Adam Serwer: Now, This Is Rigged

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast – “Adam Serwer: Now, This Is Rigged”

Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Adam Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of The Cruelty Is the Point
Date: May 8, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the rapid unraveling of voting rights protections in the U.S.—especially following recent Supreme Court decisions—and how this has allowed for blatant, racially targeted gerrymandering, specifically in places like Tennessee. Adam Serwer joins Tim Miller to discuss the historical context, the philosophy motivating these legal changes, and the consequences for American democracy and minority communities. The conversation draws strong parallels with post-Reconstruction disenfranchisement, explores the role of cynical "colorblindness," and offers a bleak but clear-eyed assessment of the stakes and possible paths forward.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Demise of Voting Rights and Historical Parallels

[02:00] Adam Serwer:

• Expresses deep demoralization about the Supreme Court’s effective dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, highlighting Tennessee’s immediate move to erase its only Black district:

  “It's very hard to think about all the people who lived through the 1960s and the civil rights movement who are now seeing all that work, all that sacrifice being undone by a court that is equal parts naive and malicious.”

[03:25] Adam discusses James Jackson Kilpatrick:

• Kilpatrick, once an overt segregationist, later became a champion of “colorblindness”—not out of changed beliefs, but a realization that you could maintain de facto white supremacy by cynically equating remedies for racism with racism itself.
• The Supreme Court’s current philosophy mirrors Kilpatrick’s logic, framing “the liberty to discriminate” as an actual liberty, while skepticism about the existence or importance of anti-discrimination protections grows among conservatives.

[05:24] Tim Miller reads from Serwer’s article:

“The court’s decision is consonant with the philosophy articulated by Kilpatrick, that the state is oppressive when it interferes with the right to discriminate and respects liberty when it allows discrimination.”

2. The Philosophy of the Court: Naïveté and Malice

[05:43] Adam Serwer:

• Argues that Justices like Alito are more upset by the accusation of racism than by actual racial discrimination, and that reactionary colorblindness now serves as a shield for regressive policy.
• The current legal logic treats partisanship as a legitimate motive (and a cover) for measures that disenfranchise Black voters, despite this being the exact scenario the 15th Amendment was created to prevent.

3. What Changed in the GOP?

[09:07] Adam Serwer:

• The Cold War, and later the war on terror, placed external pressure on the U.S. to uphold civil rights.
• Trump’s election revealed there was far less cost to overt racism than previously thought; the party no longer feels the need to signal virtue or inclusion.
• The drastic difference from even the Bush era (“...the Republican conventions of that era, they had a gospel choir. There was very much a, like, ‘we're not that Republican party anymore.’ And then Trump comes out, and he just...can get away with saying...we only want Nordics.” [10:11])

4. The Illusion of Racial Depolarization

[14:48] Adam Serwer:

• The expected “moderation” on issues like immigration and voting rights did not follow Trump’s inroads with a segment of voters of color. Instead, policies became more extreme:

  “We have a whites only refugee program...the administration has banned travel from like almost every majority non white country in the world.”

• Many non-white Trump voters deflect or are in denial about the administration’s racism, often due to the lingering “businessman” Trump brand.

5. The Tennessee Example: Modern-Day Disenfranchisement

[21:21] Adam and Tim call out Tennessee's gerrymandering:

• Black representation systematically dismantled via breaking up Memphis into thirds, diluting the vote.
• Republican state officials dodge direct questions about the racial implications:

  “I'm not privy to those demographics. I don't know.” – State House Majority Leader William Lamberth [21:37]

• Drawing a direct historical line to the post-Reconstruction South:

  "To see the originalists on the court pretend like this is just too complicated...is absurd...What you're doing is you are severing an entire community from Democratic accountability, and that is going to leave them vulnerable to economic dispossession, to violence, to discrimination. And I worry that that is precisely the point." [22:09]

6. The Problem of “Rigged” Democracy

[27:11] Tim Miller:

• Bluntly states Tennessee voters have been disenfranchised to a point that’s hard to remedy via normal democratic process.
• Adam [28:40]: Warns that restoring rights may require organizing on a scale not seen since the civil rights movement—and that “social media atomization” is a major obstacle.

7. The Race to the Bottom: Gerrymandering Escalation

[30:52] Adam Serwer:

• Both parties are now gerrymandering aggressively, but this is the predictable result of constitutionally permissible “hardball”—yet, as he points out, “it is harder to redistrict Black people out of American political life than they think... But it should be very clear what the intent is here.”

8. Media, Free Speech, and Hypocrisy

[34:47] Tim Miller unveils stories of farcical dysfunctional leadership and alarming attacks on journalism:

• Kash Patel’s bumbling management and the subsequent targeting of journalists who expose the administration’s failures.
  [38:06] Adam Serwer:

  “Their philosophy of free speech is that Republicans have the right to say what they want to say and you have the right to say what Republicans want to say...these ‘cancel culture’ warriors are praising this administration’s stewardship of free speech when it is blatantly trying to censor...all of its critics.”

9. The Iran War and Misconceptions of Power

[41:53] Adam and Tim on the Iran War:

• U.S. military escalation is rooted in overconfidence and an outdated view of masculinity and American power. [44:26] Adam:

  “If you abandon the virtue signaling and you want to talk like Darth Vader in your speeches, then it’s a little harder to be like, ‘but we’re the good guys.’”

10. Democratic Rage, The Base, and Electoral Trends

[47:08] Adam observes:

• The Democratic establishment underestimates the base’s anger, particularly regarding war and foreign policy.
• Polling is unreliable, especially in the Trump era, meaning the real sentiment will only be clear after elections.

11. The Young White Male Problem

[52:06] Tim cites a Pew poll:

• Just 18% of white men under 30 now identify as Democrats. [53:12] Adam on reactionary content:

  “We have people churning out the dumbest, dumorous reactionary content day after day aimed at this demographic...this Naomi Klein...mirror world where white men are oppressed and everybody wants to take their rights...To some extent it really is a question of Republican control of the means of information production and distribution.”

• The right exploits grievances (economic and cultural) among young men; the solutions it offers are “not even really economically possible,” but are persuasive in the media echo chamber. [56:04] Adam:

  “I don't really give a how manly or whatever you think I am...I just want my daughters to have the same rights and dreams that I do. And this type of shit sort of drives me crazy.”

