← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. And today we have a special guest, Miles Bruner, who, if you haven't seen it yet, I would encourage you to read his piece for the Bulwark. It's on our site. It was mailed out this morning, Monday morning. It is about Miles journey through Republican politics, but mostly his journey recently into realizing that the Republican Party isn't necessarily the right home for him with Trump at its as its head. Miles, I'm going to shut up and let you do much of the talking, but before I do, thank you for writing the piece for us, for doing this video with us. I want to just stress that I understand completely how difficult this is or is for you. I should say I don't personally understand it, but also that it's just tricky in this moment in time to do something like this when you understand how vindictive administration can be and how vicious the online political culture can be. So I don't take lightly the fact that you do this. Can you start off and just tell us a little bit about yourself prior to your decision to leave the Republican Party? Tell us what you did for the Republican Party.
- [01:08]
B
So for the last six years, I've served as a senior fundraising strategist for a digital fundraising firm in the D.C. area. Then prior to that, I worked at the state level in California for a Republican official in this California state Senate. So and then I've been involved in politics almost at every level, save for the president's presidential level going back to when I was in high school in 2004. So I have, I have some deep roots working in politics.
- [01:41]
A
Were you born a republic? Like, is your family, like a Republican family? Are you conservative growing up, that type of thing?
- [01:48]
B
No, not really. It was, I can't really. Yeah, my mother was, my mom and dad weren't really super political. We had a couple of political discussions. But what got me into it, I was one of those speech and debate nerds. I was one of those kids. Yeah, picture Alex P. Keaton for the Bush years. That was me going into suit, going Fridays in a suit and tie in a briefcase.
- [02:14]
A
What did you like about the Republican Party when you were in there?
- [02:17]
B
Yeah, it was actually a very shallow reason. It was right after 9, 9 11. The war on terror had just kicked off and we were invading Iraq. And it was a very exciting time to be a part of the Republican Party. It kind of felt a little punk rock at the time, if that sounds, if that makes any sense. But it was this belief in American exceptionalism. And George Bush at the. George W. Bush at the time represented that. So I gravitated to the Republican Party in my high school years.
- [02:56]
A
Talk a bit about those early jobs. I mean, what were you doing? Were you involved in. I mean, obviously entry level job, you are involved in like the high level stuff, but what were you doing? Were you doing just like the grunt work?
- [03:09]
B
It started off as the grunt work, like data entry, the first draft of some press releases, social media posts. Then it moved up to doing voter analysis for the 2014 campaign. And then from there I transitioned into district director working out of the Senate. District Senate office.
- [03:33]
A
What was the end goal going to be? Was like your dream job in politics?
- [03:38]
B
Yeah, I dreamed at one point of I thought being a campaign manager was the end all be all at the time. That's what I really wanted. And then once I got it, I was like, I'm not really sure about this. Yeah, I kind of want to start a family. So once I got the chance to finally work for an agency, find some stability, that became my ideal because it gave me the freedom to start a family and actually build a stable life.
- [04:11]
A
Talk a bit about. Because one of the subtexts of the piece that I really liked was that there's the glamorous side of politics and then there's the sort of.
- [04:24]
B
Grunt work.
- [04:24]
A
On politics, to borrow the phrase we just talked about. And a lot of what people don't fully appreciate is that so much of our political system and the candidates and so on and so forth really depend on people like you kind of putting in the hours. Talk a bit about that, you know, how integral, you know, that data input, the press releases, the long hours, the sort of lack of glory work that goes into it.
- [04:49]
B
Yeah, it's a real thankless task. I had always thought, like growing up, I watched the West Wing and I saw the campaign managers and suits and ties and talking to the press constantly. And it was nothing like that, frankly, at least at the state level. I went into the office.
- [05:09]
A
You weren't Josh Lyman.
- [05:11]
B
No, as much as I wanted to be. But I went into the office in dickey shorts and some rundown T shirt I had, so. And sometimes I would sleep in the office. And so but it taught me that a lot of, like you said, a lot of what really keeps this machine running, it isn't the, the press strategists, it's not the press secretaries, it's not the people out in front of the cameras, it's people in the Background, doing the day to day, doing the mobilization work, getting these press releases out, doing the copywriting, all that kind of stuff.
