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- [00:00]
Brian Beutler
Foreign.
- [00:14]
Tim Miller
Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back co host of the Politics with an X podcast with Matt Iglesias. He also writes the Off Message substack newsletter. Was it Crooked Media before in the New Republic and other Lib outlets. And he has a great article. Whenever I read a great newsletter from someone that I agree with 100%, I'm like they must come on the podcast so I can have my priors affirmed. It's Brian Beutler. How you doing man?
- [00:40]
Brian Beutler
I'm good, but it makes me think that it's been like a year and a half since I wrote something that you fully agreed with and that hurts my feelings.
- [00:45]
Tim Miller
That is not true actually. When I texted you about how good it was, I noticed I had done similarly a couple months ago. But a podcast worthy agreement. Fair enough. This agreement was like I am engorged by how much I agree with this and we podcast on it.
- [01:00]
Brian Beutler
All right, I will swing for the fence.
- [01:01]
Tim Miller
I apologize to my mother in law for that. The article is Jeffrey Epstein, Trumpcare and the Influencer Problem and I want to get into the Epstein stuff with you and a bunch of other issues in micro. But first, the macro point that you're making is something I've been talking about a lot that I just, I think that is hard to just kind of process for like the Democratic strategist class and politicians a little bit. Is this your subhead is what if the people Democrats want to reach aren't terribly interested in policy per se? You go on. We should cop to attention, a pretty severe one between the Democratic Party's desire to contest election on safe ground like health care policy and the new consensus that reaching marginal voters will require with engaging the online influencers and pop culture figures those voters admire. This is right. I think I ask pretty much every Dem Paul that comes on this show about this, like how to navigate this, like, is the problem with reaching these voters policy actually or is it something else? So why don't you talk about it at the, at the top level?
- [02:00]
Brian Beutler
Funny enough, it's like it relates to what we were kind of joking around at the outset about is that if you're, if you're a podcast host like you are, you have to select your guests. And part of what you do when you're selecting your guests is like thinking like, who can talk about a wide range of issues or about the issues that I want to care about. And if you survey the landscape and the politicians in the Democratic Party have made clear in all their public statements. What we want to talk about is healthcare. If you bring up a subject that isn't healthcare, we're going to say, but you know what? That's a distraction from the issue that really matters, which is health care. They're going to be kind of disinclined to want to bring you on because you can't fill three hours of Joe Rogan show with. I mean, I guess you could. It would just be really boring. And people would talk about what's in the Trumpcare bill.
- [02:43]
Tim Miller
And so reimbursement rates. You don't think you could do 40 minutes on that? On Rogan just kind of chief. A blunt, kind of get deep with him on the different reimbursement rate rules, different states.
- [02:55]
Brian Beutler
States, Yeah. F map. Like, just, you know, you have a. You have a politician be like. And then the F map. And like, they won't even think to explain what FMAP is, At which point, like, half the audience is tuned out. And, you know, I think it would behoove Democrats to, like, actually think about what they mean when they talk about this problem they have reaching young voters, reaching the audiences of people who are, like, consuming lots of new media, almost none of which is about policy and what it would take for them to, like, become simpatico with that universe and how that's not a good fit. It doesn't really match with their other theory, which is that if we're just normal, turn down the volume, talk about the issues that matter in people's economic lives, then people will realize we're not scary and they'll give us a chance. And I don't think you can actually square those things.
- [03:43]
Tim Miller
I think you can swim in certain situations. Right. Like, I was thinking of that exact example you came up with. Right. Like, there's no, you know, I'll just pull back the curtain here a little bit. Nobody thinks that. I'm not a big fan of Abigail Spamberger. She's bad. She was like, one of the first politicians that I interviewed when I started doing, you know, sitting on the interview side of the chair. She's very bulwarky Democrat. She's running for governor of Virginia. Frankly, it doesn't behoove either of us to do an hour right now. Like, what is the. Like, she wants to focus on Virginia issues. She's winning in the polls. I'm happy to talk about that race. It's best for her to pivot everything back to what matters to Virginians and to the Commonwealth. You know, she doesn't Want to fucking shoot shit with me about, like, speculate about who might be, you know, in the Epstein files and. Right. Like get, you know, get into like, Democratic infighting talk, you know, Zoron versus her. Right. Like, why? Right. So there are certain races and times where that's called for. But, like, at the broader, like, brand level, you also need Democrats who can do. You need people who can do both, I guess is my point.
- [04:45]
Brian Beutler
Yes. And there are obviously examples, and I think an increasing number of them. You know, like, it's not that I think the Democrats are cheap talking when they say, we got to break into this realm of media. We've got to meet audiences that don't know anything about us. They're just in the transition. And so it's awkward. But, like, even in just the last six months, you've seen real effort on the part of particularly Democrats who have longer term political ambitions to try to just go out and show up on a podcast that they probably hadn't heard about two or three months ago and. And shoot the shit with some hosts who don't really care about policy that much. I read a quote, I think it was from Tim Walls yesterday was. Am I getting ahead of you?
- [05:27]
Tim Miller
No, no, no, you're not getting ahead of me. No, I just mean. Oh. Because who knows where you could go at the Tim Walls quotes. He might be talking about man coding or whatever.
- [05:33]
Brian Beutler
No, no, no, no. This was, this was, this was a much better taken quote, which is. Which is that if. If you don't do interviews, you. I'm gonna script the quote now and probably should just Google it. If you don't do interviews, you really will reduce the risk that you say something that can be. Something comes out of your mouth that you wish you could take back, but you also lose an opportunity to reach new people. And I mean, that right there is a cognizance of the problem. And so I think that it's a problem that is getting better over time. But it's awkward. We could talk about this in a minute, but I kind of think that the majority of politicians in the Democratic Party just were poorly selected to become the kind of people who are good at freewheeling.
