August 11, 2025 • 43 mins
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson examines the idea of America giving Alaska to Russia and other political madness. Osita Nwanevu details his new book The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Christy Noam is offering teenage student
loan forgiveness if they sign up to be an Ice agent.
That's pretty dark. We have such a great show for
you today, The Lincoln Project z own Rick Wilson joins
(00:22):
us to discuss America giving Alaska back to Russia. It
could happen. Then we'll talk to Osita Weinevu about the
new book, The Right of the People, Democracy and the
case for a new American Founding.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
But first the news, so Bali, there's a really interesting
pull out from Yahoo and you gov. That's a mixed
bag of good news for debs. It seems that what
we really have a problem is is that people are
very unhappy with the way the Dems electeds act, but
they will vote for them if they could just give
them a reason too.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, there's some good news. The good news is that
as bad as Democrats are, they're still the only choice
because Donald Trump is a corrupt criminal who likes to crime,
and so the good news is that's it. That's the
only bit of good news. If this holds, and my
guesses things are only going to get worse because they
(01:19):
just poured even more money into Ice, who's carrying around
little children who are putting people in jail. If this
holds a seven point lead, it will be enough for
them to flip the house in twenty sixteen. But let
me tell you a secret, They're still going to have
to find a candidate. But that's not today's problem. Today's
(01:40):
problem is let's flip the house so that Donald Trump
can't cancel all the elections and do all the crazy
stuff that he wants to do. Jesse, what other crazy
stuff does Donald Trump want to do?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh, we got to get homeless people out of Washington, DC.
I mean, I think we're just hours away from, as
we talked about in the last episode, that we have
to avenge balls carjacking. So sentence, I want to gouge
out my mouth for saying. So, we're gonna have Marshall
law in DC.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Trump is big into martial law. He's very into sending
in the troops. He loves a troop, he loves a
troop parade. He is my man. Look, can I tell
you a secret here? They keep doing this they did
in California, right, they brought in the National Guard. You
can bring in these people, but if there's nothing happening,
(02:26):
they just look at their phones and they play Candy
Crash and they have no place to sleep and you
have to feed them. So I don't know, maybe he
federalizes Washington, d C. I don't think he's going to
be able to do it. Again, one of the really
important things you have to remember about Trump is, like
these people, they move fast and break things. Part of
why they move fast is because they know a lot
(02:47):
of stuff they're doing is not legit. So when time
is the enemy for a lot of this stuff. So
if he does something like this, it's just not going
to work, and the courts are going to throw it out.
And by the way, I'm not saying the courts are
the bulwark against Trump is because as we've seen, as
much as anything they you know, the Supreme Court is
basically in Trump's pocket. You know, they made him the
(03:08):
god king Emperor. But this is stupid. It's not going
to work. Also, you know, I mean it's just you know,
I'm sorry that big Balls got carjacked, but you can't
dictate policy around that. Is that fair? I think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, I think it's quite fair.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, poor went out for big balls, m.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
All these sentences that are uncharted territory for where I
ever thought it was had a good life. Anyway, speaking
of uncharted territory, can you imagine that another country's leader
is not really psyched about Trump talking about plans to
invade her country.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, we're invading Mexico. Team and you know who's not
happy about it? Their president, Claudia Scheinbaum. Let me just
say one thing here. Basically he has all he wants
to do is go to war with Canada and Mexico.
They don't get the kind of good treatment that Vladimir
Putin and Benjamin Yette Yahoo, both of whom are complete criminals. Gat.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, that seems about right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
And I think this is particularly said as a way
to destruct away from the fact that mister Trump is
pictured with Jeffrey Epstein more pictures than I have with
my family.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, well, well that's your fault for not knowing, Jeffrey,
jeff that that's on you, baby.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Not everybody could have a photographer follow them around and
take party pictures all day with their friends.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So it's a life.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It is a life. And you know, I just want
to say, for all of you young folks listening to
this podcast, if you think someone's a sex predator, don't
take pictures with them.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
All right, Really, that's good advice.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You're at a very good party. I have, in fact,
on my kids that I basically that's the only really
good parenting thing I've said to them, is like, if
you're at a party and you think the person is
a sex criminal, don't pose with them. Be careful who
you take pictures with, and never go on Jeffrey Epstein's chat.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So, Molly, this is a crazy, crazy statistic. Almost two
million Americans are collecting unemployment, which is like the highest
it's been since the heat of the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, and just wait, but the good news is we're
not going to have any immigrants here. So that's great
because that means that the jobs, all those jobs picking
fruit in the fields, those jobs, Americans can have those jobs.
They never want it. So let's see how this goes, team.
(05:33):
I mean, it's only going to get worse and by
the way, more unemployment. And also, in case you're wondering,
there's going to be both more unemployment and higher tariffs.
So you're going to spend average family twenty five hundred
dollars a year more because of tariffs, So talk about inflation.
I mean, he basically is just put in a flat
(05:54):
tax to punish everyone.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yep, that's about right.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and
the host of the Enemy's List. Rick Wilson, OLLI joungg fast.
It's all happening today.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It really is.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's always happening. And we're about to give Alaska back
to Russia or something this weekend. You never can't tell.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So let's just talk about this second. So basically, Steve
Wikoff's translator translated something wrong. And now we're giving Alaska.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I mean, folks, just so y'all know we're joking about
giving Alaska back. But it's not out of the question.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It's unlikely, but it's not likely.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
But it's just but it's not but it's not The
chance of it isn't zero.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So real talk. Donald Trump said he would end the
war in Ukraine on day one. It is now two
hundred plus plus plus. The war in Ukraine seems no
closer to ending. Vladimir Putin has completely won against Donald Trump,
which way to Sunday.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Right. Look, I mean, one of the things that's going
on here is we have a guy who is one
of the greatest war criminals of the twentieth or the
twenty first century certainly, who is right now being invited
to American territory in Alaska getting he's gonna be treated
with kid gloves by Donald Trump, and Trump's desperation to
get a Nobel prize, a Nobel Peace prize, which which
(07:26):
I do have to just advise all of you Trumpers
out there. Donald Trump could negotiate a peace treaty with
the with the with the Gray Aliens, and it's stilling happened.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, let me just say two things here. Joe Biden
got a lot of shit, and that should be like
I feel like that's that that should be like, you know,
that should be on a cake. Joe Biden got a
lot of shit, Yes, because he did. He got a
lot of shit. But he really got a lot of shit.
And I think rightfully so for getting railroaded by both
(07:55):
Nant Yahoo and Putin. But it's interesting to watch Donald
Trump get railroaded by both net Yahoo and Putin, Like
it is obvious that these two characters have now this
is the second US president that they are just basically
completely just having their way with.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Well. Look, I mean, let's let's be real here. W
got rolled by Putin too when he said, oh I
looked in his eyes and I can see his soul
or something like that. Yeah, if you saw anything in
his eyes, it's a yawning chasm of pure evil sport
right exactly. This moment we're about to have in Alaska
this week is so humiliating for the US, and the
Russians are trolling the shit out of him right now
(08:39):
because they know how humiliating it is that. You know,
they're they've they've always been telling their people like, we're
going to take Alaska back someday. What do you think
you know? The symbolism of this is where do you
think this idea to meet in Alaska came from? I
will bet you ninety nine times out of one hundred
it came from Russia.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Let's talk about this Trump getting rolled by Putin and
also by net Yahoo. He said there was a net
Yaho then called him up and yelled at him. Anyone
who's had a Jewish mother knows exactly how this goes like.
It's so funny because I mean, I guess we're not
supposed to say this, but as a Jew, I feel
well within my rights. He said, oh my god, those
(09:14):
children are starving, which is what everybody said when they
saw those pictures of the starving children, and Net Yahoo
called them up and was like, no, you didn't see
starving children. And Trump was like, okay, I mean he
doesn't care, but it can't be said enough, Like how
this fucking thing is still going on is just as
(09:35):
we say in Judaism as shanda.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Look, this space level of not being able in American
politics to separate the people of Israel from Bibi Net
and Yahoo, I think has broken a lot of people
in this country politically for decades because bb net and Yahoo.
