The Dispatch Podcast - Bodega Campaign Tactics | Roundtable

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

As Congress devolves into high school drama, Sarah, Jonah, and Mike discuss the fight over aid to Ukraine and Israel and the resulting threats to oust Speaker Mike Johnson. The Agenda: —Internal drama and blocks to getting foreign aid passed —Polling shows Trump losing his lead in swing states —Trump’s bodega campaign tactics —Latinos’ affinity for Trump: real or media illusion? —The need for messianic figures in politics —Assessing the Biden administration’s public-facing stance on Israel —Does spanking children reveal a cultural divide between the elites and working-class people? Show Notes: —Mike Johnson’s interview with Jake Tapper —National polling —Nick Catoggio’s Boiling Frogs on Mike Johnson —This week’s Collision —The Commentary Magazine podcast —Jonah’s G-File on the messianic temptation —The Remnant with Eli Lake —Matthew Yglesias on “the spanking gap” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isgert, joined by Jonah Goldberg and Mike Warren. Let's just see where this pod takes us. We're going to start with eating the vegetables, at least for me, because this is the topic that I most don't want to talk about, which, normally they say definitely don't do that in a podcast, but we break the rules here. I don't understand or don't care what's happening in the House Republican caucus right now or maybe in Congress at all. Like until Congress starts doing things, I guess I'm just unclear on why I should care about why they're not doing things because there does seem to be a revolving set of reasons for that. But I'm just a glutton for punishment. Maybe our listeners are mildly interested.

Mike, and it'll be a recurring segment. Why isn't Congress doing something this week? Sarah, something tells me you were the one walking around high school going. I hate all this drama. I hate all the drama. And then you were secretly like, so what is going on? What is the drama? So, yeah, so what's the drama?

But it is kind of high school drama, but with some import because, I mean, look, this, I take your point about Congress not doing anything. but they're getting really close to doing something. I've heard that before. And hey, hey, they're even getting exceedingly close to doing something. But they might not do something. And they might not doing something might be because of the high school drama. So that's why you have to care about it.

So let me get the specifics. You've got Ukraine aid, foreign aid from the U.S. to Ukraine, foreign aid from the U.S. to Israel, foreign aid. from the U.S. to Taiwan. All of this money has been on pause while the House tries to figure out who's in charge. The Senate has passed a bill. We've talked about it here. We've covered it in the dispatch weeks ago to fund all of this aid, and it has just been waiting for the House to vote on it. House Speaker Mike Johnson essentially has no power within. his conference to bring that Senate bill to a vote, at least not yet.

More on that, maybe a little bit later. So what he's decided to do instead is break up these various foreign aid ideas, tweet some of them, particularly the Ukraine idea. There's this added element of a chunk of the Ukraine aid being a loan rather than a grant, whether that loan actually ends up needing to be repaid if it passes. I mean, that's a whole other thing. But bottom line, he's tried to break this up in a way where he can cobble together slightly different coalitions of most Republicans and a handful of Democrats to pass these

various foreign aid bills. He won't say the Democrat support out loud, but that's essentially what it is. And against all of this is the high school drama aspect of it, which is Marjorie Taylor Green, the Georgia Republican congresswoman, flamethrower, rabble rouser, who has this motion to vacate the chair, which is just a fancy procedural way of saying a motion to kick out the Speaker of the House, has this essentially written and submitted. but not yet brought to the floor. And she has threatened Mike Johnson with this. And it's not really clear what it is that would trigger this for her.

Is it going to be a vote to support Ukraine aid? Is it going to be a vote on all of these bills that doesn't sufficiently address immigration enforcement? Whatever it is, she's got it and she's waving it over his head. And it only needs one person to start moving things forward, thanks to Kevin McCarthy and a rules change.

Now she's got a second Republican on board, Thomas Massey from Kentucky. And the question is, can the House of Representatives pass these bills? Will they have a procedural vote to remove the Speaker of the House, either interrupt the passage of those bills, which are supposed to happen this weekend or follow on from them. And can Johnson survive that, thanks to Democrats in the House, essentially rewarding Johnson's pursuit of all of these aid bills in good faith by essentially saying they will not vote against him if it comes to a vote on removing him. So I don't know if that was very clear.

There's a lot of moving parts. But TLDR is that Mike Johnson is being threatened with being removed from office. He's pursuing these bills that might do that anyway. And it's kind of interesting. Okay. Isn't that interesting, Sarah? No. Jonah, here's my question to you.

But you know what? I am here as a service provider to our audience and maybe some of them found it interesting. Because Jonah, here's my question to you. you, House Republicans now hold on to the majority by one, maybe two, because Gallagher's still there and has said he's going to put off leaving. He was set to retire this week and is now saying he'll wait until this aid package goes through potentially. But whatever, it's a really tight, tight, tight margin. So is this a case of Republicans in disarray? Like this is just a GOP problem? Or is this a what happens when you've got a one or two?

seat majority, and everyone can hold everyone hostage all the time. First of all, when you said tight, tight, tight, tight like that, it reminded me of the character in Breaking Bad who takes crystal meth and goes tight, tight, tight, tight. Anyway, that's near the here or no there. I remember this is about 40 years ago, 30 years ago, a friend of mine who regularly read GQ, the advice column, told me, because I didn't read GQ. I know that shocks you, given my startorial sophistication. But, you're such a gentleman, too.

