Bulwark Takes - Bulwark on Sunday: The End of The Republic?

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

Bill Kristol and Michael Wood take on the fears we could be at the end of the republic as we know it.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. It was my fault. It was my fault. It was a 2% moral victory, I think. Yeah, it's good to be here.

Thanks for having me. It's good to see you again. It's good to talk. How are things in Virginia? So on there's not sort of the sort of freaking out that you're seeing in New Jersey or anything like that? So it sort of came out of the headlines that we all saw earlier this week when the national debt, I think, went up to $38 trillion. And more than that, it seems like we're adding to the debt at a. faster clip than we ever had before and also faster than anyone expected and uh i do think it's the

case that right now and for a long time americans haven't really cared about the gap between our revenues and our expenditures and what that's doing to the debt uh but eventually we're going to care um and so i was trying to sort of think through you could just write a piece saying hey guys these are the dangers but didn't really seem like that would hook people the way i wanted to hope them so i decided to write it sort of as a retrospective, something in the New York Times or maybe in the economist from the future 2039, sort of looking back over what the consequences of this might be, not just economically, but also in terms of our foreign policy, the rest of the world, and also our domestic politics. Because this can't go on forever and eventually something

that can't go on forever is going to stop. And that's sort of just laid out some scenarios for that. It was sort of the worst case. scenario, but then talking to some people, and then Claire Balinski, your former colleague at the Weekly Standard, also wrote that she doesn't think it's a tail in a tail-in scenario. She thinks it's sort of realistic and sort of right there in the middle of the bell curve. So yeah, that was a background to it. Yeah. Well, they do overlap. And I was, for some reason, earlier this week, maybe it was the rest of this history podcast or something, but I was thinking about, I was reading about or listening to something about the United Kingdom in the 1970s, whenever they were very much the sick man of Europe. And I think, yeah, they had to ask for an IMF bailout, I believe. And then I don't think he'll mind me using his name here, but I was texting with Kevin Williamson, formerly at National Review, now at the dispatch. I was like, what is going to happen if the United States has to ask for an IMF bailout? And he pointed out correctly that it just wouldn't happen. There's not enough money in the world.

We're not like the United Kingdom in the 1970s. So that's what got me thinking. And so if there's nobody, you know, the Calvary is not sort of coming to save us. us in this sort of scenario where the bond market sort of revolt, they would want our political system to finally show that there was a plan to bring revenues and expenditures into line and that's going to be painful if it gets to that point. It's sort of like on a much bigger scale the bond market's revolting against Liz Truss a few years ago when she came out with her sort of insane tax plan. And the bond market said, no, this is going to explode the deficit. You can't do

this and that led to the end of Liz Trust. So in this scenario, it's going to be something painful and it's going to be a combination of tax rises and spending cuts, which leads to the Pax Americana part of this because it's a lot easier to cut the military than it is to cut entitlement spending or health care spending. And they're going to do that. I mean, obviously, nothing's going to be easy. Military bases will be upset. The military families will be upset. But in this sort of scenario, they're going to cut the Pentagon. Once you cut the Pentagon, you cut bases and our credibility in places like Europe and Eastern Asia.

And then it's a short jump from that to maybe some bad things happening on the Korean Peninsula. Maybe NATO really falling apart. Maybe Russia, you know, making moves on the Baltics. And then we're off to the races. In terms of the domestic political, you know, the dangerous thing about Trump, there are a lot of dangerous things about Trump. But I'm very much worried about precedence. This guy is a clown.

He's a clown with the flamethrower. He's very much a clown. It's very much correct that he's probably not disciplined enough to be, I don't know, sort of a Hitler figure or something like that. He's not smart enough either. but every but what about the next guy what about the guy who maybe was a general the guy who is very smart the guy who's very disciplined the guy who maybe has parts of the military behind him he's going to be able to point back to what's happening right now and say Trump set tax

policy essentially tariff policy unilaterally it sounds like he's going to say that he has the ability to set spending policy unilaterally that he can I guess deport people without habeas corpus, you know, you know, all these things. And that's why, you know, we need to worry about it today, even if the man himself has soup programs, but he does. Thank you. Yeah. It's all very scary because it's not just that we can't sort of get our spending or our taxing under control, but it's also just, I mean, the entire political system seems to be sort of just collapsing around us. And I don't know.

I'm in a very dark place. I don't know if you are. I know you're kind of optimistic about Virginia in the near term future. But I'm pretty pessimistic about how this is all going to work out. It seems like our politics and maybe our economy eventually are just going to collapse. So you didn't think it was too over the top? You thought that maybe it was actually pushing it out that far? Great syndrome is the only way to approach this moment.

