00:02 JVL Hello, everyone. 00:03 This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark on The Secret Show and also Tim Miller. 00:15 Sarah Longwell Is that like the McDonald's theme song? 00:17 What was that? 00:18 JVL I don't know, man. 00:19 I'm just like, this is a weird mashup. 00:22 This is the next level, but we're actually going to treat it like it's The Secret Show. 00:27 Where it's all sort of, you know, lights are down. 00:30 We're having a couple of Siggy's. 00:31 A little bit of. 00:33 Yeah. 00:35 Sarah Longwell Do you know that? 00:36 So when we did the secret show a couple, maybe it was last week and I was just like in my T-shirt and I was, you know, got wound up and did it. 00:44 Had like a bit of a yell at one point. 00:47 That. 00:48 Yeah. 00:48 We put it out when somebody made it public. 00:51 We did, I think. 00:52 And Fox News grabbed it and started running it on Fox News is like and they took it out of context because it was me kind of hectoring Republicans. 00:59 It was me saying, like, this is on you, like George W. Bush and the generals. 01:04 And instead, it just sounded like I was yelling at voters. 01:07 So I was nice. 01:09 I'm just saying, Tim, it's not always a secret. 01:12 JVL Yeah, well. 01:13 Maybe we shouldn't put it on the interweb. 01:16 Tim Miller That's actually a good transition to one of my things I want to talk about, which is I've really decided to not give a fuck about those people. 01:24 There's a whole cottage industry out there of Republican types and even media types and even some of us who are like... 01:36 The Never Trumpers really missed this. 01:40 And this is a wake-up call. 01:42 And they don't understand the people and understand the voters. 01:46 And as part of my... 01:48 I mean, all those things are true. 01:49 Yeah, yeah. 01:50 As part of my complex nine-layer cake of depression, I was taking some of that in upon myself. 01:57 And I was like, maybe I did miss something. 02:00 And then as I was thinking about this last night after a cigarette, I was like... 02:03 No, no. 02:05 Fuck you. 02:05 I'm right. 02:07 We're right. 02:07 I'm right. 02:08 I'm going to be right about what happened with Donald Trump. 02:11 My obligation as a commentator is only to say what I believe to be true. 02:17 Like, that is it. 02:18 Like, that is the... 02:20 Right? 02:20 Is that not the limit of my obligation? 02:22 Do I have an obligation to try to... 02:25 persuade the people of Waukesha County that what I believe to be true is true? 02:30 I don't think so. 02:31 My obligation is to say what is true. 02:32 I believe that everything we warned about Donald Trump is going to come to pass in some degree or another. 02:39 And the people, a bare majority, kind of small majority, but a bare majority of people disagreed and are not worried about that and are going to support him anyway. 02:49 I don't really get the, like... 02:53 I've taken off the hair shirt, I guess is what I'm saying. 02:57 I've moved into defiance mode. 03:01 Sarah Longwell Well, that's good. 03:03 But I don't think, I mean, I guess I saw Scott Jennings do this. 03:06 Scott Jennings is just taking shots while he has a chance to take shots. 03:09 Like, that's all. 03:10 He's feeling himself and he wants to be like, those never Trumpers who were so mean to me, you know, they've been lecturing voters, but we weren't. 03:17 We were lecturing Scott Jennings because Scott Jennings was a never Trumper who decided. 03:22 And it's funny how like their thing is like, 03:24 They built it so they could all have beach houses. 03:27 I'm like, bro, you got your CNN contract to be like a Trump surrogate. 03:33 And you're going to go into the way. 03:34 Like, we all know what you did. 03:35 Don't shut up. 03:36 You're just this is all projection from you. 03:38 And the bulwark maybe became profitable like five seconds ago. 03:42 So, like, you know, JBL hasn't gotten a chance to, you know, run to the casino with it yet. 03:47 JVL So anyway, the yacht, my big yacht, it's coming. 03:51 Sarah Longwell Yeah, it is. 03:52 Tim Miller We're going to have boat parades coming soon. 03:55 Anti-Trump boat parades. 03:57 Sarah Longwell Anyway, here's the thing that the analysis. 03:59 So I think, Tim, we're talking about a couple of different things. 04:01 So that's true. 04:02 Our part of it is for us to be like to say what's happening in the Republican Party. 04:08 And I think that that is the different question from like whether what's happening is like good or bad, right or wrong. 04:16 And I think that, you know, we, the argument that JVL and I are having, right, I don't think there was any illusions about the fact that voters were feeling like the economy wasn't good and that they were being hurt by inflation. 04:31 The question was whether or not... 04:38 JBL thought that was a fair thing to vote on in the face of, I think, Donald Trump's many problems. 04:48 And also how there were lots of people who were going to vote for him who did not, who were actually on the upside of a positive macro economy. 05:00 Now, I was always like, look, there's a lot of people, though, who don't feel that, a lot of young people. 05:04 Sure. 05:04 People who make one hundred thousand dollars and like those people broke for Trump in a major way. 05:09 And that made a big difference in this election. 05:11 So that's that's an analysis piece. 05:13 Right. 05:13 And I think, look, I was doing the pod with George yesterday and George was like, I can't believe anybody would vote over the price of eggs versus, you know, American democracy. 05:22 And I'm like, well. 05:24 I do not think that. 05:25 OK, that is that is that is I am I think that it is very difficult to make a case about American democracy in an abstract way when somebody is like my grocery bill has gone up one hundred dollars and I don't have one hundred dollars for my grocery bill to go up. 05:42 Tim Miller Yeah, I agree with that. 05:43 No, I agree. 05:45 So you're right. 05:45 There's two elements here that I'm lashing out about. 05:48 One is, was the analysis correct? 05:50 I stand by it. 05:52 On the very last podcast, I expected that Kamala Harris would have a narrow victory through the blue wall. 05:59 That obviously turned out to be wrong, but it was caveated gravely, and it was, what, three weeks ago on this next level where I was like, we need to end the next level with me telling you the truth that I think Donald Trump is going to win? 06:10 That was, like, three weeks ago. 06:12 And, like, it changed because of the fucking Ann Seltzer poll. 06:15 So, yeah, like, my analysis was kind of grayed by the New York Times Sienna poll. 06:20 And so that's a Nate Cohen and Ann Seltzer problem. 06:23 And, you know, I don't know. 06:24 They can put on their hair shirts while they drink their seltzer. 06:27 So, like, there's an analysis question. 06:29 But then there also is, like, this mission of, like... 06:31 wither never Trump, like, wither anti-Trump. 