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- [00:00]
Tim Miller
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show a journalist and author and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, which just published his newest column, the Homeland is a War on America. The blood and soil nationalism that killed Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. It's Ta. Nehisi Coates. How you doing, man?
- [00:29]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I'm doing good. I'm going good. How about you, Tim?
- [00:31]
Tim Miller
Well, you know, we're here. All right. We're living, so that's. That's the best we can do. It was a great piece, man. I'm so appreciative of you coming back on. And. And the word homeland's been bugging me a lot. So you scratched an itch that I've had. And I guess let's just start with wait.
- [00:46]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I'm so sorry. Can I ask you. Can I ask you why it's been bugging you?
- [00:49]
Tim Miller
Sure. Well, here's why. It was funny. I was reading the article and you quoted Peggy Noonan.
- [00:56]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I did.
- [00:56]
Tim Miller
Who I kind of hate now, but who I loved in 2002. And this was an article of hers from 2002 where she said, homeland isn't really an American word. It's not something we used to say or say now. It has a vaguely Teutonic ring. We must have ze fur protect ze homeland. And that's, like, how I felt about it. That's how I felt about it. And I didn't feel that way about the Department of Homeland security during the 20 aughts. We should have, in retrospect, but I didn't. But, like, the way they use it has drawn out that kind of German Teutonic sense for me in a way that's made me feel very uncomfortable. It's the blood and soil element of it. So that'd be my answer. What about you?
- [01:38]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No. Well, I only asked you because I can't say I was either. I mean, I was in my 20s when they founded the Department of Homeland Security, but I certainly was not saying, wow, this sounds really. This sounds a little off. And I probably did not have enough political awareness to understand that some of the problems that we're seeing today actually had their roots back then. But what was interesting to me is that some people did, and some of them were people that you would suspect, and some of them were people that you would not necessarily suspect either.
- [02:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I thought that was the interesting thing about the Peggy column that you referenced. It is, to me, it speaks to something that I think basically everyone would have agreed about in 2002 that the Trump supporters would disagree with now because they have to out of convenience, which is that words matter, framing their carry with them some type of definition, you know, whether you want to or not. They carry with them implications, you know, whether you want them to or not necessarily. And it feels like the fact that they gave it that name, the Department of Homeland Security, had these implications. You could kind of see some of it in the Bush and Obama years. I don't want to say you couldn't. The sort of rhetorical implications of it really fully bloomed in this. In this past few years.
- [02:52]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah, definitely. And there are people like Russ Feingo, who I interviewed for the article, and Spencer Ackerman, who wrote this great, great history of the war on terror called Reign of Terror, which very much influenced this article, by the way, who would say that even then the pivot to merging border security with anti terrorism. I see that there's a lot of roots of what's happening now in that that it's not a mistake that you ended up in a black Muslim, immigrant, sometimes not immigrant community, that that became the flashpoint.
- [03:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah. The other thing that Russ that you referenced in the story that I think was super prescient, you look at now was a lot of those who were responding to his concerns were saying, well, like we have, we're better than that. Like, you know, you're worried that this might happen, but the norms will protect us. And he was saying at the time, well, we can't just rely unlike norms protecting us. And like here we are today and literally DHS is signing warrants for themselves to beat down the door of people's houses. And the vice president is out there saying, well, we got a warrant because they're just checking their own boxes. And it's like, man, we really probably should have listened to Russ Feingold.
- [04:07]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
That interview was so good. And there were aspects of it that I actually, just cause of the boundaries of the column, I couldn't get in there. And in this sense, I mean, I think he was of two minds. He was sincere, but he was of two minds in the sense that on the one hand he was suspicious of this notion that the norms will protect us. But at the same time, one thing he said that I didn't get in the article was that against somebody who is just determined to become a tyrant or determined to just violate, you know what I mean, and who's elected, you can't really design a system that is foolproof. Cause he was saying he had come from this space of thinking of the Constitution as this great genius document emanating out of the American people and all of this. But what he had taken over his years was that really is actually quite hard to design a system that is invulnerable to the kind of things that Trump is doing now. The Department of Land Security made it easier, I would say, but to make it completely. It's extremely hard to do. Some of this is not about rules, man.
- [05:11]
Tim Miller
What else was Russ saying? What's he up to right now? I just Googled it. He's 72. He is at our current status. He could be. He could be the Democratic nominee next time. He'd be the youngest. He'd be the youngest of the last three presidents. If he won in 2028.
- [05:23]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I don't know why more people don't talk to him. I mean, he was just so wise, and, you know what I mean? He was so free. I mean, if we start at one place and. Because I didn't expect to talk about this whole thing about constitutionality and how he himself had changed, which was very, very interesting, because he didn't go into the interview and say, ha, ha, ha, I was right. All these other people were wrong. I mean, he told the truth about what happened. But then he said, listen, I'm just gonna tell you. Even I did not foresee it going this far. You don't paint it like I knew Trump was gonna happen. I did not. I did not. And one of the stories that we did get in that article was that he talked about how. And I just. This is so sad to me, but it's true. He said as part of his duties as a senator, every year, he would go to every county in Wisconsin and he would hold these town meetings. And he said sometimes people come out, they would disagree, and sometimes those people would get booed by his supporters, and he would tell his supporters, no, let them talk. But it never really got nasty. And he said as soon as Obama won, before he was even sworn in, it immediately, immediately degraded. And I think what was very, very depressing about that, and this is, I think, hard for a lot of us to say, but those eight years really broke something in some portion of this country. And I think we're still under it.
