← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:01]
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- [00:46]
Stephen
So, so, so let me go ahead and start. You know, I want to say that I'm really happy to be joined by Jonathan the Last, the astute editor of the Bulwark, whose work I greatly admire. I want to say that I'll tell you that I really look forward to your observations on things which I find consistently thoughtful and incisive, even when I disagree with you. And that happens on occasion. He was previously at the Weekly Standard for many years as a writer and an editor. But I also saw that you studied molecular biology at Johns Hopkins. And that's actually where I'd like to start because I'm curious what you think the connection is between the study of molecular biology and what exactly you do now.
- [01:39]
Jonathan V. Last
So the connection is that I had been pointed towards medical school since about first grade and I couldn't get in. So I applied to there are 121 Medical schools in the continental United States. I applied to 23 of them. So basically one out of every six medical schools. And, and I didn't even get close to getting in. And I was just ghasty about like, crap, what am I going to do with my life? And it turns out there's no admissions test for journalism. They'll just let anybody do it. And I, you know, I'd always been very, very interested in current events. I was one of the weird sickos in middle school who read the New York Times and read Newsweek and would love getting my hands on copies of New Republic or National Review. I would go to the library and I remember when the Weekly Standards started, I was in the middle of college, I think, anyway, I just loved magazines. I loved politics and public life. And I wasn't especially, I wasn't especially partisan. I was much more, when I say politics, I was much more interested in, like, life of the mind politics, if that makes sense, than, like, I was not interested in, like, reporting on the congressional race in Texas five, you know. And so I didn't get into medical school, and I didn't quite know what to do. So I spent four months driving around just playing basketball, which is like a weird thing. And then I moved to D.C. and I was going to write a book, and I'd been there for about a week when a friend of mine who had interned for Bill Kristol called me and said, hey, the Weekly Standard needs somebody to answer their phones. And so I was like, you thought.
- [03:24]
Stephen
You were the guy for that?
- [03:26]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah. And so I went and I did that because I loved the Standard the way I loved the New Republic and all those little magazines. And I never left. So I spent, like, 25 years at the Standard. It was the only place I ever worked until it got shut down, and then we started the book.
- [03:41]
Stephen
So can I say that it strikes me that your writing is often very precise, maybe even molecular, even maybe granular in sort of certain ways. So part of my question. It's not only sort of biographic, I'm just wondering about. We'll do this briefly because we got a lot to cover, but I'm curious about whether you think it has shaped, in some ways, the pattern of your thinking.
- [04:11]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, I think it does. I mean, so it. There. There are all sorts of drawbacks to my. My education. The biggest one being that I just didn't read anything. You know, I did not. Did not read history. I had to do all over again. I would probably have majored in history so I could just read, read, read and be able to understand things about the world. It has been useful many times to be mathematically literate. So, like, you know, like, I'm. I'm pretty good at math. I like math. Doesn't scare me away. You know, I went through a phase where, like 10 years where I was obsessed with demographics. I wrote a book about demographics, and that was, like, comfortable for me because I like the math involved in all that. There really is not a lot of difference between studying, like, the rates of reaction than there is like studying population dynamic flows. Like, it's the same thing. It's just that you're talking about people in one of them and molecules in the other.
- [05:07]
Stephen
You know, something about how to make correlations. Let's. Let's put it as simply as that. And there are, in fact, things like causality, that's maybe worth trying to identify and then play out. So let Me start with actually talking about that photograph from yesterday, which was Donald Trump standing in the Oval Office the moment after a man had a medical emergency collapse on the floor. The medical people are trying to deal with him, and he's standing there looking like he's somewhere else and surely doesn't want to be there. It's maybe too on the nose, but I'm curious, sort of, whether you look at that photograph as a. As maybe an unexpected but brilliant metaphor for, you know, for the emergency and the guy, the sociopath, who's indifferent to it.
- [06:05]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, I. It's. I mean, I find it sort of horrifying in. In, like, the most basic human way, and it made me think of. So, yeah, but back when I was at the Standard, the Standard did a thing that a lot of small political magazines did, which is cruises. I don't know if you remember this world where, you know, if you were National Review or New Republic or the Nation Standard, you would have readers come on a cruise with you and, you know, spend five days jetting around the Caribbean and doing panel discussions and whatnot. It was a way for these magazines to make some money. And we were. I went on one of these cruises once, and there was, like, a cocktail hour for the people who had come on this cruise with us. And it was out on, like, the Lido deck of the boat, and.
- [06:59]
Stephen
One.
- [06:59]
Jonathan V. Last
Of the people who was there for us, like a paying member, just keeled over. And it was like, you know, the CRU cruise lines have a lot of experience with this because old people do a lot of cruising and whatnot. And so, you know, they bring a bunch of people out and they have, like, waiters holding up white sheets around this guy while the medical people are trying to resuscitate him. And I. You know, like, I'm a weirdo Catholic. I just sort of, like, went and sat at a table in a corner and prayed a rosary for him, because I was like, oh, God, this poor guy.
