The Bulwark Podcast - S2 Ep1054: Adam Serwer, Lauren Egan, and Justin Jones: The Attack on Knowledge

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

The Trump administration is trying to exert ideological control over every knowledge-producing institution in the country. And the assault on colleges is not only about having fewer highly-educated voters, but also depriving Americans of trusted sources of information—much in the way Trump in 2020 wanted to stop counting Covid cases so it looked like he had the pandemic under control. Meanwhile, we're getting too much information about Elon's bladder control problems on his way out the door. Plus, The Bulwark's Lauren Egan and Tennessee's Justin Jones on courage, conscience, fighting a party drunk with power, and the future of the South. The Atlantic's Adam Serwer joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod, with a side serving from our live Nashville show. show notes Adam's latest piece in The Atlantic, "The New Dark Age" Lawfare's Anna Bower on her search for the administrator of DOGE Adam's book, "The Cruelty Is the Point" The NYT on Elon's intense drug use Tim's playlist

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Just a little note on the scheduling for today. I wanted to do a traditional podcast guest for you all so you didn't have live shows back to back. And so I'm excited to have Adam Sirwer coming up here in a second. But last night in Nashville, we were having a blast. And my colleague here at the Bullock, Lauren Egan, who's doing a newsletter on what is happening with the Democrats, you all should sign up for at thebullock.com, interviewed Justin Jones as part of the show. If you don't know Justin Jones, he's in the legislature here in Tennessee. He was one of the Tennessee

three that the Republicans tried to boot out. Man, that guy, if you went down a list of issues, me and him are gonna have some disagreements for sure. He is definitely more progressive than I am, but I was just kind of blown away by his authenticity, his passion, his energy, his charisma, just like across the board. The dude is the real deal, you know? And we're looking for people in this moment who can speak to the challenges that we have with passion.

And I thought that he really knocked it out of the park. And so we weren't planning on doing this, but I want to have his segment from the live show last night we're gonna do that as kind of a b-block of this show if you guys want to stick around for that but I went all like I said I want to give you a kind of more traditional podcast experience or so I just as a pod consumer myself sometimes the live show isn't as great in audio because I'm hamming it up for the room and you got to wait for the applause and all that. I don't know, some of you guys listen to me when you're going to sleep at night, I've

heard. And so that's not great when you have random people shouting and throwing their bras on stage. So it was a great night in Nashville. I was happy to see everybody. For those that want to stick around, I recommend the Justin Jones segment that we're going to have up in segment two here. But first, I want to welcome a writer at The Atlantic, author of the book, The Cruelty

is the Point. His latest piece is on the Trump administration's attack on knowledge called The Dark Age. Pumped to have him on the pod, it's Adam Serwer. Hey, Adam, what's happening, man? Not much. Just down here in San Antonio, finally getting a little rain. You're a San Antonio man? I am a San Antonio man.

I mean I generally don't talk about this. My wife is in the military, she's a surgeon and she's stationed here so that's why we live here. All right, well you get a lot of wimpy next year, that'll be good. Yeah. Well I'm excited to have you on. As I mentioned you have this new piece called the New Dark Age, which I want to get into.

First, I just have a couple of news items I've got to mention for folks. I'm interested to get your take on. There's a big New York Times take out on Elon, our former shadow president, has been kicked out. And I just felt like I had to mention that he's doing so much ketamine that he's having bladder control issues. That's not really great when the New York Times has a profile on you and they

mentioned your bladder control issues several times. I felt it was incumbent upon me for the listeners sake, in case they missed that, to flag that. But I'm interested in just in your broader take on Elon and his legacy from his four months of, I guess, ending USAID and failing at everything else. I'm wondering what you make of it all. I mean, I just think you can look at it

and see it as extraordinarily destructive, particularly abroad. You know, one of the things I think liberals would probably always concede to the George W. Bush administration is that PEPFAR is, you know, one of the best programs that the US has ever done. And you can see now, you know,

the withdrawal of this kind of international aid is affecting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, for no good reason. Not just no good reason, but in my view, illegally, because Congress appropriated that money and the executive does not have the authority to impound it. In some ways, one of the most important things about it

is the sort of things about it is the sort of ideology and mentality behind the belief that all these people's lives do not matter and you can simply withdraw the things that are keeping them alive and that will not have any consequences whatsoever because those people's lives aren't important. To be honest, that kind of boils my blood. I am completely unsympathetic to Elon and whatever his mental health issues are given the impact that he's had on the country. I think his effect on American democracy has been extraordinarily negative. To have someone who, you know, when you look at what they did in the courts with Doge, you know, this sort of shell game, pretending Elam wasn't in charge. You have this person who was not elected, who was not appointed in any like Senate confirmed way,

who was exercising all this authority to alter the structure of American government in a way that Congress did not authorize and the American people did not vote for. I just think it's incredibly destructive. And the fact that someone with that kind of wealth and power can simply walk into the US government and do whatever they want, I think is a real problem. However, America recovers from the Trump era, if it ever

does, is gonna be something really important to think about. How to prevent people like this from seizing control in this way and exercising their will in opposition to sort of basic democratic accountability. I think part of the issue here is, is that if you build a system that runs on checks and balances and the other branches are not willing to check and balance, you know, there's not a whole lot people can do.

You know what I mean? If Congress doesn't want to assert its authority, if the courts do not enforce the laws written, there aren't a whole lot of options. And I think in some ways, Elon really revealed the weakness of the system as it currently exists. You know, our friends over at Lawfare, Ben Wittes, flagged this from yesterday, Anna Bauer wrote this article about just like their efforts to even try to find the, who was the

supposed administrator of Doge and what the legal rationale was for it and I'll put the link in the show notes for people because it's it's I mean it's like a dark comedy because the seriousness of the matter but like this caper to find this ridiculous kind of person that's like the ostensible leader of Doge while Elon is running rush out over the government and to your point like when I was listening at your response, it's like on the one hand, yeah, we have to figure out, you know, if we get through this, how to put in protections that prevent this from happening in the future. But it's kind of like, in this case, those protections kind of existed.

It's just nobody's enforcing the laws. And like we're seeing this across a number of verticals, particularly on like Trump's corruption. In some of the cases, Trump has, you know, been like the Kool-Aid man breaking through the wall and just like not following any of the norms, things that were not laws, like, you know, going all the way back to I'm not gonna release my tax returns or whatever. But this time around, they're just acting straight illegally across a lot of areas and, you know, and the judiciary in some ways is limiting them, which has been good.

