The Dispatch Podcast - Putin Makes Nuclear Threats

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

What happens when Vladimir Putin starts feeling cornered? Sarah, David, Steve, and Jonah react to Russia announcing military mobilization and think through the implications of Putin’s nuclear chest-thumping. They then turn to the politics of immigration (still very bad), and conclude with some rank punditry: is the Democrats’ momentary surge in the polls already bust? Out of context: “To me, it’s a little like the fight: Hiter-Stalin – who is worse?” Show Notes: -NBC poll showing decline in GOP loyalty to Trump -Politico: using cartoons as political ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Steve Hayes, David French, and Jonah Goldberg. We have plenty to discuss this morning. We're going to do an update on Russia, mobilization, and the nuclear threat. We'll talk a little bit more about the politics of immigration. And finally, did that blue surge that everyone saw a couple weeks ago already peak? Plus, of course, not worth your time. Let's dive right in. Steve, do you want to update us on the latest in what's going on on the ground in Ukraine? And, of course, Vladimir Putin's latest statements on nuclear blackmail. The short version is Russia is in trouble. Russia's in trouble on the ground in Ukraine. they're taking serious losses, losses of personnel. There are some estimates that have their overall losses

that upwards of 80,000 soldiers, which would truly be extraordinary. They're losing territory, morale is low, and they're being humiliated in quite a public way on the ground militarily in Ukraine. And I think it's important to point out that these losses and the challenges that they're facing are not geographically isolated. They are in pockets around the country.

That, of course, has led to this very, I think, consequential speech from Vladimir Putin this week in which Putin declared that he was going to be mobilizing 300,000 Russians to serve in the war in Ukraine. And there are reports in Russian media that the classified version of that call-up notice actually calls for a million, mobilization of a million Russians to serve in Ukraine.

You're seeing images of Russians trying to flee the country. There are some extraordinary photos of Russians at the border with Georgia. Massive, massive traffic snarlups trying to get out of the country. There are pictures in, I think I saw it on the BBC account, of Russians at airports, mostly young males trying to get out of the country to avoid being called up. There are also reports that there are Google search spikes on searches for how to break an arm so that they could be not actually called up because of physical problems. In the same speech, Putin suggested and not subtly that he is open to using nuclear weapons.

He's trying to redefine the war as a war of aggression against Ukraine, which he's seizing territory. Now he's trying to make it sound like a defensive war in which NATO and the West are coming after Russia and potentially holding referenda to formally bring into Russia territory in Ukraine that Russia has already claimed. It's a bad moment. I think it's a dangerous moment, Vladimir Putin is cornered and humiliated. There's reports that Chinese have sought distance from reporting this morning that even the North Koreans have said we don't really have much to do with Russia in his arms. Putin is isolated. He's humiliated. And I think we should take seriously the possibility that he'll use nuclear weapons. David, I was going to say an isolated

cornered Vladimir Putin does not feel like a safe place for the world to be. No. No, not at all. And, you know, this indication here of the call up of 300,000 or more reservists is an indication he's doubling down. Now, that doesn't mean, you know, when you hear that Russia's calling 300,000 reservists, calling up 300,000 reservists, you shouldn't think that this is like activating Russia's version of the Tennessee National Guard and associated American reserve units. We maintain our reserve trained to a pretty good degree of readiness where there's a relatively brief train-up period before they can be slotted into the front. And this is not that for them.

We learned their active duty troops tend to be worse trained than our reserve troops. The amount of train-up that it would have to be done to slot these guys into the front and have them fight effectively is incredibly, it's a lot, let's just put it that way. And there's no indication they're going to be that patient. And they have been already putting cannon fodder on the front lines for some time. And, you know, if you listen to folks who have been following this war really beat by beat, this is the moment, what we've seen over the past several couple of weeks is the moment

they've been telling us may well happen or is nearly inevitable. And that is the moment where a force just takes. takes too many losses. Its losses are too high, and the replacement troops are too low quality for a force to continue to function effectively. And that Putin had hidden strength behind firepower for some time after the failure of the Kiev offensive, for example, but now the core weakness induced by all of those losses is being shown. Now, the cornered Putin part of this, look you know the the russians have long basically said you know we're defending our territory with we reserve the right to defend our territory with every weapon at our disposal and we mean

every weapon at our disposal so what does this mean for the referenda the sort of the snap referenda mean that Putin is trying to convert at least in his eyes in the eyes of the Russian people, the territory that's been taken from Ukraine into Russian territory. That's what this annexation means to make it functionally part of Russia and therefore sort of unlock all of the elements of Russian defense strategy, which include use of all available weapons to protect Russian territory. And so while I don't think that we should be thinking that we might. might wake up any day to news of a nuclear blast out in Ukraine, I do think we should realize

just exactly what you said, Sarah, a cornered Putin is very, very dangerous. And he's very dangerous. You know, we want to look at images like we saw in St. Petersburg with peace protesters. And we want to think that all of the pressure he is facing internally is towards peace and that he's the guy resisting the pressure towards peace and if we could remove him or continue the pressure towards peace that he would moderate. There's also going to be pressure towards victory and there's going to be pressure and people who are going to be discontent with a losing military effort because it's losing, not because it's a military effort. And so we're entering a phase, I think, that's really unpredictable, very dangerous.