- [07:34]
Stephen
But. Which suggests at least there was some intrinsic compassion or empathy.
- [07:41]
Jonathan V. Last
Right. I mean, but the rest of the people there for the cocktail party just kept going. And I remember just thinking, what the fuck is wrong with you people? Like, it was bizarre. And I understand there's, like, a sense of the show must go on, but, like, I don't know, like, human. Human distress is real. And it's weird. I just don't understand how a. A person can be like that.
- [08:07]
Stephen
Yeah, well, I mean, he's a. He's a psychopath. He's a sociopath. I Mean, I don't use. I'm. I'm not a, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. You know, these are clinical terms. I think they're true because they represent somebody who doesn't possess the capacity for shame and, and is indifferent to the pain and suffering of others. And it was just portrayed in a snapshot moment yesterday. And the other piece of it that I thought was so interesting is that if you watch the video, and for those who haven't seen it, I'll make a point of sharing it with a recording, was that we also saw the group of people that were. There was RFK Jr. Who, at the moment this was happening, ran out of the room, which is super weird also. Right. The Health and Human Services secretary whose first reaction when somebody is facing a medical emergency is to run out of the room.
- [09:08]
Jonathan V. Last
I mean, to be honest, it's probably the most helpful thing he could have done.
- [09:13]
Stephen
Right.
- [09:13]
Jonathan V. Last
Would have been worse if he had sat there and said, oh, somebody give him some steroids. Yeah, well, shoot him up with some hgh.
- [09:20]
Stephen
Maybe that. Okay, so I won't overstate the point. I just think it was one of those moments that seemed to encapsulate a few things. So here's another one. This is a breaking news thing from today. You know, we have, you know, Trump seeking an appeals court to halt a judge's ruling that SNAP food benefits must be paid today. He really doesn't get it, does he? I mean, the only thing that would make this more obvious is if it happened on Thanksgiving or maybe over Christmas or something. I mean, that he somehow thinks that, that the, that the right choice right now is to, to deny 42 million people of food that helps keeping them from hunger.
- [10:07]
Jonathan V. Last
I think that he has a pretty. In his own mind's eye, he probably views people who get SNAP benefits in a certain way, and he probably thinks they aren't his voters. He probably thinks they're minorities. I mean, this is, this is not true. Like, lots of white people, lots of white Trump voters get SNAP benefits and.
- [10:25]
Stephen
Military veterans and the like.
- [10:27]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, but like, he, you know, like, he knows who his people are. And I, I suspect that, you know, in the same way that he bends over backwards to go and protect, like, soybean farmers from the consequences of his tariffs, if he thought that the people who get SNAP were his folks, he wouldn't be like this. But it is. I mean, I don't know if you saw, like, J.D. vance said something either early today or late yesterday, and he was like, well, we're not going to let some federal judge tell us what to do. We'll interpret the law as we see fit. Like, I mean, there is a.
- [11:04]
Stephen
As if that's a priority. Right. As if is. As if it's really a court proceeding as much as it is a decision about power.
- [11:12]
Jonathan V. Last
Right, right. And it. And so they're, you know, part of it is they. They've taken this position because they do not believe that it is legitimate for a court to order them to do anything.
- [11:25]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [11:26]
Jonathan V. Last
And that's like. That's of a piece with the whole constitutional crisis of the second term.
- [11:30]
Stephen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So look, I, you know, I think it. It, for me, it sort of gets into all these sort of issues around, you know, the priorities of the regime and the cruelty of it. And as you suggest, their focus on power that precedes any sort of acknowledgment of what the consequences of what their actions are. You know, look, I want to talk about the election because I think there's plenty to sort of dig in there. But I want to go back in time for a moment. I want to talk about the piece that you wrote in March, which was how to think and act like a dissident movement. And I want to read, if I might, I want to read a few sentences so people can hear from that and then just talk about sort of its, you know, relevance or not to this moment. You wrote, we now see that most institutions are weak in the face of authoritarianism. We must stop viewing political life through the lens of American politics as we have known it and adopt the viewpoint of dissident movements in autocratic states. And then you share essentially your quote, unquote, rough roadmap, which includes some of this. You know, demonstrate popular power in the provinces through large scale rallies. Use the events to organize the resistance into a mass movement that can be called into action. Direct the mass movement into targeted political strikes like boycotts and so forth. Politicize everything. Attack the authoritarians for every bad thing that happens anywhere in the world. Flood the zone. Elevate the corruption graft in a way that pits the billionaire insiders against the forgotten man. So how. How relevant does that feel right now, especially in the context of, you know, the elections on Tuesday?