I hate to bring it to y'all. He's a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, he's just like trying.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
He's a bad guy. He is, and he's doing a
lot of things that Trump like wants.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
To would like to do.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Yeah, he fired the Attorney general of Israel. Why because
Bibi Nan Yahoo is the is the target of a
long running and corruption probe that makes a lot of
Trump's corruption look like the most sophisticated byzantine plotting in
the world. I mean BB's in the sort of like
(10:23):
like the good newscases of cash kind of corruption.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Right. The good news for gold Bars right, The good
news for Trump is that he does not ever have
to fire Pambondy because there's no world in which Pam
Bondy is doing anything that is independent of what he
tells her to do.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Molly, that is one hundred percent correct. No universe exists
where Pambondi does not first ask for permission before she
does anything anything.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So let's talk for a minute about a meeting that
happened with jd Vance, Pam Bondy who who even knows
who else about the Cash Dollar Patel cash battal and
in it they were trying to help the American people
help themselves by not making it so their boss had
(11:14):
to worry about Jeff app anymore. So talk us through
what you think happened.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, so these people got together. They were supposed to
have a meeting at the Naval Observatory, the Vice President's
residence yesh is very lovely, by the way, if you've
never been there, it's very lovely.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And what vice president were you there with? Again?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Remind me, Oh, you know the Lord of Darkness, the
Prince of Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I was gonna say, but long.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
In the short of it is that this meeting came
to Trump's attention and he flipped his shit because it
was being held outside of his normal personal purview and
his channels. He wants everything that happens regarding his good
buddy Jeffrey Epstein to be within ear shot of him,
(12:01):
and this was going to be out of his immediate eyesight. Now,
everybody at that everybody at that meeting, with one exception,
is an unquestioned loyalist to Donald Trump. But the one
exception is a big exception, and that is there is
still some suspicion about JD. Vance inside Trump's brain and
his world, just because he had the unforgivable sin in
the past of opposing Trump.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
JD Vance raised the Ohio River Vance JD.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Yes, JD Vance River riser. JD Vance sort of a
elateral version or vertical version of Moses. Instead of partying
the river, he raised the river.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
It feels very Marie Antoinette.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Oh, it feels so, it feels so let them eat catfish.
It is so arrogant and weird, and and look, this
guy's been on vacation almost the entire time he's been
vice president. He's never off of vacation.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That's right, because remember didn't they go? Where did they go?
Where they went?
Speaker 4 (13:01):
They went out to somewhere the Rockies, they went out
to California. They're in the Cotswolds right now.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Oh good, I'm glad. I was hoping they'd have fun.
You know, it is true. Between those guys, and then
you have Christy Nome riding horses with remember.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
That with her boyfriend in Argentina. They do seem to
get a lot of vacations.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
It's good. I'm just glad they're having fun.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Listen, Listen, I don't blame people for taking vacations. I'm
taking one coming up at the end of this month.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Tell us more. Where are you going?
Speaker 4 (13:34):
We're going to the Cotswolds actually, and to London. But
I promise you I will not raise or to lower
the levels of any rivers while I'm there. Well, normal
would be on the taxpayer's dime.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
No, And I mean, I do think it is worth
remembering that these people really are using the presidency for
and the Office of the Presidency and all of the
things that are meant to be used to serve the
American people, to serve themselves.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
The griftiness is now the point for a lot of this.
They're gonna milk this thing dry molly until the last
possible minute when they are drag kicking and screaming out
of the White House. You know they're going to be dragged,
kicking and screaming because this is the best gig any
of them has ever had, or will ever.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Help, will ever have. So speaking of which, Donald Trump
knows he's going to lose, right, He knows that these
midterms are going to be bad for him. He can
see the he can see his polling, and so he's
trying to get Texas to make it so he won't
lose his election. This is such an interesting thing because
it really is. You know, you have Abbott and Paxton
(14:38):
who are in like and Cornyn who are in a
goal to become the biggest Trump Trump be Sickophan. But
this special session, as long as they stay out of
the state until August nineteenth, which is my birthday, God
help us all, I will be twenty six. As long
as they stay out of the state, they can you know,
I mean, they can just keep doing that, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
And look, I want to make one thing clearer, and
I have talked to several Texas lawyers now and several
national election lawyers now, just so you folks know, there
is no legal cause of action where they can send
either the FBI or the Texas Rangers, or the Texas
Bureau of Investigation or any other garbage or anybody to
(15:25):
Illinois to seize and arrest these people on a civil
warrant that has no basis in law or fact. And
what it will be if they do this is kidnapping,
which is a federal crime, which I would love to
see Greg Abbott find a way out of a kidnapping charge.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Even this administration will reach a point, I believe.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So let's talk about this because if we go into
a redistricting race, Democrats lose. All of us lose, right,
because it makes our democracy a joke. So, I mean,
what do you think happens here? You think Texas gets
the five seats.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Look, I don't think Texas gets the five seats. I
think the Democrats there have figured out that they are
playing by the rules. Forcing a quorum to break a
quorum in Texas is legal. It is in the state law.
And the state constitution. I think the Democrats are you know,
you know, I am a hard critic of their inability
to walk and chew gum. I think the Democrats are
(16:27):
actually winning this fight right now. I also think that
Newsome has made a very careful play here, which is
we're prepared to do this, but we're not going to
do this unless Texas triggers this battle, right, which is
exactly and that's that respects, that respects the fact that
we all understand that doing this is stupid.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Right, and it's also the road to the end of
American democracy, right, because you can't have free elections. You're
breaking down a.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Greased it is a greased slow on a hot day,
into cheating and invalidation of election results and legislative fuckery
on election results. And there's no good that comes to this,
Molly if fact and the look Texas, they can maximize
these five seats. We've looked at some of the other
(17:18):
states where they're in play. Ohio could maybe juice one
seat out of theirs because they're losing population. Florida's already
extremely redistricted for the Republicans, and they could maybe maybe
hypothetically kind of sort of squint and get another seat.
Maybe none of this is going to be easy. And
in Florida there are two constitutional amendments, one for federal
(17:40):
one for state redistricting. That and again even the Florida
Supreme Court, which is very conservative, is going to look
at those amendments and say, now you're breaking five and
six Amendments five and Amendent six. We're not going to
let you do this. There is a degree to which
the latitude that Texas has is not present in the
other big Republican states. Now in California and New York
(18:02):
and other states. If we end up in this death spiral,
Democrats better play. If Abbot adds five, then California adds five.
You know, we just cannot be in this box where
we unilaterally disarmed. It's like nuclear weapons, Molly. You know,
nobody wants them, but we all have them, and so
now we're kind of fucking stuck with them.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's true.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And I thinkin of nuclear weapons is not to use
nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Weapons is to determine. We'll see how this play is,
but it is there is a good case that Democrats
are doing the right thing. I did talk a lot
to the office of Governor Pritzker all of his people,
and you know, they've been really careful because the way
the money works, you don't want yep, right, it's very important.
But this crew is particularly well funded, and I think
(18:52):
that they can, you know, stay out until long as
nineteenth for sure.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
I think, you know, great saying oh well, God can
do it again and again and again and again, can you, though, Chief?
Because really, remember, let's remember the excuse for this special session,
the one they sent the request to the legislature was
not about redistrict. It was about flood relief, which they've
done a shit job on for the people of Texas.
So I think there's a political lever that has been pulled.
(19:21):
I don't know that he can pull it over and
over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
But I also think it's important to remember that this
is a rapidly blueifying state. And the reason that Trump
won was a that he was good at telling people
he would do things they wanted him to do, and
b was because there were a lot of white people
who were scared about diversity, right, they were scared that
(19:47):
they were going to lose power. Sure, and now we
have a state like Texas, which is you know, it
is rapidly becoming a purple state now because they have
such low voter engagement. They're not voting like a purple state,
but they could. You know. It's like, I mean, there's
(20:08):
reason to assume that it can get there.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
There. Look, Texas is getting younger, it is getting browner.
There are some areas of Texas that have been very
paradoxical for the Democrats. You have a lot of folks
in the Rio Grand Valley who are very progressive on
economic issues but also extremely religious, and Republicans have made
inroads with those. But like most of the Hispanic gains
(20:34):
Donald Trump has made, there are some early indications now
that in Texas those gains he made with Hispanics have
been given up.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I can't imagine why people don't want to vote for
the guy who's putting their cousin in detention center and
not letting him use the phone. I can't imagine.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
He is a real mystery. Let's remember one thing about Texas.
Donald Trump got fifty six point three of the vote
in Texas. That is the lowest Republican percentage since Nixon. Yeah,
so he's not Texas has been a slow drip. And
I know it frustrates our Democratic friends that they can't
(21:14):
have that now. But Texas is a culturally conservative state
outside of the metros. It is an economically conservative state
in the oil and the role of oil and gas
plays a disproportionate role in the funding of elections in
that state. The reason that Greg.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Abbott, the way you're saying that, let his let me
rephrase that for English, very rich oil assholes give a
lot of money to Republicans because.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Hey, listen, I was getting to that.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, sorry, I didn't know the attorney general state.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
The attorney general who has been impeached, who is a felon,
who is a criminal, but.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
They had to give then they gave money to everything
he got.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
A couple of super oil and gas guys could donate
millillions of dollars in the state Senate to the swing
votes who so they wouldn't vote to impeach him. Correct,
Texas is and look for again, I am from Florida.
I am from Florida, and we know about corruption in Florida. Okay,
this is a state where we know, we know us
(22:15):
some corruption. Texas has lapped Ust and Louisiana, another state
with some corruption. And seriously, it's like five or six
guys that dominate the entire political scene in Texas because
they write such massive checks. Had a guy who used
to be in the oil and gas business, was the
CEO of a big warming gas company say to me
about a year ago, he is, there is no drill, baby,
(22:37):
drill bullshit left. All the easy fruit has been picked.