- [06:21]
Tim Miller
One thing I love about living in New Orleans is like, we have people stopping by all the time, either neighbors or buddies who happen to be in the hood, and if it's a weekday afternoon and they're coming over, might not want to have an alcoholic beverage, you want to offer them something that can help spark the conversation. We've been turning to Sole and their new out of Office beverages. Sol is a wellness brand that believes that feeling good should be fun and easy. Sol specializes in a delicious hemp derived THC and CBD product designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of Office Gummies were designed to prove a mild relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. The gummies come in four different strengths so you can find the perfect dose for your vibe, gentle microdose, perfect buzz, noticeable high or a fully lit experience. With wellness at the forefront, you can feel good about what you're putting in your body. All of Sol's products are made from organically farmed USA grown hemp and if you like their out of Office Gummies As I mentioned, I've been into the out of Office beverages. It's a refreshing alcohol free alternative perfect for summer sipping. Bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to soul today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsol.com and use the code thebullwerk that's getsoeoul.com promo code the bulwark for 30% off. Yeah, no, let's just talk about it because I'm with you because you wrote I like this line that politicos love admonishing each other to meet people where they are. Good cliche that you hear in consultant circles. But what if where they are is at the intersection of pop wellness and the Epstein files Venn diagram and then you wanted to say how many high profile Dems could sit with somebody that is a pop wellness Epstein obsessive and actually talk about it in depth. And this to me is like I have an area of disagreement to next but this is like our key agreement on this insight which is like say what you want to Trump could not actually sit down with you and Matt Iglesias on the politics podcast and talk about the Medicaid rules for an hour. No, couldn't. He has no idea actually what changed with Medicaid and he doesn't care. Right? Like he can hand, he can bullshit and do talking points for a little bit but if you wanted to sit down with him and do hey, hey Mr. President, you want to do an hour on the Hunter Biden laptop? He could fucking do an hour on the Hunter laptop. Like he is seeped in that world. And like I said it was my advice to Biden people before the horrible debate is I was like understand like he knows more about some of the stuff than Joe does. Like you've got to brief him about this. Like, he'll be like, in those first 2016 debates, he was able to go deep on random shit that, like, Jeb didn't even know about. Right. Because he wasn't reading. Like, they weren't consuming the same material. Right. And to this point, it's like, okay, step one is, all right, we need to engage on Epstein, and we can do a tweet or two about how, oh, Trump is, you know, protecting the rich again, just like he did with the tax cuts. That's a good tweet. And you should send. Democrats should send that. But, like, can you actually go and sit down with somebody who's been following the story for eight years and bullshit about it and know things and, like, seem like a normal guy? That's, like, hanging out at the bar, talking about Epstein that or gal. That's a tougher task. And, like, and it takes actual, like.
- [09:30]
Brian Beutler
Work for any Democrats who are. Who are like, our age, and unfortunately, we're getting old enough that that's, like, an increasing number of them now.
- [09:36]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I know.
- [09:38]
Brian Beutler
They should think a little bit about what. What would grab their interest as regular people if they had not made whatever turns in life brought them into politics. Right. Because I am interested in the Jeffrey Epstein story, and I'm actually even a little bit interested in health, fitness, Internet, completely detached from politics. And I think that if I didn't have a political career of some kind, I'd just be deeper into those worlds, and I might even be susceptible to going into some conspiratorial rabbit holes.
- [10:05]
Tim Miller
You met the CrossFit cult, maybe.
- [10:07]
Brian Beutler
I mean, but, like, for example. Yes, like. Like, CrossFit comes with benefits. It comes with some risk, and it also comes with the possibility, like. Like, the risk of making people really kind of weird and cult. Like, and, like, I've built up, you know, defense mechanisms against that over time. But. But, like, if. If I hadn't, that's probably where I would have ended up. And I think that, like, a lot of Democrats have kind of convinced themselves that, like, rectitude and also political strategy should make them, like, when. When the news or the buzz online veers into areas that don't really intersect with policy very much, that they should kind of be like, that is distraction stuff, or that is, like, Republicans doing weird propaganda and disinformation stuff, and we should just, like, shut our brains off to it almost. And so now, you know, we're 10 or 11 days into, like, Epstein scandal round three, and you get the impression that a lot of the Democrats who are starting to comment on this have only kind of wrapped their heads around why this was a gripping conspiracy theory in the first place. And I don't think it necessarily even has to be like this. Right. Like, when I was first writing about Politics in the mid-2000s, Democrats ran the 2006 midterm campaigns on a bunch of stuff. But, like, they were running against the Bush culture of corruption. Like, that was the tagline for the. And they were using, like, whatever powers they could to. They had to unearth examples of, like, basically favor for money trading that was happening on K Street. People went to jail.
- [11:48]
Tim Miller
This is Abramoff. This is Mark. I was working on a campaign that year. The Mark Foley page scandal was like, honestly, what crushed our campaign. Yep. Like, we were like, it was a very close race against an Iowa 3.
- [11:59]
Brian Beutler
And another pediatric story.
- [12:01]
Tim Miller
Yeah, there you go.
- [12:02]
Brian Beutler
So those are important issues, but there's very little policy content to them. And then they. They come to power, they pass a bunch of good bills, and I think that they internalize this idea that if we just nail the governing, then all this other stuff is going to melt away and people are going to be appreciative of the good things we have brought to them. Right. And it turns out it, like, doesn't really work that way because a. Nothing's ever right, perfect in America. Right. Like, there's a lot of ruin in a nation. But then, like, I remember in 2014 that the generic ballot for the midterms that year was, like, really close and all the way through to, like, September, and it was kind of like Dems might lose the Senate, maybe Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have retired, but it's kind of a toss up. And they ended up getting wiped out. And they got wiped out because, like, that August or September, and then into October, there was an Ebola outbreak in East Africa and. And Republicans led by actually Donald Trump started demagoguing on this issue. And then they were going to bring scientists back and they. No. And, you know, there was a nativism thing where. Where terrorists were going to cross the border bringing Ebola with them, and they got crushed on this issue that was just kind of made up. I mean, like, there was actually an Ebola outbreak, but it was being addressed. Right. And then Hillary Clinton goes on to lose the next election, not because of policy content, because. But because of her emails. Right. And at some point, like, it started dawning on me that the theory that Democrats were operating on that, like, govern well and, like, you will reap the political rewards was just not correct and that they really did need to engage on these hysterias, basically. Yeah. And just know how to talk about it.
- [13:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree with you. I think that the Democrat and this goes to the Chris Arnaid stuff where he's like the front of the class, back of the class stuff. And like all the Democrats are front of the class people. And there's something to be said for being a front of the class. You need to be able to talk to back of the class people too. And as you said, Democrats are self selecting for the types of people to run were all front of the class people and so they weren't capable of talking back of the class people. Obama was an exception to that because he was in the chum gang. So he was able to cross over. He could code switch between the front and the back. That's true though. Yeah, no, it's true. And so I think that's almost the easy solve to this, the thing that we really agree on. You just have to accept that this is a truth and try it and actually try and engage and recruit people against this. And finally, class people can learn how to talk about Epstein. You just got to like read some New York Post and whatever. Like, you know, like follow the right people on social media and like do a little, you know, I could give you some briefings if you want.
- [14:39]
Brian Beutler
And we hire Tim.
- [14:40]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, no, please don't hire me. I'll pro bono. I'm retired. But, but like that, that was the easy part. The harder part that I want to get at with you is like, is like there a cultural bridge beyond the tabloid stuff that like the Democrats need to really reckon with and like this gets you into the more of them, you know, your co host, the Matt Iglesia space, right, like where it's like, yeah, sure, you can do some things so you can start talking about Epstein. You can engage in tabloid politics better, like in a way that Trump does, you know, you can not whatever only do white paper politics. But like, aren't there actual substantive either issues or the manner in which you speak or, you know, aren't there other cultural barriers that are like hurting the democr that are a little harder to bridge than just like you should talk about Epstein now instead of pretending like it doesn't exist.