- [13:23]
Jonathan V. Last
I mean, I think that feels about right. And I mean, I think about it in the context of no Kings. This is really how no Kings has. Has conducted itself in ways that I think are very helpful. I think about Chicago, your hometown, and what it has been like as they've tried to resist ICE and what is probably going to happen in New York City in the coming weeks, my guess is that Trump is going to try to do to and with the advantage of having Mamdani as the mayor because Trump has decided that he is going to use Mamdani as a foil. So I think that's right. And I, you know, so much of this is, is about do we think that everything is still basically normal or not? And a lot of people, especially a lot of Republicans, have maintained, you know, oh, everything is still basically normal. Like nothing, nothing has changed. We have not changed any of the basic underpinnings of the liberal compact. I, I think that's possible that that's correct, but I also think it's possible.
- [14:31]
Stephen
That it's not correct or, or that they've been, you know, sufficiently buffered from it. Right. So that they don't feel the consequences.
- [14:38]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, I mean, well, I mean for them it's a self interested thing. Right? They, they, they say this because they want to explain why they haven't done anything to stop it. And I don't know, like, it's one of those things where we, we will find out when we get there. Like, you know, in 2026, either Democrats will be allowed to retake power in Congress or they won't be. I think they're going to win a bunch of elections. We'll see if they are seated. You know, in 2028, we will see what that election looks like. We will see if Donald Trump is on the ballot or not. I know, like I'm, I'm the lone voice of the wilderness who still thinks that Trump is going to try to run in 2028. He may succeed or not succeed, but I think he will try.
- [15:24]
Stephen
Well, yeah, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. I'm just going to say it strikes me that, you know, it's kind of impossible to look at masked men grabbing people in the streets and taking them off in unmarked cars and suggesting that things are normal and that, you know, people being dealt with without due process, transported out of the country, even if you believe in deportations and so forth, somehow can be imagined as part of normal life in America. You know, so it's always, at the.
- [15:58]
Jonathan V. Last
Very least, we are a society now where you have to carry your papers with you.
- [16:02]
Stephen
Yeah, right.
- [16:03]
Jonathan V. Last
I mean, that, that does seem like a pretty significant.
- [16:06]
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- [16:51]
Stephen
Yeah, yeah, I mean, a pretty basic point that an open democratic society, that's not part of the deal. So let's talk about Tuesday. You know, I've been hitting the point that it is in fact a referendum on Trump and particularly on economic failures. Obviously, the topic of affordability has been sort of at the heart of a lot of the conversation. We're now a few days after the, you know, the blowout. So what do you think? I mean, how do you sort of digest this at this point and kind of view or review what happened?
- [17:29]
Jonathan V. Last
So, I mean, it certainly has a lot to do with Trump. Some of it is that it's a referendum on his first 10 months or 12 months, 10 months, I guess. Some of it is that it is the reality of the Republican coalition, which is that they are reliant on a bunch of low propensity voters who are not really Republicans. They're just mouth breathers who like Donald Trump. And so, you know, like, what does that future look like if Trump is no longer on the ballot? Are these people getting really jazzed for like a JD Vance, Marco Rubio ticket? I think that's unlikely. Part of it is the affordability stuff, which, which annoys me because like affordability ain't never coming back. Like, that's. And these same people who, you know, are want prices down now, wanted prices down a year ago. And they're never going to get it because we get deflation. It's bad. So there's like basic economic illiteracy here.
- [18:27]
Stephen
But, but they were, were promised, you know, that this guy would lower the price of eggs and he was going to. Well, they should have known.
- [18:34]
Jonathan V. Last
They should have known. The biggest thing for me is his backbillers. So this is what my fixation has been on. And if you look in Jersey where we have a bunch of cities and municipalities with large Hispanic majorities by a bunch, I mean there's like a dozen of them. Is it like, yeah, Passaic, Union City, there's a couple More. And, you know, they're all up in, like, Hudson county right next to the city. Those places swung BY Something like 50 points against Trump. And so Trump, who had made real gains in those communities from 2016 to 2020, and then real gains from 2020 to 2024, the Republican, Jack Cittarelli, who is not Trump, but whatever, Steve performed worse than Trump in 2016 in those, those. And so, and this is, I think, just all about immigration. I mean, not immigration. Let me say. This is about the deportation policy and the actual ice. I think.
- [19:46]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [19:46]
Jonathan V. Last
These communities have seen what the President is doing and how they were fooled into thinking that when Trump said, I'm going to deport 20 or 25 million people, but don't. We're going to only be criminals. Like, there are not 25 million criminals. Again, I just don't know how these people are so stupid.
- [20:03]
Stephen
But criminals are the worst of the worst. Right, right.
- [20:08]
Jonathan V. Last
They've gotten the message now and they realize that he just means brown people.
- [20:12]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [20:12]
Jonathan V. Last
And if you're a brown person, the Supreme Court has said you can be hassled just because you're a brown person. If you speak Spanish in public, an ICE officer can detain you indefinitely until they figure out where your papers are. And that has clearly gotten through.
- [20:29]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [20:30]
Jonathan V. Last
And I, I can't see a way that that changes because Trump can't back off of this. Like, he's, he's hired, you know, he just earmarked, what was it, $150 billion for ICE. He is gonna, they're in the process of hiring five digits of ICE officers that they are rolling out all over the place.
