No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Democrats defy history with campaign surprise

Episode Date: August 11, 2024

Democrats are finally, actually winning the messaging war. Brian interviews Pete Buttigieg about JD Vance’s attacks on Tim Walz’s military service, Trump’s disastrous comments on Kamala Harris’ race, and he compares the joy of the Harris campaign to the doom-and-gloom of the Trump campaign. And historian and star Substack writer Heather Cox Richardson joins to discuss the dangers of Trump’s agenda and how history shows us how that agenda will lead us into autocracy. Order Shameless and grab tickets to live DC & LA shows: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/shamelessSubscribe to Heather Cox Richardson: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/Shop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about the Democrats finally, actually winning the messaging war. And I interview Pete Buttigieg about J.D. Vance's attacks on Tim Walts' military service, Trump's disastrous comments on Kamala Harris' race, and he compares the joy of the Harris campaign to the doom and gloom of the Trump campaign. And I'm joined by historian and star substack writer Heather Cox Richardson to discuss the dangers of Trump's agenda and how history shows us how that agenda will lead us into autocracy. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Let's be clear, for my entire career in politics, Democrats have not only been losing the messaging war, but have been complaining about losing the messaging war. When you look back to the days of Obamacare, for example, while Democrats were trying to

explain the individual mandate and the implications of the ACA on Medicare Part D, you know what the Republicans were doing? They were claiming that it would lead to death panels. And it was their narrative that stuck. Short, pithy, impactful, the next elections would lead to perhaps the most devastating results in living memory for Democrats. By the time Obama left office, Democrats went from controlling 27 state legislatures to only 13. We lost 13 governorships and 816 state legislative seats. It was the largest loss in power since Eisenhower. Cut to the Trump era, we're still getting

killed. Trump's messaging is concise, it's catchy, it's compelling for his audience anyway, build the wall, lock her up, drain the swamp, make America great again. All the while, we're still complaining about our inability to message. Biden comes along. He wins in 2020 on the back of massive anti-Trump sentiment, but in 2024, again, he can't prosecute the case against Trump. Even in the face of such aggressively dismal policies by Donald Trump, the narrative is so bad for Democrats

that the only thing the media can focus on is Biden's age. Our message clearly isn't breaking through. And then Kamala Harris and Tim Walz enter the scene. They're both articulate, inspiring public speakers who connect with normal people, because they communicate like normal people. And suddenly, it's the Democrats who, seemingly overnight, Lawrence had to capture an audience with clear cashphrases

that electrify tens of thousands of people. Catchphrases like, we're not going back. America has tried these failed economic policies before. But we are not going back. We are not going back. Like, when we fight, We win. And when we fight, we win.

God bless you and God bless the United States of America. And even this one that only Tim Wallace can deliver. Even if we wouldn't make the same choice for ourselves, there's a golden rule. Mind your own damn business. And in fact, one of the most potent tools against Republicans is actually the simplest one, and it was debuted by Tim Wallace himself, which is that Republicans are just weird. And despite its simplicity. it's actually the one that seems to be getting under their skin the most,

probably because, as they say, a hit dog will holler. That attack has such legs that, according to the New York Times, at an August 2nd fundraiser for Trump, when a donor asked Trump about Democrats trying to paint the Republican ticket as weird, Trump replied, not about me, they're saying that about JD. Like, dude couldn't even deny it. He just deflected and then threw his own running mate under the bus. So that we're clear, that is not what you do when the attack doesn't have,

merit. Meanwhile, Trump's best retort to the messaging juggernaut on the left? Well, he's claiming that Tim Walsh is going to unleash hell on earth. Tim Walsh, the high school social studies teacher, the guy who's best known for signing a bill into law that would guarantee breakfast and lunches for school children regardless of income status. Right, good luck with that. The fact is that our tent is growing. We're welcoming the constituencies that Donald Trump himself needs, constituencies that include young people and rural Americans, teachers, union workers, blue-collar workers, military members, Republicans who've chosen to prioritize are democracy. There's no fakeouts or recycled lies about audience size or feigned big-boy confidence that's going

to change that. Granted, that doesn't mean that we can just sit back and exhale here. We have less than three months, and everybody needs to do their part. The next three months are going to be impossible to forecast, although it's safe to say it's probably going to get weird. But none of that should distract us from the potential of electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walsh, who are fearless, bully fighters, happy warriors, living embodiments of the promise of America. So our job is to make sure that we get to work, because when we fight, well, you know.

