Bulwark Takes - JVL and Jon Lovett on the Autocracy Problem

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

JVL and Jon Lovett join forces in this Substack Live to cut through the noise on Trump, authoritarianism, and whether Democrats can find the urgency to fight back before it’s too late.

Hey guys, it's JVL. I sat down with John Lovett from Crooked Media yesterday to have a big old talk about, you know, gestures broadly, all of this. We really sort of focused on how we got here, what precisely is wrong with America, and how we, all of us, are going to figure our way out of here. And also a little bit about how Democrats are going to change to do their part to help us get out of here, too. It's a pretty good talk. you'll like it. Here's the show. I'm here with the one, the only JVL from the bulwark. It's just us right

now. So I'm going to give it a minute. Well, we can just chitch out. Nice to meet you. We've never met a person. I'll do my fanning out right now. I really, you know, I'll be honest that I really didn't know you or your work before I knew of your association with Tim and Sarah and the bulwark. But what I was thinking about it before we talked, that what I appreciate, And it is rare now, and we know why, I appreciate seeing the force of somebody who's conservative and someone who has conservative philosophy that's really rooted, like a set of values, a worldview, put towards the project of fighting against Trump and this version of what a lot of Republicans have come to represent. present, and that you do it from a point of view outside of the water I'm used to swimming in, which is the urbane, urban, urban, cosmopolitan online left. Yeah, you wrote about some Republicans, some MAGA Republicans who were starting to become

disillusioned with Trump because of how it was impacting a fire department program that they cared about. And so I've just really appreciated your perspective. All right, we have some people here. I want to start with the news today, which is we have National Guard members from West Virginia, joined by members from Ohio, Mississippi. Oh, we're getting the red been there too now?

I believe so. I don't know they're there now, but my understanding is they're a part of this first cohort that's heading in, at least West Virginia has arrived, Louisiana too, I think. They're there to make D.C. beautiful, Yen. You had a pitch, which is that Blue State governors should start activating their guard too. What is the pitch?

Why does it seem so far-fetched, and what would happen if we actually did it? Yeah, I mean, to be clear, not as serious. pitch. I'm not a child. I understand this is never going to happen. But the idea is that it would be an accelerationist and kind of clarifying thing that if, say, Westmore were to say, oh, Mr. President, you want National Guard to, you don't need to pay. We really care about saving money. And so, you know, our National Guard is right here, right across the border in Chevy Chase. You know, we can walk two blocks and be over in Washington, D.C. to help, you know, keep everybody's safe.

But just understand that our guys are going to not wear masks and they're going to include to identify themselves. They're going to look out for all sorts of lawbreaking, including by, you know, gangs of masked men who assaults people randomly without identifying themselves as law enforcement in any meaningful way. And of course this won't happen. And even if a Democratic governor attempted to do that, there are all sorts of problems, right? A, Trump would probably say no, B. they would become federalized, although they would still, in theory, report to their adjutant generals. But it is clarifying because, like, of course Trump doesn't want Blue State National Guard there. Why doesn't he want Blue State National Guard there?

Because none of this has anything to do with law enforcement. None of this has anything to do with criminality. This is all, like, trial-run authoritarian stuff. And I'm not in D.C. anymore, thank God. And, but I, I feel like a crazy person, sitting my hair on fire and saying, like, why doesn't America think this isn't the biggest fucking deal that's happened since, like, the British sex, they say, like, this is, this is a really big fucking deal. And everyone just seems to be like, well, you know, just Trump being Trump, well, I'll be fine. I don't get it, man. I don't either. And I do, and I, I don't either. And I, I, I was interested in talking about this because I think in untangling, why it's both, why it's so far-fetched.

