1
00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:11,919
Speaker 1: Welcome once again to the Oath in the Office. I'm

2
00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:14,279
John Peogle Sang, please welcome the star of our show

3
00:00:14,519 --> 00:00:17,239
around Brown University. They called this man the mac the

4
00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:20,280
author of the Oath in the Office, Constitutional Law Professor

5
00:00:20,359 --> 00:00:21,239
Corey Bretschneider.

6
00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:23,559
Speaker 2: Hello, sir, Thanks so much, John.

7
00:00:23,640 --> 00:00:25,879
Speaker 3: I just had a note from a listener telling me

8
00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:29,280
that these intros are worth the price of admission, and.

9
00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:31,160
Speaker 2: So I appreciate them.

10
00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:33,840
Speaker 1: You know what, It's a free podcast, so I believe

11
00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:37,920
they're worth every penny. Absolutely, Corey, I'm so glad that

12
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:39,920
you're here today. There's so much I need to ask

13
00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:41,640
you about. Professor. I got to cheat off your paper

14
00:00:41,719 --> 00:00:43,399
in many ways. And I understand. We have a special

15
00:00:43,439 --> 00:00:44,960
guest on today's show as well.

16
00:00:45,439 --> 00:00:46,119
Speaker 2: Absolutely.

17
00:00:46,439 --> 00:00:49,799
Speaker 3: You know, we have a really important discussion about the

18
00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:54,759
President's disaster in the correspondence dinner. We're going to talk

19
00:00:54,799 --> 00:00:58,479
about that and other issues. And the guest really this

20
00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:02,439
week an amazing conversation that I pre recorded with David French,

21
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:07,040
the New York Times columnist, somebody who really defies categorization.

22
00:01:07,239 --> 00:01:10,280
He's been considered a conservative at different points, but he

23
00:01:10,359 --> 00:01:13,599
has been a brilliant critic of Donald Trump. And part

24
00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:15,439
of what we're going to talk about, which of course

25
00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:19,879
relates to everything that we discuss, is the coalition behind

26
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,760
Trump and how diffuse it is the new right, and

27
00:01:22,799 --> 00:01:25,920
it's really a deep dive not only into the different

28
00:01:26,079 --> 00:01:30,319
parts of it, including Christian nationalists, White nationalists relevant to

29
00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:33,159
topics like the Smithsonian that we'll talk about as well,

30
00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:38,159
but also how it relates to really frightening movements in

31
00:01:38,239 --> 00:01:42,920
American history, and in particular the VSHI movement in France

32
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,239
around the Nazi period, and why really we have to

33
00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:49,560
distinguish between the particular threat of Nazi, New Right and

34
00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:55,319
Old Right and vc France. Really fascinating historical discussion, thoughtful.

35
00:01:55,519 --> 00:01:57,920
You know, David and I don't always agree, but we

36
00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:01,040
also have a common vocabulary and certain a common concern

37
00:02:01,079 --> 00:02:02,359
and fighting fascism.

38
00:02:02,760 --> 00:02:05,159
Speaker 1: I'm excited for it. But meanwhile, Professor, as you know,

39
00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:09,719
FEMA and the Red Cross are still surveying the casualties

40
00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:12,360
after the human rights disaster that was the White House

41
00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:16,039
correspondence to Wow, did you watch Donald Trump? Set Corey,

42
00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:17,639
Did you see any of it?

43
00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:21,240
Speaker 3: It was really tough to watch, But I think you know, oddly,

44
00:02:21,479 --> 00:02:24,280
you know much of disaster it is, And you know,

45
00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:27,520
there's nothing worse than watching comedians bomb.

46
00:02:27,919 --> 00:02:30,360
Speaker 1: As you know, there's something worse than that. There's something

47
00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:32,680
worse than watching professionals bomb Corey go on.

48
00:02:33,039 --> 00:02:35,879
Speaker 2: Stand up comedy, but the cringe that you feel.

49
00:02:36,039 --> 00:02:38,680
Speaker 3: And yet when Trump bombed, I thought, you know, there

50
00:02:38,759 --> 00:02:41,759
is something that we're learning about this man, about his

51
00:02:41,840 --> 00:02:46,719
disposition and his lack of ability to be aware of situations.

52
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:51,680
His lack of humor tells us something about the narcissism

53
00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:52,800
of the moment.

54
00:02:52,879 --> 00:02:55,879
Speaker 1: So you know, you're way too polite, Professor. This was

55
00:02:55,919 --> 00:02:57,360
like a eulogy for charisma.

56
00:02:57,439 --> 00:02:57,639
Speaker 2: Sir.

57
00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:00,919
Speaker 1: This was like ing bar Bergmann directing bass five. Do

58
00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:03,479
you understand that's how unfunny this was, Like it was

59
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:06,719
so unfunny the crickets walked out, you know, like I

60
00:03:06,759 --> 00:03:10,319
have seen funnier Hiroshima footage, Professor Bretschneider, I have seen

61
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:13,800
Hiroshima footage with more laugh It was so unfunny. The

62
00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:16,639
silence got a writing credit at the end. I mean,

63
00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:20,319
I just felt like Lars von Trier doing crowd work,

64
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:22,960
Like what could be less funny than this? And it

65
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:25,960
was astonishing in terms of the hate. But I think

66
00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:28,759
you're right, I mean applying the stuff that we've talked

67
00:03:28,759 --> 00:03:32,719
about with authoritarianism. This was all about a tax on journalists,

68
00:03:32,719 --> 00:03:36,560
his recycled personal insults. Right. The jokes all failed, but

69
00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:42,599
it seemed like authoritarian politics relies on humiliation. Do you

70
00:03:42,639 --> 00:03:45,360
think this purpose of this speech of Trump was comedy

71
00:03:46,039 --> 00:03:46,719
or domination?

72
00:03:47,719 --> 00:03:50,039
Speaker 3: Well, you know, he got evidently a right wing comic

73
00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:52,599
who's evidently not very funny. And part of what made

74
00:03:52,639 --> 00:03:55,360
it so cringe, I guess is the word for it

75
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:57,759
is that he saw how badly he was bombing. Because

76
00:03:57,759 --> 00:04:00,840
what was happening in that room, and Caitlyn Collins, for instance,

77
00:04:00,879 --> 00:04:02,759
has given interviews about what it was like.

78
00:04:02,759 --> 00:04:03,680
Speaker 2: To actually watch this.

79
00:04:04,159 --> 00:04:07,240
Speaker 3: There was just dead silence, not only from journalists who

80
00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:10,199
were skeptical of him, but from his supporters. Remember that

81
00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:13,280
room was filled with the White House staff, and yet

82
00:04:13,319 --> 00:04:15,960
even they couldn't laugh because you know, all he was

83
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,000
doing was engaging in a kind of you know, bullying,

84
00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:22,720
the normal put downs about Senator Schiff and the others.

85
00:04:23,199 --> 00:04:26,199
And yet you know, there was a heroic moment wolf

86
00:04:26,279 --> 00:04:31,040
Blitzer giving an award to journalists for covering Trump's connection

87
00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:32,360
to the Epstein files.

88
00:04:32,399 --> 00:04:35,680
Speaker 2: For uncovering that disgusting.

89
00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:38,920
Speaker 3: Picture that he drew for Jeffrey Epstein and really being

90
00:04:39,079 --> 00:04:42,920
detailed in the description of it. I saw Caitlin Collins

91
00:04:42,959 --> 00:04:45,759
talking about her friendship with well Blitzer, and really they

92
00:04:45,759 --> 00:04:49,120
were the two stars. She receiving the president's hate and

93
00:04:49,199 --> 00:04:53,240
really giving him nothing back, and Blitzer just to his face,

94
00:04:53,439 --> 00:04:56,560
really talking about what it is to stand up to

95
00:04:56,600 --> 00:04:58,839
a bully. And that's what gives her award to these

96
00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:00,079
journalists was all about.

97
00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:03,120
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, Blitzer literally handed an award to a woman

98
00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:06,160
who Trump had doxed, and he revealed how Trump had

99
00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:09,000
endangered her safety. And he's doing all this, Corey, and

100
00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:11,879
Trump is sitting right there just Trump has just taking

101
00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:14,959
it like a Democrat, just sitting there like a Democrat

102
00:05:15,279 --> 00:05:18,240
being a pinata, taking all those I mean, what was

103
00:05:18,279 --> 00:05:20,920
weird for me was not so much that he openly

104
00:05:20,959 --> 00:05:24,240
blamed the joke writers when the jokes fail, that's him,

105
00:05:24,759 --> 00:05:29,040
but the speech itself, it seemed to oscillate between demanding

106
00:05:29,079 --> 00:05:32,439
approval from the audience while also attacking them. Then you

107
00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:34,120
notice that like he wanted them to like him, but

108
00:05:34,199 --> 00:05:38,079
he couldn't stop insulting them. Does that contradiction reveal something

109
00:05:38,079 --> 00:05:40,279
to you about authoritarian leadership.

110
00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:42,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think it reveals two things.

111
00:05:42,639 --> 00:05:45,920
Speaker 3: One is that for him, for this authoritarian and you know,

112
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,120
I get into this with David French. There are authoritarians

113
00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:52,600
who have abhorrent philosophies, you might call them. They write

114
00:05:52,600 --> 00:05:56,439
books mind compost Famously, Donald Trump doesn't have a philosophy.

115
00:05:56,480 --> 00:06:00,480
He has a disposition, and his disposition is both narism

116
00:06:00,639 --> 00:06:03,360
looking for praise no matter what. As he often tells us,

117
00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:05,560
I like people who like me. I don't like people

118
00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:08,560
who don't like me. So when Caitlin Collins from CNN

119
00:06:08,639 --> 00:06:11,360
asked him a question that he doesn't like, specifically, she

120
00:06:11,399 --> 00:06:16,920
asked him famously about his pardons for crypto currencies CEOs,

121
00:06:16,959 --> 00:06:20,680
who he was in league with and who he's benefiting.

122
00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:23,519
Speaker 2: From, and you know, he shuts her down. He just responds.

123
00:06:23,759 --> 00:06:27,079
Speaker 3: So he both wants that love and he instinctively is

124
00:06:27,079 --> 00:06:31,040
an authoritarian in the sense that any dissent, any criticism,

125
00:06:31,160 --> 00:06:35,079
any question. And that's actually an important point about authoritarianism.

126
00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:39,000
It's sat odds with reasoning and questioning that scene as

127
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,879
a threat. So he doesn't, unlike some of the New Right,

128
00:06:42,079 --> 00:06:43,680
have a deep philosophy.

129
00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:46,439
Speaker 2: He has a disposition, but we saw it on full display.

130
00:06:46,839 --> 00:06:49,240
Speaker 3: And one last thing to say about this is, you know,

131
00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:51,160
although I did learn from it, and you know, we're

132
00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:54,199
having an interesting discussion about it, the main lesson was

133
00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:56,839
it was a mistake. And this isn't somebody that you

134
00:06:56,959 --> 00:06:59,680
can invite to an event that is supposed to be

135
00:06:59,720 --> 00:07:02,879
a set celebration of the First Amendment, the celebration of

136
00:07:02,959 --> 00:07:05,360
the freedom of press. And in the background you saw

137
00:07:05,439 --> 00:07:08,560
the First Amendment. You know, there's that was the background

138
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:11,439
that they provide when you have a president who isn't

139
00:07:11,519 --> 00:07:14,439
disagreeing with the press or not liking the coverage, he

140
00:07:14,639 --> 00:07:16,560
is trying to shut it down.

141
00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:19,759
Speaker 2: That is his goal. Yeah, so it was a mistake.

142
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:23,800
Speaker 3: And Peter Baker, who I've collaborated with and for instance,

143
00:07:23,879 --> 00:07:25,800
he did an interview with me about my book right

144
00:07:25,839 --> 00:07:27,959
before it came out in the New York Times. You know,

145
00:07:28,079 --> 00:07:31,600
somebody really is good at covering this president. He admitted

146
00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:33,480
it was a mistake. We shouldn't do it again.

147
00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:36,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's completely right. I mean, I just

148
00:07:36,079 --> 00:07:38,079
want to say one other thing about the comedy. You know,

149
00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:42,959
there are no great right wing comics. There are great

150
00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:46,759
comics who are right wing, but they don't do material

151
00:07:47,199 --> 00:07:51,519
as a right wing comic, because great comedy involves punching up,

152
00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:54,040
not punching down. And this is something that it's true

153
00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:56,480
in religioon it's true in Christianity, it's true in comedy,

154
00:07:56,480 --> 00:07:59,480
and it's true in politics. You don't punch down on

155
00:07:59,519 --> 00:08:01,759
those weeks than you. You go to a comedy club

156
00:08:01,759 --> 00:08:03,319
and you'll, you know, go on a weeknight where you

157
00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:05,439
got a bunch of hacks, and you'll see guys doing

158
00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:08,199
jokes about the homeless. You'll see guys doing jokes about

159
00:08:08,199 --> 00:08:11,160
developmentally disabled people. They'll say they r word all this nonsense,

160
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:13,560
and then you know, maybe some people will laugh, and

161
00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:15,759
you'll go home and you'll feel dirty because you're punching

162
00:08:15,839 --> 00:08:18,720
down on people weaker than you. This is why there

163
00:08:18,720 --> 00:08:22,319
are no great right wing comics, because you're defending the

164
00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:25,800
status quo, and you can't be funny while defending those

165
00:08:25,839 --> 00:08:28,199
in power unless you're going to be mean. This is

166
00:08:28,199 --> 00:08:31,240
what this new right alt comedy, These these these humps

167
00:08:31,279 --> 00:08:33,600
like THEO Vaughn push on us. It's punching down and

168
00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:37,799
immigrants and minorities and LGBTQ people and journalists as well

169
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:40,120
and I just wanted to ask you do you find

170
00:08:40,159 --> 00:08:41,720
that politically significant?

171
00:08:42,519 --> 00:08:44,759
Speaker 3: You know, John, I of course you are a stand

172
00:08:44,799 --> 00:08:48,000
up comedian. You do comedy. I am a fan of it.

173
00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:50,799
So you know what you're saying is really making me think,

174
00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:53,519
because as I watched him, I thought, this is the

175
00:08:53,639 --> 00:08:56,279
least funny thing I've ever seen. The silence in the room.

176
00:08:56,279 --> 00:08:58,679
You can feel it in your soul watching this person. Now,

177
00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:01,720
why is it so un funny? Because it doesn't even

178
00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:03,759
approach something that would get a laugh.

179
00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:06,440
Speaker 2: It is just pure bullying, and hearth it is.