06:34 Like, wasn't the raison d'etre to galvanize people? 06:41 And I was like, yeah, like, yeah, I wish we would have galvanized more people, but, like, the purpose... 06:48 the existence is to rate like is to raise the alarm right is to is to create a gathering of people who are like-minded about the alarm and to to try to raise it and to cover it and to analyze it and if we you know are paul revere like riding the horse through the villages you know telling them that the fascists are coming and everybody's like 07:13 Whatever, bro. 07:14 I don't know. 07:15 Like, I just I don't know what more. 07:17 You know what I mean? 07:18 Like, I stand by I stand by the warning. 07:21 I stand by the warning and I think it will bear itself out. 07:23 I hope not. 07:24 I would love to be wrong, actually. 07:25 But I think it will. 07:27 Sarah Longwell Also, like I'm in like in in Pennsylvania, eight percent of Republicans voted for Harris. 07:33 Like I like in some of these states where we're in the wow counties in Wisconsin, you know, she did she did better. 07:40 It's like one of the few places she improved. 07:43 The problem is and I think that there needs to be some some real grappling with this is that like. 07:49 Parts of the Democratic coalition that they just sort of rely on, you know, like there's a slide with black men. 07:56 They the Republicans now have a much more multiracial working class coalition there. 08:02 They are focused on non college voters, of which there are many more than college educated voters, especially low propensity ones who only turn out in elections and who do not follow the news at all. 08:15 And who are voting on, like, very specific things that are personal to them, like their costs or like their housing or whatever. 08:23 And so I just – I think that – I just – that's what I think is happening. 08:31 And, like, I don't – I feel like that is – you know, I just – 08:38 That like that's what we are focused on trying to pull those people. 08:42 And I feel like those and that's just people who still identify as a Republican. 08:45 We already have a huge swath of those college educated suburban voters who are now firmly moved to independents and Democrats. 08:52 Right. 08:52 And so they are treated. 08:54 Yeah. 08:54 But they got swamped. 08:55 That's right. 08:56 And we always knew, like we argued this all the time around how these non-college voters and this was it. 09:01 She had to do four points better with non-college white women. 09:05 And she didn't because there was always this tension with the non-college white women around abortion rights and how people cared about that. 09:14 And the fact that a lot of these women are the primary shoppers and the people who do their household budgets and felt really unhappy with the economy. 09:23 JVL All right, well, I will put on my hair shirt then. 09:26 Okay, great. 09:26 Because I do feel... 09:28 Tim Miller I've been wearing mine for two days. 09:29 I'm just saying. 09:30 It was like, finally, after 48 hours, I was like, fuck this. 09:34 JVL Well, so I feel as though there are two parts of my analytical worldview which were deeply wrong in which I need to do some examining of. 09:51 The first was, you know, I always said 50-50 chance he could win. 09:56 Right? 09:57 You know, at our bus tour, I would tell people, look, you know, my heart tells me he's going to win. 10:01 My head says that she is, but my heart says Trump will. 10:05 Tim Miller People should re-listen to that Pittsburgh stop at the bus tour. 10:09 Which stop was it? 10:09 It was Pittsburgh. 10:11 It was Pittsburgh. 10:12 Sarah Longwell Yeah, it was Pittsburgh. 10:15 JVL But I really did not take, and you and I talked about this yesterday, Sarah, I did not countenance the possibility that he could win a flat majority of the popular vote. 10:26 I did not believe that that was an outcome that was on the table. 10:31 And that's a huge mistake in a huge blind spot. 10:34 And that stems from me not understanding America. 10:37 That's I mean, that's on me. 10:39 But the second thing I worry about is like, I don't know that the answer is that Democrats need to be more moderate and centrist. 10:49 Maybe that's an answer. 10:50 I don't know. 10:53 So what we're looking at right now is we're looking at all these counties where Trump is like plus three, plus five versus his margin in 2020. 11:03 What we don't know is did he increase his number of votes or did her votes just disappear? 11:10 And so far it looks like 11:12 Democrats simply didn't show up. 11:15 Maybe the answer is, and we wouldn't like this because we are not progressives. 11:19 We are not commies. 11:21 Except for one of us. 11:23 Maybe the answer is Democrats need to be providing something that is much more demagogic, populist and radical. 11:33 Tim Miller And that that is what will get the blood of space is so good. 11:37 JVL I'm not saying it is, but I'm saying we ought to consider that that's a possibility. 11:42 Tim Miller As usual, JVL is producing the commie view, Sarah the counter view, and I'm going to be in the middle ground. 11:47 So Sarah, why don't you go? 11:49 Synthesis. 11:51 JVL I'm not saying yes. 11:52 I'm just saying if the case is, like if she had the same Biden numbers and Trump's were just like 3% higher, then I would say, okay, well, then the answer is probably more centrism, more moderation. 12:07 But if the answer is that, like, she ran with Liz Cheney and she ran on, like, I'm going to have a lethal fighting force and I own a gun, bitches. 12:15 And, you know, I love capitalism and small business owners. 12:19 And her her the number of votes she went, she she got or that the Democrats got for 2020 went. 12:26 Then maybe the answer is that they need to be a little bit further out there and provide something more radical. 12:36 Sarah Longwell Yeah, this is super wrong, in my opinion. 12:38 Maybe it is. 12:41 Let me just explain what I think is especially wrong about it, which is like, yes, she in her the the last hundred days. 12:49 Right. 12:50 And then in the last, you know, 15 days of those hundred days or 20 days of those hundred days, she was doing a closing argument with Liz Cheney and 13:01 But videos exist, man. 13:04 The number one thing, the number one ad that people ran or that people saw was the ad of Kamala Harris back in 2019 talking about gender reassignment surgery, taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for trans criminals, convicts. 13:25 And if you watch the ad, 13:28 It is a it includes like shocking imagery of like kind of bearded women, like things that would shock the sensibilities of many in the Midwest. 13:37 And it's Kamala Harris on tape being like, yes, I think we should fund these now. 13:41 The fact that it happened a grand total of twice. 13:44 There are two gender reassignment surgeries that happened for prisoners. 13:48 Yeah. 13:48 The fact is, that was the ad that Donald Trump and his team put the most money behind. 