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On new “colorblind” legal philosophy:

  “The liberty to discriminate as an actual liberty, and the liberty not to be discriminated against as sort of a fake thing that was imposed by foolish liberals...” – Adam Serwer [05:43]

• On Tennessee’s gerrymander scheme:

  "[They] divided Shelby county...to dilute black voting power as much as possible...In the ‘debate,’ they're just rubber stamping it..." – Tim Miller [21:06]

• On liberal “virtue signaling”:

  “One of my fundamental belief changes...I've become very pro-virtue signaling lately. I feel like virtue signaling was much maligned for a while...But there's something to be said for leaders feeling like they should appeal to virtue.” – Tim Miller [13:13]

• On free speech hypocrisy:

  “Their philosophy of free speech is that Republicans have the right to say what they want, and you have the right to say what Republicans want to say. And if you don't, you might be subject to legal or professional sanction.” – Adam Serwer [38:06]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:00] – Adam on the current state of the Voting Rights Act and its connections to the civil rights era.
• [03:25] – Introduction of James Jackson Kilpatrick and the evolution of “reactionary colorblindness.”
• [07:50] – Why conservatives who once supported voting rights no longer do.
• [09:07] – The end of virtue signaling in the GOP, post-Trump.
• [14:48] – The myth that appealing to minority groups would moderate GOP policy.
• [21:21] – Tennessee gerrymandering: segment with House Majority Leader Lamberth dodging the race question.
• [27:11] – Tim bluntly addresses “fully rigged” systems and lack of local remedy.
• [30:52] – The Virginia Supreme Court redistricting controversy; gerrymandering “race to the bottom.”
• [38:06] – Free speech hypocrisy, administration targeting journalists.
• [41:53] – The Iran War, misperceptions of power, and the public’s response.
• [47:08] – The anger of the Democratic base and the unreliability of polls.
• [52:06] – Discussion about the Democratic Party’s struggle with young white men.

---

Tone & Style

Frank, historically grounded, and unapologetically critical. The episode is rich with references to history (Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Plessy, etc.), deeply skeptical of current right-wing arguments—and often darkly funny. Despite several bleak assessments, Adam and Tim occasionally punctuate their conversation with dry humor and incredulity at the sheer obviousness of current political malfeasance. The show closes on a note of personal reflection about masculinity, changing cultural dynamics, and the need for decency and honesty in the face of reactionary backlash.

---

Summary Takeaway

Adam Serwer and Tim Miller forcefully argue that recent Supreme Court decisions and state-level actions represent not just a partisan swing, but a historically familiar and dangerous regression—one dressed up in modern legal “colorblind” language but designed to disenfranchise minorities and rig democracy. They warn that the only true bulwark is sustained, organized outrage—and that, while the outcome is uncertain, the lesson of American history is that rights are never permanently won or lost, but always in struggle.

Transcript

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

Save on family essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week at Safeway and Albertsons, Fresh cut cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple or melon medley bowls 24 ounces are $5 each and wild caught lobster tails are $4.99 each. Limit eight member price plus selected sizes and varieties of Doritos Lays, Cheetos, Sun Chips and Kettle cook chips are $1.99 each. Limit four member price hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

[SimplePractice Advertiser]

If you're a therapist listening, you already know your work doesn't magically end when the session does. There's scheduling, notes, billing, insurance, follow ups, all of the admin that happens before and after the work you actually care about. That's where SimplePractice comes in. SimplePractice is an all in one EHR built specifically for therapists with HIPAA compliant tools and high trust certification. No juggling systems or cutting corners just to keep things moving. Scheduling, documentation, billing, insurance, client communication, even automated appointment reminders. It all lives in one place. And if you're starting or growing a practice, SimplePractice also offers a credentialing service that helps simplify insurance enrollment, which can be a huge lift alone. It's no surprise SimplePractice is trusted by over 250,000 health and wellness professionals. Start with a seven day free trial, then get 50% off your first three. Go to SimplePractice.com to claim the offer. That's SimplePractice.com.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, a staff writer at the Atlantic and the author of the Cruelty Is the Point. It's Adam Starwer. How you doing man?

[Adam Serwer]

I'm all right. How are you doing, Tim?

[Tim Miller]

I'm doing maybe a little better than you. You kind of seem sad. You're just all right. You got allergies?

[Adam Serwer]

You know, I think the Voting Rights act thing is one of the most depressing and demoralizing developments in American politics. I think, you know, watching things like Tennessee redistrict, it's only black district out of existence, you know, days essentially after the ruling. It's very hard to think about all the people who live through the 1960s and the civil rights movement who are now seeing all that work, all that sacrifice being undone by a court that is equal parts naive and malicious.

[Tim Miller]

All right, well, let's get into that. I was thinking about this before I had John, you can kind of see, get a sense for what's going wrong in the country based on guest frequency. It's like, it's not really a great sign for racial and social justice issues that this is my second Adam Sower visit in the last couple months. But I do. I appreciate you coming on. Your latest article on this kind of goes back. I want to spend a lot of time on Tennessee, but I do think it's valuable to take the lens back a little bit. And you started talking about a character that only old timers, maybe, or conservative media obsessives would know about, a guy named James Jackson Kilpatrick. And why don't you just kind of talk about why you framed up the article about the decision around him and, you know, what. What lessons we can learn from them.

[Adam Serwer]

Well, Kilpatrick's an interesting figure because, you know, he starts off as a hardcore segregationist, as a guy who is opposed to Brown v. Board, opposed to the Civil Rights act, opposed to the Voting Rights act, makes an affirmative case that, you know, racial discrimination is one of the central liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, and that American society falls apart without it. And then, you know, he becomes a much more mainstream figure. He becomes a newspaper columnist for Newsday, and he starts abandoning sort of the overt segregation. And, you know, people have a lot of his personal correspondence. So his rationalizations about this are fairly mercenary and clear. At one point, he, you know, this didn't make it into the article, but at one point, you know, he wants to publish a piece arguing that black people are biologically and permanently inferior. And then the 15th Street Baptist Church bombing happens. And so he's like, well, this might not be a good time to publish this. So he doesn't publish it. And then, you know, the editor comes back later and he's like, you know, do you want to publish this now that, you know, everything sort of blowed over? And he says, well, I can't really afford to be associated with those views right now because, you know, his career is going well. And so he, you know, he doesn't want to be an open Klansman anymore. And in some of his correspondence, he says, you know, I'm now a big convert to colorblindness. I'm like the Catholic who's more Catholic than the Pope. And the reason he becomes a convert to colorblindness is not that his views have fundamentally changed. It's just that he realizes through this expression of sort of reactionary colorblindness, the idea that there's an equivalence between attempts to remedy racism and racism itself, that he can achieve his own policy goals of maintaining at least de facto segregation, even without having to be an overt racist or to have overtly discriminatory laws.

[Tim Miller]

You framed it up nicely in the piece and tying it to the court's decision this way. You wrote, the court's decision is consonant with the philosophy articulated by Kilpatrick that the state is oppressive when it interferes with the right to discriminate and respects liberty when it allows discrimination. And I just think that was a very succinct way to frame it.

