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The Liberal + Leftist Alliance | Kyle Kulinski
229 Plays4 months ago
With so many on the far left acquiescing to Trumpism, Micah Erfan and Joshua Eakle invited Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk on the show to discuss the new anti-Trump coalition, how to keep various factions working alongside each other, and what some on the far left are getting wrong in their approach.
- Follow Kyle: https://x.com/KyleKulinski
- Subscribe to Micah's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MicahErfan
- Learn More About Project Liberal: http://www.projectliberal.org
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Transcript
Introduction with Josh and Micah
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Project Liberal podcast. My name is Josh Eckle. I'm the president and co-founder of Project Liberal. And I'm joined once again today by a co-host and a member of our steering committee, Micah. Micah, thanks for taking the time to chat and join us and taking time away from your busy developing YouTube schedule.
00:00:21
Speaker
I know I'm i'm a micro YouTuber now, officially. I'm joining the fray, inspired by you, Kyle. Yeah. Awesome. Micah, I like your name, by the way. That's a great name. There's a ah ah golf YouTuber named Micah also. And that's the first time I heard the name Micah was about three years ago when I came across his channel. And I'm a big Micah name fan. So I contend it's actually the best book in the Bible, very ah under read. ah But I can tell, I might be a little bit biased, but.
00:00:49
Speaker
Well, I was going to say, to introduce you, Kyle, probably don't need any any introduction to our audience at least, but Kyle Kalinsky, host of Secular Talk, longtime YouTuber. I feel like I was watching you on YouTube when I was coming out of college, like over 10 years ago.
Micah's YouTube journey and inspirations
00:01:06
Speaker
Wow. I feel old. Makes you feel old, brother. Now I've got kids and I'm getting old and like all that stuff. it is It is shocking how quick time passes. I just want to say thanks for taking the time.
00:01:17
Speaker
Oh, it's my pleasure, and let me thank you for all of your phenomenal memes. ah To this day, I'm good to steal at least one or two per week. I was gonna say, ah both you and Destiny can take this same meme that I post, and you post it like within an hour or two of me posting it, and it will get like a hundred thousand likes, whereas I get like ten thousand, so... Yeah, does I feel kind of bad, that's why I'm apologizing. I mean, I love your memes. You have some phenomenal memes, man.
00:01:45
Speaker
i' i have I often get DM's from people when I like take a meme and they're like, why did you steal my meme? I'm um like, memes are so are like public property. Once you put them out into the world, they're not yours anymore. So as long as they get reach, I'm all about it. Like no complaining on my end. You put Project Liberal in the meme on purpose is good because then I don't feel that bad. It's taking it. They'll see it says Project Liberal, you know.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Destiny took one the other day and I'd forgotten to put the the ah the tag in it. And I'm like, oh my god, now this is in the world and there's no attribution. So I won't do that again. is go to And that one's gonna get like a million likes. Yes, exactly. Okay, so let me let me frame up the conversation for our audience, for you, Kyle, and just kind of kick kick us off with maybe some
Concerns over MAGA authoritarianism
00:02:27
Speaker
high level stuff. And Micah, feel free to chime in if there's anything I miss here. but um Mike and I and really the entire leadership team at Project Liberal are are very, very concerned about the ascendance of the far-right MAGA authoritarianism.
00:02:40
Speaker
um Our broad goal and I know you and I spoke a bit about this when I spoke to you in and crystal a couple months ago like our broad goal we see as liberals as the effectively the expansion of human freedom and There's a period right now with the ascendance of the far, right? We have not only an authoritarian and liberal movement That's in control of the political mechanisms of the US government and is effectively at war against freedom ah Leading with you know scapegoats that they want to try to target as the enemy and the you know the reason why we need to take freedom from this group or that group. And you know we look at it and say, right-wingers do speak to some real pain that people feel, but their solutions are nothing. like it's Usually their solutions make the problem worse, right? um And there's a lot of those things that I think we'll get into the conversation.
00:03:30
Speaker
Um, so both Micah and I actually, we have a lot of respect for you, Kyle. We think you come from, unlike many commentators, we think you come from a genuine, like a really genuine place. Like I really do believe it when you say, I speak for myself. I'm speaking for like what I actually believe that that comes through in everything that you do. Um, there's a lot of commentators. It doesn't come across that way. So I just wanted to like free up.
00:03:53
Speaker
like Or at least open up the conversation to talk specifically about the threat as you see it and kind of how you, what do you think Trump's going to do in the next four years? How bad is it? And just like kick us off with a broad conversation about the status quo.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, um I mean, I think it's gonna be bad. I think ah Trump's first term was pretty horrible. I basically think it was the third term of George W. Bush, and now we're gonna be looking at the fourth term of George W. Bush, except with more authoritarianism. Because the last time Trump was in there, there were some establishment figures that remained.
00:04:26
Speaker
who got to reel him in a little bit every now and then. When he wanted to, like, use the Insurrection Act against George Floyd protesters and he was talking about shooting protesters in the leg and things of that nature, you had people like Mark Milley around him who were like, yeah, we're not gonna do that. And they they knew how to placate him. They knew how to basically continue to steer the ship themselves and avoid the absolute worst pitfalls. But what we're looking at this time is There are no more sane, reasonable voices in the room. Trump, ah from the last time, now feels like he learned his lesson of, I need sycophants, I need loyalists, I need people who are yes men around me. And so he's put together this list of genuinely terrifying characters. You know, people like Cash Patel, who wrote a book about how basically Trump, he wrote a children's book about how Trump should be like an emperor.
00:05:19
Speaker
um These are scary people. ah RFK Jr., who, from my perspective, is deeply, deeply anti-science. And as head of Health health and Human Services, he can do horrible things to this country. ah He's anti-vaccine. And then you have, you know, you're but what I would consider your standard ah neocon warmongers like Marco Rubio, who um wants to do horrific things to Latin America. He's never met a war he didn't like. I'm sure there they want to go to war with Iran.
00:05:46
Speaker
ah So, it's horrible, and what I fear, like looking at the Republican Party, what they've become is genuinely terrifying on every
GOP's shift towards extreme conservatism
00:05:56
Speaker
front. So, for example, 48 Republican senators, just recently, voted against the Right to IVF Act.
00:06:05
Speaker
So they're now against IVF, and this is at the same time Trump pretends like he was the father. I'm the father of IVF. Well, then why did they all vote against it? They're now flirting with things like getting rid of no-fault divorce. um There was a vote a few years back in 2022. 36 Republican senators voted against gay marriage, and 169 Republicans in the House voted against gay marriage. 44 Republicans in the Senate voted against extending the child tax credit.
00:06:33
Speaker
ah in In the midterms in 2022 and also in 2024, a majority of Republican candidates were election deniers. And so what we're looking at is a party that's fully embraced um authoritarianism and fully embraced extreme social conservatism.
00:06:53
Speaker
and um they make ah They don't hide what they're about, right? They don't hide it. ah It's front and center. One of the things that they've been ah talking about is banning individual states that want to do free school breakfast and lunch for kids. They want to get rid of that. That's something that ah Tim Walz championed. They want to ban ah any minimum wage increases at the state and local level. In Texas, they banned extreme heat work breaks.
00:07:21
Speaker
ah In Project 2025, which is, of course, their Bible, effectively, they talk about banning porn and cutting overtime pay. And basically, the the consummation of everything is Trump embracing what's called the unitary executive theory, which means there's no checks, there's no balances, he's effectively an emperor overlord, and he gets to call all the shots. And I think that ah when Americans voted for him, I think they thought we're gonna vote for change.
00:07:51
Speaker
But I think they're gonna get a rude awakening that really what they did is they voted for a revolutionary conservative authoritarian and um they're gonna get changed but it's gonna be changed in a bad direction.
Internal conflicts within MAGA coalition
00:08:03
Speaker
Right, i think I think a lot of that's true. I mean, there's obviously like these different components of the MAGA coalition and I'm really interested to see how this plays out because you have like these libertarian tech bros, right, which are in the coalition. Then you have like Trump's kind of vulgar populist impulses, right? He just said he wants to ban poor automation, right, to make um the dock workers happy. I, you know, i I don't have any beef with unions. I think this is actually an example though of something that unions were asking for, which is just like pretty bad for most working people.