These guys are living on. These guys are living in
a in a in a dream world where they still
have a couple of billion dollars in the bank. But
it takes one global downturn and it's going to fuck
them all. I'm like, please Jesus faster, Please.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Tiniest violin in the world, play mano violin for oil
and gas guys who have read the planet, there is
no more oil and gas. Rick Wilson, will you come back?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
You know I will?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I Wassita Weinevou is a contributing editor at The New
Republic and the author of the Right of the People,
Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. Welcome
to BAZ Politics.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is like a big idea book. Explain to us
what the big idea here is behind this book.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Sure, so I wanted to write a book delving into
what democracy means.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
In the first place.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
We've heard a lot of that word in the last
ten years of American politics, especially in the last couple.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I think people.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Feel that democracy is under threats, that Donald trumpos is
a unique start to democracy. And yet when Democrats ran
on that message last year, there was really, I think
a lot of skepticism about it.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I think that's one reasons why Trump won.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
So, you know, even before that, I sort of thought
that we were not talking democracy and is sufficiently deep
way won't get to the core of what it actually
meant with our system was actually democratic, and I wanted
to explore that. And so the book offers a definition
to what democracy means from my perspective, answers the question
of why the United States is a democracy. I'd argue
it's not, and that it sort of lays out some
political economic reforms that I think would help us get there.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Eventually, he explained us why it's not.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Sure, So you have to start from what democracy is
from first principles. You can read, as I did, a
lot of like dry and dusty academic theory on this question,
but I don't think you get to a more succinct
definition than democracy being a system in which the governed
themselves governed, So governance is not given over to some.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Abstract higher authority. It's not the king or class of
moll guard.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
The people who are themselves governed do to the governing,
or as Lincoln said, government of buying for the people.
And I think there are three basic things you need
in the system for that to be true. The first
thing he needs politically equality. If there's any equality amongst
the people who are already to a decision that leaves
open the possibility that's some privileged class people is actually
the one that runs things right.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You need equality.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Second thing you need is responsiveness. Democracy is not a
suggestion box. When the people act together collectively that there
is something that happens as a consequence, they act with authority.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And the third thing is majority rule.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Of all the different ways we could make a decision
together from unanimity, everybody agreeing to some fore with minority rule,
majority rule is the only one that's consistent with the
principle of the equality. So if two people want something,
three people want some other thing, there's no way that
the two people get what they want over the three
unless there's some kind of inequality involved.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Right, So majority rule is important.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
All that sounds pretty straightforward, and you lay it out
to people, pretty simple, easy to understand, but in very
very basic ways, the system we have floats all of
those things. I've done a couple events for this book
now where I've been in Washington, d C. Where I've
made a point of saying to people, Look, we're in
a city right now of about seven hundred thousand people
who don't have full representation in Congress. They have one
non voting delegate who can't vote in the final passage
(25:53):
of legislation in the House. There are four million Americans. Room,
that's true. There is no definition democracy in which that
is dependable. Which that is cratic. It just doesn't make
any sense. But even you know, going beyond that is
people have talked about for a few years now, especially
even those of us who do have representation have it
very equally apportioned. So somebody in Wyoming has about sixty
seven times representation in the Senate of somebody in California.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
In that matters. It's not ballaced out by the House.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
They're Senate alone decides on judicial nominees and executive appointments.
You need both houses to pass legislations, and the small
states have a kind of lead up power. The thing
that we could go into, as I do in the book,
all all kinds of that we be here for an hour,
but they're a very basic ways in which is system
that we have flats basic democratic principles, and I think
(26:38):
it's becoming more and more of a problem with time,
and one of the reasons, frankly why Donald Trump is
an office today.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And those are like very kind of nuts and bolts
truisms about it. But what about the fact that the
country seems sort of unable to become a multi racial democracy.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
Yeah, I think it's part of the story. I mean,
I think it's part of the reason why DC does not.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Have voting rights.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
You have, I think a movement on the right in
the last couple of decades especially that is threatened by
the concept of the United States becoming a more multiracial
system or full democracy. And they've done all kinds of
things from you know, the jeremanding conversation right now to
literally you know, restricting voting rights, preventing the expansion of
the vote, to minorities or filmed to protect the rights
(27:22):
of votes of minorities. They're doing everything I can to
constrain the electorate to an electorate that feels safer to them,
that feels like it's going to deliver Republican victories more reliably.
And yeah, that's part of what's going on. But I
think the book is also an effort to sort of
like pull back and say that that is an immediate crisis,
that's an immediate situation you need to deal with. But
there are also long standing structural features of the system
(27:44):
that are also bad. They didn't come up in the
last ten years or so, but have sort of accreted
their unfairness over time. And I think those structural reasons
are one of the reasons why the Republican Party is
so powerful and one of the reasons why the Public
Party is as extreme as it. If you are not
beholden as Republican member of Congress or as a Republican
president to a broad and diverse electorate, but you are
(28:05):
appealing exclusively to save Republican voters or Republican primary voters,
that pulls your politics in the more extreme direction. Then
it would be the case if you actually had to
care what people in Los Angeles when New York or
Chicago believed right. And I think that's one of the
things that's shaking our politics now as well.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I have been told and I'm not convinced this is right,
but I'm not convinced it's wrong either, that rank choice
voting creates a system where there's less incentive to be
a flamethrower. Do you think that's right? And if so, why,
And if it's wrong, I'm fine with that too. I
have no worse than those raris. Yeah, I mean, I
(28:40):
think we've seen a little bit of evidence of this.
It's certainly one of the benefits of political scientists theorized.
But you know, looking within the narrow context of the
Democratic primary in New York, for instance, we saw Zora
Mumdani and Brad Lander kind of work together in those
final ways because they understood, you know, if we can
get our voters who rank each other first and second,
that's a coalition that sort of that we're going.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
To be to.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
You know, if these other guys were kind of ideologically aligned,
you know, in certain respects, and so it's better for
us to sort of figure out how to work together
than to fire pop shots at each other. I do
think that that's an indication of the kind of politics
that emergence ranked choice system that's more based in coalition building,
trying and see what kind of allies you can cultivate. Yeah,
I think it's worth a try for that reason, but
(29:21):
for all kinds of other reasons too. I mean, for
anybody who's frustrated with the two party duopoly as they
call it. There's a form of ranked choice voting combined
with abortion representation, which I talked about in the book.
The people who said, you know, could lead to the
flourishing and development of other parties within the system.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So talk us through what that looks like and how
that is achieved, because that gets me very excited.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
So not to to more people who get too technical,
but the idea is that if we had instead of
having one person in each congressional district, but had a
system which multiple people could be elected from a district
and you are assigned a number of seats based on
your proportion of the vote. That means that you know,
in districts across the country, have not just Democrats and
Republicans in each district because a Democrat may win sixty percent,
(30:03):
the Republican might win only thirty percent.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Whatever. You also have.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Down the line other people who then because they want
some proportions to vote above a certain threashold getting some
number of seats maybe one or two or whatever per district.
That's the beginnings of building an actual third party, a
fourth party, the fifth party, whatever amount of representation in
the House that they wouldn't other liis have. So yeah,
that's that's that's the simplest terms how what it would do.
But it depends upon moving away from the system in
(30:28):
which you win like forty something percent of the vote
right now in the congression election, even if most people
didn't vote for even if the majority of people who
went out to vote voted against you, you still win
that seat as long as you got more votes in
the next guy and you're the only person in that
entire district going to Congress. Right moving away from that
to a system where we have multiple representatives will be
healthy because it cultivates more parties, but also because it
(30:49):
allowso to be able to jerrymandering situation we're in now.
If you know that you're going to get at least
a few seats per district, and then you're not going
to be cut off entirely because you didn't win the
number one spot, so reduces you're in incentive to draw
these insane lines.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
So it's one thing we should explore now.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Obviously Democrats and Republicans have a lot of incentives not
to do this to keep the system we have now.
But you know, I think if we put the idea
out there, get more people interested in it, things might
move in our direction.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I don't know work to try it.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
It strikes me that we are hurtling towards something bad,
not clear what it's going to be. Could be a pandemic,
could be of this, could be that. No, no, but
it feels as if the center is not holding. So
you will be a period and I don't know what
that's going to look like. As someone who has made
wrong guesses in the past, I plan on not doing
(31:36):
that again. But when that moment happens, Democrats are going
to have to do something. So there'll be some kind
of moment, right like what happened with the Biden administration,
there was a moment where sanity returned, and it was
the powers that we were not able to right the ship.