Thank you. I think that's right. I've been spending a lot of time, and I might try to write about this, is that, you know, most people have never really paid attention to politics. Most people are just getting on with their lives, and that's been the case for a long time, and it's the case right now. what I'm concerned about is it seems like elites, however you define that, don't really understand what time it is to use the trinity right-wing phrase right now. Some of them do, but I feel like a lot of, like it, do you think the Democratic Party, not just do it by himself, but do you think the Democratic Party really understood in late 2003, early 2024, how high the stakes were? because it seemed like a lot of them really weren't acting like it. You were very brave, if that's the word to use,

and A.B. Scottard and a few others were saying, it can't be Biden. That's going to be a disaster if it's Biden. But everybody just sort of, beyond the president himself, everybody just sort of acted like this was just another election. And it, you know, I'm not really sure. It kind of seems like a lot of the Democratic Party, the opposition, the God forsaken Democratic Party, that's supposed to help us get out of this moment,

is sort of approaching the midterms. in a very similar way as if democracy as if we're still a functioning republic and I don't think we are I mean are there any there's a little bit of it but is there creative thinking about how to win Senate seats and you know Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

Okay. One. So do you think, so I wrote in one of my substack pieces that I've been in easy date for a long time now. I basically, if Trump's the nominee, then I'm going to vote for the Democrat. I'm, I've very much bought into this, this democracy argument, there's no key. King's argument before, as you can call the no king's argument. And I've been out to a number of marches, which is crazy for me. I'm not a March kind of guy, but I've been out there. Do you think just political gravity and sort of just the natural rhythm of American life, plus the anti-terony

message is going to be enough? Or do you think Democrats need to speak more broadly about what they stand for? Because a lot of my thought right now is sort of about the Democratic Party or the anti-maga coalition, what kind of an agenda they need beyond just, you know, pro-democracy type stuff will need. I mean, do you think that's going to be enough to get us out of this moment? If it is, that's great. I'm going to go ahead. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and it's funny what you were just saying that this other Democrat was saying.

I mean, we are just used to the military being deployed to American cities now. That playbook that Trump or Miller or whatnot, like that has worked. probably i don't think it would even make the front page if like active duty military were sent to i don't know pick your major american cities i mean that is a big deal and to your point we're only nine months into this um so yeah i mean who knows how Yeah, and actually, I mean, on this, we can talk about foreign policy or the military or whatnot, but I mean, I've fully embraced my Trump derangement syndrome. And I encourage everybody else to fully embrace it as well. And what I'm really worried about is I'm worried about active duty military being deployed to blue areas to sort of screw around with the midterms.

I'm worried about, you know, very aggressive redistricting the way we've seen in Texas. And I hate to even put this out into the universe, but I'm worried about political assassinations with a sort of either an explicit promise of a presidential pardon or sort of an implicit. promise of a president will pardon. I mean, I know it sounds insane, but again, only nine months into this. And the guy thinks he's a king, even if he's not smart enough to articulate it that way in his brain, I think he thinks he's a king. And this is sort of the natural progression to this. And I mean, it's crazy to think, think about how successful he's been versus where he was at the beginning of 2021, at the end of 2020. Napoleon invades Russia. Hitler invades the Soviet Union. Whenever you have success after success after success,

it takes a superhuman amount of wisdom to sort of pull back and say, I can't do that next big thing. And I don't think he has that. So anyway, Trump derangement syndrome, everybody should adopt it. Well, he's got a reptilian mind for that comes out of just decades and decades of living in New York City with that, you know, hot house media environment. And he just couldn't articulate it. I don't think, but he just knows how to push and one to slightly pull back. Maybe the greatest demagogue in American history. What?

Yeah. And there is, if people don't realize it yet, they should, there is a whole sort of intellectual Claremont Institute type movement behind this insane man that's trying to. put sort of intellectual scaffolding around all this and they really do want a red caesar to crush right now their cultural enemies but eventually anybody who dissents politically all right well i was Yeah, I mean, I mean, I was at the principal's first conference earlier this year, as you were as well, in Washington, D.C. And we were there, I think, the week the Proud Boys were pardoned, and Enrique Terrio, the head of the Prad Boy, showed up. And he made trouble, and he was walking around as if he was above the law, which he sort of is. he and his

