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0:38

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.

0:41

Man, it is Friday the 13th and what a hell

0:43

of a news cycle. And of course, he

0:45

needs no introduction, but Tom Nichols is professor emeritus

0:48

at the Naval War College and now a staff

0:50

writer at the Atlantic Magazine and author

0:52

of the Atlantic Daily Newsletter. And

0:54

his books include The Death of Expertise,

0:57

which I am told has an update coming

0:59

this My apologies for

1:01

bringing you on on a particularly dark

1:03

and gloomy and cursed day,

1:06

professor. You know, I hadn't thought

1:08

of Friday the 13th because every

1:10

day is Friday the 13th now. You

1:13

know, I was just thinking about just the news cycle.

1:15

And you know, in my morning shots, I was talking about, of course,

1:18

you know, the complete utter chaos in the House of Representatives.

1:21

Steve Scalise wins the vote for speaker and

1:23

his candidacy lasts, what, less than 24 hours. He

1:26

drops out. Every headline

1:28

in America

1:29

has some version of the word chaos,

1:32

turmoil, anarchy, paralysis,

1:34

dysfunction, dysfunction. You know, we

1:36

are a world power.

1:38

We're facing one crisis after another.

1:41

And this is the moment that our deeply serious

1:43

country, a theme that you've written about, Tom,

1:45

has decided to be deeply unserious

1:47

and to shut down the House of Representatives. And

1:50

frankly, let's be honest about it.

1:52

OK, nobody knows what's going

1:54

to happen now. Steve Scalise couldn't

1:56

get to 217. Kevin McCarthy couldn't get

1:58

to 217.

1:59

you need, maybe the second coming

2:02

of Kevin McCarthy. Well, no, he's not going to get

2:04

to 217. So we're at a moment

2:06

now where no one knows

2:08

what's going to happen. And the Republican

2:10

Party, which is supposed to be the

2:12

majority party, the governing party, is

2:15

demonstrating in real time in

2:18

bright colors that it is

2:20

uninterested in the business of government or

2:23

has lost the ability. So again,

2:26

it's the juxtaposition of the

2:28

horrors of the real world and this

2:30

fucking clown car that we're

2:33

seeing in Washington, D.C. You

2:35

said it this morning, clowns with flamethrowers.

2:38

This is what Republicans wanted. This was kind of what I said. I mean,

2:40

they've been asking for this, right? They wanted the revolution.

2:42

They wanted to burn it down. They empowered the

2:45

political suicide bombers. This is what

2:47

you get when you elevate and you empower

2:49

the fringe players when you hand flamethrowers

2:53

the clowns. And they're like, how did

2:55

this happen to us? Yeah, I you

2:57

know, when you when you mentioned the

2:59

problem of, you know, they don't understand

3:01

governing or they don't want to go. I think this

3:04

is all the cascading

3:06

failure that began

3:09

in 2016 of people who never

3:11

expected to be where they are suddenly

3:14

in positions that they both they don't

3:16

understand. I think, you know, it's objectively

3:19

true that Lauren Boebert or

3:21

these other they have no idea what they're doing in Congress.

3:24

But it's also a group of people

3:26

who finding themselves where they are have

3:28

decided that the most important thing is to stay

3:30

where they are. And that removes

3:34

any possibility for governing,

3:37

which requires not being

3:39

on camera all the time, which requires not,

3:42

you know, just scoring cheap points all the

3:44

time. But I mean, that's the incentive structure

3:47

for these guys. You know, who do I always blame?

3:50

The voters, we the people who,

3:52

you know, have looked at this clown show and said, Well, I'm

3:54

getting what I want. I'm not getting

3:57

legislation, but I don't want legislation because the

3:59

voters. And, you know, I'm just

4:01

going to bang the desk again here. The

4:03

voters don't understand how government works.

4:05

They don't understand how it is that all

4:08

this happens, so they don't care what their representatives are

4:10

doing. I'm going to take your point there. But

4:12

I also think that it's worth pointing out that something

4:15

like 94% of the Republican caucus

4:18

did not want to do this. I'm not trying to

4:20

defend Kevin McCarthy, but you do have seven

4:22

members of the caucus who decided to blow things up.

4:25

So you had the crazy, you know, slavering jackal caucus

4:27

that threw Kevin McCarthy out. Now there's a

4:29

whole group of others that were saying, we're never Scalise.

4:32

There's going to be a group that's never whoever

4:34

the next name is that comes up. It is

4:36

this tiny minority in

4:39

the party, but they've been empowered.

4:41

They've been given the clout. I'm not

4:43

going to let you just boil this down to those

4:45

seven, because after this happened,

4:48

everyone else in the house should have gotten together.

4:51

And so we need a speaker, need to be a compromise

4:53

candidate, need to happen right now. And the first

4:55

thing we're going to do is defang these seven kooks.

4:59

The fact that you and I are living in a world where it is at

5:01

least notionally possible that Jim

5:03

Jordan would become the

5:05

speaker of the people's

5:08

house and in line to the presidency

5:10

of the United States is so

5:13

utterly fantastic. Not

5:16

because Jim Jordan is some trans-dimensional

5:19

warlock, but because he's an idiot.

5:22

He was a kind of Carney

5:24

Barker candidate whose job was to

5:26

represent some people in Ohio and

5:28

their cookie conspiracy. These Frankenstein's

5:31

were never supposed to get off the table. And

5:33

by the way, it's another sign of how deeply unserious

5:35

all of this is. The fact that for a few days they were actually talking

5:38

about electing Donald Trump as

5:40

speaker. This is how ridiculous it is.