I'm not going to blame anyone because I don't know
(31:56):
that I would have been able to do it, but
it wasn't able to happen, So again we will have
unless we're heading into straight authoritarianism, We're going to have
a moment to write the ship. And it strikes me
that what needs to happen is the kind of stuff
you're talking about, So talk me through that.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
If this isn't a kind of wake up call moment
of crisis for people, I don't really know what would
be the last six months of this administration. People being
taken off the street and put into unmarked vans because
they expressed an opinion, people being sent abroad for no
reason into gulags, these attacks on SOLI society and universities,
you know, after we saw this man launch what I
(32:36):
think is could fairly be described as a coup. If
this isn't a kind of moment of crisis that verand
m Care Party can sort of understand and feel the
need to react to, I don't know what's going to
do it. I kind of expect and hope that the
conversations people are having now again about authoritarianism and the
risk of having a dictator like Trump emerged, perhaps again
(32:56):
is going to drive some of the democratic discourse, democratic
reform discourse next time Democrats have control of Washington. You know,
we had this version of this early Bid administration. We
have the four the people outreach I talked about in
the books, So Don Lewis voting rights are that didn't
go anywhere, And I think the part of the book
is aimed at sort of understanding.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Just pause for a second. It didn't go anywhere because
if Kristen's Cinema and Joe Manchin, that's right. I'm not
saying that there wasn't a lot of fuck ups throughout
the process, but like Kristen Cinema turned out to be
a crazy lobbyist want to be and Joe Manchin always
was a crazy lobbyist manage. So it did like it
(33:37):
was foiled by people who really knew how to foil stuff.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Sorry, go on, I think that's right. You know, when
I think about what happened under Biden with this stuff
is well, if Kristen Cinema and Joe Manchin had had
reason to be afraid of their voters on these questions,
they might have voted differently. If there was a kind
of popular understanding, even in West Virginia, even in Arizona,
that the system needed to fund my change, and voters
(34:01):
were willing to vote on that basis. Maybe they able
to respond differently, and I think, frankly, as we move
into the next Ammeran Karric administration, the success of these
kinds of reforms is going to depend upon a broad
public understanding that these things need to happen. And so
the question is how do you build that Again. We
just saw an election where Democrats ran on democracy. I
think ran, you know, with a very coherent message in
(34:22):
metric they put out there, and people didn't embrace it,
at least the pivotal vote people in the elector didn't
embrace it. And I think that was because these discussions
tend to be whether it's about the Senate, the in
electoral College, and Supreme Court, whatever it happens to be,
they tend to be abstract in the way that people
cannot connect to their own material lives.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
That's my thesis.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
People hear that stuff and they think you're talking about
defending institutions, or if we're talking about civics class stuff,
and they want cheaper groceries, they want a their rent
and so on and so. Part of the project the
book two is making an argument that democracy isn't just
this abstraction. It is the means by which we can
actually improve our lives by allowing Washington to pass policies
(35:03):
that help us more easily. But also, and this is
I think one of the key provocations of the book.
As a system of ideas we can carry into the economy,
I think that unions are in stantiation of democracy, or
thinks we can do at work to give people democratic voice,
democratic power, democratic agency that allow them to see, Okay, well,
democracy isn't just this kind of wooly thing in the clouds.
It's a thing that gotten me a higher wage. It's
(35:24):
a thing that allowed me to address working conditions. And
so I'm committed to democraciess a system of ideas because
I've seen it work in this way in my own
everyday working life. That kind of argument is not one
that I think democrats have offered. Frankly, I think it's
not one of the left offers as much as it
should you know, the idea that somebody who works at
Amazon or Walmart or McDonald's, can, I think and should
(35:45):
you know, have the right to go to the polls
and vote on the basis of what they think our
foreign policies should be with Russia or on. There's nowhere
in their life where they can go and say, this
is how Amazon should work. From my perspective, this is
how I think Walmart should work. This is how I
think McDonald work. Even though they are themselves the people
who make these corporations function and allow them to do
what they do. That to me is a basic democratic question,
(36:07):
and it's one that you can link up to the
concept of authoritarianism to make it less abstract.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
You know, your boss is authoritary. The executive run your
companies are authority.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
They can lay you off without any kind of input,
without any kind of agency on your behalf. They can
prevent you from you know, if you're at Amazon going
a bathroom, bage, talking to your coworkers and your free time.
This is also, I think we should understand, is a
violation of our democratic rights, democratic agency. So this is
all what long witted way of saying, if we want
a pro democracy movement to succeed in this country, if
(36:37):
we want to build one, it has to be one
that's built on the basis if not just the need
for political reform, if the need for economic reform. On
the same grounds, the democracy is the means by which
we exercise some control over conditions that shape our lives.
That means we're entitled democracy not only in Washington but
at work. That to me is a message that people
will find a novel. It's a message that isn't just
about the defensive institutions, and it's a message that again
(36:58):
connects democracy to people's felt material needs.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
So I don't know it's worth a try.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I think so much about Trump winning on populism when
his agenda is entirely a defensive institutions. Really it's also
crushing institutions, but it's a defense of the status quo, yes,
and also the end of the progressive taxation and a
return to Reagan ask progressive taxation. So somehow he is
(37:24):
able to sell this as populism, and Democrats are not
able to catch a populous wave despite the fact that
their agenda is broadly populist. Like, am I right? I
mean that's what it strikes me as.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I think that's a fair reading, and I think it's
just Donald Trump makes the sale on being against institutions
the way that democrats have not. Democrats will come out
and say, well, you know, he violated Article whatever.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Today.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
He's doing things this way, and traditionally they've been done
in a bipartisan fashion.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
In this other way.
Speaker 5 (37:56):
When they say these things, I think people hear them
as defenses of the status quo, offenses of institutions, even though,
as you said, look, the actual policy agenda is one
that would empower people far more the Donald Trump's agenda,
which empowers and the riches already wealthy and powerful people
in this country. It's about the register at which they
address the public and the kinds of moves that Donald
Trump is willing to make to further that agenda. Right, So,
(38:19):
I think there are ways in which he's violating the Constitution.
There are ways in which he's violating the traditional methods
and avenues of policymaking.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
So that stuff is anti institutional.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
In the way that when people voters understand, and voters
also don't really care about those things as deeply as
I think Democrats would like them to. Yeah, so I
think you're right that as a matter of substance, Trump
is defending and in fact entrenching and inequitable status quo,
and the fact that Democrats have been unsuccessful in conveying
that to voters is I think the function of the
way that they communicate their issues with the president when
(38:50):
people go out there and say, well, you know, donald
Trump is and I think this is true. Again, what
Donald Trump is doing is wrong because he is violating
these parts of the Constitution, and that is bad. What
I would like because part of this book is about
moving beyond Constitution at some points now within in an
orderly fashion, not like shredding the thing as don Trump
is doing, but sort of working democratically to amend things,
(39:11):
see something we can and someday moving to a different document.
What I would like people to say is what Donald
Trump is doing is wrong is because we have democratic
rights as Americans. We have a right to particular kind
of policy making process as a matter of principle, and
what Donald Trump is doing is advocating those rights and
engineering kind of domination over them. It's not about being
tethered to this document, to this piece of paper this institutions.
(39:34):
You're appealing to some kind of background set of ideals,
and that sounds different.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
I think it hits.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
People differently than there's a rule book here, and we've
identified the twenty five ways in which Donald Trump is
violing that rule book.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you so
much for coming on, Neil, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
No mock, Wilson.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
It's not for the moment in the hour and everyone
loves best the moment.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Of fuck are you going to auction off Laura Lumer?
Speaker 4 (40:03):
You know what I did post on Twitter on Sunday
morning that I'm not advocating for Laura when we're to
be eaten by wolves if she was by wolves? All right,
I don't think anybody would object.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
None of that, sir, None of that. Now go, let's
talk about my favorite Billy.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Long Commissioner commissioner. You know what, because President Miller said so.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, so he's out, He's out.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
That's my terrible Louisiana accent.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Now it's pretty good. It all sounds the same to me.
Not Paris baby.
Speaker 6 (40:38):
To me, yeah, not Paris, but Billy Long, the IRS
Commissioner who was named IRS Commissioner after some sort of
Elon Scott Besson Bruh or the Elon's guy got blown out.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Billy Long is as fanatic a Trump fanboy as you
can imagine. He is a passionate maga super Trumper. He
is a bit of a boss hog. He is a
Trump sickophant of the most intense and disgusting degree. If
Donald Trump farted in his face, he would say, it
smelled like honeysuckle and joy.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Why are you like this? Why are you like this?
I learned it from watching you, all right, Billy Bill.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Look, Billy Long was fired because he would not turn
over to President Miller IRS information about people with their
immigration status and.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
This is their ten thousandth IRS head.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Yes, something like that. But the reason that he did this,
the reason that Miller fired him, President Miller, is because
the law, federal law says that no one at the
IRS can turn over certain personally identifiable information to any
other organization or entity, including the White House and including
(41:53):
DHS and ICE without court orders. And they don't have them.
This is against the law. And Billy Long said to himself, well, shit,
if I do this, because the way the law is written,
it would literally hold him personally responsible and anybody else
who released the documents or press the keyboard to sit
send on it with felony charges. And there's a long
(42:15):
statutal limitations where they'll be out of office someday and
that thing can still bite him on the ass. And
Billy Long is too old and too fat and too
comfortable to want to go to prison. So when he
said no, and when he said to them this is
against the law, I literally can't do this for you
because I'll go to jail, the White House said, Okay,
You're fired. This White House molly over and over again.
They believe that an executive order is superior to a law,
(42:40):
correct is superior to statute. Because they are morons. They
don't understand this. Because they are evil, they keep doing it.