- [06:48]
Tim Miller
We gotta track him down. He might be on the podcast.
- [06:50]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think you should. No, I think you should. He was great, man. He was great.
- [06:54]
Tim Miller
He was replaced, as you mentioned in the article, by Ron Johnson, who might be one of the biggest fucking buffoons in the entire Senate, which is A competitive category. At the time you wrote, you said he hadn't commented on Preddy yet. He has since. I want to play it for you.
- [07:09]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Okay.
- [07:10]
Tim Miller
You know, this is ginned up by the radical left. They've now got a couple martyrs. This was the predictable results of inciting people toward violence and obstruction of justice. It's just tragic martyrs. Predictable. Yeah.
- [07:25]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I mean, I don't even know how to take that seriously. I think one of the problems of American politics is that built into the system is this notion that both parties will have some, if at times tenuous, connection to the truth. And I don't know what you do when halftime has no commitment whatsoever.
- [07:47]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [07:47]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You know what I mean? To the truth. Like, I think it's a tough system then, you know.
- [07:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I was thinking about that the other day, just about the vice president, who's just the one who's under my crawl the most these days. I. He doesn't tell the truth about anything, and he takes glee in it. You know, it's like Trump is a liar, but, like, Trump lies about, like, a consistent basket of things like. Like the. Like, he wants to always look good, and so he lies to always make himself look good. And so sometimes he's telling the truth, sometimes lying. It depends on what he thinks that makes himself look good. You know, it's a narcissism thing. Like. J.D. i, in his engagement about what has happened in Minneapolis, has said that the police are lying when they say that they've been racially targeted. He said that the victims are lying. He's lied about the victims. He's lied about the community. There's no basis in fact at all. He's created a story, basically. He's created an imaginary world of what is happening in Minneapolis and arguing on those grounds, and that's very challenging to counter in a political space.
- [08:51]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think it is, man. And I will say I'm completely sympathetic to people who, because they have bills to pay, because they have children to raise, because they have grandparents to take care of, they can't hunt down every fact. The system depends on some amount of leadership with. And I can't believe I'm going to use this term, but some amount of political virtue of some sort of. If you have a party entirely captured effectively by reality TV stars and with the ethics of the form. With the ethics of the form also, that's tough. That's just really, really, really tough. And, you know, I don't. You know, obviously, I make no excuse and no quarter for anybody's racism. Bigotry sexism, transphobia, et cetera. But I also don't think it had to be this way, you know?
- [09:46]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, you've written a lot about kind of, like the way that narratives and storytelling, like, have power in these situations in political context. I just was thinking about the stories that they've been telling about Minneapolis. And I do think, like, in some ways, part of the reason why the opposition to that, whether that be the Democrats or resistance or America, however you want to frame that is on the front foot over the last two weeks, is because these tragedies have given them a hero story to tell or a story about these two folks who've been murdered. But in a broader context of the conversation, it is challenging to have to fight somebody that's creating a convenient story and telling that all the time with being on the other side, having to be the people that are using facts and trying to massage them a little bit to make them sound a little bit better for you. And you end up in this kind of white paper versus reality TV construct that's hard to get out of. I wonder what you think about that.
- [10:45]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I mean, I agree with you. I think one of the successes of Minneapolis is that they found a way to do that, like they found a way to counter it just comes off as basic American decency. And if my friend Adam Serle, I should say basic human decency, that's what I should say.
- [10:59]
Tim Miller
He was on yesterday. We got you back to back. So we'll talk about Adam's article.
- [11:02]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Did he talk about how this goes back to abolition and how there's always been this spirit here?
- [11:07]
Tim Miller
No, he didn't. So you do it for him.
- [11:09]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Okay, all right. This is Adam's point. But what Adam would tell you, like, you know, me and him, we talk from time to time. And when he was first beginning working on his incredible, incredible piece for the Atlantic, the first thing he said looking at this was it reminded him of abolitionism. And one of the things that people forget because, like, the story of slavery, you know, becomes kind of compressed, is we forget in the run up to the Civil War, how many white people were willing to put their bodies on the line to keep their neighbors. As my friend Jelani Cobb says, I'm just name checking now, as my friend Jelani Cobb says, to keep them from being dragged back into. I mean, they were pitched battles in the streets of Boston and Syracuse. Sometimes these battles, a lot of times these battles were not non violent. And so what I want to say is there is, I think in the hearts of most people, like just this kind of basic goodness that makes it hard to watch like a five year old, you know what I mean, get snatched, or to watch like somebody's grandfather, you know, dragged out the house. And people tend to respond to that, which, by the way, makes the need for what you were talking about at the beginning. That's kind of why you need the other story. Like you need something to overcome that basic, you know, human sympathy. Can I just say one other thing? Even after I gave that elongated answer.
- [12:27]
Tim Miller
Dude, you just roll, man. We're pre taping this in the evenings, usually a morning thing. So I got nothing but time. You're saving me from bedtime, doing bedtime with my kid. So we can go as long as you want.
