The Dispatch Podcast - The Art of Nuance

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Erick Erickson, host of 95.5 WSB’s Atlanta’s Evening News and creator of The Resurgent, joins Sarah and Steve on the latest Dispatch Podcast to state the case for the president’s re-election, despite his own wide-ranging reservations about Trumpism and the future of the Republican party. To Erickson, Trump represents the lesser of two evils—acting on the better judgement of behind-the-scenes administration officials to move forward beneficial policies like the Israel-UAE deal, the Trump Tax Reform Plan, and economic deregulation. When pressed about dangerous outgrowths of the populist right, like the QAnon conspiracy theory, Erickson contends that the misinformation crisis coincided with the country’s lost faith in the media. He says that when journalists for self-described nonpartisan mainstream news sources publicly exposed their biases on verified Twitter accounts, many Americans abandoned orthodox news sources in favor of word-of-mouth and alternative media. “All of this plays into more and more people tuning out of media and tuning into their friends on Facebook, and not being able to distinguish truth from fiction,” Erickson said. Listen to the end for a spirited discussion about the luxuries of adulthood, during which Steve inevitably brings up Spanish wine and Sarah shares her clever method to track down the best mattress in your area. Show Notes: -Erick Erickson’s online publication The Resurgent -Atlanta’s Evening News with Erick Erickson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our special Friday Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Steve Hayes. This podcast is brought to you by The Dispatch. Visit The Dispatch.com to see our full slate of newsletters and podcasts and subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. Our guest today is Eric Erickson, editor of The Resurgent and host of the Eric Erickson show on WSB Radio. He has been both a CNN and Fox News contributor. He appears regularly on NBC's Meet the Press, Bill Marr, you name it. I'm sure you guys are well aware of Eric Erickson. And what an interesting position he is in has someone who did not vote for the president in 2016, but has said on Twitter and elsewhere that he probably will vote for the president this time. So we're going to dig into

what all that means for Eric. Let's dive right in, Eric Erickson with us today, which is pretty exciting. Eric, I think the last time that we actually chatted in person, I guess, was 2016 at the Texas Tribune Festival. Wow, yeah, it has been a while, hadn't it? It has been a long time. And I feel like you've been on this evolution of Ericness, we'll call it, pre-2016, post-2016. And so I haven't really got to talk to you. Obviously, we follow each other on Twitter.

I find you, you know, to be fun and delightful and always thought-provoking there. But this is a treat to get to talk to you in person. So here's my opening question to you. What do you say to a conservative voter, like a policy conservative voter who was a fan of the Tea Party and really believed in what the Tea Party stood for about who they should vote for in November? Oh, this is so what you're basically asking for is the conversation I have with myself in the mirror almost every day. I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and dog got it. Okay. So here's my thinking. And when I say to people who have this conversation, there is a lot from the Trump administration that we get because of Donald Trump that is not good policy.

we're he's in four years going to add to the national debt what Obama added in eight and I remember this thing called the Tea Party movement where that was bad and now suddenly it's no big deal man what sellouts a topic for another day maybe but there's a lot of stuff we get from the Trump administration that I do like in public policy whether it's because of him or in spite of him that we wouldn't get from the Biden administration whether it is a reassessment of the Iran. on deal, whether it is moving the embassy to Jerusalem, whether it is deregulation or tax cuts or judicial picks. It's not just judges. There actually have been good policy ideas from this administration. My sense is that they're all done despite, in spite of, or without the knowledge of the president, but the people making those decisions wouldn't exist in the Biden administration, and there would actually be far worse decisions made, probably also in spite of, despite of, or without the knowledge of Joe Bight. And so that, that just why I'm, I would say I will vote for the president in 2020, maybe having to hold my nose and, in, and trying not to get COVID that day so I can't

go to the polls, but still probably vote for the president. I, I've said I'll vote for him, but honestly, there are days I wake up and like, why even bother? Maybe I should go play golf or just sit in the hammock and drink that day. But it's just, it's not an easy decision. Steve? Well, Your vote really matters in Georgia potentially this time, too, right? And you've got two down about it. Georgia is not a swing state. The Democrats have said as a swing state every year since 2014. And you know, interestingly enough, in every year, including 2014, the Democrats are ahead in the polls in Georgia this time. In 2014, Michelle Nunn was ahead of David Purdue, Jason Carter, head of Nathan Deal, 2016, Hillary Clinton was head of Donald Trump. 2018, Stacey Abrams was head of Brian Kim.

This is actually the first year since 2006 where the Democrats haven't led in any polls in Georgia. And in fact, for four straight weeks, Joe Biden hadn't spent any money in Georgia, which suggests it's really not the swing state. Stacey Abrams would have you believe it is. At some point, though, that changes, right? I mean, maybe this isn't the year, but at some point, it'll change. Yeah. You're in more of a, put it this way, you're in more of a competitive state than I am in Maryland. That's very true.