So that's my moment of fuckery, Rick Wilson, See you
again next time.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Christy Noam is offering teenage student
loan forgiveness if they sign up to be an Ice agent.
That's pretty dark. We have such a great show for
you today, The Lincoln Project z own Rick Wilson joins
(00:22):
us to discuss America giving Alaska back to Russia. It
could happen. Then we'll talk to Osita Weinevu about the
new book, The Right of the People, Democracy and the
case for a new American Founding.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
But first the news, so Bali, there's a really interesting
pull out from Yahoo and you gov. That's a mixed
bag of good news for debs. It seems that what
we really have a problem is is that people are
very unhappy with the way the Dems electeds act, but
they will vote for them if they could just give
them a reason too.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, there's some good news. The good news is that
as bad as Democrats are, they're still the only choice
because Donald Trump is a corrupt criminal who likes to crime,
and so the good news is that's it. That's the
only bit of good news. If this holds, and my
guesses things are only going to get worse because they
(01:19):
just poured even more money into Ice, who's carrying around
little children who are putting people in jail. If this
holds a seven point lead, it will be enough for
them to flip the house in twenty sixteen. But let
me tell you a secret, They're still going to have
to find a candidate. But that's not today's problem. Today's
(01:40):
problem is let's flip the house so that Donald Trump
can't cancel all the elections and do all the crazy
stuff that he wants to do. Jesse, what other crazy
stuff does Donald Trump want to do?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh, we got to get homeless people out of Washington, DC.
I mean, I think we're just hours away from, as
we talked about in the last episode, that we have
to avenge balls carjacking. So sentence, I want to gouge
out my mouth for saying. So, we're gonna have Marshall
law in DC.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Trump is big into martial law. He's very into sending
in the troops. He loves a troop, he loves a
troop parade. He is my man. Look, can I tell
you a secret here? They keep doing this they did
in California, right, they brought in the National Guard. You
can bring in these people, but if there's nothing happening,
(02:26):
they just look at their phones and they play Candy
Crash and they have no place to sleep and you
have to feed them. So I don't know, maybe he
federalizes Washington, d C. I don't think he's going to
be able to do it. Again, one of the really
important things you have to remember about Trump is, like
these people, they move fast and break things. Part of
why they move fast is because they know a lot
(02:47):
of stuff they're doing is not legit. So when time
is the enemy for a lot of this stuff. So
if he does something like this, it's just not going
to work, and the courts are going to throw it out.
And by the way, I'm not saying the courts are
the bulwark against Trump is because as we've seen, as
much as anything they you know, the Supreme Court is
basically in Trump's pocket. You know, they made him the
(03:08):
god king Emperor. But this is stupid. It's not going
to work. Also, you know, I mean it's just you know,
I'm sorry that big Balls got carjacked, but you can't
dictate policy around that. Is that fair? I think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, I think it's quite fair.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, poor went out for big balls, m.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
All these sentences that are uncharted territory for where I
ever thought it was had a good life. Anyway, speaking
of uncharted territory, can you imagine that another country's leader
is not really psyched about Trump talking about plans to
invade her country.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah, we're invading Mexico. Team and you know who's not
happy about it? Their president, Claudia Scheinbaum. Let me just
say one thing here. Basically he has all he wants
to do is go to war with Canada and Mexico.
They don't get the kind of good treatment that Vladimir
Putin and Benjamin Yette Yahoo, both of whom are complete criminals. Gat.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, that seems about right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
And I think this is particularly said as a way
to destruct away from the fact that mister Trump is
pictured with Jeffrey Epstein more pictures than I have with
my family.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, well, well that's your fault for not knowing, Jeffrey,
jeff that that's on you, baby.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Not everybody could have a photographer follow them around and
take party pictures all day with their friends.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So it's a life.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It is a life. And you know, I just want
to say, for all of you young folks listening to
this podcast, if you think someone's a sex predator, don't
take pictures with them.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
All right, Really, that's good advice.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You're at a very good party. I have, in fact,
on my kids that I basically that's the only really
good parenting thing I've said to them, is like, if
you're at a party and you think the person is
a sex criminal, don't pose with them. Be careful who
you take pictures with, and never go on Jeffrey Epstein's chat.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So, Molly, this is a crazy, crazy statistic. Almost two
million Americans are collecting unemployment, which is like the highest
it's been since the heat of the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, and just wait, but the good news is we're
not going to have any immigrants here. So that's great
because that means that the jobs, all those jobs picking
fruit in the fields, those jobs, Americans can have those jobs.
They never want it. So let's see how this goes, team.
(05:33):
I mean, it's only going to get worse and by
the way, more unemployment. And also, in case you're wondering,
there's going to be both more unemployment and higher tariffs.
So you're going to spend average family twenty five hundred
dollars a year more because of tariffs, So talk about inflation.
I mean, he basically is just put in a flat
(05:54):
tax to punish everyone.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yep, that's about right.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and
the host of the Enemy's List. Rick Wilson, OLLI joungg fast.
It's all happening today.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It really is.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It's always happening. And we're about to give Alaska back
to Russia or something this weekend. You never can't tell.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So let's just talk about this second. So basically, Steve
Wikoff's translator translated something wrong. And now we're giving Alaska.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
I mean, folks, just so y'all know we're joking about
giving Alaska back. But it's not out of the question.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It's unlikely, but it's not likely.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
But it's just but it's not but it's not The
chance of it isn't zero.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So real talk. Donald Trump said he would end the
war in Ukraine on day one. It is now two
hundred plus plus plus. The war in Ukraine seems no
closer to ending. Vladimir Putin has completely won against Donald Trump,
which way to Sunday.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Right. Look, I mean, one of the things that's going
on here is we have a guy who is one
of the greatest war criminals of the twentieth or the
twenty first century certainly, who is right now being invited
to American territory in Alaska getting he's gonna be treated
with kid gloves by Donald Trump, and Trump's desperation to
get a Nobel prize, a Nobel Peace prize, which which
(07:26):
I do have to just advise all of you Trumpers
out there. Donald Trump could negotiate a peace treaty with
the with the with the Gray Aliens, and it's stilling happened.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, let me just say two things here. Joe Biden
got a lot of shit, and that should be like
I feel like that's that that should be like, you know,
that should be on a cake. Joe Biden got a
lot of shit, Yes, because he did. He got a
lot of shit. But he really got a lot of shit.
And I think rightfully so for getting railroaded by both
(07:55):
Nant Yahoo and Putin. But it's interesting to watch Donald
Trump get railroaded by both net Yahoo and Putin, Like
it is obvious that these two characters have now this
is the second US president that they are just basically
completely just having their way with.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Well. Look, I mean, let's let's be real here. W
got rolled by Putin too when he said, oh I
looked in his eyes and I can see his soul
or something like that. Yeah, if you saw anything in
his eyes, it's a yawning chasm of pure evil sport
right exactly. This moment we're about to have in Alaska
this week is so humiliating for the US, and the
Russians are trolling the shit out of him right now
(08:39):
because they know how humiliating it is that. You know,
they're they've they've always been telling their people like, we're
going to take Alaska back someday. What do you think
you know? The symbolism of this is where do you
think this idea to meet in Alaska came from? I
will bet you ninety nine times out of one hundred
it came from Russia.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Let's talk about this Trump getting rolled by Putin and
also by net Yahoo. He said there was a net
Yaho then called him up and yelled at him. Anyone
who's had a Jewish mother knows exactly how this goes like.
It's so funny because I mean, I guess we're not
supposed to say this, but as a Jew, I feel
well within my rights. He said, oh my god, those
(09:14):
children are starving, which is what everybody said when they
saw those pictures of the starving children, and Net Yahoo
called them up and was like, no, you didn't see
starving children. And Trump was like, okay, I mean he
doesn't care, but it can't be said enough, Like how
this fucking thing is still going on is just as
(09:35):
we say in Judaism as shanda.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Look, this space level of not being able in American
politics to separate the people of Israel from Bibi Net
and Yahoo, I think has broken a lot of people
in this country politically for decades because bb net and Yahoo.