- [12:37]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
And I don't want to valorize anybody's death or anybody's killing, certainly. And I don't want to valorize Martin, but I will tell you, ma', am, to see models of what I can only call good white folk has been really, really, really, really beautiful. I think sometimes. Sometimes people who I agree with, people who are on my side of politics sometimes, and I understand why we get exhausted, we don't want to explain things to people. We don't want to have to sit people down and have conversations. Well, it's pretty clear some of those conversations have taken place. And it's pretty clear that you have a population of people, a diverse population of people who have become woke in the best possible sense and modeling that, modeling that for other white people. So that it takes us away from telling, you know, me telling you what you're not doing, like the negativity of that, the anger where I'm always like wagging my finger at you, you know, like, white man, listen. Like, it's kind of been beautiful to have another conversation.
- [13:42]
Tim Miller
Nobody in that exchange likes it, you know, the finger wagger or the finger wagging.
- [13:46]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Some people like it, some people, let me be honest, some people take a pleasure in it.
- [13:50]
Tim Miller
That's fair, you're right.
- [13:51]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
But some people online are taking pleasure in that. And look, I'm the first person that's going to tell the truth, right? Like, I'll tell you the second. You know what I mean, what's going on? But as you said, when you start, I do think there is a human element sometimes that causes people to take pleasure in it. That's not great, guys.
- [14:09]
Tim Miller
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- [16:10]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I mean, Viola Luisa was a race traitor, man. She was a race traitor. What that term means is somebody who decided that the privileges that were given to them because of racism and white supremacy was so offensive to their person that they would put their body on the line to be against this. We have a history of this. Me, as a journalist, I would shout out, Elijah Lovejoy, for instance, people who died for this, where it was just too so offensive. I mean, Abraham Lincoln ultimately was just a race traitor, quite frankly. And Viola Luizo is this white woman who's grown up in poverty, dad is a coal miner, marries this dude who's like a teamster, union activist. I mean, they're just straight working class white people with no ostensible reason to be conscious, save this. She saw poverty and she saw what poverty did to her family, and she saw what it did to black families around her. And that allowed for a basic level of recognition and humanity. And she was inspired by the march on Selma. Drove 800 miles from her home, left her five kids behind to go join this march, was giving two marchers a ride on the way back when she was murdered by a group of white supremacists. And here's where the story gets dark. In that car, also of the murderers was an FBI agent under the direction or FBI informant under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover. And Hoover, in order to hide the fact that the bureau actually had an asset in the car when Viola Luiso was killed, spread this rumor about her, very similar to the kind of rumors that you. Or the kind of stuff you hear about Renee Goode, that in fact she was a heroin addict and she was down there doing heroin with black men, that she had only gone south to sleep with black men. And they put this stuff out there and they traumatized her family. This is the federal government, right? Like this isn't just like white supremacist. This is J. Edgar Hoover doing this. And that was the price that she paid with her life. And then her family continued to pay the price after. And I guess one thing I have never understood is, is why we don't hear her name more. I just don't get it. You know what I mean? She's such an important, important figure and an important activist.
- [18:29]
Tim Miller
That leads me to something else I wanted to ask you about. And I talked about this with Adam a little bit. So we get to compare your answer, see what we think this would be better. Something about this, what we've seen from ICE and CBP over the. Particularly this month, but even over the past year has felt meaningfully different from stuff that I've seen in my life. Right? And just not as if there hasn't been state violence against people. You know, there has, right? Like police violence. And it's not as if people haven't they haven't lied about it and covered it up, but like the fact that it's so structural and that it's so top down, you know, that it's the President, the vice president, the head of DHS and FBI, and that everybody's on board with it and it's funded by Congress. And to me, that does make a little difference. But when I talk about it like that, then you get the pushback that's like, nah, this is like, we have a long history of this and this is like the latest chapter, you know.
- [19:23]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It can be the latest chapter and be different too. Like, it can have precedent and also be like both can be true, you know.
- [19:29]
Tim Miller
In what ways is this unique for you then, would you say?
- [19:32]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I would struggle to tell you a time in my lifetime where at the federal level, where at the federal level so many resources have been marshaled across so many cities. We did have a period after 9 11, by the way. We definitely had a period after 9 11. But I think the scope of this dwarfs what we saw after 9 11. After 911 we had the FBI essentially grabbing people off the streets for the smallest immigration violations, which is something we really didn't do before. You got to see this as the whole thing. It's not just Minneapolis. It's Minneapolis, it's Chicago, it's la, it's national. I don't think we've had that. And also had the construction of concentration camps in places like Florida and had effectively the rendition of people into other jails where we know full well that they're going to be tortured against the judge's orders, by the way. Against the judge's orders. I don't think we've had a situation where we looked at, say, the speech or the rhetoric of pro Palestine activists or activists of whatever stripe and decided that would be grounds for us to detain them. And I think it's an important distinction to make that this is only kind of about deportation. It's really about punishment. Like, that's really like the infliction of pain. I don't think we've had a head of the Department of Homeland Security turning that into effectively a reality show, cosplaying, doing makeup, posing. You put all that together and it's different. It's different, right. And saying that it's different doesn't mean it doesn't have precedent. It does.
- [21:07]
Tim Miller
Sure it does.
- [21:08]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It does, but it's also different.
- [21:11]
Tim Miller
But that's meaningful, though. Meaningful. Like, you know, we've done a lot of bad stuff, and this is Uniquely bad. I think that's important for people to sit with as they think about what the appropriate reaction is to it. Just on that the DHS reality show, to me, the thing that is. That has struck me the most about it. And they've just done so much gross shit. And I guess probably the worst is Kristi Noem standing in front of that actual concentration camp in El Salvador with those men behind her. And that's probably the worst taken all together. Like the propaganda stuff, the asmr, you know, people in chains where, like, the chains are making the sound, you know.