- [05:51]
A
Then, okay, so now Trump bursts onto the scene in about 2015, you're out in California, you're working for a state senator there. She's got a, you know, a district with a fair amount of minority community in it. And you're initially, I don't want to say dismissive of Trump, but you, I don't know, how would you describe the initial reaction to Trump before he's president for the first time? He just bursts out onto scene, he's saying all this outrageous shit.
- [06:21]
B
Yeah, at first we were dismissive because, I mean, we had seen everything from going back to the correspondence dinner when Seth Meyers was saying he was running as a joke. Very much believe in that. And it was a slow transition for us to start to take him seriously. And in the piece I mentioned, like one of the first I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, like, oh shit moments.
- [06:44]
A
Yeah, you can say it. This is YouTube, man. The same cable.
- [06:49]
B
One of the first oh shit moments was that, that McCain interview when he mentioned, I'm paraphras raising that he doesn't respect people who've been captured. And when we kind of hemmed and didn't say anything, that was the first time where I thought, there's something here, we're missing something.
- [07:10]
A
Why did you, why did your office or your boss choose to hem and not say anything in that moment?
- [07:18]
B
Because the prevailing thought was that, yes, he's, he's really still kind of. He's a flash in the pan. He has, yeah, he'll go away. There's no need to upset his voters right now. He has this minority of voters. Don't accept them. There's no need to do that. So let's just kind of keep our powder dry and just move on.
- [07:39]
A
So that was the first time you swallowed, I guess, a sense of pride over an issue and said, well, we'll make, we'll make piece of that later on.
- [07:47]
B
Yeah, it's like I said, it was one of the first times. Like, I just need to take this seriously. But at the same time it was like, all right, I mean, we're not endorsing him, we're not doing any of that weird stuff. So just, I guess we'll just move on.
- [07:59]
A
What was the. I'm always kind of curious what the internal office vibes are like around these moments and we can move past the McCain one, but, you know, consider that as Part of it, like, are there debates inside your office over, like, how seriously to take them and how strenuously to push back? Do they get heated? Are people trying to, like, make sense of it? Are you confused by it? Like, what's it like internally? In these moments, at least for our.
- [08:29]
B
Office, we were kind of confused by it. I will say we had a phenomenal staff. I loved everyone I worked with. We also kind of had a unique staff among Republicans because we had such a very diverse community. So we had people who didn't necessarily represent the far right view of the party. So we had a very good diverse group of opinions and we all respected each other. To this day, I still respect the people I worked with. So, yeah, it was more or less a lot of kind of confusion. Just kind of dump out, like, not sure how we properly handle this because like I said, like you mentioned, it was such a diverse community. And so it was a real high wire act.
- [09:17]
A
Did it ever get to a point prior to him running where people were like, if you don't, you know, say something more forceful, we're going to quit. Or did everyone just sort of assume he was going to lose that 2016 election and bite their tongue?
- [09:33]
B
We just assumed he was going to lose. Even going into the night of the election where just. We just assumed he was going to lose. So it really, as stressed out as we were going into election night, it was still, like I said, yeah, it was still kind of assumed that it was going to lose and we really didn't have that real worry in the office and there wasn't that tension.
- [09:59]
A
So I don't want to like, fast forward through four years. I want to summarize four years. I mean, in the next four years, let's go prior to January 6, 2021, prior to that, because we'll talk about that. But over the next four years or so, a number of things happen. There's Charlottesville, there's Covid, there's a government shutdown, which we're now reliving. Things like that where constantly you're back into this place where you're questioning whether you can partake in the process, whether you should speak out against it, how you can continue in your job. And at each juncture you sort of decide, okay, I just got to keep on. And I'm wondering what was going through your head. What rationalizations did you make with yourself to keep in that position you were playing?
