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- [00:08]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Stick around at the end. We've got a mail bag for dealing with Thanksgiving family members coming your way. But first, I'm so thrilled to have George Will columnist for the Washington Post. The Post is honoring his writing and his legacy this week on the 50th anniversary of his tenure at the paper with a series of tributes, including by our own Mona Charon. And there was also a delightful quiz with George Will quotes that I'd recommend that you take. I did just so so on it. His books include American Happiness and Discontents and the Conservative Sensibility. Welcome back to the Bulwark Podcast, George Will. How you doing?
- [00:47]
George Will
I'm doing very well. How about you?
- [00:50]
Tim Miller
I'm okay. I'm okay. My puckish impulse required that I wear this denim shirt, so I apologize for that in advance, but I just couldn't help myself this morning.
- [00:59]
George Will
I've written, I don't know, somewhere between five and 6,000 columns, and that's the one people remember most is my harangue against the ubiquity of denim.
- [01:08]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that's maybe not the one I remember most, but it does stick with you. It does stick with you for sure. I want to spend a bunch of time on your columns and your career. But alas, we are tormented to live in interesting times. And I need to start with a little bit of news, if that's okay. To get your response to we have the latest decree from our new President elect on his social media feed. I'm going to read it to you on January 20th as one of my many first executive orders. So so on the grammar there, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% tariff on all products coming into the United States and its ridiculous open borders. The tariff will main in effect until such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country. Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem. We hereby demand that they use this power and until such time that they do, it's time for them to pay a very big price. Wondering what your thoughts are on that?
- [02:11]
George Will
Well, first thought is so much for those who said his threats were just negotiating ploys. Second, the country is going to be rudely awakened to the fact that Congress has, through its lassitude, conferred upon Presidents enormous powers that are actually vested by the Constitution and Congress that Congress has the power to regulate trade with foreign nations. Third, he hasn't even begun to get to the bottom of the bag of tricks the modern president can have because of excessive delegations of power from Congress. That is, I don't know. I think we're operating as a Nation, something like 41 emergencies right now. Congress has allows presidents to declare emergencies, at which point they acquire an enormous discretion. My hope for the next four years is that they revive Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike. It's been a bipartisan failure, this encrusting so many barnacles, the presidency, with all kinds of discretions and powers they should not have. So my hope is that we're going to have a rethinking of the presidency itself and the Democrats particularly, who, being progressives and progressives, celebrate executive power, untrammeled executive power and the administrative state and all that that Republicans and Democrats are going to rethink how we might reestablish the Madisonian equilibrium between the branches.
- [03:44]
Tim Miller
Is that a wish or an expectation? I guess because it feels more like a wish to me, but I would love to be convinced otherwise.
- [03:52]
George Will
It is a wish. But what Madison said was that the branches should be rivalrous. He didn't anticipate the coming of the party system and the coming of a presidential centric politics under which the president's party in Congress is considered mere appendages to salute sharply and tug their forelocks and implement his agenda. My 19th century Whiggish belief builds upon Madison's belief in the primacy of the legislature. The Congress is the first branch of government, is Article 1 for a reason. In the Constitution, the president's powers are basically, at least in domestic affairs, to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That makes him secondary and responsive to the first branch of government, the Congress. So you ask, is this the wish? Being father to the thought, yes. But it's a wish that I think Mr. Trump, by the curious laws of political physics, is apt to provoke every action having an equal and opposite reaction.
- [05:05]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I hope that's right. And I do appreciate your sunny disposition. It provides a nice balance to the more negative thoughts that usually pervade here at the Bulwark. So I do just kind of want to get underneath the potential negatives. I mean, you implied there in the first answer that this is just the beginning of the potential bag of tricks. If Congress were not to act on the Madisonian impulse and were to decide not to check him. What. What do you worry about most from the executive branch in a second Trump term?
- [05:38]
George Will
A recession that will cause the grass to grow in the streets of American cities. That is, if he were to implement across the board tariffs, 10, 20%. The numbers he's thrown out during the campaign were simply whims and reflexes on his part. But were he to do this, he would wreck the trading system, he would wreck the supply chains, he would cause enormous disruptions and be a. I was going to say be a one term president. He's going to be that anyway. But he could on day one, as you just read his first threat or promise or fulfillment of his mandate, call it what you will, on day one, he's going to begin to revive the Democratic Party.
