The Daily Beast Podcast - The Republican Party Is Self-Destructing Before Our Very Eyes

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

CNN commentator S.E. Cupp joins The New Abnormal to discuss her recent article about how the right is broken–and nothing is being done to fix it. Then, psychiatrist and author Dr. Jonathan Metzl talks about the connection between the rise in hate crimes in the country and the amount of misinformation made readily available via social media at certain news channels. 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.

CNN commentator SECup joins us to talk about her recent article for the New York Daily News. The right is broken and no one is fixing it about all the fuckery going on in the house speaker race. Then psychiatrist and author Dr. Jonathan Metzell is here to talk about the connection between the rise and hate crimes in the country and the amount of misinformation made readily available via social media and certain news channels. But first, let's have some fun. All right, Danielle. So we're taping a little early for this episode.

And so where we are now with the House Speaker race is Jim Jordan has lost a second vote by more votes than he lost the first vote. But there's going to be a third one, which will be held after we tape. So we don't know what's going to happen there. But I think it's safe to assume, well, yeah.

I'll say that and then be wrong. I was going to say, it's safe to assume what? It's not safe to assume. It's safe to assume there will be a vote in the vote. So he's 0 for two. He's still not up to Kevin McCarthy territory. That was 1,476 votes that he lost. And all of this comes despite or maybe because of, I don't know, sort of some intense.

Some would call it lobbying. I think most people would call it bullying from people. from people like Sean Hannity on Fox News, who apparently there were reports that one of his producers was messaging holdouts in the Republican Party, asking them basically what their problem was. And not explicitly, but pretty much implicitly threatening them that if they didn't vote for Jordan, the network or Hannity in particular would not be kind to them. One Republican representative said his wife was getting. texts from unidentified people saying things like, why is your husband causing chaos by not

supporting Jim Jordan? I thought he was a team player. And when she replied, who is this? She got a message saying, your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappointment and failure he is. It was an anonymous text or whatever. But Don Bacon, who's the representative whose wife it was, has basically accused this of being from someone on Jordan's team. And so we've seen a whole lot of that over the last few days. And, and, so we've seen a whole lot of that over the last few days. And at this point, I mean, none of this is a surprise. This is what they do. We're not talking about politics here. We're talking about just straight up bullying and being assholes. Well, I guess we are talking about politics then now that I think about it. But this really is the GLPMO in the

Year of Our Lord 2023. This just seems to be par for the course where we are with Republicans, which is that right now, we have no end in sight. If they were willing to go 50, rounds for Kevin McCarthy. Who knows how many rounds that they're willing to go for Jim Jordan. But when you lose more votes in the second time around than you did the first time around, things are not trending in the right direction. And so the Republicans are doing to themselves what they do with everyone else, which is ratchet up their threats. So you have Steve Bannon, who is one of the best good for nothings on his podcast, amping up the pressure. You have him telling his listeners to call up Steve Womack, Republican from Arkansas, who hesitated to support Jim Jordan,

he said, quote, you're in a super MAGA district. You got to get your mind right. Just chew on that fucking sentence for a minute. Like, get your mind right, you're super MAGA. Get your mind right. Meaning reverse the lobotomy, I would assume. But then you have Matt Gates, you know, praising Steve Beck. I mean, just look at, like, this is like the sludge. of the earth. That's all I will say. Matt Gates praising, and this is according to an article in the Washington Post, Steve Bannon's audience for delushing the Republican lawmakers with phone calls, urging them to get on what Gates called, quote, the Jordan train, which has got to be the soulless train, not to be confused with soul train, because that is where we are here. I know that

we've said this so many times before. If Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise are the best that you can offer up, you are at the bottom of the sewer of the Republican Party. And the fact that within this second vote that we're talking about right now, that you had some people cast a ballot for Boehner of all people who's somewhere drinking, smoking and crying, I just don't know where we go from here, But we have serious shit happening in this country and around the world. And we are in, what, week two, week two and a half, three of having no speaker of the house for the first time in American history? It would be laughable if we weren't living in such apocalyptic times. Yeah, which is, I feel like we say that on every episode about something or other.

Yes. It's not the new abnormal. It's the new apocalyptic. Welcome. Exactly. Right. But yeah, it's safe to say that Gladys Knight wasn't singing about the midnight train to Jordan. Oh, shit.

Yes. Good night, everybody. Good night. But up. Where was I? Where were we? Before I so rudely interrupted myself. Look, it's gotten to the point where even Republicans are saying, yeah, this didn't work.

We have Byron Donald, who is about as MAGA as it gets. Except he doesn't have the complexion. for the protection, but keep going. That's true. Other than not being white as a sheet, as someone said before we went to air. He is very MAGA, but he went on Fox and said that he thinks these pressure campaigns have backfired. And when Republicans are looking around and saying, oh, we're the assholes, you know it's bad because they very rarely realize that. And of course, It's important to note that they're not upset about being assholes. They're upset that it's not working.

We should make that clear. Republicans have turned Democrats into the party of evil. Like, we're the terrible party because we want equity. And we want people to feel like they are part of the American project. And they have tried to paint Democrats as incompetent and dangerous. And here they are with their four-seat majority. And they cannot get their shit together. The only thing that they have been able to.

agree on is to continue backing Donald Trump of four-time indicted 91 charges against him and to keep investigating Hunter Biden. Like, those are the two things that this party's been doing since they got the gavel. And so I think that the only thing that Democrats need to do now, as many people were just like, I think Democrats overplayed their hand by not supporting Kevin McCarthy. And I think I'm like, no, they're letting it play out. Like, just, you know, Let it play out and tell the story and remind people that Nancy Pelosi also had a four-seat majority. And I just want people to understand what she was able to get done versus where this shit show is right now. Well, for one thing, she could count.