- [15:31]
Brian Beutler
Yes. And you know, I think part of the reason Matt focuses on policy so much is that that's where the streetlight is shining down. Right? Like if you're a politician, you really do control entirely what issues you run on and like how you sell them to voters. And so if you're not connecting with people, one way to try to change that is to like turn the policy toggles a little bit. And I'm like, depending on the policy. I think that that's totally fine. But I think that what you were alluding to about, you know, the front row kids versus the back row kids, the way people in, in the biz talk about it is high education attainment and low education attainment. And Democrats are increasingly becoming a party of college educated, you know, middle to higher income people who will become more and more culturally distant from the party that is becoming increasingly lower education. Right. You know, so what do you do about that? I mean, you like purge the party and recruit a bunch of blue collar workers, give them a little bit of media training and throw them.
- [16:32]
Tim Miller
This is what I'm trying to tease out, right? Because you asked that question. It's like if you ask anybody in the squad Bernie world, their answer will be, well, policy, which is. But their policy answer is we need some socialism, whatever. We need more economically populist, whatever word you want to put on it. Bigger social safety, safety net. Like that's the answer to this question. If you ask your co host Matt Iglesias, he'll be like, well, no, it's policy. But it's more like we should, Democrats should be for drill, baby, drill and like guns or whatever. Like there should be cultural policy. And then you, I think you and me agree that like there's also just like a performance part of it. Like Democrats should actually recruit more working class people who can talk, who are more comfortable talking with other working class people, Ing language that they use and with references they use. It's like in that triangle of options, do they need to do all three, do you think? Could you get away with just doing one of them?
- [17:26]
Brian Beutler
I think you definitely need some mixture of all three. I think that what you first need to do is because there's this weird synthesis between the left and the center where they seem to agree that if the main thing is just to make people who are from the lower and middle classes feel like government is working in their material interests. And if you solve that problem, you will win back all the blue collar voters because they'll be grateful for the improved conditions. And I kind of think that like the 2024 election is proves that's like. Yeah. Or at least it's a strong mark against it. So I have a. Yeah, I think that's wrong.
- [18:05]
Tim Miller
I agree that Democrats should do that. Because that is good. It's just, it's a net good and to help people improve their material lives. But I don't think that that's. That's the skeleton key to beating the maga.
- [18:16]
Brian Beutler
Right? So put that out of your mind, or at least down weight how much you think that that is the skeleton key to politics, right? And then when something outrageous happens, Trump corruption scandal is exposed, or he's basically is pushing California to the brink of secession, whatever, actually get mad about it. Because when you talk to Democrats, particularly younger ones, who are feeling their way in the direction that we're talking about, but privately, they let their real emotions about what's happening come out. And a lot of the times when I'm having those conversations, like, you should just say that it's not the 1960s, 70s or 80s anymore, where if a politician says, damn, everyone gets all weirded out by it. If something has happened, that's outrageous. And the fact that Donald Trump has committed 11 billion impeachable offenses in the last six months is something that all Democrats are terrified to mention. It's just like, why, why be so scared of that idea?
- [19:17]
Tim Miller
Trump literally was calling the Democrats evil. I was thinking about this yesterday. It was like, it's like randomly at the prayer breakfast, he just does an aside where he's like, democrats are evil. And it's like that. And that's just part of his shtick, and he just. And it seeps in with people and it seeps in with voters. And it's like Democrats are afraid that if they do it, that one of the panelists on CNN will like, wag their finger at them and say, don't look down at Republican voters by saying they're evil. So it's just kind of like, why? What is the asymmetry here? Like, if it', like if Trump and the administration is doing evil shit, like call them fucking evil. All right, but to your point, right.
- [19:52]
Brian Beutler
Like, why do swing voters matter as a concept? They matter because both parties compete over the same pool of them. Right? So what Trump is doing worked a.
- [20:00]
Tim Miller
Little bit better because there's also a pool of swing voters who are either Republican or no vote or Democrat and no vote. Right? And then the swing. Then there's the middle pool.
- [20:10]
Brian Beutler
Yes, but like, however you want to group them, Trump did a little bit better than Democrats in the last election at reaching them. But, like, he. It wasn't with policy, it was with bombast. Right? And so it's like, if it works for him, then at least, you know, that there's no huge penalty to pay for popping off at the mouth a bit and not being so wrapped up in yourself that you can't express yourself like a normal person. So I think that those are like, step one, there's more to politics than just just governing. Well, step two, learn to talk like you would talk to your spouse or your best friends from college or high school or whatever about what's fucked up about what's happening in the world. And then third, and this is where I actually think, like, Matt makes his best point, which is it's about the Senate specifically, but it, I think it's a generalizable thing, is that if Democrats want to stop the, the slippage into authoritarianism, make the country more Democratic, they're going to need to win back the Senate. And they currently don't have a plan to do so because their brand, whether it's a policy problem or a interpersonal problem, is toxic in the states that you would need to win. Right. So what's the plan for winning? North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, whatever. And, and, and his emphasis, I think, is mostly on the policy changes you would, would need the party to tolerate in candidates from those states. So lax on guns, strict on the border, things like that. And I think that that's probably correct. But I think that what you want is not just like a new prescription, like this is the old agenda, here's the new agenda, but a method for peacemaking within the party so that the kinds of candidates who might win in North Carolina are willing to run. Right. Like, it's probably not going to be someone like Zoran Mandani. It's probably going to be someone like Roy Cooper. And you want that person to feel like, well, I'm going to run for Senate, I'm going to talk about how I'm more lax on guns than the rest of the party. And like the gun control movement, people are going to jump down my throat about it. What I've written about as a, like a, as a proposal for like intraparty peace isn't about finding the middle ground between policy, but it's about just like establishing grounds for good faith. Right. Like, I think that I would want not progressives, and I think that I think you're seeing this start to happen with people like AOC to, to have more grace for the kinds of candidates that you need to win in red and purple, red states. Right. Just like when they run on like, like from your state. If John Bel Edwards ran and he ran on being pro life, like don't make a big stink about it because it's important.
- [22:54]
Tim Miller
Maybe just make a big stink about it, but kind of just wink about it. Sure.
- [22:57]
Brian Beutler
I mean, be a politician, but. But so that's the give, like the take is that what they need to have grace for are things that are actually culturally important to the people who live in Louisiana or Texas or North Carolina. And to me, those are things like guns, like abortion. And they're not like what you end up getting from a lot of centrist Democrats like Kyrsten Sinema, which is like private equity concerns and, and, and like capital gains taxes. And then they're, they're claiming that it's no, I need to do this because my state is more conservative and you know, I'll get, I'll get run out of office if I don't do these things. It's like, no, that's not true. You're just mining for donor bucks and you're using the, your political challenges as covered to be a little bit soft corrupt. Right. And so that you want moderate leaders to say, we are not going to do that. Like, yes, we need the party to moderate on actual issues that matter to actual people in actual parts of the country that are more conservative than blue America. But not as a smokescreen to do crypto and AI and yeah, no, I think that's right.
