The Daily Beast Podcast - Glenn Youngkin Is Donald Trump Dressed Up as Jeb Bush w/ Lawrence Lessig

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

Eric Boehlert talking with Molly Jong-Fast about how the press, and the Dems, are needlessly freaking out as “everything has to be a churning drama” now. Plus, Lawrence Lessig says “I don’t like to gloat”—but things are “a thousand times worse” than he warned that they could get a decade ago, and HEATED writer explains why the Glasgow climate summit “should’ve been covered like insurrection”—and why “it’s super-not.” Maybe when we’re all in our boats they’ll start connecting the dots? If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast’s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators like Cory Booker or the folks who explain our world in media like Jim Acosta or Soledad O’Brien. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors like Busy Phillips or Billy Eichner and sometimes its just discussing the fuckery. You can get all of our episodes in your favorite podcast app of choice by becoming a Beast Inside member where you’ll support The Beast’s fearless journalism. Plus! You’ll also get full access to podcasts and articles. To become a member head to newabnormal.thedailybeast.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Jong-Fast and welcome to The Daily Beast, The New Abnormal. I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at The Daily Beast. We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer. Our world has been turned up day down. On The New Abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it. And I'm producer Jesse Kennan. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

What a show we have today. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig is going to talk to us about his book Republic Lost and how 10 years ago he offered a solution to the whole mansion cinema mess that we're in today, yet the Democrats didn't seem to listen. Then we'll talk to Emily Atkin, the author of the substack he did, on what's going on with the environmental summit in Glasgow that Biden's attending. But first, we have the author of the substack press run, Eric Bullard. Welcome back.

to the new abnormal, Eric. Hey, thanks for having me. What the fuck is going on? Well, are we talking about the press and my favorite topic? Yes, let's talk about the press because I just, I want to know your hot take. Let's go, man.

Well, I think, you know, this week with Virginia and New Jersey and, you know, the Democrats obviously have an uphill battle next year. Everybody knew that. But look, you know, as I've been pointing out, 2009, Obama lost New Jersey and Virginia.

And if you go back, those governor races, eight months after he had just won a landslide. If you go back and you look at that coverage, when Democrats lost both governor's seats, the world did not end. And the New York Times did not publish 10 stories the next day. And the Washington Post website didn't have 16 stories up that night. We are so over the top. And I think it's a hangover from the Trump years where everything has to be a churning scandal. Everything has to be a churning drama. You know, everyone is not even up or down. Democratic Party essentially doesn't exist today if you were to take that coverage, you know,

to heart. So it's completely overblown, I think, you know, COVID is coming down, unemployment and down. The stock market had 36,000. I mean, there's lots of things that could go well the next 12. Right. The economy looks pretty good. Yeah. I mean, consumer spending is up. All the traditional matrix that the press used to use for judging a president. Right. Right. Right. Most of them are up, so they've all been ignored. So everything's inflation, inflation, inflation. But my point is there are lots of things that could go well in the next 12 months. Nobody has any idea what the world's going to look like in November of 2022 in terms of politics. But again, if we go back to Virginia, if we get specific about it, it's a big problem. And if we're talking about the Youngkin campaign and his use of critical race theory and then entire Republican Party saying this is now the template for all of 2022. You know, he ran on a fundamental lie. He was going to ban something from being taught that is not taught. And the press just looked at him and shook their head and never really called it out. I mean, two days after the election, New York Times, front page story, oh, the Republicans were so savvy to use education as a wedge issue.

You had to wait to the 29th paragraph in that story. I'm not not. I'm not. kidding. The 29th paragraph in that story where the Times didn't even have the courage to state as fact itself. It quoted someone else saying, oh, critical race theory isn't taught in any schools. So if this is the new model, the Republicans have come up with and that they run on a lie that the press won't call out, it really puts Democrats in a bind. And I'm not saying they don't have to improve their messaging. I don't have to, and I'm not saying McCullough was a great candidate, et cetera, et cetera. But and just one more point real quick. So if you go back to 2009, Obama was able to turn things around, you know, four months after

they lost New Jersey and Virginia, they passed Obamacare. He was reelected with relative ease. His presidency did not end. But what changed since then is the Republican Party today is just completely awash in lies, conspiracies, misinformation, that is a massive messaging challenge for Democrats. Well, I mean, I think also the disinformation is a real problem. They've always had Fox News or they've had Fox News since 1997. Right.