They've lost like 94% of their cases last month. But there are other areas where there isn't like a clear way to challenge it in the courts. And you're seeing this across, I think, corruption and Doge in particular. Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of extraordinary because you have this sort of a historical idea of, you know, the unitary executive, which is that it would just sort of in complete

opposition to the intentions of the founders. I mean, for, for years, I've been hearing, you know, about how important the founders intentions were. And here you have two things that are extraordinarily important to the structure of the government that they created, which is, you know, to prevent the arbitrary exercise of power by the state and to prevent foreign corrupt sources from using money to warp the government and the intentions of the government. And here you have Trump violating both of those things and conservatives insisting that it's not really a problem at all because the president is a king who can do whatever he wants. There are a lot of historical inversions in American politics, and I think, you know,

particularly with race, there's always this sort of inversion that happens where people talk about, you know, the actual oppressed people as though they're the oppressors. This happens a lot in American history, and that is used to justify oppression of that minority group. But here the inversion is extraordinary because you have all these people who are saying they want the government to be run exactly as the founders intended and then they invent these legal theories that allow them to do the complete opposite. One more news item that I wanted to flag just because you know, this is the thing that boils my blood the most and and I want to keep updated with the story but it relates to

what your point about Elon and USAID just about like the dehumanization of People around the globe and in this case, I'm referring to the Venezuelans. We sent to El Salvador There's a ProPublica story out this morning They obtained DHS data that shows that the US knew only 32 of the 238 Venezuelans that they disappeared to that prison in El Salvador were convicted of crimes. Only six of the 238 were convicted of violent crimes before they were sent there. It recalls to mind for me, I forget if it was a Times or a Post story from about a month ago where like even Bukele, I guess, had asked, like

somebody inside the administration was like, are you sure these guys are gangsters? Because like it doesn't really seem so to me. And so I think that's pretty telling when a tin pot dictator who's known for throwing people into jail without evidence is a little concerned that they were being willy-nilly. I think that was a pretty bad sign. So now we have hard data on that. I'm just wondering like what your reaction is to all of that. I think something that people simply do not want to accept because of how scary and extreme it is, is that Trump's mass deportation project

is actually a demographic engineering project. If you go back and you look at the emails that like Stephen Miller was exchanging with Breitbart writers and stuff like that back in the day, his perception is that the removal of racist immigration restrictions in 1965 doomed the country. And remember, when we're talking about these immigration restrictions, these were put in place essentially when eugenics was a reigning ideology among the American elite.

So his problem is that America has gotten less white than he wants it to be The reality of this is that there are not enough criminals to do a mass deportation of immigrant criminals undocumented criminals in the united states And so instead we're focusing resources on taking out people Who you know are gainfully employed and who have functionally assimilated some of whom are married To us citizens have, have US citizen children. But in the view of the people who are running this administration, they are a demographic problem that must be removed. And that's also why you see them closing the doors to refugees all over the world, except for white people from South Africa who are upset about the end of apartheid and don't want

to live in a country with a black majority that has democratic self-determination. The reality of this is is that it doesn't matter whether the Venezuelans are criminals because the people who are running this administration don't want them there because they are Venezuelan. It doesn't matter that many of them are ideologically conservative because they're fleeing a leftist regime in Venezuela. You know what I mean? It's like, I think a lot about, you know, the example of Jewish immigration. The first wave of Jewish immigration contains a lot

of left-leaning people because they're fleeing, you know, the Tsar. And the second wave from the Soviet Union contains a lot of conservatives because they're coming from a communist country. And so you have all these immigrants who, you know, ideologically are probably more inclined towards the right than the left,

but they are simply the wrong ethnicity. And so the Trump administration wants to get rid of them and bring in people who fit their idea of who Americans are and should be. Yeah, that's a good point. The case of the Venezuelans that are going to Sokoto is just, it's a little bit of a category difference, right? Because it's one thing if it's like, okay, man, we're gonna put you guys on a bus

and put you in shackles, whatever, and send you back to Venezuela or send you to Mexico or whatever. I mean, I would not be for that. It's another thing when it's like, no, we're gonna disappear you and put you in a hole in El Salvador. We're gonna put you in a gulag in a foreign country

where there's no due process and where reportedly no one has ever left. And I think, if you're El Salvador, they don't want anybody to leave. So even if they know that these people are non-dangerous, are not criminals, to maintain the mystique around this prison, they don't wanna let people out. It is a nightmare situation.

It is a complete violation of the basic constitutional values that the country was founded on in terms of preventing the arbitrary exercise of power and ensuring due process and stuff like that. One of the worst things I think that is happening right now as far as the Trump administration is concerned, I guess what worries me about it is the public in general is either uninformed about how bad what is going on is as far as this is concerned or seems unconcerned about it. But the reality is that the legal positions the administration has taken, which is like if we deport you by mistake, we don't have to go get you, means that a US citizen could

suffer that fate and could end up trapped in a foreign prison for the rest of their life for no good reason at all. I want to get to your article, The New Dark Age, which is why we asked you to come on. And I agreed with the premise and a couple of issues with some of the particulars. So let's dig in and let's, for folks who haven't seen it, just give a little kind of reader's digest summary of the argument you're making. Yeah. So, I mean, my argument is basically every field that involves gathering knowledge the Trump administration is trying to defund or impose a stifling, you know, we could use

the phrase political correctness on any kind of scientific, historical, cultural inquiry. You know, they don't want any studies saying, you know, employers, landlords, or, cultural inquiry. They don't want any studies saying employers, landlords, or anybody else is discriminating on the basis of race. They don't want any studies that say climate change is affecting the environment. They don't want any studies that say pollution is bad for you and makes you sick. They don't want any museum exhibits

that discuss the history of racism in the United States. They don't want any art exhibits that discuss the history of racism in the United States they don't want any art produced or history produced or taught that teaches anybody anything that might lead to people believing that industry should be more strictly regulated that you know equality under the law is not is not already a reality or that you know, we should redistribute income from of reality or that we should redistribute income from the rich to people who are not rich. It is basically an attempt to exert ideological control over basically every knowledge producing institution in the United States. They're doing this, I think, because one is that they see knowledge workers, white collar workers who are engaged in any kind of knowledge production as a kind of class enemy

given educational polarization in the United States. And so they want fewer of those people because they believe that will also mean fewer Democrats getting elected. The example that I use is, if you go back to the first administration with COVID, Trump's saying, if we stopped counting the cases, we wouldn't have so many cases.

