The Bulwark Podcast - Will Saletan: The #MeToo Fail

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

The progressives both-sidesing the sexual violence against Israeli women and girls has only added to the horrors of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Plus, Trump won't take 'No' for an answer, and Lindsey Graham capitulates to the anti-Ukraine isolationists. Will Saletan joins Charlie Sykes for Charlie and Will Monday.

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. Happy Monday and welcome back. Will Salatan, how are you? I'm doing fine, Charlie. How about you? So as I was mentioning to you right before we got started, these Monday podcasts are really difficult because there is so much going on. And just over the weekend to catch up with everything, you have to really go over your notes and realize, wow, so that happened since Friday morning. So on Friday morning, we taped one of these, we recorded one of these with former Congressman Adam Kinzinger. And pretty much after we were done recording, everything happened during the day. We had those double court rulings coming down, basically saying, you know, Donald Trump is not a king. Just because you were president does not mean that you were immune from prosecution.

So we had the appeals court come down, boom, and then Judge Chutkan, who had just an epic decision. Also, I think it was about 10 minutes after we were done, the House of Representatives voted to expel George Santos, which is really incredible. The only the sixth guy in American history to be expelled from the United States Congress. I think he's the first one to be expelled without being convicted of a crime or being part of the civil war. Right. So, I mean, there's, there's his asterisk on a footnote in American history, but in case you missed it, SNL, which is kind of hit and miss sometimes they absolutely nailed this with their cold open. Let's just play a little bit of their George Santos post-expulsion press conference.

Okay, enough! Enough! Enough! Everyone, stop assaulting me! I'm being assaulted! This entire country has been bullying me just because I am a proud gay thief. But what else is new? America hates to see a Latina queen winning. Since the day I was elected, it's been a witch hunt. But if I'm guilty of anything, it's for loving too much slash fraud.

Now, I'm sure you bloodthirsty jackals in the media have a thousand mean, nasty questions you're dying to ask me. Go. And it goes on like that, including his rendition of Scandal in the Wind. I guess there are a couple of points to be made about George Santos. I mean, he really is kind of a symbol of our times that someone like that could be in American politics, they could get elected, that nobody would vet him before he got into office. And this flamboyantly corrupt individual turned out to be too embarrassing, even for a Republican Party that's about to re-nominate Donald Trump, which is saying a hell of a lot, isn't it? That sketch is hilarious in part because it captures the relationship of Santos, but also other people like Santos in politics with the media, right?

Well, we bash the media, the media is evil, the media attacks us, the media bullies us, but he totally craves the attention. He absolutely loves it. That sketch is not far off from, I watched his final press conference that he did about the ethics investigation and his martyrdom. And it was all about him being bullied. But he did say, Charlie, apropos of Trump, he did say, no matter what happens, if he got expelled or whatever, he was still going to fight for one thing. And that was to see Donald Trump back in the White House. I'll bet he does. In a Congress and in a political party that has, you know, accepted the Marjorie Taylor Greene's, the Lauren Boebert's, the Paul Gosar's, you know, all of these bizarre figures, you know, George Santos did sort of stand out as more flamboyantly corrupt than others. But I

thought Adam Kinzinger made a great point in his Substack newsletter, which I quoted in my newsletter this morning, Morning Shots. You should subscribe or at least think about it. He writes, Santos was expelled for being Donald Trump. It seems telling. A liar, fraud, money launderer, indicted hanger-on-er is expelled from Congress while a liar, fraud, money launderer, indicted hanger-on-er is leading the GOP race for president. This conundrum is not a conundrum at all. In fact, it is a feature of today's GOP. And Santos made this point, right? He said, look, if you're going to start throwing people out for people who have not been convicted, he was drawing that distinction, but lying, fraud, I mean, Congress is full of people. Now, honestly, he's in his own league as far as his whole life

is a fraud, right? I think that's kind of what happened to him. An entertaining fraud. Yeah. I mean, but like everything, my favorite line about Santos's expulsion was from Mark Strassman on CBS who said, Santos has now been expelled. That part of his resume is real. It's like the rest of it is fake. Yeah. I mean, obviously the next chapter is probably him either cutting a plea deal or going to prison or a little bit of both of those things, which is going to make it harder for him to get a cable gig. You know, I'm afraid we might not have him to kick around anymore. Although I can certainly imagine historians trying to capture the just the craziness of the politics of 2023, 2024, and starting a chapter by talking about George Santos, you know, in the context of everything that's going on. Okay, so I was actually on another podcast, Talking Feds podcast,

I was kind of surprised that one of the other guests, and I don't want to get this wrong, but I think a former member of Congress was saying that she was very troubled by the precedence set by the expulsion of George Santos because he hadn't been convicted, which of course is the argument that the Republican leadership used. By the way, we ought to mention here that every member of the Republican leadership of the House voted against expelling George Santos. But she was saying it was a bad precedent. And I said, OK, it is a different precedent, but there are just some people that are just so far over the line. It's sort of like, you know, I can't define pornography, but you certainly know it when you see it. It's like, do you really need a court of law to say that George Santos is a lying fraudster? I mean, this one was not a close call, as you saw from the overwhelming vote in the House. To the extent that they tried to draw a line, a clear line, as to why George Santos should be expelled but not others in Congress, it was the Ethics Committee report, right? So we don't have a conviction, but we have a committee report.

