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- [00:00]
Cameron Caskey
We have come to the understanding that you are obviously better suited for this programming than grumpy old Tim Miller.
- [00:07]
Bill Kristol
I totally agree with that. I, I assumed you understood that even from the. You would have taken that for granted. You know that this is why you need. You have more, you have more in common with the US old boomers than with those, what is Tim, late millennial.
- [00:19]
Cameron Caskey
Tim, 42 or something?
- [00:21]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, yeah, those guys, they're the worst, you know.
- [00:26]
Cameron Caskey
Hey, everybody, I'm Cameron Caskey.
- [00:28]
Bill Kristol
And I'm Bill Kristol. Pinch hitting for Tim Miller. A daunting task, but to do it.
- [00:33]
Cameron Caskey
And I am so excited. For this week's episode of FY Pod, I am joined by the legendary Bill Kristol, something I have been begging Tim for, for a very long time. But Bill, to be honest with you, I think the Deep State is terrified of you and I getting to know each other. I think they know that together we're more powerful than their dark efforts.
- [00:51]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, let's hope so. That would be good for the country. I'm not sure that's true though. I've got to warn you that you may, you may, you may be maybe drinking a little Kool Aid there, but let's, let's hope. I like the legendary as part of the introduction. That's the way you introduce someone who's like 50, older than you, you know, that's okay. I'm not, you know, you know, sort of vaguely out to pasture, once well known, you know, once hit 300 in the majors 45 years ago, that kind of thing. It's okay.
- [01:14]
Cameron Caskey
Today is going to be very fun. We are going to talk about Elon Musk's very bizarre new effort to disrupt the Republican Party. We're going to talk about why nobody wants to work with zoomers. And then I'm going to ask for a little life advice because I could use some words from Bill to help me get my shit together. But first off, I want to take a look at what Mr. Donald Trump has to say about El. Elon Musk's New America Party. Let's take a look.
- [01:40]
Donald Trump
Starting a third party. I think it's ridiculous to start a third party. We have a tremendous success with the Republican Party. The Democrats have lost their way, but it's always been a two party system and I think starting a third party just adds to confusion. It really seems to have been developed for two parties. Third parties have never worked. So he can have fun with it, but I think it's ridiculous.
- [02:05]
Cameron Caskey
Bill, what was it like when Ross Perot came onto the scene because I wasn't born yet, but that guy, really, he went pretty far for a third party.
- [02:14]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, well, he. Or an independent candidate running for president, he didn't really have a party. I mean, I think he nominally had a party, but yeah, if Trump seems a little worried, don't you think? I think it's conventional wisdom now. Is that what Trump said? They don't work and Elon's on some little, you know, mini revenge jag and it's just his, you know, it's just his ego and it's not going anywhere. I don't know. He could. It's not that hard to fund candidates in Senate congressional races. Not that impossible to get 5, 10, 15% of the vote. I think it's pretty difficult to actually beat both major parties, except in very unusual circumstances. Perot found that out at the presidential level, though, he did pretty well with 20% of the vote. I'm a little bit contrarian on the Elon thing. I take it a little more seriously. And I got to think he's. He'll take votes from Trump, which is why Trump looks a little, you know, really wants to convince everyone very early that they shouldn't get involved with this. I think Perot was an interesting character. It's a little unfair to him to compare him to Elon, I'd say, because he was a real, he was an impressive guy. I mean, he real built a real business. Not that Elon's built, I guess, sort of real businesses. I don't know. And Patriot did a lot for the Vietnam vets and people who were missing in action. And what was so startling about his run? I mean, he was a Texas Republican. Bush was a Texas Republican. President Bush, who had been vice president eight years and then of course president for three years when Perot decided to run against them, not to challenge him in the primary. Pat Buchanan was doing that, but to run in the general election. So this post election studies ultimately showed that half of Perot voters said they would have voted for Clinton, half for Bush. But I think that's a little misleading. The dynamics of the campaign, and I was in the White House then, were that it hurt Bush. I mean, it was like he had Buchanan challenging him in the primary. Then he had a Texas businessman of his own generation. I mean, you can think what this looks like, right? Who had been friendly to Bush so far as one knew, challenging him and saying he's not up to it, we need someone to cut the deficit. And that's very damaging. That's why Musk could challenge Trump. It's like he knows Trump, he worked with Trump, he did all these irresponsible things at Trump's behest. I'm a little less inclined to simply downplay the importance of Musk than of this possible party or effort in some, I guess it would be in some Congressional and Senate races that seems to what he's talking about, federal races that could make it could be kind of interesting.
