← Offline with Jon Favreau
Offline with Jon Favreau
JD Vance and the Post-Liberal Right's War on America
00:59:51
As the U.S. slides into autocracy, Americans need to be reminded that liberalism can still solve the problems that Trump uses to fear monger. Jerusalem Demsas, founder and editor in chief of “The Argument,” joins Offline to explain what solutions for immigration and the economy would look like, her beef with the post-liberal left, and why she’s staying on Twitter...and maybe you should too. Plus, what she’s seeing on the ground at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC—aka the place JD Vance gets his crazy blood and soil ideas.
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- [00:01]
A
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B
Quince.com offline there's this feeling that Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter makes it impossible to have any kind of persuasive effect. And like, I'll just say this, like, I run into people all the time who like saw a tweet of mine of someone else's and they were like, oh, did you see this thing? Like, yes, it is not going to get you viral in the same way that some of this like kind of Nazi content goes viral. That's true. But I think that that's true in all spaces where you're the minority, right? Like, it's not the case that if you were like the ideological minority in the 1950s and like the, you know, New York Times editorial page was like still platforming, like open segregationists or whatever, like that it was an even playing field for activists. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's not an even playing field anywhere where there are people and eyeballs when you're losing. And so I think to me that that heuristic is really, really harm.
- [02:01]
A
Hey everyone, I'm Jon Favreau and you just heard from the editor of the Argument, Jerusalem Demsas. The Argument is a brand new publication that Jerusalem founded. Their mission is to make a positive, combative case for liberalism through rigorous persuasive journalism. I wanted to talk to Jerusalem because she is currently attending and reporting from the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, dc. Uh, we talk about what that is, but for those who don't know, you've probably heard of Turning Points USA. You've probably heard of CPAC, the National Conservatism Conference. This is like J.D. vance's people. This is. This is where he gets most of his crazy ideas from. And you have heard me talk on this podcast and others about J.D. vance's speech at the Claremont Institute, where he says that being American is not necessarily about agreeing with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, but it's more about who your ancestors are. So that kind of thinking is what you get. The National Conservatism Conference, there's many senators, thinkers on the right and the post liberal right, others there. Jerusalem is there. We had a fantastic conversation about some of the speakers there, some of the thinking that is now dominating a lot of the MAGA movement, and certainly in the figure of J.D. vance, who is the front runner for the nomination in 2028. So we talked about that. We also talked about the Argument, her new publication, and Liberalism, small L Liberalism, and the case she's trying to make, why she started the Argument. We talked a lot about the post liberal right, which is represented at the National Conservatism Conference, but we also talked about the post liberal left and her beef with the post liberal left and what she's trying to do to have that discussion as well. So fantastic. Discussion could have gone on for hours, but I needed to let her get back to the conference so she could report more on it. You can check out the Argument on Substack. And here is Jerusalem Dempsis. Jerusalem, welcome to Offline.
- [03:50]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [03:51]
A
I want to talk to you about your excellent new publication, the Argument, where you guys are all living out a phrase I understand you're trying to trademark, which I love.
- [04:01]
B
I actually invented it. No one had ever said that before. And then I said it, and then the trademark company called me. There's actually a company, and they just like, whoa, we got to do it.
- [04:09]
A
Hello, we're calling from the trademark company.
- [04:12]
B
We're calling. And. Yeah, no, it's actually so funny. The crazy thing about starting a small business and you just, like, learn all of these crazy things that you have to do behind the scenes, which I'm sure you figured this stuff out, but I was just like, shocked. I was like shocked at all the stuff you had to do. But yeah, we are currently in the midst of trying to trademark living out, so that's great. Thank you. It takes eight months for the patent office to get back to you. So I'll come back on the show in like January and let you know.
- [04:35]
A
One of the things that we learned at the beginning is we had our. A law firm that was still like up in Silicon Valley, even though we're down here in Los Angeles.
- [04:43]
B
And.
- [04:44]
A
And so we started handing out contracts to our first hosts. And one of them let us know that she's like, I think I signed this contract and it says that I owe you DNA samples. Like, you. You own my DNA samples. Because it was like a tech startup draft of a contract that no one had changed. And I was like, we do not want your DNA. Do not worry about that.
- [05:07]
B
We do not.
- [05:08]
A
That is not something.
- [05:09]
B
I actually think that it's so funny because, like, you usually, you're like, oh, I have this lawyer. I guess they do lawyer things and they send contracts out and they're like, you have to like, read these contracts. I don't want to. Without betraying confidence, as I sent someone a contract and they were like, hey, like, this one says something about how, like, if I take time off over the holidays, you're going to murder my children. And I'm like, yeah, like, absolutely not. Like, very sorry.
- [05:30]
A
You got, you got to redline those contracts. Otherwise, you know, Taylor Lorenz is reporting on them and in Wired, and then, and then you're off to the races. Okay, so before we get to the argument which I do want to talk about, I'd like to live out hard with you over the national conservatism conference in D.C. which you are currently doing the Lord's work by attending. So you can report back to the rest of us. First, for those who may be familiar with events like CPAC and Turning Points usa, but maybe not the National Conservatism Conference, or netcom, as I guess it's called. That's what the cool kids call it.
- [06:07]
B
Natcon.
- [06:08]
A
Okay. Yeah. What's the difference? What is National Conservatism?