I think you get at some of the problem and even at some of the reason why people aren't responding the way you'd want. Because what Trump counts on, right, is that it's, you know, the criticism of Biden and foreign policy is because people like Vladimir Putin, others recognize that that America was afraid of escalation, that that was empowering. right that that that that the u.s would back ukraine only so far as to a stalemate but be afraid to take the step that would push the conflict uh into a greater relief right which allows it to become this war of attrition domestically that is a democratic instinct democratic politics we are

afraid of escalation i interviewed karen bass last week and i asked her you know there's this a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration, basically roving the streets of LA and grabbing people because they're brown, claiming some other pretext. And they've stopped doing those roving arrests

and cut the number of arrests as a result, but they filled a Penske truck with guys, sent him to a Home Depot, said they had work, and then grabbed a bunch of people. And they may have some flimsy reason or rationale for claiming how that's not racial or how it's only a component,

therefore it's compliant, but it's not. And I asked her, I said, well, you have police. They're called the Los Angeles Police Department. They're responsible for arresting people who break the law. If federal agents are breaking the law, they're... Should the cops be there? Should the cops be there and should they be arresting them?

And you end up dismissing it because it's so far-fetched. It's so ridiculous. Is this the okay corral? Right. But Trump's power play is based on the assumption that he will always, always, always, always make the first move be the most aggressive. Yes. So this is, I mean, this happened domestically under the Biden administration.

I don't if you remember the Eagle Pass Texas thing. So the governor of Texas was in as part of his assertion that the Biden administration was either allowing or encouraging an illegal invasion. He cut off access for federal agents through the land. at Eagle Pass. And he brought in, I forget, which I think it was the Texas National Guard, although we're just talking live. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was state troopers or something like that. But he brought in his own armed force, and they refused entry to a group of armed federal agents. Now, the Biden administration chose to do what I think all of us would say was the responsible thing,

which is they went to court and they, you know, they did not take out their guns and start shooting. They went to court to have the court request that the armed Texas agents of the state would, you know, stop breaking the law and allow them access. And eventually they won that case. But it's one of these things where you just think to yourself, but why did they do that? Like if the FBI came to your house and said, we have a search warrant, you have to let us in. And you said, I have a gun and I don't want to let you in. You have to go to court and maybe get a court to fight this out. They would just knock down the fucking door and shoot you. Right. And there's this weird thing that happens. And again, I understand. I understand why, right? It seems reasonable and rational. You don't want groups of armed agents of the state shooting at one another. That's crazy. It's terrible. And you see this, again, there's video, again, of cases where corrupt law enforcement officials are being rated, right?

And, you know, either the Bureau of Internal Affairs or, like, the FBI shows up at a sheriff's office or something. The FBI agents act real damn polite while requesting that the people there are there to arrest agree to be arrested, right? And you look at these things like, hold on, why is this? And it's only because the other people have guns. Well, and, and that's what this is all about. Well, it's, I think it's, I think it's three things. I think, yes, one, it's because everyone has a gun, right? I think, two, there is, rightly, a, a sense of comedy and respect between law enforcement officers that is for good and for ill, right?

For ill, that is a, you know, been a vehicle for corruption. It is a vehicle for law enforcement doing bad deeds. get away with stuff like it can be bad but there's a respect right we're all law enforcement i'm i'm with the fbi you're with the sheriff you're with the the metropolitan police but we're all law enforcement we have a we have a code we respect each other we're on we're on one side against everybody else thin blue line for good and for ill but the third part of it which is i think what you're getting at with your pitch here is uh this is a decadent and depraved era And one part of what makes it decadent is we all, including Trump, have certain expectations about how things work.

But those weren't a natural. They were an order made by people who played by certain rules. And there had been corrupt cops and racist cops and all kinds of problems. And National Guard came when there were riots after the acquittal in the Rodney King trial. the National Guard desegregated the schools but for the most part there is a kind of history

in which there's an understanding that everybody here at least ostensibly believes in following the law right well what happens when that changes and I think because a lot of people aren't paying attention a lot of people aren't taking seriously enough

a lot of Americans have an expectation that things will work out and has because they always have in their minds in the stories we tell we're just not comfortable with removing the patina of civil behavior and saying, wait a second, to the FBI, right, to, well, to LAPD, a member of the FBI is just a person. Right. Just a person.

And if they break the law in the city of Los Angeles, that's just a person breaking law because you don't work for the federal government. That's not your agency. That's not your purview. You have no, you have to follow federal laws, right? But that's just a guy in your city. And I think we're not really ready for that. We haven't fully wrapped our minds around that.