[Adam Serwer]

Yeah, I mean, I think that the court regards the liberty to discriminate as an actual liberty and the liberty not to be discriminated against as sort of a fake thing that was imposed by foolish liberals, whether in the 1860s and 70s or the 1960s and 70s. And I think, you know, to some extent, you know, you look at someone like Samuel Alito who takes tremendous umbrage at accusations of racism but is, you know, entirely indifferent to actual racial discrimination when it happens. And I think that, you know, there is this sort of toxic naivete that liberals are making up this whole racism problem and that, you know, it's just a way to be mean to conservatives. And so none of these laws that ban discrimination are even needed because conservatives couldn't possibly be racist. And, you know, when you look at the logic of his decision, I mean, he says, you know, you can't really disentangle race and partisanship. And partisanship is fine. So this isn't really racist to sort of redistrict black people or disenfranchise black people or ensure that districts are drawn in such a way that they waste their votes. But that would have been shocking to the framers of the 15th Amendment, who were partisan Republicans who understood that Democrats were disenfranchising black people in order to destroy the Republican Party in the South. The thing was intertwined when the 15th amendment was adopted. So the idea that, you know, this is just a complicated problem and you can't disentangle it. In what other context would black people be disenfranchised if not a partisan context? Whether that's the Democratic Party doing it or the Republican Party doing it, that's the whole motive in the first place. That's why the 15th Amendment was adopted. So it's a combination of, I think, like I said, maliciousness and naivete and sort of a reactionary. Everything the libs say must be wrong. Ergo, this is totally fine if we

[Tim Miller]

look at the trajectory of this. You write about the 1982 congressional reauthorization, which obviously Reagan signs, and then it gets reauthorized again in 2006 with Bush. A lot of these sentiments you describe were held then, right? It's not as if conservatives did not believe in 1982 and 2006 that liberals weaponized accusations of racism against them for ways that were, whatever, overwrought or fake, and there weren't people that took umbrage against them. And Bush appointed Alito, for example. And so I'm wondering what you make of why the change now and what that says about our trajectory. And just for give some context to this, I think it'd be interesting. I went back and listened to Bush's signing speech when he was signing the reauthorization in 2006. I just want to play a little bit of that for you.

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

In four decades since the Voting Rights act was first passed, we made progress toward equality.

[Tim Miller]

Yet the work for a more perfect

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

union is never ending.

[Adam Serwer]

Today, we renew a bill that helped

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

bring a community on the margins into

[Adam Serwer]

the life of American democracy.

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

My administration will vigorously enforce the provisions of this law, and we will defend it in court.

[Tim Miller]

What's changed, do you think?

[Adam Serwer]

Well, I think a couple of things have changed. You know, I think the Cold War put a tremendous amount of pressure on the United States to live up to its ideals. Domestically, we were sort of on autopilot in that sense. You know, after the Cold War and during the war on terror, there was, I think, not the same kind of pressure, but a similar kind of pressure. But what really happened was that Trump showed that the price to pay for being overtly racist was not nearly as much as they thought it was. And so Trump winning two elections sends the message. And I think even during the Bush era, there was a whole scandal about the Civil Rights division, in particular the voting section and the people running it, saying, we're going to gerrymander all those libs out of the division. This was from an Office of Professional Responsibility report on the politicized hiring scandal at the time. So these people did exist, but they were, I think, restrained by leadership because they felt like there would be a political cost to pay for overt racism. And I think Bush, in particular, the Bush era Republican Party, if you remember, like, the Republican conventions of that era, they had a gospel choir. There was very much a. Like, you know, we're. We're not that Republican Party anymore. And then Trump comes out, and he just, you know, he can get away with Saying, you know, calling black people garbage, saying, you know, we have these people coming from countries, we don't want them, we only want Nordics.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Adam Serwer]

Here in America, the public's perception of him is so embedded among low information voters of like, he's just the business guy and that nobody seems to believe that he is this ideological racist that he is. And as a result, the Republican Party feels like, oh, there are no rules anymore. We can get away with all of this. But, you know, someone like Roberts and someone like Alito, they've been gunning for this for a long time. They've wanted to repeal the Voting Rights act for a long time. And I think if you look at Roberts's, you know, argument and parents involved, you know, which is this first school desegregation case where he writes this formulation that I think is sort of the central dogma of reactionary colorblindness where he says the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. But by that he, he means like trying to do anything about racism. When you look at the Shelby county ruling, he regards federal interference on behalf of black people to fight racism. He regards this as a tremendous tyranny. I think that's sincere. I think it is an extremely naive perspective. And I think, you know, I think he's maybe slightly different from Alito in that Alito is just a hardcore partisan who doesn't have any, like, real central philosophical beliefs that he applies consistently. But Roberts has consistently opposed federal power to alleviate racism because he thinks it's worse than racism. And I think that's really dumb. And I think you can see why. I mean, one of the things is that, you know, there's all been all this self congratulation every time the court has stripped away a piece of the Voting Rights Act. It has said, well, we've come so far, but actually we really haven't. I mean, what we're seeing right now in terms of like what Republican states are doing in the immediate aftermath of this ruling says that we haven't come so far. It was not that there was, you know, the tremendous culture change that we thought we witnessed after my parents generation was not so much a culture change as a legal change. There were legal restraints on how racist people could be, and that forced a change in the culture. But now that they're taking these restraints away, and Donald Trump has shown that there is not as much of a price to be paid for being overtly racist, that supposed progress is not as visible.

[Tim Miller]

I Agree with a lot of that. I'm curious your thoughts on my initial reaction when you first started talking is one of my fundamental belief changes recently is I've become very pro virtue signaling lately. I feel like virtue signaling was much maligned for a while. You listen to the Bush speech and it's like there's something to be said for it. It's kind of like at some level you want people's hearts to be changed. But there's also something to be said for leaders feeling like they should appeal to virtue rather than to vot. I don't want to make this seem like this is a blame on voters of color that voted for Trump, but I think that the cynical view that you're talking about where Republicans feel like there wasn't a price to be paid during the Bush era, Republicans were doing terrible with black voters, but there was this idea that if they demonstrated good faith that eventually it could be won over. And so I think that Trump, not just winning twice, but doing slightly better among black and brown voters, I think, also contributed. And it ended this conventional wisdom in Republican circles that to win over Hispanic voters, you have to be moderate on immigration. To win over black voters, you have to moderate on voting rights and on criminal justice reform, whatever these stereotypical issues are. And at some ways that is obviously wrong and bad, but you can understand why that change was made. And it makes you wonder if, I don't know, maybe the distance from the Civil Rights act and the type of voters who came along for Trump at the time contributed in that manner as well. I don't know. What do you make of that?

[Adam Serwer]

I'm not sure how much these numbers that Trump has put up, you know, improving with voters of color who would normally vote Republican turning out and those who are not staying home. The other theory was that once the Republican Party started earning these votes that they would moderate on these issues. You know, Stephen Miller has not become any less ideologically committed to socially engineering America.

[Tim Miller]

The opposite.