- [21:50]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
The memes, the activists in Minneapolis where they altered her face, all of that is like. Like some of that just wasn't possible, by the way. Like, it's new because it wasn't possible. You know what I mean?
- [21:59]
Tim Miller
And a lot of the, like, memes they're putting out are just like kind of old 1950s posters re upped. You could have done that in Photoshop, you know, And I don't. Dad isn't acutely harming someone in the way that taking their body and putting it into a detention center is, but the perniciousness of it has unbelievable long ramifications.
- [22:25]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It is armed identity politics. That's what it is. It's the worst. Some would argue, and I probably would agree to all politics is identity politics, but all politics isn't this particular identity politics. And I think, as you pointed out, the memes, the 1950s stuff, the white supremacist stuff, where it was a New York Times article where the Times reporter calls up and says, hey, this is clearly a white supremacist anthem. They deny it, the guy goes and checks it, and then they act like he's lying, and then they secretly take it down. This is something new. And I've said some pretty harsh things in my time, but I don't know that I've seen before the President of the United States attempt to build what I can only call a white supremacist army within the government, one that will outlast him. That is new. And I don't know what else to call it, given the propaganda and the recruiting. I don't know what anybody else would want me to say.
- [23:28]
Tim Miller
There's a little bit of, what is it, boy who cries wolf element sometimes when people throw out white supremacists, sometimes it loses its power. And so sometimes I get a little bit frustrated sometimes with activists. Cause it's like, well, maybe you might technically be true, but. But we should still keep that word as powerful as possible. It's like, what else do you call it? I mean, they're the ones doing white nationalist anthems. They're banging down people's doors with guns. They're doing racial profiling of other cops. They're racially profiling other cops. So I don't know what else to call it. I wanted to ask you about the identity politics thing, though, too, because one of the other things that struck me about talking with Adam yesterday and, like, how inspiring, you know, it was to be there. He was really talking about how, you know, all these elements of Western civilization were on display, like the classically liberal Western civilization. And before I ask this question. Cause this is a little awkward question to ask as a white guy. So I'm just gonna. I'm just. I'm just verbalizing that before I get there.
- [24:30]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's your show, man.
- [24:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I know. I'm just saying it's a little awkward, but I'm trying to frame it the right way because of its nature in that sense that it is this, you know, this entire community coming together in a multicultural sense and saying, we are all standing united as one against this outside threat. Like, there feels like some kind of power in that. That was absent from the more identitarian, kind of progressive stuff that we saw the last time that Minnesota was exploding with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and, you know, had this big power in the moment, ended up dissipating. And I wonder if I'm over interpreting that or if you think there are any lessons there or if you think that I'm an asshole for bringing that up or. I don't know. What do you think?
- [25:18]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No, I think there are always lessons. And I think a movement has to interrogate itself. I think that is always true. I do think that people. That the stark line that maybe people want to draw between 2020 and 2026 is not as stark as they think it is. I mean, I'm about to cede the whole show to Adam. But one of the points that Adam makes.
- [25:39]
Tim Miller
We should have done it together. Probably kind of a point. Kind of a hated agreement.
- [25:44]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No, but one of the great points he makes is that a lot of those messaging and signal groups, they started in 2020 when I was going out and doing the reporting for the message. I mean, I couldn't believe this happened. But when I went down to South Carolina to see them, they were fighting against book bands and everything, right? And I remember I was talking to this older white woman, and she was saying, yeah, at the George Floyd, man, we formed a reading group at our white church. And she said at first they tried to have black folks in. Black folks got fed up because of their questions. But they kept it going. But they kept it going. And it was still going. God bless them. God bless them. And it was still going. And that was the network that she had activated for them to protest book bands. And so I think there are things that happen loud, and I think there are things that happen online. And I think, like, because of the way our media space works right now, anger and outrage particularly draw attention. But there are things that happened really, really quietly out of 2020 that are tremendous. That are really, really tremendous. And I guess the other thing I would push back on is I don't know how identitarian it was. You know, I mean, there were like, white people in small towns, you know what I mean, protesting. There were people all around the world, you know, protesting of all sorts of, you know, 2020 was the first time I really, really saw white people in this modern time put their bodies on the line. Like it was crazy. You know what I mean? Again, any movement has to question itself, you know, any. I don't think that's wrong.
- [27:16]
Tim Miller
I mean, you did have the white fragility, you know, come out of that. You know, you did have, like, some of that stuff is pretty identitarian.
- [27:25]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Okay, so here's my problem. Here's my problem with that. Here's my problem with that. You can't make an entire movement answer for one book. You can't even make me as an.
- [27:33]
Tim Miller
Author answer for, like, I don't know. I get made to answer for everything that Jen ever said. I don't know. Sometimes you do.
- [27:41]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Always brings that up. And I haven't read White Fragility, so I'm not.
- [27:45]
Tim Miller
Everybody picks on that one. That's the avatar.
- [27:48]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Why does that always come up?
- [27:49]
Tim Miller
Cause it's horrible.
- [27:50]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
What's that about?
- [27:51]
Tim Miller
Have you ever spoken to a reading group that just read White Fragility and listened to their questions? It's concerning. I feel like I need to de. Radicalize them. Sometimes your head is in the right place.
- [28:03]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
What do you hear? Like, what are the sort of questions?