Mm-hmm, important. Yeah, kind of an important thing when you're trying to get votes together, whether it's for a bill or whether it's for a race for speaker. And she actually came out and she told Jennifer Bendery of Huffington Post, she said to her, she said, they should take a lesson in mathematics and learn how to count. And it really is kind of hilarious that all these guys who want to be speaker and who want to be the leader of their party in the house can't count. And they can't get it through their heads that they don't have the votes. And you know, we saw this with McCarthy. And finally, unlike the 1850th ballot, he got. through, but he didn't have the votes. And Scalise didn't have the votes the first time. He at least

had the brains or whatever to say, yeah, this ain't happening. I'm not going to embarrass myself any further. But of course, Jim Jordan has, you know, no bottom when it comes to embarrassing himself. And look, this isn't even in the top hundred things he's done in his life in terms of embarrassing himself. So I guess I kind of get that. Like, this is, this is just, you know, this is a normal work day for Jordan. Usually he's on a much worse end of. self-embarrisement than this. They can't even count to get the speakership, let alone to pass legislation. And it's just, as you said, it would be hilarious, except that unfortunately it's not. But you know one of the reasons why they can't vote? As I'm sitting and I'm thinking, I'm like,

it's because they lie so much to each other and they lie so much to themselves and they do these secret ballots and they can't get their act together because they talk out of two sides of their out. So in one hand, Jim Jordan is doing all the calls, you know, pressure campaign, yeah, I got your back, buddy, got your back. And then he goes on the floor like a fool because he's been lied to because that's what they do. So I'm like, at the end of the day, I continue to ask this question, what do the Republicans want? Other than chaos, which they have got, and unfortunately, we are all a part of and a subject to, what is it that you could say right now that the Republican party wants. Basically, at least, I think I've said this before, just judging from the presidential

debates, they want to invade Mexico and eliminate trans people. Beyond that, I'm not really sure, but those are definitely two items high on the agenda for Republicans. Oddly, neither of those is, you know, making life better for Americans, which you would like to think should be high on a list for politicians, but, you know, we know better than that. Look, we're at the point where, you know, there's talk now of interim speaker Patrick McKenry about passing some sort of, you know, measures to give him more power and just extend his interim speakership and basically just go without a true speaker. And, you know, I think we talked about this last time. Like, this is sort of, when you say, what do they want? We were talking about this last time. And it was someone else who had made

this point. I'm now blanking on who it was. But we were talking about it in the sense of, I think it was another Republican who said, these guys don't want to be in power. Like, they want to sit in the back and heckle and throw their little bombs and then run back to their district and complain about the deep state and how much they would have accomplished except for the swamp and the Democrats and the rhinos. Because that's what works for them. That's what gets them elected over and over again. The people who vote for these guys don't seem to care that they never get shit done. Well, because their attitude is always that government is failing them anyway. Right. Right. Right. So let's you just muck up the process even more. They don't care what comes out of it because government has never worked for me is always the quote that comes out of these people's mouths. But you're absolutely right, which is that they want sound bites for Fox. They want to be on Bannon's podcast. They want to be able to sell their survival food and their t-shirts and whatever other infomercial junk. That's what they want. And so their attitude is more.

suitable for the minority so that they can bitch and complain. But then once people are like, oh yeah, Republicans seem to be sensible, let's give them the house. They don't do anything. Because they're paralyzed by the fact that it is the Freedom Caucus, Jim Jordan's magic idea, the Freedom Caucus that is running the show. And you can't have people that want to dismantle government, lead government. And that is where we are. So meanwhile, as all this House stuff plays out, We do have sort of a presidential race going on on the Republican side. It's not much of one. And it's, you know, as various people have called it, it's a sham. And we all know Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. And it looks like the big time Republican donors have come to the same conclusion.

A report by Dave Weigel in Semaphore shows that Trump had his best fundraising quarter of the year, more than $7 million at a few days just after his arraignment in Georgia. because what is a better fundraising mechanism than being indicted in yet another district in the country? And he ended up with 24.5 million overall. That's good. It's not, as Wigel points out, that's less than Sanders or Warren raised over the same period four years ago. But it still dwarves the rest of the Republican nominees. Nikki Haley raised 8.2 million. DeSantis, 11.2 million.

None of this is good for them. These are low totals. And as Weigel points out, he writes, big donors are getting a little tired of investing in Trump challengers who've struggled to make the primary competitive. And he notes that DeSantis' fundraising is down 45% since the second quarter. Tim Scots is down 20%. Mike Pence is basically broke.

That's what the Republicans are looking at now. And so, you know, as the money dries up, all these candidates are so far behind already, it's ridiculous. All they're going to do is get further and further. they're behind because they ain't got the money. And there's absolutely no point in having any more Republican debates or anything like that. And most importantly, because I'm tired of being, of having to watch them. Yeah. So if nothing else, have at least a shred of humanity and think of me and cancel these stupid fucking debates because Donald Trump is your nominee. Yeah, just stop being

selfish, you know, at this point. Thank you. So that we can move on with our lives and know, that the devil really is in the details here, and that what's fascinating to me, just worth pointing out, is that Donald Trump is using all of his mugshot money in order to pay for his legal defense, which in it of itself is also a crime. I just want to point that out that your campaign finances are not supposed to be then earmarked for your own legal defense for all of the other crimes that you've committed. But that's exactly what's happening here. It is just bananas. I think for me, the funniest part of this read, and I know that it's not comedy, but it should be. When it said that Tim Scott fell by 20%, I'm like, he was ever up? Like, what's the only thing that I thought?

