The Bulwark Podcast - Garry Kasparov and Jerusalem Demsas: Democracy Can't Defend Itself

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

While Trump keeps working hard on his own monetization and glorification—and delivers a Watergate practically every hour—the pro-democracy coalition must stay focused on winning next year's midterm elections. Trump is at the point of no return, Congress is becoming the only institution that can stop him, and holding onto that lever of power is his top priority. Meanwhile, not only did Trump look weak in Alaska, he also looked unpresidential. Plus, a new publication focused on the threats from the post-liberal right and left. Jerusalem Demsas and Garry Kasparov join Tim Miller. show notes Garry's Substack, "The Next Move" Jerusalem's "The Argument" Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen slamming the table after losing in June Trump comparing himself to Nixon *** THE BULWARK LIVE in Toronto, D.C. and NYC: Thebulwark.com/events *** Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/BULWARK and use promo code BULWARK at checkout.

Hey, everybody. I could not have enjoyed the double-heder podcast we have ahead for you anymore. Two just wonderful, delightful guests. I hope that your ears appreciated as much as mine did. Really quick, I should just say, I mentioned this yesterday, but in case you missed it. This Toronto show, it's coming up in September. It's going to sell out. I think it's going to sell out today. So if you want to come hang with us in Toronto, I expect to wear a Jamal Murray jersey or something. Or maybe a Canadian hockey team jersey. And we can feel our Canadian pride to. together as they stand up against Donald Trump. If you want to experience that with us, you should get your tickets today. Up next, we've got Gary Kasparov and Jerusalem Dempso. Stick around.

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. First up, we have a former World Chess Champion and Russian Dissident. He's chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative. And in April, he launched the next move on Substack, which offers in-depth analysis of the shifting front lines in the battle against authoritarianism and strategic insights on what to do next. Couldn't be more excited to welcome Gary Kasparov. Hey, Gary. Thanks for inviting me. I assume that our listeners and viewers are at minimum familiar with your decade and a half Long Rain is the Grandmaster Chess Champion of the entire world, but maybe give folks a little

backstory on, you know, the dissident part of your background and, you know, your political activism. I was born and raised in the Soviet Union, 62. So grew up in the family of engineers. And if you want to look for the roots of my dissident views, you have to dig deep to look at my family education. My father died when I was seven, but still I was surrounded by family. members who were, say, critical about Soviet life. And as a chess prodigy, I traveled early

first time I went abroad. I was 13 in 1976 to visit France, representing my country, Soviet Union as the junior champion under 18. And I quickly recognized the shortcomings of the Soviet political system, even being at the young age. And most important, I saw the gap between reality and propaganda. And as the youngest world champion at age 22, so I thought that was the right moment for me to invest my popularity and my credibility as the chess world champion into what was Gorbacheos perestroika. And I was in and out. Not that I just, you know, I ever wanted to drop chess. And I thought that in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the job was done. So share the belief or joyful belief of many millions.

hundreds of millions of people, that the past would never come back. But by the end of the decade of the 90s, I saw the signs that the past was returning. And eventually in 2005, I stopped playing chess, decided that's my chess career, you know, I had to come to a glorious end. And I joined pro-democracy opposition, trying to stop rational from sliding into backsliding into KGB dictatorship. You can guess how successful I was, because now I live in New York. Today, I'm in Croatia in my summer home.

You're about as successful as the Never Trumpers advocacy. Yeah, okay. I don't say that, please. Yeah, actually, things are somehow connected. But those are things we do. Thanks for raising, by the way, this. It's because it's a right thing to do. That's why I was always very skeptical.

People asked me about my chess experience and how it helped me to navigate in this murky waters of Russian politics. I always told them it did not help me because in Russia, unlike in chess, you know, this is the rules kept changing, but the result was the same. We are now, it's experienced in America, and I would probably bet my bottom dollar back then when I recognized that we were just, you know, we were desperate trying to stop Putin's rise to power and Russia turning back into KGB dictatorship, that one day we would have this conversation in the United States. So, and I think it's, it's, it's, I don't

won't say inevitable, but probably, you know, it was a logical development, global development because the world, free world, became so complacent after the end of the Cold War. And we recognize the very simple truth that the evil doesn't die. It could hide, it could disappear, it could be buried for a while under the rubble of Burling Wall. But the moment we lose our vigilance, the moment we become complacent, the moment we do not recognize that the values are just everything, and they're not transactional. So we open door for the new forms of evil. And it's not surprising that the last 20 years is a steady decline of democracy in the world,

and it's the attack of authoritarianism. And now, again, who could imagine it? Now America is facing challenges that we, people like myself and my disson friends, face back in our countries. Given the backsliding you saw in Russia, It's hard for me to come up with a coherent path out of this trajectory that we're on towards authoritarianism. I mean, there would be one thought. If you had asked me this five years ago or six years ago, I would have said, you know, if things get bad enough with Trump or if things get bad enough in the world with some of these leaders, you know, if there's enough bad actions, then people will wake up and there will be, you know, a reaction against it.

But, you know, we went through COVID, we've gone through this invasion of Ukraine, we've seen the negative effects and nothing. And I mean, the people of Russia have suffered far greater than we have so far here in America and you don't see a big uprising. Do you have any wisdom on that, on the path out? I wouldn't compare Russia to America, different traditions. Sure, of course. It's basically different cultural and political court in our genes. I live in America, I can say I'm partially American, and I fully support. Actually, I've grown on American values.

While most of my compatriots, they have very different, called genetic memories. And it was not difficult for Putin to turn it back because, you know, if we look at the current Russian predicament, actually, the sufferings that Russia imposed on Ukraine, it's the war of aggression and the genocidal war that is being carried on against the neighboring. country, it somehow also was predictable because that was a trajectory, because every regime like Putin's regime, it's starting with a soft authoritarian rule, eventually runs out of enemies inside the country. And they have to, they always have to double down, raise the stakes. And country as big as Russia would inevitably turn from looking inward, it's outward. So it will start looking at other targets. And Ukraine was a natural target. When Russia attacked the Republic of Georgia back in 2008, I wrote in my Wall Street Journal article in mid-August that next would be Ukraine.

And when I was asked, how did I know? I simply said because I looked at the map. And also, I listened to Putin. Putin was never very secretive about his plans, which is also an interesting phenomenon with many would-be dictators and eventually dictate dictators. They always lie about what they've done, but very often they tell you exactly what they're going to do. After all, Mind Kampf, published in 1925, was a blueprint. But in 1925, Adolf Hitler was ahead of the small nationalistic party, and nobody would imagine that eight years later, he would be in charge of Germany. When Vladimir Putin said bluntly, it was straightforward message in 2005 at the joint session of Russian parliament and Russian Senate on April 25th to 2005, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical capital.

test of the 20th century, he was already president of Russia, second term, you know, in charge of Russian nukes and having control more money than probably any other individual in the history of mankind. So it was a clear strategy. It's not that he was trying to hide it. So the program of restoring the Soviet greatness, the problem of taking revenge for what Putin belief was World War III, the Cold War, and winning not because Russia had the best military, but because the West was weak. So everything has been laid down. And now we just, you know,

we are paying the price for us, not listening for these very direct warnings from Putin. And unfortunately, Russian population proved to be incapable of building the strong resistance. I'm here now just trying to tell Americans that, you know, no one is safe, thinking that democracy can defend itself.