180
00:09:06,799 --> 00:09:09,320
Speaker 3: And you know he thinks it's funny because the bully

181
00:09:09,399 --> 00:09:13,279
enjoys the bullying. The bully thinks that punching down, as

182
00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:16,480
you so perfectly put it, is funny. And you know,

183
00:09:16,639 --> 00:09:19,360
when you watch it, it's just sad. It's just somebody

184
00:09:19,399 --> 00:09:21,799
without any awareness and without you know, I think also

185
00:09:21,879 --> 00:09:23,960
humor at its best it gets to a kind of

186
00:09:24,039 --> 00:09:27,399
humanity or reflection, and that's not what this was.

187
00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:29,200
Speaker 2: This was anti humanity. If anything.

188
00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:30,919
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want you to be sad, Corey, so

189
00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:32,960
let me let me give you some good news, and

190
00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:35,759
that is that the Tape brothers were arrested, and that

191
00:09:35,799 --> 00:09:38,759
They are being extradited to the UK for fifty nine

192
00:09:38,879 --> 00:09:42,759
charges ranging from child poorn to rape to trafficking, and

193
00:09:42,799 --> 00:09:44,840
these guys are going to be in jail for a

194
00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:47,320
very long time now. A year ago we talked about

195
00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:51,120
this when Trump was inaugurated and they triumphantly welcomed Andrew

196
00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:54,480
and Tristan back from their prison sell in Romania, which

197
00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:57,080
you guys might right if you guys remember them. The

198
00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:00,960
tapes are these grifting, violent, misogynist losers with all the

199
00:10:01,039 --> 00:10:04,080
humanity of a prison urinal, and they do these manisphere

200
00:10:04,159 --> 00:10:07,399
videos where they teach guys how to blame real women

201
00:10:07,519 --> 00:10:10,320
for their problems in their life and monetize resentment and

202
00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:13,639
disparage female psychology to other virgins. And these guys who've

203
00:10:13,639 --> 00:10:16,600
gotten very rich off of this mentality that women are

204
00:10:16,639 --> 00:10:20,080
property and empathy is weakness and reading books is gay.

205
00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:23,120
But Donald Trump a year ago was welcoming them. The

206
00:10:23,159 --> 00:10:26,440
Trump kids were buddies with them, and they were saying, how, oh,

207
00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:28,240
Trump's going to help us, and Trump's the greatest, We're

208
00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:30,559
going to help him. What does it say now that

209
00:10:30,600 --> 00:10:33,759
a year later, Professor, they sprung them from Romania. But

210
00:10:33,799 --> 00:10:37,039
evidently Trump or Susie Wiles or someone in this White

211
00:10:37,080 --> 00:10:40,759
House decided we're already handling rapists with the Epstein files.

212
00:10:40,799 --> 00:10:43,080
We don't need these guys. I think the most significant

213
00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:46,519
thing about this, what it says about the manisphere, is

214
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:49,360
that Trump's cutting these guys loose after all this hype

215
00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:52,000
and all these years. They're going to England and they're

216
00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:53,360
going to be in jail for a long time.

217
00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:56,240
Speaker 3: You know, on this podcast, we're always trying to be

218
00:10:56,279 --> 00:10:59,039
honest about the threat to democracy, but we're also looking

219
00:10:59,240 --> 00:11:02,559
for moments in which democracy is pushing back and democracy

220
00:11:02,639 --> 00:11:03,000
is winning.

221
00:11:03,039 --> 00:11:04,559
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think this is one of them.

222
00:11:05,039 --> 00:11:07,960
Speaker 3: Because Donald Trump, you know, his son Baron is a

223
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:09,440
big fan of the Tape Brothers.

224
00:11:09,519 --> 00:11:11,000
Speaker 2: He's evidently in touch with them.

225
00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:13,200
Speaker 3: The idea, by the way, that that shouldn't be covered

226
00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:15,600
by the media because this is the son of the president,

227
00:11:15,720 --> 00:11:17,559
he's no longer a minor. I think that is a

228
00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:20,039
fair game, and in fact, it's an illustration of what's

229
00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:22,759
so pernicious about the Tape Brothers, because they're not just

230
00:11:22,919 --> 00:11:26,159
engaged in misogyny, they are selling it, and they're selling it,

231
00:11:26,279 --> 00:11:29,320
unfortunately to children and young people, and teaching them that

232
00:11:29,399 --> 00:11:31,279
to be a misogynist is to be a man the

233
00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:35,799
worst forum of anti female violence and disparagement. You know,

234
00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:38,159
that's what they're selling, and that's why they are such

235
00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:41,200
a threat. One thing, you know, this also prefigures some

236
00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:43,440
of what I'll talk about with David French. But there's

237
00:11:43,480 --> 00:11:47,360
so much of the different coalitions behind Trump so different.

238
00:11:47,399 --> 00:11:50,639
I mean, the Christian Nationalist support for Trump is of

239
00:11:50,639 --> 00:11:54,440
course very different than the Tate brother Manisphere support or

240
00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:58,600
a related podcast support. And yet you know, all of

241
00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:01,960
a sudden there's weakness. Why is their weakness? Because Susie Wilds,

242
00:12:02,039 --> 00:12:05,080
this is my surmise, I don't have direct reporting on this,

243
00:12:05,639 --> 00:12:09,320
realizes that as a result of our guest, Katie Fang's

244
00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:12,360
lawsuit and other ways in which the Epstein files are

245
00:12:12,399 --> 00:12:17,279
becoming front and center an illustration of Trump's own misogyny.

246
00:12:17,320 --> 00:12:20,120
After all, this is an adjudicated rapist at the Supreme

247
00:12:20,159 --> 00:12:25,440
Court has refused to overturn the decision awarding his victim

248
00:12:26,039 --> 00:12:30,960
monetary damages for this rape and for his lies about it.

249
00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:33,799
And you know what is all that show that we

250
00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:35,679
are starting to become aware of what we should have

251
00:12:36,039 --> 00:12:38,639
all been aware of. But even his own base is

252
00:12:38,639 --> 00:12:41,759
becoming aware of not just his misogyny, but of his

253
00:12:41,799 --> 00:12:45,440
sexual assaults, of his violence. And so if he associates

254
00:12:45,519 --> 00:12:48,679
himself directly with the Tape Brothers by fighting their extradition,

255
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:51,799
for instance, that just makes things so much worse. So

256
00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:54,759
he must be hearing even internally from those who are

257
00:12:54,759 --> 00:12:57,840
trying to protect them, like Susie Wilds's chief of staff,

258
00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:01,159
I should say that no more Tape Brothers because it

259
00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:05,080
just highlights your association not just rapist scene, but.

260
00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:08,639
Speaker 1: With sexual abusers and trap. Yeah, exactly right. There's nothing

261
00:13:08,639 --> 00:13:10,960
for him to gain. He's not running for office again.

262
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:12,679
And I just want to say about the Manisphere, because

263
00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:15,840
it's very interesting that the Manosphere as they call it,

264
00:13:15,879 --> 00:13:18,480
is becoming such a comfortable home for trump Ism. It's

265
00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:20,559
not really a movement, you know. It's it's more like

266
00:13:20,639 --> 00:13:25,159
group therapy where no one's ever allowed to meet. They're sad,

267
00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:27,440
you know what I mean. Like the Manisphere is a

268
00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:31,600
support group for young men who desperately need hugs, and

269
00:13:31,639 --> 00:13:34,759
they've been convinced that hugs are woke socialism, you know

270
00:13:34,799 --> 00:13:38,000
what I'm saying. Like, guys like the Tates don't cure loneliness,

271
00:13:38,039 --> 00:13:41,559
they feed on it, and I think the manisphere, not everyone,

272
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:44,840
but generally it's where emotionally unavailable men go to learn

273
00:13:44,840 --> 00:13:48,840
how to become even less emotionally available. And again they

274
00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:53,039
masculinity is dominance, right women are adversaries, Empathy is weakness.

275
00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:57,799
There's a lot of overlap between that worldview and authoritarian politics.

276
00:13:58,639 --> 00:14:01,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, there are a real deficits in

277
00:14:01,639 --> 00:14:06,000
the society loneliness, for instance, among young men, you know,

278
00:14:06,559 --> 00:14:11,840
inability to find fulfillment in intimate relationships. And what happens

279
00:14:11,840 --> 00:14:14,080
as a result of those failures in the society and

280
00:14:14,159 --> 00:14:16,919
the isolation is something is going to fill it. And

281
00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,679
that's what right wing movements do. They cater to a

282
00:14:19,759 --> 00:14:22,320
kind of weakness in the society, but they don't cater

283
00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:24,240
to it in a way that lifts it up or

284
00:14:24,399 --> 00:14:24,960
solves it.

285
00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:26,000
Speaker 2: It makes it worse.

286
00:14:26,279 --> 00:14:29,240
Speaker 3: I should say too, you know about Donald Trump's lack

287
00:14:29,279 --> 00:14:31,879
of ideology, as I've been putting it, you know, I

288
00:14:31,879 --> 00:14:35,279
would see authoritarian character is a way to put it,

289
00:14:35,399 --> 00:14:38,960
or personality as opposed to ideas. Because he has no ideas.

290
00:14:39,279 --> 00:14:42,440
It fits poorly with some aspects of the New Right

291
00:14:42,559 --> 00:14:46,120
and better with others. And you know, the Christian nationalism

292
00:14:46,159 --> 00:14:48,679
and Donald Trump are not a natural ally.

293
00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:51,440
Speaker 2: You know, this isn't somebody who really is well versed

294
00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:52,360
in the Bible.

295
00:14:52,399 --> 00:14:54,480
Speaker 3: He's not going to sit there John and debate with

296
00:14:54,559 --> 00:14:58,399
you about any Biblical text, because I'm sure he hasn't

297
00:14:58,399 --> 00:15:01,279
read it and doesn't care and doesn't But what he

298
00:15:01,399 --> 00:15:03,919
does fit with so well. And this is one of

299
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:06,559
the unfortunate things that helped him I think in the campaign,

300
00:15:06,919 --> 00:15:09,960
for instance, his interview with Joe Rogan, which so many

301
00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:14,639
people saw, is that his misogyny fits perfectly in the

302
00:15:14,759 --> 00:15:17,879
manisphere and that that really is I think part of

303
00:15:17,919 --> 00:15:21,679
his power, but also part of what's being exposed for

304
00:15:21,879 --> 00:15:25,720
the history of violence that's associated with him, and that

305
00:15:25,799 --> 00:15:27,960
really is you know that that is a good thing.

306
00:15:28,519 --> 00:15:31,679
Speaker 1: Not oh hey, what's more alpha than four dollars for

307
00:15:31,759 --> 00:15:33,480
a gallon of gas? All right, we got to take

308
00:15:33,519 --> 00:15:35,320
a very quick break, Professor. I have a lot more

309
00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:38,080
to talk with you about, including some questions about censorship

310
00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:42,320
or stochastic self censorship and who's resisting. We'll be right

311
00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:47,480
back on the Oath in the office.

312
00:15:47,919 --> 00:15:51,799
Speaker 4: The new John Fiegel Saying Show every day at twelve noon.

313
00:15:51,919 --> 00:15:54,960
Speaker 5: Good afternoon, John, and welcome back to Afternoon Radio.

314
00:15:55,159 --> 00:15:55,919
Speaker 1: I have missed you.

315
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:57,679
Speaker 2: Now you're back into the daylight.

316
00:15:57,799 --> 00:16:01,720
Speaker 6: Good afternoon, John, congratuations on the new sh Congratulations all

317
00:16:01,799 --> 00:16:03,360
the changes happening with the show.

318
00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:06,840
Speaker 3: Excited for you, Excited for me personally, like, oh my god,

319
00:16:06,879 --> 00:16:08,039
I can call an again.

320
00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:11,639
Speaker 4: The new John Fugel saying, show every day at twelve

321
00:16:11,799 --> 00:16:15,279
noon on Serious XM Progress Channel one twenty seven or

322
00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:16,720
on the Serious XM after.

323
00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:24,679
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the oath in the Office. I'm John Feugel,

324
00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:27,879
saying so, Professor Bretschneiter. Donald Trump put out an executive

325
00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:31,919
order directing federal officials. This is a weird one, Corey.

326
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:33,440
I might need you to walk me through this, but

327
00:16:33,759 --> 00:16:36,080
you know they've been going after the Smithsonian. They don't

328
00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:39,120
like museums that teach actual history that might make the

329
00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:42,559
grandchildren of racists feel weird. So a little too much

330
00:16:42,559 --> 00:16:45,080
truth for some of these people. And this is tied

331
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:47,679
into what they've done with the National Park Service, removing

332
00:16:47,679 --> 00:16:51,559
markers about embarrassing, painful parts in our country's history, erasing

333
00:16:51,559 --> 00:16:54,679
the achievement of anyone who's not a white, heterosexual male

334
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:57,720
from depending on website. But this is weird. He's attacking

335
00:16:57,720 --> 00:16:59,360
the SMITHSONI a lot. But now they want to put

336
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:03,480
temporary signs outside of the National Museum of the American

337
00:17:03,519 --> 00:17:07,960
History in DC on the sidewalks to correct what they

338
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:14,880
call inaccurate information presented in the museum. This is insane, Corey,

339
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:16,839
I mean, this is like so I mean, because I

340
00:17:16,839 --> 00:17:19,160
don't know if you know this, the Smithsonian owns a printer,

341
00:17:19,519 --> 00:17:21,920
they can hang their own signs. I'm saying, no, it's

342
00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:24,680
all true. It is yourself. They actually have access to

343
00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:28,240
a printer. Inside this it is dry. Is controlling historical

344
00:17:28,359 --> 00:17:33,519
narratives so central to authoritarian movements. This reminds me of

345
00:17:33,559 --> 00:17:35,599
the photos i'd see as a kid of how the

346
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:39,440
Soviets would photoshop cosmonauts out of old pictures because they'd

347
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,440
run a foul of the government, Like they're just doing

348
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:44,720
cultural erasure and they don't care how fake it looks.

349
00:17:45,559 --> 00:17:48,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'll begin with just the legal explanation

350
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:50,759
of what's happening, because I think it's interesting and as

351
00:17:50,799 --> 00:17:51,960
you said, it's quite weird.

352
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,319
Speaker 2: So we need to understand that the.

353
00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:57,240
Speaker 3: Smithsonian is not part of the government. It's not an

354
00:17:57,319 --> 00:18:00,880
independent agency. It's got an independent border directors in fact,

355
00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:03,599
John Roberts, the Chief Justice is the head of it.