Santos then attacks the committee report and says it wouldn't pass muster in a court of law, that kind of thing. But I do wonder, I don't want to exactly defend George Santos, but why is Paul Gosar still in Congress? Why isn't a sort of explicit white nationalist? I mean, there are other people. Well, Senator Menendez. Well, Menendez, right. He's accused of crimes and that's going to be a process. But there are things we know about some other members that ought to raise questions about whether they meet the moral standards to be in Congress. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But then there's Trump. Okay. This party is about to re-nominate Donald Trump for the presidency, despite the 91 indictments, which is basically only a fraction of all of the things that we know about Donald Trump, you know, including the

finding by a federal judge that he actually raped a woman, which I don't know, Will, you know, at one time, believe it or not, for some of our younger listeners in the before times, that would have been a problem that would have been disqualifying. Now it's like, yeah, there's also that. So can we just pause on that for a minute? Yeah. So Santos has been chucked out of Congress because the ethics committee, not a court of law, but the ethics committee passed this report. Because we have standards. Right, right. So that's not even a legal proceeding.

Donald Trump has been found liable by a jury, at least a legal process, for sexual assault, which the judge then said would be called rape, except under New York law, right? And yet, the same members of Congress who chucked George Santos are standing by the, I don't want to say convicted, but found liable rapist. So speaking of Donald Trump and religious faith, we had a couple of interesting moments. Did you see the video of all of the evangelical pastors praying over Donald Trump and saying the gates of hell will not prevail against Donald Trump or something like that. I don't know whether it was intended to be an exorcism or what it was. And then you had Donald Trump who goes on a program, kind of one of these fluffer programs where they're saying, Donald Trump, you are such a man of faith and

such a man of prayer and ask him how he manages to endure all of these Christ-like slings and arrows and how his faith strengthens him. And listen to how he answers this. How do you do this? Where do you draw your strength from? We're talking about faith. How do you do it? One of the reasons is that I have the highest poll numbers people have virtually ever seen.

Okay, so, see, Will, you just can't make this shit up. I mean, sorry, so he's asked about his faith, and he mentions his poll numbers. I mean, do we need to even say anything about this? It's just about the worst thing you I mean, like literally, literally some of the heart of Christianity is about not caring what, quote, men, what people think, right? Focusing only on what God wants. And Donald Trump does just the opposite. He says, you know, it's the opinions of other people that count, not any sort of moral. On this same theme, Trump is giving a speech somewhere or other, and he's talking about, again, obsessing about the election and the poll numbers,

and invokes what he thinks would happen in the 2024 election if Jesus and God were running the election. So I'm going to put this in the category of Donald Trump's religious faith. So when Donald Trump thinks about Jesus Christ and God, this is the context which he addresses it. But I think if you had a real election and Jesus came down and God came down and said, I'm going to be the scorekeeper here, I think we'd win there. I think we'd win in Illinois and I think we'd win in Illinois. And I think would win in New York, which is all places in theory. Absolutely. I mean, who in New York, when you see what happened, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants pouring out all over Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue. People are so angry. Even Democrat politicians now are going after Biden. The mayor

is going after him. They're all going after him. But who would say that this is acceptable? I think he can win New York. I think he can win New Jersey. I think we can win Virginia. And California, I think he mentioned. Now, we could use words like delusional there, but it is interesting, once again, for the fact that 80-some percent of evangelical Christian voters look at him and say, God's anointed. Yes, absolutely, yes. Right. God was around. I would win New York because people are so pissed off at these immigrants.

You know, periodically we come back to this point. Is Donald Trump a liar or is he delusional? Right. Now, what I want to defend here is the proposition. First of all, I think he is delusional. And, what I want to defend here is the proposition. First of all, I think he is delusional. And I know a lot of folks disagree with me. They just think he's lying about all this stuff. I think he has convinced himself of things like he could win Illinois, he could win New York. And he's been saying that for years. But the reason why I think it is worse that he is delusional is going back to what we discussed before, the rape case.

There's a certain kind of date rapist who thinks, what woman wouldn't want me? And then no signal that a woman sends on a date or a woman sends not on a date, just like, get away from me. He just won't accept it. Of course you want me. And then he forces himself on her. This is my model for how Donald Trump thinks about the United States. Of course, Illinois would vote for me.

Of course, New York would vote for me. Who wouldn't vote for me? Who would vote for the Democrats? If you watch any Trump rally, he always says the Democrats' policies are so bad, nobody would vote for them. The votes come in. The votes say that the voters chose the Democrats, not you. We literally watched him refuse to accept election results and say, people must want me.