It's a wrong narrative. Democracy is a piece of paper, it's a constitution, it's a piece of paper. It's what you believe in and how far you're willing to go to defend it. And I think now it's even by my friends, many American friends, who have nothing but contempt for Trump, I think they do not recognize the seriousness of the threat to American democracy coming from Trump's second's coming. I totally agree and it's sort of silly to make comparisons at some level between the American tradition. and what you saw, what you experienced in Soviet Union. But there's certainly lessons you could learn or echoes.

And I made a little list here of things that we've seen in the U.S. in the second term that are maybe even a little different from his first term. The oligarchy developing and kind of the richest, you know, the leaders of the biggest companies kind of coalescing around Trump, starting to erase unflattering history, internal police force consolidating with ICE. There's a culture of fear, I think, now more so than the first. first term, people don't want to criticize him or else he will lash out at them, a firing of

non-loyalists from the government, taking stakes in private companies. I mean, that's a list of things. There are definitely some parallels, and it's certainly not the same, but what do you make of that? Oh, absolutely, and the list could be longer. But I think that says, it is one common theme for all of them. And that's what Trump has been successfully, unfortunately, successfully doing for more than a decade now. I pointed it back in 2016, 2017. Donald Trump has been successfully normalizing things that were unacceptable.

He has been single-handedly changing American political culture. So today, I mean, mentioning Watergate is kind of a joke. I mean, we have Watergate every hour. Donald Trump, when you look at so many things he did, I mean, it started with something like innocent. Oh, everybody released taxes. I don't want to release taxes. Sue me.

So step by step, he pushed American public, you know, just one, you know, one milestone to another. And today, you know, you talked about many things that 10 years ago would be absolutely unimaginable. Right. The way Trump deals with any crisis is he doubles down and goes even though it was a bigger lie, with a bigger challenge to the Constitution. So he talked about the third term.

Oh, I remember I had an interview with, I was interviewed the Prid Barara just a month after Trump's elections. And I asked pretty about it. He said, ah, it's impossible. I said, this is pretty, you know, slow down. Yeah, I think it's impossible, but he already raised this issue. And now, again, I don't think it's going to happen, but the fact is that you really have some members of the House, probably calling for Trump staying in powerful life. And are they being criticized? Are they being, you know, expelled from GOP? No, nothing is happening. It's, this is, And that's why everything else, taking stakes in not just a private company, is a major private communist.

So where the government decision can basically influence the value of the stock. And, you know, it's the attention of the Trump's world is on Mandar. Of course, we don't want to have the government-run grocery stores in New York. But obviously, the threat to American democracy from the, from this, you know, failed socialist experiments. and the unfolding oligarchy, they are incompatible. Yeah, a trial run of four grocery stores run by the government that will probably fail. It's not great. I'm against that.

But literally, the president just is what's taking us 10% stake in a big chipmaker and says he's going to bully other companies that don't buy chips from the government-approved chip company. I mean, that is straight out of, you know, authoritarian playbook. Delete me, makes it easy and safe to remove your personal. data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, data brokers make a profit off your data. It's a commodity, and anyone on the web can buy your private details. This can lead to identity theft, fishing attempts, and harassment. But now you can protect your privacy with Delete Me. Boy, it feels, I think,

apt to have a Soviet dissident on the podcast on the same day that we're talking about, delete me. You never know who's out there spying on you these days trying to get your info. I left my credit card at the bar over the weekend and I got held all kinds of concerns. Who knows what people could do with that? Luckily, our friends at the saint had it nice and safe for me, but vigilance is important. It's better safe than sorry. That's why I'm using Delete Me. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now it's special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan. When you go to join delete me.com slash bulwark and use promo code bullwork at checkout.

The only way to get 20% off is to go to join delete me.com slash bulwark and enter code bulwark at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash bulwark code bullwork. Well, let's talk about the state of play in the Trump's favorite word, the trilat, has desired trilat between Russia and Ukraine and us. What do you see as we sit here today on Thursday, August 21st, as like the state of play in the negotiations between Russia and U.S. and Ukraine? Yeah, if this is a triangle, try that. So the two ends are not connected.

I don't think Putin will ever meet Zelensky. And Lover made it very clear. So he comes up with tons of the conditions. One of them is, we're not sure Zelensky is legitimate, and they can meet only when all issues and root causes have been resolved, which means why they're meeting. So basically, Putin says, I will meet Zelensky if he's willing to capitulate. That's it. That's bottom line.

The rest is, exists in Trump's fantasies. And in Trump's world, they're trying to pretend that Trump is doing the greatest job. I give him credit. He's trying. So I'm not here to analyze why he's so flattering to Putin. So there's clearly the case of dependence, whether psychological dependence or there are other material reasons for his dependence. I'm not here too just to speculate. Clearly, Trump, in the presence of Putin, is melting down.

That's the fact. That's what we all can see it. Yes, of course, you can spin it and you can say that Trump, you know, forced Putin to make concessions. Okay, but it's the, in the daylight. So this is, you can see that it's this. Alaska was a big triumph for Putin. And actually domestic trial. Because Putin proved that he could basically, he could not control Trump, but he's back. So there's the whole idea that he's isolated.

And, yeah, he's, Trump, you know, rehabilitated Putin. and what he got in exchange, nothing, zilch. That's important. Now, the whole idea of this, you know, that says it's the America now is playing a key role there and he's trying to be kind of objective dealer. It just doesn't work because Trump made so many conditions and Ukraine eventually accepts most of them.

Putin, spat on all of them. They just didn't even care. So America's credibility is fairly low. And I had mixed feelings when I saw European leaders flanking Zelensky in Washington. Why? Because I think it's a shame that leaders of the free world have to flatter Trump. Again, I don't want you to make comments of his intellect and other things. But it's almost insulting for democracy as an institution.

I mean, real people, the serious people, running the largest democratic countries, And the leader of the country that has been suffering from the invasion, Russian invasion and paying huge price every day, every hour. And they had to fly to Trump. But what else they could do? I mean, Europe was weak. So Europeans have no means to help Ukraine to win the war. So they need American weapons.

They need American support. So they had to do it. And Zelensky had no other choice. So he thinks about his country. So he had to do these things, even to wear a suit. So just to play, you know, with Trump's equal. But the fact is that Trump's ego becomes the centerpiece of American politics and also global politics, I mean, it's not going to end well.

Because at the end of the day, all we know about Trump is that everything he does, everything he says has only two points of interest, monetization and glorification. That's it. There's nothing else. So for anybody who wants to analyze it, and I'm telling you that, look, don't try to search for black cat in the dark room because it's not there. So Trump cares about Trump, not about Ukraine, not about Russia, not about America, only about Trump. And two interests, monetization to make money, to become rich, richer, and glorification.

Now is paranoid with the Nobel Peace Prize. He's not going to get it, but still is paranoid. He's the greatest peacemaker for all the time. And the fact is that American political system proved to be incapable of shifting away from this, you know, from being centered. on paranoia of one person, that's, again, that's bad news. But I cannot blame Europeans. That's why I said it's a mixed feeling. They succeeded in taking Trump away from Putin's narrative.