And that's right. And I'm so quarterly. But he, the advice column, someone wrote in and asked, how do you eat onion soup on a first date? And the response was, you don't. And the point is that there's no way to look cool eating onion soup, right? No woman says, man, you see how sexy he is. When he- His onions. Onions, we got cheese and onion sauce on himself, right?

It just doesn't work, right? Similarly, you cannot look like a political mastermind running a caucus with a two-vote majority. You can look competent. You can look proficient. But then when you add in the fact, you have got gargoyles with bat wings like Marjorie Taylor Green. and Massey and Gates in there, who, as Alfred the Butler told Bruce Wayne in the best Batman movie, are the kinds of people who just want to see the world burn, and it truly becomes impossible, right? You have a nihilist caucus that has convinced itself that it's a super-sophisticated position

to say that 98%, 96% of the Republican caucus shouldn't get what it was. wants if you need an additional five Democratic votes to do it. That is an insane conception of how Congress is supposed to work. For most of my life, if you got 96% of the Republican caucus and 5% of the Democratic caucus to vote for something, that was considered a massive Republican win. Now, the hot house logic of people like Marjor Taylor Green, that is surrendering to the Democrats and doing the Democrats' agenda. That is her argument. No, wait.

And by the way, that wasn't a now wait, let me disagree with you. It was a, now wait, is that really what she thinks? I would maybe divide up the Republicans into, I don't know, any number of groups, but the Marjorie Taylor Greens, the Matt Gates, et cetera, their incentives aren't aligned to get any legislation done in Congress, right? Their incentives are to, they're better off when legislation doesn't have. happen because they have the problems festering. And if they're the ones who stopped it all the better because they get attention, and even if it's negative attention, it's sort of like,

you know, the youngest child problem. And they are the youngest children. There's a reason that so many of the, like, these bad actors are backbenchers. Their youngest children, they weren't getting any attention. And they found a way to get attention. So I question whether that's her motivation. But then you have this other great. I agree that. I want to be just really clear. I agree with that entirely. I think there are a lot of weird dysfunctional bad faith motivations behind below the service. That is her public argument. Okay. Her name ID is so high. She's raising money and it's not because it's because she's able to get this attention. But there are these other Republicans who should be more than happy to vote with five Democratic votes. And

they're not willing to do it. And they're not household names. So their incentives are I think different. And exactly what you said, Jonah, I think they truly believe that if you don't have the whole Republican caucus, and it does now have to be the whole Republican caucus together, that therefore you can't do anything. And it's okay if nothing gets done as a result of that logic. Yeah, the cynical motivations and drama behind the scenes, I agree with you entirely. There are a lot of different incentive structures. We have a collective action problem in Congress and the GOP in general. I'm just talking about the public argument that Marjorie Taylor Green makes is we can't work with Democrats, we can't use Democratic votes. And the thing that makes

it so infuriating to me is that the whole motion to vacate the chair thing, which is what they did to Kevin McCarthy, depends entirely on Democratic votes. Right. Right? It's like Matt Gates and those seven others voted with the entire Democratic caucus to oust Kevin McCarthy. The threat against Mike Johnson is to vote with Democrats to oust Mike Johnson because Democrats don't vote for a Republican speaker and Republicans don't vote for a Democratic speaker. But this whole idea of you can't use the other team's votes, they have no leverage whatsoever but for the fact that they're counting on Democrats to vote a certain way. And I think it's incredibly stupid. I mean, the whole thing is just so incredibly stupid.

If you had a secret ballot, Ukraine aid would pass, Israeli aid would pass. If you just brought the stuff to the floor, which I think Johnson's going to do, it would pass. And the last thing I'll just say is, Mike Johnson was on CNN yesterday, gave an interview to Jake Tapper. I've been pretty critical on Mike Johnson.

He did a great job. He showed real political chops. He said things that like made me, that endeared him to me about how he's a Reaganite Republican and like the world needs American leadership on the international stage. I mean, he had some ass-kissing stuff to Trump, but whatever, that's political reality. But he was a better politician in that interview than I have seen him be. And I think he's going to get it done. Can I say one thing, or one point of order, I should say, because I can hear all of the current and former House aides listening, screaming out.

It's a Republican conference and a Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives. It's a murder of crows. Okay, I get it. Hey, hey, I don't care. I don't care, but I'm just looking at for you guys. So just going to say that. So I will say the frustration, Jonah, that you are expressing is shared by the vast majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives. I mean, you're seeing reports where the Rules Committee is, they're considering even changing this rule, which, again, we should emphasize, Kevin McCarthy only became Speaker of the House in January of 2023 because he agreed to a rule that allowed for just one member of the conference to raise this motion to vacate.

And that has not been the rule in the past. There's been a higher threshold, and so they're already talking about changing that rule, which I think indicates just the amount of frustration. And you have to remember that the conference is narrow, Sarah, as you pointed out, and that means that for just as many sort of far right, which it's not an entirely accurate term for this group, but it's the best one I can come up with. the far right side of the conference can do this. But, you know, the moderate or the centrist or the center right or the Biden District House Republicans also can do this. And they are frustrated and they are, I think, more open now than they were in the fall to some kind of deal with Democrats. And I think that scares a lot of the conservative members of the conference. I think there is a fear among the conservative members of the conference that they've got to stick with Mike Johnson, who they like, who is one of them, because they fear a compromise speaker could be who succeeds Mike Johnson if they remove him.