00:08:31
Speaker
And so but what I wonder is how the trade-offs between these different groups end up playing out. As you know, Elon and Vivek are talking about cutting the federal budget by $2 trillion, dollars and they're doing this while Republicans are preparing to extend Trump's $1 trillion dollar tax cuts and blow an even bigger hole in the budget deficit. What do you think the priorities of this administration in practice are actually going to be?
00:08:55
Speaker
That's a great question. So I'm of the belief that the libertarian wing is always going to win out. So there's, ah you know, Trump half the time shows some paleoconservative ah instincts. and But ultimately the the libertarians will always win. So in other words, the Elon Musk's and the Vivek Ramaswamy's, I think they're going to get their way, namely,
00:09:16
Speaker
um They will end up doing whatever they can. They think they can do it on their own without Congress. I don't know if that's true. The courts might stop them. But they, I think, genuinely want to gut the social safety net as much as possible. They want to cut Medicare. They want to cut Medicaid. They want to cut Social Security. They want to cut, like, ah the SNAP program, which is food stamps. They want to cut home heating assistance. They want to cut WIC.
00:09:38
Speaker
so I think that those are the ones who are going to end up winning, and I think that what they're not going to cut is the Pentagon. Right? I think that they talk about that now. Maybe they'll find some tiny ways to cut it, but every year Trump was president last time, he increased the military budget. I think he's going to increase the military budget again this time. So some of the, I mean, you make a great point, right? There are contradictions within MAGA.
00:10:01
Speaker
But they never even bother to to try to really reconcile them. And what Trump does is he goes the path of least resistance, which effectively is going to be to cuck himself to the right wing think tanks and let them steer the ship. He did that last time. I think he's going to do it again this time.
00:10:16
Speaker
Yeah, and effectively that was what ah project 2025 was. I mean, we we all know that like a a a federal administration cannot operate ah in a really meaningful way without the infrastructure necessary to make the staffing choices, right? Like to get people in his administration to do those types of things. The only organization that was doing that type of work before the election was Heritage.
00:10:38
Speaker
And despite them trying to downplay that throughout the election and pretend like that was not tied to them, it's very clear at this point that it was.
The influence of Project 2025 on GOP strategies
00:10:45
Speaker
I mean, there have been several people high up at Heritage that have been into the administration and there have been, you know, joke tweets to some degree from people within the MAGA coalition. I can't remember. I remember it was like Michael Knowles, like right after the election was like, yeah, ah heritage or Project 2025 was actually not a joke, LOL. Matt Walsh, yeah. It was Matt Walsh, I think. Yeah. Same, same, same. They're all the same. They're all the same. And you know, that you're you're completely correct about the hypocrisy. um One of the things that really blows me away though is, and this is one thing that I think might be a saving grace, is that in the Trump administration this time,
00:11:17
Speaker
there isn't i There is way less ideological cohesion than there was before. Trump kind of ran like Neocon Lite in 2016, to your point. Kind of like George W. Bush Lite. He ran on, we're going to bomb the shit out of them. That was like one of the quotes that came in 2016. This time he's tried he was trying to run as like an anti-war, anti-establishment, pro-peace candidate.
00:11:39
Speaker
And then his first pick was Marco Rubio as Secretary of of State, right? um So my my hope is that because of that ideological conflict, there might be some ah some real turmoil in the administration, but that remains to be seen.
00:11:53
Speaker
um Well, I think he's gonna be the one, right, who... He's trying to get people around him who are yes men, who will just be like, yes sir, or whatever you say, sir. And so it's really gonna be, um, whatever his feelings are in the moment, and I i i think that's a scary thing.
00:12:10
Speaker
because you needed the Mark Millys of the world, you needed yeah the establishment figures to say, man you can't do this, you can do this, etc. Now he doesn't care. And, you know, the other other element of this is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court effectively said, hey, if you're doing something for an official reason.
00:12:27
Speaker
then it is what it is, and there can't be any consequences for it. And I mean, it takes a second grader to see the problem with that logic. You could always make a stretch of an argument to say, this is in my official official capacity to do X, Y, or Z, right? So I really think it's sort of like a toxic brew and a worst-case scenario where he can kind of get away with whatever he wants to get away with, and I think the people around him, um I think they're they They all have a very clear agenda and whatever contradictions there are in MAGA are going to go away. And it will be end up it will end up being a fourth term at George W. Bush. It will end up being more war. It will end up ah being more tax cuts for the wealthy. It will end up cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. I think it's going to be ugly. I really do.
00:13:12
Speaker
I think that there is one disagreement that I think actually we will see play out, and that is between like the J.D. Vance style, like you said, paleoconservatives, Christian nationalists, which really don't have any qualms with the size of government. They want to use like the regulatory state for their own purposes, and of vi v because the because Vivex basically would prosecute an ideological case against like J.D. Vance's wing of the party pretty openly.
00:13:35
Speaker
I think, you know, it's openly going to play out in four years in the primary who wins. I think it's almost certainly going to be J.D. Vance. If you look at the polls between those two candidates, I think Donald Trump Jr., he's being polled right now. Right now, he's at 30 percent, actually, which just shows you how much of a poll, how much of a cultural personality they are. But I think J.D. Vance is going to win out. And I don't think J.D. Vance and Josh Hawley are actually libertarians. I think they're actually something a lot more scary to me, which is Christian nationalists.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah, you're 100% right on the social issues in particular. Yeah, they are ah supreme social conservatives and authoritarians. And, um you know, you have the but the Rand Pauls and the Vivek Ramaswamis who might be more libertarian even on social issues. But I don't know, I feel like the ah the strength in the Republican base and among the right wing think tanks, I do feel like they lean more on the side of the J.D. Vance's, right? J.D. Vance is a tradcat.
00:14:32
Speaker
So he he he went to Catholicism as he got older. And usually when, you know, when you're older and you jump into the religion, you're like the most about it. And so that's what you look at him and you're like, oh, boy, this guy probably does actually want to ban porn. This guy does. I mean, he was saying that he wants to ban women who live in a red state from traveling to a blue state to get reproductive health care. That's how extreme this guy was. So I guess in that particular battle that you're talking about,
00:14:59
Speaker
I would hope that Vivek Moore wins out in that fight. The thing that we have to hope for vis-a-vis Trump is that Trump truly is that old New York
Weakness of Trump's latest campaign
00:15:11
Speaker
Democrat from back in the day where he was like, yeah, I'm pro-choice. You know, when he ran this time, he really tried to, no, no, no, I swear, I'm pro-choice. I'm a moderate on the issue or whatever. He really tried to get that across. I just hope that on those particular issues, he really knows how to basically tell the base to go screw themselves.
00:15:28
Speaker
But, I mean, we're we're at the whim of Donald Trump, which is like, that's a terrible place to be. Semicenial Donald Trump. I mean, if you see him, like i listen I listen to some of these really old podcasts. I never could do it before the election. I was like, I'm just going to hope he loses. But I just listened to his all in podcast interview. And my God, he's just caught like caught in a constant cycle repeating the same like three phrases. Biden has done some of the same stuff, you know the idea he says all the time. And it's like, I'm really not trusting that this guy is going to be conscious enough for the next four years to actually be calling a lot of the shots. So I guess and then we're going to be seeing a lot of erratic behavior. ah from Oh, yeah. And guys he's also not intelligent. Like I don't think I don't think he has the ability to think like multiple steps ahead.
00:16:14
Speaker
Like, if I do this, this other country might do this, and then I would need to think about how I react to that. I think he's pure instinct. Yeah. and when he' see go ahead he's The thing that disturbs me the most about Trump, and I think people that have been in his inner circle have said this for a long time, is he has no intellectual curiosity whatsoever. And the last thing you want.
00:16:34
Speaker
in a leader, especially somebody who's in control of the most advanced, powerful economy in the history of the human species, is somebody who's not willing to ah explore nuance and try to really deeply understand ideas, because you know there are every single challenge, there are ripple effects. You try to solve it with one problem, you're gonna, in order to like really do a good job in that world, you need to deeply try to understand what you're grappling with rather than rely on gut responses, and that is something that he has never demonstrated the ability to do throughout. I think he's actually pretty impressionable. I don't think his his ideas are usually super fixed. I just don't think he's a very sophisticated thinker like Collis said. I mean, let's think about tariffs. He still doesn't understand how tariffs work. he' Well, right. But that's the scary thing, right? Is he genuinely... That's one of the issues. There's a few of these. There's a few issues where Trump genuinely seems married to it. He seems married to the idea of being tough on the border and doing mass deportation, and he brought up tariffs like all the time when he was campaigning, and he's talking about an across-the-board tariff. Yeah. Which is at the crazy, and it's interesting because you guys and me would probably have some disagreements on the broader issue of protectionism versus free trade, but when it comes to this particular issue of an across-the-board tariff, we're 100% in agreement. Yeah.