And if the annexations go through, consider the stakes to be raised and the stakes were already really high. I think what we're talking about here in terms of the use of nuclear weapons is still a relatively remote possibility. But for a moment, what would it mean for Americans, not American foreign policy, et cetera? But, you know, us, the rest of us, if Vladimir Putin does use nuclear weapons. well you get the easy question it would be a memorable week for sure

look I think I'm going to I promise I'm going to try to answer your question I'm just going to push back a little just at the margins on even David in that what Putin said this week in his mobilization speech

was in broad themes and in broad arguments and in broad threats, almost exactly what he said on February 24th. These two regions belong to us. If the West gets in the way, we will threaten you with total destruction from nuclear weapons. The speech this week was, I believe, entirely about, not about domestic political consumption,

although obviously there was an element of that. It was, and I, and I, and a lot of smart people, including David, have used this argument that he needs the pretext for total war mobilization to make these two, you know, Don Askin, Lahans, part of Russia. I don't know that he needs that as a political matter domestically. It's not like the opposition party

is going to say, oh, you didn't, you know, follow the letter of the law. I think he is trying to sound credible while he's threatening the West by saying, I take these distinctions seriously. And when I make these regions part of Russia, I can, I'm serious. I say they're part of Russia, and we can use nukes to defend mother Russia.

And I don't think the West should fall for the bluff. That said, there's a non-trivolve it. Whenever you're talking about nuclear weapons, there's a non-trivial chance that nuclear weapons are going to get used. And in many ways, it is tantamount to a war crime to threaten to use nuclear weapons in a cavalier way. So if he used nuclear weapons, I think it would probably be a battlefield nuke, right? I mean, David knows this stuff better night.

It would be a battlefield nuke or a tactical nuke, I guess is what we're supposed to call it, as a sort of demonstration thing. There's a very weird argument in a lot of this stuff, going back to the beginning where Putin says Ukraine is part of Russia. There's no such thing as Ukraine. Russia was born in Kiev, we are all Russians, and that's why I'm declaring unconditional war on them. And that's why I'm killing them by the thousands. Similarly, to use nuclear weapons in Lohansk in Danesk, it would be really weird, right? You're saying we must protect this region, and now we are going to use nuclear weapons in this region to protect it.

Talk about burning down the village to save it. But if they use a nuclear weapon, I suspect you'd have a certain sort of, you'd have a lot of Putin bros screaming, see, we told you so. but I also think you'd have more people in America saying I don't know I mean like nuclear weapons is this psychological thing that is so different than other stuff I suspect

Biden would not be as reassuring as he would need to be on this you know sort of like he might talk about it the way he talks about inflation sure it's this little thing for this month but whatever So, I mean, I guess I can't answer the question well

Because I truly, I haven't put enough thought into it It would be such an outside-the-box event for Americans to say And for the world And I think that's one of the reasons why they can't use nuclear weapons Is like the generals all know they are never going to be able to Park their money in London or go to Paris again if they use nuclear weapons None of them want to go to the Hague for war crimes and I suspect if

I don't know this but I suspect if Putin tried to the highest point of vulnerability for the Putin regime might be his effort to use nuclear weapons in the first place I have a question for the oldest person on this podcast.

Yes. I was obviously alive during the Cold War but you know I wasn't doing drills under my desk either. So I want to ask what sounds like maybe a naive question. If you kill the same number of people with traditional

missiles, all these things that Russia has been using on the Ukrainian people, the civilian death total is incredibly high. Why is it different to use nuclear weapons?

Still kills people, right? Yeah, well... There's some environmental cost. I absolutely understand that, although Chernobyl has rebounded better than people fought. Yeah, you know, the deadliest day of World War II

was not Hiroshima. It was the first firebombing of Tokyo. But what is the terrifying reality of nuclear weapons is that one flash is not all that there need be. So in other words, the existence of one or two or three tactical nukes popping off and destroying multiple Ukrainian, for example, military positions that were advancing along with an untold number of civilians. What it is, it's not necessarily that raw death toll

is a thing that is so shocking. It is the raw power of it all. And so that is just an order of magnitude beyond anything that our minds can really even grapple with and grasp. And so immediately what you would see, because this is a world saturated with videos, is you would see videos of nuclear flashes that would shock you to your core, just the raw power of it.

