The Bulwark Podcast - Our Exhausted Politics

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Trump talked about a new Muslim ban and the media barely covered it. Meanwhile, the House only could choose a pro-coup speaker. The biggest danger to democracy is simple exhaustion. Plus, Biden and the alpha male issue. Will Saletan is back with Charlie Sykes for Charlie and Will Monday.

If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with the Michelin X-Ice Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca. Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Stakes. It is Monday. We are almost at the end

of October. So, Will, you and I have a lot of ground to cover this morning. A lot. You actually watched the RJC, the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting over the weekend? Hours and hours of politicians talking to Jews. Yep. Oh, my God. And of course, we have a lot of other things going on. What was your best memory of the Mike Pence presidential campaign? I mean, Mike, we hardly knew you. I love Mike Pence. I have come to admire late Mike Pence, late Mike Pence. I'm not a Pence basher, even though I did this, but I mean, it isn't, you know, McKay Coppin's new book has Mitt Romney describing Pence this way. No one had been more loyal, more willing to smile when he saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe God's will to things that were ungodly than Mike Pence.

All of that's true. And, you know, that's not what did him in. I mean, the thing about it is, is that he was the artifact of the Republican Party before Trump. He actually had this sort of nostalgic, hey, let's bring back Ronald Reagan. But none of that actually mattered because in the end, his unforgivable sin was that he wouldn't go along with the coup. I mean, it is worth just stopping right there to realize that in the last week, Tom Emmer had his candidacy for the speakership blown up because he wouldn't go along with the big lie in the coup. And Mike Pence, the former vice president of the United States,

his entire campaign was dead on arrival because he wouldn't go along with the coup. And there we are, right? I mean, this is- This used to be a joke for me. I used to joke that how many coups do you have to support, I said, to lose the support of this party? There's an answer. The answer is zero. Any number greater than zero, if you support any number of coups greater than zero, you can be Speaker of the House. Right. You can be the presidential nominee. But if you only support zero, you can't. You know, I was thinking this morning, and I'm sorry to go off sort of randomly, of the real problems that we face right now. And

I think one of them is, you know, we talk about fascism, we talk about all these other things. I think the real danger of democracy is just simple exhaustion. You know, you think about that Speaker's election last week, where every single normie ended up voting for Mike Johnson, full-throated election denier, coup supporter. And yeah, it's a collapse of will. It's a collapse of principle. All of that is true. But ultimately, it was just like people were just tired of it, right? They just gave up. And I mean, isn't that how authoritarians win? When everybody's like, okay, whatever. I just, I cannot take this anymore. I'm not going to pay attention to the news. I'm not going to be engaged. It's all just too freaking exhausting. I mean, that's how we got Mike Johnson, right? So, okay. I agree about the exhaustion, but there's a specific thing

that happened here, which is, so was it Daniel Patrick Moynihan who wrote about defining deviancy down? Oh, yeah. And this was Moynihan, a Democrat, but this was a fundamentally conservative insight, right? Yeah. You lower and lower your standards. And I think that is essentially what's happened here. saying, you know, the best of them, the best of them, such as it is, saying, if we were to impose that standard that you couldn't have voted to overturn the election, we wouldn't be able to get a speaker. So they had to drop that standard. And that's essentially what happened here. They

normalized because they had to, because it's a pathological community. They had to accept it. And I don't want to necessarily pick on anyone because I understand how difficult it is, to catch up on the weekend and to catch up on all of the, all of the things that are going on. But I was, I was watching a cable show this morning and they were focusing on Donald Trump confusing Sioux city with Sioux falls, which is kind of funny. You know, he thinks he, Hey, Sioux falls and somebody has to take him aside and whisper, you know, Mr. President, you're actually different States. You're here in Sioux City and everything. And it's like, OK, fine. But OK, it's like that was not the worst thing that happened this weekend.

I mean, you had Donald Trump. And where do you even start with all this? He's bringing back the Muslim ban. They're going to deport anybody that opposes Israel at this point. And it's like doesn't even like move the needle. He's sucking up to Viktor Orban again, showing that he's got this kink for authoritarian strongmen, even though he confuses Orban as being the head of Turkey. OK, just leave that aside. Doesn't know where Hungary is on a map. He thinks that Hungary is, you know, adjacent to Russia. It's like one thing after another. And then he actually, once again, suggests, and I'm just sorry, because I think we just gotten like, okay, do we have to talk about Donald Trump anymore? Donald Trump was bragging about threatening our

allies, our NATO allies, that he would not defend them from an attack from Russia. I mean, I am old enough to know when something like that would have been disqualifying. The spoiler alert here is that it will not even cause a ripple in the Republican Party. So we can play that little soundbite in case you think I'm exaggerating. This is Donald Trump in either Sioux City or Sioux Falls. I don't give a shit. Say that he would have betrayed our Article 5 obligations to our NATO allies if they didn't pay up or something. Listen to Donald. And I remember the head of a country stood up, said, does that mean that if Russia attacks my country, you will not be there? That's right. That's what it means. I will not protect you.