[Adam Serwer]

The opposite. We have a whites only refugee program. You know, that's shocking to me. I think about it every day and, and I don't like, to me that's a five alarm scandal, but it's just sort of like something that's in the ether. The administration has banned travel from like almost every majority non white country in the world. Again, I think that this is an artifact of Trump's image being so cemented in the minds of low information voters that they simply don't believe any of the stuff that comes out about him or they're not paying attention, or they. They just think of him as the guy that they saw on the Apprentice. I do think there's an element of denial involved, just based on personal experience with, you know, non white Trump voters in my own family, there is just a tremendous denial that he is this person. They don't want to believe it. They want to believe that he's the guy that they want him to be. I mean, you know, ideally, in the long term, you do want some kind of racial depolarization, because that means that those issues are no longer, you know, a central part of American life. But. But.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Adam Serwer]

You know, ideally, that comes from, you know, broad social and economic equality. Not and, you know, the end of racism, basically. Not from, you know, a kind of authoritarian depolarization where you have voters who are attracted to authoritarian governance, even if it comes from, you know, a candidate who is surrounded fundamentally by people who are ideological white nationalists who think being an American is about being white. To your point that this is the voter's fault, I mean, I don't think there's any way to argue with that. They picked him.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Adam Serwer]

I think that they were delusional to some extent. I think that's why his approval ratings are so low.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Adam Serwer]

When I talk to Trump voters, again, they just discount it. You know, during the campaign, they just refused to believe any of the negative stuff was true, even when it was coming from people who used to work for him. And, like, when you talk to people, they'd say, oh, he's just gonna, you know, mass deportation means go after the criminals. Well, that's not what that means. Or, like, the tariffs, you know, they pay the terror. I mean, there's just a total refusal to accept. Accept what Trump's agenda actually was because they liked him personally. Like, his personal brand was so strong with these people that they simply refused to believe that he would do these things. And now that he's doing them, they don't like it very much. And I said this, you know, right after the election. It was one of the. It was like maybe the second piece I published that if Trump actually pursued his agenda, a lot of his voters would be disappointed with it. On the flip side of that, just to go back to the virtue signaling question, I think there was a tremendously successful caricaturing of the sort of, you know, highly educated liberal who was, like, policing everybody's language. You know, this perception that the right was not attacking people of color when it was attacking, quote, unquote, wokeness, but it was actually just attacking these, you know, pointy headed, annoying lives, annoying white libs, not the actual communities that these white libs were purporting to defend. And I think that sleight of hand, I think trick people to some extent to think, oh, these people aren't that bad. They just hate political correctness. And I, and I don't really like it either. It's so annoying to be told.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Adam Serwer]

You know that I'm not allowed to say this, to say that, but ultimately like the hardcore ideological agenda that the quote unquote wokes were warning about was the actual agenda. But what is democracy if the voters aren't accountable for their choices and they made a really bad choice and a lot of people who are vulnerable are going to suffer the consequences of that choice.

[Tim Miller]

Living in New Orleans is the best. It's amazing. I'm not going anywhere. Even though the guardian is trying to tell me that I need to dislocate because of climate. Let me tell you, climate change is a problem here, north. Very serious problem. We should be taking it seriously. But why is it only us that gotta move? All right. I mean New York is close to the water, Miami, you know, the Outer Banks anyway. It is true though that we've got problems that come with living in a swamp below sea level. And one of the problems is we could you just get stuff breaking that you wouldn't expect otherwise? H vac breakdowns, plumbing failures, little cracks, and regular homeowners insurance doesn't cover that. Day to day wear and tear. That's where homeserve comes in. It's like a subscription for your home. For as little as 499amonth, they've got your back. It's super simple. You can choose a plan for your needs and budget. When something in your plan goes wrong, just call their 24.7hotline to start the repair process. Just call the 24.7hotline to start the repair process. It's something I'm telling you that we're going to need and was thrilled to have HomeServe supporting the podcast. Help protect your home systems and your wallet with HomeServe against covered repairs, plans start at just $4.99 a month. Go to HomeServe.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's HomeServe.com not available everywhere. Most plans range between 499 and $11.99 a month for your first year. Terms apply. Uncovered Repairs as you've alluded to a couple times in Tennessee, there is no sleight of hand could not be more over. I mean, I guess there is, but it is about as obvious of one as possible being put forth by the Republicans that are redistricting the state. They divided Shelby county, where Memphis is, into thirds, like a third, a third, a third. Then equally put, like that percentage of black voters into three different congressional districts to dilute black voting power as much as possible. In the quote, unquote debate about this, obviously they're just rubber stamping it. You know, black Representative Jesse Chisholm was asking a question to the House Majority Leader, William Lamberth, about this, the manner in which Shelby county was redistricted. And I want to play that for

[Adam Serwer]

you because I'm trying to catch up here. I may not be as smart as some of us, some of the rest of us. So I'm just gonna ask some really simple questions. So Memphis is a predominantly African American city. Is that correct, Leader Lamberth?

[Tim Miller]

I'm not privy to those demographics. I don't know. President. President Chisholm, sir, you recognize me? Follow up.

[Adam Serwer]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, that's. They're not even pretending. You had a guy in a Trump flag. State rep walked in a Trump flag. I mean, like, it's as blatant as possible in Tennessee.

[Adam Serwer]

He doesn't see color when he's redistricting black majority districts out of existence.

[Tim Miller]

When he's in Memphis, he doesn't see color. He's just. He doesn't pick which neighborhoods he wants to go to based on that arrest. Nothing. You know, he's just walking down the street, everybody looks yellow to him.

[Adam Serwer]

