Can The Left Reclaim America's Story?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Offline with Jon Favreau

Episode Title: Can The Left Reclaim America's Story?
Date: September 11, 2025
Host: Jon Favreau (Crooked Media)
Guest: John Ganz (Author of When the Clock Broke, Unpopular Front Substack, The Nation Columnist)

Overview

This episode explores the rise of right-wing populism and authoritarianism in America through the lens of history, rhetoric, and media. Jon Favreau and John Ganz discuss whether the American left can reclaim a compelling narrative for democracy as Trump's movement continues to reshape the political landscape. Topics include the role of storytelling in politics, dangers and precedents of fascism, the limits of polling and policy messaging, and the urgent need for the opposition to meet today's challenges with compelling rhetoric and courage.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Power of Narrative and Attention in Politics

• Modern Politics as Performance:
  • Ganz argues that the essence of politics is public speaking and persuasion, not technocratic management or crafting counter-Rogan podcasts.
  • “All politics is at the end of the day is speaking in public and persuading people to support you. It’s very simple in a weird way.” (John Ganz, 02:48)
• Entertainment Factor:
  • Populist communicators like Joe Rogan and Trump command attention by being “fun, interesting…capturing imaginations,” even when the substance is lacking. (02:48-04:13)

2. Fascism vs. Authoritarianism: Labels, Utility & Dangers

• Heuristics over Definitions:
  • Ganz doesn’t dwell on strict differences between “fascist,” “authoritarian,” “strongman,” or “populist”—he cares most about how well the frameworks help predict behavior and trajectories. (08:24-10:56)
• Contemporary Parallels and Limits:
  • Trump’s movement shares features with classic fascism—alliances with conservative elites, paranoia about the left, and strongman tactics—but lacks the scale of organized violence seen in 20th-century regimes.
  • “Let’s keep it real… I have not received any kind of threats… I am not afraid to go on the street and have a gang of thugs beat me up. And that would be what it was like in fascist Italy or fascist Germany.” (12:52-16:51)

3. Opposition Dilemmas: Alarmism vs. Mobilization

• The Fear Factor:
  • Authoritarian movements benefit from public fear and demoralization; the opposition must be vigilant but undaunted.
  • “Fear is a force magnifier for them…People gotta be a little bit courageous…Don’t allow the propaganda to win.” (16:51-17:40)
• Mobilizing Amidst Normalcy & Crisis:
  • Many Americans are “just tuned out,” making it hard to raise alarms without seeming histrionic—a balance between showing the gravity and not discouraging participation. (19:49-22:00)

4. The Myth of Inevitable Violence and Regime Entrenchment

• Regimes Can Fall Without Civil War:
  • Many authoritarian regimes have ended peacefully or through political crises, not always via mass violence.
  • “Most of the regimes in the Eastern bloc fell peacefully…as long as there is an opposition that exists and stays alive, they can seize the initiative when such a regime leads itself into a crisis.” (22:41-24:32)

5. Polling, Policy, and the Limits of Technocracy

• The Problem with Polling:
  • Polls often ask abstract questions with misleading simplicity; real-world policies reveal deeper unease and change minds.
  • “Polling asks very abstract questions…Illegal immigration…contains its own answer…in practice…these policies…look horrible.” (25:30-28:13)
• Rhetoric Over Data:
  • Successful politicians (Lincoln, Reagan, King) have always blended radical policies with language rooted in shared ideals, thus bridging divides and rallying broader coalitions.
  • “The art of combining reason with imagery that moves the emotions…it makes possible…candidates who can be both moderate and radical.” (50:53-51:29)

6. The Trump Phenomenon: Structure vs. Personality

• Great Man or Movement Product?
  • Trump uniquely embodies trends set in the early 1990s—populism, talk radio, financialization—with his persona as a “container” for grievances and aspirations.
  • “He was a weird expression of American media and culture…kind of a container…He personifies them all.” (38:11-40:39)
• Charisma and Simplicity:
  • Trump's rhetorical genius isn't policy, but direct, dramatic, emotionally-sticky simplicity.
  • “He’s a very effective communicator…real rhetorical talent is expressing things extremely directly and simply.” (41:16-41:41)

7. Lessons from American Political History — And Missed Democratic Opportunities

• Broken Norms and Stakes:
  • Democratic leaders struggle with whether to break norms to defend democracy—risking both legitimacy and effectiveness.
  • “It’s hard to know when to break the norms in order to preserve the system and when you’re actually leading to its degeneration. That’s a judgment call…It’s not necessarily virtuous to insist upon procedure when the other guy is not doing it.” (43:43-44:50)
• Need for Compelling, First Principles Storytelling:
  • Democrats too often speak in “the dry language of issues and issue polling,” while the right seizes national symbols boldly.
  • Democrats should “speak in the rhetoric of the American tradition in a dramatic and interesting way that talks about this as an issue of first principles.” (53:02-53:42)
  • “I just would like the Democrats to stand for something.” (54:43)

8. Rhetoric, Oratory, and the Left’s Future

• Admiration for Rhetorical Adversaries:
  • Both note that figures like Nick Fuentes, for all their poisonous ideas, are captivating orators. Democrats need comparably magnetic communicators.
  • “You need somebody who can get people’s attention and is interesting and has moving and fascinating things to say.” (58:20-59:28)
  • Conspiracy culture thrives because it “is very narratively satisfying…it communicates political information and understanding in a very compact way.” (59:28-61:04)
• Reclaiming the National Story:
  • The left’s challenge is to “hammer on the corruption of Trump…use the facts, but dress them up in a way that’s interesting.” (61:04-61:25)
  • “Where’s the drama?...It should not be that hard for someone to speak with a lot of drama about what’s happening because it’s quite dramatic.” (61:25-61:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fascism as Predictive Tool:

  • “If it’s helping us predict what’s next, it’s not the worst hypothesis. It’s one framework among many. I’m going to argue for it as best I can…” (10:56)

• On Courage and Participation:

  • “You have to practice politics and do your civic duty…You can’t freak yourself out. Fear is a force magnifier for them.” (16:51-17:40)

• On Democratic Rhetoric:

  • “I would like to see the Democrats speak in the rhetoric of the American tradition in a dramatic and interesting way that talks about this as an issue of first principles.” (53:02-53:42)

• On Trump’s Simplicity:

  • “The simplicity of his rhetoric is a great talent…simple formulas, unfortunately, they’re very successful.” (41:41)

• On the Importance of Drama:

  • “Where’s the drama?...People are moved and compelled and persuaded through story and that’s how they understand the world.” (61:25-62:11)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Opening Reflection & Thematic Context — 00:01-02:48
• The Trump "Shitpost" Tweet Goes Viral — 05:21-08:10
• Defining Fascism and Its Relevance Today — 08:10-12:52
• Comparison with Historical Regimes and Contemporary Dangers — 12:52-17:40
• Public Apathy, Polling Skepticism & Mobilization — 19:49-28:13
• Structural Roots of 1990s Populism — 29:23-34:26
• Great Man vs. Structural Theories & The Trump Phenomenon — 37:22-41:16
• Democratic Messaging and the Rhetoric Gap — 50:53-54:43
• Oratory, Conspiracy, and the Left’s Need for Storytelling and Leadership — 58:08-61:25

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Conclusion

This episode of Offline offers a sobering yet energizing perspective on America’s crisis of democracy, the seductions of authoritarian rhetoric, and the insufficient response from the American left. Jon Favreau and John Ganz stress that reclaiming the American story—and rescuing democracy—requires more than good policies or data-driven messaging; it demands rhetorical courage, an appeal to shared ideals, and leaders who can reach both the minds and hearts of the public. The conversation is at once a diagnosis of a present danger and a call to action for the left to rise to the occasion, meeting narrative with narrative and drama with drama.

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Recommended Next Steps:

• Subscribe to John Ganz’s Unpopular Front Substack and read When the Clock Broke for deeper historical context.
• For ad-free episodes and exclusive content, visit crooked.com/friends.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

Offline is brought to you by civetech. Lot of talk these days about redistricting and gerrymandering and new maps and Republicans are trying to draw themselves into keeping their majority with the new maps. But even if Democrats fight back, and they certainly are, you can't vote if you aren't registered. And that's where Civetek comes in. Civitech's voter registration solutions are built for Democratic and progressive campaigns, organizations and motivated individuals who are sick of playing defense. We're talking smart targeting, slick creatives and strategic follow ups to break down barriers for voters. For as little as $2, you can contribute to voter registration programs in your community directly or in much needed regions nationwide. Between 2020 and 2024, the Democratic Party lost millions of voters off the registration rolls while Republicans registered millions of voters. It is a huge problem. One of the most important things things we can do over the next couple years is to register voters as Democrats. Go to CiveTech IO offline. That's C I V I T E C H I O offline to start contributing to your community's future A quick note before we start we recorded this episode before the news broke that Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in Utah. I'm recording this part Wednesday afternoon, so I am still processing the news and am honestly pretty shaken by it. Though I will just say it is horrific. And I can't stop thinking about his two young kids who are around the same age as my two kids. Like a lot of episodes that we've done lately, this is about authoritarianism in America, and I think it's fair to say that we might have gone with another topic had we recorded this after the news. But in some ways I think it's even more relevant for the exact reason that we need to find our way out of this crisis without descending into more political violence. We need to find a way to oppose this regime without becoming this regime. Towards the end of the episode, I mention Martin Luther King Jr. And how he wrapped his rhetoric in the language of scripture and the country's best ideals. And I've also been thinking a lot about his incredibly disciplined and successful strategy of nonviolence, which ultimately triumphed over a state's repressive violence even as it cost him and others their lives. So hopefully we can talk more about that in future episodes. But for now, here's this week's Offline.

[John Ganz]

All politics is at the end of the day is speaking in public and persuading people to support you. It's very simple. In a weird way. And everyone gets all in their head, this polling. And we need the Democratic version of Joe Rogan. It's like, no, you need somebody who can get people's attention and is interesting and has moving and fascinating things to say. Joe Rogan talks about things that are stupid and crazy, like UFOs and shit like that. But that captures people's imaginations. It's fun, it's interesting, you know?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

Like, people are like, hey, I never really thought about that, so. Or I've always wondered about that and it's kind of bullshit. But there's a reason why conspiracism is dominant in our political culture is because it is very narratively satisfying and it communicates political information and understanding and in a very compact way.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm John Favreau and you just heard from John Gans, the author of when the Clock Broke and the very fantastic Unpopular Front Substack. John's also a columnist for the Nation and he tweets, which, you know, we love tweeters here. We love a poster. He's a.

[John Ganz]

He's a.

[Jon Favreau]

He's. I mean, his Twitter name is Lionel Trolling. Right. So it's right. It's right in the handle. I have wanted to talk to John for a long time because he has been writing a lot, both before the election and after, about. He is a student of fascist regimes, authoritarian takeovers, and he has been more clear eyed and I think really incisive about what Trump is, what his movement is, what it looks like, what it doesn't, and what we can expect from here on out. I would say his, his writing is somewhat dour, but I think our conversation was not as. As dour as I expected. It was. It was actually pretty upbeat. We have great conversation about where Trump's movement is at what stage of an authoritarian takeover we may or may not be in. And then we sort of talked about the opposition and what an opposition can do and what an effective opposition looks like. We even got into a discussion about polling, about rhetoric, about speeches. So it was a really fun conversation. He's such a smart guy and I hope you like it. Here's John Gans. John Gans, welcome to Offline.

[John Ganz]

Thanks so much for having me, John.

[Jon Favreau]

So you write a fantastic substack. I'm a regular reader. Everyone should go subscribe to Unpopular Front. I've wanted to talk to you for a while about your area of expertise. Right wing populism, fascism, all that good stuff. We will get to that in a bit. I gotta start with the most important thing you've written, which is a tweet from Aug. 29 that reads, Trump is dead. He died on Wednesday and now has 14 million views and may have launched the entire Labor Day weekend conspiracy that Trump might have been dead. Is that, is that right? What have you got to say for yourself about this?

[John Ganz]

I don't really know. You know, I was trying to. I was on vacation and I was trying to watch the Mets game, but I couldn't watch it because it was blacked out. Like the coverage was blacked out on the streaming service where I was. So I didn't have anything to do. And then someone mentioned that Trump had been kind of MIA for a little while, like since Wednesday. So the thought just popped into my head that it would be kind of, you know, a shit post, just a funny tweet. And I tweeted it and then I went to bed and I saw, like, my friends were liking it and I was like, ah, I win. People I thought are funny were liking it. So I was like, I'm making the funny people laugh. And that felt good. And then I woke up and it had gone completely broken. Containment of my followers, which are few. Like, I have like 50,000, but still, like, not every tweet does this. And it was getting, like, had like hundreds of thousands of likes, thousands of reteeds, millions of views, and the whole thing had blown up. And people in my mentions were like, furious at me. And then there were a ton of jokes about Trump dying, but a lot of people seem to kind of actually believe it. And it was creating. It was kind of driving news coverage. You know, they were like, the White House had to issue a statement which was extremely funny. And then people were like, it's not funny. This is not funny. I was like, what are you talking about? It's hilarious.