I hate to bring it to y'all. He's a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, he's just like trying.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
He's a bad guy. He is, and he's doing a
lot of things that Trump like wants.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
To would like to do.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Yeah, he fired the Attorney general of Israel. Why because
Bibi Nan Yahoo is the is the target of a
long running and corruption probe that makes a lot of
Trump's corruption look like the most sophisticated byzantine plotting in
the world. I mean BB's in the sort of like
(10:23):
like the good newscases of cash kind of corruption.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Right. The good news for gold Bars right, The good
news for Trump is that he does not ever have
to fire Pambondy because there's no world in which Pam
Bondy is doing anything that is independent of what he
tells her to do.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Molly, that is one hundred percent correct. No universe exists
where Pambondi does not first ask for permission before she
does anything anything.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So let's talk for a minute about a meeting that
happened with jd Vance, Pam Bondy who who even knows
who else about the Cash Dollar Patel cash battal and
in it they were trying to help the American people
help themselves by not making it so their boss had
(11:14):
to worry about Jeff app anymore. So talk us through
what you think happened.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, so these people got together. They were supposed to
have a meeting at the Naval Observatory, the Vice President's
residence yesh is very lovely, by the way, if you've
never been there, it's very lovely.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And what vice president were you there with? Again?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Remind me, Oh, you know the Lord of Darkness, the
Prince of Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I was gonna say, but long.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
In the short of it is that this meeting came
to Trump's attention and he flipped his shit because it
was being held outside of his normal personal purview and
his channels. He wants everything that happens regarding his good
buddy Jeffrey Epstein to be within ear shot of him,
(12:01):
and this was going to be out of his immediate eyesight. Now,
everybody at that everybody at that meeting, with one exception,
is an unquestioned loyalist to Donald Trump. But the one
exception is a big exception, and that is there is
still some suspicion about JD. Vance inside Trump's brain and
his world, just because he had the unforgivable sin in
the past of opposing Trump.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
JD Vance raised the Ohio River Vance JD.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
Yes, JD Vance River riser. JD Vance sort of a
elateral version or vertical version of Moses. Instead of partying
the river, he raised the river.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
It feels very Marie Antoinette.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Oh, it feels so, it feels so let them eat catfish.
It is so arrogant and weird, and and look, this
guy's been on vacation almost the entire time he's been
vice president. He's never off of vacation.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That's right, because remember didn't they go? Where did they go?
Where they went?
Speaker 4 (13:01):
They went out to somewhere the Rockies, they went out
to California. They're in the Cotswolds right now.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Oh good, I'm glad. I was hoping they'd have fun.
You know, it is true. Between those guys, and then
you have Christy Nome riding horses with remember.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
That with her boyfriend in Argentina. They do seem to
get a lot of vacations.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
It's good. I'm just glad they're having fun.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Listen, Listen, I don't blame people for taking vacations. I'm
taking one coming up at the end of this month.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Tell us more. Where are you going?
Speaker 4 (13:34):
We're going to the Cotswolds actually, and to London. But
I promise you I will not raise or to lower
the levels of any rivers while I'm there. Well, normal
would be on the taxpayer's dime.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
No, And I mean, I do think it is worth
remembering that these people really are using the presidency for
and the Office of the Presidency and all of the
things that are meant to be used to serve the
American people, to serve themselves.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
The griftiness is now the point for a lot of this.
They're gonna milk this thing dry molly until the last
possible minute when they are drag kicking and screaming out
of the White House. You know they're going to be dragged,
kicking and screaming because this is the best gig any
of them has ever had, or will ever.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Help, will ever have. So speaking of which, Donald Trump
knows he's going to lose, right, He knows that these
midterms are going to be bad for him. He can
see the he can see his polling, and so he's
trying to get Texas to make it so he won't
lose his election. This is such an interesting thing because
it really is. You know, you have Abbott and Paxton
(14:38):
who are in like and Cornyn who are in a
goal to become the biggest Trump Trump be Sickophan. But
this special session, as long as they stay out of
the state until August nineteenth, which is my birthday, God
help us all, I will be twenty six. As long
as they stay out of the state, they can you know,
I mean, they can just keep doing that, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
And look, I want to make one thing clearer, and
I have talked to several Texas lawyers now and several
national election lawyers now, just so you folks know, there
is no legal cause of action where they can send
either the FBI or the Texas Rangers, or the Texas
Bureau of Investigation or any other garbage or anybody to
(15:25):
Illinois to seize and arrest these people on a civil
warrant that has no basis in law or fact. And
what it will be if they do this is kidnapping,
which is a federal crime, which I would love to
see Greg Abbott find a way out of a kidnapping charge.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
Even this administration will reach a point, I believe.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So let's talk about this because if we go into
a redistricting race, Democrats lose. All of us lose, right,
because it makes our democracy a joke. So, I mean,
what do you think happens here? You think Texas gets
the five seats.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Look, I don't think Texas gets the five seats. I
think the Democrats there have figured out that they are
playing by the rules. Forcing a quorum to break a
quorum in Texas is legal. It is in the state law.
And the state constitution. I think the Democrats are you know,
you know, I am a hard critic of their inability
to walk and chew gum. I think the Democrats are
(16:27):
actually winning this fight right now. I also think that
Newsome has made a very careful play here, which is
we're prepared to do this, but we're not going to
do this unless Texas triggers this battle, right, which is
exactly and that's that respects, that respects the fact that
we all understand that doing this is stupid.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Right, and it's also the road to the end of
American democracy, right, because you can't have free elections. You're
breaking down a.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Greased it is a greased slow on a hot day,
into cheating and invalidation of election results and legislative fuckery
on election results. And there's no good that comes to this,
Molly if fact and the look Texas, they can maximize
these five seats. We've looked at some of the other
(17:18):
states where they're in play. Ohio could maybe juice one
seat out of theirs because they're losing population. Florida's already
extremely redistricted for the Republicans, and they could maybe maybe
hypothetically kind of sort of squint and get another seat.
Maybe none of this is going to be easy. And
in Florida there are two constitutional amendments, one for federal
(17:40):
one for state redistricting. That and again even the Florida
Supreme Court, which is very conservative, is going to look
at those amendments and say, now you're breaking five and
six Amendments five and Amendent six. We're not going to
let you do this. There is a degree to which
the latitude that Texas has is not present in the
other big Republican states. Now in California and New York
(18:02):
and other states. If we end up in this death spiral,
Democrats better play. If Abbot adds five, then California adds five.
You know, we just cannot be in this box where
we unilaterally disarmed. It's like nuclear weapons, Molly. You know,
nobody wants them, but we all have them, and so
now we're kind of fucking stuck with them.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's true.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And I thinkin of nuclear weapons is not to use
nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Weapons is to determine. We'll see how this play is,
but it is there is a good case that Democrats
are doing the right thing. I did talk a lot
to the office of Governor Pritzker all of his people,
and you know, they've been really careful because the way
the money works, you don't want yep, right, it's very important.
But this crew is particularly well funded, and I think
(18:52):
that they can, you know, stay out until long as
nineteenth for sure.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
I think, you know, great saying oh well, God can
do it again and again and again and again, can you, though, Chief?
Because really, remember, let's remember the excuse for this special session,
the one they sent the request to the legislature was
not about redistrict. It was about flood relief, which they've
done a shit job on for the people of Texas.
So I think there's a political lever that has been pulled.
(19:21):
I don't know that he can pull it over and
over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
But I also think it's important to remember that this
is a rapidly blueifying state. And the reason that Trump
won was a that he was good at telling people
he would do things they wanted him to do, and
b was because there were a lot of white people
who were scared about diversity, right, they were scared that
(19:47):
they were going to lose power. Sure, and now we
have a state like Texas, which is you know, it
is rapidly becoming a purple state now because they have
such low voter engagement. They're not voting like a purple state,
but they could. You know. It's like, I mean, there's
(20:08):
reason to assume that it can get there.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
There. Look, Texas is getting younger, it is getting browner.
There are some areas of Texas that have been very
paradoxical for the Democrats. You have a lot of folks
in the Rio Grand Valley who are very progressive on
economic issues but also extremely religious, and Republicans have made
inroads with those. But like most of the Hispanic gains
(20:34):
Donald Trump has made, there are some early indications now
that in Texas those gains he made with Hispanics have
been given up.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I can't imagine why people don't want to vote for
the guy who's putting their cousin in detention center and
not letting him use the phone. I can't imagine.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
He is a real mystery. Let's remember one thing about Texas.
Donald Trump got fifty six point three of the vote
in Texas. That is the lowest Republican percentage since Nixon. Yeah,
so he's not Texas has been a slow drip. And
I know it frustrates our Democratic friends that they can't
(21:14):
have that now. But Texas is a culturally conservative state
outside of the metros. It is an economically conservative state
in the oil and the role of oil and gas
plays a disproportionate role in the funding of elections in
that state. The reason that Greg.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Abbott, the way you're saying that, let his let me
rephrase that for English, very rich oil assholes give a
lot of money to Republicans because.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Hey, listen, I was getting to that.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, sorry, I didn't know the attorney general state.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
The attorney general who has been impeached, who is a felon,
who is a criminal, but.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
They had to give then they gave money to everything
he got.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
A couple of super oil and gas guys could donate
millillions of dollars in the state Senate to the swing
votes who so they wouldn't vote to impeach him. Correct,
Texas is and look for again, I am from Florida.
I am from Florida, and we know about corruption in Florida. Okay,
this is a state where we know, we know us
(22:15):
some corruption. Texas has lapped Ust and Louisiana, another state
with some corruption. And seriously, it's like five or six
guys that dominate the entire political scene in Texas because
they write such massive checks. Had a guy who used
to be in the oil and gas business, was the
CEO of a big warming gas company say to me
about a year ago, he is, there is no drill, baby,
(22:37):
drill bullshit left. All the easy fruit has been picked.
These guys are living on. These guys are living in
a in a in a dream world where they still
have a couple of billion dollars in the bank. But
it takes one global downturn and it's going to fuck
them all. I'm like, please Jesus faster, Please.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Tiniest violin in the world, play mano violin for oil
and gas guys who have read the planet, there is
no more oil and gas. Rick Wilson, will you come back?
