And so this is always about, like, finding a balance in all things. Right? Like, how can you act with integrity, with earnestness, and good faith, like, advance, what is best, you know, for the people that you’re serving, you know, for your What? Go Right? Like, how can you unite those two things?

Right? And so — Right. — you know, the Republicans on this are acting completely cynical. As as I said, they’re holding this vote hostage basically because they don’t wanna deal with the political ramifications of having to vote on it. So then the Democratic question is, okay.

Well, do we let them play the game and just be hostage to their political interest? Or do we try to push an advantage for ourselves? And and I think that that on an issue that we care about that we genuinely wanna pass. You know? We’re not, like, putting, you know, Tim and Tyler on a on a plane to to Kansas or whatever the inverse of the of this would be.

And so I think that it makes total sense to try to push the little advantage. It’s it’s one thing if it’s like the gay couples are really in an acute threat. To lose gay marriage, and and that could happen any day. And if you just suck it up and deal with the Republicans, we could protect it and save it, and we can be assured of that. But that’s like not the situation we’re at.

Like, the threat is not acute right now. It’s potential in the medium term. We don’t really know that there are hoplicants would come through in the lane, who the hell knows? They could end up screwing screwing the democrats over and maybe ten votes don’t materialize. Maybe it’s only eight or nine.

I was talking to somebody who knows? Shelly more capital staff and, like, that’s the person that might be gettable. And I was, like, could we get capital for this? I was asking them. And and they’re, like, maybe it depends on how many Republicans are.

She doesn’t like to be the sixtieth vote on that. Correct? She doesn’t like to be the sixty first votes. So who the hell knows? Maybe it doesn’t materialize.

Maybe there’s a bunch of people who don’t wanna be the sixtieth vote. So if you consider all of the the different contingencies here, like, it seems to me that the right way to do is put the damn thing up to vote and let the Republicans put up or shut up. And Republicans really want to deny gay married couples protections in the year of our Lord twenty twenty two then let them deal with the consequences of that action. And that’s kind of where I land on this. Now speaking of

the these culture wars, let me get your thoughts about Lindsay Graham earlier this week because the other day, was it, I don’t know, I’ve lost track of days, was it Wednesday that was Joe Biden’s really horrifically bad day, or was that Tuesday?

It’s been, like, a little inflation

numbers came. The the Dow Jones, you know, completely collapsed the juxtaposition with his celebration was was cringe worthy. And then along comes Lindsay Graham and kinda bailed out the lines. By saying, yes, absolutely. I am gonna propose a nationwide ban on abortion.

Now, what makes this there’s several interesting twists there because His proposal is not the most radical out there. In fact, his proposal was fifteen weeks, which pulls much better than absolute man. And includes exemptions for exceptions for rape incest in the life of the mother. But other Republicans reacted like, oh my god, Lindsey, you have just dropped the biggest possible turn into our punch ball. Because I think, again, they recognize that this was a political distraction, but also once again clarifying that the stakes of the midterms and what the stakes of the midterms are that Republicans in fact have completely pivoted away from, let’s leave it up to the states to we want a federal ban.

So Yeah. And then by the way, Lindsay got got the shit beat out of him on Fox News for doing that too. So I mean I think Lindsay is being

too clever by half. It’s unclear why he didn’t, like, run it by other people. I don’t I don’t I don’t have any sight into that. But I I understand. I think where his head is at.

Right? Which is just like, okay. If we can get the Republican position to be fifteen weeks with receptions, you know, then, you know, that can maybe even the playing field on this a little bit more rather than the democrats position being know, the status quo and Republican position being, like, the most insane thing being proposed by Doug Mastriano or whatever. And I think that was what his mindset was it was a total backfire, the execution of it was terrible in large part because the his proposed ban didn’t supersede the crazy bills in the states. And this is why Republicans are stuck between Iraq and a hard place on this issue because, you know, they they there is not majority Republican support for a fifteen week ban in the senate because there’s a significant number of Republican senators who represent states that either already have or are aspiring to have much more restrictive laws than that.