They changed the narrative. It's no longer about Ukraine giving up territories, but about them buying American weapons. I don't know whether they have this money to buy weapons, but at least they made Trump talk about something else. To that point, I don't know, Trump has sent two posts this morning about Russia on social media. Have you had a chance to see them yet? I'm excited to show them to you live here, if not. Okay, show me live because I saw one in Colorado, so that's why I just say too many Trump Yeah, he's posting all the time. He's very prodigious.

One of the posts, I think you're particularly suited to reply to. He posts a picture, it's a dual picture. One was, you remember the picture of Nixon poking his finger at Khrushchev's chest? and he posts a side by side of that with himself pointing his finger at Putin but the difference is Putin is smirking at him in his picture and Khrushchev is like has his eyes closed and is grimacing at Nixon. It's hard to get inside Trump's head but I think that

my interpretation of this is he realizes people are making fun of him for being weak and he thinks this is going to make him look better. He also posts because it's very hard if not imposterous to win a war without attacking an invaders' country. There's no chance of winning. It's like that with Ukraine in Russia. Joe Biden would not let Ukraine fight back, only defend. How did that work out? Regardless, this is a war that would have never happened if I were president. Interesting times ahead. I don't know. How do you interpret it? Absolutely. No, the comparison with Nixon Khrushchev, yeah, he wants to look like a strong leader, you know, opposing Soviet Union,

the Soviet Empire. He was not on Alaska. Alaska was indelible spot on American reputation. It's a shame that will probably not be erased anytime soon. I think that Alaska's humiliation was much worse than stampeding Kabul, which was terrible. But it was far away and, again, it was poorly managed. It's obviously the fault of Biden administration, though we should remember that it was Trump who made a very bad deal with Taliban. So the peace deal was done by Trump. And Trump's administration, first administration, negotiated with Taliban without the government. There were seeds already in a fertile ground

to sending a message that American would walk away and Taliban, Taliban would be in charge. But still, the stampede from Kabul, total disaster. But I think what people saw in Alaska was much worse. And it will require giant effort to recover the reputation. Because, again, Trump looked, the weakest from the wrong word. I mean, he looked totally unprecedented. So that's why I think now he analyzed it, probably analyzed his wrong word.

He had enough data submitted by, say, sycophants who tried to explain to him that something probably was not as perfect. It was not 10 out of 10, or it was 10 out of 10 for Russia, actually, not for him. So, yeah, that's why Trump is trying to come back. So Nixon pictures clearly, you know, it's about him trying to look strong, you know, in a historical timeline. Now, as for the second one, I... It didn't really work because Putin's smirking.

The Putin smirking is so funny. He's like, I think I looked up here, but Putin's laughing at him. Anyway, sorry, the second one. Yeah. Second one is, I think it's not bad because, again, it's obviously repeated the same lie. The war would have not started if I were the president and no indications. The only reason it would not have started because Trump would have for the force Zelensky to give up his country. Putin was about to destroy Ukraine.

That was a plan. It's not just, it's not about Trump. Biden, Putin has been building his military force because his plan was to take over Ukraine, not part of Ukraine, all Ukraine. Ukraine had become a Russian vassal state, period. Not I'm telling you, he has been saying that. That was Russian propaganda machine, and that was, that has been repeating since 2014, and that was a Russian official line that has no change. Even now, Lovov talks about Ukraine not being a sovereign state. So that's why the war of aggression was inevitable, as long as Ukraine wanted to preserve its sovereignty. But Trump criticism was

partially correct. Biden administration restrained Ukraine from responding against Russian vulnerable infrastructure. Ukraine has not received weapons that could destroy the Crimean Bridge, and Ukraine could definitely take an advantage of Russians retreat in 2022 or could have far more successful operation in 2023 if America would have supplied weapons and also lift all restrictions on use of American weapons. So here is Trump was right. What kind of interesting times are ahead? I don't know. We read about new Ukrainian missiles that being built. Some say it's probably it's the result of the joint cooperation, not with Americans, but it was Europeans, Germans and grids. So Ukraine is now having very capable, probably one of the most effective

military productions in the world. And it's quite interesting that America now is looking for Ukrainian drone technologists because Russian-Ukrainian war made a lot of American weapons in the storage obsolete. America has more than 10,000 tanks sitting somewhere in Nevada, in California, in the desert. And they are totally irrelevant now. Instead of sending them to Ukraine, they eventually will be cut in metals. And we, American taxpayers, will pay the Lockheed, Martin, or whoever, you know, just Raytheon to do the job. It'll be a museum. It'll be a museum. No, no, no. There's thousands of them. So this is there. You have. have to cut them. You don't have museums that big. But they could be on Ukraine and front line.

But the drone war now changed everything. So that's why now it's for America to basically to learn from Ukrainians. And I think the interesting times are ahead. But what is American game plan in Ukraine? I don't know. And I don't think anybody knows. Of course, Trump doesn't know because he can change. But yeah, I mean, I'm skeptical that the interesting times ahead are that Trump will actually fully support Ukraine's efforts to go on offense. But it's a better position than we were in a week ago with him and his strange behavior. There's no doubt. Ukraine and the current circumstances does not have manpower to kick Russians away, you know, just on the open battlefield. It doesn't have to. All you have to do is to destroy Russian infrastructure is

Russia is suffering now. Russian economy is not in a good shape. Actually, it's almost free-fall. So what America can do is to also force Europeans to take more decisive steps to cut to absolute minimum Russian oil export. And it can be done. And also to lift restrictions on the Ukrainians using weapons. Crimea bridge. This is the main artery that support Crimea. So if Ukrainians can actually attack it with the missiles, that will change the logistics games. Plus, there's so many targets.

Russia is a vast country. of Russia works against Russia. It always helped against invaders, but it does not help, actually, in opposite, against drones or missiles. So destroying Russian infrastructure, the facilities, and Ukrainians do not attack civilians. It's very, very important. The difference is Putin exclusively attacks civilians, so civilian infrastructure. Ukraine's attack in the military targets or oil depots, everything that is related to war. There's some casualties, but minimal casualties. Even Russian propaganda cannot blame Ukrainians

for committing committing crimes against civilians. Oh, Canada. Hey, y'all. We're going on tour this fall. We're going up north. I demanded it. I wanted to support our Canadian listeners and friends being attacked by this administration.

So we're going to do the whole deal. Mounties, Tim Hortons, maple syrup. I'm going to be drinking seagrums. stage. I was Seagram's Canadian anymore. I said that in the last episode, and I think they might have been bought by a multinational corporation. Anyway, I'm going to have a Canadian cocktail on stage. You guys can tell me what I should do. And we get to all be an ally ship against our terrible mega president. So come check out me, Sarah Longwell, Canada's favorite, Sam Stein. We're going to be in Toronto in September. I want to see you there,

especially if you're Canadian, but if you're American, you want to go support our friends up north and come hang um would like to see you too if you aren't up for stamping your passport you can catch me sarah and jviel in dc or new york city in october as well anyone can grab tickets or more information now at the bulwark dot com slash events they didn't tell me to tell you this in the ad read but since you're a friend since i'm looking up for you i'm letting you know that i was looking at the pre-sales that toronto ticket's going to be a hot ticket baby so if you want to go to toronto i'd jump on that now you should jump on all of them now but Toronto in particular. Take a look at your schedule. See if you can make it. I hope to see you in Toronto.