Speaker 4 (23:10):
You know I will?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I Wassita Weinevou is a contributing editor at The New
Republic and the author of the Right of the People,
Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. Welcome
to BAZ Politics.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
This is like a big idea book. Explain to us
what the big idea here is behind this book.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Sure, so I wanted to write a book delving into
what democracy means.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
In the first place.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
We've heard a lot of that word in the last
ten years of American politics, especially in the last couple.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I think people.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Feel that democracy is under threats, that Donald trumpos is
a unique start to democracy. And yet when Democrats ran
on that message last year, there was really, I think
a lot of skepticism about it.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I think that's one reasons why Trump won.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
So, you know, even before that, I sort of thought
that we were not talking democracy and is sufficiently deep
way won't get to the core of what it actually
meant with our system was actually democratic, and I wanted
to explore that. And so the book offers a definition
to what democracy means from my perspective, answers the question
of why the United States is a democracy. I'd argue
it's not, and that it sort of lays out some
political economic reforms that I think would help us get there.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Eventually, he explained us why it's not.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Sure, So you have to start from what democracy is
from first principles. You can read, as I did, a
lot of like dry and dusty academic theory on this question,
but I don't think you get to a more succinct
definition than democracy being a system in which the governed
themselves governed, So governance is not given over to some.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Abstract higher authority. It's not the king or class of
moll guard.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
The people who are themselves governed do to the governing,
or as Lincoln said, government of buying for the people.
And I think there are three basic things you need
in the system for that to be true. The first
thing he needs politically equality. If there's any equality amongst
the people who are already to a decision that leaves
open the possibility that's some privileged class people is actually
the one that runs things right.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You need equality.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Second thing you need is responsiveness. Democracy is not a
suggestion box. When the people act together collectively that there
is something that happens as a consequence, they act with authority.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
And the third thing is majority rule.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Of all the different ways we could make a decision
together from unanimity, everybody agreeing to some fore with minority rule,
majority rule is the only one that's consistent with the
principle of the equality. So if two people want something,
three people want some other thing, there's no way that
the two people get what they want over the three
unless there's some kind of inequality involved.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Right, So majority rule is important.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
All that sounds pretty straightforward, and you lay it out
to people, pretty simple, easy to understand, but in very
very basic ways, the system we have floats all of
those things. I've done a couple events for this book
now where I've been in Washington, d C. Where I've
made a point of saying to people, Look, we're in
a city right now of about seven hundred thousand people
who don't have full representation in Congress. They have one
non voting delegate who can't vote in the final passage
(25:53):
of legislation in the House. There are four million Americans. Room,
that's true. There is no definition democracy in which that
is dependable. Which that is cratic. It just doesn't make
any sense. But even you know, going beyond that is
people have talked about for a few years now, especially
even those of us who do have representation have it
very equally apportioned. So somebody in Wyoming has about sixty
seven times representation in the Senate of somebody in California.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
In that matters. It's not ballaced out by the House.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
They're Senate alone decides on judicial nominees and executive appointments.
You need both houses to pass legislations, and the small
states have a kind of lead up power. The thing
that we could go into, as I do in the book,
all all kinds of that we be here for an hour,
but they're a very basic ways in which is system
that we have flats basic democratic principles, and I think
(26:38):
it's becoming more and more of a problem with time,
and one of the reasons, frankly why Donald Trump is
an office today.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And those are like very kind of nuts and bolts
truisms about it. But what about the fact that the
country seems sort of unable to become a multi racial democracy.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
Yeah, I think it's part of the story. I mean,
I think it's part of the reason why DC does not.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Have voting rights.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
You have, I think a movement on the right in
the last couple of decades especially that is threatened by
the concept of the United States becoming a more multiracial
system or full democracy. And they've done all kinds of
things from you know, the jeremanding conversation right now to
literally you know, restricting voting rights, preventing the expansion of
the vote, to minorities or filmed to protect the rights
(27:22):
of votes of minorities. They're doing everything I can to
constrain the electorate to an electorate that feels safer to them,
that feels like it's going to deliver Republican victories more reliably.
And yeah, that's part of what's going on. But I
think the book is also an effort to sort of
like pull back and say that that is an immediate crisis,
that's an immediate situation you need to deal with. But
there are also long standing structural features of the system
(27:44):
that are also bad. They didn't come up in the
last ten years or so, but have sort of accreted
their unfairness over time. And I think those structural reasons
are one of the reasons why the Republican Party is
so powerful and one of the reasons why the Public
Party is as extreme as it. If you are not
beholden as Republican member of Congress or as a Republican
president to a broad and diverse electorate, but you are
(28:05):
appealing exclusively to save Republican voters or Republican primary voters,
that pulls your politics in the more extreme direction. Then
it would be the case if you actually had to
care what people in Los Angeles when New York or
Chicago believed right. And I think that's one of the
things that's shaking our politics now as well.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I have been told and I'm not convinced this is right,
but I'm not convinced it's wrong either, that rank choice
voting creates a system where there's less incentive to be
a flamethrower. Do you think that's right? And if so, why,
And if it's wrong, I'm fine with that too. I
have no worse than those raris. Yeah, I mean, I
(28:40):
think we've seen a little bit of evidence of this.
It's certainly one of the benefits of political scientists theorized.
But you know, looking within the narrow context of the
Democratic primary in New York, for instance, we saw Zora
Mumdani and Brad Lander kind of work together in those
final ways because they understood, you know, if we can
get our voters who rank each other first and second,
that's a coalition that sort of that we're going.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
To be to.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
You know, if these other guys were kind of ideologically aligned,
you know, in certain respects, and so it's better for
us to sort of figure out how to work together
than to fire pop shots at each other. I do
think that that's an indication of the kind of politics
that emergence ranked choice system that's more based in coalition building,
trying and see what kind of allies you can cultivate. Yeah,
I think it's worth a try for that reason, but
(29:21):
for all kinds of other reasons too. I mean, for
anybody who's frustrated with the two party duopoly as they
call it. There's a form of ranked choice voting combined
with abortion representation, which I talked about in the book.
The people who said, you know, could lead to the
flourishing and development of other parties within the system.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So talk us through what that looks like and how
that is achieved, because that gets me very excited.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
So not to to more people who get too technical,
but the idea is that if we had instead of
having one person in each congressional district, but had a
system which multiple people could be elected from a district
and you are assigned a number of seats based on
your proportion of the vote. That means that you know,
in districts across the country, have not just Democrats and
Republicans in each district because a Democrat may win sixty percent,
(30:03):
the Republican might win only thirty percent.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Whatever. You also have.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Down the line other people who then because they want
some proportions to vote above a certain threashold getting some
number of seats maybe one or two or whatever per district.
That's the beginnings of building an actual third party, a
fourth party, the fifth party, whatever amount of representation in
the House that they wouldn't other liis have. So yeah,
that's that's that's the simplest terms how what it would do.
But it depends upon moving away from the system in
(30:28):
which you win like forty something percent of the vote
right now in the congression election, even if most people
didn't vote for even if the majority of people who
went out to vote voted against you, you still win
that seat as long as you got more votes in
the next guy and you're the only person in that
entire district going to Congress. Right moving away from that
to a system where we have multiple representatives will be
healthy because it cultivates more parties, but also because it
(30:49):
allowso to be able to jerrymandering situation we're in now.
If you know that you're going to get at least
a few seats per district, and then you're not going
to be cut off entirely because you didn't win the
number one spot, so reduces you're in incentive to draw
these insane lines.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
So it's one thing we should explore now.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Obviously Democrats and Republicans have a lot of incentives not
to do this to keep the system we have now.
But you know, I think if we put the idea
out there, get more people interested in it, things might
move in our direction.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I don't know work to try it.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
It strikes me that we are hurtling towards something bad,
not clear what it's going to be. Could be a pandemic,
could be of this, could be that. No, no, but
it feels as if the center is not holding. So
you will be a period and I don't know what
that's going to look like. As someone who has made
wrong guesses in the past, I plan on not doing
(31:36):
that again. But when that moment happens, Democrats are going
to have to do something. So there'll be some kind
of moment, right like what happened with the Biden administration,
there was a moment where sanity returned, and it was
the powers that we were not able to right the ship.
I'm not going to blame anyone because I don't know
(31:56):
that I would have been able to do it, but
it wasn't able to happen, So again we will have
unless we're heading into straight authoritarianism, We're going to have
a moment to write the ship. And it strikes me
that what needs to happen is the kind of stuff
you're talking about, So talk me through that.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
If this isn't a kind of wake up call moment
of crisis for people, I don't really know what would
be the last six months of this administration. People being
taken off the street and put into unmarked vans because
they expressed an opinion, people being sent abroad for no
reason into gulags, these attacks on SOLI society and universities,
you know, after we saw this man launch what I
(32:36):
think is could fairly be described as a coup. If
this isn't a kind of moment of crisis that verand
m Care Party can sort of understand and feel the
need to react to, I don't know what's going to
do it. I kind of expect and hope that the
conversations people are having now again about authoritarianism and the
risk of having a dictator like Trump emerged, perhaps again
(32:56):
is going to drive some of the democratic discourse, democratic
reform discourse next time Democrats have control of Washington. You know,
we had this version of this early Bid administration. We
have the four the people outreach I talked about in
the books, So Don Lewis voting rights are that didn't
go anywhere, And I think the part of the book
is aimed at sort of understanding.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Just pause for a second. It didn't go anywhere because
if Kristen's Cinema and Joe Manchin, that's right. I'm not
saying that there wasn't a lot of fuck ups throughout
the process, but like Kristen Cinema turned out to be
a crazy lobbyist want to be and Joe Manchin always
was a crazy lobbyist manage. So it did like it
(33:37):
was foiled by people who really knew how to foil stuff.