356
00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:05,279
Speaker 1: And I feel so much better now.

357
00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:08,920
Speaker 3: And actually it's interesting right that he is really trying

358
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:11,599
not to cater. He's supporting the staff who want to

359
00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:15,119
tell the truth about American history, including the history of

360
00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:18,920
slavery and segregation and American apartheid.

361
00:18:19,039 --> 00:18:20,480
Speaker 2: And you know, I should.

362
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:23,599
Speaker 3: Say, too, is just to frame it when you understand

363
00:18:23,640 --> 00:18:25,559
that history. And this is true of my book, The

364
00:18:25,599 --> 00:18:28,359
Presidents and the People. It's true the way the Smithsonian

365
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:31,200
tells the story of American slavery and segregation.

366
00:18:31,559 --> 00:18:33,079
Speaker 2: There is a lot of hope in it too.

367
00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:35,519
Speaker 3: So the idea that it's just making people fail bad

368
00:18:35,599 --> 00:18:38,279
or it's bad news, that's the first lie here. It

369
00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:43,480
really is a story of people resisting tyranny, resisting authoritarianism.

370
00:18:43,839 --> 00:18:48,160
So it's independence is what allows it to tell continue

371
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:50,720
to tell that story. Even though the President has succeeded

372
00:18:50,759 --> 00:18:55,119
in largely gutting destroying independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission.

373
00:18:55,400 --> 00:19:00,319
Speaker 1: They slavery is depressing, slavery depressing, they do we see that.

374
00:18:59,079 --> 00:19:03,279
Speaker 3: They are standing strong. They are an independent entity. So

375
00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:05,960
now he can't control them, but he can do the

376
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,480
next best thing, which has put these stupid signs up.

377
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:10,680
One last thing, John, and then I'll throw it back

378
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,319
to you. You know, I talked about how uneasy he

379
00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:18,759
is with Christian nationalism. Yes, that isn't something that fits

380
00:19:18,759 --> 00:19:22,279
his personality authority, but the racism, I think is pretty

381
00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:24,680
native to who he is, and so that is why

382
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:25,960
he cares about this so much.

383
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:26,680
Speaker 2: So you have a mix.

384
00:19:26,759 --> 00:19:30,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, racism is white supremacy and is attempted authoritarianism.

385
00:19:30,640 --> 00:19:32,920
Speaker 2: But again, good news. People are fighting back.

386
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:35,720
Speaker 3: Even John Roberts is not willing to look like he's

387
00:19:35,759 --> 00:19:38,799
catering to the president, and that's why we've got this

388
00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:39,759
weird story here.

389
00:19:40,119 --> 00:19:41,720
Speaker 1: Well, I just want to say one more thing about it.

390
00:19:41,759 --> 00:19:43,440
I mean, because I wanted to ask you about this.

391
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:47,160
This executive order. Yeah, it doesn't control the Smithsonian directly,

392
00:19:47,359 --> 00:19:49,920
so it's an executive order for the sidewalks and the

393
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:55,559
public space around. I mean, let's talk about how limp

394
00:19:55,839 --> 00:20:00,880
and flaccid and unmanly and pathetic and impotence this is.

395
00:20:01,039 --> 00:20:05,000
I mean, does this it's pathetic, Corey. I mean, you

396
00:20:05,039 --> 00:20:07,759
could put a side on the sidewalk saying don't believe

397
00:20:07,759 --> 00:20:10,519
what the museum tells you. And this is the president,

398
00:20:10,559 --> 00:20:12,720
this is all the power he has. Doesn't it reveal

399
00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:16,359
we still have limits on executive authority in this country?

400
00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:19,880
Speaker 3: It does, you know, and people continue to resist. And

401
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,039
you know, let's just say a very clear shout out

402
00:20:22,039 --> 00:20:24,839
on the same way those civil servants who are remaining

403
00:20:24,839 --> 00:20:28,039
in agencies doing their job protecting the law despite this

404
00:20:28,119 --> 00:20:29,240
authoritarian threat.

405
00:20:29,599 --> 00:20:31,759
Speaker 2: And that includes people in really all.

406
00:20:31,599 --> 00:20:34,920
Speaker 3: Of the federal government which is being taken over by

407
00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:38,119
this authoritarian threat. And yet you have civil servants fighting

408
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:41,160
back here. The Smithsonian staff are doing their jobs, I

409
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:43,759
should say. The head of the Smithsonian talked about what

410
00:20:43,799 --> 00:20:46,720
it was like to tour Donald Trump around and how

411
00:20:46,759 --> 00:20:50,279
he just had no interest, was completely bored about any

412
00:20:50,319 --> 00:20:55,079
exhibit about slavery, and course, and one other kind of

413
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:57,799
just deeper point here that there is something you said

414
00:20:57,839 --> 00:20:59,240
something about this in the beginning.

415
00:20:59,279 --> 00:21:00,640
Speaker 2: I want to pull it out even more.

416
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:05,519
Speaker 3: Part of what authoritarianism and here we're talking about racial authoritarianism,

417
00:21:05,599 --> 00:21:10,720
the idea of reinstituting white supremacy, firing military officials or

418
00:21:10,759 --> 00:21:14,000
degrading them, or demoting them, or refusing to promote.

419
00:21:13,599 --> 00:21:15,119
Speaker 2: Them because they are black.

420
00:21:15,519 --> 00:21:17,759
Speaker 3: That is what this president and Pete hag Seth under

421
00:21:17,799 --> 00:21:21,960
his direction have done. And the lack and really almost

422
00:21:22,039 --> 00:21:26,200
complete absence of black Americans in the presidential staff, in

423
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:29,880
the cabinet, all of this is an attempt to resegregate America.

424
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:33,240
We saw this before, and the role of history was

425
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:35,759
also crucial during the Wilson administration.

426
00:21:36,279 --> 00:21:40,799
Speaker 2: The federal government had been desegregated. Woodrow Wilson resegregated it.

427
00:21:41,079 --> 00:21:43,400
And it's not a mistake that he was a historian.

428
00:21:43,759 --> 00:21:47,799
Speaker 3: He in his textbook tells the story of reconstruction of

429
00:21:47,839 --> 00:21:51,920
the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment providing equal protection,

430
00:21:52,279 --> 00:21:55,440
the Fifteenth Amendment protecting a right to vote free from

431
00:21:55,519 --> 00:21:59,039
racial discrimination, at least from men. What all of that

432
00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:02,440
was turned to into for Wilson was the lie that

433
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:05,880
the post bellum amendments, those amendments didn't add a single

434
00:22:06,039 --> 00:22:08,680
right to the Constitution. That's what he was saying in

435
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:10,920
his lectures, that's what he was showing in his textbook

436
00:22:11,079 --> 00:22:16,200
where he even celebrated the ku Klux Klan, so reinstituting

437
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:21,480
white supremacy as policy for a president and literally whitewashing history,

438
00:22:21,519 --> 00:22:23,720
which is what Wilson did and what Trump is trying

439
00:22:23,759 --> 00:22:26,599
to do. That is part of the authoritarian playbook, and

440
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:27,799
that's part is not new.

441
00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:33,400
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the Trump administration professor subpoena third party providers to

442
00:22:33,519 --> 00:22:36,680
seize the phone and text records of several New York

443
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:42,000
Times journalists and their spouses and one reporter's mother. This

444
00:22:42,079 --> 00:22:46,160
leak investigation was overseen by petulant, unqualified, alcoholic dude pro

445
00:22:46,559 --> 00:22:50,559
Cash Betel, and it's pretty terrifying. I mean, the DOJ

446
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,680
is getting phone records for reporters, subpoenaing phone records for

447
00:22:54,720 --> 00:23:02,799
reporters and their family members over a leak of true information. Constitutionally,

448
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,960
where do we begin to explain why this is so troubling, sir.

449
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:08,400
Speaker 3: Well, part of it is, you know, in whenever we

450
00:23:08,559 --> 00:23:13,519
cover the attack on dissent, we recognize that these reporters

451
00:23:13,559 --> 00:23:15,640
are not going to be convicted in a court of

452
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:17,559
law and go to prison in the way that the

453
00:23:17,559 --> 00:23:21,160
newspaper editors of the Sedition Act in the eighteenth century

454
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:23,880
went to prison at the behest of John Adams.

455
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 2: Something else is going on.

456
00:23:25,759 --> 00:23:28,640
Speaker 3: They're trying to have And if you listen to Jake

457
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,960
Clayton and to the administration or Todd Blanche, they so well,

458
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:33,480
these reporters aren't being targeted.

459
00:23:33,519 --> 00:23:36,400
Speaker 2: We just want to question them under the course of law.

460
00:23:36,839 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 3: And what that all is about is is a chilling

461
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:42,599
effect because you know, the family members are involved. They

462
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:45,759
contacted these reporters in some cases in front of families,

463
00:23:46,279 --> 00:23:49,000
and you know, are hauling them into the grand jury.

464
00:23:49,519 --> 00:23:51,839
What that is about is trying to get into the

465
00:23:52,039 --> 00:23:54,680
minds of those who are doing their job as journalists

466
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,559
and telling the truth about what's happening and make them

467
00:23:57,599 --> 00:23:59,920
think twice about it, to think, you know, I might

468
00:24:00,039 --> 00:24:02,039
not do that story about Trump, maybe I.

469
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,640
Speaker 2: Can exactly something else. And so it's not about winning,

470
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,079
it's about just intimidating.

471
00:24:08,039 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 1: Self censorship, stochastic self censorship. Yeah, I mean, I got

472
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,920
to say I was a bit shocked that any journalists

473
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,160
would show up at the White House Correspondence Center, much

474
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,720
less shake his hand on stage after this. They had

475
00:24:21,799 --> 00:24:25,279
just pulled these subpoenas right before the White House Correspondent Center.

476
00:24:25,319 --> 00:24:28,359
They've already backed down. But I mean, Corey, you're targeting

477
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:34,039
journalists spouses because they leaked true information. Doesn't this cross

478
00:24:34,039 --> 00:24:36,200
a line we've rarely seen in American history?

479
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:38,759
Speaker 3: Well, John, you can tell me if you agree, But

480
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,279
you know, as much as I want to celebrate the

481
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:44,480
courage of those who were standing up, those are the Smithsonian,

482
00:24:44,799 --> 00:24:47,240
the journalists who, after all, did cover this story that

483
00:24:47,279 --> 00:24:50,680
we talked about last week, the bribe playing from guitar,

484
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,000
and you know, basically the naked corruption that's existing in

485
00:24:55,039 --> 00:24:58,960
this entire administration. Those are heroic acts, but there is

486
00:24:59,079 --> 00:25:01,880
also a lot of cowardice. And when you combine that

487
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,200
with the real threats that are out there, you know,

488
00:25:04,319 --> 00:25:07,160
it is frightening. And so I think some journalists, as

489
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:08,920
much as you know, I want to celebrate those who

490
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,920
stood up, think to themselves, well, we contame this guy.

491
00:25:12,039 --> 00:25:14,440
As wild as that is, at this moment, we can

492
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,400
at least pretend that things are normal.

493
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:17,839
Speaker 2: It's not just journalists.

494
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 3: I'm seeing it from so much of the academy, from

495
00:25:20,759 --> 00:25:23,720
Vanderbilt University, which seems to be caving in to the

496
00:25:23,759 --> 00:25:27,079
Trump administration, from those law firms that really went along

497
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:30,759
with the demand that, you know, stop criticizing the president's

498
00:25:30,799 --> 00:25:32,640
not being involved in lawsuits against him.

499
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:33,599
Speaker 2: And agreed.

500
00:25:34,039 --> 00:25:36,079
Speaker 3: So there is you know, let's be honest, that there

501
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,079
are heroic acts. They are made even more heroic when

502
00:25:39,079 --> 00:25:42,039
you recognize that there is also a lot of cowardice

503
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:44,559
at the moment, or at least, let me call it

504
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,000
something a little less harsh. In the case of the journalists,

505
00:25:47,039 --> 00:25:48,319
it's putting your head in the sand.

506
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: And yeah, that cowardice is fine. Cowardice is actually accurate, Professor,

507
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,880
because I'm thinking about you know again, it's it's not

508
00:25:55,039 --> 00:26:00,559
that they're doing government censorship. They're intimidating media into censoring themselves.

509
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,039
That's the game. And we saw this with Whitney Cummings.

510
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,759
She just, you know, did a set at the Mark

511
00:26:06,759 --> 00:26:10,720
Twain Price ceremony for Bill Maher at the Kennedy Center,

512
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,160
and she came out and said that she had all

513
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,160
of her jokes about Trump. She said he was late

514
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:19,000
because he got caught in sex traffic and that was cut.

515
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:21,839
She said all of her jokes about Trump were cut

516
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:25,960
because the staff at the Kennedy Center was terrified. Nobody

517
00:26:26,079 --> 00:26:30,680
formally banned the joke, but people feared the consequences anyway, right,

518
00:26:30,839 --> 00:26:34,920
Self censorship is essential to maintaining authoritarian systems.

519
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 3: Yes, and you know, I think that this is unfortunate

520
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:42,720
that as much as I want to applaud Whitney Cummings

521
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:45,720
for telling the truth about what happened. The fact is

522
00:26:45,759 --> 00:26:48,799
that Netflix allowed this to happen. They did televise the special.

523
00:26:48,839 --> 00:26:50,960
To me, that is giving in it is a kind

524
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:54,440
of cowardice of their executives. You know, you could add

525
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,039
something to the special where she talks about what happens,

526
00:26:57,039 --> 00:26:59,880
where she retells the joke and says, hey, this is

527
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:01,920
That would have been a great intro to it. But

528
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,319
the bottom line is, you know, it's not enough to say, hey,

529
00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:06,079
I was censored, woe is me?

530
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,559
Speaker 2: You have to actually do the work.

531
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,079
Speaker 3: And yes, it is difficult to have courage in this moment,

532
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,519
but it's so important I should say. You know, when

533
00:27:14,559 --> 00:27:18,519
government crosses the line of not just saying you know,

534
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,680
here's our opinion, or this is information we'd like you

535
00:27:21,759 --> 00:27:26,039
to carry, but threatening private entities, including Netflix, if that's

536
00:27:26,079 --> 00:27:29,240
what's going on. We had this amazing discussion with Senator

537
00:27:29,279 --> 00:27:32,480
Wyden about this. Difficult to understand, but I think listeners

538
00:27:32,519 --> 00:27:35,240
really got an idea of job owning, which is when

539
00:27:35,319 --> 00:27:38,160
it looks like private companies are self censoring, but really

540
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,400
it's coming from the government. As Widen's legislation makes it

541
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,200
clear that ought to be illegal. So go back and

542
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:46,240
listen to that. I urge listeners to do that. It

543
00:27:46,279 --> 00:27:48,960
was an amazing moment. It's certainly relevant to this story.