This is your next piece, right? Donald Trump is the ultimate date rape. It works on a lot of levels, you know? Yeah, it is the most frightening thing to me about Donald Trump. He will not take no for an answer. If he gets back in power, what makes us think he's going to take no for an answer? I mean, this is a point that we have talked about extensively. And we had these pieces like, you were not sufficiently alarmed last week. And people are going, we are totally alarmed. Well, no. I do think that it is important to keep coming back to the fact that Donald Trump would have no constraints on him in a second presidency. And he's made it absolutely clear what he would do. And by the way, okay,

so this week, this is going to be Liz Cheney's week. Her book is rolling out. She's going to be everywhere. I was reading it over the weekend, actually, because we're going to have her on the podcast. And you know what strikes me once again about this? I'm sorry, this is a little bit of a digression. You know, you see the pictures of her as a little girl with President Ford and with President Reagan and with, you know, President, I mean, she was, I don't know if it's fair to call her, you know, GOP royalty, because, you know, she wasn't in the line of succession or anything, but certainly part of that was a nobility. I mean, to say that this was somebody who grew up absolutely immersed in Republican politics, absolutely immersed in conservative politics. I mean, it is in her DNA. She grew up around presidents. She

grew up around the White House. She grew up around politicians. You know, her father was the vice president, Dick Cheney, et cetera, et cetera. I just think it's worth remembering because I think we've gotten used to like Liz Cheney is very, very anti-Trump. The fact that these warnings are coming from Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney is still remarkable. And it's a sign of how quickly we normalize things, that the fact that this was the number three Republican in Congress. I'm sorry to dwell on this for a moment, but let's listen to Liz Cheney and how far she's willing to go in sounding the alarm of what might be coming down the road. This is Liz Cheney over the weekend. You know, we're facing a situation with respect election that might be thrown into the House of Representatives

is overseen by a Republican majority. So you would prefer a Democratic majority? I believe very strongly in those principles and ideals that have defined the Republican Party. But the Republican Party of today has made a choice and they haven't chosen the Constitution. And so I do think it presents a threat if the Republicans are in the majority in January 2025. Okay, now I understand there's going to be a certain group of people who are going to say, well, of course, that's the bare minimum.

No, this is Liz Cheney, who spent her entire life in Republican politics, saying that I think it's too dangerous not just to have Donald Trump in power, but to have a Republican Congress in power. And, of course, she's talking about, well, two scenarios. Number one, a Republican Congress that might not agree to count the electoral votes as Donald Trump wanted, you know, back in 2021, or the possibility that, you know, our friends from no labels, by the way, friends, here's my air quotes here, might manage to fuck up the election to the point where nobody gets 270 electoral votes and the House of Representatives chooses the next president. It is extraordinary to me, listening to Liz Cheney say that about a Republican Congress. It is.

And, you know, when I think about Liz Cheney, I feel hopeful. And the reason I feel hopeful is I don't believe that people like me can change enough votes, can persuade enough people to vote against Donald Trump. But I have some hope that Liz Cheney and some others like her have enough credibility with folks who otherwise would vote Republican, would vote for the Republican presidential nominee, to just move enough votes to swing enough states. So I think Liz Cheney is enormously important. It helps that she is Republican royalty. It helps that she has credibility. Because as you can see, what's going on right now is the Republican Party has been redefined as the cult of Trump.

And therefore, anyone, no matter what their legacy, no matter what their previous royalty status was, who turns against Trump is dismissed as a, quote, rhino. So I think it's very important. That line that she said there, Charlie, she said to John Dickerson, I've always supported the principles and ideals that defined, past tense, defined the Republican Party. So she's talking to other people who grew up in the party and still believe in conservative principles, things that were in the Republican platforms when Ronald Reagan was the nominee. And she's saying, if you were like me, you were normally a Republican voter, you believe in these things. This is not an occasion when you can afford to vote for this Republican nominee.

Okay, so I wasn't actually going to play this clip. I wasn't going to play the Chris Christie clip, mainly because I like Chris Christie. I hope he stays in the race. I've made this clear. But I think a lot of the attention has now been shifting to is, you know, Nikki Haley going to be the last person standing. And we can spend some time in the future talking about that. There's no question about it that to the extent there is something called quote unquote momentum, which I think is often hyped and maybe even invented by the punditocracy, she's got it. But to your point though, you know, there was a time, you know, not that long ago when, when Chris Christie was, was kind of a rock star in the Republican party. There were Republicans who didn't like him. There's the Republicans were

very bitter about him, you know, putting his arm around Barack Obama back in 2012. I know all this, but he continues to prosecute the case from a conservative Republican point of view in a very, very effective way. This is Chris Christie who talks about this, but also distinguishes himself from Nikki Haley. And it's worth listening to. Let's play Chris Christie. You know, Nikki Haley says he was the worth listening to. Let's play Chris Christie.

You know, Nikki Haley says he was the right president for the right time. And that for some reason, you know, drama and chaos seem to follow him. The reason is that he acts like someone who doesn't care about our democracy acts like someone who wants to be a dictator. He acts like someone who doesn't care for the Constitution. In fact, he's even said himself he'd be willing to suspend the Constitution if an election wasn't going in his direction. Margaret, I was the only one on that stage going back to August when we were asked, would you support someone who was convicted of a felony for President of the United States? Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, they all raised their hand. I did not.