- [06:21]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I should add that in addition to that long post bleat that he sent about Mexico and Canada, he also said that he plans to do an additional 10% tariff on China across the board. So that is our new conservative governance. We're gonna get to that in a second. I'm curious your thoughts also just on the Cabinet from a big picture standpoint. You wrote about the need for the Senate to reject Gates, Hegseth, Gabbard and Kennedy in a recent column. I liked how you called Gates a arrested development adolescence with the swagger of a sequined guitarist in a low rent casino. It was nice that you got that one off before he left. Exited stage. Right. But I'm wondering, since you've written that column, there's been, you know, a spate of other picks. I was kind of wondering your big picture thoughts on the. On what, what the Cabinet choices tell us.
- [07:09]
George Will
Well, it's a. It's a sharply divided Cabinet. There, there are the four there who simply should not be confirmed or not qualified by experience or thought. The new treasury secretary, from what little I read about him, is a skeptic about protectionism, which should make for some interesting dialogues between the White House and the treasury building right next door. The new Energy secretary, I've forgotten his name, but he gets very good reviews. Agriculture Secretary if we're going to have one. She seems perfectly adequate. I tend to think that Lincoln's biggest mistake was not sticking with General McClellan too long, but in creating the Agriculture Department. But there it is. It's like the Education Department. What can you do about it?
- [07:55]
Tim Miller
Was Lincoln's biggest mistake not keeping his first vice president? I believe that was maybe his biggest mistake. Sticking with Hannibal Hamlin.
- [08:02]
George Will
That was a big one. We'll take Andrew Johnson, the agriculture department and McClellan. You can pick the big three of his mistakes.
- [08:12]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [08:13]
George Will
I'm from Central Illinois, Lincoln country. And we don't admit to a fourth.
- [08:18]
Tim Miller
Fair Chris Wright is energy Secretary. I was blanking on his name too. I worry about the foreign policy picks the most and I'd throw in there the NATO ambassador. Matt Whitaker, who is an absurd selection for NATO ambassador, I'm confident cannot name the NATO member countries or couldn't at least before his nomination. And I just, I'm interested in your view on no matter how this kind of shakes out. Do you think that the American led international order is now permanently broken? I guess. Would be this the simplest way to put it?
- [08:52]
George Will
Not yet. Not yet. And it could be again, let go back to our the physics of politics. It could be that Mr. Trump is going to, through sheer terror, galvanize a more responsible defense commitment to Europe's self defense. We shall see getting all those nations above the 2% of GDP spent on defense. I share entirely your belief that everything else pales next to the Axis. We're now confronting Iran, North Korea, China and Russia. I believe it is not too much to say that historians looking back on this might say that we're already in the early stages of a Third World War. A lot of Americans I think tend to think the Second World War started at Pearl Harbor. Some others with a more spacious view of history say no, it was when the Germans invaded Poland on 1st September 1939. Others would say, well, it was the great rehearsal in the Spanish Civil War when Germany and Italy intervened there or when Italy invaded Abyssinia as Ethiopia then was in 1935. Actually, it seems to me a number of historians say the coming together, the clustering of crises that became World War II began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. We can imagine historians several generations from now saying that a serious world conflagration began five or six years ago, began perhaps they would say with the Russia's annexation of Crimea.
- [10:35]
Tim Miller
What has been made clear I guess at this point is that maybe the American led world order can maintain, maybe our alliances can maintain. But if you're taking the view from Europe and watching us looking back at us, you cannot look at us and think of us as a reliable partner, I guess at this point anymore. And it's very clear that like the American public does not care that much about its international commitments, at least a plurality of them. And so does that not change their actions? And I guess you kind of implied it also is potentially influencing the actions of the Axis powers. I just, I wonder what you think about that.