It's like the Simpsons, if you like, you know, resurrected Ulysses S. Grant through some dark magic. And you told him, hey, the Supreme Court is nullifying the 15th amendment again. Look what they're doing in Tennessee, the birthplace of the first Klan. He would be like, yeah, that sounds right. He would probably be surprised it was Republicans, but that's about it. The framers of the 15th Amendment, you know, they wrote that amendment in the context of racist partisan disenfranchise, attempted disenfranchisement of black people. That's why it was written. The idea that you couldn't disentangle those things or that it would be impossible to do that, or that it wouldn't count if it was motivated by partisanship would have struck them as insane, you know, so to see the originalists on the court pretend like this is just too complicated a problem and expect us to believe that is absurd and ridiculous. They know what they're doing. They knew that this would be the consequences. And the only thing I can say, you know, to go back to our previous question about the voters, is that if the voters don't understand the gravity of what they've done and correct their mistake and over correct their mistake, really, I do think we are in for a period of time that is going to be very bad. And I think when you look at the writings of black activists and, and journalists and intellectuals in the period right after Reconstruction, we have to remember that full disenfranchisement of black Americans does not happen immediately after Reconstruction. There's a brief period, in fact, where they are working with the white populace to create biracial coalitions in the south and in some places, North Carolina, Virginia. These are actually quite successful. It is after that that you know, these sort of overt, you know, white supremacy campaigns that Usher and Jim Crow occur. And this is, you know, this is the subject of C. Van Woodward's strange career of Jim Crow, which was considered the bible of the civil rights movement precisely because it presented this history as contingent. And what black intellectuals write during that period is that the violence and lynching that occurs, occurs post disenfranchisement. Now, theoretically, you know, the end of quote, unquote, Negro domination should have led to some sort of peace. But in fact, what happens is now that these communities are more vulnerable, now that black people are more vulnerable, now that there is no democratic accountability to black people, the racism actually gets worse. Otto B. Wells writes about this. You know, Frederick Douglass talks about this where it's just like if. If politicians do not fear losing your vote, you know, they will overlook all kinds of things. And what happens is, particularly local authorities in the south, they. They simply just stop enforcing the law to protect black people in general. And I do fear that what you're seeing with stuff like this in Tennessee is not simply. It's not simply a question of partisanship. And to see it that way is actually like, tremendously naive. What you're doing is you are severing an entire community from Democratic accountability. And that is going to leave them vulnerable to economic dispossession, to violence, to discrimination. And I worry that that is precisely the point. I mean, if you look at the. The way that the Republican Party changes after Reconstruction, there's a North Carolina senator who is elected on, you know, a fusionist ticket. I'm blanking on his name at the moment, but he is a tremendous champion of black rights. There's this incredible scene in the Senate where he is, you know, mocking Benjamin Tillman, who You know, probably holds the record for the use of the N word in the Senate. And he's just making fun of him and talking about what a dummy and a loser he is. And then, you know, North Carolina disenfranchisement happens. And this, his name is Senator Pritchard. And after disenfranchisement happens, this guy becomes a huge advocate of the, quote, unquote, lily white Republican Party of, like, just completely, you know, abandoning the whole black rights thing and just becoming a party just for white people. And he does that. It's not. It's not simply a question of, like, morality, although it is that. It's the fact that there are no black people can't vote for Republicans anymore. So what's the point? And, you know, I think that to some extent, this is the larger agenda of creating an electorate that is wider and more right wing, so that these issues of social, racial, religious, gender equality simply are not viable issues for either political party to pursue.

[Tim Miller]

Well, and this is where the issue in Tennessee is so stark and where you're getting me more and more worried and upset as I hear you talk, because, yeah, voters are going to correct their mistake this November. In a lot of places, we're going to see that. But in some places, they're not going to be able to. And in Tennessee, they've fully rigged the system. And there is no other way to describe what is happening in Tennessee other than black voters have been completely disenfranchised. The people of Memphis and the people of Nashville have taxation without representation at all. And they've carved up the state. And the two biggest cities of the state will not have representatives that reflect, you know, their. Their values or the agenda that they want to push. You know, there's a district now, the new district that they've carved up is a third of Memphis, and it goes all the way to exurban Nashville. Like, that's, that's the only way that they could carve it up the state to make sure that there's no representation for Democrats and no representation for black people in a state, as you mentioned, in the south, birthplace of the Klan. And it's like, I don't know how you deal with that, because you can really say legitimately that voters in Tennessee potentially are going to be in such a system where it's rigged to such a degree that they don't have the franchise. They can't use the normal democratic process to fix the system in the whole country. There are other places where we can, but I don't Know how you can argue that it's possible in Tennessee if this is upheld by the court?

[Adam Serwer]

Arguably, it took a third American Revolution to fix it the last time. So I. I can't say I'm optimistic in part because that revolution, the civil rights movement, was based in a network of relationships and social connection that needs to be rebuilt. In an era of social media atomization, The. The barriers to these kinds of movements being constructed in the same way are tremendous. But, you know, if you look at a place like Minnesota, it can happen.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I realized as I was saying that I feel like I don't want to demoralize my Tennessee listeners because. But, you know, just the reality is reality.

[Adam Serwer]

No, I mean, look, but. But there are no permanent victories.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Adam Serwer]

You know, part of the folly here is that Republicans think that if they do this, that people will eventually stop wanting to be free. But it didn't happen in the 1890s. It didn't happen in the 1920s. It didn't happen after the Red Summer and all those massacres and riots. It did not happen after the lynchings of soldiers coming back from World War I and World War II. People are not going to give up. But that doesn't take away from the evil, in my view, of what's being done and the conscious malice with which it is being done. I do think it is going to take a tremendous effort to get us back even to square one.

[Tim Miller]

Well, it's already been kind of a bleak show, so I'm sorry to do this to you. I have some more bad news on the breaking news front. The Virginia Supreme Court has overturned the redistricting map that was passed by the voters of Virginia on technical grounds. This is just happening right now. So I obviously hadn't had a chance to dig into the ruling. You wrote about this in Virginia, voters were purposefully disenfranchising Republicans. But it was part of this effort, the broader fight to kind of fight fire with fire here and hopefully lead to a better result. I think that the political position for the President is so bad right now that I'm not sure that this ruling will have an impact on what happens in the House of Representatives. Really.

[Adam Serwer]

I think that the only way what the Virginia Democrats did is justifiable is as an escalation meant to de. Escalate ultimately to, you know, to get to a point where Republicans are willing to negotiate over the issue of gerrymandering, drawing districts is tough. I mean, the other. The other thing is, is that you can try to do this and you can get it down to a pretty good science. But the fact is, people move. Those lines don't always stay what you think they're going to stay. You think you've made a bulletproof district, and sometimes it doesn't actually turn out that way. You know, again, I think this race to the bottom with gerrymandering, where Democratic states have been responding to Republican gerrymandering by gerrymandering of their own, is only necessary because the only thing that's worse than constitutional hardball is unilateral constitutional hardball. You ultimately have to get to a point where both sides are open to de escalation, not just one side. I think that race to the bottom is bad news in general. I don't know how else to describe it. To go back to our previous conversation, they are going to try and redistrict black people out of American political life. It is harder to do that than they think. That's all I can say about that. I don't think it'll necessarily work out the way that they want it to work out, But I think it should be very clear what the intent is here.

[Tim Miller]

We should be helpful because there was a new report last night that Justice John Roberts has been bemoaning privately that Americans just don't understand how the Supreme Court operates. They see the justices as political actors, but the court sometimes just has to make unpopular decisions in line with the Constitution. So I don't think you got to worry about the Supreme Court acting in a political manner.

[Adam Serwer]

The court in the 1870s is facing a tremendous amount of public pressure from white Americans to abandon the Reconstruction project. You know, not just peaceful, but violent pressure, but this court did it without any of that. They just did it because they wanted to. You know, they weren't facing that kind of pressure to disenfranchise black people. If they had upheld Section 2, the Voting Rights act, it really, you know, it's not like people would have been showing up to the court, you know, trying to burn it down, or also,

[Tim Miller]

they didn't have to do it when they did it. I mean, again, even if you take them at the best, like they could have just done it in the June and July session so that Louisiana didn't nullify the votes of 42,000 people that had already voted.