5:42

And so then, I mean, look in a rational

5:44

universe, Jim Jordan would never be allowed

5:46

close to the speaker's chair. You're absolutely right. I

5:48

agree with you on the, on the, that it is

5:51

not just the seven. I want to make that clear. Is it eight

5:53

now? Seven or eight? Well, it's a different group. It

5:55

keeps shifting. There's a large group of people who frankly

5:57

don't care whether or not they've shut down the Congress of the United

5:59

States. United States. And, you know, one day

6:02

it's Matt Gaetz, you know, the next day it's, I don't

6:04

know, it's always Nancy Mace, one, you know, with

6:06

one outfit after another. But look,

6:09

this is a party that has been losing its mind for a

6:11

long time, and now it's lost its way. And

6:13

now it's basically proving that it has no interest

6:15

in governing. But I mean, this is also what

6:17

you get when you, you know, you sneer at

6:19

things like compromise, prudence,

6:22

when you treat bipartisanship

6:24

or consensus as bad things. You

6:26

know, when you snark about norms,

6:29

when you flout the law, when you do all

6:31

of these things, when you go deeper

6:33

and deeper into these hermetically sealed alternative

6:35

realities, you know, and you indulge,

6:38

you know, year after year of demagoguery

6:41

and indecency when you take your cues from Donald

6:43

Trump, really should you be

6:45

surprised to wake up

6:48

finding out that, you know, you are

6:50

being roasted by clowns with

6:52

flamethrowers. So there is that, that

6:54

sort of incomprehension on the part of so many of these

6:56

Republicans. Look at how did this happen? Well,

6:59

you've been doing this now for years. And

7:03

all of the incentive structures, all

7:05

of the bomb throwers that

7:07

you've elevated, the Marjorie Taylor

7:10

Greens, really, what did you think was going

7:12

to happen? I mean, when you said you wanted to burn it all down,

7:14

when you said you wanted a revolution, when you said, you know,

7:16

norms are for cocks, and

7:18

we don't ever need to compromise or actually,

7:22

maybe we'll even shut the federal government down. You

7:24

know, where did we think this was going? I

7:27

don't think they really believed that they were going to get

7:29

away with any of that. I think they thought it was cool

7:31

stuff to say. I mean, it's kind of like, you

7:33

know, the ongoing discussions about

7:36

Republicans and Roe v. Wade, right? The

7:38

dogs catching the car. It's like, wow, you know, we agitated for that

7:40

for years. And then we had no idea that

7:42

it could actually happen. And now

7:45

we're kind of stuck. The other thing that's,

7:47

I think, important to point out, you know, you're

7:49

right about the media talking about dysfunction

7:51

and chaos, but it's not the dysfunction

7:54

of the institution. It's the dysfunction

7:56

of one

7:56

party

7:58

in the institution. Amazingly. Was

8:00

it JBL who said something like the

8:03

Republicans turned the Democrats into a better

8:05

party that the Democrats are actually holding their

8:07

Coalitions together and you know

8:09

sort of in more fighting trim You

8:11

and I are both old enough to remember when you

8:13

know The joke was that they know that the Democrats

8:16

were not an organized party right that they were always

8:18

fighting with one another The Republicans always

8:20

fell into line now that's been absolutely flipped

8:23

on its head to Republicans I remember

8:25

somebody saying to me Republicans are a church Democrats

8:28

are a street fight It is the

8:30

other way around. Yeah, that means it's

8:32

unfair and I think it's wrong to

8:34

portray this the American people as Congress

8:37

is in disarray part of Congress is functioning

8:39

in a perfectly normal way. Well,

8:42

okay So what you what should Democrats do right now?

8:44

I mean, where do you come down on this that okay?

8:46

So you had the seven bomb throwers who said

8:48

we're gonna vacate to the chair The only way

8:50

they were able to get rid of Kevin McCarthy is

8:52

that if every Democrat went along

8:55

with this? So there are Republicans

8:57

who will say well wait, okay So we

8:59

had seven, you know bomb throwers who

9:01

blew up the speakership But Democrats

9:04

went along with this the reason why there is no speaker

9:07

is because every single Democrat voted to vacate

9:09

the chair as well It's just so awesome. Well, okay,

9:11

that is such an awesome evasion of

9:13

responsibility you know if we do the

9:15

thought experiment right and let's say Nancy

9:18

Pelosi were endangered by Cory

9:20

Bush, you know and five

9:23

other Democrats that well, we're gonna take down

9:25

Nancy Pelosi Could you imagine anybody

9:28

saying in the Republican caucus now, you know

9:31

You know guys the constitutionally responsible thing

9:33

to do here is to help Nancy Pelosi They'd

9:36

be laughing their asses off. They'd

9:38

be ordering pizza and popcorn it

9:41

is not the job of the opposition party

9:43

to rescue the majority party

9:46

from its own idiocy and Internal

9:49

political squabbles, but so what happens

9:51

now though at this point? I don't know at

9:54

some point this Republican dysfunction

9:56

becomes so dangerous that if the Republicans

9:59

say look We're going to have something

10:01

like a compromise speaker

10:04

that you can live with. And Hakeem

10:06

Jeffries needs to give X number

10:09

of his people a pass. This happens,

10:11

by the way, and we both know this, but that

10:14

sometimes the party leaders will give a set

10:16

number of their guys a pass to say, look, go

10:18

vote against us with

10:21

the opposition on this and

10:23

we won't hold it against you. It's necessary

10:25

to do it like on the Gulf War, the

10:27

first Gulf War. I saw it with my own eyes,

10:29

where guys that were against the war

10:32

voted for the war and guys that were for the war

10:34

took a pat. There was horse trading

10:37

to basically make it come out that the war could

10:39

happen. So could something like that

10:41

happen? I mean, what do you

10:43

think? I think it could, but it's unlikely.

10:47

Every possible scenario is

10:49

unlikely. So we are left with

10:52

rule out the impossible and we're going to be left with

10:54

the improbable, right? But it's going to be something

10:56

improbable. That's a very good point. What are the various options?

10:59

Jim Jordan, which I don't think he's going to get

11:01

to 217 total freaking clown show, the return

11:03

of Kevin McCarthy. I just don't see how that happens.

11:06

You know, given the fact that they've already blown it up. There's

11:09

talk about having some sort of a bipartisan

11:11

compromise that would give the acting speaker

11:14

Patrick McHenry more power

11:16

to run the house. And Matt Gaetz

11:18

is very upset about this idea because

11:21

Matt Gaetz understands that if there's any sort of a bipartisan

11:23

compromise, he is completely

11:25

marginalized. He suddenly becomes irrelevant.

11:28

So that's possible. Is there somebody

11:30

else like a Tom Emmer who's going

11:33

to come out of the weeds? What's kind of fun,

11:35

Tom, I don't know if you've done this, but go back

11:37

and read the insider accounts like

11:39

an hour before everything happens. And

11:41

what you realize is that even

11:43

the insiders of the insiders have

11:46

no idea what's going on. I

11:48

mean, honestly, it's remarkable. So

11:50

I'm sitting here in Wisconsin. You're sitting

11:53

in Rhode Island. No, not Rhode Island. One

11:55

of those small states. And yet the

11:57

people who are in the know don't actually know

11:59

any. So what is going to happen? I

12:02

mean, I thought Jake Sherman's tweet

12:04

last night really captured it. This was the moments

12:07

after Steve Scalise said, screw it. I'm

12:10

not going to get to 217. We're not going to have a speaker. He

12:13

wrote, the House Republican Conference is a mess,

12:15

complete and utter mess. They are no closer to picking

12:17

a speaker. They are a month away

12:20

from a shutdown. Israel is asking

12:22

for aid, which needs to pass

12:24

in the next few weeks. They are completely

12:27

lost and they have no idea

12:29

how they will get out. So

12:33

one option is that they don't get out, that

12:35

it becomes the dumpster fire

12:38

forever. But I

12:40

don't know how at some point they don't sit down

12:42

with some Democrats and try to work

12:45

out some deal, which is mind-blowing

12:48

when you think about it. Well, and puts

12:50

the Democrats in a really strong

12:52

position if they decide to go that road. But

12:55

I think then you're courting open war

12:57

within the GOP. I had to be close to that right now. Right.

13:00

They're not there yet, and I wonder if

13:02

they're willing to go down that road. I

13:05

want to believe, taking your scenarios,

13:08

I want to believe that no matter what, enough

13:11

Republicans say that Jim

13:13

Jordan in the Speaker's chair would

13:15

be so completely

13:17

unacceptable that they

13:19

just have to either come together on any solution.

13:22

What? Keeping Henry

13:25

in the chair, I mean, in some

13:27

ways that's the worst of all possible worlds, right? I

13:29

mean, then they can just have this fight every day

13:31

over and over and over again. They'd

13:33

almost be better off to say, fine, Patrick McHenry

13:36

is the new speaker, if they could all agree

13:38

on that. But this notion that they find somebody

13:41

somewhere and that five

13:43

Democrats get the Jedi

13:46

hand wave is fascinating,

13:49

maybe I'm having a failure of imagination

13:51

to say, could things actually get

13:53

that bad that the situation

13:56

of separated powers becomes basically

13:59

like a parliamentary party?