[Jon Favreau]

It's literally nothing but funny.

[John Ganz]

And as a professor, I'm a writer, I've written a book, and I've written hundreds of thousands of words on my sub stack and tens of thousands of words in articles, probably. And I don't think anything I've written will be as read as those few, few words, which is funny to reflect on. But, yeah, you know, it's funny.

[Jon Favreau]

It's sad. It's, it's, it's frustrating that that's where we are as a society, that people who are brilliant writers can write and write and write forever. And now with the attention economy, you just need one good shit post and boom, you're taking off.

[John Ganz]

Yeah, I think it's, you know, you Got to be both. You have to remember how to be an idiot sometimes. Sometimes that's the smartest thing to do in this, in this contemporary media environment.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, that's why we have Donald Trump as president. So you wrote a piece after the election called Testing the Fascism Thesis where you promised to occasionally revisit whether Trump's government would qualify. Two questions.

[John Ganz]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

The first is, what do you find useful about trying to differentiate between the term fascist versus authoritarian versus strongman versus right wing populist? And then to where do you think we are right now?

[John Ganz]

You know, I think the terminology is not that important, actually. Even though I was very insistent upon, you know, I have a reputation, which is deserved, of being very insistent, that this was, you know, the correct label. What I was really saying was it was an extremely helpful and useful heuristic to see where the movement and the politics would go, that it had certain almost predictive power. And I think that that really took hold for me around the time of January 6th. Right. So, you know, everyone who said it wasn't really fascism, they said, you know, that kind of thing wouldn't happen. And they were sort of mocking the people who thought that there was a potential for kind of paramilitary mob violence around the election. And the people who said, hey, this is a fascist movement were expecting this very kind of thing. So I was like, okay, well, this is not the worst reading. What else can it tell us? And I think basically, if you look at the history of fascist movements and the way that they try to kind of move through institutions and co opt the power of the state and how the movement has kind of internal dynamics, it gives you, I wouldn't say an exact blueprint, but it's a very useful way of looking at things. I mean, just to say, you know, it's not the only framework. I mean, there's a lot of American history that should go into. There's other, you know, as you say, strongmen, populist, authoritarian regimes. But I think it has a better record than the people who are real skeptics. So I almost start to treat it as like a scientific hypothesis. It's not pure science. But you got to say, okay, well, if it's helping us predict what's next, it's not the worst hypothesis. Yeah, it's not the worst hypothesis. So I think that it's a useful framework that's on the purely theoretical side. On a practical side, it's a little more complicated. How helpful is it politically? I don't know, is it, is it too alarmist? Is It a word people don't understand anymore because it's from the past. I don't know. I think it deals with the situation we're in with the requisite seriousness it has. And, you know, it's just like, hey, you know, this is. This is not dissimilar from. From some of the worst regimes we've seen in human history.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

You know, with that being said, I try to be thoughtful about it. I try to see where there's disconfirming things and not, you know, only do confirmation bias and say, oh, well, this, this, that. But I think what I basically try to say is, look, I'm going to work on this theory and try to make it work, which means sometimes I'm going to explain away differences or try and deal with all the information I might appear to be explaining it away, but it's just try to keep the theory going and take it or leave it if you find it helpful or useful. It's one framework among many. I'm going to argue for it as best I can, but I don't know. I don't think that it's the only interpretation of the present. I think it provides some helpful tools. That's basically my position.

[Jon Favreau]

So where do you think we are right now? Because I was looking back at that piece that you wrote after the election, and quite a few of the things you laid out that you thought would qualify have come to pass, especially as you get towards the bottom part of the list. But where do you think we are? What has surprised you about how fast certain things have happened and then what surprised you about what hasn't happened yet?

[John Ganz]

Well, I think basically I'm not terribly surprised. I got certain things wrong or certain predictions weren't paying attention to the actual dynamics of what might happen. So obviously in historical fascist movements at the beginning, when they're coming to power and when they're in power and trying to intimidate opponents, like paramilitary organizations are a big part of it. Right. So you have the brown shirts, the black shirts, you know, you have hints of that with Trump, with the Proud boys and the 3%, whatever they're called.

[Jon Favreau]

Oath Keepers.

[John Ganz]

Yeah, yeah. But it's not. The level of violence and the level of strength of those organizations is not huge compared to historic fascism. So I said, oh, well, if we see those kinds of groups kind of being adjuncts of the state, you have to say the theory is pretty good. And now I have to kind of revise that and say, well, it's more at the stage where he tries to create an internal organization, a kind of parallel state that is very personally loyal to him and his politics. And you see that with the massive increase of ice. Yeah, I wish I had seen that coming and I probably could have thought that out, but I kind of was just. I wasn't being lazy, but I was going on some. Basically I was like, oh, well, this is what it looks like historically. I didn't think of what it was looking like in the present. And now, you know, the judiciary is still functioning. They haven't deployed direct force against the judiciary so far as we know, but they are. Conservative justices, especially on the Supreme Court, seem very inclined to be friendly. Now this is something that, if you're a believer in the fascism analogy, is something you come to expect because the whole idea of fascism is that pre existing conservative elites cooperate with the fascist movements or require it, collaborate, make accommodations with it, because they view it as better than the alternative, as a kind of fear of a far left coming to power. Again, many critics of the fascism analogy make a great point, other than the lack of huge amounts of violence, although there has been some, is that, well, the United States doesn't really have a big revolutionary left that would scare conservatives into an alliance with fascists. May be true, in fact, but certainly in the imagination of the right, they're highly afraid. And during the period of the George Floyd protests, during the pandemic, during the stuff that they called wokeness, they believe they were dealing with a kind of totalitarian threat from the left akin to some kind of communist takeover. And they often called it Marxist and so on and so forth. So it sounds strange because it doesn't look to liberals or leftists, it's like, yeah, maybe there were some stupid parts, but was it really so crazy? And I think in the imagination and in the emotional world of the right, truly terrifying and definitely willing to use force and extreme methods to defend themselves from their point of view and importantly to take revenge. So I think that that's a way you can kind of keep the theory working. I will say, you know, thank God, for the most part the rule of law has issues. You know, he's practicing politics in a democracy in a, in a very different way than we were used to seeing. But you know, I do this as my job. I complain about him all day. I have not received any kind of threats, anything like that. I mean, even during this saying he died, I didn't hear word one from. I'm not going to pretend that I'm some kind of dissident, anything like that I'm exercising free speech and the worst I get is somebody yelling at me on the Internet and not experiencing even the tiny bit of political repression. I mean, some people, maybe there are bigger figures of opposition who are. But I would say, you know, for the most part, political discussion, discourse, the press, it's distorted, it's messed up. He's trying his best to screw these things up. Continues. I am not afraid to go on the street and have a gang of thugs beat me up. And that would be what it was like in fascist Italy or fascist Germany. So let's keep it real.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