- [28:05]
Tim Miller
I don't know. There was that viral video going around that was, I think, representative of this, of a. I don't mean to denigrate this person because, like, her heart is such in the right place. And like, give me a million of this lady over one J.D. vance. Right. But, you know, she's out in the street protesting in Minnesota, and after Renee Goode died an Interviewer goes up to her and asks her how she's feeling, and she's like, I feel kind of bad even being here because I have my privilege. And, you know, and Renee Goode was a white victim. Right. And we should be, like, lifting up our brothers and sisters. And, like, it came from a good place, but, like, in her heart, it came from, like, a little bit of a bad place in that book. Like, fragility probably is probably where that came from.
- [28:46]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Wait, but what don't you like about what she said? Just so I can. And I don't love what she said either. That's probably not what I would ask her to say. But I'm interested in what you don't love about Woods.
- [28:53]
Tim Miller
If you feel bad about somebody that just got shot down by the state, like, your first thought shouldn't be what their skin color is. Right. Like, you feel bad. And solidarity with anybody that got shot down by the state, I guess would be my answer to why that makes me feel uncomfortable.
- [29:07]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Okay, so I'll say two things. I will say that when Renee got killed, the first thing I noticed was her skin color and her gender. And I noticed it because so much of the way white supremacy constructs itself is in alleged protection of white women. And I do think it matters. I do think. I really do think it matters.
- [29:25]
Tim Miller
She's a lesbian, though, so that doesn't count.
- [29:28]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Right. That's how they push her out of it. Right. That's how they push her out of it. But nonetheless, I do think it matters that white people are putting their bodies on the line. I guess what I'm detecting from you, and I have heard some of this.
- [29:41]
Tim Miller
I'll just tell you. You don't have to detect. You can ask. I'll just tell you.
- [29:43]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah. But I think. Let me say what I'm hearing, I think is, like, maybe discomfort, maybe even an annoyance with some of the vocabulary that came out of that period in time.
- [29:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [29:53]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Would that sound right? Some of the ways of talking.
- [29:55]
Tim Miller
Do I have that right? Yeah. Annoyance, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about discomfort, but annoyance. And I think, like, a counterproductive n of it sometimes, you know? And it's something that, like, take something that was good about visibility and make sure everybody's protected and, like, turn it into something about, like, guilt and. Right. Speak.
- [30:16]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
So, Tim, I have a request of you.
- [30:19]
Tim Miller
Okay, great. Man, I love getting homework from guests.
- [30:23]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
One thing that I think is worth thinking about is, look, I'm a writer, and what that means to me is I try to write and speak as clearly as possible. And so I don't really want you making apologies for your privilege to me either, you know, Like, I want to get down to business, you know, Like, I don't need to hear that. I don't even need to hear how guilty you feel. Like, that is sort of beside the point for me. Like, I don't have a desire to get that out of you, you know? But I do think that en masse, white people in this country do not have a very, very long history in trying to formulate a vocabulary for how to talk about these things. And I think in the course of formulating that vocabulary, people will make mistakes. People will make mistakes, and there will be language that we used three or four years ago that we decide, hey, it don't work. You know what I mean? That probably is not the approach we should take. And maybe what you're feeling now is even the movement has kind of advanced over where it was five years ago. Maybe that's some of the, you know, what is heartening to you. But I just think we put so much pressure, you know what I mean, on people. Meanwhile, the other side is out here talking crazy. Like, talking crazy, you know what I'm saying? Like, just out their minds, like, talking, you know what I mean? You know, we're strong enough to do it. Seasoned Greenland, you know what I'm saying? Because we can just out here talking crazy, and yet we get one book and, you know, we all like, yeah.
- [31:51]
Tim Miller
But I want to beat them, though. Yeah, I kind of want to beat them, though. You know what I mean? I, like, I want to disempower them as much as possible rather than empower them, you know?
- [32:00]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah.
- [32:01]
Tim Miller
So I honestly, I just. I want to revise, accept my marks. I don't really love the guilt. This could probably be my mother, because I had to deal with the Catholic guilt enough, you know, so, like, I don't need any additional layers. Like, I'm already written with it. But honestly, less than the annoyance, it's more like I don't like handing them free wins, you know, And I. And I do think that in some ways there have been things that have happened that are not that offensive to me.
- [32:24]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Right.
- [32:24]
Tim Miller
My feelings aren't hurt that. That, you know, that woman felt guilty or that there's a. What, you know, whatever. Some weird newspeak thing at a. At the beginning of a meeting. None of that stuff offends me, but I worry. I'm like, man, are we, like, are we handing the stick to these People to, like, let them beat us with it. And, like, for what end? To what end? Right. You know, and if it's to a good end, great. If it's. But, like, if it's to no except making people feel good in their little social media circles, then I'd like to stop doing it.
- [32:56]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I mean, probably. Yeah. And I've probably said this a lot in public. If you can extend the temporality out, just a little bit of the struggle, I think it makes the mistakes not better, but understandable. It's very, very hard to get any movement of humans to always act right, speak right, talk right. I really, really wish people read more about the civil rights movement deeply, because they were fucking up all the time, and people were doing crazy things all the time. And some of the people that came out of that, who led some of the most noble struggles in the world, became like, Lyndon LaRouche, conspiracy theorists. It's some crazy people there, you know what I mean?
- [33:41]
Tim Miller
I literally read the souls of black folks for the first time. I don't know. When I was 40, probably when I was old then I ended up on Deep Div. I knew nothing about the internal fighting, right. You know, because it all gets glossed over, the factions and the factionizing and, like, in the history books. Like, that's one sentence, you know? Yes, so I hear that for sure.
