The Daily Beast Podcast - Moms for Liberty Wants to Usher in an American Caste System

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Moms for Liberty may have lost a few battles, but they’re still winning the culture war, Tamara Gilkes Borr, a U.S. policy correspondent at The Economist, says on this week’s episode of The New Abnormal. Daily Beast political reporter Jake Lahut also joins the podcast to discuss his latest piece, “Donald Trump Is Blowing Up the Myth of the New Hampshire Primary.”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have today. Daily Beast Politics reporter Jake LaHutt stops by to talk Trump's campaign trail antics and all the bad stuff happening there.

Then we'll talk to U.S. policy correspondent at The Economist. Tamara Jokes-Born, and she'll tell us about Moms for Liberty and how they might not be winning as many local elections as they claim, but how they're way far ahead in the culture war. But first, let's have some fun. You know, I was reading this article, and then I'm just like, is hell really freezing over right now? When you have the Maga Supremacy movement in this country moving in the completely opposite direction from Pope Francis, I know that he is a controversial figure and has been because, oh, I don't know, he believes that things can change and should. But just recently, he has said that he will. allow for blessings for same-sex couples in the Catholic Church. Now, basically, they are utilizing a loophole, which doesn't change their understanding or

definition of marriage between a man and a woman, but there are many LGBTQ Catholics who have been lobbying the Vatican for this admission, for a, you know, a recognition of progress and of other relationships outside of heterosexual ones. Not only is the Pope decided to make this change, but is also allowing for the baptismal of trans people and to anoint trans folks and non-binary folks as godparents. This is huge. I have said often on this show and others

that I am not a religious person because of the ways that religion has been well. happenized throughout the centuries. But I think that when you look at the moves that this Pope has made in comparison with what is going on with this white Christo-fascist takeover of America, it's like, it's just like a split mind moment. Like, wait, what? How could the Pope be more progressive than this group of people is pretty wild?

But that is the direction of the world. And I applaud, applaud this decision. Yeah, it's wild. I am by no means an expert on the Pope or the Vatican and stuff like that. But I do read a lot about it because it's a subject that fascinates me. And to see all of this stuff coming from the office of the doctrine of the faith, which is generally, there has been for a long time, the conservative standard bearer for the church,

it's absolutely wild. and it's obviously fantastic. And I think he's doing what he can. And I don't think he could have gone much further than this, at least not at this time, you know, in terms of, you know, extending the church of support for same-sex unions and stuff like that. I just don't think politically he could have done that. But as you said, this is, you know, especially in tandem with allowing for the blessings of trans people and then letting them be baptized and serve as witnesses in church and be godparents, all of which,

they couldn't until basically a couple months ago. It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible to see. My fear is that, I mean, Pope Francis is 87 years old, and there is huge conservative backlash within the church to all of this. And my fear is that everything that you talked about that's going on in the rest of the world, the magadum and stuff like that, that the church is going to go back to that. And there's going to be a huge rebound after Francis. I hope that's not the case. but I definitely worry a lot about that because of the huge backlash. And the American church tends to be very conservative and also tends to be where I think a lot of the money comes from for the Vatican. So those are just notes of concern to keep an eye on.

But yeah, the fact that he did this is incredible and is an amazing step forward. And I hope it's not undone in the future. Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is is that we know that every bit of progress, regardless of where it takes place, can be undone. And so it requires people to be vigilant to put in all of the guardrails that they can to ensure that it's not. I think that this move by the Pope will be difficult to undo, depending on how many years transpire between this decision, you know, and a new Pope. I think that it will be fairly hard to undo. And we are seeing that there's been a lot of splintering that is happening

inside of religious communities over this issue. Still, which is just like so fucking mind-blowing to me. It's like the world has not come to an end because LGBTQ people exist, because they want to have families, because they want to raise kids. Like, it's still the same. And it's just, I don't know, but bravo to him on this. Yeah, absolutely.

We have, particularly in the last, I don't know, five, six years we have learned that a lot of things can be, a lot of progress can be rolled back. if we aren't vigilant and sometimes even when we are vigilant. And I guess that brings us to a guy named Michael Diamond. Oh, no, it's Clarence. Look, you put a Gen X guy on a mic. He's going to reference the Beastie Boys.

There's just no two ways around it. But I'm talking about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. ProPublica has been doing just unbelievable work on his relationships with Harlan Crow and a bunch of other people. They just came out with a new piece laying out. how Clarence Thomas back in the year 2000 was on a flight coming back from an off-the-record speech at a conservative conference and was sitting next to a Republican member of Congress. He basically told the member of Congress that, you know, he was having trouble living on his $173,000 salary. And he was worried that he might have to resign and stuff like that. And he said, you know,

we got to let justices give paid speeches and stuff like that. And basically, right after this happened, he started getting a bunch of stuff paid for, I believe it was an RV. And Harlan Crow really started giving him or treating him to stuff in earnest. And a lot of this seems to flow out of the fact that the Congressperson that Thomas spoke to got the distinct impression that it was going to be tough to keep conservative people in positions like that unless we found a way to get money to them. We've been talking a long time about how all the gifts from Harlan Crow and stuff like that that were given to Thomas and all the jobs that his wife Ginny seemed to get. We were told, well, there was no quid pro quo. And it looks like, you know, there might not have been a quid pro quo in the sense of if I give you