That is basically the same thing that's going on here. If we can prevent the production of empirical information that can be used to politically oppose the administration, then people just have to trust us. And whatever it is we say, they are dependent on the firehose of propaganda that we produce day in and day out. And I think, you know,

the American research infrastructure is probably the most profitable, effective one that has ever existed in the history of humanity. Um, and that's simply a matter of like the time that we live in and, and how rich America is. I don't think it's like anything particular to Americans. But what's ironic, I think, is like, you have all these people from the tech industry who are involved in this sort of dismantling of this, but virtually every profitable technology that we adopt starts off as some sort of government grant

because prior to it becoming profitable, commercial entities can't take that kind of risk. I can't say for sure what the effect of this will be, but I know it will be bad for the country. One of my big concerns is that if you look at the way that red states have destroyed public goods, people might say, oh, well, there will be a backlash to this. But if you look at the way that red states have destroyed public goods in the end, you know, sometimes there isn't a backlash because people can be convinced to scapegoat or blame someone else for their problems and become, you know, perhaps even angrier, even more reactionary.

Yeah, no, I'm bringing, I make that point a lot. Like my husband's from West Virginia. Yeah. I like, I mean, West Virginia has, has collapsed economically and I could cross basically every metric over the past two decades and it's just gotten more and more red. That's right. You sometimes see liberals rooting for things to get worse so that people will get angry about it, but it's just not necessarily the case that that will lead to Republicans losing power and I think they understand that.

Okay. So the one part about this that I am absolutely aligned with you on is what their intentions are and part of that is because it's a nice gift to you after you've wrote the article, the Secretary of Education, our former WWE executive essentially admitted it. I got the audio, let's listen to it real quick. Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they're abiding by the laws and are in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish.

Universities should be allowed to do research as long as they're in sync with what the administration is trying to accomplish. I mean, that's some fucking communist shit. Yeah. I mean, it's totalitarian. You're allowed to think and say what the government allows you to think and say. And if you don't do that, then there will be consequences. Sometimes, the administration has people who are sophisticated enough to talk around these things and talk about them in euphemism. But obviously, Ms. McMahon, perhaps due to her career in professional

wrestling is not one of those people. There was another revealing moment during her confirmation hearing where they asked her whether a black history class would be illegal. And she said she didn't know. And it's like, you know, it's always good when you have the people who are not quite clever enough to veil what's actually going on. Yeah.

I may be a little bit more optimistic about their efficacy than you are. I actually have concerns about the theme of the article, the New Dark Age. I have some concerns about this across the technology and propaganda verticals. Right? Like, I mean, Elon owning X and a lot of these radicalized red pill tech guys owning these platforms and people struggling going forward to be able to tell truth from fiction, which is already a problem. I think it's gonna become a much, much greater problem

in the years ahead with AI. And so I have some concerns about that that are overlapping with what some people in the administration are doing. I'm not really sure that their efforts to defund research and silence black history classes and things like this are actually gonna work. I mean, there's gonna be long-term negative ramifications

because the research will stop for a few years. But to me, they seem a little bit like the Keystone cops on that front, and I'm more worried about the tech overlords on this front. I don't know what you make of that. I mean, I think you're probably right to worry about the technology. I think the thing that sticks out to me is the vaccine stuff.

So it's not just that knowledge is destroyed or the ability to accumulate and synthesize it is harmed, but it's replaced with junk, right? So you have this issue with this outbreak of measles in the Southwest and we're talking about cod liver. I mean, that stuff is really bad. My fear is partially not just, you know, that they're going to mess with technology, our ability to advance technology, but that, you know, people will stop accepting scientific conclusions because their brains are so cooked by the stuff that they're seeing on social media

As far as black history is concerned I mean on the one hand the internet means you can do a book burning that is much bigger than an actual literal book burning On the other hand it is hard to delete anything From the internet now that now that it exists a library of Alexandria situation. There's only one book Yeah, we're not talking about like, you know, there are plays that Aeschylus wrote that we're never gonna get to read. You know, me personally, I grew up in Washington, D.C.

I went to a public school. I went to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. And there were classes that I took there, classes on the Harlem Renaissance, classes on black history that were there because DCPS serves a mostly black student body. And when I got to college, I knew things that other kids had not been taught

because of that. And so, to some extent, my fear with this stuff, it's not so much that none of this stuff will ever get taught, but we're gonna turn the clock back to a period where people simply did not know the nuances of the history that I was fortunate enough to learn because they simply won't be taught it. Like it will simply be censored or it will simply be taken out of academic inquiry.

And I take the point that most kids are not arguing about whether or not the Civil War was caused by slavery. Like the truth is we have bigger problems as far as like making sure everybody learns math and reading properly. But I do fear that popular understandings of history really do affect ideological conclusions about the world. And they understand that. So like they're looking back to 2020 and the George Floyd thing, and they want to prevent something like that from ever happening again. They don't want any more awakenings around the importance of discrimination in public policy to happen

because that might lead to political changes. And we can make critiques about the excesses of that period and et cetera, et cetera, but the point is that, they do not want actual factual information to reach people in a way that might make them say well you know, maybe we should do something about this problem and You know that that is actually my bigger fear Not simply that they will manage to completely prevent anybody from ever reading the souls of black folk ever again

I mean, I didn't read the souls of black folk toes like 39 again This is one of the cool things about growing up in DC is that we just we learn things that other people didn't learn that people didn't learn until they got to college. But again, that's part of, you know, their assault on college, right, is that they don't want people learning those things when they get to these institutions. They don't want people learning about convict leasing or the true story of reconstruction or, you know, the Wilmington riot. They don't want people learning these things when they get to college. They want people learning what Stephen Miller says when he gets on the podium that America's great, it's always been great, there's never been any problems, and you should shut up and like it.