- [11:14]
George Will
I don't want to say that isolationism is the default position of the American people. That would be too strong. But against the sweep of American American history. If you go back to 1938 and 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt carefully, not to say guilefully, maneuvered the United States into engagement in the Second World War, the American people, what they generally want from foreign policy is as little of it as possible. And you can understand this. It goes way back to the broad oceans and the two placid neighbors that we have, in the general sense, that predates intercontinental flight and. And ICBMs and all the rest, that we are somehow safe. The period between 1940, 41 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 does look like an aberrant period. However, I think it is possible for political leadership to convince the American people that what they do care about constantly, which is prosperity, full employment, rapid economic growth, rapid enough to throw off the revenues to pay the bills for the entitlement system. That depends, absolutely depends, on free trade. We're going to have to have an enormous argument now about protectionism, which is, as I and others have said, equivalent to a nation blockading its own ports. The President Elect really seems to believe that if he imposes tariffs on Chinese goods, China pays the tariffs, which is, of course, preposterous. The point of protectionism is to raise domestic prices. That is what they're for. And the American people, it seems to me, if they get a good jolt of protectionism, might swing back to understanding that the great burst of American prosperity at the end of the depression, right through 2024, had to do with. Was absolutely dependent upon international trade.
- [13:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, I believe that to be true. I hope it's true that it gives the jolt people need. My friend Stephen Richer, who acted very admirably as a recorder in Maricopa county amidst all the Carrie Lake and Donald Trump nonsense, he sent a tweet a couple months ago that stuck with me. I went back and found it said, we've gone from the party of George Will to the party of Cat Turd. I want to upgrade that in a sad way, which is the party of Cat Turd was successful. And I do wonder how you process that this party that you were so central to left you at least ideologically, principally in what you're just discussing with free trade, but across a number of issues and dumbed itself down. And that worked. That's got to be a little bit of a depressing realization.
- [14:17]
George Will
I would destroy my reputation if I became a little ray of sunshine. But let me still look on the bright side, which I'm not accustomed to doing okay. There is an equipoise in our politics that is going to take hold here. The Democratic Party is capable of learning it has done in the past. The Republican Party is capable of learning it has done in the past. And the good news about the bad news about Mr. Trump is this. The bad news is he showed how one feral candidate can change the tone of the country. I think it is possible that a non feral candidate, someone with the opposite of his approach to public rhetoric, could change it back. I do think that the country is ripe for, and four years from now will really be ripe for what I would call a deep breath candidate. Someone who comes to the country and says, deep breath, everybody relax. Been through worse before. Who says, as Lincoln did at the end of his first inaugural, we are not enemies, we are friends, we must not be enemies. See, I just don't believe the American people are angry. There are 334 million of us at any point. 324 million are not watching cable television, not listening to talk radio. They're getting on with life. They're exhausted and embarrassed by our public life. And someone needs to come along who says, as Bill Lee, the governor of Tennessee, said, I'm a conservative. I'm just not angry about it. And I think you're going to find that there's a market out there, that our political parties are exquisitely sensitive market mechanisms and they adjust quickly. The Democratic Party, they're going to learn, their vocabulary is going to get cleaned up. As I say, we've been through worse before. I've just been reading a whole bunch of books about the 1850s, and I recommend that as an antidote to exaggerating the dangers that we're currently in.
- [16:23]
Tim Miller
I don't know that I'm exaggerating the dangers, but I think I pretty clearly see the sins, the flaws, the darkness that allowed us to get here. I wonder how you think about that. I'm doing my best to just bring you down from the sunniness into the night here a little bit. And you may be right. Maybe Sunny Optimist can take us out of this in 2028, but it still says something about, I think, us as a country and the conservative movement in particular that we got here. And so I wonder if you look back on that 50 years and think, is there anything that you look back on and think, ugh, I should have seen that this was heading to this place.
- [17:05]
George Will
I became a columnist in January 1973, actually, with national Review and beginning to submit columns to the Post. January 1973 was when Judge Sirica in Washington began to impose draconian sentences on the Watergate burglars in an attempt, a successful attempt, to crack the COVID up. So I dipped my toe into punditry just as the Watergate waves were rising. So maybe I'm inured to the fact that there is much ruin in a nation and we have our fair share of it. But again, protectionism doesn't work. It's morally wrong to interfere with free transactions of free people. But leave that aside. It doesn't work. The Democrats have found out what doesn't work. Hectoring people, a kind of hectoring progressivism, doesn't work. They will adjust. And we learn as a nation, as individuals, by our mistakes, our blunders. And the Democrats have made whopping one, and we're still making one on the Republican side. But we are creatures who learn. That's the foundation, such as it is, of my sunniness. We learn by trial and hard error, but we learn.