Really, part of the exhaustion problem is that on a daily basis, we get so much disinformation, so many outrageous comments from Donald Trump. It is sort of like people have almost tuned it out, right? I mean, the Muslim ban was a big thing at one time. Remember? I mean, actually, there was a time when he said, you know, I, Donald J. Trump, will ban all Muslims. And Paul Ryan had to, you know, have a press conference saying, you know, this does not represent what the Republican Party is. Now, what, eight years later, we're going, yeah, that is what the Republican Party is. And so it doesn't even make the top five news stories of the day. It doesn't even make the top five news stories of the day.

It doesn't even make the top 12 news stories of the day. First of all, in terms of what Trump said about NATO, the thing you have to understand about Donald Trump, in case you didn't already, is that Donald Trump has no conception of right and wrong in foreign policy, good guys, bad guys. He only understands money. So his entire focus has been on getting the Europeans, our real enemies, according to Trump, to pay more money for NATO. It's just a financial, you know, are they paying enough? Trump's just an idiot. But Putin is not an idiot. And Putin knows that because that's Trump's thing, if he can get Trump back into power

in the United States, that tears apart NATO. And that's Putin's goal number one. So Trump's playing right into that. The thing about the Muslim ban, it's a little different. Trump is actually not bringing back the Muslim ban. The essence of Trump isn't hating Muslims. It is racial and ethnic and religious generalization as a whole. And so the current version of this is not banning all Muslims. It's banning people from all these countries. And at the moment, it's anybody from Gaza. It's important that this is anybody from Gaza. There's no

distinction being made here between terrorists and innocent people. For God's sake, Charlie, there's no distinction being made between adults and children. This is half the population of Gaza's children. The position in the Republican Party right now, and it's gone way beyond Trump, is not just ban Muslims, but ban anybody from Gaza because they're all being taught to hate Jews. So it's the same thing as the Muslim ban in terms of making unwarranted generalizations and categorically prohibiting certain people from the United States, but it's not specifically about Muslims. And of course, predictably, Ron DeSantis is all in on all of this. He's calling for the deportation of anybody that participated

in these marches, but also, more specifically, he's using the power of the state of Florida to shut down student organizations that might have taken positions he disagreed with. I am concerned about some of the things that are coming out of the universities. You know that. We have talked about this. But I'm trying to reconcile this with the rights claimed enthusiasm for free speech. It's all about free speech. And then it comes to Ron DeSantis. And time and time again, he basically says, yes, I know this is the free state of Florida, except if you're a student organization that says X, Y or Z or you're a corporation that disagrees with me on all of this. So how do these folks square the circle on free speech and yet are now talking about deporting, shutting down,

banning based on speech? Well, let's be fair to Ron DeSantis, right? He cares as much about free speech as he does about free markets. That is to say- That's true. Not at all. Ron DeSantis personifies what has happened to the Republican Party. It has abandoned any of the principles that were in this platform about freedom, about markets and speech, and it has become simply a culturally right-wing party. So it will use any means available, including the state, in fact, especially the state, to enforce its cultural agenda, right? So I'm going to punish a corporation, Disney, that engages in speech I don't like. And the same thing with college campuses. What does this work? I can't remember, Students for Justice in

Palestine or something like that? Some organization. And DeSantis has concocted this story that this organization has violated a Florida law about material support to terrorists. The law prohibits that, right? And he's claiming that because some members of this organization said something identifying with Hamas, that's material support. That's not material support. It's free speech. It's repellent free speech. But the point, as you know, Charlie, and as you've said before, the point of protecting free speech is not protecting popular free speech. It's protecting unpopular free speech. use the power of government to punish, which is precisely what the First Amendment, I thought, would have prohibited. Okay, so let's talk about some of the developments over the weekend, and there were so many of them. Probably one of the most dramatic was this pogrom in Russia. I'm sure you saw this. Is this in Dagestan? I'm going to confess that I can't find Dagestan on the map.

You want to talk about Kristallnacht slash pogrom, you had a mob go through a hotel looking for Jews attacking an airport after an airplane landed from Tel Aviv. And people were interviewing, what are you looking for? I'm looking for Jews. Why? Because I want to kill them. And the authorities were absolutely nowhere. So we have this rising tempo. We also have the rising tempo of violence in the Middle East. So let's talk about what's

going on in Gaza, because October 7th was horrific. The big question was, how would Israel respond? Would they show any restraint? I want to get your sense about the proportionality, and I know that that's a loaded word, but the proportionality of the response that we're seeing now in Gaza, where the rubble is bouncing. Yeah, the rubble is bouncing. And, you know, if Israel were accomplishing something specific, like we're actually destroying the Hamas organization, its leadership, its tunnels, if they were able to get hostages out, that would be compensating for the collateral damage and the civilian casualties. I don't see evidence, A,

that they're particularly accomplishing in that or B, that they will. And a lot of people who support Israel, look, I'm very sympathetic to Israel. I'm Jewish, okay? This is the homeland of my people nominally. But a lot of people, Tom Friedman and others, agree that Israel

