The David Pakman Show - 6/15/23: Miami Mayor enters race as MAGA supporters explain themselves

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Eric Levitz, writer about politics and economics for New York Magazine, joins David to discuss his recent piece “Blaming ‘Capitalism’ Is Not an Alternative to Solving Problems” -- Republican chaos as another Florida Republican, this time Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, announces he is running for the Republican presidential nomination -- Fox News interviews 2024 Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie and clearly doesn't want to hear the truth from him -- PBS holds a focus group with supporters of Donald Trump, asking them about Trump's recent second arrest, and it is truly scary -- Sarah Palin is asked whether Trumpism is a cult, and in attempting to deny it, she hilariously confirms it -- Chris Christie surges in the polls from 1% to 1.7%, nearly doubling his support in the 2024 Republican primary -- Voicemail caller asks whether Chris Christie, if he became the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, would likely defeat Joe Biden -- On the Bonus Show: Texas prepares for another brutal heat wave, Cornel West also wants Green Party nomination despite running under People's Party, Tesla's self-driving system may not be that great, much more... 🌱 Ounce of Hope: Get 25% OFF with code PAKMAN at https://www.ounceofhope.com/ 🤢 Reliefband: Use code PAKMAN for 20% OFF + free shipping at https://reliefband.com 📖 Buy the book “Confessions of an Indian Immigrant” at https://davidpakman.com/confessions 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 🖼️ Aura Frames: Code PAKMAN for $30 off + free shipping at https://auraframes.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 We start today with another chaos element, in fact, thrown into the 2024 Republican primary race. The mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, a Republican, announced this morning that he is running for president. He's challenging, of course, Donald Trump, the presumptive front runner in that 2024 Republican race, but also Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Suarez. If we say that Trump is a Floridian now, which I guess he is, you know, he famously changed his residency to Florida. Suarez becomes the third current or former Florida elected official, Floridian elected

official, I think better said to enter the race. And this is going to be interesting for a couple of different reasons. One is that Suarez is Hispanic and there is increasingly a focus on Hispanic voters. The right talking about Hispanic voters as sort of like don't assume that they're just going to vote for Democrats, which is true. As I talked about before, although Hispanic voters lean left significantly, not quite as much as black Americans and Jewish Americans, but Hispanic Americans do lean left. Cubans and Venezuelans are often the exempt exception to that.

And we are talking about Florida. So could this be maybe a path for Suarez to gain some traction in the state of Florida specifically? That's number one. Number two, there is, I think, a good argument to be made that Suarez is more of a moderate. He has some corruption issues, but on a number of different policy areas, he's a little more of a moderate, sort of like a technocrat, has expressed support for cryptocurrencies and the like. So I'm as curious as anybody else to see if and how this impacts the race. Let's listen to him this morning on Good Morning America. Oh, no, the clip glitching badly. I'm confident I'm going to

get it fixed for us, though. Let's take a listen. Speaker 2 Good morning, George. It's wonderful to be with you and good morning, America. Why are you running for president? Speaker 3 I'm running for president because I think I have a different message than what other candidates have. I'm generational and not generational is a buzzword. But as someone who has implemented generational change to create prosperity in the city, I'm someone who was a president of the US Conference of Mayors.

So I know the problem that 85 percent of Americans who live in cities and 91 percent who constitute the GDP of this country are going through. So this is sounding very focus groupie and not like I mean, this is not going to appeal to anyone. Things like increasing crime, homelessness, mental health issues. I'm someone who has a positive track record of success and has a positive vision for the future. I think what I've noticed in the last 24 hours, just an outpouring of support

because people want someone who can unify them. I was elected by 85% and reelected by 80%. And as I've traveled the United States from states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, what people want is someone to bring them together. They want to know more. They want to hear more about my track record, about what I've accomplished and what I could do for them and their children. This isn't about me. This isn't about my generation. This is about our. OK, so we'll see if that message does appeal to anybody.

The Miami Herald with an interesting report and some notes about Suarez, which we'll put up on the screen right now for you. It says that his brand was recently tarnished. Sources told the Herald that Suarez faces scrutiny by the FBI and local authorities for ten thousand dollar a month payments he received from a developer for consulting work while serving as mayor, which is extraordinarily shady. That's small potatoes compared to Trump's legal problems, they write. But those fees look like a conflict of interest, much as mounting a long shot.

Yet Buzzfield run for president in 2020 landed Democrat Buttigieg a job as U.S. secretary of transportation. Suarez, too, might wind up with a plum political appointment out of this contest or running another office later. In other words, he could win without actually winning. And lastly, going on to say if he raises enough money and gets a couple of viral soundbites at a presidential debate, Suarez might line up his next job, perhaps as someone's VP or as a paid political commentator or top political consultant. He's energetic,

Hispanic, fluent in Spanish, appealing to the type of voters the Republican Party has invested significant resources to attract as mayor. He's been criticized for focusing too much on shiny baubles and less on the unglamorous job of leading Miami-Dade County's largest city. But those qualities might play well in another role. So the Miami Herald, which has followed Suarez very closely, says this is not that not only is there no chance, this is not even really about running for president. This is about lining himself up for some future role.