- [20:54]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [20:55]
Jonathan V. Last
Like, you can't not, you know, once you've bought the ticket for that, you have to take the ride.
- [21:00]
Stephen
Yeah. And then, look, this is a, you know, the, the, it's not a matter of like, you know, military troops being brought into more democratic led cities. It's also the militarization of the federal agents. Right. So, so they're, they're all operating in the same kind of increasingly. And, you know, in my views, we're increasingly abusive, you know, federalized police state, which, you know, again, these are sort of, in a way, big concepts, but I think they're felt very concretely and are very visible day by day that people can, can see it. Right. People can feel it.
- [21:38]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah. And it's again, like, I struggle with the, like, how did you people not know that it was going to be like this? Like, this is, you know, I. But, you know, it is like, you Know, people are people. Right? People. People believe what they want to believe, and this is, like, universally true across almost everyone. And. But they've seen the reality of it now, and they realize that they're in the crosshairs and they are running. I mean, the regression that Republicans are going to see with Hispanic voters in 2026, just in two years from 2024 to 2026, I think is going to be basically unprecedented in American politics.
- [22:19]
Stephen
Yeah, I mean, I think the data that I saw specifically about New Jersey was that there are three counties that voted Hispanic voters had voted Latinos, had voted for Trump. They all flipped in in the race with Mikey Sherrill, and in some cases, you know, she won by, like, double digits in those counties. So I think it really speaks to your point. You know, I'm ling this notion of, like, how did people not know? How could they possibly not see? And, you know, look, we can have a long conversation about, you know, information ecosystems and the silos that kept people disconnected. And the more they were disconnected, the more likely they were actually. I mean, disconnected from political news, the more likely they were to then vote for Trump. But. But here we are. And, you know, I've been asking this question for years now, which is, what's the catalyst? Is there a catalytic moment that finally convinces people? 7 million came to the no Kings protests in October. That was obviously millions up from what it was in June, which told me that people are angry and people are motivated and people want to do something. But. But it's still the sort of question of, you know, why is it 7 million and not 17 million? You know, why is it 7. 7 million and not. I. I don't know, you know, 50. I was going to say 70 million, but how about 20 million? You know, I mean, we're enough Americans. And maybe the 3.5% of the population, which is 12 million Americans, you know, which is enough, according to sort of the studies that have been done, to. To drive political change and demand governmental changes, removal of people in office. That's been seen around the world. So for me, even 7 million is a disappointment if we're just talking at a numerical level. But I wonder whether you think that in some ways the Tuesday election is an outcome in part of no Kings and maybe a, you know, an expression of what, you know, what was felt by 7 million people there. But. But now, actually, on a wider level.
- [24:41]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, I. I honestly give no Kings a lot of credit, and I. They are in the process of motivating and organizing people in ways that are really important. They're doing the cadence really, really well. The organization of the no Kings effort has been really outstanding. Yeah, I think it. I think it does matter. It counts. And it is really important to get big margins because you can imagine what it looks like with, you know, like a 2% margin for Mikey Sherrill. And that's a very different picture than her coming in by 13 points. The margins are. And the margins will really matter in 2026 because it'll make it harder to. Harder for extralegal maneuvering to be done to take away victories.
- [25:34]
Stephen
Yeah, yeah. Look, I mean, I have to say, you know, my view was for 2024, you know, not only that, I was counting on, you know, Kamala Harris winning. I was counting on her winning substantially, that the bigger the margin was, you know, the more that it does genuinely, genuinely a rebuke of Maga and Trump. And so, you know, I don't think that change, repair and all the things that I think need to happen, happen without that kind of powerful rebuke that says, not that we just squeaked by, which leaves people still in this divided, but that people spoke with a loud voice, that this is not the America we want.
- [26:18]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, I mean, everything. I feel bad becoming pessimistic, but the reality is that nothing really changes until the main body of the Republican Party decides to abandon the authoritarian project. Right. And a bunch of. Not all, not all Republicans, but a reasonably substantial portion of Republican voters. And maybe that number is 20%, maybe it's 45%, but it's big. Right. It's not 2% have decided that they. They don't want liberal democracy. They just reject it. And so long as that is. Sorry, go ahead.
- [26:59]
Stephen
What portion of the Republican Party do you think that represents? It was just done with liberal government.
- [27:07]
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- [27:52]
Jonathan V. Last
Mean, I think it's. I don't know, but if you, if you made me guess, I would say somewhere between like 35 and 55%. And, and I don't know that there's a difference between the two. Like once you tip over a certain percentage that's so many people, you're talking about tens of millions of people. You can't have a stable political system in a two party system where one party is not sure that it's committed to liberal democracy. And like, there's no way to change that. Right. You just, the people who vote Republican there have to decide actually they don't want this and I don't know how to, how to do that. Right. And so even if, you know, a great Democrat wins in 2028, even if that Democrat is able to be seated, even if there's a Democratic majority and they have the ability to like make some structural reforms to, to how the system works, so long as there is a, a sizable strain within the electorate of people who, who are basically hostile to liberal democracy, like, we're just, you know, at some point there will be, you can't have a system in which Democrats have to win every time. Yeah, right. That's just not sustainable.