You would then immediately see footage of some of the most horrific injuries that the mind can wrap itself around at scale, at immediate scale. Now, you would have seen that after the firebombing of Tokyo as well, but that was well away from, you know, this was not something American media was exposed to. but this idea of the incredible raw scale of the power and the immediate influx of the casualties and then the knowledge that that would be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction

of what would occur if those weapons were used more broadly. And I think the best way to think about it is to just say, we don't know. We don't know. It would be such a monumental, world historic event, that it's kind of at this point, undertaken in full view of the world and not at the end of a conflict where, you know, 50, 60, 70 million people have killed and death tolls just are, we're numb to it. But in a very, very different world. And I think I'm

with Jonah that that is, in my view, a, I don't think that's a first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, tenth resort for Putin, that we shouldn't fall for a bluff that says that Ukraine should halt its offensive to retake its own territory because of these annexations. But at the same time, at the same time, we have to understand who we're dealing with. And this is why, frankly, it's been off the table since moment one that U.S. troops were going to engage directly, that we were going to have a no-fly zone, that our own nation. would lift the blockade because of this possibility. But I think the best way to think about it is it would be so stunning to us

and such a reminder of the sheer scale of destruction and such a shocking influence of immediate casualties that we, it's just, we can't really process that hypothetical. Steve, I've saved the easy question for you. one of the biggest debates in foreign policy of the last 10 plus years has been, do you deal with, do you focus on Russia, you know, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, you know, Israel and Palestinian conflict? Or do you put all of your brainpower resources into China? And, you know, I felt like the tables were turning to the, nope, everything should be focused on China crowd, you know, on both sides, frankly, you know, Joe Biden cites that as a reason to pull out of Afghanistan. Tom Cotton is constantly saying versions of that. Does what Vladimir Putin represents at this point, the threats he's making challenge that shift in any way for you? How should we think about that ongoing balance? Yeah, I don't think we have the luxury to choose. The world is messy and complicated. We have to deal the world with the world as it is. And I think the potential reordering of Europe in the way that Putin imagines presents such a significant threat. We ignore it at our peril. And that was true at the beginning of this conflict. I think it remains true now. That's not in any way to diminish the actual threat and the potential threat that China poses. And Iran and al-Qaeda.

I mean, I think this is a fraught time in the world. We've lived through times like this before we have to be nimble enough to be able to deal with all these threats. But you see how resources get fractured at that point. For sure. There is a choice here. You can put all your resources against China and make real progress, hopefully. But if you fracture your resources and you're dealing with a. series of threats, it's not going to have the same effect in terms of China's future threat,

which you're right. There's sort of a current threat and a future threat. And I guess I'm thinking more of the future threat. But I think that the idea that like, nope, we just have to do it all is a little bit not reasonable. Well, so this isn't the first time you've accused me of being unreasonable. It may not be reasonable, but it's reality. And, you know, I would say to make a slightly different point, this is one of the reasons why we shouldn't be contemplating further cuts to the defense budget, but should be looking at increasing the defense budget so that we can deal with these threats. We may wish that these threats didn't exist.

I certainly do, but they do. And we have to be serious about how we deal with them. Let me just make one more point agreeing with part of what Jonah said and then taking a different view slightly. it's true that Vladimir Putin said substantively many of the same things in his speech in February. But in the days that followed, what I think many people were concerned about what was going on in Ukraine worried most about was exactly the situation that we are now in. So this was the worst case scenario, right? The possibility that Vladimir Putin would use

tactical nukes, and maybe more, arose in our theoretical discussions of this when Putin struggled on the battlefield, if things didn't go well for him, when he was cornered. And that has now become reality, which I think makes this all the more worrisome. On Joe Biden, I have a different view, I don't think my concern about Biden is not that he will, that his natural inclination will be to downplay the threat of Putin using nukes, as he's done with inflation. My concern is actually the opposite. I mean, I think you have to look at what's happening in Ukraine and give the Biden administration a fair amount of credit for getting to the right position and for eventually doing the right thing, supporting people on the

around whose interests overlap with Americans, keeping Americans from having to fight on the ground ourselves, but taking seriously the potential reordering of Europe that I mentioned a moment ago. On the other hand, we've been unbelievably slow, too reactive and too cautious, in my view. Some of that was due to the fact that we needed to keep a coalition together. And I think in those early days when we were making arguments, David was making arguments, I was making arguments that we ought to accelerate our provision of weapons to Ukraine. The Biden White House said, the Germans wouldn't necessarily love that. We've got to be a little careful.

It's important to keep the coalition together. But I think what we've seen is Biden almost so afraid of anything that could be perceived as escalation that it's constrained our willingness to act in a way that hasn't been positive. I think if we had, if we had, in fact, accelerated what we were providing. If we accelerated what we were providing now, I think it's possible that we could be several months ahead of where we are at this point and that we might have seen even a further collapse of what Russia was trying to do. Jonah, last question to you on this topic.