this, you'll vote this way on this case. It does seem like all of this was done. to keep Clarence Thomas, a leading conservative voice on the court, on the court. So there we are. It's so gross. You look at the Supreme Court and for whatever issues I've had with them in decisions that have been made, like this corruption is just so overt and in your face. And the fact that there is just supposedly nothing that can be done about it because of this lifetime appointment, that this man because of conservative fears has been allowed to just fucking grift and deny other people

access to opportunities that he is so readily given just to be a fucking seat warmer. He is the most disgusting form of like, let's just get a black person in this spot. You don't have to speak. You don't have to do anything and we'll give you this money. Just hold the seat warm. That's what white conservatives think about black people. And Clarence Thomas is their fucking living representation of that. He is such a dis-fucking grace.

I don't even know what to say. I just, oh, it's not enough money for me what I'm making. More money than the average American person, but he needed more. Not for his fucking grand nephew that he was raising, but so he could sit on luxury planes and buy a luxury RV. Like, and live this big, grandiose life of all. All the white conservatives around him are living, and he wanted a piece of it. And the fact that he still sits there and gets to place fucking judgment on the rest of us is just appalling.

I hate this man so very much. Yeah. And here's what's amazing. The pro-public article, which I would encourage people to read in full, has one of the most amazing kickers I've ever read. Here's how the article ends. By 2019, this is after it goes through, you know, how Thomas's lot in life seemed to improve after he made this mention to this congressman. And, you know, when he started getting things like Harlan Crow paying for private school for his nephew and he got all these trips and he got a $1.5 million advance for his memoir and stuff like that. Ginny Thomas got a nice cushy job at the Heritage Foundation. So here's how the ProPublica article ends. By 2019, the justice's pay hadn't changed beyond keeping up with inflation. But Thomas' views had apparently transformed. That June, he was asked about salaries at the court.

Oh, goodness, I think it's plenty, Thomas responded. My wife and I are doing fine. We don't live extravagantly, but we are fine. And then here's the last graph. A few weeks later, Thomas boarded Crow's private jet to head to Indonesia. He and his wife are off on vacation, an island cruise on Crow's 162-foot yacht. So if you want to talk about why he was worried in the year 2000, thousand and making noise about having to possibly resign because his pay was too low. And then why in

2019, with the same pay only adjusted for inflation, he says his pay is plenty and that they're doing fine and then heads off on a trip to Indonesia to be on a 162-foot yacht. Yeah, it's not really hard to connect the dots here, is it? No, it's absolutely appalling and sick. And once again, we're asking for the people who break the laws, who make them up for the rest of us to police themselves. Let's see how well that works out. Yeah. Speaking of people who are also at least allegedly doing okay financially but also have no morals. Donald Trump, you may be familiar with him, Danielle.

I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't know them. he gave a little speech in New Hampshire, of which he said about, he went after immigrants, a favorite topic of his and a favorite scapegoat and whipping boy for he and his maga folks. And he said he was going to launch mass deportation efforts of these immigrants. And he also said of them, they're poisoning the blood of our country.

They've poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world, they're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia. I mean, we are at the point where the Hitler comparisons are not over-wrought, if they ever were. He is literally using language that the Nazi party used back in the 1930s and 40s. He is talking about poisoning the blood of our country with immigrants coming over here. And we talked about whether we should talk about this. And we realized that one of the things we keep saying is we have to not get to a point where we're just like, oh, that's just Trump and not call him on stuff. So we realized we had to bring this up and at least chat about it for no other reason than that. This stuff cannot be allowed to sit.

It can't be allowed to be shrugged off. And we're forced to talk about this all the time. But I really do think it's that important that we have a guy who is going to be the Republican nominee. for president in 2024, a guy who has a very good chance of winning the presidential election. And he is using phrases about immigrants like they're poisoning the blood of our country. Here's the thing that is just wild is people are applauding this. When Donald Trump says these things at rallies, when he says them off the cuff, you have rooms full of people that are cheering.

I just want to remind people as well, you know that at least, I don't know, two of the three ex-wives are immigrants, right? You know that his own children by the right kind of immigrant. You mean the white kind. Of course. And so when we listen to these things and we shrug them off, we do so to our own demise. Because no one can say if Donald Trump becomes the last president of the United States that they were caught off guard. because this motherfucker has been leaving breadcrumbs since he came down the escalator. And we know where it leads. And you don't need history as a guide. You just need to look at what he did in his

administration, which was find a way to disallow Muslims from entering the country, to find a way to disallow black and brown people from entering the country, to utilize the genius visas in order to get his wife's family in the country. Right. So like we don't have to look back to Hitler. You just have to look back to his administration. The camps that he created and put kids in there. And then those people went and testified before three panel judge to disallow soap and toothpaste. Do we all remember that? That happened. And it happened just a few years ago. We don't need to provide sanitary products to these people because they do. don't see them as people.