00:17:49
Speaker
Because the whole idea of a tariff, like he acts like it's not going to raise the prices. I don't know what you're talking about. It's not going to raise the whole point of a tariff is to raise the price. It's actually the only point. The idea is you'd have to pick a specific industry and say this specific industry we're trying to revitalize will tariff this specific product from this country. But in his mind, he says, no, it doesn't add to an increase in prices. And he wants to do an across the board tariff. If that happens, inflation would be through the roof.
00:18:16
Speaker
It would be insane. So I don't know. I hope he's not as married to that as he looks like he is. But from where I'm sitting, yeah he brought it up like every interview and every rally speech. And I was like, he really means this. so he He definitely believes. All the interviews I've listened to him, he's like, tariffs are just such a great thing. They're amazing for the economy. They're just absolutely awesome. They raise all this money. And it seems like one of those ideas that he's just genuinely wedded to. And he just doesn't understand how trade surpluses work. He says we're subsidizing You know Mexico to tune of 200 billion dollars or whatever also deportations is the other one that he really doesn't seem to understand He thinks that all asylum seekers are asylum escapees This is the kind of stuff I I I worry about Or they came out, yeah, they came out of insane asylums. That's what he seems to think, like, yeah, they're releasing everybody from their insane asylums. It's like, you know, that's not what asylum means, right? Do you think that, like, anybody's ever told him, like, that's like the actual truth and he just didn't understand it? Or do you think that he's surrounded by Stephen Miller? So maybe Stephen Miller's like, yeah, we'll go with that.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think everybody around him is already kind of like a yes, man, and they tell him what he wants to hear. So maybe nobody has actually told him like, you know, they're not coming from literal insane asylums, right? I mean, this is crazy. This guy, he's not, and he was already in there for four years. It was already horrible. But he genuinely seems worse this time. I don't know what you guys think about this, but I felt like this campaign of his was literally the worst of his three campaigns. Oh, yeah. And he won. Yeah.
Strategies for resisting Trumpism
00:19:41
Speaker
So, okay, so ah we're in this place, right? This is the world that we're grappling with, and i I'll be honest with you both. I don't know if I've still fully grappled with it. um And, you know, one of the things that ah I've been thinking about a lot, Mike has been thinking about a lot, and I think you've talked about this a little bit as well, is ah you know it's time for us to really rethink what resistance 2.0 should look like. um and And I think as I mentioned to you on the on when we were when I was on your show a couple months ago, Kyle, I find myself in coalitions. Again, I'm kind of a classical liberal, so I find myself in coalitions with people that are very different than I am, but I look at it as a very important goal. I think we need to push back against this and we need to find a way to bring people together
00:20:23
Speaker
and focus on the enemy rather than focus on our internal divisions. So that's you know another broad question and maybe kick off another segment of conversation would be like, in your mind, what do you think resist 2.0 should look like? Do you have any broad thoughts on what do you think the strategy should be going forward for people in our coalition? I mean,
00:20:44
Speaker
I love Bernie Sanders, you guys know that, but I've been using this example a lot recently. yeah um I don't agree with how he's going about it at the moment. So he tweeted like, you know, I'd love to work with President Trump on cap and credit card interest rates at 10%. And he was, he said, I agree with Elon Musk and doves that we should cut the Pentagon. And my issue with that is we already have the track record of Trump. We know how he's going to govern.
00:21:10
Speaker
And for Bernie to say that, it sort of lends this false credibility that maybe they're serious about the handful of decent things that they say. And I'm more of the belief you need to triple or quadruple the resistance that we saw in 2016.
00:21:26
Speaker
And what's so sad is that the reaction I'm seeing now from most in the media is the exact opposite. I'm sure you saw the Mika and yeah Joe Scarborough thing where they went down to Mar-a-Lago and had lunch with them, and this is after they called Trump like Hitler. yep And so, and you're seeing this, Ellie Times just killed an op-ed because it was critical of Trump's, some of Trump's picks.
00:21:48
Speaker
Did you see George Papadopoulos just make an agreement or a settle with Trump for the rapist? Oh oh yeah, Stephanopoulos. Yeah, he it was $15 million. dollars Close enough. So they're paying him $15 million, dollars yeah um but they they settled, so it didn't go to court. If it went to court, they would have won the case.
00:22:10
Speaker
yeah It would have won the case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but so did this again, this is a this is an olive branch This is showing Trump like hey, we'll be cool if you'll be cool in other words Hey, whatever sort of business we have with the government whatever sort of tax breaks We were gonna get whatever sort of corporate welfare, etc Like just leave everything as is and it will be cool if you'll be cold So what you're gonna see is obviously the right-wing outlets are gonna do what they do. They're all MAGA all day long Pro Republican Party, etc But even the outlets that are supposed to be more liberal outlets now, what you're going to see is they're moving to ah the false equivalence, both sides-ism type stuff moving forward. So it'll be everything, they'll try to balance everything out, do like fake neutrality, yeah give half credit and half disagreement to both sides, and then the right is going to be bull in a china shop, full on MAGA, full on right wing. And so it's going to give the American people this skewed perception
00:23:01
Speaker
that, oh, so this is how it is. pat there's real There's no real resistance to Trump. And you're even seeing it a lot in ah in independent media now, too, and and online media. You're seeing a lot of, you know, hey, let's give it a shot, let's maybe work together on some things. and I just, I don't see it. I know how he governed last time, I know what he's gonna do this time, and if anything, I feel more ah reinvigorated now to fight than even in 2016. In 2016, I thought, hey, maybe there will be some issues where it might be okay and you can work with them. So, um it's it's a little bit depressing because you don't see as much resistance as there needs to be, but at the same time,
00:23:38
Speaker
that's actually it's creating a lot of like msnbc refugees who are now looking at outlets like ours i mean we've seen a massive uptick and msnbc has plummeted 50 or 60 percent in the ratings because they're looking for people that have answers and they're looking for people who will continue to resist right yeah i i think i think that's 100 true i What I think the rhetorical line that some people are using is one that's ultimately self-destructive. As you said, there's some people that are just saying, well, magma might be great. Like, I love the Department of Government efficiency. I mean, maybe that's fine. We'll see how this actually pans out. But there's also this other rhetorical line, which is you guys are idiots. You deserve what you get, right?
00:24:20
Speaker
And that is a rhetorical line that doesn't work with people who voted for Trump. ah Too many people voted for Trump. We have to win people back. If you look at the electoral map in 2030, we're getting redistricting and it's going to look really bad for Democrats because states like California and New York didn't build housing and there's going to mass excess of millions of people out of those states, two red states like mine in Texas. And so we have to win over a ton more people. And I think the right rhetorical strategy is he lied to you.
00:24:44
Speaker
He said he was going to lower your prices and he's going to raise your prices, right? It's not so much that you were stupid or you were wrong. We understand where you were coming from. We understand that this political system isn't working and it's been corrupted. And we understand why you'd want to listen to somebody like him. But he doesn't represent the kind of change that you want to see. It's radical change, as you said earlier, but it's radically bad change. It's change that makes the system, ah you know, exaggerates all the bad things about the system and actually does rectify any of the real problems that we have.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. You have to to, to your point here, and I think it's exactly right, you have to make your case. And there's even Democrats I like, like, I really like Ro Khanna. But, you know, he's been going around and he's been saying, Oh, yeah, you know, maybe on Doge we could work on this or that Jared Moskowitz joined like the Doge caucus in Congress. And it's like, look, I see what you guys are trying to do.
00:25:30
Speaker
But you have to present an alternative to Trump. Because if you look at Trump, this is the part, people haven't really digested this part about Trump. Donald Trump is without a doubt the most unhinged and arrogant political candidate in our lifetime. If you disagree with Trump, 1% he cuts your head off.