In 2012, Mitt Romney said, Russia, without a question, is our number one geopolitical foe. It's 10 years later. Is it looking better? worse? I think Romney would probably answer it slightly differently now because the situation has changed. I think China is definitely a number one

geopolitical challenge and we can have an argument about what the word foe, not the Vietnamese soup, but you know, the word foe means in this context. But I do think that like it was

the right statement then. Russia is more active. Let's put it this way. In 2012, China still had a lot to gain from being part of the global economic and political order. They were free riders. They were developing at a breakneck pace and stability was their friend and trade was their friend. Russia has been trying to destabilize the international political order, particularly in the West, for a very long time. And that makes them more clearly an enemy than China was in 2012. But, In terms of the potential threat to American national security, I think China is a bigger one,

but that doesn't mean Russia's not really trying. 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. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain, on top of everything else, is why life insurance indeed matters. Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy

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abortion, according to the Axios midterm dashboard powered by Google trends. Fascinating, by the way, look at the top 10. Jobs, taxes, Donald Trump, wages, Ukraine, firearms, China, Russia, Joe Biden, border and immigration. the Martha's Vineyard immigration stunt that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pulled has remained in many, many headlines now for much longer than probably any other immigration topic of this year, maybe of the last several years. I think on the one hand, there's been plenty of headlines about how Ron DeSantis has made a huge mistake. It's angered people on the left. I don't see how you can see this as anything other,

though, than a political win for Ron DeSantis in the constituency he cares about. The Florida governor's race is not particularly close right now. He's looking at 2024. He's top of headlines for Republican primary voters. And even better, it's in, and he's being attacked by the Biden administration from the White House podium every day. It was the most common topic in the White House briefings this week. David, am I wrong? I don't think you're wrong at all. I mean, look, Ronda Santis right now is not trying to win over the general electorate. I mean, that is not what he's trying to do. What he's trying to do, I think, is basically say, look, there is only one champion that you need to think of if you're not

thinking of Donald Trump. And it's me. And look at how what I will do. do. Look how far I will go. Look how much I can trigger the libs here. I mean, this is something where he took an issue where he was a side player, a bit player in this, because this is a border state issue. This is Abbott. This is Ducey, who are front and center on this issue in the GOP, and he made himself the story. He made himself the story by owning the libs with greater emphasis than everyone else. And it's not slowing down. It's still going.

Now, does this mean, you know, I tend to think among those who are saying, okay, wait a minute, does this help him in the Republican nomination? Yeah, just as hurt him maybe abstractly in theory as far as like degrading his overall reputation for a general election? Maybe.

But we're a long way from that. And right now, I think you've got a guy who's trying to kind of clear the field, kind of cement this narrative that is saying when it comes to taking on the Democrats, it's me. It's me. Now, you know,

what happens if when Trump goes out in full board is something we talked a lot about and dispatched live? Because we've not yet seen that. We have not seen Thunderdome yet. We've not seen two men enter one man leaves. But he's wanting to make sure that he's the one man in Thunderdome with Trump.

I think, that it is not Trump and a bunch of other names. It's Trump and it's DeSantis and no one else is relevant. And to that point, he made progress. Jonah, is this about immigration or is this about the fight? Yeah, so as I mentioned on Dispatch Live, I think I was, I criticized DeSantis in my L.A. Times column this week, but not harshly enough because we didn't know how sketchy operations. Martha's Vineyard was when I was writing that. I always I didn't. I mean, it is very weird for the governor of Florida

to be flying Venezuelans from Texas straight to Martha's Vineyard. It kind of muddies the narrative about the problems that Florida is having with immigrants if that's where you have to go to get them. But more broadly, I think this is one of these classic examples. It's very Trumpy in this sense, is that one of the Trump's great advantages in 2016 was there were serious policy arguments

on his side of a lot of the things he was being a demagogue about. And so you had this sort of classic Motten Bailey thing where Trump would go out and say no Muslims can come into America or they're all sending rapists or whatever. And then when people would criticize it, you know, the sort of cleanup crews on the right would come marching in and said, well, hold on a second. you do have this case and you have this case and there is this problem and they would get a very much more refined

simplistic granular woodwinds rather than tuba kind of argument and we see this kind of thing over and over again with the way this sort of populist right operates is big bold obnoxious statements and stunts

and then you retreat to very granular narrow dare I say legalistic defenses and I think on this there's a it's something similar going on. It is outrageous. And we talked about this last week. It's just simply outrageous for sanctuary cities to bebop and scat all over the evils of Republicans and claim everyone's welcome and no one's illegal. And then to gnash their teeth and rend their cloth over a tiny fraction of migrants coming to their cities. And so I think that argument is all good.

I just think that I think DeSantis sort of took this a bit too far because the aim wasn't to score points on immigration. The aim was to outpace Greg Abbott as the number one troller on this issue and to steal thunder from Trump. And that much worked. I mean, Trump is apparently complaining to AIDS at Maralago that DeSantis is stealing all of his ideas. And so I think I think your opening intro to this is exactly right. For the things DeSantis wanted out of this, it's just a strong. straight up win. Now, whether it's a moral win or a policy win or any of those kinds of things is a different argument. But for the politics of the who gets to hold the banner of the populist

right and the Trumpy right, DeSantis got almost everything he wanted out of this. One last point just to keep in mind on because I thought it was a very interesting point Kevin Williamson made on Dispatch Live about this. It'll be interesting if we get more and more reports about that sort of sloppy way this operation was actually done to see whether DeSantis throws some aids under the bus and says, hey, look, this is the point. I wanted to make this important point. I told them do these things and they did something else.