does not seem to know what it's doing here. It's punishing because that's what you do, right? You hurt in order to reestablish deterrence. But who you are hurting, and the United States government, never mind the Gaza health ministry, which I've disagreed with about numbers. Right, and you wrote about it. The United States government agrees, right, that there's thousands and thousands of civilian casualties at this point. So it's not clear to me that Israel is accomplishing strategic objectives, and it is certainly doing moral damage. It is killing innocent people. Well, they clearly are suffering of PR setbacks, particularly because people are trying to now compare what they are doing in Gaza

with what the Russians are doing in Ukraine, which I think is strained. But of course, then the pictures are pretty horrific. What are the Israelis saying? Because they are saying that much of this bombing is, in fact, aimed at the Hamas infrastructure, the tunnels. They did warn people to leave. They are saying this. They are clearly targeting the leadership of Hamas. But I guess the point is they have to show the linkage between what our goals are taking out Hamas versus what looks like just mass carpet bombing of civilian areas. So what are they saying they're doing? How are they explaining slash justifying what's going on over the last, say, 72 hours? Well, of course, they're talking about, they're quoting numbers of Hamas leaders that they say they've killed. But it's always like this guy, that guy, maybe a dozen here, a dozen there.

These things matter because those are people who helped orchestrate a pogrom, a slaughter of Jews on October 7th. But it's a very small number compared to the number of civilian casualties and to the damage that you can obviously see in Gaza. Charlie, you and I talked about this the weekend it happened. It's a no-win situation for Israel just because of the composition of Gaza. Because if you look at the way it's laid out, and as long as you have an air campaign, the Hamas guys are underground, right? You're going to have to go through the hospital above them, the school above them, whatever it is to get to them. So in a way, Charlie, ground forces going in, which is obviously what's beginning to happen now, would be potentially more

surgical in terms of being able to find specific people. But then you've got the additional problem of Israeli soldiers are going to get captured and additional hostages. And I just think it's all bad from here. But also, you know, let's not downplay the role that Hamas has played because, you know, they have traditionally used these facilities as human shields or as infrastructure shields for what they are doing. Secondly, there is the concern about the humanitarian absence of food and water and everything in Gaza. And yet, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of focus on the fact that Hamas itself has been stockpiling much of this and has refused to share this with the civilian population. I mean, again, a reminder that Hamas

has had decades in order to help its own people share the resources, the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid that have gone to them. And they have squirreled it away. They have squandered it. They are holding it. So in many ways, they have orchestrated the humanitarian disaster as well as a what? As a propaganda club to use against the Israelis? Absolutely. Absolutely. But this is the paradox, right? I mean, I saw Ron DeSantis on TV this weekend complaining that there's a double standard, right? And the double standard is, Charlie, is exactly what you just described. Israel gets held to this standard that we just forget that Hamas just ignores it.

But the double standard is part of being the good guys. Being the good guys means you're going to follow rules that the bad guys don't follow, right? And so it's all true about Hamas and its contempt for human life and its abuse of the innocent people in Gaza, as well as the murder of the innocent people in Israel. That's all true, but you still have to hold yourself to a higher standard. And the current construction of this Israeli campaign, it doesn't make that possible. Honestly, Charlie, the only thing that would actually make this work would be to allow almost the entire civilian population of Gaza to temporarily be out of the area. You can call it Northern Gaza, you can call it Gaza altogether. That requires the cooperation of the Arab states. And as you know, the Arab states have not made that possible. TreadExperts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with

a Michelin X-Ice snow tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin TreadExperts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca. Okay, so let's switch back to domestic politics, the linkage between aid to Ukraine and aid to Israel. This is something that the Biden administration is pushing. Democrats seem to support, Mitch McConnell seems to support, but the new speaker made it clear over the weekend that he wants to decouple it. And they are straining to explain why it is in America's interest to support Israel, but it is not in America's interest to stand with Ukraine against the aggression of Vladimir Putin. How is that

playing out? Well, there's a lot of political calculation going on about how many votes you can get for the Israeli aid, how much you can get for the Ukraine aid, and whether, you know, one argument is, Charlie, you can put together two different coalitions. You get Republicans on board for the Israel aid, and then you get some Republicans to go with Democrats on the Ukraine aid. This is, as you know, very difficult in the House because of the idiotic Hastert rule, because the idea of that you have to have a majority of Republicans to get anything done. If that's true, then Ukraine gets screwed because they don't get enough of the House Republicans. But the Mike Johnson versus Mitch McConnell situation is important and quite interesting. So McConnell, and I've had a lot of problems with McConnell, the way that he grabbed the Supreme Court, but McConnell seems, Charlie,