- [33:59]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
And then we compare ourselves against this perfect image of what activism was. And in fact, it was messy. It was like, really, really. And there were a lot of uncomfortable things, you know what I mean, that were going on. I mean, Fannie Lou Hamer, who is, like, lionized, you know, by the movement and should be. And it should be. But I'll never forget this quote that she, you know, they had of hers when she's talking about organizing and she says, we have to get the damn Toms out the movement. And it's like, we don't want people calling people Uncle Toms now, right? Like, we don't want to hear that. But they were saying that back then. Like, that was part of, like, the vocabulary, you know, of things. And look, I honor them like anybody else, but these were human beings, and I don't know that we're any worse today. I think this is what it looks like. Which does not mean you should not critique it. That's not what I'm saying.
- [34:49]
Tim Miller
So your homework for me is just give it more grace. Is that what you're saying? Or read more about how dumb they work.
- [34:54]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Give white people some grace, man.
- [34:56]
Tim Miller
Not the white people. What was My homework. I got lost, though. What was the homework? What were you asking of me? Okay, that's it.
- [35:03]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
That's it.
- [35:04]
Tim Miller
Just take.
- [35:04]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Next time. You hear that, just take a breath.
- [35:06]
Tim Miller
Just be like, all right, whatever. Okay. All right, that's good. I should do that.
- [35:10]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Last thing I'll say on this. It is kind of frustrating to people like me in the sense that I don't expect everybody to agree with everything I say, but for that article I just wrote, dude, it took me three days sitting there trying to define what the homeland was. I felt what it was, but I couldn't. I was just writing over and over again the same three paragraphs until I got to the thing to what it was. I'm telling you to tell you, some of us are working really, really hard. Really, really hard and investing a lot of energy, and we don't want to have to answer for other people's books. You know what I mean? Who. You know, maybe my white fragility.
- [35:49]
Tim Miller
So was that line that I shouldn't have brought up Robin d'? Angelo? I'd throw myself on the mercy of the court. We have news. I know, and that's what makes me feel even worse now. I don't know. I'm just spitballed. She wasn't in my notes. You know, we're way off the script. I got news to get to. This is a daily podcast. Was the Homeland is skeptical of aliens. The line that you. Was that in the three paragraph short then? Yeah.
- [36:12]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Skeptical immigrants or skeptical of aliens, which is a different construct.
- [36:15]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree with that. Can we talk about the news real quick? Because we do have a couple news things.
- [36:20]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah, sure.
- [36:21]
Tim Miller
I guess we should just say, just really quick about Minnesota. The actual updates since I last spoke. They're putting a new face on this with Homan.
- [36:29]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah.
- [36:30]
Tim Miller
Star Tribune is reporting that the exact same number of ICE patrol vehicles left the Whipple Building where they're based than they had any other day. Right. So, like, as of now, there's no evidence anything's changed. And they're putting out this video, which I've not confirmed yet, but which appears to be legit, of Alex Preddy, like, kicking a. Kicking a car from, like, two weeks prior.
- [36:49]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
So he should have got shot. Right?
- [36:50]
Tim Miller
So I guess he should have got.
- [36:51]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
So you should have got shot. Right.
- [36:53]
Tim Miller
So that's it. My take, which I assume is me, the same as yours, but we just had to get it on the record, is that it seems like, you know, new boss, same as the old boss a little bit for now. At least in Minnesota.
- [37:04]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Look, the one thing I will say about this administration and the one good thing I can say is, look, they're true believers. They believe this stuff. Some of this is content. Yes. Some of this is spectacle. They really believe it. I mean, with the exception of maybe J.D. vance, and maybe there's other opportunists like him who have no core beliefs. But somebody like Stephen Miller, I mean, these people, they believe in this glorious past or this homeland that they want restored. Trump believes that. And so you have to take them seriously, I think, as true believers. This is not a distraction. This is the world they want.
- [37:46]
Tim Miller
To that point, here's another news item I got for you. The DOJ raided, FBI rather raided Fulton County's election operations center on Wednesday. They wanted to get the 2020 ballots. The Fulton County Clerk, Jay Alexander, said a large number of agents were retrieving the boxes of ballots from the warehouse where they're being stored. I think that is about as ominous as what we're seeing out of DHS at this point. Looking ahead to the midterms.
- [38:16]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah, I think it's pretty bad. I think it's pretty bad. And let's say, look, let's say the worst thing that we think is going to happen or we suspect might happen in the midterms doesn't happen. It's bad to groundlessly sow skepticism of, like, the electoral system in people's minds. You know, again, like people who are just kind of, you know, going through their day, it's bad to feed them this stuff. It is not. There's a great book that I, and I really want to write about this book, but it's by Chris Hayes called Twilight of the Elites. And it's about how in various sectors, you know, people who are in an elite class have kind of given up their authority. And we are kind of living in that right now, you know, where there's just complete decline. And for lack of a better term, I hate that I keep using these words, but for lack of a better term, you know, expertise, authority, you know, those sorts of words. And so if massive people really come to feel, and maybe they have already have, that their elections are not real. I mean, that's bad.
- [39:18]
Tim Miller
That's bad, right? Yeah. It becomes self fulfilling. It's kind of like Homeland.
- [39:22]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yes, yes, exactly.