- [06:13]
B
So, National Conservatism, wow. This is like a 50,000 page dissertation I'm going to write for you. So basically, National Conservatism, I mean, I think people are most familiar with the most prominent adherence. People like JD Vance is someone who's probably the most popularly known person who adheres to many of these principles. He has recently said that he he considers himself a part of the post liberal right. But people who maybe are less well known popularly but who are better known among like academia are people like Adrian Vermeule, who's a Harvard law professor, or Patrick Deneen, who's written books about post liberalism. And the national conservatives movement is really defined by a couple things which I'm seeing in my reporting while I'm there, which is one, they're very, very upset about immigration. And they're upset about immigration not in just sort of like a, hey, like, can we afford to house all these people? Like, how would we make this work? Like, you know, many people noticed there were issues with how the immigration policies under Joe Biden ended up creating some, some problems in locally. But that's, that's different than what they're talking about, which is very much a redefinition of what it means to be an American away from people who were, you know, coming here seeking a better life, which is the vast majority of us and our parents and our grandparents. And so national conservatism really is focused on this redefinition of American. It's focused on an anti ending mass immigration. It's focused on a return to like, cultural conservative ideas around gender. There's a lot of talk about, you know, trans policies, whether not just around sports, but just really like whether or not people should be even allowed to engage in, in this kind of gender expression that people that they find anathema to the basics of the, what they keep referring to as the Judeo Christian values that this country is built on. And so, I mean, a lot of this can sound like, oh, isn't this kind of like really just like 1950s conservatism? Like, we're just going back to like an older form. And it's partly that, but even people who are doing, you know, like social conservatives often don't reject that. The founders or this founding myth of this country included a more inclusive version of what it could mean to be an American citizen. Like, yeah, like a lot of them are racist, a lot of them are misogynist. That's definitely true. But they also had a more expensive view. Like, okay, like, yeah, like the reason why you were able to persuade many of those people to be more open to immigrants or more open to different ways of living is they have kind of fundamental, like small l. Liberal commitments to like, okay, you can be an American even if like Alexander Hamilton, you weren't born here, or you can be an American even if, like, you know, you're not white or Whatever it is. And you can tell this like strain running through the conference is just very, very reactionary against any of that. And to be honest, it just feels like very like old world style stuff that's not very common in America.
- [08:57]
A
Yeah, it's. I became familiar with this around like JD Vance's rise and some of his mentors, I guess, like Patrick Deenan and Peter Thiel and this whole crowd. And it's interesting because what you just said about the founding, it's like, you know, there's a version of the American story where we have these ideals. And the story of America is people trying to live up to these ideals, often failing. But at least the ideals of the founding are the North Star. That allows us to sort of move forward and progress. And there's a difference between saying, okay, well these are ideals, but in practice you're not abiding by these ideals and saying these actually aren't our ideals anymore. And it seems like that's what they're saying right now.
- [09:48]
B
Exactly. And I think it really can't even be like, under emphasize just how important that contradiction and exploiting that contradiction has been for, for liberals and activists throughout American history. I mean, there's something called a jeremiad, which is like a speech, it comes from the book of Jeremiah. But you know, the most famous American one is the city on a hill where you are actively, like, the speakers are trying to point out this like, fundamental contradiction and then push people towards resolving that contradiction towards in a liberal fashion. But I mean, not everyone, but many people are trying to do that. I am trying to do that in a liberal fashion. And, and the thing that, that happens though, when you point out contradictions, that people can resolve them the other way too. They can go like, oh, oh, is that what our ideals mean? Then we're just not actually going to have that anymore. And I think that to me, like, that's really the fundamental axis right now that American politics is, is on is like this question of do we have these shared ideals? And then, you know, differences of opinion about how to fulfill those ideals, differences of opinion about, you know, maybe empirical questions about how you design policy? Or are we having like this even more like fundamental debate about who gets to be an American? How do we decide that? How do we even engage with other people's like, humanity? Do we start at this question of, you know, where were your grandparents buried? Is that how we start our questions about, about who matters? And I mean, to me this is something that even conservatives of, you know, the 70s, 80s, like, they were not talking. They were not talking like this in, you know, the vice presidential level of our politics. And now it's something that, you know, I've talked about this recently with another journalist friend. I mean, this is something that J.D. vance was talking about now at his Claremont speech most recently, where he was very explicit, I think, in talking about what it means to be an American away from people like me who were not born here.
- [11:40]
A
I think we should start a club of people who are obsessed with the Claremont speech. Cause I've now talked about it with so many guests. I had a whole offline episode with this where I talked with Ben Rhodes about it. I talked to Ezra about it, because I know he has talked about it in his podcast to you about it now. And. And it's not just J.D. vance. Like, I. I got mad online last night before bed. Which is, of course, the.
- [12:02]
B
Something new and different for you, which is.
- [12:03]
A
Yeah. Which is the best. It's the best time to get mad online right before bed. Right. Then you sleep well. And over a speech. And I wonder if. If you heard this being there from Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt and a clip of which is now his pinned tweet, which says, quote, our ancestors would be astonished to learn that they were fighting for a, quote, proposition they believed they were forging a nation, a homeland for themselves and their descendants. America belongs to us and only us. If we disappear, then America too will cease to exist. And this is, of course, similar to J.D. vance's Claremont speech, where he, you know, basically shuts on the Declaration of Independence and is like, that's just. That's both over inclusive and under inclusive. Overinclusive in that. Basically, if you're just someone anywhere in the world and you say you believe in the Declaration of Independence, then you suddenly get to be an American and under inclusive, because if you fought on the wrong side of the Civil War and didn't believe in the Declaration of Independence, you should still be American. You should still have a claim to America. I don't know. I kind of think. I think that this is the central fight that we need to have right now. And I'm trying to figure out how to. Because it can feel academic and theoretical and like we're talking about philosophy and history, but I think it's very real. And so far I haven't heard too many Democratic politicians or anyone, you know, who's not enamored with national conservatism really make the counter argument in a compelling way. But I don't. I don't know what you think about that?