I'm looking for a nice way to say this, in his final years, I don't know exactly what's going on with this guy, but he seems to have decided that this is a really important cause in his life to get the money for Ukraine. God bless him for that. He's working with Chuck Schumer and Biden on that, but he's now up against a speaker who is trying to separate the two. To me, Charlie, the interesting question is, what is Mike Johnson's game here? Is Mike Johnson trying to separate them out because he thinks that he can't get the Ukraine aid? Or is Johnson actually planning to satisfy his isolationist right by separating them, but then to cut a deal with Democrats to do the Ukraine aid anyway, separately? I don't know that he's got the ability to cut a deal with Democrats to do the Ukraine aid anyway, separately. I don't know that he's got the ability to cut a deal with Democrats. This is the thing. I mean,

Mike Johnson may have been the rabbit they pulled out of the hat, but the hat is still completely dysfunctional, right? So, you know, I mean, he's still held hostage by Matt Gaetz. He's Matt Gaetz's bitch, right? I mean... Okay. Well, can I argue with you on that one for a little bit? Let me ask you this. Okay. Jim Jordan was up for speaker, came pretty close, didn't quite get it. Then we get Mike Johnson instead. And the spin, the CW we hear about this is he's just a nicer version of Jim Jordan. His voting record is the same.

Is that true though on Ukraine? Is it true? Or did we actually trade in an isolationist and anti-Ukraine guy for a closet or some semi-closet pro-Ukraine guy. Okay. Well, if he's in the closet, he's deep in the closet on this, I think. And we're just going to leave that right there. Okay. Okay. So we'll, let's talk about JD Vance. And I have to admit, when you mentioned Daniel Patrick Moynihan before, I immediately flashed, you know, to the remembering when there were actual intellectuals in the United States Senate.

And now we have the Marshall Blackburns and we have the Tommy Tubervilles. And what passes for an intellectual, I suppose, is the J.D. Vance types. J.D. Vance is no Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But J.D. Vance was on one of the shows yesterday with Margaret Brennan, and he's talking about helping Israel because they're just asking for weapons. They're not asking for troops. So let's just play where J.D. Vance explains that this was a strategic imperative. I think what we have to have is some respect for our allies. They're not asking us to send ground troops. All they're asking us really is for weapons. And we should have some respect for their strategic imperative.

So he's talking about the strategic imperative. And then Margaret Brennan, though, points out to J.D. Vance that Ukraine is asking for the same thing, right? So J.D. Vance has to go, OK, I'm now shifting. So here's J.D. Vance's modified version. We should prioritize the buildup of America's industrial base, and we should devote it to our true allies like Israel, and of course, the rising threat in East Asia. Okay, so it goes from, okay, it's not just that they're asking for just weapons, it's our

true allies like Israel. Because Ukraine is not our true ally, right? So the original line from J.D. Vance and the isolationists like him was, we shouldn't be involved in this war with Russia, right? And the Ukrainians said, hey, we're not asking you to fight. We're doing the fighting. Just give us some weapons. And Vance and these guys are like, no. And then they turn around, obviously, in the case of Israel and say, yes, we're not doing the fighting. So then he falls back when she points out this contradiction on this idea of who's a real ally. He lets that slip out, like Ukraine is not a real ally. So this Republican opposition in the Senate and mostly in the House to Ukraine aid pretends to be about American involvement in wars, but obviously they don't have a problem with American involvement in wars. What's really underlying this is they think that Ukraine is not the good guys, right? And that plays right into

the hands of Putin. He would like all the moral differences between himself and Ukraine to be washed away. The fact that he did the invading, the fact that he's an autocracy, the fact that he's the one, you know, raping and murdering and indiscriminately attacking civilians. So I just think that this anti-Ukraine animus is being exposed as the real basis of the opposition. Well, now, as we've discussed in the past, there's also attacks on the policy from the left. So far, the vast majority of Democrats have lined it behind the Biden policy. I don't expect that to change. Do you? I think that they're pretty solid behind that, at least for now. I think it's vulnerable. I think it they're pretty solid behind that, at least for now. I think it's vulnerable.

I think it's vulnerable on the left. Okay, well, here's a clip that you pulled from Representative Jayapal, who is the head of the Progressive Caucus, and she's comparing Israel and Gaza to Russia and Ukraine. She's drawing kind of an equivalency here. Let's listen to that. That's a double standard, she said. This is a double standard. The United States rightly called out Russia for its siege of Ukraine, rightly called out the attacks on the power infrastructure, the refusal to provide food and water and fuel to the Ukrainians. And we have to recognize that our credibility and our authority on the moral stage is greatly diminished if we do not also call out this siege that Israel is launching on Gaza as violations of international law. Well, this is like a throwback to the old Cold War, the moral equivalency that we criticize Vladimir Putin for trying to crush Ukraine. Shouldn't we be criticizing Israel because