But now they have like Fox News plus plus plus plus plus plus. Like they have Facebook. They have, you know, like you go on Facebook and your uncle is like critical race theory is being taught to babies and they're being taught to hate their white skin and cry, cry, cry, and being forced to read Beloved. I mean, so, you know, there is, these people, the messaging is so good and it's everywhere. Yes. So we've gone from the big lie, which is the stolen campaign, to now it's just morphed into everything. And so, you know, the big lie about, you know, Virginia schools and the big lie about this and that, and it all

uses the same model, which is just massive amplification. on the right-wing media, as you say. And the mainstream media, instead of aggressively getting in there and knocking it down, it covers the controversy that these lies are. So going back to critical race theory real quick, if shouting matches broke out at school board meetings because of this lie, the shouting matches were the story, not the lie. If Republicans used critical race theory to get out the vote, that was the story.

Not that the whole thing was based on a fabrication. So, you know, I've said this for a long time, but every Beltway news cycle starts from every day for every year starts with the same premise, which is what are Republicans angry about today? And everything goes from there. Right. And Democrats are just playing catch up. The divide between the parties is just so mind-boggling and immense. You know, as I've said, you know, one party is trying to destroy free and fair elections in America and the other is trying to pass an infrastructure bill. And the press and the press treats them as the same. It's completely insane. And I don't understand how we get out of it. It's tough.

And again, that's why, you know, the comparison with 2009, I think it's much more ominous right now because of the just runaway misinformation on Facebook, on right wing media, on politicians. I mean, we have Republican leaders who ostensibly are supposed to be serious people. They fuel every possible conspiracy, even in terms of trying to get people vaccinated, trying to end a pandemic. The Republican Party was pro-pandemic, period. There's no other way around it because, you know, in 2021, they thought that would be bad news for Biden. So if you've got a party that doesn't even want to end a public health crisis, it's really hard for Democrats to try to figure out a way to work with grownups the way Obama and company. kind of were able to do for a few years there. So yeah, I don't mean to be, you know, end of the world. But in terms of messaging and media and communication, the rules have changed so dramatically,

I would say in the last 12 months. And I think these two elections in New Jersey and Virginia were a really disturbing tip of the iceberg. It's actually worse, even without Trump roaming the landscape right now. It strikes me that what happened in New Jersey, New Jersey is there was low voter turnout because everyone thought it was a FentaComplea. So that I think it's separate. I also think like what happened in New Jersey, some of that had to do with taxes, right? And now Democrats feel they have to pass the salt deduction, which Jesse loves to talk about, because you have these high tax states where people are mad.

And those are the Democratic, like those are the Democratic strongholds. And if they can't deliver for those people. Yeah. You know, so I think that's sort of interesting. I think that will actually end up helping Democrats to repeal salt because they know people are mad about the taxes. Now, my question is really, again, like, let's talk about. What I want to talk about is Buffalo, Boston, because there are other interesting elections, right? Virginia, definitely, you know, he lied.

It worked. We do have to ask ourselves, like, are Democrats being blamed? for school closures, which they had to do. Right. I think it's interesting, you know, kind of the lot of day after analysis, it didn't really come up during the campaign was what Democrats are blamed because of schools, because of school closings and things like that. And I get that.

And I tweeted yesterday, you know, in 2020, people were mad at Trump about COVID and they took it out on him. And I think in 2021, people are mad about COVID and they took it out on Biden and Democrats. But I got to say, this is really bizarre. I mean, schools are open under Biden. The vaccination rate has gone from 1% to 70%. You know, people are flying. People are going to concerts. People are back at school. My kids are in college, in person. I mean, by every matrix, things have gotten so much better since Biden was elected in terms of in terms of vaccinations and COVID. But I guess there's a lingering. And I guess Democrats are still being punished. You know, this idea that Democrats wanted school closed, and that's why, you know, Republicans were victorious or things like that. I mean, McCullough had wasn't even governor during COVID. He had absolutely nothing to do with any school policy during the pandemic. But the idea is now that Democrats got punished for that.

Republicans have never come up with any kind of policy, anything they would have done differently. I guess Trump wanted to open schools and not wear masks, but it's interesting. But I think there's no, there is no denying that there is a lingering exhaustion. There was some good news. Gallup had a poll out yesterday than percentage of Americans who think that COVID situation is improving doubled between September and October. Just because the numbers are down, you know, kids are going to get vaccinated. We're heading in the right direction.

We ran into this massive speed bump because 30% of the country decided getting vaccinated, not getting vaccinated was how they could, you know, advertise their loyalty to Trump. And that turned into a huge social and cultural problem. Right. And I mean, it makes sense, though, that Republicans might want to have their people not get vaccinated in order to gum up the works. The question is, why do people want to die for Trump? I mean, it just strikes me as like a, you know, it's not even a Faustian. What's worse than a Faustian bargain? It's a post-Faustian bargain. Look, you know, 2015, probably you and me and others were talking about a cult and, you know, the mainstream press rolled their eyes and, oh, it's not a cult. People are being hyperbolic.