And I think it's important to keep that in mind because if you're interested in politics, you have to practice politics and do your civic duty and go out there, vote, speak, you know, you know, be a citizen and you can't freak yourself out. Fear is a, is a, is a force magnifier for them. So if they make people afraid then they're going to stop doing politics and it makes it things easy for them. So I think people got to be a little bit courageous. I don't know how much courage it really takes to practice politics right now. A little bit courageous. Don't get freaked out, don't get too frightened, but you know, don't allow the propaganda to win. You know, they seem very fearsome, but you know, they don't have infinite power.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Jon Favreau]

This is my everyday challenge. This is what keeps me awake at night, is trying to balance. We are in an information environment where it is extremely difficult to get people's attention and to keep people's attention. And so there's a lot of people who forget about not believing, you know, that this is a fascist takeover or not. They're just, they're just tuned out. And so you gotta get people's attention because I am quite alarmed by what's going on. I know you are. Many people are who are paying close attention to this. But then you don't want to engage in the kind of hyperbole or alarmism that's not going to like sort of meet people where they are in, in their perception of the country and politics and they're walking outside and everything looks nice. But at the same time I'm like, well then what words are we supposed to use to tell people that this is, you know, maybe everything will be fine and maybe it's just another terrible Trump term and then we'll get out of it. Or you know, maybe this is only, only nine months in, eight months in and he's got a four year term and things could get a lot worse.

[John Ganz]

Yeah for sure. I think that that's. That's. That's absolutely right. I think, you know, it's very. It is very difficult to strike the right balance. And sometimes people say, read me. And they find it very frightening. And I don't want to discourage people. It's very much the opposite. I want to encourage people to take an active participation in political life. And I think that the. Basically the biggest strength they would have is to demobilize people and have them kind of go away. You know, they have to make very strong attack. Whenever there's opposition to them, they don't ignore it. They have to make very strong attacks against it. So it worries them. You know, they have ways of coping. They have what they feel are tried and true attacks that work against the left. But, yeah, I think it's important to continue to use your voice and to put pressure on elected officials, make sure the elected officials know there's a constituency that's angry and wants to hold them to account for all these things, and they can't just keep their heads down and ride it out.

[Jon Favreau]

Another reason I wonder if people sort of shy away from wanting to believe that we are in an authoritarian takeover or fascist takeover, whatever you want to call it, is the history that most people know, the most common history about Hitler and maybe Mussolini and maybe others. They think about, okay, well, if that's our system right now, then usually the only way out of something like that is violence, or we're just trapped in this repressive regime and there's nothing we can do. So I don't want to believe that. Yeah, like, how do you know authoritarian fascist regimes end that are not in a lot of violence?

[John Ganz]

Well, the two big ones, the two classical ones, obviously they started a war, and then that kind of brought them down eventually, and that's not good. But, you know, that that wasn't the only possibility. I mean, normal is not exactly the right word, but they functioned within constitutional systems, and they had to navigate those political systems. After Mussolini came to power, you know, he wasn't a dictator overnight. He had to kind of maneuver through the constitutional system, and a severe crisis almost brought him down. And it looked like he might not be long for the world. And fortunately, enough allies rallied to his side that kept him alive. And we've seen that kind of stuff happen with Trump. It looked at like after January 6th might finally be it for him, but, you know, it still kind of made his way through it. And then in other authoritarian regimes, like, you know, Franco fell peacefully, Salazar fell peacefully. I Mean, Salazar's regime was involved in ruinous wars abroad. But, you know, those regimes fell relatively peacefully. I mean, most of the regimes in the. I mean, it was a little hairy, but most of the regimes in the Eastern bloc fell peacefully. I think only Ceausescu was the communist leader who faced like a violent, revolutionist country and was killed. And I think that the internal politics of the regime can be quite brittle. And as long as there is an opposition that exists and stays alive, you know, they can seize the initiative when such a regime leads itself into a crisis and is unable to govern. You know, the problem with these regimes is that democracy is a big feedback system. If they're messing with the feedback system, they're not knowing when the population is actually getting fed up with them.

[Jon Favreau]

Right, Yeah, I think that's important.

[John Ganz]

They are going to get high on their own supply, believe their own propaganda, believe that their base is the only people in the country.

[Jon Favreau]

They.

[John Ganz]

And not being really sensitive to, like, where the political winds are blowing, and they'll get themselves into trouble, and the opposition party has to be ready for that and to seize on the opportunity in the same way that the anti democratic movement seizes on the opportunities of problems with the old regime, with the democratic regime. So.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, and you can already see this happening with the economy. They're trying to believe that everything's great, even on issues like immigration. You know, like, there's. I've lost count of how many, you know, White House officials have gone on background to reporters and was like, this is an 80, 20 issue for us. And I hope they keep talking about this. And it's like, all right, well, it.

[John Ganz]

Didn'T stay that way.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. It was like, I would not confuse your. Your political support for border security with the opposition to your mass deportation regime.

[John Ganz]

Right. Well, I think this is what gets people in trouble with polling.

[Jon Favreau]

I was going to get to your polling piece, which is. Which was great.