13:59

system?

14:00

Well, I think you can get a lot worse than

14:03

that. I mean, if they don't do something,

14:05

the government shuts down. There's

14:07

no aid for Israel, certainly no aid for Ukraine,

14:10

all kinds of other bad things happen.

14:12

But let's say they come up with some sort of a compromise. I mean, for

14:14

the Democrats, I mean, there's got to be a few red lines, right?

14:17

What my proposal would be, you're

14:19

not ever going to vote for or open the door for anyone

14:22

who is an election denialist who voted to

14:24

decertify the results of the 2020 election. I

14:27

think that would be a red line. Number

14:30

two, I think that you have to demand that, okay,

14:32

we're going to keep the government open. We're

14:34

not going to do that. Because Jordan's already threatened to shut it down again.

14:36

Exactly. So, I mean, there's no point in making any kind of

14:38

a deal if you don't have a deal on that. So

14:41

you have to make a deal on Israel. I don't know whether they

14:43

make a deal in Ukraine. I don't know whether it's possible

14:46

for them to say, okay, you want us to bail you

14:48

out, you have to drop this the sham impeachment hearing.

14:50

But there are some basic things that

14:53

they could perhaps get done. But here's the

14:55

thing. We're talking

14:57

about all this chaos, turmoil, anarchy,

14:59

paralysis, and dysfunction today. And

15:01

probably it's going to last for several, several

15:04

days. But even when they resolve this, it

15:06

doesn't change this dynamic, right? I mean,

15:08

whoever gets in will have the same

15:11

Republican Party, the same incentive

15:13

structures, the same need to bow

15:16

the knee and kiss the ass of Donald Trump,

15:18

who is the ultimate agent of chaos.

15:21

They'll still only have a four vote majority.

15:23

You still have people who want to blow the place up. I

15:26

mean, we're going to lurch from one chaotic

15:29

moment to the next. And the stakes will

15:31

keep rising, right? So it's

15:34

chaos about electing a speaker. It's going to be

15:36

chaos when it comes to keeping the government open. It's

15:38

going to be chaos when we decide what kind

15:40

of foreign aid we do. It's

15:43

going to be chaos when they continue

15:45

the impeachment votes. So there's

15:47

no resolution at the end of this. The

15:50

thing that has to get done, I think, before

15:53

they can move forward is that the Republican

15:56

conference has to figure out how

15:58

do we undo the deal. first of all,

16:00

that created this possibility.

16:02

How do we undo what Kevin McCarthy did? But

16:05

also, now I'm just wish casting,

16:07

where is the come to Jesus moment where

16:09

you sit down with these half a dozen reps

16:12

and say, can't have it anymore?

16:15

The De Niro and Goodfellas moment, can't have

16:17

it. I can't have it, Henry. The come to Jesus moment

16:20

may be the normally Republicans who

16:22

have gone along with all of this, kept their heads down,

16:24

been told that you have to be

16:26

loyal foot soldiers here. The come

16:28

to Jesus moment may be when they realize, okay, we're

16:31

out of here. We actually have clout. We're

16:33

tired of just watching the extremists

16:35

get their way. We are gonna sit

16:37

down with the Democrats. No, by the way, it's complete fan

16:39

fiction that any Republican is gonna vote

16:41

for a Democrat. That is not gonna happen, right? I mean, can we

16:44

just like leave this aside? This is deeply

16:46

unserious conversation. But

16:49

you have a dozen, maybe 20

16:52

normally Republicans who could say, you

16:54

know what? We have the balance of power. We could

16:56

go find some counterparts on the other side

16:58

and then everything changes. The way legislation

17:01

is drawn up, the way legislation is voted on, the

17:03

way the committees are structured, we could

17:05

run this place if we wanted to. I

17:07

mean, just as the incentives for

17:10

the clown caucus is

17:12

to be as difficult and ridiculous

17:14

as possible. These people also have

17:16

an incentive to work with

17:18

Democrats and to tout that when

17:20

they run for reelection. When I was a working

17:23

political scientist and a professor all those years,

17:25

I was not a fan of parliamentary systems.

17:28

I will say though, a moment like

17:30

this, this is when you would have what's

17:33

called a clarifying election, right? You would just

17:35

say, okay, everybody's thinking what they're doing. Whole country is gonna

17:37

vote. We're gonna say, you know, how many seats

17:39

do you really want in Congress for this and for that?

17:42

I don't think that works in this country very

17:44

well because we are so polarized

17:47

and because of a lot of structural

17:50

things. But the problem is we're not

17:52

gonna get a clarifying election until 2024.

17:56

And that's dangerous.

17:58

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18:29

Let's shift to the actual ultimate

18:31

reality check, which is the world

18:34

is still a dangerous place. The

18:36

world is in crisis. We have the ongoing

18:38

war in Israel, which is beyond

18:41

ghastly. I

18:43

mean, I'm running out of adjectives to describe this. The

18:45

horror of everything that we have seen, what's being

18:48

done, the reaction to it. Now we

18:50

have Israel launching ground

18:52

operations in Gaza. I mean, the civilian

18:54

casualties are going to be considerable. So

18:57

you are a student of international affairs.

19:00

Just talk to me a little bit about what

19:02

you've been thinking about since Hamas,

19:05

which, by the way, is not just one

19:07

among many Palestinian organizations. It

19:09

is an organization that is committed and

19:11

has been committed to the destruction of Israel

19:14

for a very, very long time. But your

19:16

thoughts since Hamas launched this

19:19

bloody, brutal, barbaric

19:22

terrorist attack on Israel

19:24

last week. I think my

19:27

colleague at The Atlantic, Elliot Cohen, subbed it up

19:30

really well when he said this

19:32

is civilization against the barbarians

19:35

and not just in the Middle

19:37

East. I mean, you know, Armenia, Ukraine,

19:41

you know, that there are parts of the planet

19:43

where, you know, the bad guys

19:45

are making a run for it. Maybe

19:47

because of, you know, I'm not a

19:49

Middle East guy and I look at, you

19:52

know, the rest of the map. Hamas's attack

19:54

on Israel to me fit into this

19:57

larger trend of just horrific.

20:00

groups and state leaders

20:03

who are just deciding to test

20:06

the international system until it breaks to

20:09

just burn things to see if they can

20:11

do it. Our enemies are really testing

20:14

all of these. All of it. I mean, there does appear

20:16

to be, hey, to

20:18

bring back the whole axis of evil, but you

20:20

can see the way that Russia

20:22

and China and Iran

20:25

and Hamas are all testing

20:27

the United States, are all really in a

20:30

very, very aggressive stance, trying

20:32

to figure out. Hamas planned this for

20:34

a long time, right? Long

20:37

time. They didn't plan this saying, gosh,

20:39

we have no idea what the international reaction could be. They

20:43

knew, wanting to teach about terrorism

20:45

at the War College, we always brought up the issue

20:47

of drawing the foul. One of the things terrorists

20:49

try to do is to pull the

20:52

target state into being

20:54

as ghastly as they are. So

20:56

that they can draw the foul and

20:59

tell the multiple audiences who are watching, see,

21:01

they're as bad as we are. Or our cause

21:03

is just because they're doing this. I could

21:06

not even begin to know how Israel should

21:08

respond. I mean, my gut feeling is

21:10

the same as everybody else's. This organization

21:13

has to be destroyed. But as

21:15

you say, the price, the damage is going

21:17

to be high. And I think that's, again,

21:19

part of a trend around

21:22

the world of saying, we are going to push

21:24

until it breaks. Because you people,

21:27

you countries who defend the international,

21:30

what the Americans now call the international rules-based

21:32

order, you've actually been pretty good at this.