VP who on earth knows what will be interesting to see is whether Suarez can make it to the debate stage. The RNC just under two weeks ago released its requirements for making it to the first debate in late August. And I don't have them right in front of me, but they are something along the lines of a fundraising requirement. I think it's you have to raise money from at least 40,000 different people. And you've got to be polling at least one percent in, I believe, three different national polls. Suarez can certainly get himself to one percent. And I'm more interested in what his

presence on the stage could do as a Florida elected official. In contrast to Ron DeSantis, you may have two voices, Trump and Suarez, attacking DeSantis's record as Florida governor. That would be interesting. It will also be interesting to see what attacks DeSantis mounts against Suarez. My guess is Trump will mostly ignore Suarez if they're on the stage together and instead just attack DeSantis. So that will be an interesting dynamic. In the meantime, we are going to get a Republican polling update tomorrow. But let's talk about a Chris Christie appearance on Fox News. As I have told you many times now, Chris Christie, certainly before Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced he was running and maybe even still, Chris Christie is by far the most reasonable

Republican candidate that is presenting himself for the Republican nomination. If I were voting in the Republican nomination process, I would choose Chris Christie easily. Chris Christie has been telling uncontroversial truths which within the MAGA world are very controversial. He appeared yesterday on Fox News and quite frankly, it didn't seem like Fox News hosts Bill Hemmer. And I believe this is Dana Perino wanted to hear these uncontroversial truths, sprinkling Christie with many of the same talking points that we've heard from MAGA for a while now. Take a listen to this.

Speaker 4 The border is ridiculous and policies did much better on everything you just mentioned. And his policies did not do better at the border. Okay. At the border, we had a diminution of what we're seeing now. But remember what he promised in 2016, he was going to build a wall across the entire border in his first four years and Mexico was going to pay for it. Well, we got a wall that's about a quarter of the way done and Mexico has given us one peso yet. Now, Chris Christie is, of course, completely correct. The idea that Trump was going to build a wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border, as if that would even stop the problem that they're trying to solve. But put that aside

for a moment. Trump said we're going to build a wall across the entire border during my first term. Mexico is going to pay for it. Trump didn't do it. And Mexico didn't pay. You and I knew in 2016 that that was never going to happen. However, Chris Christie, who now acts as if that was an obviously ridiculous promise, never called Trump out on it in 2016 or 2017 or 2018 or 2019 or 2020. Now that Christie has distanced from Trump, has criticized Trump and is running against him. Now he points out the absurdity. Now, Chris Christie is completely correct. He's completely correct. But he's only opportunistically doing this

now. He knew all along it was a ridiculous promise, stayed mum for as long as he was supporting Donald Trump. Here's another clip from this Fox News interview of Chris Christie on a debate stage. He's going to say Biden stopped it. And you can go down to the border today and see piles of steel that are just laying there in the in the Arizona desert. Bill, those piles of steel have been sitting there since Donald Trump was president. He didn't get it done.

He couldn't convince the Republican Congress to fund the wall. He couldn't finish it. And he didn't change one immigration law. Now, in this particular interview, Chris Christie is telling obvious truths and Fox News host Bill Hammer is carrying bucket loads of water for Trump and for Maga. The saddest part about all of this to me is that this proves something we've long suspected reasonable Republicans to the extent that they exist and to the extent that they exist. I would include Chris Christie on that on that list. Reasonable Republicans do actually know that their normal talking points are lies.

They know that, including the ones that Chris Christie himself repeated when he was behind Trump literally and figuratively during Donald Trump's first term, or at least the majority of it. And yet he was still willing to tell those lies. I would suggest to you and you tell me whether you agree or disagree. I would suggest to you that it's actually more depraved that they know these talking points are bogus, but they repeat them when they are on the correct team. And then all of a sudden, when it's no longer useful to them, they abandoned those talking points. This is the sort of thing certainly I would never do. And I think there are many elected officials out there who wouldn't do it. We may win or lose. We may get the best or the worst of a particular election or a debate.

But I don't care who's saying it to you, if it's a Democrat or it's a Republican, if it's someone I support or if it's someone I oppose, if it's a Democrat or it's a Republican, if it's someone I support or if it's someone I oppose, if someone says I'm going to build a wall in four years and I'm going to get a different country to pay for it, I'm going to tell you that that's B.S.. This is the difference morally and ethically between some that are operating in the political sphere and others. So on the one hand, yes, Chris Christie is telling

the truth now after years of lying. Chris Christie is a far more moderate Republican than many of these other clowns. Chris Christie actually has some critical thinking and intelligence abilities that would make him a far better president than people like Trump or DeSantis or others. All of those things are true. It is also true at the same time. And this is living with the conflict of what it is to be a person in the world at the same time, despite all of those positive traits I just outlined about Chris Christie. He's a guy who with no hesitation that unflinchingly didn't even flinch, didn't even glitch for years, repeated or at least stood aside as others were telling these obvious lies in service to being close to power and to being friendly

with the president and all of the reasons that would encourage Chris Christie to do what he did for four years. So if you said, David, you're voting in the Republican primary this year, who do you pick? I pick Chris Christie. Does that mean I think this guy is the epitome and holy grail of morality and ethics and politics? No, I do not. He was as dishonest as the rest of them for many, many years. Let's take a very quick break. It's actually shocking how packed today's program is, which is why I'm wasting 30 seconds right now telling you how packed today's program is. company, which means that their process is sustainably raising fish using the nutrient