A couple quick notes here. This is the week. My book, Shameless, is officially out. If you enjoy this podcast, please do me a favor and show your support by ordering a copy this week. And this week is especially important because this is my shot at hitting the New York Times bestseller list. So you can click the link in the show notes or go to Brian Tyler Cohen.com slash book. Also, if you live in D.C. and you want to see me live with Jen Saki on August 14th, or if you live in L.A., and you want to see me live with John Favro on August 26th, there are still a few tickets left to both of these events.

The New York event is unfortunately sold out, but D.C. and L.A. are still available. You can also find those at the same link, Brian Tyler Cohen.com slash book. but again, grab them fast if you do have any intention of going. Okay, thanks, everybody. Here are my interviews with Pete Buttigieg and Heather Cox Richardson. Now, we've got Pete Buttigieg. Thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me on.

Now, I do want to note that you are appearing in your personal capacity today. The Trump campaign is clearly struggling to find some line of attack against Kamala Harris and Tim Walsh. And what they've landed on is J.D. Vance now attacking Tim Wals on his military service. So as someone who himself served with you, what was your reaction to Vance qualifying the value of Waltz's 24-year military service to this country? Yeah, this is just not something that service members ordinarily do toward other service members. There's some notable exceptions, including the disgraceful swift boat attacks against John Kerry, which we're not going to allow to happen again, especially because Tim Wall served

honorably. He served for 24 years. In the military, you can retire at 20 years. Tim Walls served for 24, which I'm pretty sure is longer that J.D. Vance had been alive when he finished his tour. None of us are saying bad things about J.D. Vance's service. We're talking about a campaign that not only is building up our candidates and why we believe in Kamala Harris and Tim Walls, but most importantly talking about what this campaign means for people in their lives. And I think that's the other really interesting and important thing to talk about.

It's not just that Tim Wall served and by all accounts was a very good soldier and non-commissioned officer. It's that after that, he went on to lead the Veterans Affairs Committee in the House and make veterans better off on things like mental health and suicide prevention. So it's just it's unsurprising and yet still somehow disappointing that the only thing they can think to do is to go after his service. but maybe the upshot of it is it's going to remind everybody and educate everybody about the sack that Tim Walts is a veteran who served 24 years in the military. It also seems to have escaped J.D. Vance that his own running mate did the thing that Vance is wrongly accusing Tim Wals of doing, which is evading his service. So do you think that maybe J.D. Vance forgot that Donald Trump very famously found some podiatrist somewhere to say that he had

bones spurs to ensure that he wouldn't serve a single day in the military? Yeah, the contrast couldn't be clear. Look, you know, both Tim Walz and J.D. Vass came from ordinary beginnings and served in the military. Donald Trump, on the other hand, used his status as a multi-millionaire from the day he was born to be able to, it would appear, purchase a doctor's note that allowed him to fake a disability so that he could claim to be unable to go serve. And I imagine some middle class or working class kid when in his place, who wasn't rich enough to pull those kinds of strings, that's exactly the point. They don't want to talk about that. They definitely don't want to talk about their ideas for America or Americans. So they do what they always do, which is just to tear down, tear up,

and do whatever is most outrageous any given day so that they don't have to defend things like what their policies would mean for veterans, which I think would be a lot of cuts to services. and more generally, they're deeply unpopular policies like tax cuts for the rich and continuing to destroy a woman's right to choose. You know, Vance and Trump do seem to have a penchant for throwing stones from glass houses. Vance attacks Tim Walsh, who served for six times as long as Vance served as avoiding military service. While Donald Trump actually avoided military service, Trump attacks Kamala Harris by denying her biraciality, while J.D. Vance has three biracial children of his own, what do you make of the fact that these guys seem better positioned to be attacking each other than any Democrats? Well, it's not just that they