One of the bluest states in the country. So this is, I mean, this is basically your opening discussion with Sarah is one of the many reasons we, wanted to have you on the podcast. Because I think that what you've just, what you just said there reflects the views of so many Republicans and conservatives that I've talked to across the country that we know are members of the dispatch community that listen to these podcasts. Folks that I talk to repeatedly, I did a month long, almost a month long Midwest swing in August and had this, I basically had this conversation or some version of this conversation a hundred times. And I think there, a lot of people who come down, roughly where you come down, I'm not thrilled about it. I'm

certainly happy about the markets. I'm happier that Donald Trump was president than Hillary Clinton. I couldn't stand her. I worry about what Joe Biden will do being pulled to the left pretty dramatically by the base of the Democratic Party, which is certainly shifted left in the 25 years that I've been doing this. So ultimately, I don't have much of a choice. but to vote for Donald Trump. Let me ask, let me ask you this question. Let's say you vote for Donald Trump. Let's say he wins re-election.

He's had trouble articulating what to expect in a second Trump turn. What would you expect? I would expect in the second term continued positive impact in the judiciary. I would expect continued deregulation, particularly on the tech. side of things, which is where I kind of worry about where some of the Republicans are headed and also a lot of the Democrats are headed on the regulatory front. I'm actually in favor of more regulation and the privacy aspect there, but I think having a Jeep pie or someone like him at the FCC, that's probably one of the most important positions in government for the next four to six

years is going to be the head of the FCC, given the regulatory front and the issues that are coming up there. And I think that the Trump administration would have a much slower approach towards regulation potentially allowing newer technologies to crop up than the Biden administration would. Deregulation, I think, is also a big front with the EPA and other things. Maybe I can get a dishwasher that actually wash dishes. A minor issue that the president, I'm surprised, brings up, but it actually is one in middle America. And I do think that the issue that is not going to get addressed that I'm really concerned about, but it's not going to get addressed by Biden either, is the dead and the deficit. That actually, that's the thing that,

bothers me most having actually been in the Tea Party movement, defended the Tea Party movement to see the wholesale sell out on that issue, that they were willing to stand up to George W. Bush on bank bailouts, TARP and the General Motors bailout. But if the president comes along tomorrow and said he wanted to buy General Motors, half those people who are condemning George Bush would be holding up sign saying, buy it all. So this is a big issue for me, which is, is it that they have sold out?

so to speak because Trump's in power and they still believe those things? Or is it now that we can say they never believed them in the first place? I think it's a split. I think some of them never really believed it. They just didn't like Obama wielding power. But I do think some of it is that they've wholly been consumed by a cult of personality. I just, I've never seen anything like this. There is something cultic about it. And I don't mean that disparagingly. I really don't. And I realize it sounds that way. Good cult. Good cults. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, There's good cults on both sides. The number of people on both sides now who, if Joe Biden came out tomorrow and took a position diametrically opposed to democratic values, you'd have a lot of Democrats who embrace it.

In the same way Donald Trump on the campaign trail in 2016 said nice things about Planned Parenthood. And Robert Jeffries of the First Baptist Church in Dallas came out. Well, yeah, they do do some good things. But this is, I mean, I think that the debt and deficit, I mean, this has been a long obsession of mine as somebody who believes that we need entitlement reform and that it should probably be the, number one issue that the country debates and nobody wants to talk about it at all. You had a Republican Party that flirted with it for five or six years, pushed by Paul Ryan to embrace entitlement reform and now has just given it up entirely. Democrats never really were serious about entitlement reform. So you have what is sure to be, I mean, it is the main driver

of our debt, what is sure to accelerate the coming debt crisis. I mean, I would say that we're on the front end of that right now. And nobody in public life wants to talk about it. I guess there was a moment for me on the Tea Party question where this was all crystallized. And it was after the, I believe it was Trump's second state of the union speech. And he spoke for something like 90 minutes, long, you know, long speech interrupted lots of times by enthusiastic applause from his side and sort of the folded arms, angry furrowed brows on the Democrat side. He didn't once mention debt or deficits in the speech, didn't talk about spending, didn't talk about any of this. And yet Mark Meadows, whom I've known for a long time and have had a good relationship

with, comes out after the speech and gives it an A plus plus. And I just thought, you're, you know, he was at the time, either a leader, the leader of the Freedom Caucus, one of the leaders of the Freedom Caucus, you know, the kind of debt focused, deficit focused, spending focused, conservatives that I've long identified with, taking a president who's run against Medicare reform, run against reforming Social Security, who doesn't even mention this at a time when we're watching this accelerate pretty dramatically and given a rhetorical pat on the back. And I think we've seen, obviously we've seen a lot more since then. Is there, I mean, Republicans, we can be sure that Republicans will be very interested in debt and deficits if Joe Biden is elected. Is there,

any chance if Trump wins re-election that this becomes something Republicans care about? It may be because it's his second term. There'll be legacy concerns and things like that that some Republicans will convince you for it, except the president's already, I mean, been very consistent on the fact that he doesn't think that these institutions need to be reformed. And he's always danced around others. If there's one thing he's been consistent on, it's that. So I don't think there's much hope. You'll have to have an, in run around him by Republicans if he wins re-election to try to push him on the issue and even then good luck. Yeah. So we talked about sort of just, sorry, Sarah, just to underscore that point,

well briefly, you know, he had in his first term, he had Paul Ryan for whom this was the pet issue, like his chief cause, leading Republicans in Congress, at least for part of the time. And he had Mick Mulvaney as chief of staff, Mulvaney pushed on on these things as well. And Trump did. didn't budget all. The like, I mean, Republicans are not going to take the House of Representatives, I can say, with a fair amount of confidence. Mitch McConnell, even if he remains Senate majority leader, is not going to push the president to take on these issues. And maybe Mark Meadows would push him from inside the White House, but I'm skeptical of that for the reasons I mentioned. So I think I share your pessimism reluctantly.