13:53 And they put a lot of other money behind. 13:56 She's a radical progressive from California, which is the last time voters had seen her was that person. 14:01 I'll tell you something I hear in the focus groups that I think to me is instructive. 14:05 When she shows back up as like a pretty different candidate than the person that she was back in 2019, voters are like, huh. 14:12 Well, and let me tell you one thing voters really understand. 14:15 They're like, I know when someone's lying to me to get my vote. 14:20 Do they? 14:21 Yeah. 14:24 Do they know? 14:25 Listen, Donald Trump's been saying the same things for the last three elections, right? 14:29 They know him very, very well, and especially for younger voters. 14:33 We talk about this all the time. 14:34 They do not see him as the aberration that people like us see him as. 14:42 you know us being able to explain why he's such an aberration uh but you know uh and in any event i think that it was the fact that people perceived her as a radical trying to be more moderate to win an election uh and they didn't feel like they really knew exactly who she was and i'll tell you voters will take an authentic person saying insane garbage or 15:09 And this is a manifestation of our new culture, whether it is the marinating for decades in antiheroes, whether it's the way people now live on TikTok and these in the podcast and this universe of like, I want this person to both like say the things I want to say on policy, but I just like mostly I want them to be real with me. 15:29 And this not a regular politician that I hear over and over and over again for why people like Donald Trump. 15:35 That was always my big fear. 15:36 I know I said it on here that like my fear was that people would perceive her as a regular politician. 15:41 And that is just especially for young people where she really underperformed. 15:46 They don't want regular politicians. 15:47 Right. 15:47 JVL Tim, before you synthesize, let me offer the counter view of this, which is, I mean, A, if the answer is you can't run a regular politician, then Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer need to leave because they're not going to be able to run for president. 16:02 Gavin probably can't run for president, right? 16:04 I mean, he is just a regular politician. 16:06 It has to be somebody like Fetterman or Mark Cuban, somebody who codes wildly different. 16:13 But when I talk about the radical stuff, 16:16 You're hearing me saying more like progressive. 16:23 And what I mean is more anti-institutional. 16:27 Like Kamala's message was like we got we got to protect these institutions like capitalism and the rule of law and all these things that, again, we love. 16:39 Right. 16:39 Sign me up. 16:40 Sign me up. 16:41 But maybe what voters would respond to is a much more burn it all down liberal populist message. 16:50 Like, for instance, the billionaires are blood sucking oligarchs and we need to go after Elon Musk and 16:59 And Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and confiscate their wealth or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 17:07 Right. 17:07 You could just like they're the ones who rigged the system against us. 17:11 They're the reason you can't get ahead, et cetera, et cetera. 17:14 And maybe that is more fruitful. 17:17 Again, I'm just proposing it. 17:18 I'm not saying it necessarily is true. 17:21 Maybe you can do that while also throwing trans people under the bus and throwing immigrants under the bus, too. 17:28 I don't know. 17:30 But I just worry that it isn't the case that the things that I like are going to be popular enough to get to 51%. 17:37 That's my concern. 17:40 Sarah Longwell I think we should be careful about over-reading things. 17:44 Also fair. 17:46 JVL Maybe it's just like inflation and the anti-income bias that's all the whole world, right? 17:50 That's the other problem with this. 17:51 Maybe the answer is as simple as that, and all of these other explanations are over-reading. 17:56 Sarah Longwell Well, I do think it's not over-reading to say that Americans are incredibly desensitized to a bunch of things that should matter around character, rule of law, and all those other things. 18:05 But I also just... 18:07 don't think it should be like, okay, Trump won this way, so the correct thing to do is to do exactly what he's doing. 18:13 Go ahead, Tim. 18:13 Sorry. 18:14 Tim Miller No, it's okay. 18:15 I don't know how much of a synthesis I'm going to be because I'm kind of on JVL's side of this. 18:19 But I want to explain why. 18:20 Just maybe less radical than you. 18:22 But I want to explain why, though. 18:23 And maybe my language will be more appealing to Sarah than your joker language. 18:29 But... 18:31 It is obviously true that a big part of the story is inflation and anti-income bias and global stuff. 18:37 That said, I looked at the chart this morning. 18:40 I forget who posted it, so I apologize to them, of the quadrants of education and income and what candidates share the vote is from high education, high income versus low education, low income, etc. 18:55 And the Kamala Harris... 18:57 Like where she fit in that was like closest to Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, like of the past, you know, whatever, Florida years of candidates. 19:06 That's a bad quadrant to be in. 19:09 as evidence for the fact that all three lost. 19:11 Right. 19:11 And, and like, she, and like, it's not good, but it makes sense that we all liked her because we all like Bob Dole and Mitt Romney, right? 19:20 All my favorite candidates. 19:22 Um, it's a bad quadrant to be in though. 19:25 Um, and I'm happy to give away some of my policy priors to product from, uh, like, you know, 12 years of Donald Trump and JD Vance or whatever. 19:34 Um, so, um, 19:36 That means the Democrats have to do something to appeal to working class people that that's a little bit different. 19:40 That is not just maybe it's just Donald Trump crashes the economy and they don't actually have to do anything. 19:45 That's one possibility. 19:47 But if that doesn't happen, they have to come up with another idea if that is not the answer. 19:51 Right. 19:52 And so to me, this sort of stuff, I had a very long podcast I did yesterday with Pablo Torre about which which whatever you can Google it. 20:04 Pablo Torre finds out. 20:06 Um, and, and we were talking just a lot about cultural stuff and how, and he does mostly, he's like at the sports culture intersection. 20:14 And, um, and it's like about how all these institutions have collapsed, right? 20:18 It's not just politics, right? 20:19 The democratization of everything. 20:20 Like, you know, he was doing it from his sports lens. 20:22 He's talking about sports illustrated and, you know, ESPN, right? 20:26 Like, and, and all of that. 20:27 And like, you could do it in any, in any vertical, right? 