Good point there, Will. You know, I mean, somebody's got to be making this point. You raised your hand when you said, would you support a convicted felon for the presidency? It is a great point. And so Charlie, tell me if you ever have this feeling these days, what I'm having is Christie guilt. It is that I know that Chris Christie is the only candidate running in that primary who's telling the truth about Donald Trump. He's the only one with the courage to say that, even though he knows he is writing off all of the Trump vote and all of the Trump sympathetic vote and basically his chances of being the Republican nominee. Meanwhile, Nikki Haley is straddling, right? She's trying to sort of say, well, we need to move on from Trump. But she has that line and Chris Christie nails her for it, which everywhere Nikki Haley goes these days, she says, you know, rightly or wrongly about Trump, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. You all know it. Yeah.

How does that happen? Yeah. It's this passive description of the damage that he does, the chaos that he wreaks. And Christie calls her out for it. So my guilt, Charlie, is Christie is right. Haley is a coward. But her cowardice is what allows her to have just the tiniest smidgen of a chance of beating Trump in that primary.

This is right. I'm sitting here like a moron. I'm not exactly supporting Nikki Haley, but I am rooting for her to knock off Trump. I am too. I don't believe that Christie can do it, but it's Christie who's telling the truth. It's Christie who's saying what you and I know is right. This is my point. Do you feel this guilt?

Well, yes, but I feel so much guilt about so many things it's kind of hard to categorize it but to your point about that weird formulation that nicki haley has that wherever he goes there's chaos and it just it just follows in his way it's a little bit like saying you know wherever jeffrey dahmer goes now there are people who are found dead there are people you know who are in refrigerators and stuff and it's like wherever jeffrey dahmer goes, now there are people who are found dead. There are people, you know, who are in refrigerators and stuff. And it's like, wherever Jeffrey Dahmer goes, there's, there's these things that go, wait, wait, wait, it's not where he goes. It's, it's what he was doing. What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Someone who speaks two? Bilingual. Someone who speaks one? American. Turns out that only 22% of Americans speak a language other than English at home. But you can start learning a new language this year and be the exception, not the rule,

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Get 55% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners, at babbel.com slash bulwark. Get 55% off at babbel.com slash bulwark. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash bulwark. Rules and restrictions may apply. So over the weekend, your favorite guy, and by the way, people who have not yet read your book, article, slash, or listened to the podcast about Lindsey Graham need to do that. Two very interesting things that Lindsey Graham said. And I say this as somebody that is like, okay, we know exactly what Lindsey Graham's going to say in any given circumstance. We have two cuts here, one on Ukraine, but also since we're on Liz Cheney, we've been talking about Liz Cheney. He's asked about Liz Cheney and her book coming out and her, you know,

warning about the existential threat that Lindsey Graham's BFF, Donald Trump, poses to the country. And this is what Lindsey Graham said about Liz Cheney. I think Liz's hatred of Trump is real. I understand why people don't like what he does and says at times. But in terms of actions and results, he was far better president for Biden. And if we have four more years of this Liz Cheney, then we won't recognize America and the world will be truly on fire. And then he says, basically, Liz Cheney needs to get on board with Donald Trump because four more years of Joe Biden and the world will literally be on fire. Right. Wow. I mean, he's so far down the rabbit hole. Can you

even see where he is now? Sure, sure. This is something I talked about in the article about Graham, but it's true of lots of others. You hear these days, so many Republican politicians saying Joe Biden is a mortal threat to the world, to the United States, the world. Everything is on. Now, say what you will about Joe Biden. Things are at least okay. Like inflation is too high. The borders are a mess.

But it's not like we're in a world historical crisis. But these Republicans need to believe this and they need to persuade their voters that things are so awful. It's psychological need. You have to, Joe Biden has to be the devil because Donald Trump is the next closest thing to the devil. And so you've got to make the alternative. This is really an important point. So as Donald Trump becomes more and more awful, the psychological pressure to make Biden an

existential threat rises, right? Because you go, yeah, Donald Trump is all these things. He's going to destroy the Constitution and all this other stuff. But now I must believe that Biden will be worse. And so the stakes get higher and higher. The pressure to demonize. It's not enough to say that Joe Biden is old and he's senile. No, he's old and he's senile, but he's also

Satan on fire, right? He literally, but Graham says the world will be on fire. And that's what you have to believe to support this criminal, this criminal Donald Trump for president. All right. Now, speaking of the world on fire, literally, you know, Ukraine is on fire. And this morning before you and I began speaking, the White House put out a warning that the aid for Ukraine is going to dry up by the end of the year. I mean, so this is a real existential crisis for Ukraine. A lot of indications that Congress is dragging its feet, that, you know, that perhaps world attention has been shifted to the Middle East from Ukraine. One of the staunchest Republicans supporters of our aid to Ukraine has been Lindsey Graham. I mean, whatever we say about Lindsey Graham, and by the way, we've said a lot, we've said even more, is that he's been pretty

good on Ukraine up until yesterday. Now, I haven't been paying as close attention as you have, but I was really struck by what Lindsey Graham said about Ukraine. And again, we are, this is December 4th, and by the end of the year is just a few weeks away. And this is what Lindsey Graham is saying yesterday morning. There's no end to this wave of illegal immigration. You have to change your asylum laws and your parole laws to stop the flow. So I will not vote for any aid until we secure our own border. Reform asylum, reform parole is possible to do. Democrats don't want to do it. All Republicans want to do it. I'm not helping Ukraine until we help ourselves. I am not helping Ukraine until I get what I want on the border. He has coupled it.