I guess my question is, though, does it turn out that Trump was right? Republican electeds were wrong in terms of what the American people actually wanted. There's a reason that Trump won, and there's a reason that the American people don't mind that he doesn't think that entitlement reform should be a priority. You know, was Trump right all along about where the conservative movement should go, where the Republican Party is, in fact? And is he better at reading Republican voters than every single other person has been in the Republican Party for the last decade or two?

Okay. So I want to nuance this one a little bit. Is he right about where conservatives were? No. Was he right that conservatives actually are the fringe minority of the Republican Party? Yes. Turns out there are about 10 of us who actually care about these things. Most voters are Christian Democratic Party voters. They are socially conservative and populist liberal when it comes to fiscal issues. They don't care. I'm still surprised that we don't have a third party in this country that is socially conservative, fiscally liberal, although it looks like the Republican Party is rapidly becoming that. And maybe after Trump, you might make inroads with some black and Hispanic voters as a result of it. He read the wins of the country very well that there are a lot of people who felt like Washington, D.C. and their state capitals were leaving them behind. They didn't care about debt and deficit. It's very abstract to them with Washington, D.C. You've got people who think Washington can just print money anyway, but they cared about other issues and the president

galvanized those forces together. And he's tried to co-op the party, but I still think there are a lot of people in the Republican party who, one, they're convinced he's not going to win again. But two, they're convinced even if he wins again, he's going to go away within four years and the party will go back to normal. And it's not going back to the way it was. Yeah, I also wonder, want to get your take. So there's this Atlantic story that comes out about all these awful things that Trump said about fallen soldiers.

And now there's like this very online debate, as I like to call it, about whether the story is true or not. Right. And, you know, well, John Bolton gave an account of, you know, these exact same events. And he tells a very different story. And he doesn't like Donald Trump. I'm actually not that interested in the merits of the story. What I find so fascinating is that, for instance, you have retweeted a lot of those things that are pushing back on, I think it's fair to say, like you don't fully buy into this Atlantic story and are put in a position to defend the president against, let's call it, liberal overreach or Trump derangement syndrome, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. how much of his support, whether it's your support for him or overall voter support, do you think is really a pushback on cultural democratic party values of like, well, they're attacking our team.

And so we will push back on their team. And this is just a team sport or religion or whatever else you want to call it. It is becoming a religion. And I'm on my team. And so they come after my guy. And that way, he builds loyalty and support. because once you're out there defending someone, you do start buying into it more. Yeah, you invest.

Yeah, you know, that's the most frustrating thing that I have right now is if I defend the president suddenly, oh, you've sold out. And then if I criticize him, oh, you were always never Trump. It's probably the most exhausting position to be in. I take issue with Jeffrey Goldberg's story in that John Bolton on the record in his book does pretty dramatically contradict the opening of the story. I've got real concerns with relying heavily on all anonymous sources to build a story like that, particularly when Goldberg comes out on CNN today and says,

well, they didn't want to put up with the tweets. That's why they stayed behind the scenes, essentially. But at the same time, he said this stuff about John McCain. So you can see him saying this sort of stuff. It's no secret for him to come out and deny they call John McCain a loser. I saw the video of the president calling John McCain a loser. So where do you, first of all, where do I draw the line? I think I'm not a big fan of the way the media has gone of late in covering the president.

I do think that if there's a potential negative spin, they can put on it, whether it's true or not, they'd rather be first than accurate. But I also do think that there's merit to some of the stories. And I find myself, I mean, people regularly now say I sound very schizophrenic on Twitter. And I was like, well, actually, there's this thing called nuance. And this can be true and this can also be true. Not on Twitter, Eric. Not on Twitter. I know.

I know. It's terrible. You know, just as an aside, I tell people this story all the time. There's a story in the Bible where there's the guy possessed by the Legion of Demons and Jesus cast him into pigs and they run down and drowned. What the Bible leaves out because people in the first century wouldn't have understood is that the demons left the pigs and then say, hey, let's invent this thing called Twitter. And that explains social media.