- [10:50]
B
It was different at every point. And every point, like prior to like 2018, 2019, when I was working in the Senate, it was part of, it was also kind of just survival, like it was. I was working a job that didn't have pay a whole lot. I had student loans, so there was real economic considerations. I needed it, I took into account. And also, like after Charlottesville, that was almost a breaking point for me because again, we said something kind of, but also didn't. We took down a mention of it on Facebook, but kept something up on Twitter. So, yeah, there was, it was different, really, kind of at each junction point.
- [11:42]
A
Did you ever think like to yourself, well, if I don't do this job, someone will take this job who's way more of a believer. And I kind of need to be in this place because I can at least provide a level of sanity or something like that.
- [12:00]
B
Not in the Senate, not in our Senate office, because I knew we had a good staff and I knew they would hire a good person that was, wasn't crazy. So there really wasn't that kind of consideration in the Senate office. When I got to the agency, again, that really wasn't beginner consideration because I really didn't feel that kind of loyalty. So it's like, yeah, they'll just replace me, fine, move on. That kind of thing.
- [12:35]
A
Well, then you get to January 6th, and, you know, that, you know, for obvious reasons was like the, the, the material, the, the, the, the culmination of. Yeah, a basically every sort of assumption of how bad it could get in one day. And just walk me through that day, like, what are you doing? What are you watching? How are you feeling? As it transpires, it was actually a.
- [13:02]
B
Very slow day for us. We were still under lockdown. We were still working from our homes. Most of COVID I worked off of my couch, so I was kind of, I was just in my living room. January is a slow fundraising period, so we weren't really doing a whole lot. And yeah, we saw the images on TV and it was everyone in the company. It was a jarring experience. But in the immediate aftermath, it kind of had almost the opposite effect.
- [13:37]
A
How?
- [13:38]
B
Yeah, how? That's a very good question. Because in the immediate aftermath, it seemed like he was going to be a political pariah.
- [13:47]
A
Right. He's gone. It didn't work. They did the election certification and they're talking about impeaching him or, you know, holding him in criminal contempt.
- [13:57]
B
And again, I'm not saying this was the right perspective. I, I, when I know I looking back and I was 100 dead wrong, but in the moment, you just kind of assumed, well, the Institution's whole held and my role was kind of minimal and all this, I guess you could just kind of move on so I can just continue to collect my paycheck. And I'm sure part of you said.
- [14:23]
A
Okay, wow, four years of having to deal with this. I had to make more compromises along the way. But now I've made it and I can start to breathe again.
- [14:34]
B
Yeah, yeah. Biden was in office and I was like, okay, that's fine. Raise some money off of anti Biden stuff and I can focus on starting a family and at least building my nest egg. It was pure at that point, it became pure self interest in a lot of ways.
- [14:54]
A
You wrote a bit about building your family in the tragedy that happened where your first attempt at a pregnancy was not successful. This happened right before or was it after the Dobbs decision? Before.
- [15:07]
B
Right, it happened before the Dobbs decision. But in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, we kind of look back and said this could have very well been us and hearing like if anything was just slightly different or if we were in a slight, in a different state or community, it could have turned out very different.
- [15:27]
A
I guess a lot of it's interesting to me that that was an inflection point because obviously when you think you're Republican operative, you've been in conservative politics, surely you're know, anti abortion. But it seemed like, and you wrote about this, you know, your personal experience kind of opened your eyes to a different set of policies that also challenged your, your own situation within the Republican Party.
- [15:56]
B
Well, I mean, I had stopped being pro life a long time ago. Like it was probably, God, going back into college that I stopped being pro life. But at the same time it wasn't something I voted on because I didn't have perspective. I be honest, I didn't know. I didn't really fully understand the impact of what that meant and how that could impact people going through what we went through. So yeah, even after I became pro choice, I told people it's like it's just something I don't vote on. I can just let other people deal with that. I'll focus on other stuff. And yeah, in that moment it became very real. And I've. I always hate to say that it's. People really don't fully understand the implications until it happened to them. And so yeah, I fully get that criticism.
- [16:51]
A
But that's sort of the theme, that's a theme of this piece. Right. It's like, it's like you're. If you're able to compartmentalize a little bit and push things off a little bit and, and, and, you know, maybe prioritize different things. In this case, you know, it's your own family, legitimate priorities. You know, family, student debt, you know, making sure you have a good paying job. You. You can go through a lot. You can, you can make moral compromises. And that seems to be part of the theme of this piece.