So when Donald Trump says that he's going to expand camps, he's not just talking about those that are, quote, unquote, undocumented. He's talking about his dissenters. He's talking about political opponents. He's talking about us in the media and in the press. There's a whole lot that is happening right now. But to ignore this, to think we can sit this out, to think that there is like light at the end of the tunnel that isn't an oncoming fucking

train is to do so at the peril of our own democracy and freedom. Yeah, I want to repeat something I said a part of the quote from Trump because it gets to what you were saying. You said that, you know, the right kind of immigrants are the white kind of immigrants. Notice that he said they're not just coming from South America. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia. He didn't say Europe. Yep. That's not accidental. That is absolutely the message. It's the brown people and the black people and the yellow people and the anyone who's not white. That's. That's not accidental. That's not accidental. That's not is the exact message they're sending. The other thing that we should point out from that speech is, if you were going to look at three guys that he singled out for praise, it was Vladimir Putin,

it was Victor Orban from Hungary, and it was this, I mean, it was Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. So if you want to look at the people that Trump thinks are the good guys in the world, it is the dictators, it is the autocrats, particularly in the case of someone like Vladimir Putin, It's the keeping the blood pure people. So everything he says about, you know, when he says about people coming here from Asia, Africa, and Central South America as poisoning the blood of our people. Yeah, that's exactly what he means. He means that people of color are poisoning the blood of white people. I mean, there is literally no other way to read this.

That is correct. You hear quotes like that, they're poisoning the blood of our country. And you think to yourself, like if someone just said to you, when was this quote said, if you didn't say, you know, the 1930s and 40s, you'd say like the 1890s or the 1880s. You'd say it was, you know, some time in the distant past where a serious politician, i.e., someone who had a shot at being the leader of the country, would say something like that. Obviously, there have been fringe candidates who have spoken like that more recently, but we're talking about a guy here who, again, there's a very good chance he's going to be president. This is not the kind of language that we

would hope for in 21st century America. And yet, Danielle, here we are. Here we are. It's real. It's Syria. Take them at his word. You know, take them all at their word. Yep.

The New Hampshire GOP primary is less than a month away, if you can believe it. And joining me now to talk about what's been going on up there is Jake LaHut, politics reporter for the Daily Beast with a focus on Republican campaigns. Jake, thanks so much for being here. Great to be back, Andy. Good to hear you. So I want to start with an interesting piece you wrote called Donald Trump is blowing up the myth of the New Hampshire primary. So we always think about, and we always hear about and read about how New Hampshire is a bastion of independence filled with cranky Yankees who want a candidate that'll

meet them in person, look them in the eye, tell them what they really believe, and then they'll decide if that person will earn their vote. How is Trump blowing up this myth? Yeah, so part of what we get into in the piece is that he largely kind of already did that in 2016, where he only needed 35% of the vote to win. And you could say, well, all right, it's a much smaller field this time around. He has all this additional baggage. You know, where do you want to start? January 6th, the legal stuff, like, take your pick.

But he's currently polling better than he did in New Hampshire pretty much at any point in 2016. He's polling in the, you know, mid to high 40s. And that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for anyone else to come in. So the question is, like, if the state, it really is that special, how was he? able to just kind of run the table on the Republican primary the last time and then almost have an easier time doing it now just by doing a couple rallies here and there. We had this in Trail Mix a little while back, but he's been on a two rally a month diet, basically. So he's been most in those

putting those between like Iowa, New Hampshire or one other state. The rallies are expensive. You know, monies weren't in pretty well from the small donations, but also you have the legal stuff. And the campaign itself is much leaner in terms of staff and all that. So, he's really only coming here maybe once a month, tops. And yet he's killing it. So the question is, what happened to, you know, this kind of mythical New Hampshire voter? And part of it is that, you know, this state all along has really had kind of a two sides of the coin. I mean, there's the what this professor at UNH, Dante Scala, calls the Pepperidge Farm version of New Hampshire, which is basically like, you know, the one that I think the American public sees in the front window when, you know, you hear about.

the New Hampshire primary on TV or the radio where, you know, it basically evokes this picturesque diner or, you know, a living room house party environment, a local VFW and American Legion, some sort of intimate setting where, you know, these grizzled plaid shirted, you know, older, very serious, gray-bearded, democracy-oriented voters are coming in and, you know, they're grilling the candidates on questions for like hours on end. I mean, those events do still happen. Chris Christie does a ton of them. Nikki Haley has done a ton of them. them, but especially for the early months of the primary, it's like the same people who go to those things over and over again. And then, like, if you're holding an event, let's say at a local

conference center at 11 a.m. or noon on a weekday like Ron DeSantis does when he comes here, who can go to that? It's only a retirees, you know? So Trump instead has really gotten at the backside of that coin, which is basically this kind of, I've always called New Hampshire, the Texas of New England. I've lived here a couple times. I'm back here for the campaign cover. living in Portsmouth. And it really is not quite like anywhere else in New England. And there's definitely this kind of overtly angry, give them hell, screw the establishment, just type of vibe with a lot of people, whether they read their, you know, identifying as a Republican or an independent. It turned out that Trump found like a really, really solid coalition of people who

might say they're independent voters, but are basically part, they've been party line Republicans for years anyway. And then he just had, you know, the same hostile take. over of the Republican Party that he was able to pull off everywhere else. So that's pretty much how we got here was, you know, Trump never had to do the whole House Party circuit diners, what have you, because in a way, that relationship that the other candidates always brag about having to earn with New Hampshire voters, Trump already had that as this household name. And, you know, the precise term for that would be a parasycial relationship where, you think, you know, we think we know everything about Trump from The Apprentice and TV and stuff, but he knows nothing about you,