- [24:04]
Tim Miller
My one more. And another thing on that we move on is also they got to be able to attack the main body of the party. And like, and you know, I think of all of my complaints about Joe Biden, which are myriad, like, my biggest one that does not like, get enough attention is like, once he decided to leave this, like sensitivity to being criticized, like what, you know, with. And you can like, this happened internally where there were like calls that like where. And part of this I think was Kamala wanted to be loyal, but part of this was like the Biden people were very sensitive to being criticized and like, didn't. Joe didn't want his legacy to be heard or whatever. And it's like, no, like to reach these guys that we're talking about that care about Epstein that think that there is a conspiracy happening, you need to be able to credibly run and say, I'm not part of that. And basically, and that was what worked for Obama in 08, he was able to credibly do that because he wasn't around for the Iraq war vote, basically. But also because of the nature of his name and a lot of reasons, he was like, I'm different. And then that's Trump. And you can't expect that you're going to be able to win over voters that voted for Trump in Texas for the Senate if they think that you don't have any legitimate criticisms of the Democrats. So your advice about how mad they need to be about Trump, I agree with that. You also need to. Whatever thing it is, I actually, I literally don't care what it is, but whatever thing it is that pisses you off about the Democrats, you need to be mad about that, too and make sure people know it, you know, so you. It doesn't seem as if you're a stooge.
- [25:35]
Brian Beutler
Yeah. Just like everything's been fine and we just had some bad luck or whatever. I mostly agree. I think that there are a couple distinctions I draw in that. One is like, the distinction between Biden per se, the person and the Democratic Party establishment, which is, you know, he's a part of, but is a bigger and in some ways easier to hate on thing than he, you know, like, and I mean, like, I sensed when he decided to run for president at 77 or whatever that there was a lot of ego here and that this could get us into trouble. And sure enough, I think that the Democrats who are torn about throwing Biden under the bus are just genuinely fond of the person. And it's tough.
- [26:15]
Tim Miller
And by the way, that was not me saying that, like, oh, the thing to do is throw Biden under the bus. And you can do it if you want. That's fine with me. I just meant, like, you can't be afraid to separate yourself from either by.
- [26:25]
Brian Beutler
Yeah, yeah, well. But like, to tie it back to what we've been talking about all along is that, you know, anyone who has ambition in the Democratic Party is going to be asked the Biden question. And I think that, like, just as in policy, all these people should stop and they should ask themselves, what do I really think about Joe Biden, the person, how he carried himself, what he did in office, how he handled the final year, how he's handled things since. And what do I want to say about it? And I think that what I've seen so far, you know, Mallory McMorrow and a few others, is just this, like, you know, consultants say throw Biden under bus. And so, like, all the nuance collapses out of that. And you're defining yourself in contrast to Biden. Right. It's a little bit shitty. And it's also, I don't think it scans as real because, like, like, you could probably go find quotes from most of those Democrats from literally just a year ago.
- [27:16]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [27:16]
Brian Beutler
Saying the opposite, you know, like, like, so you really need to know what you believe and then figure out how to articulate. That's quite so that's, so that's, that's the Biden versus the party, per se. I feel like give them a wide berth. I do see sometimes that candidates, especially when their races are really hard, they will go about this in ways that I think, think are maybe they're helpful in their, in their races. But they like, they are so cutting and mean about the Democratic Party. That's like, it hurts the rest of the party really badly. Right. Like so the one that sticks in.
- [27:52]
Tim Miller
My craw is Bernie saying the election was stolen from.
- [27:54]
Brian Beutler
Yeah, well, okay, okay. Jared Golden. I was Bernie talking about like at a time of unusual economic prosperity, how 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, which is a made up statistic, is not helpful. It's like you want your party to be able to run on the optimism of morning in America, not like, hey, sorry, it's been three and a half years and you're all still miserable. Right. So that's a good example. But Jared Goldin, his thing after the debate was this confirms my suspicion that Donald Trump is going to win the election. And I'm okay with that because I disagree with Democrats that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy is like, but whatever. It was one quote in one newspaper. So it wasn't like some, I didn't like that either. Major incident. But it validates the Republican critique that Democrats have Trump derangement syndrome and all their warnings about threats to democracy are opportunistic and fake or hysterical and you can just ignore them. And like, either he's stupid or he was like very cynical in doing that. And I think that like, you want people to be responsible enough to know like the difference between attacking the Democratic Party on grounds where it has legitimately failed or underperformed and attacking the Democratic Party with casual slander like they're all making up that they think Trump is a threat to democracy because the like the latter is damaging. The former is constructive.
- [29:16]
Tim Miller
A little harder than it sounds, it seems like. Brian.
- [29:18]
Brian Beutler
I know. I mean it's a, it's a maze.
- [29:22]
Tim Miller
All right, I've got to tell you about this game changing product's been a sponsor of us for a while. And it's something I use before a night out with drinks. It's called pre alcohol. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the Next day like I used to. You got to make a choice. I can either have a great night or a great next day. That is until I found Zebiotics pre alcohol. Let me tell you, if there's a surefire way to wake up feeling fresh after drinks with friends, it's with pre alcohol. Zebiotics Pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration. That's to blame for rough next days after drinking, pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. I think I told you the last time we were discussing this. My favorite pre alcohol story so far was superfan Audrey sent me a screenshot of a message from either a brother or brother in law. I forget. And they're planning the big family beach vacation and brother was listening to the pod or watched it on YouTube. Maybe after a few pops, heard the Zebiotics ad and like, you know, your boy, your boy's telling us this pre alcohol. And given what we got planned for beach week, I just ordered a lifetime supply. So take after them. You're going on a family vacation. You're going to need some wine to hang out with the fam. Get some pre alcohol so you're not as annoyed the next morning. Go to zebiotics.com thebullwork to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use the bulwark at checkout. Zebiotics is backed with a 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zebiotics.com thebullwork and use the code thebullwerk at checkout for 15% off. Let's get back to Epstein. Here's the easy part. Here's the easy part. Talk about Jeffrey Epstein. Listen to a Julie Brown interview so you know what the hell you're talking about. And let's use it as a cudgel as it should be used against Republicans. I want to play you this audio. It's a little mashup. People probably heard most of these, but it's. It's the attorney General, the FBI Director and the Deputy FBI Director in their own words, talking about the Epstein files. Please do not let that story go.
- [31:39]
Brian Beutler
Who has Jeffrey Epstein's black book? Black book FBI. But who that is that. I mean, there's. That's under direct control of the Director of the FBI. What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can't get the list. Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.
- [32:01]
Tim Miller
Who's on the Epstein tapes, folks? Who's on those tapes? Who's in those black books? Why have they been hiding it? And this is something Donald Trump has talked about. The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.
- [32:16]
Brian Beutler
Will that really happen? It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. Everything's going to come out to the public. The public has a right to know. Americans have a right to know.