Yeah. And this is, I mean, so I get frustrated by this stuff, but I do want to, this is a moment where you also do have to take a beat and say, well, so maybe the acceleration of stuff feels good. Is it really wisdom, though? Right. And I don't know the answer to that, right? I mean, you can look back, so the Eagle Pass thing, right?

Was it wise for the federal government to say, no, we're not going to start shooting Texas National Guard people to make a point. We are going to go through the court system and be, you know, very nice, et cetera, et cetera, you know, those these people are breaking the law. I think that was wise, right? Yeah. But also, you know, if the rule you fell and led you to this place, what good was the rule, right? At some point, I do wonder if, like, there has to be a consolation. I don't know. I don't know the answer to this.

And I'm glad it's not my call. I'm glad I'm not the one responsible for deciding yes or no. But you do look at it and say, well, I don't know, man. I mean, Trump does depend on everybody else saying at the last minute, no, we'll be the responsible ones and we'll make sure he doesn't burn the house down. Yeah. And I'm like, can we get through this with everybody else doing that so that the house doesn't burn down? Like, you know, fingers crossed. But like, well, I don't know. I don't know either. And I, and I just want I do want to say, like, I think we're having this conversation in part because of my instincts certainly are towards, of course, you try to, you don't, you don't, no one's, you don't want people drawing there. It's worse. It's a thought experience. My old conservatism is always like the conservatism of them, hey, as bad as things are, things can always be worse. Right? I mean, that's... Well, right, and also... That's where I live.

And also because people who care about outcomes and not just their ego and not just power, taking risk is very risky, and people get hurt, and it doesn't always work out, right? You know, taking that one-third shot is dangerous, and leaders don't do it because they care, and Trump does it, and that is part of his power. But there is...

this feeling of these conversations are always too early or too late. There's no time when it's the right time to have it. At the same moment, there are National Guard members policing in Washington. We should say that when it comes to people thrown on masks, like who's behaving is the secret police, it's not the National Guard. It's not, it wasn't the Marines in L.A. It's ICE. ICE is the culprit.

But at the same time, he's clearly. claiming federal prerogatives over voting machines, which is false, right? And he's doing a lot of redecorating for a guy on a rental. And it will be too late when all of a sudden you have ICE agents ostensibly defending the homeland, their slogan now, around polling places in majority Latino neighborhoods. Yep. Right? and just there to keep an eye.

These things are together, by the way. Of course. The, you know, the anti-mail-in voting and the sending ice into neighborhoods and being able to deploy National Guard anywhere. They go together because, you know, Kamala Harris lost by the, what,

200,000 votes. This is, everything here is about, can you shave off a hundredth of a point in turnout in the right 15 precincts? And I don't know, like, maybe you can't, maybe you can't. like American politics is a close front thing. And I, you know, again, maybe this will all turn out to be alarmist,

and everything will be totally on the reg in 2026. But, like, I wouldn't put money on that. And I think to anybody who is willing to put money on that at this point in time is probably a little crazy. And so let's get to, look, I feel like there's this kind of conversation going on among people who are deeply worried about this, but then at the same time we're wondering

where the outrage is beyond it. And clearly... Hey, Timmy. Clearly, did Tim just jump in? Is Tim here? Oh, hi, Tim. Hi, Tim. I was just talking to Tim about how I talked to Nicole Wallace

and she was doing some W nostalgia. I was like, I'm not in. I'm not in. If you want that, you got to get Tim Miller. You got to get Tim Miller on the blower if we want W nostalgia. But why don't people care? Why can't we seem to

to wake people up. And it does get to the, to, to, to the lack of trust people have in Democrats. In 2024, Kamala did her best in the aftermath of Biden, but we failed on two fronts. People didn't believe us to vote against Trump and people didn't vote, believe us to vote for Kamala Harris. And we can talk about the politics of that, but I'm just curious about why you think the given how obvious to us this threat is that argument has so little purchase that even in your expectation of the midterms in 2026 we're talking about a few dozen precinct votes in precincts across the country instead of a blowout and why core democratic ideas don't have more purchase with people anymore and what it says and what changed dude if I knew the answer of that

I would tell you. Yeah. I mean, there are a couple possibilities. One is that none of those things were ever real, or that they were real for a small percentage of the population, like the circle of you and I ran in. But, you know, like out in the world, nobody ever meant that shit.