And it just, it infuriates me. But nonetheless, I do. think there's merit to we're at a level of tribalism we've never seen before in the country. And everybody wants to defend the president. And half of the people defending the president, if you hang out with them in a green room are like, yeah, he really is an idiot. I really don't like him. But, but it's my side. And a lot of Democrats behind the scenes that I've talked to this week, like, you know, he actually did a good thing with the Israel-UAE deal. But they're not going to give him public credit for that. And that's just the level of two-facedness right now in politics as at an all-time

high and it really bugs me on both sides. I think that for me is one of the hardest things to communicate or the hardest things to wrestle with over the past four years of covering the Trump administration and Trump. The number of not just Republicans, but senior Trump administration officials who will tell you as you sit across the table from them, this guy's a disaster. I think he's a threat to the republic. I can't believe he's doing this, blah, blah, blah. And then literally 20 minutes later, go stand in front of a bank of microphones and sing his praises.

And it's so hard to communicate that to people who aren't part of those conversations. And, you know, if you agree to an off-the-record conversation, you agree to treat it off-the-record. So you can't describe for people who this was or you can't get into the details of the conversations. But, I mean, this has happened dozens and dozens and dozens of times with me. I know you and I have talked about this. It's happened regularly with you. The kinds of stories set up. So I'm probably more inclined to believe the Jeff Goldberg story because I think Jeff's a very good reporter.

I also, you know, as you pointed out, I was at the John McCain event. I was there when the president did this. I went to the press conference two minutes after that ended, and he and I gotten something of an extended back and forth for about 10 minutes where he just flat out denied that he had said the things he denied. I remember that, yeah. I never said this. And I said, well, gosh, let me read you your exact words.

And he said, no, I didn't say that. And we went back and forth and back and forth. And then the final question I asked him at the end of this long exchange was, are you familiar with the detailed accounts of what John McCain went through that made him a war hero? And Trump looked at me and said, it's irrelevant. And it was just one of the very few times in covering politics where I was literally it was sort of breathless.

Like, I really can't believe he actually said that it's irrelevant what John McCain did for his country. Whether you like John McCain or agree with his policies or not, that was sort of an extraordinary moment. But it's hard to convey to people, you know, how often you hear stories like the ones that are, that were related in this Jeff Goldberg story or the many. I mean, read John Bolton's book. I mean, John Bolton has 450 pages of these kinds of stories, of these kinds of details that seem almost difficult to believe, except that we've seen them unfold in public so many times. So anyway, not sure we're not sure we're

I was going with that. Sorry, Sarah. But no, I mean, you're right. I can totally, I can see, I can see the story. I can see him saying these things. I, it, that Bolton's story on the record contradicts some of this. My real frustration is the number of people who want to say this stuff off the record. And you know, like you, you and I, I know have had this experience where we say, these are what people are telling us. And then it becomes very much, well, well, unless you name names, I'm not going to believe you. I think you're making it up.

And there is that level of disdain for you unless you're willing to do that. And all I can tell you is what people are telling me. I'm not going to tell you who and burn the sources. And, you know, if you say something like that about a Democrat, they're perfectly happy to believe that it's just not with their precious. Right. Well, and there is this massive double standard on anonymous sourcing. I mean, I think as a general rule, it's better for journalists not to use anonymous sources, period.

End of discussion. Sometimes I think there are reasons to use anonymous sources. I would point to Bob Woodward and Karl Bernstein's work back in the 19th. to pick the iconic one. But there are other reasons that anonymous sources, using anonymous sources, can help you tease out or flush out information that should be, in my view, made public. This has happened a lot. What's crazy to me are the number of times that the people who hate anonymous sources in a

story like this, which is critical of the president, love anonymous sources when they can write about something that allows them to boost the president. And there are, you know, people, some of my colleagues. colleagues at Fox, some of the people who work in conservative media, they love anonymous sources when they can write something that beats up the Democrats and boosts the president. And they hate him in stories like this. So, Eric, what is the future of the Republican Party after, let's say, heading into 2024, forget this election.

Let's fast forward four years when you know that Donald Trump will not be on the ballot. Who is leading that race? should be leading that race? Who do you look for about the party and about the conservative movement? Those might be different. So there are two scenarios. Does the president win re-election or not? And I think that shapes 2024. If you're in 2024, the president is the president. You're going to see a bunch of people who my wife hates when I use this phrase, but I think it's the most descriptively accurate phrase of it. You're going to see a bunch of people humping the president's leg in 2024.

And if he loses in 2020, you know, honestly, I was bracing for something way worse. So that's good. Okay. Yeah. My wife, it is very destructive. She thinks that uses it too often. But at the same time, it accurately describes what's going on. And if the president loses, you're going to have some people still trying to be,

well, it was his personality, but the policies were good. And, you know, if he wins, by the way, historically, with the exception of Reagan, voters typically don't send the same party to the White House three times a row. And it puts the odds against it. If he loses, and frankly, I think the election trajectory, there are some good trend lines for the president. I think if the election were right after the convention, he would have won, but he's become so undisciplined and can't stay on message. The race is Biden's to lose. I'm not sure he's going to lose it. And you're going to have a big two years of wandering in the wilderness fight within the

GOP of where it goes. My sense is what you will have is the donors who never really like the guy to begin with working very hard over the next two years to limit who can actually run for president in 2024, less they have another 20 person convention 20 person stage where the trumpiest of the Trump people can consolidate a base of movement and run. You're going to have people working behind the scenes to stop that from happening. So you'll see a limited field of people. I don't actually think you'll have the 2000 candidate scenario, but you'll see them trying to out-trump each other. Now, the question is, does Donald Trump Jr. run or does Donald Trump senior try to run again? And I don't know that you'll see that happen. Now, that goes to the larger issue of what are the messages.