They're just loyal. They're just excited. I mean, if you look at the red counties in this country and their death rate, particularly this year when there's a free, safe, and effective vaccine, it is a cult. period. And why they would want to put themselves on that altar? I mean, it all goes back to Fox News. It goes back to brainwashing, which the mainstream political press will not discuss in this country. But yeah, all kinds of things. But just real quick in terms of the pandemic, again, you know, Republicans think Virginia was their model and they're going to replicate it. Well, in November 2020, there's not going to be a pandemic and there's not going to be school closings and we're not going to be dealing with any of this stuff. So just FYI.

that issue will be off the table, and I think it's going to be harder for them to reproduce it. Yeah. I mean, I think that's right. And I think that it'll be interesting to see. But I do also think, like, there clearly is Yonkin has proven. And I think this is really important that Democrats see. This is Yomkin looks like Jeff Bush.

Yep. But he's Donald Trump. And he's proven that Trumpism can scale. Well, this is what's interesting me. So everyone says, oh, this is such a success for the Republican prime. party. Yonkin was able to keep Trump at a distance, and frankly, the press gave him a total free ride. I mean, Yonkin at one point said he didn't know if humans, you know, responsible for climate change. Right. That was like a half-day story. Yeah. He said, I'm going to get in there and I'm

going to take away abortion and I'm going to make sure you can have an M-60, you know, your four-year-old can have a machine gun. I mean, obviously, I'm speaking hyperbolic. I said, don't take this out of contents. But I'm just saying that, you know, the guy is Trump. He's just dressed up like Jeff Bush. Yeah, but my point is, you know, it worked in Virginia, and I don't know who talked to Trump and told him to sit it out, but he did and it was effective. There's no way that's going to work with 200, however many races are next year. Governors across the country, senators are, he is not going to sit on the sidelines. He's just absolutely not. He's an egomaniac. Again, whoever was responsible for keeping him under lock and key deserves a medal because he stayed away. And that's the only. reason they were able to win. Do I think they're going to be able to do that for the next 12 months? Absolutely not. And also, and from Trump's ego, I mean, you know, New Jersey Republicans are going to lose by what, eight, nine, 10,000 votes. And, and no one is picking up the mantle of stolen election or rigged. I mean, he must be heartbroken. He must be absolutely heartbroken. And also, I mean, I think the thing

that you really see is this was a bad election for Trump. Like, this is proof that you're better off running. a Ron DeSantis than a Donald Trump. And that, you know, Donald Trump is not going to be happy about that. That's my point. Yeah. And it doesn't really seem to be getting much attention. We'll see how he reacts. But what Republicans hadn't been able to do was keep him away. You know, he famously showed up in Georgia during the runoff. I mean, he ruined the runoff elections in January. He absolutely torpedoed them. And he decided not to do it in Virginia. I think I totally agree with you. I think he's going to look at the landscape and saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Nope, I'm going to take the reins back. I'm going to release the crazy. And I think it's going to be hard for Republicans to keep him at bay. Yeah, I think that's right. Oh, well, let the leopard eat the leopard face party thing. Thank you so much for joining us. This is great. Okay.

Have a great week. Hey, folks. If you haven't heard, every single week we do a special bonus episode for Beast Inside. The Daily Beast membership program. Sometimes we interview senators like Corey Booker or the folks who explain what's happening behind the scenes in media like Jim Acosta or Soladadadobrian. Sometimes we just have fun and talk to our favorite comedians and actors

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That's new abnormal. dot the dailybeast.com. Lawrence Lessig is a Harvard professor and the author of Republic Lost. So Professor Lessig, a decade ago, you wrote this book, Republic Lost. And it really asserted that unless Democrats take seriously, that they get

Citizens United back on track and do severe campaign finance reform, that it'll cripple their agenda, nothing will get done. And basically we'll find ourselves where we are today with this mansion and cinema situation, where it's very clear that these two are beholden to their donors. And so now Biden's agenda is basically crippled by it. I can't help but keep thinking about this book and that you've been proven right. Would you like to gloat?