20:31 Like we've seen this across the board and, 20:33 And the Democrats have, and us, by Trump, for very defensible reasons, were forced into the situation at this anti-elite moment where everything is democratizing and everything is crumbling. 20:47 We were forced into a position of being like, the institutions are strong. 20:52 Like, the system is good. 20:54 Like, the system works. 20:55 Respect the system. 20:57 Yeah. 20:57 And that just might be a losing hand, right? 21:01 And the Democrats just might need to find themselves in a position of being anti-system in a way that is not the joker, that is not... 21:13 We're going to, you know, whatever, seize the means of production. 21:17 But in some other way that is more populist, that maybe is economically populist, that maybe is just about punishing the oligarchs. 21:25 Trump might make that very easy over the next four years by, you know, giving handouts to Elon Musk and all these other guys whose profiles are going to improve. 21:35 I'm open to what it looks like, I guess. 21:38 But I'm just... 21:41 just saying i feel like we that those of us who are kind of more that thinks the system is good um you know might if protect it we might need to change the system to preserve the system i guess we need to we need to uh be a little bit more radical in in the way that you view the system to save the system i don't uh this is we're three days out and i've i've slept like 12 hours and i haven't i haven't been home and i'm like living in no exit in my this little hotel room in 30 rock 22:09 And I think I'm losing my mind. 22:10 So I reserve the right to change this view next week. 22:15 But anyway, that's where I'm at. 22:16 JVL See, on the secret show, Tim, we're not taking stands. 22:21 We're just trying on ideas. 22:23 Yeah, okay. 22:23 Tim Miller So that's where I'm at. 22:25 Sarah, did that shirt fit for you a little bit better or still no? 22:29 Sarah Longwell You know, I don't know if you listened to JVL and I do our secret pie yesterday. 22:32 Tim Miller I caught back the first half and then I forget what happened, but I had to change. 22:36 Sarah Longwell So it's okay. 22:36 Well, in the second half, one of the things that I said that I would say is... 22:40 I guess could fit a little bit into this is that I am thinking more about what income inequality is potentially sort of doing to voters, right? 22:52 Like if you look, Donald Trump is winning, right? 22:55 People who make under $100,000. 22:58 And I think that there's like all these cultural factors that are shifting people. 23:04 So one of them is the way that social media 23:07 it used to be that like if you lived in a neighborhood, right, people had rough in your neighborhood, the people you saw had roughly the same kind of stuff you did, right? 23:14 They had the same kind of car, the same kind of house. 23:17 And now everybody's got like a better life on their phone that they see other people having. 23:23 And I think it's causing a level of grievance. 23:26 And that is like slightly different. 23:30 And people are like, well, why can't I access this life? 23:33 And those kind of disparities sort of always existed, but they are much more 23:36 in people's faces. 23:38 Look, I also think, like I said, 20 years of marinating and Tony Soprano like anti heroes. 23:42 Tim Miller Because I've been wanting to say this on every podcast, I just never get the right to that chart that everybody keeps showing about how the incumbent parties did the worst in 2024 about any year since 1905 or whatever. 23:54 I keep looking at it. 23:56 I'm like, yeah, okay. 23:57 Inflation is annoying. 23:58 I get it. 23:58 I'm not trying to understate it. 23:59 But, like, there have been so many bad years since 1905 that were objectively worse than 2024 across every economic war, like pandemic, right? 24:12 And so, like... 24:15 The phone has to be a part of the story, right? 24:18 If people are so mad, they can have both legitimate grievance about how annoying the inflation is, but also it's being exacerbated by the phone. 24:27 Sarah Longwell Absolutely. 24:28 And you're in silos and like, look, making people mad is like the coin of the realm for a lot of this stuff. 24:33 And as a result, that's why I think it's not just the anti-incumbent sentiment right now. 24:41 I think we're going to be... 24:42 in a thing where being an incumbent is no longer like a fundamental that works in your favor, right? 24:50 That for a long time, incumbency was like a thing that people really needed. 24:54 And now I think it might either be a wash or actually a net negative because we're going to be in this perpetual change election if people always are angry because their phone gives them like a distorted sense always of like, well, it's better over there. 25:12 Yeah. 25:12 somewhere. 25:13 And also, oh my gosh, now I know what the people who live over there on that other side of the mountain that I didn't used to know, I know what they think. 25:20 And I think what they think sucks. 25:22 And I'm mad about that. 25:23 Tim Miller Imagine living in Waukesha County in 1984 and knowing what the protesters on Columbia University's campus were doing every day. 25:33 You had no idea. 25:34 Maybe there was one article about it in the paper or something. 25:37 Now it's in your phone constantly. 25:39 JVL Well, this is our sixth consecutive change election, right? 25:43 Going back to 2014. 25:45 Like, I mean, that is weird. 25:47 I guess let me I want to ask you a question, Sarah. 25:50 And this goes to the sort of fundamental change in what people want from a candidate. 25:59 If I was a genie and I popped out of the bottle and I said to you, all right, it's November 8th, 2024. 26:07 If you want her, I can give you Gretchen Whitmer as the Democratic nominee in 2028. 26:16 Pass. 26:17 I can't promise you anything else, but if you want her, you can have her. 26:21 I'll take the field. 26:22 Would you take it or no? 26:24 Sarah Longwell What are my other options? 26:26 JVL The other option is like, I don't use my genie powers and we just like let it ride on. 26:30 And who knows? 26:32 Sarah Longwell Tim, is your immediate reaction, because I got some like personal DMs about JVL saying it can never be a woman, like we can't run a woman again, where people are like, he is being so deeply misogynistic and awful. 26:44 And I did write back in your defense to say like, no, he thinks other people are misogynistic and awful. 26:51 And that's why he doesn't think a woman can get elected. 26:53 Is your question though, JVL, 26:57 can she get elected? 27:00 Like, could Gretchen Whitmer get elected in 2020? 27:02 JVL Would you like her chances as what she is, which is both a woman and very moderate, but also like a politician? 27:10 Tim Miller She's not very moderate. 27:12 JVL Somewhat moderate, but also like a politician. 27:15 Sarah Longwell But she's better than a regular politician. 27:18 She knows how to talk to people. 27:19 Have you ever heard her do like a radio interview? 27:22 Yeah, Kamala Harris. 