544
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,319
Speaker 1: I want to SKay it one more thing. Before the break,

545
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,160
Chuck Schumer said that he's going to block any proposals

546
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:59,160
to rename Penn Station after Donald Trump. Sean Duffy, who's

547
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:03,119
our Secretary of Train Intation, who's another no talent racist

548
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:07,119
twit from the Real World and MTV. He's also an

549
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,640
amoral liar. I'll put that in there too. Sean Duffy

550
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,000
announced that, oh, we're going to renovate Penn Station, and

551
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,359
we might tell Amtrak that they have to rename the

552
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:19,400
station after Donald Trump. Schumer is saying he'll block efforts

553
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:21,880
for all of this. But Corey, what is the deal

554
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,480
with the authoritarian leaders who always need to have monuments

555
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,440
or renamed buildings or museums or flags or holidays or

556
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,480
public rituals. I mean, it seems like the bigger the ego,

557
00:28:32,599 --> 00:28:35,200
the more fragile the ego when it comes to these guys.

558
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,119
Speaker 3: You know, when Donald Trump says that he admires the

559
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,759
dictator of North Korea, when he says that he Admires

560
00:28:40,799 --> 00:28:44,160
putin a lot of us rolled our eyes, and now

561
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,319
we see that's not what's going on. When you combine

562
00:28:46,319 --> 00:28:51,000
the authoritarian shutdown of free speech, the authoritarian white supremacy,

563
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,319
with this esthetic, which is to try to plaster his

564
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,559
name on everything, which as a businessman, now he's trying

565
00:28:57,559 --> 00:29:00,279
to do it as president, you really see what you're

566
00:29:00,359 --> 00:29:02,680
up against, which is a kind of authoritarianism. And it's

567
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:06,480
why it is symbols matter. The Smithsonian isn't just you know,

568
00:29:06,559 --> 00:29:09,480
some story. It is the story of our national identity.

569
00:29:09,839 --> 00:29:12,960
And so yeah, I think Schumer is exactly right. You know,

570
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,480
no matter what, we're not putting his name on Penn station.

571
00:29:16,119 --> 00:29:18,799
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean it's kind of funny to just

572
00:29:19,079 --> 00:29:21,480
realize that he's doing all this because he knows once

573
00:29:21,519 --> 00:29:25,079
he's gone, no one's going to name buildings after him.

574
00:29:25,359 --> 00:29:27,759
I was working we haven't heard it like people need

575
00:29:27,799 --> 00:29:30,039
to want to put your name on buildings, and it

576
00:29:30,079 --> 00:29:32,319
seems like enough of them know that is never going

577
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,160
to happen, so they're going to try to force it

578
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:34,880
before he dies.

579
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:36,759
Speaker 3: I was working with a reporter in the New York

580
00:29:36,799 --> 00:29:40,000
Times around twenty sixteen. I've written a lot about free speech,

581
00:29:40,039 --> 00:29:43,480
but also the idea of state expression that government sometimes

582
00:29:43,519 --> 00:29:46,680
sends its own messages, and its obligation to send messages

583
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:51,000
consistent with, not opposed to democratic values like equal protection.

584
00:29:51,519 --> 00:29:53,279
And so when I was hoping he was going to

585
00:29:53,359 --> 00:29:56,039
lose the twenty sixteen election, which of course he didn't,

586
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:58,880
I thought he did, But go on, well, we need

587
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,599
to do we need to do is we need to

588
00:30:01,799 --> 00:30:05,680
ensure that he's repudiated, and part of that is never

589
00:30:05,759 --> 00:30:08,480
celebrating him on any public building. And you know, his

590
00:30:08,599 --> 00:30:11,720
name was taken down from the woman rank, something that

591
00:30:11,799 --> 00:30:13,319
I think was really important to.

592
00:30:13,319 --> 00:30:15,839
Speaker 2: Do a small gesture, and I look forward.

593
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:17,319
Speaker 3: You know, I'm talking about a hope there is a

594
00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:19,720
good off the Kennedy's sign when we're gonna take his

595
00:30:19,799 --> 00:30:21,880
name down. We already have seen it taken down at

596
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,960
the Kennedy Center. There should be nothing in Donald Trump.

597
00:30:25,079 --> 00:30:26,759
And in fact, and I know you and I have

598
00:30:26,839 --> 00:30:29,440
talked about this before, and I think you agree, we

599
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,200
should be at the point where it's just embarrassing to

600
00:30:32,319 --> 00:30:35,839
have that last name, where no descendant of Donald Trump

601
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:37,599
wants to call himself a Trump.

602
00:30:38,359 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: You're all excited about future buildings losing his name. I'm

603
00:30:41,519 --> 00:30:44,720
excited about his grandkids losing their last I want him

604
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:48,039
to live long enough to see his descendants change their

605
00:30:48,119 --> 00:30:50,160
last name because they realize they can't make a living

606
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,440
with a name like that. But hey, I'm a romantic,

607
00:30:52,519 --> 00:30:54,359
you know, of spiritual. That's why I think about things

608
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,079
like this. All right, quick break when we come back

609
00:30:57,079 --> 00:30:59,640
at the big interview with David French on the Oath

610
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,960
and the offer us.

611
00:31:04,319 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 5: Hey, al, Glenn Kirshner here, So, friends, I hope you'll

612
00:31:07,279 --> 00:31:11,240
join me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters. Do you

613
00:31:11,279 --> 00:31:16,319
care about ethics and government, criminal justice reform, a conflict

614
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:18,279
free federal judiciary?

615
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: I thought so.

616
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 5: On Justice Matters, we take on issues involving the need

617
00:31:24,039 --> 00:31:28,079
to reform our government and its institutions, and we talk

618
00:31:28,119 --> 00:31:31,079
about real, achievable reform.

619
00:31:31,519 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: I hope you'll join us.

620
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 5: Look for Justice Matters wherever you usually get your podcasts.

621
00:31:42,119 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. It's my

622
00:31:44,599 --> 00:31:48,759
pleasure to introduce our guest, David French. David French, of course,

623
00:31:48,839 --> 00:31:51,480
is a New York Times columnist. He's a graduate of

624
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:55,359
Harvard Law School, and I recommend his book Divided We Fall.

625
00:31:55,759 --> 00:31:58,720
We're going to talk about the ideas of the new

626
00:31:58,799 --> 00:32:02,880
ride post liberal is we'll talk about birthright citizenship and

627
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,519
whether or not trump Ism can out last Donald Trump. So,

628
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:08,359
David French, welcome to the Oath in the Office.

629
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:10,599
Speaker 6: Well, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

630
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 3: I wanted to start off by asking you about birthright citizenship.

631
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:16,880
We've talked a lot about the case and the details

632
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,559
of the legal issues. We had Cecilia Wang in a

633
00:32:19,599 --> 00:32:22,440
previous episode who argued the case. But one of the

634
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:24,759
things I was very interested to have you on is

635
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,160
you've been writing in your columns in the New York

636
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,799
Times about some of the ideas behind the right to

637
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,839
birthright citizenship, and so let's start with that.

638
00:32:34,039 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 2: I mean, what do you.

639
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 3: See as the main ideas behind birthright citizenship and how

640
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,200
do we understand the challenge to it that we're seeing

641
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:43,640
in this executive order?

642
00:32:44,119 --> 00:32:45,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, just the legal issues.

643
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a really good question, and I think you

644
00:32:49,039 --> 00:32:52,720
really have to sort of go back hundreds of years

645
00:32:52,799 --> 00:32:56,000
to really understand the root and origin of this, that

646
00:32:56,079 --> 00:32:58,440
this sort of is rooted in a notion that if

647
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,079
you were born in the soil or the under the

648
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:04,400
sovereignty of a particular king, that you are a citizen

649
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:08,759
of that of that domain, of that regime. And it's

650
00:33:08,759 --> 00:33:11,640
an idea that carried across the Atlantic to the colonists,

651
00:33:11,759 --> 00:33:14,599
and it's also an idea that matched very well with

652
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:19,000
the American idea, because the American idea wasn't one that

653
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:21,720
was really rooted in this. You know, if you're looking

654
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:26,440
at sort of European notions of citizenship, what you really

655
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:28,720
have had over time is sort of this idea of

656
00:33:28,759 --> 00:33:31,720
blood and soil, the sort of notion that you know

657
00:33:31,799 --> 00:33:34,759
you're you're if you're going to really be a member,

658
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,920
say of the French family or the German family or whatever,

659
00:33:39,039 --> 00:33:41,599
then you're going to be have to have a particular

660
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:46,359
kind of lineage that is locking you in. Whereas an American,

661
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,759
the American nation is really based on an idea. We're

662
00:33:49,799 --> 00:33:52,440
not based on blood. We're based on an idea, the

663
00:33:52,519 --> 00:33:54,680
idea that all men are created equal, endowed by their

664
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,119
creator with certain inalienable rights. You know, to go back

665
00:33:58,599 --> 00:34:01,680
to the Gettysburg Address, conceived in liberty and dedicated to

666
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:04,759
the proposition that all men are created equal. So we

667
00:34:04,839 --> 00:34:09,119
really are an idea, and then from that standpoint, birthright citizenship.

668
00:34:09,199 --> 00:34:11,800
This idea that if you are born here that you

669
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,480
can become an American is very sort of deeply embedded

670
00:34:15,519 --> 00:34:20,079
in the notion of a creedle nation. And so whereas

671
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,679
in other conceptions of citizenship it is something sort of

672
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:27,440
handed down by lineage. This is something that you know,

673
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,480
and this is the opponent's of birthrights citizenship use this

674
00:34:31,599 --> 00:34:35,000
term magic dirt. They derisively use the term magic dirt

675
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,599
to say, oh, you're just arguing that there's something magical

676
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,800
about being born in the United States. It just suddenly

677
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,639
makes you a citizen. No, it's not magic dirt. But

678
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:49,599
America's location of the magic idea, and the magic idea,

679
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:51,880
of course is you know, as we discussed earlier, all

680
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,840
men are created equal, and yes, a person who is

681
00:34:55,880 --> 00:35:00,360
born here can and is going to merint a in

682
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,679
this sort of magic idea. It's not the dirt, it's

683
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:07,320
the idea. And so it really is an expansive way

684
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,400
at looking at this American family and really matches with

685
00:35:11,599 --> 00:35:15,360
sort of the expansive way in which the founders thought

686
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:19,000
about citizenship. So this is something that goes back a

687
00:35:19,199 --> 00:35:23,960
very long time as a distinctive away from sort of

688
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,239
you know, however you want to call it patrilineal citizenship

689
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:30,280
or you know, other forms of citizenship that are rooted

690
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:34,719
in blood from your ancestry as opposed to really truly

691
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:37,320
honestly rooted in the idea of the country itself.

692
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you see a continuity.

693
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,679
Speaker 3: It sounds like between the eighteenth century idea in the

694
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,760
Declaration of Equality and the ideas promised by the Bill

695
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:49,400
of Rights and the nineteenth century fourteenth Amendment guarantee that

696
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,239
if you're born in the country, then you are a citizen.

697
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:53,519
Speaker 2: And as listeners to the.

698
00:35:53,519 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 3: Show, No, we couldn't be more kindred spirits on that

699
00:35:57,039 --> 00:35:59,519
idea of what America is. I mean, I want to

700
00:35:59,519 --> 00:36:01,719
pivot a little bit and ask about.

701
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 2: What we can learn.

702
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:04,599
Speaker 3: And of course we can learn something from the attempt

703
00:36:04,679 --> 00:36:09,960
to revoke birthright citizenship through executive order. Sometimes the new

704
00:36:10,039 --> 00:36:14,239
Right talks about ethnicity in in this sort of explicit way,

705
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:16,639
and you have this sort of soil idea that really

706
00:36:16,679 --> 00:36:20,000
is not at home in the American founding. Sometimes and

707
00:36:20,079 --> 00:36:21,599
I don't know, I mean, you can talk to me

708
00:36:21,599 --> 00:36:23,599
about whether or not this fits into the sort of

709
00:36:23,679 --> 00:36:27,639
soil idea and the challenge to the American Creedle ideal

710
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:28,480
of America.

711
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 2: But sometimes or.

712
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:32,320
Speaker 3: Whether it is just a strategy and a legal argument,

713
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,360
but sometimes you hear the claim that you did here

714
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:37,920
in the briefs the idea that there was this allegiance

715
00:36:38,159 --> 00:36:43,039
theory of America. And the problem with birthright citizenship is

716
00:36:43,079 --> 00:36:45,599
that if you're born in America and just get your citizenship,

717
00:36:45,639 --> 00:36:47,360
you in a sense didn't earn it, or you didn't

718
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,519
buy in to the idea of America. So is that

719
00:36:49,599 --> 00:36:51,760
a kind of hybrid of the soil idea and the

720
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:54,119
idea that we're talking about, or is it just a

721
00:36:54,119 --> 00:36:56,199
cynical legal strategy and what do you think?

722
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:58,320
Speaker 2: I mean, just to be clear, you.

723
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:00,599
Speaker 3: Know for the listeners that I don't think there's anything

724
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:03,119
to the idea that there is this allegiance theory. And

725
00:37:03,159 --> 00:37:05,960
when you heard the Solicitor General try to defend it

726
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,519
that it didn't fit with any of the ideas of

727
00:37:08,559 --> 00:37:11,119
the nineteenth century, but it is what the new writer's saying,

728
00:37:11,159 --> 00:37:12,239
at least in this context.

729
00:37:12,639 --> 00:37:14,760
Speaker 6: Well, it definitely doesn't fit with a text.

730
00:37:15,079 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 1: You know.

731
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:18,079
Speaker 6: One of the things that's interesting about this argument is,

732
00:37:18,079 --> 00:37:21,480
you know, we have a text right of the fourteenth Amendment,

733
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,719
which talks about people who are subject to the jurisdiction

734
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:26,639
of this country. If you're born here in subject to

735
00:37:26,679 --> 00:37:30,400
the jurisdiction of this country, then you're a citizen. It

736
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:34,559
doesn't say domiciled. It doesn't say swore an oath of

737
00:37:34,599 --> 00:37:38,360
allegiance upon reaching age of majority after being born here.