[John Ganz]

I thought polling asks very abstract questions. So the question over illegal immigration sort of contains its own answer in itself. Right. So illegal. People hear the word illegal, of course that's bad. And it sounds unfair that people come to the country illegally. The image they have in their mind about it is maybe not the way it is in reality. So then you have the reality of the way the policy is implemented, and people go, hey, this looks horrible. They didn't think through how it was going to be. Their neighbors, loved ones. We get caught up in this is very ugly. You see, you know, the extreme suffering done to people who are just hard working and want to be here. And I don't think most Americans are sadistic, awful people who want that to happen to people. They say, hey, that kind of makes me feel not so great. I think that the propaganda of this regime and the way it tries to pump things out in social media is to make people callous and cruel. I don't think they're naturally callous and cruel or to justify by saying, oh, these are criminal, so on and so forth, forth. So I do think that, yeah, you know, in practice, in theory, these policies are like, yeah, you know, I don't think that it's fair that people come here illegally. They should do the things properly. But when they actually see who illegal, quote unquote, illegal immigrants are and how they're being treated, they feel a little queasy about it. And I think that goes across, you know, in a lot of things. And now people feel really good about immigration in the country. If you want to believe the polling on it, then this has a weird thermostatic effect. I remember during Trump's first term, people started to feel good about immigration in response to his rhetoric about immigration, which may have misled the Biden administration to think it wasn't such an important issue. And then people kind of went, I'm not so happy about. So the public is fickle and it changes its mind. And no political movement, leader, party able to permanently control that unless you're in a regime where they've had a lot of practice like China or something like that, you know. So this is what I tell people when they ask, well, when, when are you really scared? Said, well, if, like, Barack Obama was like, I'm going to get an apartment in London and not really live in the United States anymore. You know, like when it seems like opposition figures are kind of quietly trying to exit the country or, you know, there's some kind of high profile use of violence against political opponents in the regime, kind of is like shrugs its shoulders or is behind it. Then I would be like, okay, this is really bad. But, yeah, you know, like, I think everyone is planning to be midterms.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[John Ganz]

You know, and it doesn't look like the Republicans. I mean, they're going to definitely fuck around with them, but doesn't look like they're expecting to be able to control the federal elections. They're practicing politics. So.

[Jon Favreau]

And yeah, and I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, there are troop deployments around election day and ice. I think Tom Homan's already said maybe there could be ICE around polling places and around election day.

[John Ganz]

Yeah, that's horrible.

[Jon Favreau]

Horrifying.

[John Ganz]

But I don't know if people are actually going to be intimidated by it.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I was just going to get there. Yeah. Like, I think that the answer to that is you go vote and you, you know, you don't have to harass them or try to get in a fight. Just, just go and do your duty and keep your head down and vote.

[John Ganz]

It may actually have a perversely encouraging, hopefully be like people might say, you know what, fuck this, I don't like this. I'm really going to go out and exercise my right to vote. I'm not going to be intimidated. You know, and the fact of the matter is, if people vote en masse, there's a lot more of you than the ICE officers.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[John Ganz]

There's safety in numbers.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, yes.

[John Ganz]

That's what the democracy is about. You're always going to outnumber these motherfuckers.

[Jon Favreau]

That's right. The other thing I often think about with people sort of wrapping their heads around what we're going through right now is authoritarian regimes look different at different points of history in different countries. And there is something quintessentially American about Trump. And you wrote a great book, when the Clock Broke that draws a line from sort of the cultural, political, economic shifts of the early 90s to the rise of Trump. What was going on in the early 90s that sort of gave rise to this?

[John Ganz]

Well, you got a lot of things kind of popping up around the 1992 election, which is the main focus of my book. In the years just after and just before that, first of all, you had the beginning of this kind of right wing populism whose main issues were trade and immigration. You had a kind of breaking down of the norms around overt racism in politics. You had overt fascism politics. David Duke running for governor in Louisiana, winning a majority of the white vote. Pat Buchanan runs against George H.W. bush and cripples and probably takes down his bid as the incumbent. You have a wider kind of anti system populism that crystallizes in the person of Ross Perot, who demonstrates that there's a great deal of dissatisfaction with the two party system and just the general way the country is going. Are there real specifics about that would mean. It's mostly an attitude. There are some policies, but they come up as the movement develops kind of ad hoc. Again, trade is a big part of that sense that the government is not responsive to the people, that there's something fundamentally broken about the representative system and a kind of strongman figure needs to come in and fix things. Then you have a big changes in the media. You have the rise of talk radio. So you have, you know, a much more chaotic media environment where voices that perhaps would have been edited out of mainstream network news and the newspapers kind of begin to get a foothold. And you see that the population is very angry and that kind of these people are stoking it, but there's a preexisting constituency or market for it. So you begin to see, get a kind of sense that the country is dissatisfied fundamentally with the way things are going. You have at the same time, you know, the first signs that maybe the economy that was set up on under Reagan had some serious problems with the way it took care of redistribution of wealth and the way that it set up the productive disposition of the country. That you had a big focus away from industry into finance, into companies getting short term returns instead of planning product lines and productions over years and research and development. And they had the beginning of leveraged buyouts and private equity, the kind of stripping of companies for financial reasons. And then you see financial deregulation, how that destabilizes institutions. So a lot of things that came to a head around 2007, eight, you see a mini version of that, it's in commercial real estate, not in home building and residential real estate. But you have little signs of that. And then you have deregulation, finance causing insider trading, corruption, close alliances between government and business that make people angry. So you have a beginning of the signs of what kind of cracks could happen in the way things that were set up in the previous decade. Yeah, so I think there's a collection of different factors that kind of go under the surface because the Clinton 90s are prosperous and people are genuinely pretty happy with where they're at. And they see, okay, maybe some of the problems that reared their heads around 1992 were solved and then they kind of come roaring back. And the kind of politics that people saw and maybe even forgot a little bit, you know, Ross Perot became kind of punchline and then became kind of a trivia question. Pat Buchanan, if you're a real political junkie, you remember him from tv.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah.

[John Ganz]

Was. You don't maybe remember him and maybe later not quite so successful presidential runs, but I don't think people remember just how much of a threat he was against Bush. So you see the country, you know, the things that had been kind of repressed or seemingly dealt with, but perhaps papered over return with a big theory. So I just found it so fascinating that you got this kind of look into the beginnings, the seedlings of these things that I think at the time commentators knew this is something notable, something strange is just happening in the country. And then it all seemed to come to nothing and everyone was like, oh, I guess that was just a weird election year.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, quick note before we move on. We've been talking about Crooked Con for weeks now and tickets have been going fast. But today we're excited to announce the lineup. Crooked Con is your chance to join some of the smartest organizers and least annoying politicians in America to strategize, debate and commiserate about where we go from here, which is hopefully up. We'll be kicking off the weekend November 6th with Pod Save America Live at the Warner Theater. Then you can join us at the wharf in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 7 for a full day of conversations, panels, workshops and live pods. I'll be there along with the rest of the folks from Positive America, Ben Rhodes, Sarah Longwell, Hasan Piker, Fad, Shakir, Brian, Tyler Cohen, Jessica Tarloff, Senator Ruben Gallego, Andy beshear, Representative Sarah McBride, Representative Janelle Bynum, Ben Wickler, Aaron and Alyssa from Hysteria and a strict scrutiny live POD to close out the day and more. There will be more names coming, don't you worry. And by popular demand, we just added more tickets because they are going so fast and you guys are doing such a great job buying them. See the full lineup and buy your tickets if you haven't already, before they sell [e-mail] offline is brought to you by Deleteme. Deleteme makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number and family members names hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the real world and makes everyone vulnerable. With Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business. Byte from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exploited, the New York Times Wirecutter has named Deleteme their top pick for data removal services. If you're online a lot, if you're too online like me, then like me, you probably care a lot about privacy. And whether you've been a victim of identity theft or harassment or anything else, you want to make sure your dad is not on there. I want that. I'm sure you want that. Everyone wants that. Delete Me can help take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan by texting offline to 64,000. The only way to get 20% off is to text offline to 64,000. That's offline to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply.