21:35

And it's really constrained us. And

21:38

we want to break that rules-based international

21:40

order and go back to chaos. And

21:43

I think that's part of what's happening

21:46

here is that this is a deliberate attempt

21:49

in Israel, a deliberate attempt not just

21:52

to push back the Israeli.

21:54

I mean, it's an attempt to create horror

21:57

and terror and to soak

21:59

the region in that chaotic

22:03

terror. And it may work. Okay,

22:05

so hanging over all of our discussions of

22:07

the unseriousness of our domestic policies,

22:10

but also America's role in

22:12

the world is the possibility

22:15

that Donald Trump might once again be the commander

22:17

in chief. Let me play this one sound bite,

22:19

which again, I'm not sure has gotten as much

22:22

attention as it deserves. Here you have Donald

22:25

Trump, who has dined out for a long time

22:27

as a big defender and supporter of Israel,

22:30

but he was unstinting

22:33

in his attacks on Benjamin Netanyahu, by

22:35

the way, which I think is very, very interesting that he's broken with

22:37

Benjamin Netanyahu. I mean, he doesn't take a rocket

22:39

scientist, does it, to figure out why Donald

22:41

Trump is dumping on the Israeli government

22:44

right now, right? Because Benjamin Netanyahu

22:47

acknowledged the fact that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

22:50

And said nice things about Joe Biden. But this

22:53

is Donald Trump saying something nice about

22:55

the terrorists who have unleashed this horror.

22:58

Let me just play this and get your reaction on the other side. And

23:01

then two nights ago, I read all of Biden's

23:04

security people. Can you imagine national

23:06

defense people? And they said,

23:08

gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn't attack

23:11

from the north, because that's the

23:13

most vulnerable spot. I said, wait a minute. You

23:16

know, Hezbollah is very smart. They're all very smart.

23:18

The press doesn't like when they say, you know,

23:20

I said that president Xi of China, 1.4 billion

23:23

people, he controls it with an iron fist.

23:25

I said he's a very smart man. That's

23:28

smart.

23:28

He killed me the next day. I said he was smart, whatever

23:30

I'm going to say.

23:32

But has with diverse smart and

23:34

they have a national defense

23:36

minister or somebody saying,

23:38

I hope Hezbollah doesn't attack us from

23:41

the north. So the following morning they

23:43

attacked. They might not have been doing

23:45

it. But if you listen to this jerk,

23:47

you would attack from the north because he

23:50

said that's our weak spot. Oh,

23:53

OK.

23:54

So, Tom, I don't

23:56

know how to unpack all of the stupidity

23:59

there. So I'll

24:01

let you do it. Thanks. Over

24:04

to you, Tom. Yeah, that's right.

24:08

First of all, I'm always struck, and it's happening

24:10

more and more these days, how much like

24:12

a little boy he sounds. Oh, I

24:14

know. Like a little kid. They

24:17

own the sing-songy boys, and I mean,

24:20

he's just like somebody the other day pointed

24:22

out that even by his standards, he sounds

24:24

like he's really losing his shit. Even

24:28

any other Republican candidate saying

24:30

Hamas is really smart, and

24:33

you've got to hand it to Hamas, you know, basically.

24:36

You just got to hand it. And by the way,

24:38

can I just throw in the President G who rules

24:41

a billion people with an iron hand and engages

24:43

in extra-neutral killings and stuff? He's smart.

24:46

I mean, it is interesting. Another tell, what

24:48

Donald Trump admires, what he thinks

24:50

is smart. Brutality is

24:52

smart. Oppression is smart,

24:55

right? Adorable. Adorable.

24:58

The thing is, Donald Trump, and you

25:00

and I have said this for years, that he has worn us

25:02

down into just going, you

25:06

know, what can you do? Because I actually

25:08

brought up the little boy voice with a more

25:10

serious point under it, which is that he

25:13

does the little boy whiny

25:15

sing-songy toddler

25:17

thing almost in part so that

25:20

you don't hear how horrific

25:23

the thing is that he's saying. And

25:25

he stood there and said in a very adult,

25:28

calm voice, you know, I think Hamas is very smart.

25:31

And you've got to hand it to him. And

25:35

that she, look, there's a million people

25:37

in China, and he rules them with an iron fist. People

25:40

would say, oh my God. But because

25:42

he does the whole performance

25:44

art, you know, for Rube America

25:46

that loves the little boy in the

25:48

hands and the pinky

25:51

extension and all that, it's almost

25:53

like you lose sight of the

25:55

fact that he's saying things that

25:58

are horrifying. That

26:00

would be a career-ending comment

26:02

for any presidential nominee.

26:05

And just to go back to that Republican

26:07

base, if any other

26:09

Republican nominee had said that, the Republican

26:12

base would destroy him. Trump gets a pass

26:15

because, I bet you've talked to many

26:17

Trumpers who do this, and they say, well, I understood what he meant. He

26:19

didn't really mean that. I understood what he meant. Or...

26:22

I didn't see that. I didn't hear that. I didn't

26:24

hear that. No, I mean, to their credit, some of

26:27

the Republican candidates have been pushing back, having Mike

26:29

Pence push back on all of this. Ron

26:31

DeSantis even pushed back on all of this. Nikki

26:34

Haley. Good luck with that. Yeah, I know. Good

26:36

luck with that. The Israelis issued a

26:38

very strong statement saying how unconscionable

26:41

his comments were. Will it make a difference?

26:43

I think it's naive to think that it will.

26:46

Okay, so let's talk about Joe Biden's response. It's

26:49

interesting to me how it

26:51

has become this talking point

26:53

that not only is

26:56

this Joe Biden's fault because he projects

26:58

weakness, but that, in

27:01

Tim Scott's words, he has blood

27:03

on his hands because he's had

27:05

dealings with the Iranians. Now my understanding

27:09

is the administration working with Qatar

27:11

has refrozen the $6

27:13

billion, which was the talking point for

27:16

the last week, that this financed it,

27:18

that $6 billion in Iranian money

27:21

that was unfrozen. This is what was

27:23

used to attack Israel. Apparently, it's been sitting

27:25

in the bank the whole time. No money has been

27:27

transferred, and it's not going to be transferred

27:29

now. But give me your reaction

27:31

to the way Joe Biden has

27:34

handled this so far. Look,

27:36

I'm an admirer of Joe Biden's foreign policy. The

27:39

only times I've really been critical of him is

27:41

when he goes into gaffe mode and he

27:43

says, my God, we have to take

27:45

Putin. Putin has to go. I

27:48

wrote about that. I'm like, okay, this is

27:50

the Joe Biden that was always entertaining

27:53

and with no filter but

27:58

you're president now and there are things that you shouldn't

28:00

just like explode in

28:02

public about. But I think, you know,

28:04

he gave his speech on this, his

28:06

address on this, pure evil.