Boy, I don't like to gloat. No, it's disastrous that I have the opportunity to gloat. But the truth is, it's actually much worse than I described in the book. You know, because in the old days, the kind of happy old when we were just focused on campaign finance reform. You know, it seemed like the others' parts of the system could function relatively well. We didn't have open efforts to suppress the votes of Democrats. We didn't have yet really clear evidence about unrestrained capacity to engage in partisan gerrymandering. And we didn't have the filibuster deployed in a way that has no constraint permitting literally 21% of America to block anything that happens inside of Congress. So it was bad back then. And I

certainly believe it was critical back then to do something about it. But it's a thousand times worse today. Yeah. What were you surprised by? Well, I guess, you know, there's both good news and bad news. So the good news is the movement to recognize that we've got to do something about this has taken off in a fantastic way. I mean, it's astonishing to recognize that Nancy Pelosi is the most committed and engaged politician to try to get America to adopt, you know, when she was pushing the H.R. 1, the For the People Act, what would have been the most consequential democracy reform package in the history of America, I think? I mean, you know, right up there with the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But on the other hand, you know, because of the way partisan America has

evolved, and this is another whole conversation about the way the infrastructure of media has enabled to involve this way. You know, we seem less capable of actually achieving what more of us recognize we need to achieve than ever before. And so I think we all realize just how hot the water is. The boiling is extreme, but we have even less capacity to jump out of the pot. I'm curious what yours. Like, obviously there's always these flagrant abuses of corruption, John Boehner handing out checks from tobacco companies. But it seems like cinema and mansion are not really delivering the best acting job, that they're not acting in a corrupt way that I kind of am feeling like, you know,

the season is really getting phoned in a little bit. Am I wrong that it seems like they're almost just don't care or do you see something different? I don't want to minimize the criticism that cinema and Mansion are entitled to. But I do think that the problem is deeper. I do think that they are representing a number of representatives and senators who don't want to be as out about their unwillingness to go along with the fundamental reform that we need, but are not eager to see the fundamental reform that we need. And the reason for that is not that they are deep down corrupt. I mean, this is the whole point of the book. It's that they are on the surface corrupt.

I mean, they are living within a system where they depend upon this money, and they can't imagine another system. system where they could succeed without this money. And so they are incredibly happy to allow this whole effort at reform to stall, because if it stalls, they know they have the mechanism to be able to succeed. What surprises me are groups like, for example, no labels, which I think began around the time that my book came out. And it began as a, you know, this idealistic effort to kind of get beyond left-right and try to focus on what was successful or important for America. And I was always suspicious from the very beginning because they refused to make campaign finance central part of their platform. But their organization has as an honorary chair, I think, Joe Manchin. And there was this

extraordinary conversation, which was illicitly recorded, with Joe Manchin and members of the steering committee of No Labels, where they were talking about how important. important it was to make sure that there was no filibuster reform and how powerful they were because they could deliver hard dollar donations amounting to, as it was described. I'm not quite sure how this is possible, but $50,000 per representative. And so what that, and they were describing the mechanism of dependency that that produces, you know, because they say, these people don't have any time for anything. And the fact that we can deliver $50,000 to them means that they will be responsive to our concern. So here is a bunch of rich people openly discussing how they want to keep the system

such that they have extraordinary control over the system because otherwise, who knows what democracy would do if it wasn't answerable to the very, very few. I mean, this is what I was imagining in Republic Lost, and the nightmare has just only gotten worse. How do you feel it's gotten worse? Because I know how I feel it's gotten worse, but I'm just curious. You know, so this published in 2011, so it's just as we're learning about what happened in 2010 and the consequences of redistricting. But at least at that time, there still was the hope the Supreme Court was going to say partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. Now the Supreme Court has said it's not unconstitutional, and so we're seeing districts being drawn in a way that are really astonishing.

I mean, Ohio set up, so there's only two Democratic districts, which is astonishing. So that means that, you know, because we don't see if HR1 or the equivalent doesn't pass, then after for the 2022 election, we're going to see a wildly gerrymandered House of Representatives. And I don't think in 2011 or 2010, we would have imagined a party openly talking about techniques to suppress the vote of their opponents. Now, you know, this is typically described in racial terms, and I'm sure race, most. It motivates part of it. But whether it's race or not, it's certainly politics. It's certainly a decision to adopt ways to run elections that are focused on making sure it's harder for Democrats to vote than for Republicans. And that kind of open suppression, I just don't think it was part of the air back then. You know, and these things added together, I think, produce a reality that it's kind of hard to reckon. But, you know, the reality is the United States is a minoritarian democracy. Will you explain what that means for those of us who don't know?