I was like, where was he up? Right? Like, he didn't have enough money to put a full face on the black face that was on his fucking logo. So like, it's just wild to me. And then Mike Pence, dear God, sir, you should have stayed home with mother because this has actually cost you money to run. Imagine that the man who did not overturn the 2020 election, people built a gallows for it in order to hang him, thought that he had a constituency and is now broke. Who is advising him? Who ever said to him, you know, Mike Pence, I think that. these MAGA people, they're just really misunderstood about your character. We just need to get you out there more. I'll tell you who's advising him. It's political consultants who made themselves

a nice little paycheck. And that's what a lot of this boils down to for a lot of these candidates. They're not really running for president. Not so much Mike Pence. He, yeah, as you said, I don't know what the hell he was thinking. But I think a lot of these guys are running to boost their national profile so they get more hits on Fox News and more hits on Newsmax. And like you said, maybe get invited on Steve Bannon's Godforsaken podcast. So, yeah, that, you know, people are making money off of this, and that's the American way, and that's how we do it. And then there's the funny, at least to me, this is hysterical, is that since RFK Jr.

switched from Democrat to Independent, a new poll shows him, this is an NPR, PBS News Hour, Maris National Poll, shows him with 16% of the vote. And that's against Trump and Biden, which basically makes him, unbelievably more popular than any of the people running on the Republican ballot except for Trump. But more importantly, he is, and I don't know why anyone is surprised by this, but apparently there's some people who are. He is taking away, according to these polls, over twice as many votes from Trump as he is from Biden. And him being in a three-way race gives Biden an actually very comfortable lead with him on the ballot. I think everyone who is a Democrat was saying this,

when you, you know, when RFK Jr. was pretending to be a Democrat, they're like, this is a guy, why is he a Democrat? And of course, places like Fox News loved him when he was a little gadfly in the Democratic Party. And now that he's an independent and it's, you know, become clear to them that he's actually going to take votes away from Trump. They hate him now. And even like, like Sean Hannity, who has not thrown a pitch over 20 miles an hour to anyone, I think, in his career, was playing hardball with him. It's absolutely hilarious to see.

And it's just, you could see RFK Jr. Just being like, oh, shit, I really blew this grift. I really fucked this up. And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I don't know why he thought, aside from his last name, that he was going to run as a Democrat. It was just like what part of his values aligned with anything that had to do with the Democratic Party? And Republicans are as shallow as shallow. They're excited about him. He's going to trample Biden and all of these things. And then he's coming after your guy after he switches parties. And now, oh, we're going to play hardball. It's just, I'm just so these people, Andy. I know.

Believe that I would love for this man to go away. I think that his anti-vax, his lack of information and facts is dangerous. But you know what? If he's going to help bring down Donald Trump, go with God. I cheer lead for him. him. I'll buy his grifting t-shirt. Yeah, I'll give him a damn Nobel Prize at that point. The right is broken and no one is fixing it. This, according to my next guest, who had a piece with that very headline in the New York Daily News this week. Joining me now to explain is CNN commentator, New York Daily News columnist, and my ex friend, sorry, that's a mistake in the teleprompter.

My old friend, Essie, Cupp. Essie, thanks for being here. That's terrible. I don't put the stuff in the teleprompter. That was not me. I don't know who did that. I don't like X or old. I know.

I know. But one is true. Okay. So before we get to what you wrote, I want to talk about some news that happened shortly before we started talking. Former Donald Trump attorney, Sidney Powell, has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case. This happens a day before her trial was set to begin.

I remember her case was severed from Trump's because she wanted a speedy trial. So, Essie, I'm going to go out on a limb. and say that this news doesn't invalidate your the right is broken thesis. No, I mean, throw it on the pile. The column really looks at Congress, but there's so much more to the right, including right-wing media and obviously all of Maga and Trump's literal bonfire of the vanities. But I think while we expected some of the severed defendants to make these kind of plea deals, I am still really surprised.

I mean, for her to take a deal, which still sends her to prison, must mean a few things. A, she's got some stuff that she can sell to the prosecution, some stuff that they want to make a deal with her. And two, the stuff against Donald Trump must also be really bad for her to think, well, I don't want to go the way he's going. You know, I'm going to protect myself and get the best deal I can. I mean, there must just be a lot, a lot of evidence against these idiots for her to take a deal like this. Yeah, according to CNN.com, if you choose to trust them, the prosecutors down in Fulton County are recommending that she gets six years probation. She is also going to be required to testify at future trials, which we can assume includes Donald Trump's. And she has to write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, which I found interesting.