And conversely, I think a lot of those moderate or they're really not moderate, they're pretty conservative, but center-right. Republicans from Biden districts. They feel like Johnson was somebody that was forced on them a little more conservative than who they would like to lead the Republican conference. But they went along with Mike Johnson. And now his leadership isn't good enough for the far right. So everybody's kind of had it. And it's why I agree with you, Jonah, that Johnson's actually in a position of strength here in part because he is not as hateable as Kevin McCarthy was and a part because the circumstances are just seemed to be in his favor. We'll see what happens, but I predict he gets this done and I predict he remains speaker. Yeah, also no one else

wants the job and no one else who could do the job wants it and the people who do want it, no one wants. So I mean, like he's like Richard Gere and Officer and a gentleman. He's got no place else to go. Oh, we're going to move on to the next topic. Interesting polling going on right now. And again, you guys know my feelings on polls, on issue polls, especially hot garbage, and even horse race polls this far out, especially national ones, hot garbage, different reasons why they're hot garbage.

But something I've also always said is if you're comparing the same poll with the same question over time and you see a definite trend, not just. one and one, like it needs to be multiple trend lines here. That's worth something. It is, it is, you know, like leftovers and maybe tasty leftovers. So Trump was leading in all of the swing states that Joe Biden won in 2020 outside the margin of error a few months ago. And slowly but surely over the last month we've seen poll after poll from those initial polls come out showing that lead either shrinking, disappearing, or even flipping in some of those swing states. The national polling is reflecting the same thing. It seems like the race is changing or tightening. And here's

my question. And I'll start with you, Jonah. Come up with a reason for this happening that isn't this is what happens in an election year people come home once there's two nominees yes normally it happens later in the game but everyone knows everything about these two guys so maybe we shouldn't be shocked that people are quote unquote coming home to their partisan places sooner especially as the third party argument kind of fell apart um i think people are looking for reasons like oh it's trump trials or it's Trump doing this or that, and I'm just not convinced that any of those things are mattering. Disagree with me. Okay, so I'm going to work around your preemption of what I think is a partially correct answer with just making one quick point. The Biden people said a lot over the

last three months that in their focus groups, people did not actually believe Donald Trump was going to be the nominee. And I believe them that they had that final. whether like, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of play and a lot of that, but I believe that they saw that finding. And if that finding is true, the fact that no one else is running against Donald Trump anymore in the Republican primary and he's been declared the de facto nominee suggests that some of those people are like, oh my gosh, he actually is going to be the nominee and are coming home. I'm sorry, I had to put it out there. I'd say there are a couple of things. One is at the margins of the economy is, is definitely getting better, right? I mean, it's getting better in ways that people are starting to feel. You could always make this sort of airy-fairy academic argument that trend lines were improving and they were.

The least persuasive of those was always, the rate of increase in inflation is slowing down. That never really, I think, you know, it was like, you know, bread was $10 last week, and now it's only $10.50. See, inflation is slowing down. That doesn't work on people. But employment is going very well.

Stock market's been doing great. And as Democrats start coming home and paying attention to the economy, I think that kind of helps. But I have a theory here, which I'd be curious what you guys think. I basically think, you know, we talk about in a normal election, the incumbent, It's a referendum on the incumbent, but we never had a two-day facto incumbent race and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think this election is less of a referendum on the actual incumbent president and almost entirely about Donald Trump, because the base of the Democratic Party is not going to vote for Joe Biden. the base of the Democratic Party is going to vote against Donald Trump.

The strategy to win over the persuadables among the independents and people in the middle or whatever we're going to call them is a race to convince enough people that the other candidate sucks worse. This is the argument that Bill Barr was making on Fox News, which I found fascinating, because he starts from my metaphor that I don't necessarily reject. you know, a vote for one candidate is Russian roulette and a vote for another candidate is national suicide. Right. As Nick Cotogio put it in his excellent Boiling Frogs newsletter yesterday, it's a flawed metaphor, but it is vivid. I think a lot of people feel that way about this election when I talk to people about who they're voting for, they will use versions of that metaphor or explanations that come very close to that. But it doesn't predict who they're voting for it all when they use that metaphor.

I've heard it. But I think I think for anybody for whom Biden arouses a great deal of passion, they're voting for Trump. The people for whom Trump arouses a great deal of passion, I think they break for Biden.

And so I just think it's going to be, it's a little bit like 2016, right? It's like whenever Hillary was the center of attention, Trump's poll numbers got better. Exactly.

Whenever Trump was the center of attention, Hillary's poll number has got better. I think Trump's going to be the center of attention for most of the summer. That is probably good for Joe Biden. And that's why people are coming home. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind.

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What did I write about? Yeah. I wrote about the Trump media strategy when it comes to this current, just started this week, New York criminal trial. And it's an interesting thing because I was struck by, just listening to Jonah now, you know, the idea that Trump needs Biden to be the center of attention to help his, Trump's own political prospects, kind of goes against. everything that Donald Trump is. Everything that Donald Trump is and is about. And in particular, goes against his team's PR strategy for this trial. And I think all of these different theories about what the right political strategy and PR strategies to do,

like they're all coming into conflict with each other. You might even say they're colliding, Sarah, with each other. Branding opportunity, branding opportunity. And it is going to be a test. The Trump team believes that they need all the attention on Trump and the trials. Because if they can get the cameras on Trump, if they can get their people talking about this on TV, they can make the argument over and over again that this is political, that, what you're seeing, you know, within the trappings of the judicial system is, in fact,

a sophisticated political operation to damage Donald Trump. And once people see that and know that, they will come around and support Donald Trump in pushback to this political persecution, like, that's their theory. I think it is a theory that is trying to, fit itself to Trump's own desire to be at the center of the story. It's sort of a post facto, okay,

we know he's going to want to talk to the media as much as he can. We know he is going to be outrageous, so let's find a theory that fits that. But it's how they're proceeding. I am not convinced that it's going to work for Trump.