- [13:34]
B
Yeah. I mean, it's funny because, I mean, part of when I started the argument was this, like, kind of commitment that, you know, nobody needs more academics spending, like, I don't know, two hours of their time lecturing them about liberal democracy. And, like, you're right, clean hit, you're right, liberal democracy matters. And you're. You're correct. And, you know, I read the stuff, and I'm. I'm scribbling away in my notes, too. But also, just, like, it's clearly not how most people, I think, honestly, probably almost everyone doesn't really think through their politics in, like, that kind of methodical way. The way that they think through their politics, I think largely has to do with their issues that matter to them, and then they're presented with options of people who have responses to those issues. So I'm concerned about cost of living. I'm concerned about housing costs going up, I'm concerned about inflation, or I'm concerned about immigration for whatever reason. And then candidates pop up that give me an answer. Either speaking directly with policies like what they're going to do, like mass deportations is an answer to some of that, or, you know, other answers are that you could actually not put it on New York City to house every single migrant that Greg Abbott puts their way. Like, there are many different answers to these questions, and then people develop their politics from that. So I don't think that. And I think this is kind of a. I mean, I think it's kind of an optimist voters, in some ways, because I think a lot of people look at Trump's reelection as just, there's a mass appetite for fascism. And I think, I look at that reelection, and I think people were upset about high prices even way more than immigration. If you look at polling, it's like, high prices are way above that. And he had a compelling answer to them. And I was I compelled by that answer. No, I was not very compelled by it, but I do. I find it, like, reasonable that someone who looked at four years of high inflation under the Democratic Party and then looks at places where Democrats run politics and they say, hey, like, seems more expensive to live in New York City and in San Francisco and in Los Angeles and, like, make some sort of rational determination that, like, the person more focused on low prices is not the Democrat. I think that's not crazy. And so then the question is, if we're trying to fight this illiberal trend that's happening on the right, how do you make the case that the things that people care about are best answered under a liberal paradigm. And I think you do that by actually responding to their questions, because I think liberals are actually right. Look at what Trump and post liberalism has actually done for prices. I mean, he's enacted this tariff regime that's absolutely terrible for people's bottom line. He's not actually addressing housing prices or housing. I mean, like, eventually, if we get into a recession, I do think that does reduce housing costs. So just going to put that caveat in there that that will be, I guess, a success for the Trump administration if that happens. But I mean, I think to me it's like actually addressing the things people care about and then associating those things with the overarching liberal paradigm that we're in favor of is really what you do. Because especially when it comes to immigration, there is not an actual answer that a single conservative, a single anti liberal person has ever been able to give me for how you deal with our demographic issues, how you deal with our economic growth needs, without having more immigration. Like, who's gonna build the housing? Who is gonna pay taxes in order to make sure Social Security stays solvent? These are like, immediate questions.
- [16:38]
A
More babies. Everyone's gonna have to have more babies. The right people are gonna have to have more babies. I mean, like, I'm joking, but that seems like where their answer might be headed. I don't know.
- [16:46]
B
But even that answer is insufficient, right? Because, okay, in 18 years, then you'll have like. So right now you convince me to pop out like five kids. Like, I'm just going to quit my job, I'm going to have a bunch of kids, and then like, 18 years from now, they're taxpayers. I mean, like, I just don't even see what the link is there.
- [17:01]
A
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- [18:32]
C
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- [19:05]
A
I mean, how much of it is about this idea of it is okay for other people to come here, but they must assimilate to our culture and be. And this is like a J.D. vance thing, you notice. I mean, it started with Zelensky, but he's doing it all the time now, which is like he did it with Mamdani too. Right. He said in the Claremont speeches and they're not grateful, you should be grateful. You should be grateful and thank us for this. Right. And it almost feels like that his vision of this is, okay, some I want less immigration, some immigration is fine. But if you are going to be an immigrant here and you aren't part of the dominant culture whose ancestors are. He's very obsessed with, you know, all of his ancestors buried in Kentucky. Right. If you don't have nine generations of ancestry buried in Kentucky, then you better be grateful and you better submit to all the rest of us as not maybe second class citizens, but kind of. I mean, I'm trying to figure out like what the theory is there because J.D. vance, of course also is married to someone whose family is not from here.
- [20:05]
B
Yes. I mean, I can't get into what is, I'm sure a very bizarre and interesting marriage, but I, I don't know. I don't really get it. But that's not my dog in the fight. But I do think that, like, the thing that you're getting at here, they're all like, please say thank you. Please thank us. And I think that, like, taking a step back here, like, I don't know if anyone has ever been to a naturalization ceremony, so I was naturalized when I was in eighth grade. Sorry, ninth grade. But I was a minor, obviously, so my father just automatically gets it through us. And I just remember, like, the night before. Like, I personally am so excited about it. I'm like, my dad, who's, like, the smartest person I know, does not need his, like, daughter quizzing him about, like, basic American facts. But he, like, lets me do this whole thing where I'm like, okay, dad, like, do you know, like, the Declaration of Independence? How many people sign? Like, he does not need to know this information, but, like, he's do. I'm so excited for this. I go into my government class the next day, and I'm telling everyone about how, like, my dad's currently getting naturalized. The teacher stops it, and then, like, a bunch of people talk about how, like, when their parents were naturalized or how exciting it is that ceremony. Like, immigrants are so excited to become Americans. Anyone who goes to naturalization ceremony, these are not people who are like, yeah, like, I guess give it to me. Like, I don't care. Like, that's not what's happening when you go to these places. So. And I think that, like, most people understand that. And so I think that the thing that actually is happening here is, like, there's no way to resolve this for them. There's no, like, there's nothing that, like, an immigrant could say or do or profess that would make people, like, who don't want immigrants to come here believe that they are actually grateful to be American citizens. But I do think there's something core that we should address, which is, like, I think quite legitimate, which is just like, okay, when immigrants come, particularly at a local level, they can impose some costs locally, like, if you need to house them, if you need to pay for public school expansions, like, if you need to crack, like, these are real things that happen. And, like, we should be able to easily address those, because we know from reams of economic research that the economic benefits of immigration exceed that of the costs that they impose locally. And so we just need to redistribute that to make sure that when immigrants come to a community, they come with those tax benefits that they're gonna. They're gonna eventually have, and they're not just causing problems on. On you know, congestion or whatever it is. And, and I think to me that's a big part of what the problem has been, is that there's not been a full throated argument and explanation that like, yes, we're gonna recognize that there are some obvious costs, but to growth. There are things that happen when you grow a city, a county, you know, anything, a neighborhood. And that the answer is not like it's illegal now to have more people, like, no one's allowed to move from the place that they currently live. The answer has to be that we need to mitigate those costs so we get the larger benefits that we all care about. And so I do think that like, the whole assimilation debate that like JD Vance is setting up, like there's no right answer to the question. There's nothing that he, we can answer.