Once again, it's the bulwark.com slash events. I have to play this for you. I have no choice because the vice president was on Fox last night discussing his assessment of Putin. And I just, I would like to hear your response to that. Let's listen. What's it like meeting Putin? What was he like just one-on-one? So I've actually never met Putin. The president did that meeting. I've talked to him on the phone a number of times. You know, it's interesting. He's he's more soft-spoken than you would necessarily expect. You know, the American media has a particular image of him. He's soft-spoken in a certain way. He's very deliberate. He's very careful. And I think fundamentally, he's a person who looks out

for the interest as he sees it as of Russia. And I think one of the reasons he respects the President of the United States is because he knows the President looks out for the interests of the American people. And while they often disagree about issues, and obviously the President has been very critical of Vladimir Putin. The president's also willing to work with anybody if he thinks it's going to accomplish an important goal for America. What say you to that?

I would like to challenge Vice President and just to bring one quote, one quote from Donald Trump that was critical of Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump said terrible things about virtually everybody. About, I'm not sure he said something about J. DeVance, when J. DeVans

called him Hitler nine years ago, or like Hitler. I don't think Donald Trump noticed Jay DeVance. He was too small. But he insulted every competitor, you know, he was in the Republican Party, every American politician, every leader of the democratic country.

He even went very critical, not as dramatic, but still critical about dictators. Psychologically, he feels more comfortable as dictators than with democratic leaders, but still, you know, he was critical, you know, even about the North Korean dictator or Xi Jinping,

Erdogan. So occasionally he says, something bad about them or critical about them. I, maybe I missed it. I never heard Trump saying anything negative about Vladimir Putin. And of course he never did anything

that could harm Vladimir Putin. So here, I think a vice president was exaggerating. So that's one. Now, two is soft-spoken. Stalin was soft-spoken. I don't know what Hitler, but is this is, I mean, you're talking about

worst dictator. I mean, this is the guy who is responsible for hundreds of thousands, most like the millions of lives, who has no allergy for blood. It's a vicious, brutal killer that's living on the planet, soft-spoken. Now, speaking about interest of Russia, okay, Mr. Vice President, I mean, it's just, you know, stop selling this nonsense. I don't know whether you pretend to be an idiot or just, you know, you feel comfortable because that's way to you just to stay in the Trump's, you know, out to Russia. Vladimir Putin caused tremendous suffering for Russia. You have more than millions,

million casualties for what? For a few square miles? You know, for what of totally scorched earth? That's interest of Russia. Are you serious? The Russia is now is turning into a Chinese colony. It's a

Chinese gas station with nukes. That's interest of Russia. And as for Donald Trump taking care of America and just, you know, American interests, at least for American voters to decide, but again, it doesn't seem to me that Donald Trump does anything that may, you know, hurt his interest to promote the interest of America at large. Speaking of pretending to be an idiot, I also am obligated to pick your brain about,

there's a video going around this week of the Tucker Carlson show. He has a guest on, and Tucker agrees with his guest. When he says, it turns out, I think the story we got about World War II is all wrong. One can make the argument we should have sided with Hitler against Stalin. What do you think about that? It's the, yeah, I saw it, yes. It's the, look, the problem, again, this is, is that it's, it's an attempt to distort historical facts. Because America cited it was Great Britain with the one remaining strong cult of democracy against Hitler.

Hitler was the greatest threat. Yeah, Stalin was bad. I mean, it says the Stalin-Hitler combination was horrible. And many European nations still, you know, recovering from being squeezed between Nazis and communists. Ask the Baltic nations. Yeah, it's tragedy. Some of them had to make a choice. And Putin's propaganda is still blaming, oh, look at this Latvians.

They sided with Nazis. Yeah, but they had Soviets on the other side. So it's, you know, it's the, yeah, it's terrible. So this is many European nations suffered because of this horrible dilemma and impossible choice they had they had to make. So, but siding was Hitler. against Great Britain, that's important. But it's a slide. You're sliding down.

And by the loss of physics, you know, when you're sliding down is only one direction and the speed keeps increasing. So I'm not surprised that the Tucker, you know, who at one point praised Putin and took, no doubt, you know, just took a very hefty compensation for his services. Now he's fairly comfortable, you know,

talking about standing with. with Hitler, which is, by the way, it's a great illustration that we have to connect the dots. It's the let's stop saying, oh, Hitler is impossible. No, by the way, in 1938, when European democracies, Britain, France gave Hitler Sudetland most important, defendant part of Czechoslovakia. Hitler was not Hitler from history books. Hitler was in 1938, even before Kristallnacht, it happened in November. In September, he has not started a single aggressive war. Of course, Hitler was bad, but it's not Hitler in 1945. So today, Putin is much worse than Hitler in 1938. Tucker, you know, who likes Putin, so he talks about Hitler with some sympathies, that's natural

because Putin and Hitler belong together. So thank you, Tucker Carlson. Your substack, you talk about on the next move, which people should check out about strategic insights on what we should do going forward on authoritarianism. Do you have anything right now, people who are listening as we think about the state of play in August of 25, that we should be doing here in America that you're not seeing enough of? Again, I think it's important to understand that the threat to American democracy is real.

And I think it's not yet time to talk about 2028. It's not even time to pay attention to Trump's, you know, murmuring about his term and some of the Republicans, you know, just offering him, you know, power for life. I think the top priority is 2026. It's gerrymandering in Texas is just the beginning. and Trump's attacking a male vote, it's also just the beginning.

Because Trump has reached a point, I think it's probably a point of no return, he cannot lose the levers of power. The only institution in America and its Article 1 of the Constitution that could stop Trump is the Congress. So Trump will be number one priority to help his firm control of the Congress. That's a key. So in ideal scenario, Democrats could find four Republicans. Republicans, highly, that could shift sides and they can take over the Congress, unlikely.

But still, let's fantasize. Maybe, God knows. But in 2006, the battle lines will be as clear as the sky in a good day. Because remember, Trump doesn't lose elections. If election is lost, it's rigged. So he must win elections. So we have a person who never recognize his loss in 2020 and try to overrun the public will by more or less, you can make a coup on January 6th. First thing he did, he pardoned

these people. That's again a very important message. And now in 2026, he'll have all levels of power, including DOJ and FBI and statistics in his, in his sides. So two, protect his majority in the house. So we have to work, you know, day and night to make sure that American people will have a chance to take part in the free and fair elections. It will be free, but I'm afraid it will not be fair because I'm afraid and you, if you don't trust me, if you think I'm paranoid, okay, fine, I'm Russian. I earn my rights to the paranoid. So just ask one question. If, you know, it's at the crucial moment on this day, imaginary day X, will Pam Bondi and Cash Patel follow Constitution or Donald Trump's orders? When you answer this question, honestly, you understand

why we also should worry about what happens next year. It's a 250th anniversary of the greatest event in history, the Declaration of Independence, birth to the United States. Let's make sure that the republic that was won back then will not die now. I have one really quick thing I have to ask you about. One other thing. Have you seen this video, I'm not a big chess watcher, I have to admit, but, you know, Magnus Carlson has been a five-time world champion, has captured people's attention. There's this video going around two months ago where he loses this match. And he gets so angry. Yeah, he throws it down.