So, you know, the whole idea of a representative democracy in our tradition was that it was majoritarian, meaning the majority got to win. You know, you get more votes, you get more power. We have a system that at every single level now entrenches the power of a minority. So gerrymandering at the state legislative level is ungodly, and it's extreme, so that Republicans have wildly more seats than they are actually in touch. to if you had any fair way of drawing districts. The House of Representatives, after this next redistricting, will also be extremely improper in its balance because it will have wildly more Republican seats than are appropriate, given the number of votes that they have. The Senate is, of course,

baked in in the unrepresentativeness of it because the rural states have way more power per person than the non-rural areas, which means that Republicans have an inflated view. in the Senate. And then the presidency driven by just a handful of states, the swing states, means that the presidency is called or determined by a minority of America. And then the most extreme version of this is the Senate. You know, if you realize that the filibuster, which is not the filibuster of our tradition, which was a device to make sure people actually deliberated, but the filibuster of today is a filibuster that blocks deliberation. Because to get any bill before the Senate, to even have the chance to deliberate on a bill, you need 60

votes, which means that 41 votes can block any law from being considered in the Senate except for budget reconciliation or certain nominations. Okay, so 41 votes sounds like a lot, but, you know, just think about it for a second. If you take the 21 states that supported Donald Trump by at least 10 points, 21 smallest states. Some of them, you know, were up to 30 points, but at least 10 points. Those 21 states would have 42 senatorial votes so that they could block anything the Senate wants to do. Those 21 states would represent 21 percent of America. So we've created a system where one-fifth of the nation has the capacity to say what the rest of the nation is allowed to do. In each of these areas, it's a minority that has power in our government,

as opposed to the ideal of our framers, which was it's the majority that gets to rule. And this reality, I think, is ultimately catastrophic for the hope of representative democracy going forward. Explain what you were saying about Rwanda. Well, we have other examples across the world of countries where minorities entrenched themselves politically. So historically, you know, before the genocide, Rwanda was an example of that. Iraq is an example of that. Syria is an example of that. These are nations where it doesn't feel American to think of yourself like Syria or Iraq,

but the reality is they succeed in achieving constitutional structures that entrench the minority against the majority. So do we. We have achieved exactly the same reality so that the majority party in America, the party represents more people in America, cannot affect control over the government because of these layers of minority control that we've built into it and then top it all off because of the seats stolen from Democrats on the Supreme Court, you've got a six to three conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which of course has nothing to do with the representative view of most Americans today. So Donald Trump ran on, you know, that there's this corrupt swamp.

It seems like there is an appetite on both sides for this. You talked about in the book, The Only Hope, is a constitutional convention. A lot of people, basically, when you said that, I remember, really treated you with a lot of skepticism. Do you see with the right being trained about how corrupt this is that maybe it would be possible? What are your feelings today on what you wrote back then with that? I do think that there is still an untapped from a progressive side, common ground around corruption in America. I do think it resonates. I mean, you know, one of the most important problems Democrats refuse to acknowledge is that a large proportion of

America does not believe government can do anything for them, not because the idea of somebody doing something for them is impossible, but the idea of this government doing anything for them is impossible, because it's corrupt or inept or just incapable of acting. So when Democrats sing about all the great things they're going to do, it doesn't get through the filter that most people apply to that kind of promise, which is, yeah, yeah, yeah, as if the government is going to be able to fix any of these problems. And the core. reason for this is people, I think, don't believe the government is responsive to them. I mean, this is, you know, polling about what the sources of dysfunction in government are finds

no difference between Republicans and Democrats on this regard. I mean, Republicans and Democrats both believe government is responsive to funders, to special interest groups, to lobbyists, not responsive to ordinary people. And that reality means, in the most Americans' view, The government is not trust worthy, and therefore we don't trust the government. Okay, now we have to address that. And I don't know what mix can address that, especially given the entrenched structure of a media that profits from turning us into crazy polarized citizens. But I do think that if you talk about constitutional amendment, the only tool left in our toolbox that could evade the entrenched power of the kind of no labels like influence inside of Washington. is something like an Article 5 convention. I resist the word, I hope I didn't say,

constitutional convention in my book. Because there's a difference between a constitutional convention, which is a convention that has the power to amend a constitution. Latin American countries sort of exercise that power. And that rightly scares people because the idea of, you know, 300 people getting together and deciding what our constitution should be or deciding on the method that any amendments should have to go through is terrifying. But what the Constitution sets out is a procedure for proposing amendments through a convention that says a convention for proposing amendments, and that's what many of us call an Article 5 convention. And that convention has only one power, the power to suggest changes that we don't imagine Congress itself will

suggest. And I can say right now there's a strong and growing movement of conservatives and liberals who are saying, we need to set up an opportunity to have a convention, and let have a convention. let's have both sides propose what they want to fix. So, you know, the conservatives are obsessed with fiscal responsibility or fiscal integrity in our political process. And I think that liberals are obsessed with representational integrity in our political process. Let's have ideas on both sides, be able to be proposed through a convention-like process. And then let's fight out, you know, which ones get to be adopted. Because, you know, the reality is, talk about minotarian, it takes three-fourths of the states to adopt any amendment, which means that 13, you know,