Like, that's just stuff that's on a car commercial for pickup trucks. It doesn't mean anything to people. That's one possibility. Another possibility is that things changed, right? And you could tell yourself a story, about why they would say something like

the rise of mobile computing plus social media plus COVID plus whatever else did something to people and broke their brains temporarily maybe so that's like you know

another another story the other version of the story is just decadence is that we're so it's a post cold war story we're so fat and happy that everybody just assumes that like

hey everything is always It's going to be fine. Nothing could be that bad, and nothing's ever going to really change in fundamental ways. I don't know that I believe any of those stories, but like all of them seem plausible to me. Another possibility, though, is that one of the things that has changed for real is that a critical mass of the population has decided that it wants autocracy. And when I say critical mass, like I don't mean. like 60% or 51 because you don't, you know, to have like big revolutionary changes, you don't need a majority, you know, like I think there were 20,000 Bolsheviks or something like that when we had the Russian Revolution.

You just need a large enough group that cares enough that they really can't be denied, right? They, you know, something breaks their way and they're able to affect like real and permanent change. And I don't know, man. Like, I don't know.

The extent to which out in concern world, there are people who talk now totally openly about autocracy, and they'll call it Caesarism or strong, you know, they call it, but they don't even, like, make the pretense of, well, it's all about liberty and states, right? Like, they're just past that. They're fully post-liberal. And I don't know what that percentage is, but it's not 2%. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's, it's not 3%. Yeah. Maybe it's 15, but maybe it's 35, but it's big. And so maybe the change is that once you have a big enough part of the country, which is truly post-liberal, that it's very, very hard to shape that and to sustain liberalism in the face of that assault. Yeah, I will say, though. This is why you and I've never talked before, because you like enjoying your life. No, I sit down with me as a sign that we haven't talked before is you think I like enjoying my life. The, I think there's two things to add to that. Because I think that's, that those are broadly, I agree with the sort of the, the, the various ways, the ways you can explain this.

I will say, though, it does matter that the diehards, and how many would claim they openly believe in autocracy, but the Trump diehards are a third. And you're right, a minority can inflict its will on the public. This is not a group of people, you know, this is in post-World War I, Germany. with a bunch of guys that are shell-shocked and young and angry and ready to take to the streets. This is a movement of the old and a movement from home of people watching television and posting, right? So there is a majority that isn't totally aligned with this. And so you have to add to your list. There's a group of people that just don't feel the federal government, don't think it delivers, don't think it can hurt them.

That's a mix of decadence and failure, failure, right, in the face of economic change. And then the last piece, I would say, and I think this is where I start to find a little bit of places to kind of grab onto in terms of a way out of this is Donald Trump's great strength, his great political ability, is he can make the worst thing about you, the truest thing about you. He can make a politician find that ambition and that corruption and that lack of dignity and make it the most important thing. and he can go to a group of middle-aged voters who are a little uncomfortable with change and remind him of these animuses that were buried that are also alongside a bunch of other empathetic parts of themselves that can be just as real.

And on our side, we really did lose a countervailing force to that when Obama gave way to Hillary Clinton, Clinton and Joe Biden, and, and that kind of, that storytelling role, basically, since Joe Biden became president, was empty. And Gavin Newsom's trying to get attention. It's hard to do. You have people like Bernie Sanders that are trying to tell a different story. But largely, we left that kind of positive space open.