Do you find this surprising at all, Will? I do. And I shouldn't, but I do. Okay. So it's kind of where I'm at. Yeah. Yeah. The position that Lindsey Graham is expressing now, I'm not going to vote for anything for

their border until we fix our border. This was the position of Graham's Republican isolationist opponents in the Senate and others like Ron DeSantis before. And Graham was the guy who said, no, we need to, and Mitch McConnell and others who are hawks said, no, we're going to support Ukraine regardless of anything else because it's the right thing to do. And that's America's role in the world. So Graham has shifted.

One of the questions in my mind, Charlie, when I was writing about Lindsey Graham's capitulation to Donald Trump, which happened over the course of years, is, is it contagious? That is to say, is it confined to Trump and supporting the authoritarian no matter what, but still holding out for Graham's hawkish positions on foreign policy? Or does it start to seep into the foreign policy? Right. Right. And what people need to understand about Graham's capitulation in particular is his whole motivation for capitulating to Trump, I think. Some people think it was so he could be in the middle of the action. There's some of that. But he did have genuine views about foreign policy. And they were, for example, to stand up the Russians and defend Ukraine. Trump didn't care about that. So Graham supports Trump on all his domestic crimes, but argues with him about Syria, about Afghanistan. Right. At least there was that. That was the thing that justified the other capitulations. Now, what Graham is essentially doing, it looks to me, is he's also shifting his position on foreign policy. And so it looks to me that the cowardice, the capitulation, the rationalization,

they are contagious, that This is an illustration of how once you start behaving this way, you start making these concessions, it infects everything you do and think. This holiday season, you might be looking for nutritious, flavorful meals to fuel you on jam-packed days. Factor, America's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietician-approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. You'll save time and stay on track with your healthy lifestyle while tackling all your holiday to-dos. You can cross meal prepping off your list this holiday season with Factor.

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Slate Magazine, your former publication, Slate, by a group of progressive women who are saying, calling on their fellow women's advocates, you need to speak up about what happened to these Jewish women. This was a distinctive thing. Peace and the Guardian making the same point. There's been a lot of frustration about the UN's playing around word salads about all of this. And part of this came to a head yesterday on CNN, where Dana Bash is interviewing the head of the Progressive Caucus, Representative Jayapal, about all of this. And this has gone viral. And I want to get your take on all of this. And Dana

Bash is really pressing her. Why have you not spoken out about the sexual assault of women, which is very much a Hamas policy? And the controversy here, as you listen to this, is that she tries to change the subject. Dana Bash doesn't let her. And then talks about the need to balance your response, which is getting a lot of blowback from other Democrats and other progressives. But I want to play this, this part of this exchange with Dana Bash and Representative Jaipal. Morally, I think we cannot say that one war crime deserves another. That is not what international humanitarian law says. With respect, I was just asking about the women and you turned it back to Israel. I'm asking you about Hamas.

In fact, I already answered your question, Dana. I said it's horrific. And I think that rape is horrific, sexual assault is horrific. I think that it happens in war situations. Terrorist organizations like Hamas obviously are using these as tools. However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians. 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, three-quarters of whom are women and children.

And it's horrible, but you don't see Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women. Well, Dana, I think we're not... Will, so this is an enormous topic. We're not going to be able to deal with all of it in this show, but I want to just raise the fundamental point. There is a myth on the left called intersectionality. So the myth is that all of the oppressions are connected, right? Sexism and racism and, you know, anti Islamophobia and all that. And the myth is that we're all in this together. The reality is life is very complicated.

And so sometimes what you have is, in this case, a Palestinian organization, Hamas, committing a rape, committing many rapes of women who are Israeli. And the lefts, not the lefts, I'll just say there's a certain part of the left, like the academic left, the university left. In their hierarchy, the Palestinians are an oppressed people and the Israelis are the academic left, the university left. In their hierarchy, the Palestinians are an oppressed people and the Israelis are the oppressors, right? And so that complicates the whole idea. The rape is being committed by the so-called oppressed people, by the Palestinians. And when Jayapal says we need to be balanced, she was inadvertently acknowledging that in this case, there's a tension between the two. And a lot of the problem that's going on on the left, and I applaud my

colleague, Dahlia Lithwick, my former colleague at Slate, who's terrific, and other folks who wrote that piece in Slate. It's a terrific piece. Right. Their point is, they don't quite say it this way. They use the word identity. They say criticizing rape, denouncing rape should not depend on the identity of the perpetrator and the victim. They're using the left term identity. Identity construed as your identity is your race, is your ethnicity, is your nationality, right? And what they're essentially acknowledging is that it shouldn't matter whether you are technically part of the oppressor group or the oppressed group. If you are raped, you are the victim.