00:25:48
Speaker
right Right? Anyone. He won two out of three times. So you need to counter that with your own message, your own narrative, drive it home repeatedly, and you need to set the terms of the debate, and we need to be debating around our issues, not their issues. And right now I see way too much playing defense or playing footsie with them and trying to like, almost like,
00:26:08
Speaker
Almost like they look at Trump winning the popular vote and they're like, okay, maybe this is sort of like insurmountable. So let's try to find areas where we can agree. And it's like, you're missing it. They're never going to go for you over the original, right? You can't be MAGA and MAGA light. You have to do something totally different and fight for it. I could not agree more with you. And, ah you know, one of the things that also concerns me as well, and and I'm kind of torn on this, and this might be an interesting topic of conversation.
00:26:32
Speaker
um There are real problems facing people. Like the cost of living crisis is a real problem, right? I mean, like that's a challenge that I think actually led fuel to Trumpism. um And in many ways, I'd say was a failure of Democrats to solve real problems in some areas. I mean, I'm in i'm in Tennessee, same thing. There's all these refugees coming here from other countries or countries other states because they can't afford housing in their own state. And I think that's part of the that like um that kind of rage against that system has caused the problem. So I do think that there's a need to solve the problem in the short term, and that can be done through localities, but there's a variety of different challenges that need to be solved in the cost of living thing. But like you know every single win...
00:27:14
Speaker
That come out that comes out of the next four years is going to be Trump's win So like if Democrats partner with Republicans to solve some of these problems like my ze you know that you know yeah my My gut says from like an emotional perspective. We need to solve problems for these people But there's also it's a double-edged sword you you join them and you're also going to be crucified um Because you know Democrats had four years and they never solved this problem i So I don't really know how to balance that one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot is the Democrats should not at least in Congress join the Republicans for really any any votes, especially when it comes to their leadership. They've got a two-vote majority and the Democrats can make them look like complete
00:27:56
Speaker
incapable morons ah by putting them into repeated house speaker fights over and over again, like what we saw ah two years ago, if Mike Johnson steps down. And so from those like structural things, I think they should step away. But I'm curious as to whether you have any thoughts on like those. I mean, if there is a bill, for example, to solve real problems for people, like like what do you guys think?
00:28:16
Speaker
i don't well i i look i think the answer is I don't think there will be bills like that. That's the thing. like I'm thoroughly convinced they're just not going to propose anything good. and To your point, um it was a very famous story about how Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, back when Obama got elected in 2008, they met in a literal smoke-filled back room and they said, our strategy from here on out is to deny any Win to Barack Obama. We're gonna obstruct obstruct obstruct. That's what we're gonna do and look for him I think it's different and bad in that scenario because I think Obama was proposing some decent things so I don't like the obstruction in that senses But in this instance, I think Trump is gonna propose genuinely horrific things and so I want to see that same approach I want to see that same ruthlessness and I love your point about like for their leadership No, why would you?
00:29:03
Speaker
Why would you vote for anybody that he's gonna pick? They're all horrible in their own different way, whether they're just run-of-the-mill, you know, warmonger, far-right Bush-type conservatives, or they're like the ah RFKs of the world, right? Like, it's gonna be bad either way, so why would you get your hands dirty by voting for it? That's only gonna be held against you, too, in the future, if you do that. So, and look, I mean, it would be an interesting question if They were gonna propose some things that might be decent, and in that scenario, I am more inclined to say, just, you know, if it's for good for the American people, go for it, right? I don't don't care who gets the credit, just go for it. yeah But I'm so convinced nothing is even gonna hit that bar, because I know Trump, I saw what he did last time, and I know what he's gonna do this time.
00:29:44
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think, you know, you never want to kill a good bill. Right. And ultimately, most people don't pay attention to your legislative accomplishments anyway. Like Biden passed all this stuff. Technically, it should have pulled super, super well. It didn't barely do anything. Right. So you never want to say, oh, you know, we we gave up on the opportunity to make Americans lives better because it gained us point zero zero zero one percent in swing states. And I think it's possible something good could happen. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm not going to have it.
00:30:10
Speaker
you know Listen, I'm pretty young, i so I've only seen so many of these. But but i think i i I don't want Democrats to take the rhetorical stance on Doge that they're anti-efficiency. I think the much better rhetorical stance than the one that's actually correct is they're not actually trying to solve inefficiencies when they're not, right? When do they say we want to make things more efficient? Right. I mean, the Pentagon should be audited. There is so much bureaucracy, waste, duplication in all of our systems. I talk about the welfare system sometimes. We have 80 plus welfare programs.
00:30:35
Speaker
Everybody that I know that's really struggling, that's like low income, I know some diabetics that are struggling to get insulin, struggle so much to get the welfare benefits they should be eligible for. That's a really big problem. But their efficiency increases are cutting the national institutes of health. right And it's like, that should be the rhetorical. We actually stand for the things that they promise. We're actually going to deliver them. um but Otherwise, I agree. let Democrats should not make the Republicans' job of doing bad stuff easier.
00:31:01
Speaker
just to be nice. And I don't like it whenever so many people are trying to move and just accept right-wing framings on issues. right like You don't need to accept that, like I've seen um Chris Murphy do this, that immigration is threatening people's culture.
00:31:17
Speaker
like like I get it. I live in Texas.
Democrats' position on immigration and policy
00:31:21
Speaker
Border security is an actual issue. You look in the Rio Grande Valley, people are extremely ah Republican on this because they don't think Democrats deliver border security. I think actual we should secure we have secure borders. We shouldn't have fentanyl coming in or whatever. But don't accept false things. So immigrants are bad or they're causing crime. That is the kind of stuff where you entrench their false narrative when you have the opportunity opportunity to tell of the compelling truth as an alternative. That's right. That's right. And by the way, Trump is going to end up taking credit for some Biden wins that took a while to unfold. So for example, you have the infrastructure bill, you have the Inflation Reduction Act, you have the CHIPS Act.
00:32:01
Speaker
We're talking about 800,000 manufacturing jobs being created in this country. That is a big deal. But Trump will get to the front of the line in the parade and act like he deserves all the adulation and credit. So I guess my point is, they're playing really dirty political games. And to your point, yes, don't Give them a win where they haven't earned it and don't deserve it. Don't cave to bogus right-wing narratives like your point on immigration. And look, in retrospect, on immigration, I understand what Kamala was trying to do. They're like, oh, we did a tough border bill and he actually killed it. And I actually thought at the time, I thought that's a brilliant strategy and neutralize the issue of immigration. But in retrospect, it turns out I was wrong. It didn't really neutralize the issue of immigration. cu You were never going to out border hawk Trump. So in other words, what you needed to do, and this again is to your point,
00:32:51
Speaker
is make a positive case for immigration. yeah You should be in favor of, we need a path to citizenship. We need to protect the dreamers. Immigrants are actually great for the the economy and the country more broadly. Immigrants commit crime at a way lower rate than natural born American citizens. they're actually good it's ah Immigrants are good. They are good. Actually make that argument. But you know I think to your point, a lot of these characters have Washington brain where they just feel like they feel like the polls are Like, that it's an immovable obstruction, and you just need to go where it is. And it's like, no, politics is fluid, it's not stagnant. People's minds change over time. And if you make an argument, and you build on that case over time, you can move the polls in your direction. And it's much better now, in retrospect, it it would have been much better to actually make the counter-argument that immigration is good, as opposed to conceding that the right-wing framing was correct, and trying to out-border-hawk the Republicans like Kamala did.
00:33:47
Speaker
just just Just one more point on the border, and Josh, I'll let you take us to something else. um I'm on the executive committee of the Texas Democratic Party, so we just got a brief at our executive committee meeting about the data on Texas in terms of the performance of Democrats. And we saw that Colin Allred overperformed Kamala in every single area, basically in the entire state, but mostly in the Rio Grande Valley, which was surprising to me. And the seeming culprit is immigration.
00:34:11
Speaker
And so I think that we were in a really bad spot here because the rhetorical like the america America has shifted on immigration over the past four years dramatically. it Four years ago, people were actually really pro-immigration, more pro-immigration than yeah for a long time. And then it shifted because nobody was really making the case for our side and everybody was making the case for their side. So as a last minute effort, Kamala is switching on this issue probably, I think, was slightly ah rhetorically slightly electorally good.