28:09

Do we stand with Israel? I

28:11

think it should tell you how good the response

28:13

is that the Republicans have had to resort

28:15

to lying about it. Like Ted Cruz

28:17

saying, oh, it was, you know, it was days before

28:20

Biden said, no, I mean,

28:22

it's not even a difference of interpretation. It's

28:24

flat out false. Or Tim Scott,

28:27

can we stop taking Tim Scott seriously

28:29

in so far as we ever did? That wasn't something of a surprise

28:31

because I mean, there was that wish casting

28:34

that Tim Scott was the more reasonable Republican.

28:36

And he's the one who gave the most,

28:39

I think, deplorably demagogic reaction,

28:42

the blood on his hands, which

28:44

again, we can have a debate later

28:47

about our foreign policy. But to

28:49

say this days after the Hamas

28:52

terrorists go in and slaughter all

28:54

of these people, the rapes, the kidnappings,

28:57

and to say that Joe Biden, I mean, that's

28:59

the kind of hyper partisan rhetoric

29:01

that used to be taboo. And I mean,

29:03

I certainly remember people were critical of George

29:06

W. Bush in the days after 9 11. I mean, there

29:08

was the you know, the, the Michael Moore video

29:10

and all of that. But I don't recall any

29:13

prominent Democrat saying

29:15

in the wake of the attack on the World

29:17

Trade Center, that George W.

29:20

Bush had blood on his

29:22

hands. I mean, no one engaged in that kind

29:24

of rhetoric. It's really not a presidential candidate,

29:27

no matter how much they might have opposed

29:30

his policies afterward. Nobody in

29:32

the week after 9 11 was

29:34

saying the kinds of things that Tim Scott is saying

29:37

this week, you could have seen Scott

29:39

going down that road, if you watch the last Republican

29:41

debate, because you know, you could

29:43

already see him saying, yeah, I, you

29:45

know, this good Republican schtick isn't getting me

29:48

anywhere, it's time to head down crackpot Boulevard.

29:50

And that's where they are. I mean, I

29:52

think Benjamin Netanyahu is gonna have a lot

29:54

to answer for this was there should be career ending for

29:56

him. You know, for 9 11 people on the left

30:00

in particular really wanted to kind of nail

30:02

Bush on, well, there was this one thing that said

30:04

Bin Laden intends to do something bad.

30:08

Well, no shit. Or in other words, it's

30:10

Tuesday. And he wants to do something bad

30:12

inside the United States. Again,

30:15

finding so anodyne that you probably didn't even have

30:17

to classify it. Compared

30:19

to that, this is a gigantic

30:21

intelligence failure in Israel. I mean, massive.

30:25

You know, this, these camps showing the

30:27

photographic evidence. I mean, come on, you

30:30

could do this with Google Earth, but

30:32

you know what?

30:33

This is not the time. And

30:35

you've got to give credit to the Israelis who have said, you know what we're

30:37

going to do? We're going to create a war cabinet and

30:39

it's going to bring in the opposition

30:42

and we're going to legislate and be able

30:44

to pass bills about the war. This

30:46

is where, and I said earlier, you know, being a political

30:49

scientist, I was not a human. Most political scientists

30:51

love parliamentary systems. I don't, but

30:53

this is the one place where a parliamentary system

30:55

can be flexible enough to say we're going to

30:57

bring in the opposition. We're going to have

31:00

a governing coalition. We're going to agree that

31:02

it's only going to be about certain things. And I think

31:04

for American politicians to

31:06

talk about blood on President Biden's hands,

31:09

when the Israelis themselves, where there

31:11

is so much more culpability to be assigned,

31:13

have said, you know what? We're going to figure that

31:15

out afterward. For now, we're going to have a government

31:17

of national unity and we're going to pass bills

31:19

that can prosecute this war. And

31:21

shame on Tim Scott. I agree with all

31:24

of that. And, you know, it is premature to

31:26

engage in too much of this. However, I have to say

31:29

that I guess today on Friday the 13th,

31:32

I just had the sense of the fragility

31:34

of things, you know, how much

31:37

in our lives and the world is so fragile

31:39

and that many of us have taken so

31:41

much for granted. I think that probably a lot of people

31:43

took for granted that Israel was this

31:46

national security state with the best

31:49

intelligence resources, the best defense

31:51

possible. And yet I

31:53

think that in retrospect, people will go back

31:55

and ask whether or not and how

31:58

Israel managed to squawk.

31:59

that? How did they manage

32:02

to be so vulnerable? Did it have something to do with

32:04

the fact that they took their eye off the ball, that they engaged

32:07

in this pointless culture war, that they

32:09

turned on one another? Because there's a lesson

32:11

for us too, because we're thinking that America is

32:14

strong, America is mighty, America is invulnerable,

32:16

and yet as a deeply unserious country,

32:19

we have been squandering one

32:21

value after another, one

32:24

resource after another, and

32:26

is there going to be a reckoning for us?

32:28

I mean, did we see that? Because it was so incomprehensible

32:31

that Israel and everything we thought

32:33

about Israel, that it could have, you

32:36

know, failed so dramatically.

32:39

What does that tell us about the

32:42

fragility even of the best

32:44

and strongest nations? One

32:46

of the reasons I admire Biden's

32:48

foreign policy is because Biden is

32:52

a serious man when it comes to foreign policy,

32:55

and he doesn't pay attention to Twitter or

32:57

social media or culture war stuff, and

33:00

I kind of like that. I mean, I think that's how you run foreign

33:02

policies. I mean, I

33:04

like the kind of Council of Wisemen

33:07

approach, and it's not a perfect foreign policy.

33:09

I mean, Biden said is Afghanistan.

33:12

There's the, you know, which I've written about

33:14

as a huge criticism of how he did that,

33:17

but I think in general, I still

33:20

think that's the better approach.

33:23

The cautionary tool from Israel, and I think it was Haaretz

33:25

that said something to the effect of this

33:27

is what happens when instead of

33:30

running the country, you're trying to stay in office

33:32

to avoid criminal prosecution. You

33:35

know, that was really sticking it in and breaking it off

33:37

pretty early in this war, but

33:40

it was also a true observation, and

33:42

I think that's the risk you take if Donald Trump

33:44

comes back. Actually, even without Trump

33:47

winning the election, he's

33:49

already sucked in so much of our national

33:51

attention and made such chaos

33:54

out of one of our two parties that

33:56

we need. Look, whether you like it or not, and I wrote this

33:58

last week. needs a functioning Conservative

34:01

Party. We just do. For Donald

34:03

Trump to basically immobilize a

34:06

political party and millions of voters

34:08

who can't seem to think about

34:11

anything beyond

34:13

Donald Trump. I had a call from an old friend

34:15

back home here in New England where I live,

34:17

and he was talking about a mutual acquaintance,

34:21

and he said, I can't talk to him. I

34:23

can't talk about anything. No matter what you

34:25

talk about, 10 seconds in, it's

34:28

Biden's criminal, and Pelosi

34:30

is a, you know, a see you next Tuesday,

34:32

you know, and it just goes on and on

34:34

and on. And that is

34:37

corroding our ability to function

34:39

as a country in an extremely dangerous

34:41

world. And in a more tangible level

34:44

of all of this, and again, we've become numb to it. Remember

34:46

when Donald Trump gave that speech talking about very

34:49

clearly how he is going to destroy the

34:51

deep state. He gets back into power. He is going to dismantle

34:54

the intelligence agencies where he wants to defund

34:56

the FBI, you know, break down the Department

34:59

of Justice. Purge the generals. Purge the generals,

35:02

if not execute them. Imagine

35:04

what that will do to national security

35:07

if Donald Trump does what he is

35:09

openly and explicitly saying

35:11

he will do about our intelligence

35:14

world, about the defense, about our

35:16

justice system, about the investigative tools.