27:23 Like, she seems like a regular person. 27:25 So is Kamala Harris. 27:27 JVL I mean, but a regular politician. 27:30 Tim Miller Can I interject something to this convo really quick? 27:34 Because I've had several people message this to me when we start doing all this stuff. 27:39 Sarah's got the messages about the woman. 27:41 I think it's going to be hard for the Democrats to nominate a woman in 2028, I think for some practical reasons that are maybe unfair. 27:51 But I just think that that's reality. 27:54 But as this has been coming up, 27:56 There have been people actually both next to me at MSNBC and in my messages that are like, why are you guys doing this? 28:02 Like, why are you guys acting like there's going to be an election in 2028? 28:05 Like, what do you mean? 28:06 Like, everything's over. 28:08 And my reaction to that is that on every podcast I've had where I've brought up this topic, I've asked people, what percent chance do you think it is that Trump will try to stay and that we won't have a real election in 2028? 28:24 And the answers vary, but nobody's like 100. 28:27 You know? 28:29 But I think that there may be some listeners or people that are like, wait a minute, isn't everybody talking about the end of democracy? 28:36 And I think that's a fair thing to ask, which is why I bring it up. 28:40 Because my view of it is always like, in my mind, it's always been, no, I think that liberal democracy was on the line. 28:47 That we've already seen major cracks in the rule of law and the way that our government works. 28:51 And that, like, there's a chance Donald Trump will try to stay in power, and the chance is way too high for my liking, but that we'll likely have elections and maybe elections that Donald Trump tries to, and that rig is not the right word, but tries to, you know, institute new rules that make things harder. 29:07 Like, you know, whatever. 29:08 There are, like, various things that could happen. 29:10 The power of the tech oligarch, of Elon between now and 2028 is only going to grow. 29:14 Like, there's a lot of unknowns, but... 29:16 Like I was I was never on the side that was really like, oh, no, we're not going to have an election in 2028. 29:21 But I think when people heard that, you know, some people processed it differently. 29:25 So anyway, I just I wanted to throw that out to the group. 29:28 Sarah Longwell Well, and JBL, I think, has made this point where he's like what he's asked, like he asked, I don't know what we've certainly talked to this. 29:34 It's like, well, what what percentage chance? 29:36 Yeah. 29:36 would you give that we don't have a regular election in 2028? 29:40 And your point was always like, if it's 3% or 5%, that's way too high. 29:45 And so I don't think any of us are sitting here being like, there's a 95% chance that we won't have regular elections or we won't have elections in 2026. 29:54 I think we will have those things. 29:59 But I also want to say that, without going into too much, in the days leading up to the election, 30:06 I heard from a lot of people who knew Trump personally. 30:13 And there was a real Donald Trump was going to try to declare victory no matter what. 30:19 Right. 30:19 Like we are not like he was going to try to put pressure on. 30:22 on state legislatures to certify alternate slate of electors. 30:28 Now, Donald Trump, our analysis of Donald Trump has been dead right always. 30:32 This is where, I guess, I don't think I've been wearing, I wasn't even thinking of wearing a hair shirt. 30:37 I was trying to think, like, were there blind spots? 30:40 Were there things that I, you know, but that... 30:42 No, like we're 100 percent right about Donald Trump and Donald Trump. 30:47 Now, I think there's a question of like which way to his incentives go as he prepares for this next four years. 30:53 So I'll tell you one thing that the one piece of news that has come out that I have seen as a positive relative to like alternatives is like Susie Wiles is going to be his chief of staff. 31:05 Here's our next fight. 31:06 Great. 31:06 So, like, I think Susie Wallace is a total degenerate who went to work for Donald Trump. 31:13 But she is... 31:17 I don't know. 31:18 I just... Like, she's... 31:19 I'm trying to think. 31:20 Like, she's not Laura Loomer. 31:21 Like, Laura Loomer is not his chief of staff. 31:23 And I think that that's good. 31:24 I would... 31:27 Tim Miller Okay, so I want to layer something onto this, and then I'm going to give it to JVL, because I think that this will be the second time on this podcast that me and JVL are on the same side, which makes me uncomfortable. 31:35 I prefer when I'm on Sarah's side. 31:40 There are two items of news I've seen today. 31:42 I'm sitting right here. 31:43 Sorry. 31:44 The Susie Wiles news, which the Bulwark Slack, just to speak to everybody else, to show that it's really me and JVL against the world, the Bulwark Slack was like, ugh. 31:52 Good. 31:53 This is, okay, good. 31:54 It could have been way worse than Susie Wiles. 31:55 And I saw that news and I was like, I wanted Corey Lewandowski. 31:59 And then the Axios thing came this morning that said, you know, I think Trump won a narrow electoral college victory. 32:08 where Hakeem Jeffries is a speaker. 32:11 Obviously, that would have been very preferable, but he would have had no levers to do any economic policy except tariffs. 32:17 So he would have been gone all in on tariffs in that case. 32:20 In this case now, if he's going to have both houses, what Axios is reporting is he's going to do handouts to oligarchs. 32:27 There's going to be deregulation, extending the tax cuts. 32:32 deregulation of tech and AI and crypto. 32:36 You know, there's gonna be banks, like, are gonna have rules loosened on them. 32:42 And that's more traditional Republican stuff. 32:45 And so on the one hand, I think that you could look at that and say, oh, hmm, 32:49 Trump's going to get these business guys in there with Susie Wiles and they're going to do tax cut deregulation stuff. 32:55 And you could look at that and say, that's good. 32:57 Or you can look at that and say, I don't know if that's good. 33:00 So JVL, that's where I wanted to set the table. 33:03 JVL Yeah, I mean, first, I just want to put a button on the will there be an election in 2028? 33:10 Because, again, this is something I said a bunch of times, both in the newsletter and on shows with you guys. 33:17 It was always a question of, like, what is the chance? 33:20 And now that we have Trump, you know, in the words of Nick Fury, until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on. 33:28 And that is the only way to carry on, right? 