the voter, yet, like, getting to see him in person at an arena or at a, you know, an airplane hanger once in a while is enough for a lot of people. I suspect the answer is both, but my question is, I guess, does this simply just boil down to the fact that Donald Trump is unique, or have things changed in New Hampshire since, say, I don't know, 1992 when Pap Buchanan got 40% against George H.W. Bush, who was the sitting Republican president, or 2000 when John McCain rode the straight talk express to victory over George W. Bush. That's a great question because I think the Buchanan side of it is really, really hard to separate from the Trump being unique argument. Yeah, agree. I mean, Buchanan's appeal is also what led to Trump's first ever appearance here,

which is, like, you could actually throw a baseball from my apartment and hit what used to be the Yolkin's restaurant where Trump did his first appearance up in Portsmouth. The sign is still there. It's a big whale, a big, like, neon illuminated whale. I'm not sure there's any symbolism going on there. But that's where Trump started his presidential flirtations with kind of a skeleton crew who had been around for Buchanan. And that's where he saw there might be this opening for that type of a candidate. And then he had the reform party and we got it and all that stuff later. And I think that's less consequential than the fact that really what the New Hampshire primary has become cycle after cycle is, simply a cheap ad studio on a really de facto level. And again, I am someone who moved here to cover

this, you know, magical retail campaign stuff. But the reality is, part of the appeal for the campaigns generally has been that it's cheaper to buy ads in the creator Boston market and on, you know, local New Hampshire radio stations and whatever compared to your Super Tuesday states and everywhere else in the country. Yes, that's always been true. But also now that you have these super PACs that often will host events for candidates or, you know, will collect footage. Like, just the aesthetic of New Hampshire has kind of become more important or in some ways surpassed the reality of like actual town halls. Basically, I think Trump just accelerated that trend, not to borrow the name of the vaccine

program, basically a weed where that's what he did with a lot of aspects of American life. And I think New Hampshire is really no exception in that respect. That's a really interesting point and sounds correct to me. I had sort of forgotten this, but your piece reminded me that whereas in 2016, as you've said, Trump also didn't do the traditional diner meet and greets and the town halls and everything. But back then, you had some people saying, you know, he's really blowing this. He doesn't understand New Hampshire at all. Nobody is really saying that now, right?

Shockingly, they are. Really? Honestly, a lot of my good sources, I think, still have degrees of delusion going on about the fact, like, you know, the voters are going to bail them out here. and part of it is really, really clear in the polling. So if you ever open up the big old, you know, PDF Excel spreadsheet version of a poll and you look at the side tabs, you'll see that a lot of them ask, and this is for, I'm talking about New Hampshire state polling, but this trend has tended to be true elsewhere in the primary, which is this, that Trump voters are way more likely to say they are firmly committed to voting for their candidate and are not going to change their mind. That's in like the 70% range for them. Everyone else is lucky if they're, you know, crack in 40 or getting near 50. Often you're dealing with 40 and 30 percent numbers among your own supporters in that poll for how, like, wedded they are to really, you know, actually coming through on the vote.

Part of it's, you know, what we've talked about with how he's remade the party. And, you know, the other thing that I think Trump managed to crack in New Hampshire is that this state has undergone some interesting demographic changes. Now, the most common one that we've heard about is why the Democratic Party dumped New Hampshire from its lineup. that it's a very it's one of the oldest states in the country the second oldest on average and it's also one of the whitest states of the country it's always in the top five it's like either three or four you know it's it's always there the bigger one in terms of the basically what kind of had appeared to be this uniquely purple uniquely independent and kind of bellwethery state you could make arguments on the data for that being true maybe in the you know through the 80s 90s or the 2000 the demographic

challenge that's really made New Hampshire less relevant in the 2020s and the 20 teens is that the population has actually been growing but exclusively among wealthier college educated retirees. So like when you go around where I am here and this is what starts to explain why the MAGA appeal is sticking for not the whole state, but a real, real large chunk of it is the economy around here essentially barely functions. Like service type jobs are held. And it, It's not unique to New Hampshire in this respect. It's one of those areas where the people working in the service economy are traveling from often very far out of the cities and areas with your restaurant jobs, your customer facing jobs. And they're made up of basically like two ends of the extreme.

You know, high school kids and people who really should be well into retirement. And there's no in between. There are not a lot of young professionals. There are not a lot of young families in New Hampshire. New Hampshire has continually had fewer and fewer children, school consolidation. You have all these compounding issues where basically you just have a kind of a class. tale of two cities where there is the lovely coastal, wealthier part of New Hampshire, there are the scenic resort areas. And then you got everybody else. And for everybody else, the economy hasn't been

great. Maybe, you know, Trump does lean on the nostalgia of the pre-COVID economy. That wasn't great for him either. That level of resentment coupled with just kind of the nationalization of politics where even up here, a lot of Trump supporters kind of mimic these sort of southern tropes with how they present themselves and show up to a Trump rally. And that's just kind of washed away a lot of what people thought was unique by the state. And then when you really get down to the true independent voters who are left, and this was, you know, a fun part about reporting the piece is that because so many independent voters are really kind of default party line Democrats or Republicans just without the title, the actual tranche of voters who are left once you strip those away,

they're very self-contradictory and weird. And individually, they're all very interesting. But in the aggregate, they're not enough to win. And even if you were to add up Nikki Haley and Chris Christie's level of polling in New Hampshire right now, it still wouldn't beat where Trump is at. So the problem is that there are not these independent voters who are going to be able to come out in droves and bail them out, even though they make up a third of the electorate and, like, they're still around. It's just not this kind of magic wand.