And I said to Kevin, I said it'll be, this is basically Bridgegate, but for immigrants. And it'll be interesting to see if that actually manifests itself. Steve, any thoughts on whether this was also a way, for the left. Because I think what's sort of fascinating here is that it's quite possible to me that everyone won here, except for people who would like to do something about illegal immigration or legal immigration for that matter. But politically, the right one, politically, the left one, and the rest of us are just sort of stuck wondering what happened to the idea of comprehensive

immigration reform. If you hadn't asked the question that way, that was exactly what I Mine melt, Steve. Mind melt. Yeah, a little scary, and it's a little uncomfortable when we're all roughly in the same place. I mean, we're all pretty much in the same place on this. Look, I think, to use Jonah's categories, I think it's a moral loss for Ronda Santos. I think doing this is really gross. We shouldn't be using people in this manner. Certainly, if the reports are true about the level of deception involved, I think it makes it morally indefensible.

But of course, it's a short-term political win. And it may be a policy win, frankly. On the politics of it, this is why people practice performative politics, right? I mean, he rallies his base, he gets a lot of attention. He positions himself, well, I don't think his governor's race was going to be close anyway. But if he wants to run in 2024, this helps him vis-a-vis Trump. This helps him relative to the rest of the crowd because it fires up the base. I mean, politically, I think you can just tick a number of boxes and it's a win for DeSantis.

I think what DeSantis sympathizes and DeSantis folks would say on a policy level is, look, from the beginning, we've tried to elevate immigration as a serious policy issue. We've seen unprecedented levels of migrant flows into the United States. We've seen unprecedented levels of interactions with border patrol. Even Biden administration sympathizers, even Jay Johnson, who ran DHS under Barack Obama, remarked this week that he was shocked that the numbers of people coming are four and five times what? they were when Obama was in office. And if this is what it takes to elevate a policy issue that had long been neglected by the Biden administration and the national media, then this is what it takes because we need

to have the argument. We need the policy changes. I think that's what they would say. You know, this certainly wouldn't be the way that I would have gone about it had I been in charge. But I'm not terribly unsympathetic to their... to their desire to elevate an issue that they think is very important. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside.

So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca.com. I think this blends into our next topic, which is about where the momentum lies. heading into the midterm. You know, a couple weeks ago,

the very accepted narrative was that the momentum had shifted after the Dobbs decision came out from the Supreme Court, gas prices start dropping. Biden has some legislative wins. You start seeing his approval numbers rebound. Maybe inflation felt more under control.

The world seemed a little calmer. And you started seeing Democrats, for instance, win a bunch of these special elections outperform in several other places. particularly thinking about New York here, it feels like that has moved back. And I want to cite some, this one quote from a Democratic pollster, Jeff Horwitt, I just thought was so smart. He said, we often think about a wave election. But this year, we may think instead about a wave's election where unprecedentedly strong cross currents push voters in different directions

with an end result that may not be what we expected. His point being, if this election ends up being about crime, immigration, gas prices, Republicans will win a ton of seats. If it ends up being about abortion, Donald Trump, you know, Democrats could end up doing better than expected. Just to run through some of those races, you know, Greg Abbott is nine points ahead of Beto O'Rourke. And I know you guys know how I feel about polling. But actually, what was interesting to me about that is that they're doing that poll, the same poll to Dallas Morning News poll once a

month. It's heading in Greg Abbott's direction. The race isn't tightening, as you would actually expect it to at this point. It's Greg Abbott's pulling further out ahead. Mike Lee, everyone thought that perhaps Evan McMullen, independent challenger endorsed by the Democrats in the state of Utah, could have a real problem on his hands. Mike Lee is up by a 11 points. Pretty consistent double digit lead there. And the list goes on. But you look at where all of these Senate races are and you factor in what Nate Cohn has discussed in Patrick Grafini that, look, the polls have been a little off in the past and they've been a little off all in the same direction. Patrick Grafini calculated about a 2.7% polling error. Overall, if you go,

sort of 2014 to now, factoring in the midterms and the general, or sorry, and the presidential cycle elections, if you apply that 2.7% polling error to where all of the current Senate races are, Republicans take back the Senate. They lose Pennsylvania, which by the way, is a nine point race. We shouldn't even be considering that top tier in any other cycle. It's only because it's an open seat and it's Pennsylvania that we're talking about it at this point. But okay, So again, using the polls as there right now, Republicans would lose Pennsylvania. They would win in states like North Carolina, Wisconsin, Ohio, and then they would win in Georgia and Nevada. And that would be enough.