obviously seem to lack a common sense of hypocrisy or shame. I actually think it is strategic. I think when they do something that would just make a normal person's head hurt, they're doing it so that we're spinning around on how outrageous that is and not talking about the very real stakes of this election in terms of our everyday laws, what it would mean if Donald Trump and J.D. Vance get their chance to implement Project 2025 and undermine Social Security and Medicare or try to tear down the Affordable Care Act or eliminate the Department of Education or any of the other things they're planning to do that are not just terrible policy but are extremely unpopular. And so what we have to do, anytime they do this, whether

it's attacking the war record of an honor or service record of an honorable veteran, which they've done from, you know, a war hero like John McCain to a retired guardsman like Tim Walls, or blurting out something racist in an auditorium full of black journalists like Donald Trump did a few days ago. Of course, we have to respond to it because these things can't be left without a response, but we respond to it and then we get right back to our message. We don't let them change the subject. We're going to be the ones who change the channel. You know, we've seen a number of even Republicans come forward and express dismay at Trump's inability to really control himself. I believe Scott Bayo was on Fox the other day, begging

Trump to stick to policy to show you the extent to which he's lost the plot here. And yet, at his most recent press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump opted to brag that his January 6th insurrection crowd was bigger than Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech crowd, which, by the way, is a great way to appeal to the black community. Like, no notes there. I'm sure the black community just love that. What do you attribute Trump's dissembling to? Well, again, I think it's actually part of a strategy.

The more he can say things that are silly, strange, outrageous, untrue, the less he has to defend his profoundly unpopular vision for America. Art of why he lost the last time is Americans disagree with him on issue after issue after issue. You look at guns, part of what they're going after Tim. on. You know, Tim Als was right to point out with the kinds of firepower and weaponry that he became an expert on during his time in the military have no place in our schools or our neighborhoods or our communities. And those policies around assault weapons, you know, our policies, the policies that Harris-Wallis administration went back are something the vast

majority of Americans believe in. And another example of where the Trump vance position really is outside of the main street. So you're going to continue to see day out. afterday, them do whatever is crazy or outrageous in order to not have to talk about all these things that Americans really, really disagree with the law. Let's finish off with this. The overwhelming sentiment that I've gotten from people is that for the first time in a long time, we're seeing a campaign where Joy is front and center. Can you speak on the optimism of the Harris Walls ticket versus the darkness of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance? I think it's one of the biggest things we have going for us. Just as much

the fact that people agree with us on the issues that affect them most, just as much or more than the fact that they have deeply flawed candidates, both in Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. I think one of the biggest things we have going for us is just the atmosphere that Kamala Harris has created around her campaign. There is an energy to it. There is a joy to it. And I think it's reminding Americans that politics doesn't have to be this death match. Campaining doesn't have to be just a matter of grim determination. And, you know, part of what we I think have as an edge right now, part of why she has overtaken Trump and is now winning this election, is a sense separate and apart from ideology, from issues, Democrat, Republican stuff, just a sense among a lot

of Americans that that was exhausted. What we lived through, both with the Trump presidency and just with Trump's presence, frankly, in our politics, that there's something about that chaos that's just exhausting and increasingly boring. And we have something very different to offer on our side of the aisle. And that vibe, right alongside, of course, our very substantive policy edge is part of what I think is going to propel her to victory. Which, by the way, is why we're not going back has become so potent of an unofficial campaign slogan here. Peebu to Judge, as always, thank you so much for taking the time. It's great to talk to you.

Thank you. Great to be with you. Now we've got history professor at Boston College and the author of the bestselling book, Democracy Awakening, and the massively successful letters from an American newsletter. Heather Cox Richardson, Heather, thank you so much for taking the time. Oh, it's always a pleasure to work with you. So I want to dive in here and give some historical context of the moment that we're in right now. Donald Trump's plan, if he wins the election, is to consolidate power into the executive branch.