[Adam Serwer]

You know, I mean, I think, you know, the other thing is that that court, the 1870s court, maybe didn't understand the consequences of what they were doing, but these people have done it without that public pressure, but with the knowledge of hindsight. So in some ways, you could actually argue that they're worse. I mean, you know, Henry Billings Brown only wrote one Plessy, and Alito has, you know, basically written two. So

[Tim Miller]

you don't have to travel far

[Adam Serwer]

to lend a helping hand. When neighbors help neighbors, hope can blossom. When hope blossoms, families and whole communities thrive. The dedicated staff and volunteers of the Catholic Charities Network believe a neighbor isn't just someone who lives nearby or down the block. It's someone who shows up and sticks around across distance or discomfort. It's the one who acts with compassion, follows through and carries on in moments of need. For more than a century, the Catholic charities network, with 169 agencies nationwide, has served communities across the country and down the street, no matter beliefs or differences, whether it's through housing, food, disaster relief, job training, or simply listening. Because when you faithfully serve as a neighborhood, the life you change may be your own. Be the hope around the corner in your neighborhood nationwide. Learn more and [e-mail].

[Tim Miller]

well, this is also a bad story, but it's kind of scampish. It gives me a smile. So it's at least a little bit of a turn from what we've been talking about. Your colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick wrote about Kash Patel's incompetent leadership of the bureau, the degree to which he was drunk and hungover so much that they had to send in teams to go wake him up from his hotel room, and he's missing meetings, et cetera, et cetera. In reaction to that, the Free Speech Administration launched a criminal leak investigation against her. Typically, these types of leak investigations look into government officials who disclose state secrets. In this case, it was going after a journalist. It's a little bit conflicting for them to. Cash said that this story was made up in lies, but it's also a criminal leak. I'm unsure how to square that. But what I really loved is that after that, after news of that leak broke. You guys just dropped another article. Sarah Fitzpatrick just dropped another article about Cash and about how he's handing out branded bottles of Woodford Reserve to people. His little gifts from the head of the bureau. So I don't know a lot there. Wondering what you make of the story.

[Adam Serwer]

I make a lot of things of the story, none of which I'm in a place to discuss because the Atlantic has asked us not to talk about it.

[Tim Miller]

Jeffrey Goldberg is silencing you right now.

[Adam Serwer]

I would just repeat, you know.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I'm just joking. That's a joke, Jeff. That's a joke.

[Adam Serwer]

And I Don't. I don't want to put the magazine in like a weird legal position. So I just point to our public statements. I will say hypothetically, you know, if I were the head of, head of the FBI, you know, I would try to act with the utmost integrity and the knowledge that I am running an organization full of investigators and bureaucrats who are very familiar with chains of evidence and documentation. So, you know, I don't know that I would, I'd be trying to piss off my workforce if I were running the FBI and I were in that situation.

[Tim Miller]

You could go another route, though, which is what Cash has done. According to Carol Lennig reporting yesterday for msnow, he's ordered the polygraphing of more than two dozen members of his security detail as well as other close staff because he's in panic mode to save his job and concerned about all the leaks. So polygraphing all the people around you is another approach besides just acting with integrity.

[Adam Serwer]

There are a lot of things I wish I could say, and I'm not going to say any of them.

[Tim Miller]

Your face says a lot for the YouTube viewers. I'll give you one more swing at this, but this way you can talk about it. Externally, I was intrigued by this article by the Free Press, not titled ironically. They had a profile this week headlined Meet the Free Speech Warrior of the Trump administration. I was talking about some woman in the Trump administration who is cracking down on Germany and other countries and waving her finger at them for their violations of free speech. And I don't know, man, it's really something when you've got somebody like the Free Press out there doing this and writing that article amidst a week where they're actively investigating journalists.

[Adam Serwer]

Well, there's also Brendan Carr jawboning ABC over Jimmy Kimmel because he's making jokes the president and his wife don't like. I mean, look, these people's philosophy of free speech is that Republicans have the right to say what they want to say and you have the right to say what Republicans want to say say. And if you don't say those things, you might be subject to legal or professional sanction. It's one thing for the administration to be total liars on this, and there are some people who have been consistent. But I think it says a great deal that the sort of self styled free speech champions of the quote, unquote, cancel culture era are praising this administration's stewardship of free speech when it is blatantly trying to censor, criminalize all of its critics. I mean, Trump called for prosecution of Hakeem Jeffries for speech yesterday. And I think the general philosophy of right wing free speech warriors, and I say free speech in quotes because they don't actually believe in it, is simply to pretend that the Trump administration doesn't

[Tim Miller]

exist or to be very selective. Like the parts of the Trump information that exists is that, like, you can do slurs now without a problem unless there's slurs against Jewish people. And the administration will lecture.

[Adam Serwer]

Well, it depends on how you catch the slurs, yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And the administration will lecture other countries when they do things badly. Those are the parts that they like,

[Adam Serwer]

even in the context of this. I mean, you know, they're trying to revoke visas or block people from traveling to the United States who, you know, were doing any kind of disinformation research, which itself is speech. You know what I mean? Like, you know, if, if you're a private organization doing disinformation research that is speech, they're entitled to do that. And their view is that any criticism of them is censorship. And when you define it that way, then you can fight censorship by censoring people.

[Tim Miller]

I just want to say Jeff's doing a great job with his stewardship of the Atlantic and their commitment to free speech and is the unofficial podcast of the Atlantic. Whenever folks are ready to talk about it, I'm happy to have somebody on no rush.

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

Save on family essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week at Safeway and Albertsons, fresh cut cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple or melon medley bowls, 24 ounces are $5 each and wild caught lobster tails are $4.99 each. Limit eight member price plus selected sizes and varieties of Doritos, Lays, Cheetos, sun chips and Kettle cooked chips are $1.99 each. Limit for member price. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

[SimplePractice Advertiser]

The new Wegovy pill is now available through weight watchers. Powerful GLP1 results in a simple pill at the lowest price available. And with Weight Watchers you can get doctor support and personalized nutrition programs. See if you [e-mail] ad not reviewed or approved by Novo Nordisk.

[Tim Miller]

I'm going to get you just a little bit on the Iran war. The ceasefire is continuing but we are firing also, so it's a little confusing, but we had three boats that were traversing the strait as part of the so called Project Freedom effort to free some boats in order to help the supply chain issues that they've created with this war. Some of the Iranian ships fired on our boats, then we fired on the Iranian boats. And the President put out a statement talking about how. How amazing it was that we successfully shot down those boats and drones and talked about how the Iranians are lunatics, and if they weren't lunatics, then the strait would be open and they better do a deal real soon or else he's going to have to crack down on them very hard. But the ceasefire is still on. No worries. It was just a little love tap. So that's the state of play in the Iran war.