Speaker 5 (33:41):
Sorry, go on, I think that's right. You know, when
I think about what happened under Biden with this stuff
is well, if Kristen Cinema and Joe Manchin had had
reason to be afraid of their voters on these questions,
they might have voted differently. If there was a kind
of popular understanding, even in West Virginia, even in Arizona,
that the system needed to fund my change, and voters
(34:01):
were willing to vote on that basis. Maybe they able
to respond differently, and I think, frankly, as we move
into the next Ammeran Karric administration, the success of these
kinds of reforms is going to depend upon a broad
public understanding that these things need to happen. And so
the question is how do you build that Again. We
just saw an election where Democrats ran on democracy. I
think ran, you know, with a very coherent message in
(34:22):
metric they put out there, and people didn't embrace it,
at least the pivotal vote people in the elector didn't
embrace it. And I think that was because these discussions
tend to be whether it's about the Senate, the in
electoral College, and Supreme Court, whatever it happens to be,
they tend to be abstract in the way that people
cannot connect to their own material lives.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
That's my thesis.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
People hear that stuff and they think you're talking about
defending institutions, or if we're talking about civics class stuff,
and they want cheaper groceries, they want a their rent
and so on and so. Part of the project the
book two is making an argument that democracy isn't just
this abstraction. It is the means by which we can
actually improve our lives by allowing Washington to pass policies
(35:03):
that help us more easily. But also, and this is
I think one of the key provocations of the book.
As a system of ideas we can carry into the economy,
I think that unions are in stantiation of democracy, or
thinks we can do at work to give people democratic voice,
democratic power, democratic agency that allow them to see, Okay, well,
democracy isn't just this kind of wooly thing in the clouds.
It's a thing that gotten me a higher wage. It's
(35:24):
a thing that allowed me to address working conditions. And
so I'm committed to democraciess a system of ideas because
I've seen it work in this way in my own
everyday working life. That kind of argument is not one
that I think democrats have offered. Frankly, I think it's
not one of the left offers as much as it
should you know, the idea that somebody who works at
Amazon or Walmart or McDonald's, can, I think and should
(35:45):
you know, have the right to go to the polls
and vote on the basis of what they think our
foreign policies should be with Russia or on. There's nowhere
in their life where they can go and say, this
is how Amazon should work. From my perspective, this is
how I think Walmart should work. This is how I
think McDonald work. Even though they are themselves the people
who make these corporations function and allow them to do
what they do. That to me is a basic democratic question,
(36:07):
and it's one that you can link up to the
concept of authoritarianism to make it less abstract.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
You know, your boss is authoritary. The executive run your
companies are authority.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
They can lay you off without any kind of input,
without any kind of agency on your behalf. They can
prevent you from you know, if you're at Amazon going
a bathroom, bage, talking to your coworkers and your free time.
This is also, I think we should understand, is a
violation of our democratic rights, democratic agency. So this is
all what long witted way of saying, if we want
a pro democracy movement to succeed in this country, if
(36:37):
we want to build one, it has to be one
that's built on the basis if not just the need
for political reform, if the need for economic reform. On
the same grounds, the democracy is the means by which
we exercise some control over conditions that shape our lives.
That means we're entitled democracy not only in Washington but
at work. That to me is a message that people
will find a novel. It's a message that isn't just
about the defensive institutions, and it's a message that again
(36:58):
connects democracy to people's felt material needs.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
So I don't know it's worth a try.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I think so much about Trump winning on populism when
his agenda is entirely a defensive institutions. Really it's also
crushing institutions, but it's a defense of the status quo, yes,
and also the end of the progressive taxation and a
return to Reagan ask progressive taxation. So somehow he is
(37:24):
able to sell this as populism, and Democrats are not
able to catch a populous wave despite the fact that
their agenda is broadly populist. Like, am I right? I
mean that's what it strikes me as.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
I think that's a fair reading, and I think it's
just Donald Trump makes the sale on being against institutions
the way that democrats have not. Democrats will come out
and say, well, you know, he violated Article whatever.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Today.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
He's doing things this way, and traditionally they've been done
in a bipartisan fashion.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
In this other way.
Speaker 5 (37:56):
When they say these things, I think people hear them
as defenses of the status quo, offenses of institutions, even though,
as you said, look, the actual policy agenda is one
that would empower people far more the Donald Trump's agenda,
which empowers and the riches already wealthy and powerful people
in this country. It's about the register at which they
address the public and the kinds of moves that Donald
Trump is willing to make to further that agenda. Right, So,
(38:19):
I think there are ways in which he's violating the Constitution.
There are ways in which he's violating the traditional methods
and avenues of policymaking.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
So that stuff is anti institutional.
Speaker 5 (38:28):
In the way that when people voters understand, and voters
also don't really care about those things as deeply as
I think Democrats would like them to. Yeah, so I
think you're right that as a matter of substance, Trump
is defending and in fact entrenching and inequitable status quo,
and the fact that Democrats have been unsuccessful in conveying
that to voters is I think the function of the
way that they communicate their issues with the president when
(38:50):
people go out there and say, well, you know, donald
Trump is and I think this is true. Again, what
Donald Trump is doing is wrong because he is violating
these parts of the Constitution, and that is bad. What
I would like because part of this book is about
moving beyond Constitution at some points now within in an
orderly fashion, not like shredding the thing as don Trump
is doing, but sort of working democratically to amend things,
(39:11):
see something we can and someday moving to a different document.
What I would like people to say is what Donald
Trump is doing is wrong is because we have democratic
rights as Americans. We have a right to particular kind
of policy making process as a matter of principle, and
what Donald Trump is doing is advocating those rights and
engineering kind of domination over them. It's not about being
tethered to this document, to this piece of paper this institutions.
(39:34):
You're appealing to some kind of background set of ideals,
and that sounds different.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
I think it hits.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
People differently than there's a rule book here, and we've
identified the twenty five ways in which Donald Trump is
violing that rule book.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you so
much for coming on, Neil, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
No mock, Wilson.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
It's not for the moment in the hour and everyone
loves best the moment.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Of fuck are you going to auction off Laura Lumer?
Speaker 4 (40:03):
You know what I did post on Twitter on Sunday
morning that I'm not advocating for Laura when we're to
be eaten by wolves if she was by wolves? All right,
I don't think anybody would object.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
None of that, sir, None of that. Now go, let's
talk about my favorite Billy.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Long Commissioner commissioner. You know what, because President Miller said so.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Yeah, so he's out, He's out.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
That's my terrible Louisiana accent.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Now it's pretty good. It all sounds the same to me.
Not Paris baby.
Speaker 6 (40:38):
To me, yeah, not Paris, but Billy Long, the IRS
Commissioner who was named IRS Commissioner after some sort of
Elon Scott Besson Bruh or the Elon's guy got blown out.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Billy Long is as fanatic a Trump fanboy as you
can imagine. He is a passionate maga super Trumper. He
is a bit of a boss hog. He is a
Trump sickophant of the most intense and disgusting degree. If
Donald Trump farted in his face, he would say, it
smelled like honeysuckle and joy.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Why are you like this? Why are you like this?
I learned it from watching you, all right, Billy Bill.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Look, Billy Long was fired because he would not turn
over to President Miller IRS information about people with their
immigration status and.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
This is their ten thousandth IRS head.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Yes, something like that. But the reason that he did this,
the reason that Miller fired him, President Miller, is because
the law, federal law says that no one at the
IRS can turn over certain personally identifiable information to any
other organization or entity, including the White House and including
(41:53):
DHS and ICE without court orders. And they don't have them.
This is against the law. And Billy Long said to himself, well, shit,
if I do this, because the way the law is written,
it would literally hold him personally responsible and anybody else
who released the documents or press the keyboard to sit
send on it with felony charges. And there's a long
(42:15):
statutal limitations where they'll be out of office someday and
that thing can still bite him on the ass. And
Billy Long is too old and too fat and too
comfortable to want to go to prison. So when he
said no, and when he said to them this is
against the law, I literally can't do this for you
because I'll go to jail, the White House said, Okay,
You're fired. This White House molly over and over again.
They believe that an executive order is superior to a law,
(42:40):
correct is superior to statute. Because they are morons. They
don't understand this. Because they are evil, they keep doing it.
So that's my moment of fuckery, Rick Wilson, See you
again next time.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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