I am in agreement with Jonah that the more attention that this legally dubious trial on these charges. We'll see what the prosecution has to say, and I know you talked about that in this week's collision, Sarah, but that despite this trial being sort of the most dubious legally for Trump, I think it has the potential to be the most damaging politically for Trump, because at a certain point, it doesn't become about a political persecution, it becomes about some really salacious, uh, ugly stuff about the way Trump operates that everybody who follows politics will say it's old news. But I think actually it's,

it's the kind of thing that that voters know, but when they're reminded of it, they get that, they get that kind of icky feeling again. And, um, I think it can be damaging. So I have a question for you guys. I miss this. I've been, because I, I, I, I, I, I, I've been busy with a bunch of stuff, but... Joan has been doing stuff, y'all. So I haven't been glued to, like, cable... I've been watching, like, cable coverage of things. But I was listening to the commentary podcast, dear friends of mine, love John Podorts,

love Matt Continent, love those guys, great guys. There is a school of thought out there. I'm not saying that I subscribe to it, that says that New Yorkers, and particularly Jewish New Yorkers, have a certain parochial understanding of the importance of New York City that exceeds reality. I'm just putting that out there.

And so I thought it was very funny listening to the conversation because I had missed this entirely. Apparently Donald Trump, after one of these days in court, went to a bodega. Yes. And bought some bodega things.

I always like to go to bodegas because I like to get my roach killer and my bread when they're served next to each other. just think it adds some zest to life. But they gushed about what a brilliant political photo op this was. The crowd loved him. All these Hispanic people loved him. He was high energy, so he was rebutting the fake snooze allegations that he fell asleep in court and all this kind of stuff. And they were making the case that it's going to get covered on all the

Spanish language TV and Spanish language radio and and all of this stuff. And I think it's an interesting argument that that Trump is going to run a front porch campaign from the working class ethnic neighborhoods of the five boroughs, because he can't leave New York City because he's at this trial. I am skeptical of the exuberance with which this theory was proposed on commentary podcast, but there might be some truth to it. Right? I mean, it's like Trump conveys a certain amount of energy and joy when he does, you know, joie de vivre, when he does his campaign style, that chick-fil-aes and bodegas and that kind of stuff. And Biden really does have a problem conveying energy, all that kind of stuff.

And so it's interesting to me, this theory is interesting to me. And I'm wondering what you guys think about it. Can he use New York City as this weird projection? device to campaign for various constituencies around the country? We should note that that bodega was the site of a murder. That's right. I left that out. Right. No, no, but I think it's important because... I know it's important. You're right. I just didn't mention it. Right, right, right, right. But because this was part of his message, which is that Alvin Bragg,

the Democratic DA of Manhattan is going after me when there's violent crime within his jurisdiction. And I think that is, that is powerful, but he also went to the funeral of a slain cop a couple weeks ago or a month ago when he was in New York for a different trial. I mean, it's a smart way to leverage your situation. I just, my question, you guys, do you think it's going to be effective? I don't know. I am skeptical.

Sarah, why you're the, you're the political pro here. What do you think of the messaging opportunity this is? So it fits into something that has happened since 2016. that I'm still trying to understand the full parameters of, which is we have stopped doing retail politics, qua retail politics, meaning it used to be the case that whatever the swing states were, you would basically plant yourself in those states

and do lots of town halls and as many sort of shaking hands and kissing babies in those swing states as possible. That has no longer been true. It's not to say that candidates don't do events there, but you look at 2016 and they were very asymmetrical campaigns. Hillary Clinton was doing a very traditional swing state campaign. It's actually funny side story. I was fully convinced that Hillary was going to win the 2016 campaign.

By the way, somehow... You and Trump both. Somehow, by the way, pundits, like 50% of all pundits will now say maybe 75% of all pundits, that, like, no, they knew Trump was going to win. And it's like, that's weird because where we're... where are you in the run-up to the election? So I will fully acknowledge that in the run-up to the election, I thought Hillary Clinton would win. And I was teaching a course at the time at Harvard's Institute of Politics. And I remember the Friday before the election, Hillary Clinton announced she was going to Michigan for an event. And I walked into someone else's class because I didn't have,

I wasn't teaching that day, who was also talking about the election. And I said, there's something very strange going on because if I'm running this race and she's running a very traditional race I would never have my candidate in Michigan a state that should be in the bag so close to the election because at this point you're not

five days out from an election the most valuable thing you have is your candidate's time and so it tells you what their internal polls say and everything else and so when she went to Michigan that was the red flag because you wouldn't go to Michigan if you were up by two even.

You would only go to Michigan if your polling showed you down in Michigan because otherwise you just would be like, that's a weird outlier poll, but somehow they knew that they were about to lose Michigan. So they sent her there. Meaning it was a very traditional race. They were running a swing state retail campaign. Donald Trump wasn't.