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And I really appreciate everybody. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com using the coupon code indicted again. All right. We're going to do a deep dive now into what is happening psychologically, epistemologically and cognitively with your average Trump voter right now. Now, let me set this up for you. We're going to look at a couple of focus groups, groups, folk. I we might even call them OK, that PBS did with voters. And if I came to you and I said, folks, I'm going to pull back the curtain and show you the insanity of the voters who want a flat tax.

You would probably look at me and say, David, that's not super interesting, like wanting a flat tax, even if I disagree with it. It's not really indicative of something wacky and zany that's going on. And I would agree with you. But we have a situation right now where we have a twice indicted, twice impeached, globally humiliated, failed former president with significant evidence of criminality against him, innocent until proven guilty, of course, running a campaign that is absolute lunacy. And yet there are still presumably tens of millions

of people that support the guy. We're going to try to figure out what's going on. That's the introduction. Let's jump into the video and then we'll discuss. How many of you know that Donald Trump was indicted last week? Raise your hand. Everybody raises their hands, although some sort of reluctantly. How many of you have heard that Donald Trump was indicted for a second time recently? And the reason for hearing the questions twice is there's two focus groups here and they're switching between the two. Everybody knows. OK. From the 16 Republican voters we gathered yesterday evening, there were strong reactions to the second indictment of former President Donald Trump. I think he's being set up. Oh, yeah. Tell me why.

It's just too arranged. Everything is just too arranged. And when the FBI went in and raided his property at Mar-a-Lago, how do we know what they did and what they didn't do? Right and wrong are just totally messed up. We had asked pollster Sarah Longwell, who also publishes the center-right website, The Bulwark, to assemble two panels of GOP voters in the studio of Iowa PBS. I observed from the control room as she asked how they're thinking about politics, policy, and current events at this moment, when candidates are already descending upon their state ahead of next year's caucuses, and as the news of the second Trump indictment had been breaking.

It's baloney. I think, I mean, just why isn't Biden indicted? Just because he gave them back at an appropriate time. I mean, really? He did exactly the same thing. Well, you have a current president who is sitking all of the DOJ on a potential candidate. That's never happened. Right. Right. They really feel like the country is going in the wrong direction. Afterwards, Longwell, who has conducted hundreds. OK, so let's pause there. So asked their thought.

They all had heard of the indictment, asked about their thoughts on the indictment. They said it's clearly a setup. The photos appear to have been staged, sort of like we don't know what the FBI did, meaning they staged or set it up in some way. It's baloney. Biden did the same thing and should be arrested or charged himself. Biden sicked the DOJ on Trump, for which there is quite literally no evidence whatsoever. No evidence whatsoever. Let's continue. Support for Donald Trump. How many of you distrust the FBI? The three letter agencies, the DOJ, the CIA, the FBI. I think when the country was formulated,

their best of intent was to put some of these organizations or governing bodies in place. But how they're being manipulated now and they're being weaponized is a bigger concern. This is just straight up what what MAGA has been feeding these folks. These folks have uncritically accepted these bogus talking points. I'm kind of frustrated by it because on one side, you know, it seems like we're all going all out on President Trump. And on the other side, the wheels of justice are going very slow. It doesn't seem to be like equal amount of resources being devoted to looking into Hunter

Biden's laptop and what Hunter Biden. So Hunter Biden's laptop is an issue for these folks in thinking about what's going on right now in the Republican Party about Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton had all this stuff and she was never indicted. You've got the DOJ, you've got the FBI reporting up to Biden. Ultimately, this goes up to Biden. So why wouldn't you want to take out your your toughest political opponent? And this is election interference like we've never seen before. That is a Trump quote. I mean, that's that's just that's what Trump posts to Truth Central.

This is election interference like we've never seen before. That's where they get this stuff. And it's disguised as Trump's a bad guy. How many of you wanted Hillary Clinton to be indicted for her. OK, did you think. OK, so of the people at the table, two of the eight did not raise their hand that they wanted Hillary indicted. You should go to jail. Yes. Because Trump. Now, that's interesting. They're saying Hillary should have gone to jail. Hillary was these are the folks who claim to be about law and order and bemoan lack of due process when it comes to Trump. They're saying Hillary should have gone to jail.

They don't know about the evidence. They seem not to care that Hillary was cleared. They seem not to know that there was no chargeable crime that Hillary was involved in. But while saying out of one side of their mouth, we're for law and order and due process and the justice system working properly, they're saying imprison Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that she was cleared of criminality. I'm said that she should go to jail for mishandling classified information. Do you think he should be held to the same standard that he was setting for Hillary Clinton?