And we decided that people really weren't voting on democracy. They were voting on pocketbook issues. and maybe we overcorrected, and that if you can find a way to appeal to the other virtues, other parts of people's identity, that you can kind of claw together a majority to take it back and start a virtuous circle. That is possible, right? Donald Trump does an immigration crackdown after basically a decade of Democrats being afraid of the issue or just raising their hands during a debate to embrace a left position

to try to get out of it. and yet Americans didn't move to the right on immigration as of now they've moved to the left on immigration. 80% of Americans now say they're in favor. Seven of, it was 79% now say they're in favor of just more immigration. They believe in it. They're against the crackdown, right? Like, it's amazing that despite all the propaganda,

there is that belief in immigration that's still in there, right? And so, like, people are complicated, and we've just failed to tap into the good part and Trump is so adept at tapping into the bad part. Yeah. I mean, there's an even stupter. possible explanation, which is that Stump is sui generous

and he is a unique figure in American politics because he's been part of the national furniture for 40 years. Like, you know, he's been famous for 40 years. He's been a guy with a board game named after him and he was on TV for a while

and he showed up doing this father Coughlin routine that was also like part Borsfeld comedy and like it. And that it's all really particular to him and that once he goes away, like, it turns out there isn't anything there. There isn't a real appetite for authoritarianism. There's a bunch of people who suddenly thought, yeah, politics can be sort of fun. We don't have to have these scripted

people who always say, you know, like serious things at serious times. Like, maybe that's it. That will be great. I'm open to that possibility that this thing all sort of resolves itself. That is, I don't know about you, but I have, you know, guys like you and I spend all over time that keep out, like, what button can be pressed to make everything better? But, of course, it's possible that, like, there are no buttons to be pressed and that these things resolve on their own. There's a book, The Age of Acrimony, which is about, like, the 1890s to 1910s in America. And that's another case of, it was a moment kind of like this.

And then the answer is, like, it just stopped. And there is something, if you want to be, if you want to be optimistic, there's something quintessentially American about the fact that we rarely solve our problems, we just bulldoze over them and we build new problems on top of them. You know, so did we, did we solve the problems inherent in the Vietnam War? No, not really. We just sort of like walked away from it and then built a new set of problems on top of that. And maybe that's what we'll do this time. I don't know. I mean, I'm grasping because again, what I really think in my heart of hearts is that actually 30% of the country wants autocracy because they're post-liberal.

but I'm trying to offer alternative theories No, but I think both of what you're That can both that can be true And this can be true right It can be absolutely true that there's a third of the country That's lost in a lot of ways Hillary Clinton called them deplorable Whatever she faced

Politicians don't do punitry Just say what you're going to do Even when you're right, you'll pay You'll pay in blood Yeah, but yeah sure But We've we've you know, the question to me is, okay, what made Trump so appealing to that group of people?

What does fascism offer that we obviously shouldn't, but need to be able to offer an alternative that appeals to enough people to pull them away, right? And fascism promises order, it promises meaning. Clearly, we have a crisis of meaning of some kind. And all of these pieces seem to fit into that in some way. And I think these conversations to me are ultimately about how do we answer that, that meaning, that crisis of meaning that allowed people to grab onto something like this. And I do think that's the phones. I think that's the economy.

I think that's decadence. I think that's people finding that they made a bargain of they wouldn't go to church, but they'd get a really cheap TV. And then the TV started getting more expensive and it's really unsatisfying. There's a cultural piece of this below. and I think thinking through what led us to embrace enough people to embrace someone like Trump starts to point to how Democrats have to kind of provide an answer of their own. And I don't have, I don't know what it's going to look like. And until then, we'll be contending with ICE SUVs with Donald Trump's name on the back.

Again, not something you do when you're renting the place, right? Right, right, right. JVL, it's been good talk. any final thoughts? Great, man. It is fantastic to see you and talk to you

and in real life person and I think I've now met all the big three from Crooked. I'm excited to have done it. You guys are great. We work different sides to the street,

but I have a tremendous amount of respect for what you guys do. And I will always feel incredible respect and admiration for the conservatives that stood up for what was right

because, look, for us, I'm proud of what we built. I really believe in it. I believe in this. But it was much less risky for us to say we thought Donald Trump was a threat because we weren't standing up

against a bunch of people we consider friends and we weren't putting our reputations on the line in quite the same way. And it is a sad statement about how few people on the right did it, but it's a very good statement about the ones who did.

And so JVL, really good to talk to you. And everybody listening, subscribe to the Bull World hit us with a subscribe at crooked on substack we're building something over here we got it together build a big pro-democratic relentless movement to counter rising authoritarianism because we got to build it before or maybe after it's too late but either way we got to build it uh uh jvil thanks so much all right signing off