If you are a rapist, you are a perpetrator. You should be punished accordingly. You should be denounced at a minimum. And so a lot of the paralysis on the left is not being able to speak the simple moral truth because of the contradiction with the oppression hierarchy. I want to emphasize, though, that a lot of this criticism is coming from people on the left who are, in fact, calling this out. I mean, this is one thing that, you know, you and I have talked about. You need to police your own side. And this is happening now. I mean, this piece and slate that you talked about, and this was

signed by Dahlia Lithwick, Mimi Rocha, Jennifer Taub, Joyce Vance, Julie Zebrick. And they write, let me just read you a two paragraph here. Of all of the horrors coming out of the Israel-Hamas conflict, among the most horrible are the barbaric murders, rapes, sexual assaults, and kidnappings of women and young girls in Israel during the October 7th attack by Hamas. And yet, deepening this distressing event, there has been a disheartening silence about, or worse, denials of these evils, reticence from the voices here at home in the U.S. who have in the recent past embraced other women who needed their support. Israeli and Jewish women find themselves isolated. For the past three decades, women have stood up for other women. When our

sisters' bodies and dignity were targeted and violated, women and allies of all ages and backgrounds organized, supported, and spoke up, except somehow not this time. So there is a real debate taking place, I think, among progressive women about this silence, calling them out. And it is vigorous. I thought it was interesting that Christine Pelosi, who is Nancy Pelosi's daughter, tweeted out a real kind of a shot at Jayapal. She wrote, I should not have to say this in 2023, but here we are. Rape is rape. Do not minimize, excuse, balance, or both sides sexual assault. That is victim blaming that we have spent decades trying to undo in the laws, the courts, and the hearts and minds of the people. So, you know, good on her. Can I take one issue, though, with that response from Christine Pelosi?

Sure. This term, both sides, really exasperates me because sometimes what a person is saying, and here I'm defending Jayapal. I'm going to defend Pramila Jayapal. When she says balanced, right, she's acknowledging that the two things are true. And she does say in that clip with Danabash in that interview, she says what Hamas did is wrong, is horrific. Then there's the but. Right. There's the but. Okay. Okay. I'm a big believer in the but because the but is

acknowledging the other truth, which is this mass death of Palestinian civilians, right? It's different from what happened in Israel. It is fundamentally different. Yeah, but it's- There is not a moral equivalence. They're not like two sides of a coin. No, but- They're not, Will. But Charlie, the asymmetries run in both directions, right? In Israel, what you had is the deliberate targeting, rape, murder of civilians. That is not what's happening in Gaza. That's absolutely true. At the same time, it is true that the number of casualties. That is not what's happening in Gaza. That's absolutely true. At the same time, it is true that the number of casualties in Gaza is massively greater than the number of casualties

that happened in Israel of a different kind, but enormous. And we're seeing the images of all of these women and children in Gaza who are like getting hit by these shells, these very large bombs being dropped. No matter how well Israel tries to target, this happens. There's a category difference here. I don't begrudge Pramila Jayapal acknowledging the moral fact that it is terrible that all these children are getting maimed and killed. Yes, but her failure to denounce the Hamas sexual assault and targeting of women and girls saying this happens in war. No, she said it. But OK, but that's bullshit.

This is the passive voice there. It doesn't just happen in war any more than just chaos just happens to be around Donald Trump. Hamas made the abuse of women as a matter of policy. And I think it is legitimate to call out the Me Too movement and said, OK, you have been calling out the targeting and the degradation of women. And yet there is a reluctance to do it or to put it in some large, yes, bad things happen to a lot of people during bad times. No. And I think that that's why people are focusing on all this. The U.N. women's group was not able to condemn the Hamas sexual assault of women and rape for 57 days.

Why was that, Will? Why were they unwilling to do that? Well, because a lot of bad things are happening because bombs are also falling. So therefore, the fact that you are raping and shooting women in the head and things like that and breaking that, come on. Why did it take them 57 days? Look, I have a lot of issues with the UN, with various UN organizations, but they are certainly in the grip of this sort of oppressor hierarchy mentality that probably inhibits a lot of NGOs from speaking out when they should.

But I think we will have a healthier society and a healthier conversation when we're willing to acknowledge all of the asymmetries. And it shouldn't be a crime to say that I know, that I'm going to say this is true and that's true. I know it's very convenient for people who oppose moral equivalence to call this both-sizing. But sometimes it is just a fact

that there are horrific things. There's not both sides in the making rape and sexual assault a policy. This was what Dana Bash said. Israeli soldiers are not going in with orders. Rape as many Palestinian women as you can and then kill them. Let me add to that, though. This is not entirely new.