35:19

And again, I think there's got to be a major

35:21

issue. I mean, look, in terms of like weakness, I

35:23

mean, we're already seeing Republicans, and I've said

35:25

this several times on the podcast, Tommy

35:28

Tuberville, even in the face of all this, continues

35:30

to hold up the military formation we still do

35:32

not have confirmed ambassadors to

35:34

these crucial countries because of this game

35:37

playing. And yet, you know, Republicans

35:39

want us to think that it's the other side

35:41

that's, you know, showing weakness. You

35:44

are about to nominate a guy who might pull us

35:46

out of NATO, who sucks up the bladder of

35:48

Putin, who thinks that G is a genius,

35:50

who again, wants to tear down 50, 60,

35:53

70 years of

35:56

a national security infrastructure. Everybody's

35:58

like, yeah, that doesn't project. weakness.

36:01

And for what? For

36:03

what? Not out of any ideological

36:05

conviction. You know, I mean, in a way,

36:08

I respect people of any political

36:10

persuasion, even if I think they're hateful,

36:13

I kind of respect sincerity or authenticity.

36:16

This is the emptiest kind

36:18

of attack. I'm going to pull out of NATO. Why? Because

36:21

everybody thinks I should. Yeah, that's why.

36:23

Because I can. There's a Henry

36:26

Jameson, I'm going to go all literary on it. He

36:28

always reminds me of the boy in the turn of the screw,

36:30

you know, with this nasty

36:33

kid who's being influenced by a bad

36:35

ghost. And the governor

36:37

says, Why did you do that? And he said, to show

36:39

you that I could, and that I can

36:41

again. And that to

36:43

me, that's that's all there is to this. Is

36:46

this just why? Because I

36:48

can. Why am I going to blow this up? Because

36:50

a bunch of a bunch of people with some

36:53

money will send me $25 and keep me afloat and

36:56

keep me out of jail, because

36:58

I fight. Going back to my earlier point,

37:01

you know, you keep talking about if he comes

37:03

in, he told us what he's going to do. But just

37:05

saying those things is corroding

37:08

us and weakening us right now. Yeah.

37:10

Because he's making millions of Americans who

37:13

should be thinking

37:14

soberly,

37:15

and seriously about foreign policy about

37:17

everything really about the you know, life

37:20

in America, about the dead about taxes, whatever. And

37:22

instead, they're talking about this, and

37:24

they're saying, Hey, kill the generals. That's

37:26

a great idea. Defund

37:29

the intelligence community. I'm all on board.

37:31

And you know, our enemies in the world, they

37:33

know this, they see it happening. And you

37:36

can't pretend it doesn't matter, because the former

37:38

president of the United States was the leading the Republican

37:40

candidate for president of the United States. It's

37:42

not like some rando on Twitter, or

37:44

a couple of guys on a podcast, or some guy

37:46

on you know, am radio at 3am.

37:49

When you're driving through the mountains, you know, and

37:51

you're picking up a signal from you know,

37:54

East Jesus somewhere. Those guys are now in the United

37:56

States Senate. That is the thing. Yes, exactly. Okay,

37:58

so we've talked about Donald Trump. We talked about the Republicans.

38:01

We have to talk about the pro-Hamas

38:03

left. And by the way, I've spent

38:05

much of the week being reassured by

38:07

people that, oh, the pro-Hamas left is too

38:09

small. It's not significant. We

38:12

can simply ignore them. And it's certainly true

38:14

that this does not reflect most of

38:16

the left. It does not reflect certainly

38:19

very many, you know, elected Democrats. On

38:21

the other hand, this is a thing,

38:24

Tom. And I want to read you. You had a, one of your colleagues

38:26

at the Atlantic has this absolutely fascinating

38:29

story, which I was strongly urged people to read,

38:31

Gail Beckerman in the Atlantic. After

38:33

the brutal violence committed by Hamas against Israeli

38:35

citizens, I looked around for my friends

38:38

on the left and I felt alone

38:40

the sense of betrayal,

38:42

you know, the callousness of,

38:45

you know, folks on the left who said, well, you know,

38:47

Israel had it coming, or, you know, this is

38:50

what you get for oppression. Michelle Goldberg,

38:52

right in the New York Times, very progressive columnist,

38:55

said, this sense of deep betrayal

38:57

is not limited to New York. Many progressive

39:00

Jews have been profoundly shaken by the way

39:02

that some on the left are treating the terrorist

39:04

mass murder of civilians as noble

39:07

acts of anti-colonial resistance. These

39:09

are Jews who share the left's abhorrence of

39:11

the occupation of Gaza and of the enormities

39:13

inflicted on it, which are only going to get

39:16

worse if and when Israel invades. But the

39:18

way keyboard radicals have

39:20

condoned war crimes against Israelis

39:22

has left many progressive Jews alienated

39:26

from political communities they

39:28

thought were their own. So,

39:31

again, they are certainly not dominant,

39:34

but they are a recessive

39:36

gene on the left. And I have to say, among

39:39

the things that were very shocking, we're

39:41

watching many of these organizations, including the Democratic

39:43

Socialists of America and some of the chapters of Black

39:45

Lives Matter and many of these student

39:48

organizations at elite schools like Harvard

39:50

and California issuing statements

39:52

that were just objectively

39:54

speaking pro-Hamas, you

39:57

know, actually embracing

39:59

and endorsing. the atrocities. Morally,

40:02

a term I use maybe too often, morally

40:05

vacuous, but also just immoral.

40:08

Depraved. Depraved, yeah. I think depraved

40:10

is the right word for this. Yeah. I loved

40:12

the piece that you

40:15

linked to at Juan Castor. Oh, yes. Yeah,

40:17

you tweeted it. Yeah. That was great. I

40:20

set that out about saying, no, you know what? The

40:24

writer was like, I'm basically a secular Jew.

40:26

I don't really care about Israel that much. I think

40:29

Netanyahu's a jerk, but oh

40:31

my God, just stop. Just shut

40:33

the fuck up. And I think

40:36

that alienation, not to both sides

40:38

of this, but to say, to empathize somewhat,

40:41

that alienation I think is something you

40:43

and I felt when we watched former

40:45

conservatives cheering on Russian

40:47

atrocities in Ukraine. Of

40:50

like, they're killing children. They're blowing

40:52

up schools. Well, you know. Yeah, exactly. You

40:54

talked about Ukraine joining NATO. This is what you

40:57

get. You deserve it. It is the

40:59

keyboard cruelty. It is the people who

41:01

have decided that I want to be on a tribe

41:03

and I want to indulge

41:06

my two minutes hate with everybody. I

41:08

also think this goes. You asked

41:10

a question earlier, Charlie, that I think was really good

41:12

about how did Israel lose its

41:14

way and not wrecking? How did this garrison

41:17

state get to the point where

41:19

people didn't think there would be a problem having a music festival

41:22

walking distance from Gaza? And

41:24

I think it's partly part

41:27

of the reason things are coming apart is because

41:29

the world has been not dangerous

41:32

for a long time and because we haven't

41:35

had a sense of threat for a long time. And because it's

41:37

like, you know, if I type about how, you

41:40

know, Ukraine had it coming or Hamas,

41:43

you got to hand it to Hamas, I'm

41:45

just kind of self-actualizing and

41:48

that doesn't have any real world implications.