- [17:18]
B
Yeah, definitely. I definitely turn my head at a number of things because especially working the past five years, like, life had kind of become comfortable. It become. I went from being from struggling in my early, my late 20s, early 30s to having a comfortable job. I was able to start a family. We had for the first time in my life, I had very. Almost no debt and some disposable income. So that alone can blind you to a lot of what's going on.
- [17:52]
A
When Trump bursts back onto the scene and Kevin McCarthy kind of rehabilitates him in Mar a Lago and suddenly he's, you know, the front runner and no one else is challeng or even coming that close to challenging him. And then the indictments happen. It just gives him a boost. Are you, like, is a pit forming in your stomach?
- [18:13]
B
It's starting to. And to be frankly honest, it was. Again, I don't know if this is, like, a lack of creativity on my part or just didn't think that, like, there's no way this could work again. Like, that's.
- [18:32]
A
We went through it once.
- [18:34]
B
We went through it in 2016. Yeah. Like, again, there's, like, no way this could happen again.
- [18:38]
A
This could happen twice.
- [18:40]
B
Yeah. What are the odds he's indicted.
- [18:42]
A
What?
- [18:43]
B
But no, for 2023, it became very real. But it also, in 2023, I had be. Just become a new father. So the idea of leaving at that point also became very challenging here. Now you're starting to wonder, like, okay, now I'm responsible for someone, and the prospect of starting a new career and just completely starting from scratch, that can be overwhelming.
- [19:15]
A
Yeah.
- [19:16]
B
And so combine all those factors. There's, like, a lot going into that decision. And I will say I did try at certain points to leave. I reached out to people. I had perfunctory job searches here and there, but nothing that I would consider serious.
- [19:37]
A
Was it unsuccessful because the job opportunity didn't open up or because you just never really put your heart into.
- [19:45]
B
Actually never really put my heart into it. I had a lot going on. Again, all this is completely sounds, and it does sound like it's making excuses, and it is. It's all part of the rationalization, part of all that stuff. But it was, I told myself, like, no, I have a family. I really don't have time for this. So I'm just going to put that on hold. And you keep saying that like I'm put on hold for now. I'm putting that on hold for another month. And next thing you know, you put it on hold for two years.
- [20:19]
A
Well, yeah, I mean, he got reelected. And it wasn't until eight or nine months in that you've decided to finally do this. And what changed? I mean, is there a specific moment where the light bulb finally went off or was it just.
- [20:34]
B
It was, it was a series. It had been the weight of the last 10 years. And honestly, just seeing the National Guard in our streets, like, it became very real very quick. And I told, told my wife that there's no way I would be able to tell, tell our kid in the future with any sense of moral clarity, like why I didn't say anything at this moment in time. Like, all I would be able to say is like, well, I did it for a paycheck and that wasn't acceptable to me anymore. I couldn't explain away what I was seeing on the news. So that's kind of what precipitated this final, this final move.
- [21:22]
A
Do you think there's a lot of others who are like you or do you think you're just kind of the last of a very small dying breed?
- [21:29]
B
I like to think there's more like me. But the thing is, is working in this field, you get pretty good at masking your true intentions. You really don't. At least in our office, we didn't really talk about our personal political beliefs. It was all just the work of the day. So you really, you don't have an honest idea of where your co workers stand. There's.
- [21:58]
A
Sometimes you can push back.
- [22:01]
B
Yeah, go ahead.
- [22:02]
A
Well, I'm just guessing, but I mean, I think it's also quite possible and maybe even more likely that a lot of them got converted.
- [22:11]
B
Yeah, I 100% believe that there's, I would think if there are people who hold the beliefs I held, either they left long ago or they're in the small minority right now.
- [22:26]
A
When you decided to do this, you obviously wrote a piece about it explaining it, but you phrase your piece as a kind of letter call to action for other people. Why did you do it that way?