She already did. She did write that and turned it into the judge at her arraignment today. Oh. Yeah, I mean, they are requesting probation. She could still very easily get jail time. She could get a year of jail time. None of this is completely done. And in fact, if the state changes their case, she can withdraw her guilty plea. So none of this is done. You know, my initial thought was, wow, this is bad. It's bad for Trump. And it was obviously bad enough for Sidney Powell for her to strike this deal. Yeah, and I assume that this deal is predicated on her testifying fully and truthfully in these future trials so that she has an incentive to do so. That's right. It's not just behind the scenes depositions she has to testify in probably more than one of the trials. Yeah. You know, she could be a very useful witness on many fronts. I bet she was, you know, she was in a lot of rooms, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, she was releasing the cracking. So, you know. Wild. I know. So in your piece, which as you said was mostly about Congress, you wrote,

the right is broken. It is no longer a useful check on the left, nor is it a functioning force for conservative policy or principles. Explain why. Yeah. The right wing, right, which could encompass the Republican Party, could encompass conservatism, could encompass a whole bunch of things, right wing media included all should exist to be a check on the left. That's why we have two parties. While the House is speakerless and Republicans are fighting Republicans, they're not really being an effective check on the left.

They're also not governing as a party, right? That's the function of the Republican Party is to get Republicans elected to govern, to legislate, to solve problems. They're not doing any of that. The right-wing media should be a check on the left. The right-wing media instead has followed Trump down into rabbit holes and lawsuits that has made them like kind of self-destruct. Yeah. They're not holding anyone really accountable in believable, credible ways because they've lost a lot of credibility in defending Trump to the end. So, like, all of this stuff is broken. And while conservatism remains intact, because that's a set of values, the Republican Party is broken as a functioning party. Republicans are breaking government, right-wing media is broken. All of these institutions are obviously dysfunctional, but also useless.

I mean, just completely useless right now at a time when we could use it all. And not having too strong parties is awful for the country. Even Democrats should want a better Republican party than they have. That's why we're seeing the dysfunction in the House, but it's not, as you said, it's not just there, right? I mean, it reverberates out into Trump world and into the media and into so many other things. It's, I think, really important that we try to fix this. I'm just not sure anyone inside the Republican first.

He already wants to. No, absolutely. But before we get to whether it's even fixable, and if so, what that fix would look like, how would you say we got here? Is the answer as simple as Trump? Or was it heading that way before Trump? How would you characterize it? Well, I think they're probably very early canaries in the coal mine.

But I think one of the things that was probably ushering in some of this was the Tea Party. And look, there was some good in the Tea Party. The Tea Party, I don't have to tell you, but you're. Listeners, the Tea Party came about as a reaction to the right to George W. Bush not being fiscally responsible, bailing out the banks. That's what it started as. There's nothing wrong with that. That's good. But what came along with the Tea Party dragged along with that was this populism that almost overtook policy and principle. It became more important. And that led to a rise in personality and celebrity. And so in that way, that begot Trump. And I would put the genesis of all of

this kind of around the Tea Party, but Trump exploded all of that because, A, he didn't care about policy or principles. He didn't care about the Republican Party and keeping it strong and healthy. He didn't care about any of that. He wanted to break it all so that he could be bigger than it. He didn't want people caring more about the party than they cared about him or the country more than they cared about him or things like policies like anti-protectionism and lowering the debt and the deficit, things that conservatives had always cared about. He didn't want them caring about that more than they cared about him. So I think the Tea Party and Republicans conditioned an environment for Trump to come along and do what he's done. But I don't think it completely started with Trump.

Yeah, no, I think that's totally fair. And I also think you're right in your characterization of the Tea Party. I just remember at the time thinking to myself that the Tea Party and the Occupy movement actually had some goals in common. Yeah. And it was, as you said, it was anger at the banks being bailed out. And it was really sort of the origins of the whole, you know, the system is rigged, sort of belief that has become far more commonplace now, I think, and far more talked about both on the left and the right. But I think you're right about that. And I do know that a lot of people talk about the Tea Party sort of being. the original sin here, which in a sense is what you're saying, and I agree with that.

But I also do agree that the Tea Party, at least as originally constituted, didn't have to be that. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Had Rand Paul, right, and Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and all the guys that came in with the Tea Party, had they really stuck to that narrow goal of being a check on largesse and fiscal irresponsibility, well, I think they would have been much more successful and you wouldn't have the divisiveness, the fetishization of grievance and revenge. I mean, that, like I said, it dragged the populism along with that fiscal message. That's the part that was deleterious, I think. Yeah, no, absolutely agree.

You've mentioned this a couple of times, and so let's get into it a little bit, because I do think it's more than fair to say that what the majority of right-wing media has become certainly has not been helpful to the main mission or to the original mission of conservatism. No. And you and I came up at Fox. You were actually smarter than me and never did sign a contract there. Oh, that's true.

Not because I was smarter, but it wouldn't give me one. Roger Ailes didn't like that I was an atheist. That's what I heard. Oh, interesting. They were happy to use me every five fucking minutes for free. But listen, I was coming up and, you know, you do what you got to do. do. And that was a time where we had really smart intellectual thinkers on Fox. We also had idiots, but we had, you might not like these people, but they were smart. They were thinkers.

Jonah Goldberg, Stephen Hayes, Fred Barnes, Bill Crystal, whatever you think of their politics or their neoconism, that's fine. They were thinkers and they were interested in policy and they were interested in conservatism. And they're all gone, obviously. Right. And what you're left with are the entertainers who don't really care about conservatism, who don't really care about policy anymore, because Trump didn't. And so they don't. The biggest example of that transformation, I think, was Tucker, because Tucker's very smart. Tucker did it at a time care about conservatism and policy and just completely jettisoned that for the grievance politics and the conspiracy theories. And once Fox decided that was all fine, we're going to ride that. We'll take it and we'll pretend

that we've got some wall between the news division and the entertainers. We'll pretend that Brett Baers keeping us safe over here while Tucker's, you know, taking us off a cliff. Once they allowed that to happen, all the credibility was gone. Then they just became infotainment. And listen, they're successful at that. But to be a mouthpiece and a platform for conservatism, well, they haven't been that in many, many years. Right. I absolutely agree with you. As you said, I would have many, many disagreements with someone like Stephen Hayes or a Charles Crouthammer back in the day. Yeah.