It's a provocative concept. It just had me kind of noodling it over my head because obviously if there is some kind of rollback of the clock or maybe roll forward of the clock where the way the technology works, that learning is different different and that we go through, you know, some period of regression, like it's not going to look like, like the dark age of the eight hundreds or whatever, right? Like it's

not going to be the same as it was in the past. But the confluence of this type of, you know, autocratic movement here and around the world with shortening attention spans, with AI, with how complicated it is to understand facts, with the loss of news judgment and just the proliferation of slop. I don't know, man. I think we could be going to a period where people are underestimating

just how much we could regress. I'm convinced after reading a lot about history that people are basically the same in every period but their circumstances are not the same. And I think what we've done with AI, with social media, with some other things is we've created technologies that enhance our some of our worst impulses as human beings in a way that makes democratic accountability very difficult. And I don't have all the answers to those problems, but I think you're right.

Like, no, the past does not repeat in that kind of identical way, but we can become a less literate, poor, less prosperous, more unequal and less democratic country as a result of everything that's happening now. And I think, you know, even if this period that we're in right now has some sort of happy ending, I think broadly speaking, that might be inevitable.

I'm not sure. We'll see. Yeah. Just a couple of other things I want to pick your brain on. What's it like being the cruelty is the point guy? You know, it's interesting. A couple months after I wrote that piece, I stopped saying it because I didn't want to be like catchphrase guy, you know what I mean?

Eagles like play hotel California. Yeah, you know, I wrote the book obviously because I had some things to say and I just, you know, I wanted to make the point more complex. So the book is more about sort of the ideological and historical currents that led to Trump to begin with. But you know, I don't have a problem with people using the phrase. I personally don't use it very much because I don't want to turn in to say the thing Bart, you know what I mean? Like, I just don't want to be that guy. Stay the line, Adam.

Yeah. But how's your thinking about it evolved since you first wrote it as far as the implications and I mean, we have so many more years now of information and action to kind of layer onto it. I think for me it remains the main political and human nature insight of the Trump people, which is that there is a kind of bond that is created

when you get together to pick on somebody. And that's as true of elementary school children as it is of adults. And I think emotionally, when you involve someone in something like that, they then become invested in defending it, right? So, you know, you look at these deportations to a gulag, like, you know, when the Trump administration says they're the worst of the worst, their supporters want to agree with that because the opposite implication says something very nasty about them personally, right?

One of the aspects of this kind of politics of cruelty is that it invests people in the cruelty in a way that makes it hard for them to reflect and change course. And I think they very much understand that because if you've invested so much of your life in hurting innocent people, you don't wanna believe that you're doing that. People want to believe they're acting in righteous ways.

And so pulling that back and saying, wait, I did something wrong, that's very hard for people to do regardless of ideology, regardless of ideology regardless of you know background and the Trump administration the Trump people understand this and they've sort of recruited people into this You know emotional sort of sunk cost situation where reversing yourself would mean acknowledging that you have been a party To some pretty terrible things and and that that says something, you know, not necessarily positive about you as a person Yeah, and I don't know whether this is an insight that somebody had or whether Trump just it's kind of like his predator natural like lizard

instinct to do this but it is why They do so much of the kind of silly cruel stuff too. That seems fun, right? Because it takes a little bit of the weight out of it. You know, I think about the eating the dogs, eating the cats, and then they have like the remix song that they're making of it. And you got the Ole Miss frat boys yelling it at a, you know, at a tailgate. And it becomes, to your point about how like getting together to make fun of somebody can bond people. If you're doing it in a way that feels jovial rather than feeling purely mean, it can add

more people to the group. I think Trump is uniquely good at that in a way that some of the copycats are not. It's easier to understand what's going on with Trump if you follow sports, you know, because there are teams that people root for and there are teams that people hate and they want to see fail. And when those teams fail, they love to like go online and make fun of their fans and you know I'm saying they feel good about it. And this is like very much the same dynamic that's happening in politics, except the stakes are real. Like, but I think for people being part of what they feel like is the winning

team, the team that's constantly owning the other side, people do like that. I mean, there's a reason why Real Madrid has so many fans. You know what I mean? And so this feeling of Trump winning and beating everybody, for them, it makes them feel good. It's like a boost to their self-esteem to be part of the quote unquote winning team. And I say this, you know, you know, I'm a big soccer fan. When my team wins, I feel good about myself for the next week. It's stupid. It has nothing to do with me. I'm not doing anything, but it is sort of like a human nature thing. And I think they understand that like with the Trump hats, with the red hats,

it's like a team sport. They're almost not like Trump fans, Trump supporters, they're Trump fans. And so they feel good when Team Trump wins, regardless of what the consequences of that are. That is part of the sort of hacking of the loser brain that the Trump folks have done that I think can be hard to understand if you're not a sports fan in some capacity, if you don't hate another team enough to be happy when they lose. The LSU fans, I'm an LSU man, they have a chant,

suck that tiger dick bitch, that the students yell with the other team. There is that element to try. And like that's appealing, it's funny, right? It's funny, it's again, everybody's together, the stakes are low, right? It's about like making fun of Bama or whatever. Like there's this tension right on the Democratic side

where it's like, do you react to that energy by saying, no, you know, we've got to be more serious and kind? Or do the Democrats need to suck that tiger dick bitch kind of energy too, do you think? I'm not a political consultant and I can't tell them. But that's kind of why we want your take, man. All the political consultants are failing. I will say that I think that's what the Harris campaign was trying to do, right? They were trying to be fun in a less negative way.

I don't know that the Democratic base is in the mood for that anymore. They want to see, to put it in soccer terms, they want to see some wins that are like five zero. You know what I mean? They want to see the other side receive its just desserts. I'm not sure that the vibe that they have right now is working for them as far as the base is concerned,

but I also don't know what the optimal approach is for maximizing their political support. It's an information environment that's extraordinarily toxic. And so it's difficult for them to get their message out. You know, they keep talking about like, we wanna talk about kitchen table issues. And it's like, well, the other side gets a say

in what you talk about. And the Democrats have not figured out how to talk, get everybody talking about the things that they want to talk about. And I think that is probably a much bigger issue, although I do think that some sort of specific, we are winning and we're making them mad at us and that feels good

element of Democratic politics is probably necessary as much as like, you know, someone like me might consider that You know beneath the seriousness of politics, but you know, the reality is as Trump has illustrated is that The way Americans and people in general and in general interact with politics is not always through the sort of high-minded values that we'd like to talk about when it comes to democracy. It's a growing thing that I'm starting to believe and I'm maybe starting to believe it too much,