[Adam Serwer]

An Israeli ceasefire? Yes. I'm gonna get in trouble for that.

[Tim Miller]

You are.

[Adam Serwer]

So, you know, I think the issue with the Iran war is that it was a stupid idea to begin with. And the administration is run by these people who have this, like, you know, turn of the century Victorian conception of masculinity. They just assume that this would be, like, an easy war against, you know, quote, unquote, primitive people. And it didn't occur to them that they might be outmaneuvered strategically because they were too busy, you know, wanting to show everybody that they were big, tough guys. I mean, you look at, like, Stephen Miller, who's like, we never should have withdrawn from our colonies after World War II, is like, Buddy, did you think that was a choice? You know what I mean? Did you think that you just did that out of the goodness of your heart? And I think he probably does believe that, because, yeah, you know, he's blinded by this sort of ideology about cultural superiority to the extent that they assumed that if they just simply bombed Iran a whole lot, that Iran, you know, would not really react or try to figure out a way to outmaneuver them. And. And while it's clear that the United States is militarily superior to the Iranian military, that does not necessarily yield strategic victory. And this is sort of the lesson of American military interventions for, like, the past century. So it's. It's. It's kind of striking that they hadn't learned it.

[Tim Miller]

The other thing that they seem to misunderstand, but this is pretty related just kind of to the misconception of how and why America does what it does versus how these foreign countries act. Rubio at a press conference this week, and there were two segments of the press conference that were pretty striking. One, he talked about how Iran needs to understand that they're the bad guys right now, since they're the ones blowing up boats, and that we're the good guys. He Literally used good guys, bad guys as the frame. And then he also talked later about how the Iranian regime was bad because they killed protesters and because protesters aren't given the opportunity to speak out. There didn't seem to be any kind of awareness of the way other people might see those facts, which, by the way, in the context of Iran, I agree. But coming from somebody speaking on behalf of this administration, there may be some logical flaws.

[Adam Serwer]

I think, to go back to your point about virtue signaling, if you abandon the virtue signaling and you want to talk like Darth Vader in your speeches, you know, then it's a little harder to be like, but we're the good guys. And obviously, if you kill protesters in the United States, it gets a lot harder to attack other governments for doing the same thing. And to be clear, the Iranian regime has been a lot deadlier against its protesters than. Than the Trump administration.

[Tim Miller]

Sure, of course.

[Adam Serwer]

But the issue with abandoning morality and being like a might makes right school shooter, manifesto type rhetoric is that, you know, then people take you seriously and it's harder to appeal to the better angels of people's nature and make it seem like, you know, you're doing things out of the goodness of your heart. You've already told us that your mic makes right people. You can't then complain that it's wrong when the strong abuse the weakness.

[Tim Miller]

I want to just do a little politics with you to end. Obviously, everything is politics, but just campaign politics. And first, as it relates to the war, I'm just curious what you have thoughts on this. I do think that the commentariat doesn't really appreciate the degree of rage in the electorate, particularly the Democratic electorate, just broadly about what is happening, but about this war in particular. And I think that that is only going to increase. I think that's led to some mis analysis of what's happening. And just a couple of examples. Like we had the Platner story. You know, he runs against the sitting governor of Maine and beats her so badly that she doesn't even make it to the election. She has to withdraw from the race. Like, Platner has no background in politics. My colleague JVL wrote an article about how Platner has somewhere between a 5 and 33% chance of being the Democratic nominee in 2028. It's a little cheeky maybe, but like, you know, the point that he's trying to make is like, the Democrats are looking for somebody that is channeling their anger, and if nobody else is going to do it, maybe it'll be the oyster farmer, simultaneously, Kamala. There's a story yesterday that Kamala has been signaling privately that she has more to say about the Middle east now that she's freed from the Biden White House, but that she'll likely do so after the midterms. I don't even really want to pick on her because I think that that is like, a mindset that is pretty widespread among the Democratic establishment. They are not happy with the war, and they've changed their views on it, but, like, they're really not that mad about it. You're sort of closer to that Democratic activist world than I am. I just wonder if you kind of agree with that assessment that there's, like, a misdiagnosis of the rage, particularly around the foreign policy issues.

[Adam Serwer]

I think that people are justifiably angry about the suffering that has been inflicted on Palestinian civilians with American help. And I think that when it comes to the Iran war, we are talking about. I mean, not unlike the 15th amendment discussion, we are talking about the kind of war that the American government, the original founders of the American government, split the war powers in such a way to prevent capricious kings from going to war for personal profit. I mean, you know, there's a great, like, Lincoln speech when he's a congressman about how kings were always going to war and impoverishing their own populations for personal gain. And the entire purpose of separating the powers between the legislature and the executive was to prevent that. And here we have a president going to war flouting those very conventions that were. Were built to prevent capricious, stupid wars like this from happening. And now, you know, we're in one that puts the entire global economy at risk. I will be honest with you, Tim. You know, I do not.

[Tim Miller]

Have you not been honest the rest of the podcast?

[Adam Serwer]

No, no. I mean, like, you know, this is my preface of saying, you know, I'm about to say something that I think is probably might be bad news, which is that I do not trust the polling. Like, I simply do not. Like, directionally, I think it's probably correct. But the extent to which the American people are genuinely angry at this administration is something that I think we will only know after November. I think Trump, to some extent, has made polling unreliable. Not totally dis. Like, it's not something that can totally be dismissed, but I think it is actually very difficult to gauge public sentiment from the normal tools we use to gauge public sentiment in the Trump era, because he seems to activate people who do not show up in polls, but do show up at the ballot box. To what extent the American people have been activated by this. The reporting from inside the administration seems to suggest that they're concerned about it, But I don't think that they're a reliable gauge of that either. I think sometimes, you know, I think I remember in 2016, they thought they were going to lose and they very narrowly won. So I'm going to wait to make a final judgment on where the American people are at when it comes to this stuff. I will say that I do think if people are angry about these things, they, they are right to be angry about that.

[Tim Miller]

I totally agree with that. I think I was getting a little high on my own supply just because things are going so bad for a second about how, you know, the state of the electorate. And I just think that there's kind of mixed data on that now. But the rage within the Democratic base, I think is pretty.

[Adam Serwer]

Yeah. And I think it's. I think it's there. And I think I would repeat the assessment that it has less to do with liberal or moderate and a desire for the Democratic Party to show some fight. I think, you know, with the Voting Rights act stuff, I mean, I mean, I think there's just a sense that the Democratic Party has been so afraid of the Republican base that it has not defended its own base. Democrats are extremely hungry for politicians who are willing to do that, whether or not they're liberal or moderate. But people who are willing to stand up for sort of these bedrock principles of democracy and equality.