- [32:30]
Tim Miller
I mean, they might be clowns, but it's the Attorney General, the FBI director and the Deputy Deputy Director, all passionately using Brian Buetler's advice, passionately advocating for the release of this material. The Democrats cannot just let this go. And I don't think they're going to.
- [32:46]
Brian Beutler
Here's one place where I do sympathize with Democrats, is that, like, what you're hearing from these guys is acting. They're pretending to. Maybe some of them are actually really down the rabbit hole, conspiracy theories. But every time something insane happens in Republican politics, you'll get a lot of liberals being like, can you imagine if a Democrat. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what I always want to say is, don't do the metacritique. Just have Democrats go out and act themselves. Like, be. Perform your anger. And I honestly would be horribly uncomfortable doing that as a. Like, that's just the kind of person I am. And I think probably Democrats are a.
- [33:22]
Tim Miller
Lot like you would. I'll do it right now. I will do it. I'll show you how to do it right now. FBI Director Cash Patel. You said that the FBI director has this information. These are pedophiles. There are real victims out there that were harmed by these powerful people. What are you hiding? Is it Donald Trump? Is it friends of Donald Trump that you're hiding? Come testify today and explain what happened, or were you lying then? Because those are the options. That's. That's easy. That's not performative. That's legit.
- [33:51]
Brian Beutler
So we're recording this Tuesday. I guess it comes out Tuesday. So whatever Tuesday Yesterday, Hakeem Jeffries, I think in two different places, finally came out and with. With something strong.
- [34:02]
Tim Miller
He was really good. Let's listen.
- [34:04]
C
There are only two things that are possible here. Option one, Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and the MAGA extremists intentionally lied to the American people for years about the Jeffrey Epstein situation. That's option one. Option two is that in fact, there's reason for the American people to be concerned as it relates to what information has not been released that could be damaging to the Trump administration and the friends and family of the Trump administration and their billionaire corrupt supporters. And so they're actively engaging in a cover up. Option one, they lied for years. Option two, they're engaging in a cover up. At this point, it seems reasonable. That can only be one of the two things.
- [35:10]
Tim Miller
He was good, yes.
- [35:11]
Brian Beutler
But you'll notice that the formulation he came up with, he came to it like a week after the podcast pros did. Like, as soon as Trump backed away from Epstein stuff and got Bondian Patel on board, they realized this is either you lied to us about pedophilia to get elected, or you're covering up up the fact that you're implicated in the pedophilia scandal. Which is it? We need to know. And like, when I recognize that that was the either or that Trump had presented, I was like, that's an important point. Democrats should jump on that. And I mean, I happen to know a little bit about how Democrats go about figuring out what to talk about and when and how to say it. And it's that, like, they waited for the focus group information to come back on whether they should talk about this and what they should say about it. And what they learned is essentially that, like, the Democratic Party standards that like, do best in focus groups still outperform Epstein stuff, but interest and engagement level is so much lower on that stuff that if you talk about Epstein, you reach so much farther. And that like, that outweighs the persuasive power of things like healthcare. And they had to wait for some sort of laboratory experiment to tell them that before they felt comfortable coming out and saying it. And this is the kind of impulse I want to unplug from the party, because I don't think, I think Hakeem Jeffries is a smart guy and I bet you he kind of knew that this was a decent approach and that he didn't actually need to wait seven days. That, like, literally as soon as Trump posted that crazy thing on Truth Social or whatever, that this was a good line to Use and.
- [36:52]
Tim Miller
But better late than never. They're doing it. So that's what happened yesterday. They added an amendment to, like, some crypto bill, I guess, about, you know, demanding that the files be released, which is like. It's kind of like, what are the files? Right? Like, it's not exactly like, there's like a. Just a ledger that lists all of the pedophiles, right? Like, the files include, like, you know, all of the investigations and the videos that were taken from Epstein's house and, you know, very. The redacted stuff of things that's already been released. So anyway, but they. They put an amendment through. Ralph Norman voted with them. Republican from South Carolina, Chip Roy, Republican from Texas, abstained. And so, like, you're getting close, right, to, like, actually forcing the hand. And so doing that kind of stuff, I think is important and meaningful and things will come out from all this. Right. The other example I always gave, which was I was so frustrated with Democrats and oversight the last time they were in charge, was I was like, there's a lot of mockery of the Benghazi hearings. You know, there's a lot of mockery of all of that sort of stuff. But that, like, in like, a weird indirect way, like, the Republican oversight hearings led to the Comey letter, right? Because it was like, oh, we realized that Anthony Weiner has a laptop with this. And then we looked at the lab, right? Like, you just, you. You never know what stuff will be uncovered. And, like, there is obviously more information and more people. We don't know who they are. Are they donors? Are they people that have gotten sweetheart deals with this administration? Does Trump show up in a weird kind of way that's a little bit gray? You know what I mean?
- [38:29]
Brian Beutler
Maybe he was interviewing. I mean, maybe the FBI interviewed him.
- [38:31]
Tim Miller
The answer might not just be like, Trump is on list, right? And Trump raped young girl. Like, maybe. I don't know. There have been a lot of accusations against Donald Trump, but there are a ton of other things that could lead to other distractions and problems, and it's worth playing in that pool and seeing what happens.
- [38:50]
Brian Beutler
So, I mean, what you said about Benghazi is literally true, is through the Benghazi investigation, that they found out that Hillary Clinton was using this email server, which started that investigation, which led to the initial Comey statement. Then they found the laptop. I mean, there was a through line and all that. And somewhere in the middle of that process, Kevin McCarthy came out and ruined his first bid for speaker, saying, remember how popular Hillary Clinton was at the beginning of this campaign, well, what did we do? We started a Benghazi select committee and look at what happened to her numbers. And back then there was still a little bit more shame in politics than there is now. So it ruined his. Like, Republicans were a little embarrassed that he had confessed to what the strategy was, but he was dead on. He was completely accurate. Right. I took a lot from that experience. And so when Democrats took over in 2019 and then did an impeachment over the Ukraine shakedown, there was a moment in that investigation where one of the witnesses, I think, attested that Trump had a bunch of other corrupt sounding conversations with international leaders that they stashed on this server that was improperly classified. And it was like, oh, they can blow this scandal wide open. And like the leadership shut down that avenue of inquiry. And it's like, why would you. Maybe that's the, that's the Hillary's emails in the. And they just, they like resist the temptation for the jugular. And it's related to what we were saying about waiting for the focus group information to come back. And like, I don't think Jeffries blew it. Like, time was not so much of the essence here. Like, he struck it while the iron was still plenty hot.
- [40:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, no, it was good. Yeah.
- [40:25]
Brian Beutler
And like, and like, and like, I think John Kennedy in the Senate that your senator was like, they're going to have to go back to the drawing board on this. But I would like Schumer now to say, like, we are going to introduce these new elements of obstruction until Republicans stop the Epstein cover up so that the story doesn't fizzle out because if they, if Democrats don't stay on it, it will eventually fizzle.