And many people, like, were sharing this. And even those who don't watch chess, because just the emotion in the moment was so fascinating. And I was just wondering what you thought about that match and his reaction. Actually, it was a good promotion for the game of chess. Let's agree on that. Okay, yeah, for sure. Because it became viral. Now, look, it's, it's, I understand emotions.

I mean, it's the, Magnus is the strongest player, but he's not along with the world champion because he decided not to defend official title. And he just plays for money and for fun. And again, it's tremendous player. And he faced the young Indian who is now official world champion, but not as strong or as impressive as Magnus. And Magnus wanted to win. And he was absolutely winning.

That's important. He outplayed Goukesh completely. He was winning. It's a couple of correct moves. The game was over. But Goukesh kept, you know, fighting. And Magnus lost. lost his vigilance.

He became complacent. Sounds familiar. Sounds familiar. And all of a sudden, you know, and it happens. So instead of having, you know, just easy win, he had to work hard for win. And every time, you know, just, you see that your difficulties kept increasing. So you need to get nervous. And he lost control of the game.

And at one point he had to already basically, you know, to step on his pride and say, okay, let's make a draw. Let's, you know, just... But he pushed, push, push, push. And I think he was so emotional overwhelmed. He just banged, you know. But, okay, emotions. Chess is a very emotional game, very cruel game. It was really captivating to watch.

Anyway, Gary Kasparov, thank you so much for coming on the Borg podcast, sharing your wisdom. Thank you. Let's do it again sometime soon. Absolutely. Thank you. Always available for you guys. Thank you.

Up next, Jerusalem Dempsis. All right, and we're back with an opinion journalist, formerly at the Atlantic and now editor-in-chief and CEO of a new outlet, the argument, a publication that aims to push back against the populist moment and strengthen the ideas of modern liberalism. Delighted to welcome back to the show, Jerusalem Dempsis. Hey, girl. Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me. I'm just so excited. to have you back. I was excited to see the news about the argument. I was excited to see all the blowback that you got on X. You know, nobody, you're not doing anything good if people aren't shit posting you. So, um, why don't, uh, for folks who are listening that, you know,

might not be as very online as us. Give us, give us, give them a pitch on what, uh, what the new outlet is and what you're trying to do. Yeah, if you're the one person who has not yet heard about the argument. So the argument is a new liberal media company and our goal is to revitalize American liberalism for the 21st century. And by liberalism, you know, I think that that word is used like very differently in the U.S. and in his other context. We don't just mean, you know, left wing. We mean like basic principles around protecting individual rights, egalitarianism, freedoms of speech, but also that the government should provide the basic framework to allow people to achieve those things. And so what we're doing is we are creating not just, you

you know, another place for you to get lectured at by political scientists about the importance of liberal democracy. You have to care. But actually a place where we're actually... And that is important. And there's a time and a place for lecturing about the importance of liberal democracy. And too much time, too much place at this point. But I think that like what's really important is that there are issues people care about. They care about, you know, they care about housing. They care about the economy. They care about, you know, tariffs. They care about immigration. They care about gender and gender equality. And all these different things. And like, instead of just saying you need to like care about liberal democracy, we should

just explain and argue for the things that we think would make the world a better place in that vein. And so what we're going to do is we're commissioning a bunch of really great writers, folks like Matt Iglesias, Matthew Bruneg, Rob Meyer, who's at HeatMap News, all over the kind of political spectrum, but all people who believe in like positive sum, pro-growth, pro-equality, a system of government. So you're living out. We are living out. We actually trademarked Living out. I want you to know that. Really? Congrats. No one else had done it. I'm shocked.

What's the process for trademarking the phrase living out? Well, to be fair, we have applied for the trademark. I want to be very, I want to be very precise here. We hired a lawyer and I go, hey, can we do this? And she was like, I don't see why or not. But we'll find out in like six months when the Trump administration gets back to us. Are you capital of shills? Like, are you planning on, are you planning on shilling for the tech oligarchy? like the left. Oh my gosh. I mean, how could we not? You know, they're in charge. No, I mean, I think this is so funny because I think it's like there's there's weird sense that like there's no way to think about. I mean, most normal people you ask them like, hey, do you think economic growth is good?

They'd be like, yeah, economic growth is great. Hey, like do you think that we should have like business friendly policies that make it easier for people to start businesses like, you know, the argument that we want to create low prices, that you should have access to consumer goods that are like cheap that you want like a cheap dishwasher, you want a TV that doesn't cost a thousand dollars. Like these things are good. And of course, that comes along with regulations to make sure these companies don't destroy our brains. I think in particular when it comes to like what's happening with with AI right now, it's really important to think about how the regulatory frameworks we're creating are going to make sure that either we are emiserated because they've

taken away every single job that we can do or that they've made our lives a bunch better. And like, That's a question of what government does. And so what we're doing is thinking through what is it that policy should actually do, what should individuals do, what should companies do to shape our future in a positive some way. I mean, the core belief I think that we all have at the argument is that it is possible to have things that benefit everyone. That when an immigrant comes here, it's not taking away from someone else. It's actually adding and creating a better future. When a new company comes out with a new product, it's not necessarily hurting you because someone else is making money. These things can be positive some. Someone else is making money of something that benefits you. So I think to me that that's really a big part of what we're trying to do. All right. I know that you specifically said in the rollout that you're trying to make positive arguments for things rather than argument it's against things. But I got to tell you, I'm pretty motivated by negative partisanship these days. And so we're going to have to talk a little bit about the arguments against things. You wrote this. I'm largely focusing on the post-liberal right for a couple of reasons. First, they're currently in

and represent the greater threat to humanity. Second, they are more coherently organized. This is not to let the post-liberal left off the hook at all. Much of my writing of the Atlantic has been critical of the anti-growth, anti-individualist parts of liberalism and the left, whether it comes from tariffs, a love of localism, minoritarianism, decentralization, antipathy towards open debate and empiricism, poorly reasoned anti-immigration attitudes or nimbism. Post-liberal ideas have sprouted up from the furthest left and right corners of the Internet. all the way to the center left pages of the New York Times. So I want to get to the,

we agree on everything in that sentence. I certainly care more about the post-liber right more. But let's just talk a little bit about the post-liberal left. Like what exactly worries you about the post-liberal left? Like, what are the elements that you think are pernicious? Yeah, and I mean, I think it's harder. I mean, like there are people on the right who will call themselves the post-liberal right. You know what I mean?

Like they're like, we bar post-liberals. This is our manifesto. I mean, literally the vice president of the United States. States, for example, who we're getting to in a second. Yeah. So, like, you know, that's a much more, like, coherent movement that is developing in that way. But I think with the post-liber left, I mean, it's like really a bunch of ideas I think often are contradicting inside of people. Like, many people on the left would say things like, I think that it's really important that we are open to be a pluralistic society. We want diversity. And then they're also supporting anti-growth policies that make it

impossible if that to be true. How can you be pro-growth, pro-immigration, if you're against housing in your backyard that's affordable for immigrants? Like, you know, these things don't actually work together. So in many ways, I think it's often like a bunch of contradictions happening within people who have both some, you know, some good values and others that are opposed. And I think there's also, though, people who are actually have an intentional project of doing kind of, honestly, what it looks like a red-brown coalition to me. Like, one of the big critiques that came out of the argument, literally like, I think day two was from, King of the Post, one of the kings of the post libs, Sarabamari, and I've heard from Compact.