Or do you think that it's different for some reason? I think he said that when you understand his personality and how he how he words things, he said that in jest. So that's this. That's a great moment. OK, this is what we call cognitive dissonance or magical thinking, depending on your perspective. They're asked, you know, Trump said Hillary should also be locked up for those things. But now Trump did it. What about we simply hold Trump to the standard he said should be applied to Hillary Clinton? And they go, well, when Trump said Hillary should be locked up, he was kidding.

But these folks just said Hillary should be locked up. Were was kidding. But these folks just said Hillary should be locked up. Were they also kidding 30 seconds earlier? It doesn't matter. They're in a world of their own. He didn't. I think he's just trying to paint a word picture. But should she have gotten some sort of punishment? Yes. Yes, I think so. He's entitled to declassify whatever he wants to declassify. So in other presidents that have left office have had classified documents. Again, another talking point straight from the right. Trump is entitled to declassify things. Trump admits in audio recordings he didn't declassify those things.

The actions for which Trump has been indicted took place after he was president. When we talk about Obama or Bush and their documents, they arranged with NARA to temporarily store documents in specific places, disclosing where that was on a temporary basis until they could be permanently located either at presidential libraries or other places. It's not true what this guy is saying, but it is in lockstep with what Trump and Mark Levin and these other right wing figures have fed to them. They were not treated the same way as Donald Trump is being treated.

It is a two tier justice system in this country. Literally another word, another phrase from Trump. This is what this guy has fallen for. All of it. For sure. There's no doubt about it. The biggest thing is that. All right.

Let's skip ahead a little bit here to other moments from from the panels. If you're interested in the interview between Judy, Judy Woodruff and the pollster Sarah Longwell. You can you can check this out. Showing the Capitol police walking these people through the Capitol talking. No problems whatsoever. This is another right wing argument which they have been fed and have uncritically accepted. If what the rioters did was so wrong, why did the Capitol Police welcome them? And

of course, once you realize, well, what was going on was once police realize they've been unable, they are unable to keep a crowd back, then you have to give way. And at that point, what you want to do is keep people calm. But the idea was the Capitol Police thought it was great. They just welcomed the protesters. How can you charge them? And then they turn around and say they they attacked us. Right. In essence, the videos show a whole different story than what they're saying happened. Arguably, once we got the videos from the January 6th committee, what happened is even worse than what was originally reported.

But this guy wants to say it really wasn't a big deal. I personally don't think that like he was calling people to like do like I watched like what he said and everything. And like, I mean, he didn't say anything to me like in watching it. That was like, you know, oh, yeah, he's telling them to go and like storm the Capitol, you know, like I didn't see. I personally didn't feel like that, that what he said was so inflammatory that he was just trying to, like, you know, tear the country apart. There's no arresting people. He quite literally was trying to overturn the results of an election he lost. If that's not an action to tear a country apart, I don't know what is. Years since it happened. Yeah, this country. I can't believe

that somebody that loves this country would want to cause people to fight like that. And he's against wars. He's not the typical politician and his words aren't what we call polished. And he just blurted out. Do people want to vote for a Republican candidate who is committed to pardoning the people from January 6th? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that's interesting. They want that. They actively want a candidate who will pardon, who will pardon the rioters.

They are so convinced of the innocence of those individuals guilty of these charges. He goes through the courts and they find him guilty. Raise your hand if it makes you support him more. OK, the question is, if Trump is found guilty, do you support him more? Remember, due process. We're now not talking about the Justice Department. We're talking about a jury. We're talking about a jury just like this group of people. As scary as that is finding Trump guilty. One, two, three, four, five, six of the eight people say I would support Trump more if he were found guilty by a jury of his peers. Raise your hand if it makes you support him less. No one. And President Trump retains some measure of support,

even among those who think he likely committed a crime. I read the indictment, and it's plain as day that he broke the law, knowingly. Whether the DOJ came after him, which I think is very plausible. And why they're ignoring Hunter Biden's laptop, I think, is a separate issue. But it is clear he broke the law. And I think it's time for him to go away. And I appreciated what he did for the country during his four years. But I think that he is part of the problem.

But when asked if he'd vote for Trump, if he were the nominee running against President Biden. Trump's the nominee versus Biden. What will you do? I would vote for him for the third time. You would? I think that it's that significant. So given that and the fact that there are. I think you get the picture. We are dealing here.

This is why at the top of this segment, I said, if I told you, guys, I've got a group of people that wants a flat tax, check out how insane this is. We would all say that's a very specific policy disagreement that doesn't raise the sorts of moral and ethical cult type questions that these focus groups raise. What this means for the Democratic Party and the left from a strategy perspective, there's a whole bunch of stuff culturally, sociologically, anthropologically, that is going to take decades to unwind from this sort of cultishness. I'm not dealing with that right now. What this means from a political strategy standpoint, as I've said before, is that it is not worth the time to try to convince these folks

of anything. The right way to invest time and resources for Democrats that want to win is to work on just getting the vote out from those who would otherwise stay home that are as horrified by this stuff as we are in a country with a 50 to 60 percent turnout rate. You don't need to convince those people. You just need to find folks and say you're not voting. Well, then one of these people in the focus group is going to have a say in how the country is run instead of you. And if that doesn't motivate more people to vote, quite frankly, I don't know what would. Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel. Our we had a forensic audit done of the YouTube channel last month. We looked for bamboo fibers, barbecue sauce, all sorts of stuff all over YouTube subscriptions.