- [22:46]
A
Him in the, in the before times when it was still possible to occasionally be inspired by something that happens in politics and government. I would always tell people, like, watching a naturalization ceremony is like the surest way to get teary eyed about America. I mean, it is just, it's like the most wonderful moment you mentioned, though, naturalization and the challenges with immigration. Right. And what I've been trying to figure out ever since the, you know, Trump took office again is how to separate out for people, for most of the country, this legitimate concern about, okay, we should have control over our borders, we should have secure borders, we should make sure that when we welcome immigrants that our communities grow in a way that can benefit everyone. Right. And like, these are all legitimate concerns people have, but the project on the right is not okay. Democrats have, have messed that up and mishandled that and we're just gonna fix it. Like, we're just gonna make sure that the borders are secure. And no, because, you know, Stephen Miller is very excited about revving up a denaturalization program, which is something that's just sort of gone under the radar here. And I feel like it will not be under the radar for long. Cause I'm sure that's it's coming soon enough. But when you combine, like, we're gonna ramp up a denaturalization program and we're gonna try to eliminate birthright citizenship, you suddenly see a picture of where this is headed. And I'm wondering if you're hearing this at the conference you're at right now when they're talking about immigration. You can see the picture of, it's like, what's happening with citizenship in this country now is it's not by birth and it's not. And if you're already here and you're an immigrant, you've done it the right way, you're still not safe. It's that the people in charge, we get to decide who is a citizen and who is not a citizen. And we get to do it based on, I don't know how we feel about you, what you believe, where you come from, what you say. And I think that is obviously antithetical to everything that America aspires to be. But it is also massively unpopular in this country. And I'm trying to figure out how to get people to understand that that's the project and not what many people are legitimately concerned about, which is a lot of people moving here and how are we all going to live together?
- [25:12]
B
Well, I think, John, I don't think you have to convince them. I think they're like literally going to witness it happening in real time in a way that I think will, I mean, we're already seeing this, right? I mean, we, even before Trump's victory, like me, many other people were saying, you know, yes, it sounds really good to people to say, like, immigration has gone too far. We need to remove criminals from our country, freeloaders from our country, people who hate America from our country. And then when you actually do a like, project of, you know, kicking people out and you're looking for the low hanging fruit, you, it's hard to find the criminals. If it was easy to find the criminals, like, they wouldn't be in the country. It's a difficult project to do this. And so, you know, what you end up doing is you end up going to the rule followers, right? The people who are showing up for their court hearings, the people who are going to school, the people who are paying their taxes, who of course you know where they are because they're following all the rules. And then you see the unpopularity of it skyrocket. Right? Like we're seeing this already with Trump's deportation agenda. It's causing real thermostatic backlash to, to immigration, anti immigration attitudes in this country. And I think that like, the really complacent thing to do is to go like, okay, we can just wait for like everyone to rocket back to being pro immigration in the polls and then it'll be fine. And like, that's not a good idea. I mean, that's quite literally what happened with Biden, I think, in many respects. But I think that, like, it gives you an opportunity to say, like, listen, like, like, you were right. There are these Real tangible. I mean, this is not. And this is for, you know, elected candidates to say, like, you guys need to make the pitch to voters that, that like you have an actual response to the real core concerns that they have that you don't think it's racist to be concerned if you know your kids school already has max capacity and then a bunch of folks are going to come in and like there's no money to build another school and so your kids education is going to suffer. Like you are setting up people to be xenophobic when you don't allow them to live a good life unless they're sacrificing to allow immigrants to come here. And I just think that like in many respects liberals, and I'll include myself in here too, like it can become very easy to talk about immigration as like a sacrifice we need to make. Like look at all those poor people everywhere else. Like, don't you feel bad? Don't you have to give stuff to them? And it's like, that's a terrible way to pitch a massively important economic policy. It's, hey, you have all these things, you care about Social Security, you care about your roads, you care about building new housings that your kid can live nearby. You care about there being enough daycare workers, you care about someone being able to be a care worker for your grandfather when he goes into a nursing home. All of those people do not exist in this country. And the right answer, that you can just reallocate them from other sectors that Americans should be doing those jobs ignores the fact that Americans are doing other jobs that are also important. Yeah, there are many, many things when we're at an economy that's like near ish full employment, like we have like pretty good unemployment numbers that we've had for like a couple of years now. Like you can't just pull people away from other sectors and act like there's no cost to the economy. You actually need to be additive about the number of people coming into this country in order to make sure you can fulfill all the things we want to do. So to me it's like, you know, I totally agree. I think there has to be a way of, there is a way of acknowledging this. I mean, Democrats have done this many, many times. I think that like it is very possible for us to find a, a happy medium as liberals that isn't just I hate immigrants or I love immigrants and anyone who doesn't let them in is a secret racist.
- [28:33]
A
Yeah, because also if, if you want to see racism and you Want to see xenophobia, look around. Because now ICE is not making their mission about security, but they're saying defend our culture, right? And it's all about our culture.