738
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:42,639
It doesn't say these things. And so what they're trying

739
00:37:42,679 --> 00:37:48,400
to do is import extra textual tests and extra textual

740
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,119
requirements into the text and then trying to ret con

741
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,199
the whole history to sort of say, well, this was

742
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:56,559
intended to be there from the beginning, or this text

743
00:37:57,199 --> 00:38:01,159
was supposed to encompass all of that, and it just

744
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,519
falls apart on a historical basis. I mean, if you're

745
00:38:04,519 --> 00:38:08,000
looking at the combination of the Fourteenth Amendment and the

746
00:38:08,039 --> 00:38:11,920
wankim Ark decision, what you're really saying is that they're

747
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:17,280
trying to do correct the giant, glaring, horrific error of

748
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,960
Dred Scott, where black Americans were written out of American citizenship,

749
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,960
not just by creating a rule for freed slaves and

750
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,920
for black Americans, but by creating a standard rule of

751
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,719
citizenship that applies to everyone. With the word subject to

752
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:37,480
the jurisdiction thereof not that really mysterious in their meaning,

753
00:38:37,639 --> 00:38:41,320
to be honest, like, this is not like uncovering an

754
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:47,199
ancient manuscript written in like a lost version of Sanskrit. No,

755
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,920
these words are capable and have a meaning. And Wankim

756
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:53,079
Mark outlined it pretty well. Look, who's not subject to

757
00:38:53,119 --> 00:38:57,159
the jurisdiction of the United States, Well, children of diplomats.

758
00:38:57,400 --> 00:38:59,960
When diplomats are here, they are not. They have diplomatic

759
00:39:00,079 --> 00:39:02,840
community there and a special legal status. If you're a

760
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:07,199
soldier in an invading army, for example, you're obviously not

761
00:39:07,199 --> 00:39:11,360
subject to the jurisdiction of our country. You're trying to

762
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,800
defy the jurisdiction of our country. Supplant it, replace it,

763
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:19,199
et cetera. You know, if you go back generations, Native

764
00:39:19,199 --> 00:39:22,760
American tribes had special legal status, they were recognized as

765
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,880
sovereign or quasi sovereign in ways that say, you know,

766
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:28,920
if you're a citizen of Alabama, you're not right. And

767
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,440
so all of these things were very linked to text

768
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,679
subject to the jurisdiction thereof. What the New Right has

769
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,400
done is sort of come in and basically said, yeah,

770
00:39:37,559 --> 00:39:40,599
forget the text. The text is really trying to put

771
00:39:40,599 --> 00:39:43,440
in place a particular kind of history, and that's the

772
00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:45,800
history that we're sort of relating to now. It's a

773
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,960
history of domicile, as Clarence Thomas wrote at length, right,

774
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:53,559
the allegiance history that you just talked about. So it's

775
00:39:53,599 --> 00:39:56,239
sort of pay no attention to the words on the page.

776
00:39:56,360 --> 00:40:01,360
We have kind of the special historical. And one of

777
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:04,119
the things that's dangerous about sort of the newer methods

778
00:40:04,119 --> 00:40:08,119
of originalism is that it can often just uses the

779
00:40:08,159 --> 00:40:11,360
text as a springboard for this sort of open ended

780
00:40:11,519 --> 00:40:15,119
historical inquiry, which I think is completely inappropriate when the

781
00:40:15,119 --> 00:40:18,039
text is clear. You don't go to the historical inquiry

782
00:40:18,039 --> 00:40:20,599
when the text is clear. But what the new Right

783
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,400
is wanting to do is do essentially a historical inquiry

784
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:26,880
only basically according to their specific terms.

785
00:40:27,599 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, and of course, a lot of the techniques of originalism,

786
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,960
the conservative idea of reading the Constitution for its original

787
00:40:34,119 --> 00:40:36,719
meaning and to sort of turn this into a linguistic

788
00:40:37,159 --> 00:40:39,960
dictionary idea is to do nothing less than to read

789
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:43,239
out the ideas of the American founding, of the second

790
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:47,840
founding of the Fourteenth Amendment, thirteenth Amendment, fifteenth Amendments, and so.

791
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 2: That's not a mistake.

792
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 3: And I thought it was a really important point too,

793
00:40:51,519 --> 00:40:53,760
that it's not a mistake that they move to this

794
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:57,079
sort of fake interpretation of domicile, which is another way

795
00:40:57,119 --> 00:41:00,079
of talking, of course about your point about soil. I

796
00:41:00,119 --> 00:41:02,239
haven't heard people making that point, but it's a nice

797
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:04,519
way to say. What they're really doing is reading in

798
00:41:04,559 --> 00:41:09,159
this very anti American different tradition of soil or domicile

799
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:13,039
into a text which is really about the idea of equality,

800
00:41:13,159 --> 00:41:16,079
as so much of the Constitution is, and at least

801
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:18,840
we attempted in the nineteenth century to re up on

802
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:22,719
that idea. One thing, David, that just to switch places,

803
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:25,599
I mean to understand this phenomenon which you've been so

804
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:29,039
great on of the new right, some of which pretends

805
00:41:29,079 --> 00:41:31,599
to be originalists. Sometimes there's an idea of common good

806
00:41:31,599 --> 00:41:33,360
constitutionalism formule, and.

807
00:41:36,079 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 6: It kind of flips back and forth depending on who

808
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:38,559
you're talking to.

809
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:39,119
Speaker 2: Yeah.

810
00:41:39,199 --> 00:41:42,599
Speaker 3: Yeah, So one thing I wanted to ask right exactly

811
00:41:42,639 --> 00:41:45,719
that you know, different conservatives will do different ideas. I mean,

812
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:47,920
one thing I will say about the common good idea,

813
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:50,599
and I want to pivot to to your.

814
00:41:50,159 --> 00:41:52,079
Speaker 2: Column about v sheism.

815
00:41:52,159 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 3: Is it sort of lays on the table what's really

816
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:56,599
going on, and stops playing these games. And so I

817
00:41:56,639 --> 00:41:59,559
appreciate something about that as much as I.

818
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:00,599
Speaker 2: Think it's headed.

819
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:02,800
Speaker 3: But one thing that you've done so nicely that I

820
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,039
want to ask you about is we've talked a lot

821
00:42:05,079 --> 00:42:08,280
on this show about the collapse of Wymar, the way

822
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,639
that the collapse of Ymar shows the fragility of American

823
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:15,679
democracy and all democracies. But you've taken a different angle

824
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,639
that I think gets into the cultural arguments of the

825
00:42:18,679 --> 00:42:22,519
new ride in talking about VC France and the way

826
00:42:22,599 --> 00:42:26,679
that the philosophy of VC France really fits with a

827
00:42:26,679 --> 00:42:29,599
lot of the new right ideology. So can you talk

828
00:42:29,639 --> 00:42:32,400
to me about what you know, give us the time period,

829
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,519
tell us something about the history, but also so importantly

830
00:42:35,519 --> 00:42:38,639
about these ideas and how they fit with what we're

831
00:42:38,679 --> 00:42:41,239
seeing which and just to emphasize for listeners what you

832
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,079
and I agree with so much and why I was

833
00:42:44,119 --> 00:42:47,000
eager to have this conversation is what we really are

834
00:42:47,119 --> 00:42:51,840
seeing in conservatives today isn't a traditional kind of conservative ideology.

835
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 2: It really is a.

836
00:42:52,679 --> 00:42:56,800
Speaker 3: Foreign, anti American ideology, and you pointed that out so well,

837
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:59,039
and looking at VC Frands, I think helps us to

838
00:42:59,079 --> 00:42:59,440
see that.

839
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,760
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's really fascinating because you know, we grew up

840
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,320
in an era. You know, one of the seminal books

841
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:08,639
of the era that we grew up in was The

842
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,440
End of History. Francis Fukiyama's book At the End of

843
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,760
the Cold War, often misunderstood, like the last chapter is

844
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:18,679
very eerily prescient of the present moment. But essentially we

845
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,039
grew up in the triumph of liberal democracy, where Nazi

846
00:43:22,039 --> 00:43:25,079
Germany had been defeated, Soviet Union collapsed in front of

847
00:43:25,119 --> 00:43:28,440
our eyes, Imperial Japan had been defeated, at least for

848
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:30,800
a while. I remember the heady days of nineteen eighty

849
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:34,639
nine and tien Men Square. We thought we're communist China

850
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:36,880
is going to fall as well. So we grew up

851
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:41,079
in a time of extraordinary optimism about liberalism. And so

852
00:43:41,119 --> 00:43:44,159
it's very hard for us, many of us, to put

853
00:43:44,199 --> 00:43:46,719
ourselves in the mindset of, say the late nineteen thirties

854
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,239
and early nineteen forties, when liberalism seemed to be not

855
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,440
just in retreat, but in a state of total collapse.

856
00:43:54,199 --> 00:43:56,480
So you had a liberal government fym Our Germany that's

857
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,400
supplanted by a Nazi government. You have the Soviet you know,

858
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:03,400
the Russian Revolution results in the horrific totalitarianism of the

859
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:07,440
Soviet Union. The three great liberal democracy at the time, Britain,

860
00:44:07,599 --> 00:44:10,480
France and the United States seemed to be and you

861
00:44:10,519 --> 00:44:13,920
have of course Imperial Japan rising power on the march

862
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,800
in China. And so you have the three great liberal

863
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:22,000
democracies of Great Britain, France, and the United States, and

864
00:44:22,079 --> 00:44:24,639
all of them were failing in certain ways. The United

865
00:44:24,679 --> 00:44:28,079
States had pulled back into isolationism and had abandoned, you know,

866
00:44:28,079 --> 00:44:29,920
the League of Nations and all of this sort of

867
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:35,199
idea of an international means of preventing another World War.

868
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:38,679
We pop smoke on that and we left that idea

869
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:42,079
like even before it was really born. Britain and France

870
00:44:42,119 --> 00:44:44,679
were slow to recognize the threat of Hitler. And then

871
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,760
when Hitler attacks into France in nineteen forty, you know,

872
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,679
it's I think we are unfair about the French army.

873
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:54,159
A lot of French soldiers fought incredibly valiantly, but the

874
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:59,119
German army had superior tactics, had superior equipment, smashed through

875
00:44:59,679 --> 00:45:04,760
French defenses and the French government fell. And you know,

876
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:09,199
we look back at Churchill stand from the standpoint of

877
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:13,000
being the victors and realizing how brave that was, how

878
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,760
courageous that was, and how was the key ultimately to victory.

879
00:45:17,119 --> 00:45:21,480
At the time, it could look suicidally stupid. Right, So

880
00:45:21,599 --> 00:45:25,920
you had a Nazi Germany overwhelming power, France being essentially

881
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,159
knocked out of the war, and we look back on

882
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:32,360
Vishi and we say collaborators. Well, that's only a very

883
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:36,760
small part of the story. Actually, what happened is a

884
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:40,119
lot of more illiberal right wing forces in France said

885
00:45:40,199 --> 00:45:44,599
this is our opportunity to remake France and to turn

886
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:49,199
from the collapsed the failure of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy

887
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,159
has failed, and now it is time to rebuild something new.

888
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:56,199
And so when you look, it's not so much Hitler's Great,

889
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:59,559
Hitler's Great, It's much more reminiscent of the language you

890
00:45:59,599 --> 00:46:04,480
read out the new right. Liberalism creates successive individualism. Individualism

891
00:46:04,679 --> 00:46:10,079
creates successive selfishness, the foreigners or an invasion that undermines

892
00:46:10,159 --> 00:46:14,360
sort of the cohesion of the country. The women's advancement

893
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:17,559
in the workplace is undermining the cohesion of the family.

894
00:46:18,079 --> 00:46:21,360
So again and again, it's remarkable. You could put some

895
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,400
of the Vshi rhetorics side by side with the rhetoric

896
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:28,039
from say Doug Wilson types in the Protestant world or

897
00:46:28,079 --> 00:46:31,599
some of the Catholic integralists, and they would be shockingly similar.

898
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,599
Liberalism eats away at institutions like the family, it eats

899
00:46:35,639 --> 00:46:38,880
away at the church. So to restore the family, to

900
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:42,840
restore the church, you have to have a strong government

901
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:47,159
that is advancing these civilizational values. And so you have

902
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,719
all of this rhetoric about how a woman's place is

903
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,760
primarily in the home. You had rules passed where, you know,

904
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,679
only children of French fathers could serve in certain positions

905
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,079
in the government, and all of this is very reminiscent

906
00:47:01,119 --> 00:47:03,880
of sort of this social cohesion project of the New Right.

907
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,519
Except the thing that's happening that's different. It's arising when

908
00:47:08,599 --> 00:47:13,199
liberal democracy has not failed. It's arising when liberal democracy

909
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:17,280
is actually still ascendant and more powerful in the world.

910
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,559
So it's a rising without a Iyemar, It's a rising

911
00:47:20,639 --> 00:47:21,920
without a fall of France.

912
00:47:22,639 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, some ways, I wonder if you agree with this.

913
00:47:24,599 --> 00:47:26,280
I mean, it seems to me, and it makes it

914
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:29,039
more dangerous in a way because this rhetoric is so

915
00:47:29,199 --> 00:47:33,960
far into the American tradition, to American ideals of the Constitution,

916
00:47:34,199 --> 00:47:38,239
to ideals of equal protection and birthright citizenship. So when

917
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,800
we hear it, it sounds like, oh, that's kind of new,

918
00:47:41,159 --> 00:47:44,280
and that's often you know, how Trump's rhetoric was received

919
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:48,480
as something different, and you know, the more philosophical versions

920
00:47:48,519 --> 00:47:51,360
of this that talk about soil and talk about family.

921
00:47:52,159 --> 00:47:54,840
You know, I don't know that the threat is quite recognized.

922
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,239
By putting it in the context of the nineteen thirties,

923
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,880
we see what it is, which is it might sound

924
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,440
innocuous compared to, you know, the rhetoric of explicit white

925
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,559
supremacy or Nazism, but it is meant to be a

926
00:48:06,679 --> 00:48:09,960
challenge to liberal democracy. I think too, there's a kind

927
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,719
of abstraction when you challenge some of those on the

928
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:14,760
new right to ask, well, what is it that you're

929
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:16,559
opposed to, you know, free.

930
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 2: Speech or you know, they won't be concrete.

931
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 3: They'll talk in terms of this generalized idea, you know,

932
00:48:22,559 --> 00:48:24,519
of soil or blood.

933
00:48:24,599 --> 00:48:25,840
Speaker 2: Also, I think is part of it.