But they're very smart people and they would make cogent arguments, which again, you could 100% disagree with and you could not like their priors, as we like to say these days or whatever. But Stephen Hayes is a smart person and the other people you named. And it's not an accident that all those people have left. And as you said, it's been left to the entertainers who not only don't care about policy, let's be honest, they're not really smart enough to get into policy. No, I mean, these aren't people that have read like the conservative canon, right? And that's okay.

Their audience doesn't care about it. That's fine. But it also, that also leaves you with a very shallow base of knowledge, institutional knowledge, of what should be important to a movement, to a political movement. And that's what Fox was supposed to be, a voice for conservatives. And now it's become a voice for conspiracy theory. almost exclusively, and that's such a shame because I want there to be a voice for conservatives and conservatism the way that MSNBC, I think, is a very good voice for liberalism. You don't tune in necessarily to get objectivity there, but you definitely get a very good representation of what

I think, you know, the goal of liberalism is and Democrats today. I don't think Fox is that for conservatism. And I don't see anywhere else that is effectively, because, they've all kind of gone the way of Fox and Trump. No, absolutely. And that brings us, because I don't think that they are unconnected, to the sort of the Speaker of the House Clown Show that we're dealing with now. How do you see this ending? As we tape, it looks like Jim Jordan will not go for a third vote, which he undoubtedly

would have lost. And plans seem to be in the works to keep Patrick McHenry around as a temporary speaker for the rest of this term. Is that how you see it ending, at least for now? It is. What I would do is abandon the Jim Jordan project because that's a non-starter. He is like the least liked and least likely to build consensus in the house. Forget that. Put Patrick McKenry in with some limited powers and take the next few months to find a consensus candidate that you could get a couple Democrats to vote for. That's what I would do because I don't think you're ever going to get a consensus candidate just among Republicans. They're too dysfunctional and too. in it for their own celebrity and fame. But I think you could get to a point where you find someone enough Democrats want to help out with. And listen, I know Democrats are having fun watching the dysfunction in the Republican House right now, but that will have a short shelf life because

the American people blame Republicans right now for their own mess, rightly, but they will get tired of intransigence and dysfunction when we don't have a budget again and when all these things like closing the borders, all of these things become impossible because we have a dysfunctional Congress. They'll blame Democrats for that too, especially if Democrats get an opportunity to help and then don't take it. I think that'll be a bad look for Democrats. And what I'm hearing when I talk to some Democrats on the Hill is that they are considering

that possibility. They are looking at that as a real possibility that they might have to do. Gotcha. But give me some examples of who you think these people would be that would be, you know, that I don't know, let's say 10, 15 at a minimum Democrats would find. find amenable. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And I'm not dodging it. But it's this Venn diagram, not just of who could Democrats elect, who wants this job, which eliminates a lot of people, and who enough Republicans? I don't have that name. And I think they need to start working on

whipping and finding that person, because it's like a unicorn. But I think it's more easy to identify that person than it is a person that could get enough Republican votes. Okay. So you close your piece by saying, For America, we're all watching what it looks like when a political party is in its final throes of usefulness and relevance, RIP. So I guess my question for you is, what do you think comes next? Do we get sort of a Trumpian version of the famous Louis XIV, quote, operate moire le deluge? Or can the party be salvaged? Gosh, I would love for the party to be salvaged, but for that to happen, it has to be completely dismantled.

These are not the people who are going to save the party, people currently ruining it. I don't expect any of them to like suddenly find Jesus and decide, well, remember our conservative principles? Let's get back to that. Right. And let's kick out, not just Trump. That's easy to do. But the worst of his voters, right?

Let's kick out the Q&ons and the proud boys and the oathkeeper. We got to get rid of all of those people. We don't want your votes. Let's piss them off enough to not get their votes. That's what you have to do. None of these people have that courage. I think it's going to be a long time before the Republican Party ridds itself of all of this. and has an interest in returning to functioning and to effectiveness and to principles.

They don't have that interest right now. They think things are going great. They love the dysfunction. We can want it to change. But unless they want to take all of those steps, obviously it's not going to happen. I don't think it's going to happen for a very long time. Yeah, it does feel like a lot of them would be far more comfortable as the minority party. Look, it's a longstanding truism.