So I don't know, David, what are the vibes? Yeah, you know, the vibes are that the blue surge has peeped. Those are the vibes. And there's, as you said, some polling. evidence to support those vibes. And I think, you know, there's also some news that supports the vibes, among them that the pause in inflation unpaused most recently. Gas prices have ticked up. Just a little. Just a little. But the decrease has stopped. Yeah, the decrease has stopped. There was that resuming of the uptake of inflation there.

So I think you have a lot of reasons why you would start to default towards that midterm norm of a rebuke of the party in power. The Trump news has not been quite as front and center. There was that period of time where you had a pause and inflation, gas prices were going down, and then Donald Trump stuff was absolute front and center. And that's the formula for Democrats. And look, things change week by week.

But I kind of tend towards the opinion. And there was a time seeing in a poll today that put a race between Trump and Biden at plus three Biden. Well, guess what? The margin was in 2020. It was around plus three Biden. And so I feel like we're at a point in politics where barring really extraordinary circumstances or an extraordinarily bad candidate or an extraordinarily good candidate that you have. We kind of know the cake is baked. We kind of know who's for whom.

And the ebbs and flows the news cycle maybe are really only impacting on the margins. And that's where you might see the Senate changes. Impacts on the margins change the Senate. They do when it's 50-50. But the whole wave, much less tsunami concept, I'm not sure that we have the politics for that right now. Jonah? Yeah, so I think I agree with all of that

And it's not surprising me When Dave was when David was a club DJ He considered himself a vibe curator But still do Still do I We talked a lot in here about popularism Right

And about how both parties seem to be captive To their Twitter audiences And there's another data point That I think is really interesting that sort of confirms something I kind of felt in my gut but couldn't quite articulate. There's a piece in Politico about some firm that has realized that they can make political ads

in the form of cartoons and somehow they go right over your normal defense mechanisms for discounting political ads, which I think is interesting and it jives with a lot of stuff, I believe, about how politics is becoming a form of entertainment. But there was an interesting little, nugget buried in it, which pointed out that the Biden people love this phrase MAGA Republican, right? They really leaned into it. We've talked on here a bunch about how they're really promiscuous with its use, basically saying that anybody who argued for the things Paul Ryan and

Mitt Romney argued for are now MAGA Republicans too. But the base loves it. Democrats love hearing it. They love talking about it. The problem is, at least in their research, is that independents and moderate Republicans and other sort of swing voter types, when they hear MAGA Republican, they don't think of the whole of the Republican Party. They think of a very small slice

of the nutters, you know, of the Maastrianos and the Kelly Lakes and that crowd. And they think it gives them permission to vote for the non-Maga Republicans. And I think it's a great example of how what sounds like

great talking points for your own side, your own focus groups, don't actually play the same way. I mean, it's like we can go back to the beginning of this narrative

with deplorables. Like, Democrats thought deplorable was a perfectly fine thing to call these people, but like it turned into a badge of honor for a huge number of people. And so the phrase

MAGA Republican actually energizes actual MAGA Republicans because it makes, when Biden's focus on them, it makes them feel super relevant and that they're in the driver's see of the Republican Party, and it helps with their turnout. And the independents and moderates hear it and think,

well, they're only talking about, you know, the people and the kind of Republicans I'm not and that I don't like, so I feel okay voting for my kind of Republican. And Democrats think they're scoring ports and they're not. And I think that that sort of feeds into this sort of cross-wave thing. There's a lot of churn out there. And so any narrative interpretation you have about why voters are going to go to the polls in November

is going to be true for some segment of the public. And so everyone is just sort of focusing on that. And it makes it very difficult for me to figure out what the actual final numbers are going to be. Steve, taking off of what Jonah just said, there were some interesting sort of offbeat surveys that I want to talk about that discuss, you know, what it is to be a Republican right now. So first of all, you look back two years ago. And when you asked October of 2020, which, by the way, is heading right into a presidential election. So when I explained this, like, put that in the back of your head as well, but they asked Republicans, who are you more loyal to, Donald Trump or the Republican Party? And over half, said Donald Trump.

They've asked that question now every year. And this year, the numbers have basically flipped. 58% said they consider themselves more a supporter of the Republican Party than Donald Trump. Donald Trump's numbers now in the mid-30s. At the same time, we have a poll out. out of Florida asking people who they would vote for, Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump in 2024. And in that head-to-head, which again, it's not going to be, so it's just sort of an interesting, you know, fun house mirror game. But in that head-to-head, Ron DeSantis has overtaken Donald Trump. He's at about 48 percent. Donald Trump's at about 40 percent. Glenn Yonkin, who won the governorship in Florida as a Republican, sort of a surprise upset that

Democrats weren't what did I say Florida we had him in morning dispatch on Thursday as Maryland so we've been around him around a lot I live in the state he's my governor that's pretty bad Glenn Yonkin who sort of ran on I'm not a Trump Republican I'm a different Republican he sort of takes Trump endorsement and then Heismans Trump through the course of the general election of that campaign is now out and the midterm elections, campaigning for, for instance, Kerry Lake in Arizona, considered, you know, a very, very Trump candidate. Where is the Republican Party right now, Steve?