Israel is the moral equivalent of Vladimir Putin? Well, so Charlie, this is part of why I'm saying that I think Biden is vulnerable on Israel on the left, because that sentiment that she's expressing, there's a lot of people, they think right now Israel's already the left, because that sentiment that she's expressing, there's a lot of people, they think right now Israel's already the bad guys because of all the bombing in Gaza. And again, my view is the bombing in Gaza is bad. My view is also that's not the first thing that happened here, right? The first thing that happened was October 7th. And what Jayapal is doing is just erasing that. Remember, in order to see Israel's treatment of Gaza the same as Russia's treatment of Ukraine, I mean, in order for that to be true, Ukraine would have had to go into Russia to

start this and murder 1,400 people. That didn't happen. That didn't happen. This is a retaliation on Israel's side, whether it's a smart or effective one or a perfectly morally executed one. We can debate all of that, but it's not a spontaneous attack to take territory. In fact, Israel has said they don't want to control Gaza. They don't want to occupy Gaza. Putin said exactly the opposite in Ukraine. Again, this makes my head hurt here. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel,

wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with a Michelin X-Ice snow tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin tread experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca Let's go back to this Republican-Jewish conference over the weekend where Mike Pence drops out.

One of the more striking moments of that was Nikki Haley, who is now, according to this new Iowa poll, has now moved up into second place, or a tie with Ron DeSantis. We can talk about that because there's some buzz, including in the bulwark, about whether or not it's time to consolidate behind Nikki Haley. And Nikki Haley, who has tap-danced around, like, am I really running against Donald Trump? How strong am I going to be against Donald Trump? She certainly seemed to be raising the temperature a little bit. She really went right after Donald Trump at this RJC meeting. Let's listen to Nikki Haley. As president, I will not compliment Hezbollah, nor will I criticize Israel's prime minister in the middle of a tragedy and war. We have no time for personal vendettas.

I will also not compliment Chinese Communist President Xi, nor will I call North Korea's Kim Jong-un my friend. These are not good or smart people. Along with Iran's Ayatollah, they're the most evil dictators in the world. And the last thing they want is an American president who knows it and calls them out for it. So, Will, what grade do you give her on this? What do you think? Oh, I give her an A on this. Grade inflation. True, true.

Okay. I can't give her an A. It's on a curve, right? It is. It is. It's terrible. I've been corrupted by it. I've had my standards lowered.

Okay. We can't give her an A because an A would mean actually mentioning Baltimore's name. Yes. Right. She won't do that. So we'll give her a B or B plus or something like that, but she's doing more than anybody else. By the way, I got to say something about Haley and Pence. Yeah. Yeah. Go. Okay. Charlie, Mike Pence goes to this event, the Republican Jewish coalition. Each of these candidates is speaking for like half an hour. Pence gives his spiel. And in the last five minutes of his speech drops out of the race, I'm leaving the race. The whole room is like, whoa, no. Oh, Mike, we love you. None of these people were actually voting for him or giving him money, but like, right. But they're sad to see him go, right?

So Pence finishes, he and Karen comes out and they wave to the crowd. They walk off. Okay. There's now three minutes of a Ron DeSantis video. Ron DeSantis is the next guy up at this event. Now, Charlie, I'm only a straight guy, but even I know that if your fellow candidate just dropped out and you come to the mic, the first thing you do is say, oh, Mike Pence is a swell guy. I love him. I really love what he fought for. Some reference to it. Right. P.S. under my breath, like all you Pence supporters, you one percenters or whoever, however many you are, you know, come to me, right? Charlie, he didn't say a word. Ron DeSantis just spoke like a robot as though nothing had just happened. Almost like he's robotic, you know? Well, almost. Okay. we've said before that ron de santis seems socially

retarded but this was really extreme and so the reason why i'm bringing this up in the context of nikki haley is haley's the next person up after de santis and the first thing nikki haley does is say mike pence is a great american i've you know supported all the right things and we we all owe him a debt of gratitude and all just like basic basic human decency, right? Just talk like a human being. So to me, this drove home how bad a politician DeSantis is and how by comparison, Haley is normal and decent. And I think this is one reason why we're beginning to see a consolidation around her rather than DeSantis as an alternative. Okay. So let me read you what Mike Murphy, the legendary Republican political consultant, writes in this morning's Bulwark. He said, to be clear, I have been a grade A Nikki Haley critic. I found her to be depressingly cynical.

If left it up to me, her Secret Service codename would be too clever by half. That's kind of nice, actually. But in a race against the ghoulish, democracy-loathing madman Donald Trump, it is an easy call. Go, Nikki, go. I'm all in. Why? Alone among the contenders, she has a shot. Nikki stumbled to the top in the last four months because she is the most talented candidate in the also-ran caucus. She's also the only candidate running for real in both Iowa and New Hampshire. If she's able to pull off upsets in the first two states, Trump will be hobbled and she'll have a real chance to administer the killing bloat in South Carolina. Okay. I think that's, that's a little bit exuberant, but at some point you have to have a consolidation. And at the moment when you and I are speaking right now, is she the most plausible

alternative to Trump? Yeah. It's not Ron DeSantis. Okay. No, no. Ron DeSantis is, I'm looking for a nicer word, but his social retardation is not reparable. He cannot be fixed. That is who he is. Right. She's got that. So we have the other zombie candidates out there. I guess the question is whether or not it actually makes a difference looking at the poll numbers, because as somebody pointed out this morning, I think it was Jonathan Lemire, the poll shows that if you ask Ron DeSantis supporters, who is your second choice? They say Donald Trump. So it's not clear that if other candidates drop out, that it would actually hurt Trump as opposed to. So I was just trying to imagine this morning. So what if Republicans

acted like Democrats acted back in 2020? What if? And again, we're in the looking for the unicorn stage of our conversation today. Mike Pence, you know, next week says, you know, not only am I dropping out, but I am endorsing Nikki Haley. And Chris Christie says, okay, I want to take down Donald Trump. I am endorsing Nikki Haley. And Paul Ryan comes out of wherever he's hiding and says, I endorse Nikki Haley. Would any of that make any difference whatsoever? What do you think? Because I am skeptical that that would make any difference really at all at this point as of today.