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Blaming capitalism is not an alternative to solving problems. Eric, great to have you on. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. I thought the piece was interesting because it's not really a defense of capitalism, but it's a pragmatic approach to sort of, I would say, the realities of the American economy, groups within that economy, political orientation, and some of the issues that that are sort of facing us. Can you talk a little bit just big picture about the connection between the economic ideas of voters versus how they evaluate the economic ideas as presented by elected officials.

For example, if a self-described free market capitalist hears about the Green New Deal, how or with what rubric, what standards voters tend to apply when they evaluate the economic proposals of candidates in this sort of context that you write about? Sure. I mean, I think that one thing to say is that ordinary voters, you know, who are much less politically engaged, I think, than the type of people that would watch this YouTube show or that read my articles, you know, they have a lot

of contradictory intuitions about the economy, which you can often see in certain polls where just small changes in wording can really yield really different results. So right, polls consistently find that if you ask people, is the government spending too much on welfare, that a majority of people will say, yes, there's government spending too much on welfare. If you ask, is the government spending too much or should the government spend more on the poor, you get a large majority of Americans saying, yes, the government should spend more on the poor. And so there's, you know, really sort of different conflicting moral intuitions that people have. People, voters tend to believe that

there is, you know, a fundamental sort of right to, that the federal government has a responsibility to ensure that everybody can afford, you know, basic goods like health care. They have a sense that, you know, people are entitled to jobs, people who want to work. At the same time, there is a aversion to the idea that somebody is going to be getting government help and not contributing to the economy. There is a sense that, you know, a very heightened sensitivity to consumer prices and a vague worries about the idea of the federal deficit and debt that conservatives can weaponize. And so there's just a lot of different inchoate intuitions that depending on the narrative that elected officials

provide and the media amplifies, you can get the mass public to view even the same policies in different ways. And certainly there is, you know, not a tremendous amount of coherence with people down the line agreeing with the conservative ideology on every question, nor for that matter, the progressive one. You talk quite a bit about climate change and some of that inconsistency and some of the components within that, including public opinion about policies like carbon taxes or restricting nuclear energy or hydropower. Can you talk a little bit about the inconsistency of support in sort of the context of figuring out what what

the public wants done, quote, about climate change? Yeah, sure. I mean, in the context of the piece, I'm talking about sort of the necessity of reform, of fundamentally doing the sometimes inglorious work of building coalitions and getting the most that you can at any given moment, given the balance of forces in the government and in the economy versus a sort of revolutionary vision of how you make change on climate change, which would envision blowing up pipelines, natural gas pipelines, taking direct action. And my point that I make is that I think that I'm skeptical of those

strategies specifically because I think that people who proselytize for them haven't fully grappled with the state of mass opinion on climate change, which is that most people regard climate change as a problem. They believe the science. They are vaguely worried about it. At the same time, for most, you know, working class, lower middle class people, the imperatives of making their monthly budgets work is just, it's so much more salient and so much more top of mind than the sort of abstract concern of the long term ecological problems that our economy is creating. And so if you have a situation where the imperative to tackle climate change is put into direct conflict with making energy more expensive, which, you know, potentially could

happen if you have a bunch of terrorists, eco terrorists, you know, potentially could happen if you have a bunch of terrorists, eco-terrorists, you know, blowing up pipelines and you have a breakdown in the sort of natural gas infrastructure of the country, that could result in a significant increase in people's energy bills, which could build public support for a government crackdown and environmentalists. You know, so that I think is something to think about there. And I think that the virtue of a Green New Deal type strategy is that it attempts to reconcile the competing imperatives of expanding economic opportunity and a sense of felt prosperity in the present with making sure that our economy is economically, rather ecologically sustainable in the long term? There are even among my even among the left wing portion of my audience,

there is disagreement about which approach would achieve the most change the most quickly, longer term incrementalism or like a sort of revolutionary, more accelerationist perspective of break it all down and rebuild it in the way we want, which I think the blowing up of pipelines that you suggest would kind of be in that latter philosophy on incrementalism. You know, when you talk about climate change, sometimes you say to people, well, you know, four percent of cars now being sold are electric. And if we can get that to eight and then 12 and then, you know, by 2035, for a lot of people, that rings true as the right and correct way to do it and the way that actually will

get the change to happen faster in the long run. Others say, no, no, no, that's like you're going to have to do something much more radical or drastic than that. Is there agreement, not agreement? Is there consensus on on that? Like how popular nationally is the accelerationist view on some of these issues versus the incremental. I'm not sure how much the question of, you know, do you support a ecological revolution has been polled. But I would say that generally speaking, you know, if you look at just polling about how people describe themselves, self- ideologically, right? Um, and