so I'm questioning my own view on this because there is no silver bullet, but I do think people that are really into politics or really into politics or really into policy or have some very defined perspective, like when you see this kind of discourse happening online, it's like, well, it needs to be somebody that's more Bernie or it needs to be somebody that's more moderate or people have very defined views. And I was like, in the next segment, we're going to have a Justin Jones interview from

last night from Tennessee, and I was listening to him last night, and we agree on nothing, basically. But dude has charisma, and passion, and juice. And the Democrats haven't had anybody that's had juice, really, since Obama. And part of me just thinks that reaching, with that whatever sports team, you know, rallying cry energy is as much as more really about juice than it is even like the details, right? I mean, obviously there's some things that they could believe that are that would be disqualifying within a democratic coalition. But like, I don't know, I think part of it to me feels like that's more of the political

problem. I think that's part of it to me feels like that's more of the political problem. I think that's part of it I mean you look back to like Obama in 2012 where he sort of overperformed the polls with the same white voters White working-class voters in the Midwest that are hard to poll and that you know came out pretty substantially for Trump Yeah, I mean, I think there is you know, there's unquestionably a sort of Juice question there. I don't know who that might be, but I think when they tried to do all this negative stuff on Obama, he had an ability of redirecting or responding in a way that was extraordinarily effective.

And they, and I remember during that time how frustrated conservatives were that nothing seemed to stick. With him, they could never, you know, no matter what they said about him and how crazy it was, he always seemed to find a way out. And I think, you know, that is definitely related to personal charisma. People want wanted to like Obama.

And I think the reality is a lot of people want to like Trump. And so they will, you know, invent reasons to do so. And I think you see this sort of in the gap between what the Trump people are actually doing and want to do and what a lot of Trump supporters thought he would do. I went around to rallies and Trump was telling people he was going to get them their FEMA money

that Biden and Harris were giving to illegal immigrants. And now he's like blocking FEMA money for everybody. You know what I mean? Like there is a gap between what these people thought Trump was going to do and what he's actually doing. Like a lot of people say, you know, we need to get rid of the criminals. He's going to focus on the criminals. Why do you think, you know, why do you think it's racist?

Like you're being crazy. There is a gap between Trumpists and Trump. You know, there's a reason why he disavowed project 2025 during the election and is basically implementing it now. Right. But those people still want to like him. They still want to be Trump fans in the same way that a lot of Obama voters probably didn't agree with him on everything, probably thought he was a little too liberal, but they wanted to like him. All right. I want to ask you one more, but they wanted to like him. All right. I want to ask you one more thing.

I want to figure out one other topic. You've already been talking about it in the pod and written a lot about racial identity and how that intersects with politics. It's kind of interesting in this moment that you see a lot of white folks actually being the ones that are moving left. Like this New York mayor's race where the left is Canada. There's a poll I saw yesterday. He's doing well.

He's winning white voters, Zoran, while Andrew Cuomo is crushing him with black and brown voters. If you kind of look at the crosstabs from the election as they come out, Kamala, like basically held serve among suburban white people and lost ground, like a ton of ground with Hispanic men, less but a little bit of ground with black men, Asian men. Just what do you make of all that? Is there anything we can take from those trends? I think it's interesting because it feels like it's downstream of at least somewhat of education polarization. But at some point you sort of wonder when actual policy views are going to intervene here, but it really does

seem like we're floating on vibes in some ways. So you know, if Cuomo is somebody who is well known, has high name recognition, is like known as a prominent Democrat, was sort of got this reputation for standing up to Trump during COVID. You know, the people who are opposing him tend to be people who are, you know, much more dialed into the day-to-day politics stuff. And so it somewhat doesn't surprise me that there is that divide. You don't think of any policy element to it as like crime, immigration, social issues? I think it's interesting because, you know, black voters in particular tend to have more

progressive economic views and more conservative views on immigration. But I don't know that, you know, the mayor's race is turning on those particular issues. You know, it may be a question of we don't know who this guy is, but we know who Cuomo is, we know he stood up to Trump, etc, etc. And, you know, I don't talk about this much is, but we know who Cuomo is. We know he stood up to Trump, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, I don't talk about this much in the piece, but I do think, you know, we're in the midst of a kind of gender related backlash, you know, where things that got people in trouble when they did terrible things to women back in the day, you know, that was a career ender.

And I think we're in the midst of a backlash where there's a lot of people who do not want that to be a career ender. And I think we're in the midst of a backlash where there's a lot of people who do not want that to be a career ender. You know, there are people who probably should be unacceptable, who I would consider unfit for public office, who are nonetheless, you know, getting a second chance in part because of this backlash against what people, what some people feel like is oversensitivity to sexism.

And I think they're wrong, but that doesn't mean that a lot of the electorate agrees with me. All right, brother. You got anything else? Anything I didn't ask you about you want to pop off on? Nope, not really. Thanks so much for having me on and we'll talk next time. Man, I really appreciate it.

We'll have you back soon. Everybody else, stick around for Lauren Egan and Justin Jones and I'll be back here with you on Monday with Bill Kristol. See you all then. Peace. Okay how many people actually live in Davidson County? Now who lives in Justin's district? All right, all right. You've got some constituents in the room. Okay. Well, thanks everyone for being here. Thank you for being here. I wanna start off with just what's been going on in the state over the past few weeks.

The ice raids, I'm sure most of you in the room have heard about those. Talk to me about what happened in your district a few weeks ago and what your initial reaction was when you got that first phone call that there was these ice raids going on, about 500 people get pulled over, 200 arrested. What was your reaction? Well first of all I just want to say thank you all for being here from the Bulwark. Recognize the importance of the South particularly in this moment. Thank you all for showing up. We'll get to that too. We will get to that. But as we know here in Nashville,

we've had terror in our community. 196 of our neighbors were taken, mostly in the dark of night, by officers who never identified themselves in coordination with the Tennessee Highway Patrol in the predominantly immigrant part of our community, which is the district I represent from East Nashville to Anyok.

District 52, the District of Resistance is what we call it. And we were told of five names, but what about the other 191? People who were like church members on Owensville Road, a volunteer man who was arrested on his birthday, an elder, a mother who was a cook in a kitchen, a man who had worked an overtime shift at Walmart, taken, stolen.