And and so they would don’t want the blowback of some

federal

ban, you know, overriding their five week dog, the bounty hunter ban. Whatever the hell they have in all these states. Right? And so, yeah, for that reason, you can’t unite your own party and you continue to give the Democrats their biggest political advantage here, which is the fact that they can focus on these absolutely mind bogglingly extreme laws that are being advanced in certain Republican states. No, I I

agree with you again. I think Josh Barrow had a really good piece where he says why this won’t work and he, you know, talks about the dynamics here that that even though you can be very clever and parse out the polls and say, well, you know, take this nuanced position, that’s just not the way it plays out in real life because what happens is that people are now going through thinking about various circumstances about when do we want to ban abortions? When do we not ban abortions. And of course, whatever Lindsey Graham says, whatever moderate, quote unquote, moderate position he takes, then, you know, along comes the Republican legislation, West Virginia saying, you know, hold my beer, you know, and I’ll

accept complete

ban. So there we are. So you’ve had an interesting week. I’m I’m interested in hearing. I have a couple of things.

You you you actually talked with you talked with with the governor of Georgia the other day, governor Kemp, and you confronted him on with a very, very interesting question. I know you’re gonna write it from Monday, but we’ve already posted some of the video of that. So Tell us about tell us about your your chat your channel. I gotta say first. It’s

just so fun to be on the other side of the of the mic now on this. I was I was just having a blast watching the Brian Kemp, you know, the nerdy ten millers from fifteen years ago, standing next to him, giving me the evil eye. You know, get nervous to not want me to ask a question, trying to get someone else to ask a more boring question. You know? And I was like, no.

I told talked right over them jumping in in the in the press comments. I guess I guess some credit to Kemp, a lot of Republicans are hiding from the media right now. I’ll together because they can just talk to their own echo chamber. At least Kemp was willing to talk to the assembled press there. He had an event about an hour and a half north of where my book event was in Atlanta.

And so I drove up there to see him in person. I wanted to ask him a couple of questions. After the first one, they didn’t which they didn’t like too much. I didn’t get a chance to

follow-up with

anymore, unfortunately. But I I I did get one. And the one key question was on this the fact that he has this lieutenant governor candidate, Bert Jones, who is the Republican nominee, lieutenant governor, captain supported him in the primary, but but he won, obviously. And Jones was, like, a literal plotter for this alternate false slate of electors and has spread a lot of election conspiracies and, you know, Kemp’s unique advantage or unique qualification right now is that he’s the only Republican governor in one of these states who who passed this minimum bar of just saying I’m gonna certify the votes, I guess, Doug Ducey too. I’m gonna certify the votes in my state, you know, and not play ball with the Kraken, you know, Sydney Powell, Rudy Giuliani nonsense.

And and so and he talks about this. And then in his stump speech, when I went to Sam and Calhoun, he talks about the voter integrity bill that he passed. Quote unquote, integrity belts on the left called a voter suppression belt. And he talks to have voter integrity as important. And, you know, he wanted to certify the election.

He passed low sweeping voter integrity bill on the state. And so I asked about this, if you really care about voter integrity, which, you know, you said you you did on the Stone speech, you did the right thing in twenty twenty. Like, it must make you uncomfortable to be running with somebody that literally tried to undermine the voters of the state and, you know, something happened to you. Would be the governor in twenty twenty four. And it didn’t make him uncomfortable, Charlie.

I mean, it made him uncomfortable that I was asking the question, it didn’t make him uncomfortable to have Bert Jones on the on the ticket. He basically said that he supports the ticket. People can see the video up on up on the Bullwerk’s Twitter feed. And, you know, then he he tries to to pass it off by saying essentially, oh, well, people can disagree and agree on various things, and it’s like, you know, I don’t know. Whether or not Donald Trump should be an unelected autocrat.

It’s kind of a pretty serious disagreement. You know, it’s not as if it’s not as if you have, like, a little minor agreement, and you wanted a fifteen week ban, and you wanted the twelve week ban. I mean, this is a pretty fundamental thing, but but he didn’t do that. And so I I asked for that, And it’s part of this broader thing, which I which I wanna write about on Monday is which is is he, you know, there is not much split ticket voting anymore, not much crossover voting and but Georgia might be this rare state, whether it’s an exception, whether some of these former Republican acts, ex paths are very conservative southern democrats. Who look at Kemp, think he’s done a good job.

Think he did the right thing in twenty twenty standing up to Trump. But look at Walker and it’s like that is an insane person. And and so they’re gonna vote for a warlock instead. And so I interviewed a bunch of people who fit that bill. And and I think that, you know, this Clint the Bert Jones thing kinda complicates Kemp’s ability to speak to that voter.