Gallup's polling about 75% of the country identifies as either moderate or conservative. There's a lot of ambiguity about what people mean when they say that. If you looked at 2020 primary polls, you would often see that, um, that, that Bernie Sanders was second among Democrats who identified as moderate. right? So, you know, people mean different things by that. But I think that the ideological identifiers are meaningful enough that there are just not a lot of people in that supermajority who identifies either conservative or moderate who favor revolutionary violence. You know, I think that that's just not America for all of its myriad problems is a very prosperous society in relative terms. We have, you know, the poor in our country

have a really bad situation in many respects because of the weaknesses in our social welfare system. But the middle class has a lot to lose from the idea of displacing the entire social order. And so it's not a revolutionary society. And so that's a fundamental problem for those who make, I think, I think one valid point in the argument from those who favor a more revolutionary outlook is that it is true that what is on offer through plausible incremental legislative change at this moment, there's not likely it's going to be sufficient to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius. That could change. We could have some technological breakthrough that really changes the game. But right now, it looks like we're going to go past that point.

And then we're going to need to rely on some degree of removing carbon from the atmosphere, some degree of geoengineering to get it back below that. And that's a really hazardous place to be. And we don't know exactly where the tipping points that are going to make kickoff feedback cycles that accelerate the process are. They could be well past 1.5 degrees Celsius, but they could be even before that.

And so it's a dangerous situation that we're in. And I understand why people are frustrated by the options that are on the table. My belief is just that if you want to create a politically sustainable, politically sustainable coalition for minimizing climate change, that that is going to involve making concessions to a majoritarian opinion, which does not favor. A revolutionary turn, if we zoom out a little more and again, I'll remind people that the title of the piece is Blaming Capitalism is not an alternative to solving problems. It is very popular among the left to blame capitalism in a number of different ways for

many of the problems that we're facing, even going beyond climate change. The idea of capitalism as the superstructure that has both enabled and even encouraged and incentivize the sorts of behaviors and industry and rent seeking, et cetera, that got us to where we are and that since capitalism is the cause, it certainly isn't going to be the solution. I think that would be the view of some on this. This issue is your argument to the extent that you're making one that even if the blame is correct, it's not the right focus in terms of finding solutions. Or do you question whether the blame is actually correct? It's going to depend on how we specify our terms and how we define capitalism and in

what specific issues we're looking at. With regard to climate change, I think it's complicated. I think that one could make the argument that keeping warming within 1.5 degrees, that a precondition is to significantly more socialize and plan the economy than existing American capitalism allows for. At the same time, the idea that maybe that's a necessary condition, but I don't think that's sufficient because if we look at the environmental record of the Soviet Union, if we look at the non-capitalist economies that have existed, they have done tremendous carbon

emissions as well and tremendous environmental damage. And, you know, this socialist writer, Lee Phillips, had a piece a while ago making the argument that if, you know, we had had a global socialist system in the 20th century, that climate change would actually have been worse because before the science became clear, we would have been wanting to spread the fruits of industrial modernity to everybody on the planet. So instead of just the West enjoying the, you know, massive increases in living standards, the fossil fuel economy made possible, you know, in an ideal socialist utopian world, right? The people in, you know, sub-Saharan Africa would have also been enjoying the benefits in the mid-20th century of automobiles

and television, electronics and everything. And we would have had more emissions by the time in the 1970s when we got a really clear sense of the hazards. Now, his argument is that nonetheless, socialism is the cure because it can allow us to more rapidly switch out the energy basis of our society than a capitalist pre-market system would allow. But it's just a little bit more complicated than that, because ultimately, climate change is a product of industrial modernity. And that is we've had communist and capitalist versions of that, and both of them have created considerable emissions.

Much of what we've been talking about today is related to Eric's piece. Blaming capitalism is not an alternative to solving problems. We've been speaking with Eric Levitz, who writes about politics and economics for New York magazine. Eric, really appreciate your time and insights today. Yeah. Thanks for talking to me. Here is the perfect Father's Day gift. Get him a Wi-Fi connected digital picture frame from Aura. Our sponsor, Aura, has been named the number one best digital picture frame by Wirecutter, The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. videos from any device anywhere in the world. I have several of these. I got my dad one. And so now I take pictures of the baby, load them into his or a frame and they show up and everybody loves it. You know, it's no more of these having to bring a slideshow. When I visit,