Donald Trump wins. Fast forward to 2020. Of course, there's COVID going on. So Biden doesn't run a traditional retail race either. He runs his, you know, what's pejoratively called his basement campaign. Biden wins. So you head into 2024 and one can imagine that both candidates who have now won not doing the swing state retail campaigning,

which is a huge pain to do and no candidate likes doing it, are both like, yeah, we're going to run this on TV, man. We're going to run this through soundbites and through, virality and all that stuff. And I mentioned all that, Jonah, because if you buy into this theory that the swing state retail campaign strategy is dead, long live the swing state retail campaign strategy, then what Donald Trump's doing is going to work very, very well. Because it doesn't matter that it's in New York and not Georgia or Arizona or Wisconsin. What matters is that the people in those states, at least some of them

see it. What I question is that any of them are seeing it and that in fact the reason that you don't need to do your swing state retail stuff is because these elections have become so vibe

based that no single or even a dozen things matter is this overall vibe from people's communities from their media consumption that may have nothing to do with their political consumption

it may have to do with what sitcoms they watch how they view themselves what tribe and what group they think they belong to in which case none of it matters

so it's also still smart strategy because he's not wasting his time and again time is this really valuable resource for candidates heading in to a general national election so Mike I don't know It's not a fully formed theory, but it's where I am. So I think that's great.

That's sort of a great distillation of the argument for why this is good politics. For him, I'm just not convinced. I guess I view things differently. If the question is, the question for me is who is the marginal voter? What are they paying attention to? who matters and how will they be swung one way or another. I don't view the people, first of all, I don't view the people who are showing up outside of a bodega in Harlem to see Donald Trump. I don't think these are your run-of-the-mill Harlem residents showing up.

They're there to see Donald Trump. So I don't think they are the marginal voter. I would, I don't know anything about this crowd, but I would be very interested to know how many of them are registered to vote and how many of them will vote. And let's, yeah, but to Sarah's point, but to Sarah's point, if Telemundo is running interviews with these Spanish speaking people in Florida and Arizona and Nevada, um, does it matter whether the people being interviewed are registered to vote? Well, I want to get to that, but because also I think I saw, I think I saw a lot of just like Caucasian faces in that crowd as well in the videos that I covered. I think there is, um, there is a bit of a, I don't see race, but go on. I know. Well, you know, uh, that's, that's my, that's my failure. Um, there's a bit of a spectacle here going on. But I take to I take your point, but I don't know. And I guess it's a question. I don't know if That is the demographic that matters in terms of being, in terms of who needs to be swung in what direction.

I think what matters, what still matters more are our middle to upper middle class voters who are in suburban areas in Atlanta, in Detroit, in Milwaukee. Who are those voters? What media are they consuming? I take your point about, say, Telemundo and those interviews, but I saw a lot of coverage of that bodega visit on Fox News. Jesse Waters sort of ate it up and had it all over his show and then Trump tweeted out clips from Jesse Waters' show on Fox News. This, to me, I am less convinced that there is sort of a great, great Hispanic or Latino move toward Trump. I think it's happening on the margins, and that's important. But I think it's, this is more of, this sort of gets the Fox News viewer, gets them excited. And that's not the voter who Trump needs at this point anymore. I think, I think the

concern should be about those suburban voters. What are they paying attention to? What media are they consuming. I don't think it's either any of those that are showing this visit. I think they're watching or paying attention to the more mainstream coverage of this trial. That's what's going to matter. All right. So, Jonah, I want to pivot from here into the G-file that you wrote last week on the Messianic temptation because it interested me because it's not a single-party problem. I think we focus on all of these Republicans who are so into Donald Trump and more Republicans are into Donald Trump, then Democrats are excited about Joe Biden, and it's not even close. And you are sort of describing the messianic temptation from Democrats around Obama in 2008,

obviously Republicans around Donald Trump now. To me, this isn't a coincidence at all that Republican, I mean, politics has for a lot of people turned into their religion, and I don't mean it in a worshipy sense I mean it in their social community sense that that's their self-identity the way you used to identify as a Presbyterian

and now like I don't really know what a Presbyterian is and please all the hate mail I'm about to get from Presbyterians just know it's going into a separate folder. They're very nice people. But now

you identify with a different tribal alliance. And I don't think that's wholly unusual in American history or American politics, but it does feel like it's picking up pace. And it can't be coincidental that it's happening as religious identification is falling off. Question mark. Okay. It's just like you fell off a cliff.

No, that was a question. Yeah, so I dove pretty deep into this literature a few years ago when I was writing my last book. it is unprecedented that partisan ID now is more predictive and descriptive of one's identity than race, religion, sex, or any of those things. That is a very weird thing in American history. To the extent there's precedent for it, I think the only place you could think about as in the lead up to the Civil War, where basically if you were a Republican, you were against slavery and if you were a Democrat, you weren't, right?

But like the issue then was slavery. That's funny. That's exactly what I was. thinking of, yes. It was a political issue, but it wasn't a candidate. Right. So slavery was the definitional thing and the parties were die markers for it in a sense. This is different because the issues that define what it means to be Republican and Democrat are constantly freaking changing. And to the extent there's any constancy in the last six years, it's a loyalty test about Donald Trump. The sense in which it doesn't just map like religion,

but actually acts like a religion is that, and this is a very old human tendency, is to want to have a salvific character, some sort of savior messianic figure who transcends the conventional and is some sort of redeemer, deliverer, of a new politics, a new order, that kind of thing. People, like, if you go back and you read some of the things like Ezra Klein wrote about Barack Obama, and I don't want to pick on Ezra, you know, a lot of people wrote about Obama.