People think it's going to be. And yet, you're still going to hear a ton of the same takes about how old you never know, I mean, especially the night of the primary. Right. Like, I'm already apologizing on behalf of the listeners. Right. You know, you mentioned Nikki Haley, and I want to ask you about her. You wrote another piece called the GOP Cavalry isn't coming to save Nikki Haley.

She's a pretty solid second in the New Hampshire polls right now. A recent CBS poll of likely GOP primary voters has her at 29% to Trump's 44%. And in that same poll, she actually leads the GOP field in terms of being described as likable and in terms of being described as reasonable. and she's actually the only candidate that clears 50% in either of those. She's also just recently been endorsed by New Hampshire's very popular governor, Chris Sununu. But none of that is enough, is it? Yeah, and what we get into in the piece was how Haley is also really kind of turning her nose at congressional

endorsements, where she only has one in the house right now from a guy in South Carolina. And the Sununu endorsement was really the last kind of, like, remotely consequential one left on the board for the early voting states. Sununu's interesting brand here because he really is that dying breed of your kind of classic moderate presenting a Republican in a blue or purple-ish state. He's for choice. He loves going to brew. Stylistically, honestly, there are actually a lot of parallel between Haley and Sunanoo.

They love doing events at breweries and talking to like a certain kind of, you know, Gen X small business owner. Haley basically needs this kind of magic combo to beat Trump in New Hampshire. And then the strategy from there is tough, but like we'll put that aside. live for now. Basically, Haley needs almost all of Chris Christie's voters to vote for her, whether Chris Christie's in it or not. And it very much appears that he

has no plans of leaving, at least until he gets one more crack in Trump in New Hampshire. So you have Chris Christie doing, you know, the Alamo here, where he's hitting Haley every day on abortion. I mean, he starts out his stump speeches now, usually, this was the case right after

the Sunnu endorsement and from the ones I was in app, but I've heard about, it was the same there. He starts out hitting Haley on and he's basically trying to tank her numbers here. It really could be, you know, history repeating itself in an odd way of the way that Christie did the murder of suicide with Marco Rubio in New Hampshire on the debate stage in 2016. You could have a slower moving version of that playing out if he's able to do some damage

on Haley. Or Haley, like we said, she somehow, you know, subsumes the Christie vote. And then she also needs to really chip away at your actual rank and file registered Republicans, if she didn't get herself up by like, you know, I would say maybe 10 to 15 points among registered Republicans and people who are like either currently in the Trump camp, a mix of those and undecideds and essentially making an electability argument later on, that's sort of how she finds the path where she either can beat Trump here or finish in a narrow second and keep, you know, a strong justification behind her campaign.

It's going to be tough, though. I mean, she's basically been having this consistent strategy of, you know, we're just going to keep doing the small events, not spend too much crazy money on TV and be able to, you know, burn hot when people start voting and we'll really make this a two-person race with Haley v. Trump. But, you know, like, there's no signs that the Vig is going anywhere. The lights should be out at the DeSanis campaign by now, but they never back down SuperPack because he was able to, that money was all initially what he raised for running for governor. That's basically superficially keeping his campaign on unlike support. But even if there was this magical consolidation that the whole, and that was the whole goal of the Sunnu endorsement was he was trying to send this, you know, bat signal into the sky that it's time for everyone else to pack up and go home.

And even said at the event, I mean, he had the gumption to say, like, yeah, I don't know why anyone else is running right now. It's like, I don't know, dude. I mean, if you spent like tens of millions of dollars and like hired all these people, like would you just call it quits because the governor of one state endorsed your opponent? I don't think so. it's going to be this just dogfight in the end here over a really, really small portion of the electorate. And that's the tough thing is like, if Trump was polling really where his floor might be of the, you know, the 20% range, okay, you know, now we're talking.

And it really would be whoever can get closest to 30% or above 30% wins New Hampshire. But because Trump is doing so well, Haley's path is like, it quite literally becomes this needle to thread. And that's been her ammo the whole time. but it's not going to be good for her when she's trying to run a genuine two-state split here between Iowa and New Hampshire evenly. And Chris Christie, as we scooped the other week, is, you know, quite literally moving here. And he's going to be doing some sort of like rental, you know, staying with supporters, essentially just setting up shop from Christmas until the primary on January 23rd and not leaving. And most of that time, he's just going to be going after Haley and trying to tell these, you know, more moderate voters. And again, more than half of Republicans in New Hampshire identify as poor choice or at least.

say the government shouldn't have a say in abortion, you know, if he's able to persuade them that Nikki Haley is going to be a loser for the GOP on the issue of abortion, even if she is the nominee, that door starts to close. And then you're looking at if Trump wins Iowa and New Hampshire, you know, I mean, this thing is over if he wins South Carolina. It's definitely over by Super Tuesday. So that's like the, just a straight up, you know, dire situation we're in. Yeah, absolutely. Jake, this is so fascinating. And I'm really glad I got to talk to you and and do this sort of deep dive into New Hampshire, which I still cannot believe is like a month away from now. Jake, thanks so much for being here.