In my opinion, the most chilling part of Project 2025, for example, is the reclassification of career civil servants in our government's workforce into political appointees. And that would effectively turn the entire government, the IRS, the FBI, the DOJ, the FCC, into a tool of Trump's political interests. So this may all feel new for us, but I'm curious as to whether there's precedent in history where, for example, leaders engaged in similar tactics and what happened to that system. of government in those instances? So, for example, did those countries then descend into autocracy? There are comparisons in other countries for sure. Project 2025, which is the project that's been embraced by the Trump advance campaign, deliberately builds on what Victor Orban has done in Hungary, where he took a democracy and he overturned it by concentrating power in his own hands. Now, one of the things about Project 2025 is that it talks about civil servants and

turning them into loyalists for Trump. It also talks about taking over the Department of Justice and ceasing to honor the rule of law and instead having people in the Department of Justice who do what Trump wants them to. It also talks about the military. So the idea is to concentrate all of those positions of power in our society in the hands of one person. Now, if you look at Hungary, modern Hungary under Victor Orban, he did something very similar with the idea quite explicitly of destroying democracy and creating what he called illiberal democracy or Christian democracy, a world in which a few usually white heteronormative men controlled the lives of women, racial and ethnic minorities, and gender minorities in order to return

what they considered a traditional worldview to their country. Now, this has really never happened in the United States before. And one of the things that I think is important when you think about Project 2025 is to think of it in tandem with the July 1st, 2024 Supreme Court decision in Donald J. Trump versus United States, in which today's radical Supreme Court overturned the very rule of law in the United States of America to say that one man is above the rule of law, and that's the president of the United States, who it said cannot be indicted or prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties. Now, we've never had this in the United States before, but we have had something really similar that may surprise people. And that's that if you think about what happened

in the American South from about 1874 to about 1965, we had a one-party region that essentially had overturned democracy and was ruled by a very small group of people. And in that American South, essentially the states and the state legislatures decided how people would live within those states. They passed their laws that discriminated against people of color, black Americans, and certainly discriminated against women. And at the same time, the way that that played out on the ground was that capital fled the region because there was no point in trying to invest in a factory, for example, in the American South, if who you knew would determine how well that factory would do.

And similarly, even white Americans who theoretically would be privileged by this system, their lives, too, depended on who they knew. And so while we haven't seen the attempt at a national level to concentrate power in one single person in the United States, we have seen how the idea of a one-party system plays out. And it played out in the American South in a way that really destroyed the economy and destroyed equality. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Once a country does fall victim to some type of an autocratic leader, and I know we've spoken about the example of Hungary, and we're still looking at this right now, can you talk about the likelihood of coming back from that? Well, that's sort of a large philosophical question, right? Because you don't just have to look at Hungary. You also have to look at places like Russia, which is, again, a model for some people on the radical right nowadays. And look what's happening to Russian citizens right now who are being shoveled into the maw of a military that's grinding them up and leaving them to die on the battlefields. The larger philosophical question, though, is will humans, especially Americans in this case, accept the loss of their right to determine their own futures. And lots of people argue about this. And I'm hedging a little bit because there's a saying among American historians that Americans will never put up with autocracy because we're too darn ornery. We've never tested it before. What will happen if you game

out the idea of putting a Trump vance ticket back into the White House, it seems, is pretty dramatic repression of those who object to the overturning of democracy. And the attempt to guarantee, as Trump has said, that we will never have to vote again. Will Americans put up with that? My inclination is no. But what that would do is it would usher in a very long period, I think, of extraordinary domestic unrest, violence, and probably not in our lifetimes, mine anyway, the return of democracy. I know you've spoken extensively about the prospect of Trump coming back into the White House. I'm curious, in your opinion, what part of Donald Trump's agenda, plans from a historical perspective, worries you the most?

Well, you know, Trump's a really interesting character because while we've been talking about Project 2025, I don't think he has any real ideological positions at all, except that he wants Donald J. Trump to stay out of jail, and he wants Donald J. Trump to have power and money. And so in a way, the fact that a leader who has no convictions at all is a huge problem, I would also look at J.D. Vance, who is very much working for the billionaires like Peter Thiel and who there has suddenly been a real move on the part of the Trump Vance team to talk a lot about major cryptocurrency initiatives. And the intersection of the interests of billionaires right now in cryptocurrency, which to me looks very much like the, you know, I call it