- [29:09]
Stephen
But look, we have, you know, we have, you know, we have Americans and then we have Republicans. You know, that's honestly the way I look at it. And by Americans, I mean people who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law and you know, liberal government, not liberalism per se in the sort of partisan sense of it, but a form of government that's sort of focused on making lives better and responding to the interests of the people as representatives of the people. And it just strikes me that the rejection of that has to be broken in some way. And I agree that impulse isn't going away. I don't think it can be glossed over or simply repaired. But I think that's why overwhelming defeat is part of the way you break the narrative that, that this is a, you know, if nothing else, it's, it's not, it's not a winning concept.
- [30:11]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, also, again, you gotta like normatively the, you have to, you have to drive. So here's the thing. There is all, you know, in every society there is a certain percentage of people who are actually in favor of authoritarianism. This is, you know, this has been well documented and it's always been true in America. This is where like slavery comes from. Right. It's, it's where the Jim Crow south comes from. So it's not like this is new, but what had happened post, post civil rights in America is that for the most part, the Republican Party had stopped allowing its voters to have a choice between to, to. They'd stopped get presenting voters as one of their options, an authoritarian, you know, like. And the problem is once, once the Republican Party lost the power to gatekeep and an actual authoritarian got on the ballot, the voters saw it and were like, oh, I like this. Yeah, you know, and I, I don't know how you put that toothpaste back in the tube because the party isn't going to get any more powerful. Like, you know, both parties are increasingly less powerful just sort of as institutions and gatekeepers. And so, I don't know, maybe everything just changes because America is a place where we don't hold onto things and we tend to just go for the next shiny object.
- [31:41]
Stephen
Well, look, the way I think about it is that if you look at not just the recent years, you can go back over the last 20 years or more and talk about sort of the decline of belief in democracy and particularly the declining sort of power of the idea amongst younger people who didn't see, and that's true, not just in the US but around the world, a fading notion that democracy is a form of government that's going to allow people to achieve their ends. And you know, once that starts to lose its power, it makes it easier for these, in my views of darker forces to, you know, to take. To take. Not to take root, but to re. Emerge. Right. And, and the thing, the thing which.
- [32:28]
Jonathan V. Last
Really gets me is that like, this has all happened at a time of like, unimaginable peace and prosperity.
- [32:35]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [32:35]
Jonathan V. Last
Like, imagine if this happened during like the, the, the 2008 financial crisis. Right? Like if, if this had been on offer, right. If Barack Obama had not been Barack Obama, but had been a authoritarian demagogue. Right. In a moment of the whole system breaking apart, right.
- [32:59]
Stephen
And fear it with fear and panic in the air.
- [33:02]
Jonathan V. Last
Right. You know, so, but it does make me think that, like, America just so decadent.
- [33:09]
Stephen
Right?
- [33:09]
Jonathan V. Last
Again, things are great. Like, you know, they're not great for everybody, but, but they're never great for everybody.
- [33:15]
Stephen
Well, look, I'll only say this. I've been, I've been, you know, researching, you know, the, the end of the Civil War and, and you know, there were plenty of people who were not held accountable, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis as the, you know, two kind of key leaders and a lot of, you know, Confederate generals who were, guess what, pardoned. And you know, with this idea of let's, let's move on. But, but, you know, guess what happened. It allowed a lot of the, you know, the, the lingering commitment to race. I mean, surely the, the racism and the commitment to the, you know, slavery as, as the right course and the, you know, the belief that, that it was a lost cause and, and, you know, they were right all along. So, you know, it, it's. I'm back to this sort of notion. If there's not, you know, A, if people are not held accountable and B, if there's not a powerful commitment to, you know, to holding those people accountable by the society, then you know, and a defeat of it. That's sort of so clear, then it, you know, it, you know, these worst impulses just keep lingering.
- [34:27]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah. And there's, there's not going to be any accountability. I mean, this is a, you know, I spent the first Trump term thinking like, oh, when this is over, we'll have a Truth and Reconciliation Committee and there'll be an entire project who was a collaborator and who was. And that, you know, I couldn't have been more wrong. Right. Like, it's nobody who has gone along with Trump has paid any real price for it.
- [34:50]
Stephen
Yeah. And, yeah, well, and that's one of the failings, you know, of the, in my view, one of the fatal errors of, you know, the Biden administration and the decision to, to rely on Merrick Garland to ensure that justice would be served. So that's, That's a long conversation. I want to go back for a moment, you know, with the minutes we have. I want to go back. You know, we sort of glossed over this question of account affordability. You know, you seem to think maybe it's not so important. I think that that was maybe the critical theme that came out of Tuesday, the series of candidates all speaking about the need to make life affordable for working people. I mean, you heard it from Mamdani, you heard it from Cheryl, you heard it from Spanberger. I think it's in the air, and I think it's something that's very concrete for people in their daily lives, which is why, so far, you know, Trump's response has been to say, you know, it's not an issue and grocery prices are down and everything is great. I mean, how long can he maintain that in a way that, that doesn't just, you know, further accelerate the rejection of him?