934
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:30,119
Speaker 6: Let us that's the heritage American concept is how far

935
00:48:30,159 --> 00:48:32,679
back can you trace your history? And I mean we

936
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,239
can trace ours back to the Mayflower. That doesn't make

937
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,519
me more of an American than anybody else, right, it

938
00:48:38,679 --> 00:48:42,280
absolutely doesn't. And we define our own citizenship by our

939
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:45,039
own actions. We can be proud of our ancestors, but

940
00:48:45,079 --> 00:48:48,039
we don't carry their virtue, nor do we carry their advices.

941
00:48:48,679 --> 00:48:52,000
And so this sort of idea that you know, as JD.

942
00:48:52,159 --> 00:48:54,840
Vance said, you know that those of who have ancestors

943
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:56,679
who fought in the Civil War have a greater claim

944
00:48:56,719 --> 00:49:03,199
to this country. No, absolutely not, absolutely not. But here's

945
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:07,559
what's insidious about the post liberal argument from the right.

946
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:12,920
Many dangerous ideas often begin with some truth to them. So,

947
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:16,639
for example, a country that does not have thriving families,

948
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:21,679
that where you know, sort of this the bowling alone phenomenon,

949
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,480
sort of the collapse of belonging to civic institutions, you know,

950
00:49:25,559 --> 00:49:28,840
the collapse in church attendants. The all of these things

951
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:33,119
do fray the bonds of a society. It is true

952
00:49:33,159 --> 00:49:36,800
that when families fail, it puts a society into stress.

953
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:41,039
It is true that when civic institutions and shared public

954
00:49:41,079 --> 00:49:45,159
spaces become you know, they start to vanish, then it

955
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:47,480
does put us I mean, one of the most prescient

956
00:49:47,599 --> 00:49:50,480
books of the last quarter century was bowling alone, was

957
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,559
Putnam's bowling alone. What it does to us to be atomized,

958
00:49:53,599 --> 00:49:57,400
to be individualistic, and that is something to be concerned about.

959
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:01,880
But guess what does not fix it? Poritarianism right right exactly.

960
00:50:02,199 --> 00:50:05,159
That is the opposite of the fix. You know, we've

961
00:50:05,159 --> 00:50:08,960
had a couple of social experiments in Vladimir Putin's Russia

962
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:12,320
and to a lesser extent, Victori ra Bond's Hungry. They

963
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:17,199
did not. They have not made Russian and Hungry homes

964
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:22,000
of religious revivalism and economic prosperity and deep bonds. No,

965
00:50:22,159 --> 00:50:25,400
they have. Just look at the trajectory of Hungary, for example,

966
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:28,559
compared to many of its more liberal neighbors, Hungary has

967
00:50:28,559 --> 00:50:30,960
been left behind compared to say, Poland.

968
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:33,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think we do well to recognize that

969
00:50:33,679 --> 00:50:36,519
the ideas that we've been talking about throughout this episode,

970
00:50:36,679 --> 00:50:39,440
that a nation the United States can be based on

971
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:42,039
an idea, that of course is going to come with

972
00:50:42,119 --> 00:50:44,360
some vulnerabilities because it's not going to be a nation

973
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:49,000
based on shared family heritage or blood or soil. It's

974
00:50:49,039 --> 00:50:51,239
going to be based on an idea. And ideas are

975
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:53,519
tough to form bombs around.

976
00:50:53,559 --> 00:50:55,280
Speaker 2: But yet we've continued to do it.

977
00:50:55,639 --> 00:50:57,760
Speaker 3: And the mistake, I think is to think that somehow,

978
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:01,480
because there's a challenge to a cultural democracy and a

979
00:51:01,559 --> 00:51:04,840
multi racial democracy that we've been trying to build for

980
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:09,159
so many years, that a better route would be pure authoritarianism.

981
00:51:09,199 --> 00:51:11,519
And as you say, we have examples of what that

982
00:51:11,559 --> 00:51:16,599
looks like vs. France, Nazi Germany, Putin's Russia, and thankfully

983
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:21,320
now in retreat Victor Orbon's Hungary. I mean, one thing

984
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,199
that's been great about this conversation, and I think it's

985
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:26,519
a good way to pull back to the United States

986
00:51:26,559 --> 00:51:28,800
into our current politics. And I know you've written about

987
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:32,079
this as well, is the degree to which trump Ism

988
00:51:32,559 --> 00:51:35,119
is going to disappear after Trump. And I take it

989
00:51:35,159 --> 00:51:37,960
from what you are saying what you've written that you worry.

990
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:40,679
It's not that it might be too strong. Of course,

991
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:45,079
Trump in many ways is responsible, maybe entirely responsible for

992
00:51:45,119 --> 00:51:46,360
the spread of trump Ism.

993
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 2: It's named after him.

994
00:51:48,199 --> 00:51:50,559
Speaker 3: It captures a set of ideas that has a lot

995
00:51:50,559 --> 00:51:54,800
of resonance with these authoritarian not just nations, but cultures.

996
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:57,719
Speaker 2: So what do you think you mentioned jd Vance?

997
00:51:57,760 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 3: Of course, who if I had to pick one person

998
00:52:00,119 --> 00:52:03,320
to spread the ideas of the new Right and what's

999
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:08,440
sometimes called post liberalism. Patrick Denin, who I knew actually

1000
00:52:08,519 --> 00:52:12,480
is a graduate student at Princeton or Adrian Vermule at Harvard.

1001
00:52:12,519 --> 00:52:15,119
I mean, he's really taken those ideas and sees those

1002
00:52:15,119 --> 00:52:18,079
two as mentors. And these are two academics. Also, we

1003
00:52:18,119 --> 00:52:21,400
have gone over and explicitly met with Warbon. They've made

1004
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:25,280
those ties, and they would just be obscure academics possibly

1005
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:27,679
if they didn't have leaders in the new right grabbing

1006
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:30,719
onto those ideas, and Jade Vance, I think is probably

1007
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:33,239
the most prominent person who's done it. You know, would

1008
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:35,880
be great if they were just obscure academics who are off,

1009
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:38,400
you know, in a corner, arguing in a conference or

1010
00:52:38,519 --> 00:52:42,119
in journals, but no their books are read. Incidentally, Barack

1011
00:52:42,159 --> 00:52:46,679
Obama might have inadvertently furthered this by naming Patrick's Denien's book,

1012
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:48,960
you know, one of the most important of the moment

1013
00:52:49,079 --> 00:52:50,559
or something. I think he was trying to say in

1014
00:52:50,599 --> 00:52:53,760
order to understand it, but might have spread that book

1015
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:57,440
beyond what he intended. So what do you think, though, David,

1016
00:52:57,519 --> 00:52:59,440
I mean, once we get rid of Trump, he won't

1017
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:02,039
be with us forever. Is there a danger that this

1018
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,320
remains a tradition to challenge the American idea that we've

1019
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:08,440
talked about, and I guess I also I'll throw something

1020
00:53:08,519 --> 00:53:10,480
in just you know, I don't know if you'll find

1021
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:11,360
this sympathetic.

1022
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:11,920
Speaker 2: I think it is.

1023
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:15,920
Speaker 3: But We've always had multiple traditions alongside the credle idea.

1024
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:18,159
Of course, we've had a ku Klux Klan, We've had

1025
00:53:18,519 --> 00:53:22,119
white supremacy, and those are ideas explicitly that have drawn

1026
00:53:22,159 --> 00:53:24,880
on the ideas of blood and soil, and so this

1027
00:53:25,039 --> 00:53:27,320
is in some ways a new form of it. It

1028
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:29,960
is foreign, I think, to the true American tradition, but

1029
00:53:30,119 --> 00:53:32,159
it does have a legacy. So what do you see

1030
00:53:32,199 --> 00:53:33,840
as the future of trump Ism? Is it going to

1031
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:35,039
disappear after Trump?

1032
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:38,280
Speaker 6: Yeah? So, you know, I've always been in the view

1033
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:42,119
that trump Ism, properly understood is just the ambitions of

1034
00:53:42,159 --> 00:53:48,119
Donald Trump. MAGA, which is the larger enterprise around Donald Trump,

1035
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:54,320
is a really far more diverse political movement than people realize.

1036
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:56,960
And because what he's sort of done is he's taken

1037
00:53:57,079 --> 00:54:00,920
different sort of fringe strands of American life and united

1038
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,480
them under the red hat. And there's going to be

1039
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:07,039
a big battle when he goes to see sort of

1040
00:54:07,079 --> 00:54:10,320
which part of this coalition sort of emerges triumphant, And

1041
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,280
I would peg several parts of it. So what we're

1042
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:15,440
talking about. The group we're talking about is sort of

1043
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:18,199
the most nationalist part of the coalition. These are the

1044
00:54:18,199 --> 00:54:21,920
people who've taken sort of the nationalist impulses of Trump

1045
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:25,400
tied them to sort of a larger, pre existing, more

1046
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:30,199
authoritarian enterprise, which is sort of this JD vance post

1047
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:34,159
liberal you know what, You've talked about. Their names like

1048
00:54:34,159 --> 00:54:38,519
Patrick Denien, Adrian Vermule, Douglas Wilson. On the Protestant side,

1049
00:54:39,119 --> 00:54:42,159
the people the constellation of people that DeCamp to Hungary,

1050
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:46,840
and in raw numbers they're probably the smallest camp, but

1051
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:50,679
in intellectual horsepower they're the most influential as far as

1052
00:54:50,679 --> 00:54:54,239
they punch above their weight online, they punch above their

1053
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:57,320
weight in academic journals, they punch above their weight in

1054
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:01,320
the public conversation. So that's one group. Another group is

1055
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:04,719
what I would call libertines. And the libertines are sort

1056
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:07,880
of like they kind of gravitated to Trump for obvious reasons.

1057
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:11,559
Trump is a libertine. He doesn't like anyone telling him no.

1058
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,719
On anything he wants to do. So a lot of

1059
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:17,000
the anti woke people kind of got drawn into that

1060
00:55:17,119 --> 00:55:20,480
because of you know, perceiving sort of the woke's golds

1061
00:55:20,519 --> 00:55:24,199
and you know, and so they they're personified by sort

1062
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:28,800
of the Barstool Sports podcastis stan world. That are people

1063
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:30,840
that are just like, don't tell me what to do.

1064
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:34,519
And the right is already flirting with losing these people

1065
00:55:34,559 --> 00:55:38,679
because the nationalist right and the libertine right they are

1066
00:55:38,679 --> 00:55:41,360
on a collision course. And then you also have the

1067
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,079
religious right. And the religious right is pulled in a

1068
00:55:44,119 --> 00:55:48,360
bunch of different directions, but it is possibly more driven

1069
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:51,519
to the nationalist right, but it's also its own thing.

1070
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,400
It is just trafficking on decades of Republican loyalty in

1071
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:59,599
the evangelical world, a lot of prophecies about Donald Trump.

1072
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:03,320
And then you have the conspiracists. You know, Robert F.

1073
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:06,119
Kennedy Junior would be your lead guy there. You know,

1074
00:56:06,199 --> 00:56:08,519
the people who didn't feel at home really anywhere. They

1075
00:56:08,519 --> 00:56:12,039
had cranky out of their ideas and they found out

1076
00:56:12,039 --> 00:56:14,480
that they could enter the halls of power if they

1077
00:56:14,519 --> 00:56:16,960
put on the red hat. So you have all of

1078
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:20,280
these different groups of people who found that they have

1079
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:22,679
an avenue to be in the room where that happens,

1080
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,079
so long as they have the red hat on. And

1081
00:56:25,159 --> 00:56:30,039
so there's going to be a battle royal when Trump leaves. Now,

1082
00:56:30,119 --> 00:56:32,320
the one thing that you know, I don't think that

1083
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:35,920
Democrats watching that should necessarily say, oh, well, that means

1084
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:38,639
that the Republican Party is going to be weak and divided.

1085
00:56:39,280 --> 00:56:39,360
Speaker 2: No.

1086
00:56:39,519 --> 00:56:41,639
Speaker 6: The other thing that unites all of those groups is

1087
00:56:41,679 --> 00:56:45,559
they also really hate the modern Democratic Party, and so

1088
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:49,079
there's a real possibility that what you'll have is kind

1089
00:56:49,119 --> 00:56:53,519
of a power struggle between different strands that then tries

1090
00:56:53,599 --> 00:56:57,159
to unite everybody to take on the hated foe, say

1091
00:56:57,159 --> 00:57:00,400
in twenty twenty eight or whatever. But I will say this,

1092
00:57:00,519 --> 00:57:03,719
I think the group of people who are the most organized,

1093
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:08,000
who have the most coherent plan or theory of the case,

1094
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:11,639
they're all in the post liberal sort of more nationalist

1095
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:17,000
right that they're starting journals, they're creating think tanks, podcast

1096
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:20,559
to stand. It's not institution building, it's personality building. Right

1097
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:26,320
at the conspiracists movement, you know that you can handle them,

1098
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:28,559
You can kind of give them some room to run

1099
00:57:28,599 --> 00:57:31,039
in their chosen areas, and then the sort of the

1100
00:57:31,079 --> 00:57:34,000
religious right will fall in line against whoever's taking on

1101
00:57:34,079 --> 00:57:37,599
the Democrats. And so you can begin to see how

1102
00:57:37,599 --> 00:57:41,480
there's a pat how I JD. Vance could say, even

1103
00:57:41,599 --> 00:57:44,760
though I'm not a member of, say, the most numerous

1104
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:47,679
or even most popular faction of the right, I am

1105
00:57:47,719 --> 00:57:50,800
a member of the most organized and disciplined faction of

1106
00:57:50,840 --> 00:57:53,400
the right. And when you hear them talk it to

1107
00:57:53,519 --> 00:57:56,639
each other and amongst themselves, they are very much convinced

1108
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:02,119
that very small, very organized my minorities can capture democracies,

1109
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,320
and by capturing one of the two major parties. And

1110
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:08,159
so so I think that you know what you're looking

1111
00:58:08,199 --> 00:58:11,719
at as a situation where you know, is Donald Trump

1112
00:58:11,719 --> 00:58:13,440
a post liberal Catholic thinker.

1113
00:58:15,039 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 3: He can't say those words that many words together, no

1114
00:58:19,159 --> 00:58:19,719
any of them.

1115
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:23,880
Speaker 6: But has he kicked the door wide open for postliberal

1116
00:58:23,920 --> 00:58:25,119
whitewing thought? Yes?