I really think you're going to see everyone on stage with the Republican Party in the primary try to claim a brand of Donald Trump while making the case that there were other flaws that caused his defeat, whether it's the virus or his personality. but that there are all these issues can be wrapped into populism. I think the one who succeeds is the one who's going to do their best to reassure the establishment while also reassuring Trump voters that, you know, I really do have the back of the little guy. Who that's going to be? My guess is all of us could sit here and name all the names of the people who are going to run for president. And the name that we don't mention will be that. I really do believe we're going to see someone in 2024.

None of us are talking about right now. Dwayne the Rock Johnson, it is. There you go. Do you think, let me push you just a little farther on that. You talked about sort of Trumpism and the staying power of Trumpism. I mean, even going so far as to suggest that that will be a main part of the debate in 2024. If Donald Trump loses in two months, if he loses badly, don't you think that some of that appeal goes away? why are people going to be clinging to 2016-era populism in 2024 if it's defeated soundly at the voting booths in 2020?

If it's defeated soundly, maybe not. I think it's going to be a close race. I don't think it's going to be defeated soundly. In fact, I think probably the two conventions help the Republicans keep the Senate and mitigate some of the losses they might otherwise suffer further in the House. But I do think that it'll be close. Now, let's just say if it's defeated soundly, you're still going to have a large element within the Republican Party that at least publicly says, well, it wasn't really his fault.

It was the virus and the media was out to getting. And so you're still going to have to navigate that. And that, frankly, is the genius of Trumpism. What is Trumpism? If you ask 20 people what Trumpism is, you're going to get 20 answers. and that's why I think it's not really going to go away because it's this nebulous thing that everyone can say is it

and there's going to be ties to it. Ultimately, I think the message that's going to play out is we're for the workers, not for the elites. And you're going to you're going to see people pushing very elitist policies saying it's for the workers and that it's Trumpism. And

we're all going to have a field day laughing at those people, but they're going to say it with a straight face. What can Trump do to lose your vote between now and no vote? and what could Biden do to win your vote between now and November? So, okay, here's my problem. I actually like Joe Biden and I like Jill Biden. They are tremendously nice people and that gets me in trouble because, oh, but, you know,

he supports this, that or the other. He can't be a nice person. I'm not saying good and moral good or moral matter. He's just, he's a nice person and his wife is a tremendously nice person. I can't vote for him because I'm a very pro-life voter and his policies would go against that in a very big way and that bothers me. But I could stay home. And I'm probably not going to stay home.

Maybe I'll stay home. It depends on what hour of the day you ask me, what the president's tweeted. The president could very much lose my vote between now and November if he picks up the North Korean torch again and tries to just have another disastrous foreign policy there. Or frankly, here's in all honesty, this is where the president can lose me and where he may. If the president rushes out in October, November, completely undermining America, American policy when it comes to fighting the virus, claiming that there's a cure when there is no cure in a desperate bid to win re-election. We've got enough mendacity in our election right now to champion

a cure where there is none for people who could use it, particularly my wife who has lung cancer and really can't leave the house right now. That would bother me greatly. And I'm afraid we may be headed down that path with some of the stuff I'm reading. I really hope not. I don't think it's fair to say the president has bungled the viral response when it's mostly a state thing. I do think it's fair to say the president has bungled the job of commander-in-chief and the bully pulpit when he could have convinced people to put on masks and keep their distance and do the things that presidents can do just through moral leadership. He's totally failed in that aspect of it. At the same time, I do think it's more of a state-level response. But I can see this administration,

particularly some of the people around the president of politics, trying to sell snake oil as a cure for the virus, just to claim that we should vote for him because he came up with it. Wouldn't it be fun if it were actual snake oil, though? Oh, that actually would be, it wouldn't surprise me. Turpentine or something. I just, I'm appalled by all sides when it comes to the handling of the virus. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. Everybody has turned this into politics when there are hundreds of thousands of people

who are dying because of this thing. You've got half the people who are convinced a conspiracy to get the president. And the other half are convinced the president's engaged in a conspiracy to get himself reelected with it. It just is disgusting. What do you say to Republican voters, not the Lincoln Project folks who are sort of burn it all down.

We support Joe Biden. Even when he becomes president, we support his policies. But the Republican voters against Trump folks who I think have a more nuanced take on it, which is, yeah, we understand he's doing some good things and judges and all the things that you've pointed to.

But if you want to have the Republican Party back and if you want to have the conservative movement mean anything. You have to defeat him this time so you can get the party back. Not a burn all down strategy here, but we want to conserve the conservative party, as it were. What do you say to the RVATs? I honestly can't take issue with their logic as much as I would like to. I disagree in that I'll go vote. And the way I tell people is in 2016, I voted third party. I voted for Evan McMullen. I've regretted it ever since. I could stay home.