States, or more precisely one house in 13 states, has the power to block any amendment, which means nothing's going to get through unless it has overwhelming support from both parties. So that's an important constraint, but I think we at least need the chance because there's no prospect, I think, of United States Congress taking this up and solving any of these problems itself. And best evidence of that is the stall, the great stall that we see on Joe Biden's agenda right now. Yeah. I want to know where you see this going. I'm terrified about where it goes right now. I mean, the reality is that if we have another cycle where the majority is displaced or quashed or incapable of governing, I think there's a whole generation that says, you know, what the hell? Like, why should we, why should we devote ourselves to this idea of democracy when it's a sham? I think you already see that in certain African American communities who, you know, worked incredibly hard to deliver not just Joe Biden's victory, but also the victory in Georgia, that got us the two extra seats that got us to at least a 50-person stalemate in the Senate,

which, of course, in principle, should give us control because of Kamala Harris. I think they and many people are going to say that this system fails to deliver on the promise of a representative democracy because it does not give the majority the power to govern. And what happens after that, I don't know. I mean, you know, nobody would have imagined 10 years ago the kind of open civil war discussion that is, at the center of so many people's attention right now. I mean, it's inconceivable. It's not even clear what it looks like,

but it doesn't look pretty. And I don't know how we get back from this, given the constant drumbeat that is out there to rally people to crazy extreme positions. I mean, the reality that platform of media, especially social media, profits from rendering us crazy is terrifying. It would be okay if it would profit from rendering us sensible

or giving us understanding. It would still be hard enough to do good politics then. But I worry that when the platform profits from making us not understand each other, when it profits from making us hate each other, when the politics of hate is at the core of the business model of the most powerful businesses involved in politics, I don't know how we do anything other than play the politics of hate, and the politics of hate solves none of the problems that I think we need to solve as Americans. Yeah, I'm really worried.

I want to compliment you on how good you are at making things clear when you talk, but it's also just really overwhelmed me with depression. I'm sorry. Yeah, we're all really depressed. Well, if you'd only listen 10 years ago, I think we would have been a different place. Hey, I listened. I remember the book I read 10 years ago and had you on a podcast. Okay.

You're let off. They're hooked. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Great. Thank you for having me. Emily Akin is the author of The Substack Heated. Welcome to the new abnormal, Emily.

Thank you for having me. It's great to be back. Yes, back. Welcome back. It's very, I'm just killing it today. I want to talk to you about something that I feel like is not being reported enough, which is this big climate conference in Glasgow. Talk to me about this.

Well, it's funny you say it's not being covered enough because every single morning I get ready and I turn on one of the cable news channels because I hate myself. apparently. And this last week, every time I've turned it on, I'll just laugh when I see what they're covering, knowing what's happening in Glasgow, knowing that we have a representative from every single major country in the world, well, except some that have chosen not to be there. But like, in the same place, trying to make a plan to not destroy the planet and that this is like the last basically chance we have to make a plan before we start seeing some of the more irreversible consequences of climate change. So this is like, I mean, in the news sense, right,

like in the news gathering news judgment sense, like a very newsworthy story probably should be front page of every newspaper, every channel all the time. I mean, it should be covered like the insurrection, right? But it's super not because it's climate change and it's a bunch of, you know, it's a climate conference like boring. I mean, it's like this is the zero hour for climate. This is it. This is our last

chance to stop the carnage. And it's not even going to stop the carnage. It's just going to slow the carnage. And it can't get any eyeballs. Well, I will say if you want a little up mood thing is that

right before this week, last week, there was this hearing on big oil disinformation where congressional Democrats called in the CEOs of Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP, and the President of the American Petroleum Institute and questioned them for like six hours about their companies' campaigns to spread disinformation about the climate crisis. And that was actually covered pretty well on cable news. Like overall, I think it was like 41 minutes across the three stations. in 15 different segments. And like, yeah, the Fox News ones were about how like oil is amazing.

But still, you know, we got some eyeballs on that. Stuff is happening. But yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting to me. So let's just talk about what's happening in the conference right now. America is really leading the charge in a way that they haven't before, right? Well, at least in the way that we haven't since Trump was in office. Right. Trump was in office and we had international climate talks. We didn't even go. Oh, we went. We would go and we would send representatives to talk about how amazing coal is.