- [28:45]
B
And I, and I think I'll say this too though, like, because, because like, you know, I think also people can think for a long time that he doesn't mean you, right? Like people. I will talk to people all the time. Folks who are Latino, people who are even recent, people in my own family who are recent immigrants or who are immigrated at some point in their lives. And when, you know, I think Trump, one of his superpowers, that when he talks about immigration and the problems of it, when he says like, oh, criminals are coming here and they're pouring across their borders, many, many people do not hear him as just saying all immigrants. They do think it is segmented towards just the bad immigrants. And I mean, I have, in my reporting, I've talked to immigrants all the time who like, think he's just not talking about them. And now as Stephen Miller has been charge of like this, you know, nightmare, you can tell that like Stephen Miller personally, he does mean you. He means every single one of you. And he means even more expansively than I think people think. And when you take people like, you know, a lot of these posts over, right, to their logical conclusion, it doesn't just mean people who immigrated here, it's people whose like parents maybe immigrated here that maybe like you also should be a second class citizen in some respects. I mean, there was, I don't know who it was, but there was some, there was some viral post about, about ranking the kinds of American and it was like heritage American who has like Mayflower ancestry or whatever. I'm like, this is not, I think right now mainstream at all. But I do think it's important to know there is a real faction of the right that's very, very close to power who wants that kind of thinking to be mainstream. And it's not new, it's not interesting, it's not cool. It's quite literally how most of the rest of the world and most of human history used to do everything. It's not, it's not a better way of doing things. It's a way that we moved on from an evolved past. Because it literally means that your stability in a country is always up for debate. Because one day you can feel like, oh, I'm on the inside and the people who run the country are on my side. They look like me, they like me, and the next day, all of a Sudden they're like, no, we actually didn't mean you. And I mean, my family were Eritreans. We're growing up in Ethiopia. And we had to leave because, in a drop of the hat, there was just an immediate decision that Eritreans were no longer allowed to be in the country. And so we had to just leave very, very quickly. And so I think that people can be a little bit naive about, I will not be implicated by this, but that's not how it works. Like, someone else can get in charge who dislikes you. And if we have made it possible that the person who is president can appoint people or can personally decide that you're no long American, that just makes everyone unsafe.
- [31:12]
A
I don't know if you saw the Washington Post story. I think it was from yesterday that they were talking about how ICE has lowered their standards because they're trying to recruit as many people as possible. And so, you know, now the people who want to join ICE are these people who are, you know, the most radicalized anyway. And there's this one guy who said. He's like, yeah, I'm joining because I'm really upset. I'm in it. And he's upset that Indian Americans are. Are taking his IT jobs, is what he thinks. And what he wants to say is, now I'm gonna be in ice, and I can bash your head against the sidewalk and tell you to go home. Like, that's why he's joining ice. And it's like, this is happening, right? Like, this is where it's going. This is not theoretical. We talked about immigration. You tweeted a pretty wild quote from a founder of National Conservatism who's a dual Israeli American citizen named Yoram Hazoni, who said this at the conference on Tuesday. Quote, nobody ever said that to be a good NAT con, you have to love Jews. Go take a look at our statement of principles. It's not a requirement. What?
- [32:12]
B
Yeah, it's very interesting being a NAT con, because I, like, I'm a. I don't know if your viewers can tell. I'm a very expressive person. I, like, move a lot when I hear things. So I heard that, and I sat through. I was, like, looking around the room, like, is there a camera for me to look at? Yeah. And I think it was quite bizarre because obviously, in some respects, he was trying to sound, like, expansive of national. Like, it's okay if you hate Jews. Like, or to be fair, it's okay if you don't love Jews. Like, all you need to do to be A national conservative is, I guess, hate other kinds of people. But I think that like, he then goes on after that, that remark to talk about how he, he has loved coming to the National Conservatism Conference for many years now because he liked to be the kind of person who, when people were accused of anti Semitism, he would get to jump up and say they're actually anti Semitic. And that that's a false accusation of anti Semitism. And it made me think about that for a while because I mean, obviously it's kind of like a weird dichotomy. At one level he's saying like, it's okay if you don't love Jews. And then at the other level he's saying like, but you know, I love being the guy who gets to defend people who are accused of anti Semitism. And you know, he goes on to talk a little bit about how he, he, he has seen increased amounts of disrespect or doesn't see like people as, it's okay not to love Jews. But there's like a line at which you become too, you know, rude to Jewish people, I guess. And I do think in some ways this is like, you know, tiger, you know, eating my own face party type stuff. Because yeah, of course, if you like create a system in which the definition of American is like, do the current people in power feel like you have the correct ethnic heritage that's going to implicate like the Israeli American guy in the room like that. That's not going to be expansive of you too, you know.
- [34:10]
A
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- [35:38]
C
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- [36:10]
A
How much diversity of Fox what are you encountering at this conference? Like, what, what are the, what are sort of some of the dividing lines within the national conservatism movement?
- [36:21]
B
You know, I think one of the most interesting things is, you know, one thing that's good about going to these conferences because many of the speeches themselves are televised on C Span or something, but it's nice to get to like walk around and sort of just like hear how people are talking or reacting to things. And I was, you know, I was, I was sitting working on some notes for another project and I overheard a group of young, young students talking about how they thought that, you know, people were being too boring and low energy and focused on the founding fathers too much. And it was interesting because to them, like they were saying like, why are you guys so obsessed with this, like past history? Why isn't there some kind of like focus on, you know, this modern focus on our, our modern day, our current entrepreneurs and our current like visionary leaders, et cetera. And this, this generational dividing line I think actually kind of mirrors a lot of the generational dividing line you see within liberalism too, where like, you know, this podcast with you talking a little bit about how like we don't need more of this sort of like relitigating 500 year old like, you know, theories about, about, about how liberal democracy works in America. And I think that in many respects they're coming up against this, this, this generational issue where, you know, you can wax poetic about what it means to be an American in this sort of like, very academic way that many of the post liberal right do. And that can be attractive to some people and it can be effective at convincing people like Judy Vance, who, you know, is also a word sell unfor and is really focused on, on reading up on, on, on this sort of literature. But I think that like, they're going to hit a wall if they're not willing to say the quiet part out loud with, with these younger people, because I think they were, they were just like, they were like, I mean, the guys, they just left, like they were sitting in the hallway while people were still talking because they were so bored by like, what was going on in these rooms. And to me, like, obviously on this podcast, I'm like, we're talking about the highlights here. But like, overall, like, a lot of it's like, I mean, most conferences are like this. Like, it was like, quite boring. A lot of it's very, very boring. Like, as a journalist, you focus and like, really take notes. And it was not that interesting in many parts of the room. And so I think that, like, to me, what's, what's really interesting about what the future of this looks like is, you know, does this become an actual animating movement beyond this, like, handful of people who have been convinced of these very, very reactionary ideas? And does it tap into like a growing reactionary sentiment that can actually multiply across generations? Or is this like, more of like an aberration? Is this more of like a moment where like, yes, yes, Trump and Vance in particular have managed to get power for a variety of reasons, in my view, largely due to liberals failures, not really due to their own great work. To be clear, there's quite a close election both times that Trump won. This is not a resounding victory, despite a lot of headwinds against Democrats in both of those campaigns. And what that means is that is this an aberration? Can we move on from this? And the question there is how much power will they consolidate in the next couple of years?