1117
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:28,639
Speaker 3: But is that because I mean, it's a really important

1118
00:58:28,639 --> 00:58:31,960
analysis to sort of carve off the different aspects of

1119
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:35,119
the new ride. And what is remarkable about him Donald

1120
00:58:35,159 --> 00:58:39,079
Trump is that, unfortunately, through his technique, and I want

1121
00:58:39,119 --> 00:58:41,000
to talk about what this might be, he's been able

1122
00:58:41,039 --> 00:58:44,639
to combine these without standing for any ideology. He's not

1123
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:49,239
smart enough to read Patrick Denin's book or certainly Adrian Vermule's,

1124
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:53,480
or to have a conversation about you know, any of this. Right,

1125
00:58:53,559 --> 00:58:55,559
we know he doesn't read, but yet his you know,

1126
00:58:55,639 --> 00:58:58,320
kind of like the character Chauncey Gardner, you know, he's

1127
00:58:58,360 --> 00:59:00,800
able to sort of back his way into these things,

1128
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:04,559
maybe more intentionally than Chauncey Gardner, and in that you know,

1129
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:08,440
he uses these clips, these words that trigger people in

1130
00:59:08,559 --> 00:59:11,079
order to think, Okay, this is my guy. Of course,

1131
00:59:11,119 --> 00:59:14,239
his promise to appoint justices, which he delivered on to

1132
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:17,480
reverse roversus way that might have helped him, you know

1133
00:59:17,639 --> 00:59:21,559
ingratiate himself to people who otherwise might not have gravitated

1134
00:59:21,599 --> 00:59:24,119
to his philosophy. So I mean, one question, I guess

1135
00:59:24,239 --> 00:59:26,320
to me, the million dollar question is do you see

1136
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:30,400
anybody out there who can do what he did, which

1137
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:33,880
is to have a form of rhetoric that's going to combine.

1138
00:59:33,519 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 2: These different things. Because when I think about JD.

1139
00:59:35,880 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 3: Vance, for instance, watching clips of him on Joe Rogan,

1140
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:42,199
he's so uncomfortable and trying to pretend to be, you know,

1141
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:44,480
one of the cool guys in a way that Trump

1142
00:59:44,599 --> 00:59:48,280
sort of naturally did just fit with Rogan, and you know,

1143
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:50,199
just anecdotically, I've talked to a lot of people who

1144
00:59:50,239 --> 00:59:51,679
listen to him on Rogan and thought, oh, what a

1145
00:59:51,719 --> 00:59:54,159
cool guy. I don't think JD. Vans is going to

1146
00:59:54,199 --> 00:59:56,360
be able to pull that off. I mean, so is

1147
00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:58,840
that you know, we always look for hope and optimism,

1148
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:02,360
and one thing I guess I'm counting on is as

1149
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:04,960
much as there's a challenge ahead and we'll have to

1150
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:07,599
fight against so many of these ideas of the new Right,

1151
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:12,280
but they don't have a natural politician and I don't

1152
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:14,559
think it's JD. Vance certainly who's going to be able

1153
01:00:14,559 --> 01:00:16,639
to combine all these forces.

1154
01:00:16,679 --> 01:00:19,119
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering what you think and if that's help.

1155
01:00:20,199 --> 01:00:23,960
Speaker 6: You know, this is not my first rodeo with an ism.

1156
01:00:24,239 --> 01:00:27,719
You know. So we've had Reaganism, We've had Clintonism. You know,

1157
01:00:27,719 --> 01:00:32,440
we've had Obama and the emerging demographic majority, the coalition

1158
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:37,960
of the Ascendant, and every single time, the name, ultimately

1159
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:41,639
over time proves more important than the ism. So it's

1160
01:00:41,679 --> 01:00:46,679
that Reagan had a particular appeal to America. Not necessarily

1161
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:51,880
Reagan's ideology, now elements of it were certainly popular. Clinton

1162
01:00:52,159 --> 01:00:56,400
had a particular charisma an appeal. Obama had a particular

1163
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:58,400
chrisma and appeal. And I feel like those of us

1164
01:00:58,400 --> 01:01:03,360
who analyze politics tend to underestimate the personalities and overestimate

1165
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:08,800
the ideology. And I feel like with Trump, nobody's like him.

1166
01:01:09,039 --> 01:01:11,480
You know, I'm in Chicago right now. If you look down,

1167
01:01:11,519 --> 01:01:13,280
if you walk out of my apartment building and you

1168
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:15,039
look to the right, the back of my apartment and

1169
01:01:15,039 --> 01:01:18,800
you look down Wabash, there's this beautiful skyscraper and right

1170
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:22,880
there is the word Trump, just like right there. No

1171
01:01:23,039 --> 01:01:26,239
other politician in America has that kind of cultural resonance

1172
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:30,079
that he has. So I do think the smarter people

1173
01:01:30,239 --> 01:01:34,800
in MAGA know that trump Ism the ism is much

1174
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:37,679
less important than the name, and that when he goes

1175
01:01:38,159 --> 01:01:40,840
it's going to be very difficult to put together the

1176
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:43,960
coalition that he put together. That's going to be hard.

1177
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:47,360
And so that's why, and you're seeing the sort of

1178
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:50,840
the preview of coming attractions and the midterm elections that

1179
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:54,800
their theory of the case is not that they have

1180
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:59,800
to necessarily replicate Trump's particular charisma. They just have to

1181
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:03,840
be more popular than the Democrats. And so what you're

1182
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:06,840
going to see. And there was this headline I saw

1183
01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:10,639
yesterday that and you know, interesting article that a Republican

1184
01:02:10,679 --> 01:02:13,599
operative said, this is going to be the hate election.

1185
01:02:14,239 --> 01:02:16,599
In other words, the entire goal is to turn a

1186
01:02:16,599 --> 01:02:21,039
critical mass of the electorate so much against the Democrats

1187
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:24,880
that they are going to be willing and you know, willing,

1188
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:28,119
ready and able to accept whatever the Right offers as

1189
01:02:28,119 --> 01:02:31,360
an alternative to Trump. So I don't think the smart

1190
01:02:31,360 --> 01:02:34,280
people in MAGA think that they can replicate Trump's appeal.

1191
01:02:34,679 --> 01:02:36,920
I think the smart people in MAGA say the way

1192
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:41,239
to continue to hold power is to relentlessly demonize the Democrats,

1193
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:44,199
so that we are going to look better even if

1194
01:02:44,199 --> 01:02:47,559
you're a Ken Paxton with all the corruption and adultery.

1195
01:02:48,039 --> 01:02:51,039
You know, even if you're some of these fringe MAGA candidates,

1196
01:02:51,079 --> 01:02:53,280
at least you're not a Democrat. Right is going to

1197
01:02:53,320 --> 01:02:56,000
be the way they're going to argue this case. And

1198
01:02:56,079 --> 01:03:00,320
so look for the rhetoric to really I mean, is

1199
01:03:00,320 --> 01:03:02,440
it even possible for the rhetoric to escalate. But if

1200
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:05,800
it's possible for rhetoric to escalate, look for it to escalate,

1201
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:08,360
because you know that the old saying is I don't

1202
01:03:08,360 --> 01:03:10,639
have to be the fastest person in my hiking group.

1203
01:03:10,679 --> 01:03:13,119
I just have to be able to outrun the slowest

1204
01:03:13,480 --> 01:03:16,800
when the bear comes. That's their view is, I'm going

1205
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:19,400
to outrun the slowest the Democratic Party. And this is

1206
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:23,559
why you see, for example, let's say a DSA candidate

1207
01:03:23,599 --> 01:03:27,159
wins a primary in Brooklyn, or you have a very

1208
01:03:27,239 --> 01:03:30,760
fringe left wing candidate win another primary in some other place.

1209
01:03:31,480 --> 01:03:35,239
Immediately that person becomes the face of the Democratic Party

1210
01:03:35,800 --> 01:03:39,199
in right wing media. And so this is all part

1211
01:03:39,280 --> 01:03:41,960
of the you know, at the end of this election,

1212
01:03:42,079 --> 01:03:44,760
you might have I don't know two three, four five

1213
01:03:45,159 --> 01:03:49,760
DSA affiliated members of Congress. They're going to be the

1214
01:03:49,880 --> 01:03:52,840
face of the Democratic Congress in right wing media, because

1215
01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:56,639
this is how the game is played, and so that's

1216
01:03:56,719 --> 01:03:59,440
going to be that's what they're They believe they're key

1217
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:04,519
to power is the Democratic Party and the leftism of

1218
01:04:04,519 --> 01:04:08,079
the Democratic Party, because their whole view is they just

1219
01:04:08,199 --> 01:04:10,159
have to be more popular than the Democrats.

1220
01:04:11,199 --> 01:04:14,400
Speaker 3: And David, you know'd be impossible to some all this up.

1221
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:16,679
We've traveled, you know, to the nineteen thirties. We've talked

1222
01:04:16,719 --> 01:04:19,440
about the American Founding and the Second Founding. But I

1223
01:04:19,519 --> 01:04:22,280
wonder if one kind of as we start to close off,

1224
01:04:22,320 --> 01:04:25,280
I'll offer you a closing thought and just let you respond,

1225
01:04:26,039 --> 01:04:28,039
is that, you know, part of what the Democratic Party

1226
01:04:28,079 --> 01:04:31,000
has to learn to do to offer an alternative is

1227
01:04:31,039 --> 01:04:34,599
to tap into these deep American ideas. Of course, things

1228
01:04:34,719 --> 01:04:39,000
like affordability matter, and I understand why candidates want to

1229
01:04:39,039 --> 01:04:41,880
talk about that as well they should, But part of it,

1230
01:04:42,159 --> 01:04:44,920
I think also is that we have to reclaim these

1231
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:49,760
ideas that have really been destroyed and degraded by the

1232
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:54,639
new Right into talking about liberty, thinking that liberty somehow means,

1233
01:04:54,679 --> 01:04:57,239
you know, just lead me alone, rather than a deep

1234
01:04:57,599 --> 01:05:02,280
commitment to the freedom of speech and religious freedom. And

1235
01:05:02,360 --> 01:05:05,440
of course there's a long tradition, as you've written about,

1236
01:05:05,599 --> 01:05:08,719
and certainly listeners to this show know from John and

1237
01:05:08,760 --> 01:05:12,199
from me talking about my wife's grandfather, who's the dean

1238
01:05:12,239 --> 01:05:15,559
of Louisville Seminary and involved in the civil rights movement,

1239
01:05:15,599 --> 01:05:19,480
that there's a long tradition and believing in the ideas

1240
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,960
of liberal democracy and religion that of course these things

1241
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:27,360
are compatible, and seeing too at the same time that

1242
01:05:27,400 --> 01:05:31,920
these ideas can fend off explicit authoritarianism and ideas like

1243
01:05:31,920 --> 01:05:35,719
blood and soil that are not part of the American tradition.

1244
01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:37,360
Speaker 2: I mean, so what do you think.

1245
01:05:37,400 --> 01:05:39,360
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's the right thing to believe

1246
01:05:39,360 --> 01:05:40,880
in a lot of what we've talked about as.

1247
01:05:40,920 --> 01:05:42,280
Speaker 2: Ideas and political theory.

1248
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 3: But how about a strategy for the Democratic Party. I

1249
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:47,719
guess putting my cards on the table of the belief

1250
01:05:47,719 --> 01:05:50,000
that that has to be part of it, reclaiming the

1251
01:05:50,079 --> 01:05:53,239
ideas of the Constitution, not just in seeing the threat

1252
01:05:53,280 --> 01:05:55,199
that is Donald Trump, but affirmatively.

1253
01:05:55,920 --> 01:05:58,320
Speaker 6: Yeah, my message to those people who are opposing the

1254
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:03,000
New Right is the Founders are your best friends. Yeah, okay,

1255
01:06:03,079 --> 01:06:06,039
so think of it like this. You know, I know

1256
01:06:06,119 --> 01:06:08,519
a lot of folks, maybe some folks who are listening

1257
01:06:08,559 --> 01:06:11,320
to the podcast it sort of you know, maybe from

1258
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:14,159
the center towards the left have looked at the Right

1259
01:06:14,280 --> 01:06:17,599
and sort of seeing how the right so revers the

1260
01:06:17,639 --> 01:06:20,639
founding and so revers the Founders that maybe you've been

1261
01:06:21,119 --> 01:06:23,039
exposed to sort of the more of the contrary and

1262
01:06:23,119 --> 01:06:27,400
or more skeptical takes that justifiably point out their flaws.

1263
01:06:27,639 --> 01:06:27,840
Speaker 1: Right.

1264
01:06:28,159 --> 01:06:30,639
Speaker 6: I'm not here to come here and say embracing the

1265
01:06:30,639 --> 01:06:34,079
Founders means embracing everything they did. No, no, no, okay,

1266
01:06:34,559 --> 01:06:38,159
you can hold two thoughts at once. James Madison was

1267
01:06:38,159 --> 01:06:42,800
a slave owner, so was George Washington. And also they

1268
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:46,519
advocated for American politics some beautiful ideas that we should

1269
01:06:46,519 --> 01:06:50,559
wrap both arms around their ideas, right, And so I

1270
01:06:50,599 --> 01:06:53,440
think that if you want to refute, then you right.

1271
01:06:53,679 --> 01:06:55,559
There are few better people to go to than George

1272
01:06:55,599 --> 01:06:59,280
Washington and James Madison. And why this is so effective,

1273
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:02,639
why this is so effective is that it actually speaks

1274
01:07:02,639 --> 01:07:05,039
in the language a lot of right leaning people understand.

1275
01:07:05,599 --> 01:07:09,960
Because if it's between James Madison and some politician they

1276
01:07:09,960 --> 01:07:12,360
barely know, they're generally going to go with James Madison

1277
01:07:12,760 --> 01:07:15,880
George Washington versus some random congressman, They're going to go

1278
01:07:15,920 --> 01:07:19,960
with George Washington. And so I really want more liberal

1279
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:23,079
critics of the New Right to bear hug the founders.

1280
01:07:23,119 --> 01:07:27,639
Guys bear hug think about this, think about how relevant, like,

1281
01:07:27,679 --> 01:07:30,320
for example, this statement from James Madison is. And in

1282
01:07:30,360 --> 01:07:33,920
seventeen eighty five he wrote a remonstrance against religious assessments,

1283
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:37,239
which was Virginia was going to impose a tax to

1284
01:07:37,280 --> 01:07:41,039
pay for religious education. And so James Madison writes just

1285
01:07:41,159 --> 01:07:44,519
very stirringly against it, and at one point, he says,

1286
01:07:45,239 --> 01:07:48,440
the proposed establishment, this would be the tax that was

1287
01:07:48,480 --> 01:07:50,119
going to the fee that was going to be assessed.