- [18:28]
Tim Miller
One thing I learned about you reading the anniversary columns in the Post that I didn't know I'm from Colorado, was that you were working for a Colorado senator, actually, around the time that you just referenced, I guess a little before 73, who ends up losing in part maybe because Nixon. Nixon's coattails weren't as long as they could have been. And you end up in this early period around Watergate and around impeachment, being a young conservative columnist who is harshly critical of Nixon from the right. So there is sort of a bookend element to this that you are now critical of Trump. Talk to me just about that moment. And what gave you the chutzpah to do that? We see now, that's a lot harder than it seems.
- [19:16]
George Will
Well, it's funny because with National Review, National Review, which I was writing for at the time, beginning in January 1973, was then even more than now, I think, supported in part by contributions. And some of the contributors didn't really warm to Nixon until he got into trouble. And National Review would do, as I recall, it's been a long time. They would do an analysis of the mail they got, and they had a category called subscription cancellations in George Will. They were the same thing because I was annoying people. Bill, to his enormous credit with this financially shaky enterprise, this magazine that he'd started in 1955, Bill never once tried to restrain what I was writing about Mr. Nixon. I'm deeply indebted to him for that. And it's a sign of what a large person Bill was.
- [20:14]
Tim Miller
I appreciate your Compliments of him. But this is maybe one moment to give some self congratulation. We'll allow it for just the next one minute. What do you think it was about George Will that gave you the spine to twice speak out in ways that went against the grain of the party? And we've seen many of your peers, from just speaking to the Trump era, the Nixon eras, before my time. But many of your peers, the columnists, the commentators who agree with you, who are classically liberal, who believe in enlightenment values and who succumbed to Trump, and I don't need to name them all, we all know them. What do you think it was that made you differentiate from that?
- [20:57]
George Will
Well, let's go backward to start with Trump. Trump was a not a close call.
- [21:02]
Tim Miller
Amen.
- [21:03]
George Will
As I wrote at the time, with every sulfuric belch from his campaign in 2015, it was obvious that this man was unsuited for what he was trying to be. And at that point, I was an established columnist and I didn't need to worry very much. Maybe back in 1973, I was too naive to understand I was taking a risk, but what's the point of doing this if you don't say what you think? If I wanted to be in politics, I know how to do that. I could have stayed in politics. I was a Senate staff member and I had a chance to continue being a political staffer, but I chose to be a writer. And what's the point of writing if you're not free to express yourself? I just. I wouldn't do it otherwise. Just makes no sense.
- [21:52]
Tim Miller
Maybe you hit the sweet spot, right? You're young and brash for Nixon and seasoned for Trump, though. I guess that does. There are plenty of seasoned people who went along with Trump, so I guess that would let some people off the hook.
- [22:05]
George Will
The most important virtue you can have as a political writer is a certain indifference to public opinion. Jefferson wrote in the Declaration about a decent respect for the opinion of mankind, implying that there's such a thing as an indecent respect for public opinion. Just try to avoid that.
- [22:25]
Tim Miller
Bill Clinton had famously said in a State of the Union, while trying to recover his political fortunes of the era of big government is over. It's hard not to sit here right now and think that the era of small government is over. Do you disagree with that?
- [22:39]
George Will
The era of small government was over in 1965 with passage of Medicare and Medicaid. The two most popular programs in America are Medicare and Social Security, and they combined with Medicaid, are about 70% of the budget. We have made a decision as a people that we're going to have a large ethic of common provision. There's going to be a safety net of increasing thickness. That argument's over. I've backed enough lost causes that I know a lost cause when I see one. And the idea that we're going to undo the welfare state is preposterous. Still, there are intelligent ways of having a big government. There are unintelligent ways. We're still living with the echo of the Great society of the 1960s in, it seems to me, family disintegration and chaotic neighborhoods. The conservative mission now is to make a government that does embody an ethic of common provision, compatible with vigorous local communities, compatible with federalism, compatible with experiments at the state level. That's still a great and stately mission for conservatism.
- [24:03]
Tim Miller
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- [27:00]
George Will
Well, the Jones act, which I won't bore your listeners with, which restricts to certain kinds of ships, what we can goods that can be carried between American ports. That would start the Buy American provisions would be part of them. A radical simplification of the tax code. I mean, if these guys were really radical, they could try and say let's get rid of the income tax and have a consumption tax. That would be worth considering.
- [27:28]
Tim Miller
I mean, that would be regressive. No, that doesn't give you any doubt.