- [39:14]
A
And the question is, does the intellectual grounding of this movement have to capture some of these people attentionally when. And that's what made me think of like, your TPUSAs and your CPACs, which seem geared more towards the attention economy that we exist in, where they're looking for more viral moments. They're saying the Quiet part out loud. They're all having fun, maybe too much fun at some of these conferences. And they're trying to attract the younger generation while all these folks are trying to sort of theorize everything. And I don't know how much it actually needs to do that if it's still the underpinning of this movement. But, you know.
- [39:55]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think that, like, the problem is that, like, it's actually kind of a difficult ideological shift they're trying to create in America. Like, most people do actually think that, like, hey, like, we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. Like, that's like a thing that, like, we have like that beaten into us in some respects both, like, culturally, like, educationally, like, socially, like, even like the very fabric of how we interact each other. Like, the fact that like, in this country most people live in communities where there are people from like, quite literally, like dozens of different ethnic groups that are in the background. Like, even if you live in a pretty white place, like there are people who parents are German and Czech and like Polk, it's just like, not the way that most people around the world have gotten to live. And like, not just that ethnic groups are all quite different, but like, that they immigrated there recently and then they have become quite American. Like I have family members who like, emigrated out of Eritrea to other countries and like, they don't really like out of Ethiopia to other countries and like, they don't really, like, you know, they're not considered like the nationality of that country. But like the way that we walk around the world is like in, in the U.S. is that like, you don't just see someone of a different race and automatically assume that they're not American. That's actually not normal for most people in this country. And so I think the thing that happens with like these more, you know, attentionally attuned places like TPUSA or like all these other really, like more and more viral places is that like, they'll do like classic racism stuff and like classic misogyny stuff. But like, you can, you can believe those things and still think that, you know, that like immigrants can come here. I do think there's like a, there's a problem here where like, I do think, like, there it's gonna, it's gonna be a hard, hard pivot for a lot of these folks, like even Schmidt and like Vance, etc, to turn this into a more popular movement. Like, they're only really doing this at these very esoteric conferences like Claremont or National Conservatives, like, when you see that in a speech, at a stump speech, that's when I will be like, okay, this is actually catching fire.
- [41:45]
A
I mean, I do think this is where, you know, there's never much optimism in any of our discussions these days, but I do see it as an opportunity for us, right? Is that like, they are not standing on popular ground with this shit. And I think that by elevating it, by us elevating it and saying like, this is not just like, same thing with fucking Eric Schmidt, right? Like, no one knows. Most people in the country don't know who Eric Schmidt is. Random senator from Missouri could have been the Attorney General, who knows? But like JD Vance is the Vice President, United States and the front runner for the nomination. Right. In 2028. And so that's like a very serious thing. So that brings me to let's talk about the Argument, speaking of opportunities. So I had the pleasure to chat with you about this a couple months before you launched over coffee here in la. I was immediately interested in. For people who either aren't familiar or only familiar with bits and pieces of the discourse around the argument. Even better. What's your pitch? What are you guys hoping to achieve? What gap are you hoping to fill?
- [42:42]
B
Yeah, so the Argument is a new publication. You can find us@theargumentmag.com and what we are doing is trying to make a positive, combative case for liberalism. And we're doing that by focusing on the issues people really care about. So things around cost of living and Abundance, which is know great new book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, but has built on a movement of pro housing EMB and pro energy abundance activists for a long time. So focusing on those issues, focusing on technology and society, like the ways that technology is rapidly changing our society. And like most of the coverage around this is like quite doomery. And like, it's not to say that that's not, you know, a reasonable view to have that like, hey, like, it's really messing up the job market, et cetera. But like, like, what is the liberal answer to this? Like, how do we want to regulate these industries? Like, what do we want to do? I mean, to me a very basic question is why isn't it like massively financially costly that a chatbot has sexual interactions with a minor? Like immediately, why aren't there like millions of dollars of fines immediately levied against these companies? And there's obviously questions here about like, how would you operationalize this, how would this work, et cetera. But like, why is so little of our discourse focused on making the case that like liberalism can have an answer to the big problems people are concerned about with whether it's job loss, whether it's the hiring markets, whether it's education, like what does education look like under this? And so we're, we're focused on, on building, on building that in the space of cost of living, in the space of technology, society and the space of gender. Where I think that for a long time, you know, Democrats have, and liberals have like, kind of been afraid to like have conversations around like, you know, either defending trans people who are, have like a basic freedom of gender expression or explaining like what our vision of a new egalitarianism looks like. And so we've ceded a lot of this ground and to the right, who says things like, oh, actually it's only men that are actually harmed in society right now as a result of, of gender inequality. The real, the real losers are men. And like, part of the problem is that, you know, feminists for a long time have been talking about how patriarchy and how these systems hurt men, right? Like that's like not a new thing. But for many years now, I think that really imagining what a new egalitarianism, a new feminism looks like in the 21st century has really not been at the core of a lot of what liberal ideas and liberal coverage has focused on. And so to me, like, these three issue areas I think of as kind of the most important domestic policy issues that liberalism has to answer if it's going to come back are at the core. And so at the argument we're going to have real, real open debates. I think the big thing that I've really been trying to cultivate is an actually ideologically diverse group of people who all have like small liberal, liberal commitments, but they're span the spectrum from, you know, socialists to libertarians to even people on the right who, you know, I may have very different beliefs with around policy, but I think that they have still the same commitments I do to, you know, one country where every citizen has equal dignity under the law. And so to me, like, how do we forge this as the new axis in American politics and American thought? And it's having the debates that people actually care about and showing them that liberalism can answer their questions and is willing to engage with difficult conversations around immigration, around gender, around, you know, growth and the politics and economics of growth. And so we're already off to a rip roaring start. People got mad before we even published a single essay. And that's how you know, you know, we're already spurring arguments, but yeah, I mean, it's already been a really great time. We have folks like, you know, Matt Brunig, Matt Iglesias, Kelsey Piper, who's from vox, Jordan Weissman who was, you know, at Slate and Yahoo, and Semaphore Laksha Jain, who's a great pollster, is doing original polling for us. And it's just been really exciting.