33:30 You can't just... 33:31 preemptively assume well i guess we don't get an election you know no you gotta carry on as though as though it will um i don't know who nick fury is but that's wise that's okay don't worry about it um it's probably a wrestler the foreign here's the and okay so the susie wiles question i mean objectively it's good i think 33:53 that suzy wiles is the chief of staff um that doesn't mean that she'll i mean his chiefs of staff don't tend to last very long mick mulvaney was chief of staff during an insurrection wasn't he no i guess he was gone it was meadows so like i mean to the extent that you could limit some damage early probably probably that's good um 34:18 But on the other hand, I do kind of, part of me would like voters to get the Trump that they voted for. 34:28 Because I think that that would be an important learning experience for them. 34:34 And I mean, maybe, maybe, for instance, maybe deporting 15 million immigrants, which is what he promised over and over, will turn into he deports like 25,000 immigrants and then just declares victory. 34:50 And it's the wall that Mexico paid for. 34:53 And maybe that's good or maybe it's bad. 34:56 I don't know. 34:57 Like, that's a very real question to me because then, you know, like Trump's people never got mad that there was no wall and that Mexico didn't pay for it. 35:07 They just wanted to be able to say that they wanted the wall. 35:10 And maybe they won't get mad that he doesn't deport 15 million people. 35:14 Maybe they just wanted to be able to rage around saying that they wished he would deport 15 million people. 35:21 And maybe the human suffering is, you know, fine, whatever. 35:24 But on the other hand, maybe we need a little bit of accelerationism. 35:31 to head off the slow slide into autocracy, right? 35:34 I mean, because maybe the problem is that the water just gets keeping turned up a little bit at a time when people should see the full thing. 35:43 What if, and this was something that was sent to me by a reader, 35:47 Should Democrats treat Trump the way foreign heads of state do? 35:52 Right. 35:52 Because no foreign leaders have learned like just just, you know, Hakeem Jeffrey is just going to be like, sir, sir, with tears in his eyes. 36:01 You know, you are a great man. 36:04 And I am now realizing how great you are. 36:06 I just want to help you out and be your partner and then try to get like the protections for the things that that Speaker Jeffrey or Speaker, but Minority Leader Jeffrey really cares about in exchange. 36:17 And just sort of go along to get along. 36:20 Is that a wise thing for Democrats to do? 36:25 It's the real politic thing to do, right? 36:27 I mean, all these other heads of state do that with Trump. 36:29 Tim Miller Look, I think this comes down to a fundamental question that might be the new fundamental thing that divides you and Sarah. 36:36 You know, you had the, are the people good was the first divide, and this might be the next one for the next four years, which is... 36:42 JVL I think I won that argument, right? 36:44 Tim Miller We don't have the answer to that. 36:46 Are they good? 36:47 The question is, is the... 36:53 Is the best way to alleviate suffering and protect people to allow there to be some suffering for a while that maybe has, shakes things loose, you know? 37:05 shakes us from our decadent stupor or is the preferable thing to try to protect people as much as possible in the short term from trump's whims and threats because he doesn't really care about them that much right like he's not a deep ideologue um and like 37:25 I think that that's a legitimate question that we're going to have to keep talking about. 37:28 My instinct falls on the side of I don't think that the Democrats should leave him to his own devices. 37:36 And I do not think that they should try to suck up to him and get things out of him and flatter him and prey on his weaknesses. 37:42 And we'll see how 2026 goes. 37:47 That's my gut instinct. 37:48 But again, I reserve the right to change my mind. 37:51 But I think that there's a good argument on the other side. 37:54 Sarah Longwell I also want to reserve the right to change my mind and have a gut instinct. 37:57 And my gut instinct is this. 38:00 I do not think that they should suck up to him. 38:02 Absolutely not. 38:03 However, I also think that instead of like full resistance, like full resistance mode, I don't think they should do that either. 38:13 I think that the Democrats should be much more strategic about which hills they're going to die on in favor of harm mitigation. 38:23 Right. 38:23 So I do think 38:25 We have a responsibility. 38:28 And I think it's a little bit it's a little bit of like, you know, you're pissed at people. 38:37 You think people are being dumb. 38:39 So like they wanted this. 38:40 Give it to them good and hard. 38:42 That is a I understand the impulse, but I think it's an impulse. 38:47 And I think we should it's an impulse. 38:49 We should check pretty hard because it's born from a place of anger. 38:53 And it's not born from a place like it's not coming from our best self. 38:59 Right. 38:59 Tim Miller And so I think the question is convincing me that it's coming from my best self, though. 39:03 The anger is convincing me that the pain that we need pain to have recovery. 39:10 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 39:11 And I guess I guess I think that you can probably I think Trump is so harmful, so deeply harmful in so many ways that you can have plenty of eye opening moments for the voters that said, oh, I didn't mean this. 39:27 I didn't want this. 39:29 Right. 39:30 But I don't know that you want it to be at the expense of, you know, people who are American citizens getting deported to places they've never been. 39:41 Right. 39:42 Like, I just I think that there we should we should be in a mindset of what are the most important things to protect? 39:51 And like, what are our hills to die on over those? 39:55 And we should be in a harm mitigation mode. 39:57 But I don't think you have to do it by sucking up to them. 40:00 I do think you have to do it by and this is going to be a pretty constant refrain for me. 40:05 I think that making a case to the American people about things that really matter to them has got to be more like a much more basic democratic message. 40:17 Democrats don't have to decide to, you don't have to throw trans people under the bus per se, like JVL was saying, or throw immigrants under the bus to say like, okay, we are not going to have biological men playing women's sports. 40:34 like to just take that stance. 40:35 That's not throwing trans people under the bus, nor is saying that like, we're gonna have borders that we're gonna enforce. 40:41 And like, we're gonna have a, like, those are different things. 40:46 And I think that I would not die on a, I would die on a hill over them deporting the children of American citizens with their parents who are here illegally, and parents who have been here, you know, people who've been here for 30 years. 41:02 But am I going to I'm not going to die on a hill or say that that if Trump wants to. 41:07 JVL I'm sorry, can you say it again? 