They talked about him about, like, you know, I mean, I think it was Deepak Tropros saying he was delivering America to a quantum leap of consciousness. Now, I just want to be really clear about this. He did not do that. I have a whole different album side on that, by the way. I think it's a huge problem for the Democratic Party that so many hopes and dreams literally were put into the 2008 Obama campaign. Their 2012 campaign strategy was far more cynical. They just needed to get over the line, right? For sure.

And it really disappointed, and I wish I could find a bigger word for this, it disillusioned a lot of young Democrats at the time who are now mid-tier age-wise Democrats. who are, I think, going to have trouble getting that enthusiasm up for any other candidate because they invested so much into Obama and then were so disillusioned by Obama. It might be part of the reason you don't see a lot of enthusiasm around Joe Biden from that age cohort. I think that's right. And, like, part of this is a formulation of politics that essentially baby boomers imposed on the Democratic Party, right? It was the cult of JFK that was projected upon. I mean, I once, for my first book, I looked into this and, like, the number of prominent Democrats of John Kerry Bill Clinton's generation who said they got into politics because of JFK is just staggering.

It's Reagan to Republicans that has also died off. That's right. But, like, just fun fact, John Kerry in law school started signing everything JFK because his middle initial is F2 and he was just so. enamored with Kennedy. Anyway, the point is, is that this, this idea that all it takes is someone really charismatic and really persuasive to come in on a white horse and change everything is a problem in human beings. It is, you know, anyone who's ever read Hegel describing Napoleon, it's, it's, this is not a new phenomenon for human beings. It is what Vladimir Putin plays on. It's what leader, charismatic leaders have played on for,

ever. It's a real problem in American democracy for, for specific reasons. And I think that disillusionment, the frustration, the culture war stuff, where not to sound like David French, who's obviously dead to me, but like in the culture war fights, when both sides think we're in an intense culture war and both sides think the other side always wins, the desire to have someone ride the escalator down from the heavens and save us is very, very strong, and it does not take a lot of Google foo to find hundreds of examples of people talking about Donald Trump as if he is, he's come down from the heavens to save America or save humanity, and no one is the Messiah except like the Messiah.

And putting those kinds of expectations makes it impossible to do the sort of small ball work that is required for politics. And it's a huge frigging problem. And I personally, the idea that you could look at that giant unmade bed of a man of Donald Trump and think, yes, this is God's chosen instrument.

To me is weird. It's just factually, just psychologically weird, but a lot of people do. Last word to you on this, Mike. Oh, geez. Yeah, I mean, I have this very general, not specific vibe-based theory that, and I say this, and I don't mean to discount any particular issue that people might be very passionate about

and care about. Not to say that there are problems. There are people who have reasons to want to change how things are. But my general theory is that domestically, We've, like, solved a lot of the big problems. Like, life has never been better in America than it is right now. The reason why the current religification, yes, that is a word that I just made up, of politics is like a pale imitation of what happened pre-civil war is because we don't have an issue like slavery, thank God, that is sort of, driving, you know, this kind of wedge within the country. I mean, it's all, it's all a little

farcical to me that, that, you know, it's become this sort of cliche. Our country is so divided right now. And yet, I can't really quite figure out what it is we're divided on except, except this, well, it's, it's about Trump. And so it, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It just all goes to my theory that for most of us, the problems are all solved. Everything else is on the margins. And so we need to catastrophize all of these things because we need that fight. We need that we yearn for that sort of epic political battle. We don't really need to.

So that's my final word. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick, intuitive, and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and email campaigns to stay connected with subscribers or clients.

And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatched. save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, let's just do a couple minutes of foreign policy because there's the political response from the Biden administration

on Iran's attack on Israel. But there's also the very practical, yeah, but what should Israel do? So I want to get your feelings on both. Jonah, do you think the Biden administration should be telling Israel restraint is glory and honor. And do you actually think, though, that restraint is probably a good idea on Israel's part? You can steal man pretty well. Some of these policies that the Biden administration is backing to the extent that we can trust what the reporting is on what the policies actually are. I think his political considerations are so obvious.

and overpowering and corrupting of his credibility on this stuff that it's very difficult for me to like I think the take the win stuff which I talked about a lot with Eli Lake I think it's indefensible I think if these reports are true that the Biden administration told Israelis that hey if you attack Iran if you counter attack Iran we may not help you the next time they launch a massive attack on Israel like we did this time, I think it's grotesque. At the same time, if you can make the case to me that Biden isn't, Biden's two-state solution here isn't Michigan and Nevada, but he actually is playing this straight and that Israel could translate this attack and the response to it into a lasting coalition against Iran that,

in a broader regional security arrangement in exchange for not counterpunching Iran right now? Well, that's a deal that they should take. I mean, that makes, I mean, I think that's where the Israeli public is, right? I mean, if you basically have sort of like a mini-NATO that includes Jordan and Saudi Arabia and Britain to defend Israel that it will last and the commitments are real against Israel, I mean, against Iran, well, that's a form of deterrence, too. And so if that's really on offer, okay. But if it's not on offer, Israel cannot sit back.