I mean, it's a lot easier to sit in the back and heckle and throw bombs than it is to govern. But as you said, when you're not really all that interested in principle or policy, but you are interested in owning the libs and then, you know, you can go back to your district and say, where the minority party, we can only do so much. Look what these terrible Democrats are doing. Like, that's the easiest thing in the world to do. I think that's a really, really good point that they, I think, preferred being in the minority, which is so gross, but says so much about the.

current state of affairs. They don't want to pass legislation. They don't want to govern. They don't want to solve problems. They want to yell about wokeism. They want to do the culture wars. They want to own the libs. And they want to make people hate each other. That's it. And they want to get famous. I mean, personally, they want to get famous and make money. But that is so much more the point now than any of the other reasons you go to Congress. And some of that is on us as voters. We elect these guys. I mean, I didn't, but, you know, people, people did. And people are the worst. But some of that is on voters to say, we want better. We want functioning government. Again, I'm not even sure a lot of voters want that. It's a really, it's a sad state of affairs. And while I can

admire the effectiveness of the Democrats, I don't like their policies either, you know? And so that leaves a lot of people homeless and wondering where it is that I can go for problem solving and good leadership and representation. It feels very lonely. I would imagine it does. Esi, thanks so much for being here. I don't have to tell you that it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Essie, come back early and often. Well, as your ex and old friend, you know I will. Folks, I am so excited to welcome to the new abnormal, my friend, regular guest on Wokey F. Daily, the author of the book Dying of Whiteness that was essentially prophetic when Jonathan wrote it, Dr. Jonathan Metzell, Jonathan, I don't even know where to begin, but what I will say is that we are at a terrifying place in America right now where for the last several years, we have watched report after report come out discussing the rise in hate crimes.

Whether it is a shooting that is predominantly targeted at Latino Americans, Asian Americans, whether it is, a shooting, whether it is a shooting that is predominantly targeted at Latino Americans, Asian Americans, whether. Whether we are seeing just reeling from the attack and the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian boy in Illinois who was killed by his landlord shouting Muslims must die, whether it was during the height of COVID. And we saw attacks on subway stations in New York City and places around this country. We're at a fever pitch, it feels like. And I want to get your thoughts on the psychology behind the rise in hate and how it's connected to the rhetoric and the misinformation that we are hearing on a regular basis. Well, thank you so much for having me. And I think it's important to note, first of all, that just to state the obvious, we are living in a moment where there is a lot of terror and there is a lot of actual violence and the sense that the user, mechanisms that keep the peace or keep order are failing many people right now.

It just feels like there's no one in control, which I think is a terrifying feeling, you know, in our individual lives, but just think in a more geopolitical sense, we've got nations invading other nations and, you know, Russian aggression and Azerbaijani aggression and Hamas aggression and Israeli aggression. It feels like a moment of chaos where there's just no control. And I think part of the feeling is a response to real violence. And then also a sense of just the usual breaks that are put on a system, the kind of what we might call the post-World War II order of maintaining peace between nations, just isn't functioning right now or is being very severely underlined. And so I think the first point to note is there is a real sense of the world spinning out of control, which we've been feeling progressively since the start.

of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd and all the factors. And so this sense of being unmoored, I mean, as you know, I study guns and many gun owners feel like nobody's going to protect them. I need to go buy a gun, which then creates these spirals of violence. And so I guess point number one is just to say this isn't just gas lighting, you know, that there really is a real, there is real fear of real things right now. But I think the other point that you and I talk about a lot is that it's not just about actual violence, that the technologies that set us against each other, that the minute anything happens, it becomes a polarizing crisis, that there's disinformation and misinformation and misleading to this sense of tribalization, that it's us against them and dehumanizing the other

side, you know, it's just creating a kind of siege mentality psychologically, which also creates its own psychological effects. And so we've never needed the kinds of structures and breaks on our system more than we do now. And unfortunately, these are the moments where they feel like they're failing the most. I want to talk about what you just touched on in terms of the algorithms that are actually feeding into this kind of non-break hate cycle that we find ourselves in. It isn't just about the doom scrolling that you can do on any social media platform, going down dark holes and rabbit holes. But it is an algorithm. that is being set up to feed us this type of pain. And initially, when we think back to whatever the

good old days were, whenever that was, at the advent of social media, it was about connecting with friends and family and, you know, being able to be a part of each other's lives and see each other's lives. And now, on top, you know, aside from the capitalistic greed, nonstop advertising to you in your sleep. There also is this feeding frenzy that has happened that we saw during the 2016 elections with the misinformation campaign coming out of Russia and trolls. But talk to us about when you don't have breaks, when everything that you're seeing on your platform is one negative, deheartening post after another, what does that do to our psychosis and our ability to pull ourselves out. Whether or not people are adherents to cognitive behavioral psychology and psychiatry,

when I was doing my psychiatric training, we learned that a trigger for depression is what's called catastrophizing. In other words, you have a real stressor very often, and you generalize from that to the world is falling apart. It leads to much broader associations about I'm a bad person or everybody's out to get me or other people against me are evil and there are more people out to get me. And so the purpose of cognitive behavioral therapy was to say, wait, let's step back a minute and see what, you know, let's just let's put this in context and see if we can arrest this cascade before it leads to a generalization, which leads to despair, depression, etc. And I just keep thinking about that training because social media works the exact opposite. It's a

catastrophizing technology that rewards, you know, this one thing happened and therefore everything is falling apart and everybody hates you and your enemies are unhuman. It's exactly the opposite. In a way, we've got a technology that takes the one instance, which often is a horrible instance, and then it cascades. It rewards that cascading. I think about that because the kind of techniques that we would use in cognitive behavioral therapy about, like, let's stop and see what the evidence is. There's no algorithm for that in a way. So Twitter rewards negative affect. If you send a tweet that is maybe there are people on the other side I can speak to or maybe we could talk face to face off of social media, you'll get no retweets. It's not monetized. Yep. And so we've got this entire financial system