- [04:33]
Cameron Caskey
I think to me it depends because Elon himself is so terribly unpopular, he's so unlikable. So if there's some sort of candidate who seems like they could have some sort of vision that's interesting to people, I could see how they could be a potential spoiler and I could see how they can pull votes from a Republican. I doubt there's a substantial amount of Democratic votes that are going to go to somebody who's backed by Elon Musk. But that is a point of confusion for me because while you have a lot of Democrats saying under no circumstances will we touch ellen with a 20 foot pole, you also have people like Ro Khanna coming out and saying, listen, if Elon wants to give us money, let's take the money. So it's very interesting. I've seen a couple names floated from Anthony Scaramucci to Andrew Yang to Mark Cuban, the type of guys you can't be too surprised would get involved with something like this. But you know, you look at what happened in Wisconsin with Elon where Elon was so inextricably tied from that race and it ended up blowing it up in everybody's face, partially because while Trump is immensely popular, Elon really isn't. But just for someone who wasn't around for Perot, was he an amiable, fun type of guy, the type of guy you want to get a beer with, or was he a little bit more of a nerd?
- [05:45]
Bill Kristol
No, I think he was amiable. He turned to be a little crazier than people thought. But that was not his image. His image was a se hard nosed, impressive Texas business guy who built this big firm, EDS with helped, you know, everyone had a lot of people had experience with it in the business world because it helped automate, if that's the right word. I guess that is the word. Isn't that the name? I guess that's EDS stood for Electronic Data Systems. Helped automate people's payroll, basically. So I, we used it when we if you run a small organization, as I did after leaving the White House, and you need to pay you have a payroll system. You're not going to do your own, you know, build your own computer program. Obviously you're going to use EDS or someone like that. And they did a lot of work with the government. So it was a reputable company, a serious guy, kind of plain spoken text and very close, as I say, to the military, to the vets. I mean, I think you raise a very good question, Cam, which is, I mean, does Elon have the discipline to, to fund this party and let pretty interesting candidates in different districts and states be the face of it? I mean, obviously you're running for Sen. It's not a presidential race, right? Or at least not yet, unlike Perot. So you're, you're funding some guy to run in some place where there might be a chance, where there's not attractive, I don't know, making this up in Marjorie Taylor Greene in her district where presumably some of the Republicans aren't quite on board with all that insanity. Hard for a Democrat to win. Could you fund a sort of reputable Republican business type and Elon could find somewhere and that becomes the face of that party in that district in Georgia, or is it just Elon's party? So I agree, if it's just Elon's party, that really puts a limit, I think, on, on the support. But if he could, and in Wisconsin, which you mentioned, in that judicial race, he was incapable of just pouring money in and staying out of the news. He went there and made it about him and made it, which made it in turn about the Trump administration, which made it about do you really want the Trump administration and Elon picking your Supreme Court justice judges in Wisconsin? And they lost badly. So it's, it'll be an interesting test of Elon's discipline, which he hasn't always had.