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[Jon Favreau]

I wondering lately, you know, is it the, you know, is it the great man theory of politics or is it larger forces that determine where we are? And reading your book, you got all these dynamics in the early 90s in that election that you describe, and you know, how much of the dormancy of all these trends in the 90s and 2000s had to do with just who was running for office.

[John Ganz]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, because that was like, you know, you didn't mention there, just George W. Bush. Right. So we had Clinton. We had two terms of Clinton, then we had two terms of George W. Bush, then Barack Obama for two terms.

[John Ganz]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And then we get Trump. And the reason I think it matters now is how much of this current movement is all about Trump.

[John Ganz]

Oh, for sure.

[Jon Favreau]

And, and his charisma. And how much can, you know, yahoos like JD Vance and the rest of them maybe carry the mantle forward after he's gone.

[John Ganz]

Yeah. Weirdly, I think my book kind of straddles the structural and the great man theories of history because I think I identify a number of different structures. But Trump personifies them all. He's able to bring together the talk radio shock jock, the rise of this right wing populism that's angry about immigration and trade and deindustrialization. In our case, you know, it's not talk radio, it's the Internet, which really accelerates and changes the media environment. You know, this kind of billionaire who says he's going to fix everything in Ross Perot. And I have a chapter on John Gotti becoming kind of a celebrity in New York and kind of a mob boss having a, having a public appeal. And Trump, in his strange mix of all these things, is sort of the perfect candidate for the moment that he arrives at. Even then, you know, he's still unpopular. He has a certain cachet. He reaches deeply into the country, but not perhaps that broadly, because he continues to attract a lot of revulsion as well. So, yeah, it's a. It's a complicated question for every historian, and I think it's the certain people reflect their times, are able to, you know, seem to be the right person for the time. And it kind of makes sense because the guy is almost like a nothing on some level. Like, he's a product of television, watches a ton of television, has lived his entire life in public, and doesn't really have a soul in a certain way. His soul is kind of TV and radio, and, like, he's just a product of business and politics and American public life. You know, all of his private life happened in the tabloids. Everything he's done has been publicized. So, yeah, he's kind of just a container. And in a way, it's like, yeah, he's definitely an extraordinary talent, a very charismatic individual who's able to keep this very strange and, in some ways, fractious movement together. I don't think anybody else has a exact charisma just because he, like, he was a weird expression of American media.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

And American culture. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And that's. And that's a common thread among a lot of these authoritarians over time. Right. From Pat Buchanan to Mussolini. Right. Like, I think some of these people have just. Which is. I know that's a broad range.

[John Ganz]

I don't think it's that broad of a range.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Now, in this. In this age, like, being able to capture people's attention and sort of go over or go through sort of a lot of these institutions by just communicating on a mass scale and doing it well seems to be, like, a key ingredient for someone who's going to lead a movement like this.

[John Ganz]

He's a very effective communicator. It's what he's always done. It's strange to say it, but he has a real rhetorical talent, and his real rhetorical talent is expressing things extremely directly and simply.

[Jon Favreau]

He is genuinely funny at times.

[John Ganz]

He's funny and he's sarcastic, and he seems like a wise guy, but it's like my tweet, trump is dead.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

It's something like he would say.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[John Ganz]

You know, the simplicity of his rhetoric is a great talent. And if you know the issues, you go, how can anybody just say that? It's not true, or it's an oversimplification, but, you know, simple formulas, unfortunately, they're very successful. And we live in a very complicated. I mean, all times are complicated, but the amount of information that's available is overwhelming. And, you know, to have somebody break it down for you into very simple things. These people are bad. This is the problem. We're going to get these people out of there. We're going to do this, we're going to do that. It's appealing. I mean, you know, forming an opinion on every single thing, being informed on every single thing, it's hard. I mean, it's our profession, but I find it overwhelming. What do I know? I have to suddenly know about international trade laws or how semiconductors are made, and I have to be an authority on this all of a sudden in order to talk about politics in a meaningful way. And I can kind of keep up with it, but it's still hard. And if you're not a professional and you're not addicted to the news, I mean, these things become impossible.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I mean, I do want to talk about sort of how the opposition handles this in a situation like this. And you wrote something, I think, right after the election about how parties dedicated to the. The preservation of democracy and democratic norms face a particularly tough challenge when dealing with a party that does not. And if the. That party, if the opposition party continues to abide by democratic norms and fight within the parameters of normal politics, you know, they. They risk legitimizing and even strengthening the regime by that they're trying to bring down. But if they abuse or ignore those democratic norms in service of, you know, fighting fire with fire, then they risk undermining the democratic system they're fighting to uphold. And I do think this is. I mean, we have been seeing this play out now for almost a decade.

[John Ganz]

It's a bind.

[Jon Favreau]

How do you think an opposition handles that kind of challenge?

[John Ganz]

It's hard to know when to break the norms in order to preserve the system and when you're actually leading to its degeneration. That's a judgment call. That great statesman you reflect in historical retrospect. Oh, they stretch the rules a little bit. I mean, this is what Machiavelli's the Prince is all about. I mean, it's all like, this guy, he kind of broke the rules, but you gotta give it to him. He was very effective. I mean, in his case, it's a lot of horrible things. But, like, the point is, is that, you know, it's not necessarily virtuous. To insist upon procedure when the other guy is not doing it. You have to take the initiative and use every political opportunity you have to defeat your opponent. And I think sometimes the Democrats, they pundit themselves. What are they going to say if we do this? What are they going to do if we do this? How's it going to look? How's it going to play in Peoria or whatever? I know, I think Peoria is pretty blue at this point.