- [27:33]
George Will
You can fiddle it in lots of ways to make it less regressive, but I don't particularly mind regressive taxes. The title of a very famous book about 60 years ago is called the Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation.
- [27:45]
Tim Miller
I know this is where I might have gone fully native now that Trump might have caused A reaction in me. But here in Louisiana, we have a. We've increased the sales tax and cut the income tax by another percent. And I'm thinking, I don't know, I'd rather not have that extra couple grand and not make people pay extra. An extra few cents on their Coke or on their orange juice or whatever. Is that right? Am I of. Am I a hopeless progressive now?
- [28:11]
George Will
No, no, no, That's. Well, the conservative catechism is more elastic than that, so you won't be excommunicated for that. But the one thing that the Trump administration might do, which is take on the most wicked. I use such language sparingly. The most wicked force in American life are the teachers unions. And the best thing that can be done. And enormous progress has been made in the last five, ten years to spread school choice everywhere. Arizona under Governor Doug Ducey, good Republican, has really shown the way, but other states are not far behind. Universal school choice is the best thing we could do for the United States.
- [28:54]
Tim Miller
I do think, sir, that the Trump administration is going to challenge that notion, and I think that they will find some more wicked forces within us. Though I don't necessarily disagree with the policy recommendation, I'm concerned about the wickedness ahead. I want to end a little happier. Note, though, you wrote this in 1991 about happiness. Politics is not crucial to the principal ingredients of happiness. Cheerful children, feisty friends, fulfilling work, and a strong bullpen with the things that you said were crucial. Many of our listeners, I think, are struggling on this point right now, not letting politics impact their happiness. So I'm just wondering if you'd like to revise and extend Those remarks with 33 more years of wisdom.
- [29:36]
George Will
Not really. Look, a good citizen worries about the country, and there's much to worry about here. But as I say, protectionism and all the rest is going to refute itself. The Democrats have learned just the high risk of crossing certain red lines and the sensibility of the American people. Donald Trump worries about trade deficits. I have a chronic and incurable trade deficit with my barber. Every four weeks I buy a haircut from her, and she never buys anything from me. Somehow it works out, and we need to have a little more faith in the somehow it works out of life, because this extraordinarily complicated world we live in, this enormously complicated economy that requires of us what Hayek called epistemic humility. Don't mess with this complicated thing, you're going to get burned. So the great hope for conservatism is, and it's Conservatism is true, it works and the alternatives don't work. So we're going to come out of this. But for the minority of people who read op ed pieces, what I do, it's a self selected minority. Most Americans don't read newspapers. Most newspaper readers don't read the op ed pages. But what that means is we have a small, self selected, intellectually upscale audience of people whose mental pantry shelves are stocked with opinions and facts and worries and judgments. It's a minority conversation, but worth having because minorities, salient minorities, propel history. So for those who you were talking about, who are depressed and and whose life is under a gray cloud because of what American electorate has done, get out and go to work. Democracy rests on persuasion, but persuasion means on opinion. It's shiftable sand. Go out and shift the sand, change the opinions. I've been doing it for 50 years and I'd be hard put to name a column of my five or six thousand that's made a big difference. But what you do is you keep hoping that the cumulative effect somehow matters.
- [32:05]
Tim Miller
You said your great hero is Madison. You've referenced him several times in our half hour. Might you leave us with a favorite Madison quote or passage?
- [32:12]
George Will
We see throughout our system the process of supplying by opposite and rival interests the defect of better motives. Federalist 51. And in Federalist 10 he brought off a revolution in democratic theory. Before Madison, the few people who had believed that democracy was possible anywhere at any time believed that it had to be in a small face to face society like Pericles, Athens or Rousseau's Geneva. Because the enemy of democracy was factions, the plurality of interests and warring factions. Madison said that's exactly wrong. He said in Federalist 10 that you want to have an extensive republic because there the government can perform its first duty, which is to protect the different and unequal capacities of acquiring property. So you have a saving multiplicity of factions because what is the great danger in politics? Tyranny. To what form of tyranny is a democracy prey? Tyranny of the majority solution. Don't have stable tyrannical majorities. Have majorities that consist of unstable coalitions of factions that don't last very long and therefore can't be a big danger. There's your short seminar on Madison in a minute and a half.