Over 100 of them were told that they had committed no crime ever, and yet we have these criminals named Kristi Noem and Andy Ogles and Gino Busso and Jack Johnson telling us that they are criminals because five people, they said, were committed to crime. If that was the case, then the Republican Party would be called a criminal party because we have

Glen Casta charged with over a dozen felonies. We have Brian Kelsey convicted and charged of felonies. We have Scotty Campbell who resigned, the Vice Chairman of the Republican Caucus for committing sexual harassment. We have Jeremy Durham who resigned because dozens of cases of sexual harassment and now discharged with DUI. If they wanna talk about criminality,

they don't need a press conference. The Republicans in Tennessee need a mirror. That's what they need. You mentioned Andy Ogles. Yes! And the other Justin Boyle mentioned his press conference that he had over the holiday weekend. And I want to read this tweet that he posted.

He tweeted, and this is at our mayor, Freddie O'Connell, who of course he's now saying he wants a congressional investigation into how the mayor handled these ICE raids. He tweeted, if you're helping violent gangs destroy Tennessee by obstructing ICE, you belong behind bars. What can local officials do in this situation to help the immigrant community when you have someone like Ogles tweeting that at our mayor?

Yeah. First of all, Andy should be very familiar with the need for law and order because he was somebody who was being investigated by the FBI that coincidentally it went away when Trump came to office but he's very familiar with criminal behavior, someone who stole money from a children's charity and lied about his resume and committed campaign fraud so he knows about criminality. But what we want to say is that I have a very different position because I think one thing that the expulsions taught me in 2023, those of you know we were expelled from the Tennessee

House for doing our job, for standing up to this Republican supermajority. And my advice to Mayor Freddie O'Connell would be that you face a crossroads. Either capitulate to authoritarianism or choose courage. And I want to tell my brother, Freddy O'Connell, that cowardice asks the question, is it safe?

Expediency asks the question, is it political? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And so when the mayor is saying, oh, you know, I don't want to do anything that they find to unlawful, let us be clear that their actions are unlawful. Violating the 14th Amendment is unlawful.

Violating equal protection under law and due process is unlawful. What the ICE and our Tennessee Highway Patrol are doing to our immigrant neighbors is unlawful. And so I say to the mayor, do not back down, do not apologize, because when we got expelled, I'll tell you a secret. Something that's not really a secret,

but something that wasn't really publicized, is that one of the heartbreaking things is when we stood in, I'll tell you a secret. Something that's not really a secret, but something that wasn't really publicized, is that one of the heartbreaking things is when we stood in the well of the house after they cut off our microphone on the house floor after three nine-year-olds and three adults were killed at the Cognate School, we went to the house floor with a megaphone because we wanted to amplify the voices

of those young people who were saying, do something, do something. And the sad part is it was members of our own caucus, our Democratic caucus leadership who said, you should apologize to the Republican leadership. And say, you didn't know better, you were young. And I said, Cameron Sexton should apologize. And you know, title, this title of being a representative

is nice, the title of being a mayor is nice, but your purpose is better. And you must be willing to risk your title for your purpose. And that's my message to the mayor. You mentioned that democratic power in the South. We're sitting in the South right now, and I think everyone in this room probably knows something very interesting has been going on in the South

over the past few years. There are a lot of people moving to the region. I'm a transplant, you are a transplant. We love a good transplant in Nashville. But that's gonna have political ramifications for the country. In the coming years, the whole South is going to probably gain a few congressional seats

and that means that if Democrats ever wanna control the House again, if a Democratic president ever wants to get elected after the 2030 census, they're going to have to make some real serious inroads in the South. So I guess my question for you is, how screwed are Democrats?

Wow. First of all, I'm physically new to the South, but my lineage is from the South. And I just want to say the name of my grandmother, because I would not be who I am without my grandmother, Harriet. And my family fled the South during Jim Crow, moved to Chicago from Tennessee, and then moved to California. And so I say my ancestors call me back here

because even though Jim Crow is over, now we face Jim Crow's son named James Crow Esquire, which is more sophisticated and subtle, but it's just as dangerous as Jim Crow. And what I would say is that it's important, you know, I've been traveling the country a lot. I was just in Buffalo speaking at the university for the graduation. I was just in Colorado. And what I would say is that it's important, you know, I've been traveling the country a lot. I was just in Buffalo speaking at the university for the graduation.

I was just in Colorado. And so often I hear people say, oh, just let the South secede right off the South. And I always tell them, number one, as somebody who represents a very diverse district, I know that the majority of black people in this nation live in the South. I know that if you want to change this nation, you must change the South. If we study the abolition of slavery and reconstruction to the civil rights movement, this has been the front line of our democracy. And the reason why there is so much repression in the South is because they know that if we come together as black and white, indigenous, Latino, that we can build a new South. And I always tell

people, you hear that saying from George Wallace and all these Southern governors, they said, the South's gonna rise again, the South's gonna rise again. I say, no, we reject that. And we say that the South's going to rise anew, a South that is multiracial, multi-faith, multi-generational, pro-justice, anti-poverty, pro-queer. That's the South that we can build. And so my message to the National Democrats as they look is come South, because if we can change the South, we can change this nation. This has been the blueprint.

That's why they came up with a Southern strategy to try and divide and conquer us. But we've only been a Republican super majority since 2010 in Tennessee. This is still relatively new. We can go back, the pendulum can shift. And let's tell one more truth is that Tennessee is not a red state, but it's a state that ranks 50 in voter turnout, where one in five black people

cannot vote because of voter suppression, that has been gerrymandered to oblivion. And that's the only reason they keep power. They're not a powerful majority. They are a very fragile party that's cheated their way into power, and I think that's the truth that needs to be said. I wanna dig into that a bit more,

because in case you all weren't aware, Donald Trump won this state by 900,000 votes. You could literally drop another Memphis or Nashville in the state, and he would still win. So what is the state's party and what do you think Democrats in the state should be doing to broaden the base statewide? Because there are a lot of rural voters here,

there are a lot of conservative voters here, there are a lot of independent voters here, and I think the reality is that if Democrats want to compete statewide, they're going to have to get some of those voters to come into their camp. That's exactly it and one of the greatest blessings that Cameron Sexton gave me was that after the expulsion he decided to punish me and took me off Education Committee, took me off Government Operations Committee and put me on Agriculture Committee.