- [46:28]
A
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B
I had a dinner party.
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A
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C
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- [48:28]
A
We've spent a lot of Time talking about the post liberal right. Talk to me about your beefs with the post liberal left as you've talked about at the argument.
- [48:37]
B
Yeah, so I think the post liberal right is like a much easier entity to talk about because a they call themselves that, they will say like hello, welcome, My name is J.D. vance and I'm a member of the post liberal right. And so. And they're also in power right now. Right. So they're the people who I think are without a doubt the most important threat to American democracy and to American liberalism. But as I've said, as we've talked about this whole episode, like to me the way that you defeat this is by presenting an alternative and a democracy to present an alternative to the American public. And right now there's like, you know, it's very inchoate, right? There's a bunch of different people making a bunch of different arguments across the political spectrum on left of center. But I do think there's a strain of ideas and thoughts that I would categorize as part of this broader post liberal left thinking that I think is like really, really dangerous. I think both it's wrong on the merits, but I think it's not actually competitive with the post liberal right. It's just basically buying into a lot of their frameworks. Part of this is just a negative sum view of the world. Like people who think that if someone is gaining, that means someone else is losing. So you know, on the right that's like if immigrants are coming here and gaining, that means that native born Americans are losing. On the post liberal left, it's often like businesses, if businesses are gaining, if a developer is making money on hous, that means you're losing out. Like yeah, developers have to make housing and they make a profit off of it and then you get to live in a house. Like that's how it works. Now do we want to make sure that developers aren't being corrupt? Do we want to make sure that there are inequality issues addressed through the tax code or through other measures? Like yes, but this positive sum view of the world that I think most liberals have, that it's possible that many people and many entities can gain simultaneously. Like that to me is like completely rejected by the post liberal left. And they also I think like are very pro tariff. I mean we saw this even in the Biden administration. We saw a real, real, real turn towards protectionist economic policy, which I think is both bad on the merits, but also just is, is really just feeding into the Trump tariff view of the world. That like other people, other countries gaining manufacturing ground is a cost to us. And so I think that strain is really, really problematic. And to be honest, like I have heard increasing like views from people on the left about immigration that I find very, very concerning beliefs that, you know, I was at Chatham House Rules, like, I can't say who said it, but like there was a very prominent person who is in the left of center movement who said that, you know, social democracy of a generous social democratic state is incompatible with high levels of immigration, that we need to just accept that there's just no way to have a generous welfare state and have high levels of immigration. And to me, like this is like an opening salvo. A bunch of people who, you know, this is a tradition that exists for a long time in parts of the left that is views that workers and immigrants are inherently at odds with one another. And I think that's really, really a dangerous thing to feed into. And I think that that's not the way we should move forward on. And the last thing I'll say is like, I think the most common one that most people talk about is like a real deep commitment to free speech and free expression. I think that liberals are obviously better than anyone lives under is much better than what's going on right now. I mean clearly we're seeing this with Rumesa, the student at Tuft or Mahmud Khalil. Like we're seeing this like very clear oppressive anti speech behavior by the Trump administration and by members of the post liberal right. But like I do think a culture of free speech has really been not tolerated on the left for a long time. I mean even a level of just, you know, can we have debate over implementation of our, of our shared values can often lead to a level of vitriol and like, you know, cry me a river a little bit if you're like an Atlantic writer and like someone's being mean to you online, like, whatever, right? Like, but that's not really the point. It's not about like, oh, should you spare people's feelings when they, they would work at these big institutions. The point is if you have a culture of activism where the people in the tent can't openly ask questions or talk about issues and like the way they're, they're implemented without feeling like, oh shit, someone's going to think I'm like a bad lib, I'm a bad leftist, I'm a bad whatever, that's really bad and like, like it's going to be really harmful for your ability to get to better policy because you're not even willing to hear people who, you know, share your values disagree with you. And, and so I don't think at all that this is comparable to the free speech violations we're seeing right now from the right. But I do think it makes it harder for us to actually claim as liberals the mantle of free expression, especially when it comes to things like people who we are most at risk right now, trans children and trans folks who are like right now, like their basic freedom of gender expression is at risk. It's not just going to be whether or not kids should have, you know, whether the medicalization happened too quickly, like there were not very serious concerns about this. Right. But like, like Christopher Rufo, who like really pioneered a lot of this anti trans activism, recently posted online on Twitter that, you know, it's not, it's actually we're going after trans adults too. That's not just about children, that we're going after the adults as well. And of course people knew that that was where this was headed. But it's hard to defend freedom of gender expression as a, as a protected principle that like, it should be an affront even if you disagree or you don't understand trans issues or why people would be trans that like, maybe you can accept, like, okay, well, someone is free to do what they want with their own life if it doesn't. Both bother me, but it's hard to make that argument when like, you're all the time acting like you don't believe in freedom of expression. And so to me, like, these elements, they're not really a formal movement at this point in the same way the post liberal right is. But these elements, these arguments, these ideas are persuasive throughout the left in a way that I think is really dangerous for liberals to be able to mount a real opposition to the Trump administration.
- [54:11]
A
Well, that leads me perfectly to my final question, and then I'll let you go because you wrote a of piece about why you're staying on Twitter. Yeah, which, me too, me too.