00:34:36
Speaker
The problem was ah nobody trusted her. I talked to so many people in Texas and you say, you know, she actually does want to secure the border. They say, no, she doesn't. Right. you know She let in all these asylum seekers. And I think that the old line that Democrats have had historically was a reasonable one, which is, obviously, nobody wants an unsecured border. And that's something that i this should be solved. But deporting 15 million people is inhumane, costly, expensive and terrible for the economy. And that's just not an option. And we have a superpower in this country, which is letting in the most talented people in the world, which want to come here.
00:35:06
Speaker
And I think you could also tie this into broader narratives about American competitiveness. But yes, I agree with you. Democrats don't win by taking the right wing stance. We have to have our own defined consistent stance on issues that are part of our brand. And that's something that I think, me and you agree, we've actually kind of lost. And what is part of the Democratic Party brand these days? Abortion? I mean, that's like, that's the one of the few issues that we have a really, really clear, strong stance on.
00:35:32
Speaker
But defending Obamacare as a policy stance is kind of weak sauce. Meanwhile, Republicans have their mass deportations, tariffs, culture war, all this stuff that defines them and brings people in for them consistently.
00:35:45
Speaker
yeah Totally, totally. I was disappointed to see that shift as well, because again, I do saw this kind of, ah again, an abdication, as you mentioned, Kyle, of just like this broader framing of the Democratic Party being the party of being pro-immigrant versus kind of like moving into the Republican space and trying to walk around that. I can't remember who made this quote, but it stuck with me for a long time or who said this, but you know, real leaders are the ones that make the polls.
00:36:12
Speaker
and right kind of the secondary leaders are the ones that follow them. um you true Yeah, and I think that that is absolutely absolutely the case. um Okay, so I want to talk, um but actually, I want to talk a big picture philosophy stuff, which I think touches on some of these conversations. But before I do that, I wanted to talk, I wanted to close out the resistance conversation.
00:36:33
Speaker
um We know throughout history strong men and authoritarians rely on demoralization Disengagement and people stepping away because they're frustrated and unable like I remember stories ah Reading stories about what happened after Vladimir Putin came back to power and you know there were all these public intellectuals that kind of there was this whole meme about public intellectuals like Leaving and just going to work on their garden right? Because they just couldn't deal with with that. And I'll be honest with you, I'm glad to hear that you feel ah rejuvenated and ready to fight. For me as somebody who's fought this for years, I mean, again, the whole my whole introduction into political movement was me being an anti Trump kind of center right guy almost 10 years ago. And I feel almost psychologically drained from the last 10 years.
00:37:19
Speaker
um So how do we and I think you've touched on this a little bit It's it's by being that loud voice and I know you do this and there's several other people in the alternative Left-leaning media ecosystem editor doing this but like what do you think we should be done should be done to kind of keep the Resistance alive keep people working together and keep people kind of galvanized have to fight against it ah first of all I would remind people that We weren't as far off as you think Okay, that's the first point I would make so if I could change one thing Leading into this election that I am certain would have flipped the result
00:37:54
Speaker
it would have been Build Back Better passing. Because if Build Back Better passed, that would have meant paid family leave, childcare, universal pre-K, free community college, expanding Medicare, higher minimum wage, lowering all prescription drug prices, not just some, and expanded child tax credit. All of that was part of the same bill, and the only reason it didn't pass is because of Manchin and Cinema.
00:38:18
Speaker
If we were able to flip Mansion and Cinema, which by the way I do think was possible even though it seems like it was impossible, but if we were able to flip them and that bill passes, Kamala Harris would be the next president, and I'm completely convinced of that fact. So, the way to ah keep people engaged is Look, you know, and this is my job, so it's easy for me to say, but you gotta follow this stuff, you gotta cover this stuff, you gotta talk about it, you gotta to let everybody know exactly what's going on, and you have to let everybody know this isn't how it has to be. We can do it totally different. We have other answers over here, which will actually improve your life and help everybody out. And that sense of defeatism that a lot of people feel. I understand it. I understand it. I've been there a million times in my life. But, um...
00:39:04
Speaker
The mission now is actually clearer than it's ever been. Because we know who Trump is, we know what he did the last time, we know what he wants to do this time, and then add on top the extreme authoritarianism. um And, you know, it's never been more clear to me the path forward. You gotta resist it every turn, and you have to build a counter-argument and a counter-narrative. And um I do think that There is more of a bubbling resentment underneath the surface and an anger at Trump and Trumpism than people think. Right? I mean, Trump won the popular vote by 1.5 percentage points. Right? That's basically nothing. And so all those people, they didn't just go away overnight. All the people who would agree with more with you and me, they didn't just go away overnight. And they're feeling some type of way. So what they need is leadership. What they need is truth tellers.
00:39:52
Speaker
What they need is people who say, look, there's a way through this and we're going to get through this and just follow me and we'll do it. And so that's the project now moving forward. I think, you know, I think you've done a great job ah with Project Liberal and, you know, I try to do my part as well. um But all hope is not lost, believe me. Remember, guys, George W. Bush got two terms. George W. Bush did.
00:40:12
Speaker
Right. Trump, to your point, it is kinda crazy how long he's been on the scene, right? Came up in 2015 and we're still dealing with him here in 2024. It seems like, Jesus Christ, is this ever gonna end? It's gonna end. It's gonna end. And I do think the Republicans are gonna be in a pretty difficult place once Trump is done. Cause he has a ah unique electoral appeal. right That I don't know if it can be replicated with J.D. Vance. I don't know if it can be replicated with Trump Jr. And what we're looking at might be a similar situation to like what happened with the Democrats after Barack Obama in 2016. Barack Obama was a juggernaut, electorally. But then Hillary lost in 2016 and the Democrats got lost a thousand seats over his reign as president at the you know state and local
Rise of anti-incumbent sentiment
00:40:52
Speaker
level. And so I think the Republicans are going to be in a similar place. And it's just a matter of Democrats being organized in the meantime.
00:41:00
Speaker
and intelligent in the meantime, and abiding our time and just waiting for that moment where we can strike. I think we're also in an anti-incumbent era, just in general. Obviously, inflation contributed this time, but with social media, viral political messages, and the willingness to ah speak to people's frustrations, people are always going to be frustrated at who's in power. And now they're in power, and it helps that they're going to do unpopular things as well.
00:41:21
Speaker
um I think that ah to add to what you said, there's also an element of telling our own story. I think resist last time was basically just anti-Trumpism. And that's what the Democratic Party together for a long time. People are tired of that. People are, they've already know what they think about Trump. They're tired of him. They're tired of all of this.
00:41:38
Speaker
They want a positive story about the brokenness of our politics, and a lot of people are cynical about the ability for things to change. The thing I see in my family members, the ones that are just consistently disengaged, is they just don't think the government can deliver for them. right The only thing the government consistently delivers is broken promises. Everybody comes in with new ideas, how we're going to fix all these problems, and we're still hearing about them. you know the national I listened to old debates. They were talking about the national debt back then. Now that now we're borrowing $2 trillion dollars this year. like Nothing ever changes. right And so I think that something that Democrats should do and us in our media space should do. it's Tell a broader story about the brokenness of American politics. like why Why does it seem like nothing ever works, like ever? like and And no matter who you elect, things are still, I mean, blue states are not utopias.
00:42:22
Speaker
Blue flu states got a lot of problems on their own. Why does this keep happening over and over and over again? And so that's actually one of the questions we wrote wrote down. What do you think is the fundamental brokenness at the heart of Americans, like political institutions? What is like the big thing that we need to solve to make all the other problems, all the other good policies easier easier to fix? Well, I'll answer that in a second, but first of all, I will say I do think it's a little bit of a misnomer because Medicare, incredibly popular. Social Security, incredibly popular. So people actually take for granted the really good parts of the government that function and function really well. And, you know, I think that's that part I think is a messaging problem. I think to remind people like, hey, it's not a coincidence that these programs are the most popular and these are the ones that give you the most direct help, right?
00:43:05
Speaker
But to your broader question, yeah, look, I think the answer is very simple, actually. I think that from, I believe 1974 was the year that was the first Supreme Court case case in the modern era vis-a-vis money in politics, and there were three or four consecutive cases, which basically said, look, we're going to define money in our political system as free speech.