It's so backward. And everyone knew, everyone was like rolling their eyes. I mean, like there are some countries, obviously, that loved it. Right. Like Saudi Arabia among them, right? Right. But yeah, you know, it's different now. I mean, we've got a lot of the same people.

are there doing negotiating on behalf of the United States that were there eight years ago, right? Or four years ago, right, with Biden. So like John Kerry is there like meeting negotiation. It's a lot of the same because it's Biden, right? So it's like a lot of the same people. But Russia didn't come and Saudi didn't come and China didn't come. Right. So they are there, but their heads of state are not there. Right. So they like send representatives. I think even Australia, I'll have to be correct. I'll have to be fact-checked on this, but I know right before Australia's prime minister was saying, like, I'm probably not going to go, which is a big deal. They're a really big emitter and a really big polluter and probably have the most similar politics to the United States in terms of like climate denial.

So that sounds bad. Oh, it's not great. Molly. Okay, good. Just checking. What do we do? I think the biggest thing to do is just increase pressure. I mean, it is a big deal, of course, that there are some countries that did not send their heads of states to COP 26. But at the same time, what matters more is what countries are actually doing and what the biggest emitters are doing.

Because what the biggest emitters in the world are doing, like set the global technology. competitive stage. So we are the big, we being the United States, we are the biggest historical emitter. We have emitted the most carbon dioxide of any nation. We've contributed the most to climate change, which means we've gotten the richest off of climate change, right? We've profited the most from killing the planet. And we're now the second biggest climate polluter. So a lot of other country's behavior is going to follow what we do. So if we create, like, a hugely competitive clean energy economy, a lot of things are going to follow. But at the same time, it's like, it's not going to be competitive if we don't phase down fossil fuels. So I would say in a lot of

ways, COP 26 is important, but it's not as important as putting the pressure on domestically on what we're going to do. Right. What should we be doing as a, like, listening to this in horror, what should listeners be doing? It's tough because everybody can do something different, but the main thing that I think everybody needs to know about climate change that doesn't really get talked about enough in very plain terms in the media is that climate change is caused primarily by two things, deforestation and fossil fuels. Everything else, I mean, yeah, like meat eating is big, right? But that's sort of like, secondary to the main two things. Fossil fuels and deforestation. I understand fossil fuels. Explain to me

what contributes to deforestation that I'm doing right now that's wrong. What you're doing right now doesn't really contribute to deforestation, but you might be buying products from supply chains that get their products from palm oil that deforests a lot of stuff. Or you might be buying meat that is from a company that grazes their cattle on deforested land, right? Or you might work for a company that does, let's say, marketing or PR or advertising for a company that does deforestation. You might go to a store every day that sells products that contribute to deforestation. So as like a person, I think it's important for people to understand that There are things you can do with your consumer purchasing habits.

Like, oh, I'm not going to buy this thing that contributes to deforestation. Or I'm not going to buy, you know, these single-use plastic things because plastics are made out of fossil fuels, right? Which is important for everybody to know. It's sort of more effective to use your role in society to pressure the bigger people. Right, the oil companies. To say, like, I'm not going to work for this place. or I'm going to because they support deforestation, or I'm going to start a campaign in my workplace

to make sure that we're not contributing to these things. And that's how you actually make a difference more, or like, I'm going to go around and campaign for a local candidate. That's like something that most people think about. But whatever sort of feels better to you, what feels good to you that sort of doesn't target yourself as the problem, but targets the institutions around you as the problem. Right. That's a good point. Do we see anything coming out of this conference that will be

newsworthy or useful or something that we should be talking about? Yes, actually. And I'm really excited about it. A really important thing is actually coming out of the international climate talks, which I was not expecting. The U.S. and Canada and like 18 other countries, I think, are committing, pledging. They're going to stop financing fossil fuel projects abroad. The U.S., we're not going to give any money to anybody that wants to start a fossil fuel project. That's good. We're only going to fund clean energy projects abroad.

I mean, that's huge. The agreement doesn't include China or major Asian countries. that's important because those countries are responsible for like the bulk of fossil fuel financing in other countries. It's big because it includes all fossil fuels. It's not just coal. It's oil and gas. And so that's one of the boldest statements that the United States has made against the fossil fuel industry in its whole history. China pledged to stop funding coal projects abroad, right?

Right. But they're not going to stop funding oil and gas projects abroad. And that's a huge deal because that's where most of our emissions are going to be coming from. I just want to point out, coal is like very, very, very, very expensive and stupid. Like, coal isn't even something where, I mean, you could make an argument that fossil fuels, whatever, but coal is just literally a dead industry. I mean, it's just dumb, honestly. Right.

Yeah. But also it's so funny to one of the arguments you see the most from the fossil fuel industry is that fossil fuels improve quality of life. And if you take them away, you replace them with what they say are lower quality energy sources. But that's wildly debatable. You know, if you take them away, you lower quality of life. I mean, think about the quality of life, not only climate change is going to cause, but the quality of life that living next to a coal planner, the near a coal plant causes. I think most people don't actually realize that the reason that all of us have asthma, it's like we don't all need to have asthma. We all have asthma because we all lived near polluting coal plants and oil refineries, right? Like, that's why I have it. That's why almost everybody has it.