- [40:46]
Tim Miller
Another example of this just, I was listening to you talk about like kind of the foreign influence and stuff is like the crypto thing, which is something I'm obsessed with, like the Trump crypto coin and how that's gone away. And again, Democrats, like right now have limited avenues for like doing hearings and stuff since they're in the minority. Like, that's another thing that, like just going back to our original meta point, right? That like you could go on one of these bro shows because they do crypto, you know, go on with Portnoy or one of these fucking guys, you know, and, and talk crypto and be like, isn't it strange that the President has this coin and we don't know who's investing in it? Like, aren't you worried about that? You care about corruption? You like, you care about the Congressional stock, Congress. Congress, people investing in Palantir, and you're mad about that, or stocks or whatever. Nancy Pelosi got rich. It's like Trump's getting rich. We don't even. At least we know what Nancy Pelosi is invested in. We don't even know who's investing in him. And again, like, that is a type of thing that I, you know, you hear Democrats mention as a talking point, but, like, it's something that, like, you could go and sit down with somebody in 20 for 20 minutes and dig in and that starts to get, you know, their natural conspiratorial podcast mind percolating a little bit.
- [41:52]
Brian Beutler
And, Tim, don't you think it would have been better if instead of saying, hey, we need to placate the crypto barons, let's pass this bill and let's pass it, even though Republicans are blocking a provision that would prohibit Trump from owning. Being involved in the crypto industry, if instead of that, the senators who wanted to cave to crypto went on these shows and were like, look like we want to meet you where, but, like, first, isn't it weird that, like, they're not.
- [42:19]
Tim Miller
Should we have rules? Should we have rules about this so the president can't have anonymous. Anonymous investors in his coin? Because I'm with you. If we add that rule to this bill, I'm for it. Yeah, I totally agree. Could have done that. That's easy.
- [42:29]
Brian Beutler
He absolutely could have. And I think that, like, he probably would have been actually pretty good at it and. Yeah, but, you know, I also think that, like, there's a donor consideration that's kind of making it hard for them to see their own political interests clearly. But that would have just been better. It would have been good on, On. On harming Trump. It would have made the crypto bill better, and it would have given lots of Democrats easy inroads to these audiences who probably aren't super familiar with the legislative process or what's in the bill or whatever else.
- [42:59]
Tim Miller
And it's not too late.
- [43:00]
Brian Beutler
Nope.
- [43:01]
Tim Miller
And the bill's passed. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, it's not too.
- [43:03]
Brian Beutler
The issue's not dead to the Senate.
- [43:05]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's not too late. Like, you can do all this. You can reinvigorate all this stuff. I don't, you know, again, like, learn from Trump. Trump fucking brings up scandals from nine fake scandals from nine years ago. He's so good all the time. You know what I mean? And so, like, okay, just because we're not the guitar plane story. Is off of the front page of the Washington Post. Doesn't mean that you can't go talk about it to some fucking influencer. Anyway.
- [43:29]
Brian Beutler
Yeah.
- [43:32]
Tim Miller
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- [45:42]
Brian Beutler
So, so what I've written, and it's the best I've come up with so far, is really essentially to take a page from you guys. Back in 2010 at the Bulwark RNC, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.
- [45:57]
Tim Miller
Where are the jobs?
- [45:58]
Brian Beutler
Well, specifically, like Obamacare. Right. Democrats were fretting over the details of their bill, and Nancy Pelosi was like, we just need to pass the bill, then we'll implement it. People will be happy with it once they find out what's in it. And Republicans are like, obamacare means you own everything that happens in the health care system. Everyone whose insurance gets canceled. Every, you know, every cent that gets cut out of Medicare reimbursements will call it a Medicare cut and we'll blame you. Right. And I think that Trump has made Trump care now, and most of the harms of Trump Care are set to take effect at the end of or after his presidency. And so it's not going to be like, we wake up early next year and 10 million people lose their insurance all at once. But hospitals are already under strain. They're going to continue closing. Like honest healthcare executives will say the looming Medicaid cuts are making that happen faster every time a rural hospital closes. Trumpcare did this. Your member voted for Trump Care. Right. And it's not, like, always going to be the sexiest topic or the thing that gets you invited onto. Onto Joe Rogan's show or whatever, but I do think that, like, the sort of memeification of what the consequences of this bill will be will do a better job getting into people's head if they have a simple mnemonic for understanding what is changing about health care and who's responsible, which is what, essentially what Republicans did when they wanted Democrats to own every negative thing that happened to the health care system after Obamacare passed. And I think that Trumpcare offers, like, a pithier way to do it than, you know, I've heard you on your podcast, struggle with, like, whether we call it one big fugly slut or. And Democrats, because they're like, Trump care is the answer. I think it's Trumpcare. But Democrats are stuck on one big, beautiful betrayal, which makes no sense.
- [47:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Big ugly bill.
- [47:52]
Brian Beutler
Big ugly bill. Yeah. And, like, the beauty of just being like, okay, you passed the generational reform to the health care system, one that really sucks, and it's gonna hurt. A lot of people fold in the rest of the Trump health care policy. Like trumpcare is also cancer research being gutted. Trumpcare is also the problems that People with preexisting conditions will experience when their premiums go up because people drop out of the insurance exchanges. Like, there's a lot to work with here that isn't just in the text of the bill. And if I were a staffer for an ambitious Democrat, I would keep one eye out for any healthcare story that was even, like, loosely connected to Trump administration policy or this bill and just be like, hey, Trump care claims another victim. That's me cooking. Like, there's. There may be better, better ideas out there. I also feel like, and I think I know this issue matters to you a lot. They should be thinking now about what they're going to do about. Oh, I like, look like, I honestly.
- [48:53]
Tim Miller
I didn't know where you were going to go. What did she manage out? Immigration, El Salvador.
- [48:57]
Brian Beutler
I'm thinking of, like, the $150 billion for ICE in the prisons. But I think the debt, in a weird way, might.
- [49:04]
Tim Miller
I have a number of issues that I care about, Brian. I just, I thought it'd be funny for me to say the debt, because I knew that isn't what you were going to do.
- [49:10]
Brian Beutler
But it might help Democrats on its own. If debt leads to inflation, leads to.
- [49:15]
Tim Miller
Stagflation, interest rates, high interest rates, really.
- [49:19]
Brian Beutler
It could save democracy that Trump is being so reckless fiscally. But they should be thinking about, like, the new politics of immigration that have transformed because of these raids, the stories about Alligator Alcatraz. Like, suddenly Trump is way underwater here and he's just about to start building this secret police force and this gulag archipelago. And, you know, either either people are going to rebel further against him on this stuff as it becomes a nationwide infestation, or they're going to get used to it. And I think, think I would want Democrats to, like, get out of the fetal position on immigration and think about how to go on the front foot now, because otherwise they're going to inherit this situation at some point in the future and either have to dismantle it, or this enormous police force is going to be, like, controlling their politics in the same way. Like, corrupt city police forces sometimes undermine mayors, but if they don't get their money and their enforcement priorities met.