- [36:11]
Jonathan V. Last
I mean, I think he can maintain that indefinitely, because this is what he always does. I mean, I, I don't want to sound cruel and heartless, but oh, go ahead. But what I want to say is like, so it is true there is an affordability crisis, especially around housing costs. If you look at the case Shiller index, right, the housing costs are far out of whack. They have been for many years now. I just want to say, though, that there is no golden time in the near past where people looked around and said, yeah, everything is super affordable and everybody's really happy, everyone's doing well. Like this is, you know, since, since 2000, since 2008, we've been in a series of economic crunches. And that's, that's life, you know, and it's, it's bad. And you should try to target things where you can, you know, but like prices go up, they don't go down. And this is again, just basic economic literacy. Once inflation hits, inflation is there for forever. You don't want deflation. Deflation is a sign of economic stag, economic collapse. Electricity prices here is the perfect one. So everybody's electric prices are up by a lot. That is true. This is largely due to AI. We have AI data centers sucking up tons and tons of power. So supply and demand. We also have new power grid stuff being brought online that's very expensive to maintain because just the raw materials have gotten more expensive. The thing that will make electric prices go down is if the AI bubble bursts. And if that happens, then everybody's 401k is fucked. And so, you know, it's one of these things where, okay, well, maybe electric prices go down, but then your retirement savings get cut by 30%. Not going to be happy then either. You know, like this is, we, we have a system that is red in tooth and claw and it always has been certainly within everybody's living memory. And I, again, there are places where you can go to try to, around the margins, make it better. And I'm all in favor of that. Like the Biden and the Infrastructure act trying to create new jobs, bring renewable energy into rural areas. Like those are places where you can monkey around the, the, the, the margins of it. But like New York City, like, you know, Zaramdani's campaigning about making New York City affordable. New York City has never been affordable. It's New York City.
- [38:59]
Stephen
Yeah, so, so, you know, I, I don't disagree with you about the overall sense that, you know, prices have always been a challenge for people, but I, but I think it needs to be looked at in the context of the priorities of the government. Right. And you know, we're, we're looking at, you Know, I would say the sort of a, you know, this kind of march toward an oligarchy and a kleptocracy that has been focused on, you look at the big beautiful bill that's been focused on, you know, massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, billionaires and large corporations that have, that serve their interest. And it's a little bit like everyone else can kind of go to hell. We're going to cut health care, we're going to make all kinds of, we're going to cut, you know, snap benefits. We're going to do all of these things to fund the tax cuts for the richest Americans. And I think, you know, people look at it and say, you know, this is, this is unfair, it's wrong. You know, I may not like my prices and my wages ought to be higher, but, and I may not look for the president to get my wages up, but I sure look for a president and a government to focus on issues of equity and equality. And in this case, I think we're marching toward this continuing kind of growing extremes economically and income inequality, wealth inequality, you know, throughout, not just American history, but, you know, Russian history and French history and so forth. And it's shown again and again. You know, you push, you push everyday people farther and farther toward, you know, hunger and the difficulty of surviving while, you know, while people are building gaudy, you know, maga, you know, Mar a Lago style ballrooms and people are aggrieved and start demanding, you know, that change has to happen. So I think this is all wrapped up in, in the, you know, this idea.
- [41:02]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah. And I, look, I agree with literally all of that and the, the other. So, you know, like, there is the, there are the two sides of this. There is the what's going on with the ultra rich and then like, what is going on with everybody? And in the what is going on with everybody section, I think you can't do a lot, you know, again, around the margins. Housing especially how, you know, housing is a place where historic, we are historically out of whack in terms of housing costs. And so, yes, that can be addressed. On the, the part with the ultra rich, that is a thing which I just think has to be addressed. I mean, for national security reasons if nothing else, you know, we now live in a world where a guy like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, they aren't, they aren't like JP Morgan or, or Andrew Carnegie in their ability to like. So, you know, you go back to like the robber baron days and those guys had like total control over their local areas. Right? Like there were company towns and they were God. And that was like the, the level of what their wealth brought them. Today, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos exist at the level of non state actors. Their ability to influence is global in ways that they might as well be their own country. And just as a matter of national security, I don't think you can allow people to get that rich.
- [42:41]
Stephen
Yeah, it has to. I mean, look, he can turn off Starlink anytime he wants, whether it's Ukraine or elsewhere, and affect the outcomes of wars.
- [42:56]
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- [43:40]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, and this is, I mean, God knows, look, the Chinese understand this, right? I mean, one, one of the reasons that the, one of the things that the Chinese Communist Party does is they, they keep real close looks on their richest guys like Jack Ma, because they don't want them to have too much influence and too much power. Now we are a pluralistic society. We do not want the government to be the ultimate arbiter of everything. And um, but there is again, you, you cannot allow individuals to be so wealthy that the size of their wealth makes them competitors to the state. That, that's just not, you can't live like that.