41:08 You would die on that hill. 41:10 Sarah Longwell Yeah. 41:10 The deportation of American citizens, the racist demagoguing of American citizens. 41:17 Yeah, those are putting 15 million people into camps. 41:20 But that is different from if they have if they pass a really tough border security bill. 41:26 You know, I think the Democrats should work with them on that. 41:31 JVL I think I agree with that. 41:34 Not on the deportation stuff. 41:37 Sarah Longwell Right. 41:38 But this is my point. 41:38 JVL My point is, is like choosing people. 41:45 Sarah Longwell I mean, look, I think if they started and said, like, people who are here illegally, who have come here illegally within the last five years, who've committed a crime. 41:54 Like if that was where they started. 41:56 Tim Miller Sarah's talking. 41:56 I think you guys are different things. 41:57 JVL is talking. 41:58 Sarah's talking about like what is the rhetorical space that you're going to fight him on? 42:02 JVL is like what? 42:03 Legislatively. 42:05 Yeah. 42:05 What are the legislative roadblocks? 42:07 JVL Should you filibuster it? 42:08 Like if Trump said I'm going to present it right. 42:11 If there was such a thing as the 15 million deportation bill of 2025 and it came to the Senate, should Democrats filibuster it? 42:21 And I think the answer should be no. 42:25 They're happy to vote against it. 42:27 Don't stop it. 42:28 Tim Miller We must discuss on this. 42:29 My main thing, thinking about all this, that as it applies to us, as it applies to me, that's going to be a little bit of a challenge. 42:38 But I think that should apply to Democrats broadly. 42:41 And we should try to model good behavior is that they should focus on objecting to Trump over the things that he does. 42:51 I think that the one thing that for me feels a little over from Resistance 2017 is getting mad about shit, whatever. 43:01 He fucking comes out of his pie hole. 43:05 I think that there should be a pivot to focusing. 43:08 Because I think that some of the things that he did in the first term got lost because people were so... 43:13 so um outraged over the things that came out of his fucking like disgusting mouth um and so i think that is a good place to start from and then i think that then the question is right like how much of the stuff that he does to just let him do and how much of the stuff that he does do you try to do you try to restrain and i think that's a real i think that's a real question 43:36 JVL Sarah, so you a minute ago, you were talking about Democrats having a message. 43:41 How do they message without a leader, though? 43:43 Because there is no Democratic leader, right? 43:46 If they had held the House, it would have been Hakeem Jeffries. 43:48 It would have been incredibly important. 43:51 But there is no center to the Democratic Party now. 43:55 How does that work? 43:56 Sarah Longwell I mean, I think leaders do emerge in these moments. 44:00 My biggest fear would be that they're bad leaders, right? 44:03 That you get that people are pretty desperate for their fighter and you end up with somebody. 44:09 Say his name. 44:10 Yeah, like Gavin. 44:11 Say his name. 44:15 As opposed to, you know, but I think there will be people who emerge, hopefully, who understand. 44:23 And I also look, I am I'm for this current sort of soul searching part on the Democrats to have a discussion about. 44:32 what it means to appeal to non-college voters. 44:38 They have to think about that. 44:43 Demography is not destiny. 44:46 Trump does not have a mandate. 44:48 This isn't a wild political realignment in his direction. 44:52 But Democrats are sliding with groups across the political spectrum. 44:56 The Republican Party is is very focused on building a multiracial working class coalition. 45:03 And it's a big coalition that is steeped in populist economics, isolationism, anti-immigration sentiment. 45:12 And, you know, they do not want nobody wants to be in foreign wars. 45:17 Right. 45:17 It's this and the scarcity of 45:20 The way that the people if people feel scarcity, they are then don't like it if you're sending money to Ukraine. 45:25 Right. 45:26 They don't like it if they think immigrants are getting something that they're not like. 45:29 Right. 45:29 That's what Trump is appealing to. 45:33 And. 45:36 I just think that, like, Democrats are going to have to figure out – they've been tremendously vulnerable in immigration for a long time. 45:43 And I guess if we were talking about the quadrants, Donald Trump has a much more populist economic message than Republicans did in the past, and those were losers. 45:52 Yeah. 45:52 So I'm with you that like some more populist economic messaging might just be where we're headed, even if I don't like it. 45:59 But like, I think there's ways to do that that are really productive. 46:01 And I use the word productive advisedly. 46:04 Say, I mean, Kamala did the kind of build houses, but like, let's get some big visioning around building and around a new economic environment where like people feel excited and have somebody who can talk to them about that. 46:18 Like, do you think that Kamala Harris, even though she ran a technically pretty good campaign, like, do you think that people felt a sense of, like, I know where this country is going under this person? 46:27 I feel like this person passionately, deeply cares about my well-being and is going to figure out how to make this country be better for me. 46:35 Like, if Democrats don't figure out how to talk to non-college voters about economic opportunity and that they just feel this sense that, like, no, they're for these, like, niche demographic groups, like, that's what they're focused on, that's the fight – 46:47 That's a mistake. 46:49 JVL Can I read you guys a couple things from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution? 46:55 The AJC has an immigration reporter. 46:58 You know where I'm going with this. 47:00 And he went down to the Immigration Naturalization Office in Atlanta where people come and check in. 47:12 And he talked to people and he was surprised to find that many of the people who entered the country illegally who were there who can't vote said they would have voted for Trump. 47:28 because they don't believe that they have anything to fear. 47:31 And so, for instance, one gentleman told him, right now people are coming in who were bad in our countries and they'll be bad here. 47:41 He says that migrants who are in the country working and not committing crimes should have nothing to fear. 47:47 Quote, Trump doesn't want to stop immigration. 47:49 He wants for it to be controlled and to block criminals from coming in and destroying the country because it's a mess. 47:55 Another gentleman said, this is amazing. 48:00 This is just a quote. 48:01 Democrats talk about Trump saying he's going to deport everyone, but that doesn't really scare us. 48:06 Everybody knows that's a lie, that he's not going to do it. 48:09 We know Trump just says those things to get the gringos votes. 