00:43:25
Speaker
So you have these things like super PACs where you can spend unlimited money trying to get somebody elected. And it basically opened the floodgates of rampant and obvious corruption and bribery. And so you have various billionaires, various corporate interests who give money to these politicians to run their campaign. And the politicians get in there and lo and behold, oh, would you look at that? They serve the billionaires and the corporations and they don't serve the people. A great example of this is the famous promise that hard and almost never got fulfilled, which is, oh, we need to ah We need to ah negotiate for lower drug prices with the drug companies. Right? And every president would say it. George W. Bush said it didn't do it. Barack Obama said it didn't do it. Joe Biden actually said it. He did end up doing it, but it' only it's only like 10 drugs and then more over time. Right? And why is that? Why is it the case? This thing that's so popular, which everybody wants, it wasn't done. The reason's very simple. You know, Big Pharma donates a lot of money. to These politicians and the politicians represent Big Pharma over the over the will of the American people. So I think
00:44:22
Speaker
the The most important thing to do, and this is way easier said than done, by the way, this would be a very, very difficult process, but you would have to get a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics and set up what's called clean elections. Clean elections is this idea of publicly financed election. Everybody gets basically $100 or $200 voucher or whatever it is. You get to spend it ah on whichever politician you'd like to donate to their campaign. And that way, you have more of an argument based around ideas and policies and philosophies, as opposed to Hey, which set of donors is going to get their way this time, right? And so I think that's at the core of what's gone wrong in our political system. Because if you look at the polls, it's actually kind of amazing how much agreement there is on a variety of issues in this country. So, for example, something like 80 or 90 percent of the American people would like universal background checks on gun purchases, something that's very simple.
00:45:08
Speaker
We don't have it. Why don't we have it? Well, the NRA gave all the money in the world to virtually every elected Republican at the national level, and they would block any piece of legislation that has that has that policy, right? So ah I think that's the solution again.
00:45:21
Speaker
It's easier said than done because really a constitutional amendment is the way to do it and make it ironclad. I'm sure there's other ways you can crash craft a legislation to try to rein in the negative impact of money in politics. The problem is very likely in that scenario you'd have a court case over it, it would get to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court would slap down whatever new law it is and say, no, we said money is speech, therefore money is speech and this law is null and void, right? So it's it's ah it's a tough thing to accomplish, but I really do think that's at the core of what's gone wrong in our politics.
00:45:50
Speaker
one of the One of the things that I can agree with you on is, or at least one it like when it comes to money in politics is I'd like to see really clear transparency on the issue um at the very minimum. And I think you could do some of that without a constitutional amendment, basically ah make it very clear where the money's coming from ah so that people are aware of who they're voting for. um I think there is you know there's this this anecdote about this idea, everyone should be wearing you know patches on their jackets, who they're representing.
00:46:17
Speaker
And I think that makes a lot of sense. The reason why, i and Mike, I'm sure you have some thoughts on this, but one of the reasons why I have never really gone full bore on the the constitutional amendment to get money out of politics is that I feel like it's almost virtually impossible. You know, like you you put these things behind closed doors and then it becomes different things, right? It becomes gifts that are kind of obscured. And so I i look at it and I go, the transparency routes the way I go. But I do think that there is some of that.
00:46:42
Speaker
um Well, I mean, you could cap contributions of unions and corporations. You could just ban them from contributing at all and do this democracy dollars idea that Kyle talks about. I think that's very interesting. The argument I've seen against it is, you know, maybe people, since it's like not their money, you're just going to donate it like, uh,
00:46:58
Speaker
you know, in strange ways to like yeah really right wing populist candidates. To me, I think absolutely there's no argument that corporations and all types of special interest groups should just not really be able to donate at least as much as they are. I mean, you look at so many of our laws in the books today and you're like, these are crazy. Like would anybody ever agree with some of these laws?
00:47:16
Speaker
um like you know i i I keep mentioning this one in the state of Texas, you can't ah ah car dealerships have a monopoly on car sales. like ah Ford, Tesla, all these other companies can't sell on to you online. Now, we all know how bad car dealerships are, right? Why don't they ban that competition? Oh, the car dealerships, the realtors, and something that I i wish people more people got. um If you look at the top lobbyists in America,
00:47:41
Speaker
some of it's like groups that you might know if somebody they're they're part of it like realtors they're number one in the country they do that for a reason like they're all getting they're all buying something you don't pay billions of dollars without buying something and they use regulations which are supposed to protect people to protect themselves from competition they get corporate welfare and all these kind of things which is why i think Like, trying to solve this government trust problem is is one of the ones that I think we should focus on first because even when we try to do something that is good, right, like a universal social program, which I think we need more of, a lot of times the special interest groups hijack it.
00:48:16
Speaker
um Like yeah you know you remember the childcare plan under bill back better. It wasn't universal actually. And there was a bunch of weird regulations that were included within it that actually raised childcare costs for half the population. Matt Brunig talked about this. ah you Or you look at um and some of the bills that bind did pass. There's a lot of weird requirements which were added in here. And there's a permitting process and all these procedural barrier barriers that prevent this stuff from actually being articulated. Now, do you think that campaign finance is the only thing we have to fix or do you think there's other things we could do like banning gerrymandering which are also worth I think that's important too I think that's important too to your point I think I think Democrats since Reagan and on so like under Clinton and Obama even up to this day I really think that their instinct is always to means test stuff I really think they're there in their minds they're like
00:49:08
Speaker
Look, universal programs are they're a thing of the past. We don't think we could do them anymore or should do them anymore. And I think they're worried if they do universal programs, they get attacked by Republicans as you want to give rich people more support. Because if you do a universal program, everybody gets the support. It's not just you know targeted at the bottom. But to your point, you create a much bigger, more complex and silly bureaucracy when you do means test.
00:49:33
Speaker
And there's more red tape, there's more hurdles to get over, et cetera. And so I think universal programs are just superior. And you mentioned Matt Bruning. Matt Bruning makes a lot of really like phenomenal arguments on this front as to why universal programs are ah superior. But no, I think you're right. I think you're right. There are other problems too. Gerrymandering, like you said, is a huge one. I mean, there's a million things yeah that we need to tackle. One thing I would say, and I'm curious what you guys think about this as liberals,
00:49:58
Speaker
um I've always been a big fan of direct ballot initiatives. i loved you Yeah, I love direct ballot initiatives because you see these weird things happen all
Direct ballot initiatives and public opinion
00:50:07
Speaker
the time, right? Like in Florida, famous example people give, I think it's from 2016, is Trump won the state, but increased minimum wage passed by a direct vote. And it's like... Okay, that doesn't exactly make sense ah because Trump is not gonna raise the minimum wage and Hillary may have raised it a little bit, right? But they voted for a higher minimum wage and they voted for Trump. And so when you give people a direct vote, this is always so interesting to me. When you give people a direct vote on a specific issue and you remove any semblance of partisan politics, Democrat, Republican from it.
00:50:39
Speaker
In my experience, I normally agree with the winning side like 80% of the time. And so I think we're a lot, like, the American public is a lot closer on these things than people often give us credit for. I think we get lost in the weeds of culture war stuff, etc. Yeah, and I actually think a lot of the reasons why that happens is because, to the point about gerrymandering, it's because we have this completely screwed up voting system. You know,
00:51:02
Speaker
ah when you When you have the partisans writing the maps, they're they're creating districts in which the partisans have you know the ability to win, ah easier and easier every year. I mean, I live in Tennessee, which is an incredibly gerrymandered state, um and really the only competition in these states are in the primaries. That's it. right So if I want to run is a as a candidate in this state and win, I have to go play ball in a Republican primary.
00:51:26
Speaker
And you know where the incentives are, right? It pulls people into these really fringe extremes to win out in a primary and then they get out of the general election and they've got all this baggage or they had or they or they are whack jobs in and of themselves, right? Because they made it through these primaries.
00:51:40
Speaker
And I don't think this is unique necessarily to the right. The right is way worse, but the incentives there are not incentives that say build a coalition or articulate a vision that's best for your constituents. It's appeal to this fringe 10%, 5% minority in your district in order to say the right words to get out of the primary. And that's how we end up in situations where the general public support these reforms, but our lawmakers are completely off base, completely yeah connected. And you're going to see this exact thing now with, again, MAGA Republican Party. That's what it is going forward. yeah CNN just did a segment on this where the most MAGA candidate now is leading everywhere for the elections in the foreseeable future.