It's not my inclination to ever stay home in an election. So between the Republicans and the Democrats, I'll vote for the Republicans. But I don't blame people who say I've got to stay home because I still think character counts. He's got terrible character. I just typically don't sit on elections. But I really can't blame people who say that if we continue down this path with the Republican Party, we're going to have a problem. Yeah, I too think we're going to have a problem.

I just, it's no easy. position for anyone. All I can say is I'm a big advocate of grace these days, more so than I ever have been in my life, that two people have disagree. I fundamentally disagree with the Lincoln Project folks who I think have largely left the Republican Party. Some of them were mercenaries within the Republican Party and don't want to be held accountable for actually contributing to the rise of cynicism that led to the rise of the president. But for those who look at the party and say, maybe we just need to sit it out and rebuild in four years, I'm sympathetic to it. it. What what do you, I mean, you're sort of on the front lines of, of the, the information space,

um, doing a successful talk radio show three hours a day and then more. Um, you're, you've got your own, um, substack newsletter, uh, the same platform that we use to, to publish the dispatch, um, which is very good newsletter. I, I told Eric, I read it almost every day and he can see because he can go in and tell whether I'm reading it every day. day. But it's very good. I've found it always thought-provoked, what have you. One of the concerns, you just mentioned conspiracy theories. One of the concerns I have is sort of a big picture concern of mine, is that with people living in these information silos and so little information traveling outside of those silos, these conspiracy theories take on a life of their

own almost immediately in a really scary way and not they're no longer limited to you know the the people that 30 years ago we would have thought of as crackpots you know the tinfoil hat crowd the the black helicopter crowd oh gosh you know these people are crazy and there aren't very many of them now you have movements like the Q and on movement which i think in some mainstream reporting has been overstated and in some ways maybe it hasn't been overstated in some ways maybe it's bigger than even the reporting has suggested this point. But you have these movements that can grow so quickly. Are you optimistic about the eagerness of the American people, your typical Republican voter, to want to find out what's true? Or are we just now in a moment where everybody's just

looking for affirmation of their own thoughts, and that makes them more susceptible to these kinds of conspiracy theories. Well, you're hitting on, I guess, one of my hot button issues of the day. I think people aren't necessarily out to get affirmation. I think largely QAnon and some of these other conspiracies exist in large part because Because as people go online and they see reporters from news networks with blue check marks on Twitter, exposing themselves as the liberals they always thought they were, it makes them convinced that, you know, the people who said there was always a left-wing conspiracy in the media, it turns out they were always right. So I'm going to go listen to those people more now and not actually listen to the CNNs or the NBC's ABC, CBSs of the world. I think the media has done more to cause the explosion of these conspiracy theories than not.

And the thing that I actually find most bothersome is that it's not just a phenomenon of the right, but of the left as well. And the media itself, because it's of the left, is more prone to treat the left-wing conspiracies legitimate in ways they never would the right. For example, I do think there was Russian interference in 2016. And if you read the actual reports, which I have, it was sowing discord in this country. If you listen to your average cable prognosticator, it sounds like they think some Russian actually went into a, ballot box in Wisconsin and stuffed the ballots, which they didn't do. Or take, for example, the great conspiracy theory of the post office, which was actually implementing a report from the Obama administration and try to save some efficiencies.

Was there some nebulousness there? Yes, there was. There is always partisanship. But if you read the media reports on or listened to CNN, it very much sounded like the post office was in on sabotaging the election, which in fact, they're going to handle five times as much mail three weeks before Christmas and are able to get it delivered, then they will ballots in the country. But the left said this was a conspiracy, and so it was immediately seized upon. I don't think there's a level of self-reflection in the media that there needs to be

for us to get past the conspiracy age. And I think there's been a reinforcement within the media of a lot of left-wing talking points. And as much as there are problems with the presidency, I think they've been amplified by the media beyond reason. And all of this plays to more and more people tuning out of media and tuning into their friends on Facebook and not being able to distinguish truth from fiction. And you do have politicians who play that up. We just had Marjorie Taylor Green in Georgia who's just, I mean, bat poop crazy,

yet the Republican nomination up in Northwest Georgia who believes that the Jews are in charge behind the scenes. And 9-11 was something other than what it was. And she's big into QAnon. people like that can exist if the media is willing to be a little more honest than they are. And I mean, I hate to sound like a broken record on this point, but I really do think that the media has a lot to do with people's distrust of the media

and they're not willing to admit it. Eric, I want to get to something in a pre-2016 Eric world. I did not like your commentary. I didn't like the way you said things. I didn't like a lot of what you talked about, especially about women. And you've had this transformation where I think, and you've said, like you regret some of the things you said and you've talked a lot about grace. And I'm curious as someone who wants to have a dialogue with people who I don't agree with and I don't like the way they say things, what caused that and how could I, for instance, use that to convince other people to have a similar transformation? Oh, mine was very personal. I nearly died. You know, 2016 was actually a very painful year in our household. And I've talked about this before. We had three people show up on our front porch to threaten us. I mean, I'm sitting six feet from my front door. And they stood there and threatened us because I said I wouldn't support the president because I actually thought character counted. Part of it was this ongoing being in seminary and realizing in seminary just how much I