without intending it to be derogatory, you know, the wild west of a new technology. Those new technologies or the new fields for investment are always, when we first get into them unregulated, and they are always controlled by a very few extraordinarily wealthy people. And they always, and I'm talking about mining, I'm talking about cotton, I'm talking about copper, I'm talking about diamonds, I'm talking about oil, I'm talking about all these things. They always hurt the majority of the people. now when i look at this ticket i look at trump and his the fact he's 78 years old and is not seemingly in good health and then i look at the fact that j d vance seems very much to be pushing the idea of these

tech bros as they say that they're the ones who should control the world and that's actually what worries me the most because if you concentrate power in one executive and you then put that one executive in the control of billionaires who are interested in controlling the world's money supply, you know, I feel a little bit like that looks like a James Bond movie, except we're actually living in it. There are those on the right who say that Democrats are just being hysterical by saying that Donald Trump is going to be some type of an autocrat and that we already had four years of him before and that we all survived.

What's your response to that? Well, first of all, everybody has made it very clear that those who held the guardrails in the Trump administration, to the extent. they did are gone now. He's been very clear about that. And one of the goals of Project 2025 was to say, we're not going to be stopped again the way we were in the first term. But I think there's a larger point that you're making here that you and I probably, I won't speak for you, but you and I probably have both run into. And that's that what the Trump people are talking about is indeed so extreme that it's hard to convince people that it's real.

You know, you feel like when you're, and it's one of the reasons I always cite my sources is because you feel like when you're saying they want to end all abortion. They want to take away birth control. They want to have a national abortion ban. You know, you hear those things and you think, oh, no, no, that couldn't possibly be the case. Or, you know, they are trying to take over the military. And you think about our military, which has this long and storied history, and you think, oh, come on, we've never done that before.

But they are saying it. They are putting in place policy. papers to do that. They are filling positions. You know, they have this whole list of people to fill positions and do those things. And I think if we don't take it seriously, we're making a huge mistake. Well, that's why I thought it was so important to speak to you today because because of that exact reason. I mean, we're out here saying that they're going to do XYZ and we're saying it because they are promising it. But at the same time, it's hard for us to imagine it as Americans because we just don't have a schema for that in this country.

But I think when we do take a moment to look at historical precedent, and when I say historical, we don't even have to look far because to your exact points earlier in this conversation, you discussed Hungary and Russia, and these are happening right now, and we're watching these countries turn into illiberal states. And I think that it is important to look elsewhere, that we're not special, and it's happened in other countries,

and it can happen right here. And it's already happened to a degree when you look at Chevron, when you look at Dobbs, when you look at precedents that have been completely turned on their head in this country that we didn't think could ever happen. And yet for the first time, we are seeing rollbacks in rights that kind of defy anything that we've seen in American history before. Yes. And there's another really important angle to this, I think. And that is the rhetorical structure that Trump has always used is one. that was, in fact, embraced by the Nazis in Germany.

And that was the idea of what was called the big lie. But it had a concept. And the concept behind it was that if you, and I used to say to my students, you know, if your roommate steals $20, you're mad at your roommate because you can conceive of that kind of a crime. But if your roommate breaks into your entire family's bank accounts, sells their house, wipes out everybody's retirement, takes everything, runs up the credit cards, and so on, you don't really have a language or an emotional groundwork to get mad at that person

because it is so beyond anything you can imagine, you don't have the tools to do that. And that was really quite literally the goal in many ways of the way that the Nazis approached what they were doing is to say something that was so outrageous that people would dismiss it. And they were quite articulate about this being the plan. And this is one of the things that Trump has done when he continually comes out and says, says, yeah, I did that, or yeah, I did that, or yeah, I'm going to do this. People think, well, I must be misunderstanding it because, of course, you wouldn't want to take over American democracy and replace it with a dictator. Of course, the Supreme Court wouldn't take away a constitutional right

that has been recognized for almost 50 years. Of course, the Supreme Court wouldn't give the president the right to commit crimes in office. And yet, all of those things have actually happened. need to be aware of them and to create the mental apparatus to say, yeah, these are really bad guys. But crucially, they can be stopped before they take office and are able to complete those plans. And that's the place that we need to be engaged for the next, you know, 80-some-odd days. Right. So in trying to figure out how to effectively, effectively convey this warning to people, I'm curious if I can get your one-minute pitch to someone in the social media era. who is scrolling on TikTok, for example,