00:52:22
Speaker
And this is this is the consequence of that, right? and ah And again, to your point, it's a great point. North Carolina, we just saw this in North Carolina where the Democrat won the governorship and the Republican stepped in and said, we're just going to take all of the power away from the governor. The governor will have no more power. right So it's you know it it's it's dark, man. It's dark. I would love...
00:52:43
Speaker
I don't know what exactly the solution is on gerrymandering, but I would absolutely love to see some legislation on that to to to fix it because so many states are gerrymandering to the high heavens. Yeah, I i could agree. It's one of the like the core issues, I think, that are causing problems right now. And not to get too much in the weeds on this, but I did i was reading an article a couple years ago about this idea of using AI-generated maps where it can generate every possible variation of a fair map and then compare those maps to like what the actual legislature is drawing.
00:53:10
Speaker
I was like, well, that's something that would not have been possible in like 1850. Algorithmically drawn districts is like the nerd consensus affinity, but there's a lot of ways that you can make the system better than what we have. yeah As Josh talked about, partisan primaries have terrible effects on people's incentives. I like jungle primaries. There's a lot of these institutional changes that you see would just change the incentives of politicians. I think most people intuitively understand this, that politicians are people too.
00:53:36
Speaker
Politicians do what's in their own interest. It's a career for them. And the problem is what's in their interest a lot is a lot of times something that's pretty bad, right? And so you want to change the campaign finance laws. You can also change the information they're exposed to. I don't think people realize how much we rely on lobbyists in this country.
00:53:51
Speaker
ah You know, lobbyists are not just whining and dining. and but They are whining and dining, but they're not just giving money to politicians. They're just getting in their ears all the time. And we don't have tons of internal policy research to give us like actual evidence-based stuff on this. Like we we hear about hospitals problems from the Hospitals Association. And it's like, well, is the Hospitals Association really going to tell you the unbiased truth, even if it's bad for them? Probably not.
00:54:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So all the incentives are with the lobbyists and the special interests and the moneyed interests who can afford to have X number of people on Capitol Hill and who can afford to wind and dine the politicians and talk to them all the time. And so they are getting a very skewed perception. Right. And that's a real that's a real problem because you see a lot, you know, there's a lot of out of touch politicians. I mean, I'm sure you guys have seen the numbers on um how wealthy the politicians are relative to the to the general public, I forget the exact number, it's like 60% of them are millionaires or something like that, or more than that. It's like, that's gonna, you know, what kind of a government are you gonna get when it's it's like, that's the sliver of the population that's there. People talk about diversity all the time from the perspective of like, race and gender, et etc. What about class diversity?
00:55:03
Speaker
right What about somebody who has to work two jobs in order to pay the bills? that guy you know If that guy's in the room, he probably would have made some decisions that would have been better for people at the bottom of the economic ladder. I mean, Tim Walz is a great example of this. Union guy, not wealthy guy, and you know I think he did some phenomenal policies in Minnesota. Wish he was our next VP. yeah Well, I, Micah and I, and several of the other members of the steering committee, we like to frame it as an incentive problem because what we need to do is fix the system so that the incentives are lined up so that even if you have somebody who's completely deranged or somebody who's completely off base, they are incentivized to make the right decision. Right? And that's kind of the way we look at these challenges is.
00:55:44
Speaker
in what ways can we fix the incentives of society to kind of move people in the right direction so that they're intuitively making those decisions on their own, independent of necessary, you know, going to jail. A lot of people are just like waiting for like some great politician to be elected that's going to like do everything amazing. And I don't think they realize that like a lot of the stuff is like just the structures of our government are like really bad and they prevent the good change. There's a lot of good people who go into government who want to do good things and they either do the good things or try to do the good things and lose or they decide to make a lot of sacrifices to stay in office because that's what our broken, corrupted political system demands of them.
00:56:20
Speaker
Now, we did have ah ah we wanted to pivot to another topic here. ah You describe yourself as a left-wing populist. A lot of people in the liberal space view populism as something that's like inherently, definitionally almost bad. So I want to just have a discussion about what populism means to you, and because I think that we probably just a lot of liberals just define it very differently than you do.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, no, I would say it's just representing the will of the average American, you know? ah And there was a time when people would say, oh, you know, ah Trump's a populist. I'm thinking back 2015, 2016. Trump's a populist and Bernie Sanders is a populist. And the reaction that I had, and actually, believe it or not, this was the reaction of Barack Obama, too, which I thought was interesting. He was like, Trump's not a populist. He's not. He's a conservative.
00:57:10
Speaker
right And I would argue a revolutionary conservative at that. Bernie's the real populist because he's looking out for regular people. So I would say that, and then the other thing I tell you is, I think that term, in my mind at least, it's interchangeable with Social Democrat, right? I'm a believer in social democracy. When I look, I'm, at the end of the day, I'm a big empiricist. I believe in evidence and data and what it shows me, and when I look at the Scandinavian region, for example, I see a model for us moving forward. I think they do everything Just right, in the sense that it's a mix of both capitalism and socialism. They try to take the best aspects of both of them. They have stuff like universal health care systems, for example, paid vacation time, for example, higher wages. A lot of the countries there have basically like across the board unionization. But then you mix that with
00:57:59
Speaker
ah the competitive advantage that you would get from a market economy in the proper areas, right, properly regulated, etc. And so that's basically what that means to me. Left-wing populist basically means social Democrat and somebody who just wants to represent the will of the average American, which, you know, in the context of the U.S., it seems like that's almost that's like an outsider thing to believe, right? When you look at when you look at the politicians, I mean, it's just Certainly most of my life, you didn't get much of that. the the The closest we got, we only sniffed it when Bernie Sanders was close to winning the primary. right like so And to put it in an American context, FDR is who I look at as the model. right And it's it's driven me kind of crazy that since FDR, we've had, of course, Reagan in the neoliberal era.
00:58:44
Speaker
And I really want to wake the Democrats up and get them to move away from the Bill Clinton era, move towards more FDR-type thinking. Big, bold universal programs. The government actually can be used for good. The government doesn't have to be this negative, bad thing that we all pay our taxes and we're like, ugh, going to stupid wars and whatever the hell else it's going towards.
00:59:07
Speaker
And so, you know, for me, it's just I got to convince people that that better world is possible, that the government can actually be used for positive things. It has in the past. It can happen again. We have models that exist in the world right now as we talk that are that are carrying it out pretty well.
00:59:22
Speaker
It's interesting because when I talk to like the people in the liberal coalition, especially the people that are like really in the you know kind of in the intellectual core, they have ah they just they have a very different definition. They look at that term as like a representative of an ideology that tries to, say, lay all the feet and the problems of society on one niche group.
00:59:42
Speaker
So I mean, in some way, you could definitely initially put Bernie in that category because he might say all problems of society or a billionaire class or something, the billionaires or whatever. But, you know, that's either a more loose fit because I think you get into the nuance. Whereas, you you know, with Trump, it's like ah immigrants or the deep state or the elite or right these groups. So that's the way I look at it. And I could see why that because our audience is split. Like when we we talk to our audience, they have very a lot of them have very similar views to you on the way that they would define it.
01:00:12
Speaker
And one of the interesting things I also find- A lot of liberals watch me now. That's great. A lot of liberals watch. That's great. Yeah. One of the other interesting thing, and I'll plug my, I guess, what would make me the most center right person on this call, is the thing about Scandinavian countries is they have higher economic freedom index than the United States. Right. And I think that that's a really powerful thing because I look at markets,
01:00:36
Speaker
Markets that are actually you know free for people to kind of go out and build a better life for themselves and Pursue where they're not kind of dominated by these oligopoly powers that make it very difficult to get ahead in life That's the world that I want to pursue as a liberal as a world where people are free to kind of innovate build their own future And they don't have barriers to entry um You know yeah dude we we couldn't agree more. I mean that's you basically your point is they don't have really stupid unnecessary burdensome regulations and they're very welcoming of entrepreneurship and small business as long as what you're doing is something that's you know genuinely for the good of the society and for you know the good of yourself and your family totally fine green light do whatever you want.