[Jon Favreau]

We don't have to worry about Peoria anymore. No, I was going to ask you about this in the context of the current debate that's going on about the government shutdown because there's this brewing fight about how Democrats should handle it. And there's first you got the no, we shouldn't shut the government down. That's crazy. And you don't have a plan to get out of it. You don't have a plan to declare victory and you know everyone's going to turn against you, whatever. Then there's, and I saw you weighing in on this, the, which I, I predicted this is where it was going to head, which is like, health care is our best issue. We're going to make it about health care. And I get that. I've seen all the polling. I am a student of polling. I know, I know your piece. But like, I think it's, I think it's one useful tool out of many. I do think that politics is much more art than science, as you say. But. So I get that that's the issue. But there is something that just feels like it's not meeting the moment to say like Donald Trump is engaging in an authoritarian takeover, ISIS throwing people in vans and Chuck Schumer is going to win an 18 month extension of the ACA subsidies and that's what we're shutting down the government over. I'm just like, I think that could be the both that could be the worst of all worlds. I don't know.

[John Ganz]

Look, they need to reassert the constitutional role of Congress. The case they need to make to the people is the United States Congress has the power of the purse. We have prerogative in governing the country. It is not just the executive who does things. They need to make the case that, look, we are doing our jobs. We are not going to focus, fund a administration that is not obeying its constitutional role. And who cares what the Supreme Court says? The whole point of the system is that the branches check and balance each other. It's time for Congress in whatever way it can, to provide A serious check on the executive. Now, are there risks in that? Yes. But if the Congress, which is already not doing much and over the past 40, 50 years really has given so much power to the executive, I mean, what kind of system do we still have? If we, if they rubber stamp everything that the executive is doing, then it is a dictatorship. Then it is a dictatorship. This creates a classic presidential democratic crisis. Right. Two institutions in the country claim to speak on behalf of the people. Right. So unfortunately, the Republicans have majorities in both houses. But Congress says we speak on behalf of the people. The President says I speak on behalf of the people. This can create a very explosive situation and usually one side wins and it's the side that has the soldiers. Unless, you know, it creates such a constitutional crisis that the security forces don't want to break the Constitution. Do you want to force the hand of something like that? I don't know. I don't know. I think that the stakes are extremely high. We're in a very dramatic situation. The other side puts things in very dramatic terms. I think it is a mistake to constantly use this dry language of issues and issue polling. I don't think anybody disagrees that we are in an extraordinary moment of crisis in the country and it's really kind of time for some leader to speak to it. It's a rolling the dice. I mean, there's chance the opposition is going to do things. You can't predict everything that's happening. But you know, someone's got to do something. I mean, someone has to speak up against this and it should be the leadership in Congress.

[Jon Favreau]

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[John Ganz]

Yeah, he's always out there on the street saying, have you heard the good news?

[Jon Favreau]

Have I just hide little Zebiotics bottles in all the different rooms in my house, in my car. Not because I'm drinking in my car, because I might be going places, you know, Hand them up.

[John Ganz]

Yep. For sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Good.

[John Ganz]

Correction.

[Jon Favreau]

In my bag. Yeah, I dropped the maneuvers for people who, who might, you know, jump in the car after me.

[John Ganz]

Good.

[Jon Favreau]

That's nice of you. I'm like a Paul Revere, you know, I'm going through the streets, just sort of watch out, the alcohol's coming. Oh, that's pretty good, you know.

[John Ganz]

Yeah, that was more like a Johnny.

[Jon Favreau]

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[John Ganz]

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[Jon Favreau]

Your polling piece really it helped crystallize for me the, the frustrations I've had with this over the years because I am anyone who listens to this knows me. I'm a, a polling nerd, a polling addict. I, I, I very much. You know all the data nerds who are mad at you about this, I, I read their stuff, some data.

[John Ganz]

People like that and well, and I.

[Jon Favreau]

Was going to say and I respect them a lot. But I also, I was a speechwriter for most of my life before I started doing this. And you basically conclude in the piece politicians need to go back to basics to the oldest political skill, rhetoric. That is the art of combining reason with imagery that moves the emotions. And then you also said what I think the rhetorical approach makes possible by not dividing the world into little bits of discrete reality is what the empiricists think is impossible candidates who can be both moderate and radical. That is right on.

[John Ganz]

Well, that is what Ronald Reagan did and Abraham Lincoln did to a certain extent was to disguise or soften the extent of their own radicalism by using the great rhetoric of the American political tradition. Reagan seemed not terrifying radical that Democrats and liberals wanted to make him. He seemed a genial, you know, face of the golden age of Hollywood and represented all the wonderful things of that world and the sunniness of fdr, even though with an opposite program.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

And Lincoln, you know, he wasn't a fire breathing abolitionist. He was a, he was a considered by the radicals in his party to be hopelessly moderate and not radical enough. But the other side recognized probably more correctly that he was a serious threat and that his politics were going to be the end of them because he was extending the ambit of anti slavery into wider and wider constituencies. And how did he do that? Well, he enlisted the help of Thomas Jefferson basically and said this is what the Declaration means. Did Thomas Jefferson really mean that when he wrote the Declaration? It's an academic debate. I think that what Lincoln said, Jefferson said stands the test of time.

[Jon Favreau]

They wrote it down and they said it. So whatever was going on in their head, it is useful for us this many years later.

[John Ganz]

Yeah. So I think that, that I would like to see the Democrats speak in the rhetoric of the American tradition in a dramatic and interesting way that talks about this as an issue of first principles. Lincoln spoke as a matter of first principles. The Lincoln Douglas debates were a debate over how the country was going to be governed and what the country meant. So I think, you know, you can capture people's imaginations if there seems to be some kind of governing philosophy behind the Democrats. What is the philosophy of the Democrats? What is the basic ideal? It's hard to express. It's sort of like, well, we are not bad like the other guys. What do you want to hear? Because we'll tell you basically anything you want to hear. I just would like the Democrats to stand for something. Yeah, it's not going to make every radical in the country happy. It's going to probably disappoint them. It might disappoint me. I might be too far to the left to like it. I might be like I want them to be a little bit more strong on this issue. But for someone to find that ground, I mean it's an art and it's a talent and you can't just pull it out of a hat. I can't. It's sort of I'm asking for someone to be extremely talented. Now. I think there are Democratic politicians who have that talent and are getting there. I mean, unfortunately, in my opinion, the best rhetorician on our side is Bernie Sanders is quite old now and is not in the position to be the leader. Yeah, Chuck Schumer is not a great orator.