- [50:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah, this is, and I obviously agree with you on that, and Democrats should be on the front foot on this. And this goes back to our main topic of the day, our overarching topic, which is like, nothing is a distraction, actually. You can use anything that he wants to use a distraction to your benefit now that he is the president. Right. And if he Wants to talk about fucking Greenland. He's talking about Greenland instead of solving your fucking problems. And so let's engage on Greenland and fucking mock him over it. If he wants to do, you know, build a fucking, you know, gulag in the Everglades. Okay, well, like, he can do that if he wants, but he could have built housing that was going to be more affordable for you. Right. Like, if a Democrats are. So if they buy the frame that you and I don't buy, which is they have to pivot things back to kitchen table issues, you can still use it within these conversations. Right. Like, I liked Michael Tomaski wrote in the TNR the other day that they're spending four times as much on immigration detention centers as is in the budget for low income housing. I think that's like a legit populist economic issue and way to get into this in a way that people get. That's an easy talk. And people, do we really want that? Do people really want that? Sure, the Stephen Miller accolades do, but a lot of people don't. And so I do think there's a way to get into these issues that way.
- [51:38]
Brian Beutler
If I could talk to Hakeem Jeffries or like a swing state Democrat or, you know, somebody who's being really like, careful. Yeah. Probably am tiptoeing around the issue, I'd be like, this policy is essentially disembodied Stephen Miller. Right. Like, it is his DNA that's flowing into these policies. Look at Stephen Miller. Listen to him. Can you think of a less appealing person? Why are you scared to take Stephen Miller on? I mean, like the most defeatable person in the, in the world of politics. And, and you think that he's got you in checkmate or something like this. Like, like, I, I, I suspect that there are ways, because this is a question of tyranny versus liberty beyond like housing and economics, that there are ways for Democrats to take the issue on frontally.
- [52:26]
Tim Miller
Amen.
- [52:27]
Brian Beutler
But if to the extent that you're still scared of, of like being like, and that means that we're going to have to do something else with undocumented immigrants and that means that they're going to stay and you don't want to end up having to cop to that, sure. What you said is totally true, is like, why would we spend $150 billion on concentration camps, but like less than 10 billion on housing, the biggest, the biggest economic crisis the country's facing. Right.
- [52:54]
Tim Miller
Can we do a little zoron talk?
- [52:56]
Brian Beutler
Of course.
- [52:56]
Tim Miller
Since you're the house, you're going to be the house lib for the day. Where are you at on it? I just want to get an open. Do you have concerns opportunity? Are you excited? Both. Do you have complex feelings about them?
- [53:09]
Brian Beutler
Yeah, I think I'm a little bit more on the like, let's let this guy cook side of things than you and your co hosts at the Bulwark.
- [53:17]
Tim Miller
He was at nowadays you get excited. He was at the hipster hangout in Brooklyn. Everybody got a lot of cheers.
- [53:24]
Brian Beutler
Oh man. I'm in Washington D.C. we don't even know about nowadays anymore. Washington D.C. is so, is so over. It's cooked. So I could see like a literal implementation of everything on the Zoron agenda not working out so well. I really do hope he is prepared. Like, has thought through what he's going to do. Not just about how the general election race is going to go, but like the corrupt and abusive act of retribution that he and the city are going to come under because he is in the right wing's imagination a perfect foil for them and they, they want to make him famous. So he needs to be likable and charming and clean, you know, uncorrupted so that when that comes, like he's. People watching are like, wait, that guy seems totally nice and normal. Why are they abusing him? And also like, what are you going to do to protect the people there if Trump comes after them? So that's my, that's my reservation about him becoming mayor. I don't know that there's anything he can do about it. And it's like, I feel a little bit like it's victim blaming to put that all on him because honestly, like it should be a scandal that the Justice Department or whatever might come after the mayor of New York and the federal government might crush New York City because they want to raise the profile of somebody who calls himself a democratic socialist. It's like, it's pretty gross.
- [54:43]
Tim Miller
Have you fought with Matt about his Eric Adams, his quasi Eric Adams endorsement?
- [54:48]
Brian Beutler
No. No, I, I think Matt is being a pretty relative to, to a lot of other Democrats who are in full Mamdani freakout mode. I think Matt has been pretty mature about the situation. Like, I think he, I think his view is basically like, like I don't think this is going to work out great as a, as a substantive matter, but I hope I'm wrong. And the Democrats who are trying to like simultaneously claim to be big tent Democrats and also trying to push Mamdani out of the party should shut the fuck up. And I think that that is a good place for people in the moderate camp to be.
- [55:22]
Tim Miller
This takes us back to that original triangle question about what the Democrats solution is and how did. Is it you got to pivot to the right on cultural issues, you got to pivot to left on economics or the vibe's got to be different and he's kind of two of the three in those potential options. And I wonder what's your answer to the question of could there have been a. I don't even know that I want to brand their politics. Somebody with Pete's politics that ran that got the same level of excitement. Was it necessary for Zoran to be a Democratic socialist to have that level of enthusiasm in New York? Or was his campaign, was the strategy that he employed enough that you could have glommed on a different ideology onto it and still would have worked?
- [56:11]
Brian Beutler
I'm going to speak from intuition because I, I suspect that Mamdani would have won on the same platform if he had never been a part of the Democratic Socialists. But I'm not sure that his margin would have been as big. But it's possible that my instincts are wrong and that he would have actually done even better if he had just been like a progressive who was young, charming, literate online, same charisma, same star power. Just he. He thought of himself as like an FDR Democrat instead of a Democratic socialist. Sure, but in an enclave like New York City it might have helped him. That's just where my gut is on that. I think Pete shows it on a national level. You can be more mainline and have serious reservations about socialism or people who identify as Democratic Socialists and still get big crowds and still inspire a lot of people. Like I don't know if Pete would win a presidential election, but he can definitely fill an auditorium.
- [57:09]
Tim Miller
That's the thing that worries me about Zoran is like. And I love Pete, but Pete appeals to a certain demo. It's like what I don't want is 25 year old progressives to become. It's like AOC or Zoran or nothing. The only way to excite me is through that. Because I think that ARC and Zoran totally work in New York. Whether he'll be a good mayor or not remains to be seen. I've hashed out my various reservations about him, the things that I think that he did well. But like obviously Zoran or AOC are not going to win like Wisconsin. I think we can in 2028 at least. I don't know what the future holds. Maybe you know, I guess Donald Trump could send us into a Great Depression and AOC could win Wisconsin potentially. I would say Zoran can't run for president. But I guess my question is like, that's the thing that worries me about him more than like any actual specific policies like that. Something like New York is resilient. New York's had plenty of bad mayors. If he ends up being a bad mayor, New York will be fine four years later. But like, I worry that like, young Democrats, like really kind of glom on to this and like anything else seems like a sellout. And it's hard to like channel any sort of excitement that crosses the whole breadth of the party. Like that's like the meta concern I have about, about the Mamdani mania.