And the Agriculture Committee was supposed to be a punishment because I knew absolutely nothing about agriculture, I live in an urban district, but it's been the most powerful place to organize rural and urban coalitions that can transform this state. What we as Democrats have to do is that we have to go to territory that is not always comfortable, that is not always familiar to us. When I was put on this committee,

one of the first places I went was to Columbia, Tennessee, the only member of our committee to stand with the folks in Columbia when they're trying to pollute the Duck River, the most biodiverse river in North America, and a river that they were trying to build a landfill on a former Monsanto site, met with cattle farmers. I remember walking in to homes of some cattle farmers on the Duck River where they had Fox News on. Some of them, some folks had Confederate flags there. I said, let me get out of here before it gets dark, but you know, I'm here

now. But what I learned is that they had stereotypes about me and I had stereotypes about them. And I went to that committee, I mean I went to that community as a member of the Agriculture Committee and the members of the committee were terrified. They're like, you don't represent that district. Why are you going down there? You're building a relationship. You know, they took me to Gator across all these farms introducing me to these cattle farmers saying, you're the only one who showed up to fight for us. That's what we have to do. Just this year we were able to defeat,

this is some good news, this year we were able to defeat one of the worst bills this session, it was a bill to give immunity to Bayer who now owns Monsanto, when our farmers get cancer and Parkinson's and sick from their pesticides and Rusty Grills tried to push this bill through. We worked with Republicans in those communities, farmers who who said we thought you were just this extremist they told us that you just want to burn the capital down we

didn't know you know we didn't know you and I said you know this is this is how we can win is by going and lifting up these these ideas of a great what I call agrarian populism that's how we're gonna transform this state and I have hope because once I got back from these counties, every time I get back from Pulaski, Columbia, we had a rally down in Bradley County, one of the reddest counties. One of the Republicans tweeted,

I didn't know there's this many Democrats in our county. We have to go and play offense and show up. And I'll tell you the truth, it will terrify them. Once we get outside of Davidson County, once we get outside of Shelby County and go to their district and say did you know that Rusty Grills voted to poison farmers? Did you know that Clay Doggett voted to privatize our education and steal from our public schools? We have to go there

and let them know that we're fighting for them and the last thing I'll say is that when I was expelled my message they said what is your message to your Republican colleagues and my message to them is the message I want to share with you. I've just been kicked out of my job in this unprecedented expulsion. I said I want my Republican colleagues to know that I'm fighting for their children and grandchildren too and each time we walk into that building that's what makes us different from them. It's that we're not we are not this tribalist and we want to destroy you that we want you to be oblivious. We want your children to

have quality public education. We want them to have clean water and access to health care. We want your children to be free from the terror of school shootings. We're fighting for your children and grandchildren too, and that's what makes us different than them. In the meantime, before Democrats went back to Tennessee at some point, in the meantime, the reality is that Republicans control pretty much everything in the state.

You have to work with Republicans if you want to get anything done. How do you approach your relationships with the state Republicans that you have to see when you're in session? And how do you think about reaching across the aisle when that's really the only option to get any bills passed right now? See, I have a different mindset.

They like to, as soon as you walk into the Capitol, you'll see minority caucus. They like to, as soon as you walk into the Capitol, you'll see Minority Caucus. They call us the Minority Caucus. And I said, I like what they say in England better. In England, they say we are the opposition party. Our role is to be a check on your power, to be a speed bump as you try and drive this train of our state over the cliff.

And so, Jack Johnson, I'll never forget, my first week in the legislature, he taught me a very important lesson. He's a horrible person, but even our enemies can teach us something. I was on the elevator, I think I had my first week in the legislature. He taught me a very important lesson. He's a horrible person, but even our enemies can teach us something. I was on the elevator. I think I had my white suit on. I was going to my first committee meeting.

I was excited, a little nervous, and he was on the elevator. And his welcome to me was saying, Jones, I want you to know that you're worthless and you're not supposed to be here. And that was his welcome to me my first week in the legislature. But I actually appreciate Senator Johnson now,

because at that point I didn't know what to say. I went to Gloria's office, I was like, you know, this just happened, I mean, overt racism, ages of all the isms, and I didn't know how to respond. But I actually appreciate him because he taught me a very important lesson in that legislature, that I'm not there to make friends. I'm there to make change for my district.

And I'm willing to work with Republicans in the community, but I know that that party in there is a party that is drunk with power. And there is no way that we can work with people who are so arrogant, who have so much hubris, that even when their own Republicans vote against vouchers, they kick them out of their committees and kick them out of their office space.

When their own Republicans speak out, they are punished. People like Todd Warner from Chapel Hill, who has been ostracized because he dares say that vouchers are gonna destroy his rural school district. I mean, this is a party that is not willing to work with us, that sees us as subjects, that sees us as people. Another thing in the legislature, you come in committee rooms,

all the Republicans are set out to die above us, and we're supposed to sit below them as this unspoken rule. I sit next to them because I want them to know that we are colleagues, that we are equals, and that we are not below them, that we got here the same way we represent the same amount of people, and that we have an obligation to stand up for our constituents. Article 2, section 27 of the Tennessee Constitution says that every lawmaker has a right to dissent from and protest against legislation that is injurious to the people and to have their

dissent marked in the Journal of the House and so every time we speak up every opportunity we have I speak up for my district because I know that we may not win this vote but I know that when history sees us at this moment my children and grandchildren know that we stood up for them and that we that they were that not all of us were insane in this time and I hope and what I know too is that we're winning over some of their children. Senator, I'll just say names I'm just honest. Senator Garner hired stop mails

in the governor's office for Christmas. He said, can I take a picture with you? Because I try to convince my son to not like you, but he supports you. So I want to show him that we know each other. And so we're winning their children. Why do you think they're banning books? Why do you think they're trying to restrict curriculum?

Because we're winning their children. They know that their time is limited, that the clock is ticking. That people like Paul Sherrill, who says we need to bring back lynching, those days are over. That their time is limited, that the clock is ticking, that people like Paul Scherl, who says we need to bring back lynching, those days are over. That their time is running out, and so they have to cheat their way and voters are pressed,

but these are not powerful people. Because if you're powerful, you will not have to shut off microphones when somebody disagrees with you. So given that, is there actually any path forward to getting something like gun legislation passed, or is that just kind of not going to happen right now? I think we judge our victories by the bad bills we stop.