I just put the pictures right in the frame. I'm really glad I got him one of these. And right now, Aura has a great deal for Father's Day. Go to Aura frames dot com slash Pacman. Use the code Pacman to get thirty dollars off plus free shipping. This deal ends June 18. So don't wait. Terms and conditions apply. That's a you are a frames dot com slash Pacman. Use code Pacman for thirty dollars off. The info is in the podcast notes. Sarah Palin was asked to explain why Trumpism is not a cult, and she explained why Trumpism is a cult. This is a really, really stunning video, and it confirms just about everything we've been talking about for years now. Sarah Palin appeared on Newsmax and she was basically given one of these softball questions

where it's like Trump people aren't cultists, right? And Sarah Palin goes, absolutely not, because cultists are. And then she defines it. And she is, of course, describing Trump. Take a listen to this. I was with the Trump motorcade yesterday, and I would say that the people at Versailles at the Cuban restaurant, I wouldn't call them cult members, would you? Uh, no. You know, the definition of a cult is a group of people who are excessively supporting one another and a cause all about conformity and

compliance and intolerance of anyone who doesn't agree with what their mission is. OK, that's the definition of what the left is engaged in right now. Speaking of cults, all about conformity and compliance and heaven forbid you don't agree with them. Isn't that the best by just about any accurate definition? Hardcore MAGA is indeed a cult. They have beliefs and practices that are strange or even sinister, including denying the reality of the world insofar as climate change, covid, the 2020 election results. They worship Trump as this messianic figure who can do no wrong, must be obeyed at all costs. And many of them even see

him as a pseudo deity. They are characterized by their devotion not only to Trump, but the ideology he espouses, which they often express through symbols, including MAGA hats or flags or banners or signs and symbols. They have a system of beliefs that are pseudo religious and rituals which are directed towards Trump. They pray for him or they pray over him, As we saw at the Cuban Cafe Versailles in Miami on Tuesday, they attend his rallies and chant his slogans. They stormed the Capitol on his behalf, committing crimes on his behalf. And they have this self-appointed leader, Trump, who claims to be the only one that can save them, that can save America.

And they believe it. These are all cult traits. And of course, Trump, for his part of it, excessively controls his followers through lies, fear, threats, manipulation, requiring them to believe what he says and to do what he wants, donating or voting or chanting or whatever the case may be. And these are all beliefs that most of the world considers deviant or depraved and much of the United States as well. Compare this to Biden supporters. OK, Biden supporters aren't obsessed with symbols or rituals. Biden supporters aren't obsessed with Biden. In fact, most of us don't even really care about Joe Biden. Like what I mean by that is I don't want harm to come to him,

but I don't care about Biden as a figure. I'm not interested in defending Biden if he did something wrong, if he did something wrong, if he did something wrong, investigate him or charge him or whatever. I'm interested in policy and I'm interested in ideas. And if Biden is going to be the person to push those, that's great. And if it's somebody else, that's fine, too. We don't consider Biden the ultimate source of truth the way maggots consider Trump to be. I don't consider MSNBC or whatever Democratic establishment media is out there to be the ultimate source of truth the way they consider, whether it's Fox News or Newsmax or whatever is the flavor of the month, to be an ultimate source

of truth. I don't feel any need to reflexively defend Biden against any criticism. Yeah, Biden's just not progressive enough on some policies. Yeah. Biden's looking dramatically more frail than he used to. Yeah. I also don't see criticisms of Biden as attacks on the free world, on democracy, on the media, on our country. OK, criticize Biden. I'll tell you if I agree or if I disagree. It is a dramatic contrast when you think about what it means to be in a cult, a cult member, a cult leader. And Sarah Palin hilariously and trying to say, no, no, no, no, there's no cult here actually confirmed there is indeed a cult. Mike Pence is having a tough go of it. Mike Pence appeared on a radio

program yesterday. And Mike Pence, as you may know, has not committed to pardoning Donald Trump if Trump were to be indicted on any of these various indictments that he is facing and possibly future indictments. The host didn't like it and confronted Mike Pence. And it actually is is quite interesting. Take a listen to this ultimate decider. With all due respect, when you aren't telling us what your decision would be, I think you're dodging the question and frankly, not stepping up on the on the front of leadership, which in the past you've been willing to do. So to me, not answering is a no. Well, look, number one, I don't think you know what the president's defense

is, do you? I mean, what are the facts? I mean, look, we either believe in our judicial process in this country or we don't. We don't stand by the rule of law. We don't. I just thought what I would tell you is, I think, as someone who is what I'm hearing is you're fine with Donald Trump being put in prison, sir. And that to me, since you were his vice president, feels pretty disrespectful. I had a standard rule. I don't talk about hypotheticals. Look, we don't know what the president's defense here is. I think he's entitled to make his defense entitled to have his day in court and uh look let's you know let's take it one step at a time but i i would just tell you that i i but if you know that these are political charges and you do this is not a this is not a difficult

decision i think we've i think we've gotten i think we've gotten what we're going to get here in terms of an answer to this one um Yeah, I just think this is the clay and buck show. And the co-host is like, yeah, we we probably should move on. I think any conclusion by anyone running for the presidency of the United States that would prejudge the facts in this case or prejudge the investigation into President Biden or his family is premature. Let's let let's let the process play out. Let's follow the facts. And I promise you, as president of the United States, I'll do just that. So, you know, the bar is extremely low. I want to say to you, this is more or less the right answer,

but it's only more or less the right answer once we've adjusted our expectations and put the bar really, really low around Mike Pence. And case in point, three weeks ago, Pence was singing a different tune when the indictment was the one out of New York. Pence only recently changed his tune. We reported this to you yesterday. Mike Pence has sudden change of heart over Trump classified documents. I can't defend it. Having read the indictment, these are very serious allegations, Pence told The Wall Street Journal's editorial board Tuesday. So in one sense, Pence is correct.