and say, hey, I know we're really good at shooting your crap out of the air, so you get to do it again and again and again, and we won't mind, right? That's one of the reasons they got into trouble with Hamas. If I, you're the law person here. If I shoot you in your bulletproof vest, I can still be prosecuted for something, right? Right. I still did something wrong. Hey, no harm, no foul. You know, and that's sort of the, the, the, argument that you get from the bottom administration that Iran can launch an attack from its own territory for the first time ever and because Israel is was good at knock at preventing it from succeeding what was intended to be a mass casualty serious attack Iran's intent and deeds don't

really count for anything and I just think that's that's a precedent in the incredibly stupid but important logic of deterrence that Israel cannot can't let that stand. Mike agree disagree. Look, I agree with Jonah on this. I think politically, Biden and the administration are still so captured by an Obama administration worldview on Iran, on the sort of hatred of Bibi Netanyahu, who is not perfect. But I should, I should, you know, stipulate who's not perfect, but he is the leader of an allied country. The hatred that stems from the Obama administration foreign policy establishment, I think is just clouding, it's hard to say, if it's clouding Biden's judgment, it's just a part of who he is or who they are. And I think

it is unfortunate. I think also all of the political considerations that Biden is clearly making with regard to his domestic political problem when it comes to Israel. The telegraphing of that is so obvious and blatant. This is an ally. Like, keep it behind closed doors. And I don't understand what, I understand why they think that this is good for them, the tradeoff of, like, set aside the domestic political issue, it's just no way, it's just no way to treat an ally. If they've got a problem with a specific plan or policy, you know, do it behind closed doors, keep it in the family, so to speak. And otherwise, though, I agree with Jonah. I find the domestic political side of this fascinating because

there's a world in which Biden does the sister soldier thing, right, and says, no way, no how October 7th was a terrorist attack. I just don't care. You're just wrong. In which he is going to alienate that piece of the Democratic base, no question. But similar to how Trump has told Republicans, you know, to change their policies on any number of things, and they've actually seem to appreciate the lack of pandering and just come on board with him, even change their policy preferences on some things. I think he would win over the soft outer part of those pro-Palestinian folks. What they've done instead, though, is give lip service to like you're right publicly, but then not done anything. And I think it's both emboldened them. You're saying we're

right, right? So they've they've been emboldened to continue and expand sort of protest operations. They're understandably frustrated because they're being told that they're right by the administration, but then nothing changes even after six months where they keep

saying like, well, Netanyahu better not do this. I hope he doesn't do this. And then he keeps doing the thing and the Biden administration doesn't do anything, doesn't cut funding, doesn't stop sending weapons. So they're increasing the number of people in this faction who hate them. It's a weird political move that is doing the opposite. They need to flip things. They need to flip things, right? As you're saying, publicly stand with Israel and then privately nudge Israel to like, you know, where they think they should

get it over with. Yeah. I mean, I don't mean you should get it over with your answer. I mean, like they should encourage Israel to get it over with. It's really bizarre to me because then what happens is, you know, the blocking Biden from getting to the state of the union or blocking the bridges and you have Democrats taking their cues from Biden of like, ooh, don't like arrest them. Don't actually hold these people accountable. And by the way, a whole different album side on the point of civil disobedience

is accepting the legal consequences of your civil disobedience. as David French said on the flagship podcast, it wasn't letter from a Birmingham coffee shop. And by sort of continuing that part of their public persona and messaging on this topic, there's more protests, there's more bridges being shut down and there's more people involved in it.

There's people, you know, saying they will not vote for Joe Biden over this issue. They're playing this just so wrong from a political strategic standpoint. So can I just make one other sort of important, you know who does listen to this weird pro-Palestinian rhetoric if that's what we're supposed to be calling it? You know, I mean, the sort of, it's sort of like the Clintonian thing of, yes, I smoke pot, but I didn't inhale, right? It's like, yes, I support Israel, but I think it's genocide is sort of the messaging that they're getting out there, which is like, not great, Bob. But you know who does listen to this stuff in exactly the wrong, in exactly the way that you don't want them to? Hamas. Hamas has turned down. Yes, every single ceasefire deal after ceasefire deal. And I love there was a quote from somebody in the administration, I think to Axios, where he said,

Hamas's negotiating behavior has just been deplorable. That's really outrageous. We've given them everything they asked for. And it was like, I mean, I said it was on Twitter. It was like, yeah, it's amazing that people would who would go on a rape spree and murder children in their homes in front of their parents that they would be jackasses and negotiations in fancy hotel rooms in Qatar right and like the idea like the Biden's not out there saying where are the Americans release the Americans get the Americans out of I mean release all the

hostages but get the Americans out of there and it's it's it's it's it's appalling that this because the message that Hamas gets is the tide is turning in America the moot listen to what Biden is saying he is he is he's getting closer and closer he's telling him not to go into rafa we need to hold out and save these hostages for a rainy day and it is a grotesque it's it's grotesque that he's doing it for politics but it's all the more grotesque because he's doing it for politics badly you know I mean it be one thing if like this was like a brilliantly cynical move but it's a stupidly cynical move and it just it's it's a policy Jonah, correction, though. Biden is telling the Israelis not to go into Haifa, not right.

I saw that, yeah. Which, so, I want to be very clear, Israel should not attack Haifa. We can all agree with that. Biden is correct on that. Yes, they really shouldn't. I think it would be a disaster for them. Yeah, I find the fact that the six American hostages aren't household names aren't being said on every Sunday show by administration spokespeople every single time. to be actual malpractice but also political malpractice because they lose the moral fight with their fringe who already says they're not voting for them who are going to be frankly low propensity voters probably to begin with

they're sitting outside Blinken's home blocking the road from my house with really horrific signage they're throwing red paint only when the kids are in the car They wait until his small children are in the car. These are not good people. Why are you on the side of these people? Why are you not making the moral case against these people? And instead, you keep telling these people that they're right.

What do you think is going to happen? It just, it's horrible. It's gentle foreign policy. And it never worked before. It's like gentle parenting. Gentle parenting doesn't work. Gentle foreign policy doesn't work. Mike and I are, what's the, we're horrible parents.