01:01:18
Speaker
something I totally completely and utterly agree with. And their their taxes are not punitive. you know They have these broad-based, efficient taxes. Everybody pays taxes, but it's it's a pretty decent system. I think this is a good segue into just the broader discussion of what we mean by liberalism. I think that you know you define populism in a way that a lot of people define it. And actually, increasingly, I've been embracing populism more too, because I think populism is, in large part,
01:01:44
Speaker
ah rhetorical. It's a framing strategy. It's about being for the people against some sort of elite and some sort of system that's failed them. And populist movements around the world have tended to be pretty negative. And so liberals, I think they have like this impulse to be anti-populist because they say, well, you know, but Bernie says this fact, he's saying, you know, 60% of people living paycheck to paycheck to paycheck. It's actually 41% or something stuff like that, right? Or like, you know, the the status quo is actually better than 100 years ago when we had like, you know, proto-segregation or whatever.
01:02:12
Speaker
But I think that's a bad impulse because ultimately the political system is not working like it should. People should be upset because there's outrageous things happening 24-7. And while your life might be better than how terrible it might have been 100 years ago, it's not nearly as good as it could be. And that's because your political system is failing you. And people have these daily deep frustrations that should be spoken to and we do need bold change.
01:02:35
Speaker
now I think that the reason why me and Josh agree with the term liberal, although I come from a slightly different tradition of liberals than he does, is we think that um liberalism historically has been what has made, I think, Western countries great. It's this idea that people should be free until proven otherwise. You know, for the vast majority of the human history, we have these gargantuan states ah which made every decision for their people.
01:03:01
Speaker
And um in whenever liberalism first came about, they kind they kind of inverted the assumption of the state. They said, why don't we say we have freedom until there's a case for the government to do something? And why and instead of the government ruling over people and and telling them what their religion should be and imposing things on them, as J.D. Vance likes,
01:03:20
Speaker
Why don't we have the government be a tool, a consent-based tool of governance, for people to come together and solve the problems that none of them could solve alone? And I think in the nuances, what that means, that's maybe slightly different than for what so much social democrats think, is whenever there's a problem, I prefer the minimally mini the solution of minimal interference.
01:03:38
Speaker
but So if we have an issue like poverty, huge problem, I prefer to give people money so they have control rather than have like state monopoly services where people might not, let's say, want to go to college. right like Maybe they don't want to go to college, we made it free, why couldn't we just give them money instead?
The role of villain narratives in politics
01:03:54
Speaker
Solving climate change, instead of opposing tons of different regulations, why don't we just tax carbon emissions and all these other types of emissions and let people choose what energy they want. Do you have ah any sort of disagreement with that mindset?
01:04:07
Speaker
So ah ah my only disagreement would be, ah I like both approaches depending on the specific topic. sure right So sometimes I might cut in one direction, sometimes I might cut in the other direction, but to your point, this is why I find even a lot of like libertarian types like the idea of a universal basic income.
01:04:25
Speaker
They like the idea of what I would refer to as a social security check for all because it kind of is minimally invasive in a sense, right? It's like doing the least amount possible in order to alleviate poverty. um I would say it depends on the topic, which way I would go. But to your broader point, like, okay, here's my point of agreement. My point of agreement is.
01:04:43
Speaker
Liberal values, ah people have come to take quote-unquote liberal values for granted. Right? Liberal values are a default necessity. Things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion. These things are all like, we all take it for granted, but let me tell you something. The second ah one of them truly gets ah taken away or starts, you know, little chips here and there around the edges.
01:05:06
Speaker
People are going to realize, whoa, this is not good. We really, really don't like this. So that's our point of agreement is that sometimes people take these things for granted and they really shouldn't because they're super, super important. um The area where we might have a disagreement, although I don't know because you kind of implied that you agree there earlier, but the the whole idea of having like a villain narrative, even if you don't agree that there's an actual villain in the conversation,
01:05:33
Speaker
I've now come to the conclusion, based on this last Trump victory, that a villain narrative is actually electorally necessary. Right? So his his enemies, i think his villains, I think are he's just wrong. Like, I'm sorry, but trans people aren't a villain, immigrants are not a villain, etc. Right? What I would say is, if you want to make it super narrow and super specific,
01:05:55
Speaker
I would say you have to go after the donor class. You have to go after the big money in the political system. And this was sort of the appeal of Bernie Sanders. ah Two young people and lefties and why he sparked a movement is because I don't think you can replace what the right has, which is a compelling story, with a non-story. Sure. And that's kind of what Kamala Harris did, even though I think she ran a much better campaign than Hillary, and I had a lot of praise of her campaign.
01:06:22
Speaker
But she ah her response to Trump's narrative was, hey, ah here's my list of policies and I think we can improve your life and look at these changes I want to make. And by the way, line on graph go up. GDP is going up. So we're good. Right. And it's like, no, you needed something more compelling than that. And you have to compete with the immigrants or the problem story with no, the donor class is the problem. And we need to clean up our political system and then the government will represent you more.
01:06:47
Speaker
Well, that is a that could be a whole topic of conversation, Kyle. Maybe we could have a follow-up at some point, um because I know we're about at time. Oh, no. I couldn't agree more, though. like In the sense that humans are wired for that, right? Yeah, it's true. We're tribal. So like we do need somebody to go to war against. And if if you don't have that, your narratives are going to fall short, and you're going to underperform electorally.
01:07:13
Speaker
um The answer to that question I think is nuanced. So my answer would be a lot more nuanced. Josh knows that I've actually been making this exact same case. So i was just I was elated whenever you were saying all that because this is the case I've been making in my blog. I think liberals too much are caught in the weeds because we we're very evidence-based people. Liberals tend to be like academics and the
Complexity and oversimplification in politics
01:07:33
Speaker
like, right? They're like love to read books and they're like, well, how do we mess with this tax credit, right? right and And that's not a compelling story for most people. most people You're not going to sell nuances and pragmatism, evidence-basedism to normal people. And it doesn't need to be that complicated either. I don't think that we have to lie and say everything is because of...
01:07:54
Speaker
the capitalist billionaire class. And I think that's where you start getting a little bit too reductive where people do this anti business populism as if everything that's bad for businesses is good for Americans. I think we probably all agree that it's a little bit more complicated than that. But I think what you said is actually almost exactly correct.
01:08:10
Speaker
You could do an anti-special interest group populism. The game is rigged in a thousand different ways by a thousand different groups, and the big problem is the political system and the entrenched political elites, which protect those institutions, which allow us to consistently get ripped off, right? And that that means by the hospital association, the doctor association, the realtors, the oil and gas lobbyists, you can go down the line of all the different lobbyists and they're all getting something. That's why they keep sending money into the system. And a lot of politicians don't want to change that system because they're currently sitting on top of it and they know if it's changed, they might not be on the top anymore. Yeah. The rent seekers.
01:08:50
Speaker
yeah Rent secret populism, yep. Rent secret populism. there's ah There's something you can claim. Hey, Kyle, um we're at we're at time. Is there anything that you would
Conclusion and promotions
01:08:57
Speaker
like to plug to our audience? You're way bigger than we are, so I'm sure everyone's aware of you. But if if they want to follow you or if there's anything you want to tell them, floor is yours. ah No, thank you guys for the conversation. I really appreciate it. If people want to check out my stuff, you could see secular talk on YouTube or Kyle Klinski on Twitter. I will be on Blue Sky soon, although name is undetermined at the moment. but Thank you guys for your time. I really appreciate it. We'll keep the conversation going, and we'll build this ah lefty liberal coalition, which is absolutely vital and necessary in order to defeat MAGA and Trumpism. Absolutely. So if you're interested in learning more about Project Liberal, you can go to projectliberal dot.org. We're building, as Kyle said, a cross- the spectrum political coalition to fight back against MAGA authoritarianism in the cause of a free and open society.
01:09:40
Speaker
become a member of projectliberal dot.org slash member. um Kyle, thanks again. Micah, thank you for your time. Micah, where can people follow you on YouTube? I know you're also doing that. Micah Irfan will link it in the description. OK, follow my my brand new little YouTube channel happening in the War of Ideas. Yeah, 10 years from now, I'll check it out there with you. Don't don't get jaded by the system, man. And don't read the comments. I promise you'll you'll be you'll do great. Just don't read the comments. you All right, everyone. Thanks again. Have a wonderful afternoon.