- [33:35]
Tim Miller
And well, that's actually a good reason for optimism if you think about it, that hopefully the potential tyranny or the wannabe tyrant that we're dealing with now won't be long lasting from that. Madisonian framework. George Will, what an honor. What a treat. Thank you so much for coming onto the Bulwark podcast.
- [33:53]
George Will
I enjoyed it. We'll do it again.
- [33:55]
Tim Miller
All right, we'll see you soon. Everybody else, stick around. We got a mail back. How many people in the world would you guess have been forced to flee their homes? A million? 10 million? What if I told you the number was 122.6 million? If that were a country, it would be the sixth largest in the world. Every day, people all around the world leave their homes because of violence, ethnic, religious or territorial conflict, persecution, political upheaval, climate related events. In 58 countries, people on the move. Look to Jesuit Refugee Services for help. JRS is a ministry of the Jesuits, the Catholics you might know best for their schools and universities. Their work in education is especially meaningful here as they operate schools and refugee camps and offer job training, mental health support and community building programs worldwide to support those who have had to leave behind everything they know to keep themselves and their families safe. JRS is known for going where others don't and staying long after others have left standing in solidarity with those experiencing the impacts of world events others have forgotten about. Their mission is to accompany, serve and advocate for forcibly displaced people so they can heal, learn and determine their own futures. I talked about this before, but the Jesuits are great. I got my issues with the Catholics at times that I'm dealing with. You know, I went to Jesuit High School in Denver Regis and I think that a big part of my moral formation happened there, happened at home too, but it happened at Regis. And I think the Jesuits have a view of the world, a view of caring for others and serving others, of you not putting yourself first. That really speaks to people no matter what your faith background is. We just interviewed George Will today. He called himself a low impact atheist, I think was his phrase. Even for low impact atheists, the Jesuit worldview works in that kind of small C Catholic sense, the universal. And I gotta tell you, I just maybe it was a little too late in life that I took some of the advice some of the Jebby teachers I had gave me. But I definitely hear them inside when I think about the turn into the light that I've made over the last few years. So I recommend the Jebby's. I love this particular effort, the refugee services, our wedding. We asked people to donate to refugee services instead of in lova gifts. And it's something I'm passionate about. That's maybe the number one issue I'm the most passionate about. And so if you're looking for something to support this holiday season, I recommend jrs. So it's been a rough few weeks. If you want to do something good today, go visit jrsusa online, read some of the stories about their work, and then make a donation. Or look at other ways of supporting Jarus's work, like advocacy or volunteering. To check them out and show the Bulwark sent you, visit jrsusa.org bulwark that's jrsusa.org bulwark all right, we are back with a mailbag. I cannot say that my answers to the mailbag will be as sanguine and calm as George Wills, but it's nice to have somebody bring that demeanor to this podcast. From time to time. I received several emails not to the actual mailbag account, but from people reaching out wanting to know my genuine thoughts about this. I thought it'd be best to do it on the podcast. I am going to get back to doing podcast mailbags though, so if you just email us bulwark podcasthebullwork.com we'll start to do this more often. Obviously things got kind of busy with the campaign, you might have noticed, so we cut back on mailbag time. So here we go. Thanksgiving Mailbag Buckle up. I'm a 30 year old guy, an Obama millennial lib dad voted for Obama mom for Romney. My parents and I are devastated by the Trump win. My true two brothers are not devastated older brothers at Thanksgiving. He's your classic Ivy League educated Ben Shapiro listening anti woke anti anti Trump conservative who made the transition to solid Trump supporter. The policies, not the personality. He brings in real money, bought a great seven figure house. No economic anxiety. I have trouble talking to him about politics and anything politics adjacent. We used to mix it up but 2020 got too intense. He said he thinks Biden won, does not believe the election lies. But he told my mom he voted for Trump again this year and he votes in a swing state. We've lost touch a bit. No outward animosity, but the weirdness is below the surface. When we get together, et cetera, et cetera. Makes me sad. Yeah, I hear that. The question how do you suggest I handle Thanksgiving? I'll be with him in a few days and the election will come up. My boomer dad will say something. Do I say little Nothing? Change the topic happy warrior. Do I get pretty real? Not sure how to balance the disrespectful devil on one shoulder and the Obama pluralism angel on the other shoulder? I had a similar question from another reader. Do you have tips for engaging with people like my brother who watches fake news or non news, Patrick Beth, David, Joe Rogan, et cetera. He knows literally nothing about what is actually happening, but loves to