It's hard to decide whether that's a critique from the post-liberal left or right, because he's been both. No one knows. I mean, in a year from now, he could be a neolib, and we would, you know, wouldn't be surprising. But, like, that critique gets retweeted by people like David Soroda and, like, other people on, who are, like, very clearly on the left. Like, that's, like, David Serota's, like, you know, former Bernie staffer. And he's retweeting this guy who's most famous for going after drag queen's story. hour. I mean, that's that kind of like coalition that I see forming on a couple of issues where

they're pretending like they're being pro worker, but in reality, they're supporting kinds of tariff policies and are clearly hostile to the kind of open, free society that has like made America great. I mean, to me, like that is a big concern. It's not a big concern because I think that they're in power. I think it's a big concern because if there's going to be an alternative offer to the American people in response to the post liberal right. And I think my biggest concern is what alternative will that be? Will it be the version that is anti-growth, that is negative sum, that views someone else's gain as your loss, that is a pro-tariff, that is anti-building more housing and making it easier to access the best basic qualities of human life? Like, which

alternative are you going to get? So at the argument, we're trying to provide an alternative that isn't the version that's being proffered in the pages of like, you know, whatever Sarota's magazine is called. I don't even know. My New Orleans buddy's current affairs, maybe. Let's like put a little meat on that, though, then. Because, right, it's like the question is, is this a left center debate? Like, or is it kind of an up-down debate, if you will, like about liberalism and stateism and et cetera. We'll use Zoran as an example just because, you know, and he's the most, I think, prime candidate right now that sort of navigating this line, right?

And I think that they're in some ways, I don't know. Well, I guess I'll let you say. There's probably some ways that you see him as part of a post-liberal left, but he also's expressed openness to abundance ideas and openness to the fact that, you know, government needs to provide better services. And like when you look at the actual candidates out there instead of like the meta online debate, you know, people like him or, I don't know, Dan Osborne or whoever the other kind of avatars are for the populist left, like, how do you assess what you've been seeing from them? I think this is a really good question because a big part of what I'm trying to do is like change the cleavage everyone talks about as like everyone's like, oh, mod versus most relevant cleavage. It's like pro-growth positive sum versus anti-growth negative sum. And that transcends the left and right. So like with someone like Zoron, for instance, right, that's someone who has a very pro-growth vision of New York City. Like he's very clear about wanting to build more housing. He's very clear about wanting to actually tackle the very basics of what makes New York City a difficult place for people to live in. Like that to me, like that kind of, he even like, I think is referenced like sewer socialism, which in many ways is a version of pro-growth liberalism.

I mean, to me, liberalism does not mean that you're like in the center, right? Like if you look at writings from like the most famous liberal people, like they sound like I mean, I think they're arguably socialists. And Matt Brunig is somebody who's writing for us, like Mills, like Rawls. I mean, people are like arguably socialist. Like at level of, and you go. read them. Like, they're very, very radical. And there's been, I think, the turn in liberalism, like the 1970s or whatever that people often call, like, the neoliberal term, but, like,

no one knows what the hell everyone means when they're saying that. But, like, I often think it's actually just people making it all milk toast. And what we're trying to do is, like, revitalize. So someone like Zoron, I think it's very much someone who I could see as being a part of this. I think it's really hard because there's obviously, again, in any very individual person, a ton of mixes. So, like, who knows, like, is he going to empower a bunch of the people who are in his coalition, who are really skeptical of business, really skeptical of capital. Like, we're going to see what happens when I think he becomes mayor of New York. But I'm, like, cautiously optimistic at this point.

But then, like, I think that, like, getting more granular about other people, I mean, like, I think that, like, a lot of the people that I see as being, you know, part of the populist left on the sort of, you know, pro-tariff, really concerned about globalization, really concerned about environmentalism, you see this is on environmental. Totally. I mean, I mean, to me, like, when you see how these. environmental groups have opposed, clean energy being built, transmission lines being built. I mean, this, I mean, it is genuinely going to become a huge problem, A, as we see electricity prices rising for people. I mean, that's going to be a huge problem coming down the pipe, not just because of AI, but just like, we're just electrifying a bunch of stuff right now. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of demand coming on, and, like, people are either

not going to be able to get access to stuff they expected, or there's, like, a genuine risk of, like, at some point, blackouts becoming more common in the American landscape. And so, like, To me, like the parts of the left that are doing this, whether it's certain environmental groups or it's, you know, some of these groups that are, that are, you know, very anti-business and anti-trade. Like, that's, that's really who concerns me. Again, just to use this an example so people kind of process this, because I do think it's hard. It's like, a lot of we just get in this dimensional view. And it's because our project was like this for so long. We're like, for a long period of time, everybody was a liberal basically, right?

And it was, in the, you know, global sense of the world, right? And it was, you know, just degrees, right? And, you know, we're on this sort of left-right spectrum where it's like this more big government liberalism versus small government liberalism. Now you had some anti-liberal socons and like a small number of commies on the left. Like among the elected officials, it was mostly this left-right spectrum. And that is like changing now. And one example of that is so you give what seems like at least maybe consciously positive thoughts to what Zoron's, talking about you've got karen bass out in los angeles god don't trigger me right now like who is more of like an establishment dead right she was on the biden vp shortlist right so not like a far leftist by any stretch of the word dude i've been a bass hater for like years now i've been okay well let's explain to people why so here was yesterday she signed a city council resolution opposing this new california housing bill sb 79 she wanted an exemption for Los Angeles for the housing requirements. Talk to people about what that was and why you're triggered. I mean, yeah, why am I triggered? Why is just triggered? That's actually the whole

magazine. So, I mean, at a very base level, it's about building housing near transit in Los Angeles. And Karen Bass has now like a long history of like pretending to be pro housing and then like actually taking steps that make it harder to build housing in Los Angeles. And I mean, to be clear, like the only arguments that are being made about why they're, this is a problem is like local control and too much too fast type rhetoric about what's going on. I mean, the most galling thing was that Los Angeles actually landed upon a way to build affordable housing very quickly. And Karen Bass stopped it because it was happening too fast in exclusionary neighborhoods in richer neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Like this is like the Democratic

Party in Los Angeles. Supposedly a very, very liberal city, a very, very left city is like literally making it harder for working class people to live there because they're so opposed to growth because there's anti-developer sentiment that like dominates anyone's ability to think clearly about housing and housing markets like this to me is the like apotheosis of like post-liberal left economics thinking that you can somehow get to a better world by blocking every changing thing that could possibly come into your community and that it'll be fine in the end like yeah no as you can tell very triggered she got me I'm mad put it in papers. Yeah, you should be mad. It's crazy. It's crazy. And it's, it's, it's, it's irresponsible.