I really appreciate your time. My pleasure. Thanks so much, Andy. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal. The U.S. policy correspondent at the economist Tamara Jilks-Bore, who has written a couple of pieces recently about how the right wing may not be, winning the elections like the school board elections and moms for liberty and we'll talk about their drama, which we've been talking about on the new abnormal. But they are indeed winning the culture war when you have teachers in different districts across the country being fired for

reading certain books or using certain pronouns or entire curriculums being wiped from the AP like they were in Florida with African American studies or in Arkansas. And so when we see these things happening, it is important for us to take note. So I want to talk, Tamara, about your piece, particularly around Moms for Liberty, which have been in the news for their own scandal with their co-founder, a sexual scandal, and all of the things, and what you think that that may mean for the future, but you wrote in your piece, anti-woke activists are winning the culture war in America. They are losing school board battles, but that does not mean they are in retreat. Explain that to us.

Thank you for having me. And yes, I think it's really important that we understand what is really happening. So in general, what Mons for Liberty and other groups want you to think is that they're winning. Monge for Liberty claimed to have won 44% of their school board races in November, and that is down from 50% from last year. And many news outlets were saying, yeah, it's over. It's declining. Their movement's waning. But it's actually not that simple.

So analyses by the Wall Street Journal, but us at The Economist and Ballotpedia show that these cultural candidates were actually winning closer to one third of their elections, not only in this November, but in the spring and in the first. 22. What's interesting here, one, is their entire premise around their fight against what I call critical thought is based on lies. Like, I don't know how many times I have to say that critical race theory is not something that is taught in K through 12. It's not even something that it's taught in undergrad. It's something that is taught in secondary, in master's programs. But they have been able to kind of have a chokehold over the narrative in a way that has turned quote unquote parental control and weaponized it. Now, we've seen pushback happen, what your writing has shown us, but why is it that even though families and parents and caregivers are uniting to push back

against this narrative, that it's still a thing? Yeah, I think it's still a thing because the pandemic was really important and real. So if you can think back to the pandemic when schools had closed, a lot of parents were really, really upset. Moms especially were dealing with child care and in many cases also working. And this angered a lot of people

and created a rift between them and their schools. So when you hear at that time that maybe some other dark things are happening, it starts to kind of make sense, right? It's like, well, my school is, has betrayed me. My school is, I'm upset with it. And you know what? Maybe there is something deeper happening. Maybe this is not just a temporary thing. You know, maybe this is something that goes deeper. And as you mentioned on your podcast, concerted activists seized on this. They've been

looking for a long time for ways to drive a rip between parents and public schools. And here, a pandemic, just handed them that issue on a silver platter. So it's really appealing. And I think, it made sense and it made a lot of parents feel seen and heard. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Even though we recognize that a lot of these people, that first of all, in some places, just one complaint can get every single book removed from a school library, right? Like, we've seen this happen now in headline news, that some of these people that have

been organized by right-wing affiliates like Moms for Liberty don't even live in the school districts that they're protesting against. Yep. And so it is like you're, they have created this noise machine, this echo machine to make it seem like the problem is bigger than it is and that there's all this outrage when in fact there's not. Absolutely. And that's because their agenda requires it. So in general, parents are happy with their children's public schools. Surveys have shown that parents often think that public schools as a whole aren't great, but they tend to love their kids public school. think they made a good choice, that their kids' teachers great, et cetera. But many conservative activists have been trying for a long time to spread school choice, to spread school privatization. And that

requires families to not just distrust public schools as a whole, but to distress their kids' public school. So this narrative, this idea that it's not just public schools generally, it's your kid's school who might be secretly indoctuating your child, secretly convincing them to become trans or to hate white people. If that works, that gets at the conservative mission of privatizing schools that has been around for decades since public schools were required to desegregate. So I think this narrative is perpetuating or continuing because it's valuable for conservatives. This is the first time we're starting to see parents really start to question their kids public school and not just public schools overall. You know, and I wonder, because you're a former educator.

And I'm a former educator as well. I taught first and second grade, and my master's is in early childhood education. And the reason why I went into education is because I really wanted to work in education policy. Because the foundation for me of any democracy is education, is a robust public education that is developing global citizens with critical thought and analysis about their community and the world around them. And what I find and have found over the years is that while conservatives have always made this one of their main issues, like you look at abortion and then you look at public education, their campaigns have never ended. They may go into a low, but then there's always a resurgence. I believe that Democrats have never had the same focus and attention on this issue, which is. is about creating an educated citizenry. When you have a Republican like Ron DeSantis in Florida,

who says that we need to get back to the quote unquote basics, reading, writing, and arithmetic, and I'm saying to compete in what century. So what do you think about how to reclaim this type of narrative? Because this is ultimately, in my opinion, about our workforce and our ability to be competitive globally in a world that is rapidly changing? I think to replaying the narrative, we have to start focusing on what public schools are doing well and also admit where they can improve. And it's just like you said, public schools are absolutely essential to a functioning democracy. And we have to have them in order to have an educated, an educated group, educated voters.