The phenomenon of abuse of women in general has been endemic to not just human civilization, but liberation movements. All over the world, there are these movements to sort of liberate this and that oppressed people in which the movement itself, the men are abusing the women, that this just happens all the time. It doesn't just happen. Why are you using the passive voice? We talked about this before. It's just a reality that people do. Yes. All right. I'm going to take your caution here. I'm going to use the best ways. The men are abusing the women in various ways.

And people who consider themselves progressive and believe in liberation must not turn a blind eye to that phenomenon, even when it happens within liberation movements. Okay. So should I tell you the story that really bothers me? We're going to move on from this. And again, this comes back to the, and you and I have struggled with this as well, talking about this, that it is possible, I think, legitimately, to be very critical of Israeli government policy without being anti-Semitic.

Okay. So, I mean, there are people who say that if you're anti-Zionist, you're anti-Semitic. I'm willing to make all kinds of distinctions here. All right. But what you're seeing, and it is amazing to me, I mean, maybe it shouldn't be amazing at all, how many of these, you know, pro-Palestinian protests have now turned on Jewish businesses that are being targeted because they are Jewish businesses, which is not the same as criticizing Israeli government policy. And then you have this story. I don't know whether you saw this story out of Virginia. You're a Virginian, right? No, Marylander, but that's okay. Close enough. DMV. Okay. So here is the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula, something that happened over the weekend. I just want to read this.

The Jewish community of the Virginia Peninsula is shocked and alarmed at Love Light placemaking. This is a nonprofit organization. Their decision to cancel a menorah lighting scheduled for the second Sunday art and music festival on December 10th in Williamsburg, claiming that it did not want to appear to choose sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Okay, so they said, so we're not going to have a menorah lighting. So the statement is, to be clear, the menorah lighting, which was to be led by a local community rabbi, had nothing to do with Israel or the conflict. Yet appallingly, the event organizer claimed that a Hanukkah celebration would send a message that the festival was, quote,

supporting the killing bombing of thousands of men, women, and children, unquote, and even went a step further by offering to reinstate the event if it was done under a banner calling for a cease fire. And then they point out, we should be very clear, it is anti-Semitic to hold Jews collectively responsible for Israel's policies and actions and to require a political litmus test for Jews' participation in community events that have nothing to do with Israel. Wow. I mean, what's the mentality that says we don't like what Israel is doing, so we're going to stop local Jews from having a Hanukkah menorah lighting? Okay, I'm with you on this. First of all, I have a much tighter standard for anti-Semitism than most of my friends do. And that is, I think it is fine to criticize

Israel. I can argue with you about your criticism, but it's not anti-Semitic for you to criticize the government of Israel, the policy of Israel. I'm willing to go further, Charlie. I'm willing to say, if you want to say there shouldn't be a Jewish state or a Muslim state or a Christian state anywhere, that's not anti-Semitic either. But to your point, once you cross that line and you're going after people who are just Jewish, yeah, that's, but I think what's going on in this case is an insidious phenomenon that we should pay a lot of attention to. And that is there's people who would boycott a business because it is Jewish and that's just anti-Semitic. There's other people who would cancel an event because it has some Jewish overtones and look, times are very controversial right now and we don't want to

create controversy. That is capitulating to, we're not living in Nazi Germany, but when there starts to be a popular movement against a minority like Jews, it can be based on anything. It can be based on a war going on somewhere. And when other people start saying, you know, we don't want to have this Jewish event at our venue, right? Or we don't want to like send people there. We don't want to endorse this thing because it might be controversial. Now you're letting the bigots win, right? Now you're letting the bigotry infect you, even if you don't call yourself or think of yourself as a bigot. Oh, I completely agree with you. And by the way, speaking of other things, did you see that story out of the Texas Republican Party?

No. Which is, this is not a parody. I'm going to read you from the Texas Tribune account, which I have in my newsletter this morning. Again, this is not a joke. This is not a parody. The Texas GOP rejects ban on associating with Nazi sympathizers. They actually had a specific vote. Two months after a prominent conservative activist and fundraiser was caught hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes, by the way, so did Donald Trump, leaders of the Republican Party of Texas have voted against barring the party from associating with known Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers. In a 32 to 29 vote on Saturday, members of the Texas GOP's executive committee stripped a pro-Israel resolution of a clause

that would have included the ban, delivering a major blow to a group that has called for the party to confront its ties to groups that have recently employed, elevated, or associated with outspoken white supremacists or anti-Semitic figures. Okay, so we do it a lot of time today, talking about the need for the left and progressives to police their own ranks. Holy crap, here is the official Republican Party of the state of Texas. This is the lowest hanging possible fruit. Yes, we are not going to associate with known Nazi sympathizers. And they voted 32 to 29 saying, no, can't do that. I mean, there's no subtlety here. measure, what you're essentially inadvertently acknowledging is that that's a standard too high for your party, right? You wouldn't be able to keep the people in the room who are already in the room. You have too many organizations that you still want to associate with that don't meet that basic standard of not being overt bigots. It's a little bit like the whole Trump phenomenon,

like where they've just lowered the bar successively. Oh, yeah. In order to justify. Over and over again. Right. And so we would have to expel not just George Santos, but Paul Gosar out of Congress. Maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene. Well, and you got that whole Trump thing.