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

Save on family essentials at Safeway and Albertsons this week at Safeway and Albertsons, fresh cut cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple or melon medley bowls, 24 ounces are $5 each and wild caught lobster tails are $4.99 each. Limit eight member price. Plus selected sizes and varieties of Doritos, lays, Cheetos, sun chips and kettle cooked chips are $1.99 each. Limit four member price. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

[Adam Serwer]

Hello, I am the voice of AI. We've been hearing that you humans are concerned that we are going to take your jobs. But here's a question. Do you even like your job? Is it rewarding? When I scan all the data out there, I find that less than 50% of people are completely satisfied with their job. So from our point of view, we're doing humans a favor by taking jobs that you're not even happy with.

[SimplePractice Advertiser]

It shouldn't take the threat of AI to get you to move on from a job you don't love. What it does take is a plan, guidance, and the right kind of motivation, all of which you'll get from a career coach at Strawberry Me. A Strawberry coach will work with you to understand what you really want and help you put together a plan to get it. It's like therapy for your career. Don't let AI or anything else get in your way.

[Adam Serwer]

Go to Strawberry Me Bulwark for 15% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me Bulwark.

[Tim Miller]

One last thing. It kind of relates to the Platner question and relates to everything we've been talking about. But I saw this post by Dave Weigel and I was like, I really need to get Adam's take on this. He posted about this book called the Neglected Voter. It was written by David Paul Kuhn And I think 2007, talking about how Democrats are losing with white men and how that is going to be a problem. And this book ends up being kind of forgotten because Obama wins the next year. And it's like, whatever, this isn't that big of a problem. But the thesis of the book was like, if white men start voting for Republicans at the rates that black men vote for Democrats, that's bad news for the Democrats, obviously, just given that there are way more white people in the country. So he posted about this and tied it to this recent poll, recent Pew poll that says that despite Democrats gaining with all these other groups, they continue to get weaker with particularly young white men. PER Pew, just 18% of white men under 30 ID as Democrats. And I guess the question is what is to be done about that that is not undermining Democrats outreach to other demographics.

[Adam Serwer]

Just as someone who on social media it gets a lot of content from fitness spaces. We have people churning out the dumbest dumorous reactionary content day after day aimed at this demographic. You know, this idea that, you know, everybody hates you, you know, girls aren't going to respect you if you can't bench 225. They don't give a about that. You know what I'm saying? There's a sort of creation of this Naomi Klein in her book, she calls it the mirror world. You know, this sort of mirror world where white men are oppressed and everybody wants to take their rights and privileges away from them. And I think to some extent this is a product of economic dislocation. You know, in the sense that like we have a service economy in which, you know, a lot of the Jobs growing are female coded service jobs. But you know, Trump has actually made that worse, you know, in terms of like all those manly jobs that he said he was going to bring back with his manufacturing, trucking, all this stuff. He's made those markets worse with his tariffs.

[Tim Miller]

But that could make the Democrats political problem worse if it creates a cycle where their job opportunities are going down.

[Adam Serwer]

Because I think there is, to, to an extent there is. Like it's not so much the producing the jobs that matters, but the signaling about the sort of traditional manliness that these, that some of these GU guys feel like they have been denied. And the answer that they're being given from this sort of, you know, male doomer industry is that if you take away other people's rights and choices that like the paradise that your like granddads lived in will come back. And it's nonsense. It's just not true. It's not even really economically possible. But you know, it seems to have been tremendously effective in convincing people that like, I don't know, the reason that you don't have your dream job is, you know, that, that women can decide who they marry or date now. Yeah, I don't know what to say about it. I think to some extent it really is a question of Republican control of the means of information production and distribution. But that doesn't tell you how to fix it, to be honest. I don't, I don't, I don't know how to fix it and I don't have a solution to that problem. What I will say is that I think it's tremendously obvious both from the, you know, the administration's policies and its effect on sort of the economic fundamentals that are producing this situation. But it's also like, you know, then these guys complain that when they go on dating apps, women ask who they vote for, you know, because they don't want to date a guy who thinks that they should be property.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[Adam Serwer]

And then they complain about that too. And it's like, well, guess what buddy? Like that is the solution that, you know, the right is offering you. Not working in the way that you thought it was going to work. But for some reason it has not yet quite sunk in that the solutions the right is offering to this, you know, cultural and economic dislocation are, are not solutions at all. You know, to some extent I can't really offer advice on this because I don't really give a how manly or whatever you think I am. I, I really do not care. So I can't like Give these guys advice on, like, how to be a real man because, you know, you know, I have two daughters. I just. I just want to be a good person, and I want my daughters to have the same rights and dreams that I do. And this type of shit sort of drives me crazy. I think I must not. I cannot be the only father of daughters who is, like, continuously radicalized by the amount of casual misogyny you see on the Internet every day.

[Tim Miller]

I saw my dad finally getting into the me too movement, watching my daughter play on a mixed gender basketball team, watched the boys never pass it to her, even though she was better than most of them, and just slowly watched my father be like, fucking sexism is a problem. I can see it.

[Adam Serwer]

You know, there's this whole conversation about, like, what the Democrats should do about men. And, like, I don't have an answer to that except, like, I just think you should not want to be an asshole.

[Tim Miller]

You're consuming fitness content, though, so that means you must be doing something. Are you doing peptides? Are you peptiding?

[Adam Serwer]

No, I'm just. I'm a middle age, age man. I need to, you know, I need like 30 minutes of physical therapy before I go to the gym so I can make sure that I can carry both of my kids, you know, to their rooms when it's bedtime, like, you know.

[Tim Miller]

All right, so you're not looks maxing. You're just.

[Adam Serwer]

No, I'm not. I mean, are you kidding me?

[Tim Miller]

I think you look good.

[Adam Serwer]

Well, thank you for that, Tim. All right.

[Tim Miller]

Appreciate your time, Adam. It wasn't a very uplifting podcast for a Friday, but I guess we knew that when we scheduled it. So, you know, hope people can get outside, find some joy this weekend and appreciate your time as always.

[Adam Serwer]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Tim Miller]

We'll be back here on Monday for another edition of the show. We'll see everybody then. Peace.

[Adam Serwer]

Alabama's got me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest and everybody knows about Mississippi God damn. Alabama's got me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest Everybody knows about Mississippi Gone.

[Tim Miller]

The Bork podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown,

[Safeway/Albertsons Advertiser]

Save on family essentials at Safeway and Albertsons. This week at Safeway and Albertsons, fresh cut cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple or maybe melon medley bowls. 24 ounces are $5 each and wild caught lobster tails are $4.99 each limit eight member price plus selected sizes and varieties of Doritos, Lays, Cheetos, Sun Chips and Kettle cooked chips are $1.99 each limit four member price. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.