1288
01:07:50,519 --> 01:07:55,559
The proposed establishment and I'm paraphrasing it, but is antithetical

1289
01:07:55,599 --> 01:07:59,199
to that policy for which this nation would be attracted

1290
01:07:59,239 --> 01:08:02,800
to the persecutre in and oppressed of all nations and

1291
01:08:02,960 --> 01:08:07,519
all religions, and that by bringing these people in, we

1292
01:08:07,599 --> 01:08:11,519
would add to the luster and number to the luster

1293
01:08:11,679 --> 01:08:14,840
of the nation and the number of the citizens. That's

1294
01:08:14,960 --> 01:08:19,119
James Madison. So here he is. He's wading in from

1295
01:08:19,239 --> 01:08:22,319
the eighteenth century into the twenty first century immigration debate,

1296
01:08:22,399 --> 01:08:25,239
and he's saying, Hey, you guys who think that immigration

1297
01:08:25,399 --> 01:08:29,880
is only for Judeo Christian people, know all nations, all peoples.

1298
01:08:30,279 --> 01:08:32,359
You think that we shouldn't be a home for persecuted

1299
01:08:32,399 --> 01:08:35,760
and oppressed people. James Madison says differently, Do you think

1300
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:40,039
it makes us weaker? James Madison says, it makes us stronger. Now,

1301
01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:42,920
you might be a smart person, and you might be

1302
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:45,479
somebody who has some interesting ideas worth considering, but I'm

1303
01:08:45,479 --> 01:08:48,720
not putting you over James Madison in wisdom about this country.

1304
01:08:49,640 --> 01:08:52,000
And so I do think that there is and we

1305
01:08:52,119 --> 01:08:57,039
talked about George Washington and don't run away from religious

1306
01:08:57,159 --> 01:09:02,159
argumentation in American public life, run towards it in the

1307
01:09:02,199 --> 01:09:05,439
way the founders did. So what did James Madison say

1308
01:09:05,439 --> 01:09:09,000
in Remonstrances? He said that this religious assessment would diffuse

1309
01:09:09,039 --> 01:09:13,000
the light of Christ, though it did harm Christianity. When

1310
01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:15,760
George Washington reached out to the Hebrew Congregation of Rhode

1311
01:09:15,760 --> 01:09:18,760
Island to welcome them into this American family, very famously,

1312
01:09:18,840 --> 01:09:23,560
he quoted Scripture. So they made religious arguments for pluralism

1313
01:09:23,600 --> 01:09:24,279
and tolerance.

1314
01:09:25,319 --> 01:09:27,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, And if I could, yeah, I mean, and

1315
01:09:27,439 --> 01:09:29,239
if I could just add on to this, of course,

1316
01:09:29,359 --> 01:09:30,760
I knew we'd be kindred spirits.

1317
01:09:30,800 --> 01:09:32,880
Speaker 2: And that's been clear through this conversation. I mean, just

1318
01:09:32,920 --> 01:09:33,439
to add on.

1319
01:09:33,880 --> 01:09:37,000
Speaker 3: They use those arguments drawing on religion, drawing on the

1320
01:09:37,079 --> 01:09:40,720
Enlightenment ideals to enshrine them, first of all in the

1321
01:09:40,760 --> 01:09:43,720
First Amendment banning establishment.

1322
01:09:43,319 --> 01:09:44,880
Speaker 2: And to argue against theocracy.

1323
01:09:44,960 --> 01:09:47,920
Speaker 3: And so much of what we're talking about are theocratic

1324
01:09:48,399 --> 01:09:52,000
ideas that had their home and v She France, that

1325
01:09:52,119 --> 01:09:54,640
were anti liberal in the nineteen thirties and that are

1326
01:09:54,680 --> 01:09:59,039
finding their way here. And although they're drawing on Christian ideals.

1327
01:09:59,079 --> 01:10:02,720
They're using it to reassure a Jewish community in Newport that, no,

1328
01:10:02,840 --> 01:10:06,800
we're not going to have the Inquisition here exactly, We're

1329
01:10:06,840 --> 01:10:09,960
not going to have the establishment of religion. And to

1330
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:11,720
put it bluntly, I think the way to sum it

1331
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:13,720
up is, we're not going to have theocracy. And yet

1332
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:16,720
so much of the New Rite is an argument for theocracy.

1333
01:10:16,840 --> 01:10:20,680
And George Washington, I'm fond of. My favorite presidential speech

1334
01:10:20,760 --> 01:10:23,159
is the shortest ever given the second inaugural. What does

1335
01:10:23,199 --> 01:10:24,800
he say, I just took the oath of office. I

1336
01:10:24,800 --> 01:10:28,479
have to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. And if

1337
01:10:28,520 --> 01:10:31,800
I violate it, you know, criticize me, upbraid me, subject

1338
01:10:31,880 --> 01:10:35,520
me to constitutional punishment. What a different idea from Trump

1339
01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:37,119
or trump Ism or the New Writer.

1340
01:10:38,560 --> 01:10:42,279
Speaker 6: When speaking of George Washington, he had a favorite Bible verse.

1341
01:10:42,319 --> 01:10:45,479
He used it almost fifty times in his writing. And

1342
01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:48,560
Mount Vernon very wonderfully highlights this. There's a whole like,

1343
01:10:49,159 --> 01:10:51,760
there's a whole web page that's dedicated to his use

1344
01:10:51,760 --> 01:10:53,760
of this Bible verse. And it's Micah four to four.

1345
01:10:54,439 --> 01:10:57,079
And what is it? If you saw the musical Hamilton,

1346
01:10:57,760 --> 01:11:00,720
you've heard it. Every man shall sit under his own

1347
01:11:00,800 --> 01:11:02,840
vine and his own fig tree, and no one shall

1348
01:11:02,840 --> 01:11:09,720
make him afraid. That is a beautiful Biblical argument for

1349
01:11:09,880 --> 01:11:14,039
tolerance and acceptance. And he used that Bible verse when

1350
01:11:14,680 --> 01:11:17,520
welcoming in the Jewish congregate, you know, when he welcomed

1351
01:11:17,640 --> 01:11:22,319
Jewish Americans into this into our republic. And so realize

1352
01:11:22,359 --> 01:11:27,359
that there is religious argumentation for American pluralism and tolerance,

1353
01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:32,359
and embrace the founder's arguments against the new Right. I

1354
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:35,159
love what George Will said, you know, I think about

1355
01:11:35,199 --> 01:11:37,680
you know, as a conservative, I think, what is conservatism

1356
01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:40,119
trying to conserve in this moment? And George Will put

1357
01:11:40,119 --> 01:11:44,119
it brilliantly, It's trying to conserve the American Founding. That's

1358
01:11:44,159 --> 01:11:45,159
where we're trying to conserve.

1359
01:11:46,079 --> 01:11:47,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll add one last thing, which is we've

1360
01:11:47,880 --> 01:11:49,800
been talking, you know, in this part of the conversation

1361
01:11:49,840 --> 01:11:53,039
about the eighteenth century Founding. We began by talking about

1362
01:11:53,279 --> 01:11:56,000
what is a refounding of the United States, or sometimes

1363
01:11:56,000 --> 01:11:58,600
called the Second Founding, and what was the technique that

1364
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:01,680
was used there by the most powerful advocates of it,

1365
01:12:01,720 --> 01:12:04,000
and Frederick Douglass, I think is chief among them. It

1366
01:12:04,079 --> 01:12:07,039
was exactly what we're talking about to recognize not that

1367
01:12:07,079 --> 01:12:10,159
the Framers were gods or they were perfect. No, of course,

1368
01:12:10,199 --> 01:12:14,239
these deeply imperfect people with imperfect beliefs, but the best

1369
01:12:14,239 --> 01:12:17,039
of their ideas are to be understood as the center

1370
01:12:17,079 --> 01:12:19,960
of the American tradition. And that's what in refounding the

1371
01:12:20,039 --> 01:12:23,319
United States in the nineteenth century and creating birthright citizenship,

1372
01:12:23,319 --> 01:12:25,479
which we started with. What they did and what you

1373
01:12:25,520 --> 01:12:27,920
know I as we're looking for hope, what I think

1374
01:12:27,920 --> 01:12:30,079
we all need to do and trying to recover from

1375
01:12:30,079 --> 01:12:33,640
this assault on our democracy. David French, what a pleasure

1376
01:12:33,720 --> 01:12:35,960
to have you on the Oath in the Office podcast.

1377
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:38,000
I knew I would enjoy it. I know the listeners

1378
01:12:38,079 --> 01:12:39,560
enjoyed it. Thanks so much.

1379
01:12:40,359 --> 01:12:42,359
Speaker 6: Well, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

1380
01:12:43,640 --> 01:12:46,840
Speaker 1: Great stuff. Corey, thank you so so much. I'm always

1381
01:12:46,880 --> 01:12:48,760
learning a lot here. What is the best way for

1382
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,319
our listeners to follow you, professor and keep up with

1383
01:12:51,359 --> 01:12:53,079
your brilliance the other six days of the week.

1384
01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:56,800
Speaker 3: Well, leave us a review, I should say, first, subscribe

1385
01:12:56,840 --> 01:13:00,319
if you're listening to us on Spotify, on Apple, really

1386
01:13:00,359 --> 01:13:04,000
wherever you get your podcast on Amazon, push that subscribe

1387
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:05,159
button and leave a review.

1388
01:13:05,239 --> 01:13:06,359
Speaker 2: That's how we grow.

1389
01:13:06,600 --> 01:13:09,840
Speaker 3: Tell others about the show, and you can also find

1390
01:13:09,880 --> 01:13:11,399
us if you're want to watch us and just listen

1391
01:13:11,399 --> 01:13:14,039
to us on YouTube. We have the Oath in the

1392
01:13:14,079 --> 01:13:17,960
office substack, a newsletter that really details what we're talking about,

1393
01:13:18,039 --> 01:13:20,319
the links to the stories that we're discussing, if you

1394
01:13:20,359 --> 01:13:23,039
want to go deeper than the show. And let me

1395
01:13:23,119 --> 01:13:25,800
just say too, John, you know, David French was such

1396
01:13:25,800 --> 01:13:29,199
a great guest because he just coheres with the themes

1397
01:13:29,199 --> 01:13:32,319
of this show, especially his criticisms of the New Right.

1398
01:13:32,520 --> 01:13:35,600
And you know, as I told him off air, the

1399
01:13:35,600 --> 01:13:38,720
way in which his project and your projects are so

1400
01:13:38,840 --> 01:13:43,199
sympathetic to really rescue Christianity from Christian nationalism. What could

1401
01:13:43,199 --> 01:13:45,920
be more important at a time in which authoritarianism is

1402
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:46,560
on the rise.

1403
01:13:46,840 --> 01:13:49,199
Speaker 1: Now, you're too kind, Professor I, thank you so so much,

1404
01:13:49,239 --> 01:13:50,920
and I want to tell everyone you can hear my

1405
01:13:51,000 --> 01:13:53,960
show on Sirius XM Progress Channel one twenty seven every

1406
01:13:54,039 --> 01:13:56,840
weekday at it's twelve New Now Right Corey twelve noon

1407
01:13:57,159 --> 01:13:59,800
Eastern time, nine am Pacific time, So come join us

1408
01:13:59,800 --> 01:14:01,960
in the afternoons if you don't have Serious XM. We're

1409
01:14:01,960 --> 01:14:04,920
also a free podcast and my book is called Separation

1410
01:14:05,000 --> 01:14:08,359
of Church and Hate. And we just were notified that

1411
01:14:08,399 --> 01:14:11,479
we are a recipient of this year's American Book Award,

1412
01:14:11,840 --> 01:14:15,479
which is pretty groovy as well. So yeah, it's amazing

1413
01:14:15,520 --> 01:14:17,800
and whoopee Goldberg Summer pick on the view, So hey,

1414
01:14:17,920 --> 01:14:20,319
pick up my book, professor. I want to thank you.

1415
01:14:20,359 --> 01:14:22,479
I want to thank Wendy and Beowulf and everyone who

1416
01:14:22,520 --> 01:14:24,560
helps put this show together. And most of all, I

1417
01:14:24,600 --> 01:14:27,359
want to thank all of our deeply attractive listeners who

1418
01:14:27,399 --> 01:14:30,680
are making this podcast insanely popular. My god, Corey, where

1419
01:14:30,720 --> 01:14:32,439
are we on the on the rankings this week?

1420
01:14:32,760 --> 01:14:35,520
Speaker 3: Well, first, John, I've got to just say congratulations, you know,

1421
01:14:35,680 --> 01:14:38,479
on my behalf, but also I'm sure the listeners would

1422
01:14:38,479 --> 01:14:42,039
send you the same congratulations. Those are really incredible honors.

1423
01:14:42,079 --> 01:14:44,439
And that book, you know, I'm proud that. On the

1424
01:14:44,439 --> 01:14:46,279
other in the Office podcast, I think we did have

1425
01:14:46,279 --> 01:14:48,960
the first interview about it that was great to do

1426
01:14:49,600 --> 01:14:51,039
and amazing response.

1427
01:14:51,079 --> 01:14:53,039
Speaker 2: And if you haven't read that book, go out and

1428
01:14:53,079 --> 01:14:53,479
get it.

1429
01:14:53,840 --> 01:14:56,760
Speaker 3: And then I'll say people are responding because really, you know,

1430
01:14:56,800 --> 01:14:59,039
for a long time we were top ten, and we

1431
01:14:59,039 --> 01:15:02,399
were top five in terms of Apple podcast trending episodes,

1432
01:15:02,880 --> 01:15:05,680
and last week and really this has been regularly true.

1433
01:15:05,720 --> 01:15:07,920
We were number one at one point for a good

1434
01:15:07,920 --> 01:15:10,479
period of time. So thank you, and as I said,

1435
01:15:10,520 --> 01:15:11,760
push that subscribe button.

1436
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:13,560
Speaker 1: That's all due to your riz Man. I want to

1437
01:15:13,600 --> 01:15:16,640
thank everyone for joining us again. And a reminder MAGA

1438
01:15:16,680 --> 01:15:19,119
may think that Andrew Tate is some kind of philosopher,

1439
01:15:19,359 --> 01:15:23,119
he's not. He's Tony Robbins. For people who think consent

1440
01:15:23,479 --> 01:15:26,800
is woke, don't forget. Thank you so much, Professor Bretschneider.

1441
01:15:26,800 --> 01:15:28,399
We will see all of you next time on the

1442
01:15:28,439 --> 01:15:30,319
Oath and the Office