That's the opposite of gentle parents. That's right. I don't, I, I, I, I, I don't want to turn this into a media criticism thing, but, you know, I, I get frustrated with the Kristen Welker approach to Sunday shows, which is just try to get someone to use a word that will make it, you know, like so and so now calls it genocide, right? Like, there's a lot of, will you say now this? Will you say that Trump is bad? Will you say, right? And it's, it's, I get it. And it's a form of journalism. I think it's too inside baseball, but whatever. people can disagree. You know what would be a brilliant thing for someone to do if they were content with the possibility of destroying their political career? I'm listening. Is the next time there's a Biden official on one of these Sunday shows explaining the Biden administration position, just to say, do you, can you name all the American hostages that are being held right now? Just do you know their names? Not why aren't you saying their names?

do you know their names? And those kinds of gotcha things, I think, can be really kind of crappy. But it would be pretty evocative. And if they could name them, great. And then you could ask, so why is this the first time I've heard you say their names? And if they can't name them, they say, isn't that a problem that you can't actually name American hostages who've been held in rape dungeons for, you know, eight months? Anyway. All right.

A quick, not worth your time. Speaking of mean parenting, Mike, there was an interesting data set on spanking. And it came to my attention because Matt Iglesias said that in my experience, spanking is one of the biggest examples of educated liberals not recognizing we're in the minority on what's really a key, deep question of values. And there was this 2021 data set that showed, Basically, across the board, by race, by education, by political affiliation, by gender,

the majority of Americans either agree or strongly agree with the following statement. It is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard, spanking. Now, as you might imagine, there were differences along those lines. Black parents were more likely to agree with that statement. High school and less than high school educated Americans more likely to agree. Republicans more likely to agree and men more likely to agree, but not by much, which I found very interesting. So Mike is spanking worth our time? Is this a cultural touchstone issue where the elites are out of touch? Is spanking? It doesn't look like it's going out of fashion, and yet you certainly

don't see it represented in media anymore. You don't see kids getting spanked on TV, et cetera. So I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on spanking? Of children. I was just going to say the same thing. Jonah. See, here's the difference between me and you. I heard the unspoken of children. And you guys didn't. Look, it's a third rail of like parenting politics. I tend to think it's a personal preference.

It comes from a lot of what happened in your household. And sometimes it means, you know, in your household, as you were a child growing up, and, and I don't want to draw any conclusions about any kind of disconnect between sort of elites and the regular folks on it. But I'm sure it's true. Like, I believe the data on that. You know, I was, you know, Spanking was a part of my childhood. it's not a part of my kids and so we are we are a statistic you know I'm I'm the first of my family to graduate from from college and so you can you can just you can just see it right there in the data so that's all I have to say about that Jonah is this an interesting elite divide or

not worth their time I think it's an interesting elite divide I'd have to study the numbers more closely to draw some more granular conclusions from it. I think there are some rules about spanking that I think are worth keeping in mind, is that, like, first of all, if the parent is enjoying doing it, they shouldn't be doing it, right? This isn't, you know, it's one of those cases where it should always be done, not, first of all,

not in a hot flash of anger, but in a sort of what lesson am I teaching if I do this kind of thing. I never spanked my daughter that I can recall. My parents raised a hand once or twice, but it was mostly, mostly as an emphasis, right, as an exclamation point on how angry they were than it was on like trying to inflict physical pain of any kind, that kind of thing. I think the idea that you can be categorical about it is leaves out that you know what these kids might do right there are things where like if a kid is no I'm serious like if a kid is doing something like jumping down on railroad track on the subway tracks on a train station and I knew kids who do that kind of thing like like you need to do something

that really makes it clear that they could die right that this is something that like this is about keeping you alive and those are the kinds of things that my parents when they They, you know, took a swag at me. Those were the kind of messages they were trying to send because I did a lot of stupid things when I was a kid. You know, Jonathan Haidt has this whole thing about hyper-safetyism, and this is a problem. I don't think it is a problem.

I think there are a lot of elites in this country who live in such bespoke environments that their kids don't actually get opportunities to truly endanger themselves the way younger generations did. And there is this sort of idea that nature in the entire universe has been OSHA approved.

And so therefore, there's no reason to raise your hand to your kid for any purposes whatsoever. And everything should be run through essentially an invisible HR department in your family. And that reason and talking can solve everything. And I think that sort of attitude

is going to be disproportionately among elite college educated more well-off people. It doesn't make them wrong, but it does signify a cultural divide. So here's my hot take on this, which is there's a very different group of people who will say that basically they agree that spanking shouldn't be banned or socially shamed. If you remember the wording of the question, it is it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good heart spanking. Not asking whether they've ever spanked their children. And so I wonder if, in fact, the question itself is a, which tribe do you align with with the sort of, you know, annoying, gentle parents? Or are you with the type of people who would

say that it's okay to spank your kid, regardless of whether you actually spank your precious angel? Because what's interesting is I think all three of us might answer yes to that question, even though it sounds like none of us have spanked our children. Yeah. I mean, but just as far as, I put one of those in vis-a-fence dog collars on my daughter. Is that okay? And that, and, well, it was very effective and it made spanking a moot point. That's a good point. Yeah, I put a bark, one of the no barking collars on my son. And you know what? He doesn't bark. He speaks English. Or leave the art.

All right. With that, we'll talk to you next week. Do you know. Do, do, do.