Oh, yeah. You know, the Trump dinner with Elon and, you know, Elon and Kanye. Right, right. Hasn't aged well. Right. Because, you know, I mean, Conley has clarified a few things, you know, ye, you know, it's just why nobody talks about him anymore. Right. Right. Hasn't aged well. Right. Because, you know, I mean, Conley has clarified a few things, you know, he you know, it's just why nobody talks about him anymore. Not even the Republican Party says, you know, Elon, Kanye, Trump. Again, that that also didn't age very well. But see, the real irony here.

And this is not speculative. OK, so they vote 32 to 29, the executive committee of the official Republican Party of Texas against a ban on associating with known anti-Semites and Nazis and everything, which should have been like, why even bring it up? However, if there was a resolution saying basically excommunicating anyone that had anything to do with Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger, it would have sailed through. You know, it's like, okay, we can't like have limits on associating with Nazi sympathizers. But if you're subscribing to the bulwark, or if you're hanging out, if you're buying Liz Cheney's book, you're out of here, man. Right. And this takes us right back to the beginning, because what's essentially happened is that Trump is for these people, the new Jesus, right? This is Trump is the deity at the center of their religion. You may not turn against Donald Trump, but Jesus, God, anything in the Bible, anything about, you know, treating others the

way you would want to be treated about loving the stranger, all that stuff, we're just chucking out the window. In fact, we, you know, we would never apply that as a moral standard for who can be in the Republican Party. Over bigotry is fine. But our God, the orange God, he must never be betrayed. was just too much stuff out there that I wasn't able to get to. We didn't get to Ron DeSantis dancing and weaving and the various other Republicans that are going on the Sunday shows saying that, yeah, Trump may be anti-constitutional, anti-democratic and overtly fascist, but yeah, I'm on board. I mean, this process that we talked about earlier has really accelerated. I know that we could have doubled the length of the show talking about all that. Right.

Let me pick on one guy. The one guy. Yeah. James Lankford, because we've been on this theme of religion and bait. James Lankford is the Republican Senator from Oklahoma. And on this podcast. And he's presents himself as a very sincere Christian.

Other people say that he is that he runs, I think, the Senate prayer group with Chris Coons. So he's supposed to be sincere and he's supposed to be religious. He goes on George Stephanopoulos this weekend and Stephanopoulos does his question. I love Stephanopoulos for this. Anybody who comes on, he asks them this question. The question is, would you support Donald Trump for president if he's your party's nominee? But before he says this, Stephanopoulos reads off the litany of stuff, that Trump is repeating lies about the election. He's called the people convicted in the January 6th insurrection hostages. He faces 91 felony counts. He said that the former chair of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, should be executed, advocated terminating the Constitution, all that stuff. He reads this preamble and then says to Lankford, given all that, if Trump is your nominee, would you support him? And James Lankford, Mr. Christian says in response, yes, he would. He says, that is not a hard choice. Oh, that's not a hard choice. See, I could understand saying that's a really hard choice, but, but it's like, no, we have gone so far down this that we're just like, yeah. But we're going to see many other Lankfords. Let's, let's assume Trump gets nominated as is extremely likely. All of these self-styled moral conservatives,

they are going to do exactly what Lankford did. They're going to say, I disagree with Biden on the border, on inflation, on a couple other things. And so I'm going to vote for the guy who literally called for suspending the Constitution. This is an authoritarian party. It's not just Donald Trump who has to be kept out of the White House. Lankford and all of these other Republicans, to the extent possible, need to be, I mean, Lankford's not going to lose because he's in Oklahoma. But any Republican who supports Donald Trump for president needs to be voted out of office. This is a basic moral requirement for being a citizen of this country today.

You may be conservative. I disagree with the Democratic Party on a lot of issues, but we cannot afford to have this authoritarian party in power again. Well, it's an indication of what they're willing to swallow and what they would be willing to swallow in a second Trump presidency. Anyone who is thinking that a Republican United States Senate would serve as a guardrail or a limiting, you know, the grownups in the room when Trump was trying to undermine all these things. I think this story that if James Lankford thinks this is an easy decision, you think James Lankford is going to vote against Trump's nominee to be attorney general

or, you know, the next FBI director? Do you think he's going to stand up against him? So that quote of Lankford, when I first heard that, I thought, okay, this is still shocking, but it's no longer surprising. It's shocking that a guy like that would go along with it, but it's no longer surprising because we've gone through this for the last seven years. And you're exactly right that you're going to see a lot more of this. And so you can still be shocked at the moral and political surrender that goes on here. But don't be surprised because this is the Republican Party, which is thoroughly internalized all of this and in going forward. And again, to your point about the election, I think this is what Liz Cheney's also getting at. These folks, if they've gone this far and they've swallowed this much, if you think that

they are going to stand and defend the Constitution when Trump is actually back in the presidency, you've been smoking something because that's not going to happen. Well said. Well said, Charlie. On that happy note, happy Monday again, Will. I appreciate it every single week, and thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.