I was moving my faith towards politics instead of the other way and have to correct that. But then in, you know, as all this Trump stuff was building in 2015, not inviting him to the Red State gathering and then him mean tweeting me and deciding I was going to leave Red State and go do something else, I was trying to get back in shape, having a very hard time, thought I was allergies, thought I was just out of shape. And by March, I couldn't walk up half a flight of stairs without having to sit down and catch my breath. My wife made me go to the hospital. They gave me a CT scan and wouldn't let me get up. They strapped me to the table. They rushed me into a cardiac ICU unit and I was there for two weeks. I will never forget as they're trying to put an IV in me.

The doctor in the ICU sees my scan up on the board and calls into the room to see if they had taken that body to the morgue yet. And he was talking about me. And there for two weeks without the internet contemplating these people who are showing up at our house. My kids being bullied in school because I won't support the president. And by God, you've said that this is the most important election in our lifetime. And the very same day I'm being put in the ICU, the Mayo Clinic calls my wife and tells her she's got an incurable form of lung cancer. It was kind of a wake-up call that you know there's more important things in life than politics. And some of the rhetoric that I myself had been using over years had

amped people up to a level that wasn't healthy. And I was seen it firsthand with people on my doorstep. And it just caused a complete life recalibration. And then to be a conservative talk radio person on the largest talk radio station in the country and have people now trying to get my job where if I lost my job, my wife would lose her insurance and would undoubtedly die, given the lack of cure for her cancer. It was all of that was a confluence at once that I probably needed to go through in life to realize that, you know, there's more importance in life than politics. And here I am now realizing that a lot of people who listen to me and read me have turned their politics into a religion like I had done and needed to recalibrate that. And, you know, there were a lot of people who were trying to get my job.

It was kind of funny after the election in 2016, I was actually, so my radio station has Sean Hannity on before me. They were going to move me into the three to six slot, move Hannity later in the day. And after the election, they're like, well, we can't do that. The guy blew the election, got it wrong. We need to keep him where he is. and a lot of people thought I was going to be out of a job. But ironically, my ratings actually went up over time as I realized, you know, I need to start connecting to people in a different way.

And I need to not be the partisan rabble rouser, but actually commit to seeing, here's the news story, here's what's happening, here's my analysis of it. Now I'll tell you what I think is a conservative, but let's actually deal in facts. Had I not nearly died and, I mean, I was in the hospital for two weeks, and my wife had to fly to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona without me to get her lung biopsy to confirm she does have what she has,

I probably would still be where I was, standing up to the president or not, which had come before that. But it was definitely eye-opening, realizing how many other people besides myself really have turned their politics into their religion instead of they say they're Christians and yet they're looking for Donald Trump to part the water, walk across the water and save the world. And he's not going to save anything. He's what you call a sinner. it has provided me a lot of hope separate from any disagreements we may have over policy or politics or anything else that post all of this you still have such a vibrant voice and audience and that you don't have to be caustic and turn politics into a religion to succeed at what you're doing and so that that's a very good thing to me it makes me very happy you know i this will some people may listen to this and get mad at me for saying it but i i i get accused of

out now for supporting the president, though I stuck to my guns in 2016 and didn't support him in conservative talk radio, where I know a lot of people who lost their jobs in conservative talk radio for doing what I did. And I, fairly or not, I perceive many of them as having become embittered in an unhealthy way towards their audience, that those people cost me my job. I live in Atlanta. I'm on a concern. I'm on the largest conservative talk station of the country. And I not only didn't support the president, but would regularly, including now, assail the president. And it turns out there actually are a lot of people out there who like a guy who is a conservative, who is a Christian, but is willing to call BS on his own side.

And I don't think you can blame the audience for your success or failure. It's on you, whether or not you can agree to disagree with your audience. In fact, the guy who gave me this advice is named Rush Limbaugh, who said, who cares just to have a good relationship with your audience, regardless of the substance of what you're saying, and they'll still listen to you, even if they disagree. And that's a lesson for a lot of people in politics right now. All right, Steve, should we go to our fun topic? Let's do it. So, Eric, I was telling you in the green room, I have a little baby boy who's turning three months next week. And a lot of being a new parent for me in those like, you know,

middle of the night moments is, you know, he's so upset about something and about how hard it is to be a baby and you can just see his frustration. And it has made me think like, man, being an adult is pretty awesome. And as much as we make fun of babies and how easy they have it, it kind of sucks not to be able to use your hands and be able to communicate what you need and what's wrong. So my question to you is, what is that like, it's awesome to be an adult luxury that you now will never go without? There are a lot of things I could answer. The obvious one is income stream now that I'm grown up and can do the things in my 20s that I wanted to do. But honestly, at this point, I will, I'll tell you, I have a Yukon Denali.