- [07:37]
Cameron Caskey
I think one of the greatest examples of that going down the drain was when he started gutting government programs and adding little 20 year olds into them. Because there's a difference between dismantling federal services that exist to improve the quality of life in this country and doing so with a team of zoomers who were playing video games on their parents couch and now suddenly are able to grant themselves security clearances that even seasoned professionals are not able to get. Which brings me to the next topic I was hoping to discuss, which is zoomers in the workplace. You are part of this very reputable independent media organization that took a bit of a blow to its reput reputation when Tim Miller insisted upon introducing this annoying Gen Z little talking head who goes on MSNBC and complains about how the Democrats are cringe. So I'm wondering, like people don't want to work with Gen Z. A new survey found that 45% of hiring managers say Gen Z is quote, the most challenging generation with which to work. And we're definitely pretty strange. I think that Covid sort of melted our brains. But just from your perspective, how do you feel about the prospect of working, working with the tic tac generation in the workplace?
- [08:50]
Bill Kristol
I mean, I'm a little contrarian on this. Not that I've had massive experience in hiring Gen C types or working very closely. We have a bunch of them at Longwell Partners which does a lot of the back end work for the Bulwark and also for the Republican voters against Trump and a bunch of other projects I've been involved in. I like the young people I've met. And you know what, I bet if you did a survey certainly when we were, when my, when I was your age in the 70s, do you want to work with this hippie generation? Drug using, you know, free sex, you know, anti Vietnam, blah blah blah. These guys going to be good in the workplace place. No way they're going to be horrible, you know, and I'm sure the same was true. And I even remember there's people complaining a lot about other generations. So I'm a bit of a doubter when people say that some generation is doomed or can't do the work they have. You guys have different attitudes. You grew up with the phones and all that. Then maybe you're, I don't know, your parents or even your older siblings, I don't know quite where the break off. You would have a better sense of this. I do think the pandemic, I've got to say, made more difference for some of you all depending on where you were in high school and college. Just talking to someone about this a couple of days ago actually who's about your age, someone like me working from home, doing this stuff here, you know, didn't change my life that much. Our kids were old enough to be sort of established in their jobs. Their little kids were young enough to be kind of pre, anything but elementary school. So early elementary school. So I think we kind of got lucky in our distribution of ages, you know, for the pandemic. Whereas I think what would you say is your age is about right. What was the worst time to be, worst thing to be is what a junior senior in high school, maybe a freshman in college during the pandemic?
- [10:24]
Cameron Caskey
I would say so I was a freshman in college, and right around when I hit my stride at school, right when I really started to get comfortable, it was a very interesting time. Right. Joe Biden had no shot of getting the Democratic nomination. He was polling at 8% best. You know, Pete Buttigieg was winning states. Bernie Sanders was immensely popular. It was a strange world. And I feel like we were already in the middle of some sort of cultural, Cultural shift before COVID went in and just picked everything apart. But definitely the high schoolers. I mean, man, a lot of my friends, younger siblings were in high school during COVID because most of my friends from high school were already in college. But, you know, the little brothers and sisters were in high school. And just the thought of being, let's say, a sophomore in high school, your year disappears, and then for your junior year, things are hybrid, things are confusing. Senior year, it's time for prom, and you've barely spent any time with the kids in your school. And I think that that's just had a wider effect on how my generation interacts with each other in so many different ways. Part of that being that the social media algorithms, they know our gender, they know personal information about us, and they push content on us based on our demographics. And I think a lot of the content that they deliberately put in front of us with the algorithm tried to isolate us and drive us apart from one another. And that really ended up reflecting in how young men interact with young women. Young men have been treating young women in such disgusting ways. I mean, after Trump won, there were all these reports of kids in middle school saying to women, your body, my choice. And it's so alarming. But I think we've just become so antisocial, and I think that women have become something that is scary and different to us. And I see this happen with friends of mine. They're treated like an other. You know, the idea that they are some other form of person that needs to be treated in this alien way. And I was fortunate enough as a kid who did theater to have a lot of female friends. So women weren't scary to me. But, you know, when you're scared of somebody, it's very quickly. You can very quickly get angry. Fear turns into rage, very simply. And that makes me ask, like, when you were in high school and college, what. What were the relationships between men and women like?