Yeah. I I I think that you might

have some of that that ticket splitting in Georgia and in Wisconsin, speaking of Wisconsin. I I think you could possibly have a Democratic governor winning a note. Senator losing. So there’s a footnote to your your conversation with Brian Kemp, which is that our brilliant colleague here at the the Bulwark Amanda Carpenter had written a piece about Kemp’s running mate. And interestingly enough, all the smart kids in the room came forward and said, oh, this is terribly unfair.

They’re not running mate. They’re they’re not actually together. Why would you try to smear Brian Kemp and and so here you have Brian Kemp saying, yeah, he’s he’s on the ticket. I’m going to support him on all of that. But it was interesting the the the the need for even some of the Normandy conservatives to rush forward and say, you know, don’t don’t say anything mean about Brian Kemp who’s running for governor and linking him to his lieutenant governor nominee.

It’s like, okay, whatever. They aren’t really running

mate. And they literally ran with us. The National you tried to throw a headpiece on Amanda over this. I know. Yeah.

Fuck you a sec.

And it’s just like like, oh, oh, oh, she’s she’s overstating whether it like, he’s running to be the lieutenant governor. Like, it’s not as if we are picking, you know, some random city council person in Cobb County or something. And this is the person that Brian Kemp’s a young man. You know, you don’t expect that anything will happen to him, but who the hell knows? There’s a scandal or a heart attack.

And, like, this person is the governor of the state in twenty twenty four, and he was a coup plotter. So this is not a gotcha. You know, this is this is a question of where are your where is your red line? Do you have a red line and Brian Kemp it was was one of the few people to his credit that that for whom, you know, actually trying to overturn the election last time was a red line. But but it seems as if having a lieutenant governor that wanted to do that isn’t.

It’s a it’s pretty it’s, you know, you’re slicing that line pretty thin, but but that’s where we’re at.

So you know what’s a problem? What’s up? It’s keeping up with all the craziness. All the lunacy. I was just actually scrolling through some of your older articles and you know, you did a big piece about Churchill Walker, you know.

Yeah. And, you know, we’ve written about Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Carrie Lake in in Arizona. I mean, it’s just like, we literally could spend all of the space in the ballwork, all of the time on our podcast talking about lunatic Republican nominees around the country. And, you know, and this this may be one of the great news.

Called Doug. I just rose by strong with this General in

New in New Hampshire, But, you know, Blake Masters in Arizona. And I I wrote about him in my newsletter today. Can we just take a breath and we we understand there’s all of this crazy. It does feel like there’s a temptation to become completely numb to buy it. But I don’t know.

I hadn’t seen it originally when it appeared. This AP story that talks about an interview that he gave where, again, Blake Masters is the Peter Teal bankrolled candidate. So an interviewer asked Blake Masters, who is the Republican nominee for US senate, to pick a subversive thinker who he thought that people should know more about and master’s thought about it and then picked and I am not shitting you the unabomber. I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this master’s responder, but hey, how about like Theodore Kazinski? Now, Theodore Kucinski was a domestic terrorist and murderer who killed three people, injured dozens between nineteen seventy eight and nineteen ninety five until he was arrested.

And, you know, Massachusetts is well, I don’t endorse all of Kucinski’s views. He thinks there’s a lot of insight there. He had a lot to say about the political left, about how they have inferiority complexes, and fundamentally hate everything like goodness, truth, beauty, justice. Okay. So here you have a candidate for the United States Senate, who and by the way, this is not a one off for masters.

You know, he said, okay. Of crazy things. I mean, these are provenly quoted a Nazi war criminal. And yet, I guess the big question is, how many times do these people have to tell us who they are? Before other Republicans will say, yeah, I’m sorry that’s nuts.

I mean, in in a normal universe temp. This guy would get nowhere near the ballot. And yet, Republicans establishment Republicans

and Arizona

around the country are rallying around this guy wanting to put him in the United States and at next to Hershel Walker, doctor Oz, and JD Vance, and other folks like

that. He is so weird. Masters is so weird. I I mean, in addition to being crazy, I watched don’t know why I punish myself with this, but, you know, sometimes I like to make sure I know what’s going on out there with the people. And someone sent this to me.

It was like a video of conversation he had with Madison Hawthorne. It did, like, an hour long YouTube. Don’t YouTube this. Like I said, don’t do it. I did.

Listen. He’s punished your and punished yourself with this. But he has he he just like, it feels like he has some sort of antisocial disorder. I and he’s just a very awkward person that he does have very strange views. He he’s attracted to these these types of views.