Charlie, let's test the proposition at least. I mean, I'm willing to do that, by the way. Yes. Right, right. So one of the things that Pence said as he dropped out was, you know, basically it's a bummer losing, but the only thing worse than losing would have been if we hadn't tried. So let's take that attitude about consolidating the non-Trump vote. Let's try, let's at least try and see what happens. I don't know what the number is in Iowa. Trump is sitting at 43% right now. I think in New Hampshire, he's a little bit

lower, which is not 50%, which is interesting. And then of course, Haley's got South Carolina as a backup. And I don't know how much that would count for as her state. But the point is, I believe in New Hampshire, Trump is slightly more vulnerable because the number is a little bit lower. And if at some point Haley could just break even with him or slightly ahead anywhere along the line. I think that might fracture some of the feeling of invulnerability. I would just like to see it tried. So we've got Hutchinson, I think is still nominally in the race, but he'll be out. He's out. You don't even know. These guys are officially in, but nobody thinks they're in.

Doug Burgum is still in the race, just as a reminder. How did it happen that the vice president is out, but the governor of North Dakota is still in? How did this happen? Okay. Anyway, let's see what the consolidation can be. The real question now is, you and I both like Chris Christie among the Republicans. Do you want Chris Christie to get out and endorse Haley at this point?

No, I don't. I don't because I think he still serves a useful function, but at some moment, and remember how it worked in 2020 with the Democrats. I mean, there was a moment where it was obvious you do it now or you end up with Bernie Sanders. And they all consolidated right before South Carolina. And I don't know what that moment is. Maybe it's too early right now, but at some point he's going to have to take the best shot he can take and then realize that this is it. It's going to be a binary choice. I don't think it's going to be enough. One of the problems, of course, is that in order for this unicorn

scenario to work out, Republicans will have to say, okay, we can win with Nikki Haley, but we're going to lose with Donald Trump. But they don't believe that because it might not be true. Because Donald Trump can actually be elected president. Do you disagree with that? That whole electability argument has just blown up. Okay. I agree with part of it. He can be elected and we've seen polls that show him beating Biden, right? The difference is Nikki Haley compared to the anyone else on the Republican field has polled better against Biden. So with Trump, he could win, but it's very close, dicey. I think he probably loses.

With Haley, the odds are much, much better statistically based on the polls as they exist today. And that's not true of anyone else in the Republican field. Okay. So speaking of Halloween and scary reads, in my newsletter, I had my horror show read of the day. This is the Axios piece, which I'm sure you've read. Biden's dual horror shows threaten his reelection campaign. This gives you an idea of what the mood is at the moment. Top officials

believe that Biden has been at his best in managing the early days of the Israeli-Hamas war, but they privately concede that things have never been worse politically since the 80-year-old took office. Most troublesome, it's hard to see how to brighten his public image on issues haunting the American public. Crime, immigration, inflation, race, trust, and now two divisive wars that America did not start. Biden's top aides are deeply frustrated and somewhat bitter, said one backer in frequent touch with the West Wing. They think he's doing a great job and by many measures he is. But private polls show the same hurdles as the public ones, brutally and stubbornly low popularity broadly and on topics animating voters.

So how bad is it? Let's just start with the economy, because this is the one that Democrats are tearing their hair about. And not just Democrats, economists like JVL and others have written in the bulwark about this. The economic indicators, objectively, have been pretty good. On paper, yes. Household economic indicators, right. But people don't feel it, right? Lived experience is a thing.

It is. it is. But I understand their frustration because this wasn't true a decade ago. This wasn't true two decades ago. This disjunction of feelings, the way people feel about their economic situation versus their actual economic situation as reflected statistically.

Charlie, there's no precedent for managing this. Nobody knows how to manage a gap like that between we're doing a good job and people aren't feeling it. that things still cost a lot more. This is the lived experience of people. So also, there has been a lag between wages catching up with inflation. So yes, if you could just force Americans to sit down and listen to economists' whiteboard presentations, they would surely understand how wonderful Bidenomics is. But the problem is that most people, rather than sitting and looking at the whiteboards, are going to grocery stores and going to places where things still cost a lot and where they're nervous. So yes, there is a disconnect here. I would think that over time, that disconnect would narrow. But I think that the argument that, well, people are just stupid,

I would hope that the Biden folks are not listening to that kind of advice because the voters are really, really stupid is first of all, not a winning message. It's also frankly, not the greatest argument in favor of, you know, like why we are champions of democracy. We believe in democracy, even though we think that the voters are too stupid to know what is in their interest. So I think there's a little bit of a problem there. By the way, a much more provocative question coming for you in like 30 seconds. So just brace yourself.