instigate discussions. He then shuts down and goes into denial, anger mode when confronted with counterpoints. I'm actually skipping Thanksgiving with him this year for that reason, but have many other meals ahead. All right, I just want to start here. This is hard, and it's hard. Everybody's dealing with it. At some level, it's different than it was in the past. For younger listeners, it wasn't always like this. And here's why I think that is because in the Trump era, I think that there really a moral dimension to how we view politics has really developed. And there were some people who had very strong, deeply held views about politics throughout all of history, and there were moral elements to it, but kind of in the modern era, there was a period of time where you felt like your family or your friends, somebody might have bad ideas or mistaken views, and that that was okay. You know, it didn't necessarily mean that there was. They were a bad person. You just disagreed. And that's gotten hard in the Trump years. And whether or not we want to admit it or say it, a lot of us have kind of concluded that at some deep level, the people that we disagree with that went for Trump don't just have bad views, like, they are bad at some level. You know, to get into a little therapy talk here, one of the things you go through when you're dealing with your own issues, as I have, is there's this difference in definition between guilt and shame, Right? Guilt is this feeling that you have done something bad. Well, shame is this kind of sense that you are bad at some deep level. And this is kind of like the external version of that. Right? Like, rather than feeling like somebody made a bad choice, you're feeling like that they have that there's something deeper there that kind of changes the relationship naturally. Like, it changes how you view people. I don't know that there's anything that I can say that will, like, fix that. Right. You can't trick yourself into not thinking that. And so what I can say is this, is that fundamentally, we all are sinners. We just are. Like, we all have bad impulses, bad thoughts. We've all made bad actions. Writing off somebody you love over this fucking asshole that's going to be the president, like, doesn't really serve you. It doesn't serve them, and it doesn't really serve anybody. It doesn't do anything of value. And that doesn't mean you have to let them off the hook or change your views about them. But it does mean that kind of reframing it in your head in the context of there are certain flaws that you look past in friends, in your life, you know, and other family members. It's not like everybody that voted for Kamala Harris is a fucking angel, you know, but you rationalize it, right? You look past it. You look at the good traits. I went through this when I was coming out with family that didn't react well to it. You know, I was resentful and bitter and, like, thought bad thoughts about them. And that didn't serve me. And I don't. I got past that. And it's been a lot healthier to get past it. I have close family right now that are going through the same Thanksgiving thing as these questioners. How much or whether at all they see their close loved ones is being affected by their political support. And I just. It makes me sad, and it is not the right approach, even though it might feel right, because cutting people off over this or blocking yourself off from them emotionally is just the worst of bad options. I want to caveat something here. I'm talking about actual loved ones. You know, if you have an Uncle Rufus who's an asshole that you're never that close to, you can feel free to let Rufus go. But for brothers, for friends, for people that you're close to, my advice is not going to be that satisfying. But here it goes. Try to find other things to talk about. Reminisce. Talk about sports, watch football. Ask them about some other part of their life. Get them talking. They've got to have other interests. Ask them about work. Ask them about their dating life. Ask them about whatever. Pick their brain. You know, they have to have other things that they like to talk about. If you know your boomer dad or whoever it was, and the questioner forces the conversation, having a little argument and then cooling off after, that's not the worst thing. Okay, that's fine. We all. That all happens. We've. I've had. I've been there as long as you're not saying things that you're going to regret. Having a little argument's okay. It's better than not engaging. You know what else is better than not engaging? Just sitting together and being together and eating and being a little bit more distant than you'd wish. That is melancholy for sure. That is not probably what you hoped for that relationship. And that is there's a disappointment there, there's a loss there. But still, you're together and the alternative is going to lead to regret. You don't need to compound your torment by adding adding something you'll regret on top of it. One last thing, speaking from experience, less might be more when it comes to alcohol. If things are really fraught, I know that there, you know, there's a gag about how you're going to be home, you're going to be drinking, you're going to be having wine, going to deal with your family members. That might be right if it's like a low level disagreement and frustration. But if it's deep seated disagreement and anger, less is more when it comes to alcohol. So Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Enjoy that. For all of you that are blessed