- [12:49]
Bill Kristol
I'll get to that in a second. It's very. That's very interesting, what you said. And I just would, I guess, add a footnote to your point about. I Mean the relationship of social media and Covid. I mean normally social, social media is in some ways, I think isolating. It's fair to say the algorithms push in that direction, but it's sometimes it's somewhat counterbalanced by real life, you know what I mean? Like if you're actually in school seven hours a day, if you're actually at the workplace, I see this with people your age 8 or 9 or 10 hours a day. And then you go out afterwards for a drink or to a club or something like that, or for dinner. And if you have men and women as colleagues, which most people do, you're not simply reacting to people through social media or in the isolation that Covid created for I guess really for what, a year and a half, two years maybe even. And there was some after effects. So I think that combination maybe was particularly damaging. Social media plus Covid. It's interesting what you say about, about gender. I hadn't really thought that much about the man woman relationship. But you know that when you talk about men thinking boy, young men thinking young, women are the other. That's literally the complaint of early feminists, I mean, whom I remember reading when I was in college, who had written in the first 50s and 60s, basically Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, very famous in France. And it was their critique of old fashioned gender roles was not unintelligently that women were othered, you know, that men treated women as, you know, the helpers, the wife, the homemaker, whatever. The whole society treated them that way. And they were treated as kind of individuals who could choose their future. Men had a certain ability to choose. You could decide what you wanted to be, you could try to be a baseball player, you could try to be a lawyer. Women put into these roles. So in a weird way, if what you're saying is right, we've maybe there's a. I've been struck by this with some of the stuff on social media though, and some of the Trump, you know, manosphere stuff. It's kind of new, but it's also kind of a regression to the 50s almost, which is, you know, like Mad Men or something, which is kind of amazing. And I, and that's one reason I miss, I underestimated it. I kind of thought this can't possibly work. We can't go through 30, 40, 50 years of changing of gender roles and changes that were mostly for the better, honestly, I think, and then, and then just kind of revert. But I think I underestimated maybe the pull on. I don't know what. On young men's psychology or on something of this. Yeah. Of what you describe.
- [15:12]
Cameron Caskey
Yeah. I mean, so much of the algorithm exists to retain your attention as opposed to introduce you to new concepts and ideas. So I think that when you establish the pattern of wanting to hear that women are actually to blame for the reason you aren't getting laid. Young men are wondering why women our age are dating older guys who have steady jobs and don't hit their vapes in bed. And there are people on social media who are telling us, no, no, no, it's the women's fault. Feminism went too far. And when you start to get interested in that, the algorithm will continue to poison you with this idea, with these ideas, and they won't present any counter arguments because they want you to come back. They don't want to challenge you. I actually Tim and I were doing an episode of our show with my ex girlfriend, a young woman named Ellie Schnit, whose mother is a huge fan of yours. And Ellie said something that was very interesting to me. She said this form of sexism, misogyny that has become so prevalent with young men, it's always been there. This has always been the case. It was just a form of decorum was formed in the past several years and social media empowered people to throw away the decorum. So the sexism didn't go anywhere. It just became a little bit more customary to hold it behind the scenes. But I don't want to move away from a question that I asked that I really need to know the answer to, which is, you're Bill Kristol, you're 18 years old. You know, the last major pandemic was in like 1920. What did a date look like? What was your first date?