[Jon Favreau]

No, he's, but like. And look, it is easy to beat up on Chuck Schumer. I do the same thing myself. But look out across the party, we talk about the gerontocracy. A lot of the younger ones still, there's plenty of duds there. Although there's some, you know, in the last couple of months, there have been some, you know, some. Everyone's always like, well, who do you think about for 2028? I'm like, no one is impressing me right now because I, I am thinking like you are. No one has spoken to the moment with something bigger. And the reason I, I, I've become obsessed with. And you were, I think you were one of the first people who wrote about it is JD Vance's speech at Claremont, the anti Declaration speech that you called and then, and then you also wrote, and I talked about last week, Senator Eric Schmidt from Missouri, his speech at the National Conservatism Conference.

[John Ganz]

Where's the Democratic response to this?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, this is what I keep saying.

[John Ganz]

This is, this is, this requires a strong response and it gives an opportunity. They're using all this beautiful, I hate to say it, but very interesting imagery about the American past painting this picture of the American past. Where is the Democratic response that why don't we own the American past?

[Jon Favreau]

They're leaving this huge opening for us by going right at the Declaration in Lincoln because someone needs to go out there and be like, you know what the Democratic Party stands for? We do believe that we are all created equal. We do believe that this is a country where, if you believe that and you come here, that you can be an American because of what you believe and how you act and not like where your fucking ancestors were buried.

[John Ganz]

Do you know that Reagan speech that it's like we live in a country where we don't remember what it's like to be, you know, and it's a beautiful speech. Yeah. And it was about like Medicaid or something. It was about something really small in our opinion, being like, you thought that, like, that was the end of liberty in the republic. You know, it was, it was about a prosaic policy in a certain way. But he used this imagery of, you know, the Eclipse of Democratic and Republican rule in the country. And that's very stirring to people.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

And the fucking Democrats really have to capture that. And I don't know, it's not hard. Just pick up, like, what did they learn in school? They're old enough to have learned this stuff in school. You know, didn't they learn the Gettysburg Address?

[Jon Favreau]

You mentioned this in your polling piece, but it's like, it is a. It's a brush back to like the data nerds and the center left types who are very cautious. It also is a bit of a brush back to the folks on the left who. Who I think their problem is they wanna speak their radicalness and reveal it sometimes. Like, I think that some of the most successful figures on the left, I think about King a lot with this right. Which is like King had a very radical agenda at the time. And all of his rhetoric, all of his speeches, it was scripture and it was the founding documents and the principles of the Declaration. So he was able to like dress up this, this policy that was not popular at the time, at least when he started with a lot of this rhetoric that spoke to the fundamental values that people defined America with.

[John Ganz]

Yeah, yeah. And also the beauty of his speech came from the knowledge of the English language. That came from studying the Bible.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[John Ganz]

And I think that's why Warnock maybe is an underrated.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

Figure.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

For the future of the party. I'm going to say something that might upset your listeners. You know who's a great. I hate to say it. Orator. Who is Nick Fuentes.

[Jon Favreau]

It's so funny because Tommy Vitor, my co host, has been. He's been on the, on the right wing media beat and watching these. And so he's been watching some Nick Fuentes and he's like, that fucking Nazi is like a talented communicator.

[John Ganz]

He is really good at it. And he can gab for a very long time and make what he's saying sound significant. When he's just talking shit. He can turn a issue that takes other people maybe, you know, a minute to talk about into an entire episode. And he's very funny. He shits on his fans. He's irreverent. He's a deeply twisted and evil guy. But like, you know, he's obviously in deep pain in some weird way. But, you know, he, he knows how to speak. The guy knows how to speak and to command attention. And I think that, yeah, like, that basic skill is that all politics is at the end of the day is speaking in public and Persuading people to support you. It's very simple in a weird way. And everyone gets all in their head, this polling. And we need the democratic version of Joe Rogan. It's like, no, you need somebody who, who can get people's attention and is interesting and has moving and fascinating things to say. Joe Rogan talks about things that are stupid and crazy, like UFOs and shit like that. But that captures people's imaginations. It's fun, it's interesting. You know, like people are like, hey, I never really thought about that, so. Or I've, I've always wondered about that. And it's kind of. But there's a reason why conspiracism is dominant in our political culture is because it is very narratively satisfying and it communicates political information and understanding and in a very compact way. You know, it's not like, oh, there's all these systems and structures and policies. It's like, these are the bad people, they're plotting against you, you know, and that has always been to a certain extent. And I don't want to sing the praises of conspiracy theories here because I think that they're damaging, but the implication of a conspiracy is a very early rhetorical trope. Because what you're saying is these guys, it's, it's just kind of democracy at its basic. These guys stand for a minority self interested. We stand for the public interest. Yeah. So I think that just trying to hammer on the corruption of Trump, the fact that this is a self dealing cabal, you know, that's going to be helpful. The, you know, the criminality, the conspiracy that it actually is. And you can just use the facts, you have to dress them up in a way that's interesting.

[Jon Favreau]

No spin on the ball needed.

[John Ganz]

Not much. Not much. You know, maybe you don't have to get wonky about every single issue, but you speak in generalities about what's happening. And I think that, you know, it should not be that hard for someone to speak with a lot of drama about what's happening because it's quite dramatic.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[John Ganz]

So where's the drama? Also, everyone asks, what is going on? How, how are all these podcasters and these streamers, how are they getting people's attention? They are always in these dramatic circumstances with each other and people tune into it like a soap opera, you know? Yeah, that is true, because people want to be entertained and they say, oh, well, these figures are always fighting with each other and always denouncing each other and taking shots at each other. And that's what people go for.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, you know, you need some drama, you need some conflict, generate some interest. Drama and conflict tell a story and people are moved and compelled and persuaded through story and that's how they understand the world. And so you need a little bit of that.

[John Ganz]

Absolutely.

[Jon Favreau]

John Ganz, thank you so much. This was great. My pleasure.

[John Ganz]

This was great.

[Jon Favreau]

Great conversation. Everyone. Go subscribe to Unpopular Front and and, and go check out when the Clock Broke. It's a, it's a really great read. So thanks for joining.

[John Ganz]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

As always, if you have comments, questions or guest ideas, email [e-mail] and if you're as opinionated as we are, please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. For ad free episodes of offline and pod, Save America exclusive content and more. Go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. If you like watching your podcast, subscribe to the Offline with Jon Favreau YouTube channel. Don't forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and the other ones for original content, community events, and more. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Emma Ilic. Frank Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Jerrick Centeno is our sound editor and engineer. Audio support from Kyle's Seglin, Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Delon Villanueva and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos. Every week. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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[John Ganz]

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[John Ganz]

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