41:50

And I think we've lost the sense

41:52

that there was once a time where when

41:55

adults said things, those

41:58

things had meaning. and potential

42:00

consequences. Now college kids, I'm

42:02

not gonna give a pass to the college kids, I'm just gonna say

42:04

college students. You know, I love

42:07

Dan Drezner's point, he made years ago,

42:09

a college is where you go to say stupid things and then

42:11

to learn how stupid they are. And hopefully that's

42:13

happening. Well, I'm not sure. I

42:15

mean, hopefully this is a clarifying moment where people

42:17

realize, okay, did I really say that?

42:20

Well, I'm hoping that there are liberal professors,

42:22

and I've seen this happen in the past in

42:24

my teaching career, I'm hoping there are liberal professors

42:26

taking their students' side and saying,

42:28

you know,

42:30

this is not what being on the left really means.

42:32

This is not what this is about. And not everything's

42:35

about you. Yeah, so this

42:37

could be a clarifying moment and there might be some

42:39

realignment. It will be interesting to see

42:41

whether or not this actually pushes

42:44

some folks on the left who maybe have been

42:46

somewhat ambivalent about Israel to look around and

42:48

go, okay, no, I really don't wanna be on that team. I really

42:50

don't wanna be associated with these people. You

42:52

know, maybe this will serve to

42:54

completely marginalized groups like the Democratic

42:57

Socialists of America. You had a congressman

42:59

from Minnesota, a Democratic congressman who

43:01

said, I'm out, I just don't wanna be part of you. Even

43:04

AOC is denouncing this

43:06

sort of thing. The anti-Semites on

43:08

the left can be counted now on one hand. I think

43:11

elected members of Congress. But

43:13

it was stunning. And I think

43:15

that, you know, for people on the left who say, you

43:17

guys shouldn't be talking about this or they're not significant.

43:20

One of the experiences that we've had over the last

43:22

decade that continues to haunt me is

43:25

the fact that we didn't take seriously

43:27

some of the fringe figures on the right, people

43:29

on the far edges of the fever swamp, who

43:32

then suddenly became in positions

43:35

of influence. So I'm

43:37

not saying that's going to happen on the left, but they

43:39

are there. There's a demographic

43:42

division. There's a split in

43:44

the Democratic coalition where I think

43:46

most older Democrats are supportive of

43:48

what the Biden administration is doing, supportive of Israel.

43:51

But you look at public opinion polls and there's been

43:53

real erosion of support for Israel among

43:56

younger progressives. And I think

43:58

that that needs to be highlighted. We need to have

44:00

the kind of debate, and the article that was

44:02

in The Atlantic about this, the Michelle Goldberg

44:05

piece, tells me that there's going to be a reckoning

44:07

on the left. People are saying, we thought we were on the same

44:09

side, but if we're not on the same side when it

44:11

comes to this issue, then we're really not on the

44:14

same side. One thing about

44:16

the left, and one place I

44:18

think they are less dangerous than the

44:20

right, is the extremists

44:22

on the left tend to grow out of their

44:25

extremism. The extremists on the

44:27

right tend to grow into their extremism.

44:30

I hope you're right. Well, I mean, we've seen it on the

44:32

right. I mean, as people get older, rather than

44:34

becoming more mellow

44:36

and more savvy, they become more sealed

44:40

off from reality. Well, one of the things that we know has

44:42

happened, and I say that researchers

44:45

and people who follow social media usage,

44:47

for example, is that people over 55

44:50

who are either, for various reasons,

44:53

out of the workforce, or they're retired, or

44:55

certainly after 65, they have time. They

44:57

spend a lot of time just marinating.

45:00

I mean, this friend we were talking about earlier

45:03

that no one can talk to anymore. He just

45:05

sits and bathes in Fox

45:07

News like the Hulk taking

45:09

in gamma rays all day. I mean, it's just,

45:12

there's just no talking to him. But

45:14

I do think that, yeah, there has to be a reckoning

45:17

on the left about this particular

45:19

issue because there

45:22

is an inhumanity to

45:24

it. Conservatives, we always sort

45:26

of, you know this, we always sort of reveled

45:29

in our Spock-like indifference

45:31

to Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock,

45:34

human empathy. It's as useless as the Winter

45:36

Olympics. We

45:38

were the cold-hearted, cold-blooded,

45:41

realist foreign policy guys, but

45:43

the left has always been more about

45:45

heart and empathy. This is really

45:48

cold and inhuman, and I hope

45:50

that there are people on the left talking

45:53

to their comrades about this because I

45:55

wanted to jump on the one point and sort of add to that,

45:57

Mia Culpa, when people start, you

45:59

know, and you've seen me play this game with people

46:01

on social media. Oh, this all began with Reagan,

46:04

it began with Nixon, it began with the blah blah

46:06

blah. No, if you really want to hammer

46:08

the conservatives, it is

46:10

those of us who did not want to look around

46:13

us to see who we were in a coalition with. That

46:15

is the great sin, I think. When

46:18

I was a Massachusetts Republican, I didn't care

46:20

what the Wyoming Republicans were doing. I just

46:22

cared that they were Republicans. Right. But

46:24

also, you also thought they were the recessive genes, that

46:26

they were never going to really be in the majority. But

46:29

one of the things that we're describing here, though, is that with

46:31

these new hermetically sealed alternative realities,

46:34

it's very easy to be walled off from people

46:36

who will tell you, that's crazy, that's

46:38

nuts. And we're seeing that accelerating

46:40

on the right. Hopefully, what's going to happen on the university

46:43

campuses and on the left is there

46:45

will be this dialogue because it's

46:48

not you and me telling the

46:51

Palestinian Justice Coalition, whatever,

46:53

that you should not be putting out literature with

46:55

hang gliders, glorifying the rape and

46:57

murder of those young people at the concert. It

46:59

is fellow progressives who are

47:01

saying to them, okay, this is not

47:04

part of the left. Hamas is not

47:06

part of the international left. Because

47:09

one of the things that in these hermetically sealed universes

47:12

like university campuses, which you've

47:14

encountered as well, are the number of people who

47:16

have never heard a different point of view, who are actually shocked

47:18

when they encounter someone with a different

47:21

opinion or a different perspective.

47:24

And it comes as a shock to them because they assume

47:26

that everybody shares these

47:28

views. And so they don't have to analyze

47:31

them. They don't have to think it through. It doesn't

47:33

challenge their conscience. I think

47:35

that what's happening right now is

47:38

not cancel culture as much as, hey,

47:40

guys, we really need to think through

47:43

which side we want to be on, who we are,

47:45

what we believe in, what our values are.