- [16:45]
Bill Kristol
Let me talk about the algorithm for one more second. The, you know, the studies show that is that if you believe in one conspiracy, let's say anti vax, you're much more likely to be open to QAnon or to Trump election lies or to many other conspiracies. Right. I mean, this sort of gets to your point. That, and I think the manosphere stuff fits into that. That is, if you're unhappy about a bunch of things in society, the way the algorithm can push you to other things to be unhappy about. And often it resonates. I would have thought, I remember talking to someone who'd done a really expert on this that, you know, the best predictor of falling for the Trump election lies would be just being right wing and being pro Trump. It really Isn't the best predictor is being interested in other conspiracies, you know. And I think that fits somehow with this notion that the society is conspiring against you. The elites have arranged things so to make your life miserable. As a 17 or 18 year old, there's plenty of misery. 17, 17, 18 year olds have a lot to worry about and do worry about a lot. But that's not, that's not new. I mean I went to an all. So I grew up in New York. I graduated from high school in 1970. I went to an all boys school which slightly distorted I would say social life probably so but there were mixers and there were we like shows with the girls school, you know, across town and. And of course when you girls anyway just from you know, people around else, you know, when you met other in other ways and sisters of friends and so forth. So I had a pretty boring and normal social life. I mean it was allegedly the beginning of. I mean it was a tumultuous time. Gender roles were changing. But actually that mostly happened in the 70s. David Frum, who you know or know of, wrote a good book on the 70s where he points out a lot of the changes that we call the 60s really happened in the 70s. And so I'd say I grew up in a relatively traditional ish culture, went to college in 1970 and things changed fast. I mean it's amazing at Harvard, as late as I think it's 66, maybe 67, there was total sex segregation in terms of classes were integrated at Harvard and Radcliffe. But the men and women didn't live in the same dorms, they didn't eat, they didn't live in the same houses, they didn't eat together in the same dining halls. You could bring a, I think a girl in, but then it was like a thing, you know, and a big kind of unpleasant I guess certainly for the girl maybe and to you know, men's dining hall. And that had totally changed by the time I was partway through my undergraduate years. Everything had become co ed so there was a lot of turmoil and I think a lot of people got a little lost in that shuffle too. So I would encourage you and others. I mean it's not as uniquely bad as people think it is and it's not as unique in some of the challenges as people think it is. And I think you guys will work through it. I mean Trump's. The other thing is that we talk about the algorithm and Covid. I mean also for your entire, not just adult life but really, political life or knowledge of politics, almost. Right. Trump has been president or a major figure. It comes down the escalator in 2015. So what are you. And then seventh grade, eighth grade, something like that.
- [19:50]
Cameron Caskey
I mean, yeah, I remember what happened. I thought it was funny. I was like, oh, my God, this goofy dude is going to run this pathetic campaign for president. He's going to get zero votes.
- [19:59]
Bill Kristol
Well, we all thought that. So that was. You were in good company making that mistake.
- [20:03]
Cameron Caskey
I just thought I should lean in and be there for kind of the goof of it all, because it was a goofy thing. It's like how I love watching clips of Curtis Sua and his. And his funny hat in New York City, because sometimes he just, he. Sometimes he makes really good points. And it's really funny to watch somebody say some fairly insightful things while wearing that hat. But it's interesting that you say that about our generations, because I've, I've always observed that. I think specifically with Gen Z and boomers, I'm sure this exists across generations, but specifically these two generations like to feel like the other generation had it so much easier when we were growing up. Boomers like to think that Gen Z doesn't know how lucky we are. Gen Z likes to think that boomers really got the easy part. But it's like, I don't know, Boomers were dealing with parents and grandparents who were affected by the Great Depression in World War II and all these other things. And Gen Z, you know, when I was less than 1 year old, 9, 11 happened, and I grew up watching these wars, these school shootings, you know, right when I started college, there was this pandemic. And I feel like boomers and Gen Z both had childhoods that had a lot of trauma in, in what defined the way that we view the world in a way that, that maybe Gen X and Millennials didn't necessarily experience. But I'm wondering, when you were coming of age, when you were kind of entering adulthood, what did you consider to be the greater concern in the world? What was convincing you that something ought to change?