48:13 It's a lie that people will be stopped in the streets and if they don't have papers, okay, straight to the plane. 48:18 If they catch you committing a crime, that's different. 48:21 I, uh... 48:24 I don't know how to reconcile this with Stephen Miller standing in the Madison Square Garden and shouting, America is for Americans and Americans only! 48:33 Like, one of these people is right and one of them is wrong. 48:40 Which is worse. 48:42 Tim Miller I don't know. 48:43 I'm in a bad place. 48:44 JVL So just let's go with this. 48:45 Tim Miller Like, which is worse? 48:47 Like, what is worse? 48:48 Like, Trump just being a total farce and having it all be a, like, reality show for morons and a clown show where he doesn't actually... 48:59 care about anything and he's just appealing to people's base instincts and his bigotry and he doesn't actually care and elon and the fucking jamie diamond get a tax cut and you know a couple of random rapists get deported but nothing really not really anything 49:18 And, you know, he tariffs a couple of things like for Elon's competitors, but not really anything else. 49:24 And and whatever. 49:25 And he golfs and, you know, has parties in the White House with McDonald's. 49:32 And everybody's like, yay, we are happy we got fooled by this person. 49:36 We don't care. 49:37 This is just this is just our great clown country. 49:39 Is that worse or is Trump doing what he says worse? 49:43 I guess the latter's worse, but it's fucking close for me. 49:47 It's a close call for me in this moment. 49:52 Sarah Longwell Not for me. 49:55 I don't want Trump to do maximally painful things for all kinds of people just because we think they deserve it for voting for him. 50:08 JVL What would it mean if Trump doesn't do any of the things he promised and then all of the people whose promises he broke to them don't care? 50:19 Because for me, that makes it hard to like— 50:26 That breaks my brain a little bit in how we're supposed to move forward, because if that's the truth, then it turns out we are in full nihilism mode and nothing matters. 50:35 There's all these conversations about like what Democrats need to do and how they could reassure people and meet people. 50:41 It means that none of that actually matters. 50:44 And I don't know how to exist in that space. 50:46 Sarah Longwell OK, well, hold on. 50:46 Let's just let's just go through some of the things Trump said he was going to do. 50:50 Like if Trump says he's going to suspend the Constitution. 50:53 OK, if he puts if he puts Liz Cheney in front of a military tribunal, like if these things happen. 51:01 Do you think that's OK? 51:03 You think that's like it's worth it if he deports 15 million people and puts them in camps and they live in camps on the border states? 51:11 Tim Miller I don't want anything. 51:12 I don't want any of that to happen. 51:13 But how does how does this get improved if they're like Donald Trump lives in a world where there's no consequences for his actions? 51:19 The country lives in a world where there's no consequences for their actions. 51:22 And how does this improve? 51:22 Then fine. 51:23 OK, then I guess we're just in a clown autocracy forever. 51:26 Where we exist at the whims of the best lying con man. 51:31 Okay, I hear you. 51:32 I'm not saying I want 15 million people to be deported. 51:35 But it's just like, that's why it's a closer call for me. 51:40 Because I'm talking about what could be rather than... Well, let me give you a worse scenario. 51:45 Sarah Longwell He deports 15 million people. 51:47 Tim Miller People like that. 51:49 Sarah Longwell And people like that. 51:50 And he's a lot more popular as a result of it. 51:53 JVL Yeah, that's also very, very real possibility. 51:57 All of these things, by the way, the subject that unites them is that we are finding out who and what Americans are. 52:04 And it's really uncomfortable. 52:06 Right. 52:07 Because we're either going to find out that. 52:09 I mean, there's one possibility, which is that he does all the things he promised and people rebel against it, which would be great. 52:16 Fingers crossed. 52:16 Right. 52:17 That's the that's the there are two wolves inside of us and the good wolf wins. 52:22 But the other two possibilities are that he doesn't do it and nobody cares or that he does it and they like it. 52:29 And I. 52:32 I'm just not feeling great about those odds because I'm feeling like I don't understand the country anymore. 52:38 I feel like an old person, right? 52:39 This is what old people do. 52:40 They're like, this isn't like what I remember when I was 20. 52:44 The world is entirely different than it was 60 years ago, and I don't recognize it anymore. 52:50 And I kind of feel like that a little bit or a lot. 52:57 That's all. 52:59 Tim Miller I relate to that. 53:01 JVL Do you, Sarah? 53:02 I mean, do you I guess this is my question. 53:04 Do you think something has changed or you think like it's it's all basically this is how people always have been. 53:09 And we just we lucked into not seeing it. 53:14 Sarah Longwell No, I think that I felt maybe it's because I listen to so many voters that I just feel like much more prepared for this. 53:20 I have just listened to, I mean, go back and listen to the episode that I did with Rui. 53:26 People were really mad at this episode. 53:29 Both at Rui, like listen to the Hispanic voters. 53:31 Tim Miller To say I have to go back and listen to it would imply that I listened to it the first time, which I did not for self-preservation purposes. 53:38 Sarah Longwell Sure. 53:38 But this is the thing. 53:39 Like, OK, if you've been self-preserving and not listening to what these voters are saying, like, it's all in there. 53:45 And they've been saying it. 53:46 And I like I don't think that they're all cartoon evil characters. 53:54 And like there's and the reason that I think, you know, 2022. 54:00 This is one that I think about a lot, the fact that it was so important that all those election deniers lose. 54:08 And they did. 54:09 But the downside of that was that there were a bunch of lessons that got learned that were a little wrong in that the electorate looks different in midterms than it does in a general election and that Donald Trump appeals to a mass populace in ways that... 54:24 that Democrats are struggling to do for a variety of reasons that are not because those people are bad people, but that they are just thinking about themselves, which is not a crazy thing to do. 54:35 They are not thinking about democracy. 54:36 And they were just like this rich guy who says a bunch of things that I think are kind of funny, but also insane. 54:42 But I think he's going to like help me do better in my life. 54:46 JVL Yeah. 54:47 All right. 54:47 Listen, we got to wrap this up. 54:49 It's been an amazing, magical secret show with all three of us here. 54:54 And I feel like we were all more off the leash than before. 54:57 Guys, catch you next week.