- [39:23]
Tim Miller
So we'll keep monitoring that. I couldn't let you go without asking about the Board of Peace. Jared Kushner did a PowerPoint in front of the Board of Peace about his plans for Gaza. I want to play Folks, a little bit of that.
- [39:39]
Jared Kushner
We've developed ways to redevelop Gaza. Gaza, as President Trump's been saying, has amazing potential. And this is for the people of Gaza. We, we've developed it into zones. In the beginning we were toying with the idea of saying let's build a free zone and then we have a Hamas zone. And then we said, you know what, let's just plan for catastrophic success. We Hamas signed a deal demilitarized. That is what we are going to enforce. People ask us what our plan B is. We do not have a plan B. We have a plan. We signed an agreement. We are all committed to making that agreement work. There's a master plan. We'll be doing it in phasing. In the Middle east, they build cities like this in, you know, 2, 3 million people. They build this in three years. And so stuff like this is very doable. Once this starts going, we think there should be 100% full employment and opportunity for everybody there.
- [40:19]
Tim Miller
They have a master plan with zones for Gaza within three years.
- [40:23]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I believe people have the right to determine how they're governed. I strongly, strongly believe that. I also believe that even when we object to things that their leadership does or that their government does, that we don't have the right to then subject them to genocide. This country in the lifetime of many people, overthrew the government of Iran because it didn't like it, then went and overthrew the government of Iraq because it didn't like it. And we would be very, very angry if any group of people cited that as cause to do harm to civilians in this country. The degradation of Palestinian life that we have seen, particularly over the past, I don't even know how long it's been now, but since the onset of this war, since October 7th, is horrifying and we will not get away with it. I just strongly believe that. I don't believe that you get to degrade life in one place and then escape from it untouched. I just don't think that's how the world works. And so to hear him talking like that about these people who to be ruled over, I mean, I'm at a point, I'm sorry to rant about this at that, but you're talking to somebody who has talked to people and who knows people who've gotten out of Gaza and to hear these people talked about with no will, with no decision making power, with no ability to determine like how they'll live and how they'll be ruled is just, I don't know I feel like I'm not fully getting to the horror of it.
- [42:14]
Tim Miller
It's bad. The whole picture is dystopian. Also, it's just like, his visage, like, how he looks. And it's a McKinsey PowerPoint. And it's like we have these buildings, and everyone's gonna have a job, we're gonna have work. It's like the folks. I mean, the folks you've been bombing, you know, whose family members have been killed, they're gonna work in your hotel and casino and golf club. That's the plan. You're the boss. It's just. Come on, come on.
- [42:42]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
If I were to take it on the terms of everything I know, with no proof of this necessarily at all, nothing to cite, nothing to report, I would say they probably plan to ethnically cleanse those people. Like, those people won't be there, or at least there will be a significant minority of them who will probably live on what we would call a reservation and maybe work in places like that without any real empowerment in terms of deciding any politics. It is gross. And what is most gross for me, again, is that the people themselves, the Palestinians themselves, are completely off screen. Imagine somebody's gonna have a conversation about how your city, your country is going to be governed, your people are going to be governed, and you're not. You're not even going to be there. Like, you're not going to be there.
- [43:28]
Tim Miller
Belarus is going to be there. Kazakhstan, Putin, Turkey, you know.
- [43:33]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Right.
- [43:34]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [43:36]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's sickening, dude.
- [43:38]
Tim Miller
It's really sickening. I think part of the reasons why it's hard to put into words how sickening it is is because it's so fucking preposterous and absurd, you know, like, you want to mock it and laugh about it almost. You know, if it was not for, like, the consequence.
- [43:52]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah.
- [43:54]
Tim Miller
Kind of related, I'd be remiss. I'd be not a good podcast host if I didn't ask you about this. There was a lot of hubbub online about your interview with the host of new host of CBS Evening News back when you did it for your book about Israel and Palestine. And it was interesting. I was listening to another pod you did. I think it was the Guardian. That might be wrong, but it was a British podcast and you were so gracious. You were talking about how you thought that interview was great. It was perfectly fine and not great. I think you said it was interview. It was fine. And you're happy to take hard question. That's why you wrote the book. You expected Hard questions. And so, you know, the other guy, I think, wanted you to be mad at. Mad at Tony for asking you those questions, and you weren't since then. Now, though, like, a lot has changed with the kind of takeover of cbs. And I'm just wondering if you look at it at all differently now.
- [44:42]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You know, I don't. I know that a lot of other people were mad. I actually had a friend of mine who was one of those people who were like. A lot of people were mad. I mean, my own publicist was mad. I think particularly the part about take away the COVID take away this, take away that. There are people that have things invested in you as a public figure. And so when you say that, you're kind of not just talking about the person in front of you, you're making a bigger sort of global statement. And I think that probably was a root, a lot of the anger. But I don't know, man. I came back and I understood that I had views that were going to be contrary to a lot of people, and I was perfectly fine. I'm here. I'm here, you know what I mean? And I'm not here to be feted, you know what I mean? I'm not here to be told how great, like, I felt when he said that. Okay, take it. Now let's talk. Now let's talk. Let's just say I'm just dude, Ta Nehisi from West Baltimore, okay? Now let's have this conversation. I went where I went. I saw what I saw. I'm gonna tell you what I saw and you tell me why. That's okay. I'm good with that. You know what I mean? I'm completely, completely good with that. To your question, though, to your question about how it's gone, it's pretty clear that there are other people who are not good with that. You know what I mean? Like, it's pretty clear that there are other people who maybe. Look, I don't want to put thoughts and words into people's mouths. I dare say that there are people who wanted that to go a different way.