- [21:46]
Bill Kristol
So I think, yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, I think. I think the difference is we were. I mean, I was born after World War II, 70 years after, I guess. But my parent, my father served in the army in the war. And everyone, we all, everyone knew people whose parents or even mostly parents, relatives, friends, you know, who had served. Right. Somehow or other, World War II was a defining experience. The way I'm sure you don't Appreciate this. You don't live into it yourself, but something that's central to your parents life is also kind of a defining experience in your own life, you know what I mean? And so World War II is huge then. The Cold War was ongoing. It had begun before I was born in December. 52. It began in 47, 48, depending on when you want to think of it. 46. Even Churchill's great speech. And there it's chugging along. That was both destabilizing. We could get blown up by a nuclear war and Kennedy's. The Cuban Missile Crisis happens when I'm a kid, but old enough to sort of understand what's going on and read the newspapers. But it also gives a kind of stability because that was the fight we were in, you know, to defend the west against Soviet Communism, also Chinese Communism. Once that sort of appeared and very much parallel, we thought, to the fight against fascism and Nazism in the, in the 30s and 40s. So that gave us a kind of structure that maybe, I think you all didn't. Didn't quite have. The other thing I would say is the Civil Rights movement was such an unambiguously just movement and admirable movement and totally. And succeeded basically and totally changed America certainly changed half a third or half America in the South. Changed a ton of things in the north too. I mean, so I mean, again, what everyone thinks of all different aspects of it. And this World War II is a success story. I mean, it was horrible and slaughter and obviously the Holocaust and all that. So I don't mean to be glib, but it was, you know, we won. Churchill was great, FDR was great. Civil rights revolution was a success story. Huge. Again, disasters and tragedies, Martin Luther King's assassinated, etc. But still not et cetera, just that that's terrible. And other things like that, obviously in the south, but. But elsewhere still, at the end of the day, we got much closer to equality, to racial equality. And then I'd say feminism, where we did get closer to gender equality. So I think we had a sense that government could work, society could fix itself, America could fix itself. And I'm not sure that you guys have lived at a time when that was really nearly as dominant.
- [24:20]
Cameron Caskey
It's so much harder to be empowered. Because if I think about the three major movements that happened while I was coming of age, there was the Women's March, which was great, except sexual abuse did not stop, and somebody who had bragged about making inappropriate sexual advances towards a woman becomes president. And we're like, okay, well, we tried our best, but that didn't work. The Black Lives Matter movement happens, and cops are still killing black people on video, and people have to watch this happen, and then March for our Lives happens, starting in the other room. And we didn't get very many sensible gun laws. There were some great gun laws passed at a local level, but at the end of the day, very often local gun laws are only as strong strong as the laws in another state nearby. Right. So many of the guns that are recovered at crime scenes in Chicago come from Indiana. So many of the guns recovered at crime scenes in New York come for Virginia. So I think we got this sense that when we try to speak up and, you know, let democracy be democracy, it doesn't work. And that made us very cynical. And also to your point, about how we were so young when Trump came into office, I feel like that sort of moral decline in our society shaped the way that we view things, almost so much so that a lot of young men saw the sort of gladiator arena nature of Trump's politics. You know, the UFC fight at the White House, feeding immigrants to alligators. They see these things, and there's this morbid curiosity and fascination with it where we say, okay, we had Joe Biden, we had Obama, but we don't feel like our lives are great right now. So if the nice guy, you know, if the. If the friendly guy can't do this for us, maybe we should get on the side of the bully. Because even if the bully is mean, maybe he can go in and fuck shit up and maybe will end up on top. Because I feel like a lot of young, especially white men have been convinced by what has become of the Republican Party that advances made forward for women and minorities are being made at our expense. We are losing something as they are gaining things, and I think that's made us very upset. But while I still have you, Bill, I just wanted to talk about one other quick thing, just to get your opinion, like, how did your Republican colleagues back in, like, the 90s feel about Alan Dulles? I'm really interested in Allen Dulles. He's such a weird historical figure to me, and he's. I see stuff about him and I'm like, why don't more people talk about this guy? Were people saying, like, he really shouldn't have done that thing with the Bay of Pigs?