Okay. About democracy. We at the Bulwark believe in democracy. That's the North Star, right? But it is true that people make dumb decisions and they make dumb decisions at the ballot box. The best argument for democracy is not that people make the right choice all the time. It's that if you don't let the people make the choice, a bunch of autocrats and oligarchs will make the choice, right? You need the people as a check on abuse of power. You need the people to be able to say, no, you're not serving us.

We're going to make you, we're going to overturn you and put in a new president. So let me set that aside. On the economy, Charlie, the argument isn't that people don't, it shouldn't be that people are stupid and don't know what's good for them. Part of the problem though is although prices have risen, wages are also rising. And in fact, the wage increase has accelerated. And part of the economic argument is wages are catching up with prices. But Charlie, it may be true that although there's multiple economic indicators in a household of how well they're doing, the one they feel is the prices. Every day, every week, you're going to the grocery store, whatever, you're feeling the

price, you're seeing that. And it may be that the wages coming in, although that's going into your bank account or whatever it is, you don't notice that in the same way or with the same regularity as the prices. So it may be that inflation in particular is a political killer. Okay, so here's my more provocative question. And I was going to write this and then I realized the analogy is so terrible that I would have to spend the first half of the piece explaining how it is not appropriate, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is it just possible that Joe Biden, I mean, I understand that the fanzines would argue that, well, Joe Biden is a second coming of FDR. He's the best president since Harry Truman. He is

more awesome than Barack Obama, right? That he is Churchill reincarnated. But Will, what if he's Jimmy Carter? Okay. Now I understand that Jimmy Carter is a good man. He's had a great post-presidency. I understand that Jimmy Carter is a good man. Has had a great post presidency. I understand that the economy is much better than it was in the late 1970s, that Joe Biden is not as naive about Russia as Jimmy Carter was. There's so many, many, many differences. But on the other hand, there's something about Joe Biden that he is not connecting with the American public. The American public does not look at him and see someone strong and dominant they can trust. All of these numbers seem to come back to the fact, and I'm not going to get into the age issue. I'm just saying that there is the Jimmy

Carter thing is people like Jimmy Carter just doesn't seem like a president. Ronald Reagan was the strong man. Ronald Reagan had lots of flaws and a lot of Democrats kept telling themselves, oh, don't worry about Jimmy Carter, you know, with the, with the cardigan and the malaise speech and stuff like that. Ronald Reagan is just too crazy and too extreme. And I'm wondering whether or not in the eyes of the voters, leaving aside, because we wonks, we have the whiteboards, we go through the list of legislation. Jimmy Carter had lots of legislation. Jimmy Carter had a lot of things that were really important that he got done. And yet, ultimately, voters looked at him and said, yeah, we don't see him as a strong president that we can rely on.

We don't see the broad shoulders. And I kind of wonder whether or not Joe Biden is suffering from a little bit of that. Is Joe Biden Jimmy Carter? No, no, no, no. It's too easy. It's too easy. All right. So you've named them. The economy is much better than it was. I mean, Jimmy Carter economy was terrible. Joe Biden's issues. It's not that he's sort of wimpy. It's not that he, you know, wears, I can't say I'm wearing a sweater, but, you know, it sits in front of the fireplace. Biden's issue was eight. He can talk tough. It's just that he's an old version of that and it looks bad, but that again, he can't

make that go away. The comparison, and we've talked about this before. I think it's much better comparison. If you want to talk about Biden being in trouble, the comparison is to George H.W. Bush, right? Who actually was sitting in a better position, but, and in terms of his international conduct was, you know, admirable, but that people just didn't care about that. And they didn't like the way the economy was going and they tossed him out. Even though the economy was not as bad as people

thought it was at the time. I mean, that was, that was one of the frustrations. By the way, there was this same discussion back then. I mean, you had Bill Clinton saying this is the worst economy in 50 years and people are going, no, look, actually it's coming back. It's okay. It didn't matter because people just thought he was weak. Yes. He just didn't connect. Like you think of presidents that are one term, it's not whether or not they accomplish a lot. And I guess part of it is that Joe Biden, I'm going to leave aside the age issue, that he's never dominated the American political scene the way that more successful presidents have, that he's never connected with people. Because there's something going on here when you run through objectively the record and you go, why has he got a 38% approval rating? Well, is it because voters are just stupid or is it all Fox News or is there something just stupid? Or is it all Fox News? Or is there something just lacking? I mean, the people

at some visceral level look at the president and they want something. They didn't get it from George H.W. Bush. They didn't get it from Jimmy Carter. They may not be getting it from Joe Biden. Look, the simplest version of this, Charlie, is that in all of us, we look for an alpha. We look for somebody who looks like he's in charge, right? Yeah, I was dancing around that, but you went right to it. Yeah. The weird thing about Donald Trump is although he's the world's worst human being, he is an alpha and he's constantly telling you all the great things he's doing, which Joe Biden is not. Joe Biden is a terrible communicator about his agenda and what he's accomplished.