that monetizes conflict. It monetizes hate. It monetizes the inability not only to solve problems in a humane way, but also to negotiate in a particular way. And so there is real pain. There is real murder. There is real despair right now. I'm not trying to minimize that. But I would say that the ways that we are being fed that and processing it, it's depressiveizing. It's creating psychosis and despair because it leads to exactly the kinds of crises that you would think in another planet, mental health would be aimed to disrupt, which is this sense of catastrophe and no other alternative than violence or despair. I want to talk about the politics of this as well as like how technology and the algorithms

are feeding into this. When we have one political party, the Republican Party, that has become very much a white supremacist cult, where there is a feeding frenzy that happens inside of the Republican Party where we're no longer political opponents. You're evil, right? You're non-human. You are an enemy of the state. The escalation in violent. violent rhetoric. We see it echoed not only in representatives in Congress, we see it repeated with the candidates for president on the Republican side, and then we see this echo chamber in Fox. I can't help as we are learning more about the murder of the six-year-old in Illinois that the landlord was sitting in front of conservative media all the time. And so,

So talk to us again about how the political norms that we had, where we could go back to that time of, yes, we have differences, but like you are not my enemy. We need to come to the table for compromise because that's how democracy was set up. But now it is an us versus them mentality. Well, first, let me just say that the murder of this child in Illinois is unspeakable in so many ways. and reports of, you know, what happened in Israel, there are children being murdered, and it's not like an either-or thing. Children are being murdered, and it's just unimaginable in our lifetimes that this kind of violence is happening right now in Israel, in Gaza, in the United States. It's just,

again, it's kind of like this question of what are the breaks that we can put on this? For me, beside reason and dialogue, I mean, we have this initiative here called at Vanderbilt called the I'm the head of it, so it's not a play. It is maybe a plug, but it's called the Institute for Open Dialogue. And the issue is what kind of dialogue is there between people who are willing to speak across political divides? And it's a really hard job right now because there's no market for it in a way. In so many places in our society, because of social media, because of politics, because of real things that are happening on the ground, we're creating a fake one here at Vanderbilt in terms of like forums between people who are diametrically opposed and, what kind of skills can we have from talking across the divide. And it's very easy for everybody to get up. I mean, we had one the other night, which was a Jewish columnist and a Palestinian academic.

And everybody gets up and says, well, the key thing is we need to get off of social media because we can't solve our problems that. Everybody says that. And I think, well, that sounds great. But like, how are we going to get off social media when we've already like used social media to like shut down every other mode of conversation in a way. And so in a way, it's like how can we create algorithms that reward collaboration and centrism in a way? I mean, I do feel like just centrism feels like such a hopeless cause right now. But I remember in grad school reading that the biggest threat to democracy isn't extremism is when centrism falls apart. In other words, avenues for people in the middle to come together and create common structures. And that's true in the most dire moments of

American history, certainly, that in the 1960s, for example, people were able to come together to pass the Voting Rights Act and the Gun Control Act of 1968 and other factors in a way it takes people willing to cross the aisle in a way. Even right now, as you and I are speaking, the Republicans, for example, have an ability to not elect Jim Jordan, to work with Democrats, to create a centrist alliance in Congress. It's not like we don't have that possibility. It's just that It's kind of like what's the reward structure for that in a way? And so it's a scary moment because of extremism, but it's for me a more scary moment because the reward structure around centrism seems to be falling apart.

And that's really where I think we need to push back. You know, it just, you know, it's like that saying where if you continue to reward bad behavior, what do we think that the result is going to be? Look at the rise of a character like George Santos, who has lied about everything, is under There are 21 charges that he's facing and the Republican Party refuses to abandon him much in the same way that they are standing by Donald Trump, a man with 91 charges for indictments, says some of the most vile things such as recently, you know, talking about the, I believe it was something to the effect of, you know, tainted blood, which harkens back to Hitler in the way

that he talked about Jewish people, which we know where that led. And so I just wonder, Jonathan, like, is there a moment where the people get to a breaking point where they recognize that those that they put in charge do not share just decent humanity, shared humanity, empathy, and compassion, and that there's a break there. I don't see where the actual breaks are to stop the hate cycle. And I wonder, in your view, shake your crystal ball for me. But where do you see this going without direct intervention from political leaders? Well, we've seen in Poland over the past week that people can come together to push back on the worst elements of governance. But it takes a powerful, strong, unified coalition.

I always think about Jason Stanley's book about how fascism works. And what Stanley argues is one of the key factors. that leads to the rise of fascism, among other factors, is a fractured opposition that is divided and not unified. We saw the opposite in Poland. But I would say that COVID and the murder of George Floyd, and now what's happening in the United States is what sociologists call a polarizing crisis, that people all of a sudden are on one side of this or the other. And even some of the interviews I've had with historical allies over the past two weeks here, it feels like it's a moment of rupture that has fractured the opposition to the forces you're talking about. And so I think

the challenge, it's not going to be, I mean, there, I don't think, hopefully by the time this airs, Jim Jordan won't be the Speaker of the House. I mean, I think there are bad actors here. But I would also say that the work for the opposition is how can you work across divides at a time like this where it feels like we're on opposite sides of things and work back toward the kind of coalition that I think liberal politics needs. And I say that because I've even said working on all sides of this, as you know, I've worked in the Middle East a lot and there are alliances between the Israeli left and Palestinian left. There's a strong anti-occupation movement in Israel. And similarly in the United States, we've got histories of strong coalitions of people recognizing their