Why on earth would I tell you now I'm going to pardon someone when they haven't even put on a defense? They certainly haven't been convicted. We just don't have enough information. The counterpoint from the hosts is if you concede the charges are merely political in nature, then does it really matter what the defense is? Wouldn't you be inclined to say that you're going to pardon Donald Trump because the bar is so low? It is 2023. I'm not going to pretend that we're in the 90s, OK, or late 80s or whatever. The bar is so low that I'm willing to give Pence some credit for saying to this guy,

you're not going to get me to say right now that I'm going to pardon Trump. The question that becomes increasingly interesting is we're seeing a split among Republican candidates, some who say I would absolutely pardon Trump and others who say, no, I wouldn't. Or at least I can't commit to that right now. That is becoming a clash between the candidates. And it will be very interesting to see if that issue comes up in the debates, which will be starting in August.

Let's talk about the polling update. Chris Christie, sit down for this one. OK, sit down for this one. Listen to this. Chris Christie's polling has surged 70 percent since he announced he is running. Think that through, OK? Chris Christie has surged 70 percent in the polls from one percent. To one point seven percent. That is an increase of 70 percent. Now, I genuinely don't know whether that bodes well for Chris Christie or not. OK, here are the numbers as they stand this morning. Donald Trump has seen a bit of a dip. Trump dropping from about 56 to 52, losing four points. Ron DeSantamonious dropping from 24

to about 21 or 22. And Chris Christie, who entered the race at one percent, has now surged to one point seven percent. So it's all sort of tongue in cheek. Obviously, one point seven percent is not going to get Chris Christie what he needs to be the nominee. But it is interesting as far as percentages goes. Chris Christie is the candidate who has seen by far the largest search. You know, those thought experiments, if I give you a penny and you double it every day for a month, how much money do you end up with? And people go, I don't know, like 20 bucks. And it's some insane number. I don't know what it is. If Chris Christie can keep gaining 70 percent a week, he'll be in really good shape by the time the debates start.

Of course, this may be the roof. This may be what some call a dead cat bounce in the stock market. It may be Christie announced the one percent has now grown to almost double that. And that's going to be Chris Christie's ceiling. We simply don't know. We'll dive a little more deeply into this tomorrow. There is also new national polling. A YouGov poll has Biden, even with Trump in a national election among registered voters, among all adults, Trump is actually ahead. There is a premise poll out a couple of days ago, which has Biden up five over DeSantis among registered voters and has Biden up one over Trump among registered voters.

And then the best rated poll of all of these. In fact, the two best rated polls of all of these are Quinnipiac and Suffolk University. Quinnipiac has Biden up by four over Trump and Suffolk has Biden up seven over DeSantis and up to over Trump. The race is starting to take shape that is more defined and less blurry. We're going to look in significantly more detail at these polls tomorrow. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two.

David P. Speaking of Chris Christie and Joe Biden, here's a caller asking about exactly those two people. Speaker 4 David, do you think that Chris Christie would beat Joe Biden? And my next question would be, do you think Chris Christie, if he did win the nominee? nominee. Would he start going anti anti woke crap, too? OK, so two questions there, if it were Christie versus Biden, does Christie have a shot? Second question, if Christie became the nominee, would he go anti woke? Let's answer the second one first, because it's simpler. The anti woke stuff is more useful within the Republican primary than in the general election. Why? Because most of the country actually agrees with the, quote, woke side of

most issues. So if Chris Christie doesn't go anti woke while running in the primary, he is not going to go anti woke as a general election candidate that I am confident in. The first question, if the matchup were Christie versus Biden in November of twenty twenty four, could Christie win? I believe the answer is yes. I believe that if MAGA was soundly defeated, if Trump really crumbles and what I mean by that is he's indicted a third time, it becomes absolutely impossible to even be out on the campaign trail because he's just busy with three different criminal defenses. Republicans abandoned him.

Imagine they select Chris Christie. I believe that this would actually create a resurgence among the Republican electorate where all of these folks who have been dissuaded from even participating because they're disgusted with Trump or they just think Trump is the wrong direction for the party. I believe all of those folks would get engaged. I believe also that there are some people who voted for Biden in 2020 because they were so disgusted with Trump, who, if there was a reasonable Republican, would actually go back to voting Republican. And so I'm not here to tell

you Christie would definitely beat Joe Biden. But if Trump is running even with Biden, I do believe that Chris Christie has a solid shot of defeating Biden in a general election. I'm not hoping for that. I'm answering the caller's question. We have a fantastic bonus show for you today. We're going to talk about the coming heat wave in Texas. Are they actually prepared for it this time? We will talk about Cornel West now after announcing that he's running as a People's Party candidate, also seeking the Green Party nomination. I'm going to be honest with you. It's all a complete and total mess. And we will give you the latest not so good news about Tesla's self-driving system, which I have tested out myself, by the way. All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Get instant access

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