- [58:26]
Brian Beutler
I can see that. I think that a lot of Democrats, any, any young Democrats who try to emulate Mamdani in, in cities or districts or whatever that don't have New York City style politics are going to find out pretty quickly that it's not a universal thing. And then there are going to be others like Kat Abu Gazella is running in a very progressive district. That might work. I do think that AOC and Mamdani have a kind of star power that is a little bit hard to maybe they could become president because presidential elections tend to be like, like closely run things and they're super charismatic. But if you tried to run somebody with Joe Biden levels of charisma on that platform, it might not work out so great. I wrote in my Tuesday piece, it's about like, what policy and politics can do about the epidemic of loneliness. And like, spoiler behind the paywall is that I was like, the way I would like to see Democrats.
- [59:22]
Tim Miller
Thank you for providing the bulwark listeners some behind the paywall material. Material we appreciate.
- [59:27]
Brian Beutler
Reward me with your subscriptions.
- [59:28]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [59:29]
Brian Beutler
The, the way I would like to see Democrats learn from Mom Donnie more than just like, let's, let's say we're Democratic socialists just like he did and it'll be, it'll be magic and we'll win our primaries and then lose the general election is like, what would Zoran Mamdani have run on if the animating issue in that race had been loneliness as opposed to cost of living. Obviously those are overlapping issues, but. And I think that instead of being like, here's a 10 point plan for loneliness, he would have said four day work week. And like, that would have been the thing that, that people glommed onto, like, yes, he gets it. Like, we're lonely. Because we're exhausted because we work too hard. And we need, like, leaders. We don't have a labor movement that'll do this for us. We need leaders who will champion something like that. I mean, it could be a bunch of other things. It should be like, taxing the tech oligarchy for mining our brain. Brains for attention and making us miserable.
- [60:20]
Tim Miller
Like, come on, keep giving me one. I might like. All right, the second one was better than the first one. Where are we going more?
- [60:25]
Brian Beutler
Okay, spend that money on, on, like, community investment, but for. So that people can congregate and party and do extracurricular activities that are subsidized and that you can walk to. And, like, you could do that. Obviously, that's not just an urban thing, like hunting excursions in rural America. Like, like, like things so that you're hanging out with people instead of on your screen. But ultimately, like, I think it's mostly having somebody who has charisma, who makes clear through the way they campaign that they care about this and that they're, like, in this to heal the country's soul. Like, that will just attract people and then, like, give them a leg up in the primary. And it's an important issue. And so, like, not how would the center for American Progress or Harvard take on the loneliness problem, but how would Mamdani do it? And I think that something good might come out of that. And it doesn't have to be the ideas I wrote about in my piece by any stretch.
- [61:25]
Tim Miller
I'm trying to think about socialist policies for loneliness I could get behind. How about capping the amount of data you could use in a given day on your phone, forcing them to jailbreak phones in order to be on the more you can text, you can call, but you know you've only got three hours.
- [61:46]
Brian Beutler
That's very anti abundance of you. I would come up, I would come out about this in ways where one thing I think is that if. If anyone who cared about this issue decided to run at it by saying, we're going to take away your phones, the people who are made miserable by their phones would be furious. They'd be like, don't you dare take away my phone.
- [62:05]
Tim Miller
Right?
- [62:05]
Brian Beutler
If you tell people, like, we're not here to take away your phones, but we all kind of agreed that the phones are making us unhappy. And so here's some resources that make it easier for you to choose to be off your phone or off your screen or off your gaming console or whatever. And I think that there are probably policy is going to be A so so lever for this, but a political leader who tries to elevate the issue, make enemies of the people who are making us miserable. That'll resonate. I think there are a lot of people who are.
- [62:36]
Tim Miller
I like this. I'm worried that it's like a heat seeking missile targeted towards elder millennials who remember life before the phone. And maybe it might not be as popular as 27 year olds, but I'm open as like you, I'm anti Democrats obsessing over focus groups and polls and stuff. And just fucking like speak from your gut and have passion and let it rip. Like it's like the right thing to do. 90% of the cases this might be one where like, yeah, I don't know. I want to see some data hunting it. Yeah.
- [63:04]
Brian Beutler
And I mean like what you said about our age is actually a point I wanted to make is like the one, the one way Mom, Donnie is a bad representative. Representative of this like attention problem, this loneliness problem is that his campaign was super online and super algorithm forward or whatever. But I think that like what you were saying about people our age is like related to this problem Democrats have communicating. Because like Mamdani, aoc, Maxwell Frost, maybe a couple others like, right. They didn't have to adapt. Like the Internet happened when we were kids. So we're the generation that was like really cavalier about phones and the Internet. Like we posted photos of ourselves piss drunk online, got in problem like this was like late 2000s, early 2010s, and we didn't really feel the distinction between private and public lives. Most elected Democrats are older than us. And so the problem was even worse for them. And then so when we all started realizing that this was like a double edged sword or like a, like everything we did online was in some way public. We all kind of clammed up and everyone got scared of saying anything out of context because who knows when the cameras are rolling or whatever. And like Mamdani and aoc like didn't really need to adapt in the same way to that change. That was just life for them. So they're super comfortable in all realms. Public life, like giving a speech or talking to a stranger on the street. You know, they're not like liable to, to do something stupid like be drunk or say something vulgar, but they're just really comfortable in their own skin. And I don't know how you teach somebody who's our age, let alone in their 50s, 60s, 70s, to have that, because the Internet really did come around in our lifetimes. But it would I think help address some of these problems. And then and once you have that, I think that a lot of the other like how should we campaign on any issue including loneliness or the attention economy becomes more it just becomes easier because once you know what you believe, you also know how to articulate it in an Internet friendly way.
- [65:12]
Tim Miller
All right, the substack is off message. I'll keep reading it. Next time you do something really good, you can come back on the podcast. It'll be a camera, carrots and sticks treatment of your newsletter writing, kind of sitting in the back. Sitting in the back of your head. Everybody else, I will be back here tomorrow for another edition of the board podcast and we'll see y' all then. Peace.
- [65:30]
D
I don't need no more distractions but I'm gas to see what might happen One pass can grab me all access two glasses filled with old fashioned tree leaves Luigi Green passion drinks and see where you hot I got got snacks four keeps I play like Maurice my a little freak she plays me like Candace G5LB from Long Scandalous sick mind I think I need counseling Stanza balls and bad habits 9 lies and sphinx no catfish 10 man a heart is what I'm after 1 and 1 the force is like magnet hope 12 don't stop me in traffic Bad luck I don't need at 13 I was playing drums for the Baptist Counting on you and you counting on me Numbers don't lie when the truth is a lie that'll set your face Counting on you and count on me as you and me baby come be my one and only.
- [66:39]
Tim Miller
The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.