- [44:18]
Stephen
Yeah, well, look, and, and you have yesterday, you know, Elon Musk, you know, landing a trillion dollar income from, from Tesla if he hits certain, you know, certain metrics. I mean, it's just crazy world. And, and you know, and I, you know, this doesn't last, you know, this doesn't work. And, and I, you know, I, I'm not, I'm not going to be the one that say that people should, you know, take arms and, and, and you know, burn down, burn down the house. But you know what, I mean, the history has shown, you know, the Russian Revolution happened because people saw what the czars and the czar's family were doing and the gold and the wealth and the concentration of all the riches for them and screw everyone else. And there's a point where people just say that's enough. And I mean, and so look, I think you and I probably disagree about this. I don't know how this plays out with a Zoran Mandani in New York City, but the idea of universal healthcare or universal childcare for kids up to five years old, well, you know, even the governor, Kathy Hochul says, you know, maybe we can figure that out. So, you know, so there's those kind of things that you can do that makes life more livable for people who are struggling to get by. And either either the, you know, existing governments choose to recognize those, you know, needs or, you know, it's the, I think the acceleration of, of anger is going to be intensifying and it's, you know, it can lead to some very dark ends.
- [45:57]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah. And there's, I mean that's the big question, right? Do we wind up exiting this crisis if we get to exit it? You know, I'm, I'm just like assuming that we get out of it.
- [46:07]
Stephen
Let's assume that, shall we?
- [46:09]
Jonathan V. Last
But you know, if, if you assume that there's an exit, does that spur something like another New Deal? Like, you know, hey, we got a chain, we got to make a bunch of structural changes. And some of those are about power, like for instance, going through and clawing back a bunch of executive functions. It's probably expanding the Supreme Court, probably adding some states. Right. Because we now clearly see that the built in bias of the Senate is really dangerous.
- [46:40]
Stephen
D.C. and Puerto Rico.
- [46:42]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, yeah, well, D.C. certainly Puerto Rico, if they want to do you do that. And then also move towards something more like the social democratic European system, which you begin with Medicare for all. And I just don't know what the appetite is for that in America. I know there are people on substack who just think it's the greatest thing from sliced bread and it's a no brainer. But I don't know if it's true that actually most Americans would, would sign up for that. I just don't know. And we'll see, you know.
- [47:16]
Stephen
We'll see what for a whole program like that, you know, which of course includes taxation, you know, that goes along with, you use the, you know, the Nordic Scandinavian model of, you know, social welfare. You know, there are, you know, there's free education and there's essentially free health care, you know, but you pay for those things, you know, that's, that's part of the compact that you make to have a safety net to function in society. And look, my view is that there's no normal to go back to business as usual, as you sort of suggested by talking about a dissident movement is no longer the way to sort of manage our current reality. And I can't say for sure where that leads to in 2028 or, and beyond. But, but I think it, it, it's going to disrupt a lot of the expectations about what normal is. And, and, you know, maybe it opens up, whether it's a new deal or it's something very different. I, I, I think that, you know, you know, it's a, it's a crisis that actually does have a possibility of, of generating real innovation. Right. Creative thinking, maybe, or not. You know, I mean, it can also, you know, the opposite is the authoritarian, you know, pressure to silence and to, you know, suppress people. But, you know, in the, in the positive sense, it creates the opportunity for genuine innovation, to try new things because people know that what's been happening is not working.
- [48:56]
Jonathan V. Last
Yeah, I mean, I would just say, I see people in the comments here talking about like, oh, yeah, there's an appetite for this. People change their minds once they realize how great it is. And I, I am sorry. Donald Trump did get 49.9% of the vote the last time around, and if turnout had been higher, he would have won by more. Like, that's just the reality of who Americans are. So, you know, you could take the position that, like, things will change and it will get better, but you, you are banking on the American people being different than who they are right now. And I don't think I want to take that side of that bet. But I understand if people want to be optimistic.
- [49:33]
Stephen
So are you thinking, so let's play it out for a minute. So are you thinking that the authoritarian project continues with the same kind of energy Post Trump, post 2028, and now post Trump, let's talk about the exit of him from the political stage, ideally, you know, forever. But, but, you know, do you think that it continues apace?
- [50:00]
Jonathan V. Last
I mean, I think it continues for the foreseeable future, which, which I will just sort of peg as through 2032. So I think that it is, if a Democrat is elected president and is seated as president in 2029, the official Republican position will be that they stole the election and that they are illegitimate.
- [50:26]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [50:27]
Jonathan V. Last
And that means that at least through.
- [50:30]
Stephen
The next four years, and I'm sorry, and if they win it wasn't illegitimate and everything was fine. Yeah, right.