And I can sit in that sucker and I have surround sound and Apple car play and heated and air conditioned seats and it drive smooth. And my kid can stand right outside the window and I don't hear him. And it's, it is my, it's like in Get Smart, they drop the bubble. down on you and you can. Yes. That is, that is my, I can go sit in my car, turn on the air condition seats and sit in the driveway and not hear my kids, my wife, the neighbors, anything. I don't want to ever give up that car again. I call that a luxury pod and I think luxury potting is an undervalued adult experience. Like showing up 10 minutes early to a meeting and getting to sit in

your car with your own like just thought and quiet. It's, I love showing up early or I used to when we used to have in-person meetings. But I used to love showing up 10 minutes early and just having that time in my car. I mean, so I work from home. And I do five hours. I do three hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. And I've got four hours between to do stuff. And I can go sit in my car and be productive.

It even has Wi-Fi. Who knew? I actually, I had this car for a year before I even knew it had Wi-Fi. And I can sit in there. I can actually come up with excuses to say, you know what? Like yesterday, I think I knew. need to go to Atlanta. I'm pretty sure I've got something happening in Atlanta and just go and be by myself. Oh, it's wonderful. And, you know, I have completely different music taste from the rest of my

family. I have the music taste of like an 18 year old guy in college. And so I can listen to all the terrible music my wife and kids hate and they don't have to hear the cuss words and I don't have to hear them. Steve, what's yours? I'm very curious about this. Yeah, I mean, so the obvious sort of Playing to type answer would be, I can go out anytime and get a really nice bottle of Spanish wine, right? Too much to type. No, I reject that as the answer. There's the deeper philosophical answer in that you have this discovery that you can live your life intentionally and that you're the one who determines what your path is going to look like. But that would take too much further explanation and probably bring us down. So I'm going to actually give an answer that's a little bit like the answer that Eric gave. A couple of years ago, I've been a mountain biker for 25 years, which is probably not easy for people to believe who have actually seen me in person because a little bigger than the average mountain biker, if you will. But I've also had terrible knee problems.

I had six knee surgeries on my right knee, one knee surgery on my left knee. and I didn't want to buy a mountain bike that could potentially contribute to my knee problems, my physical problems. So I saved up a bunch of money and I went out and got the greatest mountain bike. It's so nice. It's like, I mean, I don't even know it has built in shocks. It's smooth. There's no way that if I am injured again, mountain biking, that it will be the bike's fault.

It'll be only my fault. And I love to spend time on it and it costs too much money. But I was able to make that decision. I invested a mountain bike last year and then I realized, the Georgia heat sucks and I hate snakes. So I only ride it in the wintertime. All right. You two can go mountain biking sometime.

I'm kind of looking forward to this. My answer is based on my husband last night. Out of nowhere, we're quietly like doing our own thing. And he turns over to me and he says, I love that we have a king bed. I thought to myself, oh my God, yes, that is my, like, adult luxury. I will never go back to not having a king bed. The number of things that I will give up in my life, going to restaurants, great wine, anything. Like, I will give it all up before I give up that king bed.

I totally see that one. When we got married, I had to have a king bed. We would have been divorced within a week of marriage if we didn't. In fact, we just got a new mattress last week for our bed. And adulting, having the income to buy that mattress. Mattresses are, I mean, they're like cars. You can really, there's like a whole range. I had to go.

We had a mattress like, you can literally like see the divvets from where we sleep. It's like, it's time for a new mattress. Do you get a phone mattress, a hybrid mattress, a spring mattress? It's insane now. Do you know what I did? I know, Steve, go ahead. Do you know, Sarah, that there is such a thing as a California king? I do, but you know, California kings are actually narrower.

Yes. They're longer. People are too close together in the bed. I thought they were the same dimensions in terms of width, but just longer. No, they're a little bit narrower, like maybe four inches narrower and then four inches longer or something. But I, so I'm kind of an over researcher when it comes to any purchase, any major purchase, but even minor purchases. I will spend so much time researching. And so when it came to a mattress,

I did tons of online research, so many reviews and the Casper's and everything else. And then I also went around to every luxury hotel in D.C. And asked to try their mattress. And I made my best friend come with me. And like the two of us walking into hotels and be like, hi, we'd like to try your mattress. That's fantastic.

I should have done that. I went with one of those hybrid ones that has the spring coils and the foam and like. the purple stuff that's on top. And, you know, I mean, let's be honest, your listeners can't see this. Y'all can, but your listeners can't. I'm fat. I sink in a mattress. I don't want to sink in a mattress. I want a firm mattress that I can just glide across and, man, I got a good one. But I felt so bad for the guys who delivered it the other day, I didn't realize it was 300 pounds. And it was two guys had to carry it up the stairs. And I wound up having to help them. They were so

exhausted, I had to tip them each 50 bucks. I felt so guilty. Well, and like, mattress are so awkward. It's not like if a 300-pound wooden thing is actually much, much easier than a 300-pound mattress. And now every time I lay down, I think, is my bed going to fall through the floor now? All right. Well, thank you, listeners, for joining us for this special Friday dispatch. And thank you, Eric, for joining us. Thanks for having me. Thank you.