I also like, she's also like, she's also like tweeting online about how Trump is going after these black cities. And I'm like, if you care so much about racial justice, like, why are you upholding exclusionary zoning? Like, it's just like, are you joking? Like, you can tweet all you want and get your retweets about Donald Trump, but maybe you should do something in the city that you actually govern. My two cents. I'm snapping. Because this is a live, because we're living out. So we're snap now. We're living out. I have a trouble. I have a trouble. making question listening to that answer there are elements of that answer that sounded kind of like what you would hear in the free press their critiques of san francisco and los angeles um you hate to hand

it to the free press talk about you how you would see the arguments um maybe uh compare and contrast for me compare and contrast the free press and the argument well i think that the free press is has a different view of liberalism that i do i mean first of all i mean we're we're not going to talk a lot about foreign policy, because it's not really the focus of what I write about, but I have pretty strong views about Gaza and what's going on in Israel being both obviously a genocide and unacceptable. We should not be giving them money. And I don't think that that is the line that the free press has been giving. I think that's a very big difference that I think I have with people who are writing there. But in terms of domestic policy, I mean, I agree that there has been a right-wing

critique that has existed for a while about left cities, that a lot of right-wing people go like, you're suddenly waking up to the problems of liberal governance. And I'm like, yeah, okay, like, clean hit a little bit. But also, at the same time, like, the alternative their offering is not exactly what we're going for. Like, yeah, I don't like my cities, but I also don't want to live in a state that denies basic access to reproductive freedom or denies basic access to, you know, health care. I'm just like, these are, this is this alternative. You're offering me is also not super attractive, honestly. And so to me, it's like, I'm not saying that, like, the best idea would be to replace Karen Bass with like, I don't know, Greg Abbott or whatever. I think that that's not like the goal,

but like, I think you can dream better than that. I don't know. Who would be the dream free press candidate? Com Cotton is mayor of Los Angeles. No idea. But I just think that like the difference here too is that like in many ways, I think, you know, the free press has really focused on the wrong things. But I think that like the focus, the editorial focus and the editorial line has really been on like what you're actually pushing for often, I think the impact has been to essentially push up Trump because by default, even if I think they would say that they are not pro-Trump. And so to me, like, I think Trump and the post-liber right and everyone he's a part of is like the biggest stress to this country.

And so like anything you're doing to make that more of a reality is a big problem. Yeah, all right. I'll get to the Postal right next, but that sparked another troublemaking thought I have. Because another thing they write a lot about over there, which is a major urgent issue. for the country as woke on campuses. Yeah, it's just too woke, you know, if there's a teacher at UT San Antonio, you know, who has been, who has critiqued, you know, for being too woke, that might be something you want to look into. What about, what about that? How much woke talk do you think that there was, will be at the argument? How much woke talk? Very little

woke talk. I mean, I think people often don't separate these things out cleanly. I think it is definitely true. I saw it both in myself. I mean, I was in in college and like kind of the peak of what people call like the woke revolution. Or what was it? The great awokening. That's what it is. And so like I saw myself even like think like I regret in many ways like views that I held that were I think what I would call a liberal now in terms of just like not wanting to like hear different opinions. But I think there's a false equivalence that people draw here where there were private actions that I think were a liberal and And that's different from the state coming in and now going, we're going to send a letter from Russ Vaught to the Smithsonian saying, like, don't talk about slavery or whatever he wrote in that letter. These are like these are not the same things at all. And I think there's like a false equivalency that's being drawn here.

Like I think that like as a culture of people who care about living in a pluralistic society, like we as liberals need to do much better and should have done much better at like both A caring about persuasion rather than just browbeating people who disagreed with us because I think it's actually not effective at our goal. goals. And also, secondly, like, just being more tolerant to the fact that, like, stuff is kind of confusing for people. Like, things are changing. I had to explain how, you know, trans stuff to my father. And he is, like, a very loving, very wonderful person. But, like, it took him a while to get it and to become more accepting of, like, how you would talk to someone who seems different than you. And, like, and maybe he doesn't, like, fully get what the thing is now. But, like, he's a very wonderful person. And I love him a lot. And, like, you know, I think that, like, approaching these kinds of conversations that way. And I don't think it's true that, like,

all the left was doing that. But it was a significant, loud part of the law. left and people who would call themselves liberals who are not interested and not available to tolerate this kind of debate. But that is different than I think the larger anti-woke critique that I think has existed in a bunch of places now in conservative media that like any focus on diversity, any focus on equity, any focus on- Black Little Mermaid is woke. Yeah, we've got to get mad. Apparently Cracker Barrel's terrible rebrand is woke. I'm like, how are you blaming this on the wokes? This is fucking corporate America sucking. That's what this is. I went to school in Southern Virginia. And so I am also mad about the rebrand. Yeah, we can all unite together. Maybe the

Cracker Barrel rebrand will be the thing that finally brings this country together. Let's go. Bring in our post racial future that Obama didn't deliver on. Sorry, sorry, President Obama. It wasn't your fault. Okay. Let's talk about the proletal right for a second. I was on vacation when J.D. Vance gave probably the most alarming speech of the decade of my lifetime, maybe even. I don't know. Maybe that's overstated, but he was with the Claremont. out there in California, and I want to play a clip for you about how we define what an American is. Let's listen. If you were to ask yourself in 2025 what an American is, I hate to say it, very few of our leaders actually have a good answer. Is it purely agreement with the creedal

principles of America? If you think about it, identifying America just with agreeing with the principles, let's say, of the Declaration of Independence, that's a definition that is way over-inclusive and under-inclusive at the same time. What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, it would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions of foreign citizens who agree with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Must we admit all of them tomorrow? If you follow that logic of America as a purely creedal nation, America purely as an idea, that is where it would lead you. But at the same time, that answer would also reject a lot of people that the ADL would label as domestic extremists. Even though those very Americans had their ancestors fight in the

Revolutionary War and the Civil War. And I happen to think that it's absurd and the modern left seems dedicated to doing this to saying, you don't belong in America unless you agree with progressive liberalism in 2025. I think the people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America than the people who say they don't belong. I guess I'll just let you cook on that. What do you think about the post-level rights definition of an American? Who counts? Who is an American? Who isn't? Who we should honor? Who we shouldn't? I think this is actually at the center of what the post-liber right is trying to do. And I think that people should not confuse this as just like, oh, like, this is just like classic racism, like, you know, like just your classic run-of-the-mill bigotry.

Like this is a little bit of racism. You do notice that he talks about how, you know, we should honor somebody that is deeply American if they do not believe in the principles of the declaration, but their ancestors did fight in the civil war. And I would note that he doesn't say which side of that. It's like if your ancestors fought for the Confederacy, either side, either side, and you don't believe in America and the, you know, Declaration of Independence about equal rights for everybody, you're more American than somebody who's here recently that does believe in the declaration. That's basically how I'm interpreting him. Yeah, to be clear, I would definitely say there's racism on the postal right. But I'm just saying, like, I think that there's often this like, oh, it's like this is the same thing. Just to return. This is a complete abrogation of, like, what has meant to be an American for, like, decades. Like, you can go back to, like, speeches, people are making, like, obviously, we have not lived up to the promise of America for a very long time. This is a very common theme, like, civil rights leaders, like, activists pointing out that, like, hey, you have all these values in this here constitution, like, doesn't seem like you're really doing this for everyone.