But we have to focus first on what schools are doing, so that we can stop taking them for granted. Many people do not realize that public schools are actually have improved for the last 20 years or so. And yes, the pandemic created a dip, but our scores have been getting better over time. And of course, there is so much to do. But until we focus on what schools are doing, both for education, but also for outside of education, for providing food, as you well know, for providing health care services, access to social services, internet access for families, informal career counseling.

I mean, there's so many things that schools do. Until we start focusing and naming on those things, we won't see us move forward and be able to actually promote and encourage support of public schools. The pandemic could have been a great time for that. That was a great time to show, wow, when schools close, look what happens. Kids aren't fed, et cetera, et cetera.

But instead, conservatives took over the narrative, and it became about look at what your public schools are doing to you. Look at how horrible this is. There needs to be as much attention paid to these pro-public school narratives as there is paid to these anti-public school narratives. You know, it's funny because much in the same way that we were clapping for and appreciative of quote-unquote essential workers for a hot minute, then as soon as things could slowly begin to return to a new normal, right?

we forgot all about that. People were applauding and being so grateful for their teachers and recognizing just how hard their jobs are and wondering why they aren't paid more. Then, to your point, conservatives were able to hijack that narrative and say, look at all of the things that are going on that are wrong. And it's just like, well, wait a minute. Schools are actually not only a respite for parents and caregivers, but they are functioning like community. centers that are tending to all sorts of needs that go beyond what the quote unquote basics are that Ron DeSantis referred to, that we are not living in a basic society. And I want to talk to you about this because this also, it moved from K through 12 to then the affirmative action decision

at the Supreme Court, which is now moving to venture capitalists and other ways to keep marginalized people marginalized, to rewind all of the progress that has been made. But what it comes back to Tamara is how it is going to affect our economy. So I want you to be able to connect the dots for people about how conservatives are narrowing our thinking, our ability, and our opportunity by the actions that they've been taking. Well, I think to go back to the earlier part of your question, it's about going back to basics. But the question is back to basics for which students, right? The students who have access to private education or who can scrape together every penny for K-12, like the way parents now scrape together every penny for college,

those students aren't going to get the basics. When you look at those private schools that have, you know, five-figure tuition, that's not basic, right? So when we talk about going back to basics, it's really about back-to-basics for the kids who have to rely on the public system. And it starts to sound a lot like public health care or public transportation, right? And that is what's really happening here. There's a clear connection there to be made to between schools and the economy, but you can make that connection about public health care and public transportation as well. But when it comes to education, it's super clear what's going to happen. You're going to have a workforce that is completely segregated from others who had a better, richer opportunity.

that's going to keep the pool of competition smaller. So people who are elite, people who can afford it, they don't have to worry about their children backsliding because they can't cut it or because they weren't the smartest person in the room or the hardest working or whatever it is that gets you noticed. The pool will be smaller.

So we have to ask ourselves, when we talk about Back to Basics, who is it for? And unfortunately, when you talk about Back to Basics, it's for kids who are in the public system. And unfortunately, if we look at public health, care, post transition, in many places, in many cities in this country, that means for poor people only. What you have laid out is a permanent working class, a caste system. You're creating a

caste system. What makes America or has made America different is our ability. We don't even have to get into all of the obstacles, the racism, the white supremacy, the misogyny, patriarchy, all of those different things that we know are at play. The difference, all of that into consideration, is education provides an opportunity for some to be able to change the outcome of their lives. The more education, the more opportunity to move up the economic ladder from which you were born into. It makes us different and operate outside of economic caste systems that we've seen in other countries. what conservatives would do with these moves that they are making and putting them under the guise of parental choice is to strip away all of the quote unquote extras and make it so that, oh, you have just enough skills to work in the factory. You have just enough skills to work at this level and not ascend above anything else.

How do you think that we make that crystal clear? I mean, your writing does. How does it need to relate, though, to people who are not quite paying attention? I think that's difficult, but I think it is starting to happen. And I think that's why it's important to look at the wins that these far-right conservative groups are actually having. So when you dive deeply into districts like Sarasota County in Florida, and you see what's happening there, they've had a taste, not just a taste, they've had a year plus of what happens when moms for liberty and fellow conservative, far-right conservatives are running your school board.

It means chaos. It means taking away character education. It means focusing and banning books about people of color, about LGBTQ people, and people are not liking it at all. People are very upset about this. And it goes beyond the hypocrisy of the sex scandal, though that is certainly a problem. But people are getting a taste of what it means to have far-right conservatives running your school board. And when you have a group that inherently does not believe in public schools running public schools, you're going to get what you're going to get. Yeah. And what you get is a narrowing or complete erasure of diversity, a complete erasure of what I think is incredibly important, which you named, which is character education, what kind of people are we creating, not just what kind of worker bees

we are creating, and kind of moving us backsliding into the 20th and the 19th century. All of these things, education and access to education and an opening provided opportunities for so many groups that were not white, that were not male, that were not cis, that were not straight. And that is what they want, is that pool to be smaller so that. that they can dominate. And I think that the conversations that you have been having in your articles, in your writing, are really amazing and incredibly important to lift up. My last question for you is, what do you think that the fight back looks like? I think there's two layers to that question. I think the first is more obvious. The first is to make sure that people who are for public

schools are running for school boards, that parents are paying attention, that that we are engaging with teachers in person and not listening to the characterization of what they do and actually making sure we understand what's really happening in schools. The second one is a bit more controversial. It's important that we understand that in order for public schools to survive and thrive, we need the American public to buy into them. And while that does not mean that we marginalize students, it does mean that we have to listen to the parents who are concerned.