47:48

And I think this is going to come as a shock to some

47:50

students. It'll be a transformational event, I

47:52

hope. It's not cancel culture to

47:54

tell people to grow up. Yeah. You

47:57

know, I'm hoping that's one of the places these

47:59

kids here. about

48:01

how unacceptable this is, is from the kid

48:03

next to them in the dining hall. Yeah, right. You

48:06

know, look at them and say, dude, what the fuck is

48:08

wrong with you? Yeah. I mean,

48:10

I think one of the things that has really broken down

48:12

and created this bubble, but

48:14

has broken down the ability of people to get out of those

48:16

bubbles, is that we don't mingle

48:19

in social places anymore, like the dining

48:21

hall, or I don't wanna do the bowling cliche,

48:23

but even bars. I mean, you know, you

48:26

think of a bar like Cheers, right? I mean, I know

48:28

places like that. I mean, I go to a place like that here

48:30

in Rhode Island. Right. And if you said something like,

48:32

you know, you gotta hand it, there'd be people at the bar who would

48:34

just kind of look down the bar, you and say, hey, what

48:37

the hell's the matter with you? Right. That's

48:39

actually an important function. It's a social corrective,

48:42

that things that you think sound great,

48:45

you know, at a DSA meeting, or online,

48:49

or on Reddit, or something, you

48:51

know, just think, if you walked into a bar

48:53

full of normal human beings, would you say

48:55

this stuff? And I think this is what's

48:57

happened to people on the right as well, that they

49:00

are in an ecosystem of

49:03

people on Fox and on radio

49:05

who say to them, the only problem with you

49:07

is that you're not extreme enough. You're

49:10

more right than you know. And there's nobody

49:12

to tell them they're not. This is a really good point,

49:14

because I think that there is the whole keyboard

49:17

warrior type thing where you go, kill

49:19

them all, let God sort them out. And,

49:21

you know, it's easy to say that, and, you know, press

49:23

send on the tweet. But if you actually have to confront

49:26

another human being and explain why

49:28

you are minimizing the killing of babies,

49:31

the killing of women, the abduction of,

49:33

you know, elderly people, you can't do that.

49:35

People aren't gonna do that. I mean, they're willing to say

49:37

things because it doesn't feel like it's

49:39

part of reality. And it has no consequences.

49:42

Right. It's a transitory buzz.

49:45

It's a little mini dopamine hit that

49:48

you get from being a total shit online

49:51

and seeing if you can gather some engagement.

49:53

This is why, and for people who follow me on social

49:55

media, let me issue my plea one

49:57

more time. You know, it's okay. occasionally

50:00

to mock some of these dumber trolls, but every

50:02

time you argue with them, you're giving

50:05

them exactly what they want. Even if you

50:07

just say, even if it's one response

50:09

that says you're stupid, they feel

50:11

better. They're looking for that little microgram

50:14

of dopamine that comes every

50:17

time somebody gets mad at them. Don't do

50:19

it, just block them and move on. So

50:21

where are you at now on the

50:23

website formerly known as Twitter? You've

50:25

been hanging on, I have to say that this

50:28

is one of those weeks where I'm going, this

50:30

is such a cesspool, Elon Musk has

50:32

so destroyed it. I'm edging

50:35

toward the exit. I'm- Useless

50:37

for breaking news. Yeah, well it used to be so valuable. Speaking

50:39

of people who have a lot on their hands,

50:42

the fact that Elon Musk dropped many

50:44

of the controls that would have stopped propaganda

50:46

and disinformation, but so you're

50:48

still hanging in for the duration because I am

50:51

looking around, I gotta say. I am

50:53

radio-free Tom on Twitter

50:56

and on threads and on Blue

50:58

Sky. So I'm kind

51:00

of coasting around and on Spoutable,

51:03

I don't use Spoutable, I just, Spoutable

51:05

and Mastodon I think are just haven't kind

51:07

of developed the energy yet. But

51:10

I'm there, I still post, I

51:13

move around, but I think your point about, I don't think it

51:15

can be overstated how much

51:17

bad Elon Musk has done for the

51:20

world. I agree. I'm sorry, building rockets,

51:22

that's fine. Rich guy

51:24

tells a bunch of engineers build rockets and

51:27

then they go and they get government contracts

51:30

and they do their science thing and push them out of the way, that's

51:32

fine. He wants to build Teslas, I don't

51:34

happen, I'm not a big fan of Teslas, but you

51:36

wanna buy a Tesla, that's great. But when you wade

51:39

into the public sphere, basically

51:41

as a nine year old billionaire and

51:44

destroy something

51:46

that millions of people relied on for

51:49

breaking news. For a long time. For a

51:51

long time, you have really done

51:53

a terrible thing. For a guy who

51:56

claims that he's all about wanting to

51:58

help the planet and help let free. and be

52:00

free and all that other yada, yada, yada.

52:02

What he really is, is a spoiled kid that

52:05

nobody liked on the playground. And so he

52:07

bought the playground and demands that everybody

52:09

pick him first for kickball. I

52:11

think that's right. Well, let's keep in touch on

52:14

that because I saw that Dan Drezner had a really

52:16

powerful essay explaining why

52:18

he was leaving the site formally known as

52:20

Twitter. I know that David French is spending a lot more

52:22

time on threads than

52:24

in the past. And I'm hoping that threads will

52:26

continue to get its act together. I

52:29

did experiment with some of those other sites. And

52:31

at some point you have only so many hours in the day,

52:34

only so much energy for social media. I'm

52:36

not gonna try to figure out Mastodon. Please don't

52:38

DM me about this. So I am hoping

52:40

with all the caveats about threads,

52:43

I think threads seems to be the

52:45

most viable alternative, but we're gonna see,

52:48

we'll find out. The one that's closest

52:50

to Twitter and structure and feel

52:52

is Blue Sky, but they're rolling it out very

52:54

slowly. Yeah, too slow. And Blue Sky has

52:57

rolled out now. There's a third party

52:59

app called Deck Blue, which replicates

53:01

the old Tweet Deck. I stopped tweeting

53:04

as much as I used to and stopped posting in

53:06

the way I used to when Musk tried

53:09

to monetize Tweet Deck. Musk

53:11

does not understand that he cannot force

53:14

people to pay him money. He doesn't get

53:16

that. I get kind of annoyed with

53:18

threads because it's like everybody knew Elon Musk

53:21

was gonna ram Twitter into the ground.

53:23

And you'd think that a bunch of other billionaire

53:25

entrepreneurs would have said, there's an opportunity

53:27

here, let's be ready for this. And

53:30

instead they were all kind of caught off

53:32

guard saying, gosh, we

53:34

didn't think that would happen. So I'm

53:37

kind of with you. I'd like to see threads get its act

53:39

together, come out with a desktop app,

53:42

straighten out the way notifications are seen

53:44

because I still think it's kind of difficult,

53:46

especially on a desktop, it's difficult to read, but

53:49

no one should forget what Elon Musk

53:52

and his gathered homunculus have done

53:55

to an important part of the public space. Tom

53:58

Nichols, thank you so much for coming. on

54:00

our Friday weekend podcast. I appreciate

54:02

it very much. I apologize again for

54:05

being Friday the 13th and being one of

54:07

the darkest, stupidest

54:09

timelines we've ever had. But then

54:11

again, we've had dark, stupid timelines for a while.

54:14

Just happened to be that today seemed just a

54:17

little bit worse. Just another Friday the 13th

54:20

in this ongoing thing, Charlie. But

54:22

yeah, I feel it too. But who would

54:24

I rather spend a dark Friday the 13th

54:26

with than you, Tom Nichols? So thanks a lot. I

54:28

appreciate it. Thanks, Charlie. And thank

54:30

you all for listening to this weekend's Bulwark Podcast.

54:32

I'm Charlie Sikes. We will be back on Monday and

54:35

we'll do this all over again.