He he he was like a classic message board poster. I was always a message board poster as well. So, you know, maybe I feel like I know the type. On the message board, there’s always the people that are the most attracted to the weirdest conspiracies. Masters was I think he was on a vegan something message board and he was also on, like, cross fit message board and and then some far right wing stuff too.

And he’s you know, can you question the official story of the September terrorist attacks? And, you know, offered a lot of other very odd opinions. You know, it is it’s hard to, like, how do you focus on this? Right, when you have so many other lunatics on the ballot. I do I do think this becomes a question.

It’s something that worked to Trump’s favor, you know, like this notion of if you just if it’s just all crazy all the time, like, we don’t have the the infrastructure and capacity and and that to know how to deal with it. Speaking of the opposite though,

either listeners of the podcast to check out your latest, not my party, you sat down with Connecticut Democrat, Chris Murphy, who does feel sometimes like he is the last adult in Washington. It was an interesting chat. He’s an interesting guy.

It was

a

great interview. I had really enjoyed talking to him and that, you know, they’re not my party’s only four minutes and has the memes and stuff. And so but it was such a good discussion that we posted the whole transcript on the web side. So so go check it out because we talked about a lot of stuff that didn’t make him into the not my party. And and I just I was so impressed I wanted to do this because I was so impressed with him on the gun thing.

It it would have been so easy after Yuvali for somebody like Chris Murphy who cares about this issue, who who represents Connecticut where Sandy Hook was, which happened right after he was elected, which we talk about. And to to to do the I’m gonna go to the senate floor and do viral speeches and do tweets dunking on Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott and, like, you know, get as much MSNBC time as possible. And and he did the opposite. Like, he went and actually fucking punished himself by spending time with Tom Tillis. And all these guys and tried to figure out what kind of bill they could get past, what we could do to get things done, and and that he actually was even criticized about it on MSNBC and other places, you know, saying that, like, it was kind of a sellout.

So he had to he he did the instead of taking the cheap calories, he took heat for, you know, what ended up doing being the right thing. First, good piece of gun legislation, you know, reasonable. Incremental gun legislation that has been passed since the assault weapons ban. And so we talked about that, like the incentive structures, that disincentivize doing exactly what he did, but, you know, why he feels like it’s good and it’s the first step towards progress. I I challenge him with some of the lefty and righty critiques.

And, you know, I I don’t I didn’t agree with everything he said. I asked him by the best and worst thing Biden did. We agreed on the worst. He he he said that the kind of Saudi suck up was something that he wasn’t comfortable with. That’s on direct quote, that he thought the best was Afghanistan.

Oh, nice. So we’re not looking at that. We’re not looking at that one this say an eye to eye on that one. But that’s part of this. Okay?

It’s okay to be, you know, in a coalition with somebody, you know, that you have genuine see disagreements. That’s how things used to be. That’s how things used to go. So we disagreed on that one, but but I thought he gave some really thoughtful answers about the of the culture of Washington and and why what’s broken about it and and why the gun violence was so important and what more can be done on that front. So, yeah, it was it was I thought it was a cool conversation.

Well, Tim, I

know you need to hit the road today. And just a heads up for folks. Next Friday, we’re actually going to see one another in person, which is an exceedingly rare of Avanta, you, me, Amanda Carpenter, live at tribfast in Austin, Texas, next Friday afternoon. That is true. Come by and

see us And so and and here’s the other thing that I just found out yesterday, Charlie, and she can let people know if they do if you do happen to be in Tripvest, and I don’t know if Charlie, if you’re staying Friday night, but I’ve been added as the MC for the trivia night after our pundits, the college you know, Republicans and Democrats of the UT have a trivia night that they sponsor. Can I get a maybe yeah. You can. Yeah. Maybe we can get a little bulwark table going and won’t feed you all the answers, but I might feed you one or two just to give you a little head just to give you a

little heads up on the message. I I I I just wanna see the MC styling of ten millers. Yeah.

Something to do. You

have a great weekend and looking forward to seeing you in Amanda next Friday. Have a great weekend. I can’t wait. We’ll see you shortly. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seary.

I’m Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. We’ll be back tomorrow and do this all over again. You’re worried about the economy. Inflation is high.

Your paycheck doesn’t cover as much as it used to, and we live under the threat of a looming recession. And sure you’re doing okay, but you could be doing better. The afford anything podcast explains the economy and the market detailing how to make wise choices on the way you spend and invest. Afford anything talks about how to avoid common pitfalls, how to refine your mental models, and how to think about how to think. Make smarter choices and build a better life.

Afford anything wherever you listen.