differences in working on the same page. But if we allow this kind of polarization, which is fueled by events, but it's also fueled by messaging by social media, if we allow that to fracture the coalitions that we've spent many years working on, including as you and I have talked about, historic black Jewish coalitions, among others, we're all going to be on the opposite side of oppression. And so I think the work is also for us to try to repair coalitions and see how we can work back together in common cause, even if there are, you know, acknowledging different responses to things that are happening. I mean, it sounds to me that we need to be our own breaks with failed leadership to be able to direct

collectively the people around a shared humanity with a democratic system that is working with one party and not two. We're at a place where I think that if you aren't taking your own breaks from social media, if you aren't double and triple checking where you are getting your information from, where those sources are coming from, and taking care of your mental and emotional well-being, we will continue to fracture

because the tribalism that is at play here seems at an all-time high. We will have to leave it today there, Jonathan, but as always, appreciate you, your commentary, your analysis, and hope that we can have you back again soon. That would be great. And please, everybody, take care of. of yourself and reach out to other people at times like this.

Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. Danielle, close us out. Give us a quality. Fuck that guy. I don't have quality, but I do definitely have a fuck that guy. And this is an oldie but a goodie because he'll never, ever, ever, ever go away. And that is Kevin McCarthy.

God, you know, I just realized, Andy, I can no longer call him the Fisher Price speaker. That was really good. I don't know what to call him anymore. I guess I'll just call him Kevin. I don't know. He needs a new nickname. But Kevin McCarthy is my fuck that guy. And here's why.

Because he's just such an asshole. So he is just standing in front of cameras, still blaming the Democrats for why there is no Speaker of the House. And I'm just so outdone and confused. Who he is lying for. the people who booted his ass out, the people who he spoke out of both sides of his mouth to and couldn't please multiple masters in the Republican Party at one time. And so they got rid of him. But somehow this is Democrats' fault because they didn't want to bail this lying ass, kiss-ass M-Fer.

Like this is why when people said, oh, Democrats didn't play their hand right, they should have bailed out Kevin McCarthy. And I'm like, do you listen to Kevin McCarthy? try and drag Democrats and say, I don't want their votes, but they were supposed to somehow look like the grownups in the room and decide that they're going to back this guy that they can't trust. The only place to back up Kevin McCarthy, I can't say that. You can't say that. That will be struck from the record.

Struck from the record as I would be struck by lightning. Oh my God. There's no way to back up Kevin McCarthy because he's a liar. And the fact of the matter is that Democrats did absolutely the right thing. And, you know, I don't often say that, but I say that about this decision. Because Kevin McCarthy will forever be chiseled into the Mount Rushmore of fuck that guys. I mean, look, I guess it's a skill of a sort to just to be able to lie that fluidly. But I don't know that it's something you want to be known for.

But it's a good question as to why he's doing this. And I mean, I can only assume it's again for the people back home, like, so that his constituents don't think, oh, well, it was, you know, his fellow Republicans who booted him. And so that they think instead that once again, it was the Democrats and or the deep state and or the swamp or whatever that stopped hero Kevin from finding the grail or whatever. That's my guess. Beyond that, I don't really know. They're all so stupid. Yeah. It's just, I'm just tired of how stupid they are.

Yeah, it's exhausting. So, Andy, how are you closing out this exhausting, terrible, no good week in America? Well, I'm going to go with someone who I have long been calling the dumbest person on cable news. And that is Fox News is Jesse Waters. I always get a little bit of pleasure when one of Fox's own guests points out how stupid the person they're talking to is. And in this case, Waters was talking to the former NATO Supreme Allied commander, a guy named Philip Breedlove, and Waters suggested flooding the quote unquote Gaza terror tunnels, releasing thousands of gallons of seawater and sewage water into the tunnel system. And former NATO Supreme Allied commander Philip Breedlove quickly pointed out, well, first of all, Jesse, we need to make sure they're not hiding hostage. in those tunnels, which apparently was not something that made its way through the little membranes of Jesse Waters' head. He never considered that maybe there were hostages in these tunnels and that

rule number one is you don't want a plan to rescue hostages that involves killing the hostages first. You know, look, I was only in the army for three years. I'm not claiming I have any specialized knowledge in planning this sort of, you know, strategic operation. But I do think I know enough to say that any plan that you come up with to rescue hostages, once again, should not have as part one killing the hostages. That just seems wrong to me. That seems like not the kind of planning that gets you promoted. Look, everything Jesse Waters says is stupid. He has basically, in the last week called every Palestinian a terrorist. And the list is endless with waters, just the dumbest things in the world. But this one in particular I really liked, only because,

like I said, I love it when they have a guest on and the guest actually shows a little backbone, which is not usually a case on Fox News. And so I just love it when a guest sits there and goes, actually what you just said was really stupid and you're a fucking moron, which those are my words, not the words of former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove. But I think, think I'm reading between the lines there. I think I'm correct. So fuck that guy. I don't think that you need a magnifying glass to read between those lines at all. Yeah. Flooding tunnels where people are who are hostages, not the best idea, but this would be why he has a job on Fox and not in anybody's cabinet for anybody's administration. I swear to God,

Danielle. Do you think that I just spoke that into? Oh, dear God. Yes. I'm just saying if he ends up, We're going to have beef. Okay, let's just end this with saging. Can we sage? Can we sage? Please. Can we just sage that? Yeah.

Sorry. Let's sage that out. I didn't mean what I said. 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 Shamus Calder.

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