- [50:39]
Jonathan V. Last
And so I, you know, I, I think at least for the foreseeable future. And so we would. Then at that point you're looking at almost a 20 year run where the Republican Party has been openly in favor of illiberalism. Like, I don't, like at that point, everybody who's in the Republican Party is somebody who signed up for that.
- [51:00]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [51:01]
Jonathan V. Last
It isn't like who you are now where you still have parts of the Republican Party that were Republican first and just haven't left, even though the party is transformed. You know, like all these young people coming into party are coming in for the illiberalism.
- [51:13]
Stephen
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:14]
Jonathan V. Last
So like, I just don't know how that works in terms of getting them to change. And meanwhile they just bide their time and wait until they're running in a favorable environment. Right. There's going to be a recession at some point. You will have a Democratic president and there will be a recession in their third year. And at that point, like any Republican can win. And this is why the rest of the world is moving on from America. Right.
- [51:38]
Stephen
But we just, I mean, look, I'm going to put it as hope, but I'm hoping that there's a enough Americans who decide that, you know, the idea of having a demagogue who is, you know, exploiting the ruins of public liberty, as, you know, Washington feared, is not, you know, the world that they want. It's not the leadership that they want. It's not ultimately the country that they want. And so, you know.
- [52:06]
Jonathan V. Last
Fingers crossed.
- [52:08]
Stephen
Well, that's it, you know, fingers crossed. Let's hold on to that and let's figure out. So I want to just end with like the last, you know, the question about the next year. Right. We've got a year now to the midterms, 12 months, you know, in your view? You know, I think a lot of the, I mean, potentially a lot of the energy that would be focused on the dissident movement and all the sort of forms of that might be blunted in some way because people are now just thinking about midterms and more traditional electoral politics. What do you think, what do you think should happen? You know, what does the, the opposition to authoritarianism need to look like, you know, today, tomorrow, every day until, you know, next November?
- [52:54]
Jonathan V. Last
I think it, I mean, it's, there's no reason to pick and choose. Right. You can do everything everywhere all at once and you can have no kings protests building up to hopefully some gigantic rally in Mid October, you know, which I, I assume will be like a march on Washington. And maybe you get lucky and you provoke the administration into an outsized response to that. It's going to mean finding good candidates in lots of places. It's going to require figuring out who can beat Susan Collins.
- [53:32]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [53:33]
Jonathan V. Last
You know, like, it's, there's a lot going on. That said, I do think the environment is going to be very good for Democrats. Sorry. Yeah, I just, I think the environment is going to be very good for Democrats.
- [53:46]
Stephen
Yeah.
- [53:47]
Jonathan V. Last
And we'll see. I mean, things are unpredictable. Maybe the Supreme Court strikes down tariffs and Trumps declares victory and just says, see, we won. We got all the best deals. And you know, the economy goes back to being a little bit better. You know, it would be the effect of a stimulus. He'd have like $200 billion that just get kicked out to people. I don't know, a lot could happen. So you got to fight every day.
- [54:16]
Stephen
I mean, look, I don't think, you know, my hope doesn't extend to the notion that the next 12 months are going to be better for America. It doesn't extend to the notion that the economy is going to be better because these, laying out all the, the predicates for, for things to, to get worse. And, and you know, with $150 billion being put into his, you know, growing police state, you know, that the abuse is only going to increase. It's not going to decrease even with the courts, you know, and, and judges trying to, to be something of a, you know, a block to the worst this. So, you know, I, I don't, I don't yearn for more pain and suffering in the country, but I think it's, it's kind of unavoidable. And as you suggest, I think that makes it more probable that the Democrats will be well positioned to respond. And my thing is, I just want to urge people not to think like, hey, I'm going to vote next November. Think about what you can do every day, every week to try participate. If we've learned one thing in this period, it's that citizen, the responsibilities of being a citizen extend beyond, they surely extend to, you know, voting, you know, not like the 89 million Americans who chose not to vote in 2024, voting yes and not just voting, you know, for president, but, you know, all the down ballot races that are meaningful. But I think it, now, I think we know it extends to speaking out and doing the things that, that you can do, defending your friends and neighbors and the ways that you can help to minimize, you know, some of the worst of what the next year is going to include. So if I can. Let me stop there. Let me say that I'm really grateful that Jonathan V. Last joined us today in this conversation. I know people have found it really engaging that comments suggested. So I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. And let me say, if you're not following JBL's work on the bulwark, you should. If you haven't looked at the bulwark and the work that they're doing there, you should. We're at a point where we need more discourse, more ideas, more people who are confronting the dangers of this moment and doing it with intelligence. And if you haven't subscribe to America America, let me just say I hope you will have a look and, you know, let's keep building communities that make a difference in this time.
- [56:58]
Jonathan V. Last
Stephen, thank you for being so generous with your time. I appreciate it.
- [57:01]
Stephen
Thank you so much, everybody. We'll see you.
- [57:09]
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Stephen
What do we do with you?
- [57:58]
Jonathan V. Last
You can't go in the recycling bin.
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Jonathan V. Last
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