in terms of adequately conveying the danger of what a Trump presidency would bring. The Trump presidency will bring a dictatorship. But on social media, what I would suggest is to lean into not the hatred and the anger and the backward-looking of the Trump-vance campaign, but to emphasize that democracy is about us creating a community,

and that's actually a joyful enterprise. That's one of the reasons I think that the Harris Wall's campaign is taken off the way it has is that this should be a joyful enterprise and that I think is what people really will lean into going forward and need to as we create a nation that can address the issues of the 21st century. I think that was that was perfectly put. And I think that's such an accurate point too because it's been, I mean, I know I speak for a lot of people who are watching this right now and thinking this is the first time that we've felt not just that we are that we're trying to, you know, stave off some impending demise, but that we actually feel hope in terms of what

we could do in terms of codifying abortion rights, in terms of protecting the planet from climate change, in terms of protecting young people from the proliferation of guns and weapons of war, in terms of making health care more affordable so more people are covered and can live long, healthy lives, in terms of making sure that workers have more workers' rights so that they can live with dignity. And just, it doesn't always have to be so miserable. There can be, there can be so much hope in the prospect of what can happen in this country. And we saw a lot of that, by the way, with the Biden-Harris administration, stuff that we never thought would be possible. And yet, right now, we have the strongest economic recovery in the world. We have

the government finally negotiating drug prices. We have our infrastructure being revamped. We have manufacturing coming back and booming in this country to the tune of 800,000 jobs, which is to say nothing of the 16 million total jobs that we've added. So there is a lot of hope that a Harris Walls campaign presidency White House could actually bring building a on the success that we've seen today. Yeah, I would say that, but let me add something else with my backward look at U.S. history. There's also music and art and philosophy and new ways to approach education and new combinations. And when I think about the joy and the creation of a new America, I think of the things you're

talking about for sure, but I also think about things like Snoop Dog and Martha Stewart at the Olympics. And the fact that, as I understand it, Snoop Dogg asked Martha Stewart to join him with the dressage because he's afraid of horses. I'm afraid of horses. And you look at that and you just think, that's what America should be, is these two people from, you know, very different creative pursuits being able to call on each other and say, okay, I'm really not okay around horses that I'm trying to be, but could you hold my hand a little bit? And that, I think, is the kind of vibe that has always made America be America in a way that other countries can't, that we have these different voices and we have these different approaches to the world. And together, they are far greater than the sum of their parts. And that is, when I think about the joy of this moment, that's the kind of thing I'm thinking about, the gardens

and the paintings and the friendships and the communities, as well as the political policy. that reflect those things. Right, as opposed to just retreating into tribalism, because that's what our politics wants us to do right now. Heather, what's it like for you as a historian to witness history repeat itself so easily, so predictably, and yet the warnings of the past feel like they don't register at all with so much of the population? Well, partly, I think they have not registered in part because we thought that they were,

the guardrails that we'd put in place after World War II, we're always going to be there. We were always going to have civil rights. We were always going to have social security. We were always going to have a focus on public health. Those things that many of us grew up with, we thought would always be there. So that's partly, I think, why it feels a little bit like we want to shake people and say you really could lose these things. But what has really jumped out to me is because of my age, I have spent my entire professional career fighting a holding action, trying to defend American democracy

first from a rising oligarchy and now from a dictatorship. And for years, I have been telling people that I had faith in the American people and that American society would turn on a dime. But I kept waiting for it to turn on that dime and I kept trying to find places where it might happen. And if I look at what has happened in this country

since July 21st when President Joe Biden said he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, what I have seen is the country turning on a dime and I don't really know it's like it's like sitting in the middle of a whirlwind and being part of it and watching it and trying to analyze it at the same time I'm part of it is actually calling out a lot of muscles that I don't really have because I've never been in this place before like the country hasn't been in this place before what gives you hope right now oh the the American people. Really the American people. It always has. I mean, when push came to shove, always in the past, Americans have stepped up to the plate to defend democracy. What worried me in this moment was really since 1980, with our increasing emphasis on great leaders, which is really itself a form of reinforcement of the idea of oligarchy or dictatorship, people seem to lose their understanding that they could affect the future. And one of the things that I have always done