That's a good question. There are reasons to believe that Donald Trump's influence in the Republican Party is waning, or probably more accurately, continuing to wane. My own view is that he still commands, you know, for the part of the Republican Party, and it's not a small part, but it's not a majority, who regard Trump as sort of a cult leader, he's their guy and he's always going to be their guy. Until he chooses to exit politics or isn't around anymore, he is going to be their guy and they will do anything and everything they can to support him. and, you know, people who challenge him or take him on or criticize him in any way, whether it's Glenn Yonkin or Larry Hogan or Ronda Santis are going to be political enemies. I don't think, you know, at one point I would probably put that number at 30, 35 percent of the

Republican Party. It seems pretty clear to me that it's lower than that now, 20, 25 percent, maybe lower. The question, though, and we had this really interesting discussion internally with one of our new newsletter writers, Nick Cotogio, formerly, we floated this poll, the NBC poll, Sarah, that you mentioned, showing that the number of people who first regard themselves as Trump Republican, is vastly smaller than those who believe that they are Republican Republicans and that there's been a dramatic change. And Nick's counterpoint, I think those people who are optimistic about Trump's waning influence point to things like that and say, see, he's going away, he's going away. And certainly the people whose strategy has been let Trump fade away point to those kinds of

results and say, it's working, it's working. The pessimists, and I would put Nick in this category, he puts himself in this category in the piece that he has up on the site today, or Thursday, would say, look, it's a meaningless distinction that people consider themselves Republican Republicans more than they consider themselves Trump Republicans, because Republican Republicans are the same as Trump Republicans, have become the same as Trump Republicans. and his argument is pointing to people like Glenn Yonkin, now willing, as you pointed out, his evolution, Sarah, to embrace someone like Akari Lake who's just an open election denier, Doug Mastriano, who's an open election denier. And I think it's a very good point. If you're looking at the overall health of the party,

it's bad because you have people like that, who he describes, Nick describes as normies, willing to either make arguments that they know aren't true or embrace people who are making arguments that they know are true because it gives them political currency. And that's a bad place for the party to be, whether Trump is or is not seeing his influence to me. Can I push back on that a little bit?

Nope, nope, can't. I agree on the... Okay, fine, okay, fine. It's a good thing I'm a co-founder and you can't stop me. I agree with the criticism of the normies caving in and making common cause with the crazies. I totally fine with that as a matter of scolding and also as just as a matter of it's not good for the long term for the Republican Party. On the flip side, there's a little bit of a, you know, all the people saying Desantis is actually worse than Trump stuff. there's a little bit of that in this

that, you know, absent Trump, I think most of these crazies wither on the vine and go away. And, and I don't, and so I think that the part of the problem with this sort of analysis is I don't think the party can actually survive as a Trumpified party without Trump

for very long. I think that just, the natural power of our institutions to heal and correct our politics can kick back in without Trump. And I don't think DeSantis or any of these guys are the threat that Trump himself the person is because of the personality cult stuff. Well, Jonah, let's stick with you as we move to not worth your time. What is something that our listeners should not care about this week? Okay, so today we are recording this on Thursday, September 22nd. And today, marks the 100-day mark until New Year's Eve. And I always look for any opportunity to point out a fact,

proven by time, experience, and in human wisdom that New Year's Eve is hot garbage. It is the dumbest holiday. We celebrate. It's sort of like secular cult. Yay, we change the number on our checks and turn the pay. It had to buy a new calendar. There's no actual, like, it's not real. right and it's like it's totally arbitrary i mean i don't want to sound like neal degrassy

tyson yeah we're celebrating the you know the this the rotation of the planet and the solar system blah blah blah blah but um when you're single new year's eve is a source of constant stress got to find a date what am i going to do it's this sort of gun to your head prove that you have a social life kind of thing and then when you're married it's a waste of time because you've got to stay up late. And there's just nothing fun about it. And maybe it's because I'm from New York. But the ball drop in New York City is the only reason I say you should go to it

is to say that you've been to it and therefore you know you never have to go to it again. It is terrible in every regard. And the payoff is to watch a shiny ball move slowly a couple stories. So anyway, I mentioned some of this on Twitter. It was shocking groundswell of popular support for the notion that New Year's Eve sucks, and I don't think it's worth your time. Responses? David, I'll let you go first.