- [22:43]
B
I framed it that way at first because looking back on my decision to finally speak out, it was all those calls to Action, they. That weighed on me that seeing other people who had done it in the past, like it wasn't one person who had done it. It took many people over many years. So like I viewed it as just kind of another. Another one of those pieces that hopefully would weigh on someone who would eventually make the decision to quit or speak up themselves.
- [23:18]
A
I guess that leads to the other question I have, which is like this, I'm assuming, is an incredibly frightening decision to make to do something like this. You've left your job, you now have put yourself out there. Yeah. Are you scared?
- [23:37]
B
No. We had kind of one. I don't think I'm that important.
- [23:43]
A
Well, important enough for us to publish a piece, but go ahead.
- [23:46]
B
True. Yeah, there was that. But after some long conversations and seeing we felt it was something that was worth it. There's definitely that kind of thing in the back of your head. Always kind of worry. Worries about it. And then after what happened with Charlie Kirk, that kind of added another layer because I was. I was in the middle of putting this together as that occurred. And so before, when I started this, that really wasn't a consideration. And when that happened, it was. I had this. Yeah, I had this whole other wrinkle to worry about if I'm going to do this.
- [24:25]
A
The other thing is though, it's like so much of our social life is now kind of done through the political filter in prisons. Right. Like, we hang out with people who are like minded, we talk with people who are like minded. You know, it's even neighborhoods are like very like politically, they're kind of like minded. I don't know if that's the case for you, but is there like a real social disruption that you now have to go through?
- [24:50]
B
Not really, because all my social network is so diffuse and so there wasn't really a close social network here who kind of held opposing views. So in terms of at least my immediate social network, I'm very lucky. I have a very supportive group of friends, family behind me. So luckily I didn't.
- [25:17]
A
I.
- [25:18]
B
At least I don't think I'll see a major disruption there.
- [25:21]
A
What's it been like since the piece is published about. I don't know. I'm not good at math. But. 10 hours.
- [25:28]
B
10 hours. Yeah, thereabouts.
- [25:30]
A
Yeah.
- [25:31]
B
For someone who really doesn't. Has never been involved in something like this, has very little media training, who spent the last six years just managing email campaigns, it's kind of been. Not overwhelming, but it's been a lot. It's been a lot to take in process. Kind of just staying off of the Internet as much as I can right now. Just kind of letting it. Yeah. Just kind of ignoring it as much as I can. Take a couple drives, take the dog for a walk, that kind of stuff.
- [26:05]
A
I would highly recommend just staying off the Internet. Nothing good comes. Nothing comes from the Internet. It's a terrible place to be.
- [26:12]
B
Yeah, one of my. Yeah, one of my friends just said, go outside, touch grass.
- [26:18]
A
Maybe smoke some grass, too. No, I'm just joking. Don't do that. All right. Well, listen, Miles, I appreciate you doing this. I guess I should ask one last question, which is, you know, you talked about sort of hoping that someone would, you know, read your piece in the same vein that you read other people's pieces like this. I guess, you know, what do you say to that person who's out there who has made moral compromises and compartmentalized their concerns and isn't sure about whether or not to do something like this or just needs the paycheck?
- [26:51]
B
I would say, look, I get it. It's a very. It's. It's a terrifying prospect. You're leaving behind so much like I left behind. Politics aside, I left behind what was a great job. They were a great collaborative team. They were great on a personal people. It's terrifying to leave that kind of network and then start over from scratch. But if you truly believe in what we originally got into politics for, what we originally got even into the Republican Party for, if you believe in that, it's time to take a serious consideration, to take a step back. And I hope people, if this one doesn't cause it, I hope it's just a step on the way and helps them eventually make that decision when it matters.
- [27:45]
A
All right, well, Miles Bruner, thank you so much. Appreciate you doing this. Appreciate you writing this. Appreciate you talking so openly about it as well. People can check out the piece on our Substack page. It's called My Last Day as an Accomplice of the Republican Party, why I'm Leaving the GOP and why I'm Urging My Former colleagues to do the Same by Miles Bruner. Miles, thanks so much. For those who watched, thank you for watching. Appreciate that. Subscribe to our substack or subscribe to our YouTube feed where you get great conversations like this. Take care, Budget.