- [27:01]
Bill Kristol
Nah. Yeah, the Bay of Pigs. I mean, we were all my, you know, cohorts. Little. I was pretty young. What was I, seven, eight? I guess I Was like, barely understood what was happening there. Alan Dulles, I'm glad that you're fascinated by him. I'm sure he seems like an interesting character, interesting family, but not famous. I mean, we didn't talk about him. And, you know, the CIA stuff blew up a little in 75 and the church Committee hearings, and there were the reforms. But we have Dulles Airport, which you've probably flown into here in Washington, but it's named after his brother, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State. I'm not quite sure why he gets an airport named after him as the Secretary of State. But anyway, I'm sure they want to rename it Trump Airport. I think the Republicans, I expect them to do that in the next year.
- [27:46]
Cameron Caskey
Is that true?
- [27:47]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, yeah. There's some, there's some talk about it. Maybe there's even some bill introduced. I don't know if they'll have the nerve to do it. I mean, Reagan got named National Airport, but got renamed Reagan after Reagan was president several years after. I think it was in 95 when Republicans took the Congress. People. Do I still say national if I, you know, where you're flying from and. But I think everyone young, younger than me, says Reagan, basically. So, yeah, it'll be Trump Airport. You'll be flying into Trump. And then, of course, when Trump, Trump runs for re election, as I explained in this morning's morning shots and gets reelected, God forbid. But it's not impossible. We'll probably just rename Washington Trump City, don't you think? I mean, the whole. It'll just be. We'll be living in the Republic of Trump. I do think the Trump thing has been distorting for you guys. And I think it's very interesting what you said about these movements failing. It's so admirable what you all tried to do on the gun issue after 2018. And yeah, it didn't. I mean, the equivalent really would have been the civil rights movement. In my day, I was a little young for it, so I wasn't, wasn't, you know, deeply involved. I didn't go to Mississippi in March. I knew people who were five, seven years older who did. And it was dangerous and it was difficult and there were setbacks along the way. But you felt at the end of that, wow, the system kind of worked for all the, you know, as I say, the assassinations and all the terrible things that happened. Then again, Nixon, problematic, Watergate, but the system worked. The Republicans threw him out. Everyone threw him out. But the Republican senators finally went to the White House and told them he had to go. You get a decent man, Gerald Ford, another decent guy, Carter, not great presidents, probably. And then you get Reagan and Bush. And if you're on the Republican side like I was by then, you think this is pretty good. Then you get Clinton. If you're on the Democratic side, competent guy as president also, you win the Cold War. I just think that stretch had its challenges, but the degree to which one felt one was on the right path, I mean, you know, the civil rights movement plus the Cold War victory, really, you know, if you want to be simple minded, you can say civil rights movement, war of a victory for liberals. Cold War felt to be war of a victory for conservatives, for hawks with Reagan and Bush. And, you know, both sides could feel like, hey, you know what? We've accomplished something in this country, we're living in, in this political order. And that I think is something that I hope you guys get to experience that pretty soon because we can't afford to have too many more years of decline.
- [30:03]
Cameron Caskey
Bill, thank you so much for hopping on this week. I think we have come to the understanding that you are obviously better suited for this programming than grumpy old Tim Miller.
- [30:14]
Bill Kristol
I totally agree with that. I assumed you understood that even from the you would have taken that for granted. You know, that this is why you have more in common with the US old boomers than with us. What, is Tim late millennial or 42 or something? Yeah, yeah, those guys, they're the worst. You know, we have to stick together.
- [30:32]
Cameron Caskey
Tim Miller, if you're watching this, just so you know, Bill and I have each other's numbers now, and we are going to create a union at the Bulwark, and you bet your bottom dollar we're going to see Joe Biden at the picket lines with us. Bill, thanks so much for joining everybody. Superman is in theaters this Friday and we'll see you all soon.