- [46:06]
Tim Miller
What do you mean?
- [46:07]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think one of the things that happens is what I had was these kind of catchphrases that I would hear all the time that American politicians would say, and I didn't understand why they said them, okay? And it was a vocabulary. And you know, that vocabulary included phrases like, israel has the right to defend itself. Israel has the right to exist. You know what I mean? And it wasn't even like, what you think about that is, whatever. But what I'm trying to say is it was repeated so much and uninterrogated and so specific about Israel that I was just like, why is this? What I think is there's a world in which you tell yourself or you speak a kind of language to yourself over and over and over and over again, and you never have to actually defend it. You never actually have to have it interrogated directly, publicly. And I think when you haven't had the practice of defending the thing, when you tend to speak in slogans, you know what I mean? Which I really try hard not to do. Right. Like, I try to find my own language for what I saw, and then we can have it out about, you know, what that was. But my language is not somebody else's language. You know, whatever you think about from river to the Sea, I'm not going to say it because it's not my language. I'm a writer. You know what I'm saying? And I think people get out of practice. I mean, you just get out of practice. And so you think you can say to me, yes, Israel has the right to exist. And I'm gonna say, and I'm just gonna fold, because that's how it's already always been. But I don't know how else to say this. I'm not the one.
- [47:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [47:37]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Like, I just spend too much time thinking about, like, words, you know, And I don't mean that in any sort of arrogant way. You know, even now, I don't mean any insult to Tony, but I'm just telling you, like, there's a way in which I got all of those awards, like, they weren't just given to me.
- [47:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [47:53]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No disrespect to anybody, you know, not.
- [47:56]
Tim Miller
To compare myself to you, but there's the element that you've scratched another itch for me. Another thing I get, my backup is of people demanding that I repeat a slogan. Like, for example, I want to abolish ice. I really do. I want to abolish ice. But it bugs me when people are like, you have to say that. Like, why didn't you say that? And I'm like, well, I don't know. Maybe I want to explain it a different way, you know, And I do think that there is that element where folks who are really dug in on a slogan want you to either, you know, sort of pay homage to it or be opposed. And complicating that is challenging for folks. I did want to ask you, just, like the broader CB media, are you concerned just about Media, Media, like consolidation, like the other element of what's happened at CBS since.
- [48:39]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah, it's really bad. And I guess I feel a little uncomfortable, especially given that, you know, I was, you know, given where that interview was. Like, I don't want to comment too much on other people's media plans, but because I think it does need to be said when I see that you're firing journalists who do actual reporting, right? Who go to and talk to people and interview people, and like, you are hiring people that have takes. That's bad. That's bad. That would be bad if I agreed with all the takes. You understand what I'm saying, right?
- [49:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [49:12]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
They were all my political compatriots. And you were firing like you were letting go of the reporters and bringing in people who just kinda like. I would say that's bad. I would say that's bad for journalism. I would say also that some of the commentary, like, I read, like, we had this culture, man, where people are in love with debate, right? And so, like, I read these comments about how, like, the newsroom needs to be a place, you know, where people can, you know, vigorously disagree. Well, yeah, maybe, but newsrooms tell stories like that. That's what they do. And then sometimes people disagree. But the purpose of it isn't to debate. That's not why it exists. You understand what I'm saying? Like, I don't like actually to debate now. Sometimes debates will come out of it, sure, but I'm not motivated. It's not the thing like in all of the beautiful places. I worked at the Atlantic for 10 years, and it was like home to me. I worked at Washington City Paper for five years. It was like home to me. Did we debate sometimes? Yes. But the thing that made it productive was not the debate. It was a lot of other things, too. You should be in pursuit of stories. You should be in pursuit of news that moves people and grabs people's attention. And when you are in pursuit of takes, I don't know, I think it's bad. I don't think that's journalism, period.
- [50:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [50:33]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tim, can I say one last thing about cbs?
- [50:35]
Tim Miller
Oh, hell yeah. Let's end with that. I'm sorry, let's end with one more rant about cbs. That's a perfect way to end.
- [50:42]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I do want to say that one thing that really bothers me about this is there are people in this world who I guess were upset because somebody told them that they had to add one more black person to their writers room, or somebody questioned what an intimacy coordinator was doing on the set, or they had to be pulled into some sort of debate about using the wrong pronouns. And then they decided to empower somebody who is currently destroying one of the jewels of journalism. And I just think you gotta do better. You gotta be more discerning about people. Somebody is telling you something that is challenging. Somebody is telling you something that is deeply informed and somebody that is bullshitting you, you know? And maybe some people wanted to be bullshitted, but now we're all gonna pay for it. You know what I mean? You wanted this era of anti woke, you got it. But a lot of others of us are gonna pay for it too. You know, we're not gonna go down alone. And it's distressing.
- [51:48]
Tim Miller
That's a much better place to leave. The Bulwark podcast. It's distressing. I'm distressed. His article is the Homeland and Vanity Fair. Go read it. And I hope to get to talk to you again soon, man.
- [52:00]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
All right, thanks, Tim. Thank you so much.
- [52:02]
Tim Miller
Thanks for joining us. Everybody else will see you back here for another edition of the podcast. Peace.
- [52:12]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under it's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.