I think that is where we are now. There's 24 members of our caucus, 23 when Johnny Shaw forgets he's a Democrat. And so I think we have to be honest about where we are. And what we have to do is like what we're trying to do when ad committees build coalitions with their people in their district. That's how advocates we want to shout on uplift, we're able to defeat that horrible asinine bill that was going to stop undocumented kids from going to school.

That was defeated this session. What a powerful victory. The Monsanto Cancer Act, whatever they wanna call it, that was defeated this year. There were bad bills stopping. We have to judge our victories, not just based off of what we passed, because some of my colleagues do see that you win

by based off of what you passed. And so they'll pass a bill that says, we're gonna put a marker here, a historical marker, which is beautiful, but I wanna see the material conditions change for my constituents. And so I'm not willing to silence myself in order to pass a symbolic resolution.

And so I think we have to realize too that our victories can be judged by stuff of the coalitions we're building. How many people are we bringing with us? Who are the new people who are engaging in this process to come testify? So many people, I've traveled the state. I remember I was in Tullahoma. I think Ms. Janice and I, she was with me. And this man came out this restaurant, this Meat and 3, and he looked like he was from Duck Dynasty. And I said, oh Lord, he's like, he's like coming up to our table I was like oh lord just he's gonna say something he said keep up the good trouble in Tullahoma that's a victory when we win over their people

when we play offense when we let them know that we are building a coalition that can defeat this coalition of hate and fear and division by building a coalition based off of solidarity and showing up for each other, I think that's how we judge our victories. And I think that that the tide is gonna shift because they're getting so arrogant with power that even their own voters are, Republicans are saying, you know, defecting and saying this is getting too extreme for me. And I think this voucher bill is gonna help us. I think, you know, this, this, what's happening at the federal level, 25% increase price on fertilizer because of

these tariff wars. So many of our farmers had these grants with USAID that have been cut. Now they're struggling with their soybeans. Where are they going to send these? I mean they're hurting too and so I think this is the opportunity not to say we were right. We told you so but to say welcome, welcome to this movement. You're always welcome here. I've got one more question for you and then we'll invite our friends back up. But when you got kicked out that was obviously a moment for you to, you have this huge national profile, you have this ability to raise money on the national level. How have you thought about leveraging that new national profile and using that to really build up the Tennessee State Party to support other candidates locally?

How do you view your role now at the state party? I think my loyalty is to the movement. And so just this past election, some people who were recruited to run who won are my dear sister Shondell Brooks, who lost her son in the Waffle House mass shooting, the first woman of color to represent her district, a powerful advocate for common sense gun laws. We were able to recruit it.

Even Democrats said someone like that could not win that district. But I said, we have to change the face of who is in power, who are in these halls. And so she won. We had our dear sister, Gabby Salinas, the first Latina member of the Democratic caucus to be elected.

So we're changing the face of the party, bringing in people who are closer to the pain, should be more proximate to the power, and changing the tradition of what it means to be a lawmaker. And so that's what we're doing. I think that is where my loyalty is too, is because I want to see people who are not doing it

just for a title, but who are doing it, who have the heart and who are willing to risk something because that's what is required of this time. It's not to do something that's comfortable. Our democracy requires disruption. People are disrupted even with their mere presence, even with their mere story to say that, hold on, we dissent. We offer an alternative narrative to your dominant narrative of fear and oppression.

And I think that's what we have to do. And so, you know, the other thing too is, you know, we've been able to raise money because we're not accepting these corporate PAC dollars. Majority of people spend their time calling all these corporate PACs on the Hill. They have these big fundraisers with people who are against the interests of our constituents.

I've rejected all that and just taking money from teachers and nurses and workers and everyday people. And so that's who I answer to. And I think that's what people want to see, that they want to see us not compromise our values, but to say that we stand 10 toes down for them and that we're gonna be consistent. And even I've had Republicans say,

we disagree with you, but we know that when you say you're gonna do something, you're gonna be consistent and that you're gonna be honest. And I think people want to see more authenticity in our politic. They want courage, they want conviction, and they don't want this both sides. And they don people want to see more authenticity in our politic. They want courage. They want conviction. And they don't want this both sidesism. They don't want this, you know, we're

facing a very dangerous time. And I think we won't be apologetic for how bold we are in response. But we will be apologetic to future generations by how timid we are when our democracy is on fire, when the House is on fire, when things are collapsing all around us. We'll be apologetic for what we didn't do

as opposed to what we did do. And so when I took a megaphone out of my pocket, was it in the quorum, was it a violation of house rules? They say it was. But I knew that it was required in that time because those children were saying, please do something, hear us, see us. And so when they expelled us, I also wanted to just,

and by saying it was not about us, it was about the people who showed up, mostly young people, who showed up in the largest number since the Civil Rights Movement, demanding better of our government. Children and young people who could never unsee what they saw that day, who really transformed that place to a point where the Republicans ended session early

because they were terrified of these young people. And they've now surrounded the Capitol and troopers. You have to have tickets to sit in the gallery. All these processes to keep the people out of the people's house. And the reason they're these processes to keep the people at the people's house. The reason they're doing that is because that year those young people were effective. They were powerful. Power only responds when it's threatened.

They knew that was effective. They knew that they're on the losing side of history. They've lost a generation. Now, they're trying to hold on to power. As we say in the South, a dying mule kicks the hardest. This mule of white supremacist patriarchy and of terror, of plantation politics is dying. So they're trying to kick with everything they have to hold on to power.

But we know that we're going to build a circle larger than they can even keep us out and that we're gonna bring some of their folks in. And I really have hope in this season as I've traveled that something is happening right now. People are being awakened. There's a reckoning happening and I'm hopeful for 2028. I'm hopeful for 2030.

I know that Tennessee is gonna shock the nation. I know that together, when I see a room like this, I know that as we show up, continually build community, I know that we can transform Tennessee. And if we can transform Tennessee, we can transform this nation. I used to spend my nights out in the bar room I'm far from Lick was the only love I've known But you rescued me from reaching for the bottom And brought me back, being too far gone

You're as sweet as strawberry wine You're as warm as a glass of brandy The Bullwork Podcast is produced by Katy Cooper with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.