to not have to deal with this, appreciate that blessing and savor it. Because you know, this stuff comes for all of us. My other question that I want to get to, which is very relevant for everybody right now. Do you have advice on how to develop a healthy media diet? I appreciate your conversation with Sam Harris and your reflection on your own Twitter obsession. I'm a fellow political obsessive with tds, but I had to take a break after the election. I went cold turkey for a week and then I jumped back in. I wish I didn't have to, but as a concerned citizen, I have to devote some brain space to Donald Trump for the next four years. How do you recommend staying informed without going insane? Okay, for starters, you're listening to this podcast. That's great. I appreciate it. You don't have to. If you need a break from it, I get it. But by listening to a daily politics podcast, you're pretty up to speed on what's happening in politics already. Okay. There's not a whole lot you need to absolutely add on top of it. I would recommend newspapers and actual news as a supplement. There's certain things I'm not covering. Policy stuff, local stuff, what's happening in your community? I'll look to my husband as a model. He's totally cut off social media, political social media, and replaced it only with Apple News. I don't really love the Apple News interface myself that it works for him. Another option is picking a couple of newspapers, supporting actual journalists that you like and reading their hard news outlet and not just reading opinion. I think that is useful. A newsletter might be right for you and I think that is a perfectly healthy balance. You know, there is not necessarily a need to do that much more Than that. I'm going to say this next thing with the caveat that I am an MSNBC political analyst. I appreciate the folks at MSNBC for supporting me. And as far as cable TV is concerned, if you like a show, great. I'm going to still go on Nicole Wallace twice a week. If you like Nicole Wallace and you feel like that's a good vessel for you to get info, watch Nicole Wallace. If you like Alex Wagner or Chris Hayes or watch them. If you like Jake Tapper, he's great. Caitlin Collins, whatever. I don't, I don't know about that show on CNN where they do the panel where they're all yelling at each other. I only see the clips of like Scott Jennings yelling at random libs. I'm not sure that that's that nourishing to you. So I don't, I don't know if that would be the one that I would pick the host of that Abby Phillips seems great, but show format, not for me. But I'd say this about TV consumption and it's related to the social media consumption, passive consumption of this. Having whatever the most recent horror is of Donald Trump just thrust upon your face kind of unwillingly or as a second order thing while you're doing other stuff. It doesn't seem that healthy to me. It seems like a lot of people do that. I like to have sound on in the house. I don't know. I don't like silence. So I have records, music I play or sports. Some people that have news just kind of on in the background. I think that's probably unhealthy for the next little bit. And part of it is JVL wrote about this in the Triad, just about a way to process Donald Trump that I'm trying to work on here on this podcast is to get upset about things that happen to cover things that happen. Not to wrap yourself around things that may happen or that he's threatening or that he said or that he. Whatever. That might be a good rubric as well for focusing on things that are actually happening. That's what I'm going to try to do on this show. So unfortunately, I don't actually have the benefit of being able to take this advice that I'm giving everybody. So maybe I'm a little bit of a hypocrite. But in order to do this show and do it well, like, I need to consume things. It's my job. But put that burden on me, right? Let me listen to Steve Bannon and watch Fox when I'm in hotel rooms and suffer through social media to know what's happening out there. And I will filter it for you and you'll get the stuff that you need to know or that's funny. We can get a laugh out of them. Or that's scary. And in the meantime, read things that are reported and, you know, find other. If there's somebody else. Like I said, if there's another show, if there's a show that you like, consume that. And I think that's probably a good starting place for all this. So, you know, trusted sources, things that aren't inflaming you. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. And there's a bigger world out there, so go and enjoy it. Everybody, I've got one more podcast tomorrow before the Thanksgiving break. Very excited about that. There'll be much Pete Hegseth chat on tomorrow's podcast. You guys know how much I love talking about Pete Hegseth, so please come and hang out with me, especially if you're worried about hanging out with your family. I'll be here, and we'll see you all back here tomorrow. Peace. But somebody gotta do it Got my foot up on the gas but somebody gotta do it Turn his TV off.
- [50:13]
George Will
Turn his TV off Turn his TV off Turn his TV off Turn his TV off Turn his TV off Turn his TV off Turn his TV off Getting crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious Crazy, scary, spooky hilarious, crazy, scary Sports Hilarious, crazy, scary, spooky Hilarious, crazy, scary, spooky.
- [50:37]
Tim Miller
Hilarious Crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious the Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.