in the webcast and stuff I do is to remind people that democracy is about us, not about our leaders, they work for us. And it feels like that concept has finally gotten traction. And if it does, what we will see is a world that

more accurately reflects the majority of the American people. So we do protect civil rights. We do protect the environment. We do have common sense gun safety legislation. All the things that are popular with more than 79 to 80% of the American people. And that is a reinforcement of democracy. It's a reinforcement of agency. And it's a reinforcement of the idea that at the end of the day, the Declaration of Independence was right

and human beings have a right to determine their own futures. And that is both our most conservative possible position and our most progressive future. Well, that right there is exactly why so many people tune in to hear what you have to say. To that point then, your newsletter called Letters from an American. It's read by a million and a half people. What do you cover and where can they sign up to hear more from you? So I am a historian. I'm not a journalist. So what I do is I, what all historians do, I look for what creates change in society. So when I write letters from an American, I'm trying to take a snapshot of America on every single day. My cutoff is midnight and Eastern time. And take a look at anything that happened that day that looks as

if it is part of a longer story in American history that is currently changing. And that is available for free on Facebook and on Substack, just under Heather Cox Richardson.substack.com. It is not partisan, really. It is a historical look at where we have been and where we are and to some degree where it seems that we are going, although I don't prognostigate at all. I tell you what happened, not necessarily what I think about what happened.

And of course, we'll put the link to your newsletter in the post description and the show notes of this episode. Highly recommend for those watching and listening right now to sign up. And finally, your best-selling book, Democracy Awakening, is coming out in paperback in October. Heather, why did you write this book? Well, originally I wrote the book to answer the questions that people ask me all the time. How did the party switch sides? What is liberalism? You know, what's the difference between a democracy and a republic?

but pretty quickly it became clear that the question that people asked me most is how did we get here, what on earth is going on, and how do we get out? And so the book is divided into those three parts. And the fourth, the third part of it, I think, is actually in many ways to me the most interesting because it's a how-to manual for expanding democracy by taking a look at all the different ways in our history that people have taken these concepts that were articulated in the Declaration of Independence and then turn them into the modern democracy we have today. But that being said, I understand that there is a new book coming out on the other side of this interview as well. Tell us about that. Yeah, so that my book is called Shameless, and you were kind enough to sit with me and give me some guidance in terms of the historical aspects of what we're seeing right now in today's modern Republican Party. And so I do focus on a lot of the plans that Republicans laid out in the beginning, whether it's from the Powell memo, whether it's from Roger. Roger Ailes' memo that would eventually come to be what Fox News is today, Project RedMap,

which in 2010 was the plan in the aftermath of Obama's election to start gerrymandering the states. So how Republicans have used these longstanding plans, which are bearing fruit right now in a big way. You know, we've spoken in this conversation about how the Supreme Court and much of the judiciary has been there to help the Republican Party consolidate power. These are plans that have been laid out for a long time. So that's coming out in just a few days. it's available for pre-order right now as well. And again, thank you for your help. The book wouldn't be what it is without your input. So for those who are watching, a big aspect of

pre-orders, which is this period that we're in right now, is to make sure that the publishers know how many copies to actually print. So if there aren't a lot of pre-orders, then the publisher will see, okay, that we're not going to put aside, you know, enough paper, basically, to make sure that we can print it when it's actually out. So for those watching, if you do think that you might want to buy it at some point, this is actually the best time to do so because it makes sure that we have enough copies to actually last for the duration of the run. So for those watching, if you want to support my work and if you want to support Heather's work, both of our books, Shameless and Democracy Awakening are available to go grab whenever you have a chance. Heather,

it is a pleasure to be able to talk to you. And I think this interview is a testament to why so many people have signed up for your newsletter and have bought your book thus far to hear what you have to say. So I appreciate you taking the time. Well, back at you. I love this show. Glad to be here. Thanks again to Pete and Heather. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five-star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at Brian Tyler Cohen on all of my other channels, or you can go to Brian.

Tyler Cohen.com to learn more.