- [54:23]
B
We'll die on this shit.
- [54:25]
A
But I thought your argument was really well put. So why don't you just, why don't you just end with that? Because I would love to hear that because I think it connects to what you're talking about with the importance of argument and debate and free expression and persuading people, which is the essence of our project here.
- [54:40]
B
Yes. So Twitter, as we all know, is a cesspool owned by a man who is single handedly trying not to Destroy just the American democracy, but apparently also democracies in other parts of the world, which is, I guess, a fun side project for him. And so none of what I would argue has anything to do with, like, absolving Elon Musk of what he done with Doge or anything like that. But the argument is really just the goal of everything you do in public, of public speech. Even if you're someone with a thousand followers, even if you're someone who just replies and gets a couple of likes every once in a while. The goal that you have and posting online should be to, like, push people towards the views that you think are better in society. And there is, quite literally. I mean, I live in Washington, D.C. like, I run into people all the time who work on the Hill, who work in think tanks, who work in government, who are lobbyists. These are people who are extremely influential behind the scenes in shaping how our economy and our government works. And they get many of their ideas, they get many of their arguments, and they get many of their thinking from Twitter. Is that a good thing? I'm not going to comment on whether that's positive, it is reality or negative.
- [55:42]
A
Unfortunately, but it is true.
- [55:44]
B
Exactly. And so I think there's this, like, view, particularly among people who, like, I are really disgusted by the rise of, you know, anti Semitism, racism, misogyny, like, just open disregard for. For basic human welfare on. On Twitter, and are like, I don't want to be a part of this. I don't want to be associated with this. I don't want to be here. It feels, like, dirty to see this stuff. It makes you feel like garbage. And, like, those things are true. And I actually don't begrudge people who are like, I actually can't do my best work while, like, seeing this kind of thing. But I think that, like, if it's. If it's using a kind of a politics of purity to decide how and where you speak basically means you're going to seed ground everywhere where you're not already the majority. And right now, liberals have lost. They've lost elections, they've lost cultural wars. I mean, like, I think one easy way is that, like, now everyone just says, like, the r slur everywhere you go, people are just saying that. I mean, like, there's, like, quite literally, like, there's so much losing happening right now on the liberal side of the ledger. And so if we segregate ourselves into areas where, like, okay, well, like, no one will say anything offensive here. No one will say something that's going to make me feel upset. Here you are basically saying your political activism is going to be confined to Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and like, San Francisco, not really even San Francisco. And so, like, that, to me is like abandoning most of the country to only see the views of people that you think are bad. And so my case for staying on Twitter, my case in general is not really even about Twitter. My case is, like, in places where you're uncomfortable, in places where you're seeing people say things that you think are bad, making arguments that you think are, you know, opposed to what your definition of America is or to what it means to be a good person, that's the place you need to be. Wherever that is for you. Wherever you can do that, you should be there making those points. And I think underlying a lot of what I'm saying is that, like, persuasion is possible. And we know persuasion is possible because, like, I don't know, I think most of us have changed our minds at some points because we saw something that pushed us one way or the other. And so that's my case. But you should go read about it@theargumentmag.com.
- [57:49]
A
Yes, I've gone back and forth on the Blue sky thing many times on this show, so I won't belabor it, but it's like, if you're on Blue sky because it's just, you feel like it's better for your mental health and you just want to talk to people and interact with people who you like, who agree with with you, then great, like, that's it. But. But don't pretend that you're going to have the same persuasive power there that you would in spaces like Twitter that are filled with some pretty odious views. That's it, you know?
- [58:15]
B
Yeah, I mean, we're seeing also, I mean, blue skies, like, posting numbers, it's joining numbers are all on the decline. And I mean, like, again, it would be great if, like, all of Twitter had just sort of, like, reformed on a platform that was not owned by Elon Musk. That didn't happen happen. And so now. Now what do we do? So I do think that in many ways that, you know, there's this feeling that Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter makes it impossible to have any kind of persuasive effect. And, like, I'll just say this. Like, I run into people all the time who, like, saw a tweet of mine of someone else's, and they were like, oh, did you see this thing? Like, yes, it is not going to get you viral in the same way that some of this, like, kind of Nazi content goes viral. That's true. But I think that that's true in all spaces where you're the minority. Minority. Right. Like, it's not the case that if you were like the ideological minority in the 1950s and like, the, you know, New York Times editorial page was like, still platforming, like open segregationists or whatever, like that it was an even playing field for activists. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's not an even playing field anywhere where there are people and eyeballs when you're losing. And so I think to me, that that heuristic is really, really harmful.
- [59:19]
A
Well said. Keep posting and enjoy the rest of the conference. I hope you attend the, the VIP dinner with Seb Gorka. I noticed that's like the, the final event. It's like, what a, what a finale.
- [59:30]
B
Guest of honor. I'm the guest of honor there. They're gonna reward me.
- [59:33]
A
So Jerusalem, thank you so much for coming on. It was so fun. Talking could do it for. For several hours. So everyone go check out the argument. It's awesome.
- [59:39]
B
Thanks, John.
- [59:40]
A
Take care. As always. If you have comments, questions or guest ideas, email us@offlinericket.com 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 cricket.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 Ilick Frank. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Jarek Centeno is our sound editor and engineer. Audio support from Kyle 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.
- [61:08]
C
A real Etsy buyer review for handmade home decor by a real Etsy seller. They are truly beautiful to look at and absolutely original. Discover pieces created and loved by real people. Shop the Etsy app.
- [61:22]
A
What does possibility mean to you?
- [61:25]
B
That's a hard question. Something that you can strive for. I'm able to do anything I set my mind to. You're confident in yourself and you believe in yourself. Stuff that you could achieve. I feel excited. I feel anything is possible when you're more confident.
- [61:40]
A
Shoes are a huge part of that.
- [61:41]
B
They are the most important part of my style. You can, like, express yourself in the right shoes, anything is possible.
- [61:48]
A
Dsw countless shoes at bragworthy prices. Imagine the possibilities.