This might be your best take, Jim. The amount of vitriol I have in my heart towards New Year's Eve is tough to measure, and it's deeply rooted in two dynamics. One was the drunken party that tends to celebrate New Year's Eve was not ever my vibe. And so I was like a fish out of water on that to the extent that I was even at these things. And number two, because that was the cardinal way in which people celebrated New Year's Eve, my entire childhood was pretty much spent at home with my parents on New Year's Eve. And I love my parents.

but I'm sorry there's not a much holiday about just hanging out at home like there's just not much there especially if it's not accompanied by presents or you know a big meal like Thanksgiving or Christmas and so it was a constant reminder

that when it came to the world of party culture I was completely a fish out of water and then it was just a total non-event in the house itself so two thumbs down on New Year's Eve. Okay, but none of you have actually experienced the worst form of New Year's Eve. So by my math, three quarters of mothers have been pregnant on New Year's Eve,

and it is the worst way to be on New Year's Eve. It's like combining David's not drinking with Jonah's not wanting to stay up late, but add in some part of uncomfortable. Either you want to throw up, You are currently throwing up. You can't breathe. You can't see your feet. I mean, it's going to be something.

That's the worst New Year's Eve of all. But I think I overall disagree and would put New Year's Eve at the second worst holiday. Because I think Valentine's Day really sucks. Oh, it's bad. Yeah. And it's the same like core reasons, Jonah. I just think at least for New Year's Eve, like, oh, if you don't have a date, you just go to a party where a bunch of people don't have dates and you like find someone to hook up with. Whereas for Valentine's Day, you can't have a first date, definitely.

Right. Can you have a second date? It's like super awkward for new relationships. I live in a no present household, which on Valentine's Day is totally fine, except that like, especially when we used to be going into offices and stuff, like all these other people are like doing weird stuff. And on the one hand, you're like, that's a terrible idea and use of money and weird. But also they're like, oh, I'm so sorry.

marriage is falling apart. Reservations, you can't go out to eat, even if you don't want to celebrate Valentine's Day, you just want food. Again, they're very similar holidays in a lot of ways, but I'm going to edge it out for Valentine's Day. It's also February, which sucks. February is a month is the worst.

Nope, August. And I am fundamentally opposed to all Hallmark holidays. All holidays that are artificial creations. Wait, Mother's Day. is a hallmark holiday, kind of. But I'm opposed to all of them, Sarah. Wait a second. Sorry, Mom.

Sorry, Mom. I'm against them all, man. Be nice to your mom every day. I always wanted to know why there wasn't a kid's day. And my parents, very, with a lot of scorn, told me that every day was Kids' Day, especially as an only child. and I just really rejected that.

I think you make a very good point for Valentine's Day, and it's sort of like, to me it's a little bit like the fight over Hitler or Stalin who was worse. Yes. Like rationally, totally can sympathize with people who say Stalin. Like, if you just go by empirical data, there's a strong case there, right? But like, there's just something about Hitler that just feels worse, right?

And I feel that way. So, like, I can't really condemn you for saying Valentine's Day because it's a perfectly defensible position. I just feel like Valentine's Day, it's a lot easier to check the box because you, particularly once you're married, it's like I get flowers and chocolate for my wife and daughter on Valentine's Day. And it's just sort of something I do because I'm a big softie. And then, um, you move on.

But like New Year's Eve, because it requires night planning, you have the same reservations problem that you have for Valentine's Day. but not only night planning you have to figure out where you're supposed to be if you're going to take it seriously at midnight and like that kind of stinks too I think it's interesting though like St. Valentine's Day

which sounds like some sort of vaguely Christian holiday I mean was there a it had to be in St. Valentine right? Yeah he was burned right? Yeah he was one of the Bernie ones probably because he proposed having a holiday called St. Valentine's Day and um but like uh new year's eve there's a there there's just a smuggled pagan thing going on in there because this was like the calendar created by the romans um it's wholly arbitrary it's not wholly arbitrary but like um you could have well it didn't even exist like january i believe

in february didn't uh didn't exist they were like the actual later months so there was just like the winter time right well yeah and like july like july is named after Julius Caesar and January is named after Jan Brady. And anyway, we've probably gone on too long about something that's not worth your time. But if anybody in the comments can defend New Year's Eve, I'd like to hear it. No, it's indefensible. I challenge them. I challenge you.

I think you've convinced me. And it was one point in favor of Valentine's Day that has shifted it. And it's father-daughter Valentine's Day is actually really cute. David? Are you not getting your daughter? No. Uh-oh. You have two daughters, David.

Have you been failing at this? There's going to be a piece in the federalist. David French hates mothers and daughters. Yeah. What? You don't get Naomi chocolates for Valentine's Day? Podcasting has destroyed his character. David?

No. I do not like artificially imposed special days. David. No, I do not. It's a racket. It's a racket. Lots of things for commenters to be upset about it. you monster gift.

And with that, please hop in the comments section, become a dispatch member, and vent your wrath at David French, the terrible father of daughters. And son of mothers. And son of mothers. Oh,

terrible all around. Or give us a rating on this podcast. I bet it'll be lower because of David. So maybe just wait till the next podcast to give us a rating. and we look forward to talking to you next week. Oh, there's David coming back. Welcome back, David French.

Blue screen of death. Like just boom. I mean, the good. The good thing is you hadn't bragged 20 minutes earlier about how great your tech is. But I was eagerly hearing, listening to Jonah, and did you finish your answer, Jonah? Yeah, it was unremarkable. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online.

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