And often that might be conservative parents who are concerned with schooling looking different from today than what it looked like when they were kids. Just for an example, in 2000, over 60% of school children were white. Today, it's less than half. There are parents who are looking at these classrooms and seeing these cultural and these racial changes and they're uncomfortable. And while that does not mean that we legitimize any type of education that marginalizes any student, we do have to make sure that we are bringing families along with us because without public buy-in,

public schools will not survive. So that's a harder thing to do, but I don't want us to forget that everyone deserves education. Everyone should be heard. And I strongly believe that there is so much that we can do and that we have in common that we can continue public education so that we don't end up in these polarized wars and we don't end up in a situation where public schools are no longer for the public. Well, we will leave it there today. Tamerjilks, Boar, thank you so much for making the time for the new abnormal. Thank you for your work at The Economist. We greatly appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Andy Levy. Danielle Moody. Grand opening, grand closing. Andy, who is your fuck-that-guy for the week? My fuck-that-guy for the week is Elon Musk. And yeah, I know it's an easy target and we pick him a lot and I probably in particular pick him a lot. But Business Post had an unbelievable article on Sunday, I guess it was. They got access to leaked documents from Twitter that revealed how basically when Musk took over the platform,

He took all the power away from staffers to get rid of toxic content that was being posted. And here's the stuff that used to be pre-Musk that were subject to high levels of enforcement in terms of removing it, but no longer are. So this stuff is now pretty much okay on Twitter. Sending unsolicited sexual posts to another user, posts that deny violent events such as the Holocaust, Post that refer to specific slurs for black, white, and gay people. Post that harass another user by sending a picture of Adolf Hitler. Post that remove human characteristics or deprive groups or individuals of human qualities. There's a couple more, but those are the main ones.

Basically, what that all means is under the guise of pretending to be a free speech person, which he is not, as he has shown over and over again, by banning people who say bad things about him Murray's business. On Twitter, you can now harass people by sending them sexual posts. You can harass them by sending them pictures of Hitler. You can use slurs to refer to black people, to refer to gay people. The list goes on and on and on. It's a training manual for hate is what it is. And that's pretty much what Twitter has become under Musk. And as far as I can tell, we'll continue to become more of under Musk. It's sad because I haven't posted there in like a month. And I I don't plan on posting there again anytime soon as long as he's running the company.

It has become a place where hate flourishes. And it's not a pleasant place to be. And it basically is at this point, it's gab or truth social. And I don't see any reason to keep posting there or to post there ever again as long as he's running it. So for that and God, so many other reasons, fuck that guy. The site is a cesspool. It's a toxic waste dump. I post and get out and have been doing that since he took over.

I don't no longer stay on that site for any more than to like post something and get out. And I've watched my followers decline because everyone is leaving who has any goddamn sense or like wants to keep their emotional well-being intact. So fuck that guy. Fuck those people. Fuck the bots. All of it. I hate him as well. Yes.

So Danielle. Who's your fuck that guy? Well, another Hall of Famer, Ron DeSantis, and you could say, for what this time? Well, let me tell you. So, Ron DeSantis is currently up in arms and is saying that Trump will declare the Iowa caucuses stolen if he loses.

And so, first of all, and this is according to a write-up in the New York Times, First of all, Ron DeSantis just like recently admitted to the fact that the 2020 election wasn't stolen. So that's number one. He was on that, you know, election denier train for as long as it was politically expedient and appropriate for him. And so to now turn around and say that the man that we know fucking lies and we know tried to steal this election, that, oh, now because it's going to hurt your process. which you don't have any, sir, if you've been looking at the polls like the rest of us have,

of winning in Iowa, Trump would need to drop out, go to jail, and do all of the things in order for Ron DeSantis to have a shot in hell in Iowa. But just this idea that now even the Trump camp is saying that, oh yeah, well, when Ron DeSantis' career in politics is done in a couple of weeks. He can go masquerade as a Democrat because we all know where his true feelings are. I'm just like, these people will fucking eat their own. Like, they don't care. And so on that point, I'm just like, go at it. You know, bring the knife and the fork. I don't care. Like, go to town on your own people, because maybe that's the only way that we get rid of them. It's just like bold for Ron DeSantis now to be like, oh, because it could

hurt him that Trump's lies and election denierism could have him upend the Iowa caucuses. I'm like, shut the fuck up. Okay. Honestly, Ron DeSantis, you know, the one thing that the article did get right, I believe that your political career will be over in a couple of weeks and that will be good fucking riddance. So, fuck that guy. Everything you said is completely true. I don't feel sorry for Ron DeSantis at all. That said, if Trump does lose the Iowa caucuses, they probably were stolen. So he might actually be right in this case. There is no way he's losing the Iowa caucuses. And DeSantis can throw this stuff out there all he wants. And from day one, if he had been calling out Trump for his election bullshit, then this would be fine. But no,

absolutely not. Fuck that guy. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline head to the dailybeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.