Everyone thinks just a normal-ass thing is that. And I mean, I would also say, like, coal is just very, very expensive. Yeah, it's super expensive. It's super dirty. and it's a complete con, whereas like, oil and gas are also terrible for the planet, but aren't quite as expensive as coal. Right. Like, it's a better economic decision, but there's, you can make the economic argument for every part of solving climate change, right? Like, once you take all the economic arguments to their, to their last point, investing in any fossil fuel is a very expensive. dumb idea if you think about how much climate change is going to cost the world's economy,

like an incredible amount. It's so interesting and so annoying. All right. Well, Emily, that's good news about the fossil fuels. And we will have you back to talk more about this. It would be so cool if other mainstream media covered climate change. But I'm sure they eventually will when we're all in our boats. Yeah, when we're all in our boats.

And I would even go further and say, like, hopefully more mainstream media starts covering climate change and always connecting it to fossil fuels. Because if you notice when you listen to most stuff, it almost doesn't happen. Almost always doesn't happen. It's almost always, like, human-caused, like, man, this sucks. Who knows why it's happening. Right. That's a really good point. And I think that really is you really see how Exxon has succeeded in changing the

the narrative and being like, it's manmade, but who can say from where? Well, we can say from where. It's from you guys. Oh, yeah. I mean, listen, I urge you to go watch some of the clips from that hearing where all of the oil executives were and where some of the Democrats question them about whether they will acknowledge that fossil fuels are the primary cause of climate change. It is just the amount of walking around really fully admitting it is just like, it's awful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much.

Please come back soon, Emily. I will. Thanks for having me. What's crazier than QAnon? More outlandish than Pizza Gate? And scarier than a Mexican getaway with Ted Cruz? The answer is what the American right wing has planned next. Be one of the first to listen to Fever Dreams,

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slash podcasts or your favorite podcast player to catch the first episode and get subscribed. That's fever dreams, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Jesse Cannon. Bye, Jong fast. It's another day of hell. Who is your fuck that guy?

Oh, my fuck that guy. You know, it's very rare. It's a good one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's rare we get to do someone who's never been the subject to this that I can't stand so much. Yeah, he's really the worst. They call him El Presente. Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports.

Now, I think there's like this funny thing that, you know, you and I were laughing about it. but it's kind of always of course with these guys that the ones that love to pretend Trump's some macho hero that junior just literally I don't think there's anyone juniors kisses the ass of aside from his dad more than this guy yeah well this is junior this is who junior wants to be if he had a job and what's a real person yeah had a face structure that resembled to human well I think that's we're going a little overboard here but continue so Mr. Portnoy, Business Insider has a report where they have spoke with more than two dozen people with direct experience with Portnoy and Barstow, including Aderkern or former employees, some women as young as 19

Mackie, of Jesus, who have no professional connection to Portnoy recounted having sexually explicit online exchanges with them. Three of these women said they had sex with Portnoy, now 44, and that the encounters turned into frightening and humiliating experiences that have taken a toll

on their mental health. Who'd have guessed it. Who would have? I'm shocked. Completely shocked. And it's one of those things that like, you know, Trump, you know, oftentimes I think there's like there's all these things people graft on the Trump. Like some people love that he gets away with all the nefarious business. Some people loves that he gets away with grab them by the you know what. And then they flock to him. And I think we've just found one of the reasons, Mr. Portnoy really, really would like Trump. It's the misogyny, stupid. Mali, who's your fuck that guy? My fuck that guy is someone who is like a frequent flyer.

He's a Republican from the great state of Texas. One of the things that I find about him is that he's the worst person in the entire world. And his name is one Raphael Cruz. When you say frequent flyer, you mean to Cancun in the middle of a snow store, leaving his constituents behind. I mean, he is really the only immigrant who I think deserves a ban. You were born in Canada, Ted. You were born in Canada. So Ted Cruz gave a press conference yesterday.

In a typical Ted Cruzian fashion, he congratulated himself and his fellow Republicans for not having a private plane. Clearly, Heidi has been complaining to him, right, about not having a private plan. He was trying to do the thing he loves to do, which is say, oh, us Republicans, We're so noble. We're so great. Unlike you Democrats, John Kerry fly on that private plane. None of us Republicans have it.

No one on this stage has it. And then... It turns out that Rob Portman actually does a private plane. And he had to be reminded of this right then there, which was amazing. Amazing. And so, Lion Ted. Loves a rake face. Lying Ted.

On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to... smart folks from The Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science, who will help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded the Daily Beast podcast at

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