Like, that is obviously true. But there's a difference between, like, oh, like, someone's saying they're for egalitaries and they're for a vision of America that is expansive and that we can absorb people from different places and then we take the greatness of the world and we make it our own. Like, there's a difference between that and not living up to it and going like, actually, we don't want any of that. What we actually want is like blood and soil nationalism. I'm like actually so serious. I read that speech and I'm like, this is the precursor to someone who really believes that the fundamental thing about America is just have you spilled blood here and have you die? And do you have

like parents who have like died and have are in cemeteries like when he says and he evokes like oh seven generations of his family in cemeteries in kentucky um like what he is saying is that is more important than anything else that you're doing and like i think that he also is setting up a straw man for libs here right because like no person believes it like oh if you like the declaration of independence that automatically makes you an american like obviously not like no one is saying that the question is, like, do we believe in a type of nation that can absorb new people and new cultures and new ideas and make it our own? Or do you want to, like, stagnate and die in, like, 195 brain America? Like, it's just so absurd to me, but I do think it's very dangerous that he

feels so comfortable saying this. And I think that sometimes white supremacy gets thrown around willy-nilly a little bit on the left. But, like, this is pretty, I mean, he's essentially saying whiteness. Like, essentially saying, like, that's what he's talking about. And it's not if there were non-white people that came into Mayflower and we're fighting the revolution, and there were slaves and white people, right, by modern definition, essentially. So that's what he's talking about white people. You can see how radicalizing this is, but just in how J.D. Vance has gotten radicalized. I mean, 10 years ago, he literally wrote a book about how his ancestors were trash,

I mean, honestly, like the purpose of the book was that it's, the purpose of the book was like, my parents and grandparents like didn't act like my one me ma did but like the rest of my bloodline my recent bloodline didn't really add anything to america of value and we need to revitalize that and now here it's brutal yeah and now here is talking about how it's only his kentucky dead ancestors that have been the things that have added thing to the cultural fabric yeah he's just he's been he's been radicalized by essentially white nationalist ideology i don't think that's overstated. I think it's like, I mean, to me, it's like, I have no idea what is sincerely in J.D. Vance's heart. I can't, I have no idea what he's at. Maybe he's just like,

maybe he should have a power hungry lunatic who, like, all he cares about is just like, whoever seems like they're in charge. Oh, Peter Thiel. I mean, he has changed his name three times, changes religion a couple of times, changed his political ideology. So I'm up for change and growth, but that points towards, that points towards sociopathie. That's point towards sociopath. I don't know, but it's just like to me, I think what's relevant is that like someone who's clearly very, very successful at reading where the tides are going to end up in a powerful position thinks the tides are going towards this.

Like that, and if you just even like track the way he's talked about this, he used to be a lot more subtle. Like I went back and I was looking through his other speeches, like even his speech at the, at the convention, I believe, accepting the nomination or either accepting the nomination or the one where he gave it after the victory party. I mean, he was much more muted and how he talked about post-liberalism. He was like, oh, my parents died and he like, he referenced it, but like this level of analysis, even calling himself part of the post-limber right, sitting next to people like Patrick Deneen, all these other thinkers who have much more radicalized views on this. Like I,

I actually think, like, he thinks is where the ball is going. And the question is, what alternative will be there? So it's a great point because if, you know, Patrick Bateman, Republican Patrick Bateman thinks that this is where things are going. Yeah. I mean, maybe he's wrong, but it's not an accident what he's doing. It's not not strategic. He's not doing it out of some purity of heart. You brought in your intro video, the example of Mahmoud Khalil, which I thought was interesting that you mentioned that in particular, because.

I agree with you. I find a lot, a lot would be overstated. I find some of the things that Makul Mood-Kalilal has been saying to be not my cup of tea, to say the least about it, right? Like, I find some things he says, frankly. There are other things he says, I think, are obviously right about human rights, et cetera. Yeah.

Humans are complicated. But it's an interesting point, right? And it's about the difference between the J.D. Vance view of America and what you guys are espousing on liberalism that you specifically. mentioned this case is an example of illiberalism when he's not a native-born American, right? But yet he still is not treated with the rights that he was merited as somebody that was here legally. Talk about why you brought that up and about that case in particular. Yeah, I mean, I brought it up in part because I knew that there was a lot of, I mean,

there's rightfully a lot of controversy over the stuff that he's said and has believed. I think that fire the free rights organization by Greg Lukianov is like a really great example of this. I mean, like, when you're under, under Democrats, people thought they were really anti-democrat, anti-left, and now under Republicans, they're getting, like, hit for being anti-right wing and being so super woke. But, like, really the thing is that, like, the reason why we evoked that case is that really unpopular speech has to be acceptable. Like, the entire point of liberals, I think that the simplest way that I can think about what the point of liberalism is, is how do we live with each other when we're so different that those differences could lead us to kill each other.

Like if I think that the right way to live is to be, you know, a Christian living in a big city, like, and a feminine, like, that's, like, that's who I am and like that's what I think people should be. And then someone else thinks that the right way to live is to be in rural America and to be Muslim and like whatever. Like, and like those are two like actually incompatible worldviews about what a good life is. Like I like cannot also fulfill that and what I think is right. But how do we not kill each other? Because the entirety of the human species and like all of history. has been us killing each other because our views are so different and incompatible, even in homogenous societies, right? Like even in like Europe when they're like literally all Christians, they're killing each other. Like it's everywhere throughout history, people who will find ways to make each other different and then they will kill each other over it. And so what do we do about that? Because I don't want to live that way. I want it to be okay that I feel very differently about what a good life is and I'm still able to live in a society with other people. And so someone like Mahou and Khalil, like, some people may view all the things that he says is completely reasonable and right.

Others may view him as like someone we should never have led into this country because of his beliefs. Either way, like, how do we set up systems where both of those views can exist in society and not like devolve into chaos? And so the reason why I evoked that case is just because I knew that there were going to be like a lot of people who were just like, I mean, I had people messaging me like, why would you include this person? Why wouldn't you say someone else? And I'm like, because even that view should be respect. It doesn't mean you lose due process. It doesn't mean you lose basic freedom of speech. I think Rameza is another great case.

The tough student who wrote an op-ed and literally got, I mean, picked up by, it looked like kidnappers in the middle of street in Boston. Like, I mean, yeah. You don't get jailed without Dubra. You don't just sit to rot in a prison because you have bad opinions. In her case, I don't know, she didn't even really have bad opinions. But like, that's just not how the American way is supposed to be. listening to your answer, I do feel like you've recently read liberalism and it's discontents by

Francis Fukuyama before you started the arguments. Not recently. I'm a Fukuyama head for years, buddy. I've been on this. Okay. So it's just burned into your subconscious. It's just kind of coming out a little bit from time to time. All right. That's it. Anything else that's triggering you in the news right now? You want to pop off on? Wow. I think you already, you expelled it all out of me, really. So thank you. Congratulations. Good luck in the outlet. We'll be checking in. The Argumentmag.com. There you go. There you go.

The Argumentmag.com. And come back soon, all right? Yeah, for sure. Bye, Tim. Thanks so much to Gary and Jerusalem. Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. We'll be back tomorrow with a fun weekend podcast. We'll see you all then.

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