With Biden, it's that he's an old version and everybody sort of feels that he ain't got it. Biden behind the scenes is doing all this stuff and it just doesn't seem to count. It doesn't seem to count in his favor because people don't associate him with it. But to come back to the Carter analogy, what about the opponent that Carter faced, right? Carter in Reagan faced a guy who'd been around, but had not been, he was sort of a more optimistic figure. Imagine if the Republicans had nominated, brought back Dick Nixon to run against Carter. I feel like that's what Trump run against Biden is sort of like. So they can blow it all by nominating a guy. In fact, they do seem likely

to nominate a guy who is known to be corrupt. And a lot of people in the middle feel that he's corrupt and recognize that. If Carter had run against Nixon, there may have been a lot of people who've just said, you know, I don't like Jimmy Carter. I don't like the way he's running things, but we can't have that guy back in power. And that could happen to Trump. Okay. So the world has changed in a lot of interesting ways, but this is an interesting thought experiment that no one's ever going to prove wrong about this, right? So 1980, it's bring back Nixon, give him another shot. Okay, he was a crook, but he was strong and people trusted him. And you know where he's coming from? No, I don't think so. But again, the world is a very, very different place. You don't have the media ecosystem that's

going to pump them up. You don't have the kind of intense tribalism. I guess what I'm getting at is you use the word alpha. I think that there is some visceral level where people want the president to be larger than life. They want him to be interesting. They want him to be a presence in some way. And Joe Biden is not that presence. And it's not just the age. He hasn't used the bully pulpit. You know, you and I, or at least I thought I was looking forward to having a president who was not in our face every day that we could actually ignore. Well, be careful what you wish for, because apparently what Americans are looking for is either one's strength or they want entertainment or they want something. But I do worry about the Jimmy Carter thing, because Jimmy

Carter, I don't think was a successful president, but he was not the complete disaster, especially when you go back and you look at the bills that were passed, the legislation, but the economy was horrible. And you remember what the thing that was just killing people back then? Interest rates and inflation. Right. So objectively, things were somewhat better, but no, I think that's absolutely true. And Russia was on the march. It felt like America was losing, was slipping. I don't know whether, whether Reagan ever said make America great again, but that was kind of the theme, you know? Right. I mean, there was that sense that, that America had gone through Vietnam,

had gone through all of this and that America was slipping. Carter's appeal in 76 was, I am a good and decent man. I'm going to turn the page. And that was very refreshing, but it was not sufficient. No. Ultimately, people wanted somebody who was stronger, bigger, who could get things done and can make America tough again. Right. And it's really disturbing to me, and I don't know how you feel about this, but I bet I know how you feel about this. How much of this turns out to be affect? Okay. That, no, no, that's exactly what I'm talking. I am talking about the affect. Yes. Right. And okay. I despise Donald Trump, like with the fire of a thousand suns. But if you

watch Donald Trump speak, as I do often, you see what Joe Biden is missing. You see the bravado, you see the confidence, you see the self-assurance, you see the bragging. I did this, I made this happen. Reminders of any good thing that resulted during his presidency, right? And you see also fear. He signals to people, I am a fearsome person and I will intimidate your enemies and I will intimidate other countries. Joe Biden tries, but he just doesn't quite have that. Some of the people around Biden do get this because they are trying to do this. There's a reason why he went to Kiev in a time of war.

There's a reason why he got an Air Force One and went to Israel. He is trying to project that world leader courageous thing. It's not hitting, but they're trying. And I don't have a quick solution to it. How do you fix something like that? You can't fix Ron DeSantis. We talked about that before. I'm not sure you can do it. But I think that ultimately your point about imagine if Jimmy Carter had been running against Richard Nixon, what would people have done? And that's why the matchup with Donald Trump is so problematic. If you're a Republican, I mean, this is again, the irrationality. Look, if you run Nikki Haley, you have a really, really good shot. I mean, I'm guessing that

there's nobody in the White House that would be popping champagne if Republicans nominated Nikki Haley. I think they need to be worried about Donald Trump, but Nikki Haley would be a completely different contest. Right. And if you were drawing the analogy back to 1992, the Democrats nominated Bill Clinton, who would be the most similar person on the Republican side to that? It's clear that Ron DeSantis doesn't have the people skills. Haley could be the Bill Clinton figure to nominate against the incumbent. Okay. So we've been searching for a unicorn engaging in absolutely baseless historical speculation. So in other words, it must be Monday. So, Will, it is great talking with you.

We will do this again next week. All right? Thanks, Charlie. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We'll be back tomorrow, and we'll do this all over again. Maybe we'll actually be a little bit more reality-based too. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown. We'll see you next time. TreadExperts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with

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