and his ilk are as well I mean this is this is bad Yeah. Yeah. yeah it's you know as a former republican it's it's it's hard to say but it really is true that as far as i can tell there are only two institutions in american life that have not bent the knee to donald trump over the past decade and the first is the democratic party i mean we've already

talked about the problems with him but i mean they've opposed them you've got to give him credit for that voting for him these days um and the second one is the military thank god Yeah, okay, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But even the federalist society seems to be slowly bending the need, so it's only a matter of time. Anyway, so I'd say the Democratic Party and the military, but there's no guarantee that the military will stay that way. And then that is sort of a nightmare scenario. If it sort of becomes, goes from being a nonpartisan institution to being sort of some sort of Republican guard. And I wrote in one of my pieces. whenever Hegsef was doing this absolutely dumb generals meeting, that whenever I look at the general officer for, I think the 800 or so general officers and their senior enlisted in Pfizer's who in that room, I think they're probably solid. And it seemed like they were solid and they weren't rising to the bait

to sort of turn that into a partisan political rally. Absolutely disgusting display. But they kept their honor clean. Whenever I look at them, though, I really do think about sort of what the Senate GOP conference looked like a decade ago. And over time, people like Bob Corker,

who sort of pushed back a bit, they retired, they got pushed out. Other ones didn't run for re-election, like Jeff Flake, I believe. And then over time, you have a MAGA Senate conference for the GOP.

And these guys, I mean, people think that whenever you put on a military uniform, you're sort of like Superman. And it's not the case. They're just regular people who are worried about their careers. Some of them are pretty good. Some of them are pretty bad.

Most of them are in the middle. But if there's a real concerted effort to promote people whose first loyalty will be to Donald Trump and not the Constitution, just give it time. And eventually you will have sort of a MAGA and general officer corps with all the follow-on effects of that. I mean, if you're like a one-star right now and you want to get a two-star. or if you're a full bird colonel and you want to become a general or you want to get some sort of command. And let's say you have no moral stance, or you're just, you're sort of amoral about all this. I mean, you know which way the wind's blowing. A few months ago, it was reported that Trump was insisted on having one-on-one conversations, I think, in the Oval Office with a lot of people who were up for maybe four stars, I think.

And I can almost guarantee you that in all those conversations, the word constitution was never even uttered. I think he wants his generals, as he said. And, yeah, I mean, elections have consequences. And I think we all just have, I mean, there's not, we just have to push back against it, I guess. I don't know. Grass. Right. I mean, Mike Flynn, Right. And I mean, Mike Flynn, crazy. Mike Flynn. I mean, he got three stars. Like, it's, there's no guarantee to just because you have something shiny on your collar that you're not secretly insane.

Brett. well i mean let's let's talk about the caribbean let's talk about what's going on it seems like we're just killing people in the critter i mean i might as well just there's no being around the bush as far as i can tell it seems like war crimes are happening right now it seems like we're just using military force without any sort of certainly without any sort of congressional approval but also there's no like in afghanistan we had positive identification combined with either a hostile intent or hostile act. Right now, there's really not any of that. And I think the military lawyers who are still around are going to have some very

difficult questions to answer. And I mean, this is, was it the head of Southcom? He's the one who resigned, but he didn't resign immediately. He's sort of waiting to do a turnover, whereas if If he's resigning because he's that we're using American force illegally, then why don't you just resign? You've probably got enough of a pension anyway. Who cares about your pension? And go give a press conference.

It's all very, and also, like, is the Secretary of State, is the President so checked out that the Secretary of State is going to start a war without him noticing because he's upset about Venezuela? Like, these are bad. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're very much in uncharted territory in a lot of ways here. And I will say that I was very low-ranking officer, but nonetheless, at every level of being in the military, as an officer, it's sort of beat into your head the importance of submitting yourself to civilian authority. Civilians are in charge. That's the American people speaking through their elected representatives. And I wonder if a number of superior officers have sort of overlearned that lesson. And all these hypotheticals that were put through in OCS and TBS and whatnot,

there's never really been a hypothetical about what if you have a criminal president. What if you have a secretary of defense who's asking you to do legal things? This is uncharted territory. And I don't know, I mean, there's also, I mean, General Millie. They threatened him to bring him out of retirement and court martial him. These people are ruthless, and I wonder how much of that is just, they just, you put in 30 years, 35 years, and you just don't want to put up with that. But surely, if this keeps going the way it's going, somebody can step out for the good of the country. You can't take your, everyone's going to die eventually.

You can't take it with you. Thank you. I guess right now it's just titled Michael Wood, I don't really know, and not for good with the clever title. Thank you.